Season 2, Ep. 9 | Designing With Intention: Jorge Perez on Building Betsy Moss Transcript

​More Elephant Intro

[00:00:38] Jason Rudman: On this episode of More Elephant, we are talking with Jorge Perez. Jorge is an American-Venezuelan clothing designer and entrepreneur who launched the Women's ready-to-wear collection, Betsy Moss, in 2010. 

Betsy Moss is named after Jorge's sister and muse, Betsy Perez. We're going to get into that—what it means to have a muse that's your sister.

Betsy Moss is manufactured in the United States and well-known for their women's statement wear; from resort style flowy dresses to amazing day-and-night pieces that, as Jorge likes to say, are always sexy but chic.

So. Jorge, welcome to the More Elephant Podcast.

[00:01:18] Jorge Perez: Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here.

[00:01:19] Jason Rudman: We're thrilled to learn more about your journey. So where to start? American Venezuelan. 

Your heritage is Venezuelan, and how has that shaped the journey to founding and creating and continuing Betsy Moss?

[00:01:34] Jorge Perez: Yeah, I was born in Venezuela. We moved to Miami in 1994. My dad picked us all up and moved us here and that definitely inspired, I think, the whole aesthetic of my collections. It's mostly resort wear, lifestyle, vacation, and I think traveling between Miami and Venezuela as a child, I picked up a lot of that kind of aesthetic and vibes. 

And my sister and I have always been extremely close since I was born. So we were just always together at the beaches, at pools, parties. And since we were children, we would just play, dress up and I would tell her what to wear and style her.

So, we've been doing the same thing since we were little, except that now, it's a business. 

[00:02:17] Jason Rudman: That's great. Talk through the Venezuelan heritage, that Venezuelan experience. This connection between Miami and Venezuela [however] what does it mean to be an entrepreneur that is Venezuelan first? How has that impacted some of the decisions that you've made to grow the company?

[00:02:35] Jorge Perez: Yeah, I mean, I think being an entrepreneur and from Venezuela especially, we came in ‘94, when there was a law that Clinton put out which allowed people to move here and work and create businesses. 

And so, my Dad always, since we were very young, instilled in us the American Dream and what it's like to, you know, the opportunities that this country has to offer.

So I've always wanted to take full advantage of that and just got instilled into my mind to create a business and to create that American Dream.

[00:03:04] Jason Rudman: Are you from a family of designers or your dad's been an entrepreneur or serial entrepreneur and then design is a creative outlet. So how did you find that passion?

[00:03:15] Jorge Perez: No, I'm not. I would say definitely my dad is very creative. He was very into music. I love music from all genres because of him and a lot of the collection also gets inspired by music. I love the seventies, so it has a lot of that 1970s Bianca Jagger type of feel because we just grew up listening to amazing bands and watching things and hearing things of the seventies, which is where he grew up.

And so that inspired, I wouldn't say he was a designer or creative, but I think of organically he was. So we just kind of picked that up.

[00:03:50] Jason Rudman: And then so I hear the—with Betsy, I'd tell her what to wear.  You were on the beaches of Miami so how do you make the transition from this great relationship with my sister, then you have to know how to design, right?

You have to have an eye, you have to have an aesthetic. Did you go to school? Are you self-taught?

[00:04:08] Jorge Perez: Well, I always wanted to get into fashion. I didn't really quite know how, so I went into marketing instead.

And while I was in school for marketing, I got an internship with Fiji Water, doing marketing for them. Started meeting a lot of designers and fashion people in Miami. Fiji would sponsor Mercedes-Benz Swim Week and just kind of got involved in all of that. At that point, I realized I really want to get involved in this business. So I ended up getting a clerical position, you know, receptionist at this fashion house in Miami that did maternity wear. And, she had been in business for twenty [20] years selling to Nordstrom and Macy's. So a pretty big established business and I worked with her for three years.

She became like a mentor took me in. I was like a son to her. So she let me just roam around and from experience, from production to sales, to accounting, to shipping, so I really learned every aspect of the business through her. Finished marketing and school and then that's when I decided to do my own thing.

