Getting Lift-Off with A Lil’ Place Called Home

Do brands that launch with a small, multi-purpose physical space have a higher chance of success than those that jump right into wholesale distribution?

Many emerging brands started with a little ambidextrous “home” that serves as an office, R&D lab, sales showroom, event space and retail shop, all at the same time.

Taking this organic path (vs. making a big wholesale push out the gate, guns blazing) allows for more time to fine-tune the business and incubate the brand before rushing off “to market”.

Here are some examples of what I mean by “fine-tune the business and incubate the brand”:

1. Hone the vision and strategy (see my related post on this)
2. Flesh out the brand ID and narrative
3. Fortify the initial product range
4. Establish ownership of key intellectual property
5. Firm up the supply chain
6. Start a dialogue with the local vanguard of “influentials”
7. Massage the marketing strategy and tactics
8. Develop a sensible distribution strategy and the supporting sales capability
9. Nurture a distinctive culture, design an organization that maps to strategy and hire the right staff
10. Install efficient systems and processes (book-keeping, budgeting, etc)

I could go on and on…

The point is there’s a lot of formative work to be done in the early days and it takes time - and some trial and error - to get things right (or at least workable).

Having a little place to experiment while driving some some high-margin revenue is almost certainly a smarter, lower-risk way to launch a brand and get traction.

Let’s see… who has done a good job with this? In no particular order:

1. Malin & Goetz (beauty)
2. Seize sur Vingt (apparel)
3. Steven Alan (apparel)
4. Cloak, before it went into hibernation (fashion)
5. Lafco (home, beauty)
6. Earnest Sewn (apparel)
7. Bond No. 9 (fragrance)
8. Red Flower (home, beauty)
9. Bliss, back in the early days at least (beauty)
10. Bumble & bumble (hair care)
11. Odin? I’m not sure there’s a wholesale brand there yet… (apparel)
12. Le Labo (fragrance)
13. …

[I'll add links when I get back to civilization/a faster web connection]

What other brands come to mind? E.g. companies that started out with a small multi-function space before making a successful push into wholesale distribution.

(The above companies are all NYC-based. I would love to learn about the peer group in LA, London, Paris, etc. Come on, let’s add to the list and see how far we can go with this…)