Latest / Clyde Confidential / The Woman Who Built The AI Future of Fashion Shopping with Lisa Yamner
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: What I didn't know was, was I as good as
- 0:03Speaker 1: I thought I was, or was it Google that was
- 0:05Speaker 1: making me feel that way? With the name recognition of
- 0:07Speaker 1: Google and all the resources and access to everything that
- 0:11Speaker 1: you have at Google, was it me or was it Google? Hi, everyone.
- 0:20Speaker 2: Welcome back to another episode of Clyde Confidential. My guest
- 0:24Speaker 2: today is Lisa Yamner. She is the co-founder of Daydream
- 0:28Speaker 2: and also a host of her own podcast called The
- 0:30Speaker 2: Fashion Stack.
- 0:31Speaker 3: Hi, Lisa.
- 0:31Speaker 1: Hi, Megan.
- 0:32Speaker 3: It's so nice to see you.
- 0:33Speaker 1: It's good to see you too. It's nice to be
- 0:35Speaker 1: in the guest chair for once. So thanks for having me.
- 0:37Speaker 3: Oh my God. Thank you for coming. It's like such
- 0:39Speaker 3: a busy week.
- 0:40Speaker 2: It's the first week back and I feel like it's
- 0:42Speaker 2: syllabus week and your kids are starting high school.
- 0:45Speaker 1: And it's fashion week. And it's fashion week. And it
- 0:47Speaker 1: is like, I feel like it's back to school for
- 0:49Speaker 1: grownups too, which is kind of intense.
- 0:51Speaker 3: It's so intense. This week has been so crazy and
- 0:54Speaker 3: it's only Wednesday.
- 0:55Speaker 1: It's only Wednesday.
- 0:56Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 0:57Speaker 1: I know, but yes. And it's been a great, it
- 0:59Speaker 1: was such a good summer, which was lucky us when
- 1:02Speaker 1: we got to meet. That's how we met. Yeah.
- 1:04Speaker 2: Yes. And it's so funny because I told you one
- 1:06Speaker 2: of my friends had told me about your company way
- 1:08Speaker 2: before I learned about your company, who was maybe going
- 1:11Speaker 2: to work with you. And it was so nice to
- 1:13Speaker 2: just finally meet in person.
- 1:15Speaker 1: So yeah, always, you can always count on Andrew Finkelstein
- 1:18Speaker 1: to bring people together.
- 1:19Speaker 3: Yes. Yes. That was such a nice day. Well, anyways,
- 1:23Speaker 3: thank you for coming on.
- 1:24Speaker 2: I'm so excited to talk to you and just learn
- 1:25Speaker 2: more about Daydream and just how you got started.
- 1:28Speaker 3: So take us back. What was your early career like?
- 1:32Speaker 3: How did you, you know, what.
- 1:34Speaker 1: Were the early.
- 1:35Speaker 3: What was your first job?
- 1:36Speaker 1: Oh, gosh.
- 1:37Speaker 2: I mean....
- 1:39Speaker 1: I let's see. I graduated from college in like yet
- 1:42Speaker 1: another recession and everyone I moved out to San Francisco,
- 1:47Speaker 1: which was sort of like when everybody was leaving. It
- 1:49Speaker 1: was a dotcom bust. Nobody had jobs. I landed a job.
- 1:54Speaker 1: I actually so I got a flyer on my car
- 1:57Speaker 1: for a gym. I'm sorry, a club. He called the
- 2:01Speaker 1: owner called it a health club. It was not a gym,
- 2:03Speaker 1: but I needed a gym membership because what else is,
- 2:05Speaker 1: what else is a girl to do? So I joined,
- 2:08Speaker 1: I went to go join this gym called body tonic.
- 2:10Speaker 1: And as I was applying for my gym membership, the
- 2:13Speaker 1: woman who was selling me the membership said to me,
- 2:15Speaker 1: I love this gym so much that, um, I joined,
- 2:19Speaker 1: I started working here and I was like, Oh, well,
- 2:21Speaker 1: are you hiring? And she was. And so lo and behold,
- 2:25Speaker 1: I landed my first job in sales. Um, The best
- 2:29Speaker 1: thing I got out of that job was my best friend, actually,
- 2:31Speaker 1: who I'm going to Harry Styles with next week.
- 2:35Speaker 3: I'm going tonight.
- 2:36Speaker 1: So we I it was I sold her a gym membership.
- 2:42Speaker 1: I guarantee you our our meet aversary is like right
- 2:45Speaker 1: around right now because it was September of 2001. So
- 2:47Speaker 1: it's 25 years ago.
- 2:48Speaker 2: And.
- 2:51Speaker 1: She had just moved from the East Coast as well.
- 2:53Speaker 1: She walked into this gym. She had this Kate Spade
- 2:56Speaker 1: microfiber purse, and I was like, her, I need to
- 2:59Speaker 1: be friends with her. And 25 years later, here we
- 3:03Speaker 1: are taking our daughters to Harry Styles together. But that
- 3:06Speaker 1: was not your question. Your question was my my first job.
- 3:09Speaker 1: I joined I started working at this gym. I quickly
- 3:12Speaker 1: realized that I that wasn't the job I wanted full time.
- 3:15Speaker 1: And so I left that job and started cocktail waitressing,
- 3:19Speaker 1: which was still probably my most fruitful career. I made
- 3:23Speaker 1: a lot of money in tips as a cocktail waitress.
- 3:26Speaker 1: I learned how to upsell real quick, like You didn't
- 3:29Speaker 1: just get a vodka martini. You definitely got it with
- 3:31Speaker 1: Grey Goose if I was your server. And anyway, and
- 3:36Speaker 1: then I actually started in earnest at a company called
- 3:38Speaker 1: Red Envelope, which was a specialty gifts website and catalog
- 3:43Speaker 1: where I learned a lot about the kind of boss
- 3:46Speaker 1: I didn't want to be, but also a lot about
- 3:48Speaker 1: the retail industry and sort of like the power of
- 3:51Speaker 1: the early days of the internet. And then I was
- 3:56Speaker 1: quite unintentional with my career. I ended up moving to
- 3:58Speaker 1: DC to follow a boy and he was going to
- 4:02Speaker 1: grad school there. And I took a job working in
- 4:05Speaker 1: a magazine, which was when I really got into ad sales,
- 4:08Speaker 1: took that job and parlayed it into a 12 year
- 4:11Speaker 1: career at Google where I worked my way up, started
- 4:14Speaker 1: out in like inside sales, calling on ad agencies in
- 4:18Speaker 1: the mid Atlantic. So we, I would get to work
- 4:20Speaker 1: every day and like download a spreadsheet of mid-sized advertising agencies.
- 4:25Speaker 1: And I'd call them, and asked them if they wanted
- 4:27Speaker 1: to buy ads on Google. And I kid you not,
- 4:29Speaker 1: I had one guy who was like, you should talk
- 4:31Speaker 1: to Jerry. He's the one in the office with the computer.
- 4:35Speaker 1: And also people being like, Google?
- 4:37Speaker 3: Google's calling?
- 4:38Speaker 1: I didn't know Google had ads. And we had to
- 4:40Speaker 1: sort of talk them through it. But it was an incredible,
- 4:43Speaker 1: incredible time to be there. The company was post-IPO, growing
- 4:47Speaker 1: like wildfire. All you had to do was see an
- 4:50Speaker 1: opportunity and ask for it. And there were not enough
- 4:53Speaker 1: people to work on it. So I got to start
- 4:55Speaker 1: the first ever campaigns and elections team there. So at
- 4:58Speaker 1: the time, believe it or not, political candidates weren't using
- 5:02Speaker 1: the internet for their ads. They were using TV, radio, billboards.
