Sam Schumann: This has been sitting in front of me the whole time. Like why have I not been doing this for the last five years? I was born a retailer and went on a journey that took me somewhere I didn't want to go and now I'm back. How do we build a multi generational brand that sits up there with Qantas and RM Williams?
[Voiceover]: Welcome to Add to Cart, Australia's leading e commerce podcast that express delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of online retail. Every week, Nathan Bush from E Suite 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: Welcome to a very special fireside chat here on Add to Cart. We have gone off the grid and and we're coming to you from a log cabin in the great outdoors. A very first time for Add to Cart. I've got a little fire going, got some salmon in a pan and marshmallows at the ready. For this interview, I'm lucky enough to be joined face to face. There's no technology out here, obviously by someone who actually knows what they're doing in the great outdoors. Trust me, I would be dead as soon as I hit a gravel road and if I was by myself. Sam Schuman is the founder and the director of outdoor adventure company Alton. An ex tax and consulting professional, Sam developed the Alton brand in 2015 and now has over 50 SKUs, a warehouse that's bursting at the seam, distribution in Patty Pallon's, and the most God damn beautiful Instagram page you have ever, ever seen. Make sure you check it out. It's almost like a meditation. Today we join Sam in the Alton Log Cabin, which may or may not also be his warehouse here in Geebung, Queensland. We dive into Sam's journey from the confines of the office to exploring the great outdoors. We get a sneak peek into the product innovation he is on the verge of getting to market and he tells us how his time as a perfume salesman helped him develop what he has today. Before we get into today's episode, if you are early on your E commerce journey or you want to get into E commerce or you want to upskill your whole team in E Commerce, E Suite's E Commerce Accelerator is now open for enrollment over 10 weeks. We will cover all the foundations of E commerce, from marketing to tech to customer to finance to supply chain. And it all ends with you pitching a new solution for for a real retailer. It's Going to be loads of fun. Spots are limited to 50 students and class commences on the 12th of June. To secure your spot, head on over to esweettalent.com au all right, the bush tea is getting cold. Let's get into it. Thanks to our partners Shopify plus and Paclio. Here's our conversation with Sam Shuman, founder and director of of Alton. Sam, welcome to Add to Cart.
Sam Schumann: Thanks for having me. I'm stoked to be here.
Nathan Bush: What? To be here. I'm stoked to be here. For those who can't see it, because we are a podcast, we are filming this, but we are at Alton at the moment in a beautiful log cabin that Sam's built with his bare hands.
Sam Schumann: Yeah, look, I didn't actually build it, so it's all an illusion. It was actually my old man that built it, but yeah, I gave him the brief.
Nathan Bush: That's beautiful. So check it out on Instagram or YouTube. We'll put some clips up of it. But it is an illusion. It is actually a content studio at the back of your warehouse.
Sam Schumann: Yeah, that's right. We are here in the suburb of G Bun in Brisbane. The goal was to make it look like a high country cabin in Victoria. So I really think we nailed it. But, yeah, unfortunately we aren't there. It is a content studio. It's all part of our bigger sort of content strategy. So we sort of observed over the last 12 months that people are not really. They're not clicking on those beautiful landscape shots anymore. They. They want that really nitty gritty, like up close and personal with people involved, that sort of stuff. So this was all part of our strategy, building this studio. And yeah, we've got a bunch of things planned, a few things already out. We've flown up some sort of like big names in the outdoor industry and interviewed them here in our studio. So really looking to get that, like, interesting, engaging, TikTok style kind of content to. Yeah, that's what people want to see. So that's what we're going to give them.
Nathan Bush: Well, I think too, if you haven't already, go onto the Instagram of Alton. What's the handle?
Sam Schumann: Altongoods.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, because it is beautiful imagery and video, some of it, of course, shot in this year, but a lot of it out in the wild. How did you get such a beautiful aesthetic from the day dot?
Sam Schumann: We didn't. From day dot, to tell you the truth. I was always like, when I started this brand, I was always like, I just sit on Instagram and be like, oh, God, I wish I could make our content look as good as, you know, these other brands out there. To get where we are now, it just took like planning and strategy. Nothing like everything that's on our Instagram is taken by us now. Like it's, it's not sent in from customers or anything like that. We capture all of it. I've got a team of like excellent photographers, graphic designers and everything on board. And yeah, there's absolutely like a lot of planning and strategy that goes into making it look the way it does and like it's worth it, it costs money, but it's such a important part of growing a brand that no one knew about in the beginning. So we need to sort of make ourselves look right and showcase the fantastic products we're producing. It is.
Nathan Bush: And we're going to get onto those fantastic products because I was in this warehouse with you a week ago and you were showing me some of the cool stuff coming down the pipeline. So I'm hoping that we can get a hint of that. But before we do, you mentioned that you want to talk about where you came from to where you are today. Can you tell us about the journey of Alton? Because I understand that you're not an e commerce retailer by trade.
