While not all business ideas solve real problems, it doesn’t hurt to have a “problem” for your product to solve.
That’s what happened when HBA ’16s Brennan de Langley and Thomas Mirmotahari came up with a solution for “naked wrist syndrome” with their brand of beaded bracelets for men.
Wrist & Rye was conceptualized in early 2015 as de Langley and Mirmotahari were preparing for Ivey’s New Venture Project (NVP), a program that allows students to work on new business ideas.
Porting the concept into NVP allowed the team to put into practice everything they were learning at HBA. But convincing students and young adults to part with cash to solve “naked wrist syndrome” was still an unknown. After creating a minimum viable product and setting up a website for Wrist & Rye, interest started building.
“There was clearly something there,” said de Langley, a fact that is corroborated by the $30,000 in sales the company has racked up as a student project.
After pitching Wrist & Rye to a panel of judges at the NVP Presentation Day, the team was encouraged to pursue the venture, at least for the summer. Winning entry into Western University’s Propel Summer Incubator program, de Langley is heading up Wrist & Rye’s transition from student startup to real business with the help of Western grad Travis McKenna and Brent Winston, HBA’18.
Connecting the beads
The Propel Summer Incubator runs from May 4 to August 18 and de Langley is anxious to see what the team can achieve over the summer.
“We’ve accomplished more in the last month than we did in the entire year. You are actually locked into the space and surrounded by people who are like minded, entrepreneurial and really trying to grow their businesses. The mentorship opportunities and resources are huge,” said de Langley.
Some of their goals include building out the company’s online store, working on content, photography, moving to an online platform with more features, and adding a customization tool for customers to create their own bracelets. The site currently generates $2 for every unique visitor, a stat de Langley and the team would like to improve over the next few months.
As Wrist & Rye prepare for their big push later this summer, they are building up their operational capacity to that of an actual business and not just a student startup. de Langley also hopes that they can build upon their $30,000 of sales (most of which has been reinvested into inventory) to hit $100,000 by the next fiscal year.
Getting the story right
At the moment, de Langley is working on better understanding their customer-base and brand. In fact, Wrist & Rye is currently in the midst of repositioning their story, and moving their key target market from students to young professionals.
“We’re going after 18-30 years old; young, extroverted, heavily follow sports, well in-tuned to fashion or part of the music industry, where beaded bracelets are widely accepted,” said de Langley. The company plans on using key influencers with links to sports and music to add credibility to the brand and be part of its story. “The story is what sells this generic product. It doesn’t matter if it’s a beaded bracelet or anything else, the story has to be coherent,” said de Langley. An experiment with the Washington Capitals’ Right-Wing Tom Wilson, who had played hockey with de Langley and boasted a 55,000 strong Twitter following, generated strong sales for Wrist & Rye.
The company is also adding a number of new products to bring up the perceived value of the brand with the help of a reputable Toronto-based jeweler.
Take the opportunity to create something
Whilst enjoying the gratification of building something himself, de Langley is honest about his initial thought process with Wrist & Rye.
“The whole reason I started this was to leverage it for future job experience. Doing this is a testament to my entrepreneurial spirit,” said de Langley. He notes that people are quick to say that they are entrepreneurial only to be met with silence when asked for evidence.
Rather than regurgitating information onto a test, Wrist & Rye has provided de Langley and the team a unique university experience of applying all their lessons directly into a real business.
With exciting times ahead for Wrist & Rye, what de Langley calls ‘the best learning tool he has ever had,’ may yet turn out to be so much more.