8 Failed Businesses Before Kitsch’s Beauty Empire

31:49Okay. Jeremy, at what point are you like, hey, this is actually what I want to do. I want to work in the business. It's not just like, hey, I'm setting up QuickBooks and I'm supporting my wife because this is her thing. But like, I want to be a part of this. When does that happen? That's a good, that's a great question, Mike. You're so great at asking questions, dude. I remember I was just, I was just wrapping up like a really really really cool show a lot of great people working on it and um i remember and it was in burbank and i remember uh cassandra had this idea again it's not like we're trying to save money it's like we just like literally have to be creative because there's no other way to like get from point a to point b without figuring it out like money is not going to get us there and i remember thinking okay well if we rent i mean we were thinking about it together If we rent an office downtown, we could get a couple interns from FIDM.

32:55We'd get some free college interns, and that labor could offset the cost of our tiny little office space downtown, and it would kind of net itself out. figure this out. And I remember I had just gotten back to like the writer's office from signing the lease and the show's wrapping up and I get a call and they're like hey, do you want to interview for the show Dexter for its like final season? I was like a huge Dexter fan. I'm still a Dexter fan. It's an incredible show. It's like it would have been a dream opportunity of mine. And I hung up the phone. I was like, damn, I just signed this lease.

33:41Like, what am I going to do? And I remember just like praying. And I like, you know, being like, God, why'd you do this to me? And God, in this like message I got back, it was like, I gave you this opportunity because if you're going to work at this business with Cassandra, I want it to be something that you're choosing to do, not because you don't have any other choice. But it's like a proactive choice, not a choice out of necessity. And I remember being like, feeling very, very empowered. I mean, like, yes, I'm choosing to do this. It was also around the time where like, we had just gotten those products into anthropology.

34:23So we're like a little bit out of order. Like this happened before the trend. You also had that huge opportunity to move to Seattle. And I was like. No, I got rejected from that. I know.

34:37We were going to move to Seattle to get Microsoft. We were going to move to Seattle. How different would our lives have been? It's like you always are grateful for the things that happen to you, but I think very few people realize how much gratitude we all should have for the opportunities that we don't get and the things that we don't get. Like all the promotions and opportunities I didn't get, you think it's a loss, but really if you look, you know, like 15 years later is such a gift. Such a gift I didn't have to move to Seattle. It's such a gift I didn't get these jobs. I love that framing, Jeremy, because we all have paths not taken in our life.

35:27And I think for some people, I think it ends up leading to resentment, bitterness what ifs like yeah if i had taken that would my life be better would i be happier would i have more money you know would my relationships be better whatever um and then there's a very different mindset that i think is very common to the most successful people i've known which is just gratefulness for what they do have it's really like i talk about it a lot internally the difference between entitlement and and uh great gratefulness and it was interesting to hear you say it even right there. And I think you would say that even if Kitsch hadn't been this gazillion dollar business.

36:07But I think it's a mindset thing that's subtle. But successful people are able to be grateful for the path that they're on, as opposed to constantly looking around and what ifing all the other options. But I will say, Cassandra, it had to feel great. You've started this thing. Most of entrepreneurship is trying to convince people that the thing you started is like valid and matters. And then the person that matters most to you is like, yeah, I'll pass up on an opportunity to be a part of, you know, one of like one of my dream opportunities to be with you working on it. That had to feel great. Oh my gosh.

36:43It was better than great. Jeremy is so strong in so many areas where I'm weak and he's, and Jeremy and our daughter, are they have been my greatest teachers and um yeah i think it's it's the greatest thing that ever happened people always ask us like how do you work with your significant other and i always say how do you not how do you not work with your significant other i feel so lucky i'm gonna make an editor's note that i'm gonna break out of the the flow here for a little bit because you brought it up i think the fact that you've done this as a married couple is one of the more unique things that you've like all all of your business relationships, your personal like it is so, you know, like somebody said this to me once and I loved it, that trying to separate your personal life and your business life when you run a company is like trying to nail jello to a wall.

37:37But I think for you in particular, that's especially true. How has your relationship been able to thrive through having to wear so many different hats with each other and it partners in so many different contexts. I think just like anything, it's mindset and it takes work. It takes work. Like a lot of people, a lot of people think like, oh, and I don't, I don't have all of the answers or secrets to having like the best relationship because I think every relationship is different. But I think one thing that we've done very well is we don't do like these extreme vacations and we don't do like specific date nights or anything like that.

38:23We do it daily. We spend time together daily. We go on a walk every single morning together. We go and get coffee together. We have these like real, we have connections every day. And another thing too is I think there's been so many moments where we've been in difficult situations and we've prevailed together. and I think um you know it wasn't always easy but but we but we did it and we did together and that I think that that's like once you've done that so many times you build a level of resiliency together that um that is is you Sandra do you do you guys have uh are you the kind of people then

39:02Matt Bertulli:that are I guess like naturally you celebrate smaller wins as opposed to just the big ones it's really interesting i actually don't think we celebrate a lot and i know that that's like a little like even like our birthdays or whatever like it's what you were talking about before mike we just have a lot of gratitude i don't we're just not like and we could do more of it i think you know it'd be really fun to do that a little bit more you know um but but we're not like Like, we're not over-sharers. I mean, this is the first time we've ever done an interview together. And we just really like the simplicity of life.

39:46There's just so, we have so much joy in the day-to-day.