Sam Schumann: That's right. Retail does run deep in the veins though. In fact, maybe I, I was born a retailer and went on a journey that took me somewhere I didn't want to go and now I'm back.
Nathan Bush: You went on a non spiritual journey?
Sam Schumann: Absolutely. It was not spiritual at all. So yeah, I graduated uni with a law and commerce degree and sort of followed the crowd into that degree from high school and then I was in professional services. So doing accounting in a big firm
Nathan Bush: in the city and the opposite of the great outdoors.
Sam Schumann: Yeah, absolutely. Like, despite the fact that my interests were in, you know, being outside, being in the outdoors and I loved retail and I love selling. Somehow I ended up in a cubicle for 10 hours a day billing by the six minute interval. So yeah, let's just say it wasn't for me, but it took me about five years to actually have the gumption to get up and get out of there and yeah, do what I'm doing today. Great.
Nathan Bush: So what was the starting point for that? Was it doing it as a side hustle while you were sitting at your desk for 10 hours or was it one big league?
Sam Schumann: It was a side hustle, but when I say side hustle, it was never like a, we want to make a lot of money out of this kind of thing. It was just a bit of fun. So my mate and I started it back in about 2015, and it was just. It was a bit of fun. You know, we both of us worked in retail at the time, because this is back when we were still at university and we. We went hiking on the holidays.
Nathan Bush: And where were you working in retail?
Sam Schumann: I was working at Myer in Brisbane City. Yeah. Selling aftershave and perfume.
Nathan Bush: So it's the essentials for outdoor life.
Sam Schumann: Absolutely. You know what? Like, that taught me so much, that job, and I probably did it for about eight years.
Nathan Bush: Oh, wow.
Sam Schumann: Yeah, because it started when I was 15. So 15 through to when I graduated at about 23, 22, something like that. It was a long time.
Nathan Bush: What's the secret for choosing a good perfume?
Sam Schumann: Oh, God. Have a good salesman. You don't know when you walk into those places, but everyone is working for a different brand, so they're never really selling you what is the best. They're selling you what is their product. So there's a little bit of a battle going on behind the scenes, but it teaches you a lot. It's competitive. There's a lot of rejection. Walking up to people and being rejected over and over and just needing to be able to persist and sell the product you're trying to sell. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: So it's not just manning a retail floor, it's actually sales. Absolutely.
Sam Schumann: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Sam Schumann: I didn't think I'd get on this podcast and start talking about how to sell fragrance.
Nathan Bush: Never know where we'll go. So you've done that. You've got the idea with your. With your mate created on the side. What was the moment that you went, actually, I can throw in this desk job and go full time.
Sam Schumann: So that didn't come until after I'd actually resigned from my job. So I, like, with my professional services job, it's not like I had, like, a plan. Like, I was gonna. I'm gonna resign on this day, and then I'm gonna start this business. It was nothing like that. It was a complete, complete mess in the, like, behind the scenes. I just, like. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't do one more, David. Like you. I felt like I was doing a job that I was working so hard at, you know, and I was putting so much of my time. I was pulling time away from the things that I love, you know, like family and, you know, social activity and all that sort of stuff. And I just wasn't really. I was just an average accountant. You know what I mean? If that so it was killing me. Like, it was killing me inside. I was getting no satisfaction from it. And to be honest, it just was. One day I just came to work and I was like, that's it, I'm done. I can't do this one day longer. And I actually went in and told my boss I wanted to go on, like, a sabbatical. And I used Alton as the excuse. I was like, I've got this great side hustle and I really want to see what I can do with it, which was this complete lie. Like, I swear I just wanted to go and have some time to apply for a new job.
Nathan Bush: Keep your old job in case it didn't work out.
Sam Schumann: Yeah, that's it. Have a full back, six months, try and get a new job. If it doesn't work, I'll come back here. But I probably took two weeks for me to just, like, recover, I guess from, like, I had so much like, pent up, just like bad mental health and, like, you know, I just wasn't in a good place. Like, I'd be doing this job that I hated and there was no light at the end of the tunnel, like, where I was going to get to, like, I was like, I don't want to become a partner here. I hate this.
Nathan Bush: You saw yourself within the movie Office Space.
Sam Schumann: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. I was living it. So, yeah, it took a couple of weeks off and I was like sleeping like 14 hours a day. Like, just. There was just so much pent up, like, angst. I had to just recover. And then I was like, all right, let's start looking for jobs. And then I started just doing what I did in my normal spare time. I started working on the business a bit and.
Nathan Bush: And at that point, where is Alton in terms of size of business?
