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4 episodes with Adore Me
3 episodes with Adore Me
3 episodes with Adore Me
2 episodes with Adore Me
2 episodes with Adore Me
2 episodes with Adore Me
In this episode of the Age of Adoption Podcast, Keith Zakheim, CEO of Antenna Group, sits down with Romain Liot, the co-founder and COO of Adore Me. Romain shares how he wanted to combine sustainable practices into Adore Me's highly successful e-commerce lifestyle apparel brand, and how they sold the business in 2022 for $400 million dollars.
Tune in to this week's episode with the Manager, Brand Voice & CRM Strategy, Adore Me, Laylah Funk.
Authentic connections are at the heart of great retail! In this episode of the RETHINK Retail Podcast, DeAnn Campbell sits down with Paula Angelucci, District Director of Adore Me Retail Stores, to explore her journey of transformational leadership and how it's shaping Adore Me's approach to retail. Paula shares her strategies for building high-performing teams, fostering a culture of innovation, and delivering personalized customer experiences. Her leadership philosophy, grounded in sustainability and continuous improvement, offers a fresh perspective on the future of retail. Key Insights: - Personalized Retail Experiences: Explore how Paula envisions creating more personalized, customer-centric experiences that redefine the shopping journey. - Building High-Performing Teams: Discover Paula's approach to developing exceptional store operations and nurturing talent that enhances the overall customer experience. - Adore Me's Sustainable Growth Strategy: Learn how Adore Me is expanding its retail presence while maintaining a strong commitment to sustainability and ethical business practices. Ready to join the GRL community? Nominate yourself or another retail executive to join the community today: http://www.globalretailleaders.com
Tradițional, un hackathon este un concept pornit din lumea tehnologiei și se referă la rezolvarea unei probleme anume într-un timp limitat și folosing un hack, o soluție alternativa, prin creativitate reușind să rezolve o problemă. Pe 11-12 iulie 2024, are loc a 9-a ediție a Hackathonului Adore Me Tech. Despre provocările ridicate de o astfel de competiție tehnologică vorbim cu Silvia Târziu. Silvia Târziu este Technical Innovation Coach la Adore Me, are un backgroud în dezvoltare de produse software, management de echipe și proiecte, și la baza a fost programator, absolventă a facultății de Matematică și Informatică, Universitatea București. Hackathonul Adore Me Tech a devenit unul dintre cele mai așteptate evenimente, aducând la București, participanți din toată lumea.În doar două zile, echipele competitoare trebuie să vină cu o idee, și să creeze un prototip care să fie funcțional și să poată fi prezentat unui juriu format din oameni din industria tech. Pentru rezultate în cadrul hackatonului, suspendarea rutinei zilnice din birou este obligatorie, participanții au la dispoziție jocuri, escape room, VR, yoga, desen, pictură și înghețată, totul pentru a crea un mediu creativ. 'Toate aceste distrageri, plus timpul limitat, te fac să cauți orice scurtătură, orice hack, orice tehnologie inovatoare pentru a rezolva problema din fața ta.', spune Silvia Târziu în emisiunea RFI360.
Din 2022, când a fost cumpărat pentru suma de 400 de milioane de dolari, Adore Me este sinonim cu Victoria's Secret, unul dintre cele mai mari branduri de lenjerie din lume. Ce puțină lume știe, însă, este că Adore Me Tech, divizia care se ocupă de toată partea tehnică a business-ului Adore Me și acum de Victoria's Secret, are birourile la București.
Boisson was created to make it easier for consumers to discover and learn about non-alcoholic beverage brands. The company helped jumpstart the market, which is projected to have a 25% compound annual growth rate through 2028. Founder Nick Bodkins had a vision where Boisson was “the Sephora of NA,” bringing together the power of an immersive ecommerce experience, neighborhood-style stores with passionate employees, and a wholesale strategy that drove growth for new brands. Although Boisson recently announced it would be undergoing a restructuring and immediately shuttering its stores, Bodkins' vision, and the innovation within the Boisson business, showed what is truly possible for the NA market. Listen to this episode of Retail Remix to: Hear Nick's perspective on the evolving NA market;Learn how Boisson is thinking long-term about wholesale distribution and growth;Get insights on how the VC market could influence the current state, and future, of NA; and Understand why Boisson's approach to brick-and-mortar was so innovative—and what your brand can learn from it. RELATED LINKSConnect with Nick on LinkedIn See what's next for BoissonDig deeper into the Boisson storyDo you want to hear more from Nick Bodkins on founding and scaling an omnichannel business? He will share more candid perspectives (and lessons) during the Retail Innovation Conference & Expo, taking place June 4-6, 2024, at McCormick Place in Chicago. He will join other senior executives from brands such as Michaels, Pinterest, Petco, Zenni Optical, Adore Me and many others. Get your ticket today and join the brightest minds in retail. 2024 Retail Innovation Conference & ExpoAre you ready to explore the evolved customer journey, where content, community and commerce converge? Click here to register for the 2024 Retail Innovation Conference & Expo today!
In episode 85, design agency founder and intimate apparel brand co-founder Kristen Anderson reveals the inner workings of the lingerie and swim industry. Kristen speaks from her experience as an in-house designer, freelancer, intimate apparel design agency owner of KRSTN NDRSN, and co-founder of the intimates brand Iteration sharing the lessons she's learned and the new innovations she's excited about. Kristen has been designing apparel for over 13 years and has built a strong reputation for her innovative products, technical and fit expertise, and deep understanding of the end user. Her wide-ranging design skills have been sought out by powerhouse brands and fast-growing start-ups such as Adore Me, Sheertex, Knickey, Lane Bryant, and Victoria's Secret. Kristen currently runs KRSTN NDRSN LLC, an intimate + swimwear design studio started in 2019, designing and developing garments for DTC start-ups, VC-funded brands, and independent labels. As the founder and CEO of iteration, an apparel brand started by Kristen, she aims to leverage her intimate knowledge of apparel design, fit, and functionality to create better-made, more sustainable garments from conception to customer. Her extensive industry experience in intimates has allowed her to identify critical gaps in the market and opportunities to introduce innovative solutions. Kristen is passionate about sustainable fashion, thoughtfully engineered design, and constantly improving and enhancing the entire customer experience. She believes there is an opportunity to do better for the customer, the planet, and the factories. Kristen was the first designer hired at Adore Me, where she contributed to a team that increased sales from $5 million in 2013 to nearly $84 million by 2016. During Kristen's tenure at Adore Me, it was the fastest-growing lingerie start-up in the United States. From 2016 to 2019, Kristen was the lead swimwear designer at SwimUSA. Kristen's career started in 2010 at Bennett & Company, where she worked on the Lane Bryant, Victoria's Secret, and Hanes brands. She earned her BS degree studying Design and Merchandising at Framingham State University, where she graduated with honors. She won the Young Alumni Achievement Award from FSU in 2016 and was accepted into the Project Entrepreneur program by UBS and Rent the Runway in 2018. In this episode, you'll learn: How Kristen got into the intimates, lingerie, and swim niche Kristen's perspective on the industry having held in-house, freelance, and brand founder roles in her career. Why her first brand never launched The benefits of an outside perspective How Kristen and her co-founder have co-created their brand, Iteration's, products with a community of customers The biggest lingerie pain points Kristen hears from women The software that is inspiring Kristen's designs and business right now The expensive lesson Kristen and her co-founder learned while visiting a factory in Sri Lanka The speed of start-up life and why the direction actually matters more People and resources mentioned in this episode: KRSTN NDRSN intimates and swim design agency Iteration lingerie brand Kristen on Instagram
Many of you recall Ryan Lill-Washington on my show a few years ago. His singing/songwriting ability is outstanding! While music is still his passion, he decided to explore another talent. Writing novels. I spoke with Ryan exclusively about this new venture, the writing process and perhaps what comes next. Purchase Novels: https://www.amazon.com/stores/... Follow Ryan Lill-Washington: @RyanLillWashington A true born-and-bred Queer Southerner, Charleston, SC native Ryan Lill is an artist whose star has only continued to rise. In addition to being a featured MTV Artist, Lill has performed alongside chart-topping artists like Meghan Trainor and Todrick Hall. With years of touring and live performances under his belt, Ryan has spoken openly about his experience and loyalty-ties to the LGBTQIA+ community. As an advocate for gender expression and visibility among the queer community, Ryan has become more than just a local sensation. Lill has also made a name for himself across the media world, with his hit single "Adore Me," and his new EP "Makeup" hitting top 40 radio. With multiple comedy videos gaining the attention of Genius and The Huffington Post, paired with his quick-live songwriting skills, it seems there isn't much Lill can't do. With a vibrant personality, a unique style, and a sense of self that attracts far beyond your average listener, Ryan is taking the world by storm, using humor, activism, music, and expression to create change. Lill's Southern charm and tongue-in-cheek attitude, alongside his relatability have earned him a loyal fanbase. His songwriting and musical stylings cut to the core with each track, and now, he's taken fiction writing by surprise with his second novel "Into The Pines." ► Luxury Women Handbag Discounts: https://www.theofficialathena.... ► Become an Equus Coach®: https://equuscoach.com/?rfsn=7... ► For $5 in ride credit, download the Lyft app using my referral link: https://www.lyft.com/ici/ASH58... ► Review Us: https://itunes.apple.com/us/po... ► Subscribe: http://www.youtube.com/c/AshSa... ► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1lov... ► Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/1loveAsh ► Blog: http://www.ashsaidit.com/blogBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/show/feeling-some-type-of-way/support.
The retailer has revamped its loyalty program and added more digital offerings following its Adore Me acquisition
In this special episode of The Green Podcast, Christina Chang of Adore Me sits down with Dylan Welch at The 2023 San Diego Green Summit, to share how Adore Me is investing and scaling up their plan for making the fashion industry more sustainable.Support the show
Care e secretul pentru a învinge un gigant din industria de fashion & beauty precum Victoria's Secret? Cultura excepțională, leadershipul și inovația în tehnologie a companiei Adore Me i-au determinat pe cei de la Victoria's Secret să își deschidă buzunare și să achiziționeze principalul competitor digital cu 400 de milioane de dolari.Platforma de eCommerce este o soluție 100% dezvoltată la sediul Adore Me din București, cu design și marketing făcute la New York.Bogdan Lucaciu, Chief Technical Officer al Adore me, ne dezvăluie cum a reușit alături de colegii lui să crească o cultură organizațională bazată pe eliminarea risipei ca izvor al eficienței și fericirii la muncă - pentru care profitul nu a fost decât o consecință. Echipa lui demonstrează că se poate face super-performanță și din România, dacă gândim corect și muncim serios.Urmărește discuția fascinantă dintre Bogdan Lucaciu și Doru Șupeală în episodul 10 din sezonul 2 al Hacking Work Podcast.Link episod YT: https://youtu.be/2Y1kLGlsJQc Link episod Spotify: https://shorturl.at/epEIM Link episod Apple Podcasts: https://shorturl.at/lstU2---Hacking Work este prima inițiativă multimedia din România care vorbește clar, cinstit și curajos despre piața muncii. Acest produs multimedia este realizat de echipa Hacking Work, produs de SPOR - Școala Pentru oameni Responsabili, vă este oferit de compania de software DevNest și este susținut de MedLife.În proiectul Hacking Work includem episoade de podcast audio și video publicate pe Youtube, Spotify și celelalte platforme de streaming, newsletterele și articolele publicate pe Substack, articolele de analiză și opinie publicate pe blogul dorusupeala.ro și emisiunile de radio difuzate în parteneriat cu posturile cu acoperire națională.Platformele web ale proiectului Hacking Work sunt găzduite de Hosterion. Materialele audio-video sunt pregătite cu ajutorul soluției software de transcript Vatis Tech, care asigură cea mai bună acuratețe în limba română - 95%+.--- Ne găsești pe
This week Steve sits down with Ranjan Roy, VP of Strategy at Adore Me.
In 2017, the FTC announced that Adore Me, an online lingerie company, had agreed to return more than $1.3 million to customers who enrolled in a negative-option membership program offering discounts and other benefits. Almost six years later – in another example of states pursuing settlements on their own – 32 state attorneys general announced a $2.3 million settlement with Adore Me over the same program. https://www.adlawaccess.com/2023/06/articles/states-follow-ftc-auto-renewal-settlement-with-a-new-2-3-million-settlement/ Gonzalo Mon gmon@kelleydrye.com (202) 342-8576 www.kelleydrye.com/Our-People/Gonzalo-E-Mon Subscribe to the Ad Law Access blog - www.adlawaccess.com/subscribe/ Subscribe to the Ad Law News Newsletter - https://www.kelleydrye.com/News-Events/Publications/Newsletters/Ad-Law-News-and-Views?dlg=1 View the Advertising and Privacy Law Resource Center - https://www.kelleydrye.com/Advertising-and-Privacy-Law-Resource-Center Find all of our links here linktr.ee/KelleyDryeAdLaw Hosted by Simone Roach
LIBERTY Sessions with Nada Jones | Celebrating women who do & inspiring women who can |
Heidi Rauch is a seasoned entrepreneur passionate about building women's lifestyle brands, product sourcing, supply chain management, and digital strategy. Heidi founded Belabumbum, a women's maternity apparel company that provided market access to female-owned and operated manufacturers in Central and South America. In early 2019 Belabumbum was acquired by Adore Me as its first sister brand. The acquisition launched Adore Me's entre into the maternity category for a growing customer base. Currently, Heidi provides business strategy and operations management on a fractional basis for Adore Me's Become brand and a range of FemTech-focused companies in the menstruation-menopause space.In this episode, Nada sits down with Heidi to discuss Become's technology and what it means for women in peri and menopause. She shared what it means to work on a fractional basis and how that role combines her entrepreneurial know-how and corporate experience. Heidi touts the benefits and autonomy of offering fractional services and the need for clear boundaries when working with corporate brands. She shares the many chapters of working for herself, with a partner, and with teams and the skills acquired and needed for the various roles. Today, Ms. Rauch uses her skills to impact the growing FemTech industry.Be sure to check out HER Agency's website and Become's website. Follow on Instagram: @become_tmPlease follow us at @thisislibertyroad on Instagram--that's where we hang out the most and connect with our community. And please rate and review this podcast. It helps to know if these conversations are inspiring and equipping you to consider what's now and what's next.
In Episode 7 of this season's Digital and Dirt podcast, Ian welcomes Laylah Funk, Copywriter at Adore Me, to discuss creative copy, product inclusivity, and sustainability in retail. To learn more about this episode and see behind-the-scenes photos check out Lamar's blog linked here -programmatic.lamar.comPodcast Breakdown (0:18-1:22) Meet Laylah Funk (1:25-5:58) Career Path to Creative Copywriting (6:00- 13:00) Who is Adore Me & Their Mission(13:02-21:43) Creative Copywriting & Brand Voice (21:45-34:55) BCorp, GAME Program, & Communicating Sustainability(35:00-39:17) Staying in Tune with Pop Culture (39:20-46:00) Influencer Culture
Jacqueline shares a quick vent session on what life has been like with her "three-nager" recently, which sparks the topic of simplifying your life when things are busy and overwhelming. She shares three simple self-care hacks that you can implement to streamline your oral health, vitamins, and wardrobe. It's time to level up and make yourself a priority, ladies!Things mentioned in this episode (which are not paid ads... just genuine faves!)...• Quip (use this referral code for a $5 credit: RK95LY9F)• Care/Of (use this link for 50% off your first order!) • Trendsend by Evereve (use this link for 20% off every item in your first order!)• Adore Me (use this link for up to 50% off your first purchase!)Want to connect with like-minded women who are getting real about what it takes to be a mom? Join the Motherhood Intended Community! We're talking all about mom life beyond the highlight reel.Bonus content drops this month! Become a Patron of the podcast and select a monthly subscription for even MORE content. As a subscriber, you'll get access to things like exclusive bonus episodes, a patron-only community for fans to connect, shoutouts on podcast, and more! Click this link to subscribe: patreon.com/motherhood_intendedThere are SO MANY deserving parents with stories of their own that lead them to needing the help of a gestational surrogate to grow their family. ConceiveAbilities is a first-in-class, full service global surrogacy agency with 25 years of unparalleled service. They are a leading surrogacy agency offering the best in family building to parents, surrogates and egg donors. You can earn up to $650 just for taking the first few simple steps to learn more about how you can help! Click this link to get started: share.conceiveabilities.com/hello12Support the showLoving the podcast? Then we would love YOUR support with the continued production of this show! With the help of our audience, the podcast will be able to bring you the best content, most interesting guests, fun events, and helpful resources for women everywhere. Show some love here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/motherhoodintended
Cohort, une plateforme d'engagement client alimentée par les NFT lancée au sein d'Hexa (eFounders), lève 3,2 millions d'euros moins d'un an après son lancement. Ce tour de table a été mené auprès d'IRIS et d'Axeleo Capital, avec la participation du startup studio 3founders et de business angels comme Camille Tyan (Payplug), Guillaume Princen (Stripe), Brian O'Hagan (Sorare) et Marianne Gosset (The Socialite Family).Lancé en mars 2022 par Séraphie de Tracy et Nathan Barraillé avec 3founders (le startup studio d'Hexa dédié aux entreprises du Web3), Cohort déploie une plateforme d'engagement client alimentée par les NFT. Concrètement, la startup propose aux marques de créer des expériences nouvelles autour de leurs produits. « C'est une solution d'engagement digitale qui a la particularité d'utiliser des NFT et la technologie blockchain pour venir réinventer la manière dont les marques interagissent avec leurs clients », explique Séraphie de Tracy.« Nous travaillons avec une quinzaine de marques autour de cas d'usages qui vont de l'acquisition client jusqu'à la rétention de clients, notamment grâce à des programmes de fidélités personnalisés. » Cohort s'adresse pour le moment à des marques dans le « lifestyle », c'est-à-dire dans la mode, le sport ou la décoration notamment. Parmi elles, on peut citer Etam, Adore Me ou encore Socque Paris.Cohort, qui a déjà signé ses premiers clients aux États-Unis, ambitionne de poursuivre le développement de son produit et de recruter de nouveaux talents avec l'objectif de tripler ses effectifs d'ici la fin de l'année. « Nous allons également investir dans notre présence dans l'écosystème, notamment en participant à des salons », conclut la CEO de Cohort.
