704 Kerry Docherty: Co-Founder & Chief Impact Officer of Faherty
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I am unwilling to give up, that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don't get knocked out. So your only choice should be, go focus on what you can control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Kara Golden Show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world's greatest leaders,

We'll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can't wait to get started. Let's go. Let's go. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to The Kara Golden Show. So excited to have my next guest here. She is somebody I'm seriously excited, not just about her, but also her brand and everything that she does.

She has built and is one of the driving forces behind an incredible brand that maybe you passed it along the way, whether you're in New York or Marin County or Malibu or many other places where they have an incredible story.

store, but we have Carrie Docherty, who is the co-founder and chief impact officer of a brand called Faraday. And if you are not familiar with the brand, get familiar with the brand because as I was mentioning to Carrie, my husband and so many other people are obsessed with many of their clothes, but

In particular, he is obsessed with their flannel shirts. And I have to tell him that he cannot wear them during the summer. Of course, maybe in San Francisco, he can wear it gets a little chilly. But it's just such an incredible brand. And when I learned that there were these amazing people like Carrie behind this brand, family owned fashion, lifestyle brand known for its surf inspired fashion.

style, commitment to sustainability, and deep roots in storytelling and community. And like I said, you've probably seen the stores around. There's more than 75 now. And what you may not know is that this nine-figure profitable brand is also certified B Corp. So that is absolutely incredible. And she co-founded the brand alongside her husband,

and his twin brother. So I can't wait to get into that as well. And more than anything, I'd love to hear so much more about how do you scale a brand today? How do you start a brand in apparel? But how do you scale a brand like they have? And so much more. So welcome, Keri. Very excited that you're here. So happy to be here.

Very, very excited. Okay, so let's start with the origin story. If you can take us back, what was the spark that led you to co-found Faraday? And if you can just talk about the initial vision. This episode of The Kara Golden Show is brought to you by Range Rover Sport.

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So Alex, my husband, and his identical twin brother, Mike, grew up surfer kids on the Jersey Shore. And this has always been their dream to create a lifestyle surf brand that's elevated. And so Mike actually wrote his college essay on starting this brand. I met Alex the first day of college in Spanish class.

Um, and then later on, I went to become a, went to become a lawyer. I was focused on human rights and social justice. Alex went into private equity in business and Mike worked at Ralph Lauren for 10 years. And in 2012, basically three weeks after Alex and I got married, we moved in with his brother. And six months later, we all quit our jobs to start the brand. Yeah.

Which as my therapist would be like, we need to talk about boundaries. But it really is a family business. The boy's mother is an interior decorator. So she decorated all of our stores. Mike's the creative director, Alex is CEO, and I'm chief impact officer. So I always like to joke that

Each of us only has a quarter of our brain, but together we are Captain Faraday. We're able to tackle a lot of things at once, which I think has been a huge part, honestly, of our success is just the number of skill sets one needs to be able to navigate and build a new business. Yeah.

So the name Faraday, where did the brand name come from? It's my husband and Mike's last name. There you go. So I could have been Carrie Faraday, but it rhymes too much. So I kept my maiden name. I

I love that. So when you joined the two brothers, I mean, I guess I'm speechless. You've lived with them right after you're married and then you started a company. So I guess you really knew them quite well. Did you have concerns about jumping in with them? No matter what branch you serve, military roots run deep.

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My lack of concern, I probably should have had more concerns. But it's, I mean, it's been an incredible journey. We've learned so much. We've done family therapy. Alex and I had to go to couples therapy to negotiate my salary. Any issue you can imagine working with your husband has happened, right?

And I used to think that the brand had the potential to tear us apart.

But looking back at it, I think in a lot of ways it's kept us together because so much has unfolded over the past 12 years since starting the brand. And we've, you know, we've gone through so many different iterations as a couple. But we remain so tied and committed to this dream that it's really helped us be teammates, you know, side by side, day in and day out.

So fashion can be such a tough industry. So I...

When I look at the industry as a whole, look, I was in the beverage industry, so I get it. There's a lot of tough industries out there, but I guess one of your co-founders worked for Ralph Lauren. I mean, they had sort of been in the industry, so it wasn't like you were totally coming in cold. You actually came from a background in law and human rights.

How did your perspective influence the way you approached launching this brand? It influenced everything. I think first and foremost, as a lawyer, I'm always thinking about what are the risks? What are the liabilities? How can we get sued? Are we doing things right?

But also from a social justice and human rights perspective, because it's my husband's name and our family name that's on this brand, the level of personal accountability I have to make sure that we're doing things right. You know, our last name is stitched on every garment is makes me really want to make sure, you know, we're working with ethical manufacturing manufacturers. We're doing things right.

I often share that the first couple of years we started the brand, we were using these beautiful native inspired prints.

