Andy Dunn
CEO at Bonobos. Mission in life to evolve mankind, starting with pants 👖
Discussion
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Andy Dunn
@dunn · Chairman, Bonobos
Hi, I'm Andy Dunn, founder of Bonobos. My mission is to evolve mankind, starting with pants. I also invest in MATE entrepreneurs (that's magnetism, authenticity, tenacity and evolutionary ability) at Red Swan. I'm excited to be here- ask me anything!
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Jack Smith
@_jacksmith · Serial Entrepreneur & Startup Adviser
Andy, it's been well written you went through the process of bringing in an external CEO, as you thought that someone else would be better placed to help the company scale. That didn't work out; do you envisage yourself being at the helm as CEO for the foreseeable future now, or do you think that you'll be looking for another CEO candidate in the future?
@_jacksmith I do envision myself back here in perpetuity now, and I am grateful for it. Hiring an outside CEO is hard. I learned a lot. We adjusted quickly when we realized we still needed the founder at the helm. It was invaluable in some regard because a lot of the learnings I now bring to the CEO role would be impossible if I hadn't had the experience of being gone, the perspective from the time away, and the things I learned from Fran from her brief time here. I actually would do it again, crazy though that sounds. Fran was incredible thoughtful and gracious about the whole experience. I am still sort of amazed, and feel lucky, by how well it went - two CEO transitions in 120 days. :-)
Brandon Rubinshtein
@brandonshtein · Founder & CEO of @Verrehere
Andy what is it like to make a huge pivot into retail while you were experiencing such tremendous growth online and were about to IPO? What do you think you learnt the most from that experience?
Graham Gardiner
@gbgardiner
@brandonshtein is that a pivot or a new customer acquisition strategy? Still selling clothing.
Brandon Rubinshtein
@brandonshtein · Founder & CEO of @Verrehere
@gbgardiner @brandonshtein I feel as its more of a pivot from only providing a online shopping experience. But I see how you can take it as a new customer acquisition strategy
Graham Gardiner
@gbgardiner
@brandonshtein ya for sure....still interesting question.
@gbgardiner @brandonshtein I think it's not a pivot. Pivot is Burbn to Instagram. Pivot is an over-used word in start-ups. Agree: still a good question.
Lejla Bajgoric
@lejlahunts · Intern, Product Hunt
Hi Andy! How have your viewpoints in relation to direct-to-consumer business changed since you created Bonobos? Is there anything you know now that you wish you would've known earlier on?
@lejlahunts Wow, so much to say. I wish I had known that offline wasn't going away, just changing. I wish I had known that a company can only do a couple things well at a time. I wish I had known that paying for on the job learning is expensive. I wish I had known that a great partner can really help a company amplify who it is early (in our case: Nordstrom). I wish I had known a digitally native brand is a technology-enabled retail company, not a technology company. I wish I had known that marketing is vital, but too much is a great way to scale a bad business. I wish I had known to hire a great head of HR can be a great investment that must be made when your corporate team hits 100... I guess those weren't all about direct to consumer! Oops.
Ben Tossell
@bentossell · Community Lead, Product Hunt
Hey Andy - can you explain how you got to decide on the MATE terminology and what it means to you?
@bentossell M - Magnetism, A - Authenticity, T - Tenacity, E - Evolutionary ability. The last one is the hardest to predict, and to find, as it's a blend of judgment, intellectual honesty, the desire to experiment, and the wisdom over time to know which experiments to run, and equally importantly, which ones not to.
Sam Parr
@thesamparr · Roommates
@dunn Hey Andy. I spoke with you last year about Hustle Con. Nice to see you here.
Can you talk about some of the challenges that you and your former cofounder had? How do you amicably deal with differences in opinion while also inspiring and rallying your team?
I feel like it's a marriage and you wanna keep the kids in the loop but not scare them, but would be awesome to hear your insight.
@thesamparr Our only saving grace was Brian's intellectual honesty that something needed to change, and his grace in being willing to step aside when it was clear that the company (in our case) needed one leader. And then having sage advisors around like Joel Peterson, a remarkable man who told Brian to go get another win on the board, and then invested in Brian's next company - Trunk Club - which has been a staggering success on every measure. I still teach a case at Stanford GSB about what happened, and I say that I feel the better entrepreneur is the one who left. I have done my best with Bonobos and am proud of what our team has accomplished, and the leadership team that we've assembled here is doing great things. I guess the message is : be good at recruiting, and be good at being recruited by a great cofounder (in my case, Brian recruited me to Bonobos) or recruiting one (in other cases, where you have to go find a great one). I'm rambling but I guess what I'm saying is the important thing to find in a cofounder, in addition to everything else, is intellectual honesty - people who will be swayed by data over emotion, ultimately, and then surrounding yourself by incredible advisors like Joel and Andy Rachleff - our founding angel investors - who will tell you the truth when you need to hear it.
Graham Gardiner
@gbgardiner
Hey Andy besides having a product people really liked.......What drove the early success of bonobos? Did you put a focus on paid customer acquisition? Social buzz? Where was the focus and what is driving sales today? I look at companies like Bonobos & Polar Stuff and find it really impressive how they are able to create such a following over instagram.
@gbgardiner I don't believe that paid customer acquisition works for digitally native brands - it can work at first, but not if you want to ultimately have a profitable business. One of the great secrets is that paid digital acquisition, for the vast majority of companies, doesn't scale, and most of the great companies that do scale don't need it to succeed. The equation in the early days is WAY more about the product resonating than finding a way to pay for it to matter. And our product, which is a bundle of great clothing and great service, scaled early due to a mixture of great PR, great word of mouth, and great in-person sales (trunk show and in-person sales out of our various apartments). We then applied a lot of digital spend to that in 2009-2011, and it definitely helped us grow, but it was nowhere near as good of customer cohorts as the ones that we are now seeing now that we have put more of our energy to extending our assortment (shirts and suits) and expanding our distribution (guideshops - the reinvention of retail! - catalog, and Nordstrom). I advise most digitally native brands now to think about partnerships and in-person retail earlier than I did, because outside of freak (amazing) stories like Tuft & Needle, there are not many ways to really take off online only..
Graham Gardiner
@gbgardiner
@dunn @gbgardiner awesome....thanks for the thoughtful answer.
Graham Gardiner
@gbgardiner
In the early days of Bonobos.........What did you put your first 750K in funding towards? Afterwards did you have clear validation that bonobos was going to be a success?....or did that happen later in the companies history?
Eddie Wharton
@eawharton · Data Scientist, Dinner Lab
Hey Andy! How has the "Dear Dumb VC" post impacted your relationship with the VC / startup world?
