- Canva is a design tool that allows users to create on-brand content without being a designer
- Canva offers templates for presentations, business documents, posters, and more
- Users can create custom brand templates for their team to use
- Canva allows users to quickly replace logos across all designs
- Canva is used by 85% of Fortune 500 companies
- Lufthansa Allegrois offers a new travel experience on long-haul routes with rethought travel classes
- Nissan offers a variety of cars for different drivers and adventures
- Capital One offers the VentureX Business Card for growing businesses with unlimited double miles and no preset spending limit
- Herschel Supply Company is a relatively new brand that aims to evoke a timeless feeling with their products
- Herschel products are sold at 9,000 locations worldwide, including backpacks, duffels, suitcases, wallets, jackets, and shirts
- The founders of Herschel were inspired by a small prairie town in Saskatchewan
- The founders grew up inseparable and spent their childhood playing hockey
- Lyndon worked at a cycling shop in Australia and Jamie worked at a skateboarding store and pursued becoming a mountain guide after high school.

- The speaker worked on an avalanche control team at a ski hill for 4 years
- Their boss encouraged them to go back to school instead of continuing in the same path
- They started a snowboard and skateboard magazine called Sequence, which was not financially successful but was enjoyable
- The speaker and another person stayed in touch while working in the outdoor sports business
- They had many conversations about ideas, often starting with "wouldn't it be cool?"
- They noticed a gap in the bag market and decided to start their own company
- They wanted to create high-quality bags with a simpler design than what was currently available
- They kept their day jobs while starting the company
- The first step was to think about the aesthetic and backstory of the product
- They started with backpacks, duffel bags, and hip sacks as their first products.

- The founders of Herschel Supply Company started by designing backpacks, duffel bags, and hip sacks.
- They wanted to create a brand that had a strong identity and a sense of history, similar to Levi's.
- They aimed to provide utility and functionality in their products, stripping away unnecessary elements.
- They noticed a gap in the market for backpacks that were not just for sports or hiking, but for everyday use.
- They recognized that backpacks have a higher sentimental value for customers compared to other products.
- They wanted to change the bag market by adding value and creating a brand with a story.
- The founders took inspiration from the sneaker industry and aimed to be more like a shoe company in terms of innovation and storytelling.
- They wanted to differentiate themselves from other bag companies, especially in their price category.

- The founders of Herschel wanted to create a unique buying experience for their brand
- They designed their first bag by referencing vintage bags and modernizing them
- They didn't know how to manufacture, so they reached out to factories in China for help
- They sent their designs to multiple factories and received some responses
- They met with a Chinese manufacturer in Vancouver who agreed to make their first samples
- They financed the production of the backpacks through their own savings and support from their brother
- The initial samples were disappointing and didn't meet their expectations
- One of the founders traveled to China to work with the manufacturer and improve the samples
- They had a trade show deadline to showcase their bags and eventually debuted them at the Agenda trade show in New York City in 2010.

- The founders of Herschel attended a trade show where they constructed their own booth using pallets
- They received positive feedback and orders from retailers such as Urban Outfitters and Nordstrom
- They had to finance the orders and made a decision to order extra units
- The company started to grow and hired more people to help with sales and product development

- Jamie and Lyndon started working on creating a new range of bags for the fall trade shows
- They hired some people to help them finish the bags and get them ready for display at Urban Outfitters
- Their marketing strategy was to have the bags displayed alongside other popular brands at retailers like Urban Outfitters
- The bags sold well, with a sell-through rate of 26% a week
- They positioned Herschel as a brand with a familiar and timeless aesthetic, even though it was a startup
- In their first year, they sold between 7,000 and 8,000 bags
- They faced challenges in logistics and shipping, but learned and adapted as they grew
- Both Jamie and Lyndon quit their day jobs in 2011 when they saw the bag market expanding beyond just one season
- They expanded internationally through trade shows and relationships
- They focused on scaling up their operations and bringing in the right people to handle finance, operations, and product testing
- Despite rapid growth, they remained profitable and were able to stay grassroots and bootstrapped
- They felt pressure to constantly innovate and expand their product line, but wanted to do so authentically and purposefully
- They had a website for direct-to-consumer sales, but initially made a mistake by removing sold-out items from the site
- They had a successful experience when one of their bags was featured on Oprah's wish list and quickly sold out.

