Episode Summary

In this episode of Forward Looking Business, Kevin and Nick welcome to the show co-founder of Worldwide Cyclery, Jeff Cayley to talk about his incredibly successful e-commerce business. They touch on topics such as how to master economies of scale, how to market a brand, and how to curate content that resonates. Finally, Jeff reveals the challenges he has faced and the goals he hopes to accomplish for his brands in the future.

What We Covered

• 00:46 – Kevin and Nick welcome to the show fellow business nerd, Jeff Cayley who speaks to his e-commerce bicycle retail business
• 07:36 – Jeff chronicles the decision to expand his business into outdoor apparel and the process of mastering economies of scale
• 14:14 – How fashion, trends and other brands impact the apparel market
• 18:47 – How Jeff leverages resonating content to enhance his apparel vertical
• 25:37 – Jeff speaks to how he plans on launching new products and the approach he takes to his company’s brand
• 29:00 – The decision to acquire the brand Kettle
• 36:37 – Jeff talks about the challenge of targeting and selling to women specifically
• 41:02 – Kevin and Nick thank Jeff for joining the show

Tweetable Quotes

“I don’t wanna sell other people’s shit anymore. I wanna sell my own shit.”

“That’s kinda how we succeeded in the bicycle-retail world. We looked at where is everyone doing these old school marketing tactics – poor branding, poor consumer engagement in general – and we went the other route. We engaged people differently. We made people laugh. We paid attention to a lot more details that a lot of other people didn’t pay attention to.”

“Our team…we like to have fun, we like to travel, we like to meet new people, we like to get outside of our comfort zone, we like to adventure and try new shit.”

“Our outlook on it is that, like we just talked about earlier, we’re not going to be this fashion-forward brand, we’re more so a lifestyle brand.”

“It would be dumb of us to think that we can understand women’s apparel and sell to them when we’re just a bunch of dudes. And I think that a lot of apparel brands fail at that because they also are run by a bunch of white dudes and trying to sell apparel to women and just missing the mark.”

“Listening to Yvon Chouinard, the Patagonia CEO, on I think it was How I Built This, it was like the stupidest shit ever. He just played it so cool like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m the CEO I just built the company and like the outdoors.’ No, no, no, there’s no fucking way on the planet you build a company that big without being an aggressive strategic capitalist. Like, spill the beans motherfucker. I was so pissed!”

Links Mentioned

AmpliFi Capital Corp Website

Kevin’s LinkedIn

Nick’s LinkedIn

Worldwide Cyclery Website

Ketl Website