But it was essentially just appropriation because we weren't actually working with Native designers and resources weren't flowing back to the Native community. So I think my background in social justice and human rights helped me realize that we needed to pivot. And our Native Initiatives Program, where we work with Native designers on our Native prints, is one of my heart's passion and one of the things I'm most proud of at the brand. Same from a sustainability perspective. So...

I think because it's a family business, our values matter and it really informs every decision that we make. So...

Let's touch on the Native Partnership Program. How did that all come together? And can you share a little bit more about what that program is about? No matter what branch you serve, military roots run deep. At American Military University, we recognize the sacrifices of service members and their loved ones. That's why we extend our military tuition savings to your family tree.

Parents, spouses, legal partners, siblings, and dependents all qualify for our preferred military rate of just $250 per credit hour. American Military University. Savings for the whole family. Learn more at amu.apus.edu slash military. Absolutely. So like I said, we were, you know, fashion is so notorious for particularly white-run brands finding a beautiful print, putting their name on it, and selling it.

Native motifs do not belong to us. They are beautiful, but they have meanings. Certain motifs mean certain things. Certain color schemes belong to different tribes. And so we got to the point where we decided that if we were going to use any of these type of prints, we only wanted to work with actual Native artists.

And so in 2017, I reached out to a mutual friend, Doug Goodfeather. He's Lakota of Standing Rock Nation. And we started working with him. He flew in. He worked on designs and art with us. I think the best way to effectuate change is with long-term systemic partnerships. And so we now work with five amazing Native artists on an ongoing basis.

And it's something that our customers love. It's something that helps our team feel like we're doing good work. And it's honestly been such life force energy back to me because some of these partnerships and some of these partners have become some of my closest friends.

That's incredible. So I love that you're actually working with different tribes too, specific tribes, and really calling attention to some of the different things that they're trying to do geographically because there's so many issues. I grew up in Arizona, so I'm very familiar with many of those issues as well. But I love seeing that as part of your overall mission and ethos that's been

built in overall. So when you think about the ups and downs of building a business, you know, that's, it's something that I think people just want to go start a company, right? That they have this idea and they want to go start it. But

but nobody sees the squiggling line that happens. Sometimes there's products that are launched that don't work or a real estate deal that you thought was going to be amazing and then for whatever reason it's not. But what are some of the ups and downs that you've seen that obviously you've weathered the storm, but they've been really challenging? Yeah.

I mean, I could name so many and some are funny. You know, we initially, when we launched, we had yellow board shorts that were completely see-through. So we had customers who were swimming with their in-laws came out of the pool and realized that it was see-through. Um, we've had production issues. We've had, um, we had a mobile trailer that we took around the country and it got, uh,

broken into, it broke down on the side of the road, it got confiscated on the Mexico border. I mean, I can go on and on. I think the most stressful thing about having a company though is what a hungry beast capitalism is. And in order to scale, no matter how well you're doing, you are always in a cash crunch. And so we only recently became profitable in

a couple of years ago, nine years in to having the business. And when you start having...

employees and team members, the level of responsibility, knowing that you're helping provide for their livelihood. And if the business is not doing well, it's affecting people who work for you is a very heavy emotional weight to bear. And I think because we, we do care so much, like it's, there have been times where, yeah, we've been afraid we weren't going to be able to make payroll the first couple of years. Yeah.

We are not private equity backed. So we did a round of friends and family when we started and then we have one angel investor.

And so we really have, you know, bootstrapped it and, you know, have had to call in favors. I mean, I feel very grateful. I feel like enough founders don't talk about like access to like being privileged. But so much of it is, do you know someone with money who when you're desperate, you can call in a favor? And we've had to do that time and time again. Yeah.

Like I've had to call my dad and be like, you know, we owe this manufacturer money and we can't pay for it. Can you loan me some money? And that's the behind the scenes I think that a lot of people don't see. And it's stressful. It's almost torn my relationship apart at times, you know. But we weather the storm and we can finally breathe. But I think there is when people start a business,

there's an expectation that even if it's successful, that you're profitable. And just because you're growing doesn't mean that you're making money, given how much operational infrastructure is needed to keep the business afloat.

Yeah, no, it's so true. Thank you for sharing that because I think it is so true. And I think often, you know, when you have employees too, you're, you know, trying to balance keeping people motivated and leading and not stressing everybody out. But, you know, at the end of the day, the buck stops here and you want to make sure that everyone is getting their payroll and their 401k and

all of these things that are really important, I think, for the team to have and also have a great line of products that are quality and things that are representative of the brand that you started, but also ones that consumers will continue buying. So I think that's such a

important piece that a lot of people don't realize. That's why I love founders, right? Because I have so much mad respect for... It doesn't matter what industry they're in. I just get it. And it's a lot. It's a lot to...

hold together at times for sure and carry on your shoulders. So when you think about differentiating the brand, there's always competition in every industry. But how do you stand apart and how do you continue to really stay true to your original values, I guess, while continuing to stand apart?

