Donuts & Blowouts

How do you start a successful business from just blowouts? Allie Webb from DryBar is here to answer that question with Ben and Jesse. She offers some advice about how to pick out a physical location for your business, and she talks about the pros and cons of working with your spouse.   Then we hear from Kenneth Pogson and Tres, the masterminds behind Voodoo Donuts, about how you can set yourself apart from other businesses purely by branding.   And few things are more important than timing when it comes to launching a product, as we learn from Patrick Herning, the founder of 11 Honoré.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Lady Bosses and then and I Heart Radio podcast Ali
Webb in studio. Ali, you are very famous. I've not
had an interview started that way. Thank you. I don't
think dry bars right, D and seven as a Friday.

(00:22):
Oh my gosh, isn't that crazy. So if anybody out
there is listening and wondering who is Ali Webb, she
is the founder of the very popular dry Bar, which
is now all over the United States. I think I
want to start at the beginning. Let's do that, Ben,
Let's start at the beginning. Why dry bar? Well, for

(00:47):
a guy, it might be a little bit hard. I
don't get it. I know, well most guys did it.
Let first tell people what it is. So dry bar
is a blow dry bar only blow out, snow cut,
snow color, just blowouts, and that's all we do. So
we wash your hair, then we blow it out. But
it's not like we're just throwing it out. It's like
when you go, you know, to a hair salon and
get your hair cut, your colored, and then they wash
it and blow it out and you feel like kind

(01:08):
of like red carpet ready. So you're certainly not the
first guy who was like, I don't understand what to
blow out is, and even when my brother and my
husband are my business partners and they're both bald, ironically,
but my brother was like, I don't understand Sarah, his
wife blow drives her hair herself where she has like
that stick straight hair, which I have naturally very curly
frizzy hair, and growing up in South Florida made it

(01:30):
even worse to get my hair to be somewhat manageable.
But yeah, I mean, my brother's first reaction to this
business idea was like, I don't understand why would a
woman pay to have her hair blown out? And I
was like, well, well listen, um, most girls, of girls,
I believe you know, have have hair that's like unruly,
hard to manage, curly, frizzy. It just doesn't doesn't look

(01:51):
great when they wake up or when they try to
style it themselves. There's like a small subset of women
like my brother's wife, Sarah, who has like stick straight hair,
the hair that I dreamt of, who can get out
of the shower and her hair dry stick straight, looks
really pretty and whatever. But most women, which you may
or may not know as a guy, like their hair,
doesn't you know, they dry bar has given women like

(02:12):
a place to go to have their hair look really
like voluptuous and beautiful. And it's funny because my husband,
who knows what my hair dries like naturally, which is
a crazy frizzy mess. He when when I came to
him with this idea, he was like, you know, you
get your nails done once a week, but I don't
really notice. And he's like, when you get a blow out,
it's the first thing I noticed about you. It's like

(02:32):
the frame of your face. And it's like and we
hear that from women all the time, who like sometimes
will sneak to dry bar on their lunch break and
they come back and you know, they're like, something's different,
like you look really good. What happened? You know? And
so it's actually notice girls hair, Like, yeah, that's a
good question, like do you look at because you're saying
your husband didn't notice when you got your nails done,
and do you notice things like that? I would like

(02:53):
to say yes, I don't. I cannot promise, but you
know it's probably more like you see a girl, you
think she's are you married dating some Yeah? Thank you, Okay,
you're really cute? Why you're single? I'm sure. I'm sure,
I'm sure you have girls this is but listen to this.
You have an important role today, Ali, because part of

(03:15):
this is training me to be a better partner for
a woman. One day, when they say it is her hair,
I want to go pay to get my hair blown out,
and I'll say, you've never like dated a girl who's
been going to dry bar who never mentioned it. I
don't very often, Ali, I feel like I should have
done my research. I think I'm like missing something here.
But but I mean, I guess when you when you
see a girl and she looks like really put together,

(03:37):
like her outfit is good, her hair looks good, it's
just as a guy, you probably noticed like the whole
thing and you're like, yeah, she's a pretty girl or whatever.
But if her hair was like a crazy frizzy mess,
you probably may not be able to say like, oh,
I don't think that girl is pretty because her hair
doesn't look good. It's just an overall feeling. And I
think that's why women have are so drawn to dry bar,

(03:58):
because it does give them that extra edge that like
confidence when because when women's hair looks good, they feel
really good and really confident about themselves, which exudes from them.
You know, this is not I don't mean to say
that this is the only dry bar is great just
because we make women look good. It's more that we're
making women feel good and that confidence that come out.
I mean, I feel good after I go to dry bars,

(04:19):
Like did you just go to dry bar? No? But
I feel good? Well today, I feel good and then
your hair looks good after I go to dry bar too.
From a business though, this is something that just like
most things that we consume are do in life. It's
not a necessity. This is not you might you know
it is because it makes them feel But how then
do you market this and explain and convert all these

(04:41):
people over over a million a million bullets? Ayre too?
How do you convert regular people like I grew up
in Indiana, so so a lot of people Indiana. Uh,
they're just starting now to really treat themselves and really
care about how they feel. It used to just be
let's get through life and let's you know, sacrifice everything
just to make it. Now they're really concentrate on let's
do some things that make us feel great. So, how

(05:04):
then are you marketing and communicating to the mass public
on yeah this, you might be able to say, oh,
why would I go pay to get my hair blown out?
But you're saying, no, it's worth it. How do you
do that? So well, let me take you back more
to the beginning, because when we first started, and I
the way that we started, I have, like I said,
I have naturally curly hair. I've been a professional hair
styles for twenty years now. And when I was got married,

(05:27):
I had two kids. I have two kids, and they
were they were young, and I was living in l A.
My husband was creative director and at an advertising agency
which by the way, he does all the branding and
all of that for dry bar Um and I started
just to get out of the house and get away
from my kids for a couple of hours. I started
this a mobile business called straight at Home, where I
would go to women's houses and blow out their hair.
And I was only charging forty dollars to go to

(05:49):
their home, which, as you know when you go to
women what you may not know, but you definitely know
when you go to women's home and you're blow drying
their hair at their house, forty dollars is like dirt cheap.
But it was more about me getting out of the house,
get away from the doing this. Anyways, what I what
started to happen was I got really busy, really fast.
And what I what I learned in that time was
that women had two bad choices they could for to
get just to blow out. Was either to go to

(06:11):
the full service salon and try to get a silence
to do it, even though the stylus would rather be
doing a cut in color and making more money in
that hour, or go to like the discount chains, like
the Fantastic SAMs of the world. So there was no
place to go that was just for blowouts. So when
that's when the idea kind of started percolating for me,
And so I'm sorry, what's fantastic SAMs? Should I know?
It's like it's like a it's like a little like

(06:33):
like a small hair salon that's like very chain. It's
it's not like it's no one's ever asked me to
explain it. I don't know. It's like it's salon and
a small like it's not like great, it's not like
a high end salon. It's a lower end, chaining kind
of supercut, supercut that's perfect, Thank you. Um. Anyway, so
I realized that there was this big hole in the

(06:55):
market and I thought, and this is when I went
to my brother Michael and my husband Camp and I
was like, I think I should turn because I had
to start saying no to all my clients because I
didn't have enough time. And I was like, do I
bring on other stylists and you know, expand this mobile
But I was like, I think I should turn my
my mobile business into a brick and mortar and start
an actual place where women come to me instead of
me going to them. It was a hunch, and I

(07:16):
was like, I think there's enough women in l A.
Because I'm so busy, because I'm only charging forty bucks
for just to blow out. I feel like there's enough
women who feel like I do. They can't do their
own hair, they're figuring it out the way I always had.
So maybe I could open a place that would cater
to that my mobile clients. And that was so it
was really small the idea when we when we opened,
and sure enough, with the more women I talked to,

(07:37):
the more women were like, yes, I wish there was
a place like this. And I, as a kid dumped
of a place like this because of my unruly, crazy hair.
So that was that was how the idea started. So
we opened the first store in Brentwood in two thousand
ten and women started flocking to it. Now, I we thought,
and my brother certainly thought that this was going to
be you know, it was very l A center. Like women.

