481: Find the Right Partners, Influencers, and Co-founders

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2:42Hey guys, and welcome back to a very special episode of The Founder Podcast. Today, instead of listening to one guest, you're going to hear from multiple renowned founders about a specific challenge that we all face on our entrepreneurial journey. These guests will share their stories, solutions, and how you can learn to build your business better. In this episode, we're going to focus on the challenge of finding the right business partners, everything from co-founders to even influencers, featuring Gene Olwang, founding CEO and president of Virgin Unite and author of Partnering on How to Forge Deep Connections that Make Great Things Happen.

3:22Emma Greed, co-founder of Skims, Good American and Safely. Nick Mirkovic and Alex Tomek, co-founders of High Smile. David Lester, co-founder of Olipop. Raina Penchansky, co-founder and CEO of Digital Brand Architects and co-founder of Dear Media. Erin Deering, founder of Triangle Swimwear. And Jess Hatzis, co-founder of Frank Body. To get started, we're going to jump into my conversation with Jean Owang, defining what makes a real business partnership work. So we went on a mission and we were looking for two things. One was they had to have longevity in their partnership. And then the second is that they had to use their partnership to have made a bigger difference in the world.

4:07So we found some that lots of people will know, like Ben and Jerry or Archie Tutu and Leah, but then tons of leaders from all over the world that people may not know, like Lester and Ray, who are fighting the death penalty every day in America. And then interviewed about 65 of them after we made that selection over those 15 years. And it was so beautiful, because even though they were all different kinds of partnerships, friends or family, business, it was beautiful to see the common patterns that came up amongst all the partnerships. So you hear stories like some of these that you're talking about where a company from a commercial standpoint partners with another business and it's game-changing for that business.

4:53If I talk from personal experience, I've always found partnerships incredibly difficult to bring to life. I remember one time there was WeWork, famous WeWork, before they became not so famous. They wanted to do a big partnership with us and we were going to get the magazine digitally as a gift to every single member and they had well over 50 ,000, 100 ,000 plus members all around the world. And it was when they raised a ton of money, they didn't have the bad press and all the stuff, the crazy stuff that happened next. and they were doing a lot of acquisitions, all sorts of things. And I remember I was talking to them and we're going up and back and they wanted to test it out, this and that.

5:38It just never ended up going anywhere. And that seems for me personally when we try and do partnerships with other like-minded businesses that perhaps have a similar mission to us in terms of supporting entrepreneurs or facilitating their growth in some way, shape or form, it just never comes to life. And I'd love to hear kind of what are the things that you see people that people often do wrong when it comes to partnerships or they don't come to life or what are the things that people need to look for to be able to find that right fit? Yeah, this is a super important question because I think even the great partnerships that we interviewed, it was super hard work.

6:25It wasn't easy. But I think the way some of them fail, there's a few things because we talked to tons of people to figure out why a partnership fails as well as why they're successful. And the things that came out are things like a lack of shared meaning. So if you don't have that kind of something bigger, that intoxicating purpose that you're headed towards, it's hard for the partnership to stay together, particularly in a business partnership or collaboration. One of the other things was disconnected values so you didn't have the same set of values and principles yes which is breaks up a partnership almost immediately the other one was an imbalance in commitment so if one partner really wants to do this and is all in and the other one's about you know maybe 50 percent and it'll eventually crack because one will feel like they're putting in a lot more than the other one And then two other things that came up.

7:17One was this kind of roller coaster of drama of, you know, some partnerships that come together that aren't supposed to be together. They just have this constant, constant friction and conflict that they can't get through the other side of. And you see that happen sometimes. And then the last one is something we call the superhero syndrome, where if one partner thinks they have all the right answers, they're the number one. then the other partner is going to tire of that over time. So those are some of the reasons we saw them break rather than be successful. You talked about one which definitely rings true is that mutually beneficial exchange in value creation.

7:58Yeah. I'm thinking just of a partnership we tried again, like we've tried many times, and there was one, I'm not going to say the company's name, it is a well-known company. and, oh, look, they were really kind of tit for tat around, you've got to do this, we've got to do that, and we did some stuff, and then it didn't do that well, and they did some stuff. And, yeah, in the end it was just like, you know what, like let's just stop. Yeah. How do you find you get the right balance for that mutually beneficial exchange in value? And then, yeah, it felt like they were just trying to take as much as they could.

8:39Yeah, and that you shouldn't partner with them. It's just such a waste of energy then. You know, that's the other thing is really deciding who you, there's a continuum of you're going to have a lot of deep connection, deep partnerships on one side, and then a lot of light touch acquaintances. And I think choosing who you invest your time in is so important. And I think it is that intoxicating something bigger, that you have that kind of thing that you're both there for, that gives you the kind of, I guess, strength and power to kind of push through some of the difficult moments when you're first figuring each other out.