Sam Schumann: 5 to $8,000 in revenue a year. Like, nothing. Mates, mates and family. If we got a sale from someone we didn't know, we'd be calling each other, being like, do you know this person? It was rare. Okay, so, yeah, took a couple of weeks off, started applying for jobs. And then my spare time, I was just doing a bit of work on the brand and, you know, I just had a big. I actually used to sit in, like, meetings back when I was an accountant and. Or in training sessions and I'd be writing down all these ideas of what we could do for the brand. So I started ticking those off. Yep. And then within, like two weeks, I was just like, why am I not doing this full time? Like, I'd been in this place a month prior where I had no idea what I wanted to do, I had no idea what was going to make me happy, but fulfilled. And then a month later I'm like, this has been sitting in front of me the whole time, like, why have I not been doing this for the last five years? And honestly, since then, that's about five years ago. Nothing's changed. I'm just doing the same thing. I'm spending my whole day just obsessed on this brand, growing it, ticking off things on that to do list and just, yeah, pushing it forward.
Nathan Bush: Ready to go back and flip the burgers for a living.
Nathan Bush: Nah, me neither.
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Nathan Bush: It might be a stereotype, but as someone in tax and accounting, are you naturally afraid of risk or do you embrace it?
Sam Schumann: Yeah, I'd probably say I'm a risk averse person. But I think another thing to note is like, I'm not your traditional tax guy and that's probably why I didn't suit that environment.
Nathan Bush: This is why you wanted to come on the podcast, just so you can get rid of that image, right?
Sam Schumann: Yeah, exactly. Accounting is the best form of contraception, as they say.
Nathan Bush: That's great. Okay, so tell us about Alton now size products mission.
Sam Schumann: So we've got about 50 SKUs now size. We probably do 1000 to 1200 orders a month. So yeah, it's getting up there in size. The thing that's lagging is probably our staff count. So we're a very, very small team, punching well above our weight to achieve what we're achieving. And yeah, like it's just we're adding new products like every month kind of thing. So it's, it's growing really quickly. Covid was like a really good like boost. Like it really, really pushed us ahead. I feel there was a lot of focus on camping and that sort of thing at the time. So we were lucky in that sense prior to that, you know, starting something from nothing, working on it for a couple of years. Then Covid pushed us forward and now we're kind of in that post Covid environment. So that's got its own challenges. But I think we've got a pretty solid plan to just keep growing with new product, exciting sort of content and collaborations and that sort of thing. So yeah, it's as big as it's ever been.
Nathan Bush: It's amazing. And you know, just walking into the warehouse you can see that it's bursting at the seams. Very different to when I was here 18 months ago.
Sam Schumann: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: So obviously the growth is there.
Sam Schumann: Yeah, we need a new warehouse, that's for sure.
Nathan Bush: Anyone got a warehouse?
Sam Schumann: Seriously, because they're hard to find.
Nathan Bush: How long have you been searching for a warehouse?
Sam Schumann: I'm not going to lie, it's probably been about 10 months and we still haven't found anything. I feel like those stories you see on the news with people trying to get into like rentals, that's what it's like. We put in a good offer on something and we just rejected, rejected, rejected. So it's starting to stress me out a little bit. But I'm sure we'll find a solution. We always do.
Nathan Bush: What's the barrier? Is it cost of the warehouses that you want or is it location?
Sam Schumann: We've encountered all the barriers so initially I didn't know anything about it. I'm not a, at least one warehouse and that's this one. And I didn't even send the contract to a lawyer which apparently is supposed to do. So I'm learning as we go and right now we're putting things in like at the price they're asking for, for the period of time they're asking for. And yeah, before you know it, some, some pre market sort of big company has just come in with a, with a long, long term and lease and they've just swiped it. So I think it's just, there's just a low amount of supply and yeah, the big boys get first pickings.
Nathan Bush: How do you forecast how long you will need a warehouse for?
Sam Schumann: That's a really good question. And I actually, I. That book captured the decade by Gabby Levovich. He, they, I think in that book they upgrade their warehouse about six times or something like that. And it's always in the back of my mind I don't think they knew and I don't. So I certainly don't know. So yeah, you Just try and make the best estimate. I think, in fact, I found with a lot of these kind of things that you go with where you want to be and you generally sort of, in the context of a warehouse, you generally fill it. So, like, when we came here, I was in my garage before that, and this was enormous. And I was like, well, I'm just going to bite off a little bit more than I can chew and push us hard to fill this warehouse. And yeah, that's. That's where we're at. So.
Nathan Bush: So your. Your warehouse almost becomes your dashboard of success, pretty much.
Sam Schumann: But I also think that with like, even signing up for like, new software and that sort of thing, like, you know, we didn't have an inventory software in the beginning, and to bring an inventory software on board, that costs a lot of money. But I had the same mentality. I was like, well, we better make enough money to pay for it. And that's. There's obviously a limit to doing these sorts of things, but I try and just keep pushing us forward.
