The Empowered Challenger: Recent Episodes
Door No. 3
Unless you’re a category leader, your brand is likely in a struggle for attention in a crowded consumer marketplace. Fortunately, your business’s challenger nature may be the very thing that sets it apart from the pack.
On The Empowered Challenger Podcast, Prentice Howe of Door No. 3 talks with founders, marketers and thought leaders to explore the tactics that challenger brands leverage to steal market share and topple giants.
When Suzie Welsh Devine saw women struggling to find the answers they needed at overcrowded fertility clinics, she knew there had to be a better way.
At the time, Suzie was a women's health and fertility nurse, but she came from an entrepreneurial family. Seeing a gap in the market, she combined her business savvy, passion for women’s health, and personal insights into fertility treatments to create BINTO, short for “Bun in the Oven.” She hopes that the company will change the way we see women’s health, supplemental treatments, and the medical industry as a whole.
“Wouldn't we be better off focusing on preventative medicine over inpatient care?” Suzie asks in this episode of The Empowered Challenger. “Are there other ways of handling things before we move to prescription drugs? That’s really what we’re interested in.”
Suzie founded BINTO in 2016, with $20,000 she’d saved and without traditional investors. Initially, she targeted the supplements to women receiving fertility treatments. Using the industry-disrupting powers of direct-to-consumer selling, and personalized marketing and products, BINTO is challenging an industry that’s been tough to crack.
Since then, Suzie has started looking beyond fertility treatment, at other elements of women’s health that need a revamp.
“I think we’re just at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our potential, and what we want to be,” Suzie says.
Featured Challenger👱♀️ Name: Suzie Welsh Devine
⚙️ How she challenges: Through BINTO, Suzie hopes to provide women at all stages of life with monthly supplement subscriptions customized to their needs.
💊 Company: BINTO
💎 Noteworthy: Suzie knew she wanted to go into nursing after a trip to Malawi with the Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance when she was 16. She got her nursing degree from the University of Virginia, and is still a licensed nurse.
🔍 Where to find Suzie: LinkedIn | Instagram
Challenger Wisdom Highlights from the conversation appear below.
💡 Challenging your expectations of yourself“The world of wellness was always floating in the back of my mind as something I was passionate about and really interested in. Did I know this was going to be my career? No, not a clue.”
💡 Offering convenience is disruptive
“Five years ago, no one was doing what we're doing. We really believe in personalized medicine, and we’re direct-to-consumer. We aren’t sold on a shelf and we don’t use bottles: Everything comes in easy, grab-and-go daily packets. As a nurse, I know that medication adherence is huge, and that means your supplements too. Building the brand in a way that’s easy for customers is key.”
💡Taking on the market clichés“We're a scrappy startup, and we didn't work with an agency off the bat. It was just the team creating [the packaging]. In the fertility market, [the marketing] is a lot of baby bumps and hot pink. We wanted it to feel warm and fun and inviting, without having baby bumps everywhere.”
💡 Tuning out the background noise“People who haven’t built something think they know how to build something better than you do. I’ve had to learn that everyone has their two cents, and they think building a company is easy. Just take it with a grain of salt, and ignore it like white noise in the background.”
💡 The new way to advertise“We do traditional pay-per-click ads, and we do some influencer work. Social media has been one of the biggest benefits to starting a brand today. If you’re starting a brand, you need to be present on social media channels. Instagram has been a phenomenal way for us to gain customers for a lower cost.”
💡 Harnessing the disruptive power of personal connection “Word of mouth is really powerful. Any time that I can get in front of a group of women or potential customers, it sells. We used to do a lot of live events [before the COVID-19 pandemic]. Accessing fertility communities and doctors’ offices through B2B partnerships is also very powerful for us in terms of sales, because it speaks to trust. If someone’s doctor is telling them they trust a brand, they’re more likely to buy it.”
💡 An alternative to traditional investors“I'm really glad that we were able to test things without a lot of investors involved. A lot of running a startup is throwing darts on a dartboard, and testing, and figuring it out. We were able to do a lot of the testing and figuring out on our own, so that when we have fundraised, we haven’t had to go through many painful points.”
💡 Customers first, competition second“It's about our customers. If I get caught up in what other people are doing, then I forget about our core customers and I'm not serving them. Of course, it’s important to be aware of the competition, have a pulse on it, and know what's going on in the market. But we need to focus on our business and serving our customers, giving them what they need and creating products for them to move forward.”
Top Quotes:
“There's a lot of noise out there in the market and we just have to continue to cut through it and prove that we should be the trusted number one.”
“To a potential entrepreneur listening: There are lots of ways to start a business and gain access to capital.”
“When we started five years ago, no one was doing this. Now there are some indirect competitors in the market and women's health is really booming. It’s a good sign that other people think there's a lot of value to this market as well.”
When Stan Chia joined Vivid Seats in November 2018 as its CEO, he was excited about giving the profitable online ticket marketplace a stronger consumer-facing identity.
Stan, who previously held executive roles at Grubhub and Amazon, joined the online ticketing company at a time when the secondary ticket market was growing by double digits year over year.
Then the pandemic hit and live events ground to a halt. As Stan puts it, events were the first “to shut down and almost the last to come back.”
On this episode of The Empowered Challenger, Stan talks about steering the company through the pandemic and how he’s positioning Vivid Seats to win consumers’ hearts (and dollars) as the pandemic moves into the rearview mirror.
With fans excited to get back to concerts, sports and other kinds of live entertainment, Stan says trust is critical when you’re the company selling people their tickets. Consumers want to be assured that gathering in crowds will be done safely and that purchasing tickets is a hassle-free experience from a provider that will stand behind purchases.
Even before COVID-19 upended life as we know it, Vivid Seats was building out its loyalty program, which enabled consumers to earn rewards on every transaction. Now, Vivid Seats has enhanced the program in an effort to make it “almost infallible from the value that we deliver to customers,” Stan explains. Now, anyone who uses the Vivid Seats platform earns 10% on every ticket purchase. Plus, the program looks for ways to add “surprise and delight elements,” such as exclusive parties and experiences.
It’s part of Stan’s plan to “emerge stronger” from tough times.
Tune in to this episode to hear more about how Vivid Seats differentiates itself in the online ticketing space through partnerships with Rolling Stone magazine and more, and why Stan doesn’t believe in focusing too much on competitors (even though he respects what they do).
Featured Challenger🧑 Name: Stan Chia
⚙️ How he challenges: As the CEO Vivid Seats, an online marketplace for live event tickets, Stan places a significant emphasis on building recognition among consumers looking for a safe and trusted place to get tickets online.
🎟️ Company: Vivid Seats
💎 Noteworthy: Stan was born in Singapore and served in the Singapore Armed Forces when he was 18 years old. He learned a lot about leadership during his military service, including the importance of leading by example — “I don't expect anything of anybody that I wouldn't be willing to do myself,” he says.
🔍 Where to find Stan: Twitter | LinkedIn
🔍 Where to find Vivid Seats: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
Challenger Wisdom Highlights from the conversation appear below.
💡Fans are itching to get back to live events (safely) “What we look at is safety first and foremost, making sure that as we facilitate events like this, that we're really understanding and considerate of comforts and discomforts of customers, right? As the world tries to figure out what the future looks like … there is a huge amount of pent up demand after 14, 15 months of total isolation as we were in lockdown. What we've seen now across the spectrum — music festivals selling out and record pace … there's a lot of excitement from fans to get back, but I think, also, certainly confidence that they can do that and they will do that in a safe way.”
💡Leveraging a rewards program as a differentiator “One of the things we decided to differentiate ourselves on was a rewards program….we were one of the only rewards programs out there where every transaction you bought, you would earn something on that. And we said, Hey, also, we're going to build an amazing app. We're going to make sure all of these great personalization features are there. And between August of 2019 through February of 2020, we saw our app volume go from about eight to 9% to 40% of our volume. So huge adoption from consumers … they appreciated the design that our product and our engineering team had put into that as well as the value of our rewards program.”
💡People love buying event tickets online — but trust can be a challenge “The challenge in this industry [selling tickets online] … is this a safe industry? Is this a place where you can get tickets? Like, who am I buying from? Who's going to stand behind this? Is it hassle-free? Am I protected as a consumer? I think that's something the industry faces and something that we've really tried to get ahead of.”
💡Having a clear brand that resonates with consumers “We want our brand to be synonymous again with consumers when they think about live events. The emotions that we believe we represent to someone who wants to put their faith in us. So trust, value, service, all of these things … we want to make sure that truly our consumers feel that on the brand side … When you think of Vivid Seats, it's about experiencing it live, and celebrating the power of shared experience to unite people. That's what our brand is built on.”
💡On having the confidence to make long-term investments“We are actually first-transaction profitable. So we are profitable on every single transaction … I think if you didn't have as strong of a balance sheet or a P and L as us, you might be a little more handicapped. You might be a little bit more short-term oriented. Our view is certainly that of the long-term both from a psychological perspective, but also with the confidence that we have the balance sheet and P and L to support that.”
Top Quotes:
“We’re walking the walk. We’re not just giving ourselves a label that we can’t live with.”
“I don't focus so much on the competitors. … I want to make sure we are there innovating on behalf of our consumers, that we're really building things that they either currently want, or they don't know that they want — but once they realize it's there, they will appreciate it.”
“Through a really difficult and trying time, I think we stuck to our values. We stuck to what matters.”
Michael Rich has been obsessed with sneakers for almost as long as he can remember.
Michael got his start in the shoe business at age 16 when he sought out a job selling shoes at his local mall. After college, he went on to work on the manufacturing side and traveled across the world making shoes in foreign markets.
For years, he dreamed of creating a sneaker brand of the future. Finally, he launched Psudo, a DTC sustainable sneaker brand, in 2019.
“These are your ‘running around shoes,’ not your running shoes,” Michael says on this episode of The Empowered Challenger.
Sustainability is core to the brand. The upper part of the shoe is made from recycled plastic water bottles. The sneakers are made in a Milwaukee-based solar-powered shoe factory, while its packaging is made from 100% recycled content.
Psudo shoes are also made entirely in the U.S. While shoe manufacturing is rare in the United States — Michael estimates less than 5% of the shoes Americans wear are created domestically — he was determined to make it part of Psudo.
And though it wasn’t easy, he’s found the benefits of domestic production to be significant: more control over the process, nimble response to customer demand, and shorter manufacturing runs.
Marketing the challenger brand hasn’t been easy — especially for Michael who didn’t come from a digital marketing background. He believes Psudo’s innovative design coupled with the brand’s commitment to transparency are key ingredients for Psudo’s growth.
Ultimately, Michael believes in the magnetism of a good brand narrative: “[P]eople will be reaching out more and more to do collaborations, to have the opportunity to do a podcast like this … I think one thing kind of takes care of the other.”
On this episode of The Empowered Challenger, he also discusses his plan for creating a “circular brand” that customers can return for repurposing and get a fresh look.
Featured Challenger🧑 Name: Michael Rich
⚙️ How he challenges: Michael is the founder and owner Psudo, sustainable sneakers that are made in the USA and sold directly to consumers.
👕 Company: Psudo
💎 Noteworthy: Michael has been immersed in the business of sneakers since he was a teenager. When he was 15 years old, he started trying to convince a local shoe shop owner to hire him.
🔍 Where to find Michael: Twitter | LinkedIn
🔍 Where to find Psudo: Facebook | Instagram
Challenger Wisdom Highlights from the conversation appear below.
💡Starting a challenger brand requires persistence “Every entrepreneur, if you ask them at the end or in the middle: if you knew how hard it would be to get here, would you still have done it? And I've bet a lot of people probably might say no, but then when you're sitting here and you have this little nugget of a company and you want it to be something more, it just inspires you to push forward. There are a lot of highs and lows as an entrepreneur and running a business … It's making sure this UPS shipment got delivered … all that logistical stuff that goes into running a business.”
💡On creating a new product with a familiar feel (and a lot of of transparency)“The main thing that I wanted to do as an entrepreneur … I wanted to innovate a product that was unlike anything else that was on the market, but make it feel very familiar. And I also wanted to be very transparent about how I'm doing it, what I'm doing … that type of honesty doesn't exist. And when I look at our benefits and our branding and what we bring to the table, I think it has plenty of room for growth. And, what we call scale in this industry is what we're aiming for — and it doesn't happen overnight, and it certainly takes longer than anyone wants.
I'm sure all the other brands would probably say the same thing.”
💡A defined brand is your best customer acquisition strategy “We are working on Psudo 2.0 — what that looks like, what that voice is … dig deeper into the manufacturing and really tell exactly what we're doing … if you do that, then the other part of it — the customer acquisition, the business — will come. … we have proven the concept, people like the sneaker, the main thing is just really focusing on that brand ethos, voice … I feel like that third part, the business side of it, will just be there.”
💡When customers behave like customer service reps“What I love more than anything is when a customer might reach out and ask a question online. Maybe it's more of a general question not to the brand specifically. And then the reply comes from someone else in a real positive manner. That's the best, because that's way better than me answering that same question or anyone from my team.”
💡Creating a ‘circular brand’ for ongoing customer relationships “My holy grail, blue ocean is to create a circular brand where you buy a pair of sneakers, you return them back to me, they get recycled into a new pair of sneakers and to do that all locally. We have a path to do this. We have a plan to do this. And so that's kind of where we want to be.
I don't know how long that's going to take — maybe it will take three years, maybe it will take five years. But for all fashion companies, I think everyone is interested in getting to this type of process where you literally take your own product back and make it into something new. Because end-of-life is the biggest challenge for making any product.”
Top Quotes:
“I’d say it wasn’t necessarily luck, It was just a lot of determination to get [it] right — to get the fabric right; to get the sole right; to get the shape of the last, as we say in the shoe business.”
“I wanted to innovate a product that was unlike anything else on the market, but make it feel very familiar. And I also wanted to be very transparent about how I'm doing it, what I'm doing … as transparent as you can be.”
“The thing about one product that we make — it's not going to be for everyone — but I do know that we have put out a good product and we stand behind it and we're very transparent.”
Known among her friends as the person to call for design tips, Ariel Kaye realized that she had an opportunity to use passion for interior design to start a home goods company.
But instead of creating just another brand that sells bed sheets, towels and other products for the home, Ariel wanted to create a company that prioritizes its relationship with customers — in a way she wasn’t seeing in the industry.
When she launched Parachute, Ariel focused mainly on bedding, emphasizing the value of quality sheets when it comes to getting restful sleep at night.
“Sleep is so important. [Bedding] impacts your life in such a phenomenal way,” Ariel says on this episode of The Empowered Challenger. “I knew that bedding was such an opportunity to build a connection and trust within the customer base to literally get in bed with them every night.”
Though Ariel was new to entrepreneurship, her background in advertising has helped her see an opportunity to be a guiding light in this industry. She knows how to put customers first, cultivating the kinds of consumer-company relationships that are unique and make her company stand out amongst the rest.
Tune in to this episode to hear how she changed career paths to fulfill her dream of challenging the home goods industry from the inside, as well as how she’s positioned Parachute to help people create their dream homes.
Featured Challenger👩 Name: Ariel Kaye
⚙️ How she challenges: With Parachute, Ariel aims to challenge the home goods industry by encouraging a deeper relationship with consumers.
🛏️ Company: Parachute
💎 Noteworthy: Ariel published her first book, “How to Make a House a Home,” in 2020.
🔍 Where to find Ariel: Twitter | LinkedIn
Challenger Wisdom Highlights from the conversation appear below.
💡 The courage to make a change“I was sort of realizing that I was hitting my head in the ad world at this big agency, and I wanted to do something different. It was one of those aha moments where I realized that I wanted to do something more entrepreneurial where I could have real control over the process.”
💡 Leveraging the professional skills you have “[Advertising] was a really great background for me to start my own consumer-first business because I had this experience thinking about how to motivate and inspire the customer. It’s considered rather untraditional to have my background and then move and to become an entrepreneur and CEO, but I think it’s part of my secret sauce.”
💡 Turning a passion into a career “When I was in graduate school, I started an interior design blog, and I was always helping friends decorate their apartments in New York and changing my own spaces and was really passionate about it. I saw this opportunity in the home space because I was really passionate about design and comfort and sleep and all of these things.”
💡 Starting from scratch and getting capital “Getting capital to fund this thing was definitely a hard one. I didn’t have savings for this; I didn't have family members who were going to provide me with capital to get the business off the ground, so I had to find outside capital to support. I didn't know anything really, except the types of products I wanted to sell and what they wanted them to feel like. I had some intuition around how to build a website that was going to be functional, but pretty much everything else was a challenge.”
💡 On how she sees the competition“We pay attention [to competition] because it's important to understand what's happening in the industry and the market. But we’re really focused on being uniquely Parachute and focusing on our quality and our design aesthetic and the products that we're introducing.”
💡 Balancing the hustle“I appreciate the hustle and the grind, but I think there's a way to have that excitement and enthusiasm and hustle, and also go have an evening to see your friends, on a bike ride, do whatever you want to do that is your hobby and brings you joy.”
💡 Quality as a product differentiator “Our products are designed to last. We don't use any toxic chemicals or artificial dyes. They're really, really well-made, and we're designing and manufacturing our products in factories that have been around for over a hundred years. It’s not stuffy, it's just comfortable.”
💡 Building a balanced team“I was doing this on my own up until about three weeks after I launched. I hired my first employee who had a financial background because I needed someone that could help think about our budget and placing orders early on, so I could focus more on the marketing and branding, and customer service. In any business, you're looking for people that can do just about anything and everything. By the end of the first year we had about eight employees, and really it was important to get that support.”
💡 Disrupters aren’t afraid to push the limits“We're constantly pushing ourselves. We make sure that we have a budget set aside for testing purposes and experimental spend. And some ideas might be busts and that's okay too. That's part of growing.”
Top quotes from the episode:
“I wanted to make a bigger impact. I had some friends join early stage startups and start their own companies, and I saw this passion and this impact and this excitement and it just clicked that I wanted to do something that I could have more control over.”
“We hear from our customers, ‘Oh, I love [your products] because they feel so Parachute!’ You can’t really pinpoint what that means, but you feel it. That brings me more joy than anything.”
“During the first few years [of starting a company], it's like you're on a rollercoaster. You get up and have these incredible highs, and then 20 seconds later you’re crashing. There was a lot of fear and self-doubt that came along with those early days.”
Kim Malek built a successful ice cream business around one central idea: community.
As the CEO and co-founder of Salt & Straw, Kim disrupted the idea of a typical ice cream shop by building an inviting, accepting environment that showcases local artisans and unique flavors.
Kim's career started at Starbucks, where she worked in marketing when the iconic coffee brand only had about 30 stores nationwide. With previous marketing experience at companies like Yahoo!, Adidas, and (RED), she learned a lot about what it takes to build a global brand.
"I always like to say I learned enough to be dangerous about a bunch of different things — operations, real estate, branding, but most importantly… building a company based on people and how you treat people," Kim says on this episode of The Empowered Challenger.
During her years in corporate America, Kim kept her ice cream shop vision on the back burner. After a decade of toying around with the idea, she moved to Portland, Oregon, and was struck by the strong sense of community in the entrepreneurial city. She knew it was "the perfect vehicle" to bring her ice cream store idea to life.
She partnered with her cousin, Tyler, to figure out a unique ice cream making process. They shopped around town and found standout local ingredients — chocolate, salt from a local saltmaker, and cheese from local farms.
They realized they could foster a true sense of community by focusing on "farm-to-cone" ingredients, highlighting the artisans who made them.
One of Kim's favorite pieces of advice is to not take advice. She welcomes stories about the experiences of fellow business owners and entrepreneurs but, unless you're in her exact shoes, she doesn't want to be told what to do. If Kim had followed everyone's advice when she was starting her business, she'd never be where she's at today.
Kim started by opening a single store in Portland’s Alberta Arts District. Now, there are 25 more throughout the U.S., plus a successful ecommerce business.
Featured Challenger👩 Name: Kim Malek
⚙️ How she challenges: As the CEO and co-founder of Salt & Straw, Kim disrupted the idea of a typical ice cream shop by fostering a sense of community with its "farm-to-cone" creations and expertly-trained staff.
🍦 Company: Salt & Straw
💎 Noteworthy: Kim was a recipient of Portland Business Journal's Woman of Influence Award. She has also received recognitions from the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network and was on Inc.'s Female Founder's 100 List.
🔍 Where to find Kim: LinkedIn | Instagram
Challenger Wisdom Highlights from the conversation appear below.
💡 The hallmark of an idea worth pursuing"I wake up every day with a good healthy dose of fear that shoots me out of bed nice and early. I earn my keep every day. In terms of taking that leap … I had this idea for so long. I'd been carrying it around for so long, but I knew it was a good one — it wasn't a fleeting thing. It had been like 10 or 15 years that I'd been working on it, and I was able to start putting the pieces in place. Once I got the ball rolling, it was almost a foregone conclusion. I couldn't stop myself, it just drove itself forward, not that there weren't tons of challenges along the way."
💡 Fear can either freeze you — or fuel you "I think fear can either freeze you, or you can use it to fuel you — you have to make that decision. I experience a little of both, to be honest, but it mostly fuels me and drives me forward. I think the ideal thing that I always try to remind myself of is to not make decisions out of fear — that doesn't usually end up well."
💡 The easiest route isn't always the best"We were exporting that idea or spirit of Portland when we grew into different cities, and we carried that forward into every city … I find that people really embody that and appreciate it. It's fun for them to learn about other local artisans through ice cream. It's a lot harder, it's a lot more work, it's more expensive, but I think it's worth it."
💡 Putting customer experience above all else"Internally, we say ice cream is 49% and the experience you get at Salt and Straw is 51%. So when you go to our stores, we really try to transport you into a different environment and experience, take you out of your everyday life into a beautiful, warm environment. We overstaff our stores with a big team that's really well-trained, especially on connecting with people. We spend tons of time teaching folks how to read signs: if someone wants to get in and out, we can do that. If they want to sit and taste every single flavor on our menu and talk about the story and history behind it, we can do that."
💡 Never compromise on your values "Danny Meyer, who started Shake Shack, is on our board. He tells a story that I love. He says that, over the years, people would always say to him, 'The culture's changing.' And, as the founder, it's like a dagger in your heart when you hear that. Sharing with him stories and concerns of mine along those lines, and how do you grow and maintain your culture? He said, finally, he had this big lightbulb moment where it's okay if your culture is changing and evolving, that will happen. But what you cannot do is compromise on your values — you have to stay true to your values, you have to keep them at the forefront."
💡 You don't have to take anyone else's advice"I've sat across the table from too many people who have said, 'Make sure you can get out of your leases because this isn't going to work!', 'You should really do yogurt instead of ice cream', 'You can't do this — you can't invest in your people that way.' All of the really important tenets of what I was trying to accomplish, I was told were impossible. If I had listened to any of that advice, I wouldn't be where I am. So I think it's just so important to be really clear about what you're about and to learn from other people, but not take advice."
Top quotes from the episode:
Kim Malek:
Quote #1
"Fear can either freeze you, or you can use it to fuel you — you have to make that decision. I experience a little of both, to be honest, but it mostly fuels me and drives me forward."
Quote #2
"You wouldn't believe the letters I get from customers on a weekly basis about really incredible, life-changing stories and experiences they have with our team. That, more than anything, makes me feel like we're on the right track."
Quote #3
"I think the secret is when we onboard our new team, we spend a lot more time talking about the values of the company, hospitality, how we treat each other, and how we take care of each other than we even do about ice cream. It adds up to our team really feeling like this is more than a job."
When Chuck Cohn was struggling with a difficult college calculus class, he had a hard time finding the right place to access resources to help him improve.
So he decided to take matters into his own hands.
Chuck launched Nerdy, a direct-to-consumer platform connecting students and subject matter experts, with $1,000 from his dorm room. Now, Nerdy is a publicly traded company with a $1.7 billion valuation.
In this episode of The Empowered Challenger, Chuck discusses the path from upstart challenger to industry leader.
“It might just be how I'm wired, but I've always felt like I had a target on the back or a little bit of a chip on the shoulder,” he says.
Even as an industry leader, Nerdy recognizes it must operate with urgency to continue to maintain its position as learning activities continue to go virtual.
Chuck explains: “We want to make sure we capitalize on this unique moment in time as learning shifts aggressively from offline to online — which of course in an online world where the best product is only a click away, you end up with power law distributions of returns and certain companies that seize that moment disproportionately benefiting from such a shift.”
When Chuck started Nerdy in 2007, people doubted the concept. But doubters are part of the challenger journey: “There were countless people I encountered that thought this was a little tutoring opportunity constrained by historical market dynamics that had historically existed, but they failed to realize how transformational the internet could be in this category,” he says.
On this episode, learn about how Nerdy approaches customer acquisition, how Chuck thinks about Nerdy’s competitors, as well as the product changes he thinks will continue to differentiate Nerdy in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
Featured Challenger
👨 Name: Chuck Cohn
⚙️ How he challenges: As the CEO of Nerdy, a direct-to-consumer platform for live online learning, Chuck has created a marketplace where students can access experts across 3,000+ subjects.
📚 Company: Nerdy
💎 Noteworthy: Chuck started Nerdy with a $1,000 loan from his parents and built the company on the side for a while working in venture capital.
