The Startup Playbook Podcast

The Startup Playbook Podcast, is a weekly series where I interview successful entrepreneurs, investors and experts within the startup and online business space to provide you with insight, practical steps and a “playbook” to give you the best chance to succeed in your own business. If you are looking to to start or grow a business, looking for funding or just want to understand the mindset of entrepreneurs and investors, this podcast is for you! Some of the guests on the show include Justin Dry (Co-CEO of Vinomofo – recently closed $25M round of funding), Shelli Trung (named as one of the “top 100 angel investors to follow on Twitter”), James and Matt from M5859 Apps (creators of App of the year for 2012 – Number 1 in 22 countries and over 500K downloads), Paul Naphtali (Co-Founder of $50M Rampersand Venture Capital Fund) and Alex McBride (Founder – The Fifth Watches) which has gained over 500,000 followers since launching 18 months ago. In these interviews we dive deep into the mindset, challenges, strategies and learnings that these successful individuals want to pass on to the next generation of startup founders and business owners. The podcast interviews are conducted by Rohit Bhargava. He is a 2 x startup founder, most recently he was the Co-Founder and CEO of StageLabel – a “crowd funding for fashion” platform that helped launch over 150 brands around the world. He now spends his time actively assisting startup founders launch, grow and fund their businesses. You can find him on Twitter @rohitbhargava7

My guest for Ep158 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CEO of Bellroy, Andy Fallshaw.

Andy, his brother (Matt) and sister-in-law (Lina) decided to get into business together and instead of launching 1 business, they ended up launching 9 businesses over the span of 2-3 years.

One of those companies was Bellroy, which launched in 2010 with their first product, the slim sleeve wallet, which redesigned the wallet experience.

Fast forward to today and Bellroy is the world’s leader in the carry category, having expanded out into multiple product ranges such as iPhone cases, AirPods cases and travel bags.

Despite having built a large global brand and experienced incredible 600-700% YoY growth over the last 11 years, they only took on external capital for the first time, 2 years ago.

In this episode we discussed a wide range of topics including:

Andy’s business philosophy on taking the stairs rather than the elevatorHow Bellroy applies agile development techniques when launching new productsWhy founders should think about building for resilienceThe deliberate and strategic evolution of Bellroy’s product range from a “hidden” wallet brand to products across a range of categoriesHow to create the right environment and structure to get feedback& much more

Timestamps

2.20 – An introduction to Andy and Bellroy 8.07 – Growing up in a family of entrepreneurs and building business a for-purpose business11.53 – Why Andy and his co-founders started nine businesses at once16.17 – How Bellroy determined the product was a good market fit20.22 – The process of developing a product and getting quality feedback24.18 – Seeking good feedback and the type of people you should be getting it from29.14 – Designing the perfect backpack and the keys to great product design 36.18 – Finding your Northstar 37.39 – How to decide on your next product line and why usually the natural progression is the best option42.17 – Why having more control and keeping operations in-house could be the best path to success when building a purpose-driven business45.50 – Deciding whether freelancers, an agency or in-house is the best fit for your team50.32 – The decision to raise capital and the non-financial benefits 55.08 – Seeking feedback, finding mentors and being able to take constructive criticism 1.00.29 – Ensuring the business values stay at the forefront of operations when running a purpose-driven business1.05.10 – How to get in contact with Andy

Links Mentioned

Andy’s Links

Andy’s LinkedInAndy’s TwitterBellroy’s Website Carryology’s Website

People Mentioned

Lina CalabriaMatthew Fallshaw Jo FallshawFrank GaillardProfessor Norman McNallyDaniel Kahneman Jimmy GleesonDane O’ShanassyYvon Chouinard

Companies Mentioned

RipcurlFallshaw Wheels & CastorsRadiopaediaB Corporation PatagoniaThe Glasgow School of ArtShopify Magento

Previous Episodes Mentioned

Episode 155 – Ash Davies Episode 154 – Nick Franklin

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Lina Calabria and Dane O’Shanassy for their help with research for this interview!

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

Find all links to the podcast here.

https://youtu.be/HnzhotWH4Co

The post Ep158 – Andy Fallshaw (Co-founder & CEO – Bellroy) on taking the stairs vs the elevator appeared first on Startup Playbook.