Project ReWear - Kimberly Lau and Linda Young

Speaker A: All right, welcome to the podcast. On today's show, we're talking to Project Rewear. Thanks for joining. For the people who don't know, either one of you can take this. What's the company do?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, hi, my name is Kim. Nice to meet you, Kim from Project rewear. And we started a company called Project Rewear to empower families to make more conscious choices with their clothing. We're basically two moms who saw too much waste, came up with one big idea.

Speaker A: So there is a ton of waste when it comes to retail. Like a lot of it ends up in some random countries that we know about or otherwise. These brands don't want to diminish their brand value. And so doing clearances or things like that is of no value to them. And so it just goes wasted. But what originated the idea? Was it like, there's a good documentary out there. Ah, now around like, waste and the whole thing. But what was it? What was the thing you guys were seeing?

Speaker B: Well, the story is, is I was in wealth management for 24 years, which is obviously very far removed from fashion and sustainability and entrepreneurship. Yeah. Became partner. I grew business horizontally. I always said we are a human capital business that just so happens to do wealth management. But it was never my passion.

Speaker A: Oh, I like that. Uh, yeah, okay.

Speaker B: It was never my passion, but great people. And I learned a lot. I sat in every single position as I. We grew and hired people. And what I learned from there is problem solving skills and strategy. But when I turned 50, got divorced. Always knew I had a passion for fashion.

Speaker A: That's a good line.

Speaker B: Yeah. But I always knew I wanted to make a difference. And when I had kids, both of us, we both have teenage kids, we always want. We want to make sure there's a future for our kids. We want to make sure that their kids have a future. And so when I. Every season I would clean out my kids closets, my boys, and I would see tags on it, brand new tags on it. Or I would see that every two or three times. They wore it two or three times, Piles and piles. And then I was like, oh, my God, something has to be done about this. So even prior to meeting Linda, my amazing business partner, I started going to thrift stores and, um, doing research. And I saw the enormous amount of quality clothing at thrift stores, but also the enormous amount of fast fashion brands with tags on it. And then I'm like, there's something here. So I just started buying. I didn't have a plan. I did the exact opposite of What I was taught when I worked in wealth management is I just took a gamble. I followed my gut and I knew something was going to happen. I just knew I would come. And we pivoted a lot, but it's just what we've gone to. And then I went to Penn, took a course on social impact, came back, volunteered at a thrift store. And that's where I, uh, met my lovely business partner.

Speaker A: You said something. So you said you turned 50 and you were getting divorced. And so you're entering, I guess the divorce just being like a traumatic event for most people or it can be. Was that something where you're like, I need to change my life. It was like a moment where you were like, I need to follow a purpose. Like what spoke to you. You said it in a way of like, maybe, maybe you wanted, you saw something bigger for yourself.

Speaker B: Right. I think I. My boys were coming to an age where they didn't need me all the time and I was not, uh, uh, I was in a marriage that obviously it takes two. It just wasn't working. So once I was able to release myself from that, I was able to really take the time and find what made m the most to me and matter to me and where I feel like I can make a difference for myself, for our kids and for the planet.

Speaker A: I love that. And then you followed it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: All right, here we go, Here we go. How do you come into the story?

Speaker C: So I'm actually the president of a non profit thrift store and Kim came in, I thought you were going to

Speaker A: say of a country to shop. That's like, I knew it.

Speaker C: Kim came into shop and we just kind of hit it off, started talking about fast fashion and the world of thrifting and all this sort of stuff. And she was telling me her ideas, um, and being that I have a really strong retail background, I'm like, well, let's go have coffee, let's connect, let's sit and see what we can come up with. She already had a lot of things going on and ideas, but we sort of just sat and refined everything and came up with this idea of, you know, we really need to change the mindset of people that don't thrift and bring that world to them. Like, how do we get people that don't thrift or have this stake with thrifting.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: And make it be the first thing they want to do when they shop.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: How do we change the dynamic? How to change that whole dynamic?

Speaker A: Yeah. And then how did you go about Doing it. So what did you guys see that you agreed on? And other things. Like, because there's a million ways to do this, I think, or at least launch.

Speaker B: Uh-huh.

Speaker A: And there's probably a lot of wrong ways of doing this, interesting ways of doing it in terms of marketing and stuff. So how did you guys figure out, like, the angle you wanted to pursue?

Speaker C: Yeah, so we have. We. We sort of. Because I've come from that world of, like, seeing what happens behind the scenes at thrift stores and what happens with donations.

Speaker A: What happens behind the scenes?

