Her Fashion Brand Went From Near-Death To 3Xing Profit In One Year transcript

Last we left Nazarin, uh there was a moment where she was trending towards like an eight figureure business doing 40 grand a day on a new product drop that was absolutely taking off. AF Growth was servicing the business. It was going great and then it stopped going great and we haven't told the next part of the story for a little while but for whatever reason we could not figure out why we went from $40,000 days to much lower days and that 8 figure dream collapsed.

It it did not happen in that time. And I am going to pick up the story today with Nazarin Jafari from Mixed by Nazarin. And you've heard Nasar on this podcast multiple times before. A great friend in the space and a really really awesome business because the story is crazy after this. There are downs, there are ups, there are lows, there are highs. And we are going to talk about a Black Friday Cyber Monday sale that had a 350% improvement year-over-year.

Much more profit. New product release is going great. She's wearing one actually on this episode right now. I can see it as she's usually wearing some Nasarin clothes. Mixed by Nazarin fashion brand in Brooklyn. Formerly AJF growth client still kind of sort of very small way. AJF growth client and great friend in the space. Uh this is a really cool story from an operator who is smashing right now but has not always been and who has very bright future as well.

Let's go into it with Nazarin Jafari from Mixed by Nazarin. >> Hello Nazarin. >> Hey Andrew. >> Good to see you. Good to see you. >> Um I am uh I am so excited about this. We have like you know obviously been DMing here and there along the way. I've been sort of aware of what's happening in your business. But after you fired us uh which we all thought was a good idea actually. It was like yeah it's probably not going to work or at least downgraded services dramatically.

We did that because we all made the sort of joint assessment which was that like financially it didn't make sense for you to keep working with us but also what we provide was not really what Mixer needed uh at the time uh of the business. And so I want to actually start us by going back a couple years to what I sort of brought up in the intro which you just heard me record which is this moment where we were hitting something like 40 grand a day.

And I I I remember just being so confident. I was just like we're this is an 8 figureure business just we just are there now. But then something happened which is that just like for no discernable reason like there was no super high frequency on ads. There was no financial disaster that happened somewhere or whatever. It just like just that just faded out. we just slowly saw less and less profitable ad spend happening and it just kind of went backwards.

I don't know if you remember the exact moment that I'm talking about. Maybe you remember it very very well because the story I want to tell here to tell people where we're going is to talk from there to the decline that happened after and then critically what you did to write the ship because let's just spoil the ending here. You've got 100% year-over-year growth. You're like 3x as profitable as a percentage. So that means growing top line with a bunch more percentage bottom line.

Like everything about the business is drastically better than it was not that long ago. And so you fixed it. You solved it and it's a really really strong business right now that I think anybody would be really happy to have. So let's go backwards to what we were looking at then and maybe you can describe that moment a little bit Nazarin and then what your assessment of what happened was and that maybe will lead us to what fixed it.

So long long question but there you go. >> Sure. So, it was the beginning of 2024 when we really started a fully on-ramp together. I know we started a little bit late in 2023 and we that was the first time in January where we got the explainer to really hit for us and that was a new format of ads that we discovered really worked well for the brand. And the first one we did was that Ruby jumpsuit explainer in January of 2024.

I think it did like we did like maybe 200,000 in sales that week. And then we just took that format and applied it to our bestsellers, our denim jumpsuit, our secret garden jumpsuit, items that we actually had already had in the assortment, but we just added this format to that completely just unlocked the account from January to I would say about April. And then in April, things fell off of the cliff. And moving forward that year, there wasn't any other product drop or product winner that made itself clear.

And I think some of that has to do with seasonality in the ad account. Every year I've noticed that spring like that Feb to April period is a really high buying time I think people are refreshing their closets. People are more in market for what we're selling and so we've always every year sold more in that early spring period. Summer tends to be a little bit slower and a lot of that depends on what product you have available fall as well.

So when we were working together I think we only had one drop in the fall. There was no pre-fall collection. there was no knits collection and fall and winter is really geared towards like warmer weather clothing whether that's outerwear or knits and we didn't have any of that in the assortment. So it was just really hard to get the meta account to kind of come back to life in the way that it did in early spring uh even with the you know the explainers on different products just didn't quite hit as well. >> Yeah. um those explainer videos really worked.

And it's it's interesting because in some ways you would sort of think a fashion business like you have is exactly the wrong kind of business for an explainer format to work, but these would be like two three minute videos where you the founder are going through and and showing every detail of the product, you know, and I think I still think part of the reason those worked so well was what your product, your hero product was and kind of is, although you've you've diversified some, which is that jumpsuit, right?

