Transcripts
I think if you stay persistent and don't give up, people are normally willing to okay, this person really cares. And I don't know if it's going to work or not, but I'm willing to take a bet on them.
Grant Alexander:Style is more than just the clothes you wear. It's the essence of who you are and it's in everything you do. Discover it here and unleash your style beyond what you wear.
Welcome back to another episode of House of Style. I'm your host Grant Alexander, and I have a question for you. Have you ever wished your favorite comfy clothes could look just as good as they feel?
Well, our guest didn't just wish for it, he made it happen. Before we get into today's awesome guest, let's do some quick housekeeping to our listeners and viewers.
If you're enjoying the podcast, please make sure to subscribe on your favorite platform or YouTube so you never miss an episode. Hit that like button and leave a comment or review. We'd love to hear your thoughts and we do respond.
Your reviews and ratings really help us grow and continue to bring you amazing content. Lastly, sharing is caring. So please share this episode with your friends, family, or anyone who loves a good story. Now let's get after it.
Joining us today is Zach Goldstein, the CEO and founder of Public Rec, a brand that's redefining what it means to combine comfort and style.
Zach left a successful six year career in finance to fill a gap he saw in the market, and his unique style in business and leadership continues to propel Public Rec to new multi million dollar heights. In this episode, we'll explore how Zach's personal style in business has been a major key to his success.
From innovative funding strategies to forging partnerships with top retailers like Nordstrom, ne Neiman's and Saks, his story is a masterclass in leading with authenticity, vision and commitment.
So whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a fashion enthusiast, or someone looking to infuse more of your personal style into your work, this episode is packed with insights you won't want to miss. So get ready to be inspired by a conversation that blends business acumen with the art of style. Let's welcome Zach Goldstein to the House of Style.
What's up? Hey man. Thank you for being here.
Zach Goldstein:Of course, thanks for being here.
Grant Alexander:I'm excited to have you. We were recently introduced by a mutual friend and I've known about Public Rec for a while.
Being a stylist and being in fashion and in Chicago, it's, you know, it's One of those brands that you see kind of pop up and talked about. And I want to get into kind of the early bits of your career. And, you know, you started in finance, you ended up in fashion.
Zach Goldstein:Yep.
Grant Alexander:Why did you start off in finance? What led you to realizing fashion was.
Zach Goldstein:The way you wanted to go so into finance? My thinking was, you know, this was a good place to learn business.
So in college, I studied economics, but I kind of always knew it's, you know, coming out of college, I wanted a finance job.
I'm not sure I knew exactly what that meant during college, but kind of learned my way navigating through different internships, got a job out of College working at J.P. morgan for a few years.
And that was a really good opportunity to, you know, learn attention to detail, understand accounting and finance, understand really the professional world.
And from there, took a different finance job, worked at an investment firm based here in Chicago called Shore Capital, Worked there for a couple of years. And I think both places really gave me a good understanding of, you know, the P and L, how to, you know, think about business, learn an industry.
And so to me, it was a really good opportunity to get, you know, learn as much as possible and be around really driven people, be around really, you know, smart people. And that helped me set up, you know, to think about, okay, what do I want to do coming out of this?
Since I was a younger kid, I was pretty comfortable walking into clothing stores, picking out apparel that I like, and had the idea for public rec. Kind of started in college, and it was one that never really left me.
And so started thinking more seriously about it after getting some experience in finance.
Grant Alexander:So what was that moment that kind of sparked it? If you had the idea in college? And I think so many people have an idea that they never take action on.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah.
Grant Alexander:What made you take action? Like, what was it? Was there a day? Was there a moment? Or were you finally just thinking, what's next in the career path? Let's start a business?
Zach Goldstein:I had gotten to a place where it was. It was feeling like this was the right time to go and try to do something. I didn't have a wife, I didn't have a mortgage, no kids.
And I knew at some point I wanted to do something entrepreneurial.
I'd been surrounded by entrepreneurial people throughout my life, and so got to this investment firm and was enjoying the job and again, surrounded by great people. But I knew at some point I really wanted to go and try to do something on my own.
And a lot of those jobs, the Way they're structured is you do them for two or three years. And then some firms, this one in particular didn't, which was nice.
But a lot of firms, they make you go to business, business school, and this one didn't.
But I think that kind of mindset made me think, okay, I'm going to do this for a little bit and then instead of going to business school, I'm going to try to start a company. So that was kind of the thinking was, okay, I'm going to continue to learn in this new type of finance job.
And then from here I want to go and try to start the company. And if it doesn't work out, if for whatever reason it doesn't become something long term, then I'll figure out what I do next.
