November 19, 2025 • 43 mins
How do you build brands that actually solve real problems?
For entrepreneur Kevin Lavelle, the answer begins with curiosity, character, and the courage to act.
Kevin first broke onto the scene as the founder of Mizzen+Main, the performance fabric dress-shirt brand that changed modern menswear and grew into a national success with partnerships ranging from Phil Mickelson to L Catterton. But his newest venture, Harbor, began with something far more personal — a failed baby monitor and a sleepless night that showed him how much families needed better, safer technology.
In this conversation, Rich Honiball and co-host Jamie Lynn Curley sit down with Kevin to explore the mindset behind a founder’s second act: how to stay grounded while scaling, how to hire for character over credentials, and why great companies start by listening deeply to the people they serve.
Whether you’re building a brand, leading a team, or navigating your next chapter, Kevin’s story is a powerful reminder that the best ideas often come from the problems closest to home.
Listen now to hear Kevin’s journey from performance apparel to family wellness — and what he’s learned along the way about innovation, resilience, and building with intention.
Kevin Lavelle Bio
Kevin Lavelle is an entrepreneur, investor, and brand builder known for transforming simple insights into category-defining companies. He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Harbor, a sleep-technology company built to improve family well-being through secure, reliable smart monitoring. The idea for Harbor emerged from a personal experience that exposed critical failures in existing solutions, inspiring Kevin to build a safer, more intentional system for parents and children.
Kevin is also the Founder and Chairman of Mizzen+Main, the menswear company that disrupted traditional apparel by introducing the world’s first performance fabric dress shirt. Under his leadership, Mizzen+Main attracted investment from L Catterton, launched partnerships with iconic athletes such as Phil Mickelson and JJ Watt, and expanded into hundreds of retail locations across the United States. His work helped redefine modern menswear and reshaped expectations for comfort, versatility, and performance.
A graduate of Southern Methodist University with a degree in Engineering Management, Kevin began his career at Oliver Wyman and Hunt Consolidated before launching Mizzen+Main in 2012. He has also served as Senior Vice President at Stand Together and remains an active mentor and advisor to early-stage founders.
Kevin’s philanthropic work includes partnerships with the Navy SEAL Foundation, The Travis Manion Foundation, and 31 Heroes, reflecting his longstanding belief that business can and should be a platform for service. He lives in Dallas with his wife and their two children.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Rich H (00:47):
What happens when a simple problem becomes the spark
for a brand that reshapes anentire category?
And what happens when lightningstrikes twice?
Hi, I'm Rich Honeyball, and I'mjoined today by Jamie Lynn
Curley, and together we'resitting down with someone who's
built two very differentcompanies from the same
foundation Curiosity,Conviction, and Care.
Kevin Lavelle is a repeatentrepreneur and brand builder
(01:09):
whose work spans fashion,technology, and family
innovation.
He's the CEO and co-founder ofHarbor, a sleep technology
company created after a personalexperience exposed critical
gaps in smart monitoring.
He's also the founder andchairman of Mizin in Maine, the
menswear brand that redefinedtraditional dress shirts with
performance fabrics.
(01:30):
Under his leadership, thecompany secured investments from
L.
Catterton, partnered withathletes like Phil Mickelson and
J.J.
Watt, and grew into a modernmenswear staple.
A graduate of SouthernMethodist University, Kevin
began his career at Oliver Wymanand Hunt Consolidated and
remains deeply committed toservice through partnerships
with the Navy SEAL Foundation,the Travis Mannion Foundation,
(01:52):
and 31 Heroes.
Whether it's apparel ortechnology, Kevin's approach is
consistent.
Start with the customer, hirepeople of character, and build
with intention.
Stay with us for this episode.
It is a conversation aboutresilience, reinvention,
empathy, and building brandsthat solve real problems.
So welcome to another episodeof Retail Relates.
(02:14):
I am here with one of ourco-hosts, Jamie Lynn.
How are you today?
Jaime Lynn (02:19):
I'm great, Rich.
Thank you.
Rich H (02:20):
And it is an absolute pleasure to introduce Kevin
Lavelle, who is a I don't know,Kevin, after a couple of
startups, do we call you aserial entrepreneur yet?
Kevin L (02:31):
Uh I'm on two, so I think you have to do three to be
serial, but uh uh let's sayrepeat is maybe a safe bet.
Rich H (02:38):
Repeat entrepreneur on on your way to becoming a serial
entrepreneur.
And of course, we read your bioat the show introduction, and
we won't make you go through allthe details.
But what we do like to startoff with is getting to know you
a little bit more, bothpersonally and professionally,
by asking this question.
Give us the three most pivotalmoments that brought you to
(03:01):
where you are today.
Kevin L (03:03):
So I think first and foremost, you know,
acknowledging that I feel like Iwon the parent lottery.
Um, there's uh a great book Iread years ago um where the the
guy sort of talks about that.
And there's not one moment inthat, but I was raised really
well and I was positioned forsuccess.
And I have to acknowledge thatthat's a really good foundation
to build anything on.
(03:24):
The the three moments that Iwould layer on top of that would
be uh the idea for Mizen andMaine, because it is what ended
up leading me to become anentrepreneur.
That's when I watched acongressional staffer run into a
building soaked in sweat andwondered why no one had ever
made a dress shirt out ofperformance fabric.
The next would be marrying mywife, because the life that
(03:44):
we've built is something that Ihad always hoped to have, is a
loving, married relationshipwith great kids.
Uh, and then the next I wouldsay would be the moment that the
leading baby monitor in themarket failed my family, um,
which led me to this idea ofwanting to start Harbor.
Had the product not failed, Imight not have gone down the
(04:06):
road of starting anothercompany.
And I like to joke thatsometimes I'm very grateful to
that company for failing becauseit led me to starting another
company.
And other times, like I had anice peaceful life.
I didn't have to build anotherstartup.
And if they had only not failedme, I wouldn't be going down
this crazy entrepreneurial roadagain.
So I I uh I like that question.
I, you know, people talk aboutwhat are some pivotal moments,
but I like that question of whatare the three?
Rich H (04:27):
And that would be the three that I would stack up.
And for what it's worth when weask each other the three
pivotal moments, we try to cheatour way out of it and give
four, five, or six.
So I got I got four in there.
You did, I got four in there.
The way you layered it, you'reyou get a lot of credit for, and
and we respect it.
So thank you.
Is this the path you imaginedas you set off on your career
(04:49):
journey?
Not in any way.
Kevin L (04:51):
I did not envision being an entrepreneur.
Um I have said this jokebefore, and it's a joke, but
true.
My dad wanted me to go into themanagement training at Procter
and Gamble because it was areally great way to learn how to
be a great, you know, corporateleader.
I I didn't know what I wantedto do specifically, and and
that's part of why I chosemanagement consulting out of
school, was it was a chance todo a lot of different things and
(05:12):
really learn how to learn andlearn how to think.
I am very grateful I was aconsultant to start.
I also realized pretty quicklyin I did not like being a
consultant.
The idea, one of my managers atone point in time, we went back
to the hotel.
It was a yeah, there's someglamorous consulting travel and
there's some really unglamorousconsulting travel.
And we were in the middle ofrural Michigan in the winter
(05:35):
staying at a I think it was aholiday in.
It might have been a comfortsuite.
I mean, this was not aglamorous hotel.
It was about 10:30 or 11 atnight, and we'd been at the
client site all day.
And he said, We got back to thehotel, he goes, Do you have
enough work to do tonight?
And election was like, Okay,this is over.
I'm out.
I'm out.
Um, and it's not that I don'twant to work hard.
I I've worked very hardbuilding companies, but it's
(05:57):
almost 11 o'clock at night, andthis is a project that's lasting
many months, and there are somepeople who I think just enjoy
the magnitude of the work ratherthan the impact or the
continuity.
And that wasn't the moment Idecided I didn't want to be a
consultant anymore.
It had kind of been brewing.
Um, but that was when I said, Ithink I want to find something
where I can be a part ofsomething longer term rather
(06:19):
than just give people advice.
I want to actually see itthrough and create something.
Jaime Lynn (06:23):
So, Kevin, I have a very similar uh story trajectory
uh to what you just shared.
You know, I was also in a um ina hotel room far away from home
on a business trip many, manyyears ago.
And I just had like my ahamoment when I was like, what am
I, what am I doing this for?
Right?
Like, why am I doing this?
And so I'm curious to know alittle bit about your journey
(06:47):
from like that like aha momentwhen you said, okay, I'm done
doing this, to when you actuallylaunched your first company.
Like, what was that journey foryou?
Kevin L (06:55):
So I had a pit stop in the middle, which was I went and
worked for an energy companyhere in Dallas called Hunt
Consolidated, and and there's abunch of different divisions of
that.
Um, the one of the co-CEOs, um,he was a mentor of mine.
We'd built a great connectionand and we were chatting.
I had coffee with him everycouple of months, and he sort of
alluded to, I remember the daythat I decided I didn't want to
(07:18):
keep doing, I think it wasinvestment banking and wanted to
do something bigger, and and hecame back to work in his family
company.
Um, and he said, you know, ifif that moment ever hits you,
just let me know.
And I said, I it has, and Iwould like to come work for you.
And I started the process ofinterviewing in his firm.
And I was there for two years,and it was and it was and is an
amazing company, incrediblepeople, incredible longevity.
(07:39):
And in my early 20s, I saw it'sa great place to build a life
and a career.
But after working there for acouple of years, I decided, you
know, I I want to try thismyself, and um, I want to see if
I can build something.
And it certainly was influencedby the fact that there was an
entrepreneurial boom happeningaround me.
Instagram was big, maybe hadjust sold for a billion, or was,
(08:01):
you know, it was the hot appstartup world.
And I wasn't a programmer, butthere was so much happening with
people building extraordinarycompanies in very short periods
of time.
And uh, I had this idea forMizin in Maine, I'd had it for
many years.
And as I was sort ofchallenging myself, what do I
want to, you know, what do Iwant to be when I grow up?
It's not a consultant and thenat a great company I could be at
(08:21):
for the next 20 years and builda great life.
But I'm also in my early 20s.
Now's the time to swing for thefences and see what I can do.
Uh, and this idea for Mizin inMaine had been around for many
years.
It's it that idea came as I wasa college intern um working in
DC.
And so ultimately I decided tostart tinkering and see if I
could, could I even make thisproduct?
