Jaye Genung
Building relationships and thinking about what's important to each individual person in the business process. Again, to the customer, the vendor, the employee, the owners, the bank even.
Chase Clymer
Welcome to Honest Ecommerce, a podcast dedicated to cutting through the BS and finding actionable advice for online store owners. I'm your host, Chase Clymer. And I believe running a direct-to-consumer brand does not have to be complicated or a guessing game.
On this podcast, we interview founders and experts who are putting in the work and creating real results.
I also share my own insights from running our top Shopify consultancy, Electric Eye. We cut the fluff in favor of facts to help you grow your Ecommerce business.
Let's get on with the show.
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Honest Ecommerce. I'm your host, Chase Clymer.
And today I'm welcoming the show, Jaye Genung.
She is the CEO of Gobi Heat, which is the premium US heated apparel brand. Welcome to the show.
Jaye Genung
Hey, thanks for having me on. Glad to be here.
Chase Clymer
I'm excited to chat. So what types of products is the premium US apparel brand bringing to market? What are you guys selling on your website?
Jaye Genung
So I would say the average customer who goes to our website will see a lot of heated apparel. We try to give a lot of options.
Historically, heated apparel had been the black soft shell jacket that you could get at Home Depot, primarily for men. And the value prop at that point was that it had heat and that was basically it.
What we're doing is we're making the best heating system with the best battery.
And we're being very thoughtful about the customer and what their experience is, what they're doing while they're wearing the heated apparel, what their pain points are, how we can solve that. And we're adding a whole lot of style to it as well.
Chase Clymer
That's fantastic.
Jaye Genung
We're also selling, though, in more recent years, we've branched out to other heated gear– is what we're calling it.
So we have heated chairs, heated stadium seats, and heated portable blankets. You can literally take these things anywhere. They're all wireless.
Last year's big launch was the heated hammock. This is basically a heated portable tent that you can throw in your backpack.
And that's really starting to gain a lot of traction.
Chase Clymer
That's amazing.
Now, where did the idea for this business come from? Did it start with a product? Walk me through that.
Jaye Genung
Back in, let's say, 2015, I was dating my husband. And it was this ongoing bit in our relationship that I was always freezing and he was always hot.
And I think a lot of couples can relate to that. I would say that ours is probably a little further on each of the two extremes.
He was a plumber at the time and had seen one of the tool brands. They make some heated workwear.
And he had purchased me a heated jacket. I think it was half a joke and half an act of love and got it for me as a just-because gift. At the time, I was in product development, project management.
After a couple weeks, he said to me, ‘So how do you like that jacket?’ I said, ‘I really love the concept, but it was kind of poorly executed.’ And, like, even I could do better.
And at the time I hadn't done any projects or really run any companies of my own, outside, you know, little self-employment opportunities.
So he said, ‘Well, you should do it.’ And I was like.
But he encouraged me and so that resulted in what was our first jacket.
I bought 100 jackets that first year and I was nervous as all got out, didn't think it was really going to work, and it did.
And we continued to innovate and add color and add style and with Mark's background in the trades, right? He was a plumber for 30 years.
That allowed us to be very thoughtful about the folks that are working out in the cold, whether they feel like going out there or not, right? It's still their job.
If you're someone that wants a heated hoodie for hiking, then you can decide not to go hiking that day because it's cold, but you can't decide not to go to work because it's cold. So we've been very thoughtful about our work wear, which does very well for us.
And we've translated that deep thought and research into all of our products.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely.
I feel like we skipped over a few parts that I have to dial in and ask about.
So you have the idea, you get this jacket, and you know you can do better. I feel like we skipped a few steps between that part and ordering 100 jackets. So…
Jaye Genung
Yes, probably.
Chase Clymer
Let's walk through that a little bit more systematically. So what was the next step after you're like, I can do this better. What do you do?
Do you reach out to people you know about product development? Do you start looking at companies overseas to produce this?
Why 100 jackets? Why didn't you start with some prototypes? Walk me through all these trains of thoughts.
Jaye Genung
Yeah. So yeah. So you're right. We missed a lot of steps there. So yeah, it started with researching what the supply chain looks like for heated apparel. What the battery supply chain looks like for heated apparel.
What do I want my heat system to be? Do I want to have a five volt system, 7.4, a 12 volt and why?
And so it started with a lot of research.
I was lucky enough to be working and have worked with a lot of engineers and electrical engineers. One of my best friends is a senior director of an engineering team at a medical device company. So if he didn't know it, then he had a guy working for him that knew it.
So I was lucky to have a network that allowed me to do a lot of really solid research.
And yeah, I did, I sampled, I prototyped.
And then, you know, when you're dealing with mass production, you're dealing with minimum order quantities. And so that's where my negotiation skills came into place where they all want a thousand MOQ for four sizes in one color.
