The Modern Retail Podcast

Bala Footwear is the latest apparel brand going after working professionals. The company makes shoes aimed specifically at medical professionals. Co-founder Brian Lockard worked at Nike for nearly five years. And the ethos of that brand informed Bala's thesis. "At Nike, one of the phrases that was so important that we always used was: Always listen to the voice of the athlete," said Lockard on the Modern Retail Podcast. "And we've decided we would build a company where we always listen to the voice of the health-care professional." On this week's program, Lockard spoke about how he's grown the brand, which first launched in 2020, as well what he's planning for the future. So far, the company has raised over $2 million in venture capital, saw $4 million in revenue its first year and says that sales continue to grow month-over-month. The idea behind Bala is that essential workers like nurses are on their feet for most of the work day. Yet, there's no footwear that's designed with that in mind. Some nurses wear clogs for comfort, others wear running shoes for support. But both of those items have drawbacks to nurses. To get a sense for their needs, Lockard interviewed many members of the health-care community. This served both a product research and marketing function. "What's really cool about the health-care marketplace is how tight knit the community is," said Lockard. "If you reach early adopters and they drive word of mouth -- they're always around colleagues." With this, Bala has its own rotating group of health-care professionals it leans on for product development and marketing outreach. "They're involved in telling us where we should be showing up, from a marketing perspective," said Lockard. While Bala is sold predominately online, the company is now slowly seeking out other sales channels. It's inked a few retail deals with select shoe stores and is looking into other possible partnerships. But, according to Lockard, he is still focused on making sure the brand doesn't grow too quickly. "One of the worst things that can happen is getting 100 new retail locations overnight," he said.

Levi's Latin American business is growing -- but it's very different from its Northern counterparts. The apparel brand's svp and managing director of Latin America, Rui Carlos Da Silva Araujo, spoke on the Modern Retail Podcast about how the company approaches this part of the business -- and its overall approach to DTC. This episode was recorded live at the Modern Retail DTC Summit held in Miami. Levi's Latin American business grew by about 70% in the first quarter of fiscal year 2022, and Araujo said the company plans to continue growing and opening more stores. While the brand's digital business is continuing to grow, Araujo said stores remain one of the most important sales channels. "We see this opportunity still in Latin America that people want to go to the physical stores," he said. Currently, Levi's has 400 stores in the Latin American region, and the company is in the midst of an overhaul of its entire experience. It recently unveiled its Indigo store concept, which Araujo described as a way to showcase Levi's as lifestyle brand. It features fewer products and more experiences, such as in-store tailor shops. "The stores are really happier, the product is different," Araujo said. He hopes to have 50% of the Latin American stores to feature the Indigo model within the next two years. But no one store is the same. That's because Levi's customers are different not only between regions, but also between countries. Latin American customers, he said, "are much more European-driven -- south European, like Spain in Italy -- much more than the U.S. in some countries in Latin America. So the Colombians, the Argentinians and the Brazilians, they are really, really fashionable." Even with the emphasis on stores, Levi's is still focusing a great deal on digital. It has its own DTC sites for all the countries it serves, but local marketplaces like Mercado Libre also play a big role. "You need to have your mark, you have your own sites," he said. "But you need to have your marketplace players there." Even so, a big focus for Levi's right now is thinking about new retail concepts that customers will want to hang out in. Said Araujo, "we are seeing this momentum and the physical retail is working for us. So I think that's a huge opportunity."

Outlines is trying to be the Quip toothbrushes for bathroom and home cleaning products. The company launched earlier this year with a shower liner subscription service. The idea is that customers can buy the shower liner along with other accessories. Then, every few months they can pack up their used musty one, send it to Outlines who will recycle the material and then send another brand new clean liner. But Outlines isn't stopping at shower liners -- the startup is launching both a replenishable body scrubber and a toilet brush soon. "I knew that if I was to replace [a product like a shower liner], it was simply going to landfill," said Luke Young, one of Outline's co-founders. "So I would live with it for far too long -- and you wouldn't live with dirty sheets or any other product like this in your home." Young and his fellow co-founder Meg Murphy joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and spoke about the genesis of Outlines and how the direct-to-consumer business is trying to grow and get its products into new homes. Both Young and Murphy were working in DTC before Outlines. Young was working in adtech for a U.K.-based DTC company that sells education products, and Murphy was also working at a British CPG startup that made glue products. They met at a coworking space and got to talking about the state of shower liners, and decided to launch their own company. Thus, Outlines was born. The company launched its first product at the beginning of 2022. The big question was whether or not a humdrum product like shower liners would work with a subscription model. As the two founders put it, it's all about education. The website focuses specifically on detailing how much waste is made because of thrown-out used plastic. And the hope is that people will align with the sustainability ethos around the company. The strategy to get eyeballs was to be available on the company's website first and try to find new customers who were searching online for new products like a shower liner. "I think we made a lot of mistakes in the first couple of months of what we were bidding on [and] where we were specifically marketing, but it was really just a process of testing and learning," said Young. Now that the two founders feel confident in the branding and messaging, their expanding the product base as well as looking toward new sales channels. And those announcements may be on the horizon. "We love retail, we're very excited about it," said Murphy. "we've spoken with some buyers to get some early feedback -- they're definitely ready for a refresh and a new brand to come in."

Cloud Paper is trying to get more people -- and businesses -- to try its products. The company makes bamboo-based tree-free toilet paper. When it first launched in 2019, co-founder Ryan Fritsch said the goal was to grow via business-to-business partnerships by selling to businesses like corporate offices and hotels. Its first major account was a Seattle WeWork. But then the pandemic hit, and office buildings shut down. As a result, Cloud Paper had to pivot its business to be consumer-facing. Two years later and the company is continuing to see year-over-year growth. But it's no longer a business focused solely on supplying toilet paper to other businesses. "Consumer sales are still driving the majority of our sales today," Fritsch said on the Modern Retail Podcast. The idea behind Cloud Paper was to make an environmentally conscious toilet paper. "Toilet paper hasn't changed much for many, many decades -- and it hasn't changed much, especially in terms of sustainability," said Fritsch. "It's very much lagging behind other household goods." With this in mind, the company decided to use bamboo as its source since the plant is both abundant and renewable. In addition, Cloud Paper decided that its consumer-facing business needed to be subscription-only when it first hit the market as a way to rope in repeat shoppers. The bet seems to be working out, even after the coronavirus-induced toilet paper mad dash. The company recorded a huge sales bump in 2020, but didn't see much churn after inventory leveled out. "We actually didn't see much change at all kind of once things got back to 'normal,'" Fritsch said. But even though the subscription business is healthy, Fritsch is dubious of it as a one-size-fits-all model. He's seen many subscription companies come and go -- and it's usually because the product didn't fit with the business plan. "Everyone wants to launch a subscription box or a product on subscription," he said. "But it was our idea early on that most products out there don't need to be subscription." Luckily for him, toilet paper does seem to be working -- at least for now.

Better & Better is taking an unconventional approach to oral care. The startup makes a toothpaste infused with vitamins -- a way to kill two daily-needs birds with one stone. But educating shoppers about how the product works is easier said than done. On the Modern Retail Podcast this week co-founder and CEO Vladimir Vukicevic spoke about how he's been positioning the company. "I [wanted] to build something that's really personal and near and dear to my heart," he said. "Better & Better stems from my personal desire to not have to take any more vitamin pills or supplement pills ever again." The big question for Vukicevic was, at first, whether or not Better & Better could make a product as he imagined. The second was if people would buy it. It took a few years, but both questions were answered. After hundreds of test formulas, Better & Better's first vitamin-infused toothpaste went to market. The company manufactured 20,000 units in early 2021 and sold out within six months. With that under its belt, the company has expanded into new products like toothbrushes and floss, and raised a $4 million round of funding last March. Better & Better is now using that to expand its product offerings and toothpaste varieties as well as to go into new sales channels. For example, Better & Better entered Amazon after focusing initially on its DTC website. According to Vukicevic, the company realized that it needed to be sold at the places customers most often bought their essentials. "Amazon is the starting point for a lot of people -- for most people -- when it comes to these types of products," he said. Since launching on Amazon earlier this year, it has become one of Better & Better's fastest-growing channels. The focus now, according to Vukicevic, is to continue expanding Better & Better's product line as well as get into retail stores. The last few years, he said, have been a test to see if people want such a unique oral care product. Said Vukicevic, it's clear that people do. With that, he said, "hopefully we'll be in retail by the end of this year."

Grocery and CPG are certainly hot areas for startups, but it hasn't always been that way. Brooklyn Delhi, a company that makes Indian-inspired sauces and condiments, has been in the business since 2014. This week on the Modern Retail Podcast, founder Chitra Agrawal talked about growing the business -- and the current DTC landscape. Brooklyn Delhi began as a predominately local company. Agrawal got laid off from her marketing job but had already been building a following as a food blogger. It seemed only natural to try her hand as an entrepreneur. In its early years, Brooklyn Delhi made its achaar products, an Indian pickled condiment, and mostly sold it locally in New York City. The brand started getting on shelves in small grocers, as well as became featured in trendy Brooklyn restaurants. "We always pictured our product on store shelves one day," said Agrawal. "But to get there, I think we first knew that we needed to start at this very local market level to kind of understand what was it that people thought about the product." It took some time, but the strategy worked. Today, Brooklyn Delhi is available nationwide in stores like Whole Foods, as well as available on its direct-to-consumer site and with meal kit services like Blue Apron. And it's expanded its products beyond its hero achaar product to simmer sauces. There have been some road bumps. For example, Agrawal said Trader Joe's was in talks with Brooklyn Delhi for a potential private label partnership, and then she noticed that the retailer ended up making its own achaar product that looked suspiciously similar to hers. Agrawal decided to go public about what she viewed as blatant product copycatting. "I wanted to say something because I wanted people to know that we did not pack the watered-down version of Trader Joe's," she said. "Because so many people had come to us and they were just like, 'this doesn't taste right, is this your product?'" Even so, the company has moved on and moved up. The focus now, said Agrawal, is to grow the DTC arm as well as expand its product line. Currently, Brooklyn Delhi has 11 SKUs, but Agrawal hopes to have as many as 15 launched in the next year. "There's going to new a lot of new product coming out for Brooklyn Delhi," she said.

