We were lucky to catch up with Scott Allen recently and have shared our conversation below.
Scott, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the toughest parts of scaling a business is maintaining quality as you grow. How have you managed to maintain quality? Any stories or advice?
We have worked to produce quality, affordable gear for our customers. Due to new designs, new concepts, and new materials, we have mistakenly chosen quick over quality. Due to COVID-19, supply chains have significantly slowed, and vendor responses can be slower because of understaffing. Thus, we have tried to make up for that by getting supplies we can get our hands on quickly, and we learned that those materials were not up to our standards.
Simply put, we own up to our mistakes and do our best to make them right. We will happily eat the cost of a replacement product or provide a significant discount on the next order if someone is not pleased with our quality. I am of the mindset that people will wear your clothing for two reasons: They like the way it looks, and they can stand by your company’s operating mode. So, we try to find, own, and fix every mistake we make.
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 am a teacher and have been for four years. Two weeks prior to the pandemic, I ordered a few blank hats online. I then scoured the internet for patches I thought looked cool. In the past, I would walk into fly shops and outdoor retail stores and find designs I liked, but not the quality or fit of the hat that I liked, and vice versa. The hats showed up the Friday we were told we would not be returning to school for at least two weeks. So I borrowed a needle from my neighbor, Kaleb, who is now my business partner, grabbed some thread from my fly tying materials, and started sewing the patches on using the inside cardboard from a roll of electrical tape as a thimbal.
I sewed them for a few friends just to give them as gifts, but I posted pictures of them on my Instagram because we were all stuck inside. A few friends reached out asking about it and wanted one for themselves. Soon I was taking custom orders, buying 15 hats at a time. Within two months, I had sold 40 hats.
My neighbors, including Kaleb and I, would drink beers in the backyard during the first months of quarantine. As my orders grew, I would bring my hat and needle out and sew outside. Kaleb asked me about it and asked if I was looking for investors. I can still tap into the excitement and nervousness I felt. After weeks of planning and “business meetings,” we figured out how to proceed. I benefited from mentorship from my mom’s cousin, who works with wholesale suppliers and develops branding materials as a career. He was hugely helpful in giving me scope into what I could expect and how to best proceed on things like trade names, LLC, and securing inventory.
Within weeks I had built out a website, worked with friends for designs, and Kaleb had found our first decorating company.
We now have pivoted to a more local community and our sewist is Kayla Wheat, the art teacher at my school!
We have evolved into a lifestyle brand selling shirts, hats and sweaters that are designed primarily for outdoor pursuits. We work to have unique designs that capture our theme of Early Riser. It is my dog’s namesake, but it captures the essence of those that are willing to wake up early to pursue their passions, whatever they are.
I am proud of our work and evolution as a company because we truly care about making our gear for our customers so they like they are a part of what we do.
Kaleb and I have yet to draw income from our company, and we have had the moto “we are not in a rush” since day one. We are not trying to scale just to scale, we want to create art that people can wear and talk about positively. This leaves us with room to breath and enjoy the work we do.
My main goal when creating this company was to walk down the street one day in Denver, or preferably a different city, and see a total stranger wearing our gear.
How did you build your audience on social media?
Our presence on social media has been mostly organic. We didn’t come out and start advertising but simply created a page that had fun, funny content. We also primarily use real-time, authentic content. We use modeled photos occasionally, but we try to keep our content accessible to our audience, and we love using our custom content. It isn’t a community if we don’t show our staff, customers, and friend using our brands. That has also helped with reposting, following, and general interactions.
I also followed friends of friends. That prompts conversation and questions, and people can get a real insight into who we are. I know I mentioned funny already, but I do think that’s important. It’s not a shtick or a comedic act, but not every picture is perfect, and not every moment we capture is necessarily brand promotional from the traditional sense. The more we can capture people’s interest, the higher likelihood they will wear our stuff.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
As a teacher, my investment capital was limited. Kaleb was willing to help start us off, but really it was just from what we had in our pockets, plus what I could scrape together.
Aside from the small money I made when selling the original hats that got this whole thing started, I scraped said money together by scraping paint off of porches. I worked for my landlord repainting porches. It was Covid, life was boring and our apartment and a few other buildings my landlord owned needed a facelift. If we were going to spend all of our time together, we wanted to have a pretty building and landscape to look at. With my landscaping and construction background growing up, I pitched a deal to my landlord, and he said yes. I worked after school with my roommate/cousin to do porches, mulch, trim hedges, and even dethaw water lines when they froze one winter. I hadn’t really thought about that until after you asked this question, but yeah, a lot of the money that I put into this money came from side hustles outside of work. I guess my side hustles feed each other.
Contact Info:
- Website: Earlyrisertradingco.com
- Instagram: earlyrisertradingco
Image Credits
Ross Durbin Matt Dirksen Jeff Whalen