As the economy weakens and funding dries up, digital brands may face pressure to sell from investors. To do so, they'll need to prove they're more than just another money-losing start-up.Background:Over the past few years, investors have been bullish on fast-growing digital brands — rewarding their rapid sales growth with sky-high valuations. More recently, physical retail has rebounded and e-commerce sales have shrunk. As a result, a number of digital-first brands are burning through cash as inflation and the cost of goods rises. VCs are increasingly wary of investing in companies without clear paths to profitability, so a number of those money-losing labels are finding it difficult to raise funds. Many, with few options to weather the imminent recession, are looking for an exit. “A great deal of these digital brands were growing at all costs… people did not anticipate a large slowdown and then a possible recession — so they weren't managing their money well,” said Malique Morris, BoF direct-to-consumer correspondent. Key Insights:To catch the eye of a potential investor, brands must focus on profitability. But they also need to set themselves apart with new ideas and business models. A number of retailers struggling to adapt to shifting consumer tastes — like Victoria's Secret, which acquired lingerie start-up Adore Me in November — are in need of a boost. To set the stage for an attractive exit, Ministry of Supply, which sells wrinkle-free dress shirts, has focused on getting old customers to make additional purchases, rather than acquire new ones. Seeing lower valuations, profitable brands that are attractive acquisition targets don't have much incentive to sell at the moment. Additional Resources:https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/direct-to-consumer/buck-mason-ministry-of-supply-adore-me-dtc-acquisitions-/https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/entrepreneurship/why-venture-capital-is-a-bad-fit-for-most-fashion-businesses/https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/entrepreneurship/a-new-model-for-funding-fashion-start-ups/Follow The Debrief wherever you listen to podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Today, Dee and Anand discuss today's election, Groupchat's NFT, crypto's latest hack, Disney's earnings, Lyft's earnings, John Foley's new (mis)adventure, Victoria's Secret's acquisition of Adore Me, Tyson Foods' CFO, Powerball's winning ticket, and NYC schools' exodus. Connect with Group Chat! Watch The Pod For The Gram Tweet With Us Exclusive Facebook Content We're @groupchatpod on Snapchat
Adore Me 005 Mixed By Michelle Grant by Michelle Grant
Welcome to the first episode of SEASON 2! We're diving right back into it ALL and I'm ready to catch you TF up: starting with debunking some of the rumors surrounding the dramatic spectacle that is “Don't Worry Darling,” (*Harry voice* “My favorite thing about the movie is that it feels like a MOVIE…”), positing that the Kardashians seem to have officially entered their flop era, chatting about “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” and “Southern Charm” (because of course we need some Bravo goss), speculating about Tom Brady & Gisele Bündchen's potential breakup, calling out an influencer's recent problematic post, AND MORE! Enjoy the show, and stay tuned for some incredible guests coming up this season! Stock up on Adore Me's cozy, fall-ready loungewear at AdoreMe.com/loungewear and use code SOTRUE10 for $10 off your order! Produced by Bob Mallory
Romain Liot is the co founder & COO of Adore Me - a disruptive e-commerce startup, revolutionizing the fashion industry. With revenues growing exponentially from $1M in 2012 to over $100M. Romain has led Adore Me to become one of the fastest-growing companies in New York (ranked #17 on Crain's Fast 50 in 2017) and one of the fastest-growing retailers in the U.S. (ranked three times on the Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America). --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/toby-usnik/support
Female owned sex shops: Babeland - https://www.babeland.com/ Come As You Are - https://www.comeasyouare.com/ Good Vibrations - https://www.goodvibes.com/ She Bop - https://www.sheboptheshop.com/ Sugar - https://www.sugartheshop.com/ Good For Her - https://goodforher.com/ Lingerie Naseem Likes: Parade - https://yourparade.com/ Adore Me - https://www.adoreme.com/ Nashville Darlin - https://darlinlingerie.com/home Shein - https://us.shein.com/
Camille Kress, the VP of Growth Labs at Adore Me sits down with The Green Podcast host Dylan Welch to share how they have built a sustainable marketplace.Support the show (http://www.GoingGreenShow.com)
About RachelRachel Kelly is a Senior Engineer at Fastly in Infrastructure, and is a proud career-switcher over to tech as of about eight years ago. She lives in the Pacific Northwest and spends her time thinking about crafts, cycling, leadership, and ditching Google. Previously, she worked at Bright.md wrestling Ansible and Terraform into shape, and before then, a couple years at Puppet. You can reach Rachel on twitter @wholemilk, or at hello@rkode.com.Links: Fastly: https://www.fastly.com SeaGL: https://seagl.org Twitter: https://twitter.com/wholemilk TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by LaunchDarkly. Take a look at what it takes to get your code into production. I'm going to just guess that it's awful because it's always awful. No one loves their deployment process. What if launching new features didn't require you to do a full-on code and possibly infrastructure deploy? What if you could test on a small subset of users and then roll it back immediately if results aren't what you expect? LaunchDarkly does exactly this. To learn more, visit launchdarkly.com and tell them Corey sent you, and watch for the wince.Corey: It seems like there is a new security breach every day. Are you confident that an old SSH key or a shared admin account isn't going to come back and bite you? If not, check out Teleport. Teleport is the easiest, most secure way to access all of your infrastructure. The open source Teleport Access Plane consolidates everything you need for secure access to your Linux and Windows servers—and I assure you there is no third option there. Kubernetes clusters, databases, and internal applications like AWS Management Console, Yankins, GitLab, Grafana, Jupyter Notebooks, and more. Teleport's unique approach is not only more secure, it also improves developer productivity. To learn more visit: goteleport.com. And no, that is not me telling you to go away, it is: goteleport.com.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. A periodic subject that comes up from folks desperate to sell people things is this idea of cloud repatriation, where people have put their entire business in the cloud decided, “Mmm, not so much. I'll build some data centers and move it there.” It's an inspiring story if you're selling things for data centers, but it's not something we're seeing widespread evidence of, and I maintain that.Today, we're going to talk about that, only completely different. My guest today is Rachel Kelly, senior infrastructure engineer at Fastly. And no, Fastly has not done a cloud repatriation of which I am aware. But Rachel, you've done a career repatriation. You went from working with AWS in your previous company to working in bare metal. First, welcome to the show, and thank you for joining me.Rachel: Thanks, Corey. Super happy to be here.Corey: Now, let's talk about why you would do such a thing. It feels almost like you're Benjamin Button-ing here.Rachel: Yeah, a bit. The normal flow has been to go from sort of a sysadmin level, where you're managing servers fairly directly, to an operational level, where you are managing entire swathes of servers to entire data centers and so forth. But I went from managing just the SaaS web app to managing enormous groups of servers in data centers all over the world. And I did that because the provisioning of the web app, even on AWS, was absolutely my favorite part. What I've always wanted to get better with is the Linux and networking side of how our internet runs, and at Fastly, we are responsible for such a huge percentage of traffic all over the world. We have enormous customers who rely on us to deliver that data. And I get to be part of the group of people that puts those enormous groups of servers into production.Corey: I started my career in the more traditional way of starting out in data centers, building things out, and then finally scampering off into a world of cloud. And you learn things going through the data center side of the world that don't necessarily command the same levels of attention in the cloud environment because you don't have to think about these things. Networking is a great example. During the Great Recession, there was a salary freeze. I was not super thrilled in my job, but I couldn't find another one, so I spent the year learning how networks worked, and it made me a better systems administrator as a direct result of this. Same story with file systems, not necessarily because I did extensive amounts of work with their innards, but because every sysadmin interview under the sun asked the same questions about how inodes work, how journaling works, et cetera, and you have to be able to pass the trivia-based hazing process in order to get a job when you've just been fired from your last one.So, that became where I was focusing on these things. And now looking at a world of cloud, feels like we don't really need that in any meaningful sense. I mean, a couple people need to know it, but by and large no one has to think about it. So, is that just a bunch of useless knowledge that is taking up valuable space in your brain that could be used for other stuff or do you think that there's a valid story for folks who are working in purely cloud environments to still learn how the things underlying these concepts work?Rachel: First of all, I think that there is so much that we can do with less particular networking knowledge than we've ever needed in the past, thanks so much in part to AWS and all of their hangers-on. But yes, there are still people who need this networking knowledge. And once you have that kind of knowledge, once you're able to see how the routes talk to each other, and how your firewalls actually work, and how to abstract out these larger networks and determining your subnetting and everything, you can utilize that really beautifully, even in something like VPC on AWS. Without that kind of knowledge, like, you can still get quite a bit done—which I think is a testament to the power of abstraction in AWS—but I mean, boy oh boy, what you can do once you have some of that knowledge.Corey: I'm not allowed in the AWS data centers because I'm very bad at dodging bullets, but I find the knowledge is still useful because it helps me reason about things. When I know what—at least in a traditional environment—it's doing, I know what AWS is emulating, and I can safely assume that I haven't discovered some bug in their network stack for almost anything reasonable that I'd be working on other than maybe their documentation explaining it. So, when I start reasoning about it from that perspective, things make a lot more sense. And that's always been helpful. The argument historically has been when you're hiring—at least in the earlier days of cloud—well, I'm trying to hire, but it's hard to find cloud talent, so the story was always, “Oh, don't worry. If you've worked in a data center, we'll teach you the cloudy pieces because it's the natural evolution of things.” And there's a whole cottage industry of people training for exactly that use case. Because you are who you are, and doing what you do, how do you find hiring works when you're going the exact opposite direction?Rachel: Oh, my gosh, it's so interesting. In my area, we are trying to build these huge groups of servers based on bare metal. Do we hire sysadmins? Maybe. Do we hire ops folks? Maybe. Do we hire network engineers? Also, maybe.There are so many angles that we need to be aware of when pulling new talent into our area. And I think it's fascinating what all of these different, largely, like, non-programmer types have to contribute to the provisioning process. We need someone with expertise in security, and quality, and networking, and file systems, and everything else between those items. And it's really exciting seeing what people can add to our process.Corey: There's so much in there that I love, but at the part I'm going to focus on is you're talking about new hires as being additive. And that is valuable. It can lead to some pretty toxic and shitty behaviors, where it's, “We want to make sure everyone we hire is schmucks we've hired now.” Like, no, that is not what we're talking about. But culture is something you get whether you want it or not, and I firmly believe teams are atomic, when you bring someone new in or let someone go, you haven't changed the team, you have a new team, in many respects, and that dynamic becomes incredibly important.The idea of hiring people for strength has always been what I look for, as opposed to absence of weakness, where it's okay, I'm going to ask you a whole bunch of questions around all the different aspects of computing; I'm going to find the area you're bad at, and we just beat the snot out of you on that. It's, yeah, if I want to join a fraternity, I would.Rachel: [laugh]. Yeah, when I was job seeking, I wound up in interviews at places where their method of interviewing was very much hazing. “Well, let's see, I haven't read your resume. It says that you've set up a few things with Nginx. Do you know about this particular command in Nginx?” It's like, “Well, geez, I could look it up and figure it out, but that's not the point of this job.”I mean, we work together collaboratively every day, and if that doesn't sound familiar to you, I'm going to leave this interview. But yes, I mean, everybody's additive. There was another gal who joined at the same time that I did at Fastly, and we both have a very operational background. And we were additive to the very strong networking and data center engineers who were already on the team. And as far as I can tell, the team changed overnight when we joined.It is now our role—both this other gal's and mine—to work so much on the automation piece of our build process, which has been focused on lightly in some areas, but that we can bring that with—even just shell scripting, we are able to enhance that process by so much. And I just fantasize about the day that we can get someone in who is directly on our team and focused on security, or directly on our team and focused on testing. The heights we could soar to with that kind of in-department knowledge, where we're still focused on creating these builds, it's just so exciting to think about.Corey: It is and it's easy to look at data centers as the way things used to be but not the future at all, but CDNs are increasingly becoming something very different than they used to be. And I admit I'm a little stodgy; I tend to fight the tide. There's value in having something that is serving static assets close to your customer. There's value to the CDN, in following the telco story, of aspiring to be more than just the quote-unquote, “Dumb pipe,” because that's a commodity; you want to add differentiated value. But I'm also leery to wind up putting things that look like business logic into the edge at this stage.And I'm starting to feel like I might be wrong as far as the way that the world views these things. But I like the idea that if a CDN takes an outage—which is not common, but it does happen—that I should be able to seamlessly—well, “Seamlessly”—failover to a different CDN within an hour or so. But if there's significant business logic in your CDN, you've got to either have that replicated in near real-time between the two providers, or your migration is now measured with a calendar instead of a stopwatch.Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's an incredibly hard problem. We want to be able to really provide that uptime. And we don't really have outages. Everybody remembers—well, listeners of this show will probably remember, the Fastly outage, but—Corey: The Fastly outage, and that's the—Rachel: The—Corey: —best part is the fact that I'm talking about ‘the' and everyone knows the one I'm talking about, that says something.Rachel: Yeah. In June of this year, we had an outage for 45 minutes, and it was just an incredible and beautiful effort on the engineering side to get us back up as quick as possible. There were a handful of naysayers, certainly, in the outage, but we fixed it real fast. One thing that I loved was your tweet about it in June, when our outage happened. “The fact that Fastly was able to detect, identify, and remediate this clearly complex problem as quickly as they did may be one of the most technically impressive things I've seen in years.” I appreciated that so much. So, many folks internal to Fastly appreciated that point of view so much because the answer to should I have a backup CDN? Like, yeah, maybe, and it is complicated because you have so much logic on the edge right there, but really, the answer is, we really do a good job of staying up. And that cannot be the full picture for any company that needs just a ton of HA, but that is what we'd really like to present, we really want you to be able to trust us. And I feel like we have demonstrated that.Corey: I would argue from where I sit you absolutely have. If this were a three times a week situation, it wouldn't matter, no one would care because no one's going to trust the CDN that breaks like that.Rachel: Right.Corey: It gets to the idea of utility computing. And that means different things to different people, but to me, what that says is that when I use an actual utility, like water or electricity, when I turn the faucet or flip a switch, I don't wonder if it's going to work or not. Of course, now I have IoT light switches, so I absolutely wonder if it's going to work or not, but going to the water story, yeah, I turn on the faucet, if something doesn't happen, or the water comes out a different color than expecting, I have immediate concerns. And that is extraordinarily atypical and I can talk about that one time it happened. It's not that every third time I go and wash my hands, the water catches fire because there's fracking nearby, or something. Or it's poisonous because I live in Flint. It is just a thing that works.No one is going to sit here and have a business problem and say, “You know what I really need? I really need a local point of presence close to my users so that the static asset can be served more quickly and efficiently to this.” No, the business problem is, “Our website is slow, so people aren't using it.” It's how do you speak to things like that? And how do you make working with it either programmatically or through a console—because surprise, business users generally don't interact with things via APIs—how do you make that straightforward? How do you make that accessible, and Fastly does—Rachel: Oh gosh.Corey: —a bang-up job on this.Rachel: I think that Fastly has done a good job on it. How that has happened, I simply cannot tell you whatsoever. I am so far from support and marketing. I know that those folks work their tails off and really are focused on selling the story of you need your assets to be more easily delivered to the people who want to consume it. No, and you would never use that as a soundbite for Fastly because it [laugh] it sounds like a robot said it.Corey: It's always—I was gonna interesting, but I'm also going to go with strange—the ability to, for whatever reason, build out a large scaling infrastructure business like this—CDNs are one of those businesses where you're not going to come up with this in your garage and a cloud provider tonight and be ready to deploy in a couple of weeks. It takes time to get these facilities out there. It takes tremendous capital investment. But I want to switch a little bit because I know that you're a believer in this in the same way that I am. As much fun as it is to talk smack about cloud providers, I think it's impossible to effectively understate just how transformative the idea of being able to prototype things via a cloud provider is.Yeah, it's not going to be all businesses, I'm not going to build a manufacturing company on a cloud provider overnight in my spare time, but I can build the bones of a SaaS app and see if it works or not without having to buy infrastructure or entering into long-term contracts. I just need a credit card and then I'll use a free tier that's going to lie to me and then hit me with a surprise $60,000 bill. But yeah, you know, the thought is there.Rachel: The thought is there. I think that if you know a little bit what you're doing with a not even terribly clever operations engineer to get into AWS with you, you can prototype that for pretty cheaply. If you're not spending all this money on transfer fees and whatever else. If you really just want this small mock up of hey, does this work? Can it be reached from the network? Again, getting your networking knowledge in will only serve you, even in this setting, even though