Kevin Horek: Welcome
Gregg: back to the show.
Today we have Andrew Wyatt.
He's the
Kevin Horek: c e o and co-founder at Cala.
Andrew, great to chat with
Andrew Wyatt: you again.
Hey, Kevin, great to be here.
Kevin Horek: Yeah, I'm excited to have you on the show.
Uh, I've obviously
Gregg: kind of known you and what you
Kevin Horek: guys are doing at Cala for a number of years now, but before we get
into that, let's get to know you a little bit better and start off with where you.
Andrew Wyatt: Cool.
Yeah, so I was born in Florida, was seven, moved to Knoxville, Tennessee,
and so I, I kind of consider that being where I, I grew up.
Kevin Horek: Very cool.
So walk us through, you went to
Gregg: university, what did you take and why?
. Andrew Wyatt: So one of the interesting things about Knoxville, Tennessee is that
it's the intersection of I 75 and I 40.
Okay.
And so, uh, in the US that's, uh, I 75 runs from Florida all the way up
through, I, I don't, I think New York.
And, uh, and then I 40 runs, you know, from coast to coast east,
all the way the west, right?
And so, um, you know, without really realizing it, , uh, my parents, you know,
basically put us in a logistics hub.
And so, um, myself and my two brothers, we all studied logistics and supply
chain at the University of Tennessee.
Kevin Horek: Okay.
Was but like, what made you want to take that?
Gregg: Just, just geographically being there?
Or was there something that happened in your childhood that
you were like, oh, I really want to
Andrew Wyatt: go?
So, you know, it was definitely one of the top majors at University of Tennessee.
So there's Okay.
There's a lot of, uh, a lot of plugging that I would say that they did.
But, um, for me, I actually went to school knowing, not, not thinking, but knowing
I was gonna be an anesthesiologist.
Oh, fascinating.
And so part of the, um, , you know, part of the how to get into
medical school guide is, you know, you have to do tons of shadowing.
And so I shadowed, you know, hundreds of hours, um, orthopedic anesthesia, er, um,
you know, outpatient kind of everything.
And one of the things I kept seeing over and over again was,
you know, it felt like things were.
Running properly or like there, it seemed like, you know,
there's always stuff everywhere.
Everyone was always running around, everyone was, you know, seemed overtired.
And so I was thinking, you know, if I'm gonna be a amazing, you know, world
World's greatest anesthesiologist, um, would probably be good to take some
business classes as well, just to kind of, you know, understand that side of it.
Who knows, you know, I thought maybe I would have my own practice at some.
And so kind of like at the same time as I was doing the sort of pre-med
courses, I started taking some of the business courses and was,
you know, stars aligned in that.
My first business course was operations management and the professor was
talking about lean for operations and, or sorry, lean for Healthcare
and how they were taking operat.
Methodology and best practices in applying a healthcare environment.
And I was just like, wow.
I , I think you're only talking to me in this room, . And so, uh, I went
and connected with him afterwards and he connected me with this guy, Dr.
Chuck Noon, who actually worked in the Center for Executive
Education at Tennessee.
and he was one of the pioneers of applying lean methodologies
and principles to healthcare.
So I kind of buddied up with him for the next couple years and, uh, and
got to do some really, really cool, um, projects, one of which was, um,
doing a, a lean implementation in the University of Tennessee, uh, medical
center's er, which was super, super cool.
Kevin Horek: Interesting.
Okay, so walk us through.
Kind of the rest of your career and pivoting and coming up with the idea for,
for Cala, because it is not medical at
all.
. . Andrew Wyatt: So I think that the biggest, you know, epiphany from
that experience was, you know, at the time I was probably 19, 20 years old.
Okay.
But, in that environment, I'm telling the doctors what to do and I'm working
with the nurses on, you know, how to organize their, their carts and you
know, where to put things in certain places so that, you know, uh, patients
can kind of flow through, uh, more, more effectively and more, more quickly.
And so it was, it was through that experience where I really kind of
started having this idea of like, do I want to go to medical school?
Do I want to, you know, In essence, 12 years from, you know, medical
school residency fellowships to become an anesthesiologist.
And, um, ultimately decided not to, unfortunately, after I went through
the whole process of getting into medical school, but, uh, but decided
that I was gonna double down on supply chain and, and operations because
that's where I, you know, sort of felt I had this kind of zon of genius.
Gregg: Interesting.
No, that's,
Kevin Horek: that's cool.
So yeah, talk, talk to us about your
Gregg: career and coming up with the idea for, uh, Cala.
Andrew Wyatt: So, after, Deciding I was not going to pursue medicine.
I, um, actually threw the Center for Executive Education at Tennessee where I'd
spent, you know, a good amount of time.
At that point got plugged in with a company called Grundfos,
which was based in Denmark.
And so I spent two years there in a rotation program.
So I got to travel all over the world and do like, very macro
projects like realigning the North American supply chain with Oh, cool.
Raw materials coming from Europe.
And also like very, very like micro projects like in Fresno, California on the
production line, trying to optimize the, you know, the flow of goods of a single
sort of like pump manufacturing line.
And so got to, you know, really, really, uh, learn a lot.
, um, operations and supply chain.
But what I learned the most about was that, uh, you know, doesn't matter
how good your ideas are, if, uh, nobody wants to implement them, right?
