w/ Rob Fraser, Outway Socks
"I wanted to create a product that could be the yoga pant for the foot."
Rob Fraser, former pro cyclist and the founder of Outway, believes socks should do more than cover your feet. Drawing from his background in sport, Fraser has crafted a brand that blends durability with everyday style. In this episode, he shares the unlikely story of how a thousand-dollar loan sparked a $10 million business, tapping into the potential of a $50 billion market. What follows is a lesson in resilience, as Fraser discusses growth, innovation, and the quest to make socks worthy of serious consumer loyalty.
Kurt Elster
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Rob Fraser
Hey Kurt, happy to be here. Thanks for having me. I'm uh here in beautiful British Columbia on Vancouver Island. Live in Victoria, BC for the past. 10 years, but originally from the Toronto area. So good old Canadian boy. Um, but yeah, happy to be here. Happy to shall think stocks, business, sport, whatever you want to get into
Kurt Elster
So, well, uh my description of Outweigh socks, did I get it right? How would you describe Outweigh
Rob Fraser
Yeah, definitely. You know, like you got it right because Outways socks are designed to be whatever the wearer wants them to be, right? So the idea of the product was it like How can a pair of socks go with you throughout your entire day, no matter what you choose to do? Now a lot of people primarily get up to a few different things, whether they go to work or they go to school. They have a casual use for their socks and they have an athletic use for their socks. They go to play some sport recreationally, professionally. They like to run, exercise, go to the gym, whatever it be. I wanted to create a product that could be something like the yoga pant for the foot. You know, yoga painting incredibly versatile, where you can dress it up down, it's casual, comfortable, technical, you can work out, write down there's lay on the couch. I wanted that to be in sock form, a sock that you could put on in the in the morning and know that you can go to work. You can go to school, you can go for dinner, and you can go run a marathon in them. So, you know, your use case of you want to use them for cycling is perfect. That's the way you want to use the socks, but you can also wear those socks sitting here on doing this podcast and they're going to be breathable, comfortable. not hurt your feet, be supportive in fact, and make your feet feel happy. And they've got a lot of incredible fun designs so you can express your personality, whether it's toned up or really out there. Or sorry, toned down or really out there. And so yeah, you've kind of nailed it. Because there is no one thing or one, you know, description for the product other than it's an all-day performance pair of socks, performance in whatever you want to do with them.
Kurt Elster
I think what's impressed me the most, they're comfortable for sure. Like everything about everything you said is true. What really got me is the durability. Like cause I, you know, you're riding a bike with socks on. And especially like I'm doing a mountain bike, you abuse those things, and I have yet to wear a hole through them. I'll get there. I will destroy your socks yet, and I will be proud to do so.
Rob Fraser
Yeah, I mean that's like a big part of it, right? Like it was one thing you want your socks to do is last. And it's a complicated product because unlike all other apparel It's actually like making direct contact with the ground and friction. It's between your foot and the shoe. And there's like this constant almost friction back and forth. So it wears if you think about like a a shirt or a hoodie, it's just it's not interacting with the outside world unless you're kind of rubbing up against a wall or something, which is pretty, you know, infrequent. So creating socks which also need to be incredibly thin to then stand up to the daily wear of friction inside the shoe, particularly on running and most particularly on like trail running, where there's a ton of friction, a ton of kind of up and down hill movement. How do you make a soft glasses? Not an easy problem to solve, but it comes down to ultimately just figuring out the right way to weave the yarns, everything from the type of yarns you use, where you're putting in extra support, but not to get too nerdy on socks because no one's gonna care as much as I do, but yeah, they are durable. They are meant to last, but they're not meant to last forever. You know, they are a performance product and just like buying, as you would know, a high performance. pair of tires for your bike, they wear out. They're supposed to do their job until they don't need more, then you replace them. The same thing of a high performance running shoe. the foam breaks down, they wear out, you need to replace them after a certain amount of miles or kilometers. The same is true of your socks. These things aren't designed to last forever. That's not a claim we make, but during the reasonable timeline of the product, they should last. um and perform. You know, we like to say look we have a a one year guarantee on them. Do you get a year out of consistent use of the product? You're winning. You don't get that that much time out of repair writing shoes if you're trading often. And those shoes cost $300 repair, our socks cost $20.
Kurt Elster
The All right, so tell me how did this get started? What were you doing uh and why did you start selling socks?
Rob Fraser
Yeah, as you kind of mentioned uh at the beginning, I used to race mountain bikes professionally. So for about 10 years, I was a professional competitive athlete five times on the Canadian national team. Um and you know, during that time that was my life goal. I woke up excited every morning to go chase that. There was a one track mind. I you know, I didn't think about anything else. But then, you know, I was approaching the end of my career, realizing I wasn't going to make the ultimate goal and enough to kind of save myself for the long term. I can't I could retire off what I was making and I wasn't going to reach the peak where there was much more longevity. So in my early twenties I walked away from the sport, but then some had somewhat of an identity crisis like who am I and and what am I supposed to do now? Because you know I was pretty hyper focused on one thing for 10 years and then seemingly overnight it goes away. You're no longer Rob Fraser the cyclist, you're Rob Fraser the I don't know who I am and like what am I going to do? And so really the business was born out of you know, a search for a new identity or purpose in the world and then a a desire to just have another big goal and something to go after. And I think the third op reason I started was I wanted to remain involved in sport. that wasn't as an athlete or competitive athlete, could it be on the brand side? Could I own a business that has an athletic um brand attached to it that deals with athletes I could still do all the things I'd love to do just on the other side of the table and you know why socks? I didn't have any technical skills. I wasn't going to start a software company. So I thought an apparel company was something that seemed tangible as a guy with no business experience. Um and then socks seemed like one of the less risky pieces of clothing. Beyond that, um in cycling, socks are a part of the culture. You've mentioned this. It's the thing you actually think about as a cyclist. And so for ten years I was already deeply immersed in sock culture. I had a ton of socks. I had actually had a sock sponsor. So I understood the business from being on the other side of the table as an athlete. You know, when I was going through you know, outside of my cycling life I was actually considered like in the sock guy 'cause I always had like funky socks on. You know, shorts and cruise socks with like you know, shoes on and I always like I've got a permanent cruise sock tan line. You know, I like I would not worn cruise socks for like 20 years. Um so I was already the sock guy and I was like, okay, maybe like socks are this unique opportunity. I'm not gonna sit here and You know, still almost 10 years since we started. Um, we're in our eighth year, but like when I started, there was no like master plan. I didn't do market analysis. I just thought socks were cool. I'm gonna try and start a business, took a thousand dollars. I went back to school sometimes, a thousand dollars for my school loans I took out and invested that in getting some product, and that's how it was started. And you know, in hindsight, It was a good opportunity because SOCS are a $50 billion market. So a huge tan. There's a lot of opportunity in the niches of SOX, especially where we operate in an athletic SOC geared towards cycling, running, and all day performance And then there was no Canadian sock brands. There still basically is none, other than apps were were certainly in terms of niche alterings, the largest Canadian sock brand. um in terms of volume. Obviously they'll sell more socks than like Nike. They sell more socks in Canada than us, but in terms of niche stock brands, the majority of the competitors are in the US. And we're among the top players now in North America. So there's a unique opportunity just to go capture our own turf. Um and then at the time we started in the mid-teens of 2016, e-commerce was on the upswing. It wasn't new, but it was certainly getting traction and there was a way to enter the market by, you know, the classic D to C. um value prop of cutting out the middleman. So we're able to go direct to consumer at the socks and offer a higher quality product at a lower price than everything else that was on the market. So there was all these things that like, you know, I just stumbled into, but in hindsight had a lot of reasons why we are where we are today. So like it was, you know, opportunity meets luck meets hard work and it's a really long winded answer, but I the last thing I want to do is be like, look, I took an analysis at the market and came up with this genius idea, I do socks in this niche and invest it. And here I am with a brand that's crushing. It's like, no, I I thought stocks were cool. I took a little bit of money, gave it a shot, and have incrementally improved over eight years. And that's where we are where we are.
Kurt Elster
Well, I like that approach and I like you know an honest detailed answer. Um yeah, I I've attended Interbike several times, the big bike convention. I worked in a bike shop many years ago. And the what To your point, today anyone knows that they could find funky socks. Like it I could go to Target and buy funky socks. fifteen years ago not the case. And that will you're right, it was like a big part of cycling culture was why you know the wild socks. And that was the best part about going inner bike. I'd come home with so much swag. It was like, you know, a couple pairs of gloves and like 10 pairs of socks. Um I still have some of that stuff today that I love. The but okay, what's the moment where you've you start outweigh What's the moment you realize that hey this this could work, this could be successful, or did you never doubt it?
