Earlier this year, Lewiston native James Morin hiked Mount Kilimanjaro to see how different backpack designs stood up to the grueling heat and cold of Tanzania.

It was just another day at the office at Flowfold.

Morin, 30, is chief operating officer of the young Maine company that specializes in making sturdy, lightweight wallets and outdoor gear. This summer, Flowfold rolled out a four-piece collaboration with L.L.Bean, the L.L.Bean x Flowfold Collection, offering a pack, tote, pouch and utility organizer through the outdoor store.

Two years ago, the Sun Journal visited Flowfold’s Scarborough headquarters, and last week, we caught back up with Morin to talk about growing the company and working with an iconic Maine brand.

SJ: Is the new collaboration going well?

JM: The new collaboration is going great. We partnered with L.L.Bean ambassadors to do a fun giveaway on social media that created a lot of buzz and introduced a lot of people to the new products. Sales have outperformed forecasts and reviews online have been positive. We will be in the catalog this holiday which is great because the co-lab items make perfect gifts.

SJ: Has there been a hot item in the collection so far?

JM: All the items are doing well, but we’ve been pleasantly surprised by the performance of the new tote bag. L.L.Bean has always been known for their top-notch totes. As a result, the bar is set very high for L.L.Bean customers and it seems we’ve been able to meet their expectations with this newest addition to the L.L.Bean tote family. We were anticipating the black bags to be the top sellers, and although it’s still too early to tell what color will take off, the two color block bags are performing very well. One customer who bought the navy/port tote bag said, “I love the style of the bag, too, with the multiple colors. It’s fun and I feel great using it.” Customers feeling great using the bags . . . What else could we ask for?

SJ: Are you still in the same Scarborough office park? Two years ago, you were at six staff and three office dogs — have those numbers grown?

JM: We are still in the same office in Scarborough, but will need to increase our square footage soon if our growth rate continues. We still have the three office dogs and wouldn’t trade them in for the world. Our team has grown. We have eight employees right now and are actively recruiting for what looks to be like a very busy holiday season for Flowfold.

SJ: How many more people are you hoping to add and how much square footage are you looking for?

JM: The exact amount of square footage will depend on a lot of factors (e.g. the way the building is laid out, the location of the building, cost per square footage, etc). We received a grant from MTI to work with Maine Manufacturing Extension Partnership to optimize our office and plant layout. We want to be as efficient as possible while manufacturing while also creating a culture and atmosphere where people want to come work. It’s important for employee morale and recruitment. We’re well under 2,000 square feet now and we’ll at least need to double or triple if we continue to grow at the rate we are.

We need enough space to build out an innovation lab — an area of the workshop where we are working on innovative new products. It will have computerized cutting and testing equipment. Perhaps more importantly, we’ll also need room to grow our team. Over the next couple of years, we’ll be looking to add 10-12 employees.

SJ: While this collaboration is going, does Flowfold also continue to work on its own things? 

JM: We also have many other items in our product development pipeline that are not part of the L.L.Bean co-lab collection. Being fast to market is and will continue to be a major benefit of making products domestically. In order for Flowfold to continue to grow at this rate, we’ll have to continue to listen to and engage our customers on what products they want to see us design next.

SJ: What’s next when it comes to the Bean collaboration?

JM: We are currently working on a new hiking pack for the co-lab. Earlier this year, myself, seven Flowfold and L.L.Bean Ambassadors, and a videographer, went to Mount Kilimanjaro with eight hiking packs. All eight were slightly different — different materials, different weights, different features and capacities. However, they all had similarities as well.

Was it a great story that two Maine companies flew halfway around the world to test the bags on the world’s highest free-standing mountain in Tanzania? Sure it was, but there was way more to it than just a story. Kilimanjaro is the perfect testing ground for a technical pack like this. The mountain is located 3 degrees south of the equator and starts at roughly 5,000 feet. On Day 1 of the hike, you’re in shorts and a T-shirt hiking through a hot and humid rain forest. By the time you reach the summit six days later, you’re in arctic temperatures. Along the way you go through five distinct climate zones.

We put the bags through everything you could imagine. Hot and humid, dry and dusty, rain, sleet, hail, and punishing cold and snow. It was like walking from the equator to the north pole in 5.5 days and gave us the opportunity to put the bags through a year of testing in one week. Now that we’re back, we are working on the technical details and making sure the packs can not only stand up to the mountain, but to the high demands of the Flowfold and L.L.Bean teams. 

The other project is a complete secret for now.

SJ: How much time did it take from Flowfold’s initial pitch to Beans to the new L.L.Bean x Flowfold Collection to roll out?

JM: It took over a year, but in terms of retail, that’s lightning fast. A successful co-lab can only happen if both parties bring something to the table. L.L.Bean has come through and shown us how committed they are to the co-lab. At the end of the day, if there wasn’t a commitment to being made in USA, this couldn’t have happened. These bags were sketches on napkins a little over a year ago and now they are in all L.L.Bean stores, and even in L.L.Bean Tokyo. You can’t do that if you’d been shipping prototypes back and forth across the Atlantic. All we had to do was drive up 295. If Flowfold wasn’t local, this couldn’t have happened. We’re pretty proud of that.

SJ: Any lessons or takeaways from that process that might inspire or be useful to other young businesses?

JM: “Shoot your shot,” “Take a leap of faith,” use whatever saying you want, but if you’re a small business you HAVE TO take the initiative sometimes. You have to get outside of your comfort zone and embrace rejection and potential failure. L.L.Bean is an incredible customer of ours. They are more than just a line item in our sales forecast, they are mentors and friends. But if we would have waited around for them to pitch Flowfold on the co-lab it likely would have never happened and deservingly so.

They have $1.6 billion-plus in revenue and thousands of employees to worry about. Do you think it was easy for us to ask L.L.Bean to put OUR logo next to theirs on the same product? Of course not. But the worst that could have happened was they said no. We told them that our primary concern was getting the best possible products in the hands of their customers. They might have said no, but they were never going to be upset with us asking. So just ask, always ask.

kskelton@sunjournal.com

Lewiston native and Flowfold COO James Morin jumping between rocks during a climb on Mount Kilimanjaro earlier this year. (Photo courtesy Chris Bennett Photography)

Flowfold COO and Lewiston native James Morin in the back row, in an orange jacket, with the crew of Flowfold and L.L.Bean ambassadors at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro earlier this year. They hiked the mountain to test out eight new potential backpack designs in the ongoing Flowfold-L.L.Bean collaboration. (Photo courtesy Chris Bennett Photography)

The crew of Flowfold and L.L.Bean ambassadors as they hiked Mount Kilimanjaro earlier this year testing eight different designs of backpacks for an ongoing collaboration between the two Maine companies. (Photo courtesy Chris Bennett Photography)