Speaker 1: I'm off my game today. No, you're not. People are
Speaker 1: going to have to start making better content. I think
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about this for a long time.
Speaker 1: When you program for everyone, you program for no one.
Speaker 1: I think it's a word purpose driven platform. Like we're
Speaker 1: trying to get to substance. How was that? Are you
Speaker 1: happy with that? This is marketing therapy right now? And
Speaker 1: it really is? What's up? I'm Laura Currency and I'm
Speaker 1: Alexa Kristen. Welcome back to Atlantia. We're going away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're traveling. We're traveling with Rubio, very high style but
Speaker 1: also accessible. I'm just gonna say accessible. What's going on today?
Speaker 1: So we have Jen Rubio, co founder of a Way
Speaker 1: Luggage in parentheses. We talked to her about the parentheses
Speaker 1: because they are going to become I think, much much
Speaker 1: more than just luggage. UM in a studio with us
Speaker 1: today in between flights and a badass away bag. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that Camo Green is awesome. New products coming out. It
Speaker 1: looks like UM. But it's been interesting. We've been obsessing
Speaker 1: over the DTC landscape for quite some time now, having
Speaker 1: a lot of fun watching sort of the cohort of
Speaker 1: founders that exist there, trading notes, comparing best practices, and
Speaker 1: actually executing on them. I think one of the things
Speaker 1: that I love the Gen talks about in this interview
Speaker 1: that is important I think for marketers to think about
Speaker 1: is how not just brands, but their leadership is living
Speaker 1: out the brand. I r L and I think it'll
Speaker 1: be interesting to hear how she thinks about marketing, communications
Speaker 1: and as much as collaborations and how all of those
Speaker 1: things have to reflect the platform before products. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: she has like five titles. We were joking around with her,
Speaker 1: but she is also the chief brand officer, and in
Speaker 1: in the beginning like talking to her about like what
Speaker 1: does that really mean? And I think, you know, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people who are talking about how
Speaker 1: brand is more important and kind of takes a different
Speaker 1: life in DTC, and I think DTC brands are going
Speaker 1: to teach the world of marketing, um really how to
Speaker 1: bring brand back and make it meaningful. They are mad
Speaker 1: woke marketers. You're into the woke. Yeah, it's like a thing, right,
Speaker 1: So now we woke with Jen Rubio. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: So welcome back. We're in the studio with the most
Speaker 1: fabulous woman in all of travel and more. Probably Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Roland Deep with her luggage here at the studio in
Speaker 1: Brooklyn this morning. It's just the prop. There's nothing in it.
Speaker 1: So Jen is the co founder and chief brand officer
Speaker 1: and president of A Way. I'll tell you all of that. No,
Speaker 1: we looked it up. I looked it up. Is that
Speaker 1: what you go by? Do you go by chief brand officer?
Speaker 1: What do you do? They say? A co founder? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: Like what's a chief brand officer? Well, so that's I wanted.
Speaker 1: We wanted to get into that. That's like perfect. What
Speaker 1: is the chief brand officer? I don't know. I literally
Speaker 1: don't know, especially for like a DTC brand, Like, what
Speaker 1: is the chief brand officer? Well, you know, brand is
Speaker 1: our moat um. You know how many times I said
Speaker 1: that when we were seed fundraising and how many vcs
Speaker 1: were like, I don't think so that's hilarious. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you know what it's Uh, there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of talk lately about about new DTC companies like post Away,
Speaker 1: because I feel like we're phased to phase one. Was
Speaker 1: like the warby Parker, like Cobos and like Casper towards
Speaker 1: the end of that and then came like our wave
Speaker 1: like Away Glossier, and now there's this new wave, and
Speaker 1: I feel like there's a lot of vcs who are like, oh,
Speaker 1: brand is a moat DTC and they just start funding them.
Speaker 1: But I start seeing these decks like come my Way,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, but this this isn't a brand. That's
Speaker 1: the same deck that we just saw. You actually had
Speaker 1: an awesome comment the other day on your I was
Speaker 1: looking at your Twitter and someone said something about, you know,
Speaker 1: vcs or over funding DTC brands, and you said, yes,
Speaker 1: brand is start to become like in the minds of vcs,
Speaker 1: like people are thinking about it as just a deck
Speaker 1: and a logo and that is absolutely wrong. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I mean I actually our seed deck was real bad.
Speaker 1: I like made it empower point, like put a bunch
Speaker 1: of bloggers on it and like a picture of the
Speaker 1: globe and I'm not a designer, um, and I was like,
Speaker 1: this is a travel brand. But I think you know,
Speaker 1: when we were talking about it to the people who
Speaker 1: ended up investing so like Forerunner and Comcast and Excel,
Speaker 1: They're like, Okay, we know we're gonna look past this deck.
Speaker 1: And we started talking about what the brand would really
Speaker 1: be in terms of like, how are we going to
Speaker 1: partner with people, how's the product going to play into it,
Speaker 1: how are we gonna how are we going to talk
Speaker 1: about this in a way that that is really a
Speaker 1: brand And I think what a lot of people do nowadays,
Speaker 1: and more power to these agencies that do it is
Speaker 1: we'll go to an agency who's like really amazing at
Speaker 1: like at brand identity and brand architecture and like and
Speaker 1: like and gives you like a really good like brand bible,
Speaker 1: and they're like, this is it. But then it launches
Speaker 1: like there was not really a community around it, and
Speaker 1: everyone's like, oh, what happened? They had such a nice deck.
Speaker 1: Having sat on the agency side for the last decade,
Speaker 1: it's interesting to see the transition in terms of where
Speaker 1: agencies are filling holes for certain brands and understanding the
Speaker 1: value of community, ethos, purpose value, all of those things,
Speaker 1: even before they land on what the purpose and the
Speaker 1: value prop is for the product. A Way to Me
Speaker 1: is one of those brands and where you've obviously created
Speaker 1: an innovative suitcase, but at the heart of it sort
Speaker 1: of the community that you've built around the democratization of
Speaker 1: travel and kind of leaning into some of the things
Speaker 1: that the next generation of people is looking for in
Speaker 1: equipment to move from city to city. Can you talk
Speaker 1: about what that looked like when you were developing the
Speaker 1: brand in terms of where did you want to put
Speaker 1: the emphasis on outward facing. I think we went into this.
Speaker 1: I tell a story different every time because I'm actually
Speaker 1: not sure what came first, like the product or the brand,
Speaker 1: But I think we went to this thinking, if you're
Speaker 1: going to buy utcase, there aren't a lot of great options.
Speaker 1: You can spend like a thousand dollars on a bag
Speaker 1: and it might be cool and all designed, but it's
Speaker 1: not like when you spend like a thousand dollars on
Speaker 1: a nice handbag. You're not like, oh I love this,
Speaker 1: or you are spending less money, but you know it's
Speaker 1: going to break. And you know, having come from Morby
Speaker 1: Parker and um my co founder stuff was at Casper
Speaker 1: at the time, we're like, Okay, maybe luggage is one
Speaker 1: of those industries where we can do high quality product,
Speaker 1: lower price point, cut out the middleman, all of that stuff.
Speaker 1: But then I think as we were looking into it,
Speaker 1: what really resonated with me more as the chief brand
Speaker 1: officer um is that, like no one was talking about travel.