🔍 Where to find Chuck: Twitter | LinkedIn
🔍 Where to find Nerdy: LinkedIn
Challenger Wisdom
Highlights from the conversation appear below.
💡 Finding inspiration in your own experience
“The genesis of Nerdy came when I was studying for a calculus class at college, and none of the material made sense to me and I realized that I needed help outside the classroom. I looked around online and just couldn’t find the help I needed. I had this aha moment where I realized that my experience wasn't specific to me, it was a universal problem. Finding the help that you need was just too hard, and there was an opportunity to better leverage technology and the internet to help people learn any subject anywhere, anytime.”
💡 Figuring out when to take a risk
“It was clear that there was a tremendous opportunity to continue scaling the business, but it was my time and attention and focus that was holding us back from growing. I can remember the exact moment I made up my mind and the next day walked in and thanked the managing partner of the venture fund for the incredible experience, but let them know it was time to move on because I was really passionate about what I was about to focus on full-time because I thought it was a once in a generation opportunity.”
💡Growing a marketplace
“In any marketplace, there's a chicken and egg dynamic and you have to appropriately balance supply and demand. In the original offline world [of education], that balance was hard, because you needed an expert in every single zip code in the United States. You're now able to ignore all geographic barriers and find the right expert for a given learner’s needs, regardless of geography. You’re able to leverage each expert on your platform to a much greater extent, because you're not limited to the people who happen to be nearby.”
💡 Streamlining talent acquisition to lead in the category
“There is no market for average quality experts or low quality experts, there's really only a market for experts in the truest sense of the word. People come to us looking for somebody with deep expertise in a subject who's capable of communicating in a way that allows them to learn effectively. Historically, finding those people and then connecting them with the learner who can best benefit from their expertise and their communication style and personality was incredibly labor intensive. And so what we've done that's so unique is figure out how to maintain that super high quality bar [for expert talent] through investments in software.”
💡 Standing out from the competition
“We try to operate with urgency, not because of anything specific to the market dynamic now, but because we are at a very unique moment in time where consumer enthusiasm has never been higher. The industry is shifting from offline to online at a very rapid rate, and we have a really good idea of what we need to do to make our business and our products even better. So we want to make sure we capitalize on this unique moment in time as learning shifts aggressively from offline to online. In an online world where the best product is only a click away, you end up with companies that seize that moment disproportionately benefiting from such a shift.”
💡 From upstart challenger to publicly traded company
“[Going public] was the goal from day one. Our alignment was that when we eventually got to the point where we felt like the business and the company was ready, we would take it public. So last summer, as we kind of looked at what we had accomplished, we started having conversations about the fact that we are now basically proving to ourselves we can be profitable. The business was humming. We had line of sight to how we could continue to drive growth for many years to come.”
💡 Seeing opportunity in hardship
“Contrary to what you might assume, we didn’t benefit from COVID at all from a demand perspective. When COVID hit, we saw a rolling fallout of demand nationwide, because professional testing went to zero and standardized testing went down and applications for universities started falling and schools shut down or went to open book testing so you didn’t actually have to know the material. That was a tough period of time from a demand perspective, but it presented the opportunity to clear out our product roadmap, think about what was most important and then lean into that very aggressively with relentless focus.”
💡 Expanding customer outreach strategy
“We launched this initiative oriented around providing a little bit of continuity to students called ‘virtual school day,’ where we wanted to make free online classes available to everybody even if they didn’t have the resources to pay for them. We ended up seeing this really interesting shift in the retention of all our customers. And the people that actually came in from these free classes ended up starting to buy products. We thought to ourselves, holy cow, this multi-product strategy is actually working to an extent that was well beyond what we expected.”
Top quotes from the episode:
Chuck Cohn:
Quote #1
“The feedback we got from customers right off the bat was outstanding. The work was intrinsically rewarding. We were helping people and I could see a close connection to the products that we built and the investments we made and the feedback we got from customers.”
Quote #2
“I think we’re going to see the level of technological innovation occur in and around education that happened in many industries before us. This is this pivotal inflection point. We come into work every day to work on this problem and help a lot of people.”
Quote #3
“We have pretty dramatic improvements we expect to be able to make to the customer experience in our line of sight. We're going to be in a position in connection with a pending public offering that will allow us to lean into hiring around engineering, data, science, etc, that will allow us to more aggressively pull ahead from a product leadership perspective and provide our customers a better experience.”
Burke Morley has worked in creative strategy for brands like Nike and Sonic. But as Vice President of Brand and Executive Creative Director at direct-to-consumer mattress company Purple, he’s had to create a marketing strategy to win hearts and minds for a product with a unique sales cycle.
“People don't really think about or care about mattresses until they need one. Then they care a lot about it, very intensely for a short amount of time, and then they kind of go back to not caring about it,” Burke says on The Empowered Challenger.
Though mattresses aren’t top-of-mind for most people on a daily basis, Purple’s passionate customer base gives the five-year old brand and edge — referrals continue to be its top acquisition channel.
Warm associations are critical for Burke’s approach: “I want to be in the ether,” he says. “We can't really anticipate when people are going into that buying cycle. So we have to be in the air with a positive impression so that when they do move into that buying cycle — where we're at the top.”
In this episode of the podcast, Burke talks about what it takes to market an upstart brand in a crowded and competitive market, how he incorporates the mattress’ unique technology into advertising — and how he’s setting the brand up to move out of the bedroom.
Featured Challenger
👨🏻 Name: Burke Morley
⚙️ How he challenges: As the Vice President of Brand and Executive Creative Director at Purple, Burke has brought his unique approach to brand strategy to a company disrupting the world of mattresses.
🛏️ Company: Purple
💎 Noteworthy: Burke previously led marketing and creative campaigns at places like Sonic and Nike.
🔍 Where to find Burke: LinkedIn | Website
Challenger Wisdom
Highlights from the conversation appear below.
💡 Changing things up (even when they’re working)
“We had this campaign that was so successful, which can almost be handicapping in a way, because it's like we can't mess with it. We've got to stay on that, on that trail. I placed a pretty big bet when I first came on to do a campaign that was so different.”
💡 Rethink how you view your demographic
“[Our customer base] is much more about a mentality than a demographic with age and income and all of that. We call them the re-imagineers: the people who are looking at genuinely improving their lives and making the most of what they’re doing each day, and they’re willing to invest in some things that they believe are truly going to improve their lives.”
💡 Think outside the industry box
“At Sonic, we did a lot of work with what we call, ‘craveability,’ looking at what it is about food that makes it craveable. A visceral craveable reaction comes from things like steaming hot bacon sizzling on a griddle. We've kind of applied that craveability mentality to an industry that may not make sense at first blush, because there is something very craveable about crawling into bed. That craveability piece is important because we have a job to help people understand why Purple is different.”
💡 Word of mouth can’t be bought
“Even with all the money we spent on advertising, our number one marketing tool is referral. It’s the number one best-selling marketing strategy for us by a long shot. We’re lucky that when people try our products, they’re actually our best converters.”
💡 Imitation — and attack ads — is the sincerest form of flattery
“We actually gave high fives to each other after some attack ads came after us by the big dogs. We were like, That's awesome. That means we're doing something, we’re a legit competitor with some legit innovation and not just some hokey thing. Now, not only are they aware of us and have attack campaigns coming after us, but they’re actually coming out with their own versions or trying to do things similar to what we’re doing. All of that is quite flattering.”
Top quotes from the episode:
Burke Morley:
Quote #1
“I think most people think that the most creative ideas come from a blank canvas; a wide open space. But actually, I think the smaller the box you get pinned into, the more creative you get.”
Quote #2
“We won't release a product and say, ‘we did it.’ It's this ever growing pursuit to reinvent comfort, and to always be topping ourselves.”
Quote #3
“So many brands say, ‘Follow us on Twitter, follow us on Facebook.’ I always ask my team: ‘Where are we going to take them that’s interesting and improves their lives?’ The more brands have a purpose to take the people who follow them somewhere, the more compliance there’s going to be.”
Luxury beauty doesn’t have to carry a luxury price tag.
That’s the concept behind Beauty Pie, a fast-growing and industry-disrupting beauty brand. Beauty Pie positions itself as the “luxury Costco for beauty products.”
For a monthly fee starting at $10, consumers get “backstage access” to premium products at lower costs, Rob Weston, Beauty Pie’s Chief Marketing Officer, explains on this episode of The Empowered Challenger.
“The very best products cost about $30 right out of the lab. The rest of it is the middleman margin — the flagship stores, the chandeliers, marble countertops — none of the stuff that makes your skin more beautiful,” says Rob.
“We want to literally share the beauty pie — essentially the spoils of the beauty industry — with consumers.”
When it comes to winning over customers, Rob, a marketing vet with more than 20 years of experience, says it’s about embracing the conversation.
Gone are the days when brands could place an ad and change consumer behavior. That’s why he appreciates Beauty Pie’s 14,000+ Facebook community. He acknowledges that some feedback on the page “keeps us on our toes,” but emphasizes the importance of brands and consumers having a two-way exchange.
Tune in to this episode to find out how Beauty Pie is changing the market for luxury cosmetics by being less greedy than the competition, how Rob thinks about spending his marketing dollars (new customer acquisition!), as well as how the pandemic affected Beauty Pie’s business and what comes next.
Prentice’s Takeaway
👉 It’s amazing what can happen when a feisty challenger brand educates the marketplace. Thanks to brands like Beauty Pie, consumers are totally in control. Once the veil is lifted on an industry, we have no tolerance for middlemen anymore. Challengers like Beauty Pie don’t need marketing tricks; they don’t need a fabricated story; they don’t need convincing; they need to provide a great product, excellent customer service, and then educate the marketplace over, and over, and over.
Featured Challenger
👱♂️ Name: Rob Weston
⚙️ How he challenges: As the Chief Marketing Officer at Beauty Pie, Rob puts customer needs first, providing luxury beauty products without all the excess markups.
💄 Company: Beauty Pie
💎 Noteworthy: Rob has been in the marketing industry for 25 years and has worked with brands like Unilever, Nike, and Samsung.
🔍 Where to find Rob: LinkedIn
🔍 Where to find Beauty Pie: Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
Challenger Wisdom
Highlights from the conversation appear below.
💡 Being a disrupter doesn’t always mean you’ll be popular
“No revolution was ever achieved without breaking a few eggs. We aren't making friends among the bigger players who are used to overcharging for face creams. It’s the big cosmetics conglomerates that are lining up to be annoyed with us.”
💡 The challenge of being perceived as ‘too good to be true’
“I have to undo years of indoctrination done by an entire industry or industries [who told people] that price equals quality. We’re coming into the market telling people that’s no longer true, and they don’t believe it. We have to convince people that we are not too good to be true. If you go online, you’ll find the internet answering on our behalf that we’re 100% legit. We have everyone behind us saying that we’re a proper disrupter in this space.”
💡 Small companies, quick decision-making
“One of the most liberating feelings at a smaller company is the speed of decision-making. If we decide we want to go try something, we try it tomorrow. It’s that speed that is key. There’s no point talking this thing to death.”
💡 Small company, big emphasis on customers
“It’s amazing how at a massive, public company you are consistently bound by quarterly earnings targets, and invariably you end up making decisions because of what you need to be announcing to the market, and not what’s right for the customer. Whereas in a smaller, founder-owned or venture-backed company, you can make more decisions that are right for the customer because you’re playing a slightly longer game. That is a really fun and interesting place.”
💡 Product is key
“Product is at the absolute core of what we do. We only launch products that we think are world-class. We independently test them before any of them get out the door and we benchmark their performance against the most expensive brands in the markets. And that is the foundation of the success so far of this business.”
💡 Trust can be hard to build over Zoom
“Zoom has been amazing for many things, but trust amongst individuals in business carries you a very long way. I think it just takes a lot longer to build trust over a virtual medium. We’ll try to make sure we meet as many of our employees’ needs as possible, but personally I believe there’s a balance between the human contact and the sort of trust that comes from the human dynamics, and then every once and a while being able to sit back at home and get the work done without interruption.”
💡 Marketing is a conversation
“As soon as you hand over an ad to the internet, it’s a conversation. It’s not always great, people will often have some feedback that keeps us on our toes, but we equally engage with these people for innovation. We’ve asked people for help naming our products, and people love that two-way exchange with brands. It’s a conversation, as opposed to just throwing something over the fence and making it work.”
💡 Having the instinct for the ‘next big thing’
“Our founder has an outstanding instinct for what the customer wants and needs. We always start not just by knowing the customer, but knowing the industry so you can see the trends on the horizon, what’s exciting and potentially the next big thing. It can be exciting to bring that to market because you’re meeting consumer needs but with a level of novelty and excitement that the luxury end of the market should be leading.”
Top quotes from the episode:
Rob Weston:
“The world of democratizing luxury is pretty big. I’m fascinated by all these industries that overcharge. Wherever we can find a margin that’s unjustified, we can run in and create luxury products that cost what you should be paying.”
“Embrace agility. Uncertainty is the only constant, so invest in decisions that create option value for you. You need to be flexible and adaptable in order to survive, and you need to keep a finger on the pulse and be prepared to adapt. That’s when little companies are so good, they’re just prepared to see it and go with it.”
“It’s so incredibly empowering for consumers to experience that what you’re selling has to come first and then you market it. The product has to be the default choice, and then you begin to tell your stories. There’s no point in doing it the other way.”
Waste management isn’t the most glamorous field. But Tom Szaky, the founder of TerraCycle, a company that works with other companies and governments to recycle what has been typically un-recyclable, saw opportunity in it.
“There's such an opportunity to innovate around the topic of waste,” Tom says. “It has been a very uninnovative category because it is, quite literally, shitty, nasty and gross.”
One of Tom’s niches that he didn’t see other entrepreneurs chomping at the bit to fill? Diaper recycling.
When TerraCycle figured out how to recycle diapers — which make up a sizable chunk of non-biodegradable waste — a decade ago, it struggled with getting diaper companies on board. Companies knew it would be beneficial to the environment if their products were sustainable, but they often weren’t willing to shell out the money to make it happen.
TerraCycle turned that hesitancy into a marketing opportunity.
“Everyone would prefer not to buy diapers. But while your kids are in diapers, you might choose Brand A over Brand B,” Tom says on this episode of The Empowered Challenger. “So, if Brand A is doing what it can to be sustainable and incentivizing recycling, that gives them a leg up. We framed the entire approach to diaper recycling as something that can drive market share.”
TerraCycle’s challenge isn’t having to rise above its competitors: it’s getting people to care about sustainability, and brands to realize the potential market value of embracing the environmentally conscious future. In doing so, not only is the company challenging companies to rethink their marketing strategies around sustainability, but it’s changing the game of entrepreneurship entirely.
Featured Challenger
👨🏻 Name: Tom Szaky
⚙️ How he challenges: As founder and CEO of TerraCycle, Tom created a business model that incentivizes manufacturers, retailers and consumers to recycle products and packaging typically designated for the landfill.
♻️ Company: TerraCycle
💎 Noteworthy: Tom fled Hungary as a child and emigrated to Canada after the Chernobyl disaster brought radioactive clouds to his home country.
🔍 Where to find Tom: Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram
Challenger Wisdom
Highlights from the conversation appear below.
💡 New ideas require both time and effort to take root
“[It hasn’t been until] the past four years that I’m starting to really feel like the world is ready. But I’m also thankful that we had such a long time to figure it out, because we’ve really figured out how to be able to do our craft and leverage sustainability in a way that big companies are willing to hear out and lean into.”
💡 Passion comes easily with purpose
“Passion is the most important thing. It's much easier to be passionate about something that is purposeful, helping the planet or society, than about making money, which is vapid. And you can’t fake it. So it’s really important to find something that you are intrinsically very passionate about.”
💡 But you need more than passion to sustain a business
“TerraCycle now has 500 employees in our offices, and I'm sure they all have various degrees of passion. We now have to figure out our construct work even for someone who has no passion but can still contribute and make the business grow. It evolves over time, but it’s very important at the beginning.”
💡 The challenge of maintaining people’s attention, even without competitors
“We don’t really have competition. There’s a little bit here and there, but not any direct one-to-one competition. So what fuels us is people caring about the topic. If people shift and say, ‘No, now something else is going to be more important,’ that could be challenging, because we are not a product. We’re a platform that enables your purchase to have a better end-of-life.”
💡 Finding and filling a gap in the market
“We are good at supplementing what a local government or city does. It is important to recycle, but about half of what we put in the blue bins tends not to be recycled. So we’re going to focus on what you can’t put in that blue bin, or what you shouldn’t have put in the blue bin, and we work in that area, which is in addition to everyone doing as much local recycling as possible. It’s non-competitive, because we don’t go out and collect aluminum cans or newspapers or things that you should easily be able to put in your recycling bin.”
💡 Why critical feedback outweighs positive feedback
“[You should] really honor critical feedback because it's hard to give and it's filled with nuggets. Positive feedback is easy to give and never teaches you anything. If an entrepreneur comes to me for advice and I want to blow them off, I’ll just tell them it's a great idea and I probably can’t help you because it’s already awesome. But if I like it, I'll set up a meeting and rip it apart for a half-hour. ”
💡 Leveraging content as a foundation for good PR
“TerraCycle generates 40 unique articles every day. That’s a ton of media. We have a small army of publicists at this point, and we really focus on making journalists’ jobs as easy as possible. That’s when you start acquiring media assets. And that's true negative cost marketing. You get paid to market yourself.”
Top quotes from the episode:
Tom Szaky
Quote #1
“What fuels us is people caring. The most important thing for us is that people care about solving the idea of waste.”
Quote #2
“You don’t want to seek failure, but failure is going to come. The more innovative you are, the more you push the envelope, the more failure you’re going to see. So honor the learning, right? The real screw-up is if you repeat the same mistake twice.”
Quote #3
“The world is in a pretty bad position [environmentally], but nevertheless, I’m excited that people are really waking up to this topic, and that’s creating a lot of tailwinds all over the world. People’s eyes are opening and they tend not to close once they’ve opened. You can’t unsee it.”
Stuart — or “Stu” — Landesberg grew up in New York thinking that everyone used brown, recycled paper towels and had a compost bin in their yard. Then he found out the truth, which developed the young would-be entrepreneur’s ambition for changing the world through challenging consumer habits.
“My early childhood experiences left a huge imprint on me in terms of what I accept as normal,” Stu says on this episode of The Empowered Challenger. “I grew up with a lens that I still see the world from today, which is that the world should be more sustainable than it is. That’s at the core of Grove.”
Stuart gained private equity skills during his time at TPG Capital while still holding onto his passion for the planet. By combining his business skills (and a little bit of self-admitted hubris) with his environmentalism, he eventually came up with the Grove Collaborative, a company that produces and sells natural, eco-friendly home goods.
The road to success wasn’t always easy — Stuart says that if he had known how hard it was going to be to start a company, he “probably wouldn’t have done it.” But now Grove Collaborative’s products are found nationwide at Target, with more successes on the way.
More than anything, Stuart thinks about how important it is to disrupt consumer habits and make sure that doing the sustainable thing is the convenient thing, instead of the other way around. With easy access to sustainable, natural products, the path to permanently eliminating plastic waste is in the consumer’s hands.
Disrupter-at-a-Glance
👱♂️ Name: Stuart “Stu” Landesberg
⚙️ How he challenges: As the founder of Grove Collaborative, a sustainable home goods company, Stuart challenges consumers to think about the kinds of products they’re buying. He also challenges other companies to think about their long-term impact on the planet rather than focusing only on their short-term profits.
♻️ Company: Grove Collaborative
💎 Noteworthy: Grove Collaborative is currently plastic-neutral, meaning anytime you receive plastic from a Grove order, the company collects and recycles the same amount of plastic. And it’s striving for more: by 2025, they aim to be 100% plastic free, saving tons of plastic from filling up landfills and the ocean a year.
🔍 Where to find Stuart: Twitter | LinkedIn
Challenger Wisdom
Highlights from the conversation appear below.
💡 Mixing ideology and business
“I think of myself as having a very healthy mix of a diehard environmentalist hippie and someone who really believes in capitalism and knows that the gears of business, when turning well, can drive huge change.”
💡 Using less promising ideas as a jumping-off point
“One of the things I noticed early on in college was the proliferation of a certain red piece of plastic, the red Solo cup. It used to drive me insane, because those things never get recycled at the end of the night, and there’s a compostable alternative made from plant-based plastic that just wasn't convenient at the places you bought beer. I actually thought that I was going to go into a business at some point selling sustainable Solo cups to college kids. Thankfully, that business never got off the ground, but it was the first time where the insight of convenience and consumer behavior being linked took root.”
💡 Building on preexisting social awareness
“Grove exists at a time where access to information because of the internet is widespread. We’re at this incredible moment where education and information is more available. Efficacy has caught up to conventional brands and awareness around the impact of packaging waste. It’s higher than ever. And so we exist in this moment that's really ripe for consumer transition.”
💡Taking advantage of shifting tides
“More than 80% of people in the U.S. want to take action on plastic pollution. That means Red Sox and Yankees fans agree on this. There’s very few things that 80% of the U.S. agrees on. Some issues, like climate change, have become contentious, but there’s very few people who are in favor of the great Pacific garbage patch, right? It doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican or a Democrat or don’t even care about politics. You understand that at some point we’re going to run out of space to put our garbage.”
💡 Grinding through the hard times
“For the first four years, we were unable to raise institutional capital. If you work at that startup for four years — more than half of my professional career at that time — and it doesn't work, that's not a startup experiment. That's bad judgment. So it was a high-pressure, depressing time. I definitely cut checks from my personal account to cover payroll. If I slipped past you on the street, I might pitch you. I'd take money from anyone in any amount. It was a challenging time.”
💡Relying on early customers for help with growth
“We got to 200-300 customers through our PowerPoint version of the website when we launched in 2012. We got to lay out $10,000, $20,000 a year of annual revenue by running the business in PowerPoint and Excel with no technology. And that allowed us to go at a pace that's way faster than if you're using finished technology. That’s one of the secret things about this company that's led to our strong consumer understanding to this day. I spent a ton of time directly with our consumers. I probably gave away $10,000 in Starbucks gift cards of $5 increments asking consumers to look at prototype versions of growth over the years.”
💡 Getting consumers to move past guilt and anxiety and take action
“There’s just no version of the world where we don’t have to talk about environmental crises, like the microplastics in our water. If you’re somebody who eats fish, it’s already in our bodies. It’s going to be in our bodies in 20 years in a way we can’t even fathom and this stuff is going to change consumer behavior. What I focus on is getting the data from the consumer to build brands that the consumer will embrace on the way to this transition. At some point, people will be like, ‘Oh, plastic waste is something that is dangerous and I know better now.’”
💡 Thinking bigger about your impact than other bigger companies
“Corporations have no incentive to account for the end of the life of their product in their operations. They account for the financial cost, but they don’t account for the environmental cost. So we announced that we want it to be zero plastic a year ago. And in the first year, we saved almost 10 million pounds of plastic. And we're a tiny little company, just a grain of sand on the beach compared to the big guys. But even we saved 10 million pounds [of plastic] last year, and we’ll save even more than that this coming year. I’m a believer that change is possible.”
Top quotes from the episode:
Stuart Landesberg
Quote #1
“One of the foundational reasons I started Grove was my belief that, gosh, I've seen business have so much impact on society. Wouldn't it be better if business leaders gave a shit about the impact that their companies had on the world around them?”
Quote #2
“I’m someone who believes there is always a way through. It never occurred to me that I would die in the tunnel — even if it was really hard, I knew I would find a way through and that I could not stop until I got through.”
Quote #3
“Guilt can induce a one-time change, but it's much more powerful if you buy with your heart. If you love the product that we're buying, you're not buying it because we made you feel guilty. So we try to create products that are at the intersection of efficacy, consumer love and sustainability. We don't just make sustainable products. We make products that are genuinely better than everything else on the market.”
Harriet Dwyer went from working as a grant researcher to revolutionizing support work in Australia as the Chief of Staff at Hireup. By removing the traditional agency middleman, Hireup’s online platform connects people with disabilities directly to support workers that fit their lifestyle.
Previously, people with disabilities in Australia had virtually zero control over how government funds were used for the support they needed. The money was usually given to nonprofit organizations that decided how the support was structured and who was sent to assist each person.
Hireup's co-founder, Jordan O’Reilly, witnessed his brother suffer through this inadequate system and decided it was time for a change. The rise in peer-to-peer platforms like Uber and Airbnb sparked an idea — what if receiving disability support was that convenient and personalized? Intrigued by the thought, he set out to remove the middleman of disability support care in Australia.
"What I think Jordan did really well at the start is he hired entrepreneurial people," Harriet says on this episode of The Empowered Challenger. It was vital to be surrounded by individuals who could work together to figure out answers for challenges they had no idea how to approach, such as funding, regulation, and safety.
One of the most important — and at the time, controversial — decisions Hireup made was to hire its support workers as employees, rather than independent contractors like most other platforms did. Harriet says this decision "just felt right," as they wanted their workers to form longstanding, healthy relationships and feel valued.
Hireup describes itself as a "profit for a purpose" company. It was the first purpose-led business to top Deloitte's list of fastest-growing tech companies and its market share will only continue to grow as it empowers more people with disabilities to make their own support decisions.
