Sean Agatep
So if you don't understand that to its core of who your customer is, how to speak to them, what they care about, then what are you doing there? w/
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.
Today, I'm welcoming to the show Sean Agatep. He's joining us from Vincero Collective.
Sean, welcome to the show.
Chase Clymer
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Absolutely.
So for folks that are unfamiliar, what types of products are you guys bringing to market over there at Vincero?
Sean Agatep
So Vincero is a men's accessory brand, primarily watches, eyewear, and jewelry. And we're on a mission to become the best men's gifting option.
Chase Clymer
Ooh, very fun and very... Well, while we're recording this, it's very timely. Right after Black Friday and Cyber Monday. But I still believe this will be out before Christmas.
Take me back in time.
Where did the idea for this business come from? What was the first product you guys worked on?
Sean Agatep
Yeah. So I'll probably ramble a little bit here. But Vincero started in 2014. I started with my best friends from college. We all graduated from Gonzaga University up in Spokane. Go Zags. It's a big basketball program.
And we originally moved out to China right after we graduated college. None of us really wanted to get real jobs. We knew there's a lot of opportunities in China and we got the entrepreneurial bugs. So we were doing product development, sourcing and manufacturing.
And then we decided to start our own brand in 2014 off the Kickstarter. So we use Kickstarter as a testing platform to validate our marketing messaging. And we designed and built a watch that the dial of the watch and the legs of the watch were all made out of Italian marble. So we figured out a way to cut Italian marble and put the inlay of that marble within the watch.
So that's how Vincero started. Vincero actually comes from Beni Vidi Vici. Okay, I’m sorry. To conquer. Vincero means I will win. So none of us are that... We don't have Italian roots, but that's how the Italian root name came to be.
Chase Clymer
Awesome. Awesome.
Where did the... Specifically, one, the watch, but then two, how did you get into the idea of like, all right, now we're going to launch this on Kickstarter?
Sean Agatep
We saw the opportunity... Kickstarter was hot in 2014. 2012 to 2014. I think we were also... We were at that age too. We were between 24, 25. So it was like, cool to see the ability to launch your own product. We had experience in designing, developing and manufacturing products for other people.
So the thought was like, “Well, listen, we already know how to make all these products. It's all made down the street. Why wouldn't we just do it for ourselves and make cool stuff that we would want for ourselves?” So that's the genesis behind it.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. Yeah. I definitely remember the heyday of Kickstarter. Yeah. Just crowdfunding in general.
And I still believe to this day, there's nothing wrong with that avenue, but it's definitely difficult to get right.
So do you remember when you guys were launching that Kickstarter campaign? What helped make it successful?
Sean Agatep
A lot of diagnosing the messaging for other Kickstarter campaigns that did work. So using and running that playbook and also understanding that Kickstarter wasn't the end-all be-all. It was a way to test your marketing platform and really not say this in a negative way, but it is for a lot of... It's amateur hour. You're just learning how to do stuff on your own.
So what worked for us was... It's probably pretty brutal to watch old videos of us now, but we followed the same playbook of messaging that really attracted us to whatever product that we liked.
It helped that we were selling a product that we ourselves were stoked about because that authenticity of everything that we would actually want, we weren't just creating a gimmicky product or something like that was a fad. It was like, “No, this is cool stuff. We can stand behind it. It's something I would want for myself.”
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. So you guys built out this Kickstarter campaign, you make some videos and you start to advertise it.
Was it all organic or did you also loop in paid on top of it? We didn't do any paid. So it was all organic.
Sean Agatep
It was just a bum rush of networking and blasting it out into the ether. I think a couple years after it is really when you probably needed the juice campaigns and do paid activations and everything else like that. But we were able to get in before there was really that need.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. Yeah. And we've had a few guests on the show before. So listeners, you can search it out–that talks about launching and having it. There are agencies that exist to help people succeed with Kickstarter campaigns these days. It's such an interesting little niche.
But now I'm going to go off on a side tangent here. It's like any agency that promises that they can help you find product market fit, I'd be wary of.
Sean Agatep
Well, it's also your responsibility to do it yourself.
Chase Clymer
As founder. Yeah. It's like the most important thing to you.
Sean Agatep
Right. That's the hardest part. So if you don't understand that to its core, who your customer is, how to speak to them, what they care about, then what are you doing there?
