The Proof is in the Process

We Are The Process Winter 2010 Collection

It all started a few years ago when Jorge Menes, Georgios Saliaris, and I sat down in Atlanta’s Center for Design Study to concept for our yet-to-be-created brand, We Are the Process.  This was a brainstorming session that involved ourselves as the principles of our non-existent line as well as some good friends and mentors.  We didn’t know what we were getting in to.  Our only experience in this industry involved the three of us screen-printing tees by hand in the basement of Portfolio Center, the design school from which we had recently graduated.  With our design degrees in one hand and our squeegees in the other, we were ready to take on anything.

Within a month or so, we wrapped discussions on We Are the Process’ visual narrative but we didn’t have a game plan for taking the brand to market.  In order to get a feel for how other brands went to market, we scrounged up what little money we had and visited the many trade shows in Las Vegas to learn more.  What we saw in Vegas was the exact opposite of how we wanted to grow our brand.  There were miles and miles of small brands trying to get the attention of very few buyers.  Other than our beliefs that our design sensibilities were better than others, how were we to distinguish ourselves from anyone else?

We quickly realized that our quiet passion for our brand wasn’t going to compete in a carnival setting.

Some things that we had to consider upon our return to Atlanta:

1) Trade shows are expensive to attend.  Why would we want to sit in an 8′ x 8′ booth inside a giant convention center among thousands of other brands who abuse typography, use horrible clip art, and apply sequins on everything?  Gross.

2) There are always one or two “cool guy” areas (or as I like to call them, brozones) that house brands that are considered more popular than others.  This is where all the buyers are.  Perhaps these brands have more established names?  Perhaps these brands pay a higher registration fee to be in these spots.  Who knows?  All I know is that we weren’t even “cool” enough to be in the same room with 100 all-over-print hoody wearing bros, 200 ironic-fedora wearing bros, & 1,000 bros with gold foil on their shirts.

3) The atmosphere was less about getting business done and more of a pissing contest between brands.  How many energy drinks can we get our buyers hopped up on?  How loud can we be?  Can we set up a full sized basketball court indoors?  We’re going to paint our designs on naked ladies and parade them around.  Let’s drive a semi-truck into the convention center and get Mark Ronson’s sister’s best friend’s brother to DJ the entire event.  Two words: Clown shoes.  We quickly realized that our quiet passion for our brand wasn’t going to compete in a carnival setting.  At least not in our first years.

4) Vegas sucks if you have no money and we didn’t have any money.  That trip wasn’t fun at all.

Here's a photo of Jorge ironing our product in our hotel room just hours before the show.

At that point, we thought we knew how we were going to roll our brand out.  We had done a fair amount of marketing and people from our hometown started to recognize that we were serious about our efforts.  We had even received a decent amount of credibility online.  To our surprise, many of the highly-esteemed blogs had run stories on us.  We were golden.

With our samples in hand, we attended a more intimate trade show with highly-recognized street cred on the west coast.  It was still expensive to get our brand out there but we had justified that it was worth it.  We thought that a show like this was going to put us in front of the right kind of buyers.

Our booth was located next to the Stussy & Adidas booths, what could go wrong?  Everything.  We were stuck in the back of the convention center BEHIND the Stussy and Adidas booths.  No one wanted to come talk to us!  They had never heard of us.  The show was definitely more intimate.  So intimate that barely any buyers came out.  You could blame it on the recession, but we didn’t.  Most of the people in attendance had appointments with the brands they wanted to purchase already.  Everyone else was there to chill with their friends who were sales reps for particular brands.  We were the new guys who just paid to watch everyone else have fun.

At that point, we swore off doing trade shows FOREVER!  We realized that this industry is highly competitive and cliquish.  In order to differentiate ourselves from everyone else, we decided to grow our brand our way.  Now, we focus on putting out quality product, maintaining great relationships with our buyers, and meeting new ones.  When I refer to our buyers, I’m talking about the shop owner who stocks our product as well as the kid who’s a friend of a friend who buys a tee shirt from me out of the trunk of my car.  We try to know as many of our buyers on a first name basis and we figure that they’ll be the word-of-mouth that we need.  Eventually, it won’t be possible to have some kind of personal connection with everyone, but at least we can try.

Even Usher is a fan!

Fast-forward to 2011.  Only a few years into this business, and we’re doing better than ever.  Being passionate (and humble) about our brand has opened many doors in this town.  We’ve met all kinds of great people who believe in us.  We have people that buy one of everything we make and I know them all on a first name basis.  Our clothes have been around the world and back.  The brand has been a great calling card for our design business, EC Design Co., as clients see the brand as a real world example of how we can help their company.  I guess good work recognizes good work!

We’re breaking our rule of staying away from shows.  We’re attending StyleX with a new outlook.  If the SXSW organizers have realized that they can fill a void in the world of fashion, then We Are the Process wants to be involved.  I can tell from my interaction with the organizers of the show that they genuinely care about curating a well-rounded exhibitor list.  They also care about bringing exposure to upstart brands like ours.

Larry Luk

Top Ten List: Why I’m looking forward to StyleX:

1.  Road trippin’ with my best buds and business partners.

2.  Exposure to a whole new audience that consists of open-minded movers and shakers with a predilection for creativity.

3.  Being able to sell merchandise over the table to SXSW attendees.

4.  BBQ & Whataburger.

5.  The possibility of meeting new buyers who are down with The South!

6.  Registration fees are reasonable.

7.  Having a valid reason to wear my western snap button shirts in Austin.

8.  Meeting owners of upstart brands like ourselves and sharing experiences.

9.  Rocking-out our Twitter account during the trip.

10.  We believe in our brand.

Larry Luk, co-founder and creator of We Are The Process, lives in Atlanta.