w/ Jonathan Strauss, Neven Eyewear
Also on YouTube: https://youtu.be/fXKVcwl8FS8
How a BOGO Deal Bootstrapped Neven Eyewear to Millions
Jonathan Strauss lost a $500 pair of sunglasses jet skiing—and turned that wipeout into Neven Eyewear. What began as a desperate liquidation promo turned into a DTC breakthrough. In this episode, Strauss reveals how a buy-one-get-two offer saved his brand, what’s changed with Meta ads, and why scaling a bootstrapped Shopify store takes more grit than cash.
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Kurt Elster
This episode is sponsored in part by Boost Commerce. Imagine a search bar that's actually smart, one that helps your customers find what they're looking for without frustration. That's what Boost AI Search and Filter is all about. It's like giving your store a personal shopper right in the search bar. With Boost, shoppers can filter by everything from size to rating. So finding that perfect product is easy. and the frequently bought together and related items recommendations are tailored to your store, giving customers a reason to add more to their carts. Boost even lets you spotlight bestsellers or new arrivals using powerful merchandising tools. No coding skills needed. And if you ever do need support, their dedicated team has your back. Ready to make your store smarter? New customers can use the code Kurt. That's K-U-R-T. to get 30% off for their first six months. Head to the Shopify App Store, start your 14-day free trial of Boost AI Search and Filter today. Today on the unofficial Shopify podcast, we are yet again talking sunglasses. Oh my gosh. I love love my Sonnies, but in this case we're gonna be hearing about how Nevin I wear was saved by and scaled with a two-for-one deal, a BOGO offer or buy one get two deal? Well Jonathan Strauss, who was the the CMO of Freestyle Watches, another cool Shopify brand, uh, oh man, don't get me started on watches. But Jonathan Strauss, uh Nevin Iwear, he's gonna walk us through what works, how these promos have helped them dramatically, and uh what he's learned along the way. Jonathan Strauss, thanks for joining me.
Jonathan Strauss
Hey, thanks for having me today.
Kurt Elster
All right, Nevin Eyewear. You launched that in 2020?
Jonathan Strauss
I would say 2020, but really started in 2018, 2019, really trying to figure it out, but it took a year or two just figuring out how to get everything.
Kurt Elster
And at that time were you you were CMO at Freestyle Watches?
Jonathan Strauss
I was working on Freestyle and uh yeah. So I was kind of just really in that space, the digital water resistant sports watch space, uh, you know, living in Shopify. We used to be on Magento, but definitely living in Shopify at that point.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, Shop uh Freestyle's on Shopify, Nevin is on Shopify, and all right, tell me about Nevin Eyewear 20 like what what happened Because it's uh you had a successful career going, and now you're like, all right, you know what I want to do? Get into a really tough to sell space.
Jonathan Strauss
Yeah, so well, I I did not realize that at the time, but uh You know, I had gotten a pair of prescription sunglasses from it was uh sunglass hut, and then I think I took 'em to like uh whatever their lens crafters or whatever it was to get my prescription. Let's just say it was like five hundred bucks. I was out with some friends jet skiing and I flipped my jet ski and I came up and my sunglasses were gone and I was like I didn't even realize it at first until I realized I couldn't see, right? I was basically blind. So I went into Sunglass Hut, Lens Crafters, and I was like, hey, what can you do for me? you know, this happened and they basically were like just offered me like 10% off and you know, I was like, oh, I wasn't expecting them to give me a free pair or anything, but like 10%, it just felt like they didn't even value me as a customer. So It kind of started me on this path of, well, how how could I do this? How could I of like offer quality eyewear at an affordable price? And you know, from there I started, you know, figuring it out.
Kurt Elster
So the original inspiration for Nevin Eyewear then is y quality eyewear at affordable price because you had this experience. Expensive glasses, lost them. When we say you started Nevin in 2020, tell me about that experience with in that timing. You know, help, hurt.
Jonathan Strauss
When I originally started this this thing, you know, I I think my first order was like 30 pairs, uh 10 different frames, three different colors each pair, and we did about 30 pairs, and we did 100 each, which I basically begged and convinced somebody to work with me because nobody was offering like MOQs of like a hundred pieces, you know, and it was a pretty good price. Got everything, built a site, looked great, all that stuff. Everything was perfect. Perfect. Like I was super stoked. Like I know what I'm doing, everything. Turned it on, crickets. Nothing happened. Um, you know, we offered your traditional, like with attentive or, you know, it was attentive at the time, uh, the pop-up, it was, you know, 10% off. We did, you know, 20% off, nothing would take. I I could not I I basically couldn't even pay somebody to buy a pair of sunglasses at that point. Um, you know, we tried to buy one, get one, didn't really do anything. And I and I just Nothing was working. Um, and then at that point I just decided I I gotta get rid of these things and uh, you know, it's taking a lot a lot of space in my house. Uh my wife is annoyed by it, you know, it's it's It's not really doing anything. And, you know, she's helping me with it, you know, but it's just taking up space at this point. And I just gotta get rid of it. So I decided to liquidate it and do a buy one get two free. I've never seen somebody do it. I wasn't really thinking about the financials. I just needed to get rid of this stuff. Um, and when I turned that on, the first day, you know, we got 20 orders. The next day it was like 40 orders. And it just Started growing from there. But then at that point it was really well, I don't really have a lot of inventory. I'm going through and And I thought I was going out of business and it's like I had to make a decision, either this is what I'm doing or just get rid of it. But um I decided to go for it. And, you know, I got an order in and I remember pressuring the the the factory to get us stuff like super quick. I I mean I was going through and I was super scared because, you know, it's always like that. that uh 80 20 rule. So like what was leading most of the sales was specific pairs and those would go first. But then when those sold out, other pairs would just sell. People just Because I was selling out of things left and right, but uh kept it together, got product in, and from there it, you know, things have been good.
