Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / How to Build a Better Business - Together with Dagne Dover Founders Jessy Dover, Deepa Gandhi and Melissa Mash

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How to Build a Better Business - Together with Dagne Dover Founders Jessy Dover, Deepa Gandhi and Melissa Mash · QUESTION EVERYTHING

0:04
Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
0:08
Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe, and each week my guests
0:12
Speaker 1: and I have conversations that put a new spin on
0:15
Speaker 1: pretty This is pretty smart. Every time I travel, I
0:21
Speaker 1: have my carry on suitcase because I really don't like
0:24
Speaker 1: to check a bag, and then I have the bag
0:26
Speaker 1: on top. I think it's called a carry all. And
0:29
Speaker 1: for years I've been trying to find a great carry all.
0:31
Speaker 1: The ones that look good don't really function well. The
0:34
Speaker 1: ones that function well I didn't really think looked cute.
0:38
Speaker 1: And my friend Brooke, who always knows good things, said
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Speaker 1: you have to get a Dagney Dover carry all. So
0:43
Speaker 1: I went online I bought a Dagney Dover carry all.
0:46
Speaker 1: She was right. My life changed. I had to know
0:52
Speaker 1: who created this bag and how it came to life.
0:56
Speaker 1: It's one of those products that is just that good.
0:58
Speaker 1: It was really exciting to find out that the idea
1:01
Speaker 1: I had about the bag, meaning it was about functionality
1:05
Speaker 1: and organization and design, was also at the core of
1:09
Speaker 1: the brand's three inspiring entrepreneurs and how they approach their
1:13
Speaker 1: business together. Co founders Melissa Mash, Jesse Dover, and Deepa
1:18
Speaker 1: Gandhi have built a brand with a cult like following.
1:22
Speaker 1: I think I was late to the party. They say
1:25
Speaker 1: they make bags for humans getting the most out of life,
1:29
Speaker 1: so I wanted to find out exactly how they did it.
1:33
Speaker 2: You three founded this company together, and as I was researching,
1:37
Speaker 2: it seems like you have skills that really complement each other.
1:41
Speaker 2: Just for everybody's sake of giving us a quick rundown,
1:44
Speaker 2: can you all tell us your role within the brand?
1:47
Speaker 1: Sure.
1:48
Speaker 3: I'm Melissa Mash. I'm co founder and CEO of Decie Dover.
1:51
Speaker 3: I handle our retail partnerships like Northstum Shopbop and Equinox,
1:55
Speaker 3: and I also handle our culture initiatives.
1:58
Speaker 4: I'm Deepa Gandhi, our COO, and I oversee most of
2:03
Speaker 4: you know, the business things, so everything ranging from finance
2:07
Speaker 4: and operations to supply chain management which has been fun
2:10
Speaker 4: and exciting the past two years, to revenue strategy and
2:14
Speaker 4: kind of you know, our growth marketing initiatives and things
2:17
Speaker 4: like that.
2:18
Speaker 5: And I am Jesse Dover. I'm co founder as well
2:21
Speaker 5: and CEO of Darning Dover. Basically I leet up all creative,
2:24
Speaker 5: so anything from product design to digital design to store design,
2:27
Speaker 5: social media.
2:28
Speaker 4: All that kind of stuff.
2:30
Speaker 2: How did you all connect? Can you give me sort
2:32
Speaker 2: of like the founder story? Sure, I guess we could
2:35
Speaker 2: take it back to two thousand and eight. My background
2:38
Speaker 2: is I used to work at Coach in New York,
2:40
Speaker 2: Coach Corporate, and then I had an opportunity to move
2:43
Speaker 2: to London and I had an opportunity to work at
2:45
Speaker 2: the airport that's right, Heather Terminal five.
2:47
Speaker 6: And I moved there literally to work at.
2:49
Speaker 3: Hebrow because Coach had its first store in Europe and
2:53
Speaker 3: they wanted someone who could be the liaison between their
2:56
Speaker 3: distributor there as well as corporate to redo the buy,
2:59
Speaker 3: fix the operations, fixed, visual merchandising, leave the sales team,
3:03
Speaker 3: et cetera. So I got to see things from, you know,
3:07
Speaker 3: a macro point of view. And I don't know if
3:09
Speaker 3: you've ever been to Heap their terminal five, but it's
3:11
Speaker 3: a British Airways exclusive terminal.
3:13
Speaker 6: It's super posh. It's got every.
3:15
Speaker 3: Long standing European brand there. And just seeing how you know,
3:18
Speaker 3: people would go to do You or Gucci or Prada
3:21
Speaker 3: or bids Cores or to me and there was still
3:23
Speaker 3: a customer who was not completely satisfied with what she
3:26
Speaker 3: or he was seeing. They wanted something that was made
3:28
Speaker 3: out of performance material so that they could travel with
3:31
Speaker 3: the bag. They could go to work, they could to
3:32
Speaker 3: the gym, they could carry stuff their baby in that bag,
3:35
Speaker 3: and they wanted something that maybe didn't cost five hundred
3:37
Speaker 3: dollars plus as well. So it being two thousand and nine,
3:41
Speaker 3: it was also the digital age of the Novos and
3:44
Speaker 3: Blah blah blah and all these other brands popping up
3:46
Speaker 3: and digitally native brands becoming, you know, having a lot
3:49
Speaker 3: of momenta behind them, and that's where I thought that
3:51
Speaker 3: there was an opportunity for a brand that now became
3:53
Speaker 3: stagnaed over and Deep. And I've known each other since
3:56
Speaker 3: two thousand and seven. I'll let her tell tell our
3:58
Speaker 3: story of how this blossomed.
3:59
Speaker 4: Yeah, so Mel and I have known each other since
4:01
Speaker 4: two thousand and seven, when I graduated college, moved to
4:03
Speaker 4: New York, got my first job in finance, and made
4:06
Speaker 4: friends and Mel was one of those friends. And she
4:09
Speaker 4: and I've actually been connected for a long time because
4:10
Speaker 4: actually I was working in finance and miserable aside from
4:14
Speaker 4: the markets crumbling around me. Because then it was two
4:16
Speaker 4: thousand and eight. It just wasn't what I was passionate about,
4:19
Speaker 4: and so I was talking to many of my friends,
4:21
Speaker 4: some of them worked in retail. Mel was one of them.
4:23
Speaker 4: She was over at Coach at the time and trying
4:25
Speaker 4: to figure out what does a finance girl do in
4:27
Speaker 4: the retail fashion world. We are useful, we you know,
4:31
Speaker 4: can you know do inventory planning and management and things
4:33
Speaker 4: like that. So actually Mel connected me with somebody who
4:36
Speaker 4: ended up becoming my boss over at Club Monaco, which
4:38
Speaker 4: was very exciting. So I worked there for a couple
4:41
Speaker 4: of years and then decided I wanted to go back
4:42
Speaker 4: to business school and I went to stay with my
4:45
Speaker 4: friend Mel, who was currently a first year at Wharton
4:49
Speaker 4: when I was interviewing, because I was like, Hey, I'm interviewing,
4:53
Speaker 4: can I stay with you? And the night that I
4:55
Speaker 4: stayed with her before my interview, I just wanted to
4:57
Speaker 4: have her help me prep right, like what did the
5:00
Speaker 4: and asked me what should I say? And all she
5:02
Speaker 4: wanted to do was talk about handbag problems and all
5:05
Speaker 4: these questions. She's like, why do you carry this? What's
5:08
Speaker 4: going on? I had my long shop at the time
5:09
Speaker 4: that I, you know, packed up my night worth of
5:12
Speaker 4: stuff because that's the only option I had. You know,
5:14
Speaker 4: she had all these questions and I was like, can
5:16
Speaker 4: we just focus on my interview and then if I
5:19
Speaker 4: get in or just even after the interview, I'm happy
5:21
Speaker 4: to answer all my questions.
5:23
Speaker 1: You're like, I should have stayed at a hotel.
5:25
Speaker 6: I like, you think you're better than long chopped.
5:27
Speaker 4: Tell me everything that want, Tell me everything exactly. And
5:30
Speaker 4: then the next year I started our warton, which is
5:32
Speaker 4: really exciting, and Mel was still just as obsessed with
5:36
Speaker 4: fixing handbag problems. And I joined her first focus group
5:39
Speaker 4: and I literally that night called her and I was like, Hi,
5:42
Speaker 4: I'm in like this. This this is an idea, Like
5:45
Speaker 4: there is.
