Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Creating Joy on Two Wheels: April Obersteller's Leadership Journey at WOOM Bikes | Consumer Products Series

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Creating Joy on Two Wheels: April Obersteller's Leadership Journey at WOOM Bikes | Consumer Products Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
• 0:08
  where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
• 0:11
  their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
• 0:14
  adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
• 0:16
  today's guest is April Obersteller, managing director
• 0:20
  for Womb North America. Womb Bikes creates lightweight
• 0:23
  children's bicycles designed to foster a love of riding early
• 0:27
  on, with a focus on safety, ergonomic design and joyful
• 0:31
  experiences for families. Founded in 2013 in Vienna,
• 0:36
  Austria, the company has grown globally while staying committed
• 0:39
  to building bikes that sparked joy and inspire parents and kids
• 0:43
  alike. Under April's leadership, Womb
• 0:46
  has expanded its reach and maintained impressive customer
• 0:49
  satisfaction thanks to her proven expertise in customer and
• 0:53
  employee engagement. Previously, she's held key roles
• 0:56
  at Yeti Coolers, where she LED global customer experience
• 1:00
  initiatives and helped build impactful employee programs.
• 1:04
  Recognized for her success in shaping positive workplace
• 1:07
  cultures and boosting operational performance, April's
• 1:10
  committed to Driving Wounds Glow goal of inspiring the next
• 1:13
  generation of riders. Her passion for nurturing both
• 1:16
  people and products has earned her praise in the CX and EX
• 1:20
  communities, as well as leadership awards with IB, i.e.
• 1:25
  X AX100 and SurveyMonkey. Now before we get into all that
• 1:28
  good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company,
• 1:31
  Bad Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and
• 1:35
  unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and
• 1:38
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• 1:40
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• 1:44
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• 1:50
  and some organizations may not be eligible.
• 1:52
  To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
• 1:55
  AD Back benefitsagency.com. All right, now back to our guest
• 1:59
  today, Managing Director of Womb Bikes, April Oversteller.
• 2:03
  I appreciate you making the time to Share your story today.
• 2:06
  Absolutely. I'm excited to be here.
• 2:07
  Thanks for having me. OK.
• 2:09
  So April, you started out your career in wedding and event
• 2:14
  planning. What key lesson or skill did you
• 2:17
  learn there that's still helpful to you today at will?
• 2:23
  I think maybe the question would be, you know, what did I not
• 2:25
  learn? I mean, that was such an awesome
• 2:30
  kind of first step in my career. It was fresh out of college and
• 2:35
  so not only is it, you know, wedding and event facility, but
• 2:38
  it was also a start up to scale up organization.
• 2:42
  So when I joined, I was, you know, employee number one when
• 2:46
  it came to really building out the operations of it.
• 2:50
  And I started as an intern and tried to soak up as much as I
• 2:53
  could and then join them after college.
• 2:56
  And so I got to see first hand the build of a company quite
• 3:02
  honestly where we were doing a couple events and weddings a
• 3:04
  year to over 100 a year. And and then of course working
• 3:10
  with you know the different clients we had, it was a full
• 3:15
  range. And so I also got to really see,
• 3:18
  OK, it is not just one customer persona, it is many and a lot of
• 3:22
  times we were doing, you know, working with multiple brides all
• 3:26
  within one day. And so I also really got to
• 3:30
  build that skill set of being able to shift and pivot really,
• 3:35
  really quickly, which obviously has served me very well.
• 3:39
  And you know, after leaving there working with another start
• 3:42
  up and another and another, if you can learn to pivot, you will
• 3:46
  get through that. So.
• 3:48
  Any good bridezilla stories come out of that experience?
• 3:53
  I know it's always my frequent question.
• 3:55
  You know, we were really. Lucky or Groomzilla, we don't
• 3:58
  need to discriminate. Yeah, there was definitely high
• 4:02
  emotions, I will say that. But no, we had, we had some
• 4:07
  pretty amazing, amazing couples. So no, no crazy stories, but
• 4:12
  emotions are high that day of from the gamut, not just the
• 4:15
  couple, but also the family. So lots of experience of
• 4:19
  managing. There's a lot of expectations on
• 4:21
  that day. You've got friends and family
• 4:22
  coming from all over. You want it just right.
• 4:24
  It's it's to be understood and expected.
• 4:27
  OK, so how did you get from wedding and event planning to
• 4:30
  national Sales Manager at Gringo?
• 4:34
  So I, that owner that I talked about that started the event
• 4:38
  facility, she pivoted and so her sister made these amazing
• 4:44
  products that I personally used. She used it was born out of a
• 4:49
  farmer's market and, and really Jody, who was the owner of the
• 4:55
  wedding facility, she was like, I think we can bring this big
• 4:59
  and more people need to have this product.
• 5:01
  And so she decided to sell the event facility and then go into
• 5:06
  business with her sister and her mom and bring green goo to life
• 5:11
  and essentially bring it to mass market, not just in the US, but
• 5:14
  internationally. And I was lucky enough to be,
• 5:18
  you know, a part of that ride and get out there and just sell
• 5:21
  this product that I have been using for years but did not have
• 5:25
  any clue how the land of consumer product good worked at
• 5:29
  that time. So it was also a crash course in
• 5:32
  learning that part of it. Did you have a mentor or
• 5:35
  somebody that you could kind of lean on for help and experience
• 5:38
  during that time? Absolutely.
• 5:41
  I mean, I think not only did I have just mentors that I, you
• 5:44
  know, met with and they invested that training and time with me,
• 5:48
  but also I was just hungry to learn.
• 5:51
  So anyone that would share anything in this field, I was
• 5:55
  there and that essentially has continued and has been a big
• 5:59
  part of, you know, essentially where I am now.
• 6:02
  What is Green Go? It's a natural first aid
• 6:05
  product. So think of your natural
• 6:08
  Neosporin that you could put on anything.
• 6:12
  And that's just one of many of the products.
• 6:15
  But but yeah, it's it's quite it.
• 6:20
  My kids grew up on it and I always joke because instead of
• 6:23
  asking for a Band-Aid, you know, when they were two years old,
• 6:26
  they're like, I just need my green goo.
• 6:28
  And so that's what it. Is and so that you put the green
• 6:30
  goo on just by itself, or you put that on and then like a
• 6:33
  bandage over top of it. Just on itself, it's like a
• 6:36
  salve, like a natural salve. And I tell you what, that it it
• 6:40
  is a miracle worker. So.
• 6:43
  So yeah. So OK, so I need to go out and
• 6:46
  get some green goo. You need to, yes.
• 6:48
  Is it is it going to get on the the couch like my kids put it on
• 6:51
  and then like, you know, they go rolling around the floor like.
• 6:55
  You might not want to put it on a cloth couch.
• 6:58
  There's definitely been, you know, towels that you know, for
• 7:00
  a little little stain from the oil, but you know, but again,
• 7:04
  just. Just so we know how to approach
• 7:06
  it. Yeah.
• 7:06
  OK, great. So clearly you learned something
• 7:09
  about consumer products there, because a couple years later you
• 7:13
  find yourself where we're. At Yeti, yes.
• 7:17
  Yeah, How did that come about? So with I loved what I did at
• 7:21
  Green Goo, but I was also it was my toe dip in sales.
• 7:25
  So as you know, a national sales manager, I was traveling three
• 7:29
  weeks out of the month and with two little kids that were at the
• 7:33
  time were two and four pretty intense.
• 7:35
  And so I knew that if I wanted to kind of make that shift, I
• 7:40
  needed to bring it back to my hometown.
