Episode 155: Launched Mid-Pandemic, Brussels-Based Merchery is Making Waves

Welcome to Skucast, the podcast for entrepreneurs in the promotional products industry. Skucast shines a light on our industry's best work, features maverick personalities, and discusses what's really involved in running a modern promotional products business. Skucast is the official podcast of Common Skew.

Being 100% sustainable means buying nothing, you know. So, right, we, we kind of on the website, we say it out loud, we say we are not perfect, but we are doing our best. And by the way, check this, check where it's made, check the factory. You can If you, if you ask us, I can give you the name of the factory. I can give you the name of the manufacturer. I can give you the name of the brand. Everything is transparent. It's not perfect, but it will get better. And it's the best option we have today. That's to me what transparency means.

Brussels-based Merchery launched their new business in the middle of a pandemic. Simon and his business partner Ben are only 5 months into their journey, but they're getting press and attention most of us would envy, including a mention by Courier Magazine, the defining media brand for a new generation. We wanted to find out who are these Belgians making waves, gaining the attention of design leaders, entrepreneurial leaders, and finding an eager, loyal customer base cheering them on. I visit with one half of the duo, Simon Paulette, and we talk about their passion for beautiful products that endure, how sustainability takes on a richer meaning for their mission, the distinction between US and European attitudes regarding sustainable lifestyles, and taking the word transparency from a pious platitude to something practical that customers can grasp. You'll love their perspective, a refreshingly honest expression of a couple of passionate entrepreneurs in love with elegant design and relentless transparency, fueled by purpose and meaning. Hi friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, the Chief Content Officer at Commenscue. Today's episode is brought to you by Commenscue, the work-from-anywhere platform that powers your connected workflow, enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. To learn more or to begin your free trial now, visit commenscue.com. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. With Simon and meeting his business partner Ben. Here's their story. So Simon, before we get into your story, can you provide us a snapshot of Belgium and specifically what it's like to launch a business there?

Yeah. Well, first of all, Belgium is a really small country. I think we are 11 million people or something. So it's really small and it has 3 official languages. Which makes it even more difficult to actually start a business. So as soon as you start a business, you launch your business, you're kind of forced to export from day one. And even if you export, Europe has many different cultures, many different languages. So it's not an easy country to be an entrepreneur yet. And sometimes I'm kind of— I wish I'd be an entrepreneur in the US because the US is such big, huge integrated market. It's not the case in the US, I feel, in the, in Belgium, I feel.

Right. Tell us how you're now, what, 3 or 4 months into the industry, literally?

We started in April 2020, so of this year. So it's pretty early stage.

And you have a product that you started with that was sort of your entryway into the business called DrinkBig.

Exactly. So Ben and I, Ben is my co-founder. We met in high school and we always wanted to be entrepreneurs together. And we had a job and we wanted to start a little project which is called DrinkBig. And DrinkBig is actually a brand of reusable bottles that we started without a lot of ambition, to be honest. It was something to play with. We wanted to create a brand, something tangible, and we created the brand and we ordered, I think, 1500 bottles and told ourselves, okay, if we sell this in a year, it's great. And in a year, we sold 10,000 bottles, which was a success for us. And something that happened was that companies came to us, which was totally unexpected at first. And that's when we actually realized, God, companies love beautiful and sustainable products. And that's when we actually decided to split the two projects and go beyond the bottle and offer, you know, a whole range of products beside the bottle.

It's a gorgeous design. You're getting a lot of attention from high-end retailers because of the design, because of the functionality, and because of the story behind it. So congratulations on a cool launch. Tell us the Instagram for DrinkBig.

Yeah, I mean, we— everything happened on Instagram for DrinkBig.

What do you mean by that?

We did everything ourselves and we knew that the focus would be Instagram and the content that we would create. And by the way, we still had a job, so it was really a side project. We had a few hours to give it a day. But it was everything on Instagram. We knew that there was a clear acquisition channel on Instagram. Our product was easily marketable. We could take pictures ourselves. We could sell it online very easily. It's not an expensive product. You don't need to try it. So it's an amazing product to sell actually. So that's why we focused on Instagram. We did everything through influencers and paid advertising. That's how the brand actually took off.

How did DrinkBig become your doorway into the promotional products business?

