On this episode of Honest Ecommerce, we have Gordon Seabury. Gordon is the CEO of Toad&Co, a triple bottom line lifestyle apparel brand for nearly 30 years. We talk about staying committed to your passion, inspiring ethical entrepreneurship, building best in class before expanding, and so much more!
As an outdoor industry leader for nearly 30 years, Gordon has committed his career to building brands that practice a triple bottom line (people, planet and profit) approach to business.
Gordon launched Toad&Co, a responsible lifestyle apparel brand in 1996. Now headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA, he remains the CEO of the growing global brand. He also co-founded Planet Access 27 years ago, a social enterprise committed to providing life skills, vocational training and travel experiences for people with disabilities.
Gordon spent 17 years on the Outdoor Industry Association Board including a 6-year stint as Chairman and Vice Chairman. He is currently a Board member for the Adventure Travel Conservation Fund, the Santa Barbara Film Festival and Chairs the advisory board of the Eco-Entrepreneurship Advisory Council at the Bren School Environmental Solutions graduate program at UCSB.
He also serves as advisor to several early-stage responsible business start-ups. He received a BA in Psychology from Hamilton College and an MBA in Entrepreneurial Management from Wharton School of Business.
Married with two 20 something daughters, between family and work Gordon enjoys just about anything the outdoors has to offer, especially if it is in the ocean, on a river or in the mountains near his family cabin in June Lake in the Eastern Sierras. Travel, film and birds are some of his other passions.
In This Conversation We Discuss:
Resources:
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Gordon Seabury
Combination of love what you do every day that allows you not to flinch in those hard times and those moments when most people give up. I think it is probably the most important.
Chase Clymer
Welcome to Honest Ecommerce, a podcast dedicated to cutting through the BS and finding actionable advice for online store owners. I'm your host, Chase Clymer. And I believe running a direct-to-consumer brand does not have to be complicated or a guessing game.
On this podcast, we interview founders and experts who are putting in the work and creating real results.
I also share my own insights from running our top Shopify consultancy, Electric Eye. We cut the fluff in favor of facts to help you grow your Ecommerce business.
Let's get on with the show.
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Honest Ecommerce.
Today, I'm welcoming to the show an amazing brand with a nearly 30-year story. Today, I am joined by the CEO of Toad&Co, a triple bottom line lifestyle apparel brand.
Gordon, welcome to the show.
Gordon Seabury
Thanks for having me, Chase. Happy to be here.
Chase Clymer
I'm excited to talk. So for those that are unfamiliar with TotenCo, can you quickly talk about the types of products that you're bringing to market, what you guys are selling these days?
Gordon Seabury
Yeah, sure. Basically sustainable outdoor lifestyle was the category that we launched in 1996 at Outdoor Retailer. And we've been evolving that category ever since.
So we have great pants for men and women that can both go from trail to tavern. We've got shirts like I'm wearing right now that are stylish, but also in all cases have a sustainability story, a responsible story. And in most cases have a little bit more of a stylish band.
The idea is to not look like you got dressed in the dark in the morning, and we've been trying to do that in the outdoor industry for, like you said, nearly 30 years.
Chase Clymer
That's amazing. Now, let's just dive into it. Let's go back in time.
So you're 2 years away from 30-year anniversary. So it's about 28 years ago. What was going on in your life? Where did the idea for this business come from?
Gordon Seabury
Yeah. So actually, I inherited the business from a woman, Jessica Nordhaus, who started it in Telluride in the basement. And she was designing really cool recycled fleece hats called winter roque. And if you went to Telluride in the early 1990s, you couldn't walk down Main Street without seeing a half a dozen of them on the street because everyone was wearing them both on the mountain to ski or to hike and mountain bike, but then also out to dinner and to the theater and to the bars.
And the idea was to take one wardrobe from your daytime activity to your evening and not have to change or look like the uniform of the sport you were wearing. I thought that it was a brilliant idea at a time when the outdoor industry was driven by baby boomer backgrounds and really, you know, each sport had its own uniform.
And so you have a specific outfit for the activity you were going to do for the day, and then usually have to change into your casual clothes. And the idea of taking both the sustainability and responsible component and this idea of a wardrobe that could transcend your lifestyle and have the ability to be spontaneous and have some performance, but also some style seemed to be a way of the future.
