Podcasts about tuft needle

In honor of being named the Best Marketing Podcast of 2022 by Adweek, we are replaying some of our fan-favorite episodes. Enjoy this one, all about how Tuft & Needle made buying a mattress online the norm, and how it did it with an edgy, boundary-pushing ad campaign that paid off big time. For source material, please visit www.willitstickpodcast.com

Consumers are recognizing how sleep and wellness are intrinsically intertwined. However, despite acknowledging the importance of sleep, a recent Tuft & Needle survey found that two-thirds of Americans note that they don't get enough sleep, with seven out of ten people admitting they get less than seven hours of sleep per night. The survey also found that three-quarters of people note that sleep impacts their mood and overall outlook on life, and two-thirds also agree that sleep impacts their physical health and mental wellbeing. To help fix that disconnect, Tuft & Needle's new marketing campaign—“Wake Up Awake”— is focused on helping sleepers get better rest, reclaim the night, and look forward to the day ahead.

Back in episode 20 we covered Tuft & Needle's amazing and totally loud marketing campaign: Mattress Stores Are Greedy. We had the chance to chat with Tim Hargis, one of the key players in the creation of that edgy campaign. Tim was the former VP of Marketing & Business Development for Tuft & Needle. He shares some great stories about how the campaign was born and how and why it worked so well. Don't forget to check out our website at www.willitstickpodcast.com to see more details.

Welcome to another episode of Action and Ambition. In today's episode, we are joined by the Co-Founders of Neighbor, Nick Arambula and Chris Lee. Nick's exposure to the furniture industry began at a young age, watching and later helping his mom build a furniture business while Chris was introduced to furniture building while managing a team of carpenters on a factory floor. Both became friends while working at Tuft & Needle and decided to combine their skills and shared values to launch Neighbors, a furniture company specializing in premium outdoor furniture and goods crafted for a long life outside with family, friends, and neighbors. Tune in to find out more on what inspired these friends to build their company from the ground up!

In this Greatest Hits episode we're revisiting a conversation about market disruption and big goals. JT Marino shares the story of his dream to build a company that would disrupt the mattress industry. JT Marino was the co-founder of Tuft & Needle, and this is his story of bootstrapping his way from nothing to the largest online mattress retailer in the world. JT, who is now the Chief Strategy Officer for SSB Phoenix, joins us to share his incredible story. We talk about why customer-centricity was one of Tuft & Needle's core principles from the beginning, and the role it played in their eventual merger with Serta Simmons. JT shares his thoughts on the importance, as a founder, of having an intimate understanding of how every aspect of your business works, and why they decided not to take any outside investments when they first started out. This is one of my favorite founder interviews we've done and I hope you enjoy it! Episode Highlights 4:58 Introducing JT Marino 6:47 How the friendship and partnership started between the founders of Turf & Needle, JT and Daehee 11:13 How the Tuft & Needle co-founders maintain a strong friendship while running a business together 12:51 How JT's prior experience with heavily-funded, but unsuccessful, Silicon Valley start-ups influenced Tuft & Needle's decision to not take outside investments. 17:21 The importance of identifying “the problem” when you're building a business, and how this led to the creation of Tuft & Needle 19:28 Some of the other principles the Tuft & Needle founders committed to before starting their business 22:11 How JT and Daehee used a problem-solution approach to determine whether they had a product-market fit for Tuft & Needle 27:59 The benefits of being highly involved with and having an intimate understanding of every aspect of the business, from manufacturing to supply chain to marketing 31:30 How Tuft & Needle moved through the pit of sorrow and started to scale 35:12 How a Hacker News blog post contributed to explosive growth of Tuft & Needle 37:51 The importance of customer satisfaction and word-of-mouth to Tuft & Needle's success, especially when they had a limited advertising budget 39:40 The various channels that helped grow the business over time 42:45 JT's approach to tracking attribution across a variety of channels 45:55 How Tuft & Needle developed advertising techniques and targeting that span across digital and non-digital 50:34 The unconventional reason Tuft & Needle started selling on Amazon 53:39 The Net Promoter Score target T&F set before making the decision to list on Amazon 56:10 JT's advice if you're considering selling on Amazon and the importance of looking at the market picture as you start to grow 59:35 The role customer-centricity played in Tuft & Needle's decision to merge with Serta 1:06:46 The future of the mattress industry 1:09:48 JT shares his hobbies and what's in store for him in the next year   Links And Resources Tuft & Needle How to Get Startup Ideas by Paul Graham Blog: How we bootstrapped to the #1 rated mattress on Amazon.com Meet the Warby Parker of Mattresses JT on Twitter: @johnmarino JT@tn.com The Coalition @a_brawn on Twitter Review or subscribe on iTunes

It was 2012, and one young engineer was disgusted by the experience he and his new bride had when mattress shopping. They walked away with a $3,300 mattress that they ended up hating - and the whole process felt slimy. With zero experience in the mattress world, two entrepreneurs got together to solve a real problem that had plagued the mattress industry for decades: Mattress Stores Are Greedy. They utilized this PSA-style campaign across the country and made some critical brand investments along the way to increase ROAS and decrease CAC, practically overnight! Tune in now to hear all about how Tuft & Needle went from an idea that a few guys had after tearing apart a so-called fancy mattress and learn how they used marketing that was insanely smart, direct, and a bit aggressive to crush their competitors and go from $0 to $200+ Million in sales in less than 10 years. Visit www.willitstickpodcast.com for our full show notes and sources.

Nick Arambula, Chris Lee, and Mike Fretto met while working at mattress brand Tuft & Needle. With the goal in mind to create beautiful and sustainable outdoor spaces, the three combined to create a company that reflected their shared values of craftsmanship, sustainability, and connection.  As sponsors of our Net Zero ICONIC Home, Neighbor’s sustainability mission aligns perfectly with our goals of creating a healthier and more beautiful world.  -- Follow along with Neighbor: www.hineighbor.com https://instagram.com/neighboroutdoor  https://www.facebook.com/neighboroutdoor  https://www.pinterest.com/NeighborOutdoor/ -- Follow along at www.iconiclife.com -- Follow ICONIC LIFE luxury lifestyle magazine: https://www.instagram.com/youriconiclife/ https://www.facebook.com/youriconiclife/ https://www.twitter.com/youriconiclife/ https://www.pinterest.com/youriconiclife/ Https://www.iconiclife.com/iconic-hour-podcast/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/youriconiclife/ https://www.issuu.com/iconiclife -- Follow Renee Dee Instagram @reneeldee Twitter @iconicreneedee LinkedIn @Renee Layman Dee Clubhouse @Renee Dee -- If you enjoyed today’s podcast, I’d be so appreciative if you’d take two minutes to subscribe, rate, and review ICONIC HOUR. It makes a huge difference for our growth. Thank you so much for supporting me to do what I do!

This week we chatted with two heavyweights to get their outlook on how retailers handled the pandemic, Torrie Belknap, VP Marketing of Tuft & Needle (DTC mattress vets) and Nicole Campagna, Sr. Growth Manager at SheerId. Here are some key takeaways from their chat:

Debt, Relationships, Investing As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: https://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey+ TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: https://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: https://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: https://bit.ly/2QEyonc Check out more Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/2JgzaQR