Well, so I remember one day we had a company coming to us, I think it was a museum actually, came to us and they say, can we have 100 of your bottles branded with our logo on it? And we were like, totally surprised. And we said, yeah, why not? And then another one came in and said the same thing. And then at first it was a few hundred bottles, and then we got to 55,000 bottles. And At one point we just realized, okay, this is kind of our cash cows. This is where there is volume and that's where I think there is a market opportunity. Even if we never thought about a market opportunity per se, we just said, that's so fun. We really answer a demand here and that's why we pursued it. We decided to rebrand DrinkBig, start the project from scratch, do a new bottle, a new website, new brands, new positioning. And we thought, okay, maybe it would be smarter if we split the two projects. And also we had this desire to actually start Merchtree. But to be honest, while working on the rebranding of DrinkBake, the crisis hit and the production of our new bottle and new brand actually stopped for a few months. And it gave us more time to actually work on Merchery. And what started as a small idea, we just wanted to split the two projects basically, ended up being us working a lot of hours on Merchery and developing a serious product with a serious brand. And that's how Merchery is today.

You know, many entrepreneurs might have put their plans on pause with something like COVID coming up. Why didn't you guys? Put Mercury on pause.

Yeah. Well, actually, we had no choice. I quit my job just before the crisis, so I had no choice. And I was actually expecting, I remember, to receive the bottles in January 2020, and we received them in May of this year. So, I had no choice than to spend time on the opportunity we had, which was Mercury. So we had no choice. And then Ben joined a little bit later, but basically we were all in to this project. So we had no choice.

Love that. So you looked at the market, you looked at the industry, and tell me what you saw. What were your first impressions? Good, bad, ugly?

To be honest, we didn't really look at the markets. And I know we bad students in that regard. I remember the way we built the business was just asking ourselves, which products do we want to see in this industry? And which products would we be happy to actually receive? It's true that we had a look around a bit and we saw this whole offer of Chinese-made products, low quality and kind of ugly items. And that's what we wanted to fight against. But we didn't really thought about the market itself. Actually, we discovered a lot later. But yeah, we didn't make any market research whatsoever. I didn't even know the size of the market, to be honest. And it's when I read an article later on saying that it's a $100 billion market worldwide, and I was like, shit, this is really big, man. I love that.

And the other reason I love that is this intersection of art in commerce is something we've always been fascinated by, by entrepreneurs who see a vision of something they want in the marketplace, which is what most of entrepreneurship starts out. And it's also how most artists bring forth their vision— painters, writers. There's a vision of something they want to create, so they're not driven necessarily by market wins as much as they are internal passion. So what makes Merchery distinct from the traditional startup?

Well, I mean, as you describe, you know, modern entrepreneurship is pretty much about being a fan of the idea of becoming an entrepreneur and then find the idea itself, brainstorm about it. Of course, we wanted to be entrepreneurs, but the difference with us is that the idea came to us. We didn't really look for a market opportunity, to be honest. Of course, it, you know, it took form later on, but it was not the same classic path that we follow. Another point which is, I think, related is that we fully finance the project. So we have no external equity or external investors in the company, which makes us, which makes it kind of small and different business compared to the classic startup going to angel investors and so on. So that's the point. And as a consequence of that, growth is not the number one success factor in this adventure. We're really looking to make something beautiful. I remember with Ben, we just sat down and we told each other what's success for us. And I remember we both said that creating a beautiful thing is more important than just making a lot of money, for example.

Yeah. That is such a brilliant philosophy to drive your business. You decided to make Mercury distinct also with your sustainable focus, but not just sustainability. Can you tell us more about that internal passion?

Yeah, I mean, sustainability is a really wide term, right? What does it mean? It's so wide and doesn't mean anything to me. Yeah. I think the core thing that we believed and that we still believe today is that if you make beautiful stuff that people want, they will keep the stuff. And if they keep the stuff, the brand will still exist. So if we make high quality products, it's very likely that your brand will shine through this product. That's what we wanted to create besides creating a a conscious sourcing, for example, which just wanted to make high-quality products so that people simply don't throw them away after 2 weeks, for example. I love that. So that was and still is the vision, and it's really simple. It's simple. It's beautiful products, high-quality products that we want for ourselves and that we source on a sustainable manner.

You just launched Mercury in April. And we talked about how you didn't know much about the market, in fact anything, and then you quickly found out this huge market exists. How does coming from outside the industry give you a fresh perspective and a different way of seeing things?

