August 23, 2023 • 24 mins
Jonathan Strauss, the co-Founder of Neven Eyewear, is the driving force behind NEVEN Eyewear. Neven set out to curate and source the very best of on trend products and resources - so that they could create Eyewear that is stylish, functional, of great value, and superior to anything else on the market with an Everlasting Guarantee that allows them to stand behind their product 100%. It's also buy one get two free with every purchase!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This week on the Art of Improvement, I'll be speaking with John Strouss.
He's co founder of Nevin Eyewear.Nev and Iwear is an innovative eyewear brand
set to disrupt the traditional eyewear market. With their unique combination of affordability,
durability, and design, Nevin ispoised to become a big choice for consumers.
It's all coming up next on theArt of Improvement. Thank you so
(00:27):
much for joining us today on theArt of Improvement. I'm really excited to
introduce you to John Strauss. Heis the co founder and CEO of Nevin
Iwear. Hi. John, Hey, I'm a tellin. Thanks for having
me. Absolutely so for starters.The reason that I even am talking to
you as I saw an ad fornev and Iwear and the ad said buy
(00:51):
a pair of sunglasses and get twopair for free. I was like,
come on, that's not what's goingon with this, And then the more
I looked at it, I waslike, wait a second, these are
really cool, nice sunglasses. Sofor starters, tell us a little bit
about Nevin and then what the heckwhy buy one get too free? So
(01:14):
I mean we can go start fromthe beginning, or you know, I
could just started, so I wantto hear the story. Yeah, yeah,
so you know really originally, Iguess, you know, just like
everybody else, I go into oneof these big box retailers of eyewear prescriptions
at the time, I had prescriptionglasses and sunglasses. You know. It
(01:38):
was a place in the mall whatever, and I probably spent like five on
a pair, yep. And Iwas out, I think with some friends
jet skiing wearing my sunglasses and Islipped over and when I came up,
I didn't even realize it. Youknow, at first, I was like,
oh, man, like I lostmy sunglasses. And I went back
(02:00):
to the store and like I waslike, hey, you know, like
this just happened. I gotta obviously, you know, get another pair,
but like, you know, whatwhat could you do for me? And
you know, they kind of justtold me nothing told me to go kick
rocks. And that's just like reallybothered me because you know, it's an
(02:20):
extensive item. You can kind ofpurchase it every couple of years, things
like that, you know, andit just ate away at me. And
you know, I work on alot of other businesses with my other company,
for people who have an agency,and you know, I just started
like thinking about it, thinking aboutit, you RMP me, and I
was like started investigating. I waslike, well, how can I do
(02:42):
this and like, you know,put forward like the best pair of possible
and affordable price. I think themain thing is people just don't realize,
like all these companies have so muchyou know blow and like you know,
they have offices there. Everybody's gettingpaid a ridiculous amount of money. Their
marketing budgets are not well spent.It's just, you know, I just
wanted to do everything opposite and Iwanted to put the best products are an
(03:06):
affordable price and like kind of disruptthe market. And that's what we're trying
to do. Obviously it's going toit's going to happen. And so the
reason that it's going to happen isbecause one you have to explain to us
about the buy one parasue glasses gettoo free, because if I go to
(03:27):
and nothing against the Dollar Store,of course, but if I go to
the Dollar Store and I buy oneget too free, I'm like, you
know, if I break all threein a week, it's not a big
deal. But that's not the casewith yours. So the thing, the
thing that people you know need torealize is that you know and you can
google all this. I'm not goingto mention names though. Most companies are
(03:49):
all owned by the same two orthree companies and it doesn't matter or their
licenses of other companies. Right,We're privately owned and you know, we
we basically everything that we do isjust trying you know, we kind of
are taking The one name I willmention is, you know, we're trying
to take a place, you know, a page from the zapp of his
(04:12):
book where you know, the customercomes first and we just want to want
to make them happy. So weoffer free shipping worldwide, we offer free
return domestically, we're working on freereturns for international orders. But we also
have a you know, lost,broken, stolen replacement policy. So you
know, your dog chewed it,your your ex stole them, uh,
you know, you put them down, you know, well, we'll replace
(04:34):
file claim and we just take careof it. And we offer that for
I think it's for each pair twotimes, so not just once. We'll
do it a second time. Andyou know, we just want to create
that value. I think brands youknow, they became these these internet brands,
social media brands, and like,we just really we care about the
(04:54):
customer and that's the most important thingto us. I'm not I'm not focused
on making a dollar. I couldfigure out million different ways to put food
on my table, but I justI like growing brands. I like to
you know, put an awesome productforward and be able to create jobs for
people locally. Here. Let meask you, I mean, you sound
(05:14):
like you've done business before as anentrepreneur. How how did this feeling of
I want to open my own businessstart? How old were you? I
mean, were you just a littleboy and said one day I will own
my own business. I mean,how does that happen? Did you learn
it from somebody else in your family? I guess I would credit it all
to my dad. That kind offueled me. And you know, when
(05:38):
I was growing up, I wasnothing like him at all. But you
know, as I got older,we are the same, right and you
know that that relationship has changed.But but I would say, you know,
growing up, you know, hetaught me how to do percentages and
tips when I was a little kidat the you know, dinner table while
we hit out, you know,you know, that was like an important
thing still like like a lot ofpeople not like very quick. I could
(06:00):
just do it and do the numbersright. And I remember used to take
me to the car dealerships when usedto be able to negotiate your cars,
and like it was just like agame and negotiating everything is always stuck with
me, real estate, like everythingyou always showed me how to do and
understand, you know, with withmoney and value and earning and just you
know, just respecting how hard itis to make a dollar, right.