we're in the modern era.I mean, I think it's incredible, and I think it's responsible for the total democratization of the modern internet as we know it. Yes, there are other cloud providers, but AWS is who brought this to everybody. Their support for when you run into a jam is some of the most technical and capable of any support organization I've ever interfaced with. And at my previous role we did all the time because, you know, the internet gets complicated, if you can imagine that. And I just think that's phenomenal.On AWS, I want something where I'm hooking up some VPC to this Redis Database over here to a few EC2 instances with backups going over here, and some extremely restricted amount of dummy data flowing from all of those objects. And there's nothing like that. [laugh].Corey: Oh, yeah. And part of the reason behind this, as it turns out, is architectural. The billing system aspires to an eight-hour consistency model, in which case, I spin up something and it shows up in the bill eight hours later. In practice, this can take multiple days. But it's never going to get fixed until the business decides, all right, you can set up a free tier account with the following limits on it, and to get past these, you have to affirmatively upgrade your account so we can start charging you and we automatically going turn things off or let you stop adding storage to it or whatnot, whenever you cross these limits.Well today, you can do whatever you want for the first eight hours. And the way to fix this is, cool, Amazon eats it. Whenever their billing system doesn't catch something, they eat the free tier. And given how much they love money, and trimming margins, and the rest, suddenly you have an incentive because if someone screws up royally and gets that $60,000 bill before the billing system can clamp down on it, okay, great. I would rather the $1.6 trillion company eat that bill than the poor schmoo sitting in their dorm room halfway around the world.Rachel: That's such a good point. Some schmo in their dorm room. How many kids have been bitten by this that we don't hear about because people become ashamed of “Stupid mistakes” like that—that was big air quotes, for those of you at home. It's not a stupid mistake.Corey: People think I'm kidding when I say this, but Robinhood had a tragic story, right? A 19-year-old was day-trading, saw on the app that he had lost $900,000—which turned out not to be true once things settled—and killed himself. And that is tragic. It is not a question of if, it's a question of when someone sees this, reads that you're on the hook for it, support takes a few days to respond, they see their life flashing before their eyes because in many cases, that is more money than people in some of these places will expect to earn in a year, and does something horribly tragic. And at that point, there's a bell that has been rung that cannot be unrung.Of all the things I want to fix, yeah, I complain and I whine about an awful lot of stuff, but this is the one that has the most tragic consequences. No story for a human is going to end in tragedy because of the usurious pricing for Managed NAT Gateway data transfer, but a surprise bill that we know support is going to wipe over something like that, that is going to break people. And that's not okay.Rachel: No, it's not okay. I think that you write very well about that topic in particular, and I really would love to see some changes take place. I know that Amazon knows their business better than to need to rely on some Adore Me-style subscription model that you can't figure out how to get out of. Like, have some faith in your products or don't sell it.Corey: I really, really wish that more companies saw it that way. And the hell of it is the best shining example is a recurring sponsor of this show: Oracle Cloud. Oracle is, let's be honest, they're Oracle; that's less a brand than a warning label in many cases, but I've often said the Oracle Cloud biggest challenge is the word Oracle at the front of it—Rachel: Absolutely.Corey: —because their service offering is legitimate, their free tier is actually free—I've been running some fairly beefy stuff there for over a year, and have never been charged a dime for it. And it's not because I'm special; it's because I haven't taken the affirmative upgrade-my-account step. And their data transfer pricing is great. Within the confines of those things, yeah, it's terrific. I can't speak to what it looks like a super large-scale for a cloud-native app, yet, but that's going to change; people are starting to take them a lot more seriously.And I've got to say, in previous years in the re:Invent keynotes, they've made fun and kicked at Oracle a fair bit, which no one has any sympathy for. Now, I don't think that would lend the same way, just among people who have decided to suspend disbelief long enough and kick the tires in the Oracle free tier. It's like, well, yeah, you can say a lot of negative things about Oracle—and I have a list of them—but you know, what I never got with Oracle: A surprise bill. And its Oracle we're talking about, where surprise billing is the entire reason that they—Rachel: It's the model.Corey: —are a company.Rachel: Yeah. [laugh].Corey: That is the model. And in this case, they are nailing it. And I've often said that you can buy my attention, but not my opinion. Long before they sponsored this show, I was talking, like, this about this particular offering. “Oh, so you're saying we should migrate everything to Oracle databases?” “Good, Lord, no. Not without talking with someone who's been down that path.” And almost everyone who has will scream at you about it. It's a separate model. It's a separate division. It's a separate way of thinking about things. And I'm a big fan of that.Rachel: Oh, that's great. There have been ruinous results of Oracle's decisions and acquisitions in our industry, and yet, this does appear to be a slice of the market that they have given autonomy to the people running it. And I feel like that's really the key. I know just a hair about the product process—the new product introduction process at Amazon in general, And therefore, I actually do have a bit of faith that they will fix this. It's just a huge problem, and when Oracle is eating your lunch, I mean, I just—you really have some things to reconsider.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Rising Cloud, which I hadn't heard of before, but they're doing something vaguely interesting here. They are using AI, which is usually where my eyes glaze over and I lose attention, but they're using it to help developers be more efficient by reducing repetitive tasks. So, the idea being that you can run stateless things without having to worry about scaling, placement, et cetera, and the rest. They claim significant cost savings, and they're able to wind up taking what you're running as it is, in AWS, with no changes, and run it inside of their data centers that span multiple regions. I'm somewhat skeptical, but their customers seem to really like them, so that's one of those areas where I really have a hard time being too snarky about it because when you solve a customer's problem, and they get out there in public and say, “We're solving a problem,” it's very hard to snark about that. Multus Medical, Construx.ai, and Stax have seen significant results by using them, and it's worth exploring. So, if you're looking for a smarter, faster, cheaper alternative to EC2, Lambda, or batch, consider checking them out. Visit risingcloud.com/benefits. That's risingcloud.com/benefits, and be sure to tell them that I said you because watching people wince when you mention my name is one of the guilty pleasures of listening to this podcast.Corey: I am an Amazon fan. I think that given the talent, and the insight, and the drive that they have there—not to mention the fact that they're a $1.6 trillion company—if they want to do something, it will get done. And there are very few bounds I would put on it. Which means that everything that Amazon does, is, on some level, a choice. There are very few things they could not achieve with concerted effort if they cared enough.Corey: I want to also tell a story about you for a change, because why not? Back in 2018, I was just really getting to have an audience, and the rest, and I found myself at the replay party at re:Invent. And it was a weird moment for me because I'd finished most of my speaking stuff, I had hung out with my meetups and my friends and the rest, and I'm wandering around the party—Rachel: Your DevOps stand-up, as I recall.Corey: That's what it w—that's what it was. Yeah, my DevOps stand-up, cloud comedy, whatever you want to call it. And I'm walking around, and it's isolating and weird after something like that—back in the before times, at least—and when people know me as a character, more or less, but not as a person, and it's isolating, and it's lonely, and it's—again, you don't feel great after four days in Las Vegas, and it's dark, and it's hard to tell who's who we ran into each other and just started walking around and having a conversation outside because apparently 4000 decibels as a little much for volume for both of us. And it was just great finding someone who I can talk to as a human being. There's not enough of that in different ways. Because remember, back then, I was an independent consultant I didn't have colleagues to hang out with. It was—Rachel: Oh, that was pre-Duckbill.Corey: That was when I was still the Quinn Advisory Group.Rachel: Oh, very good. Okay. Yes, I do remember that.Corey: The Duckbill Group was formed about a month-and-a-half after that as memory serves.Rachel: Oh, okay. Cool.Corey: But yeah, same problem. It's, how do I build this? How do I turn this into something was a separate problem that hadn't quite—hadn't come up with an answer yet. So, I'm an independent consultant, wandering around, feeling lonely. My clients are all off doing their own things because it turns out that I'm great at representing clients in meetings with Amazon execs, but lousy at representing them on the dance floor.So, it was just the empathy that exuded from you was just phenomenal. And I don't know ever thank you for just how refreshing it was to be able to just step back from the show for a minute and be a person. So thanks.Rachel: Oh, likewise. I remember I had gotten in touch with you beforehand as well to say, like, “I'm going to be at re:Invent. I don't know any women who will be there. Can you please introduce me to some?” And you introduce me to some lovely people who, along with you, really helped me navigate my first re:Invent in a huge way, which was—you think it's going to be overwhelming, multiply that by ten or a hundred. That is how much information is coming at you all the time when you are at re:Invent.So, to go to this funny party where there was like some EDM DJ, who I think was, like, well-known or something in 2018, be like, [laugh] that's really not my thing. But I want to bum around this party, I do want to see what's going on, and if I can touch base with anybody else that I have met during this conference. And I remember we, kind of like, stuck close to each other. And that was so—that was, it was so human. And I appreciated that so much from you as well.I was sent by my company—as anybody who goes to [OSCON 00:31:03] or re:Invent are, if they pay full freight [laugh]—it was so lovely to just have a buddy to bum around with and make fun of things, and talk shop, and everything in between.Corey: I do want to give one small tip, something buried in there that I think is just something I've been doing extensively for a while, but I haven't really ever called it out, or at least not recently—and I'll do a tweet thread about this after we're done recording—the counterpoint that I want to that I want to point out is that introductions are great, but every person I introduced you to, I had your permission to give their email address to them, and I reached out to them independently in every case and said, “Hey, someone would like”—once I was had your permission to reference you—“She would like to talk to other folks who don't look like me who are going to re:Invent. May I introduce you?” The idea of a double opt-in introduction goes so far. And I'm talking about this for folks who aren't me. In my case, fine. If some rando wants to introduce me to some other rando, knock yourself out. There is very little showing up in my inbox that I am not going to have some way of handling. But not everyone thinks about things that way, and it just shows a baseline level of human respect.Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. I actually just did that this morning. I'm sure all of us get these calls a few times a year: “I'm thinking about switching to tech because the money's there, the stability is there, the job market is there, and I have been underpaid and treated poorly for a long time,” or whatever variation on that story that I know we all are aware of. And I talked with him for a while last night, and then I put him in touch with the dual opt-in emails with someone in the field that he's looking at, exactly, and a recruiter friend of mine to help give more perspective on the industry as a whole. And with both of those people, I asked permission to introduce them to the friend of mine who had reached out to me, and both of them responded right away because when you are fielding questions like these all day, you become familiar with the kindest way to do that.And I really love being able to use my network in that way. Yes, I know a person at X, and yes, I would love to introduce you to Y. And I will make sure that everybody agrees and knows that this is coming, and I'm not just taken by surprise. Where I do get those emails and I understand that etiquette is something to learn, it isn't directly common-sense sometimes. And then you sit down and you think about it, or someone says to you like, “I really need you to give me a heads up before giving my contact information to someone that I don't know.”Corey: It happens. It's about being accessible. It's about making the industry better than it is. And on that topic, I have one more area I want to delve into before we call it a show, and that is you are on the program committee for SeaGL, the Seattle GNU/Linux conference.Rachel: That's right.Corey: I have fond memories of that conference, once upon a time. I gave a keynote a few years ago back when I was, you know, able to go places without it being a deadly risk, and much more involved in the community side of the world when it comes to conferences. I've unfortunately pulled back from a lot of it, just due to demands on my time. But great conference. Enjoyed a lot of the conversations once you, sort of, steered around the true believers around some areas of things, to the point where it subverts, you know, being civil to people. But it was a good conference. There was a lot to recommend it.Rachel: SeaGL is a beautiful little conference. It is community-focused. We don't let sponsors get on stage. We really restrict how much the people giving us money are able to dictate what we do. What we do is create a platform for people to discuss open-source in a human way, I would say.I think in our earlier days, we had a lot of focus on software freedom at all costs, and that has softened in the name of humans and social justice in a way that I feel very proud of. I have been the program chair for three years now, and it's just wonderful seeing the trends that come up every year. Our conference is Friday and Saturday, November 5th and 6th, so I hope that by the time you hear this, you will still have an opportunity to go to that; I'm not sure. Some of the themes this year have just been so interesting. It's all about—and this will be very interesting to a particular subset of people, and maybe not to everybody—but about open-source governance, and how do we maintain the soul and the purpose of an open-source project, while keeping people housed and fed who are working on these things, and to not sign over all the rights of a given project to our corporate overlords and such.So, there's a number of talks that are going to be talking about that. A few years ago, the trend that I was really excited about that I personally gave a talk about as well, is how to start owning and managing your own data entirely. I gave a talk on trying to get off Google, which is Herculean and close to impossible. And I understand that, and that's frustrating. But you know, we see these trends where we're trying to help our community protect itself and remain open at the same time in a technical and open-source context. And it's just an exciting and lovely organization and event each year. This is our second year being virtual. I was shocked by how good our virtual experience was last year. And I have high hopes for this year, too. So, I hope you can come check it out.Corey: I would highly recommend it though I believe this will be airing after the show goes out.Rachel: Ah darn.Corey: But there's always next year.Rachel: That's right. And they're all recorded as well, all the talks will be recorded. The publication date on those might be a little bit after but yes, they will all be up.Corey: But we will of course include links to that in the [show notes 00:37:13] because there's always next year.Rachel: That's right.Corey: I want to thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. If people want to learn more, where can they find you?Rachel: I think probably the best place is on Twitter. That is @wholemilk on Twitter. Like, the dairy product by the gallon that's me.Corey: And that link to that will go in the [show notes 00:37:33] as well. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I really appreciate it.Rachel: Thank you, Corey. This has been great.Corey: It really has. Rachel Kelly, senior infrastructure engineer at Fastly. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with a comment telling me that you should absolutely shove your business logic fully into the CDN, then wind up not being able to edit the comment because it's locked to a single CDN.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.
Jeremy's 30th birthday has been cancelled and he therefore will remain 29 until his favorite podcaster gives their blessing. Lauren and Jeremy debate the possibility of hot sauce as a possible form of contraception for the stars and who's at fault for the Drake v. hot sauce condom debacle.Go to https://Purple.com/wild10 and use code wild10. For a limited time you can get 10% off any order of $200 or more. Right now, when you purchase a 3-month Babbel subscription, you'll get an additional 3 months for FREE. Just go to https://Babbel.com and use promo code WILD. Head to https://Go.Factor75.com/Plans and use code wild120 to get $120 off over your first 5 weeks of mealsGet 10% off by going to https://Betterhelp.com/WT9Sets start at $24.95—that's 50% off!—with free shipping & exchanges. Do whatever you want in your Adore Me lingerie—they're here to support you. Shop now on https://AdoreMe.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Jeremy's 30th birthday has been cancelled and he therefore will remain 29 until his favorite podcaster gives their blessing. Lauren and Jeremy debate the possibility of hot sauce as a possible form of contraception for the stars and who's at fault for the Drake v. hot sauce condom debacle. Go to https://Purple.com/wild10 and use code wild10. For a limited time you can get 10% off any order of $200 or more. Right now, when you purchase a 3-month Babbel subscription, you'll get an additional 3 months for FREE. Just go to https://Babbel.com and use promo code WILD. Head to https://Go.Factor75.com/Plans and use code wild120 to get $120 off over your first 5 weeks of meals Get 10% off by going to https://Betterhelp.com/WT9 Sets start at $24.95—that's 50% off!—with free shipping & exchanges. Do whatever you want in your Adore Me lingerie—they're here to support you. Shop now on https://AdoreMe.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When Wiggly comes, when Wiggly comes… Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Gather round, as this week we watch a tale of Monsters and Men! It's StarKid's Black Friday and Tickle-Me Wiggly, the hottest toy of the season, is here to takeover! Our Doors Are Open, as we get ready to join the Cult of Wiggly; but will Danny enjoy his calls of “Adore Me”? Is this a StarKid that will Deck The Halls with joy? Or will he want to Take Me Back to StarKids past to cleanse his palate? Do You Wanna Play? Of course you do… so download now and don't be Califor.M.I.A! Music: purple-planet.com
Bogdan Lucaciu este Chief Technical Officer la Adore Me, unul din cele mai mari branduri de lenjerie din lume, axat pe online și care vinde direct către consumatori. Discutăm despre etică și producție în fashion, trenduri accelerate de pandemie, provocările echipelor distribuite, și multe altele legate de management și cultură organizațională. În a doua jumătate a înregistrării intrăm în profunzime pe subiecte legate de obiceiuri și disciplină, motivele pentru care Bogdan a început să lucreze cu un coach în 2015, într-o perioadă dificilă din viața lui, și de ce anul trecut a decis să facă formarea de Change Strategist.
