4
Business View Magazine
cruise ships. We set the business up; we sourced the
products; filled up the warehouse; and started selling.”
Unfortunately, the initial response was not encourag-
ing. “We expected to do about $1,500 a cruise visit
when a cruise came into port,” he says. “But we ended
up doing 20 percent of projections – about $300 a vis-
it, when we first opened. We knew we had a problem.
So, we sent executives to these locations and essen-
tially told them: ‘Don’t come home until you figure out
what the customer wants and why the concept isn’t
working.’”
Meanwhile, lightning was about to strike. Pedersen
had gone to the Magic Apparel show in Las Vegas, the
biggest apparel show in the world, and happened upon
a swatch of fabric made from bamboo. While there, he
learned that bamboo cloth was twice as soft as cotton,
that it was 3 degrees cooler, that it was hypoallergenic,
and that bamboo was one of the most sustainable re-
sources on the planet, with some species growing up
to four feet a day. “The next day, I got on a plane and
flew to southern California and started working with
one of our suppliers, where we made 5,000 shirts
from luxuriously soft bamboo viscose,” he recounts.
“We put them into the three locations, marketed them
onboard the ships, and the 5,000 shirts sold out in
two weeks.”