Could I figure out how to get aprototype?
(08:43):
Could I figure out how to getsomething rather than this idea
of a performance fabric dressshirt?
Could I wear one?
Um, and that was a really, youknow, as I talked to people
about that that want to buildstartups or want to get into
their own idea, I try and reallyhelp them get to what are your
milestones to demonstrate thatthis is something that you can
go do?
Right.
Don't just go quit your jobbecause you want to go start a
(09:04):
company.
Prove that you should start thecompany.
That's a really good place tostart.
And um, that first dress shirtreally was that milestone for me
to figure out.
Rich H (09:13):
I have to ask the question because we didn't cover
it in your bio.
What was the background to thebrand name Mizin in Maine?
Kevin L (09:20):
As I went down the road of wanting to do this, my wife
and I were out to dinner with,she worked at an ad agency and
she was the kind of brandstrategist.
And her creative partner is awoman named Betsy.
Betsy's husband, Steven, thefour of us were good friends.
They worked together and we gottogether.
And I had told the table thiscrazy idea I was working on, and
he said, Oh, you should name itLavelle, you know, a fashion
(09:42):
apparel company.
And I said, not gonna do that.
The ego in naming the companyafter yourself, I really can't
do it.
It's not a knock on people whodo, it's just not for me.
And I'm not a designer, and sothat doesn't feel right either.
And and he sort of said, Well,I'd love to help you with that.
And I ended up coming to agreat agreement with him and a
copywriter that he did a fairbit of work with.
And um, it's been very cool tokeep that relationship alive.
(10:05):
They ended up doing all thebranding for harbor as well.
Um, and so the name Mizen andMain, they are sails on a
sailboat.
Every sailboat has a main andthen a mizen, and then it goes
out from there.
I'm not a sailor.
I did grow up around the water,but it was one of the several
names that they came up with.
And when I saw it, I just said,oh man, that is unique.
That is memorable.
(10:26):
It's also one of those thingsthat from a URL, when you have
to say, you know, my email isthis at mizin and main.com.
What?
Mizen and Maine.
What?
Okay, M-I-Z-Z.
So that has been a challenge.
Uh, it is part of why withHarbor, I said I want one word
for the name, just one word.
With that said, when you sayMizen and Maine, it is
(10:48):
memorable.
It is memorable when you seeit.
And even if you Google itwrong, you're gonna come up with
our name, right?
And and that's been great.
Jaime Lynn (10:56):
So I, you know, it sounds like both Mizen and Maine
and Harbor started frompersonal pain points or seeing,
you know, a pain point outthere.
Do you think like some of thebest inventions, you know,
always come from solving aproblem?
Kevin L (11:10):
Absolutely.
Um, that said, there are peoplewho have built incredible
companies that are out, it'soutside their expertise.
It wasn't something thathappened to them.
It is they are solving aproblem in the market, not
necessarily I experienced thison pain point myself.
That has been my journey.
And I think it's reallyimportant because I, as I built
Mizen in Maine, I was the corecustomer, I was the fit model, I
(11:33):
designed the things I wanted towear, and then we were able to
branch out from there.
So that made it really easy.
In Building Harbor, I found anincredible co-founder.
And we, when I was introducedto Charlie, he was actually in
the attic running Ethernet cablethrough his attic to build his
own hardwired baby monitorsystem because he was so
frustrated with all the junk andfailures that were out there.
And as two dads, we've builtthe product that he, his kids
(11:56):
are a little bit younger thanmine, but you know, that we wish
that we'd had that we would usefor ourselves.
Um, and that's reallyimportant.
Um, at the same time, I willacknowledge there are some
people who have had some choicewords that um we're two men
building a product for for moms.
And that is both true and nottrue.
It's we're building a we areparents building a product for
parents.
Um, and I'm never gonna tell amom how to raise her own
(12:18):
children or any aspect of beinga mom, but at the end of the
day, we've built a product thatmakes it easier to be a parent,
uh, that solves all the problemswith all the junky, overpriced,
problematic uh products thatare out there in the market.
And so um, I don't know if Iwould ever want to go build
something that was totally farafield from anything that I have
ever experienced or lived.
(12:40):
Um, certainly some of thoseskill sets are transferable, but
I like being able to say, thisis why I started this company
and this is why I've dedicatedmy life to it.
Um, and overall, um, thefeedback to both of those has
been very positive, despite notbeing a mom.
Rich H (12:55):
Do you think that association with the brand is
part of the secret sauce?
Do you think you necessarilyneed to have that, or is there a
way to overcome that?
I think it's really important.
Kevin L (13:08):
Um, you know, if you if you're not a golfer and you try
and build a company and aproduct for golfers, I think
it's just a lot harder to bridgethat.
Now, ultimately, the job of afounder and the job of an
executive is to build a greatteam and empower people to go
solve those things.
And so I think you can findsomebody to be the person who
(13:29):
solves all the brandingquestions or the customer, you
know, at the end of the day,customer discovery, brand
identity, marketing strategy,these are repeatable processes
in different markets.
And so I do believe these aretransferable skills.
I just know that for me,solving my own problems has been
something that has allowed meto accelerate through.
(13:50):
And then certainly through, asI mentioned, customer discovery.
I interviewed hundreds ofparents.
And over the last severalyears, I've talked to thousands,
but I've conducted verymethodical focused interviews.
Where do you get your news?
Where do you spend your time?
How often do you cook out in aweek?
What type of exercise do you doto try to build that
(14:12):
psychographic and demographicprofile to understand how are we
marketing and what is ourlanguage?
So even if you are the corecustomer, you still need to
understand things far beyondyour own preferences.
And, you know, I hear somepeople who say, you know, well,
I just I just don't understandhow the customer thinks.
That's not going to be a personwho's going to be able to be a
founder or going to be able tobuild a team that solves those
(14:34):
types of issues.
Now, that's fine.
Maybe they are a developer whojust wants to be told this is
what I'm developing and this iswhy I'm developing it.
It's okay if they don'tunderstand the customer.
But if you're going to createnew categories, new companies,
new products, new brands, youhave to be able to think outside
your own experience as well.
Rich H (14:51):
So let me flip that question a little bit.
If it's important that you havesome connection to what the
brand is trying to solve, how doyou balance the risk of not
becoming overly biased, of notsuccumbing to confirmation bias
because you believe the idea isthe solution and you might
(15:12):
become blind to whether it'llwork or not?
Kevin L (15:14):
When I talk about my experience of being a founder
and the, you know, being pushedto the brink, surviving the
chaos, all of those things, Iconstantly am reminded and have
to remind myself and talk withothers about there is a
razor-thin line between the mostsuccessful entrepreneurs of all
time and the failures whocouldn't see the writing on the
(15:37):
wall that they were wrong.
And oftentimes that is luck andtiming.
And if you read one of the bestbusiness books that I've read
is I think it's called TheFounders, uh, it's about the
PayPal mafia and how all of thatcame to be.
And how many times some of thegreatest entrepreneurs, Elon
Musk, David Sachs, Peter Thiel,all these people, greatest
(15:57):
entrepreneurs and investors,were days away from you know
oblivion and being probably lostin obscurity.
Who knows what they would havedone again, versus they closed
the funding round two weeksbefore the stock market crashed.
Or the regulatory or legalfight that absolutely should
have sank the company.
(16:17):
There was a change inadministration and the lawsuit
was dropped.
Right.
These things that are sounbelievably close between wild
success and lost in oblivion.
It is just a matter of luck andtiming and certainly skill and
and and all of that.
But I say that to the abilityto just shut out the noise and
(16:37):
make a decision is you have tolearn it, and it's hard because
there's a lot of data that'sgoing to pull you in a lot of
different directions.
And at times, you have to bethe contrarian that disagrees
with your team and your researchbecause you just know that
something is missing or wrongand you've got to go in this
other direction.
And then there are times thatyou have to make sure that you
(16:58):
shut down your own biases andperspectives and listen to the
team.
I wish that I could share aformula as to how that works.
And what do they say?
Uh, success is a lousy teacher.
I I spent a lot of time talkingwith some of the investors from
my Mizin and Main days and somePE and VC folks, that it's
interesting how many people willcome on a podcast or, you know,
(17:19):
write think pieces or beadvisors or investors because
they were unbelievablysuccessful in the one company
that they were, whether theywere the founder, employee
number five, or whatever.
And then they never do itagain.
And everyone will talk to themabout why they were so
successful and they haven'trepeated it.
And sometimes they choose, hey,I just I'm not going to go do
it again.
But in other times, they kindof move from one company to
(17:42):
another.
And it's like, well, hold on, Ithought you had the formula,
right?
Like you're you're telling ushow brilliant you are.
And uh it's just a reminderthat luck and timing and which
company you were in or whichdemographic wave, or hey, maybe
you nailed the Facebookarbitrage.
I just look at it as I'm justtrying to figure it out every
single day.
And there's new sets of datathat come along.
Uh, and when I'm right, I loveto point about how how I made
(18:06):
that decision and why I wasright and it was wrong.
I hope I'm humble enough to tryand learn.
And that's a long answer tothat question, but it's a very
complicated, very complicatedquestion with a lot of layers.
Rich H (18:16):
It's a very complicated subject.
So I'm glad you gave detailthere because it's a trap that a
lot of people fall into.
Absolutely.
Kevin L (18:24):
There's a lot, and and I will say, being in the startup
world, there's a lot of peoplewho are very glad to sell their
services and their advice aboutwhy they were so successful, and
it just doesn't work.
Whatever they're saying doesn'tapply, but they are convinced
that they're right because theyhave a success to stand on, and
they were right, but it doesn'tmean that they are still right.
Jaime Lynn (18:43):
So, Kevin, with your background driving startup
brands, what do you believe islike the secret toss or the key
to success?
Kevin L (18:50):
I'm still trying to figure that out.
I don't know that I have theanswer.
And if anyone tells you theyhave the answer, I'd be worried.
But I would say the things thatI sort of point to is are you
solving a real problem for acustomer?
Is it something that theyactually want?
And then when it comes to thesize and scale of the business,
can you expand that intoadjacent pools of customers or
(19:12):
get pulled into adjacent areasof problems to solve?
That is ultimately the end ofthe day.
Do people want to pay you forthe thing that you are offering
to them, a service, a product,an experience, the something?
And if people don't want togive you money for it, then you
don't really have anything.
