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Transcript

The Oodie Journey_ How I Built a Global Brand · The Empire of Wealth

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Speaker 1: This is my story, how I went from a terrible
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kid in school all the way to creating one of
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Australia's biggest e-commerce brand doing over $ 550 million in sales.
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When I was in school, I was not a good kid.
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I'm almost ashamed of who I was. The first day
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of school, I remember throwing a yogurt on a kid
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and instantly getting called into the principal's office and I
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almost got suspended on the very first day. I remember
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handing in my assignment one day in class to a
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teacher and she just looked me up and down and said,
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don't be stupid. I quickly then started to resent teachers
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and I would just purposely make their life living hell
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i quickly started to believe that i was stupid after
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a little while a few teachers really did start to
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put their faith in me and one teacher my physics
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teacher took me aside and was showing me logarithms and
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i was really understanding it and he really kind of
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backed me and said you're wasting your talent i started
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to really believe in myself you know i had a
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some good teachers and also my parents really started to
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support me and make me realize that You are the
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master of your own destiny. You are responsible for everything
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that happens to you. Some people listening to this will
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be like, oh, he was privileged. His parents taught him
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how to do a business in the early years. The
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truth is everyone has shit and your shit may be
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bigger than mine, but that's not going to help you
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achieve your dreams. And me being an angry, distracted, hyperactive
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kid was part of my shit. And by realizing that
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I needed to deal with that was the first step
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for me to create financial freedom, to create happiness in
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my life, to take responsibility in my own future. And
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now you're probably, you know, the people that listen to
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this and they don't get inspired, they get angry and
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they're like, he doesn't know what's happening to me. Sure,
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you can take that mentality, but the only person that
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you are hurting with that mentality is yourself. So despite
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being hyperactive in a bad way, I was also hyperactive
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in a good way.
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Speaker 2: I was just constantly curious, trying to figure things out.
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Speaker 1: In grade four, I started baking cookies because I lived
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next to the primary school. and I'd walk up after
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school with cordial and cookies and try to sell them
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to the teachers. And I quickly learned about cost of
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goods and material costs because I came home with, I
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think about six bucks or something like that. And mom
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made me pay her for all of the cookie dough.
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And I think I probably netted a loss on that one.
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So that was my first taste of a business loss,
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but it definitely wasn't my last. My probably second entrepreneurial
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venture was when I started selling caps and hoodies in
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year 11. I would just post them on social media,
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I would just go onto Facebook, comment on people's photos
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and just try to sell one by one these hoodies.
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Speaker 2: And that started to work really well. I was probably.
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Speaker 1: Making $ 300 a week or so actually in school. Probably
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my first really successful business though was when I started
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to learn about Instagrams and I would sell advertising on Instagrams.
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You would post content like you've probably seen lots of
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similar pages at the moment. that post recipes or motivational
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videos and then you can just post other brands on
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them and charge them 10 to 50 to 100 dollars
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depending on how big your page is. I grew followers
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up to about 600,000 and I ended up selling it
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to Greta Van Riel who had a network of about
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15 million followers.
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Speaker 2: Which then led me.
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Speaker 1: To actually go over to Melbourne and work with her
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and the Fifth Watchers team. And I really started to
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learn the power of social media, which was my very,
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very first taste of e-commerce. After that, I thought I
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was invincible. I thought I was the smartest kid in e-commerce.
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I was like, I'm going to launch multiple e-commerce brands.
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The first one was I started grinding seasonings in my
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shed and that was an absolute disaster.
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Speaker 2: I bought all of these seasonings from the US.
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Speaker 1: I think I was importing like basil and parsley and
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stuff like that and I was just grinding them up
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in Tupperware container.
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Speaker 2: Stupidly I used glass.
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Speaker 1: Vials to package the product which were not only very heavy,
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would break if you ship them.
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Speaker 2: Luckily, I didn't ship.
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Speaker 1: Any because I didn't have any customers. I quickly realized
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that I just needed to become better. If you're not
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getting results, chances are that you're just probably not as
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good as you think you are.
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Speaker 2: And my journey was just.
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Speaker 1: YouTube videos after calls with people that have done things
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that are really successful after book, after just testing things.
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And what I did was I went to a bunch
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of brands, Adelaide based brands, and I just said, I
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will work for you for free. I want to learn
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Facebook ads. I want to learn websites and I want
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to learn videography. Those three skillsets, if you think about it,
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videographers are very expensive. So everyone was like, yep, that's great.
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You can handle all of the whole chain of the
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digital marketing, which was very, very valuable for these people.