Speaker 1: So you have all these incumbent brands that are like,
Speaker 1: look at our ballistic nylon and look at these wheels
Speaker 1: and look at the zippers, and this is something that
Speaker 1: people take with them on every trip. People are super
Speaker 1: annoying when they talk about travel. It's like all they
Speaker 1: talk about. It's all they post pictures of. So how
Speaker 1: come no one's talking about that? Yeah, and the art
Speaker 1: of packing in the I mean there's so it's like
Speaker 1: it's like to true like art and lifestyle. And I
Speaker 1: think if it wasn't for that opportunity, I don't know
Speaker 1: how far I personally would have gotten in this because
Speaker 1: I'm not like super stoked about like, hey, here's like
Speaker 1: a suitcase. And I love our product obviously, we like
Speaker 1: we poured like everything into into designing it and making
Speaker 1: it perfect. But if there wasn't a way to market
Speaker 1: it or talk about it in the sense of a
Speaker 1: larger brand, I don't know how far we got in
Speaker 1: a Way suitcase. And I gave it to Laura and
Speaker 1: all my friends. Yeah, and all my friends are obsessed
Speaker 1: with their Way suitcase, all of them obsessed into the
Speaker 1: actual physical product. Are they buying into the brand. Yes,
Speaker 1: they're buying into the physical product. They love the brand.
Speaker 1: The brand is so much a part of the physical products.
Speaker 1: It's so and it's so intertwined. And I think the
Speaker 1: way we've done it is that we went we went
Speaker 1: so narrow on the product in the beginning, where it's
Speaker 1: like we're not going to make ten suitcases for ten
Speaker 1: different types of travel or whenever we're gonna make. We
Speaker 1: literally went out saying this is the one perfect suitcase
Speaker 1: for everyone. And now there's like a few different versions
Speaker 1: based on what we've learned about our customers. But we
Speaker 1: went so narrow on the product. We literally launched with
Speaker 1: one products in one size and four colors. We're like,
Speaker 1: we'll see um. But then we went so wide on
Speaker 1: the brand. So from the beginning we couldn't get the
Speaker 1: domain and we still don't have it. Um dot com
Speaker 1: it's a way travel dot com, but we had like
Speaker 1: Away Luggage dot comment is like this, we can't do
Speaker 1: Away luggage dot com. It's like two narrow and we're
Speaker 1: just thinking about it. We always talked about ourselves as
Speaker 1: a travel brand, even though we had literally one bag,
Speaker 1: and I think that's what made the brand feel so ingreened.
Speaker 1: I was with someone the other day and it was
Speaker 1: with a group of people and someone like hadn't heard
Speaker 1: of a Way, which means you probably just haven't been
Speaker 1: targeted on Instagram yet. But he was like, oh, maybe
Speaker 1: I have in a Way suitcase and someone else in
Speaker 1: the group was like, no, if you had one, you
Speaker 1: would like you don't just like have one, and you're like, okay, um,
Speaker 1: and then he was like, oh, yeah, well I did
Speaker 1: research um luggage for weeks and uh, I was like
Speaker 1: searching over the place. I had ton of reviews and
Speaker 1: I ended up buying one and I was like, which
Speaker 1: one did you get? And he was like I don't know.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, how do you research something for three
Speaker 1: weeks and you don't even know what brand you end
Speaker 1: up buying thinking something? So I mean that's the kind
Speaker 1: of stuff that we are. There's so much low hanging fruit,
Speaker 1: like in the luggage industry. But then for us for
Speaker 1: it to be like, you know, we don't have experience
Speaker 1: in the luggage industry, we had to do a ton
Speaker 1: of research and like partners a lot of experts to
Speaker 1: make the product really good. But like what we're passionate
Speaker 1: about is travel. I think that's what's allowed the company
Speaker 1: and the team to to grow so quickly. The discovery
Speaker 1: thing is interesting because the amount of times, like especially
Speaker 1: as somebody coming in and I haven't been married yet,
Speaker 1: so I had never had a shower where I was
Speaker 1: gifted at luggage, sort of those preconceived notions of when
Speaker 1: you're supposed to get your first set. We went full
Speaker 1: fledged and to our corporate jobs, like all of us
Speaker 1: sitting around the table, like on the road all the time.
Speaker 1: The amount of pieces of luggage that I've gone through
Speaker 1: over the course of my career is nuts, but it's interesting.
Speaker 1: Like the discovery process was always like I was in
Speaker 1: Home Goods or t J Max, or like my mother's like,
Speaker 1: here's an extra carry on, or like my mom always
Speaker 1: gives it to you. What is that the basement? And
Speaker 1: my mother buys like a set and gives my husband
Speaker 1: and I like the big one. She's like, now that
Speaker 1: we've had a kid, She's like, but those are those
Speaker 1: are all I feel like traditional ways of passing down
Speaker 1: this thing that you needed when people didn't used to
Speaker 1: travel at the capacity or right that I'm sure some
Speaker 1: of us are and I think it's interesting just as
Speaker 1: you're you're talking through it and like the discovery of
Speaker 1: this guy and going through this research, you change the
Speaker 1: way I think our generation thought about buying this thing,
Speaker 1: and that they actually do think about it now. It's
Speaker 1: not even people who just who travel a ton who
Speaker 1: think about it. Because I was traveling when I worked
Speaker 1: at All Saints. I was traveling to all of our
Speaker 1: stores all over the world, like two hundred thousand miles
Speaker 1: a year, and I still had I don't even know
Speaker 1: what brand of luggage, Like, I just had it, like
Speaker 1: my mom gave it to me, and it was likely
Speaker 1: the last thing I thought about. And I think people
Speaker 1: are now seeing it as part of They're like, I'm
Speaker 1: literally carrying this thing with me around the world. It's
Speaker 1: time to think about it. You're getting in you know,
Speaker 1: what's the identity that you're you're moving like it is
Speaker 1: an identity thing. Yeah, for sure. I mean like you
Speaker 1: wouldn't buy car and be like, I don't know what
Speaker 1: kind of car. I have research it for three weeks
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure where I So you So you
Speaker 1: were speaking at Social Media Week yesterday. You were key
Speaker 1: noting a lot of tweets, and I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people have been asking this question, like is a
Speaker 1: way more than suitcases? And we know, yes, it definitely is.
Speaker 1: But I would love for you to kind of talk
Speaker 1: about where is a way going? And so is it
Speaker 1: easier for a brand like Away DTC to actually quickly
Speaker 1: move into other areas in an industry? So I think
Speaker 1: we are uniquely positioned because I mean, travel is so broad,
Speaker 1: it's so easy, and it's it's so fun, right. I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of things like you know, Casper
Speaker 1: wants to be like a sleep brand. They're not a
Speaker 1: mattress brand, wellness brand. Well, I mean, I'm starting to
Speaker 1: get in. There's so many directions. But but inherently, like
Speaker 1: people don't talk about sleep that much or um, so
Speaker 1: there's like there's a whole movement around that. But travel
Speaker 1: was such an easy thing to plug into. So I
Speaker 1: do think that we can attribute a lot of like
Speaker 1: the excitement around it to that and like travel on
Speaker 1: Instagram and all these things that just like marry Airbnb,
Speaker 1: I mean, the industry has thing for us again because
Speaker 1: we went so wide with the brand and people were like, Okay,
Speaker 1: here's like a cool travel brand. Oh, they only make
Speaker 1: one thing, I'll buy it. Um. But I think through
Speaker 1: a lot of the things we've done, like the marketing,
Speaker 1: like the way we do social media, like the events
Speaker 1: we do in our store, all of that stuff, people
Speaker 1: are like, oh, this is inherently like a travel brand,
Speaker 1: so it's not weird. When we um like what we
Speaker 1: did last year we went to Paris Fashion we can
Speaker 1: did a pop up hotel, people were like, oh, Away
Speaker 1: is doing a hotel? Makes sense. If we did something
Speaker 1: with an airline, people say that makes sense, I would
Speaker 1: get on that plane. So I think. I think just
Speaker 1: the way we talk about travel has allowed all of
Speaker 1: those doors to kind of be open to us. And
Speaker 1: when we do want to go into other things, like
Speaker 1: when we did a magazine, um, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people are doing so you do quarterly so just Casper
Speaker 1: like a quarterly print magazine. But people are like, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of travel magazines out there. They don't
Speaker 1: really appeal to me, but like, I like a way
Speaker 1: as a brand, so I'm going to read what they
Speaker 1: have to say. And the magazine has been doing really well.
