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DTC POD
#319 - From Building a 9-Figure Menswear Brand to Redefining Baby Monitors
Speaker
Blaine Bolus
Speaker
Kevin Lavelle
00:00 Building brand and business resonating with customers. 07:20 Brute force marketing grew customer base rapidly.
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“Before we get too far into the product development and how you guys are building out harbor, I'd love to kind of talk about what the company looked like when building Mizin and main. Right. Like you said, you guys have done hundreds of millions of dollars.”
“Door to door, one by one, we were laughed out of every trade show. People told us we were crazy, but all of a sudden we had 100 customers and then we had 200 customers and then we had 1000 customers and we had two wholesale accounts.”
“Ultimately, it was net positive ROI within two days of the first podcast for all three podcasts, and we ended up doubling our business overnight and never went backwards.”
“'If you are going to work with a celebrity, my guidance is always, how authentic is the partnership?' And when I think about an a tier celebrity, they have to be obsessed with your product, they have to love the product, because otherwise, okay, maybe they'll meet all of the contractual obligations.”
“We're really excited about being part of the network because we're going to be able to keep growing the show, bringing you guys amazing guests, and obviously helping you guys learn from the best founders, marketers and builders of the most successful consumer brands.”
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What is up DTC pod? Today we have the pleasure of being joined by Kevin Lavelle, who was the founder of Mizin and Maine. And now Kevin is also the co founder and CEO of Harbor. So we're really excited to have Kevin on today because Mizin and Maine was a massive men's apparel business and now he's moving into the baby. You know, Kevin, I'm going to let you kick us off.
Why don't you tell us a little bit more about your background and what led to the inception of Mizin and mate.
Yeah. Thanks Blaine. Glad to be here. Always a pleasure to be able to share some of my lessons learned and experience. We feel like, we transformed the menswear space. And now with harbor, we are building a better baby monitor and pediatric telehealth company. I think there's a lot of opportunity to improve sleep and wellness for parents. So been a great ride so far.
And hopefully some of the lessons learned from company one will improve in company two and share some of those today. So the background in Misman and Maine, I grew up playing golf and watched performance polos take over on the golf course. So I had this aha moment. I watched a congressional staffer run into a building soaked in sweat, and I wondered why no one had ever made a dress shirt out of performance fabrics. The idea stuck with me for many years, and ultimately, after some tinkering in 2011 into 2012, I launched Mizzen and Main in 2012. I expected it to be a smashing success in the first week or two because I just invented a performance fabric dress shirt. And if you build it, they will come. Is not true in the world of DTC.
You actually have to put a lot of work into it and really build a brand and a business that your customers resonate with. So I had an amazing experience, built that company over many years. We've done hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. We have well over 500 wholesale partners, and we've got ten of our own stores now. And then the transition there in kind of mid 2022 started this process of building what is now harbor. We have a great new leadership team at Mizzen and Maine. I sit down a couple of years ago and remain chairman of the board, but I'd had this experience in wanting to build what is now harbor. My son is seven years old, and I'd done a whole bunch of research when he was born and went out and bought what was supposed to be the most innovative baby monitor on the market.
Product called Nanit. And it ultimately is a Wi Fi security camera that you point at your child and you have an app on your phone, and you sleep next to your app, and it's supposed to run audio in the background. But I woke up one morning and the app had just crashed. And I had no idea how long I hadn't been monitoring my son. And upon then doing a little bit of research, I realized this is not a baby monitor. It is a Wifi security camera with an app. And so I went out and bought one of those old school radio monitors so I could have that kind of failsafe capability of knowing if I had lost connection. So, similar to vision in Maine.
I've had this idea for many years. And then ultimately decided I got to take the leap. No one is doing it. And if it was such a good idea, someone would have already done it, is why so many innovations don't take place. And so I am so proud of everything we've done with visit in Maine. We've got a great team building there, and it's a really cool opportunity to build something again. And ultimately, our better baby monitor, we think will change the game for parents. It's a dedicated failsafe local monitor with a camera.
They work with or without Internet. They connect directly to each other, and they both connect to the cloud. So you get the best of all worlds. And then we're building a remote night nanny platform on top of that to take the cost of night nannies from four to $700 a night down to 20 or $30 a night. So some crazy ideas. I am well aware jumping into menswear with no background and then jumping into hardware, software, and pediatric telehealth. But that's how great things happen. And I'm excited to kick off this journey again.
Yeah, I mean, this is really exciting. I'm really pumped to talk about this just because I'm kind of at the stage of my life where a bunch of my friends are starting to have kids and they're doing the whole baby monitor thing and they're buying all these products and baby products always. I always found them super interesting because, like you were saying, there's a lot of hardware components, there's software components, there's UX experiences, there's network connectivity sort of things. There's video, there's audio. There's so many different components. But before we get too far into the product development and how you guys are building out harbor, I'd love to kind of talk about what the company looked like when building Mizin and main. Right. Like you said, you guys have done hundreds of millions of dollars.
You took it from the beginning, where no one even wanted to buy or acknowledge the brand to the point of doing tons and tons of sales. So I'm just really curious, what in the early days was the key, you think, to the success outside of the innovation? Like, what on the business building side really started, where you guys really started to find traction, product market fit and growth.
Yeah. So, again, outside of the innovation, I think there were a few very key phases, and each phase was very different than the one prior. For the first, honestly, almost two years of Mizin and Maine, it was kind of grinded out for every sale that we could get. I, of course, leaned on friends and family, right. There's a lot of talk in the early days of building anything. You got to go get one customer, then ten customers, then 20, and then 50, and then 100. And as a founder, that's what you're supposed to do. And if you can't do that, then it's unlikely that anyone's ever going to buy your product.
So then I started after some friends and family, then I started just trying to do anything I could to literally just be in front of people and show them the products and hopefully get the shirt on their back. So I talked my way into literally standing in front of Gold's gym in Dallas, where I lived because I knew a lot of people there and I had a rack of shirts and I was trying to talk to people and they were like, sure, you've been coming here for a few years. Well, I guess let you do to. I went to the Dallas Marathon Expo. I went to a bike race expo where you got a lot of fit guys that love performance fabric, and then at the same time just going basically door to door and trying to get any account to carry our product from a wholesale perspective. So that phase one was just like brute force. Door to door, one by one, we were laughed out of every trade show. People told us we were crazy, but all of a sudden we had 100 customers and then we had 200 customers and then we had 1000 customers and we had two wholesale accounts.
So that was very one by one. And then 2014 is when we started to get a little bit more traction. And I'd raised a little bit of angel capital, so now we could spend a little bit of money on Facebook and some of those other things. I feel like being honest, we missed the Facebook arbitrage window where there are some brands that just hacked the algorithm and went from one to 10 million in sales in like 18 months because they didn't necessarily have a great product, they had an unbelievable digital marketing prowess. And so that next phase, we started to be able to actually put ourselves out there in a somewhat bigger way. And that was trial and error. And one of the things that I did was I bought an ad in Esquire magazine because I thought, well, we need to establish ourselves and get out there. That did nothing.
And by the time 2014 rolled around, we had started to get some traction and it was brute force PR efforts. And we had some great PR folks we worked with and some not great PR folks we worked with. But ultimately, most of our great PR was me finding a way to get in touch with an author or a writer and putting myself out there. And in 2014, we ended up having an awesome author. His name is Tim Teeman. I am still grateful to him to this day. And he did all of these freelance articles for the New York Times. Now he works for the Daily Beast.
But the kind of interesting backstory there, I just was looking for writers who are writing about odd things in the world of apparel. Ifashion always turned their nose up at us, and they still do. There are some really prominent fashion writers at Wall Street Journal and New York Times who still will not acknowledge Ms and Maine's existence. Right? Like, we are a pox to them. They will not acknowledge us at all. But with Tim, he wrote these really interesting pieces. Like, he wrote an expose on the puffer jackets that rappers wore in the how that became such a staple. And I thought, this is an intellectually curious guy who is not a fashion guy, but, like, in that world.
And he ended up writing a very big piece on mizzen and Maine in the New York Times. We had a full photography, full color above the full picture. It was awesome. And that kind of led one thing to another, and the other kind of big trial and error that hit was through a PR hit. A guy that I went to high school with, his name is Ian Desmond. He was a very successful major league baseball player. And he invited me to come do a trunk show at the Washington Nationals locker room. And we sold, like, $10,000 worth of product in 45 minutes.
We weren't doing that in a day before, but that opened this avenue to pro athletes, became obsessed with our product. And by the end of that year, that was just after spring training. By the end of that year, I visited probably 15 MLB locker rooms. I think I also kept getting invited because, look, there are some athletes that I really look up to, and it's a really cool experience to be with these guys. But I also didn't know who a bunch of them were. And so I was just in there, like, look, I made these shirts. Do you want them? And I introduced myself to this guy, and I'm like, hey, my name's Kevin. Clearly asking him to reciprocate.
And he goes, Kevin, I'm Bryce. And it was Bryce Harper who assigned one of the biggest contracts in baseball history. He's like, bryce, nice to meet you. I think you look like an extra large. Would you like to try on one of our shirts? So some of those things turned into big wins for us, and that was kind of phase two. The biggest out of that was a sponsorship of Tim Ferriss's podcast, I was kind of poking around and saw a tweet of his saying, I'm taking sponsors for my next kind of batch of sponsorships. And I shot him a note via the form. And I knew someone that knew him well.