And actually, I thought it was a GenX solution, which I'm GenX. But it turns out that while we got tons of support from the GenX community, we've been in business long enough to really realize that it's really more of a millennial on Gen Z philosophy, idea and product.
And so we're really thriving in this next generation of responsible consumers.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. Now, what...
Back then, Ecommerce was definitely in its infancy. So, do you remember your first collection? Or how did you handle that first go-to-market time in the business? What was the drop? How are you selling these things?
Gordon Seabury
Yeah. No. Great question. So there was no Ecommerce back then in ‘96 when we showed up at Outdoor Retailer. And we were designed as both a retail store, we opened a store in Telluride that was the first move I made. The business was about $40,000 in revenue when I took it over.
Quit my day job, which was a consulting business, or I was in the consulting world. And we were gonna be a wholesale business with a handful of retail stores.
And I didn't really love the idea of the catalog business just because of the paper waste and there wasn't really even recycled paper back then. So we decided not to be a catalog business.
So for the first probably decade, nearly decade of our business, we were just wholesale predominantly with one store in Telluride. And thankfully, the specialty outdoor retailers of the country responded to our product. We started as Fleece and we were only a winter business for the first five years and then launched spring just I think 1999 or 2000.
So Ecomm, for us, didn't really get started until the mid 2000. So maybe 2003, 2004. We had opened a retail store in Freeport that was actually an outlet in Freeport, Maine, still here today, 20 plus years later, and as a result of 9/11. So that'll date me.
So we were early business when 9/11 happened in September of 2001. And our largest customer at the time, Eastern Mountain Sports, canceled what was approximately 40% of our total revenue that year because retail had shut down after 9/11.
We opened that Freeport store as a pop-up outlet to not hurt our specialty retailers but sell as much product as possible. Sold so well that we kept the store open and then ultimately launched our first Ecomm business out of that store.
So we fulfilled items off the store floor back, I want to say 2003. So that was the beginning of navigating the Ecommerce space, which again, was really early days.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. And you've got such a story here. And I want to be cognizant of your time and keep this podcast succinct.
But I do have to ask, I know there are listeners out there that are getting into building an apparel business and you said something and I wanted to identify it and get your feedback on my takeaway from it, that you launched in a very specific category and focused on that for about 5 years before expanding into different product lines.
If you were to talk to a young entrepreneur today, would you give them that same advice as to focus on less skews and do them better?
Gordon Seabury
Yes.
Chase Clymer
As opposed to going wide and seeing what works?
Gordon Seabury
I think that is key. Do what you do great. And particularly in today's world where it's incredibly noisy, it's very easy. The barriers to entry, particularly in the online business, are relatively low.
And so in order to separate yourself, and I think the consumer of today is incredibly astute, and that's, I think, where we've benefited from our legacy of doing the right thing long before it was going to help business or help us. It has really served us well because the consumer of today can find out all of those details, they can find our history and so forth.
And so you want to be best in class in the categories you offer. And even today, we're very careful about not letting the collection proliferate too far to make sure that everything we bring to market we feel is best in class or something different and new for the consumer versus just being a me-too and repeating.
So I think start tight, get it right. People don't understand, particularly in our category, how hard it is to get a product made well, innovative, and also fit. We take for granted our wardrobes quite well substantially.
But at the end of the day, the less you do better, the easier it's going to be to make your mark. And then once you have an audience and a following and a fan base, and they believe in what you do beyond the product that you make, then you have the opportunity and the license to potentially satisfy other needs of that same audience.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. That's great advice. Alright, now let's go back to talk about Ecommerce.
Do you remember your first website? Was it built on something? Was it fully custom? Did it work?
Gordon Seabury
Yeah. So thankfully, we found a great partner up in Whitefish, Montana called ZaneRay, who is also still in existence today. And we have deep ties with Patagonia. A lot of our roots from a supply chain standpoint came from Patagonia, our neighbors here in Santa Barbara. And they were working with Zane Ray.
And one of the founders was from Patagonia originally, they built it from scratch. It was a custom site, but they did know their way around. They had done the Patagonia site. And so thankfully we had a great partner and we stayed custom for over a decade, maybe even at least a decade probably before we moved to an off the shelf.
They also developed a bunch of other technology like a business to business solution for ordering for our retailers.
But yeah, it was early days and the site, frankly, again, in that spirit of doing it right, we really were thoughtful about curating what we did product-wise and brand-wise. And so we really took a ton of time.
