Gild Intro and Manifesto: My Journey

Introducing Gild Luxury Headwear headwear, a concept I have been diligently working on for two years and now launching. I wanted to share my personal journey with an explanation of how I ended up here mixed with a tiny sales pitch and maybe a cry for help, jk. Too often on LinkedIn you only see updates when founders hit some big, verifiable milestone to announce, so you are only hearing about when something good happens. I wish there were more founder stories about the start of building something: how you came up with the idea, how hard it was to build, the struggles and rough times just to get to launch. I believe these are the valuable insights that actually help motivate other entrepreneurs who are struggling to keep going. Exposing the dark, soul wrenching parts that the majority are experiencing, not just the successes of the minority. We never hear these parts of the journey from the beginning, but usually only in retrospect years after a favorable outcome. Support of people taking the risk of building anything, especially at the start when it is the hardest, is what the LinkedIn community should be about, rather than a platform to just boast when you have achieved a milestone that others think is impressive. If you are taking the personal risk of creating something new, just starting the journey, taking an idea from your head and making it tangible is success enough to tell people about. You can't control 100% if it will be successful, but the fact that you even tried is worthy of praise and support. I think the nature of how VC works is antithetical to supporting and motivating the next generation of entrepreneurs and it is our job as a community to lift everyone up and tell your story. Even if it helps just one person to stay motivated and keep going, it is worth it. Here is my story: Will it succeed? Everything in my being says it will. Only time will tell. If you actually take the time to read this then thank you in advance and I hope it wasn't a waste of time. If it was then at least you supported someone with time you would have wasted on instagram/tiktok. Cue Jerry Maguire: "Who's coming with me? Anyone? Okay no one...cool".

The initial impetus for founding Gild Luxury Headwear , was actually the LinkedIn community: Creating a sophisticated, luxury hat for professionals that could be worn to work or virtual meetings, and then out socially without skipping a beat. When I was raising for my last company, I would take 4-5 VC meetings on day trips from LA-SF. By the end of the day I looked ragged and wished it was more acceptable to wear hats into these meetings. I found it ironic that casual dress (t-shirts, hoodies and jeans) was acceptable but showing up in a hat somehow crossed the line and sent the wrong message. Hats tend to project a lazy, apathetic self-appearance. I isolated it down that it wasn't necessarily hats in general, but the hats that were available in market that were the issue. The status quo hat is a cheaply made, ill-fitting "one size fits all" product that is plastered with logos of companies, brands or sports teams. They are walking, marketing billboards. I looked extensively for something better (there had to a nicer hat without big branding right?) and the only hats I found that somewhat satisfied my aesthetic requirements were ultra-luxury brands such as Loro Piana (think Succession vibes), Zegna, and Brunello Cucinelli and were all over $500! So on one end of the spectrum you had cheap, athletic inspired or "dad" hats which were $40-$80 and on the other end you had hats that were $500+ and nothing in between? This seemed ludicrous and delving into the industry I found out why which set off my entrepreneurial "spidey" sense that there is a huge market opportunity here:

90% of the hats in market are white labeled by a handful of manufacturers! It's essentially a manufacturing monopoly. These big factories only focus on volume so they dictate what is able to be made: 3 main styles (athletic, trucker, unstructured "dad" hats) in "one size fits all" models or very limited sizing. These hats are poorly made in bulk with low quality materials and are just designed to be thrown away once they get dirty. 300M hats are sold per year and 85% of those end up in the landfill within a year. Individual apparel brands do not allocate the resources to design/manufacture their own hats but rather just slap their logo on one of these generic "white labelled" hats. Headwear is a perfect example of what is wrong with current fast fashion pandemic and fashion in general. Products made with zero design, quality or integrity which evoke zero emotional response from the customer. Yet we all still wear hats because they are convenience and there has been nothing better in market until Gild Luxury Headwear .

