Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / Gettin 'Jiggy' with It: The Puzzles Business + Supporting Female Artists: with Founder Kaylin Marcotte

Transcript

Gettin 'Jiggy' with It: The Puzzles Business + Supporting Female Artists: with Founder Kaylin Marcotte · QUESTION EVERYTHING

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe, and each week my guests
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and I have conversations that put a new spin on pretty.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: This is pretty smart.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I feel like being an entrepreneur is a lot like
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: trying to solve a puzzle, putting things together piece by piece,
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: problem solving, trying things, failing, celebrating the little wins, always
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: striving towards the bigger picture. Which is why it's so
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: fitting that my guest today is an entrepreneur whose puzzle
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: solving game is strong. Kaylin Marcott is the founder and
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: CEO of Jiggy, a company that modernized and reinvented the
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: jigsaw puzzle with.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Their direct to consumer model.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: He works with independent female artists so that your puzzles
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: are literally art in pieces, and every puzzle comes with
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: a tube of glue, allowing you to frame your puzzles
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: after you make them.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Kayln's timing was impeccable.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Jiggy launched in November of twenty nineteen, just a few
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: months before puzzles became the IT item of quarantine and
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: it it became. Jiggy is a cultural phenomenon loved by
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Casey Musgraves, chrisy, Teagan, Alison Williams, Sophia Bush, Demi Lovado,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: and Moore. I love that her company's mission goes beyond puzzles.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: They're amplifying voices, supporting female artists, and teaching customers about
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: the beauty of rethinking your downtime.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: I want to start out, Kaylan, with just why puzzles?
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: Like you could have jumped into any different entrepreneurial venture,
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: and you're really passionate about puzzles.
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: I am.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: I am.
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: So it started super organically for me. I was working
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: at an early startup, so it was originally Polyscide pre law,
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: did management consulting, was going to go to law school,
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: and then I met the co founders of the Skim
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: when they had just launched their prior year, and so
• 2:21
  Speaker 5: I joined them as their first employee when they raise
• 2:23
  Speaker 5: their seed round and definitely all consuming and stressful and
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: just screen time all day long, and so I started
• 2:32
  Speaker 5: doing puzzles as kind of my meditation and stress relief.
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: And the big things that I kept coming back to
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: were like why are these all so cheesy? And like
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: the stock photography is all I could find? And then
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: I'd put it together, and I'd be done with it
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: and like not want to tear it apart right away.
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: But it was this cheesy, outdated image I didn't want
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: to display. So it really just the idea for Jiggy
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: came from my love of puzzles and starting to dream
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: up like what would my ideal puzzle experience be like.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: So I was shocked to learn this. I did not
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: know this because we spoke briefly before the interview so
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: I could learn more about JIGGI you had left this
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: part out. You launched with twenty five thousand dollars of
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: your own money, no investor, no experience in launching a business.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: I have so many questions. First, when did you decide
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: to go all in on this idea?
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: I'm glad we're talking about that now because I'm a
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: total advocate for you know, starting with what you can
• 3:38
  Speaker 5: where you are, whatever you can manage, and kind of
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: bootstrapping seeing if there's an appetite and not necessarily having to,
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: you know, out of the gate do that hyper growth
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: startup path VC the next biggest round.
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: So I had.
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: Been you know, I started with the skammount of twenty thirteen,
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: and so had started rediscovered my love of puzzles and
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: was doing them weekly all of twenty fourteen fifteen sixteen,
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: and I ended up being at the Skim for four years.
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: So this was definitely like a slow burn idea. It
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: just kept taking more and more shape, and I just
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: kept coming back to it, and ultimately, when I left
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: the Skim in twenty seventeen, I started working on it
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: the following year and then launched. So it definitely gave
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: me some time to you know, save up and still
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: have a full time job while I was starting to
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: think about it, But really I just tried to stretch
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: a dollar and do things as you know, scrappy as possible.