• 7:42
  So bringing it back to Austin and I really, quite honestly,
• 7:47
  for Yeti, I at that time, I wasn't super familiar with their
• 7:51
  products. My husband was, he was a
• 7:54
  fisherman. He needed the products when he
• 7:56
  went, you know, out for a couple days.
• 7:59
  I remembered Yeti though, because my town that I lived in
• 8:03
  was super impacted by these massive floods.
• 8:07
  And I remember, I mean, just so many people lost their homes.
• 8:12
  And we were at a local Ace Harbor store making sure people
• 8:16
  had food after the floods. And this huge truck pulled up
• 8:20
  and just started unloading massive coolers with ice because
• 8:23
  many people didn't have refrigerators.
• 8:25
  So, you know, our town was literally, you know, impacted by
• 8:31
  Yeti. And that's how I discovered
• 8:32
  Yeti. And so when I was looking for a
• 8:34
  place to work, I saw an app for them and thought OK, I know
• 8:40
  there's good people there. And I gave it a shot and was
• 8:44
  lucky enough to join that crazy rocket ship that they were on
• 8:49
  and stayed there for about 5 years.
• 8:51
  And So what? What's the most exciting thing
• 8:53
  that you were able to accomplish while you were there?
• 8:57
  I mean that's I started out in the sales side with Yeti and
• 9:00
  then really halfway through that's when I transitioned to
• 9:03
  the service side. And so that was my first tow dip
• 9:06
  fully in customer experience. And that honestly, I just, I
• 9:12
  fell in love with it. I fell in love with the
• 9:14
  complexity of it, with the impact of it, with the people
• 9:17
  behind it. And the ones that, you know,
• 9:20
  really were showing up and not only were OK with being on the
• 9:24
  phone or being on emails or being on chat all day, but that
• 9:27
  was their thrive zone. And so, yeah, so that was a huge
• 9:32
  I, you know, kind of shift in my career.
• 9:36
  And one obviously I continued as I joined womb, but really fell
• 9:40
  in love with it. And I think 2A big pieces I was
• 9:46
  able to see the impact of when you do it well and when you
• 9:52
  don't do it well. And you know, so that's
• 9:56
  obviously we want all of it, you know, to to do well.
• 9:59
  And that was a mission of mine. So this isn't a traditional path
• 10:04
  that I hear people being on. The sales side.
• 10:07
  Sales can be generally very lucrative if you know you're
• 10:10
  good at it and you know how to do it.
• 10:12
  Sort of making that transition from sales more onto the
• 10:16
  employee side of things. Where did that idea come about?
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  Was that something that you were sort of coached on?
• 10:23
  Was that something that I don't know you had in mind to do?
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  I think it was really through the experience of you know being
• 10:31
  on the sales side and bringing success to sales and bringing
• 10:34
  success quite honestly to those kind of outward goals.
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  I really got to see first hand that that is not possible unless
• 10:42
  you are doing it well internally.
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  And so that's where that combination between really how
• 10:48
  are we selling or servicing the external customer and how's that
• 10:53
  connected to how we are servicing our internal customer.
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  And so that's a big kind of realization I saw because when
• 11:03
  we only focused outside, we just weren't getting it right inside.
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  And, and so allowing ourselves to pause and say, OK, how are we
• 11:12
  setting our teams up for a success?
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  How are we setting our people up for a success?
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  How are we, how are we really building a place where they,
• 11:18
  they can thrive? Then we saw those external
• 11:22
  results and said that was kind of that original pathway to OK,
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  we have to actually look at it holistically and we can't ignore
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  that There's a really strong connection there.
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  So I love sales, but I just really think you can't do great
• 11:37
  sales unless you have great service.
• 11:40
  It's really interesting. You know, as I'm looking through
• 11:42
  your LinkedIn profile here, I see you mention employee
• 11:47
  partners over and over again. And as we're talking here, you
• 11:51
  refer to them as internal customers, which tells me that
• 11:55
  you do take a bit of a different approach to to how you view
• 12:00
  employees, how you view your team members.
• 12:03
  Yeah, I do. I mean, it's I, I definitely
• 12:06
  look at it as a partnership because I am, I mean, we are, we
• 12:10
  hire someone to our teams. We are asking for them to show
• 12:13
  up to support this mission that we are on.
• 12:18
  We're asking for their time, for their focus.
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  I mean, we're asking a lot and I would never expect to ask that
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  without also saying here's how I'm going to show up for you.
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  And I think that partnership, if we can get that right, not
• 12:34
  perfect, but if we can be intentional with it, that
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  magic's created from that. And so I really don't think you
• 12:42
  can have one without the other. And and I look at that as that
• 12:46
  customer like everyday, how am I getting up and setting up an
• 12:50
  environment for them to thrive? Because if they can thrive, then
• 12:54
  again, the work thrives and then the whole ecosystem thrives.
• 12:58
  So it's it's simple, but definitely not simple to do
• 13:02
  because no customer is the same as I mentioned, I learned from
• 13:06
  the beginning so. So can you give us a specific
• 13:09
  example or maybe like a, a story, an anecdote of what a
• 13:13
  time at Yeti where you, you know, you did something sort of
• 13:17
  above and beyond to make the employee partner, your internal
• 13:21
  customer experience better? I think quite honestly, when I
• 13:27
  stepped into the role with customer experience, it was
• 13:31
  things were not going great. I'll say that it was a time of a
• 13:34
  little bit of a chaos. There were literally thousands
• 13:39
  of emails in our e-mail queue. There were hundreds of people
• 13:41
  waiting to talk to us. We weren't serving the customer
• 13:46
  how we wanted to. And there was a lot of tension
• 13:50
  within the team because, you know, we hired this amazing team
• 13:53
  and they can clearly see we're not doing right by the
• 13:56
  customers. That's what they want to do.
• 13:58
  So and at that time, you know, the answer was let's just work a
• 14:04
  little more. Let's just work some more hours
• 14:06
  to answer a couple more emails. It really wasn't addressing why
• 14:11
  we were in that spot in the first place.
• 14:14
  And so one of those things it was, you know, unheard of and
• 14:19
  it's not a great customer experience.
• 14:21
  It's we have to allow ourselves to stop and come together and
• 14:27
  figure out how we are going to get in a better spot.
• 14:30
  And that meant literally turning off the phones.
• 14:33
  And so that was one of those moments where, again, it had not
• 14:36
  been done before. It was a bummer for those
• 14:40
  customers for that hour that we turned off this phone, but it
• 14:43
  was really showing our internal team, we're not going to keep
• 14:47
  just pushing you, pushing you, pushing you, pushing you.
• 14:49
  We need your voice, We need you to help figure this out.
• 14:52
  And that's literally what we did.
• 14:54
  We came to a room, said, how do we solve this team?
• 14:57
  And shocker, they had so many of the answers.
• 15:02
  They just didn't have the space to share it.
• 15:04
  And so that was that one step to getting into a much better spot.
• 15:10
  What was the best idea that came out of that meeting?
• 15:14
  I, it literally was in regards to like bucketizing what we are
• 15:19
  doing. And since that everyone doing a
• 15:21
  little bit of everything. OK, you're a power team on
• 15:24
  emails, we're going to focus here.
• 15:25
  You're a power team on phones, we're going to focus here.
• 15:28
  I mean, it was, it was simplifying and prioritizing,
• 15:32
  which when you're in the middle of it, it's hard to see, but you
• 15:36
  know, it was, it was incredible. Within a couple hours even, we
• 15:40
  started to see just a little bit of movement to where we needed
• 15:42
  to be. Wow, that's fast.
• 15:45
  Yeah. So you were at Yeti from 2015 to
• 15:51
  2020, but I see here that even back in 2000, you know,
• 15:57
  18/19/20, you were already working on things that were
• 16:03
  pretty advanced at the time, you know, in terms of like AI
• 16:07
  powered chat bots and whatnot. Can you say more about some of
• 16:10
  the tech things that you guys were doing there?