Nathan Bush: What inventory software did you go for?
Sam Schumann: We went with Deere. Now sin7, I think sin7 bought them out. It's pretty good we leaving it there. I mean, I feel with these sorts of things that it's a. You can't really have one product that suits everyone. We don't use like every part of the program, but the bits we do use do their job. So I can't really complain. And I don't think there's really many better options out there, as far as I know. So we're happy with Deer. Yeah, great.
Nathan Bush: Gone a little bit off topic.
Nathan Bush: That's okay.
Nathan Bush: One of the things that strikes me is that outdoor and leisure is a really competitive category, especially to get into. For the first time, we've got some really established players in the market, but your product still manages to stand out and you've got some amazing customer reviews online. How do you describe how your product is different to what's already out there?
Sam Schumann: Yeah, it is a competitive space, but, like, to be honest, since the day I started it, I only ever really felt we were competing with ourselves because we do a few things differently to make ourselves stand out and make ourselves different. I say we're competing more now than ever. But in the beginning, what we tried to do was firstly bring out products that were like, very niche and not suited to the sort of everyday customer and that served its purpose, got us to where we needed to be, and then that gave us the confidence to then bring out more mainstream products. The Things that we do differently that get customers converting on our products over our competitors is our number one focus is quality. So we can like hand on heart, say our products up there with the absolute best quality. We've got systems in place to make sure that we are getting the best manufacturers, the best quality control processes and just there's an absolute obsession with materials and all that sort of stuff. So we work with the product from an idea up rather than going in and saying we want a sleeping mat. What is there out there?
Nathan Bush: What have you got?
Sam Schumann: How can we work down the price to it to be the cheapest or that sort of thing? So quality number one. And then another really important aspect of the brand we've created is the aesthetic. So I noticed like in the beginning and like, I'm a consumer, right, so I've just tried to develop something that I want to buy. And yeah, you do stuff like that and you realize that lots of other people want the same thing. So we tried to create like a really like, beautiful kind of bush aesthetic. And when you look at the other brands out there, they use a lot of like those bright colors like yellow and purple and, and light greens. So we wanted to have something that was very subdued, very like earthy kind of tones and that kind of thing. So, yeah, that's it's proved popular. People really like it.
Nathan Bush: I feel you can spot it from a mile away, even though it is understated. It's like, oh, you can tell that's an out on good.
Sam Schumann: Absolutely, yeah. So what we, like, we didn't really know. I never planned that. But there's definitely a. People will look at a photo on Instagram, be like, oh, that's definitely an Alton product because of the color. So, yeah, I guess it wasn't planned, but luckily it's come off.
Nathan Bush: And so we're here in Jibung, out near the airport in Brisbane, or, you know, we're out in the bush somewhere. If you're looking at the video. How do you keep that relationship with your Chinese manufacturers when you're putting so much emphasis and dependency on quality of your products? How do you keep that relationship in place and keep a close eye on that quality that's coming out?
Sam Schumann: Oh, I think it just comes down to, like, relationships and like personal relationships. So if you can build like, it's like anything, you know, whether you're an accountant, professional services or an architect or a builder, whatever it is, you're going to work harder for the people that you have a good relationship with. So, yeah, from I Think it's like my personality is, like, helped. I love chatting and I get personal with, you know, people in a work. That doesn't sound right, but, you know, it's a. I care about what's going on beyond work. Right. So, yeah, well, I. I'm chatting to my colleagues over in Asia, like, every day and it's never just work stuff. It's. It's beyond work. So, yeah, it's just relationships and. And being friendly and. And then also on top of that, just holding that really firm expectation and knowing that you can't hear from that.
Nathan Bush: Yep. And you're heading over to see Chinese partners in a week?
Sam Schumann: A few days.
Nathan Bush: Few days. What's on the itinerary?
Sam Schumann: Oh, God, A lot of food. Apparently I've never been there before and that's pretty much because of COVID So.
Nathan Bush: So this is the first Face to face.
Sam Schumann: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: And you've got this warehouse of amazing products. How many SKUs did you say?
Sam Schumann: 50.
Nathan Bush: So you've got 50 SKUs never met. Face to Face. Amazing quality. First time face to face.
Sam Schumann: It's pretty ridiculous. Like, it's all happened through.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Sam Schumann: Like email, WeChat. Like, it's crazy. But we had no other choice. We just had to make it work, so. And particularly, yeah, like, for a brand like us who's so obsessive about how things feel and look and that sort of thing, it's been so hard. It's been really hard. And like, these conversations go on for hours.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Do you have a room of all the failed samples that'll be part of your story in many years, Tom.
Sam Schumann: I'm actually a pretty minimalist kind of person, so I actually bin a lot of that stuff or give it away, which is a bit sad, I guess. It's been deleted from history.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, that's very fair. Very fair. So what's coming down? So when we talk about innovation in this space, obviously camping has been around forever. When you talk about innovation in your space, what does that look like?