Evite has big plans to be more than just a free digital invitation service. The online platform has been around since 1998, providing essentially the same service: online invitations. But the business has had many ups and down. Two years ago, David Yeom and George Ruan purchased the business -- Yeom hails from e-commerce businesses like the Honest Company and eBay; Ruan co-founded Honey. Yeom joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and spoke about the company's transformation. "Evite, from a user activity standpoint [and] from a financial standpoint, has never been healthier, more profitable in its history," he said. The two believed Evite was in need of fundamental changes. For one, the company's revenue was long ad-based. But, as Yeom said, that was "too much compromising on the user experience." Additionally, Evite's look wasn't current -- it looked dated, he said. "For a brand that has the history that it has -- is it still cool to the younger millennials and younger moms?" Yeom said. With that in mind, Yeom implemented some major changes. For one, he wanted to focus more on commerce than ads. Now, the company both facilitates gifting -- it has become Amazon's biggest gift affiliate -- as well as earns revenue from premium digital invitations. True, 90% of Evite's customers still opt to use free cards, but 10% now shell out for a nicer design. In addition, Evite changed its entire look and feel. Before, the company had outsourced most of its design. "The priorities were just a little baffling," Yeom said. Now, it's all done in-house and the company has a more up-to-date look and feel. The hope is to attract more younger users -- Yeom said that one-third of the invites sent today are for children's birthday parties. With all this, Evite has been able to grow its business. It turned a profit in 2021 and now has big international ambitions. The company plans to expand to other English-speaking countries like Canada, Australia and the U.K. "We're a party company, and Americans aren't the only ones that want to party," said Yeom.

Nearly five years ago, Aaron Luo co-founded the DTC luxury bag company Caraa. Now, his latest venture zeroes in on Spanish meats. Luo and fellow Caraa co-founder Carmen Chen Wu launched charcuterie brand Mercado Famous this past summer. Both Luo and Chen grew up in Spain, and have fond memories of tapas hours with friend and family. "The mission behind Mercado was to bring not only the best we can find in Spain when it comes to charcuterie, but change the narrative around charcuterie a little bit," Luo said on the Modern Retail Podcast. "We just felt that there's a newer and younger audience that's somewhat neglected." The company sells meat products ranging from an $11.99 serving of sliced jamón to a $300 entire cured pork leg. While the company is selling predominately through its website right now, Luo said he has ambitions to grow other channels too. "I think wholesale will have a bigger play in Mercado Famous than Caraa, for sure," he said. "The goal for the brand is to go mass to a certain extent, if we can." True, handbags like Caraa's are made from leather -- the same material many meat products come from -- but the businesses are very different. Still, Luo said the earlier experience helped prepare him for this latest one. "The reason we felt very confident starting Mercado Famous back in 2018 is all the scar tissues and the learnings we've had in the DTC world," he said. That is, through Caraa he learned the ropes of brand storytelling and customer acquisition. And he's using all that knowledge to help grow Mercado Famous. Some things are very different, however, than they were when Caraa first launched in 2014. For one, the VC environment is very different. That being said, Luo has long believed that most retail brands are not best for venture investing -- and that thesis, he said, is being proved today. "I think it works for tech," he said, but "this is not a tech company." For now, Mercado Famous is still figuring things out. Luo has big plans to ink wholesale deals and other types of partnerships. But, he admits, the brand is still a baby; "we're not even crawling, just moving our heads."

For the Swiss athletic apparel company On -- known by many as On Running -- the focus has always been on being both premium and exclusive. According to co-founder Caspar Coppetti, the concept when it first launched in 2010 was "we want to be the most expensive product on the market." On's shoes retail for between $130 and $200 a pair. It took a few years, but the strategy worked out. In its most recent earnings report, On's quarterly revenue hit around $307 million and direct-to-consumer sales represented 38% of its business. Coppetti joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and spoke about how the brand, best known for its running shoes, has tried to focus on growth while maintaining its brand integrity. "When you have a strategy, and it's a premium strategy -- it's a very simple strategy," said Coppetti. "You have to always keep supply below demand. Nothing builds desirability, like scarcity, right? And you have to be 100% buttoned up and prepared to walk away from things that could be good for business in the short-term but would hurt the brand long-term." For the first few years, this made things difficult. On walked away from some retail partnerships that likely would have jumpstarted business. But now, Coppetti said he's happy the company was so selective because it cemented On's name as a premium product. That helped make it a brand that athletes sought out. Tennis star Roger Federer, for example, is not only a spokesperson for the brand but an investor. And even beyond Federer, On is trying to take its athletic partnerships even further by offering new types of sponsorships and contracts. "The sponsorship model is broken," he said. "It's basically a duopoly, where two large brands control the market and they play very ugly games at the cost of the athletes." Despite the brand's early focus on exclusivity, Coppetti also spoke about the need to leverage key wholesale partners. The company is sold in thousands of individual running boutiques, as well as larger retailers like REI and Foot Locker. "We felt we needed the validation, not just [from] the best runners but also of the specialty shops," he said. Even with DTC representing over one-third of On's business, the company still focuses on growing retailer partnerships. What's more, Coppetti said that the two businesses aren't antagonistic; "they are very complementary and additive to each other," he said. "When we start working with a retailer, our online sales will go up in that area." Now, On is on an upward trajectory and expanding into new products and regions. According to Coppetti, this success was thanks to the company holding true to its values and keeping the big picture in mind. "It took a lot of discipline. But, you know, we're Swiss -- we're known for discipline," he said.

Home goods sales may be cooling, but Fernish is still seeing growth from furniture rental. On the Modern Retail Podcast this week, Fernish co-founder and CEO Michael Barlow joined to speak about the state of the industry and how he's been growing his company. Fernish first hit the market in 2018 as a furniture rental service. The idea was that many young professionals often moved to cities and were expected to move into new apartments and completely furnish them. For a monthly fee, they get access to nice items to showcase in their home, and are also given the option to rent to own. "This is a problem that's indicative of the apartment renter in urban metros that's moving every one to three years," said Barlow, "between finishing college or secondary education and ultimately settling down." But more than just making it easier to move from city to city, Barlow insisted that there's a sustainability angle to this business too. "You can call that flexibility, you can call that convenience, you can call that sustainability -- those are the pillars that we've defined our business around, which really marries the service economy and the subscription economy to a very legacy and old asset class," he said. So far, things are working out. Fernish first launched in Los Angeles, but has recently expanded to the East Coast in cities like New York City and Washington, DC. The company has raised $75 million to date and says that its revenue increased by more than 17x over the course of the pandemic. When Fernish first started, it sourced from other high-end retailers like Crate & Barrel. Now, most of its furniture it makes in-house. "We prioritize North American manufacturers now," Barlow said. But part of what has made the business work, he said, is its focus on curation; "We offer a couple hundred [products] because we can go really deep with our suppliers and our manufacturer partners on core SKUs." The big question is whether growth will slow. Some bigger players like Wayfair have reported rough earnings -- and the retailers like Target that invested in home goods are having difficulty selling inventory. Barlow says those headwinds haven't hit Fernish yet. "I can tell you, June was our best month ever, a little bit stronger than July in terms of new business added. And July was our third best month ever," he said.

Express was a ubiquitous mall retailer, but it's now trying to become much more than that. CMO Sara Tervo gave some insight into this brand. This week, on the Modern Retail Podcast, Tervo spoke about the Express's evolution. The apparel retailer first began in 1980, and was known as a mall mainstay. Now, Tervo has spent the last three years trying to refresh the retailer's image. "When I joined the brand, we were needing a transformation," she said. Slowly but surely, that change has started to happen. "What we really had to do was rebuild our approach to content, understand what was most relevant and connected across all the different platforms, rebuild our budgets and constantly iterate, learn and generate more content -- in an effort to connect and create conversation [as well as] to create a more relevant brand," Tervo said. Much of this focus was about livening up the company's social presence, as well as figuring out the types of inventory that worked best with Express's customers. Additionally, Tervo realized the company couldn't be considered a retailer dependent on promotions. "We needed to pull back and drive value in different ways than just discounting," she said. So far, said Tervo, things have been going well. At its second-quarter earnings released last May, net sales increased 30% year-over-year to $450.8 million and e-commerce revenue grew 21%. Right now, said Tervo, the company is focused on growing its e-commerce revenue to over $1 billion. "We have bold goals for that channel," she said. Beyond that, Tervo is laser-focused on figuring out customer acquisition in this wonky marketing environment. The big thing she's learned over the last few years is to be authentic -- even tapping store associates -- and to try out everything. "We're always curious about beta partnerships and different ways to test and try new ways to connect with customers," she said. In the end, Tervo has unveiled a new Express -- one that's focused on digital and resonating with customers. Even so, Tervo doesn't think malls or in-store retail is dead. "I'm sure you've heard a lot of different people say that you can never replace an in-person experience. There's just absolute value in that," she said. "What's dying is probably bad in-store experiences or malls."

The coffee business changed overnight when the pandemic first hit, and Counter Culture Coffee has been rolling with the punches. This week on the Modern Retail Podcast, Counter Culture founder and president Brett Smith spoke about where the industry is going and how his company has evolved over more than two decades. Counter Culture, which first launched in 1994, was one of the first roasters to focus on direct trade, meaning it took great pride in working directly with coffee growers and suppliers. "What we felt was important was to go down that supply chain and really understand the source, the farmers," Smith said. "Because we felt like there was an opportunity to, in essence, have a conversation with the suppliers." At the time, roasters directly sourcing from growers and including them in their consumer-facing marketing was unheard of. But it's now become commonplace, and Counter Culture was one of the early businesses doing such practices. According to Smith, the fact that coffee companies like Counter Culture have become known for their ethical sourcing is a nice after-effect. he didn't intend for it to be such a big marketing hook. "The litmus test is are we going to do this if no one knows about it, will we still do it?" he said. Now, the market has changed. It's table stakes for most higher-end coffee roasters to tout their direct supply chain relations. What's more, the way people buy coffee has changed. Counter Culture first grew by partnering with restaurants. Then, it expanded to coffee shops. And it evangelized its business via local training centers it opened around the country. Here, baristas can stop by to learn about the products, and even average customers can stop by to get a sense for what the business is about. Today, Counter Culture has over a dozen training centers in cities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. When the pandemic hit, Counter Culture's wholesale business cratered by 90%, but its direct-to-consumer revenue soared. Now, things are leveling off. But Smith said that he is focused on new areas of growth -- including airports and grocery. All of this means the company is still growing, but Smith is trying to figure out how to handle the growth sustainably. For example, he's expanding his facilities to better handle grocery and DTC orders -- which were straining the business due to their different packaging sizes. "I think that the growth question is, ultimately, it comes down to working hard to grow sustainably. Would we all like to double every year? Yeah, in a certain way. But you got to understand what that means," he said. "You got to understand where is that going to create pressure? Where's that going to potentially compromise a long-term relationship?"