• 16:13
  Absolutely. You know, I think again at that
• 16:16
  time right we Yeti was growing and it has had a beautiful
• 16:21
  growth story. One of the natural challenges of
• 16:23
  course is OK, if we're growing our sales, we don't want our
• 16:27
  service needs to grow at the same rate, right Because then of
• 16:30
  course it's not going to be scalable, profitable etcetera.
• 16:33
  So here we were at that time, we just kind of OK, how many more
• 16:37
  people do we need to meet the, you know, the service needs?
• 16:42
  We had to shift that. And I knew that, and that was a
• 16:44
  big part of my role is what things are we introducing,
• 16:47
  whether it be systems, whether it be processes, whether it be
• 16:50
  AI to allow us to just do things more efficiently and, and also
• 16:57
  kind of butting up against, you know, there, you know, in order
• 17:01
  for us to, to provide the service that, you know, the
• 17:04
  customers are used to, we have to have a human behind the
• 17:07
  phone. It's also allowing ourselves to
• 17:09
  think, well, maybe we don't for certain things.
• 17:11
  What if we have, you know, the AI chat bot answering those
• 17:16
  really kind of simple questions. So it was just, it was allowing
• 17:20
  ourselves to rethink what does great look like and what, what's
• 17:23
  going to serve the needs of our customers.
• 17:25
  They might want to talk to someone on their phone, but not
• 17:27
  if they have to wait two hours. And so those are the, the fuel
• 17:32
  behind some of those initiatives that we brought to life.
• 17:35
  And it just allowed us to scale. I'm you know how we did things.
• 17:41
  OK, so how did the opportunity for joining the Womb team come
• 17:46
  about? And I keep saying Womb, but just
• 17:51
  so people listening, you know, maybe don't have access to the
• 17:54
  show notes. It's WOOM, not WO MB.
• 17:58
  So yeah, how did the opportunity come about?
• 18:00
  At work? Yeah.
• 18:02
  Yeah. I got a call one day that
• 18:05
  beautiful story of, you know, someone that had seen some of
• 18:09
  the work that I was able to do over a Yeti and just asked for a
• 18:15
  visit. And at that time, also in, you
• 18:18
  know, the Yeti kind of story, we had built this beautiful thing.
• 18:23
  We had scaled it to where it was.
• 18:25
  It was really in that season to transition from startup to scale
• 18:29
  up and it was more in that scale up.
• 18:32
  And so we built the house and then we were optimizing the
• 18:35
  house, if you will. I love the building.
• 18:40
  And that also is where I think I can uniquely contribute to
• 18:44
  companies at the most highest impact.
• 18:46
  And so right around that time I got that call was also when I
• 18:50
  was evaluating can I still be able to make the impact that I
• 18:54
  know I'm uniquely qualified for. So with whom it was pure start
• 19:01
  up. I mean, it was a team, I think
• 19:03
  A10 and they were in a little bit of a pickle because they had
• 19:09
  insane demand for their product and we didn't have enough of it.
• 19:13
  And that beautiful story of there was 1000 emails in the
• 19:17
  inbox, you know, I could live that life.
• 19:20
  And really, they were looking not only for someone to come in
• 19:23
  and, you know, help with some of these problems, but doing it in
• 19:28
  a way that the customer could be at the center.
• 19:31
  And of course, that really tugged at my heartstrings
• 19:34
  because that's what I believe. And then I got to talk to the
• 19:38
  founder and anyone that talks to Matthias, who is the founder of
• 19:43
  Wim US for 5 minutes. You cannot get off that call and
• 19:48
  not be on fire for this company, and that's where I was.
• 19:54
  So I took the leap and joined the team.
• 19:57
  So how was it that became aware of what you were doing at Yeti?
• 20:01
  I think he saw a interview or a podcast through something and
• 20:07
  so, so yeah, so they, that's how they discovered my work and how
• 20:12
  I approached customer experience, which really
• 20:14
  resonated with them. So seems to me like this was a
• 20:18
  little bit of a flyer like you Yeti's a larger, more
• 20:22
  established company, well known brand, in your own words, you
• 20:26
  know, very much a start up. You know, 10 employees like this
• 20:31
  is a little bit of a risky career move, no?
• 20:34
  It was. It was absolutely.
• 20:36
  And at that time, I mean, I really that was, it was, it was
• 20:41
  the question of, you know, where I'm at.
• 20:44
  There was definitely more, I don't say security, but it was
• 20:49
  established we had, you know, gone through private, going to a
• 20:52
  public company. There were a lot of things that
• 20:57
  offered a little bit more of that stability.
• 21:00
  But I've also learned my best work comes when I'm incredibly
• 21:04
  uncomfortable. And at that time too, I knew it
• 21:07
  like that was that's how I was going to make the best impact.
• 21:11
  I had to throw myself into uncomfortable and and not only
• 21:14
  bet on womb, but also bet on myself.
• 21:19
  So that was definitely a piece of it.
• 21:21
  But I that it was, it was scary right in that contract for sure.
• 21:27
  Say more about why it is that you do your best work when
• 21:30
  you're extremely uncomfortable. You know, that is where I'm
• 21:35
  really stretched to grow. I mean, that's it's, it's
• 21:39
  putting myself out there knowing that there's a higher risk of
• 21:42
  failure, but also there's a higher risk if I can actually do
• 21:47
  the thing, the reward is there. And in those pivotal moments in
• 21:52
  my career, that's really where I've seen that magic and those
• 21:56
  magic moments. And so I don't enjoy it
• 22:00
  sometimes because being uncomfortable, not knowing the
• 22:03
  answers, I don't love that. But I also know I'm going to
• 22:08
  figure it out. That's that's what I do know.
• 22:11
  I will figure out a way to get where I need to go.
• 22:15
  It just might be a little shaky getting there.
• 22:18
  I love this message is, you know, I've got two boys who are
• 22:21
  8 and 10 and something I try to instill in them on a regular
• 22:25
  basis, and I don't think it's landing quite yet, is that
• 22:28
  growth comes at the uncomfortable edges of life.
• 22:32
  They're like, dad, I can't do that.
• 22:33
  I don't know how to do this. And and I make them restate that
• 22:37
  by putting the word yet at the end of the sentence.
• 22:40
  I don't understand this yet. I don't know how to do this yet.
• 22:46
  And so I I love that message there because I think it's
• 22:48
  incredibly powerful. I think when we get comfortable
• 22:52
  that there's to be redundant, there's comfort that comes with
• 22:56
  that. There's an ease in life.
• 22:59
  But if we really want to push ourselves to see what we're
• 23:02
  ultimately capable of and grow into new areas, then yeah, you
• 23:07
  got to put yourself in places where it doesn't feel great or
• 23:11
  it it's super uncomfortable. And yeah, I, yeah, 100%.
• 23:15
  I have a 1513 and seven-year old and it's the same.
• 23:19
  And you know what's so interesting?
• 23:21
  It's especially with my 15 year old, she has the hardest time of
• 23:27
  being able to just start. If she knows that, you know,
• 23:31
  there's a chance that she might not be good.
• 23:33
  And my middle girl, she's like, well, you're not supposed to be
• 23:36
  good at the beginning. It's so interesting those
• 23:38
  different perspectives, but it's also just continuing to put in
• 23:42
  front of them like, OK, this is the other side of the mountain.
• 23:45
  Like see this other part like and and if they could hear that
• 23:48
  over and over and over again until they're ready to be in
• 23:51
  that uncomfortable spot, it just, it gives them those
• 23:55
  examples. So, but I'm on that journey too.