But honestly, I learned it all through her. So it was like hands-on experience, which I think it's what allowed us to be successful compared to some other people I know that went through school and they weren't really quite sure how to develop a business after that.

[00:05:22] Jason Rudman: So I think it's really interesting, right? There's legitimacy in both of those routes? You could go and do an MFA or you could go to design school and you're self-taught and have this vocational hands-on experience. It sounds for you what the unlock was, though, is you got to see the end-to-end of the business. 

Talk through, if you could, that three year period. So because obviously we seek to inspire people on this podcast if they have a dream, to figure it out and you've put in the work. You're the clerical assistant, you don't have that much experience. You're going to school to do marketing. This is a new domain. You've got this interest, you show up at these events, and then for three years you basically do an apprenticeship.

[00:06:01] Jorge Perez: Yeah.

[00:06:01] Jason Rudman: How did you know questions to ask? How did you work through that three years?

[00:06:05] Jorge Perez: I would say what allowed me to really get that apprenticeship and be able to benefit from it is just passion. There was a lot of passion that I think then brings me back to when I was a child with my sister and just having fun with it and being really passionate about clothing, fashion and dressing women and understanding silhouettes.

And, I love history. That's another thing my dad was really into was history. So the history of the first couture in Paris and just being really interested in that and showing that passion allows people that are already established in the business to get excited and want to show you things and want to allow you to do things.

So I really think that that's what got it because I was a receptionist there and we had other people that actually worked in the building with us that were from the fashion schools that were there doing internships, and they just didn't have the same type of relationship with the owner that I did and they didn't get the same opportunities.

I started going to trade shows and she would fly me out and I would go see buyers and I really think it's just because of passion and drive.

[00:07:07] Jason Rudman: And probably an eye for the work she was doing. So I think you mentioned she was doing maternity wear…

[00:07:13] Jorge Perez: Yeah.

[00:07:13] Jason Rudman: And so as you learned, did the line expand beyond maternity wear, or she was very clear about what her lane was and then...

[00:07:22] Jorge Perez: No, she…it did, it expanded. Actually, I feel like we, not just me, but a few of us in the office convinced her to do a regular women's brand, and I totally helped her in the launch of that.

And that project is what made me realize, oh, I can do this for myself. It was a year process; the last year that I was there.

We went through all that from beginning to end and what it is to build a brand from scratch. And she had been doing maternity for a very long time— very successful in it. And, at that time I was young. I was in my mid-twenties and I was very much into pop culture and paying attention to what was on the red carpets, what the girls were wearing, who the eight girls were. And I started telling her, you know, check out this dress and these sleeves and this is in style.

And then, she would tell me six months later, oh, you know, those outfits sold. So that's what made her comfortable to invest in the regular line. After we launched that line, I was like, okay, we can do this. And that's when I told my sister, we're going to start a line and I'm going to name it after you and we'll go from there.

[00:08:21] Jason Rudman: All right, so that's around two thousand and nine, right?

You decide you've immersed yourself in what it takes to build an end-to-end brand, sourcing, manufacturing, running the business, managing cash flow, all of those things. Then you decide to step away and you spend about a year planning.

So in your head, with your sister, what was your aim? She's your muse, you've helped a maternity brand, launch a ready-to-wear ladies line; was it as simple as saying, Hey, you had mentioned you knew the IT girls, you knew the sleeve length, you knew what it was.

Was it just a continuation of that? What was the inspiration behind that? You mentioned that a couple of you had actually helped her frame it—was it what we see in Betsy Moss today and how you describe what you were trying to do Betsy Moss? was it different?

[00:09:09] Jorge Perez: It was similar to what Betsy Moss is because the designer that I worked for that did maternity, she's Cuban-American from Miami.

She has very similar lifestyle and upbringing so we were all on the same page of resort wear,  effortlessly sexy, chic. She allowed us to come up with designs and help with the launch of her brand. And it was a group of us and we all brainstormed together and did something, launched it. It was starting to pick up and then that's when I left.

