How 4 Best-friends Used a Common Problem to Start Their Brand Manmade with Anthony Ciavirella

Kathryn Thompson  00:02

Hey, hey, I am super stoked to have Anthony on the show today. I'm really intrigued by your story about your brand, how it all started. So, without further ado, I'm just going to turn it right over to you so you can share with our listeners, who you are and what you do.

00:17

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, Kathryn. So my name is Anthony Ciavarella. I'm one of the four Well, one of four co-founders of the manmade brand. We're a men's essentials brand, providing men with quality essentials they need without the BS that they don't. So our staple product is the boxer brief. We have socks, and we're soon launching our T-shirt. And so far,

Kathryn Thompson  00:41

so cool. And I know I get a ton of pitches to be on the show weekly. And it's very rare that I hear or get a story that I'm like, oh, man, I really need to have these guys on the show, to chat because I'm super intrigued one by your story. I know that there's four of you, as you said, and you're all best friends, and you left your high paying financial jobs to start this brand. So how did you make that decision to do that?

01:11

Well, so we all like we're best friends as, as you mentioned, and for us, late 20s, early 30s. We all had a pulse in each other's lives, being boys being from the same neighborhood and knowing each other for a while we got close. And we were very ambitious young men, and we're trying to figure out, you know what our next step was, so we would always like check in with one another. And it came to a point where we were asking one another, are you happy with your, career and are you fulfilled and we all had this entrepreneurial itch. All four of us, we've always known that we've all had little stories within our young, young adult life. And teenage life where we had some entrepreneurial activities, right. So that we've done that we done certain things Rob was in a florist. He had his own little service company. I was very active in PR and the club scene and the nightlife and throwing parties and all that fill in real estate and Berto and restoration owning a restaurant with his dad, that came to a point where like, it's either we do this or not. So we decided to ask our significant other for permission to go up north for three days, which is a cabin up north, but an hour and a half from here and Trombe LA, we're from Montreal, Quebec, where we locked ourselves in a cabin. And we just started thinking about ideas of what we can do when it came to an online business because we knew we had a passion for direct-to-consumer online and building a brand. The same issue after listing like 100 ideas was a hot summer June do that issue that day. And we're really honest, really passionate worked up is, you know, the terrible underwear game that we've all experienced. Yeah. And they just got to thinking shortlisted, our lists and we just kept pointing at this, this ending underwear like why is it so bad? Like why isn't why? Why is there an issue with underwear? Why don't we love our underwear, you know, something you put on every single day. So we've got to thinking one thing led to the next we finished wrapped up that weekend all back to Montreal, and really dove deep and figuring out, you know, what fabric should we use? What kind of work we ordered every underwear under the sun that you can think of tried everything on? And then we tried a fabric called Moldau the rise? Yeah, and we put that on and we're like, oh OMG Oh my god, this is it. And we just, you know, figured out a way to make it accessible functional, really? Not as expensive other brands are selling the masks. And yeah, so we ordered our first order of 10,000 units and sold out locally within three months.

Kathryn Thompson  03:48

Wow. And when did this all like what year did this all happen in

03:53

the that whole situation of going up nor was June of 2020. And then we launched August of 2021 but like the 30th of August so let's call it September 1. Yeah. So it took quite a while to conceptualization or like from day one to actual launch of the of the brand.

Kathryn Thompson  04:20

I love that perspective that you just gave our listeners there like the time it takes because I know that a lot of my listeners came from the product world originally producing wine and selling wine and now spend a lot of time online coaching and mentoring and so the online coaching space is a lot different than product and I know that I've shared this a few times on episodes that to test a prototype to get the design down right it takes a long time to really get it right or at least get it to a place that you want and I know you touched on the fabric. Can you share with our listeners why that fabric? What that fabric is like what it's made out of?

