Podcasts about Trunk Club

Former Salesforce executive and Cerebral Selling founder David Priemer shows why focusing solely on product features and ROI misses what truly drives sales. Drawing from his experience leading small business sales at Salesforce and building four successful startups, Priemer shares the connection between human psychology and sales results. Research shows buyers choose based on feelings rather than logic – a blind spot for many sales teams. When analyzing 70 sales representatives at Salesforce, Priemer found the highest performers built genuine belief in their solutions instead of relying on feature lists. This insight reshaped how their sales teams approached customer conversations. Priemer introduces the "love-hate framework" for creating sales messages that connect. His example of Trunk Club shows this in action: "a service for men who love to dress well but hate to go shopping." This positioning helped secure their acquisition by Nordstrom by speaking to customer emotions instead of product specs. The discussion examines why business cases alone don't close deals, how real conviction outperforms product knowledge, and what builds lasting customer relationships. Key Takeaways: Start with Emotion: Connect with how customers feel about their challenges before presenting solutions Build Real Belief: Sales success comes from actually believing in your solution's impact on customers Own the Outcome: Taking responsibility for customer results builds deeper business relationships Top 3 Reasons to Listen: Close More Deals: Apply the psychological principles that drive buying decisions to improve your sales conversations Stand Out in Your Market: Build an authentic sales approach that sets you apart when traditional ROI pitches fall flat Increase Customer Trust: Position your business using the love-hate framework that turned Trunk Club into a multi-million dollar success Follow Mark: LinkedIn: https://hi.switchy.io/markdrager Instagram: https://hi.switchy.io/KcKi Want more free tools? Go to our podcast page at https://hi.switchy.io/KcKe  

Jan & Coabi, formerly of Trunk Club, launched a travel app in 2020 that simplifies trip planning with recommendations from friends and influencers. Inspired by a taxing trip to London, Out of Office aims to enhance travel experiences with ease and beauty. In 2022, they saw an 11,000% user base growth and secured $3.5 million from investors including Brian Kelly, Steven Galanis, and Chris Brown to democratize travel planning further.

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Jack Blandin. Jack is a brilliant data scientist and manager that I had the pleasure of working with at Gohealth. Jack moved from software engineering to data science at Trunk Club and never looked back. He has since managed engineering teams at Gohealth, Wayfair, and now Fi. In this episode we dive into Jack's distaste for the data science interview process, and how he is planning to make it better. We also touch on how he would build an ideal data science team.Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job - 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee |  Interview prep questionsJack's Links:LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackblandin/

Second City is an iconic Chicago institution training comedic geniuses across generations, but developing the talents of a VP of Technology is one of its more under-the-radar accomplishments. Arne Saupe, Vice President of Technology at Farmer's Fridge, learned more than acting and improvisation when exploring this new arena. He discovered lessons in management, failure, team building, empathy, and communication that bolstered his years of experience as a technologist and growth-stage leader. In this episode, Arne dives into finding complementary team members, ensuring diversity in thought, and balancing the vision with guardrails. He provides clear advice for approaching feedback and determining growth opportunities, including quarterly check-ins to identify what you want to think about the least and recognizing those as areas you likely must improve. (02:11) – Farmer's Fridge and Trunk Club(05:23) – CEO and CFO partnership(09:15) – Investing your time in what you're good at(11:59) – Motivating the team(14:32) – Lessons from improv and acting at Second City(21:07) – Management training(25:01) – Failure and mistakesTechnology leader and team builder Arne Saupe is the Vice President of Technology at Farmer's Fridge. Previously, he served as the Director of Engineering at Trunk Club and led teams at several innovative companies during significant periods of growth. Arne earned a bachelor's degree from Kent State University in computer science.If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to Innovation and the Digital Enterprise in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.Podcast episode production by Dante32.

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape.This week on the show we're joined by Dana Settle, Co-Founder of Greycroft. Founded in 2006, Greycroft began with a mission to invest in areas outside of Silicon Valley and specifically in NY and LA. The firm currently has over $2B in Assets Under Management, over 60 employees, and has invested in companies such as Bumble, Scopely, Plated, and Maker Studios among many others. This was a special episode where we unpacked all of the components of firm-building including team development, fundraising, investment decision-making, and evolving to market dynamics. We hope you enjoy my conversation with Dana.Program note: This was recorded prior to the issues arising in the banking sector.A word from our sponsor:Privately owned and headquartered in New York City, Grasshopper Bank is built to serve the business and innovation economy. As a client-first digital bank, Grasshopper combines the best of banking technology and years of industry expertise to deliver best-in-class experiences with trusted security and unparalleled support. Grasshopper's digital solutions are tailored for venture capital and private equity firms, startups and small businesses, fintech-focused Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) and commercial API banking platforms, and more. Serving clients globally, Grasshopper provides flexible, firm-focused lending solutions, as well as a dedicated Relationship Manager committed to meeting the unique needs and strategic focus of your firm across all entities, including funds, general partner and management companies. Grasshopper is a member of the FDIC and an Equal Housing Lender.For more information, visit the bank's website at www.grasshopper.bank or follow on LinkedIn and Twitter.About Dana Settle:Dana Settle is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Greycroft. Dana's active investments include Acorns, Anine Bing, Avaline, Bird, Citizen, Cloud Paper, data.ai, Goop, HamsaPay, Happiest Baby, Merit Beauty, Mountain Digital, Pacaso, Seed Health, Tapcart, Thrive Market and Versed. Her notable exits include Bumble (IPO), Maker Studios (acquired by Disney), Pulse (acquired by LinkedIn), The RealReal (IPO), Trunk Club (acquired by Nordstrom), and WideOrbit (interest sold to company management).Prior to Greycroft, Dana spent several years as a venture capitalist and advisor to startups in the Bay Area, including six years at Mayfield, and investment banking at Lehman Brothers.Dana holds a BA in Finance and International Studies from the University of Washington and an MBA from Harvard Business School.In this episode we discuss:(02:03) What led to the creation of Greycroft(06:46) How they found believers in their hypothesis and got their first fundraise completed(08:19) Advice for managers and entrepreneurs raising in the current market(11:34) Building a distributed and remote-first culture outside of Silicon Valley(15:33) The role of diversity when building strong partnerships(19:00) Traits Dana values when she is hiring for the firm(21:09) Why curiosity is so important and how she uncovers that in candidates(23:55) The importance of creating a safe space for new voices to be heard in a firm(27:59) Why Dana hated the internal politics of old Silicon Valley and wanted to remove that from Greycroft(30:54) The decision to follow-on invest in their portfolio companies(33:11) How Greycroft manages conflicts within the partnership(35:01) The philosophy around team-building within the firm and how that benefits their portfolio companies(37:19) How Greycroft remains nimble with such a large organization(39:26) The bull case for Venture Capital moving forward(42:09) What Greycroft got the most correct and the most wrong in its historyI'd love to know what you took away from this conversation with Dana. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you'd like to be considered as a guest or have someone you'd like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ventureunlocked.substack.com

“It all takes persistence. I had zero connections. I got 500 in two weeks,” shares Dana Broder, founder and head stylist at Art of the Style. Dana grew up not quite knowing what she wanted to do and struggling in school due to learning differences. She was drawn to entrepreneurship, but did not know the exact avenue she wanted to go into. When a friend needed help with his style, Dana found her calling and realized that she had a gift for being a personal stylist. In spite of facing challenges with maintaining sobriety, she remained persistent and never lost hope that she would be a professional stylist one day. In today's episode, Dana shares her entrepreneurial journey and how being given a chance at the Trunk Club saved her life. Dana's path to entrepreneurship was lined with many challenges, but she did not let them stop her for long. She was determined to hustle and make it happen for herself. When an opportunity arose to work at the Trunk Club, Dana went for it and refused to give up, even when they initially thought she was a bad fit for their work culture. Ultimately, she proved everyone wrong and went from having zero connections to selling the most of anyone in the history of the Trunk Club in her first month. It would have been easy for Dana to become too overwhelmed by the obstacles and give up, especially while struggling with her sobriety, but instead she doubled down, clung to her dream, and made it happen. To be a successful entrepreneur, it is important to be customer service focused, humble, and very dedicated. If you do not put the customer first, your business will fail regardless of how talented you may be. Learn more about Dana's journey and how she managed to stay hopeful and persevere through every challenge thrown her way. Quotes “Many times I want to say it's not my fault. Especially with retailers not delivering. So, that literally isn't my fault, but it is my fault.” (24:45-24:57 | Dana) “If you are not customer service focused, your business will fail immediately.” (26:26-26:33 | Dana) “It all takes persistence. I had zero connections. I got 500 in two weeks.” (35:30-35:35 | Dana) “Sometimes you've got to humble yourself even if you are right.” (36:23-36:27 | Dana) “In my industry, I don't see anyone as a competition because nobody's me and I'm not them.” (56:44-56:51 | Dana) Connect with Dana Broder: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/styled_by_aots/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/styledbyAOTS Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/81944186/admin/ Don't forget to visit the website: https://www.behelpfulpodcast.com/ Follow the show's socials: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/behelpfulpodcast/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behelpfulpodcast/ @behelpfulpodcast YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7ZNyAUhGQYfTETUJm-hnHw Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Be Helpful Podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/behelpfulpodcast/message

Shaily is the founder of Your Social Media Sherpa. She graduated from Indiana University with a degree and certification in elementary education K-6. She now uses those mad teaching skills to lead workshops, work with business owners 1-on-1 training them on social media, and has coached 200+ B2B consultants on how to use LinkedIn to grow their businesses. She guides companies on how to stay top of mind with their community and referral network using social media. I hold them accountable and boost their confidence in themselves, what they offer, and their social media abilities. She loves live streaming, event social media, live Tweeting, and comment engagement. Learn more about the programs Shaily Hakimian offers at  YourSocialMediaSherpa.com. She has spoken at Trunk Club, Fiverr, State Farm, Notre Dame, the University of Illinois, DePaul University, and the University of Chicago. She is a Persian-Moroccan Indiana University Grad who loves cheesy icebreakers, bubble tea, poker; reality competition shows like Big Brother and Survivor, TEDx conferences, magic, flea markets, the Jewish community, and her sequin closet.  Learn more about Shaily's adventures and hobbies by visiting  ShailyHakimian.com & FriendingOurFoes.com Follow Shaily on LinkedIn and Twitter, and don't look too hard for her on TikTok. Social Links: linktr.ee/hakimian45   --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/forchangebebold/message

Hey there, my friend! Patty Dominguez here with episode 165 of the Positioning to Profit Podcast. Super happy that you have joined me today! Our guest for this week is social media expert Shaily Hakimian. Shaily explains why it is important to be unforgettable and how to stand out on social media. She explains how to make the most of LinkedIn and provides tips for creating a profile that speaks to the people you want to serve. Shaily also shares advice on how to create content that will help you stand out and recommends auditing your current profile and content to identify areas of improvement. Finally, she emphasizes the importance of having a presence on social media and connecting with the right people. Here are some tips on how to be unforgettable in 100 days: ● Create a profile on the platform where your prospects are hanging out ● Make sure your profile is valuable to the people you are wanting to serve ● Brain dump all the knowledge you have into content ● Make sure that content speaks to the people you want to serve ● Connect people to your other resources such as websites and social media platforms ● Consider doing an audit of your online presence to identify areas for improvement Also, we are in the middle of the "D@mn! I wish somebody would have told me that..." Virtual Summit. You absolutely have to check it out! It's so wonderful—32 interviews with women in business all sharing their business tips—and it's just been received so well. There's been lots of engagement, and people really recognize how we're all in it together. You can find all the information at ProlificWomenSummit.com. See you there! Ready to Position Your Business to Profit? Go to-->>> https://positioningtoprofit.com/ Connect with Shaily Hakimian BIOGRAPHY Shaily started doing social media for her hobby community in high school… ON MYSPACE. She didn't realize what she did was doing social media until after college when she saw a question on a job application asking if she had ever managed an online community, and she realized there was something there. She graduated from Indiana University with a degree and certification in elementary education K-6, and she now uses those mad teaching skills to lead workshops, work with business owners 1-on-1 training them on social media, and has coached 200+ B2B consultants on how to use LinkedIn to grow their business. She guides business on how to stay top of mind with their community and referral network using social media. I hold them accountable and boost their confidence in themselves, what they have to offer, and their own social media abilities. She loves live streaming, event social media, live Tweeting, and comment engagement. She has spoken at Trunk Club, Fiverr, State Farm, Notre Dame, University of Illinois, DePaul University, and University of Chicago. She is a Persian-Moroccan Indiana University Grad who loves cheesy icebreakers, bubble tea, poker, reality competition shows like Big Brother and Survivor, TEDx conferences, magic, flea markets, the Jewish community, and her sequin closet. Teacher of social media as a tool of empowerment. WEBSITE LINK https://www.yoursocialmediasherpa.com/ SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS Shaily on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hakimian45/ Shaily on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/xxxtalkaholicxxx Shaily on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hakimian45/

Elle Bruno is the Managing Director of Techstars Boulder, an operational investor supporting entrepreneurs from idea conception to a successful business. Founded in 2006, Techstars has invested in more than 3,000 companies and today has a market cap of $75 billion. Elle is a sales expert, working for companies, including Trunk Club and Luxury Garage Sale. In 2003, She co-founded ExpressDrop.com and was the Head of Business Development. Along with her current positions, she also serves as an angel investor and advisor focusing on investing in female-founded companies. In this episode… What is the overlap between angel investing and leadership? How does one correspond to the other? While separate concepts, the two have quite a few things in common. Leadership requires wisdom, patience, tenacity, and the ability to listen to those around you. However, leadership also directly relates to angel investing. Few people know more about both subjects than Elle Bruno. She has worked as a leader at several notable companies and recently began her work in angel investing. Now she explains both sides to those who want to listen. Dov Pollack talks with Elle Bruno, the Managing Director at Techstars Boulder, on this episode of Next Wave Leadership to discuss leadership and angel investing. They begin with Elle's career and the lessons she learned from a young age. They also touch on topics such as investing in women-led startups, maintaining company culture during growth, and gender inequality in the business world.