Speaker 1: There's like the ad revenue has been great, like it
Speaker 1: reaches a really targeted group of because it goes in
Speaker 1: every suitcase, so it reaches a really targeted group of
Speaker 1: people that you know are about to travel so um.
Speaker 1: And and the content is great because that's not our
Speaker 1: main business. So we're like, let's just talk about whatever
Speaker 1: we want. Yeah, let's talk about what we think is
Speaker 1: cool and yeah in a way representing an idea. I
Speaker 1: think it's really is really interesting that and you know,
Speaker 1: broader than just luggage or product or. We have a
Speaker 1: couple editors, they're from they're all from Conde. We have
Speaker 1: a lot of our contributors amazing Bilze. No, actually we
Speaker 1: didn't go to any of the travel magazines, but we
Speaker 1: have just have like amazing writers who worked for other
Speaker 1: big magazines but never get to talk about this stuff.
Speaker 1: So um. So we're like a little retreat for them.
Speaker 1: When we launched that, we were like, Okay, at its worst,
Speaker 1: we have a really cool editorial site, and at its
Speaker 1: best it could be its own business. But since that
Speaker 1: was not the goal from the beginning, we could focus
Speaker 1: on the content that we wanted to put out. And
Speaker 1: I think that's the same thing, Like, it's really good
Speaker 1: if we if we look at ways of travel brand,
Speaker 1: But our core monetization strategy is selling luggage. It's really
Speaker 1: a platform to do so many other things, so we
Speaker 1: can you know, we're not going to go buy a
Speaker 1: ton of real estate and open a bunch of hotels,
Speaker 1: but like, what do we know about the experience in
Speaker 1: the brand and what people want to do that that
Speaker 1: could make a really great hotel experience and who do
Speaker 1: we partner with to do that? And because people love
Speaker 1: the brand, it's not it's not weird for them to
Speaker 1: stay there. Like who doesn't have If you don't have
Speaker 1: wonder Less, you're missing a chip right in my opinion,
Speaker 1: right exactly. And I think everyone has their own way
Speaker 1: of traveling, which we recognize. We haven't been like we're
Speaker 1: for business travelers or were for like super luxury traveling.
Speaker 1: We just we know everyone I know, like even one
Speaker 1: person has a few different ways of traveling, you know,
Speaker 1: like how I travel when I go to see my
Speaker 1: boyfriend versus like when I'm traveling for work. It's it's
Speaker 1: like it's totally different, totally different. Yeah, I was going
Speaker 1: to say earlier, and you both hit on it. This
Speaker 1: idea that what you built and what I think a
Speaker 1: lot of your cohort in the DCC space you talked
Speaker 1: about Glossier and Casper in this whole family of brands,
Speaker 1: is that you all are creating platforms before you're thinking
Speaker 1: about product. Product just happens to be one tenant of
Speaker 1: this larger platform. So it's giving you the space to
Speaker 1: kind of go in and say content stands up next,
Speaker 1: or you know, who knows you might move into a
Speaker 1: completely different line of things within that category, Which is
Speaker 1: what we're getting to. How much is your community informing that? Right?
Speaker 1: So you know we've seen you know, messaging that you've
Speaker 1: put out where like the pink suitcases backed by popular demand.
Speaker 1: You went and partnered with Carl Kloss to create this
Speaker 1: partnership around you know, her initiative with code with Class.
Speaker 1: How much is a community informing what those pillars become
Speaker 1: and how are you evolving the product as a result.
Speaker 1: I mean, they they're informing everything. So I think we
Speaker 1: kind of It was really hard for me the beginning.
Speaker 1: It was like a big not at all. I was like, no,
Speaker 1: this is what they want and it was actually like
Speaker 1: such a blessing. My co founder it was in business
Speaker 1: school and she was really into focus groups and research
Speaker 1: and surveys um, and then we get there's all and
Speaker 1: I like, huh, that's weird, um, But they do. They
Speaker 1: do inform everything because I really think, you know, I
Speaker 1: think when people think DTC, they're like, Okay, the advantage
Speaker 1: is in you're cutting out the wholesale markup and it's
Speaker 1: like the product price advantage and you're getting the data. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The real advantage that people don't think about is like
Speaker 1: that feedback loop. So so if we sold our luggage
Speaker 1: and department stores, we would just get a report like monthly, quarterly, whatever,
Speaker 1: saying here's what sold, here's what didn't sell. You're getting
Speaker 1: it back. Here's the return rate if that, and you
Speaker 1: have no idea why anytime someone returns or exchanges a suitcase,
Speaker 1: we know exactly why, Like there are things we can
Speaker 1: work on. How would we have known that, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe the straps inside the bag could have been like
Speaker 1: an inch longer, but people tell us that. And I
Speaker 1: think also because we started putting it into practice really early,
Speaker 1: people see things like okay, we did a limit edition
Speaker 1: of the paint. They wanted it, so we made it.
Speaker 1: So now people are like, oh, they listen, so they
Speaker 1: give us even more So it just we just have
Speaker 1: I think the problem that we have, which is a
Speaker 1: great problem to have, is like there's so much feedback
Speaker 1: to go through and there's so much data to analyze,
Speaker 1: and how do you make sure that Okay, if you
Speaker 1: have like two cohorts of customers who want different things,
Speaker 1: like how do you do it? So now we're in
Speaker 1: that phase of of how to listen. But I think
Speaker 1: because from the beginning, we've always listened to people, and
Speaker 1: that's how we designed the product. Like when we're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: if we're gonna make one bad, we can't screw this up.
Speaker 1: So we interviewed hundreds of people about like the weirdest things,
Speaker 1: like we would like watch people pack because people are
Speaker 1: really bad at describing that. Um. But that's how we
Speaker 1: designed our first product, and so that's like inherently been
Speaker 1: part of of our model. Like listen. I think it's
Speaker 1: it's it's cool to be like a director consumer entrepreneur
Speaker 1: right now. And I think that people who are going
Speaker 1: into it being like Okay, I'm going to start a
Speaker 1: warby Parker for whatever, they don't think about the feedback loop.
Speaker 1: They don't think about all of the other things that
Speaker 1: actually are what makes a director consumer brand because you're
Speaker 1: You're like, you don't become a director because brand, because
Speaker 1: like distribution is easy. There were so many opportunities in
Speaker 1: the beginning and still now we're like, if we turn
Speaker 1: this on, or if we partner with this, or if
Speaker 1: we just sell whole sales with this partner, and they're like,
Speaker 1: they're good partners. That's an easy million dollars on top.
