We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Robert Pauley III. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Robert below.

Robert, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

When I quit my finance career to start my clothing business, I had one product, a coat. I started the business in March of 2017–spring time. Most people are not shopping for a coat during that time so most sales came from friends and people that my friends knew.

My next step was to begin to put the brand and product out there more so I designed a coat collection and invested in a few fashion shows. I participated in a show in Atlanta, New York and then Chicago. This allowed me to build my network and get the coats seen by in person audiences as well as putting portions of the shows on social media.

Next, I began to actively promote my products on social media. I changed my look by bleaching my beard so I could stand out from the rest of the people selling products on social media. One of the key tactics I used was educating and entertaining my audience. This helped to increase my audience significantly worldwide and in the United States. Doing this allowed me to increase the pool of customers outside of New York that would buy from me, thus increasing sales.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve always loved men’s suiting and thought I would get a corporate job where I could wear a suit and briefcase heading to my corner office with a view. After completing college, I started my finance career and it lasted almost 10 years. Doing jobs in sales, sales strategy, financial planning and analysis, business management, project management and change management. That career took me all over the United States and to Brazil and Hong Kong.

In Hong Kong, I got to see first hand how suits were made and learned about fabrics and process. It wasn’t until a few years later that I decided to quit my finance career and go into men’s clothing. At the time, I only had one product–a men’s top coat. Then I expanded the business to include suits, shirts, shoes, men’s suiting accessories and skin care products.

I design my suits based on different time periods in history such as the 1930-40s and 1970’s to 1980’s. My brand is all about luxury and red carpet looks. I focus on the quality of materials and a fit tailored to your body.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

When I first started the business, I had one product. I needed to make a collection of products so that I could begin to show the brand in fashion shows. I used money I saved during my finance career and I took out a $15K personal loan to finance the collection and fashion show participation. Having a finance background, I had become pretty good at managing my money and my credit so getting the loan was not difficult.

I used the money to create the collection and pay for my participation in the fashion shows. I also bought a camera for the business and was able to parlay that into a business as well. I began photographing people for money. The photography business allowed me to supplement my income as I was continuing to get brand recognition for the clothing business.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

When covid first hit and we were all on lockdown, my business stopped. People weren’t going to events so didn’t need suits and I couldn’t supplement my income with photography because we couldn’t be face to face with clients during that time.

During that time, I purchased a course on building an ecommerce site and scaling it with ads. I purchased 5 pre-built shopify dropshipping stores and decided to put my time into building out one of the stores.

I chose products I thought people would need during the lockdown. Once I built the store and stocked it with products, I started advertising it on social media and connecting with people that could help me promote it. The store started doing well after some initial hiccups with the delay in shipping products due to covid. I was able to find a domestic supplier and that changed. Once things opened back up and people were able to meet up in person, I decided to close the dropshipping store and focus again on my clothing business.

Contact Info:

• Website: welthenyc.com
• Instagram: @theweltheguy
• Facebook: @theweltheguy
• Twitter: @theweltheguy
• Youtube: The WELTHE Guy

Image Credits
Photos by @laytonlamell