'Everyone had a black luggage': How Away shook up the travel industry

25:45And you have to continue to, yes, address the customer who's going to value that original proposition and take them along with them. Now, that's not to say that one should be complacent about competition, because I believe that that's a dangerous behavior to have as well. But how do you channel that into more creativity and more innovation? That's the approach that I think is quite more interesting to explore. Definitely. And I think actually the advice you gave there, it sounds like it could apply to virtually any challenge, right? Where it's like really recognizing what's beyond your control and trying to make sure you stay focused.

26:20Is that probably one of the biggest challenges that you would outline for a way? You know, like just the dupe culture, the copycats. What else would you point to in terms of pain points just briefly? Even outside of dupe culture, the macro landscape currently is quite volatile. So yes, you might have a deep culture on one side, but look at everything that is impacting consumer brands today, right? It is complex geopolitical landscapes. It is a supply chain that always has its fair share of obstacles every year from tariffs to supply chain, big corridors are being stuck at the moment. And so if that's the case, and if that's the baseline, and if that's the new normal, how do you adapt and how do you build highly adapting teams to this being the new normal?

27:09That means even more resilience, even more adaptability, even more ability to pivot one way or the other when you need to do that. And those are great things to have to build a culture that's high performing. Those are great skills to develop and hone at every single level of your organization. So in a way, let's assume that this isn't the normal. Let's build businesses that are stronger than that. And that require us to take perspective, know when to pivot and when to shift direction and do that early enough. Right. We cannot be complacent anymore. Yeah, be agile. That's really great advice, especially today.

27:46I want to get your take on the future of D2C and retail because you've touched on distribution now a few times. Like some other brands we've had on this show, Away has long been seen as this poster child for the D2C movement. But last year, you also made headlines for pushing more aggressively into retail and wholesale, places like Amazon and Nordstrom. What made this the right time to strike there? truly a lot of people are thinking about D2C as very black and white. It's not. D2C in the early 2010s was about that very, very clear and almost exclusive focus into building a very strong website, sometimes a couple of flagship anchors around it.

28:29But that's not the full story. The full customer, I think is not just about sending your products straight from an e-commerce website. It's about you and I knowing each other, engaging with each other, me getting access to consumer data, insights to shape the next chapter of the company, right? So this is what I think is the most important piece of it. And how do you keep that, that interaction, that leaning in, that engagement with the customer, the community that you've built for the last 10 plus years, and you now compound it you expand it into meeting customers where they are based on the last 10 years of being a DTC business at a way that has manifested itself into DTC first or mostly into DTC smart let's take what's still the center of gravity for the brand which is an amazing website that's carrying a great luggage buying experience but let's compound that through we're gonna go and do that with other partners who believe in the power of community, just like we do, who are able to feed us insights that are very important to understand where we're going next as well.

29:42So the pendulum has shifted a lot. I think a lot of brands went through, we're going to be DTC first and only to wholesale is the way to go. I want to put the pendulum in the middle. The pendulum in the middle is what is your website used for? And for us, it's the highest integrity and expression of our storytelling, of our full assortment, of all the services we have for our customers like personalization or other services, and at the same time build an ecosystem around in which you can bring the great product to more people. Then operationally, the question becomes, what are all of the links between those things?

30:21So when we think about building a true omnichannel ecosystem, it's not even about all of those channels coexisting in parallel. It's about How do you bring back lifetime value in customers of having someone buy a product at Nordstrom and then get it personalized in a store, buy a product on Amazon and a second set on our website? How do you do all of those things with the tools that you have today? And to some extent, I think that the technology today is strong enough that it allows us to build on the best of DTC and the expansion and the awareness that a wholesale great partner can unlock in terms of accretive value to unlock new communities.

31:01And when you say you want that pendulum to be in the middle, is that quite literally? I mean, you're a private company, so feel free to share what you want. But, you know, is there a ratio that you're targeting in terms of the whole D to C player, you know, versus the wholesale and conventional retail side? We're not thinking about it in terms of percentage of what's the right mix, etc. We're thinking about it in terms of where should we go? Let's go there and do it well. And that will sort of like lend the pendulum where it is, right? On one side, we are actually operating one of the largest consumer goods e-commerce that I have seen.

31:34On the other side of things, we know that the customer is out there looking for the away products in other retail partners. the Nordstrom of the world, the Amazon of the world, the Dick's Sporting Goods of the world. And for us, when we look at onboarding new retail partners, we take that lens of who is their customer, how loyal is that customer, what is the online experience, what is the offline experience. And so we're going to continue to expand a couple of other distribution partners within that lens. We are opening a few this year. We actually are opening Revolve Forward coming up as well, which I'm incredibly excited to partner with.

