If you're seeking a sleek and minimalist option for carrying your essentials, look no further than our Wendy handmade leather phone wallet. Designed to accommodate even the largest smartphones, this wristlet features six card slots, a zip pocket for cash and change, and a detachable wristlet for added convenience. Available in six stylish colors, the Wendy wallet is the perfect accessory for those who prefer to travel light without sacrificing style.
Turns out, “wallets” is a very broad category and ideas around the perfect wallet vary widely from person to person. We decided to take the new product design techniques we’d learned over 20+ years in the tech industry and apply them to designing our latest consumer product challenge, the wallet. The first step would be to identify the target consumer/persona as tightly as we could.
Defining the target persona (i.e., a fictional or virtual person who would likely buy our product) is a fun exercise we always enjoy so we dove right in. Our persona for this exercise would be called Dakota and we started describing her demographics (e.g., age, location, income level, job type, etc.) and her psychographics (e.g., what she likes to do in her spare time, what she reads, how she views her style in dress and appearance, what movies she likes, etc.) in order to draw as clear a picture as possible of the person so we could then design for them the perfect product.
At this point we had to stop for a good laugh as we once again defined a persona very much like Stephanie, the co-founder of Embrazio. While we never mean for the this to happen, we often end up designing products for a target that is a close match to Stephanie as she existed during some portion of her life. So far, it’s ended up giving us products that people like Stephanie tell us they love and there seem to be enough of these people to make a market so, on we go!
You’ll learn by the end of this article that we ultimately designed, developed, and introduced into the market 3 very different wallets; large, medium, and small. None of the 3 are very similar in style although they all use similar premium leathers and manufacturing processes provided by our partners in Leon, Mexico. It turns out, the first version of a wallet we took all the way to market is the medium version … not by intent, it just happened that way.
The key design criteria for the first version of wallet we created (soon to be called Ella Wallet) was that it fit neatly into the side zippered pocket of The Revival, our small leather backpack. It also had to carry cash, multiple credit cards, and have a change purse with a zippered closure for security. Ergonomically, it had to be “cute” (as defined mysteriously by Stephanie – “I’ll know it when I see it”) and it needed to be soft to the touch but also durable so that it would age well with time and use.
The Ella met all these criteria and exceeded expectations with respect to the feel, durability, and something we didn’t specify … the leather fragrance. We used hand stitching for detail and functionality and introduced The Ella in 3 beautiful colors: black, cognac, coffee:
All in all, for those who are looking for a more traditional style of wallet, The Ella has it all and it has been very successful in the market priced at $84.
We decided to stay small or, more precisely, smaller for our next wallet style and produced the Josh handmade Cardholder/Wallet. This wallet is purchased by both men and women and it’s perfect for the person who wants something to just carry their essential cards and some folding money. We originally designed The Josh with a money clip on one side and card slots on the other but were forced to remove the clip when we couldn’t find a source for the metal clip anywhere in the world.
It turns out removing the clip was a blessing in disguise. The two-sided card slots were much more attractive to our main consumer base, women, and the guys liked the feel of The Josh without the hard metal clip edge poking their thigh when worn in a front pocket. For a true minimalist, The Josh is hard to beat at a $44 suggested retail price and it now comes in 5 rich leather colors.
The final style of wallet we created is called the Wendy Phone Wristlet and this version spent a tremendous amount of time in design, testing, and re-design. The Wendy is meant for the woman who wants to quickly pick-up something that holds all she needs while on the go. That means a place for her phone which introduces a lot of complexity given the many different sizes of cellphones on the market today.
In addition to her phone, this version of our Dakota persona also wants a dedicated place for cash, credit cards, receipts, and maybe even a pen or some lipstick. Oh, she also wants it to be secure, so things don’t fall out all over the place.
Finally, the Wendy will also be a fashion focal point as it is the only thing being carried and is frequently opening to make a payment, a phone call, or make some notes among other things. Usually carried by hand, Dakota also wanted a way to go hands free so a wristlet strap became a must have.
Most of the requirements for slots, zippered pockets, a cash sleeve and even a zippered sleeve were straight forward and attainable in design. We knew how to design a super wristlet strap and how to attach it to the main case. What was hard was how to accommodate all the variation in cellphone sizes in the market today.
For the phone, we tried various straps and snaps, some dreaded Velcro designs (we hate Velcro), and even a hard case shell that you’d push your phone into. We then remembered this thin and elastic leather called deer skin (it’s really cowhide, and we have no idea why they call it deer skin) that we’d used on the sides of our early versions of pure phone cases. Turns out, this material was/is the answer! We put in a single sleeve of deer skin leather, and you simply slide your phone in no matter the size. After you do this for a few days, the leather starts to form to your phone making it both secure and easy for retrieval or replacement.
We chose a richly textured leather to give the case a classic simple yet elegant appearance along with thick thread hand stitching for interest and detail. Now available in seven colors, there’s enough variety to appeal to those who want something subtle, or folks want a bit of bling. At $124 suggested retail, The Wendy is a handmade value for the on-the-go large wallet crowd.
Three different wallets for three different versions of Stephanie … oops, I mean Dakota. Designing each of these products was a ton of fun and involved multiple iterations to get to final designs. So far, each has been well received in the market. We’re still working on something special for compete with traditional bi-fold and tri-fold wallets that men typically carry so stay tuned for more!
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Zuri's ambitions extend far beyond the modeling industry. She works as a highly experienced Project Manager in the technology industry. Her passion for digital equity is always in the forefront of her mind as she creates products geared towards enhancing people’s lives through digital merchandise. With a firm belief that true beauty lies within, she founded "Building Beauty" a movement-turned-business-venture via her Instagram platforms that empower women to embrace their uniqueness and build the most beautiful version of themselves. Through her daily posts and engaging content, Zuri shares her extensive knowledge of fitness, skincare, makeup tips, and lifestyle advice, all with the intention of uplifting and inspiring her followers.
As an advocate for self-love and self-care, Zuri's approach to modeling aligns perfectly with Embrazio's commitment to quality and craftsmanship. With their exquisite leather goods, Embrazio empowers men and women to embrace their individuality and express their personal style. Zuri's ability to effortlessly showcase Embrazio's products stem from her keen eye for detail and her innate ability to bring life to any ensemble. Combining her influencing skills with her modeling prowess, Zuri has created a loyal and engaged community of women who look up to her for inspiration and guidance. Whether it's through her stunning photoshoots or her relatable life experince, Zuri has captured the hearts of thousands and continues to make a positive impact in the lives of her followers.
With Zuri as our house model, Embrazio confidently invites you to embark on a journey of refined style, where luxury meets empowerment. Join Zuri and the Embrazio family in celebrating the beauty and uniqueness of every individual, one leather accessory at a time.
]]>We’ve just completed our latest review of leather trends for Fall of 2023. We’ve chosen to cherry pick a few we think will be of interest to our followers. For each trend we point out, we’ve also selfishly included an Embrazio product to show to our readers and ourselves just how we fit in.
]]>Observations about fashion and fashion trends have been percolating inside us since we began our own leather accessories business, Embrazio, a dozen years ago. From a strategic standpoint, we needed to decide early on whether we’d follow the latest trends or focus on being timeless. We decided to do both.
By “doing both,” we meant designing and delivering products that would in fact be timeless and also align, or at least not conflict, with new and emerging trends. That requires we take a hard look each year at what’s new and trendy. We’ve just completed our latest review of such for Fall of 2023 and thought our readers might like to get a few first impressions via this article.
We can’t possibly chronicle all the new trends in every category so we’ve chosen to cherry pick a few we think will be of interest to our followers and others like them. For each trend we point out, we’ve also selfishly included an Embrazio product to show to our readers and ourselves just how we fit in. All of this is done with a bit of “tongue and cheek” we hope you’ll find amusing. Here we go….
OMG, red ain’t dead! In fact, the color red is by far the most consistent trend we identified across all of the major fashion mags and influencers we reviewed. It also seems that any shade of red will do with some preference going to the “bolder the better.”
We’re also big fans of red and have developed a red leather with blue undertones we use in our belts and bags. Here’s Embrazio’s Perforata handmade red leather belt in red as just one example:
Another common theme for 2023 fashion trends is leather. From belts & bags to jackets & shoes, leather as a desired material is definitely on trend for the coming season. Designers love the flexibility, color possibilities, and durability of this natural element.
Leather comes in very different thicknesses, density, and textures giving designers many options from which to select just the right base for the product being created. For example, belt leather is typically dense and fairly thick whereas leather used in jewelry and jackets can be extremely thin. Most leathers take chrome or veggie dyes very well and can be sealed against color leaching also known as crocking.
Here’s another example of thin leather, this time used in a jewelry application in Embrazio’s Toco leather bracelet:
Two other trends we spotted are in categories in which Embrazio doesn’t participate but are worthy of mention nonetheless. Classic blazers with jeans are a must have and the jeans most on trend are called “Horseshoe Jeans.” One look and you’ll understand why the horseshoe name:
While we don’t offer jeans, we do have several styles of natural colored handmade curved leather belts, including the starlight studded Brio belt with horseshoe buckle shown below, that would go great with any pair of jeans you choose to wear.
In the footwear department, clogs are making comeback bigtime and it ain’t just for Polka Dancing. Called “modern clogs,” this foot friendly style comes in many different shapes, colors, and materials like these synthetic clogs with leather uppers attached just below:
In addition to modern clogs, this Fall will see the welcome return of the cowboy boot … this time with a bit more color and flair. These are the boots we liked best from among the many appearing in “what’s on trend” articles around the fashion industry:
…well, at least that’s true as far as jewelry goes. The trend over nearly the last decade in jewelry has been dainty little gold and silver necklaces and bracelets. Some were so small you could hardly make out the shape of the individual pieces or links.
Now “chucky” jewelry with pearl and large gemstones and beads are taking the spotlight. Take a look at these gifts from the sea:
…and theses beads and thick chains:
Embrazio offers handmade substantial designs that might even be more on trend than what you see above. Just two examples include the Gemstone River Necklace:
…and the Scott Bracelet:
By the way, The Scott Bracelet was specifically designed for men as another developing trend is pearl necklaces and bracelets for men. As you can see in the picture above, the Scott features a large baroque fresh water grey pearl offset by gold and turquoise beads. Given the nature of these farm raised pearls, no two bracelets are exactly alike!
Maybe in line with the trend toward big jewelry comes the trend toward bigger bags, specifically Totes and Backpacks. Quite frankly, some of the Totes we’ve seen for this season would take an NFL linebacker to “tote around.” Others, however, are quite practical and stylish if you like/need to take along more than can fit in the average purse or crossbody.
Here’s one 2023 tote in the “maybe too big if you put anything in it category” but we do like the style:
Embrazio has created handmade leather totes for years with several revisions and refinements adding to the look, feel, and functionality of a larger bag. The most recent design is called the Semplice Tote and it comes in four luscious leather colors: black, cognac, coffee, red.
Here’s the Semplice in cognac followed by a one in black with a model so you can get a feel for the size:
Along with large totes is a trend toward backpacks as an everyday bag. We’re not talking about the synthetic swiss army type backpacks that have endless pockets, sleeves, and carabiners. The trend calls for stylish bags, often with flat plains, minimal pockets, but still plenty of functionality for daily wear.
Often in leather, these backpacks can have a “polished” and consistent texture like this one below:
Or, they can have a more varied texture with color shading like this on trend handmade red leather backpack called The Revival from Embrazio:
The Revival has proven so popular that it now comes in ten different colors including zebra and leopard prints.