Rob Fraser
You know, I always hold two things true, even when I was in sport and to this day, it's that When I start something and set my mind to it, I believe, on one hand, there's no doubt I'm going to be successful at it and I'm going to achieve my wildest dreams. And on the other hand, I have no idea how I'm going to do it. I just, I have this like unwavering belief and some I I'm just gonna figure it out as I go. So like when I started, although I didn't expect it to work, um, and you know, it was just something I thought would be fun and a cool opportunity At the same time I was like, I'm fully committed, I want this to work, and I'm gonna go all in. Um and so I always harness those two beliefs at the same time and at You know, pretty early on, I I I took that thousand dollars, I taught myself how to design the socks, I sourced the manufacturer, and within only two months I had 230 pairs of my own socks designed and in hand, so moved very quickly. I then took those socks to school in a tupperware and sold them one by one. And I sold them out in like two or three days. So like pretty immediately I was like, okay, maybe I've got something here. And people were like, we like these. Do you have more? I'm like, no, I sold out. Um and so I took the money I made. I went right back to the manufacturer. I was like, hey, I need 700 more. I just doubled down. Um and then then I kept doing that. I sold more at school and then I looked at local events, like local cycl at the time it was the fall, so cyclocross races. I set up a little boost of cyclocross races, sold them to people. And slowly but surely it started to catch on, just like you said, you heard about it from a friend. Like that's primarily how we've grown significantly. We got to over a million in sales by not doing any traditional d digital advertising. We just word of mouth, brand ambassadors, event pop-ups. really kind of old school, even when it was like the goldmine of Facebook ads and e-commerce, we didn't take that approach, which is why I think we're still thriving and around today compared to burning out. And we built a really strong foundation of actual branded real marketing tangible product that people love and refer. It wasn't an arbitrage. So yeah, I mean pretty early on, I mean we did like 350 grand the first year on that one thousand dollar initial investment. So that's a lot of stocks, right? You sell them for fifteen to twenty bucks a pair, it's a lot of stocks. So like after that year I was like, oh, I think I've got something here, you know? Um at that time we were well we were uh we auditioned for Dragon's Den, which is like Canada's shark tank. Um and we got on, um, pitched it, got a couple offers that I turned down, and that's where I was really like, okay, like I got to the national stage in cycling. This is like the national stage in business. Like I'm kind of like, this is my new thing. This is, you know, I'm an athlete in the sport of business now. I'm gonna just go all in. And so it was really at that point where, you know, I started the business with a co-founder, a friend from school. We got to this moderate level of success with over a million sales. We've erred on you know this business TV show across the country. Um He decides that he doesn't want to do it anymore and quits. And I have to come up with $150,000 to buy him out because we didn't have a shareholder agreement. It wasn't an ideal situation. You know, we were simply value misaligned and when we started it You know, I had this belief, we'll do it for fun. We don't expect it to work. But I had the belief if it if it works, I'm gonna go all in. This belief was this is just for fun. Um so when the work started to get real and the stress started to get real, He wanted to opt out. And so the moment I'd say like where I know it's working, but I have to kind of put my money where I'm out is it's taking a hundred and fifty thousand dollar low to buy out my business partner and they go, okay, now I've actually got to make this work. you know, this isn't a small amount of money to to to lose. And yeah, that was the kind of like the arc of it working and me deciding that I'm like, I'm gonna go all in, not just with my time and attention, but with my own bank account. And uh Yeah, I would do it again. It's it's it's worked out nicely, but there was no guarantee back then. It was working, but uh there was no guarantee we'd be where we are today.
Kurt Elster
It sounds like this is a bootstrapped business.
Rob Fraser
Bootstrapped it for five years. So we bootstrapped it to ten million in total sales. So ten million in total sales off at $1,000. Not bad. So basically total sales and that make about s over six million in annual sales, bootstrapped it. So pretty good off a um you know off a thousand bucks. So cash flowed and profitable, which is extremely hard to do in a consumer business that's scaling. And then in 2021, there was a opportunity to take investment from a group of people I had curated that were mentors at the time. These are kind of prominent figures in the business community that I had built relationships with over the past year. And it was just a great time to kind of capitalize the business. I owned 100% of it. Yeah, I would say like at our core, we're a bootstrapped business that has taken on some money for partners, but um we're not like on the raising train like most venture businesses.