32:14It's a fashion story. It's a color story. It's a premium story in the positioning. And they have great assortment that I'm very proud to be a part of. We have a lot more, frankly, that are coming up as well for the rest of the year that you'll see us announcing. And that's because the customer is out there looking for the brand. And we think we have an answer and a strong proposition for them. You know, just on the note about partnerships, Away has collaborated with so many designers, celebrities and brands on really fun limited edition collections, including a really fun partnership with White Lotus last year.

32:48Is it also about the fact that, you know, this is a category where there's not a ton of repeat purchasing, so people don't always buy a new suitcase, right? Is that part of the strategy here to really stay top of mind to consumers? Okay, so this is a great question because when I came into the brand, I was thinking to myself, hmm, love the product, love the category. How often do you bring the customer back into the fold, right? What is the time between a first purchase and a second purchase? Well, the role of our teams is to sort of reduce that time and to do that in a very, I think, intelligent and clever way.

33:23So why are people coming back to get a second purchase? One, very often we see that they love the first carry-on that they bought and now they're building their set. So they're going to buy a large or a trunk to go with it or perhaps a second carry-on for them or their partners. The second thing is that we have an incredibly generous community who loves to gift our products to their friends and family as well. So they are coming and them themselves are becoming ambassadors and evangelists. And so they are coming back and they're exposing the brands to more people. The third way in is that customers are coming in and opting into a new product category.

34:04So they might have our bigger carry-on, which is our bestseller, and they'll add the personal items to go with it. The duffels, the backpats, the gym bags, the diaper bags, the pet carriers, etc. And then finally, some people are coming in through the lens of partnerships. And indeed, we've had a very busy, exciting schedule of partnerships where we are bringing such fun to the category that sometimes you just want to upgrade. Sometimes you just want to get the new version because it is such a fun expression, again, of color or a moment in time, of a reflection of how you're traveling in that year, that you know what?

34:43It's worth it. You're going to do it. And White Lotus was such a great example of that. The collection sold out. It was beautiful. And the storytelling around it was, I think, really, really well done. And we have a few more coming up. We just announced a partnership with Disney for the new movie of Toy Story 5. So that's a collection for families with kid-sized luggage working as well as an away adult luggage as well. But with the fun and the understanding that people are traveling differently when they're traveling for family, when they're traveling for entertainment, for fandom, and we want to tap into that as well.

35:19We also are announcing this spring a partnership with Amtrak. And this is more a reflection on how customers are sometimes now choosing to use train travel as well and slower pace travel. So this is us understanding how the customer behavior in traveling has changed and bringing partnerships to life that honor that and products to life that make sense for that type of travel as well. So partnerships, not only they're incredibly fun, but for us, they're a great way to bring customers back into the fold, to tell different stories, to test things out in market, and to have fun with a category that should be fun when we talk about travel.

36:02It sounds like a lot of it is turning. It's not a need, it's a want. Right. So that's really great. And also it makes me curious. I feel like you guys must be bucking the trend in terms of the repeat purchases and the frequency that you're seeing people do that. Because to your point, it's almost like just with the partnership of Revolve, for example, it's really turning it into an accessory that you want to carry. You got it. Exactly right. And when you talk about that, I think that we talk a lot about desirability, right? And that's sort of like that need to warmth, thin line of, I need to get my hands on this, which is fun.

36:33Again, a product like a luggage doesn't have to be a boring black rectangle. It can be fun. It can be an expression of yourself and you should treat yourself for it. You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of our place, the Always Pan. Like you don't always need a new pan, but sometimes you just want that nice new color. That's right. Exactly right. So very interesting. You talked a little bit about growth in categories. For a long time, Away was known for the hard shell luggage. But in 2024, you guys expanded into soft side bags. For a consumer, this might not seem like a huge deal, but on the operational side, how has that been different?

37:06And then can you tease any other new categories that you might be looking at? Speaking of the next decade. In the US, about 50 % of the population travel with a soft side suitcase. So how do we package everything that we learned and did so well with hard shell into the soft side product that had basically never been updated in market, right? And so we brought to life in 2024 that soft side. We actually just refreshed our soft side with premium features that just hit market in the last couple of weeks as well. And we're going to continue to invest in SoftSide as a category that just serves a purpose that people really like to engage with.

