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What's up, DTC. Pod? Today we're joined by Clayton Chambers, who is the owner of the Spreza newsletter and has been involved in the D to C world for a while now. So, Clayton, why don't you kick us off and tell us a little bit more about your background in the space and how you got started with your newsletter, spreza.

Yeah, great to be on the pod, as the kids say. My background is really kind of at the intersection of clothing and clothing and apparel, but also e commerce. And so I went to school in New York City back in the day and really cut my teeth in clothing and fashion world. Had the opportunity to work at places like Barney's New York and Michael Kors. And my sort of foundation of understanding clothing was built really kind of on the luxury side of luxury goods and luxury products. And so understanding that from a creative standpoint at Michael Kors and then also having the opportunity to work at Barney's on the buying and merchandising side was where I sort of got started. Being in the city also is like a great place to create content, and I think that sort of late wave of tumblr WordPress 2.0, like having a blog was the thing to do, right. That's how blogs like Heist, Nabioty and HYPEBEAST got started and have turned into what they are today.

And so I started my own menswear blog with my brothers. It used to be called brothers and Crafts. And the idea was just really kind of focused on organic content, stuff that we liked with clothing. So, like, going to the thrift shop and shopping on a budget, making things DIY, that kind of stuff. And I think it really resonated. It created a space for people to feel like they could relate to the content as well. And so kind of rode that into what later became Instagram and influencer marketing. And back in the day when Instagram used to like rewarding you, posting content and showing the algorithm new users and that kind of stuff.

And so ended up scaling our audience at that and what sort of became like a college hobby, turned into a small business and was able to consult with brands on their go to market strategy and how to release new products and helping build brands themselves. And so ran with that for a while. Kind of got burnt out from just like the content creation influencer side, like constantly posting and creating things for brands. Began to get a little bit tiring and so kind of shifted gears and wanted to get into the ecommerce side of startups. And so have kind of spent the last three or four years working more or less on the tech side of ecom. So worked at small startups, worked at larger ones like Yachtpo, have had the opportunity to go freelance and consult with brands and brand founders directly on their own brand direction and partnerships and go to market strategy and that kind of thing. And so that's the day to day. Now I work at a company called Swag Up.

Now I'm the Director of Merchandising there. And at night I'm burning away at a side project I started called Spreza, which is sort of like the blog that I had back in early 2010s but for like substac era. And so it's sort of email first newsletter focused and yeah, it's a weekly newsletter that I started to write about men's style and kind of how I see it. And I would say the main themes of Spreza really covers the genrelessness of clothing and how things used to be very specific to genres. Like there was the American sportswear era and then there was the denim and Americana era, and then there was the street wear era. And I think now what we're seeing culturally, which is really fascinating to me, is the marriage of all of these different genres into one and how self expression sort of blurred the lines now. And so I write a lot about that, but in terms of the topics, it's really kind of a mix of curational stuff. So I create shopping guides for people, I interview brands and designers, I talk about style movements and shifts and things that I'm seeing, talk about retail, all that kind of stuff.

So that's my story.

That's sweet. Yeah, I'd love to get your perspective because you've had a pulse on this industry for a while now, right? Like going all the way back to real high end luxury retail, all the way through the kind of ecommerce d to c revolution that we're seeing in fashion apparel. So what have been the major shifts right, Khalid, over the last couple of years as fashion moved into ecommerce? What were some of the big shifts that you started to see and how the consumers sort of played into that, as well as the brands, how they were launching and staying relevant?

Yeah, I mean, one of the things that stood out to me over the last decade is just how much more clever consumers have become, not only with their shopping habits, but their preferences and the things that they want, they look for. And I remember Barney's in 2013 when I was there, seeing just the amount of over buying and over inventory that they kept when they were bleeding cash and they knew they were sinking, and still they were just not being fiscally smart about how they were investing in their own stores and retail spaces. And I think they sort of trusted on the laurels. They rest on the laurels of their own brand and legacy of, like, Barney's is too big to fail. And being at the very end of that whole saga and also being on the buying side, where it's like I think that was one of the most interesting experiences that I had, where it was like a mix of the ecom stuff, but also it did play into retail. And honestly, a lot of people who talk about retail and say retail is dead. I was chatting with a friend about this the other day. It's just like it's such a weird I think it's, like, a dumb thing to say because it's like, good retail always shines through, right.

