Paul Ripke has managed to get away from the image of the world champion photographer. Today he produces a wide variety of clothes with his brand “Pari”, records the successful podcast “All ways lead to fame” with Joko Winterscheidt and has over 550,000 followers on Instagram. In the OMR Podcast Paul tells how he makes a million dollar turnover with a tiny team, why he ended the close collaboration with About You on the project and what reach really means in today’s world.
“Just as I always defend myself against ‘photographer’ as a description, I’m not a designer either,” says Paul Ripke when asked by Philipp Westermeyer what he sees himself as. “I see designers in this way that they generate something on a blank sheet of paper. I can’t even create from scratch. I’m good at remixing. ”Today he sees himself as an influencer and doesn’t find it derogatory as a self-description. “You create things and people consume it. In the end, an influencer defines himself through a community that also listens to him.”
From partnership to your own thing
And the community apparently listens to Paul Ripke quite well. In a short time he got out of his fire Equal (short for PAul RIpke – stolen from LeGer from LEna GERke) built a real company. He started the project in collaboration with About You. The first collection will appear in mid-2019 – About You produces and sells the clothes exclusively at the time. “I was the most uncomfortable partner you can have,” says Paul Ripke. “I freaked out with every mistake.”
Nevertheless, working on his own brand and collection fulfilled him more than he expected. At the same time, he wants to become more agile and ultimately decides to put Pari completely on his own two feet. The own Shopify shop will be launched on May 1, 2020. Paul Ripke relocates the production of hoodies, shirts, jogging pants & Co. to Turkey and transfers the logistics to a partner. About You still get 20 percent of the goods.
Small team, a lot of income
“We are already above the turnover that we made with About You last year,” says Paul Ripke. He expects seven-digit sales for 2020. Since the official start of sales on May 9, Pari has sent over 14,000 orders – mainly to the DACH region. He mastered all of this with a team of four people – two of whom only work a few hours a day. In addition, of course, as mentioned, there are partners who help with production and logistics.
Paul Ripke uses the newly gained agility, among other things, to expand his range of products. “We don’t do anything that I don’t find and use awesome myself,” he says. That’s why there’s now Pari too own bicycle jerseys and tires or Golf balls. The brand also works repeatedly with other brands for collabos – most recently with ex-OMRler Flemming Pinck and Inferno Ragazzi.
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Decisive success factors
The PR through the About-You-Start certainly helped the brand to be successful on its own two feet. In the podcast, however, Paul Ripke tells how he is currently driving further growth: “We have already transferred 80,000 euros to Facebook.” He mainly posts ads on Instagram. “Our learning is: personalized, personalized, personalized”. On the one hand, completely cut-out products would work against a white background. But story ads on Instagram, which Paul Ripke created like an organic story on his own smartphone, went even better. “I just say straight into the camera: ‘Hey, the hoodie is currently available for a 30 percent discount. Now swipe up here because they’ll probably be gone by tomorrow. ‘”
From his point of view, it is precisely this personal and authentic closeness between influencer and audience that is the decisive success factor today – regardless of whether as a company founder or rapper: “Bonez MC is successful because he himself has understood the Instagram medium so well. He doesn’t have a consultant, ”says Ripke. “Today, social media is super authentic. And it doesn’t get more authentic than self-made. ”In the end, in addition to content and reach, the product still counts:“ My sweaters only work because I put so much love into my products. ”
His personal cleverness to generate sales can be seen in an anecdote that Paul Ripke tells in the OMR podcast: “During the election I thought: It’s tight, something positive has to happen for Biden. So I built in the code ‘Biden’ for a 25 percent discount on everything. “17 minutes after the idea, the discount was online and he was able to publicize it directly on Instagram.” That worked incredibly well, “said Ripke. “We have never sold that much in 24 hours.”
How well the podcast “All roads lead to fame” is currently working and how Paul’s crazy trip to Germany went a few weeks ago can be heard in this time’s very detailed OMR podcast.
Our podcast partners at a glance:
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Erik Podzuweit, founder of Scalable Capital, is still a guest in the Finance Corner after talking to Paul Ripke. He speaks about current developments on the stock exchange and the prospects for the coming days and weeks. What does the US election do with the world’s stock exchanges? What triggered the announcement of a corona vaccine? What is happening in china With Scalable Capital we also started a stock market game. Here you can see how Philipp and the regular podcast guests Lea Sophie Cramer, Tarek Müller and Sven Schmidt are investing.
Then we would like to introduce you to the master’s degree in “Digital Journalism” at the Hamburg Media School (HMS). Everyone who is currently thinking about developing in this direction or who knows someone who does that, should definitely take a look at this HMS master’s course.
All topics of the OMR Podcast with Paul Ripke at a glance:
- What is the corona situation like in Paul Ripke’s adopted home California? (from 4:52)
- Paul’s assessment of the US election (from 6:21)
- What media is Paul Ripke using to follow events in the world? (from 9:46)
- What was so fascinating about the Vote campaign from a marketing point of view? (from 12:39)
- It used to be a photographer – today it is more of an entrepreneur. How does Paul Ripke see himself? (from 14:52)
- Are videographers out again? (from 21:06)
- What are the key success factors in today’s world? (from 24:46)
- Subject Pari: How did he start and build his fashion brand? (from 27:33)
- How well is the brand currently working? (from 37:36)
- Pari also has unusual items such as bathrobes and bicycle accessories. Why? (from 43:10)
- Which product is the bestseller at Pari? And where does the cat logo come from? (from 47:21)
- How does he approach TikTok? (from 55:04)
- What Paul Ripke finds really inspiring (from 56:20)
- How big is the Pari team now? (from 1:03:40)
- Has he also brought in well-known friends for his brand? (from 1:07:51)
- How does he define Pari’s target group? (from 1:12:31)
- How well does the podcast “All roads lead to fame” with Joko Winterscheidt work today? (from 1:15:48)
- Why TV presence does not bring additional reach to a podcast (from 1:24:27)
- How his search for ideas always brings him to new projects (from 1:31:57)
- A story about the passion of Paul Ripke – including cycling legend Erik Zabel (from 1:38:44)
- How the collaboration with ex-OMRler Flemming Pinck came about (from 1:42:04)
- What would Philipp Paul advise right now, where to develop his brand Pari (from 1:45:08)
- Counter question: What is OMR doing? (from 1:52:56)
- Finance Corner with Erik Podzuweit from Scalable Capital (from 2:01:05)
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