Kurt Elster
And now you have A ton of frame styles now. This collection page is set to uh you load more on scroll, infinite scroll, and man, it just keeps going. Hold on, hit control F. There we go. 145?
Jonathan Strauss
Something like that. There's probably with our regular Athomics that we just launched, it's probably closer to about two hundred total, maybe different frames, but uh uh different different color waves and things like that. But I would say I don't know how many frames, maybe it's 50 frames, 60 frames. You know, I I was a firm believer that I want to have something for everybody. So that's what I tried to do. But I also realized as we grow, it's To to me, I could tell the difference between two different pairs, but to other people, it just looks like the same pair, you know, like things are very similar and I think it creates a problem. So uh starting like a couple of months ago, we started bringing that down because it was a lot more a couple months ago and I just got rid of things that didn't sell as well but they're very similar to something else and instead of having three pairs that Are a little bit different, but it kind of in this group, I just kept one and moved forward. So, but uh, but uh I'll always try things, see what works, you know.
Kurt Elster
And so we've got, all right, one pair, it's 85 bucks. And then the messaging on the product form, buy one, get any two pairs free, just add all three pairs to your cart. Or 30% off any single pair.
Jonathan Strauss
Yep. That's our deal that we run.
Kurt Elster
So on the product page it says $85. Add it to cart, $60. And then in the cart we have a nice, the drawer cart, we've got a progress bar. That's like one, two, three. Just add all three pairs. All right, I'm just gonna add two more. See what happens here. And now, yeah, I put in the third and now my total dropped to 85 bucks. If I'm buying only one, are they always on sale? You never sell them at retail?
Jonathan Strauss
As right now, it's always on sale. So you can come so the reason for the 30% off is you know we do offer prescriptions. So we wanted people to feel that they were getting something because the prescriptions are not part of our buy one get two free. So any single pair, whether it's prescription or just uh regular pair of sunglasses or uh I wear, you know, blue lights, th those would be 30% off.
Kurt Elster
I would imagine most orders are three pairs.
Jonathan Strauss
I would say 85% of our orders, maybe 80% of our orders are three pairs, but there are people that come in and Maybe they just want to see if, you know, the quality's there. That's a decision they have to make. You know, I You know, I mean when we do have people that email us afterwards like, hey, I took advantage of this. You know, I really love it. Is it possible I could take advantage of that profile? And we just ask them to to pay the upcharge of, you know. the whatever it is twenty five bucks or so, twenty-five fifty or so.
Kurt Elster
And then it looks like uh you're using Shopify automatic discounts. To power this.
Jonathan Strauss
So we we actually used to use automatic discounts, but then we had to build out our own discounting system just because how all of our prescriptions work. and pricing and limiting certain things because it was pretty when you're setting up your discounts on the back end, it's pretty t tedious with like the different collections and select things in their discounting portal. So we just built out a system so it's really easy for us to do to include and exclude certain SKUs. So it's all ran through our own discounting app.
Kurt Elster
And is that right, it's like Shopify Functions powers it?
Jonathan Strauss
Um, I'm not sure how it's how it's running. We I think we just created our own app and it's being done.
Kurt Elster
And then I like in the checkout We've got a a nice upsell here, a cleaning kit. And it's like just a checkbox, one click checkbox, ads cleaning kit for five bucks. Yeah, good value for the customer.
Jonathan Strauss
I'm very against the after purchase that everybody tells me I need to do a post-purchase type thing. But I've found issues with shipping software in the past. Like so when in the if somebody clicks, doesn't click out of that page for those offers afterwards, sometimes the order stays open for a while and then it doesn't close and it doesn't make it over to our shipping software fast enough. This was like a couple years ago. I'm sure it's been worked out, but I've just seen issues with it and I just I don't know. I just I also don't want to be too annoying to people. I find like I get annoyed when I'm shopping on sites like, but wait, there's more, you know, like every pop-up after you've already checked out. And then also I thought, you know, what if they never get to that thank you page? And what if that pixel never fires for meta? And I and I always thought about those things too. Like, cause a lot of people just stay on that page, but I'm also told that now they put it on that page and it's all on the thank you page. But it used to be like a page before you get to the thank you page, so I never did it.
Kurt Elster
No, fire it part of the thank you page now. And you know, if it's been years since you've tried it, I th I think you'll find it it works better now. Yeah, 'cause it could hold like this there's a a window of time in which the order's held for fulfillment and the fulfillment software's supposed to respect that state.
Jonathan Strauss
But it used to be just really horrible. And it used to not be on the thank you page. It used to be like a whole page before that. So we just never really did that, but we put it right at checkout. It works really well. A lot of people uh take advantage of, you know, cases or cleaning kits and things like that.
Kurt Elster
Once you have that that BOGO offer, I'm saying BOGO, but it's buy to get one, that's when things take off. But like Yeah, do the unit economics still work here? Like are we able to profitably acquire customers?