Kurt Elster
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Rob Fraser
Yeah, I mean I'd say like the success of an entrepreneur comes down to almost two things. One is that mindset, your ability to persevere and your level of resilience. And then two is your ability to kind of apply that over a long time horizon and be patient, right? So like success in business is just time in the game and just don't die. You know, just like I I would say young entrepreneurs just like stay in business long enough to figure out what you're doing. And then once you finally figure it out, start to scale it. Like that is really the game. It took us five years to figure it out. You know, we're doing five, six million revenue. We're still figuring it out. It wasn't really until the last couple years where we're like Oh, like this is exactly what's going on in terms of like true scale, right? And like building infrastructure and kind of like really investing in channels. So it takes a long time, you know, these you know, most overnight successes are ten years in the making, that kinda like trite quote. But it is so true. Um but I what sport taught me was was things like I think the most important loss that everything is earned, not owed, right? Sport is still one of the truest forms of teaching you that what you put in is what you get out. You don't always get out equal proportion to what you put in. You don't always win. You don't always get lucky. Things happen around cycling and and rut racing. You get a flat tire. You can do everything right and you get a flat tire. It's just bad luck. um in most cases. Sometimes you take a bad line, but um it's just bad luck. So like it teaches you everything's erred not owed and it is also not guaranteed. You could do all the work. And so I've harnessed that mindset of just like always approaching every day like I'm not owed any. here. Like I've got to do the work. And even if I do the work, I'm not guaranteed the results, but I'm going to keep pushing on because what sport also taught me is that if you just hang on long enough and you have the big goals, you're working towards them, usually the universe will kind of reward you with some sort of forward momentum. Maybe it's not in the way that you thought. You know, like I think ultimately the perseverance in in the minds that had in sport It didn't end up getting me to the end result I wanted in sport. I just wasn't world champion. I didn't get to, you know, retire the Michael Jordan of cycling, you know, but It provided me the opportunity and platform to do what I'm doing now. Right. And so like it's if you take a 20-year time horizon, it's like, oh, okay, everything I was doing and the hard work I was putting in back then is actually coming to fruition now. which is like 18 years later, right? Which is kind of crazy. Um starting success is not always what you think of it to be as well. It's like you just gotta think of you're gonna put the work in every day, do something positive and try to add value to the world, that's gonna come back your way. Whether you want to call it karma or whatever. Um whatever, however you want to classify it. I think like Those were the ultimate lessons. And you know, more tactically as an athlete, um, you're marketing yourself, you are the brand. So I understood and and learned lessons around Self-promotion, how to negotiate with sponsors, develop contracts, how to understand that like relationships like this, whether you're selling myself to a brand or a product to a customer is like there's a value exchange. You're willing to give me money, I'm going to give you something. It's not, yeah, I think what I see so commonly with founders raising money as well as Athletes trying to get sponsors, they're like, what can you give me? Right? It's a one-sided transaction when these things should be win-win. Just like, what can I give you that you give me that we both feel like we're winning here? That's how deals get done. Um, so it taught me a lot of lessons there. It also taught me a lot of lessons just around planning and preparation, worldwide logistics. So I think myself and my bike around the world. that that creates some understanding of how I get socks around the world. So really simple things like that. But there's just tactical lessons in everything you do. And this isn't just relatable to sport. I would encourage anyone. that's maybe thinking about starting a business, think of all the things they've done in their life where these lessons are true. I just pull on those lessons.
Kurt Elster
I it's fabulous advice and I love that the inherent humility, the humbleness, the modesty of that mindset, you know, of n you're not owed anything. You know, and what you do get from the universe really is is a gift and the product of what you put in. But yeah, I want to talk about socks some more or as we're calling them yoga leggings for your feet. Um But all right, so socks are an interesting category because I could spend twenty bucks fifteen, twenty bucks on one pair of socks that are fancy. I could spend fifteen, twenty bucks and get a big bag of tube socks and have a fresh pair of socks, you know, daily and throw them out at the end of the day if I'm a real monster. Right. Like there's It can be a commodity or it could be just a really uh neat and uh relatively inexpensive accessory, right? Like 20 bucks on a single article of clothing is not crazy. But then when it socks, maybe it is. Right. So if socks are seen as this kind of functional product, how do you go about transforming them into this high value thing that your customers love? You have a loyal fan base for
Rob Fraser
Yeah, this is where we've like unlocked a lot of insights over the last couple of years. So like I think the exciting thing about the SOC category in general is like I mentioned it's a $50 billion category worldwide. It's about 10 billion in North America. So it's a very, very large market, which means there's a lot of opportunity to niche down and find a specific audience that you can sell to. For us, that's athletes that want to merge performance with expression as well as all day versatility. Um So really what, you know, we are aiming to do with the product is, you know, first and foremost, we have to understand what's gonna get them to make the first purchase. You know, like uh we're selling direct mostly online, they can't pick up the stock. And they can't feel it, they can't try it on. You can't actually try socks on in store anyways. That's the unique thing about socks compared to other apparel. You can't try them on. Um so if you're selling online, we recognize that like, okay, we can't necessarily just like sell people on the comfort of them because they can't try it. So what are they gonna buy them for? So that's why we have so many designs. You know, we realize that if we