Get Older. Own It. See Stuff. A conversation with Caddis Founder Tim Parr

The Dareful Project

Remember that scene in Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts tries to buy a new dress and no one will take her money? That’s how it feels to be a 50+ consumer.

Then there’s Caddis. CEO and Founder Tim Parr says it’s a mission disguised as an eyewear company: “Get Older. Own It. See Stuff.” And we totally believe it. Who else would have the cajónes to quote Miss Piggy, describe one of their eyeglass styles as a “dab of Harvey Wallbanger” (when was the last time you ordered one of those?) and embrace cranky online reviews in their advertising?

Listen to how Parr and his team are breaking all the rules in a completely awesome way.

Here’s Caddis

And here’s the nonprofit it helps support: Caddis donates a portion of gross revenue to music education programs via Music Farming. Learn more here.

Transcript:

Debra Hotaling: Hello and welcome to the Dareful Project. I'm Debra Hotaling. So you know that scene in Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts has this handful of money and no one will take it so that she can buy a dress. That's how I feel as a consumer being over 50. Either I am completely invisible or they somehow think that the only thing I want to do is walk down a beach and wear a little soft knitted sweater. But then there's Caddis. Caddis says it's a mission disguised as an eyewear company, and that feels completely true to me. And joining us today is the CEO and Founder Tim Parr, who's going to talk to us about how they are breaking stuff and having way too much fun for a brand and how they got there. Tim, welcome.

Tim Parr: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Debra: So if you don't mind, I would like to start by reading the language that's on the back of the box. Amazing. So this is what it says, folks. It says this is for people who are not in the long process of giving up. It has everything to do with age, but nothing to do with your job, your gender, or whether you live in Orange County or Hazard County. It has to do with being who you are and owning it. Tim, where did that come from?

Tim: That was just a late night. The bottom of this box is all white, and I hate that and I want to put something on the bottom of that.

Debra: Come on. It's more than that though.

Tim: I know. That actually came before we were even on a mission. So prior to that being written, we were just, and we're just an eyewear company looking for money and we hadn't even shipped anything yet because we had no investors. We didn't have anything. So yeah, someone was talking just the night before about how fifties and new forties, sixties and new fifties I, I don't get it. And if this is going to be a lifestyle brand, you have to be authentic in order to be a lifestyle brand. And I don't understand this whole position on age and reading glasses. There's no better product about it to have a conversation about age than reading glasses. But at the time that I wrote that, it was a subconscious thing. And then I had someone read that to me who didn't like it, a potential investor, and she said, you can't do that.

Debra: Wait, talk to me more about that because that feels exactly true how those conversations would go.

Tim: And I asked her, well, why can't I do that? And they said, no one wants to believe that they're the age that they actually are. And everyone wants to think that they're 15 years younger. And that was the end of the meeting. And I had to pack up my things and walk down three, five flights of stairs to the sidewalk. And when I hit the sidewalk, that's when it hit me. Oh my God, we're actually in the age business. We're not in the eyewear business. We're in the age business. And that's when everything shifted.

Debra: And what was the thinking beyond that? Because I know from other entrepreneur friends, when you go back and you tell the origin story, it sounds like, of course that was obvious, but at the time you're like, I am all by myself here and every force is telling me that this is a ridiculous idea.

Tim: Well, we didn't have our why prior to that moment, and every brand needs a why. If you don't have a why, then you're just making stuff. And if you're just making stuff, I don't care. It's not enough to get me out of bed. So it was at that moment that it was, oh my God, now we have a why and it's David and Goliath. It's all these things that we need in order to have to be propelled forward.

Debra: And then what happened after that?

Tim: I was running down the street and I called up, I had at the time probably four co-founders and I was calling 'em each up. And I told them, this is a pivot almost of sorts. This whole idea that people are afraid of their age is exactly what this whole brand is going to be about. And I got a mixed bag of results of I don't know about that and two sounds good to me. Let's go. So it was quite the thing. It was like six years ago before the age conversation had entered somewhat a pop culture of where it is today. So it was really new and different and it felt right because it was such a taboo subject. It's less taboo today, but back then it felt really, I guess taboo is the best way to put it.