And I think when I look at a place like Barney's, their retail was just boring and it was bloated, and it was, like, sterile. And so that kind of stuff I think was interesting to watch. I think the other thing that was fascinating to watch is just, like, the shift between brands selling in store only versus having to learn a new language with regards to selling on social, selling on website. This is all stuff that we've lived through, we understand. But being part of that in the early 20 teens and literally having conversations with clothing brands at trade shows in Las Vegas and them being like, what's instagram? I don't know how to onboard onto a tool like that. I just basically have my accounts with different retail stores around the US. And that's, like, all I sell to. And helping them kind of on ramp into those different ways was another thing.

But, yeah, I would say the big theme for me is just, like, consumers feel more clever. They're not easily fooled. They know what they're looking for. And what I think is most important, kind of down the line, is for brands to be able to kind of tailor their product to honestly, a more niche kind of consumer. Instead of feeling like you have to draw from the Warby or the Harry's or the away travel playbook of being like we just target millennials in the US. Because that's a big market and we need VCs to give us money. I think brands on the flip side, are getting smarter about being like, oh, but what about Blaine, who's in his late 20s, who, I don't know, if you're in your late 20s, likes basketball and is into D to C marketing and lives in Chicago or whatever, that's a very kind of niche profile of a consumer. And maybe there's 10,000 of you, right? And if your product or your AOV is at that specific level, you don't need to have millions of customers.

You can build a sustainable and happy and healthy business. And so that's another thing that I've been kind of seeing over time that I've been fascinated with.

I think that's a really cool trend. So you're basically saying that brands can kind of create this kind of ideal customer profile that might be super niche or might sound super specific, but at the end of the day, there are a lot of those people. And because it's fashion, it's expression, by tapping into that group of people who really resonate with the product, they're able to get a foothold and then start to grow out product lines and other types of revenue and launch new SKUs and stuff like that. Is that kind of what you're saying?

Yeah, 100%. And it's not to say that you can't expand into different categories eventually, or if brands are doing well financially and you end up acquiring other brands that could maybe fit underneath the bigger category. But I think the way that we're headed with brand stuff in general is that the Internet feels so noisy and there's so much shit out there that it's best for brands to kind of go micro first, rather than to take the opposite approach of being like, oh, we're going to go for this mass market consumer because we think it's a big opportunity and there will always be those brands that exist too. But I see the world as more of like, there's lots of micro brands as opposed to fewer brands, but going after bigger markets.

Yeah, and that's really interesting because that's something you see a lot of times in go to market in SaaS or in different types of businesses where you're like, okay, let's start niche, solve a really particular customer pain point, and then be able to expand all those use cases. And it's just interesting to think of it the same way in a consumer business where you're selling apparel and you're crafting this really specific ICP and then being able to leverage that community and that really specific use case to grow and maybe start your business and grow a profitable business out that way. The next question that I had is going back to Barney's just so you could maybe set the stage a little bit for our listeners. What ended up happening. I remember they were such a massive luxury retailer. I know you guys had flagship stores, all the major cities I would go in, and that's where I'd shop and get sunglasses, shoes, all that sort of stuff. I think they folded. Maybe at the beginning, ecommerce was a thing.

I ordered stuff online from Barney. So what kind of happened that led to their sort of downfall? And what was your role there when you were working with them?

Yeah, so my role was on the buying side. It's just like a pencil pushing purchase order buyer. Right. And so spent a short amount of time doing that. In the later stages, they overbought on inventory. They obviously weren't financially responsible to the point where they had to go bankrupt. And there were a few sort of offers on the table, which this is funny now, because there's a sort of reviving of Barney's happening now. But, yeah, they went bankrupt.

There was a few people in the fashion industry. One of the investors from Kith wanted to go in and basically be, hey, here's this investment on the table. Let's save Barney's. Let's keep them around. And just they couldn't get the deal done. And so, yeah, Barney's basically got liquidated. All their products just went on sale, which was a great time for probably a lot of consumers who wanted to cash in on discounted luxury goods. But they are now, I think, revived as a skincare brand.