And I said, kelly Starrett is a good know. He'll vouch for us. And lo and behold, he did. And Tim, I sent him some product, and he's like, I love this. I think I could really promote. We. We signed up for the sponsorship. It was a huge swing for us because we had to buy three podcasts up front, which was a huge check for us.
Ultimately, it was net positive ROi within two days of the first podcast for all three podcasts, and we ended up doubling our business overnight and never went backwards. But each of the podcasts that he talked about just, I mean, we were doing like ten x, normal revenue. And I talk about that being a turning point. It also nearly killed us because we were not set up to handle that, which was brutal. But one of the things that came out of that for why I think that really propelled us was Tim changed our business forever. And I had read an article called the Tim Ferriss effect. And it was about, when Tim talks about your book, that it can change your Kindle ranking from like 1002 to 72, and that there's nothing in the world like Tim Ferriss talking about your product. And so I wrote a medium article called the Tim Ferriss Effect podcast edition.
And I shared absolute or percentage numbers. I didn't disclose our revenue, but we had a 1000% day. We had a 300% day. And it talks about the ROI. So then Tim, that's good ammo for Tim to promote from an advertising perspective. So Tim kept talking about Mizin and Maine and the sponsorship on his Twitter because he was telling everybody, look at what I did for this brand. But it was also a continued partnership, and that's a win win in the best way. The last big trial and error from phase two was we ended up signing an endorsement deal with JJ was.
I mean, he's continued to rise, but at that point in time, he was everywhere. And, I mean, I could unpack this story for an hour, but suffice it to say, I knew some agents, and I talked to a few, and there were a couple of big names I was going for, and a lot of them said, you should probably go for, like, a C tier athlete right now. And I was like, I need an a tier athlete right now because I'm trying to grow my business like big time right now. And long story short, through a lot of really great dialogue, we signed this deal with JJ. And for us it was this. Especially after the tim thing, this sort of. You can't not take us seriously because there's no way that JJ would sign this with just anybody. And we clearly couldn't write him a check for $10 million.
So he clearly believed in the product and it put us on the map in a big way. I can keep talking about all this stuff, but I would say the third phase would be okay. Now we're a business doing many millions of dollars a year in revenue. Now it's time to get serious and grow. What growth avenues work? How do we continue to scale? Because you're not going to keep getting these pops where you're growing 1000% from a random viral hit. It was a couple of years of like, we're a legit business and we got to keep growing. And it was in all of the above and figuring out where we need to invest more and where some of those channels started to scale back.
Yeah.
Okay.
So a lot to unpack there. Some really interesting things. One thing I'd love to double click on is the JJ Watt partnership. Right. I think a lot of brands think about partnering with big creators, athletes. And now the landscape has changed a little bit since 2015 or so. What year did you guys do the partnership? Was that 16?
Yeah, I'm 99% sure it's 20 some.
Anyway. Somewhere around there, the landscapes obviously changed a little bit, but what were the dynamics of that? Right. Because there's a lot of people with great brands who are saying, I don't want to partner with someone who's like a C tier athlete or a C tier creator. I want to go for someone who's an a. So, a, what did it take to get it done? And then b, if you could provide some general color on what the deal actually looked like, how did it go down?
So my overarching feedback, and I'm in this process right now where I'm talking to a bunch of folks about my new business, is, I think, the most successful partnerships. You either have an a tier celebrity who gives you a level of credibility and reach that you could not get in any other way, or you need to find the creators or influencers in your space who actually aren't necessarily that big, who have an insanely intense and passionate, loyal following that may bring you more business than an a tier celebrity. And so I encourage when people ask me this, to me, it's like, what problem are you trying to solve? Because if you say, I'm just going to throw an a tier athlete at this or an a tier celebrity, and that's going to bring me millions of dollars in revenue, I would bet almost anything that it won't, because you can't just throw a celebrity at something and, oh, well, look at that. If you are going to work with a celebrity, my guidance is always, how authentic is the partnership? And as I have navigated these conversations over the years, because we ended up doing a second major partnership with Phil Mickelson, which was mind blowing and awesome. Both JJ and Phil, it all came down to, like, I had an introduction, and if you can't get an introduction, it's just not going to happen. But I had an introduction, and then I got some product in their hands, and once they put on the product for both of them, I came to learn it was a damn, this is awesome. There's really something special here. And then they looked into me, they looked into the business, they looked in the social, and when I think about an a tier celebrity, they have to be obsessed with your product, they have to love the product, because otherwise, okay, maybe they'll meet all of the contractual obligations.
Great. But if it doesn't show up authentically in their life, I just don't think it matters, and it probably won't help you all that much. And then on the creator side, I know a bunch of DTC businesses where they found some random micro influencer, like medium micro influencer. They formed a very mutually beneficial partnership, and that person drove ten times the amount of revenue that one of the big ones. So I think that's really important framing, because if you're just throwing a celebrity at something, look at how many celebrity brands fail themselves, and it's the celebrity's brand. It's like their own thing, and it doesn't work. So how did it work with JJ? I had some relationships at CAA sports where he was represented. And that doesn't mean, oh, yeah, you can get a deal.
It means they'll at least look at what you have, and they'll at least ensure that if it is a good fit in their eyes, that the talent will see it. But usually they have, I don't know, a hundred things that they could be looking at any given moment. And so it started with, I narrowed the list out and said, here are the three people at CAA that I really want to work with. And then I sent something to each of them. I started to make some progress and traction with JJ and then one of the, I'll say, unlocks behind the scenes was, I realized, talking to his agent, who has since become a friend and is just an awesome person. I was telling JJ, you need to bet on me. Like, sure, you love the product, but you're betting on me. This is an unknown, very small startup.
Do you believe in me? And while I would love to say, let's go get dinner together, let's spend some time together. Come on. How much time does he have for something like that? So I wrote to his agent because I hadn't spoken with JJ, a mini autobiography, and I walked him through the. This is who I was when I grew up. And these are like, this is who my parents were, and this is why I made the decision to go to SMU, and this is why I did this first job. And let me tell you about my wife and how we met, and probably is something that most people wouldn't want to read, but it was something that someone like JJ said. I don't know if I can trust him and can I attach my brand to his? And it didn't seal the deal, but it did mean that I broke through and I was invited to then sit down and have a deeper conversation where then we could get to that next level. And so my suggestion there is, if you can't get an introduction to the agent or the talent, you're never going to break through.
And then the second is make sure that it's the right person for what you're trying to do. And then the third would be, are you presenting anything that is compelling to them? Besides, I'm going to throw you lots of money, or I'm going to throw you lots of equity, because those options are on the table for these folks all the time. At that level, it needs to be compelling, but also a way that feels like, yeah, this is a good decision for my time and resources. And, look, I got really lucky. Right time, right place. With JJ, I made some of the right moves. There were other people that I had tried to work with along the way that I never made any traction and never got anywhere. So I'm not saying that I have it all figured out, but when you stack all of that up, that's how we got there.
And your last piece of this was like, give us some sense of what the deal kind of looked like. Ultimately, it was an equity deal because cash was so precious for us at that point in time. It was a meaningful equity stake for us, and obviously meaningful enough for JJ. But one of the ways that we were able to make it work was we were not a conflict for anything else that he was doing. So he was a Reebok sponsored athlete. Reebok did not do what we do, and it didn't compete with anything else in his Rolodex. And so if we had tried to do it with, I'm making this up, an energy drink, I don't know. Gatorade is paying him an astronomical amount of money, so you probably wouldn't have been able to get in there.
But like, men's dress attire, we were this small sliver of his stack of potential endorsements and we made it very manageable from a time and awareness perspective. Like, we did one photo shoot a year and it was, I don't even think we had a mandated number of posts. I was like, I will make this the easiest deal that you have. And he ultimately said, yeah, I can make that work.
We are really excited to announce that DTCpod is officially part of the HubSpot podcast network. The HubSpot podcast network is the audio destination for business professionals. And we're really excited about being part of the network because we're going to be able to keep growing the show, bringing you guys amazing guests, and obviously helping you guys learn from the best founders, marketers and builders of the most successful consumer brands. So anyway, keep listening to DTC pod and more shows like us on the HubSpot podcast network@HubSpot.com. Slash podcastnetwork. That's awesome. I think there's so many things that you mentioned that are really important for people to think about. I think you're spot on in terms of, it's not just about the size of the creator, it's about alignment, authenticity, and how they can work with your business.
Because I see it myself sometimes you'll think, oh, it'd be awesome if I partner with this really big creator. You look at their socials, it's like they don't even have a relationship with their audience, right? Like they're barely posting. They're not even creating content that aligns. And then you may have a creator who maybe has like 500K followers or a couple of million and is just like going for it all the time, talking about products they love and really has that deeper relationship. The other thing you mentioned that I think is really spot on is how you didn't just approach it being like, oh, here, JJ, here's how much you're going to get. And all this. You said, first, let me tell you who I am, right? I think creators are approached so many times by so many different people that they know in very fleeting sort of capacities and even just giving it the time to be like, wait a minute, Kevin is a real person, someone I can relate to. I know his backstory.
I think that's a really big thing. And that's not something that you hear too often. Everyone's just trying to close the sale instantly and just saying, oh, it's money, money. What's the equity terms? And like you're saying, these creators, they have so many opportunities, especially at the higher end, that you need to stand out and differentiate yourself. And then on the last point, in terms of just finding what the alignment looks like, in terms of making sure that it's a deal that they can say yes to, that's going to be good for you, that's a win win. And making sure that you both feel like it's a win when you're going into it. So, yeah, that's amazing. Those are some awesome partnerships.
