The Thursday Show: Why Havenly bought The Expert. Plus: The uber-affluent are spending big on security

24:41I've written articles about it. I feel like I could just keep hearing it week by week and a new story along those lines pops up. Yeah, no, no, no. So, I mean, this is definitely something that everyone is focused on. And again, it's happening so quickly and the whole conversation around agentic AI and what it's going to be able to do for people, it's going to be transformative and very soon. And so these brands need to show up. And I think the designers are going to need to show up as well. Yeah. And here would be the great thing if we could tell you, here's what you need to do in order to show up first and chat GPT, but maybe we'll try and find somebody who's a credible non-snake oil salesman of AEO advice and get them on the show.

25:22Because I think it's just a little murky right now and hopefully there'll be a playbook that emerges, but as is often the case with new technology, it's a little murky and we don't know, but we'll get back to you on that one. In the meantime, we're going to talk about home security. This week, the Wall Street Journal reported on a new trend among the uber affluent military-grade security. According to the article, safe rooms, biometric access controls, and laser-powered perimeter defenses are now mainstream in luxury homes. Scary though that may be, Fred. Yes, visual comfort makes an excellent biometric access control.

26:02Yeah, I mean, this was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal. And I think, you know, we probably wanted to talk about it because, oh, aren't these kinds of security measures kind of interesting and funny? And then you read the article, and it's a little less funny after you go through it. Yes. Hear about all the violent crimes and all of that and the breakdown of society and everything. But it is it is a real thing. You know, in the article, the journalist pointed out that 45 percent of luxury homes sold in 2025. You know, the listing includes a reference to privacy or security, which is much more than it was even in 2024.

26:37So clearly this is, you know, for the ultra wealthy. This is a top of mind concern. And some of these things that they talked about in the article are just my like casino grade cameras, whatever that is. And someone spent a million dollars on bullet resistant smart glass. And there's even kind of some occasionally good design component. This one guy built a home. I think it was in the southwest somewhere where it was. There's a fireplace which which has like a quartzite surround and it turns red if the alarm goes up. It's almost like, I'd say it's like James Bondian kind of funny, but it really is kind of insane.

27:11This is both very real. And again, much like the conversation we were just having, this isn't going away either. And the article, this article and others about this subject have made it very clear this is a very fast growing category around home, that there are just so many issues to be considered. And clearly so many designers at the very high end are already having these conversations and there are whole security teams and consultants that are brought in and key decisions have to be made about the timing issues for architecture and design to happen. Often the security related matters have to happen first and all sorts of additional non-disclosure agreements about what you know about the security layout of the spaces have to be signed as well.

28:02A whole other layer in all of this. Yeah. I mean, I think like, you know, as if there wasn't enough stuff that was taking away from the design budget, you know, it's like - Exactly, that's where my mind went. Yeah, it's like we have to install like a support beam so we can't buy, you know, drawer pulls. Now it's like we need a million dollars on bulletproof smart glass so we can't buy pillows. So I don't know, that's kind of like a silly take on it, But I do think it's, as you said, this is happening more and more. And this is kind of like to tie it into like another thing I've noticed more recently is that I do think designers are having a harder time getting their clients to allow photos to be taken.

28:38And I think it's part of this sort of it's a couple of things. It's the fact that like social media makes it that, you know, everybody has access to every image at all time everywhere. And I think that, you know, clients are understandably a little bit nervous about that. And then there are also this sort of heightened sense of I'm going to say like violence in America. And there have been these very high profile violent crimes recently that I think make the Uber affluent feel like I'm next or, you know, the country's at war with itself. And I don't think that's necessarily true, but I understand that that vibe is out there.

29:07And it's something I wish we didn't have to talk about or think about. But I think that kind of security concern being paramount for more and more people is something that designers have to keep in mind, whether whether it's a good thing or not. I agree. And I think that there is there's there's a real mood in the. country right now. And we talked recently about showing off your affluence. And when we talk to a lot of designers, they say, not my clients, my clients aren't so eager to show off their affluence. And I think your point about photography and all of that, more and more, I hear less and less is right.

