This episode is brought to you by Sendlane.   When building the Troubadour brand, the focus has always been on the bag, says Abel Samet, co-founder of the company that makes sustainable bags and accessories that work professionally.   "You see some companies with their first hundred hires, 90 of them will be marketing in some way," Abel says. "We focus our team around how do we create the best possible products we can and how do we create a feedback loop that means the products are getting better and accelerating at a much, much faster rate than companies or us at a different parallel universe where we weren't focusing on that."   In other words, customers do the marketing - via word of mouth - for Troubadour, Abel says.   "To be honest, some of this is trial and error," he says. "There are a number of influencers that love the brand, and that's great to see. But ultimately, every time somebody buys from us...a question we always ask is, How did you hear about us? And far and away, the most common response is, I have this friend that just loves your stuff and won't stop talking about it."   Because the bag's design is paramount, many factors figure into the process, Abel says. That includes inspiration from architecture, nature, and elements of the European design movement in the 19th and 20th centuries. But there's also a strong eye to how the bag will be utilized.   "We want to focus on lightweight because you're going to put things in the bag, it's going to get heavy, but you certainly don't want the bag itself to be heavy before you put it on," he says. "I think your bag is your office on the go in many ways."   Sustainability and product recycling are important aspects too.   "I think we're focused on how can we create products that are not downgrading the materials through use and so specifically trying to remove polyurethane as much as possible," Abel says.   In Part 1, Abel talks about:   * Gratitude toward his parents. * A 100-foot overview of the Troubadour brand. * Why Troubadour focuses on the product instead of the PR. * The power of word-of-mouth advertising. * What philosophies go into the design of the bag. * Why sustainability is vital in the design process.   Join Ramon Vela and Abel Samet as they break down the inside story on The Story of a Brand.   For more on Troubadour, visit: https://www.troubadourgoods.com/    Subscribe and Listen to the podcast on all major apps. Simply search for “The Story of a Brand,” or click here to listen on your favorite podcast player: Listen now.   *   This episode is also brought to you by Sendlane.   If all DTC companies were forced to turn off Facebook ads, they'd be dead on arrival. Why is that?   They over-invest in paid acquisition and under-invest in retention.   Luckily, Sendlane makes it easy to solve this problem. Sendlane is an E-Commerce Customer Experience Platform helping hundreds of DTC brands to tighten their existing customer relationships.   Sendlane automates personalized customer experiences through Welcome and Abandoned Cart workflows, SMS, Deep Data Integrations with Shopify and WooCommerce, multi-store functionality, and much more.   Plus, they don't stand for lazy customer support. Their San-Diego-based team has an average 1-minute response time from a live human, making sure you never get stuck in a chat queue ever again.   Curious about how Sendlane can help your DTC brand grow? Schedule a demo with a Specialist. Visit https://www.sendlane.com/story