We recently connected with David Schoenfeld and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, David thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

RING BEAR is the first carbon neutral brand for men’s wedding rings. We pride ourselves on creating awesome wedding rings for men utilizing recycled materials in our rings and packaging.

At RING BEAR we believe weddings should be celebrated! And yet as a one time event we lead from example that weddings can be everything a couple dreams of while incorporating sustainable choices and limiting single use items.

While couples think about their future, RING BEAR does our part to ensure its a greener one.

As the founder of RING BEAR, it’s important to me knowing that we’re shifting demand away from newly mined gold and encouraging more sustainable practices by creating jewelry with recycled gold.

The fact that we’ve planted thousands of trees is very gratifying as planting trees is a meaningful way to creating longstanding improvements for the environment.

David, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Founded in 2020, RING BEAR is the first carbon neutral brand of men’s wedding rings. We offer couples getting married amazing options for their groom. Before coming to market we made sure our rings would resonate with the modern couple, placing a focus on unique styles, enhanced comfort and sustainability. Earning us the title of “Most Comfortable Men’s Wedding Bands” according to Forbes.

I’ve spent my career at various consumer brands, in fact RING BEAR is the second company I’ve started. Developing products with Apple had a huge influence in my approach to creating the line for RING BEAR, placing an equal emphasis on both utility and design.

Knowing that there are customers in all 50 states who wear a RING BEAR wedding band as a symbol of the most important day of their lives provides me great pride. I’m motivated by the various customer anecdotes we hear about how our wedding band plays a small part in their big day. Getting tagged on Instagram in customer’s wedding photos is the best!

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Phil Knight’s Shoe Dog tremendously impacted my approach to entrepreneurship. As someone who is a fan of Nike and deeply knowledgable about the brand, I gained so much from the book’s emphasis on the financial struggles of a growing business.

Over the course of the book, Phil Knight emphasizes how important cash flow and a line of credit was to Nike’s early success. It didn’t matter how popular the shoes were, how compelling the marketing or promotions were, without access to capital the business would have folded many times over.

Reading this book as I was starting RING BEAR was deeply impactful. I am more marketing and product oriented, and this book highlighted the need to be financially savvy and flexible. With minimal resources available to us when starting RING BEAR, I channeled my inner Phil Knight and kept a careful eye on cash flow management and access to capital.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

A major lesson I learned from manufacturing products is the importance of meeting in person. In today’s age its easy to get comfortable exchanging emails but emails can’t replace in person meetings early on. Often manufacturing is not a simple straight road, instead there are multiple forks in the road with various speed bumps and choices to be made.

There are so many levers to pull when producing products. Meeting in person has led to discoveries of new materials, techniques, price breaks, etc. that would not have been discussed when simply answering my emails.

Contact Info:

• Website: ringbear.com
• Instagram: @theringbear
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/theringbearny
• Linkedin: https://ringbear.com/blogs/mens-wedding-bands-101/why-we-use-recycled-gold-mens-wedding-bands
• Other: https://ringbear.com/blogs/mens-wedding-bands-101/why-we-use-recycled-gold-mens-wedding-bands