The Hobbyist #8: An Interview with A Continuous Lean Founder Michael Williams
The menswear guru chats life as a consultant and his favorite golf course on Earth
Graphic design by Thomas Euyang
Michael Williams has the job I want. Putting it very loosely and removing all the stressors involved with running your own company, the founder of A Continuous Lean: tells cool companies how to be cooler; hosts a podcast with his best bud David Coggins about culture, fashion, all the good shit (and it’s named after the AL Central!!!!); makes clothes with his favorite brands; golfs a lot; and is generally seen as the(?) — the(!) — authoritative voice on all things menswear.
So, I’m left with a question, a question that also happens to be my nickname on the basketball court: “HOW HE DO THAT?” We Zoomed with Mr. Williams to discuss life as a consultant, the inherent riskiness in starting your own biz, and all the good shit that helped ACL transform from a blog into a full blown lifestyle service that grown adults across the world use to inform their decision making on any number of things. Imagine the power! I would abuse it so quickly: “Y’all should really walk around with a wand. I promise, wands are up next.” Perhaps I can’t be a tastemaker after all.
As we are wont to do over here at The Hobbyist, we also chatted about hobbies. What do you do when writing about your hobbies becomes a career? I asked not only because I’m The Hobbyist, but because the answer is the goddamn blueprint, baby! I gotta know!
The answer is bowling. When your hobbies become the moneymaker, you go bowling. A little bit of stand-up paddle boarding (SUP’ing, for the uninformed), too. I’m with it.
Come for the effortlessly brilliant advice on life in the consultation world, stay for one of the best quotes about hobbies I’ve ever read. Whenever we start cooking up Hobbyist merch, you know that shit will be adorned with some wisdom from Mr. Continuous Lean himself. Enjoy the chat and don’t forget to tell a friend.
How long did it take for your vision of A Continuous Lean to turn into your full time work?
Michael Williams: I had a job and at the beginning of the blogging universe. I remember people saying, ‘Have you seen these things called blogs?’ It’s so ridiculous to talk about now, but when all that stuff started I was kind of intrigued by it and intrigued by the media. I worked at a marketing agency, worked around media, worked around clothes, and I just felt like I had a point of view that I couldn’t find in other media.
I was going to Japan for work and there were magazines there that were solely focused on one very, very specific aspect of something—they were workwear magazines. It was fascinating to me that there could be such a narrow point of view expressed in a magazine. That felt like what blogs could do right and what writing on the internet could be. Now, the internet is full of niches and that’s one of the things that actually makes it great. I just started writing on the side at night in my spare time. I never felt like I was a writer or could be one, and I never felt like it was going to turn into anything. That’s why I named it what I did, because I wasn’t thinking it was going to ever be a thing anyone knew. I didn’t think anyone would ever say the name. After working for a company for a few years I went off on my own and was consulting for brands and doing my own thing. I was doing A Continuous Lean and it happened pretty quickly because it wasn’t overtly planned.
You were able to transition into the brand as it materialized.
MW: It was interesting to me that people were into it. Even a small number of people engaging with it was very compelling for me in the beginning. It kind of happened quickly. Now, looking back at it, it did take a few years to reach true critical mass, but in the beginning, even just getting a little bit of a following was big. I ended up in the New York Times for a couple little things here and there, so that felt like a big endorsement for what I was doing. It didn’t happen overnight, but it happened within a year.
That’s pretty quick.
MW: I think the idea was new. It was more interesting because it was something that was a new platform.
How would you describe A Continuous Lean to someone who knows nothing about it?
MW: The easiest way for me to describe the newsletter or editorial aspect of it is as a menswear focused style section of a newspaper, distilled in email form. It’s an expression of my interests and I let my personal instincts, taste, and interests guide where it goes. It’s a nebulous thing that’s now about parents and middle-aged dudes that like nice things, maybe, because that’s kind of where I’m at. And at a certain point, it was very focused on menswear and workwear—heritage brands. Over time it’s changed, but it’s not anything revolutionary. The idea is that it’s something good on the internet. That’s the guiding principle.