This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I'm here with your update for Thursday, September 22. It's the Autumn Equinox on Thursday, and it's certainly going to feel like Autumn. According to the National Weather Service it will be mostly sunny Thursday in the Cedar Rapids area with a high near 64 degrees. On Thursday night, it will be partly cloudy, with a low of around 48 degrees. A mild wind will calm as the day goes on. Just weeks ahead of the start of the busy holiday shopping and shipping season, Nordstrom sent emails to employees at its Midwest Fulfillment Center in Cedar Rapids saying the corporation planned to “adjust the size” of its workforce there.  The Seattle-based department store chain filed a https://www.iowaworkforcedevelopment.gov/worker-adjustment-and-retraining-notification-act (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, f)or 231 employees at its southwest Cedar Rapids facility, signaling the elimination of their positions. In the Monday email to employees, Jason Bell, Nordstrom's senior vice president said the company is moving away from a national fulfillment model to a regional model. Nordstrom is also sunsetting its Trunk Club offering, which will reduce mail volume, Bell wrote. A Nordstrom spokesperson confirmed the email to The Gazette on Wednesday. The spokesperson said the fulfillment center employed more than 1,100 workers before the planned changes. Iowa this week surpassed 10,000 deaths from COVID-19. As of Wednesday, the pandemic's death toll reached 10,051 in Iowa, after another 57 deaths were confirmed in the past week. That weekly total is more than double the previous week's 26. The virus has claimed more than a million lives in the United States in the past two-and-a-half years. And while it's not the crisis it once was, hundreds of people are still dying each day from COVID-19. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has loosened COVID-19 guidelines in the past months — issuing the same guidelines for vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals and cutting the quarantine period from 10 days to five — it has not declared an end to the pandemic. New COVID-19 booster shots targeting the omicron variant have been available to most Iowans 12 and older for a few weeks now. The newer shots are bivalent, meaning they target both the original strain of the virus as well as targeting the omicron variant of the disease that has been causing many of the breakthrough infections in the last year. More than 400,000 Iowa borrowers are expected to see their student loan debt reduced or erased under President Joe Biden's debt forgiveness plan, according to estimates the White House released this week. According to the White House fact sheet, 408,700 Iowa borrowers will see some federal student loan debt forgiven. Of those, 248,900 are Pell Grant recipients and are eligible for up to $20,000 in debt forgiveness. Other borrowers are eligible for up to $10,000 in debt forgiveness. Pell Grants go to students from low-income families. The U.S. Department of Education is expected to open an application for borrowers to apply for debt forgiveness in early October, according to U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. The plan has not been without its critics. Gov. Kim Reynolds signed onto a letter with 21 other Republican governors this month calling on Biden to withdraw the plan and saying it puts the burden on lower-income Americans. There also is a Republican led plan in the works to challenge the loan reductions in court.

Mike Cruz grew up in Guam, near Japan. He spent 18 years before moving to the US for college. He has always been in tech - everywhere from the Discovery Channel to startups like Trunk Club, and always in building tech products. He has a young family with 2 boys, and his oldest is getting into programming from the lens of gaming. He reflects on how far games have come these days, as they were much simpler and easier to code in the past.In 2011, Mike & his co-founder has witnessed the proliferation of bootcamps for practical entry and exposure into the tech industry. Given their own backgrounds in struggling to plug into the music and startup scenes, they thought they could replicate this type of model and help people be discovered.This is the creation story of Protégé.SponsorsImmediateOrbitPostmarkStytchVerb DataWebapp.ioLinksWebsite: https://www.protege.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mdcruz/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Episode #31.5 - Arne Saupe - Professional Technical Interviewee with Taylor Dorsett My guest today is Arne Saupe, VP of Technology at Farmers Fridge. Arne has helped Farmers Fridge scale their engineering team and previously helped Trunk Club scale their team as their Chicago Director of Engineering. Video: https://youtu.be/PSMOWYaHNXI Part Two - Technical: https://youtu.be/4DfFxhfp95A Audio only: Episode #31 - Arne Saupe - Professional Technical Interviewee with Taylor Dorsett Part Two - Technical - Audio only: Episode #31.5 - Arne Saupe - Professional Technical Interviewee with Taylor Dorsett Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/7zvt9QZWMUGsQ27NM8XuMd?si=272649053fbf4c03 Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/professional-technical-interviewee-with-taylor-dorsett/id1557937961 Guests: Arne Saupe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnesaupe/ Website: https://www.farmersfridge.com/ If you enjoyed the show please subscribe, thumbs up, and share the show. Episodes released on the first four Thursdays of each month. Host: Taylor Owen Dorsett Email: dorsetttaylordev@gmail.com Twitter: @yodorsett LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylordorsett/ Github: https://github.com/TaylorOD Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TaylorDorsett Editor: Dustin Bays Email: dustin.bays@baysbrass.com

Harmony is joined by honorary Shop Boy Grant Whittaker. Fashion at the Queen's Jubilee. Dick's Sporting Goods unveils a mega sporting experience in new select stores. With the downfall of Nordstrom's Trunk Club, Ralph Lauren tries their hand in their own personal stylist rental subscription. Plus, graduation wear and "naked" pants in Whose Look.

My guest today is Arne Saupe, VP of Technology at Farmers Fridge. Arne has helped Farmers Fridge scale their engineering team and previously helped Trunk Club scale their team as their Chicago Director of Engineering. Video: https://youtu.be/PSMOWYaHNXI Part Two - Technical: https://youtu.be/4DfFxhfp95A Audio only: Episode #31 - Arne Saupe - Professional Technical Interviewee with Taylor Dorsett Part Two - Technical - Audio only: Episode #31.5 - Arne Saupe - Professional Technical Interviewee with Taylor Dorsett Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/7zvt9QZWMUGsQ27NM8XuMd?si=272649053fbf4c03 Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/professional-technical-interviewee-with-taylor-dorsett/id1557937961 Guests: Arne Saupe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnesaupe/ Website: https://www.farmersfridge.com/ If you enjoyed the show please subscribe, thumbs up, and share the show. Episodes released on the first four Thursdays of each month. Host: Taylor Owen Dorsett Email: dorsetttaylordev@gmail.com Twitter: @yodorsett LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylordorsett/ Github: https://github.com/TaylorOD Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TaylorDorsett Editor: Dustin Bays Email: dustin.bays@baysbrass.com

Sean sits down to recap Memorial Weekend. He tried Trunk Club. He also ate at a new funny named stir fry restaurant 'Noodle World Junior" in Sherman Oaks. Celtics vs. Warriors. Who you got? Sean's thinking Warriors in 6 with Steph winning the MVP. NFL NEWS DUMPMLB NEWS DUMPBlacklight with Liam Neeson is terrible. Do not see it. Stranger Things - the kids are so old. Should I watch?Join the conversation:nocredentialswithseanleary@gmail.com 

In today's take no prisoners Omni Talk Retail Fast Five Podcast, sponsored by Microsoft, the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Takeoff, and Sezzle, Anne Mezzenga and Chris Walton: - Give their very early take on Amazon's new Amazon Style store. - Lambast Walmart from the high heavens for its drone announcement this week. - Laud Firework for its recent $150 million investment round, as it continues to push the boundaries and lead the way in livestream commerce. - Question whether Wayfair chose the right brand with which to debut its latest physical store concept. - And discuss whether the Nordstrom and Trunk Club marriage was doomed from the start. There's all that, plus pre-show fights, Pepsi in your pepperoni, and the pure testosterone that is Jon Hamm selling Yeti mugs. To learn more about Microsoft, visit: www.microsoft.com/en-us/industry/r…cloud-for-retail To learn more about the A&M Consumer & Retail Group, visit: www.alvarezandmarsal-crg.com/ To learn more about Takeoff, visit: www.takeoff.com/ To learn more about Sezzle, visit: www.sezzle.com/ Plus, check out our ranking in Feedspot's 45 Top Retail Podcasts: blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/ Music by hooksounds.com

Allie LeFevere is the Creative Director and Co-founder of Obedient, a humor branding agency. They turn businesses into unstoppable, unorthodox, unforgettable brands because they believe that standing out is not a matter of taste but of survival. Allie has spent the last decade working with brands to ensure their messaging isn't a snoozefest.  Before starting Obedient, Allie was the VP of Engagement at a Chicago-based startup. She then jumped ship in 2014 to run her first business developing creative programs for companies like Dell, AT&T, Trunk Club, and emerging small businesses and startups. In this episode… Ultimately, the goal of marketing is to get your target audience to fall in love with your brand and do business with you. That involves connecting with your audience on a deep emotional level — even if you're in a lackluster industry. Ironically, many brands see it as “out of brand” to infuse humor strategically to connect with their prospects.  Other brands desire this level of connection with their target demographics, but their brands lack personality. Luckily, Allie LeFevere has developed the brand personality method to turn boring and complicated brands into fun ones… because fun sells. How does this method work, and how are top brands using it?  Listen to this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast with Dr. Jeremy Weisz featuring the Creative Director and Co-founder of Obedient Agency, Allie LeFevere. They discuss the brand personality method, how to make boring and complicated businesses come alive through humor, and more! 

Join Devin Herz as he discusses how to be unforgettable in days via 1-on-1 guidance, clarity, & accountability with the owner of, Your Social Media Sherpa, Shaily Hakimian. Special guest, Shaily Hakimian has spoken at Trunk Club, Fiverr, State Farm, Notre Dame, University of Illinois, DePaul University, and the University of Chicago. Key Takeaways from this episode ► Get your FAQ out of your head  ► Make it easy for people to see it ► Make the goodness obvious ► Schedule a FREE Strategy Session & FREE Marketing Audit with Devin | YourDMC.com/schedule ► Where to follow and listen to Devin & DMC | https://dynamicmarketingconsultants.c... #MondayMarketingNugget #MarketingStrategy #MarketingNugget #DynamicMarketingConsultants #BusinessIdeas #business #smallbusiness #DevinHerz #MarketingTips #MarketingTrends2022

Join Devin Herz as he discusses how to be unforgettable in days via 1-on-1 guidance, clarity, & accountability with the owner of, Your Social Media Sherpa, Shaily Hakimian. Special guest, Shaily Hakimian has spoken at Trunk Club, Fiverr, State Farm, Notre Dame, University of Illinois, DePaul University, and the University of Chicago. Key Takeaways from this episode ► Get your FAQ out of your head  ► Make it easy for people to see it ► Make the goodness obvious ► Schedule a FREE Strategy Session & FREE Marketing Audit with Devin | YourDMC.com/schedule ► Where to follow and listen to Devin & DMC | https://dynamicmarketingconsultants.c... #MondayMarketingNugget #MarketingStrategy #MarketingNugget #DynamicMarketingConsultants #BusinessIdeas #business #smallbusiness #DevinHerz #MarketingTips #MarketingTrends2022

Anyone else find it REALLY difficult to shop for anything with kids? A Target run is hard enough... let alone shopping for clothes that you actually need to try on! We wine about shopping before vs after kids, and our new methods for shopping...plus, Corri's fave subscription clothing boxes (and referral codes! Get those discounts!) Here are the ones we mentioned on the podcast:  Trunk Club: $50 credit when you use this LINK Stitch Fix: $25 credit when you use this LINK Trendsend: 20% off every item in your order with this LINK Make sure to subscribe to us on Patreon for THE 10 MIN GABFEST, BONUS content, checklists, Q&As, and more!  And check out our MOMMY MUST-HAVE OF THE WEEK (along with lots of other idea lists for mamas! ------------------------------ If you want to support our podcast without it costing you a dime, shop our affiliate links! We want to share some our favorite things with you, so we've partnered with ONLY brands we use and believe in… If you like what you see and decide to make purchase, we'll get as small commission for sending you their way, and it will help us continue to make Hi My Name Is Mom! We appreciate you, mama!!  FOR childcare needs, we LOVE care.com! Use code “JOINCARE20” for 20% off of a premium membership.  If you wanna feel STRONG again after baby, with a side of feeling great in your clothes, check out Legion - from supplements to custom meal plans to a full on coaching program, they've got you covered! And we've got 20% off for you with code “MyNameIsMom”  AND, grab a bottle of DAOU wine! (we get no commission on this, we just want our fellow moms to enjoy the best wine EVER)!