The eyeglasses industry is very competitive, but EyeBuyDirect is focused on cornering the market via affordability. The EssilorLuxotica-owned company has been around since 2005 and its primary focus has been on value: a pair of frames from EyeBuyDirect can be as cheap as $6. This week on the Modern Retail Podcast, CEO Sunny Jiang spoke about the company's trajectory and how she's been steering the ship. Jiang has been at EyeBuyDirect for 15 years -- she first took a job there when she was fresh out of university as a finance controller. She's risen the ranks ever since, going from operations director to general manager and then ultimately becoming CEO in 2017. "Since I've become CEO the company has grown nearly 300%," she said. EyeBuyDirect was one of the first online-only glasses players. Though Zenni is a few years older, Warby Parker is much younger. And, according to Jiang, the way the company is able to sell glasses so cheaply is because of its business model. "we manage everything from the beginning to the end," she said. This includes manufacturing, logistics, even returns. "This allows us to have the ability or possibility to forward a lot of profitability directly to customers." When EyeBuyDirect first launched, there were hardly any digital competitors out there. Now, the playing field is a lot more intense, thanks to leaders like Warby Parker and America's Best. Over the last two years specifically, Jiang said that a number of competitors have also been upping their digital games. Still, she's confident that the company can continue to grow. According to her own competitive analysis, the top three or four eyeglass players only account for about half of the market. To her, that means she can continue taking market share and finding new customers. To do that, EyeBuyDirect recently underwent a rebrand, upgrading the look of the website and the company's marketing materials -- including its logo, fonts and overall imagery. On the program, Jiang described the entire process. "One of the reasons why we were thinking to rebrand is that we found the brand or the company didn't have a clear purpose," she said. With that done, Jiang is currently crafting a five-year plan for EyeBuyDirect's growth. This means boosting its customer service options and also trying to up its delivery speed. "The category will continue to grow, and I will make sure that EyeBuyDirect will beat the benchmarks."

The next billion-dollar brand probably won't be a DTC startup. That's according to Jason Bornstein, principal at Forerunner Ventures. He's out there trying to look for the next big business to invest in, and he's not so sure online-only brands are the best way to go. Instead, he's focused on bigger innovations. Bornstein joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and spoke about his background, investing thesis and the areas on which he's focusing right now. "What we're really looking for here are new business models -- innovations -- on the tech side," he said. "So is there technology underpinning the business?" Bornstein has been in digital retail for decades, hailing from early DTC entrants like Bonobos. And while those brands caught investors' eyes and were able to grow using a direct-to-consumer-only model, Bornstein isn't sure that will fly anymore. "To be successful as a brand -- as a digital brand… there's going to be fewer venture dollars going into those businesses," he said. In his eyes, VC doesn't work well with most consumer-facing brands unless they have a real differentiator that the market has never before seen. And the tricks that earlier brands used to grow customers aren't enough to merit billion-dollar valuations. Instead, Bornstein is looking at new ways traditional business models are being upended. He named digital health care as one example, along with the rise of resale. But beyond that, Bornstein said he's also interested in the ways companies find customers and keep them. In the past, he said, 'there was very little focus on loyalty and on retention." Now, "I think we're going to see the next generation of brands be successful by focusing on that." Does that mean Bornstein and Forerunner aren't going to invest in any of the new digital-only retail brands? Not exactly. But, he said, "it's going to be fewer companies than we've done in the past."

Prose is a hair care company in growth mode, but it's also laser-focused on remaining a responsible brand. One of the people behind this push is Helen Nwosu, the company's vp of social impact. On this week's episode of the Modern Retail Podcast, Nwosu spoke about how she juggles the needs of a scaling brand while maintaining Prose's core values -- which include being transparent about its sustainability efforts, providing a safe and equitable workplace and making its products accessible to more people around the world. "My role is really tied to the fact that my founders... all wanted to have social impact and business as a source for good clearly embedded in the business from the get-go," Nwosu said. That doesn't mean that Prose, which was founded in 2017, isn't riding a rocket ship, business-wise. The company, which sells custom hair products, has seen revenue grow 3x for three years in a row. It brought in $80 million of revenue in 2021. According to Nwosu, who has spent her career working at the intersection of social impact and business at companies like Louis Vuitton, the way to keep a company honest is to work beyond a marketing lens. For example, Prose has been a certified B-corp since 2019 -- which means that company has to prove certain elements of social and environmental performance. What's more, Prose is also a public benefit corporation. "What's interesting is that it makes our public benefit a mandate to our board," said Nwosu. That is, Prose doesn't have to just write nice-sounding marketing copy about why it's acting both sustainably and ethically, but it was to report on all of its initiatives to its board and external organizations. "It's part of our legal charter," she said. "It's not just something that we put on our website." With that, some days she's working on front-facing activation and other days she's poring over technical documents. "It's really technical," Nwosu said, "I do like that aspect of the job because that's where the magic is." Another part, she said, is making sure the entire company is in lockstep with its values -- including how the products are made. For example, all of Prose's manufacturing happens in Brooklyn. "In this day and age, where most manufacturing companies -- specifically for consumer good -- are moving outside of big urban areas, we're allowed to provide really great jobs," Nwosu said. Right now, Nwosu is working on many projects -- including trying to cater to wider swathes of customers as well as keep Prose's many sustainability efforts up to date. For example, the company has sharing resources with other beauty B-corporations, allowing them to "really talk about transportation, logistics and ingredient sourcing." Those, she said, "are probably the three biggest challenges for a company of our size." So far, Prose says, it has reduced its carbon intensity by 67%. "At the end of the day, three times growth means we're making more product [and thus] we're using more of the planet's resources," Nwosu said. "So that has to be something that I mold the company to do mindfully -- let's build each product that we build better. So that's where my focus is really."

Maev is a startup that believes dogs should be eating as well as humans. The company first hit the market in 2020 and has been steadily growing ever since. For its first year in business, it was faced with the problem of selling out of products. This led it to bulk up its manufacturing and raise a $9 million round of funding. Now, Maev founder and CEO Katie Spies says the company sees sales growth of about 15% month-over-month. She joined the Modern Retail Podcast and spoke about the company's growth and the overall premium pet food market. Spies doesn't have a background in pet nutrition, but she did work as a dog walker to learn the ins and outs of what pet owners need. "I spent a year as a dog product dog walker," Spies said. "And I was getting to know a lot of consumers and figuring out what their headaches were." This time on the street with dozens of dogs helped Spies coalesce on a business plan for Maev; the company would sell human-grade dog food online. After two years of beta testing and figuring out the proper product line and formulas, Maev hit the market in late 2020. It was a good time to launch a dog food brand. During the first year of the pandemic, one in four Americans got a dog, Spies said. "Pet ownership skyrocketed, and more and more people started purchasing pet products and grocery products online," she said. So Maev didn't so much have a problem finding customers. Instead, the problem was in making sure it could keep its supply chain going and get products to customers. "The trouble was really just keeping inventory on the shelves in our facility and running a facility to continue producing product, despite Covid happening in the world," Spies said. This meant that Maev had to go from working in a test kitchen in New York to expanding to a contract manufacturer who could handle its demand. Now, Spies says the plan is to grow even more. While Maev is still only available online, Spies has her eyes on some new retail channels. "We started with just our own e-commerce site," Spies said, but "moving into [online] marketplaces is next on our list."

Jacob Zuppke’s tagline for his company is “cats keep pooping.” It's a blunt way to help people understand what his company does: Zuppke is the CEO of Whisker, the company behind the Litter Robot, an electronic-self cleaning litter box that retails for as much as $649. And, the tagline has born out; and the parent company is trying to expand beyond just litter boxes, with an automatic pet feeder and its own cat litter. The pandemic didn't slow Whisker's sales, and that's thanks to the Covid pet adoption boom. "We were already growing at a really exciting rate pre-Covid," said Zuppke on the Modern Retail Podcast. "I think that was just a little bit more gas on the fire." Whisker has been around for over two decades, but Zuppke joined the company in 2015 to help focus its digital strategy. Then, the company's sales were about 66% direct-to-consumer and 33% Amazon. Now, the company sells more via DTC -- but is actively expanding other channels, including a new retail partnership at 40 Hollywood Feed pet supply stores. "We are building a physical footprint to tell the story of what the Litter Robot is capable of doing," said Zuppke. But even with this retail expansion, much of Zuppke's focus is on growing digital sales and getting more people to know the Whisker and Litter Robot name. One lever Whisker has leaned especially heavy on is TV. "I think we as people that have learned to consume TV in a certain way, when we see something on TV, we tend to have a sense of trust for whatever reason," he said. With that, TV has become a very useful channel for brand storytelling. That being said, not all TV is the same; "We continue to find that linear performance better than connected," Zuppke said. For now, the focus is on growing the brand. For Zuppke, that's become a more challenging goal since there are now two brands: Litter Robot and its parent Whisker. While the former is the most popular product, Zuppke very much sees growth for other brands to bloom under Whisker. "We built our iPhone before we built our Apple," he said.

