Today on the Winning with Shopify podcast.
If you spot someone wearing one of our hoodies or our T-shirts,
that it starts conversations. You guys are quite unique as a
brand. There wasn't much out there
about autism, I really struggled to explain it.
The one who works SA clothing is either a parent carer for their
autistic or neurodivergent. When your your phone starts
dinging from Shopify with the the sales going.
For that lovely sounds, Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's.
Fantastic. But I actually had to turn it
off that day because it was, it was too much.
It was an amazing problem to have.
There's about, there's about 10 people out there with our design
tattoos on their arms and they, Oh my gosh.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Winning with
Shopify podcast. If it's your first time shooting
in, welcome to the pinkest, brightest podcast you've
probably ever seen. And that's part of our branding.
I don't like pink, but it works and that's part of my mantra in
life when it comes to marketing. Been listening for a while.
Please hit the subscribe button, leave us a review.
And if you've been listening for a while or you're new, two
things to check out. One is that we are running
meetups in London. No one is running a Shopify meet
up for merchants, but not anymore.
We have launched that 28th of May is our first one.
So if you're watching this or listening to this after that,
we've already had one. We've got one in September and
another one in January. If it's not the 28th of May yet,
it's not too late to sign up. So make sure you sign up.
It's at dot digital #1 London Bridge overlooking the the whole
city at Top floor #1 Bridge, beautiful venue.
We've got 2 brands, Snake Hive and Look Fabulous Forever that
I'm going to be interviewing and I'm going to be sharing some
stuff there. There's also loads of food,
drinks and loads of other stuff going on.
There's one in September that Molly the payment gateway are
hosting and then Trustpilot I believe are going to be hosting
us in January. If not, ignore that, someone
else will, but I do have it in writing that they're going to do
that. So those are our meet ups.
And also if you haven't joined the growth hub yet, then please
do. It's completely free.
It's for brands only and you can talk to other brands.
We are running an e-mail content one which would have just
happened when this episode goes out.
So apologies. But we've got a few other little
round tables, little videos. We can talk to other brands and
I just host a big discussion and you guys can all jump in, ask
questions, share ideas, that kind of thing.
Anyway, of a different episode today, we are talking to a
Shopify store and we're talking to a Shopify brand, but with a
bit of A twist and that will become more apparent as we get
into this. But James, you are from SAA
Clothing. Welcome to the show.
How are you doing today? I'm really good, Nick.
Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
I've been listening for the last about 12 months, so yeah.
Oh nice, nice, nice and I didn't even know that, let alone asked
James to say this. It's great that you're a
listener so you know the format. I've just spent 5 minutes
explaining to James how the show goes.
But no, great to have you on Jameson.
Appreciate I said as well. I appreciate you're in the UK so
you can record in the morning while I'm still full of coffee.
Well, it's just into the afternoon now, but James, I
mentioned we got a bit of a different episode, as in you
guys are quite unique as a brand.
Give us an overview to what the brand's about how it started and
specifically about your branding and how it's different.
So perhaps a more kind of traditional e-commerce store?
Sure. So our brand is SA Clothing that
stands for Stories about Autism. I'm a dad of two boys who are
both autistic. And that's sort of where the
idea came from really. I noticed that, you know,
there's this huge community out there who often at times feel
alone, don't realise that there's so many other people
living a similar life to them. And you know, what better way to
connect them through clothing by through sort of positive
messaging and to just help people realise that you're out
there. It's, it's something we've been
doing for 18 months now. And yeah, it's been, it's been
amazing. So six months in when you
started listening to the show and an 18 month old business.
So I imagine you're probably still having a combination of
some of the things that start to happen as you start to grow in
and build a business, but also some of those early start up
pains and what what's the journey been like over the 1st
18 months? It's yeah, it's, it's been
something, you know, I've learning as I go.
I've had no e-commerce experience.
I've been sort of using social media to tell stories for about
10 years. And, and yeah, I had to throw
myself into Shopify and trying to learn how to, you know,
everything that's been done on a website is me.
And I'm by far definitely not an expert.
So that's why I started listening to the podcast, trying
to learn as much as I could and and figure things out really.
