Quality First: How Nomatic Crafts High Travel Gear w/ Jon Richards, Chief Product Officer @ Nomatic

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It wasn't until we had launched like two different
bags or three different bags.
All of a sudden it was like,okay, we're more of a travel
brand now and we started kind oflike leaning into that.
We were getting feedback fromcustomers.
The number one word people useis quality when they describe
nomadic products.
So it's like all right, we're aquality premium brand for
travel.
That kind of just started toget defined over time.

(00:21):
Let's make the best products wepossibly can, and I think we
were more meticulous than mostpeople are about our products.
We go through like 10, 20different prototypes until we
were like it's ready.
If it wasn't ready, we wouldjust throw it out and be like
it's not good enough yet, let'sstart over.
We weren't making products totry to just grow revenue as fast
as possible.
It was like no, let's make thebest backpack we possibly can.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yo, what's going on everybody?
Welcome to the UnstoppableMarketer podcast.
With me, as always, is MarkGoldhart, my wonderful co-host,
business partner.
How are you?

Speaker 3 (00:53):
What's up, sir?

Speaker 2 (00:56):
I'm during dirt.
Doing good, doing good.
Welcome back.
You've been traveling.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah, we've been traveling.
I've been traveling, glad to behome for at least a good couple
weeks.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, no trips ahead of you.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
Some camping, but that's not like travel to me.
Yeah, I agree with that Sametime zone, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Couple nights.
Couple nights rather than likea week.
Yeah, for sure.
I'm excited about the podcasttoday.
Yeah, me too.
We've got a guest on that.
A local legend.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Yeah, as some would say.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
What's funny is I've had to.
I've like been talking to himfor like what we're like I feel
like a year and a half now inthe making.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
It's all two years.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Just like back and forth, like hey, year and a half
now in the making, it's all twoyears Just like back and forth
like hey, and it's always beenlike very passive, aggressive by
me, like he'll like commentsomething on LinkedIn and then I
will like comment on hiscomment like hey, when are you
going to come on our podcast?
It's like very rarely.
Like a text message like hey,do you want to do this?
So I'm excited to have him on.
So I want to welcome JohnRichards, the co-founder and

(02:04):
chief product officer of Nomadic.
How are you, john?

Speaker 1 (02:07):
I'm doing good.
Welcome.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, sorry it took so long tomake this happen.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
You know what it makes for a better introduction
when people take longer versus.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
you know you got to play hard to get.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, when you play hard to get and have a little
mystery, it's going to make thepodcast a little better.
We're setting expectations toohigh already.
Yeah, that's what we do best,is we set the expectations high,
um, so okay.
So so welcome john's, john'slocal here in utah.
Uh, tell us a little bit aboutnomadic.
How long have you guys beenaround for and what do you guys
do?

Speaker 1 (02:40):
so nomadic has been around for um 11 years now.
We make the most functionaltravel gear ever for people who
live life on the move.
So life on the move for us isdefined as someone who's trying
to become the best version ofthemselves and these days, like
you think business professionaland you think of a guy in a tie

(03:02):
and a white shirt and you knowsuit or something, for us, like
a business professional issomeone who's just hustling and
building like could be a podcast, could be software, could be
whatever right.
So we support those people forcommuting to work, traveling on
planes and also we make, uh,creator bags.
Well, so like photography bags,for cameras and stuff like that

(03:25):
.
And yeah, so we just launchedApparel last year to kind of
like, kind of tell a biggerstory about how we support
people who travel and stuff.
So Nomadic's been.
It's been a fun ride.
Yeah, we're 11 years in and itstarted out with just me and my
cousin, my business partner, andnow we're up to about 32

(03:49):
employees.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
Nice.
Wow Started with wallets right.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Yeah, really.
Yep, just a little smallminimalist pull tab wallet.
You still got it.
Still got it.
Nice, this isn't the OG, butwe've made variations on it.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Our CTO, jordan, still has his.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Does he?
Yeah, we've made variations onit, but our cto, jordan, still
has his does he?

Speaker 1 (04:06):
yeah, nice.
So yeah, we launched this onkickstarter actually, uh, in
2014, just like a pull tabwallet that you, oh, pull the
tab out and it ejects your cardsand then it's got a little
pocket on the back for cash,coins or a key or something.
I like that.
Anyway, it was just a sidehustle.
It wasn't supposed to turn intonomadic.
It was just like let's launchsomething and see what happens.
We had a goal to raise $10,000on Kickstarter, ended up raising

(04:30):
$170,000.
Wow, and it was a superprofitable product.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
The Kickstart days.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
It was like the glory days of Facebook ads, right,
yeah.
So we launched it in that firstweek Like friends and family.
We'd backed up back about$5,000 worth of funding and
we're like we might hit our goal, like we were pacing that.
And uh, then we met someonethat knew Facebook ads and he
taught us, and then we went fromlike 5,000 in the first couple
of weeks to 5,000 a day.

(04:56):
We just started cranking.
I was like, oh my gosh, likeFacebook's a little bit of a
unlock here.
Um, and so we really focusedheavily on Facebook ads for the
next 10 years.
I guess we're still running ads?

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, for sure, that's so cool.
What's been?
This is just kind of like arandom question that just you've
been around for 11 years whathas been the best piece of
advice you've been given, asyou've been an entrepreneur
running your own business Kindof on the spot?

Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah, From just like anyone, anyone, any piece of
advice a mentor, best piece ofadvice, that's a really good
question.
Hmm, I think the best piece ofadvice we got in the early days
was, like you know, I think you,you start a company, you

(05:47):
realize how many cashconstraints there are around.
Like growing, and the bestpiece of advice was just like
this the concept of Kickstarter.
Like using Kickstarter as aplatform and as a business model
for us.
It literally is the only reasonwe're in business today.
Like it, it helped us scale thebusiness from zero to about 15

(06:12):
million in revenue without anyoutside funding.
Yeah, so you get.
You get your customer base upfront.
You get approved the productout to make sure people actually
want it.
Customer base up front.
You get approved the productout to make sure people actually
want it.
You can you can make changes tothat product because the
customers are saying, why didn'tyou launch this with waterproof
zippers?
And oh dude, I didn't thinkabout that.

(06:33):
Sure, you make that change onthe fly and then the product
they're getting actually haswaterproof zippers.
Sure, that's what they reallywanted, and so you're able to
adapt their product.
You're able to prove out thatprice point.
get your customers up front butthen the biggest part, obviously
the cash.
Like you get the cash beforeyou even manufacture the product
.
That's game changer for interms of a business model.
Like you don't have to go raisemoney, you don't have to take

(06:55):
debt.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Um so me and my business partner from like in
the first five years of thebusiness we grew up from like
but zero to 15 million we hadn'ttaken any outside funding or
any debt nice raised almost 15million dollars through
kickstarter yeah, that's such acool, underrated piece of advice
because, like I know, we'velaunched products before where,
uh, like you have an idea, likehey, I think these things are

(07:20):
going to sell, um, and beforeyou know it, like, let's, if
you've got 10 SKUs, two of themare the only ones that end up
selling, and then you have theseother eight SKUs with however
much inventory that you have tolike, try to you know, either
discount or maybe you're givingthem away for free as gifts to
influencers or customers orwhatever.

(07:40):
And so the Kickstarter.
I've been actually surprisedwith how little Kickstarter is
used used nowadays.
Do you guys still use it whenyou launch new products?

Speaker 1 (07:48):
only if the product is new, unique and innovative,
like if it's just like a newcolorway or a new version of a
bag we've already launched.
We don't use it okay but, likewhen we launched our apparel
collection, we dropped it on onkickstarter first.
Nice, uh it's.
It's becoming less and less ofa platform we're using like day
to day just because we haverevenue outside of Kickstarter.

(08:09):
That's generating cashflow.
You have profits, but there arecompanies that continue to crush
on Kickstarter and they'restill raising crazy amounts of
funding up front.
Yeah, so it's a great channel.
I don't have any problem withit at this point.
It's more just like Facebookused to drive a lot of the

(08:30):
Kickstarter success for us surenot like it was going viral all
the time or something.
It was more just us spendingdollars to make dollars, but the
dollars would just go furtheron Kickstarter, sure.
Anyway, so that it's still aplatform we'll use into the
future, we're working on acouple of collections right now
that I could see us putting onon Kickstarter Very cool, yeah,

(08:52):
very cool.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
What was the product that?
So you started in wallets?

Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah, wall was the first and we launched a notebook
and we launched a watchactually and at the time we were
thinking let's make an everydaycarry brand.
This is just stuff you'll carrywith you every day.
But then we researched it moreand more and found that, like
travel bags did well, onkickstarter um, we launched that
first travel bag and typicallyour campaigns we were doing like

(09:16):
170 000 or 300 000 the travelbag campaign.
We raised three million dollarsin 60 days crazy so I was like
all, we're a bag company now.
Like forget wallets andnotebooks, let's focus on bags.
So that's kind of where thattransition happened.
At the same time, we actuallyshifted that was the travel
backpack.
Yeah, it was a travel bag likea duffel.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
Okay, it wasn't that backpack.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
That's our best seller.
It was more of like a duffel bagthat also had backpack straps
on it yeah, yeah and it was likethe exact size of carry-on
dimension, so it looked likejust a black box, really like we
never designed a bag before.
This was us just like messingaround in adobe illustrator
trying to figure out how todesign a bag.
Yeah, um, so that that productwas.

(10:01):
That product was fun, like afun first attempt at a bag.
But yeah, I think the biggesttakeaway from that was like bags
are a higher price point, right, a $20 wallet, you have to sell
tens of thousands of those tomake the same that you would
have to sell a $300 travel bagfor, right.
So we were making a lot moremoney selling travel bags and we

(10:24):
shifted from basics.
Products was the name of ourcompany.
When we launched that wallet,okay, notebook.
We got a bunch of cease anddesist letters because everyone
has like a basics line, yeah, soamazon and on air and all these
other like random brands havelike their basics, yeah.
And so we were getting likecease and desist letters like
you can't launch a basicsnotebook, we own that, you can't

(10:45):
launch this.
And all of a sudden we're likedude, we're not going to be able
to exist as basics, yeah, yeah,that's when we switched our
name to nomadic.
We launched the travel bag andthe new name at the same time.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Nice.
Anything ever like serioushappened from the cease and
desist.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
I mean it was just, it was just scare tactic stuff.
I mean, as a young entrepreneur, when you only have like one or
two employees, you're like dude, we're done.
Oh yeah, business is over, yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
We, we, uh, when.
So I, a friend of mine andmyself, we launched a company
called Asher golf and we got acease and desist from the
masters because we created likea they they are like the most on
top of it Organizationimaginable.
We were an absolute nobody, youknow, probably making like $500

(11:29):
a day, and we created this thatwe just called it the Masters
Collection.
There was no like T-shirt orgolf club or anything.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
It was there green and everything.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
But we, just because we titled it the Masters
Collection I mean, it was withinprobably an hour of me
launching the collection we hada c synthesis from him, like
instantaneously, and I was liketerrified.
I could not even believe whathad just happened yeah you know,
but luckily all we had also inthe golf world.

Speaker 3 (11:56):
That's like the one brand you don't want to yeah,
they own.
They own a trademark toeverything yeah like every
single thing, you can't say it'sjust a storied brand too like
you don't want to very legacyget on the wrong side of the
masters.
Yeah, that's funny well, that'scool.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
Okay, so backpacks, which probably was like less
margin.
Funny enough, I actually know Iown the planner, really.
Yeah, do you?

Speaker 3 (12:19):
nice, not anymore, but Really.
Yeah, do you Nice, not anymore,but I had a plan.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
You bought it Nice Back in 2015.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
Yeah, that would have been when we launched it.
16, I had the plan you were theKickstarter backer.
Well, you know, I got back fromArgentina and I needed a
planter, that was the best one.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
That's cool.

Speaker 3 (12:39):
So now I've got the bags, got the sling and the
carry-on.
Nice dude got the bags, got thesling and the carry-on.
Nice dude, so really quick.
When you you go up to the bigsize and we've been in the bag
space so we know, we knowobviously it's the margins are
better.
You know you're selling a biggerproduct, but the profit margins
are better yeah, the profitmargins are better, but it also

(13:00):
comes with just less right, likeLike you're not dealing with,
like you said, like you don'thave to sell thousands of
wallets, like you can sellhundreds of bags.
So you advance into this morepremium space.
How did your content strategychange, going from the basics to
the premium space, dude we werejust so scrappy.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
Like it was literally me and my cousin with cameras
trying to like take pictures forsocial media.
Like if you scroll all the wayback in our feed, it's almost
just like embarrassing.
Like there's one picture wherehe was posting like a collage of
himself with like shaving hisbeard from like you know like
all the different phases ofshaving it, where it was like at
first it was a beard, and thenit was a goatee, and then it was

(13:43):
a mustache, and like that waslike one of our posts for our
company.
And I look back and I'm likethis doesn't make any sense.
Like why do we even post this?
And it was just us doingwhatever we could to just like
make content.
And you know you're holding awallet up in the sky with like
the Eiffel tower in thebackground and you take a
picture and it's like, yeah,it's just like stupid content

(14:04):
now that I look back on it, sothat there was really no
strategy.
Like when you ask what was ourstrategy?
Like there wasn't a strategy,it was more just trying to
figure out how to exist onsocial media, how to exist as a
company.
Um, it wasn't until like itwasn't until we had launched
like two different bags or threedifferent bags.

(14:25):
All of a sudden it was likeokay, we're more of a travel
brand now and we started kind oflike leaning into that.
Where it was premium travel,like the quality, we were
getting feedback from ourcustomers.
The number one word people useis quality when they describe
nomadic products.
So it's like all right, we're aquality, premium brand for
travel.
And so that that kind of juststarted to get defined over time

(14:48):
.
It wasn't, it wasn't somethingwhere we sat down in a
conference room or like we'regonna stand for premium quality
travel bags.
It was like let's make the bestproducts we possibly can.
I think we were more meticulousthan most people are about our
products.
We go through like 10, 20different prototypes until we
were like it's ready, um, and ifit wasn't ready, we would just

(15:09):
throw it out and be like it'snot good enough yet, let's start
over, and so we weren't afraidto like we weren't making
products to try to just growrevenue as fast as possible.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
It was like, no, let's make the best backpack we
we possibly can yeah, theinteresting thing about you guys
is progression is, if you startoff with Kickstarter, you
you're up fronting productmarket fit, right, so, like
you're able to, you knowtheoretically you could get to

(15:39):
product market fit faster.
So do you think the kickstartroute also helped you once you
got to the premium goods?
Because you, you already hadthis kind of mentality or these,
this muscle memory of iteratinga product really fast, right,
to make sure it fit what the theconsumer wanted, even off of
feedback before they got theproduct right.

(16:00):
Yeah, so was that muscle memorygood for you to say okay, like
if it's not good enough, it'snot good enough, like we're good
, we just want the best quoteproduct that's gonna be the most
wanted, right, because wealways say product market fit is
often the most important factorfor just marketing.
You know, like it's a loteasier to market something that
people want yep, that hasproduct market fit for an

(16:23):
audience, than it is forsomething that people like may
or may not want or they feellukewarm about.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
Yeah, no, that's a really good question.
Um, I had a couple of thoughtswhile you're talking.
I think the first one wasKickstarter forced us to have
that muscle memory, but it alsoforced us to think about our
customers in a different way.
So we would actually sendsurveys to these customers, like
very often, where we would saywhat product should we make next

(16:49):
?
And then, when they give usfeedback, we'd dial into that
and say you said you wanted usto make functional travel
apparel.
What does that look like?
Like okay, you're saying ajacket, like how hot do you want
this jacket to be?
How cold do you want it to be?
What features are important toyou?
And so we would actually surveyour customers until we got to
data points where it's likepeople are telling us they want

(17:16):
this and people would be mostlikely to buy this, to the point
where we're even showing themour renderings and mock-ups to
say which style do you like best?
Yeah, like that we went.
We would go down those paths tosay, let's, let's create
something, um, with ourcustomers, and that's what
kickstarter really helped us do.
I would say there's all there'skind of two parts to this the
product side, because you canonly go so far with that, where
you get a product where you say,okay, I think most people are
going to want to buy thisproduct or it's going to fit the

(17:37):
market really well, but there'sthis piece where, when they get
it in the wild and they starttesting it and using it, all of
a sudden they have all thisadditional feedback or right.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
You miss the mark on something and it could be like
pretty detrimental or some ofthe features they think they
want end up just being anuisance yeah, gimmicky features
.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
It's like oh, I thought I wanted a key leash,
but I don't really care anymore.
I never use it or whateverright, um.
So yeah, there's, there'spieces to it that we've had to
adapt over the years.
So we've come out with, youknow, v2s, v3s of our products,
because after it's out there inthe wild, people are coming back
and saying, or we actuallysurvey them and say how often do

(18:16):
you use the waist straps thatwe include with every bag?
Or how often are you using this?
thing.
And once we get the data, thenwe can say dude, everyone
thought they wanted this, butthey're not using it.

