The average person spends over four hours on their device. In the past year, there have been several calls to action to reduce the addictive effects of technology, including Senator Josh Hawley’s bill proposing to ban the addictive features of social media like “autoplay” and “infinite scrolling”. Pattern is offering an alternative solution by creating a family of brands with thoughtfully, designed products that are meant to connect individuals with the present and people around them. Pattern wants to help people enjoy daily life and the company’s future brands will be developed based on listening to its community and understanding consumers need through direct-to-consumer offerings. The first brand to be released by Pattern, Equal Parts, will be launch this fall, focusing on quality, approachable cookware
AlleyWatch spoke with founder Cofounders Nick Ling and Emmett Shine about creating a company that is tackling some of the biggest issues in today’s society.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
In 2019 Pattern raised a total of $14M in a Series A round led by Kleiner Perkins, Primary Ventures, and RRE.
Tell us about the product or service that Pattern offers.
Pattern is a family of brands with products and guidance designed to transform how you enjoy daily life. We create purposeful brands with products that inspire you to learn, explore, and lay the foundation for a more present life. With intentionally-designed products and expert-led guidance, Pattern’s brands equip you with the essentials to shape enduring spaces and fulfilling habits to find enjoyment in everyday moments.
What inspired you to start Pattern?
We were inspired to start Pattern and build our own family of brands after realizing today’s culture of addiction to technology and productivity had taken a huge toll on our overall happiness and well-being. Among friends and colleagues, too, we noticed these feelings of chronic burnout were widespread and hijacking the ability to simply find enjoyment in the everyday. We’re building Pattern to shape the next generation of brands to play a role in shifting this cultural crisis by decreasing clutter and distraction, increasing moments of joy and fulfillment in the process.
How is Pattern different?
In addition to producing physical products that each ladder back to enjoying daily life, Pattern will provide opportunities for guidance, growing and learning with consumers along the way. We consider this a direct with consumer model, which we believe will help us build more meaningful relationships with consumers that can develop over time through our family of brands.
What market does Pattern target and how big is it?
We are building this company because we are the consumer. Experiencing the pain of burnout ourselves and wanting more from our day to day life, we wanted to launch a company that could help bring enjoyment back into our own homes. The Pattern community includes others out there across the country who, like us, are looking to break the cycle of burnout to find more fulfillment in the everyday. We’re excited to invite them to learn and grow with us.
What’s your business model?
We’re operating Pattern with a unique, direct with consumer (DWC) business model, which is intrinsically designed to build intimacy at scale through much deeper and more personal consumer relationships. For us, this means connecting with consumers not only by delivering on great products but through guidance and support to help them learn habits and new skills that eventually lead to more enjoyment. Our family of brands approach also allows us to forge long term relationships with customers by serving them in various areas of their lives across different life stages.
There’s been a growing trend towards launching a family of brands (eg Ro)recently. Can you walk us through the decision to build the company as a virtual holding company versus focusing on a single brand?
By choosing a multi-brand model, we are able to build real relationships with our consumers through a variety of touchpoints, therefore building a deeper and more meaningful connection. We’re not just rolling out sub-brands – Pattern is also a consumer-facing company, committed to helping consumers build habits and find enjoyment in daily life through products and guidance. Additionally, launching each of our brands over time allows us to incorporate our own customer feedback and have a built-in customer base while depressurizing the individual brands launching under Pattern.
What was the funding process like?
Funding processes are a learning experience for any company, and one of the first things you learn is the importance of finding investors who are the right fit. Getting feedback and learning during the whole experience was our biggest goal, and by taking the process seriously we gradually improved in our approach as we spoke to different contacts.
Once you find investors, you are bonded with them for the entirety of your company’s life, so we felt finding the right people who believed in us and our vision was crucial, and we’re really excited for the partners we have ultimately involved.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
The biggest challenge was getting the feedback we needed in order to improve. Getting a direct “yes” or “no” helps you reflect on the reasons why you got that answer, versus a “maybe” which only leaves you with more questions. Pushing for concrete answers from investors is a crucial step we learned in the process.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Based on feedback from our investors, it came down to three core things. The first being our value-centered mission around “enjoy daily life” that they were able to connect with. The second being our team, who had successfully created brands time and time again at Gin Lane. The third was our sophisticated view on the future of consumers and how new companies should be built, specifically the concept of our family of brands and “direct-with-consumer” approach, where we are working to build deep, lasting relationships with our consumers.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
Equal Parts will be launching this fall, with a focus on quality, approachable cookware, and personalized guidance. We plan to share more details on how the brand will come to life in the coming weeks and are currently focused on finalizing and building up to a successful first brand launch.
Pattern’s future brands will develop based on listening to our community and understand their needs. This ongoing relationship with our customer will be a driving force in our development moving forward. We were overwhelmed with the support and positive momentum coming out of the official launch of Pattern and are excited to start bringing our mission of enjoying daily life into people’s homes across the country with Equal Parts.
Pattern’s future brands will develop based on listening to our community and understand their needs. This ongoing relationship with our customer will be a driving force in our development moving forward. We were overwhelmed with the support and positive momentum coming out of the official launch of Pattern and are excited to start bringing our mission of enjoying daily life into people’s homes across the country with Equal Parts.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Keep your goals as your North Star, and your mission front and center in everything you do. If you hit a point of uncertainty, go back to the fundamentals – is what you are creating solving a pain point that you feel? Do other people feel it? Are you excited to solve it for the next decade? If your answer is no to any of those, then it may be time to reassess your direction.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
Our focus now is launching the first brand out of Pattern, Equal Parts, which will focus on home cooking and offer products alongside custom guidance and classes. This first launch will be instrumental in helping us shape our future brands, as the DWC model depends on us listening to our consumers as we continue to develop and launch new brands.
What’s your favorite restaurant in the city?
Forgtmenot – it’s across the street from our office and has a great staff and a ton of personality with an eclectic feel, making it a favorite of our team!