So when I decided to do my own. I said, okay, I'm going to do two collections—I'm gonna do maternity because I had become close with some sales reps and buyers. I knew the trade shows and I knew how the market of maternity that she was doing.

I really didn't know much about the regular wear market but that was my passion and so I decided to do both. Then shortly after, once my sister and I started the planning, we just did the regular wear line because it was more authentic to us.

And there were no kids. She had never been pregnant and we realized that you either create a product that no one has and no one's doing, or you're selling a brand, you're selling yourselves. So we decided to just do regular wear and it was really a lifestyle and a vibe of what we are.

[00:10:23] Jason Rudman: So taking the best of what you've learned through your apprenticeship and then putting your own spin and your own twist on it to make it authentically what you wanted to represent.

[00:10:35] Jorge Perez: Yeah.

[00:10:36] Jason Rudman: How would you describe a Betsy Moss woman? How would you describe your core—this is who we seek to dress this.

[00:10:43] Jorge Perez: I would say the Betsy Moss client, on average, is women between 35 and 65. They're women that are either the stay-at-home mom that's extremely busy or the professional that has a very busy life. And, then they want to just relax, have some R and R, be glamorous and feel beautiful and entertain. Where things feel and look glamorous but effortless at the same time. She's sexy yet sophisticated and chic.

That's pretty much what the clients have all told me they feel when they wear the clothes. 

[00:11:16] Jason Rudman: A thoughtful alternative to a yoga outfit in R and R, right?

I'm thinking through this evolution that we've seen, and 2010, starting Betsy Moss and what you're competing against now in 2025, very, very different. If we were to bring it forward to present day, it is an alternative to putting on some yoga pants and yoga top which is a version of R and R. 

[00:11:39] Jorge Perez: Our r and r definitely has some glam to it.

[00:11:42] Jason Rudman: Yeah. R and r with some glam. 

[00:11:43] Jorge Perez: Which also takes us back to what Latin American culture is like. There's a lot of funny memes of saying don't show up at a Latino Christmas party and when they tell you just come casual, and then, the memes on TikTok will be like an aunt in a gown, you know?

That is part of our culture, especially in Miami, where the women like to dress up. So we make things comfortable, the fabrics, everything's very comfortable and flowy, and there's a lot of things that are loose and stretchy, but they're definitely glam. So it's r and r, but glam.

[00:12:11] Jason Rudman: I love that. I was going to pick up on the intersection of what you've created with culture and I love that you refer to the TikTok-ness where casual is a full ballgown.

So you started the business in 2010. How has the aesthetic evolved? I'm thinking to the way women interact with clothing and image in 2010 is quite different to where we find ourselves in 2025.

[00:12:39] Jorge Perez: So, you know, what I've noticed—when I first started, I was in my twenties. The client is thirty-five to sixty-five but I would say the majority is probably late forties, fifties, where they can kind of afford it. It's affordable, but it's still things that are in the one fifty, two hundreds, three hundreds; for most people get these for either special lunches or vacations.

So that's why I said they're either that stay-at-home mom with a husband that can afford it, or they're this professional woman.

I don't think that the aesthetic has changed much; I think what has changed is we just have gotten a new generation of buyers. All the people that I grew up with, that I went to school, that are now in their late thirties, early forties, are now clients. So I think it's a stage in life. 

You're in your late thirties and your forties, fifties, that's when you're vacationing more. You got your first home and you want to entertain and you want to just look beautiful while you do it.

[00:13:31] Jason Rudman: How have you built the distribution network? You're sold in over two hundred (200) specialty stores worldwide. Can you take us through, how did you get the first store? What it takes to actually build that network and then how you manage that?

[00:13:47] Jorge Perez: So right when we launched, I took a lot of risk and I just made all the samples and did the first trade show. Didn't have a lot of money, but we said, we'll figure it out as we go.

My first trade show was in Atlanta, which is a show that my boss, the lady I used to work for, did really well in with her maternity wear, which was a little bit more conservative.