(08:00):
He always said, I don't think this, but he always said,
like l A. Women have too much time, too much money,
care too much about their parents. That's why it will
work in l A. But I knew that like so
many women just can't manage their own hair, and to
have somebody else do their hair instead of them having
to do it, not only are they gonna look good,
they're gonna actually save time. Women are usually on their laptops.
It's like a forty five minute escape, so they answer

(08:22):
your question. I do think there's been a huge like
resurgence and move in like self care, and I think
it's so great that women are not only getting blowouts
but like taking care of themselves and doing more and
more things for themselves. But what started to happen was
there was this subset of women like me and my
friends who were like, knew about a blowout. We're getting blowouts.
But then there was a much bigger subset. I believe

(08:43):
a women who had never even heard of a blowout
and they're like what what you know? And what would happen?
Is like a friend or whatever would give them like
a gift card to dry bar because they had a
wedding or bumpets foot to go do. So they would
go and get their hair blown out on like a
Friday because they were going to a special event. So
they felt like they wanted like more fancy hair, and
so they would go and they would be like, oh
my god, for thirty five dollars, now I can like

(09:05):
look this good on a Tuesday, like sign me up.
So it's like this addictive behavior that develops once we
get them in. So in terms of like marketing, you know,
like I'll give anybody a free blowout any day of
the week who's never been the dry Bar because I
just want you to go in and experience, because once
you experience how great you look and feel after you
have a blowout, you're like, Okay, I'm going to figure

(09:26):
out how to do this every week. Then they played
chick flicks, They're like and then they bring the champagne
and they have cookies and it's and it's set up
like a bar. Yes, we get the shampoo. Yeah, it's
my favorite. You want to rub if you ever like,
I'll come in just to get my head. A lot
of guys do its. Dustin Hoffman notoriously comes to Brentwood

(09:46):
all the time for Scout. Well, a lot of guys do,
especially if they're like they're I mean, because it's like
some male customers. We we do, I mean really more
mostly West Hollywood, but we do have some guys that
are coming in. But I mean a lot of women
would say that that they and we do like a
ten minutes extra. I can feel it right now as
you're really really like, I just fell asleep for a

(10:07):
second because because I thought when I get my head rubbed,
what happens when you're single. You don't get your head
rubbed very often. You need to just go to dry bar.
They would love you there. Um, okay, I I have
a question because I'm just here in the next few
months going to start open up my first brick and
mortar locations for for Generous, which is the coffee company

(10:28):
that opperate and one of the issues really yeah, really
excited about it. But one of the issues I'm having
generous generous, Yeah, we'll talk about it. It's really about
I'll send you some coffee. It's great coffee. Coffee. Um,
how do you predict foot traffic while you have a
hundred stores? Now, so you start with this idea in Brentwood,
you're like, Okay, I've gone around, Um, I have enough

(10:50):
clientele from my in home visits to make this make sense.
Open up a location here in l A and then
all of a sudden, you've taken the jump to franchising
and licensing out these bars. They're predominantly company owned, but
there are some franchisees. Okay, Um, so you're licensing, franchising, franchising, Um,
how do you predict foot traffic in these areas? Because

(11:11):
that's my biggest issue is I have no clue. I
can say this may people even live in the location,
but how do you how do you predict this? So
for us and we always go I mean, obviously we're
just attracting women, and there's there's a couple of things here,
but for the first and foremost, it's like we want
to be in like a daily use shopping center or
center area, so that means like where women would go

(11:33):
and get a manicure, where she might have lunch with
her girlfriends, where she can go shopping, where there's things
that she can do around dry bar. So that's always
like the key indicator for us. Parking has to be
easy enough, I mean especially especially for us because a
lot of women are like coming in right before they
go to work, so they have to spend twenty minutes
looking for her fifteen or even ten minutes looking for
parking about their like screw it, I'm out of here.

(11:54):
So we need parking to be really like easy community
or have ballet. So for us, it's a little bit
of a destination, but we do want to allow for
the fact that they we want them to do other
things when in their center because it just gets them
there even more so, you totally can find data on
a neighborhood you're going in in terms of like household
income and how many people live in this area, but

(12:18):
what your most best served, which we've learned the hard
way is like you know, working with not only like
a local real estate person but some but knowing if
you're like let's say you're looking in a certain neighborhood
like I live in Studio City, and you know there's
I could tell you if you asked me, like, there's
parts of Studio City that would be great for a
coffee shop, because I know there's like people who are

(12:39):
always going to kind of this area, but you you
open on the next block over and no, and it's
demographically it's the same as the other place that people
are walking, but nobody walk and only people who live
in that neighborhood or people who know that neighborhood are
going to be able to say, hey, Ben, this is
a great overall area. But if you go down the
street or on the other side of the street, nobody's
going to come to your place on how great it is,

(13:01):
you know, within reason. So we've learned that the hardway
because we have opened on the wrong side of the
street in the right neighborhood before. And it's hard interesting
how you're thinking about it. You know, you want them
to go to the other businesses, so it is kind
of like you're supporting this whole totally. I mean group
of businesses. It's not just a contract start, it's about
all of these other and and then we have found

(13:22):
that we have great relationships with so many other businesses
like you know, Soul Cycle and like my good friend
owns Alive in June. So you know, we like we
like to be like by nail salons, you know, we
like in in Beverly Hills, we're right by Lascala Alive
in June. You know, there's so there's things that women
are going to do by all dry our locations, you know,
but Blushington, which is a makeup concept, I'm not sure.

(13:44):
You probably have no idea what that map dry bar
for makeup. I'm just trying to keep up check out.
But I mean they have, you know, they're part I
mean honestly, part of their strategy has been to open
where we are face House, which is like a quickie
facial thing. They've opened right by us, and all these
face House face out, so you're not to face out.
I'm going to try. They give great facials and it's

(14:05):
like it's like a quickie kind of facial, less expensive
than going to a spawn spending you know, a hundred
and fifty dollars, it's like sixty dollars or something. There's
there's one right on Ventura, I mean there's one next
to our western location. So co tendency is very very important.
I believe when you're opening a business that you need
the foot traffic and trusting. So I mean it also

(14:26):
sounds one of the key takeaways from me here is
having a very realistic view of what your brand is.
So you're not claiming that you're going to draw people
in from twenty miles just to get a blowout. You know,
you're saying, hey, necessarily, not necessarily, it might have to
happen in some locations, but you're saying, Okay, this is
gonna be something they consume. And then also it would
be great for them to have the ability to maybe

(14:48):
work out before after to nails done, like make this
coffee whatever a friend. Yeah, I mean, you want you
want all that stuff to be there. To your point,
you don't want to have to go, you know, if
you're if your business is like in a in a
destination that is like a pain to get to. I mean,
obviously you don't want to be there, you know. But
and also I think that there's something to be said

(15:08):
about not being on Maine and Maine you know not
We very often will be off the beaten path and
then others send up following us or vice versa, and
and having good relationships with um landlords and other tenants
to kind of know, because sometimes we'll find a space
that's too big and we'll go to like I'll call
Candice Nelson from Sprinkles and be like, hey, are you
thinking about putting a Sprinkles over here because we have