05:00

Yeah, the fabric is called modell is three times softer and three times softer, more breathable and three times more absorbent than cotton. Traditionally, undergarments is cotton, right? So it has all the natural fibers, you need to be a feeling good and be, you know, keeping it very hygienic down there. However, however cotton loses shape throughout the day, which causes the rolling up the bunching up. And then the alternative wood a lot of brands are doing are using polyester, which are synthetics, which is derived by plastic, very swampy traps the heat, they last forever, but it's the rice by plastic. So of course, it's gonna last forever, it will endure many washes. And, you know, seven years later, you still have that middle boxer brief but you should be we all never thought about it. But once we did the research, it makes sense. And it's kind of disgusting, right at the same time. Polyester is great for performance, you know, you play a game of basketball, soccer, whatever you want to put them on for that hour, an hour and a half. Fine. But Moldau is one of those things where it has a four-way stretch. It's super performance, it doesn't lose this shape. It's more breathable, it's more absorbance. And once you put these on, it's like you're not wearing anything, but your support at the same time. So it's really you have to feel it to believe it type of thing.

Kathryn Thompson  06:19

Yeah, so cool. And when you all connected with your significant others, was there any sort of like resistance from them? Or were they all like, yeah, do this?

06:29

So that's a really good question. So we're all like I said, like three of us are married, one of us is in a serious relationship. So they kind of know our characters. And they always knew that we were that entrepreneurial, you know, ambitious, you know, it's very important for us to feel fulfilled, and whatever we're doing. And that whole thing about asking for permission, it was just simply the say, Okay, give us we need three days, we'll come up with, you know, business plan or a direction. And once we do a little bit more digging and research, and we kind of know what our Northstar is, we'll build from there. And they knew that once we had that all sorted out that if we see that, that price or that that goal, we wish we would set for ourselves that we would do everything it takes to get there. And yeah, that's what we are nine months later. Yeah, so

Kathryn Thompson  07:20

cool. And did the pandemic have anything to do with the transition? Like when the pandemic hit? Did you kind of think like, this is a prime opportunity to do this?

07:32

Good question. So primarily, we were in banking. So I was in banking. So we were all in banking, except for Burdell. Little did work for a bank while he's in university, but his profession is a CPA, chartered accountant. We all come from the finance world. And when we did make the leap for you know, I made the leap from the bank, I worked for someone in payment processing. Yeah, so that's where I learned a lot about FinTech, financial technology chargebacks. And opened my eyes to e-commerce as a whole. Right? So we actually I actually had a for a short since about maybe eight months to 12 months, I was an agent, being able to help other payments, other e-commerce businesses, get payments, payment processing solutions, right? And yeah, and that, and that was something that I was doing for a very short period of time. But then when COVID hits, right, I realized that I wasn't really building something that I was 100% fulfilled with. And when COVID hit, that's when we got our heads together. And we told ourselves, all right, now's the time like to if there's a time to do it, it's now and we're very happy we did it, because it gave us that time to get on those video calls and brainstorm all the foundational aspects and attributes to build this brand visible nonvisible website, we have a man mm Apex concierge service. Everything that we see today took time to build, but the vision was there from day one. So

Kathryn Thompson  09:03

cool. And I know the other thing that really sparked my interest when I read your guys' story was the whole essence behind the brand, which is like, males, men like self-care for men, right, which we hear a lot of self-care for women, right? It's like that's the thing that we hear often. And so I love seeing brands, one that are unique and different and using products that are different than or material that's different than a lot of other stuff that's on the market. What was it about the male self-care that really like intrigued you guys to or inspired you to start this brand?

09:38

That's a great question. So the thing about underwear is that they're super important. And once you have the right ones are super happy that men don't do the research to actually figure out which one they want, which when they did it. And we looked into that a little bit more by serving 1000s of men as to what they were why they wear it. And when they're happy with their boxer brief, how enthusiastic are they and how it's really He changed their life. The numbers were astonishing. So for us, it was one of those things where we're saying to ourselves, okay, underwear is one thing and you know, we're on the right path. And we have sold out a bunch of products. And it was just one cut. One color was a boxer brief. Just black. Yeah, right. So we knew from the get-go, that we weren't going to just be in underwear, we wanted to basically be the foundation, the core of a man's wardrobe, as well as the man's you know, hygiene and his bathroom, right? His bathroom is soap is of deodorant one day, the skin cream, moisturizing cream, whatever the case is, that will make you feel better and do better. So for us, we're like, Okay, let's take a step back. Here we are as men, and we're caring so much about this. I'm sure this other man, but they're just not educated about it. Totally. So we went on this hiatus, and we just Okay, let's make this gentleman. So how are we gonna get this information across. So we wanted to do it in a way where we Educate, right, so we made we have a bank of blogs that we actually went and part of the research was to do the blog and the white paper. And if you go on our website, on the gentleman's club, there's actually a whole blog with a bunch of things that guys don't really talk about, but they should talk about, they don't really want to talk about it, but they do. But depending on the time and the place. But basically, it's locker room talk for guys, and you can get a bunch of information in a very, very, very, very easily easy way to digest. And then on our socials, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, we do it over and over again, when it comes to the content that we create. Right? Why we create the widest boxer brief is better than our competitors. Why do you need this type of fabric? Why is it that we make these products? What are we about? Right? And then that's the thing. So for us, it's not about fancy prints, fancy colors? It's quality essentials men need. What else is BS? They don't write the Bs is that and they don't really need it. You need something functional? It's my staff. We all want it, for sure. But we're not the ones that gonna give it to you.

