853 Rachel Solomon: Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Boarderie

0:00I am unwilling to give up, but I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be.

0:09Kara Goldin:You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don't get knocked out. So your only choice should be, go focus on what you can control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin Show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world's greatest leaders. We'll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can't wait to get started. Let's go. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by LinkedIn Hiring Pro. Hi, Kara here. For small businesses, every hire matters, but so does your time.

0:53Kara Goldin:I felt that pressure firsthand. You know, a bad hire isn't just frustrating, it's expensive in time, money, and team morale. And yet hiring the right person can feel like a full-time job on top of everything else you're already doing. Sifting through applications, trying to spot the real standouts, second-guessing decisions, it can get overwhelming fast. That's why having a way to save time without sacrificing quality isn't just nice to have, it's critical. Luckily, LinkedIn Hiring Pro is built for that reality. It's your hiring partner designed to help you hire with confidence by surfacing only the right candidates without turning hiring into another full-time job.

1:39Kara Goldin:Posting a job isn't always the hard part. It's finding, connecting with, and screening the right candidates. Hiring Pro streamlines the entire process from drafting your job to shortlisting candidates and conducting AI-powered interviews for initial screenings. Their updated conversational interface lets you describe what you need in plain language, no recruiter jargon needed. Nearly 60 % of hires find a candidate to interview within a week. With Hiring Pro, you spend less time searching and more time connecting with the right talent. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire.

2:19Kara Goldin:Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash Kara Golden. Terms and conditions apply. Today's episode is brought to you by Pebble, the smarter way to build a global team. Hiring internationally can sound simple at first. Then you get into labor laws, payroll, benefits, compliance, contracts, and all the local rules that can slow everything down. Pebble was built to make global hiring easier. Pebble is an AI-powered global HR platform for founders, operators, and HR leaders hiring around the world. It helps you hire, pay, and manage talent in over 185 countries with onboarding that can happen in minutes.

3:06Kara Goldin:Instead of juggling separate tools for contracts, payroll benefits, and compliance, Pebble brings everything together in one platform that integrates with the tools teams already use. Special offer for podcast listeners of The Kara Golden Show. Pebble is normally$3.99 a month per employee. Already a no-brainer for what you get. But right now, there's a limited time offer on their site that makes it even easier to get started. Go to highpebl.ai before it's gone. That's highpebl.ai. Terms and conditions apply. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to The Cara Golden Show. Why does most gifting still feel forgettable when it should feel like an experience?

3:58Kara Goldin:So today, I'm joined by Rachel Solomon, who is the co-founder and co-CEO of an incredible brand that I, frankly, did not know existed until her team reached out to me. It's called Bordery, and it's a brand completely rethinking what it means to send a gift. And Rachel and her team launched Bordery in 2021 with a simple but powerful idea. instead of gifting gift baskets, flowers, why not a fully arranged premium cheese or chartreurie board, something that feels elevated and yummy. I was saying to Rachel that I got an incredible board and I'm really picky about my cheeses. I live in Northern California and it was so yummy and the figs were yummy, everything.

4:52Kara Goldin:So high, high, high, 10 stars on it. It was so, so good. So one of the fastest growing e-commerce companies in the country. What I love about Rachel's story is how she tapped into something deeper, not just gifting, but connection and experience and how people actually want to show up, but also how they want to gift. So I love, love, love everything about this. So Rachel, welcome to the Kara Golden Show. So excited to finally meet you. Yes. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here and I'm so glad you love the board. Absolutely. Well, okay. So for listeners, I did a little pitch about Bordery, but how do you describe the brand and what makes it different?

5:40So I would describe Bordery, we first started as a fully arranged cheese and charcuterie board business. That was what we did. We figured out the first company in the world that figured out how to ship fully arranged gorgeous artisan cheese and charcuterie boards, which were typically a cottage industry. You know, you could get them locally. They weren't commercially available to everyone. And in the quality that, you know, you could get it at an artisan shop in New York or in California or something. And so that's where we started. But really over the past four years, we've evolved into a gourmet edible gifting brand.

6:12So we really recently in February launched our dessert boards, which are actually even more ingredients than our cheese and charcuterie boards. Our largest one has 47 different custom-made desserts. And that business is growing even faster than cheese and charcuterie. So the future of boardery is definitely all things edible gifting, but what most people know us for is these elaborate, gorgeous cheese and charcuterie boards. And they ship overnight, nationwide, fully arranged, so you don't have to do anything.

