Mengwen is basically the easiest way for guys to look good
without having to buy a suit or a tux.
We connect people with great gear for special events
like weddings.
How it works is a guy can go online,
he can pick a suit or a tuxedo,
he can pick a bow tie, a shirt, shoes, all that stuff.
We have it all and pick it all out
and then basically we ship it to his door.
He wears it in his event.
After the event he puts it back in the box
and it comes right back to us.
So it's a very simple process.
My co-founder had a really bad experience
running a tux and so that led us down this path
where we looked into the industry,
we saw people didn't like it,
it had about an 84% negative sentiment
and then we saw big companies like Men's Warehouse
and Josephay Bank who are public and report
were making very large gross margins.
We were actually based in Atlanta.
We had talked a lot with the guys at Silicon Valley Bank
and one of them said,
hey have you ever met John James in Fayetteville?
He's an entrepreneur that's pretty interesting
because he basically took this cowboy boot company
and turned it into a several hundred million dollar company
called Country Outfitter.
We were in Fayetteville literally the next week.
We flew from Atlanta to Fayetteville and we met John
and it was fun, John showed us Fayetteville
and we really liked it and then John basically said,
hey I kind of believe in you guys
and I don't want you to be our first company.
I'm starting this venture studio called Hacy Adventures
and we'd love to invest in you.
And so we actually at that moment decided,
hey let's all get a house in Fayetteville.
We'll move in together and we'll just try to learn
as much from John as possible.
So that's how we became a Fayetteville company basically
and then we stayed because we liked the people so much.
The community was very welcoming
and it was just, it was incredible to go from Atlanta
where we were kind of just,
no one really cared to coming here
where everyone was interested in what we were doing
and would let us tell our story.
We were kind of like an interesting company for Fayetteville
and really Northwest Arkansas as a whole, right?
Because you have one of the biggest retail
or the biggest retailer in the world here
and there's a lot of big companies here
and so for us as a small company that's growing really fast,
I think and because we were in consumer and retail,
I think that resonated with people.
A lot of people wanted to invest in us
and a lot of people were opening doors for us
and really what's happened in Fayetteville
is the community was a big enabler of us.
I think what makes it great and what's kept us here
and makes it such a fantastic blend of things
is you have all the components you need
to build a great company.
The school's awesome.
So we hire literally 10 interns every semester
and then you have people that actually care
about building the community.
There's just all these people that are really invested
in making the community better.
You also have some of the biggest advocates
of this region of everyone, the Walton family.
You have Walmart, which and Tyson and JB Hunt,
which are all good, solid places,
public companies that have a ton of employees
and that generate a lot of jobs.
We have so much at our disposal because of the community
that it's allowed us to build a company quickly
but on our terms, which has been really nice.
And here, what's interesting is that the cost
of living so low, it creates basically
a competitive advantage in that our cost basis
will just be dramatically lower than any company
in New York or California.
I live in an awesome house.
I have two kids.
They both go to Montessori school
and all of that combined probably cost less
in your apartment in New York.
So that's one reason.
The other reason, it's so safe here.
It's very safe.
And then the air is clean and there's tons
of cool outdoor activities to do here.
If you look at the stats, it's one of the top five places
to live in the US right now, according to US News
and World Report.
And it has to do with the things I'm mentioning,
the cost of living.
There's a lot to do here from an outdoor perspective.
And the community is really good.
