Crafting a Sustainable Business From Worn Tees – Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Hey there, entrepreneurs. My name is Sushant and welcome to Treptalks This is a show where I interview successful e-commerce entrepreneurs, business executives, and thought leaders, and ask them questions about their business stories, and also dive deep into some of the strategies and tactic that they have used to start and grow their businesses.

Today I’m really excited to welcome Nathan Rothstein to the show. Nathan is the founder of Project Repat. Project Repat is a US-based company that transforms customers memorable t-shirts into personalized high quality t-shirt quilts. And today I’m going to ask Nathan a few questions about Hi entrepreneur journey and some of the strateg and tech that he has used to start and grow his business.

Now, before we dive into this interview, if you enjoy this content, please make sure to hit the like and subscribe button. For more interviews like this, please visit treptalks.com And with that, Nathan, welcome and thank you so much for joining me today at Treptalks Really appreciate your time.

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So this is a very unique business idea. Um, how did you, when did you start this business and what kind of. Motivated you to, uh, repurpose people’s t-shirts into quilts. It’s like, I wouldn’t even make that connection.

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah. I, I think we, we started in 2012 and we were interested in what people had in their closets that for some reason they were not wearing but didn’t want to get rid of, and so. Even back then, the storage industry was one of the fastest growing industries in the United States. Uh, and there were just millions and millions of pounds of clothing that I.

Sat in people’s closets. And then when people decided to donate them, uh, they ended up being bailed and shipped overseas. And most of those shirts were actually made overseas and not the greatest working conditions. And so there was this huge import export problem and, uh, the value of clothes. Um, people had these nostalgic value attached to clothes, um, without very much resale value.

And so we just started thinking about what we could turn old clothes into. Um, and through a series of lessons learned from customers, we figured out what they wanted was, uh, affordable way to turn shirts into a blanket like quilt.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, and you know, I recently was watching a YouTube video because I’m looking at like different business ideas and so forth, and there was this video that was talking about how there is a huge opportunity in the, you know, printed t-shirt industry because.

Even though you would think that there’s so many player, everybody’s creating new t-shirts. But you know, people wear t-shirts every single day and they want new, new prints and new designs on T-shirt. So it seems like that, you know, there is a constant production of new T-shirts being created and people obviously, you know, they wear it for a certain time, then they want something new.

So there has to be a way to take care of all these, um. Old t-shirts or, you know, uh, rarely wanted worn t-shirts and so forth. Um, so I mean, this is a one way to, I think, take, you know, utilize it or recycle it, I guess. Um, did you, when you started this business, like did you start with the idea of sustainability?

Uh, did you think that I want to create a business based on sustainability? Recycling some of this old items, or, you know, that just came, uh, as an after, I guess, uh, afterthought.

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: I, I think it was definitely part of it. I mean, it was, it was really a problem that we want to solve. It, it, I. There’s a lot of, it takes a lot of water to manufacture just one shirt. I think it’s about 700 gallons of water and, and a lot of it’s because of the transportation costs. But, um, there’s a lot of, there’s a, there’s a big envi environmental impact for the kind of dyes and colors that people use for shirt.

So one t-shirt takes 700 gallons of water. And so we, we knew that fact and we. Uh, my business partner Ross, had seen the resale market in, um, east African countries where so much of the old t-shirts in the US wind up there. And, um, the global economy of a shirt was, was interesting to us. And, and I think we were also interested in the economic impact of.

Textile jobs in the US and so many of those jobs had been lost over the last 30 years. And so we were looking, well, how do we turn excess clothing into US textile job opportunities? Um, and yeah, we, those were things we were thinking about. Um, but we knew we needed to find something that people actually wanted to pay for.

Um. And so it took some, uh. It, it, it took some, figuring out what exactly that was. Um, but we would stand at local markets actually in, in the Boston area, and people would start asking us to turn their shirts into quilts. And we said no a bunch of times because we wanted to make these cool tote bags and scarves and, uh, interesting like fashion forward items, stuff that you might see on Etsy now.

Um, we were just trying out lots of. Stuff. Um, and then people kept saying, can you turn my shirts into a quilt? And we were two guys who were trying to like, have an interesting startup and it’s just not something that we’ve been thinking about, but enough people asked and, uh, we weren’t really ha making an impact any other way.

And so we just tried to figure that out and that apparently was what the market wanted.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Wow. And, and, and that’s, I think that’s the best way to find your business idea, right? When the market is asking you for some something, then, you know, I think that’s, that’s, that’s the direction to move, move into. Um, so why, why quilt?

Why? I mean, what’s the attraction towards the quilt and is there, like, when you have these t-shirts come to you, are you looking for like a certain, at least it meets certain, like. Criteria, like, you know, these t-shirts have certain life in them, like they’re not completely old t-shirt. Like how do you, why quilts and how do you kind of ensure the quality assurance process of this?

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah, so the, the value, and I think the, the way that we’re successful is we’re making, we’re making the products one of one. Um. For the customer. So you send us your shirts, we send it back to you as a quilt. And so we don’t really, we don’t really care what’s on the shirts. We don’t care what they look like.

As long as you want to pay us to preserve those shirts, we’re gonna do it. Um, and that, and that’s, and that’s kind of the sweet spot where it’s not. It’s a, it’s a real utility product. ’cause we’re solving a problem that people have in their household. They’re looking for unique gifts and ways to clear out space, and we’re solving a problem for that.

Um, so I don’t have to feel, I feel like I don’t have to figure out what’s trendy, what’s, uh, what’s the next thing around the corner or what we’re missing. It’s just, can we provide this service in a scalable way? And that really. Hadn’t been done before. Um, so yeah, that’s been our innovation.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: And you don’t basically buy bulk t-shirts, just a third, you know, from some third party and make it into quilts and sell it to other people because that’s not a market out there.

People are really having this made because of sentimental uh, reasons.

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah, I think we’ve, we’ve, I think maybe in the future there’s other opportunities, but, um, what’s nice is we don’t really have any licensing issues because we’re, it, we’re basically like an alterations business. We’re, we’re like your dry cleaning business.

You, you bring in a shirt. Maybe there’s a, there’s a button that is missing. So they add a button and they clean it and they send it back and they give it back to you. But that, that’s what we’re doing. We’re, we’re cutting the shirts into a square and sewing them all together. And I think a lot of people.

For many years had a person in their life who may have been a great sewer and could do something like this on their own. Um, but the skill of sewing, uh, has definitely decreased over the last 25 years. Like less people are proficient in it, and so yeah, it’s another pl it’s another market opportunity that set us up for success.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So it’s basically a service, a service business in a way. Um, how, yes.

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: How big is the market for this? Um, because I would think like even with this innovation and the service that you’re providing, I mean, how do you uh, I mean, as I said before, like I would’ve, I wouldn’t personally, I wouldn’t even have thought about this.

Do you have to educate people? Yeah. Do people find you somehow? How do you, like how big is the market?

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah, so it’s, I think what’s interesting is like for the last decade, there’s about 20 to 30,000 monthly searches for this product on Google. Um, so that exists and that’s, you know, that’s relatively small, but it.

You know, that leads to about a thousand to 1500 orders a month just from capturing most of the Google search market. But the real, the real opportunity for us has been sh showing an ad in the meta feed and people seeing this concept and. Signing up for it and saying, oh, this looks interesting to me ’cause I have too many shirts.

Or My kid is graduating from Col College or high school and I’m looking for a unique gift. And that’s the way we’ve been able to grow the business. So I would, I would say, yeah, I’d, I’d say the market is pretty big considering that. Um, there’s about 2 billion shirts printed in the US every year, and so, you know, if we can right now, we capture about, um, like two to 3 million of those shirts every year.

So it’s a, it’s a very small percentage of the market that we’re seeing and so I, I, I still think 13 years in that. There’s still a bigger opportunity out there and we’re, you know, we’re now in eight figures business and so

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Wow. Eight figures. That’s pretty, pretty large.

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah. And I, and I think it’s, it can be bigger, but Yeah.

But I think we’re kind of, you know, no one, no one really sees this as like a big opportunity, so I think that’s kind of. Been, been an advantage for us too, um, because you don’t have someone coming in and saying, I’m gonna raise, you know, $30 million to build this gigantic quilt business. And so we’ve had some competitors come in and try to compete, but just no one with.

Like, no one has tried to, like, put a ton of capital into blowing up the market. So it’s allowed us to, um, continue to grow over the years

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: and, and that that is, that should be a lesson for anybody. And I think people, uh, business schools should showcase this, that, you know, people don’t have to go out and start the next Facebook or Google like.

Some ideas, like other ideas, you know, it’s like this business is making eight figures as it is, which is a difficult, difficult number to achieve for a lot of businesses, right? Um, I mean, from the consumer psychology, is it do people just don’t like to get. Rid of all their old items. Like what is the psychology behind this?

Because, you know, people who have like a lot of t-shirts, old items, um, rather than basically donating it to like a lo local Salvation Army or something like, yeah, it’s, they, they still want, I think it’s,

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: yeah. I, I mean, I think a lot of people still end up donating like Good Goodwill or Salvation Army. They have more than they can handle, but they can’t. I think what most people don’t know is that the, those places can’t resell 99% of the T-shirts that they receive. So there’s no real mark secondhand market in the way that Goodwills.

Like makes money is by selling clothing, either at retail or per pound in bales that they’re bailing up. So it’s a, it’s a quantity thing, but the, the quality of the stuff that they’re seeing, uh, for. For shirts is, is not that high. And so the, the most value that a shirt has usually is the nostalgic attachment to it.

People like, I’m, I’m wearing the a t-shirt from where I went to college and like people have a ton of t-shirts from where they went to school. And if you, basically in America, if you’ve left your house in the last 30 years, you’ve acquired. A ton of shirts. And so they’re all, you know, they have interesting designs and, and people just like the concept of seeing them all in one place.

Um, and, you know, usually I don’t have to talk this much to convince someone why it’s a good idea. That’s, that’s what I love, love about this business is like. I, I, I know, I, I appreciate your questions and I, I think they’re all valid, but it’s, it’s the fun part of this business is that I can just show the product and people are like, oh, yeah, that makes sense to me.

Um, this is in like, I’m gonna pay money. I’m gonna swipe my credit card and pay money. Um. So, yeah, that’s, that’s why, that’s why I’ve been doing this for a while. No, as you’re,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: no, as you’re explaining it, and I’m thinking about some my, my own old t-shirts, I can now see the value where, you know, if I, you know, I’m picturing a quilt made of my old t-shirts, I can see that, you know, it’s almost like going down the memory lane.

It’s like, it’s almost like having photographs, right? You can, you know, look at a t-shirt and you’re like, yes, I was there. At this time, I. So it’s, it’s like it’s memories. Um, so definitely makes a lot of sense in terms of the production itself. Like if you are getting thousand, 1500 orders every single month, like this must be a pretty big production to, to be creating these skills.

Can you talk a little bit about, does it occur like in a big, um, warehouse space? How many people are there sewing these, uh, quilts? How long does it take to create one quilt and, and so forth?

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah, so we, we have this great partner in North Carolina. It’s a worker-owned, cut and sell company, um, called Opportunity Threads.

And, um, we’ve worked together to build basically a factory line for a super custom product like this. So there’s a bunch of stations and, and the, the shirts kind of go through the process of being cut and. Sewn and surge together and then shipped out all in one place. Um, so there’s about, you know, 50 to 60 people doing this every day.

Um,

yeah, and it’s, it’s one of those jobs too that can’t really be sent abroad, um, because people are. Someone in the US is shipping the shirts to us, and then we’re shipping it back to them. Um, so the, the more expensive labor costs, um, out outweigh or Trump the, uh, all of the shipping costs. If you were gonna send us to someplace in the Far East.

It just, it just wouldn’t make sense to do it this way. So those, those are the textile jobs that really thrive in the US and, and we’re able to, to meet that,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: no, that, that’s, that’s, uh, quite, quite great. Um, in terms of the, you know, the initial set of this, like, how did you. You know, what was kind of the monetary outlay, uh, upfront?

I mean, you started quite, quite a long ago, so I, I think you’ve probably grown or, uh, grown organically over the last, you know, uh, 10, 13 years or so. Can you talk, talk through like what was kind of the progression? Where did you start and how did you grow over time?

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah, I mean, early, early on it was.

Almost at the peak of Groupon and Living Social, which were these huge group buying, uh, businesses. I mean, I think Groupon was one of the fastest growing companies ever, uh, in the United States. It just took off and, and they actually featured early on before we really had our production in place, and they put us into a national email that I think went out to.

15 to 20 million people. Um, and we just, we sold 2000 quilts in a week, um, and then had to figure out how to make all of them. And so, uh, yeah, I think, I think our, that was, that was really lucky. I mean, I think it, it’s, it’s much. Now with Shopify as well established, it’s easier than ever to start selling on the internet.

I think it’s harder than ever to build, uh, a thriving big business just because

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: it,

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: it, you know, if a tree falls into the forest and no one’s around, like, did anyone see that tree? And I think there’s just so many companies starting. Where you just can’t get off the ground because you just can’t reach enough people for the amount of money that you have.

Like your runway is just much shorter. So I think we got, we got lucky to be in the right place at the right time. And I think there had been some people who had tried to build this business and there were some existing players who just couldn’t scale it. Um. Not really to any fault of their own. It was just we did some good networking and got lucky and, and then like good entrepreneurs, we figured out how to solve the problems better than others.

I think that that was our success.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So you don’t, uh, right now. I mean, it seems like you’ve had competitors, but they haven’t just succeeded as as much as you. But right now, do you have any like stable competitors who are, you know, giving you more competition?

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah, we, we have some people. Um, you know, I, I think what’s a little frustrating about the competition is that they’re all people who kind of knew the inner workings in some ways of our business.

Like, uh. Yeah, I mean, without, without getting too much into it, it’s like they had an inside window into our business in a way that other businesses, in other sectors may have not, may not have. So, but, but it’s, this is the world that we live in. It’s like people are gonna constantly try, um. Different stuff and it feels kind of good that like people know every single facet of our business and still can’t really compete.

Um, so in a lot of ways we’ve built, um, a pretty defensible business.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. And, and that’s what ha I mean, I think that’s the big challenge right now in general these days is it’s easy to start a business. But, uh, number one, it’s easy. It’s difficult to get traction. Uh, and number two, if you are, if you do get the traction and become successful, then you know everybody else, whether you’re, you know, someone in China or you know, someone you know, uh, see your success and then tries to go after it.

So, I mean, now the barrier to entry has gone down, but, but. To, to, to, uh, to come out of the crowd. I think that’s, that’s the big challenge. Do you do, I mean, you said that you, you do advertise on Facebook and that’s a big driver of customers. I mean, do you see, see, still see success in Facebook advertising?

Because what I hear that, you know, even the ROI and that has, uh, become very challenging.

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah. I mean, it still, it still works for us. I mean, I, I think there was a period of years where it, it worked like gangbusters, uh, and it worked really well for everyone else too. I, I think we’re doing a little bit different kind of advertising than most D two C companies where everyone, everyone’s building, um.

Purchase campaigns and just spending money to see immediate ROAS return on ads. And so, and we, we have the freedom a little bit to use cash that we’ve gotten upfront and not have to pay for production right away. And so we can enroll that cash into growing our ad spend. Um. And so we’re, we’re driving traffic, getting leads, and not worrying about, not worrying too much about whether those leads convert right away over time.

So that’s been, that’s been a great way, a great method to help us grow. Um. And we’ve borrowed some cash as well, like to, to, to grow as well. And to, and you know, any, any dollars that we’re, that we can scrounge up, we’re putting into meta to keep this growing. Um, do you all, we’ve just, yeah.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: What about, I mean, what about partnerships?

To me, it seems like a good. Crowd to target here is probably someone who’s graduated from pro college universities, you know, 10 years down the road. So maybe the alumni organiz, you know, uh, departments of colleges and universities, um, have you, uh, because they, they keep in touch with their own, like they, you know.

Every, periodically they send out emails with different offers and things like this. Have you tried partnering with the, any of those organizations or other sorts of partnerships?

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah, you know, honestly we’ve tried lots of, I think that’s a, it’s a good idea and we’ve definitely tried that. Uh, we just haven’t had really much success figuring out the right partner revenue split.

Um, I. I think, you know, it’s an uphill battle convincing people that there’s, there’s potential to partner, it’s a new concept to partner. Um, and where, where we succeed is really e-commerce and conversions and tracking. And I, where we haven’t succeeded is. On all those partnerships and I, you know, I’ve, I’ve spent a lot of time, yeah.

Um, cold emailing, partnering, networking, and even when we get someone willing to try this out, um, it’s tough to figure out the tech to like help see the ROI for everyone. So, yeah, it’s, I, I think in the future. You know, my, my dream is that every college gives their students like an upcycle budget. So, you know, there’s a budget now for t-shirt, for new t-shirts.

Um, and I think at some point like, could there be a budget for recycling your shirts basically, and responsibly recycling. And so I. What keeps me going is the vision that, that this can be much more ingrained into American society as what to do with the end of life of your shirts. But, uh, I think that just takes time and, uh, patience, which I have some patience, but not a ton.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I mean, you, you’ve stuck with it for 13 years. I mean, that, that definitely shows a lot of patience.

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Um, so I mean, when you look back, uh, when you started and where you are now, like has there been any, like, what has been some of the pivotal moments in your business? I mean, there could be related to like marketing success or there could also be related to challenges.

Like, uh, you know, I don’t know. During COVID, like, did, did your sales go up during COVID or any, any other thing, like, you know what, what stands out for you? Like, because you have a long history.

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah. I, I think I’m aware of the, the timing of our business. Like I said, the Groupon was super helpful. The we, we also benefited from the emergence of.

Facebook as an ad platform. I mean, we’re, so we’ve been doing this for so long that you literally could not spend money on meta unless you spoke with someone and worked out a partnership through email, like a sponsored display ad. Like that’s, that’s how old our business is, so. You know, we were able to just kind of slowly test out the ad platform as it developed as well, and the, the mobile advertising really and Instagram really changed things for us.

So, uh, that, that was a super helpful thing. I think, um, you know, one of the bigger challenges was dealing with the, being collateral damage in the Mark Zuckerberg, uh, apple privacy. War where Apple basically turned off the, the tracking, um, for meta and that really blew up our business model. Um, and it’s really just how reliant we are on meta, uh, and have not really been able to figure out anything.

But, so that was, that was a big challenge. Um, the COVID, when COVID hit, it was unclear what was gonna happen in our business, but we actually started making mass. And so the factory was able to ke stay open and we, you know, I, I had spent a lot of time on Twitter back then just seeing what was happening on in China and just.

Being paranoid and anxious and, and we prepared mask, um, preparations basically two weeks before everyone else did. So we sold like a hundred thousand masks in like 14 days. Whoa. Um, and then, you know, and then everyone made a mask and so. It wasn’t really a thing anymore, but that really helped us. And, and then everyone was at home looking through their closets and, uh, just had a lot of time on their hands.

So our business actually, uh, we did a lot of business, but. Would I have wished for that to have never happened? Uh, yes. So, you know, it’s, you know, just being a parent of young kids and living in this world like that was, it was horrible. So, um, but yeah, we’ve, we’ve had quite the roller coaster journey like everyone else who’s been in business this long.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Who does your, are you, I mean, are you the resident. Uh, Facebook ads expert or like, do you, is that something that’s outsourced? Um, who, who, who, who’s basically responsible for your advertising?

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah. We, we work with someone, um, who has a small boutique, uh. Agency who is running growth marketing advertising for a few different companies.

And, and I feel like I know the platform well. Uh, I understand what it’s doing and I, I ran those ads for a while. Um, but it’s nice to have somebody who’s very confident in making changes and. Recommending different things and, but I’m, I definitely understand it. I think that’s like a good lesson for Shopify founders and people with small teams that if you’re gonna hire someone to do something, I.

Make sure you understand a lot of it as much as you can. So I, I did a lot of research. I read a lot about meta and I mean, I’m constantly looking at best practices and suggesting things to our consultant, but I’m not the one, um, pulling the levers anymore.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I think that’s probably, yeah, that’s a great advice, right?

Like, um. To have an understanding of things, a good understanding of things, and then you can have, you know, you can give the directions and you can see the results and, you know, uh, and so you, you know, that you’re not getting fooled, just, you know, you’re not blindly trusting someone’s, I think that’s a, that’s a great advice.

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Um, yeah, I think, I think there’s a lot of snake oil in the advertising world of like. Uh, just the way that the, the business is set up too, of taking a percentage of spend, uh, I mean, that’s a model based off programmatic television and, uh, having to like, call up every TV channel and, and spending money.

And that, and that model has kind of transferred over into meta spend, but. It, it’s, it’s, it shouldn’t, it shouldn’t be like that. I mean, uh, yeah, there’s, I think there’s just problems with how agencies run it. Um, and yeah, I, but I, but I think we, you know, we have, we have someone who’s really good and I think she has a, a good business model around it.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Um. So you have, uh, so you partner with a, uh, a company that basically does the, the sewing. You have your marketing. Um, what, what other, uh, I mean, it seems to me that after 13 years, your business is quite systematized. It’s, um, are you, is, is it pretty much hands off now? Uh, what, what, like, what is, what did, what is your, what?

What does your day look like in terms of, you know, what do you think about, uh, on a day-to-day basis about your business?

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah. I, I think it’s, I, I think it’s trying new things and seeing what works better and it’s now incremental changes. I, we call, we, we now have a, um. A tech person on staff who he had, he was a consultant for us who built a lot of our operations tech, and we brought him on full-time to basically just.

Test constantly, um, to see if we can make improvements and to try new ideas. Um, so, you know, this year we built an AI search tool. Um, so we’re now taking photographs of every quilt when they’re done, and then the AI can tag it. So, you know, I I can, you can go on the website and search everything that’s.

You just search Boston and anything with Boston on it will show up. Um, but it can also work for, oh, someone wants to see button down shirts, like how that looks on a blanket or hockey jerseys. Um, so it just, it, I think it. It’s helpful for a customer to be able to search and see many examples. So that’s a project that we’ve built in the last three months using a lot of ai and it’s, you know, I can’t, I can’t say exactly what the ROI is on that project, but I think it’s, it has benefited a lot of people and we’re gonna keep figuring out how to use it better.

So stuff, stuff like that. I mean, just, it’s, it’s not as sexy as like going to pitch at a, at a meeting or traveling around the country and figuring stuff out. It’s, it’s sitting in spreadsheets and making small iterations.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Do you ever think about, like, do you get new ideas around sustainability or like.

Similar kind of things. Like do you, are you ever, um, I don’t know if you’re the, the single founder of your partners also, but are you ever inclined to kind of diversify, like try out, uh, other ideas also?

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah, I think we’ve, we’ve tried lots of stuff, um, and nothing really has caught on in the same way as the, the blankets.

And so it’s really been about. You know, what can we, what can we do to support that? And what are other ways we can make money? Um, you know, we have embroidery machines now we have photo printing machines, so people can upload a photo and we can print it on a blanket. Um, we actually now have socks made from, uh, the scraps.

Like the scraps can be turned into yarn, and then we spin the yarn into socks. So. We we’re doing, we’re constantly like, you know, you wake up every day as an entrepreneur and think about, well, what, what things can I do to grow the business? And so that, that has kept us growing. Um, and, and also how do we make more money?

So, uh, yeah, that, that has been. That has been an interesting part, and it’s nice to have my tech person sitting next to me who we can try things out quickly and figure out what’s working and what’s not.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Um, I mean, your business relies heavily on, I guess, uh, shipping. Uh, so you, you know, there’s two parts of it.

You, you receive the, the packages and you have to ship it out. Do you, uh, do you work with some sort of a shipping provider that helps you to, uh, streamline the, that process, give your customers better shipping rates and so forth?

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah, so we, we built basically our own shipping platform, um, and we’ve used FedEx and USPS over the years and we’ve been able to negotiate.

Rates and, um, figure out, figure out how to make more margin around shipping as well. So, um, yeah, that’s been another profit engine for us.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Wow, that’s that’s very interesting. Okay. Um, I think, I think a lot of platforms are doing that now. Yeah. That have, uh, shipping volume. Okay. Um. Is your market currently mostly in the us are you also, uh, doing some international orders?

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah, we’re, we’re pretty, we’re we’re almost a hundred percent us. Um, you know, I think to expand, we really need to figure out. How to get a facility in a different country and offer this service in other countries. So you, you know, I, I think another, another kind of entrepreneur would’ve done that. Um, you know, I, I had, I had a talk recently with this entrepreneur who had, he had ended up selling his company to a, a much bigger, um, tech company.

And it was, it was just a really interesting way of framing this for entrepreneurs. Like, are you a, are you a Hall of Fame entrepreneur? Are you an all star entrepreneur or are you just kind of like a professional entrepreneur but in the minor leagues and, and. I think kind of looking at your, looking in the mirror and just trying to, and figuring out like exactly what kind of entrepreneur you are.

Like, you know, there’s the Mark Zuckerbergs in the world who, uh, who are Hall of Fame entrepreneurs. Like they’ve built this, they’ve built this gigantic company, they’ve stayed the CEO. Like that’s a different, that’s not who I am. Um, and. Once you kind of get comfortable with, with what kind of entrepreneur you are, you can be more content in the success that you have.

Um, so I kind of know that I’m like a, you know, I’m a middle, middle of the road journeyman entrepreneur and yeah. I’ve made, I’ve made the major leagues. But have I been back in the minor leagues too? Yeah. So I think, I think just like knowing that about yourself, like I don’t have aspirations to turn this into a billion dollar company.

Um, so I know some people who are like that, but that’s, that’s not me.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: You know, that’s, uh, that’s, uh, such a great distinction. Do you think. Um, and I, I agree, you know, your distinction of major, major league and, you know, Allstar and so forth. Um, I think there are some entrepreneurs that, that really think big and like the big visionaries.

But I think in, I would assume that some of these big successes, like they’re, they’re just not, they were just not, not just the entrepreneur, but they were caught in the perfect storm. It was. The right circumstances, some luck. Um, I mean, do you, do you believe that there is some, you know, I, I don’t think it’s always a hundred percent entrepreneur.

I think it’s a com combination of factors that, that make like a really huge success.

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah. And I think it’s the drive to of, and the, the radical optimism you have to have to. Be able to go to investors and say like, this idea that is nothing now is, can be a billion dollar concept and give me write checks for a million, 5 million, 10, 20 million.

Like, but that is, that is such a small sector of at least the US economy. And I think what’s interesting is Shopify is so big, there’s two and a half million stores, but I think there’s only 2000 stores that are doing. More than $10 million a year. And so, you know, the fact that we’re in that, um, puts us, puts us in a, you know, a, a pretty small group.

So, um, I. But I think we’ve, we’ve tried to raise money over the years and, and have not succeeded. And I think now I’m kind of grateful that that didn’t really work out because it’s, it’s a small lean team. We get to figure stuff out and I don’t have a ton of investors like breathing down my neck saying, you need to do this, this to like, and to make this bigger.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, no, I, yeah, there’s definitely pros and cons for sure. And I think some, some people are just, you know, they, they just need to go to that next level. It’s like they’re highly, highly driven. So I think that’s a different kind of an entrepreneur. Um, in every entrepreneur journey, there’s always mistakes made, lessons learned, failures.

When you look at your journey, what’s, what comes to your mind? Like a big mistake or failure? What did you learn? What can other entrepreneurs learn from your mistakes?

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah, I mean, one thing, one thing that comes to mind is, um, we, in 20 18, 20 17, a lot of direct to consumer businesses were opening retail stores. Um, and we thought, oh, well maybe if we open a, a store. More people will trust us. Um, and let’s open it in a, in a suburban town where our ideal customer is. Um, and so we, we opened a store and we had a lot of fun building it out and, uh, painting it and retiling it and designing it in this cool way.

Um, but I remember like the first day I. When people walked in, they walked in and they started saying, okay, I want. They brought out their shirts and they started saying, I want this here and I want that here. And we had created a quilt shop, like a little mom and pop quilt shop. And it was, you know, honestly it was like the last thing that we had wanted for our lifestyle business where what we had succeeded on is like removing all the bells and whistle whistles.

And being very transparent about what we can do and what we can’t do, um, and giving customers clear instructions for how to prepare their shirts. And the, the concept of walking into a store and laying out all your shirts was just not what we wanted to do, and didn’t increase our sales at all. So it was, you know, it was like following a trend.

Not really thinking through like what it actually meant for our business and that, you know, it was, it was like a hundred thousand dollars mistake. Um, and you know, you, you try to like, that’s like the max that you want for us. Like that. You wanna, that’s the dollar amount that you want to make a mistake about.

Um, and now it’s funny on Google, if you search Project Repat. Boston, you’ll see the address of our store and it will stay permanently closed. Um, somehow. How quickly did you close it? Uh, we closed it about like seven months after it opened. So this was 20, this was seven years ago now. But somehow some customers who don’t read the instructions still send their shirts there, even though it says permanently closed on Google.

But the, it was funny, like the, it’s now a gym. And the, the gym owner emailed us and was like, can you please tell your customers to not send shirts to me? And you know, we can. What I’ve learned is like we can build instructions where 95% of people follow it, which is really good, but you cannot, you cannot do things.

That’s a hundred percent. So wherever our address is on the internet, even old places, like people are just gonna not read anything and send stuff. Um, but we’ve done a pretty good job of making it work for most people.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: No, that, that’s, uh, so hilarious. It’s uh, yeah. It’s like it created more hassles for you than, you know, generating, uh, revenue.

Um, yes. Now I’m going to move on to our rapid fire segment. In this segment I’m going to ask you a few quick questions and you have to answer them maybe in a word or a sentence or so. The first one is one book recommendation for entrepreneurs and why?

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Um, look at looking at my, um.

Let’s see.

I I, I mean, I think the, i, I, the, the Stephen Levy book about Facebook is just like a really interesting story about that business and how it’s grown over the years, and there’s just. If you, if you spend time in this world, it’s just like a very interesting inside window into it.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. And innovative product or idea in the current e-commerce retail or tech landscape that you feel excited about?

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: I’m, I, I like our, we use gorgeous, um, for customer service and they built some really interesting. Um, AI components that I’ve, I’ve gone in there and, and, um, spent a lot of time working with and building these AI chat bots that are super helpful and, and customers are able to get the, the answers to their questions right away.

And so that’s pretty cool. And to see that develop over time is awesome.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Um. A business or a productivity tool or software that you would recommend or a productivity tip? I know you already recommended one, but anything around productivity? Yeah.

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah. I, I think, I mean, I think a lot of people are doing this, but using the, the chat bots, GBT to start your, start your day with whatever you’re thinking of. Developing or marketing concepts to, to work it through the engine and, and get inspired from. Um, that’s been super helpful for me.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. Uh, another startup or business that you think is currently doing great things?

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Uh, I, I’ve been following this brand for a while and we. We have it in our house. It’s called Oat House. It’s um, it’s like a granola nut free, um, mix. And, uh, my kids love it and I love it, and it’s just been interesting to follow their journey. It’s, and, um. They’re now in Target and Costco and they just started a few years ago.

But it’s been fun to see and they, and they, their marketing is great and they have a great product.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. A peer entrepreneur or business person whom you look up to or someone who inspires you?

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Uh.

There’s, there’s a peer, um, that runs Vienna snacks. They’re, um, they’re like a chickpea snack, and she started right around the same time as we did. And they’ve, they’ve just grown into like a national company and, um, it’s been, it’s just been really interesting to follow. And they’re, you know, they’re more a consumer good.

Um, get wholesale business. Um, but their branding is really good and, um, I’ve learned a lot from how they’ve grown their, their business as well.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome.

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: So, I, I’ve given you two food, I guess I’m hungry. I’ve given you two food, uh, businesses.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Well, uh, I’ll end it quickly. So, final, final question. Best business advice that you have ever received or you would give to other entrepreneurs?

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: I would, I would say it was don’t, um, don’t get attached to an idea that doesn’t work. Um, and we, I think that’s really what’s, what’s allowed us to succeed is that if something’s failing, uh, you just have to. Stop, um, and move on to the next, no matter if it’s your idea or somebody else’s. And it’s a, it’s a good way to, to work.

I, I’ve been working with my business partner for 13 years and the way we’re able to do that is because we don’t have allegiances to bad ideas. Um, and that’s, that’s been good team building and good success for our business as well. Do you have

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: any criteria for like. Is it a revenue figure that you look at?

Is it like time? How do you decide when to kill an idea?

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah, I think, I think if it’s it, it’s revenue, it’s conversions, it’s uh, what customers are saying. Um, because we get so much web traffic now we can try something out, see if. The average order value, see if it’s, the conversion rate is going up and we know pretty quickly whether something works or not.

Um, so it’s, it. We are, we fail a lot. Like we swing the, but we keep swinging the bat, which is what’s kept us in business.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. No, great. Great advice. Well, Nathan, tho those were all the questions that I had. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for sharing your story, your business lessons, quite inspiring.

And if somebody wants to take advantage of your service, what’s the best way to do that?

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: Yeah, go to project repat.com and you can also see a lot of examples on Instagram. Um, project Repat, USA is our handle.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Well, Nathan, thank you so much again and wish you all the very best. Thank you so much. All

Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat: right.

Thanks so much.