39:53Again, we're, like, so honored that you're doing your first interview, like, together. And part of it is, like, Jeremy has been on more of these type of things, at least in our network, than you have. And your voice is like so powerful and helpful. But I think that the word that comes to mind is I think there is real humility with the two of you. And humility is not, I think there's this misconception, especially in like certain parts of the Bible Belt, like that humility is this kind of like pretending you're not good at things. And that's not really what humility is. I think humility is just like an accurate view of self.

40:29You're both very competent and very good in several different areas. but you're also able to keep it in perspective of the larger world. And so it's one of the reasons why I think in my experience being around you, that you're able to have thankful hearts and to be such enjoyable people to be around because for all of your success, it's mixed with this real groundedness and real humility. Thank you. Mike, you're so nice. I mean, to add to what Cassandra said, I think, like, there's a real level of true partnership. And I think there's a couple elements to, like, what true partnership is. And, you know, our partnership is always evolving.

41:20But I think part of it is that each of us has to have, like, equal voice. and you know one person can't dominate and say hey we're doing it this way what you say doesn't matter as opposed to like okay let's because i i think the thing that makes us strong and that most people don't understand about partnership i think people think partnership is that everyone agrees and it's like cassandra and i are completely different people with completely different backgrounds and brains and ways of thinking about things um i think we do share a lot of the same values but our our differences in our ability to converse about those differences and hear each other out and take time and think about those things and consider each other and then also say like okay well whose whose department is this in you know like and and who who's gonna make it like if it's product like cassandra understands product like way better than me like i don't understand product you know like so i love the idea of you lecturing her about women's hair that would be so good like how i actually disagree i think jeremy is a great knack for product but more else so like i'll come up with a project idea and you'd be like wait what about it this way and and i think it's really helpful anyway sorry but no but i mean but i think i think like because i don't use the products i do have more of an objective view point on it and i can like kind of divorce like what i like from it because i don't like i'm very objective to it so like i think i think that i think that helps but i would say like true partnership is like hearing that other person's perspective but also realizing that there's another person with a different perspective and there's like kind of two ways of looking at it we always say like when we both finally like come to an agreement like those are the best decisions we've made for the company is when like both of us like really feel it and and are excited about it um so i would say like it's it's true partnership but then the other part and this just goes for being an entrepreneur but also like i think i'm very grateful that both of us have been willing to to evolve as people over time like when i started when we started this like we didn't know how to be managers it's like okay we have to learn how to be managers oh that's so painful it's like miserable sometimes yeah being a manager was like okay well we want to we want to have a company in order to have a company you got to learn how to be a good manager you got to learn how to do this you got to learn how to do that now you know we're doing like executive coaching and we're both participating in it we're both invested in it and and i think in order to you know run a successful business but also have a successful partnership both partners have to be invested in in growing as people yeah do you uh

44:18Matt Bertulli:i'm so curious on this thing culturally in the company this idea of pursuing what's right not who's right between the two of you does that then ladder down through the business like have you guys encouraged this amongst your team like we we don't really care about who's right we care about what's right and we want discourse and debate and all of that stuff i mean i think i think it's i think it's less about that it's more the way we view it i would say like you're saying it i would just say it a different way it's like it's we all we all win together you know i think the one thing that's made our business really incredible but also really challenging is the fact that we sell so many products in so many different channels and so like you can imagine that like you know if one channel runs a discount one week like it's another channel might you know have a little bit of a deficit you know if like amazon runs a sale shopify might you know lose share to amazon if you know shopify runs a sale amazon might lose share to that if wholesale runs a sale it's a whole thing and what we've taught the team and or and i don't even know if we've taught but i think we've like hired culturally for these types of people is that we that we really hire people who don't really have ego about like you know i'm winning you're not winning like i need to meet my numbers even if it's at the expense of your numbers it's like you know what like we all win if the company meets its numbers yeah so i think one thing that i take away from that is that people really underestimate how valuable a skill it is to do conflict well and how like the best decisions come from teams that are actually comfortable living with some conflict and saying, hey, I don't even in this interview, you've said I disagree several times.

46:17And I think that just kind of speaks to the type of relationship that you are. You both have independent points of view. And although you really value the relationship, you're willing to speak that point of view and that helps you to be stronger and make stronger decisions. I think that's kind of a takeaway you could apply to any team. and it's one of the reasons why trust is such a big deal, is that it's hard to have good conflict if you don't have trust. People won't share what they really think. They won't speak up and disagree. They'll let the idea that's a B minus idea just go forward just because it's easier to not say anything.

46:48Whereas great teams are like, no, let's be willing to be a little bit uncomfortable to really talk all the way through it. But we can do that because we know that everybody wins together and because we're for each other. And I hear that with you guys. So I want to transition a little bit back to the business like you've started selling hair ties there is some momentum jeremy is going to be a partner in this and the roles are ceo coo or something like that i mean we are we always joke like even even today too we're like we kind of joke about the the titles because we just feel like again like what jeremy said like it's like i don't i don't know there's there's something about calling yourself a CEO when there's four of you.

