Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / "I immediately got picked up by Vogue!" with Oceanus founder Hannah Attalah (Part 1)

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"I immediately got picked up by Vogue!" with Oceanus founder Hannah Attalah (Part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Hannah Atala for Female Startup Club. Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Joining us on the show today is Hannah Atala, the founder of Oceanus.
• 0:26
  Now, if you're building a business in the fashion industry, this episode is a sparkling goldmine when it comes to getting started, finding your manufacturer, and really understanding the importance of your unique point of difference. I hope you love this episode just as much as I do. And if there's someone that you'd love to hear from on the show, please do drop into our Facebook group and let us know.
• 0:52
  Alrighty, let's get into today's episode. This is Hannah for Female Startup Club. Hannah, hello. Welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Hi. So nice to be on here. I'm such a big fan. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. And you're in Bali, right? How's your day going? Yeah, super good. I was up early this morning prepping for a shoot. It's a lovely day today and just, yeah, really good vibes.
• 1:21
  How's everything with you? Everything is good. I am in sunny Queensland, the Sunshine State, hanging out with my grandpa, which has been so nice. I don't want to talk about me, though. I want to talk about you. Let's jump straight into your story. Where do you like to kick off your entrepreneurial journey? I would say...
• 1:46
  So I was actually traveling Asia when I first discussed the idea of starting this brand. And funnily enough, I was actually in the Gili Islands when I thought, okay, let me do a swim brand. Because I had spent a few years...
• 2:07
  basically developing hand embroideries and selling my embroideries to different fashion houses, and then kind of connecting them with factories in Asia and overseeing the whole process. And I always knew that I wanted to do my own brand, but at the beginning, I didn't really have the capacity for a full-blown fashion label because having the pressure of doing all the patterns every season,
• 2:36
  stress me out too much, to be quite honest. So the reason why I started with swimwear is because I thought it would be slightly easier because I kind of knew my strength was more the textile side than the pattern side. So I felt like I could just, I had a whole archive of hand embroideries. So I already thought, okay, well, I can just apply, you know, my embroideries
• 3:06
  I love that. Were you doing embroidery when you were younger? Yeah. So I used to work at Jenny Packham, bridal designer. And that's when I first got into embroidery. I mean, I was always kind of into like sewing and like very creative as a child. But I did a lot of like internships. And then I learned more about
• 3:35
  high-end embroidery when I worked at Jenny Packham. And then I worked at Donna Karan in New York and we were doing a lot of red carpet dresses. And it was through that really that I just learned about so many different hand embroidery techniques.
• 3:53
  Hmm. Oh gosh. So beautiful. I'm wondering like, you know, in the beginning to you, it felt overwhelming about doing all the things, but you kind of have this idea to do swimwear and start with swimwear. Um,
• 4:08
  Could you kind of talk us through just what that early piece looked like for you? And I kind of mean like, you know, how did it just get started? Was it one kind of piece or one style in the collection or was it still a capsule collection? Did you have a lot of different designs to begin with? And kind of I'm trying to piece together what it looks like in terms of your investment in money, your investment in time and just that early piece of getting started.
• 4:38
  Yeah. So funnily enough, like the first collection was super strong. Like we actually still have some signature styles from our first collection. So it had like, and in the first collection, I named everything after my family. So it had like the Ursula, which ended up being a bestseller, which was named after my grandmother. And then like the Lara, which is named after my
• 5:08
  what is it, seven years later, we are still to this day, like developing those just in new colors. So I really was happy with that because...
• 5:19
  it kind of got us on, you know, to the right start, basically, obviously things we've amended things, because when I look back to my first ever product, I'm just like a bit embarrassed, like, there's, you know, the quality is better, the fabrics are better, the fit is better, every season we work to improve fits and take on feedback. So,
• 5:43
  that side of things has improved, but the actual style, like the embroidery and the idea that's still pretty much the same. So I think it was just the concept has always been like vintage inspired swim, which is heavy on the hand embroidery. So I think
• 6:03
  Obviously, we've introduced other categories now. We're more than just swim, but we're known very much for our swim. So, yeah, I think that's quite unusual, though, because I don't think everyone still has their first ever product. But we got maybe I was lucky in that respect.