And we weren't in a big rush in the beginning because Ecommerce was happening, but in our category, it was tricky and also was a bit controversial. Our retailers didn't love the fact that we were going to go direct-to-consumer when they've been representing the brand so loyalty. So we're also very sensitive to try to have it be an ‘and’ versus an ‘or’ and catabolize our existing wholesale relationships.
Chase Clymer
You know what? It's funny. That is a similar situation. It still happens today in some specific categories. I was actually talking to someone yesterday in the fishing baits category. They do not like online competition at all.
And some of these big household name brick and mortars, the juggernauts in the industry, won't allow some of these smaller people to sell their products and compete. And it's an old school mindset.
I know why it's there from a margins perspective, but it doesn't help the small business at all.
Gordon Seabury
Yeah. No, I think it's nice that generally speaking in our space, in the outdoor space, the lessons have been learned. I actually was just at the 50th anniversary of a retailer we have in Missoula, Montana, Trailhead.
I was talking to the founder who I've known for my 28 years in the business. And it's amazing how the thought has evolved from a competitive channel to a brand building benefit. And that's really what's happened is we are growing our audience base.
Our audience base in many cases, like I said, are intentional, responsible consumers. They want to keep their dollars local when possible. But they also sometimes might, the retailer can only offer so much of the product in so many sizes and colors and so forth. And so what it does is it's an and versus an or. And so it builds brand awareness, drives, as we say, butts through doors in those specialty retailers, their sell-through wins and ours as well.
And it's really worked very well. Our business is pretty balanced right now between the channels, and our retailers are having exceptional success and sell-through. It's become less of a source subject, at least in most circles in our industry.
The big thing that we have to make sure of is you don't build a business, a direct business, on promotion. If we're undercutting prices and we're doing things that are truly competitive and degrading of the brand and its representation in the market, that's when you start to get yourself in trouble.
We're really careful about honoring our pricing policies and being just a really hard-to-get product that is always very rarely on sale.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely.
And being a good partner, are you sharing data and insights both ways saying, “We've got a lot of business in your area, you probably want to order a little bit more or vice versa, their sell-through goes up.” So you start doing more advertising in that area to sell more online?
Gordon Seabury
It's a great question. And yes, I think like I said earlier that we realized in the last five years that we were more responding to a Gen Z and millennial customer, or even my daughters who are now 24 and 28. You know, they grew up loving what dad did for a living, but wouldn't be caught dead in our product.
And the evolution of our product and brand in the last seven years, they're now wearing it regularly.
And I think that the shift in our direct business, understanding that younger customer, we've become a consultant to our buyers or at least a supporter to the buyers of the retail stores. We can tell them, “This is what a legacy product is working and this is the new stuff. This is what you want to bring to any younger customer, these are the products that are hot.” And that expertise and advice just helps both our optimization.
It started actually, probably seven years ago, what we were selling wholesale and what we were selling directly were very different. And that was this gap in age. And now what we're seeing is that migration to almost... They're very, very similar now in terms of the profile of what our retailers are selling and what our direct consumers are wanting.
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Chase Clymer
We've talked a bit about some of the wins that you've had with partnering so closely with your wholesale partners and just the success you've had on the channel. But with regards to the online business, do you remember any challenges in the recent years? Anything come to mind?
Gordon Seabury
Navigating the perpetual motion of Google and meta is always tricky and challenging the algorithms and the new AI…our team is incredibly astute at not just taking advice, but actually testing and making sure that the feedback and guidance is right. We found that some of the AI models are actually not working nearly as effectively. I'm spending more money for less true return in terms of attribution.
And so, yeah, there's always, well, we changed our PDP format last spring, thinking it would make it easier for customers to have access to last year's product and some sale pricing. And that was a disaster because lots of new customers that had never seen a specific style were now buying for the first time at discount versus at full price, which kind of undermined the whole point of not competing with our retailers.
So after two months of scratching our heads, not understanding what was happening, conversions way up, discount is way up. And we realized that just that very minor tweak to our PDP pages had really changed our behavior.
And so I could give you a long line over the last 15 years of Ecomm that have been tricky. You know, even just things like figuring out fulfillment time in the world of Amazon and making sure that you're a 3PL and you're real-time inventory because we actually operate as an omni-channel inventory as well. So just making sure all of that is in sync and we're not disappointing our consumers, a perpetual process.