Speaker 3 (18:26):
Let's make it, let's dial it in even more, simplify
it.
And the waist straps yeah, youknow, it's never use them
exactly, you know, uh, I used touse them.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
Uh, I used to be a rollerblader when I was in
middle school and I had like arollerblade backpack.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
Once a rollerblader always.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
That's true, that's true and I had my senate
backpack and I'd put my bladeson the back and when I did that,
I would put my backpack and I'dput my blades on the back, and
when I did that, I would put mywaist straps because they were
heavy and it just felt cool, soI would use them, but a blader
huh of course, bro you were inthe skater crowd well, I started

(19:05):
skateboarding once arollerblader.
I switched when I got into highschool and I skateboarded in
high school but were you afruitbooter?

Speaker 1 (19:13):
No, I was a skateboarder.
Oh man yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
There's a rivalry between them.
Well, so this is somethingthat's interesting that we talk
about.
You've said a couple thingsthat have kind of piqued my
interest, which is we alwaystalk about how challenging it is
to pivot or to own a specificmarket.
And when I say own it and Idon't necessarily mean own it
like you're the biggest personout there, but like where you're

(19:36):
maybe doing well in a specificmarket.
So, for example, you're inwallets and you're doing really,
really well, and then you enterinto the backpack realm, which
is sure there's some likecorrelation potentially to that,
but they are two very differentproducts.
You see a lot of brands who willdo this.
They will try to.
Maybe a menswear brand, forexample, tries to go into

(19:58):
women's wear and it failsmiserably.
Um, or uh, uh.
What's another one?
Like a kids pajamas company, itlaunches a women's diaper bag
and it doesn't work out right.
Like there's these.
Have you guys?
How have you guys?
How have you guys been able tonavigate waters like that?

(20:19):
You went from wallets to bagsand now you're in this bag space
and you're just jumped intoapparel.
Like, how has that gone for youguys?
Obviously, the backside workedreally well.

Speaker 3 (20:30):
Um, what made you guys decide to go into apparel
and also that seems like anatural evolution because you're
so small at that point I agree.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
I agree with that the bag.

Speaker 3 (20:39):
You can establish as a bag company the bag to apparel
, though how's that been?

Speaker 1 (20:42):
yeah, um, maybe I'll give you two different examples
of this because I think it'sinteresting to to note.
Like bags, toarel, it seems likea big jump and I think it was a
big jump.
It is a big jump for us stillbecause you market them in
completely different ways,totally To get people to trust
you around apparel, I will saythat's probably more on the side

(21:04):
of the product, where once they, once they get our apparel,
they use it Then.
Then they become likeevangelists because they're like
dude, like nomadic, actuallynailed it, like I thought they
were just trying to do apparel,but it's like now that I
actually wear this jacket, likeevery single day, I'm like I'm
gonna, I'm gonna always buynomadic apparel, right, so you,

(21:27):
you kind of have this.
The product proves itself.
It's like example you gave ofthe company that's uh rompers
that launches a diaper bag orwhatever right, like if they
don't nail that diaper bag, thatthat product has no chance of
success because the leap itselfis a big step yeah but then if
you don't nail the product,there's no chance it survives.

(21:48):
If you nail the product, even ifthat's a big leap, yeah, it
just takes longer and it takesmore time to convince people
that you are as good as you say.
You are right, yeah, and that'sthat's how it's been in apparel
because, like, our feedback hasbeen amazing, like people
absolutely love it, I think wenailed the first five items,
four items that we launched.
We're launching another fiveitems the end of this year, yeah

(22:09):
, and we're working really hardto make sure that we nail those
products yeah but I will say,like apparel has been slower
growth thanI had hoped, right like it's.
It's.
I think in the last year it didlike a million dollars for us,
which is just a very smallportion of our total revenues,
but it's like it was.
It was a step in the rightdirection where it's like all

(22:31):
right, next year maybe we landdillards, and next, the next
year, maybe, it's sure, um, youknow, we launch these other
styles or we do a collab withsomeone and it takes off.
So I wouldn't, I wouldn't yourbags and wholesale yeah, they
are, yeah, they are.
Um, and I want to get to that inone second.
I want to finish this thoughton this other piece of just the

(22:54):
product being the right fit,because we launched a product
with Peter McKinnon, thevideographer, youtuber, and we'd
never done camera bags before.
So the average camera personthat carries cameras, they care
about their bags, they careabout what's protecting their
gear because they're carryingaround five thousand dollar

(23:15):
setups, whatever, right, totally.
So it's like all right, this is, this is an important gear to
me.
I need the bag to perform.
So for nomadic to make a camerabag without a trusted source
like peter mckinnon yeah, wewould have probably seen
something similar to apparel,where it's just like slow growth
until we can prove it out.
But because we had like one ofthe biggest faces in the
industry coming out and saying Imade this camera bag with

(23:39):
Nomadic and it's the best camerabag you'll ever have in your
life, then all of a sudden,overnight, it was like a success
because, people believed itfrom the beginning and they
bought into the product oncethey got it because it really
was some of the best camera bagsthey've ever used.
So I think I think there's twopieces to that.
Um, anyway, just wanted to wrapup that thought, but can I ask?

Speaker 2 (23:58):
can I ask a question though?
Yeah, before we jump, how isthe peter mckinnon collab do?
Have you guys done that withanybody else when you've
launched into a new market?
For example, did you do thatwith apparel?

Speaker 1 (24:12):
We didn't do with apparel Okay, we had some
influencers post about it but wedidn't do like collections that
were built around these people.
It was more just like hey, canyou give us a shout out?
Yeah, we felt like the marketfit was good enough, where we
were literally building apparelfor people that already buy our
bags, so it wasn't like weneeded permission to exist in

(24:32):
that space got it.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
So you were.
When you launched the apparel.
It was, uh, maybe long term itwas about, hey, anybody should
be wearing us.
But in the short term it waslike, hey, everyone who's bought
our bags.
How many bags did you guys soldat the time, like you have?
You guys have a running total.
I wish.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
That would be amazing number to throw out right now,
but you probably have a tonright.
We should be able to.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Yeah, we should be able to get five to twenty
percent of our customers who areusing our bags to buy our
apparel.
That was kind of the initialthought.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yeah, well and you look like.
You look at brands like builtand um cuts and you know roan or
lululemon, like these brandsare billion dollar brands or a
hundred million dollar brandsthat have built a company
literally just around apparel.
Yeah.
So for us it was like if we cannail it, this could double,
triple, quadruple our businessover the long term.
And so if you look at apparelas if it's its own product

(25:25):
category, like year one we did amillion dollars, year two, we
do two.
Yeah.
You know, year three is it fourmillion.
Yeah year two, we do two, yeah,you know year.
Year three is it four million?
Like if we're able to doublethat year over year, whatever.
Pretty soon, when you fastforward 10 years, apparel could
be a 30 to 100 million dollarproduct line for us?
Yeah, for sure so I think forus we're taking it a little bit
slower.
On the apparel side.

Speaker 3 (25:46):
It's also just so many skews what I'm gonna say is
how different it is with a bag.
You know, know the number of 15total bags.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah, exactly 150 SKUs or something, with all of
our bags and accessoriescombined to like I think we're
like 2000 or something.
Now, crazy, that was like ayear.
Yeah, what are your sizes?
Like small to double XL?
Well, just for the joggers itis.
But when you get into pants, wehave waist sizes, inseam
lengths, fit.
So we have like colors fit andcolors like yeah, you, you have

(26:16):
a slim fit and a classic, youjust doubled your skis right
there.
It's like oh man, yeah,exhausting.
What are your thoughts?

Speaker 3 (26:22):
what I always think about, though, with what you
just did, is the bag space.
The bag space is hard becausepeople don't need bags that
often.
Yeah right, right, so it'sreally good from a first
customer acquisition standpoint.

Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yeah, it's this is a good point it's harder lifetime
value sucks.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
Yeah, lifetime value is not great because, like, for
example, I got my nomadiccarry-on five years ago, exactly
like I don't need anothercarry-on.
Maybe you would need a secondfor your wife, maybe, or you buy
a suitcase to pair it with, orsomething right so we have
luggage, we have other thingslike that, but I think a lot of
people are probably like meright where you probably get a
carry-on, it's like, hey, thiscarry-on is amazing yeah like
it's like war proof, so I don'tneed to care, I don't need a

(27:06):
carry-on, like maybe if I travelmore I might want, but you know
I'm not like a big airplanetravel guy, it's like usually
business, so that's all I need.
But yeah, lifetime value sucks,yeah, but then you.
So it's kind of like I equateit to like restaurants, like the
bag space is closer to like aunique restaurant experience,

(27:27):
right, it's like a high endrestaurant where apparel is fast
food.
Like your margins in the fastfood industry are not great,
right, but the scalability isgreat.
Yeah and that's what we saw.
So the margins aren'tnecessarily bad with apparel,
but it's just.
It's a whole different ballgameright, totally.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Well, they definitely are bad compared to bags,
probably.

