Bogg Bag: Kim Vaccarella. The $100 Million Business She Almost Abandoned

Guy Raz (0:00)

Building a business means being 10 people at once. The strategist, the spreadsheet person, the one fixing the office sink.

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Kim Vaccarella (0:31)

I went in there with like, this is what's going to happen. This is what you're going to do for me.

And basically, they were like, no, you need to take these bags first so that we have more room in the factory so that we can make you more bags. And I said, I'm not taking any of these bags. And the guy said, well, we'll just sell them, then.

Guy Raz (0:51)

We'll just sell them on our own.

Kim Vaccarella (0:53)

We'll just sell them on our own.

Doesn't matter that you own it, created it, whatever, we'll just sell them on our own. And I just turned to him and I said, I will burn this effing factory to the ground. My husband's like, you need to calm down. And I said, if you sell them, I will burn your factory to the ground. And I left.

Guy Raz (1:20)

Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists and the stories behind the movements they built.

I'm Guy Raz and on the show today, how Kim Vaccarella set out to build a better beach bag, gave up on it too early, and then got back in the game to grow Bogg Bag into a multi-million dollar brand.

One of the biggest challenges for any entrepreneur is knowing when to quit. When the business isn't making money or it's just not working, when do you say, I'm done?

Well, for Kim Vaccarella, that decision came just one year into her business. She'd invented a beach bag she called the Bogg Bag. The idea was inspired by Crocs, the shoes, a bag that was sturdy and washable. Anyway, she scraped together whatever cash she had to launch it in 2011, and she managed to sell a few hundred and even get some buzz at a few trade shows. But then disaster struck. Her first big shipment arrived from China, about $30,000 worth of product, and most of the bags were defective. Making matters worse, the manufacturer wouldn't refund the money. It was a devastating financial blow. So Kim ditched the business and went back to focusing on her day job. Except the people who had acquired a bag, well, they loved them and they wanted more. And so Kim started to realize that maybe she ditched the idea too early. She was focused on what was wrong with the product, but her customers were focused on everything that was right with it. So eventually, Kim was inspired to give it another try. And she borrowed $120,000 to find a new manufacturer and start over. But for years, Bogg Bag was a grind. Kim couldn't afford her own booth at trade shows, so she would squeeze into a single booth with four other founders. She even kept her day job working at a commercial real estate lending office. And it wasn't until about seven years into the business that she finally felt confident enough to leave that job.

Today, Bogg Bag has sold close to five million bags and generates more than $100 million a year in sales. You can find them at Target, Nordstrom, Dick's Sporting Goods, pretty much everywhere. But those numbers don't really capture this story. Along the way, there were years of doubt, there was depression, there was enormous strain on her family. And there are also moments when Kim, who, as you'll hear, is not exactly shy, got angry. She got stubborn, she pushed back. And sometimes that was exactly what she needed to do to keep going.

Kim Vaccarella grew up in Ridgewood, New Jersey in the 1970s and 80s. Her stepdad was a police officer and her mom was a waitress. And Kim says she understood from a pretty young age that money was tight and that financial security was never something you could just assume would be there.

Kim Vaccarella (4:33)

While my parents provided for me in the way that a parent should provide, there were things that were misses, things that like when I wanted to be a cheerleader. And to be a cheerleader in Ridgewood, it was expensive and it sounds so ridiculous, but you needed to decorate the football player's house the night before the game. And it wasn't just put a banner up on his door, you need to give him treats and a basket.

And sometimes there was even alcohol included, like you'd give him like a bottle of champagne or something like this.