Advice Line with Justin McLeod of Hinge

0:06 Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show. Who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. And you can also send us a voice memo at hib at id. dot wondery dot com and make sure to tell us how to reach you. And also, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. It's full of insights and ideas from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs. You can sign up for free at gyros.com or on Substack. And we'll put all of this info in the podcast description.

0:54 Alright. Let's get to it. Joining me this week is Justin McCloud, founder and CEO of Hinge. Justin, welcome back to the show. Thank you for having me. Um so it's Justin, a lot has changed since you first uh shared your story with us a couple of years ago on the show from sort of how Hinge kind of has evolved to your role as a leader.

1:14 And we will put a link to your original interview in the episode description in the show notes. Um and you can also find it by searching for How I Built This and Justin McCloud or Hinge. It's a great episode. Really great episode. You guys will love it. Um just an awesome story about how you guys kinda redesigned everything. on the site and use your remaining last capital in a launch party before even getting your app into the app store and all the messiness and craziness. Justin, before we get to our callers, just a

1:42 would love to get an update on what's going on in your life right now. I know you're working on some new initiatives around mental health and Intentional dating what um so tell me what's going on. Yeah, I think these are all taking our mission to the next level. And it really has been where the app designed to be deleted. We want people off their phones and out on great dates.

2:02 And if you look at the loneliness epidemic. And you actually look over the last twenty years at the amount of time people spend on their screens, we've almost completely displaced In real life. Time spent.

2:14 With our friends with time spent looking at screens. About seventy percent of the time we used to spend with friends, we now stare at our screens. And so we're just thinking very deeply about one, how we can approach that from a social impact uh perspective.

2:28 most of all it's thinking about how we can set an example for the rest of the world, especially the world of social media and the world of dating about How If you you can build a truly sustainable business. If you're actually

2:41 designing around your customers deepest needs, which is for us. Getting out on great dates. You know, it's interesting. I have I've had a lot of conversations with people in the tech world about this, and and people have been really focused on this loneliness epidemic, and I'm not convinced it's a temporary epidemic. I'm convinced it it may be a behavioral shift. And I guess my

3:04 My big question and who knew I don't know if anyone has the answer is with screens in our lives, right? with the access to screens and the addictive nature of them. Can we really break that? I mean can we do you think we we have the capacity to go back to how we were as humans? I don't know that going back I think it's a false dichotomy. I don't necessarily think we're gonna go back to how we were, but I certainly don't think we can continue down this path. I think it's completely unsustainable for people's

3:33 mental health and mental wellness. I analogize it to sort of the What happened with the personal wellness industry. I think for a while We were headed in a direction as a country where like

3:44 fast food, not a lot of exercise. Like I think people are starting to feel like um We had created an engineered food that was very easy to get. drive through restaurants, everything else. And then we started to wake up to What are the health consequences of this?

3:59 And people started to design and create an industry around Personal wellness around health. And I think similarly we need to start thinking about social wellness and social health and how do we Think about

4:13 the time we spent on social media is essentially like junk food for our brains and How do we actually start designing healthier ways of relating to our friends that are much more nutritious for our souls and uh much better for our mental health. Justin, you know, um I remember when we talked about this when you're on the show, I I'm of an age before, kinda before dating apps. Um And so I met my wife now twenty five years ago to

4:41 Right. Just as an in person event, before we all were all addicted to our screens. And I talk to a lot of young people and I hear the same thing. It's so consistent. They're like, Yeah, I'm on apps. It sucks. And it just sounds so soul crushing. And I wonder what you're hearing. I mean you are And I've c and again I've met I also have

5:03 know people who met on hinge, right and are married and have great lives. But what are you hearing about? dating culture right now. Yeah, I mean One is that Dating has always been hard. When people were before people were complaining about dating after complaining about it's hard to just go out and meet people in bars, it's hard to meet anyone.

5:20 Dating is Always been challenging. It's always been something that You know, most songs are about it, right? It's like one of the most emotional ups and downs, unpredictable things, um, and most important things to us as humans. And at the same time, I would say I sympathize with a lot of the critiques of dating apps that a lot of them are why I started Hinge in the first place is because I wanted something that actually felt much more thoughtful, much more intentional. didn't uh treat people as kind of like disposable shopping items.