6:40Kara Goldin:This message is a paid partnership with AT &T Business. Hey everyone, Kara here. Let's get real about those early days of building a business. Not the highlight reel, the actual day-to-day, the friction, trying to manage everything across time zones, across teams, across locations, and realizing how much depends on staying connected. I remember those days at Hint, a retailer call, an order, a decision, all of it. and you realize quickly connection isn't a nice to have, it's the lifeblood of your business. As a founder, you don't want to think about your connectivity. You just need it to work every time.

7:24Kara Goldin:That's why AT &T Business matters. AT &T Business is the reliable provider for small business owners. And when you have that kind of reliability behind you, you can focus on what actually moves your business forward. Powered by AT &T Business. Built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com. Today's episode is brought to you by WhatNot. You know, I've always loved finding great products, but I also love finding a great deal. And that's exactly why I've been having so much fun with WhatNot. WhatNot is the largest live shopping marketplace in the United States, and it completely changes the way you shop.

8:09Kara Goldin:Instead of scrolling through endless listings, you're shopping live with real sellers in real time. You can ask questions, see products up close, connect with other shoppers, and discover incredible deals on fashion, beauty, handbags, jewelry, and so much more. What surprised me most is how interactive it is. It feels more like a community than a shopping app. And because there are thousands of sellers going live around the clock, I'm constantly discovering brands and products I might never have found otherwise. The best part? You almost never pay full price. If you love finding great products and saving money while doing it, I highly recommend checking it out.

8:52Kara Goldin:Download WhatNot today and get$20 off and free shipping on your first purchase. Search WhatNot, W-H-A-T-N-O-T in the app store. Sign up and start finding the best deals on the products you love with$20 off and free shipping on your first purchase. Okay, so let's go back to the beginning. And when you had this idea, so did you, had you come from the e-commerce world or how did you, I mean, you have a co-founder, how did this all come together, this business? I knew absolutely nothing about direct-to-consumer. The only thing I knew was that I was a huge consumer. That was it. And so I was working in finance in New York City.

9:41And then I decided to go back to school and do a master's program in blockchain technology. Because I thought that was the future of finance. And then COVID hit and everything went online. So I moved down to Florida to be with my family. And that's where I met my co-founder, Aaron, who at the time was running a gourmet catering and special events business in South Florida. He had done this for over 20 years. He had a serious expertise in these elaborate, amazing events for celebrities and athletes and just like incredible bespoke events. And so his entire business basically was going to go under because COVID had canceled all of these parties.

10:20Nobody was doing anything. And so he tried to figure out a way to ship their best-selling product. which was these beautiful cheese and charcuterie boards. And that's when we met around that time. And everything just kind of started from there. We became partners. I understood the business side of it. I built our direct consumer brand. He really understood the product, the operations, the culinary expertise of building out something this complex. We're able to produce about 20 ,000 charcuterie boards a day fresh. And so it was just at the time we weren't doing that. At the time, we were operating out of a 2 ,000 square foot facility and just we were excited to get, you know, 30, 40 orders a day.

11:00But yeah, it just evolved from there.

11:03Kara Goldin:So what was the biggest challenge in making something like this and shipping it nationwide? So when we first started, everybody told us, like, this is not going to work. And the initial iterations of the product were not amazing. So Aaron actually started test shipping things early on. and sometimes they would arrive looking like a salad, of course. And so we figured out a packaging method and we evolved the product over the first year and a half to really make it spectacular. So the packaging is individual trays inside a board, everything straight crop. We actually patented our packaging because it keeps everything perfectly in place.

11:43So that was about a year and a half process, trial and error of trying to figure it out. And we knew it was possible. We knew that we could get it right. But the initial iterations, I have to say, were not amazing. And now, you know, it arrives perfectly every time we share.

11:56Kara Goldin:This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by LinkedIn Hiring Pro. Hi, Kara here. For small businesses, every hire matters, but so does your time. I felt that pressure firsthand. You know, a bad hire isn't just frustrating, it's expensive in time, money, and team morale. And yet hiring the right person can feel like a full-time job on top of everything else you're already doing. Sifting through applications, trying to spot the real standouts, second-guessing decisions, it can get overwhelming fast. That's why having a way to save time without sacrificing quality isn't just nice to have, it's critical.