Speaker C: M. There's a book there. There's a book.

Speaker A: Yeah. Feels like a murder mystery in my head. Um, a crime novel.

Speaker C: So, you know, I saw a lot of the stuff that would happen behind and like, all the stuff that would still go to landfills and go to waste that we didn't use or, you know, I'm m. Like, there has to be some way that we can keep more of that and keep that.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: Keep that circular movement going.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: We're still sort of launching some of the things because we're only six months old, so we're really new.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: But the whole goal is to change the world of donations and how, you know, having that transparency of donations and how you. When you give your donations, what exactly happens to them?

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: And where do they go and how do we make that, you know, a long period of time that a piece of clothing can last. Keeps having a story. Keeps having a story going to the next person, going to the next person until you just can't, you know, until it's so worn out, you can't.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Um, but when. With donations, I mean, I would say it started two years ago. Like I just woke up and started doing it. Bought now probably close to 50,000 items personally.

Speaker A: So what were you doing when you'd buy them? What would you do?

Speaker B: I would take a chair. I would do focus groups. I'd sit in thrift stores all. All across the country, have a notebook. I'd learn fabrics, I'd learn brands, I would watch trends, I would, you know, we have focus on what are infants wearing, what are toddlers, what are teens. And it's so different across the board.

Speaker A: That's cool.

Speaker B: Um, but where I mentioned I'm, um, a big fearless. Fearless. Right. Is who would go out, spend lots of money buying close to 50,000 items of clothing and not know if it's going to sell, what the style is, anything like that. I just, I love fashion. I feel like, I don't know, I Just have this gut feeling.

Speaker C: It was your grandmother.

Speaker B: It was my grandma. You're right, because she used to volunteer at the American Cancer Discovery shop for over 20 years in LA.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: I lived in suburbia, but I would come out, like, every weekend and see her. She was like a mom to me. And she passed away a couple years ago. And a month after she passed away is when I came up with this idea, and I feel like she kind of handed the baton to me.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Um, so I even made her. She had this old vintage leather jacket, and she always loved ketchup. So I found this really cool ketchup shirt at a thrift store, and then I had it sewn on the back of her favorite leather jacket. And I actually wore it at the first fashion show I did with thrifted clothes.

Speaker A: It's like heaven sent the whole thing in some way for you.

Speaker B: Oh, that's so cool. And I keep saying to Linda, and I'm sorry, I know I go off tangents, so you can redirect me anytime.

Speaker A: Happy to do it.

Speaker B: And I talk really fast when I'm passionate.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Do you want to hold up a sign and just say stop?

Speaker A: No, no, keep going.

Speaker B: Um, but I keep telling Linda that when I left, she's got to cry. And I'm not one to typically cry. Yeah, well, am I? I'm not really.

Speaker A: This story feels right for it in some way. I mean, that's.

Speaker B: Should I. Should I try?

Speaker A: It's very personal. No, I mean, I just think, like, entrepreneurship in general is, like, the way I look at it and the reason I like it so much is. And even this podcast is, like, a form of. It's like therapy in some way. But the other side of it is it really forces the human being to discover who they are and, like, what matters to you, what doesn't matter to you, what you're good at, what you're willing to get better at. And in some way, I look at it like it's a human testing ground, and it'll test every. Almost like parenting, I think. I think parenting is like that, too. You enter this world, you don't know what you're gonna get. You don't know the nature of your children. You know, the nurture to some extent, and you're figuring it all out in real time. And I think entrepreneurship is, like, the elected version of that.

Speaker B: Yeah. And it's listening. It's, um, being fearless, but with your eyes wide open. Yeah, right. And listening and making lots of pivots. And you're gonna make Mistakes. You're spend money in a lot of areas that maybe weren't the right area. But it's all about the learning. If you're so. Everybody always says you just gotta be passionate about something. And it's the first time besides having my kids. And I think you agree that I'm so passionate about it. I mean, to the extent that sometimes when customers come in the store because we kind of tell the story, some of them maybe don't even speak English. And I'm trying to tell them the story because I'm so passionate about it. It's like, she's like, kim, some of these people don't even really want to hear the story. I'm like, no, they do. They really want to hear this story. But I'm so passionate that I would never, after getting out of this business if I was like, okay, I want to go find another job. I would rather spend every penny I've earned For the last 24 years on this mission in this business and generating awareness, then having it in my savings for my future. Even being a single mom, that's how

Speaker A: much you're free in that space.

Speaker C: Yeah, you just wake up living, eating, breathing it, but it doesn't feel like work at any time. Yeah, it's part of you, you know, it's part of. It's part of who you are.