Chase Clymer
Exactly. So it always brings me back to this. It's like, I've been in this game for almost a decade, building highly successful Ecommerce websites.
And it's like, think about it. It's like if I had a winning idea, and it was that easy to start an Ecommerce business, why am I taking on random clients and dealing with that? Why shouldn't I just be on a beach somewhere? Sipping my ties.
Sean Agatep
Right. Right. It's also like... I mean, you can have a thousand ideas, but it's all down to execution and on that as well. Right? Like...
Chase Clymer
Oh yeah. Everybody's got ideas.
Sean Agatep
Trying to spread yourself too thin is a young man's game at this point. I think we're all guilty of that. But when it comes down to it, it's like if you can get really good at a handful of things instead of trying to do everything.
Chase Clymer
Yeah. I think that just… It's not even just like when you're first getting started. When you're hiring anyone to help your business, an agency, a freelancer, etc. Have them show you a case study where they have done the thing you want before.
And if they cannot do it, they're going to be learning on your dime. And sometimes that's okay if you don't have a big budget. But if you want to get it done right the first time, make sure that they can prove they've done it before.
Sean Agatep
Correct. And that's a crucial part of that hiring process. If you don't have any sort of skills assessment of like, hey, I'd like at the end of the day, job descriptions, everything people can interview. Well, people can like, you know, kind of bullshit their way to a certain point.
But before you kind of commit to that relationship, you have to kind of have a like, “Listen, this is what I care about. Can you do this at the base level?” And if the candidate isn't willing to do that and show that they can actually contribute in that way, that's a red flag altogether.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. And I know you have an immense depth of knowledge when it comes to hiring. And we'll get there in a minute. Yeah. So stay tuned, folks. But let's get back to the story of Vincero.
So you guys launched on Kickstarter. You're lucky to be in before it's so competitive in that crowdfunding space. What happens next? You have a successful Kickstarter. Now what?
Sean Agatep
So what happens next is my other partners, Tim and Aaron, they just got into the Facebook wormhole. And this was 2014. So I stayed back in China, I built out a product development manufacturing team for the extra year, I followed along our first supply chain run because we used the funds we made from Kickstarter, just fun production. That's the beauty of it.
And then Aaron and Tim got in the lab and figured out how to use how to crank Facebook up and work on it. And we're still in that golden period where it was easier to scale and to learn. Doesn’t mean it’s difficult by any means, or sorry, not difficult by any means. I'm not trying to throw shade at my partners.
But...
Chase Clymer
Well, hold on. There was...
I remember when our agency first got started. So we're 8 or 9 years in the game. So I'm gonna guess 2015. So that was like about a... It was... About the same. You could get away with some suspect stuff.
Sean Agatep
Correct.
Chase Clymer
And you'd see some crazy ROI.
Sean Agatep
Correct. Yeah.
There's a lot of experimentation and exploring. And I think something that we always stood behind was we recognize that we're not the risk takers that a lot of entrepreneurs pride themselves to be. I'm like, “Oh, no. Well, let's just burn the boats and let's just do X, Y and Z.” We're a little more… We kind of know our DNA. We're a little more pragmatic. So following the breadcrumbs, being comfortable with executing a game plan, we're okay with not being the first ones to do it. We're not on a mission to be the biggest ones and the best ones to do it. We just want a reputation and we want to stand behind the work we do.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. So your partners are trying to, to the best of their ability, figure out how to profitably run Facebook ads because it wasn't meta back then.
Sean Agatep
Right.
Chase Clymer
You're building out the product. I'm assuming what was the first version of the website after Kickstarter?
Sean Agatep
So we threw it all... We've been on Shopify from the jump. So...
Chase Clymer
Congrats.
Sean Agatep
We started with a basic template and just kind of tweeted ourselves. Before Vincero, we had kind of... I mean, we were in China basically failing at starting businesses until something stuck. So we kind of knew how to do some design, some stuff with sites and apps and everything else like that. So we were able to kind of piece it together and tinker ourselves. And then we got the product to market.
I think we got the product in January or February, it was right before Chinese New Year. And we realized after a few months that we needed to expand products because there's only so many ways you can cut Italian marble and put it on the face of a watch. That was challenging already.
So...The idea was like, okay, let's continue to not only make watches, but also other accessories. Let's figure out what our core customer would do. So we started making... We did leather belts, we did leather bags, we did wallets, we started making bracelets. The idea to build out essentially non-apparel accessories. And tinged around with that for the next year or so and then came down to the fact that our core product would always be watches.