12:41Kara Goldin:Luckily, LinkedIn Hiring Pro is built for that reality. It's your hiring partner designed to help you hire with confidence by surfacing only the right candidates without turning hiring into another full-time job. Posting a job isn't always the hard part. It's finding, connecting with, and screening the right candidates. Hiring Pro streamlines the entire process from drafting your job to shortlisting candidates and conducting AI-powered interviews for initial screenings. Their updated conversational interface lets you describe what you need in plain language, no recruiter jargon needed. Nearly 60 % of hires find a candidate to interview within a week.

13:23Kara Goldin:With Hiring Pro, you spend less time searching and more time connecting with the right talent. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash Kara Golden. Terms and conditions apply. Today's episode is brought to you by WhatNot. You know, I've always loved finding great products, but I also love finding a great deal. And that's exactly why I've been having so much fun with WhatNot. WhatNot is the largest live shopping marketplace in the United States, and it completely changes the way you shop. Instead of scrolling through endless listings, you're shopping live with real sellers in real time.

14:08Kara Goldin:You can ask questions, see products up close, connect with other shoppers, and discover incredible deals on fashion, beauty, handbags, jewelry, and so much more. What surprised me most is how interactive it is. It feels more like a community than a shopping app. And because there are thousands of sellers going live around the clock, I'm constantly discovering brands and products I might never have found otherwise. The best part? You almost never pay full price. If you love finding great products and saving money while doing it, I highly recommend checking it out. Download WhatNot today and get$20 off and free shipping on your first purchase.

14:51Kara Goldin:Search WhatNot, W-H-A-T-N-O-T in the app store. Sign up and start finding the best deals on the products you love with$20 off and free shipping on your first purchase. This message is a paid partnership with AT &T Business. Hey everyone, Kara here. Let's get real about those early days of building a business. Not the highlight reel, the actual day-to-day, the friction, trying to manage everything across time zones, across teams, across locations, and realizing how much depends on staying connected. I remember those days at hint, a retailer call, an order, a decision, all of it. And you realize quickly, connection isn't a nice to have.

15:41Kara Goldin:It's the lifeblood of your business. As a founder, you don't want to think about your connectivity. You just need it to work every time. That's why AT &T Business matters. AT &T Business is the reliable provider for small business owners. And when you have that kind of reliability behind you, you can focus on what actually moves your business forward. Powered by AT &T Business, built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com. You touched on this, but the presentation, it's clear when it arrived that you've thought about this, right? And you've probably had, you know, many days in your office or kitchen table or whatever, where you're actually doing these tests and trying to create, right?

16:38Kara Goldin:And I love the touch, the high touch that it's clear that you've paid so much attention to, plus the quality of the product. So, and I think that so often businesses, I would say that the presentation part is usually kind of the afterthought. They're like, as long as the consumer gets the product. But I think in order to really be here for a while and scale your business, you have to worry about so many components of the business. Would you agree? Absolutely. I think presentation is everything. And that was really, you know, every single item on that board. A lot of people have tried to copy board and it has not worked because they don't actually understand what it takes to produce a quality product at scale.

17:27And presentation to me was always, of course, taste is really important, but there are tens of thousands of incredible cheeses. It needs to look beautiful. It needs to have color variety. It needs to have pop. It needs to be able to be visually appealing online, visually appealing when it comes out of the box. you know there's it's a gift 70 of the time so you want to that person has the wow moment from the second they open the box and that's where a lot of the challenge actually came from the beginning so we started developing the product sourcing different cheeses and we had a beautiful product but a lot of the cheeses that we wanted the colors we wanted the variety of the veining of the truffles we needed to actually go to cheese producers all over the world and custom make cheeses to fit our specifications.

18:11We didn't want cheese waste because, you know, if you get a wheel, we needed to cut it into specific sizes to use it across many boards at scale. And so a lot of this process, and I think a lot of our competitors don't realize, or people who are trying to copy us don't realize how much time and effort went into the product development for what we're selling today. And a lot of people will say to us, you know, we should, you should be able to customize the board with whatever cheeses you want. And I'm like, they have no concept of how much detail and thought went into what it looks like, the cheeses that are on there and why they're there to create a variety.

18:44We did so many different tests with, you know, focus groups and taste testing and sampling to get a huge variety that would really appeal to the whole country. So it's, it's definitely been a process, but we're, we're thrilled with where it is now. And the same thing was with dessert, right? It took us two years to develop that product.