Elle Navarro Bruno is the Managing Director of the Techstars & Western Union Accelerator. Elle has been a founder and startup operator for 19 years. In 2004 she started her first company, an eBay ancillary marketplace, and since then she has been involved in building three venture-backed startups, including Trunk Club. Her expertise is in consumer tech, specifically revenue and growth. Elle has been an angel investor and advisor since 2015, with a focus on investing in female founded companies, and was an EIR in the 2020 Techstars & Western Union program. In this episode, Elle shares her perspective with (hosts) Adam and Chris, on the differences between the Chicago's and Denver's start-up cultures plus a few examples how her biggest lesson has impacted her life and impressive career. Check out more about what we're up to at Range.vc Connect with Adam and Chris and the Range VC team on LinkedInSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This conversation explores the L.A. tech scene and venture investing featuring two of the industry's leading voices. Spencer Rascoff and Dana Settle discuss Pacaso and Greycroft while sharing their thoughts on L.A.'s evolving ecosystem. Dana Settle is a founding partner of Greycroft, where she heads the firm's West Coast office out of Los Angeles. Prior to joining Greycroft, Dana spent several years as a venture capitalist and advisor to startup companies in the Bay Area, including six years at Mayfield, where she focused on early stage companies in the mobile communications and consumer Internet markets. Dana currently manages Greycroft's investments in Anine Bing, AppAnnie, Avaline, Bird, Bumble, Citizen, Clique, Comparably, Goop, HamsaPay, Happiest Baby, Merit Beauty, Seed, Thrive Market, Versed, and WideOrbit. She also managed the firm's investments in The RealReal (IPO), Awesomeness TV (acquired by Dreamworks), Maker Studios (acquired by Disney), Pulse (acquired by LinkedIn), Trunk Club (acquired by Nordstrom), Sometrics (acquired by American Express), Viddy (acquired by Fullscreen), and Voicea (acquired by Cisco). Show notes and resources: Dana Settle bio on Greycroft Both sides of the table Diversity Ride for the Term Sheet  