And so that's where I really started to learn the people,
people management piece and change management and, and managing change.
When you have no leverage and you're, you're not their boss, as a matter of
fact, they're, you know, they're up, up on the, uh, totem pole, totem pole from you.
And so, , that was kind of a really rich experience, a painful
experience as all good learning is.
Um, and, and through that though, you know, I learned how to communicate
with people of all, you know, different backgrounds and, um, was, and you know,
in the end pretty effective with that.
And then, um, part of the rotation was I was gonna move to Indianapolis
and, um, be a logistics engineer.
And, um, about that time, Ended up finding a job on angelist, um, for ship.
Okay.
And so, um, as the, as the story goes, I was flying back to Denmark
and I was going to, um, to tell my boss there that I was gonna leave and
was gonna do some consulting stuff.
And, um, I met a guy on the plane.
and he was like, oh yeah, you know, consulting's a cool gig.
He's like, but what you really should do is go to SF and be like
an ops guy for, you know, engineers.
He's like, this Uber cab company I think is gonna be the first of kind
of a generation of sort of like tech plus operations businesses.
And I was like, Ooh, that sounds super interesting.
And, uh, a lot more interesting than living in Indianapolis.
I know if offense, anyone from Indianapolis out here, . And so, uh, and
so I, you know, he, I was like, where?
How, how do I even find, you know, these engineers that are looking for, for
tech people or for operations people?
And, uh, he's like, Angelist, it's like a place for talent
and companies and startups.
And so typed in logistics on there, found ship and became their first employee
and was there for a couple years.
And so with SHIP was, it was like Uber for shipping, right?
And so you could take a photo of something, someone would come pick it
up professionally, pack it in a custom fit box, send it anywhere in the world,
finding you the lowest cost shipping rate.
So got to really dive in and do, you know, a lot of tech, a lot
of operations, a lot of, uh, you know, logistics related things.
And I saw this kind of same repeat behavior where people were using other
tools like Shopify or eBay or Etsy to basically be their own entrepreneur and
ship was this great solution because they were able to now outsource another
piece of the value chain that wasn't necessarily part of their core competency.
Right?
And so, Specifically, um, there is a boutique in the mission district of,
uh, SF that was using SHIP regularly.
And uh, and they kind of pique my interest and, and so I went and talked to 'em and
they were like, oh yeah, SHIP is amazing.
Like, you know, once we started using Shopify, now we can ship cus you know,
we could have customers all over the world, um, instead of people that
could just walk through the door.
But, you know, we don't know anything about international
logistics and things like that.
And so it got the wheels kind of spinning on like, you know, In the future,
there's gonna be way more brands.
The, you know, technology has democratized people's ability to be a creator or,
um, you know, launch their own business.
However, when it comes to actually creating physical goods, specifically
within the fashion space, I felt like there wasn't that sort of, you
know, Key leader in the market that was like, oh, you know, you've built
a great, you know, Squarespace site.
You have a, you know, a, a big audience on social, and now you use this app and
you can create amazing, you know, physical products to sell to your audience.
Right.
I didn't feel like that existed.
Kevin Horek: Okay.
So how did you kind of refine the idea and what was the first version and, and
made you actually decide like, I need to
Andrew Wyatt: really build.
So first, first thing I did was I spent some time.
, um, with a fashion brand that was okay, based in Sausalito and
is called, um, Frida Salvador.
It's actually a, a women's, um, footwear company.
Okay.
And so spent a couple weeks with them and just, you know, sort of learning,
absorbing, seeing the way they operated, seeing what their meetings are like,
their design process, you know, how they communicate with the factory,
how they, you know, Communicated with her logistics partners.
Um, and it was through that experience and I started to kind of see, you
know, basically the tool set is like Adobe Illustrator and Excel, right?
And then email and phone.
And so that's where I, you know, initially was like, okay, this is interesting.
Like there's probably something here.
Um, and so started working on the V1 at, at the time, and this
was kinda separate from that experience with them at the time.
I was also, you know, really thinking about.
, the experience I had at SHIP where, you know, there's just so many
people using SHIP for returns, right?
And so kind of the V1 of Cala was like, can I create something that helps these
sort of like small fashioned brands and kind of attacks this problem of returns?
And so the, the kind of V1 of Cala was, you know, I, I talk about learning here.
We, I, I made this sort of like standard tech person mistake,
which is like, I tried to jump.
all the way to the, like in solution.
And so, right.
It was a on demand production, custom fit app.
Okay.
And so , um, a fashion brand could, you know, create a collection, we would
basically do this crazy grading process so that, um, it could be, you know, a custom
pattern can be made for each customer.
And then we built this app where, um, someone could take three photos and
we'd be able to pull their key measure.
And then, um, basically from those measurements and the grading process,
we do a custom pattern, and then we had a factory in LA that would, you
know, cut and sew a, a custom garment.
So it took about like two weeks.
However, um, you know, we had fanatical customers, but very, very few, um,
who, you know, loved the experience.
They could never find anything that fit them well.
Now they could get the designer's style, you know, in a, in a,
you know, custom fit for them.
Um, but ultimately the designers just kept over and over saying
like, returns is not our problem.
our problem is being able to actually produce what we want quickly and,
you know, in small quantities.
