Krewe (pronounced “crew”), a term largely associated with Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans, is an organization or group that puts on a parade or ball for the Carnival season. KREWE is also an eyewear company founded by Stirling Barrett, a New Orleans native and entrepreneur whose vision of the city as a thriving cultural hub was his inspiration for launching the company.

Barrett passionately believes in spreading the culture of his home city and its celebration of individual style, one frame at a time. The company’s tagline is “Do something from somewhere no one would expect.”

I recently had the opportunity to talk to Barrett about his business and his passions. We discussed Krewe’s origins, how to market to increasingly savvy consumers, and why Krewe has insisted from the very beginning on providing free shipping through their preferred shipping solution, FedEx.

Brian Moran: You launched KREWE in 2013. What were you doing before you became an entrepreneur and what led to the moment when you thought “The world needs a new, different kind of sunglasses company?”

Stirling Barrett: In a way, I’ve always been an entrepreneur, formally educated in fine art and photography. I found early success with a unique style of collage photography that sold well and solidified that a life in art and design was where I wanted to be. The only issue was that the medium had to change. The seed money for KREWE was generated from my savings as a young photographer. I’ve always had a passion for eyewear, and I seized an opportunity to pursue it. That money was actually going to be the down payment on my first house.

Moran: What was your initial vision for the company, and how did it change/grow over the past four years as you achieved more and more success?

Barrett: KREWE was founded on the idea of doing something unexpected from a place nobody would expect. I wanted KREWE to change the perception of what can be done from New Orleans. To succeed, I had to design products that people wanted to wear and buy; I also needed to create a financial success story that would get noticed. Thankfully, we are seeing progress in the founding intentions and vision; what drove me on day one, still drives our team today. If anything, the way we achieve our vision is constantly evolving.

Moran: KREWE has a unique, exciting corporate culture. As you continue to expand your business, opening retail stores in New Orleans, Savannah, and Dallas, how do you maintain that type of culture?

Barrett: For us, culture is the long game. We view our culture today as creating the ideal environment to produce the best results for our KREWE. We look for smart creative people yearning for the environment provided at KREWE. One concept we have is called “Do You,” which acknowledges that smart creatives must pursue their passions inside and outside of work. When those passions align with company goals, we decide how to best support each other. This program is scalable for us and attracts talent that thrives while at KREWE.

Moran: According to WSJ Magazine, KREWE counts Beyoncé, Amber Heard, and Dakota Fanning as fans. Anna Wintour from Vogue called you “A truly talented designer.” In a very crowded field, how did you and KREWE separate yourselves from the competition to garner such praise and fans?

Barrett: First of all, that is a very flattering compliment from Anna. My experience with the CFDA was very special to me. As the founder, designer, and CEO, I have many points of view on this answer. As a designer, I have to put out impeccable product, or else nobody cares. As the CEO, I understand that our consumers, celebrity or not, are more knowledgeable than ever and are virtual experts on quality, taste, and options. We live in a global marketplace, and KREWE competes with brands all over the world. As the founder, I feel that what we are accomplishing from New Orleans is best represented when someone puts on a pair of KREWE frames. We are real people, doing real things, entirely self-funded, and almost everything is done in-house. Wearing KREWE changes the way your see the world, and the way the world sees you.

Moran: What are the best and hardest parts about running your business day-to-day?

Barrett: When it was just me, I used to wear all the hats. Now ‘I’ am ‘we,’ a real KREWE, and that is the most enjoyable part of my day to day. I’m currently responsible for overseeing the most talented group of people I’ve ever been around; my role has shifted from today’s business to future business. The new assignment has been a great learning experience.

Moran: On almost every page of your web site, you mention free shipping both ways. What does that entail? Is that, along with your unique designs, a competitive advantage for KREWE?

Barrett: When we started KREWE, free shipping was definitely a competitive advantage because most companies didn’t offer it. As businesses are becoming more competitive in an e-commerce world, consumers now have certain expectations. Free shipping is now fairly commonplace. For us, it’s still the right thing to do.