- 5:07Speaker 1: So I sort of started the first campaign to do that.
- 5:11Speaker 1: I started a team focused on US Hispanics. Then I
- 5:15Speaker 1: went down to Argentina, helped open up Google's presence in
- 5:19Speaker 1: Latin America, started an office in Miami, all before having
- 5:23Speaker 1: my first child. Um, then I had a baby when
- 5:26Speaker 1: I came back, I didn't want to travel so much. Um,
- 5:28Speaker 1: and I fortunately took on the fashion vertical and that
- 5:32Speaker 1: was sort of like my entree into fashion. Wow. And yeah,
- 5:35Speaker 1: so I, uh, started and ran this team, my beloved team.
- 5:39Speaker 1: I loved them so much. We're still all super tight.
- 5:42Speaker 1: We called ourselves the cashmere mafia. Um, and we had
- 5:46Speaker 1: to sell really hard stuff. Like we, we had to
- 5:50Speaker 1: convince Chanel who had never posted a video on YouTube
- 5:53Speaker 1: to to buy a masthead, the homepage of YouTube, for
- 5:57Speaker 1: a million dollars. And we had to convince Louis Vuitton,
- 6:00Speaker 1: who was in the middle of suing Google for counterfeit goods,
- 6:07Speaker 1: we had to convince them that they should pay us
- 6:09Speaker 1: for advertising on Google. And we did it. And we
- 6:11Speaker 1: told the story, and it was really cool. I was
- 6:15Speaker 1: sad when I realized my time at Google was over,
- 6:17Speaker 1: but it was time. I went to Condé Nast for
- 6:23Speaker 1: what I like to call my rebound relationship, which was wonderful.
- 6:26Speaker 1: I met great people and eventually led me to meeting
- 6:31Speaker 1: Julie Bornstein and starting our first company, which was called
- 6:34Speaker 1: The Yes, which was a personalized women's fashion app that
- 6:38Speaker 1: was acquired by Pinterest in June of 22. And then
- 6:41Speaker 1: that gave us the sort of the runway, the amazing
- 6:45Speaker 1: investors and the team with which to start Daydream. which
- 6:49Speaker 1: is kind of like if Nataporte and ChatGPT had a baby. Yes.
- 6:54Speaker 2: And I am like your, I am that girl. Like
- 6:57Speaker 2: I am your exact clientele. I, I think it is
- 7:01Speaker 2: so smart and like, I have so many questions about it,
- 7:05Speaker 2: but how did you, you went 12 years at Google
- 7:08Speaker 2: and then you went to Condé Nast and what made
- 7:10Speaker 2: you pivot? You were, you had this awesome role at Google.
- 7:13Speaker 2: You built like the most insane marketing campaigns, what made
- 7:17Speaker 2: you pivot? Like when were you like, I feel like
- 7:20Speaker 2: it's time to make a jump, but I'm sure the
- 7:22Speaker 2: jump was.
- 7:22Speaker 3: A little scary or.
- 7:24Speaker 1: So scary.
- 7:24Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 7:25Speaker 1: And I didn't want to do it. Google used to
- 7:27Speaker 1: send out these surveys every year. They called Google Geist.
- 7:30Speaker 1: I'm sure they still do it. And one of the
- 7:32Speaker 1: questions on there was like, do you still see yourself
- 7:35Speaker 1: in one year? And I would fill this out and
- 7:37Speaker 1: be like, one year? How about five years, 10 years?
- 7:40Speaker 1: Like I was drinking the Kool-Aid so heavily. Right. And...
- 7:44Speaker 1: I did. I loved it. I grew up there. I
- 7:47Speaker 1: made my friends there. I moved to New York for
- 7:49Speaker 1: my job at Google. And I learned so much. But
- 7:54Speaker 1: I outgrew it. And it grew too fast for me.
- 8:00Speaker 1: It grew too big for me, too. So it was
- 8:02Speaker 1: like I was too big for it, and it was
- 8:04Speaker 1: too big for me. And I would say I realized
- 8:06Speaker 1: that at year 10, and it took me till year
- 8:09Speaker 1: 12 to leave. It's like fits and stops with different interviews,
- 8:13Speaker 1: both internally and externally. I think the biggest realization was
- 8:18Speaker 1: I didn't want my boss's job. And I didn't want
- 8:21Speaker 1: any of my peers' jobs either. So there was nothing lateral.
- 8:26Speaker 1: There was nothing upward. There was nothing diagonal. And I
- 8:30Speaker 1: kind of had to come to terms with the fact
- 8:32Speaker 1: that it was time to leave. And I really didn't
- 8:35Speaker 1: want to. I left with very heavy heart. My team
- 8:39Speaker 1: will still tell you about the morning I told them
- 8:42Speaker 1: when I was leaving. We had had a client cocktail
- 8:45Speaker 1: party the night before. So everyone shows up to the
- 8:47Speaker 1: office completely hungover. And I had to break the news
- 8:51Speaker 1: to them that day.
- 8:52Speaker 3: This is the time.
- 8:53Speaker 1: Yeah. So I got them bagels and Bloody Marys in
- 8:57Speaker 1: the conference room and told them I was leaving. And
- 8:59Speaker 1: it was like. I could, I just couldn't believe I
- 9:02Speaker 1: had to do it. It was like, I felt awful.
- 9:04Speaker 1: You know, it was like when you put your dog down, like,
- 9:07Speaker 1: you know, you have to do it, but I really
- 9:08Speaker 1: didn't want to. Yeah.
- 9:10Speaker 2: That must've been hard considering you guys had all worked
- 9:12Speaker 2: together for such a long time. I feel like I
- 9:15Speaker 2: would be afraid that I wouldn't get a great team
- 9:17Speaker 2: again if I were to leave such a nice environment.
- 9:21Speaker 1: I was afraid of everything.
- 9:22Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 9:22Speaker 1: How did you navigate that? Yeah. I mean, I was
- 9:25Speaker 1: the team, you know, listen, you know, that, these people
- 9:28Speaker 1: that you meet along the way will stick with you
- 9:31Speaker 1: and you'll stick with them, right? But it's hard to
- 9:33Speaker 1: imagine ever having a team like that again. And that
- 9:39Speaker 1: was really hard. It was really hard to leave them.
- 9:43Speaker 1: But I knew they'd be okay. I knew that I
- 9:45Speaker 1: was leaving them in an amazing place and that that
- 9:48Speaker 1: was going to be okay. And that mattered to me.
- 9:49Speaker 1: So I felt okay about that. What I didn't know was,
- 9:53Speaker 1: was I as good as I was as I thought
- 9:57Speaker 1: I was or was it Google that was making me
- 9:59Speaker 1: feel that way? With the name recognition of Google and
- 10:02Speaker 1: all the resources and access to everything that you have
- 10:06Speaker 1: at Google, was it me or was it Google? And
- 10:09Speaker 1: so I often think of my time at Conde Nast,
- 10:11Speaker 1: I joke about it as a rebound, but that's exactly
- 10:14Speaker 1: kind of what it did for me was it was validating.