Featured Challenger
👩 Name: Harriet Dwyer
⚙️ How she challenges: Harriet is revolutionizing support for people with disabilities as the Chief of Staff at Hireup, an online platform that connects support workers with those who need them.
🤝 Company: Hireup
💎 Noteworthy: Harriet isn't just the Chief of Staff at Hireup — she also serves as a disability support worker herself! She's one of the many employees you can find on the platform, ready to help people with disabilities if it's the right fit.
🔍 Where to find Harriet: LinkedIn
Challenger Wisdom
💡 The ingenuity of young entrepreneurs could be the key to success
"This is part of the novelty or fun about why and how [Hireup] has worked. It really was a sense of the ingenuity you can have as a young entrepreneur with not much to lose. You really think you can deliver something big and bold, and you don't realize at the time just how big and bold it is with not a lot of precedent, examples, or experience that it will work, especially at the scale we're at now."
💡 Enjoying the privilege of the challenge
"There are definitely instances where we came up against questions that were around quite serious, important stuff like funding, regulation, or safety. The sort of stuff that we didn't have an answer to when we were first asked, but we were just really good at quickly forming an answer. There are reasons and logic as to how we did that, but it's just that we really enjoyed the privilege of the challenge."
💡 The decision to hire people as employees instead of contractors
"At the core of Hireup, the support workers that deliver our services are employees rather than contractors. … Yes, it places more liability on the business and requires us to go above and beyond by comparison to a contractor model in all kinds of ways. … But how can we possibly ask a bunch of people to go out and care for other people when no one's there caring for them? There are so many ways you can care for a worker that isn't just the categorization of their work, but it felt like being an employee was a really important part of that — that we could maintain that control and standard that we wanted for our customer."
💡 Business ideas aren't always as obvious as they seem in hindsight
"We get this a lot now — 'Gosh, Hireup seems so obvious!' But, at the time, it wasn't. It took Jordan heaps to get the right kind of funding and to convince people there's a viable business in this, and that actually putting control back in the hands of people with disabilities and redistributing that power from big government organizations is worth banking on. It's worth saying there's an important product here that can be quite powerful."
💡 The value of being a tech-led, customer-centric platform
"There's a huge amount of value that being tech-led brings us — yes, in the software and scalability of that — but right through to the incredible changes that tech companies have brought to customer-centricity. Ultimately, we're here to serve people with disability to make changes that are empowering for people with disability. If that's not customer-centricity, I don't know what is."
💡 Capturing additional market share in a newly tech-enabled niche
"We have had phenomenal growth but we're still not a significant proportion of the market. There's still heaps we need to do in our core, so we're really focusing on that. … Hireup … is still not really right for the whole market. There are people with different types of disabilities and different types of living environments that the platform solution hasn't yet addressed because it is so much more hands-off. There's a value that case management, in the traditional model, has brought for people in different circumstances, so we're starting to think about what that looks like in a tech-enabled world."
Top quotes from the episode:
Harriet Dwyer:
Quote #1
"If there's anything that's worked to our advantage over the last five years, it's been ignorance. It never felt daunting. It always felt big, but it never felt overwhelming."
Quote #2
"As a business model, we call ourselves a ‘profit for purpose’ rather than just a traditional for-profit. We were the first purpose-led business to top [Deloitte's list of fastest-growing tech companies]. They were really thrilled to see this rise in purpose-led business."
Quote #3
"[Hireup is] a thing that needs to get done. There's a community of people that deserve so much better and you can see a really small light at the end of the tunnel. ... For that reason alone, It's worth withstanding whatever question or challenge comes your way."
Aishetu Fatima Dozie, or Aisha for short, is a first-generation Nigerian American who’s always had big goals for herself. After almost 20 years working as a banker, a health scare helped her realize it was time to pursue her passion.
“Being diagnosed with severe hypertension was my wakeup call that I needed to change my life,” Aishetu says on this episode of The Empowered Challenger. “I didn’t feel like I was tapping into my purpose. ... I really felt like I had a destiny, and I wasn’t even close to it as an investment banker.”
Wanting to empower women to be their best selves, Aishetu considered going into the nonprofit sector. But after some careful thinking, she decided reaching her goals required a more entrepreneurial path — which led to starting Bossy Cosmetics.
“I felt incredibly strongly that I wanted to work with women, to be a part of igniting confidence in women,” Aishetu says. “I just want to be about everything that elevates women and gets us closer to having a seat at every single table.”
Bossy Cosmetics started out as a lipstick company but has since expanded. This doesn’t change Aishetu’s goals for the company, which she defines as a “women’s empowerment and mission-driven business that masquerades as a beauty company.”
One of the keys to Aishetu’s success is that she doesn’t compare her company to other makeup businesses. She knows Bossy Cosmetics is unique in that it doesn’t just think about how women want to look, but how they want to feel.
“How you select your makeup has everything to do with how you want to show up in the world,” Aishetu says. “There’s a very strong emotional connection between how women shop for their makeup and how they want to use that makeup to influence how they feel and how they perform.”
Featured Challenger👩🏾 Name: Aishetu Fatima Dozie
⚙️ How she challenges: As the founder of Bossy Cosmetics, a makeup company that aims to empower women to look, feel and do good, Aishetu is shaking up the beauty industry by asking customers: what do you really want?
💄Company: Bossy Cosmetics
💎 Noteworthy: Bossy Cosmetics is a cruelty-free beauty company that sends a percentage of its profits to nonprofit organizations that help women around the world.
🔍 Where to find Aishetu: Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram
Challenger Wisdom 💡 Questioning what ‘success’ means“I’d been climbing a ladder for 20 years [as an investment banker], getting to a place I’d never thought I’d be 20 years ago. And it wasn’t that exciting. I was doing a lot of thinking about what success is and asking myself if I should be changing my goals. When I fell ill, it was an easy answer: I was not living the life of my dreams.”
💡 Considering how to make a dent in the world: nonprofits or entrepreneurship? “I knew that I wanted to be a part of igniting confidence in women. And initially, I thought that meant that I needed to go work for a nonprofit that focuses on women. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there's actually a business model that allows you to have an intimate conversation with women, to get close to them, to establish a level of trust where they’re willing to have a conversation with you. And that’s the way to live out your purpose.”
💡 Struggling with — and overcoming — imposter syndrome“I’ve struggled with imposter syndrome my whole life. But one thing I always tell myself is that the greatest partner of imposter syndrome is inertia. When I feel that sort of chill, that anxious anxiety of imposter syndrome, I just tell myself to go find the solution. I’m incredibly solution-oriented.”
💡 Building a great team that you can rely on“One thing I’ve learned is that I don’t have all the answers, so I really try to work with the best of the best. As a CEO, yeah, you’re the visionary of the brand. But I’m not the one who cooks up the lipsticks, I’m not the one who paints the bottles. I have really amazing members of my team and we work together. The reason the team works well is because everyone is empowered to do what they do brilliantly.”
💡 Having faith in yourself as a challenger brand“One thing that’s really important as an entrepreneur is this almost crazy notion of believing in yourself. No matter how difficult or impossible things seem, or saturated a market looks, nobody’s doing it the way you are doing it. And the only way for that to be true is if you do it in a way that is so authentic to you.”
💡 Listening to your customers — and getting personal“Initially, I felt like people didn’t want to hear about what was going on in my life, but when the pandemic started last year, I asked our customers if they minded if I shared with them how I felt because it was really weird just talking about makeup when it felt like the world was melting. I was shocked at how appreciative people are about that. It’s been humbling to now have hundreds or thousands of women who feel like they’re co-creating with you. It’s amazing.”
💡 Celebrate your team’s successes, and take responsibility for the losses“When there's a win, give the team the credit, give the exact person that credit, and thank them. I want to be very, very clear about this as a leader, because, yes, I started this business, but there is nothing that I've done in this company that I did by myself. Everything is as a result of the team. So if there is a win, you have to give the win to the person who did it. If there is a loss, I have to take it. And that is the burden of leadership.”
💡 Juggling what can and cannot be put on the backburner “I definitely don’t have [work-life] balance. I don’t even know what that word means. If there’s a master class on balance, please send it my way. I am just constantly trying to figure it all out. But I think about it as glass and rubber balls. My glass balls are my family, my friends, myself and God. Then I have millions of rubber balls that I’m juggling all the time, and many times I drop all the balls that are not glass. And when I’m done, I pick them back up and keep going.”
Top quotes from the episode:
Aishetu Fatima Dozie:
Quote #1
“Comparison is the thief of joy. I'm not looking at what competitors are doing, I just look forward. And to be honest with you, I actually don't know who my competitors are, because I don't think anybody is doing what I'm doing.”
Quote #2
“The ultimate goal of imposter syndrome is to get you so bewildered and afraid and petrified that you don't move. I kind of let those feelings wash over me, because you can't escape them. And then once I accept them for what they are, I start moving.”
Quote #3
“I don't want to only sell [our customers] beauty products, I want to sell them a notion: how can I be a better part of your day? How can I make your day better so that you're more productive when you use my products?”
Andrea Brimmer was once asked how she got her CFO to give her the greenlight to allocate half a million dollars for a customer giveaway during the week of Thanksgiving.
“I said, ‘I didn't ask her because I don't have to,’” Andrea says. “And that wasn't me being facetious or cocky and saying I don't have to get permission from anybody to do anything. But it's me saying she believes in that program as much as I do.”
Andrea is CMO and head of PR for Ally Financial, a completely online financial services company. With the promise of 24/7 support and unique virtual reality (among other) offerings, Ally strives to create meaningful and lasting connections with its customers — and all of Andrea’s work is driven by that mission.
She’s doing something right, because Ally’s CEO has received letters from CEOs of other banks commending the company for its “brilliant” ideas. Because the Ally team is constantly taking risks and concocting creative messaging, Ally’s customers are on board when the bank takes new leaps.
The hallmark of the brand is customer centricity, and with everyone from the CEO to call center employees committed to that core value, Andrea believes the company will continue to succeed.
“My team made Ad Age's 2019 Marketers of the Year list, and the reason I was so proud of that is, as I looked at that list I thought … we're showing up on this list with Apple and with Burger King, and with Allbirds and all these brands that are out there and are doing all this crazy and interesting stuff,” she says.
“We've cracked the code, because we've gotten consumers to think of us in a really different way because of our actions.”
Featured Challenger👱♀️ Name: Andrea Brimmer
⚙️ How she challenges: As the CMO and head of PR at Ally Financial, a financial services company offering car finance, online banking via a direct bank, mortgage loans and more, Andrea isn’t afraid to take risks to engage with customers in a creative way.
💻 Company: Ally Financial
💎 Noteworthy: Andrea’s many honors and accolades include being named a winner of Adweek's 2020 Brand Genius awards for marketers who have skillfully led their brands' messaging to new heights. She was also named to Forbes World's Most Influential CMOs list twice.
🔍 Where to find Andrea: Twitter | LinkedIn
Challenger Wisdom 💡 Take a risk and it just might pay off"We launched in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. And I can still remember so clearly so many people saying to us … ‘Why are you launching a bank right now?’ And that really did become the driving force for us, that idea that the world didn't need another bank, it needed a better bank. And it seems crazy to say this right now, but the year that we launched was the same year that Apple launched the iPhone. So we took this giant bet that everybody was going to bank in the palm of their hands. … the thinking that really charged the brand was, how do we sell for all of these pain points that have existed in the financial services category for over 100 years, that nobody's ever really done anything about? They've talked about it, but they haven't ever really done it. And how can we come to market with some really strong deeds? And not just words?”
💡 Standing out by incentivizing customer service to be truly helpful"We offer 24 by seven service. And we were the first and are still today, one of the only banks that offer 24 by seven service 365 days a year. So at any point in time, you can pick up the phone, and you can talk to a human being. And what we did that was really differentiated is that we rewarded our call center advocates on first touch resolution … most call center advocates are rewarded on how many calls you take throughout the day. Ours were like, look, even if you only answer one call, and it takes you eight hours, as long as you solve that customer's problem in that eight-hour call, you're going to get rewarded or compensated. So those were two really big things we did to create trust.”
💡 Your team’s devotion to the mission is crucial"Everybody owned it. It wasn't just me, it wasn't just marketing. It was the collection of all of the experiences that made the brand the original disrupter that it still is today. And we all feel like our brand is a weapon in a good way. And we need to lean into it. And we need to feed it, and we need to continue to protect it and nurture it. We just have never, as big as we are today — over 10,000 people and multiple locations — lost that focus and that attitude.”
💡 An entirely digital infrastructure requires a new kind of customer connection"We have this incredible digital experience across all of our products, but you know when you're in that situation where I need to talk to somebody, I can't figure this out, or I can't do this without human interaction, that you can do that in a really simplistic way without having to go into a branch. So I think it's really about finding that balance so that you're working on the customer's terms, you're not working on your terms. And I think that's what a lot of brands overlook, oftentimes, which is customer-centric brands think like the customer 24 hours a day. We start every meeting by reading a letter from one of our customers, whether it's good or bad, and just grounding ourselves in this is the reason why we exist. So what are the things that we need to do to push to the next level now?
💡 Don’t box yourself in to one growth strategy"We say our target is anybody with money. And that makes it pretty simple. We're not discriminating in that regard. And as we look to grow, I think it's more of, we're looking to grow across our product set. Today, our savings products are obviously the most dominant product for us. But we have these incredible other products like our invest platform, our mortgage platform, we have personal lending products now. And so that's really where we're looking to grow as to deepen relationships with existing customers, bring more people in, that are open to a wider swath of digital products beyond just parking some money with us, and really kind of growing out that customer set and continuing to acquire new customers in that regard.”
💡 Transparency within a company breeds success“You need to learn how to create followership. I mean, look, we do a lot of pretty out there things from a marketing perspective. And there have been times where my boss has said to me, ‘oh, you're making me very uncomfortable, but I trust you.’ And a lot of that comes from spending time with my business partners, and really letting them understand our strategy and why we're doing what we're doing. spending a lot of time with my CFO I in fact, she and I just had an hour and a half call together last week. And we do that on the regular, where I'm not trying to move the deckchairs around or hide things from her. I want her to have full transparency into everything that I'm doing and why.”
💡 How to get your customers to engage in creative ways"Disruptors have a really simple brief: find interesting ways to get people to engage with their money. And so we've done things like hid 10 Ally-branded pennies in 10 cities across the country, and created a scavenger hunt for those pennies. We've done things like creating a virtual reality game, that was an app that you had to download and you had to tell us your savings story. And the catch was that the app only worked during the commercial breaks of the Superbowl, so it was a really cool way to interrupt people's Superbowl commercials. We've done interesting things like … create an island on ‘Animal Crossing’ last year that actually was so popular, it broke the game for three days. Those are the things that I'm most proud of, because they were all highly focused on getting people to engage with their money in interesting ways. And they have created a very different place for this brand than any other brand in this category.”
💡 Remaining centered in your personal life centers your business"I'm a person that believes in a couple things. One, I believe in deeds, not words. And that's a personal ethos that drives me every single day. And I think you have to demonstrate through your actions what you preach. And I think when I do that, I'm at my best. I'm a big believer in a strong body equals a strong mind. So I think when you keep yourself physically fit, physically strong, I think it creates creativity, and it creates inertia for you. I think that there's just something about that physical strength that gives you mental strength, where you don't worry. And lastly, I think I drink a lot of wine and that definitely helps.”
Top quotes from the episode:Andrea Brimmer:
Quote #1
“We don't think like bankers. I don't think like a marketer. I try and think like a human being. What do I want? What do my kids want? What do my parents want from a banking experience? And how can we create those experiences or those solutions, and that really was the key for us.”
Quote #2
“Our CEO, Jeff Brown, always says ‘money is one of the most important things in a person's life, and the care for that is entrusted to us. It's a big responsibility, and we have to be mindful of that.’ And that's the approach that we really try and take when we're trying to create these relationships with customers.”
Quote #3
“I think [bravery] means living your life leading from the front. And I think it also means leading your life and your career with gusto and not fear.”
I’ve always admired Brian Scudamore - both personally and professionally. A high-school dropout, Brian scaled a junk hauling side-hustle into a $300+ million business empire. His commitment to being an exceptional leader and a dedicated family man is unparalleled. Listen as Brian shares invaluable tips on how challenger brands can transform a business from ordinary to exceptional through consistent hiring practices, excellent customer service and taking time to learn from other industries.
Top 3 Quotes* I'm a happy and optimistic leader and I wanted that same feeling for my entire company. * Open your mind. Be open to opportunities and new ways of doing things, but at the same time not giving up focus on what you've got. * It's all these little things that add up to an easy experience for the customer
Show Highlights* [01:52] How Brian became a self-declared minimalist * [03:40] Baking compulsive servitude into the company DNA * [05:37] The things Brian is most proud of * [07:11] Consistent delivery equals delightful customer journey * [09:53] The narrative thread towards success * [10:55] Daily habits and maintaining them * [12:28] Learning from an earlier incident * [13:55] Brian's competitive advantage * [14:42] Make meaning vs. Make money * [15:59] A personal WHY * [17:00] Marketing tactics to grow the company * [19:02] Was it a challenge to make junk sexy, relevant, and interesting? * [20:13] Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) * [23:11] Finding inspiration outside your own industry * [24:30] Did Marie Kondo single-handedly increase Brian's revenue? * [25:32] What's next for Brian? * [27:22] Prentice's Challenger Takeaways
Resources* O2E Brands * Connect with Brian on LinkedIn * Connect with Brian on Twitter * Connect with Brian on Facebook * WTF?! (Willing to Fail): How Failure Can Be Your Key to Success
Enrico Frezza went from testing skincare products in his kitchen (and sometimes burning layers of skin off) to building the number one acne brand in Sephora North America.
As the founder and CEO of Peace Out Skincare, Enrico is challenging the clinical, unappealing acne industry with unique, effective products and a brand centered around “acne positivity.”
Initially, Enrico's goal was to find a solution to his own acne problems. After trying every acne spot treatment in the drug stores, he set out to make his own product by mixing hydrocolloid wound care dressing with salicylic acid. He left it on overnight and when he woke up his pimples were gone, but a layer of his skin was gone, too. It wasn't great, but it was a start and Enrico knew he had found a solution.
He approached 65 different labs that all told him it wasn't possible to mix active ingredients with hydrocolloid dressing. Undeterred, Enrico (who worked in cybersecurity and had zero scientific background) researched patents and found one with a mix of ingredients that gave him hope his product was possible to produce. He met with the business that held the patent and they started on the R&D process.
Together, Enrico and his husband, Junior, who has 20 years of experience in consumer marketing, built the Peace Out brand — as in "peace out" to your skin imperfections. After seeing how clinical, doctor-driven, and sometimes scary acne marketing was, Enrico wanted to build an upbeat, engaging, and simple brand while bringing breakthrough technology to the industry.
From the start, their goal was to launch with Sephora. On this episode, Enrico shares how Peace Out got its startup brand into the multinational cosmetics retailer, and how it became the number one acne brand at Sephora North America.
Featured Challenger👨 Name: Enrico Frezza
⚙️ How he challenges: Enrico is challenging the clinical world of acne products by building a community around acne positivity with his revolutionary skincare company, Peace Out Skincare.
☮️ Company: Peace Out
💎 Noteworthy: "We were really the first to bring acne positivity in the marketplace, where we understand what it feels like to have acne and we are here to support you. Having acne doesn't make you any less beautiful."
🔍 Where to find Enrico: Twitter | Instagram
🔍 Where to find Peace Out: YouTube | LinkedIn | Instagram
Challenger Wisdom💡 Shooting for skincare gold — after 65 labs said it wasn't possible"There were a lot of burning phases and turning my kitchen into my own personal lab. Once I found what I thought was the best percentages to mix the ingredients at, that's when I started looking into different labs to make the product. I thought it was going to be easy, but it wasn't easy to start a new business with something that wasn't ever developed before. Nobody ever mixed any active ingredients into hydrocolloid dressing, so it was challenging to find someone that could integrate these active ingredients into the patch. After contacting 65 labs who all said they couldn't do it, I started researching patents because I thought if anyone was able to mix anything with hydrocolloid dressing, then maybe they can mix mine."
💡 Reinventing a clinical product category to make it more relatable"Once we had the product, Junior, who is my husband, and I started working on the branding and coming up with the brand ethos. The name Peace Out came about to say 'Peace Out' to your imperfections. We started looking at what else was in the marketplace and saw that the acne category was extremely doctor-driven and very clinical in kind of a scary way in terms of marketing strategies. So we wanted to bring something that was fun and that's where Peace Out came about to make it not scary, simple, one step, and effective, while still bringing breakthroughs and first-to-market technologies but not being scary, too clinical, or doctor-driven."
💡 Bringing ‘acne positivity’ to market (and helping consumers feel better about their skin)"I think skincare, in general, has always been very scary in a way that the marketing tactics back in the day was to make you feel bad about your own skin imperfections so you would purchase the products. I felt that was pretty bad, especially in acne, where there wasn't any embracing around acne. That's where I felt we were really the first to bring acne positivity in the marketplace, where we understand what it feels like to have acne and we are here to support you. Having acne doesn't make you any less beautiful."
💡 Building a meaningful community around your product"The acne shouldn't define who you are, so you should live your life and be yourself and not let acne hold you back, which is something that I did. The reason why we want to build a community where people can talk about the struggles with acne and the toll it takes on mental health is because I didn't have that when I was a teenager. Oddly enough, in Italy, there really wasn't anybody with major acne … for some reason, in my group of friends and in my family nobody struggled with that type of acne so it was hard to find support or somebody to talk to about the toll it was taking on my mental health."
💡 Launching with international cosmetics giant Sephora"Our goal was always to launch with Sephora. We got an intro to Sephora via email and we sent some presentation materials and samples of the products … It was hard, it took a while — from the first time we communicated with Sephora, it took six months to hear back. Then we had our meeting and, in the first meeting, we were discussing pizza acne as the first product and the brand. They were like, 'We love all of these — we love the acne positivity, we love the product, et cetera, but come back when you have a full brand.' So we went back and we came out with Peace Out as a brand with a pipeline of six products … We pitched it back, then we got the yes from Sephora and launched in July 2017."
💡 Transitioning from cybersecurity to skincare"[The transition from cybersecurity to skincare] was definitely not natural. It was really challenging. There was so much that I had to learn and I didn't have time to learn it. Also, you have no room for mistakes, it's not like, 'Oh, I'm going to make a mistake and learn from it and move on.' There were definitely a lot of challenges and, still now, I'm always learning more things. I'm grateful that I started the company with just me and Junior because I literally know how to do everything in the company and it allowed me to learn all of it."
💡 Passing on paid product influencers (free products instead)"We don't believe in doing big paid influencers, just because a lot of times it doesn't feel authentic. We'd rather partner with influencers in seeding free products out — that's always been the strategy on social media. With Tik Tok, at the end of 2019, we started to look at it because it was a growing platform, especially with gen-Z which is a big part of our consumer base, and acne categories were huge on Tik Tok … We started putting our social team into finding influencers, micro-influencers, and non-influencers to seed products out for testing and share the experience if they liked it."
Top quotes from the episodeQuote #1
"I knew the product kept improving batch by batch. It was already better than anything else I had ever tried in the marketplace. Knowing that I could put something on the marketplace that could help so many other people to treat their breakouts and acne that I wish I had in high school was a big motivation."
Quote #2
"Nowadays with social media and faking perfect skin with face tune, it makes it even more challenging for somebody in their teenage years to feel okay with their own imperfections."
Quote #3
"Being bootstrapped allowed us to focus our financials in great investments that had good ROI and keeping our vision and priorities on track without having to listen to other voices or directions."
The COVID-19 pandemic has business owners and public service providers worrying about infectious diseases more than ever. Lisa Tecklenburg, Chief Marketing Officer at R-Zero, wants to help ease some of those concerns.
R-Zero’s flagship product is the Arc UV-C system, which uses ultraviolet-C (UVC) light to kill pathogens in the air and on surfaces in just a few minutes. It sounds like science fiction, but according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), UVC light has been used as a disinfectant for decades. It’s been shown to disable the SARS-Coronavirus, which is similar to the virus that causes COVID-19.
Lisa is aware that one of R-Zero’s challenges is education around the potential of UVC. The company was founded in April 2020, so identifying the brand as an authority is crucial, especially given all the snake oil salesmen benefitting from the pandemic.
“Getting third-party testing that said, ‘This kills 99.99% of coronavirus and MRSA and influenza’ was critically important, especially in the UVC market, because some of the products aren't up to snuff,” she says. It helps that in addition to having a chief scientist with infectious disease experience on the team, Lisa herself has a background in microbiology.
“I was really looking for an opportunity that did two things: fundamentally changed healthcare and saved lives,” she says. “I came across R-Zero and immediately thought, I have to be connected to this company.”
Featured Challenger👱♀️ Name: Lisa Tecklenburg
⚙️ How she challenges: Lisa is the Chief Marketing Officer at R-Zero, a company founded during the COVID-19 pandemic. R-Zero’s Arc UV-C system uses UVC radiation to kill pathogens on surfaces and in the air.