47:32Yeah. When there's four people as a company. Yeah. Kind of like, uh, um, but, but no, I think, you know, I think, yeah, that was, that was, I guess the official title since the beginning. I was thinking about this, like in, look, it's ultimately Cassandra, like Cassandra was the day one founder here. Like I joined after a year. Cassandra is like the inspiration and the heart and soul of the company but now we have you know like almost 250 folks at the company and now it really feels to me like the company belongs to everyone here and I think Cassandra and I both really believe in servient leadership so it's like you know it's almost like I work it's like almost like an upside down pyramid yeah in the way that we see the business or we're there to support all the other people who work here i think a big big misconception i personally had early on i was like oh cassandra and i can just do all the work and we just need more support and i think you know in the last like five or six years we were like no we need people who are way smarter than us yeah way more specialized way better than us like we just need to be great at hiring inspiration management and stay in our zones of genius and so we but it's like even finding your zone of genius is this a very it's not an easy thing it's like yeah i do i do think that one of the things that jeremy and i've done so like one one thing we've done really well um is understanding like what are our strengths strengths and not not from like like like just thinking that that's our strength it's just because we've been doing this for so long it's like okay i have a pattern here this is the pattern where like i continue to like have issues i need to hire someone who's much better at this than i am and that takes like a very self-aware person to to be able to point it out especially if that is like i have a hard time following following through on things like that's a lot of people have a challenge like i have a lot of people have issues admitting those things especially when you're in like a senior leadership um role and and i think like i think you yeah like if you're a ceo or coo like if the founder co-founder like you want to be all things to everyone but i think that's the thing that we're learning is that like that's not that's not really our role i mean And if you look at like, you know, corporate leadership and the people that become CEOs, like they come from everywhere.

50:19Like the CFO becomes a CEO. The CMO becomes a CEO. The chief legal officer can become CEO or COO. So it's like where, where you're not all things to everyone. And it's like, where is your zone of genius? And like, how do we just be higher grade executives who can kind of fill in all the missing, all of our missing pieces? And I think that's really like in our part. And that really goes to our partnership is like, how as partners can we fill in each other's missing pieces? And how can we support each other to, for people to like, you know, we've had to support each other in growing. you know, through a lot of hard growing pains.

51:05Oh my gosh. I will never forget this time. And, and I, I think, I think maybe not as common. I, one of my favorite things about being an entrepreneur, CEO, founder is the people, like the people we get to hire and managing the people is like one of my favorite things. One of my least favorite things is having to let someone go when it's not working and i am going to give you an example of what jeremy's talking about um because i have a tendency to be a people pleaser and to have i have a high level of codependency um i will never forget i had to let some let someone go and jeremy was sitting in the room with me and i was like i just want to let you know like you know i really like you you're a great person and like we're done i love that you did this this and jerry's like looking at me he's like what is going on here he knew that that that ultimately like we yeah at the end of this conversation she's not going to have a job and what i was doing was like trying to like coddle her and he looked at me after that and he was like everyone was confused in that and i said i said this person didn't know if they were getting a promotion.

52:25Exactly. They don't know what kind of conversation they're having. I'm not laughing. Like it really was a pivotal moment for me. And Jerry was so good at coaching me and really making, and of course, like I learned in so many ways, but you know, like having that support system and having someone next to me that I can really trust. And it's, it's not easy to hear that from your husband, nonetheless, like someone you work with, but he really was like, you know, instilled in me. And now, you know, when I have to be in and unfortunately be in that position, the first thing I say is today is your last day at Kitsch.

52:58And like, you know, that's, it completely transformed, you know, Jeremy's really supported me in transforming my leadership style. And, you know, I used to think like the title of a CEO as a woman, you need to be like strong and you need to be, you know, like all of these labels that I think. And one of the things that I'm realizing more than anything is like, you know, just just being really clear at the tone of how we treat people at our company emotional regulation you know being being being able to like sit there and really listen to people like i never thought that those were really strong leadership skills and um and then just be really clear we're really clear where are we going what do we need and i think um that that that a lot of that came from our relationship dynamic.

53:47How you treat people is the thing that they remember. And we can tend to think as leaders that it's all about me producing the outcomes that people are going to like that are going to make them feel cared for by me or going to impact our relationship. But it's, I think it's much more how we, we treat people. And, you know, we've not had to let many people go, but there was a time where we hired somebody who was later in career. She'd gone through a divorce and we hired her into a role because we thought maybe, and she just couldn't get there technology wise. And so we had to let her go after two or three weeks and she will bring charcuterie boards up to the office to this day every few weeks because of the way she was treated.

54:26And I just think we use a phrase within the company that we want to be relational instead of transactional. And the business at its worst is like everybody's a cog, right? It's like, what can you do for me? And then the moment you can't do something for me, you're gone. And what I love about what you guys are saying and the upside down triangle and servant leadership and all this is it's like, what if you treated people as people? And sometimes like there isn't a role for them anymore. Sometimes it doesn't. You know, you are at the end of the line of being able to work with them. But there's never really any reason to not treat people as people and to treat them like cogs.

55:01And I feel like all the most successful people eventually figured this out. I loved how you guys. I think the word is grace.

55:07Matt Bertulli:like you just you move with some grace through the world right and it sounds like you guys do that with just great exception

55:16The other thing that I like that came out there is I just think self-awareness. I say this over and over again, and it's interesting because I'll talk about a lot of different things, but I'll say like I think the hardest thing about business is managing yourself. And I think the reason why it's so hard to manage yourself is because you have to develop high self-awareness and that that requires going after your own insecurities and being willing to say I'm not very good at some things. And you guys both said that, right? Like hear this. If you're an aspiring business leader, Jeremy and Cassandra are as successful as it gets.