Speaker A: Totally.

Speaker B: And see, it's even on my nails.

Speaker A: I like that rewear on your nails. That's really cool. The commitment.

Speaker C: I guess when we both turned 50, it was like we just realized who we are.

Speaker A: I really love that it's your personal journey. Okay, so then let's go to the business side of it. So at some point your wealth management hat must come on.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And say, okay, how are we going to make this thing profitable? How are we going to make money? Um, it seems like the costs have been figured out at least. Like, you know, how to control the cost.

Speaker C: I have to control the cost.

Speaker B: In a typical environment, yes, I would. And it's not like I didn't put some numbers together for sure. And I. Even now I have a, um, financial strategist and we're doing forecasting and the whole thing.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, he helped us when we did our got acquired as well, and I worked closely with him. But because it's such a different model. It really is. No one would be this crazy to do what I'm doing.

Speaker A: It's a hard model.

Speaker B: It's a hard model. It's hard because it's something that's not been done if we'll explain it, it's volume based first. So it's volume, it's people first, profit second. Which I get it, you have to be financially sustainable. Thank God Linda's like there. Because I'm just working out all this money all the time. However, it's purpose driven. And because it's volume based, it kind of goes back to when I told you in the beginning, if I had investors or silent investors, whatever, everyone's gonna be having their say right now. And tell me you've got to go this way, you've got to go this way. I will tell you right now, if I was told anything that I had any direction I had to go at this point, we would not be where we're at. And we've actually been pretty successful already. In six months, we've saved over 1300 pounds from the landfill. We'll explain that after. And we're hiring new people, we're growing. We just got a warehouse, signed a lease last week.

Speaker A: Congrats.

Speaker B: Uh, it's amazing.

Speaker A: We're.

Speaker B: But it's all about the quantity of clothing and the volume. It's not about let's charge a higher price and try to get that margin. Let's get more clothes out. Ones that are maybe handpicked, stylish, you know, good brands, most of them. And affordable. Let's get that out. Since over 80% of what's donated to thrift stores still ends up in landfills or sent overseas. So if you see most thrift stores, and I understand it, they're all community focused, charitable focused, but if they keep increasing their prices, m. But yet 80% of what most of them get, especially the larger ones, still end up in landfills or overseas. Is that going to help this problem? No. Now we are just one little tiny blip on this huge, complicated problem. But you know what, small actions can eventually create big impact.

Speaker A: So your metric is tons.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: That's interesting. You didn't say dollars, you said 13,000 tons that you're saving, oh, 1300 pounds.

Speaker C: We've saved 1300 pounds from the landfill in six months. You can explain the textile waste. Yeah. So we have a landfill program. So when people shop in our store, we actually weigh all the items by weight. So weigh all the items by weight. And Collectively we've saved 1300 pounds in the six months from people shopping. Shopping. Right. So we're trying to. We're very big into community and like having everyone be involved in it. So when people see what they're doing and how that impacts landfills and, like, saving the items. You know, that's where we come from. We come of a place of.

Speaker A: That's interesting.

Speaker C: How do we do this together?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So, sure. Kim's the founder. I'm her business partner. But how does everyone come together and do this as a group?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So, you know, when we talk about profit, we don't think about profit. Because my background is like, retail of 30 years, and I've always led from a place of. I want these people to be my friends. I want them to be my family when they come in, let's have a good time. Let's have a laugh. The profit comes because you make them feel welcome, you make them feel good. You make them feel like they're doing wonderful things. And people want that. People yearn for that. They want to feel good about what they're doing.

Speaker A: The finance Excel sheet guy listening is going crazy.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: To hear you say this, but in some way you're very right.

Speaker C: But we don't.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: This is actually what I like about fashion or art. It really speaks to. If you move somebody, that's kind of all. That's enough. And the price is the price, and no one really cares at some point.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: Yeah. And so this goes back to the wealth management thing, the human capital. You're just touching on the human capital, and it's full circle. People vote with their dollars, whether on the mission or literally in this case, to get a T shirt or something like that.

Speaker B: I always looked at it in wealth management that the team that I built horizontally, they were my clients. So I might have not been the advisor, even though the advisor would have clients, but the team was my clients. Cause without the team, and these clients couldn't have the rest of the business.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And so that's how we kind of are trying to grow now. We've been in the middle of hiring and got some great people.

Speaker A: What's the hard part? Is it the awareness piece? Like, what's the hard part today as a business? It's just getting people to understand the mission.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: And then get behind it.