Moran: Last question, what’s next for KREWE? Do you want to bring New Orleans to the world or bring the world to New Orleans? In other words, will you double down your efforts locally or look to expand nationally and internationally?

Barrett: Great question. We have an event in the fall called ‘A Weekend with KREWE’ with the aim of getting people to New Orleans to experience a bit of the culture that inspires us to ‘Do Us.’ We will always default to bringing the world to New Orleans, but that will not prevent us from bringing New Orleans to the world. For example, we launched the KREWE Tiny House in March this year. The tiny house is an exploration of retail minimalism, combined with the mobile ability to spread the KREWE spirit and story. At 154.8 square feet, this small home was built to meet the French Quarter’s historic code and structurally mimic the iconic shotgun home — a symbol of New Orleans’ architecture, diverse people and Afro-Caribbean lineage. Check out the hashtag #KREWETinyHouse to follow along.

Thanks Stirling for your time and for sharing your wonderful, passionate success story. Anyone interested in following the KREWE journey, here are more ways to stay connected to the company: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Shipping New Orleans Culture to the World was originally published in Beyond the Storefront on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

What happens when two well educated women with creative backgrounds meet up and decide to start a business? In the case of Claire Mazur and Erica Cerulo, you get www.ofakind.com, an ecommerce company with a higher purpose.

Claire Mazur always seemed to have an innate attraction for the arts. After a random meeting with Donna Karan, she landed an internship at DKNY at 16 (her AOL screenname was DKNYClaire). In college, she shifted her focus more broadly to the arts. Claire received her Master’s degree in Arts Management to work with art collections and individual artists.

Erica Cerulo had a successful background as an editor at Details, the fashion and lifestyle magazine, and later at Lucky (one of my favorite magazines in its era) which translated haute couture designs into more affordable fashions for young professionals.

In 2010, these two fashion forward women got together and founded their company. Claire saw how the art world was changing and saw the internet as a new distribution channel. The internet enabled a broader scope of people to have access to art. Erica was motivated by the idea to drive and build something from the ground up. This new company gave them a sense of ownership.’

The site name, “Of a Kind” represents the philosophy of the site. Some of the creations for sale may only be available in limited quantities, because they sell exclusive, emerging design fashion. They seek out upcoming designers and give them a platform, making their wares available to a broader audience.

Since the site’s inception, they have featured over 350 of America’s most promising new makers in fashion and the arts. Designers get a start here and many have grown into their own brands, like Clare Vivier’s “Clare V.” The web site has become an incubator of sorts; the founders believe in the designers, and they end up supporting each other and growing together.

Claire and Erica had a dream of bringing art and fashion to everyday women. They scoured previously untouched sources such as designs accessible from small boutiques; young designers that weren’t currently represented online. They gave these makers a platform to sell their goods.

To curate the fashion, they find things that they would want to wear themselves — things with a little bit of a twist. This approach appeals to their audience in the fashion discovery phase and they sell the designs at reasonable prices. The core of the Of a Kind shopping experience is facilitated by Erica’s expertise in storytelling. It’s the way they engage their customers with the products they are buying. It gives a sense of meaning to the pieces they are selling. Each designer represented on the site has their own page that’s filled with personal stories alongside their bios. The editorial portions of the site are strongly tied to featuring merchandise. It makes buying easy — that’s their secret sauce.

Initially, Erica and Claire ran the company out of their respective apartments. Some merchandise was stored with Claire, other merchandise with Erica. There were advisors and interns to help out and they grew by bootstrapping the business; reinvesting what they earned to grow the company. Shipping proved to be a challenge. It was done from their apartments, where they went through the trials of learning “how” to ship. Some items required boxes while other pieces could be shipped in envelopes. The goal was always to deliver the best possible customer experience. Success meant getting their hands dirty with all the nitty gritty aspects of running the business.