29:46So I think designers are having a hard time about that. And I do think a lot of designers are making decisions about, do I take this project where they're going to let me photograph, but it's not as nice a project as this one where they're not going to let me photograph. It's interesting. But I think in a time where we see designers being forced to get in front of the camera a lot more, their clients seem less eager to get in front of the camera. So, and the security is a big part of it. And honestly, you read these articles and you understand it. Yeah, no, I know. Sadly. Yeah, exactly. Sadly.

30:18So again, another issue that I think we're going to be coming back to in the future, but suddenly not my favorite subject. All right, that's it for the news, but there's plenty more to check out on businessofhome.com, including advice from business coach Gail Doby on selling a design firm and a profile of floral artist Kyle Barrett. But first, a quick break.

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32:00And we're back. I'm joined now by returning guest, the CEO of Havenly, Lee Mayer. Lee, always great to have you on the show. It's great to be here. I'm delighted. Let's remind everyone what Havenly is and the whole stable of brands that Havenly has become over the years and chat a little bit about where all that stands in your mind. Yeah. So Havenly, as you know, started out as an online interior design service. So pretty straightforward, pretty basic, more than a decade ago. Yes. And along the way, we started to look at these beloved brands that were in the marketplace and started to think about how we partner with them.

32:48In many cases, these brands had come into either financial difficulties or felt like it was unsustainable to kind of continue to exist in a standalone capacity. And so we ended up either buying them or buying the assets of the brands and kind of trying to bring them back to life underneath new leadership. Currently, our portfolio is Havenly, as well as, gosh, Inter-Divine Borough. Yes. Citizen Reed, St. Frank and the Inside. That's right. And of course, our newest to join the family, the expert. Da, da, da, the expert. Exactly. Cue the music and lots of fanfare. And there are even more designers watching this, I feel, than even some of the earlier acquisitions and the conversations that we've had.

33:34So I want to get into that aspect of it. But first, tell people what the expert is for those who might not be familiar. here? So the expert actually is an incredible way to get access to the nation's best interior designers. So it's the ability to sort of go online, book a consultation with folks like Jake Arnold or Leanne Ford, and really get to pick their brain in a lot of ways. And I think over the years, what the expert's done beyond the consultations, which is sort of what they were known for, at least to the consumer, is really build up a trade program that gave trade access to sourcing from other beloved trade brands.

34:15And in the process has developed a lot of interesting tooling and sourcing tooling and the ability to sort of manage both procurement and sourcing for those designers. So this business couldn't have been started by us, right? It had to be started by someone like Jake, who is wonderful and is now a Havenly shareholder. And, you know, I think what, though, helps people continue to use the platform is the fact that it was, I think, a mutually beneficial thing for the experts. And by the way, they've done a very good job of keeping the folks that are available from consult very tight. We're going to continue that.

34:55We didn't buy this for revenue reasons. It was much more of a strategic sort of asset for us, although they have grown their revenue substantially. I think the part that we think is so magical that they have developed is that like, oh gosh, like these amazing designers get extra income. They get this like ability to sort of help people that they normally wouldn't be able to help. And folks on the other side get access to like a level of talents that they wouldn't be able to get necessarily in their hometowns or with their budgets. And I thought, I think it's just like a really nice sort of complete and distinct thing that exists in the market.

35:32And I think like one of the things that we're very conscious of, we want to make sure we preserve that component. There is no desire to make the consultation side any bigger. In fact, if anything, we'd like to make it easier for the designers in particular, see if we could bring a little bit more structure and process and customer support to the process. So they're doing even more of what they love to do and less of the other stuff. And you mentioned that part of the appeal was more strategic for you versus the hope of some giant revenue growth from this. So tell me what the appeal was for you from the strategic side.