(06:24):
And you know, I guess,you know, I credit him with everything
that I know basically that's incredible,and I've and I've kind of taken that
forward and you know, change ita little bit. You know, we're
not exactly the same obviously, butit's just kind of stuck with me and
everything I do. I kind oflike, you know, it's swart of
paying homage to him. That's it. I love that. I love.
(06:46):
I love to hear that because myown daughters hate my guts and maybe they
just they're nineteen, so they're fiveyears, ten years, they'll all change
to come run back. Yeah.I pray for that every day let me
ask you, when everybody I don'tknow, I guess everybody left it.
(07:09):
What is the backpack company that saidthat they were gonna, you know,
anytime anything that happens to your backYes, and so if something happens,
they'll return it. And people keptreturning and returning and they still do that.
Do you see this as being somethingthat is just going to be part
of the company forever? Yeah,I don't see it changing, you know,
(07:32):
for now. You know, wedon't plan on selling as long as
no we own it. We don'tplan on changing that, all right,
you know, I think it's animportant part of it. It's so funny
because that doesn't it just doesn't existvery much anymore that people care about the
quality of a product and what happenswhen something happens, like they get broken.
(07:56):
It just doesn't it doesn't happen.So does customer service have a lot
to do with your success? Also? Do you think that that fits in
there by saying we understand, wewant to help you. I think you
know, as being somebody who shopsonline, if works with a lot of
brands, I see what work doesn'twork, and I think we just wanted
to take pieces that we thought brandswere doing really well and apply them to
(08:22):
our brand and how we could andjust trying to make it, you know,
the least amount of friction, youknow, as much as everybody you
know, like loves an. Youknow, there's things about Amazon brands don't
like, or things about Amazon peoplehate, right, they make certain things
super easy, certain things super hard, but just trying to take notes from
all things that we respect certain brands, and you know, if you take
(08:46):
those things, you come up withthese policies that are just like everything's a
win for the customer. You know. When we first launched, you know,
international orders was what is difficult becausethe volume just wasn't there. And
as soon as our volume was reallythere, we cut deals with different people
to make it affordable for us toship for free and work it into the
number, you know, to makeit happen. So I ship worldwide,
(09:09):
you know, Australia kind of anywherein the world, New Zealand for free.
There's a free option. I'm notsaying it's going to get there,
you know tomorrow. Like if Iwere to ship something to you have that
capability, but I can get thingsto Australia, you know, depending on
where Australia, I would say sevento ten days. That's amazing. Howada
Kinada might be like four to sevendays, but you know it has two
(09:33):
customs and all that stuff. Butyou know, these were things that were
important to me to figure out toyou know, like people always get well,
you shipped for free in the US. A lot of people don't understand
shipping and the costs. And it'sjust going up with gas prices and everything.
You know, everything is going up, right, but you know,
we're just still trying to put thebest product forward and give you know,
(09:54):
value, whether it's free shipping andthis, this and that. You know,
lost broken stone, We'll place them. You know, we have like
a whole wall of like people's storiesof how they lost you know, it's
entertaining, you know, like that'scrazy this and then you wouldn't believe this,
or I stole it, you know, I was involved in this,
you know, robbery, like likeI can't even believe it. So,
(10:16):
I mean, it's so funny becauseI when you told that story about you
losing your expensive sunglass, it justhappened to me. I mean not even
six months ago. I just gota prescription glasses, sunglasses, and I
honestly don't know where they went.So I go back to the store and
exactly the same thing happened to me, And you're like, there goes hundreds
(10:39):
of dollars just gone and it waspainful. Before we go on any further,
I want to reintroduce you if you'vejust now started listening. This is
John Strauss. He's co founder andCEO of nevin iwere. How can people
find you your website social media?How does that work? Uh? Nevinywear
(11:01):
dot com. So that's n Ev E n eyewear dot com and all
of our socials are on there.Uh, you know, they could check
us out, they follow us,you know, they could choot us a
message, you know. Yeah,okay, well answer you tell tell us
a little bit about Nevin. Whatdoes that mean? Where did the name
come from? So we're just,you know, sitting around, and we're
(11:24):
I was just playing around with wordsand things that I find interesting, and
you know, just you know,I liked how, you know, with
nevin it was spelled frontwords and backwards. This is the same way, so
it's a paladrome. So I reallylike that. And then I was playing
(11:46):
around with like, you know,everybody has like a catchphrase, and I
always thought like another another thing thatspelled backwards and forwards the same way was
never otter even. And that alsothat like when I said that, it
always made me feel a little bitcomfortable, uncomfortable because like if it wasn't
odd or it wasn't even like whatis it? And you know, and
(12:07):
then I was just like Nevin andyou know, and they're both paladrums and
I don't know, I just thoughtit was fun, and you know,
I don't know if they're you know, you always kind of want to come
up with something that that's not justlike you know abci, you know,
like something you know, it's somethingyou know. So But the craziest thing,
(12:31):
though, is the name Nevin toyou and I most people out there
would say ninety nine point nine percentof people of like, it's not a
name, it means nothing. ButI probably get about twenty five to thirty
five people every week requesting free sunglassesbecause their name is Nevin. Wow.