So maybe you can just take a second talk about why you think that format worked for your customer. Do you have any theories about that? >> Yeah, I mean a a couple. One is that what you kind of touched on is that we sell jumpsuits and jumpsuits have a lot of fit issues with people. People are a little bit hesitant to buy them because they have to fit just right. And so talking through what the fit looks like for the jumpsuit that that the fabric is stretchy that you know just to basically to answer all the questions that a potential customer might have I think was really helpful.

Another thing is that our customer from the data I am able to gather at this point seems to be a little bit in an older age range and I think that that customer wants to see like that full explainer video. But I'm also curious about other formats that speak more towards a younger audience or a 20s and 30s audience because I do think that that format is more so geared towards an older audience. >> Yeah, it's funny. Alex Griffeld has said this about I always feel like I'm getting her name wrong if it's Grief or Garfield.

Alex has said, including conversation with you, that like sort of that format does work particularly well for an older audience and that that like there is a real like sort of age ad format fit with those kinds of things. So, um you know, it's super interesting, but I think your broader point is is the more interesting thing here, which is sort of like product and seasonality with this huge layer. And this is something I've really come to believe a lot of times when you see ad accounts and I've seen a bunch of these now where the same ads have a huge lift and do really really well and then just kind of steadily fade out over time >> when you see those moments that almost always there's a seasonality thing going on especially if you don't see like a really really high frequency.

Yeah. >> So like it's possible that you just have like tapped into a very small audience and that you've saturated them quickly but that's pretty hard to do. a lot of people on Facebook and Instagram. Most products like this like fit a lot of people. So, a lot of times what that is instead is that like the seasonal buying moment like essentially that the demand side of the equation changes extremely fast and it's extremely powerful.

And I think that was the thing that we had kicked around and I remember we were debating this a bunch at the time of like what in the world like why is this happening? And this was like one of the theories but it's also whenever you're in that moment it's very hard to prove. It always feels like well if we just got to I don't know it worked really well and we got the right ad. So yeah, but I've seen this in other businesses too where it just it really is seasonality and like massive demand side changes that have an overwhelming impact on the ad account and really change what CAC is possible on a given product.

So okay, so if that is your theory kind of went through 2024, what happened after that as you sort of reassessed both sort of that moment and other moments in the business to think about okay, how is Mix by NASAM going to take it another step forward? What did you do >> because you had incredible success this year? Yeah, I mean I think it's about more product, better product and better pacing of that product. So when I moved into this year, it was about, you know, how do we how do I think about my assortment on a more holistic basis?

What do we already have for the customer? What are the gaps? And then what how can we fill them? What are things that worked really well in the past? Was it denim? Was it solid? Was it a certain type of print? and how do we take some of those, you know, qualities and characteristics and apply them to new product moving forward so that we have a better chance to find another one of those winning products. And then I think part of it was having, you know, we're building this kind of like library of evergreen best-selling products that also balances out some of the volatility in the brand.

So I think time just in business is helpful, which we've talked about as well. And yeah, I mean eventually we found new winning products. We had um our Rachel denim dress. did took off in the spring and that's done. Uh that's been our bestselling product this year. The AcuMaxi was our second bestseller this year, but that was from fall of 24. So that's an example of how, you know, just having that core evergreen bestseller just continues to carry the business moving forward.

And then the first, you know, game changer this year was um our first million-doll month. So we had our anniversary sale, we do it every year, it's our birthday sale in July. And the year prior we done about like 400,000 let's say and um we ended up doing a million and 70% of that was on pre-order. So I think there was a lot of demand that was missed. I think had we been in stock we could have done a lot better. >> Um and I think part of that had to do with just the spend that we were doing in the spring and how much you know more top of funnel more awareness that we got on the brand that then come July people were ready to purchase.

I think for us the birthday sale has tends to be our biggest moment because it's easier for us to spend on meta when during the time when the auction's just not as saturated. >> And also a couple things. So less saturation in the meta auction too. We get most of our eyeballs on the brand in the spring because that is like we talked about a tailwind in the industry. People are doing outfit refresh, wardrobe refresh. They're looking for new stuff and also people want to wear a lot of color in the spring and summer.

And I think most people think about mixed and think about bold color, which is just more relevant to that season. So that was really the big moment that changed the trajectory for of the business. Up until then, we would we were just maybe like 20% year-over-year, but that million-doll month helped me unlock something. I just I didn't realize how much demand was kind of just there for the business. And um >> after the birthday sale, we'd come out with another five collections, which we'd not done that volume in the past.

We did a pre-f fall collection, a fall collection, a knits collection, a holiday collection. Sorry, four, not five. Whereas in the past, after the birthday sale, all we had was one fall collection. So, you know, and I saw how that even just that pre-fall collection, it was only five pieces, but all of those pieces hit and some of those ended up becoming the best sellers of the second half of the year. So, this again, like that shot, those shots on goals when you get it right, you have well, one, when you're coming out with more products, you have more shots.