(15:29):
this big space? Or you know whoever just to get
in there saying that you guys all talk and that's
so funny. But I mean, this is eight years of
taking figuring this out. The Brentwood location was like pure
gut and at that time, it was two thousand ten,
we were in a session. I remember walking around Brentwood
Gardens where Driver is before we opened us the first one,
and there was like nobody in the center, and my

(15:51):
brother and I felt pretty strongly and bullish about this location,
and because it was kind of centered around where my
mobile business was coming from. And my brother and I
went to look construction and there was nobody. And my
brother was like, dude, are you kidding me? Like how
are we going to do business here? And I was like,
of course, I was. I'm such a like it's all
gonna work out and it's gonna be great. And I'm like,
they're gonna come, They're gonna come there and come and

(16:12):
and sure enough they did, and we started getting like
the owners of the other businesses coming to meet us
and be like, dude, you revitalize there. So it's really neat.
So we had to personally guarantee that first loan, that
first lease in dry Dry Bar in Brentwood Gardens because
they didn't believe in the concept and it was so
foreign and brand new. And now we have landlord's coming

(16:32):
to us asking us to open eteter because we bring
a hundred plus women a day to dry Bar. Crazy.
I want to bring it back to starting the business.
So yes, you I'm the oldest of four, I have
two brothers and a sister. But um, you started this
business with your brother and your husband. Previously you had

(16:54):
started a business with your brother and your parents told
you not to work together, and you then started dry
bar with your brother. I mean, I just like, do
you guys, why in the hell did they do? Why
did you do? If your parents are like, well, so
to give you a little backstory, me and my brother,
so my brother, I don't know, how do you guys
or if you guys remember family Ties. Remember that show

(17:14):
Alex P. Keaton. Yes, So my brother was Alex P.
Keaton and he was definitely like the overachiever of the family,
and I always grew up a little bit in his shadow.
He was always doing great things, were always in trouble,
and I was always much more like quiet and reserved
and anyways, long story short. Out of high school, I
was like, I don't know what I want to do
with my life. I thought I wanted to work in fashion.
I was really all over the place, and I moved

(17:35):
to New York City. My brother and I. Michael was
living in New York too. He was working for Nicole Miller,
which was, you know, a designer, and she was kind
of a big deal. This was like twenty years ago designer.
She's still big. She's still big, but not as well
and she was really famous and designed our world back then. Anyways,
I was managing your assistant manager at the Soho Nicole
Miller boutique in New York City. Michael was working in

(17:55):
the corporate office, and Michael was like, hey, what if
we moved back to South floor, know where we grew
up and opened a couple of Nicole Miller boutiques. In
like Miami and Boca, and I was like, okay. I
mean I was all of like twenty at the time,
and so we decided to do that, and they were successful.
I mean it was like you know, we we that
was a licensed deal. You know, you bought the clothes,

(18:16):
you put the store in. And again I thought I
wanted to work in fashion, but here I was managing
to retail operations. And if you know, Miami and Boca
there about an hour apart. It's terrible drive. And I
was like twenty years old, commuting back and forth from
Miami and managing two staffs. And I was like, oh,
this is not good. And we were very young. So
I was around twenty, Michael was around twenty three, and

(18:36):
we're running this operation and I just like this. I
don't like this. I'm not super happy. And Michael and
I were just fighting about everything, you know, I was,
I think because I wasn't happy doing what I was doing.
I think, I mean, Michael isn't here to defend himself,
but I feel like he was always out playing golf
and he was just such an apple and I was
always mad at him and so and and it really

(18:57):
drove a wedge between us, and we had always been
super super close growing up super tight. So this was
like really wreaking havoc on our relationship and finally it
but it is what gave me like the nudge I
think I needed to say, listen, I've tried all these
other things. I think I'm gonna go to beauty school
because I've always really loved hair and I want to
focus on that. Where my parents were like, you want

(19:18):
to go to beauty school, like they were not down
with it, they didn't see any kind of vision, where
my brother was like, I could totally see you in
this industry. You can You'll move to New York and
do like editorial and fashion shows and it it will be
perfect for you. So he was actually even though I
was petrified of telling him I wanted to leave Nicole Miller,
he was like kind of relieved too and he wanted
out to So it ended up being a good thing

(19:39):
because we were having like screaming matches in the store
and it was so bad, and so we went our
separate ways. I went to beauty school, started working in
hair salons, and then we you know, we weren't like
seeing you're talking to each other all that much anymor
because we had our own lives. You know, I met
my husband, got married, We were doing our own things.
And when he saw the success I was having with
straight at home, my mobile business, you know, and we

(20:00):
started talking about working each other. My parents were like,
you guys are out of your mind, like please don't
work together again, and ONLY was like, so it was
so rough of like our family and whatever, and so
I haven't. We had a lot of like come to
Jesus talks where I was like, you can't act like
this and you can't talk to me like this, and
I mean, we we knew how to push each other's buttons.
And but I think the really the real reason it
really worked was because here I had now spent a

(20:23):
whole bunch of years in hair in working in salons,
like I really knew this business better than Michael, because
Michael always knew more than me, or so he thought.
And so it was a very like I feel like
you should be here, I feel really bad. Essentially you
let it breathe like yeah, And so a couple of
years and you both got some experience, and we grew
up and we were much more mature. And so when

(20:45):
I came to him with this idea, and he had
such a great level of respect because I knew this
business that he knew nothing about. But he's this like
very smart business guy and you know, he's great business instincts,
and so I really needed him too. And I remember
camera and my husband being like, Michael is never going
to do this with you when I started having this idea,
and I was like, no, I think he is gonna.
I think he wants to do it. And we had
a lot of, you know, heart to heart conversations about

(21:09):
how this would be. But again, because I knew this
business better than he did, there was so much more
respect then there was like maybe in the Nicole Miller days.
That made it really work out. And and and really
we have extremely different skill sets. I've learned so much
over the last you know, eight years about building a
business and real estate and all that stuff. And so
it's it's got it's always been really good, and we've

(21:31):
never and we've had a couple of really bad fights,
but it's not anything like it was in the Nicole
Miller days. And it's like, we really all enjoy working
together now, so and you probably trust each other so much.
There's just that's the other thing. There's so much trust
and and with the pace that this business has grown
and having to raise so much money and do so
many things, like I really just had to trust Michael
on so many things that I didn't really understand. And

(21:54):
and because he's my brother, I trust him and I
know he wants the best for me. And so it
has been really good in the business. What I guess
there's an important thing I want to dig into a
little bit. Let's dig in well outside of even the brother. Okay,
so that's important. That's a weird dynamic. Um it is.
It's hard. You don't hear about it often, always think
I'm crazy business partners? What has changed and what has

(22:17):
been successful with your brother being your business partner, your
husband being a business partner now compared to maybe when
you're a twenty and you're all kind of trying to
figure it out. What have you found that works and
what doesn't and and what would you say to anybody
out there listening. We have a lot of young you know,
entrepreneurs and investors kind of listening and wondering what makes
this work, what makes it doesn't? Well, I think it's
I think it's um it's definitely like age immaturity. And

(22:41):
I think when you're younger, you're you're so trying to
um prove yourself constantly, and so you're there's a lot
of doubt involved, you know. I think for us, the
thing that makes it work is there's such like a
clear cut delineation between what I do, what Cameron does,
and what Michael does, and we have, like you said,
so much respect for what the other does. That there's

(23:02):
you know that we let each other kind of even
if we all discuss things all the time, but even
if there is a disagreement, if it's a creative thing,
we'll let Cameron ultimately like make that decision. So you know,
I think that it's it's um it's like knowing who
the boss is in that given in this in this
scenario for sure. And you know, and I think that
there's you have to like working together with you know,

(23:25):
with your brother or sister. I mean, for me, my
my brother happens to be like my best friend. He's
one of my favorite people. And I know that's not
the case for for everybody, um who would like would
rather die before working with their sibling. But but for us,
like we've always had a really good relationship and we're
really good friends. So it's it just really works. And
I think that the fact that we went through what

(23:46):
we went through with Nicole Miller definitely helped. I think
had we not gone through that, our relationship wouldn't be
so strong business wise, because we wouldn't have had the
opportunity to, you know, have work together and not um
you know, had fought and realized what we were doing
wrong to do things right. Or you also wouldn't have
had the arguments that you never wanted to have again, yes, right, yeah.