So when I got there, we spent a lot of money on the show. We set up the booth very beautifully, and I was just reaching out to a lot of buyers that I knew. But again, like I said earlier, I didn't really know the contemporary regular wear market as well as I did the maternity. So, lots of people were coming in and they were saying it's so beautiful, but it's just not practical for them, meaning that it's a little bit too glam or too dressed up or it's classy, but still too sexy. It just wasn't really…like the [ideal] client wasn't there at this show.

And then, the sales rep walked by and he was like, oh, I love this. He's like, why are you in this show? I explained to him and he goes, well, yeah, the maternity section of this show does really well, but this is not your show. Your show needs to be in L.A., in Vegas, in New York.

And he's like, I love the brand. I'm going to write some orders for you for some clients that allow me to buy for them. So I said, oh, okay.

So, we sat down and he wrote right away ninety thousand dollars [$90,000] for a few different accounts. So right at that moment, I told my sister, I'm like, that's it. We're gonna be rich!! This is great.

[00:15:10] Jason Rudman: This is easy, right? I just have to do this twelve times a year and I'm good.

[00:15:14] Jorge Perez: Yeah. exactly. and then he said, you need to do a show in Miami in two weeks. He's like, that show's gonna do amazing for you.

So we did the show. I think he got us into six accounts in Atlanta. We did get a few little accounts while we did that show but it was really about meeting him and he started us out. 

Nowadays that's changed a lot. The wholesale markets are online. It's all about social media marketing and the trade shows are still going on and there's still showrooms but these road reps—they were called road reps—they had been in the industry, on the road since the eighties, so they knew everyone. 

They were super high energy. So salespeople is a huge part of it. And he introduced me to my sales rep in on the West Coast. And then, at that trade show, I met my sales rep for the Northeast. So now I have these three people. We're doing the shows. They know the markets, they know what stores are for us. Then they know a lot of resorts that buy this type of collections. And they're the ones that really propelled us forward. And really quickly.

I would say a year after that we, at that point, we were already maybe in ninety stores and then they started buying every season.

[00:16:25] Jason Rudman: Right.

[00:16:25] Jorge Perez: All of that sounds amazing, but then there was the headaches with we're dealing with production, which I knew it from the other company I worked in, but it was already all set up and established. I was not overseeing it, I just kind of saw how it worked. Now I needed to set up my own production.

So that I would say was the most difficult. I think that I put out a collection that was beautiful, named it after my sister. She's very beautiful, she's very charming. She's really good at talking to people. So selling it was very easy. It was production and quality control.

[00:17:00] Jason Rudman: It was making it right.

[00:17:02] Jorge Perez: Making it. That was the hard part. And we hit a lot of bumps at the beginning

[00:17:06] Jason Rudman: Right, well, listen, we're going to pull that thread next, right? So you go from the apprenticeship, which is, it's all there for you.

You see how all these things get made, and then by your own admission, success is immediate, right? You go from zero to ninety in a short amount of time.  

So talk us through what you had to learn about production. What does that involve? 

[00:17:26] Jorge Perez: So, it was different from observing and then actually setting up yourself, because that's when you realize, especially being in my twenties, I was just very excited.

So it went from, oh my God, we're gonna be rich. Like, it's so easy to sell this stuff because putting something out that people like, and that came very natural for us. And then all the buyers would be like, I want this yesterday. I would just say yes to everything.

And then, after we did all those initial first shows that the first sales rep connected us with, we had all these POs and credit cards and we even got some deposits. So we were like, okay, this is looking really, really good.

So now, I need to produce this stuff. I was still in Miami at that point. Now we're in Los Angeles, but at that point, I was in Miami and I started going to factories and I knew my old boss had a few contractors that she worked with freelance that were in the area. So, I went to go see a few of them and took them all those samples and organized the POs and they were like, okay, yeah, well this fabric is impossible to find. This is gonna take like six months to produce.

And that's when I was like, okay, well I promised all these people that they were gonna have this stuff in a month or in sixty days. That's when I was like, oh, okay. What are we gonna do?