If it seems like a new DTC brand is launching every day, that’s because it’s true. In every industry, across every vertical, on every channel, the next “big thing” is competing for your attention, your clicks and your cash. As a consumer, sifting through all that noise and filtering out which companies are worth your time can be a daunting task. And as a brand, it begs the question: how do you set yourself apart from the ever-growing pack?One option is to find a trusted source to vouch for you. Matthew Hayes can be that source, and his new marketplace, The Fascination, is where he wants to lift up some of the most worthy DTC brands coming to market.The Fascination is a product recommendation and reviews publication focused on emerging and purpose-driven direct-to-consumer brands, large and small. Users of the platform have the ability to filter through vetted brands, digest the company’s story, and even transact all in one place.On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Matthew dives into lessons he learned while building Leesa Sleep, why curation is so important in the rapidly expanding direct to consumer space, and gives his take on why the convergence of media and commerce will be the one thing that impacts ecommerce the most. Plus, I even pull out a few stories from his trip to Richard Branson’s Necker Island.Main Takeaways:Curation Station: The saturation of the market with a new DTC brand every day is creating issues for consumers and brands alike. With so much clutter, it’s hard to stand out. Through measurable metrics, in-depth reviews, and by holding brands up to certain benchmarks, The Fascination created a space that customers can trust, and brands want to be listed. Layers of Use: For a brand to stand out, The Fascination has found that being mission-driven, promoting social good, and leaning into and highlighting the unique aspects of your business will be the most effective strategy. Lessons Learned: While not everyone can pick the brains of the biggest entrepreneurs in the world, when you get the chance, it’s wise to listen. Matthew was able to visit Necker Island and spend time with Daymond John, Marie Forleo, Tim Ferris, Seth Godin, and Richard Branson. Tune in to hear what advice they gave that has been helping him to this day.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey everyone. And welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles, co-founder at mission.org. Today, I'm chatting with Matthew Hayes, the co-founder at The Fascination and previously on the founding team at Leesa Sleep. Matt, welcome to the show.Matthew:Thanks for having me.Stephanie:Yeah, I'm very glad to have you on. So I was hoping we could start with maybe Leesa Sleep. Because when I saw that I'm like, "Whoa, you were like an OG in the D-to-C space," and I thought they'd be a good jumping off point.Matthew:Yeah. So I was part of the founding team at Leesa. Yeah, we launched it back in 2014 before everything exploded. Right? So we were very early. We were one of the first BedInABox brands to get out there, Tuft & Needle came maybe, I don't know, six months to a year before us. Casper was literally right before us. And then we were out right around Thanksgiving of 2014 and that whole industry just exploded under our feet. We had the wind at our back for most of our tenure, especially our growth years. But things are a lot different now and t's a different ball game in terms of launch and growing a D-to-C brand in 2021.Stephanie:Good. Tell me a bit about the differences. I mean, obviously the world is very different and there's a lot of new trends coming out about what to expect over the next couple of years, but are there any lessons that you took away from Leesa that are still relevant or is the world just like in such a different place now?Matthew:No, I think it's still really relevant. I think a lot of the stuff that we were learning as we grew is incredibly relevant to the way that we launched The Fascination, the way that brand founders are thinking about things now. When we first launched in 2015, cost of acquisition were beautiful. Like all day we could scale the auctions across Facebook and Google, were very, maybe a fifth of what they are now just in terms of competitiveness. Just, I mean the mattress industry specifically there was 180 entrants after we launched, so a huge amount of volume coming into that space and just generally in D-to-C. So the cost of acquiring just pure play digital customers was going up and people were seeing the writing on the wall and starting to diversify into brick and mortar.Matthew:And so I think that was one of the things that we realized, is we've got to have a diverse channel mix. And so we struck the partnership with West Elm, we leaned more into Amazon. We looked more at international and we actually set up our own brick and mortar stores. So I think the combination of that brand awareness and exposure helped our brand tremendously. Whereas a lot of brands stuck it out, stayed pure plays and they learneD-to-Costly less and overspending on acquisition.Stephanie:Yeah, that's definitely the biggest thing that I see from the past couple of years or past decade is like before you could just focus on paid acquisition, like throw a bunch of money at it and one's really, they're going to come to you either way. And then now it seems like a lot of the, I guess the brands that are ahead are more media companies now, and there's a big spectrum between paying for people versus organic or versus starting a community and then launching a product to them. So it does feel like a definitely a different world than just like pay, and grow, and scale up as you go.Matthew:Yeah. I mean, we're seeing that a lot actually. And I think our notion of how to build a profitable business with The Fascination is quite a bit different. No, we're not a pure play own D-to-C brand selling our own products, we're essentially a marketplace, but what we've done is we've seen the success that media companies have had in building an audience that's super loyal whether that's The Hustle, or Morning Brew or The Scam, all of this audience aggregation and demand with these customer demos, there's so much that you can do with it. And so, we saw a bit of an opportunity and the fragmentation that was happening across D-to-C brand for popping up literally every day. And you start to become a little leery of, is this a good brand? Is this is a good product? Does this align with my values and tastes? And we saw this need for curation across all spectrums of D-to-C really. And we saw an opportunity to really create a media platform and a commercial platform around that.Stephanie:So let's dive into The Fascination a bit. So it's a marketplace. You guys are curating D-to-C brands. I saw you have filters focused on the product technical quality, also the soul of the company. Tell me a little bit more about The Fascination. How do you allow brands into the marketplace? Yeah. And any other details around the platform?Matthew:Yeah, so I mean, people are basically referring to it as a marketplace meets magazine, which I think is an accurate description. It's basically at its core, it's a product recommendation and reviews publication specifically focused on emerging and purpose-driven direct to consumer brands. So in much the same way that Wirecutter or the strategists reviews top products and writes those objective third-party reviews and recommendations, as a media publisher we're really doing that, but we're focusing in on a subset of these D-to-C brands that are new and emerging and have purpose driven values.Matthew:And the idea is to create a single platform where people can come and discover new brands, they can read reviews and research those brands and products, and they can shop deals all in one place. So it's a linear play from discovery all the way through to purchase.Stephanie:Yep. So who are some of your favorite brands on the platform right now?Matthew:There's so many good ones.Stephanie:[inaudible].Matthew:Yeah, I know I'm going to get in trouble for this. We've got badges across the site, which are really cool. The badges call out things like women and minority led businesses, or organic, or made in the USA. And so like Girlfriend Collective is one of our women and minority led brands. Haus is another-Stephanie:Even Haus on, yeah.Matthew:... Yeah, they deal the [inaudible] and great products, great brand story.Stephanie:Delicious.Matthew:Delicious. Yeah. I was just chatting with the founders of Huron, which is a men's skincare line. Awesome story. And then we've got the big names that you'd expect. Like we've got Allbirds on the platform. We've got Warby joining soon if they're not up already any day now. We've got UNTUCKit so, those it's a nice mix of the old school D-to-C incumbents with a lot of really cool emerging brands that honestly I'm intimately involved in direct consumer and a lot of these brands I hadn't heard of for the first time.Matthew:So if you think about like, as it broadens out the halo from the bulls-eye of our tightest demos, there's going to be so many people that are discovering these brands for the first time. And that's really what we want. We want some of these big names to attract people into the site, and then we want a lot of our awesome emerging brands and products to be discovered while you're there.Stephanie:Yeah. That's great. So how are you convincing these larger brands to join the platform? Because I'm thinking your space, I think also is very competitive. I mean, the world right now is headed to a place where everyone wants curated collections. I mean, they don't want to spend a bunch of time everywhere. They want it all in one place. We had the CEO of Fast on talking about, you need the one-click checkout and be able to allow people just to check out instantly and not have to bulk it into a cart. It seems like your space is very competitive too. How are you convincing the Warby Parkers? And the older brands who probably are approached by quite a few marketplace platforms to, "Oh, join us." Why are these brands going with you?Matthew:Well, I think we've really a ton on the story and the user experience and just the overall look and feel of our digital product and what we stand for. I think it's also in our favor that we have been D-to-C operators ourselves and we can really empathize to what these founders need. And we've been fortunate to be in the community for several years now. So we had a few close partners that our spring pad, if you will. Not to mention Nick Sharma as an advisor, who's great at pulling in brands.Stephanie:He was on our show too, man, I was just-Matthew:Yeah, I know.Stephanie:... fortunate.Matthew:And so yeah, between that, and we had some really amazing brands reach out the first day that just totally shocked us. We have a type form application that comes through and we had a couple of 100 brands, including some of the biggest names in the space on day one, which it was super exciting. And just a lot of founders getting really excited by seeing their brands mentioned in our round ups, or seeing products being shared. So I think that the validation that we're starting to provide, and really empathizing with what brand founders need is something that they're really clamoring for. And I think word it gets out fast.Stephanie:Yeah. That's great. So is there any trends you're seeing right now around what customers are most excited about? I mean, I'm guessing you have all this data now and you can see, okay, a bunch of people are coming on during quarantine and buying Haus. We need another type of Appertiff or something to offer that's similar because we see so much engagement there, any trends?Matthew:I think that one of the things that we've seen that's really interesting is our roundup pieces on brands that are making an impact and just the social impact stories are really, really resonating with consumers. And the brands are sharing the stories, which is just amplifying the message that much more. So the general consumer sentiment that we're getting from a qualitative perspective is that a platform like this is very much needed and like, thank you for building it. So I don't think it's even halfway to where we want it to be, or it could be in terms of the overall product development evolution, but we're going to get there quickly.Stephanie:Yep. So how, when you're... You just said that certain stories that you're telling around the brands and the social good aspect of it are really resonating. Is that your main play when it comes to acquiring new customers on your platform is by writing good pieces of content, having the brand share it to get in front of their audiences as well, or how do you think about acquiring new customers?Matthew:Yeah, I mean, customer acquisitions, it's always a challenge for a marketplace like this. And that's why from day one, we didn't approach it as a pure play commercial marketplace where you're just aggregating and selling products. From a consumer perspective, that's really not serving the overall need that we're trying to address, which is discovery, research, and shop and convert. And so the research aspect of that is really where we're going to focus a lot of time and attention and work. And what I mean by that is writing really in depth, thorough product reviews that are authentic, that are meaningful, that consumers value and ultimately Google values that content really highly as well. And so, what I'm getting at is the SEO and organic traction and such. It's going to be a big part of how we grow organically, keep our acquisition costs low.Matthew:There's a lot of performance marketing things that we can and will be doing. Brands have had tremendous interest in doing paid marketing partnerships, whether that's white listing on Facebook, or sponsoring newsletters, or any sponsorships. I think there's a tremendous amount of demand for that. And we really are just dipping our toes into the very first test there. And then I think PR and having, as I said, our brands amplify, our content is also, it's just going to be a latent, organic way to continue to build low cost audience. I mean, I think if you think about the way that Leesa scaled and a lot of those 2015 brand scaled, we know that we can't run the same playbook and build a sustainable business.Matthew:And so as we were launching in early days, it's like being a media company is really hard, right. Coming up with really engaging content every single day, pumping it out, like the Morning Brews and Web Smith's of the world, I take my hat off to those guys because it's not easy, but I think you can already start to see the rewards that we're going to reap from that.Stephanie:Yeah. So what channels are you... Well, maybe actually first, let me talk about the content piece, because that's top of mind for me is, a lot of people say you just need to create good content and that's the key to finding great people. How do you go about brainstorming something that will resonate? Are you actually going through maybe search trends and starting there to see what's going on in the industry, and then writing articles around that? Or is it purely, just like, I want to talk about Haus's story and we're going to talk about what they're doing behind the scenes? Like, how do you brainstorm content?Matthew:It's a mix of all of that actually. So we've got a number of things that we're covering at any one time. A lot of it is when we have new brands onboarded, we've got to write the brand story and we've got to review their products. That's phase one. And that's like an ongoing process as we get up and running. But yeah, we're also looking at industry trends, category wide trends, search trends around specific products or competitive products to see how we can write really compelling content that meets that need.Matthew:And then we're thinking about the cultural relevance, things that are happening topically in everyday life. And we've got a couple of different personas that we look at. And so what are our personas caring about, what's their headspace, and then what are the things that are happening in their specific lives at this very moment in mid January? So as we think through those things, you start to surface really relevant content ideas, and that's where our social content, a lot of our editorial content comes from. And that's generally how we do it.Stephanie:Cool. And what are some of the channels that you're most excited about right now, or you think that there's untapped potential? Are you sticking with the Facebook where of course stick the Facebook? How is sticking with-Matthew:Afterthought.Stephanie:I like that. Hey, they used to be though. Right?Matthew:Yeah. Drop that.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean, when? It's still pretty relevant, but yeah. Are you sticking with Facebook? A lot of other brands still say that's the best place to reach customers. Are you trying out a bunch of new channels and experimenting? How are you thinking about that?Matthew:So Facebook isn't a priority for us right now other than to the extent that we use it for paid social advertising. I would say it's there. Of course it's there. But when we're thinking about building audience, Twitter has been a nice surprise for me, I'm really bummed that I didn't get myself on Twitter several years ago, but Sharon, our audience development team's doing an awesome job of engaging that really passionate community.Matthew:I think LinkedIn has sneaky, organic reach and potential. And we found that a lot of our brand founders are sharing our content there and we're getting a lot of engagement.Stephanie:They're more organic then, right, because LinkedIn is super expensive when it comes to advertising.Matthew:Yeah. All organic. And then stuff like TikTok is interesting as we look at really organic product reviews doing things with founders, I think that's something that we're going to be looking at as well as Clubhouse.Stephanie:Yeah. Clubhouse. I think that's where it's at. I'm on there. I listen to people. I think you can connect with a lot of great people on there. I'm still not sure about the unstructured format sometimes where things can go on for hours and hours, but yeah, it seems like there's a lot of potential there to at least connect with new people. I don't know about selling.Matthew:A lot of untapped potential.Stephanie:Yeah. So I saw that you were also an investor in GRIN. Right. And that's the influencer platform, which is... That's the right brand. Right?Matthew:Yup. [inaudible].Stephanie:Okay. So our guest yesterday that we had on was, that's her favorite new tool that she's looking into and I had not heard of it before. And I'm interested to hear a little bit about how are you thinking about influencers? What attracted you to GRIN, where's that market headed over the next couple of years?Matthew:Yeah. I mean, we've been doing influencer marketing since 2012, honestly. And I think there's going to be a lot more regulation around it for one. So you've got to be buttoned up as you execute itMatthew:So I think that's just part of the industry growing up. A lot of these minors are now celebrities in their own right with huge followings and PR teams. And so the days of just engaging with an influencer that way are over. It's really about adopting a micro/nano strategy where you're activating pockets of a couple thousand followers up to 50 to 100,000 followers and doing it more strategically at scale. And that's where I see a lot of brands and agencies having success doing this stuff. So GRIN is just a really awesome tool for managing that entire workflow. Keeping you really on top of things, you can search for look alikes of an influencer. So if you have someone or something that you want to find influencers around, it's great for that.Stephanie:That's awesome. And how did you think about attribution and analytics around utilizing influencers and seeing if you're really getting the most bang for your buck?Matthew:Yeah. I mean, well, especially with iOS 14 and everything that's going on there, it's always been an imperfect science, we never assume that we would have even close to perfect attribution on influencer activations. So we always treated it very top of funnel and you do what you can in terms of attribution. So you give them trackable UTM parameters, you give them a bespoke promo codes with their name. You give them a landing page experience, everything that you can do to cookie the user on your website and get them into what feels like an authentic customized experience for that loyal following. That's going to increase conversion, I think as much as anything.Matthew:And the vast majority of influencer activity is probably happening on mobile anyway. So wherever you're sending them, it's got to be very mobile optimized because if they switch over, your attribution's lost at that point.Stephanie:Yeah. And I think that authentic piece you're saying, I mean, it has to fit your brand. The person has to not just be saying something just to say it. And I think taking that longer-term approach more of like a partnership and someone who is going to be a part of your brand, even if they start out smaller and grow with you, will be way better than just trying to target a big name, because I normally don't really put any weight in products that large celebrities are showcasing, just because I'm like, I just know how much money you're getting paid and I highly doubt you're using that teeth whitener.Matthew:Yeah, I mean to that point and a lot of grants are basically incentivizing on the CPA or per sale basis with, like you're saying a subset of really loyal influencers and affiliates that they can send that influencer their fall collection of bags and apparel or whatever, and they can get 10 or 15 posts out of it if the influencer continues to see performance. And so I think that's the new way of doing things nowadays.Stephanie:Okay. So yeah, viewing it from a content generation perspective of, they're not just posting once trying to get their product off, but they're also creating an article or blog posts that you can repurpose and pull quotes from or whatever it may be.Matthew:Yeah. And more frequency drives more conversion. So the more you get that brand in front of your audience, the more likely it is they'll finally take action.Stephanie:Yep. So I want to talk a bit about mentorship, which I always love asking questions around this. I saw that you went to Necker Island a few days ago... a few years ago [crosstalk], really? Few years ago. And of course Richard Branson's Island. So I want to hear, what did you learn there? What advice did you hear? I saw, I think Damon John was there, Tim Ferriss, Seth Godin, Marie Forleo, a bunch of great people to learn from. And I want to hear about the stories behind going there. What did you learn, all that?Matthew:Yeah, I mean, it was a life changing experience for sure. Damon is still pretty close to us in the business. He got involved with Leesa after we met, especially with their 110 program, and I really just learn from him the hustle, the grind. He told his story about how he came up with FUBU and really built that business from zero. And so, talking about fundraising with him is a different thing.Matthew:Tim was on the Island too. I was fanboying out when I met Tim actually, because I was obsessed with four hour workweek, four our body and here I'm chatting with him in person. We actually started talking about going up against Casper. At the time, we were pushing pretty heavily into podcasts and Casper was buying up literally every podcast that we could find, that we wanted to go after. And funnily enough, he would really push a micro strategy to us. He said, "You need to go after these very small podcasts that aren't affiliated yet, that have nascent, but growing followings." And we did, we found 10 of those, especially in comedy and gaming, and we stayed with them for years and they ended up crushing for us.Stephanie:Oh, that's great. And did you secure long-term partnerships with this company?Matthew:Yeah, I think we're still working with a few of them honestly.Stephanie:Oh, that's great.Matthew:We just completely sapped the audience, an everyone's got a Leesa now. Yeah. And then we talked with Seth. David and I chatted with Seth Godin, who's a marketing genius. He's like the professor of modern day marketing. And at the time, we had done around 30 million in our first year of sales, which was just crazy. And he was talking about making this leap called crossing the chasm. Basically when you're attacking the early adopter market and you're doing quite well, there's a point at which you have to "cross the chasm" and reach the broader demographic of people. And so I don't remember the tactics that he talked about, but he always impressed that idea of our okay, now we've got to broaden our sphere of influence. We still use that phrase today.Matthew:And then Marie Forleo was there and we had a lot of really good, we like chatted one-on-one several times, because I was incredibly anxious. I've always dealt with anxiety issues in my career, in my past. And so we had some frank chats about vulnerability and putting yourself out there. And once you do that, it just eases the tension, eases the anxiety. And I still use that to this day.Stephanie:Yeah. I was going to say, does it help now? Because I mean, I definitely feel that too. I remember when we first sold this podcast, then they're like, "Oh, Stephanie can new host it?" And just being like, oh, I usually always would have our other team members host the shows and yeah, I liked working behind the scenes and it definitely was hard being like, okay, you just have to do it. You have to get yourself out there. Did it help afterwards thinking through about her advice?Matthew:Yeah, it totally did. And I always think of this idea of demonstrated performance, where it's like, you're nervous about something, you're anxious, you step on stage or you sit in the seat, you put yourself out there and you have a really good performance. And then that just gives you one more step, one more piece of confidence and you keep going and building. And now stuff that I do every day without even looking at my calendar is stuff that I would have just freaked out about all day five years ago. So I think it's just about experience.Stephanie:Yeah. Now I agree. I remember even just thinking about doing video meetings, like when I first was starting out in the corporate world and being like, "Oh, my gosh, my first meeting." I was just so scared and sweaty and nervous and then now taking like 10 a day and being like, not even thinking twice. So yeah, I think just doing the work and pushing past and knowing you'll probably fail a couple of times and who cares?Matthew:Exactly.Stephanie:That's great. And did you meet Richard Branson when you were there?Matthew:Yeah. We met briefly. He gave us a talk which was awesome. He talked a lot about Virgin's impact program, and what he's doing there. And so that was really important to us at the time, because we were setting up our Leesa 110 program and that was cool to hear from him.Stephanie:That's great. So where do you see the next couple of years headed for The Fascination? What are you guys building for? What are you doing in stealth mode right now? What are you planning for the world to look like in a couple of years?Matthew:Yeah, I mean, right now we're really heavily focused on getting the digital product where it needs be to really deliver on a full transactional marketplace that's cutting edge for consumers. So in the next couple of years, we want to have a destination that is super engaging. We want to have brand founders engaging with consumers real time in the platform. We want to have people shopping and reading and researching brands and products all seamlessly, and to be able to buy those products in one click, right? Right on The Fascination.com. And so a lot of things have to happen in the background to obviously make that work.Matthew:And then we're always thinking about, how can we acquire the best customers, bring them in most cost-effectively? And it's always on my mind of like, delivering really solid, meaningful content to the audience, not just fluff stuff, but stuff that's really, really valuable. And so that's what I think we're trying to win.Stephanie:Well. Yeah. It also seems like there's such an opportunity to... I mean, when you have all these brands and they have access to a lot of insights on their customers or who's coming to their website to then build lookalike audiences off of those brands, and then all of a sudden you have access to customers and you're coming from a different angle where maybe if Leesa would have already gotten in front of a customer two times and they're like, "Nah," they then see The Fascination comes in and they're like, "Hey, check out this mattress. It's like a third touch point. That's very separated." But it seems like there's a lot of opportunity there to get insights at a much more accelerated rate than you would get just by yourself.Matthew:Yes. That is the goal. Yeah, there's a whole data infrastructure that we really need to put in place to get the most out of it. And honestly, coming from Leesa for so long, I'm still trying to wrap my head around what that all looks like in terms of affiliate click attribution and how we create audiences and how we do product recommendations. So we're only a month old, but we'll get there. And I can tell you that there is such tremendous demand for what you're talking about. Just leveraging lookalike audiences, leveraging audiences across categories that aren't competitive with one another. At the end of the day, everyone that comes to The Fascination as an interested consumer if we do it right, it's always going to have similar demographic profiles, right. Whether they're a man or a woman. So as you aggregate that at scale, there's a ton of value for brands to be able to tap into that.Stephanie:Yeah. It seems like eventually they'll have to be tools for the merchants as well, to be able to interact with all the platforms they're on. Or like, I mean a lot of sales are moving towards the edge. There's a lot of people say and how do you keep track of that? Like, how do these merchants they're selling on The Fascination, they're selling on Fancy, they're selling on not that Fancy is the same, but there are quite a few places popping up where these brands might be like, "Yeah, I want to sell on that platform or over here," but I don't know if enough tools exist right now to keep track of what you're doing and consolidating it all in one place.Matthew:Yeah. I mean, it's got to be a challenge for these fairly young brands. There's product feed software that'll handle some of that, but at the end of the day there's manual stuff that's always needed once you're drop shipping and wholesaling and you have retail partners. So yeah, we're going to be thinking about it from the other side, just the same, how do you manage 100, 200, 300 merchants and keep them happy?Stephanie:Yeah. Crazy. All right. Well, let's shift over to the lightning round. Lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce commerce cloud. This is where I'm going to ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, Matt?Matthew:Yes.Stephanie:One minute to answer. All right. Yeah. Prepare, drink your drink, whatever that may be. All right. First thing, what one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Matthew:I think the convergence of content and commerce is, is going to have one of the biggest impacts. You've got media companies that are converging in the commerce, they all want to be transactional. They all want a bigger slice of the pie. They all want more lifetime value extraction from their readership. And then I think on the commerce side you see brands and retailers who are obviously seeing the cost rising of customer acquisition in the traditional sense and creating really rich content. It's the only way to do that. So we're diving in right at the intersection with what we're doing at The Fascination and that's where we saw it going. And that's why I think we're bullish on where we're headed.Stephanie:Yeah. Well, it'll also be interesting to do a recap episode on what's happened since some of these brands got into mixing media with commerce. I mean, I'm thinking about NBC, I think did a whole shoppable TV thing. And I remember seeing them launch that maybe in February or April last year, but I don't know what actually happened. So it'd be fun to do a recap of like, here's who launched in 2020 when it came to mixing media and commerce and here is status update.Matthew:Hopefully we will be one of the givers.Stephanie:Yeah. Hopefully. What's one thing from 2020 that you hope sticks around in 2021?Matthew:I think that we've all had to embrace things like this, just getting on video conferences, not having to present ourselves through this façade, in the office I would have never thought about wearing my hat backwards and rolling around in athleisure. And now that's just the norm for everybody. And kids are on work calls and it's just, the whole thing feels a lot more familial. And even if we do go back to offices, I really have loved that work now feels a little bit closer to home because you're in your home, but also because just the interactions, you see more than you would if everyone was in an office environment.Stephanie:Yeah, I agree. And I think it definitely brings a more human perspective too. Like you're saying, working together, knowing someone's kids, seeing them in the background, and then you also have more, I guess, empathy when a mom or dad's like, "Hey, I got to go do this with my kids." It's like, "Oh yeah, I saw your kid connection." Of course you can, whereas I'd say prior to this. Yeah. Not as much of a leniency, I guess for that. Yeah. That's a good one.Stephanie:What is the funniest story or best story you can think of when it comes to either building up Leesa or building up The Fascination where you're like, "Oh, this is a good time or a good story that really sticks in my brain from those years."Matthew:We've done so many like gimmicky things at Leesa. We were growth hacking like crazy and we were throwing stuff against the wall and not all of it stuck. We did a ton of stuff with Barstool Sports. We maybe did a few influencer integrations that wouldn't go over so well today with certain influencers.Stephanie:And with Barstool, I feel like they're so edgy that they can get you in trouble all these days anyways.Matthew:They're very edgy and we purposely like with all of those podcasters and creators, we're like, go be very authentic. And so you can't tell Barstool like, tame it down and not be authentic. But they were a huge converter for Leesa for several years.Stephanie:That's fun.Matthew:So we did a lot of fun stuff. We sponsored Larry at the gambling goldfish, which was a gold fish swimming around in a tank on Barstool sets, they pulled a mattress behind a truck with a Santa Claus riding on it. But we've also done a lot more admirable things, like we did a sleep out for the homeless. We've done a lot of cool things at Leesa just in the experientials side of things that made it fun.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean I have a love for the gambling goldfish. I want to go check that out. That actually sounds pretty funny.Matthew:Yeah. One more thing that we did is I think it was the 2017 NFL Draft, it's shown on ESPN and all the players are interviewed in their homes. And so we sent the players that we knew would be interviewed on TV, on ESPN Leesa mattresses. And we had them put their Leesa mattress boxes behind them and their families. And we got millions of impressions that night because we had Leesa mattresses all over the air on ESPN Draft.Stephanie:Oh, that's fun. See, I love creative stuff like that, where I mean, as long as it actually converts too, I always have the question about TV, does it actually convert or what happened after everyone saw the mattress behind them? Did you guys see a big uptick in sales, or?Matthew:I don't remember if we did or not. I think we saw a bit of an uptick, but I mean, it was such a low cost stunt to do that. It wasn't a swing for the fences, but we also did a ton of TV in heyday at Leesa. And you can really see the brand awareness effects the TV has even though it's insanely hard to track.Stephanie:Yeah. I agree. What is next on your reading list?Matthew:I'm probably going to do Shoe Dog by Phil Knight.Stephanie:Such a good one. I love that book. Yeah. So inspirational. I highly recommend. If you were to have a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?Matthew:Well, that's an interesting question because we may very well have one soon.Stephanie:Oh, nice.Matthew:Yeah, I don't know in what format it will be. It may be a podcast. It may just be like Instagram TV stories, but we really want to interview, just do flash interviews with our brand founders, asking about their origin story, asking about what makes their products different, fun facts. And I think a groundswell of really interesting stories like that would be fun.Stephanie:Cool. That sounds good. And then the last one, what's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you?Matthew:Oh, that's tough. I mean, I there's been so many instances of generosity. I think honestly, giving me a chance to make the career switch that I did, and this is a bit of a shout out to David my co-founder, but he really took a chance on me. He's been super supportive of me for years, and it's really gotten me to where I am today in terms of my career and the place that we're at collectively. So him and the people around me that pushed me to make that leap out of the traditional corporate world of consulting. I was really hesitant to do that coming right out of my MBA and looking at a nice salary, and he was one of those people that pushed me over the top to do that. And I'm thankful for it.Stephanie:That's really cool. Great story. All right, Matt. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show. Where can people find out more about you and The Fascination?Matthew:So about me, you can find me on Twitter at MattDHayes, all one word, and then The Fascination.com. Go check it out.Stephanie:Awesome. Thanks for joining us, Matt.Matthew:All right. Thank you.