(24:09):
And also I think that because to answer your question too,
I think because I was young. I was in my
twenties when that started, and when we started dry Bar,
I was in my early thirties, mid thirties, and I
was just a lot more like certain of myself and
confident in myself, and I was like, not that he
was pushing me around, but I'm like, I'm going to
stand up for what I think. I'm going to say

(24:30):
what I think now where I think just in general,
just to lizer my hair and you don't. You don't
have any hair. That's the problem with him, So he
has no ground. No, he actually knows way more about
hair than any straight guy should. Can he style, no,
god no, but he will say to me like that
girl needs to blow out, right. And you know, it's

(24:51):
the harder to work with your siblings then or your
spouse because this you don't just mean kind of blazed
over the sp Actually, well, it's funny because my brother
like like kind of secretly loves when I'm fighting with
my husband because then he's not going to get in
trouble for anything. And my husband kind of less when
I'm fighting with my brother because he's it's like they're
so funny like that, they're like Mike's in the hot seat,

(25:12):
you know. Um, But it's it is, it's different. It
is hard with my husband, probably even more than it
is with my my brother because because like we have
to like I'll get an annoyed at him for something,
and then I'm at home with him later still annoyed
at him about that same thing. At least in my brother,
we go to separate homes, you know, and then we
can we have some space, which my husband and I

(25:34):
have learned through lots of therapy that you should not
talk about things when you're mad, like let that be
a lesson anybody listening. And I don't think it's just
for husband wives. I think for anybody. Which my instinct
and my brother's instinct is like when I'm mad, I
just like I need to like do get out and
talk it about and we have to talk and we
talk because I cannot move on until we fix this fight.
Which my brother's like that too, which is why we

(25:56):
really go at it, but fix things fast. My husband
is like, you know, we like take a couple He
wants to take a couple of hours away from each other.
And then I'm like, you know, he'll like if we're
in a fight and he'll sleep in like the guest
room and I'm like, just talk to me, you know,
and he's like, I'm not talking to you. You're too mad,
you know. And so there's so it's just like it's
just more on you when you're when you're working with

(26:18):
your husband. But again, he's I do also really implicitly
trust him, and he's he's a genius at branding and creative.
He's so smart in that and I and I really
trust him, and he really trust me again when it
comes to hair, and what's been interesting just about building
the brand is when we do like a lot of
how to videos and Cameron like is the director of
all of them, and does you know it? We'll write

(26:39):
really writes like the scripts from but I kind of
inform him on the hair and what it means and whatever.
And I'll explain something to him and he'll be like,
I don't understand what you just said. You have to
give it that to me, and like someone who's not
a hairdresser, don't talk hairdresser to me because I will explain,
like you need to like over extend the section and
you know, and he'll be like what does overextend me?
And he has no idea and he's like if I

(27:00):
don't understand that, nobody else is going to understand it.
So we need to make this like user friendly. So
that's that's been good. I mean it is funny though,
because still do this day when we're like on set
together and he'll like tell me to like redo something
or I'm like why and he's like, just do it. Came.
When I'm like on set like for something else and
the director tells me something, I'm like, okay, you know,

(27:22):
so I wonder do you think it's a benefit that
you care so much about the person personally outside of
the business, like you have to go home and you
don't want this relationship to end not only personally but
also in business terms. Or is that or is that
a detriment to the leadership team? No, I mean, listen,
I think it's I think it's good and bad. I mean,

(27:43):
I certainly feel like there's pros and cons, although I
will say that you know, four years ago, we brought
in a professional CEO to dry Bar, and up until then,
it was like me, Michael and Camp making every decision
and a lot of those were like irrational decisions, and
we were coming from a place of emotion. So when
we brought in John our our CEO. Oh, he's so
like even heeled and like things things through and doesn't react.

(28:04):
And we're so reactionary and like we jumped the gun
on things all the time, where John can take things back.
So you know, we say, like he's the adult in
the room and he has this like calming effect on
all of us to like, you know, which I think
is is really ultimately better for the business. And and
it's also it gets kind of tricky because there is
the like personal side of things it's like if I

(28:25):
want something to do, Cameron to do something, you know
that he doesn't think it is right for the business,
but I think it's right for the business. And it's like,
well Michael's the go between, and then that's a really
bad situation. So having John and then just other people
in leadership, we have you know, a president of retail.
We have a head of product. I mean we have
you know, high end, exact level, like probably ten of
them in our company now. So it's all the things

(28:45):
that we did, you know, the first couple of years
in the early days, you know, where there's somebody who
like a professional who's doing those which of course we
still inform everything, but having somebody who has experience growing
and scaling a business has been really helpful to help us.
How do you know when the right time to bring
in a professional CEO is like that must have been
a big decision for you, well before you need them.

(29:06):
It is probably the best advice I would give you,
because what happens is like you don't want to be
and I and I learned this were you when you
brought somebody. Well I should back up because we also
raised a bunch of money from a private equity company
Castanea about maybe like five years ago, and it was
like twenty million dollars and a lot and you know,

(29:27):
that was your mark to start product and all of that.
And about a year into that relationship, they came to
my brother, who was the CEO at the time, and said,
you know, we think we want to replace you as
CEO and find a professional CEO. And my brother was like,
okay with it, because you know, being a CEO of
a company that's growing as fast as we were, it
is like a daunting job. You have to manage a
lot of people. And like my brother would say it,

(29:49):
if he was sitting right here, managing people was probably
not his highest and best us. So he recognized that
and he was okay with it. I, on the other hand,
was like very brady about it and was like, I
don't want a new CEO coming in here and changing
the culture. And I was very against it. But Cassinet
was very bullish on it, and they're like, let us
just introduce you to people. If you don't like anybody,

(30:09):
you know, we can go from there. But will vet
people well. And I did meet a lot of like
very Ivory Tower CEO is great people, great career, great resume,
is very expensive, and I was like, these people are great,
but no, they're not. This is not the right fit.
You know, we have this very like mom and pop
type culture and it's very family oriented. So I was
very you know, apprehensive about bringing in a CEO. John

(30:30):
turned out to be great because you really understand, understand
had worked in other founder led organizations, so we understood
what it meant to come into a founder lead company. Um.
But you know, so that was that was something that
we need knew we needed. But even before we hired John,
I mean, we were about maybe seven or eight stores
in and Michael was like, I think we need to
hire like ahead of operations to help us scale and

(30:53):
somebody who's like open stores. And we actually ended up
hiring a woman who would like work for Taco Bell
and opened like a hundred Taco Bells a year. And
even though the industry was different, she knew how to
like put systems in place and you know, make sure
everybody got paid and make sure that like everybody had
what they needed to open a store. Because when it
was too three or four or five stores, like we
got it. We figured it out. We bootstrapped it. But

(31:15):
then once we got to this point, you're like, yeah,
I mean we don't really know what we're doing anymore. Yeah. Yeah,
and then and then you just need a lot of people,
a lot of process a lot of systems to to
keep the train running. So today you have over a
hundred stores you're franchising all across the country. You're growing.
We have about thirty that are franchised, the rest are

(31:35):
company owned. Okay, what's the future look like? Um, so
there's still we still think there's a lot of opportunity
to open more stores. But we also launched a product
line about four years into the company which is now
sold in Sephora, Alta, Nordstrom, I, go on QBC UM
and we have about three thousand points of distribution on

(31:56):
our products. It's blow dryers, tools, all of that kind
of stuff that is is probably around the overall business,
so it's a really it's a huge footprint. We just
opened a lot of international locations with our products. So
that's kind of a big focus of ours is the product.
Because if you don't live near your dry bar and
there's you know, there's to me, there seems like there's

(32:17):
so many drivers but if you don't actually live close
to a dry bar, and you live I don't think
we have any in Indiana, Uma you could, but you
could go to your local Sapphora and Indiana and pick
get all of our tools that our stylist are using
inside dry bars. So because we have this credibility of
you know, being the pioneers and the blow dry experts,
people want to buy our products and tools. So that's
a huge piece of the business that continues to grow.