36:12Yeah, it's so funny because I think about this. We went, me and my chief of staff sort of run acquisitions or at least run the front part of acquisitions together, which is like you take the meeting with the CEO or the investor and you sort of figure out like, is it something we're going to pursue or is it just something to file away for us? And we went into that meeting and I I was sort of like, yeah, I don't know what we do with it. Like, you know, we don't want to ruin it. And then we went into that meeting and we met Leanne. And I think her vision for what the expert could become without changing what the magical component of the expert is.

36:45So her vision was never like, oh, let's just bring in tons more experts and a lot more consultation revenue. Her vision was like, hey, like this is an interesting asset to have really high-end designers and high-end clients really love what you do, but we're not going to scale that component because it kind of gets in the way of what's special about the expert. Instead, let's think about how we can take our marketplace, our tooling, and really try and grow revenue by serving the trade, by serving these clients and customers that we love. And I just love that mission. And we realized that we have a lot of technology that we built that is only getting used in our sort of walled garden.

37:25And the trade continues to be a more and more impactful part of our overall brand strategy. And like, gosh, wouldn't it be great to try and figure out if we can bring modern tools to like this in very, very important client and customer segment that we have? Was your sense that the reason they were even having this meeting with you was because they knew that in order to really scale this, they just needed a meaningful partner? Or what was really at play for them, do you think? Yeah, I think it's, I mean, we've talked, you and I have talked about this before. They're kind of like, in this world of home and interior design, they're kind of like a couple different flavors of companies.

38:07And there's like, companies that are truly distressed. And then there are companies that are like, hey, it'd be nice if we found a partner. and and then there was companies that they're like we're not for sale but that's like you know increasingly fewer um i think these days just because of i think what the last five four or five years have borne for this industry so actually leanne interestingly um one of their investors that i think is a board is on their board um hayley barna was a classmate of mine physical and and as the world turns she reached out and said hey like you know they're kind of okay but like you know we're thinking we've had an offer you know i think there was a there was another offer um for a sale and uh you know she was like would you want to take a look you know no pressure i think you i think you'd like leon anyway so you might as well right um and so that's kind of the i think the impetus as we got to know each other i think there were two things.

39:04So the first is because they had to sort of purposefully keep the consultation business small, they really wanted to scale, but to scale, they really need to scale the kind of like their partnerships, their technology, their capabilities, their ops. And that's just hard to do. It's hard to do. It's a lot of work. And frankly, it's stuff that we had already done. We have a full logistics team. We have a lot of technology. We have a lot of process set up. So I think it's just easier when you look at their strategic focus to have a partner behind them. I think in general, though, to be a smaller business right now is just harder.

39:43It's just the overhead of all of the things you need to do to keep the lights on as a business is a lot when you aren't quite at a certain level of scale. And so in general, we're finding, and this is not necessarily just the expert, but overall, if you haven't reached the$100 million mark, or even if you have, there's a lot of interest in combining forces with someone who either hasn't developed or someone else just to get that level of scale to make it sort of worth it. The funny thing about announcing yet another deal with Lee Mayer and Havenly. So there's one group that says, how much money does this woman have?

40:23How can they possibly, right? As if you're just sitting on this mountain of money just waiting for the next acquisition. And I don't get the sense from you that that's quite the case at all. No, sadly, very sadly for us. So, I mean, it becomes, therefore, much more of, I assume, rather than some giant buyout, it becomes a strategic acquisition of sorts, right, that requires everyone to sort of buy into this longer term vision, I'm assuming. For the most part, you know, sometimes we do do a little bit of cash in our deals. It depends on the deal. But yeah, for the most part, you have some piece of upside tied to our upside.

41:05And, you know, sometimes I'll be candid, you know, and I can't be specific to the experts specifically, but in general, oftentimes venture backed companies prefer that because market valuations are so compressed right now that if you sold for cash, you would never recoup your investment. But there's a chance that like if you can sort of wait it out with us, that we'd sell at a more appealing sort of time in the market. And so you could actually recoup and get more money back and, you know, really see the upside. And so that's a lot of when we do these deals, you know, I'm selling the vision of Havenly as well, because unfortunately, I don't come with like a bajillion dollars attached to me.

