Vuori

“So over the first few years of the business, we raised two million dollars of capital from friends and family, no financial institutions.”

“Before you knew it, we were putting 10,000 dollars in and we were getting 20,000 dollars back in a month. And then we were putting 20,000 dollars in and we were getting 60,000 dollars back.”

“A lot of the money ended up going to shareholders because the business didn't need capital. So we didn't go out and put a bunch of money on the balance sheet at that time because we didn't want it to create bad habits. We were very proud of the discipline and …”

“I think our first raise, we had a goal of a couple million dollars, I think we raised 400, like 400 to 500,000, somewhere in that range.”

“Yeah. We weren't looking for capital, but, you know, we had ambitious plans for Viore, and that was a really big moment for the brand, because short of an IPO, I think it was the first time that Maybe the market understood how special this business is that we'…”

“The dirty secret in our space is that the big brands, you know, they were really premium footwear offerings, but they never really had a premium apparel offering. Whereas like Lulu inherently was working with fabrics that were much more expensive. So before yo…”

“And so, 2018 was when we decided it was time, and we designed a very small capsule for women's, and we brought it to market, and today, 50% of our business is actually women's.”

“I'm a big believer in less is more initially sell into a few wholesale accounts and really be present, like show up, develop relationships with the staff on the floor. Get your product on them so they're wearing it, and then they get excited about it and want …”

“We sold into five doors at Nordstrom and it didn't do well. You know, and it didn't do well because we were just too early to market and we hadn't built a community around the brand. We didn't have like a group of advocates and influencers and celebrities that…”

“I mean, in my early days, our head of marketing took a 50% pay cut to join us because she believed in what we were building and she had some skin in the game.”

“Joe Kudla started that brand. They didn't resonate. And the reason why is they tried to sell yoga wear for men. In yoga studios. So they really kind of took the same product and just changed the way they marketed it. They basically said, Hey this is for hiking…”