Interview: The James Brand Founder Ryan Coulter Looks Back On 10 Years In Business

The James Brand was started 10 years ago by Founder Ryan Coulter, with a mission to “own the pocket”. Spotting a niche between military and hunting knives, Ryan started The James Brand to cater to the discerning boardsport consumer with an eye for design. Among the many innovative brands in the boardsport industry, TJB has stood apart with its timeless, clean aesthetics and thoughtful collaborations. Read on to find out exactly who James is, how Ryan started the brand and just where he draws inspiration from.

Please tell us about your background and what led you to starting TJB.
I was raised in the Midwest, in a family of farmers. People had pocket knives with them all the time when I grew up. I was also very much into drawing and designing things, and was obsessed with space and aviation, and then with skateboarding and snowboarding. I went to Purdue University to study engineering, but found industrial design by mistake. This was what I had always wanted to do, and what I thought you would do with mechanical engineering. It was a great fit for my brain and interests. I wanted to work in the snowboarding industry after college. Throughout most of this time I had some habits and rituals around the things that ended up in my pocket every day. Namely, a small knife, a pen and a notebook. It was amazing how useful those things could be on a daily basis, no matter if you were in the office or deep in the mountains. I thought that was interesting.

Later on in my career, I was working for Nike and had been working on digital experiences (specifically NIKEiD at this point) and was really missing making physical things. I wanted to feel the weight of something in my hand. And I was still carrying this same pocket knife around, but I didn’t felt like it really represented my design taste nor brand values. So TJB started out as a somewhat selfish nights and weekends project. If you can’t find what you are looking for you might have to make it yourself.

What does The James Brand mean?
Two parts of this are important. “Brand” means that there’s a belief system at play here. There are some things there that transcend any one product: modern, minimal design, respect for the creative effort, a desire to get people to spend more time engaged in real (analog) activities, etc. This is how we see the world and hope that our customers do the same. This also gives us leeway to make more than one thing. We can make any product that fits our (very loose) definition of “the pocket” and that we feel like we can make improvements upon based on our values.

James is our muse. This is a person (man or woman) who lives like we’d like to live. They are quiet, competent and proficient. They spend a lot of time engaged in real activities outdoors, but can also balance that with the other parts of their life. They are professionals, both inside and outside of their work environments. They are always striving for balance, and to really live in the moment. It’s hard to be James, but that’s what we are always trying to be. We invite our customers to do the same.

Where did the idea come from to start TJB? What was the gap in the market you saw?
The knife market in particular was bifurcated into two main categories: hunting & fishing and then military/tactical. I didn’t really identify with either of these 2 groups necessarily, but I carried and used a pocket knife (along with a pen, notebook, etc.) every day. I felt like there were a lot of other people like me out there. And (as I mentioned earlier) I was really missing making physical products, so this seemed like a good opportunity. There was no real sense of a “business” in it yet; it was more about making this thing that I could envision in my head that I thought would resonate with others.

What were the big lessons learnt over Covid and how are you implementing them into business practice today?
You have to treat everybody honestly and with respect. COVID was the first time in the history of the brand where something “went wrong”.  We suddenly had to furlough some folks, people had to take reductions in salary, we had to end contracts, etc. This was very hard. Everything else until that point had been positive. It’s easy when you are a start up and starting from nowhere. There is nowhere to go but up. This was one of the first times that I really felt what it was like to run a business; there are good and bad parts to it. It’s never easy. It just reinforced how much you have to be able to look co-workers, customers and partners in the eye and be square with them, both when things are good and when things aren’t so good.

What are your top 5 collabs you’ve done over the years?
That’s a really hard one, but here’s my answer today. Could be different tomorrow…

Supreme Palmer: This was a fun one. We loved getting that phone call.
TIMEX GMT: This was a great one, and was the first time that we actually got to design the watch. This one was really fun.
DDC/Aaron Draplin: We’ve done a lot with Draplin over the years; he’s a friend from way back, and he has an amazing business and audience. We love working with him.
ROARK Road Kit: We did a kit with Roark that was about eating/cooking while on the road. This one included a knife/tool roll, a Hell Gap knife, chopsticks, cutlery, etc. Roark is great, and this project was a fun one with good content and a good mix of hardgoods and some softgoods too.
TJB x Lucas Beaufort and @wkrmn: Lucas is amazing, and we really liked his artwork. We had an idea of making knife handles from his artwork in such a way that no two could ever be the same. We worked with Adam (@wkrmn) to take Lucas’s artwork and make it into a resin mold that we could pour stuff into; we made this giant block of Lucas’s art, and then Adam machined it into knife handles. Adam is a really talented and interesting person; he’s part EDC nerd, part designer/creative, and full-time maker of things. It was cool to pull these two people together.

How do you marry your wholesale channel with Ecomm in harmony?
They all have to work together. In retail, you can actually see and feel our products, which is really important. You can see how how the brand shows up in real life, and you can see what other competitors or collaborators are doing. There are things you can do with wholesale that you can ever do with DTC. It’s hard to buy expensive things that you have never touched online. That said, it surely is easy to have everything in the palm of your hand and be able to buy directly from anybody at any time. We see our business as omni-channel: we need both DTC and W/S and, when managed properly, they can both support each other.

What can we expect to see in terms of newness in the coming months and years?
We exist in three categories right now: knives & tools, communication (pens, pencils, notebooks, etc.) and carry goods (things like carabiners, etc.).  You are going to see us continue to try and balance out those categories and enter a couple of new ones. We will always have knives & tools at our center, but it’s a very difficult business to be in, as it’s regulated globally as “dangerous goods’, so it’s hard to market well. We need to stay on brand but also diversify in order to have the impact in the market we want to have. It’s going to be fun. Stay tuned!

You’re celebrating 10 years – what are the plans? Collabs, parties… anything special?
It’s been ten years? Ha. I need to go take a nap!  We just launched a new version of the Chapter called the Chapter 2 (duh!). The Chapter was the very first knife we ever created, so for the 10th anniversary we re-envisioned that product taking into account all of our learnings from the last decade. It was a trick to keep it still “The Chapter” but also make it new and make it better. That was our biggest celebration for being in the market for 10 years. We’ve actually existed on paper since 2011, so 13 years now; that seems sort of impossible!

There’s no real time to party. We are too busy working on what’s next!