Grant Alexander:So I'm kind of thinking on the like, the business idea aspect of it. Did your personal style and wanting comfy clothes that fit better spark the idea and say, like, oh, I'm going to go for this?
Or were you looking for a business thinking, okay, I want to do something entrepreneurial, let's find this gap, let's find a market that I can do. And, you know, which, how did it develop and how did you decide, okay, I'm gonna go this way or this way with it?
Zach Goldstein:It was definitely trying to solve my own problem.
So, you know, so in college, wearing lots of baggy sweatpants, baggy sweatshirts, whether you're hanging out at home or going to the gym, and then coming out of college in finance, you know, you're dressing up to go to work. The first thing you do when you get home from work is you want to put on something comfortable.
And that was, you know, my routine every day is change out of business casual, change into something more comfortable. And then it's like, okay, I got to figure out what am I going to have for dinner.
Oh, maybe I'm going to walk outside and go grab the Whole Foods hot bar and oh, I've got to change into something different for that. And so, yeah, I guess to me it was like, you know, there's a lot of, I have a lot of sweatpants and sweatshirts type clothing.
It feels like that type of clothing's never really been updated. It was usually ill fitting cotton fabric. And so I was like, okay, what if you use performance fabrics had better fits.
It could still be super comfortable, but it would look good enough that you could wear it outside of the house, not feel like you had a change to go somewhere. So it was certainly solving my own problem, which at the time was, let's make a better pair of sweatpants.
Grant Alexander:Yeah. And that led to the creation of your mvp, your first product. Tell me about that first product and kind of where that started and where it's.
It's journeyed to today.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah. So we started with one product that we now call the Daymaker Pants. And it was, okay, better pair of sweatpants, pull on pair of pants.
So no zipper fly, no belt loops. But it was, let's offer this in a waist and a length sizing. So32.32 or whatever your waist and length is.
Me being shorter, Sweatpants never fit me well. They'd either be too long at the bottoms or too narrow at the waist. And so it was like small, medium and large.
Sizing didn't work for me and I think didn't work for a lot of people, particularly for pants. So it was like, let's offer a pull on pant in a waist and length sizing. Really? No one else at the time was doing it for a recreational pair of pants.
Grant Alexander:I was just going to say, I don't remember anybody really doing it. So that's a really cool way of going about it. I mean, if you think of some of the big ones, like, Lulu wasn't doing anything like that.
I mean, they still don't. And any that.
I mean, from my personal experience and my family's personal experience, I know that I used to try to find small or medium in tall, but small never came in tall because the waist was too small. And mediums, you have a little better options with tall now, but ten years ago you didn't. Yeah, my dad's six, seven. My uncles are even taller.
They can never find ones that fit them without them looking like, kind of like cropped.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah, exactly.
Grant Alexander:That's a really cool way of going about it. Did you look and see if anybody else was doing it or were you just like, this is what we're doing. I know it's going to work. We're going for it.
Zach Goldstein:I think I probably googled around a bit. To me, it was like I had studied a decent amount on the market. I knew to me the product didn't exist.
So even if it did exist, it existed in a small way where it was like, okay, they're not owning this as their DNA and it's not big enough that I know about it. So after that I was like, okay, I want. This is going to be how we think about the company and how we differentiate the product.
And so got comfortable with, okay, let's give it A try.
Grant Alexander:How did you come up with the name? Public Rec.
Zach Goldstein:At the time, it was a lot of back and forth with one of my friends, but it was wearing clothes in public during recreation. So, yeah, comfortable clothes you could wear outside of the house.
Grant Alexander:There it is. So it's known for combining comfort and style.
How do you ensure that kind of the brand has maintained that vibe from what it started as to now and that the products, I mean, your entire product line now, because it's way more than these daymaker pants now. How do you ensure that everything kind of balance those elements of style and comfort and fit?
Zach Goldstein:When we think about creating a new product, we spend a ton of time researching the market, making sure that it feels differentiated, you know, better and different than what's out there today. But then also we view it through our own lens.
Lens of, you know, does this have some sort of unexpected comfort where you're in an environment where you typically don't expect to have comfort?
And this is a comfortable product, whether it be a top or a bottom that you wouldn't expect to be so comfortable in, but still looks nice enough that it's, you know, people usually can't even tell how comfortable you look internally. We talk about undercover comfort and so that's kind of how we view it. All of our.
Grant Alexander:I like that.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah, that's how we view like our product lens and our product expansion. And then it's like, okay, we have certain pants or tops. What is the complimentary pant or top to fit in whatever environment you're wearing them in.