Debra: Yeah. I remember in a past life sitting with marketing colleagues after sitting through a terrible marketing pitch where the over 50 folks, we were told that they were sad and the whole marketing pitch was going to be, we're going to make 'em happy again. I'm like, I just went surfing to Costa Rica. I am not sad at all. I've got money, I've got some time, and I got to get some stuff done here. And so I went back to my marketing colleague and I said, where's the data on this? What is it? Where are you getting the fact that I really want a 20 year old face telling me how I should feel? And he's like, oh, everybody knows that. Plus I would get killed in my own career if I decided that I was going to start representing over 50 folks. It just felt like this giant wall and even talking about it, to your point, that it was an absolute taboo.

Tim: Yep, yep. It's so ingrained in American culture, which makes it great. And having been born and raised on eighties punk rock and the rest of it, it felt in board sport culture, it was so familiar. Everyone's going this way, thinks this way, alright, we're going to go that way and stir the pot that way.

Debra: Was it easier to find money once you pivoted that way and found your why?

Tim: Yes.

Debra: That's interesting.

Tim: Yes, because at that point people understood the market originally before that, everyone brought up Warby Parker. They would say, well, Warby Parker does this. I go, no, they don't. Our original position was reading glasses and Warby does reading glasses, but it's an afterthought and it's a millennial brand and this is for people over 45 or 40 and you can't be all things to all people. So give them that younger demographic and we'll take everyone over 40.

Debra: And you guys are so true to that. I want to read the entire thing I have here, but here's an example, folks, these terrific aviators and the description on the aviators is these classic wire frame aviators or throwing it back to the days of doing fun stuff without helmets, seat belts or sunscreen. And I cannot believe that you got a lawyer to sign off on that.

Tim: There's a few things that my cell phone would ring off the hook with attorneys that I probably shouldn't get into. But yeah, I got some great attorneys.

Debra: And once you got out into the wild with this, was it a hit right away or did you have to feel your way through to your voice and find the audience?

Tim: So there's two ways to answer that. One way with the product, I feel it was a direct hit, right? People at the right time with the right stuff at the right price. So I feel in that regard, it was a direct hit and then started to pick up on the brand position. And I think all brands always are feeling their way through culture. So we may have started off a certain way, but even next week we'll be doing things a little bit differently than we did last month. And that's because brands are organic and we have to change with them and whatever our audiences are doing.

Debra: Your motto is get older, own it, see stuff. What has surprised you about the journey of that?

Tim: Oh man, so much has surprised me. I'm surprised at how clear people understand what we're doing. That actually surprises me because as brand people, marketers, however you want to put it, product manufacturer or product designers, all we can do is send messages out and once we send them out, we have no control over them. So it's perceptions and what they're going to do with it is really we're at the mercy at, and that's the way it always works and always has worked. So when the messages started to come back to us exactly how we wanted them to be, I was really surprised about that. People got it.

Debra: That must've been thrilling.

Tim: It was.

Debra: Because until that moment you're like, am I shouting out into the universe and is anything going to come back?

Tim: Right? That's right. And there's a part of me that's like, well, I don't care because it's the right thing to do regardless. I just knew it's the right thing to do and I don't mean right thing to do in order to make money. It's just the right thing to do. And so in some ways I protect myself against is this bad? Is it good, is it right, is it wrong? Because that can be a dark hole to go down. So having said that, the first week we were getting people taking selfies, and I'll never forget this woman in the Midwest somewhere bought a pair of Got 'em. And this was probably the first month of shipping product and being online, she just had the simple statement of, I guess being old is now cool. And honestly that's like, okay, I'm done. Month one, mission accomplished. And that was probably my biggest surprise. And then we've had really good, amazing people who have joined our mission, whether they be actors or activist or artist or fashion or music, asking how they can help. And they do help in a bunch of different ways. So that's always surprising and it's just a nice surprise. I guess I'll just leave it at that.

