Summer Fridays Co-Founder: Marianna Hewitt – Building a Real Brand, Cross-Generational Community, & Why There Are No Quick Wins

22:11The Gstaad Guy:I know that a lot of content creators are often looking for quick wins because of the nature of the business. The industry moves so fast. Fame feels like a fleeting moment for many. They're relevant today, irrelevant tomorrow. So they want to try and extract as much value as they can as quickly as they can. But it sounds like you've always had this incredible long-term vision of creating value for yourself and for your audience. did you think that this would be a 10 20 year game when you started the business when i started it's like ignorance is bliss right you don't really know going into it i think if i would have known what having a business is actually like it's very different than what you see online and there's so many founders now who really share the journey so you get a little bit of insight but it's very different once you're actually in it and i think if you're if you're a creator and you're thinking about starting a business today, you really have to ask yourself, like, do I want to start a company?

23:06Do I want to run a business? Like a lot of times people want to become creators because they don't want to work an office job anymore. They want to be in charge of their schedule. But then when you start a business, you go back to having that job that you had before starting as a creator. And so you have to be okay with that. And a lot of people do. And I didn't realize until I was doing content full-time, I really did miss that camaraderie of being in an office and being there with other people and going in somewhere and grabbing a coffee and chit-chatting with other people and sitting in meetings.

23:37And so much of a creator is such a lonely job. A lot of times it's you and a phone in a room by yourself uploading content. You maybe go to events once or twice a week and trips every now and then, but I really miss that. And so I think once we started building the team, I loved being around other people. I think I always thought of and we always thought of the business being around for a long time but when you're in it I think you don't realize that so many businesses fail so early so to make it to eight ten years is such a blessing and then to be even able to think about it being around for this much longer it's a different mindset of the business that we're building and so because we kind of had this thought process of longevity from the beginning it seemed like overkill when we started hiring certain people or doing things a certain way, but we really wanted to be able to be prepared when we got to that growth.

24:28Because a lot of times if you're not ready for these moments and you don't have the right team in place and you can't support it, you might miss that opportunity and then it's not great for the business. And so now that we're 10 years in, I do feel confident that it will be around for decades to come, but it took a while to really feel that way. Now we're a global brand. We're available in thousands of stores all around the world. We have a small team even based in Paris. I'm like, I can't believe we have employees in Paris. We have about a dozen people there. We've got over 100 people in Los Angeles.

25:03We're moving into a new headquarters. And so it's a real brand and business today. And we're so grateful and lucky. And people see Lauren and I as the co-founders, but it is not possible without the team of people who work behind the brand every single day. Like they love it. They live it. They breathe it. They understand the brand so well. And being an entrepreneur isn't like a content creator. This is not like a solo sport. It is a team sport and it really is a team effort. And it's so fun to do it with people who are better than me, smarter than me, have better taste than me and can really bring the brand into what we know it can become.

25:41The Gstaad Guy:This podcast is brought to you by Pubelle, bringing you interchangeable charm jewelry hand-painted with enamel on styling silver, allowing you to celebrate all the things you love and all the things you might question through interchangeable styling silver bracelets, bangles, whoop, charms, mini charm, bracelets, rings, cufflings, and much more. And all customizable through our 3D Builder on Pubelle.com. That is poubelle, P-O-U-B-E-L dot com. Thank you so much for watching. And now back to the podcast. I think people online love to glamorize the role of founder and the role of CEO. While a lot of it can indeed be glamorous, a lot of it is actually not so glamorous.

26:31The Gstaad Guy:And I know that the role is constantly evolving. I think that the early founder days are quite lonely and need a lot of getting hands dirty, while the later stage founder days are about team building and people. So you basically have to evolve your skill set and evolve as a person over and over again, where, yes, we fit it into one title, a founder and CEO, but really you've lived 10 titles at least over these 10 years, and you have to be this generalist with so many different skills. Can you help us understand the different roles and stages of those 10 years and what you went through as a founder?