JJ Watt, Phil Mickelson, two different markets, but similar overlapping market, and obviously hitting right down the middle on your ICP. That's really exciting. So I'd like to transition the convo towards harbor. Right. Clearly you were able to build Mizin and maine into a really profitable big business. And now taking some of those learnings over when you started on, like, what were some of the first things that came to mind in terms of either things that you did right at Mizin and Maine that you were okay, like, this is part of the playbook and we're running it back, or things that you didn't get right at Mizin and Maine that you were like, okay. These are things that I want to solve for and make sure I don't trip up when starting my next.
So, I mean, overarching. One of the things that's very different this time around is we're building something so technically complex and frankly, mission critical and life critical. With Mizzen, I made my first shirt and I made a thousand of them and I went out there and it was very much MVP because you got to get out there in the world and will people buy it with harbor, it doesn't work that way. Right. We are making a very sophisticated piece. Well, two very sophisticated pieces of electronics, how those interact with each other, the overall ux UI, cloud based interactions, and we are layering in telehealth interactions. And so one of the primary differences this time is the sheer amount of upfront investment, expertise and talent required to do this. We officially started building this in September of 2022.
And we just launched our waitlist in mid February of 24. We'll ship our first units this spring and we'll begin shipping to everybody this summer. I figured out how to make some shirts and find some manufacturers and get it off the ground. And I was out there slinging shirts at the Dallas Marathon Expo with this. I found a truly incredible co founder, Charlie Hill, who is our chief product officer and co founder and now a great friend. We have multiple full stack developers on staff. We've got nearshore and offshore developers we've hired ahead of hardware. I've got multiple extremely sophisticated advisors.
We have been over to visit our manufacturers, which didn't happen for me for a long time. And so the upfront investment here is just a profoundly different experience. Also, just being blunt, the reality of this is I could not have done harbor bootstrapping. Right. I've raised venture capital, we brought some great angels on board and it's a very significant investment upfront to then be able to go sell something. So the biggest difference there is, it necessitates the level of expertise and sophistication that I brought on from the very beginning. I sought out every expert. And prior to starting Mizin and Maine, I was very nervous that someone was going to steal my idea.
So I told no one about it. And prior to starting harbor, I have, I think, directly spoken to over 500 people in the last 18 months, almost two years. And it was basically like, if you would even sort of talk to me about it, I was talking to you about it. And that has rapidly iterated and improved our approach because what everyone says in hardware is it's so dangerous because of how much money is required to get this thing off the ground. Small mistakes can cost you millions of dollars. And so I wanted to talk to everybody who has made every mistake and try and learn from know the, the world. When I started Mizin, there were these brands that hacked Facebook and grew in a massive gone, that's gone in every way at this point in time. It's still a valuable marketing channel.
But I just approached this from the very beginning that we would have to do things differently. And so one of the key points to how we will grow this business is putting out exceptionally valuable content that makes parents lives better. And so I have pediatric sleep experts, doctors, I've got amazing resources, science based writers. And so we are pulling together incredible content so that if you are a parent and concerned about, well, first and foremost, sleep and bringing a child into your home, that we are the place where you can get science backed answers that are clear and unambiguous and then layering out into additional realms of all the questions that you have as a parent. And a lot of people look at content as, oh yeah, no, it's good for SEO. I look at it as we're going to create incredible value for our customers who are going to share it with their friends and their lives will improve. And that flywheel will be something that we just have never really done because I just didn't invest in content from the beginning. And I think we have a good blog now at Mizzen and Maine and it's good, but like content as a pillar of the operation that we're building.
Because if we improve parents'lives, then we've done our job and everything else comes together naturally. The next piece is just it took me a long time before I could work with influencers and social media. Influencers wasn't really a thing at twelve years ago, sort of, but not really. And now one of our core growth vectors is partnering with great moms who put out their own great content so that we can connect with moms where they are. And then we are talking to some really awesome talent about different types of partnerships. So stay tuned because I think we've got some good announcements coming. But with Miz, and it took me three years before, a little over three years before we were able to work with JJ. And so I think we'll be able to do some earlier, cooler partnerships which will help establish that from a credibility.
Then, you know, the nature of what I'm building this time building with our team is with Mizin. We were unique in the DTC boom because from the very beginning I approached wholesale as a critical partner, whereas so many of the brands that were started around that time are like no, online everything forever, any in store, is dumb. Everyone has now realized how dumb that is. But we started building wholesale from the very beginning and I looked at them as a critical extension of the Mississippi main kind of network. With the way that we're building harbor. For the first few years we are going to be direct to consumer only and we will eventually expand. But for the first few years it looks like we will be exclusively direct to consumer and then find those growth vectors and other partnerships when the time is right.
Kevin, one question I want to ask now that you mentioned about the wholesale stuff and how that was part of the strategy at Mizin, a lot of direct to consumer brands now or that started Internet native as they grow up, they're thinking about omnichannel they're thinking about working with wholesalers and retailers now. Could you tell me a little bit about how just having that retail sort of presence maybe helped grow the brand as a whole? Because like you're saying when you're actually working with it, sure. That you have less margin when you're working with other partners or retailers, but at the same time, it does contribute and bring back into the brand as a whole. So could you just kind of characterize what that looked like with Mizin and Maine?
Absolutely. And I have to give so much credit. I still thank him. I see him every once in a while and I still thank him when I see him. Damon John really opened my eyes to this. I had such a cool opportunity to have dinner with him just before I launched Mizzin and Maine. He had this awesome promotion where if he made a donation to one of these charities that he was a part of, you could have dinner with him. And I was like, that's the one person in the world I would want to have dinner right now.
Shark Tank has continued to be a great show, but 2012, it was peak Shark Tank mania. And so one of the things that he said from the beginning, he is the reason that I didn't askew wholesale partners. After hearing him, he changed my mind and I decided to invest in that as a growth vector from the very beginning. When you put on a mizzan and main shirt, especially a decade, twelve years ago, when there was nothing like it, now so many brands have started copying what we've been doing, but when you put it on, it's unlike anything you've ever put on, ever. And as a guy who had worn dress shirts for many years, any guy who ever has this feeling of like, oh, that is nice, is not what you think when you put on a stiff cotton dress shirt. And so he said, you're going to want people to be able to try this product on, and there's no way that you can get this out there to enough people where they could just grab it off a rack and put it on. And the other piece is in the menswear business, so much of the menswear industry is actually decided by small specialty menswear stores that the guy or his son or the grandfather or whatever, they've been running this small shop for 50 years, and the grandfathers used to shop there, their son shopped there, and their son shopped there. And so he's like, they will be excited that you are something new that they can show their customers.
And so when someone comes in they're going to say, oh, come on over here, Tommy, you got to come check this out. They'll get them to try it on. What we have seen in our own stores validates that. I mean, I'd seen it in our wholesale partners, but in our stores, we have well over a 50% conversion rate. If we get someone into the shirt, it's well over a 50% conversion that they will buy it. They've never tried it on before. If we can get them in the shirt, they're going to buy the shirt. And so I knew that I could never get our product in front of enough people, and all that I needed to do was get them in it.
And so, yes, you get fewer margin points, but those wholesalers are providing value and they deserve that margin. And so we've had ups and downs. Some partners have been better than others, and certainly some headaches when you're dealing with other people representing your brand at that level. But ultimately, it has been just an absolutely critical value for Mizzon and Maine overall.
And one of the other interesting things that I think I'm noticing between both of these businesses is you need to kind of look at each business and each product and think about who's the customer and what's valuable for that customer. Like you're saying for Mizin and Maine, you realized very quickly that it was about aligning yourselves with the right creators who could have an outsized impact on the business. And then also because the product spoke for itself, at least in how you wear it, how you feel it, and how it's differentiated from everything else. So you wanted to optimize for getting people into the product, whereas you said you're doubling down on content for harbor because, like you're saying these people have an underserved market. They're trying to learn. They don't have sources of education like this, and they're looking for creator partners like moms that they can trust. So creating a content engine where now you're essentially doing, you're doing a similar thing, but it's a different product, it's a different market, it's a different need, and you're meeting those customers where they need to be met to step into and find your ecosystem, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
So my next question about building out harbor, I know you said there's a lot going on. There's a lot that goes behind the scenes into the product development side and the launch side. But one thing that you said is you guys are running a prelaunch. Could you talk to me about knowing that you've got all this product development and you're getting ready to scale up and you're going into TDC, how did you guys strategize or plan your waitlist and your pre launch with your customers?
Yeah, so the process, and here I've got one of our cameras right here. The process of building physical electronics is incredibly complex. It is a very long time to get to the point where you say, we're ready to turn this production line on. And so shortly we will be kicking off that actual full production. And so our approach was, with something as complex and as expensive as electronics manufacturing, getting an indication of demand is helpful for helping predict that we don't get into an upside down supply and demand where we just cannot get enough product out the door. There's a very delicate dance. You want some level of excitement about the product, but there were some businesses, especially during COVID where it was like a 16 week wait time, and you have to put all of your money down up front to reserve your spot in line. And that's not a great experience as a customer.
And so ultimately what we decided to do was not the Kickstarter model where it's like, hey, I have this idea, give me some money, I'll definitely go build it. Because I think people have somewhat soured on how many Kickstarter projects did not end up coming to fruition. And that's through no fault of Kickstarters. It's just the nature of how difficult it is to make products. We have this product, we have people using it in their homes right now. Our own employees are using it. We've got some beta testers using the product. It's now just about standing up that production line.
