Charlotte Upton on dogs, design and doing good
Good Boy is a dog-themed clothing business where 15% of the profits go to local animal shelters. I had a chat with Good Boy Founder Charlotte Upton; Queen of puns, multi-talented creative and self-described doggo-obsessor, about what it’s been like to start an online social enterprise straight out of university. She told me about how collaborations are everything but can bite you in the arse, how easy it is to get lost down the dark rabbit-hole of ethical and sustainable fashion, and how trying and failing at all sorts of projects has helped her grow.
Tell me about how the idea for Good Boy came in to your brain?
I’d finished studying design at university and was doing what I’d call my first ‘adult’ full-time design job, but I was actually really bored. Even though it was a good job and I liked the people, it wasn’t pushing me creatively. Then I was inspired by my Mum’s old jumper from the 90’s that I used to wear at uni; people would always compliment me on it, and I wondered if people would be interested in wearing something like it. So I combined the things that I love — dogs and design — and made a t-shirt to see if people would buy it, and they did.
What’s been the journey so far from that moment?
I knew from the start that I wanted it to be minimal streetwear; something that even if people don’t necessarily like dogs or care about charity, they might still buy it because of the brand. It needed to be charitable but still fashionable because a lot of charities have the good cause but aren’t something you’d want to wear. So I started with a range of human clothes —
(laughs) I love that you have to make the distinction of human clothes…
— and then I’ve expanded it over the past year by branching into things like tote bags and dog bandanas and caps and little lapel pins. It started really picking up a couple of months in after I did some giveaways with dog-influencers on instagram — which yes, is a thing, people are crazy about their dogs! — and when a couple of other ‘big dogs’ in the industry posted about the Good Boy merch they had bought. From there people started reaching out to do collaborations, and through that I’ve been part of some pop-up stores, events and giveaways with Wolves of Wellington, The Big Dog Walk, Cool Shit Happens, and Duffle & Co. It’s a lot of fun and never feels like work to me, even though it really is a shit-tonne of work.
How does sustainability and ethics fit into the world of Good Boy?
It’s something I think about daily. There were two ways I could do this: either I could order things really cheaply and make a lot of money really fast, or I could do it the slightly better way and not make as much money but I’d feel better about my product. I went with that.
Since then I’ve been trying to learn more about it, and it’s such a rabbit hole. Once you go down, there’s no turning back. It blows my mind, because how are you supposed to do it all in one product? Here’s my quam; you could grow your own rain-fed organic cotton, get it shipped, get it made into a t-shirt by a refugee woman which is great, and sell it for a reasonable price so everyone along the way gets a fair wage. However — after 3 or so years people will throw it out, and it will go into a landfill where it will just sit for ages so you’re still adding to the textile waste of the world which is a massive problem. So yay for being ethical but it sucks for being sustainable. And yeah, you can print with eco-friendly inks, which I do, but when you’re washing out your printing screens, a lot of fresh water goes to waste…so it goes on and on and on. No matter how much you try to do, you could always do more but you’ll still suck. It’s been really challenging morally to do anything, and I still feel like I’m never doing enough.
What I’ve learnt is that you can’t tackle everything at once. Just take one process, and slowly improve it over time. Everyone’s on their own journey and this is mine, I’m just trying to do my best and it’s really hard.
The dream would be to improve the process at both ends; have the clothing made by Good Boy so I can create more sustainable production processes, like making plant-based shirts that can go back into the soil, or give the t-shirts a second life, like making them into dog beds to be used at shelters. The challenge would be balancing that with the price that people are willing to pay for those practices, because currently my audience has to a) like dogs, b) want to wear dogs, c) care about doing good through charities, and d) care about ethical products enough to pay for the extra cost that all adds to the price. It’s a real challenge and I don’t know how far I can take it, but I’ll try one thing at a time.
How hard has it been to set up an online business generally?
Unless you have an accounting degree the legalities of business can be really confusing, but in terms of going from an idea to a business, it’s so easy. I went from having an idea to having a brand, a website, an instagram account and a selling product to people in one month. It’s very accessible and there’s a lot of tools out there, so if you want to do it, there’s nothing really stopping you when you’re tiny and fresh. I found it easy, but I also know that’s because I had a lot of prior knowledge from stuff I’d tried before. I’d already made a website for myself when I used to sell prints so I knew how to manage one, and I had an instagram account so I was already figuring out how people became popular on instagram and what people responded to, and I’d done part-time promo work with NZME radio stations like ZM radio so I knew how to engage with people around a product. In saying that, there was a bit of a low point after a failed collaboration when I had no money left, and I asked my Mum, ‘What’s the point? Why am I putting all my money into this? I don’t know if I even want to do Good Boy anymore.’ and she said, ‘you’ve got to remember that you’ve always tried to do stuff like this.’ And she was right; I’d tried selling prints before, I’d tried to be a YouTube personality… there’s all these things that I’d tried to do forever and they never really worked but they all helped set me up by showing me what doesn’t work.
There are so many mistakes that I’ve made and learnt through, and I’ve put everything I’ve learnt into Good Boy. This is the one time it’s worked, so I just keep doing it.
Tell me about those things you’ve learnt along the way, and what advice would you give to other young entrepreneurs?