Dylan Welch sits down with Romain Liot, the co-founder of Adore Me, to share his experience working as a fashion industry leader, and all of the problems the industry has when it comes to sustainability. Support the show (http://www.GoingGreenShow.com)
Bio: Ryan is an amazing singer/songwriter, LGBTQ activist from South Carolina that just killing it in the music scene. He has performed alongside chart-topping artists like Meghan Trainor and Todrick Hall. “Adore Me” is Ryan's first song to hit syndicated Radio and just debuted on 95SX Hit Music Now in North Charleston, South Carolina. His music has taken off on Spotify, and so has his social media following, earning him a devout grassroots audience. He got his start with acoustic music before crossing over into mainstream pop. His 2014 single “Kerosene”, put him on the map in the music world and landed him an MTV Artist spot. In this episode: Ryan tell us how embracing your unique capabilities and showing the world your truest self is the best way to build trust, connect with people and rise to your highest self. This episode also covers: Ryan's experience growing up in South Carolina as a gay man. Ryan's experience navigating the music industry while trying to remain authentic to his roots. What the LGBTQ community means to Ryan. The importance of being kind to yourself and others Resources: Connect with Ryan on IG: ryanlillmusic Connect with Cielo on IG: seaandsky45 Listen Ryan's Music on Apple here Visit Ryan's Official website here Services: Are you ready to take your brand to the next level? Want to increase your digital presence online so you can skyrocket your number of clients & sales? We can help you! Visit BLENDtw Media to learn more about our services and book a 10 minute consultation with us TODAY at outreach@blendtw.com. For more resources to help you live your BEST life, join our community on: Facebook Instagram Find more inspiring stories & higher wisdom at myvoiceourstory.com
Welcome back to another episode of SDG Talks where we highlight change makers and their inspirational work towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)! Don't you hate fast fashion's "one-size-fits-all" and all this greenwashing?! Well inclusion and sustainability aren't just about making money, but about changing the way consumers vote with their wallets... In this episode: - Explore the multifaceted components of inclusivity and sustainability - Why being sustainable takes time and effort - How entrepreneurs can innovate within the realm of SDG #12 Fashion industry revolutionary Roman Liot joined our episode to share his journey co-founding and becoming COO of the disruptive e-commerce startup Adore Me. With revenues growing exponentially from $1M in 2012 to over $100M, Romain has led Adore Me to become one of the fastest-growing companies in New York (ranked #17 on Crain's Fast 50 in 2017) and one of the fastest-growing retailers in the U.S. (ranked three times on the Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America). Connect with Roman: LinkedIn Let's get SDG Talking!! Got a good story or want to collaborate? Send us an email at sdgtalkspodcast@gmail.com and we will get back to you as soon as we can! And don't forget to check out our Virtual Roundtables on our website! Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn
The fashion industry is worth billions of dollars, but is also one of the most wasteful industries. Adore Me Co-Founder and COO Romain Liot shares how Adore Me got started, and why he is working hard and investing in the company to make it more sustainable.Support the show (http://www.GoingGreenShow.com)
Adore Me | Romain Liot, Co-Founder and COO On this Authentic Avenue, Adam is joined on the podcast by Romain Liot, co-founder and COO of Adore Me. Adore Me is a sustainable lingerie business which hopes to bring "Trust Through Transparency" to the industry. Did you know that the fashion industry accounts for 4% of global carbon emissions -- more than France, Germany and the UK combined? Romain did -- and it's so serious that he believes the fashion industry should actually shrink over time, to lessen our impact on the earth. Why, then, would he continue to grow a business within that industry? That's a question he answers for us today. Enjoy! Full transcript below. FOLLOW AUTHENTIC AVENUE, AND ADAM, ON SOCIAL MEDIA: LinkedIn (Authentic Avenue): https://www.linkedin.com/company/68049428/ LinkedIn (Adam Conner): https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjconner/ Email Adam: adam@authave.com Learn more at https://authenticavenuemedia.com/. Theme Song: Extreme Energy (Music Today 80) Composed & Produced by Anwar Amr Video Link: https://youtu.be/8ZZbAkKNx7s
A² The Show - Ep 324 Feat. Hadeez Weng "My name is Hadeez and I am an international model from South Africa. My background is of Taiwanese, Mozambican, South African, Scottish and Italian descent. I own a clothing brand called New Levels. New Devils whilst currently finishing my International Business degree in Miami, Florida. My ethnically ambigious look allows me to be incredibly versatile contributing to my ability to pull off almost any look/style. Not only am I a model, but I am also a fashion stylist and a creative director. I am experienced in commercial, fashion, print, lingerie and bikini modeling as well as music videos. I have got one magazine cover and four spreads (Endee, Evon, Lion's), three commercials (Wingstop, Subway & Bumbu Rum), one calendar 2020 (College Swimsuit Search), various international campaigns (Fila South Africa, Tagvin on Asos, Khosi Nkosi, Fifty Shades Apparel, Boutique Stylestique, Zahara Swim, Parooz, Adore Me, Jheez Bikinis, EPL Diamonds, MimiTheBrand etc), two radio interviews and over 15 music videos (Chris Brown, Lil Wayne, Big Sean, DJ Khaled, Akon, Farruko, Anuel, Trap Beckham, Jeremih, Sean Combs, Nasty C etc.) " - https://www.hadeezweng.com/about Get the A2 limited (5 remaining shirts) at https://teespring.com/a2theshirtFollow the podcast hosts on social media: @a2theshow Hosts Ali Haejl @scoobz.mp4 alihaejl.com Ali Al Shammari @freshprinceofmishref Social Media Management @crooked.pearl & @nad16er --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/a2theshow/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/a2theshow/support
A true born-and-bred Southerner, Charleston, SC native Ryan Lill is an artist worth watching out for. Lill got his start in the acoustic realm before crossing over into mainstream pop. His 2014 singles, including “Kerosene”, put him on the map in the music world and landed him an MTV Artist spot. Since then, Lill's star has only continued to rise. In addition to being featured on MTV Artists, Lill has performed alongside chart-topping artists like Meghan Trainor. The duo appeared together on camera to give a ukulele twist to the blonde bombshell's hit “Lips Are Moving." In April 2017, Lill released his first full-length studio album, “Burn This Bridge," with slick pop beats and lyrics that cut like knives. The up and coming singer's breakup album gives an almost voyeuristic look into his personal life. Web: http://www.ryanlillmusic.com Follow: @ryanlillmusic As of 2020, Ryan has opened for artist like Todrick Hall at Gay Pride, and has spoken openly about his experience and loyalty-ties to the LGBTQIA+ community. He has released a veritable plethora of hit singles, including "Give a Damn," "Drive Me Wild," and “Pretty Face.” Pretty face was the first music video to hit mainstream media for Lill, and showed off his piano and vocal range. His latest catchy-pop bop “Adore Me” came just in time for Summer! An 80's workout throwback video with Lill in full drag! “Adore Me” is Ryan's first song to hit syndicated Radio! His music has taken off on Spotify, and so has his social media following, earning Lill a devout Grass-Roots Following. In the last few years, Lill has also made a name for himself in Music Comedy, and has had more than four videos go viral and hit Huffington Post, attracting more followers and gaining a new audience of listeners! Lill's Southern charm and tongue-in-cheek sense of humor, alongside his relatability have earned him a loyal fanbase. His songwriting and musical stylings cut to the core in every song he pushes out. Ryan's newest single “Ocean” releases June 1st! About the show: ► Website: http://www.ashsaidit.com ► Need Goli Gummies? https://go.goli.com/1loveash5 ► For $5 in ride credit, download the Lyft app using my referral link: https://www.lyft.com/ici/ASH584216 ►For discount Pangea Products: https://embracepangaea.grsm.io/ashsaiditmedia3226 ► Want the ‘coldest' water? https://thecoldestwater.com/?ref=ashleybrown12 ► Become A Podcast Legend: http://ashsaidit.podcastersmastery.zaxaa.com/s/6543767021305 ► Review Us: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ash-said-it/id1144197789 ► SUBSCRIBE HERE: http://www.youtube.com/c/AshSaidItSuwanee ► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1loveash ► Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/1loveAsh ► Blog: http://www.ashsaidit.com/blog ► Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/1LoveAsh/ ► Newsletter: manage1.com/subscribe?u=2a2ca3b799467f125b53863http://ashsaidit.us11.list-c8&id=a6f43cd472 #atlanta #ashsaidit #ashsaidthat #ashblogsit #ashsaidit® Ash Brown is a gifted American producer, blogger, speaker, media personality and event emcee. The blog on AshSaidit.com showcases exclusive event invites, product reviews and so much more. Her motivational podcast "Ash Said It Daily" is available on major media platforms such as iTunes, iHeart Radio & Google Play. This program has over half a million streams worldwide. She uses these mediums to motivate & encourage her audience in the most powerful way. She keeps it real!
A true born-and-bred Southerner, Charleston, SC native Ryan Lill is an artist worth watching out for. Lill got his start in the acoustic realm before crossing over into mainstream pop. His 2014 singles, including “Kerosene”, put him on the map in the music world and landed him an MTV Artist spot. Since then, Lill's star has only continued to rise. In addition to being featured on MTV Artists, Lill has performed alongside chart-topping artists like Meghan Trainor. The duo appeared together on camera to give a ukulele twist to the blonde bombshell's hit “Lips Are Moving." In April 2017, Lill released his first full-length studio album, “Burn This Bridge," with slick pop beats and lyrics that cut like knives. The up and coming singer's breakup album gives an almost voyeuristic look into his personal life. Web: http://www.ryanlillmusic.com Follow: @ryanlillmusic As of 2020, Ryan has opened for artist like Todrick Hall at Gay Pride, and has spoken openly about his experience and loyalty-ties to the LGBTQIA+ community. He has released a veritable plethora of hit singles, including "Give a Damn," "Drive Me Wild," and “Pretty Face.” Pretty face was the first music video to hit mainstream media for Lill, and showed off his piano and vocal range. His latest catchy-pop bop “Adore Me” came just in time for Summer! An 80's workout throwback video with Lill in full drag! “Adore Me” is Ryan's first song to hit syndicated Radio! His music has taken off on Spotify, and so has his social media following, earning Lill a devout Grass-Roots Following. In the last few years, Lill has also made a name for himself in Music Comedy, and has had more than four videos go viral and hit Huffington Post, attracting more followers and gaining a new audience of listeners! Lill's Southern charm and tongue-in-cheek sense of humor, alongside his relatability have earned him a loyal fanbase. His songwriting and musical stylings cut to the core in every song he pushes out. Ryan's newest single “Ocean” releases June 1st! About the show: ► Website: http://www.ashsaidit.com ► Need Goli Gummies? https://go.goli.com/1loveash5 ► For $5 in ride credit, download the Lyft app using my referral link: https://www.lyft.com/ici/ASH584216 ►For discount Pangea Products: https://embracepangaea.grsm.io/ashsaiditmedia3226 ► Want the ‘coldest' water? https://thecoldestwater.com/?ref=ashleybrown12 ► Become A Podcast Legend: http://ashsaidit.podcastersmastery.zaxaa.com/s/6543767021305 ► Review Us: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ash-said-it/id1144197789 ► SUBSCRIBE HERE: http://www.youtube.com/c/AshSaidItSuwanee ► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1loveash ► Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/1loveAsh ► Blog: http://www.ashsaidit.com/blog ► Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/1LoveAsh/ ► Newsletter: manage1.com/subscribe?u=2a2ca3b799467f125b53863http://ashsaidit.us11.list-c8&id=a6f43cd472 #atlanta #ashsaidit #ashsaidthat #ashblogsit #ashsaidit® Ash Brown is a gifted American producer, blogger, speaker, media personality and event emcee. The blog on AshSaidit.com showcases exclusive event invites, product reviews and so much more. Her motivational podcast "Ash Said It Daily" is available on major media platforms such as iTunes, iHeart Radio & Google Play. This program has over half a million streams worldwide. She uses these mediums to motivate & encourage her audience in the most powerful way. She keeps it real!
Kayti and Laura have a blast talking to Charleston singer-songwriter Ryan Lill about music, fashion, and why La Croix is just water that thought about strawberries.Ryan's new song "ADORE ME" is out on April 9th!
This week on the show, we talked about ADORE ME .COM and how they take back underwear! Also If you came with a warning label, what would yours say!! Housecleaning stuff; You are what you eat the most of; the real meaning behind 3 LITTLE PIGS; Science myths; and much more!! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We're concerned that whatever we find annoying or pointless or to have dodgy practices becomes the next massive thing - so with that said, look forward to a year full of TikTok and Clubhouse! We're also on the waiting list to have chips inserted into our heads, which will hopefully have no ill effects whatsoever, and thinking about what records we can set for Ben's new favourite website. Oh, and Weezer's new album is ace! If you enjoy this episode, leave a comment, share it with someone who you think shares your excellent taste and if you leave us a review, we'll love you forever! Thanks as always to Tony Thaxton for our theme! Fling messages at us online: Ben @benjionelung - Tom @bytereview Be sure to check out Tom's really rather good tech review channel: https://bit.ly/2K232SP Pick up something nice for yourself at www.kirokuclothing.co.uk Listen to some pretty good music at www.benjionelung.com Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2W4AIoA Apple Podcasts: https://goo.gl/Y3JPBX Google Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3c9jSuj Subscribe on Youtube: https://bit.ly/2L4FSuE Direct Download: http://itsbup.libsyn.com IN THIS EPISODE: 01:30 Have we been ok? I mean REALLY? 06:40 The Mandalorian has been out for ages, but let's talk a bit about it anyway! 11:10 Oh man, TikTok make some weird choices about discrimination 20:20 Monkeys and chips 23:40 Please don't let Clubhouse be the next big thing 29:30 Record Setter, Ben's new favourite website 35:00 Weezer's OK Human - good for your soul 45:00 Google Stadia is... on the way out? 58:40 The long-awaited Doom Eternal segment Some things we talk about in this episode: The Mandalorian behind the scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZbgAwcrDrY Lingerie company Adore Me calls out TikTok for removing videos of Black, plus-size models: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/02/05/tiktok-slammed-removing-videos-adore-me-black-plus-size-models/4402625001/ Elon Musk's Team Wired a Monkey to Play Video Games With Its Mind: https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a35279881/neuralink-monkey-video-games/ Record Setter: https://recordsetter.com/ Weezer - All My Favorite Songs (Official Video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGPdXYG1msg Google to shut down internal Stadia game development studios: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-stadia-idUSKBN2A13QB Stadia on iPad is AMAZING | But... (Byte Review): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GilCvNI1JGM DOOM Eternal – Official Launch Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UuktemkCFI
On this episode of The Rebound, Ranjan Roy, Adore Me's vice president of strategy, joins hosts Abe Eshkenazi and Bob Trebilcock to discuss what it took to get a subscription service up and running, how the company engages with its customers to minimize returns and the impact on its supply chain.
Listen in as Ranjan Roy, vice president of strategy for Adore Me, discusses what it takes to roll out a subscription-based supply chain.
Drink up as my longtime friends Beth, Mike, and I, discuss sex and all the things that go with it! We will each break down the top 5 things that best get us in the mood for some love making, and discuss the need to normalize these conversations in relationships. DISCLAIMER! ADULT CONTENT. FOR MATURE (ISH) AUDIENCES! Fantasy Box: https://www.thefantasybox.com/ Adore Me: https://www.adoreme.com/ Amanda's Nooky Playlist: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/bed-beats/pl.u-xlyNE33FkxoNP0 LAM info: http://www.thelamfoundation.org/ You can find The Sip List on social media! https://www.facebook.com/thesiplistpod https://www.instagram.com/thesiplistpod/ https://twitter.com/list_sip https://whineandsparkle.com/category/the-sip-list/ music cred: Make love not war - Patino https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_dmlF5VHqk --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/amanda-kohlhofer/support
With a pandemic driving its six brick-and-mortar stores to little use, lingerie company Adore Me has relied on a try-at-home model. "We basically send you a bunch of items, you decide what you keep, and you only pay for what you keep," Adore Me vp of growth Camille Kress said on the Modern Retail Podcast. At the height of the pandemic, half of the brand's new customers were shopping this way. "The key metric for this model is the 'keep rate.' You definitely want people to keep as much as possible, otherwise you're basically paying for shipping back and forth, which is really not the best use of your time or your money," Kress said. The company also seizes the mail-in relationship as a chance to send prospective customers products from other categories like swimwear and sleepwear ("anything that you could basically find right now in our assortment, which is not only intimates," Kress said). This direct connection the company has long fostered with customers has helped Adore Me launch brands beyond lingerie, like Joyja, a line of period-proof underwear. "We want to accompany women through all the different stages of their life," Kress said. "So we know that we're going to need something for their first period, then for their pregnancy, for menopause, and anything that comes in between." Looking at all of these stages, the company tries to find the next untapped market on which it can capitalize. "We're thinking that there's an appetite somewhere," Kress said.