Speaker 3 (27:46):
Huh, it's the consistency of the experience
that people are looking for, butit takes time to build.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
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Speaker 1 (28:43):
Yeah, yeah.
So we launched our apparel andpeople were buying like one or
two items and then they willcome back and buy seven items,
sure, and you're like Whoa, likeit was a different buying cycle
, right With the bags.
It was like one time five yearsyou don't see them again.
And maybe, like I think it waslike a 1.2, like they'd come

(29:03):
back 0.2% of the time and buy apacking cube or a toiletry bag,
something to go with the bag.
But when we launched apparel,it was like they buy one t-shirt
, one pair of pants, somethinglike that, and then two weeks
later they're back and theybought every color of pant,
every color of t-shirt and theydropped $700.

Speaker 3 (29:22):
And you're like okay, yeah, they got.
They caught the vision Withinlike 60 days, right yeah,
because they try it on.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
They're like no, this is legit.
Like I'm going to go back andbuy it or you can.
You can market to them fastertoo.
Like you can send a email aboutapparel every week.
Where bags?
It's like hey, you've hit me 15times about buying a bag, I
already have a bag.
Like I'm an unsubscribe right.
Like apparel it's always top ofmind.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
It's like like it's a quick $50 purchase or whatever
you know, yeah Well, the bagsare oftentimes are like need
spaces versus want spaces too,whereas apparel is.
Even though it is a need, itbecomes more of a want because
people buy it like, oh, theyjust dropped a new colorway.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
What I will say about part of that, though can I just
add to.
What makes apparel harder isit's a lot easier to showcase
the uniqueness of a bag.
Yeah, is it's a lot easier toshowcase the uniqueness of a bag
, yeah, in ads, yeah, then it isapparel for sure, because
apparel all your, all your focus, like it's really hard, because
it's like, oh hey, it looksgood, it's comfortable.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
Yeah, cuz they like that shirt, my shirt like from
from a distance, am I wearingnomadic?
You know like?

Speaker 4 (30:30):
For sure am I wearing nomadic, you know like for sure
Very, very hard.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
It's kind of like jewelry it's harder to visually
demonstrate where, with a, withlike a nomadic bag, yeah, you
could do everything, from likethrowing it off a building to
like rolling it next to a car,to like how much stuff you like
there's just so many morepacking it content ideas to show
like how awesome it is, yeah.
Or with clothes, it's usuallylike okay, unless you're doing
something that's like this isthe most durable pant in the

(30:55):
world, yeah, right, yeah, it'shard to showcase we did find
that.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
Actually, where, when are you when you rank like how
much revenue we've done byproduct that we launch with
apparel?
Our jacket, for example, islike the number one and it's
because it's got like it foldsinto a pillow for travel, yeah
and it's got these perforatedarmpit holes that like let it
breathe and it's like so youhave actual features.

(31:20):
You can point to where at-shirt it's like trust me, it's
really soft like.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
This t-shirt is great .

Speaker 2 (31:26):
It's so comfy you know it's so funny people.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
There's this kind of again once you get, once you
sell, and we always say sorry tocut you off again.
But I just want to say thething about apparel, though, is,
if you can change your mindsetand I do want to ask you about
the mindset is because themindset is very differently from
, like, a marketing perspective,an ad dollar perspective for
bags then it's going to be forapparel, because apparel, like

(31:50):
you said, if you, the more yousell, the more you sell, right?
So, like, you kind of have toadjust, like what your
expectations are of cpas androis based off of the product,
because an apparel it's harderto showcase, but once people
wear it, like, oh, they comeback in 60 days.
As long as it's good, right, aslong as it nails, sweet, yeah,

(32:11):
well, I need to totallyreconsider what, like, my
perception is, yeah, of adstrategy yeah, I agree.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
I was also going to say that the the thing about
bags too, like as we wereplaying this, like, like, not,
not devil's advocate, I don'teven know what I'm just like the
difference yeah the differenceis like what is?
nice, though, about like bagsthat even though they you don't
have a good ltv oftentimes inthe bag space or a high quality
product that you don't need tocontinue to buy and over, over

(32:39):
again, over and over again, yourbiggest sales uh like
acquisition channel becomes yourcustomers because they're like
it is, they're like hey, like,for example how many people have
used told about nomadic, Likeprobably dozens yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
Well, even with my wife on our anniversary trip, I
was like we don't travel enough,but I need to get you one of
these.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah, that's the beauty of it.
So, yes, that person doesn'tcome back and buy for themselves
over and over again, butoftentimes these high-quality
good products that you don'tneed for a long time.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
We have golf bag companies that we work with and
we see all the time in thatspace.
I was gonna say, when we wereusing bessie for post-purchase
or whatever, I think I thinkword of mouth was our number one
oh, I guarantee it was yeah,for sure, top two yeah for the
bags, for bags, yeah what areyour thoughts?

Speaker 2 (33:26):
uh, you you'd mentioned cuts and built, and
did you just hear that stevenbarelli is stepping down?
No of cuts, yeah, he justannounced it yesterday that he
announced it.
Yeah that that's what does that?

Speaker 1 (33:38):
what does that mean?
He's just not.
That's what I was gonna ask youwell, this is my.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
I mean, this is my we can speculate.
Yeah, well, what's been sointeresting is he's been the
kind of like face and leader andhe's been trying to create
content like crazy and he'stalking about it.
We met him last year in LA atan event, so I'm like way
stunned by it.

Speaker 3 (34:00):
To me it feels like he was maybe pushed out
Personally, because he's been so, gung ho, his post did not seem
very happy, like relieved howdo you say it?
Like, hey, this has beenawesome.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
When you're stepping down, you're either going out
for you're getting pushed out oryou're going out for mental
health reasons.
But if it's mental health, thenit's like they usually make a
call to that where they're likeI need to take a break for a
little while.

Speaker 3 (34:32):
Yeah, I don't think but you know, maybe he's going
through something or maybe he'snot, let me look it up, we gotta
look it up now.
But you do have in the apparelspace, you just have a lot of
competition.
I just think the apparel spacelike sometimes we tell brands
that we work with it's betterthat you start now than if you
had started four years agobecause you like you just have
like the expectations of like2017, 16, 15.

(34:55):
If facebook ads, like a lot ofcompanies, like that mind shift,
like even from bags to apparel,like there is a mind shift
change, that it's like hey, wegot to strategize differently
for different kinds of products.
Like it's not all the same, likeyes, you have a blended cash
flow, whatever for your company,but like they're totally
different sale cycles, lifetimevalues, you know retention rates

(35:17):
, but apparel, again, it'sharder to demonstrate, but you
can if you just keep hittingpeople like a true classic tease
yeah and if you can find a wayto demonstrate because, like
true classic t's like broke thecode of demonstration right,
they figured out how to likeshowcase the feature of their of

(35:38):
like a basic t-shirt this makesyou look skinny yeah based on
fit yeah right, so like theycrack that code and then they
just jack spend yeah, the wholeuh, like we don't need.
I'm sure people bought, like yousaid.
I'm sure people tried one andthen they're like, oh, I need
seven of these yeah I think thatwe I know you me have even
talked about this a lot.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
Like we talk about how benefits sell over features,
but like in the ad game I don't, that's not always true like
well it's calling out.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
Calling out the features of the product is huge.
Yeah, we push features thefirst eight years of our
business that's like literallythe only thing we pushed,
especially in bags, right likesuper easy to demonstrate a few
brands that it's like it's allabout the brand, because it's
like kind of like movements andlike, but we always push in the

(36:26):
ad game.

Speaker 3 (36:27):
It's like you're always going to have evergreen
products that work better,usually because they show better
.
So they just show better, soyou can sell them better, you
can angle them and position them.
Or sometimes, again, like withclothes, we've seen a lot of
clothes crush it.
But sometimes it's harder toscale at certain kinds of

(36:51):
efficiency rates because, well,well, there's a million people
in this space, right, like yousaid, there's lululemon, there's
roan, there's cuts.
There's built, there's yori yeahyori now yeah I mean, yeah, you
name it, but if you can just belike, accept it and figure out
whatever the operational marginsneed to be, you can be there

(37:12):
too.
Like you said, yes, it's onlythis part of your business, but
the more you sell, the moreyou're selling.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
Yeah, very cool.
What's your favorite thing youguys are doing right now at
Nomadic?
What are you jazzed about rightnow?

