Nathan Bush: We're a funny bunch in e commerce. Our skill sets are a unique mix between retail, digital and marketing. And we often cover it all. And as I've found myself on multiple occasions when looking for our next opportunity, there's no one in the recruitment space who truly gets us.
[Voiceover]: And that's why we started E Suite. We are a talent agency specifically focused on the ambitions of e commerce professionals and high growth retailers.
Nathan Bush: So if you are looking for your next opportunity with people who get you, make sure you check out the current e commerce opportunities@esweettalent.com that's E S uite.com au or get in touch to confidentially discuss how we can find you the next opportunity that's right for your career. Now into the show,
Steph Dadden: these things kept happening. Brands that we loved like and had always looked up to reproaching us to wear their things and to style their shoots. And we were like, this is so cool.
[Voiceover]: Unless you're actually going to stick to something and and sit through the boring months and the shitty months and the stuff that goes so, so wrong, you're never going to be successful in anything that you do.
Steph Dadden: My boyfriend makes fun of me. Cause I literally have this giant sack of shoes and I'll just pop it down, take a cool pic of my shoes and keep walking.
[Voiceover]: We had no idea what we were doing for like the first two years.
Steph Dadden: I would say we only figured out what we were doing like three weeks ago, to be honest.
[Voiceover]: Welcome to Add to Cart, the podcast that Express delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of E commerc. Every month, Nathan Bush from 12 High and an E commerce industry expert will share the news, research and insights that you need to know to keep you at the top of your game. And of course, keep your customers. Adding to Cart.
Nathan Bush: Hello and welcome to Add to Cart. My name is Nathan Bush, host of Add to Cart and director at E commerce talent agency E Suite and e Commerce consultancy 12 high. As we know, Covid in 2020 threw the curveballs everywhere for many e commerce retailers. Sales exploded and they spent the rest of the year scrambling to keep up. But for others, everything stopped. And that was the story for today's guests, Jess and Steph Dadden from Tubes. You'll hear today how Jess and Steph canceled their entire new range, re evaluated relationships with retailers including the Iconic and Bloomingdales, and re engineered their entire business to be sustainability led. Their goal now is to be the most sustainable footwear business in Australia. While 2020 was a massive shock, they're coming out in 2021 with a whole new business model, which is very, very exciting. You may know Jess and Steph from their podcast how to Live, that's T w o where they share advice and interview a range of people from movie stars like Meg Ryan to Australian entrepreneurs like Janine Ellis. You may have also seen their Paris Fashion Week stunt, which introduced the brand Tubes to many. I asked Jess and Steph to retell that story, but you can tell that so much has happened since then and it's kind of like asking Bryan Adams to play summer of 69 all over again. This is a must listen episode if you are repositioning yourself after Covid, especially if you're on the path to becoming a more sustainable retailer. So without further ado, and thanks to our partners Shopify plus and Signet, here's our conversation with Jess and Steph Dadden from Tubes. Jess and Steph Dadden, welcome to ADD to cart.
[Voiceover]: Thank you. We're very excited. Love being on this side of the interview as opposed to where you are.
Nathan Bush: I was about to say, is it easier or harder?
[Voiceover]: I find it harder.
Steph Dadden: Yeah. I think there's elements of like, easy and hard because it's great that you don't have to do any of the prep, but then also you've got to make sure giving interesting answers.
[Voiceover]: So, yeah, it's about.
Nathan Bush: I don't think we'll have any problem with that today. Great stuff. All right, guys, so if we take us back to the start, for people who may not know you, say I'm in Paris Fashion Week, probably an unlikely scenario. Very likely for you guys. And we run into each other. How do you explain who you are and what you do?
Steph Dadden: Good question. Is this if we were going back seven or eight years ago to when we started our business.
Nathan Bush: No. Let's go. Assuming the borders were open and Covid's not here and we're there right now, who are you and what do you do?
[Voiceover]: So it's like 2023 and we're in Paris Fashion Week and we're wearing fabulous outfits. So we are sisters. We're not twins, as many people actually think that we are. And we've been lucky enough to work together in fashion for the last coming up to nine years. We have a blog which has transitioned into a podcast, how to Live the podcast, where our bio line is. We're just figuring out this thingy called life. So it's a mix of business advice, spiritual stuff, wellness, animal welfare, which we're super into. And then we also have A footwear label, Tubes, which has an animal friendly focus. And also we're big into sustain and rapidly moving towards that.
Nathan Bush: So you've just got a few things going on.
Steph Dadden: Just a couple, yeah.
Nathan Bush: So I understand Content came first for you guys because we're going to dive into Tubes and everything that's going on around that retail side. But as I understand it, you didn't start there, you started more on the content side. Tell us about how that all came about.