5:48 And I'm actually quite excited about the possibilities that we're now seeing because of AI, which I think will even further our ability to help people spend less time on our app and more time out on great dates. It will allow people Instead of communicating to us their preferences through kind of Morse code of likes and passes and going through lots and lots and lots of people, they can just tell us in their own words. who they are, what they're looking for, what matters to them, and be able to make much, much more

6:13 Plot for Matches. Cool. Justin, let's go ahead and take um our first caller. Uh hello, caller, welcome to the Vice Line. Tell us your name where you're calling from and a little bit about your business.

6:25 Hi Guy. Hi Justin. Um my name is Jessica Off. I own a company called Guessware Trips. We're based just outside of Toronto, Canada. We create and sell one day. Self guided mystery road trips across Canada and the US. It's kind of like an amazing race while you're exploring your own backyard and we've been doing this for about five years. Wow. Okay. Well welcome to the show. Thanks for calling in, Jessica. So you have a a company and you sell

6:51 Self guided tours. But no one knows where they're going. Exactly. So they're pre-fit itinerary, so they're not custom, um, and customers choose where they're leaving from, uh, what type of road trip theme they want to experience. We have everything from haunted road trips to pet friendly road trips, outdoor activity type road trips. And then they get this beautiful package in the mail. We also have a digital version. And there's four mystery stops. And you essentially just open up these envelopes one at a time and it takes you on a one day adventure. Wow, this is definitely for people who do not like predictability.

7:26 So this is an unusual kind of traveler, right? Because that you're basically saying, Hey It's gonna be a one day trip, you don't know where you're going, but here it is. Follow the follow the instructions. How did you I wanted to gift my parents A unique experience gift. They have too much stuff. And I wanted to give them a uh a road trip, but I didn't want to just give them uh like you know confirmation on booking.com. So I planned out everything. I didn't want them to think about anything. I divided it into four stops, with the fourth stop being uh an overnight hotel. And I really tried to

7:59 outline the history of the small towns they'd be visiting. I wanted to tell them it like quirky little facts about the small businesses they would be visiting. So I love doing it so much. My parents had such a great experience on it, I decided to start a business out of it. I'm looking at your website, I see you were on Dragons Den, which is the Canadian version or the original version of Shark Tank. I imagine that that gave you guys a bit of a boost in sales. It definitely did. Yeah, I went on um it was featured October thirty first year. I got a um I was offered a deal from four out of the five dragons and it was it was great exposure. All right, before we get to more about your business, so tell us what your question is. So my question is I mean, we're in twenty states, four provinces, and we're often um with a unique product that we're launching um in these very like specific places. So what are the most effective strategies for successfully launching new markets when you're introducing a totally new concept, one that's location based.

8:55 trust driven and unfamiliar to most consumers. Great question for Justin McLeod because you had to do that with Hinge, right? Because Hinge is even though it's an app, you gotta be you gotta be in the city to meet them, right? And so you gotta un uh basically every time you opened a new city, you probably had to have some kind of campaign around that. We definitely did, but I'm curious, I mean, Jessica, you're Maybe I should be asking you the question,'cause you've already in twenty states and four provinces, and I'm just curious, like What problem are you?

9:23 running into are you finding that just like It's only working in the Toronto area and you're and you're struggling to get traction in these other places, or are some more successful than others? And how have you been doing it so far? Great question. So we I decided to start a travel company January twenty twenty, like right before COVID. And After covet everything shut down and but then staycations and like traveling locally became um a little bit more popular and Ontario grew like crazy. Like it was uh COVID was really a catalyst for our growth, and we grew so organically. I started this company with an eighty dollar printer. Um and

