Rob Fraser, Founder of Outway, discusses the transition from athlete to founder, effective forecasting and balancing sales and inventory, exploring different channels of the sock business, scaling a business from $1M to $25M in sales, transitioning from in-house fulfillment to 3PL, and staying updated on platforms and trends.
Outway focuses on creating high-quality and functional socks for all-day active wear, utilizing innovation, brand marketing, and athlete ambassadors to fill a gap in the market.
Scaling a business requires optimizing cash flow, establishing processes, and staying adaptable without overcomplicating technology or processes.
Outway plans to expand into new product categories, particularly women-focused underwear, while maintaining their commitment to high-quality design and performance.
Deep dives
Simplifying the Process of Paying and Managing Remote Workers
Companies hiring remote workers face challenges such as foreign exchange fees, delays in cross-border payments, managing invoices, and staying compliant with local laws. These complications can be time-consuming, costly, and distracting from core business operations. Borderless offers a solution by simplifying the process of paying and managing international contractors. Their extensive experience in worker payments and contractor management allows companies to focus on their core business while Borderless handles payments, drafting compliant contracts, communication, test management, and compliance. With real-time payment to contractors in over 150 countries, Borderless provides a convenient solution for companies working with global workers.
Rob Fraser's Journey from Athlete to Founder of Outway
Rob Fraser, founder of Outway, was a competitive cyclist before starting his business. He learned valuable lessons from his athletic career, such as the importance of earning results and appreciating the value of failure and learning from it. Rob applied these lessons to entrepreneurship and focused on building a brand that offers high-quality and functional socks for all-day active wear. Through a mix of innovation, understanding brand marketing, and leveraging athletes as brand ambassadors, Outway aims to create socks that check all the boxes of comfort, technical performance, and aesthetics, filling a gap in the market.
Scaling a Business and Navigating Cash Flow Challenges
Scaling a business can come with various challenges, such as managing cash flow, optimizing supply chains, and identifying future growth opportunities. In the early stages, businesses can rely on brute force and organic marketing strategies to reach certain revenue milestones. As the business grows, it becomes necessary to build teams and establish processes and systems to manage operations efficiently. Optimizing cash flow through strategies like B2B white label businesses and maintaining control of the fulfillment process can help mitigate cash flow challenges. As businesses continue to scale, it's essential to remain focused, continuously learn, and adapt to changing trends and platforms without overcomplicating the tech stack or processes.
Expansion into New Product Categories
Outweigh, a successful sock brand, plans to expand into new product categories beyond socks. They emphasize the importance of finding a missing gap in the market that aligns with their brand promise of creating extremely comfortable, functional, and technically advanced products for an active lifestyle. They identify underwear for both men and women, particularly women-focused underwear, as a product category they plan to explore in 2023. Outweigh aims to maintain their commitment to high-quality design and performance while expanding into new product offerings.
Approach to Innovation and Forecasting
Outweigh's approach to innovation involves a trial and error process that allows them to develop products in their unique way, rather than simply copying what other established brands are doing. They emphasize the importance of learning from others but also staying true to their own brand identity and strategies to truly innovate. In terms of forecasting, Outweigh utilizes a data-driven approach based on past experiences, trends, and economic factors. They consider inventory levels, sales goals, and customer demand to determine the appropriate quantity and distribution of products. While forecasting is challenging and not always perfect, Outweigh continuously learns and adapts to improve their forecasting accuracy.
Rob Fraser is the founder of Outway. Outway makes performance socks for the pursuit of personal bests. In this episode, we discuss why Rob decided to focus on socks, how he thinks about cash flow and the nuances of designing an apparel product.
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