Flight crew: Nau executives Ian Yolles (top), vice president of marketing; Jil Zilligen, vice president of sustainability; Chris Van Dyke (bottom), CEO; and Mark Galbraith (right), vice president of product design.
Duds for all: To achieve the right combination of performance, sustainability, and beauty, Nau actually created 28 of the 30 fabrics used in its first collection. It’s keeping those creations “open source,” encouraging industry peers to use them.
Somewhere between the Oscar for Al Gore's planetary-disaster epic, An Inconvenient Truth, and the canonization of Angelina Jolie by the United Nations (in association with
While celebrity moguls and business leaders of all stripes race to unleash one good work after another--from Bono's Red campaign to
The presumption that business can, and that we can, is at the heart of a new enterprise emerging from that hotbed of green goodness, Portland, Oregon. To say that Nau (Maori for "Welcome! Come in") is a new outdoor-clothing company would be a little like saying
Two and a half years ago, ideas were all Nau had. They took form in the heads of a small group of executives who had left big jobs at Patagonia and
"We're challenging the nature of capitalism," contends Nau's CEO, Chris Van Dyke. A tall, fit 56-year-old, Van Dyke came out of semiretirement--which involved sailing his 40-foot yacht, surfing, and fishing off the coast of Mexico for months at a time--to start Nau. "We started with a clean whiteboard," he continues. "We believed every single operational element in our business was an opportunity to turn traditional business notions inside out, integrating environmental, social, and economic factors. Nau represents a new form of activism: business activism."
Today, Nau is a business with three months of sales under its belt by way of the Web and four retail stores (in Boulder, Colorado; Portland; Chicago; and Bellevue, Washington), 92 people, $24 million raised in capital, and four clothing collections in various stages of production. The business plan projects $11 million in revenue this year, growing to $260 million and 150 stores by 2010.
Those are ambitious targets, but what's more striking is how Nau's core leadership team designed a disruptive business from the ground up. It has opted out of the industry norm at nearly every turn--from the invention of its own fabrics to the reinvention of its relationship with consumers.
It starts with a retail concept that combines the efficiencies of the Web with the intimacy of the boutique. Called a "Webfront," the Nau store integrates technology in a striking gallery-like setting. The central mechanism is a self-serve kiosk that transfers the online shopping experience to a touch screen and encourages customers to have their purchases sent home, with the incentive of a 10% discount and free shipping.
The advantage: If customers use the store as a fitting room and push purchases to the Web, Nau can build smaller stores (2,200 to 2,400 square feet compared to the traditional outdoor specialty store's 4,000-plus square feet), reduce in-store inventory dramatically, and slash operating expenses. Plus, it consumes less energy and materials.
Recent Comments | 14 Total
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The ideas Nau promotes are as important as the clothes it sells.
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