Eco Location

In May, United by Blue, a Philadelphia clothing and accessories company committed to cleaning up waterways and beaches, opened a retail location perfectly suited to its environmental bent.

It's on the boardwalk in Asbury Park, with an Atlantic Ocean view from the front windows.

But this time, cofounders Brian Linton and Mike Cangi opened a store with no push-back from investors, none of the second-

guessing that met decisions in 2013 and 2014 to open their first two brick-and-

mortar outlets, both in Philadelphia.

Until then, United by Blue, started in 2010 by the Temple University alums, had been a wholesale business committed to removing a pound of trash from beaches and waterways for each product it sold.

"Now, we don't question as much," said Kendra Brill, managing director at DeSimone Group Investments, a member of Investors Circle Philadelphia, who would not disclose the amount of its investment in UBB. "We're starting to see proof of [their] strategy in action."

That strategy is premised on building trust, Linton said during a recent interview in UBB's flagship store/company headquarters on Second Street in Old City. (The other store is near the University of Pennsylvania's campus.)

"I think people trust when they see physical," he said. "Company-owned stores are billboards for the brand."

The stores - the Philadelphia locations also include a coffee bar; Asbury Park, which is just open for the summer, does not - contribute about one-fourth of UBB's $4 million in annual revenue.

But it has not been without a great amount of angst that Linton, 28, the CEO, and Cangi, 27, the chief marketing officer, rolled out their retail presence. "Opening this store almost put us under, but it also put us on a new trajectory . . . that needed different people," Linton said. "There was a lot of turbulence that needed to settle."

The staff they had assembled when UBB first launched as a wholesale business "lacked experience, entrepreneurial spirit, that tenacity needed to run a retail business," Linton said. He and Cangi are the only holdovers from the pre-retail days.

At first, they cut costs. "I stripped the company down to bare bones," Linton said. That included initially cutting staff from 10 to three, and ending the wasting of "tens of thousands of dollars" on website technology that UBB wasn't using.

Instead, the focus shifted to enhancing the company's creative materials, branding and messaging, to which - along with the stores - Linton attributed the subsequent success of unitedbyblue.com.

"The website is our fastest-scaling part of the business," he said, attributing one-half of UBB's sales to it. "We'll see that grow two to three times next year."

Further helping UBB's reach is the presence of its clothing, bags, and other products in national retailers such as REI and Nordstrom and outdoor-lifestyle stores in Canada and the United Kingdom.

Doug Harris, owner of State & Union in Kennett Square, where UBB launched a store-in-store concept in September 2014, credited the start-up with giving his business "a whole new lease on life."

Unlike UBB's other retail partners, State & Union carries its full line, which contributes 50 percent of Harris' annual sales, he said. UBB's products - and environmental mission - are especially appealing to millennials, a favored consumer demographic.

"It's the most inspiring business model I've ever seen," he said.

Harris, 48, who first opened his store as Eco Boutique in 2005, renamed it at the request of Linton and Cangi - without hesitation. "They empowered me by agreeing to the store-in-store concept."

Brill, from DeSimone, typically not social-mission investors, said she was sold on UBB on meeting Linton in 2012, when sales had already reached $1 million.

"It was exciting to see someone young make this happen," she said. "There was an energy to Brian. . . . There was something tangible and genuine about him and his approach that was relatable.

"The brand is who Brian is, who Mike is and the team is, and it is who the customers are," Brill said.

To help finance the enhancement of its wholesale operation, as well as the opening of another store and increasing online sales, UBB, which reached profitability last year, is embarking on another round of fund-raising, seeking $3 million.

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@dmastrull