So that initial first production, I think it was like a hundred and forty thousand dollars ($150,000). We were able to ship in the two month period, like, eighty thousand ($80,000) of it.

[00:18:51] Jason Rudman: Right.

[00:18:52] Jorge Perez: The rest either got canceled or it got returned because there was quality control issues because I was rushing things. 

We were able to get some money and keep going for the next one and the next one. And then at that point, we had time to set up a better distribution to understand the timeframe, how long it takes, how long we need someone to put the orders in before, you know, the big companies work six months in advance.

So, there was a lot of learning on the way.

[00:19:18] Jason Rudman: Yeah. You were accepting Zara-like turn times right? Which is, be able to create and get something, I think you signed up for like thirty days from acceptance to production when you know, to your point, what you needed was a little bit more of a lead time.

[00:19:35] Jorge Perez: And I was used to, at the company I worked for, she had a forty thousand (40,000) square foot warehouse, forty (40) seamstresses. So if things needed to be done in a week, she had in-house people to do it. I wasn't at that level. She also had a stock of, I don't know, thousands of rows of fabrics. So, you know, it was different.

So I hit a wall with that, but you know hands-on experience is the best way to learning. 

[00:19:57] Jason Rudman: So you work through that [and] the Betsy Moss brand starts expanding. 

So does that mean that you then get what you just described, what your previous employer had? Do you replicate that or do you decide to go a different route in order to meet production levels. Did you buy yourself a warehouse? 

[00:20:16] Jorge Perez: So I started the brand in 2010. Then we launched, we did the first show in 2011. By 2013, I found an amazing in-house seamstress that I worked with every single day who became like my grandmother.

Her and I became very, very close and she helped me out a lot. From 2012, which is when we started shipping, late 2011 all the way until 2014, she was the production manager. She's the one that got everything flowing and going and where quality control was good.

And things were working out and doing well. And then it got to a point where I started getting more accounts, more orders. It started getting bigger and bigger. And she couldn't really handle it. And we couldn't really find other people in Miami that were like her. I spoke to her recently. She's eighty four now; she was in her seventies [then].

Those women worked in the factories in New York back when all the production was in New York. They really know what they're doing. They could do it with their eyes closed and that's who was able to get my stuff steady because, at the beginning, it was very sloppy.

But she just couldn't handle it and I couldn't find people to help her that were like her. So that's when I moved to Los Angeles, because in Los Angeles, in downtown, there's multiple factories and the industry's bigger here for contemporary clothing. So, that's what brought us here because we were growing and I needed factories that can handle that.

[00:21:40] Jason Rudman: And you're still based in Los Angeles today. You're manufactured in the United States.

[00:21:45] Jorge Perez: Right now I would say about sixty percent is manufactured in the U.S. and then we started manufacturing in Columbia as well because we're doing bathing suits and coverups and Columbia's really, really amazing for bathing suits.

And then we launched another collection called Betsy by Betsy Moss which is a lower-end collection. Things are under a hundred or low one hundreds and that is manufactured in China.

[00:22:09] Jason Rudman: In China?

So when we're recording this, we have just lived through tariff palooza, as I like to call it, right? 

[00:22:16] Jorge Perez: So, this has been a crazy week. 

[00:22:19] Jason Rudman: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, reflections from an entrepreneur on, I think, hopefully people who are listening will appreciate that a tariff is an import tax, right?

You've just lived through a crazy week and we sit here today with 145% tariff on goods in China. So, how is that impacting your business?

[00:22:39] Jorge Perez: A lot. So like I said, about maybe sixty percent is made in the U.S. but all the sourcing and materials and fabrics come from abroad.

So, even the stuff that we make here is affected because we can't find any fabric manufacturers that are making those kind of materials in the U.S. anymore. So that part is affected [and] then the part that we're doing in Columbia that was stressful as well. It’s been changing every day.

So as of now, we're okay with the shipments coming in from Columbia, but the stuff coming in from China, which is our Betsy by Betsy Moss collection; we had shipments for spring summer that were scheduled to arrive this week. This week those shipments were tariffed at 104%. So, that stuff has already been ordered, paid, the prices are set so that stuff is going out and all that merchandise is actually costing me about…not the full amount because I'm getting the money from it, but I'm paying to ship that stuff. 