9:58 Right now, Ontario is doing about eighty percent of our sales. So while we've launched in these different areas, we're just not seeing the same kind of growth that we see in Ontario. That it keeps on doubling year after year. Um, but we're not seeing that same type of growth. in these other regions. Any clues why? Like do you do you have any sense of what's happening or any any like Hypotheses. Um, I think I mean certain some regions just aren't very road tripable. We've learned that very quickly. Um I also think we're just not there physically. And every time we launch, we've had some successful launches where we get a ton of content creators on board. Um, and then when we launch, we make that money back like

10:40 you know, within a few hours, which is great. And then we've tried that exact same approach with other markets, and it doesn't seem to do well. We've hired some PR companies, um, we've ran a lot of ads, and we're just finding that some markets stick, some don't. And with our budget, I mean we have a budget of about twenty thousand dollars when we're launching, where do we put that money? Because influencers are expensive, meta's expensive, everything's expensive. Well, in Hinge's day, we started Originally in Washington, D C there was a lot of movement between like D C and New York. And so people in New York would start to hear about it, but we wouldn't let anyone in uh until because we had such a network effects product until we had a wait list of a few thousand people waiting to get in and then we would throw a launch party

11:23 Invite everyone there, make sure everyone saw each other using it, talking about it. Try to build like a Tipping point. uh like release all the energy at once. And then use that to get the New York market going, and then people start hearing about San Francisco and we kinda just kept

11:38 moving like that. And so I just wonder Given yours is also It's kind of a new Category. It's not something that people you probably don't have a lot of competitors who are also doing surprise road trip packages. We've had some copycat, but we're the main

11:55 The made ones. Yeah. And so it's something that people really have to get their head around, have to see other people using to like think of as a So I just wonder ways that you can 'Cause it sounds like you had a lot of focus on your initial market in Ontario. And And then you probably got that critical mass of people doing it, their friends doing it, everyone's kind of doing it once, and then it built that.

12:17 sense that this is a category. And I was very naive. thinking, oh, it can I can grow it to this very organically. And so launching in these other areas, I'm like, oh it's just gonna grow organically. And it obviously has not been the case. Yeah, and and we have this principle and hinge of kind of depth over breadth. And we always know it's hard to try to cover up for weakness by just like expanding more like oh like that market's not working let's just launch more markets so thinking thinking like okay we got one market going how do we get our second market going like what's the next ripest interesting market and then putting all your focus there getting the learnings and then launching your third market versus kind of launching twenty markets and then suddenly realizing you spread yourself

12:57 So thin. And you're t you've you've got like twenty different markets kind of working. And we have totally done that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I wonder, um Jessica I if you have a way to incentivize or offer

13:13 some kind of rewards to people who post about their experience online on social media because especially new markets. I think about Sarah Blakely when she started Spanks, okay. She got uh an opportunity to go Neiman Marcus. And so she, you know, had to sell spanks there. And who's gonna buy the one who knew what they were. Pantyhose with no feet, you know, right? She literally

13:35 paid friends to go and buy spakes. Off the shelves. I mean she spent her own money buying her own product. And eventually it turned into Spanx, right? Because she needed to get some momentum. I mean, is there a world where you can send friends?

13:51 Just have them do it and have them just post. Constantly throughout the day. That's a great point. We're not we're doing something we just started it this week where we're reaching out to these meetup groups and day trip groups, where I'm like I will give you all I will give everyone in this group. A free trip if you post about your experience after. Because I think we were so focused on those big influencers. So now we're kind of rethinking that strategy and just um really focusing on those nano influencers or just people who like to go out and post about their experience and they don't have much of a following. Um so that's what we actually just started to do.

14:28 What one other quick question for you. How confident are you that the product is as good in these other markets? as it is in Ontario, the market that I guess you know How much do you invest in making sure that The one in Connecticut. Is

14:43 Just as good. That's a great Question. I mean when we're launching, we go down there and test out the truths, we talk to locals, we talk to like destination marketing organizations, and then we pay smaller influencers just to test the trip to get their feedback. Um I've personally done most of the trips um between my team, we've done all of the trips multiple times and they are great. Um we are seeing like more growth in like the Midwest area. So we're realizing places that have more traffic, like Miami, New York City might not be as desirable to do these these trips.