- The co-founders of Herschel Supply Company discuss their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- COVID-19 had a negative impact on Herschel as their products are mainly used for activities that were restricted during the pandemic.
- They had to make tough decisions, including layoffs, to preserve cash.
- During COVID-19, they focused on sustainability and switched 95% of their fabrics and materials to sustainable options.
- They have now turned a corner and are fully back in business, with people returning to activities and a hybrid work environment benefiting their products.
- The co-founders attribute their success to a combination of luck and hard work.
- They believe their timing was perfect in entering the market and implementing the changes they wanted to see.
- The town of Herschel, Saskatchewan, where the brand got its name, has a small museum worth visiting.

- Canva is a design tool that allows users to create on-brand content without being a designer
- Canva is used by 85% of Fortune 500 companies
- Lufthansa Allegrois offers a new travel experience on long-haul routes with rethought travel classes
- Nissan offers a variety of cars for different drivers and adventures
- Capital One offers the VentureX Business Card for growing businesses with unlimited double miles and no preset spending limit
- Herschel Supply Company is a relatively new brand that aims to evoke a timeless feeling with their products
- Herschel products are sold at 9,000 locations worldwide, including backpacks, duffels, suitcases, wallets, jackets, and shirts
- The founders of Herschel were inspired by a small prairie town in Saskatchewan
- The founders grew up inseparable and spent their childhood playing hockey
- Lyndon worked at a cycling shop in Australia and Jamie worked at a skateboarding store and pursued becoming a mountain guide after high school.
- The speaker worked on an avalanche control team at a ski hill for 4 years
- Their boss encouraged them to go back to school instead of continuing in the same path
- They started a snowboard and skateboard magazine called Sequence, which was not financially successful but was enjoyable
- The speaker and another person stayed in touch while working in the outdoor sports business
- They had many conversations about ideas, often starting with "wouldn't it be cool?"
- They noticed a gap in the bag market and decided to start their own company
- They wanted to create high-quality bags with a simpler design than what was currently available
- They kept their day jobs while starting the company
- The first step was to think about the aesthetic and backstory of the product
- They started with backpacks, duffel bags, and hip sacks as their first products.
- The founders of Herschel Supply Company started by designing backpacks, duffel bags, and hip sacks.
- They wanted to create a brand that had a strong identity and a sense of history, similar to Levi's.
- They aimed to provide utility and functionality in their products, stripping away unnecessary elements.
- They noticed a gap in the market for backpacks that were not just for sports or hiking, but for everyday use.
- They recognized that backpacks have a higher sentimental value for customers compared to other products.
- They wanted to change the bag market by adding value and creating a brand with a story.
- The founders took inspiration from the sneaker industry and aimed to be more like a shoe company in terms of innovation and storytelling.
- They wanted to differentiate themselves from other bag companies, especially in their price category.
- The founders of Herschel wanted to create a unique buying experience for their brand
- They designed their first bag by referencing vintage bags and modernizing them
- They didn't know how to manufacture, so they reached out to factories in China for help
- They sent their designs to multiple factories and received some responses
- They met with a Chinese manufacturer in Vancouver who agreed to make their first samples
- They financed the production of the backpacks through their own savings and support from their brother
- The initial samples were disappointing and didn't meet their expectations
- One of the founders traveled to China to work with the manufacturer and improve the samples
- They had a trade show deadline to showcase their bags and eventually debuted them at the Agenda trade show in New York City in 2010.
- The founders of Herschel attended a trade show where they constructed their own booth using pallets
- They received positive feedback and orders from retailers such as Urban Outfitters and Nordstrom
- They had to finance the orders and made a decision to order extra units
- The company started to grow and hired more people to help with sales and product development
- Jamie and Lyndon started working on creating a new range of bags for the fall trade shows
- They hired some people to help them finish the bags and get them ready for display at Urban Outfitters
- Their marketing strategy was to have the bags displayed alongside other popular brands at retailers like Urban Outfitters
- The bags sold well, with a sell-through rate of 26% a week
- They positioned Herschel as a brand with a familiar and timeless aesthetic, even though it was a startup
- In their first year, they sold between 7,000 and 8,000 bags
- They faced challenges in logistics and shipping, but learned and adapted as they grew
- Both Jamie and Lyndon quit their day jobs in 2011 when they saw the bag market expanding beyond just one season
- They expanded internationally through trade shows and relationships
- They focused on scaling up their operations and bringing in the right people to handle finance, operations, and product testing
- Despite rapid growth, they remained profitable and were able to stay grassroots and bootstrapped
- They felt pressure to constantly innovate and expand their product line, but wanted to do so authentically and purposefully
- They had a website for direct-to-consumer sales, but initially made a mistake by removing sold-out items from the site
- They had a successful experience when one of their bags was featured on Oprah's wish list and quickly sold out.
- The co-founders of Herschel Supply Company discuss their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- COVID-19 had a negative impact on Herschel as their products are mainly used for activities that were restricted during the pandemic.
- They had to make tough decisions, including layoffs, to preserve cash.
- During COVID-19, they focused on sustainability and switched 95% of their fabrics and materials to sustainable options.
- They have now turned a corner and are fully back in business, with people returning to activities and a hybrid work environment benefiting their products.
- The co-founders attribute their success to a combination of luck and hard work.
- They believe their timing was perfect in entering the market and implementing the changes they wanted to see.
- The town of Herschel, Saskatchewan, where the brand got its name, has a small museum worth visiting.

