Why Founders Have to Become Their Own Best Marketer

**Matt Bertulli** (0:00)
Welcome back to the Operators Podcast. Elaine, this is your first time on the show.
You're our first, I'll tell you this, you're also the first person we talked to that is like just in swim. Katie, I think you do a bit of swim, right?

**Katie** (0:14)
Yeah, yeah, we do. I'm so excited about this topic. I feel like I can be of help to you, so it's good.

**Matt Bertulli** (0:20)
Elaine, maybe just for everybody listening, we've got a brief, they don't have one. Can you tell us who you are, a little bit of a background, a little bit of a background of the brand, what you sell, all that good stuff.

**Elaine Tran** (0:31)
So I'm Elaine. I'm the founder and CEO of Dippin Daisies. I started off as a wholesale first, selling to boutiques, going to trade shows. I opened a wholesale store in downtown Los Angeles in the fashion district. And then I started selling D2C in 2018 And then when COVID happened, I closed my cut and sew factory. I opened my factory in Vietnam four years ago. And we have around 80 sewers right now.
Dippin Daisies is a Gen Z swimwear fashion company. Just had a baby eight months ago.
And I spoke five minutes at the Operators webinar.

**Matt Bertulli** (1:16)
Tell us a little bit about like where you're focused on the business right now. And then I'm sure Sean and Katie have like a bajillion questions. I know I do.

**Elaine Tran** (1:25)
I feel like I don't know so much about D2C and ads and marketing. I have like a very strong background in production and in manufacturing. I wanted to get people's thoughts about like how they merchandise their assortment. Like I would hear Curtis talk about how he can sell tens of thousands of units of a color and he does in-house manufacturing. And then I wonder, how does he do that? I have a premium brand, like my swimsuits cost $120 a set. I can't scale like that fast, that quickly and scale the ad spend that much. I know like some of you guys manufacture your products in-house. I know you, Matt, you manufacture your phone cases in-house and you do that for like a negative cash conversion cycle.
I opened my own factory because I wanted to lower my cogs. But I'm finding out that the cost is just the same as buying inventory from a supplier.
I have to pay fixed costs every month for my seasonal business. And in order to keep my factory busy with work, I have to keep making more inventory to the point where I'm carrying right now, eight months of supply. Some years it's like a year worth of supply. And I have to make a ton of money from January to August. And then I'm doing nothing September to December.
I need to find new product categories that will hit for the off season. And I know you guys always talk about going and expanding into different product categories.

**Sean Frank** (3:13)
So Elaine, I think there's four key problems we want to address and help you with today, right? Number one is the pros and cons of owning a factory.
Number two is when you own a factory, what do you do with excess inventory? Number three is merchandising and actually how to get throughput out of these designs. And then number four is how to do product expansion. I think if we could do four of those things, and you could come up with a good tip for each one, it would be a great episode for you.

**Matt Bertulli** (3:39)
Katie, how often do you do drops? What's your drop schedule?

**Sean Frank** (3:42)
Start there.

**Katie** (3:43)
Okay, so first of all, Elaine, you're a badass. Like you just had a baby, you're cranking out this stuff, you have your own factory, trying to source overseas. I think immediately you switch back, I mean, like you said, with COGS.
And the biggest thing, like what you mentioned about how Curtis has drops and then sells high volume like that, he is not a seasonal brand like you are, and he's not dealing with women's apparel and sizes. So don't stop comparing yourself to other people. I do not do what Curtis does. And I completely, also I have to tell you, I told my daughter that I was talking to you today, she's 18 and she loves your swim. Oh my gosh, thank you. And I think you're not just one generation. I think that your whole styles is amazing. And I definitely see where you're talking about, like swim's hard, we do swim. And it's same thing, like mid June, it comes to a screeching halt. Really?