Speaker 1 (37:28):
Oh man, this is right along the lines of what we
already talked about, but we'reactually developing a line of
bags for women right now, ohcool.
So the big question oneverybody's mind can nomadic
transition from men's to women'sdude?

Speaker 3 (37:42):
this is my favorite discussion.
Hold on it work, would you well?
First of all, I want to back up, because I don't think you guys
ever said you were a men'sbrand before well, we're not.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah, I guess.
I guess, when you look at ourdemographics, like but I'm sure
the demographics look at theemail list or whatever like,
yeah, you know, it's like itends up being 80 or 90 percent
men and we build our bags for aframe that is bigger, so it's
like there are women who use ourbags oh, interesting.
Okay, so you like, when you'rebuilding the the width of a

(38:14):
backpack we're actually buildingaround a male build, average
male build okay, but some women,it works for them and they love
it.
Um, but when you ask a womanlike if, if I were to take a
nomadic bag and walk around at atrade show and say what do you
think of this for you?
They'd say it's too boxy.
Or they'd say a woman a womanwould, yeah too, masculine, um,
even the colorways probably tooblack, yeah, black olive, yeah

(38:37):
black, all the navy right yeah Ilove the olive though great
color.
So anyway we are.
We have been working on women'sbags for like three years now.
Really like, really this isactually, this is a fun story.
I'm going to tell it becausewe're in this setting.
This is fun.
We um started working onwomen's bags.
We hired a woman designer outof new york who had worked for,

(38:59):
like corey birch and coach andlike high-end designer bag
brands.
We're like we want to nail this, we want to make sure it was
designed by a woman for womenand that it does really well.
So we get these prototypes back.
They're like, imagine, likehigh-end bag brands like louis
vuitton or something meetsfunction, right, so we add like

(39:20):
cool features to them.
Bags were awesome.
But we we held multiple focusgroups with women once we got
these bags and every single oneof them was like this, this is
not nomadic.
Like just felt so off for themto see a leather bag that was
like women were saying.
Women were telling us like thisdoesn't feel right, like it's

(39:42):
not what I imagine.
A nomadic bag for women to looklike.
Um, because they women are veryparticular about the brands
they carry totally, and so forthem to want to come in and be
like, oh, I really want to own anomadic designer looking bag,
this doesn't make sense.
They'd way rather have a brandname that they actually totally

(40:02):
care about, yeah.
So we were like kind of hit awall there and we're like, what
are we gonna do?
Um, meanwhile, some likecrackhead breaks into our office
, steals all of our prototypes,like he.
He gets into our office, heclimbs on the roof, waits till
everyone leaves, whoa, and thenhe sneaks back down this ladder

(40:26):
and and came into our officelike after hours.
He had, like he like lined allthis stuff up.
He was no, we don't, but we have.
Like it was very, it was veryclear, like the door was broken
open and stuff like he, he likeactually like broke the door
open so we knew we'd been robbedbecause, like all our camera
gear got stolen.
Oh um, he didn't.

(40:48):
He didn't touch a single laptop, like very particular about
woyjuk, it was just stuff thatlike I'm pretty sure he just
wanted to flip it on ksl, sure?
I mean long story short.
Like he literally took all ourwomen's bags, thinking these are
like high-end, nice bags, rightyeah so when he stole them, we
were just like all right, we'restarting over.
So like we literally just likethroughout those designs it was

(41:11):
the permission you needed it wasrid of your sunk cost by
exactly.
We're like let's just startover, and we did, and I'm so
excited.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
How long of a process was that, though, before?

Speaker 1 (41:21):
that was probably I Don't know we probably working
on for about a year at thatpoint.

Speaker 3 (41:27):
I well.
I asked that because I think alot of business owners would say
let's just make it work.
Yeah, totally, I right.
We've put all this time into itinstead of just being like it's
not right.
Yeah, I think that's what takes?
A lot of guts.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
I think a lot of people don't do that enough the
fear of getting it wrong for usis is way bigger than the fear
of like.
Look what we've invested intothis.
Like.
We want to make sure that whenwomen use these bags, that it's
like they'll tell every singlewoman about it because, like I
found the new, like best bag forwomen's travel specifically.
So we're focusing on a linebuilt around travel.

(42:01):
We've done a ton of focusgroups and try to just pull all
the learnings we've found fromthem.

Speaker 3 (42:08):
Have you guys hired a research firm to do focus
groups or do you guys hold thoseinternally?

Speaker 1 (42:14):
A little both actually.
So we do the in-person onesourselves and then we do like
just straight data um surveys.
So we'll we'll have like um uhI actually don't know the name
of the company, but it's a brand, it's a guy that's worked with
like traeger and other brands,where they'll do like consumer
research studies to say, like,what would you be willing to
spend for something like this?

(42:34):
Or when you're looking for abag, what do do you consider?
Or what items do you carry inyour purse?
So we'll do a pretty extensivesurvey with thousands and
thousands of people to get tothe data and then we'll do our
own internal surveys once wehave the general data, to
actually ask people in person.
I think we held four focusgroups with five different women

(42:54):
in each group and we would justhave them bring their own
purses have them bring their ownpurses, have them bring stuff
to pack out.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
Our did you guys?

Speaker 1 (43:05):
go as far down as doing like in-depth interviews,
like one-on-one um.
It kind of became that withinthe focus group because once
they would express a strongopinion about something, we'd
end up like drilling in withthat person, having them
specifically pack it out theirway, asking, asking them
specific questions about it.
It wasn't like just us and themin a room that we never got to
that point.
But the focus groups would belike two hours long sometimes

(43:28):
and we're getting very specificwith each person to say what
things do you love particularyou could.
Just there is a lot of groupthink that sometimes happens in
these.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
And so sometimes you gotta, but if you have a good
moderator.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
Yeah, we do it the moderating, but also the way we
survey.
Like we have like the, all ofthem answer a survey up front
about specific questions we wantto know, trying to eliminate
the bias of the group.
And then we go deeper with themin conversation afterwards, so
after they've kind of submittedthe survey to say, here are the
different things, um, I like ordon't like about these, then
they can start talking withother women about them and

(44:01):
everyone's not jumping on thesame thing like, oh yeah, that's
true, I do hate that, you know.
And then right, so lots oflearnings there.
It's taken us a while to likedial that process in, but we've
done it enough now that I thinkthey're pretty efficient, the
focus groups we run that's.

Speaker 3 (44:17):
That's really interesting because a lot of
times we talk about how you canmove fast and mess up when it
comes to content and ads.
Like people are too worriedabout making the wrong move with
an ad because it's like, oh youknow, it needs to be on brand
it's gonna hurt my brand.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
It's gonna do this.

Speaker 3 (44:35):
It's like well, you don't need to worry about that
because you know, it's, it's.
If it works, then it's working,and then it's not hurting your
brand.
If it doesn't work, guess what?
Like people are gonna forgetabout this tomorrow, like yeah
no one cares but I think it'sthe opposite approach with
product for sure, right like youdon't want to just throw
product at the wall maybe in thefirst stage, right like they

(44:57):
did with like a wallet and a youknow like.
Well, I mean, I don't even thinkthey, I don't even think that
would be considered throwing itat the wall because it was a
kickstarter.
So they got the feedback fairenough, yeah, right.
And the validation yeah, beforeit became a brand fair enough.
But a lot of people, will youknow, they'll stretch certain
product launches just becausethey're getting quote desperate

(45:18):
or feeling desperate, eventhough they might not actually
be desperate from a businessstandpoint.
Yeah, like, oh, let's justhurry and do a new product.
Yeah, oh, we like, oh, it'sgetting hard in this space,
let's move over to this space.
But they don't spend.
I mean, three years for aproduct launch is a long time,
right, and maybe it doesn't needto be three years all the time,
but it doesn't and we are toour timelines, usually 18 months

(45:41):
.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
That's like a very normal cycle for us to say, from
like idea to like finish,golden sample or even to like
production.
Sometimes we can pull it off inan 18 month window nice I would
say.
Two years is like when we'rereally trying hard to nail it.
Three and four years is likewe're getting into an entirely
new industry here and if wedon't nail this, we're going to

(46:03):
You'll lose all respect andtrust immediately.
How long was the?