Jonathan Strauss
So I think at that time we're selling pairs for like fifty-five dollars and You know, at the time I just wanted to get rid of everything, but we've had to raise our prices to make it all work because we offer free shipping worldwide. Like I if you order something from Australia, we ship it for free. Um if you order that's unusual. Very unusual. Yeah. So we have to make all the numbers work and it really only works at scale. Like if I was shipping 10, 20 orders a day, this whole thing wouldn't work at all. Why do you think it didn't work? You know, I I I've been doing this a while, but I think one thing that I really heavily overlooked is people. Like they need to see your social media is like got things going on, you know, a lot a lot of followers and just not not not so much followers, but they need to see other people are buying it. Um reviews are important. I feel that just Feeling like it's a brand. People want to buy into our brand. Um, and I think slowly over time we've created a brand. But I remember in the beginning it was tough. We uh people would ask us if it was real. People didn't believe our deal. We had to like convince them. I remember there is one. Kid who like messaged us through Instagram and he was like, I don't believe you're real. And I was like, what do you mean? Like I'm standing here. I have all this. I'm taking pictures of the inventory. I'm taking pictures, like I'm like trying to prove to this. Finally they bought it and it was a repeat customer, but people like I had to like convince people that were real at first. We used to, I think we probably still have it on our FAQs, like, is the buy one get too real? And like Yes. Um, just 'cause it you know, they're like, this is too good to be true. And people get their packages and they're like, This is amazing. Like some people don't trust it and that, you know, they purchased, they're testing it out and they get it. They're very surprised and they're like You know, I c I can't believe the quality and you know, for the value, but the reality is I think people just don't realize how much they're getting ripped off by everybody else. So
Kurt Elster
Yeah, I think that is a a big part of it is the markup on glasses thanks to, you know, a particular uh large manufacturer. has created that perception.
Jonathan Strauss
There's probably f about two, three companies out there which have created like a monopoly on sunglasses in Iwear.
Kurt Elster
Yeah. It starts with an L, but I just can't remember the rest of the name. The other thing that's in shape on your site, not only is you have this BOGO offer, free international shipping, which that one's wild, uh, there's also a lost and broken replacement free lost and broken replacement, and then it says free 30-day returns.
Jonathan Strauss
Mm-hmm.
Kurt Elster
Tell me lost it, broken replacement included.
Jonathan Strauss
So basically, if your pair is lost, broken, or stolen, if your dog chews up, you know, things happen. I mean Things happen. We, you know, I think like you know, jet ski incidents. No questions asked if you if they're lost, broken, or stolen, we'll replace them. You fill out our form and we'll send you out a pair. It's it's pretty easy. Um and that whole process that we built out, it's all like self-fulfilling. So you go in, it loads your order, you select the pair, and basically Prop but we also do the whole processing on a whole other site and then it comes over to our site to avoid sending that data to Meta. Because like oh clever. Because we're getting about, you know, when we were doing like five of them a day, it didn't really affect anything, but now we do anywhere from 50 to 150 of them a day that it's just sending data that's not good back to meta and you can't exclude it. It's it's it doesn't matter if it's zero dollars or or $15. It's not a real like typical order, and we don't want meta thinking those are real orders. So we do the whole checkout on a complete separate checkout, but then it pushes all that data back into our our main Shopify. And we process the orders and everything's there and it tells them. That's what you gotta do today though. You know, meta meta has changed and these are the things we do. It's not like, you know, they can target people how they used to. So we wanna make sure that they're targeting the right people and not people that are doing warranty claims that already purchased from us, you know. Um Yeah, isn't abuse an issue with this policy? Uh no. No. And we have like we use tools and like, you know, there's stuff like engorgious and stuff. You can see how many orders and things like that really quick at a glance when they file, you know, do all that. But It's uh but I mean our software keeps you can do it for two times per pair that you've bought, so it keeps track of all that stuff. So it is all automated. And if if you no longer are eligible, it just will kick it out and send you a message to shoot us an email.
Kurt Elster
Man, those order change emails suck. They're always like, I ordered the wrong size. I meant to change the shipping address. Oops, I was drunk. Instead of making customers email you that stuff, let them fix it themselves with Cleverific. Cleverific is a self-service portal that lets customers edit their orders without bugging you That means you get fewer headaches, customers get faster fulfillment, and there's fewer returns overall. Everybody wins. Peter Manning, New York. Cut their support tickets by 99% with Cleverific. You want in on that? Get 50% off the Pro Plan, just $49 a month. exclusively for listeners of the unofficial Shopify podcast. Go to cleverific. com slash unofficial and use promo code KERT50. Done. Problem solved. That's Cleverific. This is incredible. I mean really they're like to compete on sunglasses, you've need you need brand, right? Like there has to be has to be clear this this is legitimate. Yeah. And you need value. And so like we have good looking frames in a ton of colorways. And I'm getting polarized lenses, which like that's I want nothing to do with sunglasses that aren't polarized anymore. Yeah. Um, it's just they're so much better. And then we're also doing just like this incredible return policy. Yeah. Yeah. So we offer free and free international shipping.
Jonathan Strauss
Free returns and exchanges uh up to 30 days. Um The the only issue that we have that we're working on solving right now with our returns company is when somebody orders three they can't just return one and it can't do the math, but we're working on that. I'm working with one company that's trying to solve it and then I my current company that said it's on the roadmap, but I think that'll be a game changer for us too, because right now people have to return all three if they want to return just one. You can exchange one, but I would like it if they just want to return one, it will do the math. Because sometimes that does happen. Um, you know, they already have the order. It just costs me money to take the return back. So I'm trying to limit If I'm not making the full 85 bucks, at least I make something and you know, they could take advantage of the two pairs that they have or the one pair and just do the math when they return it. But the math is different when they bought it because of the way the whole discounting works. So then they have to do the math for me when it's returned.