But there were some legs as a natural complementary product in jewelry, specifically like bracelets, because obviously, if you wear a watch, it'd be cool to have a bracelet next to it. And then I wear them as well.
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Chase Clymer
Can you explain to me... You glossed over it, but I thought I think it's worth highlighting here. You said it's specifically not apparel. And what was the reasoning behind that?
Sean Agatep
Apparel? Well, you're talking to the operations guy.
Apparel is very messy because of the amount of SKUs you have and the seasonality and everything else like that. I feel like you can't beat an apparel and accessories brand and do it well. Because it's a completely different product development and manufacturing cycle.
There's a lot of... With watches, they're all of our jewelry. They're all hard goods. It's all basically machinery that's operated by. When you get into soft goods, you’ve got cutting. So you've got a lot of more variables. You have to be more disciplined on that side of it. That wasn't our wheelhouse.
So we've always floored around with like, “Hey, maybe we do a limited edition,” rather than certain types of apparel. But again, you have to stick to what you know and what you have confidence that you can deliver in quality to your customers.
Chase Clymer
That's a fantastic answer. And you are right. The amount of SKUs and I think a lot of younger entrepreneurs don’t realize just the amount of minimum order quantities times the sizes or the SKU amounts. You're getting into hundreds of different variations of products and all that just sits on yourself until you sell it. So it's like a sunk cost.
Sean Agatep
Well, let's also talk about the genesis of it. We have an obligation to provide value. So if I cannot make a better shirt than Lululemon or anyone else like that, then what the hell am I doing here?
If I'm not actually providing value If I don't have something that there's a reason to purchase it. ‘Cause I know how to make watches. I know how to make accessories because we're doing it. We're passionate about it. We knew how to do it. But if you jump into that apparel thing, you're just trying to capture something that you're not providing value for.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely.
So what year was it when you started to really expand the product line?
Sean Agatep
2016-2017 is when we had gotten more... We understood like, all right, we've got watches as our core product. We started making eyewear, I think, in 2018. And that itself was his own journey. It took a few years for us to truly understand how it's made, the seasonality behind it, the intricacies of it.
It's a completely different product, completely different manufacturing cycle. So you can't tell we're very much like tinkerers and builders.
So we attach ourselves to something and then we make sure that we get it right. We're fine with taking the long route to do it. But by 2018, we had watches, jewelry, and eyewear.
Chase Clymer
And in that journey, even up till now, looking back, does anything stand out from larger lessons learned?
Sean Agatep
Yes. And it took us a few more years from that point to understand it. Your customer that buys watches is not the same customer that buys your eyewear. Just because they bought a watch from you, you cannot speak to them in the same way. It's a different purchase decision. It's a different mentality entirely. It's a different season.
The Super Bowl for eyewear is April to June, April to July. After July, if you don't have sunglasses, the summer's almost over. Who cares?
So yeah, I think as we were going laterally in product categories, we were like, “Yeah, no, this is cool. This is cool,” But figuring out how to understand the buying behaviors of that product, just because they're your customers and they bought a watch from you, you have to speak to them in a way of the purchase decision that makes sense to the product itself.
Chase Clymer
When you were kind of noodling on expanding the product line, did you do any customer interviews or anything like that?
Sean Agatep
Yeah, we did surveys. We did a lot of things like…with your best customers and everything else like that. And then we kind of hit a crux of: are we going to grow Vincero, we're going up market and watches already? Do we want to just be a watch brand and just go all in on the heritage and the craftsmanship and everything else like that?
That felt unauthentic to what we were as a brand because we liked making good products altogether. We didn't want to just niche ourselves down into watches specifically. So it was more of a hunch of like, we like making products, we like making other things. If we're good at it and we can make it, we might as well sell it. So let's establish ourselves as an accessory brand.
And because of that, you have to look at our watch. We look at our watch, our jewelry, and our eyewear as almost siloed businesses within Vincero. They're different sales cycles and everything else like that. But that's the end of the weeds a little bit.
Chase Clymer
Yeah, I'm gonna stay in the weeds though.
Are you building out top of the funnel for each silo and retargeting for each silo in specific?