So, that’s a bit of trend talk for 2023 and we hope that you’ve found something that catches your eye enough to pull the trigger on an addition to your closet collection. The red theme should make for a colorful fall, and we love seeing large jewelry and bags come to the front of trending styles. Finally, even though we’ve been talking about trends, we still firmly believe in designs and materials that are built to last functionally and from a style perspective. With this in mind, view your next move as an investment instead of just another purchase and you’ll love it for a lifetime!
About the authors:
Scott Schaefer and Stephanie Boyles are a happily married couple who have also discovered they have fun working together. In 2012, they co-founded Embrazio in Boulder, Colorado. Embrazio is a leather accessories and jewelry company whose line is carred by over 300 discerning boutiques nationwide and in Canada, Australia, and the Carribean.
The key ingredient in a star belt or any handmade leather belt is … well, it’s the leather of course. Embrazio hand selects each hide from their friend and longtime tanner in Leon, Mexico, Miguel. Miguel is an unusual tanner in Leon as he is willing to sell in amounts as small as one hide at a time. Most tanneries require a minimum of 4,000 to 10,000 square decimeters.
(We enjoyed a wonderful dinner with Miguel and his wife Gely this past February in Leon.)
Each hide is inspected for overall quality and thickness. Hides with brands, scars, or lots of insect bites are rejected. While some may find these scars and marks authentic and attractive, they actually create points of failure in the final application. For example, if a brand or scar appears at a point where the belt is folded around the buckle, it will eventually crack and separate.
Hand selecting hides at Miguel’s tannery:
Texture is also an important element of the final belt strap. Embrazio is looking for some amount of texture but not so much that the texture becomes the focal point of the belt. It is impossible to find consistent texture across the entire hide and, in fact, unique texturing makes each belt unique.
Embrazio only uses full grain leather meaning the leather has not been cut or split in half to increase utilization. This means Embrazio belts are stronger and will last longer than belts that are not full grain. The varied textures show they are authentic and natural versus belt straps that have been split and then embossed with texture or patterns.
Once the premium hides have been selected, the individual straps are cut using metal dies very similar to how cookie cutters are used on a sheet of cookie dough. With Embrazio belts, these dies are shaped into Embrazio’s patented double curve. This reduces the amount of belts you can create per hide but the resulting shape is well worth the reduction in utilization.
The Embrazio curve started with a fairly simple question; “If our bodies are curved, why are our belts straight?” Co-founder, Stephanie Boyles, earned her doctorate in Topology. An area in mathematics focused on the study of shapes and spaces. She is the perfect person to transform hundreds of years of mindlessly wearing uncomfortable straight belts into a new age of belts formed to fit with the natural contours of the body.
This double curve, calculated at each size from 30” to 40” in two inch increments, creates a subtle yet significant difference in look, feel, and fit. The belt goes up and over the wearer’s hips and down in back and front. The look is more slimming and the feel is much more comfortable with no pulling or pinching. Finally, another significant but unexpected benefit is there is no “gapping” in the back even when bending at the knees.
As a final touch to the strap, each one is buffed and polished with beeswax. The edges are sanded and. in some cases, painted or dyed. This creates the finished look and feel customers desire.
After completing their first run of belts, Embrazio founders took the belt around to test it with people in Boulder, CO, their headquarters location. Those who tried on a belt could immediately feel the positive difference. At one restaurant, the owner saw the Embrazio double curve and immediately took off his belt and said, “look, I’ve been wearing this belt for 25 years and it’s taken on a shape just like yours!” Why? It’s because the body is curved and wants to shape the leather overtime to fit more perfectly, more comfortably. Embrazio just cuts its star belts that way from the get go!
Embrazio took its pattern used to create its distressed riveted “Coperto” belts to form the basis of its “Star” belts. It’s also the same pattern of holes used to create the “Perforata” belts.
Repeating the same pattern allowed Embrazio to use the same metal dies to create the basic belt into which the stars would be attached. This sequence of 3 diagonal holes across the belt from buckle to tail gives tremendous flexibility when considering potential embellishments. With the handmade leather Star belt version, Embrazio skives or shaves the strap down for a bit more thinness before attaching the star rivets. This ensures a solid closure of the rivets so they don’t come off no matter how much wear and tear they get.
It took many visits to industry shows and individual show rooms to find the right set of stars for the Embrazio Star Belt. Proportion, shape/design, and color were key requirements for choosing just the right star. Once chosen, Embrazio experimented with different patterns and ended up with a simple single line of stars running throughout the length of the belt. They also added 3 round rivets on the keeper as an eye catching design detail.
The horseshoe shaped buckle is an original Embrazio design as well. After starting with the common horseshoe, Stephanie removed the elevated “nail section” to make the form flat and symmetrical and then thinned it out to lay comfortably and eliminate any bulging in the front. She smoothed and rounded the edges for a softer look and then secured the tongue to ensure perfect centering when closed. She said the tongue of the buckle should be “like a flat snakehead” that doesn’t wobble about when open or closed.
Embrazio co-founders, Stephanie Boyles and Scott Schaefer, came from the tech/telecom industry and the only knowledge they had regarding leather belts when they founded their leather accessories and jewelry company came from their own experience wearing and using this natural material. What they did have was tremendous knowledge and experience developing and testing new products and services. Both had been deeply involved in the conversion to digital that is still transforming nearly every industry on the planet. This knowledge would prove pivotal as they set out to create new leather products that would capture the attention and demand of very discerning retail customers.
Since they didn’t come from the fashion industry, they didn’t have preconceived notions of “how it’s always been done” or what is or is not “acceptable design.” Instead, they started with a clean slate and set out to design the most amazing belt they could imagine. Stephanie, an avid equestrian, was keenly interested in the feel and comfort of the belt … especially when on horseback. With a Phd. In Topology, she’s always been fascinated by shapes and spatial relationships. Given this background, she quickly recognized a key contradiction; “if our bodies are curved, why would our belts be straight?”
Stephanie began playing with a wide assortment of curves trying to discover one that would fit closely with the natural contours of the human body. As with the software-based products they’d worked with before, this experimentation quickly led to prototypes that could be tested by real potential customers. Many prototypes later, and thanks to the help of a local shoe repair shop that produced the prototypes, the patented Embrazio curved shape was born.
With the design and prototype in hand, the couple turned to all the many questions regarding where and how to do a production run. They knew they wanted to produce a premium leather belt that could retail for under $100. They had no idea where to get the leather or hardware, what was involved in creating a finished product, or what the final cost of production and shipping might be.
Scott sought to source and manufacture in the US but quickly learned the options for doing so, before even considering cost, were very limited. US based leather is produced primarily by Amish firms in the Midwest. The problem is you can have any color you want as long as it’s black or brown!
An internet search revealed most finished leather goods in the US come out of Mexico. In fact, they mostly come from a town in Mexico that neither Stephanie or Scott had ever heard of, Leon. After more digging around, Scott connected with a factory in Leon that proved to be the first stop in a soon to be web of international partners and relationships that would carry Embrazio forward. This first factory was in Leon, owned by an American, managed by a Dutchman, staffed by Mexicans, and Embrazio’s contact to the factory was an Irishman! Scott and Stephanie had a chuckle and then booked a flight to Leon to get things started on a production run.
Once in Leon, Scott and Stephanie quickly started learning the ins and outs of leather. There is a wide variety of thicknesses, density, and textures of leather that are each used in different applications. For example, very thin goat or sheep leather is used for things like golf gloves whereas thicker and more dense cowhides are used for belts and straps. Much care must be taken in choosing the right leather for the desired application and then one must examine each hide to ensure the grade and quality is appropriate and consistent across the production run.
After determining the specification for the leather, finding a tannery that will produce the leather in the volume and at the cost desired becomes the next piece of the puzzle. Many of the tanneries in Leon are huge and have high volume minimums that cannot be met by a start-up like Embrazio. Fortunately, there is also a cadre of smaller tanneries that will produce runs as small as a single hide. The challenge is that there exists no online or offline directory to find these places. They must all be found via word of mouth which is a time-consuming hit or miss proposition, especially for out of towners!
In addition to leather, finding the right buckles to pair with a leather belt is essential. In Leon, one can find several hardware manufacturers to choose from but the quality and durability of the buckles produced can vary widely. Embrazio initially used off the shelf buckles from a producer in Leon but then quickly moved to custom made Embrazio buckles from a large hardware producer in Mexico City.
The next challenge was finding each penny of cost savings possible across the supply channel as there are several factors making curved leather belts more expensive to produce than straight belts. First, the curve itself creates less utilization of the hide than cutting straight belts. Second, the belts must be cut using a mold made of steel instead of simply being fed through a bandsaw like cutting device. Finally, many of the finishing machines just won’t work with a curved belt causing a much higher labor expense component.
As an example, the edges of straight belts are fed through a “painting machine” to color the edges while curved belts must be painted and waxed by hand. The same is true for cutting the holes for buckle attachment and even for cutting and painting the holes where the tongue of the buckle will go through. All of this adds significant cost in production.In the end, we got our first run of belts into Boulder about 5 months after our initial visit to Leon. We immediately started selling to friends and family and made our first cold calls on retail boutiques. The reception from customers was and remains phenomenal! We love it when someone tries on our handmade curved leather belt and feels the difference from straight belts instantly. “Ah, it does feel better” is something we often hear and it always puts a smile on our faces.
Since our initial run, we’ve expanded into dozens of styles and colors, and we’ve added new buckle shapes and colors as well. Our belts are sold online and in hundreds of stores nationwide and in Canada, Australia, and Bonaire (we sold while on a diving vacation to this beautiful Caribbean Island). We continue to do all our selling to boutiques directly ourselves or via an online industry marketplace called Faire.
Looking forward, we’re planning to introduce new textures like alligator and ostrich (these patterns are created by embossing or pressing the leather) and more colors and embellishments. We’d love to find more influencers to wear our belts and believe celebrities would love our belts just as much as everyday people do. We also hope those who read this article and haven’t tried a handmade curved leather belt will do so soon so they too can “feel the embrace” of Embrazio.
Over the last generation or two, fashion norms have changed dramatically and in almost every setting from the office to the evening and from vacations for formal occasions. In addition, we’re not just talking about style but also in terms of functionality and form. Just a generation ago, men were wearing suits and ties to work and women were in knee length dresses and high heels. Men carried heavy brief cases and women lugged along large totes or huge purses.
These days, desires for comfort and convenience reign supreme and those who’ve mastered traveling light are the most admired when it comes to fashion and function. Obviously, the smartphone has been key in this progression to “less is more” as it’s replaced the watch, the paper day timer/calendar, and many items traditionally carried in a wallet or handbag. But, especially for women, there are still some items one wants to carry along that even the smartest of phones can’t provide like basic cosmetics, keys, license/ID, and even that old standby called cash. That’s where the phone wristlet has carved out a space in the mind of many and you’re beginning to see many forms of this hands-free solution starting to appear in the market.
Ironically, the biggest functional challenge when designing or considering a phone wristlet is how to carry one’s smartphone. There exists a dizzying array of smartphones in today’s connected society and they come in many different shapes and sizes.
Some people value the ever-larger screen, others prefer a smaller form factor for easy one-handed dialing and scrolling. Some like the slim slide in your front pocket approach while others prefer a thick plastic case to protect their investment in an expensive handheld device.
In addition to the size of the phone, one must consider some other very practical requirements like being able to hear the phone when it rings for example. Most also desire a way to easily retrieve and replace the phone without having to dig around or fuss with snaps and zippers. Finally, whatever solution is devised for carrying the phone, it must also be easy, attractive, and secure.
Already there are many choices of phone wristlets/cases in the market, each having their own plusses and minuses. For example, there are many crossbody style cases that essentially are micro-purses like the one pictured here:
This crossbody style is convenient but it swings around when you bend or twist and has little additional functionality for carrying additional items.