Digiday Media is proud to present The Return, a podcast about what the return to the office can look like as corporate America adapts to the new, not quite post-pandemic normal. The Return follows the staff at one Atlanta-based advertising agency through Covid outbreaks, as well as the highs and lows of transitioning to hybrid work after two years of pandemic lockdown and working remotely. While the future of work is still under construction, employees across the country are forging their own paths to determine what that future looks like amidst parenthood, corporate mandates, long commutes and an ever-looming pandemic. The Return is hosted by Kimeko McCoy, senior marketing reporter at Digiday, and produced by Digiday audio producer Sara Patterson. Listen to The Return on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Pistachio milk startup Táche has big plans to take on Oatly and its ilk. Founder and CEO Roxana Saidi joined the Modern Retail Podcast and explained how. Táche has been on the market for a little less than two years, but it has already begun making a real dent. The company has sold over 1 million units and has expanded its retail and coffee shop footprint nationally. According to Saidi, things are just getting started. The first hurdle, according to Saidi, was making sure she could build a viable business. She knew that she had a good idea with pistachio milk, as it was made in a more sustainable process than other milk alternatives like almond milk. "In 2015, [California was] experiencing our worst drought on record," she said. "At the same time, 99% of almonds that are consumed in this country are grown in California, where the almond trees require and soak up more water for the state than the inhabitants of California." Conversely, pistachios, she said, "require 75% less water than almond trees." And thanks to her family's connections to pistachio farms in the Middle East, she was able to have a direct source to the main ingredient. But even with all this, pistachio milk was expensive to produce, especially for a startup making a small initial order. Saidi realized she had to make something many people could afford. "I knew that if Táche was going to be priced at $10 or above, it actually wasn't a product I was going to pursue," Saidi said. "That was my threshold." Ultimately, Saidi was able to get it down to $7.99, which meant the idea had legs. The next step was figuring out production. It's easy to have an idea, but you actually need people to buy it. So for four years, Saidi made inroads with food professionals in the hopes that she would gin up enough demand to land an initial purchase. As Saidi described it, she saw the success of cult alt-milk favorites like Oatly and realized she too could create buzz by getting hip coffeeshop pick-up. Pre-2020, Saidi was able to get many cafés interested. But then the pandemic hit and everything changed. This pushed Táche's launch to November 2020. And with many cafés still shut at the time, the Táche team had to reconsider ways to get more people to try the product. "So we had to get really creative through various channels to drive trial -- marketing opportunities, donating a little bit of product to shops, anything and everything," she said." Now that most stores are back open, Táche is seeing much of its growth in the food service space. Saidi said that the plan for this year is to continue to focus on that; currently, the company gets about 50% of its sales online direct-to-consumer and 50% through its retail and café partners. But next year is when Saidi is going to focus more on bigger retail expansion -- Táche has plans to launch with some national players in the fourth quarter of this year. Once that really gets going, Saidi has big plans for scale. "I think food service will be our primary revenue driver this year," she said. "Next year, it probably will actually turn into retail. And then retail will continue to be the primary revenue driver from there." All this being said, the alt milk space is not what it was five years ago. "There's no denying that alt milk fatigue has become a thing because of how many options [there are]," she said. "But I think what has worked really well for us is two primary differentiating factors: one is on the health side, and one is on the sustainability side."

King David Tacos began as a Brooklyn-based taco cart and has expanded to dozens of locations, and has big expansion ambitions beyond New York City. According to founder and CEO Liz Solomon Dwyer, this is thanks to its persistent branding and ability to grow a rapt customer base. She joined this week's Modern Retail Podcast and spoke about the company's growth and ambitions. King David began in 2016 after Solomon Dwyer quit her job in advertising and made the bold move to go into the food business. She grew up in Texas and believed there to be a big hole in the breakfast taco market in New York. As she described, her father told her that she should open a taco stand in Times Square. "I thought that was an absurd idea," she said. Her father's response was that "it's just weird that they're not there. And it seems like so perfect for the New York morning." The idea stuck with her. It first began as a catering company, and then started an outdoor cart. Today, King David Tacos is available in over 60 retail locations, its own brick-and-mortar restaurant and even in the hot bar section of select Whole Foods locations. The most important aspect to get right, according to Solomon Dwyer, was the branding. Tex Mex food, she realized, had never quite made it in New York City -- and that's likely because of the way the restaurants messaged themselves. "I feel like part of the reason that breakfast tacos had struggled to take hold here was because everything was all Texas-theme, Southern-themed," she said "It's theme-y theme-y, gimmick gimmick." And for her, she wanted King David's to be more authentic. It helped, of course, that she had advertising experience in her back pocket. With this playbook, business is quickly picking up -- though Solomon Dwyer is still figuring out ways to evolve the overall model. For example, the tacos are now available in Whole Foods's hot bar, and she is trying to figure out a way to make her products stand out in a usually un-branded section of the store. "It's been a challenge," she said. But she does have one important piece of advice for people trying to learn the ropes; the most important way to build a business like hers is to become a cult. "The way you sell a lot of tacos is you become a destination," she said.

Maude is trying to redefine the sexual wellness space. The brand -- which sells condoms, lubricants and vibrators, in addition to other products -- has been growing its presence and business over the years. It first began as a direct-to-consumer brand, but is now sold in stores like Sephora. According to founder and CEO Éva Goicochea, the company is only getting started. Maude began as a predominately DTC business in 2018. But Goicochea said she focused early on getting the word out -- and making sure people understood the brand properly. This included getting press pieces out before launch, as well as reaching out to hotels to carry the products. "We found like-minded partners when it comes to hotels and made a giant list on Airtable and started reaching out to them," Goicochea said. What does like-minded mean? "We partnered with hotels that had that design-bent," she said. For those hotels, they likely already had say, condoms, but they hadn't yet found companies that branded sexual wellness products like Maude. For those hotels, said Goicochea, "[the products] needs to be high quality because there's this trust barrier." With this strategy, Maude has continued to grow. The brand is now available in 33 countries and is continuing to grow its product line. Much of its success, said Goicochea, is based in brand identity. "We had this thesis," she said, "that [intimacy products] should be approached in this really unified de-stigmatized way." This, said Goicochea, is resonating with customers. And now the focus is on growth -- albeit, profitable growth. With that, Maude is looking to expand its domain. The focus this year, she said, is on product launches and expanding into new markets. She added, "it's retail next year."

Temporary tattoos are no longer relegated to children's birthday parties -- they're becoming a bigger and more widely accepted part of the body part industry. Much of that is thanks to Inkbox, a Canada-based company that was acquired by Bic last January for $65 million. Inkbox's co-founder and CEO Tyler Handley joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and spoke about the brand's growth and sales -- as well as the overall temporary tattoo industry. Inbox uses an active ingredient its founders discovered in a fruit in Panama that leaves what looks like a tattoo mark on users' skin for one to two weeks. But the company's products don't work like traditional temporary tattoo offerings that put simple designs on pieces of paper. Instead, Inkbox partners with both celebrities like BTS and famous tattoo artists to sell customers' designs -- as well as grow out its own marketplace of designs where the creators can take a cut of the sales. According to Handley, the majority of Inkbox sales come from its artist marketplace. "We have this artist marketplace with over 10,000 designs from over 700 artists from around the world who make collectively several million dollars a year selling tattoos on our platform, which we're always really proud to say," Handley said. It took some time to get to this point -- the company is now seven years old -- and much of Inkbox's success was thanks to inroads it has made with the tattoo community. For example, early on the company opened its own permanent tattoo shop as a way to get to know more artists in the industry. "We wanted to at least immerse ourselves in the authentic world of permanent tattoos -- to build more genuine connections with artists," Handley said. It seems the strategy worked out given the growing marketplace and the Bic acquisition. And now that Inkbox is part of a much bigger company, Handley has big plans for expansion. This includes retail partnerships and more deals with bigger celebrities. "We're at a stage now where we can't just be direct-to-consumer," he said. Currently, Inkbox is sold in stores like Urban Outfitters, but Handley has plans to expand further. But even with this growth has come some hurdles. For example, Instagram used to be Inkbox's primary acquisition channel. But recent privacy and algorithmic changes have made it much more expensive and less effective. "It was really disheartening to see the greed of Meta affect our ability to get our content in front of consumers," said Handley. "Essentially you have to pay to get in front of anyone there now." With that, now Inkbox is focused more squarely on channels like TikTok. "It's really authentic in terms of its entertainment and engagement. And it's a totally different way you have to approach it," he said. With all of this, even more expansion is on the horizon. "[We're focused on] getting our lifetime value and basket size up by releasing new products -- we launched subscriptions three weeks ago," said Handley. "And soon we're launching some other products that adorn other areas of your body -- let's put it that way."

Italic is trying to become a luxury brand in its own right. The company has been around since 2018 and has gone through many iterations. At the same time, the underlying model has remained consistent: Italic forges partnerships with the manufacturers of well-known brands like Staub and Samsonite and sells unbranded products directly from the facilities at a fraction of the price. While the company has seen growth over the last few years, it's changed some of its business mechanics. Most recently, for example, it decided to halt its membership-only model. This change, said founder and CEO Jeremy Cai, has positioned Italic for more success. Cai joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and spoke about the company's latest approach. "Our strength really is in the business side," Cai said. "We've built a pretty strong supply chain orchestration platform... We basically had to build our own version of Shopify, our own version of a returns platform, our own fulfillment network and so on and so forth." But by building such a strong back-end comes the problem of how to define a company like Italic. In some ways, it's a marketplace that directly matches manufacturers with customers. That's, in fact, how Italic first marketed itself. Now, Cai has realized that customers simply don't see it this way. "For all intents and purposes, we are a brand," he said. "Because they don't really see or need to see what goes on underneath the hood." Going away from its membership-only model isn't the only big change Italic has made of late. A few years ago, Cai had big plans to expand to multiple categories -- he saw Italic as partnering with numerous manufacturers that manufactured many diverse products. Now, he's realized that curation is more important. "We can't simply expand rapidly for the sake of expanding supply," Cai said. If the products don't sell through, that leaves the manufacturers Italic is working with in a lurch. "We do have a tremendous amount of responsibility in terms of our agreements with our manufacturing partners," he said. That has made Italic think smaller and with a more curation-focused lens. "We started the year thinking we were going to launch 1,000 products," said Cai. "We'll probably launch 100." Another big change for Italic is its focus on organic growth and less reliance on digital platforms like Facebook. So far, things seem to be working. "We cut our growth spend by 5x from March to April this year, and our revenue grew -- and it's continuing," Cai said. "So it's kind of like, what were we spending money on in the first place?" With that is the larger goal of making Italic a prestige brand that isn't wholly reliant on one-off customer acquisition techniques. It's a focus that nearly every DTC brand faces right now. Over the next year, Cai said, he's dead set on "figuring out a path of growth into the future where we can continue to sizably grow the business without needing to solely rely on paid [advertising]."