Um, and so that would be firstand foremost.
Um, and then the the otherthings that come to mind, and I
(19:33):
don't know in what particularorder, would be do you connect
with the customers in a way thatthey care about?
Um, in some cases, it's a theycare about it being the lowest
price.
In other cases, it's the esteemand the prestige of the brand
that they have on their chest,on their arm, on their whatever,
or the experience because it itsays something about who they
are.
Um, I love the framework, jobsto be done.
(19:55):
I think it's one of the moreclever ways to think about
building a business is what arethey hiring you or your product
to do?
What does it say about them?
What does it solve?
And then the last thing, Icould probably come up with a
hundred, but the last thing thatis really top of mind for me is
um building the team thatenables that to be a success.
(20:16):
Very, very, very few companiesdo it with just a couple people,
right?
There's lots of talk about vibecoding and new startups built
with AI where you'll have threepeople at a hundred or a billion
dollar company.
That's not what most thingsare.
And so really it comes down tocan you build the team and give
them the framework in which tomake the right or right enough
(20:38):
and frequent enough decisions ontheir own, because you can't
make most of them yourself.
And one of the best analogiesthat was shared with me years
ago was your job as a founder orCEO is basically to be a head
coach.
And at a certain point in time,you were on the field, but
eventually you graduate to thepoint where you're a coach.
And your success as a coach isnot how good your quarterback
(20:59):
is, it's how good your offensivecoordinator is and how good
your quarterback's coach is, andall the way up the chain.
And and an analogy I love is ifthe head coach, Nick Saban, is
not calling the charter companyto make sure that the plane is
going to take them from Alabamato Austin.
There is a whole team that setsup and handles all the
logistics.
And at a certain point in time,you need to be the one that is
(21:21):
not on the phone with thecharter company figuring out how
you're going to get to whereyou're going, where you're
going.
Jaime Lynn (21:28):
Okay, let's talk a little bit about that.
You build teams across verydifferent industries.
So, what qualities do you lookfor in people who want to join
you in building your brand?
Kevin L (21:38):
I think integrity ultimately is the number one
thing.
Um, do I trust the person?
Do they demonstrate integrity?
Because if you don't have that,then not only are you not a
good team member, you can be anincredibly value destructive
team member.
Um, and so integrity remainsone of the top things that I
look for.
It's very hard to screen in aninterview.
(22:00):
And so I try and look for flagsor references or things in
their history and life that tellme that.
And it can be off the field, ifyou will, in their personal
life.
What can I do to make mebelieve that they operate with
integrity?
Certainly role-dependentmatters, but I think
intellectual curiosity is reallyimportant.
And so, you know, a creative,what intellectual curiosity
(22:21):
looks like for a creative isvery different from a CFO, but I
want to see and believe thatthey have the ability to think
beyond this is exactly what I'mtold to do, depending on the
role.
And then a sense of humility.
Um, if you don't have humility,you're gonna probably be a
nightmare to work with.
Um, and with those threethings, I think a lot is
(22:42):
possible.
My experience in building Mizenin Maine was very different
from building Harbor becausewith Mizen in Maine, I had no
money.
I didn't pay myself for acouple of years.
And with Harbor, we raised abunch of money to hire some very
technically sophisticatedpeople to build a very
technically sophisticatedproduct for years before a
customer touched it.
So very different experiencesin building Harbor, we've been
(23:04):
able to hire people that we usedto work with in other
companies, and that made it justfantastic because there's a
long history of familiarity andum and trust.
And ultimately, startups moveat the speed of trust when it
comes to teams.
And so to empower people tojust run and go build rather
than needing to check in uh hasbeen a very meaningful
(23:25):
differentiator, I think, in thelevel of quality and
sophistication of the productthat we've been able to build.
Rich H (23:31):
So, do you find yourself having started these two brands
and having thedirect-to-consumer element
walking into a retailer, seeinga brand and having those
immediate thoughts as to whatthey should do better?
And I'll broaden that into whatdo you think brands and
retailers today should be doingbetter?
Kevin L (23:49):
I would say my experience, just very candidly,
is less here's what I thinkpeople should be doing better, a
brand should be doing betterthan I see, and more when I see
something that I love and standsout, I just glom onto it and I
am blown away by certain brandsand certain things and the
quality of product or customerexperience.
Um, you know, as an aside, Idon't do a lot of the customer
(24:13):
service for Harbor because somuch of it is very technical,
and that is not my forte orexpertise.
And so I would just be amiddleman in solving the
technical problems that most ofour customers need resolution
for if they're reaching out.
But I am consistently amazed athow angry so many people are
that reach out to our customerservice and they just start at a
level nine and the level offury that they have.
(24:35):
And as soon as we sort of say,like within a short window of
time, we hear you, we are here,we promise we will resolve this
or make you just give you yourmoney back.
It's fine.
A lot of times people come backdown to about a three.
And what I find is I amreminded when I work with a
company that immediately worksto resolve my issue and says,
look, we're gonna make it right.
We want you to be a customerlong term.
(24:56):
It is the exception rather thanthe rule in in most customer
service interactions I havebecause so many companies that I
talk to, the mandate for theircustomer service reps has to be
do everything you can to notgive these people anything
whatsoever.
Don't refund them, don't givethem an allowance, don't give
them, don't help them if it'sgoing to cost us money.
That has to be the mandate for95% of the people, the companies
(25:21):
that I work with, uh, for if Ihave an issue.
And then you talk to one andthey go, hey, no problem, we'll
just send you another one.
And for how much Zappos triedto change the culture of
customer service and experience,it did not permeate throughout
the customer products world.
And so when I think about whatshould companies and brands be
doing better, it's anyappreciation for long-term value
(25:43):
of customer relationships andhow people talk about your brand
with their friends and family.
Because there are, I'm notgoing to name any specifics, but
there are lots of companieswhere I go, well, literally
never buy anything from thatcompany again, even if I loved
it.
Because if anything goes wrong,I don't ever want to have to, I
don't ever want to have tofight this fight again.
Um, and so taking care ofcustomers in a way that shows
(26:07):
empathy appears to have justdisappeared from too much of the
corporate world today.
And I don't know why, if it'slazy management, if it's driven
by financial incentives, maybeall of the above, I'm not sure.
The second thing that I wouldsay, you know, when you think
about how what brands or or orcompanies or or retailers should
be doing differently is just bereal candid with what actually
(26:29):
sets you apart, because youcan't do a lot of things really
well.
So pick the few things that youdo and do that really well.
You know, our product is moreexpensive, Harbor is more
expensive than any other producton the market today because it
is a hundred times better.
And when people come by andtell me, well, I can buy it for
$50 on Amazon, I can see whysome companies try to then start
mucking around on pricebecause, well, I wanna, I want
(26:51):
to go chase the customers whocare about price.
Well, we can't.
We have an incrediblysophisticated product that is
designed to change your life asa parent.
I can't do that for $50 becausethat $50 product that you can
go get from Amazon is a piece ofjoke.
It'll fall apart, it'll break.
And uh, what's the quote?
The thrill of cheap, you know,fades, you know, much faster
than the you know, feeling ofquality.
(27:13):
Whatever that quote is, that itmatters.
Um, and I think too many brandsand companies and stores try to
be too many different things.
And the ones that stick, theones that do it best, don't
sweat the fact that some peopleare going to be unhappy with
them.
And I'm not talking about goodcustomer service.
I'm talking about they say it'stoo expensive, they say it's
(27:34):
too cheap, they don't likewhatever.
And and that level ofself-assuredness seems to also
be lacking in a lot of storesand businesses and brands today.
Rich H (27:42):
Yeah, you do get there's a variety of reasons.
And in in my role, I havecustomer experience reporting to
me.
And I agree with you, you doget customers that come in at an
elevated level because theyexpect that you're going to
challenge them.
And I think there's a lot ofreasons why companies today kind
of put up the barrier, somevery understandable and some
(28:05):
relatively misguided.
And I agree that that level ofempathy can definitely set your
brand or your store apart.
Absolutely.
Do you see, or I should say,how do you see customers
evolving today?
You have a customer thatarguably is more economically
challenged, they're more savvy,they have more tools at their
(28:26):
disposal.
They maybe, you know, thisgeneration, Gen Z right now, is
craving more authenticity orcommunity, at least a segment of
them.
How do you see the customerexperience and the customer
evolving?
Kevin L (28:41):
I think it's important to always remember things come
in waves where all of a suddensomething's really important and
you see companies just sprintin to try to copy that language
because we have to be zeitgeist,we have to meet meet the
customers where they are andlike, well, let's see.
Is that actually what peoplereally care about?
Or is that just what a smalllevel of influencers or writers
(29:03):
talk about?
Um, without naming names, thereare a lot of brands that got an
enormous amount of coveragearound the same time that Mizin
and Maine was in its sort ofinfancy.
They got all the darling,they're gonna change how retail
works forever, they're gonnachange how product XYZ is made.
No one will ever buy anythinglike this ever again, other than
from this type of thing.
And those companies, um, someof them went public, sky high
(29:25):
valuations, and are now tradingfor less than cash on their
balance sheet.
And it's because they chasedeverything.
They didn't really have a core,they didn't really stick
around.
And in some cases, it was areally successful company.
And then customers moved on,and perhaps it wasn't the
company that was going to changeeverything.
I also chuckle.
I I again I'll I'll refrainfrom naming names, some some
(29:48):
very high-flying DTC companiesthat said we will never go into
brick and mortar.
Customers, you know, everybodywants everything online, you
know, in 2.5 seconds, andthey're never going to shop in
stores again.
Well, I'll use as a positiveexample, I'll use Viore as one
of the most successful brands inthe last decade that didn't do
(30:09):
anything dramatically differentfrom, let's say, where a
Lululemon was.
But at the end of the day, theybuilt a brand that connected
with their customer and theybuilt out a lot of stores, and
people loved going into thosestores and connecting with the
brand and feeling the productand seeing all the different
styles.
And some of those brands that Iremember getting up on stage,
(30:29):
sort of saying retail's dead andit's online or bust.
Now they're, I'm, I see theirLinkedIn announcements.
They're proud to be, you know,charting their next major retail
partnership, wholesale, um,including some mid tier
department stores that they, Iremember, turn their nose up at.
Five to ten years ago.
So I say that not out ofsmugness.