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: And when I decided to dive in and really put
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: my resources behind it, it was after years of just thinking, honing,
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: you know, getting feedback from people, letting the idea take shape,
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: and also getting a lot more energy from it where
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: I'd tell people.
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: The idea, they'd be like, I'd buy it, and I had.
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: Enough confidence that, Okay, at least like one hundred people
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: I know personally, like I can sell one hundred puzzles,
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: So let's start there.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: And obviously twenty seventeen is pre pandemic I can only
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: imagine how Jiggy took off during the pandemic, like you
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: had already been in the puzzle business. I want to
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: get into the pandemic. But before that, in twenty seventeen,
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: twenty eighteen, you're selling puzzles. How are you getting things
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: off the ground, How are you finding customers?
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: I timed, not necessarily intentionally, but in retrospect, very fortuitous
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: timing that I launched.
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: Right before the holiday season.
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: So of course there's just some natural seasonality with puzzles.
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: You know, winter and people are indoors the holiday season,
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: and families coming together and having a lot of memories
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: and familiarity around puzzles around the holidays and gifting of course.
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: So the first couple of months was just going right
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: into that first holiday season and trying to you know,
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: get on gift guides and lists and using my own
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: network and just friends, family, everyone to try to spread
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: just get the word of mouth going. And then so
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: part of our models that we partner with these FEMA artists,
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: so each puzzle design is original artwork by these FEMA artists.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: They get a percentage of every sale.
• 6:16
  Speaker 5: So you know, not only was that just something I
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: felt strongly about baking in doing profit sharing with them,
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: but it also means that they are incentivized, you know,
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: to sell more and more units so they would share
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: with their fans and communities.
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: It started super organically.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: Were you shipping out of your apartment?
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: Yes?
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: And luckily, I like, our dimensions are pretty large, Like
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: our biggest puzzle, it's like a foot high, and you know,
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: has this really thick like packaging and square base. And
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: so you know, I have a friend who started a
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: jewelry company and it's so small. She's like, I think
• 6:54
  Speaker 5: it's enabled me to stay out of my living room
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: longer because it actually doesn't take up that much space.
• 6:59
  Speaker 5: But I was like asked out of my you know,
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: New York one bedroom living room like a month. So
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: very quickly got a warehouse. But I did ship myself
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: at first, and then any like rush orders, especially around
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: the holidays, people are like, you know, I need this
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: by Christmas, and so I would pack it up, drive
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: it to ups before the cutoff. Yeah. So I have
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: a lot a lot of respect for fulfillment centers.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: Now, so I kind of I guess I skipped over this.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: If you could explain and kind of talk about how
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: Jiggy is. Jiggy really is a different kind of puzzle.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: It's super elevated in many ways. It's very feminist. Can
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: you explain the actual puzzles of course.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:41
  Speaker 5: So we partner with female artists, as I mentioned, So
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: each puzzle design is their artwork, and you're spending like
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: eight hours, you know, immersed in this image, studying every
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: detail of it.
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: I really wanted it to.
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: Be a beautiful, compelling piece of artwork.
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: But then also once you're done with it, as I mentioned,
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: I was too sentimental to like tear it apart right away.
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: I just spent all this time on it.
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: And so we also include a tube of puzzle blue,
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: so when you're done, it binds the pieces, essentially creating
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: an art print which you can frame and display as art.
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: And then the packaging other than the glue, if you
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: choose not to keep it. I also wanted it to
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: be able to be displayed, you know, back in its container.
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: So the pieces themselves come.
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: In a reusable glass jar with a cork lid, so
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: if you were to take it apart and put the
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: pieces back in, it would totally you know, fit on
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: a very kind of curated bookshelf, or even if you
• 8:40
  Speaker 5: do glue it.
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: We'd seen people reuse.