I’ve been bitten in the arse by collaborations where I’ve lost thousands of dollars, so I’ve learnt a lot about choosing who to do it with, and where to put your money. Just because a brand is big doesn’t mean that they’re professional or will treat you well, so always enter into a signed contract to make sure expectations are clear and you have an agreement of what will happen if it all goes wrong.
Also, be really realistic about money. My goal is always to break even. That’s what I aim for, because if you expect higher than that and go in with the mindset of ‘I’m going to earn lots of money in a weeks’ time and then I’ll be fine’ then it’s in the back of your mind when you’re making financial decisions. That’s what it’s taught me the most.
Lastly — get comfortable saying no and don’t listen to people! When customers asked for a specific colour or size that I didn’t have in stock, I used to say ‘I can order it in for you!’ because I thought I must please everyone so if they want it I’ll get it. But most of the time it costs you more money to get a one-off done anyway, and just because people ask for something it doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll buy it when it’s available. So I’ve learnt to say that whatever is in stock is in stock, and otherwise you can put down your name and I’ll call you when it’s in — more often than not they’ll just end up getting something else anyway. You just have to be strict — a bit of tough-love, which is hard for me to do because I want to please everyone — but you can’t always please everyone with your brand, or fulfill everyone’s wishes.
That’s a great thing to learn early on. You mentioned earlier that you’ve started screen-printing your own products — why’s that?
I wanted to do something hands-on creative. The videography I do for work is very screen-based and as much as I love it, I missed doing stuff with my hands so I saved up and did a screenprinting course through Neighbourhood Studio in Newtown.
Now I just go in one night a week and pay for the studio time. Even though I’m still a bit shit, I know Eloise — the woman who runs it — will support me and come over to help me out.
There’s only a few of us there, we turn on the music and each bring a bar of chocolate. It’s good for the soul. You’re doing something with your hands, and for that time, it’s just the one task to focus on for two hours.
It can be a bit scary because if you don’t get it right you can’t sell it, but it’s also so satisfying when you peel it off slowly and it comes out perfectly — I usually do a little happy dance.
So how on earth are you finding a balance between managing a start-up social enterprise, pop-up events and other freelance design work all on top of a full-time videography job?
I’m making sure that I’m eating and sleeping well, and I’m trying to not push myself. Prioritisation is huge. If it’s not high on my priority list, then I push back on timelines, and people can just wait. I get to the point in the day where I draw a line and say, that’s enough of that, and then I have ‘me’ time. I play the piano and it’s a great de-stressor, it keeps me sane. I’ve started exercising more too, to have some more balance away from the computer. Some weeks are bigger than others — this week is a bit of a hell-week-which-has-turned-into-two-hell-weeks, but otherwise, Good Boy never really feels like work. Even though it makes me stressed and takes up a lot of my time, I really enjoy it and it never feels like a burden.
Where do you want to take Good Boy in the future? Do you want it to be a full-time thing?
No, I don’t want to do Good Boy full time. In five years, if I was doing Good Boy, I would feel limited creatively. I’d love to get it to a point where it became a full-on company which I could sell or have someone run for me, but personally I don’t want to do that for the rest of my life — I don’t think making it bigger would help me grow. It helps me grow now because it’s something interesting and quirky and I can do whatever I want with it which is the greatest thing — but I don’t want it to be my life. It’s just a project for now, and it’s good for me at this point in my life, but there’ll be something else that I’ll want to do next. I’ve had a real conundrum where I’ve thought, does it mean I’ve failed if I stop this? But it doesn’t. It just means it was a really good thing you did, and then you do another cool thing. It doesn’t mean it was bad work or went to waste, you’re just moving onto the next thing.
And why do you care about doing good in the world?
When I was a young wee lass I loved anything to do with wildlife: I read National Geographic and watched David Attenborough documentaries, rode horses and had dogs and rabbits — I always knew my life would involve animals. I wanted to be a vet, but then I learnt that you had to put down animals and I knew I couldn’t do that. No way. Next I wanted to be a zoologist or a marine biologist, but when my careers counsellor at school said you couldn’t study them anymore, I believed them, and went and studied design instead! When I first went to uni, I wanted to make TV adverts, but then I learnt more about the world, and the working for Shift (a social enterprise designed to get more young women active) in my third year made me realise that everything should have a purpose, and design could be a really good way to solve a lot of problems. When I was younger I was always told — whether it was SPCA cupcake day or fundraisers at school — that raising money and donating to charity will help. Then the first thing you learn in year 7 social studies is reduce, reuse, recycle — back when no one knew what sustainability was and no one knew that we were really messing the world up — so I always wanted to do something to help out nature, because that’s what we come from so you shouldn’t just ignore it. Now I’ve learnt so much more about how we can affect the planet and the things around us — which on one hand has created some kind of existential crisis in me of, ‘oh my god I’ve been a terrible person’, but on the other hand I know that although I might suck at doing sustainable things at the moment at least I’m trying now and want to learn so much more about it. Donating was the beginning, and it’s a really great start — but now I’m realising, oh shit, you can do way more than just give money.
Where people get their hands on some Good Boy products or see more cute dog photos?
Check out the store, or follow Good Boy on instagram and facebook.