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Like I said, your first three months. Intelligence.io. Link is in the show notes. Go check it out today. One of the reasons I I was really eager to talk to you and have this episode is that I it it fits it fits my narrative. Um, and and I want to I want to keep selling this point to people, which is that like when we answer the question of like why you had that first moment where you're having those $40,000 days, whatever, right?

It's like, okay, well, we had a a mix of product that worked at the right seasonal moment in the early spring, >> but also like we had an ad that helped unlock that and a format that helped unlock that. And I never want to discount that too much. But what you should also hear in that is that that ad probably helped us capitalize on a moment and our media buying I think probably helped us capitalize on a moment better than we would have otherwise. >> But also it was totally insufficient for creating like the real long tale of growth when everything else you just said in your answer was product seasonality.

You mentioned two dresses that were top sellers. Previously it was always jumpsuits that were top sellers but maybe there's a tam unlock with dresses. And then you also mentioned um two major promotional moments uh which is really interesting. So like you know >> Yep. hitting promotional moments, right? Uh those being really big levers for generating a whole bunch more value awareness of how the promotional moment fits the seasonality which is another which is like basically combining those two things and then also like number of products.

And you put all that together and you now end up with like the real pathway forward. Um, and I'll pat myself on the back a little bit here, which is that like at some point that was sort of my conclusion in the business as well. And part of why I thought like we can't actually help you anymore is like this becomes a challenge of how much product can you release that hits, especially in fashion, where it's like it's going to be >> there going to be times of year where people are I mean there's the really obvious example here is there's going to be times of year people are not going to buy a sweater.

They're not going to buy a sweater in July. They're just not. >> Okay. So So that means seasonality is built into the product in a in a unique way in fashion. I think yeah um it's this is probably true of a lot of businesses in every way but you know some businesses there's like larger inflections on this sort of thing and this is one of them. So now you get four product releases instead of one during that second half of the year.

You get product releases that are hitting more and then you align your marketing moments to that and the net result of that is 100% year-over-year growth. Massively bigger BFCM, massively bigger birthday sale and a whole bunch more profit all happening at the same time. And also just like a much more sustainable business. And it's such a like it's such a good thing I think for people to hear because especially for people who listen to somebody like me who talks about things like meta ads tactics and stuff like that just the temptation is always to go back to >> like ah we just got to find that right ad or we got to auto bid and or because you know your manual bids are choking out the span in the wrong way or whatever it is.

It's like no it's not the way that you're really going to grow your business. That stuff is all in volleyball that those are all the things that are the sets and the set matters or the bump matters, right? But the spike is the product and is the moment and all those things. >> Yeah. >> But the product also it's harder and it takes longer to create. So I think I understand why people go to like the thing the button that they could click today and then get result from the experience later that day.

But yeah, I think at the end of the day, it's the unsexy work of actually building the bones of a business, which yeah, product and >> you just called it unsexy, but do you do you think that's true? Like which part of the business do you like more? Is it more fun when you're working on product all the time, or is it more fun when you're working on changing the ad account all the time? I'm I'm a leading question, but I'm I'm actually curious what you think. >> I mean, I don't see my business in just those two like dimensions, but >> Sure.

Sure. I mean obviously working on product is fun but it's I think that it's the feedback loop that's different right the product you know you can be working on that three to six months until you get you can test it whereas meta you can test it today and I think that's that's a nice for us >> yeah yeah >> but I think you know just another example of what you were saying right product right time um this fall we had our you know we launched our pre-fall fall collection and then you know come October it was just dying out it was it was getting slow and then launched knits and right away right that week just like three 4x revenue cuz it was just people wanted knits in the fall.

They didn't want like short sleeves or you know so >> wow was that big of an impact that fast huh? >> Yes. That big that fast. dropped it and then on a Sunday and then on starting Monday spend just like completely increases it all in a bid cap cost cap structure and then that week just crushed and and then similarly you know what like it got a little softer and a little softer um and I wasn't like oh my gosh what's breaking out what's happening is like okay this is you know this is how it works and um this just means next year I need another collection that drops three weeks later or four weeks later whatever it is >> and we did that Yeah. >> And it did well. >> Okay.

So, so you did all of those things. You also mentioned something else to me quickly, which is that your returns have gotten better because you're talking about net revenue numbers where you doubled the revenue this year, etc., and saw lower amounts of returns. Did you do something to accomplish that? Because this is a big problem for a lot of apparel businesses and was a very big problem in your business in particular, which is that like the return rate was so high that just like kind of crushed your gross margin.

Um, was there a tactic there or something? >> I mean, we did more dresses and dresses have been selling. They're some of our top sellers and I think dresses are just easier to fit than jumpsuits. Other than that, I mean, we've always tried to use fabrics that have more stretch or denim has stretch so that we can decrease that rate of return. Um, but yeah, other than that, that's I would say probably just a category expansion and having that be a bestseller. >> That's a big deal though.