Speaker 3 (46:06):
Peter McKinnon bag.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
It was 18 months, 18 months.
I went to lunch with him.
18 months later, we launched onKickstarter.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
Are you guys talking about launching with any
creators for this women's stuff?

Speaker 1 (46:18):
Big ones talking about launching with any
creators for this women's stuff,big ones, nice, yeah, I'm
really excited about this.
Actually, this is like.
This is where I focused most ofmy time and attention over the
last couple months is lining upbig influencers and brands to do
an unlimited edition bags withthem.
So smart.
So when we go to launch, we'regoing to have five different
influencers, or maybe four orfive different influencers that
are posting on their channels toeach each have millions of

(46:40):
followers, and we're going tohost a big event in, like
california, texas, utah and newyork.
We're going to throw biginfluencer events when we launch
these, where all the womencoming are getting decked out
with all the brands that areparticipating, plus all the bags
that we're launching.
Just gonna, we're gonna go allin on this strategy and just try

(47:00):
to like that day when we launch.
I want, like, every woman tosee it in their feet at some
point.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
Yeah, it's just like very cool.
Yeah, so do the influencershave their own collab bag too,
or is that just the brands?

Speaker 1 (47:11):
both sweet.
Yeah, if they're big enough,we're actually designing custom
bags for them, so smart, andthey'll have their name on it
inside or their colorway orwhatever.
Yeah, um, and we'll do like aninitial run with them and then,
if it crushes and they sell out,well, we can order more, or
we'll have, I think, fourdifferent bags in the collection
when we launch, so they canjump to a different bag if they

(47:32):
want to very cool.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
That was one that we we we used to be on the brand
side with a company called FondDesign here locally in Utah, and
that's when we would launch anew bag.
We would oftentimes do it witha creator, and it was always
super awesome.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
Yeah, I'm excited for that.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
Very cool.
I like that.
What are your thoughts on?
Are you guys using AI to helpout with any of your product
development right now?

Speaker 1 (48:02):
Let's see AI.
So there's only like three orfour places that we're really
using it in the business.
Number one is Sidekick, whichI'm sure you've heard of.
It's just plug an app.
You can get data from Shopifyreally quickly to just ask any
questions.
We have Yep Pretty useful.
Another one we're using locallyis Particle.

(48:24):
Yeah, and just anytime wecreate a new product, we're
looking at the data of all ourcompetitors to say what
colorways are moving the bestfor them, what bags are doing
the best, what apparel items aremoving the best, and we've
built a lot of our strategyaround that actually.
So I would say that's probablythe biggest one is using data
from particle and I again that'smaybe that's not here.

(48:46):
I don't know how much aithey're using, so maybe that's
not a great answer for yourquestion, but we use that, but
we use particle combined withsome ai to do some analysis.
Yeah, okay so, yeah, that's.
That's been very useful.
Um other places.
For me personally, it shouldbecome like a brainstorming tool
, so, like for this women's line, brainstorming names or

(49:08):
brainstorming different ways toposition it.
Yeah, um, I just I find myselfjust riffing back and forth with
it.
Just try to like, develop themarketing campaigns and the
story around it.

Speaker 3 (49:19):
Yeah, do you use it as a personal therapist?

Speaker 1 (49:21):
Not, yet it's getting there.

Speaker 3 (49:23):
You do.
I don't know if it would betherapist, but like, like you
said, it's just like a place tojot down ideas.
Yeah, like I like using it tojot ideas down because a I never
write to my journal, so it's away for me to like, just like,
throw some ideas out there, yeah, and then you know, you get the

(49:45):
feedback on those ideas.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
I've been doing the same thing.
I've been doing that for likethe last six months.

Speaker 3 (49:49):
Let's remind me of this.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
So I I create content and I'll write all my scripts
out.
Personally, and I've been likethrowing out ideas of like
brands that I like and andanytime like a brand does
something cool, I will plug inlike my thought into chat GPT on
how I'm feeling about like what, what nomadic is doing when
they're launching this women'sbag or you know whatever.

(50:11):
And this week I started to justlike ask it to create my
scripts now for me, based off ofthe memory I've given it, and
it's like been wild, do you find?

Speaker 1 (50:22):
that it remembers the memories really well for some
reason mine it updates and thenlike five days later it forgets
what I not forgets, but likeI'll specifically give it a
prompt, like don't use emojisanymore, yeah, or whatever, and
like literally five days laterit's throwing emojis back and
I'm like you didn't listen towhat.
I said Like yeah, I, I justneed, I need like a crash course

(50:43):
on like here's how you updatethe back end of.

Speaker 3 (50:47):
Usually just chat GPT .
Yeah so there's a few ways youcan do it.
But I would just create yourown agent, and so what you would
do is like first you Categorizeall this stuff right and then
you just basically say, hey, I'mgoing to create an agent based
off of this information.
You now know, give me like thebest agent prompt, and then you
stick that in the agent promptand so then it'll remember in

(51:10):
the agent, so every time you canjust start new conversations
with the agent, but it'llremember all those things.
But yeah, if you're just likedoing, doing conversations, it's
not, it has a hard timeremembering or it starts like
hallucinating based off of, likethe.
You know how, however long yourconversation is, it'll start
like hallucinating thingstogether.
Yeah, it's really weird.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
Huh, it's almost like it's so close, but sometimes
it'll say something where I'mlike dude, now I can't trust
what we've been talking aboutbecause you forgot.
Something's very specific.
I told you not to forget, youknow.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
That's always frustrating.

Speaker 3 (51:43):
Just like treat it like it's your friend, with like
severe ADD, like wait what?
What are you talking aboutright now?

Speaker 1 (51:51):
Remember Talked about this yesterday.
Oh yeah, we did oh yeah, that'sright.

Speaker 3 (51:56):
Yeah, I would say, do that.
But no, I think AI, ai isinteresting.
We I mean we use it all thetime it's.
It's super helpful in in somethings.
It's not very helpful in otherthings, but it'll be weird to
see where it goes, that's forsure, you know.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
Like I was listening to, um, something today day that
was saying it's going to takelike five to ten years or
whatever to like make adifference.
I'm like, I guess, for mesomeone, I guess I'm probably
one of the early adopters, right, I'm not, I'm not like super
into ai, but you can still ask,like my brother or sister, and
they probably haven't eventouched it yet, sure, sure so

(52:32):
most people are just still usinggoogle, right, but now google
is.

Speaker 3 (52:34):
Did you see what google is doing?
Uh, they're going to ai mode ohreally.
Yeah, so not to pat my back,but I called this three months
ago so I'm like why would googlenot just swap their search bar
for, like an ai engine?
Like you're gonna lose, quotemoney like I know the compute
power and the cost, right, butlike you don't want to lose,

(52:59):
like you don't want to lose youredge, you don't lose google
yeah, because people are goingto check.
You don't want people to saychat gpt, that yeah.
You want people to continuejust to say google, that yeah,
very true.
So I was, I, I was like andthey've got.
They're gonna switch iteventually, like I don't know
how.
You know it's like a freemiumversion of gemini, but yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
But yeah, you'll see it in your search, like this is
different than the gemini thingthat's been popping up every
time you search.

Speaker 3 (53:26):
This is like you can opt to say just go to ai mode,
yeah yeah yeah, I think.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
I mean, I think it's, I think that ai is going to, I
think it's going to put a lot ofbusinesses out of business of
the people who are just mediocreat it, because they're not
going to, because people aregoing to find that what that
mediocre service that someonewas offering they can just get

(53:56):
from chat GPT.

Speaker 3 (53:57):
So yeah, and software is interesting.

Speaker 2 (53:59):
Software is interesting, I just wonder I
think product-based businesseslike yours are really in a
really good spot, obviouslybecause they're physical goods
that people need Our world getsa little shakier.

Speaker 3 (54:13):
I think a lot of software goes to zero, though.
Oh for sure it does.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
We have a Cto of our agency.
He literally just built uh likea.
We don't.
We have a post-purchase survey,you know.
But he just built a quiz sideof it, so like it's a
pre-purchase surveys, now toquiz like, hey, what bag's right
for you?

Speaker 3 (54:32):
you've seen apps like that with like a product
recommendation engine and allthat he just built he just built
, uh, an app with the userinterface that is beautiful
within like 36 hours wow, youknow well, it's on a weekend, so
it's.
He's not like yeah, we'resitting there working all day
it's just it's like I'm gonnayeah, I built this over the
weekend, guys.
I think we should test it outwith a few people and I'm like,

(54:53):
sweet, let's throw it on.
Yeah crazy.
So yeah it's, it's super cool Ialso think people have to
reimagine, I think, where ai isgoing um, and this is my hot
take with ai I think we all haveto reimagine what a website is
okay that's, that's my hot takemeaning what?
I mean literally.