The fact that, you know, we're a family business, I think is the most differentiated because the brand is so much of the things that we love. So it's very organic. Like we wear the clothes and we design the clothes that we want to wear. We're real people. We're in our catalogs often. Our, you know, our parents, our kids have been in the catalogs. We visit our stores a lot. So, you know, there's really a face to the brand in some ways, although we're still

Obviously wanting to expand beyond that. But I think we don't think about competition as much as who are we really inspired by. And I look at the trajectory of like a Patagonia. It's still founder based, you know, Yvonne Chouinard, very steeped in his values and sustainability and,

We want to be doing this for a very long time. So we don't want to sell the company and retire and start something else. There's nothing else we really would rather be doing. I mean, I'm working on a book, so I love writing. But because of that, the brands we look up to are ones that have been around for a really long time, like even like Cucinelli, which is a European brand. So

In terms of, I don't think about as much as competition, but as much as, yeah, what type of legacy do we want to be leading? And are we continuing to make decisions that we're proud of and having that inform everything from our style, our vibe, the places we're traveling, the nonprofits we're associating with? All of it's very organic, right?

I love it. And I think how you've grown the brand too is just, you can tell there's the people that really care about it and the look and the feel and the vibe and the pieces of clothing are really different. What are some of the pieces that you've created that are maybe you're most proud of that were really tough to achieve and you finally got it to a point where you nailed it and you were so excited?

For women's, I am obsessed with our stretch terry bottoms. We wanted to do a more structured bottom for a really long time, but that also had that signature kind of vintage, really gummy soft feel to it.

And so we spent years perfecting these, this really flattering, yeah, stretch cherry pant. And I have it in every color and now we make an ankle length and a long length, but that's something that, you know, was years in the making of trial and tribulation. And now it's definitely a core product piece that we offer season after season.

Is there a product that you talked about the yellow board shorts, but is there a product that you in the men's style that you were that you're really, really excited about or was kind of a tougher one to create?

You know, Mike, you mentioned your husband loves the flannels. Mike, my brother-in-law, I mean, he's so obsessed with fabric. All of our fabrics are custom made. It's almost like a chef, like what ingredients, how much stretch, what's the wash. And so he really invented the Legend fabric, which is...

it almost feels like a cashmere sweater. It's soft and stretchy. And we were able to do it still with low impact materials, still recycled poly with a little bit of organic cotton. And that's been a real staple to the men's collection. That's awesome. What's been the most unexpected part of this journey and building the brand? Something that maybe has surprised you or challenged you in ways you didn't anticipate?

I think that, you know, the interpersonal relational part of it, you know, so often we talk about, you know, our personal lives and our work lives. And as chief impact officer, I'm very focused on culture and on our people team and how people relate to one another. And I'm just fascinated by how much culture.

Like childhood and inner, like inner family systems affects how we show up on a day-to-day basis. It affects the types of people that we hire. It affects organizational health. I majored in psychology in college and I don't think that I was going to be as fascinated by how much like personalities affect the success of a business. Yeah.

So, yeah, I would say it's like the softer things that are more surprising versus the business thing. I mean, I always joke from a business perspective, we only ever have three problems, which is like, are we making our money losing on this? Are we going to meet our deadlines from a production perspective? And then like, what's the marketing campaign? I mean, obviously, there's so much more than that. But I actually find that the business problems are very consistent and regular, but it's the softer skills that are...

are things that I'm most fascinated by and can cause the most stress. When you're interviewing people, what are some of the things that you really look for when you're building out your team? Because I do think there's a vibe that, especially the longer that you're in business, right? There's a responsibility too when you're bringing in people that

you know, there's a lot of trust, especially if that person isn't interviewing with everybody in the whole company. But is there something that you really look for when you're adding members to your team? I mean, we are very candid that Faraday is a hard place to work in the sense that it's very fast paced. There's three founders. We like to move fast. We have high standards of working. It's also a very kind place. It's not your typical like

fashion, competitive. It is so collaborative. Alex, Mike, and I were all athletes in college. And so it's very much like one team, one dream. So the things that we really look for is collaboration, people who are self-assured. So I think if

you know, people who can take feedback and not take things personally. Again, we think about a sports team, like I might not be having a good game one day. And it's like, hey, you didn't play. You didn't play great. It's like, yeah, I know. Dang. Sorry, I got you next time. We need that type of mentality versus I messed up. I'm a bad person. Everyone hates me. It's like we really look for like a mental agility of being able to take feedback and want to get better and having people who stress, I think, isn't super contagious. Yeah.