I mean, we again another thing I remember talking about if we could sell something like dresses instead of jumpsuits. Like jumpsuits are >> sort of a brutal >> product to sell due to C because they're really hard to fit. There's a really high return rate. Like >> I've noticed a lot of like a lot of brands don't do jumpsuits and I bet that's a good reason why. >> Yeah. >> But I think it Yeah. >> Exactly. Right. Make probably helps helps you in one respect, right?

Because if you're willing to sort of suffer through it, then great. Let's talk more about the product development process. you mentioned like sort of this idea of thinking about the product in terms of what parts of your collection like sort of what you're not selling that people want is you know I forgot how you phrased it exactly but can you talk about how you think about adding in something like knits you're wearing this sweater right now is that one of the knits that you >> Yes.

Awesome. Uh with with chili peppers on it. It's pretty great. Um so um so uh yeah so yeah you added knits you added maxi dresses. You added stuff like that. like how did you how have you thought about sort of not just like design but sort of c product category? Um and I'd actually love to hear any details you have on sort of like if there's any research or anything like that that's part of that process like and maybe not like maybe just obviously like I don't know if people want dresses you know but um but yeah how are you thinking about that? >> Yeah so on a a couple different levels.

So one if we're just talking like blanket seasonality I think what's obvious is in the fall people want something warmer. So that's knits and outerear. outwear is a little bit harder to develop, so I went with knits. And then another way that I like to slice it is thinking about our existing customer. What have we already offered her? And then what what gaps do we need to fill? So we have a ton of short sleeve jumpsuits.

Why don't we just lengthen the sleeve on that jumpsuit for the fall winter? That seems to make sense and it's like easier in terms of product development lift. >> Now that's did that work? >> Yeah, it did work. It did work. Not not in a huge way, but it worked. Yeah. And then I also think what is another gap in our in our assortment. Well, we don't have that many solids. And then also when it comes to fall textures, people like texture.

People like, again, we talked about warmth, coziness. Let's try corduroy. We did solid corduroy crushed. Every solid corduroy just crushed and it's so easy. It's a solid color. I don't have to design the print. Like I'm like, let's keep it going. [laughter] >> That's awesome. >> So, that did really well. And then I also think about it in terms of like um I think about like what's the new product for the existing customer but then what's the new product for the new customers that we plan to acquire on meta and some of that has to do with like the margin profile of that product. what's the MSRP of that product and how well is that going to perform on meta and then visually how well is that going to perform on meta and then thinking about like if we're doing a mini dress for example that's probably not going to be for our existing customer because our existing customer it's an older woman she's not like an 18-year-old girl so if if we're going to do a mini dress and we need to be ready to acquire that customer and like do we have like the media and the brand you know to do that so I think about it on like on a couple different levels and yeah I mean in terms of like research.

There's I I have like a post-purchase, you know, what do you want to see next from us? But I think there's customer, you know, behavior and then what they say they want. So, >> you just heard Nazarin talk about how important it will be in her business to have [music] lower COGS. And you may not have the ability or even the knowledge, whether it's time or knowledge or both, to go figure out how to do that in your business.

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Make this next year the year that you hammer away at bring efficiency to your supply chain with move supply chain. And what I'm partly curious about sort of where this is all headed in the future. So based on what you learned this year, before we go there too much on the product level, what about at the level of creative? I mean, you mentioned earlier the notion that like the long form explainer maybe works great but only is going to reach a certain age level or something a little bit more.

What have you done >> at the level of ad creative and and has that been important? If so, how? >> Yeah, huge unlock on the ad side. So, last year I think when we were working together, I was really the only person in the ads. I was like filming it myself on a tripod and um yeah, it just I I think I resonated with a certain segment of audience and then not beyond that. So now we have like a a really nice creative flywheel that happens almost without me every week where we do ad content shoots with different models, creators, friends, customers, just different people who can come across well on camera.

And we go to different apartments and we shoot these explainers. We shoot just things as simple as just like the girl standing back in the product and she's kind of like doing this and she's kind of showing the zipper and she's showing us like the product features but not actually speaking to camera. We do several different types of formats. So, you know, we have content captures and then we have our talent. They shoot for a couple hours.

Each week, we upload about 40 to 50 new ads to the account. And what's important is that we have a fresh face, so a different model wearing some whatever garment we assign for that shoot. And then also the backdrop actually quite we think like matters some in terms of like what is the setting? Is it is that setting getting refreshed with all the ads that we're putting out? Is it you know aspirational to the brand? Does it make sense with the garment? almost thinking about it in terms of like a merchandiser when you're thinking about like uh all the people the talent the product and then the the setting the location so yeah I having all of those different I like I am sometimes at the top of the ad account uh and when I say that I mean we always sort our ad account by spend uh what spends the most is what's what we consider doing those ads doing well in the account so you know sometimes I'm at the top but oftentimes you know now I'm not which is amazing it's a you know huge >> for that creative flywheel can talk about a little bit about how you built it.