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: The jars of a vase or a cookie jar or
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: something in their kitchen, so we have, you know, those
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: different components of the packaging. The puzzle itself is you know,
• 8:52
  Speaker 5: extra thick, double sided printed on both sides that it
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: you know, kind of gets rid of that like puzzle dust,
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: but when you dumb out a puzzle and there's a
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: dust area. So I really tried to come from my
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: own experience as such an avid puzzler, like what were
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: the little the little details that I really noticed, and
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: then the packaging itself sits upright, And I kind of
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: took inspiration from like a museum or gallery, given that
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: each puzzle design is this original artwork.
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: So yeah, I really wanted to be an experience.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: They're really beautiful.
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: What was your thought process in terms of where you
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: wanted to allocate money and that twenty five thousand dollars
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: at first? I mean, of course a bunch of it
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: probably goes to product.
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, there were some things that you can't
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: pack together or put like this sweat equity into which
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: of course is physical product, you know, materials cost of
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: goods sold our manufacturing partner. We also, you know, everything
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: was custom, so there were a lot of factories that
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: knew how to make a puzzle put it in the
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: rectangular cardboard box, but we wanted everything to be custom
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: and so that was a process developing that and ultimately,
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: you know, finding a factory that was willing to do
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: it was much harder than I expected. I thought, like,
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: you pay someone to make a thing, that's what they do,
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: you know, that's it. But especially pre launch, pre revenue,
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: like it was a risk. You know, they were taking
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: a bet on us that this would be an idea
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: that had had legs. And then you know, just kind
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: of the infrastructure, incorporating trademark, getting the domain, setting up
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: the website again, tried to.
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: Do super scrappy you know.
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: Use template websites off shopify, did it all myself, wrote
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: our first art licensing contract, so tried to keep kind
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: of the op X as low as possible, so most
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: of that money did go into product itself.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: When did you think I really have something here?
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: Certainly seeing the first like stranger buy it and then
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: write in and write a nice email and just show
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: that there was an appetite beyond people who knew me
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: and were buying it because they want to support me,
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: but really on a larger, on a larger scale, when
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: I packed up my car and rented a car, I
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: don't have a car in New York, but I packed
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: up and drove to Philly where Anthropology, the Urban family
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: of Brands is headquartered, and met with Anthropology and showed
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: my samples and pitched them on why I thought the
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: anthro shopper, you know, would totally get jiggy in what
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: we were doing. And to see their faces just get
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: it and feel totally aligned. And they were like, yes,
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: like games, lifestyle gifts, like home goods. She wants it
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: and she wants that functionality, but she also appreciates the design.
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: She wants like she wants form and functioned. You know,
• 11:56
  Speaker 5: she wants it to serve a purpose, but she wants
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: it to look beautiful in her living room. And that
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: meeting and then ultimately, you know, doing our first retail partnership,
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: which was a nationwide two hundred and fifteen store locations
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: across the country with Anthropologies, very validating that we really
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: had something.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: Did you cry? I can't even imagine.
• 12:17
  Speaker 6: That was like yes, yes.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: And then I saw you went on Shark Tank and
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: you landed a deal with Mark Cuban. He now at
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: a fifteen percent stake in your business. So how did
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: that investment. Where in the timeline of Jiggy did that happen?
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: And how did the investment from Cuban change things for you?
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: I was pretty early on.
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: We launched twenty nineteen, I filmed towards the end of
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: twenty twenty, and then it aired in twenty twenty one,
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: and it was just.
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: Such a unique experience.
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: I think, you know, to be given an opportunity to
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: tell your story and share, you know, what you're doing
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: with the sharks and the world. It also was a
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: great kind of forcing function to get clear on my vision.
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: You know, I had launched. I'm a solo founder, so
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: I don't have a co founder to like, you know,
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: talk to every day and make sure we're aligned and
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: setting big strategic vision, so you know, to prepare for
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: that and really be ready to answer big questions was
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: just a great experience. And then you know, after airing,
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: it's really interesting what happens. Of course, you know, everything
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: like the viewership's amazing and just the support and traffic
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: and sales from it airing. But a lot of other
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: people watch Shark Tank too, so you know, other retailers,
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: potential partners, advisors, and so there's a lot of just
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: kind of other tangential like impact afterwards. And it really
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: I think, you know, having someone like Mark believe in
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: me in this idea. And there was a lot of
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: conversation on the show about like the effect of COVID
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: and is this just like a COVID fad and there's
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: no lasting you know, appetite for this, And to have
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: someone like Mark bet on me was just gave me
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: so much more confidence. It let me think even bigger,
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: so you know, to really be like all right, last
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: year and a half, I've been like just mom and pop, like,
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: let's do this in every rich way I can get
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: it done one Woman's show to then like all right,
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: what would I do if I had this platform and support?
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: So it helped me really move into the next phase
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: of the company.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: In hindsight, how do you feel about giving up fifteen
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: percent of the company.
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: I think it's a calculation you just have to make
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: of like is that going to grow the pie for everyone?
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: You know?
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: Is that going to help you get bigger, faster, better.
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: And if that's the case, then I think it's just
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: kind of a calculation you have to make.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: Though your business was booming during the pandemic, I can
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: also imagine that it presented some unexpected challenges manufacturing potentially
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: different manufacturers because different pieces are being made at different places.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: But that's a lot of different communication and potentially things
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: going wrong with shipping also during the pandemic, which was delayed. Yeah,
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: what were some of the unexpected challenges?
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: Oh, my gosh, so many, largely in what you just mentioned.
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: The whole manufacturing free fulfillment process. You know, there's like
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: six components and different vendors that goes into one finished product.
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: So if any of those are late, or their production
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: schedule has changed, or materials are more expensive and hard
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: to come by, that you know, can either delay the
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: entire production schedule or completely eat into margins. So definitely
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: just the you know, orchestrating all of these moving parts
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: at once, trying to align them onto one production calendar.
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: During COVID, you know, materials being out of stock, everything
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: being more expensive, taking long longer, you know, in the factory,
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: like are they would just say like we don't know
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: who's going to show up today, so we can't really
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: give you a timeline. So really having to work with
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: so many unknowns, and it was just a constantly moving target.
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: And then you know freight situation, as I'm sure we've
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: all heard, like shit to get it, and I'm like,
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: the things were just waiting at ports for weeks, and
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: I think that's.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: Just a jump in for people who don't know what
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: freighting is. It's just basically things come via boat and
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: we don't think about that because we think about airplanes,
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: but a lot of products still are transported via the seas.
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and so you know, it's one thing to just
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: cross the ocean, but then even once you arrive here,
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: you know obviously they have to be docked and offloaded
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: and then put onto the truck and delivered. So each
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: step of that can cause you know, further delay and.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: So and then I was thinking, like what if there's
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: a weather issue, Like what if there's a huge box
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: of these puzzles that get ruined by a rainstorm?
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah, no, absolutely, or like they tipped sometimes you know,
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: it's on a shipping container, so they don't open the
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: container until it's delivered.
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: Of the warehouse.
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: So we got a couple of times where you know,
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: the warehouse opens it and it's just all tipped over.
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: So yeah, so many things can go wrong, and that's
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: why I think you never know what you know. I
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: think COVID brought a lot more unknowns and just circumstances
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: that you had to navigate around. But there's always going
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: to be something and some are predictable, some you could
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: never imagine. So I think it's really just adaptability and
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: you know, creative problem solving and thinking on your feet.
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: We just took the approach of like as transparent as possible,
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: you know, update you every step of the way. I'm luckily.
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: I think that built a lot of trust with our community.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: It sounds like you've really handled them with in stride
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: and with a lot of self compassion, which is hard. Definitely,
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: you have to what do you think people don't realize
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: about turning a hobby into a business. What would you
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: caution anybody about I think.
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: Really just making sure less about turning a hobby than
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: just any idea you have that you know, this is
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: something you can really like hang your hat on. At
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: the end of the day, it's going to be there
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: are going to be so many moments of where it
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: seems so much easier to just stop and not and
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: it probably is, and so what is going to get
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: you through? And so for me having it just be
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: so organic and such a product that I truly fell
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: in love with, but.
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: That alone might not have been enough.
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: I think making sure that we had a bigger why,
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: which for me was supporting these artists and helping them
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: make a living after their work and introducing puzzles to
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: people who needed, you know, down time and quality time
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: with loved ones to have this activity. So coming back
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: to a why that is bigger than just you and
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: you wanting to start a company, I think is really
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: important to consider in any idea.
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: But certainly if it's a.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: Hobby as well, I can tell you really mean it,
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: you know, because I think sometimes people talk about the why,
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: it's like a buzzy thing to say, and I could
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: tell you you really mean it.
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it falls apart quickly if it's not.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: If it's so real, I think so too. I've read
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: that you talked about finding your why. You said it
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: wasn't just about puzzles, but how they became a platform
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: for the mark you wanted to make on the world.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: This is a three part question. The first is what
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: marks do you want to make on the world.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: Two things come to mind.
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: I want to show that there is another way. I
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: think it's easy to get kind of swept up in
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: the right path. Again, I was going to do management
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: consulting and whatever you're supposed to do make your parents proud.
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: So first step was kind of really digging into.
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: What do I want and what is going to fulfill me?
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: And then step two is really doing it your way.
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: And I think some you know, I was in this
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: kind of start of VC hyper growth hockey Stick World
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: in New York, and I think it took a lot
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: of reflection to be like, I'm going to do this
• 20:19
  Speaker 5: my way and like build a small business and kind
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: of back to the basics, and so just being super
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: clear on what you want and letting go of some
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: of the shoulds, you know, rat race and having that clarity.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: Can I dig in for a second just to get
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: more specific, what were the shoulds that you were pushing
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: against specifically?
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: I think the biggest shoulds was just the pace of
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: scale and the bigger, better, faster, always at all costs,
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: especially with like e comm like spending one hundred thousand
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: dollars a month on Facebook and just you know, raise
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: as much as anyone will give you, you know, as
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: much as humanly possible, hire as many people, you know,
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: double double, triple, triple exit, and that I just raised
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: that path, that trajectory was not going to enable the
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: kind of company I wanted to build and the impact I.
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: Wanted to have for you know, artists, We would.
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: Have not been able to compensate them in the way
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: that I wanted and to have the relationship with our customers,
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: which you do. You know, we have a puzzle club
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: where people puzzle with us monthly, and we have zooms
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: with them and we all puzzle together, you know, and
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: just things that I was really passionate about with our
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: community on our customer side and our artists side, which
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: if your heads down, you know, blinders on entirely unscalable ideas,
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: you know. And I still like when people are missing
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: puzzle pieces, they send me a photo of the area
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: what piece is missing. I have a completed one at
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: my house and I pick it out and I'm nail
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: it to them in an envelope, and like, because they're like,
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: I know what it feels like to get to the
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: end of a puzzle and have a piece missing, and
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: also we include the glue and they were going to
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: frame it, so like this, you know, it's a disasters
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: a disaster. Yeah, Someone's like you're picking out missing puzzle
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: pieces and I'm like yes, and you know what those
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: people on a business side, those people are customers for life.
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: But also it's just that is how I want to
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: run a business.
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: And so saying no, I think, I mean you hear
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: sometimes like saying no is so much more important than
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: saying yes sometimes in building a business, and that's really
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: maintaining focus and being clear on what you say no
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: to is just as important.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: If people don't know their why, how do you think
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: you can find your why? Because I believe everybody has one.
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree with you. I think two ways that
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: I have kind of tried.
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: One.
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: I love just journally reflection.
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: I have like a five your diary that laps around
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: itself each year, so I see like exactly where I
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: was and what I was thinking and just how I felt.
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: Every day, you know, year over year.
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: I also think sometimes it makes encounterintuitive.
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: To look outward instead of inward for or why.
• 23:17
  Speaker 5: But I did a couple exercises where and I think
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: it's something they do a lot of like business.
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: School, where they ask, you know, you.
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: Ask everyone around you to like the first three words
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: that come to mind, or like what do you think
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: you know my strengths are? And I think sometimes even
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: it might be right in front of you. You know,
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: it's been under your nose this whole time, but it's
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: hard to see yourself sometimes, so I think also it's
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: kind of fun to see, you know, what resonates about
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: you most with other people and maybe get some ideas
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: from what those nearest to you see.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: I had a meeting one time with a former executive
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: producer of The View, which like is my dream job?
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: You were chatting and she was really insightful and smart,
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: and she said, I think this is like an exercise
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: that she tells people to do, which is email ten
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: people in your life from different areas, so like one
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: family member, one friend, one sort of stranger, you know,
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: so you get like different feedback and ask them three
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: questions about yourself, like what stands out about me to you?
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: What do you think that I'm best at or better
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: than like other people that you know at and kind
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: of like go down the list, and I did the
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: exercise and it was actually really fascinating. Eight. I think
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: it was nice to hear nice things about yourself, but
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: I also asked questions about improvement, you know, so it
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: was nice to hear candid feedback. I think asking other
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: people questions is super interesting because we see ourselves differently
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: than other people exactly.
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And somebody might notice like you seem to really,
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: you know, bring up this topic all the time or
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: be really jazzed about it, and sometimes having that re
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: reflected back to you.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: Is actually more clear. What's an untapped resource you would
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: advise other entrepreneurs to take advantage of when trying to
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: get something off the ground.
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: I think a couple things that I really kind of
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: internalized starting out.
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: One and maybe especially being.
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: A solo founder, was just to look for support and
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: ask for help anywhere I could. I really have no
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: ego about raising the hand or not knowing something. And
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: I think sometimes there's this advice around like stealth mode,
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: keep things close to the chest, and there's some instances
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: maybe like proprietary technology or whatever like that is important
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: trade secrets. But for me I kind of talk to
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: anybody who would listen about JIGGI and just got so
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: much support and introductions and really expanded, you know, my
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: capacity with just being kind of vulnerable with sharing this idea,
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: you know, before launch. And then there are also just
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: like a ton of actual resources, you know, incubators, accelerators,
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: you know, list serves that I'm on, and newsletters I
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: get about, especially consumer e comm industry now, so yeah,
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: I think find like what kind of.
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: Formal resources and networks are out.
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: There, but also just don't be afraid to really let
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: people into your process and share even when it's in
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: those kind of formative days.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: Okay, what's been an essential part of your business that
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: you've really invested in or fought for?
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: So are kind of back to to what I spent
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: my money on early was like I felt that the
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: product was super important to get right out of the gate.
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: And sometimes you hear you know, like the move fast
• 26:49
  Speaker 5: break things like if you're not embarrassed by your first
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: MVP version, like you you took too long or you
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: launched too late. I felt with a product which yes,
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: I'm positioned as more elevated and kind of premium, higher
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: price point, that I didn't necessarily have that you know
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: luxury of just move fast, break things, but that I
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: really wanted it to be thoughtful and intentional on the gate.
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: So a lot of time on just design and you know,
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: of course our artists and just understanding like what is
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: life like when you are trying to make a living
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: as a working artist, you know, especially we focus on
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: female artists, so like, is gender representation in equal when
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: it comes to galleries you know, exhibits and representation by
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: our agents and all that. So I hope now if
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: you like unbox a Jiggy, you can tell that every detail,
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: a lot of thought and intention went into the.