And I personally do not know oneperson in my life name. Yeah,
(12:58):
but you know, I I'll knowthat you know, there is a group
there should be one of those meetupsthat people have. You know, everybody
with the name Tim meets up inNew York City and you have a group
of Tim's, right, there shouldbe a meetup for them. But they
do email me. They think we'relike targeting them with our ads or something,
but we're not. But you know, and I explain to them that
(13:18):
every you know, every week they'reI'll ask you, oh, you need
to send me your free pair,as like, well, uh, you
should just go buy a pair andyou'll get to free look them up as
much as possible. That's great.That is so great. Another thing I
was thinking, I've talked to people, so many people that own their own
businesses, and I kept thinking beforeI spoke with you, is man,
(13:43):
I wear sunglasses. Seems like sucha tough competitive market. Is that true?
And how much research did you dobefore You're like, no, this
is a good idea. I'm movingforward with it. Well, like you
know, everybody else trying to getinto to a certain industry, you think
it's going to be super easy.All you gotta do is have a product
(14:03):
that looks good, show up.You know, site looks good, this
looks good. You know. Ikicked every single box I think for a
year I did like absolutely nothing almostit was just really hard. And then
I would say something happened, andyou know, you're getting like three orders
a day, five orders a day, then you start ten twenty that you
(14:26):
kind of like hit like one hundredorders a day, and then you're doing
five hundred thousand, a couple ofthousand orders, and you know it just
kind of grows from like you know, yeah, so it's so crazy,
though, I guess did you everhave any business where it didn't grow like
that? Have there been failures inthe past. I don't want to hear
(14:50):
about it, really no. Imean I've been involved a lot of projects.
I think that the main difference isit gave me a better understanding possibly
what people I was working with andit was their money when when we're scaling
company is of what that's like.That's the one thing I you know,
when you're working for somebody or workinginternally for a company or your agency hired,
(15:13):
you know, it's not your creditcard, it's not your bank account,
and hit, it's this every singleday. And I think I just
have a new appreciation for that andwhat you know, people who run company
CEOs go through if it's there,you know, their money, you know,
at the end of the day,like my employees rely on me to
make sure that, you know,checks get cut and all that. It's
just, you know, it's justsomething I never really thought about, and
(15:35):
I have a new found respect forthat. It was just very easy to
you know, I go out anddo my job marketing. You know,
problems solved this for people, soyou know, and you know, the
tables of kind of turn and nowthis thing's just kind of like growing really
fast. And you know, theproblems that I had two three years ago,
you know, I laugh at atthe problems I have today, you
(15:56):
know, and then they're just sowas changing. You know, a lot
of it's logistics are pricing it thisis and not so well another. That's
fantastic to hear. By the way, I don't want to just dismiss what
you just said, because that isthat's pretty awesome that in within your business
you actually care about the people thatwork for you and about the people that
(16:18):
buy your product because you just haveso many pluses. One thing I keep
on trying to figure out is howcan you still make money to continue your
business if it's buy one, getto pair for free, and how did
you even come up with that idea? Well, it's the answer. So
(16:42):
everything is really calculated and it's it'sit's very precise, and everything's negotiated that
we know what it costs to getin order out the door. And you
know, like I said before,we're not focused on you know, maximizing
that. We're focused on, youknow, what works for us to be
able to you know, pay ourbills right. And you know, if
(17:02):
we were to do what everybody elseis doing, you know, you gotta
think about like if I have alet's just to make numbers, you know,
simple, if I have a thousandorders going out the door, that's
really three thousand pairs. It's abigger box. It's a bigger that everything
is much bigger, even my shippingcosts because you know, but it's all
calculated out to make it work.And then how we kind of came to
that is, you know, wedid do the traditional ten percent twenty percent
(17:25):
off that everybody gets, and wetried the whole you know, buy one,
get one, and it just itwas much tougher to break into this
like market than we anticipated. Andthen you know, I just thought,
I let's get crazy. So Ijust tried it and it took off,
and then now it's kind of whatwe're known for. But I think,
(17:45):
I think the one thing that peopledon't realize is this is the same quality
that you're getting from all the otherbig bread you know, everybody's using the
same manufacturers, everybody's using the sametechnology. Sure, there's some people out
there that are spending more, youknow, and maybe they have some technology
that's a little ridiculous that maybe youdon't really need, but you know,
nobody, nobody's really reinventing the wheel. When it comes to eyewear, there's
(18:11):
these styles, there's new trends thatlike, you know, sunglasses or sunglasses,
polarization's polarization. Sure, some companiesmight have a little bit better,
but you know, everybody's kind ofoperating in this same you know, arena,
and I think just you know,everybody's kind of pulled a fast one
over every you know, they thinkthey think, like, you know,
(18:33):
they could be doing exactly what they'redoing, but they never would, you
know. I mean, these thesebrands are huge. I mean you can
google any of them, look attheir revenue, and look at who they're
owned. By you know, eventhese smaller brands that you think are smaller,
they're not. They're not privately ownedtheir own by much larger companies.