Debra: And it feels real in that way. There are so many brands you can see that they've plugged in. Here's our token person over a certain age and it just feels tired and condescending. But you guys, I can tell that you get juice from this. You are excited to have faces that are really badass, are beautiful, and are not just like, here's our token old person. I mean you guys are really, juiced is just the right word. I can tell that you guys are in the flow of something really exciting when you do this and it feels true with your partnerships. Who do you have? Bobby Brown, right?

Tim: Yeah, she's great.

Debra: And everything that you do feels true to that brand. I mean, how does that work on a day-to-day basis? I dunno. Tell me your day. How does that work?

Tim: I So how does it work? How does it You mean the authenticity C

Debra: Component? Yeah. Yeah.

Tim: It helps that we are the target demographic. I am not good enough. I mean I've done this my entire life, these types of things, but I am not good enough to sit in a room and lead teams on communicating or creating products for 18 to 25 year olds. I can't. So this is one of those rare opportunities where we can use 30 years of experience in brand and marketing and positioning to the same people. We were doing that 30 years ago in some of the similar ways and be authentic because we are the market, we are the industry that we're trying to talk to. So for us it's just conversations.

Debra: And your own journey on this, you were Patagonia, what were the experiences that sort of have culminated over your own career that you suddenly went, oh my God, I've got all of this, I now can do this other amazing thing. What have been those experiences that you've tapped in on?

Tim: Yeah, so I've had a bike company, clothing company consultancy. I worked at Patagonia. They're all in the same vein of action sports. And I mean you just learn along the way. And now it's challenging because now we're in a, I don't know if we're still in it, but we're coming in and out of e-commerce as being such a driving force and businesses. So it's been interesting to marry those old school tactics and communication strategies with new school marketing techniques. So I mean wired for brands, I intrinsically understand them or certain ones, I say them, not all of 'em. So in order to take those tenants that drives those feelings and emotions and thoughts that are embedded in things and then take that and try and weave it into online marketing has been new and different. Yeah, I mean I learned something new every day, to be honest still. And that's exciting.

Debra: What do you think brands, not Caddis, but other brands, what do they not get about our demographic?

Tim: They don't understand the three dimension characteristics of let's just call it our demographic because they don't think that we matter or they think that they already got us or that there's no point in investing in this demographic because you're going to Peter out in five years. So we might as well take that money and put it into someone 30 years old because then we'll have them for the next 20 instead of the next five. All that's being challenged at the moment. I remember sitting in big meetings and you'll have very distinct architecture of 18 to 25 year olds, 26 to 35 year olds, 35 to 44, and we'll do psychographics, we'll do demographics. We'll architect these people to the NS degree in order to understand behavior in, and then that drives product design, it drives marketing. And then I always remember 55 plus and in that group was always just defined by average household income.

Debra: It's like those old maps where it just, the ocean just kind of goes off the plane there, right?

Tim: It's a great analogy. Yeah's

Debra: 30 years though, but it would be the same as going baby and a 30 year old, kind of all the same thing.

Tim: And then the fact that a 45 year old or a 50 year old has different purchasing behaviors than a 60 year old, which is different than a 70 year old. And these people are relevant and they want to be talked to, they want to be communicated to because that helps them make purchasing choices that they're used to instead of everything stopping. And you're kind of left on your own because I mean, we're social animals, so we want brands to group people so we can talk to one another so we can make decisions together so we don't have to do all the work independently.

Debra: And you're the perfect brand that way. I got to admit I'm loyal to you and when I see somebody else wearing Caddis, I'm like, we're part of the same tribe. But you guys have done that. I get that right?