It's a fast paced environment, but we all really care about each other. And it's like, you know, moods are contagious. So if someone's having a hard day, can you have like the acumen to be able to be like, I'm having a hard day, I'm going to be vulnerable about it, but I'm not going to spread my stress to you.

Yeah, no, I think that's really, really critical. So storytelling obviously means a lot to you. And that certainly has changed over the years. I think it's gotten more and more important for consumers to really understand people behind brands. You know, as you mentioned, Patagonia is probably at the

one of the top of my list of brands that has really done it right. And you guys have as well. But can you share how storytelling really is kind of an important part for Faraday? And it's not just about the products because you can't, I don't think today you can just go launch a brand and expect people to come or

try the product if you don't really have some kind of why behind it. It's funny, when we launched in 2013, really to 2019, so much focus was on like,

online, digital, D2C, Instagram ads. And we were actually very traditional in the sense that pretty quickly into starting the brand, after all these big brands had stopped their catalogs, we wanted to have a catalog.

And the reason why we wanted to have a catalog is because we wanted to be able to tell stories about people we loved, inspiring people, real people wearing the clothes, interesting locations. Yeah. Good people doing good work. And, um,

We continue to really focus on that season after season. I think a lot of catalogs have come back, but we don't call it a catalog anymore. We call it a journal or a Faraday Chronicles because it's not just product. It's really featuring real people doing good work from all around the world. We just did a collaboration with Surf Ghana. We traveled to Costa Rica this past trip.

to talk to activists and surfboard shakers down there. We're doing a catalog with the amazing photographer, Chris Burkhardt in Iceland for the holidays. So that's the thing that really brings the brand alive is, you know, featuring good people,

Doing good work in the clothes. Yeah, no, I love it. What other collaborations have you done where you've just been so excited about it? I mean, you've done so many. We love artists. We love writers. We do a lot with musicians. We're an ongoing sponsor of the Newport Folk Festival. We do a lot of events online.

We do a lot with Surfrider, who we're corporate sponsors to. It's a nonprofit that focuses on ocean conservation. So it's been all over the place. And again, it's organic. So we did one with the Tourism Board of Ireland because we have roots in Ireland and we're

We thought, why not? Why not go back to the homeland and and do a product collab with them and shoot us looking at other family run factories in Ireland. So so much of it's like I said, is so organic based more than like marketing strategy.

I love it. And I love the fact that you've brought in so much of your interests, right, to show people. I mean, you're showing consumers some of the cool things that are out there that maybe they hadn't imagined, right? And in it, you're also educating them, whether it's

with Native Americans or different surfers, just kind of going back to your roots of how you developed this brand. So when you think about this,

Maybe it's a friend of yours or somebody that you're mentoring. Maybe you don't even know you're mentoring them, but they want to go and create a brand rooted in purpose. What's one piece of advice that you would give to them in any industry as they start to think about creating something?

I'm so under the belief that what's good for one person should be good for all. And so really thinking about what are the win-win-wins. And that can be from a factory perspective to a collaboration perspective. But I love it when Yvonne Chouinard says, every time we prioritize the environment, it's been a win for the business.

And I do believe in karma a little bit. And like if we prioritize the environment and we prioritize ethical manufacturing, like that too will be good for business. Even if it means our costs are higher, the longevity and the energy that we're putting out of the brand will inherently lead to good business.

No, I love that. As we're closing out this conversation, what is that one thing that you want them to remember about the company and the brand? I think for me,

We want to leave behind a legacy of feeling. And I think that can be both from like a tactile perspective, that fairly feeling of the fabric that is like so cozy and comfortable. But it's also the feeling of how you feel when you walk into one of our stores. We have an amazing team of store people. They make you feel comfortable and welcome. And we want to invoke like what is that fairly feeling that that you associate with the brand and

beyond just the clothes. And I think that sometimes is hard to describe, but I want you to feel it when you're wearing the brand. I love it. Or think about it, even if you don't own it. But when you just think about it, it gives you a sense of like, okay, they're focused on making things better.

Carrie, thank you so much for joining us. And your story is such a powerful example of what's possible when you build with heart and leave with purpose and refuse to compromise on values and your legal and human rights background in building Faraday's rise as a sustainability or as a sustainable lifestyle brand. I should say you've really shown, uh,

family can work together and bringing in fashion and impact. It doesn't just coexist. They fuel each other. So you guys have done such an incredible job on building Faraday. Everyone needs to check it out. I encourage everyone to go into one of their stores, definitely, but also you can visit them online at faradaybrand.com.

And as always, if you love this episode, please don't forget to share it with a friend, drop a review and hit subscribe. And I'll see you next time on the Kara Golden Show. Thank you so much for joining us, Keri Doherty, co-founder and chief impact officer of Faraday. Thanks, Kara.

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