☀️ Company: R-Zero
💎 Noteworthy: In 2016, at age 35, Lisa was diagnosed with advanced-stage breast cancer. Her initial response was to accept the diagnosis and make the most of whatever time she had left. But when her brother pleaded with her to at least try treatment, she changed her mind. “I promised him that I would fight, and it really changed my attitude from [seeing cancer as] something that was thrust upon me to something that I had to fight through,” she says.
🔍 Where to find Lisa: LinkedIn
🔍 Where to find R-Zero: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
Challenger Wisdom 💡 Go Hoosiers!“I studied microbiology: I actually wanted to do an MD-PhD. But I was on the Athletics Committee, and we got to rebrand the entire athletics department at Indiana University Bloomington. I asked someone, ‘Can you do this for a job?’ I applied directly to business school, and that started my journey down this marketing path.”
💡 Setting a goal and scoring it“My soccer coach in high school said to me, ‘You're never going to be a varsity soccer player. You should just go run cross country.’ Being brash and 14 years old, I said, ‘I'm going to prove you wrong.’ Four years later, I was a high school all-American with a soccer college scholarship. It's those things that inform how you address your life and challenges, and figure out how you're going to go forward.”
💡 The science behind the Arc“R-Zero’s flagship product is the Arc. It’s a UVC device, and it's about six feet tall. You roll it into a room and it will disinfect all the surfaces and all the air in a 1,000 square-foot space in seven minutes. It leverages UVC light, which is a type of light that doesn't come through the atmosphere. It changes the DNA or RNA of pathogens, so that they're totally inactivated. You can eliminate all the chemicals and the processes that it takes to disinfect things, and do it really quickly.”
💡 UVC is tried and trusted but its potential is just getting started“Hospitals started using UVC in about the 1930s. It's been used much more dramatically since 2010. Hospitals that were implementing UVC saw a reduction in infections, but these systems are really expensive. What is awesome about R-Zero is that we can make these to a higher quality that puts out more light, creates a much better ROI, and allows us to use this amazing technology much more broadly. And what better time than when there's a pandemic where we have an increased need for disinfection?”
💡 Sticker slogans stick “We have found that some of our customers are leaving the Arc out, and they're using our stickers and our placards that say, ‘Protected by R-Zero hospital-grade disinfection.’ That's making people feel a lot better, because they know that their company or their local store has been really taking care to protect them.”
💡 Small means speedy“One of the things that's great about working for a small company is that we are able to move very quickly. We can jump on an all-company call once a week and be very nimble in the way that we operate. It allows us to adapt to customers and to the marketplace, and test and try things and make it better literally on a daily basis.”
💡 Infectious diseases won’t end with COVID-19 — neither will R-Zero“We believe in serving our customers and we believe in our vision for healthier, safer spaces. And even if COVID ‘goes away,’ there are still infection threats out there. So we're going to continue to innovate.”
Top quotes from the episode
Lisa Tecklenburg:
Quote #1
“I had this attitude of, ‘You think I can't do this? I'll figure out how to do it.’ That's been the way I've always approached things.”
Quote #2
“From a marketing perspective, it's not helpful to spread yourself super thin across every market. One of the markets that we've recently focused on is education. We want to make sure that’s good enough before we go on to another market.”
Quote #3
“The system is super simple to use. It is worth it, even if you have to redo your plans, because it is a sustainable solution. I feel good about the different ways it provides value to any organization.”
Quote #4
“We don't just launch a customer and leave them. We have a full training program, we're working on their marketing and communications. We have remote monitoring to see how the Arc is working, how often they're running it, so we can talk to them about that.”
Craig Dubitsky is a self-described lifelong entrepreneur.
Craig founded Hello Products, a friendly, all-natural personal care brand, and he now works as the Chief Innovation Strategist at Colgate (after Colgate acquired his brand!).
You'd be hard-pressed to find someone more obsessed with packaging and design than Craig, who believes there's no such thing as a boring category — only boring execution. As a testament to this belief, his first product at Hello was toothpaste.
While browsing through the typical chain drugstore one day, Craig was struck by the sudden horror of how doom and gloom toothpaste packaging was. For instance, he noticed that most of them included ingredients banned by the FDA in other products that didn't even go inside your body. (Plus, why do they always show graphics of teeth falling out? Don't we want our teeth to stay in?)
"If it's going in your mouth, it's going in your body," Craig says. This pushed him to create something that was natural and highly effective.
The first thing Craig did was trademark "Hello" in a ton of different product categories to ensure he could truly promote the friendliest brand possible. Then he got to work with a formulator with "more degrees than a thermometer."
Craig's brand journey is the exact opposite of your typical direct-to-consumer brand: he started out in Target, Walmart, CVS, Walgreens and other major retailers because he knew his brand held certain credibility just by being inside those brick and mortars.
Craig is all about humanizing brands and making the world a friendlier place. "I never use the word ‘consumer.’ I don't use the word ‘customer.’ I'll use the word ‘people’ — we're all people, we happen to consume things. I think a lot of companies — a lot of larger brands — spoke to people as if they were just consumers and that, to me, was the opportunity," he says on this episode of The Empowered Challenger.
Featured Challenger👨 Name: Craig Dubitsky
⚙️ How he challenges: As the Chief Innovation Strategist at Colgate, Craig is working to make everyday retail products (like toothpaste) beautiful, friendlier and healthier.
👋 Company: Hello Products
💎 Noteworthy: Since his brand's website first launched, Craig insisted on having a Skype line that went directly to him so he could answer and talk with customers — and yes, it still exists!
🔍 Where to find Craig: Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn
Challenger Wisdom💡 Humanizing your brand and talking to consumers people"It was sort of like we can't have a brand voice — that's for advertising! The product can't do that! … And that to me, some might argue that provides a lot of flexibility — I think it's an antiquated way in a lot of cases of thinking about your brand. I like to think Hello is a brand people join, not one they consume or one they buy on a promotion or deal — it's kind of like it's talking to them."
💡 Overcoming long-standing cues of product effectiveness"There are definitely cues [on a product's effectiveness] that we're used to, and a lot of those cues come from decades of storytelling and advertising that we're exposed to. Like mouthwash — the more it hurts, the more it works, but things don't have to hurt to work. So, anyway, there've been a lot of tropey storytelling messages we've been bludgeoned with but it takes a little time to get people over that. I think a lot of bigger purchases have gotten us used to the idea that something a little more natural doesn't mean it's not going to work."
💡 Don't disrupt a market — change the world"If it's all about ‘we're going to raise a bunch of money and then look to bother someone so that they have to come buy us,’ that's not really building a brand. That's not really building a business; that's like you want to be a pain in someone's backside. That's a business model I guess, but that's not what gets me fired up. Tell me how you're really going to be changing the world, not disrupting someone."
💡 Making personal care personal again"Talking about humanizing the brand, I wanted to make personal care personal again. Ever since we launched — literally day one with the first website we had — there was a Skype button on the website. Now, Skype is going to sound a little antiquated now since we're all Zooming our way into the future but at the time, Skype was pretty cool. There's still a Skype button on the website and it comes directly to me and I always — unless I was on a plane or with a retail partner or family — I pick up. People were always shocked that it was real."
💡 Profitability comes down to how you can make people feel"Getting the profitability, getting people to believe — a lot of that comes from how you make other people feel. That's what marketing is, that's what branding is. How do you elicit an authentic set of emotions — hopefully not just one emotion — with people at scale? And do it in a way that doesn't put their bullshit meter in the red, because I think people can tell. They're smart, and if you can feel something and you get a sense that it's real … That's what it's about."
💡 Making everything just a little more friendly"It was always ‘Hello Products’ — it was never ‘Hello Oral Care, Inc.’ because I had this idea that basically anything and everything could be made a little more friendly. Full stop. And part of being friendly is, to me, a combination of ethics and aesthetics, and how can we bring that to a lot of other categories?"
💡 An entrepreneur is anybody with an idea who makes it real"To me, an entrepreneur is anybody with an idea who makes it real. If you have an idea and you can make it real, why does it matter if it's on your own and you're a disruptor or you're inside of a big company and you're a challenger inside your company? I just make fun of challenger and disruptor a lot, sorry. But if you have an idea and you make it real, in my mind, you're an entrepreneur. If you can take that idea and make it real and make it profitable, then you're a good entrepreneur."
Top quotes from the episodeCraig Dubitsky
Quote #1
"I never use the word ‘consumer.’ I don't use the word ‘customer.’ I'll use the word ‘people’ — we're all people, we happen to consume things. I think a lot of companies, a lot of larger brands spoke to people as if they were just consumers and that, to me, was the opportunity."
Quote #2
"What I have really always loved is design and art and people — I love people. I think people write their narratives through their things and their experiences and, quite frankly, they're not given a lot of really great things. What gets me excited, truly, is to try and make things pretty ... but make them affordable."
Quote #3
"If you have an idea and you make it real, in my mind, you're an entrepreneur. If you can take that idea and make it real and make it profitable, then you're a good entrepreneur."
Early on in his life, Matt Salzberg knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur. After earning an MBA from Harvard and seeking out jobs at venture capitalist firms to help build his professional network, Matt was ready to begin his entrepreneurial journey.
Matt is the founder and chairman of Blue Apron, the pioneering brand of meal delivery services. It’s essentially a household name at this point but if you aren’t familiar, the service partners with farmers to source high-quality ingredients for meal kits delivered right to your door.
Blue Apron was born as a result of two key things: Matt’s personal need to cook unique meals at home with his now-wife; and his sharp business acumen after noticing that grocery and food held less than a 1 percent share of the e-commerce market penetration at the time.
During his research phase, Matt came across a business in Sweden that offered a similar service and learned that around 7 percent of the country's population used it to cook at home. He thought to himself, "Wow, if 7 percent of the Swedish population could use or want a service like this, boy, could it be successful in the U.S.!"
Blue Apron's early marketing programs focused heavily on trials and referrals, but not in the typical sense. Because the concept of ordering meal kits online was so novel at the time, Matt created a unique referral program to help assuage concerns.
Here’s how it worked: Blue Apron would send free deliveries to loyal customers for their friends to try. The program turned out to be a major hit.
Besides this referral strategy, Matt credits Blue Apron's early success to nailing down the unit economics. Figuring out costs and profit for food, shipping, production, packaging, and labor helped to justify scaling the business while giving it a strong financial profile.
Matt built Blue Apron up from nothing to earning $900 million in revenue in just six years and then took the company public. Since its inception, many customers have claimed that Blue Apron changed their lives and saved their marriages with its easy, delicious, sustainably sourced meals.
"Some people tell you your business ideas are dumb, but actually the more nefarious thing is most people just smile and grin at you about your business idea. They say, 'Oh yeah, cool, I'd buy that.' There's a very big difference between that and 'You've changed my life,'" Matt says.
Featured Challenger👨 Name: Matt Salzberg
⚙️ How he challenges: As the founder of Blue Apron, Matt challenges traditional grocery stores with high-quality, responsibly sourced, chef-designed meal kits delivered right to customers’ doors.
🍲 Company: Blue Apron
💎 Noteworthy: Matt's MBA from Harvard isn't the only impressive thing about him. He's also been named as part of Inc. Magazine’s 35 under 35, Fortune’s 40 under 40 and Crain’s 40 under 40.
🔍 Where to find Matt: Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn
Challenger Wisdom💡 Finding validation from abroad — in Matt’s case, Sweden"I came to the idea for Blue Apron looking for brands and opportunities in retail e-commerce grocery, but really finding a personal need and desire for a service like Blue Apron. ... So [I] started exploring this idea of how we could make it easier for people to cook at home and discovered a business in Sweden actually, called Linas Matkasse, which was not exactly like Blue Apron but similar in that they help people cook at home — completely different operating and fulfillment model, completely different digital marketing ... but something like 7 percent of the Swedish population was cooking with a service like this and that really struck me as, 'Wow, if 7 percent of the Swedish population could use or want a service like this, boy, could it be successful in the U.S."
💡 Design a unique referral solution to overcome customer fears"One of the reasons that our early marketing programs were really focused on trial and referrals [is] because, at the time, not a lot of people had bought food online and had it shipped to them in the mail. I would say that [the] consumer perspective was the most difficult hurdle we had to overcome because people would go on our website and say, 'OK, this looks good, I get it, I understand the value prop but is it going to taste good? Is it going to be fresh? I'm used to showing up at the grocery store and touching my food.' What we were able to do is we designed a program … to overcome that objection."
💡 Build relationships with investors early on"[Building relationships with investors] was one of the things I was spending my time on while I was at Bessemer doing venture investing. I think one of the reasons venture investing was a useful stop for me and my career was I was able to build relationships with other angel investors and people in that ecosystem over time so that when I was ready to do something, I had a group of individuals that I knew, who knew me, who invested in early-stage terms."
💡 Calculate unit economics before anything else"The other big thing that we did that I think was really important was thinking about the unit economics. To me, making sure we had a strong unit economic engine could justify scaling the business and provide a strong financial profile to it. … I think the thing that wasn't obvious was can we make money doing this? And can this be a good business? So the very first thing after those other things that we did was sketch out on a piece of paper the unit cost of a delivery. ... How much profit we make per delivery — and then tying that back to how many orders did we think an average customer was going to order from us in terms of frequency and repeat rate."
💡 How shareability helped grow Blue Apron’s business"The business just grew exponentially. That was both because, one, we were retaining people very strongly and two, the referral program we created, as I described to you earlier, made the business grow exponentially with very little marketing dollars. ... And the business itself is naturally shareable, right? In some ways we're making the product, but actually you're making the product with labor — you are literally cooking a dinner yourself and, when people cook the dinner themselves, they are proud of what they made … They'd tell everybody, they'd post it on social media, tell all their friends, talk about it at work, and brag about how great of a meal [they] made. That combined with the referral program really did cause the business to grow exponentially in the early days."
💡 Focusing on different marketing channels during different stages"Interestingly enough, referrals and the organic, direct [marketing] — even to this day and even up through when we were spending hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing — were still the biggest acquisition tactic for us, which is indicative of the fact that we had a product people truly did love and like. … We became significant online advertisers — Facebook, Google, whatever — we became significant podcast advertisers at one point. … We had found that podcast advertising was great for what we do, similar to the reason why our referral program was good for what we did, because an explanation of our product from a trusted user or a trusted name similar to influencers was always very valuable for us."
💡 The challenges of product evolution and staying relevant"As we got bigger and bigger, little companies would pop up that became bigger companies that would focus on niches in particular, like plant-based, or paleo, or really cheap, or really expensive, or whatever it was, and we were going after the mass market. I think for us, it was a challenge to bring in more consumer segments into our product and satisfy more groups as we got bigger and wanted to add more and more subscribers. The challenge with that, of course, is we had to continue to evolve our product and offer more options and things … We had to invest a lot in capabilities to allow us to evolve the product — to personalize it and bring more people under our umbrella."
💡 Pick something that's relevant, because not everything sells itself"It does come down to picking something that's culturally relevant, with tailwinds, and picking something that is worth a conversation. So I think it starts with what are you doing? Maybe a marketer would say you can market anything, but I actually don't think you can market anything. There are certain things that are just easier to market because they sell themselves."
Top quotes from the episode:Guest name: Matt Salzberg
Quote #1
"At the earliest stages of the company, it is very useful to have investors want to back you, not your idea, because early-stage businesses often do evolve and do change."
Quote #2
"Being relevant is important. So having a product that has the right moment in time, culturally, I think is a big one. You want to go after someone with tailwinds and where there's something to talk about that people care about."
Quote #3
"Some people tell you your business ideas are dumb, but actually the more nefarious thing is most people just smile and grin at you about your business idea. They say, 'Oh yeah, cool, I'd buy that.' There's a very big difference between that and 'You've changed my life.'"
Amy Risley feels that she has always been an entrepreneur at heart.
Because her father worked in manufacturing for Estée Lauder, she became obsessed with all of the "lotions and potions" he brought home during her childhood. She also met Estée Lauder when she was five — and according to Amy, seeing a woman in such a powerful role left a lasting impression.
After graduating from Princeton and spending years doing marketing for beauty companies like L'Oréal, Estée Lauder and Jo Malone, Amy became a stay-at-home mom — although she knew she’d eventually return to work one day. Serendipitously, she met the woman who owned the recipe for Skinfix balm, which ignited Amy's entrepreneurial spark.
Amy read customer testimonials from people who tried tons of outlandish remedies for serious skin issues, from diabetic foot ulcers to psoriasis; they claimed this healing balm helped alleviate their symptoms and enhanced their quality of life. After seeing these reports, Amy was 100% in.
The first order of business was to update the branding and create a highly targeted message. "When something does everything, it does nothing," Amy says. She took the brand from being an "everything balm" to focusing on eczema.
Amy knew Skinfix would be taking on major players like Aveeno and Cetaphil in the eczema category but she felt ready for it. This may have been a bit naive, but "I think you have to be naive and sort of a dreamer to really survive as an entrepreneur," Amy says.
Landing an early partnership with Target was crucial for Skinfix's brand development and ultimate success. Target helped nurture the indie brand, providing guidance on what was important for its target market, such as being dermatologist-recommended and clinically proven.
From $100,000 in annual revenue to being carried exclusively by Sephora, Amy built a company that challenges household name beauty brands. She'll never stop giving consumers "what they want and what they need at the right price, and delivering a solution that's actually going to help."
Featured Challenger👩 Name: Amy Risley
⚙️ How she challenges: As the founder and CEO of Skinfix, a beauty company that creates daily moisturizers, eczema treatments and other skincare products, Amy is taking on household name beauty brands with products that are clean, effective and backed by scientific studies.
🧴 Company: Skinfix
💎 Noteworthy: Amy hosts the podcast Total Skin Nerds, which features conversations with top medical experts and skincare authorities about how to best care for skin.
🔍 Where to find Amy: LinkedIn
Challenger Wisdom 💡 Shifting brand positioning from everything to just one thing"[The branding] was the part that I felt I knew how to do because of my experience at Lauder and L'Oréal and Coty [Prestige]. So I hired a design agency in New York and felt we really needed to upgrade the branding to make it a little more standout and also take the formula and really understand how we were going to position it. It was sort of positioned as an everything balm, and when something does everything, it does nothing. So we really thought we needed to figure out how we were going to focus and target the message, and we decided eczema was the category we wanted to play in."
💡 A little naivety is vital to surviving as an entrepreneur "We really felt that taking it to drug stores and mass merchandisers where we could compete directly with the CeraVe and the Aveenos and Cetaphils in that eczema category was where we wanted to go. I mean, you call this the challenger podcast, and we truly were bold and brazen enough to think we could go up against these big companies. Naive, maybe? … If I had known what it was going to be like, I probably wouldn't have done it. So I do think you have to be naive and be sort of a dreamer to really survive as an entrepreneur."
💡 How an early partnership with Target helped with early success "[Target] is very similar to Sephora in that they believe in indies, they help nurture and develop indies, and they give you a ton of guidance — they're like consultants. They were the ones who stepped in and said, 'Can you say [dermatologist] recommended because that's really important in this category? Can you say clinically proven because that's also really important in this category?' A lot of the things we still stand for today were because Target really led us there, so it was an incredible retailer to land."
💡 Meeting the demands of highly informed consumers "I think millennials, and even Gen Z, are so informed — they're so much more informed than we were — and they're so much less wooed by price and luxury and all the trappings of a luxury brand. They really want something that's healthy for their skin, that's more sustainable, something where there's transparency of ingredients and the levels of ingredients."
💡 The (often immeasurable) value of influencers"Over the course of the year, the thing we've learned about influencers is that there isn't necessarily a direct sales attribution. I mean, there are affiliate programs where obviously you have a direct factor attribution, but there's so much more value than just the sales. We had a conversation with the head of influencer for Sephora last week actually, where she said, ‘We certainly look at sales over a certain number of weeks after the post, but there's so much more value than just the sales and it's not always so immediate.'"
💡 The long game of working to get dermatologist recommendations"We worked really hard to do some pretty significant clinical studies and prove the efficacy of our eczema products, our rosacea products and our keratosis pilaris products, and started to really get them on board. We actually have five studies that have been published in our peer reviewed dermatology journals, and I don't know of any other skincare brand — certainly at Sephora — that has published studies. There aren't a lot of skincare brands, period, that have published studies. So the work with the dermatologists was sort of a long game because it didn't yield a direct sales channel initially in terms of their recommendation. It was a lot longer and harder to get them on board with the products, get them to prescribe our products and talk about the products to treat certain concerns, but it was a really important thing for us to do."
💡 Staying on top of your game when fast followers start to rise up "We were, for a number of years, really the only brand doing what we were doing — creating products that were really problem-solution focused on skin issues, clinically proven — but there are people starting to trod on our territory. Sometimes it's easier to be a fast follower than it is to be the first, because you learn the lessons from the first. So we've got to constantly stay on our game and make sure we're delivering the best proposition for the consumer and giving him and her and them what they want and what they need at the right price, and delivering a solution that's going to actually help them.
💡 When being ‘clean’ and ‘sustainable’ isn't enough "Many brands are standing on top of being clean and being sustainable, and I don't think that's enough. For us, it's constantly educating the consumer about the importance of how we formulate and the fact that we truly are clinical in the sense that we consider every ingredient — not only what it's doing for the specific skin concern, but also what it's not doing, how it's not further exacerbating and trying to communicate and educate around the importance of clinical validity."
Top quotes from the episode:Quote #1
"If I had known what it was going to be like, I probably wouldn't have done it. I think you have to be naive and sort of a dreamer to really survive as an entrepreneur."
Quote #2
"Sometimes it's easier to be a fast follower than it is to be the first, because you learn the lessons from the first. So we've got to constantly stay on our game and make sure we're delivering the best proposition for the consumer and giving [them] what they need at the right price, and delivering a solution that's going to actually help them."
Quote #3
"I think a lot of times beauty companies take a lot of liberties in using the term clinical, throwing that around — it's a hot, hot buzzword right now in skincare. Everybody wants clinical, or ‘cleanicle’ as they're calling it, clean clinical. … Lots of people like to use the language, but [don't] necessarily deliver the goods."
Despite living in the fashion capital New York City during and after college, it was an eventful trip to the Gobi Desert that inspired Matt Scanlan and his co-founder Diederik Rijsemus to start an ethical cashmere apparel brand Naadam.
The pair had planned to travel around Asia, but through a series of miscommunications, they spent a month living with nomadic sheep herders in Mongolia. After returning to the U.S., they started Naadam to help their new friends sell their cashmere for a fairer price.
Matt explains that buying directly from the people caring for the goats means Naadam can guarantee that the herders — and their goats — are treated with respect, unlike other companies that don’t offer transparency over their supply chains.
And Naadam doesn’t just buy the cashmere. The company contributes to community projects that help the herders and their families — and, yes, their goats. For example, Naadam has helped to advance initiatives designed to stop desertification (the loss of grazing land), provide access to vets and build a play park.
Far from being self-righteous, Matt is self-deprecating and funny, which is how he wants Naadam to feel. “I assume everybody else in the room is smarter than me, and that's who we want to be as a brand. I think people subconsciously identify with that. … We don't think we're better than anybody else. We think we're equal with everybody else.”
Featured Challenger👱♂️ Name: Matt Scanlan
⚙️ How he challenges: Matt is the co-founder and CEO of cashmere apparel brand Naadam, working directly with goat herders in Mongolia to purchase their cashmere at a fair price and on community projects.
🐐 Company: Naadam
💎 Noteworthy: It was while working at a venture capital firm on Wall Street that Matt decided he needed to see the world beyond the concrete jungle. “I hadn't really done much traveling: I was a pretty sheltered person. We were going to go to Beijing and Shanghai and Southeast Asia, and I was going to experiment with drugs,” he says. “I never got to.”
🔍 Where to find Matt: LinkedIn | Instagram
🔍 Where to find Naadam: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
Challenger Wisdom 💡 Finding unexpected similarities with different kinds of people“A lot of people don't stray far enough from home to recognize that there are similarities between them and people they think are different. In this crazy political climate, these truths are more relevant than they've ever been: If we seek to understand people that are ostensibly different, there's a lot of equality. That ideology and the value system that comes with that is ingrained in Naadam.”
💡 Focus on the why before what“We’ve struggled at times to figure out the how and the what of what it is we do, like what kind of sweaters we make and how much they cost. But what's never changed are the reasons why we do it. And for a brand, that is the most powerful thing in the world — really understanding, at your core, why you exist. We exist because we have a value system that we think other people will believe in.”
💡 To identify gaps and inefficiency, process information as outsiders“We didn't know what we were doing. It was this process of understanding all these pieces as outsiders, to really understand how to make it more efficient. We've definitely maintained that idea that we're outsiders. We’re always looking at what makes the most sense.”
💡 Go with the most ethical option“Everyone needs a v-neck and a crew neck, and everyone should have it in cashmere, and if you're going to do it in cashmere, make sure you get the most ethical option possible. There's a lot of stuff out there where the people who are manufacturing it don't know anything about where it came from.”
💡 The story sells the sweater“My gut instinct was to tell the story, stop trying to be what other people think your brand should be. If I just put a sweater in front of somebody, they don't understand. It's when I tell the story that this sweater becomes more valuable.”
💡 Help that’s actually helpful“We don't ever come in and give them more than they need or are asking for. We don't want to disrupt the ecosystem. If you go to any ecosystem and you give it more than it needs, it becomes reliant on the thing that you're giving. So we work within what the ecosystem can actually handle.”