Kurt Elster
The the other thing I want to talk to you about, you've got, okay, sunglasses, seasonal business. I would imagine.
Jonathan Strauss
Year round. All year round.
Kurt Elster
Really doesn't like spike in the summer. I'd imagine like in the summer, like right as spring break, like right before it spikes.
Jonathan Strauss
It it's not a huge like gifting thing for holiday like my other brand. It is just year-round. People wear sunglasses everywhere. If you go walk outside, go to like, you know, a place, just look at people's faces. Everybody's wearing sunglasses. It's just something everybody has.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, like A, I want to look cool. B, I don't want cataracts. And so just I always have. I always got my Sonnies on. I want to talk to you about um inventory forecasting, right? You've got like all these frame styles. How in the heck do you know how much to order of what when? Like that is just it is such a struggle for a lot of merchants.
Jonathan Strauss
So we have a magician here. Her name's Liz. Uh she she basically runs all of our operations and forecasting and everything. But she comes from like the Belks and Bloomingdale's uh background and that's hers was, you know, basically forecasting and that's what she would do. But she She's very good at you know at first we used to we used to order every week. Uh we just go through things. So it was every week we were placing orders. Now I think it's every two weeks, every month we're putting orders in, but it's forecasted out for about I think it's 90 days. Um, and then but you know, we have all it's just she has all of her equations to figure everything out. But uh, you know, at first it it could it was tough, but you know, we We we've done things with with sunglasses that nobody else has done. Like most people have like a 90, 120 day, you know, turnaround time. We've figured out how to get it all done in 35 days, 30 to 35 days and have it turnaround. Yeah. We have amazing partners that manufacture it with us and we get it turned around if if we really need something because they keep extra stock that's not like painted or anything like that. And they have our most popular styles, we can get things in about 14 days. We can airship it.
Kurt Elster
That's pretty incredible.
Jonathan Strauss
Nobody else is doing that, I can assure you.
Kurt Elster
Do I dare bring up the T word with the current tariff situation? How do you stay nimble? How do you deal with it?
Jonathan Strauss
I think it will all work itself out. I mean I Look, if it doesn't get worked out, none of us are gonna be in business. I mean, or prices are just gonna go skyrocket. It's just not me, it's everybody, right? Um, right now I think it's at what a hundred forty-five percent, I think. There are some things that are people are doing. I mean, right now we're getting up and running in a couple other countries to manufacture, but You know, it's a process. I'd say for you know, we're starting that a couple weeks, but I'd say it's gonna take 60 to 90 days because we have to make all new molds with those manufacturers. But You know, we don't pay any mold fees. You know, we're producing so much that we pay no mold fees.
Kurt Elster
So that's quite the deal. You're negotiating some serious terms. I don't want to negotiate with you. It's what I do.
Jonathan Strauss
No, but I uh we Like I I'm not concerned with how everybody else does things, other brands. It this is how I need to get it done. This is how I've been able to scale and and make things happen. If I did if I did things how all my competitors did things, I wouldn't be in business. It's just be impossible. Everything has to move very, very fast. Like, you know, you might have told me about an app earlier. I'll have that on my site by the end of the day. You know, like uh that's just I have programmers, I can get it done, and I can move very, very quick. I don't have a lot of red tape. And, you know, it's just what we do. And I think that's really what's made us super successful that we can adjust. But with the tariffs, I think everybody is worried. I think about it, we're solving it. But at the end of the day, you know, I can assure you that all these manufacturing jobs are not coming back to the USA.
Kurt Elster
I know, I don't want grandma to go work in a factory.
Jonathan Strauss
I think this is all negotiating tactics, but who knows? I mean, we live in crazy times and uh I think this is all unprecedented. But you know, what people don't realize is for for the longest time if I ship something to the UK or I ship something to Australia, they pay duties and taxes there. It's just we don't pay anything here. But now to bring things in, it's just unheard of. You know, like we like when when you know the president took office the first time, he raised tariffs. Not like this though. This is this is, I mean, it's affecting everybody. I mean, I think For me, I kind of get excited a little bit because I feel that it's going to push a lot of these people out that are are just kind of Lots smaller and not able to navigate it, you know. I I think everybody has the problem, but I think not everybody's gonna be able to solve it. You know, I think you're gonna see a lot of shakeup in the e-commerce industry and It's not like a lot of brands weren't having problems already. You know, there's if you pay attention, there's so many brands that are just folding or they took on all this money and, you know. Just not good. Yeah.
Kurt Elster
And so in your case, uh, is Nevin bootstrapped?
Jonathan Strauss
Yes.
Kurt Elster
Congratulations. Yes.
Jonathan Strauss
We have no outside funding.
Kurt Elster
Makes it uh less red tape, makes it easier to to move forward. Do you think it would have grown like differently faster, better, worse, had you taken outside money?
Jonathan Strauss
I think it would have just been a lot of people telling me what I have to do and this, this and that, and it I don't think I would have been able to like learn the way I've learned. I mean When you know, working on like freestyle and stuff, I'm I'm really, you know, I'm not shipping things. I'm not that but doing this, I've done every single job here from the ground, you know, there was a point where, you know, it wasn't as big as it is, and I I've I'm a firm believer that you have to be willing to do everything yourself if you're gonna ask somebody else to do it. So I've shipped orders, you know, when it got really busy, like when we have things go viral and there's just thousands of orders that have to get out in a day and we don't even have enough people, you know, we'll all we've all gone out there and helped out just packing orders, you know. But um I just feel if If I had taken money, you know, it wouldn't have helped me figure things out quicker. I don't think people would have been able to figure it out because everybody operates on this larger scale and they don't know how, you know, it's either like, you know, you're you're like I don't even know, like a big company like Zumi is big, where that you know it's just a big company or you're like, you know, Pira Vita. It just operates so like People would just be telling me how to do things that it doesn't make sense for what I'm trying to do. I mean, I had people tell me that the whole buy one get two free thing is stupid, but you know.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, clearly not.