27:14At the very beginning, Google, now it's like AI, but Google is your best friend. Like anything you want to find out, you can Google. So we would call manufacturing places. We would say, we're creators. We want to start this skincare line. And they're like, no, minimum order quantities are too large. Like pass, pass, pass. Like there was no creators. They didn't know what we were talking about. No one was really interested. And finally, one place said yes. And so that place said yes. They said, we'll do a smaller run for your first minimum order quantity. You still have to commit to this later, but we won't charge you for everything at once.

27:47Finally, one place said yes. That one yes leads to something else because then they said, okay, do you have a regulatory person? We're like, didn't even know I needed one of those. And then that person says, you need this person. So it was kind of this chain reaction of just learning as we went. and I would be on phone calls and everyone uses acronyms for everything. They're always saying like three letters something. So I would be on calls and I would pretend like I knew I was talking about. So as they're saying all these acronyms, I would be Googling what they're talking about. And I'd be like, oh yeah, we can do that.

28:16And so I was just kind of faking it until we made it and learning along the way. And at the beginning, you're scrappy. You don't have any employees. We had hired a few consultants pre-launch, but we didn't hire our first employee until after we launched the brand. And so pre-launch going into Sephora, we had no full-time employees. So it really was us doing everything. And then even afterwards, we were doing sales and a bunch of stuff we didn't know how to do. But I think as we scaled the brand, it gave us enough footing to understand a little bit of what everybody was doing. And so even though I had never started a business before, I had a general sense of people's responsibilities.

28:53And that was really helpful. And then over the years, the role changed. And so I started being like, okay, there's things that I'm really good at. I have to do these other things I really don't want to do and I'm not skilled at this. And so more and more things started coming off my plate. It didn't mean that I spent less time on the brand. It was just that my time now is allocated to the things I actually wanted to do and where my time is best spent. So now with having as many people as we do, we get to do the fun stuff, which it's mostly product development, brand marketing social media influencer marketing um and then like a bunch of other stuff but those are like the main things and I think from being a creator for so long like earlier today I was working on sponsored content briefs which doesn't sound very exciting but I know when I receive something from a brand and it's like too detailed and it's too much like a script I'm like okay if we're working with this person we should just give them free reign to do what they want if this is why we're working with a certain person.

29:51So I'll go through with our team and edit each individual person's brief to make it tailored to them. So it seems like, why am I spending my time doing that? But if I've got over a decade of experience of working with brands, it's invaluable to us to be able to have this white glove service of how we work with creators so that the sponsored content hopefully doesn't feel too sponsored.

30:12The Gstaad Guy:Absolutely. I think that's such an important element for this organic nature to always feel organic to the viewers to customers to everyone involved and especially now when you were starting summer fridays it was again you were first mover content first turned founder in the skincare category now the the entire concept has been glamorized of course online and lots of people are trying to play in the space and it's uh it's always been competitive, but I think now more than ever, especially on social media, fighting for attention has become harder than ever. I love that you mentioned this partner of Sephora.

30:54The Gstaad Guy:I think Sephora is one of these incredible retailers, which also acts as a cultural member of storytelling, where in lots of stores, being stalked with them, it's kind of like the last stage of the process but with Sephora it also helps with lots of credibility and helps people who wouldn't otherwise be exposed to the brand try it out for the first time and it's very difficult to be stocked with Sephora and I understand you were stocked there quite early on for launch how did that happen? So Jen Atkin is a good friend and I learned a lot from her about like paying it forward and so she knew that we were working on this brand.

31:35And I was going to reach out to her when the time was right, like when I had the deck perfect, when I had everything. And I saw her at a dinner and she said, I know you're working on this brand. When you want the intro to Sephora, let me know. And I didn't want to pass up on the opportunity, even though everything wasn't perfect, it wasn't ready. But she offered and I was like, well, this is so kind. So she connected me on email with somebody. She didn't give me context of like who this person was or how important they were. I probably should have like looked into it a little bit more. And so I emailed them a deck and she emailed me right back.