Speaker 1: But but you have to have a long term view
Speaker 1: of like your customer relationship and your community and all
Speaker 1: of that stuff. And I think I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people right now are starting brands and then they
Speaker 1: get approached by you know, like a traditional retailer, like
Speaker 1: a big name department store, and it's like very easy
Speaker 1: to want to say yes to that, but you don't
Speaker 1: think about what you're giving up in the long term.
Speaker 1: That's the most surprising feedback you've gotten in your loops.
Speaker 1: Oh god, Uh. What's been surprising is how particular people
Speaker 1: are in giving their feedback. And I'm like, um, I'm
Speaker 1: like a lazy survey taker. I have to do all
Speaker 1: the things. They never put any comments. We get like essays,
Speaker 1: essays of stuff, And I think it goes back to
Speaker 1: like we're sitting around in the office like a, hey,
Speaker 1: what do we do with this? You know, like how
Speaker 1: do we actually synthesizes? But UM, but it's been amazing
Speaker 1: the all these people are that we're really good like
Speaker 1: test takers, UM, because they the detail in these essays
Speaker 1: is incredible. So you were talking about kind of like
Speaker 1: parsing out the feedback and the data. We don't talk
Speaker 1: about data a lot, especially with chief brand officers, co founders, entrepreneurs, presidents.
Speaker 1: Do you guys have like a like a little kick
Speaker 1: ass group of analysts and data scientists that they're all
Speaker 1: so much smarter than me. I'm like, this is cool.
Speaker 1: Can I get a summary UM TABLEW Like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to leave the Slack channel and you can just tell
Speaker 1: me to take a picture of UM. We have to
Speaker 1: have a data team, we have an insights team UM.
Speaker 1: And what we've been really tried to be really good
Speaker 1: about is like is that they don't operate on their own.
Speaker 1: They're not just like looking at numbers and like looking
Speaker 1: at feedback base sickly. Everyone is super involved in the feedback.
Speaker 1: So even UM, like our our customer experience team, they
Speaker 1: get tons of emails like from all these customers who
Speaker 1: are now their best friends. They like funnel that in
Speaker 1: all the right places. So anytime a customer says something
Speaker 1: about the product, like it goes right to the product team.
Speaker 1: Uh So it doesn't feel like there's clusters of people
Speaker 1: who just look at the data and that's it. That's
Speaker 1: what a lot of people get hung up on doing.
Speaker 1: Like they're collecting data, they're collecting insights, and then nothing
Speaker 1: ever happened. And that's like an organizational issue as well
Speaker 1: as like just a mindset issue, right, Like it's like
Speaker 1: how you staff, but it's also about creating those pipelines
Speaker 1: and saying that there's a little bit this should be
Speaker 1: three dimensional. Yeah, it can't just be like a pool
Speaker 1: of data, right, like the data sets that you're getting consequentially,
Speaker 1: like based on credit card data in store data, like
Speaker 1: everybody has at some point similar sets. And let's be
Speaker 1: really like they're the bigger companies are doing a much
Speaker 1: better job collecting that stuff, but the problem is they
Speaker 1: don't know what to do. We actually probably have less
Speaker 1: data right now and like less sophisticated ways of looking
Speaker 1: at it. But the thing that makes the most difference
Speaker 1: is that it goes to the teams that can do
Speaker 1: stuff about it. So like now we have our product
Speaker 1: design teams and designing stuff for for next year, and
Speaker 1: they're like, when we like piloted this bag with a
Speaker 1: group of people, here's like all the stuff they said,
Speaker 1: and they actually incorporate that in there. So we have
Speaker 1: some of the most data minded like designers and creatives,
Speaker 1: which before away they're like, I don't know this existed.
Speaker 1: How did you get this info? Do you think that's
Speaker 1: a theme like that's coming in the industry more that
Speaker 1: we're going to be able to have like the creative
Speaker 1: side and the kind of more scientific side like working
Speaker 1: together for marketing, and that's going to drive product I hope. So,
Speaker 1: I hope. So. I mean, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: why it is the way it is is because of
Speaker 1: my relationship with my co founder. I mean she I
Speaker 1: can't remember which one is which, but left brain, right brain, whatever.
Speaker 1: We're so each other's opposites. And in the beginning it
Speaker 1: was really easy because there's all these things that we
Speaker 1: had to do and it was very clear who had
Speaker 1: to do which thing, um, and we were like we
Speaker 1: weren't trying to land grab anything, and and I think
Speaker 1: obviously I know stuff. Maybe not obviously, but I do
Speaker 1: know stuff about the business, and she does know stuff
Speaker 1: about the brand. But because we kind of like let
Speaker 1: each other naturally go into that, just naturally go into it,
Speaker 1: like we just got to be really good at it.
Speaker 1: And what we've done is like build out teams. You know,
Speaker 1: it started out just the two of us. Now there's
Speaker 1: like a hundred and fifty people, but we've like built
Speaker 1: out teams that that kind of reflect that. And but
Speaker 1: because we work so closely together, they all have to
Speaker 1: work so closely together. Even the way we um we
Speaker 1: struck her marketing is a little bit different. So we
Speaker 1: have we have a VP of Growth Marketing who's like
Speaker 1: paid acquisition, retention, all that stuff, and then we have
Speaker 1: a VP of Brand Marketing. UM so we don't have
Speaker 1: one CML. But even like everyone on our acquisition team
Speaker 1: is like, we're looking at these acquisition costs and they
Speaker 1: would be way hire if it wasn't for all the
Speaker 1: stuff that the brand marketing team is doing, and all
Speaker 1: the brand market team does really cool stuff, but it
Speaker 1: has to get amplified somehow. So I think it's we've
Speaker 1: kind of really taken that like that like art and
Speaker 1: science approach to everything out a way, like like the
Speaker 1: brand marketing team and the creative teams like have to
Speaker 1: look at how their stuff performed, like they think about
Speaker 1: r y. So it's it's like a we definitely train
Speaker 1: people and create the frameworks for them to think about
Speaker 1: it that way. But um, but I think that's what's
Speaker 1: allowed us to do this. I think DTC is actually
Speaker 1: going to teach the industry this, like even how to
Speaker 1: organize in a different way. It makes it really hard
Speaker 1: for hiring, though I will say it doesn't think it
Speaker 1: really look at maybe you want to bring in like
Speaker 1: industry veterans with more experience to help guide a lot
Speaker 1: of the kind of early like young, super hungry, like
Speaker 1: ambitious people we've hired. But then it's like they don't
Speaker 1: know how to work within the structure. So that's that's
Speaker 1: like a common theme in the industry. I think that
Speaker 1: people have been trained on these traditional models and then
Speaker 1: they get in these artup environments where the ethos has
Speaker 1: flipped from transaction to more value exchange in the sense
Speaker 1: of like content and creation and development and making, and
Speaker 1: like those things don't necessarily always translate and they're on
Speaker 1: equal levels now, like, so so there's a there's a
Speaker 1: there's a big gap. I think there's people who have
Speaker 1: kind of grown up and climbed the ladders and worked
Speaker 1: in a lot of different startups, and there's people like
Speaker 1: there's like traditional marketers who are experienced with like bigger
Speaker 1: budgets and more platforms and kind of I mean, you
Speaker 1: don't want to throw away all of like traditional marketing, No,
Speaker 1: I don't have to know how to do that. But
Speaker 1: then there's a gap of like, okay, so how do
Speaker 1: startups find really senior people who understand the way startups
Speaker 1: work but also but can like bring that team into
Speaker 1: into moving into bigger budgets. A lot about like the
Speaker 1: unicorn effect of like those people who have the traditional
Speaker 1: chops have been in the industry and where they understand
Speaker 1: how to pull the levers on that channel mix, but
Speaker 1: have the guts and the creativity and the flexibility to
Speaker 1: challenge the way that model exists it right, so they
Speaker 1: know how to manipulate media in a way in which
Speaker 1: it can then translate for the next business and you're
Speaker 1: thinking about business in a different way. I think you'll
Speaker 1: start to see a lot of these director consumer brands.