can have a someone evoke a an emotional response to a certain specific design that we have, they're willing to take that bet and spend twenty-two dollars on a pair of socks. They're just like, I love this design. I don't care that this pair of socks $22. This will be my special pair of socks. I just really want the design because it makes me happy and I want to put it on in the morning and be happy. So that's really why you know a big portion of our customers make their initial purchase is they just want the design. They have actually no idea the socks are great. They just love and we have yeah, exactly. And so the cool thing here though is the socks are incredible, right? And so you buy it for the design. These people get the socks. And they put them on, they're like, oh my God, I didn't even know socks could feel this good. It's actually kind of almost a life-changing moment for a lot of our customers. And we have thousands of reviews that tell this exact story. And we can see it in the data. They buy it for the design. They put it on, they come back and they buy an entire drawerful of black and white socks. We we're we're trying to look in the data for a while, be like, why they It's the like why do we sell so many of our basic socks with everything we hear about from customers is the designs? Then we looked at it and there was this like 30-day window where people come back and make a second purchase and fill their drawer with just basic. And we're like, oh, that's because they're filling. They don't wear their funky designs every day for everything, but they've just said, oh my God, I need to replace my entire sock drawer because this is my new sock brand. And that's actually like our mission statement, our vision of the company is like to replace the sock drawer of everyone on earth, right? It's like we want to be the only pair of socks that people need. Um and so that is kind of like the unique way that we sell socks and get people to um you know, ultimately get to their own conclusion that they need to not just go spend a small amount of money on a large amount of stocks because you know they can get better value, but that they actually have um now an affinity for good socks and that feel great and provide support and that are versatile. And so where I was getting that with like the market size is what's so exciting about socks. Um, is that I believe that 90 plus percent of the market is still unaware that they should even be thinking about their socks, which is so cool. Like You know, we're we're kind of in a market right now where everyone thinks about the clothes they wear and it's hyper competitive. They're like there's a million one t-shirt brands and hoodie brands and shoe brands because people think about this, they try different brands, they're constantly testing. Very few people have my favorite sock brand. Very, very few. I mean like like we might operate in different circles where you're a cyclist and there's that that's more common, but you go to a room of like a hundred people and say, What's your favorite sock brand? They're gonna be like I have no idea. Like that's a weird question you're weird for asking me. Right. So um the cool the the cool thing is like our our most our most competitive thing right now is how do we actually just make more of the market aware? And what's the most unique way we can get people to figure out that they should be thinking and caring about stocks? Business takes time to fully understand what's going on. And if you we have a chat in two years, I'm sure I'll have even more insights, or maybe even some of this is wrong what I'm saying. So um Yeah, it's been really wonderful to figure out.
Kurt Elster
That's the nature of doing the work. Yeah, when you're you're doing the work, you keep you know you are succeeding when you look back at yourself six months prior. And see the growth. Like if you go, oh, you know, t a year ago is pretty much the same as now, uh, you probably need to be trying harder, right? I'm looking at your site, your Shopify store, outway. com, which is fabulous that you have a six-letter domain name, Outway. com. And there's about 300 product listings. It is exclusively socks, a lot of bundles, and I see like stuff merchandised all different ways. It worked on me when I bought them. I was like, oh, I'll get a bundle. There's a 15% savings to do the bundle discount. Is that um With going deep on a single category, because you don't sell anything else, it's socks and sock packs. I would imagine that merchandising is a big part of this.
Rob Fraser
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so we sell just socks, and within that we just sell athletic socks. So we're narrowing down even more. But within that, we have a few offerings. First, there's the height you want to buy. So within the athletic sock, we offer everything from a no-show to a knee-eye sock. So there's people have preferred heights. Some people have various heights they wear within a certain season, but uh people have a preferred height. Then within that we have the designs. So we've got everything from more basic designs up to very out there designs. And then we've got materials. So we have our athletic blends, which is more synthetic blend, which is like all activeware and then we have merino so there's that way of merchandising or thinking about the product is like what's your style that you like and people will just have preferences there. Um and we're working on a more kind of um kind of cottony version, it won't be cotton because like as a brand and an athletic brand we steer clear of cotton. It's just inherently a a lower performance yarn and it's It's just not ideal for sport. So we're working on something that will feel like that, but will be not cotton. So there'll be a third kind of yarn option coming. soon as well. Um but yeah, and then in terms of merchandising those beyond that, there's just you buy them individually or you buy them in packs. Um packs is just a a way that people don't necessarily a way to avoid decision fatigue. So they can get, you know, three at once and it's just a it's a higher AOV or average order value for us as well, 'cause stocks are very low price points and to to do well online and in e-commerce, like you you know it's it's it's easier with a higher AOV. Um we're actually actively working on build your own pack as well, which will have three and six pack options and that should go live later this year or in the early new year, so 2025. And then beyond that, we have a mystery pair upsell as well. So like when you go to checkout, there's that pop-up that will come up and say, would you like to add a mystery pair, which is basically a surprise design that will send you at a discounted rate
Kurt Elster
Have you done have you have you done Mystery Pack or Free Gift of Purchase before?