15:14 Takes forever to get out of New York City. The whole the half the road trip is just trying to get, you know, through the Holland Tunnel. LA too. Yeah. Jessica off the company's called Guessware Trips. Thanks for calling in. Good luck. Thanks so much. Um, I know you've got children, Justin. When you travel, do you like spontaneity or do you do you like to plan?

15:33 Uh We figured out that the right balance for us. I I call it like light structure. Like you plan one thing a day. So you anchor on something, but then you leave lots of room for spontaneity and flexibility, and you never know you might meet someone who has an idea that you know and you end up somewhere different than you thought you originally would. I I'm definitely someone who likes As you could imagine.

15:56 Risk, adventure, and unpredictability. Alright, we're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back with another collar and another round of advice. Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Roz, and my guest today is Justin McCloud. He's the founder and CEO of the popular dating app Hinge. And we are taking your calls, let's bring in our next caller. Uh hello, welcome to the advice line. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and uh one line about your business, please.

16:38 Hello guy, hello Justin, my name is Nick Kelly. I'm calling in from Auckland, New Zealand, and I'm the founder of Framework Doors. We were sit up. About a little over a year ago. Uh and our mission is to radically transform people's relationships with their homes. By providing beautiful peace of mind.

16:55 via thoughtfully designed steel security doors. Welcome to the show. Thank you for calling in, Nick. happy that we have got listeners in Auckland. I know we do. So these are doors I'm I framework doors, these are like steel door that you can lock, but you can leave your main door open, I guess, so you can allow Exactly, yep. So it's it's a similar sort of form to

17:18 Um aluminium screen doors, barrier doors, which are common around the world. Uh these doors install and lock directly into the existing frame of the door. as you say guy allows you to open up your home without compromising security. So if it's a beautiful day Uh, perhaps you wanna invite a little bit of breeze through or perhaps you have dogs that are inclined to explore or little ones that like to wander. Um

17:42 then These doors are a great option for you. And they I should just'cause we're describing this, right? The they're like you can see through them. They're they're like wrought iron design to and these are very steel. They're very common and like the Mediterranean or the Middle East have seen these all over the world in in particular warm climates where people want to keep their doors open, but they don't want to allow anybody to walk in. So it's a locked

18:06 kind of gate essentially. That swings open and closed like a door. Right. And tell me what you why you decided to get into this and what you wanted to bring to it that would be different. Yeah, so I have worked most of my career uh in advertising and production companies here in New Zealand. Uh I was in Sydney, Australia for About six years prior to that.

18:27 A little over twelve months ago I I I actually found myself out of a job and I had lived for a number of years in Sydney in Australia and my wife and I had been really impressed by this beautiful wrought iron door that we had at our home in in Sydney. Um two big dogs, you know, very enthusiastic any time someone comes to the door and we were like, This is you know, these doors are amazing. When we moved back to New Zealand we found that

18:52 It was Essentially no one really in the space that was offering a similar sort of product. If they were, it was mainly communicating the sort of More functional.

19:03 No one was really Building a brand or telling a story. And I thought hey, this is an opportunity here. Could be have a really broad appeal. And you're making them in New Zealand?

19:14 We are indeed. It's all locally made. We've got a couple of different Fabrication teams here in Auckland. Um which is great. It means that we can stay really close to the process. There's no reliance on overseas. And your ambition it sounds like is to m remain mainly in Auckland or mainly in New Zealand? Well, look, I feel like I've seen what success looks like. Having lived overseas these doors are so common, you know. I feel like the opportunity

19:40 If I could Set myself up here and build the product and build the brand then There's no reason why I couldn't elevate this and Take this.

19:49 Further apart, whether it's franchising, take it overseas. Yep. And tell us uh what your question is for us today. So My question today relates to Word of mouth in terms of driving

20:01 interest inquiries and sales. I think from an instincts and an experience point of view I have a pretty good grasp of marketing and brand building fundamentals. But my question relates to Driving

20:13 word of mouth, how to accelerate the level of conversation And drive inquiry. Got it. Okay. Justin McLeod. We've got framework doors here. Um questions, thoughts, ideas.