This just launched, I want to say, a couple of months ago. But, yeah, they are now, I guess, in the skincare side of things. But, yeah, I mean, the other thing, too, that was with Barney's. I don't know if you were familiar with a brand that also folded last year, I want to say, called Entire World, run by this guy named Scott Sternberg. But entire world was basically like the it brand. During early COVID. New York Times did a piece on them about how sweats are kind of the new uniform for work because everyone's working remotely and you want comfortable, premium sweats. This Entire World brand, before Scott was working on that, he was working on Band of Outsiders, which was basically like the It prepware brand.

In the late, early 2000s, going into early 2010s, he had, like, Anna Tour come into his parties and Kanye, and everybody was loving his stuff, but he was based out in La. And so he had people like Barney's basically buying inventory from him, and they weren't selling the stuff. And so they're then putting it on discount and not paying terms to these brands. And so those brands started to fold, too. Right. And this was, again, as the shift of shopify started expanding and growing, e commerce started become more of a know, and brands were relying less on retail as a way of that. I'd sort of say that to tie back into barney's. But that's kind of the stuff that was happening was like, if you bought too much and couldn't afford it, then you were discounting things, and then it was creating more issues for the brands themselves, too, not just the retailer.

Yeah, that's super interesting because barney's is such a they were probably buying so much inventory off these smaller brands, and then when all that stuff dried up, it must have totally messed up those businesses as well. And then the other thing is that the other thing that was really interesting with something like barney's and that whole era is the fact that there's all these brands that and I think you had just mentioned this earlier in our conversation was about how brands like now are looking into retail. And maybe in the beginning, they would come to you at a conference and be like, oh, what's instagram? What's that? But they had retail sort of figured out, and they knew how to do that. And I think now you're seeing all these brands today who maybe grew up on the internet, launched a shopify store, figured out how to sell d to c and a couple of product lines, but now are trying to get into retail. So now you're seeing brands that are able to leverage internet start up, get early traction, then they're like, okay, now wholesale or retail is like a totally new game to us.

Right.

So is that something you've been seeing as well?

Yeah, I do see that a little bit. And I've also seen many businesses started out of basically offering retail consulting to these d to c businesses. So if you're cash flow positive or if you have good investment and the runway to basically have built your business online, but then you want to expand to a few key select markets, you start to see these d to cification of neighborhoods happening across the US. Obviously, the abbot kenny neighborhood is popping. I lived in austin for a year, a few years back, and south congress was the street. It is now still the street where you have your tacovas and reformation and warby. And there's even like an actual retail d to c retail shop called neighborhood goods, which just only carries d to c brands. Where I live in nashville, we have this street called twelve south, which is a street and a neighborhood, but it carries all your classic brands like madewell and marine lair and buck mason and all this stuff.

And so I think that's been interesting too, that there's almost like a way that brands classify themselves with each other in retail, too. You don't just go to a city and be like, we're going to expand into atlanta. You pick these very specific neighborhoods that are in tune with the type of consumer that you think will be going to those places, and then you sort of expand that way. So one joke that people have had about Buck Mason is that they always follow Leilabo around. And Leilabo always follows Buck Mason around because when you're in a Buck Mason shop in any city, you almost always see the Leilabo together. And I think the founders are actually friends, but it's sort of their way of building and growing together, which I think kind of plays more into an interesting consumer. Point of know. This is how brands kind of exist in the new world, is that they sort of want to pair their consumers together into a more full shopping experience.

So that's, like, there's, like, the good corner coffee shop, and then you pop kind of your way down a street to shop sort of similar brands that have similar ICPS. And so that, I think, has been another interesting thing for brands that kind of started online that are now shifting to brick and mortar.

Yeah, and I guess that's almost just a small scale example of if you walk through a major mall, you'll see all these high end luxury. Know, I was in school and I lived in Boston for a while, and there was, like, the big mall downtown, and there was a big Barney's in there. But it was like when you get into the luxury section of the mall, all those different storefronts are totally different than the other side of the mall, which is, like, maybe like J. Crew, Club Monaco and some other different style brands. So it's interesting to see the way this is kind of unfolding in more the D to C space, where rather than looking for the traditional upscale mall space and that sort of retail space, they're kind of looking into the neighborhoods. They're getting a little bit more local, and so long as other shops are doing it, they're able to capture that local, grassroots sort of sort of feeling.

Yeah, 100%.