Yeah, yeah. And I hope it's been helpful
because we it's so hard to try and cater for such a broad
Church of, you know, some weeks we have 10s of thousands of
people listening and it's like, you know, me or a guest would
say the one thing every brand should do and it's like you go
and do it. We've actually got a trailer
coming out soon of a guy like just getting so confused trying
to absorb content online. And certainly we were talking
before as well. You mentioned your two boys and
obviously I've just become a dad as well.
So like talking about just the kind of doctor TikTok or doctor
Reddit, as I was calling it in the kind of baby classes we did
before she turns up and there's there's so much advice out there
about Shopify stores and stuff. So try and always caveat with
whatever James tells us today, guys like it's valuable
information. It's been amazing for him.
Some of the successes, some of the challenges.
You've got to digest that and work it out what that means for
your business. You know, there's no guarantees
in life. And actually you could have two
pretty parallel copy and paste businesses do exactly the same
thing and get a completely different set of outputs.
But 10 years telling stories like tell us more about that
background. Like what was that leading up
into into running the store? Sure.
So my boys are 16 and 13, and I found that about 10 years ago
there wasn't much out there about autism.
I really struggled to explain it to friends and family.
I didn't really know how to how to get the words out, especially
for my boys. We had to stop going to a lot of
social occasions because it's too overwhelming to too much for
them. So when I did meet up with
friends and family, it was often quite rushed, short snippets and
they'd ask how the boys and I'd say, yeah, they're OK, thanks.
And that was it. You know, I didn't really know
how to explain what the last six months have been like in in 2
minutes. So I decided to write it down.
I, I struggled to talk about it. So I started writing it down in
the hopes that friends and friends and family would read
and get to understand and inform our conversations a bit more.
And it just snowballed into something a lot more with I
think the first thing I did was a blog post back in the days
when blog posts were a thing and it got shared on Facebook and
it, yeah, it just grew and grew. I realised that suddenly people
from all over the world are reading it and it just became an
everyday thing. You know, before back then, we
weren't really sharing, you know, there weren't no Instagram
stories, there were no things like that where you were sharing
constantly every day. But that's what it's become over
time of just just documenting our lives and and really trying
to help normalise what life is like for me and my boys.
Yeah, yeah. And I, I think it's amazing
because the, I certainly won't know anywhere near as much as
you do about autism specifically, but got autistic
people in the family. I've got friends that are
autistic and, and actually, we've, I've even had staff
members and that comes with its own challenges to overcome and,
and really kind of work through. And I, I can say it's so
rewarding when you kind of find that like here's now, here's now
the calm, controlled way of doing something.
It might only be for a season, but just getting into that flow
of like, they know what's coming up.
Enjoy I I think one thing and I'd love to know if this plays a
part in your branding at all or or not, but this literally
conversations happen at the pub with a few friends of mine and
one works in kind of psychology and counselling.
And we were saying that autism is just misunderstood as it
rather than it being labeled as a condition all the time.
It comes with its own challenges of then certainly young guys and
girls saying actually, I feel I'll, I feel unwell because I'm
being labeled with this tag or autistic.
When actually if you look at society and who we need to, for
society to function well and for the economy to grow and for
people to flourish. We need people that want to know
what is going to happen today. And we need people that go,
actually, if you give me a process, I will refine and
improve that process to the hills and back.
But I need to do it on my own or I need to do it in this
particular environment, in this setting.
I can't work in a busy office. I don't want to commute on the
tube like. But if you get them in the right
environment, suddenly what sounds like a weakness becomes a
real strength. So again, I always come into
these interviews quite fresh. I've not done too much research
on on SSAA, sorry, too much myself.
But how much does that come to play a part that I'm actually
saying this could be a real strength as opposed to just
being a weakness? Some people will see it.
It is something that's really important that needs to be
understood. And obviously autism is is a
really wide spectrum. And what that means is it
impacts people in different ways and to different extents.
You know, my boys, for instance, are both non speaking.
So they, you know, have a real struggle with communication and
language and quite a lot of sort of sensory overload.
But I also know lots of autistic adults who, yeah, who are in the
workplace who have either struggled because of the
environment, but are very highly skilled and, you know, very good
at their job when they. So when they do find the right
role for them, it it, it really works.