- 10:17Speaker 1: It made me realize that like, it wasn't just Google
- 10:19Speaker 1: that that I could stand on my own. The relationships
- 10:22Speaker 1: that I had made with the clients were real and
- 10:25Speaker 1: they cared about me and not just Google and that
- 10:28Speaker 1: I was capable and I could show up in a
- 10:29Speaker 1: new environment that was literally a 180 to my old
- 10:33Speaker 1: environment and I could succeed and find new colleagues that
- 10:37Speaker 1: I loved, build another great team. So I actually am
- 10:41Speaker 1: still in touch with my team from Condé as well.
- 10:43Speaker 1: So all of that stuff, like, and that was, That
- 10:46Speaker 1: was the confidence I needed. So it was, I don't
- 10:50Speaker 1: think anybody has ever said this about Condé Nast before,
- 10:52Speaker 1: but it was actually like a soft landing for me.
- 10:55Speaker 3: Okay. Yeah.
- 10:56Speaker 2: No one has ever said that about Condé Nast, but
- 10:59Speaker 2: it's nice to know that you had some good people
- 11:02Speaker 2: over there.
- 11:03Speaker 3: Relationship building is very hard.
- 11:04Speaker 2: How do you think you were able to build relationships
- 11:06Speaker 2: with all these various people? And when did you know
- 11:10Speaker 2: that there were maybe some people you were going to
- 11:11Speaker 2: take to your next endeavor? Yeah.
- 11:13Speaker 3: Or like who were those people? How did you separate?
- 11:16Speaker 1: Team wise?
- 11:17Speaker 3: Yes.
- 11:18Speaker 1: Well, I kind of always want to take everyone with me.
- 11:20Speaker 1: So I think I had to separate by who was
- 11:24Speaker 1: willing to join me. It was actually impossible to get
- 11:28Speaker 1: anybody from Google to join me at Condé Nast. Although
- 11:32Speaker 1: I would say there were people who reached out, but
- 11:33Speaker 1: not like my people and not people who were going
- 11:36Speaker 1: to come. Not the places, not the people that I
- 11:38Speaker 1: necessarily had a place for. And I definitely have the
- 11:41Speaker 1: tendency to hold on to people. So I also had
- 11:44Speaker 1: to evaluate, like, is this right for them? And, again,
- 11:48Speaker 1: for most people at Google, I wouldn't say Condé Nast
- 11:52Speaker 1: is the right next step. And so I was trying
- 11:54Speaker 1: to actually still serve as, like, this sort of, like,
- 11:57Speaker 1: mentor teacher to them and make sure I was helping
- 12:00Speaker 1: them make decisions that were good for them and not
- 12:02Speaker 1: just what felt right for me. And then... You know,
- 12:06Speaker 1: the bigger change was when I moved over to the Yes,
- 12:09Speaker 1: and I was like, great, now I really get to
- 12:10Speaker 1: build the team and the culture and everything that I
- 12:13Speaker 1: want to do. But when you get to a startup,
- 12:15Speaker 1: you don't have the budgets to necessarily pay the people
- 12:19Speaker 1: what they were making at Google.
- 12:21Speaker 3: Right.
- 12:21Speaker 1: And also, it's a really different environment. And so... It
- 12:26Speaker 1: was cool because I got to build my own team,
- 12:28Speaker 1: like new people who actually like now very much, a
- 12:32Speaker 1: lot of the people who were with us at the Yes,
- 12:35Speaker 1: especially my team, are now at Daydream as well. But
- 12:39Speaker 1: now a lot of them are friends with my Google friends.
- 12:42Speaker 1: So it's like, or my Google team, like everyone kind
- 12:45Speaker 1: of got to know each other and probably they would
- 12:48Speaker 1: all say they've all lived through the trenches of having
- 12:51Speaker 1: to work for me, so... They have a lot in
- 12:53Speaker 1: common there.
- 12:54Speaker 3: I can't imagine his trenches. You seem like you would
- 12:56Speaker 3: be an amazing boss.
- 12:57Speaker 1: I try to be. The truth is what matters to
- 13:00Speaker 1: me is that I have a hardworking team that likes
- 13:03Speaker 1: working together. And so I sort of, I start out
- 13:07Speaker 1: and I try to parent this way too. And I
- 13:09Speaker 1: don't know if it's right, but I sort of start
- 13:12Speaker 1: out from a position of trust. It's like, if I've
- 13:15Speaker 1: hired you to be here, I trust that you are
- 13:18Speaker 1: capable of doing the job you signed up to do
- 13:20Speaker 1: and that you're going to do it. So I don't
- 13:22Speaker 1: need to see your butt in a seat every day.
- 13:24Speaker 1: I don't need to see your green dot on a computer.
- 13:27Speaker 1: I expect that you're getting your work done. I'll know
- 13:30Speaker 1: if you're not. But you need to get done your job,
- 13:35Speaker 1: but you do it from the place and the time
- 13:37Speaker 1: that you need to do it.
- 13:38Speaker 2: Wow. And I feel like a lot of founders really
- 13:41Speaker 2: struggle with hiring, especially when they're running a startup or.
- 13:45Speaker 3: Taking this idea off the ground.
- 13:47Speaker 2: How did you, aside from some of your prior contacts, like,
- 13:50Speaker 2: How did you find the rest of the people that
- 13:52Speaker 2: worked for you?
- 13:52Speaker 1: I mostly hire on instinct, which might not always be right,
- 13:58Speaker 1: but I really want to be able to sit in
- 14:01Speaker 1: a room with you. I want to feel like there's
- 14:04Speaker 1: a level of comfortability, of obviously knowledge, obviously passion, but talent,
- 14:12Speaker 1: not skill. I don't need you to have done the
- 14:14Speaker 1: exact same job before. In fact, if you've done the
- 14:17Speaker 1: exact same job before, you're probably going to show up
- 14:19Speaker 1: feeling like you're already bored. So I want it to,
- 14:23Speaker 1: I want to be building on something you've already learned. And,
- 14:27Speaker 1: you know, it's like teamwork, collaboration, all that stuff. But
- 14:29Speaker 1: I think that comes across really quickly in most interviews.
- 14:33Speaker 1: And for the most part, I'm sort of like, if
- 14:35Speaker 1: I'm going to have to be stuck in an airport
- 14:37Speaker 1: with you or at like a client dinner, are you,
- 14:42Speaker 1: are you the right person that I want to be
- 14:43Speaker 1: in the trenches with? And that is sort of what
- 14:47Speaker 1: I'm looking for always.
- 14:49Speaker 2: I can definitely relate. I think that's really important to
- 14:51Speaker 2: me too as a founder. Like when I'm thinking about
- 14:54Speaker 2: my team, I don't need to be best friends with you,
- 14:57Speaker 2: but I need to be able to be in a
- 14:58Speaker 2: car with you for an hour and be able to
- 15:02Speaker 2: like feel like I'm not on edge or feel like
- 15:04Speaker 2: we can have a side conversation. Or if I'm stressed,
- 15:06Speaker 2: you'll like respect my boundary and kind of like read
- 15:08Speaker 2: the room. Yeah.
- 15:09Speaker 3: But also like hang.
- 15:11Speaker 1: Exactly. Or even like be able to be quiet together.
- 15:13Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 15:13Speaker 1: Actually, like, you know, Julie, who's my co-founder and I,
- 15:17Speaker 1: like we are able to be quiet together too and
- 15:21Speaker 1: then we've sort of noticed that like people in our
- 15:23Speaker 1: lives that are obviously totally separate from work really like
- 15:26Speaker 1: each other um so it's always like I feel like
- 15:29Speaker 1: you can't necessarily hire for that but when you start
- 15:31Speaker 1: to get to those places you just you realize how
- 15:35Speaker 1: how much more fun work can be if you really
- 15:37Speaker 1: like the people you work with.