55:48And what they are both saying is that part of their success is rooted in understanding all of the things that they are not great at. So if you feel like there's areas where you're not very good or you're kind of embarrassed or, you know, whatever, like join the club. That's everybody. And it's the most successful people realize that. The other thing is like you can't attract talented people in the areas where you're weak if you don't know you're weak in those areas. You will drive talented people crazy. Like if you're not a very high follow through person and then you hire somebody who's excellent at follow through and but you don't know you're not good at follow through.

56:24That's going to be like nails on the chalkboard for that person. Right. Yeah. So I want to know at what point it became obvious to you guys that like this isn't just going to make it, but this is going to make it make it. We were not there yet. We just I don't know if you realize that today is the first day at Kish. That's how we treat it. Every single day one first day. When was the point where you were fairly confident that this was going to be a 20, 30 year business? i i literally don't know how to answer this question oh i like that i mean i mean look we've been trying to no like i mean i really don't i i saw i i really i you can answer it differently but like i don't know we just i personally have seen it i see the business as like day by day it's the same thing like it's it's i really genuinely feel like we're just getting started i have so many ideas so many because andrew that's coming from a place of like

57:30Matt Bertulli:optimism though you're not you're not saying that from i don't know if this will work you're saying it from a like like a fear it's not coming from fear it's coming from like abundance yeah it's yeah it's sensible optimism it's not irresponsible optimism it's thinking like there's so much more room to grow here and i'm really excited about it i mean i think to a degree like it's a little bit like a sports team, mine and Cassandra's dynamic, where she's like offense and I'm defense.

58:02And not in the sense of like, you know, but it's a sense of like, okay, Cassandra's inspiring and pushing the company forward. At the same time, I'm trying to figure out like where are the warts where are the the broken processes um you know uh ideas that no longer concepts that like don't work in this day and age like where are all the old ideas that have expired their usefulness and so i think that makes us a good team but when we talk about like making it a 20 30 year business i think part of it is is that dynamic of like okay like we're not just here like we're not just going to let a bunch of stuff break and go wrong we're not just going to like find the hot product of today because like we're going to be out of this thing in a year or two.

59:00I'm curious if there are kind of touchstone memories, like a key emergency, a key event in the company's history that felt existential that you can share. I have one. Go ahead. I will, I remember during COVID, we're laying in bed and we, I'm going to try and make this story as succinct as possible because it's very complicated story but we didn't we have had an opportunity because of our manufacturing facilities that we work with overseas to produce a lot of masks for um frontline workers millions of masks we we were for whatever reason like our suppliers were capable and we were capable of bringing in a lot of support um for PPE masks and cloth masks.

59:53And we're bootstrapped, we're self-funded. And I remember sitting next to Jeremy in bed and he's doing a cashflow analysis. How are we going to fund all of these, all of these masks coming in when we have like all of our retail POs have been canceled. Like everything's been, everything's canceled. We really did the, the, the purchase orders coming in are not from like our day-to-day business and he is sitting there doing it and like like sleepless nights and I look over at him and he gets a nosebleed he's so stressed his nose starts to bleed and I remember I remember he was like okay and like breaking it down like week by week after four weeks I think we'll be okay as long as we get paid on time and like I remember that moment and being like i've never seen someone like so motivated but terrified at the same like and like i just knew i needed to stay i needed to stay really calm i needed to stay really calm use all my manifestation tools like really but like i i remember that being that was that was a very scary time that was a very scary time we had we had we had like increased the mortgage on our house and we had sold all of our public equities yeah and this is like 10 years 10 years into the business and i remember in covid because the majority of our sales were retail and so like all the you know non-essential retailers which were a lot of the specialty retailers and beauty Which, by the way, alcohol was essential.

1:01:33Weed shops were essential in Oklahoma, but you can't buy hair ties. That's non-essential. Yeah. Crazy. So, but I, but, you know, to fill in a couple pieces, like, we had been doing some charitable stuff for some local hospitals, bringing, like, PPE masks. And we had made a fabric eye mask. And, like, because I just said, we had gotten a call from one of the largest drug stores in the country saying, hey, there's going to be this shutdown. People are going to be wearing masks. This is in like March of 2020. And we're like, this is insane. I remember walking to like taking our walk to coffee and being like, can you imagine all these people wearing masks?

1:02:20And we were both like, never. We're like, never. um but you know it like it started it started um with uh us and our friend jared who's now like our business partner and our other business acting talent bringing in masks for local hospitals and then we got this call and they were like hey you make these eye masks like we need millions of units of capacity of face masks And we were like, well, we can actually make the protective masks, too, because we're bringing in these protective masks. And so what's interesting to me is it always, like, some of the best things that happened to us is when we put other people first.

1:03:03When we, like, put the healthcare workers first. And then when we were so cooperative with our retailers and said, yes, like, extend out your POs, extend your payment terms. Like we were in, despite like taking these financial steps, like we were in a position where we could continue the business in a strong way. And this was an opportunity to take in, to get, you know, cash from our mortgage and liquidating our public equity so that we could partake in this big mask endeavor, you know? And I think we ended up selling like 70 million face masks in COVID. and then we thought no one's ever gonna think of us as anything other than like a fice mass brand and people still see it because we even like brought in thermometers and it's like this gravity thing and people are like i saw your i saw the kitsch branded thermometers because remember they have like the uh red thermometers that's gonna be in the smithsonian someday it's gonna be like you know but i i also remember we were had a conversation with our team and we said like no one it's that saying which i'm gonna butcher but it's like no one remembers what you did for them when times were good but everyone remembers what you did for them during the hard times i remember saying that to our team and um and shortly after covid and we had done everything we did like we donated millions of masks gave a bunch of the profits to charity um we were really well rewarded too um and uh one of the retailers that we like extended the terms call me and she was like crying and she was like i'll never forget what you did for us she's like my parents were in maine and they had health issues and they couldn't leave the house and you overnight fedex the masks like we were just fedexing so many personal people masks so that they could like leave the house and go to work she's like i'll never forget what you did for us and i just like i remember one of the people we had talked to who was one of our like top salespeople was on that call and it was just like a really nice kind of reminder back to like a year or two earlier when we had like kind of had that talk with our team man we had a there was a very similar situation we had around that time um we had a team go to uh seattle to meet with our amazon team and they're at dinner and one of our reps is from Ukraine and they literally walk outside a dinner and she gets a text that Russia has invaded Ukraine.

1:05:39And so our team worked with her to start to organize some aid basically for Ukraine. But it was a similar deal where it was like, it's the right thing to do, you know, because people are people. And you better believe that impacted the way that she viewed us as people and the way that she viewed the business. It's not why you do it, but it also So it's easy to see why that leads to winning, that when you prioritize people and you treat people well, you know, like you really shouldn't do it trying to chart out the course of how it's going to come back to you. But it does, you know, like that people will remember those things forever.

1:06:18And I loved what you said that, like, when things are really hard, those memories get kind of I mean, like you're saying, Cassandra, you remember looking over and Jeremy has a nosebleed. There are like, there's so much time that we live that we don't remember. And then there's these moments that just like stand out in our mind forever. And I don't know if I had a literal nosebleed. I think we all had figurative nosebleeds at some point. I had a night where I was laying in bed and the very first time I was like, are we going to go bankrupt? Like it took me about a month into COVID before I had that first real thought in my mind.

1:06:51It was pretty terrifying. I don't think I slept that night. So I can tell, I love that story. I love the idea that you guys pivoted your business all the way into masks. You know, it's like, it's the scrappiness of like, do what you, you have to do whatever it takes.

1:07:06Matt Bertulli:Well, it also speaks like Kitch is a brand who just has such an incredible product catalog. Like it doesn't surprise me that you went into masks. Like it would surprise me if Simple Modern did it, but it just, for some reason with Kitch, it does not surprise me that you guys did that. I can tell you we tried it. We tried it. It did not go as well as it did with Kitch. I'll tell you that. We had a lot of scrunchy fabrics, so it was easily available. I mean, I think the key for anyone listening or inspiring is one of the key things I look for in team members that I think about that's contributed to the success of our company is resourcefulness.

1:07:43And resourcefulness isn't necessarily like, okay, we're going to make this crazy idea. It's like, no, it's like, what do you have? What resources do you have at your disposal? Like, and how do you put those together into something special, into something unique, you know? And I think for us, it's like, it's actually been really fun. And the idea of starting a business with not a lot of money is actually more of an exciting idea to me. than like, I'm more afraid to start the business with a lot of money than I am to start a business with very little money. Cause I know like, um, you know, necessity was like necessity breeds.

1:08:27Yeah. I think scares the phrase I use is scarcity creates focus. And it's, it's one thing to say, well, Hey, you can make it work with less resources. But I think the point that you're making, which is really good to emphasize, Jeremy is like, maybe it's more than that. Maybe scarce resources makes you better. Maybe it actually forces you to focus more and to have higher quality of thought and to execute at a higher level. And you really just get better teams. I mean, you look at these companies that raised tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in VC funding. And I think all of us look at that and we're like, you're kind of putting a noose around your neck.

1:09:02not just from like the investor expectation side, but also from the side of like, how are you going to build the kind of drive and want to in a team when they know there's eight figures in the bank account that they can burn through? Yeah. It's like, how do you know it's working? Like the funding, make it seem like it's working? Or like structurally, you know, and process wise, is the company actually working? Is it a profitable growing company? So I want to talk about one of the things I think is the most remarkable about your company. We've talked a lot about how you lead the company and who you are, but the company itself is obviously an amazing story.

1:09:43But I think how it got to such scale and such an amazing story is that the way that you have expanded out from initial product market fit on one product to many hero products stands out in my mind as part of the Kitsch story. If you're writing an HBS, you know, case study on Kitsch, I think that would be part of it. How have you done that so effectively? How have you gotten into so many different product verticals that have been so successful? Such a great question. And it's a really simple answer. We did it with our customer. And like one of the things we were always listening. So when we started Kitsch, it was the hair tie.

1:10:28and it was a single product and we thought about i jeremy always teases me that i'm always overthinking things but then i respond with well i'm doing it so the customer doesn't have to so um but but i you know when we started the hair tie it was a hair tie it so it had a functionality to it it was really cute so it has the fashion element to it and then we packed it in a way where it was really giftable. And then we always pushed all of our wholesalers or retailers to put it in a position where it was very impulsive and easy to buy. And so when we started, that really worked for us because we were able to sell at any retailer.

1:11:10It didn't matter if it was a spa, a salon, a gift shop, a floral shop. It could be sold anywhere. And so when we started to expand our product offering we've kept those that that what we call the art of incrementality in mind with every single product that we created it's like how can we take a highly commoditized product that people reach for every single day make it giftable make it fashion and cute keep it at a price point that makes it impulse and from and encourage the the retailers or whoever's selling the product to be able to like put it near the register so that it's like so easy for them to pick up.