5:45
Speaker 1: So much what did you fee?
5:47
Speaker 4: Let's make it happen. The pain point right, It's not
5:49
Speaker 4: just that I experienced it. We all have experienced it.
5:53
Speaker 4: And I went to business school wanting to become an entrepreneur.
5:56
Speaker 4: What I know about myself is I might not have
5:58
Speaker 4: the best idea, but I can was acute on it
6:00
Speaker 4: and Mel had this phenomenal idea and I was like,
6:03
Speaker 4: this is I hit another idea. It was much more
6:05
Speaker 4: of a back end operational thing based on my experience
6:08
Speaker 4: and my background, and this sounded more exciting and something
6:12
Speaker 4: that really you know, hit on so many things that
6:14
Speaker 4: I'm passionate about, and so we started working on it,
6:18
Speaker 4: and that's where Jesse enders. Yeah.
6:21
Speaker 5: So I actually I didn't know mel and Deepa prior
6:24
Speaker 5: to starting the brand. I'm a designer. I went to Parsons.
6:27
Speaker 5: I won the Coach Accessories design on board my senior
6:30
Speaker 5: year there, and that's when Melissa, I think, took note
6:34
Speaker 5: of me and ended up reaching out.
6:36
Speaker 4: To me blind cold email. I was like, hey, like,
6:40
Speaker 4: no shame, Hey you want to go to coffee. I
6:42
Speaker 4: have like a business idea and I want to talk
6:44
Speaker 4: to you about it. I'm like, well, sure, okay, why not.
6:47
Speaker 5: I went to coffee with her and we just like
6:49
Speaker 5: hit it off, got along really well. I feel like
6:51
Speaker 5: our enthusiasm was like like kind of level set.
6:55
Speaker 4: And she explained to me the same thing Deepa said, like.
6:58
Speaker 5: All of her bag problems, and as a design I
7:01
Speaker 5: could relate so deeply because all the things that I
7:03
Speaker 5: have to carry around on the day to day it's
7:04
Speaker 5: like work stuff plus this whole other like massive amount
7:08
Speaker 5: of like swatches and like at that point in time,
7:11
Speaker 5: portfolios and things like that.
7:12
Speaker 4: So I was actually making my own bags.
7:14
Speaker 5: Anyways, I hadn't really considered the fact that I would
7:17
Speaker 5: maybe want to like extend what I was creating to
7:20
Speaker 5: other people until I met mel And that's when I
7:23
Speaker 5: started traveling down to Wharton where we started doing focus
7:27
Speaker 5: groups and surveys, and I met Deepa and it was
7:29
Speaker 5: just kind of like from then.
7:31
Speaker 4: On, we just sort of fit like a little puzzle.
7:35
Speaker 3: Yeah.
7:36
Speaker 1: It's so interesting to hear because all three of you
7:38
Speaker 1: use the word problem solved. And when I use the.
7:43
Speaker 2: Bags myself, I opened the bag and I look for pockets,
7:47
Speaker 2: and I'm like, how come no one has thought of
7:49
Speaker 2: this before? These are all the pockets I need in
7:51
Speaker 2: a bag. And so it's you truly did solve a problem,
7:55
Speaker 2: which like it's two thousand. You guys started like several
7:59
Speaker 2: years ago. You're like, I'm thinking, like, how did they
8:02
Speaker 2: not have this while we were growing up?
8:03
Speaker 1: Oh?
8:04
Speaker 5: I know, that's what was so like so crazy to
8:06
Speaker 5: all of us. Were like, uh, yeah, like we have
8:09
Speaker 5: to think about it all that much, really great, like
8:11
Speaker 5: how do we what are the problems and how do
8:13
Speaker 5: we like address them?
8:16
Speaker 1: How did you come up with the name.
8:17
Speaker 4: When we were starting the brand, we wanted to build
8:20
Speaker 4: something that would last, right, that had a name that
8:22
Speaker 4: would not just be memorable, but that you know, would
8:25
Speaker 4: build and grow with us and be able to evolve.
8:27
Speaker 4: And so we came up with Dagney Dover and Dagne
8:30
Speaker 4: means new dawn, new day in Nordic languages, and we
8:33
Speaker 4: really felt we were pushing the status quo and trying
8:37
Speaker 4: to build a new day not just for handbags, but
8:40
Speaker 4: for culture and companies and women. Right, this was ten
8:44
Speaker 4: years ago that we were naming the brand, and things
8:46
Speaker 4: have really evolved since then, and really happy about how
8:49
Speaker 4: they evolved in general. And then Dover is Jesse's last name,
8:53
Speaker 4: and so it was great to be able to put
8:55
Speaker 4: her name on the brand that she'd be designing for.
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Speaker 4: So that's dagneed Dover, our little persona that's now turned
9:02
Speaker 4: into this amazing company.
9:04
Speaker 2: I think it's so it says so much about you
9:07
Speaker 2: all that you use Jesse's name, and like there's such
9:10
Speaker 2: a generosity of spirit between the three of you, which
9:13
Speaker 2: feels kind of rare in multiple like when companies are
9:16
Speaker 2: founded by multiple people, which brings me to this. I've
9:18
Speaker 2: heard you say that you viewed starting a business as
9:20
Speaker 2: a team sport. Yeah, what's your advice for people? There's
9:24
Speaker 2: a lot of entrepreneurs and people with entrepreneur your spirits
9:28
Speaker 2: that listen to this podcast. What's your advice for them
9:31
Speaker 2: in terms of building a core and a real team.
9:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a really great question.
9:37
Speaker 5: I think for us, partnership is really important to each
9:40
Speaker 5: of us. I think we all wanted partners when starting
9:43
Speaker 5: our business. I think when building a core, a core
9:46
Speaker 5: team beyond beyond even founders founding partners, I think that
9:50
Speaker 5: we all look for intrinsically motivated people. So just like
9:53
Speaker 5: people who like have a really clear purpose, goal oriented
9:57
Speaker 5: and are kind of just like super in alignment with
10:00
Speaker 5: themselves and what they're like sole.
10:01
Speaker 4: Purposes and just confirming you know that those things.
10:04
Speaker 5: Work with the company and that when they come in
10:06
Speaker 5: it's going to be to a relationship, not just as
10:08
Speaker 5: asking that like paying them for their time to work
10:11
Speaker 5: for us. It's like they're actually here to achieve something
10:15
Speaker 5: that they really want in their life.
10:17
Speaker 4: As well, I.
10:18
Speaker 5: Think open minded and collaborative people are incredibly important. Everybody
10:22
Speaker 5: including ourselves, is like super open minded, very much into collaboration,
10:27
Speaker 5: and I think when building a team or a company,
10:31
Speaker 5: like you know, you go further together, but it does
10:34
Speaker 5: take a little bit longer, and sometimes things don't necessarily
10:37
Speaker 5: look the way that you you would have wanted them
10:40
Speaker 5: to look had you done it alone. But kind of
10:42
Speaker 5: keeping like the higher level, bigger picture sort of true
10:46
Speaker 5: north like intentions and.
10:48
Speaker 4: Goals like present I think are important, and then.
10:51
Speaker 5: Being flexible, I guess, and open minded about how you
10:53
Speaker 5: get there, and then to that point, just like people
10:56
Speaker 5: that are generally understanding and adaptable, like I can't even
11:01
Speaker 5: like we've done so many interviews and we've like talked
11:04
Speaker 5: to death about like what's been successful, what would we
11:07
Speaker 5: do differently? And one of the things that I think
11:10
Speaker 5: we always leave back to is just like being understanding
11:14
Speaker 5: of each other, the people that are around us, the
11:16
Speaker 5: companies that we're partnering with, like you know, our board,
11:20
Speaker 5: like each other, our employees. So I would say that
11:26
Speaker 5: that would be my advice when you're building a team
11:28
Speaker 5: and just like always.
11:31
Speaker 4: Looking at it as a team, not I.
11:33
Speaker 5: You know, like we're here, we're here together. None of
11:36
Speaker 5: us could have done this alone.
