⊛ No Offense | Chris Breen, Openhouse

Maestro of the branded item.

No Walls Studio

and

Chris Breen

Oct 04, 2024

Brands that stick think through all of the touch points in their customers’ journeys. They relish opportunities to tell their brand stories; they jump on chances for fans to endorse their brands. This is where Openhouse comes in.

Openhouse designs signature custom products for thoughtful brands…across hospitality, retail, media and more. They make the type of products that we wear, carry and consume as badges of honor – as if to say, “this brand is part of my lifestyle.”

It takes an exceptionally creative team to concept, design and produce products that transcend in-the-moment; revolutionizing the basic merch that we historically overlooked or discarded. What do these products look like? Think about the perfect notebook that sits on your desk or the hat that gives you a tad bit more swagger or even the staff uniforms that made your best hotel stay feel like a movie; items that tell a great story, invoke a sense of nostalgia, represent something aspirational, or simply make you smile.

Chris Breen started Openhouse after a diverse career and a few entrepreneurial pivots. He’s someone who has learned from a variety of disciplines and life experiences to breath fresh air into an important part of placemaking.

Chris Breen
Founder, Openhouse

NWS: Hi, Chris. It’s not too often we come across like-minded creative entrepreneurs in the world of hospitality and product design. Safe to say there’s not too many of us out there, huh?

Chris: There is certainly a smaller group of people specifically across consumer products and the intersection of hospitality. Distributing products to hotels, wellness brands, Airbnb hosts, property management groups, and short & long-term rentals is still very niche. Most of those who work in CPG are focused on direct-to-consumer acquisition or wholesale partnerships with traditional retailers.

In seeking new partnerships over the years I started to forge a place in the community. Hospitality is very relationship driven and I’ve been introduced to some incredible operators over the years which have become close friends. There is something magical about working with these businesses to bring their brand to life.

NWS: You’ve had quite the journey so far — not a path many people get to take. You started as a Sales Development Rep at Resy back in 2018, and soon after, you helped launch a B2B business at Public Goods. How did that all come about?

Chris: I joined Resy before they were acquired by Amex and when they were acquiring smaller competitors, growing fast, and building brand equity. It was my first time in a 9-5 sales role and I learned very quickly how Software sales teams are built from a management perspective.
Except - I was on the other end (an individual contributor) and looking to make a big impact and a name for myself in NY. I quickly realized I needed to join a smaller company and I was becoming increasingly interested in consumer products/Shopify and less so SAAS products.

NWS: I’m sure it wasn’t without its challenges. Anything that really stands out?

Chris: I learned that software sales follow a repeatable process of building a well-oiled machine from the top of the funnel all the way to account management. SDR, AE, AM, CSR, Sales operations, implementation specialist, etc. If all of this seems foreign - read here and come back!

I didn’t like how you’re forced to pass off your communication to someone else to deal with at a certain point. For example, SDRs & BDRs book meetings for AEs. AEs close deals for AMs. Etc. I love having full ownership over a relationship and I prefer to focus on larger deal sizes where that close relationship goes a long way. The role I was in was very focused on objection handling - which I strongly believe is not the right approach. Rather than trying to win over those in the short term who tell you “no” (either politely or sharply), I focus on the accounts with perfect alignment and a buyer is positively receptive to the product & marketing. If you give those lost accounts the room to make their own decision and the right information, they almost always will come back when they are ready.

I stopped viewing my job as sales in 2019, I came to realize that sales is a part of everyday life. At the end of the day, I crave organization and communication. And when it comes to large deals - it’s always a pain in the ass. It simply requires a lot of work (project management) to close, due to the nature of lots of moving parts. I don’t “sell” anything. I just communicate what people want and make sure they feel heard and understood. If you can’t organize someone elses thoughts and add your own perspective based on your love and interest in said industry, I recommend going to find that something that would never feel like you need to “sell it”. Its just in you. You care.