Grant Alexander:Cool. Early on, how did you build trust with customers and keep everything authentic and just really like, how'd you build your following up?
Zach Goldstein:We. So we started with just this one product. We did a Kickstarter to start.
Grant Alexander:Tell me about that.
Zach Goldstein: So this was:You know, you spend months kind of making, perfecting the prototype, making the product, putting together the marketing materials, doing photo shoots, and you still have no idea how the Kickstarter is going to do the day before you hit go. But, you know, I'm at home in my apartment, you know, just click a button and we're live. Then start telling friends and family, okay, we're live.
You know, I greatly appreciate the support. And we ended up having fortunate to have some success. We pre sold 2,000 pairs of pants. We raised $180,000 at the time.
Grant Alexander:What was the goal?
Zach Goldstein:15,000.
Grant Alexander:Not bad.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah, not bad. It was a successful 60 days what.
Grant Alexander:Was your reaction, like, when, I mean, you hit, I don't know how many days it took or how long it took to hit your goal. Hit 15,000. When you. What was your reaction when you hit that? And then what was your reaction as it just kept going?
I mean, like, over 10 times what you wanted. Wanted?
Zach Goldstein:Yeah. Yeah, it was very exciting.
We hit the goal a couple days in and it was like, wow, this is, you know, this was kind of everything I kind of could have hoped for. And then from.
It's like every day you're pounding the pavement, trying to get the campaign in front of more people and trying to figure out a way to do that, you know, efficiently without spending a ton of Money.
Grant Alexander:At day 10, you're just like, oh, we already went way past it. We're good.
Zach Goldstein:No, I mean, because, like, this is your opportunity to really sell the product. Because once the campaign closes, then it's like, then we go back into making the product.
We didn't have a website at the time, so I was like, okay, let's try to generate as much demand as possible.
Because at the time it's like, okay, people are buying into the idea of the product, but now we have to go make it and make sure that, you know, the product actually delivers on what we promised.
Grant Alexander:Right. And that's a huge issue with a lot of Kickstarters. They're not able to fulfill, especially the ones that go way above.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah.
Grant Alexander:Because, I mean, you had to almost instantly scale to something that, you know, didn't exist at that point. Yeah. That's tough. Yeah. How was like, were you able to hit your. The fulfillment and kind of everything that you had in place?
Zach Goldstein:Yep. So we. The Kickstarter ended July and we fulfilled the order in November, kind of right before the holidays. The website then went live. We had a few.
We made some extra inventory during the initial batch so that we could fulfill more orders through our website as people were receiving the product. Yeah. I was living in Chicago at the time. I moved to New York once the Kickstarter ended to be closer to the factory.
And so I was kind of living a few blocks from the factory, visiting them every few days or so and making sure that it all went off.
Grant Alexander:Dealing with factories for those not in fashion, dealing with factories is often frustrating. Did you have any challenges early on with whether it was factory or fulfillment or inventory? Tell me about.
I mean, there had to be some challenges early on.
Zach Goldstein:Yes. So factory wise, the factory was a great partner and I enjoyed working with them, but they probably weren't set up for scale.
Like, we would finish at the time we were making, you know, a batch of 500 pants, and they'd say, okay, the pants are ready. You can come get them. And you can come, you know, quality control QC them before quality check them. And so it was just me.
I didn't have an experience. Any experience in apparel, but it was like, okay, you know, come review these 500 pants. Measure them. Make sure they have drawstrings in them.
Like, I would catch some pants that didn't have a draw. I was like, we're missing the drawstring here. So that was an experience. But ultimately, you know, ended up the product being in a good position.
And then the fulfillment center had its. There's another story of its own challenges there.
Grant Alexander:There always are. Yeah, always are. And have.
Do you still have those issues now that the company's so much bigger, or are they just kind of different problems and different things to think about now?
Zach Goldstein:Different problems? Yeah. I mean, they're. Yeah. Different problems than what we had, but every day is something new.
You're learning something new, and that's what keeps it exciting. But, yeah.
Grant Alexander:So I want to get into kind of your style. We've talked about the business and kind of get the background of it. I want to understand what was your kind of style in business back then.
Are you even. Are you able to articulate what you were like as a leader or entrepreneur then?
Zach Goldstein:Ran the company by myself for a few years, so didn't have, like, a big team in the beginning, started hiring. And I think what I've tried to do as a leader is be super transparent. So, you know, everyone kind of knows what's happening throughout the business.
They know our numbers. They know whether or not we're profitable.