Home Buying, Debt, Business, Taxes, Career As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: https://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey+ TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: https://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: https://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: https://bit.ly/2QEyonc Check out more Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/2JgzaQR

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Debt, Career   As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: https://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey+ TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt Tools to get you started: Debt Calculator: https://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: https://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: https://bit.ly/2QEyonc Check out more Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/2JgzaQR

Relationships, Savings, Investing As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: https://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Zander Insurance: https://bit.ly/2Xbn7hD  Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey+ TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: https://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: https://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: https://bit.ly/2QEyonc Check out more Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/2JgzaQR

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Retirement, Savings, Career, Debt As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: https://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Zander Insurance: https://bit.ly/2Xbn7hD  Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey+ TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: https://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: https://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: https://bit.ly/2QEyonc Check out more Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Debt, Relationships, Investing As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: https://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey+ TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: https://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: https://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: https://bit.ly/2QEyonc Check out more Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Relationships, Debt, Savings As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: https://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Splash Financial: https://bit.ly/2XAdOIf  Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey+ TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: https://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: https://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: https://bit.ly/2QEyonc Check out more Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/2JgzaQR

Are you waking up feeling refreshed, energized and ready to go in the mornings? If you answered no, it might be from not getting enough good quality sleep! Sleep is one of the most underrated tools in the health and wellness world! Everyone wants to add in supplements, do more workouts, meditations, eat cleaner, etc. but it all comes back to sleep. With a strong foundation of consistent sleep, you won't have to do more of anything to feel like the best version of yourself! In today's episode, I'll dive deep into the importance of sleep and how to cultivate an environment that promotes deep, restorative sleep! In this episode you'll learn how to: - Invest in a great mattress - Understand the importance of clean sheets - Create a strong evening routine to support deep sleep - Understand the power of a consistent sleep schedule Resources mentioned in this episode: Invest in a Tuft & Needle mattress here: https://www.tuftandneedle.com/ Purchase MindBodyGreen Magnesium+ here: https://shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=1535186&u=2544468&m=96296&urllink=&afftrack= Let's connect on Social: @TheAliMcGPodcast @alimcg_ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Education, Investing, Retirement, Debt, Home Selling As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: https://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey Plus TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: https://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: https://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: https://bit.ly/2QEyonc Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: https://bit.ly/2JgzaQR       

Debt, Education, Career, Relationships As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Zander Insurance: http://bit.ly/2Xbn7hD  Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey Plus TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR  

Debt, Savings, Budgeting, Career As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey+ TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started: Debt Calculator http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV // Insurance Coverage Checkup http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo // Complete Guide to Budgeting http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Check out the other Ramsey Network podcasts: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Jamie Ivey is the dynamic host of The Happy Hour podcast, and I’m so thrilled to have her on mine! In this episode, we talk about:   How to be faithful and fulfilled in whatever season you’re in The lies comparison feeds us as women What to do with your money during major life-change   Stay connected with Jamie on Instagram: @jamieivey.   Sponsors: Tuft & Needle Zander Insurance   Sponsors pay the producer of this show, The Lampo Group, LLC, advertising fees for mentioning their services or products during programming. Advertising fees are not based upon or otherwise tied to any product sale or business transacted between any consumer or sponsor. The following sponsors have paid for the programming you are viewing: Zander Insurance, Tuft & Needle

Savings, Retirement, Debt, Home Buying As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Tecovas: https://bit.ly/2D6dckI  Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey Plus TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

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Education, Debt, Savings, Home Buying, Home Selling, Investing As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Churchill Mortgage: http://bit.ly/2JcfkGy  Take our Listener Survey & enter to win $100: https://bit.ly/3i1WPEG Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey Plus TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR

Debt, Savings, Business, Career As heard on this episode: Christian Healthcare Ministries: http://bit.ly/2XBZfE3  Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Take our Listener Survey & enter to win $100: https://bit.ly/3i1WPEG Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey Plus TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Control starts with clarity. That's why you need to understand the psychology of money if you really want to save more and spend less. In this episode, I’m talking to psychologist and author Marcus Buckingham about how psychology, fear and our own brains impact our money decisions.   Resources:   Tuft & Needle: https://bit.ly/3cwWAy1 Zander Insurance Connect with Marcus Buckingham Get my new book, Know Yourself, Know Your Money   Sponsors pay the producer of this show, The Lampo Group, LLC, advertising fees for mentioning their services or products during programming. Advertising fees are not based upon or otherwise tied to any product sale or business transacted between any consumer or sponsor. The following sponsors have paid for the programming you are viewing: — Zander Insurance — Tuft & Needle

Career, Relationships, Home Buying, Debt As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF Take our Listener Survey & enter to win $100: https://bit.ly/3i1WPEG Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey Plus TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Debt, Investing, Home Buying As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Podium: https://bit.ly/3fkOlI7  Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey Plus TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Budgeting, Relationships, Debt As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Zander Insurance: http://bit.ly/2Xbn7hD   Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey Plus TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Debt, Career, Education, Insurance, Savings As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey Plus TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Debt, Education, Relationships, Home Buying As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey Plus TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Relationships, Debt, Career, Taxes   As heard on this episode: Honey: http://bit.ly/2If8CPL  Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF    Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey Plus TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Debt, Business, Retirement As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Churchill Mortgage: http://bit.ly/2JcfkGy  Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey Plus TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Retirement, Home Selling, Career As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey Plus TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Business, Retirement, Investing, Relationships As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey Plus TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Debt, Budgeting, Retirement, Home Buying, Investing As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey Plus TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Debt, Home Buying, Career, Business As heard on this episode: LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/2J7PMKA  Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  FPU 14 Day Trial for FREE!:  https://bit.ly/3dFT7ir    Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Debt, Savings, Investing As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  SimpliSafe: http://bit.ly/37NBd9g FPU 14 Day Trial for FREE!:  https://bit.ly/3dFT7ir    Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Debt, Insurance, Business As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Freshbooks: http://bit.ly/2rExThG  FPU 14 Day Trial for FREE!:  https://bit.ly/3dFT7ir    Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Savings, Debt, Education, Insurance As heard on this episode: Zander Insurance: http://bit.ly/2Xbn7hD  Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  FPU 14 Day Trial for FREE!:  https://bit.ly/3dFT7ir    Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Timeshares, Career, Debt As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Zander Insurance: http://bit.ly/2Xbn7hD  FPU 14 Day Trial for FREE!:  https://bit.ly/3dFT7ir    Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Business, Retirement, Relationships As heard on this episode: 1Dental: http://bit.ly/2JetW82  Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  FPU 14 Day Trial for FREE!:  https://bit.ly/3dFT7ir    Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR    

Debt, Savings, Home Buying As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Time Share Exit Team:  http://bit.ly/2XgMVsI  FPU 14 Day Trial for FREE!:  https://bit.ly/3dFT7ir    Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Dr. John Delony, Relationships As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  Zander Insurance: http://bit.ly/2Xbn7hD  FPU 14 Day Trial for FREE!:  https://bit.ly/3dFT7ir    Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

Ken Coleman, Career, Debt, Insurance As heard on this episode: Tuft & Needle: http://bit.ly/2JgMogF  SimpliSafe: http://bit.ly/37NBd9g  FPU 14 Day Trial for FREE!:  https://bit.ly/3dFT7ir    Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