(30:50):
It's just more so to say, like,I've just seen things change,
people change, trends change.
When COVID hit, people said noone will ever go back to the
office.
Well, it's certainly changed,and work from home is a thing
that it wasn't before, but a lotof people are back in offices
and a lot of companies are nowsaying, I know we told you you
can go move to South Dakota, butif you don't move back, you
(31:11):
don't have a job anymore.
So that's where I come back tothat idea of humility and this
uh this this concept of, well,this is how things will be
forever.
There's very few things thatthat you can credibly say are
are like that.
So when I look at kind of thethe changing trends, what do
customers want, I would justlock in on where are you as a
brand, because that authenticityreally matters, unless you're
(31:34):
talking about buying papertowels, because most people just
want the cheapest ones thatthey can buy that don't fall
apart when you take them offthe, you know, off the paper
towel rack.
A lot of people just want thecheapest one.
There's a segment of thecustomer population that
absolutely cares deeply aboutrecycled.
And there's another customcustomer segment that goes, I
hate recycled paper towelsbecause they they stink.
(31:54):
I don't like them.
And so rather than trying tosay this is how you should be,
you should really focus onauthenticity or focus on speed
or focus on price, come back towhy do people care about you?
Why should they care about you?
And maybe you want to changeone of those things, but it
should be on it should beauthentic, not because
authenticity matters, because itshould be something you are
(32:15):
capable of actually executingand delivering against.
And if all of a sudden price isis really, really, really
important to you, but yourentire company and supply chain
and distribution channels makethat impossible, well then
you're chasing the wrong, you'reyou're chasing the wrong set of
goals and you're you're likelyto destroy a lot of value along
the way.
Jaime Lynn (32:34):
So Kevin, you you know, have now transformed two
very different industries.
And you know, looking back,what do you think gave you the
confidence to keep going?
You know, you even when theindustry experts, you know, told
you it wouldn't work.
You talked a little bit aboutthat.
Can you tell us like where didthat confidence come from?
Kevin L (32:52):
Naiveté and just believing that I could actually
do it.
That was step one.
I have joked many times.
I'm very, very fortunate that Ihad no idea what I was getting
into with Mizin and Maine.
And then that carried methrough in ways like we showed
up to our first trade show, andI had no idea how to talk to
(33:14):
these buyers.
But it was okay because no onewas gonna buy from us.
I needed to go to the tradeshow and I needed to see and I
needed to talk to some vendorsand figure out what they were
looking for.
Certainly I could have shown upand hired a bunch of
consultants and spent a bunch ofmoney to be perfect in our
first trade show, but no one'sgonna buy anything.
And so making small stepsforward and making those
mistakes because why not, waswhat I needed to do.
(33:37):
As things grew, I think it camefrom I was able to learn what
worked and didn't work and tryand adjust very quickly.
And then ultimately, myexperience from building Mizen
and Maine to Harbor, it's just Idon't want to say I've done
every single thing differently,but close.
Um, it just in terms of how Ithought about hiring and how I
(33:58):
thought about fundraising, andhow I've thought about speed to
market and product quality.
And it helps with some aspectsin building Harbor that you
can't just rush a baby monitor.
It's a product that people relyon to watch their kids.
We had an enormous amount ofwork to do to get this product
right.
And so I could take my time tofigure a lot of things out along
the way.
There was no quick MVP.
(34:19):
And a lot of startup advisorswould say, no, you got to get a
product to market immediatelyand test it and get feedback.
Well, it's gonna cost memillions of dollars to produce
the first production levelquality, reliable device that
someone could test.
So I can't mess that up, but Ican say we're not gonna launch
with every feature we possiblycould have.
We're gonna launch with enoughfeatures to have something
(34:41):
great, and then we can make theadjustments from there.
And maybe the last note on thatis there are a lot of things in
the playbook that I ran atMizen in Maine that have just
become very different the secondtime around, partially because
I launched Mizen in Maine in2012 and I launched Harbor to
the public in 2024.
The world is dramaticallydifferent.
Meta didn't exist, Facebookadvertising barely existed.
(35:05):
And now it's, I mean, one ofthe most dominant forms of
advertising imaginable.
The concept of an influencerwas not a real thing when I
started Mizin and Maine.
And now you can't really builda brand that people care about
without some engagement withinfluencers.
And so learning and trying toget feedback, and in that vein,
talking to as many founders,advisors, investors, and
(35:27):
following as many smart peopleas possible is a big part of
what I aim for.
Jaime Lynn (35:31):
Well, that's a perfect segue into uh into this
next question.
And what's the best piece ofadvice that you've ever
received?
Kevin L (35:39):
It is both actionable and not uh in in terms of the
startup, but I will say it isthe one that I come back to the
most frequently around this typeof question.
Um I heard Jim Carrey speak ata convention address or
commencement or something likethat.
And um he was sharing hislife's experience and what
happened to his dad, who workedhis whole life at a career to
(35:59):
try and provide the stableincome.
And his dad inspired.
And he said, you know, one ofthe things I learned is that you
can fail doing something youdon't love.
So you might as well try to dosomething that you do love.
When it comes to pursuingentrepreneurship, that is a
really important distinction.
Um, nothing is secure.
I've got plenty of friends withW-2 incomes that have been laid
off multiple times since Ientered the professional
(36:21):
workforce in 2008.
There's no real security orguarantee.
And so I'd rather do somethingmeaningful that I'm proud of and
that I can really hang my haton, knowing that nothing is
certain in life.
Rich H (36:34):
All right, Jimmy.
Lynn, go ahead and roll intothe rapid fire round.
I'm gonna let you take two thistime.
I'm gonna try and come up witha doozy in the middle and uh see
if I can throw Kevin off.
Awesome.
Jaime Lynn (36:44):
Okay, Kevin, so you're traveling to a new city.
Describe your perfect day inthis video.
Kevin L (36:49):
Perfect day is no time pressure, just the ability to
relax and soak it up.
I'm the type of person thatalmost never shows up blind.
I'm gonna look up suggestionsfrom friends or others.
And um, I'm not uh I'm notsomebody that likes to just walk
around and explore for hours.
I usually want to have one ortwo things that I want to make
(37:11):
sure to see.
Uh, and then I'm gonna want tofind a great restaurant that is
going to be memorable to thecity itself.
I'm not gonna go to a chain.
I want to go somewhere that isunique to that city.
Uh, and then hopefully uh I dotravel a lot.
I'm in a hotel bed that iscomfortable and not next to
Times Square with a lot ofnoise.
Rich H (37:32):
I want to be able to get my good sleep too.
All right, I can definitelyrelate to that.
Well, rather than stump you, orthis may stump you, I'm gonna
stick with the food theme.
What's the most memorable mealyou've had and tie it to a city
that you visited or a regionthat you visited?
Kevin L (37:49):
So uh I think we said we like to cheat an answer with
more than one answer, so I'mgonna give two.
A friend of mine, um, Ashkin,is an amazing uh steak chef, and
he got A5's Wagyu from Japan,legit, not Wagyu label A5s,
which is the some of the bestmeat that you can get.
And he cooked it just at hishouse um on a cast iron skillet,
(38:14):
and it is the best piece ofmeat, the best food that I have
ever had.
I just absolutely mind-blowingexperience.
And we joked at the time, andit's true, we really ruined
steak because it will be thething that we compare it to
forever.
So, on a trip and kind of anexperience, rather than go the
steak or the you know,unforgettable chef, I'll say um
(38:37):
my wife and I on our honeymoonstayed at um a resort in St.
Lucia, and they had this shavedham and pineapple croissant
breakfast with egg, all of ittogether.
And we have tried to recreateit and have not been able to.
Um, but we talk about thatbreakfast often.
(38:58):
And uh hopefully we can go backand experience it again because
it's also in St.
Lucia and uh it's where we hadour hunting moods.
It's a pretty good memory.
Rich H (39:06):
All right.
So I'm gonna cheat a little bitand ask a 2A, uh 2B of that
question.
I love it.
Have you had a meal in a placethat has destroyed your ability
to have that dish anywhere else?
Cool.
And as you I'll give you achance to think about it, having
fish and chips in London, Ican't order fish and chips
anywhere else.
Kevin L (39:25):
Barbecue a little bit different because you've got
connected barbecue, you've gotKansas City barbecue, but um I
mean, I I'll say I've been tothe Canaan Islands a few times
and over my life.
Uh, I grew up in Florida, so itwas easy to pop down there.
I feel like fish anywhere elseother than somewhere like the
islands where it's just rightthere.
(39:46):
And restaurants love to bragthat they fly it in and blah,
blah, blah.
But like these restaurants thatare getting it from the dock
and serving it to you 30 minutesto an hour later with simple
seasoning, uh, that is a veryspecial experience.
And when I go on a vacation toa place with a beach, I
basically just eat fish thewhole time I'm there because
it's so good.
(40:07):
And then when I'm landlocked inTexas, I don't care how nice
the restaurant is, it's justit's not the same.
Rich H (40:14):
Thank you.
I respect that answer.
All right, I will throw you fora curve.
What's a rapid fire questionthat you would ask somebody else
to stump them?
Kevin L (40:24):
I don't know if this is stumping, but I Tim Ferris may
have asked this question.
He he's got various versions ofthis that I love.
But what is the best book thatsomeone has ever given you?
I think other people would say,What what book do you give?
And I think that's that'sgreat.
But I like the what is the bestbook that someone has given you
(40:45):
uh because it forces you tohave it not be about the thing
that you like to give to otherpeople.
Uh, and I like focusing onbooks because I don't think
there's enough focus on books.
Rich H (40:56):
Okay, now I'm gonna ask a 3B, and I'm sorry, but I'm not
sorry.
What is a book that you wouldtypically give?
I think that's a greatquestion.
Kevin L (41:04):
So I think the best business book I've ever read is
one that I give I have given themost to anybody else is The
Hard Thing About the Hard Thingsby Ben Horowitz.
Uh, it is just an incrediblypowerful read for anyone
building a business, joining abusiness, in business, whatever.
Uh I it's just absolutelyfantastic.
(41:24):
And then um on the kind ofpersonal life side, I continue
to come back to 12 rules forlife by Jordan Peterson is a
really just fascinating viewinto humanity and decision
making and and all of that.
And and I think for a lot ofpeople, it is a really good
comprehensive grounding of howto reframe your view of yourself
(41:46):
and life um differently.