They know whether or not we're growing and talking a lot about, you know, here are the challenges we see, or, you know, here's what's working, and let's lean into it. And then, like, you know, for better or worse, you know, being open to everyone, whoever has an opinion, you know, let's hear it.
You know, I am learning this as I go, you know, without experience in apparel. I've never been the CEO before.
And so it's like, okay, if people have feedback on either companies they've worked at before and that makes sense for us, or ways that they've, you know, had success at previous places, let's think about it. Or even, like, this is an idea that we think could make sense for us in terms of running the business, marketing, the Company, anything like that.
Let's hear it out and let's, let's debate it and see if it makes sense for us.
Grant Alexander:Has that evolved over time? So at first you didn't know what being a CEO was all about, but now you do.
Now I assume you're not like, I don't need your opinions now, but has it evolved at all?
Zach Goldstein:Yeah. Yes. I mean, like, I've done and I continue to do a lot more research and work on what it means to be a CEO and a leader.
And so I think my style has maybe evolved over time is that it's also like the company's been through so many different stages. It's so different when you're, when first you're a one person company, then you're five people, then you're 10 and you know, now we're, you know, 25.
And so the role changes over time.
In terms of like one, I'm doing it all in the beginning and then it's like, okay, now I'm working with the team and we're all kind of in it together now it's like, no, you know, it's better for me to delegate and trust the people and hire people who are better than me in different jobs and you know, have their expertise really help continue to build the business.
Grant Alexander:Yeah. Do you like being the leader, a bigger team, or do you like kind of doing some of that work?
I love being in the weeds of the business and like, for me it was always a big part of my passion. Because you build the business around your passion.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah.
Grant Alexander:So kind of how do you balance that, like, where are you at right now with that mentality?
Zach Goldstein:I think there's a part of me that like, there's been a lot of talk of like founder mode, have you heard? And like continuing to stay in the weeds. And that certainly resonates with me.
But like, I think there's probably degrees of it in terms of how in the weeds and depending on whatever the project is. I'm still, you know, very involved in the product side. I love that part of the business.
That was one of the reasons I, you know, really wanted to start the company was I love the idea of product and so I'm still, you know, pretty involved there. And there are other areas of the business where I've been less involved, which just doesn't make sense for me to be as hands on.
And yeah, I mean, there are pros and cons to having a bigger versus smaller team, but at the end of the day it's like if you want to continue to build a bigger business, that you can have a bigger impact on people's lives, you know, ideally sell more product that's impacting more people. You need a bigger team to support that. And so it's balancing, growing the team and, you know, where I focus my time.
Grant Alexander:Sure. And also now, you said when you started it, you didn't have a wife or kids.
Zach Goldstein:Right.
Grant Alexander:You have a wife now and you're expecting a kid.
Zach Goldstein:Yep.
Grant Alexander:He's having a baby in the next few weeks, right?
Zach Goldstein:Yep. Yep.
Grant Alexander:Very exciting. How are you kind of anticipating your work life balance and how those things will change? Obviously, it's going to be.
Going to be hectic for a minute with a newborn, but how do you think you'll kind of adapt to these new life situations?
Zach Goldstein:Yeah, it'll certainly be a learning experience. It's. It's new for me because it's a. Yeah.
I mean, I, you know, I was fortunate to grow up with parents who, you know, were very supportive and always around and, you know, I want that for my family.
And so, yeah, you know, it'll be a balance of figuring out, okay, I need to either put down the computer or even like, you know, I can put down the computer, but it never really stops in my mind.
And so it's like, how do I make the conscious choice to be present and, you know, not worry about whatever I'm thinking about for the company so that I can focus on, you know, my kid and my wife, which it's weird to say my kid until. Yeah, right.
Grant Alexander:It's tough. I think about this all the time when, when you're somebody that works a lot. Yeah, I enjoy working a lot.
It's hard to on the weekends or even at night to say, like, I'm going to be fully present all the time.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah.
Grant Alexander:And it is. I love differentiating that. There's a big difference between being present and having your computer closed but still thinking about it.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah.
Grant Alexander:My mind is always running with new ideas or what needs to happen next. And that's definitely one of the harder aspects of the balancing it all.
Zach Goldstein:Do you have any tips?
Grant Alexander:I think my biggest pieces of advice for parents and new parents is to not put so much pressure on yourself and that realizing whatever you're doing for your kid and for your family is the right thing to do.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah.
Grant Alexander:So sometimes it's, I mean, sometimes it's really hard and you just, you know, when there are lots of external forces and people that say you should be doing, I mean, the number of instagram posts and people on Instagram or TikTok, whatever it is with how you should parent. It's unbelievable. Yeah, they don't know your situation. They don't know anything about you and your family. You can use them for little bits of advice.