My next question is regarding that sort of stuff is if you're a brand and I don't know if this is quite your expertise, but if you're a brand and you're starting to get some volume, you're starting to get some sales. How are you thinking between, like, oh, I want to open up one of these locations, like these neighborhood sort of stores, or I want to focus my time on just finding other retailers to carry my products, and I want to scale up that way. How do you kind of make that trade off or think about that as a brand when you're going to market?

I think it's such a subjective question because everyone's situation is so different depending on whether you've bootstrapped your business or you have cash in the bank from an investor or you have the right plugs. But it all kind of depends. What I can say is what I've seen work well is when brands sort of ease into retail by way of doing pop ups. And one example of this is a guy I recently interviewed on the spreza newsletter and his name is Mike. He runs his brand called Manreza. He has sort of built like one of his customers made the joke in a customer review on his website that Man Reza is the love child of Ll. Bean and Nike ACG. And it's like the marriage of these brands.

It's like the sort of young, cool kids like outdoor stuff, but for people who actually do outdoor shit. But it's sort of got the New England heritage because the brand is based in I think it's based in New Hampshire, Vermont. And so it's sort of got this homage and legacy and heritage for the outdoors of New England, but it's sort of rooted in a little bit more contemporary street wear, independent clothing brands and that kind of stuff. I've been following this guy for a year and just the way that he engages with his customers he runs the Instagram account, he's super anti TikTok, but his engagement levels are like through the roof. It's like a group chat. You're watching him text you new stuff that he's updated. Hey, I'm working on this new thing you'll do AMAs and get hundreds of questions and these people go crazy for his brand. It's sort of like street wear levels of stuff, even though he would say like, I'm not a street wear brand.

And so I've seen this guy grow this community and following just by being authentically him over the last year. And he just recently did a pop up. I think it might be still open. It's down on Elizabeth Street, which if you're familiar with Elizabeth Street in Soho or nolita, it's basically become like the street for independent menswear brands. You've got stuff like Corridor and 18 east and this brand called 316 and it's near ALD over on Mulberry Street. And so you've got this whole sort of amalgamation of brands who again, are probably similar consumers of all these other shops, right? But they love this guy's brand. And so he just did a pop up and he's only doing it for a couple of weeks to a month, but he sort of tied it into releasing his fall collection. So Fall winter, obviously is huge for apparel, but he sort of strategically did it around that timeline and he'll host mixers and events.

He'll bring different creators or influencers who also love and support the brand to sort of post up as a way of getting people in the door. And so that's one specific example. But I just personally loved kind of watching how that evolves and I think a lot of the brands could probably do the same thing for their own products.

Yeah, and that's another thing. It's like the idea of authenticity for creators. So you're basically saying he's really opening up his creative process to his following and being very real about the whole building the collection almost with the community, right?

And I'll say not every brand is kind of built for that, right. Some brands just get their product outsourced and made somewhere else, and that's totally cool too. That doesn't necessarily apply to everybody, but because he's so closely tied to the brand itself, it happens to work for him. And I think that's being able to ease into it allows you to get that customer feedback. Like, you can get the data you need and be like, all right, cool, this works now. Let's go a little bit bigger next summer, or let's partner with this person to make a capsule collection next time, or whatever it is.

Yeah, no, I think that's really cool to see it works and it just comes down to authenticity and how you would do it. Right. Like you were saying, if it's like a big brand, they're not going to start peeling back all the layers and doing that. They're going to do their high production stuff and that's going to work for them. Whereas if you're a creator and this is genuinely what you would be doing almost like more like an artist, then it totally makes sense moving forward. One thing you just mentioned was like, partnerships and building collections. And one thing that we're obviously seeing a lot more with creators entering the landscape is you see creators starting their own brands. You see creators collaborating with other brands and launching collections within brands.

So how are you sort of seeing this sort of evolve between apparel fashion creators? Is it something different than that's happened before? Or is this just like the next iteration of how brands and creators collaborate?

Can you just clarify one thing? You're saying you've seen brands and creators collaborate a lot more recently and you're saying, is this the new?

Yeah, I just think the landscape of it is evolving a little bit. Right, so now it's obviously easier than ever for creators. If they want to launch their own brand where they actually own the brand and they're launching that, they can do that. Or if it's a creator they've built an audience, then an existing brand is like, oh, we want to do a special collaboration with the creator where that creator gets their own capsule collection, or whatever you want to call it. So I just wanted to see what you're seeing and what your pulse on all of this sort of thing is. Because at the same time, I've also seen some pushback from creators being like, oh, not every creator needs their own beauty product line or street wear line or whatever it is. So just what are you kind of seeing from your vantage point?