How did the Central Division podcast come to be?
MW: David Coggins and I have this podcast that we do together and it’s called Central Division. He’s from Minnesota and I’m from Cleveland and our respective professional baseball teams obviously play in the Central Division. When we started, I lived in California, he lived in New York, and that felt like a funny way to describe ourselves. I had actually taken down my blog because I hated the way the social internet was. You would need to do so much social stuff to promote and drive everything you’re doing on your site. No one would see anything unless you’re driving to it with socials. That era of publishing was not really something I enjoyed participating in. I stopped doing the website, stopped writing, and in 2020 I got back into it just based on some things I was mad about during Covid, actually.
I moved to Substack, and no one knew what Substack was at that point, or it was very much in the tech world more than it was affiliated with anything else. Within a month I was like, ‘This is great. This is a great platform.’ I called David and told him to start a newsletter on Substack and I asked him to do something together. We started this podcast and it’s just a conversation between friends. It’s mostly David speaking, but I occasionally get to add something in here and there.
Are you an avid fly fisherman like David?
MW: Yeah, so David’s gotten me into fly fishing. It’s the best. It’s one of the worst hobbies you could ever have because it’s so all consuming. It’s time consuming and it gets you traveling, which is really great and that’s kind of why I love it. I can just stand in a river and not catch any fish and be happy, which is dangerous.
I have a rod, but I’ve only fly fished a few times in my life.
MW: I think there’s a lot of overlap between golfers and people that fly fish.
Yeah, there’s a patience required. Talk to me about the golfing aspect of ACL and when you decided to bring that part of your world into the brand and try to monetize your love for golf.
MW: Like we discussed, everything I’ve ever done has just been a look at what I’m passionate about. I’ve been fortunate that prioritizing my interests hasn’t left me on the street. I started playing golf in my thirties. I played a bit when I was young, but never really got into it until I left New York City. Golfing in New York City is just a day wrecking experience and I was working all the time and didn’t have the bandwidth to do that—or the interest. When I moved out of New York, I got into it in a more serious way. I like it for different reasons, all the reasons that people are now discovering golf; just getting outside and the social aspects of it. Those, to me, are the benefits.
It was never the old paradigm of golf. I never understood or was into that. Golf has evolved a lot. I got into it and it’s something I’m passionate about but not obsessed over. I would say I have a very healthy relationship with it. I looked at my world of menswear and said, “There’s a place where some of these things in golf and golf people intersect with my other interests.” I just started making things and selling more golf-oriented things through the lens of my other interests and relationships with brands. It’s been very small but fun to do. I’m not trying to take over the world with some giant golf brand. It’s a very niche thing. We’re taking a lot of the reference points from well-made, craftsmanship oriented things and bringing that into a golf collection, which feels good.
What’s your favorite course in the world?
MW: For a long time I didn’t know what to say for something like that. But my favorite course and probably my favorite travel experience would be Royal County Down in Northern Ireland. There’s a hotel that’s connected to the property that is incredible and you can just walk from the hotel to the grounds of RCD. It’s a beautiful piece of land, a very challenging golf course, and a wonderful place. The caddies and the whole experience there is incredible. I’m very much the person that loves to put his shoes on in the parking lot and play very inexpensive municipal golf courses with buddies. I have just as much fun doing that as going to some fancy place. But, if you can ever get to RCD, I would say try to do it.
How’s the clothing line—the flannel, the sweaters—going?
MW: I very much view these things from a different lens than someone that is trying to build a brand in earnest. I would probably approach things in a different way and I don’t know if I would be more or less effective, but I would theoretically do things differently. Right now, I love Original Madras Trading Company. I have a shirt with them. I love Shetland sweaters. I wanted to make shirts near Aberdeen in Scotland. I’m just going around finding makers that I really like and then doing things with them. I’m not building a merchandising plan. I work with clothing businesses and apparel companies all the time. That’s basically what I’ve done my whole career. It’s just the most brutal business of all time. There are a hundred ways to die doing that stuff, and only one way to succeed. But I think you can. It’s like lottery winners. You see the one winner and you think that could be you, but there are a million losers. It can be like that with apparel. There are very successful people and some of the richest people in the world are clothing industry people. When you can reach super scale you make a lot of money, but it’s a very difficult business. There are a lot of moving parts and I’m managing away from the downside. Basically, don’t get killed, don’t lose a lot of money, have fun. That’s my goal, versus trying to stake my professional existence on this. With that being said, it’s really fun to do.