(55:13):
I think we have to reimaginewhat websites are and how they
work.
For example, gen z and youngeruse voice all the time.
Right, like you have youngdevelopers that are only talking
to chat gpt.
Right, kids are growing uptalking to ipads.
Talking to technology likevoice to text is a huge thing.

(55:34):
Now, right, like we're kind ofin the older generation where,
like I I I use it a lot but itstill feels like a little weird
to be like talking to my likesitting there in my office, like
talking, you know, instead ofjust like typing it.
But the younger generations aretalking.
So that's just a good example of, like your inner, like people's
interaction with technology isgoing to shift very dramatically

(55:58):
over the next five to 10 years.
So I think websites and howpeople imagine and interact with
the website is going to changedramatically.
So I don't know if that's goingto be some kind of combination
of video and voice.
I don't know if it's going tobe a combination of, you know,
more of a lucid type experiencethat kind of evolves based off

(56:18):
of how you're interacting withit.
I'm not saying I know exactlywhere it's going.
I just know that the way peopleare interacting already is
evolving with technology?
Yeah so, but websites are builtoff of how people interacted
with technology 15 years ago.
Yeah.
So AI is going to enable theevolution of how a website is

(56:39):
Right.
So a good example of that isI've always said hey, 60 years
ago, if you went into an officestore, a salesman approaches you
, right, and you don't alwaysuse the salesman, but oftentimes
like, oh, yeah, did you havethis?
Like.
That's usually if I go intolike a, for example, I needed
some loafers or whatever.
Yeah, well, let's just talkclothes like apparel, I needed

(57:02):
some, some loafers.
I was in New York, I was goingto the ballet and I didn't have
any like nice shoes.
So I was like, okay, I'm justgoing to go get some black
loafers.
I haven't, you know, I like theloafer style.
Went to the mall, went I thinkit was boss was the first store
that I saw and I like saw theyhad shoes out and I went in.

(57:23):
Guy comes out like, hey, do youguys have?
I don't see any.
Do you guys have any loafers?
Yeah, they're upstairs.
Okay, cool.
Guy comes, approaches me whatare you looking for loafers?
Okay, what size do you need?
Nine, but it's all voice right,like that's a more natural way
of interacting with people,which is why I think a lot of
the younger generation is usingvoice to technology, but that's

(57:45):
how it always worked, right.
And then, if you would continueto go to the same store, what
would happen 60 years ago?
They know your name.
Yeah, hey, are you?
Are you still looking for this?
What are you looking for today?
So the interaction in aphysical store is very different
than our interactions with,like, a website.
Like a website is very likemanual, you know, like not, it's
not.

(58:05):
Yes, it's intuitive, but at thesame time, like it's a little
different right like it's not asfluid of an experience as it
might be with a store, whenyou're just like, hey, what,
where's that?
Oh, thanks, guide me to what Iwant, right?
So I think, as think, as wethink, about websites.
I think that's how it's goingto evolve with AI, because it'll
enable that in a very fluid,natural way that right now you

(58:28):
can't really get.
Like maybe quizzes can give itto you, right, like we've talked
about, like quizzes can helpguide the experience, but I
think conversion rateoptimization is going to do some
quantum leaps over the nextfive years fair enough yeah,
rant over yeah sorry.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
Well, in three to six months from now, you back.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
I told you I was right, yeah that's true yeah, I
mean even the way we consumecontent right is gonna be so
different too.
Yeah, like I think eventuallyai is going to start to dominate
the content market, that we'reall going to start to say the
content's going to be different.

Speaker 3 (59:03):
Do I look?

Speaker 2 (59:03):
at this the same way you know like talking about this
with my family this weekend.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
It's such an interesting concept of like
you've been seeing this this.
Um, what I always forget, it'snot a yeti, it's a.
What I always forget it's not ayeti, it's a.
Uh, the sasquatch watch, yeah,is it like that?

(59:28):
that fake ai like sasquatch,that's like vlogging, right,
yeah, this is like such aninteresting concept the fact
that, like, someone can createan identity yeah that you follow
and you want to watch the nextvideo, but it's literally all
just yeah, made up, yeah, likeit's a just a 14 year old.
Yeah, voice, voice prompting,is it a 14 year old.

Speaker 3 (59:47):
No, but like that's the joke, right, it's like who's
behind it?

Speaker 1 (59:50):
do we know?
I'm sure it's probably like a16 year old, maybe it's yeah the
thing I was thinking thisweekend is like if everything
you're consuming is like fake,what does that, what is that
going to do for like real, likeperson to person interactions
and what?
How is it going to change ourworld?
Bad, Bad, I was thinking it wasgoing to be the opposite.

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
Well, I think, I think what happens no, I mean
yes, what you two are saying twodifferent things.
Okay, what you're saying is,when everything becomes fake,
it's going to be bad for society, bad for the majority yes, in
person.
What you're saying is in personwill become more important.
Yes, right, yes.

Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
Yeah, it's going to be weird, man.
You're going to have all humancontent.
I actually think in the futureInstagram you'll have an AI
option and a non-AI option, oryou're going to have some way to
use cryptography to ensure thatthe videos being uploaded on a
social medium are actuallypeople.
There's going to be a premiumfor having only real people

(01:00:57):
content versus AI generatedcontent.

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
Yeah, I think.
I mean, I think you're, that'swhat I think.
I think you're in the rightballpark.

Speaker 3 (01:01:07):
Well, based off of my experience because I was
thinking about this in New York,right Cause, like New York is
built around, obviously you havethe financial sector, right,
but then, like the Broadway andthe entertainment sector.
Like you have the financialsector, right, but then, like
the Broadway and theentertainment sector, like you
have the sports team, you knowyou got like the Knicks and the
Yankees, some storied big teams,and then you've got all these
experiences, it's like, well,why do people go to New York?

(01:01:29):
Right, like you can watch allthat stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Yeah, they go exactly for those things.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
There's a premium to go see a Broadway in person,
right Like it's a premium to gosee a Broadway in person, right
Like it's a very differentexperience to go to a Broadway
than it is to just watch a movie, for example.
It's a very differentexperience.
Like my wife you know she was aballerina and you know she did
that in college and so she'salways wanted to go back there
to the Met Opera house and see aballet and that's what we did,

(01:01:56):
and you know I'm in thisbeautiful building it's like,
okay, well, hey, I can't reallyreplicate that, replace this yet
.
I mean, you know there's goingto be a matrix option and then
next 20 years with Neuralink,but there's still a premium of
getting human experiences, yeah,so I think that will only

(01:02:17):
amplify it when you have so muchcontent because, right like,
the cost of content will go tozero.
Yeah, yeah, cuz time right itwouldn't take time to create it
anymore, just hop on vo and Giveme a seven second video of
Sasquatch you holding a GoProcamera running away from a West

(01:02:38):
Virginia man with a steepSouthern accent.
It's getting wild.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
Yeah, there is that whole concept too, where it's
like the content we consume vialike streaming platforms will
change dramatically.
Where you literally just likeI've got 30 minutes before bed,
I want to watch an action moviewith you know, with myself as
the lead, you know character andI want him to drive a whatever

(01:03:07):
Corvette and whatever it isRight so you can play out this
scenario.
And then, all of a sudden,you're watching content as if
it's like and it could begenerated in the moment and you
could actually just see anepisode of something that you
just thought of off the top ofyour head.
But the thing that's yeah, yeah, the AI man.
I mean your feeds right nowwith social like as you're

(01:03:29):
scrolling.
How, how often are you seeingAI come into?

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
your feed.
Well, there's two differentways I'm seeing it.
You're seeing it as thecommodity.
So I think the commodity likethis.

Speaker 3 (01:03:40):
Hold on.
Are we considering thealgorithm to be a?
No, he's meaning the visualcontent.
I'm just saying, like ai iscontrolling it, but.
But a little bit already.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
But I think you have a commodity piece which is the
like bible characters who arevlogging.
It's the sasquatch like thateventually, I think, is going to
become something that peoplearen't gonna like.

Speaker 3 (01:03:57):
That's just the stuff that like oh my gosh, these are
the equivalent of tiktok trendslook what you just did with
this right.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
So I think you have.
There's a novelty side.

Speaker 3 (01:04:04):
I'm seeing that but can I add something?
That's also because the uncannyvalley still exists.
The what?
The uncanny valley, what?
Does that?
Mean the uncanny valley is alike, it's like a psychological
term to like when you seesomething that's very human like
but not quite human Like.
That's the uncanny valley, it'slike eh like I see that.