Rob Fraser
Yeah, we've we've tried all of that stuff too. And you know, this like really the merchandising strategy is like how do we just get people to buy more at once because it's not economical for us to ship. one pair at a time, which is why we have a free shipping threshold to encourage people to get up over three pairs generally. But ideally we want to sell six at a time to make it truly worthwhile, especially being in Canada shipping costs are so high on our end.
Kurt Elster
You know, a lot of the stuff requires special features, and that means apps. Are there any any Shopify apps you particularly love?
Rob Fraser
For bundles, we just use the Shopify Bundles app. It's fantastic. They make it super easy. Um it's dealt in, you know, it's native to Shopify, it's a native it's a native app, so it's seamless in terms of uh how that works. So like what it allows us to do really is take just all of our single SKUs and bundle that we don't have to pre-make bundles So we can actually take you know a hundred um skew product catalog and make it two hundred skews just by making bundles that don't actually increase our stock on hand liability. We don't have to put out more cash to bring in more bundled products. Um the only downside of that app right now, and maybe this has changed in the last few days, is that they don't have great analytics on how the bundles sell because it splits out every product sale individually after on the back end. That seems like a pretty easy Shopify thing to add in. So Shopify, if anyone there is listening, I need analytics. I need I need data on pack sales, please, on bundle sales. That um that that app's great. Um but we we actually search clear of quite a quite a lot of apps just because You know, we uh we've had we've been burned in the past of apps counteracting with some of the features or they bug out and kind of um cause issues in the code or in the in the in the website. Um or they take percentage fees of sales, which like at a high volume store, we just want to avoid that at all costs because like it's just skimps off the top. Um Uh but I mean I mean I'd say like if you're testing things, we use apps all the time. So for this pack builder that we're gonna be launching in the new year, I don't know the exact name of the app, but we are using an app. And if it goes well Um we will build it natively eventually. But there's a really great app that we found that's gonna allow us to test it, get it out the gate. Um and then we'll see how it goes. So I'd say like we use apps for testing primarily, um, but in general we'll try to keep them pretty app light. And they load, they they can affect speed loading uh uh page loading times and stuff too. So there's just a bunch of considerations, but um Yeah, we're generally pretty app light.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, I like that approach. The site will run faster. You've got reduced overhead. Yeah, anything that you could do natively or yourself and own it, it's generally better. But you're right, like You don't want to go building every feature yourself every time. There's certainly times where the app makes more sense. Ever wake up to customers canceling orders? Maybe they said, I shouldn't shop when I'm high. This was a gift. We broke up. Those are all real customer quotes, and they're all a real hassle for your customer and you. Why should the customer have to ask you to edit their order for them? What if they could do it themselves? Enter Cleverific! With Cleverific, you can empower your customers to make their own changes through a self-service portal. Cleverific is designed to reduce customer support tickets ship orders faster, and even reduce returns and lost packages. Don't just take our word for it. Menswear retailer Peter Manning New York cut their order support queries by 99% with Cleverific, and they're not alone. Exclusively For listeners of the unofficial Shopify podcast, get 50% off Cleverific's Pro Plan, now just $49 a month, giving you full access to everything Cleverific has to offer Just go to cleverific. com slash unofficial and use the promo code Kurt50, that's K-R-U-T-50, at checkout to claim your discount. Take control with Cleverific and watch your customer support tickets plummet, shipping speeds increase, and package returns decrease. And all of that means happier customers. It sounds like you know you want to own the experience. Do you worry about over reliance on like very various tools in your tech stack?