💡 Know that entrepreneurial success doesn’t happen overnight“Building a business is really hard, and our success is an overnight success seven years in the making. The reality is it was a lot of hustling and hard work and some very scary moments. We were on the brink of failure for a long time and we made a ton of mistakes — and we still do. That's the entrepreneur's journey.”
Top quotes from the episode
Matt Scanlan:
Quote #1
“Brands should be like people: living things that are changing and evolving. They should have complexity and personality.”
Quote #2
“Very rarely does the first thing entrepreneurs ever do work so perfectly that it explodes overnight. It takes time to really identify product-market fit.”
Quote #3
“I love this brand. I can't imagine not doing what I get to do.”
Quote #4
“It’s obviously been very rewarding for me personally. When I was getting thrown out of my first boarding school at 16 years old, I never thought I'd be doing this for a living.”
Kelly Love’s business idea was born from the need to live a healthier life free of the toxic chemicals we unknowingly surround ourselves with daily.
As a co-founder of Brand Basics, a plant and mineral-based cleaning product line, Kelly wants to teach consumers how to integrate healthy, non-toxic products into their lives while removing harmful ones.
"I'm just really hoping people understand that what we put in, on and around our bodies everyday matters and it makes a difference for our long-term health and our everyday quality of life," Kelly says.
Her team didn't initially set out to sell soap. At first, they discussed all kinds of products, from water filters to mattresses, but realized people didn't know where to start on their journey to a healthier lifestyle. They ultimately decided on a cleaning product because, as Kelly says, these items are “some of the most toxic products we're exposed to that we bring into our homes.” Plus, they wouldn't be a huge investment for consumers.
After a few years of business with its own white-label cleaning solution, Branch Basics’ manufacturer went proprietary with the formula. This caused serious backlash, leading the company to shut down and take a few years to test over a hundred product formulas to find the safest, most effective one.
However, the team’s unrelenting passion for their brand's mission brought on its successful comeback. With the help of a PR firm, a squad of influencers, loyal customers and educational content, Branch Basics cultivated a strong following.
As a challenger brand all about giving customers the resources to make their own decisions, Branch Basics aims to help consumers take preventative and proactive control over their health.
Prentice’s Challenger Takeaway👉 Transparency is an overused word, but even though we hear it way too much, it has to be a very top priority for your challenger brand.
Today, transparency means being a totally open book. Brand faithfuls want to know everything, and they can smell BS a mile away, especially the younger generation. Think about failure differently, be an open book, and be vocal about your mistakes.
Featured Challenger👩 Name: Kelly Love
⚙️ How she challenges: As the co-founder of Branch Basics, Kelly is challenging the cleaning industry by offering safe plant and mineral-based cleaning products to give consumers a non-toxic choice about what they use inside their homes.
🧼 Company: Branch Basics
💎 Noteworthy: Kelly's mentor is Katie Forest, the co-founder of protein-based bar Epic Provisions, which was acquired by General Mills in 2016.
🔍 Where to find Kelly: LinkedIn
Challenger Wisdom 💡 Start with something consumers can easily get on board with"We did not set out to sell soap — that is not how our company started. We actually started off talking about all kinds of different products: water filters, mattresses, saunas, you name it. We quickly learned that people were very overwhelmed and didn't know where to start. An easy first step that made a huge impact was cleaning products. Cleaning products are some of the most toxic products that we're exposed to that we bring into our homes, and most people don't even think about what's inside the bottle."
💡 Focus on a scalable business model"[We] did not have any business experience, didn't really know what we were doing other than just [having] a lot of passion for wanting to help people use something that was safe. So we started bottling it ourselves, labeling it ourselves, and shipping it ourselves, and really just told our friends and family about it. ... We decided to just focus on the cleaning because it was something that we could private label and make our brand and we could really focus on, because it was very clear early on that trying to spread ourselves too thin across trying to promote too many different products and too many different messages was not going to be good."
💡 Find a niche where products don't currently exist"We really wanted to fit this niche of one product that can replace all of your toxic cleaning products. It's overwhelming when you think about getting rid of stuff and having to research an oven cleaner, a bathroom cleaner, a fruit and veggie wash — you name it. Most people have 17 to 30 different products in their cabinets, so we wanted something that was able to tackle everything … and was something that was super effective and super safe for the chemically sensitive and we did not know of anything at the time that met all that criteria."
💡 Shutting down the brand to realign with its mission "[Our co-founder Marilee] had used this product that we were private-labeling for years and we had a long great history with it, we were very confident in the safety and efficacy of it. However, the owner of the product cut the ingredients proprietary and just disclosed the marketing terms that we were able to use, signed a contract for us to have exclusive licensing agreement … and it just opened this door of we don't know what we're selling and we can't continue on and be a big, successful company if we can't even tell our customers what's in the product — if we can't offer the transparency that we tell them to go look for in other types of products that they're buying. So we just knew it wouldn't work and we made the very tough decision to shut down completely and reformulate something on our own."
💡 Investing in aligning each phase of your marketing funnel "[All of the marketing channels] really all work together. We think of it like a funnel — the top layer is the PR agency that we work with, Jennifer Beck Communications — they've been amazing. When we first started with them, it was a big investment for us, but it has been so worth it. So they get the word out in a broad way, so someone might see an article and then they come in and our next layer is the influencers."
💡 Letting influencers craft their own brand experience "We have a lot of influencers that help us spread the word, and we are really in favor of letting them tell the message of Branch Basics in their own words, in their own way. We don't give them a script. We want them to genuinely love the product, so we sent out a lot of free product and just say, 'Hey, try it, no strings attached. If you don't want to share, don't. No pressure, no worries.' Then let them have their own experience with it and talk about what resonated with them the most or why they love it the most."
💡 Giving customers something they can be obsessed with"Our customers are getting out there on social media and sharing. It's so cool, because most people don't think of their cleaning products as something they love and rave about and want to tell people about but that's the type of customers that we have. They get on social media and start saying why they're obsessed with this cleaning product and why they either got it as a gift or are giving it as a gift. It's so funny because you typically don't think of gifting cleaning products to someone."
💡 Helping consumers become their own advocates "We started a Tulsa Toxins campaign, and we have this information on our website, where we give you what red flag ingredients to look for [in cleaning supplies] and how to vet and become your own advocate because we think if it's on the store shelves, it must be safe — it must be regularly checked for safety. And, unfortunately, that's just not the case. So we have to be our own advocates."
Top quotes from the episode:Quote #1
"I'm just really hoping people understand that what we put in, on, and around our bodies everyday matters and it makes a difference for our long-term health and our everyday quality of life."
Quote #2
"We educate on everything from cookware to how to vet your own supplements ... so it's cool how our content as a cleaning product company that has nothing to do with cleaning products is really getting out there in big ways and bringing in a lot of people. … We are big on education, not just cleaning products."
Quote #3
"We really do want to help people minimize because we don't need all this stuff. You don't need all these dozens of different cleaning products, so you can clear out your entire cabinet under your sink and just have this one Branch Basics kit and just refill it with concentrate."
Mental health has gone from taboo to hot topic in the last few years. But Kendall Bird, co-founder of the mental wellness network Frame, believes we still need help accessing and destigmatizing therapy.
Frame was born from Kendall’s frustrations with trying to find a therapist who really understood her, and her friend and co-founder Sage Grazer’s frustrations as a therapist struggling to find clients.
The two joined forces and created a platform that connects people who want therapy with a therapist who suits them. On Frame, clients are matched with a shortlist of therapists based on a short survey. They interview as many as they want and then decide who’s the best match. They can also schedule and pay for their sessions on the platform, and even hold HIPAA-compliant video sessions on it, too.
Frame launched in California in April 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic increased the number of people in need of remotely accessible mental health support. The platform is free for therapy seekers, while therapists pay a monthly subscription for tools that help them support existing clients as well as finding new ones.
Kendall firmly believes that therapy can benefit everyone, whether they’ve been diagnosed with a mental health condition, are struggling with a specific circumstance or want to work on themselves.
“A lot of people go to therapy for a specific reason, and they stay in therapy because they realize it's just helpful in so many aspects of your life.”
Prentice’s Challenger Takeaway👉 So many entrepreneurs I speak with didn’t start with an MBA and a business plan. Consistently, something that makes challenger brands challenger brands is a heavy dose of innocent naivety at the founder level. This is where broken models get fixed.
👉 Kendall saw a need in the marketplace - a lack of options - so she created a better way and chased it with restless passion.
👉 There’s a lesson to be learned here even if you work at a larger company: make space for craziness, invest in free-thinking, and embrace failure. This is how the world changes.
Featured Challenger👧 Name: Kendall Bird
⚙️ How she challenges: Kendall is the co-founder and CEO of Frame, a platform that connects people with therapists and makes booking, holding, and paying for therapy sessions easy for both parties.
🧠 Company: Frame
💎 Noteworthy: Before founding Frame, Kendall worked in marketing for Snapchat and Google. It was the stress of the former’s IPO that pushed her to find a new therapist and made her realize how unnecessarily challenging it was, even for a self-described therapy superfan.
🔍 Where to find Kendall: LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
🔍 Where to find Frame: LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook
Challenger Wisdom 💡 A life-changing experience“I started therapy when I was 15 years old. I found out that I was dyslexic and I was having really bad confidence issues. I thought I was going to be a failure in life. My parents suggested I talk to a child psychologist and it really helped me build my confidence. It meant therapy was normalized to me at a very young age, and ever since then, I’ve felt like why wouldn't I keep going?”
💡 Not your grandma’s therapy“I think there are preconceived notions about therapy because it’s been portrayed in the media and passed down from generations before us as something that is a last resort: it's only for people with severe mental illnesses. We're breaking the stigma, but historically people have thought, ‘Something must be wrong with me if I'm talking to someone.’”
💡 Demystifying the therapist’s office“One reason that people are resistant to trying therapy is that it's hard to understand what therapy is about. It's an intangible thing. People are like, ‘What happens in a therapy session? Are they mean to you? Is there magic voodoo that's going on?’ That's one of the things we're trying to tackle with our platform: One of our services is educating people about the different types of therapists and what happens in therapy.”
💡 Moving therapy into the 21st century“The whole experience of trying therapy can feel very antiquated — you're writing checks, you have to call them and leave a voicemail. We've made that process easier. You answer 10 questions and get six matches. You schedule through our platform, you do the video session through our platform and then you pay through our platform. We wanted to make it a completely seamless experience.”
💡 Not just for the 1%“People think, ‘I'll never be able to afford therapy if I don't have insurance.’ It's really hard for a doctor to say, ‘We'll just do a mammogram for you,’ because there are machines involved that cost thousands of dollars. But therapy is different so they can be flexible on rates. And when you are able to pay out of pocket and you work with them, a lot of times they will come down on their rates to work on a deal at a price point that makes sense for you.”
💡 Coping with COVID means moving online“Most therapists were not comfortable doing telehealth prior to COVID, and so it's actually forced therapists of all experience levels and ages to adopt technology in a way that they weren't necessarily planning for. We've had a really interesting makeup of therapists on the platform with different levels of experience because of this shift towards telehealth in the global pandemic.”
💡 The search for the one (therapist)“Don't give up on therapy: the right therapist is out there. There is a chemistry thing, and it's not about did they go to the fanciest school and do they have celebrities as clients or something like that. It's about who do you feel most comfortable with and who do you connect with, and who's helping you feel better?”
Top quotes from the episode Kendall Bird
Quote #1
“Awareness about mental health has never been higher, but there's still a disconnect with therapy. Americans don't understand what therapy is and how it benefits them, so they're not even considering it as an option.”
Quote #2
“I'm therapy's biggest fan so I'm willing to put in that work to find the right therapist, but most people must just give up after the first weird experience.”
Quote #3
“It's not just about getting people connected to therapists, it's about helping them find the right fit. We've built a unique algorithm and experience for clients, so they can not only get in front of the right types of therapists, but also have the power to make the final decision about who they feel most comfortable talking to.”
Quote #4
“If you have been to therapy, share your stories about specific instances where therapy's helped, because it helps people wrap their heads around why they could go and how it could help them.”
James Kyd has always been fascinated with human behavior and how companies, brands and products connect with people.
After working for IBM for more than 15 years and serving as CMO of one of New Zealand's largest tech companies, Tait Communications, James now works as the Global Head of Brand Strategy and Marketing at Xero. Much different from the global powerhouses of his previous workplaces, Xero creates cloud-based accounting software that makes life (and numbers) easier for millions of small business owners around the world.
At Xero, James invites employees to challenge his perspective on everything. "As leaders, [we must create] a psychologically safe environment — [that means] being open about where we're at and who we are, and enabling our team to challenge us on what we're doing and engage in a true conversation with anyone in the business," James says.
James believes challenger brands require what he calls "economic marketers." Without limited resources, you have to focus on the marketing campaigns and messaging that will have the most impact on your business.
How do you determine what resonates most with your core audience? Appeal to emotions. According to James, "If you can ensure there's an emotional connection — something that captures the human spirit and emotive side — you're going to be more powerful in what you're trying to communicate.”
Empower your customers, don't let past trends define your business's path, and stay true to your brand's vision and mission. James advises letting that vision live out through every employee, whether they're a sales rep or the CMO.
"Some of that challenger brand status comes by what our people do every day and we don't need to see or recognize it — it's just who we are and how we are," James says.
Featured Challenger👨 Name: James Kyd
⚙️ How he challenges: James is the Global Head of Brand Strategy and Marketing at Xero, a company that develops cloud-based accounting software for small businesses. He is disrupting the antiquated accounting industry by showing small businesses around the world how easy it is to manage the financial aspects of their business with new technologies.
📊 Company: Xero
💎 Key Quote: "Some of that challenger brand status comes by what our people do every day and we don't need to see or recognize it — it's just who we are and how we are."
🔍 Where to find James: Twitter | LinkedIn
Challenger Wisdom 💡 Create a psychologically safe environment for all employees"As leaders, [we must create] a psychologically safe environment — [that means] being open about where we're at and who we are, and enabling our team to challenge us on what we're doing and engage in a true conversation with anyone in the business. I love when my team might challenge me on if I'm living our values right and getting their perspective and responding to it. That's the kind of effort that is ongoing and kind of relentless. I don't think you can ever take your eye off it, but it does pay massive dividends if you can get it right or at least get on that road."
💡 Challenger brands need to be ‘economic marketers’"As a challenger brand, I think you have to be [an economic marketer] because we don't have all the resources that some of our competitive set or potential competitive set do have. So, I think what you have to do when you're not gifted with all the resources in the world is just to get clear with where you can have the most impact with what you do have. Really think about what it is that's going to resonate and make a difference for you and your business, and then make sure you're investing in those things."
💡 Ensure your marketing has an emotional connection"If you really go back to core biology, the inner parts of the brain — the paleo brain — is driven around those fight and flight mechanisms, which are tightly linked to emotion. So we're emotional creatures first, rational second. And for us as marketers, and I think business leaders, if you can ensure there's an emotional connection — something that captures that human spirit and emotive side — you're going to be more powerful in what you're trying to communicate or get across from the start."
💡 Performance marketing isn't the best in the long run "Another way we look at it from a marketing point of view often is creating the brand and the performance side of marketing. I think that's a dangerous track to fall in and such a simplistic view, and that's where we're seeing a lot of brands go in the last 10 years, where the CMOs have been driven to performance marketing all the time. While that gives you some really great spikes of growth and performance, you lost that emotional connection. I think those brands tend to become weaker over time and resonate less with their audience."
💡 Be confident in the value that you do (and don't) add"If you think about [how small businesses operate] and the fact that they're following their passion — their core role is not to do finance, accounting or invoicing. It's to know our place and figure out how we can connect to them meaningfully, so it makes their day or their business more beautiful, and gives them more confidence, but not try to overstep what we do and be more respectful about the value we add and what we don't add."
💡 Always ask yourself, ‘What do we have to lose?’"The other thing for us is — especially as we go into new markets and even some of our growing markets — keep reminding ourselves, what do we have to lose? We're small, we're growing and our marketplace is huge. We shouldn't ever fall into a mindset of predicting what has gone before, because that will limit us both in how we perform in marketing, but even what we do with our product and our initiatives. We've got to hold on to the vision and what's right for longer term growth and what value we know we can deliver to markets, and keep those things really cool. I think that enables us to be different in many ways."
💡 Prospects are likely already on some kind of customer journey"As we've seen in a lot of research and data, we have a far more informed consumer set, whether you're in B2B or B2C … you've got to realize that even as a salesperson approaches a prospect, it's highly likely they're already on a journey with your brand. Often, of course, marketing helps create those opportunities and pass them to sales, so that sales group needs to be really connected to what messages the brand stands for and how someone's going to have been exposed to that so that they can keep delivering and engaging on that promise and realize how they contribute to that journey."
💡 Deliver content in the most impactful ways possible"What we've started to do is experiment with how to deliver content in a more impactful way. So last year, we ran a global online event called Xero On Air … and that was all about delivering really short, impactful, high-quality content to our audiences online in video format. … One of [our] key learnings is how, if you strive to be impactful and clear in your messaging, you can really compact things down and then just empower that community to follow up with all the other assets."
Top quotes from the episode:Guest name: James Kyd
Quote #1
"That's what great companies do — they empower the creative side of the people in their business and the brand, and then they apply rigorous data and rationalization to it as well. That's the combination that I think works really well."
Quote #2
"Some of that challenger brand status comes by what our people do every day and we don't need to see or recognize it — it's just who we are and how we are."
Quote #3
"Leaders must be motivated by the experience and the overall customer journey, not just their part, and encourage their teams to go that way."
For Adelanwa Adesanya, "entrepreneurship has always been a calling and a mission to really solve challenges in society but at the same time, create economic opportunity for other people."
He grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, watching his father's entrepreneurial pursuits meaningfully impact his employees and other people's lives.
Inspired to start his own entrepreneurial journey, Ade decided to take on the leading cause of death in the U.S. — heart disease.
He co-founded Moving Analytics, a healthcare technology company that provides cardiovascular disease management programs “designed to empower people to teach them all the skills they need to have heart-healthy habits."
Ade was moved to this cause after realizing 30-40% of medical expenses could be avoided if healthcare providers got people to adopt healthier lifestyles. It would also cut down on the 40-50% of people who suffer a second heart attack within a year after their first one.
Cardiac rehabs have been around for 80 years, but with high barriers to care: there are few rehab centers close to people's homes or work and for elderly patients who don't live near a large hospital system, transportation is difficult and expensive.
These barriers mean only about 20% of patients end up attending cardiac rehab — but Moving Analytics' virtual care setting eliminated all of these obstacles.
Moving Analytics sits in the middle of patients, doctors, and insurance companies. Ade communicates with each stakeholder in a unique way: he handles patients with a compassionate bedside manner, and he takes a clinically proven stance with doctors, a cost-savings focus with insurance companies, and a partnership approach with healthcare providers.
"At our company, our mantra is empathy guiding expertise," Ade says. From Moving Analytics’ products to its company culture to how the team supports each other, it all comes down to empathy.
Prentice’s Challenger Takeaway👉 Ade’s culture of empathy ties directly into one of the winning challenger personalities from my book - compulsive servitude.
Moving Analytics is overdelivering to the extent that it becomes the very definition of their brand. Ade and his team are going beyond the ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous’ to deliver a truly exceptional patient experience.
Featured Challenger👨🏿 Name: Ade Adesanya
⚙️ How he challenges: As the cofounder of Moving Analytics, Ade is challenging the traditional healthcare system with technology that revolutionizes cardiovascular disease management programs and helps give patients their lives back.
🏥 Company: Moving Analytics
💎 Noteworthy: Ade was named Forbes 30 under 30 in Healthcare in 2018.
🔍 Where to find Ade: Twitter | LinkedIn | Website
Challenger Wisdom 💡 It's not always about creating a new concept — fix a failing system"What we're trying to do isn't a new concept — cardiac rehab programs have been around for around 80 years now — but the challenge we're solving for is that less than 20% of patients do cardiac rehab in the U.S. today because the only people that offer cardiac rehab are very large hospital systems. So there are very few rehab centers that are close enough to people's homes or work."
💡 The possibility of being perceived as competition"Our approach really breaks down the traditional barriers to cardiac rehab. And, depending on where you are, some people look at us as a threat and as competition, but some people will come to us and say, 'Hey, this is a capability that can enable me to deliver care to more people with less data and less resources.' So it really depends on where you sit at the table."
💡 Breaking into healthcare tech takes a lot of time and patience"I think one of the biggest things about healthcare tech, too, is that it takes time to really be able to go to market because everything has to be based on science. We've been in business for about six years now and the first four years of that was really building up clinical evidence that our solution 1) is safe for patients, 2) is highly engaging and 3) we actually improved clinical outcomes."
💡 Focusing on one marketing theme per year"Each year, we've picked a [marketing] theme we want to focus on. So, as of today, a lot of our focus right now is in marketing to the health plans. So the health plans, when we get them on board and get them bought in from a business perspective … what they do is go to hospitals in their network that are doing the most heart surgeries and say, 'Hey, we're offering this new service to you to get patients into cardiac rehab.' Then we go sell them to the hospital, talk to the doctors to get them on board and coordinate the delivery of the program with the patient's cardiologist."
💡 How the company's focus has shifted since its inception"Initially, when we started the company, the focus was to build a patient experience that patients will be engaged in. Then we moved into doing studies to show the clinical safety and efficacy of the program, because that's what the cardiologist cares about. … Now, where we are with the business is actually demonstrating the health economics to health plans in terms of, if we get 80% of patients to do this, what does that mean to you in terms of your cost at the end of the year?"
💡 The journey to delivering to patients directly "The other thing we've learned in this journey is that, when we initially started out, we started out like a SaaS solution — with software as a service, where we're trying to sell our platform to the existing rehab centers to enable them to deliver care. What we learned in that approach was that many of them were actually afraid and thought of us as competition so they didn't want to go back to their own leadership and say, 'Hey, we want to implement this platform' because they thought it would disrupt them. We've had to essentially become our own provider and take on the entire delivery so that we can be more direct to the patient."
💡 Understand there isn't always one solution to your customer's problem"At our company, our mantra is empathy guiding expertise. One of the things we learned in the beginning of the company — we took this customer discovery course by Steve Blank, and the whole thesis of customer discovery is you actually spend time listening to your customers and understanding their problem is not one solution. So we've really carried that into the company."
💡 Find something that keeps you going through hard times"It's been a lesson in patience and perseverance and a lot of nerves but at the same time, what's made it rewarding for me personally is walking into a hospital and seeing the patient that's recently had a heart attack and they get put on our program. … A few weeks after, they send us a thank you note talking about how one of our nurses has really been a champion for them. For many of those patients, they're going home feeling rest-assured that if they have an issue or symptom, they can always reach out to one of our coaches … and that really goes a long way — that's always kept me going when we hit very hard times."
Top quotes from the episode (3-5)Quote #1
"For me, entrepreneurship has always been a calling and a mission to really solve challenges in society but at the same time, create economic opportunity for other people."
Quote #2
"Moving Analytics is a technology-enabled provider of cardiovascular disease management programs. And our mission as a company is to empower people to live lives free of cardiovascular disease."
Quote #3
"We feel like when you understand someone else, you then can be of service to them. It's a core guiding principle that guides everything we do at Moving Analytics."
Quote #4
"I'm very passionate about supporting entrepreneurs of color because, like myself and like my dad, I see the impact we can make in our own communities and in our own organizations."
For years, most travelers have grumpily accepted airlines’ ever-increasing baggage fees. But the president of LugLess, Aaron Kirley, presents a more affordable option.
For a fee that is usually less than the cost of checking a bag, LugLess will ship your luggage to your destination. Simply enter your travel details on the company’s website, print and attach your label to your bags and drop them off at a participating FedEx or UPS. Rather than haul your bags yourself through the airport, you’ll find them waiting for you at your destination hotel or Airbnb.
Aaron says he first got into luggage shipping in 2005, when he founded a premium service called Luggage Forward. He acquired LugLess after seeing it on Shark Tank in 2013, and relaunched it as a more affordable variation in 2018.
Aaron credits several factors with helping the business take off. First, airlines have been on a fee-raising spree — in spite of losing the luggage they charge so much to transport.
Second, the millennial audience LugLess mainly serves has embraced major shifts in the travel industry, thanks to the likes of Airbnb, Uber and Kayak. A new way to move their luggage fit right in.
While airlines continue to cling to their baggage-handling fees, Aaron says LugLess has nobler priorities. “We're trying really hard to be disciplined and remain laser-focused on our customers’ needs.”
Featured Challenger👨 Name: Aaron Kirley
⚙️ How he challenges: Aaron is the co-founder of premium luggage-shipping service Luggage Forward and president of LugLess, a more affordable mass market version.
🧳 Company: LugLess
💎 Noteworthy: LugLess and its original founder Brian Altomare appeared on Shark Tank in 2013. The sharks didn’t invest, but the episode helped with brand exposure. “They ran the episode almost every month for about six years,” Aaron says. “There was always a spike in website traffic when it aired, sometimes as many as 8,500 visitors in less than a month.”