Speaker C: I think so. I think it's hard changing people's mindsets on thrifting because there really is just still such a stigma with it.

Speaker A: Um, what is the stigma?

Speaker C: The stigma is, okay, thrift stores are dirty, smelly, gross. I don't want to go there. You know, for a lot of people, I'm not sure I'm generalizing, but being from Australia, um, there was a woman in the 1920s. This is a very interesting story. They were Called thrift stores. But she could see that there was a problem with what they were called. And it's like they had a stigma already. So she decided to change the name to opportunity Shops. So people felt like they were coming in for an opportunity. So you come here, there's opportunities in here to be gotten. So she changed the whole dynamic of thrifting in Australia.

Speaker A: Interesting. And it helped people.

Speaker C: More people went, uh, people like now it's like a normal thing. Like it's. There's still some stigma there too, but it's way more normal than in America.

Speaker A: Yeah, it kind of got cool in la. Right.

Speaker B: Especially among the teens and Gen Zs. But here's what's interesting. So we want. I love the opportunity shop. So we were gonna put it on the front of our window. And we still will.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: But because people aren't as familiar with it out here. And now that we're doing SEO, I was thinking about it too, is you have to look at those keywords and what everybody's searching for locally. Right. But if, uh, no one knows a community shop, you have to be a little bit careful now. It's like a fine line of wanting to be. Think outside the box and have something new, but also still sort of follow the normal social, like the processes.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: You want to be put into the right bucket. And so do you guys view every location. So instead of profit as like, okay, one store saves this many pounds basically.

Speaker B: So we only have at the moment.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: One store. Right now, however, m. You know, we had, I had a. Rented a 700 square foot space, tested it out with kids clothes, did that for a little while, for like three or four months. Wanted to feel it out. Was great. Six months later, the brick and mortar store. Now, six months later, the warehouse. The brick and mortar store and the warehouse. We're creating a blueprint. We're creating systems and processes. We already have enough clothes that we could even open up another store in, um, another city. So we're trying to create this blueprint and replicate it in other cities. And in the marketing side of it, a big part is the landfill project. So what she mentioned. So what we do is instead of spending a ton of money on marketing, we have a board. It's a whiteboard. And since we weigh every purchase, we put the weight on the whiteboard and it has our handle and all that.

Speaker A: In the store.

Speaker B: In the store, they take a picture, they tag us, they take a picture of the whiteboard. They don't have to be in it and they Share it on their story. Then they get 10% off their purchase that day.

Speaker A: Really smart.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: It's a bit of a movement.

Speaker B: We're not a store. We're trying to create a movement. I read the other day, we're not just trying to sell hangers, we're trying to sell movement.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's really smart.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: When I had Cakes Body on the podcast, they do nipple covers. They were on Shark tank. They're like 120 million dollar business now. But when we had them on before, they blew up and then after. So on the. Before the first time I was hearing their business, and it was like they were empowering cancer survivors, women in general. Uh, like this was an issue for either a nice dress or at the gym or all these things. And then they had formed a community of, like, people who were just ambassadors almost. But they held events with them and really created, like, these communities. And I was convinced. I'm, um. Like, it's a movement. It's not a business. It's just. It's a movement that makes money. And therefore, in America, we call that a business. But it's not that. And it was incredible. And then, no surprise, it's $120 million business. It also makes you think different, I think, as a founder, when you're running a movement because it's bigger than you and it focuses you on the right things. Right?

Speaker B: Um, I know. And I just. I never see.

Speaker A: She thought I was intimidated. Look at this. Yeah, Seriously, it's big softy over here, guys. Come on.

Speaker B: I might even. As we walk out the store, I might even say, I give you a thumbs up.

Speaker A: I've been dying for one of those.

Speaker B: Uh, but we were just so fortunate. I don't know. It's just so weird. It's like all the stars started aligning. Like, I don't know if it's following the passion. You just start meeting the right people. Even with the warehouse. Yesterday we got this amazing customer that came with his family, and he does a lot of amazing artwork and graffiti work for athletes, um, and celebrities. And he offered to do. Because we wanted to do something cool in our warehouse, like graffiti mural. And it just. All these things start progressing and it just. And we're so humbled by the community and how amazing they've been. We have people wanting to volunteer. We're not even a nonprofit on the nonprofit, but technically we are almost a nonprofit. Just don't get the charitable or the tax deductions right now.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: Um, but we get people that are wanting to donate. We didn't think people would want to donate since we weren't a non profit. But we get donate money, donate clothes.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Yeah, so now we're going to be starting to do that. But yeah, in the beginning, I didn't think, why would people want to donate? But of course, think of that. That's a great business model. And that goes exactly back to where Linda was talking in the beginning about donations. Um, hey, you don't even need to ask me questions. I'll just go on and on and on. I realize you haven't asked three questions.