Sean Agatep
Yes. Yeah. So like that, the mistake we made, I think early on, is that we're like, we have this database of a few hundred thousand customers. They bought all the watches. We’re like, “Let's give them a sunglass email.” Then like, “Oh, it didn't work that well.” We’re like, “Okay, well, how did we position it? How do we set it up?”
It was basically like our watch email, but we just replaced it with cool looking sunglasses. It's like…that's not the same thing.
Chase Clymer
Yeah, they're familiar with you for X and then you're talking about Y.
Sean Agatep
Right.
Chase Clymer
It's definitely a learning curve there. And I think that's really interesting. I'm sure there are a lot of businesses out there that are thinking about their growth and thinking about expanding their product line. And it's little more work than just throwing a new product out there.
Sean Agatep
Well, and I would advise making sure it is complimentary. So I'm talking about eyewear a lot here because it's almost like the third piece. But watches and jewelry made a lot of sense. We could get rid of the eyewear altogether and we'd be confident in scaling out watches and jewelry.
But we also have, I think, a cool shtick with our eyewear now that it makes sense that we're seeing legs for it to grow.
Watches and jewelry make sense. Watches and sweatshirts, I guess so because it's the same customer but you'd have to figure out how to exactly speak to that customer. And with that, do you have the capacity to have that as a distraction within your organization? This exploratory, new product category, are you capable of doing both things at once while you're still trying to grow the existing thing?
Chase Clymer
Absolutely.
Now to pivot a little bit here. Obviously, one of your major strengths on the team is heading up operations over there. And a lot of that has to do with hiring out and establishing roles and just managing the team and how they help get things done.
And you and I met. I always like to shout things out. I believe we met at Shop Talk in Chicago.
Sean Agatep
Yep.
Chase Clymer
And we had an awesome conversation. And you were telling me about… I really don't want to put words in your mouth. But you were thinking about selling and then decided to not. And it really made you relook at your org chart? Was that the correct remembrance?
Sean Agatep
Kind of. Yeah. We had reached a point where we almost hit a plateau of growth within Vincero. And in order to hit that next plateau, the amount of resources we would have to devote to opening up that new channel, we're on the fence of whether or not we wanted to dedicate that.
So the idea was like, “Okay, if we're looking at that next plateau, and if we look at the ultimate goal of what we want Vincero to be, can we achieve that in a length of time, like a longer time span?” Absolutely. Like it's not going to happen in the next year or two.
But if we're taking our time in doing that, we have such confidence in our operational abilities that.. Why don't we start other projects as well to facilitate that growth and keep going? Because Vincero itself, as its own entity, is going to get there over a course of time. It's just going to be a longer time horizon.
So with that, we started to look at Vincero itself. And then we just had to make the decisions like, “Okay, this has to be... We're focused way too much on the top line. Let's focus on profit. Let's build the company to where it's indestructible.” And that's the shift that we had to make a few years ago.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely.
And I think that in focusing on profit, it allowed you to be meticulous with where expenses went.
Sean Agatep
Correct.
Chase Clymer
And obviously, for most modern businesses, the most expensive thing on your P&L is going to be people.
Sean Agatep
Yes. Yes. And I think, I will say, candidly, it is a bit of an ego hit to be comfortable with, “Listen, I don't care as much about top line,” because in the business world, that's all everyone talks about, is top line.
Chase Clymer
Well, it's headcount in the agency world. It's the top line for a lot of other businesses. But once you get deeper, you're like, “How much are you taking home? What's the margin?”
Sean Agatep
Yes. And we were at this plateau that I said for a few years. And it was like, “Dude, everything we keep doing, we're just burning cash.”
Chase Clymer
It's taking it out of your investment.
Sean Agatep
Right. Yeah, exactly. What are we doing here? And I think when you first start, you have this dream vision of like a mythical exit, right? And it's almost like you push your boat out to shore and you start paddling out there because you think that that's like what's going to happen.
But then if you don't have a clear direction or an actual place that you're going, then you're just paddling out there to just go out there. And I think that's kind of how we felt for a bit. So it was more like, “Okay, we're just too overweight. We need to restructure this company. We're staffed to a capacity that we want to be able to scale and grow it. But what if there's a better way to build our team internally to make us lean regardless of what our profit line is or what we got regardless of what our top line is?”
Chase Clymer
Absolutely.
Do you want to dive in a bit there and introduce maybe the newest portfolio piece that you've been working on?