11:37
Speaker 2: So awesome, Yeah, we Lissa, I could tell functionality, it
11:43
Speaker 2: was not just at the core of the brand, but
11:45
Speaker 2: it was at the core of why you wanted to
11:47
Speaker 2: create this when you had early plans for the first bag,
11:51
Speaker 2: Can you kind of take me back and talk to
11:53
Speaker 2: me about what you were thinking and what was like
11:57
Speaker 2: what you really needed to have in that first bag.
12:00
Speaker 3: So many things and now, okay, so starting off when
12:03
Speaker 3: you were like talking about like, oh, I've had all
12:04
Speaker 3: these bag problems, I was about to like go into
12:06
Speaker 3: like all the bag problems I've been scarred by prior
12:08
Speaker 3: to Dagne, which then you know, was a lot of
12:11
Speaker 3: the inspirationion behind like the problems that we definitely needed
12:13
Speaker 3: to solve when we created our own bags. But like,
12:16
Speaker 3: you know, the water bottle holder, like the fact how
12:18
Speaker 3: many people have been screwed by a loose cap of
12:20
Speaker 3: a water bottle, Like ruining a phone, ruining an important
12:23
Speaker 3: piece of paper with information on that you were depending on,
12:26
Speaker 3: you know, like going to a job interview, like trying
12:28
Speaker 3: to pull out your resume, like a tampon flying out.
12:30
Speaker 3: Like these are the things that we were we were
12:32
Speaker 3: really trying to solve for So in terms of the
12:34
Speaker 3: elements that were really important to us with the bags,
12:36
Speaker 3: like we needed something that I'll say aesthetically, starting aesthetically
12:41
Speaker 3: the way I described to Jesse in my layman's terms,
12:43
Speaker 3: because you know, I am not a designer, but the
12:45
Speaker 3: way I described her.
12:46
Speaker 6: What the first bag.
12:48
Speaker 3: When I wanted the first bag to look like was
12:50
Speaker 3: it should be made out of you know, credit canvas,
12:53
Speaker 3: which is the same material that you know a lot
12:55
Speaker 3: of pie end brands used that people think is leather,
12:57
Speaker 3: but it's actually crede a canvas, so it's it's not
12:59
Speaker 3: too heavy and it's quite it can weather the elements.
13:01
Speaker 3: But I wanted it to sort of have the shape
13:03
Speaker 3: of a saline but also the quote quote functionality in
13:06
Speaker 3: terms of just like the flexibility and material of like
13:10
Speaker 3: a never full, a believaton never fool. But then of
13:13
Speaker 3: course with souped up pockets on the inside, I could
13:15
Speaker 3: hold the water bowl that could store the laptop, that
13:17
Speaker 3: could make sure that it was protecting and I've had
13:19
Speaker 3: phone or the achi leach because how many times have
13:22
Speaker 3: we all like maybe stumbled home at two am and
13:24
Speaker 3: tried to you know, fubble for your keys and feeling
13:26
Speaker 3: kind of vulnerable, which mean that you knew exactly where
13:28
Speaker 3: they were, you know, all those little things really add
13:31
Speaker 3: to your experience on a daily basis of whether you
13:33
Speaker 3: feel prepared and confident for whatever happens to you, or
13:37
Speaker 3: whether you feel like you are yeah, that you're not,
13:40
Speaker 3: that you're not on your A game. And so we
13:42
Speaker 3: wanted to create bags that that was sort of like
13:44
Speaker 3: the first idea behind our original bags.
13:48
Speaker 2: It's so crazy that you mentioned those two bags because
13:51
Speaker 2: that those were the ones that I felt.
13:53
Speaker 1: I have the travel bag, and I'm.
13:55
Speaker 2: Like this, it's clean like a Louis Vuitton, but it
14:00
Speaker 2: has the design of something like kind of more like business,
14:04
Speaker 2: ye in a great way, and then it has this
14:06
Speaker 2: active element like the mesh and the pockets.
14:10
Speaker 1: It's a perfect bag.
14:12
Speaker 4: Thank you.
14:13
Speaker 1: Going back to when you started, like for instance, when
14:17
Speaker 1: I started Pretty Smart, I'd never built a brand before,
14:20
Speaker 1: so I did all these worksheets that I found online
14:22
Speaker 1: that like, some were helpful, some weren't. But it's like, Okay,
14:26
Speaker 1: here's your girl, she's thirty years old, name her, this
14:30
Speaker 1: is your customer. And then you do brand pillars and
14:33
Speaker 1: all those things. What was your brand philosophy early on?
14:36
Speaker 1: What were your pillars? Have they changed since.
14:39
Speaker 4: Our brand philosophy?
14:40
Speaker 5: I guess our pillars have changed a little bit in
14:43
Speaker 5: terms of creative direction, but for like as far as
14:46
Speaker 5: what we stand for on like how we make decisions,
14:48
Speaker 5: we aligned pretty early like on what again our true
14:51
Speaker 5: north was, and like basically it came down to, like,
14:55
Speaker 5: you know, push versus pull marketing.
14:57
Speaker 4: Were really big into pull marketing.
14:58
Speaker 5: We like to create a too way dialog with our
15:00
Speaker 5: community and really like have that conversation with them rather
15:04
Speaker 5: than like pushing things out to them and just.
15:05
Speaker 4: Saying like by this, by this, by this, So.
15:07
Speaker 5: We really want to know, you know, our things that
15:09
Speaker 5: we're creating and the time we're spending on this something
15:10
Speaker 5: that's useful and helpful to people.
15:12
Speaker 4: We decided early on that we're a product first company.
15:15
Speaker 5: You know, there's a lot of ways you can spend
15:17
Speaker 5: your money and run your business, and for us, product
15:19
Speaker 5: was the most important thing and we all aligned on that.
15:22
Speaker 5: And then something that's really close to all of our
15:25
Speaker 5: hearts to think is prioritizing culture and team We all
15:28
Speaker 5: come from, you know, we have work histories and building
15:31
Speaker 5: a company that we feel like our community is safe in,
15:35
Speaker 5: our employees and us are safe.
15:37
Speaker 4: In and able to kind of be creative and.
15:39
Speaker 5: Grow themselves is really really important to us, so we
15:42
Speaker 5: prioritize culture always. And then patient capital versus VC money
15:46
Speaker 5: was also a kind of a big decision for us
15:48
Speaker 5: to make how we were going to fund the company,
15:50
Speaker 5: and we went with patient capital because we felt like
15:53
Speaker 5: that was the best route for us to kind of
15:54
Speaker 5: support our vision.
15:56
Speaker 2: It's called patient capital. Yeah, I've never heard of that.
15:59
Speaker 2: Deep do you mind going?
16:00
Speaker 1: Because my next question was about funding. I think many
16:03
Speaker 1: people would see the bigness of your brand and think
16:06
Speaker 1: that you went the VC route and you did it,
16:09
Speaker 1: So what was that been like? So?
16:12
Speaker 4: I think something that's really important when you think about
16:15
Speaker 4: funding a business because you have to fund it, right.
16:17
Speaker 4: Not everybody has the ability to sell fund a business,
16:19
Speaker 4: even though that would be very nice, And you have
16:22
Speaker 4: to think about what your true north is, right. So
16:25
Speaker 4: something that we spend a lot of time on, and
16:27
Speaker 4: early on we spend a lot of time on, was
16:29
Speaker 4: what are our long term goals, right, what do we
16:31
Speaker 4: want to achieve with dagnetover and then what's the right
16:35
Speaker 4: funding strategy to make sure we achieved those goals? And
16:39
Speaker 4: for what we wanted to build, the venture capital route
16:42
Speaker 4: wasn't right right, Like just chasing pure new acquisitions and
16:48
Speaker 4: traffic and sessions at any cost wasn't what we wanted
16:53
Speaker 4: to focus on. We wanted to focus on product first, right,
16:55
Speaker 4: not marketing first. We wanted to have the ability to,
16:59
Speaker 4: you know, balance the business and the creative side.
17:02
Speaker 5: Right.
17:02
Speaker 4: We're three founders, and each of us is different. Right,
17:05
Speaker 4: It's not just two MBAs who started the business or
17:08
Speaker 4: one design who started the business. We actually have that balance,
17:11
Speaker 4: and we wanted to make sure that that balance was
17:13
Speaker 4: able to come through every day with the decisions we
17:16
Speaker 4: made and the way that we decided to ebb and
17:19
Speaker 4: flow based on what was happening in the world or
17:21
Speaker 4: what we thought was going to be the next big thing.
