How Two Friends Built a Multimillion-Dollar Business While Keeping Their Day Jobs

0:00It is a good example of when violating best practices actually worked out.

0:09Can you design a dream business and build a life that has room for other passions? Well, Rachel Hochhauser and Jenna Wolf have done it with their brand Peacework Puzzles, offering delightful maximalist puzzles for every mood, whim, and personality. We saw like people kind of copying this style and I think it's grown a lot. In just six years, they've sold over 300 ,000 puzzles, all while maintaining other careers. Took on a full-time role at Goop Kitchen leading the marketing teams. It took working and creative services and now PeaceWork to understand how to properly pitch and sell a book. Today, we're chatting about bootstrapping a business, building a framework that enables you to pursue other interests, and how to learn from and work with other founders to grow together.

0:47We listen to each other and we're willing to argue with each other. Everyone, welcome to Shopify Masters. I'm your host, Serena Smith, and this is your companion for starting and scaling a business. Jenna, Rachel, thank you for being here. Thanks for having us. The two of you have said that you started PeaceWork kind of as an experiment. What does that mean? It was a total lark is what it was. Jenna and I ran a creative agency that we co-founded for years. So we were in creative services. And as Jenna knows well, client services can be stressful and overwhelming. And so I separately with my then boyfriend, now husband, had booked a cabin for a weekend away in Yosemite with the intention of totally turning off my phone and computer and getting away from it all.

1:33But it rained for the whole weekend. And so we were stuck inside and there's no phone service. And I discovered this old dusty closet of jigsaws. I was not a puzzle person growing up. I wasn't one of those families that like did them at Christmas time. But I spent three days nonstop working on puzzles in front of a fireplace and was so meditative and nice. And I came back and I was like, Jenna, I have an idea. She thought I was crazy at first, but we were working on puzzles all the time and really enjoying it. And we felt like there was none out there that really spoke to our own taste and aesthetic.

2:08And, you know, we worked in design and visual identity and branding. And we're like, why can't we apply this skill set to puzzles? But we really intended it to be almost like this creative side project, not a business or a brand in its own right, and just kind of went for it. Yeah, totally. I mean, Rach basically pitched the idea to me, and I was like, this is genius. Like, nothing like this exists right now. We're living in this world where everything we choose is so branded. The toothpaste, the toothbrush, the soap, the everything, like, it takes forever to make a decision. And yet when it comes to puzzles, you know, pre-piece work, I feel like they were like very stale, right?

2:50And they were like embarrassing, weird. Jars of buttons. Watercolor kittens. Totally. Like weird puppies. And like you never wanted to like display them or you didn't feel like it represented who you were as a consumer. So I felt like there was this opportunity to really be a brand forward puzzle company. Were you a puzzle person at the time? Yeah. I like doing puzzles to like relax and unwind and take a break from screens because we were working in advertising and creative services. So Zoom calls and making decks and spreadsheets and emails like we're constantly on our phones or behind screens.

3:29So it was a really nice break. It's very meditative. And as a child, I loved puzzles. Did so many. Me too. Very grateful for piecework coming into the world because now piecework has been, you know, it exists in this influential space in the puzzle universe. It's hard to remember that at the time, you're right. It was like all these like antiquated kind of granny-ish designs. And we all just kind of like took for granted that that was the only option, I guess, maybe because you're engaging in this kind of lo-fi activity to begin with. There's something very fun about the juxtaposition of doing something that feels more lo-fi, but modernizing the design and bringing that in a different kind of way.

4:07Like what was your design philosophy going in? And how did you know that you wanted to differentiate yourselves? Sort of a twofold answer with the puzzles because you have the puzzle art itself and then the packaging and both of them are differentiated from what's out there. Every piecework puzzle is meant to be almost like a book or like a universe or world that feels very themed that you're stepping into. Each puzzle has its own title. They're down the spine. They can grow like a collection on your shelf. So that was like the puzzle art. We created it all from scratch ourselves for better or worse.