And, and so it was kind of through that experience of kind of getting something
out into the world that we learned like, oh, okay, the actual, you know, request
or, or things that, that brands want is the ability to like easily have a,
you know, produce internationally and find, you know, great manufacturers
and, and have, you know, reliable experience producing the products.
Kevin Horek: Interesting.
So were you coding and designing these first versions, or, or how
did you actually get these first
Andrew Wyatt: versions built?
Yeah, so the first, I, I did actually code the first version of the website.
Okay.
Um, unfortunately, Webflow did not exist then.
Um, right.
We would've saved me a lot of time.
Yes.
Um, web Awesome.
And then Webflow is absolutely incredible.
I think like the combination of, of Webflow and.
Figma and Framer, and there's just so many incredible tools now where
you can, I mean, you could get a, a good, solid V1 of a startup up without
having anyone technical on your team.
Kevin Horek: Totally, a hundred percent agree.
I still use, as somebody technical, I still use those tools because
Gregg: they're so much quicker than coding a lot of that stuff yourself.
So
Andrew Wyatt: I absolutely, yeah.
The Call Kello website today is, uh, is built on Webflow.
And as a matter of fact, after this meeting, I have time blocked
and, uh, get it turned, one of our landing pages into a, a cms, um, so
that our team can quickly spin up.
A landing page specifically for this customer that does these
things that are looking for this.
Um, and it's just amazingly powerful tool.
Gregg: No, fair enough.
That's very cool.
Yeah, I still do like my, well, my own personal site is even done
in Webflow, and I do like client work sometimes in that and, you
know, even just like startup work.
So No, I, I think it's a great tool.
So, but
Andrew Wyatt: uh, go ahead, sir.
Well, I was just gonna say, I think it's a great, it's a great example
though of when, like, technology can abstract away a lot of the,
you know, unnecessary complexity.
A hundred percent.
people can build amazing things and, and that's kind of the, the
way that Cala is sort of like acting within the, the fashion space now.
Kevin Horek: Okay.
No, that makes a lot of sense.
So walk us through exactly what Cala has become today and may, and maybe give
us a bit more of the journey because you've been at this a number of years
Andrew Wyatt: now.
Yeah.
So May 12th, 2022 will be six years for me.
Wow.
Congrats man.
That's great.
Which is insane in startup years.
Yeah.
Which are, which are similar to dog years.
Um, . Yeah.
Hundred percent.
Maybe
Gregg: even worse.
Right.
. Andrew Wyatt: Exactly.
Um, but yeah, so, so I'll, I'll kind of distill it down to some, some big moments.
Okay.
First big moment was when I convinced my co-founder Dylan to join me.
Okay.
And so he was an engineer at ship.
Um, fantastic engineer, probably.
I only know one other engineer that's like, has as great of
like an iq, EQ balance as Dylan.
Right.
Um, and he was the CTO of ship, so , um, was hard to, hard to pull him.
Sure.
Um, so, so basically Dylan joined, that's when we really started to develop the
technology, both on the sort of like custom fit and the app side, but also just
like the general, you know, website and kind of taking that to the next level.
Right.
Basically, I fired myself from coding and then, um, and then we,
we did a, uh, collaboration with Wiz Khalifa and, um, Two brands, one
called Pleasures and one called 4 24.
And that was kinda the moment where, and, and that was still through the, the
kind of custom fit type product we had.
And that was when one of the guys from Pleasures was like, no one cares.
He was like, Andrew, no one cares about custom fit.
He's like, but if we can rely, if we can upload what we want and
have it produced and delivered to us, like that's incredible.
You should build that.
And so, you know, a lot of people talk on podcasts and, and Twitter
about listening to your customers.
We did and, and so at that point with not a lot of money in the bank, we literally,
basically spun down our custom fit business and started building the, you
know, version of Cal that there is today.
Kevin Horek: Okay.
But just to step back for a second, how did you land some of these big names to
partner with you being that early on?
Andrew Wyatt: Connections.
The short answer is I have a, one of my zone of geniuses besides, uh, operations.
I think, and actually I think even more, um, more, more of a
zone of genius than operations is my ability to sell and to okay.
Get, get basically people excited about a vision.
Okay.
And so when it was just Dylan and I on rotating between, uh, my
couch and his couch, um, we managed to, um, you know, get connected.
, someone from this really cool company called Maid, okay.
Which did these big events with talent and fashion and culture.
And so we told them about our technology and our big vision for the future.
And uh, and her name was Ruth.
And she basically was like, wow, this is amazing.
Let's, you know, let's, let's do that at Made LA And uh, and so that was
kind of the process of, and it was a cold email that I sent to be honest.
Um, wow.
And, and, yeah.
Next big moment was hiring Ruth.
So . Okay.
Um, so we hired Ruth, uh, after that event and uh, she kind of came on as
our, um, head of marketing and sort of head of, um, you know, sort of
like creative director if you will.
And so that's when we moved the company to New York and, and basically started
kind of getting closer to customers and kind of getting embedded in the
like, fashion scene within New York.
Um, and then I'd say like the next big moment was, It sounds kind of
crazy, but, uh, it is very fortuitous.
Basically, I was a big, uh, superhuman, um, early user.