Like that's something we've taken into the, to the business
as well. We, the one who works SA
clothing is either a parent carer or they're autistic or
neurodivergent themselves. So we're trying to, you know,
keep that ethos throughout the company.
We have actually it's Monday today.
So a young man called Lawrence who he comes in with his
personal assistant to do a couple of hours work each each.
He's got quite a, you know, he's got learning disability.
And for him, that couple of hours gives him such a sort of
purpose each week to come in and just be part of the team.
And you know, he's a real sort of valued member.
And like I say, we've got of autistic staff who work two or
three days a week. We've got parent carers who
again for them it's about being able to negotiate their hours
around school times. So and that in turn gives us a
lot of knowledge within the community of what the community
need and what's going to help our potential customers.
Yeah, yeah. And I think it's amazing as well
just to rather than just being a brand where it's just a slogan
on AT shirt. I think it going right the way
through the core of your workforce is I mean, it's well
done. It's incredible to hear like
it's, it's, it's so good to hear that because so it's something
I've been kind of loosely getting involved in more, more
at arm's length, but it's trying to get young people into work
rather than into gangs and stuff in our local area.
And, you know, just kind of doing drugs out on the streets,
which literally some of them were doing that and now they're
becoming builders, carpenters, digital marketers and other
stuff. It's really rewarding just
seeing that life change when it's that, as you say, that that
valued member of the team feeling valued.
It's not as easy as just going, well, let's just get someone in
who's got some sort of challenge in life.
It's like there's so much more to it as well.
I imagine that you guys have to work through every day.
Yeah. And it's, it's about finding,
you know, at the same time it is a business.
So we need the right skill set in certain roles to, to.
And that is one of the challenges I'm I'm coming up
with now of I still want to keep as we sort of look look at
growth, I still want to keep that ethos throughout the
company. But as you know, now we need,
you know, certain experts or people who are really good at
certain things and it's finding them, but also keeping the the
balance and the sort of the dream that we have for, for what
we're doing. Absolutely, absolutely.
And so we've spoken about the kind of the ethos and where the
brands come from and how you guys are sort of bringing that
to life in the company. Let's talk about products like
you got, you mentioned it was obviously a clothing brand.
It's it's called SAA clothing. What do you guys sell?
Like how do you how do you not just them and excuse my tone
here, but this is probably what you're not doing.
I hope what you're not doing. How do you not just sort of slap
a slogan on AT shirt and try and sell it?
Like how do you guys bring autism and and some of the
things you guys are trying to counter and help people with
more to the forefront with the product range itself?
Sure. So I think it comes from the
sort of authenticity that I've had all this time of sharing our
own stories and, and having that real sense of community.
And, you know, we, we wanted to go beyond like that sort of
charity T-shirt style that, that, that often you see.
And, you know, we wanted it to be something that people are
proud to wear, that people want to wear, you know, to the gym,
to the pub, to work to, to school, to.
And the idea being is a kind of, I see it as the same as if you
was going to wear a football shirt, right?
You, you wear a football shirt and you, you feel like you're
part of the community. And when you spot someone else
wearing that same football shirt, you, you have something
in common with them. Well, that's kind of what we've
wanted to create is that sense of if you spot someone wearing
one of our hoodies or our T-shirts, that you, it, it
starts conversations. We've had so many times people
saying that they've spoke to other parents at school gates or
they've spoke to, they've been to centre parks and bumped into
someone wearing a hoodie. And, and often when you know,
I've been there, when I've been out with my boys, that you can
feel quite judged in public around because you're, you're
different and maybe not doing the things that that other kids
and other families are doing. And you can often feel quite
alone when you're when you're in that position.
So knowing that people are meeting other people either in
their local community or on holiday or at work wearing some
of our clothes, like I said, it just starts that conversation.
And that is probably one of the best feelings when someone
messages us and says I'm speaking to another mum at
school now because I actually now now know their daughter's
autistic as well because she was wearing a hoodie.
Whereas you can't just go, oh, is, is your daughter autistic
and go and ask someone. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a cool conversation, so. Or shout in the playground.
Hands up, yeah. Doesn't want to do that.
Yeah, sort of reduce those barriers and to to create your
own community. Nice, nice.