Wow. One of the one thingthat seems hard to me is the style
(18:53):
of glasses because if this is justan example, but I hate it.
A Oprah Winfrey started wearing these giantyou know frames, and then suddenly everybody
wants the giant frames. Do youhave to anticipate what styles are going to
(19:14):
be popular? How is it thatyou can say, Okay, I'm gonna
buy you know, a zillion ofthese glasses because they're popular now. But
what is the next popular pair ofglasses? How do you find out about
style? You know, we lookaround, we see what trends are,
we design certain things. We youknow, we try to put our spin
on it. You know, itall really depends, you know, just
(19:38):
to be very I guess transparent.You know, our when we first started,
our first order was maybe thirty pairs, one hundred pairs each. You
know, now when we test something, we're testing thousands. They just go
that quick. We've got on ourturnaround times, you know, with our
manufacturers, you know, down veryquick. You know, we airship a
(20:00):
lot of stuff like it's just we'vegone it's so down that, you know,
and honestly, if something doesn't takeoff, we still sell through.
It's just rated differently on a scaleof our inventory. We have our A,
R B and our C inventory andwe're just able to scale up scale.
You know, we play it safe, but you know, we we
(20:22):
have so much data. We knowwhat works doesn't work. We know what's
a risk not a risk, andsometimes the risks payoffs sometimes they're not that
great, but you know, westill sell through and we just decide not
to make it again. You know, yeah, absolutely, and so you
have. Of course, I'm foranybody that has not been to the website
or gone to any of their socialmedia to see the styles. Of course
(20:45):
you can go to it's just Nevindot com right or nev and iware dot
com. Nev and iware dot com. Okay. And so I'm also wondering,
I mean, are there different optionsfor summer? Like I notice you
have a lot of reflective glasses rightnow? Does it change during winter time?
How do you figure on that?So it's always summer like somewhere right,
(21:07):
Yeah, I think about when it'swinter. I live in Texas.
I know, Yeah, it's sumherein austral and you know, but believe
it or not, you know,people buy sunglasses year around. We do
offer some blue lights, you know, we do have that. And then
we are working out our deal rightnow for prescriptions with the largest privately owned
prescription company in the US. Sowe'll be getting into prescriptions. So that's
(21:32):
coming in the next I would saya couple of months. We're just kind
of finishing that up. But we'resuper stoked on our partnership there and the
people are going to be working withthere because they completely understand this. Yes,
and you know, I think that'sa real game changer. I work
prescriptions, so I get it,you know. Oh yeah that I should
have actually that a long time agobecause that was the first thing I was
looking for and I was like,oh no, I have to have prescription
(21:56):
when I'm driving about. We getabout one hundred quests today. It's definitely
coming in. It's just it's it'spretty complicated and just really figuring out the
whole. Like, you know,I want to send you a pair of
like eyewear, you know, glasses, sunglasses and like you just don't like
them, but they have a prescriptionout. It's really figuring that out.
Yeah, But also we're we're lookingto put together, you know, a
(22:18):
plan that works for everybody that youcan get you know, prescriptions, sunglasses,
and you know, maybe a pairof glasses and sunglasses. Put a
package together and keep that all undera certain amount so it's affordable. But
you know, if you do buya pair of glasses, most people do
buy a pair of sunglasses. Sowe're really looking to disrupt there too.
And I don't think anybody has reallydone that. No, I don't.
(22:40):
I don't want to put a numberout there and it doesn't come true,
so I'll put something I feel safeabout. But with prescriptions, uh,
you know, I feel that somebodyshould be able to get a pair of
sunglasses and glasses that are stylish forunder one hundred dollars. Okay, I'm
definitely going to be watching every singleday. It's like I'm going to be
looking to get it as little aspossible. I mean, I know what
(23:03):
number I have in mind, butI just threw out a number that I
feel is safe. All yeah,you know, but the thing about prescription
is, I don't think people understandwhat that costs either it's it's not what
they think it does the research.You know, there are sites out there.
I can't say that they're super stylishor it's branded or anything, but
(23:25):
they offer a decent If you needa paraglasses, you can get them.
You know, they're pretty inexpensive.But you know, I would say,
you know, you know, unfortunatelypeople are just they love a name,
they love a brand. I know, and I get it. We all
we all have the brands that welike, right but we're looking to you
(23:45):
know, really be that brand,be stylish and you know, be something
that people can get behind and youknow they can respect it. So well,
this has been fabulous. I amso glad to hear about the prescription,
but I'm just excited to have talkedto you and met you. If
you were listening, this is JohnStrauss. He's co founder and CEO of
Nevin Eyewear, and I just reallyappreciate you coming on today anytime. Thanks
(24:10):
for having me
This week on the Art of Improvement, I'll be speaking with John Strouss.