Also, curiosity brought me to study management techniques, entrepreneur stories, and how to grow and scale companies. I wanted to build a team and learn by doing. So I joined a founder/CEO at Public Goods who believed in my vision and gave me room to build my role and eventually my team/department

NWS: We’ve been fans of Public Goods from day one. It really set a new benchmark in branding, especially for commercial goods. How has the Public Goods story affected the way you think about the product world?

Chris: I think back on my time there very fondly. I learned a lot, and many stars aligned for me pre & post-covid. I made mistakes and fell in love with the process of optimizing my management techniques as my team grew to around 13 at it’s peak.

The founder of Public Goods, Morgan has an incredible eye for design. But likely an even better understanding of storytelling and crafting narratives that resonate with people. I knew from my first week of working under him that we were going to hit a stride. And we’ve gone on to be close friends. I’ll always look up to him as an entrepreneur, I learned an immense amount through him.

It wasn’t clear at all when I joined that Public Goods would have success in b2b sales (hospitality and retail). There were helpful indications that hospitality could grow due to a few properties buying from our DTC site at full price. And we did struggle quite a bit with retail. We grew a decent-sized business through the marketplace - Faire. However as we attempted to launch with national retailers, our approach to package design was not well equipped to compete with the brands built for traditional retail. Retail is a very difficult game and requires investment to be successful. For most brands, it’s an unprofitable and painful experience trying to get shelf space as it was for us.

But in Hospitality - things really took off. We were an affordable luxury, simple, one-stop-shop, and ahead of the game building a self-service wholesale website. The stars aligned from price points to packaging and we had successful partnerships with small single unit Airbnb hosts all the way to enterprise partners like AvantStay, Blueground, and many more. We had over 2,000 b2b buyers when I left and we’re doing shy of 8-figure revenue in wholesale.

I already had a passion and interest in the industry. So building the business into this space just jelled. I was happy to put in the hours and eventually share my passion and interests with future teammates. My goal was to build a department big enough to change the company direction and identity of the brand for the better. I did that and knew once it was time to forge my own path. I wrote about this journey here.

NWS: Fast forward to today, you’re no longer with Public Goods and you’ve kicked off Openhouse, with a mission to create custom products that guests, members, and brand loyalists can’t get enough of. What’s the story there?

Chris: It was very far from a linear from leaving Public Goods to what Openhouse is today. We iterated 3 times to arrive to our current model.

I launched Openhouse with my previous co-worker, Lloyd who ran operations for Public Goods. There was a natural tension between our departments but a requirement that we worked well together. And, we did.

The agency (Model 1) was our first business. The premise was simple because I didn’t have a solid idea. If I was able to grow the B2B department at Public Goods to be that big, why can’t other brands follow a similar model? I naively thought that one brand’s product design, management style, cost/margin profile, and success in a market would mean that another brand could recreate this.
We started the business consulting - it didn’t last long. I’ve come to resent the consultancy model. It’s not scalable for the consultant because you are trading/selling your time. And the business will always need more of you since we are talking about start-ups. We burnt out quickly and felt generally that we weren’t providing any impact. They either take your advice and implement it among already limited resources, or you have to implement your own advice as a fractional piece of the business. You’re not able to spend those long hours in a state of hardcore work to push through problems because you have other clients. So you are in this constant of not being close enough to the core of any single problem to fix it. And that lack of control kills me.

