SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders 688: W/ 4 Kids, He Quit Job to Launch Leather Briefcase Company Breton with CEO Joseph May
Jun 12, 2017
22:33
Joseph May. He's the founder of the Breton Company. He launched his company in 2016 by running a Kickstarter campaign for a modern day briefcase. Prior to Breton, he worked as an attorney at a couple of different law firms and was director of operations and in-house counsel at a company called Freshly Picked.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – The Shoe Dog
- What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs
- Favorite online tool? — Grum
- How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5-6
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Keep going"
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:22 – Nathan introduces to the show
- 01:19 – Joseph left the legal company because there was no fun
- 01:23 – When Joseph was at Freshly Picked, he found out that he really liked to create products and be part of the design process
- 01:33 – Joseph had the idea of Breton when he was in Italy
- 01:59 – Joseph was 33 when he left Freshly Picked where he was getting $70-80K
- 02:28 – Joseph had kids when he started Breton
- 03:28 – Joseph is showing Nathan an example of the briefcase
- 03:45 – On Kickstarter, Joseph did $240K and $280K for Indiegogo
- 03:54 – Kickstarter is the biggest website to start and Indiegogo has Indiegogo on demand
- 04:29 – The total for both campaigns was 1200 units
- 05:00 – At Freshly Picked, Joseph learned a lot about Instagram marketing
- 05:38 – Zach from Episode 178 had his hand on the Kickstarter campaign and has a network which has done over $60M in funding campaigns
- 06:00 – Zach worked with Joseph
- 06:38 – Joseph had a lot of manufacturing contacts from Freshly Picked
- 06:44 – Joseph got a quote from overseas and moved their manufacturing to Asia, switched up their whole campaign and changed the price point
- 07:14 – Breton is totally bootstrapped
- 07:47 – Total sales as of today is $400K in revenue and 1900 units
- 08:06 – Goal for 2017 is to launch more Kickstarter campaigns
- 08:37 – The bestseller is the modern day briefcase which is $199
- 08:54 – It takes around $65 to produce a bag
- 09:04 – The leather is from Italy
- 09:16 – Jeremy really wants to have a high-quality bag
- 09:26 – $20-30 dollars is spent on marketing per bag
- 09:58 – Average profit per bag
- 10:28 – Jeremy had dark traffic on ly
- 10:42 – There's no exact influencer who has driven the most sales to Instagram
- 10:51 – Mollyblogger has sold 17 units within an hour
- 11:07 – Mollyblogger is Joseph's friend
- 11:25 – For every $500 per post, Jeremy expects to get 5 sales
- 11:33 – Breton now has 40K followers
- 11:50 – It's difficult to calculate the return because it takes time before a customer purchases
- 12:21 – Joseph had a campaign in Fall where he had help, but now he's doing it on his own
- 12:40 – One of Joseph's growth strategy is to get people on their email list
- 12:44 – The main focus now is to make people aware of Breton and aggregate the information
- 13:40 – The bags are made with wax cotton which is water-resistant
- 14:03 – Customers often look for the look
- 14:30 – The bags are made to last
- 14:38 – Team size is 2.5
- 14:51 – Joseph won't give up a part of the company
- 15:49 – "I don't know exactly what we're doing"
- 16:48 – Chubbies Shorts is effectively using Instagram
- 16:55 – Breton's Instagram
- 17:24 – There's a big percentage of women buying the Breton bags, too
- 18:58 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- Choose a job where you can earn and have fun at the same time.
- Nurture your connections and network.
- Don't give up a part of your company if you're not confident doing so.
Resources Mentioned:
- The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
- Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
- Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
- Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
- Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
- Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives