This past week, we sat down with Adrien Bettio, one of the co-founders of 437 swimwear. Battling the unknown and pursuing their passion, Adrien and Hyla created a world-renowned swimwear brand. Did you know the company was named after Adrien and Hyla’s house in the student ghetto? Find out how 437 became the company it is today.
Q: Can you tell us three things about yourself and how these qualities helped you to create 437 swimwear?
I’d say the number one thing is perseverance. As an entrepreneur, you have a lot of obstacles coming your way and you’re constantly having to find solutions to problems and overcome setbacks. It can be very discouraging at times, but you have to know that when you’ve been knocked down, your only option is to get back up.
Another thing is just being very self-motivated and responsible. When you're an entrepreneur, there's no one who's giving you instructions about what you have to be on top of everything and hold yourself accountable
The third thing is to be very passionate. The reason that 437 has worked today is that Hyla and I are willing to put in whatever time is required from us to make the business work. If you're not passionate about whatever you're wanting to start, I don’t think you’d be willing to put the amount of time and effort that is required to make the business happen.
Q: Where do you see 437 going 5 years down the line?
Everyone always asks us this question, but to be honest, if there’s one thing we don’t know, it's where 437 is going.
We still want to have a relatively small team - we never want to become a big business where we don't know all the employees personally. We like a strong company culture where there's a connection between everyone. I think that is one of the best things we have going for us right now. We have 5 of us working full-time, plus some interns.
Q: How do you generate new ideas right now?
For marketing, a lot of it is brainstorming with our team. All the girls will come together, sit around the table and talk about new ideas. We focus on our brand identity and try to think about how we can reinforce it. For example, we say that we are a brand that talks a lot about eating. That drove the idea of packaging which looked like takeaway boxes from a Chinese restaurant. People are very creative here so, we bounce ideas around and literally make it happen. We’re so action orientated in this company - if somebody says they have an idea, we say, "Make it happen!"
Q: What is the most exciting story that has happened to you so far?
The most exciting thing was definitely when Tammy Hembrow (@tammyhembrow) posted for the first time in our swimsuits and tagged us. She is one of our idols, and we had never had anyone so famous post for us before.
Another exciting moment was when we got featured in Cosmopolitan. We didn’t even find out until one of our followers DMd us to congratulate us!
Most recently, moving into our new office was super exciting. We have a brand new showroom that just finished this past weekend. It's just a wild cool experience, all these people coming in and seeing the office, saying “wow, this is legit”.
Q: How did you find your suppliers?
We were originally producing through a manufacturer in China. We were supposed to receive our inventory in June or July of 2017, but we didn't get it until November. Missing the first full summer of sales really crushed us. We were super unhappy with the supplier so we decided to find a manufacturer close by and settled on a big manufacturer in New York that had worked with all of these incredible brands like Yeezy and Alexander Wang.
Hyla and I went to New York, met with them and went through the whole sampling process in January. Around April, when the production was supposed to be finished, we started calling and emailing them. Nobody was responding us so we got a friend who lives in New York to go to visit the manufacturer.
When he got there, he called us saying, “Guys, there’s some bad news, there’s literally no-one here”. I talked to the landlord apparently they cleared out in the middle of the night, owing to the landlord $80,000 in rent and all of their clients are looking for them. The sampling costs in New York are crazy, at least 20 times the cost of sampling in China. We probably spent $15,000 - 20,000 designing the collection with them so we were like, “Well, I guess that's lost. There's nothing we can do”.
So that was a good learning lesson in terms of contracts and talking to other people who have worked with the supplier and stuff like that. Honestly, we ended up going back to our manufacturer in China and now they're awesome, we're going to visit in 2 weeks. It's funny how that all worked out but here we are.
Q: Do you have any tips for people who are trying to find suppliers in the retail industry?
It's very dependent on what you're looking to produce. If you’re looking to produce large quantities then you can find a lot of manufacturers online. For example, if you want to make hoodies, Google “hoodie manufacturer Shenzhen, China”. You're going to have a huge list of things come up. You can start clicking through different options. You can use also Alibaba or other marketplace platforms to find manufacturers. Even if you want to create something that must be custom-made, there will be a company for that.
If you’re looking to just produce a couple hundred units, it may even make sense to produce in North America, but it depends on what you’re trying to produce and how complex it is.
With any supplier, ensure you talk to past customers and look at the companies history to see if it is aligned with your vision. Find out what their price ranges are, how long will it take, are they willing to produce the quantities you want - we recommend trying a test size first.
Q: What is the one thing you have learned from being an entrepreneur that you wouldn't have learned from any other job experience?
I think that when you're an entrepreneur you become somewhat fearless - as cheesy as this may sound. Even if you don't know anything about a specific item or strategy, there's nothing holding you back saying “you can't do it”. For example, when we started out and we made it to the manufacturing stage, we knew nothing about manufacturing; we had never been to China before and didn’t even know where to start - Google helped us out! It’s about finding the ability to just think about something you want to do and then act on it. Nobody else is here to do it for us, nobody else will do it better than us, we just had to figure it out on our own.
Q: Who has been your biggest inspiration so far?
Hyla and I follow as many different founders of companies as we can. These tend to be people in different industries, but some are young females who started swimwear lines a few years before us.
One person who has been a large inspiration is Ben Francis, the founder of Gymshark. This company started in 2013 and made $500,000 in revenue; then, in 2017 they were projected to make a hundred million and are considered the fastest growing company in UK. The best part is they’re only a few years older than 437 is! He has had a similar experience to us in the sense that he also started from home. His business was a hobby that turned into a successful organization that he is passionate about. His videos on his YouTube channel are very insightful and I spend hours watching them. I would definitely recommend checking him out yourself if you're interested in entrepreneurship.
Q: What has been your biggest fear throughout your journey and how did you manage to overcome it?
I think that one of our biggest fears was that 437 may not be able to support us. It was super scary not to go through On-Campus Recruiting in 4th year, it felt like we didn’t have a safety net. For the first year and a half, we didn’t pay ourselves, and it was a matter of just trying to scrape by. Before April, we still earned next to nothing. Now, we are so proud to say 437 is coming to a point that it can actually support us. The amount that we have grown over this summer has been exponential, and the industry is starting to notice.
It was scary to think that maybe 437 is not going to work out and that we would have to figure out what we would do as our careers. But, it’s important to follow your passion and keep pushing forward. In due time, this mindset will help you reach your goals.
Q: Do you have any tips for students who are thinking of starting their own entrepreneurial journey or startup?
Hyla always says that if you want to start something then just go for it. Just do it. Don't wait weeks or months perfecting a small thing like a logo or website. Just launch the business; that way you can get started and you make iterations as you go.
If I could give you one piece of advice: Do something you're passionate about and you want to bring to the masses. If it's something you're just doing because you think it's a good business decision, then I believe it is the wrong career path. I don't think you should try to be an entrepreneur just to be an entrepreneur. I think you should be an entrepreneur in a field you're passionate about. Doing so means you're going to want to commit your time, you're going to want to enter the office every day, and you’re going to be that much happier.