9:09And I remember we merged the Carbon War Room, which was this entity we'd set up that was really about market-based models to reduce carbon. And then we came together with this science-based group that was more technology-based, which are gaps that we were missing, called Rocky Mountain Institute. So you had Richard Branson, the crazy entrepreneur, and then Amory Lovins, the crazy scientist. And we merged those two organizations 10 years ago now almost, maybe eight years ago. And in the beginning, the merged organizations were$15 million annually. Now they are over 200 million, 400 people. And they're doing amazing work with energy transformation, with sector-by-sector industries, with business.

9:54And I think that's an example of where it really works, where you have complementary skills. You're not competing with each other. There's a real reason to come together because our ultimate goal was scaling the energy transformation. and that has been an extraordinary partnership. But it wasn't easy. It was like we had to decide we were going to give up our brand in the early days, which was a tough thing and it was a right decision. And then we had to figure out how we merged two incredible teams, which was also something we had to thoughtfully do. And then it was just figuring out what does that joint strategy look like.

10:28So I think there aren't a lot of mergers like that, particularly in the not-for-profit sector, also sometimes in the business sector, because they are hard work and it takes a lot of effort. But my gosh, the other side of that has just been amazing. How do you know when to keep going? Because you said oftentimes that this can happen where it's kind of a bit rocky. How do you know if to keep going and keep pursuing or persisting with the partnership? Yeah, I think if you can't see a shared something bigger on the other side, something that's going to have tremendous impact if you come together as businesses and if mismatch values.

11:04Like if you see respect not there in the beginning, like equal respect as a partner. And like when you're saying tit for tat, that's not building a partnership. That's more they were just trying to get from you what they could. And I think you have to go into a partnership thinking about what you can give through your partnerships rather than what you can get. And if people don't have that mentality, it's not worth trying to pursue that because you will just be in this transactional game that will never get to a deep connection relationship between the two organizations. Hey Founder Fam, I want to talk to you about something super exciting.

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12:19All right, now let's jump back into the show. So if you're building a business today, working with influencers and content creators is now an integral part of your growth. Here you can listen to Emma Greed share why she has the best celebrity business partners in the world. Such a huge part of my job was always, you know, coming to Hollywood because I was based in London at that time and meeting agents, managers, publicists, business managers and developing relationships with them. And so at that time, when you go back to like 2012, 2013, Kris Jenner was a manager. You know, she's a manager of this, you know, incredible family.

13:02But really back then it was Kim. And she was another manager that I would have lunch with and me. And, you know, Chris is an incredible manager. She would always, again, like paint the picture of like, where are they going? What are they doing? What are the dreams? What are the aspirations? And so I had a really clear idea coming out of ITB and having worked on so many, you know, talent equity participation agreements I was like oh I know that this is something that will be interesting to Kris Jenner because she had graduated her family past that point of like just doing endorsements and so when I had the idea around Good American I was like Khloe Kardashian is just going to get this she's going to understand and I know that she's looking for something where she can be more involved than just kind of coming in and shooting for a day and so I pitched it to Chris first um as like you know a manager contact I was like hey I've got something for one of your clients your client is your daughter but you know and she was like cool then um you know you should she said when you're next in LA you should pitch it directly to Chloe and I was like well funny you should say that I'm coming next week I wasn't of course and I flew specifically for the meeting but you know it was uh it was those early those early hustle days and you know I think so much of business even now right it's about building relationships and having and listening you know really understanding like what there is a need for what people want to do and I was you know lucky that I could make the stars align um there with Good American because I knew I had an incredible uh product I knew I had an incredible idea and that there was a real addressable market and it just so happened that when I pitched the idea to Chloe she was the girl she was the customer She was the woman that I was trying to reach out to.

14:52And she had been in this position for a long time, you know, being around her sisters, going on to sets to shoot various different things. And there being rails of clothes for the girls because they were like more regular size, if you like, and not so much for her. And so she immediately understood the problem and sympathized with the customer. And that was really the genesis of Good American came from, you know, me having an idea and a soul for a product that would work for a curvier body shape and Khloe fundamentally understanding the problem and being that customer. And when you put those two things together, it kind of made for this like magical, you know, magical launch really.

15:33Now, Greed isn't the only founder we've interviewed who's worked with the Kardashian family. High Smile co-founders Nick and Alex built their Smile Care brand from scratch through word of mouth influence by celebrities like Kim Kardashian. I asked them about their seemingly overnight success story and how they've developed their influencer partnerships. You guys have done a lot of cool stuff on the influencer side. You've worked with, I think, is it all the Kardashians? Yeah, we've worked with, I'd say, yeah, all the Kardashians, bar maybe one or two. Now, I know you probably can't share exact details around the commercial arrangements.