Steph Dadden: We did. It was kind of a natural evolution into starting Tubes, our footwear brand, which we never, ever planned. So back in 2012 was when we started how to Live, which was this daily diary when I was moving to Paris for six months to. Well, the excuse was to study French, but really I was just going to go have some fun and we were going to be apart for the first time and we just decided to start this online daily diary. And this was pre Instagram days. Like, we didn't even have an Instagram account for the first few months. We were purely just blogging and doing it every day was something that people weren't really used to, consuming content every day and there wasn't a lot of competition out there. So we quickly gained a readership and we were doing these little savvy things. Like we would post on the Facebook page of brands whose clothes we were wearing. We'd be like, if you want to repost this, feel free. So we started to gain traction that way and pretty soon brands started to approach us being like, hey, we want to work with bloggers. We don't really know how, but can we chat about this? So we got to do all kinds of things. Like, we got flown to fashion weeks around the world. We got to direct photo shoots, be in photo shoots. We started to do like product design and collaboration with people. And that was really what sparked our interest in creating our own brand. Because we started to see the power that we had as early influencers to get people to buy our things or the things we were promoting. So we're like, oh, this is really cool. We could create our own brand here.
[Voiceover]: And I think what's been true to our content creation since the very beginning is we just do not have the capacity to fake it. Like, from the very beginning, it was like quite unpolished. Like, we're always very unpolished. As you see, we're here in our bedroom and we just, we just really aren't able to put out stuff, stuff that isn't like completely authentic to us. And we didn't realize how valuable that was in the beginning. So we were just being us. And I think that that was what really our readers were responding to. And throughout that, now we've seen in the move into 2020, everyone is just talking about authenticity and that's what people want. And I think we've been really lucky in that we were creating it in the first place.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely. And did you go out with the intent that. That, I don't know, it's a bad word that you'll be fashion influences. So was the content always going to be about fashion or was it just purely about your experience in Paris?
[Voiceover]: There was no such thing as a fashion influencer when we started. There were a couple of blogs that we really liked coming out of London, like Suzy Bubble and Eileen Kling, but other than that, there wasn't Instagram around, so there wasn't this term influencer. Nobody knew what that was. So in the beginning, we really were just in it for some fun, but always with a business spin. So like Steph mentioned, we weren't just going to create a blog and let it sit there. We did want to promote it, we wanted to get something out of it, but we didn't know what that something was because it didn't really exist yet.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. And what was the moment where you went, oh, shit, this blog is a bit bigger than what we thought. Like, was it getting invited into the Fashion Week parties? Was it your first interview or first photo shoots? Like, when did you realize that you go, this is actually pretty big?
Steph Dadden: I think we were always making it look bigger than it was. So that really was always a big part of our hustle, was no matter how big it got, we were going to make it look bigger than that. So it could never keep up with how big we were making it look. But there was one moment where we were kind of walking down the street in Paris. It was during Fashion Week and we were wearing these crazy twin outfits and this woman came up to us and she's like, I'm the editor of Grazia uk. I'd love to do. I'm doing a piece on twinning fashion because we were kind of dressed matchy matchy accidentally. And she was like, I'd love to do a piece on you guys. And so we're like, okay, we happen to be going to London. We did this piece with her and it ended up being like, was it a few page spread, a four page spread in this amazing fashion magazine that we loved and it was comparing us to the Olsen twins who we really looked up to so moments like that were just coming at us and we were like, what is going on? And so these, these things kept happening. Brands that we loved, like, and had always looked up to were approaching us to wear their things and to style their shoots. And we were like, this is so cool.
[Voiceover]: Yeah. And then, and then it did shift over to becoming normal. But I actually think now we very much think of ourselves as business women first. And so actually to look back on those moments which started to feel normal at the time, now I think to myself, did that actually happen? Is that a part of our history? What were our lives that we, you know, we got flown to Disneyland or whatever it was? It all seems pretty crazy now in hindsight that we sit behind a desk now and we're not in crazy outfits all the time.
Nathan Bush: If you're coming back from your Christmas holidays and need to give your brain a jump start, Shopify's the Future of E Commerce report will get you going. They've interviewed industry leaders, investors and e commerce experts to give you the five trends that will shape e commerce in 2021 and beyond. And while 2020 was a free kick for many in E commerce, the game is going to get tougher. With increased competition, fulfillment pressures and higher acquisition costs being the upcoming tests, this report goes into detail on what to expect so you can plan for it. Sadly, the future still doesn't hold hoverboards. To read the report, visit shopify.com enterprise the future of ecommerce or just Google Shopify. Future of E Commerce Report. Tell us about the idea about tubes. So you're obviously well entrenched in the fashion scene on a global, global stage, which is fantastic. What was the moment where you went, actually I can see a gap here that's perfect for us. We need to actually become a fashion retailer or a fashion brand.