Yeah, I mean, I think the collab and partnership side is an interesting thing to cover, I guess before I jump into that side of it. I think the idea of a collab or a partnership to me really falls into four different categories. Right? So the first category is does it feel authentic? Right. Is there something that feels genuine about both brands and parties to want to get you involved. Right. I think the other principle to think about is the why? What's actually happening in the club? Why now? Why is it specific to this campaign? And if you can't answer that, I think you probably shouldn't do a collab with whoever it is that you're wanting to partner with. Right. I think the other thing that is interesting to me about great collabs and partnerships in general, whether it's with a creator or it's brand to brand, is just the idea of unexpectedness.

And so creating a sense of surprise, bringing two different worlds together is another fascinating thing. And then I think maybe the last thing is this is probably contradictory to unexpectedness but like novelty. So what you create should probably just feel authentic. It should feel unique. It should be something that's new and preferably not been done before. Although there are things that can be recycled or repurposed, but those are kind of four different things on the collab and partnership side that I'm attracted to, that I see most brands do well. But yeah, I'll stop there. I don't know if you have anything you wanted to add on before I could jump ahead.

No, I think that's pretty good perspective in terms of what makes a collaboration successful. And then maybe on the flip side, are there any collaborations that you've seen flop? Are there any examples where brands or creators totally missed the boat and messed up on a product drop or something like that?

I'll kind of focus more on probably in the more positive ones. But one that I really liked earlier this summer was when Asics partnered with this this sounds weird, but they're called Flock Together. They're literally a bird watching collective and they're based in London and started by two black guys based in London who wanted to create a space for people of color who feel, like, comfortable being outdoors. And so this started during the pandemic. They literally just said like, hey, like, once a month we're going to meet at X location. Everybody take the train out to the spot and we're going to go bird watching in nature together. And they basically started building this really cool community of bird watchers people who had never been into it, but then all of a sudden started getting interested in bird watching. And there was a sense of swag and style to it too, because everybody who was going on on these trips actually was dressed really well too, which was fascinating that there's sort of the form and the function of it right there's.

Like you're outdoors, you're in nature, you're hiking, you're going to watch these things. But then there's also like, I want to look good while I'm doing it too. And so they started building this reputation as like, oh, like a super stylish collective or community and started getting wind from places like GQ and Esquire and. High Snobiety and people doing articles about them and their community has blown up to the point where they got a book deal. They're working on a book right now to write about it and then Asics hit them up and we're like, hey, we want to design a sneaker with you, like an outdoor focus hiking shoe that your people can go on bird watching, hiking, whatever with. And then they did this whole commercial with it to launch it. It was honestly really sick. And I was like, oh yeah, that's like such great alignment.

It's really cool that a shoe company comes out and it's like, hey, we see there's alignment with what you're doing. We want to kind of be a little more in this space and obviously people need shoes to go hiking in. So I don't know, there was just this strong brand connection that I saw that I loved, stuff like that. And so that was a cool example. I mean, another example that I thought was interesting. I wouldn't say it was like bad or flopped. I thought it actually probably did quite well, was like the Emma Chamberlain Blank Street Coffee Collab, right? Emma Chamberlain obviously launched her coffee company recently and then Blank Street, which I've been fascinated with as just this sort of ubiquitous, quietly invisible, but just reliable coffee shop that's like growing like crazy all around the city. And I think they've obviously expanded to other cities.

But for them to partner with Emma Chamberlain on a collaboration with different types of coffee offerings, I obviously didn't think it was bad, but it was just like, oh, this is weird. I wouldn't have expected these two people to partner. But it also kind of weirdly worked too, because of sort of like the no nameness of Blank Street. I wouldn't see Emily Chamberlain do that with blue bottle coffee or coffee. They couldn't pull that off the same way that Blank Street did. And I thought that was like an interesting way to partner up on the brand.

