Interview with Stephen Cleary - Page 1
November 10, 2008 @ 9:20 AM
Interview by Shay from shayboarder.com
Shay: Hi Stephen. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself for a start?
Stephen: Let’s see, I’m 6’2” 185, fit, Sagittarius, married, three kids, live in Waterbury, Vermont and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the world for the moment.
Shay: What is your job?
Stephen: I am the President, CEO, and founder of eesa lux layering. To be fair, my main focus is to oversee the eesa brand and make sure we are hitting on all fronts, web, media, product, riders, etc. I map out the short and long-term goals for the business while juggling all aspects of marketing, product, accounting and sales.
Shay: What is your role at eesa?
Stephen: Anything and everything. Main focus is steering the company in the short term while keeping an eye on long-term objectives. When you’re starting a company you have to do it all. Source factories, pick orders, ship product, manage the team, do the books, write press releases, create the catalog and websites, sell product, basically you have to do whatever it takes to make it happen.
Shay: What prompted you to make eesa?
Stephen: When I was working on anon for Burton, I traveled around the world meeting with riders and the one thing I noticed was that a lot of snowboarders were wearing cotton t’s and hoody’s. I asked them why they didn’t wear technical products to which they replied it wasn’t cool and they wouldn’t be caught dead wearing that stuff. So I said well, what if I made you a technical rugby or button-down? The first 10 riders of the 12 I called said hell yeah and that’s how eesa got started
Shay: What were some of the challenges of starting your own softgoods company?
Stephen: I think the biggest challenge would be sourcing a factory. I had previous experience doing that for Burton so that actually was fairly easy for us. There are millions of challenges to starting a company, selling product, getting product made and hitting factory minimums, getting riders on the team, getting people to know about eesa, etc. I like to tell our employees and interns you have to keep your feet moving which means, if you’re standing around looking for something to do, someone or something is going to blindside you. You have to be proactive and anticipate problems. Another big saying for me is ‘find a solution’ which means if and when you encounter a problem, and trust me, you will encounter a problem, find a solution. There’s always a solution and you better be ready to run through a wall to find it. I have a quote outside the office right now that says ‘99% of all failures happen due to people who have a habit of making excuses’. George Washington Carver – think about it.
Shay: How did you come up with the name?
Stephen: I made it up one day when I was having lunch with our team rider Jesse Fox. I was putting together combinations of letters and came up with eesa. I turned the paper over, show it to Jesse and he was like ‘whoa’ I was like ‘that’s it’ and he said ‘that’s it’. It was one of those moments. We wanted to come up with a clean name with no associations, meaning we could build the brand story of eesa lux layering around the name instead of having the name dictate what the company was. Think about Gucci, Prada, Nixon, Volcom, those names mean nothing if you don’t know the brand, it’s a very definite strategy used to build a brand.
Shay: What’s the best part about founding a company?
Stephen: Knowing that all those long days and nights are spent working on something you love in an industry you love.
