We had the opportunity to speak with Pranav Sachdev, CEO of Glyph. The Minimalist shoe company. Glyph is currently seeking additional investors via a crowdfunding campaign. Learn more at Republic.co/glyph.
Q: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and Glyph?
A: Glyph is a company that believes in minimalism. We design the only pair of shoes anyone needs to own, because they go with any outfit, and sell them directly to customers. We launched October 2019.
Q: How did you get the idea for Glyph ?
A: I have been a minimalist for my entire life. It is something I learned from my grandfather. He didn’t think that having a lot of things would make you happy, and he was right. We founded Glyph because it is important to us that the people who design the products we use every day are minimalists.
Q: Did you hit any roadblocks that almost caused you to throw in the towel?
A: We had many challenges early on. The most heartbreaking was probably a big factory we had partnered with, sort of pushing us aside and not really doing any development work without formally ending the relationship. We lost a few months early on there.
Q: How do you plan to grow and expand Glyph? What are the next steps for the company?
A: We are focused on expanding our digital footprint, and will likely explore new channels including Adwords, Tik Tok and Pinterest in the near future
Q: Where do you see the company in 5 years and how do you plan to get there?
A: In the near term we are going to release more colors and designs for our customers. A huge percentage of Glyph customers buy more than one pair of Glyphs – either as gifts for loved ones or so they can match their Glyphs with different outfits. The single biggest point of feedback we get is that our customers want more colors. We’ve seen in the past that you can build a billion-dollar or hundreds of millions of dollar shoe company off of one shoe that people love (Toms, Tory Birch, Sperry, Allbirds), so that is our priority for the time being. In the future we will consider launching other highly versatile products, but right now we are focused on footwear.
Q: Do you have any partnerships or retail store sales?
A: Given the pandemic we're going to hold off on retail until 2022
Q: What has been the greatest award or achievement that your company has attained so far?
A: We are right at the beginning of a massive growth phase. We have put together our supply chain, validated our product, sold out the first few batches and built a brand that people love. Now is the time for us to focus on really scaling.
Q: What kind of traction have you had since you first launched?
A: We have sold out three times. We are backed by Cornell University and 500 Startups. We are fueled by our loyal customer base, our sales have grown 60% month over month. 35% of our sales have come from word of mouth. In addition we have over $350k in total gross revenue.
Q: What makes your company different from others in your space? What are your competitive advantages?
A: Our mission is to bring minimalism to mainstream America. We want to change our relationship with the things we own. We are focused on making the most versatile shoes on the planet and building the definitive minimalism brand of our generation. Our shoes are digitally printed to fit any foot, and is patent pending, as well as longer lasting than leather.
In addition, customers can return their Glyphs after they wear out to be recycled and to get a discount on their next pair!
Q: If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of business/financial advice, what would it be?
A: Don’t waste time on investors that drag their feet - create urgency by pitching more of them.
Q: Is there any advice you'd give to other aspiring entrepreneurs?
A: Keep going.
Comments
Log in or sign up to join the conversation.