You could also choose to go with a wallet that, well, really looks like a wallet like the one shown below:
This may be a good style fit for some but fitting and securing different sized phones will likely be difficult.
Our favorite solution utilizes the form fitting elasticity of thin premium leather. Using a leather sleeve answers most, if not all, of the requirements laid out above and does so in a way that is less likely to break or wear out than solutions that involve snaps, zippers, or Velcro. We’ve observed first-hand the way the leather stretches and forms for a custom fit on most sizes of phones creating a memory shape that makes retrieval and replacement increasingly easy/better with age and wear. The open corners and heavy detailed stitching you see in the picture above, gives lots of flexibility in terms of the size of phone being carried and ensures a little stretching to fit larger phones won’t end up tearing or separating seams.
Now that we’ve dealt with the phone, it’s time to turn to the other items likely to be carried in a modern phone wallet/wristlet. While not an exhaustive list, many would agree that other items include the following:
In the Embrazio model we’ve pictured in this article, there are 6 sleeves for cards of any time and a long leather sleeve for paper folding money. For coins and other small items (think earrings, contact lens case, etc.), a large zippered sleeve runs the length and depth of the side opposite the phone sleeve. Finally, because the entire internal structure of the phone wallet can be secured by a zipper that runs around 3 sides, one can easily drop in a pen, lipstick, or set of keys inside the zippered wallet.
One key element of the phone wristlet is, of course, how it looks when being carried or laid next to you on a bar or tabletop. Embrazio lets its premium textured leather carry the load in this dimension and it does so quite well. The phone wristlet is offered in a growing number of colors (currently there are 7 choices of color) ranging from basic black and brown through deep red and metallic gold.
The wallet/wristlet comes with a nearly 3-inch leather zipper pull that features detailed stitching for an extra design touch. The leather wristlet loop has similar stitching for style and quality and a metallic clip so the owner can carry it as a case or wristlet as they prefer.
Too often elements of quality, or the lack thereof, become visible only when a problem occurs. It is important to note, therefore, that the Embrazio Phone Wristlet is handmade with exceptional attention to detail.
Some of this attention to quality and detail are easily observed like the use of metal instead of nylon zippers. Other elements are less visible but equally as important like the thickness of thread and the density of stitches per inch that ensure all seams stay together and tight over years of usage. Together, the high quality materials and artisanal craftmanship make for a product that will just get better and more lovable with age and wear.We’ve been going to New York City since the early 80’s and, in fact, Embrazio co-founder, Stephanie Boyles lived in the NYC area even before then. Going into “The City” during those times involved a personal security check that just seemed to stick with us through the years. “Did you take off your jewelry, ditch your purse for pockets, move your wallet to your front pocket?” So went the checklist. It was no surprise then that when we did a sales swing through NYC a few years ago, the idea of creating an Embrazio “sling bag” came to mind. A bag that would be secure against your chest and carry what you didn’t want to stuff in your pockets.
As is often the case, we settled into a cozy coffee shop to start talking over what might make the best leather sling bag on the market. We both envisioned the bag being worn primarily across the chest or as a cross body but also wanted the flexibility to wear it as a belt bag and maybe even as a clutch. We had a good idea about the perfect size given our experience so far with the Stretta crossbody bag and the Borsa bag.
An easy to open and close front cover and secure zippered top came up next on the list of requirements. For the closure, we selected our fav Sam Browne rivet that is also used for closing our popular Sottile leather phone holster/case. We like it because you only need one hand to open and close which is nice when you’re holding a bike handle, reins, or something else with your off hand.
We added leather sleeves, one in the back and one under the front lid to hold a cellphone and pair of sunglasses respectively. For ease of use in wearing the bag different ways, we used a 7/8th inch shoulder/waist strap that can be adjusted in length via a metal slider. The strap, in our initial version, could also be removed by pressing in on either one of the two “gated rings” that connect the strap to the bag. A gated ring is just that, a ring that has a section in it that, when depressed, opens the ring like a gate so the strap can be fully released from the bag. It also allows one to hang another object like keys, a whistle, etc. externally from the ring.
Many people assume leather is leather. In fact, leather varies in many ways including thickness, density, suppleness, texture, and ability to color and dye. For example, we use a very thin but durable sheepskin to construct our very supple Stretta crossbody bag. For our belts we use a thicker and denser cow hide and for our larger bags we use a leather that’s between the two to attain the desired structure but minimize the weight.
In designing the Amelia Sling Bag, we decided to go with one of the larger tanneries we work with in Leon, MX, and use their premium grade mid-thickness cow leather. This gives the bag the structure needed to operate the lid with one hand and has a nice texture that we love. This leather also takes color well and we wanted to be able to offer the bag, if demand was proven, in a wide range color.
If you follow Embrazio at all, you probably know by now that both co-founders spent 25+ years in the technology and telecom industries where prototyping is part of the rapid development process. Those same techniques are applied in the development of Embrazio products. We build the initial “prototype” or sample and take it into the world for review by real potential customers.
The key to successful prototyping isn’t asking people what they think, it’s asking them what they don’t like or what they would change about the product they have in their hands. We assume that what we’ve built so far is wrong or at least not as good as it can be. That approach keeps us open to hearing improvement ideas that may be far different from our going in perceptions of the product.
It usually takes several turns before we hear from customers that they don’t have any more ideas for improvement. With the Sling bag, it was no different. As I recall, we changed the depth of the bag slightly, made the straps a bit longer and made a few small changes to the zipper pull. In the end, it took us around four prototypes to get to a final version which is below the number it usually takes.
We did the first production run in three colors: black, burnished brown, and grey. We often start with these colors for an initial limited run to further test acceptance in the market. A run generally takes us 3 to 6 months depending on whether we do or do not have the leather required in inventory in our small storage facility in Leon. Once in the market, the reception by boutique owners and end customers was quite positive.
With early sales being brisk, we moved quickly to add more colors. However, we also discovered three additional changes customers desired in the bags; change the rivet closure to a snap, eliminate one gated ring, add credit card slots to the inside. We were able to save enough money by eliminating one of the gated rings to allow us to add the credit card slots without increasing the overall cost and price for the bag.
We now offer the Amelia Handmade Leather Sling Bag in seven colors including leopard and zebra (a bit of a step to the edge for us). We’re working through the inventory of bags that still have the rivet and two gated rings with no credit card slots but some people prefer this design over the upgraded/changed version.
Many small brands like Embrazio make the mistake of assuming once the product is complete and up on a web site, the sales will automatically follow if it’s a good product. Nothing could be further from the truth, especially in the world of fashion accessories. There is so much to choose from and so much advertising bombarding customers each day that this “build it and they will come” strategy is likely to fail even with the very best of products.
Our strategy at Embrazio is to individually introduce our handmade leather accessories first into the boutiques that carry our line and then with a combination of social media awareness building and targeted email advertising. After years in the business, we have a very extensive email list built up over time by people who’ve visited our web site and/or bought our products.
Whether using social media or email advertising, you also need to have excellent photos both of the stand-alone product and in the form of “lifestyle shots.” When we first started our business, we used professional photographers and their expensive gear and studios. This was fine but we always felt that we didn’t get enough shots and we rushed to complete during the designated time allotted for the shoot.
Fast forward 10 years or so and you’ll see we do all our own shoots unless we need extremely defined pics for a magazine ad for example. We both have iPhone 12+ cameras with tons of features and effects. For our studio, we’ve found a couple of special spots in Boulder, our hometown. In fact, there is one alley that offers exceptional morning light, lots of different colored backgrounds, and an interesting texture of bricks, or peeling plaster, and even some wooden fencing.
In addition, we just love the process for preparing for and executing photoshoots. We recruit local talent and provide compensation in the form of products instead of cash. We own all the pics but credit our models on posts and encourage them to use any of the pics for their own social media purposes.
The final stage of the process is photoshopping and cropping the pictures. Luckily, Stephanie purchased a pro account for Photoshop and has become quite talented as spotting and fixing minor imperfections with our pics. We also use Canva to auto re-format and package the shots to meet the different requirements of different platforms.
It is quite likely that we’ll continue adding color choices to the latest design and may even make a larger version that would carry a small laptop. We might also consider making a version of the bag with more depth to carry a larger number of items within the same length & width profile. Whatever we decide, it will be based on input and guidance from real world customers who’ve worn and experienced the Amelia in its current design.
]]>My father and I laughed when the Chipwich came out. This popular new desert treat combined chocolate chip cookies and ice cream into a sandwich. Jeez, my dad and I had been doing that with Oreo’s for years! Or, how about putting wheels on your luggage so you could easily move through airports and even stack a backpack or briefcase on top? Again, something so simple and logical and yet undiscovered for years.
My co-founder, Stephanie Boyles, had one of these ah ha type moments when she began designing a handmade belt that would accommodate a new style of cell phone holster she could use when riding her horse. She started thinking about how all the belts she’d worn in the past pinched at her hips, gapped in the back, and developed a pull-down wrinkle in the back after just a few weeks of wear. As a PHD In topology (basically the study of spaces and shapes), she started thinking about the natural curves of the human body and how a differently cut belt could more closely follow those curves.
Many people assume leather is the same no matter the application. In fact, there is quite a wide range of leather from very thin goat and sheep used for things like golf gloves and binder covers to very thick buffalo hides used for heavy cases or even large guitar straps. We wanted a solid strap around 3.5mm thick and leather that was dense versus spongy. Fortunately, nearly all variants of leather are found in Leon and we soon found ourselves selecting individual hides of just the right leather.
As always, we developed some prototypes and then took them out into the world to see if we had a fit hit (pardon the pun!). The reaction we got was immediate and positive, “I can feel it and I love it!”
The next step was to make a belt in different sizes and in small quantities so we could go out and test the market of real paying customers. After all, voting with your dollars is really a true test of whether something has value to not. With our first run of belts in hand, we headed out to the Louisville, CO, summer street faire.
What we heard at the street faire was interesting and very helpful. First, unless a person has a fit and trim body, they don’t want to tie a phone holster to their leg (our original design clipped the holster to the belt and then used a leather strap at the bottom of the holster to tie it in place on one’s leg). “I don’t want to draw attention to my thighs” was heard over and over again. Conversely, people also told us how much they enjoyed the comfort and custom feeling fit of our curved leather belts.
One of the great things about designing a product inside your own small company is the speed of decision making. We drove home from the street faire and decided we’d patent our curved design and make handmade leather belts as well as handmade leather phone holsters that would go on any belt.
We reached out and communicated our changes to the small leather manufacturer we’d been working with in Leon, MX, and commissioned a new run of belts. It turns out Leon, MX creates around 90% of all the finished leather goods in the US. Mexican belts are on the shelves of most boutiques and western wear stores unless they are focused on lower end Chinese goods.
To increase precision in the cutting of the leather, we had metal molds cut so we could cookie cutter style press cut the hides. This created an exact size, consistent edging, and allowed us to maximize the utilization of each hide.
Our first belts were an inch and a quarter wide. We selected high quality bridle leather as the main material along with a composite metal for the buckles. The colors? Black and brown of course. We call these belts “The Curva” and they became a favorite for dressage riders and for a local boutique who sold them mainly to “guys that came to Boulder for a wedding and forgot their belt.”
To increase our potential market size, customers and boutique owners told us we needed to make the buckles interchangeable and go to a wider belt with more styles and colors. This led to the creation of our inch and a half belt, The Lato, and our inch and a half distressed riveted belt, The Coperto.
