Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. All right, you're gonna round out
Speaker 1: the week catching up with an old friend, Nate check
Speaker 1: It's co founder and CEO of Rome, based up in Stanford, Connecticut,
Speaker 1: here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio. Great to see you.
Speaker 1: It's great seeing you. It's been too long. Uh. What's
Speaker 1: funny speaking of Stanford is one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: you and I got in touch was I was up
Speaker 1: at Chelsea Pierre's Stamford edition with one of my sons.
Speaker 1: He was playing lacrosse. I was wandering around Chelsea Piers
Speaker 1: and you don't have to wander far before you see
Speaker 1: a roan. Looks like a pop up, but I mean
Speaker 1: it's there. It's a almost three year pop up at
Speaker 1: this point. We we took office space at Chelsea Pierre
Speaker 1: Stanford three years ago and we said, you know, what
Speaker 1: would be great would be to put a store here,
Speaker 1: and they were great, and it's just it's done so
Speaker 1: incredib doubly well. It's really the first store we ever opened,
Speaker 1: and we just keep it going as long as we
Speaker 1: possibly can. Well, internally, I think you're familiar with the
Speaker 1: Chelsea Pierce here in New York City. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is a massive complex. You've got so many people going through,
Speaker 1: and let's be honest, it's your demo. Yeah. Well parents,
Speaker 1: parents are going through all the time, and everybody's there
Speaker 1: to work out there athletically minded, so it's perfect for us. Sorry,
Speaker 1: how big is the company now? You've taken funding the
Speaker 1: last couple of years, your private equity backed. Uh, if
Speaker 1: we were just talking about the athletic apparel, it's definitely
Speaker 1: a hot market now. Um, we've had incredible growth really
Speaker 1: over the last eighteen months. In particular, the company's ground
Speaker 1: leaps and bounds and we've grown triple digits every single
Speaker 1: year since inception. Um, we added four retail stores. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we've We've been told that our Hudson Yards
Speaker 1: store is the second highest sales per square foot retailer there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure they do well. But in the apparel world,
Speaker 1: you know, we've done really really well there and so um,
Speaker 1: the growth has been phenomenal, but it's been driven primarily
Speaker 1: by our direct business, you know, through our website, round
Speaker 1: dot com and then through our retail stores. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about the direct to consumer business because I think
Speaker 1: if we think back to the key themes, certainly of
Speaker 1: twenty nine and I'm guessing going into it's that sort
Speaker 1: of like D two se blended with a bit of
Speaker 1: retail omni channel look at things. What have you learned
Speaker 1: about the consumer, especially through uh that direct to consumer channel? Well,
Speaker 1: there's I mean, there's so much to unpack there, but
Speaker 1: I think the main thing is that businesses that are
Speaker 1: having a ton of success right now, it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: the direct to consumer model, although it's a huge part
Speaker 1: of it. It's the digitally native part that I think
Speaker 1: is driving a lot of it. The primary transaction is
Speaker 1: moving online. You know, you're seeing it every single Black Friday,
Speaker 1: Cyber Monday. Retail matters for sure, and it's not completely irrelevant.
Speaker 1: But brands that have a great direct relationship with their customer,
Speaker 1: which is handled over digital channels, work really really well
Speaker 1: in this environment, and it can be complimented with a
Speaker 1: wholesale relationship and appearing in the right places. You know,
Speaker 1: we're the number one men's brand for Equinox. Now we're
Speaker 1: the number one men's brand with Peloton and um and
Speaker 1: those things. Have mattered for us, but you can't rely
Speaker 1: on that to be your soul business ever. Considering and
Speaker 1: opening a women's line. We we get that question a
Speaker 1: lot um. We you know, we're hyper focused on what
Speaker 1: we're doing right now, and we think that we can
Speaker 1: be kind of a unique voice in the market. There
Speaker 1: are a tremendous amount of women's brands out there. We
Speaker 1: if we go into it, we'd only go into it
Speaker 1: if we thought we could be the appsolute best in
Speaker 1: the category. You've been at this for about five years now.
Speaker 1: What's been the biggest surprise so far? I think, gosh,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the biggest surprise is just that
Speaker 1: I still love more than anything, I really love the
Speaker 1: product piece. And we are a product driven business, and
Speaker 1: you know, you hear about these bigger consumer companies that
Speaker 1: start to I know, we're a technology company, and yeah
Speaker 1: we do, we have a we have a head of
Speaker 1: data and analytics now, but we are a product company
Speaker 1: and we love making the best in class products. And
Speaker 1: so what have you learned about the product in terms
Speaker 1: of like what people want? What's really resonated? Because I know,
Speaker 1: like I wear some of like your commuter pant, you know,
Speaker 1: That's exactly what I was gonna talk about. So we started,
Speaker 1: you know, hyper focused on active what you can wear
Speaker 1: to the gym, what you can wear to run in,
Speaker 1: and the line is evolved. We launched a dress shirt
Speaker 1: this year on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
Speaker 1: We cannot keep the shirt and stock we so we
Speaker 1: we put it up first day of our Black Friday sale.