- 15:38Speaker 2: Of course well that's very that's like so lucky that
- 15:41Speaker 2: you've had the privilege of working with so many amazing
- 15:43Speaker 2: people and I'm sure and I know that they feel
- 15:45Speaker 2: the same well I mean we'll see no they do Okay,
- 15:49Speaker 2: so you helped sell Yes to Pinterest. And then what
- 15:53Speaker 2: inspired Daydream? How long after did that happen? When did
- 15:58Speaker 2: you get the idea?
- 15:58Speaker 1: Okay, so we sold the Yes to Pinterest. So we
- 16:02Speaker 1: built the Yes. The Yes was 2018 to 2022. So
- 16:07Speaker 1: remember back to March 17th, 2020. And imagine if that
- 16:12Speaker 1: was the day that you were supposed to launch your
- 16:14Speaker 1: online shopping platform. And that was what the Yes was.
- 16:18Speaker 1: We did not launch it March 17th, 2020, but all
- 16:21Speaker 1: the schools closed down that day for COVID. I mean,
- 16:23Speaker 1: it was insane. So we got the gift of time.
- 16:29Speaker 1: We got two more months to sort of do more
- 16:31Speaker 1: with the app. And we launched it in May of 2020,
- 16:36Speaker 1: which was right before the George Floyd protests broke out.
- 16:40Speaker 1: And right when we thought everyone was going to be
- 16:42Speaker 1: going back to work that July, So we were like, cool,
- 16:45Speaker 1: we'll launch. Everyone will get their like back to work outfits.
- 16:48Speaker 1: You know, that obviously didn't happen. But we launched something
- 16:54Speaker 1: that people used. Like it was a personalized shopping app.
- 16:57Speaker 1: There was nothing else like it. And when it was
- 17:01Speaker 1: time to raise another round, Pinterest actually knocked on our
- 17:04Speaker 1: door and said, we've been trying to figure out shopping
- 17:07Speaker 1: for quite a long time. And we think what you've
- 17:10Speaker 1: built is what really are, you know, the Pinterest user
- 17:13Speaker 1: would expect and would learn from. And so it was,
- 17:16Speaker 1: it felt like a match made in heaven, which was great.
- 17:18Speaker 1: We were acquired by Pinterest. Everyone was happy. As most
- 17:23Speaker 1: M & A deals go, after the deal was closed,
- 17:26Speaker 1: there was less of a need for what they thought
- 17:29Speaker 1: that it was. And so once the whole team had
- 17:32Speaker 1: jobs and was placed internally, Julie and I left after
- 17:36Speaker 1: about six months and realized we weren't done that like
- 17:40Speaker 1: the whole point of the yes was to just create
- 17:43Speaker 1: somewhere that people that we wanted to shop and now
- 17:48Speaker 1: we didn't have a place to shop anymore so it
- 17:49Speaker 1: was like okay what are we going to do now
- 17:51Speaker 1: and we had some different ideas like um did we
- 17:54Speaker 1: want to just do like helping people find the best
- 17:57Speaker 1: jeans like literally you could think you when you think
- 18:00Speaker 1: about it like that feels like a huge.
- 18:02Speaker 2: Business right And, like, so specific. And, like, everyone obviously
- 18:06Speaker 2: needs jeans.
- 18:07Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And so we, like, we thought about that.
- 18:10Speaker 1: We thought about, like, different ways we wanted to start to, like,
- 18:12Speaker 1: leverage a taste graph. And then ChatGPT, like, really started
- 18:18Speaker 1: to gain some fire. And we saw the power of
- 18:21Speaker 1: it and what it could do. And we realized that
- 18:24Speaker 1: that was the technology that we thought we were building
- 18:26Speaker 1: for when we had the S. And we finally had it.
- 18:29Speaker 1: And then we finally had it. And so we really
- 18:31Speaker 1: wanted to design... a platform that leaned into technology and
- 18:36Speaker 1: helped people. I guess the point is that Daydream was
- 18:40Speaker 1: never about like, oh, cool, let's build an AI shopping platform.
- 18:44Speaker 1: It was like, let's help people shop better, and now
- 18:46Speaker 1: we have all this technology that's going to help us
- 18:48Speaker 1: do it. And so we kind of set to work.
- 18:51Speaker 1: We laid out the plans of what we were going
- 18:53Speaker 1: to do, what we were not going to do that
- 18:55Speaker 1: we had done at the Yes, how we wanted to
- 18:56Speaker 1: really do it differently, And then we started talking to
- 19:00Speaker 1: our brand partners who were all like, yes, you know,
- 19:02Speaker 1: we've been dying since the yes left. And now we're
- 19:05Speaker 1: excited to be able to join a new platform. And
- 19:07Speaker 1: so and then our investors, of course, we raised money
- 19:12Speaker 1: from two investors that had been involved in the yes
- 19:15Speaker 1: and then brought in two new ones. And so like
- 19:17Speaker 1: that's been really fun to get to do that, too.
- 19:20Speaker 2: And you convinced people to invest 50 million into Daydream
- 19:25Speaker 2: before you guys launched Daydream.
- 19:27Speaker 1: Before we had a product.
- 19:28Speaker 3: Before you had a product. So not many people can
- 19:32Speaker 3: do that. How did you do that?
- 19:35Speaker 2: Obviously, you can credit a lot of your relationships, but
- 19:39Speaker 2: that is a superpower.
- 19:40Speaker 1: I think it's the relationships. And I think relationships are
- 19:44Speaker 1: a superpower. I really do. like it's funny because when
- 19:47Speaker 1: I had that first job in sales at the health
- 19:49Speaker 1: club um I was like I don't want to work
- 19:53Speaker 1: in sales and sales felt like a dirty word and
- 19:56Speaker 1: even when I took the job at Google that was
- 19:58Speaker 1: an ad sales job it still didn't I was like
- 20:01Speaker 1: I didn't think I wanted to work in sales like
- 20:03Speaker 1: there was no that wasn't what it felt like I
- 20:06Speaker 1: wanted to do it didn't feel sexy it And what
- 20:10Speaker 1: I've learned in business is, like, sales is the foundation
- 20:13Speaker 1: of all of it. And whether you're in sales or not,
- 20:18Speaker 1: learning how to develop relationships with people, which is really
- 20:21Speaker 1: what a good salesperson does, is the cornerstone to any
- 20:25Speaker 1: of these things. Like, how do you convince people to
- 20:27Speaker 1: be on your podcast, Megan?
- 20:29Speaker 2: Right.
- 20:29Speaker 1: You know?
- 20:29Speaker 2: I mean, I just charm them with my personality if
- 20:32Speaker 2: I meet them on a boat day, you know?
- 20:35Speaker 1: Right. Which is sales. I mean, and so... I think
- 20:39Speaker 1: that's what it was with the investors too. You know,
- 20:40Speaker 1: it was just like, obviously they were charmed, but who
- 20:44Speaker 1: wouldn't be, but more so they trusted us. And we
- 20:48Speaker 1: had obviously had a good exit the first time, but
- 20:51Speaker 1: we had the conviction of our ideas and we had
- 20:54Speaker 1: really solid talent who were interested in working with us.