17:24
Speaker 4: And as a result, what we found was patient capital.
17:28
Speaker 4: And so the way we define patient capital is capital
17:32
Speaker 4: that is able to empower your business to grow at
17:37
Speaker 4: a rate that is accelerated but appropriate with your long
17:43
Speaker 4: term goals. And so what's great is, you know, a
17:45
Speaker 4: lot of venture capital firms they want to see triple
17:47
Speaker 4: digit growth in a certain amount of years and then
17:49
Speaker 4: double digit growth for the years after. Patient capital they
17:52
Speaker 4: want to see growth, right, like any investor wants to
17:54
Speaker 4: see their investment going in the right direction. But what's
17:57
Speaker 4: great is there's a little bit less of a focused
18:00
Speaker 4: on the slope of that curve. Right. Things still have
18:03
Speaker 4: to move to the right and up if you're thinking
18:04
Speaker 4: about a growth curve, but is it this sharp or
18:08
Speaker 4: like this deep or this deep? And you know, as
18:11
Speaker 4: long as both of those are getting us to the
18:13
Speaker 4: right place, patient capital is supportive and there for you.
18:17
Speaker 4: And in the past two years with covid like it's
18:19
Speaker 4: become even more important to have such supportive and nurturing
18:23
Speaker 4: investors and partners and board members around us. And it's
18:26
Speaker 4: really given i think the three of us the ability
18:28
Speaker 4: to thrive and for our team to thrive because there's
18:31
Speaker 4: times where we have to make decisions that are more
18:33
Speaker 4: brand and creative focused rather than maybe revenue focused. And
18:38
Speaker 4: for the long term, for what we want Dagni do
18:40
Speaker 4: Over to be ten twenty fifty years from now, that
18:43
Speaker 4: brand creative decision is the right thing to do today
18:46
Speaker 4: and to have that flexibility is paramount. We've also have
18:48
Speaker 4: been very aggressive with our debt debt find financing because
18:52
Speaker 4: we have a heavy inventory business. Right handbags, they take
18:55
Speaker 4: up a lot of space. You know, the actual inventory
18:58
Speaker 4: costs behind. It is pretty significant. Our lead times are long,
19:01
Speaker 4: and so we've been very strategic about what type of
19:04
Speaker 4: inventory financing options do we have. We actually were one
19:07
Speaker 4: of the first direct to consumer brands to be aggressive
19:10
Speaker 4: with that, and we've actually worked with like the top
19:12
Speaker 4: player in the market today. We were their first director
19:15
Speaker 4: consumer inventory financing customer and we've continued to grow and
19:18
Speaker 4: build with them. They've built an entire business off of that.
19:21
Speaker 4: And so we were just we were creative at a
19:23
Speaker 4: time where everybody else was doing the same thing, which
19:25
Speaker 4: was knocking on the same you know, thirty VC doors
19:28
Speaker 4: and saying, hey, this is my pitch. We talked to
19:31
Speaker 4: all of the all of them, and we walked away saying,
19:33
Speaker 4: there's somebody else that's a better fit for us, and
19:35
Speaker 4: we were able to fortunately find the better fit. It's
19:38
Speaker 4: a little more painful, a little like you sometimes, more
19:41
Speaker 4: conversations and things like that, but what's been great is
19:44
Speaker 4: it allows the three of us in our business to
19:46
Speaker 4: maintain the values that are really important to us.
19:50
Speaker 2: When you excuse my ignorance, when you say heavy debt,
19:53
Speaker 2: do you mean that you're taking up you're willing to
19:55
Speaker 2: take on more debt?
19:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, So by debt, I mean we basically finance and
19:59
Speaker 4: our inventory through loans rather than through equity. Right, so
20:04
Speaker 4: venture capital and all that they invest equity, which means
20:06
Speaker 4: they get they're buying a piece of ownership in the business.
20:10
Speaker 4: While debt is just a straight up loan. You're required
20:13
Speaker 4: to pay it back with it a certain time period,
20:15
Speaker 4: you pay interest, and it's a nice way to have
20:17
Speaker 4: that cash that you need without giving up ownership of
20:20
Speaker 4: your business.
20:22
Speaker 1: I think people hear the word debt and they get scared.
20:24
Speaker 2: But it's interesting for me to hear that there's like
20:27
Speaker 2: a different way to look.
20:28
Speaker 4: At it and to go about things well and to
20:30
Speaker 4: the point about it is scary. Debt is definitely can
20:33
Speaker 4: be scary. You need to make sure you have the
20:35
Speaker 4: resources and the knowledge or the advisors who can help
20:39
Speaker 4: you work through it. But what's important for us, we've
20:41
Speaker 4: always maintained that our debt should be based on what
20:46
Speaker 4: inventory we're holding. So there's a hard asset at the
20:49
Speaker 4: end of the day behind it, right, something you can
20:51
Speaker 4: actually sell in worst case scenario and pay that debt back.
20:55
Speaker 4: I think we're scared. Where we get scary is if
20:57
Speaker 4: you're like if everything you know goes sideways, how am
21:01
Speaker 4: I paying the step back? And that's why we've always
21:04
Speaker 4: kept it aligned with our inventory position.
21:07
Speaker 2: You mentioned what you want dagned Over to be in
21:09
Speaker 2: twenty years. Do you mind sharing that vision. I'd love
21:13
Speaker 2: to hear about what you want the company to turn
21:15
Speaker 2: into and what you want that name to mean in
21:18
Speaker 2: the ether.
21:19
Speaker 3: I think something that's really important to us, and you know,
21:21
Speaker 3: all three of us women coming from the retail industry
21:23
Speaker 3: and seeing seeing some of the good and seeing some
21:27
Speaker 3: of the things that we felt like we could do
21:28
Speaker 3: better and we could fix, whether it's you know, the
21:30
Speaker 3: culture of it, whether it's who's in charge, whether it's
21:33
Speaker 3: how the decisions are made, maybe less collaboratively than how
21:36
Speaker 3: we certainly do it. And what our vision was is
21:39
Speaker 3: that we really wanted to, of course improve people's lives
21:41
Speaker 3: with the products that we're making and make them feel
21:43
Speaker 3: more confident, prepared.
21:44
Speaker 6: For every day.
21:45
Speaker 3: But it was also really important for us to create
21:47
Speaker 3: an environment where we could maybe be what the new
21:49
Speaker 3: face of leadership in America can look like, or what
21:51
Speaker 3: a new corporate culture in America could look like. It
21:53
Speaker 3: didn't have to be always so top down, it didn't
21:55
Speaker 3: always have to be a fear different place. It didn't
21:57
Speaker 3: always have to be a place where the intern God
21:59
Speaker 3: for did they speak up. You know, we could have
22:01
Speaker 3: a collaborative dialogue appreciating everyone's perspective and really truly appreciating diversity,
22:07
Speaker 3: and so, you know, I think that that's probably the
22:08
Speaker 3: thing that Devea, Jessy and are most proud.
22:10
Speaker 6: About that we felt is.
22:12
Speaker 3: A really really lovely team in work environment where people
22:15
Speaker 3: feel respected, where it's super collaborative, there's a ton of
22:17
Speaker 3: information going back and forth and it's not just someone
22:20
Speaker 3: being dictated to, and it feels very even even killed
22:23
Speaker 3: and even balance. And personally, I think that I would
22:25
Speaker 3: I would be really happy if we have an impact
22:27
Speaker 3: on what the status quo is in terms of corporate
22:30
Speaker 3: culture going forward to future generations.
22:32
Speaker 2: I had a friend who I really respect text me
22:35
Speaker 2: yesterday morning saying, corporate America is so depressing. Yeah, that's true,
22:41
Speaker 2: so fascinating because it doesn't have to be. I've worked
22:44
Speaker 2: in places that aren't, but they're few and far between.
22:48
Speaker 1: And I think something in.
22:50
Speaker 2: Like in our age group, for whatever reason, we were
22:53
Speaker 2: raised in a way that we're not willing to accept
22:56
Speaker 2: some of the things that are commonplace in corporate America
22:59
Speaker 2: right now, this is sort of off topic, but if
23:03
Speaker 2: there was like one that you could think of that
23:05
Speaker 2: really sort of bugged you that you could you could change,
23:08
Speaker 2: what would it be?