Sure.
And Superhuman is an email app and I love it because it's just like,
it literally makes you superhuman.
You can move so much more quickly through your inbox and such.
And so I gave 'em a lot of product feedback early days.
So I got invited to a happy hour that they had.
This is actually before we moved to New York.
And uh, so I went to the Happy Hours Engineering happy.
And I'm talking to a bunch of people and I see this like six foot five guy in a Yeezy
sweatshirt and Balenciaga Triple S shoes.
Okay.
Which are like crazy sneakers.
And, uh, so I'm like, my brain's racking, like, what is this guy doing
at a superhuman engineering happy hour?
Sure.
And, uh, and so I go and introduce myself and his name was Ryan Wood and, uh, he
was the first designer at Superhuman.
And uh, I was Ryan, how would you like to get coffee tomorrow?
And.
. Yeah, let's do it.
So, uh, long story short, three weeks later, Ryan joined as our, um,
head of product and, uh, basically was, was with us for four years.
And so he really, you know, if, if, uh, we had this kind of idea, Ruth helped
us kind of like, you know, build that legitimacy within the fashion space.
And Ryan helped us actually like build the app and the product to,
you know, make it easy to, to kind of achieve our, our purpose of making
it easy to create physical product.
Nope.
Kevin Horek: Very cool.
Okay, so keep going on this journey cuz
Andrew Wyatt: it's fascinating.
Yeah.
So, so now we're in New York and um, we are having a hard time,
um, still having a bit of a hard time on the supply chain side.
, you know, we're, we're working with a decent number of factories, but
it's still kind of like we have one good factory here that does this.
We have one good factory there that does that.
And the, a big part of the vision was having this sort
of like, network approach.
And so, you know, instead of having one factory and then having all of the
projects go in that queue, trying to take a distributed model, and this,
you know, this comes from operations and even like networking, logic.
Um, and so, , we were able to kind of, a next big step for us was we,
um, we hired this woman, Lauren Divine, and uh, was a connection
through Ruth and she helped Kanye do Yeezy season one through four right.
As, uh, his director of materials and then subsequently was Alexander Wing's
director of materials for four years.
And so, you know, met her at our space, very small space and uh, and
basically told her the vision and she's like, yeah, that's never gonna.
And so, wow.
Um, so I was like, well, how about you tell us how to make it work?
And so I brought her on as an advisor, which, uh, big, big tip for anyone
that's starting a business out there.
If you can't quite hire the person you want, bring 'em on as an advisor.
And then that's actually really good advice.
Help them, you know, understand and, and also like get skin in
the game on what you're doing.
And then when you're ready, you know, maybe it's a couple months, um, maybe
it's, you know, longer, you know, make the big, the big sell and the big pitch.
Kevin Horek: Interesting.
Did, did they eventually come
Andrew Wyatt: on board?
She did, and actually I did the same thing for Dylan, my co-founder.
So I was like, look, dude.
And he is like, I'm not gonna leave ship.
Um, I'm like, how about you come on as an advisor first?
And then, uh, about three months later he joined.
And so, uh, Lauren, I think she was advisor for about four or five months.
Um, and then, then joined full-time.
Kevin Horek: Well,
Andrew Wyatt: I,
Gregg: I, I think that's, that's really good advice, but
keep going down this journey.
It's fascinating and I, I think you're working in a lot of really good.
. Andrew Wyatt: Yeah.
Appreciate that.
And so, um, so, so we're in New York.
We're at this point in time, we're, we're starting to get our
operations like really dialed in.
So this is done, this is 2018.
And the issue we're starting to run into is like, who is the
customer that we're going after?
Okay.
And so, you know, we've worked with Wiz Clefa before, saw his
ability to sell out instantly.
And in New York we were working with a lot of small design.
But they were all really still focused on the wholesale model, which is like,
right, you make a bunch of samples, you do a fashion show, or you go in
a showroom and you cross your fingers and you hope that, you know, some
buyer's gonna come and place an order.
And uh, it's kind of this sick cycle where, you know, the buys are smaller
and smaller and smaller as everything was shifting towards e-commerce.
And so we had this hypothesis and we're like, If we can focus on
celebrities and influencers and be kind of like, you know, the solution
to help them launch brands at the time.
You know, Kylie was on the cover of Forbes and.
Yeezy was just starting to kind of get kicked off, um, from like a, you know,
big sort of like name brand perspective.
And, uh, and so that was kind of, you know, a big pivotal moment was
we were like, all right, we're gonna double down, triple down on, um,
signing celebrities and influencers.
And so we started that in 2019 and, uh, we signed about 35 and, uh, we
built relationships with all the big, you know, wme, C a a, IMG.
Um, D B a, I mean there's 1,000,003 letter and acronyms for talent
agencies and we basically built relations with ships with all of them.
And, uh, and, and so that's kind of when we're, we're getting into
covid a little bit and, and basically we were fortunate to have the
opportunity to get kind of like.
Never before seen access to talent because they were sitting at home
and willing to jump on a FaceTime or a Zoom or something like that.
And so, uh, we were pretty fortunate.
Um, we, we signed a lot of them and that, you know, resulted in, um,
a bit of a surprise, which was we found that not everyone with a large
audience and high levels of engagement was able to, you know, actually.