Kathryn Thompson  12:04

Yeah, I love that quality piece. And that was one of the other things that I was intrigued by as well. For me, there was a lot of things that kind of sparked my interest, as I said, but it was the whole focus on quality versus just like quantity of stuff or quantity of options. And that sort of thing. Was that front was that part of the vision from the start?

12:25

100% We could have. So it took us 10 months to launch partially, you know, when you ask before we start on COVID, we didn't know any better, right? So for us, COVID is the standard. But COVID is actually the worst part, because we heard from people in the industry, it was a lot easier when there was pre-pre-pandemic, and a couple of years back, but we don't know that right? So well we know how hard it is to get a product and you need to have, you know your order in seven or eight months before it actually arrives at your door, sometimes longer. So for us, we could have easily said, Okay, let's make this whitelisted product, put our brand name on it, and let's go. Anything that we do, we don't have really our logo is not super apparent on anything that we have, because we want it to be super functional for the end user. And he and only he should know how good this thing feels on him, and how good the quality actually is. So it's a bit of that, like, I have good stuff but I'm low key type of vibe. That's what we wanted to go with. Whatever you were whatever you have of man means you will want 100% feel is once you take it out of its packaging, once you put them on. Right so from the get-go, we knew that we wanted to build something from scratch. So the box of reef is built from scratch their socks were built from scratch the t-shirt built from scratch to so far build from scratch, and the soap bar, you work with a chemist directly with our manufacturer. And you can basically saying as this put as an ingredient that you get to choose from, and we chose all the best that we think our guys would love. And we're so excited to have that launch next month.

Kathryn Thompson  13:58

Yeah, so the soap is coming out next month. And I know you said you had socks too as well. Right?

14:03

Correct. So right now we are selling the back of the black box brief and white and black locust and crew sock. Yeah. And then the T-shirts should be coming out within the next two to three weeks. And then end of July beginning of August. The soap bar should be ready. For our customers. Yeah,

Kathryn Thompson  14:23

yeah. Amazing. And so did you have this vision of the types of products from the beginning as well?

14:30

Yes. I love that. Yeah. Well, 100%. And we also know what our next products want to be. Yeah. But then again, being a startup. And I mean, we're nine months 10 months out. We're still very much a startup but we kind of have a good grasp of our brand and there's very good momentum and our customers are super happy. And we're getting reviews every day and there's one goal a day where we don't answer an email from a customer a comment a DM, whatever it is, we're always there to help our customers but from day one, we knew that the products we wanted to roll out, when you have the box to brief the sock, and then the t-shirt, it all make sense. But then when you're going so far if you ask people off, but I feel like the so far is going to give the consumer an understanding of all they want to, they want to do my whole foundation, right? Just being a clothing brand is being an apparel brand. We're not that we're a men's essentials brand.

Kathryn Thompson  15:25

Yeah, I love that. And so are you able to share what are the other products? Are you keeping that under wraps right now,

15:33

it's one of those things where we don't want to start talking about it. Because we know, we know for a fact that for the next six to 12 months. We know that it'll take about six to 12 months to come out with the product. And we don't want to have to say it and then after delay it we've been more. So it's one of those things where clue that I can give though is that it's going to be most probably something that you usually keep in your bathroom. Gotcha in your wash from your bathroom. Yeah,

Kathryn Thompson  16:04

yeah. And I totally understand that, you know, especially with production and all the things, testing products, stuff like that, especially Yeah, like soaps and different things like that. It can be delayed or pushed back or whatever. So I totally get that. Yeah, you want to keep some of that close to your chest.