Speaker 1: As we all grow, as we spend more and more
Speaker 1: money on marketing. I mean we still work in a
Speaker 1: really lean and scrappy way, but like the budgets are
Speaker 1: getting bigger, we totally reach more people. What's going to
Speaker 1: happen is not that we take people used to those
Speaker 1: budgets and to those media mixes and like bring them
Speaker 1: into our organization. It's like it's like our teams trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how to do that stuff for the
Speaker 1: first time. You're gonna go I mean you're gonna grow,
Speaker 1: You're gonna and you're gonna grow your people. Yeah, into
Speaker 1: that exactly. So you a lot of people talk about
Speaker 1: the DTC space, and us two co host on a podcast,
Speaker 1: we can attest to this. You know, DTC was fast
Speaker 1: and furious in the podcast space. Early on. It was
Speaker 1: like the long standing joke like if you don't think
Speaker 1: cast for use in a way, you know, brush your
Speaker 1: teeth with a quip like you haven't listened to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: DTC is basically basically yeah podcast industry. So but it's
Speaker 1: interesting in that you guys were figuring out how to
Speaker 1: be scrappy, but there was also this loyal listener base
Speaker 1: there that was willing to convert. Was that a benownced
Speaker 1: thing in sort of the early bets that you placed
Speaker 1: with your I'm assuming scrappy startup marketing budget or was
Speaker 1: it a proxy of just like efficiency, like how are
Speaker 1: you plotting your marketing plan? You're two years old out
Speaker 1: of the gate and now you're I can't believe you
Speaker 1: out on Broadway with this like insane billboard. You know? Activation,
Speaker 1: what's been the evolution of of how you're thinking about
Speaker 1: your marketing budget and planning. I think um Our our
Speaker 1: team has done an amazing job and that they really
Speaker 1: they're like portfolio managers and they come up over and over.
Speaker 1: By the way, this is amazing that word. A lot
Speaker 1: of the traditional markets, like you guys must spend a
Speaker 1: lot of money on on Facebook and Instagram, and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we do. But it's like I think I live in
Speaker 1: fear of um building an entire brand or business around
Speaker 1: one platform. And and as we've seen, like what happens
Speaker 1: when they change their algorithm, what happens when like you
Speaker 1: can't reach those people anymore? What happens when like Congress
Speaker 1: is like getting involved. There's always going to be like
Speaker 1: big ways to reach a lot of people and to
Speaker 1: do it really effectively. And I don't think those will
Speaker 1: change overnight that I think you're really like screwing yourself
Speaker 1: over if you're not thinking about other things. So from
Speaker 1: the beginning, it wasn't like, Okay, pere's our budget. It's
Speaker 1: not that big, let's just throw it onto one platforms.
Speaker 1: We're always experimenting, you know, as we've raised more money,
Speaker 1: as we have we've sold a lot more suitcases, as
Speaker 1: we want to reach more people, we want to be
Speaker 1: able to turn those things on, but without having tried them, right,
Speaker 1: So it's not like one day we're gonna be like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna go on TV. You know, we
Speaker 1: are going to start doing like big national TV buys.
Speaker 1: But over the last year they've been testing a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff and like like remnant buys and like local
Speaker 1: markets and um and testing creative on there. So we're
Speaker 1: never We're never throwing money at something without having tried
Speaker 1: it and tested it. And that was the thing with
Speaker 1: pod casts. I think in the beginning there was a
Speaker 1: lot of like early testing a couple of podcasts here
Speaker 1: and there, um figuring out what kind of podcast creative
Speaker 1: work for us, or or what kinds of listeners were
Speaker 1: really into the product, And then when we were ready
Speaker 1: to make more meaningful investments in like podcast advertising, we
Speaker 1: knew how we wanted to do it. So I think
Speaker 1: even today there's so many different things that we're trying
Speaker 1: out and not in like a huge meaningful way. But
Speaker 1: when we are ready to go into it big, it's
Speaker 1: a lot less risky for us. Why TV, Why are
Speaker 1: you going into TV? It's been really good for us,
Speaker 1: it's been really efficient. So Comcast is one of our
Speaker 1: early investors. They have an amazing program. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if it's just before their portfolio companies, but it's like
Speaker 1: this accelerate program that helps brings like us get into
Speaker 1: TV and they kind of guide you through, like here's
Speaker 1: how you make a direct response AD and now we
Speaker 1: talked to Lindy Acarino about this when she was on
Speaker 1: the show. Yeah, it's amazing, UM and we it's like
Speaker 1: like everyone at the startup, like none of us have
Speaker 1: ever had experience in TV. But then you start testing it,
Speaker 1: you start to do small buys, and I think what's
Speaker 1: been really great for us is that we're not just
Speaker 1: doing like a TV buy and you're like, well, I
Speaker 1: hope it works. But they help you a lot with
Speaker 1: attributing UM the commercial to sales and UM and seeing
Speaker 1: if it's really working. And in our early test it's
Speaker 1: been really great. So I think we're gonna go every brand.
Speaker 1: Every marketer just went what right? Yeah, it's crazy. I
Speaker 1: couldn't even explain it to you would be really embarrassing
Speaker 1: because now our data teams listening to this, you're like,
Speaker 1: what she's talking about. I think when you're a startup
Speaker 1: and you've limited budgets, you want to make sure what
Speaker 1: you're spending money on works. And I think that's why
Speaker 1: Facebook and Instagram are so great because they give you
Speaker 1: all of that data back and it's easy to like
Speaker 1: go to your marketing manager and be like, it's working,
Speaker 1: let's put more money into it. I don't know, we
Speaker 1: just we'd like to like to make things in that
Speaker 1: on on the TV side, because it's interesting. So many
Speaker 1: brands that I've encountered over the last twelve eighteen months
Speaker 1: who are early stage age we can't be on TV.
Speaker 1: We don't have enough money. And and I'm always like
Speaker 1: wrong thought because in reality and I think, you know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting that Comcast is partnering in in that way,
Speaker 1: and I think we're going to see more and more
Speaker 1: networks try to figure out how to partner with brands
Speaker 1: like you to set yourselves up for success of the future.
Speaker 1: Where yeah, early days remnant inventory mascale allows you to
Speaker 1: get super niche in specific environments, etcetera. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, you know you might be able to place
Speaker 1: one big bet throughout the entire year with an insane
Speaker 1: story and insane creative I e. In the Super Bowl,
Speaker 1: in you know, some other tent pole award show throughout
Speaker 1: the year where your customer where you might be gift
Speaker 1: bagging influencers, I don't know, but point being interesting and
Speaker 1: that nobody had that experience. So your first preconceived notion
Speaker 1: at a startup is like, I can't be there because
Speaker 1: I don't have enough money. But that's exactly I think.