So, let's just kind of talk about each person of it. So, how did you find models for that? Who who you're using for it? >> I think about this so often because a lot of brand like people ask me, owners ask me like how do you find these people and how what's the process? And I've realized so much of like of the people around the brand has to do with the brand itself. Not only liking it and wanting to be a part of it, but we do have like an in-person presence.

We do have our events. We are actually friends with these people. They want to be friends with us. They want to support us. And so a lot of them are either customers who have come through the studio, people who have come to our events, our shows, models who have like modeled for us and wanted to work. Like one of my employees is she was a model for the brand because these models are often like creatives that are doing a bunch of other things, freelancing here and there, and so they're happy to be in those content shoots.

Some of them are literally just customers who walk through the door in our showroom, our office studio space. So, and then some of it's like their friends. Having a brand where you like never see a customer in person, I can imagine it being hard to find people who are willing to like wear the clothes and do the ad and speak to camera in a convincing like authentic way, but I think that comes across probably in the ads because they're real people who actually wear the clothes. >> I think this is one of the sneaky powers of mix actually is uh is is your inerson events and the way people love the brand like this.

I've been to one of them. One of those situations where I was I I actually really enjoyed how much of a fish out of water I was being at like a fashion event in Brooklyn. Like you just Anybody who's watched this podcast knows that I wear a t-shirt and a hat every day all the time. And you I asked you what to wear and afterwards I realized like well it doesn't really matter like that's what I'm going to wear. I'm going to wear jeans and t-shirt and a hat.

And it was like a funny thing. But anyway uh but it was it was really awesome. It was really awesome to see. I loved it's just not a community I get to engage in much. So I really enjoyed it. But how many people are at those events usually? like about 200 and that's pretty much all we can fit in the studio, >> right? Yeah. Yeah. A couple hundred at your studio. I think I have another little theory that more brands need to do some kind of inerson events, particularly if they have some kind of um enthusiast element like a fashion brand does.

And it's it's hard to justify because like I'm I watch how much work you put into those. Those are a lot of work. >> Uh a lot of time they cost money. Like they are not probably very profitable if at all on those moments. But but what you just said about your ability to work with models and have people excited about it, I think people really underestimate the power of going deep with highly enthusiastic people, even if it's a small number of people.

Totally. >> Uh for for the downstream benefits of that. And so I I really love that. What about how you have thought about who's shooting it and how much money you're putting into these? Can you give any sense like do you have a certain budget for how you're thinking about how to generate this creative? Like are you thinking about as a percentage of spent or a budget per drop or anything like that? Yeah. So, at first I was like, I just need to start this flywheel.

Like, if we're spending XML on and meta, we're spending literally nothing on the creative production side of things. Like, I think we we were spending that money with you and then I the realization was like, >> hey, like you actually can't create the creative that works for this >> and so I need to take the money that I was paying you and then put that into this creative flywheel. So, that's kind of how I first thought about it really is like allocating that budget somewhere else.

As a percentage of spend, man, it's it's very small. Yeah, >> I should calculate that probably less than a percent. Um, yeah, but what we do is, uh, you know, the the content capture, I think what works well for us is I know some brands like to take the product, ship it to a creator, have the creator like make it, edit it, and send them back the editive creative. I find that that is a very long and cumbersome process there.

It's much more expensive, and oftentimes the assets you get back are just not what you need for ads. So what we do is we take the editing burden off of the talent. We have our content creator go in and shoot them for two hours. So it's just two hours of their their time. We pay them an hourly rate depending on their like level of experience. All the editing is done inhouse and we have um an editor in the Philippines, Cam, who is amazing and she understands all of our formats um all the different types of angles, different hooks, different iterations to make and uh we give her all the raw media and then from a two-hour shoot she gets about like 40 ads out of that.

And so every ad ends up becoming >> 5 $10, you know, every every sorry every video. And of course there are it's iterations I'm including in that. Mhm. >> Uh >> yeah. >> And so that's that's been a good way for us to stretch our dollars. Uh >> so far as I've seen, >> it makes sense to me like you you you shoot locally, you get people who are enthusiastic about the brand and you edit overseas somewhere with somebody who's really talented.

As always, I I am I am voice as loud of a voice as there is anywhere that like if you're just like don't sleep on offshore people. There's this idea that paying less means you're going to get less talented people and it's not true. You're going to like it's just there's really good. So I think you're also right that like in your particular business there is a reality and I've had other fashion brands come to me and apparel brands come to me and I've kind of looked at it and said like I'm not sure we're the right partner for you actually because what we are actually super super good at is messaging and so like that explainer kind of content we could do it all day but in fact for some brands it's really not what they need most or at least not like that it's going to be so much more about their production process and getting the right models and yeah creator types.