16:20

For sure. And to add to that, you know, it's a question of inventory with supply chain. And just overall, you know, manufacturing delays. These days, you kind of have to believe in your brand, believe in your products and sit on quite a bit of inventory. So your capital is constantly going there to buy more and more inventory, so that you can store it and never run out. Because how much of a waste would that be? If you're running ads, if you're you know, you're at the top of your, you're growing your advertising budget, but then again, you run out of product, you're a bit of you're in a pickle, you're kind of like you're kind of spending money uselessly there. So we want to be able to never run out, we know our products good. We know we trust our partners and our manufacturers. And we got that that initial interaction that taste and we and we had a close ear to the ground. I'll tell you one thing, Catherine, I called 1000 customers, you know, 1000 customers to hear about like, and knock people we knew people in other provinces, people that we never heard of, to ask them their sincere opinion, right feedback on the product. And once we got all that straightened out, and we knew we had a good thing going and there was others like us that really felt the same way. We just scaled it and we made the investment.

Kathryn Thompson  17:32

I love that commitment to listening to your customers and having that like customer-centric approach of like really connecting and listening to what they have to say, and what is what was good, maybe what wasn't what could be improved all of those sorts of things so that you could then scale a product that you knew people want your customers want. So question about the partnership, did everybody quit their jobs at the same time? Or was that sort of like staggered,

18:04

so three of us quit at the same time? Pretty much in the same time, and one of us couldn't really quit at that time that he was going to he knew that was part of the plan. But he had commitments prior that he couldn't just jump. But what he did do, what he did do was during the day work day job and then made up for it at night. So kudos to him, it took he worked pretty much 22 hours a day, for a couple of weeks, if not months. And it was tough, but he did it. And he's a huge asset to the company and to the brand. And we knew that we complement each other so well. And we kind of knew that we trust each other. We wanted to force them to be together without one or the other. It wouldn't be the same. So yeah, totally.

Kathryn Thompson  18:58

Yeah. So amazing. And how do you navigate a partnership of four best friends because I know, there's that whole thing with business, you go into business with family or friends and it can be a challenge or difficult or it could compromise the friendships or relationships. How do you navigate that

19:15

100% organization. What we do every year is we replicate that whole cabin story. We go up north, no January 2, or back at a cabin, we try to go to the same cabin. And we basically look at a whole year and how we're going to go and you know, achieve our goals. We have pillars, you know, sales, operations, social media, tech, so on and so forth. And we just basically say what are all our goals on a micro level? We named them all out. We put them all we list them all. And then how are we going to divide each and every one of us the workload so that we get to Northstar faster efficiently and every but it has in other attributes that they're strong with, you know, Phillip is very, very strong operations, logistics, efficiencies, Rob. He's you know marketing, product development, attention to details coordinating with our designers and our manufacturers. You have myself assuming Berto he's in technology, he helped build the Manmeet consumer service. He takes care of the website, the back end, the finance, the accounting, he's a CPA by trade. And then you have myself PR customer service, social media, and just overall customer experience. That's what is NPR getting that getting the name out there? Yeah, much as possible.

Kathryn Thompson  20:39

Sounds. Yeah. I mean, you guys have it seems like you have like a seamless and process and system in place to ensure that like everybody's doing their thing, but also, yeah, leveraging everybody's expertise, which is amazing. Is it just the four of you right now? Or do you have support elsewhere within the company?

20:59

So it's the four of us. And then we have Rodrigo, who's our software engineer. And we recently just hired Sandro who's taking care of video editing, and just, you know, helping us with the with filming, editing video, and getting the content scale to the next level. And we hired the part-time, someone to fulfill the orders throughout the day. We were spending a lot of time in this fulfillment room, as you can see it right here. Yeah, filling, fulfilling the orders. And we realized, okay, we needed some help. And we really got lucky. And that's a really cool story on how we found these two part-timers, which one of them is a fulfiller of picking, packing. And then the other person that was Daniel, and then Tatiana, and Daniel does 20 hours a week. And then that's kind of those 20 hours a week in customer service. So she helps me with customer, customer service emails, engaging online and just being on top of having a real ear to the ground and being on top of, of our customer base.