4:41I mean, some of those early photo shoots were literally in my grandmother's garage and we didn't actually have a shot list for our first puzzle art shoot, which is just amazing. In hindsight, we just went into it with a ton of props we thought were cool and figured it out. That netted out in our first four SKUs we ever launched, which is astonishing to me now because I don't think we could pull that off again if we tried. And then the second part of that was the packaging. We wanted to do really artful design-forward packaging that wholesale would want to display, but also that instead of competing with, you know, the puzzles that are for sale at the drugstores or the big box stores, that were more in line with a luxury candle.

5:17So something that you would want to gift someone, something you'd be proud to kind of set out on your coffee table or on your shelf, more like an art book than, you know, a traditional box for a game. And do you find that people are actually retaining the packaging and displaying it? and using it for other purposes? I think it's a huge part of our success. Not necessarily using it for other purposes so much as displaying it in their homes, taking pictures of it and posting it on social. I mean, we have grown only organically on social and I think it's just because they are so friendly to the camera.

5:48Yeah, like merchandising them in your home, styling them on a shelf. We thought about every angle of the puzzle. You know, we thought about the typography. We thought about the color. We thought about, of course, the puzzle art. But I think no matter how you stack them, They look really beautiful. And we were really thoughtful about that because we love that part of brand building. So we got to bring it to this project at the time. Yeah. Can you talk about that a little bit? I mean, you both had a creative agency that you were running together prior to that. You come from that world. What did you understand inherently about brand building and brand identity that you were able to utilize as you were bringing PeaceWork to life?

6:27I mean, so much from like the strategy and the conception and the positioning of it. You know, what else exists in the market? How are we going to do something that's different and special? We knew right away what we were offering and how it was going to be, you know, very unique to the market. We just talked about this, right? Everything was like fuddy-duddy and the packaging wasn't something that you wanted to display. So we knew that we were going to do that really differently. And then we also really thought about like the brand personality and voice and tone and how it would come to life with colors and with language and the words that we would use, the energy it would have.

7:02We were doing that work for clients all the time. And a lot of the time, like, you know, we didn't love what our clients were doing. So we had to like fake it. But with PeaceWork, because it was we were the client and we were the creator, we got to, you know, do whatever we wanted and really lean in. That has been the best part is we are our own client. so we don't get caught in 25 rounds of approval with, you know, 35 people and a bunch of board rooms. We can do what we want. And for better or worse, you know, we've made mistakes too. But at the end of the day, it's our creative playpen. As satisfying as I'm sure it has been running your agency, it's frustrating when you have something that you creatively believe in.

7:43And then because there are so many cooks in the kitchen and so many rounds of approvals, you see something get like diluted and pivoted so many times that by the end, it's like, was it the thing that anybody wanted in the end. And with this, you get to retain full creative autonomy, which I can imagine has to be very gratifying. At the time, everyone was doing like really similar kind of websites and like look and feel of like super beige on beige and lots of whites and just following trends. And at our agency, clients kind of want that too. They sort of gravitate towards like what culture is telling them and what they're seeing represented on like Instagram and whatever.

8:19but for us we knew right away we wanted this to be super bold and colorful and maximalist and have like competing colors and like ugly cool colors and use long words we just got to do whatever we wanted and and we were so authentic to the vision that we had and I think it really resonated with people right it felt real it felt interesting and different and then we saw like lots of fast follows and people kind of copying this style and I think it's grown a lot like this maximalist world that we created has become so much more popular. And I like to think we have a little bit of a hand in that. I'll give you a really specific example.

8:57As women, there's a lot of quote unquote rules you're given in business. One of them is don't use too many exclamation points in emails because that's something that women do. They feel they have to modify their speech and their tone. And it's something I'm aware of when writing an email. For Peace Break, we went the opposite direction. And we use not just one exclamation point all the time, but three or four or five. Like we leaned into that. We wanted to go crazy with exclamation points. And it's a hyper specific detail, but it speaks to, you know, we just want to do things the way we feel like doing them.