1:11:47The through line with it all was hair. So what we started with is an accessory company that is essentially a hair care company that anybody, any, most people were already using a version of this product. So it's just asking the customer to make small behavior shifts. They were already using a hair tie. Use this one that's better for you. You're already using a pillowcase. Use this one that's better for you. You're already using something to pull your hair back to wash your face use our spa headband so it it really was this um dance with our customer and hearing what else they use in their routine and being able to provide and create a uh essentially a lifestyle around hair care and when we built that trust and we had them essentially be building their basket and collecting all of these items uh for their beauty routine it was really easy for us to expand into shampoo and conditioner and that was really something that nobody thought we were going to be able to do i was i was shocked when when i saw that i was not expecting that and it's just been amazing for you guys right it's been incredible for top product really category yeah and we sell like over a million units a month and shampoo bars and it's just like consumables it's it's impossible to compete with the volume in consumables compared to durables and it's like once you see it once you hear it you're like oh it makes so much sense You like people trust you with their hair and then like you made that transition.

1:13:17But also, I mean, companies really struggle to sell both consumables and durables. Why were you able to make it work in that case? I mean, I think one thing that like we were able to do is we were actually able to use our, you know. Breath of skill with accessories and pair that with consumables. So we did like soap dishes and shower caddies and all sorts of kind of fun systems, ways to accessorize the consumables. So then we could like bundle and sell it and it made it much more scalable when people are like, oh, this unique product, like, oh, here's how I store it. Here's how I travel with it.

1:13:56Here's how this is a more fun way to kind of use it. um but look i mean also at the end of the day like the the version of shampoo bar that's like currently on the market is like our third or fourth version like the first version we made was like it was like the apple 2e computer version of it and this version is like the iphone i mean it's you know it's like has its own trademark shape and design it's like a completely different formula, completely different fragrance profile. I mean, that's a lot of that credit is the ghost is not my ghosted Cassandra and our product team. It's the power of bias to action that you can't wait for the perfect product.

1:14:40You have to launch what you have and then iteratively make it better. You know, we talk about that internally with our company all the time that we're pursuing excellence through iterative improvement. And you like partially because excellence is a bar keeps getting higher. They'll probably be a version five of that bar. Yeah. Probably be a version six of that bar. And like you, you, there's a certain level of excellence that can't be unlocked until you've done something, you know, and you've gotten customer feedback. And so that's, that's really why, like at some point you just have to get what you have out there in the world and get feedback and then view that as part of an ongoing process.

1:15:17And this goes back to that private label experience that i had from the very beginning one of one of the um most important things that i um encourage our product team and really everyone at the company is what's our net promoter score how willing for it doesn't matter the product how willing is is the customer or whoever's have interacting with this product willing to recommend it to someone else and if it's not you know 4.5 stars or higher we're not doing our job and we need to go back in there we to fix it. And, and, you know, we take a lot of pride in that. Yeah, I mean, you've said it, serving the people that work for you serving the customer, like this is how you win.

1:15:58Zig Ziglar once said, you can get anything you want in life by helping other people get what they want out of life. Successful people figure out solving problems for other people solving pain points, I'm going to do great. And I'm going to know I'm making a positive impact on other people's life. That seems like a through line in everything you've said. And we haven't done this yet this episode. So it's worth saying like total scale of the business, like give us an idea of where you're at. It's, it's a very scaled business at this point. Yeah. We sell a lot of stores. We don't really talk about numbers.

1:16:27Matt Bertulli:How many products? Okay. Well, I'll just say how many products are you guys in stores? How many categories? Yeah, we, I think, I think we're over 30 ,000, 30 ,000, um, retail. Yeah. And, and the, the displays are awesome. I mean, you talked about this with product, but you really can command an entire shelf in a very cohesive way. I think that's one of the things I noticed when I see your product is it's like, oh, it's not just that they're in a bunch of stuff, but they're in a bunch of stuff that links together. And when it's all laid out, you're like, man, that makes so much sense. And it's beautiful.

1:17:02I mean, really, my daughter's bathroom might be one of those 40 ,000 locations, basically, with the amount of stuff that she has everywhere. She's obsessed with the company. And that's actually where I want to go next is that part of what makes your story so special is Cassandra, you are obviously a leading female entrepreneurial voice. And you've been featured in a lot of different publications. And I think there's a lot of people, like my daughter is 11 and there are a few women that I point to And I'm like, you can do anything. And here's some examples. You're one of the women that I would point to that I would say my daughter looks up to.

1:17:44What has it been like kind of holding that role of being a female, a successful female entrepreneur in what can often be a male dominated category? And what have you learned about using your voice to impact other people?

1:18:01um that's a great question uh i i'm not i would like to think i'm not your traditional female founder in a sense where i think there's a lot of pressure for female founders to like get out there and tell their story and do all the panels and and be forward facing and be an influencer and and i think that there's a lot there's a lot of pressure to do that And that doesn't necessarily bring me joy. I think the awards and accolades are, I'm really honored to receive those. But I guess my hope as a female founder is to remind women, anyone who's doing this, that success looks different for everyone.

1:18:54And for me, I really think my definition of success has come down to really finding self-validation and that satisfaction of like me being proud of myself. and sometimes you know like when i do a panel or or or something like that i i get such a hangover from it because i get that reminder of like i have to try and tell people what i'm doing is important or good or even when i go to you know dinners and i have to introduce myself i have i have i feel like i have this pressure to to tell people that like hey i'm i'm i'm i'm i have I have a reason for being here. And, and I think it's definitely, and I'll take full responsibility that it's self-inflicted, but nobody else is asking me to do that, but it's, it's, it's, it is a pressure that I feel.