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And I got to learn while getting paid because they
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did start paying me eventually. after two or three weeks
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that I was actually working for them, I was just
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doing everything wrong. I didn't understand persuasion marketing. I didn't
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understand how to frame a problem rather than just talking
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about the features of the product, talk about what they
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can actually do for the customer. And that led me
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to actually really understanding product. which then led me to
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launching Calming Blankets. Now I know I said I would
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talk about the Oodie and I definitely am getting there
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but it's really important to understand that I actually had
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a bigger brand than the Oodie in the early stages
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and that was Calming Blankets. I was on Facebook scrolling
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down and there was this mum and she was just
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posting on like a forum or like one of those
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niche pages and she just said this is the way
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to blankets that I make for my kids. She wasn't
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selling them or anything And I was like, wow, that's really,
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really interesting. And at that time, I just went onto
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Alibaba and realized that there was nobody actually selling that product.
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Speaker 2: It was so brand new.
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Speaker 1: And then I did a bit of research, understood about
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proprioceptive input, that that was actually just a peer-reviewed journal.
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which really opens up your ability to actually market the product.
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And then I just imported like 100 or 200 of
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these products. I spent my entire bank account that I've
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saved up from working with all of these Adelaide-based brands
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and pretty much drained it. I had no idea what
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I was doing. I was getting phone calls from people
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like customs agents saying, hey, we've got all of your
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blankets here. You need to pay duties and taxes and
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these kinds of things. And it was just absolute shambles.
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I think I ended up landing the blankets more than
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I was going to sell them for, but it was
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an instant success. I ended up doing about $ 10 million
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in sales and over a million dollars profit in its
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first year. I would jump on calls with people that
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are just incredible in the industry that have been working
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on e-commerce forever. And they just immediately assumed that I
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was doing something incredibly unique and that i was very
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very smart but the truth was anything that i did
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was working and that was simply because the product with
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products you've got certain stages so people can be problem
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aware so they can be problem aware around let's say
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global warming or something like that And then they become
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solution aware. So they understand that there is now a
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solution for that product. But then there's the final stage,
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which is brand aware. So they understand that you are
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the brand to actually sell that solution to that problem.
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The perfect trends are kind of where people are becoming
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solution aware, but nobody is brand aware because then you
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can then allow Facebook's algorithms to insert the content in
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front of those people that are now really, really ready
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to purchase and educated. And that's exactly the way the
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blankets were when I first launched it. After you find
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a successful business and you're doing a decent amount of sales,
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you get this fear and it's a fear that everything
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is going to be taken away from you. You create
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this narrative in your head, oh, my Facebook ad account's
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going to get banned. I'm going to get sued, which
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does happen. I'll tell you about that soon. And then
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you create these excuses that you need to repeat what
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you've done in this situation because this first situation is
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too good to be true and it's going to be
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taken away from you.
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Speaker 2: That is wrong. There is going to be.
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Speaker 1: Risks in certain businesses and some businesses that may be true.
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But the truth is that most problems can be overcome.
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And if you have revenue, if you have profit, and
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you're doing everything in best faith and not being a
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bad actor and scamming people, then chances are you will
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be able to work out the problems in your business.
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That fear though made me think that I needed a
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new product because if this product goes away, then I'll
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just sell this new one. And only four months in
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as well, which was very, very naive. But I was like, okay,
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what are we selling? We're selling weighted blankets. We're selling
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something to calm anxiety and be cozy. I was like,
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what's a better product to add onto that? and it
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was wearable blankets. So I set up over the weekend,
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I got a sample, I set up the product actually.
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Speaker 2: On the Calming Blankets website.
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Speaker 1: So I thought this would just be a secondary product
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to the Calming Blanket brand that was really, really selling.
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The sample came in, I think it was bright pink,
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and I was like, all right, let's try to market this.
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When it first came in, I remember my parents saying, oh,
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I'm not really sure about this one.
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Speaker 2: And I wasn't either.
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Speaker 1: It was it's very common now for people to be
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like oh that looks like interesting that's not that ugly
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but back then it was hideous people just were shocked
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that anyone would actually wear that. I remember reaching out
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to influencers saying, hey, can you take some photos for me?
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And they just literally said, that is the ugliest thing
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I've ever seen. And it was a very, very long
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slog to actually get people to try the product and
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realize how soft it was.
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Speaker 2: In the first month or so, URIs just were not
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able to sell.
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Speaker 1: I was pushing them as hard as I could in
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the exact same way as Calming Blankets, using Facebook ads,
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but people just weren't really even solution aware or even
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problem aware for that product.