• 6:22
  And in the very beginning, was it just you hand embroidering all the time or did you find a manufacturer and kind of embroiderers from the get go to be able to scale up? So the actual initial first sample was always developed by myself. And then I would visit our manufacturers once or twice a year.
• 6:47
  and work very closely with the artisans to develop the hand embroideries. But now we still try to do the first sample and then we'll send like, sometimes it will just be a swatch, like a small swatch, and then they'll translate it into a garment. But generally, yeah, because it takes so long to embroider, in the sampling process, we just do small swatches. Got it.
• 7:16
  But at the beginning, it was me doing the sample. Yeah. Something that comes up in our community a lot and something that I've seen kind of asked in our Facebook group or asked in the DMs is just how do you go about finding a manufacturer? And so in your case, you know, in the fashion industry, what was the process to finding your first manufacturer? And were there any hiccups kind of going through that stage?
• 7:42
  At the beginning, a lot of manufacturers don't take you seriously unless you're doing volume. So to find a manufacturer, honestly, it's really tough. In a way, I was lucky because, well, I mean, my experience of already...
• 8:00
  working with factories before was how, you know, I could, I already knew the factories. So I kind of got that from my industry experience. But starting from scratch, I mean, with something specialized like hand embroidery, you really like want to make sure that you test it and give them just, you know, samples and make sure that the quality is really good
• 8:31
  And so I would recommend always going to visit the factory if you can to develop the relationship. And yeah, generally, that's what I did. Like I would go to India very frequently.
• 8:48
  And for you, you know, you came from the industry, so you did have a place to start. But if you were giving advice to someone who doesn't have any connection and doesn't have any kind of network in the manufacturing kind of space, what advice would you give someone to kind of to finding a factory?
• 9:08
  I would start with the trade shows that are, you know, like Premier Vision in Paris. There's one called Interfilia, also in Paris. I would start with those and just kind of initially start with a small collection. So because if you're doing a bigger collection, it's very difficult to stock up on everything and find a manufacturer that's willing to kind of nurture your growth and
• 9:36
  can be patient and know that you might take a few seasons to give decent production orders, but someone who understands that and isn't going to lose kind of their patience with you. That's where I would start because it's also better that you meet them face to face and discuss your project and basically that you're like a serious designer. Cause I think a lot of factories have their time wasted when they're
• 10:04
  everyone wants to start a brand right. And then they're not always serious. So actually, for them, it's a very big investment into making your samples. And if they don't get production out of it, it's a total waste. So I know that that's generally why a lot of factories don't bother when it's like a startup label. Because so they need to know that you're 100% serious. Yeah.
• 10:30
  Got it. That's such good advice. I love that. And I think it goes back to, you know, everything in business and everything in life is based around and centered around relationships. So I love that advice of going to the trade shows and actually meeting people and starting that relationship from the get go and having that emotional kind of buy in with these people that are going to be producing your brand and your business.
• 10:54
  Yeah, exactly. And just, you know, learning more about them because it's also has to be the right fit for you. It's, you know, if you want a sustainable fair trade factory, it's really good for you. I think they'll respect it more if you ask those kinds of questions as well. Yeah, totally. I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about the time around your launch and your go-to-market strategy.
• 11:20
  What was that time like for you? Like, how did you launch and how did you start getting the word out? So we launched with quite an interesting campaign, which instantly got picked up by Vogue. So that was a really cool launch.
• 11:35
  We did a campaign with Nadia Lee Cohen in Palm Springs, and it's actually one of our strongest ever campaigns. And it was like our first one. So that really helped. But I would say that we weren't actually fully ready with production and everything at the beginning. So it was very much like just chasing our tails. I was so out of my depth at the beginning.