20:26 Sure. Yeah, so you think about word of mouth, I mean that's how hinge has primarily grown um building a good product and people using it and then telling their friends about it. Luckily though we're in dating, which people talk about all the time without me needing to prompt them. uh steel front door is probably less less so brunch conversation usually. And so the question is how can you create

20:49 moments. For people who do buy your product. For them to talk about it. In my mind, there's kind of like two moments. One is the delivery moment, some unreasonable hospitality kind of moment that gets people so excited that they they get something they didn't expect. I recently used a

21:05 furniture rental company because I need a little stop gap for furniture for a place. And they delivered a little handwritten note and a house plant, which I didn't order. But they just had like a nice little succulent plan as like a home warming kind of um gift. And It just made me Like, think about them. It like raised my Like it m made me want to tell people about like the overall experience'cause it put such a nice touch on it.

21:28 And then by the way, the other moment is Every time someone walks through your front door. because this the there people are gonna experience it for the first time. And if there's a way to Call out. something that you could give people that would make them

21:41 sort of remember to talk about how great it is to have a a door like this, like a little hand bell instead of a doorbell that you can ring that you attach to the outside or or just something that makes people like trigger to to talk about their experience. Yeah. I mean to your question about how do you drive a conversation or word of mouth around this product, I mean these are Look, it's this is not a mass consumer product, right? This is something that is it is kind of niche and that's okay. You can still build a significant and great business around a product that only some people want or have. But I think what you we might want to try to do is maybe when you sell one

22:18 To a customer. you offer them the opportunity to buy a second one for their backdoor at a significantly reduced rate if they refer an a a new client to you. I love it. Yep, that's really great. I mean you're selling these one at a time. I'm sure you're connected to each person who buys these things. I would I would hop on the call with them and say, look, our business depends on On our customers. telling people how much they love these things and how much it's improved their lives and their home.

22:44 If you're willing to, you know Do a testimony, even a testimonial on the website could be helpful, you know, or here's what people are saying. Things like that could be useful. Um get your customers talking about how they're using this, how it's improved their lives. Um but I think it it's really it's One person at a time, it's one customer at a time and getting that customer to be a force multiplier, as the military says.

23:09 Yeah. Yeah, I think that's totally right. Imagining those little little coupons and certificates like the kind of give a hundred, get a hundred, or give two hundred, get get two hundred. Um when you deliver. Yeah, I also think that there's a world where you might see if you can partner with an outdoor garden s kind of store'cause Strikes me that people who who put would be particularly interested in this are are people who obviously like the outdoors and probably garden.

23:33 or like to see their garden or like to see right what's in front of their house. So I wonder if there's a way to also integrate this idea with a a home gardening supply store in Auckland and see if you can partner with them and and maybe maybe just brochures. Yeah. We do a lot of letter dropping, uh door knocking. you know I've sort of canvassed a whole lot of the central suburbs and and and it really is just a kind of a it w one door at a time, one home at a time, you know, and and what's great about

24:02 these doors as you can kind of see straight away from the get go, whether or not they're a they're a they're a potential consumer. If they don't, then it's great. You can chat to them. Yeah. Can you set up by the way, could you set up like a mobile version of this, like you know, uh door frame that you can stick on the back of a truck with a relatively lightweight door And one of these frames and then you could set it up at you know a a county fair or or somewhere where you're allowed to display it so people can see how it actually works.

24:34 Definitely, I'd love to do that. I've sort of thought about, you know, what would the experience at a trade show be. We haven't done trade shows yet. But I'd love to create that sense of being in a home and having one of these doors and you know Perhaps creating a nice scene of imagine what it would be like to have one of these at your home

24:52 Um similarly. you know, you've talked about having um one of these doors and actually getting people interacting with them. That's the that's great. And then one more idea I had for you, Nick, which is it's very American. I don't know if New Zealanders are this um obnoxious like we are, but you know, and and American homes it often says the family's name, like you know, the Kelly family. You're Nick Kelly, right? Uh so could you is there a world where maybe you offer a customized one where sort of the Kelly family is is integrated into the the design? of these doors. So you know that, you know, you're being welcomed into the Kelly home when you see it.