Sam Schumann: Oh, I mean, there's always a different way to do a product is one way to look at it, and then also materials. I'd say materials is probably the biggest. So, like, yes, we make tents today and we used to make tents, but they're made from very different materials. There's always that goal of lighter, stronger, you know, better longevity. So for us, a big focus is definitely on materials. We like to keep our products pretty simple and pretty minimalist, so we don't try and throw new things and attach them onto the side of A product, we try to retain what that product is for its main purpose, but then come in and do things differently with materials and maybe put a little bit of an elephant touch in terms of the way it's been designed.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. I feel like lightweight is really important to you. Like a lot of the products you've redesigned to be able to be chucked into a bag. Like the camp chair that I got from you sits always in my car now because it's literally the size of a ruler and folds out great for me. Suburban dad watching soccer on the sidelines with my kids. But I can see from a camping perspective how this changes the game for a lot of people. By thinking a bit differently.
Sam Schumann: Yeah, exactly. Like where we're placed in the market and like we've actively tried to be, this is in the outdoor scene. You've got two camps. You've got your ultralight camp, which is things made of almost cling wrap thickness. And then you've got like your kind of hardcore full drive based vehicle camping. So we've tried to create, and I think we have created an ultralight product that has just that hint of a little bit better quality, slightly thicker materials. So it's a, it's an incredibly long lasting ultralight product. And I think we've, you know, that space, we've kind of, we filled that space ourselves. There's not really many other brands out there that do that. They want to sit at both ends of that spectrum. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: I remember when I was at Super Retail Group, long time ago now, but we had BCF as one of our brands and at the time Raise Outdoors. So heritage Victorian company. And when Raise Outdoors came into the fold, everyone's like, how are we going to differentiate these two? Like, isn't it the same customer? And it just reminded me what you said then. It was like BCF was about conquering the outdoors and Raise was about being in the outdoors.
Sam Schumann: Yeah, that's a great way to look at it.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. It feels like you're very much in the outdoors and being one with the outdoors.
Sam Schumann: Absolutely. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: Community plays a really strong role in what you do and getting the word out. How have you embraced getting word out to this community which can have very strong brand loyalty and brand ties? How have you found your way into this community to introduce the product and the brand?
Sam Schumann: It's happened so organically. Like, I think that's the benefit of being like a startup. There was no real strategy in the beginning. It's almost like we put the product out first. Our first product was an Ultralight hammock. And then that attracted a certain type of customer and then we were like, oh, these people are buying our product. So then since then we've just gone all in on making that customer happy. That's kind of how it really happened. Super organic. And then from there, you know, we, we learned what these people like and we got involved in events that these people participate in and now we know that customer to death and we just serve them. Exactly, you know, what they want to see. Serve them new, exciting things that we think they might be interested in. And yeah, we're just in constant engagement with them now.
Nathan Bush: You've refreshed your website. The new range is about to drop. You've never had more customer service options. Hey, but take a look over there at that boring pile of packaging boxes.
Nathan Bush: Ugh, ugly.
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Nathan Bush: Is there any customer that comes to mind that stands out for you as a, as a special customer that gave you like any special insight into how they use your product or what it means for them or just in terms of how much they've ordered and how brand loyal they are?
Sam Schumann: I'm not going to say any names.
Nathan Bush: No, don't say no.
Sam Schumann: There's, yeah, there's a few people that more than you think that I've just bought every single product we've put out. The minute it's almost like we'll be working on the website and you know, we haven't launched the product yet but we're just testing where it's going to sit and that kind of thing. And then boom, they've bought it.
Nathan Bush: So sure they've got access to the staging stuff.
Sam Schumann: I don't know what's going on because sometimes like even the guys in the warehouse are just like, hang on a second, like this guy's just bought one of these. Like I don't even know about this product yet. And you know, it arrives the next day it's delivered. It's ridiculous. But yeah, there's a lot of people that have been there since the very Very beginning. I know the name. I know by name. They have my mobile number because we used to do customer service through my phone and I went to call you this morning.
Nathan Bush: I don't even have your mobile number.
Sam Schumann: Oh, you need. You need to get on board earlier. I love it that way, though. I've kept those guys and girls in my phone and I say to them, if you want to call me anytime, I'm here. You got. You supported us from the beginning, so you deserve this access.
Nathan Bush: Amazing. Do you go out on any camping adventures with your community or your influencers or anything like that?
Sam Schumann: We actually haven't really done anything like that. It's something I'd like to do. But internally we always think that we can achieve, I guess, more of a effective kind of campaign using the Internet, which is. It doesn't really reconcile with the brand, but we're engaged with what people are doing in the outdoors. So we're out there testing things. They're out there, we share places we go and things we do and all that kind of thing. But we've never really hosted one of those events where we get a run together. Yeah, I wouldn't write it off. I think it's something we'll probably do at some point. But efficient use of resources is also important, being a small brand and having those small brand roots. So we try and do things efficiently.