So we decided to do the waitlist so that we could try to get ahead of some of the demand that will come later in the year with some sort of indication of how many people are telling you that they actually want the product. So we did a $25 refundable deposit. I think, like any great leader, you have to take inspiration from other things that have worked. Tesla, they put the deposit down, it's refundable. And for them, the amount of money that that was, was a really nice cash infusion. But ultimately, it helped give some sort of indication of how many people want the model. Three. How many people want the cyber truck? And so we took some inspiration from that waitlist model and ultimately tried to steer it in a direction where people weren't feeling like, I gave you my money a year ago, where is my product? So we will have our first batch of units that will ship this spring, and then the full production line will be throwing off the full production quantities later this summer.
And it's an interesting balance when you're building a physical product. The cash cycles are very difficult and so you have to manage. You don't want people to wait too long, but you also need to know what the demand looks like. So this, we felt like was a nice compromise. And there have been some other great products over the last couple of years that have built really interesting waitlists like Opal camera. I've got their camera as my webcam. And when you do it, you got to make sure you follow through and keep your customers up to date and deliver a product that they love.
So is there a specific way you built it? What's your site built on? Did you guys build on Shopify? Did you build custom? And then how did you actually. Okay, great. And then for this sort of thing where people put the money down as a deposit, how is that processed?
We've used some Shopify apps. There's some kind of native apps that are helpful from a credit card processing perspective because we don't want to be credit card processors. But then we worked with some developers to build some custom extensions around how to make sure that the right information is attached to the right person. And harbor will be a membership model similar to WHOOP. I'm obsessed with my WHOOP. And so there are some very complex behind the scenes mechanics to set your customers up for success and give them the right information. And when is it charged and when does a membership start? So we've done some custom work behind the scenes, but thankfully we have a camera and a monitor. I think I've got the monitor over here.
We got a camera and a monitor. We don't have to worry about colors, and we don't have to worry about different storage or any of those types of things. So it makes the inventory management a little bit easier. It's not like we're going to sell out of the ones in green and all of a sudden find ourselves in a really tough spot. And having built an apparel company with an enormous number of SKUs and sizes and fits and colors, I'm pretty excited about a two SKU inventory business.
Yeah, I think that's a great point. Right? There's a lot of things that are a lot harder about building this business, but at least you won't have to be managing a whole bunch of different SKUs. My last question as it pertains to the product. And the opportunity side of things is what gets you really excited about this space. Do you think there's a bigger opportunity within the parenting sort of space to build other products? Once you've landed with the baby monitor, you're going so far into content. This is going to be a brand that people can trust and relate to. Do you have plans as you scale? What's the broader vision for harbor?
We think we can be the company that transforms sleep and wellness for. Let's start with american families. I'm not worried about the whole world quite yet. Our mission statement is happier parents and healthier families, one restful night at a time. I'm a dad of two young kids. I have a seven year old son and a five year old daughter. And we were very fortunate to have some sleep expertise, help along the way and feel like it changed our health, our marriage, our kids behavior. It's safer when you get in a car and drive.
You can be a better employee. Sleep is so fundamental, and I love using this very bad pun, but people are waking up to the importance of sleep. Matthew Walker's why we sleep. People like WHOOP an aura, showing an apple, showing us what happens when we don't get quality sleep. And there's just this, I hate to say, generally accepted malaise when it comes to as a new parent, like, yeah, I guess you're never going to sleep again. And it doesn't have to be that way. I'm not saying it's easy, but there's a lot of really bad advice out there. And the technology that exists, all the other stuff, is not like ours.
It doesn't make your life better, it makes it more difficult. And as you don't have kids yet, when your kid is one, two, three years old and they cough in the middle of the night, you're awake, you shouldn't have to wake up for a cough, you should wake up for a scream. And so we have some pretty sophisticated chips and intelligence in here that parents can enable a level of audio smoothing for age appropriate children, not appropriate for an 18 week old, fine for an 18 month old, that if you could get more sleep, you're going to be a better parent, you're going to be a better partner, you're going to be a better everything. And so I look at our opportunity like we are starting with a baby monitor. But that is the foundation to change how parents approach sleep for themselves and their children. Our remote night nanny product is a service is going to democratize access to all night sleep expertise. 07:00 p.m. Till 07:00 a.m.
You can have an expert remotely coaching and guiding you and taking responsibility for helping you all night long in a way that's never been possible before. And that is what has excited people that I've talked to the most. Because that's changing a paradigm, right? That's changing an operating system for families across the entire country. 3.6 million children are born in the United States every year, and unfortunately that number is declining. We need that number to be going up. More people is a good thing, despite what some of the nihilists and some of the very sad people in the world have to say. No more people is a good thing and it's a necessity. And so if we can make it easier to have kids, we can have a profound impact on society.
I veer a little into the Silicon Valley show when I say that because I'll never forget that changing society one API at a time. It's grandiose language, but I mean it. We can literally change people's lives. And we have. So we've done a dozen remote night nanny pilot tests over the last year and we had parents tell us, you have changed my life. You helped me out of postpartum depression. You gave me hope to have a third child. These are things that imagine if every person who had a kid could feel that that's what we're working on.
That's awesome. No, I was laughing because I think you hit the nail on the head with that. It's like you've got to have that big vision and understand how impactful it can be. But I love the fact that you are also like, it's ridiculous, but we're also doing it. So I love that. Kevin, for anyone who's tuning in and is curious more about your story, about your brands, where can they connect with you and where can they find out more about Mizin and Maine and harbor?
Thank you. So I'm on x Twitter at kevinslavell. Miziminmain is mizzenamdmain.com also that's our X and Instagram. And then harbor is Harbor Co. And on all the socials we are harbor sleep because we are all about helping parents get more sleep. We launched our waitlist mid February. We are taking waitlist deposits, $25 refundable deposit, and would love to get all your listeners on our list and hopefully one of those first units and devices that we ship this summer because we sold out of our first batch this spring already and look forward to hopefully maybe a year from now we can talk about the success of the waitlist strategy and so grateful for the opportunity to share a bit more about Midland, Maine and Harbor.
Sweet. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Kevin thanks.
Thanks for tuning in and we hope you enjoyed this episode of DTC Pod. If you enjoyed the show, we'd love your support. A rating and review would go a long way as we continue to host the best builders in DTC and beyond. Follow and subscribe to the show and make sure to check out our show notes, where you can find our socials and weekly newsletter. Visit us on etcpod.com to join our founder community and access resources from every episode. We'll see you on the next pod.
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DTC Pod Linkedin
@Kevin Lavelle, founder of @Mizzen+Main and co-founder of @Harbor, joins @blaine on this week's episode of DTC Pod to discuss his entrepreneurial journey and the launch of his new venture.
Kevin shares insights on leveraging influencer partnerships, such as collaborations with @Tim Ferriss and @JJ Watt, which propelled Mizzen+Main to hundreds of millions in revenue and over 500 wholesale partners.
Now focusing on baby monitors and pediatric telehealth with Harbor, Kevin discusses the challenges of transitioning from apparel to tech and his mission to improve parental sleep and wellness.
We explore Harbor's prelaunch strategies, including a waitlist with refundable deposits, and the company's vision to transform sleep and wellness for American families.
Tune in for valuable lessons on customer focus, product development, and sustainable growth.
Full episode here: [Spotify Link]
#dtcpod #entrepreneurship #brandpartnerships #influencermarketing #hardwarestartups #familywellness
1️⃣ One Sentence Summary
Menswear to baby monitors: Lavelle's entrepreneurial journey and lessons learned.
💼 LinkedIN - 6 Reasons Post
Raising venture capital is the WORST way to fund your startup. Here are the top 6 reasons why taking VC money is a mistake that can doom your company (and why bootstrapping is the way to go):
You lose control of your business.
When you take VC funding, you give up a significant portion of ownership and control. Investors will have a say in major decisions, and their interests may not align with your vision. Bootstrapping allows you to maintain full control and steer your company in the direction you believe in.
VC funding sets unrealistic growth expectations.
VCs invest with the expectation of massive returns within a short timeframe. This pressure can force you to prioritize rapid growth at all costs, often at the expense of sustainable business practices and long-term success. Bootstrapping enables you to grow at a realistic pace without the burden of external expectations.
Raising capital is a time-consuming distraction.
Fundraising is a full-time job that takes your focus away from building your product and serving your customers. Pitching to investors, negotiating terms, and managing investor relations can consume months of valuable time. Bootstrapping allows you to dedicate all your energy to what matters most: creating value for your customers.
VC funding doesn't guarantee success.
Raising millions of dollars might seem like a validation of your idea, but it doesn't ensure your startup will succeed. In fact, many heavily-funded startups fail spectacularly. Bootstrapping forces you to be resourceful, lean, and customer-focused from day one, increasing your chances of building a viable business.
You risk building an unsustainable business.
VC-backed startups often rely on artificially low prices, aggressive marketing, and unsustainable growth tactics to meet investor expectations. This approach can create a house of cards that collapses when funding runs out. Bootstrapping encourages you to build a profitable, sustainable business model from the start.
You may lose sight of your true purpose.
When chasing VC funding and unicorn status, it's easy to lose sight of why you started your company in the first place. The pressure to deliver outsized returns can lead you astray from your original mission and values. Bootstrapping allows you to stay true to your purpose and build a company you can be proud of.