• 24:00
  We all are. It's it's a constant, it's a
• 24:02
  constant process. OK, so now I want to better
• 24:05
  understand what it is that womb does that is so fascinating.
• 24:09
  You know, you joined this young company a few years back.
• 24:12
  There was as to put it in your words, there was this insane
• 24:15
  demand for the product. Why it it's a it's a bicycle.
• 24:18
  What I mean, bikes have been around forever.
• 24:20
  Like what? What could be new or different?
• 24:23
  Yeah, I mean, it's it's that classic story, I think of the
• 24:27
  products, right. It was the IT was two brothers
• 24:31
  and a best friend. So, you know, brother Marcus
• 24:33
  over in Austria, his best friend Christian was the designer and
• 24:38
  Christian was about to have his first kiddo.
• 24:40
  And you know, of course in Europe, bikes are used in such a
• 24:44
  different way. I mean, it's it's it's a non
• 24:46
  negotiable that you're going to have a bike and then it's going
• 24:48
  to be used for, you know, transportation.
• 24:51
  Like it is one of the main 4, you know, one of the main ways
• 24:55
  that you get from here to there. So Christian was looking for
• 24:59
  bikes for his kid and just that realization that all these kids
• 25:03
  bikes were just shrunken down adult bikes.
• 25:05
  It wasn't taken in consideration.
• 25:07
  What were, you know, the the kiddos dimensions, like what did
• 25:12
  they need? What was going to click and
• 25:13
  allow them to have a better riding experience?
• 25:16
  It just wasn't never created for, you know, the kid through
• 25:20
  the lens of the child and that was obvious.
• 25:23
  And and then they start, well, why not?
• 25:25
  Why has anyone just not done this yet?
• 25:28
  And you know, a lot of times it's it's hard in regards to,
• 25:32
  you know, having the kids bikes have less margin.
• 25:37
  Kids bike. Like why would we invest this
• 25:39
  much into it where it might not be a profitable business or kids
• 25:43
  outgrow the bike so quickly? So there was just, there's a lot
• 25:46
  of things that I think are justified barriers.
• 25:49
  But of course, Christian and Marcus, and we're going to do it
• 25:51
  anyways because we want a great, we want to create this great
• 25:54
  bike for our kids and probably some other kids are going to
• 25:59
  enjoy it too. So that was it.
• 26:02
  It was, you know, not only the design of the bike, but the
• 26:05
  weight of the bike. And there's bikes now that have
• 26:09
  come out with, you know, less weight or really understanding
• 26:12
  the impact that the child can control themselves and their
• 26:15
  bike. It's going, they're going to,
• 26:17
  they're going to feel more confident, they're going to be
• 26:19
  able to go up that mountain easier.
• 26:22
  They're going to enjoy it more. It's not going to be this
• 26:24
  frustrating experience for them. So those are the two big things
• 26:29
  that really differentiated the product.
• 26:33
  So one of them is that the lighter weight and the other one
• 26:36
  is just sort of this, this focus on design for kids first.
• 26:40
  Say more about that part. Like, I mean, in my mind as an
• 26:44
  outsider, it seems like, yeah, you just take a an adult bike
• 26:47
  and you just, you know, make the, you know, proportionally
• 26:50
  smaller. Like what?
• 26:51
  Why does that not work? What?
• 26:52
  What's the difference about the approach that Wolf takes?
• 26:54
  Yeah, I mean, you can literally if you see a picture, I think
• 26:58
  the most relevant picture, if you see a a bike that a more
• 27:01
  traditional bike, a shrunken down adult bike.
• 27:03
  And literally how the kids posture is, they're having to
• 27:05
  lean forward. They don't have that really good
• 27:08
  balance in regards to the steering versus where they're
• 27:11
  pushing the wheels, like things like that.
• 27:14
  It just it, it's just not easy for them.
• 27:17
  They're having to kind of go against what the natural posture
• 27:20
  should be when riding a bike. Those things impact their
• 27:24
  ability to ride and especially that really critical age where
• 27:29
  they're learning how to pedal for the first time.
• 27:31
  If they're in a kind of weird position, it's just it's going
• 27:35
  to be awkward. It's not going to flow
• 27:36
  naturally. And that's where it comes into
• 27:40
  place. That really specific kid focus
• 27:42
  designed where they can easily sit on it.
• 27:45
  It's a really natural from the hands, you know, all the way to
• 27:48
  the feet. It's like sitting in a chair
• 27:52
  that's really comfortable and then you see them tape off and
• 27:57
  that is everything. And the stories that we have
• 28:00
  heard from parents and I've literally just seen it's like my
• 28:03
  kid was never able to or never interested to and then they hop
• 28:08
  on and start going and then they're having a blast.
• 28:11
  So that's. You touched on exactly the
• 28:15
  problem that we're having in our household is my 8 and 10 year
• 28:18
  old boys, no interest. You know, we had bikes with
• 28:23
  training wheels for them years ago and they would occasionally
• 28:26
  get on those. But as soon as we proposed
• 28:30
  removing the training wheels, we weren't able to get very far
• 28:34
  with them. And somebody said, oh, get a
• 28:36
  balance bike. And I don't know, maybe at that
• 28:38
  point they were too big for a balance bike or, but they didn't
• 28:42
  show an interest in that either. This, this certainly isn't your
• 28:45
  problem to solve, is how do you motivate a kid who doesn't even
• 28:48
  want to try? But maybe, you know, sitting in
• 28:50
  the seat that you're in, you would have some advice for folks
• 28:53
  like myself? Yeah, absolutely.
• 28:56
  I think I mean just #1 exposure to it.
• 28:58
  So, you know, that's, we do a lot of just, you know, community
• 29:02
  rides and you'll see a lot of like independent bike stores
• 29:05
  that do the same thing just so just exposure of going out
• 29:09
  biking. And so I'd say from like the
• 29:11
  spark of the interest, like, you know, whether if their friends
• 29:14
  aren't into it, like when we go to a bike park and we just go,
• 29:18
  you know, to a park in general where there's going to be some
• 29:20
  kind of cycling activity. So the exposure of the bike.
• 29:24
  But literally, I mean, I would pop them on a womb.
• 29:28
  Like literally it's just, it's just.
• 29:33
  Is it really that different from a traditional bike?
• 29:38
  It, it's, it's easier for them to balance.
• 29:40
  I mean, 'cause that's The thing is like, we never even got to
• 29:42
  the point where, you know, they could go on their own.
• 29:45
  Like, you know, here I am, you know, feeling like a decrepit
• 29:48
  old man, like running behind him, like, you know, holding on
• 29:51
  to the seat with my hand holding, holding my back.
• 29:53
  And so that that that goes away with the womb bike.
• 29:58
  It goes away. I mean, it's just, I know it's
• 30:01
  hard until you see it, but at night and sometimes I become,
• 30:05
  you know, I see it so often. It is crazy.
• 30:09
  The difference of it and the weight of it.
• 30:11
  It is not clunky. It is not like shaky.
• 30:16
  They literally start peddling. I mean, it is, it's a yeah.
• 30:21
  So it does make a difference for sure in the amount of kids that
• 30:25
  we have with your exact story, especially if there was a clunky
• 30:30
  transition from training wheels to not training wheels, like if
• 30:34
  they had one little stumble or if just they couldn't get it
• 30:37
  right away, then they just gave up.
• 30:40
  And that's where we see so many of the kids that are like, oh,
• 30:44
  they just take off. So yes, we'll, we'll figure out
• 30:48
  after the show to get you get just some wounds.
• 30:50
  But it really is make a difference.
