How to build a luxury brand

0:00 everyone wants to charge a premium for their product build a luxury brand we see $12,500 bonaga jackets $23 aan smoothies youor charging $210 a plate and you get that weird feeling of who is buying them and why are they spending their money on them it happens with almost any expensive object there's a number of reasons but price doesn't equate luxury and even though we often use the words premium or luxury interchangeably there's actually a lot of different categories that I like to use to describe where a product or a brand sits so in this video we're going to talk about how to build a luxury brand the different types of luxury Brands and then dive into difference between luxury premium designer all the various ways that you can charge more if you're creating your own brand or begin to understand as a consumer why you're paying for what but in addition to that I'm going to hit my history working with these kind of various brands of

0:45 different types and the insights and lessons I learned throughout my career Journey we're talk about how to position your brand based on your skill set the products that you're making and where you'll be able to find success and then some of the specific products I've been making for valuable studios in Kashmir leather and more so you can learn a little bit about how elevated things come to life and strategies and positions you can take to actually produce because the Journey of how these things come together even if you've begun to understand how you can actually order and create things is really interesting to see and then to then gauge their commercial success let's dive in so first there are different types of brand we'll start with what I would consider just to be a basic brand brand that sells a reasonable thing that people like there are other alternatives to at a reasonable price this alone if you don't have some kind of stored history and availability isn't enough as a new brand to stand out and a lot of lot of Brands get caught up in this

1:31 position and don't understand why they don't have any specifics that allow them to go anywhere then we have a value brand a value brand takes something you can get at a higher price and literally just offers it for a value they're going to argue that they position themselves price being the reason that people buy and this is a Surefire way to win but it becomes really complicated in 2024 you log into Amazon it is filled with value brand while Amazon continues to raise their fees and if you're one of the people positioning based on price your margin is getting continually eaten into by one of the largest Platforms in the world and you're competing with an increasingly active overseas community that doesn't need us people to go enforce and create those Brands they're able to do it on their own and sell on value against anyone who's doing that domestically and win and the same thing goes for Europe as well and even worse you're now competing directly with timu shipping and even worse you're now

2:16 competing directly with timu who is going to be shipping into any country that you're in and offering still things at a lower value and you are competing with the lowest of the low China pricing which is what these value Brands would do already they would go to to get the cheapest thing they could from overse and bring it over and offer it at a low markup now you're competing with the people that do that directly this is a place that I can recommend anyone right now start a brand in without some huge massive significant advantage that they already own through a factory or a process or Machinery that I'd say 99.9% of us don't have but even worse position to be in in my mind is Discount Brand This is a brand that starts off normal then you start running sales and you realize oh we get more customers when we run sales and all of a sudden you're running sales all the time your brand becomes synonymous with buying it when it's on sale to the point where you're running sales almost constantly this is a position where you're basically attracting customers have little to no

3:02 brand value they only buy based on that lower price point and you're setting yourselves up to always be in this discount scenario and there's some regulation around always offering something at a lower price versus being at a higher price but also there's just something intrinsically about always being on sale that does not present you as a premium brand to the customers you're selling now you can still provide value we'll talk about that a bit later because I'm doing a little bit of that with my brand but it's not a place you want to set yourself up so now let's get to the category of Premium Brands brands that charge more for the things that they offer which is where a lot people want to live and honestly I think it's one of the only categories that's going to survive our current Global sales competition where we're actually competing directly with people shipping out of the countries that make most of these products anyway is if you're positioned from a premium angle but not all brands that charge a premium are luxury Brands and I much as anyone else will use those words interchangeably

3:48 just because it's just natural to roll off the tongue but we have a couple categories to dive into the first is a Performance Brand performance Brands charge a premium for something that does better for people that care about having better in whatever experience it provides so satisfy I look at as a Performance Brand they are charging $420 for running short how much better can their running shorts be than any other running short on the market when you dive into it and break it down you look at okay they're preparing you for certain weather conditions they have all this you know specific trademarked custom Fabrics they've developed specifically for running Ultra lightweight they thought through every aspect of the user experience for someone that is a absolute pro at this that cares the most of our performance they are giving every single thing that that person wants and they are charging a premium and if you are able to engine engering experience matters this much to the people that care they'll pay almost