And I think we're probably learning more now than we were 10 years ago because it's changing so fast.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. And I mean, that's why the show is called Honest Ecommerce. We're here to tell the truth. I'm not going to ask a million more questions, but you got one more that comes to mind for the audience.
Gordon Seabury
One more problem. Yeah.
Chase Clymer
Yeah.
Gordon Seabury
Let me think about that. So I would say... Well, I mean, I think actually, buyer behavior has dramatically changed. And we're on Shopify. We had a decision last year where our head of Ecommerce was going on maternity leave. And so we decided instead of going to Shopify 2.0, we were going to wait till she was back and we had a little more time to be thoughtful about all the decisions that go into that type of replatforming.
And in that time, the consumer buying behavior shifted from 70% desktop, 30% mobile to the opposite. And so doing our now older technology of Shopify…
Chase Clymer
You're saying that you had 70% desktop in 2023.
Gordon Seabury
Yeah. Early 2023. In terms of buying, actual conversion. So lots of people visit the site, but actual conversion, shopping behavior.
And so we find ourselves behind in terms of technology now because the old technology is not nearly as efficient on mobile. So we'll launch our new platform in July. but we're kind of behind the curve when a year and a half ago, we weren't really thinking... We thought we had plenty of time. And that it made more sense to just know a little bit more about what the future held to make that decision.
And so, the good news is it's not hurting us too much. But it definitely... If we had to do it over again, I think we would have probably been more aggressive last year at making a replatform happen.
Chase Clymer
Do you think that's a residual effect of how COVID kind of reshaped buying behaviors?
Gordon Seabury
Absolutely. I mean, I think we saw, I mean, we benefited greatly from the COVID impact on online behavior in terms of…when in March, when we shut down in 2000, I was convinced it was the end of business because who is going to buy clothing when you're locked in your home and not knowing your future, right? It turns out lots and lots of people and particularly young folks.
And the last 4 years have been really tricky in that, I'd say every quarter to half year, things are changing. Behavior is changing. And so figuring out... Even like right now, the consumer is fairly price sensitive. So by being a premium brand that doesn't go on sale, it's a definitely don't flinch moment.
Whereas our retailers, who really struggled the last few years and we've tried to support traffic come back, and brick and mortar is actually working really strongly right now, including our own. We've seen a real rebound in recent months.
And so, there's always one plate wobbling. Hopefully, the only one. But it's been an interesting process.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. Now, I mentioned this at the beginning, but I don't think we went into it.
You refer to the brands that you operate as triple bottom line brands. Can you explain that a little bit more?
Gordon Seabury
Oh yeah, sure. So I was inspired when I got in the business. The reason I ended up in the outdoor industry was because I thought it was a responsible industry that was really environmentally minded.
And so Patagonia on the environmental side, and Ben and Jerry's on the social side were my two inspirations, where Ben and Jerry's worked with Greyston Bakery to make the brownies. And that was a program to reduce recidivism and give jobs to people coming out of prison.
And just thinking about the people and planet piece in addition to profit was super important. And if I were going to be an entrepreneur and do what it takes to build a brand, I wanted it to matter.
I have something called the rocking chair test where when you're in your 70s, 80s, 90s, and you're sitting on your porch and you look back at life, hopefully you can say you were personally successful.
Your family's still with you. They love you. You have great relationships with your kids. You're professionally successful. You built a great business or had a great career and you left the world a better place and gave back and had an impact, positive impact on the people you touched.
And so that was the philosophy of Toad&Co from the beginning and we've been trying to do that ever since. When we got to the outdoor industry, the environmental action was definitely already there.
So I quickly realized that brands that surrounded us in the outdoor industry, I had joined the right industry and we were going to be great citizens, contribute and lead where we could.
But at the end of the day, there was a lot of great work already being done. The thing that was missing when we arrived was there was no people piece of the equation. No one was doing anything on the social relationship or social partnership side.
And so we co-founded a for-profit, not-for-profit social venture back in 1997, called Planet Access, based in Chicago. And it's with a group or an organization called Search, and they support people with developmental disabilities and all sorts of ways. Vocational training, homes and living skills, and all sorts of opportunities to live a full life as a person with a disability.
