639: From $60K in Debt to ICONIC $100M Fashion Label | Rebecca Minkoff

16:14Rebecca Minkoff:Yes. Okay. And so that's when you started to get real traction or was it when your brother Yuri got involved? So talk me through that piece of the puzzle, right? Because he really kind of, yeah, helped you in a big way. He's more of a CTO type, right?

16:33Nathan Chan:Yeah. Yeah. So he was minding his own business. He was happy with his software company, doing very well. And when I called my dad to be like, I still don't know how I'm going to pay you back. I'm making the minimum payments. But man, this is a daunting number. Oh, by the way, can you loan me some money now in advance of that, you know, instead of the credit card, because this bag thing's really taking off. And he said, absolutely not. Call your brother. He might be able to help you. And so I called my brother. He kind of asked me 100 questions. You know, do you have a bank account? Very simple question.

17:08Nathan Chan:You know, no, I have my personal, it's all intermingled because there's not enough to split it, you know? And so for a while, it was just great advice and really like business 101, tax ID, you know, all the fun things about business. And then when he could see the numbers increasing, when a showroom came on and said, we want to represent you, when the press was just going, when a magazine in Japan covered it, and then stores came from Japan like wildfire, he could see that this was something. So he agreed initially to come up once a month, and then it was twice a month. And when we hit around 20 million in sales, I was like, you have to move here, because I don't know how to do this by myself.

17:54Nathan Chan:And he did. and he became the CEO and he really helped, you know, shape and build the business that I could focus on what I did best, which was design and PR and really connecting with my customer.

18:07Rebecca Minkoff:Yeah. Wow. So you got to 20 million in sales and it was mainly like what, what really catapulted was, was the morning after bag.

18:16Nathan Chan:Yeah. So obviously it wasn't, you know, it took, I would say four or five years to reach 20 million in sales. It was the morning after bag And things were so much slower back then. The cycle for a designer was longer. You weren't needing a new bag every five minutes. So I had morning after bag. That's all I offered for the first year in different colors. And then it was two bags the next year. And then the next year after that, it was three styles. And so you could build a very large business on very little SKUs. And today it's kind of like, you know, the dope we have to give someone daily of a new arrival and a new thing.

18:55Nathan Chan:It's just the landscape didn't look like that then.

18:58Rebecca Minkoff:Yeah, very interesting. So that was your hero product, effectively, quote unquote. And how did you manage production? Talk us through that side of things and keep up with scale.

19:11Nathan Chan:So we had a factory that was New York City based. They're still around. They're called Baikal if you're looking to make handbags. And after visiting several factories, he was basically able to get us. I would say he started to crack when it was about$25 million in sales and we had to start looking elsewhere. And so around 2009, we started looking at overseas production because he was at max capacity. And I think that our vendors, you know, the Sachs and the Neemans of the world, while they loved the handmade look and feel of a New York City product. And I still love that more today. They wanted a uniformness to the products that you can only get at these bigger factories with crazy machines and stuff.

19:59Rebecca Minkoff:Yeah. Wow. Interesting.

20:01Nathan Chan:And I ironically, I found my first overseas factory from a phone book looking for I wanted someone to help me make clutches. So Monodiers is what they're called. And so opened the yellow pages and called a guy and then he's like, you know, I don't just make Menodiers. I make for Marc Jacobs. I make for Michael Kors. I make for Kate Spade. And I was like, I've hit a gold mine. Like, how did this happen? And so he was our manufacturer for many years for the first, you know, in helping us scale.

20:28Rebecca Minkoff:Yeah, there you go. And so people and also, you know, high end, you wouldn't you wouldn't do you wouldn't even touch China or go overseas. Right. Back then. Well, still like, yeah, because I don't know this space that well.

20:40Nathan Chan:We went to China. China still had sort of a bad rap. I don't think it does anymore. And then you ask your customer, okay. And I did this many times because I had a lot of loyal customers on certain blogs and forums like, well, I'm no longer, you know, supporting the brand. Can't believe she makes in China. And I said two things. I said, I've personally visited every single factory. I can attest that these people are treated well and fairly. And I, you know, who've seen their children in school there and there's a basketball court and like, you want to see pictures? Here's the pictures. So that sort of handled the sort of ick of what China, they thought China was.