The last few years have been a rollercoaster for travel companies. But Australian luggage brand July says business is now beginning to boom. "Things have changed, lockdowns have come to an end now -- 2021 was a progressive lift on that. And this year, in 2022, things are flying again," said co-founder and chief strategy officer Athan Didaskalou. Didaskalou joined this week's Modern Retail Podcast and talked about the brand's growth and expansion plans. July was first devised in 2018 with the intention of being a luxury luggage company that could take on both Samsonite and Rimowa. "[Rimowa's] acquisition from LVMH reinvigorated design and travel," Didaskalou said. "I'd be lying to say I wasn't a fan." Still, he believed that his company could take on the bigger name players in the industry. "We thought we could do it better," Didaskalou said, by making lighter bags with unique design features like curvier edges and personalized monograms. The first year of business, things went well. But then every luggage brand's worst fear materialized: the world shut down. "2019 was the official retail launch, and 2020 we were almost shutting the business down. It was really that drastic because we didn't have the runway of a few years under the belt in order to be able to survive a zero revenue year." One of the ways July survived the pandemic was by launching new non-travel products like drink bottles and backpacks. The other part was by going into new territories that eased travel restrictions earlier than Australia -- namely, the U.S. For Didaskalou, launching in stateside was an entrepreneurial dream. "I don't think there's any Australian business that doesn't fantasize from day one about launching in the U.S.," he said. "The people are there, the scale is there, the appetite is there for newness." Now, according to Didaskalou, business is humming and more products and markets are in the pipeline. But even though the company has its Australian roots, the United States remains the primary focus. "It's all about the U.S.," Didaskalou said. "We see the demand, we have made an impact. And we can't wait to just start making and delivering more products that get people excited."

Things got scary for Neighborhood Goods in 2020. "We went through layoffs and furloughs -- all sorts of challenging things," said co-founder and CEO Matt Alexander. "And we had just come into the year on a real tear, and it was just really gut-wrenching to suddenly be in that moment." But business has returned, and his updated department store model -- which has retail space in city centers like Manhattan, Austin and Plano and hosts a variety of brands in exchange for a revenue share -- is doing numbers once again. "Sales continue to grow and we continue to add more brands," Alexander said on the Modern Retail Podcast. Alexander joined Modern Retail for a live podcast recording at his New York City store in Chelsea Market during Digiday Media's Commerce Week. There, he spoke about changes to the business and how he's preparing for the future. While sales obviously dropped during the pandemic -- and the company had to close all of its stores for an extended period of time -- Neighborhood Goods was able to see some glimmers of light via its digital services. "Our stores are ostensibly their own warehouses. Local delivery, same-day deliveries, in-store pickup, things of that nature, we were able to offer that for products that were otherwise going to take weeks -- if not months -- to arrive with customers," he said. "And so that actually became a real driver for us." But now, digital is no longer the focus -- it's all about the store. Traffic, Alexander said, has picked back up to pre-pandemic levels and stores are more productive than ever before. In fact, he said the real issue he faces is too much traffic. "We're just getting an absurd amount of people to the point that it creates like a lot of challenges as to how you operate with it," Alexander said. Still, it's a good problem to have. Now, the focus is on growth. That could mean more stores, though Alexander he's still trying to figure out where that may be. It could be California, Atlanta, Nashville or even a smaller suburb, he said. But he's optimistic about the future of his business -- as well as the state of physical retail itself. "At the end of the day, the fundamental picture continues to improve," he said.

The e-commerce portfolio model has been getting a lot of press of late. And OpenStore thinks it may have cracked the code for finding and acquiring DTC brands. OpenStore launched in 2021, and the idea was the use proprietary technology to suss out which online brands have the most upside. It's raised over $130 million both in venture capital and debt. E-commerce brands can go to OpenStore's website and share their Shopify sales data with the portfolio company. "We've built an engine, powered by data science, that is essentially looking at the historical financials and the order history of the business, and allowing us to come up in relatively real-time with a price for the business, which we then present to the founder," said co-founder Michael Rubenstein. He joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and spoke about the current state of e-commerce portfolio companies and why he thinks OpenStore is poised for success. According to Rubenstein, OpenStore is focused on aggressively growing its portfolio. Last year, the company said it had ambitions to make an acquisition a day. Rubenstein wouldn't confirm exactly how many purchases this company has made, but said "we have done dozens of acquisitions... We're buying companies very regularly at this point." So what is an ideal candidate for an OpenStore scoop up? According to Rubenstein, it's usually brands whose GMV is between $500,000 and $10 million. He sees OpenStore as a way for serial entrepreneurs who are tired of the current business to make a profitable exit. "They're ready for liquidity -- there's whatever it is that they want to go do next," said Rubenstein. It is, admittedly, a more difficult time for e-commerce businesses than it was a year ago. E-commerce growth is stagnating and inflation is making sales growth difficult for many brands. Still, Rubenstein thinks OpenStore is more than just a business glomming onto a recent bubble. Our plan is to own these businesses, grow these businesses, develop them and help them to realize their full potential," he said.

The key to DTC towel brand Weezie's success is staying in its lane -- or, bathroom. That's according to co-founder Lindsey Johnson who joined this week's Modern Retail Podcast. The company, which makes luxury bath towels along with other bathroom-related products like bathrobes and bathmats, has seen year-over-year growth and said late last year that it was on track to hit eight figures in revenue in 2021. "The bath towel is the hero product of Weezie, and we are going to stay in that world," Johnson said. According to Johnson, what has helped Weezie grow is the company's relatively conservative approach to growth. Other than a seed round, Weezie has remained bootstrapped -- and it's been very intentional about every expansion or new sales channel into which it's dived. Some of that is because of the very nature of the business. Weezie offers custom embroidered towels -- all of which are made and fulfilled in its own U.S.-based facility. Scaling such an operation is difficult, to say the least. "[Wholesale] is something we've always struggled with... because customization is such a big part of the business," she said. "While, of course, our products are wonderful on their own, it doesn't tell the whole story." Now, thanks to growth from the last few years, Johnsons is trying to figure out how to grow these channels while remaining true to Weezie's roots. Meanwhile, she's also trying to figure out where to expand to next geographically. Weezie currently has one store in Atlanta, which she says has been a successful sales driver and brand booster. With that, Johnson is also thinking about opening more stores, but added "it's not in the near-term roadmap." Put together, Johnson has big plans for the next few months -- but is also trying to make sure Weezie stays by its North Star. "I think it's a big year of just investing in the future," she said.

General Mills is known for being the company behind household name brands Wheaties -- but it's also trying to build out a robust DTC strategy. At the Modern Retail DTC Summit, held last week in New Orleans, General Mills' global e-commerce lead of DTC Carter Jensen took to the stage to talk about how he approaches his role. That conversation was recorded for this week's Modern Retail Podcast. Jensen isn't the usual CPG conglomerate leader -- he only joined the company about two years ago. "I come from a weird hodgepodge of startups and consulting and agency land for the last 10-plus years," he said. But this variety of hats worn has helped Jensen better conceptualize how such a big company can go about direct-to-consumer strategies. General Mills brought in about $4.5 billion last quarter -- and direct e-commerce represents likely a tiny fraction of that. This year, General Mills is on track to launch DTC campaigns with about 30 brands -- which he described as "exponentially" more than the launches from the previous two years. Still, Jensen said that DTC is an increasingly important part of the overall program at the company. "The vision of DTC from the top has shifted and changed," said Jensen. And a lot of that was thanks to the pandemic-led e-commerce boom. "We look at DTC now as not necessarily the end all be all, but a really important part of what we call the connected commerce journey." Different brands have different needs. For example, General Mills has upstarts from its incubator program -- and the company uses DTC tactics to gain helpful consumer fit data. The conglomerate also launches standalone websites for product drops, like it has for limited-edition Wheaties boxes. While General Mills does use e-commerce as a revenue driver for some brands, it is still very small compared to the company's vast distribution channels. And, at the end of the day, the company's playbook depends on each brand. "We lean on our brand teams, they are the brand experts. They're the ones who know their products, their partnerships, their consumers the best," said Jensen. "We come in with the DTC capability of knowing the tech stack, knowing what works, knowing how to ship products... we're the coach versus the quarterback, and we let them take control."

Bokksu, which connects U.S. customers with Japanese snacks, is still bullish on subscription boxes, according to its founder and CEO Danny Taing. The company, which first launched in 2016, began by offering a subscription box that featured Japanese snacks that were never before available in the U.S. Growth for the first few years was on the slower side, as the company remained mostly bootstrapped. Two years after launching, the company really started to hit its stride. And is now expanding beyond subscription boxes and launching its own marketplace. "In early 2018, we had about 1,000 subscribers, and in just one month, we grew that to over 3,000," Taing said on the Modern Retail Podcast. "It was because of this viral Facebook kind of campaign." With that growth, however, came some struggles. "The warehouse in Japan was not equipped to deal with triple the amount of orders," Taing said. "And that was way before I had a logistics team or director." But Bokksu was able to roll with the punches and still grow. The company has doubled its revenue and customer base every year since 2018. This came as other subscription box brands like Birchbox faced major headwinds. But, according to Taing, Bokksu never experienced subscription fatigue. "I think what helped was that we have a very strong underlying product that changes every month that a lot of people get a lot of value from," said Taing. "It's not faddy." Earlier this year, Bokksu closed a $22 million Series A round of funding, giving it a $100 million valuation. That happened after years of receiving nos from VCs. For Taing, it was validation that his company had staying power. With this cash infusion, Bokksu is focusing on its marketplace expansion. Still, Bokksu remains focused on its hero product. "Subscriptions are still the majority," said Taing. "That's our core thing."