25:28 Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a lot of customization there. I think also opportunities to colour the doors, you know, different Yeah. um name finishings I feel like there is a There's a huge opportunity to really develop the product. Uh, once I've kind of built the foundation of it, then that'll be that'll be a really great growth opportunity. Yeah, anything that makes it striking and generates conversation when someone walks in the door.

25:53 Is Well obviously help word of mouth. Absolutely. For sure. Nick Kelly the Your company is called Framework Doors. Good luck. Thanks for calling in.

26:02 Thank you so much, guys. Appreciate your time. Cheers. Thanks. Uh you can't do that in New York City in your apartment there,'cause you live in an apartment probably, right? I live in an apartment. Yeah. And you don't really want your door open and your neighbors walking by and looking in your apartment and

26:18 You know, being nosy. Yeah, I think it's a good thing. Yeah. Yeah, it's I don't think New York City's a smart butt but luckily he's in New Zealand. Alright, we're gonna take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another collar. Stay with us.

26:33 I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking calls with Hinge founder and CEO Justin McLeod. And let's bring in our next caller. Welcome to the Vice Line. Tell us your name a little bit about your business and uh and oh and where you're calling from. Yeah, Guy and Justin, thank you so much for having me on the show.

27:13 My name's Chandler Whittington. I am calling from the land of Ten Thousand Lakes in Victoria, Minnesota. I am the founder of Archive Twenty Two. where I'm a licensed artist for the United States Golf Association PG of America. And the National Hockey League.

27:28 Through the use of logos, my hand drawn artwork celebrates the history of golf and hockey. I think what makes my art work unique is especially in the golf space I've been able to negotiate and license pieces of artwork which have never been done or even attempted before. Got it. Okay, Chandler, thanks for calling in. Welcome to the show. All right, Archive Twenty Two. So basically, if I understand correctly, you do hand drawn

27:51 sort of posters. Of golf. Like the logos of the golf clubs. I I covered the championships for golf, so We're talking about the US Open, the PGA championship, and the Ryder Cup.

28:03 And to answer your question, really the logos of the clubs that have held those tournaments. And then also the names of the champions that have won them. So it's it's a bit of a history lesson. And these are po these are frame posters. I'm looking your website now, they're frame posters. You also do stuff with the NHL. Frame posters of the logos of these clubs and then also frame posters of NHL uh team logos and and you draw these all by hand.

28:26 We draw'em all by hand. Yeah, this was a project that started for me back in two thousand eighteen. Um, at the time I was a golf professional. I've been a golf professional for twenty years. Um I had a great life. Um, I loved my job and for ten years I was the head golf professional at Hazelton National. Here in Minnesota. Uh, this was just two years.

28:46 After we had held the Ryder Cup, which is a a global tournament. And uh two years after that, um, we d we welcomed our third daughter into the world and following the delivery of that, uh my wife suffered uh pulmonary embolism. Uh, which is a blood clot in the lungs. Uh thankfully we were able to catch it when we did. Uh but that's really that winter I stay close to home. Um I got the drawing board out again.

29:09 Growing up, I want to be an architect and I kinda put it away for twenty years. And that winter I just started drawing things that I wanted to have in my office. And that's where it all began. That's amazing. So you h you draw these yourself and and now you're selling these posters, these frame posters direct to consumer online. Um and before we get a bit more into your story, tell us what your question is. Yeah, I think we're three years into it. Uh we're doing rather well.

29:32 But you know, three years in, I would say we haven't replaced the income that I made as a head call professional, to put that in perspective. Um but we're a bootstrap company. And three years in, we're we're getting by um largely from our sales, not only just online, but at golf championships. I'll be at the US Open next week in Pittsburgh. Um but I think where we could really Use some help is

29:54 I do really well. when I go to a championship like next week at the US Open when I get to engage customers and tell our story. I'll Sometimes get. thirty to sixty seconds or longer to engage with them. But we know how fast society moves, especially online when people are scrolling.