And I really, really like that. And I think the do you guys do
anything digitally with that? Like because I was going to say,
I think the opportunity then is to start making almost like a
kind of online group. Have you guys sort of reached
that stage as well to have like a digital version of it as well
as the kind of spotting of the brand?
We've done a couple of 1 offs, but we're looking to make that
more sort of permanent thing of, of either sort of online meet
ups, you know, kind of coffee morning style meetups possibly,
you know, now and again with some education and, and some,
you know, speakers to come in and either share their story or
share some tips and advice. But yeah, we've done, we've done
a couple of things locally. So one, I'd, I'd jump ahead a
little bit, But one of the things is we, we have an actual
physical shop and we have a, so we have a sensory room in the
shop where what that means is when families come in with their
kids, the kids can hang out in the sensory room and the parents
can stay and have a chat. Because most people who come
into the shop are there to, to have a chat.
Really that's what we're there to do.
So that gives them half an hour to, to come and talk.
We've done some special needs friendly events where we did one
at Christmas going to a local farm and you know, inviting
families along. We've got 1 coming up in a
couple of weeks. We did a parent care reef making
workshop to again, try and get people to to connect and know
each other. So that's something we're able
to do through because of the online store, but with our local
community too, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
And I mean it's, it sounds, it sounds amazing.
And the, the journey you guys have been on, and I've got a
note here that when that journey began, you guys had a 50K launch
weekend in 50,000 lbs of sales. Talk us through like everything
from what happened, but also like, and I love asking this
part of the question. Tell us about the emotional side
of what was going through your mind over that weekend, that
launch. So, you know, I'm sure like
anyone who's started the business is a, you know, it's a
scary thought. You have this idea and you're so
passionate about it and you want it to succeed.
And I was fortunate in the fact that I had quite a large online
community already. So I had, I had an idea that it
would sell, you know, not to that extent by any means, but I
thought, you know, we're not going to lose money on the on
the first, you know, first month or so.
I thought we'd, you know, we'd be OK.
And so, yeah, we did all the build up to the photos, sort of
teased it for a week online and released it at.
I remember it wasn't so 9:00 AM December 1st on a Friday and it
just went insane. And you know that feeling of
when your your phone starts dinging from Shopify with the
the sales going? Through that lovely sound, yeah,
yeah. It's fantastic, but I actually
had to turn it off that day because it was, it was, it was
too much. It was an amazing problem to
have. On the flip side, we really
weren't prepared for that level of first weekend.
And with it being a couple of weeks before Christmas,
obviously people were buying Christmas presents really
wanted, you know, and to, to get there.
And the model we had back then was it was about, we managed
with our suppliers to get a seven day turn around from the
orders that weekend to being delivered to us, not really
appreciating how long it would take to fulfil that.
So when it did start arriving, you know, and we was doing it
from home, we didn't have a, a base or anything then it was,
this was supposed to be a home online business and.
You had 50 grands worth of clothing, suddenly it.
Suddenly arrived, you had, I think at one stage you had like
70 boxes of, you know, like like huge boxes of clothes just
spread out and then obviously trying to like where's the black
3XL T-shirt to put in someone's order.
And it just took so long and it was so like I can.
Just imagine the conversation like eating pizza on the lounge
floor one night going What the hell have we done?
From the day the boxes arrived until the 23rd of December, it
was like 16 hour days, you know, and around that also trying to
navigate having 22 boys and another thing else it was and
that that stress of because everyone's so connected, you
know, everyone who bought really was a follower.
And so I wanted it to be there before Christmas.
I was definitely be there before Christmas and yeah, that that
soon made us realise that OK, this isn't an online home
business. We need a.
We need a base. Yeah, Yeah.
And I mean, when you said 18 months, like some businesses at
18 months are like they're still trying to get that first order,
you guys. I mean, because of the weight,
that 10 year kind of weight behind the Shopify store, it's
obviously got going really, really quickly, which is
amazing. Our partners at Saguna have
released a brand new app for Shopify and it's called Shopify
Connect 4 Canva. You can essentially look at all
of your product images from Shopify directly in Canva and
export them straight back. This can save you a lot of time.
If you want to find out a bit more about this or go and find
the app yourself, you can go to saguna.com/canva.
