Last months ZEN relaunch was amazing. My intention was to get in touch with everyone in attendance a week later to ask for feedback, but I got all the feedback on the night instead!
I’m a strong believer in good ideas come from bouncing off of others. IE: I’ve never come up with anything great on my own and my best work has always come from bouncing ideas off of others. This was in full play last night. I had a fair few people ask me what the goal was for ZEN this time around, and over the night my response to the question took form.
I felt the old ZEN Garage got too big, we were reaching over a million people on Facebook alone and grew so large that people were buying ZEN merch because they saw others wearing it. At its height we were banging on the door of getting ZEN in General Pants Co. And IMHO if that happened it would have been the end of ZEN for good.
There was a sweet spot though, where people who were wearing ZEN had found their ZEN and they knew what we were all about, so much so that if you spotted someone else wearing ZEN out in the wild there was no doubt that you could walk up to them knowing you shared something in common. This sweet spot is where I’d like to get back to, and once there I want to fight to keep it there.
The new ZEN is not a business. It’s a community.
Nothing at all against my previous business partners, I love them all and I’m truly appreciative of all the learnings. They taught me a lot about running a business and I was criticised for treating the business like a hobby, but ultimately that’s where it’s at for me. Those that know me know that I don’t do things in halves. I’m best when I go all out on whatever hobby it is that I’m into at the moment, and now I’m at an age and place where I can afford to do that.
Last night’s launch event and overwhelmingly positive feedback gave me so much fuel. I’m truly looking forward to both connecting and reconnecting with passionate people who have found their ZEN.
All photos by Nick Turner.