[00:23:32] Jason Rudman: Right. 

[00:23:33] Jorge Perez: So this tariff situation, what I can say is that it definitely affects small businesses and it's on the backs of working Americans and small business. And the next things that are scheduled to come in from China, I put them on pause, because we don't know where it's going to go, and it changes every minute. 

[00:23:52] Jason Rudman: Which influences your ability to.. 

[00:2354] Jorge Perez: The plan, to price,

[00:23:56] Jason Rudman: Right.

[00:23:56] Jorge Perez: to, you know. At this point, we're trying to come up with different plans and ideas of what we can do that doesn't involve China at this point. And I mean, not to get political, but it's really bad for us.

[00:24:11] Jason Rudman: We can go there. It's okay. You know, you can express your frustration. We talk about some difficult topics on this podcast. So another point that you mentioned there, it's not as easy for, I think we have this Pollyanna-ish view sometimes that, oh, so you're producing in China…why don't you just move that production to Vietnam? Or another reasonably costed provider.

It's not that simple because I'm assuming you have contracts.m?

[00:24:35] Jorge Perez: Yeah, we have contracts, but besides that, you just can't find the people to do it at the price that my clients in America, which we'll buy it for.

Maybe down the road it can happen, but it takes creating infrastructure, investment and it's just not there at this moment. So you can't do it the way that it's being done, which is bulldosing your way through it because what that's gonna lead to is small businesses losing money, having to close, and then potentially a recession.

[00:25:01] Jason Rudman: So, you mentioned that you were initially and originally manufactured in the United States, part of the reason to move outside is there's particular fabric considerations. Now I'm intrigued. 

What fabric could you possibly not find here that you actually have to go overseas to find?

[00:25:18] Jorge Perez: Well no, it's not that you can't find it here, it's that they're just not really producing it here and at those levels where you can find it.

Silks and chiffons and infrastructure for that production, it is just not here. It hasn't been here, I think since the seventies or something. 

And there's a lot of things that you can assemble it all together in the U.S. But all the different parts that you need to make it, and for the price to make sense, comes from other countries. And also, the new collection, the Betsy by Betsy Moss collection that we have—it is a bit younger and it has more detail, has more buttons. And the infrastructure for that kind of stuff is really not here at the price that would work for that client.

So it's almost non-existent to do it. You can do it, but then it would be a lot more expensive than that client is willing to pay for it. 

[00:26:09] Jason Rudman: Right. Who would the Betsy by Betsy Ross aesthetic compete with in the U.S.? Is that a competitor to like a Zara or…? 

[00:26:16] Jorge Perez: I would say maybe like, there's a brand called Auria. So Betsy by Betsy Moss is a lot of like, fun day dresses or like shorter. They have big fun sleeves. You know, I would say the client for that, that I've noticed, it's a lot of maybe girls in their early twenties, to late twenties.

I mean, anybody can wear any of this stuff, obviously, but I would say on average, it's just more romantic, feminine; picture younger girls at a pretty lunch or something for graduation or vacation but they're just younger and just a different vibe. Their budgets are different also.

[00:26:52] Jason Rudman: Yeah. I think that's a key point, right? The budget is different and so you, as an entrepreneur, it's like this Jenga puzzle of the assembly can be here in the United States, but it's just a cold fact that provision of the fabric, provision of the buttons, provision of the materials, where some parts of the production cannot be done in a country like the United States, without inflating the cost to the point where you actually wouldn't be able to sell it.

[00:27:18] Jorge Perez: And even at that point, it's still a very difficult infrastructure to set up, and it takes years to do it because…

I'll give you an example. Trump convinced LVMH to set up a Louis Vuitton factory in Dallas, Texas. And they did that, I think it was in 2018. 

So they just released some numbers of what's going on with that factory. They’ve had more leather ways—I think it jumped like sixty percent of what their other factories and other parts of the world have, and they're paying their production people seventeen dollars an hour.