Enjoy. What have been some of the
challenges then? Was it like kind of a big launch
and then a massive lull? Like as you say, like some of it
was some of it's, it's really nice running the brand and
having people buy products and there's the kind of emotive,
passionate side. But you are a business at the
same time. Like how hard is it to balance
those two things at times where it's like we just need some more
revenue through the door or our sales are just too low, We're
not sustainable like this versus, oh, let's go off and do
another event that's probably not going to make us necessarily
any money, but it's going to be really, really good for the
cause. Like how do you balance those
two things and keep them keep them in good?
Killed her. Yeah, it's it's tricky I and
because we are new business, it's also understanding like
what is a seasonal low, what is a, how much should we be doing a
month compared to, you know to the marketing that we're doing
or or you know what, what's a good month, what's a bad month.
So we've kind of been learning that and, and for that first
nine months, it was only me and sort of one other part time.
So since then we've, you know, taken on the shop, taken on the
staff and then, yeah, suddenly there's a, you know, there's
overheads every month and there's a responsibility and
there are all people that, you know, you're trying to help.
You want to be part of this company, you want to be
employed, which means even more because of the reason why
they're part of the company. And so, yeah, there is an added
pressure and, and yeah, it's a did you know, did that product
not work because of the design or did it not work because of
the, the month for the, you know, the, the socials around
it? There's so many things and, and
things that I don't really probably know the answers to
still yet. I'm still running as I go.
But but yeah, it's been, you know, that launch month was, was
definitely our best month in the 18 months so far.
But we've had some, some good months around it too.
And, and I feel like we're, we're in a good place to grow
now and that I think that's the next step is, is how to, you
know, what's the, where best do we focus our efforts to do that?
Yeah, yeah. And we're, I've, I've worked
with plenty of brands over the years where they're like they're
making a little bit of profit or they're making a slight loss or
something. And they're like, we just need
to grow. And it's, you kind of have that
stop and have that quick conversation with them.
Say, you do know, if we don't fix some of the like
operational, financial, sustainable kind of parts to
this or work out what your team looks like internally, we're
just going to scale up a problem.
And that like if you're making a 1% loss or 5% loss, that's a lot
bigger in terms of numerical numbers when you reach
£1,000,000 turnover a month versus when you're at £10,000 a
month turnover. And so I think it's, I think
you're doing the right thing, obviously of just looking at
like, do we have all the right blocks?
Then we kind of go up another, I always look at it like a
staircase. You kind of get everything ready
and then you jump up to the next step and you kind of sustain
yourself there a little bit. Then we get the next set of
blocks ready. We jump up as if they're the
next step on the on the staircase.
And certainly an overhead start to grow.
Once you've got a staff size of a certain amount, you need HR
and other bits and pieces that kick in and the government stops
giving you little tax breaks, which, you know, thanks guys.
So the, I think there's, there's always other challenges that
start to come in. But you guys aren't just trying
to grow the e-commerce side, are you?
I've got in my notes here that you're also writing a book.
So you've got their kind of online community.
We've been running for 10 years. You've got the Shopify store.
It's been 18 months. There's a book coming as well.
What are you writing a book about?
Tell us more about that. Yeah, so the book is more so my
life and and the boy's life. So that's so my social media
pages, stories about autism and then essay clothing has has come
off the back of that. And yeah, the book is linked to,
I mean, it definitely talks about the clothing because
that's a part of our lives and that's been a huge part of our
community. But it's really, it's about,
it's about parenting. It's about you know what, how
you adjust when life looks differently than what you
imagined and how you adapt and how it can still be just as fun
and just as beautiful too. And that's the message behind
it. And, and really trying to be a
sort of resource for, for parents and who possibly are
earlier on in their journey and to help people understand a bit
more about autism really. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And I think when certainly when we'd work with clients, normally
we're working on the SEO side of things.