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: Product, and I can switch the mood up for a second.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: Can you take me back to your single hardest day
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: as the founder of Jiggy Cool?
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: Which one to choose from? There's a week that comes
• 27:59
  Speaker 5: to mind, which was just, you know, one of those
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: we like everything, all the perfect storm of scenarios coming together,
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: and it was leading up to the holidays, so already
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: felt kind of higher stakes than usual. You know, as
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: I said, most people like goodwill around shipping timelines, but
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: if there's a deadline and a holiday and you know,
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: they still thoughtfully wanted to give this gift, and now
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: it's late, and then they don't. They look like they
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: brought nothing, and you know, the stakes felt very high.
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: People were getting frustrated, and.
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: Our product was stuck.
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: There was like truly nothing I could do, which I
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: think has been a big learning curve for me of
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: letting go knowing the things that are within my control and.
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: The things that are not.
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: And I think, as you know, I was like a
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: great student, always did my homework, and so as a
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: type a person who's used to having, you know, if
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: I work hard enough, I can get it done. Something
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: like the materials are out of stock and the product
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: is on the boat and it can't dock, Like you know,
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: it was very hard to accept, like I'm not in
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: control of this situation and the only thing in my
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: control is how I handle it with our customers and
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: the transparency and just you know a bunch of refunds
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: and credits and so that those were kind of the
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: circumstances and then we learned the hard way just best
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: practices with international wire fraud. But we had one payment
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: left to the freight company to release the goods, and
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: again already behind a lot of emails customers unhappy, and
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: I wire the money and then I had been emailing,
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: you know, with her, and then I get a WhatsApp
• 29:45
  Speaker 5: She's like, Hey, I'm what's happening because I haven't heard
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: back from you, Like where's the money?
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: And I go back and I.
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: Look at our whole thread and it turns out like
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: two weeks before, this company's entire email was hacked by
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: hackers and they had been the ones talking to me
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: the last two weeks. She thought I'd ghosted her and
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: she had hurts me in two weeks. I wired the
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: money to them, to this intermediary bank. So it was
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: not only a sad financial day, but it just set
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: everything back. You know. I knew that we were going
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: to have a lot of unhappy customers and that just
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: like weighs on me so much, and so, you know,
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: feeling out of control and losing that much money, especially bootstrapping,
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: was it tough.
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: I was like, this might be all over.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: It's hard to swallow that. That's a good sort of
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: warning though for other people. Yeah, yeah, it sounds like
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: it sort of rewired how you view challenges though, which
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: is kind of a gift in a weird way it did.
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: I think my mom always used this phrase like necessity
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: is the mother of invention, and I try to really
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: internalize that of like things seem hard or I'm like
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: out of options, and to see that as like.
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: What am I going to come up with? You know what?
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: Creativity is this circumstance, you know, going to inspire in me?
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: And so trying to see challenges as opportunities. It's hard sometimes,
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: but definitely have gotten better at it over the jiggy journey.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: Okay, we have a little rapid fire. Okay, who in
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: your life should get a little credit for your success
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: that maybe we don't know about.
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: There's this woman and I don't think she even knows this,
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: but we were in like a women's networking group kind
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: of thing and we met once a month and it
• 31:32
  Speaker 5: was for years. When I was at the SKIM and
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: I had been talking about this idea and I was
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: still little, I was like, you.
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: Know, I don't know.
• 31:40
  Speaker 7: Like the SKIM we're like connecting people with current events
• 31:43
  Speaker 7: and like the twenty sixteen election, we got one hundred
• 31:46
  Speaker 7: thousand women registered to vote, and I was like, am
• 31:48
  Speaker 7: I really kind of just like make puzzles?
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: Like it felt silly or like trivial, and I.
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: Was like, maybe I should go we're here or there
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: or something, and she just she was like, kay, and
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: I you know, I see you monthly for a couple
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: of years now, like I feel like I know you?
