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No doubt honesty is in order.
You are a niche brand, focus on that.
Most organisations tend to focus on specialisation. So in this case either clothing/experience or stack. You spread yourselves too thinly by trying to do both. What did I mean? From the engineers you seek to recruit, anyone with fair experience can make the stack their's, thereby owning your product. The correlation between cyclists and tech workers is purely coincidental, believe me. If you are looking to harbour a lasting vision in cycling, you may not find that in an engineer. The tech sector is so much vaster than cycling. Although there has certainly been an influx of engineering in the cycling industry particularly in the last decade or so. Because as with all things there is money to be made.
No question, you are a niche brand but Rapha never struck out as brand worth pursuing for me personally. But then I have always been a somewhat of cheap-skate myself given the plethora of competition available.
GLWS :)
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iC
Really fair and considered questions.
If you are a clothing brand why are your creating your own web/tech stacks?
My response would be that we are not a volume based retailer and want to focus on aspiration and experiences for our customers and aim for loyalty. With it's on the ground focus with the RCC and partner cafes, the community plays a huge part in our offering. Very few brands offer this. The gluing (middleware) together of best in class services offers us the ability to make a different customer proposition in our view.
To be honest with you anyone who can do these couple of jobs can end up 'owning' Rapha. It isn't impossible. Is that what you want? How much is cyclist offering for pay?
Not entirely sure that I understand your last question. It is possible to own/purchase garments from Rapha, but there also seems to be a clear Venn diagram with overlaps with technology workers and cyclists. Working here offers you the ability as a customer and someone passionate to make a difference to a brand using technology. That is not possible at a volumetric centred business.
In terms of compensation, we try to remain market competitive, but are unable to offer technology competitive salaries (fintech, fang, services, vc). I would also say a cyclist would be able to get the benefit of working at Rapha versus an individual that does not cycle. There are not that many technology focused jobs in e-commerce within the cycling market. I know this first hand as someone that pushed hard for a job here..! We get time to ride each week, clothing allowance and a subsidised top-notch mechanic in the office (hi Bart if you read this!). All of these are tangible to me.
Any more questions ? I am happy to answer as honestly as I can!