- 20:58Speaker 1: And I think that it's the combination of talent and
- 21:01Speaker 1: idea that investors are putting their money behind anyway. And
- 21:05Speaker 1: so yeah, And again, we were lucky that we had
- 21:08Speaker 1: a past. And Julie has an incredible background and history.
- 21:14Speaker 1: And so all of that really sort of helped us
- 21:17Speaker 1: secure a large amount of funding.
- 21:19Speaker 3: I mean, congratulations. It's incredible. And I'm launching a product
- 21:23Speaker 3: this fall.
- 21:24Speaker 1: Oh, this is exciting. Tell me.
- 21:25Speaker 2: Which I'm not going to talk about here, but I
- 21:28Speaker 2: would love to pick your brain on it because I'm
- 21:30Speaker 2: about to go through all of that. And I have
- 21:32Speaker 2: no idea how to do it. So would love your advice.
- 21:38Speaker 2: I like, I look up to you so much and
- 21:40Speaker 2: I think what you've created is insane and such like a,
- 21:45Speaker 2: there's such a market for it.
- 21:46Speaker 3: Like every girl period needs a shopping app.
- 21:50Speaker 2: Yeah. On the note of building relationships and building relationships
- 21:54Speaker 2: with investors, what advice would you give to a founder
- 21:57Speaker 2: who's looking to go down the same path and launch
- 22:00Speaker 2: a new product into the world and get people behind
- 22:02Speaker 2: it and maybe attach some big names?
- 22:05Speaker 1: I mean, I think the biggest thing without sounding cliche
- 22:09Speaker 1: or trite is to be solving a real problem, right?
- 22:12Speaker 1: And that was sort of why I wanted to underscore
- 22:14Speaker 1: we didn't build Daydream just to build an AI shopping app.
- 22:17Speaker 1: We built Daydream because we wanted to solve the consumer
- 22:21Speaker 1: problem that like shopping online, quite frankly, sucks. And we
- 22:23Speaker 1: think it can be better. And so that's the number
- 22:26Speaker 1: one piece of advice is make sure that you're solving
- 22:29Speaker 1: a problem and that's what your North Star is because
- 22:32Speaker 1: the way you solve it quite frankly, what you end
- 22:35Speaker 1: up building could be quite different than what you initially pitch.
- 22:39Speaker 1: In fact, one of our investors, John Callahan, who's amazing,
- 22:43Speaker 1: always says it's probably wrong if you go to market
- 22:47Speaker 1: with the product that you initially pitched us with. There's
- 22:51Speaker 1: just no way that when you get to building, it
- 22:53Speaker 1: ends up being exactly what you thought it was going
- 22:55Speaker 1: to be. But if you have this if you're anchored
- 22:58Speaker 1: in the problem that you're solving and that's kind of
- 23:00Speaker 1: what's driving your decisions, then I think investors can get
- 23:04Speaker 1: behind that and can really believe in it.
- 23:06Speaker 3: Wow.
- 23:07Speaker 2: And when you initially had the idea for Daydream, how
- 23:10Speaker 2: long before you had an actual product on your phone?
- 23:15Speaker 3: Or what does the build process look like? Like how
- 23:17Speaker 3: long does that take?
- 23:19Speaker 1: It can be really fast now. I mean, everybody's talking
- 23:22Speaker 1: about vibe coding and it's true. You can get a
- 23:24Speaker 1: prototype in a day. In terms of, I would say
- 23:28Speaker 1: we had a prototype very, it was, we had one
- 23:31Speaker 1: very quickly and then, and then it's like, how can
- 23:34Speaker 1: you build something to scale? So we had to build
- 23:36Speaker 1: something and start testing it and decide if that was
- 23:39Speaker 1: what we wanted. And then, you know, we tore it
- 23:43Speaker 1: down and built it back up three more times. And
- 23:46Speaker 1: by the way, the models have like tech models have
- 23:48Speaker 1: changed a lot too. So we keep iterating and changing
- 23:52Speaker 1: what we're doing. And so again, like sort of being
- 23:54Speaker 1: anchored in, where are we actually trying to get to?
- 23:57Speaker 1: Who are we doing this for? And why are we
- 23:58Speaker 1: doing it? It's like much more powerful right now than
- 24:01Speaker 1: how are we doing it? Because the how keeps changing.
- 24:05Speaker 1: You know, like when, when we were, when we first
- 24:08Speaker 1: pitched J dream, Google didn't have Gemini yet. Nobody had
- 24:13Speaker 1: heard of anthropic. And like, you think of how much
- 24:15Speaker 1: the world has changed in those two and a half years.
- 24:18Speaker 1: And it is insane.
- 24:20Speaker 3: It is crazy.
- 24:21Speaker 2: Yeah. So for all the listeners who don't know what
- 24:23Speaker 2: Daydream is, will you give them a little background? Yeah. Please.
- 24:26Speaker 1: Okay. So like I said, Daydream is like if ChachiBT
- 24:30Speaker 1: and Net-A-Porter had a baby. What we set out to
- 24:34Speaker 1: solve was how we could make shopping online better. We
- 24:38Speaker 1: all love the in-store shopping experience. But first of all,
- 24:41Speaker 1: in-store shopping is also broken. We haven't fixed that yet.
- 24:45Speaker 1: It's just broken because you go into the stores and
- 24:47Speaker 1: there's no inventory anymore and nobody has your sizes. but
- 24:51Speaker 1: when you go to shop online, it's completely overwhelming, and
- 24:54Speaker 1: there's no real way to make sure you're seeing everything
- 24:58Speaker 1: that you want to see or what you're seeing is
- 25:00Speaker 1: right for you, right for the occasion, and so Daydream,
- 25:05Speaker 1: what it's meant to do is really take in context
- 25:08Speaker 1: and catalog, right? So the context is you. Who are you?
- 25:13Speaker 1: Where are you going? Why are you shopping? What are
- 25:15Speaker 1: you buying these things for? And then the catalog is,
- 25:19Speaker 1: all of these brand partners that we work with directly.
- 25:21Speaker 1: So we have partnerships with over 300 different brands and retailers,
- 25:25Speaker 1: which gets us over 3 million products in our catalog,
- 25:28Speaker 1: which represents like 10,000 brands. And that's too much, by
- 25:32Speaker 1: the way. If I just gave you 3 million products,
- 25:36Speaker 1: you would have no idea what to do with it,
- 25:39Speaker 1: which is why you need the context. But the context
- 25:42Speaker 1: with a limited catalog doesn't get you the reverse and
- 25:46Speaker 1: so it's really like those two things that come together
- 25:49Speaker 1: to give you that ideal shopping experience so that we
- 25:52Speaker 1: know it's Megan saying I'm going to be going to
- 25:55Speaker 1: the Harry Styles concert with my stepsister like what should
- 25:58Speaker 1: I wear and that's different from me saying I'm going
- 26:02Speaker 1: to the Harry Styles concert with my daughter what should
- 26:04Speaker 1: I wear right and it's just like those nuances it
- 26:08Speaker 1: picks up on all of that and then we direct
- 26:10Speaker 1: you out to the store to buy it from them
- 26:13Speaker 1: so whether it's from Again, we'll use Net-a-Porter again, but
- 26:17Speaker 1: if it's Gucci.com, if it's Levi's, if it's J.Crew, we
- 26:22Speaker 1: have lots of emerging designers on the platform. And so
- 26:25Speaker 1: it kind of like really helps sort of like build
- 26:27Speaker 1: everybody's like micro fashion around them. Incredible.
- 26:31Speaker 3: Brides. Hey, I'm getting married in Italy this summer. I
- 26:35Speaker 3: need three looks.
- 26:37Speaker 2: Here are my sizes and it will just populate options.
- 26:41Speaker 3: That's incredible. Then you kind of cut the need for
- 26:43Speaker 3: a stylist.
- 26:44Speaker 2: I mean, there's people who pay stylists so much money
- 26:47Speaker 2: to curate their closets and I can just do daydream.
- 26:50Speaker 1: Well, I think we are democratizing the stylist for sure,
- 26:54Speaker 1: but I think stylists still play a role. First of all,
- 26:58Speaker 1: we have stylists helping the machine, right? So machines can't
- 27:03Speaker 1: do it all. And I think we've kind of always
- 27:05Speaker 1: known that, but we've that's become more and more obvious.
- 27:08Speaker 1: Like you let these machines run wild. It's why actually
- 27:11Speaker 1: shopping on ChatGPT isn't good, which is because it doesn't
- 27:16Speaker 1: understand fashion or how fashion pertains to you. So it's
- 27:21Speaker 1: pulling in like the top results of the internet, which
- 27:23Speaker 1: isn't necessarily what's correct in fashion or what's right for you.
- 27:28Speaker 1: So we have stylists sort of helping the machine understand
- 27:31Speaker 1: how to identify the right trends and what is appropriate
- 27:35Speaker 1: for a bride to wear for the three days that
- 27:37Speaker 1: she's going to be in Italy and what matters about
- 27:40Speaker 1: that bride and what else we should be asking. And
- 27:42Speaker 1: so there's a combination of the two. And I say
- 27:45Speaker 1: that because I think everyone, there's like a lot of
- 27:47Speaker 1: like fear around AI taking people's jobs and replacing creativity.
- 27:52Speaker 1: And I just actually think AI and this like existence
- 27:55Speaker 1: of the machine is underscoring the need for stylists, artists,
- 28:01Speaker 1: like individualistic opinions and taste. And I think like, I
- 28:06Speaker 1: think everyone's very worried about it now because the roles
- 28:09Speaker 1: as they exist today are not what they're going to
- 28:11Speaker 1: look like in a few years. But I actually think
- 28:14Speaker 1: that's okay because I still think there's going to be
- 28:17Speaker 1: these roles and they'll just like look and feel different.
- 28:19Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 28:19Speaker 3: It's like a tool for people to work with, not
- 28:22Speaker 3: necessarily replace.
- 28:23Speaker 1: Exactly.
- 28:23Speaker 3: Cool.
- 28:24Speaker 2: Yeah. That's like, so my product, which I'm not going
- 28:26Speaker 2: to talk about now, but it's a tool for assistants
- 28:29Speaker 2: to work with instead of replacing the assistant. So bosses
- 28:32Speaker 2: and assistants can use it together to kind of get
- 28:34Speaker 2: through their day to day. So I am going to
- 28:37Speaker 2: pick your brain a lot, but that's all I'm going to.
- 28:40Speaker 3: Say for now.
- 28:41Speaker 1: We'll do a podcast on it when it's released.
- 28:43Speaker 3: Yes, I would love that.
- 28:46Speaker 2: So was there a moment when you were building this
- 28:47Speaker 2: product that you were like, I'm onto something, this is
- 28:50Speaker 2: going to work. When was your aha moment with Daydream?
- 28:56Speaker 2: And how'd you come up with the name?
- 28:58Speaker 1: Okay, those are two different questions. I'm still working on
- 29:02Speaker 1: my aha moment. What I know is that the world
- 29:05Speaker 1: needs Daydream. Well, I think Daydream is still in its infancy.
- 29:12Speaker 1: And I think the tools, like the technology that we're
- 29:15Speaker 1: tapping into and the product itself is still like growing
- 29:19Speaker 1: and learning from all of our users. And so for me,
- 29:23Speaker 1: it knows me so well. It has so much context
- 29:26Speaker 1: on me that I could close my eyes and it
- 29:28Speaker 1: could dress me for a year, but it takes a
- 29:31Speaker 1: while to get there. And so I think like, still
- 29:33Speaker 1: sort of figuring out how do we get customers to
- 29:36Speaker 1: that magic faster is really important. And so that's a
- 29:40Speaker 1: lot of where I'm focused is like how do we
- 29:42Speaker 1: really create this place that people want to open up
- 29:45Speaker 1: every day kind of regardless of if you have a
- 29:48Speaker 1: wedding that you're planning that you need to get dressed
- 29:51Speaker 1: for or if you're just sort of like tired on
- 29:53Speaker 1: your couch. Like I want people to open Daydream for
- 29:55Speaker 1: both of those moments. And I don't really think we're
- 29:57Speaker 1: there yet. But we will get there.
- 30:00Speaker 2: You will.
- 30:00Speaker 1: We will. The name, we worked with some friends of
- 30:05Speaker 1: mine who were running an agency called Frosty. It was
- 30:11Speaker 1: a creative director and head of marketing who I had
- 30:13Speaker 1: worked with when they were at Burberry. They're both like
- 30:16Speaker 1: incredible geniuses that I have loved everything they've ever done.
- 30:20Speaker 1: And we hired their agency to help us come up
- 30:23Speaker 1: with a name and a brand and And we had
- 30:26Speaker 1: like a few important things about it. We wanted it
- 30:30Speaker 1: to be easy to spell. We also wanted it to
- 30:36Speaker 1: sort of be obvious to say. So Julie and I,
- 30:39Speaker 1: so we sort of always struggled with like the yes
- 30:42Speaker 1: was the name of the yes. Right. But it's really
- 30:45Speaker 1: hard and people want to call it yes. Or actually
- 30:47Speaker 1: when you see it spelled out, it kind of looks
- 30:49Speaker 1: like the eyes. And it was just like we wanted
- 30:52Speaker 1: it to be just cleaner than that. Um, and we
- 30:57Speaker 1: wanted it to feel, we wanted to do men's and women's,
- 30:59Speaker 1: so we needed it to have a sense, but then,
- 31:02Speaker 1: and we also like, we wanted it to feel magical
- 31:05Speaker 1: and quite frankly, dreamlike, but we didn't have daydream to
- 31:09Speaker 1: start with. We went through a lot of different iterations and, um,
- 31:13Speaker 1: we put my friends through the ringer on that one.
- 31:15Speaker 1: There were a lot, there was a lot of back
- 31:16Speaker 1: and forth. Um, I remember for a while, my favorite
- 31:20Speaker 1: was Palette. And I really liked that. Now I'm like palette,
- 31:24Speaker 1: that's a terrible name, but it was like my front runner. And,
- 31:27Speaker 1: but the problem there is there's multiple ways to spell
- 31:29Speaker 1: palette and there's multiple meanings. So it can be like
- 31:32Speaker 1: the shipping container or an artist palette, which was really
- 31:35Speaker 1: what I had in mind. So we had like, you know,
- 31:38Speaker 1: quite a few that we went back and forth on,
- 31:40Speaker 1: but it was sort of like once we landed on
- 31:42Speaker 1: Daydream and saw it in like the colors and with the,
- 31:46Speaker 1: the icon and everything, it just sort of like, It
- 31:49Speaker 1: all came together.
- 31:50Speaker 3: Yeah. It's what you said before.
- 31:51Speaker 2: When you have a product, it's not going to be
- 31:53Speaker 2: the first model that you maybe had or the first name.