My focus is to make things with integrity, find interesting craftspeople, and explore places that haven’t been explored through the lens of golf. By all of those metrics, it’s very enjoyable, fun, and fulfilling. Maybe it’s not super lucrative, but it’s really fun to do. I haven’t ruined the brand yet, so maybe in the future I could actually do something with it in a serious way. It’s also about putting my money where my mouth is in a lot of ways. I’m a marketing consultant in my other job, and I advise apparel companies. I’m in the arena on this one.
Do you draw a distinguished line between Michael Williams, the marketing consultant, and your brand?
MW: Sometimes there’s overlap between what Im doing and other parts of the brand, if it’s the newsletter or with the golf line. I’m upfront with that to everyone and my clients all know that just because we’re working in one way doesn’t mean that the whole world is connected here. It has to be the right thing. We’re very much letting our instincts guide us on what is correct and of value to other people, if that’s the reader or consumer or whatever. I love the brands that I work with on the consulting side. It’s not like anyone’s there just because they’re writing a check. They’re there because I really am invested in what they do. A lot of times I’m honored to do something with them if it’s in the golf line or somewhere else, but we don’t force that stuff.
I have clients that I’ve worked with forever and we’ve never done anything product wise or they haven’t been in the newsletter and they’re not asking. If they did, I would see if we had a good story, and we could try to do it. I’m not perfect, but I’m also trying to do things in a way that have integrity on all fronts. That’s my goal. I’m very small in relation to a lot of successful Substack writers or golf people. I’m content to just do my thing and if it doesn’t take me to the highest heights, that’s okay.
What’s one piece of advice you would give to someone who wants to be a creative consultant?
MW: If I look back at my career, I’ve taken a lot of risks to get to where I am. I was never positioned to have a big corporate job. I think based on how hard I worked in school and where I went to school and all these other things, I wouldn’t say I was a very good student. I saw that one path was not available to me. I had to do my own thing, but I also just wanted to do that. You have to take risks to do that. I grew up in Ohio and I moved to New York as soon as I could.
When I started ACL and it didn’t make any money for a year, it was a risk to continue thinking that it was going to work out for me. I had to keep going. The problem a lot of people face is that they think, ‘I can’t continue to waste time on this. I’m not making any money or I’m not going to leave my job to do this’. If you don’t try, you’ll never know if it’s going to work.
Is there anything in your life you like doing that is not a part of your ACL universe, or is pretty much every hobby of yours incorporated into your work?
MW: I’m kind of obsessive about certain things. I think golf and fly fishing have a lot of overlap where there’s this technical skill that’s sort of perishable, so you have to keep doing it to maintain it. I like that sort of idea. Actually, I’ve been taking my kids bowling and I love to bowl. For me, it’s the same as golf. There’s technique and it takes patience. It’s stuff like that that’s kind of embarrassing and ridiculous, but I’m such a generalist. I like to go stand up paddle boarding. I’m proficient. I’m a proficient bowler and I’m a proficient fly fisherman, but I’m not excellent at any of those things. That’s sort of my nature, too. I never want to go all in on one thing. I like doing a lot of things.
I would be remiss if I didn’t say this, especially considering the focus of The Hobbyist. Having hobbies and doing leisure things is so important for so many aspects of your life—like your mental wellbeing and how effective you are at work and as a parent and as a friend and in your relationships. People that I know that don’t have any hobbies, I really worry about them because it’s like they’re going to implode. You have to find something to get into. It’s really healthy. Obviously, some people can take that too far, but I think it’s really, really healthy to have hobbies. When I meet people with hobbies, I am so drawn to them and just want to talk to them about it. [Ed. note — Me too, brother! Me too.]