TAKEAWAY:
Bootstrapping is the smart way to fund your startup.
Maintain control and ownership of your company.
Focus on sustainable growth and profitability from day one.
Dedicate your time and energy to serving your customers, not chasing investors.
Remember that VC funding is not a prerequisite for success.
Stay true to your mission and values as you build your business.
Interview Breakdown
In this episode, Kevin Lavelle shares his entrepreneurial journey from building Mizzen and Main, a 9-figure menswear brand, to his new venture, Harbor, which aims to redefine baby monitors and support new parents. He discusses the key lessons learned, growth strategies, and the power of authentic partnerships.
Today, Kevin will cover:
The importance of learning from others in the industry to avoid costly mistakes
Leveraging social media and influencer partnerships, particularly with influential mothers, as key growth strategies
The evolution of Mizzen and Main, from initial wholesale partnerships to direct-to-consumer sales
The impact of authentic celebrity partnerships, such as those with JJ Watt and Phil Mickelson
The transformative potential of remote coaching for families and its societal benefits
🔑 7 Key Themes
Authentic partnerships crucial for brand success
Leveraging influencer relationships for growth
Equity deals beneficial with budget constraints
Alignment and authenticity in creator partnerships
Remote coaching transforms family life
Technology supports parents, promotes healthier families
Strategic product launches manage demand, supply
💬 Keywords
Kevin Lavelle
Mizzen and Main
Harbor
Baby monitors
Pediatric telehealth
Parental sleep
Parental wellness
Night nanny
Hardware development
Venture capital
Angel investors
Influencer partnerships
Celebrity partnerships
JJ Watt
Phil Mickelson
Tim Ferriss Effect
Authentic partnerships
Wholesale partnerships
Conversion rates
New York Times coverage
Washington Nationals
Shopify
Membership model
WHOOP
Inventory management
Family health
Sleep quality
Parenting technology
Product development
Prelaunch waitlist
📚 Timestamped overview
00:00 Built a successful brand with significant revenue and wholesale reach; transitioned leadership to develop a new venture, Harbor, inspired by personal experiences.
07:20 Grassroots marketing efforts led to growing a customer base from zero to 1000 through persistence, gym demos, expos, and door-to-door sales despite initial skepticism.
08:20 Gained traction in 2014 with angel capital; missed Facebook marketing boom; trial and error with ads, like ineffective Esquire placement.
12:42 Tim Ferriss's podcast promotion rapidly doubled business revenue, causing challenges but proving transformative.
16:36 Successful partnerships involve either A-tier celebrities for credibility and reach, or smaller influencers with passionate followings. Authenticity and genuine interest in the product are crucial for celebrity endorsements to be effective.
20:06 Building trust through personal storytelling led to a deeper conversation.
23:42 Partner with smaller creators with strong audience connections, emphasizing personal relationships over immediate financial offers.
26:00 Developing a complex, life-critical electronics system unlike previous MVP products, requiring significant upfront investment, expertise, and talent since September 2022.
29:03 Focusing on creating valuable, science-backed parenting content to drive business growth and improve customers' lives.
33:02 Peak interest in "Shark Tank" in 2012 inspired investment in wholesale for Mizzen and Main shirts, known for their comfort and uniqueness in menswear, attracting specialty stores seeking new offerings.
35:40 Understand your customers and tailor strategies: align with influential creators for one product, while focusing on educational content for a different market.
38:45 $25 refundable deposit waitlist gauges demand, inspired by Tesla. Spring shipment, full production by summer.
43:31 Remote night nanny service enhances sleep for parents and children through advanced audio technology, promoting better parenting and partnerships by allowing uninterrupted sleep.
46:19 Follow Harbor Sleep on social media for sleep solutions; waitlist now open with a refundable deposit for summer shipments.
📚 Timestamped overview
00:00 Building brand and business resonating with customers.
07:20 Brute force marketing grew customer base rapidly.
08:20 Started marketing efforts; mixed success, missed opportunities.
12:42 Tim Ferriss mention doubled business, overwhelmed operations.
16:36 Authenticity and passion outweigh celebrity in partnerships.
20:06 Building trust through personal storytelling to connect.
23:42 Genuine connections outweigh large follower counts.
26:00 Building complex tech requires upfront investment, expertise.
29:03 Invest in valuable content to support parents.
33:02 Shark Tank influenced decision to pursue wholesale growth.
35:40 Tailor approach to customer needs, product, market.
38:45 Implementing refundable waitlist deposits to gauge demand.
43:31 Remote monitor improves sleep, enhancing parenting.
46:19 Follow us for parent sleep solutions and updates.
❇️ Key topics and bullets
Kevin Lavelle's Background and Ventures
Founder of Mizzen and Main menswear brand
Co-founder and CEO of Harbor baby monitor and pediatric telehealth company
Harbor's Product Launch and Development
Waitlist launch in February 2024 with plans to ship first units by spring
Broader distribution planned for summer 2024
Partnering with co-founder Charlie Hill and hiring full-stack developers
Engaging with global manufacturers for hardware development
Significant upfront investment required, supported by venture capital and angel investors
Harbor's Business Approach and Strategies
Creating high-value content for parents, featuring pediatric experts and science-based writers
Establishing credibility and enhancing customer value through content
Leveraging social media and influencer partnerships, particularly with influential mothers
Focusing initially on direct-to-consumer sales with plans to explore other channels later
Mizzen and Main's Evolution and Growth
Initial strategy included wholesale partnerships inspired by Damon John's advice
Wholesale partnerships crucial for reaching a wide audience and selling unique menswear products
Retail presence allowed customers to try products in-store, boosting conversion rates
Challenges and benefits of working with retail partners, including lower margins but invaluable exposure and reach
Marketing and Publicity Strategies
Seeking out writers interested in unique aspects of apparel, leading to New York Times coverage
Successful trunk show at the Washington Nationals locker room, expanding the brand's reach to professional athletes
Sponsorship with Tim Ferriss's podcast resulting in significant revenue growth ("Tim Ferriss Effect")
Partnership with JJ Watt providing visibility, credibility, and confirmation of product value
Authentic Partnerships and Influencer Collaborations
Importance of authenticity in celebrity partnerships, citing successful collaborations with JJ Watt and Phil Mickelson
Leveraging connections at CAA sports to build a relationship with JJ Watt
Focusing on personal storytelling to engage and earn trust, highlighting non-monetary appeals
Structuring an equity deal with Watt to ensure no conflicts with existing endorsements
Necessity of finding the right partner alignment, creating compelling offers, and ensuring mutually beneficial relationships
Lessons Learned and Future Vision
Transition from initial business growth phases driven by viral hits to sustained scaling efforts
Reflecting on lessons from Mizzen and Main, focusing on refining successful strategies and avoiding past mistakes
Discussing the transformative potential of remote coaching for families, highlighting its impact on family life and child-rearing
Recognizing the importance of facilitating childbirth for societal benefits
Conducting remote night nanny pilot tests and receiving positive feedback from parents
Aiming to change society and individual lives through technological innovation and support systems
🎬 Reel script
Hey everyone, Kevin Lavelle here. In today's episode, I had the pleasure of discussing my entrepreneurial journey with Blaine Bolus on the DTC POD. We covered the incredible growth of Mizzen and Main, the menswear brand that disrupted the industry with performance fabric dress shirts. From our humble beginnings selling directly to customers to partnering with over 500 wholesalers, it's been a wild ride.
But that's not all—I also introduced my latest venture, Harbor, which is set to revolutionize the baby monitor industry and provide much-needed support for parents. We're focusing on creating failsafe local baby monitors and an affordable remote night nanny platform to help improve parental sleep and overall wellness.
Throughout the episode, I shared valuable insights on building authentic partnerships, leveraging influencer marketing, and navigating the challenges of developing a hardware-based business. If you're an entrepreneur looking to make a real impact, this is an episode you won't want to miss. Head over to the DTC POD to listen now!
✏️ Custom Newsletter
Subject: New DTC POD Episode: From Menswear Mogul to Baby Monitor Innovator 🧑💼👶
Hey there, DTC POD fans! 👋
We've got an exciting new episode for you this week featuring Kevin Lavelle, the founder of Mizzen and Main and co-founder of Harbor. Kevin takes us on a journey from disrupting the menswear industry to revolutionizing baby monitors and parental support. 🚀
In this episode, you'll learn:
The importance of authentic partnerships and influencer alignment 🤝
How to structure creative deals that benefit both parties 📝
The value of learning from others to avoid costly mistakes 🧠
Strategies for leveraging PR and digital marketing to boost your brand 📈
The potential of technology to transform parenting and family wellness 👨👩👧👦
Fun Fact: Did you know that Kevin's partnership with NFL star JJ Watt was a game-changer for Mizzen and Main? It just goes to show the power of finding the right collaborators! 🏈💪
As always, a huge thanks to Kevin for sharing his insights and experiences with us. We hope you find this episode as inspiring and informative as we did! 😊
Before you go, don't forget to check out Harbor's waitlist for their groundbreaking baby monitor, set to launch this summer. Be one of the first to experience this amazing product! 🍼😴
Happy listening, and stay tuned for more incredible stories from the world of DTC! 🎧
Cheers,
The DTC POD Team
P.S. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends and colleagues who might benefit from Kevin's wisdom! And don't forget to leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform – it really helps us out. 🙏
🐦 Business Lesson Tweet Thread
🧵 The power of authentic partnerships cannot be overstated. As Kevin Lavelle shared, his success with Mizzen+Main came from genuine connections, not just celebrity status.