I think what we realized is that the market is pretty slow. I mean, there's not much innovation in this market, I believe. And something that we realized is that the buyer is not the end user. Which means that, for example, when you selling stuff to real people, if your product is shit, it will get— has been, you know, consumers will judge it very quickly and it will change. There are more trends, I think, in the consumer products than in this industry. That's, I think, the problem. People don't think about the products themselves. They think about what their clients want. And it's kind of the chicken and the egg. We thought differently, I think, which is started by asking ourselves which products do we simply want? That's how I think we changed and we thought we took the problem upside down, just said, okay, which products are the ones we would like for ourselves instead of— because if we started, if we had started this business looking at, you know, products that people want, we would have sold plastic USB keys and ugly umbrellas. That's not the case. And to be honest, it's a risk because sometimes we put products on the platform and we're convinced that it will work. That's not the case. But I mean, it's another way of thinking, I think, in this industry, which made us A bit different.

Yeah, people, people are picking up on this passion because you launched a brand new business and you've already received high praise from folks like Tina Roth-Eisenberg, whom we both love and respect, creative entrepreneur and founder of Creative Mornings and many other things. You're brand new to this space, and yet you managed to organically grab the attention of the press and some notable people and brands. So why do you think there is such a big interest or at least curiosity in Mercury?

Well, it's a good question. And at first, I wondered why people were so interested, but then I realized why. I think any organization on Earth brands stuff. So, you know, even my high school when I was a little kid, we had those, you know, branded notebooks, we had those branded pens. It's universal. We've all been in contact with a branded item, a promotional product. So even though it's a B2B business, everyone can relate to this topic. And then another thing is that I think our vision was simply refreshing. And in these times of crisis, I think everyone has time and the will to question everything and they they're looking at this massive market and we bringing another message and they're like, yeah, this makes sense. So I think that that's why we had a lot of press and also amazing people like Tina that just reacted very positively, I think.

And when you launched, what's fascinating to me from a marketing professional's standpoint is you basically just sent out emails.

Yeah. So up until now, we never invested in ads, maybe a few hundred euros here and there just to test and see what it means. But we never really invested money in the acquisition of clients. And what I just did was choose influential people like Tina or just sent emails to journalists and saying, Simply our story, you know, saying the truth and saying, you know, what is it that we do and why we do it. And I think that it makes sense. And so people just respond positively.

There's an elegant tie-in here from the timing of your launch and an episode we just recorded with Vicki Ostrom, futurist, episode 152 for folks that are listening that want to tie this together., but the title was Less Is the New Luxe.

And I think you can—

I think you captured the essence of a feeling going on in the marketplace where everyone was questioning many of the things we had previously held frivolously that now we hold very, I think, very sacred, even as simple as the items that we choose to invite in our home. So you, I think you hit a nerve, but also it was just very authentic. I believe people picked up on that authenticity of your vision, which is why in a sea of marketing that sounds like people selling each other, it was refreshing.

Yeah, I mean, the, the quotes, quality over quantity, is, is a strike when you say that to anyone. You know, they understand that we all have 15 pens in our home with, you know, brands on it. What if you replace those 15 pens with a high-quality one? I think it makes more sense for anyone to invest in quality instead of quantity.

What has been the biggest lesson since you launched that we can learn from? Another way of asking that might be, what did you think the business would be like, and now what's the reality?

Well, the first lesson we had for ourselves is that it's a huge market. Yeah, right. It's a huge market. Really, we didn't realize that. So first personal lesson. But we also had other lessons. For example, it's not so easy, for example, on the operation side. We do have, for example, 50 different products today. We hope to bring in much more products by the end of the year. But one product is a different manufacturer or a different brand, and it means a lot of different operational aspects to it. So that's the lesson, and that's, I think, the key challenge in our business. We're really early stage, so every day I'm learning new stuff.

Yeah, right, right. Regarding sustainability, and I agree with you, the term has lost its meaning. It has become, or it has become a term that has come to mean everything and nothing at the same time. What are the biggest differences between how North America views sustainability versus Europe? Now, I do know much of this is changing. There are fundamental differences in terms of progress and mainly lifestyle adoption, but what do you see as the biggest differences?