So, and I also really like that distinction you're making about whether or not you want the creator to do the edit versus like where that cost is. Yeah. >> Um I the the distinction I would make there is if you are hiring creators who are distinguished by their ability >> to create great organic content uh like algorithmically strong content, you should pay them to do the edit because that's actually the skill. But if you actually just hiring models or something where their core talent is that they look good on camera in your clothes and they're the right demographic and all those kinds of things, then you should do the edit.

It will be much cheaper and you'll and you'll get better quality work and you'll learn what works. You know, I think there's a place for both of those approaches and it's just you have to know which one you're trying to do. You know, >> how's it going to get better next year? What are you focusing on next to improve it again? How do you how do you keep the business moving forward? I think the the biggest lever in the business is our COGS and we are working with a new supplier that's going to bring our COGS down from you know 30% to about 10 to 15% I would say 15% on the high end.

So we're looking at like a 87 plus% margin and that's just going to change the game so much in terms >> so much >> so much. So in terms of well one like cash flow so it's going to be easier on cash flow inventory buy so we're constantly out of stock which you know that we're leaving demand on the table like that I can more comfortably purchase more inventory now because every unit is less money I can discount it more deeply it's just less on my cash flow. >> Yeah. >> Um and then obviously >> you mean sorry Nasin you mean discount more deeply specifically if you need to put it on clearance right? >> Yeah if we want if we wanted to offload it we could and still have a strong margin there. um the meta auction, we can spend higher, we can, you know, raise the bid if we want to.

We can be more aggressive there. And I mean, those are those are huge huge lovers in the business. Some of that money now I want to take and reinvest actually in some of the product quality in new fabrication. So, not only is this factory is going to improve our cost, but they also have a lot more access to different types of fabrication and different sewing techniques. And so that's actually going to widen our assortment next year, make it more interesting, make it more layered and textured, which I think again talking speaking back to like product development is really going to help us.

And also, you know, if you if you want to say build brand, some percentage of that that money we're saving on cause, I want to put it into the hang tag, the label, the packaging, small touches that are not going to be that expensive, but I think the perceived value of that on the customer's end will be increased and and the cost to us is not that much. And I think if we can hold that. Oh, one thing you're also gonna love price testing.

So, because we have such a different COGS margin profile, I am curious to see if we bring that price up from like from 228, which is where like that's our AOB now. Let's say we test the jump to that 198 we get below that 200 threshold or 178, we'll still have a stronger margin than we do today at 228. So, you know, let's test on Intelliggeems. what's the volume that we can do at 198 at a better margin that we're than we're at today or you know maybe maybe we want to keep it at 228 and just raise the meta bid.

So I think part of that is a little bit of a brand positioning like positioning the market and then uh like what what are the actual results from that intelligence test. So I'm really excited about that. >> And as separate from the episode you were telling me that you took a course that was the only course you've ever bought and like insanely helpful for thinking about retention. Can you just tell people what that was? uh because it's from a mutual friend of ours and I think let's let's shout it out so people can go check it out. >> Yes.

So the course is Alex Greyfield's Retention Beyond Email. I don't think it's available to purchase anymore. There was only a small window where you could get in, but like you said, the only course I've ever purchased. It's been so helpful for me to think a lot more holistically. I think what Alex is so great at is similar to what we've been talking on in the podcast. It's not just these like quick hit tactics. It's really like deep business structural changes that you need to implement in order to improve that retention.

And um just she helped me think about you know my uh email list in terms of like active and lapsed customers and then breaking that active list down into like curious customers and loyal customers and like thinking about how do you move people from active to loyal. How do you get that second purchase faster? And that's like you know some of that is aided with an email, right? and maybe an offer, but some of that offer probably needs to be a product that somebody wants to buy on the second purchase, right?

And so that's on my end, that's a little bit more of a business structural that's going to take a little bit more time, maybe three, six months to figure out what's that second purchase that they're going to make. Is it an accessory that goes with the jumpsuit that they that they bought like a belt or is it like a matching something or is it like a lower, you know, I don't know what it is, but I think >> there's just so many I the course has been fantastic.

I'm not I haven't finished it. Um, but yeah, just a shout out to Alex. >> Okay, that's great. Neither of us are paid for that, but you started talking about it. I just thought Alex is so awesome and provides so much value to the community that we should just like make a point of putting that in the middle of this episode somewhere. So somewhere we will we will drop this little exchange into the episode and um check the show notes uh for for where to go.

You can definitely follow Alex on X at Hey, it's Alex P, I believe. >> If if I don't think the course is available, but or maybe it is, but if not, you should definitely get onto her newsletter. She has one like that's generally for e-commerce businesses. And then one more specific one that's called PTC fashion decoded specifically for brands >> and no best practices.co is her site. She's been at that for a while. She's got a newsletter there.