• 30:53
  I'd be grateful for that 'cause I feel like that's a skill that
• 30:55
  everybody should know, you know, and we get our kids out, we get
• 30:58
  them playing sports and in other activities.
• 31:01
  And a part of it is the neighborhood that we're in, like
• 31:04
  we're, we're kind of in, we're in the city.
• 31:06
  And so like, you know, the, the streets there aren't conducive
• 31:10
  to practicing. Certainly conducive like once
• 31:13
  you know how to ride, but not like the great, great place to
• 31:16
  learn. But yeah, I'd be grateful for
• 31:17
  any help that you and Womb can offer my family.
• 31:20
  We're there. OK, so there was this insane
• 31:28
  growth you because in part because you guys have such a
• 31:31
  great product, but there are a lot of great products that never
• 31:35
  get noticed or discovered. They just don't get the
• 31:38
  attention or the traction. So in addition to having the
• 31:42
  great product, what was wound doing to get noticed?
• 31:47
  I think that, you know, I I laugh because I mean, it was
• 31:52
  this was Matthias. I mean at the first couple years
• 31:55
  at wound US, he was still doing his full time job.
• 31:58
  He was, you know, implementing ERP system.
• 32:00
  So totally not this. And he was doing out of his
• 32:04
  garage and it was through that literally that referral.
• 32:09
  He sold the first wound bike from his garage.
• 32:12
  When his little boy was on it, a neighbor walked by and said,
• 32:15
  what is that? How do I get it?
• 32:17
  And of course, at that time too, I mean, this was an expensive
• 32:22
  bike compared to other bikes. And you know, where if you're
• 32:25
  used to getting a, a bike from Walmart for $50.00, right, $200
• 32:30
  for a balance bike, in his mind, he's like, well, I don't think
• 32:33
  many people are going to go for this.
• 32:34
  They don't even understand him. And so he set the price and the
• 32:38
  neighbor said, great, when can I get 1?
• 32:40
  And so that was the start of, oh, there might be interest in
• 32:45
  this. And so literally, I think
• 32:47
  Matthias just started with his neighborhood and getting every
• 32:51
  single kid on a wind bike. And then it was, it was really
• 32:56
  from there, it was that grass root word of mouth.
• 33:00
  It became, you know, in these little pockets, especially of
• 33:04
  these kind of cycling parents, that really it was important for
• 33:07
  them that their kid went bike riding with them.
• 33:12
  And they found out about this and their kids started riding
• 33:16
  their pedal bikes two and three years old where, you know, my
• 33:19
  older girls learned at 7:00 and 8:00.
• 33:22
  And it was unheard of that you can learn this early.
• 33:26
  And, and that's how it started, these little pockets of these
• 33:31
  bike experts. And then it turned into people
• 33:33
  that weren't necessarily bike experts, but really wanted their
• 33:37
  kids to enjoy riding a bike and that, oh, OK, I guess I will
• 33:40
  spend that much if it's that big a difference.
• 33:43
  And then they realize that they can sell their bike, you know,
• 33:47
  once their kids have outgrown it for almost the amount that they
• 33:49
  bought it. And that's still like that
• 33:51
  today. And so that if there was
• 33:54
  hesitation of spending that much money on a bike, they realized
• 33:58
  that that long term investment was actually there.
• 34:00
  So it was little by little and there.
• 34:06
  Wasn't like this one big moment where like a, a celebrity or a,
• 34:10
  you know, you guys get on a, a news program or something where
• 34:13
  like, that's when you were off. It was just brick by brick,
• 34:16
  little by little. Little by little, Yeah, it was.
• 34:19
  We joke because there's been some fun little shout outs from
• 34:22
  like Mark Zuckerberg. He put I love my woot meaning
• 34:26
  like those were like, whoa, things are going to go crazy.
• 34:28
  No, it didn't. It didn't.
• 34:31
  No, I think Matias put that as like his LinkedIn header, like,
• 34:35
  Oh my gosh, this is huge. And you know, it was great, but
• 34:40
  we love that he you know, that that was the bike we devised
• 34:43
  kids, but it wasn't now we're on, you know, now we're on the
• 34:46
  radar. It was it was pockets and you,
• 34:52
  you even see that today when and it's a part of our intentional
• 34:55
  strategy of, you know, of really instead of trying to get
• 35:00
  awareness out to the entire US, it's so huge and we can't, we
• 35:04
  have key cities that you know, it's they're it's more known and
• 35:08
  we we focus attention in these kind of key spots, hoping that
• 35:12
  heart will grow a little bit more and more and more.
• 35:16
  So that's how it was from the get go.
• 35:19
  Yeah, interesting story about Zuckerberg there.
• 35:22
  I had a physical product business myself once and we got
• 35:26
  on Oprah's list of favorite things and we thought, you know,
• 35:29
  this, this is going to be it. And it was.
• 35:32
  Nope. It was crickets.
• 35:33
  Like, and I hear stories that are the opposite, where, you
• 35:37
  know, people get us. Yeah, totally.
• 35:39
  And it was like, that's what sent us up and to the right, but
• 35:42
  I don't know. So the other interesting thing
• 35:46
  about Womb, I think in terms of being a product that took off
• 35:49
  here in the States is, you know, that it has originated in
• 35:53
  Europe. And if anything, in my
• 35:56
  experience, maybe I'm just sheltered, is that it kind of
• 35:59
  goes the other way. Like physical products, they'll,
• 36:01
  you know, get a foothold here and then, you know, find their
• 36:04
  way, you know, across the world. And and I don't know the
• 36:08
  specifics of it, but I've been told that Europe is not maybe as
• 36:13
  entrepreneurial friendly. It's not as easy to start a
• 36:16
  business because there's higher risks if you go bankrupt or if
• 36:20
  you hire employees and need to let them go.
• 36:22
  So I don't know. The way I read that is just like
• 36:25
  a further testament to what Womb is doing to have been so
• 36:30
  successful over there and now, you know, to continue to find
• 36:32
  that success here in the States. Yeah, absolutely everything you
• 36:37
  said that is definitely, I mean the the common story and that's
• 36:42
  I love that because it, it, you see that.
• 36:45
  So if you go, I mean in Austria the the share of moon bikes, you
• 36:50
  literally cannot do a circle without seeing 3 moon bikes.
• 36:54
  I mean, it is, I compare it, I'm like Yeti in Texas.
• 36:57
  It's like womb in Austria. Like it everyone has one.
• 37:01
  There's such a deep love for it because also it's like it was
• 37:05
  born here and and it's just a fun company like so it's it is
• 37:11
  cool to see that cause the death felony is not the norm.
• 37:16
  And if you meet Christian and Marcus like they are not the
• 37:19
  norm either. And so they are, they are risk
• 37:23
  takers in the best way. And that's absolutely flooded
• 37:29
  into the women culture. Yeah.
• 37:32
  So when you were at Yeti, as we talked about already, we're, you
• 37:36
  know, working on some stuff that was, you know, pretty advanced
• 37:38
  for the time in terms of like the AI tech.
• 37:41
  You know, Fast forward a few years and the AI tech is so much
• 37:45
  better than it was five years ago.
• 37:48
  Are you guys implementing and and leveraging these tools now
• 37:52
  at Woom? Yeah, it's pretty much right at
• 37:55
  that season where that's that's the focus.
• 37:58
  And so when we look at our OK Rs for this year, it's the first
• 38:02
  time AI, you know, the initiatives around it has
• 38:06
  entered the conversation not because you know, it's not
• 38:09
  important or available. It just wasn't in the season we
• 38:12
  were at, but now we are because it is that that kind of season
• 38:16
  of switching from that start up to scale up and really building
• 38:19
  resilience within the organization efficiency.
