Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeremy Stewart.
Jeremy, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Hari Mari’s story strangely started in politics of all things. In 2009 I was working as a political consultant abroad in Indonesia, where we were finishing up a three-year project. My wife & I were both living there at the time and were trying to decide what was next for us once the campaign was done.
We had a months’ long back & forth going. I wanted to stay on to work and live & Indonesia. My wife wanted to move back the States and start a family. Needless to say, I was going to lose that argument regardless, but when terrorists bombed one of our favorite restaurants in Jakarta, we both knew it was time to go!
Moving back Stateside and burned out on politics, I wanted to strike out on a new path, using some of the skills learned in the political arena, especially on the market research & media production side, and strategically apply them to a consumer product…. after all, politicians are walking products in a sense.
Considering a handful of products, we kept coming back to flip-flops. We were avid flip flop-wearers, yes, but more than that, it’s a BIG industry ($24B/year globally / $14B in the U.S.), and there was very little in the way of innovation, new product or new brands entering the space. It was a sea of black & brown flip flops on retailers walls when we had left for Indonesia, and it was the same when we returned years later.
So, I got to work doing what I knew how to do from political campaigns – I started focus grouping random strangers in Dallas, gauging opinions & attitudes on flip flops and sandals, and looking for ways we could make a new & unique product. I offered $50 and free pizza to anyone that would show up to our groups, and sat behind a two-way mirror and listened to hundreds of people talk about what they liked & disliked about flip-flops.
The results & info we captured in those focus groups served as the foundation for what would later become Hari Mari – chief among them, people, whether they loved flip flops or hated them, they ALL HATED the piece that goes between your first and second toes, and the discomfort and irritation it causes … ‘The Toe Wars’ they called it.
From there, we went to work on improving this comfort point while also injecting a little color into flip-flops. Color and comfort became our design mainstays, and our brand’s calling cards. In 2012, after close to two years of research & development, my wife Lila and I launched Hari Mari. Fast-forward six-years and Hari Mari is sold in more than 1000 retailers across 48 States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, the Bahamas and UAE, including the likes of Nordstrom, Neiman’s and Zappos, along with our own website HariMari.com.
The thing we most proud of though, beyond making a comfortable & colorful flip-flop is our back-end philanthropy that sees 1% of sales go to support kids & families battling pediatric cancer. We call it FLOPS FIGHTING CANCER!
HARI means ‘of the sun’ in Indonesian, and MARI means ‘of the sea’ in Latin.
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?
Haha! It has not been a smooth road. I don’t think to start a new business or brand is ever easy, but it’s been bumpy for sure, and we’ve skinned our knees quite a bit along the way.
From receiving our first order of flip-flops in 2012 and finding close to half of it was defective and unsellable, to correctly (and incorrectly) forecasting inventory and factory orders from year-to-year, it’s been an uphill challenge, for sure.
We’re very grateful though as our biggest difficulties and challenges have also served as our biggest learning experiences, forcing us to adapt & grow as such!
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about HARI MARI – what should we know?
Hari Mari makes premium flip flops at the intersection of color & comfort. Between a patent-pending memory foam-lined toe post, soft-squeeze midsoles, and firm arch support, we pride ourselves on instant comfort out of the gates with NO BREAK-IN PERIODS … and we encourage all of our customers (and prospective customers!) to take us up on the Pepsi challenge with their current flip flops!
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
There’s no silver bullet answer to gaining traction in our business, but one of the more important values we’ve found at Hari Mari is execution. You can talk, plan, meet, estimate and design until you’re blue in the face, but for us, the biggest difference-maker has been execution and doing so to the best of our collective abilities as a team.
Pricing:
- Hari Mari flip flops range in pricing from $45 water-friendly rubber flip-flop to $120 full-grain Nokona ballglove leather flip flop
- Hari Mari also sells kids & youth flip flops for $35
Contact Info:
- Address: 208 South Haskell Ave. Dallas, Texas 75226
- Website: www.HariMari.com
- Phone: 214.637.2700
- Email: info@harimari.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/harimarishoes
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/harimarishoes
- Twitter: harimarishoes
- Other: www.vimeo.com/user15705644
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