Startup interview: Jesse Tran, Co-Founder and CEO, Rens

RTIH gets the lowdown on Finnish startup, Rens, which recently launched the world’s first crowdfunded climate neutral sneaker, NOMAD.

RTIH: Tell us about yourself and Rens

JT: I’m Jesse Tran, Co-Founder and CEO of Rens Original, the Finnish sustainable startup behind the world’s first sneakers made from coffee waste and recycled plastic.

I’ve lived in Finland for 10 years since I moved from Vietnam to pursue my bachelor’s degree at Aalto University. My Co-Founder - Son Chu - and I founded Rens back in 2018 in Helsinki, Finland.

We both have extensive backgrounds in fashion, manufacturing, and e-commerce as Son worked at Zalando and I had founded my previous startup FactoryFinder, which helped to connect small European fashion brands with sustainable manufacturers in Asia.

In 2019, we launched the world’s first coffee sneaker via Kickstarter, raising over half a million dollars from over 5.000 customers in 100+ countries worldwide and became the all time largest fashion Kickstarter campaign in the Nordics.

Since then, we have been continuously growing and expanding, with the US, Germany, and the UK being within our top markets in Europe.

RTIH: What was the inspiration behind setting the brand up?

JT: Son and I have been sneakerheads since we were kids. One day, we met in a coffee shop to catch up and talk about our favourite topic: sneakers.

We realised how there are so few options of sustainable sneakers that actually look good. Most of the time, sustainability equals sacrificing style and vice versa.

That’s when we decided to create the pair of sustainable sneakers that we ourselves would want to wear every day.

Celebrating our 1-year anniversary of launching on Kickstarter! ⁠
Since we hit our goal last year in the first 24 hours, we are discounting EVERY PAIR to our original early-bird Kickstarter price of $89 for 1 day only. ⁠
⁠https://t.co/0N1281OuUn pic.twitter.com/GuEJfvelQx
— RensOriginal (@RensOriginal) June 25, 2020

RTIH: What has been the industry reaction thus far?

JT: We are confident that we are one of the top emerging sustainable fashion brands for the young generations (namely young Millennials and Gen Z).

However, we compete in a fast growing market, where even the biggest footwear corporations are now present. It is extremely difficult to stand out from them, but we prefer to focus on ourselves.

We are thankful to have a strong community, strong brand values, as well as strong technical capability to develop and grow Rens to its full potential.

We plan to expand aggressively in the UK going forward. Even though at the moment, Germany and the Nordics are our two biggest markets in Europe, we expect the UK will soon join the club.

RTIH: What has been your biggest challenge/setback?

JT: Funny enough, we launched our direct-to-consumer webstore right before the pandemic happened in early 2020. That was probably one of the most exciting and challenging experiences of the entire process.

Production was delayed, logistics was heavily interrupted and we struggled to get customers their products in time.

However, we still managed to weather the storm and grow the brand´s global presence via our own website and Zalando with our biggest markets including the US, Germany, and the UK.

RTIH: What are the biggest challenges facing the omnichannel retail sector right now?

JT: Covid is definitely the biggest challenge that the omnichannel retail sector has recently faced.

Because of the pandemic, we've seen the largest shift in consumer preferences and priorities in modern history and it happened almost overnight.

In the span of a few months, nearly every person on earth was instantly re-evaluating their shopping needs, personal tastes, and their lifestyle as a whole, and that's just on the customer facing side.

RTIH: What's the best question about your brand asked of you recently by an investor and/or a customer?

JT: Fun fact, just this week, one of our customers sent me a DM on LinkedIn and asked me, “what is the main goal of Rens? What do you aim to achieve?”.

I was quite surprised because this is the kind of question that I constantly get from investors, but never from direct customers.

So I just told him the truth, that we want Rens to become the global leading brand in sustainable goods and make it survive the test of time, generations after generations.

We aim for Rens to be a long lasting brand.

RTIH: What can we expect to see from Rens over the next 12 months?

JT: In the long run, we aim to elevate our unique and proprietary sustainable manufacturing network to turn Rens into a world-leading sustainable brand.

Our goal is to make use of more waste-based materials (bamboo, coffee, pineapple skin, etc.) and ultimately extend the life cycle of this supposed “trash”.

But for the next 12 months, what we want to do is strongly expand our R&D resources and join new talented team members to produce new technologies and widen to new product categories as well, such as apparel and accessories.

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