EP244 - Upfront Ventures Greg Bettinelli Greg Bettinelli (@gregbettinelli) is a partner at Upfront Ventures. Greg was previously the CMO for LA-based HauteLook, a leading online flash-sale retailer (acquired by Nordstrom). Upfronts portfolio includes ThredUp, Parachute Home, Adore Me, Skylar, Verishop Goat, Happy Returns, Invia Robotics, ChowNow, Verishop and in transportation Fair, Bird, and SureSale. We discuss DNVBs, Marketplaces, Shipageddon, and much more. Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 244 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded live on Thursday, October 28th 2020. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Transcript Jason: [0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode 244 being recorded on Wednesday October 28th 2020 I’m your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I’m here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:40] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott showed listeners we are recording this days before Halloween, and also the release of the next season 2 of the Mandalorian so unfortunately on the podcast you can’t see it but Jason is wearing full Mandalorian gear for this episode so that’s exciting. And since since it’s coming up on Halloween and we’re heading into the busy holiday season. And before we get into that chaos we thought it would be good to go up to 30,000 feet for a little bit and look around and have someone here on the show help us think about some of the bigger trends, around digital and e-commerce from the West Coast so we’re really excited to have on the show Greg bettinelli he is partner at upfront Ventures, upfront portfolio includes this is just a small sampling, some Brands I think you’ll recognize such as thredup parachute home Adore Me Skylar Vera shop goat happy returns in Via robotics Channel Vera shop, I said that one twice so that that. Jason: [1:45] You can tell which is Scott’s favorite. Scot: [1:47] Yeah yeah shout out to Imran and then and then little gratuitous plug for some of the transportation Investments Fair bird and sure sale Greg welcome to the show. Greg: [1:59] Hey guys great to be here appreciate the invite I sure hope the first 243 guests were average and I will come over the top and we’ll have a great discussion. Jason: [2:08] Yeah we feel like those 243 rehearsals are going to pay off tonight. Greg: [2:12] Exactly I’ve been practicing that listen to it a lot. Jason: [2:15] Yeah well you know Greg one of the things we learned from those shows is the guest always like to be grounded a little bit in the background of our guests so can you introduce yourself and maybe talk to us about how you came into your current role. Greg: [2:28] Yeah absolutely and Scott and I go way back from early days at eBay or was called mid-years at eBay but it’s really where I got my start in and around e-commerce and marketplaces I join. EBay in early 2003 which is really the second wave of eBay when auctions were at its peak. [2:51] And anyway I had some pretty exciting roles and it’s what I think is some interesting things and so back then we had a very robust category management team and the North America business. And I was lucky enough to really the one of the first people at eBay to recognize. A lot of interest in categories like ticketing I also ran the entertainment business eBay which back then we sold DVDs and textbooks and video games on top of entertainment memorabilia and things like that, it also played a big role in what we did with sports whether it was on the collectible side on the, the jersey and apparel side and so got to really work with some interesting businesses there but I was I was at eBay for 5 years and all everyone really knows me for is the guy who said we should buy StubHub. And we bought StubHub for I think about 285 million dollars in 2007. And as you both know eBay just sold that business for four billion dollars about a month before the pandemic which turned out to be the greatest transaction of all time, because now I love that brand I’m not sure it’s a great time to be in the ticketing business but from there from eBay I spent some time in StubHub. [4:06] And eventually moved down to Los Angeles I have been in the Bay area for a while and went to work for a company called Live Nation for period of time, whereas on the executive team recruiter at eBay to kind of help build a competitor to Ticket Master of all things. And if you go back into 2008 2009 the economy first in 2009 was not great and Ticketmaster and Live Nation ended up merging, which was not a place I wanted to be having spent most of my career at eBay competing against Ticketmaster and and candidly receiving a lot of cease and desist letters from Ticketmaster, for the work we were doing it either in StubHub it was not something for me so I ended up leaving and, I went to a that point a very young company in Los Angeles called HauteLook, which was a fashion e-commerce business more of an island online sample sale business at that time there was a couple companies similar to us Gil group Andrew Lala in particular and eventually Zulily which ended up being the best of the bunch. But I was a chief marketing officer at HauteLook and was there for two years. I’m actually before we sold the business to Nordstrom for about 300 million dollars. [5:18] I like to call it a you know it’s a solid RBI double it was a great outcome in a short period of time and very good for me personally and professionally, but also helped me you know I had a couple of years left of my best staying post that acquisition so I was able to spend a lot of time working with the Nordstrom team. Thinking about what they were doing around e-commerce what they were doing on mobile in particular and what to do with kind of the full price and off-price brand so I was I was there through 2013 and then eventually left in 2013 and, made my way into Venture Capital because everybody wants to be a venture capitalist because it’s super easy and so I hopped on board in 2013 if you go back, there wasn’t a lot going on in Los Angeles at that time and K a little bit before and. I knew there was you know huge opportunities having spent time in Silicon Valley, but also making home Los Angeles it’s where the most creative people in the world live. [6:17] We’re very powerful on things like Commerce and communication and content and Community you know companies now we think about like Snapchat which is now 40 billion dollar company, companies like good RX which is a 20 billion dollar company companies like Riot games which is a leader that the maker of League of lemon Legion League of Legends, a lot of super interesting things you know Tinder was invented in Los Angeles and I’ve always been Bullis almost Angeles and coin the phrase long Allah which is just a, assign that you know there’s a lot of exciting things happening in Los Angeles and I really bet my career that I could be a part of that ecosystem helping to fund new companies so I joined, from Ventures and for the past seven or so years I’ve been a series a investor and early-stage technology companies, I work in businesses from direct to Consumer businesses to marketplaces in managed marketplaces businesses marketing Services business is I do work around what I call Commerce Innovation so, identifying companies at the very earliest stage where they’re working to solve friction points that exist in Commerce. And it’s really I do other things as well like consumer fintech and the like but I edited my core I’m a Commerce guy. [7:36] And I’ve been doing that for a long time and enjoy it I have trade on certain instincts throughout consumer Behavior I recognized I think I can see around some corners and things that a lot of people in the marketplace can’t see, and I think I’ve done pretty well I don’t we as a firm we do broader investing upfront Ventures will probably look at us as the, the first or second check into a very early stage business that we do across a wide discipline of investment opportunities from software businesses to, Healthcare technology to food Tech and AG Tech in digital media but I do really over index on the Commerce. In consumer size of the investment opportunity. Jason: [8:16] And it’s fair to say that Commerce is the coolest part of the portfolio anyway right. Greg: [8:22] Yeah as far as you know I communicate to my partners for sure it’s definitely the thing that is easiest for coffee talk I’ve I’ve been very lucky, I always seem to work for companies that people know and have experienced before and you know it’s something I really like I can’t even remember the earliest days of eBay, where you would hear you know I could go to my Aunt Marilyn’s house for Thanksgiving and, I tell them I work at eBay and everyone there knows what eBay was in this is in the early 2000s and there aren’t a lot of jobs like that so I’ve always liked kind of being around and something about working more consumer and commerce plays, people have more understanding of what you do versus if you’re selling some enterprise software solution or something like that with you can’t explain to your Uncle George what it actually is. Jason: [9:08] I think my wife happened to ask who the guest was tonight and I was pointing out all the products around our household that you guys were in right so you. Greg: [9:18] Great anyone in any favorite any fan favorites or. Jason: [9:21] She’s actually a big fan of these ritual vitamins I feel like might be her her go-to you may have exited from that already I can’t remember oh oh. Greg: [9:29] No we haven’t but it’s part of. Jason: [9:32] Yeah you have you just don’t know it yet I’m just. Greg: [9:34] Yes yeah not that I am busy I know but that we were the first check into that business. And I had worked for a long time and just identifying these d2c direct consumer opportunities, which there was candidly no brand leadership with reoccurring purchasing characters. I like the same smart but it’s not that sophisticated but in categories like vitamins if I were to ask you to name the leading vitamin manufacturer you wouldn’t be able to do so because no consumer actually can, and at the same time there is replenishment and as you know with. Replenishment I especially things that you can put in a small box like those are very attractive e-commerce business High margins reoccurring and no Grand leadership. And so I’ve actually had a few of those and we as affirmative a few of those and it’s a simple strategy but I think it’s turned out to be pretty well. [10:27] I also have always think the thought about attacking categories where there’s only one brand leader and so you talked about Adore Me, you know they’re at the time that a dorm we started it was kind of Victoria’s Secret and that was it a door me does sells Intimates in in soft goods for women, and it tends to be when you’re competing against those single Brands who are leaders think of luxottica and worry Parker, you know they’re as vulnerable as most companies because they don’t think anyone’s coming up their heels and then a couple years later they wake up and you have a pretty big business in your hand so, you know like I said I don’t like to overthink things but there are some pretty compelling opportunities that I think. Jason: [11:06] Yeah yeah I think we also we do have some Adore Me products and parachute product there’s some bird scooters parked in front of my condo and I actually wanted to talk to you about that later but. I’m just I’m teasing yeah so that’s awesome and because you challenge me the largest vitamin manufacturer in the u.s. is aligner Healthcare products and they make private label vitamins for Walmart and Walgreens. Um yeah I’m the the one guy you probably don’t want to. But that that is all awesome and then I happened and I mean timing is everything but you’ve worked for a bunch of companies that were great while you were there but we’re not covid-19 very friendly to I feel like, the whole ticket and sporting goods and then it’s also not that fun to be selling apparel through a department store right about now. Greg: [11:56] No and it’s weird unless you’re in the off-price side which. Lisa has a now those stocks have you know if you look at TJX and Ross and Burlington. Their stocks are really only off 20 maybe 20% from the peak pre covid Peaks which is amazing. Considering they have zero e-commerce and I’m guessing they’re selling it 50 this 30 to 50 percent capacity freak event but I think there’s a big bet that the consumers are going to gravitate towards off price, long-term and most likely most of the department stores that we grew up with are going to be at a business with the. Jason: [12:33] Yeah yeah and there’s going to be a lot more inventory for those off price guys the you did mentioned how fabulous the StubHub timing was the opposite end of that might have been Burlington which decided to turn off its e-commerce site a month before covid-19. Greg: [12:47] Yeah do you really think they would have been able to handle the demand had they been live. Jason: [12:53] Hi Joe I mean it’s it just sounds funny and I do think it’s a mistake I think there’s a way to do digital for for off price and I think. Did digital is an important shopping amenity for off price so I think there’s I hated to see them pull back but economically I doubt it hurt him I don’t think they would have liked. Driven a lot of Revenue dollars and then in their space the unit economics of e-commerce are would be tricky. Greg: [13:23] Yeah well if you talk to the leadership teams that Ross Burlington obviously in TJX TJ Maxx Advanced TJ Maxx and Marshalls they don’t think e-commerce moves the needle for the, and they’ve already emphasized I think TJ Maxx is made Acquisitions they’ve hired good people who aren’t there anymore and their view is the return on capital is just better off. Putting money into stores and continue to perfect the buying experience but I did have my one of my good covid experiences was I was I think I was pretty early and I went on like we all won the hand sanitizer see I’m Journeys. And I pounded Dollar Tree online when they still had an online store and they had like a case of those two ounce bottles of hand sanitizer. And three weeks later I received my hand sanitizer actually 15 business days which as you know sounds like two weeks but it’s really three and that’s a marketing trick and yeah so that was my first and only time I’ve ever bought from a dollar store was in search of the hand sanitizer because I can find it anywhere else. Scot: [14:30] Yeah Amazon Prime has a spoiled whenever something takes more than 4 days you’re like you assume it’s just been lost forever. Greg: [14:36] Right exactly. Scot: [14:38] Dia so on The Upfront side you said you guys are one of the first checks in is that kind of give us like the little kind of the VC spilled are you is that like seed series a and in La vernacular and then like what’s kind of the average check size and where you guys how assets under management that kind of thing. Greg: [14:57] Yeah so look at us as I would say late seed to series a so our typical average first check is about 4 million dollars. And we are active lead investors so were most likely leading around, I’m taking a board seat really helping to formulate a company and be a truly added value investor. We will make out of a fund which right now we’re investing at about 400 million dollar fund it’s our sixth fund upfront 6, but will make 30 to 35 what we call platform Investments so those are lead Investments and unlike a lot of from we reserved a significant amount of capital for follow-on investment so use that for million-dollar example, if you do 4 times 30 that’s a hundred and twenty we have a 400 million-dollar fun so we’re clear reserving upwards of two thirds of our capital for follow-on and that’s both because look a lot of great companies take a long time to build. And in addition in our world who wanted to play Capital against our best companies over a long period of time so we like those we say back up the truck against companies that, do you need new capital for growth but we want to invest in those because they’re moving there’s an optimal time to wait for optimal opportunity for returns. So we really play in that space of you know it’s really maybe you know the late seed series a stage. Scot: [16:17] This is a little bit outside of our wheelhouse but I was kind of curious what you think so this may be a Silicon Valley thing so it was a big Trend in Silicon Valley to not go public for as long as possible going Publix evil and terrible and whatnot so so you had like uber and Airbnb these companies wait till they got to this really really big scale but then it seems like the pendulum has swung swinging really hard the other way where now we have this hole kind of spak craziness where a lot of the Silicon Valley guys are going out and getting these these vehicles that can take a company public through this kind of different way what’s your feeling about that that turn. Greg: [16:55] Yeah for sure especially like I think this pack is relevant to businesses by which there’s this perception that there’s this Robin Hood type of investor, so any company that a Robin Hood Trader would have heard of should be public right so DraftKings really started it, you know it’s Robin the technically hasn’t gone public yet but this so you’re seeing, a lot of conversation about more consumer type of transactional businesses I think the reason why this happening is nobody went public for a long time and so there was really just a dearth of opportunities to invest in fast-growing companies especially on the consumer side now the SAS businesses have been doing extremely well for a long period of time, and the public markets and those there are SPAC opportunities there but those have been, you know a lot of great performance right companies that have gone public over the past five years and candidly a tremendous amount of shareholder value created after their public just look at Shopify as like the great example right, is I think that went public at. $12 a share or something like that maybe we traded like 30 and now it’s over a thousand and that was only five years ago roughly so how many hundred you know a hundred plus billion dollars in value created as a public company. And so yeah so there are so that’s example yeah and I think look the reality is. The public markets are strong right now I think there was about a six-week period between March 12 in May first. [18:23] Where people were nervous I was nervous everybody was nervous a lot of our companies made very hard choices. [18:30] Around organizations around marketing spend and I think there was a sigh of relief I think it was prompted by the a lot of. The checks went out that money wasn’t all spent on rent it was spent and compelled a lot especially in the consumer side. I think it also enabled a recognition that software is eating the world as Marc Andreessen would say. And just the gravitation to anything that was you know. [18:58] Is code based or Commerce based that doesn’t doesn’t touch bricks and mortar or doesn’t touch Legacy businesses and I think the markets of just NASDAQ in particular just responded in the way and I think the public markets are now feeding that, I’m frenzy personally I hope it lasts forever it probably won’t, but I think you’re seeing that play out and even the companies that you know I think of like the Casper IPO as a use it example I think they even they are trading, where they were about to say it wasn’t an overwhelming successful IPO but you know they’re about where they were pre Koga. And so but there’s been a lot of you know I track all have although my on my iPhone all those companies from revolve to. Real real and posture Mart or not Poshmark Stitch fix and others and they’ve all you know. Bounce back 3 to 4X since even their lows which was usually no pain about April 1st or so but it’s been it’s been crazy for lack of a better term for sure. Scot: [20:01] Yeah I think that’s a good backdrop so you know I think it’s really interesting because as a VC what a lot of people probably don’t realize you know I think most people kind of think of shark tank is kind of their their their perspective and maybe you know, The Social Network kind of as how these work, but you guys have to your kind of betting on a 10-year forward basis right and that seems like it’s going to be tricky so I thought we’d hit on some of the themes where you have some clustering in your portfolio, one of the ones that you and I share is our love of marketplaces obviously you were at eBay and get to see the birth of one of the bigger Market places, um and then in your portfolio one of the ones that we wanted to talk about was goat, I am not a sneakerhead but but you know I love I love that category I think it’s really wild to watch what’s going on there so I wanted to get on that and then my favorite one that you have is some of my best investments have been Collectibles so, so I’m a comic book guy and Star Wars guy and you know if I compare those to even things like the Google IPO, the Collectibles Market has been just white-hot and its really accelerated during covid, I love rally because it allows me to look at it as an investment class thing and invest in Collectibles I normally wouldn’t and even some that would be you know Out Of Reach like. The first appearance of Spider-Man or something like that maybe maybe give listeners a rundown of rally with was that your investment apart. Greg: [21:30] Yep yep all those are mine let me try and put them all together because I think there’s you made a couple of points in you first talked about kind of time Horizons. [21:40] And like you know Venture Capital it takes a long time to build a great company. The reality is you know sometimes you get Super Lucky Nick everything goes up into the right but the reality is building businesses is extremely challenging and one thing I’ve learned in as an investor, it’s just the amount of work in, pride in everything that goes into these teams were both of these companies and for example I’m goat I think I wasn’t even at upfront Ventures when they team invested, in what the company that became goes I think we made our first investment in May of 2012 so we are now eight, and a half years into that investment can get some perspective and goat is about a four year four and a half