A Discussion with Thursday Boot Company

Burton Goldfield: I am excited to introduce Connor Wilson, the co-founder of Thursday Boot Company, a very hot company in New York City these days. Connor, welcome to the program.

Connor Wilson: Thank you very much, Burton. Happy to be here.

Burton: So Connor, let me jump right in and ask you, why did you go from Columbia Business School to starting a boot company? It seems like a very interesting route.

Connor: Yeah. The short version of this is, we were students at the time. I don't think if you'd told me in advance that we were going to start a boot company, I don't think anyone would have believed it, including my co-founder Nolan and me. But we were both grad students. We were at Columbia and we both had that same exact problem, which was basically looking for good quality footwear that you could wear from a business meeting to a date or a night out on a town. Something that was gonna take care of you in the winter time or also in more casual, nicer weather and that also had that comfort that you could actually rely on on a daily basis. And it came in sort of these flashes of insight. And once we realized that we actually thought that there was an opportunity within this huge boot market for us to make a specific kind of Thursday boot, that was really where the idea struck. And ever since we started, we really just haven't looked back.

Burton: So it is a very competitive market. By the way, my wife loves your products and I have picked one, too by myself. It appears that they're incredibly high quality at very low prices. Is that part of the secret sauce? And how does that business model work?

Connor: Yeah, it started from the original insight, which was we as consumers, we were guys that should be wearing boots and we just couldn't find a pair that we liked because it was too uncomfortable, too expensive, didn't work for the versatility that we needed. Because we're not just in the woods, we're not just working on a construction site, we've got a business meeting and we've got a date, we've got things to do, group project, work, et cetera. So, we really wanted something that would work for us. That was step one.

But the real insight or, the real kind of powerful part that's really propelled the business is that we realized that direct-to-consumer as a business model, had the opportunity to completely revolutionize retail as a whole. Very, very short version of this is that every single one of us who's buying from a third-party retailer is getting ripped off because you're basically paying an additional markup for what is a worse experience, I think a worse product at least, and a worse relationship with the brand.

So we said, if we can get something that is, we can offer the same quality from the same manufacturers or better in fact, because we can actually tweak and use customer data to improve the product, if we can also do an online, primarily online experience to improve via customer experience, so you actually get good feedback and you can actually see what's going on. There's high convenience. And the third thing was just the value that we're able to offer. You're basically able to get a substantially better quality product at a very affordable price. For us at least, we thought that was revolutionary. And being able to democratize quality and bring it to a broader group of people, felt like something that was a really exciting mission that we'd get behind.

Burton: Well, speaking of mission, part of your mission appears to be giving back. Can you talk a little bit about the culture and giving back in the fight against COVID? I know you guys pivoted around PPE and other things.

Connor: So one thing that we've noticed, there's a lot of companies that will do an explicit like one-for-one or they give back 1%. We've always viewed it as just being really flexible as to what you're working on because needs are always changing.

And so for us, it's just been one of our fundamental corporate values of, we just wanna be good stewards. We wanna be good members of our community. And that doesn't just extend to charitable giving. It's also our supply chain, it's also how we treat our customers, how we treat our employees.

So we've always tried to be very holistic and when COVID hit, like everyone else out there, I think we were all just kind of sitting here and feeling pretty overwhelmed with what was happening. There's nothing more frustrating. You're sitting here, you wanna help, but if you're not a doctor or you're not someone who's driving a long-haul freight truck or really able to directly contribute, you go on to find something.

And I think one of the ways that we kind of kept ourselves sane and also really kind of rallied as a team internally and with our broader community was, "How do we help?" And so, one of the obvious answers was we can help by giving money. There's a lot of folks that are gonna need support in the days ahead.

So we had a bunch of, we'd never run a sale because our whole business model is built on giving great quality. In six years, we had never run a single sale. So we decided to take all of our B pairs. These are models that had come back with creases or scratches, but are otherwise in great shape. And instead of just doing a sale to get rid of those, we said, "Why don't we put a proceed towards directrelief.org which was giving money? They actually distribute PPE and they actually give things back to the people who are on the front lines.

So a great example of us working together with people who are great at what they do to make an impact. So we ran a sale. We were able to contribute $225,000 to them. If you had asked me what that number was gonna be, I never would've thought it would be that much. So we're really humbled and very proud at the same time of being able to do that.

And then the other cool thing is, we've been working on some secret projects, specifically, bringing in some sneakers and we haven't released them yet. We were hoping to have released them by now, but there was an opportunity for us to, instead of building our first sneaker line, to build masks instead.

And so we built these HK-19 masks that, they're not quite as good as the N95, but they're still reusable and they're still useful. And we have contributed thousands of those on a donation-only basis. So, those were going out to hospitals, to homeless shelters, to firehouses all around the U.S. And I give a lot of credit to our team, my co-founder, Nolan, was the one who led that project and everyone just kind of rallied behind it. So long story short, we had two initiatives that allowed us to make a dent in this. I still don't think it's enough given what everyone's going through, but we wanna make sure that when we look back on this crazy moment that we can at least look at ourselves and say, "Yep, we did something." And hopefully, that points the way for more growth in the future.