Kathryn Thompson  21:59

So cool. And so you said you're there was a cool story of how you guys found them. How did you find them?

22:05

So we put up a posting for a pic and packer fulfillment guy and obviously like you put that post up on Indeed, and you get a bunch of people that don't apply. Couple of people that we call I remember coming in on a holiday, I forget which one it was. And we called okay, we're going through the CVS and we have to find someone because it was really getting crazy. One of us or two of us sometimes spend the full day in here. And you can't be in here and grow the business at the same time. So we thought, okay, we're getting to that point, let's get some help. So we start calling people, some people like, Oh, I'm not doing anything thanks for the call. And then it's like, oh, you're great. And you have a good conversation with the person on the interview. And then it's like, okay, you get off the phone. And then I'm like, still, how does the interview go? And he tells me it was great. Okay, have that person come in? We need to hire them for Monday. This at this point, I think was Friday. Yeah, we call the person back. And they just clearly said that they weren't doing anything. And you call them back? Oh, no. And then sorry. In the call, they say that they love playing video games, and you call them back? And they're like, Oh, can you come in for the interview at 330 in person? Oh, no, it's not really good today. I'm still playing video games. Can I come in next week instead? And it's like, you have a bunch of add going on. So yeah. We were just really discouraged at that point. Obviously, as a startup, you know, you're trying to be as scrappy as possible. So we took our phones and we're pretty, you know, active on Tiktok and Instagram, we took our phones and we didn't tick tock tick tock was like, Hey, we don't we're a young startup here Monday, and we're looking for someone to come help us fulfill the orders. Lo and behold, our DMS on both Tiktok and Instagram were flooded. Flower. Right. So now we're going in sorting through all these different people that are asking to have an interview with us. And we had a couple of calls and they were okay. And you're like Okay, maybe not. Or maybe that's No, that's seen. And then what happened is this gentleman was Daniel walks in. And he's like, Hey, I'm here to give my CV to speak to someone who's in charge of hiring for this role I saw on Tik Tok.

Kathryn Thompson  24:04

Oh my god,

24:06

isn't he on? Oh, he's on a work visa studying from abroad. And he saw us at home in his country. And when he came to Canada, first he wanted to come work for us because he's been following us. He goes from Mexico. He's following us since Mexico and then when he came here, like, I saw that opportunity. I'm studying e-commerce. You guys look like you're a great group of guys. I really want to work here. Here's my CV, who do I speak to? We hired him on the spot. Wow. Somebody who has that ambition and comes here and does that. And we don't regret it. He was a great, great guy. And the same thing with Tatiana. Same situation. She started ticked off. She reached out by email. We had one interview, I saw she was great. She came in thought of the ropes and today she's doing really well.

Kathryn Thompson  24:50

That's so amazing that you posted on Tik Tok and it blew up in your DMS of like I want but the Daniels story. I mean, just to find you guys walk didn't say hey, I want this job ambitious, right? Like, that's ambition. Yeah. Not sitting at home playing video games going, I can't come in I got vids to play here. So

25:11

it's one of those things where we were a little discouraged. But you know what, like, there was a silver lining there and anybody listening tick tock tick tock is not a Gen Z platform. Tiktok is not just a bunch of tick tock is tick tock is extremely powerful. And if I have to give two platforms that really helped us organically grow our brand, especially in the early days, number one goes to tick tock and number two goes to LinkedIn. Okay, so that was that I just want to put that out there. And I never want to forget that because I remember doing it and listening to a mentor of ours, Gary Vee, and we leaned into it. And we did that. Every day, we had we documented everything every day. And we tested different angles, and we saw it work we engaged, we were really serious about it, and it really got our name out there. It's a very powerful, very powerful tool.