Nathan Bush: What about partners and influencers? How do you get them on board? Because I could imagine they'd be a great source of content for you if they're using your product. But also you'd have to be very careful because you've done such a great job in, in creating a brand and a look and a feel that they don't go and ruin that for you.
Sam Schumann: Yeah, again, that's all happened really organically. No strategy. Like, it just evolved with the brand. Like, we've got, like, I don't like the term influencer and these guys don't like the term influencer, but we've got. My guy. Scotty's gone walkabout. He's got a channel.
Nathan Bush: He does.
Sam Schumann: Like, he films his own adventures and he goes solo into the bush. Incredible films that he puts together. And, like, he's our biggest. Like, he'll get the most traffic for us in terms of influencers. And he just bought one of our products, like, back in, like 2016. He'd be in our top in our first 150 customers. And he loved the product. And then from there he's. We got to know him. We. We saw his channel was growing. We sent him product and you know, now it's to the point where we've designed a product together and that relationship's just blossomed. Amazing. Yeah. So yeah, there's strategy behind it now, but in the beginning it was all very organic and just try stuff. I think that's the key. I think that's the key. Try everything and then see what sticks. And then also just be like open and available and open minded, like, because I think that's where a lot of these opportunities came from. Don't be like wedded to a way of doing things. Like I just picked up the phone and called Scotty and was like, hey mate, I just quit my job. You know, like it was never. It just came from an internal kind of curiosity and willingness to try things, I think.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, beautiful. Speaking of taking up opportunities, you've recently gone into retail, which I can imagine isn't part of the plan as an e Commerce brand. D2C E Commerce brands. You know, her having great success over Covid. Can't imagine the retail was always in the plan.
Sam Schumann: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: How did that come about?
Sam Schumann: It never was and it still isn't. So yeah, we're in Patty Palan stores and that was just like, I want to say like random opportunity, but it's not because it came off the back of building a brand that the Australian public respects and has a great reputation for quality. From that we, yeah, we got an email from Paddy Palin saying, hey, we want your products on our shelves. And initially, to be honest, I was like, probably not.
Nathan Bush: Get out of here.
Sam Schumann: It's not really our strategy where you're a direct to consumer brand. But pretty quickly I was like, this is actually a great opportunity. They've got, you know, stores in every capital city. They're a integral part of like the Australian retail history of outdoor gear and they're probably the biggest player in the space and they've got a great reputation, a lot of respect. And I was like, we need to do this. It wasn't an easy process. Like they, we had to send all of our gear over to Perth to their HQ and like they did a full like deep due diligence on everything, measured everything, weighed everything, tested everything. And then, yeah, they were like, let's do it.
Nathan Bush: How are you feeling while they were taking your product behind closed doors and you know, stress testing the hell out of it?
Sam Schumann: To be honest, I was confident. Like the product has been tested on thousands of customers. Right. And anything that's not right, we always make better. If there's Something wrong with the product. We improve it the next time around. So I was confident, I was like, I know these products are as good as, if not better than some of the products that patty pal themselves. So let's do it. Rip in and I'm here if you've got any questions. And it was like a six month kind of period. And then, yeah, we got in the stores and it's been fantastic because we've got all this new discovery, like people are finding the product in store. There's the added credibility for those people that had never heard of us. But going back to the, like, overall brand strategy, I don't imagine we'll go into any other retailers. Like, I want to keep it pretty lean in terms of retail presence. The focus is definitely like E Comm, direct to consumer.
Nathan Bush: Yep. So you mentioned at the start where we talked about a lean team.
Sam Schumann: Right.
Nathan Bush: So we're in the warehouse here. There's yourself and Oliver packing orders furiously. Oliver doesn't get paid enough. Sorry, sorry, mate.
Sam Schumann: So rude.
Nathan Bush: Mate, great job out there just watching you. But you've got a whole range of specialists that are working with you. How do you create that network of people who can do different skill sets?
Sam Schumann: It so comes down to talking to other people in the industry. I mean, not even in our industry specifically, but just in the E Comm community. I guess we've tried so many times to find people through fiverr and upwork and all that sort of stuff, but the good people generally only have a few clients and, yeah, they're protected by the people that use them. So, yeah, I've reached out to people who I've listened to on your podcast before.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, don't name anyone. No,
Sam Schumann: Gabby, no, unfortunately not. But I seriously, I listen to like, podcasts and I'll listen for clues as to, like, what this big brand, like if they drop something and there's a hint there, I'm gone searching for that person. So, yeah, yeah, definitely like people you talk to, recommending people. Like, if I've learned one thing, you want a good recommendation on someone from someone else who's used them. But that's good for now, but we obviously need to grow an internal team. Like we've got a lot of specialists that do great work for us, but even for them, like, it's becoming too much. We need to have a bit of horsepower back here at Alton HQ to help push forward a lot of these ambitious plans that we've got.
