Primary
other on 2 shows · 0 statements across 0 episodes
Mentions by year, every show
tap a year for its mentions
How I Built This 16
20VC 1
2024 16 mentions in 2 episodes 8 per episode
2018 1 mention in 1 episode
every mention on every show, scene by scene, with the transcript →
21 statements about Primary, every show
Incumbent childrenswear became overly complicated with slogans and excessive embellishments
“Clothing in general, and kids' clothing included, had become so complicated, so proliferated with, you know, slogans and over-embellishments.”
Traditional childrenswear incumbents treated basic apparel as a boring afterthought
“And what was interesting to us was that that was really exciting to us, but it was really boring to everyone else who was in this industry. This was the afterthought to them. The basics were boring.”
Primary initially targeted a $750,000 seed round to finance inventory
“Our target was 750,000 dollars to basically get us to the point where we were ready to launch, so our first inventory buy, obviously some product development along the way, and then mostly otherwise it was people who could help us build a website, could help u…”
Specializing in basic apparel drives better customer loyalty than trend-chasing
“By focusing on it, we could actually do it really well in a way that was sort of profitable, and, you know, a solid business, and the basis of an amazing customer relationship, where, yes, a bunch of other companies could and do sell and A basic white t-shirt …”
Primary secured a $2.5 million seed round after fifty pitches
“We had probably more than 50 meetings ended up with two sort of lead venture investors, as well as, like, a bunch of friends and family who, you know, were sort of excited about the idea and wanted to be supportive. So, yeah, we raised two and a half million i…”
Primary launched with thirty-five apparel styles across twenty color options
“So when we launched, I think we had 35 styles in total, and most of them came in over 20 colors”
Apparel manufacturing factory contacts are closely guarded industry secrets
“And we also learned that those are often well-kept secrets. People don't want to always share that information either.”
Primary launched by giving early users a year of free shipping
“First of all, the first thing we did from a marketing perspective is we armed everyone we knew, friends, family, and investors, with a personalized promotion code that gave anyone that used it free shipping for a year, which was kind of a, yeah, crazy offer. A…”
A Series A investor reneged on Primary due to portfolio conflict
“And so we jumped on the phone and yeah, the message was, you know, I'm so sorry, but I have another company in my portfolio that is sort of pivoting into the same space and I can't make this investment now.”
Primary's seed investors supplied bridge funding after a blown Series A
“But I think to the credit of our existing investors from our previous round, they were able to sort of bridge us into the spring so that we could sort of go back out and raise a proper Series A.”
Strong consumer brands cannot be built by playing straight down the middle
“And the other thing I think we would say is that brands are not built by playing it straight down the middle.”
Primary eliminated gendered clothing sections to organize inventory purely by age
“And so we pretty quickly did away with those and started marketing just to baby and kids and have ever since.”
Primary achieved $30 million in annual revenue within three years
“So by 2018, three years after launch, Primary is growing fast. They're up to a few dozen employees and around thirty million in revenue.”
Primary requires new evergreen clothing products to have five-year lifespans
“So when we started, you know, sort of our concept of evergreen was that if we were going to launch something, we needed to believe that we could sell it for at least five years.”
Primary resolves co-CEO disagreements by deferring to the more passionate founder
“In an instance where we don't totally agree, we're both very happy to sort of let the other person, whoever feels strongly, be the decider.”
Primary asserts its four-day work week boosted productivity and employee loyalty
“I think we would argue that it has benefited productivity as well as employee loyalty, which both have very tangible benefits for the company.”
Most Primary employees have stayed at the company for over four years
“Most of our team has been here over four years.”
Primary centers its manufacturing in Vietnam and India over China
“But for now, I think we're sort of firmly in in Vietnam and India with still a little bit of production in China.”
Primary plans to partner with larger retailers for international physical expansion
“The idea of having a partner at some point in the future who Maybe has some deeper pockets than we do, and who also has had experience in additional distribution channels or physical retail or international or, you know, sort of other growth areas that Christi…”
Founders project Primary will scale into a billion-dollar apparel brand
“I think when we look at the big players out there that have been around for a really long time, we think we can be a half billion to billion dollar brand, just like they are.”