They learned that customers appreciated knowing that there are real people behind the business. The founders have been transparent about their story and who they are now. This storytelling expands throughout the site via well written editorials and fanciful photography. Personally, I went from page to page — just to read the tips, stories and the news. The web site is incredibly sticky and engaging.

There are many costs tied to shipping out a box. They try to keep prices reasonable. Currently their website features free ground shipping on orders over $75. Normally, they charge a flat $9.50 for each package, which is sent via FedEx Ground® service. Overnight orders are also available, sent via FedEx Standard Overnight® service for $19.50. Orders are shipped the same day they are received when placed before 2pm ET.

These days shipping is done through a family-owned warehouse in Maryland. The team in Maryland took the time to learn the business and the culture of the customer experience. Packages are sent out with a personalized touch — with certificates of authenticity and handwritten thank you notes. They maintain their loyal customer base by keeping in contact with their customers through a wildly popular newsletter called “Ten Things.” There’s also a podcast on the site.

From creative, unique sourcing to superior web design, Of a Kind has broken new ground combining culture, shopping and the personal touch to create a customer experience that’s appreciated by all.

Passion and Profit was originally published in Beyond the Storefront on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If you leave home every day with a tote over one shoulder and a laptop bag over the other, you’re doing what Dagne Dover co-founder Melissa Mash calls the two-bag schlep.

Mash knows the routine well. You’ve got your workout shoes and your water bottle in the tote, along with that report you’re taking to your 10 a.m. presentation. The report’s binder has to hang out next to your gym socks because it’s too big to fit into the laptop bag, and the granola bar you brought for a snack is getting smushed under your aluminum water bottle, and your keys—where are your keys again?

Mash, along with Dagne Dover co-founders Jessy Dover and Deepa Gandhi, want you to put down that second bag. In fact, put down both bags and pick up a Dagne Dover handbag. It’s designed to give you a place for your shoes, your water bottle, your report, your laptop, your granola bar, and your keys—a professional and fashion-forward way to get your stuff where it needs to go.

Creating the Perfect Bag

Melissa Mash started investigating the problem with handbags while working at a name-brand luxury handbag brand. “I got to speak with customers every day and hear what their biggest handbag frustrations were.” Water bottles tipped over, laptops weren’t protected, keys inevitably disappeared into the bottom of the bag next to the used tissues.

So she asked herself if she could create a better bag. “People wanted to carry something that was of course fashionable, but also really practical and really functional.” She saw a space in the market for a fashionable handbag with an organized interior at an affordable price point—and decided to go to business school.

Back in the classroom, Mash watched classmates do the two-bag schlep at networking events—“they were putting so much time into their hair, their makeup, the clothes, the shoes, and their bags were a complete disaster”— and knew she could come up with a better solution.

Over the next 18 months, Mash brought together the team that would eventually launch Dagne Dover. They talked to over 1,000 women and men about their biggest handbag frustrations, conducting surveys and leading focus groups until they reverse-engineered what Mash called “the Perfect Bag.”

In 2013, Mash and her team announced that Dagne Dover’s Perfect Bag was available for pre-sale. They sent the announcement to everyone they had surveyed and focus grouped, as well as people who had signed up to learn more on the Dagne Dover website, trusting them to spread the word. “Within three months, we had over $40,000 worth of sales.”

Trusting the Perfect Fulfillment Service

“When we launched, Melissa, Jessy and I were doing everything.” Deepa Gandhi knew that the Dagne Dover team couldn’t grow their business if they were spending their time putting bags into boxes. They were already exceeding their expected volume, and bags were on backorder due to customer demand.

So Dagne Dover began expanding the business and looking for additional production support, including a company that could handle the packing and shipping logistics. The first third-party logistics facility they used helped them increase their shipping capacity, but also came with unexpected challenges, including product shipping delays.