Tim: Yeah. And some of it is, it's subconscious for us, it's just how we know how to do it. And it worked. Everything lined up. So again, these are all things that we've known for 30 plus years and how Ashton Sports was created. Thrasher magazine, the birthplace of a lot was in that publication. So we just come from a time and a place that things were done a certain way and we just want that to continue as we age.

Debra: Well, you talking about skater culture, now this makes way more sense to me that I can't believe you guys did this. Alright folks. So in this brochure, they not only have all of the good reviews, they put the bad reviews in too. And there's a woman named Diane who only gave you two stars, man. It says just like mullets, these glasses were never cool. Why bring back ugly?

Debra: You put that in your brochure. I love that so much.

Tim: Yeah, that was fun.

Debra: I can't believe you did that either. But now I get it though, the skater culture, that totally makes sense to me now.

Tim: And yes, that's exactly correct. I had to fight a bit to get those in there and some people just wanted, let's just put two or three in there. I'm like, no, we're going to put as many good ones as we can find and we're not going to make 'em smaller and the good one's bigger. No, this is all just putting it on the table and it's a position of strength and it's defining who we are. And if we had a bunch of positive five star reviews, my mom can sit there and write those reviews and then we can put 'em in a catalog and we're good to go. That I never understood that. But if you put the collective and then people can make a choice.

Debra: Well, not only that, they want to believe, but I want to read them now. I don't want to read the five star reviews for sure you're going to do that, but I'm sort of remembering that you guys even did a little online ad campaign around this is our ugliest glasses, says Diane, one star. And you turned it around and you made it into, as you said, a strength. And I'm like, that's kind of how I feel right now in my life that I may not be pretty in the conventional way of what I was at 20, but there's still some strength to that sassiness. And so I don't think I've loved you more than what I saw those terrible reviews.

Tim: Well, what's funny is that when this idea started online on Instagram and I would pull all the terrible Instagram reviews and comments because the internet's an ugly place and these trolls just will show up anywhere. You could be Mother Teresa and I'm sure she's got trolls as well. I mean it's unbelievable. So I would put 'em up there and then like clockwork, you could set your watch and within minutes our people would come calling and just call them out about how wrong they are. And we get hundreds of comments of like, no, no, no, that's not right. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It was a cattle call and everyone would come and put a comment, like a positive comment, and it created a community for a brief moment.

Debra: Well you're reminding me of Tesla. Tesla fired their PR firm because they had the Tesla boys. You can't go into that community without and disrespect Tesla without somebody showing up and talking back to you online. It's a very tight community.

Tim: So people care, which is nice.

Debra: Yeah. So have there been other brands that have come to you going, how did you find these people that you call over 50? Look, they have money, they want to buy things. Are other brands coming and trying to understand more?

Tim: Yes, I think it's a short answer on that one. I think people are starting to realize that 45 to 65 is a great or whatever, 45 to 70, 45 to 75. It's a great customer.

Debra: In what way?

Tim: So the space is somewhat quiet, so it's not like the majority of consumer products are targeting them. So we can have an actual conversation with them without tons of noise. They are intelligent, they have seen a lot and they know a lot and we can just assume certain things with them and we can move forward with that understanding. So we're not lasting marketing messages to the general population, which is that doesn't do anyone any good, but we're not crafting a message for 18 to 25. We're not crafting a message for 30 to 40. We're crafting one message for a very focused group of people, which is not a small group of people

Debra: And keep me honest here, but I imagine that you actually pull a good number of that younger demographic.

Tim: We do, but we don't acknowledge it. So we will get Shopify data all the time. And I'm always amazed at how many people, let's call it like 25 to 40 are buying glasses. But we do nothing to promote that business. But if they wanted to buy glasses, that's great. And this is something that I learned from Yvonne Chenard who I got to work directly with at Patagonia. He knew damn well that the person that pays the bills was the guy going from Connecticut to Wall Street. Those people were buying a lot of clothing every day, and the person that was actually living out of their sleeping bag in Yosemite Valley was the benefactor of that. So you can sell things to a wide range of people, but the message and the focus is on a very distinct group.