Yeah, I think the thing that really jumps out, especially on the Asics and the bird watching one, I hadn't heard of that one, but I think that's really cool. I think it's the idea of because you hear so much about community, right, and it's like, oh, everyone needs to build their own community, which is obviously an important part to growing a brand, but also being able to leverage and tap into existing fast growing communities. So if you have alignment and you are a brand and maybe it probably wouldn't make sense for Asics to build their own bird watching community because that would be crazy, right? But being able to quickly identify communities that have alignment with you, that maybe your brand values align with, that there could be a cool collaboration opportunity. And tapping into that, I think that's really cool because then you're obviously getting all these people who are bought in together around it, you're doing something for them that probably that no one else is really doing at this sort of stage and this sort of scale. And then on the back end, obviously, I'm sure they got a whole bunch of great press and a bunch of great impressions and everything. So it just sounds like a pretty cool opportunity that I haven't seen a whole ton of where brands can really start developing products alongside all these communities. Because on the internet, I mean, Discords and there's like crazy amounts of whether it's communities on Reddit, on Discord, on all these different platforms, like, they're massive, massive communities who really care about specific topics.

Yeah, 100%. The other stuff that I think has done really well is, like, Andrea Hernandez with Snackshot. And the community that she's built is honestly one of the most incredible case studies in how to build something thoughtfully and organically, but also be able to sort of optimize for the virality that comes with creating consistent and good content. And, yeah, Andrea is legitimately building an empire on the food and bev side with CPG products with what she's done. She recently went to the FWB Fest, which, if you're familiar with FWB, the Friends with Benefits Dao, that is probably like one of the only dows that exists in the world. But they've also capitalized on it really well with their own brand. And they flew Andrea out to curate a cafe, basically at their festival, where she curated all the food and drink, all the know. It was sort of like Bodega style and it was really honestly a dope experience.

But that kind of that that she's been able to build and the opportunities that have come her way by creating consistent, good content as a creator has opened up crazy doors with other brands too.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's definitely something that's in your wheelhouse, right? Like, as you're a creator and as you're building out Spreza and the newsletter. So why don't you tell us a little bit more about what's growing? It been like, I know you alluded to saying you'd been doing this before and being able to build out the newsletter, it was just a new medium. But as you grow your own readership and as you're creating content, what's your strategy and how did you start and how'd you build it?

Yeah, great question. I started building Spreza in the summer of 2020 when I left the job and was just kind of feeling burnt out from life and wanted to create a space where I could talk about stuff that I was interested in. And I used to be big on the Twitter threads before the Threadhead thread boy stuff started becoming a thing that you didn't want to be known for. But I had a friend, people would regularly ask me, like, hey, when are you going to just launch a newsletter, take all the threads that you're posting and just start building you might as well start benefit from building an email list out of this stuff. And I thought that was kind of lame. I was like a substac? That's stupid, why would I create a newsletter? And yeah, it ended up working out for me to just launch it on substac for free. And I think I didn't have crazy ambitions for it at first. I just wanted it to be a space where I was sharing observations and things that I saw.

And it quickly I think, you know, partially through my Twitter following and that was growing at the time and it just started to become this thing where when I would share content, it resonated with people and the email list started growing. The other funny thing too, I think, looking back on early spreza days, is that the sort of big examples at the time were Paki's not boring newsletter, which is like a business tech kind of infused newsletter where he does these big think pieces and deep dives. And he was big on Twitter culture in the similar circles that I was, and his started blowing up like crazy. And obviously Morning Brews approach and how they were able to scale their email list through newsletters. And so I was kind of looking at these examples of being like, oh well, I can do that with spreadza, I can apply the same model and the same approach with my own content and email list and it ended up not really working out that way. I launched a referral program and it didn't really work. And I tried to write specific type of content that I thought would play well from a consumer perspective and it just didn't really hit home. And I think what that taught me was that everybody has their own path when it comes to content creation and the same can apply for brands, right? Everyone has to take their own journey and you can't sort of hack or shortcut your way to getting to a comfortable place or getting to success or whatever that looks like for you.

And so over the last year really tried to lean into my own voice and where I think I can add value in the space and being able to differentiate that from what others offer. And there's a couple of things that I think I offer from a newsletter and content creation perspective and I think one is curation. So being able to take lots of shit on the internet and then condense it into one email and help you sort of decipher what is interesting to you. So I create these seasonal shopping guides every fall and I say here's like the Spreza Guide to Outerwear. Here's what I would buy for jackets, here's what I would buy for beanies. Here's what I would buy for pants or shoes. And just optimize more for better options but fewer as opposed to more but good deals or steals. Sometimes I'll shout out discounts and things like that, but I try to really make it about quality.