9:30That feels really authentic to who this brand is. And I think Jen and I both know who the brand DNA of this, like the back of our own hands. I mean, yesterday I sent Rachel on Instagram. I got this ad of a horse toaster, actually several. It was like a carousel of different horse toasters. And I mean, like toasters in the shape of a horse. Yeah. And I was like, I think we could sell this. And she goes, I already sent it to Sam, our head of like merchandise. And she's like, or our head buyer. And she's like, but I think it's AI. I don't even think it's real. Like we both knew that this weird fake potentially horse toaster was us.

10:05Yes. Oh, my God. If Peace Park were a coaster. You guys are dialed in. Yeah. You're dialed in. But it's like, it's interesting because we live in this like algorithmic universe, right? Where you're just fed something over and over and over again. And then you can't really find any more like where genuinely your own sense of style or taste ends. And it's just something that's been fed to you repeatedly. Like, how did you know now maximalism is in vogue? At the time, it was, as you guys were saying, Grage, like, how did you know in that moment, like, that's actually just not what we want to do? A lot of our inspiration has come from earlier decades.

10:43And I think, you know, maximalism isn't something that's new. It comes from earlier points in time. So we continue to be inspired. I mean, a lot of our puzzles, you look at them and you can point to the exact, like, place and era that they're calling back to. And that was just a part of our inspiration for the brand as well. I'm trying to remember like our initial inspiration deck, which had like Iris Apfel, like the huge glasses and like. Over the top interior decor has been a big one for us. My late father-in-law, Tom Wolfe wearing all white suits and having like hats and like being in the city.

11:18Just like people that were very, like beat to the tune of their own drum was something we used to talk about a lot as our muse. This idea of like someone who just knows who they are and has this different vibe and is like very confident being that person. And that's what makes them cool. And that's the spirit that you feel like piecework is embodying. Yeah. It feels like you have these rabid fans, right? These customers that come back to you time and again and again. Do you see the link between your approach to design and that customer loyalty? Like I said, each one of our puzzles is a world and it feels like you have the same fandoms for books and their series.

11:56And we have some of our customers like, what are you going to come up with next? What weird, wacky world is your next puzzle going to be? And hopefully, you know, we hit the mark most of the time. It's fun. You know, the brainstorming and product development aspect of the job is definitely the best part because we get to really go wide. Yeah, how fun. Like, you're just, you're playing. You talking about it being an experiment and not approaching it from the perspective of, you know, we want this to be this life-changing business opportunity for us or for it to become our full-time gig even. Do you think from a mentality perspective that that's allowed you a different kind of freedom than if you had put more pressure on what this needed to be?

12:37Absolutely. So Jenna and I were in a really unique position when we started PeaceWork because I think most founders and entrepreneurs very quickly need to put pressure on the business to pay themselves and make a living. And we were running the creative agency simultaneously and making our money there, which meant that we didn't have to go out for investment in the company. And that shifted the entire dynamic because there was no one we really answered to. It's what enabled us to have the creative playpen. But we're both hyper aware that that's not the case in reality for most founders. It's a privileged position to be in.

13:13And the flip side is that, you know, we worked on the company for years without paying ourselves. Right. You worked on the company for years without paying yourselves. You've remained bootstrapped, right? You haven't taken on any outside investment. So you have full autonomy. Have you always retained some kind of outside work, both of you? Or has PeaceWork ever been the full-time gig? No, we've always had other projects. PeaceWork is very much synthesized into our other work, but we have an incredible team that works on it. And we've always both been involved in different ways, but it is not our full-time thing.

13:46What do you mean when you say that it's always been synthesized with your other work? Can you talk about how the things dovetail? Yeah, absolutely. So Major Studio was our creative agency and our other two co-founders there do all the design for Peacework and all the packaging design. Jen, I don't know if you want to speak to, you know, your current endeavors, but Jen leads marketing at Goop. Kitchen. Goop Kitchen. Yeah. Important. Yeah. I mean, we started Peacework when we were running our agency. That's where we made our money. That's where our income was from. But we were both feeling really tired and burnt out by working in client services.