He's co founder of Nevin Eyewear.Nev and Iwear is an innovative eyewear brand
set to disrupt the traditional eyewear market. With their unique combination of affordability,
durability, and design, Nevin ispoised to become a big choice for consumers.
It's all coming up next on theArt of Improvement. Thank you so
(00:27):
much for joining us today on theArt of Improvement. I'm really excited to
introduce you to John Strauss. Heis the co founder and CEO of Nevin
Iwear. Hi. John, Hey, I'm a tellin. Thanks for having
me. Absolutely so for starters.The reason that I even am talking to
you as I saw an ad fornev and Iwear and the ad said buy
(00:51):
a pair of sunglasses and get twopair for free. I was like,
come on, that's not what's goingon with this, And then the more
I looked at it, I waslike, wait a second, these are
really cool, nice sunglasses. Sofor starters, tell us a little bit
about Nevin and then what the heckwhy buy one get too free? So
(01:14):
I mean we can go start fromthe beginning, or you know, I
could just started, so I wantto hear the story. Yeah, yeah,
so you know really originally, Iguess, you know, just like
everybody else, I go into oneof these big box retailers of eyewear prescriptions
at the time, I had prescriptionglasses and sunglasses. You know. It
(01:38):
was a place in the mall whatever, and I probably spent like five on
a pair, yep. And Iwas out, I think with some friends
jet skiing wearing my sunglasses and Islipped over and when I came up,
I didn't even realize it. Youknow, at first, I was like,
oh, man, like I lostmy sunglasses. And I went back
(02:00):
to the store and like I waslike, hey, you know, like
this just happened. I gotta obviously, you know, get another pair,
but like, you know, whatwhat could you do for me? And
you know, they kind of justtold me nothing told me to go kick
rocks. And that's just like reallybothered me because you know, it's an
(02:20):
extensive item. You can kind ofpurchase it every couple of years, things
like that, you know, andit just ate away at me. And
you know, I work on alot of other businesses with my other company,
for people who have an agency,and you know, I just started
like thinking about it, thinking aboutit, you RMP me, and I
was like started investigating. I waslike, well, how can I do
(02:42):
this and like, you know,put forward like the best pair of possible
and affordable price. I think themain thing is people just don't realize,
like all these companies have so muchyou know blow and like you know,
they have offices there. Everybody's gettingpaid a ridiculous amount of money. Their
marketing budgets are not well spent.It's just, you know, I just
wanted to do everything opposite and Iwanted to put the best products are an
(03:06):
affordable price and like kind of disruptthe market. And that's what we're trying
to do. Obviously it's going toit's going to happen. And so the
reason that it's going to happen isbecause one you have to explain to us
about the buy one parasue glasses gettoo free, because if I go to
(03:27):
and nothing against the Dollar Store,of course, but if I go to
the Dollar Store and I buy oneget too free, I'm like, you
know, if I break all threein a week, it's not a big
deal. But that's not the casewith yours. So the thing, the
thing that people you know need torealize is that you know and you can
google all this. I'm not goingto mention names though. Most companies are
(03:49):
all owned by the same two orthree companies and it doesn't matter or their
licenses of other companies. Right,We're privately owned and you know, we
we basically everything that we do isjust trying you know, we kind of
are taking The one name I willmention is, you know, we're trying
to take a place, you know, a page from the zapp of his
(04:12):
book where you know, the customercomes first and we just want to want
to make them happy. So weoffer free shipping worldwide, we offer free
return domestically, we're working on freereturns for international orders. But we also
have a you know, lost,broken, stolen replacement policy. So you
know, your dog chewed it,your your ex stole them, uh,
you know, you put them down, you know, well, we'll replace
(04:34):
file claim and we just take careof it. And we offer that for
I think it's for each pair twotimes, so not just once. We'll
do it a second time. Andyou know, we just want to create
that value. I think brands youknow, they became these these internet brands,
social media brands, and like,we just really we care about the
(04:54):
customer and that's the most important thingto us. I'm not I'm not focused
on making a dollar. I couldfigure out million different ways to put food
on my table, but I justI like growing brands. I like to
you know, put an awesome productforward and be able to create jobs for
people locally. Here. Let meask you, I mean, you sound
(05:14):
like you've done business before as anentrepreneur. How how did this feeling of
I want to open my own businessstart? How old were you? I
mean, were you just a littleboy and said one day I will own
my own business. I mean,how does that happen? Did you learn
it from somebody else in your family? I guess I would credit it all
to my dad. That kind offueled me. And you know, when
(05:38):
I was growing up, I wasnothing like him at all. But you
know, as I got older,we are the same, right and you
know that that relationship has changed.But but I would say, you know,
growing up, you know, hetaught me how to do percentages and
tips when I was a little kidat the you know, dinner table while
we hit out, you know,you know, that was like an important
thing still like like a lot ofpeople not like very quick. I could
(06:00):
just do it and do the numbersright. And I remember used to take
me to the car dealerships when usedto be able to negotiate your cars,
and like it was just like agame and negotiating everything is always stuck with
me, real estate, like everythingyou always showed me how to do and
understand, you know, with withmoney and value and earning and just you
know, just respecting how hard itis to make a dollar, right.