year old business now, so they spent three and a half years Treading Water trying to find something that works, it was originally an app that was trying to connect people with like interests in physical setting so if you and I all like comic books. We would go and set up a dinner and we talked comic books and we didn’t know each other but we would build a community online Offline that we initiated online. And the reality is you know people don’t like to meet people they don’t know so it was a tough business. Scot: [23:02] Especially comic book collectors. Greg: [23:03] Right exactly yeah a little bit of an introverted crowd and so when I got to when I got to the front. That was kind of one of my first projects was hey we have this very talented team they just haven’t found product Market fit. And the story of and it’s been written about it it’s been but Eddie and Dyson who are the founders daishon was a sneakerhead. And when they were brainstorming ideas about what to do with the million dollars they have left in the bank. And I asked them how come there’s not StubHub for sneakers. [23:35] Because I as a consumer investor I spend time you know maybe not a covid world but Saturday mornings I have to go shopping and when there’s all these kids lined up outside a store on a Saturday morning. I want to know what’s going on inside there because that’s not normal whenever you see a cue that’s a signal of either something is very good or something is very bad but in the Venture world that means something is happening they need to pay attention to, and so from there was born goat which I didn’t even know what good stood for and when they said that’s what we’re naming the company, and they took some of their money which wasn’t a lot they bought a bunch of sneakers on eBay and Flight Club and put it in seed in the marketplace and I remember the first month of goat they might have done. You know thirty thousand dollars was the GM V and I you know I can’t say specifically but we’re doing north of a hundred million dollars a month in GMB now, and that wasn’t that long ago and we’re selling sneakers or they’re selling sneakers right and I think what’s interesting about that category is they had identified. [24:39] Two things one and this is an investment they might have is you look for areas where they’re very active communities, passion LED communities where people spend a lot of time and a lot of money but you catch them right before they go mainstream. And if you can catch especially the marketplace a a niche business like sneakers secondary Seekers but there’s a catalyst to it going mainstream and you become the market and for sneakers canele was, the release of the easy the Kanye West easy from Adidas. [25:10] Really Propel the secondary Market because they had an artificial shortage they purposely didn’t release a lot of sneakers and a lot of people wanted them and go was kind of the only place to go get it at the time other than eBay and as we’ve talked about our as I’ve talked about before, and while love eBay and I know a lot my career is owed to eBay I’ll compete against than any day. And that was just an example where this community was already existence and they were just looking for a well-lit playing field. Which is an expression we used to use it eBay all the time and they were looking for that and it provided and it turned out that the key to that category was, the perception of Fraud and that that type of customer or that kind of a buyer and seller didn’t trust each other, and so goat came in and said we’re going to guarantee authenticity in fact you send them to us we’ll make sure they’re real and we’ll send them, so this idea of a managed Marketplace and that was what responded but you know it kind of ties to Rally which is think of it as a stock market for Collectibles where, you can actually trade individual shares of an asset but both of those businesses rely on scarcity, scarcity is a very powerful thing consumers retirement respond as care consumers respond to scarcity businesses responded scarcity and if you have a space scarce asset, whether it’s Talent or a tangible good. [26:34] Markets go crazy and I think a lot of the great Marketplace businesses trade on scarcity and the commonality between tickets, between sneakers between streetwear and now Collectibles as you point is white hot, is there all scarce items again I’d not that smart but it’s obvious to me that when you have something that only there aren’t a lot of them and everybody wants them it’s a pretty good thing to trade, and so they The Coincidence around what’s happening with collectibles, is it was already happening pre covid but especially on the sports side there’s just a Nostalgia that developed in March, where I’m sure you all odds un’s with people in high school they hadn’t talked before and you’re spending a lot more time with text groups with your sister and your brother and your mom and your dad I think we just came back to recognize that simple things matter and when it comes to collectibles whether it’s comic books or baseball cards or. You know video games that we just felt it was our comfort zone it was our safe space and it felt good to be able to talk and trade about things that made us comfortable. And that was a key part of what happened. With Collectibles But the irony or okay it’s coincidence is I originally thought sneakers were the baseball card of gen Z. [27:52] And it turns out that baseball cards are relevant to gen Z and it’s actually basketball cards they’re not really into baseball cards but they’re definitely in the basketball cards and that has now created you know caught fire and it’s you know I think. [28:05] My guess is you know. [28:07] The collectible assets are training at two to three times what they were a year ago it’s now it’s now being determined as a you know an asset class and it suddenly becomes an asset class with rallies perspective. Is you know you can be the market maker for things that historically were illiquid and again back to the marketplace theme if you can make it liquid markets liquid, you can dramatically grow the addressable markets and if you can draw the addressable markets and you can get a piece of that growth from those markets and think of great Marketplace businesses, like eBay like uber like Airbnb every investor who passed on it will say the Tans were too small the total addressable markets were too small, eBay was how big is the pawnshop market right Airbnb is how big is the hotel Market boober was how big was the taxi murder. The reality is they all created substantially greater addressable markets because the marketplace enabled it StubHub was the same way you know how big is that market and you don’t ask those questions anymore because the secondary Market, has really become such a powerful thing in those markets and I think that’s what’s happened with sneakers and other categories. Scot: [29:15] If listeners get one thing from this hole 244 episodes that we’ve done go to your closets find your Pokemon cards and then if you have any of the NBA cards I think the isn’t it LeBron rookie cards are going for like 8 million, there’s a specific one yeah yeah. Greg: [29:33] Now specifically if you have your 1999 Pokemon cards and specifically there is one card I think it’s the Charizard is a how you say I don’t know my Pokemon it’s the nine oh it’s number four. But that card is I think just traded for a hundred and twenty thousand dollars yes but it is and don’t don’t touch the card though. The biggest thing you you is. Really learned I learned today that a majority of cards that are wrapped in packs have already not. Rated to a 9 or 10 scale like they came up they come off the printing press as not. And that’s you know just because there’s a lot of those a lot of interest in Cardin authenticators and Grading right now but it’s just crazy what’s happened with some of the end wasn’t didn’t Jake Paul or someone just by he bought that car done talking about. Crazy. Scot: [30:32] Yeah and LeBron said oh I’ve got like 10 of these. Greg: [30:36] There’s a lot of talk about athletes who are now you know as part of their deals there they’re going to the card manufacturers and asking. Well I want some of these two historically they would just sign things but now they only know part of their negotiation with those card companies is they want to be able to put those directly in their safes as well because why should someone else profit from, from their likeness if they’re not going to so it’s super compelling. Jason: [31:03] I feel like you you helped answer a question Scott’s wife had sent me a question asking if rally was just a scam to enable Scott to buy more Star Wars memorabilia but apparently it’s legit. Greg: [31:15] Yeah and hopefully it’s up I’m guessing depending on we’ve done we’ve done I don’t have I don’t think we’ve done Star Wars we’ve done like Hulk we’ve done a lot of comic books. And we did Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles we did yeah. Scot: [31:33] I do it to diversify like I would never own an exotic but I can get like a slice of some of that and the first one I played around and I made like 40% is like and it happened very quickly someone came in with a very high offer and I guess they liquidated. Greg: [31:47] Yeah I know it’s great I’m I’m was I grew up in San Francisco or in the in a place called Petaluma which is north of San Francisco and I was safe to go Giants fan and one of the first, rally started off doing cars it was called Rally Road and so collectible cars was really the first couple years of the business then we moved it more into broader Collectibles but there was a Willie Mays Jersey, with this kind of tobacco stain on the front of it and it was a great it’s just a great looking Jersey it’s this kind of giants gray with the orange, San Francisco ran across and that was you know you know as I never really got to see maze play I’m too young for that but I would hear my dad and my grandpa talked about Willie Mays and so back to the the emotion parts of the Collectibles categories that was you know I own you know $80 worth of that Jersey, but I tell you know it’s not the first time told the story and so you just get kind of the benefits of the way and it really enables a whole new, type of investor customers to participate in markets that historically they couldn’t and I think those can make for exciting businesses for sure. Jason: [32:47] Oh definitely one other small little fun fact about goat you mentioned that they authenticate all the the merchandise so there’s a role for authenticator and one of their primary tactics is, they smell the shoe. To identify the fake glues versus the authentic glue so I’m just I’m chuckling at these folks that got this good job and went home to tell their families that they’re now officially a sneaker sniffer. Greg: [33:18] Yes yes and look these are you know let’s just say the original authenticators where do you think they came from they know these were these are kids who were working at Foot Locker. Right over kids who were kind of trading Jordans and you know who knew that we could be no pay them no money we pay and look we weigh them, we checked the colors we smell them, you make sure there’s not two left’s two rights make sure there’s in a lot of different things and you can tell a lot about authentic identity of a shoe by how much it weighs and where there was manufactured and, and things like that because you know again like we talked about. Authenticity matters and if Marketplace as any hints of things not being authentic it won’t work and you know I think that was a big challenge that the eBay had in his and I think it’s a challenge to Canada and the Amazon has now. That it’s very hard for that business to play at the high end. Watches or handbags or pie in sneakers or golf clubs they don’t work very well on Amazon and I think the perception of a 3rd party seller could do. A buyer is real and even Amazon worth when they were trillion plus dollars now hasn’t figured that part out. Jason: [34:29] Yeah and I think we may get to that I do want to Pivot though to talk about another class of investment that I know you have some whole things in Andy Dunn’s digitally native vertical brands. And just to set the table my my sense is sort of pre it felt like the narrative was that hey you know considering how many of these there are out there that not a lot of them had had a particularly good exit or any exit at all and I had a lot of people in the media calling this a hay is is D&B be dead I talked with a lot of clients about how much more successful like Target was it launching Brands then DMV bees but, now that you know everyone’s back into the the Commerce base as a result of covid I’m curious what was it ever true the DMV be was not a good investment and what’s the perspective now. Greg: [35:28] Yeah like I think it’s hogwash right if you you can even argue like Dollar Shave Club which was the first one to exit I think did so at a billion dollars plus, right I think. You know there’s been a lot of worry Parker Hager haters over time but that business that business could be worth twenty billion dollars some day it may take a while but you had no I think companies like glossy a, hymns Roman even pre covid that they were they were trapped away although clue they may be on the wrong side of the trend just want to travel like these companies were. For on their way to doing some great things I think of like you know the all birds what’s Raffi’s was headed as a trend has been a myth momentum we talked about Casper. [36:13] So maybe but I’m always been I think it’s been important I think what maybe gotta whack was valuations. And this happened with a few companies like a stance or their others well these are very good brands but they were valued like software companies and they’re still at the end of the day there are consumer brands, and so when those businesses Trade It, 5 to 10 times revenue and they stop growing or the burning a lot of money then there’s kind of investor sentiment is like, I don’t think consumer sentiment ever goes that way because the consumer is not asking what your U-turn economics look like when they’re buying are engaging in your product your brand but investors were just kind of fluctuate in and out relative to the predictability. [36:57] And scale related to software enterprise software businesses so I think that’s kind of interesting I think what’s also happened is a lot of businesses that really weren’t Tech businesses were, you know like a lot of food businesses for example our drink beverage businesses which have done or jerky businesses like they’ve done great but those really aren’t traditional Venture businesses but then you had you know like Blue Bottle Coffee have a huge outcome than that the Nestle, which is a venture back business so I don’t think they ever came out of favor I think what kind of what was out of favor and should have been as this that these companies were burning too much capital, relative to their growth rates and eventually if you’re not increasing your margins, while growing at rapid rates you’re just going to not be worth as much as I think some Venture Capital thought they could be and then that creates friction and the relationship and the eventual outcome of the business for sure. [37:52] But you know I think that earlier is is I have a relatively simple view of direct to Consumer businesses is I just like things that have, margin from high gross margin perspective I’m not afraid of retailgeek, but I think you have to be to see first you have to have a team that has the DNA of going directly. You have to be able to understand the importance of brand and brand development you want to have something that’s got some the community associated with it, you looking for things that are you know candidly economically economical the ship if it’s digital he’s even better but if it is a product that it fits in a something the size of a shoebox like an even bigger than that gets a little tougher to be honest. And you want something that you know, either has natural reoccurring characteristic or such loyalty that people keep coming back to buy you talked about parachute home is example you know I started out really doing sheets and duvet covers, and now you can get you know all sorts of products for altars of soft good products for the home and kitchen right and what people just fallen in love with that brand, and they’ll buy anything from that brand that Services their home and so it you know you can’t release a hundred skus at once on day one but over time you build that loyalty and you extend your product reach into categories that you really your customers are, are pushing you to go to and I think a lot of companies have had some success with that for sure. Scot: [39:17] Very cool so we’ve covered marketplaces in DMV be another one that I’m tracking really closely and goat is kind of in here but we haven’t talked about thredup so so there are really good kind of poster child for this one is, it’s this kind of Consignment and then a big Trend in fashion was this fast fashion kind of concept where you would buy lots of lower price Goods. But then there’s been kind of backlash against that from the millennial the younger generation to the Zoomers or gen Z and millennials. Because they’re really acutely aware of what’s going on with environment and whatnot in fast-fashion generates a lot of fast fast landfill I guess I would say so thread UPS really interesting it’s kind of part of this you know upcycling and. Kind of. Instead of wearing these things three or four times and throwing away how do we get more people to use these products is thread up one of your Investments and maybe give us an overview of how they’re doing. Greg: [40:13] Yeah throw tips and threads think I invested in 2014 and they’ve done tremendously well great team and right as you know I grew up or grow up I spent a lot of time working in off price. Right and recognize that consumers gravitate to brands at value and. At the same time if you just open up your closet you know even if you trimmed it during covid there still 75% of stuff in your closet you’re never going to wear again. Men and women threat of really focuses on women and kids but you know there is value in everyone’s closet and. Really taken advantage of a lot of the stuff is good product now probably half the stuff that goes to thread up doesn’t end up in the marketplace because it’s just, like a car house everyone thinks their products worth more than it might actually be but the reality is there is a market for that and importantly for threatens business there is an unlimited amount of supply. [41:11] And so you know we are just begun to make a dent in the amount of inventory that consumers own and so threat it really takes you know I was built an incredibly robust. Infrastructure and multiple warehouses in multiple cities where we ingest Millions upon millions of items. Are able to recognize using technology. Which ones are worth something which ones not and try and create an economic model that that pays the seller without having to bend to do anything other than put some stuff in a polka dot bag. Growing again back to my eBay is the biggest problem was it was a pain in the ass to sell on eBay. I’m so you really only wanted to sell the stuff that you knew was going to sell for something of Great Value and it wasn’t worth your time for something that was 15 bucks. Or 10 bucks and thredup is kind of sibling will take it we may not pay you 15 what you’re going to get more than you would get if you wanted to just drop it off in the thrift shop and just will send you the bags put in there send it back to us and we’ll send you a check. [42:18] It’s you know it’s kind of modified from there but this idea of these managed marketplaces and the and both similar is we use technology and we built a lot of infrastructure do the hard work. And if we can do the hard work that make the value proposition very easy for Sellers and very valuable for buyers it can create a pretty powerful and really differentiated businesses scale. And what’s interesting about threat up is you know there have more product on hangers than any company in the world, so if you were to go to their distribution centers and like Harrisburg or Phoenix or Lanta they’re just running three four stories of Hangers On conveyor belt. And that’s how they’re picking ingesting and then picking inventory we have millions upon millions of products on hangers. And it would be almost impossible for anyone to build something at that scale in a short period. Including you know someday the T.J.Maxx is in Ross’s are going to have to sell online. And I have to think that they’re going to look at businesses like thredup assuming I wonder if we could put our new product in there. [43:20] News product world and think of all the money and time we could save and I don’t know when that happens I’ve been waiting six years it hasn’t happened yet but I do think like you know for that happen to like. I’ve done some everything I am not a big peer-to-peer Marketplace investor and again this is my eBay. Kind of learning is I tend to gravitate more towards the managed marketplaces because there you can just buy or take rates. The peer-to-peer marketplaces are much more competitive from a price perspective and can delete just not I don’t believe peer-to-peer works at eventually everything gravitates towards more of the power seller, and so I kind of skip its data and look for those businesses where we jump right into some more of that powers our or just provide a great value where the the traditional, the regular person just put the stuff in a bag and and business is taking. Scot: [44:13] Here’s convenience factor on one side of the marketplace and a value on the other. Greg: [44:15] Yeah exactly something it yes. Scot: [44:17] I think it’s a I think I saw thredup is actually entered into some story relationships where their inventory will be at like I think there’s a Macy’s one and there was a JC Penney one when JC Penney was. Greg: [44:28] Yeah and a lot of anaconda and a lot of Brands themselves who want to be talked about the social conscious or the eco-friendly nature, I think brands are conscious conscious of the fact that that does matter to Consumers so by working with red up and creating a trade in trade up formula, just