Speaker A: Welcome to the checkout. We catch up with previous add to cart guests and ask them five quick questions to get to know them better and leave you with a little extra inspiration to get through your Friday. Here's your host, Bushy.
[Voiceover]: Today's checkout features Nathan Yun and Rek Zhang, co founders of Paire P A I R E. Don't forget the E. They are a sock brand that are all about comfort and sustainability. The boys set about reinventing sock functionality to address frustrating experiences with smelly, sweaty, slippery feet. And the results have bagged them five star reviews, angel investment and revenue that is doubling year on year. Their range has now expanded to include T shirts, towels and underwear.
Nathan Bush: Rex, Nathan, thank you for joining us on the checkout. I really enjoyed our conversation, our main conversation where you taught me a lot about materials and some of the unique materials that you're doing to change the way that some of our standard clothing is designed and made. And we also dived into a lot of other topics and it was a great conversation. But we're here to learn a little bit more about you both. I've got five quick questions. Number one, what is the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online? Nathan, I'll start with you.
Nathan Yun: So I don't usually buy a lot of things. I'm a minimalist. But I did buy this graphic design service on Taobao, which is kind of like the Chinese version of Amazon. I needed like a thousand images being Photoshopped and getting rid of the background of a product and I managed to negotiate on Taobao and buy this service for $1 per image. And it was just a mass production of Photoshop work. I guess that was probably the weirdest
Nathan Bush: thing I got on Internet and it worked out well. Good quality.
Nathan Yun: It worked out really well. Really good quality as well. They just photoshopped the product I needed out of the white background.
Nathan Bush: Great stuff. Surely there's going to be an AI tool for that shortly.
Nathan Yun: Hopefully. Hopefully.
Nathan Bush: What about you, Rex?
Rex Zhang: Weirdest thing, Chanel packaging box. Oh, just the box itself, yes. It's more about like studying the quality of the box, but it's actually surprising me that people are selling that box itself.
Nathan Bush: I thought you were doing something dodgy like packaging, you know, giving a gift and putting a Chanel box and then putting something dodgy inside it.
Rex Zhang: I think that's what people use it to. Yeah, but yeah, so apparently my wife doesn't have enough luxury bags so I have to buy the packaging, study what paper they use. But yeah, it's really Good quality. Really good quality.
Nathan Bush: All right, number two, who is your favorite retailer? Rex?
Rex Zhang: My favorite retail is Orbitz. So yeah, I think that's something in that both me and Nathan love Orbitz as friends love their shoe. When they first came out I was talking like and I gave Nathan pair for his birthday as his birthday present and he loved it. I loved it as well. I think we do admire how much effort they spent on developing the right product and try to change things, making things differently. And the level of confidence of their shoes is also inspiring us making our pair products.
Nathan Bush: I got a pair as well. Probably back in peak Allbirds. Probably. What was that 18 months ago?
[Voiceover]: It feels like they may have lost
Nathan Bush: their direction a little way and trying to re establish themselves. What do you think their future is?
Rex Zhang: Well, I do love the shoes but you know, other products we tried, some are pretty good, some I will say not that different from what's going on in the market. I don't know what they're thinking back in the market but if they're thinking similar thing as Pear, I think just maybe if they can launching product more carefully and having something really different like that shoe, like that wool shoes, wool sneaker, you know it's still on the right track obviously.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Nathan Yun: Nathan, your favorite retailer, I'll probably say Patagonia. I really admire their work on sustainability. Me personally, I have a huge passion for sustainability and yeah, Patagonia has been one of my all time favorite. I'll say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. On the side I also like Pure Raven. Just want to shout out who's that? I'm not even sure if I'm pronouncing it right. Pure Raven. It's another outdoor brand. The logo is a little fox. They're known for their bags.
Nathan Bush: Okay.
Nathan Yun: But they're one of the only outdoor brands that don't use Gore Tex because it's not a sustainable material, which I again really admire.
Nathan Bush: Cool.
Nathan Yun: That decision.
Nathan Bush: I love those little tip offs of brands that I haven't heard of that
[Voiceover]: I can go check out.
Nathan Bush: All right, number three, which e commerce practice do you wish was history? Nathan, I'll start with you.
Nathan Yun: For me, from a branding perspective, I really hate a lot of E commerce brands over packaging themselves because we don't really need that much paper and plastic going to that box and wrapping up such a tiny product most of the time. And I think for E commerce businesses we have to establish ourselves through that packaging. We have to show the customers that we are a legit brand, we are cool. You know, all of that speaks through packaging, I guess most of the time. Because imagine receiving your product and it's just two pairs of socks could be a little underwhelming. So between me and Rax, we improved Paris packaging so many times, but just trying to improve it better, just trying to make it less waste, recyclable, using recycled materials, et cetera. But I think over packaging is something that should be history.
Nathan Bush: I think it makes sense to put a pair of socks in a Chanel box.
