#45: Scott Sternberg Runs Entireworld Like a Lean Startup
The designer talks about how Band Of Outsiders “went to shit,” the state of the retail industry, and his long-forgotten cookie blog.
On this week’s episode of HYPEBEAST Radio, we caught up with Scott Sternberg, designer and creative director. You may know Sternberg for his work as founder and head of the irreverent, Americana-inspired Band Of Outsiders, but Scott has spent the past two years letting a new idea gestate. Entireworld is Scott’s latest venture: a direct-to-consumer ecommerce brand that Sternberg sees as a lean startup. “Band Of Outsiders kinda went to shit,” Sternberg says, “and I had this idea—even before the end of Band—that wouldn’t all of this make a whole lot more sense if we stripped away the artificiality of where the pricing was, how we shipped the product, almost everything that fit within the existing fashion system.” Enter: Entireworld.
While many business-owners might see starting from square one—with less funding and infrastructure—as a challenge, Sternberg saw the lack of money and infrastructure as an “auto-focus feature” — everything unnecessary falls away. With the fat trimmed away, Sternberg could focus on the meat and potatoes of the brand: product and communication.
“In a lot of creative environments, when there’s a founder or a creative director, there’s a cult of personality around them. There’s a pile of eggshells around them that everyone’s tip-toeing on. None of that exists within my world and my team.” According to the brand’s website, there are only seven full-time employees, most of whom are Band Of Outsiders alumni.
Scott continually refers to this idea of Entireworld (the brand) as a world unto itself. It’s an idea he gleaned from other “world-building” brands like American Apparel, Patagonia and Apple. ”A brand has the potential to be exceptionally meaningful right now,” Sternberg says. “I don’t wanna get political, but there is this democratization of information. It’s all leveled out.”
In this interview, Sternberg explains just how his relationship with BOO fell apart, how he built Entireworld out of the ashes, and the cookie blog he used to run, called If You Don’t Like Cookies You Might Not Have A Soul — no, really.
You can listen to the interview in full above, on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Overcast, Stitcher, or wherever else pods are found. Please make sure to leave a comment and a review and don’t forget to subscribe for new episodes every Friday and Sunday.