Ryan Barr - The Drop Date Interview

Introduce yourself:

My name’s Ryan and I’m one of the co-founders of The Drop Date – a website that’s been going for around 6 years now. We launched in June 2012 and what we do is curate the information on upcoming limited-edition trainer releases, working with all the brands and the retailers to put it all together in one place. This means the consumer has all the lowdown on what’s coming out, when it’s coming out, and where they can get their hands on it.

So give us a bit of background about yourself and where you started out:

Right so back in 2003, after many, many years collecting footwear and generally being into everything footwear, hip-hop, sportswear and streetwear-oriented, I decided to have a bit of a change of plan with my life and set up a store in Oxford called Ryouki. We were one of the first 10 independent sneaker boutiques in the country at the time. We then proceeded to have a number of good years trading, working with products we love, people we love, providing me with some really good insight into an industry I’d always interacted with as a consumer up to that point. Things were good until we had a bit of a burp in the economy back in 2008 and had a massive downturn, so we made the difficult decision to close our doors in 2011 after about 8 or 9 years trading. It was a sensible decision to make and, looking back, I don’t think I would be talking to you right now if we hadn’t made that decision.

What were some of the challenges you found in running independent businesses?

I mean there’s challenges all along the way, but one of the main challenges is managing the growth – which is a nice problem to have if I’m being totally honest! When we first set up The Drop Date in 2012 we really had no idea about what it would become. We set it up, basically, as something to help us and our mates find the trainers they wanted to get hold of – it was kind of like a labour of love initially. Soon after, about 6 months in, we realised we had the chance to monetise this by working in partnership with retailers and brands in order to drive traffic to their websites and, in return, receive commission on the sales. So yeah, after starting out as a labour of love, we quickly turned it into a business model. For the first couple of years we had some small growth – but growth nonetheless – and we started to realise that we could give up some of the other work we were doing and focus solely on The Drop Date. Those days were easier because there were only 4 of us – 2 on editorials, 2 on releases – and we could manage the amount of drops that were happening. By the third year we realised that things were going to get a lot, lot bigger – loads more drops, a lot more consumers, more demand, more information to process – so that’s when we realised that to stay ahead of the game and evolve we had to grow. I kind of thought I’d be doing less work as I got older, but as it transpired I’m doing more! And that shows no sign of letting up any time soon.

“We set it up, basically, as something to help us and our mates find the trainers they wanted to get hold of – it was kind of like a labour of love initially.”

More generally, tell us a bit about what it’s like being an independent business owner in 2018 Shoreditch:

It’s tough. It’s not easy running a business anywhere in this country. I don’t know what it’s like in other countries, but once you get into the day-to-day admin side of the business it sucks a lot of the fun out of it. That bit I definitely find challenging. As much as the government can provide you with this information on what to do, when to do it, and how, really it just seems like it’s all geared towards them getting paid at the end of the day. That, as opposed to showing and training people how to run a business efficiently, how to balance the books, how to make sure all costs are covered, and – ultimately – that you’re profitable! That’s the real tough challenge – to start a business from scratch, keep it growing, keep on top of the admin, and still enjoy yourself. The day I stop enjoying it is the day I hang up my boots – or trainers, if you like. But today it’s good fun overall – obviously there are days when I just think: ‘fuck it’, but the majority of the time I feel like we’ve grown a really good thing here and I want to continue to grow it and see where that takes us.

“You grow this team off the hard work, sheer grit, and love for what we do has been fantastic. Everyone’s hand-picked, and we’ve made sure that we’ve assembled this team with growth in mind.”

Your Instagram account now has a hefty following. What advice would you give to any up-and-coming Instagram marketers? Top tips? Anything to avoid at all costs?

When we were a young business it was a little bit easier. There wasn’t as much competition online, there wasn’t as many different news outlets, there wasn’t so much information to process. So from very early on we were able to organically grow our Instagram following off the basis that we were providing information that nowhere else was. We were providing up-to-the-minute information that our consumers wanted and giving them it all in one place. So Instagram, Facebook and Twitter all connect to our website, which holds all the information, so if people were following us they would be able to be linked through to the information they needed to get the shoes they really wanted. So it was organic. We’re not one of those companies who buy their following or go on mad binges to try and get as many likes and followers as possible that weren’t relevant to our business. That’s not what we’re about, we’ve got a lot of pride. Everything we do in the business has to be organic, we’ve had no external funding, no external help – we’ve grown it from the inside out and it’s the same with our social channels. Social media is also often on the front line of our marketing strategy, so the guys on the social team – they’re where the buck stops, they’re who the customer is seeing, taking information from, engaging with, and listening to. So that’s arguably the most important part of not only our business, but an increasing number of businesses – to be able to effectively connect via channels like Instagram. We discovered that at a very early stage, so we made sure that we built the Instagram side of things as a brand, as well, not simply a feed. We’re not the biggest Instagram account in our industry by quite a stretch, but we can definitely say that we’re true to what we do in the trainer and fashion industry – plus it’s all organic growth.