14:20And, you know, it's just such a grind if you're familiar with it. And, you know, we'd been doing it for over 15 years. We were itching to do something on our own. And it was, you know, being able to juggle between the two, like let us have so much autonomy with PeaceWork. We don't, I feel like you either have a trust fund and you come from like incredible wealth and you can like start these companies or you have to raise money. And we didn't have to do either of those things because we were supporting ourselves with another business. But like I said, we both really wanted to get out of client services.

14:49So, you know, over time, Reach has stepped in more as the day-to-day of piecework. She also just recently sold and has her first novel coming out in March. I'll let her speak to her. Very proud of her. So she's doing that. She's a part-time writer, you know, I mean, I don't know, part-time writer, part-time piecework, you know, brand leader and steward and CEO. And I recently, I guess in March, took on a full-time role at Goop Kitchen leading the marketing team. So I have this very intense full-time job now that I'm loving, but you know, I'm still very involved in PeaceWork. We're still creative partners and best friends and talk all the time.

15:29So it's just been how it's worked for us. It's very non-traditional. It's non-traditional. Both of us are also like crazy worker bees and very type A and love to have a lot of pots on the stove and things going on, you know, across our personal and professional lives. So it's, I don't know, it's fun to code switch between multiple big projects. Fun to code switch. And it strikes me that there is like almost a symbiotic relationship where maybe your work at Goop is sort of triggering something else in your brain that actually can serve this business as well? And your work as a writer can serve the work that you're doing here as well?

16:11Do you find that that's the case? Absolutely. I think there's a ton of synthesis. Like Jenna hosted a Goop Kitchen dinner a couple of weeks ago and magically our PeaceWork tomato cocktail napkins were somehow on the table at this influencer event. And for me, you know, I've my writing, I've done writing for years, But I think it took actually working in creative services and now piecework to understand how to properly pitch and sell a book. You know, I was always writing. But the business side of being an author, I didn't have that skill set before. So I got to develop that via piecework. And that's been hugely beneficial for my writing.

16:47I want to talk about your writing in just a minute. But, you know, it's kind of like a hackneyed piece of advice you often hear. Don't go into business with your friend. it seems like you're absolutely the exception to that rule. And maybe that's a rule that's meant to be debunked altogether. What's your take on it? I think it depends on the friend. Jenna and I first met studying abroad in Paris in a writing program through NYU, where we both went to undergrad. And we were friends for a long time before we started working together. But I have friends that I could not work with. Jenna and I work together so well.

17:25And we have a ton of professional respect for each other. And I think that's a big part of it. We're also both type A and we listen to each other and we're willing to argue with each other. I think those are all really important parts of our partnership. I've worked with friends and not had it work out also. So I definitely hear that advice and I've been burned by that. And I've lost friendships or I've taken, you know, years off of speaking to people who are really important to me. So it can be really fraught. I think what's different about our working relationship and friendship from some of those past experiences is that we're both kind of equally as committed and hardworking as one another.

18:06And that creates a really nice even playing field where we really try to divide and conquer responsibility tasks and independently. So we're like adding to the sum of the work effort and then and then pulling each other in, you know, for support or for collaboration and brainstorm at the right moments, too. But for me, at least, that was the big difference. It's like I've worked with people who just don't want to put in as much time or have this very different ideas about what roles and responsibilities we each have. And we're so aligned there. We're both willing to give so much. And also, like when the other person's feeling burnout, like we'll compensate and we'll go back and forth.

18:47So to me, that's been the big difference. It's a really good marriage. Yeah. My husband and his best friend started a company together, too. And it was so frequent that they were given that. You know, people were like, are you sure? You know, this is going to annihilate the two of you. And it's like they're six years in and they're better best friends than they were in the beginning, you know, because if it works and you know how to work through conflict with each other and you know how to communicate, you really respect the hell out of each other. It's only going to make your relationship richer, right?

19:14Thank you. That's just a love letter to the two of you. You started in puzzles and found your footing there. And the napkins have become this total hit. But to me, you have to explain to me, like, how you went from puzzles to napkins, because it doesn't feel like the most natural extension of my brain. It is an excellent question. And it is, I think, also a good example of when violating best practices actually worked out. Because I was talking to a client, and they were a puzzle company. I would never think to advise them to go into something like napkins. But essentially what happened was that we were launching a tomato puzzle last summer.

19:52And to make a big moment out of this tomato-themed puzzle, which is called Tomato Tomato, we wanted to do something called Tomato World, where we had all these tomato-themed products all around it and had its own like micro site and just make this like tomato moment, which I think feels like that was also a cultural moment that we played a role in or participated anticipated in, I should say, where tomatoes were suddenly everywhere. But when we were stalking Tomato World and looking for products, there weren't a ton out there. And a lot of the ones that were out there weren't to our taste or didn't really match in the way that we wanted them to.

20:25We have many existing manufacturing relationships. And we said, OK, kind of similar to how we decided to make four puzzles. No big deal. We'll just make some tomato-themed products to throw into Tomato World. So we made tomato napkins. And they did really, really well, which was surprising to us. And they were fairly easy to produce. So we ended up making sardine napkins next. And then those did really well. So it just then has since become this extensive line of napkins and turned into this whole other arm of our business, making 100 % linen cocktail napkins. And now they're really big in wholesale.

21:00They're doing great for us. Wow. How big a piece of the pie, or I guess I should say puzzle, are the napkins at this point? Pretty considerable in wholesale. They definitely are encouraging us to continue expanding into new product verticals. You also have a number of things on the site that are not of your own design. How did you make the decision to expand into sort of these curated offerings and what's your approach to the curation process? Yes. As PeaceWork is known for these really maximalist puzzle worlds filled with props. And the prop sourcing was a big part of our life and work. And we work with great people that also do that.

21:38And it was just so fun to be at a shoot and see everything. And we found we had customers reaching out to us about some of the objects that were in the puzzles, asking what they were or where they could get them. So it felt like a really natural extension to start pulling those puzzle worlds out above and beyond the puzzle, not just, you know, items that you see in the puzzle artwork, but things that feel really thematically linked. And the other component was that we find that our products, because of the packaging, because they're just a really fun gift object, people really shop piecework for gifting.

22:11And we thought, well, they should be able to shop even more giftable products. So we essentially created these edits on our website that are really shoppable and highly themed by occasion or by themes such as tomato, like we were talking about, where, you know, everything kind of fits into a world. And I know as a gift receiver, I would love to open up a nice gift wrap box and have like a bunch of quirky tomato themed products in it. It's just fun when things go together in that way. Has it changed your understanding of what the business is? Yeah, it's a great way to get data. You know, we can see what types of products customers are interested in what they gravitate towards.

22:49We're constantly surprised by things that oversell or sell through or undersell. You know, we think something is so wonderful and it just doesn't move. It's also a great way to drive, you know, more traffic and increase AOV. It's just been beneficial across the board. And it's also helpful for like incubating new products. I mean, getting to know what people are buying, if that's something that we can make on our own, or we have ideas about how to, you know, develop a product in that category. It's helpful. And just to double back on something that Rach said, you know, I think we were really clear from the beginning that we didn't want to only operate in like the puzzle and games market.

23:26We really wanted to be in this like broader gifting market and compete with a bottle of wine or like something that you might bring to someone's home for like a housewarming, right? It's like there's a much bigger playing field there. So we were conscious of that from the very beginning. And that was our hypothesis with this product and was proved correct. So we kept pushing that in a few different ways in the marketplace, in the napkins and other products that we tried that weren't as successful as the napkins. What was something that you thought would be a hit and wasn't? We launched candles and they did fine, but they weren't the same breakout success as the napkins.