I started to think about Faire which I mentioned earlier — they are one hell of a business. They’re unicorn status and do serious transaction volume. We hired an advisor who was ex-Faire. But what about Faire for the Hospitality Industry? Hospitality properties have OS&E (operating supplies & equipment) procurement & retail procurement responsibilities. I had seen procurement documents from operations managers and it is exactly what you’d expect. A Google sheet with 250+ products they need from 175+ different places. Columns for volume discounts, and various shipping locations. How do they go direct for all this stuff? Openhouse The Marketplace (Model 2) was born. And soon - our first big mistake.
We focused on the supply side of the marketplace before demand. We onboarded 50+ brands and 1000+ products onto our Shopify store that was gated by an approval/log-in. We wanted to attach to the credibility of these awesome brands. But as you can imagine, onboarding takes time. Contracts with each & every brand. Meetings to understand the products well. By the time our marketplace was half built 4-6 months had gone by and we were in a dash to get buyers/demand. We hired VAs, collected email lists, and started shipping sample product boxes. True marketplaces exist between supply and demand but allow communication and transactions to flow through them. They have proprietary terms (insurance, payment terms, etc.) that make them favorable compared to going direct to the supply. This is how Faire works. Airbnb and Uber are consumer marketplaces and operate slightly differently because they both centralized supply online that used to be fractionalized (calling cabs or renting a house with a local business). We on the other hand owned all communication - so in some regards we were more like a distributor. The problem lies in the $ side of the business. Beyond making our marketplace look cool−it had to be the same price or better than going directly to the buyer. How could we possibly do that, and make money?
Most orders we were breaking even on, some losing $ to get started. We tried to raise money, applied to Y-combinator, and ultimately fell short on all fronts. Oh well. The final straw was understanding the product use case. We had some buyers who needed OS&E items and some who needed retail items. Beyond consolidation in order, we couldn’t find our edge on what made us uniquely valuable as compared to going direct to the brand (supply). And of course, intermediation happens all the time. We ended up with a few very loyal customers, but not nearly enough volume to pay the bills.
Then came Openhouse as it stands today, premium signature custom products (Model 3). In our efforts to fill the demand side of the business - we ended up with 7k active b2b emails. Many of which became close contacts. We found that the idea of improving the brand of the buyers we work with resonated across hospitality, retail, and wellness. The problem we are solving is that branded products (merch, swag, etc.) are a fast way to spend money on decreasing your brand equity. Most of the product quality is junk and the designs are never great. The problem was two-fold. Bad product quality and bad design. So if we could tackle designing and developing our own signature product blanks and work with incredible designers on transforming our brand partners’ identities - we have a repeatable business.
Which turned out to be, true! Openhouse is the most repeatable and scalable it’s ever been. We’ve shipped 15k+ units of products - and partnered with hotels and wellness studios near and far. Two models failed, a year of tests, and the willingness to try. We appreciate everyone who’s been along for the journey so far.

NWS: Like us, Openhouse seems to cater to a pretty niche audience. What types of brands and clients do you usually work with or aim to collaborate with?

Chris: Our Industry focus is Hospitality, wellness, retail (which exists within both), media, and PR.
Our product use cases are for Retail, OS&E, & VIP gifting.

NWS: Walk us through your approach. We imagine most of your clients already have a brand in place, while some might not. How do you come up with product concepts that tie into a brand’s identity or promise?

Chris: Many large clients are paying big design/branding agencies upwards of six figures for a revamped brand identity. Smaller clients may work with a local agency or independent designers.

The thing about our partners is that brand equity is created through an extremely large surface area of consumer touchpoints. There are obvious things like the logo, colors, fonts, and overall brand imagery that show up everywhere from the digital channels to the menu design and in-room experience.

But there are also ways to communicate the brand like the history of a property and its surrounding location. So many businesses are sitting on great stories and a heritage that should inform the branding touchpoints mentioned above.

Also, there is a level of service and warmth in hospitality that makes certain brands like the Ritz Carlton what they are. Their brand is seen through not only their meticulous focus to luxury interiors but also through their people.

When we work with a new property on a line of products for their guest experience, we try and do our best to expose the heart of the brand and what makes it unique.

NWS: You mention “intentional product branding” as part of your approach, and we’re curious—what exactly does that mean?

Chris: You wouldn’t expect Equinox or Ace Hotels to buy from 4imprint or custom ink for any use-case. Those are slap-your-logo-here products. They do not answer for the stories and heart of the brand mentioned above.

