Aman Advani, a man who’s bringing technological innovation to the fashion industry. Aman’s the founder of Ministry of Supply, a company that’s employing engineers alongside fashion designers to bring performance technology into the wear-to-work clothing space. Listen in as Nathan and Aman talk minimum wage, which numbers to focus on, and just how Ministry Of Supply made 14x their Kickstarter goal.
Famous 5
Favorite Book? – Good To Great
What CEO do you follow? — John Carlson
What is your favorite online tool? — Boomerang
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? —In building a business, all the easy things are hard and all the hard things are easy
Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:30 – Nathan’s introduction
01:58 – Welcoming Aman to the show
02:08 – Ministry Of Supply generates revenue through selling products
02:40 – Company launched on Kickstarter in 2012, raising $429k - 14x their goal
03:34 – Sampler package sold for $150
03:53 – “We didn’t factor in packaging or shipping...we joke that we probably lost money”
04:24 – Shipped over 100k units
04:55 – Started with a repeat rate of 10-20% over 22 days - that’s now doubled
05:50 – Team of 20 people
06:00 – Taken $7 million in outside financing through 2 priced rounds and 1 convertible note
06:40 – Currently focused on growth: they aren’t profitable
07:05 – Hoping to be profitable later this year
07:30 – Made $500k in sales in 2012
07:35 – Nathan guesses around $4 million in topline revenue in 2015
08:40 – Aman would rather focus on numbers like margins and repeat rate than revenue
10:05 – A direct sales model; not subscription
10:44 – Around 50k customers so far
11:00 – Focusing on optimising gross margin
12:00 – “We’re infusing technology into a fairly stagnant fashion business”
13:00 – Acquisition: currently investing in podcast advertising and direct mail
13:40 – Currently have two brick-and-mortar stores that are a significant investment
14:15 – “What’s your position on $15 minimum wage?”
15:30 – We’ll automate certain tasks and re-allocate humans to higher-value tasks
16:10 – Optimising inventory turnover - “A good rate for us would be 4-5 turns a year”
16:57 – Connect with Aman on Linkedin
19:25 – Famous Five
3 Key Points:
Choose to focus on numbers that mean something to you.
Put people in the highest-value positions you can. Make the most of your workforce.
You don’t need to be immediately profitable - but know when you’re going to be profitable
Resources Mentioned:
Freshbooks - The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.
Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
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