41:46I don't have a bunch of money for you, but what I do have is a brilliant vision of the future. You're going to love it. Please come be part of it. Yeah, it's always it's but it is interesting. I think if you if you know the space, it's you know, there aren't a lot of deals getting done for cash for that reason. Right. And so speak to speak to what you just addressed, which is this market value compression that the entire industry is dealing with at the moment. And first explain that for listeners and then just let's talk about it. Yeah. I mean, I think if you think about the space in 2021, right.

42:28The good old days. The good old days. Oh, had we known. Yeah, as you think about it, and in particular in private markets, but you can also see it if you trace public markets, what you saw was a really kind of frothy perspective on home, driven by what we now know is COVID pull forward and driven by sort of low interest rates and all of America moving and taking advantage of that. I think, you know, one of the things that I think is sort of interesting also in the private markets is you just had a lot of private capital sloshing around. And that was on all corners of the world, but definitely in home and just broadly what I'd call direct-to-consumer e-commerce.

43:12There was a lot of dollars floating around. And so you'd see these people raise all of this money at like really, really high valuations that were largely tied to sort of like massive run-ups and growth that were unsustainable. Unsustainable because consumer demand was pulled forward and, you know, it didn't sort of persist in the same way as interest rates came back up. But also unsustainable because oftentimes people were making decisions for in favor of growth without an eye towards profitability, which, you know, I like to say, I guess I'm kind of old fashioned. But like at some point as a business, you should probably think about making money.

43:49And a lot of these businesses were set up structurally to not make money because of the way that like sort of private dollars were chasing revenue growth specifically in this space. And so I think, you know, fundamentally, you saw two things happen. You saw sort of demand drop. And then you saw a lot of private investors exiting the space. And again, you know, you could see it a little bit in the public markets. Although the public markets honestly have been a little bit more friendly to home than the private markets have been. Private markets, like, you're kind of illiquid right now. Like, I don't, you know, there's like no funding rounds happening.

44:25There's no, you know, it's just kind of like a stagnant place to be because people for the most part have, you know, over the last few years, exited out of home and direct-to-consumer e-commerce and consumer categories in general in favor of what looked like kind of like enterprise SaaS and now AI. And so I think fundamentally, when there is unfortunately no demand for your equity, your valuations start to get really compressed. And so if you were to go out and sell now, the valuation you get is certainly far lower than it ever was if you could get there anyway. And so it becomes like for your investors and yourself, you know, it becomes a little bit of this, okay, I can sit in it and like hope that things come back and we get another 2021 like boom.

45:14But that feels like more of the anomaly now that we're getting sort of further away from it. And so a lot of folks are like, all right, well, let's partner together and like build something big and great together. Instead of me like, you know, holding on to this for the next five years and hoping for another 2021 style boom. Now, this is changing. I will say, if you've been following public markets, now that I guess AI can rebuild enterprise SaaS, maybe we're starting to look good now. Like you can't replace a sofa with AI, you know? Sassmageddon and the, right? And the seek and destroy mission that's been going on for software companies.

45:50It's been pretty brutal. So it has been. So, you know, maybe we're looking pretty good to y 'all now. I don't know. Yeah, but it does. And obviously we'll talk more about AI, But the other interesting part in where so much of the market has tried to go is to move higher and higher up the luxury mountain, as Gary Friedman likes to say, and so many brands, even the big high point furniture brands trying to focus on how do we get more designers, how do we get more trade. This expert acquisition seems like a natural sort of step up for you to be speaking more to that trade customer and whether you're imagining bringing Interior Define and St.

46:33Frank and the Citistry into the offerings that the designers would have for the expert. I assume that's a natural sort of synergy, right? Yeah, I mean, we have historically had a pretty strong trade business, in particular on interior design, just because of the custom nature of the product. But also St. Frank, to your point, and Citizenry have had sort of a strong trade program, and we're continuing to expand a little bit there. I think this is like sort of, you know, we were talking to the expert on a commercial deal to bring St. Frank onto the platform. And so this is like sort of another another manifestation of that.