30:10 is how do I really get them to understand who we are in a very short amount of time. All right, got it. Okay, let me bring in um Justin. Justin, first of all, any questions for Chandler about Archive Twenty Two? Yeah, a couple. One. to have this face to face interaction when you're at golf tournaments and I'm curious

30:28 Is there a Like a hook or a moment or something that you say. But People like get it, they light up and that makes them wanna buy. Like what is it that you're trying to communicate? I think when people first look at it at championships, they'll come up, they'll survey the war the artwork and they'll kinda get within my blast radius and I'll say, If you give me ten seconds, I'll give you the quick story.

30:50 And really what I'm trying to convey to them is one, uh who I am. Uh, thankfully the Hazel team logo is on each piece of the artwork. So I get to kinda point the logo, explain that I was a golf professional for a long time. that I started drawing these for my o my office. I wanted to have things in my office that when people came in would just get us talking and connecting about mutual interest. And really also the the process that it's hand drawn.

31:11 And that it's also the first time that all these clubs have agreed to be on the same piece of paper, which was a process that took well over a year. And your typical customer is Is who? Well, we're at the golf championships, it's golf fanatics. It's people that are gonna go play a lot of these, you know, that love the sport. It's interesting'cause I I I'm on your website and I'm looking at it and it

31:29 I just noticed that your The story that you tell just doesn't come back. Through. I mean the first thing that comes to mind is that These kind of zoomed out photos of your of your posters.

31:40 And I can't tell they're hand drawn, like from this distance. As I look through them, it just looks like Posters with little images on them. in your story about you and who you are. people connecting over these posters and and creating conversation.

31:56 The fact that you're the only uh licensed illustrator that has l you know relationships with all of these clubs. To me, like almost none of that comes through when I hit your Website. So I just wonder how you can take each of those threads that really catch your your customers when you have them in person and bring those to life. Like a

32:17 A much more zoomed in image. of the hand drawn like y y like a picture of you Drawing the And and sort of the your process for how handcrafted these are and how unique they are.

32:30 Yeah, I would I would just sort of double down on that, Chandler. I mean, I think that your personal story is uh is certainly compelling and interesting, but I think the reality is When it comes to selling the product, it has to be the fans story. That's really what matters. Like w what is it about These posters that bring them to that place. Their passion for a club

32:51 where the US Open or the Ryder Cup was held, you know, their passion for golf. This is something that they're gonna put up in, you know I'm imagining around a pool table in their house or sort of like a man cave, you know, kind of place, right? Or around the bar where they might be serving drinks. My brother in law has tons of these sports memorabilia posters. in his house where he's got a pool table and You know, one really cool thing that he has and one idea I I I I wanted to kinda bring up, which was A lot of what he has are signed.

33:22 by atles. And I wonder if there's a way for you to to sort of think about creating or integrating what you're doing. With

33:31 those signatures, you know, the signatures of of golfers. Um, is there something like that that you might be able to do? I think there is. We just haven't gone down that road yet. Um the gentleman who won the two thousand twenty four US Open was Bryson D.Champeau. And we learn later that when he went through Pine Hurst this was the one thing that he purchased. Uh from the club because his name was on it. So it's hanging in his house. Uh we need to kinda go down that road. To your point, it's it's what would elevate it and separate it from the rest.

33:59 Yeah. I think he's onto something in terms of Especially because it seems like most of your posters are like histories of every single tournament, but if you started focusing them more on an individual tournament, especially the tournament that you're at right now selling.

34:12 You also get to repeat customers of like buying you know, a new poster for each tournament. And then also, by the way, if if the we most recent US Open winner bought your poster, like I don't I'd find some way to to be able to advertise that. And

34:28 And show that. as well. Cause that's gonna be obviously a major influencer for the community that you're selling to. Yeah, the other thing I would say, Chandler, again, you know, the story is about the fans connection to the team. You know, if people love the Detroit Red Wings or the Montreal Canadians or w the New York Rangers or whoever. I wonder whether you can also fairly easily, and I think you could Offer things like T shirts.