That's not anything like aself-help book.
Rich H (41:51):
Well, we may have to get that book and give it away when
we release this podcast.
Maybe uh have you autograph itor write a note in it.
But we have the opportunity tointerview a lot of people who
have written books and who, andI think a lot of people, though
we haven't necessarily asked,have told us their favorite
books.
So it's one of the things thatwe're trying to do this season
(42:11):
is give some books away.
So you might have just easedyour way into that unwittingly
for both of us.
Excellent.
Excellent.
That sounds great.
All right.
Well, Kevin, really appreciateyou joining us today.
It was having lived in Dallasduring the time of Mizin in
Maine, it was fun to see thebrand kind of spring up.
I have worn it.
(42:31):
I definitely appreciated it.
And I think this has yielded atremendous amount of lessons
learned that our students andour audience will absolutely
love.
So greatly appreciate youtaking the time.
Thanks, Rich.
Kevin L (42:44):
I love these questions, some new ones that I haven't
gotten to talk publicly aboutbefore, and uh look forward to
more dialogue around books.
Rich H (42:52):
That would be great.
And thank you, everybody, forjoining us.
We will see you next time onRetail Relates.
What happens when a simple problem becomes the spark
for a brand that reshapes anentire category?
And what happens when lightningstrikes twice?
Hi, I'm Rich Honeyball, and I'mjoined today by Jamie Lynn
Curley, and together we'resitting down with someone who's
built two very differentcompanies from the same
foundation Curiosity,Conviction, and Care.
Kevin Lavelle is a repeatentrepreneur and brand builder
(01:09):
whose work spans fashion,technology, and family
innovation.
He's the CEO and co-founder ofHarbor, a sleep technology
company created after a personalexperience exposed critical
gaps in smart monitoring.
He's also the founder andchairman of Mizin in Maine, the
menswear brand that redefinedtraditional dress shirts with
performance fabrics.
(01:30):
Under his leadership, thecompany secured investments from
L.
Catterton, partnered withathletes like Phil Mickelson and
J.J.
Watt, and grew into a modernmenswear staple.
A graduate of SouthernMethodist University, Kevin
began his career at Oliver Wymanand Hunt Consolidated and
remains deeply committed toservice through partnerships
with the Navy SEAL Foundation,the Travis Mannion Foundation,
(01:52):
and 31 Heroes.
Whether it's apparel ortechnology, Kevin's approach is
consistent.
Start with the customer, hirepeople of character, and build
with intention.
Stay with us for this episode.
It is a conversation aboutresilience, reinvention,
empathy, and building brandsthat solve real problems.
So welcome to another episodeof Retail Relates.
(02:14):
I am here with one of ourco-hosts, Jamie Lynn.
How are you today?
Jaime Lynn (02:19):
I'm great, Rich.
Thank you.
Rich H (02:20):
And it is an absolute pleasure to introduce Kevin
Lavelle, who is a I don't know,Kevin, after a couple of
startups, do we call you aserial entrepreneur yet?
Kevin L (02:31):
Uh I'm on two, so I think you have to do three to be
serial, but uh uh let's sayrepeat is maybe a safe bet.
Rich H (02:38):
Repeat entrepreneur on on your way to becoming a serial
entrepreneur.
And of course, we read your bioat the show introduction, and
we won't make you go through allthe details.
But what we do like to startoff with is getting to know you
a little bit more, bothpersonally and professionally,
by asking this question.
Give us the three most pivotalmoments that brought you to
(03:01):
where you are today.
Kevin L (03:03):
So I think first and foremost, you know,
acknowledging that I feel like Iwon the parent lottery.
Um, there's uh a great book Iread years ago um where the the
guy sort of talks about that.
And there's not one moment inthat, but I was raised really
well and I was positioned forsuccess.
And I have to acknowledge thatthat's a really good foundation
to build anything on.
(03:24):
The the three moments that Iwould layer on top of that would
be uh the idea for Mizen andMaine, because it is what ended
up leading me to become anentrepreneur.
That's when I watched acongressional staffer run into a
building soaked in sweat andwondered why no one had ever
made a dress shirt out ofperformance fabric.
The next would be marrying mywife, because the life that
(03:44):
we've built is something that Ihad always hoped to have, is a
loving, married relationshipwith great kids.
Uh, and then the next I wouldsay would be the moment that the
leading baby monitor in themarket failed my family, um,
which led me to this idea ofwanting to start Harbor.
Had the product not failed, Imight not have gone down the
(04:06):
road of starting anothercompany.
And I like to joke thatsometimes I'm very grateful to
that company for failing becauseit led me to starting another
company.
And other times, like I had anice peaceful life.
I didn't have to build anotherstartup.
And if they had only not failedme, I wouldn't be going down
this crazy entrepreneurial roadagain.
So I I uh I like that question.
I, you know, people talk aboutwhat are some pivotal moments,
but I like that question of whatare the three?
Rich H (04:27):
And that would be the three that I would stack up.
And for what it's worth when weask each other the three
pivotal moments, we try to cheatour way out of it and give
four, five, or six.
So I got I got four in there.
You did, I got four in there.
The way you layered it, you'reyou get a lot of credit for, and
and we respect it.
So thank you.
Is this the path you imaginedas you set off on your career
(04:49):
journey?
Not in any way.
Kevin L (04:51):
I did not envision being an entrepreneur.
Um I have said this jokebefore, and it's a joke, but
true.
My dad wanted me to go into themanagement training at Procter
and Gamble because it was areally great way to learn how to
be a great, you know, corporateleader.
I I didn't know what I wantedto do specifically, and and
that's part of why I chosemanagement consulting out of
school, was it was a chance todo a lot of different things and
(05:12):
really learn how to learn andlearn how to think.
I am very grateful I was aconsultant to start.
I also realized pretty quicklyin I did not like being a
consultant.
The idea, one of my managers atone point in time, we went back
to the hotel.
It was a yeah, there's someglamorous consulting travel and
there's some really unglamorousconsulting travel.
And we were in the middle ofrural Michigan in the winter
(05:35):
staying at a I think it was aholiday in.
It might have been a comfortsuite.
I mean, this was not aglamorous hotel.
It was about 10:30 or 11 atnight, and we'd been at the
client site all day.
And he said, We got back to thehotel, he goes, Do you have
enough work to do tonight?
And election was like, Okay,this is over.
I'm out.
I'm out.
Um, and it's not that I don'twant to work hard.
I I've worked very hardbuilding companies, but it's
(05:57):
almost 11 o'clock at night, andthis is a project that's lasting
many months, and there are somepeople who I think just enjoy
the magnitude of the work ratherthan the impact or the
continuity.
And that wasn't the moment Idecided I didn't want to be a
consultant anymore.
It had kind of been brewing.
Um, but that was when I said, Ithink I want to find something
where I can be a part ofsomething longer term rather
(06:19):
than just give people advice.
I want to actually see itthrough and create something.
Jaime Lynn (06:23):
So, Kevin, I have a very similar uh story trajectory
uh to what you just shared.
You know, I was also in a um ina hotel room far away from home
on a business trip many, manyyears ago.
And I just had like my ahamoment when I was like, what am
I, what am I doing this for?
Right?
Like, why am I doing this?
And so I'm curious to know alittle bit about your journey
(06:47):
from like that like aha momentwhen you said, okay, I'm done
doing this, to when you actuallylaunched your first company.
Like, what was that journey foryou?
Kevin L (06:55):
So I had a pit stop in the middle, which was I went and
worked for an energy companyhere in Dallas called Hunt
Consolidated, and and there's abunch of different divisions of
that.
Um, the one of the co-CEOs, um,he was a mentor of mine.
We'd built a great connectionand and we were chatting.
I had coffee with him everycouple of months, and he sort of
alluded to, I remember the daythat I decided I didn't want to
(07:18):
keep doing, I think it wasinvestment banking and wanted to
do something bigger, and and hecame back to work in his family
company.
Um, and he said, you know, ifif that moment ever hits you,
just let me know.
And I said, I it has, and Iwould like to come work for you.
And I started the process ofinterviewing in his firm.
And I was there for two years,and it was and it was and is an
amazing company, incrediblepeople, incredible longevity.
(07:39):
And in my early 20s, I saw it'sa great place to build a life
and a career.
But after working there for acouple of years, I decided, you
know, I I want to try thismyself, and um, I want to see if
I can build something.
And it certainly was influencedby the fact that there was an
entrepreneurial boom happeningaround me.
Instagram was big, maybe hadjust sold for a billion, or was,
(08:01):
you know, it was the hot appstartup world.
And I wasn't a programmer, butthere was so much happening with
people building extraordinarycompanies in very short periods
of time.
And uh, I had this idea forMizin in Maine, I'd had it for
many years.
And as I was sort ofchallenging myself, what do I
want to, you know, what do Iwant to be when I grow up?
It's not a consultant and thenat a great company I could be at
(08:21):
for the next 20 years and builda great life.
But I'm also in my early 20s.
Now's the time to swing for thefences and see what I can do.
Uh, and this idea for Mizin inMaine had been around for many
years.
It's it that idea came as I wasa college intern um working in
DC.
And so ultimately I decided tostart tinkering and see if I
could, could I even make thisproduct?
Could I figure out how to get aprototype?
(08:43):
Could I figure out how to getsomething rather than this idea
of a performance fabric dressshirt?
Could I wear one?
Um, and that was a really, youknow, as I talked to people
about that that want to buildstartups or want to get into
their own idea, I try and reallyhelp them get to what are your
milestones to demonstrate thatthis is something that you can
go do?
Right.
Don't just go quit your jobbecause you want to go start a
(09:04):
company.
Prove that you should start thecompany.
That's a really good place tostart.
And um, that first dress shirtreally was that milestone for me
to figure out.
Rich H (09:13):
I have to ask the question because we didn't cover
it in your bio.
What was the background to thebrand name Mizin in Maine?
Kevin L (09:20):
As I went down the road of wanting to do this, my wife
and I were out to dinner with,she worked at an ad agency and
she was the kind of brandstrategist.
And her creative partner is awoman named Betsy.
Betsy's husband, Steven, thefour of us were good friends.
They worked together and we gottogether.
And I had told the table thiscrazy idea I was working on, and
he said, Oh, you should name itLavelle, you know, a fashion
(09:42):
apparel company.
And I said, not gonna do that.