Kathryn Thompson  26:06

I love that you share that because I spend a lot of time on Instagram and have spent a ton of time on Facebook as well. And when Tik Tok rolled out I had tons of my clients saying like, should I go over to tick tock and I know Gary Vee huge proponent of it saying like, or promoter of it being like, yes, tick tock is like you can organically grow. And LinkedIn is something that's been on my radar recently because somebody had mentioned to me just even for my own brand, they're like, You should be more on LinkedIn. And I haven't I think I set up a corporate profile when I had a corporate job. And then I've kind of been sharing stuff over there. But I love that you say LinkedIn because those were not the two I tick tock I know as being out there. But LinkedIn would not have been one that I would have guessed for sure. Yeah.

26:50

LinkedIn is one of those things very conservative traditionally, right? You had a lot of people that are conservative, it's professional, you know, kind of those things where when you go to a networking event, so the way I see it, is it's one of those things where you're going into like a networking event. And everyone's in a tie and super proper. And yeah, he's coming in, like, with a character and you're, you're being yourself, and you're showcasing who you really are, without being you know, just she'll be me being bold, basically, just being bold on LinkedIn helped us just get those eyeballs, because when you're scrolling, it just pops right. And you get interested in, and it was just super, super interesting on how our network grew tenfold, just with LinkedIn. So I highly suggest you get on that.

Kathryn Thompson  27:37

Yeah, and just a really great reminder that like, as a brand, a product for men, right is not lots of times people will think like, yeah, I have to be like an executive coach, or I've got to be, you know, I have to have a corporate career. But if you're a product-based business that is bold, authentic, and different, it's absolutely going to break that pattern in the scroll, because it's probably not what people are used to seeing on LinkedIn.

28:01

So exactly. And for us, it's one of those things where it's relatability, everyone puts up a front professionally sometimes. And then it's like, oh, take the cake off, go home, put the feet up a glass of wine, and then you start calling your best friend knocking yourself even with these podcasts. You know, I don't use big words, myself, I just say what I gotta say. And it comes out the way it comes out. And anybody on the other end that's listening, were either relate and say, You know what, like, that's, that's pretty I understand that or, and I get it is exactly the same way. We want to do that on social media, where we're not making a polished, tic tock allows us to not be polished, we're taking that philosophy on Sixth off, or spreading it across all platforms. And I think we're really causing some noise there. And, and yeah, it's one of those things where you need to be persistent, and then the magic starts to happen.

Kathryn Thompson  28:51

Yeah, and I know that that was one of the other things that really stood out in your guys' story was how authentic it was. A big part of my mission is bringing brands on personal brands, companies, whatever, coming on this podcast, and sharing real authentic stories. And I know that in your story, that's what came across to me just in the words that you guys are just four dudes that started this brand. And you're and you didn't really know what you were doing when it came to starting a product-based business and you express that right? It's like, Yeah, we had a vision. We were inspired, and we just went after it. And we're learning along the way which is like you said, we can sometimes put up that front of I've got it all figured out or I'm I've got this perfectly polished appearance, and in reality, no entrepreneur really does.

29:38

And if you do you're lying. Yeah, it's relatability Yeah, right. Authenticity. Yes, it's a great word but relatability Can I watch something a piece of content or relate to four friends they put their heads together and Oh, quit their job put their heads together to build a brand are they going to make good product or shitty product or decent bro Do you get interested about it? And then people start talking about how good the product is. And you like, you know what, let me try. And it's actually good. And it's, you know, like, and it just makes you excited, because you're like, oh, I can relate to this, and kudos. And you can respect that. And I think everyone has a little bit of that entrepreneurial itch in them, especially people that, you know, fall in love with this story. Yeah. And we try to make them inclusive. Right. So what I mean by that is all the next products were coming out to give you little hints back to what you had asked me earlier. Yes. Now, at this point, we want to get the community where we built our customer base involved. Well, whatever products we come up with next because at the end of the day, that's what we're doing, we're catering to them. Yeah. That's all it is right for us. Now that we've built a little like a foundation, or, you know, for us, right, you know, we want to cater to that customer. That's what's important to, you know, whatever they want, we ended up going in that direction. So we actually did one not too long ago, we sent out a survey, what do you want to see built next? And for the boxer brief, we gave a couple of options of colors, and pastel colors, not really patterns, and always like the solid colors. And we know exactly what colors they want next because we get asked a lot because we stay very involved with our customer base. And then for products, we give them a list of certain products. And basically, we sent it all to our customer base, when I send out like 1000 emails and our open rates was phenomenal. Wow. Like, incredible, right? So it was like, wow, that was amazing, and a lot of responses. A lot of people are really willing to give their feedback. And they do it, you know, open heart open-heartedly. So that's what we want. That's exactly the direction we want to take. And we're very happy with how things are going.