[Voiceover]: So we actually had been approached by Windsor Smith, which is a really big Australian footwear company to design a line of shoes for them and they invited us in. Actually in the meeting we thought that we were going in just to design like a one off pair of shoes that we would wear on our blog. And then we sat there like wide eyed being like, what do you mean you want us to design a lot of shoes? We don't know what we're doing. And we ended up creating this collection. It was five pieces. They were really sparkly, they were really fun and they really spoke to our audience. They sold out like crazy within one day I think Australia wide. It was absolutely nuts. And that was just a moment where it Clicked for us. And we were like, oh, that was so easy. We could do that. We could design shoes. We could have a footwear brand. And like so much of what we have done over the years, we went in so naively thinking that we had designed this line of shoes and sold them, when in reality, we had had a one and a half hour meeting where we got to pick some materials that they basically laid out in front of us and we said we liked. But it really did launch us into thinking about starting our own label. And then what we started to get really excited about was the idea that we could bring in our love of animals and actually create a vegan brand. And, you know, at the time, it was very normal for every woman to be wearing heels all the time, which is something that we absolutely hated. And we just wanted to be comfortable in fashion. So, you know, then we started thinking about what if we made really comfortable footwear that also looks great that women could feel amazing in? And so starting to bring those values in from the very early on, that was what really started to excite us. But again, we had no idea what we were doing for, like, the first two years.
Steph Dadden: I would say we only figured out what we were doing, like, three weeks ago, to be honest.
Nathan Bush: Do we ever have it really figured out?
[Voiceover]: Yeah.
Steph Dadden: No.
Nathan Bush: It is funny, though, that you say that, because it's a really common theme around. A lot of the founders that we speak to on this podcast is around naivety going into things. So whether it's into new industries, we had the guys from Lovely in that do the flower gifts, and there's been a couple of others, but they're almost like we went from another industry or another specialization into this business because we saw the gap. And looking back on it now, we were so clueless. But I'm kind of glad we were clueless, because if we knew all the challenges that were ahead of us, we probably would have chickened out.
Steph Dadden: Oh, so glad. We talk about that all the time. And often, if you do gather too much information, it's a bad thing, because so many people have said to us along the way, you guys, this is already too saturated. This shouldn't be what you're doing. And if we listen to that, yeah, we would never do anything. And there is something beautiful in just not having any clue what you're getting yourself into. And also coming in from as an outsider to an industry, you get to look at problems with a new perspective rather than solving them in the same way that everybody always has or going, well, this can't be solved. We get to come in like we have now with moving towards environmentally friendly shoes when so many other footwear brands are like nuts. Too hard. It's never been done. We're like, well, now we're going to figure this out.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. So tell us about. Before we get into that, we want to dive down the sustainability path because you've done such a great job with that from both product and content. Tell us about how big Tubes is at the moment. So I would highly encourage anyone to pause and have a look at Tubes, the website, to really understand. You kind of get a really great essence of who you are and what you stand for and what the product is. But how big is that as a, as a brand now?
[Voiceover]: Well, we were kind of at an all time high pre Covid. We had landed the two retailers of our dreams, David Jones and the Iconic,
Steph Dadden: and we were launching into Bloomingdale's in the US in New York in April. We were meant to be flying over there for.
[Voiceover]: So we were flying pretty high, not going to lie to you. And then, yeah, just to be completely transparent, March came around and it was literal crickets for a solid five months. I know that there are some industries that just absolutely boomed online. The footwear industry was not one of them. That was what we heard across the board from our retailers as well that had other categories. You know, loungewear boomed, pajamas boomed, but no one's going outside so no one needs any shoes. So it's been a really quiet six months for us and it's given us really nice time to actually just evaluate what we're doing. And that was when we started to have conversations around sustainability, really seriously saying, okay, this is something we want to move rapidly towards.
Steph Dadden: But even re evaluating the way that we do business, the way that we operate, like beforehand, we would have pop up shops all the time. We would be running events really often. And what Covid really gave us was this opportunity to step back and be like, all right, we could kind of 80, 20 principle it. Where we were like, we're only doing 20% of the work now and we're still getting 80% of the output. So we didn't actually need all of that extra stuff. So now that our sales have picked up, rather than doing a big launch in person like we usually would, we would hire a venue, we would have a caterer, we would have people come, you know, we had to fill it, fill a room full of people, all of these things this time. When we launched our collection a couple months ago, the two of us got on Instagram live for an hour, me and my place in Byron, Jess and her place in Melbourne. And we talked through the collection and it was a huge hit. And we have, we've had our biggest sales days ever. So it's been so interesting to actually take this time to go, all right, what, what were we doing that was actually getting our stuff? And what was the stuff that just made us look good or made us feel good? It was kind of ego based, but it wasn't actually driving the business forward.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, that makes total sense. And I read on your blog that you had to do a really swift. Was it a cancellation of almost 22 lines or 22 new releases when Covid hit? That must have been so stressful.