(32:40):
So we're kind of growing in two different paths. You
have a new podcast coming out right, well, you have
just launched a couple of weeks ago, and basically, you know,
as you might imagine just from the little we've talked
about today, that there's so many people who are coming
to me and my brother daily asking us for advice, Like,
like you said, how do you know when to hire?
How do you know you know when it's time to

(33:01):
scale your business? How do you know how to raise money?
How do you know how to get brand? Like the
questions after questions and when I get emails all the time,
I get d ms on Instagram and I don't have
like twenty minutes of coffee with everybody who asked me.
But I do feel a certain like you know this,
like I want to give back and and and help
people because so many people helped us along the way,
and I feel like I have a little bit more
flexibility in my schedule these days, and so I felt

(33:24):
like a podcast where I can actually answer. We answer
a lot of like d ms from people, but we
can have other entrepreneurs on the show talk about their
experience and then how it applied to our experience and
teach people like you know what these different terms mean
and how you raise money and all that it called.
It's raising the bar, raising the bar? Check it out.

(33:45):
Did you learn a lot about hair today? Ben? I
learned so much about hair and leadership. There's so much
here ali to your story that I think so many
people can relate with. I really and now, um, I
hope this is my after Listen to you because I'm
in it right now right I'm I'm in a company
that I helped found that I'm running and operating as

(34:05):
the president. And he has hair and and I have
here I'm saying I get the like overall weight of
starting this company and managing everything yourself and doing it
is it is. It's been eight months in and I'm
feeling that the heaviness and the burdens of that, and
I'm just saying for you your success story of now,
I hope you can take a deep breath, look back

(34:26):
at everything that's been accomplished and just say it is good,
and now look at the future because you've done well, Ali,
Ali Webb, thank you for coming on. I really wanna
just way in a second and know how it feels.
Probably the alley eight years ago was just carrying a
weight in a burden for this idea of dry bar

(34:49):
and she didn't know where it would go, but she
believed it enough. And now today she sits here and
I just I love that she can take that breath
and see what was created amongst it. And it has
to feel good, Jesse, that it was created now with
her brother and husband alongside of her, like they've all
done this journey together. It was all three of them,
not just female founded. You know, it's about all of

(35:11):
us working together. Um, you know, my passion is obviously
empowering women, so I think Ali just speaks to that,
and she's going to be this great female leader for
all these young women to here and learn about Also, Ben,
she reinvented an industry. It's where you know, like there's
a million nail sans, there's you know. She was like, Okay,

(35:34):
people want me to blow dry their hair, and so
I'm going to create a whole company around that idea
and that had never been done before. Wild. It's absolutely wild.
And the next guest reinvented a whole industry as well.
I mean they reinvented something we all know and we
all love. We have the founders of Voodoo Donuts. That

(36:03):
a vood doo or was that a woo? Who I
couldn't tell? Um. We have Kenneth Cat, Daddy Pokson on
the line and Trace Shannon. Gents, thanks for joining us.
For anybody out there listening, um our our producer Easton

(36:25):
literally got so excited and was clapping and popping him
down on his because he loves Voodoo Donuts so much.
I live in Denver, Colorado. Voodoo has a special place
in my heart and honestly, um, gentlemen, I have and
before we get talked about your business, UM, I have
a background. I was on the Bachelor at one point
in my life and on my date to Portland, Oregon. Um,

(36:47):
Lauren Bushnell, who ended up becoming my fiance, took me
to Voodoo Donuts during the show. Yeah, so you guys
have a special place in my heart. Um, I know
there's a ton of question shins. I feel like I'm
so familiar with Voodoo Donuts. But a couple of people
in studio right now we're asking what exactly you are?
Can you summarize what Voodoo Donuts is right now? For us?

(37:11):
You know, we turned it into the Barnament and Bailey
of doughnut shops. We we just make crazy donuts. We
like to have a fun time and make it a
crazy fun atmosphere and just just make it something nice.
Everybody deserves the treat every now and then, and why not,
you know, why not have a fun botton while you
do it. And we do still make and always differently
beginning a very quality typical donut as well, just old

(37:34):
stashioned glaves donuts, buttermill bars and those sort of things.
But as we'll probably delve into a little bit later,
I mean, starting to experiment with different flavors and textures
and ingredients sort of sort of became the Barnament Bailey
that it is now. I love that analogy. Having just
watched The Greatest Showman, Have you guys seen that? I know,

(37:58):
but I'm a good watch. It's uh, you guys, there's
one thing that's always funny about voodoo. I don't know
if you meant to do this, And this is my
first question. I've been dying to ask, and I'm glad
I got you on the line. They have a pink
box that they put all of their donuts in. And
so if you're an organ or if you're even in
Denver sometimes or and you're flying on a plane, you'll

(38:19):
see a bunch of people, especially in Portland. Every flight
that you're seeing flying out of Portland's they'll have this
pink people will have this pink box with them. Was
that planned? Yeah? Yeah. When we when we were learning
how to make donuts, they had pink boxes at the
at the little facility and they were just seems odd.

(38:39):
But I'm sure there's a lot of people out there
that you know, pink boxes as a traditional bakery, but
it is kind of faded into the back. So when
we saw it, we were like, man, that really sticks out.
And then so we open and there's people tell us say, oh,
I see the pink boxes all around town. And finally
we were like, you know, we should write our name
because we started stamping them. And then after a while

(39:03):
we finally got to uh, actually you know we designed
the box everything. And but man, what a what a
great humbling thing, because it all started off with as
I see your box. Then it's like, oh man, I
see those boxes at the airport. And now it's like
I see your boxes an airport all over the world.
Cat your hands in the out every complicated in Hong Kong.

(39:24):
I mean, it's brilliant marketing people clearly remember, And so
what voodoo about them? Like? Can can I cast spells
on people? Well, it's you know, subjective as it is. Uh,
it's a you know, it's a fun. See we provide
the opportunity for your voodoo. But you know, the voodoo
you do is up to you, and it's cured people

(39:46):
to do it in a positive light for good will
and good faith and you know, good things which the
really needs right now. But some people choose to you
know hex there x there. You know, maybe somebody owes
the money and they want some voodoo dolls with some
dollars sign leave on their doorsteps, and we have steps
forever too. That doo doo just has a lot of
oaths in it too, and then looks suspiciously like donuts. Absolutely.