(06:24):
And you know, I guess,you know, I credit him with everything
that I know basically that's incredible,and I've and I've kind of taken that
forward and you know, change ita little bit. You know, we're
not exactly the same obviously, butit's just kind of stuck with me and
everything I do. I kind oflike, you know, it's swart of
paying homage to him. That's it. I love that. I love.
(06:46):
I love to hear that because myown daughters hate my guts and maybe they
just they're nineteen, so they're fiveyears, ten years, they'll all change
to come run back. Yeah.I pray for that every day let me
ask you, when everybody I don'tknow, I guess everybody left it.
(07:09):
What is the backpack company that saidthat they were gonna, you know,
anytime anything that happens to your backYes, and so if something happens,
they'll return it. And people keptreturning and returning and they still do that.
Do you see this as being somethingthat is just going to be part
of the company forever? Yeah,I don't see it changing, you know,
(07:32):
for now. You know, wedon't plan on selling as long as
no we own it. We don'tplan on changing that, all right,
you know, I think it's animportant part of it. It's so funny
because that doesn't it just doesn't existvery much anymore that people care about the
quality of a product and what happenswhen something happens, like they get broken.
(07:56):
It just doesn't it doesn't happen.So does customer service have a lot
to do with your success? Also? Do you think that that fits in
there by saying we understand, wewant to help you. I think you
know, as being somebody who shopsonline, if works with a lot of
brands, I see what work doesn'twork, and I think we just wanted
to take pieces that we thought brandswere doing really well and apply them to
(08:22):
our brand and how we could andjust trying to make it, you know,
the least amount of friction, youknow, as much as everybody you
know, like loves an. Youknow, there's things about Amazon brands don't
like, or things about Amazon peoplehate, right, they make certain things
super easy, certain things super hard, but just trying to take notes from
all things that we respect certain brands, and you know, if you take
(08:46):
those things, you come up withthese policies that are just like everything's a
win for the customer. You know. When we first launched, you know,
international orders was what is difficult becausethe volume just wasn't there. And
as soon as our volume was reallythere, we cut deals with different people
to make it affordable for us toship for free and work it into the
number, you know, to makeit happen. So I ship worldwide,
(09:09):
you know, Australia kind of anywherein the world, New Zealand for free.
There's a free option. I'm notsaying it's going to get there,
you know tomorrow. Like if Iwere to ship something to you have that
capability, but I can get thingsto Australia, you know, depending on
where Australia, I would say sevento ten days. That's amazing. Howada
Kinada might be like four to sevendays, but you know it has two
(09:33):
customs and all that stuff. Butyou know, these were things that were
important to me to figure out toyou know, like people always get well,
you shipped for free in the US. A lot of people don't understand
shipping and the costs. And it'sjust going up with gas prices and everything.
You know, everything is going up, right, but you know,
we're just still trying to put thebest product forward and give you know,
(09:54):
value, whether it's free shipping andthis, this and that. You know,
lost broken stone, We'll place them. You know, we have like
a whole wall of like people's storiesof how they lost you know, it's
entertaining, you know, like that'scrazy this and then you wouldn't believe this,
or I stole it, you know, I was involved in this,
you know, robbery, like likeI can't even believe it. So,
(10:16):
I mean, it's so funny becauseI when you told that story about you
losing your expensive sunglass, it justhappened to me. I mean not even
six months ago. I just gota prescription glasses, sunglasses, and I
honestly don't know where they went.So I go back to the store and
exactly the same thing happened to me, And you're like, there goes hundreds
(10:39):
of dollars just gone and it waspainful. Before we go on any further,
I want to reintroduce you if you'vejust now started listening. This is
John Strauss. He's co founder andCEO of nevin iwere. How can people
find you your website social media?How does that work? Uh? Nevinywear
(11:01):
dot com. So that's n Ev E n eyewear dot com and all
of our socials are on there.Uh, you know, they could check
us out, they follow us,you know, they could choot us a
message, you know. Yeah,okay, well answer you tell tell us
a little bit about Nevin. Whatdoes that mean? Where did the name
come from? So we're just,you know, sitting around, and we're
(11:24):
I was just playing around with wordsand things that I find interesting, and
you know, just you know,I liked how, you know, with
nevin it was spelled frontwords and backwards. This is the same way, so
it's a paladrome. So I reallylike that. And then I was playing
(11:46):
around with like, you know,everybody has like a catchphrase, and I
always thought like another another thing thatspelled backwards and forwards the same way was
never otter even. And that alsothat like when I said that, it
always made me feel a little bitcomfortable, uncomfortable because like if it wasn't
odd or it wasn't even like whatis it? And you know, and
(12:07):
then I was just like Nevin andyou know, and they're both paladrums and
I don't know, I just thoughtit was fun, and you know,
I don't know if they're you know, you always kind of want to come
up with something that that's not justlike you know abci, you know,
like something you know, it's somethingyou know. So But the craziest thing,
(12:31):
though, is the name Nevin toyou and I most people out there
would say ninety nine point nine percentof people of like, it's not a
name, it means nothing. ButI probably get about twenty five to thirty
five people every week requesting free sunglassesbecause their name is Nevin. Wow.