I've gotten some. I've taken some little tidbits away and I guess that would be it.
Take away little things that would help you, like, oh, that's a great tip, or, oh, I should consider that. But ultimately, like, don't feel bad for doing it one way or the other. Especially there.
To run a company successfully and to continue to make it grow, there will be plenty of times where you are unable to be there. 100 for your kid and you just, you can't feel bad about it all the time. Like, you will be there as much as you possibly can.
And that's always how I've thought about it. I'm.
Every single possible second that I can give to my kids and give to the family, I'm going to give it, and then I'm going to be 100 to the business every single other moment. It's tough.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah.
Grant Alexander:You never really figure it out. Yeah, you're always. I'm still learning and a few years in now.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah.
Grant Alexander:But that's what makes it a lot of fun. Thinking about, you know, aspiring entrepreneurs.
What advice would you give aspiring entrepreneurs that, you know, want to stay true to their style while building up a biz business or figuring out that market? Like, you kind of, you went into that, you solved a problem for you, for you. And I think that takes commitment and vision.
You're like, I know this is going to work. What advice do you have for entrepreneurs?
Zach Goldstein:Couple thoughts. One, I think is it can be daunting to think about the end product of where you want to go with whatever you're starting. I want an X company.
And I think people can envision that to be okay.
I want all these employees, the company's functioning, I've sold whatever I'm selling versus, like, okay, figure out, you know, the few problems to solve to get towards that. And so thinking about breaking the days and the weeks down by, I want to accomplish these goals that'll get me towards this big business.
Because, like, when you're starting from nothing, it's like, you know, thinking about, we're in a store today, which was really exciting for us to open a store. But, you know, at the beginning it was like, how do I make just a pair of pants?
And from before that, it was, how do I find fabric how do I find a pattern maker?
Like, trying to minimize how big the problems feel so that you can solve them and make progress towards them on a daily basis helped me at least think about, okay, getting towards these bigger things that take a much longer time. Go ahead.
Grant Alexander:No, that's great. You know, I was thinking a lot of people like you, you didn't go to fashion school, right? I didn't go to fashion school and I'm in fashion.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah.
Grant Alexander:How did you go about finding a factory, finding the fabric? Because those I think will be some of the scariest things to an entrepreneur.
Zach Goldstein:I started researching other companies that were still kind of in startup mode, like, you know, maybe five years ahead, maybe a little further ahead.
And, you know, companies that I looked up to that I thought were doing well had kind of already solved these problems and started reaching out to different people, either through LinkedIn or trying to ask people in my network, do you know anyone who works at this company?
And was fortunate that I found a few people that were on the journey, were ahead of me, but were willing to kind of be advisors and mentors and, and make introductions to different, you know, different factories, different. Here's, you know, how you find fabric.
And so that was really helpful for me was kind of finding these industry experts who had already solved a lot of my problems. And it's, you know, everyone kind of does it a little differently.
So it can be helpful to have a few different opinions on, here's how they solved it, here's how they solved it, which one makes sense for us? But that was how I thought about it and still do. It's like, okay, we're at a certain size of company. How do we get to two or three times our size?
Who's gone through what we've gone through? How can we learn from other people's experience?
Grant Alexander:Yeah. And you didn't start the business trying to find a big investment.
And I know there was the Kickstarter and there was a big part of it, but I think a lot of companies now think I have to get some sort of funding to, to get going. Like to, to have a pre seed round, essentially. Yeah, Just to get going.
Tell me about, and tell us about how you chose to go about funding the business.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah, I, I kind of purposely wanted to stay away from raising outside capital as much as possible. We did the Kickstarter, so that helped fund the first purchase order I had.
I was fortunate that I was in these finance jobs prior, so I saved up as much money as I could and I was living on my savings. So I wasn't drawing a salary from the business. So any of the money that the business was generating was getting reinvested into it.
And so I had saved some money that I invested myself into the company.
We had the Kickstarter money and then eventually a couple years and I did raise a small friends and family round really to help think about, okay, we want to do a few more products, but we don't want to do Kickstarters. We need to fund some of these purchase orders in advance to do a few more products.
We were moving manufacturing abroad, but then coming out of that, we fortunately, you know, businesses generating cash flow profitable and we didn't really raise any outside capital until last year and you know, had loans from different banks as we were growing because we were profitable.
And yeah, it was like we were growing fast enough that I was excited about the growth and felt like growing any faster would put additional risk on the business that I didn't think was worth taking at the time.