And so of the 35, you know, about a quarter of them were pretty successful.
Um, another quarter would like, you know, make back the cost of goods.
Um, and then half of 'em just like couldn't sell all a darn thing.
Fascinating.
Kevin Horek: Why do you think that was?
Just outta curiosity?
Andrew Wyatt: I think, you know, basically were,
we were thinking that, , you know, engagement translates
to dollars in its purest.
Okay.
And I think what we learned, um, and, and, you know, we were
continuously fine tuning the types of, of talent we were going after.
What we basically learned is that, you know, a lot of people with high engagement
are, are really have this sort of like entertainment relationship with their
following versus a taste making or like a trend setting type of relationship.
Okay.
You also get really good engagement if people hate.
. Yeah,
Gregg: I guess that makes sense, , because
Andrew Wyatt: everyone's trolling all of your posts.
So, you know, what we kind of ultimately found is like, you know, it's, it's
more than just the quantitative numbers.
You know, you have to be able to look at someone and be like, all right, are
they actually influencing their audience?
Are they, you know, generating new looks and ideas and, and trend and, and taste?
And so, um, we ultimately found that was pretty hard to, to, you
know, basically pick winners.
And so, . What we did towards the end of 21, or sorry, towards the
end of 2020, is we realized that like the successful brands really
look a lot like fashion brands.
So a lot of their needs are the same from like a technology and
sort of a supply chain perspective.
And so towards the end of 2020 and then in going into 21, we basically.
Evolved our solution even further to really just focus in on, you know, sort
of million in revenue plus fashion brands, um, enabling them to scale more quickly
and, and, you know, work more effectively.
Okay.
Kevin Horek: Fascinating.
So how does one of these brands start using Cala?
And then let's dive into.
Andrew Wyatt: Yeah.
So right now it's a, there's kind of two main channels in which,
you know, people come to Cal.
One is, you know, outbound and the other is inbound, um, which is,
you know, either signing up on our site or we get a lot of referrals.
And so once you, um, you know, Get in contact with us, we'll do a, a
short onboarding session and, and basically you can start loading in
your designs and your inspiration.
And so through our platform you can upload, you know, raw sketches,
you can upload inspiration images.
You and your team can sort of collaborate back and forth.
We have like pretty, pretty robust like commenting and notifications and um,
app mentioning and things like that.
And so it's this kind of like, you know, sort of cool little bit figma que from
like a collaboration features, um, type.
We're just like about, like, how can you get the vision of what you
want out as quickly as possible?
And then, um, once you submit a collection, we've actually
built our own pricing algorithm.
And so based on even just kind of those raw ideas on like, here's sort
of a reference image for the t-shirt I want, but I want it in the, this fabric
that I love from this t-shirt that I've had since like, you know, eighth
grade and here's our logo based on just kinda like those small bits of info.
We can price it for you and you can sort of in real time see how
it changes between like 10 units to a hundred units to 275 units.
Which is a, a really powerful tool and, and we quote the total landing cost.
And so, you know, if it's at a hundred units, it's uh, $15.
You know that if you sell it for 45, you're walking away with,
you know, 30 bucks a margin.
Right.
Um, and that's, that's been a pretty huge, uh, feature that, that everyone loves.
Sure.
Kevin Horek: Okay.
So, How, from, from what I remember, and you can correct me if I'm wrong,
you also have people on your side that'll help me design stuff if I
need it or, or walk us through some of the full and other services you guys
Gregg: provide.
Andrew Wyatt: Absolutely.
So, so one of the key things that we've done at Cala is basically,
you know, listening to our customers, any, any gap that they.
in, in, you know, any need that they have, we try to see if it
makes sense for us to fill it.
Okay.
So first, as you mentioned, like what if I need help designing?
And you may think like, well, they're a designer, how they need help designing.
But what we've actually found is that like a lot of times, you know, even like
a small fashion brand or even a medium sized fashion bread, they live a ton of
competency around one type of designing.
So let's call it like sweaters.
But if they wanna do a, a.
That's, you know, historically you would have to hire a team of
like five people if you wanted to start getting into foot footwear.
So at Kello we basically have this network of ghost designers that can be available
on a sort of like, you know, pay as you go type model, um, which is really cool.
So you don't need to hire somebody and pay 'em a hundred K a year.
Um, you can just pay us, you know, a thousand bucks for a
design or something like that.
Right.
Um, I think it's even like less expensive than that.
So we've done that in a number of areas.
So we have ghost.
And let's say that you already have your designs, you know exactly what you want.
Um, once you check out, then we actually now do by default a 3D design.
Okay?
And so we'll basically take those sketches and reference images, and
you'll get an actual like 3D render render that you can sort of engage
with through the Cal platform.
once that's, you know, once you've kind of gone back and
forth and you've approved that.
Um, which actually by the way has been amazing cuz it's helping us save, you
know, two, maybe even like three samples in the development process because wow,
people can kind of just like see upfront, here's what it is in a kind of a three
dimensional space, which is really cool.
That's awesome.
Okay.
Gregg: But keep going.
Sorry.
Andrew Wyatt: So once, once you approve your 3D design, then it goes in this
kind of like technical phase where we take the 3D design, make sure that it's
sort of like production ready, right?