And I personally do not know oneperson in my life name. Yeah,
(12:58):
but you know, I I'll knowthat you know, there is a group
there should be one of those meetupsthat people have. You know, everybody
with the name Tim meets up inNew York City and you have a group
of Tim's, right, there shouldbe a meetup for them. But they
do email me. They think we'relike targeting them with our ads or something,
but we're not. But you know, and I explain to them that
(13:18):
every you know, every week they'reI'll ask you, oh, you need
to send me your free pair,as like, well, uh, you
should just go buy a pair andyou'll get to free look them up as
much as possible. That's great.That is so great. Another thing I
was thinking, I've talked to people, so many people that own their own
businesses, and I kept thinking beforeI spoke with you, is man,
(13:43):
I wear sunglasses. Seems like sucha tough competitive market. Is that true?
And how much research did you dobefore You're like, no, this
is a good idea. I'm movingforward with it. Well, like you
know, everybody else trying to getinto to a certain industry, you think
it's going to be super easy.All you gotta do is have a product
(14:03):
that looks good, show up.You know, site looks good, this
looks good. You know. Ikicked every single box I think for a
year I did like absolutely nothing almostit was just really hard. And then
I would say something happened, andyou know, you're getting like three orders
a day, five orders a day, then you start ten twenty that you
(14:26):
kind of like hit like one hundredorders a day, and then you're doing
five hundred thousand, a couple ofthousand orders, and you know it just
kind of grows from like you know, yeah, so it's so crazy,
though, I guess did you everhave any business where it didn't grow like
that? Have there been failures inthe past. I don't want to hear
(14:50):
about it, really no. Imean I've been involved a lot of projects.
I think that the main difference isit gave me a better understanding possibly
what people I was working with andit was their money when when we're scaling
company is of what that's like.That's the one thing I you know,
when you're working for somebody or workinginternally for a company or your agency hired,
(15:13):
you know, it's not your creditcard, it's not your bank account,
and hit, it's this every singleday. And I think I just
have a new appreciation for that andwhat you know, people who run company
CEOs go through if it's there,you know, their money, you know,
at the end of the day,like my employees rely on me to
make sure that, you know,checks get cut and all that. It's
just, you know, it's justsomething I never really thought about, and
(15:35):
I have a new found respect forthat. It was just very easy to
you know, I go out anddo my job marketing. You know,
problems solved this for people, soyou know, and you know, the
tables of kind of turn and nowthis thing's just kind of like growing really
fast. And you know, theproblems that I had two three years ago,
you know, I laugh at atthe problems I have today, you
(15:56):
know, and then they're just sowas changing. You know, a lot
of it's logistics are pricing it thisis and not so well another. That's
fantastic to hear. By the way, I don't want to just dismiss what
you just said, because that isthat's pretty awesome that in within your business
you actually care about the people thatwork for you and about the people that
(16:18):
buy your product because you just haveso many pluses. One thing I keep
on trying to figure out is howcan you still make money to continue your
business if it's buy one, getto pair for free, and how did
you even come up with that idea? Well, it's the answer. So
(16:42):
everything is really calculated and it's it'sit's very precise, and everything's negotiated that
we know what it costs to getin order out the door. And you
know, like I said before,we're not focused on you know, maximizing
that. We're focused on, youknow, what works for us to be
able to you know, pay ourbills right. And you know, if
(17:02):
we were to do what everybody elseis doing, you know, you gotta
think about like if I have alet's just to make numbers, you know,
simple, if I have a thousandorders going out the door, that's
really three thousand pairs. It's abigger box. It's a bigger that everything
is much bigger, even my shippingcosts because you know, but it's all
calculated out to make it work.And then how we kind of came to
that is, you know, wedid do the traditional ten percent twenty percent
(17:25):
off that everybody gets, and wetried the whole you know, buy one,
get one, and it just itwas much tougher to break into this
like market than we anticipated. Andthen you know, I just thought,
I let's get crazy. So Ijust tried it and it took off,
and then now it's kind of whatwe're known for. But I think,
(17:45):
I think the one thing that peopledon't realize is this is the same quality
that you're getting from all the otherbig bread you know, everybody's using the
same manufacturers, everybody's using the sametechnology. Sure, there's some people out
there that are spending more, youknow, and maybe they have some technology
that's a little ridiculous that maybe youdon't really need, but you know,
nobody, nobody's really reinventing the wheel. When it comes to eyewear, there's
(18:11):
these styles, there's new trends thatlike, you know, sunglasses or sunglasses,
polarization's polarization. Sure, some companiesmight have a little bit better,
but you know, everybody's kind ofoperating in this same you know, arena,
and I think just you know,everybody's kind of pulled a fast one
over every you know, they thinkthey think, like, you know,
(18:33):
they could be doing exactly what they'redoing, but they never would, you
know. I mean, these thesebrands are huge. I mean you can
google any of them, look attheir revenue, and look at who they're
owned. By you know, eventhese smaller brands that you think are smaller,
they're not. They're not privately ownedtheir own by much larger companies.