• 38:23
  So yeah, I'm excited about it. And our our COO who is really
• 38:27
  leading that is also beautifully involved in it.
• 38:33
  So excited to see what comes out of it.
• 38:37
  So April, I'm looking at a stat here that to me seems frankly
• 38:40
  unbelievable. So maybe you can help me confirm
• 38:44
  or or deny the accuracy of it. Womb has a 98% customer
• 38:50
  satisfaction score. I know it's remarkable.
• 38:55
  It's remarkable, that is. You could give, you could give
• 38:58
  free money to everybody in the world and you're going to get
• 39:00
  more than 2% of the people who are angry about it.
• 39:03
  Like so this is a legit a legit stat.
• 39:06
  Legit, legit sometimes we go down to 95 for the month or
• 39:10
  we'll shoot 100, but it's, it's really remarkable and and I will
• 39:18
  tell you that is I I still hop in the customer service queue
• 39:22
  everyday. That's how I stay connected.
• 39:25
  So when I open up my Shopify, when I open up my BI dashboards,
• 39:28
  I open up our e-mail queue and, and sometimes I'll pop in there
• 39:34
  and respond. And so that it number one, we
• 39:38
  have, I mean, we have just really great obviously
• 39:41
  customers. But I tell you what the, the
• 39:45
  team members they are, well, number 1/2 of them were
• 39:48
  customers to begin with. One of our team members, you
• 39:52
  know, was a special Dean teacher.
• 39:55
  And when COVID hit, he chose to homeschool his kiddos that left,
• 39:58
  you know, doing teaching and then homeschooling.
• 40:01
  And then after he wanted to still work with kids but didn't
• 40:04
  necessarily want to go back to teaching.
• 40:06
  He had bought 2 womb bikes. They had made such a big impact
• 40:10
  on his kids and thereby experience, you know, he's like,
• 40:13
  hey, I love womb you a part of my family.
• 40:16
  I'm looking for a job as can I do something for y'all?
• 40:20
  So he is obviously one of our CX team members.
• 40:23
  And so I think that is such the a part of the why.
• 40:28
  It's they not only can support the customers we're actively
• 40:32
  talking to, they are the customer.
• 40:35
  They show up with empathy and kindness and humor because
• 40:39
  sometimes it's just stressful. And especially when somebody's
• 40:44
  out working on a bike that you have to give in an hour and you
• 40:47
  should have checked it before, but you didn't.
• 40:49
  And what am I going to do? Like it's just really nice to
• 40:52
  have someone on the other end that's just human and lovely.
• 40:55
  And that's what our team is. So it's because what I want to
• 41:00
  ask you is what advice do you have for other brands that may
• 41:04
  be listening and saying, man, we're nowhere close to that kind
• 41:08
  of customer satisfaction score? Like what is something that
• 41:12
  wouldn't be overly complex that we could put in place tomorrow
• 41:16
  that, you know, could give us some kind of a boost there?
• 41:19
  And what you're talking about in terms of having, you know,
• 41:23
  customer service reps who are passionate about the product,
• 41:25
  who use it themselves, you know, the to, to be there on the front
• 41:29
  line and be your advocates that that's great.
• 41:32
  Not every brand can is positioned to be able to do
• 41:34
  that. But from your experience and
• 41:36
  what you've been able to do at WOOM and what you've been able
• 41:38
  to do at Yeti, do you have any advice for for other brands that
• 41:41
  might be struggling to get ahead with that?
• 41:45
  I think #1 figure out a way that you can give them more freedom.
• 41:50
  I know. And again, based on the industry
• 41:52
  could be very different, but you know, give give them the
• 41:56
  guidelines of, you know, here's our policies, but don't make it
• 42:00
  100 pages long and certainly don't make it where they can't
• 42:04
  do anything outside of just answering it a phone call like
• 42:08
  empower, build your policies so they can solve something number
• 42:14
  one. And then as much as you can give
• 42:17
  them freedom. And if you know that, yes, it
• 42:21
  takes a baseline of hiring people that you, you know,
• 42:25
  generally want to do the right thing, that has to be the
• 42:28
  baseline for this suggestion. But most people do.
• 42:33
  I really think it. No one, I mean, getting up and
• 42:36
  choosing to be in a role of customer service.
• 42:38
  You have to have some kind of passion for service or else it's
• 42:43
  gonna be a miserable job for you.
• 42:44
  And so trust that they want to do good to the customer and
• 42:49
  build out your policies, build out your appeasement options to
• 42:53
  just allow them to solve whatever it is going on for the
• 42:58
  customer. Say more about appeasement
• 43:00
  options. So this is, hey, I've got an
• 43:02
  angry customer. I'm I have permission to send
• 43:05
  them a bumper sticker or a cap or something like that.
• 43:08
  Is this what this means? Exactly.
• 43:10
  And is this simple? Like we have 3 layers of
• 43:12
  appeasements and you know, we give OK.
• 43:14
  If we, you know, appeasement #2 if we missed the shipping
• 43:18
  deadline, we, we should, you know, delivered a product a day
• 43:21
  later. Now, if that was for a birthday
• 43:24
  and we missed the birthday, that's an immediate like that's
• 43:27
  a #3 like, and we have here's what you know, here's 10 things
• 43:31
  that you can offer that customer.
• 43:33
  So it's just simple as the guidelines.
• 43:37
  But also, again, I think it really builds, it has to be
• 43:41
  built in the culture. If they don't see something on
• 43:44
  that appeasement guideline for that unique situation, make a
• 43:49
  space where they can, if they need to get permission, OK, but
• 43:52
  you know, make it quick. You know, they say, hey, this is
• 43:54
  going on. I really think this is a better
• 43:56
  solution for them. Are you cool if I do this?
• 43:59
  And then the leader can say yay nay.
• 44:01
  And usually it's a yay that allows quick resolution.
• 44:07
  It allows a lot of humanness to the conversation.
• 44:11
  And also it allows your team members to feel like, OK, got
• 44:15
  the job done. I was able to do well at my job,
• 44:18
  which of course fills their pocket and that's.
• 44:21
  There's there's so much to be said for that sense of
• 44:23
  satisfaction that you get. Yeah, right.
• 44:28
  So I'm kind of curious to hear more about like the customer
• 44:30
  buying experience. Obviously, I see that we can get
• 44:33
  them on your website and the address is just woom.com.
• 44:39
  Are these available on Amazon or at local retailers?
• 44:44
  Or is it like do we strictly go to the womb website to get
• 44:46
  these? Yeah.
• 44:48
  So up until last year, it was just wim.com.
• 44:51
  We were really, we were only D to C, which was great and
• 44:54
  intentional. Matias, when he started, he
• 44:57
  wanted the ability to talk directly to the customer knowing
• 45:00
  that he would also act if he heard something that wasn't
• 45:04
  right for the customer. For the longest time, the
• 45:07
  customer service line was his cell phone.
• 45:09
  And so it was awesome that the first decade of the company was
• 45:13
  D to C and 80% of their customers do not buy a bike
• 45:19
  online. And so we knew there was this
• 45:20
  massive group that we were not like making it convenient for
• 45:25
  them. And so anyway, so last year we
• 45:29
  went offline. So we are in retail stores.
• 45:32
  You can see it on the dealer locator.
• 45:35
  We chose one national partner to launch with.
• 45:37
  It was REI and they've been a beautiful partner to launch
• 45:42
  these products in their stores. And then we're now in almost 200
• 45:47
  independent bike dealers working just hand in hand with them.
• 45:51
  And then you can also find us on Amazon.
• 45:53
  We did launch that too last year.
• 45:54
  So trying to get a little bit more customer friendly when it
• 45:58
  comes to showing up where their preference is for shopping.
• 46:02
  What does future growth look like?