And then, and so that's another sort of skillset that you're
getting access to through cala.
Um, which is like the technical design.
And so this is like figuring out like the pattern, um, all the specifics
about the prints and the print treatments and the size and the scaling.
All the things that like you could do as, you know, an individual designer or as
a fashion brand, but like that's a whole nother role that, uh, that you need and.
there's a, you know, lingerie technical designer, and there's
a, you know, knitwear technical designer, and there's a, you know,
accessories technical designer.
And so, you know, with Cala, you just get, you know, fractional usage of,
of the ones in our network instead of named to have them all in staff.
Interesting.
Similarly, once it goes to the factories, you know, we have 30 different factories
in 13 different countries, and so instead of going out and vetting them all
yourself, they're all available, you know, Same thing with like inbound logistics.
We take care of all of that.
Then we also have a direct to consumer fulfillment product where we have
about 18 warehouses that we work with around the world, um, where we
can actually store your products and directly ship them to your customers.
Kevin Horek: Very cool.
And you're, you have obviously like a free plan all the way up to whatever, right?
Like depend you, like you'll do whatever people need
Andrew Wyatt: basically.
Is that.
Exactly.
Yep.
So you can get started, you know, uploading your designs and collaborating
with one person on our free plan.
And then if you wanna actually get pricing, you have to upgrade to our,
um, our professional plan, which is I think like 30 bucks a month.
And, and then once you actually wanna produce something, then you
add our, our, uh, production add-on, um, which is $500 a month plus a
a 10 to 20% service fee, depending on how much revenue you're doing.
Right?
And then lastly, if you wanna add the fulfillment add-on,
that's another 500 bucks a.
. Um, and then another 10% service fee on the cost of fulfillment.
Kevin Horek: So it's pretty inexpensive for what you get access
to and all the people you get access to just based on even your shoe.
Gregg: Uh, example a few minutes ago, like not having to hire five people
Andrew Wyatt: is . It's insane.
Yeah.
It's, it's literally, and it's, it's, that's I think one of the examples of
like, you know, why these sort of like marketplace or, you know, SAS enabled
marketplace or managed marketplace, why these models are so powerful is
because through that technology you can basically connect, you know, demand
and supply in a super meaningful way.
Um, and at a really like low cost because of the scale.
No,
Kevin Horek: yeah, totally.
So, The thing that I always find fascinating about what you guys
are doing is you are really adding technology into a space that's not
really known for being very technical.
And I don't mean that in a negative way, it's just there's not a
lot of software that that plays in the fashion space, at least.
Is that, that's my understanding.
So is that a fair statement, I guess before I ask my question?
Andrew Wyatt: Absolutely.
I think, you know, historically, fashion has prided itself on, you
know, the artisan, you know, cutting the fabric by hand and flying to
Italy to review samples type model.
Right.
Since I've been working on Cala, it's definitely very quickly been, you know,
trying to catch up on, on the tech side.
Kevin Horek: Right.
Okay.
So then I'm curious, what advice do you give to people?
Look, because it sounds like you basically just figured it out as you went, tried
to make as many connections as possible.
You obviously networked with people.
You gave some really good advice about, um, if they don't join you a ask them
as a, or add them as ave mentor if they're willing to do that, in hopes
that you can hire them down the road.
But what other things have you learned along the way?
, you know, you maybe wish you knew earlier on
Andrew Wyatt: in your journey.
One of the biggest things that I've learned through the Cal experience
and really through, you know, I'm getting close to like 10 years in
tech now totally is I, I got into the space thinking I knew everything.
. Okay.
And now I'm so proud to say that I, I know basically nothing . That's funny.
And when you embrace, when you embrace that nothingness Yep.
It puts you in a position to listen.
it put you in a li in a position to discover.
It puts you in a position to learn.
And, and I think that, you know, through towards the end of my ship experience,
you know, I really was kind of like having my world crushed from the,
like I know everything perspective.
And so as I was starting Cala it, there really was this curiosity.
Um, and of course it was a new space as.
. And so, you know, as you, as you become, you know, optimizing for learning
versus optimizing for being right, um, it really enables a lot of like
beautiful things to come together.
And then you find yourself kind of like threading together the past experience
you've had and like, oh, actually.
This thing that I learned in this completely separate experience and
space can actually be repurposed into a new space to create something new
or something, you know, more unique.
And that could be a piece of technology, that could be a process, that could
be a, you know, a relationship.
Um, and so I think that, you know, Really, really trying to approach everything
as a kind of like a day one, like, you know, I know nothing perspective.
Um, I think that that's been super helpful for me.
Kevin Horek: No, I, I actually think that's really good advice.
I also feel like it, it sounds stupid, but it's kind of an icebreaker
sometimes when things get maybe a little challenging or if you're having
kind of a, a weird conversation.
, like maybe, maybe not like a customer or a client, but if it's somebody that
you're just getting to know, you're kinda like, well, I don't really know what I'm
doing, or I, I haven't, like, and it kind of just like lightens the mood sometimes.
And if you, if you Absolutely, if you genuinely mean it, I think
people just totally like, it just kind of relaxes the situation.
Do you know what I'm
Andrew Wyatt: getting at?
You're exactly right.
It relaxes a situation and you'll be blown away at how much time and
knowledge people are willing to give.