Speaker A: Mick's doing the editing, not me.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker C: Can you leave for a while?

Speaker B: Yeah, sorry.

Speaker A: But. Okay, well, let's. In a real way, like, I mean, you're saying so many things here, but how do you view scaling this? Like, how do you view. Is it. And is that why you're asking about the coffee shop in the front? Or is there a component where you're thinking like, oh, uh, maybe do coffee shopping in the back, or maybe a collab where it's like coffee and project rewear in the back or something?

Speaker B: Well, actually, you can go.

Speaker C: We've always. I mean, we've got so many dreams and things that we can do with this.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker C: So, uh, we have visions of like having malls where everything is thrifted.

Speaker A: M. Oh, wow.

Speaker C: So that's cool.

Speaker B: Malls are going away.

Speaker C: Go to the mall and everything's recycled and repurposed.

Speaker A: Whoa.

Speaker C: It's not.

Speaker A: That's actually a really cool idea. I had not even considered it.

Speaker C: You might want to talk better.

Speaker A: I mean, do you. Are you.

Speaker B: I can't. I can't.

Speaker C: I mean, it's like, you know, we go to malls now. The mall is like a big thing for kids, right? They want to go to the mall. Everyone wants to go to the mall to get their clothes.

Speaker B: Especially when you live in suburbia.

Speaker A: I actually love this.

Speaker B: So all the malls are going away, all those stores. But you think about it, because we did a lot of focus groups. Teenagers, okay. They are influenced by social media. Right. And all the trends.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And that's like, you know, my sons or your kid. Oh, mom, look at this. They're wearing these wide leg pants and I need these Adidas shoes and blah, blah, blah. Great. But if they're influenced by, uh, influencers online, they can be. And then when they want to go find these items at H and M or whatever, they feel like they have to go to a mall, they have to go do exactly what their friends are doing. Right. To find it. Or order it online. But it's just the movement of it. If you can make the back end. So if it's like thrift store or thrifting or things like that, or we're in the middle of launching our E commerce soon as well and we can explain that. But if you can just change the back end but uh, still understand the movement of the Gen Zs, it's a win win. It's just reversing their mindset.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think they're there. But how do you guys market this? Uh, in a real way? How do you guys. Are you on TikTok? How do you get people to understand? How do you get the Gen Z? Who's your customer now? Who is that uh, person?

Speaker B: Well, in the very beginning, because you can say it. Where we picked our spot. Why don't you talk?

Speaker C: Uh, so we picked the brick and mortar store that we have because there's other thrift stores around. So we wanted to make like a little thrifting community where you could walk to each thrift store and you know people that thrift already.

Speaker A: Yeah, they're already there.

Speaker C: They want to come to where all the thrift stores are.

Speaker A: This is so fascinating.

Speaker C: So we chose a spot where we're surrounded by two other thrift stores, which is big for where we are.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Okay. And then who was your customer? So age wise demo.

Speaker C: So we're trying to capture obviously the market of non thrifters.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker C: And really get that turned around. I would say, you know, our demographic is higher income people because that's typically where higher income people don't want to thrift or maybe they don't need to. Right. Because thrifting started out with a need.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: So people that couldn't afford clothes.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: Were the ones that were thrifting. But now it's a, you know, right now we're in a trend of it. But we want to change that whole dynamic of like higher income people that the first thing they want to do is go and thrift because there's already cool stuff out there. Like stuff with tags. Like cool brands. Like you don't need to go to a regular store to buy stuff.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And to be quite honest, if you want to be unique and cool, thrifting is where it's at.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: You know, I don't want to go to a store and get the same thing that 50,000 people have.

Speaker A: Totally.

Speaker C: That's boring to me.

Speaker A: You know, I agree with that.

Speaker C: I want to get something that's cool and unique and maybe from the 70s or the 60s or whatever, you know,

Speaker B: so you just try to feed that need of being stylish, impactful, easy and affordable, period. And so you meet different target niches. You might be that some just want convenience, you meet, some want impact. But it is the higher net worth people that typically win. That's our goal. And we're starting to see that now.