Rex Zhang: I was about to say you can just sell the boxes. Right. You find it's over packaging. Sell on ebay.
Nathan Yun: Yeah, I love it.
Nathan Bush: Rex, any e commerce practices you wish was history?
Rex Zhang: For me, it's sourcing your hero products on Alibaba and you're thinking, believing it's going to make it right. No, no. It's a very complicated marketplace. It's more complicated than you thought. 80% chance you are not really talking to the factory and the product they're showing and the product they deliver can be really, really different. So if you do believe that a great product, make a great business, then really dive into it. Know the category, go to the factories, check them out, go to trade shows and study the materials and really develop the thing from scratch. Yeah. Stop sourcing off the shelf product and try to keep sell them.
Nathan Bush: Love it. Put the effort into product. All right. Can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into? Rex, Two books.
Rex Zhang: One is called One Win nine Losers. It's by Tadashi Yanai, who is the founder of Uniqlo. I think he talked a lot about how he structured company, how he built up the brand from operation point of view. Another book, very different, will be Making Clothes by Yoshi Yamamoto. So he's my favorite designer, but he talks more on the inspiration of design, the philosophy, the craftsmanship, which is totally opposite to another book. So I highly recommend reading that post.
Nathan Bush: Great recommendations. We haven't had either of those before. Thank you, Nathan.
Nathan Yun: I thought about this and I also have two books because I can't really choose.
Nathan Bush: We're able to fill up that bookshelf now.
Nathan Yun: First one is the Responsible Company by Yvonne Chouinad. He's the founder of Patagonia. Again, I'm really big fans of them. And the book talks about how go after.
Nathan Bush: Let my people go surfing.
Nathan Yun: I think it's before.
Nathan Bush: Okay.
Nathan Yun: From memory. From memory for. But yeah, that's a good book as well, which I love. But I think in this case the responsible company talks more about the sustainability efforts that companies do and how, how Hard. It is, I guess.
Rex Zhang: Okay.
Nathan Yun: And I think it's a really good education for consumers to know what really goes behind the efforts of sustainability, which often goes on unnoticed.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Nathan Yun: And the second book I want to recommend is my personal startup bible. It's Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis.
Nathan Bush: Why?
Nathan Yun: I assumed this would have been recommended on your. Oh, it hasn't. What? I would be. I would be so surprised.
[Voiceover]: I thought you were about to say my personal book.
Nathan Bush: I'm like, don't tell me you've worked with Jackie Chan, created your own label,
[Voiceover]: and then made a book as well.
Nathan Yun: No, no, it's just my bible on startup. Like, I would refer to it so many times. Why Hacking growth? It just talks about all the ins and outs about how do you hack growth, how do you run a B test, what makes sense, how do you set up hypothesis, how do you prove how does the tiny change can make a huge difference? And what data means something, what data doesn't mean anything, et cetera. It's just a whole book on how startups should hack their growth. Yeah. It's a new age of marketing. You kind of tears down the traditional marketing concept and just go like, all right, marketing is such an old concept. Let's put that on the side. Let's talk about growth. What does growth actually mean? So I really love that book. To have it on the shelf next to my desk and open it up every now and then.
Nathan Bush: Beautiful, gents. I asked for one book recommendation. I got four. It's very generous. I love it. Thank you so much. You've given me plenty to read there. All right, last question I have for you. Finish this sentence. The future of retail is. Nathan,
Nathan Yun: the future of retail is technology. Maybe a bit generic, but I think technology will improve retail in every single way. Not just products. It's also the process, the supply chain, the experience. Breaking down the barriers between omnichannels and, you know, having better analytics reports, having better transparency on the whole customer experience, I guess. I think technology is going to improve admin as well. The structure, internally, communications. I think AI and AR could just improve retail in so many different ways that we probably can't yet imagine.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, great. I love that Technology sounds like a pretty vague answer, but then when you put it across the whole operations and lifecycle of a brand, the impact that you said is so dramatic over all parts of the business. Rex, what about you?
Rex Zhang: For me, the future of retail is dynamic. Online, offline, different channels. I think that's no specific way of running your retail business. I think you have to be really dynamic. And as Nathan said, technology is booming and AI VR, there's a lot of possibilities. So don't lock yourself into something, just go with the flow. And yeah, being dynamic, I think is very important.
Nathan Bush: Gents, brilliant. Now those five questions. Nathan, Rex, thank you so much for joining me on the checkout.
Nathan Yun: Thanks, Nathan.
Rex Zhang: Thanks Nathan.
[Voiceover]: To hear more from Nathan and Rex, jump back into episode 356, where Nathan and Rex give us a fascinating window into the world of fabric technology. They also give us advice on how a Shopify site can be anything but standard, and they give us some valuable insights on their lived experiences as Asian Australian founders. Thanks for listening. And until next time, keep adding to cart.