32:07She said, can you talk on the phone right now? And I was like, okay, right now. Sure. And I just jumped on my computer. I walked her through. She was like, I think this is amazing. This is aligned with everything we're going to do. Send us over a product and we'll go from there. And I was like, okay, great. Email her the stuff. We go back and forth for a while and nothing's really like going anywhere. And I'm like, usually the case. And I was like, we can fly up there next Wednesday. Will you see us? And they said, yes. And so they never invited us to come. We just flew ourselves

32:41The Gstaad Guy:there to San Francisco. We go to the meeting. We're trying to put up the PowerPoint presentation. Computer's not working. The display's not working because it's a little bit premature for us. Our packaging isn't ready yet. So we have our packaging as a render. We're trying to show on the screen that doesn't work and we have the goop of the jet lag mask in a jar so it's like the least glamorous not set up like the way that people present now this is you would never do this today with the best retailer for your product in the world the best retailer in the world like dream retailer and um cindy who we work with very closely she was in the meeting she loved it and she looked over and then she looked at us and she said she wanted to launch the brand and she now just celebrated her 20th anniversary at Sephora.

33:26She said it's the first time in her 20 years she's ever said yes in a meeting face-to-face with the founders. And she took a huge risk on us and gave us a really great opportunity. And then the initial interview phone call that I had, which is with Artemis Patrick, who is the CEO now of Sephora. So had Artemis not said yes and Cindy not said yes in that meeting, who knows where Summer Fridays would be today, but it was really our dream to launch there. We would walk up and down the aisles. We would say, okay, this is where I could envision it in store. This is what it would look like if we were here.

34:00This is the price point we would think of. And so even though Sephora didn't say yes to us yet, we always envisioned ourselves there and we priced ourselves in what would be a Sephora world. We created a box because we knew you had to have a box to sit on shelf there. So we prepared ourselves and we were going to launch regardless, but thankfully they said yes. And we launched with them. So that was in March of 2018. Fantastic. And how much of the business now, if you don't mind me asking,

34:26The Gstaad Guy:is online versus retail versus Sephora? We have a really large online business, but our retail presence is larger. So you would think we're a social and digital brand. A lot of it is online, but we're a social and digital brand that knows how to bring that online feeling to retail. And so with fashion, sometimes you see a t-shirt online and you're like, okay, I know. I'm like a size medium so I can order that online. But with beauty products, you really want to touch and feel it in person. And our products are so sensorial. So our lip balm feels a certain way. It smells a certain way. The goop of our mask has a really beautiful feel when you apply it on your hand.

35:05And you really do want to feel those products in person. And a lot of times people are nervous to try products online. They'll repurchase online, but a lot of times for the first purchase, they want to see it in store. And so our field team and our retail presence is really important to us, which is why we're in thousands of stores now around the world and why that growth was important. But then we have a great online presence too where people can repurchase. And so online, you can find us on our own website, Amazon, TikTok shop now. And it's really changed a lot in the last few years. Like even for me, I needed a box of jet lag eye patches.

35:40And by the time I would have gotten it, it would have taken me like too long. So I ordered it on Amazon Prime and I had it within 12 hours.

35:46The Gstaad Guy:It's amazing. And so I'm a big Amazon girl, so I'm happy to be available there as well. Amazon's great. Yeah. How many SKUs do you have now? How many different products? We have around 20, which to be in business for eight years, it's not that many products. We really kept a tight assortment. And then if something's working, we keep it. If something doesn't work, you know, in time, we're not scared to phase something out. And so there's only so much shelf space and I never want to overwhelm a consumer and have too many options for them to choose from. and our best-selling products are Jet Lag collection and Lip Butter Bombs.

36:18And so we sell a Lip Butter Bomb every two seconds. And so most people around the world now somewhere hopefully has bought one. And so it's been really interesting of how people come into the brand. And so when I was growing up, I would go to my mom, and my mom would tell me what products she likes, and I would be influenced by her. I would open a magazine or see something in a catalog. catalogs are just like so old now because this is pre-online shopping. But now daughters are coming into the brand and they love Lip Butter Balm or they love a product. Their mom will come to the store to purchase something for the daughter and then they'll be introduced to the brand and they'll be like, oh, I actually needed a new sunscreen or moisturizer.

36:59And so they're introduced via their daughter. And so it's really a multi-generational brand, which is so interesting, I think. And so it's been so fun to see the different products people gravitate towards depending on their age or how they learned about the brand.

