Building a New Niche Brand from New Hampshire: Yogibo CEO Eyal Levy (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Is this a product that you are doing under your own brand?

Eyal Levy: For the first line, we had to develop the product ourselves. We had to develop a different inner fabric to make it more durable and to comply with the regulations here. It’s our own brand. I started the brand. We started eight years ago with a core line of bean bags, but we have now expanded it to a whole lifestyle line, which includes a lot of comfort accessories and home décor products. Now we’re expanding into fashion accessories.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning. In 2009, what did you launch the company with? I’m assuming you bootstrapped the company since you had just gone through the exit of your family business.

Eyal Levy: I worked for another company. I started the company in July 2009. I launched the website in August. We started to do just a little bit of advertising, but we went to a lot of events where we demonstrated the product. We participated in a few festivals and partnered with other stores. We saw that people loved the product when they tried it. Then they went online to place an order. There was a very strong connection with exposure and letting people try the product with online sales.

Sramana Mitra: Where was the product being manufactured?

Eyal Levy: The fabric was imported. We assemble and fill it here in the US. In the beginning, it was in our basement. A few months later, we rented a little space. A year after that, we moved to a 5,000 square foot warehouse.

Sramana Mitra: When you were assembling it in your basement, how much of this product did you sell and at what price point?

Eyal Levy: The price point, to be honest, hasn’t changed much in the last eight years. Our most popular item was the Yogibo Max. We sold it back then for $229. Right now, the price is $239. The first few months until we opened our retails store, we made about $10,000 to $15,000 a month. We also sold to several stores. There was one popup shop that ordered a lot from us and a few other local stores. That was the volume.

The big change was when we opened our first retail store in one of the upscale malls outside Boston. Since then, sales increased tremendously. We had a lot of exposure and a lot of people were trying it. This is the time when we went out and exhibited in a lot of events.

Sramana Mitra: From the time that you started selling online, how long later did you open your physical store?

Eyal Levy: Nine months.

Sramana Mitra: What kind of lift did you see in sales at that point?

Eyal Levy: We opened the store in May. From a pace of $100,000 a year, we jumped to $1 million a year. Two things led to that – opening the store and doing a lot of outside events. We went out to music festivals and town fairs. We just exhibited the product there. That created a lot of exposure which created great synergy leading people to go online and go to the store. It’s a triangle that works perfectly together – online, store, events.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Building a New Niche Brand from New Hampshire: Yogibo CEO Eyal Levy
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