When approaching JJ Watt, Lavelle focused on building trust through personal storytelling, not just financial incentives. This allowed a mutually beneficial equity deal despite budget constraints.
The lesson? Seek out partners truly aligned with your brand's mission and values. Compelling offers go beyond money. Relationships need to be win-win.
Even for DTCpod, the HubSpot partnership works because of shared audience values, not just size. Authenticity matters more than fame or followers.
Whether you're selling shirts or baby monitors, find partners that connect with your story. Earn their trust. Make it about more than transactions.
Real relationships, real results. That's the secret behind Lavelle's wins, from Mizzen+Main to his new venture Harbor. Partner with purpose.
🎓 Lessons Learned
Authentic Partnerships Drive Success
Engage genuine influencers aligned with brand values for mutually beneficial collaborations, rather than solely chasing celebrity status.Inventive Deal Structures
Overcome budget limitations with creative equity deals, ensuring partner alignment without conflicting existing endorsements.Targeted PR Boosts Visibility
Leverage media connections for strategic publicity, like Mizzen+Main's NYT feature, to rapidly expand brand reach.Influencer Alignment Trumps Audience
Prioritize influencer alignment with brand mission over audience size for successful partnerships and authentic storytelling.Iterative Growth Strategies
Refine proven growth tactics while avoiding past missteps to sustainably scale and navigate each venture phase.Empathetic Tech Transforms Lives
Develop innovative, mission-critical products with empathy to ease burdens and meaningfully impact users' quality of life.Membership Model Enhances UX
Simplify inventory with fewer SKUs and focus on user experience through membership-based models like WHOOP.Prelaunch Waitlists Gauge Demand
Leverage prelaunch waitlists with refundable deposits to assess demand and efficiently manage production, avoiding Kickstarter pitfalls.Credible Content Builds Trust
Create expert-driven, educational content tailored to underserved audiences to establish brand authority and deepen customer relationships.Expandable Platforms Drive Impact
Design product ecosystems primed for expansion, like Harbor's baby monitor to night nanny pipeline, for comprehensive user support.
💎 Maxims
Here is a list of maxims for entrepreneurship and business based on the key concepts discussed by Kevin Lavelle in this podcast episode:
Understand your customer and the value you provide. Tailor your approach to meet their specific needs and priorities.
Invest upfront in product development, especially for complex hardware products, to ensure you deliver a reliable, high-quality solution.
Build credibility and trust with your audience by providing valuable, expert-driven content that addresses their pain points and interests.
Leverage social media and partnerships with authentic, aligned influencers to expand your reach and impact. Focus on engaged advocates over follower count.
Structure deals creatively, going beyond purely financial incentives, to make partnerships mutually beneficial and attractive for high-profile individuals.
Learn from past successes and failures. Refine what works and course-correct mistakes as you grow new ventures.
Look for opportunities to meaningfully impact lives and society through your products and services. Let a greater mission drive your work.
Validate demand and manage your supply chain carefully using tactics like pre-order waitlists before scaling production.
Keep the user experience simple and streamlined, even as your business model and product offerings evolve.
Stay laser-focused on a specific niche or underserved market where you can provide unique value and establish leadership.
Explore multiple channels, including direct-to-consumer, wholesale partnerships, and retail, to grow your customer base and revenue streams.
Hustle in the early startup stages to get your product in front of the right people and gain traction through direct outreach and grassroots initiatives.
Prioritize customer education, especially for new-to-the-world products, to convey your unique value proposition and drive adoption.
Harness the power of earned media and press coverage by developing relationships with journalists and crafting compelling brand stories.
Be persistent and adaptable in the face of skepticism and obstacles. Let doubters fuel your drive to succeed and prove them wrong.
🌟 3 Fun Facts
Here are 3 fun facts from the episode:
A successful trunk show at the Washington Nationals locker room, facilitated by player Ian Desmond, helped expand Mizzen and Main's reach to professional athletes.
Kevin Lavelle leveraged an equity deal with NFL star JJ Watt, making the celebrity partnership feasible and mutually beneficial despite budget constraints.
Harbor has conducted remote night nanny pilot tests, receiving positive feedback from parents who reported the service helped with postpartum depression and encouraged them to have more children.
📓 Blog Post
Title: From Menswear to Baby Monitors: Kevin Lavelle's Journey of Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Subheader: Insights from the Co-Founder of Mizzen and Main and CEO of Harbor on Building Successful Brands and Navigating New Ventures
Introduction
Kevin Lavelle, the founder of Mizzen and Main and co-founder and CEO of Harbor, has made significant strides in the world of entrepreneurship. From revolutionizing the menswear industry with performance fabric dress shirts to developing cutting-edge baby monitors and pediatric telehealth solutions, Lavelle's journey is one of innovation, perseverance, and learning from experience.
Building Mizzen and Main: Disrupting the Menswear Industry
Lavelle's entrepreneurial journey began with Mizzen and Main, a company he founded in 2012 after observing a congressional staffer struggle with traditional dress shirts. Recognizing the need for more comfortable and functional menswear, Lavelle set out to create performance fabric dress shirts that would change the game.
Starting with direct customer engagement, Lavelle sold shirts at gyms and expos while also acquiring wholesale accounts. Despite initial skepticism from others, Mizzen and Main grew steadily, thanks to funding from friends, family, and angel investors. The company focused on leveraging PR and digital marketing, establishing a strong brand presence through magazine ads and author connections. A crucial moment in Mizzen and Main's publicity came in 2014 when Tim Teeman, a freelancer for the New York Times, wrote about the company.
Authentic Partnerships and Celebrity Collaborations
One of the key factors in Mizzen and Main's success was Lavelle's emphasis on authentic partnerships. He understood that success often comes from collaborations with smaller, engaged influencers rather than celebrities who may not align with the brand. Lavelle's strategic partnership with JJ Watt, which involved an equity deal due to budget constraints, exemplifies the importance of finding the right partner alignment and creating compelling offers beyond financial incentives.
Lavelle's advice for forming effective partnerships underscores the necessity of ensuring relationships are mutually beneficial. As host Blaine Bolus highlights, creator alignment with brand values and authenticity, rather than just audience size, is crucial for success.
Launching Harbor: Focusing on Parental Support and Sleep
In mid-2022, Lavelle began his new venture, Harbor, which focuses on developing baby monitors and pediatric telehealth solutions. Drawing from his experiences with Mizzen and Main, Lavelle notes the technical complexity and need for upfront investment in Harbor to ensure success in a mission-critical product.
Harbor aims to improve parental sleep and wellness by providing a dedicated, failsafe local baby monitor and an affordable remote night nanny platform. Lavelle discusses the transformative potential of remote coaching for families, highlighting its impact on family life and child-rearing. With a grand vision of changing society and individual lives through technological innovation and support systems, Harbor has the potential to make a significant impact.
Lessons Learned and Future Vision
As Lavelle develops Harbor, he reflects on the lessons learned from Mizzen and Main, focusing on refining successful strategies and avoiding past mistakes. He emphasizes the importance of understanding customer value, noting that different businesses require different approaches. While Mizzen and Main focused on influencer alignment and product experience, Harbor prioritizes content geared towards underserved markets, particularly mothers seeking education.
Looking to the future, Lavelle envisions expanding Harbor beyond baby monitors, offering broader services like a remote night nanny to assist parents with sleep expertise. With a mission to promote healthier families through improved sleep quality and leveraging technology to ease parenting burdens, Harbor aims for a holistic impact on family wellness.
Conclusion
Kevin Lavelle's entrepreneurial journey, from building Mizzen and Main to launching Harbor, is a testament to his ability to identify market needs, develop innovative solutions, and foster authentic partnerships. By sharing his experiences and insights, Lavelle inspires other entrepreneurs to pursue their visions, learn from their experiences, and strive to make a positive impact on society.
🎤 Voiceover Script
In this episode, Kevin Lavelle shares invaluable insights from his entrepreneurial journey, from launching the successful menswear brand Mizzen and Main to his latest venture, Harbor, which aims to revolutionize baby monitors and parental support.
Discover the power of authentic partnerships, the importance of customer focus, and the strategic decisions that drive product development and growth.
Join us as we explore Harbor's mission to promote healthier families through improved sleep quality and learn how technology can ease the burdens of parenting.
🔘 Best Practices Guide
Best Practices for Building a Successful Brand
Develop authentic partnerships: Prioritize collaborations with influencers who genuinely align with your brand values over simply targeting celebrities with large followings.
Create compelling offers: When pitching potential partners, focus on crafting mutually beneficial relationships that go beyond financial incentives.
Understand your customers: Tailor your product and content to the specific needs and values of your target audience.
Leverage prelaunch strategies: Utilize waitlists and refundable deposits to gauge demand, manage supply, and build anticipation for your product launch.
Simplify inventory management: Streamline your product offerings to fewer SKUs to optimize user experience and operational efficiency.
Invest in content creation: Develop valuable, educational content that resonates with your target audience to establish credibility and foster engagement.
Embrace a mission-driven approach: Clearly define your brand's purpose and vision, and consistently communicate how your products and services positively impact your customers' lives.
🎆 Social Carousel: Do's/Don'ts
Cover slide:
9 Strategies from a 9-Figure Founder
Slide 1:
Don't: Rely on Celebrities
Do: Partner with smaller, engaged influencers who authentically align with your brand for greater impact.