21:20Nathan Chan:And then I also said, okay, I can make in the U.S. for you. This is the price. Can you pay? Can you pay that? No? Okay, good. We're going to China. So at the end of the day, it was purely business. I mean, we even tried at one point to buy the factory from him. And maybe that would have worked, but it only would have taken us so far.

21:40Rebecca Minkoff:Got you. And fully bootstrapped all those years. You know, we read, heard, listened, you know, during that time, you guys were growing, you know, 20 million, 25 plus, but there were still kind of, I guess, maxed out Amexes, uh mortgage homes all that kind of stuff as you grew the business still right yeah so i had nothing

22:07Nathan Chan:except like one ring with like a string of emeralds and diamonds that was probably worth a couple hundred bucks so i had nothing to give in that moment my brother really took one for the team and you know maxed out his amex mortgage his home because he had done well with his software company And so that got us far enough to then take on a type of capital that is called a factor. So they do purchase order financing. They do inventory financing and fund personal guarantee financing. And so they sort of bridged the gap for us until we were able, at the time, private equity was what people were doing.

22:47Nathan Chan:So then seven years in, we took our first investment.

22:51Rebecca Minkoff:Yep. Okay. So, yeah, with the scale, obviously, cash flow, it's, you know, people would look at this outside and go, wow, okay, you're making$20 million a year. That's amazing. That's so much money. Like, why would you need to, you know, mortgage your home? Like, why would you need to take on factor financing? Like, can you talk us through that? because I think sometimes people aren't really kind of that aware that with scale, you do run into cash flow problems, right? And it can be very difficult. Yes, you might have a really profitable business, but it doesn't mean that you're taking all of that home.

23:28Nathan Chan:Yeah, that's another one of those moments where you're doing 20 million and you still have trouble paying rent. Or you're making$23 ,000 a year living in New York City, which if anyone has lived there knows it's almost impossible. But that was me. You know, when you look at it, a factory in China is a little bit, you know, if you're working with them for the first time, they want you to pay 50 % up front. Your sales cycle, you know, sales to shipping cycle is nine months. So you're going to advance, let's just say on a P.O. of a million dollars, you know, a quarter of that, that's 250K that you've just advanced.

24:09Nathan Chan:financed and then you have to do payroll, pay for rent, all the things. And then you think that when you ship a million dollars, and at the time most of our business was department stores, that they're going to pay you a million. So not only do they pay you 90 to 120 days past the date of the invoice, if you want to be paid on time, they take a percentage off to pay on time. They also take a percentage off to have you in their catalog. They take a percentage off if the box was not labeled correctly. They take a percentage off if you want to be a hero featured in their email. So you just keep chipping away at this million and then maybe it's more like$750.

24:54Nathan Chan:And then they pay you late, but then guess what? You have orders again, right? And if you're growing, your orders are now way bigger than they were before. So now you're laying out more money before you ever got paid from the first one. And so it's that leapfrog cycle that you just never have cash. And while it's a blessing, it's also the most stressful thing. Oh, and then because you're growing, you need more team members, right? So your salary increases, your payroll taxes, I could go on and on, but it just, you know, the moment that it sort of catches up with itself is such a higher level of revenue that until you get there, I think it's really painful.

25:33Rebecca Minkoff:And, you know, typically fashion businesses, really high margin businesses too, right? I'm sure, you know, you guys had great margins as well, but yeah, you did not.

25:47Nathan Chan:We did not.

25:48Rebecca Minkoff:Why?

25:50Nathan Chan:So clothing has a very high margin. Bags typically do not. And the reason why we were able to grow as fast as we did is two things. when the recession hit we had every single in 2008 2009 we had every single department store come to us and said you can't sell a bag for 595 and 495 she just lost everything her 401k is gone you know her salary was cut if you want to stay in business you have to drop your prices but keep the quality okay don't don't change anything and so overnight literally on christmas day, we had to make these decisions of like cutting our margins just to stay alive. And once you've done that price adjustment, it's really hard to like go back to the customer when the recession's over and say, just kidding, now we're going to raise our prices.

26:42And so, you know,

26:43Nathan Chan:while that did contribute to insane growth, we never recovered that margin.

26:48Rebecca Minkoff:Okay. Okay. This is interesting. So, um, what, what advice there would you give to founders with this lesson?

