Today we’d like to introduce you to Grant Andrews.
Grant, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Braxley Bands started at an event called three-day startup at Texas Tech University in early 2016. The goal during these three days was to come up with an idea and at the end of the three days give your business plan and sales pitch. My partner (Founder) Braxton Manley had just gotten an Apple Watch for his birthday and noticed the band was boring and not so comfortable. That’s when he thought, what if we created cool fashionable Apple Watch bands with a more comfortable material.
Shortly after this event, he asked me to partner up with him and we began to get to work. Braxton and I were great friends and fraternity brothers before business partners. What first started as a cut up sock ended up being a very comfortable stretchy elastic material we began to buy and test out. We would spend hours in Braxtons kitchen using his grandmother’s sewing machine to sew and create these bands. Funny enough I had taken a “blow-off” sewing class in high school that surprisingly ended up coming in handy. From here, we eventually started getting in some local retailers and began to scale the business. Braxley Bands can now be found in over 15 retailers as well as selling thousands of bands monthly online that are distributed from a warehouse company (Warehouse Pro) in Rockwall TX. We strive to create a fun lifestyle brand rather just a cool product, mainly through our Instagram @braxleybands.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Like most start-ups, it hasn’t always been an easy road but a fun one for sure. One of our first struggles was finding a place to outsource our bands not just to get better stitching but someone who could keep up with our demand. We started to manufacture out of Austin but soon had to move to China to save money and increase efficiency. Through this, we ran across some obstacles and even had our first supplier completely copy our idea and start selling them themselves out of China. This was very disappointing at first but led us to our new New York distributor who paired us with a better Hong Kong factory which we still use today.
Along with everything else, starting the business with two years left of school kept Braxton and I very busy, we were juggling tests and homework with creating a business that pretty much caused us to learn and test new things ourselves. Now with our Rockwall fulfillment center, New York middleman and Hong Kong factory, we are able to work remotely, me in Dallas, and Braxton in Austin which has helped save us a lot of time to focus on different aspects of the business besides production. Over the past two years, we have edited our packaging and bands countless times to get to what we have today.
Braxley Bands – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Braxley Bands sells the first elastic Apple Watch band with no clasps or buckles. Our bands are machine washable, moisture wicking, and seriously comfortable. We take pride in our various cool designs along with our fun and engaging brand. To this day, Braxton and I still handle all of the customer service and strive to connect with the customer in a personable way. For instance, our recent campaign #JoinTheBand a play on words is a fun way for customers to tag their bands and connect with us. We take a non-serious approach to marketing with a retro 90’s type feel.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
I would say my proudest moment was when we first got in our first retail store when we were still in College. Local businesses and the community really helped us to stick at it. Also, when we received our upgraded packaging from our new manufacturer and placed our largest order to date. This was something we had been working on for quite some time and it was cool to finally receive these and take the next step. We also had the chance to give Mark Cuban a band at this years SXSW event in Austin TX, cool moments like that and seeing the positive response from our customers really help motivate us to continue.
Pricing:
- All products are $29.99 on our website
Contact Info:
- Website: www.braxleybands.com
- Email: info@braxleybands.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/braxleybands/
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