Starting Something New? Insights from Mickey Drexler

In my previous article, here, I discussed an interview between David Chang and Mickey Drexler that was held on David’s Podcast, The David Chang Show. The article addressed the fundamental product management practices he used to achieve success and how his actions can be applied to any product environment. When reviewing the rest of my notes from the episode he spent a lot of the interview discussing the concepts and steps he took to achieve success with a new endeavor.

Vision

A common thread throughout the interview is the importance that Mickey places on having and communicating a vision for your project. It is critical to the success of all his companies. He mentions that when he came into leadership at The Gap how they quickly sold off Pottery Barn. He states that it is hard enough to do one thing right let alone two, basically Pottery Barn didn’t fit the vision for the company.

Mickey tells a story about how he visited the design studio of a major car brand. They were relaunching a historical brand name with a new car design. His comment was that the car looked nice but he couldn’t see the market accepting it because the design of the wheels were wrong. While this may seem trivial, it does speak to how important a vision is for a new endeavor. If you have a vision for a product or company, you must take care to ensure every portion of the project meets the demands of that vision. In his mind, the product didn’t meet the vision because the wheels had been, perhaps, carelessly chosen for the car.

The comment that sparked my first article was: “But we sell 50 of those per week?” to which he replied, “Go find something we can sell 100 per week”. What I didn’t mention was the following comment that was “as long as it matches the vision of your company”.

Especially when starting out the vision is vital to communicating internally and externally what you are trying to create. This allows you and your team to focus on the critical steps necessary to achieve the goal. Without a vision that is clear and consistently communicated, you’re much more likely to follow any shiny object that you encounter. 

For instance, if your goal (or vision) is to create the most efficient, reliable, and effective production packer for US Land oil wells, you will follow a series of steps to make this happen. Determine the market needs, pick the product highest in demand, design/optimize/and test the product, source parts based on cost and economies of scale, and then take it to market. If during this process a customer requests a packer for 6-5/8” casing in Azerbaijan, you should not choose to work on this because it doesn’t fit your vision. If you chose to work on this design, it would take your focus away from the initial goal of the project. Maybe this is the right choice at the time, but if you do this are you choosing a different vision for your company? Was your initial thesis not valid? All these questions would have to be answered when determining how you would address this opportunity.

Mickey decided to sell off Pottery Barn because it didn’t fit his vision for a successful apparel company. This action had huge positive repercussions for both brands. He was able to focus on the success of The Gap and its apparel brands and Pottery Barn thrived under the management at Williams and Sonoma.

Market Research

Your vision must be of something that the market wants or doesn’t yet know that it wants. It must “fit the market”. Or, it must have “product-market fit”. To develop this vision, you must understand the market. What is the mindset of your customers? Where are their pain points? How does your product/offering meet their needs? To gain this understanding you must spend time with customers and in the marketplace.

When I think of “market research”, I picture a formal focus group sitting in a room answering questions about a product. Though these forms of market research are conducted, I’ve never been a part of them. Steve Jobs famously said, “We do no market research”. I think this is what he was thinking of as well.

For Mickey, he discusses walking through different retailer's stores. He mentions visiting stores that he respects and gains inspiration from as well as more mundane stores. He talks about feeling different fabrics and buying products that he finds interesting. He also tells a story of giving his employees $500 to go buy clothing, then looking at and discussing what they bought. Mickey’s market research was an active analysis of the marketplace and customer behavior. Not an academic exercise.

With primarily B2B products, my experience has been with listening to customers as I introduce them to a product as well as when they purchase/run the product. The challenge for the product team is to understand complaints and which to act on. With new products, there will always be a small subset of customers, “Innovators”, that want to try a product just because it is new. This group of customers will provide the first market insights about your new product. Their feedback is critical, especially if you hear the same comments/complaints from multiple customers. The goal is to move beyond these Innovators into the mass market. If you’re not able to retain them as the newness wears off, it will likely be difficult to transition into the mass market. This listening will be the best market research for shaping your vision and your product.

Naming

 In the early 90s, based on recognition of how the market was moving, Mickey saw the need for a lower cost outlet. While on a business trip to Paris, he passed by a café called Old Navy Café. He immediately knew he had the name for his new outlet. The corporation disagreed at first, hiring multiple naming consultants until deferring to their leader and using Old Navy. 

Naming is a difficult task. Everyone has opinions, usually negative, but very few have suggestions on how to improve upon the stated name. A name for a product or project has no meaning until the team behind it associates it with their creation. If there are no legal constraints, the name should be allowed to be selected by the team/person in charge of the project’s success. They’re the ones who will have to use the name daily and they better like it. Mickey had an emotional connection with the name Old Navy, and it won out because he was responsible, and he was able to paint a picture for why it was perfect for his project.  

Focus

During the podcast David asked Mickey several times about how a new endeavor can be successful: “Do you have any thoughts about the restaurant industry is going?” and “How is the future going to change clothes and retail in general. . .”. Mickey comments that there are too many choices in both industries and not good choices. David then asks “What would you open up as a store, as a company”. Mickey says he would choose one category and work to dominate that category. Basically, focus on one thing and work to be very successful through focus. By focusing on one category, he sees it as being “easier, less complicated, and fun”.

When starting something new, the focus is imperative because your resources are limited. Because of this shortage, everyone must be working in concert towards the same goal. If you’re not focused and have several projects going on at once, it is difficult to use spread thin resources to be the best at something.

Mickey Drexler has a wealth of knowledge and experiences over a long career of building some of the most successful brands today. His interview with David Chang was thoughtful and provided a glimpse into how he was able to achieve success several times. I highly encourage giving it a listen along with the rest of the interviews that David Chang does on his podcast.