26:58Nathan Chan:That the most precious and holy thing you have is your margin. And you need to include for anything, any disaster in that margin. And, you know, today it's tariffs or tomorrow it's a flood or a boat stuck in a canal or FedEx rising prices of shipping, like build a very rich margin if you can and hopefully the product market fit you know and value matches that but never sacrifice that because we we we couldn't get it back yet we were growing because of it and then we got stuck in this place where the margin didn't allow for a lot of these disasters

27:41Rebecca Minkoff:that we had no nothing to do with yeah yeah so have have a high enough margin so there's room for error, room for mistakes, room for things that can happen. So what you, you, you recommend founders to, if you are in D2C, aim for what? 60, 70 % plus?

28:05Nathan Chan:Yeah. I mean, I just spoke to a brand the other day, an accessories brand. They're at 76 and they're like, we're aiming for 90. And I I was like, if you can get 90, like I applaud you. 76 is amazing. So I think especially for D2C because you want to have a little room to open a pop-up shop or your own brick and mortar or have the funds to do an experience where you can't really measure an ROI. And so I think it's, you know, 76 to me would be like baseline.

28:35Rebecca Minkoff:Yeah. now your business though like at the time private equity these guys aren't stupid it still must have been a great business right because like these guys are savages like they they come in and typically they are in the business that to make money and like they are very very good at it so how did that all come about so i think you have to understand that

29:00Nathan Chan:at different times, the savages have different preferences. During our time, the savages were looking at the most insane exits from or growth from a Michael Kors or a Kate Spade. You know, Michael Kors lost$40 million, I think, almost went bankrupt before then he got an infusion of over, I think, 100 and then had the billion dollar thing. It's not just like he was cute and plugging along. Like$100 million is not nothing to then give investors back a great multiple. And so our investors and the trend at the time was profitability does not matter. It's about how quickly you're growing. And if you're growing more than 15 % year over year, we don't care.

29:51Nathan Chan:And I think that that was the worst thing that someone could tell you because every decision that was made, it didn't matter if there was a profit or a margin behind it. It was just solely about optimizing year over year growth. And then when the wind changes, you know, and they say, actually, we need you to be profitable. That's not easy to go change all your behavior.

30:19Rebecca Minkoff:Yeah, that's interesting you say that because a mentor always said to me, Nathan, you can really only focus on optimizing for one thing. If you want to optimize for growth, then it's very difficult to optimize for growth and profit at the same time. If you're optimizing for profit, it's hard to optimize for growth and you've got to really kind of choose. It's either one or the other. So you would say that would be true?

30:44Nathan Chan:100%. And it makes me sick when I hear that someone is like continuing to have to raise because they haven't figured out profitability because eventually someone's going to ask that question. And when you don't know how to do it or you're not used to operating that way, it's very painful. We went through it. It was, it's painful.

31:05Rebecca Minkoff:Yeah. So you guys did grow a lot though. You passed annually nine figures in annual revenue. um so you definitely did grow drastically what did you guys do to to still grow because DTC was was like up and coming and up and coming channel you know early 2010s time period yeah

31:27Nathan Chan:yeah so we grew to over 100 million um I would say by 28 uh I'd say like 2017 2018 15, a good 15 years in. My brother was like a whiz at overseeing the e-com business and so was instrumental in that growth. And then we had a president who was a killer salesperson. And so we were in all the Nordstrom, all the Bloomingdale's, all the Saks, all the Neiman Marcus's. But what was hiding in that number, which I like to be transparent about, was, yeah, we got to say we hit this big number. But when you're, again, working with wholesale, if they don't have the, you know, there are sell-through agreements.

32:13Nathan Chan:So we need a 58 % margin going in, or we're going to charge it back, or we're going to send the goods back, or we're going to mark them down and the designer pays for that. So when we did an analysis on our profitability, by cutting off, just taking out the fact that we would agree on a margin of sell out to a department store. We took that away and all of our stores said, well, we just won't buy as much. And we said, that's fine because it shrunk us by around 30 million, but our profitability went way up because we weren't doing all these give back. So like, don't get drunk on the number,

32:53Rebecca Minkoff:get drunk on how profitable you are yeah and i think it is a trap though like and it is kind of some somewhat of a rite of passage because i know i've definitely felt that it feels nice to say your business is doing 20 million a year or 30 million a year versus we're only doing five or we're only doing three or you know what i mean but like i think you've gone through that that rite of passage too that you'd rather have a 10 million dollar a year business with you know 30 percent EBITDA versus a hundred million dollar business with a three percent EBITDA. You know what I mean?