Fifth generation business owners of UWM Men’s Shop, Bart, Brandon and BJ Stringham discuss how they have been able to weather recessions, depression and other challenges over the last 100 years! UWM Men’s Shop was established in 1905 and continues strong today providing men’s fashion in Salt Lake City, Utah. Action Items: Access our FREE Resources Subscribe to The Biz Sherpa Newsletter Follow The Biz Sherpa on LinkedIn Follow The Biz Sherpa on Instagram Follow the Biz Sherpa Facebook Page Subscribe to The Biz Sherpa Youtube Channel Subscribe to The Biz Sherpa Podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast or Stitcher. Connect with Craig on LinkedIn TRANSCRIPTION: Speaker 1: From his first job flipping burgers at McDonald’s and delivering The Washington Post, Craig Willett counts only one and a half years of his adult life working for someone else. Welcome to The Biz Sherpa podcast with your host, Craig Willett. Founder of several multimillion-dollar businesses and trusted advisor to other business owners, he’s giving back to help business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs achieve fulfillment, enhance their lives, and create enduring wealth. Craig Willett: This is Craig Willett, The Biz Sherpa. I’m excited to have you join me today for this episode. I’ve got some really good people that I’d like you to meet. They own UWM Men’s Shop in Salt Lake City, Utah, at the City Creek Center. The Stringham family, BJ, Bart and Brandon. They’re fourth- and fifth-generation business owners and I hope that today you’re able to take from what they teach us and from their experiences a lot about marketing, sales, customer service and also, how to get along in business and stay family. Welcome, guys. BJ Stringham: Thank you. Brandon Stringham: Thank you. Bart Stringham: Thank you. Craig Willett: Grateful that you’d join The Biz Sherpa podcast. It’s really rare and I have to give you great recognition and commend you for being fourth- and fifth-generation business owners. Do you guys realize how rare that is? Brandon Stringham: Yes, actually, we do realize how rare that is. Craig Willett: Really? What makes you realize that? What— Brandon Stringham: Actually, I was curious, so we’ve googled it before just to see what the percentages are and from what I could find, less than 3% of family businesses make it to fourth-generation, and I couldn’t find any statistics on fifth-generation. So yes, we know it’s very rare. Craig Willett: That is very rare. Recently, I interviewed a sixth-generation— Brandon Stringham: Wow. Craig Willett: —but it was a harness maker, very skilled practice, very niche market. And I’m sure this has migrated from what it first started out as. UWM Men’s Shop was formerly known as Utah Woolen Mills. What was that about five generations ago? Bart, do you want to share with us what that was like? Bart Stringham: Our business in the old days— that was great-grandpa and grandma. It was direct-to-consumer sales. We had over 400 salesmen at one time canvassing the United States and Alaska, and we made things. We went around to farmhouses, set up in hotel rooms and the people would come to us. From where that was to what it is today, as a high-end men’s retail shop, some big changes. Craig Willett: What was it that they made in that— Bart Stringham: Well, they specialized in coats, outerwear, underwear, suits, sweaters. Clothing. Everything— Craig Willett: Wow. Bart Stringham: —people needed at the time. Back in those days, they didn’t go to malls and the cars were—I mean, there was no central place to buy so they got everything. Craig Willett: The store went to them, basically? Bart Stringham: The store was there. We had sample cases. We still have the sample cases around the store here because that’s our heritage of what we used to do. Now, people come here and we just lay it all out. Craig Willett: Well, we’re going to get some video of that to make sure we’re showing that during this podcast to show that. That’s amazing that you had preserved that kind of heritage. What are some of the key principles that have led to the success for the generations of the Utah Woolen Mills-UWM Men’s Shop legacy? BJ Stringham: I think one of the core principles is just we have a set of cultural beliefs, and one of them is “Own it.” I own our results and consistently ask what else I can do to achieve them? I think from my perspective growing up, seeing my dad and my grandfather work just insane hours to make sure the business got taken care of, not seeing my dad all December because he was here at the shop. Craig Willett: It’s true that, in retail, December’s the biggest month of the year? Brandon Stringham: By far. BJ Stringham: But for me—and I don’t want to speak for them—but for me, just owning what the responsibility is, not waiting for somebody else to do it I think is probably the core principle that’s kept us in business. Craig Willett: Get in, get it done and— BJ Stringham: No excuses. Craig Willett: Get it done and be accountable. BJ Stringham: Be accountable. Craig Willett: “Be accountable,” I love that. Great. How was it to be accountable, Bart, to your father? Bart Stringham: Kind of the same. I just figured he would do everything unless I stepped in and tried to take some responsibility off his shoulders because he wasn’t waiting around for other people to do it, it was for him to do. For me, I liked being able to relieve a little bit of that burden, be here, help him, and take over and not have him having to micro-manage because he knew if I said I would do it, I would get it done. Craig Willett: That’s great. That’s good DNA for your family. How did it go from going on the road to becoming a premiere men’s high-end retail shop today? What was the next step from having 400 salespeople to manage on the road? That’s a big deal. Bart Stringham: Well, I think what happened is just history. The automobile, malls and stores, the accessibility for people to travel, be where they want to be, get what they want, so the traveling salesmen aspect kind of changed. It wasn’t as viable. Our business—we became more centralized in the things that sold the best, like clothing, suits, sport coats, slacks. We still did do blankets but those were the things that sustained us, these items that people would come to us for that kind of quality because they were used to it and as the salesmen started doing less and less on the road, we did more and more in the store. The store became the focal point. Craig Willett: How long has the store been here? Bart Stringham: Well, we had a store even back in the day, so 115 years. Craig Willett: 115 years. Wow. What a legacy— Bart Stringham: Yeah, 115 years is a long time. Craig Willett: —to have. Not a lot of businesses make it that far, like you said. What are some of the other principles? I like what BJ said but Brandon, do you have any ideas that you’d like to share about principles that have guided you as you stepped into more responsibility here? Brandon Stringham: It’s interesting. I hadn’t thought too much about it. Bart was mentioning he had to take over roles that my grandfather was doing and I think that’s—without him saying that, that’s what I did and that’s what BJ did. I looked at how our books were being done and it was all done by hand. It was correct, it just—we wanted to know where we were at today and we never knew, we always had to wait. I was like “Well, why is that the case?” It seems crazy but about— I don’t even know how long ago—maybe 10 years ago is when I got us computerized and got us onto inventory and constant, consistent spreadsheets of “We know exactly where we’re at, at any one time.” It was just one of those things that wasn’t there. It was creating opportunities for myself for a full-time job because I didn’t see myself being on the sales floor forever. Sales isn’t my thing. BJ’s great at sales, my dad’s great at sales, but that’s never been my thing, so I wanted to create something that I’m good at, which is numbers. I think it’s just a way of being able to see something that needs to be done, creating it for yourself and do it. I think that’s the principle I’m trying to get at there is you need to create it. Craig Willett: If you have to create it, I’m interested in the 10 years that you’ve automated the accounting system. Are there some things that you’ve changed your pattern of as a company from the information being more timely and maybe more in detail? Brandon Stringham: Oh, man, yeah. Definitely. Bart Stringham: Regarding every aspect of our business. Just— Craig Willett: Really? Bart Stringham: Inventory, for example. We know exactly what we have at any time. “Oh, we need more of this, we need more of that.” We can anticipate, and “This isn’t selling very well.” Craig Willett: So you just don’t go based on feel, you have to really be honest. The numbers don’t lie. Bart Stringham: Yes, and let’s face it, like blankets. My dad had to have blankets, everybody had blankets. We sold tons and tons of blankets. I’ll never forget, we got the computers, the boys came to me and says “Hey, you know, blankets are 2% of our volume. It’s taking up 20% of our space. This makes no sense, does it Dad?” I go “No, it doesn’t make sense.” Blankets were gone. Craig Willett: Wow. That’s pretty good information. Bart Stringham: Yep. Craig Willett: What other things besides blankets? What else did you find in that process? BJ Stringham: I think for me, because it’s such a personal business for us, having accurate data about what happened last year at this time on this date sales-wise—it gets very easy to get down. Anybody who’s in sales understands how it is when sales are not what they were the year before, so you’re always comparing yourself. You’re never satisfied. Having accurate data changed the game, at least for me, to be able to say “Wait a sec. This is normal. It’s okay.” To be able to step back a little bit and be able to see that this is just how business is. It fluctuates. Having the data to show it really eases a lot of those fears and “Oh, what’s going to happen?” Anyway, I just think for a good mental state, to be able to see the numbers was important. Craig Willett: I think that’s great. It goes back to the accountability principle, too, but also, I like that because numbers on their own without some understanding don’t really mean anything. It’s probably nice to have Brandon’s strength— Brandon Stringham: Awesome. Craig Willett: —to help with the business. What was it like and is there a formal passing of the baton? When does the father know it’s time to hand it over to the son? BJ Stringham: That’s the best question ever. Brandon Stringham: Let Bart handle that. BJ Stringham: Yeah. When do you know that? Bart Stringham: That’s really interesting. My role has changed here. It’s been rather difficult because I’ve been so hands-on in every aspect, every aspect: the numbers, the buying, the selling, the relationships, the advertising—everything, everything. I think Brandon just hit it. You start looking and they start looking at how could they relieve some of the pressures or the weight that I was carrying? And they did. For me, it’s been so easy because my goal now is to coach and to help our guys see what there is, see the vision and give some enthusiasm towards our goal, which is to satisfy the needs of our customers. Craig Willett: That’s great. So you knew when it was time? Bart Stringham: Well, I’m still involved on a different basis, but the time is they’re running the business and have been for several years, so it’s—yeah. Craig Willett: That’s great. You mentioned something really important and that is relationships. How do you pass relationships that you’ve had for 40 years to the next generation? Bart Stringham: Well, you’re a perfect example. You come in here, right, and— Craig Willett: Well, I call you up and make sure you come in. I track you down. Bart Stringham: Right, except if I’m not here, you’re with Brandon, you’re with BJ or with any of our guys. It’s so easy. I had a guy call me yesterday. He says “Hey, I’m in town.” I wasn’t here. I says “Don’t worry about it, the tailor will know you and take care of you.” Spent a lot of money, but he was so happy. Calls me, he says “This is amazing.” It’s pretty easy because our goal is the same: let’s take care of the customer and there’s no ego involved here. BJ Stringham: I think it’s also different because I think we visualize the business differently. Growing up in the business, it was every relationship was handled by a Stringham, full stop. That’s how business is done. Craig Willett: Right. Well, that’s how I came to know the business 30 years ago. It was your grandfather or your dad. BJ Stringham: Well, one of the big changes that we’ve made is looking at this more as “Well, wait a sec, is this something we can scale? Is this something we can grow?” If it’s up to me to be here, or Brandon or Bart to have those relationships, there’s only so many relationships, there’s only so many hours in the day and at what cost? We’ve made a lot of changes and they’ve been difficult to implement, both from a traditional standpoint, from the feelings that we have inside about what we should do because we’ve— you know, I’ve seen my dad work— Craig Willett: Because it’s your baby. BJ Stringham: I’ve seen my dad work Christmases my entire life, and I haven’t worked nearly the time in December, but we chose to do it differently. What we have chosen to do is we’ve hired more guys and we’ve said, “Wait a sec. The relationship is key. How can we teach other people what we know how to do so that we’re basically multiplying Stringhams so that people can have the same great relationship and the same experience, but it’s not necessarily me?” Can I use my skills that I’ve learned from watching my dad for 40 years—and I’ve been doing it for 20 years—can I use those skills to teach them how to do it so that maybe not only this location but can we do another location? Could we do another location and not lose that feel? Taylor, for instance, has been with us for 10 years and he has people that have just as strong a relationship that you and my dad have with him and his customers. As far as they’re concerned, UWM Men’s Shop— Craig Willett: Is Taylor. BJ Stringham: —is Taylor. Brandon Stringham: Right. Bart Stringham: Is Taylor. BJ Stringham: Taylor Hawkins. He’s not a Stringham but, as far as they’re concerned— Craig Willett: That’s amazing. You’re onto something here. I really want to talk about this more. This is a really interesting concept because so often as business owners, we feel like we have the magic formula and it resides with us as entrepreneurs. It’s difficult to try to train that, I think. For many of us, one, it makes us feel like “Oh, I have to give something up,” and “I’m giving up something and I’m really risking that they’re going to offend one of my prized customers.” How did you go about transitioning that? Your philosophy is “Take care of the customer and their needs.” How do you teach people to know the needs of the customers and then take care of them? You’ve been able to successfully do that. And you’ll see video of the story, you’ll be able to know that it’s not just Stringham-dependent. BJ Stringham: Well, we’re doing that but it hasn’t been easy. It’s been a challenge for us. We met with a great coach. What, it’s been about a year ago? Was it a year? Over a year ago. Tom Smith. He wrote Change the Culture, Change the Game. He lives in Provo. He is a great customer of ours, for years. I mean, he’s been shopping with us for a long time. I was talking to him one day about “Well, how do we do this? How do we grow?” I said, “How do we hold people accountable? How do we teach them how to do it how we want them to do it?” He says “Well, I wrote the book on that.” I was like “Really? Tell—” Bart Stringham: Yeah, read the book first. BJ Stringham: So anyway, we went down to his house and we spent a Saturday, no less, which for us was a big step because Saturday’s our biggest day, but we were not at the store. At his house, we wrote all the things that we feel like could be better in our business, that we didn’t like about ourselves and our business and it was a really brutal, honest evaluation of our business. And then, it was really fun because, then, we wrote the other side of, What do we want it to be? That’s where we came up with our cultural beliefs and there’s some fundamental beliefs that we have that we work with our entire team every day. When COVID hit, we did training videos. Now, we literally are sitting down with our guys and we say “Okay, look, when this situation happens, how do we want you to handle it?” I had to watch him for 20 years to really be able to effectively handle— Craig Willett: Experience is a great teacher. BJ Stringham: Experience, right? All of a sudden, we’ve tried to put all those experiences on videos, we’re walking our guys through those videos and we’re saying “Okay, look, this is what happens with that, this is what happens with this.” Anyway, that’s— Craig Willett: Through those experiences- BJ Stringham: —been that transition was sharing those experiences. Craig Willett: —and they understand principles that they can apply. Bart Stringham: Well, they can watch him. Watch him over and over again, pause it and just say, “Oh, this is what’s happening here, this is what’s happening there. Why did he do that in that situation?” Then, we explain it and they go, “Oh, I get it.” Everything makes sense because it does make sense because now, we’re in our 115th year. We know it’s successful, we just have to show others how to do it. Craig Willett: Now, I’m really curious: are you willing to spill some of the beans of the success? How do you know when you say, “People do this. Why did they do that?” You certainly understand customer behavior. BJ Stringham: Sure. Craig Willett: Is that right? BJ Stringham: You were going to say something. Did you— Brandon Stringham: Well, this is a little bit of back to what we were talking about with the experience, so it’s just real quick. One of the things that forced us to do this is they built City Creek next to us. This very big, successful mall, and we had to change our store hours. Well, we didn’t have to, we chose to change our store hours to compete with the mall. We’d always been open from 9:00 AM until 6:00 PM and we wanted to do— Craig Willett: Right, because you were an inner-city retail store. Brandon Stringham: Right, an independent store. We thought we should compete with the mall and they were open until 9:00 PM. That’s a huge change for a store that’s always been open until 6:00— Craig Willett: Right, and if you’re the family doing it, how do you get home for dinner? BJ Stringham: Ever. Brandon Stringham: We were trying it and after a couple weeks, “I can’t do this. I can’t work 12-hour days, five, six days a week. It doesn’t make sense. I don’t care if I’m making money, it’s not worth it to me.” BJ actually reached out to our—Tyler was the first part-time— BJ Stringham: Yeah. Brandon Stringham: —employee, right? BJ Stringham: Yeah. Brandon Stringham: It was a guy that just happened to walk in the store and BJ just offered him a job. Then, Taylor came on very soon after that and we were saying Taylor’s the one that’s been here for 10 years. We, after a little while, trusted them to run the store from 6:00 PM until 9:00 PM, so they were forced to learn it and I think that was a really good thing for them to get those experiences and have to have it, but it took them a little bit longer than this new training process, where it’s been a lot better than, “Hey, go figure it out,” it’s, “This is how you can do it. Now go figure it out.” Craig Willett: Hire out of necessity here, help us fill in the gap— Brandon Stringham: That’s what started it is City Creek moving in and us being forced to adapt to it, more or less. Craig Willett: He must know what he’s doing because I know the last time I was here—then, I want to get into this customer behavior thing because, and this might be the key to it. I was buying a few things and we were getting ready to leave. I’m usually trying to tell Bart “No, I have enough.” Bart Stringham: I never listen. Craig Willett: Somebody—and it must’ve been Taylor—came up to me and I ended up with this jacket at home. I had it in my closet for almost a year. I put it on the other day, my wife said, “Oh, that’s the coat that—” my wife said, “That guy needs a promotion down there. You were ready to leave, and he pulls this coat off and you bought it. You didn’t wear it for a year.” Now, I wear it a lot but it was kind of an interesting experience for me. Anyway, enough on that. How do you understand customer behavior? How does it help you with your sales and how do you train people to recognize that? BJ Stringham: That’s everything. It’s everything. What we’ve learned is men don’t like to shop. Men, if they’re going to shop, they want it to be fun. They— Craig Willett: That’s why you have a ping-pong table in here? BJ Stringham: We have two. We’ve got all types of ping-pong tables. Bart Stringham: Pool table, too. Brandon Stringham: And a pool table. Craig Willett: A pool table, okay. BJ Stringham: In our new shop, we’ve got a punching bag just to get out the stress before you shop. We’re men, so we know what we like, we know how we want to be treated, so as far as our training’s concerned, it’s just addressing those things. I always tell our guys the minute a man walks in the store, there’s a stopwatch. You’ve got a limited amount of time to make it a good experience for him so be on it. If he likes the jeans, you make sure you know what model he’s in so, if he wants another couple colors, he doesn’t have to try them on, it’s just there, just done. Make it easy because guys hate to shop, and that’s— Craig Willett: Oh, now I get it. That’s why I have three pair of the same thing. BJ Stringham: Exactly why. We’re giving you the inside scoop. Yet, you’ve been shopping with us for how long? Craig Willett: 30 years. BJ Stringham: Do you enjoy your experience? Craig Willett: Oh, always. BJ Stringham: That is because of the behind the scenes things that you don’t see that I’ve learned and we’ve taught our guys. It’s, “Hang on, there’s a reason why people like shopping with us. These are the reasons.” Make it quick, make it painless, take all the hassle out of it, make it easy. That’s it. Bart Stringham: And make it right. One of the first things we tell our guys: don’t sell stuff to sell stuff. Make sure it’s going to actually work for the customer. Find out what the customer does and have it work. You just said you had a coat for a year. Now, you’re wearing it all the time but, if we sell you the wrong thing, Craig, you’re never going to come back. If we sell you the right thing, maybe one thing, two things or 20 things. If they’re right, you come back, you have a great experience. It has to be the right thing. Craig Willett: Well, that’s great. There’s no high pressure? Bart Stringham: No. BJ Stringham: No high pressure. Bart Stringham: It’s just fun. The more you spend, the happier you are. Craig Willett: That’s an interesting philosophy. Let’s put that into business books. Let’s put that in writing. Don’t tell everybody’s family budget about that one but okay. You mentioned another location. How did you evolve to another location? BJ Stringham: You want to take that one? Brandon Stringham: Sure. We’ve talked about it for quite some time and part of the problem with Utah Woolen Mills and leading us to change to UWM Men’s Shop was the perception of what we were. The second location is actually called Tom Nox Men’s Shop. It’s a completely different name, it’s a different business, it’s also a different price point. It’s not even true, but people just assume that our suits are $8,000 here. We have $8,000 suits but we also have $800 suits. That gets missed somewhere in translation so, basically, we wanted a clean start to be able to go and really tell people what it is that this Tom Nox brand can do. We have suits at Tom Nox that range anywhere from $495 up to maybe $4,000, but the bulk of them are $900 to $1,000. It really was a way for us to get a clean start. We’ve been renting downtown for a long time. We wanted to not have a landlord, to be able to do our own thing so we decided to buy the building in a high-traffic area. That’s what we did. Craig Willett: I love it. I love the idea of owning the real estate behind it. Now, you basically own this. I know you have a rent, but