(40:09):
So um, I'm reading here a little bit about the
makeup of the doughnut and so kind of how I
would love this conversation to go is to talk about
we've we've talked about Voodoo as a company, Um, but
I would like to kind of talk about what makes
you different? Well, how did you disrupt the donut market?
And one of the ways it looks like here is
you actually have your Do you have your own Voodoo oil? Yes, yeah,

(40:32):
we have. You know, we have a special that we
try in which I wouldn't say it's best different from
what other people use, but I feel like we treat
it differently. We seem to feel a lot of donut
shops filter maybe once a day, maybe once every few days.
We filter ours three times a day so that we
have the utmost quality and cleanest oil we can to fry.

(40:53):
And you've always done that. I mean, this has been
a practice. So just to give you guys some background,
this this podcast is created to up lift people who
are disrupting the market, especially women. Um so we have
a lot of women out there that are trying to
start their own companies or have already invested in companies
where every in leadership or whatever companies are in and
so some of these practices that that we want to

(41:14):
communicate to them really starts with small businesses. And so
your small business from the very beginning was committed to
quality and cleanliness when it comes to one of the
most essential ingredients I would imagine to a donut, which
is your shortening in your oil. Yes, of course, and
that's you know, that should be common in almost any business.
But you know, I think a major part of our
disruption was at that point. You know, your classic American

(41:36):
donut shop was was what it was before we opened.
You had your donuts, you went in, there were a
electric blinding lights, uh, and you had a company. You
had a glass counter that you lived through. And we
approached it from a completely different angle. We have spinning cases. Uh,
we had it electrified with colors. We actually the same.
I mean, we're what donut shop had a theme before

(41:58):
voodoo came along, and and it's kind of like the Kleenex.
You know, people people rarely ask for tissue, and we're
very humbled when people say, well, what is it? Is
it a donut or is it a food donut? Because
then we've actually made a mark. I'm cat Daddy in
are pretty fortunate and that we're both very good at
getting in front of cameras and being hammed. But Cat
Daddy really had to grill into me um that we couldn't.

(42:22):
You know, we're good at that, but we don't have
a quality of product. All about just falls to the wayside.
So you just call him cat Daddy on a regular
basis all the time. What's your middle name? That's for
my real name. Most people won't know who line? What
are you're asking for it? I feel like Tracy, you
need a you need a middle name. Trade is is

(42:44):
a nickname Tracer. We'll call you Tracer, um, cat Daddy
and Trace. What are What was your background? I mean,
did you have a business background? You you you launched
this thing, which is a few locations now are at
the very beginning with one location in Portland, Oregon. What
did you have a background in business and why did
you believe this would be successful? I had a hospitality background.

(43:08):
I've been into service Kent grade school, and I'm you know,
I'm fifty now, so I've I've got my I've been
around the track. Uh, never much in the kitchen then.
That was new for me on this, but I understand
the front of the house, the back of the house,
inventory methods, you know, and all that kind of stuff.
Uh was like the back of my hand. And I
wanted to go off and do other things. But every

(43:30):
time I would do that, and mostly in the creative world,
I would, you know, you land back in food service.
It's what I was really good at. So I decided
to actually go ahead and do that, but combine my
creative nature with it. And then bringing Traycan, who also
had run his own club and been on that block
where our first shop is for almost twenty years probably

(43:51):
you know, over twenty years at this point, and uh,
and we just kind of came up with this idea
so we didn't have to work for anyone else, and
why not don't shop. We didn't know it was going
to be that. We had lots of connections. Um, I'm
a front guy in a band, but yeah, I've had
I had no background. I've worked in restaurants that always
in front of the house guy and never in the kitchen.

(44:12):
I mean as soon as we got in the back,
I was like, the three compartments thing was just amazing
to me. How many donuts on average do you guys
eat a day or a week? You know, if you
once you're around up with a lot. But we've been
doing still it testing for a new product, and so

(44:33):
we've been eating a lot of a lot of I
still probably eat about one a week. I used to
eat one a day, And now if we do eat them,
we're mostly kind of like wine tasting. You might take
a bite of one and fit the rep South kind
of towns release we had. We tasted for a few
weeks ago. Now what's the what's the one we should
all try next time we go in one of your stores? Well,

(44:54):
the world famous bacon maple bars most people can never
go without. But if you want to go with something
kind of a clastic, I really like our blueberry donut
and just a fresh blaze donut, even even as you know,
quote unquote boring, that is, that's a really really really
good donut. And those are I mean my favorite donuts.
The buttermel bar, so I would be a miss to

(45:15):
not mention that East and over here. Are producer get
just shaking his head of every single thing you just said.
He's like, yeah, I like that one like that. Yeah.
What's the craziest flavor of topping that you've put on
a doughnut or that you consider putting on a donut?
Sloppy Joe seasoning? Yeah, sloppy Joe donut. Maybe, you know,
we kind of played with that a little bit, which
which wasn't bad, but man, it was sloppy. So I

(45:37):
don't know how good that's going to fit in a
box with a bunch of other sugars donut kind of
bad idea. We're playing with spam. Huh, that's so spam.
That has to be That's just the craziest thing that's
ever existed, So it has to be the craziest topping
a doughnut. What's your what are the two of yours?
I mean, so you're the founders of this company. It's grown,

(45:57):
it's recognizable. Now what are your rule us today? Uh?
We uh nicely planned it in the role of brand embast.
We're talking to you, we're spreading the word and we're
you know, we're still uh over to make a decisions
comping out with marketing and the big picture. But we

(46:19):
have set a little farther back from the operational side
of it, which is uh, which was a good plan
because we work you know, as as a background that
we have. It was then running an a place, not
running you know, we're up as you know, five places
and to license agreements right now and we're good, We're great,
but we need to need so Yeah, it gets complicated

(46:41):
when you get two employees. So having some people in
the help us of operations on a on a what
we're hoping for a national scale has been really great
to you know, kind of aproiment and really concentrate on
the big picture of the fun stuff, the voodoo, the
flavors and stuff like that. I get it. Yeah, what's
the motto you guys live by, because it sounds pretty great. So, uh,

(47:08):
I don't know my think about fun fun fun. I
just always want to, uh, you know, continue to have
fun doing what I'm doing at my work and trying
to do it in my personal life as well. It
just seems like getting too serious about everything is sometimes
just sort of counterproductive to the way my brain works. Yeah,
it is a nice thing that you know, what we're
doing and Yes, it's fast food. Yes it's fattening food.

(47:31):
I would never go on in any camera any podcasts
that you should eat reading it's the thing because it's
good for you. But I like the idea that we
were in the hay you know how oft the happiness
business like flowers from you see people show up with flowers.
Everybody's happy, everybody's excided. When people walk in with that
pink box. It's a break, it's a rest, but it's

(47:51):
a treatment and everybody deserves one of those that we know.
It's Uh, you just said something I think really I
want to want to want to touch home and highlight
is you all look at this. Yes you do sell donuts,
and yes that is your product, but you're not in
the donut business. Now you look at it and you say,
you're in the happiness business, which is a feeling. So
you're kind of in this this business of cultivating joyful, fulfilled,

(48:14):
happy feelings and moments, which I think is so important.
It kind of takes back the layer to UM to
the why of what you're doing this. Hey, we I
know we got to get you going here, but before
we do that, UM for any critics out there, and
and and for anybody's saying, oh, it's donuts, right. We're
in a day and age where everybody wants to be healthy,

(48:34):
be healthy, stay fit. Are there really critics there is?
What is the future of the donut world and and
and donuts in general look like? And how will Voodoo
Donuts stay on top of it? That's a good question.
You know, we we uh you know, I guess not
humbily take credits. You know, we we were the first
crazy don't much top. We started putting crazy toppings on

(48:55):
And there's a lot of competition out There's a lot
of people trying to do their own which I'm all for.
You know, what I can stand is when someone you know,
feels all of our doughnuts and put them on triangles,
and that's originals. But there's also plenty of other people
doing their own thing with doughnuts, and so I think
there's going to be this huge variety. Uh, that's that's

(49:15):
flooding the market of people who are either imitating us,
there's individual people and and what is really taken off
too is the gore of mad donut, which people try
to put us in that category. I don't really consider
ourselves gore mate, we're more exblotic, where the classic American
donut done in a crazy different way. We're not making
them from scratch and and you know trying to you know,

(49:36):
get the chef off. And in our world that also
uh is I don't think you can make thousands and
thousands and thousands of donuts today if you're making them
from scratch. You need the stability of a minx to
really to really be able to do that. So I'm
looking forward to a big open field with a lot
of doughnuts. And and then that's also a challenge to us.