It’s a very simple question we ask ourselves when working with new partners. Would we buy this ourselves? Intentional product branding means that we brand our items so that they are worth purchasing and keeping, forever.

NWS: There are only so many products out there that can be reimagined, redesigned, or created. But, with great imagination, and the right resources, anything is possible. Is there a particular project or product that you always come back to? And are there any dream products you haven’t had the chance to work on yet?

Chris: Great question. We re-design all the industry staples like apparel and accessories to the exact spec of our liking. Our product development team goes through a rigorous process of measurements per SKU as well as fabric selection to answer that key question. “Would I buy this myself”. Then we take it a step further. “Would I buy this and tell all my friends about it?”

There are nuances to products that get overlooked in importance, like length of a shirt or feel of a fabric. We take it all into consideration.

I have a burning desire to design an entire collection of uniforms for those who work within these incredible businesses. I see uniforms as a huge missed opportunity which are viewed currently as strictly an operational cost.

Uniforms are historically the ill-fitting piece of clothing you get when you work at XYZ hospitality business. What they could be is a beautiful extension of the brand equity we’ve been talking about. They are extremely customer-facing and could be a way to show something new and fresh about the brand.

And in the same way that thrifted vintage clothing is cool for heritage american brands like Harley Davidson and Marlboro – there is a clear connection here with retail.

If you showcase your hardworking staff wearing something that makes them feel confident and cool - creating that feeling of exclusivity and rarity that you may only find by staying or dining with said business. There is an opportunity to distribute that feeling into retail items that then serve as your brand storytelling out and about in the world.

NWS: At No Walls Studio, we absolutely refuse to create cheap throwaway garbage. If it’s destined for the "circular filing cabinet" (aka the trash can), then we’d rather not make it (or do everything in our power to make sure it never sees the light of day). It seems like we’re on the same page when it comes to that philosophy, right?

Chris: 100%. “Would I buy this myself?” is never met with a “no” followed by us making it. We go back to the drawing board.

NWS: Do you ever find yourself using your clients' products after they’ve been made?

Chris: All the time! And my apartment has become a mini-showroom of sorts. We’ve just finished a custom run of products for a new hotel in Litchfield CT, called The Abner – owned by Salt Hotels. Every product is truly beautiful and the custom candle is absolutely incredible. This collection felt like an extension of my personal design interests. Which is a lot of leather, wood, and neutral colors.

NWS: Is there a part of your process that you’re still working to fine-tune? Always curious about what others are tweaking.

Chris: It never ends! I’ll list them below:
The mock-up process
Self-checkout
The graphic design process
The customer journey
The ability to submit order requests
Ultimately, to save our partners time and build trust

NWS: So, what’s next for Openhouse? Got any exciting projects or new directions you’re heading towards?

Chris: We’ve had a very busy summer and are more than excited about the fall/winter leading into 2025. We’ve just brought on a new sales hire to help speed that growth.

We’ll also be increasing our operational capacity to hold and ship larger volumes of orders as we’ve had some of our largest orders break our process a few times.
Additionally, we will be increasing the speed of product launches. Ultimately we want to be the hub of innovation for all custom private label products. I want current and future partners to think of us as tastemakers when they decide they are ready to push their creative limits.

Thanks for everyone's time reading!

👉 For more from Chris Breen, follow Taking Inventory on Substack, @byopenhouse on Instagram, and check out his latest work at byopenhouse.com.

🚨 WHO IS NO WALLS STUDIO (AND WHAT DO WE DO)?

No Walls Studio is a design and brand consultancy that helps real estate developers create spaces that people love.

Our mission is to make sameness extinct in real estate, which means that everything we do comes with new ideas and unique angles — all, grounded in a deep understanding of culture and consumers.

We do three things for our clients (often, all in the same project):

Research & Insights
Brand Development
Spatial Experience Design

Want to work with us or learn more?

Reach out to us

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