Burton: Well, we are so proud at TriNet to be associated with you guys. As an executive at the Thursday Boot Company, can you tell me what good looks like from a TriNet perspective and how we can and should service you? And a little perspective on that journey?

Connor: Yeah, I think we're a bit of a unique case in the sense that we literally started with two people on a couch kind of like the one I'm sitting on now. We had a couch and about $20,000 to invest in boots and that was our seed money. That was what we did. And through Kickstarter and through lots and lots of iteration and a lot of hard work, we've built this up into a bigger business where we can give back like we have.

But one thing I think it's not really, it's sort of hard to explain this on the outside looking in, most startups don't know what the hell they're doing, if you'll pardon my language. They don't understand all the rules, the regulations, all the complications that can exist. And there's two ways to operate. One is that, either you try to navigate the red tape and you get tangled up in this spider web type thing. It slows you down, it's stressful, it's incredibly like, "What am I doing here?" You've never hired somebody. You've never fired somebody. You don't understand all the rules. The other is to do the opposite approach and say, "I'm not gonna worry about that stuff, I'm just gonna move forward as quickly as I can. And if I make a mistake, I'll pay for it later."

And both of those are problematic because you need someone who can kind of guide you through the process. You don't wanna get stuck in the red tape, but you also don't wanna go off and find, Oh, Hey, you owe sales tax or actually, you know what, you wrongfully terminated somebody and that's not appropriate. So it's really important for us. And just as we rely on Direct Relief when we're giving funds back to fight COVID-19, we wanna find the experts in whatever we're doing. And so having TriNet there as a guide and as kind of like a Sherpa to show us along the way is super helpful.

And a lot of it too, I'll just say, we're super busy and everyone's busy. So it's not really an excuse, but within a startup mentality, you're literally saying no to growth opportunities. That's how busy your plate is because you have to focus on executing because everything is changing so rapidly.

So having someone who can walk us through the necessary items that we maybe are not in the best position to solve, it just makes a huge difference and it also gives us just a good peace of mind having those experts that we can rely on.

Burton: I could not have said it better myself. So thank you very much for that. Any specifics that we've been helpful in lately? Or issues that we're addressing that people should understand? Connor: I think for a high growth company, your needs change really, really fast and I can just try and kind of explain what that means in concrete terms.

There was a point where, our first year in business, we didn't even pay ourselves salaries. So we didn't even really need to, there was no need for payroll. Why? Because we don't make any money. We just spend it on boots and that's what it is.

And then you hire your first employees and you say, "Okay, I need to pay them. I wanna make sure that I'm making necessary payroll taxes and they don't get a ding for that." Then over time, you start to make a little bit more money at the business. So the business gets big enough that you say, "This is still really expensive, but we wanna invest in our people. We can now actually afford to pay you benefits." That was a big moment for us and this is something that I think most people take for granted.

In our second year when we were able to start paying ourselves salaries and then we were able to start paying our employees benefits wholly. That was a game changer. And as we look to the future and where we are now, there are still things that we're not doing. One thing that we're interested in the future is being able to offer a real 401(k) plan to our employees so they can invest and be able to take advantage of the different commuter benefits that exist.

We're here in New York City. Today the subways are a no-go zone, but on a regular basis, that's actually almost a necessity just to get around town. So being able to get people in and out of the office with that benefit is helpful too.

And then as we expand and we grow, our ambition is still to have locations across the United States. We have two retail locations, I'm at one of them right now in New York City. We wanna be able to have stores in California, Colorado, Florida, Texas, Illinois, Massachusetts, Washington state.

To be able to do that, we need to have a partner that can help us navigate part-time employees and benefits and process. And as we look at our human resources strategy going forward, our team is really the reason why we're here. And so we need to find ways to continually reinvest in that team to make sure that we're doing best by them. And that we're also able to get better at our process so that that we're able to spend more time doing the stuff that we need to do for the rest of the business. This is so helpful. Thank you very much.

Burton: We are truly proud to be associated with you guys. I believe you're gonna be incredibly successful. You've given us some great hints about anticipating your needs for growth, for being timely and using the time of your team wisely and getting them answers quickly in an ever-changing environment. So this has been helpful, Connor. We wish you great success and we will be there for you as long as you'll have us. So thank you very much.

Connor: Thanks, Burton. And then again, thanks to everyone at the TriNet team. The amount of time and money that we've saved with your team has been tremendous. And it enables us to serve our customers and make better boots and make better products. So, I just wanna say thank you as well and wishing everyone better days ahead.

Burton: Yes. Stay safe. Bye, bye. Thanks for listening to the interview with Connor Wilson at Thursday Boot Company. And I thought he gave us a good insight into starting a business with $20,000 of his personal money in a college dorm room and turning it into a very impactful company selling footwear on the internet. I believe that Thursday Boot Company does make a difference. If you have a minute, check out their website. I did and my wife and I are both buying pairs of their boots. So, thank you very much for listening.