EP207 - "Billion Dollar Brand Club" author Lawrence Ingrassia h Lawrence Ingrassia (ingrassia.larry@gmail.com) is the author of "Billion Dollar Brand Club: How Dollar Shave Club, Warby Parker, and Other Disruptors Are Remaking What We Buy". (Amazon Affiliate Link) In this interview with Larry, we discuss many of the brands covered in the book including Dollar Shave Club, Warby Parker, eSalon, Mohawk, Anker and Tuft & Needle, as well as many of the ecosystem companies that developed to enable the DTC movement including Facebook, Quiet Logistics and Locus Robotics. We discuss the trends of DTC companies turning to brick and mortar.  New ways to leverage data to identify product niche (what Larry called the "money-balling of DTC), and what the future may hold for DTC. We also cover events that happened after the book was published, including the FTC's blocking the Harry's acquisition, Caspers IPO, management challenges at Away. Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 207 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday, February 11th, 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. Google Automated Transcription of the show Transcript Jason: [0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode 207 being recorded on Tuesday February 11th 20/20 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 show listeners Jason as you all know one of our favorite topics here on the show is the big move where brands are going direct to consumer and of course we spend a lot of time talking about digitally native vertical brands also known as DMV bees today on the show we are really excited to welcome Lawrence and Gracia. Larry has been a business journalist at top Publications including Wall Street Journal New York Times and LA Times Larry is the author of the book billion dollar brand Club how Dollar Shave Club Warby Parker and other disruptors are remaking what we buy the book was just published in January and we are really excited to have Larry on the show Welcome Larry. Larry: [1:20] Thank you guys. Jason: [1:22] Very we are excited to have you in the topic of your book is super relevant and pertinent to our audience so before we jump into it can you share with our audience a little bit about your background and how, you know you sort of came up to the point where you wanted to write a book. Larry: [1:41] Yeah you know I worked at newspapers for many years I was the senior editor really loved it retired a few years ago and when I retired and I wanted to delve deeply into something that I thought was interesting and I've been fascinated by the world of, entrepreneurs and startups and. I actually had a kernel of an idea when I retired so and it goes back to 2011 and that was before most people actually at even, I thought of the idea of direct to Consumer Brands and back then I heard about a company. Dollar Shave Club it was actually before it had the name Dollar Shave Club it was an idea of a friend of my daughters. Now I had been business journalists as as you guys noted for long time and eating had covered Gillette at one point. It is one of the most powerful Brands not just in the US but the world has great products as great advertising, and it's maintained a 70 percent market share for decades I think that's worth repeating because that's just unheard of in any consumer product 70%, market share in the US for decades and so I didn't tell Michael Dubin who was the founder of Dollar Shave Club but I thought to myself, this is the dumbest business idea I have ever heard. [3:03] You're going to compete with Gillette by selling razors and Blades online like really. So then you know kind of fast forward to 2016 I'm driving to work at 7:00 a.m. I'm listening to NPR, and there's a story about Unilever buying Dollar Shave Club for 1 billion dollars. [3:24] And after grabbing the steering wheel tightly to keep from swerving into the lane next to me I said to myself out loud he did it Michael, expletive deleted did it and I had two thoughts quickly first, oh my gosh was I wrong not just me but lots of so-called smart people who scoffed at the idea you know Venture Capital investors who turned him down competitors including Gillette that had ignored and dismissed him. And second in this is where really the idea kind of grew was how did this happen how did The Impossible or what most of us thought impossible become possible, because nobody thought that the razor business could be disruptive in fact after my book was published I got a I got an email from an executive at a big consulting firm who does Consumer products and he said if somebody had told me that. Ten years ago that the razor business is going to be disrupted told them that they were crazy so it was the same reaction that I had. And you know what it was disrupted gillette's market share fell too low 50% range within about four or five years just unbelievable. [4:33] And so as I started reporting I quickly realized that the Dollar Shave Club story well while amazing was really part of a much bigger story it was a story about, Revolution that has changed what we're buying and how we buy things and it's not just razors its eyeglasses mattresses bras contact lenses sneakers luggage cosmetics. Dog food vitamins hearing aids you know you've named it and you can buy a new brand and often several new brands that have been launched online and so that was kind of where I got going is a let me kind of find out about this world and why this was happening. Scot: [5:09] Rico we're glad you you wrote the book on it so it's been great so so you do spend a lot of time in the book on Dollar Shave Club. What do you think was the magic there you know they had the viral-video the subscription model with what do you think was the lightning in the bottle that they capture. Larry: [5:28] Yeah so let me you know kind of pan up to it like 5,000 feet and then go back to Dollar Shave Club so you know a couple things that these companies. Had in common but I found early on you know first of all the main formula for Success was actually quite simple. These entrepreneurs and their young and trumpeters mostly in their 20s and 30s spotted a problem and figured out a way to fix it. [5:58] But by offering a lower price or better value or improving the customer experience or just eliminating the hassle. You know these problems now may seem blindingly obvious but the big companies had never fix them. [6:12] And the second thing that is really interesting about most of these companies is that the founders knew little or nothing about the products that they were introducing them when they actually started their business. How can that be well actually you know kind of it turned out to be an advantage rather than this advantage and the reason for that is that they. We're thinking outside the box, you know kind of thing they were constrained by oh we can't do this or that or the other thing because you know that's not how the way things are done in our business, conventional wisdom can be a real problem for companies. So Michael Dubin was an out-of-work internet marketing guy was looking for his next thing but he thought razors were ridiculously expensive and frustrating to buy because they're often locked behind a glass case so his solution raises it to half the price shipped right to your home with the monthly. And often it's not one thing it's often several things that lead to the success and you mentioned the video which went viral. Which you know kind of our blades are blanking great. Shot for about $5,000 1 minute and 30 seconds I've had Marketing Executives and marketing professors tell me that they've watched it so many times it's taken basically recited by line. Jason: [7:31] I've quoted a lot of it to him which he finds really annoying. Larry: [7:35] To Michael. Jason: [7:39] Yeah every time I see him my first sentence is I'm good at tennis. Larry: [7:43] That's right and that you know kind of but if you look at this Warby Parker to you know this was the pioneering online eyeglass company that was started as a class project. For students who are getting an MBA degree at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Business School. And you know kind of a figured well if it doesn't become a business at least we'll get class credit for it but they wondered as many people, probably have why does a pair of glasses cost, $700 so their solution was classes for his littlest $95 with five frames shipped to you at home so you could try them on before buying them. Again kind of in retrospect a very easy solution in a simple solution to a problem that a lot of people had but it was people outside the business that thought of it. And then you have the founders of all these mattress companies including tough to needle which actually was the first one it was before Casper. [8:43] These guys were software Engineers who got tired of working for software companies and one of them had bought a mattress and you know what as I'm sure, both of you guys would agree at everybody I talked to buying a mattress going into a mattress store is a truly miserable experience your stock by a Salesman, tries to steer you to the most expensive mattress you lie down on it for 30 or 60 Seconds, get it home and realize you don't really like it your back is killing you and so you call the stories they can I return it and they say yeah. 20% restocking fee plus a hundred dollars shipping and at that point you can't go out maybe I'll keep it so you know kind of their idea was a foam bed in a box, reasonable price free shipping and if you don't like it free return after 30 to 60 days if you don't like it so you know kind of, all these startups the most successful ones spotted a problem, so I need and pink the way to fill it and I think that's what was the Real Genius of Dollar Shave Club and then of course they have to figure out a way to Market it to get attention which Michael Dubin did with his video, it helped in his case that you had a giant that was in Gillette that was a bit. [9:57] Complacent even arrogant. Pick one of the tidbits in my book is that early on one of Dollar Shave Club investors called Joel and said hey would you guys be interested maybe in making an investment in Dollar Shave Club and they were dismissed out of here. It was like nope you know didn't even take a meeting. Well that came back to kind of be kind of what they ruled that day because for five years later to let did. With a hood nobody can remember it having done it lowered its prices because it was losing so much market share and again it's because, Michael Dubin saw that they were vulnerable and then attacked it on his terms rather than competing on gillette's terms. Scot: [10:40] Cool the haven't seen a lot of people talk about the exit and detail were you able to get any details of you know why they sold win and was there a bidding war or anything around. Larry: [10:51] He had taught he had talked to a few people but I think that Unilever came up with you know kind of this outrageous number and it was kind of like yeah right I'll take it, you know kind of I wondered if they overpaid I think they were buying you know a growing business, I think they were buying on an entrepreneur who might help them think about how, e-commerce is changing the way that products are being sold so there is a combination of those things. Scot: [11:22] Yeah it's interesting because you know something like six to twelve months later P&G had an activist in their really disrupting things because they didn't buy Dollar Shave Club so it kind of made me feel like maybe they'd either totally missed the boat or they had kind of low-balled it ended up not winning. Larry: [11:38] Probably at that you know at that point probably PNG couldn't have bought Dollar Shave Club for any trust purposes it might have been able to invest in them you know kind of the first year to because it was so small but you know kind of by the time Dollar Shave Club had you know ten percent market share in volume you know kind of or maybe even a little bit more it might have been very hard for that to pass muster with antitrust regulators. Jason: [12:04] Yeah and we may get an opportunity to talk a little deeper into the antitrust issue because there's there's been some recent developments there but one of the things I really enjoyed about the booklet is I sort of feel like, it would have been sufficient. To just have like some great biographies of these d2c companies that have caught our attention and we're all talking about and and you certainly do have, some nice biographies of the you know the origin stories for some of these these Brands and in you know. Most I would is I was already familiar with but for almost every one of them you you know you uncovered some interesting tidbits or had some, some good background that was news to me so it was it was fun to read those biographies and I particularly like you you sort of introduced a framework for these companies I you highlighted the fact that, you know some of them really entered the market by trying to have a better experience than their predecessor so you know Dollar Shave Club being an easier way to get razors then, go to the store. Larry: [13:09] Not just priced yes. Jason: [13:10] Yeah defeat product jail like some of these like we're about price you know and you know Finding finding Windows of opportunity, somewhere about like dramatically improving a the product from what was previously available and then someone about using data to uncover sort of an unmet need. Larry: [13:33] Yeah that's that's a really good point so when I started looking at the book I didn't want the book to be like one chapter after that kind of telling the story of this company that company other company I wanted to to matically, slow and and you know getting back to that moment when I was sitting in the car and said to myself oh maybe there's something here, and then kind of why is this happening you know kind of and why now and the answer I quickly Learned was technology. [14:03] Technology had leveled the playing field and made possible what had not been possible you know 10 or 15 years ago so if you go back to I mean all these, problems that these entrepreneurs all had long existed I mean mattress stores have been kind of ridiculous places for a long time Gillette has long you know added you know kind of little features and so that they can justify increasing the price, but it was very the barriers to entry were much much higher, 10 or 15 years ago especially if you wanted to create a brand that was a national brand so you know kind of 2005 even up to about 2010 you want to introduce a new brand you know kind of you have to go to a retail store you have to say mr. Walmart or Ms Walgreen, you know can will you carry my product and they like why I don't need to carry your product first of all have limited shelf space and save all have all these other brands that are doing quite well you know kinda is a pretty cozy relationship so, dinner that comes along and that means that you know can e-commerce allows companies to introduce products introduced new brands in ways that would have been really difficult before, the internet has unlimited shelf space you know kind of your website is yourself space. [15:20] And then second okay so you've got that she'll straight how do you get anybody to notice you again go back to you know kind of 10 or 15 years ago and you would need a multimillion-dollar, advertising campaign really you know kind of tens of millions of dollars advertising campaign on TV you know kind of radio newspapers if you wanted to get any attention, Gillette spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year but all of a sudden you know kind of Technology first with Google but then most importantly with social media, like Facebook allows a company to spend your thousands or tens of thousands of dollars to Target those customers who. Are most likely to buy your products. And because you have this relationship online and you're kind of selling all your products on lied you're learning a lot about your customers Behavior, and you can keep fine-tuning the product the message whatever. Again so and the final technology that really you know that Leap Forward that really made all this possible was in logistics so. [16:25] It's hard to remember but in the early days of e-commerce you ordered something and you know you were happy to get it in a week or two right and thanks because thanks to Amazon, push the envelope and forced everybody else it got to the point where you could order something it's something within it two days or even one day. And again the convenience factor of getting something going on and getting something made possible, this revolution is taken in front in front of our eyes so you had kind of Technology changes and it's going to continue changing, is made you know these. Companies these startups possible and enabled them to challenge much bigger much more deep-pocketed companies in ways that would have been unimaginable. Scot: [17:12] Yeah I agree what you think about so there's been a lot written I've written a couple books and I realized that a lot has happened since you probably put the book to bed but. Larry: [17:24] Yeah when you're when you're writing something when it's live and it's actually kind of evolving you know kind of it's really you know interesting interesting challenge. Scot: [17:33] Yeah so a lot has been written and I think Andy done at bonobos to set a lot around you can get these businesses up to 100 maybe 200 million and then the conventional wisdom has kind of fallen over that you need to open stores so so we've seen away as open stores sometimes they're called guide shops but they're essentially stores to go experience. Larry: [17:53] Warby Parker. Scot: [17:54] Warby has it cetera. Larry: [17:56] Third love is dabbled in it tough to needle and Casper both have as well yeah and so when I started seriously working on the book two years ago I think you know basically there was Warby Parker, with stores and you know kind of, one or two others it was kind of really small and as I got into the reporting and more open it up I said you know what I have to write have to have a chapter on retail and where does retail fit in this I mean it was something that you know that that clearly was becoming, a trend among some of these startups and for just the reasons that you say so a couple things were happening, one social media marketing was so successful. Everybody started doing it so it became a bit more expensive now it's still one of the most effective ways to acquire customers. [18:56] But it's more expensive than it was in the past so the cost of that is going out second you have you know kind of the type of people who are most likely to buy online and to respond to a social media ad you're getting to saturation point now that may be a little bit of an exaggeration but a lot of the people are most likely to do it I've done it. And finally then you get to like that eighty to ninety percent of retail in this country is still done in physical stores. [19:24] And some categories is even higher, Neil Blumenthal one of the cofounders of Warby Parker told me it's like 95% in eyeglasses so there's no surprise that they were one of the first, startups actually go to physical retail so the new thing that you hear a lot of is multi-channel, that yes you can build you know kind of a brand it might be depending on the product that might be 20 million it might be 50 million it might be a hundred million sales but to scale it up you're probably going to have to be, multichannel I think most of these Brands still have more than fifty percent of their sales online and over time I think you know the percentage overall of retail that online is going to continue to increase but that's why these brands have moved their oh and the final thing is that you had a lot of traditional retailers having problems and going out of business so guess what retail space became a lot cheaper. So you know a company could kind of test retail in a way that was it going to cost them an arm or a leg they can see how it worked without really kind of going all in. Jason: [20:31] Yeah and you know it's interesting you mentioned the the evolution of Facebook and that that you know emerged as a new tool that allowed more efficient marketing, there was one of the in a blurs for a lot of these companies but you also covered a lot of other aspects of this sort of, product development through you know go-to-market ecosystem that that sort of evolved to create this this opportunity so you covered some of the. Larry: [21:02] The infrastructure as it were right. Jason: [21:03] Yeah yeah exactly so I. Larry: [21:05] The things that people don't see very often I you know as a business journalist I got really fascinated by that stuff. You know kind of the company that you know kind of figured out that you know face could, Facebook could really be a way to reach Target audiences and of ampush, based in San Francisco found by kind of three College friends roommates who went to Wall Street and got bored I'm doing Wall Street and said hey let's start a company and they figure that out you know kind of done very well. And then there's you know the logistics companies which I found extraordinary fastening go into a modern warehouse and it's not like what you would have seen. Five or 10 years ago certainly not 10 years ago, where are you know kind of a lot of forklifts and people carrying things around and racing around you know a lot of their automated to a large extent they're a lot of robots there people there and they tend to tend to do the things that robots aren't yet good at. But the amount of innovation that's going on there to make that. Product that you quick on and then get it within 24 to 48 hours is amazing it's kind of cool it's actually kind of cool. Jason: [22:16] For sure and so you you had some interesting stories in there so like one of the companies you profiled in that ecosystem quiet Logistics I was familiar with them but I didn't really know the back story, they were early adopter of these first robots for automating warehouses in the robot they adopted was this Kiva systems robot. And then you tell the story of how they were subsequently he though. Larry: [22:41] So keep your hat size yes so this is is I love that story coming Kiba was acquired by Amazon, in Amazon you know kind of not long after acquiring Kiba said to the people that keep it been selling to is like basically we're not going to support we're not going to you know after a few years we're going to stop, you know kind of servicing the robots that you have and these guys at quiet Logistics who had built the nice business who had spotted the e-commerce, Revolution coming and built a business totally on having an automated Warehouse they've been in the warehouse business for years and it sold a another warehouse company they had built up a decade earlier but they say hey this is a new opportunity they're like. What you're not going to surface the robots anymore what are we gonna do you know kind of that's our own business model and so they had the idea, why don't we build our own robots and so they went about kind of hiring, engineers and higher robotics experts so they built their own robots and lo and behold that business is so successful that they spun it off and it's now sewing robots, two other Warehouse companies and two ups and all over the world. Jason: [23:57] Yeah that that was funny and I'm trying to remember Scott were you an early investor in Kiba. Scot: [24:03] Thanks Big thanks for watching that. Had the opportunity and at that point it was just random pitched it was described as ant algorithms in a warehouse full of robots and it didn't make sense to me but I was wrong. Jason: [24:19] Dab to teasing you you at least four on the list of people they called. So that was a great story Larry another one that I think is in some ways one of the most important Trends in the whole book is you described a number of entrepreneurs that, really leverage data that previously probably didn't exist. To help Define the products that they offer so I'm thinking like E Salon or Mohawk or or anchor could you talk a little bit about one of those. Larry: [24:50] Yeah so I think this is one of the things when you have a disadvantage when you're competing against a bigger rival. You need to have some other Advantage you need to play by different rules and actually you know kind of you guys remember the the book and in the movie Moneyball by Micheal Lewis. So Moneyball basically was about how. A small-market baseball team the Oakland Athletics. Couldn't compete with big Market teams like the Yankees who are rich in could you know kind of pay for more Talent so they had to figure out how we