For the kitchen brand W&P, it's been a good time for the home products space. This week on the Modern Retail Podcast, W&P president Kate Lubenesky spoke about how the company has evolved and grown. "We had great growth in 2020 and 2021," she said. W&P first launched 10 years ago with its first product: a mason jar-inspired cocktail shaker. Now, the company has expanded a great deal, with hundreds of different products including cups, cutting boards, cocktail kits and ziplock bag alternatives. "We've really refined our point-of-view to be equal parts function and design," said Lubenesky. With that, W&P has figured out exactly what its brand voice is; "We don't want to be everything to everyone... we're really singularly focused on kitchen products." Lubenesky joined the company in early 2020, right before the pandemic began. She hailed from kitchen product stalwarts like Oxo. "When I walked into the door, we were really at this fantastic inflection point as a business where we had this great portfolio of products that was really starting to click and hum in the marketplaces and with our retailers, like Crate and Barrel, Sur La Table, William Sonoma and just all these wonderful culinary retailers," she said. But then, of course, the coronavirus spread around the world and changed everyone's plans. Even so, W&P was able to switch revenue gears and continue growing. Many wholesale accounts -- including independent gift shops and department stores like Nordstrom -- had to pull back on their partnership with W&P in early 2020. But other sales channels began to grow. The brand's Amazon sales, for example, went through the roof. Additionally, W&P's corporate gifting revenue skyrocketed. "Having that really healthy platform -- and a balance -- allowed us to thrive in 2020," said Lubenesky. Now, the company is focused on growing even more. That includes inking more wholesale partnerships -- if, of course, the retailers are a good fit. And there's also always product expansion. "We're really focused on product development and innovating and inventing new categories that consumers aren't even aware of that they need," Lubenesky said.

It's been a big year for TalkShopLive -- and for livestream commerce in general. The livestream commerce platform has been around since 2018. Until 2021, it was completely bootstrapped -- but it took a $3 million seed round a year ago this past February. Since then, TalkShopLive has been ramping up partnerships with major publishers and retailers, including Walmart and Condé Nast. Co-founder and CEO Bryan Moore joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and spoke about the platform's growing presence. "2020 was when we started to see a lot of people come on with their books and music and have these blockbuster sales," he said. "It proved the model and proved the value for creators." Unlike other livestream commerce apps, TalkShopLive focuses on offering embedded streams. While customers can go to its website to see what programs are airing -- which, according to Moore, many people do -- brands and publishers can also host the streams on their own websites. In Moore's description, that makes for a better relationship for retailers working with publishers -- along with creators trying to launch their own commerce lines. "One of the things that we've consistently heard across the board from the creator front is that they really appreciate having a destination outside of their traditional social platforms to use as their shopping destination," Moore said. This comes as the livestream commerce space as a whole has seen big gains. Apps like Ntwrk and Whatnot have raised hundreds of millions of dollars over the last few years, and many experts say that North America is finally beginning to adopt the medium. According to Insider Intelligence, livestream commerce is a $300 billion market in China and western countries are increasingly testing it out as well. One of TalkShopLive's biggest recent successes is with Walmart. The big-box retailer tested out a few livestream programs in late 2021. Apparently, the company liked it -- Walmart has upped its programming by about 420%, said Moore, and has booked livestream commerce programs through the summer. "The brand experiences team at Walmart is really phenomenal and completely understands the value of this space and how to really maximize it for their customers and their suppliers," said Moore. For now, Moore is focused on growing TalkShopLive's partners and getting more retailers and creators testing out its offerings. "You're going to see a lot of other retailers launching over the next quarter," he said.

Couplet Coffee, which sells both coffee beans and coffee-related products online, is only a few months old and is trying to enter the market with a bang. Currently, it's available online as well as at select partners like Lotto.com's Players Cafe. Founder and CEO Gefen Skolnick joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and spoke about the launch. "Couplet was my side project in college," Skolnick said. "I've just been obsessed with coffee for over ten years now." For the last year, however, Skolnick has been testing out to see if the brand could become a viable business. Much of this was done via limited-edition drops, as well as one-off retail partnerships at pop-ups like a recent Bumble-sponsored NYC cafe. In the beginning, Couplet's landing page was a barebones cashdrop site that sold a small amount (for example, 30) limited-edition coffee bean bags or products like french presses. These drops sold out quickly -- much of that driven, according to Skolnick, by social media buzz -- which gave more credence to the brand. Now, Couplet is trying to take things to a new level. While it still has small-scale partnerships with artists and drops limited edition products, the brand is trying to grow its permanent presence as well. It is currently in 17 retail stores nationwide. In addition to its online offerings, which went live earlier this year, Couplet is opening over 20 coffee cart locations at Players Cafe. Skolnick said more expansion announcements are on the horizon. Growing this type of company was new terrain for Skolnick. Despite only being in her mid-20s, over the last few years, Skolnick had worked in a variety of capacities -- from software engineering to DTC marketing to investing. But, she hadn't really honed in specifically on coffee before. So Skolnick grew her network to get a better understanding of the space. "I spent all of last year... figuring out how operations work, figuring out how DTC brands do what they do, figuring out how coffee companies do what they do and creating an advisor and investor ecosystem that could help me figure it out," Skolnick said. All this helped Skolnick raise a seed round of funding in 2021. This education isn't over now the Couplet has officially launched -- but the plan is to continue growing the company. While Skolnick is seeking out more coffeeshop and retailer partnerships, she's also hoping to grow the product line and keep Couplet true to its roots. Even with the growing amount of external partnerships, Skolnick said, "we're primarily a DTC brand."

Lightning-fast delivery services are taking cities like New York by storm. And Gorillas is trying to be the leader of the pack. This week on the Modern Retail Podcast, Adam Wacenske, Gorillas' U.S. head of operations, spoke about the online grocery service's growth plans and strategy. Gorillas is a grocery delivery app that began in Europe, but is currently only available in New York. Its main value proposition is that it can give customers their items in the blink of an eye -- usually in less than 15 minutes. Last year, it raised nearly $1 billion in funding, and only a month ago the German-based company announced plans to raise an additional $700 million. That's because competition is stiff. There are a bunch of other delivery apps out there -- from GoPuff to Jokr -- that offer similar services of stocking dark stores with products and having couriers at the ready to deliver them to customers' homes. Though Wacenske said that Gorillas is focused on giving the best possible experience and having the fullest assortment of groceries. "From day one Gorillas has been focused on a full assortment," he said. "We've always had what was akin to a medium-sized grocery store." Wacenske knows a thing or two about being part of a fast-growing startup. His last job was at WeWork, and he spoke about how his past experience lent itself to this current role. "There's a lot of similarities to WeWork," he said. Specifically: both companies focused on growing physical presences and making them more convenient for their customers. Meanwhile, the beginning part of this year was difficult for some players in the fast delivery industry. Two companies, Fridge No More and Buyk both closed down U.S. operations in the course of a week. "It's super unfortunate," said Wacenske, adding that both companies' closures were "out of a lot of people's control." While those companies certainly faced difficulties with growth, Wacenske is optimistic about the future -- both for Gorillas and the fast-delivery space. "This is a really young industry in the U.S.," he said. "I can't fully predict as to what's going to happen, but there's certainly going to be more space for more opportunities and for more than one company in the future."

It may seem simple to order a bouquet of flowers and have it delivered to your home, but a lot of work goes into such a task. On this week's Modern Retail Podcast, Seth Goldman, the CEO of online flower and plant delivery service UrbanStems, discussed the ins and outs of the e-florist business. Over the last two years, UrbanStems saw year-over-year growth in both 2020 and 2021 -- even after the company shut down its local delivery services in March of 2020, which resulted in a 60% decline in its business at that time. But when things reopened in July, the company was back on track and "revenue growth continued to scale," said Goldman. Indeed, sales grew 130% in 2021. Now, with these two years in the rearview mirror, Goldman says he's figuring out what parts of the business to invest in. "For all brands, it's about starting to make sure that all of those customers that tried us out are sticking," he said. Venture funding is helping with that. Last year, Urban Stems raised $20 million, giving it a valuation north of $100 million. This year, Goldman is trying to continue figuring out how to best use that money. One of his focuses is on building out the infrastructure that allows the company to deliver its flowers. Meanwhile, Goldman is also investing in both the technology and user experience side of things. Lastly, the company is also investing in its team and growing its headcount. Goldman spoke about all of those aspects of the business -- infrastructure, technology and talent -- and how he's thinking about prioritization. "There's a lot of work to continue to do across all three," he said.

For direct-to-consumer furniture brand Sabai, sustainability reigns. The brand, which launched in the summer of 2019, and saw a growth spike in both 2020 and 2021 -- much of which was spurred by the pandemic-induced home boom. According to co-founder and CEO Phantila Phataraprasit, much of its growth was thanks to increased interest in sustainability. Sabai's products -- which range from sofas to ottomans -- are all produced with sustainability in mind. [Sustainability] can be in so many different things and be applied to so many different aspects of a business model," said Phatarapsit. "We try to apply it to every single aspect." She joined this week's Modern Retail Podcast and spoke about the company's growth. Sabai sources recycled material for all its products, as well as uses plastic-free shipping. The brand also just launched a buy-back program in the hopes of making it possible for its used products to not be thrown out. According to Phataraprasit, this has resonated with customers. "We maybe didn't appreciate how much people throughout the country care about sustainability," she said. She had originally thought Sabai would be popular in places like New York and Los Angeles, but it turns out people in smaller even suburban areas were also interested. Now, the hope is to grow and get the word out even more. Phataraprasit spoke about Sabai's social media plan -- which includes using its Instagram following for product research, while also investing in other smaller, visually-driven advertising channels like Pinterest. The idea with all of Sabai's social content is to build a brand that customers clearly understand its point of view and values. "The community that we had on Instagram was very much part of [our product development] process," she said.