37:47Similar to SoftSide, we actually just launched a net new product category with our SoftSide Garment Roller Bag a few weeks ago, which is check-in size, which allows you to put seven to eight full-size garments and to put them on a hanger system that we've built inside the luggage. so that when you arrive at destination, there's no wrinkles. You don't need to scramble for a steamer or an iron. It's such a fun product. It's essentially a closet on the wheel. And it's about, again, solving the pain points of specific types of travelers. So that's an example of a net new product category that we've brought to market.

38:28Now, this year, in the next couple months specifically, we're coming to market with products that are clever in how they use the space around them, how they use the space inside of the luggage as well, trying to, again, understand that people are traveling in different places and that they might have not all of the space in the world to expand their suitcase everywhere. And so we're thinking a lot through that. And that has a lot of industrial engineering complexities that we need to fix. So you asked that question about Southside. It's new factories, it's new tooling, it's new expertise, it's new testing standards, even for us, on what is that product supposed to do and how do we make sure we bring the best possible version of it to market.

39:15The same goes for all of the innovation that we have this year. And I'm smiling because in the back of my head, I have my team telling me, Jess, we're launching products every month at some point this year. And I'm like, yes, we are. And this is incredibly exciting. And we have all of those stories to tell. But a lot of products are really through the lens of innovation of features, not just color or partnerships. And also, it's just so funny to hear about how your team would talk to you about this, because I was going to say, when you're spouting off all of these new features, all of these new partnerships, I'm like, that's a lot of work behind the scenes, right?

39:50And you're We're just like, OK, this is so fun, guys. But everyone is just like, wait, I'm tired. What we're coming up to market is actually a very small portion of all of the ideas at the beginning of the year or the year prior that everyone has. But again, it's about the focus and the time to make the right decision. We think that there's a lot of right calls, though, that we can make this year. Staying on expansion, you know, in recent years, obviously, Away has significantly grown its international footprint. When you look overseas, which market really represents the biggest growth opportunity to you?

40:21And what regions are you most focused on? The vast majority of our business is still centered in North America, in the U.S. specifically. We do operate international flagships in both Canada and the U.K. And we see great promise in both those international markets to continue building both awareness, but also there's a lot of potential in understanding even how people are traveling there. An example of that is in Europe, the international carry-on size that most airlines require is actually a little smaller and slimmer than your standard carry-on here in the US. So how do we truly bring to market solutions for that?

40:59So we're going to continue to double down on Canada, on the UK specifically, with also some interesting, fun new retail that we're going to be launching over the summer there and products that we want to make sure serves the nature of the traveler there. Ultimately, in the next two to three years, there's going to be a lot more international expansion that way. We are excited to see the potential that the product has all over the world. And it's a product that lends itself so well to it. You're traveling in any airport all over the world. And it is my greatest joy to see Away suitcases arriving on the belt or rolling through a terminal in Tokyo, Hong Kong, San Paolo, Mexico City, etc.

41:45And so I think we want to honor that. And we're thinking a lot about what the timeline looks like. But it's happening. Also, just in terms of localization, you just brought up a great point about like the different carry-on size in Europe. Are there any other kind of like travel trends or ways that you've sought to localize your product as you look abroad? When we launched our great first product, it had a battery that was integrated into it. And that was a little bit also, I mean, that was very new. And that was, I think, what helped the story being what is this new brand that's coming to market?

42:17It's genius. we had to remove that and retrofit the luggage based on airline regulations asking you to now remove the battery pack when you're traveling and so that's not an example of how we've retrofitted our assortment in the past and we stay very close to how those guidelines are changing how the sizing is changing as well to bring to market the best possible highest quality product to life that has the most capacity, right? When people are traveling, what they're looking for is durability and capacity. Those are the two non-negotiable things that people are looking for when they're researching luggages.

42:57So we stay close to those stats, those new regulations. And then, as I mentioned, we also stay close to outside of air travel, how people are traveling in train, in cars, with their families, to other destinations. An example of that is the rise of entertainment travel, people traveling for concerts, for festivals, all of the people traveling for sports. This is extremely not only fun, but very rich in the product assortment that we can bring to market. One of our bestseller non-luggage product is a transparent mini crossbody that is great for a festival because you get into stadiums with it. And so truly understanding, again, how we are your travel companion in all of those moments.

43:43Let's shift to Outlook. You know, you can't talk to a business leader today without getting their view on AI. What is Away's AI strategy? Are there any interesting applications that you're currently exploring? Yes, on all of it. So for us, truly, AI as a consumer brand, it's an enabler. It's a tool that allows us to spend more time about thinking what matters the most in the business, going back to a lot of strategic thinking, long-term thinking, because we can upload, we can automate workflows a lot faster. And so we are doing that internally quite a bit. And this is touching all of the functions from marketing to operations, finance to customer service, truly being empowered to supercharge it as a tool, as an enabler of better ways of working and more time spent on the right things.