Speaker 1: If you look at Okay, well, how much money you're
Speaker 1: spending on your shitty Facebook act. So if you if
Speaker 1: you only have early days, you'll have a couple hundred
Speaker 1: grand to spend. The return on like two grand of
Speaker 1: like of TV could be a lot bigger than two
Speaker 1: grand of like weird Facebook ads that you haven't tested.
Speaker 1: So I mean, I think I think just we look
Speaker 1: at everything from an r OI perspective, and that's easier
Speaker 1: to analyze if if you are getting data, and I
Speaker 1: think not everyone knows how to get data from all
Speaker 1: the places they're advertising. But it's like, I think there's
Speaker 1: there's a lot of safe options for marketing, but if
Speaker 1: you're not, Like, if you don't do it early on,
Speaker 1: you're never going to be ready to do it because
Speaker 1: it's not like one day you're gonna be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I have a thirty million dollar budget to do this,
Speaker 1: but we've never done it before, so you're going to
Speaker 1: be scared to go into TV. I think I want,
Speaker 1: I want to flip it to to the big brands.
Speaker 1: I mean the big brands. Actually, is this the case
Speaker 1: every every CMO is going to barf? But like, is
Speaker 1: this the case for limiting budget, proving stuff out, really
Speaker 1: really testing. Everybody talks about test, iterate, right, fail, succeed,
Speaker 1: ranch off and go from there. I mean, but if
Speaker 1: they do it with everything with our retail stores, we've
Speaker 1: like we've never signed a long ways every time we go.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean even the most obvious things were
Speaker 1: like I think a store would do well in New York.
Speaker 1: We're like, O, hey, let's test it. So you sign
Speaker 1: a short term lease and you figure out if it works,
Speaker 1: you figure out how big it needs to be. We
Speaker 1: have a flagship store now on Lafayette and Bond, but
Speaker 1: we started with like with a little store on Houston
Speaker 1: and Lafayette. There's like six hundred square feet. Were like
Speaker 1: too small. We figure out why people were shopping for
Speaker 1: the bags, and then we did like a bigger store
Speaker 1: in Soho and we're like, we don't need to be
Speaker 1: in Soho because we figured out we were like a destination.
Speaker 1: So by the time we are signing a long term
Speaker 1: lease and doing a bigger build out, we we know
Speaker 1: and we're not disguessing and we haven't signed a ten
Speaker 1: year lease and like throwing like two million bucks down
Speaker 1: the drain. I think the way big brands think about it,
Speaker 1: they're like, O, we're going to test and iterate, but
Speaker 1: their tests cost but ten million dollars. Yeah that's not
Speaker 1: that's not really but like, yeah, a million dollars. But
Speaker 1: I think there's a fundamental difference between return on investor
Speaker 1: in verse return on insight, because what you were just
Speaker 1: talking about in terms of figuring out why people are
Speaker 1: navigating to the store in a certain way, why the
Speaker 1: location and the context of that environment is going to
Speaker 1: move a certain volume of sales. Some of the bigger guys,
Speaker 1: you see, they're just looking at the price and the
Speaker 1: margin and thinking about the rate and where can I
Speaker 1: squeeze the most money to reach this mass people, as
Speaker 1: opposed to saying, what is the context and the story
Speaker 1: that I'm telling him? What is that lifetime value then
Speaker 1: that I'm extracting from a consumer, I don't know if
Speaker 1: enough people are measured on on the lifetime value. And
Speaker 1: I think I think that is one of the great
Speaker 1: things about DTC companies ventured backed is that all vcs
Speaker 1: I want to talk about is lifetime values. Everyone watch
Speaker 1: in that position, that's all they want to talk about. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's a lot of things wrong
Speaker 1: with that, But one of the great things is that
Speaker 1: all all of these d DTC marketing teams look at
Speaker 1: that and they have a longer term view of these
Speaker 1: things versus cmos who are like a public company needs
Speaker 1: who are trying to get their quarterly numbers up right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's like they don't care about LT because they're
Speaker 1: not gonna be even to that company. And if you
Speaker 1: know that's I mean, yeah, a whole another show. It's
Speaker 1: a whole another freaking show. Tell us about how you
Speaker 1: guys think about partnerships, because you've done some really interesting partnerships.
Speaker 1: You started with like the n B A is like
Speaker 1: one of the one of the big and I was
Speaker 1: like actually shocked that away did something with the NBA.
Speaker 1: Can you like kind of talk about like what led
Speaker 1: you into the kind of by the way that you've
Speaker 1: done the Data and Growth market team is like breathing
Speaker 1: a sigh, really for like, okay, can stop talking about this? Yes,
Speaker 1: So partnerships has been a huge part of what we've done.
Speaker 1: This was one of the things that when we were
Speaker 1: first raising money, we talked about partnerships a lot as
Speaker 1: part of like building the brand. And everyone was like, huh,
Speaker 1: but where's the logo And I'm like, okay, God, here's
Speaker 1: it's on the deck next to the next. But we
Speaker 1: talked about partnerships that we we talked about that's what
Speaker 1: it's going to make this a lifestyle. And because it's
Speaker 1: like okay, like it's your luggage, but everyone travels. There's
Speaker 1: so many people who can talk about it, and we've
Speaker 1: really tried to capitalize on that. So I think one
Speaker 1: one of the things I'm really proud of that the
Speaker 1: brand has been able to do is like we've partnered
Speaker 1: with people from the n b A to Carly Class
Speaker 1: to the minions like Minis. But it's just like all
Speaker 1: different people that we're reaching. So even when when we
Speaker 1: were thinking about creating the product, we're like, how do
Speaker 1: we make this a platform for collapse and for and
Speaker 1: for working with other brands. The suitcase lends itself really
Speaker 1: well to that because you can change the color, change aligning,
Speaker 1: do a lot of fun stuff with the packaging, change
Speaker 1: the destination. Yeah, and and and like for campaigns, it's
Speaker 1: really easy. So I mean, we just see a ways
Speaker 1: of platform for for doing a lot of this. I'm
Speaker 1: just going to say that. I mean, at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, when you were talking about not investing
Speaker 1: in any platform, you are, Yeah, we are the platform.
Speaker 1: And I think that UM for US partnerships goes beyond
Speaker 1: product collaborations now. So for example, for the NBA UM
Speaker 1: if I'm remembering, they reached out to us about doing something.
Speaker 1: We timed it with All Star Weekend. We took our
Speaker 1: product and we said, how can we change this product
Speaker 1: in a way that can speak to the audience, And um,
Speaker 1: it's a texture of a basketball. Have you guys seen
Speaker 1: it in real life? So it's a texture of a basketball.
Speaker 1: And all of my friends were into sports were like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a basketball. Cool. And all of my like fashion
Speaker 1: friends were like, oh, I love this pebbled mother and
Speaker 1: oh my god, it's not pebbled moather. But okay. But
Speaker 1: but I think what we've been able to do is,
Speaker 1: like what the partnerships have been able us to do
Speaker 1: is really look at this as more of an accessory.
Speaker 1: So we have people who will buy multiple suitcases of
Speaker 1: the same size. They must not live in New York.