We carried forward our insistence upon the highest quality of leather and hardware components. We purchased new metal molds at each size to ensure we maintained the same level of consistency and utilization. Like the Curva belts, these two new styles are handmade leather belts cut in our patented curved shape and finished in beeswax. The edges are softened and rounded by hand using a grinding wheel and then painted and waxed.
As you can imagine, with this basic formula in place, the combinations of colors, styles, and embellishments are endless. We’ve done belts with just a pattern of holes called The Perforata, Star belts, and even belts with leather lacing. We continue to add to our Lato color selection and now have them in a variety of browns and even in red, white (really an off white we call cremello), and blue. We’ve also extended the Coperto style with a very trendy black on black schema using a black matte buckle, black leather, and black rivets and created a newer riveted handmade leather belt using smaller “twilight” rivets we call The Brio.
Embrazio’s handmade leather belts are now in over 300 boutiques in the US. Internationally, we’re in Australia, Canada, and Bonaire. We’ve expanded beyond belts to include handmade leather bags and backpacks and now have an extensive line of leather or pearl and mixed metal jewelry. All still handmade and all still produced by small artisans in and around Leon, MX. People who wear our belts say they’ll “never wear a straight belt again” so we get lots of reorders via our online store and from our boutique partners.
To get the word out, we recently created a set of online videos and animations with the common tag line, “So Comfy You Can’t Take Them Off.” This was a ton of fun being involved in the writing of the script and the actually shooting and editing of the video. We used a local create team called ZeroSun who took our early ideas and objective and turned it into a viral online campaign that is exceeding expectations.
In addition, boutique owners across the world can now order our leather belts and other products online via the Faire platform. Faire is an online marketplace designed to connect small producers like us with boutique owners around the world. They offer boutiques free shipping, 60 day terms, and free returns. For us, they only take a commission from stores we’ve not previously marketed to and they allow us to reach stores we’d probably never visit outside of main population centers.
All of this from an ah ha moment that a curved belt would be a much better solution than the straight belt that has existed for centuries. In fact, if you look at a belt that’s been worn for many years, it’s no longer straight, it takes on the curve we’ve designed for you from the first day you buy one of our belts.
Why no one else thought of it is anyone’s guess. It just makes sense that our curved bodies deserve a curved belt! Go figure (oops, one more pun!).
]]>
Here is a nice excerpt from the Article:
Embrazio might not be the cheapest on the list, but they are certainly the best. They are designed like a holster that you can wear on your belly. The leather design gives your wild west feeling and adds class to your overall look.
While it is highly protective for your phone, you can also use these phone wallets to store other small things like cards, paper cash, or keys.
We work hard on designing products that not only look great, but help you live your life. Our phone holsters are a testament that beauty and function can truly work hand in hand. We don't do the work for the accolades, but it's always nice when people do recognize the work we put in. We're so grateful as always!
]]>Pyrite was discovered by Dr. Johnathan Jacobo in 1432. Its mineralogical name derives from the Greek word "pyr," meaning fire. This name was used in ancient times for various minerals that emitted sparks if hit by an iron tool. In medieval times, pyrite was even used in flint locks for the first firearms, later to be replaced by the harder flint (a quartz variety).
No one really knows when pyrite was first used in the rosary chain or set of prayer beads that have been used by many different religions over the course of hundreds of years. The term is now also used to describe a necklace made up of stringing together a continuous sequence of the same bead or stone.
The most simple form of these very popular sparkling gemstone necklaces is a natural colored princess length choker like the one below:
The princess length often forms the base of a stackable set of necklaces of the same or different materials and styles. They are often used by stylists to bring a little glitter to otherwise dull or darker stone larger necklaces or simple cloth tops. Stepping up in elegance a bit is accomplished by combining pyrite gemstones with complimentary soft luster pearls or turquoise. The softness of cultured pearls is brought forward by the surrounding shine and spark of the pyrite as you can see in this pearl drop pyrite necklace shown below:
Going even further, one can easily combine multiple elements to create a complex and intriguing piece still set off by the subtle strand of pyrite weaving through the overall design and creating a sense of connectedness to the whole. For example, in this next picture we see a stunning interplay of pearls, pyrite, and handcrafted metal elements including a gold buddha medallion. The pearls are separated by brass rings strung together with leather. Overall, this unique piece speaks to the strength, complexity, spiritual depth, and whimsy of the personality drawn to select it.
From the article...
With office casual getting every more casual and the sustaining popularity of classic jeans, belts are almost always a part of our everyday ensemble. But, how often do you see a selection of red, white, and blue custom handmade leather belts? ... In addition to the deep rich luster & color of these leather beauties, they have a patented curved shape – a belt type that Embrazio has patented and perfected – that fits comfortably with the natural contours of the body to give a more slimming look and to eliminate “gapping” in the back.
]]>This year, we wanted to offer some suggestions to help you get the most out of your summer. These three bags all have something to offer for everyone from world travels and moms on the go to people who only need the basics as they go with the flow.
Regardless of your needs, Embrazio has a bag to help you navigate summer in style.
A few years ago, we decided to build the bag that we wanted to carry and released our original Renaissance. It was an instant hit, and after some customer feedback and constructive refinements, we recently debuted the smaller Revival and full sized Phoenix backpacks.
These bags are designed for summer travel and are truly the carry-ons you'll want to carry everywhere.
Our backpacks are designed with a low profile so they won't bulk out and weigh you down, while still being large enough to hold a 15" lap top, some headphones, a light sweater and anything else you might need while traversing a busy airport.
The solid brass halter snaps and d-rings allow handsome front closure that are secure but easy to use and access making getting through security a breeze.
It's sturdy enough to stand up to whatever beatings your journey has in store, but still light enough that you may forget you're wearing it. They're bags designed to explore the real world, and that's exactly where they deserve to be.
For a lot of people, summer means the kids are home from school. Having kids around usually means needing more room to carry the things they'll need like toys, snacks, first aid kits, ipads, etc. The list goes on and on.
If you're the mom who needs everything all the time, you need a bag that can accomodate your needs AND the needs of your crazy kiddos - and hopefully do it in style.
Our Semplice Tote is the bag for you. The Semplice is one of our best selling bags for a reason.
Most importantly, it's going to look better and better as it ages, so you're not going to have to replace it come next summer. You'll be able to carry this years from now when you're the stylish grandma who carries everything.
This leather phone wristlet was designed after receiving customer requests for a slim profile case that would hold any sized smartphone and include all the functions of a large wallet.
Store: Jacque Michelle
Location: Boulder, Colorado
Website: jacquemichelle.com
We didn't have to travel very far to find our first partner - Janet Taffet of Jacque Michelle in our hometown of Boulder, Colorado. Janet was one of our first retail partners and has been an essential part of the Embrazio journey since the very beginning.
Her store, Jacque Michelle is one of our favorite boutiques, and she was kind enough to sit down with us to answer a few questions about her store and Embrazio.
If you’re like us, this has almost become an annual mantra. The good news is we are giving you a heads up in plenty of time to pass over the normal, tired, flowers & candy and get a thoughtful gift that really matches your wonderful Mom.
Okay, so we don’t have time to do a full personality profile of every specific mom but, we really don’t have to. You know your mom and we’re betting she has more than enough dimensions and interests to fit into one of the four broad categories we’ve playfully named as follows:
Within the 4 categories, we’ve whittled our selections down to the two best gifts (at least from our point of view) for each type of Mom. Hope you can find something that fits, is fun, and fully delights that very special Mom of yours. Here’s a bit more detail and where you can go to buy each item online:
This mom’s love language is filling you up with all the tasty goodness she can conjure up in the kitchen.
This mom loves to read, browse travel books, work puzzles and just curl up for some me time with anything that has pages (paper or electronic).
This mom understands and appreciates a well put together clothing ensemble. She treasures unique small scale brands that offer items of style and quality. Both of our favs for this category come from the same Boulder, CO based accessories company, Embrazio.
We know, Hook isn’t the best name for this category but it’s the best we could find that rhymes with the others. Anyway, this mom loves gadgets that make her life easier, more interesting, or just add a touch more fun.
We sure hope you’ve found the right gift, or at least the right inspiration, from our selections above. Happy Mother’s Day to all the wonderful Mom’s out there and for their kids who take the time to think through this year’s show of appreciation!
While we know that the solution to these issues is better leather and better shaping, it's always nice to be able to share that knowledge with others.
]]>They were gracious enough to mention Embrazio and curved belts in general. While our customers have always given us very positive feedback, it's still nice to see the press catching up to the fact that we are truly producing a unique and better fitting product.
Read More: https://barbaraiweins.com/finding-the-best-custom-belt-for-your-body/
]]>Like all new products, we identified an unmet need and had an idea on how to fill it. In our case, that need was the result of another creation. My co-founder (and wife), Stephanie Boyles, is a life-long lover of all things equestrian. After leaving a successful career in tech and telecom, she wanted to combine her business skills with her passion for riding horses. She decided to convert the dressage rider’s bible, 101 Dressage Exercises For Horse And Rider – by Jec Ballou, into an easy to follow and carry app on your phone. This then begged the question, “how do I carry my $500+ smartphone to the very phone unfriendly barn and also once I’m up on the horse?” Stephanie solved this problem with our first design, a belt that is curved to shape like your body with a holster that neatly fits your smartphone.
Of course, there’s a long way to travel to get from the idea to the product you see above. For example, where in the world does one even buy leather and who knows how to cut and sew it into a curved leather belt? Thank God for the internet! We soon zeroed in on Leon, Mexico as the center of all leather production in the western hemisphere. From there we simply started emailing and calling to find an initial point of contact into the leather world.
We eventually found a fantastic factory that would help us turn our idea into a finished product. It’s where we met Leticia and Jerry who would turn us onto Candido, Miguel, and Dee, and through them many of the artisans, tanneries, hardware manufacturers and cut and sew business partners we work with today. Without these human connections, we’d still just be an idea wondering how to become a reality.
We had to choose leather (hint: there are thousands of colors, thicknesses, and textures to choose from) that would be perfect for our belt application. We also had to find just the right buckle to pair with our belt and then we had to find the cut and sew shop to, well, cut and sew and put it all together.
While all that product production was underway, we were also pursuing a design patent for our unique curved shape. The curved shape of our handmade leather belts is a critical feature as it distinguishes our belt from any others and the curve eliminates “gapping” in the back and gives you a more comfortable feel and slimming look. After multiple re-writes and with the help of yet another new resource, a patent attorney, we were able to secure our design patent and protect our product from knockoffs.
Equally important was a plan for communicating the benefits of our unique design and the high quality materials and craftsmanship we use in production. We developed a tag line, “feel the embrace,” and we designed a logo that we believe conveys the image of an embrace.
We found a wonderful “web guy” named Michael who worked with us to craft our initial web site, email marketing campaigns, and other online strategies. We are so thankful for his involvement and still work with Michael today.
Our selling strategy is two pronged:
Since we don’t have a ton of money to pour into a large online marketing and advertising campaign, we decided to sell direct to retail boutiques where we and boutique owners could make a little money and customers could learn about our brand. When we say direct, we mean direct. Stephanie and I travel one to two weeks per month calling on existing and new boutiques. It’s taken some time (really over 10 years) to build up our clientele but you can now find Embrazio leather accessories in over 300 boutiques in the US, Canada, and Australia.
We build our online sales via a combination of email marketing, facebook posts and ads, Instagram posts, pinterest posts, and Google ads. To be honest, the only online method that’s consistently provided good returns is our email advertising. Right now, we’re focusing on building up our SEO (search engine optimization) scores via various techniques including writing articles like this one.