going to compete and they came up with the idea of data analytics to find players who were undervalued. And within a few years after embracing data analytics they became highly competitive. And and you know kind of vague were you know going toe-to-toe with the Yankees in many ways so. To me what is happening in retail in the creation of Brands is kind of the Moneyball. [26:04] These companies in addition to seeing a problem in looking for a way to fix it also recognized that you could use data. Technology barley but also data to spot opportunities to improve your products to connect with your customers so a lot of people call it this is direct to Consumer businesses also say it's connect to Consumer businesses, so early on before they get big enough that they decide they need to offer you know kind of have retail stores as well. These companies are doing all their business with people online. [26:39] People are coming to the website they know everything where did you come from how much time did you spend on the website what are you looking at. What are you ordering how many times you come back before you order they can just gather a lot of data to learn about their customers and to improve their products. [26:58] In some cases one of the things that some of these brands of do he's having more customized products and that's where he's Lon as come on E Salon offers customized are coloring. That is you know just about as good as Salon but what more expensive but better than the off the shelf. Hair coloring that you would get from one of the big name brands and how does it do this its Gathering data all the time from its users has a questionnaire. It's using AI to analyze that data when we mix this for these for the woman who answers the question are this way. This is what she like sometimes we will tweak it and give her a slightly different than what she thinks that she wants because our experience has shown over hundreds of thousands millions of people answering the questions and of this is what is going to work best. And so their product is like 20 or 25 bucks depending on what kind of subscription you have and you know it's a lot less than you might spend at a hair salon and it's and it's a very good product again that would not be possible. [28:08] Without being able to collect the data and you know kind of fine tune. It's a product but also it's the marketing it's the pitch kind of to see somebody comes to your website you know kind of how long you're going to stay there. Every you know kind of incremental Improvement in each step along the way. [28:28] Means that you're going to have more customers and more customers stay with you so initially they started I think they told me like you know fifty percent of their customers were coming back because they were still trying to figure out the formulation and now 70%. Come back after the first purchase they get people past their third purchase they know they're going to have until 8:00 purchases if they get past their 8 purchases they're going to have them like just about forever again and they know this because they're measuring every bit of data. Jason: [28:56] Yeah I mean one of the examples in the book that really struck me was when a woman ask for the lightest possible blond they know that she actually doesn't want the light as possible blond and that she maybe want something with a slight bit of blue tint in it. Larry: [29:11] Yes because because I know from people who've gotten the lightest possible Dom who fit the profile that she fits that they have a lower kind of Second Coming Back conversion rate than they do when they kind of tweaked it a little bit, it's you know kind of it really is a type of rocket science put it into a computer for retail purposes. Jason: [29:32] But I like that metaphor so you could almost think of them sort of anchor money bald Belkin right like the the you know the traditional accessory providers. Larry: [29:44] Yeah well one of the challenges I think for some of the startups is that you know, what happens when the Yankees starting you could start using data analytics right they got money and data analytics. So now you know having said that I think the Oakland A's are year in year out Fielding better teams. Did they ever did before data analytics going to watch. So so even though it may be harder now that everybody is using the same tactics and I think a lot of the big companies are starting to learn some of them are buying some of these companies, some of them are buying expertise, so so that's going to make it a bit more challenging for companies but still you know I think that there's a lot of potential because you have the technology out there that makes it easy to introduce a. Jason: [30:39] Yeah and you know what you know finding that metal part maybe just one step further that's a great point you make that when the Oakland A's are the only ones using the Moneyball system they were they were suddenly identifying valuable players that other teams didn't want because they didn't know they were valuable, so they had this competitive Advantage but once the whole world adopted this this Quantum metric, system suddenly everyone knew those value and so it was it was harder to gain an advantage from that and then in some ways it feels like. DDOS is playing out very similar when you were the only ones leveraging this like targeted audiences on Facebook. You had this great competitive Advantage but now that everyone's using it they you know bit up the prices and it's it's less of an advantage than it was for that first mover. Larry: [31:29] Right right there's no doubt about that there's no doubt about that. Scot: [31:33] Cool one one thing I wanted to talk about is so a way has been interesting and this probably happened, post publication of the book so they've had one thing that's interesting is so so Amazon is kind of cloned their model so there's an Amazon basic suitcase Target just announced Their Own Line of suitcases that look very away ish and then they had their own kind of implosion with the CEO, sending some unsavory slack messages internally kind of kicking yourself upstairs and then re kicking yourself back downstairs what do you make of the tumultuous times there. Larry: [32:10] Yeah so I think implosion is probably to stronger word clearly embarrassing for the CEO to be berating her, employees the way that she did in a very demeaning way and I think that she has said she's embarrassed but you know one thing I would point out. These are startups most of these people have not run companies, and often you have you know entrepreneurs who aren't great managers you know witness Steve Jobs at Apple, right or Elon Musk at Tesla I mean both of these executives. Were incredibly incredibly difficult to work with and the second thing I would say is that you know, especially when you're in the mode that away is in you know competing first of all with other startups which it ended up as the leading, new luggage company and now competing against other existing players trying to get into its pace and copy what it's doing, you know it's a life-or-death situation for a company and so you know sometimes emotions boil over I think the big question there is. [33:30] Will that bad publicity affect ways image overall and you know you go on social media and you see people saying oh I'm never going to buy it anymore and oh I wish I hadn't bought it and. You know what week later those same people are outraged by something else. So I'm not sure I mean I think time will tell how much it's going to affect them but, you know they have a good product at a at a good price it's a value price right it's not the most expensive and it's not the best product but it is you know a good product at a good price, and I think it could end up being one of the winners only time will tell but I think it could be. Jason: [34:07] Yeah yeah another one you know I feel like demonstrating how liquid all this is like obviously you you you know the you mentioned our shave club was sort of one of your your first interest in this space and their well covered in the book and you alluded earlier to gillette's prodigious market share so like the the interesting news from last week and this week as last week the FTC filed the complaint and said that they were actually going to oppose, Harry's acquisition by Edge well because they felt like number to March it. Larry: [34:45] Which own chick. Jason: [34:47] Yeah exactly so Schick number to acquiring Harry's which some people think is number four behind our Shave Club I actually have some data that looks like Harry's may have a bigger market share today than Dollar Shave Club. So calm three or four number two by his number three or four and the FTC was concerned that that would dramatically a road, price competition so they they block the merger and and then this week Edge well announced that they weren't going to fight it so there are. Larry: [35:17] To the consternation of Harry's well you know like I'm not sure what the most recent data is the data that I got from an independent source, that tracks sales said that Dollar Shave Club sales and market share was quite a bit bigger than Harry's but separate from that, I think it was an interesting decision I'm not a little bit of a puzzling decision you know kind of the FTC is letting Sprint, and T-Mobile merge. And put not Harry's and sik or Edge well merge the barriers to entry in Mobile. [35:54] Communication is much higher than the barriers to entry in razors and actually one of the things I think you know getting back to the whole point about how easy it is to introduce a new brand we let's say that Harry's, you know starts raising its prices and starts doing business more like chicken Gillette had long done it that cozy relationship, to me that would prevent a you know kind of two things would happen because of the way that the world has changed one dollar she would help Dollar Shave Club being in there as you know kind of offering this alternative view of the world. And second, it's quite possible that another brand would come in and say Hey you know kind of these guys you know kind of are leaving their customers behind they're not being true to what they were and obviously there is a market for what they were doing. [36:42] And I think that's one of the kind of long-term getting back to the Money Ball issue kind of one of the long-term benefits of what's happened is that we as consumers have more choice and likely will have more choice in most consumer products going forward because it is so easy to introduce a new brand there's been a democratization which leads how did the fragmentation I don't think we'll ever see a prey on that you know kind of like Gillette has 70% market share in the future but that's good you know that's not bad, you know I kind of finally I think part of the reason that that edge well sik backed out was it paid I thought the price that it offered was quite a rich price it was like 1.3 billion was even more than Unilever paid for Dollar Shave Club, so although there was an awfully Rich price maybe they kind of at the end got cold feet and said oh maybe we're paying too much for it you know kind of let's let's let that. Jason: [37:36] The I think the investors must have agreed with you because I feel like Edge well stock is up since the merger was called off. Larry: [37:43] Right right, but long-term long-term sik Edge well is going to have to figure out how to better service its customers right because it was distant distant distant you know kind of number two to Gillette forever and it had, combined combined Harry's and Dollar Shave Club I think had more market share than Schick so that says something about the way they were doing business before the way they need to think about doing business going ahead. Jason: [38:10] Oh for sure and like I mean two things, hey like it's going to be interesting to watch it because you know in many respects when they announced this merger they said and we're going to put the Harry's guys in tired of our strategic plan going forward so they sort of announced to the world, that we don't have any good ideas and we're trusting them to take the brand forward and so now what do you do when you don't have those guys. Larry: [38:34] Right I mean you know you maybe you try to hire that talent but sometimes that entrepreneurial talent and that just kind of feel for what the customer wants is not so easy to duplicate in focus groups and such. Jason: [38:44] No but so I'll admit very personally selfishly I'm disappointed that they're not going to litigate with the FTC because per your point, in the ftc's complaint they made a lot of interesting claims and one of the claims was that, Harry's was able to capture significant market share and become a relevant player but they sucked up all the opportunity to do that and that it would be much more difficult for anyone to follow in Harry's, footsteps and therefore it was important not to allow this merger and like well as we discussed already in some ways it probably is harder to be the third or fourth mover, in other ways, like the the friction is considerably less like and it's hard to imagine that Amazon couldn't be a significant player or Target couldn't invent a razor. You can play or so. Larry: [39:44] Well Amazon as you noted earlier I think you mentioned it with. Jason: [39:48] Yeah they're already in the space. Larry: [39:49] In the space but they have there are at least 200 new brands at Amazon has introduced, over the last few years and I mentioned this in my book that are there have amazonbasics Brands but this is separate from that these are brands that you don't know her necessary Amazon Brands unless you really drill down, they actually have a shoe brand called I think it's called Collective 206 kind of crazy name for a shoe brand but anyway they introduced a knockoff of all birds, wool Runner Shoes recently and all birds took a shot of them and say oh your stuff is not sustainable materials and but in some ways Walmart is I mean she's me Amazon is validating. What all birds is doing and it's somebody's it's giving a threat so you're going to have, all sorts I mean the opportunity to introduce new products new brands is you know kind of higher than ever before and then getting back to my point if Harry's changed the way it did business. So that it charged higher prices and and you know kind of acted more like chick that would create an opportunity for somebody else in the marketplace I truly believe that. Scot: [41:04] Yes can be interesting to see you know if more of this gets blocked and what's going to happen one one other topic I wanted to just touch on quickly that happened kind of post the book is the Casper IPO so you know I think Casper raised money as a private company at around one to 1.2 billion and then they really struggled price in the IPO the kind of, we're talking about a 15 to 17 range and a pricing it at 12 its trading off of that it's interesting because I've seen a lot of people argue that these brands should get kind of one times revenue and then other folks have argued that a lot of these brands because they're more efficient they should get two three four times so this one ended up kind of going right in I think they're trailing 12 months Revenue are about 400 million and now their market cap is right around 400 million so they. Larry: [41:55] Or 500 or something like that but pretty close to it. Scot: [41:58] Get a pretty quickly zeroed in on that one X do you think that's going to throw kind of a wet blanket on things or do you think that that I. Larry: [42:04] So yes but with a caveat so let's look at the mattress space overall and how disrupted that has been. So if you go back five years I met mattress business retail mattress business in the u.s. is about 15 or 16 billion dollars a year. If you go back five years about 50 million dollars was done direct-to-consumer the bed in the Box friends. [42:30] Last year it was two billion dollars and if the. Barriers to entry fell in a lot of categories the barriers to entry in the mattress. Category collapsed because it's so easy to make a mattress and sell a mattress you get somebody to sell you foam you know you get somebody just to so the bits together the top together and then you kind of get a machine that crams it down and puts it in a box and send it you had dozens does is I've actually heard hundreds but you know dozens of doesn't serious serious players and I think that they're probably going to be, you know kind of maybe a half-dozen that emerge so in this in this you know kind of, fiercely competitive free-for-all bare Knuckles free for all the way I described in the book Casper raises a lot of money and, besides that it has to spend a lot of money to try to knock the others out of the box and become the leading and and I think that. They made a strategic mistake I think they spent so much that it validated the whole category, right so when you went and searched for mattresses online you found Casper but you also found tough to needle and purple and others, and the second thing I think that they thought maybe that you know is like a network effect you know we spend moral kind of get others you know kind of have to drop out it hasn't you know kind of those others have thrive, so if you guys heard much about purple innovation. [44:00] Okay so purple is a public company it stock is traded. It came it actually didn't start selling mattresses until like 2016. Its stock has doubled in the past year it's market cap is now 700 800 million I think it's sales are 4,500 roughly the same as as Casper and tough to needle, which was sold about a year and a half to go to Sur to Simmons for four to five hundred million dollars we started as I mentioned by these kind of too. Software Engineers who just decided they wanted to make a product they raised virtually no money they had no Venture Capital Mike they had to be profitable from the start. And they were and they sold the company they each together they had 90% of the company so you know kind of both of them did very very well so I think that Casper you know kind of rather than being a poster child for all DTC companies is more of a poster child for, kind of format a poorly managed DCTC. You know I mean we're going to see time will tell but when you have profitable companies in that space and their unprofitable then you know kind of it says that somebody doing something right compared with them. Jason: [45:20] Yeah it's it's a funny so a number of these guys have been on the podcast so Joe Mega bow who's the CEO of purple has been on in JT Marino has been on and one of the cool stories JT told us was, um that yeah you know that you know he mentioned that he hadn't raised any money that you know some of these these Venture funds that we're starting this emerge specializing in data see all wanted to invest and they didn't take the money and that his his version of the story was Casper was specifically created as a, alternative to tough to needle that could be Venture funding. Larry: [46:01] Right right yeah though I I talked to him too as you know in the book and he told me that same thing but he was you know can it again they were high they had to be very disciplined. Right because of the way they spent. Jason: [46:14] Yeah no I really admire that. Larry: [46:16] And I think that that Casper was undisciplined now that you know the final thing I would say about it is that you got you ever heard of a company called Tesla. So a year ago. Jason: [46:27] Single-handedly is keeping them afloat. Larry: [46:29] So year ago. Tesla was like almost given up for dead right oh we can't get the production right you know kind of they have they can't get you know kind of mass production of cars right it's you know kind of he's running out of cash you know he's got so much debt and now it's stock is at all-time high. And they're making money and why because they fix their fundamental problem which was you know they had a great brand name and a great product but they were kind of Highly inefficient the way they made it but they appear to have gotten that under control Casper's has still has a great branding I don't know if they can pull off a Tesla. But you know sometimes the the rigor and the discipline imposed On You by public markets can focus the mind and make you be a lot more efficient than you were and we'll see but I wouldn't count them out quite yet. Jason: [47:18] No I think that's that's certainly fair so, you had this front row seat to all of these interesting Evolutions obviously so you know most of them are still sort of playing out like if, if you had to put your prognostication hat on like how is all this going to play out like is are these got companies a blip on the radar and Joe Ed and p and g are going to keep on tickin for for another hundred years or you know like are we seeing the start of a. Change. Larry: [47:48] Great question so I think that there will be billion dollar brands. That have you know market cap or kind of they go public and there will be a billion dollar brand so they Corby Parker probably wants to go public you know kind of I don't know that they're making money but I think they're a lot closer to it than for example Casper, there will be other brands that will be you know kind of modestly successful. And then there will be other brands that will be Niche brands that will be successful and niches have you guys ever heard of a company called lens simple. This is one of my favorite one so so if you have a pair of eyeglass frames. [48:29] That you really like maybe what a couple pair of designer frames a couple years ago and you need a new prescription and you kind of go back to the, optician and you say hey can you know can I got a new prescription just put new lenses in my frames they look at you like you're crazy I don't know we want to sell you another pair of frames, this company you send them the frames and they put in your new prescription they send it back to you. So I think that they're going to be a lot of Niche players like this and then they're going to be companies that fail in the in the luggage space you know kind of away emerged as the leader among the startups and there were a couple of companies rate in and blue smart that ended up going out of business. So you're going to have you know kind of a whole array of this but I think the the ability to you know getting back to it bent or bury the ability to introduce Brands means that you know kind of. Things have changed forever just like Moneyball started with baseball and now data analytics is used in every sport. So you know can a big companies will fight back none of those companies are going to disappear but if unless they figure out a way to connect to Consumer better, they're going to have lower market shares and you know again I don't think that's a bad thing actually maybe as an investor in those companies that's a bad thing but for consumers. That's a good thing because in the end more choice is better it keeps the big companies honest it makes them he's like Gillette lowering its. [49:58] Prices by an average of 12 to 15. A couple years ago I mean unheard of that never would have happened without Dollar Shave Club at Harry's coming along City. So we kind of we're in the early stages of this Revolution and I think the revolution like all revolutions you're not exactly sure where it's going to end up but you are pretty sure that it's not it's going to look quite a bit different than where we started. Jason: [50:26] Yeah no I would totally agree with that and I feel like we're lucky to be sort of in the in the front row at a time when we are going through this revolution because it's it's not the status quo. Larry: [50:38] Yeah very fun to very fun to watch. Jason: [50:41] Yeah for sure and so until you write the sequel that's going to be a great place for us to leave it tonight because we've once again used up all our a lot of time but in the event that listeners have questions or want to continue the dialogue we always encourage you to jump on Twitter and send us a note or leave us a message on our Facebook page I'll be sure to put a link to Larry's book in the show notes so that listeners can find that without doing anything dangerous while driving. Larry: [51:08] And and you can send me an email to my email address is on my wedge page web page which is www Larry ingrassia.com so. Jason: [51:18] I will I will put that in the show notes Larry thanks very much for being on the show tonight we really enjoyed our conversation. Larry: [51:25] Guys Jason Scott very fun thank you so much for having me. Scot: [51:29] Thanks I appreciate you taking time to fill us in on your book and hope everyone orders a copy ASAP. Jason: [51:35] And until next time happy commercing.