you have such a long-term lease— Brandon Stringham: Very long-term lease. Craig Willett: —that it’d take somebody a lot of money to move you out of here. Bart Stringham: Yes. Craig Willett: To buy your interest out because a long-term lease is as if owning it, but I do like the fact that you own your second location. What a brilliant idea. Who came up with the price point and how’d you figure out that people lost track that you had the $800 to $1,000 suit lines? BJ Stringham: Well, I just think generally, when people come in for the first time, that’s part of our sales process. We’re asking “How’d you find out about us? Where’d you find out about us? Who told you about us?” That’s just kind of a theme that we’ve found. We also think that demographic that Brandon was talking about, that price point, is just something that we could actually replicate in more places, something that, with this level of quality and luxury in our downtown location, it’s hard to envision opening up multiples because there’s only—you don’t see— Craig Willett: You cannibalize your own market. BJ Stringham: Yeah. Craig Willett: You make it closer to home to your customer, but you don’t add any more sales. BJ Stringham: You don’t see a lot of Ferrari dealerships in the same city, and that’s kind of how I look at this. Craig Willett: Interesting. Very smart. You mentioned that your customers—when they come in—how do you go about marketing and advertising your business? BJ Stringham: Well, we talked about this. That’s something we had not done well. I mean— Bart Stringham: It’s been word of mouth, basically. Craig Willett: What’s wrong with that? Bart Stringham: Nothing, it’s just kind of a slow process and we like that, except the masses don’t have a clue. People— Craig Willett: For the Tom Nox, it’s probably more important? BJ Stringham: Well, I think it’s important for both of the stores to—we’ve been on that. We’ve been— Craig Willett: I used to see Bart on TV 20 years ago. BJ Stringham: Yeah, that’s true. Craig Willett: Doing commercials. Brandon Stringham: Well, I think that’s the truth. We’ve tried— Bart Stringham: We’ve tried— Brandon Stringham: — just about everything. Bart Stringham: —lots of things and we thought that maybe the name’s—Utah Woolen Mills—connotation was, as Brandon says, we shear sheep or something. They had no idea until they walked in. Even being here in the mall, people walked in and said, “Oh my gosh, I had no idea. Been here for 30 years, had no idea that you actually had this quality.” I’ve been to Nordstrom’s and they go there, they don’t—they stay here. They don’t go back because of our quality. It’s unsurpassed in the country. We have very high-end, nice stuff. Craig Willett: Well, on that note, you have two stores right next to or near Nordstrom and two locations in Utah. They just pulled their suits out of Utah. Maybe you guys had something to do with that? BJ Stringham: We just found out about it yesterday and we’re still in shock because it’s still—with the epidemic and all, it’s still a business. We’re still doing business. Brandon Stringham: We still sell a lot of suits. There are still weddings and plenty of other occasions to wear suits. Craig Willett: Great. Let’s talk about how do you get word of mouth. What does it take—in addition to just selling them what they need and selling them quality so that they want to come back, and not selling them something they won’t use—what is it about service after the sale, what is it about the relationship that makes people want to tell other people about you? BJ Stringham: Well, for me, I can just speak for me. I pride myself on the relationships I’ve built here with the men that have shopped with us, and it’s not just the men, it’s the wife that comes in and knowing their names. I send my family’s Christmas card to all my favorite customers and my wife gives me grief because I’ll tell her about this interaction I had with today and she said, “Oh, is he your favorite customer?” That’s just kind of how I feel. I’ve established some really great friendships, just like I see with you and my dad. It’s about friendship, it’s about relationships, and I think that is why the repeat business and that is why the word of mouth is so strong, because I’m not just a suit salesperson to somebody, I’m BJ. I’m somebody that they text, they ask about this or we talk about water skiing, we talk about basketball, we talk—the suits are just the clothing. Craig Willett: You become part of their life. BJ Stringham: The clothing’s just something that we connect on but we connect on a lot of deeper levels, and I think that’s what leads to them telling people about me or telling people about Taylor, Brandon, or Bart. That’s what does it, I think. Craig Willett: Great. As you look at it, you mentioned that you’ve been asking yourselves the question, “How do you go about marketing and advertising?” Are there some things you’re considering that you might want to share that might benefit our audience about how you’re going to analyze it, what you’re looking to do, what are some of the avenues that are best? BJ Stringham: Well, I can take this one. We actually reached out to a data collection service, Experian. They collect all sorts of data. We’ve never been data-driven, honestly. We’ve been— Craig Willett: Except for the last 10 years. BJ Stringham: Except for Brandon bringing us in. Brandon Stringham: Well, it’s getting us started with it. BJ Stringham: We’re learning to be more data-driven and finding out what is the common thread between our best customers? Not even best customers, what is the common thread through our customers? Then, how do we find more people like that, that would enjoy what we do? That’s really what it is, it’s about connecting a product that people like with the people who would like it. Craig Willett: Finding who’s in your area or market that would be potential customers to then getting— BJ Stringham: Finding mirror images— Craig Willett: —information in front of them. BJ Stringham: Mirror people of the people who love our business. Between talking to customers and also looking at data, that’s kind of where we’re trying to go. Craig Willett: When you identify them, what’s the best way to reach them? I mean— BJ Stringham: That’s what we’ve got to figure out, but that’s what we’re working on, honestly. It seems like we’re a 115-year old business and maybe that’s the lesson: we still haven’t got everything figured out. Every day, we’re still trying to get better. We’re still trying to evaluate what we’ve done, what has worked, what hasn’t worked. That’s not necessarily going to work tomorrow. Craig Willett: Magnify your strengths, then look at your challenges and then take on that opportunity. That’s great. How have you been able to survive some different inflection points over a 125-year history? I would imagine during that time there’s been the Great Depression, there’s been the Financial Crisis, there’s been wars. How did the family business react to those things and what’s key? Bart Stringham: They’re both looking at me, so— BJ Stringham: Well, you’ve been here for most of those 100 years. Craig Willett: They say “Hey, we’re in the pandemic, we know a little about the Financial Crisis,” so Bart, you’ve been through it all. Bart Stringham: It’s interesting. I think back and one of the biggest challenges we had, when they decided to put the light rail in front of our business and close us down. I happened to one day be talking to an attorney who happened to be the personal attorney for the mayor. He called the mayor for me and I got a little audience with her. She said, “Oh, hey, don’t worry about it. When this is done, your business will thrive,” and I says, “That may be true but how do we get to that point?” I think that idea of surviving anything and just doing what you’ve got to do to get through it. I remember getting up early and coming every morning—because it’d always be closed off. The city couldn’t deny us access so I had huge banners made, I had banners everywhere around us directing traffic into our building parking area. It was tough but we did well. When they constructed City Creek, we were basically closed down and we had to negotiate. We did all kinds of things with banners and signs to try to let people know. We’d stop traffic because they’d have to come in here. There’s been so many roadblocks and I think the common denominator that we all feel—and I know BJ and Brandon are feeling the same—we’re not exactly sure what to do, but we figure out a way and then we try it and we do it. Some work, some don’t, but we keep trying. We’ve never said, “Nope, we’re done.” Can-do attitude. Craig Willett: That’s probably why when the statistics say 3% of businesses make it to the third or fourth generation and there’s none saying all the way to the fifth, it’s easy to give up. Sometimes, it’s easy to rest on your laurels and sometimes, it’s easy to say that. How do you take that attitude and make something? BJ Stringham: Well, I wanted to add the reasons why we’ve been able to weather those things is because of just very wise financial decisions from my grandfather, dad saying “Hang on a sec, we could be doing all sorts of things. We could be spending money here, here, here, here,” but the principle of, “If we can’t pay cash, we can’t afford it.” Craig Willett: You’ve never financed buying inventory or paying operating costs? BJ Stringham: It’s a very different animal. I remember when in December of 2008, when that hit, we said, “Okay, we’ve just got to—let’s pull back and let’s reduce our buys, let’s be smart about what we have.” We just changed everything and the next year, 2009, was very profitable. We made wise decisions but it was because we had this base from which we could make— Craig Willett: You had financial discipline already in place. BJ Stringham: Yeah, so that, I think, is a huge key to the ups and downs. Even right now, the epidemic, it’s a rough time. People aren’t running out and buying suits left and right, but— Craig Willett: They’re all working from home. BJ Stringham: I mean, we’re lucky people get out of their sweatpants. We’re okay and we will be okay. Craig Willett: You carry that, too. BJ Stringham: We do that, too, yeah. Craig Willett: Just higher-end. BJ Stringham: But I think that financial security, the wise decision to be conservative on how we spend our money and not getting in debt is what has enabled us to overcome. Craig Willett: I think that’s great and it’s a wonderful principle, but I could imagine it’s still tough as generation passes to generation, the older generation’s still holding on to those purse strings a little bit and the younger generation, I would imagine, would want to go out and try all kinds of new lines, want to appeal to their generation and the old generation’s going, “But we used to sell these suits, we have this relationship, these are more expensive and it’s going to take more of our money tied up in inventory.” How’d you make it through that kind of transition? Were there any experiences you’d like to share that might help enlighten how to deal with that? BJ Stringham: I feel like I’m talking too much—but we had one instance in particular was a shirt company that we brought in. It was high-end, great shirt. They retailed at $265 a shirt. Brandon and I fell in love with these shirts and we said, “We should have these.” Bart’s experience had been, to the time, that it’s a pain. It’s a pain to stock them. If you don’t sell them, they get shop-worn. It’s a losing venture and custom shirts was really where our business was at, which was a great business but Brandon and I felt strongly about it. The difference was they had a tremendous stock selection that we could draw on constantly. He advised— Craig Willett: You were able to convince him. BJ Stringham: He advised against it but the thing is, to his credit, he’s always been supportive. Whatever those crazy moves have been that we wanted to make, he’s been supportive, even if he’s like, “That’s terrible. Don’t do that.” Craig Willett: What’s that like? BJ Stringham: It’s been a great— Brandon Stringham: The trust is there. Craig Willett: The trust is there. Brandon Stringham: The trust. Craig Willett: And has there been times where it hasn’t worked out? Has there been any, “I told you so?” Bart Stringham: No. Brandon Stringham: I don’t think so. BJ Stringham: I just know with him, you made a lot of changes that grandpa wouldn’t have approved of. Bart Stringham: It was the same with my dad because our goal was to make this the best men’s shop in the country and for sure in Utah. We did. There’s nobody like us and he just kind of backed off. He says “Well, whatever.” I traveled the country and picked out lines. I did things that this city had never seen and he just says “Okay, let’s go for it.” We always were able to pay for it and when BJ and Brandon come and say, “Hey, I think we ought to do this,” I’m going, “Well, I don’t know. That didn’t work before,” he says “Yeah, but if we do it this way, it can work. We have the money to do it, let’s do it.” I’m very supportive, obviously, because the success is right there in front of us. Craig Willett: Wow. Brandon Stringham: That particular example makes us look really good because it was very successful and that was one of the best things we’ve ever done for the business. Craig Willett: That shirt decision? Bart Stringham: Yeah. Brandon Stringham: Thousands and thousands. We became their biggest specialty store in the country. Craig Willett: Did it grow your overall shirt sales, too? Brandon Stringham: Oh, tremendously. BJ Stringham: Like not even— Craig Willett: Really? BJ Stringham: And also— Craig Willett: No comparison to the custom shirts? BJ Stringham: It also helped us sell other items because they looked so good, you throw a jacket on top of it, that looks great, too. It also gave us the confidence to go after a couple other big moves that were big, that really helped us. Craig Willett: So small successes, calculated risk, and it works out, then you continue to expand. I think one of the things that you shared with me might be the secret to the Stringham success of five generations is the other generation’s willing to trust the next after a certain apprenticeship in here and support that. Especially in retail, you have to change with the times or you become outmoded. Bart Stringham: You’re out of business, basically. Craig Willett: Wow. That’s great. That’s a compliment to you. Well, one of the things you can never escape on The Biz Sherpa podcast is to explain one of your greatest failures and what did you learn from it. I don’t know who— BJ Stringham: Are we going one at a time? Craig Willett: One at a time or if one of you wants to be the spokesperson for— Brandon Stringham: Well, we actually talked about this because we actually hinted at it a little bit earlier—and they can finish up what I’m starting to say here—but you asked about advertising. We’ve been in business for 115 years and if you go ask a random person on the street, they probably don’t know who we are. That’s a problem. It’s a big problem, and we’ve tried different things. We’ve tried billboards, we’ve tried playbills, newspaper, radio, TV, like you mentioned, but we’ve tried them all. There’s got to be something else that we’re missing and I feel like that is our biggest failure is that we’re a 115-year old business and I bet 5% of Utah knows who we are. If you’re talking country-wide, less than a percent knows who we are. We’re doing something wrong there, and that’s something that BJ and I have been focusing on a lot, and Bart’s always been trying it, too. We don’t have that answer and I still don’t know what to do with that. We’re trying different things. Craig Willett: Clothing has to be hard online, especially at the level and the quality that you do, but what kind of online presence have you considered? Is that one of the solutions to—? BJ Stringham: It’s tricky. That’s a tricky thing. We’ve— Craig Willett: Not necessarily sales but at least an online presence of— BJ Stringham: Well, we do online—we have a weekly mailer email that highlights some products and we’re active on Instagram, we’re active on Facebook and all those outlets, but we’ve also seen as—I don’t know. If you look at the retail environment in total, especially in our space, a lot of the stores that went heavily into online business, they’ve really alienated their associates in the store, selling things online then having them come in and having their associates try to service it, whether it’s been discounted or whatever. Those associates can’t make a living servicing products that have been sold online. You look at a lot of the big box stores and even acquisitions of—maybe even Nordstrom acquiring Trunk Club and Trunk Club was—that’s a digitally native brand that’s online that’s sent to you, brought back. The jury’s out on how smart it is to really dive into online sales. Of course, online sales, if it’s something that doesn’t need to be serviced, that’s one thing. The things that need to be serviced, it’s tricky. It’s tricky. I think I’m with Brandon on our biggest failure: just the fact that people don’t really know who we are until they walk in the store and we educate them. I’d agree. Craig Willett: Wow. That’s hard to admit after 115 years. Bart, did you have any thought of other experiences you remember that you’ve stubbed your toe and you learned something from? Bart Stringham: Not really. I mean yeah, I’ve stubbed my toe many times and I think it’s usually on purchases, thinking “This should be amazing, why don’t people see this?” They don’t, so you think, “Oh, well, earlier, we were late to the game.” I remember Dad and I sometimes buying a suit, a particular maybe, color or something, thinking “This is unbelievably great,” and nobody liked it. Then, if you keep it for a little while, then somebody comes in, “Man, that’s cool.” Then, they’re gone within a couple of weeks. You never know. I think when I’m listening to BJ and Brandon talk about our greatest failure, the interesting thing is, Craig, and I don’t know if you’ve picked up on that because you don’t look at us as, maybe, failure in any way because your experiences here have been incredible, but they’ve been incredible because you got to know us, you supported us and you tell everybody you know about us. That’s probably our biggest success is you and guys like you. Because it isn’t a matter of all the stuff you buy, it’s the relationship that we’ve developed, so for us, our biggest failure is also maybe our biggest success because that failure, and I think BJ’s kind of touching on it, but we don’t really have the relationship with people when we’re online and things. Our business has been so relationship-oriented that we want to do that but we want people to know us because once they know us, they’re with us. That’s really true. Craig Willett: You earn their trust, you earn their respect. Bart Stringham: We want them that way. We want that. It’s kind of interesting. Craig Willett: I’m glad you said that. I almost said it. I didn’t want to be the one taking a guess at it but my guess is some businesses don’t lend themselves to spending a lot of money on advertising when you’re after such a small niche in the market that not everybody needs to know about you but, like you said earlier, what you’re researching with the credit bureaus and the information that you can get from the data out there are find the people in the niche that you want and those are the people that need to know you. If that’s only 5% of the people out there, then that’s all you need. Bart Stringham: Yeah. BJ Stringham: So true. Bart Stringham: Good point. Craig Willett: You can’t be all things to all people and that’s good. I think that’s been important. I think it’s important for survival in this. I have one last question and I’ve always wondered this because, sometimes, I’ve talked to my wife sometimes about doing business with our family and certain members of our family. Lately, I’ve brought them in on a few things, my children, and she always says “You know, business and family doesn’t mix.” Carol said that. I just wonder what are family reunions like, what are family get-togethers like? When you have the business that you’re operating in and have to get along, you have a great relationship, but there’s also other members of the family. How have you been able to survive and what has that been like? Brandon Stringham: Man, that’s a tricky one because obviously, with any relationship, whether it’s family or not, even if it’s a strictly work relationship, you’re going to have issues and I think the biggest thing for us has been trying to figure out boundaries of family versus work, being somebody’s boss at work, trying to be the boss at home and trying to figure out those boundaries of, “Okay, this is my life outside of work, I’m going to do what I feel is best for me and my family, and you have no say in this. This is my life, this is my family,” and just creating, I think, boundaries is what I want to get at there. Craig Willett: I think that’s a great concept and I think maybe it’s helped to hire more people so you’re not working the 9:00 to 6:00 or having to be open 9:00 to 9:00, training others so you’re not here all the month of December and you’re able to spend time with family and evolve that so that it’s not fully consuming your life as to why other people are going, “Why is he never here? We’re having a party and they’re down tending the shop.” BJ Stringham: Well, there’s a couple things for me. Building the trust, having open and honest conversations—it’s another one of those cultural beliefs we have. I think open and honest conversations between us. “Hey, this doesn’t work. Hey, I need to be understood here. This doesn’t work.” Having those open and honest conversations, understanding that we love each other, because we do. There’s a lot of love in this room. We have very different personalities, different skill sets, different problems. I mean, I’m as forgetful as they come. We had a staff meeting this morning and it’s 7:20, I was supposed to be here at 7:30, “Oh. Anyway.” Craig Willett: “Hey, where are you?” BJ Stringham: That would never happen to these guys but I’m also really good with our people. Establishing the trust in our relationship to be able to set those boundaries is really important. Another thing I’d like to say just when it comes to family: I’ve got four kids. Brandon has a kid, too. I want to make sure that—I’m very fortunate to be in this position that I am because Christmas, I can be with my kids. Family business is tricky, so I don’t know what I’ll say to my kids if they want to do it. It’ll be a different business going forward anyway, so— Craig Willett: That’ll be interesting to see, the sixth generation come along. It’ll be exciting. I’m grateful that you would spend the time today. What I really love about what you shared today and probably what is most important, and that is your understanding of who’s most important: the customer. You certainly put them first. You certainly build those relationships. I think that one-on-one contact is something that is more and more rare in the world that we live in. It’s becoming more and more of a digital age, but I think the businesses that can understand that and can get beyond having a digital presence but still have that feeling of closeness, feeling of trust—when you can capitalize on that like you have, you’ll have a successful business, not only for years to come but also in continued generations. I appreciate your honesty to be able to come on here and put your dirty laundry on our episode but also to share your secrets to success. I admire your business. I hope people will look you up and not only frequent your store but more importantly, that they’ll come to understand the principles that you have put in place and how they can benefit from those, too. You’re great examples to me that I see as I know your family. I appreciate the time that you took. This is Craig Willett, The Biz Sherpa. I’m grateful that you joined me today at UWM Men’s Shop in Salt Lake City. Speaker 1: Be sure to go to our website to access the resources related to this episode at www.BizSherpa.co. If you enjoyed this show, tell your friends about us and be sure to rate our podcast. Craig would like to hear from you, so share your thoughts in the Facebook community @BizSherpa.co. Follow us on Twitter @BizSherpa_co and on Instagram @BizSherpa.co.