🔍 Where to find Aaron: LinkedIn
🔍 Where to find Lugless: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
Challenger Wisdom 💡 Luggage has always been a drag“I think we all know that the process of checking bags has always been really inefficient. You haul your luggage to and from the airport, you stand in the check-in line, wait at the baggage carousel. We thought there must be a better way, so we set out to create a more efficient travel experience.”
💡 Challenging ingrained customer behavior“The airlines have the majority of the luggage just because that's the ingrained travel behavior: drag your bag to the airport and check it. We're really trying to change behavior and get the word out about alternatives. Some people go to FedEx or UPS directly, but that's complicated and not really tailored towards luggage — and we’re cheaper.”
💡 Joining the travel shake-up“We knew that if we could figure out a way to make luggage shipping more affordable, it would have broad market appeal. This all came together as other services were starting to change the way people traveled, like Airbnb, Uber and Kayak. At that same time, the airlines were gradually increasing their baggage fees. And so the timing and the economics really made sense for us to start thinking about launching a mass market brand.”
💡 Unexpected turbulence“Shipping luggage turned out to be very challenging and it was very difficult to change people's travel behavior. We spent 10 years investing in technology, building travel partnerships and mastering the complexity of shipping luggage globally.”
💡 Catering to the new kind of traveler“Our target customer base is the modern millennial traveler. They don't use travel agents, they go online to book travel, they stay at Airbnbs. They’re developing a new way to travel and they're using all these new tools and features and services that are available.”
💡 Straight from the shark’s mouth“Mark Cuban gave us what we thought was some really good advice. He said it needs to be cheap, fast, easy for mass adoption. That feedback has guided us over the years.”
💡 Even airlines use LugLess“Even though baggage fees are a meaningful source of revenue for the airlines, there are a few obvious opportunities for us to work together. Some flights have weight constraints that result in baggage yield problems. In 2019, we actually worked with two airlines to help them on flights that had these issues.”
Top quotes from the episode Aaron Kirley:
Quote #1
“I'm probably one of the only people that likes to see fees go up at the airport.”
Quote #2
“People love LugLess when they try it, it really transforms their travel experience in a way that few services can. They come back and they write great things online about us, and help us grow our brand.”
Quote #3
“I think you'll see baggage fees continue to creep up — some airlines are even starting to charge for carry-on bags. Conversely, LugLess is relentlessly focused on trying to reduce our costs.”
Quote #4
“The pandemic has opened a lot of doors for us. With travel being down so much, companies are looking for ways to get guests or passengers to use them, and LugLess is one way to make the travel experience a little easier.”
Kara Goldin had a serious Diet Coke addiction. Looking for healthier alternatives that didn’t involve artificial sweeteners, Kara started tossing fruit into her water. Little did she know, she was concocting the first recipe for what would become Hint, a $100+ million beverage brand, right in her kitchen.
As the former VP of Electronic Commerce and Shopping at AOL, Kara wasn’t lacking in business experience or online retailing know-how, but she had zero experience in the beverage industry. She didn’t let this stop her, though. Kara knew she had the answer to a problem many people didn’t know how to solve and believed “Hint could actually change health in America, and the world, by getting people to enjoy water again.”
Hint had the unplanned advantage of launching in “the Silicon Valley of beverage brands,” beginning in Whole Foods and specialty markets in the Bay Area. It took off when, during a job interview at Google, Kara shared about her newfound interest in the beverage industry. One thing led to another, and Google soon became the largest “store” for Hint water at the time, serving the drink to its employees. As Google employees moved on to other jobs, many requested a steady supply of Hint water for their new offices, further catapulting Hint’s brand.
Kara spent Hint’s early marketing dollars on consumer education rather than flashy billboards or TV commercials. She wanted consumers to taste the difference and, in a world dominated by sugar-laden or diet drinks, it wasn’t cheap to educate consumers about a brand new product category.
While the direct-to-consumer business model often struggles to balance profit with shipping costs, Kara struck a deal early on with FedEx. This has made it possible for Hint to reach customers outside of local grocery stores and retailers.
Kara never set out to challenge large soda brands — she genuinely wanted to help consumers make healthier choices. “I felt like if I could get more people to know about this, it would actually help them get healthy.”
Featured Challenger👩🏻🦰 Name: Kara Goldin
⚙️ How she challenges: Kara is helping consumers lead healthier lives as the CEO and founder of Hint, a company that creates fruit-infused flavored water made from real ingredients, is free of sweeteners and means what it says on the label.
🚰 Company: Hint
💎 Noteworthy: Kara’s new book, “Undaunted,” not only shares her path to building Hint but also encourages readers to understand that entrepreneurship and innovation are within easier reach than people typically think.
🔍 Where to find Kara: Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook
Challenger Wisdom 💡 Having the advantage of telling people your ‘why’“As I always share with entrepreneurs, I think it’s a competitive advantage for entrepreneurs versus large companies — no matter what industry you’re in. So often in these large, public companies the founder’s no longer around, and they have been gone for a long time, so there’s less of a story as to why they started the company and what their purpose is. I really think it’s a competitive advantage for companies that are able to bring their story out and tell people their why.”
💡 Forget the word ‘failure’“I’ve always said, to myself and others, if we didn’t know the word failure, what would we do? We are so afraid to go start something because we’re afraid of not being able to do it, or we’ll be embarrassed or lots of other things. What I found in my own career is that if you actually go and try, then you might find that you are going to be a lot more successful than you thought.”
💡 The issues in existing product labeling“I think it’s somewhat criminal that we live in this world of labeling where there are these words — whether it’s diet, vitamin, water, low-fat, baked — and we automatically assume that someone’s done the work in making sure that they really are healthy. What I was realizing from a consumer perspective was that I had been marketed to and ultimately fooled.”
💡 Following the road you feel passionate about “I had no intention of starting a company but, while I was searching for another role, I felt like I kept getting sidetracked by my interest in working on something that I felt not only helped me make a difference in my life, but my family and, ultimately, could also help other people. So this was really like a side hustle.”
💡 Break from traditional marketing“I can’t say that we didn’t spend any marketing dollars on building this, but it was not in the traditional marketing sense that we spent the money. A lot of people will launch a brand and go out and buy a bunch of advertising — whether it’s digital, billboards, or print. We decided we really wanted consumers to taste the difference and didn’t feel like they were giving up something by having a product that was unsweetened.”
💡 Self-doubt is inevitable, but don’t let it consume you“When we first launched, I didn’t have any experience in the beverage industry so people were like ‘oh, you’re going to be roadkill for sure,’ ‘you have no experience doing this,’ ‘you’ll never be able to figure this out.’ … When you’re hearing these doubters, you probably have your own doubts, right? There’s always a little grain of truth that you’re thinking, ‘maybe this isn’t going to work out,’ but it’s not helpful for you to hear all of this negative feedback.”
💡 Competition is helpful, especially with new product categories“When Coca Cola launched their first competitor to us, we really thought [it was] game over. They have way more money than we do and they had a better relationship with some of the retailers we were wanting to get in. What we realized is that as long as we truly believed that we had a better-tasting product, and consumers felt like we had a better-tasting product, it actually helps to have competition because you grow the category.”
💡 Do exactly what your customer is doing“What we realized is that if you’re really wedded to one retailer or one way of doing business, the consumer isn’t. The consumer will shop online, they’ll shop on your site, go to Amazon, go to Costco, go to Target or Kroger. So we thought ‘why are we sitting there just servicing the customer in one way?’ We need to actually act like the customer — we are the customer — we do exactly what they do … We knew we were a challenger brand, but we suddenly said this is the way ultimately to fight the battle.”
Top quotes:Quote #1
“It doesn’t matter what industry — if you think there’s a problem that needs solving and you have ideas about how to go solve it, why don’t you do it?”
Quote #2
“When you’re an idea within a large company, oftentimes you’re developing something because you see a white space in the market. You’re not really doing it thinking about the consumer’s problem. You’re thinking about what else can I sell the consumer?”
Quote #3
“I’m sure there were days where I felt a little overwhelmed, but I always felt like there was just amazing stuff going on.”
75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. At any given moment, the vast majority of America is walking around at a level of hydration that doesn’t enable their peak level of focus and performance.
John Sherwin is here to change that as the cofounder of Hydrant, a powdered hydration mix with nearly three times the electrolytes as a regular sports drink.
“I’d been thinking about hydration in general for a long time before I got started with Hydrant,” he says.
After studying biology at Oxford University, John moved to the U.S. and started working in Silicon Valley — but he didn’t feel great during that time. Despite drinking tons of water every day, he struggled to feel healthy and find a strong work-life balance.
That’s when he remembered the powdered electrolyte packets medical students downed at university. They tasted horrible, but it spurred an idea.
Using his background in biology, John created a formula for a powdered drink mix to rival the typical sports drink. (You’ll need to listen to the episode for the full scientific breakdown.)
After raising a round of seed funding from the Sixers Innovation Lab, John worked with an agency to turn his coastal brand from “hipster” to the fun, approachable “for-everyone brand” that you see today.
Later, Hydrant brought creative talent in-house. Agencies are helpful when you’re still getting your footing, but John’s in-house creative team was “instrumental in shepherding the brand to where it is now, and continuing to elevate and differentiate it.”
In an oversaturated market of sugary drinks claiming to be healthy, Hydrant is pioneering the true hydration market with its science-backed, data-driven formula designed by actual scientists.
What’s John’s ultimate goal? “To be the most trusted beverage company in America.”
Prentice’s Takeaway👉 Brands are not in control anymore, consumers are in control. John described that Hydrant is aiming to be the most trusted drink brand on the market.
Head to drinkhydrant.com, click on the ‘Learn’ section, and check out the Hydration Institute blog. John is arming Hydrant’s fan base with great learnings backed with science-based facts. It’s a smart, resourceful tactic that Hydrant is using to empower word of mouth marketing.
Featured Challenger👨🔬 Name: John Sherwin
⚙️ How he challenges: As the cofounder of Hydrant, John is redefining wellness by taking on the sports drink market with a powdered hydration drink mix based on a formula developed by actual scientists — including himself!
🚰 Company: Hydrant
💎 Noteworthy: John graduated from Oxford University with a degree in biology.
🔍 Where to find John: LinkedIn
🔍 Where to find Hydrant: Instagram | Facebook
Challenger Wisdom 💡 When making ‘outlandish’ calls ends up paying off“We have, still to this day, I think a very unique proposition even compared to a lot of the other powdered entrants into this space. We've made some calls that initially seemed very outlandish, frankly. I'll give you an example: in a time when everyone was going sugar-free or extremely low sugar, we made our first product with sugar. No stevia, no artificial colors, or flavors … literally just cane sugar as the first ingredient. Which is like, whoa, a lot of people would see that and be like what are you doing? This is not the way the market's going.”
💡 Don’t only market to yourself “People think about who they are and they want to market to themselves — my co-founder's from the finance world and I was from the tech world. So that was the initial plan, and our initial branding spoke to that audience and the positioning of the product, too. But through iterative testing we realized, you know what? This is not the smartest way to grow this business. We want to be a brand for everyone — a sort of approachable, all-American brand.”
💡 Investing in content to educate consumers“If you're ingesting a product of any kind, you need to trust the brand that you're buying it from. So we've really overinvested in blog posts, content about the products we make, what is in it, stories about ingredients, the science behind it.”
💡 Leveraging consumer feedback to improve your products"When we got started, we launched with a single flavor, which was the lime flavor. I thought, 'Well, everyone's going to be here because our product is from a scientific standpoint and it is basically perfection at hydration — there's nothing better out there.' But, of course, people care about taste and I very quickly learned that. We've subsequently really invested in that side of the business."
💡 Diversifying marketing channels can take time“We've done really well with word of mouth and referral which, of course, is free, so we love that. We tested [to find] a referral program that worked best for us. We have a 50% off your next order, 50% for whoever you refer, and it's been really successful for us. … Trying to foster that word of mouth is the goal, but performance marketing through Facebook and Instagram is absolutely the majority for now and, over the course of time, we want to move away from that and diversity.”
💡 Finding the perfect white space and knowing how to address it“For us, the white space is really moving people off big, ready-to-drink sports drink brands and onto Hydrant using A) healthier formulation, so less sugar B) more functional, with the better electrolyte balance and C) getting them away from the ready-to-drink plastic and using a reusable water bottle and pouring the product straight in.”
💡 Keeping functions in-house to maintain growth and consistency“When you first get started, a lean team and bringing on a lot of agencies is kind of what you're forced to do. Agencies can seem like a good deal at first. For us, what we've found is, because of this data-driven mentality, we want to own all of the data and make sure all of the insights from that become institutional Hydrant knowledge. So for us, it was really important to bring a lot of functions in-house, especially growth and data analytics.”
💡 Branching out from D2C to nationwide retailers“We're also pushing out the retail side of the business. From the beginning, we knew it was not going to be 100% direct-to-consumer — that's an old playbook that doesn't really work for a product like ours. So we wanted to use that as a starting engine and then, over time, really start building up relationships with retailers across the country to get more distribution and get in front of customers.”
Top quotes:John Sherwin
Quote #1
“There are a lot of entrants with powdered hydration products, but there is so much white space in terms of taking share away from the big bad sports drinks that we welcome everyone into the category to try and keep moving the needle.”
Quote #2
"The one thing that hasn't changed is to be the most trusted beverage company in America. … If you're ingesting a product of any kind, you need to trust the brand you're buying it from."
Quote #3
“I don't think I can honestly sit here and give you a specific customer segment that is shouting, but what we try to do is find those brand evangelists and empower them with content.”
Did you know lawns are the third largest crop in the U.S.? Impressive, right? What about the fact that people put five times more pesticide on their lawns than what’s used per acre on industrial farms? Also impressive, but in the worst way possible.
Meet Coulter Lewis. He’s here to (literally) uproot an antiquated industry that hasn’t changed since the 1950s with his all-natural, sustainable, science-backed and customized lawn care company Sunday.
“This is a space that is almost like a time capsule on the shelf,” Coulter observes. With so few lawn care brands to choose from, he saw a clear market gap — even though most consumers didn’t realize it.
“[Lawn care] is one of those ‘last-to-change’ categories where people’s values and needs are so misaligned with the way it’s done,” he says. After all, why would you purchase a house with a luscious yard for your kids to play on, and then load it up with toxic pesticides?
Instead of changing one or two things about current lawn care products, Coulter changed everything. He honed in on consumer education, letting potential customers know his product was effective and 100% safe for their families and pets.
Coulter combined his mechanical engineering background and design experience to create one powerhouse of a lawn care product, teaming up with Frank Rossi, a turf expert and Sunday’s current Chief Science Officer, along the way. Together, they created formulas for different fertilizer blends and determined the type of data they needed and how they could act on the data they received.
As for branding, Sunday didn’t get any help from an agency. It followed simplicity as a guiding principle, aiming to inspire confidence but also stick out from the competitors that so often featured warning labels and fine print.
As a challenger brand, Sunday is “hyper-nimble.” The team’s quickness to adjust and adapt makes it a revolutionary force in the lawn care industry, transforming America’s 40 million acres of lawn into healthy, beautiful land one yard at a time.
Prentice’s Takeaway👉Brand voice and tone doesn’t just happen. It takes a lot of work, and Coulter knew how to bring in the best people to help complement what he already does so well.
Featured Challenger👨 Name: Coulter Lewis
⚙️ How he challenges: As the founder and CEO of Sunday, an all-natural, custom lawn care product, Coulter is disrupting the highly toxic $48 billion lawn and garden industry with a safe, sustainable alternative.
🏡 Company: Sunday
💎 Noteworthy: Prior to starting Sunday, Coulter co-founded Quinn Snacks with his wife, a revolutionary food brand that has reinvented popcorn and pretzel as natural, toxin-free snacks.
🔍 Where to find Coulter: LinkedIn | Instagram
Challenger Wisdom 💡 Showing customers they can be confident in your product “Even though our product uses ingredients that are free of toxic pesticides and better in so many ways, really the first thing we communicate to customers or potential customers is you can do this and it’s going to work. Those are the two most important things I want people to hear. The fact it’s not toxic for your family and things like that are actually third in line in terms of what we communicate to people.”
💡 Thinking bigger than a simple product refresh “There are things [within the pesticide industry] that you look at and you’re like ‘Wow, this is just fundamentally off, we need to fix this.’ But the solution, as we dug in more and more, wasn’t that compelling just to say, ‘Here’s a modern branded clean version of this thing you’re used to.’ What would be even more powerful is if we could meet people’s dire needs today — beyond just the idea of cleaning up their backyard — and also meet the needs around their ability to feel confident they could do this and see good results.”
💡 Figuring out customer pain points, even if they aren’t aware“The things I had to work with were people and their values were not where the [lawn care] space is. That’s great — that’s an enormously powerful lever for me to work with. The other is that they have really low confidence and really low know-how in the space and they just want to be satisfied and feel good, but they can’t get that now because they don’t know what they’re doing. So these are things that came together to start generating the overall offering from Sunday.”
💡 Creating a product based on tangible examples“It’s such a different approach than what [Frank] was used to. I said, ‘Frank, what if you had a truck you just drove around the country with you and we stopped at lawns everywhere in the country and your job was to help that person have a really great looking lawn? What would you put in that truck and how would you analyze that lawn?’ It gave us this really tangible example that helped us think through what kind of different fertilizer blends we needed, what data was needed and how we needed to act on that data.”
💡 Building customer trust with scientific data “In this space, customer trust is very very low. In the lawn and garden space, people are accustomed to things not working and feeling that they’ve been bamboozled. A lot of things out there are simply not based in science and are not effective, so there’s a lot for us to overcome in terms of customer trust. I think our scientific approach and the fact that we know more about your property than you ever want to know really helps that.”
💡 Challenging long-standing traditions and product beliefs“There’s one very large brand in the space that basically invented the space from scratch — I have a lot of respect for them. I think we have somewhat different philosophies on what our core products are, but I mean no disrespect towards them, so I don’t think they’re my monster. I’m just trying to create something entirely new and trying to change the way people think about the way they care for their property. I think my monster is tradition. This idea of ‘that’s just the way it works’ — that’s my monster.”
💡 Hiring a team based on your personal deficiencies “I think we avoided some of the biggest missteps because I was really deliberate about the people we brought on board and was really aware of where I’m deficient and where I don’t have the right answer and the right skillset. So I hired for all those big blind spots first and then continued to build an incredible team around that. The people around me are just amazing and that’s helped us dodge a lot of bullets.”
💡 Being honest about online marketing “We’ve been very heavy [marketing] on Facebook, Instagram and Google, especially in year one and also year two. I think that’s something people don’t like to admit, but I think it’s important to be honest on podcasts. Those platforms have worked really well for us — we’ve continually gotten better at them and built out the skills in-house to be able to optimize for it.”
💡 Don’t branch out from your core offering too quickly“For me, it’s been helpful to vocalize the challenge [of not moving on too quickly] … I’m continuously holding back a little bit to make sure that we get really, really amazing at what we do, and that we offer the experience I talked about earlier, where you have to tell your neighbor about it. We’re not there yet — there’s a lot of work to be done for us to get fantastic at lawns.”
Top quotes from the episode:Quote #1
“That’s where this scientific approach came from: If we’re going to go beyond just cleaning up the [lawn care] category and making the product so compelling that it’s a no brainer, what do we do?”
Quote #2
“What really matters for our customers is they get exactly what they need right when they need it. And it works.”
Quote #3
“At the end of the day, when we’re creating our products and formulations, it’s about results. If we can’t make great looking lawns, we’re dead in the water. Any change or impact we want to make — none of it matters if we can’t do that.”
Samira is one of those entrepreneurs who always knew she wanted to create a company — she just didn't realize it would be one challenging the giants in the toilet paper industry.
After quitting her job as an auditor at a large accounting firm, she started a chain of nail salons in Los Angeles called Bellacures. She sold Bellacures after 10 years and almost immediately started thinking about her next venture.
She had her sights set on a product-based business. While researching ideas, she saw opportunities in the toilet paper space. Though the industry is dominated by a few major competitors that own large percentages of the market share, Samira saw huge potential. In April 2019, she launched No.2, a toilet paper made from eco-friendly bamboo that would appeal to environmentally conscious consumers.
The brand name draws inspiration from the nostalgia of No. 2 pencils and Chanel No. 5 perfume — Samira wanted the brand to feel chic yet playful — the name also references the idea of making a “number two.” She worked with a branding agency to bring No.2 to life visually to ensure the brand’s voice captures a “no-nonsense tone.”
Proctor & Gamble and other heavyweights in the space spend billions on advertising. No.2 has gone a different route to reach consumers and hasn’t invested in traditional advertising or paid social efforts. The company’s marketing focuses on connecting with people — Samira works with a PR firm to earn placements in “media publications where people are actually reading articles and learning about the product” and swears by collaborating with social media influencers.
Though the product is relatively new, it’s starting to resonate with some consumers. Samira says the company has conducted surveys, which shos that previous Charmin users have switched to No.2 because “they want something that's different that they can just commit to and know that they're making a choice that's good for the environment.”
Featured Challenger👩 Name: Samira Far
⚙️ How she challenges: As the founder of No.2, a 100% bamboo toilet paper, Samira is challenging long-standing toilet paper industry giants and letting consumers know they have alternative options that are better for mother earth and their own personal hygiene.
🧻 Company: No.2
💎 Noteworthy: Samira won the Small Business Administration’s “Young Entrepreneur of the Year” Award for Los Angeles in 2009.
🔍 Where to find Samira: Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter | Inc. column
Challenger Wisdom Highlights from the conversation appear below.
💡 Starting without the “required” capital or experience“When I was a teenager and when I was in college I always thought that I had to be older, more experienced, and have access to money to start a company. When I was working at [an accounting firm], it became very clear to me that it’s almost less risky to start a company when you don’t really have a lot at stake.”
💡 Taking the plunge into entrepreneurship “I thought, ‘Okay, I’m going to quit my job and I’m going to start one of my many ideas. I’m just going to commit to one of them and gain the experience firsthand. If I fail in a few years, I could just start over again — I’m young enough that it wouldn’t really matter in the long term.’ And that’s what I did.”
💡 Being the underdog with a market opportunity that just feels right “I started researching [all of my potential business ideas] … to get a little more insight into the industry and to also [find] out what feels like the right fit day-to-day wise for me and my operation and branding skills ... When I started digging into the toilet paper space, I felt really excited by it. I felt like there was a lot of room for improvement. It’s mostly dominated by the big guys — there’s not a lot of smaller brands in the space which, to me, [was] an exciting opportunity to get in.”
💡 Nailing your competitive advantage on every detail“[Our toilet paper] is not plastic-wrapped — they’re individually wrapped in recycled paper and put into a Kraft shipping box … so you can recycle the packaging and then use the toilet paper and recycle the core and then you’re done. There’s no plastic [at any point]. That is one of the more attractive qualities that people appreciate in terms of the eco-friendly aspect because even some of the other eco-friendly toilet paper options — like recycled paper by Seventh Generation — are wrapped in plastic.”
💡 Finding ways to differentiate product packaging “Using paper, it was obvious to me that there was an opportunity to print something on it. Besides printing your brand, your logo, and some of the information about what they’re buying — like the number of sheets and what not — I thought, instead of making it super clinical, why not make it a little bit more fun?”
💡 Catering to multiple audiences “There are a lot of customers who are buying for multiple residences, whether they’re Airbnb’ing or if it’s just their second or third home and their family is staying there … We also get a lot of coworking spaces that purchase in bulk and office spaces who like the idea of the eco-friendly toilet paper, but also that it’s cool and fashionable and fun. Then, I would say everybody else is [mostly women] between 30 and 50.”
💡 On being a ‘no-nonsense’ Brand “I worked with an agency to bring [the brand] to life visually. The branding tone and voice is definitely an extension of me and my team that I’ve worked with. I think it’s just a no-nonsense tone: Here’s what it is, it’s funny, we’re here to serve you and keep it really light.”
💡 Choosing an appealing brand name “The name is something I came up with: No.2. I liked it because it’s memorable, it’s short, and it has a different meaning without being too crass. I think there are some other brands that use words like ‘butt’ and ‘crap’ and things that are a little bit more crass in the actual name of their company, and I don’t think that’s ideal.”
Top quotes from the episode:Quote #1
“Fun is always attractive to people, so I feel that we’ve made something very boring — like toilet paper — fun.”
Quote #2
“We’re talking about something that’s not serious — it’s toilet paper. I think there’s no other way to go than to be funny.”
Quote #3
“A lot of people switching over to No.2 are previous Charmin users who want something different that they can just commit to and know they’re making a choice that’s good for the environment.”
Jon Pearce is working towards building a better healthcare system. Twelve years ago he saw a broken healthcare system and wanted to fix it, so he co-founded Zipnosis — which today offers a white label, B2B software platform enabling healthcare providers to offer asynchronous care in just a few minutes.
He didn’t set out to be an entrepreneur, and he definitely didn’t see himself getting into the medical field. But his plans changed after interning at a healthcare technology startup. That’s where he noticed cracks in the healthcare system and saw the cell phone as “the clinic of the future”.
Initially, Zipnosis was created as a direct-to-consumer company. It offered $25 virtual visits to residents of Minnesota in 2010, but the concept never really took off.
The technology and assumptions were correct, Jon says, but the consumer market just wasn’t ready for this service yet. Zipnosis pivoted from B2C to B2B after a large health system contacted him to inquire about licensing the platform.