23:09
Speaker 4: I mean, I have one, I think had so many.
23:15
Speaker 1: I have a lot too, I'll jump in.
23:17
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think traditionally created. I'll speak from
23:20
Speaker 4: a creative standpoint.
23:21
Speaker 5: I think that creatives often aren't respected for anything other
23:24
Speaker 5: than coming in and being creative.
23:25
Speaker 4: And it often feels like or has fallen the path.
23:28
Speaker 5: Not at my company now, but like people are kind
23:31
Speaker 5: of just like okay, dance like like now now make
23:35
Speaker 5: something appear, and it's like okay, well, actually that's not
23:38
Speaker 5: how the precreative process works at all. You need to
23:41
Speaker 5: create sort of like a sacred space, a sacred environment,
23:43
Speaker 5: and then like let it kind of like come and
23:46
Speaker 5: build and and it has to be very open. So
23:49
Speaker 5: I always felt very dictated too, like Okay, you have
23:51
Speaker 5: these kind of like you have these pieces of gems
23:55
Speaker 5: and blah blah blah, and I create something that is
23:57
Speaker 5: best selling and amazing and like make the company money.
24:00
Speaker 5: And I think that's sort of dynamic of like Okay,
24:02
Speaker 5: we kind of like look down at creatives a little
24:04
Speaker 5: bit and like they serve the company something that was
24:08
Speaker 5: really frustrating to me. And I feel proud of changing
24:12
Speaker 5: our company as well.
24:13
Speaker 4: That's my big one.
24:15
Speaker 1: I'm with you on that fully.
24:17
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think I think the way that corporate America
24:19
Speaker 3: treats people with families or families in general, and it's
24:22
Speaker 3: just like a burden versus like, hey, let's let's work
24:26
Speaker 3: together and make sure that everyone feels taken care of
24:28
Speaker 3: and everyone feels like they can do their job really well.
24:30
Speaker 3: That's something that we did try to correct for in
24:32
Speaker 3: our own company, where you know, we offer three months
24:34
Speaker 3: paid maturity or patornityly parently and then three additional months
24:38
Speaker 3: of transitional time back into what you know, but their
24:41
Speaker 3: new norm is going to be as a parent and
24:43
Speaker 3: making space and time for them to go to doctor's appointments,
24:45
Speaker 3: to go to classes with their kids, to just be
24:48
Speaker 3: present at home, whether they're breastfeeding or not, it doesn't matter,
24:51
Speaker 3: just like be there, you know, so that if anything
24:53
Speaker 3: comes up, then they don't feel like they have no
24:56
Speaker 3: ability to you know, to be present and to and
24:59
Speaker 3: to help their family and also hopefully creating parody in
25:02
Speaker 3: equal parenting and responsibilities with them the home as well.
25:06
Speaker 1: That is so amazing to hear.
25:08
Speaker 3: See any growth to want to anyone mentioned Oh.
25:10
Speaker 4: My god, so many. But I think I think the
25:12
Speaker 4: biggest one with which I think we really really try
25:17
Speaker 4: to do the antithesis off at DAGNE is just like
25:21
Speaker 4: unnecessary hierarchy and you know, very stringent, strict, like you
25:26
Speaker 4: have to have done this for this many years to
25:28
Speaker 4: be able to have opportunity to be even in this conversation.
25:31
Speaker 4: And something we really believe in a DAGNE is, you know,
25:35
Speaker 4: there has to be a certain amount of hierarchy because
25:37
Speaker 4: there's decision making and you know, all of that to
25:39
Speaker 4: have the entire machine run. But upward mobility is huge
25:44
Speaker 4: for us. Like so many of our top performers and
25:46
Speaker 4: our senior team that leads the company now, they came
25:50
Speaker 4: in in very specific you know, earlier in their career
25:53
Speaker 4: roles and they just were hungry and smart and creative
25:57
Speaker 4: and innovative and just thirsty to learn and take on
26:00
Speaker 4: more responsibility and they helped build the company. And rather
26:04
Speaker 4: than then at a certain juncture when a lot of
26:06
Speaker 4: companies would say, okay, now let's now bring in a
26:09
Speaker 4: bunch of you know, vps that have ten to twenty
26:13
Speaker 4: years worth of experience doing this, we said, let's invest
26:16
Speaker 4: in our team and see what they can do and
26:18
Speaker 4: what they can build. Let's give them the resources, let's
26:20
Speaker 4: you know, give them the leadership training and you know,
26:23
Speaker 4: our time to develop them into that person rather than
26:26
Speaker 4: bringing somebody into be their boss. And I really believe
26:30
Speaker 4: that that pays dividends in the long term because also
26:32
Speaker 4: these for us, like it's still a relatively young brand.
26:35
Speaker 4: It's crazy, we're going on ten years soon enough, but
26:37
Speaker 4: it still feels really you know young, and to have
26:40
Speaker 4: the people that were there early on still be in
26:44
Speaker 4: roles where they're able to huge impact and for them
26:48
Speaker 4: to see growth in their career at an expedited rate
26:51
Speaker 4: that's in line with the way that they were growing
26:53
Speaker 4: and that they were taking things on. To me that
26:56
Speaker 4: it's a major shift. Like I personally remember sitting in
26:59
Speaker 4: my corporate career being like, why do I have to
27:01
Speaker 4: sit here and wait? Like I'm doing the job already,
27:04
Speaker 4: I figured it out. Why can't I have the opportunity?
27:06
Speaker 4: And I think with Dagne, all three of us, we're like,
27:08
Speaker 4: let's then give that person an opportunity. If they're hungry,
27:11
Speaker 4: they're a go getter, let's let's give them the responsibility
27:14
Speaker 4: and the title.
27:16
Speaker 2: I've heard you say that you treat your customers like friends.
27:19
Speaker 2: What do you mean by that, like by your email communication?
27:22
Speaker 1: Like, what does that mean?
27:24
Speaker 4: I think it's everything from the early days to today.
27:27
Speaker 4: We if you look at just our overall marketing communications
27:30
Speaker 4: and the voice that we use, it's familiar.
27:33
Speaker 3: Right.
27:33
Speaker 4: We want to be inspirational and aspirational, but still attainable, right.
27:38
Speaker 4: I think one of the best things about Jesse as
27:40
Speaker 4: our you know, creative director and often the face of
27:43
Speaker 4: the brand and the one who's creating everything. And actually,
27:47
Speaker 4: like all my friends, which like I have a lot
27:48
Speaker 4: of very like finance consulting, you know, lawyer type of
27:51
Speaker 4: friends in my world, what's great about Jesse is like
27:54
Speaker 4: they always say, like she's just she's a real person, right, Like,
27:57
Speaker 4: so when she designed something or tells me this is
28:00
Speaker 4: cool or this is why you should have this, They're like,
28:02
Speaker 4: I believe her, And I'm like and I right, Like
28:05
Speaker 4: I can do that. It's it's great, right, And I
28:08
Speaker 4: think we bring that same level of just familiarity to
28:11
Speaker 4: all of our communication.
28:13
Speaker 2: Do you think has been the most pivotal decision in
28:16
Speaker 2: terms of building your customer base, because I think everybody
28:19
Speaker 2: that is building a brand, the big issue for them
28:23
Speaker 2: is distribution. It's like, how do I have this great product?
28:26
Speaker 2: How do I find my customers? One it's been just
28:29
Speaker 2: really important for us to create products.
28:32
Speaker 3: Astepa and Jessie boodsaid product first and everything that we do,
28:35
Speaker 3: and for us, it was really felt if we create
28:37
Speaker 3: great product, people are going to talk about it. You know,
28:39
Speaker 3: bags are a highly visible product you are carrying it.
28:42
Speaker 3: A lot of people like to complain about their bags
28:43
Speaker 3: first of all, and the bag problem. So if something's
28:45
Speaker 3: actually working, they're also going to tell everyone about how
28:47
Speaker 3: it's working for them and why they love it. And
28:49
Speaker 3: we've had a lot of customers tell us this over
28:51
Speaker 3: the years about how so once sees the bag and
28:53
Speaker 3: thinks that it looks really cheap, or thinks that the
28:55
Speaker 3: material is cool. I think that the color is cool,
28:57
Speaker 3: and then they go into the whole infomercial, but oh
28:58
Speaker 3: my god, well let me show you what's on the inside,
29:00
Speaker 3: and they go through every single feature and they sell
29:02
Speaker 3: it to you know, a group of women who are
29:04
Speaker 3: just like, you know, dumbfounded at the.