[Voiceover]: It was super stressful. And it was such a hard call to make because we're sitting there in April trying to make a call of what November is going to look like. And we didn't know what tomorrow was going to look like at that point. And I remember just sitting there in our PJs, me and my house, Steph in her house. We weren't even allowed to see each other, just being like, what the hell do we do? But it felt really right because we kind of saw this year as an opportunity for change. And I think that with tubes, we've really been hungry for change for a long time. But once you're in a business and once the wheels are in motion, it feels really scary to move towards something different or to pivot if things are working well. And they were working well, but we felt like they could be working better. So it was a scary decision to cancel that collection. But I think both of us knew in our guts that it was really the right one and it was just like so super necessary. Time for change.
Steph Dadden: And the reason that we did cancel the collection was because we realized that we wanted to move in this more environmentally friendly direction. And rather than coming up with a five year plan like so many brands will, to go more sustainable, we were like, nah, we don't feel good about putting out one more collection that isn't as environmentally friendly as we can make it. So we pared back completely. We canceled those 22 styles and we brought in an eight piece collection that's made from recycled materials, which is just phase one. And we've gone carbon neutral and we've created a recycling program where we can recycle old shoes. And next year is when we're going to be launching in spring 2021, we're going to be launching as Australia's most sustainable footwear brand. And we don't even think that's good enough. We're just. We just are really, really hungry for this environmental aspect now. And we have recognized that the fashion industry is a top three contributor to global warming, to the climate crisis that we're in. And we just don't think it's good enough that the fashion industry is sitting around going, well, but, you know, we're already put in all these orders already. It's like, nah, things have to change right now.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. What's the been the most surprising thing that you've seen in that fashion industry around sustainability practices that you think has to change immediately?
[Voiceover]: I think that the. The largest problem I think that we're facing as an industry is the level of greenwashing that's happening. So that's just people presenting that they're doing really sustainable things or that they're doing great things, when in actual fact they're not that great. Or they might be 1% great, but they're also 99% bad, and they're not talking about that. And I think that we really need complete transparency in order to create meaningful change. And I think that it's really amazing now to see customers demanding that, and customers are even demanding it from us. You know, when we think we're being as transparent as can be, our customers will call us out and be like, what about that? What's hiding under there? And then it forces us to also look at our own stuff and say, oh, you're totally right. We can be doing better as well. We're in no way with Tubes being like, we're doing the best. We're just like, boy, guys, we all kind of suck. Let's try and do better together.
Nathan Bush: And you've got a great platform there with that mixture of content plus retail, where people can see it in action, where they can understand your motivations and they can see the steps that you're taking. Like, I was speaking to Jeremy Meltzer, who's on the episode previous to you, and he runs I Equal Change, which is all about helping women.
Steph Dadden: We actually know him because we have the same meditation teacher. So we often see him on our meditation zooms.
Nathan Bush: He's so cool. He's doing some fantastic stuff. But his whole thing is don't try and get everything perfect. Like, no one's going to be perfect. It's just, let's take some steps to get there and be transparent around the steps that we're taking. Which sounds like it's a similar thing to you guys, but what I'm loving is how quickly you've changed and used Covid to change, to have that at the forefront of your business. From a practicality point of view, what's been some of the hardest things to implement in your business, to move towards more sustainable practices?
[Voiceover]: It's all really hard. Well, I think that I kind of like to look at sustainability like a pizza. And the pizza's really big and really overwhelming and really scary. And you probably don't know what 10 of the slices even look like, Right?
Steph Dadden: This is a big pizza.
[Voiceover]: But the first two slices you can see, and they've got a really low barrier to entry. So that's what we've done right now with tubes. We have just taken those first two slices. We're like, okay, we can eat these. These are okay. We can take our existing materials and just switch them out for recycled ones. We can minimize our carbon and offset it. We can create a recycle program where our shoes are made into playground mats. But then what those extra 10 slices look like to me is, okay, well, how are we going to make our shoes recycled into new shoes? I don't know. That seems like a really massive logistical issue. Practical issue, costly. So many things. But that is what the future of fashion is going to be. So now that we've kind of figured out those two slices, we're starting to eat away at the rest of it. And what that looks like is redesigning our shoes from the very beginning. I think that's the biggest thing with sustainability that we're seeing in fashion is if you want to bring it in, it has to be like, right. Right at the start, you can't create a product and then think about it at the end. So we're redesigning our entire offering for next year with sustainability at the core of it. And some of this stuff doesn't even exist yet. That some of the stuff that we want to exist. So we're just communicating that to our suppliers and being like, we really want to see this. Let us know the second that you see it. Can you ask all of your suppliers? Because I think the demand needs to create the supply at this point is what we're really seeing.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely. And do you see that with your direction and you being so firm around what you want to see? Is it that you continue working with your current suppliers and you ask them to change, or do you go searching for other people who have done it before?