Speaker A: That makes sense. One of the things we're doing at the sports bar that will open is we're going to have like a vintage tea night M and it'll be like a vintage tee, like a thrifted T shirt, but it'll be of like your favorite sports team. And so it'll be a kind of a vibe, you know, because it. And what I just. It just hit me as you guys were talking where in some way it's like just turn that you can do this anywhere at like a thrift night. Or like thrift. Thrifted tea night. Thrifted tea, whatever. And then it's an interesting way to. I don't get people in like a bar.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Like a theme.

Speaker C: Yeah. So we're thinking about doing what we are doing. I'm not thinking about doing it is a thrift crawl.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So we'll get a bus. We'll get all these people on board. We've already got a list of people that want to come on the bus.

Speaker A: That's so fun.

Speaker C: We'll have party games on the bus that are geared towards thrifting.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And then we go out and thrift and we show them all these stores and you know, because it's not. This whole thing is not about just about us or it's not. It's not about us at all. It's about changing this whole dynamic around thrifting.

Speaker A: I just thought like in my head, like this would be the most amazing documentary where you guys go to like Goodwill, get all the stuff they're throwing away, then you partner with Sears or some mall and then you do a rebrand. Like you set up a crazy store.

Speaker B: You've done.

Speaker A: You fill the store up with the stuff you just. That everyone was going to throw away. Basically. It's called landfill goods, Right?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: And then you just market it and then you just tell the people after they buy what just happened.

Speaker B: That's exactly what, uh. You know what's so weird? What you just said, just on a smaller scale because we didn't get a Sears warehouse in the beginning. But if you see pictures of the store, the brick and mortar, it's only how many square feet.

Speaker C: 1200.

Speaker B: Yeah. And the amazing. This lady is so amazing at merchandising. And everything in there. And you can explain is repurposed from our price tags being monopoly money to uno cards to.

Speaker C: It's not allowed to come in unless it's.

Speaker A: That's cool.

Speaker C: Used.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So we have like, you know, I mounted chairs on the wall that act as like the hangers for the clothing, you know, so like just doing different things that, you know, I like to change it up all the time so it's constantly changing. We use old ladders. We, you know, 45 is. Yeah, 45 is our dividers.

Speaker A: Okay, that's really cool.

Speaker C: So just anything we can find to reuse?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Uh, is what we doing.

Speaker B: And everything was purchased from thrift stores. Last point of contact. So exactly what you said. And people think, oh, well, all the good stuff is gonna be sold. If 80% of what ends up being donated ends up in landfill or overseas, there's tons, you would surprise of good stuff that still ends up. They don't have the manpower or the place to do it. So we're rescuing it and giving it a second life, a second chance, second story. And then the real time, the landfill project is what really is resonating and creating sort of a movement. We get people that like, sit and hang and we get repeats like every two or three days.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's cool.

Speaker C: Yeah. The other thing we're doing is a community rack.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah.

Speaker C: So, uh, you know the little libraries where you could leave a book, take a book, we're doing that with clothing.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker C: So we have a community rack in the store where someone comes in with something, they're done with hanging on the rack, and they take something they like. So that's really taken off too. It's like, you know, because that's good. It's free.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'd be there.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I like shirts like this. And they're for some reason, so hard to get.

Speaker B: Just white.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Just plain, like, literally, like, I don't like logos. I don't like brand.

Speaker B: Are they Hanes?

Speaker A: Are they Hanes?

Speaker C: What brand?

Speaker A: I mean, any. I don't. I'm not even. I don't even care. I just like, is it. Is it comfortable?

Speaker B: That's great.

Speaker A: And if. Yes, I wear it. That's it. So, okay, this is amazing. What's on deck for you guys? Like, what are you guys hyper focused about? For Q3, Q4 of this year, we've

Speaker C: got online launching and our online will be also completely different. And about the movement you borrow a URL. What's that?

Speaker A: No, just kidding. Yeah, we thrifted a URL.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Goodwill.com.

Speaker C: well, you'll also be able to purchase on our website via pounds. So, you know, sometimes people just want to give to the movement. M not, of course, like especially.

Speaker A: This is interesting. I like this.

Speaker C: Trends and stuff like that. Yes. They're always going to be there. But like, we want people to be able to go on and go, okay, I want to save five pounds from the landfill today.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: What can I buy that saves five pounds?

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: So, uh, everything on there will be

Speaker A: listed by its weight, prepackaged into weight. And so there's.

Speaker C: Yeah, we're going to do some prepackaged stuff. Some will be like, you know, this dress weighs 1.2 lbs. Pounds or whatever it is. And you, you see how much you're saving from landfill by pounds. Yeah.

Speaker A: That's so smart.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker C: Yeah. So that's our next.

Speaker A: I mean, yeah, that's amazing thing.

