We were lucky to catch up with David Johnson recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi David, great to have you with us today and excited to have you share your wisdom with our readers. Over the years, after speaking with countless do-ers, makers, builders, entrepreneurs, artists and more we’ve noticed that the ability to take risks is central to almost all stories of triumph and so we’re really interested in hearing about your journey with risk and how you developed your risk-taking ability.
For me, I have always been excited to jump into the unknown. I came from a relatively unique upbringing and would be considered different early on, so the part of risk that involves drawing attention to yourself never really affected me. A great example of something that assisted in my ability to take risk was deciding to be a foreign exchange student when I was 17. Things weren’t great at the homestead and I had to get out. We’d hosted exchange students before and were already affiliated with the program. Since I was signing up late I could only go to one of 3 countries, and I ended up picking Hungary.
If you aren’t sure where that is on a map, rest assured you aren’t alone. I didn’t either. I didn’t know the language, the culture, anything at all, but my desire to change something in my life was too great to let a few hidden variables get in the way. The program lasted a full year in country, where I attended schools, lived with local families and traveled all around Europe. I got in country knowing how to (incorrectly) introduce myself and that’s about it. The rest I learned on the fly. Being a foreign exchange student forces you to grow up fast. Every day is a challenge, you are always the odd one out. One day you might be treated like a celebrity, the next day you might be threatened by the locals for being different. It’s constantly being under pressure to try and figure out if you’re making the right decision, where the consequences can impact you in unknown ways. It was intense, and not everyone has a good time, but for me it was an incredible experience that helped shape the person I am today.
The take away for me when risk is involved is that the more you are exposed to things you aren’t comfortable with, the easier it is to try new things and get out of your comfort zone. As with most things, its always hardest at the beginning, but if you can put your pride and dignity aside and prepare yourself for anything, even a failure, risk is simply another obstacle to overcome in search of your goals.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
So I’ve always been artistic, and I’ve always been a problem solver. Whether for fun or for work, when presented with multiple options for what to do next, I have always picked the harder path. Whether that was intentional at the time, or I was subconsciously building my tolerance for discomfort we may never know, but looking back on the 33 years of my life, its easy to both laugh and cry about a lot of it.
My profession is called Industrial Design. If you were to take engineering and graphic design and stick those careers on opposite walls, you’d find me standing in the middle. We specialize in bringing products to market by telling a visual story of how a user, or a consumer, might interact with our product. I went through a rigorous curriculum at the Savannah College of Art and Design, with a program producing a drop out rate of 65% of our graduating class. I left college with the tools required to design consumer goods, and spent the next decade developing everything from Bluetooth headphone and automotive accessories to bathtubs, windows, mobile applications and more.
It wasn’t until I had moved from Baltimore, Maryland to Evansville, Indiana that clothing came into my life. Covid had stripped me of my role designing event stage sets for a company in DC called Design Foundry, and a new company in Indiana threw me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I picked up my life and headed west.
Now, I should take a moment to emphasize the fact that I am a car guy. Not a knowledge nut, not a builder, not a custom faber, just a good ol’ fashioned “I like to go fast” guy. One day I was doodling in my note pad and when I was done I was like damn, that’s awesome.. So I took my love of clothes, my love of design and manufacturing, my love of cars, and my shiny new logo, and said, “Hey, I might be able to do something with this”.
Graduating from 4 wheels to 2, the brand actually pushed me into one of my life long dreams, riding motorcycles. Along my journey finding new clothing to design and new ways to advertise it, I realized pretty early on that everything looks better on a motorcycle, and it gave me a reason to invest in one. Much like breathing, riding came very naturally, and as the love of the open road consumed me, my basic cotton garments evolved into custom leather masterpieces. Fast forward 2.5 years and VoidRabbit Apparel is ever expanding into something new and amazing. I have customers all over the united states and tech CEOs and TV celebrities are wearing my custom jackets to fundraising events and even on television! If you don’t believe me watch the next season of House of Villains and check out the jacket on The Challenge’s favorite ginger.
Now in 2024, its getting really interesting. The aesthetic of the brand is solidifying and people are taking interest. There is movement across the frontier; we have a wild collab brewing with Hasbro that I really can’t talk about much, a cologne that pairs with leather being created and I’ve even inherited a new challenge in fashion tech that mightbe nothing, but it might be huge. Only time will tell. All I know is that what started out with a logo and a weird skill set has become VoidRabbit Apparel, and a lot of people want to see us succeed.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
To avoid sounding absolutely cookie cutter generic, the first piece of advice is found all over the web, on every tech CEOs lips, on every motivational poster at the google campus. Fail Fast, Fail Often. The idea that everything will go your way is a hilarious, painful falsehood that everyone learns sooner than later. The faster you can find out what doesn’t work, the faster you can pivot into something that will, and you will never learn if you don’t take that first leap.
Leave your pride at the door. You’re gonna be wrong. Your gonna be taken advantage of, your gonna make mistakes. Everyone before you did, they just didn’t tell you. And if they didn’t they probably had a very good mentor that did extra. At the end of the day, no one cares about what you did wrong. You might get laughed at by the people who don’t understand what you’re doing, but the ones who share your journey will be nodding on the sidelines.
Learn how to communicate effectively. You can have a brilliant idea that you can’t explain. You can be the smartest person in the room that no one wants to work with because you’re an asshole. You can lose your top employees because they don’t feel like they can be themselves with you. But if you can be open, candid, polite and straight forward you can hold the attention of the one person in the room that everyone wants to get 1 minute with. And that minute might change your life.
What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
When breaking into a market, a huge part of the process is brand awareness. You can have an amazing product that no one knows about. Vice versa, you can have a terrible product with excellent marketing, and that might make you a lot of money fast but it’s not sustainable and its not good business.
One of my biggest challenges, mainly because I have been working an almost negative budget for most of my business ownership, has been getting people to trust my brand and my product. Leather jackets are not the cheapest thing on the planet, so getting a stranger who’s never heard of VoidRabbit Apparel to drop $350 bucks on a unique leather item is actually not super easy. Money is a quick way to overcome this challenge because it allows for marketing and advertising and product placement and things like that. Without money, there is only trust, networking and BOOTSTRAPPING.
Business started very slow for me, but one of the main takeaways from my progress is that a lot of my customers have been return customers. People like my stuff, and want more. So my next big push is to get my products into the hands of people that are known in the world of motorcycles, fashionistas, celebrities and collaborations with established brands. Having known figures wearing my gear is absolutely imperative, and I am always looking for ways to build new relationships. I’m making progress for sure but it’s definitely still at the top of my priority list.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.voidrabbit.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/voidrabbitapparel/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VoidrabbitApparel
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/djsketchlingo/
Image Credits
Only the image of the two people on the motorcycle needs credit, done by @LeanAngleMedia