[Voiceover]: It's a really hard question, and it's something that we're Exploring currently where we're kind of keeping both options open, where we've got a new supplier who's more sustainability focused and our existing supplier. It's our preference to stay with our existing supplier. We've built up an incredible relationship with them over the last five years. They feel like family to us. But also if we do stay with them, we know that we're teaching them new ways of creating shoes that then they can take to their other footwear partners as opposed to just staying with this one sustainable supplier that is already capitalizing on that market. I think to create real change, we would be better off staying with our supplier and teaching them new ways of doing business. But it's hard probably.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, absolutely. There's much bigger impact there if you take other people on the journey with you.
[Voiceover]: Right, Exactly.
Nathan Bush: I love your goal around being the most sustainable footwear retailer in Australia. Who do you look up to in terms of who's doing a really good job in fashion sustainability?
[Voiceover]: Two people we are super inspired by or two brands. So Allbirds is number one. I'm not sure if you've seen them. They're a footwear brand. One of the founders is New Zealand based and they're a massive company now based in Silicon Valley. And they're huge and they do incredible work. Definitely encourage everyone to go check them out. If you need a new pair of sneakers, they're where you should be getting them. And then the other One is Stella McCartney, who's a lot more high fashion, but she is so deeply passionate about sustainability. From the products that she's creating to the stores as well, and the way that they get electricity and the way that they are temperature controlled. Everything in that business just feels really, really true to her sustainability goals.
Nathan Bush: Yep, absolutely. They're two very different companies. Right. And coming from two very different angles, but making such a huge impact. I've been loving the. The iconic sustainability reports and the country road. I think of doing a good one again. I don't know the insides behind it. And you talk about greenwashing. I'm not saying greenwashing, but it's kind of like those things seem to be a path towards transparency. Right. And at least putting goals out there is a. Is a great way to say this is what we're aiming for. We're not perfect, but I think there's a nice momentum and you guys are definitely leading some of that here in Australia. So it's great to see.
[Voiceover]: Thank you.
Nathan Bush: If we look at E Commerce. So you talk about your E Commerce journey. Have you Always been purely direct to customer or do you have retailers stocking your product as well? You kind of talked about some of the retailers that were coming on board pre Covid there.
Steph Dadden: So we did launch as direct to consumer when we launched tubes in early 2016. And we saw a lot of success with being direct to consumer, but there were also a lot of challenges. And one of the biggest challenges was that people would come up to us and be like, oh, you've got a brand. Awesome. Where are you stocked? And we'd say, oh, we're only online. And they'd go, oh, okay. And we started to get this sense that there was this lack of credibility that we had because we were only online. And I do think that that is shifting somewhat as direct to consumer becomes more and more the norm. And particularly post 2020 where a lot of retailers struggling. So we did see a really big benefit in going into stocking in some retailers and having that clout of being partnered with those big names. So we started to get approached by retailers and we were like, all right, this feels right. So that was when we started stocking in David Jones in the Iconic and we're going into Bloomingdale's in the us we were also being stocked in a handful of boutiques. But there was so much that we didn't even foresee that would go into shifting from being an online only business into wholesaling. So there was the fact that our margins took a massive hit to the point where we have 60% off sales online right now to clear our old stock to make way for our sustainable environmental stuff that we won't be discounting, but we make the same margin on that that we do is selling to the big retailers. So when you really start to look at your bottom line and you start to look at all the system changeovers that you have to do, all the logistics that go into it, it's not necessarily really worth it unless you're going to be looking at massive volumes with retailers and being environmentally minded, which we are now. Massive volumes isn't actually what we want to get into unless we can do it in a really sustainable way, which we're finding is potentially an oxymoron. So we've really this year taken the opportunity to pull back. We still are in some key retailers at the moment, but we see so much more opportunity in direct to consumer and really being able to control the brand, control the messaging, and particularly control the sustainability element of it. So for example, we've in going more sustainable right now. One of the Easy changes that we made is we've gone satchel free. So you know, shipping satchels contribute so terribly to the environment. So a lot of brands are moving over to be biodegradable, to be compostable, which is great in theory, but are people really composting them? And biodegradable can take a few years to break down in landfill. So we've just chucked out the shipping satchel and we were like, we've already got a box, the shoes are in a box. So we're just going to ship them in that. But then when we speak to our retailers about it, we're like, hey, can you ship in our box? And they're like, well no, we've got to do the company satchel. We're like, well, you know, we start to lose control over those kinds of things. So direct to consumer is really how we see the way forward. And in hindsight I think that having those retail partnerships did offer us some credibility. But if I was going to do it again, I actually don't even think that it would be worth it. If I was giving the advice to another brand. I would say persist with going online only direct to consumer and spend those dollars that you're going to spend that you're going to lose in your margin on creating credibility in other ways through brand collaborations, through paid digital ads or
[Voiceover]: even through like our own pop up stores. You know, like we've had, we've gotten so much from having our own pop up stores. We usually run them for like two to three months over Christmas new year. And to be able to have our customers there with us, listening to what they're saying when they're trying stuff on, you know, you don't have to sign a long lease. We're all about an affordable fit out. So you know, we're always just there painting till all hours of the night or getting some vintage furniture from the op shop down the road and just painting it pink and calling it a day. And that can be really effective too.