Nathan Bush: Where do you start with that? What's first off, the rank.
Sam Schumann: I've Done a lot of thinking about this. I've spoken to a lot of other founders about this. It came down to probably, like, content coordination and that kind of thing and like, sort of operational stuff, I think. Yeah, we've got the operational stuff pretty, pretty covered. So given the amount of work we're doing in the content space. Yeah, that's probably the place we're going to start recruiting some people into the sort of content planning and deploying a lot of the content that we're coming up with. That's the space where we'll be hiring. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: Nice. Happy to help you with that shameless E suite plug.
Nathan Bush: So I think you're at a really
Nathan Bush: interesting point right now where you know your brand inside out, you know what you're creating, but now you're starting to build a team around you. So this is no longer the Sam show, right?
Sam Schumann: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: How do you take your passion for what you do and your baby and create a culture? What kind of culture do you want to create that others will buy into?
Sam Schumann: It's a tough question, and it's a tough question because I've never done it before for. So all I'm answering it. Answering with is my best guess. But having done a lot of thinking about it, because we've needed stuff for probably the last 12 months, we need
Nathan Bush: to wear houses for.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Sam Schumann: So I've thought long and hard and asked a lot of people and all that sort of stuff. So the culture that like, to answer the question about culture, I'd say it's definitely like an underdog culture. So, like you mentioned at the beginning, we're up against some big multinational brands with huge amounts of resources, but we're crushing them at certain. We're crushing them in terms of certain things. Right. So we are creating a culture internally where we have the confidence to be able to say, you know what, we can go out there and do this better than X, Y or Z, because we've done it before in other parts of the business. So to have that, I think the key to that underdog culture is like high performance. Like, everyone takes their responsibilities really seriously. Everyone's very attentive about what they're doing. And the key, like, the main thing is just everyone's passionate. Like, I look back to what my old job and the job I didn't like, and I always, I remember when I was there, I'd be like, oh, these managers are terrible. I just don't know how to manage people. And then I think back and go, well, what would I have done differently? Yeah. And what I would do differently is I would go to Sam sitting there behind the desk and say, mate, this. You can do so much better somewhere else. So I think when hiring and hiring for that team, it's really important to find people that are passionate about the space and enjoy it because it's no longer work then when you love it. I don't know, having been in both camps of having a job that I didn't like and a job that I do like, it's because I'm interested in what I'm doing. So I don't know. I think that's the key to. And we'll soon know.
Nathan Bush: But when you say passionate, do you mean that they have to be passionate about the outdoors and camping, or could you be passionate around innovative materials and not be a camper?
Sam Schumann: I think it's more passionate about your craft rather than the industrial space. So you don't need to be obsessed with the outdoors. In fact, all of the people I work with are experts that we work, work with. None of them have probably even been camping. But they are experts at their craft. So whether that be graphic design or industrial design or accounting or being a lawyer, whatever it is, they're experts and they're passionate about their craft.
Nathan Bush: So it awkward when you tell that videographer they've got to go camp out for five days to capture the content.
Sam Schumann: Yeah, well, there's certain roles the videographer definitely needs to love camping because they're out there. Yeah, it's just, I think it's. Yeah, it's being passionate about what you're doing.
Nathan Bush: So assuming everything goes to plan. New warehouse, you see all the products filling up the warehouse. You've moved to six warehouses by now. What does your role in the business look like?
Sam Schumann: I'd love to still lead the kind of division and I've pretty much trained myself to be able to sort of do all sorts of different things. But I think this the like where my strengths are around brand. So we're an E Commerce brand. But I'd say, like, if I'm being honest with myself, my strengths are not in the, you know, how do we improve our conversion rate? That kind of. That's not really me. I'm more how do we build a multigenerational brand that sits up there with Qantas and RM Williams? You know, that's, that's what's burning in my heart is I really want to create this brand that everyone loves and everyone is proud to use. So that's where I want my role to stay. Like, if things go well and the business grows really, really big, I want to be part of that brand and growing that brand.
Nathan Bush: Little goosebumps, then that's cool. All right. That all makes total sense, and I love that vision. Next 12 months. So we're off to China in the next couple of days to meet our partners for the first time. What else is exciting on your roadmap for the first time, next 12 months that you can give away on a public podcast?
Sam Schumann: Oh, it's all very much product based. Yeah. Product based excitement.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Sam Schumann: So the key to growing our brand is. Is getting new products out there. So we do the products we're doing, we're doing great. And there's just this constant thirst from our customers for new product. Like, why do you. Why are you guys not doing a tent? Why not doing a backpack? Why are you doing a swag? All these kinds of things. So.