My guest today is Joel Peterson, one of the best business teachers in the world. He attended Harvard Business School and served as CEO of the Trammell Crow when it was the largest private commercial real estate development firm in the world. He then went on to serve as the chairman of JetBlue Airways for 12 years.Joel has launched or backed over 250 companies. Many of these companies are household names like Bonobos, Trunk Club, Asurion, & Vivint.He is recently authored a book called Entrepreneurial Leadership. As he says, it is about the art of launching new ventures, inspiring others, and running stuff!Finally, He is a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, teaching classes in leadership, entrepreneurship, and real estate. If you want to be a better leader, build a better business, or be more effective on a daily basis, you will really enjoy this conversation.Joel and I discussed his experience with:· Trammel Crow· Bonobos· JetBlue· How to fire someone you care about· Small vs. Large Business· His new book· And so much moreFollow Pat on Instagram: @patbcostellohttps://www.evolvedbrokerpodcast.com/

Here are 5 easy ways to wear navy midi skirt spring 2021 for Mid Size Women from my Trunk Club Box. * For links to everything mentioned and shown in this mid size fashion video, click SHOW MORE! T This video is NOT sponsored. Get more fashion spring ideas here https://youtu.be/6n61V4A2hys In today's video I share how to style midi skirt outfits. I will dive into how to style midi skirts for the office with white blazer and even tips on styling midi skirts over your bathing suits this summer! I hope you enjoy! The midi skirt featured in this video is available in XXS (size 00) to XXL (size 18 which is a plus size midi skirt 16W). You can get the skirt if you are regular size, mid size, or plus size here. ♡ SUBSCRIBE TO MY CHANNEL (It's free!): ♡ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/aprilgolightly/ ♡ FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/aprilgolightly/ ♡ TIKTOK: @AprilGolightly   ----------------------------------- ❤ MY FAVORITE THINGS ❤ MY AMAZON STOREFRONT: https://amzn.to/2QpYtYq (All my FAVORITE Amazon products in one place…FOLLOW ME!) MY FAVORITE HEADBANDS: https://twicethedreams.com/ **Use code APRIL for 10% off site + free shipping!** MY FAVORITE WAY TO SHOP: https://www.trunkclub.com/invite/74YGGX Sign Up thru my link and get $50 to Spend. We both get $50 to spend with the refer a friend program YAY!) ------------------------------------ FOLLOW ME! Instagram @AprilGolightly https://www.instagram.com/aprilgolightly/ Facebook - AprilGolightly https://www.facebook.com/aprilgolightly/ Pinterest - @AprilGolightly https://www.pinterest.com/aprilgolightly/ Twitter - @April_Golightly https://twitter.com/april_golightly TikTok - @AprilGolightly BUSINESS INQUIRIES! april@aprilgolightly.com ------------------------------------ HEIGHT & WEIGHT Height 5'2.5” Current Weight 190 Bra Size 34DDD ------------------------------------ EQUIPMENT USED LED Lights https://amzn.to/3uX6J1a Lights https://amzn.to/3htnddj Wireless Mic https://amzn.to/2RYaKnn Mic Stand https://amzn.to/3orzxw7 SD Cards https://amzn.to/3feu7Ag Canon Photo Camera https://amzn.to/2RpNPBc Video Camera https://amzn.to/3w0QNuO Extra Batteries https://amzn.to/3eRoER4 Tripod https://amzn.to/3uQ3iJm Smartphone Tripod Mount-Stand Lightweight Phone Tripod https://amzn.to/3wdOJzN ------------------------------------ *Disclaimer: This podcast is NOT sponsored. I use affiliate links. As a customer, you do not pay any more or less because of an affiliated link. A small percentage of the sale will go to the person who generated the link.We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. This blog contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for your support of my channel!

Meghan Hurley joined me on the show to talk about yummy food and marketing. Meghan Hurley is Head of Marketing at Farmer's Fridge. She's also a founding member of Chief (the private network of women leaders that are helping and supporting each other). Meghan has held marketing leadership roles at Trunk Club, Peet's Coffee, McCain Foods, and Whole Foods. Farmer's Fridge was founded in 2013, has ~150 people, and is based out of Chicago, IL. They've raised Series C ($42M total). Farmer's Fridge is on a mission to make it simple for everyone to eat well. They've developed a rapidly growing network of 350+ user-friendly smart Fridges stocked with chef-curated, restaurant-quality meals and snacks. Besides the vending machines, they've also recently started offering delivery. PLUS a recent partnership with Rick Bayless. Lots goin' on. Here's what we hit on: Who eats Farmer's Fridge (besides me); Who's on the marketing team; What marketing channels are working well (HINT: leveraging UGC is part of it, also email); Partnering with Dunkin' Donuts; Being scrappy during COVID with photos, iPhone videos, motion, colors, etc.; "People are fickle" so how do you approach looking at your marketing data; The "tomato fridge" ad - this UGC story is fascinating; What are the top challenges (HINT: growing the team that supports the growth of the org); Why it makes sense to invest in a marketing TEAM vs. just one person; What is the Head of Growth in charge of? (HINT: supports email - lifecycle marketing, SMS/Push, and soon Web - SEO) How Meghan's experience at Starbucks, Whole Foods, McCain, Peet's, and Trunk Club has impacted the way she understands ops, brand + growth (HINT: observing consumer behavior is a BIG part of it); Bad marketing recommendations (HINT: the pendulum has swung too far to analytics and paid, so that brand is underdeveloped); Chicagoans love to connect with others and play the "who do you know?" game; Meghan gets a little introspective and talks about some mistakes as a leader. You can find Meghan on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/meghan-hurley-a4b4532/ Find out more about Farmer's Fridge: www.farmersfridge.com/ For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen). You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov on Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCYgrBn-Y6P9o_OJ2lxHkWyg or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com Thanks for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/anna-furmanov/message

In this episode of Money Talks, Hugh interviewed Elle Bruno. Elle is the Managing Director of the Techstars & Western Union Accelerator. Elle has been a founder and startup operator for 19 years. In 2004 she started her first company, an eBay ancillary marketplace, and since then she has been involved in building three venture-backed startups, most notably Trunk Club. Her expertise is in consumer tech, specifically revenue and growth. Elle has been an angel investor and advisor since 2015, with a focus on investing in female founded companies. We discussed: 1) Elle's background as a founder and startup operator for 19 years. In 2004 she started her first company, an eBay ancillary marketplace, and since then she has been involved in building three venture-backed startups, most notably Trunk Club. 2) A Discussion of Techstars and Western Union Accelerator- how founders can connect to the program, what problems/markets are being addressed and the amazing networking capabilities 3) What Elle has learned from her journey as an entrepreneur and how she has created an amazing group of women founders and executives to help support and educate other women founders within their startups. Hugh Meyer - https://instagram.com/hughmeyerofficial https://www.linkedin.com/in/hughmeyer/ Elle Bruno - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellebruno/ www.techstars.com

“When customers ask for it, it's almost too late already. You should have already done it.” – Mark Terbeek In this episode of Outliers, we’re talking with Mark Terbeek about his investment process, advice for entrepreneurs, and the power of coaching. Mark Terbeek is a Partner at Greycroft, an early stage venture capital firm focused on investments in digital media. With experience as an analyst at McKinsey & Company Chicago, a board member for companies like Kontiki, BladeLogic, and Icertis, and a managing director at MK Capital, Mark has helped make Greycroft a leading investment firm in the media and technology spaces. Greycroft manages $1.1B and has made over 120 investments in companies like Thrive Market, Huffington Post, Shipt and Trunk Club. Show notes with links, quotes, and a transcript of the episode: https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/mark-terbeek-outliers-show-notes  Chapters in this interview: 00:00:22 – Mark’s background at Goldman Sachs and McKinsey 00:07:59 – Mark’s foray into entrepreneurship and the VC world 00:16:43 – How the world of venture capital has changed over the past 20 years 00:20:01 – The patience needed to be a great investor 00:22:21 – Comparing enterprise vs. consumer venture capital investing and their trends 00:28:05 – Greycroft’s focus areas, including intelligent enterprise and vertical SaaS 00:35:15 – Why being API-forward is so important in modern tech companies 00:39:45 – Icertis and contract intelligence 00:46:19 – The allure of system of record software businesses 00:49:17 – Mark’s fundamental investment beliefs 00:55:45 – Advice for entrepreneurs and investors: it’s okay to be honest and vulnerable 01:02:11 – Resources for entrepreneurs and investors   Sign up here for Outliers Weekly, our Sunday newsletter that highlights the latest episode, expands on important business and investing concepts, and contains the best of what we read each week. Follow Outliers on Twitter: https://twitter.com/heyoutliers. If you loved this episode, please share a quick review on Apple Podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On average, families have to prepare 21 meals a week, and when you factor in kids’ age groups, picky eaters, cuisine preferences, it can be really overwhelming for parents. During the pandemic, prodege.com surveyed 502 parents with children under 18. They found that 52% are spending more on groceries and 41% have stocked up on meal staples that’s easy enough for kids to prepare themselves. Which brings me to today’s episode where I’ll be interviewing the Head of Marketing of Farmer’s Fridge. Farmer’s Fridge has set out to remove the roadblocks to eating wholesome, delicious food. Their automated smart Fridges put chef-curated meals and snacks in the customers hands, in seconds. And to ensure we’re getting the very best, the company is dedicated to packing jars full of quality ingredients and delivering meals fresh to Fridges. Somehow, a Fridge full of tasty finds just seems to be there when you’re craving it most. Even better? Unpurchased food is regularly donated to community members in need. They say their jars may be little, but we hope all the goodness we put in them gives you a big smile. With over 400 automated smart Fridges across Chicago, New York, New Jersey, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Indianapolis, Farmer’s Fridge provides fresh, chef curated, delicious and accessible food. Farmer’s Fridge made a HUGE pivot when the pandemic hit and now offers home delivery. Behind that giant shift and all things marketing at Farmer’s Fridge, is super mom, Meghan Hurley. Meghan Hurley leads a multi-functional team and drives the company’s narrative through a rapidly evolving business model. She previously worked as a senior marketing manager at Trunk Club, leading brand strategy. Earlier in her career, Meghan worked in marketing across a number of food and retail companies. She has a diverse food category background including retail, CPG and wholesale with a specific focus on premium brands, including Whole Foods Market. Within those roles Meghan developed extensive knowledge in brand strategy, market expansion, and product development and innovation. She graduated from the University of Illinois and earned an MBA from Loyola University. She’s based in Chicago where she and her husband have 2 kids - Wylder and Lincoln. Meet My Guest: WEBSITE: FarmersFridge.com INSTAGRAM: @farmersfridge FACEBOOK: /farmersfridge LINKEDIN: Meghan Hurley Promo Code: FARMER'S FRIDGE: Use my exclusive code (momsense) to receive $10 off your first delivery order from Farmer's Fridge Press PIX11: Farmer’s Fridge providing fresh, healthy meals to New Yorkers and beyond Mom Haul: AMAZON: Kindle Paperwhite – Now Waterproof with 2x the Storage  AMAZON: OXO Good Grips No-Spill Silicone Ice Stick Tray for Water Bottles

