512: How Shay Mitchell Is Disrupting a $17B Industry

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0:39Just head to omnisend.com forward slash founder without the E to get started. All right, now let's jump back into the show. I was on a hit show and that was my first big thing. Was it my best acting? Probably not. But you know what I learned so much on that show? You know, as soon as we would wrap our last episode, I'd be caught a plane going somewhere far. And when the time came where I was purchasing my own bags for my own travels, that's when I noticed that there was a white space on the market. The creator and CEO of multi-million dollar company BASE, mom, actor, entrepreneur, Shea Mitchell.

1:13I look back at my life. Is there anything I haven't done yet? How much time do we have here? BASE, Onda, and a few other things about to come out too.

1:24Before we dive in, I want to extend a warm invitation to join our thriving founder community. It's the perfect place to discover more insightful interviews aimed at helping you build, grow, and scale your business. So don't forget to hit subscribe. Your support means the absolute world to us. Thank you so much for subscribing. Let's get stuck in today's discussion. Hear the stories, learn the proven methods, and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to the Founder Podcast with Nathan Chan.

1:59just a conversation i love it yeah just as if we're just meeting which we are absolutely so on that the first question that i ask everyone that comes on is how did you get your job aka how'd you find yourself doing the work you're doing today what work there's a lot i'm like what are we talking about um how did i get started with base yeah how'd you get started in everything that you've done? How did I get started with everything? Okay. How much time is, how much time do we have here? How did I get started? I was born in Toronto. Before I started acting, I was in bottle service. I worked at a couple different nightclubs, lounges, and at the same time I was taking acting classes.

2:46So I did a nighttime job so I could go to my class during the day. That was very interesting. And then I ended up booking a show that took me to the States. And that show ran for seven years. I learned a lot and I learned a lot quickly in that time. I think that was sort of the foundation of my learning of how to manage time. Because I was on the show, we would shoot sometimes from, I don't know, anywhere from like four hours from seeing to 22 was my one of my longest days. And we did that for seven years, nine months out of the year. And so in that time, you know, there was a lot of sitting and waiting.

3:26But I also learned a lot about myself. And I was like, hi, I have all these ideas in this downtime of like things that I want to do for the hiatus, which is basically the time you have off from shooting. And my interests were always in traveling. You know, as soon as we would wrap our last episode, I'd be on of playing going somewhere far. And at that time, I'd also started a YouTube channel. So I was like, okay, how can I kind of bring you know, everyone along with me, because I'm going to all these incredible places, I'm doing these amazing experiences, meeting so many awesome people, I want to share this.

3:59So that's when I started getting into the YouTube world. And then I started a channel called Shakeation. And so that was sort of what I did during my time while shooting the show in addition to having a blog and writing a book. And I think my sort of, I don't know, my thought process is always, okay, when the time comes and I'm like, you know, there and I look back at my life, is there anything I haven't done yet? And if so, why? So I feel like I have that mentality and I've always had it. So yes, I did a lot of stuff when I was shooting that show. But from that, I learned how much I loved traveling.

4:35And I learned that when I was abroad, I would kind of pick up inspiration from people, you know, that I would meet. And when the time came for me to, you know, purchase my own luggage and my bags and all of that, that's when I noticed that there was a white space on the market. And I thought, okay, I, you know, I've learned over these years how to market and brand myself, you know, from being an actress on the show that was, had done so well on social media. First, you know, we went heavy on Twitter, and then it was Instagram and I learned all these different ways of how to communicate with my community and I've always had a passion for bags and ever since I was a little girl I remember having like my first paboodles I don't know if you have that over there but it's like this plastic makeup trunk kind of case and I didn't even care about what was in it I just loved bags anytime I'd come to the states because I'm Canadian I'd go to Target we'd run to the I'd run to the back and I would go to the toiletry bag section.

5:33Like as a little girl, I just loved bags. I loved having, you know, something that I knew if when I had, you know, things to put in it, it'd be organized. So anyways, my love of bags had started from a young age. And when the time came where I was purchasing my own bags for my own travels, like I said, I had noticed that white space and I wanted to create a brand with products that fit the buckets that I didn't think these other companies were hitting. Like I wanted something that looked good, but didn't break the bank. I wanted function, but not too much function um and bass came about from my love of travel and um yeah that's that's like the short condensed version i'm trying to fit it all in but yeah then you started a production company and then also you've got a sparkling tequila company as well so you've got a lot going on yeah but it's you know it's interesting because for me it's always kind of just flowed everything is just kind of happened at the right timing with this.