37:13The Gstaad Guy:Those are my favorite categories of products and even favorite categories of media. I always give the example of Shrek, where Shrek as a movie entertains the kids, the parents and the grandparents in different ways and at different times. And I love products that also can satisfy every age and every member of the family. It's always, it's a beautiful thing. Yeah, we do a lot of community events. And so in Australia, we hosted one. So we usually post on our Instagram stories, like, okay, if you're in town in this city on this date at this time, DM us. And a woman came and she brought her mother and her daughter with us and each of them use our products.

37:49So the fact that three generations of women could use our brand, I was like, wow, this, we're doing what we set out to say. And so there is really something for everyone.

37:57The Gstaad Guy:It's amazing. How does it feel when you're, you see summer Fridays in the wild and you're at a restaurant, the person next to you is, is using a product? It's pretty crazy. So like crazy is not even a big enough word to think about it. I think when you see numbers online, it's like you see views. It's you see something and you're like, oh, I only got a thousand views on this. This video flopped. But if a thousand people came up to you in person and said, I have your product in my bag, you would be like, oh my gosh, a thousand people came up to me in person. And so there is something so different about seeing people face to face.

38:31And I was in Paris and I was walking down the street and this girl starts screaming my name. She's running down the street on Avenue Montaigne. And she's like, I have a lip butter bomb in my bag. And so it's really interesting to be all the way around the world, somewhere where I don't live, with people who don't speak the same language as me. And they have this product that's so important to them that they carry it with them no matter where they are. I see pictures. People tag me and they're giving birth in the hospital and they have their essentials and it's something they have with them or it's their wedding day.

39:00So if you think about the biggest moments of their life, they have something with them that we created is so special. And you will always have that nostalgia. Like I think about scent and flavor and their sense and things that I just remember growing up of like using something or eating something or smelling something. And so I think when people look back in time on 2026, they'll be like, I remember this lip balm because this was part of like this really important moment for me. And so to have that now around the world is just the best feeling because it's what I could have always hoped that we would do.

39:32So getting to do it is really fun.

39:34The Gstaad Guy:I think also something that's really incredible is how Summer Fridays has grown far beyond the Mariana Hewitt brand and persona. So far beyond. And I checked on our mutual friends on Instagram and I have lots of people who follow the brand and don't even follow you. And I wonder if you had to just estimate what percentage of customers do you think know the brand because of you or even have any affiliation with you in the brand versus just pure product and brand first? A few years ago, we went through a brand study to see what our mutual followers are between us as founders and the brand. It's very high people who don't only follow the brand and don't follow me.

40:19And that's really been by design. A lot of times when I meet people or I'm at an event or something, especially if we're going into a new region, I have to introduce myself to them, especially if they're younger. And I'm like, oh, I'm Marianna. I'm the co-founder. And like, oh, you are? So nice to meet you. They have no idea who I am. But when you think about longevity, I think founders and forward-facing people are there to support it. But I never wanted it to be about us as co-founders. I never wanted it to be about who we were. I wanted it to be about the brand and the community and that person.

40:50And because it's a multi-generational brand, but we really do speak to this older Gen Z millennial girl, as I age out of that group, I didn't want to feel like, oh, Marian is not cool anymore. So I don't think the brand is cool. We wanted to always, you know, maintain what the Summer Fridays feeling was. And so that was better, you know, for the long run. I think at the very beginning it was very helpful because for press and interviews and things like that to have a forward-facing founder. but I think long-term, you never want to rely on, okay, this content's only going to do well if I'm in it.

41:25And so the best performing content on our page, I'm not in any of the content on Summer Fridays. And that's really been amazing as we scale, especially like if you want to drive people to store, if you want to drive them to a pop-up or an activation, you don't want it to say like, oh, well, is the founder coming for a meet and greet? And if they're not, then people don't show up. You want them to show up for the brand and the product. And that's really what we wanted to build. It's, I think, most public-facing celebrity or founder,

41:55The Gstaad Guy:social media celebrity or social media founder's dreams with the outcomes of the business. It's fantastic. On the Instagram account for Stad Guy, it's about a 50-50 split of men and women. But on this podcast, it's actually 60 % women, 40 % men. So lots of very intrigued and excited women are listening to this podcast today, learning from you, learning from your journey. and are likely very inspired by what you've been able to build. I also know that through the data on the channel, many of them are college students, early 20s. And for me, at least, that was the most confusing age of my life. Didn't know what I wanted to do, where I'd end up.