Brothers Jamie and Lyndon Cormack founded Herschel Supply Co to sell modern bags with a timeless feel. While working in the sports and apparel industry, they realized they couldn’t find backpacks and totes with the same stylish but simplified vibe as their favorite sneakers and shirts. With no background in manufacturing, they learned to make bags partly by ripping old ones apart. Then they Googled their way to finding a factory and scrambled to catch up as orders started to roll in.  

Since launching in 2009, Jamie and Lyndon have grown Herschel Supply Co. from a handful of samples at a trade show in New York, to a global travel goods brand whose backpacks, luggage, and clothing are sold in more than 9,000 locations.

This episode was produced by Chris Maccini, with music by Ramtin Arablouei.

Edited by Neva Grant, with research from Alex Cheng.

Our engineers were Gilly Moon and Josh Newell.

You can follow HIBT on Twitter & Instagram, and email us at hibt@id.wondery.com.




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Hey, it's Guy here, and before we start the show, a question, do you ever get nervous When performing or speaking in front of an audience?

I definitely do and I have to stand in front of a lot of audiences.

Well, I recently interviewed Zooey Deschanel and she had a great tip I hadn't heard before.

A tip that's allowed her to get out of her head and into the moment.

You can find out all about it and hear my conversation with Zoe on my other podcast, The Great Creators.

Just search for The Great Creators with Guy Raz wherever you listen to podcasts.

Jamie and I promised ourselves Jamie and I promised ourselves that we would be together for the first time we opened our first samples.

It was a bit mafioso style where the cars rolled in, trunks open, box pulled up, box cutter open, Jamie sliced the box open and we like literally opened up the box and saw our first samples.

And to be very honest, they were pretty disappointing.

Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

I'm Guy Raz and on the show today, how 2 Canadian brothers took inspiration from classic brands to create a modern bag business that feels like it's been around forever, Herschel Supply Company.

Every time I hold a Zippo lighter or a Leatherman knife or a stainless steel Timex watch, I feel a very strong sense of comfort.

And maybe it's because these products are exactly the same as they've always been.

They feel timeless, like a pair of Levi's jeans or even an In-N-Out burger.

And it turns out, there's a good reason why we respond to certain brands in a certain way.

Just look at the recent rebrands of Pepsi and Burger King.

Both are retro and both evoke that 1980s vibe.

So it may come as a surprise to you, it did to me at least, that Herschel Supply Company is a relatively new brand.

When I first saw their backpacks back in 2012, I just assumed the company had roots stretching back to the gold rush.

I mean, if you look at that pack with its leather straps and buckles and rugged denim, you can easily imagine Levi Strauss himself flinging 1 over his own shoulder back in 1849.

Now, to be clear, Herschel's founders, who also happened to be brothers, weren't trying to trick anyone, but Lyndon and Jamie Cormack definitely wanted their products to evoke that feeling I was just talking about.

