Startup stalwarts Kayla Medica and Garry ‘Gaz’ Williams have launched Drip Drop, and advice and insights site for creative thinking on company merchandise.
Having both been involved in the process of designing and producing their own merch, and writing about what good merch looks like, they decided to collaborate to raise standards for startups.
Medica – a fractional product marketer – is also an author, curator of B2B Marketing Community Generate, and regular newsletter writer for her marketing insights email Mehdeeka.
Williams was the first employee at Tractor Ventures, ran partnerships at General Assembly and the cult FuckUp Nights Melbourne and Sydney, before most recently launching his own storytelling project Group Group.
‘Drip’ is the clothing, aka swag, while ‘Drop’ preferences the release of a range – in their case, a weekly newsletter profiling good merch.
Merchmaxxing
“One strong signal I noticed when it came to merch was that any time I ran an issue of my newsletter with a specific focus on merch, the open and engagement rates on the issue would disproportionately outperform,” Medica said.
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Williams said he had similar experiences.
“Writing publicly about what I believe good merch to be, always opens up a big conversation and with the obvious aesthetic factor added to it, it’s an easy topic to post about, have an opinion about, and stir up some debate,” he said.
“Let’s be honest about it. Most startup merch, in particular, is shit. High degrees of wastage. Low emphasis on design appreciation, or thinking outside the box for form and function.
“For an industry like in startups, where we love to prophesise about ‘taste’ with this most recent AI explosion, we sure don’t embody that in how we rep our brands. With a few exceptions of course, so that’s who we’ll profile in Drip Drop. A little curation of thoughtfulness, and tastefulness, often profiling decision-makers who understand culture and understand what good looks like.”
The weekly newsletter will profile examples of good merch in the wild, profile independent studios creating it and profile people who are extremely good at it.
Ironically, less the judges be judged, they’ve yet to create their own merch, but Medica said it’s firmly “on the roadmap.”
“We each have some very specific ideas in mind, so whether we release capsule drops related to each of our own businesses – Mehdeeka and Group Group – or a Drip Drop release specifically, never say never,” she said.
Sign up for the newsletter at drip-drop.studio.