16:10Can you give us an indicative figure around what that kind of investment is in any capacity to work with them? And why do you choose to work with influencers this big? Do you get the return? I guess that's what people would be curious about, right? Is it worth it? 100 % I think that's what people ask every single day it's like is that worth it working with Kim Kim's a massive face for the brand we work with her a lot on a lot of our products look when it comes down to what something's worth I think it's looking at the business holistically work like when you look at Nike for example they'll attach themselves to certain figures not just to sell more product but to tell a story to tell a story to retailers and and to it to sell dreams to to potential customers as well for us we look at it in a similar way working and engaging with kim to launch a product um get does it get sales it gets sales does it get attention it gets attention but it takes the brand forward it positions the brand where we want the brand to be positioned it taps into a customer that we we want to sort of get the attention of um and it obviously helps and assist now that we're in retail helps and assist our retailers um with driving people in store and and making high small the beast that it is today i think just working with big talent um isn't going to make a brand make or break a brand i think for us influences now is if maybe less than five percent of what we do and where we put our dollars and where we put our attention like you look at we spoke on r &d yeah other marketing avenues retail support um the team itself and what we do there, spending money on our own internal culture to get that team sort of firing and make them want to work for High Smile.

17:55Influences went from something that was such a huge part of our business to now probably where it should be around 5 % of what we do and where we put our energy and focus. And I think, yeah, for sure, working with someone like Kim elevates a brand, positions us above a lot of the competitors. Like when you talk about our space i don't think some of the big brands are cool enough to work with a character like kim and i don't think some of the smaller brands are reputable enough to work with someone like kim so we're in this unique place where where kim is a is a great influencer for our brand and a great face for the brand and and someone who i think has a unique alignment with high smile compared to any other brand in our category david lester worked with celebrities like camilla cabello and gwyneth Paltrow to make his organic soda company a category contender.

18:43But Lester says influencer partnerships are overvalued. Celebrity is very overvalued in terms of what it can do for your brand. I'd say everything is overvalued. Ultimately, whether your brand is, and this should be reassuring, whether your brand and company is successful or not really comes down to you and your immediate team. It's not going to be the consultants you have working for you or, you know, And so I'd say that straight out the gate. All of these things can help for sure, but I wouldn't say they're defining. So never be afraid to walk away from anything that feels uncomfortable to you.

19:24Never let anybody oversell what they're going to deliver versus what you're going to do with the brand. But that being said, there's a saying from John Haggerty from BBH that always stuck with me, which is do interesting things and interesting things will happen to you. I think that's really we found that for sure. We started off with a very interesting product. I mean, it's fantastic what Ben developed. It's a very unique thing. We saw value in that. We held the value in that and saw the value in ourselves as we went to market. with humility. And other people were attracted to what we were doing because it was interesting.

20:09So everything from the Minions partnership that we did came at us organically. We have people reaching out a lot. I mean, when Universal reached out to us, Minions, we said to them, look, this would be great, but you realize we're a small company. We're not co-ed. Um, and you know, they said, look, we understand. We just think it's really cool what you guys are doing. And we would love to partner with your brand. And all the celebrities that have come in have a, have an authentic connection with the brand. So Kamila Cabello, we got put in touch with her because she was drinking the product herself.

20:45She, I think she was pictured drinking at Erewhon and, you know, we got put in touch and we spoke about it and she spoke really passionately about, um, you know, her upbringing in a Hispanic community and the impact that she'd seen of soda on that community and how committed she was to doing something about that and was really interested to partner with us. So, you know, it was very organic and authentic. And so, you know, getting money from celebrities is great. I mean, getting money from anywhere is great, to be honest. But what is really interesting and difficult is finding that sort of authentic link up and And I think when you do, that's when it starts to have impact.

21:32Otherwise, if a celebrity is just endorsing it because they've been paid to do so, I think consumers see that now and it doesn't really resonate too much. So we've actually just shot and produced an ad with Camilla and we're about to launch that in May and we're super excited for it. And I think it really resonates with her and resonates with us because we've pulled that through together and where the overlap is for her brand and what she's trying to do and what we're trying to do as well. Yeah, I think when it comes to working with thought leaders at any capacity, it can be if you align them with your brand, it can be a really strong way to build trust.

22:19even from a consumer's mind from association even if it is paid or not it's interesting to hear that that you don't believe that it's a it's as strong as it used to be as a trust builder yeah i mean i think you know it's always exciting when a celebrity gets involved when somebody important or famous you know shows interest in what you're doing it can be extremely validating, you know, because I've sat there in a room in my bedroom working on something. And all of a sudden, you know, when Paltrow and Camila Cabello were interested in it. And, you know, I think having humility also keeps that in perspective as well.

