Five Questions: Sean Scott
I met Sean Scott in college at UC Davis. We lost touch for a few years when we each transferred to different schools. Serendipitously, we reconnected at a triathlon in the early ’90s. Since then, we’ve shared our hobbies of music, surfing, and purpose-driven brands. Sean’s had an impressive career making shoes, and he was a co-founder at TOMS. Along with his wife Shannon and Ryan Gumienny, he’s now launching an exciting new footwear brand, Comunity. So I asked him about it.
How did you get here?
I’ve always been interested in creating a brand. I learned from the best in Nike and ASICS and Vans. I did start my own brand a while ago; a skateboarding footwear brand called 2fish. I had a great partner and we did forward thinking and innovative things with the product and the business. We happily zigged when everyone else was zagging. The business ultimately failed but it was one of the best things I’ve done career-wise. I learned I didn’t need the protection of a big company. It broke the ice and opened me up to new possibilities. TOMS also was a perspective changer. I learned that I was empowered to have a real impact on the community; that each of us is. We really can make a difference. There are quite a few ex-TOMS employees out there making a difference currently with their own start up business ideas.
How did you come up with the name Comunity?
Well, the name is connected to the genesis of the business and the business came from the idea that we just wanted to better neighbors. I love LA but I felt disconnected from it. I wasn’t an active part of the Los Angeles community and that felt wrong. It turned out that my partners Ryan and Shannon were feeling the same way. Its important to address global issues but we just felt a passion to get involved right here with our local community. The business sprang from that passion to get involved.
It seems like an obvious choice now but Ryan, Shannon and I worked pretty hard on the name. We had a clear vision for the company and It was important that our name reflected our commitment. That said, I always felt the name should come organically. We couldn’t force it or put it on a deadline. It had to be sincere.
The word “community” was always right there. We discussed a lot about how to engage the local community. We wanted to help the homeless community. We wanted to revitalize Los Angeles manufacturing community. Everything we were passionate about revolved around engaging and inspiring people to interact with one another for the common good. Well, that’s community. The name was inevitable, I guess. Spelling COMUNITY with one M was a little more deliberate. It sets our brand name apart from the common word usage; it’s “stickier”. And we love how the one M spelling calls out the root words better; COM and UNITY translated roughly its root words mean “With Unity”.
Why the office in downtown Los Angeles?
One of the great things about starting a direct-to-consumer business is that there’s no need for a physical space. You can make a good, fully-functional business without the expense of an office. All the best, smartest people we know, advised us to put off getting a space as long as possible. Save the rent money and work out of your home, your garage, your dad’s garage, or an abandoned U-haul until you absolutely have to get an office. This is sound business advice and we embraced it. But it didn’t feel right.
We are committed to being a vital part of our community. COMUNITY’s mission in short, is to be a catalyst for change and to inspire community activity. We couldn’t do this from a virtual store. If we were going to engage and inspire activity, we needed to be a tangible presence in the community. So we started exploring options for a space. How would it support the COMUNITY mission. What would it do? Where would be?
The COMUNITY space is more than an office though. We see is as a community hub. A place where people can gather, and initiate activities that positively impact their community. Shortly we will be able to allow community based groups to make an appointment to use our conference room, complete with big table, a big chalkboard and big screen tv. We have a great event space to showcase local talent and to fundraise for philanthropic organizations. We have a cobbling space for custom shoes and shoe repair. And the most exciting part is we will be selling our shoes and a few carefully curated local brands too in what we loving refer to as “the living room”.
What does starting a footwear brand look like in 2017 compared to 2007?
Social media has evolved and grown so much that it’s easier to reach customers now. With TOMS in 2007, Facebook was new. Kickstarter and Instagram didn’t exist. We had to rely on our retailers to present our brand and find customers. In 2017, social media is an accepted part of everyday life for nearly all demographics in the US. We can share our brand message via any number of robust platforms to reach exactly whom we want to reach. We launched on Kickstarter. FB and Instagram have been great for COMUNITY. LinkedIn has been surprisingly good because people tend to share stories on LinkedIn more than other platforms.
That said, there’s far more clutter than there used to be. Unless we deliberately avoid it, we get fed information and advertising almost constantly. Standing out amid that noise is difficult. You need a very special product and a unique and interesting story. And even then you have bust your ass and be very creative to get heard. That part hasn’t changed. All of that said, we feel that we have a solid story and strategy to communicate with our potential customers in a way that will feel organic and motivating.
Can footwear be a force for positive change in the community?
Not directly. It’s what you do with the business created by those shoes. Our business model is built around the idea that we should be a positive force in our communities. We chose shoes because we love shoes and it’s a business in which we have expertise, but the product could have been a “widget” and the model and the mission would still hold true. That said, we feel that our shoes are a statement about who we are as a brand by choosing to produce them in Los Angeles to support the local shoe making community.
Note: you can order your shoes now on the Comunity website.