47:08And I think that's really interesting to us. Trade in general for us has been our growth spot last year. So, you know, we grew on the consumer side, but nothing like how we grew on the trade side. The trade side has held up quite substantially well for us. And it's been, you know, it's sort of a natural place to go. Exactly. And that seems across the board for the for the industry. And so everyone's trying to think, how do we get closer to that space? So before we talk more about that, let's share. So the other anxiety that's going on, right, to the people that respond to the news is, oh, you know, what's this going to mean for all the designers that are on there?

47:44What changes are coming? Is it going to be some – what changes do you imagine happening? and what do you think people will feel or see initially and longer term? Yeah, so really, you know, nothing. I don't mean to be like a total letdown here, but we don't anticipate changing anything except for things that maybe you would choose to use over time as we develop. So, you know, we're looking at developing a lot of sourcing tooling, a lot of procurement tooling. We're thinking about bringing our 3D rendering side over so you can have that available to you. None of that is forced. You do not have to use it.

48:26It's just a nice benefit. In most cases, we offer that for free. So that won't change. I don't think there's anything that's going to change on the consult side or on the vendor side. You know, our hope is we don't completely destroy the value of the asset that we just bought, if that makes sense. So that's in our economic best interest. Exactly. Exactly. And when you think about that and this longer term vision that you've sold to Jake Arnold and to Leanne and everyone else who's coming on board with this, how do you imagine this growing and complementing? And the other question that everyone wants to know is, what do you do with all these brands?

49:09Do they all come together in some way that makes sense? And tell me. Well, it's a great question. So on the designer side, actually, one other kind of strategic thought since we brought up AI is I've been thinking a lot about the fact that AI can do some elements of design. But what it really highlights, though, is like the specialness of the human designer. And I think this is really like a step in that direction for us where we're like, these are human beings that are artists. They're like the best in the field. And like figuring out how to create and have a brand that is so distinctly separate from AI and AI design and like AI slop and all that other stuff, I think was really important to me in this world, in this market.

49:54it. And so as we think about what we're doing on the design side, I think it's like, how do we take the best parts of this industry and figure out, particularly now as you're starting to see more of a generational shift in the trade too, and bring them, you know, tools that our designers have used for years and have loved and really, you know, kind of enhance their ability to be, you know, sort of special in the world, like be the artist in the world. I kind of hate the idea of like AI taking over interior design, honestly. Sorry, JTBT. Like, I like want to embrace this community because I think it's like, there's a lot of anxiety around it.

50:32And I feel like actually maybe the best thing to do is to invest in, again, the humanness and the magic of like a specific designer. And like the place AI or technology can come in is on the stuff that isn't special. But you're right, it's anyone's guess. And I can only imagine, I mean, frankly, like, you know, half our team that sits out there is anxious about AI. Like, our accounting team is like, are you guys going to automate accounting? And we're like, I don't know, maybe parts of it. I don't know. I mean, I think every company is undergoing this massive transformation of like what it means to do knowledge work.

51:09But like, even things like sourcing, like sourcing highly custom products just takes time. You're emailing back and forth and trying to figure out pricing and trying to figure out if it's doable. And I think just making it so that instead of it being, you know, six email touch points, making it so it's chatting into something and figuring it out and then adding it just like any of us would if we were shopping for ourselves, adding it to some list that someone can then transact upon and then managing that order through all its phases. You know, that's like a lot of work that oftentimes interior designers don't want to do and their teams don't want to do.

51:45And so even something as simple as that is something that can reduce both the amount of time it takes, your kind of quality of service, but also just like, you know, isn't really fun work for anyone. It's not like people usually wake up and say, procurement. like that's what I want to do with my day today and so you know I think that's that's that's probably level one then we've got a whole vision around visualization and product search and you know sourcing and like finding products and that's kind of like a lot of the stuff that you know I'm not sure everyone will like but I think a lot of people will find make themselves more efficient and again serve the vision of their clients a little bit better and then there's all sorts of project management.