42:39The Gstaad Guy:If you could go back in time and speak to that version of yourself, especially with everything you've experienced now, would you happen to have a message? you can share? Don't wait for everything to be perfect. It's never going to be perfect. And if you have an idea or if you want to do something, just try. Your 20s are the best time to really experiment. The older you get, the more responsibilities you have. It is a little harder. You can still do things. You can still start a new company or get a new job or move to another country, but it becomes more challenging the older you get. So in your 20s, while you can, try the job.

43:13If you don't like it, quit. If you want to move to another city, give yourself that opportunity. Intern if you can. Send the cold pitch. Like DM someone. You never know who's going to say yes. And try not to be nervous about being told no because you will be really surprised the opportunities that you might get if you just put yourself out there. With social and digital now, it's so easy to connect with people. When I was in my 20s, it wasn't as easy. You had to really see people face to face. There wasn't as many opportunities. But there are girls who DM me all the time and respond to their DMs.

43:46I see them in my comments where, you know, you recognize people's handles because you see them so frequently. And one of them was a girl that we used to DM all the time. She works at Summer Fridays now. And her college project was actually working on a sunscreen idea. And then last week we were working on a sunscreen presentation. And then she sent me a Slack. And she was like, I actually worked on this in college. So she's like getting to do this as my full-time job now is like a dream come true for her. but you never know if you don't actually try and so if you're in your 20s like and then also don't listen to your friends because sometimes your friends they might hold you back I remember when I was graduating from college and I wanted to move to Los Angeles and one of my friends said like okay well like what's your dream job like what's your dream car what are you going to do I said oh I want to move to Los Angeles I'm going to be a tv host and I'm going to drive a Range Rover she said no but like what's like realistic I said that is realistic and sometimes your friends telling you something's not possible will hold you back.

44:40So surround yourself with people too who believe in your dreams and want the same things who are also really driven because like-minded people will motivate you and try to put yourselves around other people because sometimes our parents, they might not understand, they're from a different generation, so you kind of have to prove it to them. But your friends who should know how things are today, you want them to have the same belief in you. And I think it's really important to have people who believe that you can do it and believe things even if it sounds really outrageous.

45:07The Gstaad Guy:Fully aligned. There's like these funny memes online about when people make it, quote unquote, and they switch up on their day one. And I really think that there's a big difference between an old friend and a good friend. And I have friends that I met in the past few months or past few years that have been better to me, especially in these current phases of life than friends I've known for 10 or 20 years. And that awareness of being able to love a future version of a friend versus only understanding the current version of them, I think takes a lot of security. And humans naturally are quite insecure.

45:48The Gstaad Guy:And I think it's really important that if advice means anything to people and they can be affected by advice, to be very careful about who they ask for advice. And I generally love accountability in people because I find that when people ask for opinions, they're often not looking to change their mind anyway. They're often just looking for some degree of confirmation bias where they keep asking people until someone agrees with them. And then guess what? If it goes wrong, they'll blame that person versus blaming themselves. I had a friend who would always ask me for advice and I could tell that's what she was doing.

46:24So I stopped giving her advice because I was like, you don't really want what I'm trying to tell you. Enabling her. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

46:30The Gstaad Guy:I fully agree. Were you always a decisive person? I've always been very independent and I'm an only child of my parents. I have older half sisters, but I think being an only child, you kind of have to depend on yourself a lot. So you don't have siblings around. And, you know, I think that independence has made me be really decisive. And so it never was that I was asking peers for their opinion on something. And it stayed really true to who I am. So it's anything like personal, professional, how I want to spend my time, my day, how I get dressed, if I'm shopping, whatever it is. And I'm okay with that.