4:33 anything for that and this is a good example of why this brand gets to a success level they have and then you'll have a brand like arct that's done this forever I'll talk a bit about my history with arcs later then you get to a point where because so many people who are engag in performance wear it you know everyone who's kind of Crest some you know crazy Mountain that people who want to then feel akin to that or who look at those people as aspirational begin to buy the brand even at a premium price point even though they don't need its capability because of the logo the association of the brand there's a power in becoming a Performance Brand then we have designer brand so designer Brands succeed based on the Aesthetics of the object and this is in our current modern world an excellent way to stand out but has been for long long time and it used to be I feel like designer Brands had a combination of function and Aesthetics you can look at it from that perspective too like a brand like alessie design is the differentiator and that design can be purely aesthetic or it can be

5:18 aesthetic and function but you know this may may or may not be the most effective juicer that you can buy but it is certainly one with a particular aesthetic and so standing out as a designer brand being known for the design of the objects is another way that you can charge a premium because people will pay for Aesthetics and for the names associated with we'll get into the names in a second cuz an is a great example of people buy this espresso machine because it is a concrete block it's amazing brutalist it's Unique and they succeed purely based on the design of this no one knows Anza they don't know what they stand for they don't know who the designer is but something that's consistent across all these things that I feel separates a Performance Brand or a designer brand eventually into a luxury brand comes from the aspect of time but before we get to time we're going to talk about bespoke brand so bespoke brands are based on craftsmanship and there's a couple words you can use to describe this but spoke as a go if you are buying the craftsmanship a person or set of persons

6:04 that make something custom to you that they're taking the time to give you something of innate craft tailor to your whether it's your house as a Furniture item or it's a suit which is kind of your most common cobbler making you a pair of shoes direct for your foot is the idea of a customized experience created specifically for you there's another reason to charge a premium instead of buying a mass-produced object you are buying something customized for your experience so let's look at all three of those topics designer Brands based on their design performance Brands based on what they actually do for the user's experience and then bespoke band Brands based on Crafting something unique for a consumer those are three Surefire ways for your brand you can charge a there are some other positioning based things that we'll talk about later that's kind of Three core topic now then you add the function of time on top of all so Anza for instance doesn't have the function of time they've made one thing that's gotten

6:49 relatively popular they haven't done a bunch else with it but let's assume that they were to release a number of items and over the course of 10 years become very much known for applying their aesthetic and even better if it has a great function goes or someone like Herman milk great example saying start off is a designer brand but also a performer they are taking two combinations of these you want to sit in their chairs because they are good for you they have lumbar support ergonomic but also they have beautiful design and they continue to exe execute those across time and I would say that they have elevated themselves into both a designer and Performance Brand that also borders on becoming luxury I don't think they present themselves necessarily as a some like Heritage Luxury company but they are and because of the amount of time that's been spent there and people treat buying a Herman Miller as a luxury experience something that that they do and spend their extra money on because of its performance its look and its history and name when you're able to

7:35 achieve all three of those things like adding in that reputational time element I feel like you've really entered into this zone of luxury when someone chooses to spend their premium for these reasons and they've chosen to continually do that over like a long spam or becomes a resisting choice in their life that's something I think all brands can aspire to whether we put names on it or not I think that's when we create things something we want to look how do we have that longevity how do we have something the worth matter how do we have a brand that stands for something and stand for something worth paying because plenty people create brands that stand for their particular product or that exist in the market and people know of there's a difference between that and you know what when I have a choice I choose to spend my money on that at a premium which brings me into some of my experiences with luxury I'm going touch on this and then we're going to get into types of Brands and how you kind to position yourself for Success whether you're in performance or design or any of these categories but first I want to talk about my intersections with luxury