52:28So, you know, that's, you know, anything from finances and invoicing and tracking and quoting and all of that fun stuff, which again can be made a lot easier with a much more modern tool. That's not phase one, that last part is in phase one, but there are elements of it that will start to develop. And again, if our trade clients want to use that, awesome. We're not forcing it down anyone's throat. It's just sort of for now a free service that we hope provides some value to our trade partners. The other interesting aspect of the expert and any of these tools that bring consumers in touch with designers, and in the past, we've talked about democratization of design as if it was just a financial thing.

53:14But more and more, I come to think that there's just a certain type of person who wants to work with a designer, regardless of money and all of that, right? Because there are lots of different designers at lots of different levels. But you have to want or be willing to turn a certain part of that over to somebody else, right? Which is a big part of it. I have relatives who have plenty of means, and yet I can't talk them into working with a designer, much to my deep regret, right? And so it's not just that. But I do wonder, does this expand and create greater opportunity for more people to work with designers through the expert, all these other tools, Havenly, everything that you've been doing?

53:58Does it bring more and more people into that space? I hope so. I mean, I think actually I'll give you. So this is this is data from the Havenly platform. We've been doing a lot of research on people and their attitudes towards design versus DIY versus AI. So there are kind of a couple of things that are sort of interesting that I'll share with you. So the first is no one actually likes the idea that AI is doing. Just like fundamentally when you say, would you rather use AI? Would you rather use a designer? Almost everyone's like, yeah, I'd rather use a designer or do it myself. But like, no, on AI.

54:31AI is bad. And then you like talk through some of the benefits that AI brings. and they're like, no, no, we want those benefits. And what we found is there's a component of people that say they want to do it themselves and we're providing more and more DIY capabilities on Havenly, but also across our brands. And we're finding that in doing it themselves, what we do is we just prompt them. We say like, hey, it feels like you might be stuck. Would you like to use a designer? And so these are people that have actively chosen not to use a designer, not even an online one. And about 10 to 15 % of the time, we find that they're upgrading to one.

55:07And this is kind of, I think, the point you were making. It's like, actually, sometimes people just need to, like, learn a little bit about design and, like, understand and, like, start to get into that space of doing things. And then, you know, maybe they don't want the full thing, but they realize they do want expert guidance. That was not a pun that was intended, but it is an applicable one. And I think that's sort of, like, an interesting thing with the expert. It's like, can we continue to expand access? Yes. And to your point, again, you know, the expert consultations are plenty spendy. You know, they're not as inexpensive as Havenly.

55:41So, you know, you probably are sitting on quite a bit of disposable income. But like the accessibility isn't there. You don't know you need it. You don't know how much you need. You know, and so this ability to sort of taste it, I think is really interesting for people. And again, particularly as you see this sort of like generational shift in home buying and home furnishings, hopefully bring this next generation a lot more sort of accessibility, but also like of an understanding of what it can mean to work with a trained designer. Does it feel like the future of all of this moves more and more online?

56:19So we've been talking a lot about design centers and what role they will continue to play in the business. And they're still important. And they still seem such a huge part of how these to-the-trade brands show their product. And e-commerce hasn't – it's become a big part of their sales, but it hasn't overtaken all of that in-person and all of that. And will it eventually? You know, I think sometimes you can get, when you talk about online versus offline versus retail, you can get pretty, it's easy to get really reductive. Like, no, this is the trend that's going to shape the way. I think the reality is people are pretty complex and they want to interact in multiple ways.

57:02and we've noticed you know we have a retail presence across our brands we find them to be tremendously impactful people really like them we also though transact most of our business online and it turns out like what i you know what i think most people want is at times they want to be able to go in particular in this category where things are so tactile and really require a sort of physicality like you know i think people do want to go in person and see things they do sometimes want to meet people in person and they do they do want someone in their home and and and oh by the way many of us are busy and are on the go and we need some way to like communicate and transact online too and i think the folks that win in this space i think are going to be people that understand that for this next generation there's a different balance i don't know what that balance is but you know millennials and younger might have more of a proclivity to do things online because that's how they mostly conduct business but that doesn't obviate the need for in-person design centers for designers coming to sort of like really understand the spaces, you know, there's just like a piece of that that won't go away.

