Build-A-Bear: Maxine Clark. A Former Shoe Executive Launches a Stuffed Animal Empire

0:06 to imagine there were some people maybe they didn't say it to you? Who thought this was so weird? Maxine Clark, the lady who ran payless? Like. Is starting a stuffed animal. Like.

0:18 What is she thinking? Is she nuts? Like I just have to imagine? People were saying that. Maybe behind your back. No, they said it to me. They weren't shy.

0:36 Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements. They built. I'm Guy Roz and on the show today, how a fruitless search for a beanie baby inspired Maxine Clark to start Build A Bear, a make your own stuffed animal store that grew into a global phenomenon. In nineteen ninety two, an article in Forbes magazine pointed out that of all the top positions in Fortune five hundred companies, Only five percent were held by women.

1:14 Which makes today's guest, Maxine Clark, kind of a pioneer. Because that year, nineteen ninety two, she became the president of Payless Shoes, which at the time was a fast growing subsidiary of a Fortune five hundred company. The May department stores company. Up until that point, Maxine had spent her entire career working for the May Company. It was a huge sprawling empire, one of the largest department store chains in America.

1:43 Maxine was forty-three years old and at the top of her game. And just four years later. Maxine decided to give it all up. The prestige, the salary, and the perks. to go out on our own.

1:56 So you might assume she'd try and launch a new fashion concept or a footwear brand or something related to what department stores generally sold. But instead Maxine came up with a concept that seemed out of left field, a store that would allow kids to build their own stuffed animal. Now there were plenty of people who couldn't really understand how this idea would scale. But Maxine knew two things about kids.

2:23 They loved stuffed animals and they loved craft projects. She opened the first build-a-bear store in St. Louis in late 1997. And within five years, Build Abear had 100 stores and malls across America. Over the next twenty years, as shopping malls went into decline, Build a bear managed not only to survive, but in many cases, to become the reason kids wanted to go to the mall.

2:51 Today there are hundreds of build-a-bear stores around the US and a thriving online business. And that's saying a lot for a brand that's often been written off as a fad. Last year The company reported over half a billion dollars in sales. All from kids wanting to stuff and dress and personalize their own teddy bear.

3:12 As for Maxine She grew up in the nineteen fifties and sixties in Carl Gables, Florida. Her dad was an electrician and her mom was a social worker who, during the 1940s, was actually a secretary for the first lady. Eleanor Roosevelt. My mother was hired into the typing pool.

3:29 in Albany when she was the the first lady of New York. Um And Eleanor took my mother with her to D C because my mother was a very fast typist and also a very f a very um fast stenographer. And my mother also invented her own form of stenography so that nobody el job security but also because things Eleanor told her were very confidential and so she kept a record of those, but she didn't want anybody else to read them. So she was in Washington, D C also and my mother was on her traveling team. Yeah. And they went to places to see

4:02 what was going on in the country so she could share it with Franklin'cause he couldn't travel like that. And they went to asylums and they went to hospitals and they went to orphanages. And they saw how poorly People were treated. And her

4:16 dictate to the people when when Franklin died to my mother and other women on her staff or when you're going home to settle wherever you're going to be. uh do something that's going to change the lives of the children and the families that we saw. on our travels. And so that's what exactly what my mother did. Mm-hmm. Basically um She and three of her friends ran a school for children with Down syndrome. That was what they did when after Eleanor Roosevelt

4:40 And so She wasn't making a lot of money. She was basically still being a secretary, an organizer, an advocate. for children with that were differently able. Yeah. Given that your mom

4:51 you know, had worked for Ellen Roosevelt for almost fifteen years, or maybe maybe about fifteen years, and and and sounds like she was very into social justice and was probably a very committed sort of New Deal Democrat. I imagine she probably worshipped the Roosevelt, right? Mm-hmm. You know, you're growing up in the sixties. This is the civil rights era, right? You've got all kinds of things happening. Was your mom did she get involved in some of that?

5:18 Some of those protests d did she ever bring you along? Yes. When I was sixteen My mother we went on the bus from Miami to Salm Alabama. And we m marched in Selma, Alabama, but we were in the way in the back of the line.

5:32 I had no idea. the impact that that would have on my life or on America's life. No idea whatsoever. And that I was so appreciative of my mother exposing me uh to such incredible opportunity. Yeah. But my mother was not a doting mother. I mean she was not that kind of person, but she would uh definitely encourage it. You know, you can be anything that you want to be.

5:54 And I don't think she felt she could be anything that she wanted to be, but she loved what she did. Hm. I'm I know that that you studied journalism at the University of Georgia in the nineteen sixties, and I I guess you originally Thought about becoming a civil rights lawyer and and I I read that you actually moved to Washington, D C after college with the intention of going to law school, but

6:14 Somehow your I guess your plans got sidetracked because you decided to earn some money and You went and worked for departments, or what what's the story? Yes. I got a job at the executive training program at at the it had company in Washington D C, but that was an interesting story.

6:30 They told me that They were all filled. But

6:36 I wanted to work at the heck company. I don't you know, it's like how how random things happen to you, but I wanted to work there. And I walk back down there and I told them I had an interview at two o'clock or whatever time it was. I did not have an interview at two o'clock. But they would see if somebody would meet with me. and Stanley Mont was his name. He was a very tall man.

6:56 He said, Well let me take you for a cup of coffee. We you know, w we went into the ca into the restaurant and it was empty. It it was after lunch around two o'clock. And um A man comes in, a bald headed man, kind of uh heavy set. And he sits down at our table and he introduces himself as Alan Bluestein. And he said, Hi, I'm Alan Bluestein. What's your name? And I told him my name. And he said, tell me about yourself. And I told him about myself and um when he got up from the table, he said to Stanley Mott, I don't know how many people you have in that training class, hire her and pay her$150 more a month than you paid the last person.

7:31 And so I had a job. I think part of it was that I wasn't afraid I wasn't on an interview. I was just talking to a nice man. I did not know he was the president of the company. At the time. Uh the president of that division of the head company. And I just was myself.

7:45 So you Uh. You know, you get this meeting with this guy Stanley Mott, who's running Hecht. He's running HR. He was the HR guy. HR, right. And Alan Bluestein is the head of Hects, which is this mid Atlantic. Yes. And he he happens to come to the lunch and sees you and says hire this kid. Yes.

8:04 Yes. And I I lucked out on that'cause when I walked into the store It wasn't as fancy as Woodward and Lothrop or Garfinkels and I wasn't a fancy person. Right. I thought I could really help. 'cause I was very tuned into the consumer.