Miguel Armaza sits down with Alison Lange Engel, Venture Partner at Greycroft, a leading venture capital firm focused on investments in the Internet and mobile markets, with offices in New York City and LA. Greycroft manages over $2 billion and has made over 200 investments, including some leading fintech companies like Acorns, Venmo, Flutterwave, and Public. Alison works across the Greycroft portfolio, advising companies on go-to-market strategy, execution, and sourcing new investments. She’s also a proud MBA alum from our very own Wharton School. We discuss - Her operator background at companies like LinkedIn, Microsoft and Stripe - A deep dive into her experience as Head of Marketing at Stripe - Transitioning to the investing side - Greycroft’s story, investment thesis, and what defines their portfolio companies - Why Alison and Greycroft are bullish on the future of consumer fintech - Inside stories on fast-growing portfolio companies - And a lot more! Alison Lange Engel Alison Lange Engel is a Venture Partner at Greycroft. She works across the Greycroft portfolio, advising companies on go-to-market strategy and execution and sourcing new investments. Alison has 20+ years of experience leading, structuring, and scaling high growth businesses. She’s managed teams throughout North America, Europe, Brazil, and Asia. Prior to Greycroft, Alison was the first CMO at Stripe and worked to establish the marketing function, scaling the team 5x in one year and driving quantified growth. Prior to Stripe, Alison was a Vice President of Marketing at LinkedIn. In her 6 years at LinkedIn, she had a broad impact on LinkedIn’s advertising business strategy and execution, with overall company revenue growing from $200MM at IPO in 2011 to $5Bn+ today. Alison’s early career in technology started with the sale of Massive Incorporated, a venture-backed video game advertising business, to Microsoft in 2006. She held marketing leadership roles at Microsoft Advertising for 3 years. Prior to her career in technology, Alison was an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, focused on Media, Entertainment and Consumer sectors. Her media background includes HBO and the CBS Television Network, where she held sales and programming roles. Alison has a BA from UCLA and an MBA from The Wharton School. About Greycroft Greycroft is a seed-to-growth venture capital firm that partners with exceptional entrepreneurs to build transformative companies. The firm has deep experience in both consumer and enterprise technology, with a portfolio that spans the globe. Greycroft values building enduring relationships with founders and understands that they want more from investors than just capital. Greycroft has raised $2 billion in commitments and has over 200 active investments. The portfolio includes Acorns, Anine Bing, App Annie, Axios, Bird, BetterCloud, Braintree, Bright Health, Buddy Media, Bumble, Flutterwave, Goop, Happiest Baby, Huffington Post, Icertis, Lightricks, Maker Studios, Medly, Openpath, Scopely, SEMrush, Shipt, TheRealReal, Thrive Market, Trunk Club, Venmo, and Yeahka. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Miguel's Twitter: twitter.com/MiguelArmaza Miguel's Substack: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp

Hello, I'm Marina. I am a technologist, mom, leadership coach and aquarian ;) UNBOSSED IS... “Paths To Success of Amazing Tech Women in Chicago” To interview the ONLY ~40 women CTOs (out of over 700+ CTOs) in the Chicago area To interview the few female CEOs of Tech companies in Chicago To interview women in critical political positions in Chicago To focus on other women in positions of Tech leadership in/from the Chicagoland area To inspire other women and help them see themselves in these positions, so that we can step toward closing the gender & racial gap in technology I welcome you to ask questions, participate, and join me as we explore these topics by emailing me at marina@unbossed.io or visiting www.unbossed.io Available on- Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDTz6_FepG04QTs1BjFLBjw/ Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eUhfH8E Apple Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/e7cWtBv Google Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/enjChPt And others.. Today's Episode: Interview with Candice Savino, CTO at Farmer's Fridge Candice Savino is currently the CTO at the Chicago startup Farmer's Fridge. At Farmer's Fridge she leads the company's engineering, product, design, IT and data teams. Prior to Farmer's Fridge, Candice worked as the Vice President of Engineering at Trunk Club, leading the engineering and data teams. With more than 17 years of technology and leadership experience from companies including Groupon, WMS Gaming, Encyclopedia Britannica and IBM, Candice brings a wealth of experience scaling consumer technology platforms, building diverse technology teams and leading innovation. Candice was named to Crain's Tech 50 in 2017 and Crain's Notable Women in STEM in 2020. She used to sit on the board of the Illinois Technology Association (Women Influence Chicago) and works as a mentor at 1871, Chicago's center for entrepreneurship and technology. Candice graduated with a Bachelor of Science in computer science from DePaul University. Learn more about Farmer's Fridge at https://www.farmersfridge.com/ Book Recommendations: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking Paperback – Susan Cain --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/marina-malaguti/support

In the follow up to her time capsule episode, Amelia tells us about leaving the full time workforce (for now!) and her growing family. Yes, we learn about remote preschool.

In this time capsule episode, Amelia talks about struggling in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon, her career in project management, and returning to software engineering in the Trunk Club apprenticeship program.

Miguel Armaza sits down with Elle Bruno, Managing Director of the Techstars & Western Union Accelerator. Armed with 19 years of experience as a founder, startup operator, and angel investor, Elle now leads the Techstars/Western Union accelerator focused on identifying innovative and disruptive startups working on cross border and cross-currency money movement for consumers and commercial businesses. In fact, if you are an entrepreneur in this category or know someone who’d be a good candidate, be it in the US or an emerging market around the world, make sure to apply by April 7, 2021. Apply Here -> https://bit.ly/2QE16FM Company Stage -> MVP+ Categories within fintech: - Alternative Financial Services Offerings (lending, emerging market asset management, P2P lending) - Payments and Remittance - KYC, AML, Compliance - Digital ID, Fraud Detection - Settlement and Transaction Processing - Digital Banking and Neo Banks - SMB emerging market POS Elle Bruno Elle Bruno is the Managing Director of the Techstars & Western Union Accelerator. Elle has been a founder and startup operator for 19 years. In 2004 she started her first company, an eBay ancillary marketplace, and since then she has been involved in building three venture-backed startups, most notably Trunk Club. Her expertise is in consumer tech, specifically revenue and growth. Elle has been an angel investor and advisor since 2015, with a focus on investing in female-founded companies, and was an EIR in the 2020 Techstars & Western Union program. About Techstars Techstars is the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed. Techstars founders connect with other entrepreneurs, experts, mentors, alumni, investors, community leaders, and corporations to grow their companies. Techstars operates three divisions: Techstars Startup Programs, Techstars Mentorship-Driven Accelerator Programs, and Techstars Corporate Innovation Partnerships. Techstars accelerator portfolio includes more than 1,700 companies with a market cap of $20 Billion. www.techstars.com About Western Union The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU) is a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement. Our omnichannel platform connects the digital and physical worlds and makes it possible for consumers and businesses to send and receive money and make payments with speed, ease, and reliability. As of March 31, 2019, our network included over 550,000 retail agent locations offering Western Union, Vigo or Orlandi Valuta branded services in more than 200 countries and territories, with the capability to send money to billions of accounts and mobile wallets. Additionally, westernunion.com, our fastest growing channel in 2018, is available in approximately 70 countries, plus additional territories, to move money around the world. With our global reach, Western Union moves money for better, connecting family, friends and businesses to enable financial inclusion and support economic growth. For more information, visit www.westernunion.com.

This is a fun conversation about all the different uses for social media that exist today for business owners. If you want to discover new ways to use everything from Facebook to Clubhouse, this show is a MUST LISTEN.About Shaily HakimianShaily started doing social media for her hobby community in high school… ON MYSPACE. She didn't realize what she did was doing social media until after college when she saw a question on a job application asking if she had ever managed an online community, and she realized there was something there.She graduated from Indiana University with a degree and certification in elementary education K-6, and she now uses those mad teaching skills to lead workshops, work with business owners 1-on-1 training them on social media, and has coached 200+ B2B consultants on how to use LinkedIn to grow their business. She guides business on how to stay top of mind with their community and referral network using social media. I hold them accountable and boost their confidence in themselves, what they have to offer, and their own social media abilities. She loves live streaming, event social media, live Tweeting, and comment engagement.Learn more @ YourSocialMediaSherpa.com.She has spoken at Trunk Club, Fiverr, State Farm, Notre Dame, University of Illinois, DePaul University, and University of Chicago.She is a Persian-Moroccan Indiana University Grad who loves cheesy icebreakers, bubble tea, poker, reality competition shows like Big Brother and Survivor, TEDx conferences, magic, flea markets, the Jewish community, and her sequin closet. Teacher of social media as a tool of empowermentOther websites she has ShailyHakimian.com & FriendingOurFoes.comLearn more about Shaily on LinkedIn, Twitter, and don't look too hard for her on TikTok. Social Links: linktr.ee/hakimian45  

We share our conversation with couple Shannon and Greg Buth, learning so much from them about building a business, supporting and inspiring one another, and "never quitting your day dream."Shannon and Greg have known each other since we were just kids, growing up in Minnesota. They are high school sweethearts who found their way back to each other in their late 20’s and now raise an incredible, spirited, crazy crew of four boys together in Chicago’s Roscoe Village neighborhood.Check out House of Shan for yourself here!Shannon made a career out of her passion for fashion, and worked for a California based clothing company for most of her 20’s, and then was the very first stylist at Trunk Club. She stepped back from work after the birth of their twins, born just 19 months after their first son. Greg has worked in the trading industry for the last 20 years and has traded everything from Soybeans to Eurodollar options on the floor of the Board of Trade. In January of 2020, Shannon started House of Shan and is empowering others to 'live what you love' on a daily basis. Shannon has designed apparel that includes an imperfect heart on every piece, and this heart signifies a daily reminder to 'live your passion, laugh everyday, love deeply, and to never quit your day dream'. House of Shan donates $5 from every purchase to a women’s charity. The company was founded in January of 2020, and since then Shannon has donated over $20,000 to organizations in their first year!

Shaily started doing social media for her hobby community in high school… ON MYSPACE. She didn't realize what she did was doing social media until after college when she saw a question on a job application asking if she had ever managed an online community, and she realized there was something there. She graduated from Indiana University with a degree and certification in elementary education K-6, and she now uses those mad teaching skills to lead workshops, work with business owners 1-on-1 training them on social media, and has coached 170+ B2B consultants on how to use LinkedIn to grow their business. She guides business on how to stay top of mind with their community and referral network using social media. I hold them accountable and boost their confidence in themselves, what they have to offer, and their own social media abilities. She loves live streaming, event social media, live Tweeting, and comment engagement. Learn more @ YourSocialMediaSherpa.com. She has spoken at Trunk Club, Fiverr, State Farm, Notre Dame, University of Illinois, DePaul University, and University of Chicago. She is a Persian-Moroccan Indiana University Grad who loves cheesy icebreakers, bubble tea, poker, reality competition shows like Big Brother and Survivor, TEDx conferences, magic, flea markets, the Jewish community, and her sequin closet. Teacher of social media as a tool of empowerment Other websites she has ShailyHakimian.com & FriendingOurFoes.com Learn more about Shaily on LinkedIn, Twitter, and don’t look too hard for her on TikTok. Social Links: linktr.ee/hakimian45   Resources Shaily Mentioned: Clubhouse Video LinkedIn Profiles she loves Focusmate.com SixWeekCycles.com

Shaily Hakimian is

Brian Spaly (@BrianSpaly) is currently the General Partner at Brand Foundry Ventures and Executive Chairman at Tecovas, a direct-to-consumer Western Bootmaker based in Austin, TX. Up until January 2017, Brian was Founder and CEO of Trunk Club, where he focused on making it easy for men and women to discover and acquire awesome clothing without the hassles of the traditional shopping experience. Prior to leading Trunk Club, Brian founded Bonobos, a men’s clothing company that is famous for the best-fitting pants on earth, by selling trousers out of the trunk of his car during business school in Palo Alto. Brian holds an MBA from Stanford and an AB degree from Princeton. He is an avid hockey player, cyclist, squash player, and enjoys watersports. He’s completed three Ironman distance triathlons and three adventures to Burning Man. His favorite authors are Roald Dahl, Neal Stephenson, Mark Helprin, and Nicholas Taleb. He is married to Carly Spaly and they have two daughters, Ruthie and Sylvie. https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianspaly/ https://twitter.com/brianspaly?lang=en Check out https://www.DitchDiggerCEO.com/ for this week's TOP 8 Business Growth strategies and subscribe to our newsletter to download Gary’s 13 Keys to Creating a Multi-Million Dollar Business. Follow us on Instagram @DitchDiggerCEO for more helpful Business Growth tips. Our goal is to inspire everyone to start their own business and help you grow it to millions or even billions in value so if you feel any benefit from this episode please let us know by leaving an iTunes review, sharing this episode on social media and emailing a link to anyone you think would also find benefit here. Thank you. 01:30 Welcome 02:30 Getting to know Brian Spaly 05:15 Discovering his entrepreneurial side 09:15 The private equity guy who made his own clothes 11:00 Finding your passion beyond conventional jobs 15:30 Bonobos’ history and differentiation 21:30 Success, responsibility, and life lessons from business 30:45 Letting go of Bonobos 40:00 Brian’s career with Trunk Club 49:30 What companies excite Brian Spaly to invest 1:04:45 Mentors that inspired Brian 1:11:30 How Brian inspires his team 1:18:15 Balancing your company’s priorities Connect with Gary Rabine and DDCEO: Visit the DDCEO BLOG: https://www.DitchDiggerCEO.com/ Follow DDCEO on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/DitchDiggerCEO Like DDCEO on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DitchDiggerCEO Follow DDCEO on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DitchDiggerCEO Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh03Px5ez_xe_oE_iJMMNIg