Nathan Bush: And I suppose that's a big thing for you if you got your hat on quality. You don't want people ordering a new tent every two years. You need to expand the range.
Sam Schumann: Exactly, exactly. It's not the sort of brand where you're coming back to buy a new product every six months. So it needs to be a new product. Not the same one.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Sam Schumann: So, yeah, there's. I mean, there's not much I can really give away, but there's about probably 20 new products to release between now and Christmas. The one that's getting the most hype is the one with Scotty that we've collaborated on. So that's coming very soon and there's a lot of people waiting for that.
Nathan Bush: Tell you what I got excited about. And we can edit this out. If we. If we can't go to air with it was. You've got this contraption upstairs which is like a purse Pex pot. Probably, what, a foot in diameter.
Sam Schumann: Yep.
Nathan Bush: Filled. And you've got a piece of fabric in the middle, which is like a jacket fabric. Correct me if I'm wrong at any of this point.
Sam Schumann: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: Filled with water over the top of it. So there's air underneath it. Filled with water on top of. And you're able to blow air up the bottom and see how the air goes through the fabric and into the water, but the water doesn't go through the fabric into the air.
Sam Schumann: That's all. Yeah. There is a new fabric in the works. So excited about that. Yeah. There's a revolutionary fabric that we've been working on and like, random for a brand of our size, I think to be bringing out a fabric. But we were just in the right place at the right time at a trade show in America. And yeah, we came across someone who wanted to do it with us and yeah, that's a really exciting new fabric that's going to be part of two new products we're bringing out. You said that it looked like jacket material. It could be a jacket, it could be a tent. It could be anything.
Nathan Bush: It could be anything.
Sam Schumann: Sam, I don't.
Nathan Bush: I really don't want to leave this space because it feels like we're out in the middle of the bush, ready to kind of light a couple of marshmallows, maybe have a whiskey.
Sam Schumann: There's a Queensland own there, Bundy Bump sitting on his arm.
Nathan Bush: It's only 11 o' clock in the morning. Let's not, let's not be silly. But I love what you're creating and I love the differentiation that you've made market so far. You've got the bones in place but, you know, to take on the world, really. Thank you so much for joining us on Add to Cart. Good luck on your trip to China
Nathan Bush: and hopefully we're speaking again very soon.
Sam Schumann: Thank you, mate. It's been a real pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Nathan Bush: There you go. Our very first campside fireside chat on Add to Cart. Make sure you check out the clip of that on Instagram or TikTok. Our handle is Add to Cart Show. Sam has sectioned off a brilliant part of his warehouse to help him create content in the middle of a warehouse. It really does feel like you're in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere.
Nathan Bush: A really cool space.
Nathan Bush: Alright, here are the three lessons that I took from my chat with Sam. Number one, the downside of quality. Now, it doesn't seem like a problem because Sam has built a great brand based around quality product and while that is great for customer satisfaction and word of mouth, it really sucks for repeat purchase. Sam doesn't want anyone buying new tents after a couple of years. These things should last you, but much, much longer than that. Not great for lifetime value, Right? So it's pushed him to continually innovate and expand the range, which is crucial because his customers are chomping at the bit for new products to buy. It's a tricky but good problem to have forecast the warehouse that you want to be. We heard from Sam how hard he was finding it to find a new warehouse. He's been looking for 10 months and I know he's not alone there. I've heard from you some of your stories as well, I liked when he talked about forecasting the size of the warehouse that you want your business to be. It makes sense and it becomes a big, expensive dashboard of how close you are to achieving your goal. Forecast what you want to be and by when and set your infrastructure, whether that be your warehouse, your technology or your product, up for that result and you'll push yourself to get there. Number three Always Be Asking for Feedback this part didn't actually go to air, but I realized it after our chat. Sam is always asking for feedback. Like genuine feedback. He did it twice in the recording, one time when we had to pause and then he also did it at the end. He said how is it? Am I giving enough? And I replied, yep, yep, it's all pretty good. But he pushed me.
Sam Schumann: Me.
Nathan Bush: He said be honest with me, what's
Nathan Bush: something I can do better?
Nathan Bush: He didn't ask for feedback because he lacks confidence. He is genuinely trying to improve and get feedback at every opportunity and I love that. To get the highlights of today's episode, head on over to add to cart.com and sign up for our free newsletter each Tuesday. We will send Monday's episode summary links and discount codes for you to go next level on. And if you're looking to explore your next e commerce opportunity, come and Visit us at eSweet. We're a dedicated e commerce talent agency connecting the best e commerce talent with the fastest growing brands in Australia. Head on over to esweettalent.com where you can download the free E Commerce Salary Guide and sign up to our weekly E Commerce Join Job emails. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep those customers adding to card.