8:21 because something I stumbled upon end up working most of my life in things that are priced at a premium price but it really started when I was a graphic designer I went to school for design came out I was design in for a Hospitality firm they did a lot of like Staffing and events and things like that and then I got a client that was a night one of my first recurring clients I created their brand identity and they at the time this is maybe 15 years ago sold expensive exclusive items they had $30 drinks with gold flakes inside they had a wall of Ace of Spades like in the in the back of the area um I have one of those bottles you floating around you may have seen some of my other videos at the beginning you could only access with a memb car which was something I designed it was like engraved in wood wooden menus something else I had put together but it was all in the Founder's Vision you know he had kind described this I I put some of the Aesthetics into reality but he basically wanted to have the trappings of something exclusive to be able to create that that certain

9:07 sense that when someone came in it was a super small area it's prestigious the menu matched the aesthetic matched the clientele that he was able to attract he had a vision for what a destination was worth a premium looked like and then match that aesthetically and as someone who hadn't had any experience in that industry kind whatsoever this was very interesting to me to begin to see and understand that and as someone who couldn't afford to you know shop or be at any of the places I was designing something for began to really understand these dynamics that play and how you mark it that way and then I work to the outdoors in which has a huge emphasis on performance and a premium for performance a subculture of guys who spend tons of money to go on rare trips to either hike a mountain or some exotic hunt and at the same time mayd be paying a bunch of money for a like inlaid silver rare wood item that goes with their hobby where a brand like arteric and at the time before they had their pop culture moment was like inherently

9:52 related to those who really were taking on Feats of Strength in their own way people who wanted to actually go scale that mountain or go on like exotic ski trip and who needed that performance because they were training for something same thing with the Solomon brand at the time which was something where I was working with a lot of people in the military who really highly regarded Solomon wear as something that they would wear you when they were actually deployed if they had the option and so you begin to establish this notoriety as a Performance Brand and if you want to separate yourself it really came down to standing that test of time and standing that performance standard of what people needed when they were doing a once in the lifetime experience or doing something that was a life or death scenario if you do position his performance the sticks are high that you actually achieve it if you want to create a brand that is for marathoners or for the best

10:39 weightlifters or for people that are you know actually need something deep in the mountain you are need to make something that succeeds because if you don't it is a super serious thing that people are engaging with and those customers are while they can build your brand because of how much they respect something that does well for them can crush your brand if it is a poor experience and to find that premium and to begin to get the respect of those people was interesting the difference between a regular knife and a Benchmade knife focus on utility Etc I like Benchmade as an interesting example because you it became it's utility item that branched into you know utility Cutlery and they were able to kind of Branch out into a number of you know subvertical based on their like success in the kind of tactical Outdoors area when you take that same performance and apply it to other areas in life for those people might buy products and you're known in that category that's how you can expand a performance lineup and

11:25 then recently about 2 years ago I spent some time working at the surgeon I worked on sourcing products I work with a design team work a little bit of marketing and they would craft these truly incredible designs for luxury clients but everything was handmade in Los Angeles designed by like a really special team and other luxury Brands recognized them as best-in class so Bentley would come and collaborate lvmh but what was interesting to me there is they're offering this bespoke experience and the people would get it for different so for instance you'd get cleats for obj for a special game or just as likely you get someone celebrating an event in their life who want to celebrate it with like a custom pair of shoes that like fit their Vision because they hit a certain objective in their life or they want to celebrate time spent with somebody else or as a gift to a friend and that idea of luxury as a celebratory aspect much like your Rolex 20 years into a position but then reflected in something new reflected in sneaker and the idea of how luxury kind