Then Dagne Dover had the opportunity to be the pilot client for FedEx Fulfillment, a new service that provides warehousing, fulfillment, pick pack shipping, reverse logistics, and custom packaging solutions. With FedEx Fulfillment, Gandhi explains, “we are able to deliver the Dagne Dover brand experience to our customers in a really effective way.”

How effective? “This past holiday, our volume more than doubled, and we were able to fulfill it in 60 percent less time than we did last year.”

A good third-party logistics relationship isn’t just about time. It’s also about trust. “It’s really great for me as a COO to have that kind of confidence in our partner, because trust is everything. They treat our products with the care that we want them to be treated with.”

Dagne Dover ships 1,000 to 2,000 orders every week, and FedEx Fulfillment gives each order an extra round of quality checking before putting it into the box. When the customer receives their perfect bag, whether they’ve chosen the Classic Tote, the Elle Clutch, or the Dakota Backpack, they get a package that represents the Dagne Dover brand experience—as well as the values that Dagne Dover and FedEx Fulfillment share.

Or, as Deepa Gandhi puts it: “It’s something we can be proud of and they can be proud of as well.”

Shipping the Perfect Handbag was originally published in Beyond the Storefront on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Table + Teaspoon started, appropriately enough, over a meal.

“While I was studying for the bar exam, I was going stir-crazy at home,” founder Liz Curtis explains. “A friend came by with lunch and put on Barefoot Contessa, which I’d never seen. I decided that if [Ina Garten] could make it look super-easy to roast a chicken, I could do it too.”

This was in 2009, when Curtis was preparing to become a corporate litigator — and no, she didn’t drop everything to pursue a new career in the food and events industry. Not yet.

Instead, she started a blog.

“I never thought that it would turn out to be anything other than a creative outlet.” After posting some dinner party photos on Facebook, Curtis’s friends suggested she start writing about her experiments in cooking and entertaining. Curtis called her blog Table + Teaspoon, combining the two elements of a good meal: the food you cook, and the table you share.

Curtis spent four years writing for Table + Teaspoon — lawyer by day, blogger by night — before she started seriously thinking about whether she could turn her passion for food and design into a successful startup. Taking the kind of career leap-of-faith that most people would find frightening, Curtis exchanged her lawyer’s salary for a caterer’s wage and started to get to know the industry.

“I had to figure out how to get my hands dirty,” Curtis said — and she did, working private catering events and weddings, and quickly moving up into the world of event design.

Two years into this career change — that’d be summer 2015, for those of you keeping track — Curtis had an unexpected moment of inspiration.

She’d just finished working a 50-person dinner in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood, and was returning the rented table services back to a warehouse in Burlingame before driving back home. Again, for those of you keeping track: that’s about an hour’s drive each way.

“It dawned on me,” Curtis said, “that you can get a chef on demand, you can get a sommelier on demand, you can get meal kits, you can get food from your favorite restaurant delivered, but you can’t get a table setting delivered.”

As she drove, Curtis went from asking why can’t you get a table setting delivered to why can’t I deliver them?

“If I could figure out how to put together packages that were designed, it would eliminate the event planner fee, which is exorbitant. If I could figure out the packaging component — which took ten months, as it turns out — it would eliminate the need to drive to remote warehouses to drop off your rentals.”

That’s when Table + Teaspoon began to transform from a blog to a business.

Curtis wanted to make in-home entertaining accessible, and she set out to create a company that would allow people to quickly and easily rent table settings — and quickly and easily return them. “Table + Teaspoon is an on-demand tabletop rental company where you get a complete setting for each of your guests delivered in the mail. You put it back in the box when you’re done and send it away dirty.”

The whole concept, from idea to execution, took about four months. Curtis wrote a business plan, bootstrapped the initial funding by combining a loan from her mother with her own savings, and got to work.

“I designed all of the flatware and linens, formed relationships with glassware and china manufacturers, had to find a place to store all of the goods, had to learn all of the sanitizing regulations, had to learn about shipping — all of the components that go into building a successful company.”