33:30Nathan Chan:Or a negative EBITDA.

33:31Rebecca Minkoff:Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right. But it's not nice to say, you know, it's cooler to say you run a nine figure brand or eight figure brand.

33:40Nathan Chan:And yeah, I want to make it cool to say I run a profitable business that provides a great lifestyle for me and my team. I think that's very sexy. That's what people should go for. Not hundreds of millions losing money. Cool. Wow. Good job. You spent more money than you had, you know?

33:59Rebecca Minkoff:Yep. I agree. I'm with you there. So, um, grew the brand, eventually had an exec team you know over time build up your leadership team there was an interesting thing that happened that I want to talk about where an exec kind of tried to reposition the brand away from your personal voice what impact did that have we see now more than ever more than ever it seems like every founder is trying to build a personal brand founder-led content you know it's it's not a nice to have it feels like it's basically required if you want any kind of cut through especially online especially really in d2c not so much tech but d2c consumer facing so how did you reclaim control you know this was back in 2018 you have a very strong personal brand you know well over a million followers all over social media um so yeah talk us through that and

35:08Nathan Chan:and how is that have you seen that change too yeah so I think that most people would only point a finger at the person that did that and I point the finger here because I let her do that because I had I was going through a period in my life of doubts and what do I know and I thought oh she knows she's got a doctorate. She studied people. She's this and that, and I don't have a degree. So I let my own personal doubts on myself and my confidence of whatever was happening in my life affect a decision that really took our company in an entirely different and very unhealthy direction. It wasn't just that she took away me from it, but also the look and feel of the brand, who we were serving, the customer.

36:00Nathan Chan:We like said, bye, bye to everyone who loves us. We're going to look entirely different. And it wasn't until I could really clearly point out the damage and then see that that was because I let it happen that I said never again. I would rather go down in flames thinking that this is the most important thing than ever give up that idea that what I have to say doesn't matter or that I don't know something and I have to trust my gut. And, you know, knowing that, I mean, you see the value and the power of these personal brands. I go, oh, my gosh, what if I hadn't let that happen for a year of my life?

36:40Nathan Chan:How much further would we be now? So I think whether anyone wants to admit it now or not, you know, like we talked about, you have to be okay with a personal brand and a personality and we are a media company in essence and they expect you to entertain them and educate them and give them your favorite vitamins you know like it's not just selling a bag it's a whole lifestyle that they want to buy into

37:08Rebecca Minkoff:yeah it's also funny um maybe it's also a rite of passage i'm not sure uh how you can give away your power so easily to high-flying execs in your business because they have built or supposedly built a much larger business than yours and you kind of you want them to just kind of go and take that away and and how you can lose your power and lose your influence and yeah I've uh once again I can I can resonate with that it's awful when the person that you have to

37:47Nathan Chan:blame and you look in the mirror, you know?

37:50Rebecca Minkoff:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. I agree. Look, and that's leadership, right? Starts and falls. Leadership rises and falls with the leader.

38:02Nathan Chan:That's right. And that is a lesson I tell a lot of people, like admit it when you're wrong, especially to your team, because you can't earn their trust if you're always,

38:13Rebecca Minkoff:you know blaming it on somebody else yep agree agree i like yeah i like the book extreme ownership by jocko it's a great book i'll have to read it oh very very very good extreme ownership by jocko wilnik um yeah great book so great leadership book so okay so covid hit march 2020 roughly March 13th. Yes. Okay.

38:42Nathan Chan:Friday the 13th, a disaster.