23:01That, you know, your ego doesn't run away with you.

23:08And, yeah, you know, really I can count on one hand. I think the times that celebrities have really materially impacted the trajectory of a brand's growth. It's a difficult thing to pull off. The majority of instances, the celebrity partnership really doesn't do too much at all. One of the areas that we found, we started on Instagram when we launched. That was about five years ago. Instagram was huge for us. We just built a community of people that really loved the product and just organically shared around it. And now TikTok is massive for us. And, you know, we have a platform that allows our consumers to get paid for sharing about the brand organically.

23:54And, you know, we partner again with people pretty authentically around what we're doing, and I think it's an easy it's an easy brand in that space, A, because people genuinely are constantly telling me, you know, this product really solved the problem for me, you know, and so they can talk about it. I think beverage is category is an interesting one, is quite sticky and soda is so emotionally resonant for people that, you know, there's a lot of cultural references to talk about with it, which as a marketer makes it a really, really interesting category to be in. It gets harder dependent on the category that you're in and the brand.

24:41If you're in a more commoditized space, that gets trickier. But Coca-Pepsi is some of the most iconic brands and Cingert soda is one of the most highly engaged categories. So we really aim to leverage that to our advantage. Hey guys, I hope you're enjoying this episode and learning a ton. As you know, in this series, we interview some of the greatest founders of our generation to find out how they did it. However, if you're thinking of starting your own business and you want to hear from some incredible stories from everyday people like you or I who are actually in the trenches, only been building their business for maybe one year or two years, like they're building right now and they're really in the early stages, but they're getting success.

25:25You should come and check out our new podcast from zero to founder hosted by our community manager molly flynn these are in the trenches stories from our very own successful students that have gone through some of our programs people just like you who are deep within the process of building their very own successful business these are the founders of tomorrow you can find the from zero to founder podcast on all platforms. And remember, it's founder without the E. All right, now let's jump in the show. Raina Penchansky's company has nurtured more than 200 prominent social media influencers, including Olivia Ponton, Patrick Starr, Amy Song, and Klee Shearer, and Joanna Teplin of The Home Edit.

26:12And I asked her about the state of influencer marketing right now. You know, our business continues to grow year over year, which is obviously, you know, knock on wood, knocking on wood, which is amazing. And I don't think that there's any I mean, you know, we all see the stats in terms of the percentage of Gen Z that want to be influencers is staggering. I think the last stat I saw was 82%. So the industry is not going anywhere. I think that because there are so many people, though, in the industry and people who want to do it. you have to really have a very strong point of view. I think it's going to create a lot of niche industries.

26:52You sort of see that on TikTok with clean talk or gardening talk or, you know, sort of things that are very niche, but are obviously, you know, incredible, create incredible content and really good businesses around them. But it's all about sort of this community and how you're engaging with this community. Whereas it used to be that influencers were these massive sort of lifestyle creators and they checked every box in terms of the kind of content they were creating. And now you're seeing just sort of the niche vacation, I think, of content and of influencers. You know, brands, believe it or not, brands' budgets are still small as it relates to what they're spending, you know, on influencers.

27:27So I think, you know, there's only room to grow there. I think one of the things that we recently started to focus on at TBA is in addition, obviously, to, you know, our creators who are incredible and are really diversified in terms of what their revenue streams look like, but also adding on a layer of user-generated content and being able to sort of work with brands and figuring out a sort of different layer of content that's more of just sort of evergreen content that isn't necessarily personality-driven. So I just think the future is going to be, we're all on our phones and we're all on these platforms essentially 24-7.

27:59So that's where the eyeballs are. And it's going to be a race to figure out how to get someone's attention and then the sort of layers of that attention. Yeah. can you talk us through the layers what you mean by that so i think there's obviously like you have traditional celebrities you have traditional content and then you have large scale you know you're massive influencers you have sort of you know in um influencers who are at a just sort of one step below a massive influencer then you're gonna have micro influencers and nano influencers and then you have sort of even user generated content i just think that you know everyone in some way, shape or form where either you're a brand or a person or a personality or a pet, you have a social platform.

28:41And so, you know, it's a matter of sort of figuring out and being and for brands to be sort of diversified in how they're approaching creators and the creator economy. And I also think you have to be smart about someone's community. You can be this incredibly astounding, you know, we have, for instance, there's an incredible food influencer who we work with, but she has an incredible, insanely high conversion on Shopbop, which is fashion. And so it's really starting to get into the sort of metadata around who the creator is that you're working with, what their audience wants, how do you engage with them, and just being smart about, again, it's authentic, organic are buzzwords, but they really are true.