58:06And I think, you know, as you think about the expert, it's like, I do believe technology can make an interior designer's life a lot easier. Do I think it's for every interior designer? Probably not. But I think the reality is what that means is like, you can still do a lot of the things that you used to do the way you used to do while taking advantage of all the things that make your life easier. And again, it's sort of more of this hybrid approach. It's a yes and, right? It's like, oh, cool, there's technology and there's online and there's all sorts of things we could do. And we can still have great experiences in person and in retail stores and with your designer.

58:40And I think that's really like sort of where as a philosophy, I think all of our brands say, like it's not one or the other. This isn't like the death of anything. we're just trying to like really serve the customer where the customer is yeah and and you suggested that uh that your plate is pretty full at the at the moment so i shouldn't yeah i shouldn't be expecting any any other announcements for a little while or but you never say you never say oh no no i'm not gonna be doing anything for a while you always say oh well you know dennis it could be something i mean who knows which is it lee i think i think here's just like the candid problem about Hayman Lee is we're like kind of big now.

59:21And one of the challenges that I really, I'm pretty open about talking about is like public markets are more favorable to companies like ours and private markets, unless private markets suddenly start to like, you know, come back into this. And I think one of the things that we continue to think about is like, we're, we're big. So it's like hard to get acquired or anything. Like no one seems to want to buy us. Are you announcing your IPO here on the show? This is great. I can't go public because I'm not big enough to go public. So there's a little bit of this, like, if something great comes along, we'll always take a look at it.

59:53But the bar has gotten a lot higher for us, too, right? Like, it's like we're busy. There's a lot of stuff we need to figure out. We're, like, you know, combining these kind of massive operations. And so, you know, I really love to see you. But, you know. Well, I mean, that's the thing. I mean, I don't want to say, oh, I'm going away. I'm not doing any more deals and that I don't get to see you for a year. But I think that's an interesting point, though, about having to get to a certain scale to be appealing in the public markets and having it all make sense. And we've seen some companies that came public perhaps prematurely or just didn't work out for different reasons.

1:00:33And as you say, you are, Havenly itself is getting pretty big with all of this. I mean, do Wall Street types call you and say, what do you think? Yes, but I think Wall Street types call anyone who's somewhat active on the market. Sorry not to be insensitive to my Wall Street friends, but you do. They do. Yeah. Yeah, you know, we've been following a lot of what's been going on in sort of analogous spaces. there isn't a you know in our space we've seen some of the more subscale players struggle a little in the public markets to your point so we know we know we don't want to do that but you know we always have like a full stable of bankers like thinking about deals and trying to bring us interesting things and we're grateful for them of course um even more grateful if they take us out to a really nice dinner um but pro tip um but you know it hasn't really been a serious point of consideration.

1:01:34But at some point, I'm guessing I have investors too. My guess is they'd like some money back. I don't exactly know what. It's been a long time. We raised our first round of capital in 2015. So it's been over a decade for some of those folks. So I wouldn't be a good steward of capital if I weren't thinking about it. And that is something we kind of continually, I would say have in the back of our minds. Like where, where do we need to be from a scale perspective to consider an IPO? What does that look like? Is it us alone? Should we fold into someone else? Like, how are we, how are we going to do that?

1:02:13And you know, it's, it's been noted that apart from us, it doesn't seem like there are a lot of buyers in the space. So I was joking with an early investor where I was like, I thought I'd get acquired by now. Cause he was like, so when are you going to, and I'm like, I thought I'd get acquired by now, but like, I haven't. So I just started doing the acquiring, I guess. You know, this wasn't like the original intent. But it is, you know, it's been a fun journey. So we'll see where we take it. Who knows? Okay. All right. Well, stay tuned and we'll see what happens first. You getting acquired or you going public?

