Joseph May. He’s the founder of the Breton Company. He launched his company in 2016 by running a Kickstarter campaign for a modern day briefcase. Prior to Breton, he worked as an attorney at a couple of different law firms and was director of operations and in-house counsel at a company called Freshly Picked.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Shoe Dog
What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs
Favorite online tool? — Grum
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5-6
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Keep going”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:22 – Nathan introduces to the show
01:19 – Joseph left the legal company because there was no fun
01:23 – When Joseph was at Freshly Picked, he found out that he really liked to create products and be part of the design process
01:33 – Joseph had the idea of Breton when he was in Italy
01:59 – Joseph was 33 when he left Freshly Picked where he was getting $70-80K
- 02:28 – Joseph had kids when he started Breton
03:28 – Joseph is showing Nathan an example of the briefcase
03:45 – On Kickstarter, Joseph did $240K and $280K for Indiegogo
03:54 – Kickstarter is the biggest website to start and Indiegogo has Indiegogo on demand
- 04:29 – The total for both campaigns was 1200 units
05:00 – At Freshly Picked, Joseph learned a lot about Instagram marketing
05:38 – Zach from Episode 178 had his hand on the Kickstarter campaign and has a network which has done over $60M in funding campaigns
06:00 – Zach worked with Joseph
06:38 – Joseph had a lot of manufacturing contacts from Freshly Picked
06:44 – Joseph got a quote from overseas and moved their manufacturing to Asia, switched up their whole campaign and changed the price point
07:14 – Breton is totally bootstrapped
07:47 – Total sales as of today is $400K in revenue and 1900 units
08:06 – Goal for 2017 is to launch more Kickstarter campaigns
08:37 – The bestseller is the modern day briefcase which is $199
08:54 – It takes around $65 to produce a bag
- 09:04 – The leather is from Italy
- 09:16 – Jeremy really wants to have a high-quality bag
09:26 – $20-30 dollars is spent on marketing per bag
09:58 – Average profit per bag
10:28 – Jeremy had dark traffic on ly
- 10:42 – There’s no exact influencer who has driven the most sales to Instagram
- 10:51 – Mollyblogger has sold 17 units within an hour
- 11:07 – Mollyblogger is Joseph’s friend
11:25 – For every $500 per post, Jeremy expects to get 5 sales
11:33 – Breton now has 40K followers
11:50 – It’s difficult to calculate the return because it takes time before a customer purchases
12:21 – Joseph had a campaign in Fall where he had help, but now he’s doing it on his own
12:40 – One of Joseph’s growth strategy is to get people on their email list
- 12:44 – The main focus now is to make people aware of Breton and aggregate the information
13:40 – The bags are made with wax cotton which is water-resistant
14:03 – Customers often look for the look
14:30 – The bags are made to last
14:38 – Team size is 2.5
14:51 – Joseph won’t give up a part of the company
- 15:49 – “I don’t know exactly what we’re doing”
16:48 – Chubbies Shorts is effectively using Instagram
16:55 – Breton’s Instagram
17:24 – There’s a big percentage of women buying the Breton bags, too
18:58 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Choose a job where you can earn and have fun at the same time.
Nurture your connections and network.
Don’t give up a part of your company if you’re not confident doing so.

Resources Mentioned:

The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

688: W/ 4 Kids, He Quit Job to Launch Leather Briefcase Company Breton with CEO Joseph May

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders