Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / $100 Million Dollar Underwear Empire with CEO Joanna Griffiths

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$100 Million Dollar Underwear Empire with CEO Joanna Griffiths · QUESTION EVERYTHING

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Speaker 3: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
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Speaker 1: A new spin on pretty. This is pretty smart.
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Speaker 4: Joanna Griffiths built Nix one hundred million dollar Bronz underwear
1:09
Speaker 4: empire with just twenty thousand dollars.
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Speaker 5: It was what customers wanted and they showed up.
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Speaker 4: Started in twenty thirteen, Nix is an innovative undergarments brand
1:19
Speaker 4: for women of every shape, age.
1:22
Speaker 1: Size, and skin tone.
1:24
Speaker 4: Their mission to redefine intimates and produce the most comfortable
1:29
Speaker 4: bras and underwear so that you and I feel.
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Speaker 1: Comfortable in our own skin.
1:34
Speaker 4: It all began with their revolutionary leak proof underwear.
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Speaker 5: I have built Nixt being myself and being exactly who
1:42
Speaker 5: I am. I'm not trying to be somebody else. I
1:45
Speaker 5: don't pretend to have it all together. I like to
1:47
Speaker 5: be silly, I like to be serious and everything in between.
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Speaker 4: Their CEO Joanna is proof to me that you can
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Speaker 4: truly do well.
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Speaker 1: And do good, So Joanna.
2:01
Speaker 3: I'm so curious as to where the idea for Nicks
2:05
Speaker 3: came from because I remember being in college and it
2:08
Speaker 3: was laundry day and like the only underwear I would
2:10
Speaker 3: have had like rainstones and butterflies coming off of them,
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Speaker 3: and I was like, someone should reinvent this industry, and
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Speaker 3: then you did it.
2:17
Speaker 1: So what precipitated this idea? That is true?
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Speaker 5: Actually I owned some really really uncomfortable underwear for a
2:27
Speaker 5: while there. My dura looks very different now than I
2:30
Speaker 5: did fifteen years ago. So I came up with the
2:34
Speaker 5: idea for a week proof underwear first, and that's where
2:36
Speaker 5: it all started. I was probably around twenty six at
2:41
Speaker 5: the time, and I learned that one entry women can
2:44
Speaker 5: leak during pregnancy and post pregnancy, and my mind was blown.
2:48
Speaker 5: I was like, what that expression? I left so hard
2:52
Speaker 5: I peeped my pants is a real thing. Like I
2:54
Speaker 5: had always heard about it, but I didn't know that
2:56
Speaker 5: it was a real thing. And so when I learned
3:00
Speaker 5: and howny people were experiencing leaks, and then I was
3:02
Speaker 5: thinking about myself and when I'd have my period, and
3:05
Speaker 5: then I like just never could get it together ever,
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Speaker 5: like without fail, every single day, every single month, I
3:12
Speaker 5: would I would have a week And so the idea
3:15
Speaker 5: first came to make leak proof underwear. But what happened
3:18
Speaker 5: when I was interviewing all of these people in the
3:20
Speaker 5: development of f nix is that I realized there were
3:23
Speaker 5: two really big things that were going on in the
3:25
Speaker 5: intimate industry. So the first one was that there had
3:29
Speaker 5: been no product innovation. So the most recent innovation had
3:32
Speaker 5: been the thong, which like we can't really call an innovation.
3:36
Speaker 5: I don't think like it starves an amazing purpose and
3:40
Speaker 5: you know, every every person probably has one, but there
3:43
Speaker 5: just hadn't been a ton of innovation. Products were being
3:46
Speaker 5: designed to be worn for five minutes instead of for
3:48
Speaker 5: the entire day. It's why you'd end up with those
3:51
Speaker 5: rhinestone underwear left at the end of the day.
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Speaker 1: From what you feel.
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Speaker 5: Exactly, and then it could The other that I discovered
4:01
Speaker 5: while I was talking to people is that the category
4:03
Speaker 5: as a whole was making women feel really badly about themselves.
4:06
Speaker 5: It was twenty and eleven, twenty twelve, it was the
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Speaker 5: height of Victoria's Secret and the Angel Fashion Show, and
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Speaker 5: it was really putting a message out into the world
4:16
Speaker 5: of like, this is what sexy looks like as a woman,
4:19
Speaker 5: this is what you have to look like, you have
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Speaker 5: to be like. And it didn't speak to me, and
4:23
Speaker 5: it didn't speak to pretty much anyone that I knew.
4:26
Speaker 5: And so while we started with weak prefunduary, I sort
4:29
Speaker 5: of had this broader idea of we could reinvent this
4:32
Speaker 5: whole category by making products that people really needed and
4:35
Speaker 5: wanted to wear. And then more importantly than that, we
4:38
Speaker 5: could totally transform the way that people feel about themselves
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Speaker 5: by showing real beautiful people in our marketing and being
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Speaker 5: a brand that spoke to women for exactly for who
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Speaker 5: they were, and so that's what got us started.
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Speaker 1: So when you say that it made women.
4:54
Speaker 3: Feel bad, it's something I've thought about a lot because
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Speaker 3: I feel that way about the beat suit industry also.
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Speaker 3: And there's something just so deeply personal about trying on
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Speaker 3: undergarments and through building next. Have you determined what that is?
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Speaker 3: I feel like I don't have the words for it.
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Speaker 5: Well, so bathing suits I think are harder than undergarments
5:13
Speaker 5: because it's the least amount of clothing that you're wearing
5:16
Speaker 5: in public, and you do feel like very, very exposed,
5:19
Speaker 5: you know. I think, why is the industry the way
5:22
Speaker 5: that it is? Or why do people.
5:24
Speaker 3: Feel so vulnerable? I think, why do people feel so vulnerable?
5:30
Speaker 5: I think, as you're stripping back all of the layers,
5:32
Speaker 5: like you have nothing to hide behind before in that case,
5:36
Speaker 5: you know, it's I think about myself and like, I
5:39
Speaker 5: have long hair, and hair for me is like a
5:40
Speaker 5: security blanket, you know what I mean?
5:42
Speaker 1: So if I were to cut.
5:43
Speaker 5: It short, I would feel totally exposed, totally vulnerable, even
5:46
Speaker 5: though I'm the exact same person. I think something similar
5:49
Speaker 5: happens with intimates and with bathing suits, is that you're
5:53
Speaker 5: kind of just out there, you know. And for so long,
5:56
Speaker 5: the images that we would see if people wearing those
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Speaker 5: articles of clothing was perfection, you know what I mean,
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Speaker 5: No cellulite, no stretch marks, no like sagging, everything lifted tight,
6:09
Speaker 5: you know, hourglass and it was really not realistic. And
6:13
Speaker 5: so I think that as women, we've been ingrained to
6:16
Speaker 5: have this impossible ideal of what is deemed as acceptable
6:22
Speaker 5: and it's so unrealistic for so many people that it
6:25
Speaker 5: just chips away at your self esteem day by day.
6:29
Speaker 5: And I think that's what was happening. What about the
6:31
Speaker 5: next product changes that? So I think it starts with
6:37
Speaker 5: the fact that we've always used our customers in our
6:40
Speaker 5: photoshoots since twenty thirteen, so really since day one. It
6:44
Speaker 5: started by making underwear that didn't dig in, and that
6:48
Speaker 5: was such a breakthrough in my opinion, because so many
6:52
Speaker 5: products just did dug in. And so I really felt
6:56
Speaker 5: like this product looked the best of any product da
6:59
Speaker 5: I ever tried for, and it looked great on every
7:01
Speaker 5: single person that we put it on, and so that
7:04
Speaker 5: inspired me to start showcasing what the products look like
7:08
Speaker 5: on every single size that we made and to use
7:11
Speaker 5: our customers to do it. And so that I think
7:14
Speaker 5: is a change, you know what I mean, Like when
7:16
Speaker 5: you finally start to see people that look like you
7:20
Speaker 5: being shown back to you. And we're always so much
7:23
Speaker 5: more critical of ourselves than we are of other people.
7:26
Speaker 5: And so I think that what's happening is that over time,
7:29
Speaker 5: the more that through Nicks, we're showing our customers images
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Speaker 5: of people that look like them, resemble them, are bigger
7:35
Speaker 5: than them, smaller than them, have like larger chests, smaller tests,
7:38
Speaker 5: whatever it is, old or younger, it slowly starts to
7:41
Speaker 5: d program that I'm not good enough message that has
7:46
Speaker 5: been ingrained in us for so long, and it slowly
7:48
Speaker 5: starts to let people let go, and then you feel
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Speaker 5: so much more empowered and better in the in the products.
7:57
Speaker 3: I feel like d program is such a keyword there
8:01
Speaker 3: because it is. It's like the images slowly start to
8:05
Speaker 3: make you feel differently, but it's a slow process.
8:08
Speaker 5: It's slow. It's absolutely slow. It doesn't happen overnight. You know.
8:12
Speaker 1: I can speak to that even based on my personal journey.
8:15
Speaker 5: I've been at this for like eight or nine years,
8:17
Speaker 5: and it's like it's taken a long time to even
8:19
Speaker 5: deprogram me, you know, so, and I see all of
8:22
Speaker 5: the photos, So it happens little by little, but the
8:27
Speaker 5: incredible thing.
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Speaker 1: Is that it does happen. So I have this theory.
8:30
Speaker 1: I think that.
8:31
Speaker 3: YouTube and social media took the mystery out of television.
8:36
Speaker 3: And there are two areas that people still think, how
8:40
Speaker 3: did you write a book and how did you start
8:42
Speaker 3: that business? And so I kind of want to get
8:44
Speaker 3: into the weeds with you a little bit on how
8:46
Speaker 3: you actually started your business, because you're very transparent about
8:50
Speaker 3: it and it's a very interesting journey. So you mentioned
8:54
Speaker 3: that it started with a conversation with your mom. What
8:56
Speaker 3: was step one or two after that conversation? So I
8:59
Speaker 3: did nothing for a couple of years, which I feel like, yeah, totally.
9:04
Speaker 5: I would like bring it up in conversations when people would.
9:07
Speaker 1: Talk about business. I'd be like, I have an idea,
9:10
Speaker 1: but I.
9:10
Speaker 5: Didn't really do anything with it for a couple of years.
9:14
Speaker 5: And then I went back to school and I did
9:16
Speaker 5: an MBA and I like threw the concept out there
9:19
Speaker 5: just in a casual conversation with a bunch of friends,
9:23
Speaker 5: and everyone kind of stopped in their tracks. And they
9:25
Speaker 5: were like, this is a really good idea, Juanna, Like
9:27
Speaker 5: you should do this. You should make this leak proof
9:30
Speaker 5: under our product, like go for it. And so I
9:34
Speaker 5: took the year while I was at school, and I
9:36
Speaker 5: did all the research and I interviewed hundreds of women,
9:39
Speaker 5: Like I said, but you know, like through that process
9:41
Speaker 5: and I made a lot of progress. And for me,
9:45
Speaker 5: that was such a crucial step. I needed to be
9:49
Speaker 5: in a low risk environment where I could just explore
9:54
Speaker 5: the idea without any expectation or pressure that I was
9:57
Speaker 5: going to pursue it. And ultimately that exploration, I became
10:02
Speaker 5: obsessed with Nicks like it was the only thing that
10:04
Speaker 5: I would talk about. I was super one dimensional. All
10:07
Speaker 5: that I wanted to talk about was weak For funderwears,
10:10
Speaker 5: it was a lot of fun at parties. Let me
10:11
Speaker 5: tell you, like a really really fun person to have
10:14
Speaker 5: at parties. And I became totally transfixed that I could
10:20
Speaker 5: do this and that I should.
10:22
Speaker 1: Do this, and that actually changing the way that.
10:25
Speaker 5: People feel about themselves was a good use of my
10:27
Speaker 5: time and energy. But I only share that because I
10:30
Speaker 5: think that there's this misconception that people who have business
10:33
Speaker 5: ideas have this immense amount of confidence right out of
10:37
Speaker 5: the gate and just go for it. And maybe there
10:41
Speaker 5: are people that are like that, but I have yet
10:43
Speaker 5: to meet them. To be honest, it often takes a
10:46
Speaker 5: little bit of time to kind of like worm up
10:48
Speaker 5: and build your confidence up and explore something without being
10:52
Speaker 5: afraid of failure before you take the big leap.
10:54
Speaker 3: I'm really glad you said that, because my next question
10:57
Speaker 3: was the inner critic. Oh, yeah, you know, when you're
11:00
Speaker 3: starting anything new, I think everybody has the inner critic.
11:05
Speaker 1: Was there?
11:06
Speaker 3: Like, what was your inner critic voice sing as you
11:08
Speaker 3: were launching this and how did you ignore it?
11:12
Speaker 1: My inner critic was huge.
11:13
Speaker 5: It was it was like, why would you ever think
11:16
Speaker 5: that you could do this. I had never managed people before,
11:20
Speaker 5: I'd never worked on a physical product before. I knew
11:22
Speaker 5: nothing about the apparel industry. I was probably the least
11:25
Speaker 5: likely person to do this. And it was my friends
11:29
Speaker 5: and my family actually that really pushed me forward and
11:32
Speaker 5: that were like, just do this, Like give it a go.
11:35
Speaker 5: You work really hard at everything that you do. The
11:37
Speaker 5: worst thing that's going to happen is that it's going
11:39
Speaker 5: to fail and you're going to have like a really
11:40
Speaker 5: great story. But you can't live your life always asking
11:45
Speaker 5: what if? And so you know, in the beginning, I
11:48
Speaker 5: was pretty fragile around that inner critic, and so it
11:51
Speaker 5: just became really really important for me to surround myself
11:54
Speaker 5: with people who were positive and who were supportive of
11:57
Speaker 5: the idea, and to distance myself the people who told
12:01
Speaker 5: me that it was wild and not worth pursuing. And
12:06
Speaker 5: I think that's important too.
12:08
Speaker 1: I do too.
12:08
Speaker 3: I also think the idea of having sort of like
12:11
Speaker 3: your own cheerleading squad is it can make all the difference.
12:16
Speaker 1: I think so. I think so.
12:17
Speaker 5: And that's true if you're starting a business or I mean,
12:20
Speaker 5: like you took a huge leap of faith in your
12:22
Speaker 5: career as well, right, like you really put yourself out
12:24
Speaker 5: there and divide all the odds, and so it's probably
12:27
Speaker 5: pretty similar if people in your life that didn't think
12:31
Speaker 5: it was going to happen, and then you had the
12:32
Speaker 5: people that were lifting you up along the way.
12:35
Speaker 3: I think sometimes it's so interesting to me it was
12:38
Speaker 3: some very unlikely people that sort of showed up when
12:42
Speaker 3: I didn't necessarily expect them to, and most notably and expectedly,
12:47
Speaker 3: but most notably my mom, which it sounds like your
12:49
Speaker 3: mom was that for you as well.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, she was really instrumental in the beginning around the
12:54
Speaker 5: early idea. She was you know, and she'll say this,
12:57
Speaker 5: she was the most apprehensive about me pursuing it.
13:00
Speaker 1: Really.
13:01
Speaker 5: Yeah, she felt like it was a very you know,
13:03
Speaker 5: I come from a pretty traditional family. My whole family
13:06
Speaker 5: are like doctors and lawyers and ministers, and there's like
13:09
Speaker 5: a handful of professions that are deemed as acceptable and entrepreneurs.
13:14
Speaker 1: Not really one of them.
13:15
Speaker 5: And so she was very nervous that I was going
13:19
Speaker 5: to get hurt really like, you know, have it network
13:23
Speaker 5: and be disappointed and be let down. But now she's
13:28
Speaker 5: done a full one to eighty and is like such
13:31
Speaker 5: a big champion of it, and you know, it's I
13:35
Speaker 5: don't care.
13:35
Speaker 1: Who you are or like how successful you are.
13:38
Speaker 5: There's not a better feeling in the world than feeling
13:41
Speaker 5: like you're making your parents proud. Yep.
13:44
Speaker 1: It just never gets old.
13:45
Speaker 3: I am. I read that it started with twenty thousand dollars.
13:49
Speaker 3: Is that true?
13:50
Speaker 5: I want a business competition at my business school. It
13:54
Speaker 5: was like one of those pitch competitions where you pitch
13:56
Speaker 5: a business and yeah, so that was the first money
13:59
Speaker 5: that I had to get start with and that lasted
14:02
Speaker 5: pretty long. It lasted several months actually through the development,
14:06
Speaker 5: and then we used craft funding quite a bit in
14:08
Speaker 5: the early days to get started. I think I was
14:10
Speaker 5: really fortunate in terms of timing and kind of launching,
14:13
Speaker 5: like righte when kickstarter was super cool and that was
14:16
Speaker 5: what people did, and now I think the landscape is
14:19
Speaker 5: a lot harder than what it was.
14:21
Speaker 1: Then.
14:22
Speaker 3: How did you gain because for people that don't know,
14:24
Speaker 3: it's Nix is now a fifty million dollar empire.
14:27
Speaker 1: Oh well yeah, I actually.
14:29
Speaker 5: Well, depending on when this errs, I don't know when
14:31
Speaker 5: it's air when it's airing, but we're we're in the
14:34
Speaker 5: process of sharing that we are about just across one
14:36
Speaker 5: hundred million. So it's like, yeah, yeah, I know, I
14:39
Speaker 5: just did my first, my first interview right before this.
14:42
Speaker 1: As we're sharing that news.
14:44
Speaker 5: We just did our first big financing round and so
14:46
Speaker 5: we're sharing some updated numbers as part of it, and wow, congratulations,
14:51
Speaker 5: thank you, thank you, thank you.
14:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty surreal.
14:54
Speaker 5: Actually, the reporter just on the call was like, how
14:56
Speaker 5: does it feel around a company that does one hundred
14:58
Speaker 5: million in sales? And I'm like, it's not even I
15:01
Speaker 5: can't even process it mentally, to be honest, Like.
15:06
Speaker 3: I have the chills when you said, I can't even
15:09
Speaker 3: believe that this started. Like how did you determine how
15:13
Speaker 3: you were going to spend your money in the beginning,
15:16
Speaker 3: Cause twenty thousand dollars sounds like a lot of money,
15:18
Speaker 3: but when you're developing a product, it's actually not.
15:21
Speaker 1: It's not. Yeah, like that got us pretty far.
15:24
Speaker 5: And then I had no money because I had just
15:26
Speaker 5: been a student or whatever. But my now husband gave
15:29
Speaker 5: me all of his savings and so that was kind
15:31
Speaker 5: of like the next step, which is so sweet, which
15:33
Speaker 5: you know by default became our savings. That how did
15:37
Speaker 5: I decide that's a great question. From the beginning, I
15:41
Speaker 5: invested in brand, Like I really wanted to be intentional
15:45
Speaker 5: about the company and have a brand book and a
15:49
Speaker 5: mission statement and our values and what we stand stood for,
15:53
Speaker 5: and so I spent money on that, like that was
15:56
Speaker 5: probably a good chunk of it. And then you know,
16:01
Speaker 5: we developed this technology. But I've just been I've been
16:04
Speaker 5: such a big fan of like product tacking is what
16:06
Speaker 5: I call it. So it's like this idea that you
16:09
Speaker 5: don't have to reinvent the whole wheel. Like if you're
16:11
Speaker 5: doing something different, then you can borrow from other industries.
16:14
Speaker 1: And so that's what we did.
16:15
Speaker 5: We like bought the best underwround the market and then
16:18
Speaker 5: you know, by putting our leakproof technology in it.
16:21
Speaker 1: It was this whole net new.
16:22
Speaker 5: Product, right, and so we didn't have to like start
16:27
Speaker 5: from square one in a lot of ways. So I
16:31
Speaker 5: find that like building a business is a lot like
16:33
Speaker 5: putting together a puzzle. And the thing that's really really
16:37
Speaker 5: hard is that there's infinite combinations of pieces, and so
16:40
Speaker 5: it's like figuring out which pieces you want to do
16:43
Speaker 5: and what order and where you want to give your
16:45
Speaker 5: time and attention. But I think that I think I'm
16:48
Speaker 5: such a believer in brand and then making the best
16:50
Speaker 5: product that you possibly can and everything else, I think
16:53
Speaker 5: you can kind of like not be.
16:55
Speaker 1: That good at in the beginning.
16:57
Speaker 3: I was really interested to learn that you kind of
17:00
Speaker 3: changed your distribution strategy.
17:02
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, definitely.
17:04
Speaker 3: You had you were in over five hundred retail stores
17:07
Speaker 3: across North America at first. What was your strategy when
17:12
Speaker 3: you started out in terms of getting your line into
17:14
Speaker 3: your first retailer?
17:15
Speaker 5: So I like, you know, it's interesting the pivots that
17:18
Speaker 5: we've done. When I started NIXT, I always thought that
17:20
Speaker 5: we would sell online and that you know, wholesale and
17:25
Speaker 5: selling through other retailers would be kind of like an
17:27
Speaker 5: afterthought because this was when so many of the direct
17:30
Speaker 5: to consumer brands were starting and it was just kind.
17:32
Speaker 1: Of a thing to do.
17:34
Speaker 5: But in our first craft funding campaign that we did,
17:37
Speaker 5: I came up with basically like a pr stunt to
17:40
Speaker 5: convince it retailer to buy our products through a Kickstarter campaign,
17:45
Speaker 5: and I ended up getting the largest department store in Canada,
17:49
Speaker 5: exper Canadian company to say yes to this kind of
17:52
Speaker 5: out of the box idea, and so our first retailer
17:55
Speaker 5: became this huge department store, and little did I know
17:58
Speaker 5: that it was going to be really, really, really hard,
18:01
Speaker 5: and there were three people on our team at the time,
18:03
Speaker 5: and so by default we ended up becoming this wholesale
18:07
Speaker 5: company because we just didn't have the bandwidth to do
18:09
Speaker 5: both things.
18:10
Speaker 1: And so you're right.
18:10
Speaker 5: I spent the first three years of building Mix going
18:13
Speaker 5: to trade shows, like going to trunk shows. I think
18:16
Speaker 5: I've been to every Equinox in North America. I would
18:20
Speaker 5: show up at six in the morning and stay untill
18:21
Speaker 5: tenant night, and I would sell like ten pairs of
18:23
Speaker 5: underwear Max I could.
18:24
Speaker 1: Do not it was not good. It was not good.
18:28
Speaker 5: I would do it because that was like the grind
18:32
Speaker 5: that we were in. And so that was three years
18:35
Speaker 5: and we built it. We got into like several hundred
18:38
Speaker 5: retail stores and doors across North America.
18:41
Speaker 1: Were you profitable at that point? Barely?
18:44
Speaker 5: I mean like if we were, it was because we
18:47
Speaker 5: were like like starving the business of what I really needed.
18:50
Speaker 5: There was like three of us. I wasn't taking a salary.
18:53
Speaker 5: I would sleep on couches like we were being so
18:56
Speaker 5: frugal basically, And so.
18:58
Speaker 1: Three years is like a pretty signifyin amount of time. Yeah,
19:01
Speaker 1: there was early thirties that was like, you know, it
19:05
Speaker 1: was like a big chapter of my life.
19:07
Speaker 3: So how are you thinking, Like, Oh, I'm going to
19:09
Speaker 3: keep going with this. There's something about this that's working.
19:12
Speaker 5: A lot of the time, I wasn't. I almost gave
19:14
Speaker 5: up so many times. It was really really, really hard.
19:17
Speaker 5: But we were getting such a positive reaction from our customers,
19:21
Speaker 5: and so that ultimately was what was keeping me going.
19:24
Speaker 5: Was like these responses that you would get from people
19:26
Speaker 5: about how the product changed their lives or how like
19:28
Speaker 5: seeing the marketing was making them feel, and so I
19:31
Speaker 5: would get these like little ounces of that or hits
19:33
Speaker 5: of that, and that would keep me going. But we
19:37
Speaker 5: we ended up switching gears. Three years into the company,
19:41
Speaker 5: I pivoted and decided that we should sell exclusively online
19:44
Speaker 5: instead of through these retail partners, and so we pulled
19:47
Speaker 5: out of every single retail door and I basically started over.
19:50
Speaker 1: People must have said you were crazy.
19:52
Speaker 5: For oh, for sure, for sure, for sure, it was
19:55
Speaker 5: like all of our revenue. I'd spent three years at it,
20:00
Speaker 5: and I basically raised my hand and said, hey, I
20:03
Speaker 5: think I got it wrong and we basically need to
20:06
Speaker 5: start over. So it was a big, big, big risk. Yeah,
20:10
Speaker 5: what did your husband say?
20:12
Speaker 1: At that time? He was supportive.
20:16
Speaker 5: Because there was this inherent thing that was happening where
20:22
Speaker 5: as we were leaning more and more into our inclusivity,
20:27
Speaker 5: messaging and showing diverse models and doing all of that,
20:30
Speaker 5: that was what customers were expecting from us. But so
20:33
Speaker 5: many of the retailers that we were selling to didn't
20:37
Speaker 5: want to carry our size range, and so they only
20:40
Speaker 5: wanted to buy smalls and mediums, and like maybe one
20:43
Speaker 5: large a's an example, and so what was happening is
20:46
Speaker 5: that we would list all the retailers on our website,
20:49
Speaker 5: and customers, because we sold pretty unique products that people wanted,
20:52
Speaker 5: would drive from store to store and they'd be turned
20:55
Speaker 5: away because the store didn't carry their size. And so
20:58
Speaker 5: there was this huge disconnect between what we were saying
21:01
Speaker 5: and how we were showing up in the world because
21:03
Speaker 5: we were letting someone else control the way that we
21:06
Speaker 5: were being presented. And so in going one hundred percent
21:11
Speaker 5: direct and in selling only online, really what we were
21:14
Speaker 5: doing and saying was that, like we wanted to deliver
21:17
Speaker 5: a message, we wanted to control the way the customers
21:19
Speaker 5: experienced our products, and we didn't want to risk letting
21:24
Speaker 5: someone else do that for fear that it would be
21:26
Speaker 5: a bad experience. And so, you know, his response was
21:29
Speaker 5: probably more like, oh, it's about time than anything else,
21:33
Speaker 5: but it was it was a really good lesson because
21:35
Speaker 5: I think I almost got a trial run and running
21:38
Speaker 5: a company before we started growing really quickly, and that
21:41
Speaker 5: really prepared me for kind of like the next chapter.
21:45
Speaker 3: So the next chapter started when you did a Kickstarter
21:48
Speaker 3: campaign and it was for your first bra and to
21:51
Speaker 3: this day you hold the record for the most funded
21:54
Speaker 3: fashion project in Kickstarter history, which is very cool. Were
21:58
Speaker 3: you worried like people would see the kick Starter campaign
22:01
Speaker 3: as a step back?
22:02
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, Oh for sure. That was a desperate move.
22:08
Speaker 5: Desperate move. No, that one was not by choice. That
22:11
Speaker 5: was like, we'd made the spraw and we had no
22:14
Speaker 5: money to buy it, and we even had retailers that
22:17
Speaker 5: wanted to buy it, and we had orders, but we
22:20
Speaker 5: just couldn't fill the orders and didn't know what to do,
22:23
Speaker 5: so we went on Kickstarter and it was it was super,
22:25
Speaker 5: super risky because I basically said, if this flops, it's
22:30
Speaker 5: going to be a such a public flop. And we've
22:32
Speaker 5: been in business for over three years and or two
22:35
Speaker 5: years or whatever it was at the time, and I
22:40
Speaker 5: was very nervous about it. But obviously it ended up
22:43
Speaker 5: going quite well, so the nerves were were not warranted
22:46
Speaker 5: in the end.
22:47
Speaker 1: What about that campaign caught fire right product.
22:50
Speaker 5: Right time, I think like and that was part of
22:53
Speaker 5: the reason why we created it. So it was right
22:55
Speaker 5: when nast leisure was really taking off. The way that
22:58
Speaker 5: people dressed was changing. People were wearing you know, weggings
23:01
Speaker 5: and cute workout outfits like all the time, and we
23:05
Speaker 5: would go to these trade shows and you know, we'd
23:08
Speaker 5: go to like the f Leisure Show and be surrounded
23:10
Speaker 5: by all these amazing yoga war brands and ath leisure brands,
23:14
Speaker 5: and we were the only intimate company there. And so
23:19
Speaker 5: I could see that the way that customers were dressing
23:22
Speaker 5: was totally changing, but no one was making bras to
23:25
Speaker 5: line up with this new lifestyle. And so we came
23:29
Speaker 5: up with this concept to make this bra that like
23:31
Speaker 5: evolved with you throughout your day, that you could wear
23:33
Speaker 5: it from the office to the gym.
23:34
Speaker 1: You could be super comfortable in it.
23:36
Speaker 5: It had no underwires, which I think now thanks to COVID,
23:39
Speaker 5: we have all come to realize that wireless bras are
23:42
Speaker 5: where it's at. And so we made this product and
23:47
Speaker 5: it was like really different for the time. This is
23:49
Speaker 5: twenty fifteen, and no one else was really making something
23:53
Speaker 5: like that, and so it was it was what customers wanted,
23:56
Speaker 5: and they showed up.
23:59
Speaker 3: I keep hearing product innovation, product innovation, like you were
24:02
Speaker 3: really doing something different.
24:04
Speaker 5: We focus on innovation because we want to make products
24:07
Speaker 5: that improve people's lives and just make them a little
24:09
Speaker 5: bit better. And honestly, in some cases, that can be
24:12
Speaker 5: as small as like a button. In like I'll give
24:16
Speaker 5: an example, like in our sleep sets, we have like
24:18
Speaker 5: a secret button so that when you're walking around, if
24:21
Speaker 5: you have larger breast, it doesn't explay open.
24:24
Speaker 1: Do you know what I'm talking about? It all as
24:26
Speaker 1: someone who has larger breasts, Yes.
24:29
Speaker 5: When you wear a button up shirt and there's like
24:31
Speaker 5: the gape basically.
24:32
Speaker 1: So like innovation in some.
24:34
Speaker 5: Cases can be as small as adding a button, or
24:37
Speaker 5: it can be as big as like engineering a whole
24:40
Speaker 5: new product category. But yeah, we do focus on trying
24:44
Speaker 5: to make the product just that little bit different from
24:46
Speaker 5: what you can get elsewhere, so that it adds something
24:49
Speaker 5: to your life.
24:50
Speaker 1: Tell me if these numbers are updated.
24:52
Speaker 3: So one hundred million dollar underwear empire, eighty five employees,
24:57
Speaker 3: we're one twenty five now yep, okay, twenty five employees
25:01
Speaker 3: and you sell something on your site every six seconds.
25:04
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's probably a bit faster than that now, But
25:06
Speaker 5: we can stick with six.
25:07
Speaker 1: That's a good one. We can go with five.
25:11
Speaker 3: I haven't done the math in a while, That's that's all.
25:14
Speaker 3: And then Nix is only eight years old.
25:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, I started in twenty thirteen.
25:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I read because I follow you on Instagram,
25:23
Speaker 3: of course, and you wrote for seven years, I hid
25:25
Speaker 3: under the unassuming title of chief n expert, afraid of
25:28
Speaker 3: stepping into something that I felt like I didn't deserve,
25:31
Speaker 3: even though I had been doing the job since day one.
25:34
Speaker 3: You built this with your blood, sweat and tears. How
25:37
Speaker 3: could you feel undeserving?
25:39
Speaker 1: I have no idea.
25:40
Speaker 5: I just like didn't think that I was a CEO.
25:43
Speaker 5: I think, you know, there's a few people that have
25:46
Speaker 5: been like great role models or examples for me. I
25:48
Speaker 5: don't even know a lot of them personally, but Sarah Blakely.
25:51
Speaker 5: I love Sarah Blakey, who started with Spanks. I think
25:53
Speaker 5: she's so authentically herself and shows up who she is,
25:57
Speaker 5: and seeing her when I was in business school had
25:59
Speaker 5: a big reason to do with why I started the company.
26:02
Speaker 5: Probably would hate to hear that because we compete with
26:04
Speaker 5: them now, but I saw someone that looked like me
26:06
Speaker 5: and spoke like me, and I thought, hey, I can
26:08
Speaker 5: maybe do this too. But there aren't a lot of
26:11
Speaker 5: people like that, And so I has built nicks being
26:16
Speaker 5: myself and being exactly who I am. I'm not trying
26:20
Speaker 5: to be somebody else. I don't pretend to have it
26:22
Speaker 5: all together. I like to be silly, I like to
26:24
Speaker 5: be serious and everything in between. And so I think
26:28
Speaker 5: that when I thought of a CEO, it felt different
26:31
Speaker 5: from how I felt about myself, if that makes sense,
26:34
Speaker 5: because I still often feel like I'm twenty three years
26:37
Speaker 5: old and.
26:39
Speaker 1: Just figuring it out, you know.
26:41
Speaker 5: And so I really did I hid behind that cute,
26:44
Speaker 5: see unassuming title. It's almost like I was intimidated to
26:49
Speaker 5: kind of own own my power because I was afraid
26:51
Speaker 5: of what would come with it. And so I'm starting
26:54
Speaker 5: to get better at just owning what it is that
26:57
Speaker 5: I have going on and recognizing that it doesn't mean
27:00
Speaker 5: that I have.
27:01
Speaker 1: To change either.
27:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so many of us, no matter what
27:06
Speaker 3: industry you're in, have an idea of what that position
27:10
Speaker 3: looks like, feels like, and we try and live up
27:13
Speaker 3: to that instead of live up to who we are.
27:15
Speaker 5: Yes, that's exactly it, you, That's exactly it.
27:20
Speaker 3: So, now that you are stepping into your CEO title,
27:24
Speaker 3: what kind of leader are you and what do you
27:26
Speaker 3: struggle with most?
27:27
Speaker 1: Right now?
27:29
Speaker 5: I think I'm quite a transparent leader, and so definitely
27:35
Speaker 5: try to share information about what's happening and need from
27:39
Speaker 5: a place of openness and vulnerability and quite comfortable being vulnerable,
27:43
Speaker 5: which is great.
27:45
Speaker 1: And then I like to.
27:46
Speaker 5: Have fun and I like to try and make sure
27:49
Speaker 5: that the place that I work in is fun. And
27:51
Speaker 5: so I'm this balance where I'm very casual in nature,
27:56
Speaker 5: but I'm not casual about my goals and ambitions. And
27:59
Speaker 5: so that is a thing that I think trips people
28:01
Speaker 5: up a little bit that takes a little while to
28:03
Speaker 5: get used to, because on the one hand, I'll be
28:06
Speaker 5: like casual and joking around, and then on the other hand,
28:08
Speaker 5: I'll do it registered to you and be like, oh no, actually,
28:10
Speaker 5: it's a hundred million in the MARICU.
28:12
Speaker 1: What hell? What are you talking about?
28:15
Speaker 5: And so I think that that maybe takes a little
28:18
Speaker 5: bit of getting used to.
28:20
Speaker 1: And I've changed a lot as a leader as well.
28:22
Speaker 5: So I was very very intimidated of the prospect of
28:26
Speaker 5: managing people when I first got started, and it took
28:29
Speaker 5: me a while to understand that there's a big difference
28:33
Speaker 5: between being a leader and micromanaging, and there's a big
28:37
Speaker 5: difference between managing people and micromanaging. And so I have
28:41
Speaker 5: been making that evolution where ideally I'm a leader that's
28:44
Speaker 5: more about like get alignment and then letting people run
28:47
Speaker 5: with things than trying to spell out every single detail
28:51
Speaker 5: of how to do something.
28:53
Speaker 3: So when you give someone that runway and then things
28:56
Speaker 3: don't go the way you intended or wanted, yeah, how
29:00
Speaker 3: do you deal with that?
29:02
Speaker 5: I've learned to relax a lot over the years, because like,
29:06
Speaker 5: nothing goes the way that you wanted or intended it
29:09
Speaker 5: to go, and if.
29:10
Speaker 1: It does, it feels like it's a fluke.
29:12
Speaker 5: And so I think that, you know, it's amazing the
29:15
Speaker 5: things that would stress me out seven years ago or
29:19
Speaker 5: you know, just totally to send me on a tailspin,
29:21
Speaker 5: and what it takes now to make that happen. And
29:25
Speaker 5: so we do a lot of things now at Nick's
29:28
Speaker 5: where we're not sure if they're going to be successful
29:30
Speaker 5: or not, and it could be an epic failure or
29:33
Speaker 5: it could be a home run, and we often don't
29:36
Speaker 5: know until we go into them. And there's something about
29:40
Speaker 5: that that makes it really cool, you know, like we'll
29:43
Speaker 5: do things and it's like no one could show up,
29:46
Speaker 5: or thirty thousand people could show up, and I have
29:49
Speaker 5: no idea until it's happening. Which one it's going to
29:53
Speaker 5: be and that I kind of like living in that
29:55
Speaker 5: world of when you're trying something so new and different
29:58
Speaker 5: that the expectation and can't even really be there because
30:02
Speaker 5: you have no benchmark.
30:04
Speaker 1: Yeah.
30:05
Speaker 3: I probably should have said this at the beginning for everybody,
30:07
Speaker 3: but I found you through one of your ads. So
30:10
Speaker 3: right before COVID hit it was March twenty twenty and
30:14
Speaker 3: Nix launched their largest campaign ever, titled Age Doesn't Matter.
30:18
Speaker 3: So it was the first lingerie ad featuring women exclusively
30:21
Speaker 3: over fifty. It was set to the backdrop of Demi
30:24
Speaker 3: Lovado's hit song Confident. Thirteen women ages fifty to eighty
30:27
Speaker 3: one rocked their nicks and I couldn't I just I
30:32
Speaker 3: kept going through the Instagram and it was like you
30:35
Speaker 3: were guaranteed to see yourself reflected in it, no matter
30:38
Speaker 3: who you were, shape, age, size, skin tone, stretch marks
30:41
Speaker 3: on airbrush bodies, and I couldn't help but think so
30:45
Speaker 3: many companies market to women and use the idea of
30:51
Speaker 3: loving yourself as a marketing tool, and this felt different.
30:56
Speaker 3: And I'm not sure why.
30:57
Speaker 1: Do you know why?
30:59
Speaker 5: I think it's because it's not a marketing tool. It's
31:03
Speaker 5: like authentically who we are. It's one of the reasons
31:06
Speaker 5: why we created the company, and it's so ingrained in
31:10
Speaker 5: where we are. And I think that part of it
31:13
Speaker 5: is you have to be comfortable with the chaos, do
31:16
Speaker 5: you know what I mean? Like I think for a
31:17
Speaker 5: lot of those other brands, it still feels like a
31:20
Speaker 5: little bit too polished or a little bit too calculated
31:24
Speaker 5: or not consistent enough for something. Does that make sense,
31:28
Speaker 5: Like it feels like it's a billboard and not like
31:33
Speaker 5: the DNA of the company, And so maybe that's the difference.
31:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean.
31:41
Speaker 5: Though, I have like the best bullshit radar when it
31:44
Speaker 5: comes to brands in this kind of marketing. I can
31:47
Speaker 5: tell right away if it's like real or a stretch
31:50
Speaker 5: and feel.
31:51
Speaker 1: It in your bones when you see it.
31:53
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I mean part of it too, I think
31:55
Speaker 5: is real people like that ad you know what I
31:57
Speaker 5: mean that we made. We did a casting call and
32:00
Speaker 5: those were all just people over fifty that showed up
32:02
Speaker 5: to her casting call and every single we had hundreds
32:06
Speaker 5: of people that that audition, and every single one of
32:10
Speaker 5: those women was like magic, Like there was just something
32:13
Speaker 5: about them that was magic. And my favorite person in
32:17
Speaker 5: that campaign and they shouldn't pay favorites. But there's this
32:20
Speaker 5: woman named Vera who came for the casting and I
32:22
Speaker 5: was obsessed with her because she just she looked like
32:25
Speaker 5: someone's like small, petite, little nonah, you know what I mean.
32:29
Speaker 1: And she had so much.
32:30
Speaker 5: Frikin sas and she's in the video and you'll have
32:34
Speaker 5: to watch it again, but there's this moment where there's
32:36
Speaker 5: almost like a domino effect in the video and she's
32:38
Speaker 5: the one at the end and then she puts her
32:40
Speaker 5: hands up behind her head and she's this little sassy, sassy,
32:43
Speaker 5: sassy woman and she I almost made her my screensaver.
32:48
Speaker 1: Like there's just there's a realness to these.
32:50
Speaker 5: People because they're often also going through a huge transformation
32:54
Speaker 5: over the course of doing these photo shoots too, and
32:57
Speaker 5: I think that comes through because it's not what they
32:59
Speaker 5: did for a living. It's a really big step for
33:05
Speaker 5: them outside of their comfort zone, and it just reads
33:08
Speaker 5: differently because we don't try to control them. And even
33:11
Speaker 5: when we do work with models. We did a photo
33:14
Speaker 5: shoot in la for our swim launch and we worked
33:17
Speaker 5: with a model named Yumi who has been in Sports
33:20
Speaker 5: Illustrated and you know, is a really really successful model,
33:24
Speaker 5: and she told our team at the end of the shoot,
33:27
Speaker 5: she's like, I shoot swim where three to four times
33:30
Speaker 5: a week and she said, this was the best shoot
33:34
Speaker 5: I've ever done.
33:34
Speaker 1: This shoot felt so different And now I know, I know.
33:39
Speaker 5: And she's a plus sized model that almost exclusively shoots
33:43
Speaker 5: swim and into mix. But we don't try to control
33:45
Speaker 5: people when they when they come and may work with us.
33:49
Speaker 5: We just want them to authentically be themselves. And maybe
33:54
Speaker 5: that is the small difference that you're picking up in
33:56
Speaker 5: the pictures, is that they're owning it instead kind of
34:00
Speaker 5: someone kind of manufacturing or or forcing it. So I'm
34:05
Speaker 5: obsessed with semantics.
34:07
Speaker 3: I love words, okay, And I googled brand and it's
34:12
Speaker 3: so buzzy nowadays, but I typed it into the tisaurus
34:16
Speaker 3: and it came up with make type, label, sort, genre, category, class, cast, stamp,
34:22
Speaker 3: all of these signifiers and like categories of distinction. Yeah,
34:27
Speaker 3: And I thought, there is so much irony there because
34:30
Speaker 3: the overarching value of your brand is like you threw
34:34
Speaker 3: that all out of the window. Your ads just say
34:36
Speaker 3: come as you are, and so it was like you're
34:39
Speaker 3: almost the anti brand.
34:41
Speaker 5: Interesting that would maybe line up with what some people
34:44
Speaker 5: have said to me in the past kind of like
34:46
Speaker 5: they're like, I don't understand your brand, and it's like, well,
34:49
Speaker 5: it's not.
34:50
Speaker 1: It's not perfectly polished.
34:52
Speaker 5: It's not like this, you know, cookie cutter, paint by
34:56
Speaker 5: numbers kind of thing. It's evolving and changing every single day,
34:59
Speaker 5: and how it's going to look tomorrow it's going to
35:02
Speaker 5: be different from how it looks today. So that speaks
35:05
Speaker 5: to me in a really big way. Actually, what you.
35:08
Speaker 3: Just said really speaks to me too, because I remember
35:10
Speaker 3: watching the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show the first year it
35:14
Speaker 3: was out, and then I wouldn't watch it, and I
35:17
Speaker 3: remember some of my friends being like, why don't you
35:20
Speaker 3: watch it? Like it's like fun, and I was like
35:25
Speaker 3: it just I felt like the most beautiful women I
35:28
Speaker 3: knew had bumps and bruises and it wasn't pageanty and
35:32
Speaker 3: like beauty is not all about the runway, and I
35:34
Speaker 3: just I really, I feel so close.
35:38
Speaker 1: To what you are selling. I'm so appreciative of what
35:40
Speaker 1: you're doing. Thank you, Thank you. I am too.
35:43
Speaker 5: I mean like this company has has changed my life.
35:46
Speaker 5: And I don't mean that because we've like financially been successful.
35:49
Speaker 5: I mean it's completely transformed the way that I view
35:53
Speaker 5: and appreciate myself. And it's like the deprogramming, like we
35:58
Speaker 5: talked about off the top, it's like slowly been happening
36:01
Speaker 5: for me. And once you start to get to that
36:03
Speaker 5: other side where you don't you don't hate yourself every minute,
36:07
Speaker 5: you know what I mean, We're and it's never perfect,
36:10
Speaker 5: like you know, there's still I still have negative thoughts.
36:13
Speaker 5: We all do, right, but it's like the balance is
36:16
Speaker 5: totally shifted. And once you get to that other side
36:19
Speaker 5: of like almost not giving a shit a little bit
36:22
Speaker 5: as much, I just want like everyone to come and
36:25
Speaker 5: join me. Is because it's such I feel so free.
36:29
Speaker 5: I feel like I was being yeah, exactly exactly.
36:34
Speaker 3: So when we were about to do our interview, you
36:37
Speaker 3: were about to give birth to twin girls, and now
36:41
Speaker 3: they're two months old. So I was wondering if you
36:43
Speaker 3: could think of one tangible thing that you hope is
36:46
Speaker 3: different for them or for all girls of this next generation.
36:50
Speaker 1: One hundred percent.
36:51
Speaker 5: I hope that we don't even have to deprogram I
36:54
Speaker 5: hope that it is messages of like love who you
36:59
Speaker 5: are from the beginning, all people welcome. There is no
37:03
Speaker 5: normal you know what I mean. And I think that
37:07
Speaker 5: if we can just bypass that whole stage, they will
37:12
Speaker 5: be so much further ahead than we were. And I
37:16
Speaker 5: think the world will be such a better place because
37:19
Speaker 5: collectively people and girls for boys will spend less energy
37:26
Speaker 5: hating themselves and more energy on positive things.
37:29
Speaker 1: So that would be my biggest wish by far. So
37:33
Speaker 1: speaking of energy, I refuse to ask women how they
37:37
Speaker 1: balance it all. I hate that question.
37:40
Speaker 3: But as I watch you via Instagram, you are such
37:45
Speaker 3: a doer, So where do you draw all this inspiration
37:49
Speaker 3: and energy from.
37:50
Speaker 5: I have two speeds, like one hundred and ten or
37:54
Speaker 5: I kid you not zero like I. There is nothing
37:57
Speaker 5: in between at all. I'm either on overdrive or I
38:02
Speaker 5: am a sloth that like could lie on the couch
38:05
Speaker 5: for days on end and only eat takeout.
38:09
Speaker 1: So that's part of it. It's like.
38:14
Speaker 5: My battery is either like all the way up or
38:17
Speaker 5: it's all the way down, So you.
38:19
Speaker 1: Take your days to recharge. I do I need my
38:22
Speaker 1: time to recharge, for sure.
38:23
Speaker 5: I have to have it otherwise I just I won't
38:26
Speaker 5: be able to function, which you know is hard when
38:29
Speaker 5: you have a family and a business and whatnot. But
38:32
Speaker 5: there's still small ways that you can make time for it.
38:35
Speaker 5: And then I'm comfortable with things not being perfect, and
38:40
Speaker 5: I think that that's the biggest thing, Like I just
38:42
Speaker 5: know I have way too many things on the go
38:46
Speaker 5: for everything to be perfect, And so I don't really
38:49
Speaker 5: beat myself up about it the way that other people
38:51
Speaker 5: beat themselves.
38:52
Speaker 1: Up about it. I try and limit my mom guilt.
38:55
Speaker 5: It still shows up sometimes, but I just don't really
38:57
Speaker 5: have the time or the energy for it. And I
39:01
Speaker 5: try to laugh, like I think that that's it too.
39:04
Speaker 5: I think when you're smiling and like laughing, it's like
39:07
Speaker 5: you just keep getting more and more energy, you know
39:09
Speaker 5: what I mean. And so I try to I try
39:12
Speaker 5: to stay more on the optimistic positive side than letting
39:17
Speaker 5: myself go to the dark side, because we can each
39:21
Speaker 5: go in both directions, you know.
39:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, Is there.
39:25
Speaker 3: A mantra that you live by or recite daily that
39:29
Speaker 3: kind of helps you with that in order to not
39:31
Speaker 3: go to the dark side?
39:33
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't really have.
39:35
Speaker 5: No.
39:36
Speaker 1: I just I don't have a mantra for that.
39:38
Speaker 5: I think I just learned that it's just not worth it,
39:40
Speaker 5: Like it's not worth going dark because eventually I'm going
39:44
Speaker 5: to come out of the darkness. And so it's just
39:46
Speaker 5: like this whole thing if I just like learn to,
39:51
Speaker 5: you know, like move past it. So I think that
39:53
Speaker 5: that's been a personal development thing for me because I
39:56
Speaker 5: haven't always been that way. And then, in terms of
39:59
Speaker 5: a life motto, my best friend in the entire world,
40:03
Speaker 5: who's also an amazing badass person, taught me her tagline,
40:08
Speaker 5: which is no hands, no cookies, and I absolutely love it.
40:11
Speaker 5: And it's the idea that no one is going to
40:13
Speaker 5: walk up to you and just offer you a cookie.
40:16
Speaker 5: Things don't really get handed to you that way in life,
40:18
Speaker 5: so you have to raise your hand, you have to
40:21
Speaker 5: ask for things, you have to go out of your way,
40:24
Speaker 5: and then you can have as many freaking cookies as
40:26
Speaker 5: you want.
40:27
Speaker 3: No hands, no cookies is so good because my mom
40:30
Speaker 3: always said to me, if you want to go, get it.
40:33
Speaker 1: And I love the analogy of the cookie.
40:36
Speaker 3: Yeah.
40:36
Speaker 1: That and don't peak in high school is another.
40:38
Speaker 5: Way that I definitely want to teach my girls.
40:42
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to peak in high school. It's true, you
40:46
Speaker 1: don't know. It's like you think you do when you're
40:49
Speaker 1: in high school, but you don't.
40:51
Speaker 5: You absolutely think that you do you absolutely think that
40:55
Speaker 5: you do, but you do exactly.
40:58
Speaker 1: Okay, I do a little rapid fires.
41:00
Speaker 3: So what would you say to someone who doesn't know
41:02
Speaker 3: what to do or what first step to take after
41:05
Speaker 3: the initial this might be a great business thought.
41:08
Speaker 5: I would talk to you as many people as possible
41:12
Speaker 5: about your idea, and eventually the dots will just start
41:16
Speaker 5: to connect themselves, Like, talk about it. I find that
41:19
Speaker 5: talking about it makes it real, and then you start
41:21
Speaker 5: to get feedback and it starts to you start to
41:23
Speaker 5: get directions, and then all of a sudden, the path
41:26
Speaker 5: becomes clearer. If you don't talk about it, then it's
41:28
Speaker 5: just going to sit in your brain and you'll never
41:30
Speaker 5: move past that point.
41:31
Speaker 3: It's interesting you say that because I've heard a lot
41:34
Speaker 3: of people say, like, don't talk to people, don't get opinions,
41:37
Speaker 3: And I feel very similarly to you. Oh yeah, I
41:40
Speaker 3: live on the opposite end of the spectrum. Even if
41:42
Speaker 3: I don't like their insight, it makes me more convicted
41:46
Speaker 3: in my thought, Like it's a win either way. Absolutely,
41:49
Speaker 3: you're learning in your perspective, you're hearing something that you
41:51
Speaker 3: wouldn't have thought of before. And yeah, even if you
41:54
Speaker 3: don't like it, it doesn't. It doesn't mean that you
41:56
Speaker 3: you know, you don't have to take everyone's advice or opinion.
41:59
Speaker 3: But it's a data point. So if you could pick
42:01
Speaker 3: just one stereotype of women that would go away forever tomorrow,
42:05
Speaker 3: which one would it be?
42:07
Speaker 5: That were Caddy and we bring each other down because
42:11
Speaker 5: I think that there's a whole new world that's happening
42:14
Speaker 5: right now where instead of that, we're celebrating one another's
42:17
Speaker 5: success and bringing each other up.
42:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel it a book that shifted your perspective,
42:23
Speaker 3: something you think everybody should read.
42:26
Speaker 5: That's a good one. I really enjoyed the Shoodog biography
42:31
Speaker 5: by Phil Knight. I thought that it's always so interesting
42:35
Speaker 5: to see these, like, you know, an iconic brand like
42:38
Speaker 5: Nike that has touched almost every single person in the world,
42:42
Speaker 5: and to understand the founding story and to realize that
42:45
Speaker 5: it also was a bit of a train wreck disaster,
42:48
Speaker 5: just like every other business in the early days. So
42:51
Speaker 5: I felt that that was really good. I love that
42:53
Speaker 5: one too. Okay, I do a pretty smart question. So
42:58
Speaker 5: I have these cards. There's fifty two I pick at random.
43:02
Speaker 5: Oh nice, Okay.
43:04
Speaker 3: Oh, I like this one, which personality trait has gotten
43:07
Speaker 3: you in the most trouble.
43:09
Speaker 5: Oh, I mean it might be my energy. That's that's
43:13
Speaker 5: definitely possible. I've ben alter ego called after party Tuanna.
43:17
Speaker 5: It just like never knows when to go to bed
43:19
Speaker 5: and stays up way too late, even on school nights
43:23
Speaker 5: and important meeting nights. So that would be the answer
43:26
Speaker 5: that my husband would say, is APJ Yeah, Yeah, that's
43:30
Speaker 5: that would be the answer that my husband would say.
43:33
Speaker 5: And then the last question is what is the smartest
43:36
Speaker 5: decision you've ever made? Oh, betting on myself for sure,
43:41
Speaker 5: turning down the negative noises and betting on myself.
43:44
Speaker 3: I have one more last question, but I just that
43:49
Speaker 3: when you met your husband, how did you know that
43:51
Speaker 3: he was your person?
43:53
Speaker 1: Oh, that's such a good question. I just knew.
43:59
Speaker 5: I I was like happier with him than I was
44:02
Speaker 5: with anyone else. And I was totally myself in a
44:07
Speaker 5: way that I hadn't been in any other relationship before
44:11
Speaker 5: or with anyone else before. And so those were some
44:15
Speaker 5: of the ways. And then I'd say like that later
44:18
Speaker 5: got cemented by I just knew he was going to
44:21
Speaker 5: be such a great dad and that he was going
44:24
Speaker 5: to be the best partner, and I think that you
44:25
Speaker 5: can totally do it on your own, and I've seen
44:28
Speaker 5: so many people do it on their own, but I
44:30
Speaker 5: think that it's a million times easier if you have
44:33
Speaker 5: someone who's standing there behind you, who's totally in your corner.
44:36
Speaker 5: And so I've had that, and I've been really grateful
44:38
Speaker 5: for it. Awesome, Thank you so much.
44:40
Speaker 1: You're welcome. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, this
44:43
Speaker 1: has been fun and nice to finally meet you in person.
44:45
Speaker 3: Nice to finally meet you too.
45:00
Speaker 1: Oh all right, today is a good day. To have
45:06
Speaker 1: a good day. I'll see an excell
45:14
Speaker 5: Mhm.