34:53 Print these on. You know, maybe hats. with the logos or I mean Other sort of product lines that people could start to kind of if they're not yet ready to commit to a poster because it might be a bit more expensive, maybe a hat. Maybe uh apparel. Is that something that you've you thought about?

35:10 We have and I think it's we're we're trying to just be successful one thing at a time. So let's be successful paper Then let's figure out what apparel looks like. But we've had that conversation about taking some of the designs, especially with the NHL. Putting them on the back of T shirts um that tell a story. Um, one thing I think we know the power of logos is that when we see a logo on another person, you know, if I were to

35:31 See Justin wearing the Colgate logo, for example, I'd say Hey, Justin, you know my my brother in law, Drew Lane, actually went to Colgate. Um You know. Small chance that you know'em. So logos do that and we know that. Um, but when people get to wear them outside of the house, not just be on the walls of your apartment.

35:47 uh your studio or wherever you are. that's really how you kinda find your people and I mean look Justin's doing that with Hinge. It's when all the interests are laid out, um that's how you get people to find each other. Yeah. Awesome.

35:59 Oh Chandler. Good luck with Archive Twenty Two. Thanks so much for calling in. Congrats on on so on what you've done so far and keep us posted. Thanks, guys. Appreciate the advice and the help. Thanks, Chandler. I think that yeah, I mean golfers are super passionate. Right. And and now that he's uh in hockey, I mean that's also like people obviously it's a in the you know, massive fan base. But I I think that if he can get this on other things

36:23 Besides posters, Even though the poster is the sort of the core of the hero product. It could be an interesting Yeah. I was almost thinking in the opposite direction, because they're they're hand drawn, they're almost pieces of art, and I'm looking at his price point and these things are like seventy-five dollars.

36:40 And Do these become limited editions. I don't know exactly what his volume is, but Uh knowing that you have you know, print number two seventy three of five hundred, and actually it's like a two hundred and fifty dollar price point or a three hundred dollar price point. That's interesting. Yeah. That could be interesting too.

36:57 I'm Justin, before I let you go, question I ask everybody who who joins me as a guest on the show, what if you could go back now to where when you started out your career and you could you know with the the perspective you have, what what would have been helpful for you to know or what advice might you give yourself. Well, maybe some meta advice for the show, but I think I would have asked for more advice. I think I was someone who always just thought I could.

37:20 figure these things out and always wanted to figure it out m my way from first principles and and learned over time that so many people Like I had to go through so many failures and learnings to realize now that like the gems that I'm just handing to you because you asked me. And I think I would have just asked. Like gotten a lot more mentors and asked a lot more questions and gotten a lot more curious earlier. Jessica Cloud.

37:42 Uh, thank you so much for for joining me this week. It's great having you on. Thanks for having me. That's Justin McLeod, founder and CEO of Hinge. And by the way, if you haven't heard Justin's original How I Built This Episode, uh, you gotta go back and check it out. It's a great episode. Awesome story with a great um plot twist, so check it out. Um and here's one of my favorite moments from that interview. When we did the relaunch, you know, my first instinct was obviously to like

38:06 So I was talking to every V C But No one will give me money. Wow, I mean I was begging. Yeah. I had this like one investor that was really holding out for

38:17 And I remember the partner at the VC firm called me and She was like, you know. We've never seen a company. That was cool. And then went away.

38:28 And then was able to come back. And we just Can't do it. Wow. And I was like Timberlands? Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week, and by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at guyroz.com or on Substack.

38:46 And of course, if you are working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues that you're currently facing, because we would love to try and help you solve them. You can send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com. Or call us at 1800-433-1945. one two nine eight. Leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you, and we'll put all of this information in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Casey Herman with music composed by Ramptina Rablui.

39:22 It was edited by Andrea Bruce and our audio engineer was Cina Lafredo. Our production team also includes Alex Chung, Elaine Coates, Catherine Seifer, Carrie Thomson, Carla Estevez, Sam Paulson, JC Howard, and Neva Grant. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to the advice line. on how I built this lab.

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