44:32However, on the other side, AI is also changing how customers are thinking about to travel. More people than ever before are using AI to plan for tools, to get ideas for trips, to get full itineraries being planned. And it's a very, very interesting moment that's happening because at the same time that you're seeing that, you're also seeing the rise of way more white glove service travel planning, a lot more luxury, high touch, human fueled planning that sort of brings back the humanity of travel. So how do you combine those two things? Because they're changing how customers are traveling. For a brand like us, it really is about visibility in some of the recommendations.

45:19So as travelers are typing, what is the best luggage for this trip that I have? You want to make sure as a consumer brand that you're showing up that's forcing us to hone our skills in the new type of SEO that we are calling GEO around AI visibility and recommendations and how do we also now that planning and packing are closer than ever before bring some of those insights and some of that like planning fun earlier into the journey so AI as an enabler internally to truly focus on strategic moments and AI as a disruptor into the travel world for consumers, impacting how we're thinking about the development of services in our overall broader ecosystem.

46:06Yeah, it's interesting. You talk about focus, but it's interesting. I feel like you are, like many other type A people on the show, quite a yes person. You're very go, go, go, go, go. How do you manage your time and priorities with all of the myriad of things that are on your list probably day to day? know we've talked about this but I go back to clarity and focus and if you know exactly what are the non-negotiables and you hold accountable to that it allows for less distraction on all of the shiny other things that you want to say yes to but it's not no forever it's not right now right and so I spend a lot of time about the sequencing of those priorities of all of those opportunities that to your point I do want to say yes yes yes let's do this it's great it makes sense we're going to grow through it but you cannot do all of it at the same time you have to resource manage properly and you have to understand what needs to happen first what are the strong foundations what's going to strengthen the overall operating model before you can say yes to a lot of those things so going back to being quite disciplined in our growth quite intentional in our growth is really critical at this moment of um our our journey is that specifically something where like you know you might look at your diary in the morning and be like there's only three priorities I want to knock off today?

47:18Or like, what does that look like in practice? Just to be really specific. To be very specific. Yes, actually, I do that. I look at my calendar for the day. And I try to be as ruthless as possible with it. What are the things that are absolutely required to happen today? What are the other projects that without me looking at it or my input, they're not going to move forward? I'm being the blocker. I don't want to be the bottleneck for it. And then also within that carving out moment in my agenda, in which you can think about the future. You can brainstorm about your positioning, your assortment, where you're going next, right?

47:53Protecting and preserving that time in a very tactical way is very important. Otherwise, you're going to get pulled out into so many meetings in different directions that it's going to be hard to actually get the big work done. Yeah, the deep work. Yeah, that is really underrated, I think. For years, Away has faced questions about an IPO. What can you share about the latest on that? Are you going public anytime soon? It's a great question and a question that it's always kind of nice to think about, right? Because seeing a liquidity event of that type is an exciting moment, I think, for any consumer brand.

48:25What I'm focused on right now is strengthening the way of today and of tomorrow immediately. And that's the laser focus that I have and that my team has on the business. So could it happen? Maybe one day, right? But I will tell you, we're not focused on that at this very moment in time. Okay, not right now. Zooming out, Jessica, what is your end game here? If we were to sit back down and let's say 10 years from now, you talk about the decade, right? Where would you want a way to be? Great question. And I would feel very proud of a brand who's still top of mind for pioneering a travel forward product and services to customers all around the world, right?

49:06And considering to hone in on the community that we've built in the last decade and the one that's coming, and for that community to know that we are their travel companion, that we've innovated to keep up with how travel is changing, how their travel has been changing as well, I would feel very, very proud to be there for us. And you're right, we are building a brand in decade. I mean, I mentioned that and I strongly stand by it, which means that we're not pursuing short term, short live trends or moments, right? We're not bringing a product to market because everyone else is doing it. We're not bringing a feature to market that is going to be gimmicky and outdated in two years.

49:47We are building for the long term. When we're bringing products to market, I always think about and challenge my team to think about, is this a product that is still going to be relevant three years, five years, seven years, 10 years from now? Now, 10 years in, it is incredibly, deeply rewarding to see and to hear stories from travelers who bought their first away in 2016, 2017. They have travel stories to tell us, right? You start dissociating the product to the stories behind it, and then they come back together. And that carry-on that maybe has a few scuffs, maybe wanted to dance along the way, now is the memories of the weddings that you went to, the first business trips, all the different jobs that you had.