Before committing to any idea, I always validate my hypothesis with huge surveys. In a 5k person survey around headwear, I found really fascinating data points:

1. 87% of people who wear hats often said there was no top-of-mind brand or “go-to” retailer when asked where they would buy a hat. Shocking but made sense as growing up I would go into a Lids in the mall and try on 47 hats to find one that actually fit properly, and this isn't the typical consumer journey anymore.
2. 90% of people didn't know their exact head size which is why this "one size fits all" model originated from (why make sizes if people don't even know their size). No where else in fashion does this exist.
3. 80% said they were unhappy with how the hats they own fit/feel on their head.
4. Women are almost totally ignored due to this "one size fits all model" based around the average male head, which would be a death sentence anywhere else in fashion. I found that women do want to wear hats if they fit them properly (usually way too big and deep) and aesthetically looked good (duh). Also anyone with a head much smaller or bigger than the average male is marginalized.
5. 80% said they would like to be able to wear hats to work and going out at night but feel they aren't socially acceptable. Cause they aren't, even as our social dress code has been a furious race to the bottom of whats viably acceptable.

For all of these reasons I decided to focus on revolutionizing the headwear industry and build something better. Gild Luxury Headwear is two years of development (2 years of my life really which is a lot when you are almost 40) with over 50 prototypes at a personal financial cost practically to insolvency ($500k+). You know who wants to manufacture something unproven, that is drastically different from what already sells, and expensive? No one, especially not factories who only care about volume. Too many times along the way I asked myself "WTF am I doing". Especially after potential investors, friends, and family were like "WTF are you doing"! I heard it all: DTC is dead. Multiples in consumer are too low, no one will invest. Hats? Seriously, you went from a deep tech computer vision company to making hats? No, but seriously Drew, hats! Well, there is a tech component. Okay but it's still just hats right? Uhmmm yea, but really really awesome hats!?

As any founder who has had the unyielding itch to build something will tell you, when you have an idea that makes 100000% sense to you, nothing can stop you (for better or worse). I had a vision to create the best hat ever made, that altered consumers entire perception of what a hat is, how they are made, and where/when they can be worn. Something that looked sophisticated, fit every single person perfectly no matter their head size while feeling amazing on your head, and high quality enough to be worn every single day for years without holding odors or looking dirty/old. Something that you could throw on in the morning without a second thought and know it would complement your appearance rather than detract. Every seam would be covered up and the hat would maintain its total structural integrity while still being soft/collapsable without the usual application of the hard canvas "buckram" used to reinforce most hats. The hat would get better over time and mold to your head. A product that means something to you and develop a personal bond with. Our heads are sacred and.....okay okay I won't get too esoteric or deep. This is how I think about products I currently own and love. My Goyard wallet. My common projects sneakers which were $400+ but I have worn them everywhere/anywhere for 3 years and they still look great. My Macbook Pro/Iphone. My cashmere Brunello Cucinelli winter coat. Products so good that every time I touch them or wear them, I feel a tiny bit better. Products that maybe were initially more expensive but far surpassed their financial value in both the joy and peace of mind they elicited from not having to think about them because they just work. This is what a great product is and what all products should be. I wanted to bring that emotion and vision to headwear. And you know what? He did it! You crazy sonofabitch, you did it. I created the best looking, fitting and feeling hat in market.

And yet, that isn't enough. Raising capital for a new concept is a truly fascinating beast. I've raised $10M before for an aspirational tech product with zero product market fit, demand, or revenue model. Hell, we couldn't even explain really what it was so how could customers/users get it. But it was sexy and looked like the future, so it was easy to paint a great narrative. Now, I have made something actually tangible that has a large, already established market, a solid revenue model that exponentially expands that market, and little to no competition. And as you guessed, it's been nearly impossible to raise money. It's just the nature of investment I suppose, that the more realistic and comprehensible a product/idea is, the easier it is to find potential ways to pick holes in it and say no. Hell, a no would be amazing. More often it's a non-response. This idea is so bad, I won't even waste my time to respond and say no. A funny thing happened though. Every time I was on the verge of quitting (as personal bankruptcy loomed nearer and nearer) something amazing would happen to motivate me to keep going. I seeded my samples with all my friends to get feedback, and I started getting texts:

"Hey man, I didn't know what to think when you told me about this, but now I get it. This is really an amazing hat. Its like I was driving a Toyota and this is a Ferrari. My friends all want them, how do we buy them"

"I don't even normally wear hats, but I guess its because they never fit me properly. This is amazing. My friends keep asking me where I got this hat"

Both friends who wear hats all the time and friends who don't wear hats (especially my girl friends, or friends that are girls) wrote me to say they now wear this everywhere. The feeling is indescribable when you create a tangible product that was an idea in your head, and then seeing the delight on someones face when they initially interact with it and see they truly love it. As someone who has created a lot of crap before, I can tell the difference, trust me. This was enough to keep going. I'm sure my friends don't even understand how timely and important those texts were when I was at the low of lows. Anxiety riddled my body and mind as I delayed the launch over and over again because I was so worried about having everything perfect so people will buy this. The digital has to be perfect. The branding has to be perfect. The packaging has to be perfect. The marketing budget has to be there for a strong launch. While this all helps, the fact that I made an amazing product is enough to launch. The self doubt and fear kept me from putting this into the public domain. Fear about criticism and negative feedback even though I have created and launched tons of things before and know this is part of it. It never prepares you to introduce something that you are so intimately connected with. To put your soul and reputation on the line. But there comes a point where you realize nothing will ever be totally perfect. Well...except for the hats. They are close to perfect and will only get better.

That brings us to today. I sold enough hats strictly by word of mouth to keep going (one Venmo at a time). The feedback has been amazing. I am proud of what I have created. Will this be a billion dollar idea and change the way people think about hats in general? Yes, I know it will. I believe this will be the top of mind headwear brand within 5 years because I care (a lot) and have a detailed vision as how this unfolds. But even if it isn't, the journey has been amazing (as with every other company I've founded) and creating something that brings joy and delight to people in something as arbitrary as a hat is enough....but I'll also take the billion dollars.

When you build a product focused on superior design and quality, then you the potential to create a perennial seller that will only keep selling more and more over time. You are not subject to the ebb and flow of trends or relying on the power of your logo/branding. That is what Gild Luxury Headwear is. We don't hide behind a fancy logo for people to wear and market for us. We believe our innovation and quality is visible enough for people to recognize, recommend, and evangelize from the rooftops about us. We focus on meticulous design, superior textiles (vegan & sustainable), and exquisite construction. Superior headwear that is timeless, season-less, and appropriate anytime/anywhere. Convenience no longer comes at a price (to you or the world). I hope that I convinced some of you to give Gild Luxury Headwear a shot. If you wear hats already, this will be a totally different experience and if you don't wear hats, hopefully you can allow us to convert you. I am hoping to create a group of passionate, visionary early adopters to help Gild Luxury Headwear on its journey with feedback and support. To everyone who read this, I am offering a 50% off discount to try Gild Luxury Headwear out.

Discount code: linkedin

Our products come in a range of sizes to fit the smallest woman to the tallest man perfectly for the first time. We do have an algorithm that sizes you from your phone and are working to incorporate it into our purchasing flow UX. If anyone wants to be part of the beta testflight testing group to see how it works in less than 10 seconds, message me with your Apple ID and I will add you. We have an extensive sizing guide on the site until then, or again message me and I will help you.

If you spent your time reading this, then thank you. I truly hope it was mildly entertaining and somewhat motivating. If you are creating something, just know that I know it's hard but keep going. I'm always here for you if you need a kind pick me up. If you know anyone who would like to get involved (investment or employees) in what Gild Luxury Headwear is doing then please reach out (DM me).

Warning: Digital marketers/agencies...I love you but please do not bombard me with proposals. We have a digital team agency already and I won't respond.

I hope to hear from some of you and really appreciate this community. Let's continue to support and build each other up on our respective journeys. You have no idea how much a small, positive message means to people. It kept me going. And my dog...yes I recommend a dog to every founder. My sweet, 12 lb. mini golden doodle Winnie whose unwavering love pushed me forward during all the lonely, self-doubting moments.

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