• 12:05
  We didn't stock up. We like, you know, a lot of my model was made to order, which is in one respect just means we're doing so much more work, but it also means we can be agile and offer so many different sizes, offer extra small to extra, extra large. But it meant that I was always kind of running around to our seamstress at the time in London and
• 12:35
  picking up fabrics and it was just so what's the word it wasn't chaotic yeah it was chaotic yeah you never really expect I mean you kind of just don't expect to get audio straight away so we weren't yeah we just weren't ready for it at the beginning but it was a really good lesson for me to kind of
• 12:57
  get more prepared. And does that mean then because it was a, you know, on demand made to order model in the beginning, you didn't require a lot of capital to get started or you still did have kind of, you know, an upfront investment into building the business? So we did invest a bit, not a lot, but the way that we divided the budget was mostly very heavy on spending on, um,
• 13:26
  our imagery, our assets. So that's why we went with made to order because we decided that at the time we wanted to spend more on our campaign. And then, yeah, I think that was still a very wise decision. I actually kind of became a little bit more tame with my campaigns as the more the brand grew
• 13:54
  We didn't do such outlandish campaigns, but I do think we will be doing that again soon. I kind of always go in phases with it. But I think, yeah, made to order really is such a good way of de-risking the business at the beginning. So I really recommend if you can do it, then do it. Some people say that customers get off put by it, but I don't really think so. You know, it doesn't.
• 14:23
  We haven't found that. Yeah, absolutely. Do you think that like if we're thinking about, you know, the first, you started in 2018. So those first early years in the business was your main kind of core channel that you were focusing on PR to drive that awareness or was it like Instagram or was it influences? What was that kind of core thing that was driving, you know, the brand awareness and like shifting the needle?
• 14:53
  Yeah, I mean, we did, I think we did have PR, but we didn't, the first ever agency we worked with wasn't actually specializing in fashion. It was more of like a beauty one. So it wasn't really the best PR. But we did know, I knew, kind of knew the importance of it. So I actually don't really think PR is necessary now if you, because you can just DM the girls on Instagram. So you can kind of cut that out as long as you know,
• 15:23
  you know, you're actively doing your own PR and outreaching and you're able to kind of tap into the right people. So I would say you can cut back on that if you need to. But we also spent maybe not initially like the first year, but towards the second year, we started doing social media advertising and that that's vital, I would say. Okay, right.
• 15:53
  And for you, like when you think about influences and gifting, how do you kind of approach that? Because obviously your unit price is and your cost of goods sold and the labor involved is a lot higher than something that's kind of a consumer packaged good where you can send out thousands a month in gifting. Yeah.
• 16:13
  even if it might have evolved, how were you and how are you now thinking about influencer gifting and, you know, getting the it girls to be on social wearing your brand? Yeah. So in the first few years, it actually felt a bit painful because when, um, it, they're the years that you really, really need.
• 16:35
  people to wear the gifts. And I do think that sometimes in the beginning, people don't really value you when you're not like such a known brand. So now actually it's really, like we're worn all the time by influencers, but at the beginning it felt like it was harder. So that's why it was like promote to make sure that if a new brand has sent you the product, like, you know, just don't accept it. If one, you don't like it,
• 17:04
  don't accept it or send it back because that's budget that they, you know, they're still in the early stages. That's just don't take that from them. To, I think it's so good for us to promote
• 17:19
  cool new labels. It's like promoting kind of the underdog and it means so much more in those one to three years at the beginning to get that label off the ground and help nurture that label's growth. It means so much more than in the sixth or seventh year of their business. That's great and everything, keep doing, you know, keep promoting it then. But we should be
• 17:43
  you know, nurturing the growth of young business owners that really want that are trying to make their business work. So I am all for that and would prefer to promote something that's in, you know, the early stages. And I think a lot of influences back then anyway, now it might have changed, but back then, you know, it's almost like they didn't want to tag the brand
• 18:09
  if we hadn't already established like our fellowing and stuff like that. But I think that it's almost cooler if you're going to show that you're supporting someone in the early stages or someone who's, you know, it's like supporting the underdog. So I think...