Speaker C: I mean, that's our. It's a lot. There's a lot going on there with the website.

Speaker A: I just like the commitment to it. You know, it's the commitment to the metric and getting the community behind the metric. Most companies, you know, they'll have like a metric internally, but you're break. You're making that metric. Everything's the whole brand is externally facing and everyone's behind the one metric, not just the internal people. That's amazing. That's smart.

Speaker C: So that's the next thing. And the donation. Changing the way, um, people think about donations is a really big thing for us too.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: You know, because I've been behind the scenes at a thrift store and seen like what happens there. And the thrift store that I'm the president of is actually a mom and papa from the 1960s has an amazing following. We don't increase prices very rarely just to cover our rent. Like, if our rent goes up, we increase prices here and there. But it's not all about okay. Because we can get this much.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: Well, then, um, let's do that. You know what I mean? So a lot of the bigger box thrift stores, unfortunately, we see that happening. Right. So everything's still donated. So why is there this. Let's up the price. Um, so we'd actually like to mandate and lobby for donation prices.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: In thrift stores. So you go into any thrift store.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And if you want a pair of pants, m, it's X amount of dollars. It doesn't matter. Which thrift store you go into?

Speaker B: Well, based on region, obviously.

Speaker A: That's cool. That's interesting.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, because if it's being donated, so we're going out and this is why we see it, because we're the crazy ones that actually go out and pay for it at the thrift store. Only charge a tiny bit, a little bit more, not a lot, because it's volume focused. And so we see that. And then all of a sudden we're going to different thrift stores and it was say $5, and all of a sudden it's $9. They raised the price. What is that differentiation? What's that? Why Cola? I'm sorry your rent didn't go up that much to make it that drastic.

Speaker A: Let me give you guys some inside baseball. This is going to be really interesting. I never thought I'd tell this story. So I was at a board meeting with Goodwill randomly, like an observer, and I'm in there. And the problem they were facing was minimum wages going up in Los Angeles. I think Goodwill has a number of distribution plants. Right. And they don't. They're not in the business as a nonprofit of letting people go. But this increase of minimum wage meant over the over 2000 employees is significant to the business. And so then Goodwill is looking at it like this. They don't want to fire people because that's not the business they're in. So how do we keep the staff but offset the minimum wage by getting essentially the same amount of work but less time. And so keep the workers, just give them less time. What they arrived at, the answer was a consolidation of distribution houses. And so now instead of moving one, like the clothing, going from, let's say downtown LA to West Hollywood, let's say now it's just one distribution center, which means the employees are in the car less, they're doing less deliveries. And this offsets the minimum wage. Really interesting. And so some. So, you know, I'm just giving you the perspective of sometimes the scale for these people on pricing is as simple as a minimum wage increase. And it's a headline risk for a Goodwill to lay off like a thousand people.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, and it was really interesting to hear. I like to pick your brain more on that after. But where we were talking about this in the car is there's no, like, we're all trying to do good. Right? In our own way.

Speaker C: Totally.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But the problem is, is helping the community right now isn't the only issue. It has to be done and there's gotta be. So all These charities and helping, you know, certain. Like helping with, um, jobs. What are they disabled? I don't know exactly what they do. But the only issue that we're foregoing or we're not looking at is the environment, the cost of fast fashion. Because when you say the cost of fast fashion, you have to ask yourself, at what cost? At, uh, the cost of our kids future. At the cost of what's going to happen. So there's got to be a balance. There's got to be some people doing what say the Goodwills, and some of those are doing. You know, everybody's got their own judgments. I don't judge. It's whatever's happened. But there has to be this other side of things now.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Things are moving too fast.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: We used to have four seasons a year. Now we have 365 due to fast fashion.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So, uh, our biggest thing is to stop things ending up in landfills.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And where, you know, we're developing ways that we can make that way less than it is now.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: You know, I mean, the people in Ghana and stuff, they're walking around in textile waste in their oceans like it's, uh, insane. And, you know, we always have this thing, like, before we leave the planet, we want to make sure there's a planet for our children to actually exist on, you know? And I know that probably sounds like way out there, like, huh. As if there's not gonna be a planet, but it's reality.

Speaker A: I mean, Elon's trying to get us to go to Mars. There's a reason for that.

Speaker C: Uh, yeah.

Speaker B: I mean, you can't. You can't ignore the waste.

Speaker C: You can't ignore it.

Speaker A: It has to go somewhere.

Speaker B: There's generations of clothes already out there right now.

Speaker C: Right now.

Speaker A: Crazy.