Umamicart is trying to bring authentic Asian grocery items to more U.S. consumers. The app launched in early 2021 and, according to co-founder and CEO Andrea Xu, has been seeing double-digit growth month-over-month. It offers Asian products from sauces to meats to vegetables, growing from 400 SKUs at launch to now over 1,000. Xu joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and spoke about the trials and tribulations of growing a digital grocery startup. According to Xu, Umamicart began because of a gap she saw in the market. Namely, for many people it's hard to find Asian-specific grocery items beyond specialized grocery stores that are usually in specific, often metropolitan areas. "If you're lucky enough that you're near an awesome Chinatown, that's super great," said Xu. "But not everybody has that." So, the idea with Umamicart is to bring those types of products to more people. Currently, it is available in 11 states -- with plans for more expansion following a $6 million fundraise that closed in December. But the concept isn't to just bring a large Asian grocery store online. Instead, Xu and her co-founder have been working to partner with small- to medium-sized Asian brands and suppliers to give them another channel to sell their products. "People ask me a lot: 'why can't I buy this at Whole Foods?'" said Xu. "I'm like, well, Whole Foods is not working with the number of suppliers that we're working [with]." Now, the focus is on expansion -- both geographically and product-wise. "We're probably going to at least double our catalog within the next few months," said Xu."Geographically, we also plan to expand. I'm not sure exactly to which exact locations, but we're definitely going to be expanding this year."

It’s been a turbulent few years for Reformation, but the women’s clothing and accessory brand is forging ahead. According to CEO Hali Borenstein, the focus now is on building trust both with customers and employees. “It is all about walking the walk,” she said on the Modern Retail Podcast. Borenstein became Reformation’s chief executive in 2020 when its founder and then-CEO Yael Aflalo stepped down after a former employee’s social media post went viral that alleged unfair treatment of non-white employees and micro-aggressions such as being passed over for promotions in favor of white counterparts. (An external review of the allegations by a law firm published five months later asserted Reformation’s workplace to be “not racist”.) At the time, Borenstein was president and vp of merchandizing. “I think that the summer of 2020 really shined light on the fact that we did not have enough focus on our internal people,” said Borenstein. Now, she said, she’s looking toward the future. “My focus has really been not just on the growth of the business, but making sure that our team everyday feels like they are heard and valued,” she said. Reformation focuses a great deal on transparency and sustainability. According to Borenstein, one of her most important moves as CEO was being open and honest about all parts of the business. “Not every decision is an easy decision,” she said. “But I will share with you why I made a decision and why the leadership team is thinking about something in a certain way.” Growth is another a big focus for the brand. The company currently has about 25 locations globally -- and has plans to open more over the next year. “We really believe in having more stores,” Borenstein said. “And then, within our store experience, we also want to continue to innovate on it so that we’re really building the best experience possible.” While 93% of Reformation’s business is direct-to-consumer, the brand does have a few wholesale partnerships with retailers like Nordstrom. But, according to Borenstein, “we use them for strategic purposes -- mostly [building] brand awareness.”

In 2019, startup chai brand One Stripe Chai saw coffeeshops as the ticket to its success. Then the pandemic came and everything changed. After a bumpy few months, the brand focused predominately on its direct-to-consumer website and finding online customers. And while its foodservice business has resumed, founder and “chief chai officer” Farah Jesani says she’s still focused primarily on growing the DTC sales. Jesani joined the Modern Retail Podcast and described the quick change. Right before 2020, Jesani said, One Stripe had over 70 coffeeshop wholesale accounts. “That’s where I was like, okay, this feels like this is a viable business. This feels like something we can really grow,” she said. Then the pandemic hit and “everything tanked.” At that time Jesani was faced with a decision: does she close up shop or does she pivot? She opted for the latter, and began testing out consumer-focused products and packaging -- something she had never done before. After a few months of trial and error, it worked. The brand got written up in publications like Bon Appetit, and this helped launched the DTC business -- which Jesani says has remained pretty profitable since launch. “To date, we’ve barely put in any ad dollars,” she said. Now that things are opening back up, Jesani is focusing on growing both DTC and wholesale channels -- although supply chain hiccups have made things slow going. As Jesani described it, 60% of her focus is on DTC and 40% on other retail partnerships. With that, she’s enthusiastic about the prospect of more growth. The hope now, she said, is to find a national retailer. I would love for our concentrates to be in Whole Foods,” she said. “More than that, I would love our concentrates to be the concentrates that are used at the coffee shops at Whole Foods.”

Online apparel marketplace Dia&Co is trying to tap into the $21 billion inclusive sizing market. Within the last few years, more brands have begun introducing a wider range of sizes. But according to co-founder and CEO Nadia Boujarwah, most businesses are only scratching the surface. Boujarwah joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and spoke about Dia&Co, as well as the current state of plus-size apparel. Dia&Co has been around for six years, and has witnessed big shifts in brands’ plus-size strategies. “If you look at what the supply side of the [plus-size] equation is doing, it is remarkably anemic,” Boujarwah said. “About less than 20% of apparel dollars that are spent in the U.S. each year are spent in those sizes.” Her company has been trying to change that. Inclusive apparel has had its ups and downs over the last few years. Between 2018 and 2019, more brands were entering into the space than ever before, Boujarwah explained. But the coronavirus changed a lot of product roadmaps. Throughout that time, Dia&Co was focused on bringing a platform that women could trust to provide clothing choices in many sizes. Now, said Boujarwah, more brands are once again doubling down on plus-size options, which is giving Dia&Co a helpful boost. What’s more, there’s a large and growing group of plus-size influencers that Dia&Co has been tapping. Currently, the company partners with upwards of 500 influencers every month. Though Dia&Co has dabbled in building its own brands, Boujarwah said the company is primarily focused on connecting customers with other apparel giants like Madewell and Wacoal -- as well as helping those brands better market their plus-sized offerings. With that, Dia&Co has a huge opportunity at its fingertips, said Boujarwah. “We have always been a multi-branded retailer and a multi-category retailer. So our audience is broad,” she said. “Within that, we can serve different price-points.”

DTC startup Firebelly Tea is hoping to help the hot steeped beverage reach the celebrity status of coffee. That’s according to co-founder and CEO David Segal, who joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week. Segal isn’t new to the tea world -- he founded one of the biggest tea retailers in North America, DavidsTea. After selling his shares in the company in 2016, he is now embarking on a new tea journey. Tea, said Segal, “is the second biggest drink in the world, next to water,” even though, he said, “North America is a little bit late to the party.” “There’s a reason it’s been around for so long,” Segal said. “It’s really that good -- especially high-quality loose leaf tea, which is what we’re trying to show people with Firebelly.” The idea, for now, is to make a direct-to-consumer destination with Firebelly. But rather than just selling tea leaves, Segal wants to provide the entire experience. So, Segal has spent the last few years sourcing good tea blends along with the best types of tea products -- such as kettles and thermoses. “The key is the product, it starts with the product,” Segal said. “You can have a great marketing message, you can drive trial, but when it’s all said and done, people have to love the product and want to come back.” Firebelly’s other co-founder is Shopify president Harley Finkelstein. In some ways, the two experiences complement each other. Segal brings the tea industry know-how, and Finkelstein navigates the e-commerce world. “I think that the world has changed a lot since I launched DavidsTea, selling online has improved a lot,” said Segal. “One thing Shopify has done is create this whole ecosystem that really levels the playing field for merchants to be able to sell.” And, for now, that’s the plan. Sell tea and tea products online, and hope to grow the business from there. Of course, given his past retail experience, Segal is still open to the idea of brick and mortar. “I’m not ruling out the possibility of opening some retail stores,” he said. “I think there might be an opportunity down the road, certainly ones that are highly experiential.”

Win Brands Group has been around since 2017, but this is the year the DTC roll-up strategy is really beginning to gain steam. The company owns a slew of online businesses, including the candle company Homesick and the weighted blanket brand Gravity. According to founder Kyle Widrick, things have been building nicely since inception, but thanks to big pandemic-related changes Win is now set up for more growth. “We’ve built up our holding company and our structure and our process in such a way that we plan to do a third vertical and a fourth and a fifth,” he said on the Modern Retail Podcast. “And this will continue for a decade-plus to come.” Most recently, this week, Win announced that it raised $40 million and acquired a new company to its portfolio: a hat brand called Love Your Melon. On the program, Widrick spoke about his ambitions for LYM, as well as the crossroads many founders of growing online brands face. “It was clear they were going to have to hire a tremendous amount of more people to get to success on Amazon and at retail,” said Widrick. “So the question becomes: Do you want to build that yourself and hire those folks yourself? Or do you want to partner with someone like Win?” Another big topic in the e-commerce space is the rise of roll-up companies. Though Win has been around for a while, other firms -- many of which like Thrasio and Perch are focusing on marketplaces like Amazon -- are continuing to grow and amass large amounts of venture capital funding. According to Widrick, his company and the others are different for a variety of reasons. One of the big ones being branding: Win Brands Group looks to acquire companies with a notable brand, while many other roll-ups are looking for fast-selling SKUs. Ultimately, said Widrick, that leads to the ultimate ambition he has for his company. “We’re partnering with great founders and making bets on great brands that we plan to be around for the next 20 years-plus,” he said. “These are not flash in the pan -- in and out -- these are long-state businesses that we’re betting on for the long term.”

The non-alcoholic drink, which launched in 2020, tastes similar to a European apéritif. And, according to founder and CEO Mélanie Masarin, there’s growing demand. She joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and spoke about Ghia’s journey thus far. One of Ghia’s big markers is its branding. Ghia is available in the U.S. in both cans and bottles, and has a very retro eye-catching look. This was all by design. “I really wanted Ghia to not be another pastel-colored millennial brand,” Masarin said. Instead, she focused on the looks and feels of more analog iconography, like old restaurants. “We had to be unapologetically loud and fun.” This look has helped the company grow. It launched at the beginning of the pandemic, and was initially sold only online. But even so, Ghia was able to grow. Sales, Masarin said, have nearly tripled year-over-year. Now the focus is on getting more people aware of the drink. Some of that may include a foray into more physical retail stores and restaurants, she said, but that also comes with its own costs. “Everything is more expensive,” she said. “We are just being really thoughtful and trying to basically build redundancies with every single vendor that we can.” What’s more, she’s confident that there will be continued interest in non-alcoholic spirits. “This is not just wishful thinking,” Masarin said. “I do believe there’s a shift.”

