The Exchanges

Q When did you guys, I know in 2011, both of you quit your day jobs, right? When did you feel like you, you were comfortable doing that? Um, Jamie, what was the catalyst for you? Were you like, okay, this is real?

A For me, it was, Lyndon actually left about six months prior to myself. Lyndon had a few more conflicts in his sales agency than I did. And so I kept my job for about six more months, and I think all along too, for me, was trying to get bags to not just be a one season a year business for a lot of these retailers, where we went out our first season and sold in back to school, and that's fall. And outside of that, coming into spring and into summer and into holiday, the bag business at some places didn't exist. And that word test was out there a lot. It was, oh, we'll give you a small test order. And We really had to take a lot of risk to sell that extra stock that we were bringing in. As I saw these replenish orders continue to come, and I saw the bag market switching from a one season a year business really into two, and then for us to bring in a third and a fourth season, and really seeing it resonate, that's when I started to get comfortable, where this is more than a hobby. There's also a component that we haven't talked a lot about, was just on the international side. Year two and three, We were in five countries around the globe, not just in North America.

AI assessment note: “As I saw these replenish orders continue to come... that's when I started to get comfortable”

Q So, but, but do you remember how you sort of landed on, or just talked about bags? Like, did you have exposure to bags just with what you were doing as a sales rep, or, or did you, was it just, just an intuition that came out of thin air?

A Linden talked about one foot in the city, one foot in nature. We, bags were part of stuff we were doing. When you have that adventurous spirit and mindset, you end up in the outdoors. I spent quite a bit of time in the outdoors, even around watching guides, And the way that they work, they really edit down their gear. What doesn't fit inside doesn't come. They would cut away what was unuseful. So, for us, when we looked at bags in general, I think it was the one category that probably our generation didn't have. One that we could call our own. It seemed like there was the right denim, the right footwear, the right eyewear, the right watches. Bags just kept coming up because most of the bags we looked at in the market were too busy. There was too many useless features, and we really probably looked more internationally to Japan and the aesthetic of quality and simple, and felt like you could dress it up, dress it down, and as we kept bouncing back and forth on ideas, bags kept coming up because there wasn't one there that we just loved.

AI assessment note: “Bags just kept coming up because most of the bags we looked at in the market”

Q How so? What, what, what, what was the problem with them?

A Shapes were off guy, measurements were wrong, details weren't there. The bags were stitched properly, the quality was there, but the shape, the feeling, the drape, the total aesthetic we were going for wasn't even close, um, so. I think it's at that time that, um, we got on the phone and decided it might be time to take a trip overseas to spend some time in their, in, in their sample room, and so I booked a trip, I think, the following day, um, after getting off the phone with him and, um, got a visa, and I, uh, headed over to China about, I'm gonna say, a couple weeks after receiving those first samples. Um, the first thing, the first deadline we had was we had booked a, a trade show in New York City. And we had this deadline that we had to get these bags done and ready for us, so.

AI assessment note: “Shapes were off guy, measurements were wrong, details weren't there.”

Q it wasn't like there were no backpacks. I mean, there were, you know, as a kid, I had a Gen Sport backpack, I think, and, you know, obviously the, you know, the, the big brands, the Adidas's and, you know, Nike's made backpacks, but you felt like They fit in one category or another, like they were either just for sports or for hiking, but there was nothing in between?

A There wasn't a bag company that had a heartbeat. It was more of a race to the bottom than a race to a story, and the bag market, it really is a unique purchase. The value at point of purchase is so much less Then the sentimental value they have once they own it. And it's, it's different than so many other industries that I've looked at more than footwear or denim or, you know, any other purchase. Once they own a backpack, because they do carry it every day, especially if you carried it around university for an entire year, you remember that backpack, the sentimental value, the first trip to Europe, the first trip here, but do they remember the shoes they had on? Do they remember the jacket they wore the first day? Probably not, but that backpack, that value is so much higher after purchase, and it was really interesting that, you know, Lyndon and I talked a lot about it, but we knew we had to really change the bag market and show up better, and make sure we added value to the market.

AI assessment note: “There wasn't a bag company that had a heartbeat.”