Well, I mean, the US is the land of consumption, right? Right. And, you know, I don't want to categorize, of course, and I know things are going very quickly. In the US, but I think that globally we can say that in terms of sustainability and education in that regard, consciousness, we are more advanced in Europe. And you can see that if you check, for example, the size of the markets. People spend less in promotional products, for example, in Europe. Yeah, it's a different mentality. I mean, in Belgium we sort waste, we have small cars, the lifestyle is different. So of course I think that the industry is affected by this vision of life and of sustainability. It makes less sense here to spend money on disposable stuff. You know, if I see someone with a plastic bag in the streets, you know, with the groceries, it's very rare. It's not common. So I think that we are a bit different in the way, maybe slower in the way we consume, but definitely there's a lot of attention around sustainability here in Europe and especially in Northern Europe, for sure.

Yeah, the plethora of options here makes us cavalier about a lot of what we do. And you're speaking to an audience who is also struggling and exhausted with contributing to this and making sure that they do what you do, you know, is, is provide products that last. And now that we're all forced to market into the home, which is a sacred space, I think that we're all aligning toward, uh, toward this vision, but you've adopted at the get-go. You mentioned that you have a passion for transparency. What does that mean to you? And can, or can you give us an example of how you are transparent with your product and your customer?

Yeah, I mean, it simply starts by saying where the product is made. I mean, it seems very simple, but in this industry, that's even an innovation. If you check the website of the big folks out there, at least here in Europe, I didn't really check in the US, but you can forget about having the country of origin. Which is, I think, the basis of any transparency, right? You want to know where it's made and you want to know what's the raw material used. That's to me what transparency is about. And don't get me wrong, transparency and sustainability are two different concepts. You can be totally transparent without being 100% sustainable. But to me, when I say transparency, I say first, just say the truth, the truth, and then do my best to get better. That's what transparency means to me. So it means, for example, if we have a category of product, we are committed to find the best solution, the most sustainable solution. Maybe it's not perfect, but we will always try to upgrade that product. Innovate in that category to find products that make more sense for the planet. But it doesn't mean that it's zero carbon emission. Being 100% sustainable means buying nothing. So we kind of, on the website, we say it out loud, we say we are not perfect, but we are doing our best. And by the way, check this, check where it's made, check the factory. If you ask us, I can give you the name of the factory, I can give you the name of the manufacturer, I can give you the name of the brand. Everything is transparent. It's not perfect, but it will get better, and it's the best option we have today. That's to me what transparency means.

That's such a refreshing vision. I also noticed while in North America, we're hiding the fact that goods are made in China. It's right there on your website.

Yeah, it's everywhere. And you know, made in China doesn't mean that it's made in poor conditions with bad raw materials. For example, if you think about bottles made from stainless steel, you could think of, you can say, oh, this is made in China, this is really bad. Actually, we work with a consultant we made a carbon emission analysis, and you can quickly realize that actually the raw material is extracted in China. So it makes sense to actually produce the product in the same country. Plus, they acquired some experience in that domain, and using a reusable bottle actually is a way for you to use less single-use plastic. So very quickly, actually, your bottle will be offsetted. So it doesn't mean— made in China doesn't mean made in bad conditions and bad for the environment. But what matters is to say it, basically.

Yeah. That is such a great lesson for all of us. We all need to get better at communicating that to our customers because I think if they have— and it's a very important lesson for us right now. Especially in the US where there are very tense perceptions around the relationship between China and the US and buyers' differences of opinion. I think we have to be very careful about that. And the fact that you say, yes, let's just be transparent all the way through to where these are made automatically gives the customer some conviction that you are aware of where these things are coming from.

And— Exactly. —intensely aware.

That is such a refreshing vision. You know, speaking of vision, what is your vision for Mercury? What are you seeing down the road? How would you describe your mission as you move forward?

The mission is clear. We want to help brands to shine in real life. You know, we have those amazing brands online and, you know, on Instagram, social media, whatever. We want to help them exist in real life and be beautiful in real life. Yeah, that means creating beautiful project objects that people will keep, and if those items last, so will your brands. That's the vision. But business-wise, to be very honest, it's kind of blurry at the moment. We don't really know where we want to go. Of course, we want to create kind of a global movement. I think we we are onto something. But we don't, you know, I couldn't say I want to be a $100 million business. That's not, that just doesn't make sense. But yeah, I want to just talk more about, you know, what we are doing, have more beautiful and durable products, work with cool brands. That's the vision at the moment. It's pretty short term, but it's what we have in the moment. So, yeah, and as I said in the beginning of the podcast, growth is not the priority here. We are on a fragmented market, I think, and it's not winner takes all. So we're not obliged to actually hurry up because I know that if someone starts the same thing on the other side of the planet, it's great. The market is huge, so we're not in a hurry. And we just want to do good and do good in style. Love it.