6:31And I think that's a huge part of it is, you know, hard work and luck and the right timing. It just, I feel like with bass, you know, it came after the show, um, a couple, like a year after the show. And, you know, we've been six years, five years when it launched in 2018. Um, but we'd worked on it about a year and a half prior to launching and then with onda that also came that came out of my love of drinking um and also seen another white space in that market but yeah so shakation base onda a few other things about to come out too so tell me around base you said that you were working on it for a year and a half before you launched in 2018 what did that process look like because i I think a lot of people might look at a creator like yourself and go, okay, well, that's easy.

7:27I can just find a product, launch it. That person's got a massive audience. But you've built an incredible brand that's long-lasting. And before I heard of you, I knew the brand. I knew the brand base before I knew you. So you've done an exceptional job of building an incredible brand. Talk us through like what that first 18 months looked like to create a physical product and building the brand. Yeah. The name played a huge part. I think even just anybody now coming up with the name for anything, you know, it's like you look and it's like taken, taken, taken, taken, taken. You're trying to come up with something creative that people will remember.

8:09And it kind of tied back to when I was auditioning prior to being on a show. my real name's Shannon my dad's Irish and Shannon Shannon and Sean my brother's name is Sean and I remember for me even going into audition rooms when I had changed my name to Shay just going by Shay people you know in the in the audition room would be like wait Shay that's interesting how do you spell S-H-A-E-S-H-A-Y and it gave me that couple extra seconds to talk to them right in the room that I may not have had if they had just seen Shannon on there so I had my little like story in there and I would get to be in the room for a little longer explaining Shay.

8:47It actually came from J-Lo. I loved Jennifer Lopez at the time. So I went to Shay Lo because there was another girl named Shannon in my class. And I just started going by Shay and it just stuck. So anyways, learning from that, I wanted a name that people kind of were like, oh, interesting. I had so many different names. Went back and forth. That took a huge chunk of time just trying to find something that fit and felt right and wasn't taken. I had always traveled with this beige bag of mine and it was like one of my first bags. I loved it until it couldn't be used anymore. And then when I was looking up other ways of how to say beige, base came about.

9:27And then it had the accent and I was like, oh, the accent kind of just reminded me of like this airplane taking off. And I was like, base. And I'd ask people how they would pronounce it. And so many of my friends were saying it like a million different ways and I was like that's funny because no it's not very obvious how you pronounce it especially with the accent makes people think it just kind of tied back to you know my like auditioning days of like getting that extra second room it's something you'd remember you'd be like oh yeah bass with ax b a space b and I loved that I love that there was almost a little bit of confusion in how to pronounce it because then you had people seen it a couple times over so it was first getting the name um and then it was kind of thinking about the product and I remember one of my first drawings was I do a lot of hand drawings because I'm not technically savvy as you saw from prior to this setting all this up I use pen to pencil pen pen and paper and I still do that and I would draw this bag because I would notice different things from my travels I'd be like okay I love a big bag but I need a separate compartment because I don't want my shoes touching my things but then if you have a big bag you lose things and when I'm trying to get my keys to go inside my house I need something to hold it like a key leash but then I don't want it to slide off my carry-on so like I need to have this trolley passer I would just kind of be paying attention to what people were using in the airports as I still do to this day like I'm just staring at people from like waist down it's a little weird sometimes but I'm always just like what are they using what are they traveling how big are their wheels like I'm like always doing that I always did do that so I drew up this bag and that became our weekender and from that you know it was sort of like coming out with the the lineup of the product and what did we want to launch with because that's how people kind of know you as and I think we were very specific when it came to the launch strategy I didn't want to launch with rollers I didn't want to just be oh that travel company that luggage brand no I wanted to launch with our weekenders I wanted to launch with, you know, cosmetic bags and things that were more every day.