29:05
Speaker 1: Same that's what happened to me. My friend Brill told
29:07
Speaker 1: me the bag.
29:09
Speaker 6: Right, So like so much.
29:11
Speaker 3: Of what we depended on at the beginning, as Deep
29:13
Speaker 3: and Jessie both said, is like we felt like the
29:15
Speaker 3: product was so strong word of mouth would fuel it.
29:19
Speaker 3: And that's the beat that we took, and it did
29:21
Speaker 3: pay off, and it continues to pay off today. It
29:23
Speaker 3: continues to be people continue to be walking walking billboards
29:26
Speaker 3: for a bag, which is amazing. Second part of your
29:28
Speaker 3: question was about distribution, and you know, for us, we
29:30
Speaker 3: always felt like we are additionally made a brand. We
29:32
Speaker 3: really want to own that customer and that relationship and
29:34
Speaker 3: a dialogue with them. But at the same time, we
29:36
Speaker 3: also know that in order for our product to get
29:38
Speaker 3: out there and for people to be able to touch
29:40
Speaker 3: and feel them and real life pick them up trying
29:41
Speaker 3: them for themselves, we would need to rely on a
29:44
Speaker 3: short list of really reputable customer service based fantastic you know,
29:48
Speaker 3: fantastic merchandising based set of retailers. And so we are
29:52
Speaker 3: in all Equinox locations. We're in all merchant locations in
29:55
Speaker 3: the US and Canada. As I mentioned, we're also on
29:57
Speaker 3: chop Op. We're also in a number of all our
30:00
Speaker 3: retailers as well, but we really wanted to make sure
30:02
Speaker 3: that our customers had a fantastic experience, whether it was
30:04
Speaker 3: getting their product within two day shipping from shop op
30:06
Speaker 3: or internationally throw some other sites as well, or just
30:10
Speaker 3: being able to get it in Canada at a Morstrom
30:12
Speaker 3: Awesome depa.
30:14
Speaker 2: I read in an interview you said, follow the rule
30:16
Speaker 2: of three, only take on three projects.
30:19
Speaker 1: Initiatives are tasks at a given time.
30:22
Speaker 2: So explain to me how you optimize your work life.
30:26
Speaker 2: Because you're in the weeds, you're the details person in
30:29
Speaker 2: many ways, how do you'd only take on three things
30:32
Speaker 2: with Diagney Dover, I can't even imagine that being possible.
30:35
Speaker 4: First is I probably need to revisit that rule these
30:37
Speaker 4: days because there's a lot more than three things on
30:40
Speaker 4: my plate. But it's actually it was definitely my quote,
30:42
Speaker 4: but it's something Jesse actually often says and reminds us off,
30:45
Speaker 4: which is great. But it's when I think about the
30:48
Speaker 4: three things now at this point where it's more about
30:50
Speaker 4: like I like to break it down by like today,
30:52
Speaker 4: what are the three things I need to do this week,
30:55
Speaker 4: What are the three things we need to accomplish this year?
30:57
Speaker 4: What are our three big goals? Right? So, there's still
31:00
Speaker 4: going to always be a million things going on, but
31:02
Speaker 4: how do you break it down into digestible pieces where
31:05
Speaker 4: you're able to focus on what needs well, not just
31:10
Speaker 4: what needs to get done, but what should be the priority.
31:12
Speaker 4: And I think something that being an entrepreneur does to
31:14
Speaker 4: you is really gets you good at privatization, and it
31:18
Speaker 4: really gets you good at like the eighty twenty rule, right,
31:20
Speaker 4: Like it's really easy. In the early years, like I
31:23
Speaker 4: feel like I used to get bogged down by a
31:25
Speaker 4: lot of the little in the weed stuff that in hindsight,
31:28
Speaker 4: maybe wasn't as necessary to focus on because ten years
31:31
Speaker 4: later it probably didn't matter if we did this versus this.
31:35
Speaker 6: And over the.
31:35
Speaker 4: Years, I think we've all gotten better at being able
31:37
Speaker 4: to say, well, what are the three things that matter
31:39
Speaker 4: for this project, or for this quarter or for this year. Right,
31:43
Speaker 4: So it's figuring out what time period or what scope
31:45
Speaker 4: are you talking about, and then what are the three
31:47
Speaker 4: things to focus on within.
31:48
Speaker 2: Those I've heard a quote before that it's so good
31:51
Speaker 2: people overestimate what they can do in a year and
31:54
Speaker 2: underestimate what they can do in five or ten. So
31:57
Speaker 2: kind of breaking it down to what are the three
31:59
Speaker 2: things today this week feels more manageable. I like that
32:02
Speaker 2: a lot. I think that's great advice. Okay, a myth
32:06
Speaker 2: about entrepreneurship. It looks very glossy, it's not.
32:12
Speaker 1: It is it is not.
32:14
Speaker 2: Anybody who has spoken to an entrepreneur knows that if
32:18
Speaker 2: you could debunk one myth, what would it be?
32:21
Speaker 1: Jesse, can we start with you?
32:23
Speaker 4: For me? I thought?
32:27
Speaker 5: I guess I was fed this idea that like, there's
32:29
Speaker 5: a point at which you reach success and then you're like, good,
32:34
Speaker 5: You're coasting. You're like, you know, going to lunch talking
32:38
Speaker 5: about your company, running the company outside, like having you know,
32:43
Speaker 5: going to North Strums, making sure all the VM is
32:45
Speaker 5: looking good.
32:46
Speaker 4: But that is not the case.
32:48
Speaker 5: I've been like, just I guess floored by the idea
32:52
Speaker 5: that like you really do as an entrepreneur have to
32:56
Speaker 5: keep learning, Like if you don't have a growth mindset,
32:58
Speaker 5: things do not go very well and things come up
33:01
Speaker 5: that you never think in a million years that you have.
33:03
Speaker 4: To are going to have to learn. I was like,
33:06
Speaker 4: you know, what finance and business are not my expertise.
33:09
Speaker 5: I'm to partner up with these brilliant ladies and then
33:12
Speaker 5: they're going to cover that base and I will be creative.
33:15
Speaker 4: But that's not the case. We have to make decisions together.
33:18
Speaker 4: I had to.
33:18
Speaker 5: Learn how Deepa and malthink and understand how financing a
33:22
Speaker 5: business works so that I can come to.
33:23
Speaker 4: The table and have a point of view and advocate
33:26
Speaker 4: for design in in that conversation as well.
33:31
Speaker 5: Most recently, like we've been diving into sustainability and I
33:35
Speaker 5: have to sort of become an expert at understanding what
33:38
Speaker 5: sustainable with materials exists, how we can build, rebuild our products,
33:42
Speaker 5: and build our products in the future in the most
33:44
Speaker 5: sustainable way. And I wasn't you know, I didn't go
33:46
Speaker 5: to school for sustainability. I went for design, and so
33:49
Speaker 5: I'm having to like kind of dive back in and
33:52
Speaker 5: learn everything about that. So just like I guess the
33:59
Speaker 5: myth is that there is one point in what you
34:00
Speaker 5: become you arrive, and I think that's that is.
34:04
Speaker 1: That is untrue. That's such a good one. Thanks for
34:08
Speaker 1: sharing that. That's a great one. List. So do you
34:11
Speaker 1: think I think.
34:11
Speaker 3: That people often think entrepreneurship means that you can be
34:14
Speaker 3: your own boss. There quotes you are accountable to more
34:20
Speaker 3: people than ever before that you would have, like, you know,
34:23
Speaker 3: just just working the job. You know, you have investors,
34:26
Speaker 3: you have your partners, you have your customers, you have
34:29
Speaker 3: your employees, you have your external partners.
34:33
Speaker 6: So much of what we do is.
34:34
Speaker 3: Based on personal relationships. So much of why we've been successful,
34:37
Speaker 3: so much of why we've been able to save money,
34:39
Speaker 3: so much of why we've been able to do anything
34:41
Speaker 3: is because the people trusted us and they took a
34:43
Speaker 3: chance on us, or they took a risk on us.