1:19:48But, but I do hope, I do hope when I do, when I do these things, that I can just validate someone else that you can build a business just for the reason of just loving doing it and, and not have to have all of these, you know, additional pressures that, um, that I think women especially feel that they have to prove themselves or, you know, get that external validation that they're doing a good job. And I think that that's, um, it's a lot actually it's a lot for for i i have a i'm in a couple like c female ceo communities and and um and it's a i i think that there's just not a lot of there's not a lot of um there's not a lot of permission to get things wrong when you're when when you do have that ceo role yeah it's and it can be very lonely like you said i think comparison is like a real thing especially when you're in settings with other people that have businesses and like you've got to point yourself back to like being proud internally of what you've done not because of how it compares to other people but because of what you've done and and the work you've put into it and I think one thing that I really wanted to touch on with the two of you because I've gotten to see it in person is that being parents has been a big part of is obviously a huge part of your life.

1:21:22And I know that I guess I'll start here. What was it like balancing going through pregnancy and early motherhood with also trying to be a CEO? That feels very daunting. Yeah, it was. How do I say this? There are no mistakes, but I definitely learned a lot through that experience um I tried to be I had my perfectionism definitely like overruled happiness and I went into a spiral of you know postpartum anxiety depression and I was trying so hard to be good at everything that I ended up just being kind of terrible at everything so um but but yeah I mean, it was really, it was really complicated. Thank, thank God I had Jeremy stepping in and, um, I, I it's being a mom is hard enough.

1:22:22I think I had answered my first email 20 minutes after I gave birth. Wow. Like it was really not, I'm not saying that, um, as with a badge of honor in any way, shape or form, I don't recommend it, but, um, but yeah, I didn't, I don't think I planned. And I, I, I, not that you can plan everything, but I wasn't expecting it to be so radical, um, when it happened. And so when, cause I really wanted to be that present mom, I want everything that I do. Even we just, we just rescued these two new dogs. And like, I'm so determined to help them be, you know, happy dogs and well-behaved that I'm like getting up 15 minutes earlier.

1:23:03And I was already getting up at 5.00 AM to go and take him for a walk outside. You know, it's like I do have this desire to like do things the right way. And I wish I would have given myself a little more grace during that time. Yeah. It's funny. An equation that I learned years ago, but I've always loved, is that growth equals grace plus truth plus time. That it's wisdom plus time plus the ability to forgive yourself and that all of those components are really necessary. And I think really driven people, we struggle with that. We struggle with the idea that being able to forgive ourselves and others is a big part of growth and that no matter how driven you are, some of it just takes time.

1:23:43Like, you know what? Learning how do you learn to become a great mom? It just takes time. You know, it's like you've got to like it's a huge life change. And I've gotten a chance to spend a little bit of time around your family. And I'm curious with with Tula, what do you think she would say are the is the most important one or two things that my parents have taught me? You go first. Hard work. Hard work, determination. Honesty. I would say definitely mindset. When you think you don't want to do something, you have to flip the switch and be like, I'm not accepting that answer. I'm going to do it anyway.

1:24:33And that self-discipline, I think, is something that we are constantly being like, no, snap out of it. We got to move on. Nobody wants to do it, but we still do it anyway. I mean, there's like little stuff like one of our puppies chewed up like a doll she got like when she was really, really young and she was like kind of devastated about it. And I was like, let's let's just be in the solution. Let's grab some stuffing. Let's restuff the doll and like sew it up. It took her a minute like to mentally pivot. But then she like completely engaged and just did it all herself.

1:25:09Matt Bertulli:but she's like is she fairly exposed to your to the work you guys do and does she watch you she knows our employees names she's very involved she could be she could definitely take on a role of hr at our company he's great you really she's gonna be amazing as an entrepreneur like i feel like it's already like you know kind of written in the stars that yeah it's gonna be an amazing entrepreneur. And one of the reasons I ask, we had our 10 year anniversary as a company recently. And as I was reflecting, what I said at the company is that basically the first 10 years of the company, I was a part of creating the three most important things I'll ever be a part of creating, the company and my two kids.

1:25:56And that really children are like the most entrepreneurial thing that we do. It's like, it's a true startup. It's like, you're starting from zero and you're molding this thing. And I think one of the things I've taken away from the simple modern and the growth process is just like, man, I want to be a great CEO. But if I'm ever a better CEO than father or husband, then I've probably missed it. And I think that's one of the things I appreciate about the two of you is that even in the midst of all this, you've obviously continued to focus on the core family relationships. A lot of those skills are transferable.

1:26:28Yeah. Like I think some people think like the skills to be a great CEO are opposite to be a great husband or father, wife, mother. And I think sometimes I think about it as like, you know, the same skills I learn managing people I need to use to manage my daughter and a lot of the skills I learn to manage my daughter, I should be using to manage people at our company. We have what we call the Titan 10. We kind of end all of these interviews with 10 kind of rapid fire questions. So I'm going to hit you guys with them. You can both answer. You can ping pong back and forth, whatever you want to do.

1:27:13So here we go. First question. You get a desert, you're on a desert island and you get a dashboard to measure and manage the business. What are the three metrics you want on that dashboard? You go first. Okay. Okay, mine are net promoter score, POS reports, and gross margin.

