Supply and demand: Herschel's founder on building a backpack empire

The Herschel brand

About seven years ago my brother and I decided to get into the bag industry. We looked into the current offerings and we found a lot of sport-driven brands and luxury-driven brands. We took the category and stripped it down and looked to inject design and attention to detail, but also simplicity into a product category that we felt needed a nice strong anchor. We wanted a utility item, something that celebrated the design aspect, that was thoughtful, and we also wanted something that was not loud and in everybody’s face. We wanted to make something that was sophisticated and was reasonably priced. Although our bags look quite simple, there is a functionality layered into them.

Growth Spurt

The first time we delivered products to market was in July 2010 and we just managed to fill one of those big shipping containers full of bags. About half of the units were risk stock. At first we were like, “Woo, we’re shipping containers full of these things”. Then we were like, “If this doesn’t work out everyone we know is getting these bags for birthdays, Christmas and anniversaries for the rest of their lives because we have so many of them.” We had 4,000 bags then. Maybe that doesn’t sound like a particularly crazy number but imagine if you had 4,000 bags in your closet. This year we’ll sell 110 million pieces.

Starting the business

We didn’t do a business plan and we didn’t do a lot of things that a lot of brands do. We had ideas in mind but we didn’t write them down. They were more conversations than a route map. I only went to high school, but I tell people all the time, “Make sure you go to school. Maybe take a year off.” I’m basically still on that year off. But write business plans, be strategic, and don’t do what I did just because it worked out. There are flukes in life.

The Herschel name

Herschel is where my great grandparents settled in Canada. It’s a small little town in the middle of Canada, which currently has 23 people in it. We’d always go back to visit Herschel. Over Disneyland, Hawaii or Vancouver, our favourite place to go back to was this little town where we could ride dirt bikes or snowmobiles, shoot guns, go exploring. There were very few rules, you could just go and have a good time. This idea of exploration and being free and being able to create your own fun. So when we started the brand and were thinking of places that resonated with us, and places that were a huge part of our lives, this little town kept coming up. So that’s where the name comes from.

The world is becoming more ‘casual Fridays’, and people are dressing more comfortably

A family affair

I work predominantly with my brother Jamie. I’m the youngest of three, and Jason is also involved with the brand, but more on the business development side. We’ve always been close brothers, and we tend to agree a hell of a lot more than we disagree. We are tough on each other to deliver great results but tough in a way that’s more inspiring than authoritative. We don’t candy coat a lot – if we like it, we love it; and if we don’t like it, we don’t like it. It allows us to make decisions quickly and move forward. Now there’s many more people: when we first started there were just two, and now there’s close to 170. But there’s definitely still the same spirit.

Keeping it close

I don’t know if we’ve turned down 500 investors but it’s certainly been a lot. They’re all very nice people and we’re very gracious to all the investors out there, but we haven’t taken any external investments to help the brand because we feel we’d like to do it ourselves. It’s certainly a positive conversation that there’s a lot of people who want to take Herschel to a different level. At this point in time our current business strategy doesn’t really require a lot of external help but we’re certainly not trying to put our hand up to it.

Inspiration

We look at what has worked in the past: we like looking at what worked for early adventurers, what people used to use to travel in the fifties and sixties, and learn from them. There was a lot more utility back then and less fashion. We can take all of that stuff that’s behind us and then figure out how to make it modern. That’s really what we do and what we’ve done since day one – reference the past with a big modern outlook. We’re modern, nostalgic, we’re classic, and we pay attention to detail, and we have our product.

The Secret to Popularity

I’ve always carried a backpack, whether it be on a trip or to work. People have asked me about the backpack trend. I guess I went from being totally untrendy to trendy and hopefully we stick on the trend path, but I think ultimately it comes back to utility. We produce a utility item, a functional piece which helps you get from A-Z, whether that’s home to the office, office to the gym, or Heathrow to Istanbul. I think we’re in more of a commuting culture than we ever have been. The world is becoming more ‘casual Fridays’, and people are dressing more comfortably. I think that the trend will continue into the future with people going to work with a backpack or a tote instead of a bound briefcase.