Speaker 1: We started breaking on sizes in the first day. The
Speaker 1: biggest complaint we had is you can't buy this dress
Speaker 1: shirt anywhere, and um, we didn't have enough stock to
Speaker 1: give to any of our wholesalers, so they were upset.
Speaker 1: So um, I think I think the biggest shock is
Speaker 1: that our consumer is trusting us to make a button
Speaker 1: down dress shirt, which five years ago I never would
Speaker 1: have thought we would be in that business out to
Speaker 1: replace the trader rest. We do make some really incredible
Speaker 1: vest yes, And so what have you learned about the
Speaker 1: consumer of late? Because I mean, what you're talking what's
Speaker 1: underneath a lot of what you're talking about, And I
Speaker 1: think what Shannale is alluding to as well, is this
Speaker 1: is this notion that fashion has changed. It's changed on
Speaker 1: Wall Street, it's changed in the professional landscape as well.
Speaker 1: Where where are we and where are we moving to?
Speaker 1: And that's it's a great question. So I mean, if
Speaker 1: you go back ten fifteen years in the guy's closet,
Speaker 1: the way that men think is it would all be segmented,
Speaker 1: bucketed by activity. This is what I can wear to
Speaker 1: the gym, This is what I can wear to work,
Speaker 1: This is what I can wear to travel, this is
Speaker 1: what I can wear at home to what I can
Speaker 1: wear to hang out with friends. So many of those
Speaker 1: categories exclude formal for a second. So many of those
Speaker 1: categories have collapsed into a single category. Now we call
Speaker 1: that category performance lifestyle. We were really one of the
Speaker 1: first in the industry to ever use that term. A
Speaker 1: lot of people use ath leisure, but I think that's
Speaker 1: a misnomer for what this is. This is an athletic
Speaker 1: clothing that's meant to you know that you can wear
Speaker 1: anywhere else. This is traditional lifestyle silhouettes made with unbelievable
Speaker 1: performance fabrics. So if you wanted to run a marathon
Speaker 1: in our commuter pants and people have you could if
Speaker 1: you wanted to. Are are the way we developed our
Speaker 1: dress shirt is our chief product officer took it in
Speaker 1: the mountains of Croatia and ran thirteen miles in it.
Speaker 1: So it's performance based fabrics and clothing that can live
Speaker 1: with you. But we're making them in some of the
Speaker 1: silhouettes that are kind of the most popular and that
Speaker 1: guys feel comfortable. So you're an entrepreneur, right, and but
Speaker 1: you started this company with a full time job. Still
Speaker 1: didn't Yeah, I did, that's true. At what point did
Speaker 1: you decide to break out on your own? I feel
Speaker 1: like everybody who's listening is sitting there in a full
Speaker 1: time chaveliche. Well, I also had two kids, which was
Speaker 1: the which was the bigger challenge, and I had had
Speaker 1: a startup that I had done before that did not
Speaker 1: go so well. So the biggest challenge was convincing my
Speaker 1: wife to you know, support me and get behind it again.
Speaker 1: But you know, I think part of the challenge of
Speaker 1: being an entrepreneur the pros or you know, you're you
Speaker 1: have all these opportunity the concert you can't turn that
Speaker 1: voice off inside your head. There's a better way, there's
Speaker 1: some there's a way of solving this problem. And for me,
Speaker 1: it didn't feel like a choice. I knew I had
Speaker 1: to get back to doing something entrepreneurial. Biggest goal for
Speaker 1: what are you looking ahead too? We are planning on
Speaker 1: doubling the business again, so we've got big aggressive goals.
Speaker 1: It gets harder as the business gets bigger to do that.
Speaker 1: But um, the team's really excited and lined around it.
Speaker 1: And is that new lines, new products or it's drivention?
Speaker 1: What is it? It's driven primarily by a couple of things. Actually,
Speaker 1: in some ways it will be a more focused and
Speaker 1: assortment around the things that we know are working really
Speaker 1: really well. Um, But it's also about leaning into retail
Speaker 1: a little bit more aggressively and then harnessing the power
Speaker 1: of data to better understand our consumer and find more
Speaker 1: consumers like them. All right, Nate Check, It's always good
Speaker 1: to catch up with you. Co founder CEO of Rome
Speaker 1: based up in Stanford, Connecticut. Check them out online at
Speaker 1: road dot com, or check them out if you're up
Speaker 1: at Chelsea Pierce like I was, or at Hudson Yards