Manly Bands is a direct-to-consumer vendor of males’s rings. The corporate launched in 2016 after John Ruggiero, the co-founder along with his spouse Michelle, couldn’t discover a appropriate wedding ceremony band.
That is Ruggiero’s second look on the podcast. In April 2021, we discussed the corporate’s founding, distinctive ring supplies, and extra. Since then, Manly Bands has acquired its producer. The making of rings from, say, Jack Daniel’s whiskey barrels or Fender guitar strings creates compelling video, says Ruggiero, good for storytelling on social media and elsewhere.
All the audio of our dialog is embedded under. The transcript is edited for size and readability.
Eric Bandholz: Give us a rundown of what you do.
John Ruggiero: My spouse, Michelle, and I began an internet ring firm known as Manly Bands in 2016 to resolve an issue of wedding ceremony bands for males. We had been simply married. I’ve massive fingers and couldn’t discover a ring that I preferred that was not overpriced. My choices had been ordering from a catalog or having one thing custom-made.
I ended up shopping for from a web site. The ring arrived in a flat mailer, with no field or customer support. It was a horrible expertise by as we speak’s ecommerce requirements.
We received married, moved to Florida, and wanted a job. We instructed ourselves, “We’re each entrepreneurs. Why don’t we create our personal enterprise?” We mentioned the forms of issues we’d seen and the best way to clear up them. My ring expertise got here up, and we opted to attempt to clear up it for different guys.
Our aim once we began was to pay lease. We thought making a pair thousand {dollars} a month from this might be implausible. We thought of it a life-style enterprise, not high-growth. It was simply Michelle and me in our storage designing rings and sending them out to prospects. We had hit on one thing. Our message resonated with prospects.
Michelle and I make a wonderful staff. I provide you with concepts, and he or she’s the implementer. Quite a lot of our success goes to her inventive thoughts. She names the rings and develops personas. She connects the rings to prospects. Describing a hoop solely as “eight-millimeter black” didn’t minimize it.
We designed rings from distinctive supplies, resembling Jack Daniel’s barrels or particular metals. The enterprise took off. Since then, we’ve grown dramatically. We now have over 55 individuals within the Manly Bands household. About half of these are ring artisans who work in our not too long ago acquired manufacturing store in Utah.
Bandholz: When did you purchase a producer?
Ruggiero: A couple of yr and a half in the past. We had been their buyer for years, so we knew them nicely. Most of their enterprise was wholesale, which didn’t curiosity us — going to mom-and-pop jewelers. They retained their wholesale prospects and model identify. We acquired a few of their property and introduced over staff.
Bringing on a producing staff has been top-of-the-line issues we’ve achieved. It’s been unbelievable to go on the market and watch them make rings out of Fender guitar strings or steel from an M1 Abrams tank.
Bandholz: How does in-house manufacturing influence advertising?
Ruggiero: It’s been enormous. Taking a digicam to the opposite aspect of the workplace and filming the staff utilizing lathes to chop the steel rods or whiskey barrels into rings makes for unbelievable video. We now have our digicam crew on the market on a regular basis. We use that footage on our social media and in our advertisements and newsletters. We attempt to promote that as a result of most corporations within the males’s ring house don’t manufacture. They drop ship or order from abroad after which ship it out. However we wish it to final a lifetime and be one thing individuals can take pleasure in.
We’ve had a variety of success with our navy heritage assortment, the place we supply distinctive navy supplies. We now have the M1 Garand rifle inventory, the wooden half, from World Conflict I. Watching our staff put that within the lathe and minimize a chunk out for a hoop is fascinating.
Our advertising for these rings talks concerning the historical past, the troopers, the place the weapon was used, and issues like that. My spouse and I studied filmmaking in school. We use our expertise to educate and tell a story. As an example, I not too long ago acquired an e mail from a buyer who shared that his grandfather used to drive M1 tanks. The shopper gifted a kind of rings to his grandfather, they usually had fairly an emotional trade. It’s good to assist prospects join with their previous and create one thing significant.
Bandholz: The place can individuals purchase a hoop from you?
Ruggiero: ManlyBands.com. We now have photos on Instagram, too. I’m on Twitter and LinkedIn.