And I just knew that wasn't going to launch it. I knew that I needed to be able to sell to men and women. I needed to sell a variety of colors and appeal to different tastes and needs.
And again, it goes back to that. It's not about what Gobi Heat needs, meaning Gobi Heat needs to buy a thousand black jackets. It's what the customers need. What problem are we solving?
And so I was able to negotiate that first year, four colors with a hundred MOQ. And so now, I don't think I would even try to do that now because I know better, but I had no other choice. And we were able to do that.
And I'm actually sitting in the very room now, I'm visiting family, but I'm actually sitting in the very room where we loaded the first 10 boxes.
And I remember unloading those first-time boxes thinking, ‘Oh my God, what have I done? I can't do this.’
And so really a lot of credit goes to my husband Mark for just, you know, basically being my personal therapist. And so anyone out there who is trying to go into Ecomm and you're thinking, ‘oh, I can't do it, I can't do it,’ Find your personal therapist. Find your positive person in your life to say, ‘Yes, you can. And if it doesn't work, here's what we'll do.’
And that was really liberating for me to allow me to go out there and take some risks.
Chase Clymer
I've got a follow-up question that I know listeners are gonna want to know. You said, I even know better now I wouldn't do 100 orders.
What advice would you give for someone that is running into manufacturing minimum orders for their first right after their prototype phase, what do you wish you knew back then?
Jaye Genung
What I would do is talk to people. I would build the relationship. And that's essentially what I did.
If you need 100 MOQ, if you need someone to get your MOQ down, you explain to them, show them, get them in the same boat as you and say, okay, we're rowing over there. We're all going over there together.
Your job is to help me get there. The way you're going to do that is this first order. You're gonna give me this MOQ. You're gonna make less money on it.
But in the next five years, you're going to make a lot of money because you did this and you'll be glad you did it.
And really, I do feel like building relationships and thinking about what's important to each individual person in the business process. Again, to the customer, the vendor, the employee, the owners, the bank even, what is driving them? What's motivating them?
How can you meet their needs while all going in the same direction that your Ecommerce boat is going in?
Chase Clymer
That's a great question and a great answer. Okay. So we've got these products. You've got them in.
How do you sell them? What was the go-to-market strategy? How are you getting these in front of potential customers?
Jaye Genung
There was no strategy. Honestly, there really wasn't. This was... I'll just be very honest with you.
This was going to be something that I was going to do in this very basement for the rest of my life, a few weeks a year when it was cold. And I would still have a day job. There was absolutely no strategy.
Honestly, I didn't know anything, really, about it. I know how to do product. And now I know a lot more about marketing, but at the time there really wasn't one.
And so I do encourage people to do your research and don't do what I did and have a strategy.
I mean, the strategy really kind of was built out of product and not to beat a dead horse.
It's about offering something, you know, just the fact that we were offering color at the time was ground breakingly simple.
And so offering color and reaching out to women was something that really hadn't been done at the time. And so that I would say was the strategy as far as the thinking.
As far as putting the ads together and the budget for the ads and all the ad spend, I just made it up as we went along.
And I had contractors that worked for me and they knew what they were doing. But sort of. And we just kind of iterate and continue to improve.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely.
Do you remember how long it took you to sell through that first 100 orders?
Jaye Genung
Oh, not very long at all because I do recall that I was able to get back on with the same vendor that I talked into my vision and say, ‘Hey, I need another thousand jackets.’ And so the next order was a thousand jackets.
And I think we launched just kind of ad hoc, two or three other jackets that year, because it just started to gain steam.
And so that first year, we sold 600 jackets.
Chase Clymer
And gaining that steam, you mentioned ads earlier. Was that your primary channel for new customer acquisition?
Jaye Genung
It was. And this was 2016. So it was a lot more economical to do it back then.
Now, we're being forced to be a little more creative. And I think that's good for everybody. There's some pain that comes along with that.
But just loading up your Google ad or Facebook ad budget, you have to work harder at it now than ever before.
Chase Clymer
So let's fast forward a little bit. You are selling these jackets, you're 10Xing your orders to your vendors.
When did you realize like, this isn't going to be a side hustle anymore? I got to go all in on this?
Jaye Genung
Yeah, I asked myself that a lot. So I would say... I mean, the one answer is I did not take a paycheck for two and a half years.
I knew it was growing, but I knew that taking a paycheck wasn't going to serve the ultimate goal. We needed to plow as much money back into inventory, as much money back into ads as we possibly could.
And there were some growing pains early. Just one day it occurred to me that I'm really bad at customer service. I need to hire a customer service person.
So, it just kind of happened to me a little bit. But yeah, I mean, I finally started working full time on it probably a year and a half into it.