• 46:04
  Is it trying to expand that retail distribution network?
• 46:08
  Are there more product lines that are coming?
• 46:12
  Yes, yes and yes. So this the next couple years, a
• 46:18
  big part of our ghost story will be with our retailers.
• 46:22
  And so, you know, I'm a very big fan of, you know, partnering
• 46:28
  through these stores, especially our independent dealers.
• 46:31
  I just personally have a big heart for them because they're
• 46:34
  small business owners, their Y is so big and in the cycling
• 46:39
  community they care so much about getting people on bikes.
• 46:45
  So we want to work with more of them and that is definitely one
• 46:49
  of our goals for, you know, how to grow this business.
• 46:53
  And then yes, there will be some fun new products coming out
• 46:57
  here, which one of them is I think going to be a little bit
• 47:01
  of a surprise and super excited to launch that later on this
• 47:06
  year. Can we say anything more about
• 47:08
  that yet? I know I'm like, I need to check
• 47:10
  myself. I think I'll pause there.
• 47:12
  I'll build the information. It's, it's gonna be awesome.
• 47:17
  I'll just say. It's gonna be so wow.
• 47:18
  She's very excited about this. Look at how she's all lit up.
• 47:23
  OK. So for folks who want to make
• 47:24
  sure that they don't miss whatever this big announcements
• 47:27
  coming later this year, is it like a mailing list that they
• 47:30
  can get on? Yes, absolutely.
• 47:32
  That's the very best way. So just wim.com and then sign up
• 47:36
  for our newsletter. We nurture our e-mail community.
• 47:40
  We talk to them a lot and they will be the first to know.
• 47:44
  So just hop on over there and sign up.
• 47:46
  Where do I find your newsletter? Sign up here.
• 47:49
  I'm on your homepage. We'll figure it out.
• 47:51
  We'll. Yeah, just go all to the.
• 47:55
  Bottom. And you'll join the list.
• 47:57
  We only send the good stuff. Scroll all the way down to the
• 47:59
  bottom of the homepage. Yep, right above the social
• 48:02
  media icons. This is fun.
• 48:08
  OK. So let's maybe talk about a
• 48:13
  particular book, a podcast, a course that's been helpful for
• 48:18
  you that you might recommend to others that are listening.
• 48:22
  Yes, I like I said, I am hungry to just learn.
• 48:26
  And so this is always the hardest question, but I'll say
• 48:30
  I'll land on a podcast. One of my favorite podcasts over
• 48:33
  these last couple decades is How I Built This, The Good Old Guy
• 48:39
  and. One of my favorites too.
• 48:41
  I know it's so good just to be able to hear obviously all these
• 48:46
  stories of building these businesses, but I really
• 48:49
  appreciate too that you hear all the struggles.
• 48:53
  So not only do you get to learn from the struggles, but you also
• 48:57
  it's the reminder that it is a part of it.
• 48:59
  It's a non negotiable when you're building something that
• 49:02
  most people haven't built yet, so.
• 49:07
  Let's talk about a serious challenge that you've overcome,
• 49:10
  April. What?
• 49:11
  What was it? Whether it was personal or
• 49:13
  professional, how did you get through it and and what did you
• 49:15
  learn? Mm, hmm.
• 49:17
  Mm hmm. I think, you know, looking back,
• 49:21
  I'll go with with personal. I think a big thing over the
• 49:27
  last several years, quite honestly, that I've worked with
• 49:29
  my mom, who growing up, I, she was single Mama.
• 49:35
  So it was me and her against the world.
• 49:37
  She was very, very much a pillar in my life.
• 49:42
  And she also was that example. She was a school teacher and she
• 49:47
  got up way before the sun caught up and went to bed way after the
• 49:52
  sun went down. And it was never a question, can
• 49:56
  I, can I provide for my family? Can I, you know, set me up for a
• 50:01
  success? So she was such a huge part of
• 50:04
  my life. And she unfortunately got
• 50:07
  diagnosed with Alzheimer's very early and, you know, and then
• 50:12
  ultimately passed away a couple years ago from it.
• 50:15
  And so that alone, that journey was, of course, incredibly hard.
• 50:23
  And because grieving someone who is actually physically here and
• 50:28
  then grieving them whenever they're no longer physically
• 50:30
  here. So that process was incredibly
• 50:34
  challenging and I think the IT was challenging to figure out
• 50:41
  how to do that. I was her caretaker through her
• 50:44
  Alzheimer's and making sure that she was, you know, at a place
• 50:49
  that could get provide. So there was a lot of it, you
• 50:52
  know, obviously involvement. How do I do that and also show
• 50:56
  up for my team and not let it disrupt, but also it was a part
• 51:06
  of what I was going through. So what does that look like as a
• 51:09
  leader to allow them to understand what's going on?
• 51:15
  That was really hard to figure out how to balance because they
• 51:18
  were looking at me to be the lighthouse of the challenges we
• 51:22
  were going on with work. And I'm pretty good at
• 51:26
  compartmentalizing, maybe to a fault, but I also, I didn't
• 51:32
  think that was necessarily the right way to lead and to ignore
• 51:36
  everything going on in my personal life.
• 51:38
  So that was one of the big lessons I learned as a leader.
• 51:43
  I chose to, you know, it wasn't a conversation, an everyday
• 51:47
  stand up by any means, but they, they knew my journey that I was
• 51:52
  on and they very much supported me through it.
• 51:58
  And I think in return, it created a space where they were
• 52:02
  going through struggles. They allowed me to understand
• 52:05
  what was going on and I could support them.
• 52:07
  So, so, yeah. So it was incredibly hard.
• 52:11
  It was a huge challenge. But gosh, it's so being on the
• 52:16
  other side of that mountain. I will always lead as a full
• 52:23
  journey leader. I won't, I won't just only bring
• 52:26
  part of me to the table. I'll bring all of it.
• 52:29
  And I really, I try very, very hard to also allow space for all
• 52:34
  of our team members to actively do that too.
• 52:38
  How long ago was it that your mother passed?
• 52:41
  Two years. Two years, You know, I'm curious
• 52:44
  if you've noticed this as well. I feel like COVID was a a bit of
• 52:50
  a reset in sort of what you're talking about here, right?
• 52:53
  There was more of a tendency to, as you put it, compartmentalize
• 52:57
  things, right? My, my personal life stays
• 53:01
  outside these walls. Once I come to work, you know,
• 53:03
  I, it's my work persona and, you know, all my work priorities.
• 53:07
  And then, you know, COVID happened and things kind of got
• 53:11
  a little bit more intertwined and mish meshed.
• 53:14
  And I, I, I think that since then, people have been more open
• 53:21
  and more receptive to understanding that we're not 2
• 53:25
  separate people. If you're familiar with the
• 53:27
  television show on Apple called Severance, like, you know, we,
• 53:30
  we are not these, like we, we are one person that, you know,
• 53:34
  has these different parts of our lives and different
• 53:37
  responsibilities. It Have you witnessed something
• 53:39
  similar as well? Absolutely, absolutely.
• 53:43
  And I think I think more than anything, number one, I fully
• 53:48
  agree, right? Anytime it's that when you have
• 53:51
  the option to see what's going on behind you, you still have
• 53:54
  the option turn that camera off and on.
• 53:56
  But my life is happening around us quite literally.
• 54:00
  And we saw that during COVID. And I personally, I think my, my
• 54:04
  take on it is I can never go back.
• 54:09
  I will never work for a company that doesn't allow that to be
• 54:14
  able to show up as your wholesale.
• 54:16
  To me, it became from a nice to have to a non negotiable because
• 54:22
  again, I seen what's on the other side of it and it that's
• 54:28
  where the magic happens. That's where the the teamwork
• 54:31
  happens. That's where you thrive.
