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In this episode of Read Receipt, Sean sits down with Cayla O'Connell Davis, co-founder and CEO of Subset, the organic cotton underwear brand rethinking what goes into your most-worn layer.
Cayla bootstrapped Subset in one of the toughest categories to fund, buying inventory five to six months ahead and launching with just four styles. One of them, the high-rise brief, got written up by Vogue and became a cult favorite that carried the brand out of the gate.
She gets into the scrappy, human side of growth: a first-of-its-kind program that takes back and recycles your old underwear, handing out free undies on the streets of New York, Galentine's Day roses with a buyback card, and why she markets an unseen product more like a perfume brand. Along the way she shares hard-won lessons on doing the unscalable things on purpose, and protecting time to stay creative several years in.
Tune in for an honest look at building a mission-driven brand through organic cotton, grassroots marketing, and a refusal to grow the easy way!
For 20% off Subset, use code READRECEIPT.
Chapters:
00:00 - Cold open
00:36 - What Subset is
01:00 - The family-run factory in India
03:00 - Bootstrapping an expensive category
04:24 - Launching with four styles and the Vogue high-rise brief
07:26 - The first 16,000-unit order
09:02 - Would she launch with PR today?
10:40 - The take-back recycling program
13:35 - Recycling as acquisition, then Trashie and SuperCircle
16:40 - What's driving new growth now
17:30 - Giving away underwear on the streets of New York
18:00 - Cotton vs synthetics: the health case
22:06 - The "ask me about my underwear" sign
28:32 - Galentine's roses and being a fun brand
31:30 - World-building for a product you can't see
33:33 - Getting flagged as adult content in paid ads
34:56 - New-media marketing: just be yourself
39:14 - Protecting time to stay creative
42:34 - Close