50:31That capital is incredibly precious, right? It goes back to the product unlocking the stories of travel that are shaping us all over and that are making us, I think, who we are. And building that ecosystem, continuing to go and to lean into those stories, that's what we're building for. All right. This brings me to a segment we're calling What It Takes, where an audience member gets to ask for advice or hear more on what it takes to go where you are. Today, Jennifer, an e-commerce founder based in London, asks, Jessica, you've had such a remarkable career. What was the toughest inflection point for you along the way, not just operationally, but just emotionally or strategically?

51:14And how did you get through it? There are hard calls all the time. There are tough calls all the time. For me, one of the biggest ones when I look back at my career is when you think you're ready for something else. and stepping away from an assignment or a mandate as an executive that you've not only enjoyed doing, but you were actually quite successful at. And the lens that I use for that often is, am I still growing? Am I still learning? Am I continuing to have fun in the job that I'm doing day in and day out? And listen, hard days are real. We all have them, but you don't want to have too many of them in a row.

51:56And when you start answering no to a few of those questions, a little bit too often, you have sometimes to make the hard call of, I need to do something else. I need to stretch my mind. I need to stretch my thinking into another way. And it's both, it's very bittersweet because I think it's both very productive and needed, but also it's a tough call. And it's sometimes, you know, heart-wrenching to leave a team that you've hired and built and really love. Thank you so much, Jess. Now we're going to end with a quick rapid fire round. Let's do it. Don't overthink it. Okay. Are you a get to the airport early person or arrive just in time person?

52:31I arrive just in time. And I will tell you, I missed the first flight in my entire life last week. It happened. Yes, but I was so sad about it. I had a perfect track record of never, ever missing a flight. So I usually like cut it very close. And this one, unfortunately, got it too close. Oh, my goodness. I am the same way, by the way. For the record, I have not missed one yet. But my husband keeps telling me it's going to happen one day. Carry on or check bag? Carry on. Not only because I'm now very efficient in the away playbook of packing. So I have my compression packing cubes. I have my bigger carry on, which is great.

53:09There's nothing that I like less than waiting for my luggage once I arrive at the destination. I just want to get out of the airport as soon as I can. Yeah, I love the packing cubes. So good. Do you like to travel with a plan or do you like to go with the flow? OK, I unfortunately like to travel with a plan. And I say unfortunately because I'm trying to be more spontaneous in my travels as well. And before AI, who was a huge help, you should see that my travel is done in Excel. So it's all of my itinerary, all of my columns. Yes, yes. I unfortunately traveled with Excel spreadsheets. You are that girl.

53:43I am that girl. Oh, my God. I love it. OK, what is one brand you admire for its storytelling? You know, I think that Gap has done a fantastic, fantastic job into bringing another Gap Renaissance into the world with their partnership, the quality of their products, their design with Zach Pozen that are just hitting every single time. And it's beautiful to see. And as a Gap girl who grew up, you know, in the 90s wearing those hoodies, just seeing it coming back to market with such vibrance is incredibly exciting and inspiring to see. I think that's a good one. Victoria Beckham also just came up.

54:19Yeah. One destination on your personal bucket list. I would love to take my kids to Tokyo to explore the vibrancy of the city, taste all the foods and see the cherry blossoms, maybe even go skiing. We are raising New York City kids who fortunately and fortunately love sushi. And it's so funny to me to see a five-year-old just eating all of this. So I promised myself that I would take her to Japan at some point. That's very sweet. How do you like to unwind after a long week? Pretty boring unwinding. I love to just go home, spend time with my two children, my husband, perhaps a glass of wine, a Netflix show, and then go to bed not too late.

55:03Yeah, just like us. What do you like to ask when you're hiring? What I like to ask when I'm hiring, what I get to get the sense of is how curious the person is and how much of a firefighter they are. And what I mean by firefighter is someone who sees a problem is going to run into the building to try to save the day and have ownership of that. So curiosity, accountability, and that idea of problem solving, even outside of the scope, that's always what I'm looking for in people. What is one piece of advice, lastly, that you come back to often? I think that you cannot underestimate culture and the power it has to drive performance.

55:41And companies who are focused on that, who are building strong culture in which people feel proud of doing the work, including the hard work, are the same companies that are going to see good performance in the market and that are going to be able to build resiliently for the future. So don't underestimate the power of culture to drive performance. Wow. Well said. Just thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. That was great. Thanks for joining us on Behind the Business. For more stories on business and leadership, follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

56:16See you next week.