Last week, we headed to downtown Detroit for Undemo Day, a startup and venture capital event hosted at Ford Field - home of the Detroit Lions. Not with any intent of raising money (with the upcoming election, probably best not to have extra cash to burn on social media), but more to see what's happening on the local startup scene. Like most things in life, there was both good and bad...not black and white but shades of grey.
At the outset, startups got one color badge, investors a different color. Every conversation started with a covert look at each others badge. Most startups seemed to be in the EV space or AI something - an AI apartment assistant, an AI caregiver, an AI wood sorter. As an apparel "startup" (more on that terminology later) in a world of AI and EV's, we didn't go in with many expectations. But unexpectedly, it really made us think about who we are and who we are not.
On Startup vs Entrepreneur vs Brand
For the past 25 years, the term "startup" has been glorified particularly in the United States. Silicon Valley and it's fail fast, break everything culture is hallowed. Companies like Google, Facebook, Apple and Tesla are exalted and their founders, hero worshipped. We're probably guilty of this too - prior to launching an apparel brand, we proudly worked for various real estate and data analytics "startups". But what we realized last week is that douentza is NOT a startup. And we don't want to be.
Startup: Startups sell a story or sexy vision to raise money from investors. The goal is rapid growth before you run out of money even if it comes with short-term losses. Oftentimes, it's the story that matters the most. Most companies at Undemo Day were selling a story - while some had viable products, most were in the prototype or early wire-frame process. It might even be better NOT to have a product yet. Because most products will fail or at least not have much traction with a short term time horizon. Investors chase the latest shiny objects and venture capitalists move in herds with intense fear of FOMO.
Entrepreneur: Entrepreneurs are decidedly less sexy than startups. It's a grind. The goal is to turn a profit as efficiently as possible. A story is great but results matter more. While startups operate under the ethos, fail fast and move on, entrepreneurs aren't as short-sighted. Fail but adapt and tweak because you believe in the mission. Entrepreneurs tend to put in more of their own capital instead of other peoples' money which might make them less likely to give up on their idea. It's a scary proposition - if it fails, you've lost your own money and you look like a stubborn idiot post-mortem...if it succeeds, you're lauded as a tenacious visionary. In the moment, it's impossible to know what the outcome will be. In hindsight, nothing we've done to date was really a startup even though we may have thought so at the time. Family founded, internally funded, profitability oriented, and steadfastly focused to adapt to failures but not give up.
Brand: This is the hardest one but the most mesmerizing. Nothing about a brand makes sense in the beginning. But when it clicks, it makes complete sense. No one really knows why certain brands take off and others don't. In fact, most luxury brands didn't start out as high-end; they toiled in relative obscurity until one day, the market decided they were worth something. In fact, some brands can be obscure in their home market but sought after abroad - it's a mysterious thing. You could have the exact same product (or even a worse one) but the consumer attaches this unexplainable value to the branded one. Advil vs generic. Lululemon vs Nike. Grey Goose vs Kirkland Signature. This intangible value is real to the consumer and it MATTERS. While startups sell wishful growth stories and entrepreneurs present a clear, logical path to profitability, a brand in the early stages is much more ambiguous. It's even scarier than entrepreneurship because it doesn't logically exist or make sense yet. Investors can't understand it and even those who've successfully created one have a hard time doing it again (it's why successful brands tend to acquire new ones instead of trying to redo it). It's a fickle, inexplicable mystery but when it works, adds to the human experience both collectively and individually.
Detroit has always been a city of Entrepreneurs that inexplicably created some of the greatest brands on Earth with the auto industry. Henry Ford left his first company (which ultimately ended up becoming Cadillac) and founded what became Ford Motors when he was 40 (60 in today's years) after failing slowly and not moving on.
At douentza, we aspire to become a brand - one that exudes that unexplainable value - but in reality, we're deep in the mucky grind of entrepreneurship right now. In today's consumer landscape, we believe there's a gap for a true mens' brand that speaks to the perfect imperfection, stubborn compromise and stoic chaos that exists within most men.
Nothing about it makes sense. But when it does, it just will.