12:11 of permeates based on people's taste and then people using as a celebration was an interesting thing that I hadn't thought about as much before you know being immersed in it working there so what does that mean for you we're going to talk about types of Brands I'm going to show you some of the actual things that I've made a bit of how they came together so you can understand some of how these types of Brands make it into reality the first type of brand and a lot of this is related to how you position by position I mean how do you attack the market with a way that's going to make sure you succeed every brand needs an angle if you just exist without an angle then you probably fail so the first angle is brands that compete on tactics they take something other people already do but they know they can do something they can either get the product at a lower price than other people which gives them more money for marketing or allows them to offer it in a value proposition or more likely they're actually better at a network for instance someone that really understands Amazon is going to be able to take a category that's big off Amazon if it's not already big on there bridge the gap

12:56 to that platform Tik Tok what's happening Tik Tok shock is a shop as the perfect example now any big category that exists elsewhere if you are really understanding how succeed on Tik Tok shop you are able to then Arbitrage that to a new platform where people are buying same thing with Organic social media or if you have retail relationships whatever it is if you have some Advantage via relationships skill set connections you can use that to create a brand with a tactical based value so your value isn't in the product itself it is in what you're able to do you specifically as an entrepreneur then we have the second type of brand which is the best type of brand which is brands that fulfill a user need there's something where you are providing a better user EXP experience for somebody than what is available to them already selling based on this is the best way to sell for anything and you can look that across any category so for instance ollipop and Poppy in these Prebiotic sodas have blown up recently but it's because it is a superior user experience a lot of people do not want to drink an

13:41 extremely sugary drink like a Pepsi or a Coke in from that era and they want something it is significantly healthier but still taste decent that is a user need it fits into people's Lifestyles it gives them a better experience and that is part of why those brands are destroying it you could argue the same thing for a Yeti where they're engineering a perfect cooler experience most performance Brands fall into this user need and if you can find a value proposition here that is the best way to go about creating a company that has value because if you get it in front of the consumer with which it does better for and they embrace it you're going to win and then you have as long as you can to uh create some sort of moat before other people come in and come after it and this is the cycle of busm the third type of brand is a brand that translates an artistic Vision if you have a specific aesthetic Vision to bring into the world sometimes that involves just form sometimes that involves Form and Function and you can create a brand that is a singularly unique in its way of

14:28 I've done a lot videos on gentle monster gentle monster is the epitome of this where this brand is just art that happens to make sunglasses they use sunglasses as a vehicle like in Commerce to get their Concepts and ideas out there I'd also argue something like like off-white is just a vehicle for Virgil's design Vision to enter into the world and for most fashion brands this is really what you have you are saying I have a certain aesthetic or design and that vision is worth being brought into life and here's where the problem arrives is that 99% of those Visions aren't actually interesting enough to want to be brought to life or there's unrealistic goals of where that Vision can take them like you may have a vision to appeal to a small subsection but powerful enough to create some massive you have to be realistic about what those expectations look like and if you're not any of these things if you don't succeed based on certain tactics or strategies that you have if you don't fulfill a really specific user need and if you're not translating some really powerful artistic Vision then you're

15:13 kind of failing you're don't have a position in the market which you're going to be able to act and so it's worth identifying as you think about your approach which of those do you fall in and also wor noting that building Brands isn't for everybody but having that framework to look at and choose between the three helps you decide where you so I'm going to talk about some products that I'm working on and making and how they've come to life to show you a bit about what that process looks like and I think a lot about Concepts as you can probably tell in this video and I've been thinking a lot about the concepts that appeal to me that I feel are interesting to people online whe they're going to be able to come across interesting on social media whether they're going to be interesting in the version of someone's going to want to buy it for a specific reason or they're just interesting to me and I am in this third category right now I am making some products that mainly are for my aesthetic Vision I have some few things that are functional based but still it's about myself as a creator with an audience creating things that are interesting to me that I feel like will have resonance with certain but to my