The ego in naming the companyafter yourself, I really can't
do it.
It's not a knock on people whodo, it's just not for me.
And I'm not a designer, and sothat doesn't feel right either.
And and he sort of said, Well,I'd love to help you with that.
And I ended up coming to agreat agreement with him and a
copywriter that he did a fairbit of work with.
And um, it's been very cool tokeep that relationship alive.
(10:05):
They ended up doing all thebranding for harbor as well.
Um, and so the name Mizen andMain, they are sails on a
sailboat.
Every sailboat has a main andthen a mizen, and then it goes
out from there.
I'm not a sailor.
I did grow up around the water,but it was one of the several
names that they came up with.
And when I saw it, I just said,oh man, that is unique.
That is memorable.
(10:26):
It's also one of those thingsthat from a URL, when you have
to say, you know, my email isthis at mizin and main.com.
What?
Mizen and Maine.
What?
Okay, M-I-Z-Z.
So that has been a challenge.
Uh, it is part of why withHarbor, I said I want one word
for the name, just one word.
With that said, when you sayMizen and Maine, it is
(10:48):
memorable.
It is memorable when you seeit.
And even if you Google itwrong, you're gonna come up with
our name, right?
And and that's been great.
Jaime Lynn (10:56):
So I, you know, it sounds like both Mizen and Maine
and Harbor started frompersonal pain points or seeing,
you know, a pain point outthere.
Do you think like some of thebest inventions, you know,
always come from solving aproblem?
Kevin L (11:10):
Absolutely.
Um, that said, there are peoplewho have built incredible
companies that are out, it'soutside their expertise.
It wasn't something thathappened to them.
It is they are solving aproblem in the market, not
necessarily I experienced thison pain point myself.
That has been my journey.
And I think it's reallyimportant because I, as I built
Mizen in Maine, I was the corecustomer, I was the fit model, I
(11:33):
designed the things I wanted towear, and then we were able to
branch out from there.
So that made it really easy.
In Building Harbor, I found anincredible co-founder.
And we, when I was introducedto Charlie, he was actually in
the attic running Ethernet cablethrough his attic to build his
own hardwired baby monitorsystem because he was so
frustrated with all the junk andfailures that were out there.
And as two dads, we've builtthe product that he, his kids
(11:56):
are a little bit younger thanmine, but you know, that we wish
that we'd had that we would usefor ourselves.
Um, and that's reallyimportant.
Um, at the same time, I willacknowledge there are some
people who have had some choicewords that um we're two men
building a product for for moms.
And that is both true and nottrue.
It's we're building a we areparents building a product for
parents.
Um, and I'm never gonna tell amom how to raise her own
(12:18):
children or any aspect of beinga mom, but at the end of the
day, we've built a product thatmakes it easier to be a parent,
uh, that solves all the problemswith all the junky, overpriced,
problematic uh products thatare out there in the market.
And so um, I don't know if Iwould ever want to go build
something that was totally farafield from anything that I have
ever experienced or lived.
(12:40):
Um, certainly some of thoseskill sets are transferable, but
I like being able to say, thisis why I started this company
and this is why I've dedicatedmy life to it.
Um, and overall, um, thefeedback to both of those has
been very positive, despite notbeing a mom.
Rich H (12:55):
Do you think that association with the brand is
part of the secret sauce?
Do you think you necessarilyneed to have that, or is there a
way to overcome that?
I think it's really important.
Kevin L (13:08):
Um, you know, if you if you're not a golfer and you try
and build a company and aproduct for golfers, I think
it's just a lot harder to bridgethat.
Now, ultimately, the job of afounder and the job of an
executive is to build a greatteam and empower people to go
solve those things.
And so I think you can findsomebody to be the person who
(13:29):
solves all the brandingquestions or the customer, you
know, at the end of the day,customer discovery, brand
identity, marketing strategy,these are repeatable processes
in different markets.
And so I do believe these aretransferable skills.
I just know that for me,solving my own problems has been
something that has allowed meto accelerate through.
(13:50):
And then certainly through, asI mentioned, customer discovery.
I interviewed hundreds ofparents.
And over the last severalyears, I've talked to thousands,
but I've conducted verymethodical focused interviews.
Where do you get your news?
Where do you spend your time?
How often do you cook out in aweek?
What type of exercise do you doto try to build that
(14:12):
psychographic and demographicprofile to understand how are we
marketing and what is ourlanguage?
So even if you are the corecustomer, you still need to
understand things far beyondyour own preferences.
And, you know, I hear somepeople who say, you know, well,
I just I just don't understandhow the customer thinks.
That's not going to be a personwho's going to be able to be a
founder or going to be able tobuild a team that solves those
(14:34):
types of issues.
Now, that's fine.
Maybe they are a developer whojust wants to be told this is
what I'm developing and this iswhy I'm developing it.
It's okay if they don'tunderstand the customer.
But if you're going to createnew categories, new companies,
new products, new brands, youhave to be able to think outside
your own experience as well.
Rich H (14:51):
So let me flip that question a little bit.
If it's important that you havesome connection to what the
brand is trying to solve, how doyou balance the risk of not
becoming overly biased, of notsuccumbing to confirmation bias
because you believe the idea isthe solution and you might
(15:12):
become blind to whether it'llwork or not?
Kevin L (15:14):
When I talk about my experience of being a founder
and the, you know, being pushedto the brink, surviving the
chaos, all of those things, Iconstantly am reminded and have
to remind myself and talk withothers about there is a
razor-thin line between the mostsuccessful entrepreneurs of all
time and the failures whocouldn't see the writing on the
(15:37):
wall that they were wrong.
And oftentimes that is luck andtiming.
And if you read one of the bestbusiness books that I've read
is I think it's called TheFounders, uh, it's about the
PayPal mafia and how all of thatcame to be.
And how many times some of thegreatest entrepreneurs, Elon
Musk, David Sachs, Peter Thiel,all these people, greatest
(15:57):
entrepreneurs and investors,were days away from you know
oblivion and being probably lostin obscurity.
Who knows what they would havedone again, versus they closed
the funding round two weeksbefore the stock market crashed.
Or the regulatory or legalfight that absolutely should
have sank the company.
(16:17):
There was a change inadministration and the lawsuit
was dropped.
Right.
These things that are sounbelievably close between wild
success and lost in oblivion.
It is just a matter of luck andtiming and certainly skill and
and and all of that.
But I say that to the abilityto just shut out the noise and
(16:37):
make a decision is you have tolearn it, and it's hard because
there's a lot of data that'sgoing to pull you in a lot of
different directions.
And at times, you have to bethe contrarian that disagrees
with your team and your researchbecause you just know that
something is missing or wrongand you've got to go in this
other direction.
And then there are times thatyou have to make sure that you
(16:58):
shut down your own biases andperspectives and listen to the
team.
I wish that I could share aformula as to how that works.
And what do they say?
Uh, success is a lousy teacher.
I I spent a lot of time talkingwith some of the investors from
my Mizin and Main days and somePE and VC folks, that it's
interesting how many people willcome on a podcast or, you know,
(17:19):
write think pieces or beadvisors or investors because
they were unbelievablysuccessful in the one company
that they were, whether theywere the founder, employee
number five, or whatever.
And then they never do itagain.
And everyone will talk to themabout why they were so
successful and they haven'trepeated it.
And sometimes they choose, hey,I just I'm not going to go do
it again.
But in other times, they kindof move from one company to
(17:42):
another.
And it's like, well, hold on, Ithought you had the formula,
right?
Like you're you're telling ushow brilliant you are.
And uh it's just a reminderthat luck and timing and which
company you were in or whichdemographic wave, or hey, maybe
you nailed the Facebookarbitrage.
I just look at it as I'm justtrying to figure it out every
single day.
And there's new sets of datathat come along.
Uh, and when I'm right, I loveto point about how how I made
(18:06):
that decision and why I wasright and it was wrong.
I hope I'm humble enough to tryand learn.
And that's a long answer tothat question, but it's a very
complicated, very complicatedquestion with a lot of layers.
Rich H (18:16):
It's a very complicated subject.
So I'm glad you gave detailthere because it's a trap that a
lot of people fall into.
Absolutely.
Kevin L (18:24):
There's a lot, and and I will say, being in the startup
world, there's a lot of peoplewho are very glad to sell their
services and their advice aboutwhy they were so successful, and
it just doesn't work.
Whatever they're saying doesn'tapply, but they are convinced
that they're right because theyhave a success to stand on, and
they were right, but it doesn'tmean that they are still right.
Jaime Lynn (18:43):
So, Kevin, with your background driving startup
brands, what do you believe islike the secret toss or the key
to success?
Kevin L (18:50):
I'm still trying to figure that out.
I don't know that I have theanswer.
And if anyone tells you theyhave the answer, I'd be worried.
But I would say the things thatI sort of point to is are you
solving a real problem for acustomer?
Is it something that theyactually want?
And then when it comes to thesize and scale of the business,
can you expand that intoadjacent pools of customers or
(19:12):
get pulled into adjacent areasof problems to solve?
That is ultimately the end ofthe day.
Do people want to pay you forthe thing that you are offering
to them, a service, a product,an experience, the something?
And if people don't want togive you money for it, then you
don't really have anything.
Um, and so that would be firstand foremost.
Um, and then the the otherthings that come to mind, and I
(19:33):
don't know in what particularorder, would be do you connect
with the customers in a way thatthey care about?
Um, in some cases, it's a theycare about it being the lowest
price.
In other cases, it's the esteemand the prestige of the brand
that they have on their chest,on their arm, on their whatever,
or the experience because it itsays something about who they
are.
Um, I love the framework, jobsto be done.
(19:55):
I think it's one of the moreclever ways to think about
building a business is what arethey hiring you or your product
to do?
What does it say about them?
What does it solve?
And then the last thing, Icould probably come up with a
hundred, but the last thing thatis really top of mind for me is
um building the team thatenables that to be a success.
(20:16):
Very, very, very few companiesdo it with just a couple people,
right?
There's lots of talk about vibecoding and new startups built
with AI where you'll have threepeople at a hundred or a billion
dollar company.
That's not what most thingsare.
And so really it comes down tocan you build the team and give
them the framework in which tomake the right or right enough
(20:38):
and frequent enough decisions ontheir own, because you can't
make most of them yourself.