So, we'll I'll put all that in the show notes. So, if you're listening to this, uh, you're not watching, like whether it's the YouTube description or podcast feed, all the links for that will be in the show notes. Go check that out. Big fan of Alex. So, thanks. Thanks, Aarin. I think that will be a cool little nugget for her. That's awesome. >> Little Easter egg. >> I mean, I love everything about this story. It's funny because you fired us and are doing everything I I think you should be doing, actually, including firing us at the time.

Again, I was like [laughter] I was like, team, fire us. Um, you're like you are talking about like generating a whole bunch of a wide variety of creative and putting it in your ad account and having a non-stop high volume creative with with some focus on quality at the same time. Like there's there's thoughtfulness to it uh into the ad account. You're developing more products faster. You are hammering away at your cog so your margin gets better.

You're thinking about how do you do testing those profit focused at the same time thinking about moment and seasonality carefully. There's a lot there. It's hard to run a good e-commerce business. But when you do all these things really well, you can build a really really good business that is, you know, growing materially and has a very bright future, I think, because of because of all that. So, it's just really exciting to me.

I just like I love hearing it and I love getting to sort of watch from my position in Slack uh to what's happening at a given time in the business. It's really really cool. Like I just think you're you're killing it. It's awesome. >> Thank you. >> Um do you feel like you're better at it now? because I I feel like I hear you speaking with a lot of confidence about a lot of these things and clarity about a lot of these things in a way that reflects a new not only competence but a sense of your own competence. >> Yeah, 100%.

I think I mean I I think it would be interesting if you were to look back at all of our podcasts from the beginning when I was in a different space like a literal different space. Um yeah >> to now I think this is probably yeah the most confident I'm speaking. Um, >> and yeah, I just time in the game, you learn so much more about your business and what kind of business you're in. And also, I think from a product development perspective, I have a lot more confidence.

I mean, you know, you're talking about someone who was a middle school teacher who like went from like how do you even make a piece of clothing or kind of sketching things on a thing, talking back and forth with someone to now I'm like, okay, like kind of know the process. Still a lot of room to grow there. >> Yeah, makes sense. How many products do you plan to release next year? Do you know yet? Like uh Well, let me ask now products.

How many collections? >> 10. >> What did you do this year? >> We did seven this year, but so much of that was actually backloaded on the second half of the year. Now, like we talked about, spring is just that like that kickoff moment. So, we have something planned for Jan, for Feb, for March, for April, for May, like and we're going to capture like this is what I'm thinking. We're going to capture that big spring moment.

We're going to get even more eyeballs, more topfunnel awareness in the brand. So that next birthday sale hopefully we can maybe maybe that's 2 million if we're in stock >> July >> if we're in stock and also July tends to be a really slow time for fashion and for like a lot of brands for whatever reason and I think that actually helps us in the auction in meta so you know kind of and and there's a nice story I think around like the sale it's our birthday our anniversary and then you know I think also in an interesting thing in a way I wasn't necessarily thinking about the business as much in the early days was like just existing customers um and thinking about the split between new and returning and how much if you have a good product and people are coming back to buy it just time in business helps because that >> for sure >> existing customer rate it just uh I mean the existing customer revenue it just helps >> you know even out that volatility >> everybody underestimates this actually just that like time creates returning customer revenue and if you don't bloat your opex along the way and you keep your ad spend as a percentage of your new customer revenue relatively constant or even improve your cogs or something like that like you're doing, you can actually still maintain really good bottom line margins and actually grow against against a fixed opex. >> You know, opex will grow some, but it doesn't have to grow proportional with your revenue.

And people just kind of they just don't think about how the like the sort of math of this works where like you generate more return customer revenue over more time because you have more customers. So even as they fade in value, that happens, especially if you are able to keep growing your spend and do the things you're doing with more product releases, etc. And of course, more product releases are also going to generate more returning customer revenues, more reasons for people to buy from you who've been in the past.

So you so you'll actually improve the value of each customer you've acquired. So exactly what you said is right, which is the time is the kind of the key factor there. I also think something else you said there is pretty common, which is like you went from four product releases a year, three or four or whatever, to seven to 10 this coming year. And you know, I wouldn't be shocked if in the second half of next year you actually start shut to 12 or something like that if it goes well, you know, like you'll have more resources.

It's really hard to go from like four to 40 overnight, but you may end up getting to a point where you're like, "Hey, we want one big one and one small one every month or something like that, you know, and you you really I don't know. I don't know what the ideal number is in fashion, but you'll find it." And it's just really hard to go there fast. This is another thing where time is helpful. Every one of those product releases becomes something that you learn from.

You figure out how to get better at it. You figure out how many products to release, how much inventory to buy. You're going to find different seasonality moments that you didn't know existed because you didn't release a product in January before or whatever and now you are. And so, like, how does that even go? So all these things kind of pile up on each other and and again reflects that like just pushing on the ad account again I love tactics.