11:36And that was a strategic sort of play because I just wanted to be, you know, something that was in touch with our consumer on a daily basis versus, you know, when they would travel, which might be once or twice a year, you know. And that's sort of our first product launch with that. Yeah. So you documented a lot of this, which is quite fascinating. training and uh you know you went to china you went to you know you like you picked like a lot like it was very it wasn't just like you know a lot of people they want to create an e-commerce business and they go to alibaba and then they find something and they and it's a white labeled product and then they just change it a little bit you actually really kind of designed this product fit for purpose which is a more expensive journey because you have to create a mold from scratch from a manufacturing standpoint i'm curious um how many trips did you do to china and how long did it take to get the like the sample like how many samples did you have to go up and back on to go yeah that's the one and how did you know when it was the one i went twice and i think the sample process even to this day is something that takes a long time it's like it feels like forever i say it feels like a year my team's like well it's actually like three months before we get our first sample.

12:55And then, you know, from like when you draw it up to when it can come and you're like happy with it, you know, it's about six to nine. Like we're designing right now for summer of 2025, right? Just to get perspective on the amount of lead time you need. But yeah, it was important for me to go and be able to see things and learn about it. I didn't go to design school. I never claimed to be a designer at that point. You know, I was learning as I went. And I think that's the other huge, you know, that's the other great thing that I had with starting base is I had such an incredible team. Although we started with just five people, I had such incredible people that had been doing this for so long.

13:35They brought their experience. I was learning from them as I went. And I think that's the other thing I always say to people is like you don't necessarily always have to have this, you know, long list of education all the time to go into something. You know, like I am just somebody who learns better as they go. I was on a hit show and that was my first big thing, you know, without as much acting experience as other people had on that show. Was it my best acting? Probably not. But you know what? I learned so much on that show and I just need to be thrown into the fire. That's the type of person I am.

14:10And so I think same thing with bass. I wanted to go. I wanted to see how it was made. I wanted to see the factory. I wanted to see what other people were doing at the factory. Okay, you do these purse people suitcase. Let me break their suitcase down. Let me rip it apart. What wheels do they use? Why does it roll better with these ones? Like, why is this company more expensive? What's their material that they're using? This is my option of zippers. Like, it was a lot, you know, it was mind blowing. I'm like, Oh, so you use different metal. Okay, if the zipper you're using metal for this, you don't want to use it.

14:38I had to learn about it because it wasn't just something that I was like, Oh, have these designers mock something up and I sign off on it. No, no, no. Even to this day, I pick every single model for our photo shoots, even if it's e-com. Like, it's just how I've always wanted to be, especially with this, because I am so passionate about it. I want to be able to tell you why I did this zipper here and why it wasn't on the back part. Like, I have to be able to speak about it like that. And from, you know, the very beginning, going and doing those trips myself was extremely important and understanding why we were doing things.

15:13But yes, it is a lot more expensive. getting samples and going back and forth and having to wait that's also expensive but I know what the markups were and I wanted to be able to create affordable luxury for people because getting you know a plane ticket traveling just even stepping out of your house for a coffee is now so expensive I didn't want the bags and the things that you're using to put your possessions and to break the bank as well. Like that's not fair. So I knew kind of, you know, what I wanted to do in terms of price with that. And it sometimes can get a little challenging, but it's been a great learning process from the beginning that I wanted to document to, to your point.

15:56I thought it was important and still do to bring people behind the scenes of this whole process. Yeah, you said something really interesting. You saw a white space. How did you see it? Is it because you went so deep in the market or like, and yeah, we went so deep on the customer. Cause I was a consumer myself. I still am a consumer. I was out looking to buy my own luggage. You know, the luggage I had been using on my trips and while I was on the show was like hand-me-downs from my parents. You know, I think that's like a lot of people. They're like, oh, you got an extra suitcase. Let me take mine or my parents, you know, and it didn't suit my, who I was.

16:30And I was like, oh, I'm traveling now. You know, I want to like purchase my own luggage. I want to purchase my own bags my own travel gear and when I was a consumer out in the world I was looking I had this option that was so expensive that was more than my plane ticket and also didn't meet the function that I needed it didn't expand didn't have this didn't have that or I went in this realm and I was like okay but if this breaks on me while I'm away that's gonna really suck and then this one it's fine with the function but it's just so loud and I want something just black and chic or beige. I don't want it to be so have so many prints and all of that.

17:05So I couldn't find anything that checked every box, you know? And I think that's really where it came from is like, I'm also a consumer myself. I see what's out there. I see what isn't. And I saw a lot of what wasn't out there at that time. Yeah. I think, and that's so true. Like the best businesses and the best business ideas tend to come from your own problems scratching your own itch and if i think about founder and like how we you know started just as a magazine because i wanted to interview people that had really that that had done it but hear their stories and then that turned into an education platform but we got the people that we interviewed to teach and like it's so different to modern day university right like it's a modern day university right so i think that That was an itch that I was looking to scratch because nothing out there existed, right?