34:45
Speaker 3: And so you know, it might look like, oh, you
34:48
Speaker 3: get to be your own boss, but the truth is
34:50
Speaker 3: that you are so you You owe so many people
34:52
Speaker 3: your relationship.
34:53
Speaker 2: That's so beautiful because it's true. There's like, have you
34:56
Speaker 2: ever heard the word of boon too? Mm hmm, Like
34:59
Speaker 2: I am the because we are. It's so true. It's
35:02
Speaker 2: like anything that anybody does individually, it's it's because a
35:06
Speaker 2: million people poured into them.
35:08
Speaker 4: Mm hmm. Yeah.
35:10
Speaker 1: I love that one, me too, Lisa, give me a myth.
35:14
Speaker 6: What do you think?
35:15
Speaker 4: I think it was kind of actually built off of
35:17
Speaker 4: that concept, which is nothing is done by one person.
35:20
Speaker 1: Right.
35:20
Speaker 4: I think there's a lot of there's often like oh
35:23
Speaker 4: they did this or this one person had this great
35:25
Speaker 4: idea and built this massive company or saw all this success.
35:29
Speaker 4: It's just there's so many people that touch and go
35:32
Speaker 4: into one individuals or in our case, three founder's success
35:37
Speaker 4: and to just remember that, and I think to give
35:39
Speaker 4: credit to all of that is really important because you know,
35:42
Speaker 4: we wouldn't be here without the people that got us here,
35:44
Speaker 4: and we won't be where we were going to be
35:46
Speaker 4: maybe in the future without those people. So I'm going
35:48
Speaker 4: to piggyback a little bit off that and expand. But
35:51
Speaker 4: it's you know, there's there's so many people that touch
35:53
Speaker 4: one entrepreneur's journey.
35:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, and actually just to expand upon that, like so
35:58
Speaker 3: many headlines, right, we read so many headlines of being
36:00
Speaker 3: like this CEO or this whatever founder, and the truth
36:03
Speaker 3: is that like, well, there was a whole team supporting this,
36:05
Speaker 3: like you know, nonsense that this person was doing with
36:08
Speaker 3: these bad behaviors that everyone was turning a blind eye to,
36:11
Speaker 3: or whatever the case may be. Is like there's always
36:12
Speaker 3: a team, yeah, And I think that that's really important
36:15
Speaker 3: that sometimes the media doesn't concentrate on whether for good
36:18
Speaker 3: or for bad. But just like that's a story that
36:20
Speaker 3: should really be told.
36:21
Speaker 2: You're so right, Even like with athletes, celebrities, with anything,
36:25
Speaker 2: there's always a group of people.
36:27
Speaker 1: It's never just one person. Yeah.
36:29
Speaker 3: People just love to believe this like completely not realistic
36:32
Speaker 3: story about how this person just like appeared out of
36:35
Speaker 3: nowhere and was like some genius or whatever. And it's like,
36:37
Speaker 3: that's just not how reality works. We all feed off
36:40
Speaker 3: of each other and come up with the best solutions,
36:42
Speaker 3: and sure, maybe one person gets a spot like more,
36:44
Speaker 3: but like it's just not reality.
36:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, so well said, Okay, I do a little rapid fire.
36:49
Speaker 1: So because there's three of you, it's going to be
36:52
Speaker 1: extra rapid. Let's do the same order if we can, so,
36:56
Speaker 1: Jack and Melissadiba okay. And on the go item that
37:00
Speaker 1: you could not live without.
37:02
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, my on the go item that my
37:03
Speaker 5: beat on my beats Honestly, I carry those with me
37:07
Speaker 5: in every single bag. I switched from my AirPods because
37:10
Speaker 5: I lost them, and I'm loving, like this round sound awesome.
37:14
Speaker 3: I am so lame my phone. I'm sorry.
37:17
Speaker 6: There's nothing else I can say. I rely for ever,
37:21
Speaker 6: my contigo water bottle.
37:22
Speaker 4: It's a straw water bottle, which is like what makes
37:25
Speaker 4: it unique. I was horrible at hydrating and then I
37:29
Speaker 4: found a water bottle with a straw.
37:31
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you each your secret talent,
37:33
Speaker 2: but I think it's more fun to ask each other.
37:36
Speaker 2: So Jesse, what's Deepa's secret talent?
37:39
Speaker 5: Deepa can go longer than anyone I've ever met in
37:43
Speaker 5: my life. Like, if we're in a meeting like Deepa
37:47
Speaker 5: like or day We'll put this. If we were in
37:49
Speaker 5: a day long like intensive, Diva wouldn't need to stop
37:52
Speaker 5: for water or food ever the whole time to.
37:54
Speaker 3: Go to the bathroom.
37:56
Speaker 1: That is a super power. It's amat skill.
38:00
Speaker 6: You don't every moment because thee entertizer Bunny.
38:03
Speaker 4: Well, no, honestly, it was like my body was trained.
38:06
Speaker 4: I started my career on a trading floor where you're
38:09
Speaker 4: when you're an analyst on a trading floor, you're the
38:11
Speaker 4: one person who can't leave your desk, right, So yeah,
38:13
Speaker 4: get there at like five thirty in the morning, and
38:16
Speaker 4: when the market closed. That was the first time I
38:18
Speaker 4: was like, oh, I can go and like, you know,
38:20
Speaker 4: use the bathroom.
38:21
Speaker 1: Or that's so awesome.
38:22
Speaker 2: You ever now it's for dipa diva. What is Melissa's
38:27
Speaker 2: secret skill?
38:28
Speaker 4: Oh my god, she has so many But this is
38:31
Speaker 4: not going to be like work related. But she's a
38:34
Speaker 4: trained opera singer, and so she has this like amazing voice,
38:38
Speaker 4: and so like when you're like, you know, at the
38:39
Speaker 4: work at like the team karaoke outing, everybody's singing, and
38:43
Speaker 4: then Nell starts and you're like, or you hear her
38:46
Speaker 4: like singing with her kids, it's just like next level.
38:48
Speaker 6: It's so cool, Melissa.
38:51
Speaker 1: What's Jesse's secret skills?
38:53
Speaker 3: It's not secret, it's just everyone knows. But I'm just
38:56
Speaker 3: gonna say it because I think it's really special and
38:58
Speaker 3: it's something that we should aspire to be. But she's
39:00
Speaker 3: just so incredibly open to being better in everything, right,
39:05
Speaker 3: and like she does so much self learning, she does
39:07
Speaker 3: so much self reflection. She does so much like asking
39:11
Speaker 3: other people about what I can do to, you know,
39:13
Speaker 3: to maybe see some things I don't see about myself.
39:16
Speaker 3: And you don't meet a lot of people like that
39:18
Speaker 3: who are so willing to adapt and so willing to adjust,
39:22
Speaker 3: and so willing to be vulnerable to themselves about things
39:25
Speaker 3: that maybe they're unaware that they're doing or being perceived by.
39:28
Speaker 3: But I think it's a really special human quality and
39:31
Speaker 3: trait and I wish that everyone were like that because
39:34
Speaker 3: I think we'd all be better for it.
39:36
Speaker 2: Also, such a special trait in a leader, because so
39:39
Speaker 2: many leaders I know like put on such a hard exterior. Yeah,
39:44
Speaker 2: it inspires vulnerability in everybody else.
39:47
Speaker 1: It's really it is special.
39:49
Speaker 4: Thank you.
39:49
Speaker 2: Okay, So I have a card deck of fifty two
39:51
Speaker 2: questions for deeper conversation. It's my entrepreneurial venture that just draft.
40:00
Speaker 4: Thank you.
40:00
Speaker 2: I'm going to ask each of you a different one DEPA.
40:03
Speaker 2: You first tell me when.
40:03
Speaker 3: To stop stop?
40:05
Speaker 1: Which temptation do you try the hardest to resist?
40:08
Speaker 6: To interrupt people.
40:11
Speaker 4: Talk to talk to talk, Like I just I get
40:14
Speaker 4: so excited and I'm like, I just have to and
40:16
Speaker 4: so yeah, then I end up interrupting people and that's rude,
40:19
Speaker 4: and I try not to be rude.
40:21
Speaker 1: You're you're full of life.
40:23
Speaker 6: I love it.
40:24
Speaker 1: Okay, Well that said, Okay, su, what is your defining characteristic?