We're trying to build links, one of the hardest things we come up
against, and it can be kind of like smashing your head against
the wall in the office at times going like who on earth wants to
talk about like wall cladding or there's another thing we
advertise one of our clients. So welfare vans, it's basically
a van that's got 2 rows of seats and in the back is a small
kitchen, a toilet. So if someone's working at like
3:00 AM on the railways or the roads or something, there's
somewhere safe and warm for them to go for a coffee break, you
know, and kind of get changed out their wet clothes
afterwards. Well, so you learn loads about
this, but you're like, the BBC is, I'm not going to publish a
big article talking about like this is Bob who lives in a
welfare van four nights a week, you know, like no one's going to
do about that. So sometimes it's quite
difficult to come up with those almost like PR stories to
generate awareness, to generate links, which obviously we're
trying to get the SEO rankings to go up, but we need that
activity. So I think you know, my advice
to you and to anyone else who's thinking of how do I build
links, having something like a book launch is massive because
there is so much now storytelling behind what you're
doing that journalists are constantly on the lookout for.
Because a bit like you sharing the story here, we'll talk a bit
more about Shopify for the next 5-10 minutes as well.
But the story of how you've got to where you are in your family
life and everything that is that is the brand personality, that
is who people are buying into when they buy your clothing.
And that is what you can take to the forefront.
I call them marketplace shops where it's like, it's just a
white background. Here are some products and all
the product descriptions are so hard to write because it's just
like this is a box, it's made of cardboard, it has six sides.
It opens and closes. You can use to sell it safe on
it like and all these other things.
It's so hard to write a good product description about that.
But if you're talking about an item of clothing, saying we
designed this shoe to have a zip because if you are in a
wheelchair and cannot stand up, putting your shoes on and doing
your laces is a non starter. And so, yeah, we have Billy
footwear on. You have that exact product and
similar to what you guys are doing is that story.
There's a reason why we're doing this thing becomes quite a big
PR story. But let's talk about those
stories and your marketing. Like what does your marketing
look like for the store? Do you predominately focus on
that community where you've been storytelling or do you guys
still do some of the traditional PPCSEO, social ads, e-mail
marketing? Like do you still try and cover
all of those bases and tell the story in a unique way in the
same space as perhaps other just generic clothing brands are
operating? Yeah.
So, so far it's been like pretty much all just organic social.
It's been through our clothing accounts, socials on really on
Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. And then me sort of amplifying
it a little bit here and there through stories about autism as
well and which is great. But yeah, we, we have, I'm
definitely not an e-mail expert. I'm sending emails sometimes
regularly, sometimes not. I've got a couple of flows set
up, which again, I've been sort of learning about as I go.
And, you know, it has some results, but definitely that's
something that we can improve and we can from what I learned
from listening to your podcasts and from other reasons, these
e-mail marketing is should be a lot bigger than what it
currently is. And I think, yeah, the, the real
possibility for growth for us is we haven't done any paid ads.
We haven't done any Meta ads. We haven't done any pay per
click. And it's, it's figuring out how
best to do that. Do I, you know, spend a lot more
time trying to learn it? Do I employ someone?
See it's making those decisions. And that's sort of definitely
the the phase right at the moment is that's the next step I
think. Yeah, yeah.
And I think the challenge you guys have got is just that
targeting methods was telling the story, which is no different
to any brand. It's like who are we targeting?
What we're going to tell them so that they buy products or at
least engage in our story, in our journey.
When you were saying actually we've done it all kind of
organically and socially initially like not had to pay
much out. My first thought was why would
you pay for traffic if you're getting it for free?
So there's always that kind of match up as well.
I think isn't there a balancing like the how?
I guess the question really is how much can we get for free and
then how do we make something profitable there?
If you're looking at 5 T-shirts and Google Shopping, how do we
stand out and tell our story in that little shopping ads, which
is not easy. I, I've written a few white
papers on it published over the next few months.
So I'll certainly send you one James and flag it to other
people. But yeah, just showing examples
where brands have really started to stand apart whilst also
adhering to Google's guidelines. But it's still is a product with
some review rating and a price and it's so lit and a title and
it's so limiting what you can do on that Google Shopping listing.
And then I think one of the one of the challenges brands really,
really have on social, which, given that you've done it
organically, is, is not a problem for you guys right now,
but certainly in paid social and I see brands this a lot is
almost becoming too experiential with it.
We've had some clients go what we, you know, we spent five days
shooting this incredible set of videos and we watch it.