And we were able to fund future POS with setting up the right terms with our factories where we could get to a point where we didn't have to pay all of it up front and yeah, kind of work from there.
Grant Alexander:That's awesome.
I think a lot of entrepreneurs not are impatient, but, you know, you're so worried about getting to that end goal of whatever revenue you had in your mind that you should be making, you know, at whatever point in time at the end of the year, one, year, two, whatever it is.
I think it's a great lesson that if you just kind of do it methodically and responsibly, that you'll get to where you want and retain more ownership of it.
Was that, was that a big piece of it that the retaining as much ownership as possible, or was it kind of scale this correctly, do this correctly and make sure all the steps are, you know, in place.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah, retaining ownership was definitely part of it. I think it was more so like I wanted to control my own destiny.
And so I didn't want to be beholden to investors and have to, you know, get caught up either pursuing a path that I wasn't comfortable in or getting in a place where really had a maximize revenue to justify raising additional capital. And yeah, I think those were, you know, how I was thinking about it as I was going through it.
Grant Alexander:Yeah. And then you started with E Commerce.
Zach Goldstein:Yep.
Grant Alexander:And then you opened retail after kind of take me through the thought process. Did you know you wanted to strictly be E Commerce at first?
There's A lot of talk and I think the media portrays kind of the retail is retail is dead type of vibe. I've never agreed with that. Yeah, I think poorly run retail is dead. I think retail done well is very much alive and thriving. Tell me about that.
That process of why you chose just E commerce at first and how that progressed.
Zach Goldstein:To me at the time, it was like wanting to stay focused and having limited resources, having a smaller team. It just felt like growing through online sales was the most efficient way to continue to scale the business.
I agree that I think retail can be a really nice complement to a company once you start to build a brand and you can afford to invest in it.
But in the beginning, you know, the way that we were advertising on Instagram and Facebook and seeing, you know, returns where it was like, okay, let's kind of keep investing in this market. It's working for us. We can keep scaling in it. And so the time was, at the time was, you know, let's stay focused on what's working.
We can continue to scale without raising a significant amount of outside capital, without building a massive team before we're ready for it. So the focus in the beginning was let's keep building online.
And then I think as we got bigger and the brand got a little bigger, it's like, okay, let's try retail. Let's see what it looks like to kind complement the online business.
We now have a customer base in different cities where if we sent an email and opened a store, it would drive at least some existing revenue. And then maybe as people are walking by, they might recognize the brand.
So all those things felt like, okay, let's wait a little bit longer before retail makes sense for us.
Grant Alexander:Yeah, that's smart. And what's next on the horizon for public rec? Is it more store openings? Is it more product lines? Where do you think the evolution will continue?
Zach Goldstein:Our focus for the next couple of years or so is continuing to drive brand awareness and thinking about, what does that mean?
And also thinking a bit about, okay, continuing to get back to our core of who we are as a brand and why are we different compared to our competitors.
As the space has gotten a bit more crowded, I think it's given us an opportunity to think about what really differentiates us from all the other competitors in the space. And then how do we communicate that effectively to new customers? And so we're thinking a lot about that.
And then I think eventually we'll think about, okay, does it make sense to continue to do more stores? But we really do Feel like there's a lot more opportunity to continue to grow the online business before we get too deep into our own retail stores.
We want to try to grow our wholesale business through the right partners.
Grant Alexander:And where do you. I mean, I know you're in a few of the big stores. Are you looking to expand those partnerships?
Are you looking for other partnerships like boutiques or. You know, tell me a little bit more about that.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah, I think so. It's a little bit of both.
We have some partnerships with Nordstrom, and, you know, we're about to launch with Bloomingdale's, and, you know, we're looking to grow those partnerships, but then also we have some specialty retail stores at Curious, and, you know, we're continuing to kind of find the right partners for us and would like to continue to grow through that. Those relationships as well.
Grant Alexander:Does it worry you going that route and kind of relying on other stores in those partnerships?
Zach Goldstein:You mean, like, how they portray the brand?
Grant Alexander:Yeah, how they portray the brand or just, I mean, you're selling to them, so it's not like consignment or anything, but, you know, you. You probably need to sell a certain amount or at least to show that you're providing value to them, too. I mean, if. If.
If Nordstrom doesn't sell a single public rec thing, they're not going to continue selling it, so.
Zach Goldstein:Right.
Grant Alexander:Do I feel like that's a new set of.
Zach Goldstein:Yes.
Grant Alexander:Worries. It's like, oh, I mean, and I know designers that have done this, but having people just go buy the whole stock is an option.
