Gadgetory

listen is a new audio company it started in 2013 they make headphones with handmade wooden backs and they spend a portion of the revenue helping charities by hearing aids for people who can't afford them that sort of social mission used to be rare but it's becoming more common and something called social enterprise and in a world where most startups fail it creates even more challenges for young companies trying to get off the ground so can a company like listen actually survive and compete with giants like beats and bows when they're spending money on social causes instead of billboards so I was working in the music industry and that was here in Los Angeles at the time I was like really into all of these social enterprise companies like toms or Warby Parker that had just started and I realized that there was nothing music related in social enterprise coincidentally at the same time I saw a video of a woman hearing for the first time it was just a really great lightbulb moment of like oh this is what I want to do with my life so basing a brand on social entrepreneurship it's tricky it's thought that's a it's a tricky prospect listen is an audio company that makes high quality headphones and speakers out of real wood we actually started the company to fund a charity called Starkey Hearing Foundation and for every purchase that somebody makes they're also helping somebody here for the first time is it possible for a brand like listen to take on this huge monster like beats no it's not the headphone market is crazy now it's something like a ten billion dollar industry a year and it's growing essentially headphones I mean it's just shorthand for like look you know I'm cool I don't think that's the game they're gonna win no they're never gonna you know have 90% of the market share and in beats is oh it's gonna be the monster in the room or whatever comes next it's hugely funded getting into big-box retail is definitely been a struggle for us so far somewhere like a target or a Best Buy like beats and Bose collectively probably have 80 to 90% of the real estate in the store so all of the other brands are p-ting for that you know 10 to 20 percent in the store which is a very tough fight but it's it's worth fighting when we started we had no capital it was just you know me in my apartment and trying to figure out how to make a prototype of headphones from basically nothing I took 10 grand loan from a friend and basically went to China and worked with this factory that I had found on Alibaba I tried to do Kickstarter but they actually denied us because we had a charitable part of our company builds a simple website on Shopify took some photos of the only pair of headphones that we had some producer from the Today Show it actually seen it somehow they ended up putting it on the show and then you know tons of people went to the website in order but we didn't have any stock like we literally just had like one pair of headphones so that was quite an experience they had to wait quite a long time longer than they were expecting so we ended up having to talk to every single customer you know like and then when they finally came in we wrote like handwritten sorry notes basically to all of them the biggest early challenge listen faced was scaling up they'd made one pair of headphones and had consumer demand but now they needed to start manufacturing at scale finding retail partners and actually selling headphones to customers I met Joe around the same time they actually got introduced to him through a mutual friend it was kind of a perfect match like between my marketing and music background and with his logistics and social enterprise background I'd started a small little clothing company with a friend of mine some friends asked if we would help ship their product out of that space and we said sure of course you know gotta help our friends up so cut to a few days later some more friends hey heard you're helping so and so do this and one of the brands that we helped launch was TOMS shoes that's a big part of also my understanding of social enterprise we officially launched in April 2013 definitely a crazy time starting a company it's very stressful I didn't sleep very much there's a huge learning curve like I didn't really know how to manufacture anything or how to get into retail I think the biggest hurdle in the journey of listen so far is really just competing with these huge huge companies seeing how we can kind of like hack the system with press and with our story if we had started with something like a speaker a record player it wouldn't really have worked because our whole business is based on people telling other people about the story they Instagram it they put it on Facebook they tell their friends like I just got an awesome product that also helps somebody else our first retailer was actually Whole Foods which is interesting because we are like their first electronics they've ever carried that following Christmas we actually got into Nordstrom probably our biggest account along with Birchbox and Brooks done so it's been a pretty crazy ride when you go into a space that's dominated by billion-dollar companies with this like I've got my heart on my sleeve like we're gonna go and see if the world there's a lot to overcome I think there's been criticism around social enterprise people don't believe that it's real and then it comes from the heart it wasn't an afterthought of like oh we should do a charitable component like this company never would have started without Starkey the Starkey foundation travels the world and gives those in need hearing aids people that might have not ever heard before or maybe they're just having struggles with their hearing the reference point in social enterprise is still Tom's it's the only real gigantic success story that means that most people still don't even know what social enterprise is we're not the charity or charities or whoever we work with we actually have the ability to be you know relatively dynamic we can collaborate with other organizations to maximize the effect I mean it doesn't really matter if it's playing on your heartstrings a sincere you know move on your part or on their part I don't think it really does matter if some of that money is going back to do good then doesn't really matter how they're getting it from you I think when people choose listen over other brands billion dollar brands for example they're choosing to say something like positive about themselves and saying that they not only care about great design and sound but also care about you know more than themselves you know how things are made where they're made where did the proceeds go you know things like that and it's super important in the market right now if you're wearing you know listen and you're wearing where we Parker and Tom's and brands like that I think it's very important to consumers to advertise that they care about other people and not just yourself I mean do people want to buy this too broadcasts hey I'm a good person I'm giving back sure certainly I mean there's always people that want to do that I think that for social enterprise to really work and to take away any doubt you have to make it a product that people already want that they were already gonna buy and make it a quality product that there's no risk make it risk-free I think brands with stories are really that's where it's at right now people want to be heading back to a more boutique type of thing it's a one-of-a-kind thing which is kind of brilliant to make it a cool sleek product to make it something that says hey I'm a good person and I'm a different kind of person I'm different than the rest of them that's thick I mean that's you've hit the mark listen is making a real impact and that's why our customers are so behind us with the headphones off the ground listen is now investing in new product lines and growing the company it's an expansion that will force listen in a competition with a whole new set of deep pocketed rivals so we just changed our name from listen headphones to listen sound company because we're putting out a ton of new products the last six months we've been really focused on product development like speakers and ear plugs and kind of figuring out the next step for listen so we could not only compete with the bigger brands but also give our customers who loved us like the opportunity to have more from us I think these kind of brands can't stick out their own little corner to buy this little special boutique brand I think there's always a place for that is it gonna be for the major populace is it gonna be the big place no they're not gonna beat beats at that game but you know what is there always a place for that and can they survive I think they totally can yeah