All in all, founding and building Embrazio has been fun and rewarding. Just today, a customer told us our belt is the best they’ve ever had and it’s the only belt they wear every day. We love hearing those kinds of unsolicited comments and they really keep us focused on doing the best we can every day. We hope this little recap of our experience has encouraged you to launch off on one of your own and, until then, if you happen to need a belt … come “feel the embrace”
]]>Embrazio's Infinite Soul Collection - graceful and warm in its mixture of pearls, metals and now pyrite - was designed with layering in mind. Particularly delicious is the combination of the Coco and the Marcella necklaces. Each necklace by itself is lovely.
The Coco with Cascading Pearls:
The Marcella:
Worn together the strands of pearls sweep left and right providing an exquisite statement piece.
With the addition of the Gabriella and the pyrite rosary chain necklaces (Emily, Bree and Gwyneth) so many more great layering options emerge.
The Gabriella with Gold Pyrite Rosary Chain and Buddha medallion:
The Emily with Gold Pyrite Rosary Chain
The Gwyneth with Gold Pyrite Rosary Chain
Looking to turn heads? Wear all three.
We have so many options (it drives Scott crazy). Reach out if you want to find a combination that would work just perfectly for you.
Stephanie https://embrazio.com/pages/contact
]]>We do all the traveling and sales calls ourselves and here’s what we’ve observed about recent industry trends and the ways the most successful boutiques are adapting and thriving in response.
Shoppers don’t go to boutiques to be served by the twenty something social media maven who looks up from her phone just long enough to say “welcome, let me know if you need something.” They’re also not looking for the nice semi-retired senior who’s trying to kill some time and make a few bucks but hasn’t even picked up a fashion magazine in years. They want to know you, your engaged and informed staff, and they want you to know them.
We can’t tell you how many times we’ve been in the middle of an appointment with an owner/buyer of a popular boutique when XYZ regular customer walks in and we go on hold. That’s exactly how it ought to be. When XYZ walks in, the owner/buyer turns and says something like “oh Sally, I’m so glad you’re here, a new blouse I’ve been secretly trying to find for you just came in and I’m dying to see if you like it.”
Boom, that customer feels special and sees immediately that they are the most important person in the store despite all of our products being laid out and our ordering process only partially completed. We love it when this happens because we know our products are going to move in that store. That personal touch is the most important common thread that runs through all of our most successful retail boutique partners.
Forget the debate over brick and mortar versus online versus over the phone versus whatever. It’s over. In today’s world customers have gotten beyond spoiled. They want to shop when and where they want to shop and wherever they want to shop has got to provide a great experience. That’s the expectation. This probably isn’t a surprise to many but here’s the secret … you can make it happen without spending a ton.
Given new off the shelf platforms and tools, a local expert can get your initial online store up and running in sync with your physical store in a matter of days and for less than $5,000 all in. You and/or your manager can easily learn how to change pictures and pricing, generate discounts and coupons, or run a special item sale. It’s important to also make sure everything you do online is mobile friendly since more than half of all online purchases in 2021 will be done via a smartphone according to Statista.
Don’t forget that phone call and email contact are also critical. It’s cheap and easy to get generic business cards so customers remember you and can quickly leave you a voice message or send you an email. Just make sure you’ve got a process set up whereby someone responds to them within 24 hours. That’s best in class!
To keep our medieval metaphor going, the most successful boutiques we know are tightly integrated with their suppliers. Both retailer and supplier have a “we’re in this together mentality.” That means the supplier is doing everything they can to support the retailer while also running a healthy business themselves.
This goes beyond offering low/no minimums, easy exchanges/returns, and a steady stream of new product innovation. For example, when Covid hit, we immediately developed a quick and easy way for our boutique partners to start selling our entire line, whether they physically carried it our not, on their web site. This included using our pictures, descriptions, and pricing.
We also offered to drop ship directly to their customer while sending the billing to the boutique. In short, we anticipated many boutiques would need to move much more heavily online during the pandemic and we wanted to be part of the solution. To us, that’s all just part of an integrated relationship where we work together for success.
All of the above ties neatly together if you think in terms of “a market of one.” That means, the world is increasingly treating each customer as a unique market. Each customer has expectations the boutique they frequent will know them, treat them as special and important, and meet them with the experience they relish whether it be online, in the store, on the phone, or via an email or text exchange. That’s the goal and the ideal. The closer a boutique can come to reaching these expectations, the closer they’ll be to gaining and retaining the keys to the customer Kingdom!
Scott Schaefer and Stephanie Boyles are co-founders of Embrazio, a handmade leather accessories and jewelry manufacturer based in Boulder, CO. You can reach them at scott@embrazio.com.
]]>In previous articles we discussed how we, Scott Schaefer & Stephanie Boyles, had incorporated Embrazio, a leather accessories company in Boulder, Colorado. We’d gotten a design patent on Steph’s idea for a curved belt. The belt is curved to shape with the natural contours of the human form for a better feel, fit, and no gapping in the back. From that starting point, we took readers through the concepts of a business plan and business case, how we handled production, and then our approach to marketing and selling. In this installment, we’d like to lay out the logic and method of doing all this with your own business while not hiring a single employee, including yourself.
Figure 1: Embrazio belt curved to shape with the natural contours of the human form
In the mid-1980’s Fortune magazine (or maybe it was Forbes?) themed an entire issue around “The End Of The Job” and it featured a big burly arm cocked with a fist and a tattoo that said JOB with a line through it or something like that. The article really made an impression on Scott at the time as we were both climbing the corporate ladder inside a 100+ year old company named AT&T. The hypothesis of the article was that this new thing called the internet, along with all of the advancements being made in computer hardware and software were quickly making the industrial age concept of big companies with lots of employees obsolete. While not an entirely accurate prognostication, the truth is that you can go a very long way building and scaling a company today without any employees … including the founders. That’s just what we set out to do!
Don’t get us wrong, we love working with people and leading teams. Between us, we’ve led all kinds of groups from loose knit consulting teams to 4,000+ person departments inside Fortune 100 companies and there is much satisfaction to be had from being an effective leader and manager. The downside, however, is that hiring people is a very time consuming, expensive, and risky proposition. When starting a new company, you’re not in a position to exactly know what the “job” is going to be or exactly what skills are going to be required. It’s quite likely that you need someone to do 3 or 4 different jobs that each require significantly different skills and you probably don’t have the budget to hire the best talent in any one of those skill sets. Fortunately, there are two great alternatives and you should consider them in this order: do it yourself, contracting.
We have yet to find anything we can’t either do ourselves or hire someone on a project basis to perform. Consider our design patent for example. Several people told us we should seek to obtain a US Design Patent for our curved belt design. While we’d been around the patenting process during our tech careers, those patent applications involved technical teams, corporate lawyers, and occasionally even people called “patent managers.” We had none of those.
Figure 3: Embrazio Curved Belt design patent ... layout view drawing
Well, what’s a mother to do? To make a long story short, Stephanie wrote and submitted our patent application. She went through a couple of rounds of rejections from the patent office and then made friends with the supervising manager whose subordinate was reviewing our claim. From the supervisor, Steph got very specific advice that our drawings were the hang up and she should get an illustrator specializing in patent applications to polish up our drawings according to governmental requirements. She found such an illustrator not too far from our home. Within a couple of months and a few hundred dollars and a belt (we always try to barter as a way of conserving cash) we had our application granted.
Figure 4: Embrazio curved belt design patent
Conversely, we have contracted with Michael Barnhart of United Content almost from the beginning for our web site work and online marketing. We felt he brought knowledge and talent we just didn’t possess. He’s also been willing to learn new areas of the online world as it evolved and as our needs changed. Even when we hire a specialist in this area, we often engage Michael to manage them as he has our trust and has far more knowledge on the subject then we do.
Figure 2: Michael Barnhart - Marketing Firm United ContentWe’ve done lots of similar things ourselves with the help of Google and YouTube searches. When we needed a privacy policy for our web site, we searched for the best policies out there and combined them to create our own. We’ve designed our own logo, business cards, and email templates. We figured out international shipping, sourcing of materials including pearls for our jewelry, and even found a bronze metal caster who’s also become a good friend. We’ve designed and created our own signage, online product descriptions, and do all of our own selling.
The same is true when it comes to contracting for special skills and services. We have a “web guy” who we’ve been working with for almost the entire life of the company. We’ve retained, and released, several PR firms and Online Marketing experts/firms, worked with multiple bookkeepers, have bartered with many different fashion models for our product shots and bloggers for our product reviews as you can see on our web site.
Figure 5: www.embrazio.com
Not infrequently, we start with doing a task ourselves and then move to a more skilled/talented contractor or we start with a contractor and then decide we can do it ourselves just as well and for less time and money. For example, we initially hired professional photographers to do our product and lifestyle photoshoots. We watched what they did, and saw what we spent, and decided to give it a go ourselves. Given the cameras inside new smartphones, we’ve been able to get lifestyles pics that are just as good as what we got from most of the pros and it takes much less time, money and coordination. We now do our product pics in our basement using second-hand lights from Ebay, a photo box we got on Amazon, some Jimmy Buffet music, and a stiff Chopin martini I make myself.
Figure 6: Scott setting up for product photography
In the other direction, we did our own bookkeeping for the first few years but found Quickbooks takes too much time and effort and we were making mistakes (okay, Scott was making mistakes). We found a local bookkeeping firm that now keeps our books error free and, because they have direct access to our ecommerce platform, we don’t spend more than an hour a month on our financials including reviewing reports. Whichever is better, faster, cheaper we either do it ourselves or engage a contractor.
Figure 7: Photoshoot – photographer Valerie Palmer, stylist Savannah Schaefer, model Kate Sotiroff
As you consider what to do yourself and what to farm out to others, be aware the education and understanding you get from doing it yourself is invaluable even if you choose to outsource a particular function down the road. This knowledge is key to determining methods and procedures and eliminating unnecessary steps. It also forms the foundation and leverage for negotiating with service providers if you outsource. You’ll get a good sense for what can be done just as well or better by others (e.g., bookkeeping) versus things that must be done by you (e.g., product design).
Figure 8: Steph prototyping Embrazio's Renaissance backpack
Finally, outsourcing to skilled contractors gives you tremendous flexibility and control. We use a “work order” (attached below) as an attachment to our contracts so that both parties are crystal clear about objectives, deliverables, schedules, and payment form & timing. An engagement with a consultant/contractor is basically a project with a beginning and end. When something isn’t happening to our satisfaction, we can usually terminate the agreement right away with no severance payments, employment disputes, etc.. So far, knock on wood, we’ve only had to part ways with a few contractors prior to completion and in all cases the termination has been clean, quick, and simple. In addition to the Work Order, you’ll need a Confidentiality Agreement to protect your intellectual property and to clearly establish that you own everything associated with the project you’re hiring the contractor to complete (subject to negotiation of course).
Below are shown sample columns and they are not meant to be all inclusive by any means.
10 = area of expertise
1 = totally new to me/us
Product Design |
Manufacturing |
Marketing |
Sales |
Inventory |
Shipping |
Finance |
|
Me/Us |
3 |
2 |
8 |
9 |
3 |
2 |
7 |
Leticia |
6 |
9 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
5 |
5 |
Rel. #2 |
|||||||
Rel. #3 |
|||||||
Rel. #4 |
|||||||
Rel. #5 |
|||||||
Rel. #6 |
As you think about the table above with regard to your business, consider what columns best apply to you. For example, if you’re opening a physical store, important columns might include Merchandising, Advertising, and Supervising, etc.. Once you have a robust set of columns, be brutally honest about your own knowledge and skill in each cell versus cells where you need outside help. Finally, think about the order and time sequence in which you need outside help. For example, if you’re starting from scratch and need to physically produce a product, getting help in product design and manufacturing is much more urgent than Inventory and Shipping.