Anyway, when they started Herschel Supply Company back In 2009, both brothers had worked in apparel, so they knew how retail worked, but they had no idea how to actually make things.

A few years earlier, they'd noticed that there seemed to be a gap in the backpack market, that there weren't any stylish backpacks that could look great on a college student and on a professional going to work.

It took some time for the brand to take off, but today, Herschel products are sold at 9,000 locations around the world.

And It's not just backpacks, but everything from duffels to suitcases to wallets to jackets and shirts.

The brothers Cormac grew up in Calgary in Canada and the inspiration for the name of the brand came from an old prairie town in Saskatchewan, a place they would visit as children.

As you drive to it, you don't even see it.

About a kilometer outside, you start to drop down into a pretty amazing little hamlet.

I think there's about 18 people there today and Not a ton of life but still has an amazing rank and a hockey rink that is and Curling rink a school turned into a museum

Yeah, and as kids Jamie, I mean guys have an older brother But but you and Lyndon are just I think less than 2 years apart So were you guys pretty much inseparable as kids?

Like, did you basically, you guys were playmates?

And right from the start, my best friends were his best friends.

But going to places like Herschel, it wasn't an ask, what we were going to do that day.

We would just go out and find something to do, and it held our interest.

And that's pretty special in a land that's that open and walking in and clicking the lights on in a hockey rink and just being able to play with no 1 telling you can get off the ice until your legs are ready to fall off.

So in the US, right, a lot of kids, when you ask them what they want to be, they say, I want to be a professional athlete.

When you guys were kids, did you think I want to be a professional hockey player?

Like did you guys and all your friends think that's what you wanted to do?

I mean, we spent thousands of hours playing hockey.

And in fact, if the rinks weren't open or the ice wasn't frozen, we'd also be playing street hockey in front of our house in our cul-de-sac where we grew up.

And there would definitely be times where you're role-playing you know, that final shot and that big game to hoist the cup above your head.

I mean, I've role-played that many, many of times, but I also realized as you get into your teenage years that I wasn't gonna make the NHL, and obviously also interest started to blossom in other fun things that we love.

So I guess after high school, Lyndon, I read that you took sort of an extended trip to Australia, And you worked at a cycling shop for a while in Melbourne.

In the meantime, Jamie, you were still in Calgary.

What did you end up doing after high school?

I started working at a skateboarding store.

But I also decided to spend a bit of time in Canmore, Alberta, and went to a mountaineering school there.

And spent a lot of time taking a path of trying to become a mountain guide.

And I would take off and work at a small ski hill near Fernie on their avalanche control team.

So doing all the explosive work and really working in snow science and studying it there for about 4 years.

It was probably still to date 1 of my favorite jobs in the world, but my boss at the time actually pulled me aside after the fourth winter and told me, you know, I'm not gonna hire you back next year.

And he told me that I was just too young and too smart to be taking the same path he took.

And he really felt like I should go back to the city and go back to school.

And his big comment that he said to me that still really resonates was, I would love for you to be the 1 in the back of the helicopter on the weekends, not the 1 working in the front.

And it really hit me that, you know, I probably should go back to the city and roll in night classes at the time I needed to work and continue to work at the skateboard shop.

I dove from really mountaineering into graphics and graphic design and took a ton of courses at the local college.

And then as well as taking courses just in typesetting and trying to understand it.

And ended up being that I did start just a local snowboard and skateboard magazine myself.

The magazine was called Sequence, I think,

And yeah, I mean, it must have been exciting, but yeah, you had to fill it with articles and photos and ads, and it's expensive.

Like printing it and then distributing it and getting people to buy it.

With my friend group and peers, you know, it was so much fun.

4 years of running it was amazing learning for me.

I mean, as an athlete or as a snowboarder, you wanted to be in this magazine.

And so now, was it a wild financial success?

I mean, it was you made something and I mean, making something is intoxicating.

And whether it's a photocopied zine or in this case, it was quite a professionally done publication that it was you created the idea and you made something.

Linden, you when you left Australia, I guess you came back to Canada and then you ended up working as like a sales rep, I guess for vans for the for the shoe company.

