An Interview with Danny Alex, BRAVADA International Founder and CEO: ‘We’re Focused on Expanding our Product Verticals into Several New Categories Beyond our Women’s Fashion Roots’

“We create an exciting and clean consumer-driven website, develop the internal parts, source the great products, and operate the product category from both a retail and wholesale angle which allows us to develop larger product volumes and take advantage of the economies of scale that large sales volume creates.”

BRAVADA International Ltd. is an internet and media company that owns and curates’ online properties through a proprietary methodology of creating, developing and operating retail and wholesale websites that provide an exciting blend of consumer level and B2B products and services.

BRAVADA operates OnlyLeggings.com, WorldofLeggings.com, LeggingsWholesale.com, MedicalMaskSuperstore.com and WorldofPets.com.  BRAVADA was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.

Danny Alex, BRAVADA International Founder and CEO, spoke exclusively to The Silicon Review. Below is an excerpt.

Q. Are you the CEO and Founder of BRAVADA International?

Yes, I founded BRAVADA International as a consumer product-driven company specializing in online retail and media.

Q. Which Industry did BRAVADA Begin its Business in?

We began in the fitness and fitness fashion industry back in 2007 and then in 2009, the great recession hit, and many things changed across the entire economy and BRAVADA was no different.  Coming out the other side in 2010, we landed firmly in the women’s fashion industry and were one of the original online retailers that brought the leggings product category into the mainstream with our websites OnlyLeggings.com and WorldofLeggings.com.

Q. How Would You Describe BRAVADA International’s Business and Corporate Vision?

BRAVADA is an internet and media company that builds and develops online websites and internet properties through a proprietary methodology that I have developed over several years.  We are now at the point that we are expanding our product verticals into several new categories beyond our women’s fashion roots. There are a few product categories that I have a particular interest in because they have certain distinct characteristics that allow for smaller companies like BRAVADA to penetrate and offer the opportunity to expand and grow the business without having to compete directly against giant established brands. We create an exciting and clean consumer-driven website, develop the internal parts, source the products, and operate the product category from both a retail and wholesale angle which allows us to develop larger product volumes and take advantage of the economies of scale that large sales volume creates. This is a fairly general description of our process, but it’s in the details of how we execute and develop all the elements in our website launch, content creation, and product sourcing that distinguishes our sites. I even have a specific domain format that I prefer. The ultimate vision is to continue the process of expanding into new product verticals until we hit critical mass across several categories where I have a larger vision of expansion.

Q. Who builds and develops BRAVADA’s websites and sources the products?

I build and develop all of BRAVADA’s websites from the concept to web design to launch. This gives us a huge advantage over many of our competitors both from a cost perspective and being fast and nimble in responding to change. I write the CSS and HTML, develop the website content, imagery/visuals, and perhaps the most important ingredient, the search engine optimization (SEO). This has enabled BRAVADA to develop, launch, and maintain its website portfolio at fraction of the cost of its competitors and allows us to price compete and beat retailers like Amazon and Walmart. Building websites that the major search engines deem an authority in their product category is critical to success and getting first-page keyword ranking. It requires an enormous amount of on-going learning to understand and keep up with changes to the Google algorithm, CSS, and HTML and generating new and relevant content, but it’s something that I love.

As for the product sourcing, it’s something that I have done for many years and have many strong contacts in sourcing globally and directly from factories. Knowing where to go, who to get it from, costs and quality, and supply chain considerations are made easier when you have an intimate relationship with key individuals abroad and know the tools available to source great products. There will be a day where critical mass will force me to spread many of these duties and tasks over other individuals within the company, but as a small company, it has allowed us to grow and firmly establish us in the “Age of Amazon” and Walmart.  We are maybe much closer to that day than I realize sometimes and that is not a bad thing.

Q. How does a small online company survive and grow in the “Age of Amazon”?

That is the billion-dollar question in today’s online environment. I call the 2010s the “Great Retail Dying” as the entire real world and the online retail environment was turned upside down. BRAVADA has been able to flourish in the “Age of Amazon” where 100’s of companies have gone bankrupt and many have liquidated their operations. It has been the biggest change in how goods and services are distributed to consumers in modern times.  From 2013 – 2016, I did a lot of testing through trial and error launching several different websites in various formats and methodologies. This testing period grew my knowledge base so that early in 2017, I implemented a whole new business plan and ideology which I refer to as BRAVADA’s “Reformation”.  Since then we have been successful in growing our revenues and expanding our operations.  It all comes down to the best product, best price, and best service.  Saying it is one thing … implementing it successfully is another.  In early 2018, we launched LeggingsWholesale.com which is part of our strategy of pairing retail websites with a wholesale site to maximize product throughput and create a large density of ranking keywords within the product category. We also expanded our product line to include tops and dresses as well as extra plus and kids’ sizes.

Q. What other product categories have you expanded into the outside of fashion?

BRAVADA owns and operates several websites in the women’s fashion industry, personal protective equipment space, and we are launching WorldofPets.com, aka The World of Pets Superstore™.  We also have another large fashion website that we were launching earlier this year that was going to complete our suite of fashion websites, but it was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic so we launched MedicalMaskSuperstore.com and it has been very successful to date. There is also another product category that we intend to expand into but have not yet publicly announced the project. We have secured the domain and have even begun product sourcing and initial planning but that is going to most likely be a 2021 project as we roll out WorldofPets.com in 2020.

Q. Where do you want to position BRAVADA five years from today?

I look at the business in terms of short and long cycle plans. Our short cycle planning includes our current websites OnlyLeggings.com, WorldofLeggings.com, LeggingsWholesale.com, MedicalMaskSuperstore.com, and our new addition, WorldofPets.com.  We also have some secondary live websites that we have in operation that we are testing for additional market intelligence and a further understanding of the Google algorithm.

Our long cycle plan is one that brings together the “sum of the parts” in taking advantage of an expansive operational infrastructure and a robust and capable set of internal resources.  It will harness our full suite of well-established and diversified website categories and leverage our economies of scale within our fulfillment, shipping, and delivery infrastructure.  I do not want to get into details and give our plans away, but I think every company needs a grandiose vision that it is ultimately working towards.

“Our ultimate vision is to continue the process of expanding into new product verticals until we hit critical mass across several categories where I have a larger vision of expansion.”