• 18:29
  it should be the complete other way around. You know, like why does it have to be established for us to all support it? You know, it should be, it should help the journey. And also it's, if you find that really cool brand before they've blown up, that's so much,
• 18:46
  cooler to be part of that early stage growth. So, yeah. I love that because I think that you're able to use that as an advantage. You know, you're able to go out to these influencers and kind of tell your early story and get influencers and influential people excited about this new brand that, you know, you're working on.
• 19:08
  For you, if you were to think about like a ratio, let's say you have 100 units and you're a new brand, a new fashion brand. How many of those units would you be giving away to influencers knowing that it's a higher price point and more costs involved? So generally, we don't gift more than maybe 10 to 15 pieces a month. And that's still now. We don't go super heavy. We are very selective on our gifting.
• 19:37
  So yeah, if you get a gift from us, you should know. You're one of very few. But at the beginning, yeah, I mean, it was always, it was that amount at the beginning. But that's actually quite a lot, really, when you look at the investment, because it's not just the investment of the goods. It's also the shipping costs, which, you know, international shipping costs, that adds up. So yeah.
• 20:00
  It's, yeah, it's, I think, and that's also something that brands need to budget for and put into allocate into the budget. Because a lot of the time we just forget about the choreo costs when you're budgeting these things. It's, and it's also so great if you don't have to ship it. If you give a gift in person or you like do a really cute lunch or dinner,
• 20:23
  and they meet you in person so much better. Like that's so much more preferable because a lot of people just get so many gifts and they don't realize there's a really young, you know, entrepreneur that just was behind this business and might even be one person without a single member of staff. And that's just, you just lose, that's just lost because they get like,
• 20:52
  so many gifts. I think if they actually knew, they would promote the item, but they're swamped with, a lot of people just get swamped with so many gifts and then it just gets lost. I imagine for you and like when I look at your brand and the people who wear your brand, I feel like because you have such a unique point of difference to your design and you do have this like incredibly...
• 21:18
  you know, sparkly, beautifully crafted, you know, different brand that that clearly works in your favor to attracting, you know, these amazing celebrities that wear you on stage and things like that. Has that been kind of, you know, pivotal moments in the growth of the brand when you've landed like a celebrity? You know, I think I saw like Rita Ora wears the brand and all these amazing names.
• 21:44
  Yeah, I think it helps. I think it helps your credibility. I actually really hate that though, if I'm completely honest. I hate that we have to be like, oh, this celebrity wore it and it's like, okay, great. So I totally kind of reject that that's how things, unfortunately, that's how things work. But I...
• 22:09
  In my opinion, we didn't have a particular moment that it was like, blah, blah, blah, wore it. And so now it's cool because I don't think so. But other people might say,
• 22:19
  say differently. I mean, I know last summer when Priyanka Chopra wore it, I noticed that had an impact. But like, in the early stages, I also think it's so difficult to measure, you know, because sometimes someone can see someone wear something, and then they'll buy the product six months later. Yeah.
• 22:40
  So, and it's a high value product. It's not always necessarily like in that next 24 hours, you just get so many purchases. I think that works if it's a lower value product because I have heard friends with brands say, oh my God, like with jewelry brands, like it blew up. I mean, for us actually with Rocky Barnes, I did notice a big difference with Rocky Barnes and a couple others. But sometimes it's like, you know, with,
• 23:08
  a beaded dress or something like that you want to think about an outfit for your birthday or you know it's something that people might think about a little bit more it's not just an instant purchase so I think it depends it depends on what you're selling but yeah and nowadays with influencers and you know maybe it's more the influencers than the celebrities um in respect to kind of like
• 23:32
  having more impact, I would probably say. That's so interesting. When you think about, you know, kind of the last couple of years, what have been those pivotal moments in, you know, marketing or retailers that you can look back to and be like, oh, yeah, that was a moment for us? I think it was interesting as we were coming out of COVID that.
