How We Built One of America’s Most Successful DTC Leather Brands

In the early days of Portland Leather, people were constantly coming up to me with ideas.

“Have you seen what this leather brand is doing?”

“Everyone’s adding this feature.”

“This company just launched that… we should too!!”

And everyone would say the same thing:

If they are doing it and it is working, we should be doing that too

Wrong!! So many people hate it when I say this, but the people you are going against are not the reason why you win or lose.

During that time, I said no to A LOT of ideas. Some were objectively good… some just weren’t us.

And that’s what ended up making Portland leather different.

The crazy part is the 5 of the brands that people kept on showing me constantly, aren’t even in business anymore! So… how did we do it?

By doing things our way.

Why focusing on your competition is a trap

When you spend too much time watching what everyone else is doing, your energy goes in the wrong direction.

Instead of asking:

- “What do our customers actually want?”

- “What are we great at?”

- “What makes us awesome?

- “How do we get better at our game?”

You start asking:

- “Are we behind?”

- “Should we chase that?”

- “What if they’re winning?”

- “Why don’t we look like them?”

At that moment, you are not building a business. You are reacting to it. And that shit ain’t gonna scale!

Business and sports are the same

Business and sports are the exact same thing.

Great athletes and great teams are never focused on who they are going up against because they are too busy trying to be better! Can’t say that about the Yankees…

But Track runners do not get faster by looking at everyone else’s time.

They get faster by:

- Setting clear goals

- Training consistently

- Tracking performance

- Adjusting their plan

- Getting their head right

It is the same thing with business.

Scaling will take a lot of energy from you. So you have to make sure you are managing it right.

Learn from outside of your industry

Now, this does not mean you should ignore the world!!

If you are going to look at what other people are doing, I believe the best thing you can do is learn from people who are outside of your industry.

Look outside! And use that for inspiration.

If you are in the DTC space, maybe look into:

- CPG

- Media companies

- Hospitality

- Sports franchises

- Tech

- Brands that feel nothing like you!!

That is how innovation happens. Feed your mind with new inputs to get new outputs!

The real reason we succeeded

Portland Leather didn’t grow because we out-copied competitors.

We grew because we stayed focused on:

- our customers

- our product

- our story

We built what we believed in. Not what everyone else was doing!!

So if you want to build something that lasts, stop trying to beat everyone else… and just focus on beating yesterday!

Do that long enough, and one day you’ll look up and realize the competition doesn’t matter anymore because you are playing a different game. boom!!

Curtis Matsko - CEO & Founder of Portland Leather Goods