We recently connected with Pau Martin and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Pau thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s jump right into the heart of things. Outsiders often think businesses or industries have much larger profit margins than they actually do – the reason is that outsiders are often unaware of the biggest challenges to profitability in various industries – what’s the biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?
Wow, love these kinds of questions! Well, as I wrap up the journey of starting and ending this brand, I have to disclose that as challenging of a model as it is, it is actually an extremely profitable model and I encourage other start-up brands to try it. All of our supply is new fabric that is excess to other businesses and brands; we reach out, pick it up and sort through it.
The biggest challenge for us in profitability is also a big strength of this business: the sustainability of it. Because everything is upcycled, it is so incredibly unique time after time. It’s not trend-based. We never know what fabric is coming. It’s as if you were painting on a canvas and someone was tossing you the color but you couldn’t see it until it’s on the brush. My friend Mia would call it ‘organized spontaneity’ it’s like, creative chaos, and an explosion of color. It’s a very old-time way to design clothing, very hands on.
However, this unique trait is also a weakness in profitability; we can’t produce in huge quantities when we spend so much time sorting through fabric, mix-matching pieces of the same size, thicknesses, or content. The anti-waste model propels the brand forward a step, then slows it down two steps when it comes to actually keeping up with the demand we’ve had. When every item is one-of-one, we have to photograph them all, sometimes it takes weeks just to upload it all to our site.
But, the ultimate challenge in this industry is that we’re competing with china-made products. And, whether we admit it or not, we’re all used to china-made prices. The reason why we’ve been able to keep all of our prices below $178 is because of our supply being entirely donated. The amount of work and hours that go into handmade work, is a lot, not to mention they’re hours worked in Boulder, Colorado, where we have to pay to live as well. That can make it a very unreasonable price for most people. In our production, we got so systematic, efficient and quality-focused. But, financially, the only thing that has saved us, is the fact that no one can open up a new tab on the internet and search “unique overalls” and actually find something that looks anything similar to ours.
Pau, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Well, I got to this industry in a very serendipitous way. I was getting ready to leave Colorado, and the U.S., after being here for 12 years, for a photojournalism opportunity back in Spain, where I’m from. I had a couple more months left here, and decided to start selling my belongings early, not wanting to do it in a rush; I sold my car, some furniture, clothes, etc, and started working at a farm near by.
One snowy week, we could not work at the farm, and my friend Mia was visiting. She had started a brand in college called ‘Freak!’ when we lived together in college. I told her I was looking to make myself a pair of loud, yellow overalls to farm in. We got some upcycled materials at Art Parts, a creative reuse nonprofit. She helped me make the most adorable, polka-dotted overalls with desert print on the pockets and cactuses on the straps. It sounds ridiculous, but they were incredible.
I wore them to a party that weekend, and my friend Mat, was like “I will pay you to make me a pair of overalls” and I was hesitant… “I mean this is the first thing I’ve sown” but the following week, I bought a used sewing machine, and came to his house with a measuring tape and some fabric scraps, and made him a pair. Then slowly, I made another pair for his brother Andre, then for a friend, and then for a friend of that friend, and eventually strangers were coming to my house, getting fitted, and coming to pick them up.
I was still going to move to Spain, no doubt in my mind. But, as the date was coming closer, my friend Mitch, who has started a handful of businesses in the past, asked “what if I help you start a brand, and that way you don’t have to move?” and I think my initial reaction was to giggle and move on in our conversation. But then that evening he sent me a listing on Facebook for an artist studio space, and, since I had sold my car and belongings already… I had a little bit of savings. So, we biked over, and signed a lease the next day, and I invested what I had into three sewing machines, and the rest is history!
To be frank, I’m most proud of just taking that step; everything else doesn’t matter to me as much. How much it has profited, the partnerships we’ve made, how many people I’ve met through it — these are all things I think about. But in all honesty, most days I still cannot believe I was just like “Sure, why not”. I didn’t have anyone to fall back on. I was investing all of my scarce savings into something I had never done before, as I was a naive 23 year old. And I think that is part of the reason why it succeeded so quickly; when you don’t have abundance of resources, and you are in financial survival-mode, it makes you so resourceful, so creative with problem solving.
That’s why it was named Atrevete. It all started with being a little bit bold.
Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?
