Smart Apron - The Apron That Works as Hard as You Do

The Story of a Brand

Ramon Vela

Business, Entrepreneurship

5 • 145 Ratings

🗓️ 27 March 2025

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ever wonder why restaurant aprons haven’t changed in a hundred years?

In this episode, I sat down with father-son duo Kevin and Kieran Hoy of Smart Apron to discuss how they’re transforming a tired, overlooked product into a modern-day solution for food service workers and beyond. What started with a stitched-up fanny pack has become a functional, durable, and smartly designed product used by everyone from restaurant servers to Nike inventory teams.

We dive deep into how they’ve bootstrapped their business, navigated manufacturing challenges, and used customer feedback to build a better product. From high school business projects to Amazon reviews, Smart Apron proves that listening to your customers and staying consistent can lead to real innovation.

Key Moments in This Episode:

🧵 How a restaurant shift inspired the very first Smart Apron

🚧 The 10-year pause—and what brought it back to life

🎯 Why real-world feedback fuels their design process

💡 Turning a niche product into a multi-industry solution

📦 Scaling a lean, family-run business from Amazon to national retailers

Join me, Ramon Vela, for this inspiring conversation about resilience, reinvention, and why solving a small problem can lead to something big.

For more on Smart Apron, visit: https://thesmartapron.com/

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave The Story of a Brand Show a rating and review.

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Today’s Sponsors:

Compass Rose Ventures- Advisor for CPG Brands: https://compassroseventures.com/contact/

Compass Rose Ventures can help your CPG brand increase customer lifetime value, expand into the US market, create an omnipresent omnichannel footprint, optimize customer journeys, build brand communities, and more. Visit the link above to learn more.

Goode Health: https://www.goodehealth.com/

If you have a family history of heart disease, listen up. Now, you can reduce your risk of heart attack or stroke by simply eating more polyphenols, the powerful plant nutrients found in fruits and veggies. Goode Health designed and put them all in a tasty superfood shake and conducted a clinical study! Users of Goode Health had a significant improvement in heart health in just 2 weeks!

Visit goodehealth.com today and use promo code STORY30 for 30% off now!

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	We ordered about 20,000 aprons from a manufacturer located in China. When they got here,
0:05.2	they were not as quote as advertised as we prototyped out. And we basically took them off the market.
0:12.0	At that time, we did have a couple of contracts with Cisco Foods. And it was, again, it was this,
0:17.0	that building up of, and I'm sure all your founders have gone through this as well.
0:21.7	And Kieran and I talk about this a lot is there's so many barriers that you have to get over,
0:25.6	but it's, you know, you've kind of heard that same motto as well as it's not a sprint.
0:30.2	It's a marathon, which I don't believe in that.
0:32.3	I think it's a continuous marathon.
0:34.1	It really never ends when you have a small business.
0:52.3	Yeah. marathon. It really never ends when you have a small business. Hey everyone, this is Ramon Vela, and this is another episode of the story of a brand. Like always, we have an amazing guest and founder
0:55.5	that we're going to feature on today's show. But before we do, hi, I speak to hundreds of founders
1:00.9	and CEOs of CPG brands each year. And they are facing unprecedented challenges from changing
1:08.2	consumer behavior, inflation, election year anxiety, the cost of capital, and more.
1:13.6	However, finding an experienced knowledgeable advisor shouldn't be challenging.
1:19.6	And that's why I'm personally recommending that you reach out to Compass Rose Ventures,
1:24.6	whether you're looking for help positioning your brand and messaging,
1:29.0	diversifying your marketing portfolio, preparing for retail expansion, or fine-tuning your
1:35.2	existing retail strategy, or maybe preparing your brand and financials for investors or acquisition.
1:42.4	Simply visit compassroseventures.com.
1:46.6	That's compassroseventures.com to learn more.
1:51.5	Now, without further ado, let's get to the main event.
1:54.5	I have with me a really dynamic duel here who also happened to be a father and son team i have kevin hoi
	...

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