17:58You could learn from people that have actually done it. Exactly. Exactly. And that's kind of how we still do it every single day. You know, it's like me and my team are also consumers. You know, we also see things that we need to make our, you know, day-to-day journeys a little bit easier. And that's always what I also wanted with FaZe was to be a solution-based company, you know, and then becoming a mom and traveling with kids. that was a whole other thing. Solution-based company, what do you mean by that? I mean, like, for example, creating, you know, the Weekender. I was drawing up a design that sort of met the needs that I couldn't find out there.

18:39You know, like I said, I wanted this large bag, but I didn't want to lose my keys. So by putting a little key leash in there, that fixed one of my issues of wanting a large bag, but not wanting to lose the smaller items in it you know I'd always had bags that I just plop on top of my carry-on but then when I'm running in the airport and it's falling off because there's nothing to hold to it that's where the trolley pass-through came that also fixed a problem that I had had you know and I think too it's like even with the smaller items that we have our little side sling you know I wanted to to have a little drink compartment so that I wouldn't be holding my drink or my water bottle and that because doing things with two kids now even if it's going to the grocery store trying to get them in the car it's like a lot so now i just plot my water ball in here and do that so it's you know fixing the little problems that we may have you know when we're out in the world and talk to me about launch strategy you said you were very strategic on the launch strategy and i'd love to hear you know what was your moq if you're happy to share and like you know how fast did you sell out talk us through that talk us through take us back what was it like oh so the ordering and that kind of stuff, I will never pretend like I know I don't.

19:53I have an incredible team who are exceptional at what they do. They place the orders. They've done this for a lot of long. I have no idea. I drew up the bags. I, you know, chose every all the details on it. As far as the marketing of it and the Instagram, definitely hands on with that because that's, you know, where my experience comes from. And I think going back to wanting to launch with weekenders, it was just again to be like hey we want to solidify our space in the market is not just being a travel brand I don't want you to just have to come to us when you're when you booked a plane ticket I want you to come to us whenever you leave the home if you're going for a walk if you're going to the grocery store you're dropping off your kid you're going to the gym I want to be able to provide the bags and the things that you need to put your belongings in when you leave the house so whatever your journey is for me to be that's where I want you to want to come to base and so if we had launched with rollers it would have just been that travel brand or just that you know yeah travel brand and so I think that's what I mean by being strategic it's like okay we launch with weekenders we launch with makeup bags I think too when you know COVID hit that was two years into us launching a lot of people were like oh my gosh you know that's crazy like you guys have a suitcase.

21:07No, we're not just a suitcase company. And the actuality of it was because we had such a small team at that point and still really do for the most part, we were able to kind of pivot quickly and quicker than other people. Okay, cool. We can't maybe launch with our rollers right now because a lot of people aren't traveling. So let's focus on the other categories that we have, like our hands-free bags people are still going to the store they're still going on hikes a lot more hikes they're doing smaller trips road trips um and i think kind of moving the consumer over to our other categories that we had was crucial at that time and i think that's the other thing product diversity we have 13 categories right now from toads to backpacks to hands-free bags to kids to cosmetic bags.

22:01We don't just have to talk about one specific category like rollers. So that was really the saving grace during that time. And I think that's also something that, you know, from having a small team and being so hands-on with our, you know, community and that conversation with them, we really do get to hear what it is that they're looking for and what it that they're needing. You talk about your team. I'm really, really curious because someone like yourself, getting your team right is so critical, right? Like you're relying, like you said, you're relying on your team to lean on for some of the expertise.

22:41How do you identify people that you can trust, which is first and foremost, the most important thing? How do you identify that? Because you know in your situation there's a lot of people telling you what you want to hear 100 um you know I also would say that I'm like a big believer and it could sound woo woo but like I think everything happens for a reason I think I also spend a lot of time like I don't just do one interview I do two interviews with everybody that we bring on and I feel like I'm do I have psychic ability I don't know I have really good intuition is what I'll say and you know at the end of the day you'll never know for certain if somebody's going to be that right fit for the entire length of time that they choose to work with you but you can get a good sense of somebody I also think you know seeing where they were beforehand and understanding why they made that move or what happened with their last job what it is that they're looking to do I I think regardless of the position, I'm always curious as to what that person's like dream goal is.