- 31:56Speaker 2: You're going to have to play with it a little bit.
- 31:58Speaker 2: I mean, when I started Clyde, I had 300 names
- 32:01Speaker 2: written down and I was playing a game with myself,
- 32:03Speaker 2: like getting so frustrated.
- 32:04Speaker 3: What do I call this company? What do I call
- 32:06Speaker 3: this company?
- 32:07Speaker 2: And it was never Clyde initially, but then when it
- 32:11Speaker 2: made sense and it.
- 32:12Speaker 3: All came together, I was like, oh.
- 32:14Speaker 1: Wait, where did Clyde come from?
- 32:16Speaker 3: The knock on Bonnie and Clyde. Sidekick reference.
- 32:18Speaker 1: I like it.
- 32:18Speaker 3: Assistant reference. But naming company is very hard.
- 32:22Speaker 1: It's very hard. It's very personal.
- 32:24Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 32:24Speaker 1: And also, as you know, when you start a company,
- 32:27Speaker 1: you say the name all the time.
- 32:29Speaker 3: All the time. I love Daydream, by the way.
- 32:32Speaker 1: Thank you.
- 32:33Speaker 2: But before I heard, I recognized that I said the
- 32:37Speaker 2: yes when we were talking about yes and not yes.
- 32:40Speaker 1: No, it is the yes.
- 32:41Speaker 3: Oh, I said yes.
- 32:43Speaker 1: You said yes. Yes, you did. That's right, but that
- 32:45Speaker 1: was the problem. And yes, that is the problem.
- 32:49Speaker 3: It's hard.
- 32:51Speaker 2: Okay, so as a founder of two companies and a boss,
- 32:59Speaker 2: what is the most challenging thing being in this seat
- 33:02Speaker 2: when you're leading a team or trying to delegate? Are
- 33:05Speaker 2: there things that you have trouble delegating that.
- 33:09Speaker 1: Yes, I have trouble delegating a lot. But I think
- 33:13Speaker 1: the most challenging part of all of this is that
- 33:17Speaker 1: this is really hard. And it's keeping people like inspired
- 33:23Speaker 1: and happy while everyone is really working all of the time.
- 33:27Speaker 1: And there's things on Daydream that aren't working the way
- 33:32Speaker 1: we want them to work. And the team that's working
- 33:35Speaker 1: on it is working all the time and around the clock.
- 33:39Speaker 1: And we know that. And I appreciate it every minute
- 33:43Speaker 1: of the day, but I still have to give them
- 33:46Speaker 1: the feedback that like this didn't work and it has
- 33:49Speaker 1: to get better. And, and I, by the way, I
- 33:51Speaker 1: have all the confidence in the world that they're going
- 33:52Speaker 1: to get there, but it, you know, it's feedback is hard.
- 33:57Speaker 1: Everyone says like feedback is a gift and it is,
- 33:59Speaker 1: But sometimes when you're just like telling people that the
- 34:01Speaker 1: tech they're building isn't working yet, it's really hard to
- 34:05Speaker 1: keep hearing it because I see how hard they're working.
- 34:07Speaker 1: And so it's sort of like finding the right balance.
- 34:10Speaker 1: They have to hear it. They have to know it
- 34:12Speaker 1: didn't work. But you also have to keep them inspired
- 34:16Speaker 1: and not feeling demotivated. Right.
- 34:18Speaker 2: That is challenging, especially like when you're launching a new
- 34:21Speaker 2: product and things are going to go wrong and things
- 34:25Speaker 2: are going to ebb and flow and there's going to
- 34:27Speaker 2: be like a new feature that you unleash and keeping
- 34:30Speaker 2: a team like, yeah, I feel like when I was
- 34:33Speaker 2: building my team, it's like, I don't really know what
- 34:35Speaker 2: the next year is going to look like, but just
- 34:37Speaker 2: hang in, it's going to work.
- 34:39Speaker 3: And you kind of.
- 34:39Speaker 2: Have to have that like founder enthusiasm and like put
- 34:43Speaker 2: on a happy face and just like keep people motivated
- 34:46Speaker 2: and excited. And they need to also believe what you
- 34:48Speaker 2: believe in. So it is, it can be a little...
- 34:52Speaker 2: It can be challenging.
- 34:53Speaker 1: It can be challenging. I mean, I have to say, like,
- 34:55Speaker 1: I am an eternal optimist. My glass has never been
- 34:59Speaker 1: anywhere near empty. Like, it's always, it's not even half full.
- 35:02Speaker 1: It's like three quarters full always. And that's probably like
- 35:06Speaker 1: a part, partially delusional and partially optimistic.
- 35:10Speaker 2: I always say you have to be a delusional optimist
- 35:12Speaker 2: to succeed as a founder.
- 35:13Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 35:14Speaker 3: I mean.
- 35:15Speaker 1: I think that's right. And by the way, I kind
- 35:17Speaker 1: of think you have to be a delusional optimist to
- 35:19Speaker 1: truly be happy in this world. And I am truly happy.
- 35:23Speaker 1: So I definitely think there's a heavy dose of that.
- 35:27Speaker 1: But I hope it's contagious. I really do.
- 35:30Speaker 2: I mean, you're the most smiley, positive person. I've never
- 35:35Speaker 2: had a guest who's just like, you're awesome.
- 35:38Speaker 1: You're too much time in Hollywood, Megan.
- 35:39Speaker 3: No. Oh, no, no.
- 35:43Speaker 2: I try to be, like, I want to be like you.
- 35:45Speaker 2: I want to be able to, like, I don't know.
- 35:48Speaker 2: You definitely, like, give that off, that energy off. And
- 35:50Speaker 2: I feel like it would be so lovely to work
- 35:52Speaker 2: for you.
- 35:54Speaker 1: Thank you. I mean, I also think if you're not,
- 35:56Speaker 1: if you don't like doing it and you're not happy
- 35:58Speaker 1: doing it, it's not worth doing.
- 35:59Speaker 2: Because no one wants to work for the founder that's, like,
- 36:02Speaker 2: coming into the office every day, like, not feeling good
- 36:06Speaker 2: about what you're building or angry or not positive.
- 36:10Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
- 36:11Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 36:12Speaker 1: My son and I are watching Ted Lasso right now.
- 36:14Speaker 1: And you sort of get like reminded of that, like
- 36:16Speaker 1: the leadership lessons of Ted Lasso are kind of insane.
- 36:19Speaker 1: But it's true. I mean, he definitely like there's a
- 36:22Speaker 1: there's a line in the first season where he talks
- 36:25Speaker 1: about the like the Brits are saying it's something about hope.
- 36:30Speaker 1: They have this line where it's like hope will only.
- 36:34Speaker 1: hope is going to kill you. It's the hope that
- 36:36Speaker 1: kills you. That's the line. And Ted Louse was like,
- 36:39Speaker 1: no way. Like that is not true. I believe. And
- 36:42Speaker 1: I feel like it's like my hope that's actually getting
- 36:44Speaker 1: us through. And it's true. Like your coach doesn't believe
- 36:47Speaker 1: in you. If you're, if your founder doesn't believe in
- 36:50Speaker 1: the company or in the work that you're doing, like
- 36:52Speaker 1: you're dead in the water. And also it's no fun.
- 36:55Speaker 3: It's not fun. Yeah. It's really good.
- 36:57Speaker 2: It's, it's a good thing to keep in mind, honestly. Um,
- 37:01Speaker 2: so yeah, Any advice that you might have for a
- 37:05Speaker 2: founder or someone looking to build a company?