(49:59):
You know, we can stay It's a game. We need
to keep doing the keeping the cool thing we do
but still remaining relevant. We need, you know, we need
a new bacon maple bar, which which took the world
a new bacon maple bar. Well that I mean, this
sounds amazing. I'm gonna be eating a lot more donuts today. Yeah. Well,

(50:21):
you guys are so great. This was so fun. Thank
you so much everyone check out Voodoo Donuts. Thank you
so much, so much. Thanks guys. One take awhile, I
think that we have a theme going on on this podcast.
There's a lot of themes there. There is. And there's
one that really sticks out to me is when you
scale and when you start to grow, hiring the appropriate

(50:42):
people around you to help you get there. I mean
they've talked about it. Um Ali talked about who is
who are the appropriate people and who it is right
person it has to me to fit and out. You
could tell with Ali, I mean she's a founder, she
has a pride in an ownership. This is this is
a piece of her. When when dry Ball starting in
the same with these guys, same with Cadadian Trace and

(51:04):
so as you start to hire on these new employees, Jesse,
how do you figure out what a good fit is?
I think you need to figure out what you need
the most and where you are stretched thin, and that's
where you should hire. When you can't breathe anymore in
one direction, whether that be your operations or um for
hiring what have you, you need to find the person

(51:24):
who can take that off your plate and then you
can kind of train them and hand it off and
delegate and um you know, I think it's on a
you have to check it out on a case by
case basis. Something else I want to say about Voodoo
Donuts is they've reinvented an industry with branding. You can
tell like their whole product and business is really built
upon this idea of fun and uh you know, crazy

(51:46):
branding and being kind of a circus of donuts. And
I thought that was really cool and that has built
this business. You know, it shows when you're passionate about something, um,
it really speaks like that's why they've created this fan base.
Just by talking to them on the phone own we
didn't have them in studio, I could just tell they
were so passionate about this and there's so much fun
they've done something. I think it's so cool to look

(52:08):
at Vodoo Donuts as a study and say, okay, they
have donuts right that that product alone crosses all demographics
from every level, age, ethnicity, background, whatever, you know, wherever
you live location. So they've taken this product, they've enhanced it,
and now you see businessmen and businesswomen walking on the
plane with the pink boxes. You see hipsters in Denver,

(52:30):
Colorado walking around the pink boxes. You see five year
olds asking their families to bring the peak boxes home
to them. They've taken this thing that Okay, I can
get donuts in any of my cities, but they've changed
it to say I, Mom and dad, I'm a four
year old little boy. Please you're going to Denver, You're
going to Portland's bring a pink box home to me.
Because they're different and they've stretched it. I think one

(52:51):
other key point here to finding the right people to
add into your company. I know Generous has struggled with this,
and we've we've hired on some really crazy talented people
who have done really well for us and helped us grow.
It's because we've we've looked first at not changing the culture.
Because with the culture to be generous, so with people
that have the generous heart, the servant's heart, and who
are gonna walk into this and have the right characteristics

(53:13):
to not totally disrupt what we already have going that's good,
but to kind of fit into this mold and just
enhance everything we've already had. And I think this is
really important as you hire on new CEO, as presidents,
even down to the people who are are fulfilling packaging, um,
make sure they fit the culture first above anything else.

(53:33):
U I can kill a company completely, so that's really
smart you guys hire that way. Next up is something
we've waited for for a while. Patrick Kearney is with
us now. Patrick, you have a story that I think
will captivate our audience. I mean, this is one uh
that is exciting for for us to listen to. Um.
Not because I would ever think of it myself, UM,

(53:56):
but because it's a disruptor in an industry, in in
a in a market, in a sect that you saw
and now you've you've attacked at Patrick. Welcome to the
Lady Bosses and Been podcast. Thank you so much for
having me on. I really appreciate it. Patrick. UM, this
is Jesse Draper. By the way, you you pitched us

(54:16):
a little while back, I did, and clearly this was
a miss on my part because I heard four Runner
Ventures invested and you've had a really great run. Well,
so what are you guys doing? Tell us how you
got started? Great? So look, I've been in uh ten
years in tech and then ten years and lifestyle brand,
new marketing, communications and really combining those two decades of

(54:39):
experience and sort of this construction point in the industry
and really being on the right side of the conversation,
on the side of a conversation for the last ten
foot years. I worked with every major global luxury brand
and my job really wants to keep people out. It
was all about exclusivity and um, now it is a

(55:00):
it's an incredible time just for women in general. Uh,
you know, fashion and retails upside down. So there's no
better time to enter the market, to create change, to
disrupt an ecosystem that has laud and it's just been
all about bringing together the right business with the right
narrative at the right time. And so why so first

(55:23):
of all, what is eleven right? Give us your you
know yeah version is it's a multi designer and e
commerce platform for women beginning at a size ten um
and we really are becoming the new Runway. So we
worked with every major luxury designer you've heard of right
that has never historically designed for the customer before, so

(55:46):
we work with them hand in hand on an edit
of the collection to ensure that it's on trend, makes
sense for our customer. And when you come to the site,
your experience is different than other e commerce because it's
really the curated shopping lifestyle for customer who's never had
access to a wardrobe like this before. And so you

(56:08):
take so you go to so some of the designers
you carry are who are you carrying your Uh? I'm
looking at were I think this is an interesting data point.
We launched with your steam brands and now the report
deliveries will be nearly eight brands. And do you have
like Oscar de Laurenta is that one of them? No,
we have Monique Lulier, we have Vaxposen, we have Baja,

(56:31):
we have Brandom Maxwell, we have Tonya Taylor, we have
you know, there's there's nearly eight brands on the site
and so these brands are all high end designer brands
that do not produce um clothing for the plus size market. Correct, Right,
And the whole intention in ethers of the company was
to create change. Right. We wanted to lead a conversation.

(56:54):
We didn't want to follow them. Obviously we're not the
first player in the plus market, but we're the first
player in this lane to be creating options for a
customer that has otherwise been excluded from the fashion industry.
So it's a huge market. It's enormous. Sixty seven percent
of the US population is a size spoorteene or higher.
It's the twenty billion dollar market opportunity it's fantastic. Well

(57:17):
what are you what are you excited about right now?
What are you guys working on right now? Brand matrix
and the evolution of the product we're offering on the
site is a constant. So we're really really thoughtful and
really really mindful about the brands we bring on. Always
listening to our customer. You know, I say this in
many interviews for customer of cestim or Datasess. So it's

(57:38):
never about what I think the customer wants. It's about
listening to the customer and reacting and exceeding her expectations
and delivering her on what she's at paying for. And
so that's just a really important point because it kind
of sums up the company, right. We're all about customer first,
and so brand expositions always forefront. In terms of things
I'm excited about. We've launched our editorial platform called Page

(57:59):
eleven and that's super exciting. It's storytelling um place where
we talked about fashion, we talked about lifestyle, we talked
about wellness, uh, and very targeted and very selfiss to
our customer. And so whether or not she's shopping that day,
she can participate in the eleven honor a community because
that's what was creating that community, and why did you