It's not an efficient option. It's not a great option. It's a new set of worries. Are you worried about that, how they portray you? Just. Yeah, it's no longer just on you.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah, it's definitely. It's a new set of problems to solve and, like, thinking through, sell through.
And, you know, we have a team that thinks about, one, let's find the right partners that we feel good about. You know, they're gonna show the brand correctly and they're gonna be good partners to the brand.
And then two, you know, there's a bit of, you know, faith in, you know, we've picked the right partner and we feel like our customers there and then. But then it's also on us to support the relationship.
And, you know, what does that mean to market specifically in a, you know, in a certain city or to facilitate, you know, different ways to really grow the partnership with whoever the right partner is?
Grant Alexander:That would definitely scare me. I mean, I Being someone that likes to do it goes back to the delegating aspect of it.
Being someone that likes to do everything and likes to do or as much as possible. Yeah, I, I think kind of giving up that control would definitely be a tough piece of it. But I think it goes back to the.
If you want to grow and you want to scale, that's a huge part of it.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah.
Grant Alexander:Tell me how you, you know, one of the things you said for expanding is just widening your existing base in growing product awareness and just brand awareness with where you're at now. How do you go about that, retaining kind of the authentic core of what public rec is about?
Zach Goldstein:Yeah, it's a good question. So I think there are a couple of ways to think about it.
One is like, are there new marketing channels that we can, that we haven't, you know, invested in significantly that we feel like could move the needle and introduce us to new customers? And so we look at, you know, we're doing some TV advertising and we feel like that can be a bigger channel for us.
And so it's like showing up in historic, newer channels for us to new customers who maybe haven't heard of us at all, but, you know, sharing a similar message to what we've kind of always shared around the product and why we're different and why we feel like, you know, we're worth, you know, people giving us a try. And then I, it's that. And then it's like continuing to refine the message and make sure that, like, how we show up and where we show up, it's, it's.
We're resonating with customers and so we're kind of always tweaking and dialing that in.
Grant Alexander:Yeah, I think that's a great thing for listeners to take away. It's, you guys are doing well. You were doing great on E Commerce, you expanded to stores, you're doing wholesale, have these partnerships.
You're still continuing to refine the message. I think that's a great message for people and for entrepreneurs to realize, like, you don't just figure it out and stay stagnant.
You have to keep keep growing and changing and adapting with the times. Because, I mean, even things technology and social media, it's probably a lot different now than it was when you first started things.
Tell me about that. How, how is the social media strategy or marketing strategy changed from when you started to now?
Zach Goldstein:The days of, you know, investing in meta and $1 and getting back four or five dollars in return are seem to be long gone. So, yeah, you know, we're more thoughtful on what is the one.
You know, we've diversified our marketing so that it's not solely reliant on Meta, and we'll continue to do that. We still have, you know, more work to do there.
And then evolving, you know, the right content for Meta as that's changed over time, and then the right ways to measure the success within all of our different channels.
And so thinking about the right attribution between what's really driving the sale and, okay, wanting to invest more in a certain channel because maybe one dashboard is telling us one thing, but the other dashboard is telling us a different thing. And so it's gotten more complicated and at times more challenging.
Grant Alexander:I kind of want to. A bunch of words are going off my head for. For your style of business and leadership.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah.
Grant Alexander:Can you define. Let's start with this, because this is in a traditional sense of style. How you look, how you dress. Can you define your style in three words?
Zach Goldstein:Neutral. Yeah. We talk a lot about indoor comfort, outdoor style. So comfort and versatile.
Grant Alexander:That's a good one. That's a good one. And from a house of style perspective.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah.
Grant Alexander:How would you define your style in three words? So house of style is all about, you know, style goes way beyond clothes. It's not about what you wear.
It's about how whatever you do in your personal style in that leads to success and happiness and a more fulfilling life and all those wonderful things. How has your style in business and entrepreneurship led to success? So pick three words.
Zach Goldstein:Sure.
Grant Alexander:That kind of define what's led to your success in business.
Zach Goldstein:Tell me to pump myself up. I feel like.
Grant Alexander:I mean. Yeah. Sort of from a business perspective. Yeah.
Zach Goldstein:Persistent.
Grant Alexander:Great word.
Zach Goldstein:Focused. And I'll say. I mean, these are all authentic.
Grant Alexander:Awesome. Those are solid. The one that kept popping into my head, too, it's kind of the same thing, but methodical and strategic.
I think everything you were talking about, from just the timeline of everything to how you went about the research to you kind of figured out step by step where you were going and where you needed to go. And I think, like, I think that will resonate with people a lot. But I love the words. How do you think, whether it's a.
