Advice from a Multibillionaire

Small Business Friday: a little pep talk here for those who need it.

UPDATED 12.8.24

If you are a small business, and like staying that way, but also worry a lot, you may find this encouraging. I hope.

Let me explain first…. I started Tibi 27 years ago whilst living abroad in Hong Kong. Prior to that I spent a few years at Ogilvy & Mather (now just Ogilvy Advertising) and American Express. I was an advertising/journalism major in college and had a minor in art - painting, sketching, etc. When I moved to Asia, I saw it as an opportunity to be the entrepreneur I’d always wanted to be and to do it leveraging my strengths and what I loved (marketing, design, finance). Tibi has stayed independent since inception and has never taken a dime from an outsider. Ever.

Oh, wait, I may need to say this right now in case you are confused ….. I’m not the multibillionaire here giving advice. I just realized, you may have thought “fuck, that woman’s sold some clothes.” Au contraire….. and that’s not a bad thing. In fact, it’s been intentional.

I did however spend a lot of time with this particular multibillionaire, and he gave me some great advice that’s been a solid reminder for me in times of self doubt.

1. EAT WHAT YOU KILL

   This dovetails a bit off of advice I got from another entrepreneur in Hong Kong who told me “don’t lose your shit on your business plan. Here’s your plan. You make a product. If you sell your product, you have a business, if you don’t, you don’t.” This gave me tremendous relief because it was so pragmatic, one step, then two and so on. What Mr. Multibillionaire was telling me with “eat what you kill” is you never get too far out ahead of your skis- each business decision will support the next. It keeps you focused and it certainly keeps your costs/investment needs from spiraling. Because when your investment needs spiral, you look to outside help, and when you get outside help, you’re no longer in charge. That’s a fact, and you know it. Don’t try and fool yourself otherwise. If you went in to business so that you could ultimately report to an outside entity, you’ll be just fine with this arrangement. I am not.

When I started Tibi, “eat what you kill is what we did. We had no choice - I couldn’t outspend my revenue intake as it was my only source of funding. I started with $30k and 4 styles and we made a small production run. And then we went out and found customers. Like, literally - doing fairs, picking up women in bars, joining clubs I probably didn’t really want to join. But, we had made a bunch of clothes and we needed to sell them. And we did. In the first month, we broke even. We sold $30k worth. Then we flew to the U.S - suitcases in hand - and went door to door to boutiques. We sold about $70,000 worth of our 4 styles driving from Boston to Georgia. 13 boutiques - one of which I’m still with today (thank you Coplon’s). I also secured a meeting with Neiman Marcus, a woman by the name of Anne Watson took my cold call. I told her I was in town, had a 2 hour window to meet, she told me that’s not how it’s done, I told her I had no other options, she said ok. We met, she liked the pieces, but told me to come back when I had plans for a full year of collections and line sheet.

I took the $100k we made from the first production run and reinvested it in 2 more styles. And some samples and a space at The Coterie show in NYC where designers had a booth and buyers walked the floor finding new and interesting brands. Each round of selling clothing yielded enough to make investments to let us hit the next rung on the ladder. And if there was a hit in the collection, some years you got to go up 4 rungs. By the time you get to the middle rung, you tend to be quite the expert in your business because you’ve been there all the way. You know your COGS, you know your margins, your merchandising, you’ve built strong relationships with your vendors, you know your customers. You know your business.

Now, in my head, I’m thinking “I’ll work like this for a while. Make, sell, reinvest, hire people, sell more, reinvest, sell more. And then THE BIG DAY WILL COME, we’ll meet with investors, they’ll be wowed, they’ll write the big check and we’ll have a “proper thriving business” and I’ll retire early. Somewhere in Europe. But I kept looking around me, and every time someone got the big dollars, things unraveled from there. Product often went to shit, the founding designer ultimately leaves, and the clothing lands in a bin at Saks off 5th somewhere. I saw the same with the SHARKTANK stories - some are good, and most are not.

When you put one foot in front of the other, you get a feeling for where there is solid ground. And where there’s not. And while I’m not getting the early retirement, and I do have some hours filled with massive stress, I also have a desk covered in watercolors and sketch pads, I’m wearing a suede coat I particularly love from Spring 24, and I just put on headphones because a few employees are laughing. That’s a good feeling all around.

2. EMBRACE WHAT YOU OWN - MAKE IT A THING

   Mr. Multibillionaire asked why there’s no name attached to my brand (this was around 2017). Why am I not promoting myself, had I considered getting an agent?? I told him that I’m not an extrovert and I suck at small talk. I also explained I’m not a “real trained designer” and that even stepping out at the end of a runway show felt incredibly fraudulent. He told me to stop saying what I wasn’t and say what I was. And that came oddly easy: an introvert who gets excited talking about nerdy things like business, how clothing is made and why it’s important to me. And an artist who loves clothing and surrounds themselves with great creatives because life is short and I love beautiful things that have meaning.

Done.

I could now come out at the end of a show confidently because I found a platform (social media) where I could explain how great our team was and now at the end of the show I present as the leader of this group and that feels really real. Because it is. I also started talking about the geeky things I get in to - I stopped second guessing if someone would think it was dorky that I felt so strongly about personal style or how a button just moved slightly to the right can change everything. And how ridiculously excited I get when I come up with an acronym that will help you learn and remember something about your personal style.

When you do this you carve out your niche. Not a niche dreamt up in business school or ideated amongst 8 guys in blue quilted vests who’ve rationalized that producing tons of product is somehow “enriching mankind and making each day count.” Rather it’s a niche that comes about by understanding your strengths, leaning in to them, and nurturing them one day at a time. Until it grows into something sustainable on its own.

So, in 27 years we never had a year that lost money. We did have years that barely made any money. And we had some years that most definitely made money. Interestingly as I look back, whether it was a gangbuster year or a year we just skated by, I realize that the level of work was the same. Often intense, physical and mentally laborious, and always emotional. It will always be there if you are a hard worker and passionate about what you do, regardless of what it is you’re doing. That’s because if it’s going to be associated with you, then there’s a pride you take that presents as “passion” whether it’s packing doughnuts or sketching a dress. And while you could believe that the differentiator between happiness and contentment is when you look at the bottom line, you would be wrong. That comes when knowing that every mistake is of our own making. Every win is of our own making. Each day presents incredible challenges: logistics, tariffs, timelines, marketing strategies, etc. But, the thing is, when you are independent, then each day that is what you’re doing, discussing the challenges. You are not meeting to conspire how to convince the “vests” to invest more in one area vs. another, you’re meeting to decide amongst yourself it it makes sense to invest more in one area vs. another. You either thrive on this type of accountability or you don’t. But I suspect that if you’ve set out to do your own thing with dreams of owning your own destiny, then you do. And that’s really important to me, my family and our team. And for sure, this may not be your thing and if so, hopefully you don’t feel you’ve wasted your time reading this. At a minimum, you’ve gotten a glimpse in to how others think, and that’s always good, in my opinion. But if you thrive on being able to think for yourself and be open to all that that entails, the good and bad of it, then this has probably given you some solace. Yes, it is doable with a small amount of savings and a lot of time and work and some great people around you.

But here’s the thing, you have to first decide what “doable” means to you.