Curtis didn’t have a background in design, but she knew what she wanted and she knew who to ask. “I don’t know how to sew, so I was calling my mom at midnight to ask if it was possible to make a dual-sided napkin without it feeling too cumbersome in everyone’s hands.”

Details like the dual-sided napkins — the nautical-themed Cabot setting includes napkins with a navy-and-white print on one side and an octopus print on the other — allowed Curtis to give her customers options without overwhelming them with choices. She didn’t want Table + Teaspoon to feel like a Bed, Bath & Beyond; she wanted it to feel like a curated selection of luxury place settings, each designed to meet a potential need.

The hardest part, as it turns out? Designing the box.

“We needed to design a box that was as cheap as possible for shipping, since we’re shipping to someone and shipping back.”

Curtis knew each box would include 65 items — 66 counting the box itself — all of which needed to be washable and sanitizable. Minimizing waste made sense from both an environmental and a cost standpoint, but that also meant that Table + Teaspoon couldn’t pack its table runners and teaspoons in foam or cardboard. Curtis needed packing material that could be sanitized and reused in the next shipment, and it took over two dozen iterations before she got the box and the interior she wanted.

“We ended up with a corrugated plastic box with corrugated plastic compartments.” Each box includes plates, flatware, and glassware along with paper goods such as place cards and menu cards. The breakable items are packed in reusable, sanitizable bubble wrap sleeves. The linens folded on top, and at the very top of the box — the first thing you see when you open it up — is an infographic card, explaining where to place each item.

“It seems easy to set a table,” Curtis explained, “but again, for a dinner for four, you’re getting 66 items. That could be easily overwhelming.”

As with the design options, Curtis wanted the entire process to involve as little overwhelm as possible, which is why she made it easy for both herself and for the people using her place settings: All the boxes pack the same way. All the materials are sanitizable. The dishes don’t need to be washed before they’re repacked and returned, and the box includes a return shipping label. Curtis also follows up each box with an email explaining the return process to make sure everything is as clear as possible.

A fully-packed Table + Teaspoon box measures 11 inches by 26 inches and weighs 25 pounds. It’s designed to impress, and — if necessary — to take a fall. “We did a bunch of drop testing, so we know how many feet it takes to break each piece.” Each box can ship back and forth 50 times before it needs to be replaced.

Curtis tested six different shipping companies before committing to FedEx. Part of the reason she chose FedEx was because of its accessibility: “Everyone knows where a FedEx Office location is.” (If you don’t, or can’t access one easily, you can also schedule an in-person pickup for a reasonable rate.)

The other reason is because FedEx, unlike some of the other options, didn’t damage her carefully designed boxes by adding extra packing tape or by write on them with permanent marker. “No writing, no tape, great pickup scheduling. We’re happy with that decision.”

Table + Teaspoon officially launched in August 2016; they’re now shipping 25 boxes per week and have enough stock to send out 90 boxes a week as the business continues to grow. “It’s a tiny team, and some days it is just me, and some days it feels overwhelming because there are fourteen people trying to get out boxes as quickly as possible for Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

Although Curtis has help, including a publicist and a web designer, she does much of the hands-on work herself, including washing, packing, and checking to make sure nothing slips through any metaphorical — or literal — cracks.

“If you have a dinner party for eight, it’s someone’s 30th birthday, and you end up with everything except one person has no place card or menu card, this whole table’s not going to be Instagram-worthy anymore. That’s why people are renting my product.”

One of the most amazing aspects of Curtis’s success story is how she launched Table + Teaspoon with no previous startup experience:

“The only thing I walked in with was the idea that I could disrupt two different industries: the events industry, which is a five billion dollar industry annually, and the on-demand food industry, which is a four billion dollar industry. There’s no innovation in the events industry, and there’s nothing to put all of this food on in the on-demand food industry. I knew that, so I did market research based on that, I knew that my designs had been very popular via my blog and my clients, and that was my foundation.”