8:18 I was the consumer. I was this young working woman coming to work. I needed everything. I had nothing. I didn't have furniture in my apartment. I didn't have clothes to wear to work. I had to buy everything. And I didn't not have a lot of money to do it with. And the heck company was just coming into its own. Alan Bluestein, who was the president, was a very creative guy also, and he took to me You know, it's like just really a nice guy. I didn't think of him as he's the boss and I better, you know, stand up straight and You know.

8:43 I I didn't think I wasn't intimidated. And part of that was also my upbringing because while my father and mother were not unusually successful people. They had friends that were successful. Mm-hmm. And that w I was around those people. And so I saw what what success looks like in it. I wasn't as intimidated.

9:00 I was I was comfortable actually and I was a student, always a student, listening and and learning and taking notes in my head. Um so you are So you get this job and you're not gonna be a sales rep on the floor of a hect's store, right? You're trained to work in in like

9:18 purchasing or marketing, right? You're trained to be an executive. So what what were you learning how to do. I was an executive trainee to be an assistant buyer to a buyer. And the buyer that I had he got ill early in my career, very early in my

9:34 tenure there. And I had to fill in for him. Wow. And all the people that He sold to

9:40 that sold to him, the m manufacturers were so worried that I was gonna destroy I'm sure this was what they were thinking. She'll destroy the department. What did I know? I was just Two months out of college. And so they helped me. They wanted him to be successful and in turn made me successful. And I um I learned so much from that.

9:58 scary, very scary nine months of time that I you know was b basically just pulling things out of a hat. My gut was it was my gut instincts that were leading me. Yeah. Uh they had no idea uh what a soak up a sponge I was And I love data. And I loved digging in. I I I wanted to be successful. I wanted to do it. I loved it. I loved being around clothing and apparel. I loved it far more than I could have imagined and I was good at I was better at it than I could have imagined also.

10:27 Yeah, I'm I'm curious. I mean, you clearly are digging into this and digging into what And I imagine I mean You know. You

10:39 Where you had to learn about different product lines and things that you were not as familiar with, but I guess probably you na naturally you knew like women's apparel'cause you're a woman and you wore clothing. Did did you eventu I mean or was that what you were focused on, or did you kind of eventually move in that direction? No, I that's what I was focused on. Right. Because I really needed to buy clothes for work and there wasn't anything that I would even want to wear. You know, it was like really ugly and very masculine influenced. Um yeah, little bow ties, you know, suits. And then I got curious as to when people did buy in my department, where else were they buying?

11:15 What else did they go what else went with it? And one of the s the good things at that time was that every s department store had its own credit card. Yeah. And so I went to Silver Spring, Maryland, where we had the um our our credit card offices and I started plotting out on my big league green legal pad. How w when somebody bought something in my department, what else did they buy? What was the shoes they went with it? And then I started looking at what they did in the first three months that they

11:40 It was just eye opening and I I was so excited it was like I discovered gold. And I came back to show my boss's boss. What I had decovered. And I said, I think we have something here that we could

11:52 And use vendor money, co op advertising to Get it in the customers' hands. He said, If you can sell the advertising, good go for it. when I came in on a Monday morning after we dropped the catalog

12:06 the ladies in the call center and there were these old ladies that worked in a call center real on a real telephones. She they said, You're in trouble. And I said, What do you mean I'm in trouble? And he said, Well, I think you sold out of everything that was in this catalog already,'cause that's all the call we've gotten all weekend long. Yeah and because I was successful My boss's boss and the boss in Saint Louis and People n it was it was noticeable. The results that's what I tell people, get a job where your results are you can take credit for your results because I was in a position where those results were catching attention.

12:38 Okay, so you're clearly on the up and up at Hecks. Um and and about four and a half years after you start working for the company, um I guess you get an opportunity to go work for the parent company, uh for for May Department stores in Saint Louis, which is their headquarters. And that I mean, that must have been exciting because I mean now you're gonna be I mean, this you know, this looks like it's a career, right? I mean it I mean it seems like You had put law school on hold

13:04 Because you had this opportunity. So I mean, I imagine you liked it, right? Were were you happy with the job? I definitely loved it. Mostly I worked for the CEO of the company. And I got to travel all around to all the different divisions of the May Company. I also got to work on acquisitions.

13:21 Which required some knowledge of legal And I would take it to our legal department and they would explain to me about it, what I had to do, what I needed to think about and um I kept getting promoted to one of the divisions. I got uh I was involved in the acquisition of the volume shoe company for the May Company. And I think that not too long after that they promoted me to be to go to Venture Stores, which was our discount store division.

13:46 to be a merchandise man uh to be the head of marketing for venture stores. And that was a whole new experience too because I had not been over a marketing department. Um that was a a really interesting business because we were creating fashion at an affordable price points. And uh that was where I met my husband'cause my husband worked at at th that division.

14:06 And then But this point. Yeah. Um pretty high up in the in the chain of a division and probably on a track to go run a a big division uh someday. And that division became Pay Less Shoes eventually when about ten years later.

14:21 And I got passed over a few times for uh a department store or for Venture stores. But the job that was meant for me was pay less. That was the job that I was supposed to have and I appreciated that after I got it, but not before I was mad that I wasn't

14:36 Getting the other jobs earlier. Payless was the largest division in May Department stores. And they may be the president of Paylist Use Source. Um It was like a family business because I had been part of the acquis team.

14:49 And it was so different than I could have imagined. I would have not imagined myself being in that job. I thought of lesser. divisions, smaller divisions that I would have been running. How many people do you remember that that worked in in at HQ? A couple thousand, probably. Just for payless.

15:04 Yeah, that were between our distribution center that was in Topeka and Payless are a lot of people that work there. It was very um it was it was um a four and a half billion dollar company. I mean two and a half billion dollar company, forty five hundred stores. Okay, so you're so it's like I mean a big comp a lot of bureaucracy, a lot of meetings. Um and and'cause I've read that that you actually

15:28 Didn't love it, you didn't love that job. I didn't love the job because um The further away you get from the customer, the further away you get from the customer. And that's where my juice came from.

15:41 uh being with a customer. Being in the stores. And I knew that This was you know, nineteen ninety two. Retailing was starting to change pretty dramatically. And technology was changing.

15:54 Mm. And May Company was not a forerunner th they were not at the future of technology. In fact, we weren't allowed to email anybody out of the company. Only inside the company. I think there was a worry about trade secrets getting out or something, and I knew that. this technology, I didn't have to do those spreadsheets anymore. I could use Excel. You know, this was like really

16:14 Why are we not using this technology? I was starting to see that my v vision for what I wanted to do and could do was getting out ahead of where May Company was. And I did know that they wanted to take pay less public. And I did not want to be the CEO of a Payless in Topekee, Kansas, the rest of my life. You know, I d I didn't. I I decided that I would take my money and I would go back home and I would figure out My next step.