47:09It's proved me right a lot of times. And I never really need to talk through it with other people either. And I think it's a skill to learn to do that. And I think the older I've got, that skill has been sharpened. And I'm very happy to be a decisive person because I think I don't spend too much of my time overthinking things. And I think when you overthink things, that's when it can slow you down.

47:31The Gstaad Guy:Yeah. There's lots of skills that I think life alone can teach us and lots we can practice. And of course, the business speaks for your personal success and your personal growth. But also it's very clear through this podcast how many categories of your life that you've polished over time. And I think it can be intimidating when someone is undecisive to be exposed to someone who's so decisive and think, oh, there's no way I can work towards that. And I think there are some skills that people can absolutely work on. What would you say are some of the key skills that have allowed you to succeed in the way you have that people can actually practice versus just allow life to teach them?

48:19I think a skill is knowing what you like. And so I think the more you know what you like and what your tastes are, the easier it is to be decisive. So if you're always switching of, oh, I think I like this, maybe I like this other thing, and you're not sure of who you are as a person, it's harder to be decisive because you're not really sure where it should lead you. So in my life and everything I do, I'm very clear on that. So you can look at something and say, oh, this is so Marianna because I'm so clear on who I am. So it doesn't really leave an option for indecisiveness. And so I think the more you are in tune with like your true self, so whether that's journaling or spending time alone or like, who am I really like?

49:05What do I like? What are like my own personal preferences? And the more you hone in on that as a skill, it will serve you whether it's professional or personal and everything that you do. It will make shopping easier, it will make where you want to go on vacation or the food you want to eat or how branding should look or the way that you want to speak to people, the type of job you want to have. Because if you say, I'm this type of person, but this job doesn't align with that, of course, you're not going to want to do this job or you're going to be indecisive because it's not really true to who you are in your essence.

49:36The Gstaad Guy:It's very well said. Because if someone points at something like at a store walking by or even a joke that someone makes or a food and says, by the way, that's so you. I take it as a huge compliment that they understand me and that I've managed to understand myself to a degree that I can share that with friends. And that it lasts over time. So if you said it today, you could say it in five years from now. It's like, oh, if I buy you a Laurel Piana sweater in five years as a gift, it's probably going to stay true to who you are because this is your brand and this is who you are. And so that comes in time of doing something like repeatedly over and over again.

50:13And that comes with age. So obviously if you're in your twenties, that's still something that you're working on. You're still developing kind of who you are as a person, you're growing into yourself, but probably like 28, 29, I started to really feel more like me. And then as it got into my thirties, every year I felt more and more like myself. And so it's almost gotten better as I've gotten older and I feel more true to who I am today than ever before.

50:35The Gstaad Guy:I went through an exercise recently, I mean actually a few years ago now, where I told someone that I am attracted to people who share my values and that person asked me to define my values and I realized that I was basing quote-unquote my values on vibes and I had never define them. And I started working on defining things I value most. And I realized that it was a very special process for me to help me make sure everything I do aligns with those things and that I'm always working towards things that align with those values. If you don't mind, I'd love if you could share what your values have been and what they are and how they guide your life.

51:20Longevity is a really important one. And that's not just for professional, but it's for personal too. So the daily decisions that I make, the foods that I eat, the way that I sleep, how I live my life is really about the person I want to be when I'm like 80, 90 years old. So my dad will be 90 next year. And I think he's given me such great hindsight on what it's like to be somebody who's lived a very long life. And so he walks 2.6 miles a day. He golfs six days a week. He travels independently by himself. He flies alone. He's active with his great grandkids. He reads books. He can FaceTime me and order an Uber and do all these things.

52:02That's a blessing to be almost 90 and to be that independent and do all those things by himself. So if I want to be like that when I'm 90, what do I have to do today to make sure that I'm mobile, independent, smart, capable, all of those things? What do I want my life to look like? I want to have my family around. I want to have a house full of people. I want to have friends. So what do I have to do today in my life to ensure that I have friends around me? I have good health. I have family around me. I have to spend time on those things today. So I can't just spend my time on my career or else when I get to that age, I might not have those things that are important to me.