She laughed.

“It’s sort of the opposite of being a lawyer.”

Her next goal is to seek investor funding so she can hire additional staff to handle the marketing and sales components. “One of the biggest things I’ve learned is that I can’t learn fast enough to scale fast enough. I have to hire people who know more than I do, and that’s where I am now.”

What advice does Curtis have for other entrepreneurs?

“Figure out how passionate you are about your idea, because the day-to-day self-doubt, from yourself and from other people, will be overwhelming. Figure out how much this passion is worth to you, write it down, put it in your purse, put it in your wallet, and pull it out when you need a reminder that this is what you want to be doing more than anything.”

Once you put your piece of paper back into your wallet, remember that logistics and operations are just skills that can be learned — and quickly — and that even complicated shipping problems can be solved, one design iteration at a time.

“The thing that seemed the most impossible at the beginning was the packaging, and I had a friend that said ‘You know, if NASA can get rockets with people on them to the moon, you can figure out how to ship dishes.’ I think that was one of my favorite pieces of advice, because it’s true. No problem is insurmountable.”

How a Food Blogger Built an eCommerce Business That’s Disrupting the Events Industry was originally published in Beyond the Storefront on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There are three important lessons to be learned by business owners and entrepreneurs from being a monthly subscriber to Bespoke Post. The five-year old e-Commerce company, co-founded by Steven Szaronos and Rishi Prabhu, caters to men who enjoy the finer things in life, but who also need some assistance in finding those items.

The company name is a mashup of terms from the world of men’s tailoring (Bespoke) and from historic North America (Trading Post — a place where explorers and settlers exchanged their goods and services). I recently spoke to Steven Szaronos about the success of his business which has come, in part, from strong referrals and word-of-mouth advertising among men and their network of friends. He talked about the strength of the company’s curation team in NYC, and their efficiently run warehouse partner in Georgia. Steven also mentioned the ways Bespoke Post delivers on their promises to subscribers, and how the company strives to make the customer journey an enjoyable, hassle-free one for men in the United States and Canada.

The Three Stages of Ordering From Bespoke Post:

They Curate the Good Stuff — Whether it’s coffee, clothes, watches or luggage, every month the Bespoke Post curation team puts together a custom box based on your preferences. Each box has a certain theme attached to it. For example, a current offering is called Thaw. The box consists of two pairs of Sherpa Rib socks, a cedars socks box to protect your investment, Leather ’N’ Rich rub to keep your shoes in shape, and lastly, two pairs of leather laces (one black, and one brown). These four items are things we want to have in our closets, but don’t necessarily have the time to research the products and get them at a store or online.

They Make Decisions Simple — At the beginning of each month, subscribers receive an email to let them know their boxes are ready. They also understand that they have three options with each box: add items to the box, swap their box for another one being offered that month, or simply decide not to receive a box for that month. There is no pressure to choose a box, and subscribers aren’t being forced to buy something they don’t want. Clearly, the team at Bespoke Post understands their customers.

They Offer Free Shipping — To me, this is one of the best features of being a subscriber to Bespoke Post. After adding my purchases to the web site cart, I check out and pay only what the items cost me. If you live within the contiguous United States, shipping is free. The company ships via FedEx SmartPost®. The service, used by many retailers and online commerce stores, allows Bespoke Post to deliver custom boxes to subscribers in a safe, reliable manner without driving up the cost of the products.

The goal for Bespoke Post is to become a trusted source for men interested in adding unique and quality items to their lives — whether it’s clothing, barware, accessories or journals to keep track of their journeys. The company removed the bigger obstacles to becoming a subscriber by offering a free membership, no requirement to order every month and FREE shipping via FedEx SmartPost. They won my trust and I am now a subscriber. I can’t wait to receive my first box — a weekender bag that I’ve wanted for at least a year.

Business Lessons From an eCommerce Up-and-Comer was originally published in Beyond the Storefront on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.