It's in Texas and they can't find enough people to do it to where the bag works and where it gets approved to then gets sent for sale.

So what they do with those bags, they're just not perfectly done… I'm not saying that it can't be done with Americans. But it's something that takes time. It takes a lot of training, it takes a lot of commitment. It takes a lot of investment. And LVMH has the funds to be able to put it all together, and Trump went to the factory and they did a whole press thing.

And right now, the numbers for that factory are really, really bad. And they throw away tons of it. It’s a Louis Vuitton bag that costs $3,000. So if it's not perfect, they rip it apart and throw it out. So it doesn't help the environment, no one is buying it and they're losing money. And you can't rush through those types of things.

[00:28:35] Jason Rudman: That's right. Well, you know, at the end of the day, I think you mentioned early on you had a orders for one hundred and sixty, you shipped eighty because the quality needs to be there, or  ultimately negatively impacting the brand, perhaps slightly differently for LVMH. In terms of it's a $3,000 bag?

[00:28:51] Jorge Perez: Well, they'll see it, they'll rip it up and throw it out. Where[as] I, when I first started, I was shipping things and that doesn't negatively impact the brand because then people are like, what is this? I'm not gonna buy from these people again.

So you can't do that. Yeah.

[00:29:04] Jason Rudman: We've talked about women's wear, men's wear?

[00:29:08] Jorge Perez: Yeah. I launched the men's wear, it's going be two years now. 

So, I moved to Los Angeles. I found the factories that were getting us, they were able to handle the extra production that we were getting.

I had a sales rep in New York that was a shark and she was so good, and she would just send us tons and tons of orders. So that's why I'm like, I need to move to LA and get this taken care of. And then the pandemic hit and we were very scared of what was gonna happen.

First two months, all the orders were canceled. We were freaking out. Thankfully I had a lot of savings at that point, so I was like, okay, we can withstand for a little bit and see where things go. And then everything shifted online around the pandemic. 

We started doing more lines and we signed up for these online wholesale showrooms that everything is online. One of them is called Fair, which we started selling in twenty twenty (2020) and now, we get tons of orders regularly just by being on our showroom set up on their website from stores from all over the world.

Then some of my sales reps, they were in their seventies, they were like, oh, we're dinosaurs now because they don't need us anymore. We don't have to go to the road.

People are just on their phones and their iPads and they're looking at stuff. And now you have videos of the models walking at every angle. You have descriptions from us explaining everything, and it just makes it easier.

So there was like a huge shift in twenty twenty to online for wholesale. And that's when a year and a half after that, I said, okay now I have some more money that I can invest I'm going to do the men's and I'm going to do Betsy by Betsy Moss.

So, able to cater to a younger client and then to finally cater to men, and for me to be able to wear some of it.

[00:30:46] Jason Rudman: Alright, well let's talk about that. So the name of the men's wear brand is? 

[00:30:50] Jorge Perez: Jorge Moss.

[00:30:50] Jason Rudman: Jorge Moss, right?

You're like your own muse. I love it. Is it in the same spirit and the same...

[00:30:56] Jorge Perez: Resort, it's resort wear. So, it's a lot of linens some really preppy sweaters, some jackets and some polo shirts. It’s my vision of the man that's with this Betsy Moss woman on vacation, at a lunch or at a special event would be wearing.

[00:31:13] Jason Rudman: Understood. Fast forward couple of years from now. You've now got three different lines under this growing house of design. Where do you want to take each of the lines, either independently, or where do you want to take the company?

[00:31:28] Jorge Perez: I think the next step now, you know, it takes money to make money. So I think I'm at a point now where to grow, I need to look for some investment to be able to take the brands that I've made—they each have their clientele, they have their identity and to allow them to grow and fully develop—some funding so that we can do more shows.

So that we can get clients in Europe; we can go to different markets and different parts of the world. I love to travel and that inspires me a lot too. 