And so they've done everything from operate a fulfillment center for us for almost 20 years, to we have a trips program called Search for Adventure, which allows those same individuals to go on vacations in many cases for the first time in their lives. We have a disability awareness training program. They have an arts program where we sell products.
So the business really is, our team I think, is most proud of the fact that we are a responsible business that gives back authentically and all we do for almost three decades, which again, not too many companies…
The great news is that Gen X and millennial entrepreneurs are starting businesses with a cause built in from the beginning because of the consumer that actually cares about that now and is making buying decisions based on it.
It's nice to see. I didn't actually believe that would happen in my lifetime. But it's wonderful to see that shift and to see so many more businesses being inspired to do what only a handful were doing when I was starting.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely.
And I think that sustainability and giving back to not only the environment but the people involved is definitely something I see a lot of businesses latching onto and helping them to differentiate.
And you can... I mean, it's just business 101. People want to do business with people. And if you seem like you're just in it for the money, and it's a cash grab, it probably won't last long. But if you can get people to believe in the idea of what you're trying to do and you're trying to do good, people will pay more to support businesses like that.
Gordon Seabury
Yeah. And the community is like 1% for the planet, which we're a member of, a longtime member of B Corp, which we're becoming a member of. We actually got certified back in the early days. But then decided none of the states were actually honoring B Corp as an entity. So we decided it was too much work and financial burden to do until somebody recognized it.
Now we're behind the curve a little bit. But those communities are great. I just was at a conference of like-minded entrepreneurs that were 1% and B Corp related.
And it's just so inspiring to hear that not just what the work that they do, but the response and the community that's being built of consumers that are really looking for brands that are authentically, not just saying they're doing good, but actually doing it.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely, Gordon.
Now, we spoke a lot about the story of your business. Now, looking back on nearly 30 years here, we've got an audience here of entrepreneurs. Some of them are going from zero to one. Some of them are a little bit further along.
But are there any tidbits or is there a piece of advice that you want to leave them with here at the end of the podcast?
Gordon Seabury
Sure.
I think probably the most important thing is to understand it's a game of perseverance. If I write a book and I've taken notes over the years and I've got chapters so I might actually publish, it'll be called Don't Flinch. Because there's so many times that most people would throw in the towel because it's not easy.
And so I think it's really important to understand that the combination of love what you do every day, that allows you not to flinch in those hard times and those moments when most people give up. I think it is probably the most important.
So eyes wide open what you're getting into. Gut is probably more important than analytics. I think you have to balance the two, but I think if you believe something, you probably are right.
And a lot of times when everyone is zigging, zagging isn't the wrong thing. It's just not the thing of the moment. And so I think believing in your instincts.
I had a very successful entrepreneur really early in my day tell me that being an entrepreneur was like going down a wooded hill in a go-kart without a steering wheel. And as the trees approach you lean to the left, you lean to the right. And if you're lucky enough, you'll wake up in a field of flowers someday. 28 years later, I'd say that's about as accurate as I could put it.
Chase Clymer
Yeah. I've been thinking about that a lot lately as well. We're coming up on 10 years at our agency and it's kind of like... It's almost like a game of attrition. You just keep at it long enough, your competition goes away and you've made so many mistakes that it's hard to make them anymore.
Gordon Seabury
Yeah. No. Congratulations on 10 years.
And actually, when I look back at Outdoor Retailer 28 years ago, and I think about who we thought our competition was then, there's only three or four of us standing, and we've all differentiated into our own specific opportunities and niches.
But yeah, I mean, there's lottery tickets once in a while, but when you look at any career, whether it's a musician, an actor, or an actress, most of it is super hard work and obviously some talent and some intelligence, but perseverance is job number one for sure.
Chase Clymer
That overnight success took 10 years to get there.
Gordon Seabury
Exactly. That's right. That's right.
Chase Clymer
Awesome. Gordon, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Now if people are interested in checking out the product that you've obviously been working on so passionately for almost 30 years, where do they go?
Gordon Seabury
Yeah. So the easiest place is to go to www.toadandco.com. And then we have a store locator so you can find a store near you or you can buy right there online.
Chase Clymer
Awesome. Gordon, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Gordon Seabury
Thank you. Take care.
Chase Clymer
We can't thank our guests enough for coming on the show and sharing their knowledge and journey with us. We've got a lot to think about and potentially add into our own business. You can find all the links in the show notes.
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