Nathan Bush: Well, I think too the beauty of what you've created is that you're not trying to create something that people step in and they go, oh wow, I've just discovered it. People have been on this journey with you for a long time and they kind of buy into use already. So when you're doing a pop up it's like, oh no, this has got Justin Steph's touch all over it already. So it's not something that's brand new. I think that's a fantastic approach. Can you tell us what marketing tactics have been really effective for you guys in trying to get that scale in direct to consumer? Because those acquisition costs can be big. But I take your point, Steph, that compared to retailing, if they spend in a wise way, can be really effective in having that customer and keeping that customer. What's worked for you guys in getting that scale?
Steph Dadden: Yes. So I think there have been a few key things that we've seen. So firstly, we've done. We are a little bit known for our publicity stunts where we'll do something crazy for not a lot of money and we'll get a lot of PR on it. There's been huge upside to that, that people, a lot of people know about tubes through these things. One of the downsides is that five years on, since we launched, we will still get asked about the way that we launch tubes at New York fashion week for $500. So there are these things that happen that have been really cool, but then they follow us around everywhere. But we love them. And particularly that launch at Fashion Week was really cool. Which people can go and look up if they want to know more about.
Nathan Bush: Can you give us the two minute version of that launch? I can't. I can't let it hang there. We've got to kind of. People haven't seen it.
[Voiceover]: Well, we were in New York Fashion Week for our blog then how to Live, and it was February. We were also launching Tubes, which was a line of summer sandals. And it was February in New York and it was minus 20 degrees, like the dead of winter, so cold. And we thought that there was something funny and the juxtaposition between those two things. How the hell are we going to launch summer sandals in the dead of winter? And we ended up finding three models on Craigslist. We dressed them up in their best beach attire and tubes and we took them outside these New York Fashion Week venues, which typically have a lot of photographers and lots of people outside. And we just had music and we had beach stuff and they just sat there and people laughed it up. They got photographed, they got absolutely mobbed by paparazzi. And it was our $500 launch. We created a video of it and video went viral and it was pretty savvy. But as Steph said, it has definitely followed us around.
Steph Dadden: And I'd say that we got millions of dollars worth of PR on that stunt. We were the whole front page of the Huffington Post. They covered that. So it was incredible, incredible press and I think definitely for small brands to think outside of the box like that and just be like, what can I do? That's just going to be minimal input for maximum coverage. What's really going to make people go like, whoa, get people talking. And that's what we do really, really well. But that being said, that doesn't necessarily sell shoes. Those things are great for reputation, but it does take a lot more than that, particularly in this day and age, in order to actually sell. So some brand collaborations that we've done have been immensely, immensely successful. There was one we did with Gorman, which is one of Australia's biggest retailers a few years ago now, where we did a collaboration with their prints on our shoes. They sold through their channels and it sold out online within two hours and and Australia wide in all of their stores within a day. So that was massively successful and we definitely captured a lot of their customers who went from being die hard gourmet to die hard tube fans. So that was really, really effective. And then paid digital advertising. I think you can't be a direct to consumer brand in this day and age without that being a really massive part of your strategy. I think that a lot of brands try to do it on their own and if you are going to go down that route, you need to do a lot of online training. You know, there's Facebook Academy, but there are also a lot of like sub Facebook groups now that you can find that will train you how to do your own digital advertising. And you've just got to be really careful about where you're spending your dollars. And then I think if you do have budget to put towards it, finding the right agency to work with. I think there are so many agencies out there that just go and try and sell people the world. And I actually jumped on a call with another brand that reached out to us the other day who's in the sustainability space. And I was chatting to them and they were just saying that, you know, their return on ad spend is like two or three and that their agency is telling them that's good. And I was like, that's not good enough and you need to be moving agencies. And we've fallen prey to that as well. So I think shopping around, finding a boutique agency that's really going to give you their specialized time and advice is really important. And some of the best successes that we've had is in gathering email addresses. I think that's something that small brands overlook or you don't really think, oh, email lists. It's like everyone has an email list, everyone sends out emails. Is that really an effective way of marketing. But I think if you're going to be spending your dollars in selling to people, which you have to spend over and over again with Facebook, if you can be spending those dollars to actually capture people's email addresses, then you have this free access to these people ongoing. And actually sending out newsletters is still one of the biggest ways that we convert customers.