You’ve gathered quite a diverse group of lads at The Drop Date. How did you go about building your team to what it is today?

Well as I’ve said a couple of years in there were 4 of us, and as of this week there are now 15. There’s a few part-timers in the mix but everyone basically gives their all to The Drop Date and we’re their number one going forward. You grow this team off the hard work, sheer grit, and love for what we do has been fantastic. Everyone’s hand-picked, and we’ve made sure that we’ve assembled this team with growth in mind. We’ve got a lot ahead of us so if we don’t have the right people in place we’re not going to be able to deal with it. So the last 2 years have been about growing this business, getting everything in place – the departments, the management of the teams, and now myself directing the business – so it’s a good place to be.

So tell us how you ended up sharing this building with TT? How have you found occupying the same space as us over the past year or so?

So I’ve known Steve for a long, long time. By pure coincidence, we both originate from the same neck of the woods down in ‘Middle Earth’ in Oxfordshire. Steve’s also done his time in the trainer industry – he worked for Size? and he knows a lot of the same people I work with – so we’ve got a lot of good mutual friends and we’ve always kind of stayed in touch. Steve’s also got a small skateboarding company – Would Skateboards – which he just does for the love with a couple of his mates. My son’s a young up-and-coming skater as well, and he took him onto the team which was great, so yeah we’ve generally stayed in contact in a number of ways. Then, out of the blue, I just got a call from him saying that he’d taken on this building in Shoreditch with a view to doing these mad, mad ideas in it. He said he had this office at the top of it going spare and wondered whether we wanted to take it. Straight away – yes, because for the first 3 years of The Drop Date’s life we all worked from home. Because we were quite a small operation we could all just work from home in our pants, which is a benefit of having an online-based business! But obviously as we grew we needed physical space, a place where we could all sit down, chat, hold meetings, and work together – because, once you have more than 5 or 6 in your team, working from home just doesn’t work. So yeah it was perfect timing really. We’re now outgrowing the space massively but don’t want to leave that’s for sure.

“Being in this building we all work together in a funny kind of way. Even though we’re working for different businesses, everyone stops, chats, has a rollie together, grabs a beer together, talks business ideas, swaps stories – everything.”

What excites you most about the building?

Every time we bring people here we get a reaction. It’s a great place to bring clients, to bring those we know and love even, because it has a great atmosphere – it’s a great environment. It also takes you a good couple of hours to work out where the fuck you are in the building which is always good fun [laughs]. But no, it’s just got a great vibe to it – we can come and go as we please, hold meetings, book out rooms, and then there’s the Cellar Bar downstairs which is just amazing. There’s never a dull moment in here too, the guys at TT are non-stop. I have massive, massive admiration for them, seeing how far they’ve come in such a short space of time. Being in this building we all work together in a funny kind of way. Even though we’re working for different businesses, everyone stops, chats, has a rollie together, grabs a beer together, talks business ideas, swaps stories – everything. And to be fair everything revolves around alcohol in this building, and we’re a good bunch of drinkers at The Drop Date, so that works out quite well. I’ve always maintained that you know you can do business with someone if you can get pissed with them, it’s as simple as that in my book! But yeah, it’s just the general buzz about the place which excites me.

What’s next for yourself and The Drop Date?

A hell of a lot – just to keep the cogs turning on the day-to-day side of things with the new releases and editorial. A little while ago, we branched into the clothing side of things too. So with clothing and footwear together, that takes up so much time and we’ve really had to grow the team to make sure that the editorial is right and the information is reliable. But we’ve also got our own agency as well. Something that we’ve soft-launched over the past year is that we’ve put together an agency of talented individuals to create content. Exceptionally unique and high-quality content at that. So that’s opened up a whole new business avenue with us – working with retailers to help support them on projects, sales, lookbooks – you name it, we get involved. So that’s definitely enough to keep us going for now, but in terms of what lies ahead past the next 6 months I can’t say right now, but if all goes according to plan I think everyone’s going to know by Issue 2 of this magazine. Watch this space!

To round things off: favourite trainer, favourite cocktail. Go..

We had a laugh about this before the interview started because ‘what’s your favourite trainer’ is THE worst question to answer.. I mean footwear – where do you start? But I’ll give it a good go. As a silhouette, and probably my most worn shoe, it’s got to be the Vans Sk8 Hi. For me it’s timeless, it’s a shoe that I can get on with whatever I’m deciding to wear on the day. That’s handy because we kind of dress ourselves from the feet up at The Drop Date – it’s an occupational hazard when you work so intensely with footwear! So Sk8 Hi has just been my go-t0 shoe for as long as I can remember. Don’t get me wrong I love so many trainers, but as I’ve become more and more experienced in what we do and how we do it, I’ve kind of taken a step back and embraced the basics a bit more, taking things simple. So I’d throw in the Converse Chuck Taylor All Star 70s into the mix as well – I own a stupid amount of those, it must be double figures by now! Then favourite cocktail? Anything with alcohol in it and I’m happy. Everything they serve down in the Cellar Bar is fantastic.