Totally.
It's, it's literally like, because you have that curiosity, um, people want
to help, they want to, not everyone, but, but a lot of people want to help.
And, you know, I kind of think back to, you know, when I was in LA in a,
you know, at a manufacturer, Working with this, you know, wonderful 60
year old woman who is a pattern maker.
And she was like, I'm like, I literally know nothing.
Like please just tell me everything.
Yeah.
And so she taught me about grading and about marking and,
you know, the whole experience.
And you know, you would be just amazed at how much you can learn in
a very short period of time, um, you know, with that kind of attitude.
And I think when you look at a lot of the, like, super successful
startups, especially the ones that.
kind of like creating a new space.
Yeah.
It's almost never someone from the in, like from that industry that's doing it.
Totally.
Yeah.
Something about Travis Kalanick with Uber and Brian Chesky and team with
Airbnb, like none of them came from taxis or from, you know, hospitality.
Um, I think it takes that kind of like that, you know, outsider view and, and
that process of learning where you can kind of come up with these like crazy new.
Gregg: No,
Kevin Horek: I, I think that's really good advice.
So you also have a mobile app.
How does that tie into everything we've talked about so far today?
Andrew Wyatt: Yeah, so, you know, I don't wanna beat a dead horse, but, you know,
listening to our customers, seeing what they're they're doing, seeing how they're
using the product, one of the things became abundantly clear, which is, the
creation process, you know, which is still heavily dependent on the Adobe Suite.
Few people are using Figma.
Um, that's a desktop experience, right?
But once you get past that part and even the, like, the collaboration elements
within that part, A large portion of the team are not in those tools.
They're on mobile.
And so what we kind of realized about, about a year ago is like, you
know, I think it was something like 60% of uh, people that were logging
to the app were logging on iOS.
Okay.
And so we were basically like, all right, we need to create like the absolute best.
Experience, um, the best digital experience for, for our customers
and for many of them, you know, that means a mobile experience.
And so, um, we launched the mobile app back in March and, uh, has
had incredible response so far.
It's, uh, it's also a cool opportunity for us because we've been able to, you know,
use a different tech stack, um, right.
And so really kind of.
Playing around with some new cool, cool technology and, and things
from like the API side that, um, is really exciting for our, you
know, our team that's working on it.
Um, but also just like, you know, going back to that day one thing, you know,
whenever you get a, a chance to kind of like start fresh with something you
can, you know, do it better that time.
And so, um, the app super, super fast and, um, some features, you
know, are even easier to do on iOS like panning and zooming than
they are on, on, uh, on desktop.
And so it's been kind of cool to, to introduce that product
and, and have heard, uh, you know, great, great feedback.
So, No.
Kevin Horek: Very cool.
So I'm curious, because obviously you have some well-known brands and some
celebrities using the platform, how do you manage your roadmap with their requests?
Because some of these brands could probably throw lots of money at
you to build some of the features that you're like, well, they're
not really right for us, or how so?
How do
Andrew Wyatt: you manage that?
That's a good question.
So, , I think it's about staying true to your purpose as a company.
Okay.
And so our purpose is to power physical product creation by
connecting the world through an accessible digital infrastructure.
And so when we get big requests like, um, oh, you guys should build a factory,
or, you know, something like that, and it's like, well, does that directly.
Help us on our purpose of, of making, creating physical
products more accessible, maybe.
Um, by then it's becomes a priorit prioritization process towards like,
what are the things that are most quickly and most directly gonna
propel us towards that vision?
And so that's something that's been really important for, for Dylan and I from the
very beginning, is really codifying our purpose as a company, but also our values.
And so we kind of talk about it as like, you know, The purpose and,
and sort of like our O OKRs is just how we track towards our purpose.
Um, O OKRs, standing for objectives and key results.
That's kinda like the what that we do.
Okay.
But equally as important is the values, which is like the how.
And, and I think it creates a really great framework for, you know, hiring f
creates a great framework for managing, um, in, in some cases it creates a great
framework for offboarding team members that, that kind of don't work within that.
Gregg: No, I, yeah, no,
Kevin Horek: that, that makes total sense.
So one thing we haven't covered yet is, so I, we get through the whole design
process, I have my collection ready to go.
How do I actually, do you, I'm assuming you, well I know, but you guys
integrate with Shopify or Webflow to actually sell these to my customers.
Correct.
Or, or walk us through.
Absolutely.
That process, once it's done and I have everything ready to.
Andrew Wyatt: Yep.
So we do third party QC at the factories.
Our logistics team handles all of the importation craziness through customs,
no matter which country it's coming from.
Okay.
Once the product's been received in the warehouse, you can actually, uh, connect
your, your call account to your Shopify or to a Webflow and, uh, and then.
From that point on, that's kind of, you know, on, on the customer side.
So, um, you know, you can launch whenever the products are available
and those orders are gonna flow through directly, um, and, and be shipped.
I think right now we're averaging like 12 hours, um, you know, from, from the
time the order happens until there's a tracking information that's provided.
Um, and one of the cool things we do also is we.
Customer service as a, a part of our fulfillment solution.
So not only for 500 bucks a month do you get, you know, access to
incredible shipping rates and all these different facilities everywhere and.
