Making Merino Wool into Accessible, Essential Clothing

Art of the Kickstart

In this episode of Art of the Kickstart, we interviewed James Kelly, cofounder of Woolly Clothing, makers of affordable merino apparel. As inherently natural, biodegradable and renewable garments, Woolly Clothing is made with little to no plastic or synthetics, yet maintains the performance and comfort needed for an active lifestyle. Listen in and learn about Woolly Clothing's product development journeys and the success it's had on Kickstarter. Topics Discussed and Key Crowdfunding Takeaways The inspiration behind Woolly Clothing The groundwork involved with starting an garment line Why they used Kickstarter to launch the Woolly Clothing Longhaul Pant How their crowdfunding strategy changed after launching their last campaign for the NatureDry Jacket Why they choose to work with Enventys Partners over other crowdfunding agencies What the future of Woolly Clothing Co looks like Links Woolly Clothing The NatureDry Jacket on Kickstarter The Longhaul Pant on Kickstarter The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand Sponsors Art of the Kickstart is honored to be sponsored by The Gadget Flow, a product discovery platform that helps you discover, save, and buy awesome products. The Gadget Flow is the ultimate buyer's guide for cool luxury gadgets and creative gifts. Click here to learn more and list your product - use coupon code ATOKK16 for 20% off! Transcript View this episode's transcript Roy Morejon: Welcome to Art of the Kickstart, your source for crowdfunding campaign success. I’m your host Roy Morejon, President of Enventys Partners, the top full service turn key product development and crowdfunding marketing agency in the world. We have helped startups raise over 100 million dollars for our clients since 2010. Each week I’ll interview a crowdfunding success story, an inspirational entrepreneur or a business expert in order to help you take your startup to the next level with crowdfunding. Art of the Kickstart is honored to be sponsored by Gadget Flow. The Gadget Flow is a product discovery platform that helps you discover, save, and buy awesome products. It is the ultimate buyer’s guide for cool luxury gadgets and creative gifts. Now let’s get on with the show. Roy Morejon: Welcome to the Art of the Kickstart. Today I am super excited to be speaking with James Kelly, co-founder of Woolly Clothing. James, thank you so much for joining us today on the show. James Kelly: Hey Roy, great to be here. Thanks for having me. Roy Morejon: So, I’m really excited to talk. I mean, I always love talking to multi-creators on Kickstarter. When you ran your first campaign back in 2018, I think, I believe, the long haul pant, which was a Merino performance style pant raised over $233,000. I myself was a backer and absolutely love those pants. And now you’re back again with a new project, the nature dred jacket, performance jacket without plastic. It’s now raised over 300 Ks. So you’ve raised over half a million dollars on Kickstarter. I’m really excited to kind of dive in and go back to the beginning on where did it all start and what inspired you to create Woolly Clothing? James Kelly: Yeah. Should I just take that cue and tell the story? Roy Morejon: That’s the one baby. James Kelly: Sure. Yeah. So Woolly’s been around, I think this is now going to be our eighth year officially. I think we launched in 2012. And it all started when… I actually worked at Amazon back then. I started there back in 2010 or so in the third party selling group and it was pretty common among the people that I learned ropes from there to have side hustles. And so I was always kind of looking for something to start up on Amazon and ended up starting up another clothing company first with a buddy from college and that one worked great and we just kind of kept looking for ideas and Woolley kind of came out of that. We both got Merino wool underwear for Christmas, wanted a lot more,