1:27:36Mine would be cash flow statement, inventory report, and North Beam ROAS. I love that. What a great partnership. Look at that. No overlap in your dashboards. This is what it looks like to complement each other. Okay, you also get to take a book or a resource, but it can't be about business. It's just something that is for you. What would it be? Mine is Esther and Jerry Hicks' Law of Attraction. So good. Mike, I bought you this book. You did buy me this book. Why Sermon on the Mount would be mine. Yeah, we had a great conversation about it, actually, in Palm Springs. Okay, what's one contrarian belief about business that other people think you're crazy for?

1:28:33Yeah, but I mean, yeah, I mean, not having a plan. I think sometimes not having a plan is a good thing. I actually really want to agree with that. I'm that's that's that's one that I completely I'm so aligned with it but I will add another one just so we have two um I think one of the things that people think is just so crazy that I say is like you don't have to be out there networking all the time you just don't have to you don't have to do all the podcasts and go to all the dinners and do all that to be to be successful absolutely okay what's the most single most important word in leadership I'll go for you.

1:29:16You want to go for empathy? I mean, it's two words. Emotional regulation. What's the single most important word in business? Resiliency. Resourcefulness. What's the best meal of the day and why? Breakfast. think why we get to spend it together we spend breakfast together every day i'll echo that love it right now what's the most overrated growth tactic earn media value every time i see what i'm like

1:30:11I'm like, whatever, guys. If it's not generating, it means nothing to me. Gross. Vanity metrics. Yeah. Jeremy? I mean, look, maybe this is a little bit of a hot take. I'm not a big LTV person. well i think in your business it's like how in the world could you think about the ltv because the products are expanding it's like it's it's also like you buy here you buy there you buy there there's no way to track it yes when you get omni-channel that totally makes sense in calc okay uh what do you think's the most underrated tactic net pro score i don't think people ask enough they don't they're not they don't want to look at it i don't know it's actually more focused on row as the net promoter score i don't know jeremy yeah well uh what's what's the most underrated tactic underrate yeah like yeah underrated tactic channel diversity yeah absolutely early adopter like people who got in early to tiktok shops are yeah printing yeah by the time i guess in some ways by the time everybody's talking oh tiktok's gonna be shut down it's just not real brands isn't that like number one brand number brand on beauty on amazon are one of the top brands of beauty amazon is like crushing tiktok shop crushing everywhere well that uh that makes sense by the time some everybody knows about something then usually the alpha is all gone.

1:31:50So I'll tell you what, we're kind of at the end here, but I want to do a little section of just what else would you say? Is there anything else I could ask you about or that you'd want to say that we didn't cover already?

1:32:09I'll ask you a question. You guys, let me know if another one pops into mind. if you could go back in time and redo the journey just change one thing and i know you're grateful for what you have you're not spending a lot of life looking in the rear view but with everything you've learned if you could go back and you could do one thing differently what would it be

1:32:32i don't mind i mean cassandra talked about it like and she's very nice about us when we had our daughter, but like, I had no idea how to be dad. And I had no idea like how to be a supportive husband to a woman, you know, giving birth. Like, I wish, I wish I had learned more about how to be more empathetic, how to understand more about what somebody who gives birth is going through and, you know, postpartum and all that. And if you could, if you could go back and talk to Jeremy, you know, the day you find that you're going to be a dad, what would you tell him to do in order to prepare himself to be that kind of husband and father?

1:33:16Like, be more open-minded about what your partner is going through and like, do the research, do the work to learn about it. My biggest thing for my marriage is we went through a miscarriage and I totally screwed up how I handled that. It's my biggest regret of my entire marriage. that I was not there for my wife through that miscarriage the way that I wanted to be. And I wish so badly I could go back and do it again. And you know what I did is I threw myself into work because I didn't know what to do. And, you know, when you're the guy, like, you get a couple weeks out and you're like, well, that sucked.

1:33:51But, you know, life goes on and you don't realize that it doesn't work that way for somebody who's had, you know, a baby growing inside of them. And so, like, I can really relate with that. Yeah. I did the same thing. Like, threw myself into work and threw myself into, like, home improvement and cassandra would be like in the house trying to like get our daughter to like latch and breastfeed or changing diapers and i was like i'm gonna go re-plumb the house i'm gonna go serve you by fixing the sink in the guest bathroom it's like it was like not like i'm gonna build a new railing in my balcony not the best idea like just sit even if you don't know what to do just like sit with that i uh i got a i got a question

1:34:33Matt Bertulli:for Cassandra. I like to ask this in every one of these. It's a flip of a common question. If your younger version of you was sitting in front of you right now, what advice would they give to you? I think my younger self wouldn't say anything to me necessarily, but that my younger self would give me a hug. My younger self would just give me a hug and just tell me how proud they were of me and that I just, I just kept going and I kept doing the work and I kept showing up and, and like, and like, just, just my, just really congratulate me on, on just staying the course and, and, and also just, and, and being willing to change.

1:35:22Like, I'm so proud of you for like being willing to be a different person and for better. I think that's what my younger self, that conversation we would probably have would be. I love that. That's so good. I'm a physical person. Well, hey, thanks for joining us. Congratulations on all your success, but really, honestly, more congratulations on winning in life, the things that matter. like I think the regret minimization framework idea is a really powerful one that when we look back on our life at 85 what are the things we're going to be proud of what are the things we're going to regret and I see the two of you doing really well in in the areas of life that that really matter in the long run so it's been great having you share your perspective with us today thank you yeah that was great guys so good

1:36:21you