15:59 previous point my expectations are realistic do I think this is going to be a hundred million brand like probably not and if it is I'm going to have found something way more functional along the way that I can lean into but in the interim do I think it can be a multi-million dollar brand sure and time will up but the concepts I'm very interested in I'm using a lot of are of a break them ding so the first is displacement something made out of something unexpected are uh kind of the kings of this right now kings queens whatever you want look at like this shirt is leather looks like a flannel it is literally L this is a recurring theme in fashion and something that's very interesting to me how can you make something that people use or see but do it in a slightly different way so one of the first products I put out was these Knit pants that are a very light version of that and I'll get to a little Deep dive in in a second and the second concept is elevation we've all heard this term like elevated Basics things like that but like its core elevation is about the idea of let's take something normal that you use every day and then take the construction or the materials

16:45 or the concept of it to a higher level an unexpectedly interesting level that really really appeals to me for a few reasons I I'll break them down and something I'm still wrapping my head around I have like a name for the concept but I think about it a lot is the idea that there's these like unobtanium products people release some fancy brand or brand with a huge following will release like oh I'm doing this $55,000 product and it's sold out now no one can get their hands on it even if you did want it you you're not to be unable to hunt it down and I look at lot of those things and I go hey I actually know how to make those same things I've hunted down similar factories I've worked with similar people I understand the construction of it I can make something with which is like that and there's sold out of it you can't get your hands on it there's probably some way to bridge a gap there and even more so since a lot of those are charged to kind of outrageous premiums oh I can also make that as a fraction of the cost and in this world where we frequently talk about the Virgil's 3% rule the idea you can change something 3% and make it your own I don't quite subscribe to that I'm very interested in like the 25% of like all

17:31 right let's take some of these existing Concepts and then you know shift it just enough and then offer a different value proposition as part of how it Chang in terms of cost or availability and again that's not a fully formed concept but I want to just share a little bit of how I think about this and this ties into like the brands I've worked with and the strategies we have is is like really kind of diving into okay what are these Concepts like why do they resonate is it do they is this something the consumer is going to think about are they are they subconsciously or consciously thinking about it diving into that really gets you to start understanding the why behind some of the brand branding and and most importantly product cuz that's what people are are at the core buying so first I'll talk about the dis so uh I released these these Knit pants the idea was to make a beach pant that um was light was Airy would dry fast you could wear over your bathing suit or you could style as its own individual object and I like the idea of pants but you know they're they're made of something completely different there I saw these knit shirts happening on it' be cool to do that in

18:16 pants uh and then also have it be like a cheap thing you can throw in a bag you're not worried about having something to be too premium um and then also make it interesting because you know there's a choice there much like when you're wearing like a leather full handle shirt it changes the way you interact with that object like when you have these pants they're nip that means they're basically they see-throughs that changes how you style it how you think about it you can't just wear it with anything becomes a thing that requires intention and that's really interesting to me and it's a complicated purchase Point I've had people that bought them being like Hey how do I wear these or like actually it's kind of weird with me to wear this with underwear or other people be like hey I love this because I need to think intentionally about how I wear it or it's a conversation piece and this is the item that I made that I wear a lot of what I've done out and about all the time and I get asked about these constantly and if you are able to kind of stomach the okay I'm you know it's a little bit different than what I normally wear I'm showing a little more leg or whatever they're unisex and girls have a weier Time wearing it and existing with it but I mean for guys it's a little more interesting if you are kind of work with that you get a A

19:02 Conversation Piece an interesting fashion item and it's affordable and it has some utility and so that was an interesting concept for me to put out there and that also highlights a bit about like the conversation that is had with so I'm releasing these you know I got a couple hundred um cream and black and it wasn't perfect it's not a perfect item and I wasn't sure what people were going to think and if it was going to be mainly a male user or a female user cuz I know my demographic Skuse male but it's an easier item for a female we made unisex I also knew like I was unsure okay are people actually going to use the pockets are they actually going to wear it to the beach like as why I released it I'm getting a lot of feedback like on those things and as I actually wear it and use it and I go hey you know what I'd actually prefer this if it was like a slightly different you know let's change the material Let's uh okay this back pocket isn't big enough we actually would wanted to have cargo Pockets I've had a lot of people ask if it should be baggier you know like there's a few of those things that are continuing to happen but that conversation is an important thing we can do right now didn't exist as much before so I can have that online via