- 37:08Speaker 3: What would that be? What's the best advice you've ever received?
- 37:14Speaker 1: Now I have all these stupid Ted Lasso quotes in
- 37:16Speaker 1: my head.
- 37:17Speaker 3: No, but that's good.
- 37:18Speaker 1: Don't be a goldfish.
- 37:20Speaker 3: Watch Ted Lasso.
- 37:21Speaker 1: No, don't. I mean, Ted Lasso is great. I really
- 37:24Speaker 1: enjoyed it. But I think I actually I really do
- 37:28Speaker 1: think like if you're not if you're not enjoying it,
- 37:31Speaker 1: it's not worth doing. Um, and, and most of us,
- 37:35Speaker 1: you know, we got to show up at work every
- 37:37Speaker 1: day and we have to leave our families and we
- 37:39Speaker 1: have to leave, um, other things and people that we love.
- 37:42Speaker 1: And so, um, you know, we should really be happy
- 37:45Speaker 1: with what we're doing and who we're working with. And
- 37:47Speaker 1: maybe the other piece of advice is like, it's the
- 37:49Speaker 1: team that you hire and the team that you work with,
- 37:51Speaker 1: not just who you hire, like everybody you work with.
- 37:53Speaker 2: Yeah. Cause clearly everyone that you've met along the way
- 37:56Speaker 2: has kind of joined you at some different points.
- 37:59Speaker 1: Yeah, and listen, I have one of my bosses from
- 38:03Speaker 1: Google who she and I stopped working together in like
- 38:07Speaker 1: maybe 2009. We still have a monthly call. And we
- 38:13Speaker 1: actually hadn't connected in a while. We reconnected. And sometimes
- 38:16Speaker 1: we don't keep the call, but we just like catch up.
- 38:19Speaker 1: And it's great. She's still like one of my biggest cheerleaders.
- 38:25Speaker 1: And she used to call me the CEO whisperer. And
- 38:28Speaker 1: it's just funny. It's funny because she's like, we were
- 38:30Speaker 1: talking about my podcast and she's like, I feel like
- 38:32Speaker 1: you just like took your CEO whisper hat and you
- 38:36Speaker 1: moved it over to this podcast seat. And it's cool.
- 38:39Speaker 1: It's like these people matter so much.
- 38:42Speaker 3: They really do. CEO whisper. What made you want to
- 38:45Speaker 3: start a podcast? People ask me that too. I'm like,
- 38:48Speaker 3: I don't know my relationships.
- 38:50Speaker 1: The funny thing is our marketing team asked me to
- 38:52Speaker 1: do it. And they, they, you know, one of the
- 38:55Speaker 1: things that they really wanted me to do it for
- 38:56Speaker 1: was everybody wanted more content. Like we just need more
- 38:59Speaker 1: content out there. This world of content proliferation is insane. Yeah. Um,
- 39:05Speaker 1: but I love doing it because I really enjoy talking
- 39:08Speaker 1: to people. And what I find is that everyone has
- 39:10Speaker 1: a story that they want to tell and they Not really.
- 39:14Speaker 1: There's not that many platforms for them to tell it on.
- 39:17Speaker 1: So I've gotten to talk to like these cool, amazing
- 39:20Speaker 1: women in fashion who I thought would have been like
- 39:23Speaker 1: inundated and are like, no way. I've already done 9,000
- 39:26Speaker 1: podcasts and they haven't. They have something to say and
- 39:28Speaker 1: I think they have like a pretty large audience who
- 39:31Speaker 1: wants to hear it.
- 39:32Speaker 2: It is really fun and you can absolutely talk to
- 39:35Speaker 2: a wall. So I'm sure like all the guests are
- 39:38Speaker 2: just like so thrilled to be sitting across from you
- 39:40Speaker 2: because you're so interesting, but you're also very good at this.
- 39:43Speaker 1: Thank you. You're a complete natural.
- 39:46Speaker 3: I don't know about that, but.
- 39:47Speaker 2: It's been fun because I think like there's so many
- 39:50Speaker 2: podcasts out there, but everyone's theme or, you know, like
- 39:55Speaker 2: my theme of my podcast is careers and mentorship and advice.
- 39:58Speaker 2: So although this is like the most oversaturated market in
- 40:04Speaker 2: media right now, every podcast is a different angle and
- 40:07Speaker 2: that's what makes it interesting, right?
- 40:09Speaker 1: What is the best advice you've heard, career advice you've
- 40:12Speaker 1: heard from your podcast interviews?
- 40:17Speaker 2: Someone said, don't take other people's advice, which I found
- 40:20Speaker 2: really interesting because sometimes when you have too much noise
- 40:23Speaker 2: in your ear, you'll kind of feed into that rather
- 40:27Speaker 2: than like what your gut is saying.
- 40:28Speaker 3: So I thought that was super.
- 40:30Speaker 2: Interesting because now as I'm making decisions about my business
- 40:34Speaker 2: and sometimes my personal life, I find myself just kind
- 40:36Speaker 2: of like, what do I feel is the right move?
- 40:39Speaker 2: So like I've stopped taking, I've stopped looking for advice
- 40:43Speaker 2: in some areas where I know like I should just
- 40:46Speaker 2: make my own decision. So that, but my advice to
- 40:49Speaker 2: other people is go to every dinner, go to everything
- 40:51Speaker 2: you're invited to, because you don't know who you're going
- 40:53Speaker 2: to meet. Yeah. I wasn't on that boat this summer.
- 40:55Speaker 2: I would have never met you and we would have
- 40:56Speaker 2: never connected.
- 40:57Speaker 1: This is true.
- 40:58Speaker 2: We probably would have connected, but not in that moment.
- 41:00Speaker 1: Yeah. I agree. I agree.
- 41:02Speaker 2: I think just as a founder and a leader, it's
- 41:04Speaker 2: important to just be in rooms and ask questions and
- 41:07Speaker 2: be curious about people.
- 41:08Speaker 3: So that is something I've learned.
- 41:10Speaker 2: I like that. Yeah.
- 41:12Speaker 3: Well, I'm so excited for you and When did you
- 41:15Speaker 3: launch your podcast?
- 41:17Speaker 1: Um, just this summer. We launched it in August, I think. Okay.
- 41:20Speaker 3: So we're fresh.
- 41:21Speaker 2: Yes.
- 41:21Speaker 1: It's brand new.
- 41:22Speaker 3: Well, congratulations.
- 41:23Speaker 1: Thank you.
- 41:24Speaker 2: I can't wait to like do a deeper dive and
- 41:26Speaker 2: listen to some more episodes.
- 41:27Speaker 1: Thank you. And I'm excited to have you on at
- 41:29Speaker 1: some point when we can make it work.
- 41:30Speaker 2: Thank you.
- 41:31Speaker 3: Well, thank you for coming on today and congrats on
- 41:33Speaker 3: everything you've built. It's incredible.
- 41:34Speaker 2: And like, I just love listening to other female founders and.
- 41:40Speaker 3: I love girl bosses. So thank you.
- 41:42Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. I can't wait to hear
- 41:43Speaker 1: about your new product.
- 41:44Speaker 2: Oh, Thanks.
- 41:45Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll find time offline.
- 41:47Speaker 1: We will.
- 41:48Speaker 2: Thank you guys so much for tuning in and check
- 41:50Speaker 2: out Daydream if you haven't already. Bye.