Melanie Huet and Derek Miller, both of SSB, made their debut on the Dos Marcos podcast. Find out what the bedding giant plans to do in the big box channels and how they're pushing their legacy brands. Plus, have you ever wondered how SSB is doing after its merger with Tuft & Needle? Listen in to get answers to the questions you've been asking. Thank you to our headline sponsor Nationwide Marketing Group. As a member of Nationwide Marketing group, you instantly have access to over 200+ ambitious, entrepreneurial-minded advocates who are dedicated to helping your business thrive. Nationwide serves more than 5,500 independent retail members with tools, resources, training, and technology to help their businesses grow. Also, thanks to our sponsor, PureCare. PureCare designs essential elements necessary to create a healthy sleep environment. PureCare manufactures the official mattress and pillow protectors of both the National Sleep Foundation and the Woman’s Choice Award. Watch the live video of most episodes at Facebook.com/DosMarcosPodcast. Make sure and subscribe to our email to get a direct dose of Dos Marcos.

Arri is a whizkid of sorts when it comes to messenger marketing and SMS marketing.  At the ripe old age of 22 he's leading his team at Conversmart and has worked with some pretty impressive brands including Tuft & Needle, Poo-Pourri and the Beard Club just to name a few.      I know very little about SMS marketing for eCommerce so I was super excited to have Arri on the podcast to learn how he does it.  We both spoke at Ezra Firestone's event in Seattle a few months ago. I was so impressed by his talk that we immediately scheduled a time to record the podcast.     Here's a quick look at what we cover on this episode.     Some stats around mobile usage related to text messaging that are important to note? How does SMS marketing compare to email marketing What are some of the top ways eCommerce companies should consider using SMS marketing How to grow SMS subscribers Most common SMS campaigns and tactics with some real examples How to combine SMS + email + messenger for mind-boggling results

It’s time for another installment of our Amazon For CMOs Podcast Series and today we're talking to Byron Kerr, a trailblazer in the functional, executive-level role of Director of Marketplaces, or Head of Amazon, within his company. Byron Kerr leads the strategic execution on the Amazon sales channel, at the mattress company, Tuft & Needle. This currently includes both the vendor and the seller sales channel, managing the Amazon annual marketing budget, and liaising with all the other functional areas that touch Amazon, within the company. Byron has been in the Amazon space for quite some time now, and he's also been consulting with brands around the Amazon channels for several years.  Byron is the first person in the role of Head of Amazon at Tuft & Needle. In today's episode, he talks about how this role came about at Tuft & Needle, and why the company decided that they needed to have a dedicated resource to oversee this channel and to lead the initiatives within it. The point of today's conversation is to discuss various approaches to Amazon and the decisions that need to be made around that. Byron is really a wealth of information, so tune in today to hear about his thought processes around these aspects. Byron on LinkedIn Tuft & Needle For the first few days after the launch of “Amazon For CMOs”, on September 24th, the Kindle version of the book will be available for free! So sign up to get your copy. Go to www.amazonforcmos.com to sign up for our email list and to be notified of the launch.

Découvrez RÉUNI, mon nouveau projetEcoutez le podcast Building RÉUNI sur Apple Podcast I Spotify I SoundcloudSuivez les aventures de RÉUNI sur InstagramJe partage chaque vendredi dans ma newsletter des actus, des outils, des process et des stratégies pour vous aider à monter votre marque. Inscrivez-vous sur www.entreprendredanslamode.comPour soutenir le podcast:1. S'inscrire sur Entreprendre dans la mode pour ne rater aucun épisode.2. Mettre 5 étoiles sur Apple Podcast pour aider d'autres entrepreneurs et acteurs de la mode à découvrir le podcast.3. Vous pouvez aussi me soutenir en participant au financement de ce projet sur https://www.patreon.com/entreprendredanslamodeMusiques : Théo DarcelCette semaine avec Viviane Lipskier, on parle de comment utiliser les médias offline en 2019.Viviane est fondatrice de Brandalchimy, elle est l’expert DNVB en France et accompagne les marques à repenser leur business model dans l’économie Direct to Consumer (D2C). Elle est l’auteure des « DNVB : les surdouées du commerce digital ».SE RETROUVER DANS L’EPISODE01:24 Pourquoi évoquer ce sujet, pourquoi les DNVB investissent dans les medias off-line et est ce que cela est rentable.6:00 De quand date la première publicité sur Facebook.14:54 Pourquoi les DNVB n’ont pas fait de publicité télé plus tôt ?23:40 Est ce pertinent pour une jeune marque d’acheter de l’espace télé ? Est ce que les contenus sont abordables pour une jeune marque ?30:45 Conclusion.KEYLEARNINGSUne étude du VAB, Video Advertising Bureau Jun 10, 2019, le groupe professionnel représentant les grands réseaux de télévision et les distributeurs américain révèle que les marques Direct to consumer dont les DNVB font partie, ont augmenté de 60 % leurs dépenses en médias télévisuels pour atteindre 3,8 milliards de dollars en 2018 par rapport à l'année précédente.La VAB a examiné 125 marques parmi 52 catégories de produits DTC et a mesuré les interactions numériques, le trafic sur le site Web et les revenus des ventes. Ce que révèle ce rapport par exemple c’est que, Peloton (game changer dans le marché du fitness, cyclisme, fitness, video streaming ) a plus que doublé son chiffre d'affaires à 700 millions de dollars après avoir augmenté ses dépenses de télévision de 48 % pour atteindre 161,3 millions de dollars l'an dernier, le plus élevé parmi les marques DTC en "expansion" identifiées par la VAB.Depuis l’année dernière, le online a dépassé le offline en volume et en valeur."L'idée fausse courante est que la télévision ne peut pas être suivie de la même manière que la publicité numérique ", a déclaré Hum. "Très rapidement, nous avons constaté que nous étions en mesure de le suivre et de le mesurer aussi précisément que nous le pouvions sur le plan numérique. Tous les KPI se sont également améliorés. Le coût par client a diminué. Le coût par inscription a diminué. La télévision a fini par représenter la plus grande partie de nos dépenses de marketing." La TV est également en train de basculer vers la publicité TV adressée ou adressable, c’est à dire des campagnes de publicité TV qui sont ciblées et éventuellement personnalisées en fonction du profil et des datas disponibles pour chaque individu exposé. La publicité TV peut être adressée lorsque le programme est diffusé par le biais d’une box qui permet d’identifier l’individu et sa localisation. Dans le contexte français et pour des raisons légales, la publicité adressée n’est pas possible dans le cadre de TV linéaire, traditionnelle mais seulement en catchup TV.Les fournisseurs de contenu offrent ce qu’on appelle une voie de retour puisque les gens s’abonnent en particulier par voie IP, les gens s’abonnent donc les opérateurs savent qui regardent quoi. Les opérateurs médias, les médias ont des infos en retour, c’est une « voie de retour ».La TV peut donc mieux qualifier ses audiences ; plus elles se délinéarise et plus on pourra envoyer des publicités ciblées à une homme dans la Creuse passionné de tuning dans le flux publicitaire, on remplacera une pub par une autre en linéaire, en délinéarisé d’ici 2 ou 3 ans tu auras un tunnel pub totalement personnalisé. REFERENCESPeloton https://www.onepeloton.com/Touch of Modern https://www.touchofmodern.com/Bonne Gueule https://www.bonnegueule.fr/AdoreMe https://www.adoreme.com/Victoria Secret https://ww.victoriassecret.comBirchbox https://birchbox.fr/Dollar Shave Club https://www.dollarshaveclub.com/BaubleBar https://www.baublebar.comSpotify https://www.spotify.com/fr/Horace https://horace.co/Casper https://casper.com/fr/fr/Leesa https://www.leesa.com/Tuft & Needle https://www.tuftandneedle.com/Le Slip Français https://www.leslipfrancais.fr/Frédéric Biousse https://www.instagram.com/p/BykHcBFi8hN/

For the month of July I will be re-releasing select episodes of "Mom and Dad Cuss (a Little)" while we take our annual family vacation. This is Ep 24: "Home Improvement"No plans for this week, just chatting about things. This week we just jump in to how things are going around the house. We discuss taxes, health and diet, and have a small discussion about the gender pay gap. It's tax time! It's the time of year some people dread, and others depend on for household plans. This year we are using our tax return to do some improvements around the house. We are finally paying off our van and getting the A/C fixed in it, among other things. We purchased a new Tuft & Needle mattress. And we are replacing our beaten up dining table booth seat with a set of refurbished church pews. On a more personal side, ReAnna has officially completed her first class on her quest to gain her Librarian degree with an "A." She's also made some steps toward improving her health, including finding a new doctor and getting on thyroid medication. In her first week alone, her energy level is way up, and she has managed to get her Dr Pepper consumption down to a single can a day, without any ill effects. We have a small discussion about a recent Wells Fargo study into the gender pay gap and how it seems greatly affected by the overwhelming cost of childcare. Personally we flip that convention on it's head and it doesn't really bother us. ReAnna is the primary breadwinner in our house.