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Speaker 2: It was very, very slow.
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Speaker 1: The problem also was that I just didn't have any
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cash in the bank because you need to buy inventory
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for future orders in advance and pay in advance. I
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was trying to fund all of these future orders for
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Calming Blankets. So I didn't have time and investment to
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push into this product. And I really did consider, should
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I scrap this product and focus? Because everyone was telling me,
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you need to focus on one brand. You need to
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focus on one product. And while I do believe that
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to be true for the most part, if I only
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did that for Calming Blankets, I wouldn't have Uri today.
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So you need to be very confident that the thing
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that you're focusing on has long-term prospects, not just this
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is going to be short-term what I should be focusing
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on and therefore I'm going to miss future opportunities. You
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still need to have long-term thinking when coming to focus
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as well. Despite it not working, I just didn't give up.
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I got my girlfriend over, I got my mum over,
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I got my new puppy and I would just take
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photos and videos and just kept working on my marketing skills.
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And finally, it started to work. Every morning, my routine
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was the same. I would get up at about 6 a.m.
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I would get Uber Eats at about 8 a.m. I
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would work on optimizing a website. I would get my
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mom to wear different hoodies and I would just film
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them and create ads. I would then drive to the
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warehouse where I would pack all the orders. And it
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was just absolute nonstop managing the two brands. Eventually, I
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decided to hire my brother as well, who is incredibly intelligent.
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So he was working on customer service and packing orders,
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managing the warehouse so I could just focus on marketing.
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And we just slowly grew and grew, hiring friends and family,
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as most people do when they first start a business
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and have no idea what they're doing. So now we're
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going to pull up to the original warehouse. This is
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where I was packing orders all myself, just would get
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the shipment in and have a ton of pre-sales. We'd
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pack them all and then ship them off the next day.
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The Australia Post guy did not like me. We wanted
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to get some nostalgic footage of where our packed.
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Speaker 2: Duties back in the day. Back in the day.
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Speaker 1: This is where it all started. We used to have
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our Australia Post labels packed over there.
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Speaker 2: It would be like this.
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Speaker 1: And then I'd have a little station here. I think
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I've got a photo piled up of packages here. And
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we'd just pack orders non-stop. We'd be One day, my
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first ever shipment of calming blankets. I didn't realize that
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when you start importing something as a new company, there's
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something called a border hold. So they scan all of
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your packages and I sold everything on pre-sale. I was like, yeah,
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we'll ship by like 18th of August. 18th of August
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arrived and they're like, oh no, we're going to hold
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this in border hold until we've scanned all the packages.
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I was just like, I had like $ 10, 000 in sales.
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I was just emailing customers frantically. And then I arrived
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and I was just like pretty much in tears. The
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truck rocked up down this street and pulled up and
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we just, I unloaded like, I don't know, maybe 500
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or so weighted blankets. In those days, I didn't even
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know where to take the orders because we had sold
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so many. I couldn't just take them to the local
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post shop. And I was also packing a free candle
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in every box. So I repackaged every single thing and
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did it in like two, three hours, then loaded them
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all up on utes and took them to like two
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post offices. And they're like, we can't take that. We
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can't do that. We went to the wrong one in
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the city. And then we ended up finding places to
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drop them off and kind of spread them around. And
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then I started to actually learn how to run a business,
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which was fun.
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Speaker 2: First, the first Udi merchandise. I used to buy like
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business cards and stuff, even though I didn't need them.
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Speaker 1: I just put the Oodie logo and everything. And this
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was the headquarters of the operation. We'd have meetings with
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just me and Todd. They weren't meetings. Our Chinese suppliers
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came here. He's tatted up, my brother. And he also
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had like a muscle singlet on it. I was just like, sorry,
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out of that depth.
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Speaker 2: I was so confused.
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Speaker 1: I then realized that eventually there's just going to be
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a ton of people selling this, which there now is,
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you know, Kmart, Target, all of these people have a version,
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a less quality version. And I realized that we needed
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to create something somewhat proprietary. And that's where the characters
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were born. I was actually in Europe on sale Croatia
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with my friends. I saw this like cute little unicorn
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toy at one of the shops and I was like,
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that needs to be on the Audi. So I added,
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I hired someone and put koalas, corgis, also unicorns as well,
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which eventually became our top sellers. and really allowed us
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to kind of when someone sees it on social media
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they know it's an hoodie and they know where to
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get it as well they can even write corgi weighted
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blanket and a will popper i remember my first five
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hundred thousand dollar day i was actually sitting in a
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villa in bali and it ticked over across both of
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those brands it was kind of this first moment of
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where i'm like Hang on a second.