Jonathan Strauss
Yeah, yeah. But I mean. We've always just done what we've wanted to do and and you know I I like that and you know it's still exciting for me, you know. So and I don't really want to answer anybody. So At least right now.
Kurt Elster
I appreciate that. Yeah, I greatly value my independence. Um so at this point Man, you I'm gonna guess you have spent millions on meta ads, PPC ads.
Jonathan Strauss
Yes.
Kurt Elster
And surely like early on, I'm sure you you burned tens of thousands of dollars figuring out what wouldn't work. Today, you know, what does work? What do you think? You know, like what's your favorite PPC channel? I'm guessing it's it's meta's And yeah, talk to me about it.
Jonathan Strauss
I'd say we probably burned through about thirty to fifty thousand dollars at first just trying different promotions to get people to purchase and none of it worked at all. Um I I'm a I'm a firm believer that if you have people in the same like let's say like you have like zero to a hundred million dollar brands and then you have like the the bigger brands but I'm a firm believer that, you know, if you have a brand that has a 10% offer, they've kind of conquered that offer. Then if you have a brand with a 20% offer, they've conquered that offer. And Meta, I feel favors those brands. And it's very hard to penetrate into the market because those brands that have a lot more engagement, a lot more it's it makes more sense. It's better business for Meta to favor them because they spend a lot more money than I would. But With my buy one get to free deal, it was an offer that nobody else had. And it was able to penetrate. And that's really when we are able to scale, you know, with Meta. But I mean As you know, you know, Meta's really changed, I'd say, with all the cookie updates, the tracking, iOS updates, all that stuff, you know, has really changed marketing. I mean If this was 2015, 16, 17 meta marketing, you could just turn on an ad and make money. You had a printing press. You know, if you if you had the money to market, you could just turn it on, drive traffic, traffic, make money. Now you have to be smarter than ever and you have to You know, you can't just rely on meta. Like if you used to be able to get a four, five X, eight X return on ad spend, you know, that probably looks very different right now in Meta, I think. And you, you know, we've We've we've tried other channels, but nothing for us really works like meta, you know, Instagram, you know. That's what everybody says. For a while, TikTok, everybody was saying TikTok, TikTok. I feel like everybody was being scammed. I think they just had really good PR. And people are going out there telling you that they're making money on TikTok. I don't know one person that's made a lot of money on TikTok. Not one. I know influencers.
Kurt Elster
The makeup brush guy, BK brushes.
Jonathan Strauss
But is did he have a following? He's like an influencer that people followed.
Kurt Elster
I heard him talk at e-commerce feel live and you know essentially what really drove it was like they were existing extraordinarily good at the in at at that at portrait video, at video in general. Yeah. And so like they already had, you know, all this momentum and kind of understood it. And then, you know, s you're not starting from scratch with TikTok ads.
Jonathan Strauss
I mean, TikTok is a different person in how they they interact with the content. You have to create you know, specific TikTok content. So that just in my head that costs more money to have like a whole separate team creating that other content. You know, my friend, he makes awesome content for iwear. And you know, for TikTok, I'm like jealous, but It's just not something I really even want to focus on right now. You know, but you know, Pinterest, eh. What else is there? Reddit? Eh.
Kurt Elster
Google Shopping.
Jonathan Strauss
X. Eh. Google. Google. You know, Google for us works. Very different, you know, like a I had to have the brand come together. You know, Google is a very different place for us now than it was, you know, in 2021, let's say. But, you know, I don't put a lot of value on brand. I just look at that as like a dustpan for, you know, people that see our ads on meta and then they Google our brand and then they come or whatever they saw it out, they Google it, whatever. But You know, our Google uh non-brand is really picking up, like really, really picking up. But I think that you also have to look the part. You have to have the site, you have to have the the socials, you have to have people people want to see other people really wearing it and you know all that. And I think that has changed for us for a lot. So I think over the next year it's going to become an even bigger part of our business. You know, we do Google, but it's not like Meta. You know, it's a it's a much smaller uh spend. But also same thing with SEO. SEO has become a huge thing for us in, you know, well, we have this one horrible company uh really messed things up for us, so it set us back a little bit.
Kurt Elster
But uh Where'd they go wrong? Give me like the quick high level.
Jonathan Strauss
They used AI and they caused more harm than good. And they didn't really keep up on the pages that were performing really well and they let them slide, whereas they're focusing on things that the volume it's just all around horrible. And if you don't know anything about SEO or you you don't babysit people, they could do more harm than good. Right now we're with a really good company that pointed a lot of these things out to us. And We've just seen huge changes, like huge. And there was a lot of low-hanging fruit. You know, I'm not an SEO expert, but I have a really good understanding of it. It also takes becoming more of a brand for, you know, your SEO to really start to work. Like if I was to start a brand today, I I would not put money into SEO. I would say, You need that weight. I I would say I wouldn't really think about until maybe you hit the million to three million dollar mark to really focus on SEO. You know, you have basic SEO with Shopify, but I'm I'm talking about really going sh hard with the SEO. I mean, you know, it's not like when you're doing a million dollars or three million that you have a dedicated person in-house to do SEO, or maybe it's the person owning the company that they know how to do that stuff. But You know, we have an agency that handles it because it just makes more sense. But, you know, that's become uh uh more important right now for us coming up with certain, you know, terms. And it's also about seeing what my competitors are not. even going after a lot of brands get lazy. They they get big and they just don't care.