38:44Rebecca Minkoff:Yeah. Okay. So I remember that time. I remember that time. Like, so founder, I'm not sure how much you know about us, but, you know, we have a media company on the front, but then kind of our monetization business model is really online education, coaching, membership platform, all these different things, right? So a lot of education. We connect founders with other successful founders and teach and give back. and I remember like you know someone might have spent like they bought like every one of our programs spent like maybe 10 grand like in March and they literally like just saw us as an ATM they bought from like a couple years ago over the years obviously a strong customer spent like 10 grand or something like a lot of money right and as soon as COVID hit like that early March I don't remember the exact date like you March the 13th but as soon as COVID hit they're like yep I'm just like I want a refund otherwise I'm going to blast you guys all over and I was like well look I care about our reputation so we just like refunded that money like and they were like this was multiple people that just come to us and we've got you know well over 50 ,000 you know I've lost count how many plus customers and students but like like not a lot but people were just like that afraid that They were like going to get money wherever they could to hoard as much as they could.

40:06Rebecca Minkoff:Like that was the time. Like, and I was like, geez, like what would I do? Like, you know, so you guys lost 70 % of your revenue overnight. What did you do?

40:18Nathan Chan:We had a really unsexy name. It was called Operation Melt the Pile. The Pile being a pile of bags in a warehouse that no one, we had just brought in our spring goods. so we had all the goods to ship out for that 70 of our business um and we didn't have a customer for it we just had our e-com site so you know overnight you're cutting 40 people off your payroll we had about 60 at the time we cut it down to about 20 um those 20 some of them took a pay cut my brother and I took the biggest pay cuts that we could afford then you go okay good. What are the immediate bills that have to be paid? What is everything else?

41:03Nathan Chan:They're going to be like, we'll get back to you. We have no idea how we're going to pay you. And it was really like day trading on our site. It was truly, what do we do today? We all had a 10 a.m. call and we all really owned our areas. I felt like it was important to be in front of the customer in all different kinds of ways, whether it was my evening happy hours, live streams, whether it was you know group zooms with customers whether it was you know I became the chief content officer you know because we needed to keep going and selling products so they would ship me stuff and I'd photograph it on a tripod by myself and it was scrappy it was like starting over and I said you know what all the scrappy stuff worked once it has to work again and so you know we did a lot of lives.

41:50Nathan Chan:There's a lot of Chinese people that live in the U.S. that live stream like on shop shops to China. So we would find all of them and we would be like, OK, Chicago. Great. We're shipping you one of everything. You sell it. Great. And then California. We had probably 10 to 15 of those people that we couldn't believe 40, 50 thousand dollars in a couple hours that they would order. We found people in South America that wanted to buy goods. We were just like, get this inventory out. But I think on the flip side, we really, for the first time, focused on our customer in a way we hadn't since the beginning.

42:31Nathan Chan:Because for all that time, our focus was where the biggest orders were coming from. It was what does Nordstrom need? What does Bloomingdale's need? What does Saks need? And they all wanted very different things. And, you know, that's a lot of work. and so for the first time we said what do we want to do as a brand for our customer and so while it was the worst thing that could happen to a business and like you know businesses it really made us very clear on who we were our brand voice our brand aesthetic our brand promise and we just said no matter what happens when things open up we will not go back we are the

43:07Rebecca Minkoff:first thing we talk about every morning yep so you guys survived then there was this kind of period where you know and you see it in the stock market as well like where everyone like online started to boom everyone thought this was going to last forever there was a lot of supply chain issues as well. And yeah, you guys experienced that as well. You know, you're left with 3 ,000 units instead of 300 ,000 expected for Q4. How did that happen? And then unfortunately, yeah, you had to sell the company.

43:50Nathan Chan:Yeah. We were getting, you know, told by our factories that But there was just this uncertainty of when they would be allowed to open, how many workers could come in. Or right after Chinese New Year, they expected X amount of workers back, but then they didn't come back. They just decided, like, I hate my job. I'm not coming back to work. So there was just this real uncertainty with inventory and what you were going to get or not. And clearly, our factories were prioritizing way bigger brands. You know, we were kind of not the last in line, but maybe maybe close to the last, because even though we were producing 300 ,000 units into someone listening, that sounds amazing for Q4.

44:35Nathan Chan:That's tiny compared to some of the billion dollar brands. And so we found out, OK, good, we're going to get 3000 units. We found this out in the summertime, I would say, for, you know, for Q4. This is the final capacity of what we're able to do. And then we started having very honest and serious talks with our bank. OK, there's going to be a cash flow crunch. You know, what do we do? Do we go back to our private equity investors and ask for a bridge loan? Oh, we don't do that. OK, cool. Do you know anyone who does that? You know, and then at that time, people were scared to loan money because, again, COVID unleashed uncertainty.