(01:04:26):
Yeah, I know it's not reallyhuman yeah.
Like it doesn't really fit likea robot, yeah, like, uh, like
it kind of gives you the the,the willies.
Yeah.
That's the uncanny valley, so itstill exists, like it's really
good, but like you see it, andit's like it's kind, of computer
animated.
Like it's not super real.

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
But once that it's almost too perfect.

Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
Almost too perfect, or just like, yeah, just off, oh
, the voice is off.
Or like there's certain thingsthat are off, that are obviously
not real.
That's the uncanny valley.
Have you watched the sasquatch?
I have, but it's still there.
So in your you can tell withthe, the angle of the camera,
the clarity of the video, the,the way it's talking, like you

(01:05:09):
can tell it's quote, fake and aigenerated.
But it's gotten so good thatpeople are willing to forgo the
uncanny valley now, but soon,the uncanny valley won't exist.
Won't exist, yeah, it'll be soreal.
Yeah, so like what?
I'm saying that?
Because what you're saying iswe have these trends, but the
uncanny valley is still there.
Yeah, they're just trends andthey're fun.
They're like little, yeah, likeparty tricks, yeah, and so I

(01:05:33):
agree with you yes, those are,they come, they go.
It's just like, oh, that's waycrazy, that's crazy.
And then it kind of leaves.
Yeah, but soon.
What happens when there is nouncanny valley?

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
You have to have.
It's what you said.
You're going to have to havesome kind of cryptography to say
this is real or this is not.
Otherwise, no one can believeanything.
They see anymore ever movingforward.
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:05:54):
See, I think the average person won't care.

Speaker 1 (01:05:56):
They won't care if it's true or not.
No, what if it's our presidentsaying something?

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
Well, yes, when I talk about news, I'm talking
about like, yes, but I'm talkingabout just like, what they
consume on their phones.
I think the average person, thesame way as so many people,
don't care if something's madein China or not, because it's
like oh, it's cheaper here, okay, cool it.
It's cheaper here okay, cool,it's the same thing.
Um, I think the same thing'sgoing to happen with content.
I think a lot most the averageperson is going to say I don't

(01:06:24):
care if person made this or not,if I like it I think for a
season, but I think that will bethe case personally but I think
it's going to turn into a highclass, low class thing like
going to new york for, like,that's a higher cost activity.
So to be involved in the humanclub will be premium, but a lot

(01:06:45):
of people won't care, they'lljust be like, as long as it's
entertaining, I don't care.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
When are you launching your women's line?

Speaker 1 (01:06:52):
Wild to think about all that.

Speaker 3 (01:06:54):
Let's talk more dystopian futures.

Speaker 2 (01:06:56):
I like it John's getting stressed out I cut it
there because, uh, I'm like wecould probably talk for another
like hour and a half.

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
Yeah, that's true and it's all the same speculation
that every other human is makingit, yeah, very same moment.

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
When is when is your women's bag line launch?

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):
so we've got it on the calendar in uh, spring,
summer of next year.
Cool, but knowing us, probablyend up being summer, fall next
year, so are you?

Speaker 2 (01:07:22):
when you said three years, are you including or is
that?
We took a significant?

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
break, okay, after everything got stolen.
So when you're talking likeactual development time,
probably like two, two and ahalf years that it will take got
it?
Yeah, got it very cool yeah,because we took like a six month
break where we're just like, uh, products gone, like let's
rethink how we're gonna makethis make sure you do it right
what's your biggest advice topeople with developing product?

Speaker 3 (01:07:48):
is it spend more time getting it right?
Or not necessarily build itwith the customers because, like
you have these processes thatwe love.
Like we love when people takethe time to do a focus group.
Like almost no one takes thetime, like a lot of people be
like oh, I talked to somefriends about it and they said
they'd love it.
It's like, of course they saidthey'd love it Cause they think

(01:08:09):
they're getting it for free.
You know, it's way differentthan saying like, would you pay
400, 300, $200 for it?

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is a big indicator.
Like when we did our focusgroup for our apparel.
We literally had people in theapparel focus group saying I
will buy this, this prototypejacket, from you right now for
two hundred dollars, like that'show much they wanted that
jacket.
Yeah, we're like sorry it's theonly one, like we can't, but,
but that was very good feedbackand that gave us confidence

(01:08:37):
going into it.
So it's what you're sayingProving it out with the audience
, I think is a big one.
So when you say should theyspend a lot of time, I can't say
that they should.
If, if, let's say, you'relaunching a new T-shirt brand
with unique designs or somethingRight, so like you should just
throw stuff at the wall and seewhat sticks, at that point I

(01:09:02):
don't think you need to liketake months and months and
months refining your design andmaking it perfect.
But if you're making a premiumproduct or you're making
something that's going to haveto be extremely functional or
like game changing in anindustry, then yeah, you
probably need to spend more timethan you think on it, getting
it right.
But I would say I probably fallin the court of like analysis
paralysis more than my businesspartner.
my business partner is alwayslike let's go, like it's ready,

(01:09:24):
and I'm always the one that'slike let's yeah, we're not there
yet, and so that dichotomy hasbeen really good for us yeah,
it's been good because I'malways holding us back and he's
always trying to push us forwardas fast as we can, and we end
up somewhere in the middle,which is probably where we
should be.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
Super smart, that's awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:09:40):
We always advocate for that for business partners.

Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
Yeah, we are very yin and yang.

Speaker 1 (01:09:44):
It's pretty hard to plan for it, but when you get it
right, like I think, I just gotlucky.
But I think if you areinterviewing like a business
partner or trying to findsomeone, finding someone that
has differing opinions than youand different you know,
different way of looking atthings and skill sets is
important part of having a goodpartnership, for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:10:05):
Agreed, Same value, Our values Trevor talks about it
all the time.
It's like you have to have thesame values but then you have to
have like very differentperspectives.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:13):
Yeah, if your value and goal, vision and values
match yeah yeah match, all right, then it doesn't matter what
your, it doesn't really matterabout anything else like those
are the two things I, I startedwriting a book on this actually,
yeah, that's exactly what I washighlighting is like you, you
align, your, your, your, youknow mission, vision and values,
kind of thing, and then therest of the stuff like yeah,

(01:10:35):
yeah, you can figure that outhow you get to point a versus
how he gets to point a isdifferent.

Speaker 2 (01:10:39):
You know right yeah, from point a to point b is
doesn't really matter, as longas, like hey, family is really
important to me, family's reallyimportant to you.
Therefore, I already know thatthat's never getting in the way
of the end goal, right like orthe goal is never going to get
away right of this what's reallyimportant.
Yeah, love it man dude, thishas been awesome.
Thank you so much.

(01:11:00):
Uh, where, tell everyone whereyou can, where they can find
nomadic so of course, nomadiccom, that's with the
t-n-o-m-a-t-i-c?

Speaker 1 (01:11:09):
um and yeah, we, we address your earlier question.
We're actually in a lot ofretail locations.
So we were in over, I think,100 different Dillard's
locations.
We have our travel bags,luggage, stuff like that there.
We don't have apparel in any ofour wholesale accounts yet, but

(01:11:30):
Costco's rolling out this year,which is pretty exciting.

Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
Whoa sweet for travel bags.

Speaker 1 (01:11:36):
Yeah, for a travel pack.
We'll be in 98 differentCostco's by the end of the year
and we've got.
You can find us on Costcocomand stuff like that or Costco
Next right now.
And then camera stores, ofcourse, because we sell camera
bags.
I think we're in over 200different camera locations cool

(01:11:57):
Brad.

Speaker 2 (01:11:58):
Well, thank you so much, john, appreciate it and
thanks everybody for listening.

Speaker 4 (01:12:03):
Go take a look at Nomadic yeah, yeah, thanks a lot
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
Thank you so much for listening to the Unstoppable
Marketer podcast.
Please go rate and subscribethe podcast, whether it's good
or bad.
We want to hear from youbecause we always want to make
this podcast better.
If you want to get in touchwith me or give me any direct
feedback, please go follow meand get in touch with me.
I am at the trevor crump onboth instagram and tiktok.

(01:12:29):
Thank you, and we will see younext week take my word for it.
Take Mark's word for it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:40):
One of our biggest fans.

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
We'll call you the nomadic fanatic.
I'm the nomadic fanatic.

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
That's your newest ambassador, right there.

Speaker 3 (01:12:46):
Love it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:46):
Alright, we'll see you later guys.

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