Speaker 1: We have customers who have like three or four carry
Speaker 1: on because they see the collapse and they're like, oh wait,
Speaker 1: that's really cool and it's a limited edition. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be a part of that. That's been awesome for a brand.
Speaker 1: I think is we are going to continue doing more partnerships,
Speaker 1: and I think the way we look at everyone travels,
Speaker 1: but you know, how do you reach travelers in the
Speaker 1: music industry or travelers in the literally can't come up
Speaker 1: with another industry right now, and then we look at
Speaker 1: what brands and people are really relevant in that space,
Speaker 1: and then we do something with that. You know, it's interesting,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking about the idea of a destination and
Speaker 1: obviously you serve a utility, but I'm interested in where
Speaker 1: you can move into it as a service. Right So,
Speaker 1: like I would love for Jen Rubio and Code to
Speaker 1: come and like pack my suitcase. I would love for
Speaker 1: you to kind of you you do have fabulous style,
Speaker 1: but also just you know, as you think about the platform,
Speaker 1: does the suitcase just then become the shell for what
Speaker 1: is inside it and where it goes? And then does
Speaker 1: that completely broaden that platform in terms of what those
Speaker 1: collaborations could be your products that you develop. In the
Speaker 1: early days and you're starting out, there are smart luggage
Speaker 1: brands that were like had an app that could like
Speaker 1: tell you what to do, but it's like you get
Speaker 1: track your bag, track your bag. You could do all
Speaker 1: this stuff. And in the long term, if you think
Speaker 1: about it, if that had worked and people cared enough
Speaker 1: about this brand to find out what their app was
Speaker 1: going to say about where they were going like it
Speaker 1: could have been really cool, but they're like, no one
Speaker 1: really cared what those brands had to say about their
Speaker 1: travel destinations because they were inherently just making like Kickstarter products.
Speaker 1: It's funny because we've totally shied away from that, and
Speaker 1: we we were adamant that we didn't want to make
Speaker 1: an app, we didn't want to make all these all
Speaker 1: these platforms that were unnecessary. But now we have the
Speaker 1: brand where if we did do that, people would be
Speaker 1: like now and again it would be like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes sense, but we didn't lead with that. But
Speaker 1: now like we've kind of set ourselves up to be
Speaker 1: able to do that. I'm not saying we're going to
Speaker 1: like that's that's not in the road map right now.
Speaker 1: But I think what's been interesting is because of the
Speaker 1: way we talk about it, because of the campaigns that
Speaker 1: we shoot. We have people calling like our customer service
Speaker 1: number and being like, oh, we saw you did um,
Speaker 1: like a photo shoot like in Panama? Where should I stay?
Speaker 1: Like what hotel was that? And we're like so weird
Speaker 1: now and our team is amazing, like we'll call you
Speaker 1: right back, or like or people will just call and
Speaker 1: ask for recommendations like everywhere they see that we post
Speaker 1: and UM and I think it is that community and
Speaker 1: like they do trust us too to pack a certain
Speaker 1: way or to or to experience destinations a certain way
Speaker 1: that lets us kind of explore the experience and the
Speaker 1: service side of it. So you guys should totally partner
Speaker 1: with UM Andrew Steenthal and get you know, text rax no,
Speaker 1: I want but I want to do like tex rex
Speaker 1: for travel you text rax baby. I want to talk
Speaker 1: about where to partnerships lead as something that we've talked
Speaker 1: a lot about and we're kind of obsessed with, is
Speaker 1: like when you start putting IP together, right when you
Speaker 1: start kind of like, um, this is like GMO right
Speaker 1: of brands basically like splicing brands together and creating something
Speaker 1: new brands and products. I mean, are you guys exploring
Speaker 1: going a lot deeper in the kind of definition of
Speaker 1: partnership for a way. Yeah, And so we actually haven't
Speaker 1: even touched that yet. What we've done is we have
Speaker 1: a product that's a platform from other things. And we
Speaker 1: hate the word leverage, but we leverage other people's audiences
Speaker 1: and their tastes to affect our product. But we haven't
Speaker 1: even touched. Like what happens when away and another band
Speaker 1: like create a new product together. What happens when we
Speaker 1: take like our travel expertise and experience in our community
Speaker 1: and apply that to someone else's product. We can't. We
Speaker 1: haven't done that. It's just been about changing away product
Speaker 1: and a lot of times like the way it looks
Speaker 1: and telling a story around the person we're partnering with.
Speaker 1: So I think we're just like at the tip of
Speaker 1: the iceberg with that stuff. But now that people want
Speaker 1: more from us, like is it um? You know, like
Speaker 1: we have We have people all the time going to
Speaker 1: our store is saying, Okay, well, I'm I'm traveling on
Speaker 1: this trip. I also need like a great pair of
Speaker 1: like noise canceling headphones, or like what do I wear?
Speaker 1: I would follow in a minute if you told me, Alexa,
Speaker 1: this is cute, comfy you should be wearing you were
Speaker 1: on this plane. This is your plane outfit. There's like
Speaker 1: pride in plain outfits. By the way, Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: get down to science. You don't want pride in plain outfit.
Speaker 1: You look adorable. You could hop out everyone paying pants.
Speaker 1: You know. It's interesting because you were talking about like
Speaker 1: the community of DTC and how you're leveraging each other's audiences.
Speaker 1: If we could just pivot for a second, because I
Speaker 1: think as a founder, one of the things that I've
Speaker 1: always admired and I'm fascinated about you and Emily Weis
Speaker 1: at Glossier and Whitney over at Bumble is the accessibility
Speaker 1: and willingness to let people into the world as your
Speaker 1: experiencing it with your brands and your products in real time.
Speaker 1: You're personal, I mean you also like you're out there
Speaker 1: at Jennifer. It keeps me sane, though, does it? Like
Speaker 1: it's such like an old millennial thing to say, like
Speaker 1: just like being authentic, But it is sometimes when I'm
Speaker 1: going crazy and I'm like I'm on fifty flights this year,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, you know what this is, Like I
Speaker 1: need to stop complaining and like this is like what
Speaker 1: I love and what I want to do. And I
Speaker 1: think people are really like we're all like everyone you mentioned,
Speaker 1: we're all living our brands like we are, you know,
Speaker 1: like Whitney is Bumble, like Emily is Glossier. Like we
Speaker 1: all really believe in in what we're talking about and
Speaker 1: what we're selling. And I think I think people can
Speaker 1: can tell and I've become influencers in your own right
Speaker 1: in those specific industries. And then I think also representatives stuff,
Speaker 1: but I think also representative of a genre, of the
Speaker 1: next wave of brand. And like as you're talking, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to go through some of the mega conglomerate portfolio
Speaker 1: brands and like a camp pinpoint who the executive is
Speaker 1: and b can't think about like how they're living out
Speaker 1: that brand, like Leaya Coca. Yeah, even if you think
Speaker 1: about like even Mike Dubitt from Dollar Ship Club, like
Speaker 1: he put himself out there like it wasn't on social media,
Speaker 1: but he did. He did that video and people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's like he's behind this. But because it is trending now,
Speaker 1: there is a wave of brands of like people selling
Speaker 1: stuff that they don't care about. But I think those
Speaker 1: things will weed themselves out. Yeah, they will, and they
Speaker 1: will and it's like and they're almost like falling a
Speaker 1: playbook and there's a portfolio. And I do think in
Speaker 1: the long run they won't laugh. They won't laugh. That's
Speaker 1: what the vcs though. I mean, at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, right, like anyone who's funding you guys has
Speaker 1: is looking at what is the DNA and the personality
Speaker 1: of the founders, what the smart braces. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of them are also just looking at what's the
Speaker 1: LTV and what are the margins and how much is
Speaker 1: going to cost to acquire people. I can't tell you
Speaker 1: how many vcs were like not down for a way
Speaker 1: because they're like, the purchase frequency is low. Yeah, I mean, well,
Speaker 1: you've got people buying for carry ons. On one hand,
Speaker 1: we have people buying for carns. But also it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: who cares what the purchase frequency is low? Because we're
Speaker 1: building a bigger brand, that's right, which will have more
Speaker 1: products and services like stay tuned. Yeah exactly where such
Speaker 1: a short term way of thinking. Yeah, it's interesting. Should
Speaker 1: all right now this time our game general? What would
Speaker 1: you kill meetings? Yeah? I know, I read that you
Speaker 1: were doing a lot of walking meetings even that and
Speaker 1: that Now, I just I think there's some things that
Speaker 1: are very necessary that like you need to see in person.