19:47 email and on social media with my customer and I can hone in you know through generations to make a perfect product and a lot of people want to have that perfect product before they launch but if you have enough utility or enough aesthetic interest you can get to one level and they continue to progress it to further levels down the line but then let's talk about elevation so this is a cashmere hat a valuable cashmere hat uh this is actually a sample so we did this Embroidery in white but because of the size of the embroidery you can only use a certain number of styles I didn't like the way it actually kind of shown on here uh so I ended up swapping and I I'll I'll unwrap the new one kind of see it but the reason this was interesting was because of this uh Lop Piana item so Lop Piana sells a lot of these hats they're $495 they are Kashmir they are stormproof Kashmir which is not not what I didou nicer Kashmere than what I'm getting they obvious have access to some of these best materials ever but it basically this hat became sort of the cheapest things you can buy from the

20:33 Ropo and because of its popularity the popularity quiet luxury and sucession and all that all these people wanted to buy into the chir luxury lifestyle and they sold a hell a lot of these $500 hats as a entry level price point to the brand uh and then looking around at other brands that are doing it like Vince has one um this brand has one and it's expensive you know they're saying the $300 and this one I found after I made this and it's like almost the same in terms of like the fabric uh that's being used at your double wool cashmir blend baseball cap and so I looked at and said okay cool they're selling $300 for that I know how this is made I can make this for significantly less they are getting massive margins on this uh and so I thought about the user experience of that let me unbox here for a second the these are our valuable dust bags we have for some items a couple different bags I'm trying out you'll see across different items I actually do but this hat that we have here so you'll see I went Brown on Brown which I felt looks a lot better natural leather band on the back graved it some macro shots over there but it's got this fuzzy cashmir

21:19 which when you see it in person looks Ultra Premium feels Ultra and is something that we're selling for I believe it's like $72 versus 300 or 500 and it's not weatherproof um like the luro one is but for people wondering like I've had a lot of questions about like is it hot like it's a standard shell inside we have on any other hat a little valuable tag but I just like this interesting idea of okay I like the idea of an elevated hat what materials can we have I don't want to do just a standard D hat with a design on it um but I do want to say hey for the fact that you getting this much cheaper you're also representing my brand kog have on it that's interesting concept to me and something that is premium at a realistic price point and also branded and I feel puts things in the right perspective and I want to look at this as just a kind of a phase one and where we got tons of colors of these we look at applications there but really it's about the materials about me saying okay we've seen leather hats we've seen you know like elevated cotton or things on that too like what else could I potentially make this out of that makes it

22:05 interesting or has utility um but mainly kind of has a like a looking feel that feels synonymous with the brand and when you go work with the avender on this like I worked Avenger I worked with done tons of hats and it was literally like hey what Fabrics do you think will work what can you get your hands on here's some of what I can get my hands on let's try some samples let's see how let's tone in you know hone in the embroidery let's say okay that going to be too hot let's should we adjust the shell you begin to look at those decisions and you've made something interesting almost inherently by just kind of elevating the material and then this third concept I've seen these Chrome Hearts fuzzy dice and they have a leather uh version as well um but basically these are $5,000 you know or there were thousands of dollars when you got them they're retailing on grill for 5500 uh I've Loved fuzzy dice and car Dice and I have a whole car theme like inside the brand so seemed very natural and so I went and did a couple versions of this so one I first did these these kind of leather ones with a more basic stud U which I liked a lot and then for actual release

