Meet Jake Posner, founder and Creative Director of NO ONE TRUE ANYTHING

Hello, I am Jake Posner, thanks for having me!

I really don’t find it easy to talk about myself, so I am cringing while I say this… I am the Founder and Creative Director of NO ONE TRUE ANYTHING and I am also an ambassador for the British Dyslexia Association. 

I was always more interested in going to work than going to school when I was child, so I always wanted to have my own business. But not just any business, a business with purpose and a business I could create. 

There’s always a lightbulb moment before the beginning of a new venture. What was that moment for you?

In 2019 I wanted to start a high end luxury sustainable fashion brand, focusing mainly on streetwear, with a high end aesthetic, so I hoped in a plane to Portugal to meet a textile agent. Lara, the agent took me to numerous manufacturing facilities to show me the ins and outs and introduce me to everyone from the CEO’s to the seamstress on the first day. The time wasn’t right, I didn’t have the capital for the manufactures to work with me, which was a blessing in disguise. I didn’t have a brand name and I didn’t know the first thing about making clothes.

In March 2021 on a Friday night, I had a literal dream that I started my own brand. When I woke up, I wrote the brand name in my phone notes, designed a logo, phoned Lara and said, “I am ready, I need to do this now.” The timing was (selfishly) perfect, the manufactures were less busy due to covid and had space to produce a small run of my t-shirts and designs (I only started with 3 t-shirt colours in my DEB—UT collection).

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?

Patience… I live at 100mph and that’s just how I’ve always been, always doing something, always wanting to keep busy. But, I have learnt over the past 18 months, that things don’t happen overnight. I also learnt that people are much more receptive than you think, I have spoken to people who have worked for some of the biggest luxury fashion brands in the world - who’ve been CEOs of publicly listed companies across the world, that to me is crazy! But it has made me realise that people do care and that people aren't always “to busy” to make time and if people feel they can help you on the journey, they will do their best to do so.

These lessons have 100% shown and taught me a lot about myself and people.

What are your thoughts on failure?

I have failed so many times at so many different things, but it has taught me so much. I was kicked out of school at 16 with 1 GCSE, I mean that’s a pretty big failure, but that experience taught me a lot. I was separated from friends at 16/17 as they were still at school, I didn’t get summer holidays anymore, I was in the world of work. I worked as an estate agent for 1.5 years doing an apprenticeship, I hated it! I got paid £400 a month to work full time and every other Saturday, on top of that I had to get a train, a 1 mile walk to the right bus stop and 2 buses to get to work, by the time I paid for travel every day, I didn’t have any money left.  

But, it taught me a lot, it showed me that I can find my own path, do my own thing, speak to people on a professional level and build relationships, while being able to complete tasks within a working environment. 

So, I guess you need to fail to learn.

How did you fund the business in the early stages?

I bootstrapped the business from my own savings, took a small bank loan and used a credit card. I am still doing this now, I kind of thrive on the challenge of attempting to grow a business where by I can look back and say, wow I risked a lot but I worked hard and I got the results that I wanted to achieve and now those risks were worth it.

What’s the single most important decision that you made, that contributed to your business?

Supply chain and working with the right people is the best decision I have ever made. If I didn’t have the right people and companies in place to help me produce my pieces to a luxury standard, while aligning with the brand's sustainability ethos, I wouldn’t have a business. My colleagues over in Portugal are amazing and are absolutely integral to what I do.  

Does your company help the community that you’re located in?

I feel like we have a massive impact across so many communities, not just our local community. Like mentioned, the brand focuses on sustainability and not just across the materials that we use, but across what I call the ‘sustainability chain’.

Sustainability is like the food chain; it starts at the beginning - with nature. The next step of the sustainability journey in fashion's case, is the materials/crops. Next, is the most important part of the sustainability chain...humans. Without paying people who harvest materials and create clothing more than a fair and living wage, the sustainability and climate change chain is already ruined.

If people are not paid more than a fair and living wage, how are they ever meant to create a better environment for themselves or have a good care/health system? The bigger the world’s population who do not have a good local environment, the more this affects the whole world's environment. The climate crisis is now affecting the economically developed countries as much as it is the underdeveloped countries, and we need to better support underdeveloped countries.

The underdeveloped countries don’t have the money for green energy. The developed countries need to support the underdeveloped countries to make a change, with grants and not loans.

We’re making clothes using innovative, sustainable, circular and future proof processes. We are using organic materials and production processes that use new water saving technology, while most importantly, ensuring our supply chain is circular, humane and fair.

All of our garments are made in Portugal, alongside some of the biggest names in high-end fashion. But, high end and luxury fashion brands need to become more authentic again. Brands need to realign with their founding ethos, otherwise the lines will become blurred between what is absent-minded merchandise and what should be truly revered as thoughtful and encapsulating design and craft.

What was the journey like when you decided to raise funding for your startup? And what tips would you give to early-stage founders getting ready to take the same path?

I am really new to raising funds and working with investors, I am still not quite there, but really close. I have been preparing to pitch for around the past 3 months, expanding on my business plan, working on finances and creating a Pitch Deck. Putting all this together isn’t easy, it takes a lot of time, focus and energy, so like I said earlier,don’t rush, perfect your pitch, make sure you have covered every angle, and be meticulous. I think what I would say to someone who is going to pitch for investment right at the start of their venture, would be to try and get as far as you can using your own cash, or looking at government backed start up loans. Create a concept, try to get the product out into the market and show what you have achieved so far.

What plans do you have for ‘your business’ over the next two years?

In my opinion, we need to take care of people who demonstrate creativity, individuality and self expression. We should ensure these people are given a voice, a platform and a way to display their talent and thought processing.

Of course I want to carry on designing clothing and innovating new practices, but I also want NOTA to become a community, where people buy into the concept and the vision of the brand as much as they do the products. Being a dyslexic and failing so badly at school, being thrown out with 1 GCSE at 16 and not knowing where to turn, it was a really difficult stage in my life.

Because of this, my dream is to create workshops and spaces for people who struggle at school, to share their creativity and ideas, whether that be in fashion, music, art or whatever else. To create a place where we can harness their ideas and help them elaborate on them, to bring them from concept to reality. If I could create spaces like these in pop-up shops or my own stores, that would be a serious achievement.

How do you believe the evolution of tech will impact your industry over the next 10 years?

We are already working with some amazing tech to reduce our environmental impact when creating our garments and the tech will only improve over time.

I believe our denim jacket is a game changer for denim production and a benchmark for the industry to follow.  Our DEB—UT denim jacket has been produced from 100% organic cotton denim, and the production process uses an industry changing technology, called E-Flow. The E-Flow production process of our denim jacket reduces water consumption by 99% and is new to both myself and my Portuguese production partners. E-flow is a new technology based on nano bubbles developed and patented by a Spanish company, Jeanologia. The e-flow ‘breaks up’ the surface of the garment, achieving a soft hand feel, while controlling shrinkage. A minimal amount of water is needed and there is zero discharge from the process. Air from the atmosphere is introduced into an electro flow reactor and subjected to an electromechanical shock, creating nano bubbles and a flow of wet air.

How do you think NFTs will impact the retail industry?

I am really trying to understand the NFT world a bit more and trying to learn more. I think they will play a big part in retail and what drives customers to purchase from certain brands. If anyone reads this and is clued up on NFTs, hit me up!

Do you prioritise self-care as an entrepreneur?

Probably not as much as I should, my main focus right now is on building this business. But I play for a football team on Saturday afternoon and they also train weekly, so I try to play and train with them as much as possible. 

Self care is 100% something I would like to prioritise more.