For the month of July I will be re-releasing select episodes of "Mom and Dad Cuss (a Little)" while we take our annual family vacation. This is Ep 24: "Home Improvement"No plans for this week, just chatting about things. This week we just jump in to how things are going around the house. We discuss taxes, health and diet, and have a small discussion about the gender pay gap. It's tax time! It's the time of year some people dread, and others depend on for household plans. This year we are using our tax return to do some improvements around the house. We are finally paying off our van and getting the A/C fixed in it, among other things. We purchased a new Tuft & Needle mattress. And we are replacing our beaten up dining table booth seat with a set of refurbished church pews. On a more personal side, ReAnna has officially completed her first class on her quest to gain her Librarian degree with an "A." She's also made some steps toward improving her health, including finding a new doctor and getting on thyroid medication. In her first week alone, her energy level is way up, and she has managed to get her Dr Pepper consumption down to a single can a day, without any ill effects. We have a small discussion about a recent Wells Fargo study into the gender pay gap and how it seems greatly affected by the overwhelming cost of childcare. Personally we flip that convention on it's head and it doesn't really bother us. ReAnna is the primary breadwinner in our house.

EP176 - Tuft & Needle Co-Founder JT Marino   Tuft & Needle (@tuftandneedle) is the original digitally native direct to consumer mattress brand (founded in 2012).  In 2018 they merged with Serta Simmons Bedding company.  JT Marino is a co-founder of Tuft & Needle, now Chief Strategy Officer for Serta. Topics covered: Tuft & Needle origin story Merger with Serta State of the online mattress industry Tuft & Needles Amazon strategy Future of Direct to consumer model Omni-Channel opportunities Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 176 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday, June 3rd, 2019. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason “Retailgeek” Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor 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 176 being recorded on Monday June 3rd 2019 I’m your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I’m here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:38] Hey Jason welcome back Jason Scott show listeners one of our favorite topics here on the Jason Scott show is direct to Consumer brands or digitally native vertical Brands to choose your poison the day we are really excited to have one of the Oggi’s JT Marino she strategy officer at Serta Simmons bedding welcome to the show. Jason: [1:05] We are excited that you’re able to join us tonight JT one of these we always like to start off as give our listener and a little bit of a bio background on yourself can you talk to us about how you came to starts a tuft and needle. Jt: [1:20] Sure so background let’s see so I study Computer Science and Mathematics at Penn State and that’s also where I met my co-founder on it something you don’t Daisy Park we’re best friends bear and help several startups build their engineering and design teams product teams and one of those startups that he actually ended up joining. [1:46] And we decided that we wanted to Branch off and the time was right you wanted to start something of Our Own, but we wanted to do something very different we wanted to start with so trying to trying to come up with an idea this would that I would like this company for this week we really wanted to start with a problem that we knew. I needed to be solved the big problem and what better way than the start with something that you experienced yourselves. And so the idea we went to the prom We settled on was shopping for a mattress. So I add you don’t have to call a judge had gone shopping for a mattress which was supposed to say worse than shopping for a used car. A lot of money like it try to return it couldn’t return it and so literally every night was reminded of this big mistake had made and so that was one of the items that are one of the ideas for your problems to solve. And in a way it was eccentric on the list because it wasn’t software-related which was primarily or background. [2:54] So we decided to do you know instead of coming up with the idea of finding some co-founders building a pitched backcountry. The BBC’s Kearns money building your team W product a year or year-and-a-half later launching it to find out if it works or not he wanted to rapidly test it and see if we can find product. Ideally within a week. So we knew if it would have legs or not or whether we should move on something else so we did was we built a single single page website. [3:28] And I and I actually should say the way that we approached the value proposition in formulating part of the business model was started with what we called hate must be took a legal pad we’re at the tables at the top we wrote down everything we hated about shopping for a mattress and everything we hitting about mattresses example walking into a mattress store and having all of these different options to choose from. Another commission sales people who are like really pushy and he’s all their sales tactics also not about a lot of fun, I’m having a scheduled delivery take a day off work to receive it and so on return processing just there’s so many tears so many things in the flood literally for the page we do a line down the center and just what we would do instead set up all these options one one mattress set up a commission sales person no commission sales person having go in the store will start online instead of having scheduled delivery to ship it via FedEx it possible to things like that we reduce the the feature list to the minimum we fought with it would take to convince me to buy from a company didn’t they never heard of and then just converted that to sales material on a website took a photo stock image of a mattress. Put that up there in a credit card for the bottom. [4:43] And the credit are formed it wasn’t fully wire. But it would send a signal somebody attempted to buy lunch the site took out a Google ad in 15 minutes later there was somebody just jamming on the on the process button. We knew that we if we could get within 15 minutes of somebody already trying to buy. Then there was something something here so that’s what we should decide down that was Junior 2012 over the summer no BB figured out how do you make a mattress to make slime with a supply chain wires in a and then in October we launched tuft and needle the first product. I’m online but it was October 2012 without Venture Capital it was fully bootstrap usage at 4 months Runway with my savings just to survive before we had to either get a job or something ourselves between successful in doing what about 3 months post 1. Jason: [5:35] That’s awesome did that first test customer ever get a mattress as far as you know. Jt: [5:40] To be honest we we we we lost a customer we didn’t have their contact information. I really appreciate them. Who knows maybe after that maybe somebody wouldn’t have no somebody didn’t attempt it within the first day we might have abandoned the whole thing but I’m glad I’m glad whoever it was. Jason: [5:59] Yeah so that’s an awesome origin story I’m sure it’s a ton of the the diesel need to come in as we talked about on the show come out of this Factory at Warden and you were across town like is there a Penn State Borden rival Reaper or digital native brands or not really. Jt: [6:17] To be honest I’m not I’m not sure about. Jason: [6:19] Yeah if you guys don’t have a softball league or anyting. Jt: [6:22] There very well could be I will alternate there’s there is a pretty strong network of very successful entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley from Penn Station. Yeah something like Stanford Harvard but we we we definitely have a good feel good group going Wheatley and. A few others that works in the early entrance into y combinator in the first the first. Jason: [6:47] Yeah it’s an interesting that that that part of the country has been such a fertile hotbed for for entrepreneurs especially back in 2012 you took a pretty untraditional path in. Not raising outside money will talk about in a second that you were ultimately part of an acquisition but. If you can say like where you able to then grow organically and did you ever have to raise any money before the acquisition. Jt: [7:16] Yeah we we we grew so we started with $6,000 and we grew that. [7:23] Sort of an anomaly so we grew like a fast-paced start up with a hockey stick all the way up and see the point of a merger. And we merged with Serta Simmons the largest mattress company in the world last last October. And it wasn’t something that we had to do we actually decided to do it because we strongly believe that would be the fastest path to completing the mission of company our mission was to not only disrupt the industry. Are catalyzed A disruption what you did but it was also to shift the industry to being focused and prioritizing the customer. And so we three felt that this was was a way to do that better between 2012 and. In 2018 read re zero capital on the first three years we didn’t have enough. Prophet to actually have much of a marketing budget and also be heavily relied on an iterative process of using customer feedback and it’ll rating on the product or service that I pop all of those things to be Best in Class which then turned into I’m a very strong organic growth promoter score the highest in the industry. North 75 on MPS and we really relied on our customers to spread the word until we we had enough profit actually start feeling I’m feeling the Dubrow. Jason: [8:47] That is on bo4 are an awesome I’m curious I I presume you get asked for advice from other entrepreneurs is is that a path you would encourage other people to follow because I feel like there still is a lot of indoctrination and brainwashing. In the BC community that they’re the the path to entrepreneurship. Jt: [9:06] Well it really depends on what path you give me what do you want is your outcome we are going to disrupt something big but we also had a minimum our goal as a minimum was to build a company if it if we couldn’t really grow it and beg him and caused a kind of change the ministry that we wanted to we were okay to settle with a lifestyle business I could pass the soccer he’s we’re making at the previous company and then we would just build something else so but one of the nice things about it so we we had a bad taste in your mouth with the proof of the previous company that we would work for 9 Venus not number of times how much Capital Money can be. [9:45] Can be toxic to the decisions you make when you prioritize growth of everything a lot of times you forget about the cost of the very customer you’re serving or it sustain the shity product. Never really should exist and you don’t really need to Sprint to solve it because you got this money floating you so you know are orb just burning cash in buying your customer rather than turning them and having them or do $2 I’d rather than buying finest customers convincing them so we viewed it as a constraint I having this constraint it forced us to make. The brands of The Full Experience beginning to end for our customers so good that they would spread the word so additionally gives you a lot of options as to what you want to do you want to build a lifestyle business you want to sell it want to do a merger you want to go public you know how the company grows you you have a lot of flexibility is to how to do it you can operate your business build the culture the way you want to build it you don’t have anybody to condense I will say it’s playing the playing the play the game on on hardcore mode so the risks the risk is much greater. I’m the reward could very well be much much greater as well as high-risk high-reward. [11:01] In it and I’ll also say I we learned a lot about building a real profitable business building it up proper budgets and understanding the P hiding under Cena piano from from Day Zero before we had a CFO I just. I say it was it is it is a huge learning experience for Daisy and I and it really set us up for whatever else you know we may want to do in the future but it’s really it is really up to based on where you want to go that we ended up moving out of Silicon Valley because he knew he had to get out of that bubble of thinking. If we were going to limit on some nothing kitchen hours. Jason: [11:39] That’s awesome one of the things I like about that model as you pointed out it is it is potentially hardcore mode but I have a premise that there’s a lot of businesses out there that can be really vibrant. 100 million dollar-a-year businesses to $900 a year businesses that can, you know it support People Help customers gameplay employ a bunch of people and that can be really successful business if you’re able to grow to be that kind of business organically but of course, that’s not a win for a venture-backed company in so you’re sort of forced to get to that that next stage. Weather whether there’s organic demand or not and then like it it feels like we’re starting to see some of these these companies have to occasionally do foolish things to try to. Does BC multiples when the business maybe dance support. Jt: [12:30] Yeah I’m in even even just press unimpressed is a good way to getting exposure the Press we found it they don’t for the most part don’t like to write about startups that that had to raise Capital because it’s all about the valuation all about the amount of money raised and we always struggled to get to get noticed where the architects of the destruction in the mattress industry and I’m in it it’s always been hard to cut through the noise. I’m to really get that story out so but yeah I mean it’s it was definitely definitely an extreme position you know the Other Extreme raising a lot of capital but I’m in the end you know and it really depends on you know what come product with the markets are in it possible there’s a few factors that made it possible for us to bootstrap it I’m in there in the early days but in the end I mean my co-founder and I we eat we owns now 80% of the business I’m right up to the merger and be a given away 20% to the employees and then. Set alarm to find me solve a long way to go through the merger to fully realize what it was originally but I’m going to Wild Ride but. Jason: [13:41] That’s terrific and you mentioned just rubbed her I feel like there’s this or the traditional notion here is you know you had these disruptors that come in and come in industry and they either. Disrupt the incumbent and become the new incumbent or you know very often we see the incumbent acquire the disruptor another thing that’s interesting about you is is you alluded to earlier it wasn’t really an acquisition it was a merger of a disrupter and in an incumbent in the mattress base and you know I might even characterize it as sort of a reverse acquisition in that it feels like. You guys are not the leadership team for Purser. And you mention you’re you’re the chief strategy officer not for tuft and needle but for for all of Serta Simmons bedding. Jt: [14:30] That’s right so yeah so the merger it was operationally legally and financially emerger and we would not have done this unless it that was the case and that was only going over the strongest and sticky and I had. I’m about to be honest that was also the way message because her descendant also wanted his if you if you think about it you know these these companies that. Heavily rely on retail, as their primary distribution. I’m when they when retail when this this whole landscape has and he cusses him completely changing the customer journey is completely changing what’s happening is direct-to-consumer is is the starting point of the customer Journey, and so if you if you are you see that ends and they did see that. That is what leads the business and you know a non long the customers Journey then some of them go to retail that’s the ship that’s happening so we are taking me to ship and are also currently I’m currently responsible for I’m building out there direct-to-consumer business and getting a setup properly. Scot: [15:38] Freckle is it on are you guys doing that on the platform you guys filters at, reimagining of of weather look like. Jt: [15:46] Yes it’s it’s it’s almost completely on our platform you know that in the first couple years I’m at built out all the software from the the e-commerce side with the front end all the way in the back ends and Order management customer service tools I’m today to factory floors where we have scanners and all the logistics the nice thing about having her own stock is that we have all the data and we can automate everything so versus using like an sap origin of some kind of other or you know like Shopify some I got your very your business rules and your business process do not have to conform to the software that you’re using you can literally don’t let the way you want so imma get it is a competitive advantage and for us I mean it’s it’s fairly simple to replicate for for the other brand so don’t go all operate with the same efficiency. Scot: [16:42] Spoken like a true comp sci. The so that’s good background let’s talk about the state of the mattress industry so you guys kind of I think you were really a side I don’t have a good yardstick on this then now you can’t throw a rock without hitting 10 mattress companies how did that kind of developed from your point of view. Jt: [17:04] Yeah it started we were the first it’s so we started there were some company company selling mattresses online that it had converted their money, and started before I mean mattresses were sold online back in the late 90s but that had converted to the model so we are the ones that said architect the model but really, meet when we started in 2012 we got noticed in 2013 By the Capital Community. I’m in another there’s a point where I heard the phrase meet decided to play in the space on actually to the Venture capitalists. [17:39] Said that if we all had actually told us that if we didn’t take their money they would find somebody who would and they did about two and a half years later we had our first look alike company start. The most heavily funded on competitor. And then about six months after that it should more and then about a year after them probably 75 and now there’s two hundred plus, enzyme you know as a first-time founder I will say that it was exactly. Emotional emotionally it was emotional trial for me. To get over the fact that somebody was building a company exactly like yours you’re not really much you can do a do about it. And zabuton has I saw that this was actually a really great thing. Because I’m all this Venture Capital flooded into the marketing is being spent a marketing raising the awareness of of consumers they knew they now know there’s a new way to buy a mattress and as long as you do a good job of getting your name made it out there you know this is a. A high-ticket item will do a lot of research on his long as you have a solid. If not better value proposition in the competitors their dollars become your dollars so it’s been very good for accelerating our growth and and helping to stay safe out of the way it is this as it’s growing. Scot: [19:07] Then what made you pull the trigger on combining with Serta. Jt: [19:13] So in an initially started with so I want to say it wasn’t you have a 2000 mm 15 the beginning that we began to develop on the retail strategy. And I’m in an ARP roach and where were also the first ones doing this and building the store was not to take the approach of a pop-up we we we, I guess we’re sort of righteous and taking a right to standpoint or idealistic standpoint that the retail model is not dead. It’s going to take a new form and that we just have to figure it out the unit economics must work out somehow. And so we open up a store in San Francisco in followed by a couple more and it took us it took us a few years to figure out how do you build a store a retail store in today’s day and age that’s double lasting to the Future. An Xin into a profitably and when we figured that out that was really in 2017 we are well one of the things we learned was it something around the 6-month pay back before you know you making money back for a living and sorcery really wanted to rapidly expand it where you would being cash-poor because we’re following all are profitable growth. [20:30] I’m being bootstrapped really wanted to go fast or we would have to raise Capital so we decide it okay we’ll take some capital on so we originally wanted to erase 25 million, which isn’t much and I was actually it was very easy to get to a two-term sheets but it was very difficult to get the term sheet for that small amount I’m so we as we were going through our options we had a lot of the word got out that we are raising and then he got out to I’m big giant retailers I got out to strategic factories and competitors and then we started to get calls and bounce from others and when Serta Simmons reached out it was actually driven by the the private Equity Firm that owns majority bed base I’m seen this and they saw the opportunity and they we decided OK Google will meet with them and just see what they have to say this is one of the the big boys ever going up against fighting against and take him down by the time we met with them we saw that, their point of view is completely different their executive team nobody laughs industry is on their executive team should weird their vision of the future is very similar to ours enzyme. [21:50] We just saw that there was actually almost for alignment so so we decided to pursue it and if it worked out of work. If it didn’t you just continue on with Rick will raise at Capital and will we’ll expand our retail footprint, faster so yeah that’s that’s really the Genesis of how. We are arrived at the concept of the merger. And to be perfectly honest digitally native brands have a predicament when you when you capture the majority of the online Market you have to do something if you want to if your goal is to really be the number 1 2 or 3 you have to keep and you have to expand and distribute and so one of the the key benefits of doing this merger was that sir Simmons has the largest distribution Network mattresses so essentially unlocks all of those channels for us to expand so that was a way to greatly accelerate the growth of subliminal. Jason: [22:49] That makes total sense. It’s interesting to see how much the evolution in the space has changed consumer behavior in some ways and expectations and then in other ways, you know maybe it hasn’t we’re recording this the week after Memorial Day is that still the mattress Superbowl. Jt: [23:08] It’s one of them yeah that’s it’s definitely one of them and it’s unfortunate that mattresses are sold this way from my point of view it’s very promotional markets and its trains on customers to shop that way unfortunately. I think if if it wasn’t so promotion promotional if people didn’t shop that way we’d actually be about all these companies I should be able to provide products at a lower price but yeah it’s customers point of customers expectations at least the ones that now no are there any way to shop now expect at least so the way I the way I frame is usually is our biggest competitor is really Apple. And Amazon because what they’re doing is on bear setting the bar, so customers expect to get the kind of service that kind of product and kind of experience from the great companies that that are leading the way in other markets and sell them to go to buy a mattress they’re expecting something like that and then on top of it. The people that are not learning about Stephanie Tolan and some of the others are now seeing that there’s also a better way to buy a mattress so that people want their mattress right now they want it easy it when a good price they want best-in-class customer service they want free returns easy return they come to expect all of this so that so any of these companies listed in comments that do not have died after I just going to the just going to die. Jason: [24:32] For sure. You mentioned where they got Scott whipped up into a tizzy of a word so we’ll want to get to that pretty quickly here but I did have one one other question like. As so many digital competitors have emerged in the space one of the negative ramifications is all the digital marketing tactics are super competitive and so that Brit drives up cost of customer acquisition and all those things and I and I want to say like back in 2017 there was this Fast Company article talking about like, a lot of oily marketing practices in the mattress base that I you know I think one of your competitors, was actually suing a review site and they were accusing him of being fake and then they they bought that review site and and I drop a laxative I have the story right. Jt: [25:25] Yeah that’s that’s about right eye so, I’m not going to name any names but the mattress industry has been dirty since its founding I mean this is like it’s prolific so I’m the reason why you know those law tags that are on a mattress exist was that mattress salesman would sell you a mattress topper debits advertised that it was the used horse hair is very premium very high-quality material but instead it would be filled with straw. [25:52] And so the government stepped in with a law that you have to disclose what’s inside the mattress so that they can track back if a customer to open it and discover or there’s an audit that you were you were lying then you do know Yugi is a good thing because customers buy a mattress so infrequent and if so uneducated really what to look for I’m like a computer like we no processing power Aaron’s memory and screen resolution me know these things now it’s pretty easy to the brush up since the last time you bought one but a mattress it’s very difficult to too and to know what to look for the teaser fleece customer and so it just the nature of the market is is set up for it set up for that and it also stems from marketing digital Lisa saying you’re something that you’re not. We’re saying oh yeah we have that too but you really don’t you know that you can get away with it because you’re just a customer to mattress store and you know where you’re having it so but anyway yeah one of the one of the tactics that used is these these review sites which I I refer to as the digital manifestation of mattress sales so in and they’re not all like this but in general but how it works is these bloggers will write a write a review. And I’m talking to a affiliate program or they get a kickback if the traffic flow through their website. [27:18] And we have seen this. Where would be the more you give them in a kickback. The better your ratings will be or if you choose not to participate the lower your ratings will be. And we do have some on some evidence this this happening to us very frustrated because it’s it’s, our customers to know what they’re reading in are they going to see the little disclaimers at these are these are paid on the simply advertisers but yeah there’s several competitors that we have that I’ve either built I’m using these independent unbiased I’m doing are quads unbiased mattress reviews sites. [27:58] I built them and long stem and tried to disassociate themselves and just review their product better and some of them have acquired a few and maybe just found another place another affiliate that we’ve been working working with. I was actually invited or so and what do you suppose what do you do if they have a lot of customers are flowing through there if you’re if you’re rated poorly you. It starts to influence your people perception of you it’s it’s almost like if you don’t if you don’t work with the mafia that you’re you’re going to lose. We refuse to work with it so it’s for a long time until we finally decided that if we did in our company’s not going to survive its, what about doing the deal with the devil it’s very frustrating but yeah it’s it’s a it’s a dirty market and that’s just one of the game that’s played another one is, persistent promotions another competitor I don’t want to name it runs a promotion 24/7. [28:51] And that’s not a promotion after they’re literally rules to marketing if you run a promotion for if you don’t stop your promotion for a. Of time before you. You’re next one then that’s then it should that supposed to be your actual price but again customers a fool because they come in to buy the mattress when I leave and you don’t see them for 4 8 10 years so I’m those are just two of the tactics that are used and for a company like tuft and needle we’re we’re hiring people that are that are wanting to do right by the customer go to company that’s focused on the customer change the industry that way when they see this and these tactics working against us but we we know we can’t play that game or it’ll it’ll it’ll taints you know our ethos and I mean I’m certain that we would lose customers I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night it’s it’s definitely challenging so that is one of the key challenges took me to has is it is it which fingers do you know hopefully continue. Jason: [29:51] In this particular ironic when the the senior leadership of a mattress company can’t sleep at night but yeah. Jt: [29:58] Exactly. Scot: [30:01] Call so we can introduce to Amazon it would be a Jason Scott show if we didn’t kind of do a little bit of a dive into Amazon. Maybe it’s interesting from historical standpoint I believe you guys sell on Amazon and it’s hard to tell if its first party or third-party or are a blend and then now so it’d be nice to hear your historical aspect of how do you make that decision. And then it looks like everyone selling their and now of course Amazon has an Amazon basic mattress in a box kind of thing how do you feel about all that. Jt: [30:34] Well we sell first party onto to Amazon so in the in our second year we, we were struggling. To do it stops when you’re building a brand from scratch one of the things you have to do is build credibility until just everybody knows your name and one of the ways that you do that, especially is a company that’s on unheard-of is you you collect testimonials you collect reviews so they never talking about this all we’re going to do reviews we can’t post them to our site or like, have them write them on our side because what customers we wouldn’t trust that if we are buying it from somewhere else so we’re just like somebody’s going to read a review, where would we read reviews on where to find one more shopping and Amazon for the places that both of us read reviews for you by whether it’s through Amazon or direct and so we have this idea that we would list our product on Amazon didn’t even know if they would sell mattresses and just so that we had a place to send their customers right videos. [31:33] And so we did and it took a couple months to get to get to buy button activated so that we can have reviews place there and then we started sending our call our customers everyday to write reviews and within about read a beautiful mess with the highest rated they were selling matches with the highest rated mattress in their store we are also the highest rated product in the entire Furniture category and we held that spot for almost two years so we were at an early mover. Enzyme and we still have majority to Market of mattress sales above the $500 mark. I’m on Amazon Nummies also developed a product with Amazon I’m called the knot. And so they did really surprised to label but you know that one of the things they found is that brand new Mater and they wanted to do a collaboration so we did develop a unique product if only available exclusively on Amazon. To serve their customers at that lower price point above or below $500 so I’m the way that we view it is. [32:37] For us to only purely sell BTC, the market is only so big so the online is only so big it’s something like 20% of mattresses the bottom line for once once your growth curve begins to slow. That year your next question is where do else could we grow and there’s other markets and one of the big markets is Amazon so so far if there are customers there that want to buy up the needle why not be there, as long as it makes sense for a business so one of the things that we’ve we’ve always done is we’ve separated so so those reviews ended up turning into a lot of sales and then end up being something like, percent the years of art Marcell we would always measure penile separate or operating expenses so that if for any reason something happened to Amazon it wouldn’t include our business and I also gave us enough leverage to negotiate I’m healthy healthy. Chirps I’m at how it’s being sold there and but you know what the fees are in all that and to be perfectly honest I mean it’s always difficult working with the big partner but for the most part it’s been it’s been a good relationship, we’ve done very well. I mean you know of course the money that we make their wewe just further in investing the brand so it sits and there’s definitely some cons but there’s also going to want to Pros for our business. Scot: [33:58] Men are so not only did you going to partner with Amazon you partner deeply the soap so a lot of people a lot Skeptics say okay you gave Amazon all this. Data and essentially LED them right into the mattress industry, how would you respond to that. Jt: [34:14] I would say that’s probably true we did we did share a lot of learnings with them they should a lot of lemons with us but if you think about it it was really do need to be honest with somebody else on it was bound to happen but if you like here’s an example so we had a hundred Knight trial, we found that hundred I tried worked really well and they had a 30 nitrile that was really upsetting all of our customer so we prove to them with data that this was something that they needed to do survey they didn’t they don’t do this they didn’t my mom said he didn’t do this another word other categories so we convinced them to increase their their their trial on their return process to DeMatha are such an example is many others but but there are people who shop there and they should get a good experience I didn’t like we had talked to me or has customers that buy on Amazon we want them to be taking good care of so even though it’s technically not our Direct customer. We do want them to be taking care of him or Amazon to do a good job at themselves. I’m we viewed it as a as a good thing to to collaborate with Amazon but you know their Amazon wants you know their customers by and about all categories and they want to do a good job I want to be competitive they’ll figure it out you know just like our come out other competitors and figure it out so so that’s I mean it’s a difficult question to answer but that’s the sort of how I feel about it. Jason: [35:38] Interesting in 1/4 vacation cuz I think you have one of the the most mature. Amazon models out there so you see you have sort of your core product or original project product what you sell 1p through Amazon and you sell direct and obviously one additional challenge. Protab selling 1p through Amazon as Amazon set the price at sets their price so they can potentially sell your product at a lower price point than you’re trying to sell your product. You have this exclusive. Product on Amazon Dena data value price point but then if I have this right you also have a premium product damn it that’s only available direct that you don’t make available through Amazon his back. [36:24] So Jt: [36:27] And I think that’s like a sew-in are there the way that we view it is. [36:35] All the products are the products that we sell elsewhere we want those to be available direct with the exception we know we violated. That idea with the nod and we don’t intend to do that with anybody else but but you know when you’re building your when you have your own stores and you have your own website. There’s got to be some value, Special Value that you would get coming direct and so we want to make sure that you have the full product menu available track I am so so so some Distributors may have some product that will not have them all, no we don’t want to put on everything and every point of distribution is only makes sense like we’re we’re in Walmart we’re not going to. The mint mattress would not sell in Walmart it just wouldn’t the demographic it wouldn’t even match unit just like the original wasn’t selling Crate & Barrel so we saw them in there. Like we we just pick and choose where we believe the product would be best suited you perfectly honest some of these higher price points we don’t necessarily believe are the best spots for Amazon. Until until proven wrong so we the majority of the match is being sold are actually below the $500 price point so by these these Chinese companies in factories or import export in for 10. I’m just honored coming. So you know we we don’t really see it necessarily has is it is a huge business. And sell them at the same time we also at the balance with a special value is like does example if you were to going to Best Buy and see the. [38:00] The store in store for shopping shop for Apple doesn’t have all the products are just like at Walmart you might see an iPod you and the Apple Store there’s all their products you can play with all of them there’s all their merchandising you get all the. [38:13] Experts about everything about the products there’s a reason why you still go into a Walmart to check out a product that you still want to go into an Apple Store. And it’s the same thing with our own stores and Zen are digital store is that you have to think about the the the balance of value that you’re providing your customer specially if you want if you want at least some percentage. Jason: [38:36] Yeah so speaking of that like one of the things that’s interesting to me so you were primarily as a direct model you do this merger with Serta and I think sort of had some direct sales but I my son said they’re overwhelmingly a wholesale model. And so now you have some sort of experience and Legacy on both sides of the fence we’re seeing one or more of the the the digital native brands that originally only sold direct through their own website. You are starting to do Partnerships with traditional retailers but what’s been interesting is my senses a bunch of those because you. Already built this desirable brand that has a special Affinity with customers before you go to the. Crate & Barrel’s in the Walmart has your often able to cut a better economic deal than the traditional wholesale deal. Jt: [39:33] Yeah it depends on you measure it so if you if you look at what the operating costs are for us to be in Lowe’s and we’re rapidly expanding Lowe’s and we’re the first mattress tattoo to go into a DIY store. I mean the business is growing very very big and very fast. But the operating costs is its primarily the the shipping by truckload which isn’t much different than that should be FedEx or customer so okay so that’s that’s you know that that’s not neutral so but it but how many people does it take to run that to people. If you look at my if you look at the clock, and we have we have a hundred and fifty employees so but but the thing is it’s it’s not that it’s not that easy you can’t, that’s the old way of thinking about retail. [40:21] All of these all these team members that are building this that you know the digital brands and then all the advertising all that in the products they’re building the value. That the customer stop at it looked like on the customer Journey there’s a stopping point before they go into retail not to sight and then that gets them excited to want to go to Lowe’s to buy so it’s almost like you have to, blend your expenses erase all your costs on an overhead across your digital but also. I’m also your distributor so so it’s to answer your question yes it may and may be more profitable. You know direct but you know by, but honestly like it it’s still there still a lot of costs are involved with Lowe’s on everything that we do is driving driving those costs should be attributed to two loves them in Crate & Barrel in Walmart and all those. But the thing is like customers. [41:18] Customer if you want to build you the online Market you know just depends on which market like if it’s Electronics Electronics I’m going to 30 or 40%. How it ain’t true that point for mattresses like 20% so if you want to keep growing you’re going to have to, Spence you’re going to have to be to go into retail and the customer start online and then they they discover you whether to advertising and or Googling around finding you and then you build the excitement know either by the Y right there. Or don’t want to go and see it for our specific Market on the mattress is Pete there is a large segment of our customers that want to try the product that’s just unique that’s probably fairly unique to the mattress industry if you’re if you’re not in a retail store you’re just not going to get that sale so we’ll just lose those customers so it’s almost a requirement if you want to continue to grow to serve. Jason: [42:13] Yeah and I feel like even categories that made me don’t have quite as strong a tri component are still landing at this model where you really need to be Omni Channel, just survive and that you know that like it it seems like all the brands that started at exclusively selling directory website, are finding for me either customer acquisition standpoint or customer satisfaction standpoint they need a brick-and-mortar footprints. The compliment that that drug sales model. Jt: [42:45] Yeah yeah it’s it’s just it’s just logical so it just depends where like where are your customers go where the people going where are they buying from so I could say that yeah retail is shrinking just. It is drinking digital is eating eating the retail world the question is, are we just going to stay digital until it fully transitioned over how long will that take. [43:08] Even if we know that. But saying 10 or 20 years the 20% micro to 60% of something like that it may make sense to open retail stores and expand, with the intention to contract the retail stores as a transition it just depends on how fast you want to grow and in and you know what what kind of business you want to build but it really just goes back to the customer customer service to go and see your product or they, some people want to go to Costco or Sam’s Club and they want to buy their that’s just where they will buy their people that only buy from Amazon, it will not buy direct so do you choose not to serve them you know that’s just a business a business decision so that’s in our point of view is that. We want to we want to change the industry it’s over to do that when you insert a lot of customers and we need to go to where our customers are so I’m going to channel. Is the way the thing about omni-channel was it makes everything complicated because the way that you attribute your marketing dollars like. You know and I miss being able to measure what you know is this a creative or is this cannibalizing and that’s all very complicated so it’s a challenging problem but if you’re determined and smart. [44:22] So the model that I can inform those decisions it can’t work we’ve proven at least Madison. Jason: [44:31] Yeah I know and that that’s a great point about timing being so important in these disruptions as well I actually started my career million years ago in the like a late eighties early nineties a blockbuster entertainment. And every year there be some super smart investor that would pontificate that that you know physical media is going to get replaced by digital and they would short Blockbuster and, well they were all certainly right in the long-term Horizon they all took a bath shortage. And that that’s probably a great place to leave it because it’s happen again we have used up our in our listeners time if you do have any burning questions we didn’t get to or want to continue the conversation we encourage you to visit our Facebook page or hit us up Twitter. Scot: [45:22] Thanks sweetie we appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to join us if folks want to follow you online or you Twitter or a LinkedIn publisher or anything like that. Jt: [45:34] I’m not much of a social media person but my my emails JT at 10. Com and our website is is tn.com you feel free to feel free to email me. Jason: [45:46] That by the way is an awesome URL and will wish everyone happy commercing.