Sean Agatep
Yeah. So the title is The Reflection of That Decision. And essentially, what we did a few years ago is that our thesis was that Ecommerce had matured. If there was the availability and the capacity for teams to be built remotely, why not take that globally?
And what you would be able to do is you'd be able to hire top market talent for all your strategic hires here in the US. And then for those mid-level and senior level roles, with a handful of years of experience, things like content marketers, logistics coordinators, econ managers, foundational, operational pieces, but they are essentially a task list of things that they have to do and execute on. What if we were to find those offshore and overseas?
And instead of the stigma of going offshore and just trying to find bottom dollar, we approached it the same way we approached our supply chain mentality with products like… you don't have to go bottom dollar, you can go top of market for a different region, and it's still going to be great quality.
You're not maximizing like 90% cost savings, but you can probably get between 60 and 70% cost savings. And if the talent is comparable, why not do it? And they're willing to work in your time zone and everything else like that.
So we started building it. We did it for ourselves within Vincero. We went from a headcount of 17 here in San Diego to now we've got six full-time here in San Diego and we have nine offshore hires. And output has, if anything, has increased. That's for us at Vincero.
And then what we started doing with Tidal is we started helping other brands do the same and finding those mid to senior level talent offshore.
Chase Clymer
Yeah, that's amazing.
And it's like the global economy and it's the dollar savings. It's like... I mean, people almost sometimes look down on outsourcing. I think outsourcing has a negative connotation around it. And it's like, no, it's the way that... I think a lot of people just don't understand how the dollar converts internationally.
Sean Agatep
Yeah.
So again, I'm very biased because I spent 5 years in China. I built our product development or manufacturing. I've lived a very... In my professional career, a very international life. There's a bad stigma with outsourcing in the same way that there's a bad stigma in manufacturing in China or like in East Asia.
It’s like you could find, if you have a t-shirt and you wanna make it for $2, you could find someone to make it for you for $2. You could find that, but you probably don't want that level of quality. The fair price of what's reasonable in expectation is like that five to $6 range.
So, similarly to offshore talent, $90,000 a year in the US, a comparable living wage out in the Philippines is like $20,000, $25,000 a year. And you're providing a great opportunity for someone who's had 5 to 10 years of experience that's been working for brands or e-commerce or BPO's or anything else like that.
So that's where we live within the market is we hire that top level senior talent. We don't find you the cheapest talent, we provide you the best quality. We maximize your value that you're getting for each specific role.
Chase Clymer
That's a great way to position it. It's the maximized value and it's just the way that things... The cost of living everywhere is so drastically different. And I think that, I guess some people that are against that sort of thing, it's like, “Well, if you would pay $110 in America, why wouldn't you pay them $110 regardless of where they live?” And it's like, “Well, I can't actually afford $110.” That's just what it is in America.
Sean Agatep
Correct. Yeah. That's the reality of it.
And I think, for brands that are trying to grow and everything else like that, you still need their software, there's AI that's coming up and everything else like that, but you still need people and critical thinking skills to be able to execute on objectives.
And unfortunately, for a lot of those specialist roles, they're just, the salaries are inflated here in the US. And so if you have a better option, why not do it or why not explore it or at least test it out?
And it's almost, to be honest, it's kind of like you're unplugged for the matrix once you start doing it at a higher level because you realize the global workforce and the caliber of people if you look outside of just hiring US is pretty drastic. It's pretty cool. It's pretty inspiring to be able to provide these opportunities to a lot of international hires because they want the same thing too. They just want a good life.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely, Sean. It's been fantastic chatting with you today. And I'm so glad that we ran into each other at Shop Talk.
Now, if people are listening to this episode and they want to check out Vincero, they want to possibly check out Tidal, or they just want to get in your inbox and disagree with you, what should they do?
Sean Agatep
I'm on LinkedIn after a while. I think a few years. As of a year ago, I think my LinkedIn still said I lived in Hong Kong. But I'm on LinkedIn. On Twitter. Or just email me. sean@vincerocollective.com. That's fine. Check out vincerocollective.com.
Sean Agatep is not the most common name in the world. So if you just Google that, I'm sure Ventura will pop up at some point.
Chase Clymer
Awesome, Sean. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Sean Agatep
For sure. We'll see you, Chase.
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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Lastly, if you're a store owner looking for an amazing partner to help get your Shopify store to the next level, reach out to Electric Eye at electriceye.io/connect.
Until next time!