• 23:57
  because we had just been working so insanely hard because there was absolutely nothing else to do. So we were working on this campaign, Casa del Daki, and I,
• 24:11
  I had noticed we were getting a lot of momentum online because we had gone very heavy into digital spend because that was all you could do, you know, and it was really working for us. And then we dropped this campaign just as kind of things started opening back up again in the UK anyway, about April 2021, or we dropped it in May and...
• 24:36
  it just, yeah, that, that was, I noticed we got a lot of traction from that because it was a very strong campaign. Um, it was very thought out and we launched a new website at the same time. And it was kind of like
• 24:49
  we built the world of Oceans. You could just really feel the brand more and see what we're about. So that was exciting. And then after that, we did a trade show in Miami and picked up so many wholesale stockists. As we were coming out of Oceans,
• 25:07
  COVID. So that was really exciting, but also terrifying because we launched with like 10 major department stores at the same time. And it was me and one, I think pretty much one other member of staff. And so I didn't actually have the right, like, yes, I know I didn't have the
• 25:30
  the staff that I did have didn't actually have the experience of ever dealing with things like this. So I think we must have annoyed these retailers so much because in the early days when you're on board as well, it's like the forms are just so confusing and there was so much back and forth. And it was like,
• 25:50
  very overwhelming. Like I think I still remember the trauma from that period of time. Like it was, it almost killed me. Oh my gosh. Wow. And so when we're thinking about retail now for you and like as a core channel, you know, I know that you're in so many amazing retailers and
• 26:09
  What is kind of your approach to retailers now? Do you work with a distributor? Is it just through going to these trade shows? Is it you reaching out one by one? What's kind of the playbook for retail? We switch it up depending on how, what the success rate is. We used to have a really big showroom.
• 26:28
  A lot of the retailers came to us. Like I remember once I woke up one day and had like an email, Harrods X Oceanus. And so like pretty much nine out of 10 of a lot of these retailers just emailed us directly. So when I have gone with showrooms, it's mostly they're looking after our existing business. They might have brought us like 10% of new business, but not enough to warrant like for it to be worth it for us.
• 26:57
  So then we brought things back in-house. And now we do have a showroom for our US side of the business, which is the majority of our business. And we're at the moment doing...
• 27:13
  Middle East, Europe in-house, which is working quite well. And we do Paris showrooms every season and just have a guest showroom space in a really nice showroom, but take a guest space. So that's been working for us. We might switch up the strategy. Yeah.
• 27:33
  Possibly. I haven't. Yeah, we did it in my early days. I did a little bit of distribution agencies and stuff. We had one in Italy and one in, I think we had one in Greece as well. But at that time, it was kind of COVID. I wasn't noticing that we were getting enough business for it to be worth it because they do take a bigger percentage than normal agents. I think
• 28:04
  So for us, it wasn't worth it. But for some people, it is. I think if they bring in like the majority, if they take care of like your whole kind of business, sometimes it is. It's just less headache because they also do the distribution for you. So it's less stressful. But yeah, I would say.
• 28:26
  It's a mix for us. It's a mix. So we have sales in-house. We also work with a really great showroom in the US. And I'm just really good friends with, you know, everyone who's in my team. And we've been working together.
• 28:42
  for quite a while now and we've had some really successful seasons. So I think that's just really nice. And if it's going well, I always say just don't switch it up with anything. If it's going well, don't change it. Like, yeah. So, and I just said that PR, everything, don't, just don't be like, oh, but I also met this other showroom and they sound interesting. Like, yeah, you will meet other showrooms or you will meet other agents all the time and they might sound interesting, but yeah.
• 29:11
  if it's not broken, don't change it, you know. Totally. When you think about like, you know, retail for you is a big portion of the business. What has the money piece and that working capital piece looked like for funding the kind of purchase orders that are coming in, you know, for these big orders?
• 29:33
  Yeah, so I basically bootstrapped the company in... So we went through our first initial capital, which was barely anything in like our first year. And then I was bootstrapping the company for about three years, three or four years. And that was interesting, very interesting experience. What really helped me is a lot of...