Rob Fraser
Yeah, no, not no not really. Especially in the tech staff. I mean, business wide as well, we are diversified. So we sell on Amazon as well. We sell in wholesale as well. So we're sold in multiple channels. And so outside of just our D to C we are pretty um diversified out of just self-reliance on that. Although D to C is like the significant portion of our business. In terms of tools, I mean Shopify allows you to own everything you'd really want to own. You know, we have those email lists. We use the very basic partners. Like we use Clive O for email. We could port all of that information over to a new ESP if we want to. So we own that that information. We own those emails. So if we like if we We're not reliant on Clavio. If we wanted to move to another ESP, which um, you know, is always possible, then we can bring those customers with us. They don't own that list. Um, so There has been predatory apps in the past where they will kind of like yeah, I think there was an a f pretty famous like SMS one where they'll kind of like try and keep your keep your contacts or or make it hard. Maybe it's not semester there was there has I have heard stories where there are certain apps where they'll gain access to some of the data that you're getting. And so In that case, like we'll never engage and I would encourage anyone to really look into that, but we make sure when we're using any apps or partners that we own the data. that that's ours and that if we wanted to move providers, we can move. So like our reviews. If you want to move to a new review platform, we can download all the reviews, get all the information, move them over to a new platform. Same with email. Beyond that, we're not really using that many providers outside of Shopify ecosystem. And we own all the information there too. If I wanted to leave Shopify, I could download all the customer information as well. So that's really important. And then work on agencies, I mean I've I've had predatory experiences in the agencies too where um if you're gonna work with a meta agency Sometimes they'll want to use their own sort of platform which is not in your ad account. And so they'll own all the campaign structure and all that data that you're getting. They'll just provide you visibility via dashboard. Don't do that, obviously, because you're not building that the data in your um ad account and training your pixel and all this stuff. So I've seen all these sorts of things. So I'd say like Yeah, it's a great question. And like I've gone down that road and be burned, especially on the meta side many, many, many years ago. But um I'd say like when we consider any partner for anyone out there listening to saying a partner, make sure you own your data. Uh they make sure that like they're just providing a service and they're not gatekeeping the core IP that that you as a brand want access to. Um so we've yeah, I've never actually been asked that before, so it's a great question. Um And we've learned. Yeah. Yeah. Burn and learn. Yeah.
Kurt Elster
So all right, I wanna know I wanna two things I wanna know as we we end our time together. You've been doing this it's quite some time, and I I think you brought A little bit of an outsider perspective and a unique mindset to this. How has D2C, the e-com landscape changed over that time. Like, you know, med is harder, advertising is harder. We hear a lot about customer acquisition cost. What's what's different? What has changed?
Rob Fraser
You know, I think what's changed is that you have to run your business like we've always run it. So, you know, what's been interesting for us is that like We didn't feel the change as much because we didn't play the game everyone was playing it and like for better or for worse. Yeah, I look back and be like, oh Could we have maximized way more opportunity by just like kind of going all in on the you know e-commerce model and like you know instead of spending so much time on ground in those formative years building the brand and doing, you know partnerships and being in real life at events, could we have just been like taking advantage of the Facebook gold mine? So yeah, there's probably a lot of Missed opportunity there, however, perhaps it would have been at the expense of longevity. You know, we wouldn't have actually built the brand of the product love that we have. Hard to say and go back, but what's really changed is that it's There's far less of an arbitrage game. You can't just come in, put up the store and print money with Facebook ads anymore. Like that's the general theme here is that you actually have to focus on building a product that solves a customer need that people love and want to come back for. The landscape is just too expensive for you to basically sell Let's talk about like where I'm at, sell a product that's not five thousand dollars or a thousand dollars. Sell like a consumer product under 250 bucks. And maybe even under a hundred bucks. It's the the market's not there where you can just sell one and never have a repeat customer and just make money. It's just too expensive to acquire, it's too expensive to run. You need that retention engine there. You need people to come back. and kind of blend into your metrics so that you're making money over the long tail. So I'd say like what's really changed is that you have to run a business now. Not an arbitrage. You know, you need to do it all. You need to have a great product, you need to build a strong team, you need to build tr an advertising model that isn't just reliant on one channel and it kind of considers all else. Like you know, in real life events or partnerships or product seeding, um, you need to run a business. Um and so I'd say like for for just kind of like the dropshipping, you know, dropshipping's got a flamed out as well. Like there's times where arbitrage happens and people come in and they they turn and burn. You know, they just make as much money as they can and go. I think that way of running an e-commerce is just going away. And you actually need to build a business and provide value and diversify the business. There's still probably a ton of opportunity to go build build million dollar businesses and like do okay on small products and always find these little arbitrary. But if you're sitting and listening and saying, I want to build a brand that's around for 10 years and do over 10 million revenue, you're gonna need to take a way different approach to that than you did in the past. And that's gonna require building a real product and a real team. And like I talked about earlier, it's creating a value exchange for the people you're selling to. Um and where I come from, like that's that's what I love to do. I'm not here to create just money. I want to create, you know, value in the market. I want to I want to like have a brand I let back on and be proud of that it's I've gonna have conversations with with you about the product, right? That's flexible for us together and like that's cool to me. The reviews are cool, I'll see people where the product is cool. The other stuff is all secondary to the change that we can do and and and just provide, you know, such a great product and build a cool brand. You know, like we have initiatives um that we're actively engaged in each year too with like cancer donation, for example, um and and other athlete. other athlete foundations um that we get involved with. And we've donated hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years to these different foundations and and initiatives. And that's also really cool. So it's like, you know, how can you use your your your business as a vehicle for good and give back as well. And um, you know, that's the ultimate sort of how I think about it and and how the market is changing. We're that the consumer is demanding actual value and they're kind of wising up to to the game. And beyond that, there's all the privacy changes and how we can advertise, which is just make it made it tougher. And ultimately what all this does is make the cost to do business higher. And so you need to find a way to um make more money, and that's generally going to be through your retention uh uh in the business. And that means selling a product you'll want to come back and buy more of.