Nathan Bush: Our partners at Signet have been helping retailers small and large reduce transit damages without damaging the planet with the Giami Export Box Mini. Now, this nifty little device uses recycled paper in a honeycomb formation as a green alternative to bubble wrap. It's made to wrap products or fill boxes and will ensure that your products arrive safe and sound. Upside, no more polystyrene packaging peanuts all over the warehouse floor. Downside, no more wrapping yourself in bubble wrap and rolling along the same floor. The Giami Xbox Mini Geami is just one of Signet's five and a half thousand packaging solutions that help leading e commerce businesses step up their packaging game. Visit signet.netau to find out more. And with your focus on content creation, have you noticed that change over time in the amount of time or investment you're spending on actually creating the content versus actually promoting it to make sure it reaches an audience?
Steph Dadden: It's interesting. We definitely spend way more in paying for it to reach an audience. We won't spend money unless we absolutely have to. That's just the way that we run our business. So content creation, we don't spend money on it. We really just. Most of the content that is on tubes Instagram right now is my feet that I've been walking around Byron Bay with a sack. My boyfriend makes fun of me because I literally have this giant sack of shoes and I'll just pop it down, take a cool pick of my shoes and keep walking. And so, yeah, the content creation for us, I think is the easy part. It's really about getting it out to people. But since relaunching in this new sustainable direction, we've been having really interesting conversations about, you know, since we've stopped and reevaluated our business, what is the role of Instagram and what is the role of content? And we were looking at the feed and Jess and I had a meeting like about a month ago and we were like, what's the point in creating the same content that everybody's creating? You know, everybody's going to the same cafes and they're taking the same photos and there's just so much sameness all over Instagram So what we've done now, and we've already, in the last month since relaunching, grown our Instagram a couple thousand followers, which from being really stagnant for a couple of years before that, the way we did that was we were just like, let's not put out what every other person is doing. How can every single thing we post on there be adding value to people? What would an Instagram feed look like if we'd never seen an Instagram feed before? And what kind of content would we put out there that was really going to get people inspired, motivated, really going to create change, rather than just them seeing the same old crap and they're going to keep scrolling. And actually, I think a brand that does that really, really well is hey Tiger Chocolates. Their Instagram feed is one that I just look at and I'm like, whoa. Like, it looks like a magazine. They've just totally nailed it.
Nathan Bush: They have. That's so good. I'd love to get someone from. Hey, Tiger, if you're listening on. To talk about their Instagram feed, I love it.
Steph Dadden: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: So good, guys. So appreciative of your time and it's been such great, great to get an insight into your business and yourselves. You mentioned before that you received a lot of advice and a lot of it you have ignored because it can be so overwhelming. What's the best piece of advice that you received at some point in your journey that you hold true to?
[Voiceover]: The best piece of advice? That's such a hard question.
Nathan Bush: Or we can spin it. What would the advice be to someone starting an online retail business? From yourselves.
Steph Dadden: I know there's really good advice out there, so I'm just trying to think of something. Yeah, really good.
[Voiceover]: We've had some great people give us a lot of good advice.
Steph Dadden: Yeah,
[Voiceover]: I just can't remember it.
Steph Dadden: I mean,
[Voiceover]: I'm like, thinking of specific people. I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember when she said that thing, but what was that thing again?
Steph Dadden: Okay, I got one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got one. I think as an entrepreneur, you just want to create, and creating is often what really excites you the most. But we had an incredible mentor, Kath Wills, come into our business and just say to us, you need to be so across your numbers. You need to be fine tooth combing those numbers every single day. And that was something that I think a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with that financial side of things. But, you know, you need to be across it in order to keep your business alive. So while it is the most boring piece of advice I think I've ever gotten. It is also the most valuable piece of advice I've ever gotten.