JT Marino wanted to build a company that would disrupt an industry. With Tuft & Needle he did just that, bootstrapping his way from nothing to the largest online mattress retailer in the world. JT, co-founder of Tuft & Needle and now the Chief Strategy Officer for SSB Phoenix, joins us today to share his incredible story. We talk about why customer-centricity was one of Tuft & Needle’s core principles from the beginning, and the role it played in their eventual merger with Serta Simmons. JT shares his thoughts on the importance, as a founder, of having an intimate understanding of how every aspect of your business works, and why they decided not to take any outside investments when they first started out. This is one of my favorite founder interviews we’ve done and I hope you enjoy it! Episode Highlights: 3:52 Introducing JT Marino 5:41 How the friendship and partnership started between the founders of Turf & Needle, JT and Daehee 10:07 How the Tuft & Needle co-founders maintain a strong friendship while running a business together 11:45 How JT’s prior experience with heavily-funded, but unsuccessful, Silicon Valley start-ups influenced Tuft & Needle’s decision to not take outside investments. 16:15 The importance of identifying “the problem” when you’re building a business, and how this led to the creation of Tuft & Needle 18:22 Some of the other principles the Tuft & Needle founders committed to before starting their business 20:05 How JT and Daehee used a problem-solution approach to determine whether they had product-market fit for Tuft & Needle 26:53 The benefits of being highly involved with and having an intimate understanding of every aspect of the business, from manufacturing to supply chain to marketing 29:57 How Tuft & Needle moved through the pit of sorrow and started to scale 34:06 How a Hacker News blog post contributed to explosive growth ofTuft & Needle 36:51 The importance of customer satisfaction and word-of-mouth to Tuft & Needle’s success, especially when they had a limited advertising budget 38:34 The various channels that helped grow the business over time 41:39 JT's approach to tracking attribution across a variety of channels 44:49 How Tuft & Needle developed advertising techniques and targeting that span across digital and non-digital 49:28 The unconventional reason Tuft & Needle started selling on Amazon 52:33 The Net Promoter Score target T&F set before making the decision to list on Amazon 55:04 JT’s advice if you’re considering selling on Amazon and the importance of looking at the market picture as you start to grow 58:29 The role customer-centricity played in Tuft & Needle’s decision to merge with Serta 1:05:40 The future of the mattress industry 1:08:42 JT shares his hobbies and what’s in store for him in the next year Links and Resources: Tuft & Needle How to Get Startup Ideas by Paul Graham Blog: How we bootstrapped to the #1 rated mattress on Amazon.com Meet the Warby Parker of Mattresses JT on Twitter: @johnmarino JT@tn.com Foxwell Digital Brand Growth Experts Become a Member: If you've been a podcast listener for a while and you've yet to join the Brand Growth Experts Membership, now is the time to do it. It’s my online coaching community, and it’s an incredible resource for you. We've got about 120 members, all ecommerce business owners and marketers. And in that community, I work with you one on one to help scale up your business. That could be scaling up advertising, hiring a team, or diving into marketing strategy. We go really in depth every single month on topics that we also talk about on the podcast. So, if you've enjoyed the podcast, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership. Head over to brandgrowthexperts.com for more information. Can't wait to see you guys on the inside. Sponsor: Klaviyo If you’re looking to grow your business, there’s only one way. By building real, quality customer relationships. Most marketing software will claim that they do this, but they’ll never deliver on those promises. Klaviyo, though, is different. Klaviyo helps you build meaningful customer relationships by listening to and understanding cues from your customers, which allows you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages that’ll help grow your business and make more money. That’s why over 10,000 innovative brands have switched to Klaviyo. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

In 2012, Tuft & Needle co-founder JT Marino set out to fix the broken bed industry. The digitally native brand began by shipping mattresses in boxes with a focus on consumer experience. In their first six years, JT and his co-founder Daehee Park bootstrapped the company to $170M in sales, then in September 2018, they merged with the largest U.S. mattress manufacturer, Serta Simmons Bedding. Now, as Chief Strategy Officer at Serta, JT has the challenge of retrofitting and dismantling existing systems at the traditional retailer. JT is doubling down to accelerate Tuft & Needle’s offline growth and guide Serta’s operations into the future, creating the lasting change Tuft & Needle had originally set out to achieve. On this episode, JT talks about teaming up with their competitors to fundamentally transform the retail industry. Tuft & Needle didn’t take outside capital but pitched to VCs four times. Hear how pitching taught JT and Daehee how to build an operating plan, forecast and manage finances, and make a key executive hire (24:02). JT talks about turning down partnership opportunities and capital to stay true to their brand ethos (28:35). He emphasizes the importance of the digital customer journey (31:24) and adjusting their strategy to get ahead of the game (37:57). JT shares how they use promoter scores and customer satisfaction measurements to guide their omnichannel approach (43:16). Finally, he talks about their larger mission to transform Serta’s ecommerce channel (54:31), bringing two team cultures together (56:13), and building product companies that push the industry forward (1:01:00). Links and images can be found on the Lumi Blog.

Well before Casper, Purple, Tuft & Needle, and others figured out that you could sell mattresses to consumers without the middleman, there was Tempurpedic who disrupted the category by offering a technological innovation, memory foam, into a new channel, direct-to- consumer. NECG worked with the market leader Simmons to respond to this threat by evolving their innovation model and branding constructs. As you will see, the result was a new, premium sub-brand that woke up the brand.

Jeff progressed through the ranks of Tuft & Needle in just under four years after starting as a software engineer there in 2014. He is an integral part of the team, currently serving not only as Vice President of Amazon but also as VP of Analytics...two hugely important roles. His dedication to the Greater Phoenix startup community didn't start there though as he was the founder/executive director of the Arizona Microcredit Initiative for almost 3 years while attending Arizona State University after moving here from Oregon. Jeff sits down with Vincent to discuss: WHY he believes in the #yesPHX community as a top destination for tech, startups and business his high-level and day-to-day duties how it feels when legacy competitors in your industry start taking notice of what you're doing to steal their market share and disrupt the status quo some of what was behind the T&N decision to make their product available on Amazon (article quoted here) Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn here. Learn more about the Tuft & Needle story here.  See how a marketing campaign by a legacy competitor against T&N didn't quite work out as planned.  ~ This is #yesPHX Presents... a podcast produced by, for and about entrepreneurs and startups in the Valley of the Sun. #yesPHX is the world's most generous startup community for entrepreneurs. For more information and updates from the #yesPHX community: Visit our website - yesphx.com Join our active Facebook Group Follow us on our Facebook page, Twitter, and/or Instagram  Read our Medium publication Join our Slack group Follow the #yesPHX hashtag on Twitter and/or Instagram Recorded live at Galvanize Phoenix. Thanks to Raz Yalov and ZCast for show production, and to sponsor 48 Startups.

Jeff Giagnocavo is one of the world's premier experts in effective marketing for the mattress industry. We discuss the success of online mattress seller Tuft & Needle, and how any business owner can use their marketing tactics to duplicate some of their success in building an 80-million-dollar business in just a few short years.

This Week’s Guest: Christen Evans Christen Evans, Editorial and Accounts Manager / Unicorn Wrangler at The Broke-Ass Bride, joined me to chat on my podcast, This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins. Episode 48 I wanted to learn more about the real Christen, so I asked her a variety of questions I figured she had not been asked in previous interviews. We discussed... Tuft & Needle Customer Service Studying journalism in college Giving a keynote at ShareASale ThinkTank Whether her son was named after the show Dexter Gym selfies Links from this episode Christen on Twitter Bourbon & Sparkle Instagram of Tuft & Needle delivery Christen's keynote Thank you for listening Please leave a comment or feel free to contact me. And if you enjoyed this episode of This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins, please share it.

No plans for this week, just chatting about things. This week we just jump in to how things are going around the house. We discuss taxes, health and diet, and have a small discussion about the gender pay gap. It's tax time! It's the time of year some people dread, and others depend on for household plans. This year we are using our tax return to do some improvements around the house. We are finally paying off our van and getting the A/C fixed in it, among other things. We purchased a new Tuft & Needle mattress. And we are replacing our beaten up dining table booth seat with a set of refurbished church pews. On a more personal side, ReAnna has officially completed her first class on her quest to gain her Librarian degree with an "A." She's also made some steps toward improving her health, including finding a new doctor and getting on thyroid medication. In her first week alone, her energy level is way up, and she has managed to get her Dr Pepper consumption down to a single can a day, without any ill effects. We have a small discussion about a recent Wells Fargo study into the gender pay gap and how it seems greatly affected by the overwhelming cost of childcare. Personally we flip that convention on it's head and it doesn't really bother us. ReAnna is the primary breadwinner in our house. Finally, for the month of March the podcasting community is working to spread the word about podcasts to others using #TryPod. As such, we decided to suggest the podcast that got ReAnna into them in the first place, "Welcome to Night Vale." Although it is now considered by many to be a more mainstream podcast, it is definitely a show for a particular kind of humor. At the same time, it is easily the best show to ease a new listener into podcasts. It's very sci-fi books on tape style, which is more digestible to new listeners.http://welcometonightvale.com

No plans for this week, just chatting about things. This week we just jump in to how things are going around the house. We discuss taxes, health and diet, and have a small discussion about the gender pay gap. It's tax time! It's the time of year some people dread, and others depend on for household plans. This year we are using our tax return to do some improvements around the house. We are finally paying off our van and getting the A/C fixed in it, among other things. We purchased a new Tuft & Needle mattress. And we are replacing our beaten up dining table booth seat with a set of refurbished church pews. On a more personal side, ReAnna has officially completed her first class on her quest to gain her Librarian degree with an "A." She's also made some steps toward improving her health, including finding a new doctor and getting on thyroid medication. In her first week alone, her energy level is way up, and she has managed to get her Dr Pepper consumption down to a single can a day, without any ill effects. We have a small discussion about a recent Wells Fargo study into the gender pay gap and how it seems greatly affected by the overwhelming cost of childcare. Personally we flip that convention on it's head and it doesn't really bother us. ReAnna is the primary breadwinner in our house. Finally, for the month of March the podcasting community is working to spread the word about podcasts to others using #TryPod. As such, we decided to suggest the podcast that got ReAnna into them in the first place, "Welcome to Night Vale." Although it is now considered by many to be a more mainstream podcast, it is definitely a show for a particular kind of humor. At the same time, it is easily the best show to ease a new listener into podcasts. It's very sci-fi books on tape style, which is more digestible to new listeners.http://welcometonightvale.com

  Pam Slim has a passion and talent for building intentional communities and helping small businesses grow. She is an award-winning author, speaker, business strategist and coach. Her best selling books Escape From Cubicle Nation and Body of Work have helped entrepreneurs and thought leaders around the world are favorites of mine! Her belief that we can enjoy our lives and ensure economic well-being for all, were instrumental in creating K’é, a small business, community space in downtown Mesa, Arizona, where she conducts classes, hosts networking events, and creates virtual programs. Pam lives with her husband Darryl, their two children, and three dogs. Darryl's Navajo heritage has fueled Pam's appreciation and love of Native American culture. In fact, K’é, means "kinship" in the Diné culture. Listen to the podcast to hear Pam talk about: Her years of travel and adventure before getting married and having children, including being an exchange student in Switzerland A life full of doing the work she loves, chasing kids and dogs, time at the soccer field, traveling, having a connected family, and "living a pretty chill life"' Growing up in Sana Soma, California across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco Meeting her husband, Darryl, at a traditional Navajo prayer ceremony while on a trip to Arizona with her friend Peter Bratt (Benjamin Bratt's brother) Learning and teaching Capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art The contrast between Pam's childhood in California while Darryl grew up on the Diné (Navajo) reservation herding sheep Speaking and hanging out at Camp Good Life Project (GLP) and asking, "We are at Camp Iroquois, but where are the Iroquois people?" Being married to a Native American has caused Pam to be much more aware of places and events that lack a native presence. In our day- to-day lives, when we are looking at our neighborhoods, walking down Main Street, or thinking about our business and customers we should be asking "Who is here?" and really celebrate that, and then ask ‘Who is not here?’, and "Why are they not here? Pam's delivered a powerful message of connectedness and community-building at Camp GLP that set off a chain events honoring a Navajo prayer. During the Saturday night talent show, Pam's children recited a Navajo prayer on video, while campers played Native American flutes. The next morning, Emiliya Zhivotoskaya lead a group in an IntenSati workout while reciting the prayer. You can watch the video here and a picture is below. (I'm in the middle of the group - well hidden!) And the chain continues! I recite the prayer at the end of this podcast. Escape From Cubicle Nation, Pam's first book. Body of Work, Pam's second book that helps people to see the thread that runs through their life and work. Pam's "unbook tour" across 25 cities to talk to her community of people, her faithful readers, about trying and testing ideas and seeing what really worked. That tour took her to Fargo, ND where she was inspiried by people working together in such  unified, passionate way. To learn more about what's happening in Fargo, listen to Podcast 031, featuring Greg Tehven. "Driving kindness" throughout Fargo and creating an open, welcoming environment. Pam's daughter interviewed the mayor of Fargo for a school project. She asked, "What do you want people to know about Fargo?" He responded, "I want Fargo to be welcoming for others that come here, If people come here from other countries, they are refugees, they can come here, they can feel safe. They can sit down and have hot chocolate together." Opening a small business idea and community incubator in downtown Mesa (126 W. Main Street, Mesa, AZ) Beware of advice like "Just do it." or "Jump and the net will appear." Be realistic about your financial situation and responsibilities and be thoughtful about each step you take. Crowdfunding the development of K’é through an Indie Go Go campaign that raised $40,000 in 3 days with the help of Infusionsoft, Go Daddy, and Tuft & Needle. Getting help from Clay Herbert to structure the campaign. The building's rich history running back to the days of prohibition when alcohol was smuggled through the basement. Pam and crew transformed it from a photography space with windows painted black, to a bright, colorful space decorated with murals, some painted by Darryl's son, Jeffrey.  Quotes from Pam: “A passion area for me is building community and being very intentional about community. Thinking about who are we including? And who are we not including in our communities? Who feels welcome?” “We can see work in an amazingly transformative way. We can enjoy our lives and also really ensure economic well-being for all. You really have to know that just driving good business is something that can also drive what every family needs in order to sustain themselves.” “I love to write snappy things and I always want my books to read well but I really need to make sure that what I say works and I have evidence.” “The feeling that I want to have in this space is one where everyone is welcome, where we have inter-dependence and inter-connectedness. As humans we ARE all related.” Contact Pam: pamelaslim.comFacebook: KeInMesa Twitter: @PamSlim     Contact Lisa: Lisa@EverBetterU.com  Twitter: @EverBetterU 

This audio lesson is a discussion between Doug Stewart and myself about Tuft & Needle's article “Death of the Salesman” My friend and co-host Doug Stewart lit a fire underneath me about a week ago when he posted an article that Tuft & Needle posted named “Death of the Salesman” in our closed Facebook called the “No BS Sales School For Furniture & Mattress Store Salespeople” It's only closed to the public. If you sell furniture or mattresses you are most welcome to join our group. It's a great group of sales professionals who educate, support, and motivate each other. Just Click Here https://www.facebook.com/groups/571859249526559/.  I've included the link to the article so you can read it for yourself and make your own judgements about the veracity of the information put forth. Warning before you read Tuft & Needle's article “Death of the Salesman” take your blood pressure medicine. Click Here to read Tuft & Needle's work of fiction https://m.tuftandneedle.com/death-of-the-salesman-4b27a5b14b94#.duyg9resh. Can you tell what I think about it? Just click on the player up above to hear the outrage in my voice. Instead of rehashing the conversation between Doug and me, I will simply let my words speak for themselves. Doug asked some very good questions that we as an industry must answer with actions. If you want to check out Doug, Just Click Here http://doug-stewart.com. If want to check out me Just Click Here peteprimeau.com.  Just press play on the player at the top of this post and put your seat belts on! I am in rare form but I meant every word I said. Please share your thoughts with me below.  Thanks! Pete

Daehee Park & JT Marino. The two founded Tuft & Needle with the idea that it is possible to create high quality products and charge a fair price to customers.  Launched in 2012 by two software engineers, Tuft & Needle was the first vertically integrated ecommerce mattress company to focus on selling one perfect product: an unbeatable mattress at an unbeatable price. With a background in ecommerce and marketing, prior to Tuft & Needle Daehee Park served as a consultant at Acxiom Corporation. Daehee received his bachelor’s degree in Security & Risk Analysis at Penn State University. John-Thomas (“JT”) Marino leads product and software development. With a passion for thoughtfully designed customer experiences, JT started his career at Hashrocket helping startups build just that. With roots in Northeastern Pennsylvania, JT studied Computer Science at Penn State University.   Startup Grind is Brought to You By:    Soylent: Easy, sustained energy that goes where you go. Learn more at Soylent.com

This week we talk to David Platt about his new book ‘Counter Culture‘. Our social media maven Tiffanie Brunson is back with a new trivia game in honor of Father's Day, and the cast comes up with a riveting new idea for a TV show starring James Van Der Beek. This episode is sponsored by Tuft & Needle and Squarespace.

This week we talk to David Platt about his new book ‘Counter Culture‘. Our social media maven Tiffanie Brunson is back with a new trivia game in honor of Father’s Day, and the cast comes up with a riveting new idea for a TV show starring James Van Der Beek. This episode is sponsored by Tuft & Needle and Squarespace.