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: And when are you going to bet on yourself? Like
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: it's time?
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: And it was just the right words at the right moment,
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: and she just told me to bet on myself. And yeah,
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: I think that was a nice reminder that it was
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: my time.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: It's a motto that you live by.
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: I really think I just come back to kind of
• 32:22
  Speaker 5: the golden rule do onto others. I think, you know,
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: never really know what people are going through, and everyone
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: carries a lot with them and in work personal life,
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: I try to just do on to others.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: You were asked to give a TED talk right now,
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: what would it be about?
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: I could definitely talk forever about how to start a
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: company from with nothing? And I think a lot of
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: people out there have ideas and have enough to start,
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: but not hundreds of thousands of dollars in a big
• 32:58
  Speaker 5: you know, or investors them. And I think how to
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: start where you are with what you have, with an
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: idea and build slowly and organically. I would love to
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: share some of my experience with that and inspire more
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: people to go after it.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: I personally would love to hear more about that. So
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: I think there's something there. What is a book that
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: changed your life?
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: I love fiction.
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: The one I come back to you that I read
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: probably like every other year is The Alchemist.
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: It's like, maybe cheesy as it sounds.
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: I think I am a very rational person, sometimes very logical.
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: I can, you know, talk myself in or out of anything,
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: and sometimes I just I need that reminder to just
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: connect to what is meant.
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: To be and just my gut. And so I read
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: that pretty often.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: Okay, I do a pretty smart question from the card deck. Okay,
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: so because you're virtual, you tell me when to stop,
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: and it feels right. Stop one thing you're trying to
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: or need to let go of.
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: I'm trying to.
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: Let go of my own expectations to be good to
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: everything at once. I think, I you know, people talk
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: a lot about work life balance. I used to think
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: about it, like work life balance at the same time
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: in the same day, how do I be a great partner, sister,
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: or daughter, founder or CEO? Like at the same time
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: in the same day, and I'm kind of releasing.
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: Myself of that and just trying to have.
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: It feel more equal than not and over any given time.
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: But there are days where like I am not a
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: good partner or a good sister, you know I've been,
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: and I try to just set expectations super clearly today
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: probably not responding to texts in my little workhole, and
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: then days where like I really try to shut off
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: and like, maybe objectively I'm not a great CEO, but
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: you know, I'm balancing it out. So I think trying
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: to release myself of the guilt of not doing everything
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: once and just honestly like less multitasking and like doing
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: one thing good at a time.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: Really, thank you for sharing that. I actually think I
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: needed to hear that. I agree with you. It's very
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: and I think women in particular fill a lot of
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: different roles in their own lives in other people's lives,
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: and those expectations are heavy.
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: Okay, this is the last question I ask everybody. It's
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: whatever comes to your mind, because if you overthink it,
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: it's way too hard to answer. Okay, what is the
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: smartest decision you've ever made?
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: Smartest decision was definitely to start my own company. Even
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: before that, to quit my super stable, you know, management
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: consulting job, to take half my salary at the SKIM,
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: I absolutely would never start a jiggy if I hadn't
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: worked for female founders, seen the early days.
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: It just set me on an entirely different track.
• 36:01
  Speaker 5: I remember my dad, he was like, so you're quitting
• 36:04
  Speaker 5: consulting for an email.
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: I was like, it's more than that, Dad, you don't
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: get it.
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: But you know, it was one of those super just
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: leap of faith. This is where I need to be
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: right now, and ultimately, you know, career happiness was a
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: very smart decision.
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: Kylen, I like who you are so much. I'm rooting
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: for you.
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I really love what you're doing. I think women
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: need advocates like you, and I love what you're doing
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: for these female artists. It's really special.
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
• 36:34
  Speaker 6: So that really means the world.
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: All right, today is a good day. To have a
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: good day.
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: I'll see you next week.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Yah,