23:49Like where is it that they want to go? They may be starting off in this position, but like if you could do anything, what is that? Because that's when you're going to get great work culture is what I like to call it. When you have people excited and where they know that there is so much room to grow and you're not capping anybody's like, okay, this is where what we need and this is the only position. No, you want to start designing, but you're starting off as an office assistant, go for it. I love that. Give me ideas. I'll take ideas from anybody. And I think especially in this time where there is so much competition, you know, you can see what's doing well for somebody.

24:25There's a lot. You can poach this person. I'm always like, please try. If somebody, I mean, same thing to any of my relationships. If you're happier over there or working over there, go for it. I don't want to stunt your growth. I don't ever want you to not feel excited to come to work. but we have such a great team and I think because everybody is genuinely excited and when people are passionate about what they're doing their output is so much more than you could ever even ask for you know the ideas that I see on a daily basis from my social team to design to digital ads I'm like you guys are just crushing it but again I think it's also because we all collectively are like loving what it what we're doing and you can feel that and we just got an office recently I was mentioning earlier after you know five years of being out there we were designing the bags on my dining table in my house like a kid screaming a baby feeding like I'm playing outside we've never really had a proper office and now we do and it's even better because now the team can come there you can work from home or you can come to the office but it's just built such a good I don't know place to be and so many more ideas are able to happen when we're in this sort of bullpen of this office now and I just love it and I think the team loves it too and again it's just like you need to create an environment for people where they want to be there and they also know that the sky isn't the limit.

25:53Hey guys I really hope you're feeling inspired from today's interview. The truth is there's never been a better time to build an e-commerce business. And the best part is you don't have to do it alone. And that's where Founder Plus comes in, which I'm really excited to share with you. If you're feeling stuck in your e-commerce business, lacking confidence to move forward, or really worrying about making costly mistakes, Founder Plus is here to support you. You get access to a customized learning pathway with proven frameworks from successful e-commerce founders for fast results, a supportive community, weekly live mentorship, exclusive savings on startup tools, and 24-7 real human support.

26:33You can try Founder Plus today for just$1 for seven days so you can accelerate your business goals. Visit founder.com forward slash founder plus trial or click the link in the description to claim your trial. All right, I'll speak to you soon. Now let's jump back in the show. Yeah, look, there's definitely something very special. I know like a lot of companies is I'm going remote first me personally I love like the hybrid approach and uh you know we have office in Melbourne and there's something so special like when everyone gets together and it's just like it's the conversations the in-person conversations or you're just talking about just brainstorming something and then it comes of it like you don't get that when you're working remotely like that creativity and that collaboration it's just not the same yeah absolutely and I think you get it there it's that combination of remote but also having the office if you want to go there too i agree so can you tell me about your la pop-up luggage wash and the origin of that idea that you did recently yes or face wash oh pop-ups are a really fun one for us because we are majority D to C it's that time where we can get to be meet our consumer in real life and I think you know we don't have that commitment that we would necessarily have if we were in brick and mortar and so when we have that pop-up I mean this one was super short it was like three days two really two and a half um which is crazy because I'm like that was a lot of work for those two days But it's fun because we get to like go crazy with our design and think about it.

28:15You know, we first started our first pop up was at the Grove and that was about a month. And it was our base motel. And I wanted to start with motel because I knew that eventually we'd go into a hotel. And it was that small little pop up there. And I just I wanted to be able to create this sort of experience for our consumers who had never seen us in real life to be able to come in into this curated experience. like get to see the product in a normal setting like this motel setting we had a little check-in desk you know we had a little like at that point it wasn't our hotel yet so we just had a little waiting area and like a couple shelves but they could see the product in like a space like that and that was really fun and then we moved into the base hotel and there we took it another step further we had a check-in counter we even had an elevator and then you went into the room and we had a bed on the side of the wall so you could see like where your product would look in a room if you were traveling we had you know the little cosmetic case in a bathroom that we had we even had a patio space like it was really cool because people hadn't seen anything like that and I didn't want to just create a store atmosphere I wanted to create an experience again because being so heavy on D2C we never get that opportunity to see people in real life and to bring an experience.