Kurt Elster
They get complacent. They're like, it works. Don't don't break it.
Jonathan Strauss
You know, I don't know what Nike does to protect themselves, but I'm I'm sure it's hard, but they have so many people selling their stuff. Maybe they pr I don't even know if they do anything. I I don't even know, but You know, if you have a brand that's going, I would say that it's probably pretty easy to take certain people's traffic by just having smart keywords and and seeing what people are searching, but nobody's going after. You know, I think a lot of brands just get lazy. You know, I think a lot of my competitors are lazy. I think they're have no idea what's going on in the space. I think I think they got lucky. I don't know. And I have to really work for it. So
Kurt Elster
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Jonathan Strauss
So we do do grouped reviews for the the actual frames, yeah.
Kurt Elster
So it yeah, we have like frames that are materially Identical. We go, all right, like a review for this applies to a review for, you know, a different one, and then you can group them together.
Jonathan Strauss
The the black and red one are considered the same, yeah. Yeah. It's grouped.
Kurt Elster
Okay. Yeah. So I like grouped reviews, common feature in review apps that I think a lot of people are unaware of, where, you know, hey, you sell two t-shirts on the same blank. Well, you can the review can apply to both. And so you could group them together.
Jonathan Strauss
It's funny. I don't even think they're located in the US. I don't even think I've even spoken to somebody at this company, but they offer what I feel is the best app that's affordable. I don't know if you judge me. Judge Me is everyone's favorite review app. I mean, I think it's what, fifteen bucks? Something like that.
Kurt Elster
It is yeah, famously they always it's like just one pricing plan and it never changes, and that's that.
Jonathan Strauss
Back in the day it was like Yachtpo. There was like all these companies charging you thousands of dollars to have like reviews or something. I I don't even know. But like I I'll I'll talk to other companies that are spending a lot of money on these different review things, and I'm like, why? Why? And I bet you if I like email judge me, I'll get a response within an hour or I have a question. At least get to the bottom of it, you know. So like can you do this or not? You know?
Kurt Elster
Your experience not unique. like a darling in the Shopify app world. The other thing that's cool on here, you've got 360 view of the glasses, and it looks like it's a render where I can like spin them all different ways.
Jonathan Strauss
I think that company's called Glass On. This company came to us and we gave them a list of like what we needed and wanted because like even when you go to our prescription and then you Do the try on. It has all the lens color options. Um, it has PD. There there's a there's a lot of things they built out for us, and I have no idea why, because The app is not oh I think we pay them I mean they probably don't want me to tell you but not very much but you know this is something that I personally never liked I always thought it didn't look really great and You know, but people tell me, oh, people just want to have an idea what it looks like on their face. You know, they know it might be a little bit off or it looks a little weird, but I always just thought it looks stupid. So I never went forward with it. The amount of people that use the tryon is hundreds of thousands of people. And it's like I probably should have done it sooner, but I let my personal thoughts on the whole thing get get in the way. And I never did it. But we worked with a company called Glass On, I think they're called They've been awesome, responsive. They've custom programmed stuff for us and it's affordable. You know, some of these companies charge three to five grand for this stuff, maybe ten grand. It depends like how many. Renders and how many people are using it.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, I haven't done the try. I have not attempted the try-on just because I'm concerned about it, you know it interfering with our recording. But the 360 view is so slick and clever. And it even the sunglasses, there's a reflection of a room in the lens.
Jonathan Strauss
Yeah.
Kurt Elster
Like that's cool.
Jonathan Strauss
And I and I bet you they could do that with other products too, like watches or or different things if if there's somebody listening to this that has a type of product that they want, like a 3D render. You could probably do it.
Kurt Elster
And then yeah, earlier I mentioned I I love polarized lenses. I'm all in on unpolarized. And you have to demonstrate on the product page I love any brand that has an excuse to do this. You have, we'll call it a slider, like a before and after slider. These are often built into themes as a feature. And so like it just creates a very easy visual, but it's also like a nice dynamic little widget where the person could drag a slider back and forth and it shows you it gives you like a representation of what an image would look like with and without.
Jonathan Strauss
I think a lot of people don't even know what polarization is and it's still something that people are learning about or something says polarized, you know. A lot of people don't know, you know.
Kurt Elster
It's like something you have to play with too to really experience.
Jonathan Strauss
You know, I think a lot of people in the fishing world, it's huge for them because you can see the fish and things like that. But like everyday people, not not everybody they know the term, they don't know what it really means or does though. So we we're just trying to really educate people on that, you know.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, twenty years ago I was a wedding photographer and so like circular polarizer is a very common thing you use on a lens. And so I was very familiar with it. Especially, you know, you could like line up a polarizer and polarized sunglasses and you turn them, eventually they'll just go black. How would you like what's the future hold? How do you keep going where you know eventually you end up with too many frames? Right? You've got like all these different styles, and we got a few accessories. You know, do you start retiring frames?