52:38So longevity is important. So I think about how I live my life every day so that the life that I have in decades to come reflects the life that I want to have. I think about that in my career as well. So I think about longevity. So I think about, okay, I can't be in every piece of Summer Fridays content because the longevity of the business. If we want to create products that are meant to be like your dove soap, what products will you buy for decades to come? So those maybe aren't going to be trendy products, but those will be products that you can buy over and over again for years. Our best sellers came out in 2018 and 2020, and people are still buying them in 2026.

53:12And so those are really important to us. Another value that's really important to me is just joy. I don't like people around me who aren't happy. I don't like people around who are complaining or just like negative to be around. And so I like to have joyful, happy people around me. And I won't cut people out of my life. I just will like love you from a distance. And so having that around is really important. So my mom is like the most joyful, happy person. She's always in such a good mood. Everyone's always so happy to see her. She's so supportive. My business partner is the same way. She brings like joy to every moment.

53:49My best friend is the same way. She's always so happy to like see the smallest thing and she finds joy in every moment. And so that's really important to me. And so thinking about the long term and then being joyful and present, everything I'm doing are like two things that I really actively think about as well as gratitude. Gratitude practice is really important as just part of my daily routine.

54:11The Gstaad Guy:Beautiful. I love all those things. On this podcast, we always play a game of à la poubelle versus fantastique. À la poubelle in French are the things we'd like to throw in the trash and change. And fantastique are the things we'd like to celebrate and see more of. Can you share a couple of things from the world that surrounds you that you'd like to see less of and throw à la poubelle and a couple you'd like to see more of and celebrate to be fantastique? Okay. A la Pubelle, I would do waiting for things to be perfect or waiting for the perfect time of something. And then speaking of time would be comparing yourself to other people's timelines.

54:50I think everyone's time is different. I remember when we started the company, I was just about to turn 30. So I was really bummed that I was never going to make Forbes 30 under 30. It didn't matter that I never made it. It wasn't a thing. But I think if I would have compared myself to other people or you're in your 20s now and you hope to make this list, it's amazing if you make it. It's such a blessing. It's so great. But if you don't make it, it's not the end of the world. And then Fantastique, Los Angeles. It's great here. It's such a beautiful city. I think people see like one side of Los Angeles that they see online, but there's so many amazing parts of the city and you can really make it whatever you want it to be.

55:28I agree. And we always have amazing weather and there's so much great food here. Like you could go from one side to the city to the other and it's like a one to two hour time span from downtown to Santa Monica. And so there's so much to experience here. So, you know, try to find something to do if you're visiting here that maybe you didn't find online or maybe seems a little bit more niche or something else to try or just walk around. Well, it's not really like a walking city, but drive around and explore something new.

55:53The Gstaad Guy:Are there any thoughts you'd like to leave the audience with today? Oh, thoughts to leave the audience. I'm just grateful to be here. and like I think your content's amazing and I think the podcast has been so great. I think it's so nice for you to have a platform where you're not a character online but you're really hearing from you and the passions and people in your life that interest you and you've had such a vast array of people on here that I think if you are somebody who is interested in living a life like this, it's different guests than you have on other podcasts. Like other podcasts, you kind of see a lot of the same people.

56:28There really are unique perspectives here and people who typically don't do podcasts. And so you will learn something if you listen. And I think it's great what you're doing here.

56:38The Gstaad Guy:That's so kind of you. Thank you so much. I didn't expect that. Very kind message. It's very, very sweet of you. And I love everything you're doing. I love everything you've done. Thank you. Big fan of your business. I really admire longevity. So I'm really happy that's your number one value. I think people can go viral once. I think people can do well once. Twice is difficult. Year over year, over and over again. while being consistent and growing, that's pure strategy. That's a chess game. So I really admire everything you've built. I think it's absolutely intention and not a consequence of randomness, which people like to assume in the social media world.

57:16The Gstaad Guy:But it's very clearly the opposite. And wishing you all the best and continuing to be excited about all the things you develop. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Start Guy. podcast. If you're keen to learn more, please follow along by engaging with our social channels on Instagram, TikTok, Spotify, YouTube, and Apple podcasts. And we look forward to seeing you next week. Merci beaucoup, à la prochaine, and a big hug from the Stardguy.