Kathryn Thompson  31:43

Yeah, and that's anyone listening, that is like 101, on how to build a loyal customer base. Because if they're vested in the brand, and they think that they have, they know they have a say in it. And you ultimately are listening to what they're saying, and implementing that to the best of your abilities based on what you can offer and whatnot. They're loyal, because they're like, oh, man, these guys really listened to us. And they're putting out products that actually matter. And we want to see, so that's Yeah, amazing. Amazing. Where can people predominantly order your products?

32:18

Well, we've been online under percent. The reason why I hesitated there is because a lot of people are asking us to get into retail spots and retailers are reaching out. But we believe that you need to put your energy and focus on something 100% In order to be the best at it. So right now, our focus is to be 100% online. And we can be found on manmade brands.com. So that's our URL. And with that, you will also notice when you do your when somebody does a full checkout, and buys our product, they have access to something called a man-made text concierge service, we built that out as well throughout those 10 months before lunch. And what that is, is that you have access to basically a concierge that can not only help you with customer service if ever you want to reorder, it's seamless, it just basically texting us and saying I want this and you get it shipped to your house. And then And the third thing is you have access to loyalty perks. So you know, certain deals that are never apparent online. You can never find them anywhere else besides this platform, as far as loyal customers, as for our customers that want these deals, but you can get them anywhere else besides that platform, which is a Texas platform. And, and yeah, and sometimes it gets the occasional free coffee from us. So it's pretty cool.

Kathryn Thompson  33:43

So cool. And do you ship? Where do you ship globally?

33:47

No. So right now it's nice America, US, and Canada, our marketing efforts are in Canada only for the time being given that we're a startup that we felt very strongly about dominating, where we are where we live first, our own backyard first just to get make sure you get the brand, you know, well aligned to understand the metrics that 100% But we do have plans in q1 of the next year 2023 To enter the US markets in marketing, anything organic, LinkedIn, tick tock Instagram, anybody US wants to purchase not a problem. We do ship there, and it's just as fast and it's just as efficient. And it's just that we're not spending any marketing for the time being in the US today.

Kathryn Thompson  34:27

Amazing. Amazing. I know we've covered a lot like I said, I love your guys' story. I can't wait for this episode to drop. I'm going to be sharing it with all my family members. I've got you to know, three brothers and husband and all of that and so and being a local a fellow Canadian. I love that it's a Canadian brand. So I can't wait for this episode to drop in for our listeners to hear your guys' story. Is there anything else you'd like to share before we wrap up?

34:53

If anybody's looking, if anybody listening is thinking about starting a business. Just do it. It is multiple That's the hardest thing you can ever do but the most fulfilling as well. You need to, if you're anxious and you're like, Well, I don't know where to start. Maybe the timing is not right, the timing will never be right. So you have to just start. So zero to one is the most important. Just plan and execute that. It sounds easy. It sounds hard. It's easy, but it's hard at the same time because we're human. And we constantly make excuses for ourselves. But please do not fulfill your dreams Push hard, and good things will happen.

Kathryn Thompson  35:30

So amazing. Again, it's been such a pleasure to have you where can people find you? I know you mentioned your website, but on social is it the same handle on social media?

35:39

Yes, it is. At the bottom of our website, we have all the links and all the for all our platforms, but really quickly, tick tock and Instagram you're looking at manmade thought official. And then you're on Facebook, manmade brand, LinkedIn, manmade. And, and Twitter manmade. Brand. So amazing. So yeah, you'll see the star. So this is

Kathryn Thompson  36:02

the brand there. Yeah. And we will link all of those up in the show notes for anybody that wants to head on over and follow you and yeah, if they want to get your products that are amazing. Again, it's been such a pleasure having you on.

36:13

Thank you so much. It was a pleasure being here. You're welcome.