I think people are wasting a ton of money spending their ad accounts stupidly. Like I I think that stuff really matters and I put out a lot of content about it. But at the core of what's driving the business this sort of excellence of operations all the way through the product, all the way through the customer, etc. >> Yeah. And and so my next hire is going to be someone on the product side because right now it's still me which is just ridiculous.

So getting some help there I think is going to help uh not just like the pacing of that product and getting uh more and to your earlier question the goal is to do 200 styles next year 200 unique products. I think working with somebody else with industry experience is going to make the product both better and I mean hopefully better and then also uh more frequent and on time. >> Yeah. Okay. Hey, uh, Nazarin, anything that we left out of this story that you think is relevant to the growth and success you've seen along the way that you would make sure you'd want people to hear?

I think one thing um I guess I could say is that so we went through that period where the business was slow, a lot of cash drain, everything was kind of it was getting quite tight and so going into this year I made it a point to really take enough cash out of the business for myself so that I could have an amount that made me feel like I could take more risk in the business. And I was really when we were working together operating from a place of like I'm not really paying myself much and any kind of bets and risk I was taking with money in the business felt 10x more risky because I didn't have some cushion for myself.

And I told myself this at the beginning of the year and I put a number on it. You know Nasin when you take when you have this much that's going to be your cushion and then you're you're going to be able to go hard again. And so I've gotten to that place and I think identifying that specific number has been helpful because, you know, it can be easy just to kind of get comfortable, you know, taking cash out of the business.

But yeah, now that I have like a comfortable cushion for myself, I'm really ready to reinvest more aggressively. And uh I think as an operator, it from one to another might be something that's helpful for folks to hear. Your own such a good answer >> in life. I think it it affects the way that you run the business and the way that you work with your employees, your team, your agencies, etc. Um, and so yeah, that that's one thing that's that's really helped me. >> I think that's really wise.

I really like that. I I actually remember being concerned at the time with how little money you were taking out of it. Like it was like I don't know if this is good. Like um but uh and I know entrepreneurs like they're going to have this kind of mentality sometimes, but I really like that. I think I think it's a sneaky thing that probably somebody who's not operating a business wouldn't think about in quite the same way, but it's it's really really good.

All right, Nazarin, thanks so much. If you would like to follow up with Nazarin, the thing to do is to go to her website and buy some clothes. Mixed by Nazarin.com is the place to do it. Is there anywhere else you want to send people to? Nazarin. People follow you on Instagram or anything like that. They want to follow your story. >> Instagram. I try to share things, but >> Nazen Jafari on Instagram is the place to go do that.

U Thanks so much for taking time. Uh, I think you might be the all-time returning champion at this point. You might have the most total episodes. >> I'm like scared to watch my first one. I'm like never going to watch that again. [laughter] >> You should at some point and recognize like that's again it's like like you said there time factor. I'm sure I'm I'm sure I was saying dumb stuff too. Like I've learned a lot in that time. >> Well, once you know the next time I come on will be when we pass 10 million.

So this year, I don't know if we said it on the podcast, this year we're at we we're at five net revenue and um yeah, next time I'm on will be at 10 plus. >> Net revenue means net of returns, not >> net of returns. Yeah. So million plus. >> Yeah. Yeah. Because the Yeah. Well, so if you want to know how how frustrating her fashion brand return rate is, just listen to what she just said. Six million, but then you take >> over six million in gross sales and then a million five or something is off.

Yeah. >> All right. Thanks so much. We'll uh I'm sure we'll talk to you then. I'm I'm looking forward to uh to that $10 million podcast. >> That's gonna be exciting. >> All right. It's gonna be great. Maybe maybe maybe we'll do that one in person. Maybe I'll fly to New York for >> Oh my goodness. >> That'll [laughter] be fun. >> All right. >> All right. Thanks, Nasin. >> I loved that episode. I told Nazine right when we hung up like that was one of my favorite episodes I've done in a long time because I think it was really practical and tangible and reflects so much growing expertise in how to grow a great DTOC business in a pretty hard category.

Um so this Nasin's fourth or fifth time on the store. I know her well. But u but just really really cool. I hope it was as helpful for you as it was for me. I I learned a lot in that episode. You can reach out to me at podcastfgrowth.com if you have any thoughts, questions or you want to work with me. In fact, if you want to work with me at AJFrowth, the better place to go do that is to go to afgrowth.com. fill out my intake form there.

Tell me a little bit [music] about your business. We'll see if we're a fit for you. Got all kinds of great episodes still coming up being registered, including we're going to turn the tables on an episode soon. Somebody's gonna interview me a little bit, which will be fun, and a whole bunch of other stuff. So, subscribe wherever you're watching or listening. I will see you next