And, and Jamie, you you moved on, you started doing sales for another sports brand, K2, which I think mainly does skis and snowboards.

So so you were both working in like the outdoor sports business.

I think I think you were in Vancouver and think, Jamie, you were still in Calgary and presumably you stayed in touch during that time, right?

When you're when you're moving around cities or towns or highways and moving from shop to shop or even home to office, you know, Jamie and I chatted on our phones all the time and we learned a lot off each other.

You learned a lot about what was going on, you learned a lot about the industry, but I would say a lot of those times that we were chatting, we'd be brainstorming out loud.

And 1 of my favorite things that Jamie and I have as 1 of our big connections is the amount of times we've started a conversation with, wouldn't it be cool?

And the wouldn't it be cool sentence has been something that has sprung off so many amazing ideas and probably so many terrible ideas.

But I reflect on those moments back in the day with those conversations with Jamie about, hey, wouldn't it be cool if this existed?

Or Wouldn't it be cool if this was happening?

And even today, I sometimes get goosebumps on my arms when I hear a new employee or someone who's working for us now saying, wouldn't it be cool?

And I just, I hear it and I get ready to absorb because There are a lot of special moments can come from that.

And, and Lyndon, can you remember some of the things that you talked about?

Like both of you guys were in sort of skate and snowboard that world because you were both working for brands that, you know, represented those sports.

I think Jamie and I are people who have always had 1 foot in nature and 1 foot in the city.

The ideation of what we shared, I think, was a lot of the balance between the 2 of those.

And so the bag business just kept on coming up.

And and so, you know, 1 of those conversations maybe 12, 13 years ago, where wouldn't it be cool to do that?

So, but do you remember how you sort of landed on, or just talked about bags?

Like, did you have exposure to bags just with what you were doing as a sales rep?

Or did you, was it just an intuition that came out of thin air.

Linden talked about 1 foot in the city, 1 foot in nature.

We, bags were part of stuff we were doing.

When you have that adventurous spirit and mindset, you end up in the outdoors.

I spent quite a bit of time in the outdoors, even around watching guides.

And the way that they work, they really edit down their gear.

So for us when we looked at bags in general, I think it was the 1 category that probably our generation didn't have, 1 that we could call our own.

It seemed like there was the right denim, the right footwear, the right eyewear, the right watches.

Bags just kept coming up, because most of the bags we looked at in the market were too busy.

There was too many useless features, And we really probably looked more internationally to Japan and the aesthetic of quality and simple and felt like you could dress it up, dress it down.

And as we kept bouncing back and forth on ideas, Bags kept coming up because there wasn't 1 there that we just loved.

Did you guys, Lyndon, from the beginning, when you say bags, it was backpacks that you were talking about?

Travel goods, but backpacks, I mean, for our jobs, generally speaking, we used backpacks.

And what kind of backpacks would you use?

In the latter years, I was carrying a brand from Japan called Porter, which is, you know, still a beautiful, beautiful brand.

And it was expensive for what people would say a backpack is, but very, very simplistic and pared down.

And Jamie and I never wrote a business plan for this, but some things were quite obvious.

If you look at all this stuff that Jamie just mentioned about bags having straps that people generally, people don't need or extra pockets or this feature and that feature, we thought we could come up with a sophisticated product that had a lot less features for a similar price, but maybe extra quality and so on into it.

So it gave us also a lot of confidence seeing these other brands and their price points where they existed to say, like, well, we should be able to make a company that sells in those price points too.

How long do you guys, do you think you guys had this conversation around bags before the 2 of you were like, well, let's just try it?

I'm gonna say Probably a year that we were bouncing ideas back and forth, and not so much about a business, but just ideas.

As you would travel, as we were at trade shows, as again, we would talk a ton.

In a sense, probably without even knowing it, we were trying to just vet and cut holes in idea to see if it would actually work.

It just kept getting stronger and stronger, and every phone call ended up being about this idea.

So 2009 is sort of the official kind of date when you guys founded the company.

And I want to sort of dig into this for a moment.

Lyndon, what was the – I mean both of you guys still had your day jobs.

So you both decided we're not going to quit our jobs, but let's just kind of dip a toe into seeing what we could do?