16:37 So what were you thinking of doing? uh maybe working for somebody else, maybe starting my own company. I did not have any idea what it would be. There was a long uh runway still. And I Uh, had learned a lot, been a lot, been to many Uh many vendors knew how to do a lot of things I'd never had to didn't know to do twenty years before.

16:56 And um was thinking about what could we do to reinvent retail. And um I didn't know, but I did think it was gonna be something I was g if I was gonna open a business was gonna be something For children. Because

17:07 This computer stuff was happening pretty quickly. And I was afraid that kids would not remember what a retail store was like, uh and have those experiences with their parents. that I had with my mother just looking in the windows even. And so um I came back to Saint Louis to kinda get my kid think back.

17:26 And I don't have children, but I immerse myself with my friend's kids. And I spent This is my my kid think, you know, when you're a little kid and your mother says you can't do this Why not, Mommy?

17:37 You just can't. Well, I think I had too much of that, because corporate life is like that. You can't do that. You can't spend that money. You can't build that store there. You can't, you can't, you can't. I wanted to get my kid think, yes you can, yes you can back. And it was the beginning of the technology in this country. And I knew that was going to be something really exciting. Uh I had a couple of business ideas around that technology, by the way, for children. Um and I I needed the time to go and investigate some of these things. So tell me just

18:05 What were some of the ideas that you Well, part of it was customer service, you know, like how do we teach children, how do we treat them Like they're really valuable to us is in society and also in their retail experiences.

18:20 I had this idea that we could use technology to do so. Like we would create a store um that would might be a super duper learning store that when the child walked in the store, The store would say hello to them. but it would know them because they had a they had a uh a membership card. They were a member in the store and would say, Hi John, how are you? When you walked over to the book department it would say, Did you enjoy Harry Potter? And when I looked into it more, I realized we couldn't really do that'cause of Copa and all these, you know, security things. But there was the technology was there to do it. So I just kept thinking about what can I do to make the experience for children more personal. Yeah. And I immersed myself with my friend's kids.

18:58 to kinda get their point of view. And one day I picked Katie and Jack up, my next door neighbors, up from school. And we went looking they wanted to get stop in a store that had beanie babies, if you remember the beanie baby craze. Sure. And

19:15 The store in our neighborhood, the toy store had a big sign in the window that said, We have beanie babies. But we went in the store, they didn't They were sold out because the parents patrolled the stores all day looking to collect them for their kids and they took the discovery away from the child. And Katie was really sad.

19:32 And Jack he didn't care so much, but Katie said, You know These are so easy. We could make these. She meant go home to my house and do a craft project'cause I had a big room in my basement that was all crafts and the kids loved to come over and do stuff. But I heard something different. The light bulb went on.

19:50 And that was the day that the idea for Build A Bear Workshop was born. Yeah. I knew that kids love field trips, they love knowing how things are made. Yeah. I knew that this w th that she had spouted something Very um Just normal kid. Like just like I did when I was a kid. Just a normal thing that came out of her mouth. But mostly people don't listen to kids.

20:11 I listened to her. And um I could see it'cause I'd been in factories. I knew exactly what it was gonna look like in my head. Willie Wonka. It's like Willie Wonka's chocolate factory. I could see this place where kids could make their own stuffed animals and

20:24 That day that Katie said that. When I told her that, I said, Uh She asked she came upstairs and I was at the computer, What are you doing? And I told her, she said, Well, I didn't mean that. I said, I know you didn't, but I I think it's a really good idea. What do you think? And she said I don't know. Maybe we could do it.

20:39 So you you're really excited about this, and tell me. Like what you do, what what Yeah. I started to look where w whether it existed, whether there was a factory in America making stuffed animals that I could actually buy and retrofit to be customer facing versus a factory, a real factory.

20:57 And um I had a lot of experience in building brands, although they were brands from Bay Company, and I called my friend Adrian Weiss, who is brand builder in Chicago. We'd done many things together. And she loved the idea. And You know it the more I told her, the more she sketched, so to speak. She could hear what I was saying in my voice.

21:15 And It just came out, you know, it er I started writing a business plan, literally a a very detailed business plan of what what I would want if I was this child walking into the store. Because I love stuffed animals. My s my teddy bear. I loved my teddy bear, Teddy was his name. And I took them everywhere with me. And Katie and Jack both had their own bears too when they were little, and they took their bears everywhere.

21:38 And so This was not a new trend. This was not something that is like a trend I had to invent. Kids loving treaddy bears. How could I make it so that kids would be so much more engaged with their stuffed animal and maybe even have more of them. That was the research was my fr

21:54 I really built a board of advisors that were children. The other part of it was that my favorite place to go for all of my birthdays. was to go to Disney World with my friends and the magic growing up with Walt Disney had a huge impact on me. And I thought we could we create

22:12 A version of this In a small way. Something Disney esque. At at a at a mall in in America. Could we do this?

22:22 So you You you start to come up with this idea. And from what I gather you identify a couple of factories in the US that were still making stuffed animals and Uh and I guess you go and visit with the idea that that you would buy those you just buy maybe you th they are for sale, maybe you could buy the factories. Yeah.

22:43 'Cause a lot of the bankers were telling me that if I bought something it would be easier than re you know, inventing it from scratch. That you could use it as collateral. I see. that it would be maybe a better a a faster way to get where I wanted to go. They were wrong about that, but that's what they so I was investigating that. Doing my homework. Competitive shopping.

23:03 I'm trying to figure out why it would make sense, right? I mean, okay, there's a factory in Vermont, there's a factory in California, but you had this idea to have a shop. Where you actually see the process being made. So what would the benefit of owning a factory in Vermont or in In California. be if if you actually wanted a s a sort of a whole experience on site.

23:25 Yeah. I was gonna reinvent that. those companies from being what they were into being a store because they gave tours to people in their factory. They sold teddy bears that they made in those places. So they so their factory was like Yankee Candle or you know, they they they sold bears from their factory. Anyway, I knew if people were going on tours of a factory that made stuffed animals Imagine if it was in their home town what they might do.

23:49 Could we Miniaturize it. Make it Uh feasible to be in a mall. With the right um

23:55 Uh some equipment. you know, like our stuffing machine, make it magical like Willy Wonka. Okay, here's what I'm wondering about. You had this this nineteen ninety six, ninety seven. You had a twenty five year career, right? More. In

24:12 retail, right? Including running one of the biggest shoe brands. In the United States. I'm just wondering. We know what happened, but I'm just going back to nineteen ninety seven. I have to imagine there were some people maybe they didn't say it to you.

