Today we’d like to introduce you to Austin Wilkes.
Austin, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
The story behind WLKS started with the natural beauty of Southern California’s coastlines, oceans, and mountains where Austin Wilkes lived and breathed an active lifestyle of surfing, sports, hiking and snowboarding. Quieter moments sought in reflection and connecting with nature and the environment included exploring protected areas, parks, wetlands and deep-sea fishing. This active, rugged lifestyle demanded sunglasses that were not only on-trend and fashionable but were well fitted, lightweight and provided the necessary eye protection from the sun’s harmful UV rays. Frustrated by the poor quality, high cost, and uncomfortable fit of expensive designer sunglasses the dream was born to design and engineer his own line of durable, fashionable, affordable, lightweight eyewear with a fit that hugs your face gently. This makes WLKS the perfect choice for those that live an active lifestyle, seek adventures and enjoy the outdoors. 80% of the eyewear industry is dominated by one company so Austin went to school to be a surgical technologist in order to fund the business.
Our contemporary sleek, unique designs are custom crafted to be unisex and fit men and women. With WLKS you can make a statement to the world by choosing the frames that reflect your unique style. At WLKS we’re are dedicated to cleaning up our oceans and protecting the environment from pollution, especially plastics and micro plastics which are deadly to sea life and lay in landfills, oceans, beaches, parks and protected lands hundreds of years before decomposing. All of our frames are 100% sustainable. Our line is exclusively made from M49 Mazzucchelli which is composed of wood pulp and cotton fibers that decompose naturally and don’t stick around forever the way traditional plastics do. If lost or dropped by accident into our oceans or water ways while boating, jet skiing or fishing our frames won’t harm marine life or the environment. At WLKS we want you to take us on all your adventures and to stand beside you with the 100% UV eye protection needed in your career and daily life as well. Most of all we want you to have sunglasses that will last, won’t break the bank and make you look and feel great.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has definitely been a tough road. Starting a business takes time and patience. Think about from this perspective, in order for a plant to grow you need to water it. Nothing grows overnight, especially a business. People have this perspective that if they start a company, they will make millions right off the bat with one swing, that’s not the case.
Some struggles I encountered is finding reliable people to do the job whether that’s web development, graphic design, content creation. etc. It’s hard to fund a business when you’re a solo partner with no financial help.
WLKS – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
WLKS is based on adventure and fun without harming the environment. We are trying to help reduce our carbon footprint by using high-quality materials to craft our frames. WLKS uses M49 Mazzucchelli which is consisted of wood pulp and cotton fibers while using premium polarized shatter-resistant lenses. This material retails around $150-$200 and we sale it at the fraction of the cost. We sell our shades for $100 retail, but have sales all the time up to 50% off!
One thing that also separates us is that we love to get involved with our community. We host monthly beach cleanups around San Diego, CA to teach our consumer that plastic pollution is a serious crisis to humanity. Did you know the average human ingests an average of 50,000 micro-plastics each year, according to National Geographic.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
I have had tremendous support from my friends and family. My team consist of 3 people: Amanda, Shannon and Chris. Without them I could’ve never done this without them.
Austin (ME): I handle all the behind the scenes fun stuff. I’m constantly in touch with manufacturers to establish new products and designs. I also handle all the accounting work and deal with the attorneys.
Amanda: Pretty much the COO. She does everything I do, but gets involved with our consumers and handling the business aspect when it comes to customer support, scheduling events, and booking meetings.
Shannon: She handles all the photography for the company while we are in San Diego. She schedules shoots and reaches out to potential clients to work with.
Chris; He handles are the videography and marketing. We do projects around the world seeing how pollution and climate change are affecting our oceans.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://wlks.co/
- Phone: 6195048841
- Email: info@wlks.co
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wlksco/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wlksco
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/wlksco
Image Credit:
Shannon Sonniksen, Chris Blair
Suggest a story: SDVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