Slide 2:
Don't: Focus Only on Money
Do: Build compelling offers beyond financial incentives to attract the right partners and ensure mutually beneficial relationships.
Slide 3:
Don't: Neglect Upfront Investment
Do: Secure sufficient funding for complex hardware development to avoid costly mistakes and ensure success.
Slide 4:
Don't: Underestimate Content Value
Do: Create high-value, expert-driven content to establish credibility and enhance customer experience, especially for underserved markets.
Slide 5:
Don't: Ignore Social Proof
Do: Leverage influential mothers and thought leaders to build trust and drive growth through social media and partnerships.
Slide 6:
Don't: Rely on Crowdfunding
Do: Validate demand with a prelaunch waitlist and deposits, and provide a tested product before full-scale production.
Slide 7:
Don't: Overcomplicate Inventory
Do: Simplify user experience and inventory management by focusing on fewer SKUs and leveraging membership models.
Slide 8:
Don't: Limit Your Vision
Do: Aim to transform lives through innovative technology and support systems that address critical needs.
Slide 9:
Don't: Forget Lessons Learned
Do: Refine successful strategies from past ventures while avoiding mistakes to drive success in new endeavors.
🎠 Social Carousel
Cover Slide:
10 Lessons from Building 9-Figure Brands
Slide 1:
Authentic Partnerships
Focus on genuine influencer alignment over audience size for impactful collaborations.
Slide 2:
Compelling Offers
Craft appealing partnership proposals beyond monetary incentives to secure mutually beneficial relationships.
Slide 3:
PR Strategies
Leverage media connections and unique angles to boost brand visibility and credibility.
Slide 4:
Influencer Alignment
Prioritize partnerships with influencers who genuinely appreciate and align with your product.
Slide 5:
Customer Focus
Understand customer value and tailor content to underserved markets for maximum impact.
Slide 6:
Prelaunch Waitlists
Gauge demand and manage supply efficiently with refundable deposit waitlists before full production.
Slide 7:
Operational Approach
Provide a working product to employees and beta testers before scaling to ensure reliability.
Slide 8:
Simplify Inventory
Streamline user experience and inventory management by offering fewer SKUs, inspired by successful models.
Slide 9:
Mission-Driven
Focus on transforming lives through innovative solutions that address critical pain points.
Slide 10:
Subscribe to DTCpod
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One Off Tweets
Authentic partnerships are key to success.
Engage influencers who genuinely align with your brand values.
Chasing celebrity status alone won't build lasting relationships.When budget is tight, get creative with equity deals.
Offer value beyond just financial incentives.
Find mutually beneficial arrangements that work for both parties.Hardware startups require significant upfront investment.
Be prepared for the complexities and costs of development.
Seek support from VCs and angels who understand the journey.Prioritize creating high-value content for your target audience.
Establish credibility by featuring experts in your field.
Enhance customer value through science-based information.Leverage social media and influencer partnerships strategically.
Engage with influential figures who resonate with your audience.
Mothers are a powerful force in driving growth for family-focused brands.Wholesale partnerships can be crucial for reaching a wide audience.
Embrace the exposure and reach, even if margins are lower.
Retail presence allows customers to experience your product firsthand.Seek out writers interested in the unique aspects of your offering.
Coverage by respected publications can boost visibility and credibility.
Don't underestimate the power of a well-placed media feature.The "Tim Ferriss Effect" is real.
Sponsoring his podcast led to significant revenue growth for Mizzen+Main.
Align with influential figures who can amplify your message.Remote coaching has the potential to transform family life.
Pilot tests show positive impact on postpartum depression and child-rearing.
Technological innovation can provide vital support systems for parents.Understand the unique value you offer to customers.
For Harbor, it's about providing education and support to underserved mothers.
Tailor your content and offerings to meet their specific needs.
Twitter Post 1
Kevin Lavelle once sold $26,000+ of men's shirts in a single day thanks to a Tim Ferriss podcast ad.
"The Tim Ferriss Effect" -
Leverage influencer alignment for explosive DTC growth.
Mindsets
Here are 3 mindset shifts you can make based on the insights shared by Kevin Lavelle in this DTC POD episode:
🧠 Embrace the power of authentic partnerships. Instead of chasing big-name celebrities, focus on building genuine relationships with influencers who truly align with your brand's values. Smaller, engaged advocates can often drive more meaningful results than those with massive followings.
🧠 Recognize that complex challenges often lead to the most rewarding outcomes. Whether you're creating innovative hardware or transforming an entire industry, the path to success is rarely simple. Embrace the learning process, seek guidance from experienced mentors, and view obstacles as opportunities for growth.
🧠 Prioritize creating value for your target audience above all else. Whether you're developing content, designing products, or building partnerships, always keep your customer's needs at the forefront. By focusing on delivering exceptional value and addressing underserved markets, you'll establish a strong foundation for long-term success.
For more insights on entrepreneurship, marketing, and building successful DTC brands, be sure to check out other episodes of the DTC POD, available wherever you listen to podcasts.
Tactics
If you're looking to enhance your business strategy, here are five unique tactics inspired by Kevin Lavelle's experience:
🌟 Leverage the power of authentic partnerships. Focus on collaborating with influencers who genuinely align with your brand values, even if they have a smaller audience. Prioritize engagement and authenticity over celebrity status for more impactful results.
🌟 Structure creative deals that benefit both parties. When budget constraints limit traditional partnerships, explore alternative arrangements like equity deals. Ensure the collaboration is mutually beneficial and doesn't conflict with existing commitments, making the opportunity more appealing to potential partners.
🌟 Invest in compelling content that resonates with your target audience. Recognize the unique needs and interests of your market, and develop high-value content that addresses their pain points. Engage experts in your field to establish credibility and enhance the customer experience.
🌟 Embrace the power of targeted pre-launch strategies. Utilize waitlists and refundable deposits to gauge demand, manage supply effectively, and generate buzz before your official product launch. This approach allows you to refine your offering based on early feedback and ensures a smoother roll-out.
🌟 Prioritize simplicity and user experience in your product and inventory management. Draw inspiration from successful membership models that emphasize a streamlined user experience. Focus on delivering a high-quality product with fewer variations to simplify operations and improve customer satisfaction.
In Depth Thread
Overrated: Influencer marketing focused on big-name celebrities.
Paying tons of money for short-term exposure rarely translates into long-term success.
Underrated: Building authentic relationships with engaged micro-influencers.
Here's the playbook Kevin Lavelle used to partner with JJ Watt and catapult Mizzen+Main to 9 figures:
🤝 Connect the Dots
Lavelle leveraged his network at CAA Sports to get an intro to Watt.
Find shared connections to open doors and build trust from the jump.
📖 Tell Your Story
Focus on crafting a compelling narrative around your brand and mission.
Lavelle hooked Watt by highlighting their shared passion for innovation and challenging the status quo in menswear.
Make it personal.
🎁 Get Creative with Comp
Equity deals can be a win-win when cash is tight.
Lavelle gave Watt a stake to avoid conflicts with existing endorsements.
Structure partnerships that are mutually beneficial.
🎯 Prioritize Alignment
Reach is great, but engagement is key.
Look for partners who embody your brand ethos. Authenticity is essential.
Watt was a die-hard customer before ever promoting the brand.
💪 Play the Long Game
Influencer marketing is a marathon, not a sprint.
Lavelle invested in building genuine rapport with Watt.
Treat partners like valued members of your team.
📣 Amplify Their Voice
Give influencers a platform to share their story.
Watt's testimonial about how M+M transformed his wardrobe carried major credibility.
Let your partners put their passion for your brand into their own words.
🧠 Learn and Iterate
Test different influencer tiers and platforms.
Track metrics religiously. Double down on what's moving the needle.
Optimize based on data, not just gut feeling.
As the saying goes - people buy from people.
Humanize your brand by empowering authentic voices to spread your message.
Focus on depth, not just breadth, of influence.
Do that, and you'll turn partners into lifelong advocates.
New Idea
Idea #1: Authenticity in Partnerships
Ensure brand partnerships are authentic and align with your company's values by:
Focusing on Engaged Influencers: Prioritize collaborations with influencers who have a genuine connection to your product, rather than solely targeting celebrities with large followings. Authentic endorsements resonate more with audiences.
Crafting Compelling Offers: Move beyond purely financial incentives when pitching partnerships. Emphasize the mutual benefits and the potential for meaningful storytelling that aligns with the influencer's interests and values.
Fostering Long-Term Relationships: Invest time in building trust and rapport with potential partners. Demonstrate a commitment to their success and well-being, rather than treating the partnership as a one-time transaction. Authentic relationships lead to more impactful collaborations.
Tweet thread on learnings
Tweet 1:
🎙️ The DTC POD featured an incredibly insightful episode with @kevinslavell, founder of Mizzen + Main and Harbor.
Key takeaways on building successful DTC brands and partnerships: 🧵👇
Tweet 2:
Authentic Partnerships 🤝
Lavelle emphasizes the importance of authenticity in brand partnerships. Success often comes from collaborations with smaller, engaged influencers rather than celebrities who may not align with the brand.
Tweet 3:
Strategy with JJ Watt 🏈
Lavelle leveraged connections at CAA sports to build a relationship with JJ Watt, focusing on personal storytelling to engage and earn Watt's trust. He highlighted the importance of non-monetary appeals to potential partners.