The leap from Richard Branson to crypto isn’t that big, as it turns out. For venture capitalist Mags Kala, all it required was quitting her day job. Kala used to work at Bain Capital, helping out big brand names like Shea Moisture and Virgin Voyages. But one day she decided to leave it all behind and strike it out on her own. After about a year of going solo, she’s become especially keen on the Web3 space. On this week’s episode of the Modern Retail Podcast, Kala explained how and why she made the jump. For her, as a consumer investor, she wanted to be on the ground floor of the biggest changes in regards to how regular people spend their time and money. That’s what initially turned Kala on to the world for crypto. What was it that made it click? According to Kala, an expensive digital avatar of an ape. “Joining the Bored Ape NFT craze was very eye-opening for me,” Kala said. Here, she was describing the company Bored Ape Yacht Club, which auctions off pixelated pictures of apes using blockchain-based contracts and cryptocurrency. While it’s a phenomenon mostly for people online (with a lot of money to spare), Kala said the rise of these NFT artists made clear many other things as well. At its core, these types of new programs hit at a base-line question she’s always trying to answer as a consumer investor, Kala said: “What’s truly next for the consumer economy?”

Energy drinks are in the midst of a renaissance. According to Fabiola Torres, CMO and svp of PepsiCo’s energy drinks category -- which includes big brands like Rockstar -- the renaissance is about finding who the core customer is. Her focus, she said on the Modern Retail Podcast is to “really go deep into storytelling, making sure that our products continue to get better and better.” Torres joined the PepsiCo team in April 2020, right when the pandemic hit. Before, she worked at high-end brands like Beats By Dre and Nike. In her eyes, she was excited about leading the marketing for a ubiquitous product that still resonated with unique subcultures. That’s no easy task, however. Energy drinks have a bunch of connotations, and their popularity has risen and fallen like changing tides. But as gaming platforms continue to reach new users, and with Gen Z being such a driving force of culture, energy drinks are making a comeback. According to July data from IRI, the energy drink category grew 11.6% year-over-year. PepsiCo’s strategy with Rockstar, which it acquired in 2020, is to team up with people and events that are popular in the communities it wants to target. This includes teaming up with Microsoft on its latest Halo release, as well as a bunch of influencer campaigns. That’s especially true for social campaigns; “When we talk about TikTok, it works with influencers that have the reach,” she said. The hope is to find the gaming, youthful zeitgeist while also figuring out areas for growth. What’s more, according to Torres, Rockstar is just the beginning of energy drinks under Pepsi. “The future is bright for us,” she said.

Another year has come and gone, and big changes came to the retail industry. Giants like Shopify and Amazon grew even bigger, while older retail models like department stores suffered. Meanwhile, online brands saw big growth but faced their own unique set of headwinds. And newcomers, like fast fashion mobile app Shein, became more of an everyday staple. This week on the Modern Retail Podcast, we decided to take a look back and dive into some of the most important issues we wrote about over the last twelve months. Reporters Maile McCann and Saqib Shah as well as managing editor Anna Hensel all dove into the topics they thought drove 2021's retail narratives. These storylines give some insight into what’s ahead. Online strategies remain top of mind for companies both big and small. Meanwhile, people are discovering products in new ways.

Oats Overnight, a spoon-free, protein-based drinkable oatmeal, has been made in-house since the company began. Founder and CEO Brian Tate started Oats Overnight in 2016 out of his kitchen, and after about a year of formula development, began selling the bottled oats via the brand’s website. Part of the decision to vertically integrate production was due to difficulties Tate found in securing manufacturers for the product’s unique formula. “At a very, very early stage, we opted to do it [production] ourselves for the flexibility,” Tate said on the Modern Retail podcast. Fast forward five years, Oats Overnight has a growing customer base and new partnerships with Wegmans, Whole Foods and The Fresh Market. The brand tripled its active direct-to-consumer subscribers – from 10,000 to 42,000 – during 2021. This year, the company is up 150% in revenue year-over-year, hitting $25 million in sales in November. As a result, the company’s existing 20,000 square foot Arizona plant wasn’t cutting it. With that came the need to upgrade to a bigger oats-blending plant, said Tate. This year the company has grown to over 100 employees – including 40 on the production line – and is in the process of moving to a 50,000 square foot facility. But running a food plant isn’t as simple as it seems, and requires a lot of financial capital and labor to run smoothly, Tate explained. This conversation is part of Modern Retail’s Chain Reactions series, in which we explore the quick and long-term investments retail brands are making amid the supply chain woes.

As securing space on container ships gets more expensive, brands are coming up with creative ways to make sure their products take up less space. One such company is DTC luggage brand Paravel. Since launching in late 2016, the company has been working on ways to reduce its carbon footprint and optimize its freight routes. One reason for this is because the majority of Paravel’s products are made across Asia and in Italy -- two hubs that experienced delays during the pandemic. These delays prompted co-founders Indré Rockefeller and Andy Krantz to get creative with Paravel’s container packing methods. Instead of shipping empty suitcases, in the past year the company created a packing consolidation program for its manufacturing and loading crew. This process entails nesting Paravel suitcases and carry-on bags inside each other before being shipped to the U.S. While this requires a lot of coordination between manufacturers and offshore logistics, the results are worth the planning, co-founder and CEO Krantz said on the Modern Retail Podcast. This program is also influencing Paravel’s future product design and configurations. “There’s an element of innovation and spatial consideration that this process has introduced and made tangible for everyone on the team,” Krantz said. “From our production and product development folks, to our marketers, to our finance and operation teams.” This conversation is part of a series, called Chain Reactions, in which Modern Retail explores the quick and long-term investments brands are making to minimize their supply chain woes.

International manufacturing continues to create headaches for American brands. For card and board game maker Exploding Kittens, producing the majority of its products in China has had a domino effect on its overall distribution process. “We’ve had challenges for two years now,” Carly McGinnis, head of production, sales and logistics at Exploding Kittens, said on the Modern Retail Podcast. That’s mainly because “about 90 to 95% of all of our goods are produced in China,” she said. In 2020, Exploding Kittens’ initial challenges were not so much with production or freight coming out of China -- but more so with shuttered warehouses domestically. This year, like many others, Exploding Kittens’ logistics team is dealing with double the manufacturing timetables, as well as bottlenecks at California’s ports. The company has experimented with manufacturing in other places over the years. “We’ve produced things in Poland in the past, but China just offers efficiency, quality materials and speed to market like no other location worldwide for us,” said McGinnis. “So we’ve been tremendously reliant on China since the beginning of the company.” Still, the accumulating issues have led the company, which launched in 2009, to look for production facilities outside of China -- starting with Mexico and Poland. Furthermore, it’s exploring more trucking routes from alternative import ports, like Seattle, Washington. While these alternatives have their own downsides, McGinnis said it’s important to continue diversifying away from a rigid supply chain. This conversation is part of a series, called Chain Reactions, in which Modern Retail explores the quick and long-term fixes brands are making to minimize their supply chain woes.

If a boutique wants to carry products from handbag maker Scout, they are going to have to plan ahead. In mid-2020, Scout transitioned to a pre-book wholesale model, which entails giving retailers an opportunity to secure their orders “almost a year in advance,” founder Deb Waterman Johns said on the Modern Retail Podcast’s new series: Chain Reactions. Previously, Scout took retail orders on an as-needed basis and by estimating demand for their upcoming seasonal designs. “It’s a commitment on our part, as well as on their part,” she said of the upfront booking and payment transactions, Waterman Johns said. Wholesale retailers are a major part of the company’s business. Scout, which launched in 2004, and sells its handbags across roughly 50 stores, including local boutiques, gift shops and drugstores. This episode is the first in a series where Modern Retail explores the quick fixes brands are making as a result of the supply chain craziness experienced over the last year-plus. Chain Reactions will dig deep into short-term decisions that had longer-term effects. For Scout, its big change was to the way it handles orders. Waterman Johns said that because of the pandemic’s impact on these smaller accounts, Scout wanted to create a better system for wholesale orders. The shuttering and restructuring of many boutiques and gift shops -- where Scout sells its tote designs -- prompted Scout to want to better understand how it produces and distributes its inventory to wholesale partners, Waterman Johns said. For a business, selling out of products is usually a great thing. However, Waterman Johns said the company wanted to transition into a more efficient “newer normal,” in which Scout ensures its retail partners have access to the merchandise they want while the brand has better insight into its in-demand styles and patterns. So far, the results have been positive, Waterman Johns said. With advanced pre-booking, Scout can also better communicate inventory volume to its overseas manufacturers. Whereas previously, the company was “guesstimating” its wholesale demand (and selling off excess to off-price retailers in later seasons), the new pre-book model has helped avoid over or underestimating demand.

Yelitsa Jean-Charles says she was able to grow her business by being authentic. Jean-Charles is the founder and CEO of Healthy Roots Dolls, which makes toys that represent more diverse backgrounds. “I never really had dolls that look like me growing up,” she said. So, she designed Healthy Roots’ first product, Zoe, which Jean-Charles described as “a little brown girl with kinky curly hair.” Zoe was first devised in 2014 as part of a school project. In 2018, Jean-Charles launched a Kickstarter that raised $50,000. Earlier this year, the company raised a $1 million seed round. And, this past October, Healthy Roots landed in over 1,200 Target locations. Jean-Charles joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and talked about the company’s journey. Jean-Charles was able to grow the company by posting about her life and experiences. “I talk about loving yourself, I talk about hair, I post selfies, I post about my traction with my company,” she said, “I think it’s really authentic and it clicks with people.” In her eyes, that authenticity part is key. “I don’t think there’s any formula to going viral other than consistency and great content that speaks to a broad audience,” she said. Even so, virality presents a double-edge sword. “Going viral is terrible,” she said. “You run out of inventory, you don’t know when it’s going to be back.” Indeed, when a post of hers went viral earlier this year, Healthy Roots was already sold out of stock. She decided to use the moment as a way to gather preorders. While people waited for their dolls to get in stock, Healthy Roots provided updates. “We started doing Facebook Lives, Instagram lives, sending weekly updates,” Jean-Charles said. “We wrapped it around a narrative of Zoe coming back from a trip.” True, Zoe was at sea, but she wasn’t exactly sailing on a cruise boat -- more of a container ship. These touches are what have helped Healthy Roots grow. For now, it’s focused on one doll and its accessories. But Jean-Charles sees a bright future. “I think it would be a disservice to not explore every opportunity that presents itself to tell a story and connect with children,” she said.