I mean, conveniently enough, especially with how a brand like Vans bridged itself from action sports to fashion, we were already going to places and selling to stores that would ultimately end up being some of our first accounts.

And so actually working with Vans and still working amongst that actually was a huge benefit because we were still in the industry.

We were still seeing changes, whether it was with our brands or competitors and actually even how retail was changing and everything was really progressing.

So yeah, we kept our day jobs for sure and they were really awesome jobs you know and they're they were hard to replicate you know without having university educations or degrees or a really specialist nature to fall back on it was actually for us really important as an insurance policy to keep them.

So, all right, so you start, I mean, what was the first step?

I mean, the first step was to just kind of think about, obviously, what you wanted a bag to be.

I mean, I guess you're thinking, Let's start with like, let's kind of reverse engineer this.

Instead of just coming up with a product, let's think about like the back story of the product.

Did you start with a story before you started to focus on what the actual product would look like?

I think it was all happening at the same time.

We knew the aesthetic of what we wanted the product to look like.

And a lot of that had this idea of a classic brand, but we wanted it to have a modern twist.

Because a lot of our favorite brands are those brands that have stood the test of time.

And it was between backpacks, duffel bags, and hip sacks were really our first foray into the bag world.

And we started feeding this and ideating out what a line plan would look like.

And again, it seems like for us, that was very natural because that's what we did for a living, whether we were working alongside designers at Vans and giving our feedback or Jamie at K2, giving feedback for ride snowboards or K2 snowboards, et cetera.

It was understanding that that was really important.

Although those are still the very early days, but it started to come alive.

Tell me more about how you thought about how you wanted this to be branded?

Because for a lot of people, the first time they saw, certainly for me, the first time I saw a Herschel Supply Company backpack with that logo on it, I just assumed it had been around for 100 years, like Levi's, it was like a Gold Rush brand.

But that was very carefully thought through and cultivated, and I'm curious how you started to think about doing it that way.

I mean, we wanted to take that creative freedom that we had as kids and build that into the mindset of a bag company.

Really, with everything we do, we look to the past and then try to modernize it.

And we had to start that way right with the logo.

We had a big mood board in relation to other things that we really loved, graphic references, brand references of what we really loved.

But the story came back to also, if we envision the little town of Herschel and having a little store in this town that sold useful goods to the farming community, the locals, And you imagine this sign sort of swinging back and forth on this little dirt road street.

It was like how the locals would come in, the farming community would come in and we'd sell them useful goods.

I mean, when you're in a small community, you have to sell things at work.

It's not about all, potentially even the branding.

You have to sell utilitarian goods at work.

And I think the spirit of the brand was also that, where we wanted to deliver great utility functionality with a bunch of stuff stripped away.

And that was a lot of the heartbeat of the brand.

I mean, at the time, 2009, it wasn't like there were no backpacks.

I mean, there were, you know, as a kid, I had a Gen Sport backpack, I think.

And, you know, obviously, you know, the big brands, the Adidases and, you know, Nikes made backpacks.

But you felt like they fit in 1 category or another, Like they were either just for sports or for hiking, but there was nothing in between.

There wasn't a bag company that had a heartbeat.

It was more of a race to the bottom than a race to a story.

And the bag market, It really is a unique purchase.

The value at point of purchase is so much less than the sentimental value they have once they own it.

I mean, it's different than so many other industries that I've looked at, more than footwear or denim or, you know, any other purchase.

Once they own a backpack, because they do carry it every day, especially if you carried it around university for an entire year, you remember that backpack, the sentiment, the value, the first trip to Europe, the first trip here.

But do they remember the shoes they had on?

Do they remember the jacket they wore the first day?

Probably not, but that backpack, that value is so much higher after purchase.

And it was really interesting that, you know, Linda and I talked a lot about it, but we knew we had to really change the bag market and show up better and make sure we added value to the market.

When we come back in just a moment, Jamie and Lyndon figure out how to put together the perfect backpack by tearing a lot of other bags apart.

Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.

Whether you're a small business owner growing your team or an HR director hiring hundreds of people across the nation, you have 1 of the toughest jobs there is.

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Herschel Supply Co.: Jamie and Lyndon Cormack