• 30:02
  Because we had already proven ourselves on the DTC. If you kind of make a certain amount of revenue through Shopify per month, there's a lot of companies that will loan. So I think a few of them, Wayflyer, Clearco...
• 30:19
  There are a couple of them really cool companies. And they'll essentially look at your revenue that you're making on Shopify. And it's so easy because it's just they automatically take the money back through Shopify. I know that Shopify also do this as well. They do loans too. So you really don't have to think about it too much. And that made life so much easier for us. And we also got offered something through PayPal.
• 30:48
  So without that, it would have been very, very difficult. But that kind of helped bootstrap the company to get to a very healthy point. And then did you take on kind of outside investment or you still to this day use that same vehicle of revenue based finance?
• 31:09
  We did take external investment fairly recently. Yeah, but I did kind of wait it out as long as possible and turn down three different offers until we got something that I felt was acceptable. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. I feel like most founders I talk to have gone through the...
• 31:39
  you know, raising for months and months and crazy, crazy times. That must be such a testament to the business that you've built, that you've had people knocking on your door and, you know, lining up to give you capital. Love that for you. Yeah.
• 31:57
  Oh, thank you. I think honestly, it's just, it's actually, our investors are a massive fan of the brand since the early days. So that helped. I always think find your, find someone who,
• 32:12
  loves your product or is already working with you, like maybe, you know, your sales agent or something like that and can see firsthand the demand of the business and understands the business because that is going to be a really good investor, you know, rather than just kind of, I mean, great if it's a family or friends or something. Okay, great. But
• 32:35
  Really, I think fashion is such a high risk investment, unless you really understand the business that you need to get someone who does, you know. Totally, totally. How big is your team now? At the moment, it's, well, pretty, I mean, we've got about 10 people, but more if we include kind of our team.
• 33:02
  manufacturing and everything like that that's not included in this and obviously we also have external freelancers and advertising company like a PR and all of that that's not included so we and we do tap into kind of a network of consultants and things like that
• 33:23
  which I find just very useful, like really useful. So I would say, yeah, we work with a lot, like quite a lot of people, but not all on a full-time basis. Yeah, yeah.
• 33:38
  If you were starting a new fashion business or you're in the really early stages and someone's listening who's like, oh, yeah, what would you do now? What would you do differently or what would you do the same? What's kind of your key piece of advice that you can give someone who's in the early stages of building their fashion brand?
• 34:01
  I would say don't get too overwhelmed by looking at how am I going to do this? Because like, if you look at just the product, start with like, is my product one unique? Like, I just don't think there's any point in having a brand if you have no point of difference. So you have to have something recognizable. The more recognizable your product is...
• 34:25
  the more valuable and, you know, cause you're building your name, your business and, you know, the value of the company and what you're building will go up because people will see your product and know it straight away. So you really need that. So I would say, and you can, you can,
• 34:45
  With the internet, with Instagram and everything, you can really blow up if you master the art of social media and having an incredible product. Those two things. And you can then from that bootstrap your way up. I know that it is really overwhelming at the beginning when people don't have success.
• 35:07
  you know, capital. But the thing is, it's always like, what is enough capital? You know, it's, you're always, there's always going to be a bit of a struggle because you have to figure out the whole, it's, it's always, you know, there's always, you could have more budget for advertising and all the time. So it's always, the first few years, it was really hard figuring out who your customer is and everything. But I would just say, if you figure out early on, you know,
• 35:34
  your product, it all comes back to that because PR is great and everything, but it's worked so much better if you actually give them something that they can shout about, you know, so it all comes back to product and marketing as well. Like you can be amazing at marketing, but you know,
• 35:57
  what are you marketing? So I think all those things are great, but the essence of it has to be the product. Yeah, that will for me anyway. I mean, if I'm going to invest in a new brand, it has to be something super original. Yeah, I agree. I agree.
• 36:21
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 36:46
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• 37:08
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