Bringing Together Content And Commerce In Men’s Fashion: JackThreads Founder Jason Ross (Part 2)

Sramana: How did you go about launching the company?

Jason Ross: It was a long and joyful journey. In January of 2006 I wrote the business plan despite having no fashion industry or e-commerce experience. I made a pact with myself that whatever barriers would come up would not stop me and that I would find a way to make this happen. I found various website developers around the Columbus, Ohio, area who helped me make a website. It took me two years to get a website up that was working because I did not know what I was doing.

At the same time I was traveling to trade shows in New York and California. I was meeting with the brands that I wanted to work with on the supplier side. Walking into a trade show for the first time with no experience was a unique experience. I walked from booth to booth pitching my idea to people. I had no contacts. It was frustrating and challenging at first, but the more and more I saw the same people over those two years the more trust I was able to build. Over that two-year period I was able to get enough brands to commit to working with me if I was able to build the site functionality.

Sramana: How did you sustain yourself for two years while you sold the concept?

Jason Ross: I was doing anything I could to get by. I worked at restaurants and bars at night so that I could have my days free. I ended up taking a part-time consulting gig for a consumer products company here in town. I basically leveraged my experience from the first company I started where I sold products to retail, and I helped this consumer products company take new products and sell them into retail doors.

Sramana: After two years of trade shows, what were the terms that you came to with the brands? Did you actually have to buy their products?

Jason Ross: The first model was to work on consignment. I realized quickly that unless we had a massive audience of people on day one, our consignment idea would not happen. In the beginning we committed to products. We were purchasing the goods outright. My message to the brands was that I would buy the products if they would commit to me because I was determined to build the business. A lot of the brands respected that approach.

Sramana: What were the first brands to trust their merchandise to you? What was that negotiation like?

Jason Ross: We started out with a couple of brands; I remember Creative Recreation and an Australian brand called Insight were among our earliest. Persistence was the key to getting started. It was going to the same shows for two years, and meeting the same people for two years. Over time they became convinced that I was going to do what I promised them that I would do. I had met a buyer from Urban Outfitters during that time and I was able to develop a relationship with him. He helped teach me how to negotiate these types of deals. That is what gave me the basis for our initial inventory purchases.

Sramana: What did you learn from your mentor?

Jason Ross: I learned how to negotiate pricing. He taught me about standard industry off price arrangements. It gave me a ballpark to work with. I was flying completely blind before that, so he gave me the basic information about standard deals in the fashion world. I used that to construct my pitch.

Sramana: What about the terms?

Jason Ross: We were actually purchasing products from our initial six brands. We bought the merchandise and I had it shipped into my house. I stored the product in the master bedroom of my home.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Bringing Together Content And Commerce In Men’s Fashion: JackThreads Founder Jason Ross
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