And one of the best analogiesthat was shared with me years
ago was your job as a founder orCEO is basically to be a head
coach.
And at a certain point in time,you were on the field, but
eventually you graduate to thepoint where you're a coach.
And your success as a coach isnot how good your quarterback
(20:59):
is, it's how good your offensivecoordinator is and how good
your quarterback's coach is, andall the way up the chain.
And and an analogy I love is ifthe head coach, Nick Saban, is
not calling the charter companyto make sure that the plane is
going to take them from Alabamato Austin.
There is a whole team that setsup and handles all the
logistics.
And at a certain point in time,you need to be the one that is
(21:21):
not on the phone with thecharter company figuring out how
you're going to get to whereyou're going, where you're
going.
Jaime Lynn (21:28):
Okay, let's talk a little bit about that.
You build teams across verydifferent industries.
So, what qualities do you lookfor in people who want to join
you in building your brand?
Kevin L (21:38):
I think integrity ultimately is the number one
thing.
Um, do I trust the person?
Do they demonstrate integrity?
Because if you don't have that,then not only are you not a
good team member, you can be anincredibly value destructive
team member.
Um, and so integrity remainsone of the top things that I
look for.
It's very hard to screen in aninterview.
(22:00):
And so I try and look for flagsor references or things in
their history and life that tellme that.
And it can be off the field, ifyou will, in their personal
life.
What can I do to make mebelieve that they operate with
integrity?
Certainly role-dependentmatters, but I think
intellectual curiosity is reallyimportant.
And so, you know, a creative,what intellectual curiosity
(22:21):
looks like for a creative isvery different from a CFO, but I
want to see and believe thatthey have the ability to think
beyond this is exactly what I'mtold to do, depending on the
role.
And then a sense of humility.
Um, if you don't have humility,you're gonna probably be a
nightmare to work with.
Um, and with those threethings, I think a lot is
(22:42):
possible.
My experience in building Mizenin Maine was very different
from building Harbor becausewith Mizen in Maine, I had no
money.
I didn't pay myself for acouple of years.
And with Harbor, we raised abunch of money to hire some very
technically sophisticatedpeople to build a very
technically sophisticatedproduct for years before a
customer touched it.
So very different experiencesin building Harbor, we've been
(23:04):
able to hire people that we usedto work with in other
companies, and that made it justfantastic because there's a
long history of familiarity andum and trust.
And ultimately, startups moveat the speed of trust when it
comes to teams.
And so to empower people tojust run and go build rather
than needing to check in uh hasbeen a very meaningful
(23:25):
differentiator, I think, in thelevel of quality and
sophistication of the productthat we've been able to build.
Rich H (23:31):
So, do you find yourself having started these two brands
and having thedirect-to-consumer element
walking into a retailer, seeinga brand and having those
immediate thoughts as to whatthey should do better?
And I'll broaden that into whatdo you think brands and
retailers today should be doingbetter?
Kevin L (23:49):
I would say my experience, just very candidly,
is less here's what I thinkpeople should be doing better, a
brand should be doing betterthan I see, and more when I see
something that I love and standsout, I just glom onto it and I
am blown away by certain brandsand certain things and the
quality of product or customerexperience.
Um, you know, as an aside, Idon't do a lot of the customer
(24:13):
service for Harbor because somuch of it is very technical,
and that is not my forte orexpertise.
And so I would just be amiddleman in solving the
technical problems that most ofour customers need resolution
for if they're reaching out.
But I am consistently amazed athow angry so many people are
that reach out to our customerservice and they just start at a
level nine and the level offury that they have.
(24:35):
And as soon as we sort of say,like within a short window of
time, we hear you, we are here,we promise we will resolve this
or make you just give you yourmoney back.
It's fine.
A lot of times people come backdown to about a three.
And what I find is I amreminded when I work with a
company that immediately worksto resolve my issue and says,
look, we're gonna make it right.
We want you to be a customerlong term.
(24:56):
It is the exception rather thanthe rule in in most customer
service interactions I havebecause so many companies that I
talk to, the mandate for theircustomer service reps has to be
do everything you can to notgive these people anything
whatsoever.
Don't refund them, don't givethem an allowance, don't give
them, don't help them if it'sgoing to cost us money.
That has to be the mandate for95% of the people, the companies
(25:21):
that I work with, uh, for if Ihave an issue.
And then you talk to one andthey go, hey, no problem, we'll
just send you another one.
And for how much Zappos triedto change the culture of
customer service and experience,it did not permeate throughout
the customer products world.
And so when I think about whatshould companies and brands be
doing better, it's anyappreciation for long-term value
(25:43):
of customer relationships andhow people talk about your brand
with their friends and family.
Because there are, I'm notgoing to name any specifics, but
there are lots of companieswhere I go, well, literally
never buy anything from thatcompany again, even if I loved
it.
Because if anything goes wrong,I don't ever want to have to, I
don't ever want to have tofight this fight again.
Um, and so taking care ofcustomers in a way that shows
(26:07):
empathy appears to have justdisappeared from too much of the
corporate world today.
And I don't know why, if it'slazy management, if it's driven
by financial incentives, maybeall of the above, I'm not sure.
The second thing that I wouldsay, you know, when you think
about how what brands or or orcompanies or or retailers should
be doing differently is just bereal candid with what actually
(26:29):
sets you apart, because youcan't do a lot of things really
well.
So pick the few things that youdo and do that really well.
You know, our product is moreexpensive, Harbor is more
expensive than any other producton the market today because it
is a hundred times better.
And when people come by andtell me, well, I can buy it for
$50 on Amazon, I can see whysome companies try to then start
mucking around on pricebecause, well, I wanna, I want
(26:51):
to go chase the customers whocare about price.
Well, we can't.
We have an incrediblysophisticated product that is
designed to change your life asa parent.
I can't do that for $50 becausethat $50 product that you can
go get from Amazon is a piece ofjoke.
It'll fall apart, it'll break.
And uh, what's the quote?
The thrill of cheap, you know,fades, you know, much faster
than the you know, feeling ofquality.
(27:13):
Whatever that quote is, that itmatters.
Um, and I think too many brandsand companies and stores try to
be too many different things.
And the ones that stick, theones that do it best, don't
sweat the fact that some peopleare going to be unhappy with
them.
And I'm not talking about goodcustomer service.
I'm talking about they say it'stoo expensive, they say it's
(27:34):
too cheap, they don't likewhatever.
And and that level ofself-assuredness seems to also
be lacking in a lot of storesand businesses and brands today.
Rich H (27:42):
Yeah, you do get there's a variety of reasons.
And in in my role, I havecustomer experience reporting to
me.
And I agree with you, you doget customers that come in at an
elevated level because theyexpect that you're going to
challenge them.
And I think there's a lot ofreasons why companies today kind
of put up the barrier, somevery understandable and some
(28:05):
relatively misguided.
And I agree that that level ofempathy can definitely set your
brand or your store apart.
Absolutely.
Do you see, or I should say,how do you see customers
evolving today?
You have a customer thatarguably is more economically
challenged, they're more savvy,they have more tools at their
(28:26):
disposal.
They maybe, you know, thisgeneration, Gen Z right now, is
craving more authenticity orcommunity, at least a segment of
them.
How do you see the customerexperience and the customer
evolving?
Kevin L (28:41):
I think it's important to always remember things come
in waves where all of a suddensomething's really important and
you see companies just sprintin to try to copy that language
because we have to be zeitgeist,we have to meet meet the
customers where they are andlike, well, let's see.
Is that actually what peoplereally care about?
Or is that just what a smalllevel of influencers or writers
(29:03):
talk about?
Um, without naming names, thereare a lot of brands that got an
enormous amount of coveragearound the same time that Mizin
and Maine was in its sort ofinfancy.
They got all the darling,they're gonna change how retail
works forever, they're gonnachange how product XYZ is made.
No one will ever buy anythinglike this ever again, other than
from this type of thing.
And those companies, um, someof them went public, sky high
(29:25):
valuations, and are now tradingfor less than cash on their
balance sheet.
And it's because they chasedeverything.
They didn't really have a core,they didn't really stick
around.
And in some cases, it was areally successful company.
And then customers moved on,and perhaps it wasn't the
company that was going to changeeverything.
I also chuckle.
I I again I'll I'll refrainfrom naming names, some some
(29:48):
very high-flying DTC companiesthat said we will never go into
brick and mortar.
Customers, you know, everybodywants everything online, you
know, in 2.5 seconds, andthey're never going to shop in
stores again.
Well, I'll use as a positiveexample, I'll use Viore as one
of the most successful brands inthe last decade that didn't do
(30:09):
anything dramatically differentfrom, let's say, where a
Lululemon was.
But at the end of the day, theybuilt a brand that connected
with their customer and theybuilt out a lot of stores, and
people loved going into thosestores and connecting with the
brand and feeling the productand seeing all the different
styles.
And some of those brands that Iremember getting up on stage,
(30:29):
sort of saying retail's dead andit's online or bust.
Now they're, I'm, I see theirLinkedIn announcements.
They're proud to be, you know,charting their next major retail
partnership, wholesale, um,including some mid tier
department stores that they, Iremember, turn their nose up at.
Five to ten years ago.
So I say that not out ofsmugness.
(30:50):
It's just more so to say, like,I've just seen things change,
people change, trends change.
When COVID hit, people said noone will ever go back to the
office.
Well, it's certainly changed,and work from home is a thing
that it wasn't before, but a lotof people are back in offices
and a lot of companies are nowsaying, I know we told you you
can go move to South Dakota, butif you don't move back, you
(31:11):
don't have a job anymore.
So that's where I come back tothat idea of humility and this
uh this this concept of, well,this is how things will be
forever.
There's very few things thatthat you can credibly say are
are like that.
So when I look at kind of thethe changing trends, what do
customers want, I would justlock in on where are you as a
brand, because that authenticityreally matters, unless you're
(31:34):
talking about buying papertowels, because most people just
want the cheapest ones thatthey can buy that don't fall
apart when you take them offthe, you know, off the paper
towel rack.
A lot of people just want thecheapest one.
There's a segment of thecustomer population that
absolutely cares deeply aboutrecycled.
And there's another customcustomer segment that goes, I
hate recycled paper towelsbecause they they stink.
(31:54):
I don't like them.
And so rather than trying tosay this is how you should be,
you should really focus onauthenticity or focus on speed
or focus on price, come back towhy do people care about you?