24:27 Directly? Who thought this was so weird? Like Wait. Maxine Clark, the lady who ran payless, like

24:35 The the boss of the Bat Vap is starting a stuffed animal Like. What is she thinking? Is she nuts? Like I just have to imagine? People might were saying that, maybe behind your back. No, they said it to me.

24:49 They weren't shy. When we come back in just a moment, Maxine ignores the doubters and starts building the machinery. for Build Abear. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening.

25:15 Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 1997 and Maxine is prepared to sink a big chunk of her savings into a stuffed animal store. And even though a lot of folks are telling her she's kinda nuts, A few people. are warming up to the idea.

25:32 Yeah, it grew on them. So just just sort of an example. When I went to the uh couple of banks to talk to them about a line of credit, I really didn't need their money. But you in order to do this shipping you have to have this line of credit. So at the first they all thought I was crazy. The third or fourth meeting they were wearing teddy bear socks or a teddy bear tie. They were getting in the mode. They started to notice teddy bears in their life more than they maybe had noticed before. And

25:57 I think that it was really an interesting thing because, you know, Ralph Lauren has teddy bears on his cloth on Teddy bear moment. And so it was people were starting to say maybe this is something there's something to this, even though Teddy bears were not our whole product line, only a few of our maybe twenty percent were bears.

26:16 And I was so I had such a detailed business plan. Yeah. You know Uh ten year business plan. And I had a lot of friends in the shopping center business because Payless had stores and shopping centers. I was at shopping s my office was right next to the shopping center people at May Company. I went to the I C S C The I C S C is the Council of Shopping Centers, I think, right? Yes. I talked to people that were very forward thinking, the Simon

26:40 Uh the people that owned Mall of America. Mm-hmm. I just wanna j I just wanna jump in and say Yes, you had incredible experience and contacts because you'd been in the retail business for so long and may, of course. was in the mall business, they had stores in the mall, so like your contact like I I'm just thinking of me as

27:00 As a friend or consultant or a possible investor, I I would have been like yes, Maxine Clark She's the real deal. She's a person I'd want to invest in, but then I would probably say, But Maxine, like You have incredible deep experience, you know the malls, you know retailers, you know the supply chain, you've got contacts and people who want to help you, but I mean

27:21 This seems like a You know, a business that might work for five Ten years at most, like kids are so fickle. You look at toys, one toy lasts for a year or two and they move on. How did you have conviction that that This could be more than just a a a passing fad. The kid in me knew knew this. My favorite thing to do at school. One of my favorite things was going on field trips.

27:47 was going to the bakery, going to the d the the dairy that we made a field trip to. Kids still like doing all these things and they don't get to do it. I mean I wasn't building a big theme park. Right. I was building a store that was a theme park. In a mall. And um

28:00 Mall of America was really successful and and the mall in Canada, West Edmonton Mall that Uh is uh such a big mall. They they all had entertainment features in'em. At Mall of America they had that big Snoopy village, you know, they had all that stuff going on. And retailing was starting to change and and you needed a reason that families were gonna come to the mall. Uh. And this was a reason that p families would come to a mall. But I wasn't you know, there's no guarantees anything. I decided I could invest about a million and a half dollars And if that if it went bust, it went bust. You know, that was it. I didn't have any investors at that at that moment in time.

28:34 And uh I didn't owe anybody anything. And I went to people that I trusted like Adrian Weiss. Adrian Weiss was somebody you knew from May, from the May world. Yes. Well I met her from one of the vendors we did business with, but ultimately we used her in May. And she was a consultant. I think she helped you name the business, right? Yeah. Yes, she did. Well she was one of the people the name came from a our advertising agency in um for paylist. They helped me think of the name, but Adrian loved it too. We it w she could she did all the branding, the logo, the the store design. And she knew people who built stores. She'cause she worked with a lot of it. So she introduced me to the person who actually designed my store, the architect. And then he introduced me to the people that could make the fixtures, who used to make fixtures for theme parks and for

29:17 Mattel and all kinds of people. They sketched out what I wanted. And it was exactly What I envisioned that children would want. And

29:25 Pleasant Roland, who was the founder of of American Girls. American Girl Dolls. Yeah. Yeah. She was she and I were in a women's organization together and I went and talked to her And um She was very helpful, even though she wasn't negative on the idea. She was negative on the idea that I thought boys would do it also. She said boy she says, We've had boy dolls and and the girls buy them.

29:46 So you know, your customer's gonna be all girls. But in the end about it's at least sixty forty now, girls and boys. And uh also it wasn't as young as I thought it was gonna be. Older kids really got into making it. And parents, adults got into making it too, teenagers and older adults and college kids and because the bear The bear itself, a teddy bear a bear is a symbol of I think like fifty percent of the colleges in America have a the mascot is a bear, some crazy thing like that. It's a high number.

30:16 And d did you I mean of course this is not like You know, you weren't starting a an automotive company, right? It's not like the complexity is but still like you had to figure out, okay. This is how it's gonna be. The kids gonna come in and they're gonna have these different options. And then they go here and then there's gonna be a machine that's gonna they can watch their bear being stuffed and

30:38 Like You probably had To create that technology, so to speak, right? Or was it just off the shelf? Could you just buy like a stuffing machine? Yeah we did. We bought an upholstery stuffing machine and put a cover on it. That first one we made a bath uh the uh so it's choose me Stuff me.

30:57 Stitch me. fluff me, the fluffing machine was a b like it looked like a bathtub. And it had an air. the the nozzle that where water would come out of the bathtub and a brush that you would brush your bear and fluff up the fur. And I should mention this this kind of Um there's this cool thing that you also did where

31:13 into the bear which became kind of a trademark. And then we had Name Me, which was the Name Me commuter, and that came actually from Uh Katie. who um when she was on a bus on a on a vacation, she almost lost her bear George.

31:32 in the Avis bus, he was going around and round. And um I didn't want any child I lost my teddy bear when I was ten years old. I didn't want her anybody to lose it. So we created this find a bear ID system that went inside of every bear. And we could notify you if the bear was returned to us, we could open him up and scan the barcode and bring him back to you. And we did Bring back about ten thousand. Prior to Covet I think it was around ten thousand bears that we um had found over the years and brought back to kids.

31:58 Yeah. And and just to just for people who aren't familiar with it. It it was going to be like almost like going to the car wash where you see your car going through the car wash, right? Like the kids were gonna see the bear being made in front of their eyes and at the end They can name it and and they can get it.