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Speaker 2: All of those teachers were wrong.
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Speaker 1: If you never give up and you constantly dedicate yourself
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to learning, you drop all ego and you just pursue
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the dreams that you really want to do. It doesn't
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matter who you are. It doesn't matter how smart you are.
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You can achieve it. And from there, I went and
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I bought my dream house. I went and bought my
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dream car as well. I remember driving out of the
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lot when I was, I rocked up in ripped jeans.
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The person thought that I couldn't even afford it. They
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were kind of giving me daggers and didn't want to
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come over and serve me. And I just bought it
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straight then with cash. I think those are the moments
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that you need to be thinking about in the hardest times.
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After all my brands were skyrocketing, I ended up launching
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pup naps as well. which did over a million dollars
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in its like eighth month of business. And I was like, wow,
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this e-commerce game is so easy. Immediately that ego stepped
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straight back in. And that's when things all went really,
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really downhill. As soon as the work from home finished,
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sales just dropped. And we had to completely restructure the organization.
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I had to stop a bunch of brands that I
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was launching. I let a ton of people down. all
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due to my greed, which I'll never let happen again.
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I then quickly learned that I needed more mentors in place.
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I needed a great senior leadership team, which I now have.
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I needed people to teach me the things that I
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didn't know that they've learned from their 20, 30 years
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in other organizations. Because I was 25 and a CEO.
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I didn't even know how to run a meeting properly.
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So with all the help of these people, I was
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finally able to kind of core myself out of that mess,
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put proper controls in their business, put a proper strategy
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in place. And then things just started to take off again.
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So we're now pulling up at our new Oodie office,
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which is exciting. We just moved about a month ago.
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So we'll see the team. I don't go into the
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office very much because I'm working on a lot of
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other things, but it'll be good to see everyone.
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Speaker 2: Hello, everybody. How are we? Everyone remember Charlie?
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Speaker 1: It's been a long time. How's it going?
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Speaker 2: He works here more than you do. Yeah, that's so true.
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Speaker 1: We set this up for you.
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Speaker 2: Perfect. We actually do weddings as well. Don't put that
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in there.
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Speaker 1: How often do you wash your woody?
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Speaker 2: I just get a new one every single time. What's
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your favorite woody product? I was trying to think of
18:39
something creative. Give me a sec. Wait, it's not again. Wait,
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you took too long. I understand how TikTok works. Okay,
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and go.
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Speaker 1: So we're going to ask you some hypothetical questions because
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you're our actual boss. Okay. Katie, you go first.
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Speaker 3: What would you do if I was driving the G-Wagon
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somewhere and I crashed it?
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Speaker 2: I would make sure that you're okay.
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Speaker 3: Oh, that's cute.
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Speaker 2: I've already played that in my head. The amount of
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times I'm like, if she calls you and she crashes
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the car, just check she's okay first.
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Speaker 3: I think it's cool to do gym content and gaming content,
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but you just can't do exactly, like, come up with
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three concepts that you've never seen on YouTube before or
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you've seen, like, once that went okay.
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Speaker 2: Oh, that looks so good.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. We were able to work with some of the
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biggest licenses in the world like Disney, Pokemon, Warner Brothers.
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We've got amazing new product categories like bathrobes. We're also
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doing wholesale now so we're actually entering into stores and
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I do think that the Oodie can actually be a
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global brand, a household brand, something that I always dreamed
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about when I was a kid. Alrighty next stop this
19:58
is the old office. Primary school is over there so
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I'd literally just jumped that little white fence, still was
20:04
late to class. This is where me and my friend Jai,
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who was co-founder of PupNaps, we set up our desks.
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I remember being in this big office by ourselves, setting
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up the desk, wondering what we got ourselves into, which
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was definitely a pinch me moment because it.
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Speaker 2: Was like, wow, maybe we're a serious business.
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Speaker 1: This is it.
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Speaker 2: This is the study.
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Speaker 1: It'd be seven Uber Eats bags here.
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Speaker 2: And I'll just lock in. This is the first ever
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Oodie shoot.
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Speaker 1: Bought a light stand from Amazon for 20 bucks. And
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then I just got a white sheet, the sheet off
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my bed, put it there. Cool. And just do that
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Sherpa fleece, the inside again for me.
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Speaker 2: 24 hours. I'll do 50,000 for 20% if you say yes, right?
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Thank you.