Jon says that move wouldn’t have happened without the relative success of a competing service launched a few months after Zipnosis entered the market.
“As much as I hated what HealthPartners and Virtuwell had built, it actually was a lifeline and a reason why we had Fairview calling in sort of an ironic way,” he explains.
Zipnosis is now in 53 healthcare systems throughout the country.
“I think competition is good. It definitely sharpens swords.”
Prentice’s Takeaway👉 True challengers are never mild. There’s no shortage of bold statements on Zipnosis’ website. They truly believe in their mission and they know they only have a short amount of time to swallow up market share with so many competitors nipping at their heels.
Featured Challenger👨🦲 Name: Jon Pearce
⚙️ How he challenges: He’s trying to change the broken healthcare system by making it quick and easy for healthcare providers to offer virtual visits.
🏥 Company: Zipnosis
💎 Noteworthy: Jon majored in Russian language and computer science in college — entrepreneurship and the healthcare industry were not on his radar.
🔍 Where to find Jon: Twitter | LinkedIn
Challenger Wisdom 💡 Seeing the potential in the telemedicine virtual care industry“[Telemedicine] represents a step backward instead of the future. It’s sort of analogous to me of using the word videotape or cassette to describe streaming music and certainly how we interact with the world. I think Telemedicine was certainly in vogue forty years ago, but it is not the future [and] in no way represents the opportunity that technology has to form how and where we connect for the care that is now becoming all the more present around us.”
💡 Pivoting after early failures “The cell phone was going to be the clinic of the future, so that was the underlying premise for Zipnosis. We originally launched a sort of MinuteClinic on the iPhone as a direct-to-consumer business. We had a lot of MinuteClinic DNA. It started up here in Minnesota, and I had some of the early founders at MinuteClinic come in and partner with me early on at Zipnosis ... We were offering $25 virtual visits to anyone in Minnesota way back in 2010 ... but it was a horrible business [and] nobody used it. But the technology and assumptions we were making, we’re using. That set in motion a series of pivots and evolutions that get us to where we are today.”
💡 Having the right idea in the wrong decade“[Direct-to-consumer] wasn’t the right business. It wasn’t the right way to go 10 years ago. Today, it’s an absolutely beautiful model. Actually, if you look at some of the very successful direct-to-consumer companies, they look almost identical to what we launched ten years ago. It was the right idea, but the wrong decade.”
💡 Pivoting from B2C to B2B“After two years of not making it in the direct-to-consumer world we got a call from a health system. We were out of money, we’d burned through the initial fundraising that we had done on the direct to consumer model — I think we literally had -$5,000 in the bank account — and a large health system called Fairview called and said ‘Hey, we really like this. We think virtual care or telemedicine needs to be part of our delivery but we don’t want to put your brand on it, we want to put the Fairview brand on it. Are you open to licensing it?’ And that was the pivot.”
💡 Infusing healthcare services with consumer-grade expectations“The goal with Zipnosis is to drive the transaction cost as close to zero as possible … in eCommerce terms it makes a ton of sense, right? If every time you bought anything on Amazon you had to pay $40 just to buy the item before you even paid for the item it would never work. But that’s effectively the way traditional telemedicine works — you have to pay $40 for a consult that’s before the prescription, labs, or anything else that goes into it. So at a high level, we’re here to really plant the seeds for bringing consumer-grade expectations into healthcare and fundamentally changing the unit economics associated with it.”
💡 Coronavirus brought ‘a watershed moment’ to healthcare“From a virtual care perspective, [coronavirus] is the watershed moment … It has changed the industry forever and I can say that very confidently. We’re not going to go back to a world where the majority of care is going to happen in a traditional way. And that’s going to set in motion what I think is a broader disaggregation in healthcare … I think we will look back in ten, twenty years from now, and say ‘Wow, this really changed the way we thought about healthcare delivery and really allowed us to be much more comfortable relying on technology.”
💡 Becoming a savvy entrepreneur“We did a series A, it was about $17 million — so a pretty significant series A, certainly back then — and at the time we had nine customers and nine employees and we just saw the need to grow much bigger. We had been profitable the year before and it just seemed like the right time to go big. We’ve raised about $26 million total through a series B, and I’ve learned a lot through that process and have come out the other side a much smarter, more savvy entrepreneur and certainly a business leader.”
💡 Fundraising shouldn’t always come first “Generally, we’ve gotten a little bit away from the roots of entrepreneurship … raising money has really become a financial exercise rather than a really smart business decision. Going back and thinking about what comes next, whenever that is, I’m going to focus mostly on finding revenue, building great customer relationships, and letting the fundraising come after that.”
💡 Raising capital vs finding new customers “When I was starting here, most people were like “go raise money, go raise money!” But I think there’s a shift back to say go spend the time and find that customer. Get that market validation and get them in the game, and that’s going to be a lot better place for you.”
💡 Getting your piece of the pie in a rapidly evolving industry “My goal and the team’s goal here is to just continue to do exceptional work. We don’t need to fundamentally change our strategy. Right now, we’re in our element and I’m looking for how we [can] best apply these great assets, the strong brand we have, the great customer base and really look and saying, ‘all right if the market’s moving from ten million-ish virtual visits to a hundred million, how can we be a part of all of that?’”
Top quotes from the episode:Quote #1
“As an entrepreneur, you have to be malleable. I think you have to be open and ready to accept the hard truth that may come along the way. That’s certainly allowed us to survive and live in a very prosperous time for virtual care.”
Quote #2
“If you’re going to spend an hour of time chasing a dollar of investment or a dollar of revenue, where do you spend your time?”
Quote #3
“As a visionary who, 12 years ago, said ‘hey we can do a doctor’s visit online and not actually talk to anybody!’, even my family thought I was crazy. But it’s been really rewarding to see those assumptions come true.”
Quote #4
“Our goal is to be able to [make doctor’s office visits meaningful again]. It may not seem like the original intent with it but I think, if we’re successful, we’ll bring meaning back to that face-to-face [visit] and we’ll give consumers a lot better control over how they’re accessing healthcare.”
Fran Dunaway has been an activist her entire life. Whether she was working for a nonprofit advocating for LGBTQ rights or pushing for anti-discrimination legislation, social change is in her blood. Now, as the co-founder and CEO of TomboyX, Fran makes all-inclusive, gender-neutral clothing and undergarments.
“Being part of the LGBTQ community, my wife and I have always been outsiders … so it was important that we [were] inclusive in everything that we did [with TomboyX],” Fran says on this episode of The Empowered Challenger.
TomboyX was born when Fran faced a simple challenge: She wanted a nice shirt for work — something with high-quality, vibrant patterns typical in menswear but with a tailored, woman’s fit. Unfortunately, that proved impossible to find.
So Fran had what she describes as a “rainbow unicorn moment” — she realized there was an entire group of people who had never been seen or recognized within the fashion industry, and she felt “a responsibility to [her] community” to recognize them in a compassionate way.
It started with a name that Fran felt truly resonated with her target market: TomboyX. From there, an agency out of Boulder, Colorado helped “bring the brand’s voice to life.”
In 2013, Fran and her wife, Naomi, created a Kickstarter campaign to get their shirts into production. They raised $76,000 in 30 days, making them realize there was “a bigger opportunity than just shirts.”
TomboyX needed financial backing, but finding investors upfront wasn’t easy for a niche lesbian underwear company. After two rounds of funding, they’re now backed by a venture capital B Corp that’s “all about challenger brands and making a difference in the world.”
Going from not knowing “a knit from a woven” to having TomboyX’s clothing in Nordstrom, Fran built one powerhouse of a brand.
Prentice’s Takeaway👉Back in the day, brands created these idealized versions of what advertisers thought the consumer would want, including gorgeous models, perfectly chilled drinks, and overly starched shirts. Somewhere along the way, all that changed. And thanks to brands like TomboyX, this movement has only accelerated. Their truth is to embrace who you are exactly as you are - however that looks. In today’s day and age, that is an aspirational brand. It’s not Calvin Klein, it’s TomboyX.
Featured Challenger🧑 Name: Fran Dunaway
⚙️ How she challenges: As the CEO and co-founder of TomboyX, a gender-neutral clothing company, Fran challenges what people think a clothing company should be and wants everyone to feel comfortable being their authentic selves, regardless of size or gender identity.
👕 Company: TomboyX
💎 Noteworthy: Fran previously served as the Executive Director for Equal Rights Washington, a nonprofit advocating for LGBTQ rights.
🔍 Where to find Fran: Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram
Challenger WisdomHighlights from the conversation appear below.
💡 Carving your own branded path
“We behave differently than a lot of brands that we see out in the world ... They try to tell you how to be cool, and what we wanted to do is celebrate how cool we think you are at being unapologetically and authentically you.”
💡 Venturing into uncharted business territory
“Neither of us knew a knit from a woven, let alone a P&L from a Balance Sheet, so it was an uphill climb for sure. What we did have was: A) Not being able to find anything we liked in apparel and B) Being Risk-averse with a sense of responsibility... we both jumped in.”
💡The power of a good brand
“It wasn’t until the Kickstarter campaign to get the shirts into production that we recognized that the name was resonating in a much more powerful way — that kind of came from deep within — and that’s where we saw the opportunity for brand play.”
💡 Giving your brand the right voice
“We sat down [with a woman from a branding agency] because [my co-founder] and I had been talking about the reality that we didn’t know anything about marketing or branding, and we really needed someone to craft that voice for us. We met with Courtney Loveman and we knew, within minutes, that we had found the person who could help us bring the brand’s voice to life.”
💡 Crowd-funding can make or break your business — or your health
“[Our first Kickstarter campaign] was seven years ago. All I remember is I slept about four hours a night and lost 10 pounds. It was extremely stressful — we did end up raising $76,000 in 30 days. We naively launched our website, Kickstarter, Facebook, and Instagram basically the same day. There was a lot of need to get the word out and tell people our story and what we were doing, but we didn’t have an email list so we had to be creative and clever in ways we were engaging with people and getting them to support us.”
💡 Raving fans from early on
“We were hearing from people all over the world that were excited that there was a brand for them, finally. It was overwhelming, actually, that people were just so supportive. We had strangers reaching out to us at the end, Hey, if you need some extra money from me to throw in at the end, let me know! It was an outpouring of support — they just so wanted us to win.”
💡 Running a principled company
“Being in this position, it’s more to me about doing things for the right reasons and because it’s just right. We aren’t doing this because it’s a market play, or because it will increase our revenue. We’re doing it because … our social, economic, gender parity — all of the things that we believe in and are fighting for in our personal lives — must come through in our company, because we wouldn’t be who we are if [it] didn’t.”
💡 Breaking startup fundraising stereotypes
“Being in an inventory-laden company — as well as being completely inexperienced — we needed the mentorship, we needed the support, but we definitely needed the financial backing. It isn’t to say it was easy to go out and raise money as a married lesbian couple [who is] older with a complete lack of experience.”
Top quotes from the episode:Fran Dunaway:
Quote #1
“[My wife] said to me one day, ‘Well, how hard can it be to start a clothing line?’ And that was a turning point for us. And we haven’t looked back.”
Quote #2
“[Other brands] try to tell you how to be cool, and what we wanted to do is celebrate how cool we think you are at being unapologetically and authentically you.”
Quote #3
“We aren’t doing this because it’s a market play, or because it will increase revenue ... We’re doing it because ... all of the things that we believe in and are fighting for in our personal lives must come through in our company.”
As a self-proclaimed travel junkie and risk taker, Jeremy Stewart knew he had the risk tolerance to become an entrepreneur.
While looking for business ideas, Jeremy and his wife considered five different consumer goods, but kept coming back to flip flops.
They’re both flip flop wearers and, after spending five years in Indonesia where Jeremy worked as a political consultant, they went to a local store for a new pair and realized nothing about the casual, open-toe shoes had changed — there was zero innovation. In a sea of uncomfortable black and brown flip flops, Jeremy saw an opportunity.
He hired a focus group moderator, gave him a script and sat behind the glass for three days listening to college students answer questions about their flip flop purchasing habits and perceptions.
The main point of contention with flip flops on the market? The little piece that goes between your toes — it’s uncomfortable, and can take months to break in — sometimes it was even a bloody experience. So Jeremy set out to end “the war on toes.”
He hired an engineer who worked for Teva to design a memory foam toe piece that mitigated the typical breaking in period for flip flops, and it was truly a game changer.
On the marketing side, instead of being “steeped in the surf culture,” Hari Mari, which is Dallas based, positions itself as more of a lifestyle brand. This kept the brand from being pigeonholed into one retail category, like surf shops, and instead helped the flip flops land on shelves of both local boutiques and large retailers like Zappos.
As a premium brand, Hari Mari also found a sweet spot with pricing. “[W]e saw, you know, 500 brands producing flip-flops from 50 bucks and below,” Jeremy says, while there were just five companies making flip flops for more than $90. “And what we really saw was this gap — this under-serviced gap between 50 and 90, where literally no one was playing.”
From 30 stores in three states to nearly 1,000 stores in 49 states within eight years, Hari Mari’s comfortable, high-quality flip flop has challenged the casual footwear industry.
“For us, it’s creating a really good product that is actually different than what’s next to it.”
Prentice’s Takeaway👉Push aside the brand development, product development, and marketing for now. The person behind the brand - that’s what’s truly important when it comes to a successful challenger brand. People like Jeremy Stewart are empathic and put others first - and people like him can’t be stopped.
Featured Challenger👨 Name: Jeremy Stewart
⚙️ How he challenges: As the founder and CEO of Hari Mari, Jeremy added a colorful and comfortable product to the flip flop market, positioning the company as a lifestyle brand rather than targeting surf shops like most other flip slops.
👟 Company: Hari Mari
💎 Noteworthy: 1% of every purchase goes toward treatment costs for children fighting cancer through Hari Mari’s “Flops Fighting Cancer” initiative.
🔍 Where to find Jeremy: LinkedIn
Challenger Wisdom Highlights from the conversation appear below.
💡 Leveraging past experiences into business expertise “One of the things I learned is that these same skill sets and strategies and tactics you learn in campaign consulting and campaign advertising [can be applied] to consumer goods. Candidates are kind of like a walking consumer good, right? You can dress them up, attach messages to them and send them out into the world and hopefully, if you’re doing your job right, then they [are successful].”
💡 A philanthropic approach came before the product “We found that pediatric cancer is the most fatal disease among children in the U.S., and it’s actually more fatal than all the other childhood diseases combined. So we said ‘okay, that’s it. Whatever we’re going to do next, it’s going to help children and families battling pediatric cancer.’”
💡 Solving your own consumer frustrations “We had four or five consumer goods we were thinking about and kept coming back to flip flops and sandals for a host of different reasons, but chief among them is, we’re big flip flop flip wearers, but we’d go to our local store to buy a new pair and — for guys at least — it was just the same black and brown pairs on their walls. Nothing had changed in the five years we were gone in Indonesia — [it was] exactly the same, [with] zero innovation.”
💡 Getting into consumers’ minds through in-depth market research“We knew women were open to color, but we didn’t know if guys were. We didn’t know if the black and brown we were seeing on retailer’s walls was supply-driven or demand-driven. So I sketched some embarrassing, bad crayon drawings and projected them on the wall in the focus groups and it turns out that, if it’s presented the right way, guys are open to it.”
💡 Solving your customer’s pain points — literally “Everyone — whether they love flips or [are] people who never try flip flops — the common loathing point they have is that little piece that goes between your first and second toe and the pain that it causes. So we said, okay, look, if we can solve this on the product end, then we’ve got something.”
💡 Swimming against the current with a unique brand identity“For us, marketing and advertising became really simple. We’ve always naturally been people to just swim against the current, and this was basically looking at all the other brands in our space — all being based in California and steeped in the surf culture where flip flops originated — and we wanted to take a new course. So we became [an] anomaly: [we were] a Texas-based flip flop brand talking about it outside of surf … in a lifestyle type of way versus a surf culture type of way.”
💡 Seek expertise in the areas you know the least about“The areas where you know the least tend to be the ones where you skin your knee the most ... While we were pretty well-buttoned up on advertising, marketing, and market research ... we didn’t really feel comfortable in manufacturing and we definitely got burned. Our first order out was a complete nightmare. We even look back at the few pairs we have leftover from our first order and it’s just embarrassing how bad it was. I think like 40% of our first order was completely unsellable.”
💡 Your first idea won’t always be the best one“We were going to do for flip flops what Warby Parker did for glasses ... and that was our business model out of the gate. The focus groups quickly shot that down — for footwear specifically, they wanted to see, touch, feel, and test drive it in stores before they would give us a shot online.”
💡 Building a scalable foundation “Because we weren’t hitching our wagon to surf, and we weren’t making this such a niche brand, we were unintentionally making the foundation for what we were doing much, much larger so we could hit surf, but we could also his outdoor, and men’s and women’s boutiques, and something a little more fashionable. And we could also hit larger stores like a Nordstrom or a Zappos.”
💡 Make customers feel like it’s their birthday“We always want to create a great experience for customers — we’re huge believers in experiential consumerism — so if you ever order from us online or go to a [third party website] and select [our] pair of flip flops … you get this really nice box, and you always get something that you didn’t expect … like stickers or a koozie or something, but we’re trying to make it feel like it’s your birthday.”
Top quotes from the episode:Guest name: Jeremy Stewart
Quote #1
“The really cool thing for us is that the tenants and key points that were extracted out of those [early] focus groups still serve as the core foundation for our business today.”
Quote #2
“Flip flops and sandals have been around for thousands of years. So it wasn’t making something entirely new, it was — I always say putting new toppings on a pizza — [making] something funny, and something that’s a little bit unique.”
Quote #3
“All these brands are producing just blacks and browns. Because we’re producing color, it gives us the latitude to basically serve a model with five different options, which people are taking advantage of, and [is] something that completely blew me away.”
Work happy hours. Lunch at a brewery. Holiday parties. Dinner with friends. Imagine each of these scenarios. Now picture them without any alcohol.
It’s nearly impossible, right? For those who partake in the occasional drink, having fun often seems to go hand-in-hand with alcohol — and it can be pretty exclusionary for those who don’t drink for one reason or another. Jeff Stevens, founder of the WellBeing Brewing Company, is working to change that.
Jeff spent years marketing top beer brands before founding WellBeing Brewing in 2017. The company is the first craft brewery in the country dedicated to brewing non-alcoholic beer.
Jeff has been in recovery from the age of 24. As a self-described “non-alcoholic,” Wellbeing Brewing scratched his own itch. But he’s realized there are many different people who want a great-tasting beverage without alcohol.
“There are lots of people who don't drink. There are lots of people who aren't drinking at a particular time — that particular night, this particular round — and to have some thoughtful beverages for them just makes complete sense,” Jeff says on this episode of The Empowered Challenger.
To create appealing non-alcoholic options that look and sound cool, Jeff was inspired by the “fun, funky aesthetic” on Cherokee Street in St. Louis. Bold names for beverages — like its dark amber beverage “Hellraiser” — add to the appeal.
Jeff has also worked hard to ensure the drinks actually taste good — not so easy for non-alcoholic beers.
He says, “We all want to try something better than O’Doul’s.”
Prentice’s Takeaway👉 ‘Question assumptions.’ Jeff reinvented not only the product but the use occasion. Whether you drink alcohol or you don’t drink alcohol, he’s created many reasons to enjoy a great tasting non-alcoholic beer.
Featured Challenger👨 Name: Jeff Stevens
⚙️ How he challenges: As the founder of WellBeing Brewing, Jeff challenges the notion that you have to drink alcohol to have fun.
🍺 Company: WellBeing Brewing Company
💎 Noteworthy: To ensure the beer tastes good, WellBeing uses equipment from Germany that lowers the temperature of fermented beer to avoid scorching it.
🔍 Where to find Jeff: Twitter | LinkedIn
Challenger Wisdom 💡 Product love in unexpected places “I knew that there were probably people like me who just didn't drink, that would love to have someone thoughtfully make an awesome beer for them. But the people that I was surprised — and I guess I shouldn't be — was how many people who love an IPA. But man, you can't drink three of those on a Wednesday night. It's just too much. … And so you switch over and I think that's where we've gotten a lot of people who have tried our product.”
💡 Getting the right balance with branding “I think there was a path for us to go down where it could have become too preachy and too cold and a little too much for people. While I think it's a hugely powerful idea, we wanted it to still be about connection and fun and all the things that make beer great. So it needed to feel craft.”
💡 When your customers are willing to pay more “We started an online store and we started shipping with the bottles … I look back on us packing bottles in our living room, which was the funniest thing. But people wanted to try it and I knew we would be successful because people were paying obscene, shipping charges in glass bottles to have this beer shipped to them. … We all want to try something better than O’Doul’s … So there was a lot of heart for this category. And I think a lot of people that were like, please send us the beer!”
💡 Getting the word out to consumers “We do a lot of influencer marketing … I guess the new term is micro-influencers — it's all kind of based on how many followers they have, but there are so many people doing so many great things in the alcohol-free space — in the digital recovery space, in the training space, in the wellbeing space, and the eating better space. There are a lot of people out there who just are natural fits for this product.”
💡 Being a market maker and adding shelf space “[Total Wine & More] is in 22 states — they're a very progressive and smart retailer. What they have told us is … we've created a whole other section of the store just for you. They have seen the category of non-alcoholic drinks rise. That was really telling to me — we weren't really taking space from anyone. We were literally creating a whole new space.”
💡 More competition is great, but it’s also a threat “I know that the big brewers — the Miller’s and Anheuser-Busch — those guys are jumping into our category. Budweiser Zero just launched this year; Heineken 0.0 launched last year. I think so far that's been a positive thing cause it's really legitimized the category. … Between all the other craft brewers that could get into this and all the other startup companies, I think there's going to be more competition as this category grows … How do you keep your brand at the forefront? You're not going to be the newest anymore. But what kinds of things can you do to keep your brand vital? … I think all those things — we all stay up at night worrying about.”
Top quotes from the episode:Jeff Stevens:
“Until we made an IPA, I had never tasted an IPA … I felt like I had really missed something in the world by not being able to enjoy craft beer.”
“We all want to try something better than O’Doul’s and [people who have been sober for years] have completely missed the craft beer revolution, so there was a lot of heart for this [product].”
“With the movements of dry January and sober October … I think there’s a much larger world of [an] alcohol-free lifestyle that isn’t necessarily tied into alcoholism, but for people who are looking to make a change in their life. It’s making a conscious choice to mindfully drink, or to really examine what role alcohol has and is playing in [their] life.”
“Constant evolution brands are inventors at heart.”
In part 5 of the 5-part series “5 Personalities of an Empowered Challenger,” Prentice digs into brands that are able to transcend product categories because they are trusted and respected by consumers. When customers trust in your brand, they’ll follow.
For these ‘what’s next brands,’ such as Virgin, Shinola, and Yeti, their products may change, but the quality doesn’t. Listen in.
Resources:* Prentice’s LinkedIn * Door No. 3 Website
Ben Witte is the founder and CEO of NYC-based startup Recess, the CBD drink that aims to help people feel calm, focused, and creative despite the world around them.
Just as people associate Redbull with energy and Gatorade with high-intensity sports, Ben is on a mission to have consumers associate Recess’ CBD infused sparkling drinks with creativity.
Hear why he believes CBD is the caffeine of the 21st Century, and how the CBD category is expanding.
Prentice’s Takeaway* I love seeing brands that say, ‘To hell with it. We’re doing it differently.’ Check out their Instagram page and you’ll see it’s pull vs. push marketing. Ben created a brand experience online that’s so compelling, you can’t help but notice.
Show Highlights
- Barack Obama and ‘Calm, Cool, Collected’
- Startup life
- What is CBD? How can you use it?
- Balance and calmness effect
- Anxiety economy
- ‘Taking a recess’
- Caffeine and the beverage industry
- Education process
- Telling the story of why Recess exists
- Brand development of Recess
- Turning flavors into personalities
- Layers of the brand
- Productive and creative
- Distribution and regulatory clarity around CBD
- COVID impact
Resources* Ben’s Twitter * Ben’s LinkedIn * Ben’s Instagram * Recess Instagram * Recess Twitter * Recess Facebook
Compulsive Servitude has everything to do with overdelivering to the extent that it becomes the definition of your brand.
In part 4 of the 5-part series “5 Personalities of an Empowered Challenger,” Prentice discusses brands who serve with intention (think Trader Joe’s, The Ritz Carlton, Nordstrom, and Urban Stems) by empowering their employees to make great decisions and taking customer service to a whole new level.
It’s not enough to just smile while answering the phone anymore. Brands that aren’t goliath need to differentiate themselves.
How can you empower your staff to make the customer experience more memorable? Listen in.
Resources:* Prentice’s LinkedIn * Door No. 3 Website
We’ve recently experienced a shift from stereotypical models in lacy bras to real, strong women of all shapes and sizes wearing bras that not only look great but also fit great.
And that’s where undergarment disruptor ThirdLove comes in.
A self-described power shopper, Veronique Powell, Vice President of Operations and Strategy at ThirdLove, discovered the brand while shopping for a bra herself.
She joined ThirdLove in 2015 when the company was employing just 9 people and helped scale it to around 200 people today.
