when i went to the University of Arizona, there was a good amount of people starting to build businesses & focus on their creative interests while going school.
one of my good friends, Jack Lyons, started a cut & sew custom clothing brand in his dorm room.
the story of how Pythia was born.
Pythia was the name of the high priestess of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. She specifically served as its oracle and was known as the Oracle of Delphi. Her title was also historically glossed in English as the Pythoness. The name Pythia is derived from Pytho, which in myth was the original name of Delphi
5 years later it’s still growing and getting bigger by the week, even in many stores across the country.
he used a social media first strategy. he’d document his creations & post videos on social media making them.
over time, the brand gained attention getting bigger & bigger by the month.
he’d sell out drops in hours & even sometimes minutes.
one of the reasons his drops were so successful is he offered limited items, capped some items to 111 units & he created high demand with social media marketing.
by marketing his drops on socials & creating clothing people wanted to own & collect, it created demand scarcity.
people worried they wouldn't be able to ever get that item again if they didn’t buy it the second the store opened.
at first, he started out making 1/1 hoodies & sending them to people who custom-ordered.
once the brand started to grow, he messaged big musicians & people he wanted to work with offering custom cut & sew products.
this was a great strategy.
people want unique 1 of 1 products. it makes you feel like an insider. then they share images wearing your brand on their socials to huge audiences driving more followers.
followers convert to customers later. gaining attention is point A as a creator.
fast forward now, the brand has almost 100k followers selling out custom drops monthly.
with his use of socials, he created a strong global streetwear fan base.
Jack took a college idea from his dorm room into his business that often does 6 figures of revenue in hours… all while building in public.
he learned lessons along the way of what his audience liked & did not.
it’s better to know fast when something doesn’t sell out vs when things normally sell out so you can pivot on future drops.
he has pushed his own taglines that inspire positivity with his fans and the people who wear Pythia.
as a friend of Jack’s for years, it’s epic to see someone push into their own creative pursuits & it pays off.
it’s hard to take massive risks on your own business, often, operating week to week with every dollar leveraged into production orders.
one thing that Jack did very well on his brands come up, was short form reels showcasing the process of custom cut & sew products in 15-second videos.
with the rise of short form video reach, he would share his craft with the world & it rewarded him with an audience that wanted to wear his brand.
fast forward to today, he builds massive merch drops for some of the biggest influencers & YouTubers in the world.
He even put up his own billboard up on Melrose in LA for a bit.
Builders gonna build.
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Pythia IG - https://www.instagram.com/pythia/
Jacks IG - https://www.instagram.com/jackklyons/
Pythia website - https://www.pythiaclothing.com/password
Not a sponsored post or ad. i was thinking of what to write today & looked over at the stickers Jack recently sent me. instant story idea of what he’s built & watching it from the outside.
213 weeks ago Jack made me a custom hoody.
he took a photo of mine I shot in Prague that was printed on a shirt, cut it out & sewed it into the back of a hoody with the coordinates of exactly where I took the picture.
one of those items I will try to have forever.
-HW
June 20th, 2023
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Shoutout to all the new subs. the Email grew 100+ people in the last few days.
Shout out to you and your unique way of writing these newsletters and producing videos Hunter. Binged your content over the last few months, just feels so real!