Introduction

Read part 1 and part 2 of our Nomad interview with Neil Villadoild who previously shared the day-to-day work culture at Nomad and conversations on the progression of their product lines. 

Here, our final conversation with Neil dives deeper into his role as marketing coordinator and how his current time at Nomad has been since 2019.  

Marketing Coordinator at Nomad 

Josephine Nuamah (JN) from Megamac and Neil Villadolid (NV) from Nomad Goods.

JN: What were you doing prior to working at Nomad? 

NV: I actually started working at Nomad while I was still in college. In my junior year, I started working part-time at Nomad within their shipping and fulfilment department and I did that for about a year and a half. Then when I graduated, I got hired to work full-time by Nomad to run their warehouse.

I did that for about a year and then throughout that year, I slowly transitioned into the current role I have now which is marketing coordinator. What this entails is that I run our social media, manage our partnerships with other brands and magazines as well as influencers and creators. I kind of help with our marketing calendar, figure out what we're doing for each month, in terms of product launches, branding initiatives among other things. 

NV: One thing that is a constant for me throughout the year is working with press, creators, and influencers. The Apple tech community is so great to work with and there are so many talented people in that community that are on Instagram or YouTube and being able to work with those people and being able to support them with their content is really fulfilling. I've created personal relationships with some of these people. It goes a little bit beyond the scope of just a job so I think that is probably one of my favourite parts about what I do is just working with that kind of external community.

JN: Given your role and that your skills are transferable into a lot of areas, do you think there's anything that could be improved in Nomad?

NV: Yeah, that's a good question. I don't necessarily know if I'm speaking for the whole company, but when I say this, for me, I think one of the biggest things I'd love to improve on is our product line-up. What I mean is specifically going into Androids as we're predominantly an iPhone or an Apple accessory company. I think that if we expanded into Androids and other third-party phones, it could be super beneficial. I do know the reason that we don't do that is simply because of workload; we are a small team. There's only so many people on our product team that can take on those projects and we do have to prioritise what we know and what we're good at. Expanding into those other areas would be - not saying that it is impossible - but it would require a lot of time and effort that we don't necessarily have. That is something I would love to improve on if possible and if that doesn't hurt our other ongoing projects. 

JN: What do you think has been your greatest accomplishment whilst working at Nomad?

NV: I don't think that it's not one singular thing that I did or that has happened. I think it's just kind of my journey. Throughout my four years here, I started working part-time when I was in college and now, I'm full-time being able to really help lead the marketing for the company. I think just that, that whole process of working part-time in the shipping room in the warehouse department and then transitioning over to marketing and taking a bigger role with more responsibilities has really been fulfilling to say the least.

JN: What has been the biggest lesson you've learned during your time at Nomad?

NV: I think the one thing that I'm trying to do better at that I didn't necessarily do a good job at the beginning is just not stressing out about things that I can't control. Even if those things that I can't control really impact the responsibilities that I have. For example, this past year has been super difficult with COVID, our supply chain and the factories. If we have a product launch that's scheduled for let's say January 15th, it's been logged in on that day for a long time and then all of a sudden the factory closes for two/ three weeks, they can't get that product complete and we have to push that date back that we've been working towards for so long. A lot of times I'm like, “Why can't we do that?”,  “What if we can do this or this?” and what I'm trying to do better at is just being ok with something I can't control. So instead, let's think, what can we do alternatively to keep the boat moving, keep trekking in the right direction. So I think to answer your question, it's to try not to stress about things that are out of my control and I am working on that.

NV: We make a lot of Apple accessories so we're on their time schedule, not on Nomad’s. Because of that, we have hard deadlines that we have to hit. The iPhone launches in the fall, usually in September, sometimes not in September, so I have to hit that iPhone deadline launch. If we don't hit the iPhone deadline launch, we lose tons of sales and that is very challenging to handle.

Alternatively, if we have a product and Apple tweaks the product for whichever reason, it largely affects us as well. So say they tweak an Apple watch, that might mess with all of our bands. If we get a button placement wrong on the iPhone, that will mess up all of our iPhone cases. So it's really dependent on another company which provides some difficult challenges for sure.

JN: What do you think will make a person successful in your role? So given the four years that you've had to grow and face some challenges and have accomplishments, what are some of these aspects?

NV: I would think the biggest thing is to be able to work independently. What I mean by that is we have such a small team and everyone has their own little roles and responsibilities that they do. You have to be confident in working independently and have a lot of discipline because there is so much flexibility with the four-day work week and unlimited PTO. If you don't have discipline, your work is going to slip a little and you won't be doing a great job. So I think that those are the two big things. I think that if you're confident to work independently and have good discipline, you'll be able to do well, for sure.

JN: If we're ever in California in the future, is there any chance we could visit the office?

NV: That would be amazing. Oh, hundred percent. Yeah. We'll, we'll show you the office, we'll show you around Santa Barbara. Good places to eat, the beaches, the mountains. It's a beautiful place. We'd love to have you guys.

If you have any questions regarding our Nomad Interview and more about Neil’s role and Nomad, contact us at store@megamac.com and we will get you some more exclusive information!