Once we started attending farmer’s markets, it was a crazy realization of what face-to-face business can do. The very first time at the farmer’s market, we sold out entirely within a few hours. It was so fast paced. So right after, I started applying to music festivals, artisan markets, etc. but it was too late for most of them. So, as some of them reached out, it didn’t matter to me how far they were, I said yes.
It was the summer of 2021, and we were vending at High Sierra Music Festival. But, a couple weeks before that, a new warehouse space had come available in Boulder, and I was tired of renting small spaces from other artists, only because it was incredibly limiting to the growth that was happening so fast–I needed to hire freely, I needed space for photoshoots, and ultimately, freedom to make decisions that needed to happen. So, I looked at this warehouse space, and it was 6x more expensive than what I was paying. But — knowing we had a couple months of festivals, and we were selling out a most of them, I took a leap of faith and signed the space. It required a double security deposit, plus first month, but I knew it was going to be huge for the business to have this much space and ability to hire.
So, all was signed and paid, and we took off on a road trip to High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy, California. One of my closest friends, Tristan, came with me. We were so excited, we packed the car; with all of his instruments, my paella pan, all our funkiest clothes, etc.
The festival was a blast; we met so many musicians, so many incredible people, and did great on sales.
When it ended, we packed up Sunday night, and hit the road Monday, July 4th, at 5AM. I was so excited to get back and start moving into the new space. We were making great time.
As we were an hour away, just past the border with Wyoming, we were passing a firework shop that, being the night of July 4th, was lighting everything they had left. It was right next to the road, right by the exit we were taking. The fireworks were going off, and I remember looking at them and thinking “wow it’s like raining fireworks right above us” but then one was not coming from above, it was coming sideways. All of the sudden as we’re driving, there’s a huge boom, it shakes our feet, and the car dies, rolling to a stop. We get out of the car, and start seeing a flame underneath the car. I luckily had my phone in my hand, even though we did not have service. My friend Tristan was barefoot, and did not have time to grab anything. We opened up the back of the car to grab things, and realized the propane tank for the paella pan was about to catch on fire, so we started walking away. All the doors to the car were open, like a theatre with its curtains open, as it blew up on fire, entirely. I watch the mannequin melt down to a shadow, and realized all of our inventory of overalls was in there.
When the car cooled down enough to walk closer, I asked one of the firefighters in tears if I could try to retrieve some overalls. He put on some gloves, and although everything was black, raw metal, and sticky-gew from the plastic bins that had melted, I spotted bits of color and kept saying “oh that one please!” and the firefighter kept looking at me and saying “why do you have so many overalls?!” as I was tearing up.
Once we got back, I was in so much trouble. I had just signed this new warehouse studio, counting on the sales we were going to make on the next few festivals. But, we had just lost all of our inventory, and did not have time to make it up before.
This is when… our partnership with Melanzana saved us entirely. I knew we had just picked up fabric from them, and that if we released pre-orders online, then we would be able to forward the funds into employment; and that it would take a lot less time, since each pair would be the same.
I was so scared, and so desperate for something to save this moment, that I did not cap the inventory on our website. I was like, I’ll pull all-nighters, I’ll hire seamstresses, I will make as many re-melly overalls as people want… And, it saved us, and helped us move on from that moment. I am forever thankful to Melanzana. That was a fragile moment.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
One of the more fun aspects of our social media presence has been the way we do photoshoots. Inviting many friends, and friends of friends to the studio, and just getting silly and expressive. Who doesn’t want a bit of newness in their lives? How many fun photoshoots for fun businesses do you get to go to? But so unexpectedly, later I realized, that became a huge form of marketing and word of mouth, when friends liked these photos of themselves, and shared them too.
From the beginning I felt like our social media strategy was just to be personable. I would cringe if I was drafting a post that sounded like the mainstream marketing we are flooded with today. I just wanted the overalls to sell themselves. If it calls to your sense of expression, it will, and if not, I didn’t think us saying “you need these overalls” with of course, other language, was going to make you want them. They’re such unique pieces, you just know if you want them, or if it’s something you’d wear, like right away. So, I think the best strategy was just to make our social media tell the story of what Atrevete was, how it evolved, and how the people who supported it changed it.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.upcycledandhandmade.com
- Instagram: @atreveteboulder