Shaun Neff
While many brands have struggled over the last several years, Neff Headwear has gone from creating a beach head in the snowboard industry to a full on invasion of the surf, skate, and urban/hip-hop territories. Since our last official interview with founder Shaun Neff in December of 2009, the brand has expanded its distribution from 1,000 doors in 35 countries to approximately 3,500 doors in over 40 nations, launched a glove line, and is about to release a line of watches—not a bad run even in the best of economic times, especially while staying focused on selling to specialty surf, skate, and snow retailers.
We sat down with Shaun Neff to find out what’s been going on behind the scenes there to support this growth, their partnerships with artists such as Snoop Dogg, and the highlights of one explosive year.
What have been the two biggest highlights for you personally in 10/11?
This last year has been amazing for the Neff brand and our future seems brighter and brighter every day. The two biggest highlights for me personally are, first, that I finally feel that the internal structure at Neff is solid. We have had some amazing new hires and have some great people filling all the key roles necessary to continue growing the brand.
We have restructured our entire internal sales force this year by adding Justin Prior over International Sales, John Hackbarth as West Coast Sales, and Chad St Claimz as East Coast. We added Roy Thorsen, an industry veteran, as our CFO/COO and have almost doubled the rest of our inside team at Neff this year. I will never forget a saying in a book that I read by Donald Trump. His book was actually pretty comical, but he said something that has stuck with me over the years: “Make sure you surround yourself with people smarter than you at certain tasks.” That is how I’m trying to run my business by hiring very intelligent and hardworking people that can crush the task they are responsible for.
The second would be the pure fact that our brand is on fire at retail. I love seeing Neff on people. As I left my house this morning a kid in my neighborhood was rocking Neff and just seeing the brand being accepted on a larger scale is what really keeps my drive and hype factor at the highest level possible.
You can’t leave out the fact the company grew 145% in the last year. What do you attribute this to considering the level-economic playing field that’s leveling others?
When you walk into a retail store Neff really pops and sticks out. On the design side we have been creating our own vibe for a lot of years and have consistently maintained a unique Neff style in all our product. We have also kept our distribution very tight. We remain very strategic on who sells the Neff brand, and are keeping it in retail stores that carry brands that we are comfortable sitting next to on the shelf.
On the marketing side, Chip [Neff, Shaun's brother] is killing it, we are working with an amazing crew of athletes that have 
been crushing it all year and are getting the brand a ton of exposure. It’s also been amazing to watch the music industry really accept the brand and we continue to work with a ton of the largest musicians in the world, which has really helped us increase our brand awareness on a major scale.
The final thing is that the brand is just straight performing at retail. Our sell-through is excellent and our reorder business is through the roof. What has really allowed us the huge growth is that the consumer is buying our product and returning again and again to buy more of the Neff brand. The amazing thing is we have grown at such a high percentage and we have not widened our current distribution. In fact, we just finalized next year’s pre-book which is up over 200%, and we did it without opening any new major retailers. We are opening about an account a day right now, which are all core skate, surf, and snow accounts. Most of the door growth comes from Europe and Asia—the brand globally is really just starting to catch on.
Going back to the new hires and infrastructure, do you guys still have a really strong family vibe with Chip and your dad at Neff?
Since the beginning the management team has been my Dad and me. My dad, Joe Neff is a retired partner for Price Waterhouse Coopers and helped run the U.S. practice for them and continues to consult in that market today. My Dad has been a constant source of knowledge throughout the journey and continues to add daily support to myself and the company.
You got your start with headwear, hell it’s still called “Neff Headwear,” but you’ve been expanding pretty rapidly into apparel and accessories. Is headwear still you’re biggest category? What percent of the pie would you say it makes up now?
Headwear is by far our biggest category and the focus of the brand. Our headwear business is about 60% of total sales, and we are the leader in that category within our current distribution.
Where do you see that product mix for you guys in say three years?
I would say that headwear in three years will be about 40% of our total sales. We are having so much success in other accessory categories that we see huge potential in these other avenues. Our t-shirt business is on fire and we are constantly seeing the Neff T’s in the No. 1 seller position on a weekly basis with our key retail partners.
Neff announced in January 2011 that its new glove team includes Halldor and Eiki Helgason, Sage Kotsenburg, and Chris Bradshaw
You launched a glove program this winter and dropped a serious team. How has that been received by retailers so far?
This year at retail we only had pipe gloves, but in the majority of stores the sell through was at the top for that category, and at our larger retail accounts we were the number-one selling brand in the pipe glove category. We have added a huge team internally to dedicate to our glove program. This year, our pre-book numbers came in gigantic for gloves and we are now offering a full glove line.
Part of your in-road as a brand was because a lot of riders didn’t have headwear-specific sponsors. Are you butting up with other brands your crew rides for now that you’re expanding?
We have had discussions with a lot of different brands on this topic, but in the end it always works out and we are able to work together so both brands receive a mutual benefit from the deal. We work closely with the energy drink brands and are now producing headwear with them, as the energy drinks own the majority of the heads in our industry, that has been a great partnership with them.
What other product categories do you have your eyes on?
We are focused on being the premier accessory brand and will continue to grow and improve on the current categories we offer. The one new category for us this year is watches, where we offered four styles with a total of 22 different colored options. The response blew my mind—the watches are priced at retail from $20 to $35, and in only two months of selling we booked over 100,000 watches, which is crazy. Be on the look out for Neff Time.
Your new spring/summer line just dropped-how would you describe it? What’s new?
Basically it’s T-shirts and ball caps. I describe the line as Neff Fun In The Sun Madness.
You guys have made a pretty strong push into surf. What have been the successes and lessons in getting into a new sport?
Surf has been rad—there are a lot of avid surfers that work here at Neff so we’re all hyped to be in the game. With the fun, poppy Neff vibe, the surf community has been very receptive. The key so far has been our team. We currently have three surfers signed—Kolohe Andinho, Evan Geiselman, and Dion Agious. We feel that these three fit the Neff brand perfectly. We are being very selective on the surf posse and are looking at adding only a couple more surfers to the program.
Good on you for the Snoop T-shirt collab to support Japan. I understand your goal was to raise $50k from that in a week. How’s that coming?
We raised more than $40,000 the first week on our side and will be making that donation to those in need in Japan through an organization called Operation USA, who will primarily use these funds for the purchase and distribution of Iodine tablets for much needed radiation protection in Japan.
How does working with artists like Snoop, Kid Cudi, and Lil’ Wayne translate into sales? Has it gotten you in a bunch of different doors than traditional skate/surf/snow shops, or do you think it brings the hip hop customer to those core retailers?
We have so many artists that are just hyped on the Neff brand and down to support it. We were recently talking and realized that in about 60 percent of all LIL’ Wayne’s biggest music videos over the last couple of years he has been rocking a Neff beanie. It’s so dope and helps us maintain cred amongst the youth, and helps spread the Neff vibe that much further. The great thing is that we are driving this urban kid to our stores where Neff is sold rather than opening that distribution.
Anything else you’d like to throw out there?
I’m just super blessed for this Neff movement and would like to thank all those working with me on the daily basis and helping me build this dream company every day.
TAGS: kid cudi, lil' wayne, Neff gloves, neff headwear, shaun neff, snoop dogg