creates another reason for a customer to be happy with a, and if it dries a little bit more loyalty and more than pays for itself and from threats perspective we get access to Great customers and in great inventory. Clearly certain brands will Lululemon sells better than Gap it’s just a matter of supply and demand. And so you know from various perspectives are not just great marketing and Business Development opportunities but we do get access to inventory that work is likely to sell faster and higher prices on them. Jason: [45:18] Yeah we actually had Anthony Marino on the show asked you’re like episode 170 I want to say and I was telling him if I chuckle because Allah some of my clients are those discount apparel retailers that are not very bullish on e-commerce and, one of the main reasons they say they’re not bullish as oh man our inventory is too thin and dynamic. To work on e-commerce and I you know I always like to point out to those CEOs have you seen thread up and real real I mean. They totally figured out how to do it, I am concerned about time that I want to cover a couple other topics as you know one we’ve talked a lot about on the show recently is this idea of ship again and that that everyone’s counting on e-commerce to make up for all the the diminished or traffic this holiday season but there really isn’t enough shipping capacity for e-commerce to save the day. Is that a concern for your portfolio companies do you have a hypothesis for how holidays going to play out and I guess follow-up question. Do you worry about that systemically Beyond this year like you worry about the fact that, that e-commerce is just going to get artificially limited by these these constraining factors in the last mile. Greg: [46:38] Am I allowed to swear on his podcast. Jason: [46:40] You are I just have to check the right box when I upload the podcast but wet. Greg: [46:43] Yeah no I think I think after the election. Kind of coming around let’s assume everyone pushes their because of this they’re going to push their Thanksgiving Day promotions forward. Earlier in the calendar to avoid you know so you think you’re going to see my instinct is once we get through election assuming everything’s regards to wins. Yeah things are kind of back to normal covid-19 mall so let’s say November 15th. Maybe right after Veterans Day it’s going to be you can see a lot of promo start them and it’s going to be a total shit show it’s going to show for probably six weeks and then it’s going to be reverse Logistics it show when everything comes back. And the reality is what concerns me is the fact that. [47:31] The shippers that UPS is and FedEx’s are going to these retailers or Commerce partner with quotas saying you can do as much as you did last year but if you expect your business to grow a hundred percent a year that’s not going to work. So I’m worried more about I think they’ll deliver the probably they’re under promising but they’re going to justify a substantial surcharge on things above your quote-unquote quota. And so I think it’s going to be very expensive I think, again if you’re well that’s or Venture perspective you build a justify why your shipping expense in Q4 of 2020 was more than you expected, I think that will be universally accepted I think you know if your more traditional public company under, anticipating that it’s going to be you know not great because you’re going to see more expense and I think we’re going to have a lot of unhappy customers I think hopefully the customer will, kind of you know a lot of impact the election were encouraged to send our ballots in early maybe we’ll shop earlier I think you know I would expect I don’t know if you seen my expect. [48:32] 30 25 to 30 percent growth year over year in Q4. And we’d been historically 12 to 15 in the last couple years I think that’s clearly going to double if not more, and I think the Fed Ex is and UPS is USPS know what’s coming and they’ve done all they can for the past 6 months to get ready but we’re still going to get caught short handed. I do think it catches up at the end because you just look at the stock price of FedEx and UPS its doubled like they’re going to figure out a way to add capacity they are smart people they’re both going to increase prices that are going to you know do all the things they do. But I think it’ll work itself out I don’t think there’s enough slack from the startups I guess Amazon conceivably could take them as like but there isn’t any, company that is has raised venture capital and suddenly going to make it dense and there’s they might put it in their pitch decks but the volumes of velocities that the big three plus Amazon carry it just dwarfs anything else that’s out there. So I think it’s going to be a problem then we’ve talked about like I’m super excited about returns I’ve been bullish on returns as a business since I worked at. Nordstrom. And back to company that solely focuses on trying to figure out how to lower costs and create better experiences around returns a company called happy returns and I can’t wait to talk about that business in. Like it’s going to be amazing. Jason: [49:53] No I think you’re a hundred percent agree for all the Today Show producers that are listening to this podcast you know we’ve been talking about ship again in but arguably the bigger story is going to be returned to get in because you know when you buy a pair of from a brick-and-mortar store you return it about ten percent of the time when you buy it online returns are over thirty percent so you know this quarter where we are artificially selling everything online if we follow past Trends there’s going to be an enormous amount of returns and reverse Logistics is way harder and has way more constrained capacity than, outgoing Logistics and so I you know. Greg: [50:35] Well look the with the bigger headache is two things one is in this is the big contrarian but I think people haven’t been spending money on soft goods meaning like clothes and apparel relative to other categories, so there’s going to be a lot of gifting around things like that that aren’t you know comfy pants so sweaters and more traditional clothes so those are returned to higher rates right Christmas gifts and holiday gifts tend to be higher asps, so hire a ESPYs is a correlation to returns and importantly the biggest friction with returns for consumers is how long it takes you to get your money back, under the credit card or the order the gift card in return and so if there is a if right now it takes 5 business days or seven business days to get your credit back. In a world of congestion you may not it may be a month or six weeks before you get your money back by the time all that stuff gets processed in warehouses better, people are working half shifts because of covid and so I think it’s going to be as much people yelling, not like where’s my money where’s my credit as much as it is just the time it takes to get the items back so I don’t think retailers are accomplished for even thinking about that yet but I guarantee you. Jason: [51:45] No I agree and I specially like there could be a lot of stress in the subprime portion of consumer credit come come January and so yeah that that’s a huge play one super funny premise I heard well maybe it’s true but in addition you know they’re all these arguments like hey winter people are going to need warm clothes even if they haven’t bought a lot of apparel the one funny one is almost no one that’s that’s sheltered in place has the same size they were at the beginning of the pandemic and so that could potentially Drive, more apparel sales and more more returns. Greg: [52:23] Now you either lost a bunch of weight or gained a bunch of weight right yeah. Scot: [52:27] The covid-19 is this yeah one quick one I wanted to hit on just because I like to talk about robots is you guys have invested in a robot automation system called in Via inv I a reminiscent of Kiva and then Amazon bought Kiva and then obviously kind of kept it to themselves the only other customer I think that had it was a pose and then they bought them to so that’s a pretty interesting one is Imagine demand for that kind of a thing is skyrocketing with with covid obviously having less people running around warehouses good too. Greg: [53:04] Yeah look I think there’s and there’s another was a Envy as number one competitor was a company called six river which was acquired by Shopify, a few about probably about a year ago now so look I think the reality is that was original I’m going to get my numbers wrong but I think there’s 15 million people who work in Commerce fulfillment warehouses in the US. And pre covid you know you couldn’t labor was exceptionally tight and they’re just you know, it wasn’t about robots replacing jobs is about driving more efficiency and efficacy in a warehouse and you know these businesses like India are as much software as they are Hardware there really warehouse management systems, that utilize Automation and robotic technology to really pick bins and bring the bins to the pickers who can because robots can’t really pick yet, but they can deliver the bins and they can return the bins to the the staging location in Oakland replenish the bins and so like I think it’s a super interesting business that’s really trying to use. The whole premise on that was candidly. [54:11] Retailers need to get closer to their customer and in the old days you would park a million square foot Warehouse in Iowa. For Kentucky because that way you could take advantage of the shipping rates across the zones 1 2 3 4, and you can get to California or New York in three days turns out the Amazon figure it out that the closer you are to the customer the more the happier they are. So now a Commerce provider has to have 10 100 square foot. Facilities instead of 1 million square foot facility turns out you can’t spend as much money on Automation in 10 locations as you can in one is you have to spread your budgets out to be 1/10, so you’re looking for more cost-effective automation Solutions and that’s really the thesis around, via is that we can provide a relatively low cost variable cost automation system to help with the smaller warehouses that are more likely, and to be used in certain local markets and clearly now post covid when you can have half as many people in a warehouse, robots are good partners they don’t complain they don’t yell they don’t breathe they don’t cough they don’t sneeze all you got to do is they don’t pee I gotta do is change their batteries, you know once every 12 hours. Jason: [55:24] Back in time and wipe out the human race however. Greg: [55:26] Yes yes, these ones don’t talk, but yeah so that’s a super like those are you know again a friction point the reality is you know even without code code would Converse online is going to grow 10 to 15% for at least the next 10 to 15 years, and I don’t think we’re ever going to have more than 20 million people working in warehouses and you got to the only way that we’re going to be able to deliver all that product to meet the expectations of the consumer is we’re going to have Automation and. It’s a little bit of I have no doubt it’s going to happen it’s going to be when it happens the scale that I hope for. We’ll look back in 20 years and it’ll be a rounding error about what year this became mainstream but in 20 years there’s not going to be more people in warehouses that are on there are now and I would bet any amount of money on that and so, I’m super excited about whatever is this thing goes well. Scot: [56:18] Yeah there’s been a lot of talk about Amazon monitoring employee Communications for talk of unionization so robots also don’t form from unions which is I guess the I wanted to I know we’re up against time I wanted to rap and just kind of talk about eBay so so you I met at eBay a lot of the there’s like this eBay Mafia folks like yourself that have gone on to do a bunch of stuff, we run into them in the vehicle Auto segment all the time which is kind of interesting like wasn’t one of the fair guys an eBay person. Turo is. Greg: [56:50] Yeah there’s what it was Scott painter was fair and he was actually true car. Scot: [56:54] Two car yet you get. Greg: [56:55] No but the eBay Auto guy is the founder of happy returns is a former eBay Motors guy. Rob Chesney who was the CEO of eBay Motors was the CEO of Trunk Club. He’s now a venture capitalist in Chicago Simon Rothman I think was one of the first Tesla investors he went on to be an investor at Greylock. [57:18] And then there’s a few there’s a lot of the eBay Motors guys know there’s a lot like eBay, had a lot of tremendously smart people both in the operation side and the Really the finance side legal side and now like my old boss is now the CEO, and so Jamie Ione worked side-by-side with him for a lot of years and you know I’ve talked to him a few times since he took his job we had a, kind of had an eBay reunions right the day that he got announced to be CEO and we probably had 20 people bunch of old category you know people like didn’t Ash and George Latimer and Todd let whack and those people that I know you knew really well and we were all given we’re pitching Jamie our ideas and all the things that have been screwed up with eBay for the past 10 years when all of us were gone. [58:04] And I think you know he’s done. You know they sold StubHub they sold the PayPal business they sold the class of a business so there’s really only two if Korea in the north of and the US. And European Marketplace businesses and I think he’s getting back to the core and recognizing what eBay was good at, which is search and discovery of unique items are great values and I think they’re spending a lot of resources protecting, businesses that are doing very well like they’re collectibles businesses that’s the one category that hasn’t been disrupted on eBay and I think Jamie and Jordan. Sweet man are recognized that I’m making Investments and doing things that we would never have done with Meg and John and regime or the boss when I was there 15 years ago. Scot: [58:51] Yeah yeah I’m excited I think the world is a better place with a strong eBay so I’m hoping they can turn it around and definitely cheering from the sidelines over here so so hopefully I’m doing my part to drive gmv by buying some Collectibles during code. Jason: [59:08] Awesome we’ll listen guys that is going to be a great place to leave it because once again we’ve used up all our allotted time but if there was something we should have brought up and didn’t or you have a burning question feel free to hit us up on Twitter or Facebook and we’re happy to continue the conversation as always if you enjoyed the show sure appreciate it if you could jump on iTunes and give us that five star review. Scot: [59:31] Greg if folks want to find you online where are the best places to find you. Greg: [59:35] Yeah easiest my emails is Greg at upfront.com. 50/50 I’ll get back to you but that’s it pretty simple you can go to LinkedIn as well, I have a fancy little drawing of me as a picture and you want to send me a message that way and then at Twitter just at Greg bettinelli and my venmo is the same so if you want to send me money you can do that as well. Greg bettinelli. Jason: [1:00:00] I’m not sure you fully comprehend how the investment role is supposed to work. Greg: [1:00:03] Oh right it goes the other way so you want to send me the Paypal invoice you can do that as well no yeah. Scot: [1:00:09] Cool thanks Greg we really appreciate you taking time to share some of these macro themes that you’re looking at I think it’s super helpful as we head in the holiday to be thinking about the long-term before we get wrapped up into the short-term. Greg: [1:00:23] Yeah great and you know congratulations on 244 and also hope you and the family are well and healthy I know this isn’t easy for anybody and at least this is add a little levity which I think you know hopefully will get back to normal someday and, I know we will see better when but hopefully the two of you remain a good health in the same period fan. Jason: [1:00:41] Thank you very much great again and right back at you and and to everyone listening until next time happy commercing.
Aujourd’hui avec Viviane Lipskier, on s’intéresse aux élections américaines de 2020 et à l’engagement politique des entreprises. Viviane est fondatrice de Brandalchimy, elle est l’expert DNVB en France et accompagne les marques à repenser leur business model dans l’économie Direct to Consumer (D2C). Elle est l’auteure des « DNVB : les surdouées du commerce digital ».C’est dans un contexte particulier que se joue cette élection : le pays fait face à une succession de crises sociale, économique et aujourd’hui sanitaire. S’ajoute à cela une extrême polarisation des opinions. L’engagement démocratique fait donc l’objet d’une attention particulière où tous les acteurs de la société prennent part à cette prise de parole. Une élection aux répercussions mondiales qui ne peut être omise par les entreprises, et qui nous amène donc à se demander à quel niveau s’engagent-elles ?Viviane décrypte pour nous les nouvelles façons d’inciter au vote. Que ce soit auprès des collaborateurs ou des consommateurs, l’activisme des entreprises évolue en vue de s’accommoder aux enjeux marketing.« Il y a des outils qui dépassent l’aspect politique et qui vont appeler à un vote éthique pour faire prendre conscience de la manière dont tu peux être un activiste du porte monnaie. »Ce que vous allez apprendre dans cet épisode: Le système électoral et ses particularitésLes marques ont trouvé une nouvelle façon de s’insérer dans la démocratieUne nouvelle vague d’activisme soutenue par des outils d’un genre nouveau Les enjeux du vote, quelles leçons peut-on retenir ?« Les entreprises américaines et les influenceurs incitent à voter. Les collaborateurs le demandent. Ils ont été engagés sur un certain nombre de valeurs et ils attendent de leur Direction Générale qu’elle pèse de leur poids et qu’elle pratique ce qu’elle prêche. »« Les entreprises se sont emparées de nouvelles techniques plus ou moins marketing pour inciter au vote et faire un nouveau genre d’activisme en donnant du temps libre. »N’oubliez pas de vous inscrire à la newsletter de Entreprendre Dans La Mode, les industries créatives et l’art de vivre sur www.entreprendredanslamode.com Aussi, si vous souhaitez me contacter ou me suggérer de nouveaux invités, vous pouvez le faire sur Instagram sous le pseudonyme @entreprendredanslamode Enfin, le plus important : laissez-moi un avis sur Apple Podcast ou iTunes, 5 étoiles de préférence ; cela m’aide à faire connaître le podcast à plus de monde et me motive à faire de meilleures interviews ! Merci de soutenir ce podcast et à bientôt pour un nouvel épisode !Références: Étude sur l’engagement politique du Pew Research Center :https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/21/u-s-voter-turnout-trails-most-developed-countries/ Les droits de vote des travailleurs américains : https://www.workplacefairness.org/voting-rights-time-off-work Adore Me : https://www.adoreme.com Progressive Shopper : https://progressiveshopper.com Good Unite Us : https://www.goodsuniteus.com Influence Map :https://influencemap.org LittleSis : https://littlesis.org New York Times, L’engagement politique des startups : https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/technology/politics-tech-start-ups-culture-war.html
When digitally native, direct-to-consumer brands make the transition to brick-and-mortar stores, it's known in the retail industry as the "Clicks to Bricks" (C2B) movement. But how do retailers know if it's right for them to make this leap, and more importantly, how do they ensure they are successful? In this episode, Camille Kress, VP of Growth Labs for C2B retailer Adore Me, joins Declan McCormack, Retail Client Leader, and Host Brian Trainer to discuss learnings from their journey in this booming category. Moreover, Declan shares the shopper perspective based on a nationwide shopper survey that BHDP initiated with the help of an independent, market research firm.
On this episode of the Female Founded Podcast, Kristen Anderson joins us as we talk about the ups and downs that come with entering the fashion industry. As Kristen describes, the industry is cutthroat and incredibly hard to get into, making it so important to build connections and network early on. Kristen has started a few freelancing businesses over her time in the industry, and in this episode, she shares the do’s and don'ts that helped her become the successful fashion designer and entrepreneur she is today. Want to learn more about Kristen? Kristen Anderson has been a designer for over 9 years and is the owner of her self titled design studio, KRSTN NDRSN. She’s passionate about designing inclusive, figure-flattering apparel that makes every woman feel her best. She was an early team member at Adore Me where she contributed to a team that increased sales from $5mm to nearly $84mm in a span of 3 years. She's also worked on brands like Kona Sol, Victoria's Secret, Lane Bryant, and many more. Check out her Instagram https://www.instagram.com/krstnndrsn/ And her website https://www.kndrsn.com/ Interested in joining the Female Founded Community? Check out our mastermind:http://bit.ly/femalefoundedmastermind Catch you in the next episode!
Catherine Ashly is the CEO and visionary behind several brands including PlusSizeMePlz and Philadekphia Curve Weekend. A Philadelphia native, Catherine embodies the true spirit of sisterly affection. She has an innate ability to meet and a make a genuine connection with all she encounters. Utilizingthis character trait, she has built the PSMP brand to be genuine, impactful and unique in the way that it engages its supporters and followers. Catherine also believes that collaboration and partnership lead to strong growth abilities. She has worked with many esteemed brands including Carol's Daughter, Ashley Stewart, Dia & Co, Eloquii and Adore Me, amongst many more. A multi-passionate advocate for Lupus, Autism and other causes, Catherine's goal is to continue to provide healthy environments and empowering platforms enriched with education, self-acceptance and self-love. A bold, energetic woman who charmingly captures the spirit of truthfulness in everything she does, Catherine is doing her part to build an inclusive platform for untold stories, including her own.