[Voiceover]: And that just prompted me to think of something that Janine Alice said. I thought that that's what you were going to say. That really stuck with me, which is also really great advice for an entrepreneur. And she was basically saying that anyone can be an entrepreneur, anyone can come up with a really great idea. But the difference between coming up with a million great ideas and launching them and thinking that you're an incredible entrepreneur is actually you need to transition and to become a business person in order to become successful. So while it's really great to be so big picture thinking and so creative in everything that you do, we've really seen through tubes that unless you're actually going to stick to something and sit through the boring months and the shitty months and the stuff that goes so, so wrong that makes you completely evaluate everything you know about the world, you're never going to be successful in anything that you do. And that just rings so true to our journey. And yeah, I definitely, definitely feel like she was so on the money there.
Nathan Bush: It's great advice just to drill into that a little bit. What are the numbers or the metrics that you guys keep an eye on that are really important to you and your business?
Steph Dadden: We've actually brought on a virtual CFO through a startup studio called Luna, who are based in Melbourne and having somebody that knows the numbers and can break them down for us. So we'll get a dashboard each month to kind of look at all right, what, what will we actually like? Just like top level revenue and expenses. Just keeping an eye on that has been a total game changer for us. And also having daily sales reports look with our team rather than just like, you know, thinking that everything's fine, actually having visibility over everything that's really going on.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Nice. It's a good system. I love that monthly system because it's not overwhelming, right?
Steph Dadden: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Also, I was just gonna say, I can't believe we missed. You were very leading with your hat when you asked the question before of what's our favorite sustainable brand? Because Patagonia like it.
[Voiceover]: It's up there.
Steph Dadden: Yeah.
[Voiceover]: They do good things. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: I'm a patabonia because I'm not an outdoors type at all. But I love the brand. I love what they stand for, but they're just doing incredible things. I just think they're great retail with great purpose, similar to you guys. So, guys, what is next for yourselves and tubes. What's 2021 hold for you?
[Voiceover]: We are so excited about this launch move towards sustainability. What we haven't really discussed is that for the last 18 months, we've kind of been flailing within our own business and been really struggling to find that purpose and that drive. In the beginning, fashion was really exciting to us. We were passionate about creating vegan footw. But then after a number of years, that passion just kind of dialed as we grew and as we found our own different passions. And so bringing sustainability into our business has just completely re lit the flame. So next year we're just going to be going full power on our journey towards sustainability. So we will be relaunching in spring 2021, which is going to have a completely different look and feel to what it does right now. Everything from the material in the outsoles, you know, we're looking at doing things like bringing in sugar cane or seaweed that will actually absorb carbon and then we put it into our shoes. So the shoes are actually net positive, not just net neutral. So just different innovative things like that. And I think that, yeah, there's a lot of change and there's a lot of hard work to be done, but we're just ready to like, pull up our sleeves and get to it.
Steph Dadden: And a big piece in this for us is encouraging other brands to go more sustainable as well. So we both love to write and we've started a kinder blog on tubes.com where we are documenting the whole journey of how we're moving this sustainable direction and helping other brands to do the same.
Nathan Bush: Beautiful. I love it. And if other brands are looking to learn more, especially around your sustainable journey and connect with you on that, apart from following you around Steph on Byron Bay, trying to find the lady carrying a bag of shoes, how can people contact you? You've obviously got the. You've got the podcast, you've got the kind blog. How else can people follow your journey and keep up with you?
[Voiceover]: Yeah, absolutely. So we're at How2Live on Instagram and if you're keen to chat sustainability always down for a good gab. So just DM us there. And then how to live the podcast. We often will do an episode about our sustainability journey and just giving people an update on their. And we're very, very transparent. You know, we share all of our secrets down, right down to our recycle partner who are recycling tubes with because we want other people to also use them and to recycle their shoes as well.
Nathan Bush: So good. Jess and Steph Dadden thank you for sharing and really excited about what you're doing and what 2021 holds for you and the leadership that you're showing, especially in the sustainability space for Australian fashion. So thank you for joining us.
[Voiceover]: Thank you so much. This has been such a fun time. We are always down for a good chat. Thanks so much.
Nathan Bush: That was a really refreshing chat. There were so many themes in there that we have heard before from previous guests, like how naivety can be a blessing when starting out, how to use roas to measure agency output, and the importance of being across your numbers. But what I loved was that Jess and Steph, they're making some big bold moves and are so keen to take others along on the journey with them, whether that be manufacturing suppliers, other retailers or their own customers. They have a massive vision and it's going to require lots of change, but they are so well equipped to do it now that they have the retail fundamentals in place. I can't wait to see how it plays out. If you're looking for more e commerce news, case studies and research, sign up to 12High's High5 newsletter. Every week I read all the e commerce news and send you five things which I've found which will help grow your business. Visit 12high.comauhigh5h I G H5 to sign up for free. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep adding to cartoon.