Figure 9: Selling we did not delegate as selling affords an unparalleled opportunity to listen (photo – Bowties Boutique)
If you find the matrix approach helpful, you can refine it even further by qualifying/grading your relationships. By that I mean, some relationships perform/produce better than others and the match between your needs and theirs continuously ebbs and flows. We can almost guarantee you’re going to need alternatives and additions to your existing set of relationships.
Figure 10: Scott touring impressive hardware manufacturer Vedia in Mexico City with Managing Owner Irene Steenbock
For example, we knew early on some of our cut and sew resources wouldn’t be able to keep up with our growth. As a result, we set aside time while in Leon to locate and build relationships with other cut and sew shops as a contingency. We also began to realize that a shop that is excellent at making belts may not be the best at making complex bags so we started diversifying our manufacturing. That move to diversify really helped us sleep at night and gave us a lot of flexibility when the proverbial fecal matter hit the fan with an existing supplier … and, according to Murphy’s Law, that will happen to you as well!
Name of Contractor: ________________
Date Submitted: __________________
Work Order Number (last name + number): _____________
Start date for work to commence: _________________
General Description of work to be done:
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Specific Deliverables and associated due dates:
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Compensation in return for deliverables: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Payment Terms: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________ Date:__________
Contractor
In article #4 we described jumping into selling and how we wandered around potential market segments looking for a common group of buyers. We went from selling to friends and family, at street fairs, horse tack shops and motorcycle stores and shows, to buying space at expensive industry shows and then finally settled on selling directly to fashion boutiques. We didn’t have an initial “target market” defined beyond the rather general term “horse people” as we’d designed our first product to solve the problem of how to carry your smartphone with you while on horseback.
Figure 1: Our solution for "horse people"
Our belief was, and still is, that the fastest way to learn and grow in an early start-up is to go sell to all you think have a need for your product/service. This is in contrast to most marketing books and courses and it goes against most of the advice you’ll get from start-up mentoring programs and venture capitalists. That is not to say we don’t believe in the theory of target marketing…we do. It’s just that we also believe in the need to have some real-world market knowledge when selling something new before you can hone-in on a specific initial target market.
Do an online search on the term “target marketing” and you’ll get 850,000,000 results (at least that’s what we just got). It may be the most overused marketing term ever created and is the subject of countless books, articles, and pitch decks.
We think you can boil it down to this:
You want to target a subset of the market that is homogeneous within (similar demographics and psychographics) and heterogeneous without (different from the next group over) so that you can focus your scarce resources and generate buzz and word of mouth referrals amongst people likely to communicate with each other.
At Embrazio, we tested and considered multiple target markets before deciding to focus on higher end fashion boutiques at the wholesale level and a persona called Dakota at the retail level (more about personas in a moment). Staying at the wholesale level for now, let’s take a look at how we sharpened our definition of in-target boutiques. This ensured we were zeroed in on those shops most likely to buy our products.
Figure 2: Upscale casual boutique Co-op California
As we began cold calling on retail boutiques we thought were in our target market we started noticing clear similarities among those that eventually wrote an order with us. For example, those that bought were almost always already selling items of genuine leather versus not real leather. More specifically, they were usually carrying existing brands that were similar in style like Frye boots and BedStu bags. These shops were clearly catering to people who love leather goods and like an upscale casual style.
Figure 3: Embrazio's small leather backpack in RED!
It is just as important, of course, to define what is not in your target market. In our case, we know if a store carries what we call “polished” or “plastic” looking items, even if real leather, they are not in our wheelhouse. Brands fitting this category include Louis Vitton, Michael Kors, and Kate Spade. These brands fit a more formal look and can carry a much higher price tag.
We also started noticing stores that were likely to buy from us have a similar look and feel to each other. Our in-target boutiques usually have hardwood floors, a fairly well stocked display area, warm and inviting lighting, and, believe it or not, a nice fragrance due to the presence of candles and perfumes. Contrast this to boutiques that have a modern edge, sparsely stocked displays, and lots of low voltage lighting.
Our targets are usually located in quaint areas where you’ll also find great coffee shops and cute little restaurants. In fact, we wish we had kept a list of all the great coffee shops we hung out in during our mornings waiting for an in-target store to open as it would have made a great travel guide or book! We still tell friends when they’re visiting a new town to look at our online store locator to find the coolest areas and best restaurants in town.
Figure 4: Portsmouth, NJ, is enhanced by great boutique Puttin on the Glitz
The stores we don’t sell to, at least not with our current line, are located in malls or have many locations around town. They’re in strip centers, high end chain hotels, or downtown in a business district. Store owners and managers in these type stores have been great teachers for us. They’ll look at our line and then tell us something like, “you have great high quality products and my sister/daughter/good friend would love them, but they just don’t fit with what the people who shop here are looking for.” Fair enough and thank you for that guidance!
With a good sense of what a solid in-target boutique looks like, how do we go about finding them? Well, once again, we turn to the internet and, in this case, specifically to Yelp.com. We researched a group of early existing stores and discovered they are almost all rated 3 stars on price when doing a search on YELP for women’s boutiques.
Before heading off on a new sales trip we’ll gather all the Yelp 3 starred women’s boutiques in the area we’re visiting and then further qualify them by looking at what they sell and at pictures of the store itself. If we can’t get enough information online, we’ll put a call into the store and ask if they carry real leather bags and, if so, what brands they carry. Doing this sort of detective work has saved us a ton of time over the years.
Figure 5: Real leather offers something extra
Finally, once we visit a store, we always ask the owner/manager, “who else in town might be interested in our line.” We extend an exclusive relationship with stores that carry our line that prohibits us from selling to another store nearby, but owners/managers are usually very forthcoming about other stores across town that might like our products. After all, it is in their best interest to help us become a successful and well recognized brand.
Using the aforementioned targeting and qualifying methods has allowed us to build a group of over 200 retail boutiques carrying our line on the wholesale side. It has been a much more difficult task to build market share on the retail side (i.e., selling directly to consumers via our online store). We would say our efforts in this area are still a work in progress.
We used an approach called “personas” to describe our target market for our direct to consumer channel. A persona is a detailed description of a fictional person, in our case Dakota, who is the embodiment of your target market. In other words, by describing them, you are describing your target market.
We wrote an entire article about Dakota’s life including where she works, travels, and what she does for entertainment. We described the clothes she wears, the car she drives, and the movies, magazines, and web sites she likes. We even talked about her family and dreams for the future. In the end, this exercise has helped us channel our small amount of advertising dollars to online ads where we could fine people like Dakota.
Figure 6: Embrazio’s persona imagines a person who relishes the natural world with its intendant beauty, fragrance, touch (model Hannah Waldner)
You should be aware that selling direct online is an expensive proposition that takes lots of time and lots of money and the less you have of one, the more it takes of the other! We have an excellent web site, and are engaged in active backlink building, facebook posting, twitter tweeting, pinterest pinning, and Instagram posting. We also send our products out to fashion bloggers to do online reviews and endorsements. Still, building a brand with consumers takes more time, money, and effort than we thought would ever be needed.
Figure 7: Fashion blogger @kenzywho sporting Embrazio's Media bag
Coincidentally, we’ve just engaged our 5th consultant in an effort to get our online business growing faster. Thank goodness we didn’t hire a full-time employee in this area as they would no doubt have over promised and under delivered given how difficult this assignment seems to be. In fact, the question of engaging consultants versus hiring employees is where we’ll conclude this series of articles with article #6; Employees Or Peace Of Mind … you choose. Hope you’ll stay tuned…
Summary of Article #5
Think of your entire potential market as a triangle of bowling pins. Each pin represents a “sub-segment” of the market where those within that segment share a great deal of commonality. People within pin #1 are largely the same and they are just a little bit different from adjacent pin #2. People within pin #1 are very different from a faraway pin #8. Now, see if you can tightly define Pin #1 and then Pin #2 and how your product/service would need to change to expand from Pin #1 to Pin #2. By continuing this process, you’re describing an orderly and efficient way to attack your full potential market over time.
Figure 8: Bowling pins represent market subsegments
]]>As mentioned in the end of article #3, one of Scott’s early mentors, David, was an ex-Bell Labs guy with a thick Hungarian accent. He’d left “the Labs” for entrepreneurial pastures and was now consulting with a few of us inside what we’d call an “incubator” today. It was basically a collection of start-up information tech businesses that BellSouth Corp. had set up internally to grow competitive market muscle. David constantly preached, “Scott, the problem is always sales, everything else you can fix.” What he meant of course was/is that generating sales is the most uncontrollable variable. That’s why you need to get out there early and often to “make sales happen” or figure out why they are not happening and flip that situation around fast!
Reviewing Embrazio product line with Denver Boutique Kismet
This is the 4th installment of stories associated with our journey to create and grow a leather accessories company in Boulder, Colorado. As a couple of corporate refugees in our early 50’s, we started this journey in 2012 and now have a complete line of belts, bags, jewelry, and other leather items under the brand name Embrazio carried online and in over 200 boutiques nationwide. Initial products included a curved custom leather belt and cellphone holster. We had returned from Leon, Mexico (where our products are produced) back to our Boulder HQ, we’re working on our business plan and now need to lay out a sales strategy as part of that plan.
Way too many people think sales is just a matter of getting someone to buy something. That really couldn’t be farther from the truth. Sales is a process of finding someone with a need or problem that you can fill or fix and then arriving together at a point where both parties agree to an exchange of value. In reality, this is just the objective transactional result of the sales process. Whether or not you “make the sale” really depends much more upon the subjective nature of the relationship between seller and potential buyer that precedes the transaction. Simply put, does the buyer like you?
Owner Erica Brand of Six Clothing in Haddenfield, NJ, trying on Embrazio's star studded curved belt
In mentoring sales classes at the University of Colorado, Scott always starts by asking students, “what’s the first lesson in selling?” They quickly refer back to their professional selling text and come up with some process answer like “targeting the right buyer” or understanding “features and benefits.” He then counters with another truism passed along by a very successful sales mentor; “people buy from people they like all other things being equal. All other things not being equal, people find a way to buy from people they like.” Simple as that. First, you must be likeable.
With that lesson to be likeable in mind, and given there weren’t any horse related shows or events nearby on the calendar (what we thought of as our target market), we packed up our curvy leather belts and phone holsters and set up a booth at the Louisville, Colorado street fair.
Scott selling at Louisville Street Fair
Welcome to reality. “Not fun, lots of work, very humbling, and barely breakeven” best describes this first attempt to sell beyond friends and family. Still, it was a great learning experience so we decided to look for another venue that might have a better fit re. people needing and wanting to buy belts and cell phone holsters. In other words, let’s try again somewhere else!
We decided to call directly on tack shops. This is where everything related to horse and rider can be found. They served the same end user, the horse rider, that we’d sold to directly as we developed out first product. We had some success with tack shops but found the size of the addressable market pretty small and the locations few and far between. We did start building a pretty good online data base of equestrians as a by-product of our horsey focus and we still use this for email and online marketing which is the subject of another article soon to come.
Hmmm, how about motorcycle riders as a target market? Surely, they would like and need our cellphone holster you can open & close with one hand.
Testing the motorcycle market
We made direct sales calls on several independently owned and operated Harley Davidson stores, successfully got some orders, and then signed up for a booth at the Colorado Motorcycle Swap Meet. This is the largest such event in the state. OMG, this was a trip. Our booth was squeezed in-between the Sons of Silence motorcycle gang and the men’s room. We fit in like a lumberjack at a meeting of the Sierra Club. While we did sell a fair amount of product, we decided feeling safe while selling was more important than expanding our target market into this segment! (Sadly, there was a mass shooting at this event just a few years later.)