32:15 Yeah. That was the that was the real novelty was dressing in the bear. I didn't create any of this uh this I didn't invent any of these parts. The um I just brought the parts together, which is what a great merchant does. Like Jeff Bezos didn't write the books. He just put the books together on a platform that you could we all could buy a zillion books from. So s and Howard Schultz didn't invent coffee and Ray Crock didn't invent hamburgers. They just invented how to sell more of it and that's exactly what I did. Alright, so you you have

32:44 Everything in place, you've got a name, you've got this concept, and I think within nine months of when you first had the idea, You open the first store. in Saint Louis and it's gonna be kids can go and Basically.

33:00 Mm-hmm. And um How did it do like from the opening? It was phenomenal from the opening. We did as much business in the first quarter, October to December, as I thought we were gonna do the whole year. The whole first year we were in business. The real the real clue was the day that we opened the store to the public. The Sunday night, uh we had a party on the Sunday night for all my friends and family, but you know people that came.

33:25 And the next day I came to the store to open it up at nine o'clock in the morning. And there was a line out the door. People had kept their children home from school. I I couldn't believe it. I was actually in shock that people would keep their children home from school, but it was a very important indicator.

33:43 And we didn't have enough people plan for that morning. You know, we had a few people. I had to call over to the office to my CFO who was there and my my marketing person that was helping me. And when they all came over and we waited on customers, put your shirt on and get over here. We're coming your denim shirt. Where we've got customers waiting outside the door. And I heard people in I was w working the registers. And I heard people saying, This is owned by Disney. This is a new Disney concept. This is Warner B Warner Brothers still had a store in the mall. Oh I no no, it's Warner Brothers.

34:13 And we didn't have one Disney product or one Warner Brothers product in our store at the time. And I was afraid we were gonna sell out we I had bought enough merchandise to last till Easter 'Cause Chinese New Year comes in there and I'd bought enough merchandise but I was afraid I was gonna run out. 'Cause you were bringing uh you were bringing the you were importing from China. You were importing. Importing from China. And um all those relationships. All those people I'd done business with before.

34:37 and May Company. They had made something for me. The shoe vendor that made our shoe vendors made shoes for pay less. Bears had shoes now. Bears had underwear, bears had dresses and jeans and t shirts and skates and all kinds of products that people had made those for m those relationships. the resources that I had because of my twenty some years of May Company history. all paid off in ways I could not have imagined, including the landlord of the Galleria gave me a ten year lease at a very reasonable Price.

35:07 Because he too wanted to be the first store in the country to have this idea. And he knew that if we if it didn't work out he could get he could rent the space to somebody else. H here's what I'm wondering about, right? Like If there were people waiting in line saying, Oh, you know, this is the Disney new Disney concept, new Warner Brothers concept. It's actually a Maxine Clark concept.

35:28 And It's not like it's trademarked. It's not like you could I mean yes, Bill De Bear is trademarked and but the but the idea of Opening a store where people could stuff an animal, like anybody in theory could just Do I mean Disney in theory or Warner in theory could do that. So

35:47 Was there any concern, at least at the beginning That You know, you this could happen. Some bigger company could come in, see your success, and just Rep basically replicated. I was aware that that was possible, but I protected every single thing I could. I over

36:04 legal as the company. I I had uh a major investment in the law firm that was represented our trademarks and believe me, people did try to copy it and we we took them to court. It's not so much that you protect it, it's that you make sure that you can afford to protect it. And then also when we did leases with landlords, we signed exclusive agreements to be the only Make your own stuffed animals, store them all. I knew how to do that too.

36:28 One thing we didn't talk about that I think is really integral to this story was There was a story written about Build A Bear in July before we opened our store. Right. There was a story in the business journal. The reporter had seen the sign on the store and she called me and she found out that who I was when she realized who I was, she says, Well, why why would you do this? You had this big job. Why would you do this? And I said, Well I'm I'm glad to come and talk to you about to come over to my office. And we'll talk about it. She came over and I sat her next to stuffed animals. So she was a mother of three daughters. And I told her.

36:58 Exactly what I'm telling you. And she wrote this story. And it was in the Friday. They show the business journal. And about eleven o'clock that morning I got a phone call from a person who I knew of in town.

37:09 An entrepreneur I knew of him, but I had never met him. His name was Barney Ebsworth. He owned a a a travel company. And he also owned cruise ships. And he said that he read the story in the paper and would I be willing to talk to him. About His investing in my business.

37:26 And I said, Well, I'm not really looking for investors right now. He said, Well, you know, but let's just meet. I'm going away for the summer. Can you come over on Monday? I went over there on Monday with my bag of tricks. my business plan, the stuffed animals. Our connection was that he loved animals. His wife was involved with the World Wildlife Foundation and he had two gigantic English Sheepdogs.

37:46 He said, How much do you think you need for the next couple of years? And I said Four or five million, he said. Is next Thursday soon enough? Mm.

37:54 And I said. I don't need it next Thursday, but I'm be open to talk to you about it. I didn't even have anything. I didn't have a private placement memorandum. I didn't have anything. But he said, I've never been to the mall. I I'm not a mall guy, but I love animals and I love your spirit. And I'm I run a company that prides itself on its customer experience. I want to help you create a great experience for your customers.

38:15 And I wanna make sure I want to ensure That you can continue to develop that that over time because people will try to cut costs and take that away from you. Trust me, I've known I've been there, he said. Mm.

38:27 So when you have people like that on your team that advocate for what you know is right. You know it y you know it's right. Yeah. I I know I know Barney um Barney's investment uh sort of yielded him about twenty twenty percent stake in the company. And I I asked you about How you protected

38:45 your brand. But I w I do want to ask you about You know, other people claiming that you took their idea, which I I've read all about and and I'll just say at the outset. Right. I don't believe this is an idea that you can you you can't trademark a concept that is A kid goes somewhere, they build something and they walk out. You know, it could be a pottery, it could be ceramics. Um

39:07 When about two years in You yourself were sued by the the owner of one of these factories that you actually made an offer for. Yeah, basic brown bear factory. They basically claimed, hey You learned all their trade secrets by going to visit. And your argument was, you know, not true. We d we You know, we went and go went to your factory on a tour.