Brand evolution

From day one we had a very modern aesthetic. It had the same logo and everything but we had a lot of red, black and white perforated leathers mixed with canvas, and we also had the more tan leathers mixed with washed greys, navys and blacks. I’d say that when we went to sell, those products resonated way more with our consumer than the modern aesthetic did, so we went more for the heritage style look bags. If the consumers had bought evenly along the way we’d probably look different as a brand right now. You deliver options. It’s like when you’re at a restaurant and you’re asked whether you want steak or chicken. You’re led by decisions your consumers are driving you to. You go with the grain, work with momentum, while ensuring that we’re modern and classic.

Favourite product

We make a range called the Packables and they’re nylon bags that pack into these small little pouches. Like a backpack in a small bag. I live in a waterfront community, if I go shopping I take my boat over to the little towns, so I’ll always have one with me in case I buy something. I find them really functional and they’re like, 25 quid. It’s just a nice, cool product. There’s obviously lots of beautiful products and collaborations that we’ve done but that’s the style of bag I use the most.

The Social Network

Everyone says we’re a young brand but we started before Instagram, which makes us old. As a brand, we grew up with social media –and we were active users on the platform, so it wasn’t like we read a ‘How to be Successful on Instagram’ manual. When we started the account we started shooting images and sharing others’ images of things we like, places we wanted to go, and places we were yet to discover. We used our consumers a lot to take us on a journey. This started a community of people out there documenting where they were going and what they did when they got there. People who generally carry our brand march to the beat of their own drum; they love to find the local secrets. If they’re travelling to a city, they like to know where the best coffee is or where the best art museum is or where’s the best place to grab a bite to eat. With things like Instagram and Facebook we leverage off our community and our community leverages off us.

I think the perfect collaboration would be one where the end result was very thought provoking and actually created something that didn’t exist before

The Secret to Success

I think we knew that the market was big. We didn’t know if we were going to be as successful as we are, but did we imagine success this big? Yes. We didn’t imagine us being really tiny. Did we imagine working with some of the brands we’ve worked with? I think yeah, we probably imagined that as well. And we’re sort of living out the imagination right now, we’re living out the dream. But we’ve had to do a whole bunch of things, certainly more than just Jamie and I, to make those things happen. We’ve said no to so many retail opportunities and opportunities in general that we haven’t capitalised on which could have changed the DNA of the brand. We’re still trying to figure out where the next step is and how we can continue to grow.

The Collaboration Game

By putting the Herschel filter on other product categories we can sell to a very like-minded consumer. I like Apple a lot. I think the perfect collaboration would be one where the end result was very thought provoking and actually created something that didn’t exist before. That could be anyone from Apple to an industrial designer to a fashion designer. We really love fashion. The inspiration I draw from collections is endless. We love it when fashion brands take on more utility designs. Louis Vuitton makes great backpacks but they’re really expensive, so not everyone can afford them. So for us, we like the price points that we’re in but we love it when brands inspire us to look at the category differently. We did a really exciting piece with Coca-Cola where we took recycled Coke bottles and made bags out of them. So all the Coke collection was made out of recycled Coke bottles. I think it takes 12 Coke bottles to make a backpack. So that was an interesting collaboration, not just because Coca-Cola is so iconic but the fact that there was this idea in the manufacturing process. With Disney, they’re the most iconic characters in the world, and so having the opportunity to work with companies like that was just amazing. You get taken to another land and have to figure out how to make it work on the product. All those collaborations are fun for various reasons.

What’s next for Herschel?

Over the years that we’ve been doing this we’ve had the opportunity to venture out to making sweatshirts or T-shirts or simple, basic apparel items, and we’ve always kept the reins really tightly in. Partially because we wanted to be known for the fact that we were a bag supplier, even though we thought we could make solutions for other things. So this July we decided to get into making some outerwear. As we continue to build on this foundation of the windbreaker and the rain jacket, we’re going to be able to tap into other solutions within the category. We feel that at this point we can make anything with our filter on it and can come up with some really thoughtful solutions in any category in our space. We believe that what’s in the rear-view mirror is a lot less exciting than what’s still ahead of us, so we look forward to building on all the success we’ve already had.

For more info, see herschelsupplyco.co.uk