45:13Nathan Chan:So we get to this point in December of 2021 where, you know, basically with our supply chain where it was, we were like, we need a strategic partner here who has offices in China, sourcing capability beyond China. They can take us to Indonesia and Vietnam, but also has much more fluid abilities to pivot and negotiate. And we had been speaking with someone for almost a year about partnering. And so at a Hail Mary over Christmas, we called, you know, we called him, we said, do you want to become our strategic partner? Because we have tried everything we know, and I can't make bags fast enough. So and he said, I've been waiting for you to call me, let's do it.

46:05Nathan Chan:And so it was a transaction that happened very quickly. By February, we were, the deal was done and we were able to continue and ship goods and products and they helped get products here that we could have never afforded to whether it was air or you know other factories so they really they really saved us and this is sunrise right yeah yeah yeah so um you still

46:34Rebecca Minkoff:remain chief creative officer. Obviously, you sold the business at a valuation that was below its peak in its peak revenue years. How did you process that?

46:48Nathan Chan:I think that we processed it as this is not the end. This is not what we had hoped for. But I think prior to that, let's say March 2020, when you think you're just going to go out of business, you're not mad at like, okay, didn't get what I wanted, but hey, we'll figure it out. Because we already looked at oblivion. We already looked at the easy thing. My brother and I had a very honest conversation in March. He said the easy thing to do is to go out of business. It's effortless. We just shut the doors. We go bankrupt. Bye. He said the hard thing to do is to get up every day and fight and fight like dogs to keep this thing that you and I have put 17 years of our lives on in and then the team that's left and he's like I'm committed to fighting are you and I was like hell yeah I'm committed to fighting and so once you've kind

47:49Rebecca Minkoff:of gone through that then I think everything's gravy yeah he sounds yeah what a great speech That's a great leader.

47:57Nathan Chan:You should have him on. Okay.

48:00Rebecca Minkoff:So you've since pivoted towards a licensing model for handbags and apparel. Talk us through that thinking, you know, moving away. Because it's interesting from a commerce perspective, right? You know, talk us through that.

48:18Nathan Chan:So this was not a decision that I made. one of the owners of Sunrise strategically made this decision after the last tariffs were announced because the business with the price point that we occupy and what our customer expects of us with a lot of these tariffs was going to become another scenario once again of raising prices and it not being something that was sustainable. And so when I was presented with, hey, we're going to move towards a much lighter footprint. And it's not just bags and apparel and shoes. It's eyewear. It's jewelry. It's the full lifestyle. But now we have 16 partners instead of us, again, funding, being on the hook, having the inventory.

49:04Nathan Chan:And then a disaster comes like a tariff and you're dealing with it. And so it took me a good probably two months to become okay with the idea that I'm one step sort of removed from being able to control this. But once I looked at how it freed us up to be better at creation of assets and lifestyle and storytelling, and I still get to design every day, me and my creative director are still in every single licensing design meeting. It's just the load of the weight of inventory and the sales team and all these back office functions are now with each partner. And so for me, where you can move a lot quicker, swifter, and at the end of the day, like if you look at our spring collection, our editorial, to me, it doesn't look like there's 16 partners.

49:58Nathan Chan:It looks like one unified brand. And I'm committed to ensuring that that vision really stays intact. So it was very scary. And now I'm like, maybe, maybe we get our stamp of innovation back, you know, like this is the future.

50:13Rebecca Minkoff:And I have to ask you, you joined the Real Housewives of New York for one season as a strategic move. Keyword, key word, key two words, strategic move. Talk me through that. Did you see a measurable impact in sales and brand awareness? Talk me through that.

50:37Nathan Chan:It was something I would have never considered. And when I brought the idea to my CEO, she's like, no, no, no, we're going to consider this. You are going to be on over. I don't know if they're down, you know, their streams are half a million, you know, you know, people, um, an episode or whatever, every night, every Tuesday night, half a million households. Um, and to me, I knew it was my demo. It was our anniversary year of 20 years in business. I didn't have the ad spend I had pre-COVID, you know, so to me, I was like, I get to be on people's TVs, you know, every Tuesday night looking great and wearing my stuff, like sign me up.