• 54:35
  And it doesn't mean that it's not hard.
• 54:37
  I mean, bless it, I think all of us can there.
• 54:41
  It is not easy. Sometimes it is so much easier
• 54:43
  to shut the door, but then again, you shut the door,
• 54:49
  there's someone on the other side of it.
• 54:52
  So I'll either, I mean, for me, for future companies I'll work
• 54:56
  for, it has to be there or future companies that I'll
• 55:00
  create one day it will be there. And if I'm ever, you know, I, I
• 55:04
  will always champion for that. So.
• 55:07
  Yeah, I, I tip my hat to you for making the ultimate decision to
• 55:11
  approach it in the way that you did.
• 55:14
  Not only was it helpful for you at that time, so you didn't have
• 55:17
  to keep it quite so bottled up, you know, it also gave your team
• 55:22
  members the ability to support you to be an ear, a shoulder to
• 55:28
  help fill in, you know, with some work gaps when it was
• 55:31
  needed. But yeah, and I think you said
• 55:33
  it well, like it also gave them permission for whatever it is
• 55:37
  that they're going through that, you know, they can give voice to
• 55:40
  it. And it's, it's precisely the
• 55:41
  same reason why I ask this kind of question on the show is
• 55:45
  because I want others to hear, Oh, I'm not alone, right?
• 55:50
  Like I have gone through something like that too.
• 55:53
  And and so this this next follow up question I want to ask you is
• 55:58
  also helpful for people to hear, you know, people who are still
• 56:01
  going through the dark tunnel part of it.
• 56:03
  What were some things that you were able to do at that time to
• 56:09
  give you peace, to give you strength?
• 56:10
  Who or what were you able to lean on?
• 56:15
  I think a, a, a part of that during that time it like I
• 56:19
  mentioned, it's, it's, it's leaning on your team.
• 56:23
  And I, I did that. I asked for support because at
• 56:28
  the end of the day too, I'm very, we have businesses to run,
• 56:33
  we have things have to get done. I mean, these goals, no matter
• 56:39
  what is going on, we also have a responsibility to deliver.
• 56:44
  But we have a choice in how we deliver it.
• 56:47
  And I think that's where it doesn't have to be one way.
• 56:50
  I don't have to be the one to ultimately do XY and Z.
• 56:56
  If I built my team up right, they should be a part of it
• 57:00
  actively, but also at times like that's an opportunity for them
• 57:03
  to step up. And I saw that.
• 57:07
  I saw people, you know, part of my team members that rose to,
• 57:11
  they weren't expecting to rose there, but like they needed to
• 57:15
  and I need to be gone. And there was an emergency.
• 57:17
  Like there wasn't a choice and they stepped up.
• 57:19
  You know what they are so much, I mean better for it and they,
• 57:24
  and that was a moment of their career.
• 57:26
  So I think that's that was a part of it.
• 57:29
  It was really not only allowing the team to see what was
• 57:33
  happening, but also to ask for their support in it.
• 57:38
  And we got the job done. And that was the coolest part
• 57:41
  and probably better than it would have been in the 1st place
• 57:46
  by allowing ourselves to work together to make it happen.
• 57:49
  So that's that. Yeah, that was that was a big
• 57:52
  part of getting through it. Any daily habits, practices,
• 57:59
  rituals that are helpful to you? I'm I'm a morning girl just like
• 58:04
  I met my mom raised me that way. I was up at 4:00 AM with her
• 58:08
  growing up because that was when I got to see her and I still am.
• 58:12
  That is usually 345 or 4. That is my wake up time.
• 58:17
  And, and that's, I have a, it's a time for myself.
• 58:21
  It's a time to get set up for a success.
• 58:25
  And, and that's my time for routine where, you know, I get
• 58:28
  my body moving. I, I get the coffee made as
• 58:31
  those little just kind of those habits.
• 58:35
  And I'm a huge, huge, you know, believer in gratitude, but still
• 58:42
  very much daily practice. And that's where I sit down and
• 58:45
  pause and write it down. And so mornings between about
• 58:50
  four and 5:30 is my time where it pretty much happens every
• 58:55
  single day. And that allows me to then
• 58:58
  handle the chaos that will most likely come my way as well.
• 59:02
  So we're talking about coffee, we're talking about exercise,
• 59:05
  we're talking about a gratitude journal writing down everything
• 59:08
  that you're happy for. Yep, Yep.
• 59:11
  And then I also write down. I do long term vision settings.
• 59:15
  So every single day I have 5 things that I write in present
• 59:20
  tense of, you know, I have done and they're my goals.
• 59:25
  They're might be hags. I write them down physically
• 59:27
  every single day until I accomplish them.
• 59:31
  And so that's also right next to my gratitude.
• 59:36
  April, I've just got one more question for you, but before I
• 59:38
  ask it, I want to do 2 things for everyone listening today.
• 59:41
  I know that you loved today's show because April's been a
• 59:44
  phenomenal guest. So please hit the follow button
• 59:46
  on your podcast app so you can continue to get more great shows
• 59:50
  like this in your feed. April, I also want to let people
• 59:53
  know the best way to either get in touch with you or to continue
• 59:56
  to follow the womb story. What would that be?
• 1:00:00
  A womb story, Like I said, sign up for the newsletter.
• 1:00:03
  We we, we don't. I promise it's not spammy.
• 1:00:07
  We, we tried to do value add communication to our e-mail
• 1:00:11
  community. So that's the best place to see
• 1:00:14
  the latest and greatest there. Of course, we're on all social
• 1:00:17
  networks as well, but come, come and hang out with us on our
• 1:00:21
  e-mail list. And then I'm very present on
• 1:00:24
  LinkedIn. That's where I show up the most.
• 1:00:28
  And I try to not only obviously, you know, share learnings that I
• 1:00:32
  have, but also connect with, you know, people that are, are going
• 1:00:37
  through the same journey. So I would love to connect with
• 1:00:39
  you there. Terrific.
• 1:00:41
  And we'll include links to both the Wim website and your
• 1:00:45
  LinkedIn profile in the show notes.
• 1:00:47
  But her April's last name is Obersteller for people who are
• 1:00:51
  listening. So last question for you, aside
• 1:00:54
  from maybe any of the things that we've already talked about,
• 1:00:57
  what is it that you're most excited for coming around the
• 1:01:00
  corner with Will? You know, I am, I'm very, we
• 1:01:07
  have a new CEO and that's always a big transition, you know, for
• 1:01:14
  our organization. And I'm, I'm a big fan of Burns.
• 1:01:20
  Burn has been a part of really beautiful brands in the past,
• 1:01:24
  but he believes in experience and bringing that to life.
• 1:01:32
  And so he's very much leading us in that posture too.
• 1:01:36
  And it's been at the root of womb.
• 1:01:39
  So it's not new, It's not a new concept for us, but it's very
• 1:01:44
  much being centered at the core. And so I'm really excited to see
• 1:01:48
  what that continues to look like in big, bold ways and how we can
• 1:01:53
  create experiences for our customer, not just through our
• 1:01:56
  product, but through everything around what's involved with our
• 1:02:01
  products. So, yeah, so more to come.
• 1:02:04
  It's been a fun journey. Nice.
• 1:02:07
  Well, April, I want to be the first one to thank you for
• 1:02:08
  sharing both your time and your story with us today.
• 1:02:11
  I really appreciate it. Absolutely.
• 1:02:13
  Thank you for creating the space for it.
• 1:02:15
  It's been an honor and love being here.
• 1:02:18
  Folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories
• 1:02:21
  podcast. Thanks for learning with us
• 1:02:23
  today.