From the Simplr studios in San Francisco, this is your daily briefing. IntroductionWith your Retail E-Commerce Briefing for today, Friday, November 15th, I'm Vincent Phamvan.Nike is breaking up with Amazon. The company announced they were ending their pilot program that began in 2017 to focus on selling more directly to their customers. First, here are some retail headlines. Disney+ Hits 10 Million Sign-upsDisney+ said it has hit 10 million sign-ups since launching in the U.S. and Canada on Tuesday despite thousands of glitches and complains on the first day. Although, reports of problems declined throughout the day as the company worked to resolve the issues. Disney attributed the issues to demand exceeding its expectations.Adore Me Opens Sixth StoreDigitally-native lingerie startup, Adore Me, has opened its sixth store in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The 7,000 square foot store is Adore Me’s largest location to date. The new store is nearly double the size of the retailer’s other locations, enabling it to dedicate more room for the fit and consultation area. The fitting room area also includes a bar offering refreshments and snacks. The brand’s inclusive mission is an essential element in the space, which features mannequins of all sizes and colors. Adore Me is on a growing list of digitally-native disruptor brands that have expanded into brick-and-mortar locations. Brands like Burrow, Allbirds, and Casper have all invested in physical spaces as their companies have grown.Google Expanding Local and Shopping CampaignsSearch giant, Google, is expanding its local and shopping campaigns for the holiday season. Saks Fifth Avenue and Sephora are among the retailers that have tested the capabilities. Local campaigns are designed to drive traffic to nearby locations while shopping campaigns have expanded buy online, pick up in-store capabilities for brick-and-mortar merchants. Saks this year is expanding its local campaigns to promote more store locations. The luxury retailer tested local campaigns for the holidays and saw a significant increase in store sales, along with an incremental offline return-on-ad-spend of 7 times. Sephora also saw a lift in store sales after testing the campaign. Nike Will No Longer Sell Directly To AmazonNike will stop selling its merchandise directly to Amazon. The abrupt halt will end a pilot program that Nike and Amazon launched in 2017. At the time, Nike joined Amazon’s brand registry program in hopes the move would give them more control over Nike goods sold on the e-commerce site, more data on their customers, and added power to remove fake Nike listings. But Nike reportedly struggled to control the Amazon marketplace. Third-party sellers whose listings were removed would pop up again under a different name and official Nike products had fewer reviews and received worse positioning on the site.For Nike, the split also comes amid a massive overhaul of its retail strategy. It also follows the hiring of former eBay executive, John Donahoe, as its next CEO. The move signaled the company is more focused on its e-commerce sales and selling more directly to consumers. A Nike spokesperson said, “As part of Nike’s focus on elevating consumer experiences through more direct, personal relationships, we have made the decision to complete our current pilot with Amazon Retail. We will continue to invest in strong, distinctive partnerships for Nike with other retailers and platforms to seamlessly serve our consumers globally.”.ClosingThanks for listening to this latest episode of the Retail E-Commerce Briefing. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review. Until next time.
From the Simplr studios in San Francisco, this is your daily briefing. IntroductionWith your Retail E-Commerce Briefing for today, Wednesday, November 6th, I'm Vincent Phamvan.Old Navy is piloting Size Yes concept stores that sell clothing at prices that don’t vary between sizes of the same item. While the concept is temporary, the company indicated that the pilot is part of a chain-wide initiative to promote size diversity and inclusion. First, here are some retail headlines.b8ta Raises $50 Million in Series C fundingAccording to a press release, b8ta raised $50 million in Series C funding led by Evolution Ventures with participation from existing investors including Macy’s and Peak State Ventures. The company currently has more than 1,000 brands on its platform and will operate 25 flagship locations globally by the end of 2019. The funding announcement appears to be aimed at expanding b8ta’s footprint among retailers. The company recently revealed they were launching Ark and Ark Marketplace, a tech platform that enables retailers and retail landlords to use b8ta store technology to monetize their spaces. The Ark Marketplace platform is currently being used at 19 flagship locations across the country, as well as at the Toys R Us-b8ta concepts and The Market at Macy’s, according to the statement. The company said it has more than doubled its store traffic in 2019 to more than 3 million shoppers visiting its flagship locations. Tapping into the new brick-and-mortar retail strategies may turn out to be critical as reports point to consumers continuing to shop in stores in spite of the rise of e-commerce.AR Most Likely to Make Brand Look InnovativeAccording to a survey, augmented reality is the most likely technology to make consumers think a brand is innovative, although most cutting-edge tech falls flat. About 26 percent of consumers said AR led them to think a brand was technically savvy, ahead of AI, facial recognition, chatbots, and cryptocurrency. Almost half of consumers want to see these technologies improve shopping experiences, such as AR that helps to visualize products in real-life settings. 33 percent want technology to help improve customer service. The survey reveals that cutting-edge technology may boost perceptions of brand innovation and help increase sales.Last-Mile Delivery Wars Heating UpWith the peak holiday season almost here, last-mile delivery wars are front and center. Delivery experiences can make or break a retailer, with 83 percent of consumers in a survey citing that a bad experience would push them to shop elsewhere. Amazon is spending more to meet tight delivery windows, leaving smaller margins, but they set the bar high for customer expectations. Outspending Amazon isn’t an option for most businesses, but that’s not the only option to remain competitive. Shoppers surveyed said they were willing to make tradeoffs, but they come at the expense of the seller. 65 percent of consumers said they are open to slower delivery if it’s free and almost 10 percent say discounts on a future purchase is also a reason to forego faster delivery. With an expected $645 billion value on e-commerce next year, last-mile delivery reliability can make the difference between losing out to Amazon’s shipping options and being competitive. Old Navy Pilots Size Yes Concept StoresIn October, Old Navy began transforming 30 stores with existing plus-sized sections into full “Size Yes” concept stores. Size Yes will sell clothing at prices that don’t vary between sizes of the same item. Before beginning the rollout of the Size Yes concept, 75 of Old Navy’s locations were piloting in-store shops dedicated to the chain’s collection of plus-sized clothing, called Plus. Old Navy has spoken of the movement as part of a chain-wide initiative to promote size diversity and inclusion. The Size Yes concept is only temporary at this point, with the pilot locations scheduled to return to regular operations on November 13th. The long term goal, however, is to sell all sizes of all products at the same price throughout the chain and ultimately eliminate price disparity. Many retailers are working to improve their range of size offerings to better meet the needs of a more size-diverse customer base as consumers look toward more inclusive brands. Last year, Walmart announced its acquisition of a plus-sized e-tailer and in 2017, Neiman Marcus began piloting plus-sized clothing. The trend can also be seen in the success of direct-to-consumer companies like ThirdLove and Adore Me, which offer inclusive lingerie sizes, while retailer, Victoria’s Secret, experiences declining sales. ClosingFind out how Simplr can cut your customer service response time through cutting-edge technology and on-demand talent at simplr.ai. That’s S-I-M-P-L-R.ai. Thanks for listening to this latest episode of the Retail E-Commerce Briefing. See you tomorrow.
Gary Bravard n'avait pas 25 ans quand il a lancé avec Morgan Hermand-Waiche Adore Me, site de vente de lingerie féminine. Avec comme ambition rien moins que de battre sur son terrain le mastodonte Victoria's Secret. Huit ans plus tard, Adore Me a, avec quelques autres start-ups, révolutionné le secteur aux Etats-Unis. Et dépasse maintenant les 100 millions de dollars de chiffre d'affaires.
From the Simplr studios in San Francisco, this is your weekly briefing. IntroductionWith your E-Commerce Retail Briefing for today, Tuesday, October 15th, I'm Vincent Phamvan.America is increasingly losing the Chinese shopper. China was once viewed by American brands as a land of opportunity. Now, Chinese consumers are looking more to local brands as Chinese brands grow stronger and political controversy plagues American brand’s relationships with the country.First, here are some retail headlines.Allbirds Expanding Retail FootprintPopular eco-friendly, digitally native footwear brand, Allbirds, is expanding its retail footprint. The company announced it plans to open 20 stores in 2020 in markets like Atlanta, Dallas, and Denver. Allbirds, which launched online in 2014, opened its first physical stores in 2018. The new locations will bring its total store count to about 35. Victoria's Secret Making Big Changes Amid Sales SlumpL Brands’ Victoria’s Secret is making big changes as they try to pull out of a sales slump. The company cut around 50 people at its Ohio headquarters last week. That represents about 15 percent of Victoria’s Secret’s employees at the brand’s home office. It’s the latest move for the troubled lingerie brand. The company’s sales have slowed as female consumers turned to body-positive start-ups including Adore Me, Aerie, and ThirdLove. In addition to the lay-offs at its headquarters, Victoria’s Secret has also cut its annual fashion show as viewership has fallen off and made changes to its leadership team. The company has also recently started featuring its first plus-size model.Trump Calls "Phase One" Deal with China "Substantial"President Donald Trump says the U.S. has come to a substantial phase one deal with China. In exchange for America scrapping tariffs that were set to take effect on October 15th, China will purchase about $40 billion to $50 billion worth of agricultural products. Chinese media didn’t describe it as a deal, but as substantial progress. China reportedly wants further talks to iron out the details before signing. American Brands Losing Popularity In ChinaAmerican brands aren’t just facing challenges with political controversy in China. Brands are also up against competition like Three Squirrels. In seven years, the maker of nuts, seeds, and fruits has become one of the country’s most popular snack sellers. Its sudden popularity has made it difficult for iconic American snack brands like Oreo, to gain favor. For years, American companies looked to China as a land of opportunity, but now a new reality is settling in. Chinese consumers won’t save the day for Western brands.One of the challenges American brands are facing is that Chinese brands are getting stronger. The other is that Chinese consumers are increasingly turning away from foreign brands because of controversy with Chinese politics. As a result, American brands that used to be cool are now falling out of fashion. As the Chinese economy shifts, McKinsey and Co predicts between $22 trillion and $37 trillion of economic value could disappear as supply chains shrink and other changes spread through the global economy. Closing Looking to discover next-generation customer experience? Join our first-ever CX Live Virtual Summit on October 17th and learn with leaders from companies like Casper, Airbnb, Home Depot, and more! You can learn more at cxlife.co. Again, that’s cxlife.co https://www.cxlife.co/cxlife-virtual-summitThanks for listening to the latest episode of the Retail E-Commerce Briefing. See you tomorrow.
#008 （Rie & Nagisa） 今週の気になるトピックスではワコールが発表したD2Cインナーウェアブランド「Lively」の買収話からインナーウェア市場全般の話を。後半ではNagisaが参加したタイ・サムイ島で開催されたイベント「Google Digital Wellbeing Summit」の振り返りから、デジタルテクノロジーとのより良い付き合い方やより善い人生のあり方について考えました。少し壮大な話になってしまいましたが、ぜひお付き合いください:) 【今週の気になるトピックス：ワコールがウィメンズインナーウエアのD2Cブランド「Lively」を買収】 プレスリリース https://www.wacoalholdings.jp/news/2019/intimates-online-inc--dnvb1livelyec--.html Lively https://www.wearlively.com/ ThirdLove https://www.thirdlove.com/ Adore Me https://www.adoreme.com/ SAVAGE X FENTYhttps://www.savagex.com/ 【デジタルウェルビーイングに関する参考】 Google Digital Wellbeing https://wellbeing.google/ Nagisaのレポート記事 https://spur.hpplus.jp/culture/nagisaichikawa/201907/29/QUGZM2k/ Mind over Tech https://mindovertech.com/ DigitalWellbeing.org https://digitalwellbeing.org/ 【セントルイス：アメリカ合衆国ミズーリ州東部、ミシシッピ川とミズーリ川の合流点に位置する商工業都市】 St. Louis Post-Dispatch https://www.stltoday.com/ ――――――――――――――――――― The Potluck Instagramも始まったのでぜひフォローしてください:D Podcastで触れた場所や商品、ブランドなどの写真もポストしています。 https://www.instagram.com/thepotluckus/ ――――――――――――――――――― リクエスト、感想などはハッシュタグ #ThePotluck をつけてポストしてください
Acquiring and keeping customers in both online and physical environments is something Sarmad Saghir, VP of Acquisition for Adore Me (a sleepwear and activewear company offering a monthly lingerie subscription service), knows something about. He joins Marc Raco and guest hosts Joe Yakuel (Agency Within) and Catherine Schepis (American Fashion Podcast, and Lean Canvas Advisory). Recorded in the MouthMedia Network studios. To hear more from speakers like Joe and Sarmad, check out CommerceNext on July 31st & August 1st in NYC. In this episode: Adore Me’s goal to bring high quality underwear and lingerie to everyone, no matter what their shape, size, or race, and how they plan to scale their marketing channels with streaming, TV, mail, as well as influencers and traditional display to meet this goal as effectively as possible How Facebook’s algorithms have lost brand’s some of their flexibility and ability to leverage the platform as effectively as possible with the proliferation of blind spots for marketers The importance of differentiating dissatisfied customers versus customers at the end of the lifecycle with a subscription-based service like Adore Me, and how to either win those customers back or know when it isn’t worth the effort to retain that customer The value of associates in brick and mortar stores and the engagement opportunity that provides versus the tendency for the modern consumer to want to avoid interpersonal interaction, especially with online-online and subscription model sales platforms Communicating with customers, and how building and maintaining loyalty is all about honesty and accountability throughout, especially in situations where the brand may be at fault How Adore Me assess who may be a valuable customer, and the surprising homogeny between a-la-carte customers versus subscription model customers or elite try-at-home customers Adore Me’s plans to assess the wants and needs of its customers who opt into each transactional model to better leverage each for its strengths and target customers who may be wary of a subscription model Maintaining a brand identity across all platforms, from social media accounts to advertisements to website landing pages, and balancing what the metrics are showing people want and what the brand’s stated identity is How Adore Me is branching out into physical store locations and navigating brick and mortal sales by testing and learning Why Facebook is still a better short-term marketing performer for Adore Me than TV spots, but why the drag time of TV ads makes the metrics harder to analyze How Sarmand uses data as well as the experiences of his colleagues to navigate the tricky seasonality of lingerie and swimwear What Sarmand’s hypothetical dream marketing plan for Adore Me would entail The importance of making online quizzes worthwhile for the brand and the consumer Plus, some off the grid questions with Sarmad where we learn about what he looks forward to at the end of the day, what he does to relax, and a moment he resisted the urge to give up on something
Adore Me launched as a direct-to-consumer intimates brand in 2012, using a wide range of sizes and competitive prices to take on the brands dominating the market. According to Romain Liot, the COO of Adore Me, the company's marriage of technology and fashion allows it to adapt to what the customer wants more easily than a traditional, established brand. On this week's episode of The Glossy Podcast, Hilary Milnes sits down with Liot to discuss how Adore Me measures the success of its products, what complexities exist in the lingerie supply chain and why transparency is the best way to foster customer loyalty.
I säsongens näst sista avsnitt träffar vi Iris Voltaire. Business studenten med entreprenörsdriv som knep ett jobb på Manhattan - fast hon inte ens skulle ha varit på intervjun! Numera jobbar hon på Adore Me, ett digitalt underklädesvarumärke samt har sitt eget företag i startgroparna. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
I säsongens näst sista avsnitt träffar vi Iris Voltaire. Business studenten med entreprenörsdriv som knep ett jobb på Manhattan - fast hon inte ens skulle ha varit på intervjun! Numera jobbar hon på Adore Me, ett digitalt underklädesvarumärke samt har sitt eget företag i startgroparna.
Essential Retail sits down with lingerie retailer Adore Me at NRF 2019 to chat about its work to innovate its store technology with StoreAdvise. Got something you want to tell us about the Podcast? Want to join us? You can get in touch on Twitter via twitter.com/essretail, or directly with Caroline at twitter.com/cl_baldwin
Naimah Terry is an in-demand plus-size model represented by Dorothy Combs Models and State Management. She is the plus muse for contemporary brands like Adore Me, Fashion to Figure, David's Bridal, Christian Siriano, RBX and many more. She also models for major brands including Levis, Avenue, Ashley Stewart, Macys, and JCPenny to name a few. Naimah will be making her acting debut in the Curvy Girl Rock digital series, which aims to show authentic representations of plus size women, premiering Nov. 25th!
In this Marketing Over Coffee: Learn about going from 1-100 million, getting beyond the customer journey, smart stores and more! Direct Link to File Brought to you by our sponsors: LinkedIn and Optimove The amazing rise of Adore Me from 1 – 100 Million Our last Retail Interview with Healey Cypher Disrupting by offering a […] The post Beyond the Customer Journey with Nicolas Capuono of Adore Me appeared first on Marketing Over Coffee Marketing Podcast.
Host Dave Robertson first talks to Luis Sanz, COO and Co-Founder of Olapic. With pictures posted every second on social media, Luis explains how brands can capitalize on the pool of photos that exist and convert pictures into sales. The second guest is Sharon Klapka, Director of Business and Brand Development for Adore Me. She discusses her data-driven approach in selecting models, creating photo shoots and developing products to drive sales. Next up, Dave speaks with Brian Quinn, Principal at Dobline (part of Deloitte Consulting) and co-author of "Ten Types of Innovation: The Discipline of Building Breakthroughs." Dave's last guest is Tina Seelig, author of "Insight Out: Get Ideas Out of Your Head and Into the World."
Here is a new DJ Set, enjoy! Give me your feedback: matthieubpodcast@online.fr.
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