Tweet 4:
Equity Deal Benefits 📈
Due to budget constraints, Lavelle structured an equity deal with Watt, ensuring no conflicts with Watt's existing endorsements, which made the partnership feasible and attractive.
Tweet 5:
Partnership Advice 💡
Lavelle underscores the necessity of finding the right partner alignment, creating compelling offers beyond financial incentives, and ensuring relationships are mutually beneficial.
Tweet 6:
Alignment and Authenticity 🎯
Host @blainebolus highlights the significance of creator alignment with brand values and authenticity, rather than just audience size, in forming effective partnerships.
Tweet 7:
Lessons Learned 📚
Lavelle reflects on lessons from Mizzen + Main, focusing on refining successful strategies and avoiding past mistakes as he develops Harbor, his new venture in the baby monitor and pediatric telehealth space.
Tweet 8:
Customer Focus 🙋♀️
Different businesses require understanding customer value; Mizzen + Main focused on influencer alignment and product experience, while Harbor focuses on content geared towards underserved markets, particularly mothers seeking education.
Tweet 9:
Mission & Vision 🌟
Harbor aims to transform sleep and wellness for American families, focusing on parents and children's health. Their mission is to promote healthier families through improved sleep quality, leveraging technology to ease parenting burdens.
Future State, 6 reasons post
In 12 months, Harbor aims to transform sleep and wellness for American families, focusing on improving parents' and children's health through innovative technology and support systems. But the baby monitor industry is missing a HUGE opportunity. Here are 6 recommendations that, if Harbor applies them, can revolutionize the parenting experience and unlock significant value for families:
BACKGROUND:
Forget traditional baby monitors, the future belongs to a holistic approach that combines cutting-edge technology with expert guidance and support.
Harbor is where the parenting journey is simplified, and families are empowered to thrive.
If Harbor pays attention, it can transform itself into an end-to-end platform that not only monitors babies but also educates, supports, and guides parents through the challenges of child-rearing.
Old Parenting Experience:
Limited support and resources
Reliance on outdated technology
Isolated and overwhelming experience
Reactive problem-solving approach
New Parenting Experience:
Engaged community and expert guidance
Cutting-edge, reliable technology
Empowered and connected journey
Proactive wellness and development focus
At Harbor, we are conducting pilot tests of our remote night nanny service, receiving overwhelmingly positive feedback from parents who report improved sleep, reduced stress, and even alleviated postpartum depression symptoms. It's hard to replicate this impact with traditional baby monitor products.
HOWEVER...
We are investing significant effort and resources into developing our comprehensive platform. The product team at Harbor should consider adding a few key features to deliver on our mission of transforming the parenting experience.
Here are my 6 recommendations:
Develop a personalized content feed that delivers relevant, science-based articles, tips, and resources based on the child's age and developmental stage.
Create a community feature that connects parents with similar experiences, allowing them to share advice, support, and encouragement.
Integrate with popular sleep tracking apps to provide a unified view of the baby's sleep patterns and trends, enabling proactive adjustments and interventions.
Expand the remote night nanny service to include on-demand access to pediatric experts for guidance on sleep, feeding, and development concerns.
Implement a milestone tracking system that celebrates the child's growth and achievements, providing parents with a meaningful record of their journey.
Offer a comprehensive dashboard that displays sleep metrics, developmental progress, and personalized recommendations for promoting the baby's well-being.
I believe that by combining these features with our state-of-the-art baby monitor technology, Harbor can become the go-to platform for parents seeking to navigate the challenges and joys of child-rearing with confidence and support.
As traditional parenting approaches evolve and the world shifts towards personalized, data-driven solutions, Harbor has the opportunity to become the leading innovator in the baby monitor and parental support space.
P.S.
What features do you think Harbor should prioritize to make the biggest impact on the parenting experience?
Do you believe that a holistic approach combining technology, content, and community is the future of parenting support?
About the Episode
Kevin Lavelle is the founder of Mizzen and Main, a menswear brand that disrupted the industry with performance fabric dress shirts, generating hundreds of millions in revenue. He recently co-founded Harbor, a company focused on improving parental sleep and wellness through innovative baby monitors and pediatric telehealth services.
In this episode of DTC Pod, Kevin shares valuable insights on building authentic partnerships, emphasizing the importance of aligning with engaged influencers who genuinely appreciate the product. He discusses his successful collaborations with celebrities like JJ Watt and Phil Mickelson, which hinged on personal storytelling and mutual benefits beyond financial incentives.
Kevin also highlights the key differences between his past venture, Mizzen and Main, and his current company, Harbor. He notes the technical complexity and upfront investment required for Harbor's mission-critical products, contrasting it with the viral growth strategies that propelled Mizzen and Main's success.
Throughout the conversation, Kevin reflects on the lessons learned from his entrepreneurial journey, discussing the importance of refining successful strategies, avoiding past mistakes, and leveraging technology to create transformative solutions that positively impact families and society as a whole.
Episode Summary
Kevin Lavelle is the founder of Mizzen and Main, a menswear brand that disrupted the industry with performance fabric dress shirts, generating hundreds of millions in revenue. He recently co-founded Harbor, a venture focused on improving parental wellness through innovative baby monitors and remote night nanny services.
In this episode of DTC Pod, Kevin discusses his entrepreneurial journey, from the early days of Mizzen and Main to his new mission with Harbor. He shares insights on leveraging PR, influencer marketing, and authentic brand partnerships, as well as the importance of understanding customer needs and adapting strategies for different business models.
Success Strategies
Here are 3 strategies for DTC success based on Kevin Lavelle's insights:
Leverage authentic influencer partnerships for credibility and reach
Rather than chasing celebrity endorsements, focus on building genuine relationships with influencers who align with your brand values. Lavelle's success with partnerships like JJ Watt hinged on crafting compelling, non-monetary offers that highlighted authentic product appreciation.
By engaging influencers who genuinely love what you sell, you gain credibility and reach that paid promotions can't match. Prioritize creator alignment over audience size for maximum impact.
Invest upfront in complex product development for long-term payoff
For certain DTC categories like hardware, significant initial investment is essential to create a high-quality, reliable product. Lavelle contrasts Harbor's complex baby monitor development with Mizzen+Main's simpler apparel manufacturing.
While costly upfront, investing in R&D and expert talent lays the foundation for a successful launch and scalable growth. Venture funding can support these initial needs to set the stage for long-term success.
Establish authority through high-value content for your core audience
Particularly for products aimed at underserved markets like new parents, content is key to building brand authority. Lavelle explains how Harbor's content strategy, featuring pediatric experts and science-based writers, aims to boost credibility with mothers seeking trustworthy information.
By identifying your audience's key pain points and consistently delivering helpful content that addresses their needs, you position your brand as a go-to resource. This authority primes customers to embrace your product offerings as solutions they can trust.
Castmagic LinkedIn Post
Building a successful hardware business requires navigating unique challenges and complexities compared to traditional DTC brands.
Kevin Lavelle, founder of Mizzen+Main and co-founder/CEO of Harbor, joins Blaine to share his journey from disrupting the menswear space to tackling the baby monitor industry.
Uncover insights on product development, fundraising strategies, fostering authentic partnerships, and leveraging content to establish credibility in a new market.
Kevin also reflects on key milestones and lessons learned from scaling Mizzen+Main, including the impact of influencer collaborations and the "Tim Ferriss Effect."
Listen to the full episode here: [link]
#dtcpod #ecommerce #shopify #hardwarestartup #babytechproducts
LinkedIN - Start from Scratch
If I were building a new baby monitor brand from scratch, here's the go-to-market strategy I'd use:
(This is based on insights from Kevin Lavelle, co-founder & CEO of Harbor, who previously built the 9-figure menswear brand Mizzen & Main)
To turn potential customers into paying subscribers, you need a go-to-market approach that:
• Builds trust and credibility
• Educates your target audience
• Converts them into buyers
So...
How do you create a brand presence that attracts, nurtures, and converts?
By leveraging the Credibility-Content-Community Framework.
This framework has 3 key parts:
• Establishing credibility
• Providing valuable content
• Fostering community
Credibility is the foundation.
It positions you as a trusted expert in your space.
Content is the value-add.
Educational resources that help your audience without being salesy.
Community is the glue.
Engaging your audience to build relationships and loyalty.
The key is to prioritize and sequence them:
• Credibility first
• Content second
• Community third
Most new brands go wrong by jumping straight to community-building.
Without established trust, the community falls flat.
The solution?
Focus on building credibility through partnerships, endorsements, and earned media first.
Then layer on valuable content to attract and nurture your core audience.
Finally, engage that audience to foster a sense of community and belonging around your brand.
So how can you implement this framework for a new baby monitor brand?
Step 1: Establish credibility
Partner with pediatric experts
Leverage endorsements from influential parents
Earn media coverage to build social proof
Step 2: Create educational content
Develop science-backed resources for parents
Focus content on sleep and wellness
Meet your audience where they are (blogs, social, etc)
Step 3: Build community
Engage your audience with 2-way conversation
Encourage UGC like baby sleep success stories
Create Facebook groups or similar community hubs
The biggest takeaway?
Go-to-market is a journey, not a destination.
Just start with establishing your credibility.
Anything you'd do differently?
Would love to hear it.
--
Check out my full convo with Kevin here:
https://dtcpod.co/e/from-building-mizzen-main-to-redefining-baby-monitors-w-kevin-lavelle-harbor
And follow along as they get ready to ship the first Harbor units this spring!
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