Speaker 1: I would say, like nine meetings are unnecessary. We're big
Speaker 1: slack users. I think like it also helps people be
Speaker 1: more concise and give more context and be really thorough. Also,
Speaker 1: how come when people schedule a thirty minute meeting. They
Speaker 1: think it has to be the full thirty minute. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's over in ten minutes and they're like, okay, what
Speaker 1: else should we talk about? Like, so, what are you buying? Oh? God,
Speaker 1: what am I not buying? Let me tell you about
Speaker 1: this product Slip. They make eyemass and silk pillowcases, which
Speaker 1: is like the sounds really bougie but good for the hair.
Speaker 1: It is amazing and it's it's kind of embarrassing because
Speaker 1: it's soft. Yeah, it's soft. It's just slip like s
Speaker 1: l I P. Yeah. I love them. So they like
Speaker 1: cool your eyes down and deep huff and stuff. They're
Speaker 1: just nice, like they don't they're not too tight. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that. You get off to travel with them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're in my bag right now. I literally travel with
Speaker 1: a silk pillow case. And when I get to a hotel,
Speaker 1: I also read this really disgusting article and like on
Speaker 1: like mites and things like that. So anyway, I am
Speaker 1: in pillowcase. It's the little luxuries you guys. But I
Speaker 1: found out about them because we sell them at the
Speaker 1: Away store and we're always sold out and people are
Speaker 1: always asking about them and I was like, wait, what
Speaker 1: is this? What is this lip? You know where I'm
Speaker 1: going after this? What would you do yourself not away?
Speaker 1: Like if do you ever say if I was away
Speaker 1: from away, if you were out of office? Yeah? Am
Speaker 1: I doing so well? This is a way related. But
Speaker 1: I take a lot of pride in the fact that
Speaker 1: we don't use like agencies. We do everything internally, and
Speaker 1: I want to like fully extend that, like retally integrate
Speaker 1: that if you will. But I mean I wish you
Speaker 1: could make our own furniture and pictures for stores. I
Speaker 1: think there's just so many inefficiencies and like the creative stuff,
Speaker 1: and um, I think one of the big things was
Speaker 1: that we didn't work with an agency in the beginning
Speaker 1: to do our branding, and I saw how well that
Speaker 1: worked out for us because it's like part of our
Speaker 1: d n A. So I want to do that with
Speaker 1: everything now. Um so like all like industrial design, like
Speaker 1: create your own lamps, create your own front everything. I
Speaker 1: actually see that for you guys be amazing, like a
Speaker 1: just a massive I mean we uh, we just signed
Speaker 1: a lease on a big new office and like we're
Speaker 1: gonna have like our own photo studio and um, maybe
Speaker 1: our own podcast room. Everybody's everybody's doing it. Everyone's doing it.
Speaker 1: We have a very d i y spirit. Well don't
Speaker 1: ever lose it. So, as a woman on a mission,
Speaker 1: last question, two years into a super successful DTC brand,
Speaker 1: what is your advice, not just to entrepreneurs, but particularly
Speaker 1: to women. I think you have to really want to
Speaker 1: do it. And I know that sounds so trite. I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm seeing so many because we get a lot
Speaker 1: of like uh like request for advice meetings and people
Speaker 1: are starting their own thing or investors were sending companies
Speaker 1: our way just to get our thoughts on it. And
Speaker 1: it is so evident and so much of what I
Speaker 1: see that like people are doing this because they looked
Speaker 1: at like they did some competitive analysis and and they
Speaker 1: saw a space in the market and they don't give
Speaker 1: a shit about it. Like, if we didn't really love this,
Speaker 1: it would not be good. What's one brand that you're
Speaker 1: so hot on other than like slip like from a
Speaker 1: brand from a brand standpoint where you're like, fuck, they're cool.
Speaker 1: We can I tell you this is like the lamest
Speaker 1: answer because it's so obvious, but I can't tell you
Speaker 1: how much like Nike continues to impress me. And this
Speaker 1: is why because if you like, you have a Louis
Speaker 1: Baton over there and like splurt on it, you're like,
Speaker 1: love this bag. Use all the time. If you walked
Speaker 1: on the subway and every single person had that bag,
Speaker 1: you'd be like, oh fuck, Like that's it's like not
Speaker 1: as special. Nike is one of those brands that like
Speaker 1: has withstood the test of time. If every single person
Speaker 1: in this building had Nikes, you wouldn't think they were
Speaker 1: less cool. You'd be like, oh, cool, everyone has Nikes.
Speaker 1: And I think, um, they can partner with like really
Speaker 1: high fashion, like kind of more mass and and they're
Speaker 1: still cool. I think it's like it is so hard
Speaker 1: to be like a mass market, so hard but cool brand,
Speaker 1: and I think they've done. I mean, I think that's
Speaker 1: what that's what I want for a way. Hopefully you're
Speaker 1: on your way. Yeah, that's that's because we we really
Speaker 1: But I think it's like, um, it's easy to be
Speaker 1: cool when when you're like luxury and expensive and exclusive.
Speaker 1: It's like how do you how do you stay cool
Speaker 1: when everyone has it? Yeah, that's right that we're going
Speaker 1: to drop the MinC kind of people get in touch
Speaker 1: with you, or listen to you or outside of our podcast,
Speaker 1: or chat with you. Gen Rubio. If you don't have it,
Speaker 1: away back, get one. I need one. Um. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for being here bad guys. Thank big thanks
Speaker 1: to Jen Rubio. She came here in between her like
Speaker 1: crazy travel. Yeah, she's all for a European tour. She's
Speaker 1: already done fifty flights, she said, and already this year.
Speaker 1: But I loved her inset on the way out how
Speaker 1: do you find calm in the crazy? And she does
Speaker 1: not go on WiFi while in flight. I actually think
Speaker 1: it's actually one of the smartest things to do. I'm
Speaker 1: always like a crazy person, like typing and like I
Speaker 1: am NG people, I am ing. It's like when you
Speaker 1: used to have a beeper and there was no pay phone.
Speaker 1: Big thanks to our friends and family at Panoply. Laura
Speaker 1: Morris are badass female Padua and we can't not thank
Speaker 1: Andy Bowers and Matt Turk all of our friends and
Speaker 1: family out there working it in Atlantia. Full disclosure. Our
Speaker 1: opinions are our own.