29:31And then with the base wash, that was an idea that came because we were launching this new color, our clean slate collection. Clean slate, top of the year, fresh start. Our campaign that we had actually shot in November for it was like this car wash, you know, cleaning the luggage. It was this like cool icy blue color. And the whole thing was just like fresh, bubbles, all of that. And then I had kind of seen some TikToks on social, people being like I got this color and it got dirty you know and my suitcase has you know a couple stains on it and I'm like okay you know on one hand I'm like oh man does Nike feel this way when people like get their Air Force Ones dirty you know do people get like mad at Nike I don't know when you got the bag it was brand new it was clean I can't control what happens to it when people are hucking it down the thing into that airplane but they still come for me and at one point I'm like okay let's just tone it in I get really sensitive about it because bass is truly like my first child it's my company I put everything into it so of course I feel it more I don't care when people speak about me but when you speak about the brand and my baby I'm like oh so anyways bringing it back I was like okay people are saying that this and the lighter color luggage obviously are getting dirtier.

30:52Let's create this experience where we can do like a service for them and we can clean up their bags. And this is all about fresh bag, fresh in the air, clean slate, you know, let's have this sort of base wash, car wash vibe. And from there, it was just like, boom, I visited so many car washes. I pulled so many revs. I knew that I wanted an old coffee machine in there. I wanted a water station. I wanted buckets everywhere. I wanted sponges. You know, we partnered with Scrub Daddy and they came out with like our own little suitcase scrubbers, you know, and then this wall, I wanted to use the material to create our base logo that then had like drying sort of fans, you know, like when you're going through that car washing and fans off your car.

31:37I wanted that for the little photo op and I want bubbles and all of this stuff. but it's just such a fun way to play for us because I'm like, ooh, we get to have them come in to our experience and create this whole vibe for our consumers. And the cleaning of their bags, you know, was just sort of like our give back to them for just being awesome. Whether you bought something or not, if you had a base bag, we would clean it for you. And yeah, I wanted to do that. I also though, am the complete opposite. I love when my bags are all batted up and I love stickers that are like taken off of them. I want it to look travel, just like I want my passport to be like full of stamps.

32:20I feel that way about my suitcase, but not everybody does. So for those people who don't, we cleaned it up for them. Are you hesitating to take the next step in your e-commerce journey? Founder Plus has you covered. With proven frameworks tailored to your business needs for fast results, a supportive community of over 30 ,000 like-minded entrepreneurs and weekly live mentorship sessions, Founder Plus is your key to success. Try Founder Plus today for just$1 for seven days and start building your dream business with confidence. You can visit founder.com forward slash start dollar trial or click the link in the description to claim your trial.

32:55That's really clever and I'm sure it was a huge success. Before we move to Onda, because I want to talk about Onda as well, we're on limited time. there's one last thing I wanted to ask you about with base I was just thinking like it is a great night it is a really great name and there's something special about that name and also special about one word and I remember speaking to a mentor once because I actually got sued for trademark infringement the company never used to be called founder it was actually called key to success originally and I and I got sued by one of the biggest business magazines in the States and I had to change it and I remember going to him saying well what do I call it and he said to me well a name is really what you make of it right like what the hell does Google mean what the hell does uh you know Facebook mean or Airbnb like it's it's what you make of it and I would just yeah anyone listening or watching this what advice would you give to people on settling with a name like you had your own personal story but like how did you how what advice would you give to people to come up with a name to choose you can use ai now you can use all sorts of different things that can help you but like what what would your advice be just on that one because sometimes people do get stuck yeah i would say go with your gut period it's the same thing when i was coming up to name my daughters you know i think i didn't ask a lot of people what they thought because if you do that then you're going to be going back and forth you're never going to have a name that everybody loves you're just not whether it's the name for your child or your company you know people are always going to have their own take their own idea but you're the one that has to live with it you're the one that has to see it you have to see it on every document everything everywhere you have to feel like it feels right in your gut and I know that's maybe not the correct thing but like it was for me I said it I heard it I saw it I wrote it down I worked with how I wanted the logo to be I tried a million different fonts I asked maybe two people it was me and my partner that came up with it and that's really it I didn't take it wide to ask my entire friend group what they thought I truthfully on one hand didn't really care I knew that it felt right and that's the same thing with you know other things that I'm working on and I remember even I just listened to the podcast with the woman from Drunk Elephant you know she was like everybody thought I was crazy at the beginning, but it felt right.