(58:20):
want to solve this problem. It's a unicorn of an idea.
Uh So that that in of itself is exciting. As
I mentioned briefly, I was in tech and ten years
and fashion communications for ten years. I worked on a
project with Marina Ornald in the early spring of sixteen
and I think the food experience of them and then

(58:40):
I came up with a concept in August of sixteen.
And for me, um working with every major brand you
can imagine over the last ten plus years, you know,
I wanted to create a product and an experience in
an environment of inclusivity and one that's never existed. So,
you know, bringing all of that together, bringing myperience together,

(59:01):
bringing a team of people that I've worked with over
the past ten years in various degrees together, it's just
been this familial company that we're growing, say by day,
super fast and super quickly, and creating the culture and
community not only with our customers but also internally has
been It's just been a huge It's just something I'm

(59:21):
super proud of. I mean, Patrick, as a man, how
did you know this was the lane in the arena
that you want to operate in, and that this was
the issue that you wanted to attack. Well, I think
that's a good question. And yes, I'm obviously a man,
but I'm also a gay man, and I think I
can relate to marginalization. UM. I can relate to being bullied,

(59:45):
I can relate to being made fun of, and so
I have a lot more in common with this customer
than what you see I and I think after spending
ten years on the exclusive side of fashion and being
able to create a lane that's all about kindness and
all about inclusivity, UM, based on you know how I've

(01:00:05):
been treated in the past. You know it's it is.
It is this movement component. It's this mission driven component
of the business that truly motivates me. I love that.
And you're also empowering UH women by giving them access
to these beautiful gowns that they never had access to before,

(01:00:25):
where they dream about wearing what's on the runway, but
they couldn't. They can't because they don't make it for
their size. It's so funny because I was on a
glossy podcast I don't know, a couple of weeks ago,
and you know what people don't realize and conscious that
sizes them is alive and well, right, it's something that
is real, it's something that exists, and it's something that

(01:00:45):
we we fight every day. You know, there's a tremendous
amount of stereotypes around this customer, what she likes, what
she doesn't like, what she'll spend money on, what she
won't spend money on. And all the data in the
world led me to, you know, this one simple point,
which is she's just like everybody else. She just happened
to wear a larger size. Patrick. You've you've identified an issue,

(01:01:09):
you've started to make a solution. What has been the
biggest struggle then coming through this? And I guess what
has been the motivator to get you through those struggles?
So the motivator hands down as the customer, Right, she
is she is everything to me. Um And so that's
why I get out of bed. That's why the way,
that's why I run the company, that's the way I

(01:01:31):
raised money. It's always for her first and foremost, UM.
And I think it's always a great question to ask
about what the biggest challenges because you know, you can
plot and plan and think what the possibles are going
to be and then you avoid those completely and then
it's the secret ones that you never could have managed.
I think the biggest challenge in any business is always
human capital, attracting the best talent, keeping the best talent

(01:01:55):
um and you know, culture is so important to us.
Where I think that's been that's been a challenge, but
you know we're coming through it with an amazing executive
team and an incredible uh leadership that is really you
know why this company is being successful because it's a
joint effort across the entire company. Right. This is not

(01:02:16):
something that can be accomplished by one individual. It really
does at the village before we say good bye to you,
because I know we've got too soon, um, Patrick, we
have a lot of listeners out there, UH, young women,
older women, men and women, um, and I'm sure there's
some women out there listening that are plus size. If
there's any message that you want to tell them, if

(01:02:37):
you want to speak directly to them, Patrick, as somebody
who was fighting the fight with them and for them
and creating products uh that they've desired and needed. What
would you like to tell them they have a seat
at the table. You know they're invited to this party
as an equal, and they deserve everything every straight sided

(01:02:57):
woman has. Perfect Patrick Kerneying at eleven honor A, we
appreciate you, Thank you for so much. Jesse. You mentioned
to him that he actually came to you, UM to
invest into this idea, and you said no, I said no.
Why so you know, Um, First of all, I say

(01:03:18):
no a lot more than I say yes. Uh. And
for me, it's about UM finding companies that are you know,
I want to create the next billion dollar company, and
I want to know that they're going to last ten years,
because that's about how long it will take to build
a billion dollar company. UM. And I with him. He
was creating a company that was going after other people's

(01:03:42):
brands and opening it up to a plus size market.
And it's still a great idea. But for me, eventually
I'd be concerned that Zach Posen and all of these
high end designers would say, oh my gosh, we're missing
out on this entire opportunity. We don't want eleven honor
A selling our dresses. We're now going to open up
to the plus size market because it's a twenty one

(01:04:03):
billion dollar market. And so also it's a very busy space.
I'm actually already invested in a company called Eloquy, which
is plus size women's clothing but a different um demographic
than he's going after, so it's huge opportunity. But I
also thought he doesn't own any of the clothing, So
for me, it's like he doesn't have anything that's defensible

(01:04:23):
or protectable as far as his own, you know, designs.
So I would imagine like the Patricks of the world,
and when you have a brand similar to his, and
let's use him as the case study here, Uh, the
nord Strums, the larger companies would come in and either
start their own lines or try to purchase his. So
let's let's say, for the example here, is he's getting

(01:04:46):
attraction and interest in purchasing his brand for a startup
like his, I mean it's August two tho seventeen is
when they launched. They're doing very well, yes, but his
valuation will be pretty low still, Um, would you recommend
him selling early because of the threat of other brands
coming in and creating their own lines, or would you
recommend him sticking out? Kind of how are you? How

(01:05:06):
would you I would sell early because so far, the
designers haven't realized that he's taking advantage of their you know,
opportunity here. I would say sell it really early, But
as an investor, the reason I said no was essentially like,
if you sell it early, I only make a two
X on my money. I want like X thirty X
on my money, and that takes longer. Yeah. So I mean,

(01:05:29):
for for how do you know as a brand when
to sell? I guess and when not to. I think
it's about the market, It's about you know, like for him,
the things that I think he needs to really think
about are how many other companies there are in this
space and what types of opportunities there are to sell.
And right now, traditional retail companies are actually looking for

(01:05:51):
you know, Macy's and Nordstrom's would be great UM acquirers
of eleven Honore because they don't have any of the
customer and for meation, they don't have any of the
UH info. And he's direct to consumers, so he's shipping
to the people. He doesn't have storefronts, and so that's
actually a huge opportunity for them. You know, Uni Lever
bought Um Dollar Shave Club for a billion dollars something

(01:06:15):
like that, and they bought them because they had all
the customer information. And then you Uni Lever owns Gillette
and all of these great brands, but they don't have
like the names and addresses and emails of these people.
So Dollar Shave wasn't necessarily doing a ba jillion dollars
in sales, which is a true number b jillion um.

(01:06:35):
But they were, Uh, they were an interesting acquisition because
now Uni Lever has more power because they have the
customer information. It's so interesting and something I think is
great to consider. I'm sure Patrick patrick Is is thinking
about this often. He's going to make money. This guy
is gonna but it's it's you know, when do you
want to give it up? How do you want to

(01:06:56):
give it up? And to what amount do you value
your company? And I mean we I asked that question
every day with generous is where what is our value
not only monetarily but as a brand, as a as
in terms of what how it relates to the customers.
You're constantly valuing what you're doing on a daily based system,
matter if you're the founder, owner or just an employee.
I think it's important to value where your impact is

(01:07:19):
and what the brand that you're presenting impact is um Jesse.
Thanks for your insights, thanks for your knowledge. Thank you, Ben,
We'll talk to you soon. Follow Lady Bosses and Ben
on I Heart Radio or wherever you listen to podcast
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