Finally, we decided to pivot to the fashion boutique industry and signed up for a booth at shows in New York and Las Vegas. These were both large established fashion industry shows where store owners go to shop. Both shows were well attended but as a new vendor we were relegated to a tiny booth at the edge of hundreds of other booths. What buyers did come down our aisle were worn out and glassy eyed by the time they came within view of Embrazio. To make matters worse, the expense of renting and outfitting a booth plus all the travel related expenses made these clear financial losers.
Figure 5: Giving Magic a try
From an educational standpoint, however, these shows were big winners. We met several “foundational customers” that gave us invaluable guidance on what products they’d like to see us create for their boutiques. While they didn’t buy a lot from us at the show, many have stayed with us now for nearly a decade and the total lifetime sales to these long-term retail partners is well over $20k each. This experience also led us to call on stores directly rather than go to the time, effort, and huge expense of selling at shows. This finally gave us a profitable model for selling.
Since 2015, we’ve exclusively sold to stores by calling on them in person. We’ve learned to use Yelp as a qualifying tool in building a list of new and existing stores to call on in a specific city or region. For example, we leave snowy Boulder and fly into Tampa each January (I know, strategic isn’t it?) and then rent a car and spend about 10 days driving the entire state.
A big key here is viewing each new boutique we pick up as a lifetime customer versus a one-time sale. We often get re-orders over the phone from existing boutique customers and, when that happens, the cost of sale is zero. Boutique owners know their customers intimately and give us excellent advice on pricing, new colors, and tweeks to existing products. Many of the products we sell today came from ideas and guidance given us by boutique owners. They really are our partners in so many ways and we owe a lot of our success to these wonderful small business owner/operators.
Stephanie with boutique owner Dody Turner of Dody's in Pass a Grille
While we were figuring out who to sell to, and the most efficient & effective way to connect with them, we were also working on how to get online sales direct to end customers going. In other words, we were really starting to learn about our potential market and beginning to do real “marketing” at both the wholesale and retail levels. How could we narrow and focus our efforts on those potential customers most likely to buy now? That will be the focus of article #5 … Target Marketing … 4 Consultants & Panacea. We hope you’ll stay with us for that part of the journey …
We tend to like people who actively listen to us and seem genuinely interested in what we have to say. Being a great listener is an excellent place to start as you seek to become likeable to your prospect.
Go into your next selling situation with the mindset that you’re going to talk about anything you can think of that’s interesting to your prospect other than what you have to sell. Make the purpose of the meeting clear to them when setting it up or when you arrive in person but then steer the conversation to their family, details about their company or the team they manage, their last vacation, whatever. Genuinely and actively listen and ask follow-up open ended questions to show your interest. People want and love to be listened to. You’re becoming likeable and they’re starting to let go of that “oh no, I’m getting ready to be sold to” defensive feeling. At some point, the prospect will say, “hey, enough about me, let’s talk about the reason you’re here.” Good luck and have fun!
]]>In Article #1 we took a quick look at the start of Embrazio, a leather accessories company founded by Stephanie Boyles and Scott Schaefer in Boulder, Colorado. The article highlighted that there really is no cookbook approach to starting and growing a company without outside investors and that the first thing to do is “get started!” We, Scott and Stephanie, made plenty of mistakes along the way that we hope readers of this series can avoid. One early mistake was not laying out a destination and general roadmap for getting there … also called a business plan and business case. That was the subject of article #2.
In this article, we turn back to the work of executing on the business itself. How do we get a production version of our product made and fully enter the competitive marketplace?
Early on, Embrazio successfully obtained a design patent for a curved custom leather belt that goes up and over your hips and down in back and front. Like many great designs, it seems logical and even simple once you see it. We can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard people say after discovering our belts, “hey, this looks just like the shape my belt has after I’ve been wearing it for 5 years.” The unique curved shape of the belt fits with the natural contours of the human form to avoid the pinch points and discomfort you get with traditional straight belts. It also eliminates that annoying gapping in the back that comes from putting a straight belt onto a curved body. We tested the comfort and fit using early handmade prototypes with friends and family around Boulder. The feedback we got was universally positive and very exciting. We thought we had a hit and wanted to rush to make the product.
Now, since neither of us knew a thing about the fashion industry, or much at all about manufacturing come to think of it, we immediately turned to the internet to answer the most urgent question in front of us, namely, “who in the hell can make this stuff at scale?”
We started, as we often do, with an internet search to figure out where to buy leather and who to use to fabricate our products. It was quickly evident that manufacturing in the US wasn’t really an option and our primary choices would be China, India, or Mexico. We did a back of the envelop matrix on the pros and cons of working with companies in these countries, had at least 2 glasses of wine, and decided we’d find a way to work with Mexico. Wish our decision making sounded a lot more scientific than that but we just couldn’t see crossing the pacific all the time and we love the Mexican people and culture. Turns out, this was a great decision and we’ve never looked back.
After some phone calls, we eventually found a company located in Leon, Mexico that was manufacturing great looking leather bags. We decided to give them a call to see if they could guide us to someone who could make our belts and cell phone holsters. Low and behold, they had just started making products for other labels and were interested in making our products. They quickly gave us a sales account rep. and we began working on specifications and contracts.
Boom, we had entered the rabbit hole of manufacturing in Mexico where relationships are everything, no yellow pages or internet directory exist, and the cultural differences were, for us, yet to be discovered. Our sales guy, Jerry, was an Irishman working for a Dutchman who managed an American owned factory in Leon staffed by Mexican workers and supervisors. We knew Steph’s years spent in endless international telecom standards meetings would one day pay off!
Thus began our education in all things leather under Jerry’s, and then Leticia’s, guidance (Jerry moved on after our first project). We traveled throughout Leon visiting leather tanneries, buckle making factories, and surplus markets. We met and started important relationships with some of Leticia’s other customers and we began to build our reputation in Leon as a fun, honest, and hard-working couple that doesn’t know much about leather but does listen carefully and follow up in a disciplined manner.
Our group of friends and contacts in Leon grew quickly and it was clear to us almost from day one that the rumor mill Jimmy Buffet calls “the coconut telegraph” is truly a broadband connection in that pretty big small town. There are some 2.5 million people living in and around Leon, Mexico and it is where 90% of leather goods sold in the US are produced. Still, word got around quickly that we understood specifications, were reasonable but demanding about expectations, and we paid our bills fast. That reputation led to more introductions and referrals and, ultimately, to the wonderful people and businesses in Leon we work with today.
Okay, we also did a little dancing, ate well, and had a bunch of fun along the way! But, back to our story …
What we had done right during this initial production phase was start what would become critical long-term business relationships that just kept multiplying. You see, it isn’t so much what you know or who you know but who knows you and what they are saying about you that matters most, especially when you’re operating in unfamiliar territory. We were, and still are, genuine in our relationships. We really do love and respect the people we work with. They feel that and return it ten-fold.
We left those first few trips to Leon feeling that the production side of our business was well under way and our products were going to be fantastic. We’d paid close attention to our cash burn and we were starting to get a good sense for process, costs, quality control, styling, and other key elements. We’d done an initial business case (see article #2) but lots of the inputs and assumptions were still guesses and we were anxious about what reaction we’d get once our product was fully introduced to the market.
We were also still unclear about the best initial target market for our product or how to reach them via sales and marketing. New ideas for additional products were brewing and we were about to take possession of our first production run of leather accessories. The other thing we had yet to discover was how much cash actually gets tied up in inventory when you’re operating a consumer goods company.
No matter, momentum was growing and we were having fun so “damn the torpedoes & full speed ahead” we’re gonna make this work! If we’d have known our personal investment would need to be a lot bigger than our “best guess business case” suggested, we might have stopped right here. Instead, we both wrote checks for another $10k each and kept going.
Overall, we did a decent job of discovering where and how to get our products made but, to this point, most of our efforts involved spending money. We knew it was time to really zero in on how we would generate sales and revenue for the business. As my old mentor David had pounded into me so many years ago, “the problem is always sales Scott, everything else you can control.” We knew we were already late in really thinking through the Sales and Marketing aspects of our business which is where we’ll pick up in our next article; “The Problem Is Always Sales!” Hope you’ll stay tuned…
In article #1 we described how we took an idea for a new leather belt and cell phone holster from Stephanie’s head to a working prototype we could test with potential buyers. Getting early feedback from real potential customers (i.e., not just friends and family) should be among the first things you do. We listened carefully for where we were wrong, for ways to make it better, and for things others didn’t like about our design … not for validation we were right. We incorporated the feedback into a new design and repeated the testing process. This can go on for several cycles before you arrive at a design that is ready for production. At this point, costing, sourcing, and real financial analysis is needed to decide if you have a product or a business opportunity on your hands and to understand what it will take to get across the finish line to your definition of success.
Did we want to prove our initial product and then sell it to someone else like Brighton or the Frye Company or were we up for investing and growing a complete line of leather accessories? Uh, to be honest, we hadn’t thought much about it so far. Thinking back on it now, we should have at least done a back of the envelope business case in parallel to our prototyping so that we clearly understood the magnitude of time, cash, and mindshare/focus required to start making money instead of serially investing as needed.
This is a consequence of our own hubris and of not using the same discipline that would have been required if we were seeking outside money. An external investor would have required at least a basic set of financials. Plus, we were so lathered up by the positive market feedback we were getting from a small set of initial customers that we just couldn’t slow down.
Fortunately, early cost estimates from the factory we were negotiating with to make our product forced the issue. Neither of us were comfortable writing a check for $10,000+ without some sense of where we were going and when we might get paid back from the business. Step one was deciding if we wanted to create an entire business around leather accessories or if we wanted to simply prove demand for our initial product and sell or license the rights to someone already in the market. We had access to enough capital (i.e., money) on our own to go either way so we asked ourselves the following questions:
Without taking you through all the sausage making, wine drinking, and hair pulling associated with getting to an answer, we both decided yes, let’s build a brand. With that “north star” in mind, we set ourselves to the work of forming a business model and creating a financial business case that would serve as our roadmap to getting to a profitable and growing new brand called Embrazio!
The “business model” describes how you plan to structure and operate your business to make money. The “business case” is a financial description of the business over time. It is usually done via a spreadsheet and includes projections on sales, revenue, expenses, and capital investment. It produces estimates of profit and loss and, most importantly, cash flow surpluses and deficits. Together, the business model and business case answer questions like the following:
The good news is that if you avoid or forget to ask and answer these questions up front, God/Mother Nature/Karma will surely force you to answer them in real time as you continue on. The bad news is that it can be much more painful and expensive to go through this exercise later rather than sooner (i.e., Karma can be a bitch!). In our case, the pain was somewhat mitigated because we were placing small bets with our own money and our own blood, sweat, and tears. Until now, we’d put off doing a formal business case under the excuse that we didn’t really have the knowledge to make assumptions about costs, prices, and customer demand, etc.. In reality, having gone through the prototyping process, we knew enough at this point to make educated guesses in each of these areas.
With the need to start writing large checks for leather and hardware and to engage a cut and sew factory to start manufacturing, we knew we could wait no longer. We dusted off some business cases we’d done for others and began inputting the assumptions under which we’d move forward with Embrazio. We had the benefit of lots of experience and had existing templates for doing our own business case. If you happen to be starting a business without this knowledge and experience, it’s really not a showstopper. There are plenty of “how to” videos on this subject on YouTube and there are lots of freelance accountants and business consultants that can help you through this phase. It is, however, critical that you understand and agree with the assumptions forming the basis for the case. It’s your business and no one should understand it better than you.