39:30 Um And that probably was a headache for some time, but eventually, I think about three years later, you did You did settle that. It's it's still confidential, but it was settled. Right. And honestly

39:42 I did go there as a customer because it was an open tour that you could, you know, I talk and I called them after the tour and said I'd be open to talk to you about buying your business. And they wanted an unbelievable amount of money for their little business. But they didn't think it would work. You know,'cause they had sewing machines. They really cut out patterns and sewed things. They thought what I was talking about was too streamlined. But it was open to the public. Anybody could go and see the business. Nothing about that was protected. Right. But I but it wasn't that part of it. It was'cause obviously there's many car manufacturers and many of the things. It was really the the personal things that we did that that nobody else had done and that made it really special, that made it much more affordable.

40:18 as well and accessible. Ah that was really important to me for it to be accessible price point wise fashion wise they may regret what they did now. I don't regret it. I'm glad I offered them the money. I'm glad I went and did everything the legitimate way. But but we ended up b able to create our own company the way we wanted to create it with the culture that we wanted to have. Right. It would have been different had you ended up acquiring one of those factories. Um your you mentioned that you opened the store in St. Louis in October of nineteen ninety seven. And I mean it's kind of amazing within four months you're doing like four hundred thousand dollars in sales.

40:54 And like I think at the end of the first full year That store did two million dollars, which just to put in perspective. The average Mall store at that time. certainly a new store would do between five hundred and seven hundred thousand a year. See th this build a bear store was like

41:14 it was going bonkers and you had a plan, like in the business plan, I think You had this timeline. for when you would open new stores, right? Like you would it was like gonna be one store ninety seven and then another four stores. in ninety eight. Three stores in in uh ninety eight and that would bring us to four. And you were already we get this this you you got this investment from Barney.

41:37 And you had people starting to say, Hey, can I invest?'Cause I imagine You need the cash. Right. The cash flow alone from the business wasn't enough to expand. You do need outside investment To start building these out.

41:50 In other cities. Mm-hmm. The l the landlords also in the retail business, when they want you, they pay for you to come there. Wow. And the only store I think the only store we didn't get any money in was the Galeria first one. The St. Louis Gallery didn't give us any tenant allowance, but

42:05 Every store after that gave us something to build our store. They wanted us to come. And they wanted to be the first one in their market. So in Chicago we had the next two stores were in Chicago and then the fourth store was in um Kansas City. So we were we were on a roll there and the landlords were the largest investors in Build Air. But you were I mean basically The

42:25 the attraction was you were gonna bring kids to a mall, which means you're gonna bring parents to the mall. Which means And and so I understand why they would want you there because Uh I mean and and sort of the the nineties into the early two thousands was like A golden era for Malls. I mean this now we know that now, but I mean at the time we didn't

42:46 So they wanted you in there and I think because you you opened the first door in October of ninety seven. By the end of nineteen ninety nine, so two years in You've got fourteen stores, so just imagine you were traveling all over the country all the time. Fourteen stores and two years a lot of stores.

43:04 Yeah. And they were the best malls in America, uh at the time and and some of the toughest deals, you know, we we had it's not like they say yes in a minute, you have to really negotiate, but and you have to find the right location and and our real estate reps would not let us settle for a bad location. Sometimes you open stores and they didn't work. So What did you learn about that? Why would you open a store somewhere and it would be just gangbusters, but another place It didn't work.

43:31 Yeah, it really interesting. We we wanted to put stores wherever people go to have fun, literally. And so we thought that every tourist location, you know, would be really good. Our first tourist location was Myrtle Beach and it was phenomenal. You know, outdoor mall, uh Broadway at the beach. The next year we had to make it bigger because we didn't have enough room for all the customers. But we all also the store that we closed was our store number uh eight.

43:55 In uh Aventura Mall in Miami, which is a big mall. I thought it would be a great store for us because it was such a big store in Miami and North Miami. And we did terrible there. I mean it was it was just not good enough to keep you know, to keep it open.

44:10 And so we worked with the landlord to give it back. And we had another couple of stores like that, like um Sawgrass Mills, another big uh retail establishment. didn't do well there either. Because the people that came there from South America and Latin America that came on vacation. brought their suitcases and wanted clothes. That's what they spent their time shopping for, clothes. So we learned that that wasn't necessarily the place for us. In fact, outlet malls

44:33 now are are more successful for us because we have a smaller store format to put in there or a pop-up store that we can do when they're doing something great, but that wasn't necessarily the right place for a build-a bear. Because we knew we'd already learned what wasn't working. You know, what parts of the mall were better for us. And if we were near a limited to store or children's place, we did way better. And if we were near um Nordstrom. And no children's doors away. But you learn and you have to learn fast and you have to learn with your partners and and the landlords were

45:01 Very helpful to us. I mean they were our partners all the way because they have a you know, they're in debt to the banks too and they wanna make sure that they get the return on their investment. So they were very much partners of ours and Well, I mean we were growing a little, you know, we started to grow a little maybe a little bit ahead of our heels when we bought the UK business in uh two thousand six. Right before the recession.

45:23 You bought which business? Uh the Bear Factory in the UK in London. Which was basically doing a version of what you were doing. Yes, yes. And we got wind of that because they were in our um Oak Brook store. in Chicago and our store manager called us and she said there's a person in here Who's buying everything one of everything. What should I do?

45:42 I said sell it to him. And um we Yeah we track the transaction and we follow them and we um It was owned by Hamley's, you know, it was a uh part of Hamley's Yeah, toy store. Yeah. And they were willing to sell it to us. And we learned so much from that transaction. In fact, we were thinking of

46:00 of looking for a franchisee. To take it over. But In the first few weeks of owning that store we got to know all the store people and we started to put in some in our stores some of their habits that they had created for the London customer. We really did

46:14 It was great for us. Okay, but you're you're having profitable quarters virtually every quarter, right? And you're expanding and so It's obvious. In that I shouldn't say obvious, nothing's obvious, but you

46:27 Take this public. October two thousand four, it's like You know, what? Seven years after you open that first store. You're fifty five. I mean, it's awesome. And

46:41 I mean you raised one hundred fifty million dollars net IPO. It was a successful IPO. But now you're running a publicly traded company which is a different It's different. You're you're you're you've got to quarterly calls. You're dealing with um shareholders. That's a different beast. That's that's running a completely different kind of operation.

47:02 It was. But it was a really experience I didn't have and it was the you know part of the American dream. to own a company on the New York Stock Exchange. Uh, for me anyway, I really looked at that as a a big dream. And um all the you know, we did a lot of things differently than other companies would do. We we We put pictures in our IPO documents, we gave teddy bears to all the traders on the floor. We did a lot of fun things that made people smile. They let us decorate the outside of the New York Stock Exchange. I didn't take any money out of the company at that particular point, but our investors want it out. They we had taken on investors. Barney did not want to sell. Barney called me from the road show and said, I'm not selling.