Whether it's an aspiring entrepreneur, somebody trying to, you know, impart their personal style into their everyday work, how do you think they can use persistence and focus to be more successful today?
Zach Goldstein:I think part of it is just not accepting no from people. Like, you're going to get a lot of no's. No one, you know, no, I don't want. I can't talk to you.
Or no, like, we don't want to take you on as a customer or partner because you're too small. I've never heard of you. Or no, this can't be done a certain way because it's never been done that way before.
But I think if you stay persistent and don't give up, people are normally willing to, okay, this person really cares.
And I don't know if it's going to work or not, but I'm willing to take a bet on them and whatever that means in the scenario, I've found success with that. And so I think, yeah, no matter how many no's you hear, kind of continuing to be persistent has at least benefited me.
Grant Alexander:Yeah, that's awesome. That's perfect. And then, you know, how has. I'm trying to think about, like, how has your. Because again, it's going off in my head.
I'm trying to see if we can articulate it in yours. How has your personal style evolved from what it was to what it is now? Do you think any of that's different?
Because you probably don't have to be as persistent as you were because now you have results. Has anything changed that you're like, you know what, I can do this differently or I can be a little more bold or you don't have to.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah, no, it hasn't. I think, like, I was. I was maybe a bit bolder and because I was more naive in the beginning, it was like, yeah.
Now that I've kind of gone through it a bit longer, I think there's a. There's a part of me that's. I don't know, maybe. Yeah, I can.
I can think about some old emails that I would send to partners, you know, very upset and very emotional, and I would never send those today. Yeah.
Grant Alexander:Is confidence a part of that? I imagine confidence now is higher than it was then.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah.
Grant Alexander:Were you confident back then, too?
Zach Goldstein:I think you have to have some level of confidence to quit a job and start a company. I've gotten more confident in what. But in what I'm doing.
But part of it is like, you know, the business evolves every day, so every day is a new set of problems. So I am. I'm still learning every day. So it's just like, okay, I'm at a different stage of what I'm learning.
Which, you know, part of it is you need to be confident to continue to move forward.
And part of it is like, you need to be open to learning something new and understanding that maybe you don't have all the answers, but you need to figure it out along the way.
Grant Alexander:If there was one big lesson or takeaway that you've learned since launching Public Rec, what would it be?
Zach Goldstein:One thing that resonates is that everything always takes longer than you anticipate and costs more. So. And coming from this finance background, I felt like I can estimate how much this is going to cost. I'll put a buffer on top of that.
I'm trying to be conservative, and it's still, you know, no matter how much buffer I've built in for time or money, it always ends up taking a little bit longer and costing a little more.
Grant Alexander:And so how do you deal with that? You know, especially as you're. You're starting off and you don't have extra funds.
Zach Goldstein:Yeah.
Grant Alexander:How do you deal with that?
Zach Goldstein:At first, in any way I could look at. There are certain, I guess in certain ways of looking at the business, I had to be super conservative.
Like, here's what I'm going to project for revenue. I really hope that this is very conservative so that.
But like, if I get over my skis and anything, I know that we're going to be okay, even if we just hit this level of revenue or we just. We're only hiring this one person.
Like, we didn't hire someone for a few years, even though we probably could have supported financially to hire someone. But I moved slower because I think I was trying to build in that buffer. So, yeah.
Grant Alexander:Awesome. And that brings us to the end of this excellent conversation with Zach Goldstein, the founder and leader behind Public Rec.
Today, we explored how Zach's unique style, not just in fashion, but in the way he conducts business and leads his team, has been a driving force behind the success. From identifying a gap in the market and solving an issue that he saw for himself, to innovating with both product design and business strategies.
He showed us that staying true to your personal style and being authentic along the way can lead to incredible achievements and a more fulfilling life, especially as he about to enter the new life of a child. You know, at House of Style, we believe that embracing your unique style is key to unlocking your potential.
And Zach's story is a perfect example of that. By leading with his own style, he's not only built a successful brand, but he's also crafted a career that aligns with who he is.
A big thank you to Zach for sharing his insights and inspiring us to infuse our own style. Into everything we do. Be sure to check out Public Public Rec's awesome products online or in stores. I approve of them.
And what more do you need than me, the stylist giving you the green light? And before we go, remember to subscribe, leave a rating, and review and share this episode with anyone who might find inspiration in this journey.
And for exclusive content and a peek behind the scenes and what's going on here in store, visit the link to our Patreon in the show notes and description below. Thank you so much for joining us on House of Style. Until next time, I'm Grant Alexander reminding you that style isn't in your wardrobe, it's in you.