The second is honestly education. So helping people. I think one reason that I started Spreza was to create a space where people could learn about stuff culturally that they might have not been taught growing up. And for me, I didn't really have a whole lot of access to culture growing up. And so I'm always fascinated with, yeah, what's the history of this brand or how did this product become popular? And so I'll do these deep dives on here's how carhartt became a streetwear brand. Here's the whole history, and I'm going to tell you about it, and I'm going to do it in an engaging way. And so creating education on that front is helpful. And then the last would just be like, discovery.

So I do these shopping guides. I'm about to release the one for Paris, about to release one for New York City. I got someone working on one for Los Angeles. But the idea is that I can create a shopping guide that helps you discover new things, or each week I'll give you kind of a roundup of products that I like. And so I think those are kind of the three things that I've tried to lean into, is like, curation, education and discovery, and really try to rely on that stuff to help people find what they're looking for and hopefully people like the content.

Yeah, absolutely. And it sounds like you've been able to kind of take that first concept we talked about, about really being able to niche down. And rather than creating for everyone in the world, you're like, no, I'm going to create things that I authentically think that these are the best type of things to buy this season, or, these are the places that I would shop in these locations, or this is how I'm going to educate you and how I think about fashion. So being able to have your own voice in there rather than just saying like, oh, here, this is generic men's fashion, and going from that perspective, then there's no real North Star to it. So I think that's a really cool way to approach it. And clearly it's shown in the success and the growth of your community and your newsletter and your kind of voice in the space. So anyway, as we wrap up here, where can our listeners find you? Where can they connect with you? And we know you got the newsletter, so why don't you shout out your newsletter, your Twitter, anywhere where listeners can connect.

Yeah, you can find me on my substac at Spreza. S-P-R-E-Z-A-X-Y-Z So spreza XYZ and then I'm pretty active on Twitter. My handle is just at Clayton Chambers. Except Chambers is spelled with no E, so C-H-A-M-B-R-S. That's pretty much where I'm active. I post my socials on the newsletter too, if you want to go there, but those are kind of the two main areas. The last thing I'll say too, as we kind of wrap up, just because there was sort of an unfinished thought with regards to creators and brands is I think the thing that I'm noticing on the side of content these days is that instead of brands focusing primarily on building a product first and then trying to find a consumer for it, I'm now noticing the opposite of brands. Build communities.

Brands are communities first. They're a group chat. They're an Instagram account that curates things on the feed that then evolves into brands based on what the community says they want or what they like. And I think that's why Discord has resonated so strongly with a lot of culture. And I think Geneva is sort of the next app in my mind that really works too, is that it's a space for creators and communities to build and grow and evolve, and you sort of build products around that. And so that's kind of what I'm hoping to build with Spreza is, like, the community aspect to it, because it's like, oh, cool. If you already know what your people like because there's an existing community, then it shouldn't be hard to build stuff that caters to them and the things that they like, as opposed to sinking a bunch of money into a brand or a product and then trying to figure out where's the consumer for this. Right, so it's a little bit of a reverse approach that I'm seeing, and I think it's kind of the next wave of how we do consumption.

Yeah, absolutely. It's something that we had talked about before, and I think we're really excited to keep our pulse on what community led commerce really means, where it goes. I think you have a great entry point in being able to start a community. Right? And I think other brands that can tap into that, whether it's just at the scale of like, oh, here's the type of content that I'm creating, and the community can kind of get involved with our creative process, or all the way to where you're at, where you've kind of created this forum almost for community members. Like, if you're running a Geneva, you could set up different channels where they can talk about different types of style, different types of shopping experiences and all this sort of stuff, and that can sort of feed itself and then you can spin a brand out out of that down the line. Right. So I think you guys are positioned really in a cool way, and hopefully for the brands that are listening, they're just kind of thinking on all the different ways that all these different frameworks that we've chatted through can be applied in their own authentic way, right? Like, don't just create one for the sake of creating it. You got to think about like, okay, now that I have this.

Like, how does this actually apply in an authentic way? So anyway, wanted to thank you for joining us on the Pod, and look forward to seeing Spreza and the community continue to grow.

Of course. Thanks so much, Blaine. Appreciate it.