freja over 4 years

what we did, when we did it

This is not a business plan, and it is certainly not the only way nor the best way to launch a brand — it’s just an overview for how I set up broad goals for Freja each year following mostly my intuition. I also wasn’t in a rush to get anywhere fast, I didn’t launch Freja to be a big brand. I launched Freja because I wanted to create something special for a small group of people.

Our overall setup is super simple — if you break it down it’s basically one customer avatar one acquisition channel and just a few products. But it doesn’t have to be complicated to be effective. Give me simple any day!

If you find a formula that works, do more of it. Then do it better. Then try new things. In our context, that looked like 1) spend more on ads and develop new paid channels 2) create higher quality content and get increasingly granular with audience testing and 3) testing PR, partnerships, events, retail, etc.

Do it in that order, stay focused on what actually makes progress, and GIVE IT TIME!! Trust that even if you’re doing everything right — you need to allow time for things to manifest.

2020:

Priority: finding product market fit. I had a product that I liked, but would others agree? If so, who are they and how do I get Freja in front of them?

Strategy: testing different audiences and messaging, and reaching them through facebook ads. My launch strategy of collecting emails failed spectacularly (I collected 2000 emails and sent an email blast on launch day — zero sales) so I spent most of the first 6 months tinkering with ads. I’m talking upwards of 8 hours a day testing different interests, ages, locations, using different variations of content, bidding strategies, budgets, etc. I unlocked a combination of all variables that was a home run for us..and continues to be. Once I found our blueprint I started scaling our spend a bit, and began looking for ads agencies that could help me manage and take it to the next level. I did not ask friends and family for their opinions or to purchase bags, in fact I didn’t tell anyone I was working on Freja for years. I wanted a pure, unbiased market feedback from my future customers.

Team: this whole year it was just me — I would focus most of my time on ads and ship products towards the end of the day.

2021:

Priority: customer acquisition. Now that we’ve found one customer persona — can we find a reliable and scalable way to reach them?

Strategy: I worked with three ad agencies for various amounts of time before finding one that got results. Everyone will tell you that building a paid strategy takes time and they are correct, however from past experience if it feels slow…it’s probably not the right time or agency for you. It will take time to build an ads engine, but it will be clear pretty immediately if progress is being made in the right direction. This was my priority because I wasn’t willing to invest any more time or money into building a brand or developing product if we didn’t have a consistent way to acquire new customers. Why an agency? Because they sleep, eat, and breathe ads and ad strategy (across various verticals and audiences) and personally I thought it was a no-brainer to hire an expert. I tried organic and social and influencer gifting as well, but nothing was as measurable and instantaneous as paid ads. I looked at all the former as “bonuses” — if we got sales great, but there were no expectations.

I also found a fulfillment center towards the end of summer. From a time perspective, shipping bags is incredibly labor intensive and I spent each afternoon belaboring the fact that I chose to create a product so bulky yet somewhat lightweight (the combo for the highest shipping costs). The last straw was when I had to receive around sixty 40 lb boxes, carry them up to my storage unit, borrow a little trolley cart to bring them back to my apartment where I would pack orders, then cart them down to the UPS 15 min down the road. I was just happy to even have orders coming in but I knew that was so unsustainable and limiting on what I could do and where I could be (nowhere, I had to stay at home always). I was debating between setting up our own fulfillment center (more control and touchpoints with end customer, but labor intensive) but ultimately decided to find an external warehouse (less control and pricier, but more experience and relatively hands-off on my end). I don’t know about you, but my goal is to work less, so outsourcing it was. And with the amount of slack messages regarding one off changes or ongoing issues — I’m so glad I don’t need to manage a warehouse. This also enabled us to host our very first sale towards the end of the year — the volume was nothing to write home about, but it would’ve been unmanageable for me and taken me days to ship every order. Our 3PL handled it all in one afternoon. I felt FREE.

Hires: ads agency and fulfillment center

2022:

Priority: setting up systems. Whether or not I sold freja in the future — I wanted to set it up in a way where that was an option — aka I needed to make it palatable to an investor. That means removing myself from the business and setting up systems in my own place. This is also when I stopped calling Freja my baby and started viewing it as a business. A simple but significant reframe.

Strategy: I wanted all the core business functions to operate well without me (as much as possible). At the time I was still doing a little of everything, so I wanted to fill those positions with people who were way more talented than me in their respective fields to take ownership. Ideally I could set the overall vision and trust my team to execute — across ads, social, cx, operations, finance, etc. I would keep the product role since I felt that was core to Freja’s identity. This process may have started in 2022 but we’re nowhere near done yet.

Hires: I hired Mya to manage our socials, influencer program, partnerships, and events — she had purchased a bag and tagged us on instagram. I noticed that we had mutuals and were both based in NYC, so asked to meet for coffee. Zero intentions of hiring anyone at the time but she mentioned she was leaving her job in PR the next week so I told her there was a place for her at Freja. That was almost 2.5 years ago and she’s still a core part of the team. I also hired and trained Steph to handle all customer related inquiries, and that was such a big weight off my shoulders.

2023:

Priority: improving systems and building an ecommerce engine — I mean that in the sense where the work I do today still pays off tomorrow, next month, years down the line. I want to set up an ads system that continues to understand our customer better. Policies and organizational systems that grow with the business, not limit it. I rarely take on one-off projects or host events for that reason, but that can change moving forward as all things inevitably evolve. I feel like so much of business involves tearing down what you built previously to rebuild it into something bigger and better…because what got you here won’t get you there.

Strategy: Meta was performing well but I hated feeling reliant on just one platform for customer acquisition, so we added Google and Tiktok to our paid channels. I knew it would take at least 6-8 months to properly season these channels, so I wanted to start before it was necessary. Yes I also went through a few different specialists and agencies before settling on one who we’re still working with today. I also made email marketing a priority and hired a specialist to keep me accountable to sending 2 newsletters each week to really engage our community, and ramped up influencer gifting. I also worked with a branding studio I admired on a rebranding project to polish up the Freja look and feel. We also set up affiliate and referral programs this year as a additional channels.

Hires: accounting team, google and tiktok ad specialists, email marketing consultant

2024:

Priority: holistic sustainable growth — building a forever brand.

Strategy: Keeping and scaling what’s already working, and trying new things that may not show immediate payoff, but build the brand over the long term. I touched on this briefly on a podcast with sean of read receipt — but I’ve always treated freja as an experiment. Little inconspicuous tests across product, branding, and operations to see what works. For better or worse I didn’t consider Freja a part of my identity, and I wasn’t particularly attached to the outcome. If it didn’t work, I would pivot and try something else.

This is the first time I have ever viewed Freja as a career — something I want to take as far as I can. I finally feel safe with where we are revenue wise, and comfortable spending a portion of budget towards projects that may or may not pan out — things like retail, wholesale, international, expanding our product line and colors, guerilla marketing just for fun, collaborations, throwing events, and giving back / philanthrophic efforts. This reframe completely changed our strategy from sales-focused to brand focused — investing in things that don’t contribute to the bottom line immediately or at all, but all as part of a more holistic strategy towards building a long term brand.

Hires: PR agency, content creator, creative director, executive assistant

Closing thoughts — within all of this I think it’s so important to be aware of your own strengths and weaknesses and learn how to work with your preferences, otherwise it will feel like a constant uphill battle. There’s no one right way to do anything, and personally I don’t want to run a business if I’m constantly feeling doubting myself or hating every moment of it. I know I work best alone, require lots of autonomy and decision making power, am strong in executing (with or without a plan). Freedom of time and location are super important to me so I prioritized both in how I set up Freja.

I also know I’m not an idea generator, not naturally a collaborative person (I’d consider myself more task oriented, not saying this is a good thing but it’s just how I’m wired), and not particularly detail oriented, so I hire and surround myself with people who are and can cover my blind spots.

I get asked some variation of the question “what was the one thing that really moved the needle for you?” quite often and every single time I am very annoying and say “nothing!” We’ve been doing the exact same thing we’ve been doing since day one, just at a broader, more visible scale. There was no one decision, one product, one celebrity, one hire that changed anything materially — but a culmination of all our efforts every single day for the last 4 years. I much prefer it that way, because I like games where I am in control. How much work and effort you invest into any project is 100% within your control…and as long as you’re in a decent vehicle, stay the course and give it time. For me trajectory is more important than any one time hit. Trending upwards is the goal!

There’s also something to be said about learning the right lesson — if you try something new and it doesn’t work, it might not be the strategy that’s the issue. It could be a lack of execution knowledge, the wrong person or team heading the project, or simply not the right time. Aka worth trying again with a different combination of factors.

And what does the future of Freja look like? I haven’t thought it further than the end of this year, but I’m excited to watch it unfold with all of you :)