Hello Sellouts

I'm a big runner, but that doesn't mean I spend a lot of time in the wilderness.

I recently found a brand that might have convinced me it's time to get out of the city more often.

This week, we're talking about Huckberry, a part-content, part-storefront men's apparel brand that has a lot to teach us about building a community with its customers.

It's easy to get lost in their content – reading stories about adventure travel, checking out curated gear guides, and learning about sustainable manufacturing.

And that's exactly what makes them special.

In a world of soulless ecommerce, Huckberry has built a $150M+ business by focusing on something different: mindshare over wallet share.

Huckberry: The Brand That Masters Storytelling

The Idea of the Outdoors

The Origin

Back in 2011, founders Andy Forch and Richard Greiner saw a gap in the market: there was nothing catering to the urban professional who dreamed of weekend adventures.

You either had high-end designer wear or mass-market basics. The middle ground – quality gear with style that could transition from office to outdoors, was empty.

Building an apparel brand is always tough because it’s as much about how you sell as what you sell.

We’ve talked about boutique athletic brands, mass-market DTC shirts, and even social media hijabs before, but nothing quite like Huckberry.

Every successful company finds a gap. The customers who aren’t quite at home with the big, lowest-common-denominator brands.

It's what Huckberry did next that makes them really special.

Telling a Good Story

Instead of rushing to fill their store with products, Huckberry invested heavily in content and community building:

• They launched a subscription-based online magazine that published twice weekly – not about products, but about lifestyle, adventure and interesting stories their target audience would love

• Every piece of communication, from emails to product descriptions, focused on their mission of enabling "casual adventurers"

• They were selective about brand partnerships, only featuring products that genuinely fit their community's interests

"We make decisions all the time, that if you were an e-commerce guru, you'd hate Huckberry," co-founder Richard Greiner said in an early interview. "We're trying to get people's mind share instead of wallet share."

Meanwhile, they were continuing to find and execute the look, feel and price specifically for their audience.

Huckberry’s brand didn’t expand too broadly early on. Even over a decade later, they still just sell to men.

Keeping a narrow target audience may limit potential customers, but it strengthens their ability to create highly appealing content. Everybody in their audience has common ground.

In the end, they’ve expanded the type of goods they sell, now including outdoors-focused electronics, accessories, gear and even some furniture focused on the rugged outdoorsman – or at those of us who aspire to it!

The Results

This focus on relationship-building over immediate sales paid off in a big way:

• They hit profitability within 3 months of launch

• Built a loyal customer base that sees themselves as part of the "Huckberry community"

• Achieved organic growth through word-of-mouth as customers became brand advocates

• Dominated SEO not just for product searches but for lifestyle content related to their audience's interests

Creating content is hard and surprisingly expensive. I'm not saying that to be successful you need to also launch the next big newsroom.

But you should weigh costs against potential gains, and don't just think about sales. In the digital economy, attention is money. 

If you can keep a customer's attention for five minutes a week, that’s a massive acquisition funnel with added benefits like SEO value, organic sharing, and authenticity appeal.

 The Sellout Takeaway

Key lessons from Huckberry

It’s impossible to distill out the essence of a decade-long success into a few hundred words, but we can always glean some fast learning from a hit strategy!

1. Market Gaps Need Development: Finding an underserved market is step one. But you need to invest in developing that market through education, content and community building.

2. Attention is Acquisition: Every meaningful interaction with potential customers – even if they don't buy – is valuable. Those engagements build familiarity and trust that can lead to future sales or referrals.

3. Community Creates Champions: When customers feel like they're part of your brand story, they become more than buyers – they become advocates who take pride in your success and help spread the word.

4. Content Drives Discovery: Quality content that genuinely serves your audience's interests will naturally attract organic traffic and position your brand as an authority.

5. Focus on one customer: Instead of expanding to new audiences, you can choose to expand what you offer to your existing audience, but this only works if your audience is loyal.

The Huckberry story shows that ecommerce success isn't just about products and pricing. It's about creating an environment where your target customers feel at home.

If you found this interesting, please share it with a friend! And hit reply – I'd love to hear your thoughts on building community vs focusing purely on sales.

Until next week,
Luke

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