Haley Kwait Zollo is Principal at Starting Line, a Chicago-based, thematic early-stage venture capital fund focused on investing in consumer services and products that are cheaper and better. They’ve invested in companies like Cameo, Catch Co, SpotHero, and many more.  Before joining Startling Line, Haley was VP of Strategy and Business Operations at Mac & Mia and was Manager of strategy and analytics at Trunk Club. She began her career as a Transaction Services Associate at KPMG. In this episode… Building a business in today's highly digitalized world is a double-edged sword because there's a lot of data created that can make or break a business. The misanalysis of data or analyzing the incorrect data can lead to poorly informed decision making that can hurt your business. But on the flip side, using the data and measuring KPIs the right way will drive important decisions that can multiply your business's growth. However, the million-dollar problem is how do you know which metrics to measure and how do you identify which KPIs move the needle for your business? On this episode of Inspired Insider, Dr. Jeremy Weisz interviews Haley Kwait Zollo, Principal at Starting Line, about the importance of making informed decisions in business. They discuss Haley's background in analytics, her foray into the VC world, the data and KPIs digital brands should be analyzing, and Haley's advice to early-stage startups on how to have non-linear growth. Stay tuned.

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.  

Growing up, I was bullied and became determined to make friends. After years of experimenting, I realized that making personal connections was key to starting successful relationships. That skill lives on in how I operate my business today. I help business owners stay top of mind bringing their offline networks online. I empower fellow business owners to maximize their referral reputation on social media platforms like LinkedIn with my social media workshops and 1-on-1 accountability sessions.I learned the hard way on how to build a business from getting pulled into an MLM at 18 to trying to build a matchmaking business without profit potential to trying to survive as a social media manager to now coaching 100's of businesses on how to do their own marketing.She has spoken at Trunk Club, Fiverr, State Farm, Notre Dame, University of Illinois, DePaul University, and University of Chicago.This Persian/Morrocan Indiana grad is a lover of cheesy icebreakers, bubble tea, poker, reality competition shows like Big Brother and Survivor, TEDx conferences, magic, flea markets, the Jewish community, and her sequin closet.LinkedIn.com/in/hakimian45https://www.yoursocialmediasherpa.com/fav-profiles

Hi friends! So excited to have my favorite guy on the podcast this morning. He’s been on the show a couple of times and was the most-requested guest when I asked who you wanted to see on episode 60. This was a fun episode (as always!) and thank you to those of you who sent your questions via Instagram. Here’s what we chat about: - Our first dance song - How we’re navigating work, distance learning, and his travel schedule - What aircrafts he flies and what were his second and third choices  - Did you ever have a fear of flying or have you loved it your whole life? - Has it been weird/ are you nervous about traveling during Covid? - Does my “healthiness” bother him? - Keeping a workout routine while flying and traveling  and so.much.more  Resources from this episode: Don’t forget to sign up for your free 21 days of Les Mills On Demand! This is one of my all-time favorite workout platforms. The instructors are knowledgeable and motivating, plus the music is incredible. There are so many different formats, you’ll definitely find something you love. Get your free workouts here. Perfect opportunity to switch up your routine now that so many of us are at home. CBD has been a game changer for me. It helps so much with my anxiety and sense of calmness. You can read more about my experience with CBD here and use the code FITNESSISTA here to get an extra 15% off your first order. (I love the mint flavored drops and bath bombs!) Have you tried Trunk Club? This is my favorite styling service! All of the pieces are from Nordstrom and excellent quality. Use my link for $50 off your first Trunk.  Thank you so much for listening and for all of your support with the podcast! Please leave a rating or review if you enjoyed this episode. If you leave a rating, head to this page and you’ll get a little “thank you” gift from me to you.  You can listen and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play. Any guests you’d like to see on future episodes? Please leave in the comments below! xo Gina

Michael Barkin (@baldbarkin) joins us on this episode. Michael is the Co-Founder of Stitch and Heart, a custom menswear company that is committed to donating 10% of each purchase to cancer-fighting causes of the customer's choice. He was also the co-founder of Trunk Club, a company that transformed the way men shopped for clothes.In this episode, we learn more about the role fashion plays into golf; expectations, hardships, and the work-life balance of entrepreneurship; and his journey from working in the insurance world to the beginnings of Trunk Club and the creation of Stitch and Heart.Follow us on Instagram: @urbangolfperformanceFollow Mac: @mactoddlifeFollow Leo: @leo_ugpWebsite: urbangolfperformance.com

In this episode of Restarting America, Josh Gibbs from 97 Switch interviews Shaily Hakimian, founder of Your Social Media Sherpa, where she empowers others to use social media to grow their business. Throughout the interview, they discuss the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on business and society. Hakimian shares how the current health pandemic has affected her business and how she is adapting to new circumstances. Hakimian graduated from Indiana University with a degree and certification in elementary education. She now uses her teaching skills in her business, leading workshops and working with business owners, training them on social media. She has coached 170+ B2B consultants on how to use LinkedIn to grow their businesses. She loves live streaming, participating in social media events, live tweeting and engaging with comments. Hakimian is a Persian-Moroccan who loves cheesy icebreakers, bubble tea, poker, reality competition shows like Survivor, TEDx conferences, magic, flea markets, the Jewish community and her sequin closet. She has spoken at Trunk Club, Fiverr, State Farm, University of Notre Dame, University of Illinois, DePaul University and the University of Chicago.

In this episode we discuss the future of eliminating bias while amping up inclusion and diversity practices and policies. Braven and Tara also discuss the use of AI in the interviewing process, and the best practices in using AI to grow your workforce. The discussion spans new tools for eliminating bias and safeguarding against algorithmic bias in the use of Artificial Intelligence for onboarding alongside how to adapt new culture building techniques with your existing workforce.Keywords: Employee Onboarding, Interview Process, Inclusion and Diversity, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Recruiting, Eliminating Bias, Workforce Auditing, HCIOur Guest: Tara Nesser, Head of People at HuntClubTara Nesser is the Head of People for Hunt Club, a new category of talent that leverages technology to transform thousands of subject matter experts and business leaders into the world’s most powerful talent network. She leads all of people operations including recruiting, training and development, employee engagement, and more. Prior to joining Hunt Club, Tara led the Training and Development department for Trunk Club, a retail company owned by Nordstrom. She was on the founding team that launched the women's division of the business and went on run training and development for 500+ employees across seven locations. Prior to leading Training and Development, Tara had a career in sales working primarily in the start-up space. She was an employee of both Groupon and Trunk Club and saw the companies through an IPO (Groupon) and Acquisition (Trunk Club). With years of experience in the start-up space holding a myriad of roles, Tara is uniquely qualified to move the companies through various stages of scale. She succeeds in understanding the specific people needs of growing start-ups and applies that knowledge to create world-class cultures.Our Host:Braven Greenelsh is currently the Founder & CEO at Three Good, and Chairman of the Board for La Visual. Over the past twenty years, Braven has founded six technology and agency businesses in several verticals: two of which he has successfully exited. Braven graduated from Biola University with a B.S. in Business Management while subsequently growing his first company La Visual, 700% year-over-year for 3 consecutive years.Show References: Book: The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups, Daniel CoyleThreegood.com@threegoodrMedium.com/@bravengreen

Episode 19 - We talk about Trunk Club some more, The People Vs. OJ Simpson, Toy Story 4, and some back to school dreams. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/from-the-middle-podcast/support

SHOW NOTES Episode 6:Gitika's website at Wydler BrothersFollow Gitika on instagram More on her Kids Talk Race storyRecommendations from the show:The Book that inspired Gitika to re-frame her work goals The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months by Brian MoranThe book she wants to read The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM) by Hal ElrodAnd the episode of the Podcast By The Book which I suggested she listen to instead :)Crazy Rich Asians Trilogy - I was skeptical, but I trust my lovely friend Annalyn who recommended it and am now SOLD - a satirical look at the private jet set, a must read for fashion, jewelry andAnother article Gitika recommends by Jay Dixit: The Art of NowApple AirPods - Gitika is a convert!Trunk Club by Nordstrom - to which she gives two thumbs upSpecial thanks once again to Mohit Shandilya / Flying Carpet Productions for audio post-production engineering

It's becoming more and more obvious that the businesses that succeed these days are the ones that are able to assemble a great team and build a team culture that drives success. Mike Cruz had the opportunity to serve as part of the leadership team of Trunk Club as it was going through the iterations that have made it such a successful company. In this conversation, he talks about his personal journey and how it led him to the place where the well-being of the people on the team and the chemistry within the company were what gave him the greatest sense of fulfillment. It's a great case-study in building team culture and you'll learn a ton by listening. Building a team culture starts with knowing who you are, as a leader and as a company. One of the things that becomes evident as you listen to Mike Cruz' story is that the more clearly he knew his personal identity as he worked his way through his own career journey, the more clearly he was able to discern what a healthy team and company culture would look like under his leadership. He says that in his case, his personal identity as a leader and the company/team identity go hand in hand. Mike shares many lessons-learned in this conversation with Tom, so be sure you make some time to listen. The path of every startup is filled with false starts and pivots. It's the nature of the beast. As Trunk Club was experiencing the growing pains inherent with being a startup there were many false starts and pivots, in mission and in production and fulfillment. It has to be that way because few startups begin with a clear sense of company identity and mission. Those are things that evolve over time as the team assembles, personalities and skills mesh, and purpose becomes more clear. Mike Cruz says the Trunk Club team took on 3 to 4 iterations in the process because of the changes involved in discovering what the team culture had to be in order for success to happen. He says it's part of the process you can't really avoid. When you build a team culture, there's a point where you stop talking about it and start living it. When the team at Trunk Club had gone through several iterations and the new group of team players were finally seeming like the right fit, Mike Cruz had already spent a lot of personal time working through the essentials of the team culture. He'd talked about it with team members a lot. But he says there came a time when he had to stop talking about it and start living it. That's when everything changed. Find out how the Trunk Club team made that transition and the amazing results that took place because of it, on this episode of The Critical Shift. For better or worse, every team is a reflection of those who assemble it. It's almost impossible to think of Microsoft without Bill Gates coming to mind. The same is true for Apple and its co-founder, Steve Jobs. The reason for that is a point Mike Cruz makes in this conversation - for better or worse, every team or business is a reflection of those who create it. It's infused with the personality, perspective, and values of the leader. It can't be helped - so it should be celebrated and championed because it's the natural progression toward success that the team is on. Find out more about the process of building a team culture that fuels success, on this episode. Outline of This Episode [1:50] Growing up in Guam, college in the U.S. and starting a career outside his passions. [9:28] Learning that his skillset was around helping motivate and inspire engineers. [12:01] Where Mike learned his bent toward self-reflection and improvement. [18:21] Cleaning the slate to start all over at Trunk Club. [25:13] Drawing from his background and childhood to find himself and invest in his work. [28:04] Humility as a key to success in any industry. [30:24] The importance of positioning yourself for success in spite of circumstances. Resources & People Mentioned Trunk Club Swipe Sense Discovery Simon SInek Connect With Tom and Launchpad Lab https://launchpadlab.com/ On Instagram On Twitter On Facebook On LinkedIn

Hugh Jackman actor and producer. He has won many international recognition for his roles in major films. He is known for his long-running role as Wolverine in the X-Men, Real Steel, and Les Misérables.  Booker Evans shareholder at the Phoenix, Arizona law firm of Gallagher & Kennedy.His experience includes criminal and civil RICO cases, fraud, insurance matters and healthcare.  Brian Spaly CEO at Trunk Club, before becoming a fashion entrepreneur, Brian worked as a private equity investor for Wind Point Partners and Parthenon Capital, as the VP of M&A at AccuMed Home Health in Austin, and as a consultant in the Boston and San Francisco offices of Bain & Company.  Shara Senderoff named one of Forbes'30 under 30 leaders 100 Most Creative People in Business, and Fortune's7 Gen-Y Employment Champions.She is currently the Co-Founder and CEO of Intern Sushi, a new website that reinvents the internship hiring process by transforming the paper resume into a Digital Profile. Eric Parkinson CEO of Hannover House, Inc. a U.S. based entertainment company traded on the OTC Pinksheets under symbol HHSE.   Adam Wiener Vice President, Analytics & New Business, Redfin. He leads the company's efforts to use our proprietary data to build new products for the web and improve our real estate services.