51:17Nathan Chan:But also the story I was told from production was very different. It was going to be a new revised show that was fun and funny with a little bit of drama. And I was like, I'm all for fun and funny. I'm a fun person, even though you didn't get to see that side of me on the show. And so I felt like looking at all of things, it would be a net positive. And there were positives and negatives. So the positives were every Tuesday night, our website traffic would triple and it would stay doubled Wednesday and Thursday. To the customer that had started with me 20 years ago, I got to connect with her again because she watches the show.

51:59Nathan Chan:Brand awareness is up 40%. So it's not surprising to me that when we launched our diffusion line, the sellout of that is extraordinary across different channels that we sell to. And then the flip side is for the first time in my life, I dealt with trolls, you know, and, and people just eating you alive online or media twisting your words. And so mentally and personally, that was a toll, but for the business, it was great. So, and then upon seeing that the show was not what they said it would be if you know me with my female founder collective and my podcast super women and what I stand for I don't stand for taking women down and diminishing them so once I saw that oh the format isn't changing and I'm not signing up for that it was just very clear that I would never go back so I haven't seen it sorry um but you don't be you say you saved a lot of nerves from being damaged okay but you got a bit of a rough edit at times it sounds like it yeah I think it was it was very obvious to me that when I wouldn't play ball that the edit became she's boring or she's quirky but in a weird way or she doesn't talk and I was like that's funny I was participating you know I would just remember what we filmed and even castmates were like, you were so vocal, you know, or when one girl made a silly remark at my business and people expected me to like flip the table.

53:33Nathan Chan:And instead I was like, she didn't build a hundred million dollar brand. I did. Like, I don't need to respond to her stupidity. And people thought, you know, that I'm being walked all over for behaving in a, in a gracious manner. And I'm like, actually that's just called being smart, you know?

53:51Rebecca Minkoff:So Look, I used to watch Real Housewives of Melbourne. Like it's a fun show. Like it is a fun show. I love in Australia, we have something called Married at First Sight. Very, very different concept, but reality TV. Yeah. I love that stuff. So yeah, look, thank you for sharing. Look, we have to work towards wrapping up. One last question, but you've been just so open, honest, gracious, and just really open like around your journey um what's next what are you excited about right you you 20 years in business almost pretty much right pretty much 20 years in business no you said 21 21 okay um yeah what are you looking at thinking about ai looks like it's taking over the world like what's what's going through rebecca minkoff's mind where are you going

54:51Nathan Chan:So we are launching kids, loungewear, home, intimates, sleepwear, jewelry. That's just this year. So my focus is really on how we're bringing all that to life. Experientially, storytelling, getting the customer excited. I might consider writing another book. I never thought I would, but I was brainstorming with a friend and they said, And, you know, women in their 40s is where they really enter their prime. And I think there's a story to be told of the next chapter. You know, what is 40, you know, look like? So I probably am going to write a book. I've just hit number 22 in my category for my podcast.

55:40Nathan Chan:So I'm excited to, like, explode that with our new YouTube channel that we're launching. And I'm just like, I'm hoping that even though all that sounds like taking on a lot, I just want a year of stability where there's no new taxes or tariffs or shipping disasters. You know, I saw a meme and it was like 2018, 2019 was a linear line. And then 2020 to 2026 was like someone was scribbling. And then 2026, they did like a nice little smooth line. And I was like, that's what this year is going to be. is just like a nice smooth line. Like I don't need anything crazy.

56:18Rebecca Minkoff:Yep, yep. I'm with you there. Well, look, Rebecca, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for being so open, honest, vulnerable, sharing all your incredible lessons and experiences, building this incredible brand. Congratulations on all of your success thus far. You're welcome back anytime, but it was great to connect and hopefully next time in New York, we can catch up further.

56:41Nathan Chan:That would be great. Thanks for having me.

56:42Rebecca Minkoff:Hey, Founder Fam. Thank you so much for tuning in today. And if you enjoyed this episode, please take the time to leave us a review and let us know what you think. This podcast is 100 % free. We work so hard to go out and find the most successful founders and entrepreneurs all around the globe. So your feedback helps us grow, improve, and even bring on more incredible guests and insights. So if you have a second, please take a moment and leave us a review. it really means a lot to me and the founder team and makes so much of a difference thank you again for listening and i'll catch you on the next episode