47:39 I don't wanna sell, I wanna be there with you through thick or thin. And I said, Barney we already sold it, we're oversold. We have I you know, we can't go backwards at this point. He was he was so disappointed. he just still wanted to stay a hundred percent in. We were all just a portioned out of it, you know, we all had to sell. And we had to pay back those original those venture capital people that we did take on that were phenomenal partners, by the way. And um We still always controlled our own business. To this day we still run our own business and

48:05 We weren't merged into some other company and and m and made. cheaply or anything like that, we were able to still operate Buildabare. Um with the heart and soul of Build Abear as it was intended. Okay. So Yo.

48:18 The brand has just been such a success, right? Uh and we're like you start ninety-seven, you go public in 2004. And you hit two hundred fifty stores in two thousand seven. Ten years in, two hundred fifty stores, which I think was your original goal in your business plan, And then The financial crisis hits.

48:38 And and from what I've read and what I have heard This was really the first uh serious test. I mean it it it was a It was like the stock price plunged. you start to see some losses in the business. Tell me about about that period of time. I mean, uh you know, I think at one point the stock price is down to four dollars, four and a half dollars or something. Yeah, I think it was a little bit later than that, but

49:04 It did go down. We also had created two c other concepts. During this time. So we had Friends to be made.

49:12 Which was make your own dolls. That we had just a few stores of. And we also had invested in a concept called ride makers. Which was make your own cars, not stuffed cars, real cars, meaning like boys love Yeah, plastic.

49:26 Cars as model cars. And uh we had to pull out of those those endeavors because even though they could have been successful in the long haul. We couldn't focus on that when we had the rest of the business was, you know challenged by the economy.

49:40 We had to tighten the ship. We decided not to open as many stores. We pulled back on the store openings. Uh that were planned for those. For s for eight and nine. We worked with our landlords. We we went in and cut everything we could cut and renegotiated every lease we could n renegotiate because they did not want us to leave. They wanted us to stay, they wanted us to be successful. And we used that time to really

50:02 kind of rethink the store model. Yeah, what what equipment did we need? Was the store needing to be refreshed? What we knew it wasn't just us, but but we also used that time to really dig into us. And what could we do to be different? It was very hard. I uh thought that Christmas o eight.

50:19 was gonna be really successful because who was gonna Not buy a teddy bear for their child. And I that was one of the biggest mistakes I made. I should have Realized sooner And

50:28 L maybe seventy five people that I should have let them go earlier. Because it would have been easier for them to get a job than it was in January of two thousand and nine. Yeah. It was very heartbreaking to me because some of those people were in our first

50:43 People that we hired. And I I really was mad at myself that I didn't realize or there was I never made that mistake again. Uh um, you know, when you see us you see the train coming, get out of the way. Did you I mean you're tightening up your

50:58 Renegotiating leases. Was there ever a moment. During that time. Where You know.

51:05 You were worried about whether the business would make it through. No, I don't think I worried that we would make it through. I worry about how hard it would be to get through it.

51:17 When we come back in just a moment. Maxine steps away from the role of CEO and learns the delicate art. of working with the next one. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Roz. So it's around 2010, the end of the financial crisis, and to keep Build-A-Bare profitable, Maxine has cut costs and laid some people off.

51:52 And then She starts to think about Her own future. I remember I started the business when I was forty eight years old. I wanted to stay till I was maybe fifteen years at the maximum. And I we were getting close to that mark'cause I had other things I wanted to do. And um not necessarily start a new business, but other things that that I wanted to do and my husband as well that we saw we could do here in St. Louis for Saint Louis. You start to feel like

52:17 You know, maybe it's time for me to To step aside. Obviously you still you're gonna be a But You started to think that that's what you wanted to do.

52:28 Yeah, and I had to get it back on track. Oh we had to make some, you know, some decisions. We had to take some write downs, we had to do some things, we had to close that doll concept, we had to take out of our investment from the make your own uh cars. We had to do a lot of those things. And I didn't want the next person to have to do that. I wanted to make sure that we did that. And also I had an internal person that I thought would be the person to take over the company, but that did not work out. So I stayed probably an extra year uh longer uh before we decided that I would We would now look for a new CEO.

52:56 But that wasn't really that hard. I know people looked at me, they thought, You'll never leave, you'll never give it up, you'll never this I wanted Build A Bear to last as long as Disney has lasted longer. You know, like I wanted to build something forever, not for just my it wasn't for my ego. It was forever for children and families to enjoy. But it I had a great board. The board cared as much about the legacy of the company as I did. But they also cared about the fisc they knew I cared about the fiscal responsibility to the shareholders as much. And I was a large shareholder.

53:26 I was a shareholder too. Yeah. So you know, I still had a lot of stock in the company. So it was a a big deal to me and to and to the what I wanted to do for Saint Louis with that money. So I it was very important to me that that stay successful. Okay, so so In so June n two thousand thirteen, you formally step down and you Find a replacement and and we've done

53:47 hundreds of episodes about this on the show where the founder leaves A replacement comes in, sometimes it works out. Often it doesn't. And we've had store like Cliff Bar, they came back it twice, you know. Uh Howard Schultz has had to come back a few times to to write the ship. It's really hard when you're the founder's CEO. To find and trust somebody who can really steward

54:10 The brand it's it a lot of its luck. But a lot of it's good research, but a lot of it's luck. And you guys end up hiring a a former executive from Hasbro. Sharon Price John. This in twenty thirteen and I'm just gonna kinda

54:25 You know. uh reveal the plot twist here, which is she is still the CEO today. Yes. Thirteen years later, so clearly it worked out. Yes. She just announced her retirement. I mean it's amazing. So so when when she took over, your baby Be honest, like how much did you step back and say, Hey, it's yours. You ball's in your court, you go for it, or Did you continue to kind of, you know?

54:49 Way in. A little bit at first, but I realized that she was on the right track. And um I you know I had an office at the office and I decided I didn't really want to go there. I didn't need to go there every day. I didn't need to be there. She and I were in contact with each other appropriately. And we had we developed this rapport that was um to be to I say to be a friend today. We're friends. We we have a great relationship. She also was in the shoe business. She was the president of Stride Right Shoes right before she came to Build Air. And that was something we had in common. We had a lot of similar experiences. We just developed the right relationship and I trusted her and she trusted me that I wasn't gonna

55:27 be complaining all the time, Oh you change this or you change that or you d why are you doing this or why I didn't do that. How did you make sure you didn't do that? Because that's a natural human instinct. You know, like when it's yours, right? When or or when you start it. And so how did you keep yourself disciplined by not doing that? Well, I she's smart and I knew she was smart and I knew she cared about the brand and I I wanted to trust her. Some things worked and some things didn't. One of the things that she had to learn was some of the you know, at first one of the things I was saying was, you know, we tried that.