22:52 um which is this version here comes the same dust bag slightly modified it so was a shorter chain the shorter chain makes it easier like based on the vehicle you have um to be able to put them in the car or to hang them on wherever you want to but they're large they're chunky and then I'm looking at for the future going with like a different chain uh a like a really high quality leather and maybe doing like some level of custom studs but just taking an item you have like a pure embellish but just giving it its own like stylistic identity and you notice some of like the difference we're a couple Generations into samples on this so it's perfectly ver this is the first generation of sample on this from a different vendor and it's a little more puffy we're going to have to kind of change a bit of how we actually put it together to get to the construction that matches this those are the things you think about with uh the various vendors that you're using and you know to do this I measured out a existing set of regular fuzzy dice um I you know I

23:38 picked from a variety of materials I sent them like a breakdown of the actual sizing the length of the chain the type of the chain with the connection points will look like you know and they had some thoughts on how they can actually make it constructed in fact they're actually worried on some of these samples cuz they the the corners aren't like super perfect I'm like that's it's not kind of what the product is right it's more of a conceptual product about having like a perfect corner and we kind of move moved forward on on production either way but those the conversations you'll have you know with vendors but that's not the process that I'm going through as I look at like a new thing I want to make an accessory or I want to make a product I want to make a hat how do you then take a material that is different and offer something that is elevated or offer something that is hard to get but at a more reasonable price point like how do you kind of bridge those things together those are ideas that are interesting to me that I'm connecting together through iconography and some of the storytelling that I and eventually we'll kind of uh find the brand identity and that's an interesting thing to think about too is I feel like

24:24 in today's world you can take the time to find the brand identity and you can take the to have the customer conversation those are really interesting points like I have a lot of ideas about this brand and what I think it stands for uh and what I think could be important about it but I get to actually engage with what resonates from a Content perspective and what I actually can produce and put out and then continually kind of shift that until you find the right way which is something that is available because the internet gives you feedback based on how your content performs how what people actually choose to purchase when they do see that content and you should be able to adapt your brand to it much like the conversation angle we have like talking about those pants I'd sent some uh samples to my friend Zach he'd been like hey like this pocket is too small I feel don't feel comfortable kind of wearing these but like this other item you did because of X and Y and just being able to have those conversations is really important for someone to think critically about it for me to think about okay for this type of user they engage with this or engage with that that's part of the brand building that

25:10 happens naturally now and uh I did a little Meetup in La this morning where a bunch of people from uh Instagram and and Twitter came and met with myself and Ashwin at Chago on on social and one of the things that came up is a bunch of people had their own like kind of smaller Brands we're talking about how do they do how do they test they have a lot of money what do they do and one of the things I recommended I think is interesting is is if you do want to test you want to test what will sell from content and you want to test running ads especially that's kind of how I present most people to test what you're doing is be like all right can I post organic content in it sells or can I put meta ads out and it sells uh and if you're Tik Tok proficient enough can I put it on shop but that's another level and to do that it's like okay you don't need five things you need one thing and a reasonable price point and I love $1 to $150 cuz it gives you a lot of room on meta to make a sale with a with an ad um it's like hey don't just get like a standard t-shirt or a standard thing get

25:56 your unique item your you know go and get your mq 100 200 you can find someone who will make you 100 or 200 of something of like a really specific jacket performance short or car accessory whatever it is find it in that price point that speaks specifically to it and then run that organic content and Those ads like to sell through it until you do and keep testing until you do sell through it and then you're going to learn a lot about what actually worked if that price point is relevant if your performance is there before you actually go invest in a bunch of items people want to kind of jump in fast usually and have a wide collection of validate add more iterate change based on what Tex brand identities need to be flexible based on both like what's happening culturally the things that you feel in love and what actually works and we're in a time period now where we just get more feedback on that faster than ever via direct conversation with customers that we can have or via like actually the performance of how we sell things so

26:42 things worth noting and worth so if you have any questions about like how some products come together these ideas of luxury and performance and premium products uh drop them in the comments I'm kind of shaping how this series of this goes you know over time and I would love to kind of put out more about it thank you for watching