Scott Griffiths
CEO - 18/8 Fine Men's Salons
Professor - Grazadio School of Business and Management -
Pepperdine University
The University of California Irvine - Chief Executive Roundtable
Member - Luxury Council / Board - The Surf Heritage Foundation
If you believe as I do that life is something special and becomes more special when we squeeze as much nectar from it as possible…then this site is for you.
If you know that to be curious is to be interested, and to be interested is to be interesting; and if you believe that education comes from books and your experiences... then this site is for you.
If you enjoy the arts, cooking, and excellent foods; if you appreciate a handmade super-180 suit, a fine 25 year old Macallan’s with a vintage Cohiba; if you travel to other countries to learn their languages and cultures; and if you believe that business is what you create and build, not just what you manage…then this site is for you.
Along with my team and our readers, I will be posting interesting, intriguing, and useful articles on art, wine, spirits, travel, restaurants, and grooming, along with great recipes for guys and features exploring the subject of renaissance men. This site is for you as interesting and intriguing men…and men on the path to becoming more interesting and intriguing...
In our newest column, Alexa will be offering the advice you need to become an 18/8 man; that man who is well-versed and cultured, who knows how to impress and captivate a smart woman, and who wants to be the best that he can be.
A few weeks ago, I meet the President of JHilburn.com, Veeral Rathod, at a First Growth Venture Network Event. J Hilburn makes custom shirts, pants, and suits.
I thought the concept was interesting, but when Veeral told me that over 97% of his company’s 2,000 employees were women, I had to dig deeper. It’s not everyday you meet a former banker who is up-ending men’s fashion. I decided to interview Veeral and find out how JHilburn came into being. It’s a great story for any entrepreneur (or banker) and reminds us that there are always multiple ways to disrupt an industry.
What are the backgrounds of the founders?
Hil Davis (Founder & CEO), Veeral Rathod (Co-Founder and President)
Hil and I both come of out investment banking. Hil started out as an equity research analyst covering restaurants and retail at Thomas Weisel Partners. He spent time as Head of Investor Relations at Brinker International (owns Chili’s, Maggiano’s and Macaroni Grill) before getting back to equity research with SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. Most recently, he was at Citadel Investment Group managing a portfolio of restaurants, apparel and footwear.
I started as a mergers & acquisitions analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston Technology Group. I then spent four years at Cogent Partners, a private equity secondary firm in Dallas.
We were introduced through a mutual friend. Hil shared with me an idea he had been developing to sell custom luxury apparel at attractive prices by compressing the traditional retail supply chain and selling directly to the consumers.
What made a bunch of bankers think they could do fashion?
We knew that the traditional retail model was fundamentally broken – high markups, heavy inventory, significant discounting. Also, consumer preference was shifting towards customized styling and product curation.
We launched the company with custom shirts, and significantly underestimated the difficulty of product design and custom supply chain. The apparel supply chain is built around bulk production and it took us two solid years just to reach a base level of consistency in our shirting program, from working with the Italian fabric mills to the few high-quality, scalable factories that would make custom. Good news is that while this has been one of our hardest challenges, it is now one of the most defensible strengths of our business.