1:02:47Yes. What can we put on the prediction markets for that? We'll have to set up, right? We'll have to set up some betting there. But it does, as you say, you've got investors that have been waiting around for a long time. So the clock is ticking. Yeah, I suppose so. No pressure, though. Jeez. No, no. Well, Lee, it's always a pleasure, and I appreciate you making the time, and congratulations on another acquisition. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's good to see you.

1:03:21And we're back. We're getting to the end of the show here. But before we go, we'd like to take a second to highlight anything going on in the industry that might have caught our eye. What caught your eye? Quinn's caught my eye. Now, if you remember last year, I said they're one of my companies to watch because they are really investing in home and hiring a lot of home people. Well, guess what? They hired somebody else. A head of narrative, which I really like. It's kind of a head of brand, but head of narrative. Chief narrative officer, Dakota Kate Isaacs. And, you know, there was a great business of fashion article about how, you know, they are hiring this person to sort of like the headline to deepen her connect, you know, Quince's connection with consumers, but also minimize this reputation as a purveyor of dupes.

1:03:59So I think she definitely has her work cut out for her. But I think it's, you know, another Quince hire that sort of speaks to sort of the future of what that company is doing. And certainly if we can get to Coder for the podcast, I'd love to hear what a head of narrative does. Another quick item is we got a great email from Grayson Glenn Ashton of a very cool lampshade company called Sorella Glenn. I met them at Design Social, so really nice to hear from them. But I had been complaining last week about how induction cooking makes it harder to make my scrambled eggs. And Grayson had a lot of, you have to be patient, Fred.

1:04:33Here's how you do it. Gave me a very good breakdown on getting good eggs out of an induction oven. So I loved hearing that. And there's hope for me yet. Well, and that was such a lovely note. And I was so glad that she sent that. And I'm sorry that she's having to deal with her flat-bottom stainless steel sink. That's another one. We can do a whole podcast on flat-bottom stainless steel sinks. Indeed. What caught your eye this week, Dennis? Well, a couple of things caught my eye, Fred. You know, you were early on to calling out that a lot of people were going to be writing some interesting substacks in the future.

1:05:02I did invent substacks. Yes, exactly. You are the father of substack. And interestingly, one of the things that caught my eye was designer Gil Malott, who has a substack called Design Alchemy, has written a piece with a pretty bold headline saying, When Shelter Magazines Had a Spine. And it's a pretty scathing piece. No punches pulled. Really, it's looking back at the 1980s and perhaps the glory days of Architectural Digest. Paige Rents is quoted in there and some other AD editors as well. But really, it was talking about everything from Paige's feelings about not using a stylist on the photo shoots, more nighttime photography, and a lot of other issues, including when we weren't all so focused on celebrities and sort of how we position luxury.

1:05:54It's a thought-provoking piece. And I saw that he was getting a lot of response. I'll bet he's getting a lot of private DMs as well on the subject. Yeah, no, fun sign. And I love the hot takes on Substack. I think it's definitely keep them coming. The other thing that caught my eye just before we came on air, the Federal Reserve released their minutes of the last Fed meeting. And in those minutes, it became pretty clear that not everyone is on board with a whole bunch of rate cuts in the near future. In fact, if anything, a surprising number of people were talking about rate hikes in the future because we mustn't forget that the Fed's target for inflation is actually 2%.

1:06:36And it's been well over 60 months since we've actually had 2 % inflation. So I think a lot of people internally are saying, are we sure we should continue cutting rates? So we'll see. We'll see what that means for the future. But everyone who thought that rates were coming down dramatically in the near future, I'd say read those minutes and perhaps think twice. What about the end of cold weather being the spark, Dennis? I thought that was it. You know, apparently that didn't come up in the Fed meeting. Shocked. But look for that in the next one. All right. That's all the time we have today. Thanks so much for listening.

1:07:14If you want to keep up with the latest news, browse job listings, or take a workshop, visit us online at businessofhome.com. If you want to get in touch with the show, write to us at podcast at businessofhome.com. This episode was produced by Fred Nikolaos and Caroline Burke and edited by Michael Castagneda. I'm Dennis Scully. Have a great weekend, and we'll be back with you on Monday.