Chase Clymer
That's amazing.
And were there any contributing factors to that within the business that you recognized? Where like, ‘All right, this is the time.’
Jaye Genung
Yeah, we were seeing a lot of growth, right? So we were...from year one to year two, we grew 10X. And from year two to year three, we grew 2.3X.
And so the growth early on was almost overwhelming. I mean, I know a lot of tech companies will see that or a lot of companies will see that, but these are well-funded projects with well-staffed organizations.
This was me in my basement. And so that growth really took off. And so that's when, you know, when we were starting to see seven figures, I was like, ‘Oh, okay, yeah.’
But I still get surprised by my own company. It still happens. Like I still have mental blocks or I'm like, ‘Yeah, but we'll never be here or we'll never be there.’
And that's where Mark continues to be useful like, ‘Well, why not? Why couldn't you be there?’ And he's right. He's absolutely right.
Chase Clymer
In that same positive outlook, is there anything I didn't ask you about today that you think would resonate with our audience that you want to share with them?
Jaye Genung
Yes, I do.
So I would say one thing that I've learned that I wish I'd understood about other CEOs that I'd worked for over the time was CEOs are not great at everything. We're not all great accountants, product developers, marketers, salesmen. We have our core competencies just like everybody else, right?
And so I would invite founders to look at what they're good at and then really explore what you're not good at, and research those other items.
There are some things that If I'd known what I know now, I would have done things differently. There were things that I allowed to not work longer than I should have allowed them to not work.
And then my final piece is that it's not enough to have the best product. Gobi Heat has the best product and we still get outsold. So you have to have the best product and the best marketing and the best customer service and the best logistics. It's not just one thing.
And so you have to find those people that are going to elevate all of the tenets of your company because otherwise you just get off center.
And it doesn't matter… you could have the worst product and the best marketing and you might do better than the best product.
And so you have to find that balance.
Chase Clymer
I just want to agree with everything you just said.
Specifically about doing that self-inventory, finding out what you're good at and then also understanding what you're not good at. These will be the first things you need to outsource.
But you need to be able to speak about them. You need to understand them so you know you're hiring someone that can do a good job.
Jaye Genung
And I failed there. I have made mistakes in the past where I'm not good at this thing, you know the right words about that thing, therefore you must be good at that thing. And that is flawed thinking.
Because somebody can talk the talk more than you can, but that doesn't mean they're good at it.
And so that's where I encourage you to reach out to your network. You know, other founders become part of founders groups.
There are myriad founders groups on LinkedIn and Facebook and have these conversations and be vulnerable. Say, ‘I don't know how to read a profit and loss statement. Where would you go to get up to speed on that?’
You've got to be really honest with yourself. And that's really difficult to do because you get a little bit of, ‘Oh, I have a million dollar company, right? I gotta figure it out.’
You don't. You absolutely don't have it figured out. You've sold some things. That's it.
And so you need to be... Again, you need to be vulnerable and you need to be very honest with yourself.
Chase Clymer
That's amazing.
And then I also just want to repeat what you said right after that, which was you can have the worst product in fantastic marketing and potentially do better than people that have the best product.
And that's definitely a limiting factor and a belief I see with a lot of young Ecommerce startup founders is they are so passionate about their product and they may have the best product.
You start asking them about their go-to-market strategy and about how they're going to get this in front of potential customers and it's not necessarily there.
And 99% of the problems that people experience in that zero to one stage going to that getting to seven figures is all sales related.
Jaye Genung
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah. And, and it's little things that can trip you up. It's, uh, we were terrible at inventory control for a couple of years.
And so we were putting out all this money for ads and they were converting and then we didn't have the thing so we canceled it and refunded.
Now, if you're a product developer, you're not thinking about inventory control, UPCs and scanners. You're thinking about, how can it be the best? How can it be far and away better than everybody else has even thought it could be?
So as with all things in life, you have to find the balance.
Chase Clymer
That hurts me inside because we're recording... Everyone, we’re recording this in the first week of October. We're getting into Q4 and just the thought of selling something and having to refund it is terrifying for me right now.
Jaye, we talked a lot about how amazing your product is. Let's shout it out again.
Let the listeners know if they're interested in checking out a heated apparel, where should they go to check out your products?
Jaye Genung
Go to gobiheat.com, which is G-O-B-I-H-E-A-T.com.
Chase Clymer
Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your story and being very honest about a few areas I feel a few people haven't touched on as deeply as you have.
Jaye, thank you so much.
Jaye Genung
Thanks, Chase. Thanks for having me on.
Chase Clymer
We can't thank our guests enough for coming on the show and sharing their knowledge and journey with us. We've got a lot to think about and potentially add into our own business. You can find all the links in the show notes.
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