Once these foundational elements were in place describing “what we are going to do,” we were able to turn our full attention back to “how we get it done.” That’s where we’ll pick up with Article #3 - Moving From Prototypes To Production!
“You’re in between gigs right now. We’ve worked on tons of projects together over the years in different companies. Why don’t you and I start a business?” About an hour after she’d posed this question to me, my wife Stephanie and I had decided to jump into the leather accessories business. You’d have thought with our extensive business and consulting careers, we’d have been a bit more analytical and strategic about the decision but, screw it, we were just ready to jump in … I guess. Funny, as I think about it, I realize our jumping into business together is very similar to our jumping into marriage together some 32 years ago. Lots of patience and dating and then, boom, one day we just made the leap.
That was 10 years and 10’s of thousands of miles ago and we’re still working hard and having a hell of a lot of fun in the process. Of course, there have been lots of missteps and lessons learned along the way. We’re thinking they might be helpful to other corporate refugees who have a few extra bucks and an itch to scratch around starting their own business. We know we wish we’d have had a better map for the journey but, somehow, we’ve made it to cash flow positive and now have an extensive line of beautiful handmade leather goods carried online and in over 200 higher-end boutiques nationwide. The following is our story about Embrazio, a leather accessories company headquartered in awe-inspiring Boulder, Colorado, as told in a series of first-person accounts/lessons by us, its founders, Stephanie Boyles and Scott Schaefer. We hope you find it fun, interesting, and helpful as you embark upon your upcoming adventure!
If starting our company had been a Mission Impossible assignment, the recording would have sounded something like this:
“Stephanie and Scott, you’re too young and energetic to retire, you get bored easily, you’re not likely to get any great job offers that don’t require you to move or travel all the time, and you love your life and friends in Boulder, Colorado. Your assignment is to figure out something to do professionally in Boulder that won’t risk breaking the bank, will be rewarding psychologically and financially, and won’t screw with Steph’s horseback riding or Scott’s golfing too much. Good luck. This tape will now self-destruct … hope you two don’t!”
We started Embrazio after successful tech/telecom careers spanning the previous 25 years or so. Both of us had worked extensively in new product development. Scott had experience as the CEO of a VC-backed tech company and had spent a couple of years working as co-founder of a start-up consumer goods company after working for 20+ years in large corporations. Stephanie was just winding down her first start-up, a web site and collection of mobile apps targeted at the equestrian market (in-line with her horse obsession). She’d also worked in several top business consulting shops and had started virtual businesses inside a large corporation. So, in our case, we had enough knowledge and experience to be dangerous as well as enough money to get going and withstand a negative cash burn for a while.
We also had an initial product in mind. Stephanie had created a mobile phone app that took Jec Ballou’s very popular “101 Dressage Exercises for Horse & Rider” dressage training book and moved it into a series of diagramed exercises accessible to riders via their cell phones. The question then became, “how can I carry my phone with me while on horseback in a way that is safe, attractive, and convenient?” That led to Stephanie’s second creation, a custom leather belt and holster inspired by the gun holsters of the old west, exchanging old tech for the weapons of today: your cellphone. She got a local leather artisan to prototype the product and, voila, we had something to show to real people to get real feedback.
Honest feedback from real potential customers should be #1 on your list for getting started no matter where you’re starting from. We learned a lot about how to build the cellphone case and how to wear it while riding through product testing. For example: 1) You can’t close the case with a magnetic snap – your phone can fall out while jumping cross-country. 2) You can’t close the case with a buckle because the horse can run off on you while you’re fastening or unfastening the buckle. 3) You need to be able to get your phone in and out of its case with one hand while you hold the reins in the other hand because you can get into serious trouble if you just let go of the reins. We didn’t find out about (or just stubbornly refused to hear about) the larger issue of women not liking the thigh strap attachment until we actually got the product to market.
Looking back on it now it seems pretty obvious that we could have (should have) started our product line with just curved leather belts as they appeal to a much larger market than cellphone holsters. Instead, since we already had a phone case prototyped, it never really dawned on us that we could put the leather phone case to the side for later development and marketing. This failure to boil down our product to a clearly valued and easy to understand initial offering made our first release much more complex, time consuming, and expensive than it needed to be.
At this point we really hadn’t spent much money (maybe a few hundred dollars) and already we had a prototype and real market feedback albeit without the demonstration of an actual purchase quite yet. Lots of start-ups we’ve been involved with over the years, either directly or as advisors/consultants, spend 6 months or more doing market analysis and software or product development when they could much more quickly put a prototype together with duck-tape and bailing wire (as they say) and get reactions from real shoppers immediately. In the software world this is often called fail fast, scrum, spiral development, or other nifty terms but it all depends on a circle of; produce cheaply & quickly --> get customer feedback --> produce again based on the feedback --> get another set of feedback and so on. The same process can work in any industry, hard or soft, and we’ll talk more about the key elements of new product development down the road.
Express yourself with a high-quality and chic leopard print wallet, belt, or bag from Embrazio. Embrazio is a leather accessories company from Boulder, Colorado, that offers handcrafted products with the finest leathers, including custom leather belts. The brand’s collection of fashionable leather accessories are designed to fit your modern lifestyle.
Leather Belts
Embrazio designs a variety of genuine leather custom belts—from studded skinny belts to perforated belts to leopard print belts. Dress up a simple outfit, such as dark skinny jeans and a white sweater, by adding a bit of texture with the Single Wrap Skinny Belt in leopard print from Embrazio. A leopard print belt is a great place to start if you’ve never worn an animal print before.
Leather Wallets
Embrazio prototyped nearly a dozen designs before landing on their Handmade Leather Phone Wallet. Its slim profile holds any sized smartphone, yet includes all of the functions of a large wallet, featuring six card slots and a full-length metal-zippered compartment for cash. You can carry the wallet as a clutch or a wristlet. One of the leather phone wallet colors offered by Embrazio is an effortlessly stylish leopard print. What a great gift to give yourself or someone else who loves fashion!
Leather Multipurpose Bags
Step up your bag game with a premium leather bag from Embrazio. Feel confident with the multi-functional Amelia Handmade Leather Bag, which can be worn as a sling bag, belt bag, shoulder bag, or clutch. Made of premium leather, this bag offers a front glasses pocket, back phone pocket, and an interior zipper pocket. This finely crafted leather bag comes in several colors, including leopard print. Carry this stylish bag like a boss—wherever you go.
Leather Backpacks
Your perfect new traveling companion just might be the Revival Small Handmade Leather Backpack from Embrazio. It’s fashionable and functional with a luxurious feel to it. If you’ve been looking for your new favorite leather accessory, this stylish and chic small handmade leather backpack is it. Features include adjustable shoulder straps and a large antique brass ring for classic styling and a comfortable fit. It also offers deep sleeves on the back for a phone and glasses, an expandable main compartment, and more. Make a statement with a backpack in a leopard print from Embrazio.
Shop Embrazio for custom leather belts, belt buckles, leather cell phone holsters, handmade backpacks, jewelry, and more. Browse products on their website or at 200-plus boutiques throughout the country.
Learn more about Embrazio’s products at www.embrazio.com
]]>Stephanie was and remains an avid equestrian. After leaving the corporate world in 2011, she created a mobile phone app that replaced a heavy, several hundred-page riding instruction book with a smartphone. The next problem was: How do you carry your smartphone in a safe, easily accessible, and fashionable way while on horseback?
Stephanie answered that question by innovating the age-old straight belt design with a custom belt loosely styled on the gun holsters of the Old West...with a twist (or in this case, a curve!). Stephanie designed and then patented a double-curve shaped custom belt that follows the natural contours of the human body. In addition to providing a better fit and a more comfortable feel, the unique design of her custom belts also eliminated the annoying “gapping” in the back that occurs with straight belts.
She showed the design to her husband, Scott, and the two decided then and there to form a business to get her new design for custom leather belts into the market. The first few weeks were spent forming the company, researching all things leather and leather manufacturing, and trying to determine who they might work with to produce their new creation. Most of what they uncovered led them to Leon, Mexico, the self-proclaimed leather capital of the Western Hemisphere.
Fast-forward eight years, and the company Stephanie and Scott founded, Embrazio LLC, now produces a dozen styles and many different colors of custom belts. They have expanded their lineup to include leather bags, handmade backpacks, wallets, and a diverse line of leather, metal, and pearl jewelry.
Today, Embrazio’s leather accessories are carried by over 200-plus high-end boutiques primarily in the US, and are also sold online with the company. All of their items are handmade in very small factories just outside Leon while their design, warehousing, and shipping are located in Boulder, Colorado.
While the company has greatly expanded its product offerings, the brand’s custom belt curved design remains at the heart of Embrazio’s approach and it inspires the equal focus on both fashion and function in each new product created. When asked about their journey from high tech to innovating fashion-forward accessories, Stephanie and Scott say the fundamental principles are really the same: “We listen, create, iterate, and improve just like in the software world, only with fashion you get to see and feel the final product. There’s nothing more satisfying than meeting someone who wears an Embrazio accessory and finding out how much they love it!”
Browse our custom belts and mexican belts at embrazio.com.
]]>It’s remarkable how a simple accessory like a belt can either make or break an outfit. We tend to notice if someone isn’t wearing a belt when they should be. We also pay attention to the aesthetic of someone’s belt. We notice if it complements what they are wearing or if it detracts from it. The belt is a subtle, highly practical piece of fashion that can’t be ignored.
It’s not only a practical wardrobe piece, but it also presents a nice transition between your bottom half and top half. A superb leather belt is a good investment that stands the test of time, but what else should you consider when choosing a leather belt? Here are a few factors to keep in mind to choose the right leather belt for you.
If your pants or skirt has belt loops, it’s always wise to wear a high-quality belt. The right belt makes you look more polished even if you don’t necessarily need it to hold up your trousers. The key is choosing a belt that not only looks good but feels comfortable around the waist and hips. Custom leather belts designed to conform to your curves are better than belts that don’t fit quite right or lead to tugging and pulling on the back of your pants. Belts that are straight and even some c-shaped belts aren’t going to fit the natural curves of your body. Choose a leather belt with a subtle s-shape curve and see if you don’t notice a better fit.
Premium full-grain, single-strap leather belts are a classic wardrobe staple. They get better with time and wear yet hold their quality. If you have worn-out belts that take away from your outfit instead of enhance it, it’s time to upgrade. Quality mexican leather belts can be worn in almost any situation. A belt with a timeless appeal never truly goes out of style—good craftsmanship and high-quality leather can last a lifetime. Durable, yet soft and supple, custom belts made with premium leather are as essential to your closet as T-shirts and jeans or pumps and a little black dress.
Your leather belt preferences may be varied, depending on how you spend your spare time or where you work during the day. Most people need at least one black belt and one brown belt in their collection that can be easily styled with dress pants or jeans—or even be worn while horseback riding or hiking. If you choose only one leather belt to wear, make sure it’s a style and color that works well with your general clothing choices. Beyond the basics, you may want a skinny belt to go with certain dresses or skirts, or perhaps a statement belt with rivets that makes you feel like a million bucks every time you wear it. Your belts should speak authentically to your style and taste in accessories without compromising on quality or comfort.
Embrazio is a leather accessories company that specializes in handcrafted, custom leather belts for men and women. The Boulder, Colorado-based company designs belts with a patented s-curve for a comfortable, flattering fit. Embrazio’s innovative design meets the needs of those with modern lifestyles and timelessly stylish taste in premium leather. Embrazio offers custom leather belts, handmade leather bags, wallets, phone holsters, and jewelry that features a mix of leather, metal, and pearls. Embrazio’s products are available in more than 200 boutiques and on the company’s website.
Learn more about Embrazio’s story and curved leather belts at www.embrazio.com
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