Jonathan Strauss
So we're trying to start like I mentioned, we're starting to pare down certain things that are very similar. You know, I'm a firm believer that, you know, like we sell aviators. Um, some of them are not the best sellers, but they all sell. Um, but I I'm a firm believer that you need to have 'em um, you know, it it might not be, you know, we have A, B, and C stock, but Maybe that's a B and C thing for us. That's not like our bread and butter, but it's important to have. But I think really just honing in on on newer pairs, things that people want. You know, we get emails from people, hey, can you do something like this? We're not scared to do it. We'll just do it. It's not hard. If somebody wants a yellow lens on something, we'll do it. This, this, and that. Um, so you know, really doing what we're doing, I have no plans to get into goggles. I think that's the worst mistake. Oh, like ski goggles. Yeah, I think it's very you have like what I think the ski season's even smaller now, but you have what two or three months to really sell these things. And to be completely honest, I'll let like the brands that You know, people want to like I I don't think anybody's coming to my site to get uh goggles. I think one brand did it, everybody hopped on, and I think you're sitting with all this inventory at the end of the season and nobody wants to talk about it. Plus it also throws off all my shipping. I gotta figure out because the box for that's pretty big. And with that, I want to offer some slight type of deal. So it's like I want to offer like exchange like the lenses that click in, this, this, and that. But I realize that before I know I'm at like this product that costs a lot of money to make. The MOQs are pretty hot. And it's like It's expensive to ship. I, you know, because that's going to be well over a pound. So I think about that, how much the shipping costs are. And it's just why why even get into it? I just want to stick to what I'm doing. But The one the one thing where we have expanded is going into like atomics, like glasses, regular eyewear. And I think that's something I really, you know, I'm excited about and want to push forward even more with. Um we partnered with uh Robertson Optics. Uh Uh, you know, we partnered with them a guy named uh Danny DeVito, that's really his name. Uh it took a while to do. We got we first got our sunglasses prescriptions launched, that took a while, but then we We did our whole uh Athomics, which with our partnership with them, they're launching into about 3,500 different doctor's offices for distribution. So there'll be points where people can go get, you know, their eyes tested and get their prescriptions done there through them. But that's something we're super excited about. We just rolled out to our first hundred in the past couple weeks and by the years you know year end it should be rolled out to all the stores.
Kurt Elster
See so there's like a retail partners?
Jonathan Strauss
So there are doctors' offices that you know sell glasses and sunglasses and our pairs, whether you want prescriptions or not, will be sold in those locations.
Kurt Elster
Oh, okay. Cool.
Jonathan Strauss
I personally have I'm not really interested in doing brick and mortar at this time. I think it's just you can have wholesale accounts or you can do a partnership like this, but to just I think it's you know, I'm not really driven by ego to see my name up on something. I don't really care about having a fancy store or anything like that. Like I haven't even decorated my office. I just don't have time, nor do I care. You know, I'm not a flashy guy. But uh I think Do you have any furniture in your house?
Kurt Elster
Maybe we just sit on the floor.
Jonathan Strauss
I have furniture, but I I still haven't hung my artwork, let's put it that way. Okay. Still like Just haven't I I haven't committed. But uh I think, you know, I really we're going really hard with this partnership, and that's super important. But I just don't think maybe I would open up one store here just as a flagship store. Um, but I'm not really interested in opening up locations. You know, I think that's where also if I took money that'd be pressured in on me to do because People think it's a good idea. I just think it's a lot of overhead and you know, I don't think there's enough demand for people to walk in my store every day and and buy my brand's pairs.
Kurt Elster
Today, what's the toughest part of running this business for you?
Jonathan Strauss
You know, you're like a captain. Everybody has issues, data, you know. But uh it's just really managing that and understanding people. I think that's you know, from what I was doing to now is, you know, I didn't have to like interact with so many people all day. But It's a lot more now. And it's, you know, I've had to learn to trust people, not do it all myself. I've learned to fire myself from a lot of jobs and let other people take it over.
Kurt Elster
You know, it could be tough to let go.
Jonathan Strauss
Yeah.
Kurt Elster
If you you're going back to 2020, if you were to give yourself one piece of advice at the start, what would it be?
Jonathan Strauss
You know, at that time I uh I I think I was really confident that I was like at first that, oh, this is gonna be amazing, and it just wasn't. But over time, you know, it's been a lot of hard work. Like if somebody came to me now and asked me to do it all over again, I don't know if I would do it. It it's it's hard. You know, people always ask I see interviews and it's like, you know They're like, just go for it. You know, you it's hard work and that's and uh people should never think it's easy. You know, it it didn't just happen overnight. It took hard work and it's a lot of people that made it happen. the people that are here, you know, that I surrounded myself with that I trust that really have built this with me. And I I couldn't do it without them, you know?
Kurt Elster
Absolutely. So yeah, it it's interesting. Yeah, I'm glad you said that because When I look back on my own journey, and I'm sure other people have felt this way too, you wonder if I know if I knew then what I know now. Would I still do it? Right? Like 'cause it it is difficult. And when you're getting started, I think there's a big advantage in being naive about what you're getting yourself into. I mean
Jonathan Strauss
I think I, you know, I I always worked on the, you know, Shopify side, like, you know, in the back end. I wasn't like in a warehouse. You know, now we have a facility. We have two warehouses. We have, you know, two facilities. But it's I never like saw that. And I I remember I called Jeff from Freestyle and I and I told him I, you know, I think this is the best learning experience I've ever had because I never appreciated what people in a warehouse do, the shipping department, just the people who manage those people. It's just, it's a lot. You know, things happen. There's things that have happened here. People, you know, people come and go. Um people have off days, but you know, we we have a really good, you know, team now, but it took us time to figure it out. We used to hire people really, really quick and it took us a while to fire them. Now, you know, we take our time hiring people and we f you know fire quick. Like if it's not working out, um, you know, we know right away. We know what we're looking for. But You know, I I just remember when we were starting out in our first office, you know, I remember when we got like our first pallets and I was like excited about that, thinking this is a lot of stuff. Now I get, you know, hundreds of pallets and it's I get truckloads and it's It's cool to watch it grow. I never thought like I never thought about any of it, but it really took a lot of hard work and You know, it's it's exciting. It's awesome. It's awesome. For a guy that sat behind a computer for many years and just sat behind to watch some a warehouse grow is awesome. It's like the most rewarding thing ever.