Amazingly high caliber of of fulfillment provider cuz we're doing so much volume.
Um, but you also get a team that's gonna be able to answer questions
from your customers directly.
You know, my item didn't arrive or it was delivered, but I didn't get it, or
it was damaged, or I need to return.
All of those things can be taken care of for you.
And we actually, we had this sort of like 17 page brand bible template
that we, when we onboard a fulfillment client, we'll go through talk
about like, what's your customer?
What's your sizing and grading?
What do you want your friendly fraud protocol to be?
Um, and of course we have all of our defaults and recommendations,
but it's a great way for you to kind of like, take a pause and be
like, oh, how does my brand operate?
And, uh, oh, look at these best practices.
And so it's a really, you know, great, um, tool for brands to be able to offer
really great post-purchase experience.
No, very cool.
Kevin Horek: So is there anything else.
Kind of ongoing that you guys also include because like customer service
is obviously super important, but you know, once it's kind of everything's
up and running and I'm maybe working on another collection, how does
that kind of play into the platform?
Or is it just kind of a rinse and repeat type cycle that, okay, now
I'm working on my next collection and we kind of started over?
Or how does that kind of work
Andrew Wyatt: exactly.
So, you know, In the platform, things can be organized into
collections and so, okay.
You know, you can actually see through a dashboard for different
collections and different products, you know, what stage are they in?
Is it in the sort of technical design phase?
Is it in sampling?
Is it in production?
. Um, and then so we've kind of built the product so that you can easily do that
across collections within one team.
And you can even do it really easily across teams.
And so let's say for instance that you have, you know, kind of
one brand that you're primarily working on, but then you also do
some design work for another brand.
You can kind of easily within the platform track the status of, you know,
multiple different designs that are being produced in five or 10 or 20 different
countries, um, all at the same time.
Which is, which is pretty.
Gregg: No, that's, that's very cool.
But we're,
Kevin Horek: we're kind of coming to the end of the show, but I'm curious,
is there any like books or podcasts that you recommend that you've
learned a lot from over the years?
Andrew Wyatt: Absolutely.
So the, probably the most impactful book for me has been 15
commitments to Conscious Leadership.
Oh, interesting.
I think, um, That was introduced to me about three, maybe four years
ago now, and, um, absolutely changed the way that I think about life,
but also of course management.
And, um, and one of the key, I guess actually the , the first of the
commitments is taking 100% responsibility.
And it's not just taking 100% responsibility of your
work, but of your whole life.
So your physical, mental, spiritual, well, , and you'll be amazed once
you kind of go through reading this book and you start thinking about
like, oh wow, actually I don't take.
Well, you know, I don't take full responsibility ever.
In some cases, you know, it's like, oh, I'm, I'm too tired.
I'm not gonna work out, or, uh, you know, I, I, um, just so burn out, you know,
blah, blah, blah, or, you know, and, uh, and so one of those, one of those, uh, uh,
when I, when I kind of read that book, it had a, almost like a, a great awakening.
It was also in a very, you know, tough time.
Um, At Cala where, you know, we are having big issues with a big customer and um,
of course always running outta money.
And so, you know, I was in kind of a, a tough place and, and kind
of got introduced to that book and helped, uh, to create sort of like
a tool, a tool belt if you will.
Um, cuz life's, life's a rollercoaster.
It's ups and downs and that's the beauty of life, right?
If it was all the same, it would.
Be super boring.
And so what the 15 commitments do is they kind of give you this, like, this tool,
tool set, um, to use when, you know, things get thrown at you that help you
just, you know, to be more zen and, and kind of flow through life more happily.
Well, I,
Gregg: I think that's a really good recommendation.
Kevin Horek: Any podcasts
Andrew Wyatt: you listen to?
I mean, none, none that I would highly recommend.
I'm kind of a, a bit scattered from that where like Sure.
A lot of the, a lot of the podcasts I listen to are through.
Twitter or, or something like that versus like me following, um, I like, uh, the,
the podcast that Jack Conte is doing for, um, from Patreon is pretty cool.
He's had a lot of really interesting people on there.
Um, and of course, you know, Hayden or love him.
I think the, the Joe Rogan podcast is, is super interesting just to like,
hear the, I was, I was listening to one this weekend about the Amazon and
uh, how maybe there's actually like, You know, crazy civilization there
that is now just being discovered.
And so, um, that one's always interesting to, to kind of
tickle the brain a little bit.
Oh, interesting.
Cool man.
Kevin Horek: Well, we're, we're out of time, so how about we close with
mentioning where people can get more information about yourself, Callan,
and any other links you wanna mention?
Andrew Wyatt: Absolutely.
So if you wanna know more about Kello, visit our website ca.la And uh, yeah,
if you wanna follow me, I'm on Twitter.
A W H Y I t um, did it phonetically cuz somebody had a wide already hot about.
Um, but yeah, feel free to to choose a note on, on our, our website or,
or follow us on Twitter as well.
This is ca or sorry, uh, this is call is our, um, Twitter
and it's also our Instagram.
Perfect.
Gregg: Well, Andrew, again, I really appreciate you taking the time and
your day to have a chat with me and have a good rest of your day, man.
Of
Andrew Wyatt: course.
Thanks for having me.
Take care.
Thank you.