And, when I travel a lot in places like Asia, the Middle East, they're very fascinated by Western culture and by Americans and, you know, for my sister and I, since we're Latino, meeting people from the Middle East, meeting people from India, they feel like they relate to us just because we kind of look more like them, but then we're Americanized and they're just fascinated. I've felt that with Japanese people as well.

So there's endless opportunities. I would love to do more shows, to get into those markets, to do pop-up shops, set up pop-up shops around the world. It'd be really cool to do some popup shops for the summer in the Hamptons [and] in the south of France. Things like that.

Also more investment in social media marketing to get more direct to consumer. So it's endless opportunities. You just need funding to make more money.

[00:32:45] Jason Rudman: Understood. So, this arc of social media, right? You talked to that has fundamentally changed the way you learned marketing as well, right?

So how do you leverage that and use that as a force multiplier in your business?

Because that in and of itself  may consume your entire day, just trying to figure out how to leverage it to amplify the brand, right?

[00:33:05] Jorge Perez: Yeah, I mean that's a really good point. And also in investment to have more people to help us with everything. A lot of companies, that's a full-time job, just a social media manager.

And it pays off because, like I said, we love to travel and we travel a lot. My sister and I will wear the clothes and we'll do reels and videos and things that are very organic and they really help. They always bring orders through TikTok and Instagram. You know, these businesses are now set up where you have to pay, otherwise they hide your stuff.

[00:33:33] Jason Rudman: Yep.

[00:33:33] Jorge Perez: Or if you have a very big platform, you're a big influencer or something. So yeah, just a lot of organic content that really helps bring in more sales.

[00:33:44] Jason Rudman: And so, you are doing that yourself at the moment, right? As a small business with some adjunct help? And to your point, the way to get bigger is dedicated resourcing to be able to allow somebody to focus on that while you continue to evolve and grow the business.

[00:34:01] Jorge Perez: Yeah. I mean, I really love all aspects of it, and I pay attention to all of it, but I think it definitely, with help, it can grow

I'm paying attention to every aspect of it from production, to the shipping, to the customer service, to the events, to photo shoots, to social media. It's a lot, but I find it all really fun and exciting. It can obviously get much better returns if we have more people. So, those are the goals.

[00:34:25] Jason Rudman: Well, you know, I think any entrepreneur really has to be like a Swiss Army knife, right? 

[00:34:29] Jorge Perez: Yeah. 

[00:34:30] Jason Rudman: That can't be the only thing you do unless you outsource the rest of your experience.

So Jorge, how do people find out more about Betsy Moss—stay connected, find out more about you?

[00:34:41] Jorge Perez: Yeah, the website's: betsy moss dot com and jorge moss dot com. And there you can find all the social media accounts TikTok, Instagram, all over. 

[00:34:50] Jason Rudman: All right. So they can find you, I think it's @Betsy Moss on Instagram, is that right?

[00:34:56] Jorge Perez: Yeah. @Betsy Moss and through there you can see the Betsy by Betsy Moss. You'll see the Jorge Moss. You get a link to the website. But yeah, it's @Betsy Moss

[00:35:05] Jason Rudman: Awesome. And then finally, you're thinking through season planning now?

[00:35:05] Jorge Perez: Right now we're working on spring twenty six. 

[00:35:10] Jason Rudman: Alright, are you able to, a little bit of inspiration in terms of what people might be able to expect in spring summer twenty six?

[00:35:17] Jorge Perez: I want a lot of color. For a while. I would say the last few years, there's been a lot of like this quiet luxury aesthetic where I've done a lot of sand color and beige, whites and really light colors, which is all beautiful and I love.

But I feel like we just need some color, some life, some energy back. So that's kind of what we're looking for the new seasons. 

[00:35:38] Jason Rudman: We do, my friend. I think in the world we live in, we need a little bit more energy and a little bit more color. I appreciate that. 

[00:35:44] Jorge Perez: Exactly. 

[00:35:45] Jason Rudman: Jorge, thank you. It's been great. Appreciate you taking us on the Betsy Moss journey. 

[00:35:51] Jorge Perez: Thank you for having me.

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