Physically spent I found it hard to get motivated these last few days. The Studio is about a two-minute bike ride or a ten-minute walk from my house. I like to use it as an anchor point for my day, some days I go straight from my morning swim on Bondi to the Studio and cut silk.
This week, however, it just seemed a bridge too far and each time I went into the Studio I loaded everything up only to shut it back down and hour later. I think, and I have heard this from many of my friends and colleagues, this year in particular took the wind out of many a sail. It was coupled with weather that was all over the shop, there were storms with no rain, rain that pelted then subsided, then stifling humidity, then the sun would come out and blast you with some heat. It was so frenetic.
Added to that I spilled some essential oil in my car, menthol in fact, and so every time I got into my car it felt the same as when some overzealous newcomer in a sauna puts too much eucalyptus oil into the bucket and liberally scoops water onto the grill and everyone has that moment where they think “fuck you” until it dissipates but you are too afraid to say “my eyes are stinging” in case they think you are a pussy. Take it, take the pain.
If I had to say something that alarms me most in this modern world it is time payments. In my perfect world my cash would arrive and clear my debts promptly. These days I don’t really care to make surplus money; my main concern is just not to bleed it out. Subscriptions that get debited from my card stream down to my phone like a buzzing mosquito reminding you that it’s not going anywhere until you swat it out. And that, contrary to your hope that you swatted the very last one, there is always another emerging. Yes, the same way an Australian bushman passes his hand across his face to shoo flies off, knowing and accepting full well that they will return regardless of the gesture of his hand, is the same way I feel about making payments on my credit card.
The same could be said of my social calendar too. I always have this hope that one day with a patch of free time and money in my bank account I will get up one morning and drive around Australia for two months. There is so much of this country I haven’t seen. I am itching to do Western Australia, revisit Tasmania, see far North Queensland in my car before it runs out of warranty. It never eventuates, someone books an appointment here, another tells you he has a BBQ he would like you to attend and then come the wedding invites. Alas, life then goes by, another Christmas and New Year’s arrive and the words of John Lennon ‘so this is Christmas, and what have you done? Another year’s over and a new one’s just begun’ give over to a certain kind of melancholy.
And yet, with each passing year I see the customers we have made happy, the products that have gone around the globe, the development of new projects, most of which fail, but which still give me great joy even if financially they don’t stack up and in the end I sell them down. Small business is no different to big business, only there is more pain to be felt on a personal level. I am sure an insurance company which fails to make a new e-bike insurance programme successful simply moves on and some guy loses his job but the business soldiers on. But with our projects especially when they come from some exploration of a new passion, when they fail, it does feel personal. Which is why, perhaps with a level of complacency, I didn’t pursue as many projects year as I did last. That and cash flow.
I often hear people say, ‘money isn’t everything’ and it’s not, but it sure resembles oxygen when you are running a business and not many of us run well on low oxygen levels. I love cash, I love the sound of a ching-ching when the Shopify cash register goes off on my phone. It has a certain Pavlov’s dogs ring to it, time to eat, time to get moving. It is motivational. So, when the sales are on, I like to turn my phone off silent so I can get some energy in my day. I also love to see your orders and where they are coming from and what you bought.
But most of all I love it when you follow my suggestions. For so many of you now don’t shop without a WhatsApp conversation prior. And these days much of the work is never seen on the website, it’s a back-end email order and off it goes in the post. I love getting to know you guys this way, I love seeing what you are wearing, what your thoughts are on menswear and so on. I have met so many interesting characters through my work and it often, especially when I cannot travel, gives me a circumspect of the world and prevents me from feeling parochial. When I am running three conversations concurrently with customers from around the globe I feel like a citizen of the world. So please, reach out if ever you want my advice. As for goals for 2024, I don’t really have too many. I would say I achieved everything I set out to do. In fact, the old Russian proverb ‘what is the worst hell on earth - success’ sometimes holds true. I set about wanting to become the best bow tie maker, I achieved it. I set about to write and create beautiful products. I did it. So now what? I have written two novels, another done. Trekked the mountains in winter. Done. Nurtured the development of my daughter - done. I could say, not that I wish for it to happen, that I have achieved pretty much all of what I set out to do - if I was told my time was up - I think I would exit stage left without kicking up too much fuss other than not being there for my daughter. That would hurt.
So, it leaves a void - one which you have to then spend time on figuring out how to create the next set of goals. I watched that Arnie documentary, and he said saw himself like a mountaineer, once he made the summit of one mountain he looked out to the next. The next mountain in 2023 was to scale the business. However, I became quickly disenchanted with the models that were offered by Google and Meta. In the end we would spend a great deal of our margin on advertising in the hope of securing new customers with which we could remarket to. I know this might sound defeatist, but I didn’t see how that was an intelligent use of our money - wasn’t it better to spend the margin on making better products? Sadly, there is a way the world is, and then there is the way you would like the world to be.
I could now see the reason my competitors were making their bow ties 400 dollars or more, they were bumping the price up not because production had significantly blown out, but because they needed to factor in the marketing budget for these advertising models. The only consolation I had was knowing that Meta was making 30% gross profit on their model. The thought of giving these guys supernormal profits would have really cheesed me.
And all in all, I am pleased with the progress of the business - not by the numbers - but by how happy we made a lot of you. Either we made you look your best or we gave you an edge or else you had a personal experience which was seamless and or enjoyable.
Not that I wish to sound like a wanker, but let’s assume we are the best in the world at bow ties, you might like to then consider me the Karl Lagerfeld of my field of expertise... I doubt very much Karl answered every WhatsApp from every customer, that is my point of difference I suspect. It is me that helps you, and me alone. I cannot imagine you get that experience from Tom Ford who has sold his business or a behemoth like Gucci where they offer you three or four bow ties a season. And I want that to continue. I like knowing you guys and I like building that repartee we have.
And so that’s my little yearly summary, I might have another one if I can get a little more motivated. A big thank you and please feel free to reach out whenever you need something.