Why should they care about you?
And maybe you want to changeone of those things, but it
should be on it should beauthentic, not because
authenticity matters, because itshould be something you are
(32:15):
capable of actually executingand delivering against.
And if all of a sudden price isis really, really, really
important to you, but yourentire company and supply chain
and distribution channels makethat impossible, well then
you're chasing the wrong, you'reyou're chasing the wrong set of
goals and you're you're likelyto destroy a lot of value along
the way.
Jaime Lynn (32:34):
So Kevin, you you know, have now transformed two
very different industries.
And you know, looking back,what do you think gave you the
confidence to keep going?
You know, you even when theindustry experts, you know, told
you it wouldn't work.
You talked a little bit aboutthat.
Can you tell us like where didthat confidence come from?
Kevin L (32:52):
Naiveté and just believing that I could actually
do it.
That was step one.
I have joked many times.
I'm very, very fortunate that Ihad no idea what I was getting
into with Mizin and Maine.
And then that carried methrough in ways like we showed
up to our first trade show, andI had no idea how to talk to
(33:14):
these buyers.
But it was okay because no onewas gonna buy from us.
I needed to go to the tradeshow and I needed to see and I
needed to talk to some vendorsand figure out what they were
looking for.
Certainly I could have shown upand hired a bunch of
consultants and spent a bunch ofmoney to be perfect in our
first trade show, but no one'sgonna buy anything.
And so making small stepsforward and making those
mistakes because why not, waswhat I needed to do.
(33:37):
As things grew, I think it camefrom I was able to learn what
worked and didn't work and tryand adjust very quickly.
And then ultimately, myexperience from building Mizen
and Maine to Harbor, it's just Idon't want to say I've done
every single thing differently,but close.
Um, it just in terms of how Ithought about hiring and how I
(33:58):
thought about fundraising, andhow I've thought about speed to
market and product quality.
And it helps with some aspectsin building Harbor that you
can't just rush a baby monitor.
It's a product that people relyon to watch their kids.
We had an enormous amount ofwork to do to get this product
right.
And so I could take my time tofigure a lot of things out along
the way.
There was no quick MVP.
(34:19):
And a lot of startup advisorswould say, no, you got to get a
product to market immediatelyand test it and get feedback.
Well, it's gonna cost memillions of dollars to produce
the first production levelquality, reliable device that
someone could test.
So I can't mess that up, but Ican say we're not gonna launch
with every feature we possiblycould have.
We're gonna launch with enoughfeatures to have something
(34:41):
great, and then we can make theadjustments from there.
And maybe the last note on thatis there are a lot of things in
the playbook that I ran atMizen in Maine that have just
become very different the secondtime around, partially because
I launched Mizen in Maine in2012 and I launched Harbor to
the public in 2024.
The world is dramaticallydifferent.
Meta didn't exist, Facebookadvertising barely existed.
(35:05):
And now it's, I mean, one ofthe most dominant forms of
advertising imaginable.
The concept of an influencerwas not a real thing when I
started Mizin and Maine.
And now you can't really builda brand that people care about
without some engagement withinfluencers.
And so learning and trying toget feedback, and in that vein,
talking to as many founders,advisors, investors, and
(35:27):
following as many smart peopleas possible is a big part of
what I aim for.
Jaime Lynn (35:31):
Well, that's a perfect segue into uh into this
next question.
And what's the best piece ofadvice that you've ever
received?
Kevin L (35:39):
It is both actionable and not uh in in terms of the
startup, but I will say it isthe one that I come back to the
most frequently around this typeof question.
Um I heard Jim Carrey speak ata convention address or
commencement or something likethat.
And um he was sharing hislife's experience and what
happened to his dad, who workedhis whole life at a career to
(35:59):
try and provide the stableincome.
And his dad inspired.
And he said, you know, one ofthe things I learned is that you
can fail doing something youdon't love.
So you might as well try to dosomething that you do love.
When it comes to pursuingentrepreneurship, that is a
really important distinction.
Um, nothing is secure.
I've got plenty of friends withW-2 incomes that have been laid
off multiple times since Ientered the professional
(36:21):
workforce in 2008.
There's no real security orguarantee.
And so I'd rather do somethingmeaningful that I'm proud of and
that I can really hang my haton, knowing that nothing is
certain in life.
Rich H (36:34):
All right, Jimmy.
Lynn, go ahead and roll intothe rapid fire round.
I'm gonna let you take two thistime.
I'm gonna try and come up witha doozy in the middle and uh see
if I can throw Kevin off.
Awesome.
Jaime Lynn (36:44):
Okay, Kevin, so you're traveling to a new city.
Describe your perfect day inthis video.
Kevin L (36:49):
Perfect day is no time pressure, just the ability to
relax and soak it up.
I'm the type of person thatalmost never shows up blind.
I'm gonna look up suggestionsfrom friends or others.
And um, I'm not uh I'm notsomebody that likes to just walk
around and explore for hours.
I usually want to have one ortwo things that I want to make
(37:11):
sure to see.
Uh, and then I'm gonna want tofind a great restaurant that is
going to be memorable to thecity itself.
I'm not gonna go to a chain.
I want to go somewhere that isunique to that city.
Uh, and then hopefully uh I dotravel a lot.
I'm in a hotel bed that iscomfortable and not next to
Times Square with a lot ofnoise.
Rich H (37:32):
I want to be able to get my good sleep too.
All right, I can definitelyrelate to that.
Well, rather than stump you, orthis may stump you, I'm gonna
stick with the food theme.
What's the most memorable mealyou've had and tie it to a city
that you visited or a regionthat you visited?
Kevin L (37:49):
So uh I think we said we like to cheat an answer with
more than one answer, so I'mgonna give two.
A friend of mine, um, Ashkin,is an amazing uh steak chef, and
he got A5's Wagyu from Japan,legit, not Wagyu label A5s,
which is the some of the bestmeat that you can get.
And he cooked it just at hishouse um on a cast iron skillet,
(38:14):
and it is the best piece ofmeat, the best food that I have
ever had.
I just absolutely mind-blowingexperience.
And we joked at the time, andit's true, we really ruined
steak because it will be thething that we compare it to
forever.
So, on a trip and kind of anexperience, rather than go the
steak or the you know,unforgettable chef, I'll say um
(38:37):
my wife and I on our honeymoonstayed at um a resort in St.
Lucia, and they had this shavedham and pineapple croissant
breakfast with egg, all of ittogether.
And we have tried to recreateit and have not been able to.
Um, but we talk about thatbreakfast often.
(38:58):
And uh hopefully we can go backand experience it again because
it's also in St.
Lucia and uh it's where we hadour hunting moods.
It's a pretty good memory.
Rich H (39:06):
All right.
So I'm gonna cheat a little bitand ask a 2A, uh 2B of that
question.
I love it.
Have you had a meal in a placethat has destroyed your ability
to have that dish anywhere else?
Cool.
And as you I'll give you achance to think about it, having
fish and chips in London, Ican't order fish and chips
anywhere else.
Kevin L (39:25):
Barbecue a little bit different because you've got
connected barbecue, you've gotKansas City barbecue, but um I
mean, I I'll say I've been tothe Canaan Islands a few times
and over my life.
Uh, I grew up in Florida, so itwas easy to pop down there.
I feel like fish anywhere elseother than somewhere like the
islands where it's just rightthere.
(39:46):
And restaurants love to bragthat they fly it in and blah,
blah, blah.
But like these restaurants thatare getting it from the dock
and serving it to you 30 minutesto an hour later with simple
seasoning, uh, that is a veryspecial experience.
And when I go on a vacation toa place with a beach, I
basically just eat fish thewhole time I'm there because
it's so good.
(40:07):
And then when I'm landlocked inTexas, I don't care how nice
the restaurant is, it's justit's not the same.
Rich H (40:14):
Thank you.
I respect that answer.
All right, I will throw you fora curve.
What's a rapid fire questionthat you would ask somebody else
to stump them?
Kevin L (40:24):
I don't know if this is stumping, but I Tim Ferris may
have asked this question.
He he's got various versions ofthis that I love.
But what is the best book thatsomeone has ever given you?
I think other people would say,What what book do you give?
And I think that's that'sgreat.
But I like the what is the bestbook that someone has given you
(40:45):
uh because it forces you tohave it not be about the thing
that you like to give to otherpeople.
Uh, and I like focusing onbooks because I don't think
there's enough focus on books.
Rich H (40:56):
Okay, now I'm gonna ask a 3B, and I'm sorry, but I'm not
sorry.
What is a book that you wouldtypically give?
I think that's a greatquestion.
Kevin L (41:04):
So I think the best business book I've ever read is
one that I give I have given themost to anybody else is The
Hard Thing About the Hard Thingsby Ben Horowitz.
Uh, it is just an incrediblypowerful read for anyone
building a business, joining abusiness, in business, whatever.
Uh I it's just absolutelyfantastic.
(41:24):
And then um on the kind ofpersonal life side, I continue
to come back to 12 rules forlife by Jordan Peterson is a
really just fascinating viewinto humanity and decision
making and and all of that.
And and I think for a lot ofpeople, it is a really good
comprehensive grounding of howto reframe your view of yourself
(41:46):
and life um differently.
That's not anything like aself-help book.
Rich H (41:51):
Well, we may have to get that book and give it away when
we release this podcast.
Maybe uh have you autograph itor write a note in it.
But we have the opportunity tointerview a lot of people who
have written books and who, andI think a lot of people, though
we haven't necessarily asked,have told us their favorite
books.
So it's one of the things thatwe're trying to do this season
(42:11):
is give some books away.
So you might have just easedyour way into that unwittingly
for both of us.
Excellent.
Excellent.
That sounds great.
All right.
Well, Kevin, really appreciateyou joining us today.
It was having lived in Dallasduring the time of Mizin in
Maine, it was fun to see thebrand kind of spring up.
I have worn it.
(42:31):
I definitely appreciated it.
And I think this has yielded atremendous amount of lessons
learned that our students andour audience will absolutely
love.
So greatly appreciate youtaking the time.
Thanks, Rich.
Kevin L (42:44):
I love these questions, some new ones that I haven't
gotten to talk publicly aboutbefore, and uh look forward to
more dialogue around books.
Rich H (42:52):
That would be great.
And thank you, everybody, forjoining us.
We will see you next time onRetail Relates.
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