Kurt Elster
I I love the advice. Build a brand and be in it for the long haul. And these this these get rich quick schemes that we're drop dropshipping stores, you know, that that's going away. That's no longer a viable or attractive model. And you know, frankly, I think it's for the best. Um my my last question to you, I want to know how you define success. How does Rob personally define success? What's it look like for you?
Rob Fraser
You know, I think ultimately what success is and where I've got to today, you have to ask me the year how this changes, but is that I'm still inspired to do what I do every day. I still wake up, you know, like what I was searching for when I started the business and what I had when I was in sport was just that. insatiable fire in my belly to wake up every day and I've got this large goal and I want to achieve it. And it's basically a mission of self-improvement, trying to achieve a personal best. uh and just get better. And so success for me looks like not losing that. And so that's not tied to a specific end goal, which I think is really important. It's not like because I had I had, you know, you asked me a little while ago as maybe more amateur business, I'd be like Oh, it's to get to a million revenue and then five million and then ten million. And we've hit all these milestones and it changed nothing. And the dopamine hit was like 30 seconds and it was like back to the grind. And so that's a fleeting way to think about success in my opinion and maybe that works for some people and that's great and I'm happy for them. But for me it's not tied necessarily to some sort of end goal. It's tied to the process of am I still enjoying this? I think I'm in a period now where you know, like I get to choose why I do this as well. And I I want to do it for a reason to, like I said, have a business that's providing value and to give back and to see people people that I hire thrive as well and see them develop and how can that present new opportunities to do other things and meet interesting people. And so I say like Honestly, man, it's just it's success for me is that I wake up and get to do this every day and work on that big goal and enjoy doing it. Like that's kind of a life worth living, and that's a bit of a that's a huge win in my opinion. Like if you're excited to do what you do every day. What can you what else is what else can you ask for? That's pretty cool.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, having a job you love. You're excited to get up and go do. That's really about as good as it gets. It's a where where can we get these fabulous socks?
Rob Fraser
Outway, our our our Shopify store is certainly uh the best place. It's where we have our most diverse offering and our best deals. So outway. com, o-ut-w-a-y. com, like you said. six letter domain that cost me uh five figures. Um but uh I think that's a good deal. It's a good deal. Yeah I was I was surprised we got it. So yeah at way. com If you're a little more risk-adverse and just want to try the product, get one pair quickly. Amazon, Amazon, Canada, and the US. We're fully stocked there of our best sellers. uh it's like one to two day shipping and twenty two bucks a pair just give it a shot and if you like them then come to our DSC store. Um or if you're in Canada we're in multiple stores including Mountain Equipment Co-op or Mountain Equipment Company. um and various other run bike shops but uh there's multiple ways to buy. Check it out. Uh if you don't like them, let me know and we'll just replace it 'cause or refund you because they're just that great. You know, we like we uh um I really stand by the product so yeah check it out.
Kurt Elster
I'm gonna go do uh some sock shopping. Rob Fraser, Outweigh Socks, thank you so much. Crowdfunding campaigns are great. You can add social proof and urgency to your product pre-orders while reducing risk of failure. But with traditional crowdfunding platforms, you You're paying high fees and giving away control all while your campaign is lost in a sea of similar offers. It can be frustrating. That's why we built Crowdfunder, the Shopify app that turns your Shopify product pages into your own independent crowdfunding campaigns. We originally created Crowdfunder for our private clients, and it was so successful we turned it into an app that anyone can use. Today, merchants using Crowdfunder have raised millions collectively. With Crowdfunder, you'll enjoy real-time tracking, full campaign control, and direct customer engagement. And it's part of the Built for Shopify program. so you know it's easy to use. So say goodbye to high fees and hello to successful store-based crowdfunding. Start your free trial and transform your Shopify store Into a pre-order powerhouse today. Search Crowdfunder in the Shopify App Store to get started.