Speaker B: You know, it takes 1800 gallons of water to make one pair of adult cotton jeans to grow the cotton. That's equivalent to, like, a little less than nine years of drinking water for one person.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: So when you think about all of this. So that's our. So that when you go to the last quote that I said. I love two quotes. Is the two most important days in your life. What do you think?

Speaker A: Oh, God. What do I think?

Speaker B: This is a test today.

Speaker A: The two most important things.

Speaker B: We know you're gonna want us back again. But we're only gonna come back if you can answer this, Right.

Speaker A: I'm a romantic. So I think one of them's the day you get married. I'm just gonna. Aww. And then the day you have A kid.

Speaker B: Okay. I'm not a romantic.

Speaker A: Those are great answers. Holy shit.

Speaker D: They are really good.

Speaker B: That is really good. I've never said that.

Speaker A: You're gonna top those.

Speaker B: Well, in a non, who's your favorite child? Well, my kids ask me that every day.

Speaker A: I put on it.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's not Gavin.

Speaker B: I know.

Speaker C: All right, good one.

Speaker A: I like that. I call back to a Zoom reference earlier where when she logged in it

Speaker B: says Gavin as my sons like to joke around. It's the day you're born.

Speaker A: Okay, that sounds self serving.

Speaker B: And the day you find out why.

Speaker A: Ooh.

Speaker B: And this is our why. Is our why.

Speaker A: And when did you find that out?

Speaker B: Did we just give you the.

Speaker A: No, but when did you find out?

Speaker C: So you know I don't get those.

Speaker A: Well, you might. It's coming. When did you find that out for you? When did you find out why?

Speaker B: I found out why. I think I started learning the day I had kids because you just know it's not about me anymore.

Speaker C: It's not about you.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's not about me anymore.

Speaker A: That's a real one.

Speaker B: Selfish needs.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then when I started, I didn't have confidence for many years in wealth management. Very male dominated field towards the end when it became partner and all of that is when I got confidence. So the last four or five years I just said I'm going to learn as much as I can and then I'm going to go out and make a difference. And I just knew that it had to be fashion and knew it had to be because it was something I was good at.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And uh, between your skills, kids and my skills and taking the time. Yeah.

Speaker A: I love it. And how about for you?

Speaker C: I would say when I met Kim, like that was a big thing for me. It's like, wow, now I've met someone that shares a, you know, this huge passion that I've always had.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: But never was. I'm not like a big risk taker, so I'm risk adverse and she's not. That's why we work really well together.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's great.

Speaker C: So she'll take a lot of the risk, but I'm there like riding along, you know, like, I've got you, I've got you.

Speaker B: She's organized. I'm not. Uh, we've got tons of ideas. We're texting at Naota about this. This. Let's put this in phase one, phase two, phase three. But I'm not organized.

Speaker C: So that's definitely my why about this whole movement is like, meeting her and like, just.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Connecting on the same level and just knowing that this. This has a power, this has a real.

Speaker A: It's a movement.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: I love it.

Speaker B: And just. She just, like, sometimes I'll call her just to relax because she's just got a great voice and spirit to her. And so, like, it's just. The partnership is just. You're. Yeah, it's. I don't even know what to say.

Speaker A: I love this. This is so good.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Well, look, tell people where they can support, where they can go to your business.

Speaker B: Are, uh, you pointing to me?

Speaker C: Yeah, you go.

Speaker A: Or they can save pounds, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Save pounds from going to the landfill.

Speaker B: Yeah. It's Project Rewear. We have a brick and mortar store in Thousand Oaks. 2940 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd. In Thousand Oaks. Um, website. And we have the E Commerce coming launching very soon is project ah, rewear.com and if you subscribe to our newsletter, you'll be the first to know. When we do our first drop on the website, and then it very exciting. In the next few months, once we get the warehouse set up, we'll be doing personal styling sessions, repairing purposes, fashion shows, a whole bunch of things.

Speaker C: And eventually you'll find us at the mall.

Speaker A: That's a great idea.

Speaker C: We will be the mall.

Speaker A: That's a great idea. I can't wait to see that. Well, thank you guys for coming on the podcast. Thank you.

Speaker C: Thank you. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Speaker D: Thank you for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, share with your friends, your family, or anyone you might think might benefit from the conversation we've had today. And if you haven't already, please take a moment to leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. We'd greatly appreciate it. Your feedback helps us improve and reach more people who can benefit from our discussions. The best way to stay connected with us and get the latest updates on future episodes is through our social media channels. You can find us artupstorefront. We'll be back next Tuesday with another great episode. See you then.