What Role Did Your Community Play in Building the Super73 Brand?

LeGrand: I’m the LeGrand Crewse co-founder and CEO of Super73.

Michael: And I’m Michael Cannavo, co-founder and CMO of Super73.

LeGrand: What role has community played in building our brand? Well, I’ll start from the very beginning. This company wouldn’t exist without a community that believed in us, in our product, because we started as a crowdfunded company six years ago. 

It’s kind of crazy to think now, but there is this small group of people not so small, I guess 500 plus at the end again, that really believe in what we’re doing, and we’re willing to put a lot of money upfront and wait a long time for an unproven product. And so I think that we from the very beginning embrace that and said, hey, these are the people that gave us a chance. And, you know, and we and we need to involve the community in kind of every aspect as we continue to build this. And I know you probably add a lot to it.

Michael: It’s hard to say we are going to be community-facing because when you’re community-facing, you’ve got good and the bad. You must address both. And you can’t hide behind your product as many people do with their companies. I think there are quite a few founders out there that go nameless and faceless because they’re they don’t want that communication with the customer directly. But we forged ahead.

If we had an issue or an update during that Kickstarter campaign, we jumped in front of the camera and talk through it, and we would say, these are the steps we’re making. And we pulled that curtain back, and we said, You guys are just as much a part of this process as we are because you’ve trusted us, so we’re going to trust you and give you this information. 

And so, through that Kickstarter campaign, Legrand and I are on a ton of videos just being like, So this is what went wrong with ordering this product, and this is why we’re switching to this, and this is where we’re going. So that community felt like they owned it, too. They also owned Super73, and as we’ve grown, we’ve just continued pulling those curtains back. You know, our lead videographer who’s helping to film this right now was one of our largest community members online. And we saw that, and we saw the work he was doing. And we said, hey, come be a part of our team. We really want you to be the voice for the community. 

And so having that mindset and operating like that, while a lot of different companies would see, oh, we don’t want to bring customers into the inner workings, we’re like, Let’s bring in customers to be a megaphone to the community to showcase what we’re doing and how different it is. And I think that’s really benefited with, you know, the passion and the fandom that our community has.

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