55:57 and it didn't really work, but maybe your version of it will work. I there's things she decided to do that I didn't really like, but they turned out fine. And I learned from that process. Yeah. That was such an important part of my f being a founder was th so I can inspire other founders from what I learned from my successor. Next to founding a company and coming up with an idea, the next most important thing is to make sure that you have somebody who can succeed you that can do better than you did. Yeah, and and I mean I should mention, I mean She has

56:29 successfully taken the mantle, right? I mean today, I think she got the company back to profitability in twenty seventeen. Today, uh Buildaber does ov well over five hundred million dollars. In revenue. all kinds of interesting collaborations. I remember this with my kids when when the the Star Wars collaborations, that's when they got their first build a bears, you know, back in twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen. You know, what what's impressive about it

56:50 B both of you, obviously, b uh both as operators is again Maybe a lot of people would have said, No, no, this is gonna be uh an enduring Generational business. But I wouldn't have. I don't think I would have said that.

57:05 Yeah. No, I think I But like I said, you write the business plan, the first person you have to convince is yourself. But I did think that this had potential national and international potential because of the partnerships that we wrote into our business plan that we wanted to build with major league sports with Hello Kitty with Disney.

57:22 All of those things came to pass and Sharon the before Sharon and then Sharon actually even enlarge them and Sharon added um on the entertainment that we created, we started to create our own characters around holiday and she took that to another level. Yeah. And then we hit the the Covid was her, you know, come to Jesus moment. I mean, that was really hard enough for any CEO. So no matter how much was growing, that was a leveling moment.

57:46 Yeah, I read revenue fell forty five percent in the first quarter. Of that year. Mm. It's awful. We were both fearful of of

57:55 Losing an iconic business. She had her moments of being fearful of that and I had my moments of being fearful of that. And the kind of people we are, we weren't gonna let that happen for our employees, for our shareholders, for who are sometimes the same people, for our mall developers. This was something that we both believed in. All right. I read a a really interesting analysis by a business school professor from the University of Georgia. It was really a couple of years ago. And and his Theory about one not But one of the reasons he points out why Bill De Bear

58:24 Has been a successful business. Cause again, you know, it could have been just a hype product or it could have been Yeah, kids are fickle. We know that. We've done kids' brands on the show. Um But his argument is that

58:37 It's Because the customers are involved in the process. That it creates Higher passion for the

58:47 You you build brand loyalty by giving the customers А унік'єрінц те. Every company wants people to be posting their shirts on on Instagram and hey, you know, hashtag us and all this stuff. You guys were doing this before that was even a thing, right? People were They were part of the

59:07 They're like it's a memory for life and You you you've got'em. Yes. And our bears go to college for them and go to they're passed on to their own children. You're building something more than just a toy that you can, you know, give away to the goodwill. It you're building goodwill. This is part of our culture. And I think that That's what we do. That that is the auth it's authentic. It's not fake.

59:32 You know, I know that when you step down, of course you're still we're still very much involved and clearly are still involved, but you started to focus on And philanthropic endeavors, I know that that one of the things you do is uh you invest in women owned businesses and startups. Is that where you see y your work continuing over the next decades? Yes. Um it is joyful work.

59:57 It is not a It's not it's the same kind of control that you have when you're running your own company. I um Invest in women and minority entrepreneurs and and uh Again. Commitment.

1:00:08 to the time it takes to build a brand and to build successes is something that's hard to teach if that if it's their first job out of college, you know, instead of having the experience that you can't really pass on to them. But some of these things are really, really working and are doing great. And I'm so proud of them. And it gives me great joy to be able to be a part of the changes in St. Louis that we need. Which involve those young people. Yeah. But also seeing in Saint Louis what we can do when we all work together. And I'm a cheerleader for that. But I'm not alone doing it. There are a lot of other people in it with me. Yeah.

1:00:40 Um When you think about This arc, right? You start it out. you know, moving to Washington D C to be a lawyer and turns out that

1:00:49 But By happenstance you end up meeting this guy, you will work for Hectz, and then you get promoted, you go to May, and then you are there and you move to Saint Louis and that becomes your home and then you or pay less and then you decide to start this you have this very unusual idea to start a stuffed a stuffed animal, build your own stuffed animal brand that Is a little quirky, but clearly

1:01:12 uh had legs and here we are today half the over half a billion dollars in sales. When you think about that journey and where you got to You know, you're uh you're wealthy, you're all these things. I mean, how much of of the of this do you attribute to all the work you put in and all the You know, grind and how much do you think had to do with With luck, getting lucky.

1:01:33 Mm. Uh it's it's a fifty fifty deal for sure. It's being in the right place at the right time and making the most of th that experience, whether it's asking the right questions, asking questions when nobody else will but you have them and you need the answers. I actually Had great examples of people bringing me to the table. And seeing how those people think.

1:01:54 It was a shared investment and I invested in myself. They invested in me. It's everything. My husband was also incredibly supportive. of my career and that that that is also part of the pie. But you make your own luck. Like there's many times that I didn't want to I was on my way to something and I said, Why am I going to this? I'm so tired. And I left there saying, I'm so glad I went. Look who I met here.

1:02:15 Look who I talked to today. And so I you know, y I remind myself of that every time I'm too tired to go someplace. I think, no I'm gonna I'm gonna walk away with something more than I think when I when I leave. And almost always that happens. And I think a lot of people just talk themselves out of doing that and they miss Some great opportunities. They don't take the luck far enough and I think I've taken it to the max.

1:02:36 I feel like I'm not going to be able to Really good about that. That's Maxine Clark. Founder

1:02:43 of Build Abear. By the way, not everyone who walks into a build a bear leaves with a stuffed animal. Some adults go there just for the clothes and No, they're not buying them for themselves. They're buying them for their dogs.

1:02:57 In fact, a Build A Bear subreddit says popular options are the Star Wars outfits, particularly the Jedi Knick, which, at least in the photos I've seen, Looks pretty great on a chihuahua. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show, and as always, it's free. And if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, please sign up for my newsletter at guyroz.com or on Substack. This episode was produced by Carrie Thompson with music composed by Ramteen Air Bluey.

1:03:33 It was edited by Neva Grant with research by Ramel Wood. Our audio engineers were Patrick Murray and Robert Rodriguez. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estevez, Casey Herman, JC Howard, Chris Massini, Sam Paulson, Catherine Seifer, John Isabella, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening.

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