There's a deeply respected heritage of fashion and industrial designers, artists, thinkers from Belgium. Who influences your philosophy and work the most personally or just professionally?

Yeah, we, yeah, we, we're kids from the internet, you know. So even though I have a lot of inspirations from my own country and, you know, I love my country and I think my business reflects who I am and together with Ben, where we come from. But my inspirations come from all over the world for sure. And it might seem a bit cliché, but since I'm a little kid, I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur, but not the classic entrepreneur with big business, big money whatsoever. I've always been interested in creative entrepreneurs, those entrepreneurs that had a little bit of creativity in their business. And so, for example, I'm a huge fan of Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia. I don't know if you know him. An American. I'm a big fan of Doug Tompkins, who's the founder of The North Face, and he protected areas in South America. I'm also a big fan of Hamdi Ulukaya. I don't know if you know him. He's the founder of Chobani. And by the way, if you have the chance, have a look at his TED Talk called The New CEO Playbook. It's an amazing TED Talk and he's amazing and he puts people first. That's what I love. And I love Swiss Miss, for example. All those people are pretty modern influences, but they are entrepreneurs and they do things with, you know, a creative angle, I would say, and that's what inspires me.

So, those are people that influence your work. What brands do you follow and love? Like, who do you turn to for inspiration?

It's a good question. It's difficult for me. I mean, I'm a difficult client. I think the best brands I know are the ones that focus on the products and the story. And when the story is genuine, you know, is true. So there's this French brand called Veja. I don't know if you know them. It's a shoe brand. It's like TOMS, but the European version. They never invested in marketing, never ever. And they created probably the most sustainable shoes out there. And they are— I respected them so much. I think, yeah, product like Rimowa. I don't know if you know them, like the suitcases, it's German made. You can buy one and keep it for like 40 years. I think it never breaks. It's super high quality and they manage to be modern at the same time and they have this amazing story. Or even really recent startups in the US, there is this brand I love, which is It's called 4Days, and the concept is that it's a brand of t-shirts that you buy as a subscription. So they realize that a man like you and I buy on average 10 t-shirts a year, and instead of buying the t-shirts and throwing them away, you buy the t-shirts and it gives you access to a subscription, and then you can send back your t-shirt, they recycle it, and they send you another one. That's a fascinating trend. It's really about those beautiful products and the true stories that they are building. That's what really interests me in the end. Yeah.

What lessons can you share with us that you've learned about positioning and launching a business within this huge commoditized space? I think you've already shared that with us, but if you had to distill it down to 1 or 2 lessons, what would those be?

Yeah, I would say one thing. Yeah, I would say one thing. Products, you know, whatever the brand you're building, whatever, you know, the project, what matters is the products, you know, and that's also what makes us different today. That's what will make us different in the future. What is the selection of products we have on the platform? And if it's not good, if it's not, you know, sustainable, it's going to be more difficult for you, I think, to differentiate. And today we see so little innovation in the construction of those catalogs that I think it's the priority for any business starting. Yeah.

Well, Simon, this has been fun. You mentioned first podcast, and I can't tell you how thrilled we are that you joined us. You are speaking to an audience who wants to hear this message, and many of them are practicing, a lot of the principles. And many of us really yearn to adopt these principles in our businesses moving forward. And so you've given us fresh fuel and some beautiful insight into motives and passion. Man, thanks for joining us. And I can't say it strongly enough, but we wish you and Ben all the best. And, uh, I think we should try and catch up again.

As your journey unfolds. It'd be my pleasure. Thank you so much, Bobby. It was my first podcast and definitely exciting and so special. So thank you very much.

Thanks, man. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of SKU Cast. Be sure to keep up with our latest content by subscribing to SKU Cast on iTunes or to our blog at community.commsku.com. Www.patreon.com/thespiritualwarrior. Until next time, friends, thanks so much for listening.