Debra: Does it get any more complicated now that you're super successful?

Tim: I'll never consider myself super successful. So that solves that problem. Okay. Does it get more complicated? Yes, it does.

Debra: In what way?

Tim: In what way? I would just pin it on growth. Growth is an interesting concept and how you approach it and how you feel about it and the strategies that you put in place. I mean, it's fun, but it's harder. Yeah, it's harder. I mean you can just think when we had six styles and two or three clicks and you're done shopping kind of experience, it's a lot different than now. We have prescription, we do sunglasses. Everything just gets more complex the bigger you get.

Debra: You don't need to tell tales out of school on this, but would you consider expanding the brand to be other things outside of glasses?

Tim: Yeah. Yeah. So I'm a big fan of having the community drive what we do next. And one of the strongest things that I'm hearing back is how can Caddis be a platform for this community to move the model from products to platform? I'm pretty excited about platforms. What that means is that you have this for a gross word, let's call it a brand platform. We can do reading glasses, we can do prescription glasses, we can do sunglasses. How about if we do retreats, if we do media events and it kind of, what should we do? And I really listen to the masses and our customer base and we're hearing a lot of, we want in real life events and we want community and we have it. We just need to be a catalyst for people to gel together.

Debra: I love this. Could it be like Coachella for us? Could it be music?

Tim: Yeah, yeah. Actually our brand's big in the music. We actually have been, this is something that a lot of people don't know, but we've been giving a percentage of each product sale to music education. So yes, it could be all those things.

Debra: Or maybe surf camp.

Tim: Could be that too.

Debra: I love what you're saying here because that absolutely makes sense. And I think after Covid, I don't know about you, but I just don't want to do another, here we are talking on Zoom. I wish that we were in the room together because I'm really over zoom, I'm over online. I don't want to do another yoga class remote. I just want to sit with people. I will go see anybody speak because I just want to sit in a room with other humans and have an experience together. That's right. And finding other folks who are interesting to talk to.

Tim: So as we look at growth, that's what's going to drive the growth beyond the products that today

Debra: That feels true to the brand and also surprising. So that is super exciting. When should we start looking for some interesting things to drop?

Tim: Oh, that's a good question. Some form of it. Next year.

Debra: Okay, well next year's almost here. So

Tim: I know.

Debra: No stress.

Tim: No stress.

Debra: So for other folks who are thinking that they want to start something new again, part of your mantra here is that start the thing that you've been overtalking about. What's your advice for stopping, overthinking and starting to do the thing? How do you begin?

Tim: You begin. So the other side of the coin to action is fear. So most people when you talk to 'em about starting something new, they're really excited about it. But the thing that prevents that first step, all roads lead back to fear. And I think as soon as you know that and you can address it and you can say to yourself, okay, what am I so scared? So then you're not just blind to why you're not moving forward. You can jump straightforward to what am I scared of and how can I mitigate that? Or what do I need to do in order to manage that better? Because it's crippling me

Debra: And just saying it out loud SAPs it of some of its power. Right?

Tim: Totally. Totally. Because it sounds silly. And then when you get it out in the open, you realize that it starts to lose power over you. So that's always good.

Debra: Alright, well we're going to get started thinking about our fear and moving forward and owning it. So glad that you're in the world and I can't wait to find out what happens next.

Tim: Oh, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that,

Debra: Tim. Thanks again. It's a fun one. Thanks again. Appreciate you.

Tim: Okay, thank you. Bye Debra.

Debra: Thanks for listening to the Dareful Project. Please follow like and leave a review. It really helps. We're on all your favorite platforms, Spotify, apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, audible. Tune in Amazon Music, Stitcher, SoundCloud, and YouTube and Connect. You can email me at [e-mail]. That's Debra, D-E-B-R-A at Dareful one. That's with the number one.com. Thanks for listening.

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