40:31
Speaker 3: Oh? Actually, can can justin Pepa answer this? I don't.
40:34
Speaker 3: I don't know.
40:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's hard to answer on your.
40:36
Speaker 4: Line, that's like super hard to answer for yourself. Okay,
40:39
Speaker 4: she's a connector connector. I like she and if I
40:43
Speaker 4: if I didn't fit into the opera thing, I would
40:45
Speaker 4: talk about her. Like, her superpower is she's able to
40:49
Speaker 4: just connect with people, find people, run a connection down
40:54
Speaker 4: if you needed to. But like, she is just a connector.
40:57
Speaker 4: Like if you say to her, I want before we
41:00
Speaker 4: even finish the sentence, she's like, I know seventy people
41:02
Speaker 4: and they've all gotten messages about you. Yeah, she brings
41:06
Speaker 4: people together and she connects people.
41:08
Speaker 1: That means you're able to really see people. That's a superpower.
41:12
Speaker 3: Thanks guys.
41:13
Speaker 2: Okay, yes, okay. What would younger you not believe about
41:16
Speaker 2: your life today?
41:17
Speaker 4: Ooh, that's good. Younger me would not believe.
41:23
Speaker 5: That I would be thirty four years old, living with
41:27
Speaker 5: my best friend, helping her raise her daughter, while running
41:32
Speaker 5: my company, trying to live an inspired life and travel
41:36
Speaker 5: and stay connected and with my friends.
41:39
Speaker 4: And family all at once.
41:41
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Okay.
41:43
Speaker 2: A book that changed your life or something you think
41:45
Speaker 2: everyone should read.
41:47
Speaker 4: Mine is definitely the Motivation Manifesto.
41:50
Speaker 5: I like it's an oldie bud goodie by Brandon Burchard,
41:54
Speaker 5: Like just I pick it up every now and then
41:56
Speaker 5: just when I need a little like kick in the
41:58
Speaker 5: pants to be like, Okay, what inspires you?
42:00
Speaker 4: Why are you here? What are you living for? It
42:03
Speaker 4: kind of just like gets me back and aligned and
42:06
Speaker 4: energize in our life.
42:08
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
42:10
Speaker 3: My favorite book for many years has been Tony Chay's
42:13
Speaker 3: Delivering Happiness, and it made such an impression on me
42:17
Speaker 3: when I read it. I think it was twenty ten
42:18
Speaker 3: when I read it, but it was just a whole
42:20
Speaker 3: new way of thinking about how to serve with customers
42:23
Speaker 3: and leveling off what the status quo should look like
42:26
Speaker 3: and feel like. And I think any sort of stategy,
42:29
Speaker 3: sort of process or anything like status quo in our
42:32
Speaker 3: society that just no one's bothered to think about, how
42:34
Speaker 3: can I make this better and make it a delightful experience?
42:37
Speaker 3: Whenever someone does that, and hopefully we've done that for
42:40
Speaker 3: bag so I hope we have. It's always just so
42:42
Speaker 3: fun to hear the story and to hear how they
42:44
Speaker 3: did it and how they changed the status quo.
42:47
Speaker 2: It's so interesting you say that, because when Diepo was
42:50
Speaker 2: describing the customer service, all I could think about was
42:54
Speaker 2: the Zappo's apartment building in Las Vegas that I went
42:58
Speaker 2: to and Tony was there and he had his backpack on,
43:01
Speaker 2: and like, if you go, you can. There's customer service
43:05
Speaker 2: people working there, living there and they're just hanging out.
43:11
Speaker 4: This is crazy.
43:11
Speaker 1: I'd never seen anything like it.
43:14
Speaker 4: That's so cool.
43:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that makes total sense. TIPA, how about you?
43:17
Speaker 4: I would say any honestly, anything Adam Grant, but I
43:21
Speaker 4: think specifically really like give and Take was the one
43:24
Speaker 4: that it really just resonated with me and remind and
43:28
Speaker 4: it always reminds me like when I'm having moments and
43:31
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, why do I feel like I'm just
43:32
Speaker 4: emotionally dreamed. Because also being a founder, being an entrepreneur,
43:36
Speaker 4: being in a leadership role can be really you can
43:38
Speaker 4: feel like you're giving a lot and then you take
43:40
Speaker 4: a moment and you say no, But also like who's
43:42
Speaker 4: who's giving to me right? And making sure there's that balance.
43:44
Speaker 4: And I think something you really strive for at DAGNY
43:47
Speaker 4: is to hire people that have that give and take
43:50
Speaker 4: mentality and are really there to support each other and
43:53
Speaker 4: work with each other.
43:54
Speaker 2: So I ask everybody this question, what is the smartest
43:57
Speaker 2: decision you've ever made? Jesse, I'd love to start with you.
44:00
Speaker 5: Oh, smartest decision I've ever made, honestly, taking a risk
44:06
Speaker 5: and starting my company with two women that I found
44:10
Speaker 5: to be very intelligent, smart, interesting, driven people, but I
44:14
Speaker 5: didn't actually know at that time, and it was a
44:18
Speaker 5: big I mean for me, it was a big career risk,
44:21
Speaker 5: and I didn't.
44:22
Speaker 4: Have a lot of support in that decision.
44:24
Speaker 5: It was really a solo choice that I made that
44:27
Speaker 5: really has paid off in more way, more ways than.
44:31
Speaker 1: One illowed your gut m.
44:36
Speaker 3: I think I think the biggest decision that I made
44:39
Speaker 3: was was going to business school. It was not on
44:41
Speaker 3: my radar at all.
44:42
Speaker 6: I am not a.
44:43
Speaker 3: Traditional MBA in the slightest I had, you know, the
44:46
Speaker 3: Lord's background, and then I decided what I thought about
44:50
Speaker 3: Dad made that like, I need formal business training in
44:52
Speaker 3: order for this to be successful. And it just opened
44:55
Speaker 3: so many doors in terms of the amazing support from
44:58
Speaker 3: the school, in terms of who was willing to take
45:00
Speaker 3: our calls, who was willing to you know, answer us,
45:02
Speaker 3: who was willing to give us a meeting setting, a
45:04
Speaker 3: factory visits, whatever it may be. And I'm just forever
45:07
Speaker 3: grateful for my husband boyfriend at the time, but my
45:10
Speaker 3: husband who suggested that that would be great, awesome depa.
45:15
Speaker 4: I'd say, quitting my job in finance. You know, it
45:18
Speaker 4: was a big even to this day, it was like
45:20
Speaker 4: a big decision, Right, you get excited, you get go
45:23
Speaker 4: work at one of the it was working at Leaman Brothers,
45:25
Speaker 4: which rip but at the time, right it was one
45:28
Speaker 4: of the biggest investment banks in the world. It was
45:30
Speaker 4: a prestigious job. To get out of college and to
45:32
Speaker 4: walk away from that, take a massive, massive, like sixty
45:36
Speaker 4: percent pay cut, to go work in an industry that
45:38
Speaker 4: I was like, I think I have a future here
45:40
Speaker 4: and to sit here today, like if I hadn't taken
45:42
Speaker 4: those steps, I so many of the parts of my
45:45
Speaker 4: life that I am am the most proud of and
45:47
Speaker 4: celebrate the most would probably have not happened. And I
45:50
Speaker 4: think that decision at an early age really ingrained in
45:52
Speaker 4: me that like, I can live a life that I
45:54
Speaker 4: get to design rather than one that somebody else designs
45:57
Speaker 4: for me. And it's just there's a lot of freedom
46:00
Speaker 4: comes with that.
46:01
Speaker 2: I'm sort of taken by how deeply connected you all
46:04
Speaker 2: are to yourselves. There's like such self efficacy and it's
46:09
Speaker 2: so rare, and I interview. You know tens hundreds of people,
46:12
Speaker 2: so thank you for sharing your time and your wisdom,
46:17
Speaker 2: and honestly, you're so much fun.
46:19
Speaker 1: You're laughs. So I'm so excited for everybody to learn
46:22
Speaker 1: from you. I learned a lot.
46:23
Speaker 2: From you, and I am personally a diagnied over fangirls.
46:27
Speaker 1: So thank you for this.
46:30
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having us. This has been
46:32
Speaker 4: so much fun.
47:00
Speaker 1: All right, today is a good day to have a
47:02
Speaker 1: good day. I'll see you next week.