Listen in as Veronique discusses her passion for inclusivity, and how she helped make ThirdLove one of the most inclusive underwear brands in America.
Plus, hear Veronique’s take on going after Victoria’s Secret.
Prentice’s Takeaway* ThirdLove is every bit a Lightning Rod brand. They’re willing to go on the attack to protect their core beliefs and values (like when they went after Victoria’s Secret). It’s no longer a risky PR move to speak up. Consumers value authenticity and rise up to support brands that align with their values.
Show Highlights* Veronique’s experience at Gap and moving to a bra startup * ThirdLove’s half sizes and fit technology * How does one confidently buy a bra online? * ThirdLove’s Fit Finder quiz tool * Collecting data to improve customer experience * Bra hooks and aging * Price point vs. frequency of buying a new bra * Post-purchase marketing messaging * Growing the tribe of new customers * Try before buying * Use a hybrid mix of in-house and agency work * Sponsoring shows on Hulu (Mrs. America) * Importance of half sizes * Victoria’s Secret and the infamous NYT letter * COVID impact
Resources* Veronique’s LinkedIn * ThirdLove Facebook * ThirdLove Twitter * ThirdLove Instagram
“If anyone can have it, I don’t want it.”
Fostering rejection helps challenger brands kick ass, and this week, Prentice is discussing Part 3 of this 5-part series.
Listen in as Prentice explains why challenger brands aren’t afraid to lose fans, and why a bigger audience doesn’t always mean your brand is getting more love.
What small doors can you shut so big ones can open? How can you grow your devoted tribe? You don’t want to miss this Prentice’s Corner episode.
Resources:
- Prentice’s LinkedIn
- Door No. 3 Website
Rick Elder, President of Beyond Clothing, served in the US Army, and later was a supplier for the military, where he spent 17 years developing clothing for US Special Ops. Rick is also known as a project officer for the team that developed the protective combat uniform.
Listen in as Rick discusses his journey leading Beyond, a direct-to-consumer apparel line for everyday adventures that can keep you dry while wading through water and warm while hiking in the snowy mountains.
Spoiler alert: This isn’t your standard, puffy jacket.
Prentice’s Takeaway
- To have a brand today, you have to truly embrace being a media company first.
Show Highlights
- Slowing down due to COVID-19
- US Army service
- Special ops equipment
- Rick’s journey with Beyond Clothing
- Differentiation: D2C
- Who Beyond targets
- Allow the experience to take the forefront, not the product
- Foster rejection
- Consistent messaging that resonates
- No buzzwords
- Media is generated in-house
- Rick became a photographer so he didn’t have to hire one for marketing
- Marketing = fashion
- Brand, web, product
- No brand has time for anyone to be confused
- Unmarketing
- COVID-19 impact and SOPs
Resources
- Richard’s LinkedIn
- Beyond Clothing Facebook
- Beyond Clothing YouTube
- Beyond Clothing Twitter
- Beyond Clothing Instagram
A “Lightning Rod Personality” is one of the 5 traits your brand can leverage, and today, Prentice is diving into Part 2 of this 5-part series.
“There has to be a better way.”
In this episode of Prentice’s Corner, Prentice is digging into why heretical brands are almost always born out of frustration.
Prentice discusses heretical brands like Netflix, Revolution Foods, and Epic Provisions, and challenges how you can redefine perspectives and tell innovative stories within your company.
Resources:
- Prentice’s LinkedIn
- Door No. 3 Website
Back in 2010, Jaime Schmidt, founder of Schmidt’s Naturals, started making natural products in her Portland kitchen. She was pregnant at the time and her goal was to create a healthy deodorant that not only smelled great but had clean ingredients, and actually worked.
Listen in as Jaime discusses her entrepreneurial journey - from making batches of 20 deodorants on her kitchen stovetop to eventually storming the shelves of CVS, Walmart, Costco, and Whole Foods.
Plus, you’ll hear about Jaime and her husband Chris’ new ventures with Supermaker, an inclusive media company built for makers, startups, and creators; and Color, an investment fund that supports entrepreneurs largely excluded from the venture financing system.
Show Highlights
- Using clean products while pregnant
- Selling out of mason jars at farmer’s markets
- Unique packaging and fragrance names
- In-house manufacturing on her stovetop
- DTC money to put back into the business
- Limited edition scents to appeal to customers
- ‘Say yes now then figure out how’
- Heritage brands watching Schmidt’s
- Selling Schmidt’s
- Jaime’s new book, Supermaker: Crafting Business on Your Own Terms
- Creator of Supermaker and Color with husband Chris
- Supporting Schmidt’s international expansion
- COVID-19 impact
Resources
- Jaime Website
- Jaime’s Twitter
- Jaime’s Instagram
- Supermaker
- Color
A “Lightning Rod Personality” is one of the 5 traits your brand can leverage, and today, Prentice is diving into Part 1 of this 5-part series.
Listen in as Prentice discusses examples of real-life lightning rod campaigns, companies, and people (think Lady Gaga in her meat dress at the MTV Video Music Awards).
These types of companies and people are magnetic and honest, and they certainly aren’t following the herd. You may love them, or you may hate them, but you’ll never forget them.
What’s your brand’s meat dress? Wear it proudly when the time is right.
Resources:
- Prentice’s LinkedIn
- Door No. 3 Website
Prentice’s Takeaways
- Many successful, modern-day challenger brands have figured out the formula for what I call ‘instant heritage brand’ status, which gives companies, like Cubitts, an incredible advantage.
- Heritage brands ooze of credibility. They’re authentic, trusted, beloved, and have compelling stories to tell.
- If you’re in the midst of defining or re-inventing your brand ethos, try digging into heritage brands (like Jeep, Levi, Swiss Army, and Kiehl’s) and I guarantee you’ll find some alignment and inspiration.
Show Highlights
- Personal passion for eyewear
- Fixing a broken, stagnant model
- Modernizing the craftsmanship
- Melding fashion and function
- Eye exams
- Small and boutique-like vs. Warby Parker
- Reducing waste
- King’s Cross history
- Timeless frame styles
- Brand voice
- Storytelling (but doing it with a ‘filthy cackle’)
Resources
- Tom’s LinkedIn
- Cubitts Facebook
- Cubitts Twitter
- Cubitts Instagram
- Differentiation - Have something unique that you can lean into that’s all your own.
- Fascination - Never waste an opportunity to be memorable.
- Consistency - Resist the temptation to chase shiny objects or overcomplicate your message.
Resources:
- Prentice’s LinkedIn
- Door No. 3 Website
Prentice’s Takeaways
- Some of the best challenger thinking is when companies steal ideas from other industries. Example: Carvana and now, Park Place Payments
- Sometimes it isn’t so much about the product being superior - if the experience is superior, that’s how you win in a commodity business.
Show Highlights
- Credit card processing industry
- Women coming back into the workforce
- ‘Rolls Royce’ of customer service
- Used car sales
- ‘Crazy Eddie’ mentality
- Training account executives
- Flexible work schedules
- Work-life balance
- 7 slices of life
- Marketing/PR for a startup
- Low attrition
- COVID-19 and at-home, side hustle opportunities
Resources
- Sam’s Facebook
- Sam’s LinkedIn
- Sam’s Instagram
- Sam’s Twitter
- Sam’s Website
- Park Place Payments Website
- Park Place Payments LinkedIn
- Park Place Payments Facebook
- Park Place Payments Twitter
- Park Place Payments Instagram
Resources:
- Antonelli’s Cheese Shop Website
- Antonelli’s Cheese Shop Facebook
- Kendall’s LinkedIn
Prentice’s Takeaways
- This is a great example of capitalism hard at work. Tony’s Chocolonely is doing things our government can’t - or won’t.
- You don’t have to have a Sarah McLachlan vibe to evangelize a heavy, heart-wrenching story.
- The right voice and the right brand tone can create a movement.
Show Highlights
- 0 profit, 100% impact
- 100% slave-free chocolate = end goal
- Dominating Dutch chocolate market
- Investigating child slaves in cocoa industry
- Small company, huge mission
- Expanding to a global brand
- Store locations (Whole Foods)
- Zero paid media policy
- Packaging, Mission, Portfolio of recipes
- Chunky, big bars
- Culture and core values
- Consumers are equals
- Public relations
- Crazy about chocolate, serious about people
- ‘Tony-ified’ culture
- How COVID-19 is affecting business
Resources
- Ynzo’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/ynzo
- Ynzo’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ynzovanzanten
- Tony's Chocolonely: https://tonyschocolonely.com/us/en
- Tony's Chocolonely Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonysChocolonelyUS/
- Tony's Chocolonely Twitter: https://twitter.com/TonysChocoUS/
- Tony's Chocolonely Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyschocolonely_us/
Show Highlights:
- Only put out messaging that’s aligned with our new social distancing realities.
- Only be in touch when the message is of substance.
- Re-work your creative messaging.
- Don’t ask for too much. Be helpful!
- Move faster.
Resources:
- Prentice’s LinkedIn
- Door No. 3 Website
Resources:
- Ben’s LinkedIn
- Banger’s Website
- Banger’s Twitter
- Banger’s Instagram
- Banger’s Facebook
Prentice’s Takeaways
- Rarely do entrepreneurs turn and look back down the mountain to enjoy the view of the valley. After we ended the recording, Simon thanked me profusely for how this interview caused him to reflect on how far he and Karma Cola had come since the beginning.
- The best thing you can do to serve your brand is to remember why you got into this in the first place. What giants did you intend to topple when you got started on this adventure?
- In the case of Simon and Karma Cola, their success comes by taking the long view and continuing to hyper-focus on the company’s founding mission as they continue to evolve and grow to expanding markets.
Show Highlights
- Fairtrade banana demand
- Virtues
- How do you turn something into a force of good?
- Brands and perception
- Fairtrade cola
- Impact of Karma Cola
- Karma Cola Foundation and scholarships
- Duty to support one another
- What are the guidelines for ‘ethical and organic’?
- Fairtrade auditing
- Ebola crisis
- Branding details
- Brands need to arm consumers with stories
- Lemmy’s Life
- User-generated content
- “Walking the talk”
Resources
- Follow Simon on Twitter
- Connect with Simon on LinkedIn
- Karma Cola’s Website
Prentice’s Takeaways
- Products were conveniently delivered when Beardbrand was carried on Amazon, but they had to sacrifice the brand experience for it (and eventually, that wasn’t a compromise they were willing to make)
- It’s the small moments during the customer’s journey that work so hard to elevate a brand from the competition and build loyal followers.
- Every touchpoint matters. Customers of challenger brands notice the details, and they'll pay a premium to be a part of the tribe.
Show Highlights
- Investing in yourself
- Beard stereotypes
- Taking facial hair seriously
- Growth of company
- Sold in Target
- ‘Make Men Awesome’ mission
- Shark Tank journey
- Why they DON’T sell on Amazon
- The Book of Reminders
- Mastering content
- Storytelling marketing
- Alliance Conference
- Cologne coming soon
Resources
- Follow Eric on Twitter
- Follow Eric on Instagram
- Connect with Eric on LinkedIn
- Follow Eric on YouTube
- Beardbrand’s Website
- Beardbrand’s Facebook
- Beardbrand’s Twitter
- Beardbrand’s Instagram
- Beardbrand’s YouTube
Prentice’s Takeaways:
- Customers of challenger brands are agents of change.
- These customers are frustrated with the status quo, and Hugh and his team knew how to leverage this.
- At first, Ugly Drinks revealed the ugly truth about soda, then they used the platform to shine a light on gender inequality.
- The opportunity to engage with a fan-base who loathe the status quo is limitless.
Show Highlights
- Soda as we know it is dead
- Coconut water background
- Disrupting the beverage game
- Challenging the status quo - ‘punk attitude’
- Zero sugar, sweeteners, calories, artificial flavors
- Fun marketing
- Purple cow
- Authentic brand
- Positive rebel
- Greta Thunberg
- Digital marketing
- Feedback from consumers
- Company is young, consumers are young
- Ugly energy drinks
- Stand for more than selling a drink
- Consumer rebellion
- Soda vs. Sparkling Water markets
- Donating to charity
Resources
- Connect with Hugh on Twitter
- Connect with Hugh on LinkedIn
- Ugly Drinks Website
Prentice’s Takeaways
- Production quality is paramount and he’s fixated on getting it right.
- The brand is just as important and he continues to dial it in.
- He stays consistent and steadfast in his mission.
- He’s an innovator.
Show Highlights
- What sets GT’s product apart in the food market
- The health benefits of GTS Kombucha
- Instant hit?
- Slow and steady growth
- How GT stays upfront
- What helped GT get traction in the marketplace
- The secret sauce of kombucha
- “New-age” soda
- True yogurt
- Staying ahead and maintaining a defensive stance
- GT Living
- GT’s 2020 plans
Resources
- Connect with GT on LinkedIn
- Connect with GT on Instagram
- GT’s Living Foods Website
Show Highlights
- What are KPIs and why are they important?
- Establishing KPIs
- Three things to watch
- A real world example
- Key consumption pages
- Attribution – how is it evolving?
- Programmatic is more than just a digital display
- A recap of the three critical metrics
Resources
- Door No. 3 Website
- Door No. 3 Facebook
- Connect with Prentice on LinkedIn
Prentice’s Takeaways:
- Collaboration. When you’re a challenger brand, you have to out-think. The rising tide lifts both boats. Both brands benefit When you cross pollinate fan bases with a like-minded brand in a different category, you create magic.
- Be the house party. Master inclusive exclusivity. Look to be the house party that looks way more fun than whatever the heck it is anyone is doing.
Show Highlights:
[01:14] Rick’s atypical path
[04:05] Starting at YETI
[06:57] Overlapping passion with professional life
[09:20] Howler Brothers conception
[13:32] Honoring the soul and passion of outdoor adventure sports
[16:20] Carving space that nobody was paying attention to
[17:20] Collaboration is important
[22:12] What to watch out for when collaborating
[24:19] Parlaying collaboration efforts into marketing
[27:01] An example of how Howler generates a lot of content
[30:27] Embracing the locals is the key to authenticity
[32:30] Opening up the Howler marketing playbook
[36:05] A channel Howler will never give-up and why
[38:23] An example of something not ‘sales-y’
[41:04] Rick’s passion
Resources
- Howler Brothers Website
- Connect with Rick on LinkedIn
- Connect with Rick on Twitter
- Follow Howler Brothers on LinkedIn
- Follow Howler Brothers on Twitter
Prentice’s Challenger Takeaways
- There’s no perfect attribution model.
- Understanding your customers can start outside of Google Analytics.
- Some of the best research for marketing come from the world of academia.
Show Highlights
[01:09] An intro to the smart mind joining Prentice today.
[03:01] Neil's serendipitous journey into customer analytics
[05:45] Why a small number of businesses still don't leverage data
[07:59] How Neil coaches advertisers to not get overwhelmed
[10:24] Analytics improving customer relationships
[12:04] Creative messaging and the power of storytelling
[15:02] Attribution - are advertisers getting it?
[18:00] The "perfect" attribution
[19:08] Neil's best advice
[21:00] Proof - a new venture Neil started
[23:31] Some more exciting things bubbling up
[27:47] What does the future look like for analytics?
[31:07] Where to find Neil
Resources
- Neil Hoyne’s Proof
- Connect with Neil on LinkedIn
- Connect with Neil on Twitter
Top Takeaways
- Challengers succeed by doing.
- Every challenger brand has their version of a Tour Guide. They’re early adopters - advocates - who view “sharing” as a social badge. And the right brand experience can be a powerful vehicle for them to do so.
Show Highlights
[02:06] Jeni didn’t play it safe
[04:55] Jeni’s early background as a terrible student
[06:14] There was no one right way to do education
[07:15] What if Jeni’s started in a different location?
[08:40] The challenges and advantages of starting in Columbus, OH
[10:00] Jeni’s big obstacle
[12:22] The turning point
[14:20] Coming out of a crisis even stronger - knowing your values
[16:28] The choice to be a B-corp
[18:46] Jeni’s marketing secrets
[21:55] Feeding the creative monster
[24:00] Jeni’s by the numbers
[25:35] How to know where to grow
[26:40] Teaching the next generation about entrepreneurship
[28:12] Jeni’s favorite Jeni’s flavor
Resources:
- Door No 3 Website
- Connect with Prentice on LinkedIn
- Jeni’s Website
- Jeni’s Facebook
- Jeni’s Intstagram
- Jeni’s Cookbooks:
- Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream Desserts
- Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams At Home
- The Artisanal Kitchen: Perfect Homemade Ice Cream
Challenger Takeaways
- The word “authentic” is an overused term in brand development today. Well some things just can’t be fabricated.
- To succeed as a challenger brand, you have to tap into something the big guys can’t … or won’t. For Noonday, it’s vulnerability, transparency, courage.
- “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” - Margaret Mead
Show Highlights
[02:15] Jessica as an “accidental entrepreneur”
[03:45] The most transformational evening of Jessica’s life
[06:58] What the artisan’s life looks like today
[07:33] The global impact of Noonday Collection
[07:52] The fears Jessica had to face
[08:33] The power of gathering
[09:35] Feeling cornered as a game-changer
[10:45] Being a “stay-er”
[11:52] The process to brand positioning
[13:44] Vision of Noonday
[14:00] The evolution of their vision & brand
[15:30] Facing the competition
[16:28] Dispelling the myths around the direct-sales model
[18:31] Trusting her brand in the hands of other people (ambassadors)
[19:43] Noonday’s marketing plan now
[20:55] Launching her book as a marketing tool
[23:02] Aligning faith/Christianity with their brand
[25:33] Feeling liberated by boundaries
[28:12] Getting their values/boundaries tested
[28:25] Bringing Travis on as a partner
[30:46] Keeping the mission alive day-to-day
[33:16] When Jessica’s “not feeling it,'' dealing with the pressure
[34:57] Jessica’s daily practice
[35:54] Finding more stillness
[36:42] What’s next for Noonday - getting face-to-face with their ambassadors
[38:30] Jessica’s podcast as a marketing tool
Resources:
- Door No 3 Website
- Connect with Prentice on LinkedIn
- Jessica Honegger LinkedIn
- Jessica Honegger Website
- Noonday Collection Website
- Going Scared Podcast
- Imperfect Courage Book
Prentice’s Challenger Takeaways
- Ashley has a ‘Lightning Rod Personality’. You’ll never hear about lightning rod personalities following the pack. She’s daring and unabashed, and always authentic to who she is.
- “Being honest may not get you a ton of friends, but it will always get you the right ones.” - John Lennon
Show Highlights
[03:22] How to maintain an optimistic frequency
[05:05] Making a conscious decision to keep negativity out of your life
[06:51] On being fearless
[08:04] Using anxiety as a fuel
[09:29] Ashley’s biggest fear
[10:39] Why artists don’t take “center stage” more often
[12:45] The time Ashley was told she’s “unmarketable”
[13:24] How to market Ashley Longshore
[14:12] What Ashley learned from her father and his ad agency
[15:17] Surrendering to your weirdness
[16:32] Blazing her own path without galleries and their high commissions
[18:51] On doing her own marketing
[20:55] Why she develops a direct relationship with her fans
[21:30] The power of social media
[22:33] Who manages Ashley’s Instagram?
[23:34] On leaving a legacy
[24:44] How New Orleans plays into her art
[26:28] Why she intentionally supports other artists
[28:20] On enjoying her partners and collaborations
[29:50] Chatting about her new book launch
[31:07] What’s next for Ashley
Resources:
- Ashley’s Instagram
- Ashley’s Website
- Door No 3 Website
- Connect with Prentice on LinkedIn
Prentice’s Challenger Takeaways
- Despite Carey’s preference to not be labeled an “entrepreneur,” he is the quintessential entrepreneur. He’s someone who is willing to fail over and over again until he gets it right.
- Carey isn’t worried about offending people, as long as he’s authentic to his product, which makes him a true challenger.
- Without a brand, you don’t have a company. Carey said, “I had over 200 patents and I would trade them all in for the brand” which embodies the importance of putting your brand above all.
Show Highlights
[02:00] Why Carey doesn’t like to be called an ‘entrepreneur’
[02:40] Carey’s background
[04:35] How hot roofs led to Big Ass Fans
[05:54] Open-minded thinking and its importance in business
[07:33] The evolution from HLVS to Big Ass Fans
[09:04] The push back on changing names
[12:00] Creating something people didn’t know they needed
[12:33] Working on a shoe-string budget
[15:23] Trying “crazy” things to find what works
[17:04] Asking customers for feedback
[18:37] The trouble with assembly
[20:20] Dropping everything for problem solving
[22:10] How being outspoken affects leadership to the customer experience
[23:20] Trading all patents for the brand
[24:10] The magic is simplicity and “The Golden Rule”
[26:00] On being straightforward with customers
[28:42] On the importance of being happy at work
[31:00] Why he wants entrepreneurs to keep a large part of company
[33:33] What kind of businesses Carey wants to work with
[35:04] Prentice’s Challenger Takeaways
Resources
- Door No 3 Website
- Connect with Prentice on LinkedIn
- Carey Smith LinkedIn
- jcareysmith.com
Top Takeaways
- Some of the best challenger thinking is born out of frustration.
- What we value determines what we do.
- It’s nonsensical to think we can take a demographic descriptor and use it to make assumptions.
- Continue to serve value and you’ll be able to survive and thrive.
Show Highlights
[00:43] Getting to know David Allison
[01:55] Acknowledging the “best challenger” thinking
[02:22] David explains why the system is flawed.
[04:30] What led David to sell his company and write a book
[06:14] David’s lightbulb moment
[07:06] An interesting and strange data proof
[09:19] The loaf of bread logic
[10:24] Why are values important?
[12:35] The path David followed to accomplish what he had in mind
[15:32] What David’s team was missing until valuegraphics
[17:53] Where can valuegraphics take us?
[21:34] How can companies benefit from valuegraphics?
[23:43] Prentice shares what he’s seen within the walls of ad agencies
[24:15] The things David finds ‘surprising’
[26:37] Valuegraphics shaping opportunities
[28:17] Leveraging valuegraphics to empower organizations
[29:29] What kind of impact does David see?
[33:19] Why challenger brands are better positioned to leverage valuegraphic
[35:40] Some more amazing reasons to use valuegraphic
[38:19] The only thing David is asking us to stop doing
[39:12] What to expect with David’s book
[41:30] A display of David’s love for analogies
[43:33] Where to find David
Resources
- Valuegraphics Website
- David Allison Twitter
- David Allison LinkedIn
- David Allison We Are All the Same Age Now: Valuegraphics, The End of Demographic Stereotypes
- Connect with Prentice on LinkedIn
Top 3 Quotes* I'm a happy and optimistic leader and I wanted that same feeling for my entire company. * Open your mind. Be open to opportunities and new ways of doing things, but at the same time not giving up focus on what you've got. * It's all these little things that add up to an easy experience for the customer
Show Highlights[01:52] How Brian became a self-declared minimalist
[03:40] Baking compulsive servitude into the company DNA
[05:37] The things Brian is most proud of
[07:11] Consistent delivery equals delightful customer journey
[09:53] The narrative thread towards success
[10:55] Daily habits and maintaining them
[12:28] Learning from an earlier incident
[13:55] Brian's competitive advantage
[14:42] Make meaning vs. Make money
[15:59] A personal WHY
[17:00] Marketing tactics to grow the company
[19:02] Was it a challenge to make junk sexy, relevant, and interesting?
[20:13] Entrepreneurs Organization(EO)
[23:11] Finding inspiration outside your own industry
[24:30] Did Marie Kondo single-handedly increase Brian's revenue?
[25:32] What's next for Brian?
[27:22] Prentice's takeaways from this show
Resources* O2E Brands * Connect with Brian on LinkedIn * Connect with Brian on Twitter * Connect with Brian on Facebook * WTF?! (Willing to Fail): How Failure Can Be Your Key to Success
Top 3 Takeaways* Abundance can be devastating. High achievers choose to stretch. * Stretchers don’t avoid deploying resources. * Abandon the chase and adopt the stretch mindset by maximizing what you already have.
Show Highlights [01:50] Prentice introduces Scott * [02:46] What is “stretching”? * [05:03] Reminder on resourcefulness and creativity * [05:50] Mindset of organizations that chase vs. stretch * [08:27] What types of organizations thrive the most with constraints * [09:59] How did Silicon Valley shape Scott’s outlook on business * [11:41] How Scott decided which stories made it into Stretch * [12:34] What does “embrace the shake” mean? * [14:29] Using less resources regardless of availability * [16:28] Why we shouldn’t revert to social comparisons * [18:18] Giving people constraints leads to the best results * [20:31] Origin of the Nike “Just Do It” motto * [21:40] Should Challenger Brands impose their own restraints? * [24:18] What was the most eye opening part of your research? * [27:39] Maintaining a healthy mindset around social media * [28:24] Scott’s next project with Marie Kondo * [29:13]* Where to connect with Scott
Resources:* Door No 3 Website * Connect with Prentice on LinkedIn * Scott Sonenshein “Stretch” * Scott Sonenshein LinkedIn
Unless you’re a category leader, your brand is likely in a struggle for attention in a crowded consumer marketplace. Fortunately, your business’s challenger nature may be the very thing that sets it apart from the pack. Prentice Howe explains how he assists challenger brands embrace their abilities and leverage them for success.