Kurt Elster
So are you still connected with um freestyle watches?
Jonathan Strauss
Yes. Yes, I still work on it every day.
Kurt Elster
Oh, okay. So that's like the you run to two e commerce stores.
Jonathan Strauss
Pretty much, pretty much. Uh, you know, a lot of the people, the core people work on that brand and they work on this brand. Um, but it, you know, it's all separate, but It just works. Um, you know, Jeff, who owns one of the main owners of Freestyle, he's like a mentor to me. He's one of the most important people, you know, to me, besides my parents, my family. But like he's just somebody I trust. Um, he's somebody that's always been there for me. You know, you know, I speak to him every day. Sometimes, you know, I'm probably the only person that talks to him every day. I uh he picks up for, but uh I probably annoy him though, but uh no, but it's it's always good to have somebody that throws some, you know, things off of and he's one of the most brilliant people I know and he and he definitely looks at things differently than me. He's definitely he's m a lot more cool, calm collected than me, and I'm just like Really fast, you know, I uh different, you know, like just things bother me and I get irritated by it. He doesn't let anything really irritate him, or he doesn't let it show. But I wish I tried to learn I'm trying to learn to be more like him. Because, you know, every every time something happens, I want to fire off an email like blah blah blah blah blah, you know, telling people off, but like you can't do that. It's not really gonna accomplish what you want to accomplish, you know. So now now I just run emails, import emails through Chat GPT, so I don't sound like an asshole.
Kurt Elster
It it helps a lot too, you know, add that layer of machine to emotionally divorce yourself from it. Yeah. So the only problem with it is if like it's such a sycophant, it'll just be you're like, oh I'm so mad at this situation, it'll be like, Yeah, you're right. Yeah. I need someone to push back on me.
Jonathan Strauss
Um sometimes I needed to dumb it down for people. You know, just like you know, if you're when you're dealing with other countries, there's a language barrier and it's just making sure you're getting your your point across, you know. Like a lot of times when you're dealing with other countries, they don't even want to talk on the phone because you're talk like me being from New York originally, I talk very fast, this, this, and that. I can't even understand you. So They want everything in email or, you know, they want to be able to have a translator or something like that. So it's interesting.
Kurt Elster
What's one takeaway you want listeners to have about your journey with Nevin?
Jonathan Strauss
Whatever you do do, you want to be able to wake up in the morning and be able to hold your head high, that you're not ripping people off, screwing people over this, this, or that. You know, that's one thing I can say that we're offering, you know, a quality of quality product at affordable price. And, you know, I didn't reinvent any wheels. Um, you know, I'm not like Mark Zuckerberg with his meta glasses. I understand that. But, you know, I want to make a difference. I want to offer a great product. And, you know, even the people that come and work here, I want their quality of life to be good. I want people to be happy. Um, because I think I'm spent many years working for other people, not Jeff, but other people, and I was just miserable. And you don't realize That it can be good and you don't have to be miserable. You know, you shouldn't be miserable at your job. If you're miserable at your job, stop, leave, find something else to do. Because Life is short, you know. At the end of the day, all you have is family. All you have is the people surround you know you surround yourself with and You know, I don't think in this day and age, I don't think a lot of people think about that. People are consumed with what other people think of them, social media. Like if you go on my social media, I barely post anything. You gotta live in the moment, you know. I don't care about what other people are doing, you know. I guess, you know, I observe, but I'm not uh I don't partake, you know, uh, but nobody cares about what car you're driving or how big your house is. It's all stupid. You know, you can't take those things with you. But
Kurt Elster
Well and I when I see that stuff on social media, I'm just like, like a it you know, I've I've done it too, but then I'm like, okay, who am I trying to impress? Right? Like ultimately who cares.
Jonathan Strauss
My my favorite thing is when people wish like, you know, their mom like a happy Mother's Day or something and their mom's not even like on Instagram. So like you wanted everybody to know. Yeah, that stuff's so performative. No, my wife and I kind of have this running joke like on birthdays, like, oh sorry, I forgot to post, happy birthday to you. Like, you know, I can just tell you, you know. So So but anyways.
Kurt Elster
So where can we learn more about uh Jonathan Strauss and Nevin Iwewear?
Jonathan Strauss
Uh you can go to nevinIwear. com and uh Yeah, that's where you can go. And uh I did want to mention we also did just launch a new program called Site for Sound. You can go over to Site for Sound. And that's basically offering all musicians, all touring crew members, all rigging people, lighting people, anybody in the music industry. You work for Fender, you work for you know, Tama drums or or anything like that, you can you fill out our form on our site and we're gonna give you a free pair of eyewear prescriptions or non-prescription. But that's something, you know, that we're doing right now. Um and it's been Wildly successful. So it's great.
Kurt Elster
Jonathan Strauss, Nevin Iwear. Thank you so much.
Jonathan Strauss
Thank you.
Kurt Elster
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