Wow. One of the one thingthat seems hard to me is the style
(18:53):
of glasses because if this is justan example, but I hate it.
A Oprah Winfrey started wearing these giantyou know frames, and then suddenly everybody
wants the giant frames. Do youhave to anticipate what styles are going to
(19:14):
be popular? How is it thatyou can say, Okay, I'm gonna
buy you know, a zillion ofthese glasses because they're popular now. But
what is the next popular pair ofglasses? How do you find out about
style? You know, we lookaround, we see what trends are,
we design certain things. We youknow, we try to put our spin
on it. You know, itall really depends, you know, just
(19:38):
to be very I guess transparent.You know, our when we first started,
our first order was maybe thirty pairs, one hundred pairs each. You
know, now when we test something, we're testing thousands. They just go
that quick. We've got on ourturnaround times, you know, with our
manufacturers, you know, down veryquick. You know, we airship a
(20:00):
lot of stuff like it's just we'vegone it's so down that, you know,
and honestly, if something doesn't takeoff, we still sell through.
It's just rated differently on a scaleof our inventory. We have our A,
R B and our C inventory andwe're just able to scale up scale.
You know, we play it safe, but you know, we we
(20:22):
have so much data. We knowwhat works doesn't work. We know what's
a risk not a risk, andsometimes the risks payoffs sometimes they're not that
great, but you know, westill sell through and we just decide not
to make it again. You know, yeah, absolutely, and so you
have. Of course, I'm foranybody that has not been to the website
or gone to any of their socialmedia to see the styles. Of course
(20:45):
you can go to it's just Nevindot com right or nev and iware dot
com. Nev and iware dot com. Okay. And so I'm also wondering,
I mean, are there different optionsfor summer? Like I notice you
have a lot of reflective glasses rightnow? Does it change during winter time?
How do you figure on that?So it's always summer like somewhere right,
(21:07):
Yeah, I think about when it'swinter. I live in Texas.
I know, Yeah, it's sumherein austral and you know, but believe
it or not, you know,people buy sunglasses year around. We do
offer some blue lights, you know, we do have that. And then
we are working out our deal rightnow for prescriptions with the largest privately owned
prescription company in the US. Sowe'll be getting into prescriptions. So that's
(21:32):
coming in the next I would saya couple of months. We're just kind
of finishing that up. But we'resuper stoked on our partnership there and the
people are going to be working withthere because they completely understand this. Yes,
and you know, I think that'sa real game changer. I work
prescriptions, so I get it,you know. Oh yeah that I should
have actually that a long time agobecause that was the first thing I was
looking for and I was like,oh no, I have to have prescription
(21:56):
when I'm driving about. We getabout one hundred quests today. It's definitely
coming in. It's just it's it'spretty complicated and just really figuring out the
whole. Like, you know,I want to send you a pair of
like eyewear, you know, glasses, sunglasses and like you just don't like
them, but they have a prescriptionout. It's really figuring that out.
Yeah, But also we're we're lookingto put together, you know, a
(22:18):
plan that works for everybody that youcan get you know, prescriptions, sunglasses,
and you know, maybe a pairof glasses and sunglasses. Put a
package together and keep that all undera certain amount so it's affordable. But
you know, if you do buya pair of glasses, most people do
buy a pair of sunglasses. Sowe're really looking to disrupt there too.
And I don't think anybody has reallydone that. No, I don't.
(22:40):
I don't want to put a numberout there and it doesn't come true,
so I'll put something I feel safeabout. But with prescriptions, uh,
you know, I feel that somebodyshould be able to get a pair of
sunglasses and glasses that are stylish forunder one hundred dollars. Okay, I'm
definitely going to be watching every singleday. It's like I'm going to be
looking to get it as little aspossible. I mean, I know what
(23:03):
number I have in mind, butI just threw out a number that I
feel is safe. All yeah,you know, but the thing about prescription
is, I don't think people understandwhat that costs either it's it's not what
they think it does the research.You know, there are sites out there.
I can't say that they're super stylishor it's branded or anything, but
(23:25):
they offer a decent If you needa paraglasses, you can get them.
You know, they're pretty inexpensive.But you know, I would say,
you know, you know, unfortunatelypeople are just they love a name,
they love a brand. I know, and I get it. We all
we all have the brands that welike, right but we're looking to you
(23:45):
know, really be that brand,be stylish and you know, be something
that people can get behind and youknow they can respect it. So well,
this has been fabulous. I amso glad to hear about the prescription,
but I'm just excited to have talkedto you and met you. If
you were listening, this is JohnStrauss. He's co founder and CEO of
Nevin Eyewear, and I just reallyappreciate you coming on today anytime. Thanks
(24:10):
for having me
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