And I, I devil's advocate over here comes along and my, my
personality type is the beta. So even if I agree with someone,
I'll look at the other side and go, well, look, this is what
people would, you know, come against that.
So are we ready for that? Are we still standing strong
sort of thing in the in the balance of this conversation?
But you look at it and I'm like, it doesn't even say we sell
clothing anymore. It talks so much about like
travelling the world or transport links or this feels
more like a bank. It feels more like something you
take in your pocket with you wherever you go, rather than
showing like the stitching on the T-shirt to be like, it's
really good T-shirt for travel. Or in your case actually, it's
like, you know, we've launched this brand to help people with
autism and our products also reflect that in this way.
It's trying to get those reels and you won't get it right first
time. As you say, never stop learning.
There are definitely experts and specialists on things, but no
one's perfect, you know, It's that constant refining and
testing basis for sure. Nice.
Well what we're going to do, we're going to finish with
something a bit exciting, which we don't always do on the show,
but I've got it in my notes and I thought you know what, we'll
do it today. So James, I got 4 quick fire
questions for you as well. So we want to get one word
answers with any funny stories that come with them as well.
So first one, what was your first product you ever sold and
why did you sell that product? It was a sorry it's not one word
answer. Hoodie love needs no words
hoodie. That's our most popular product
and that was definitely our first one.
So that's nice. I mean, how did you come up with
that? How did you come up with that
slow go? Obviously it relates to autism
itself, but. Yeah, so love needs no words.
That's you know, that that is really about my boys.
Like I said earlier on, they're both non speaking.
They they have no spoken words. So that's, you know, that ties
in massively with the autism community.
About sort of 2025% of the people are, are non verbal.
And what I've learnt from them is that they communicate in so
many different ways. You know, we're still able to
communicate very well together, We're still able to understand
each other and we're definitely able to show love.
And that's where where that comes from.
Love needs no words. So many different, different
people. Yeah, yeah.
So if anyone's sitting there struggling to write a product
description, this is how you write a good product
description, as you start with a good product for a good cause
and a good reason, and it comes. It comes quite easily.
How would you describe your brand, if you can in one word?
Community. Community, love that, love that
question 3 then most unexpected message you've ever received
from a customer. So it was very unexpected, but
it's now become actually about 10 Times Now of people sending
me pictures of them having love needs no words tattooed on their
arms and their. Tattooed.
Yeah, design. Oh my gosh, there's about,
there's about 10 people out there with our design tattooed
on their arms and legs. So yes, that's very unexpected.
Nice. We've had a few good ones over
the years. No one has ever said if we've
had one of our slogans tattooed on someone's arm or leg.
That is absolutely amazing. And final point then, so
obviously you run a clothing range.
You need to do a lot of designing to design the
clothing, make it look good. Do you drink tea or coffee while
you're designing or another drink?
Neither because I don't drink tea or neither, no.
So probably a Coke 0 is my go to.
Nice, nice. We have fridges stacked to the
stuff in our in our office, little cans of Coke 0.
So, yeah, big favorite from us. And well, look, James, it's been
so good to talk to you. An incredible journey.
All the best with everything. And you know, we want to see
this, see this thing grow. So we might get you back in a
year or another 18 months and see how things have evolved.
If someone's listening again, James, I want to follow you.
I also want to follow the clothing brand.
I want to reach out, see your website.
Like, how can I get in touch with you?
How can I get on board with your journey?
Yeah. So best place is Instagram or or
Facebook SAA clothing is the so it's at S dot A dot a clothing.
Thanks to someone else having that name and not using it.
And. Yes, my personal brand is
stories about autism. Stories about autism.
Awesome. Well, thank you so much, James.
It's been great to you. Great to have you on the show
and I really appreciate your time.
Yeah. Thank you, Nick.
It's been great. Cool and for everyone listening
at home, we will be joining another guest next week.
So make sure you tune in. We will have, I don't know which
episode's going out next week, but I've got like 6 to record
this week alone. So yeah, stay tuned.
Some amazing things happening again.
Join our meet up group on meetup.com.
It's called the London Shopify Merchant meet up or some
different combination of those 4 words.
It's definitely Shopify meet up London and it's merchants only
as always. And go and join the growth hub
if you haven't already. Thanks for tuning in.
See you guys next week.