19:01Kara Goldin:That's wild. What is the number one item that you sell? The number one item we sell right now is our small cheese and charcuterie boards because it's a fabulous gift. People love getting it as a gift. Our birthday boards for evergreen gifting year round sell really well because you can customize them with someone's age and cheese. So that's our number one selling product. But I actually believe dessert will be bigger than cheese and charcuterie over the next 12 months. What's your favorite dessert skew? I think my favorite dessert SKU, well, our big board has 47 different desserts on it. Almost all of which were custom made for us, custom designed.

19:41You know, we have different truffles and I really love our toffee. It's from an amazing company that we're working with to produce it here in the US. It is incredible. And that is in all of our dessert boards. So I dessert, I'm a dessert girl. I love cheese and charcuterie, but dessert really, I, every single of the 47 items on that board I could have every day.

20:04Kara Goldin:So your social is great. And the social sharing, I think your company is a role model for what can happen. And so I think you guys have done a super great job on that. What role do you think social sharing plays in either your growth or a company's growth out there in today's world? Yeah, absolutely. I think it plays the biggest role. I think, you know, I we're a direct consumer brand online. Everything we do is online, right? Very different from being in retail. So we run a massive paid media strategy. And to me, the biggest part of that is creative diversity and volume. We produce tens of thousands of ads a year.

20:46We do massive creative volume across our paid media channels. And we use almost every paid media channel. and organic is extremely important too. So using different creators and different influencers to promote the product and then also boosting that on our end and then just creating a community on social media, right? On Facebook too, because our demo really spans 35 to 65 plus. And so we have created communities across all the social platforms, TikTok being the one where we're probably lagging a bit because it's a younger demo, but we're starting to get there. We're moving into TikTok and desserts are doing really well there.

21:23So building that community has been a huge, huge part of our success online.

21:27Kara Goldin:Today's episode is brought to you by Whatnot. You know, I've always loved finding great products, but I also love finding a great deal. And that's exactly why I've been having so much fun with Whatnot. Whatnot is the largest live shopping marketplace in the United States, and it completely changes the way you shop. Instead of scrolling through endless listings, you're shopping live with real sellers in real time. You can ask questions, see products up close, connect with other shoppers, and discover incredible deals on fashion, beauty, handbags, jewelry, and so much more. What surprised me most is how interactive it is.

22:07Kara Goldin:It feels more like a community than a shopping app. And because there are thousands of sellers going live around the clock, I'm constantly discovering brands and products I might never have found otherwise. The best part? You almost never pay full price. If you love finding great products and saving money while doing it, I highly recommend checking it out. Download WhatNot today and get$20 off and free shipping on your first purchase. Search WhatNot, W-H-A-T-N-O-T in the app store. Sign up and start finding the best deals on the products you love with$20 off and free shipping on your first purchase.

22:51Kara Goldin:This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by LinkedIn Hiring Pro. Hi, Kara here. For small businesses, every hire matters, but so does your time. I felt that pressure firsthand. You know, a bad hire isn't just frustrating, it's expensive. in time, money, and team morale. And yet hiring the right person can feel like a full-time job on top of everything else you're already doing. Sifting through applications, trying to spot the real standouts, second-guessing decisions, it can get overwhelming fast. That's why having a way to save time without sacrificing quality isn't just nice to have, it's critical.

23:36Kara Goldin:Luckily, LinkedIn HiringPro is built for that reality. It's your hiring partner designed to help you hire with confidence by surfacing only the right candidates without turning hiring into another full-time job. Posting a job isn't always the hard part. It's finding, connecting with, and screening the right candidates. HiringPro streamlines the entire process from drafting your job to shortlisting candidates and conducting AI-powered interviews for initial screenings. Their updated conversational interface lets you describe what you need in plain language, no recruiter jargon needed. Nearly 60 % of hires find a candidate to interview within a week.

24:18Kara Goldin:With Hiring Pro, you spend less time searching and more time connecting with the right talent. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash Kara Golden. Terms and conditions apply. So what have you learned about building a premium brand in a category that is so commoditized, right? People know that they have to, you know, order a gift and typically it's been flowers. Now you're converting those people over to something different and unique. And I mean, who wouldn't want that for somebody that they care enough about to actually gift to them?

25:06Kara Goldin:But what have you seen and what have you learned about building a premium brand in kind of a commoditized category? I think it's all about having a unique product, right? I think you said it yourself, right? This is something that is usually people are sending flowers. Usually they're sending a gift basket of, you know, shelf-stable cheeses and meats or something that just says, I thought of you, but it doesn't actually speak to what the customer really wants. And so to me, it was about having an amazing product and being able to showcase that product effectively in our advertising, in our social media.