Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen

0:07 You took a line of credit against your house. Two spend two million dollars on an ad campaign on Howard's turn. Yeah. I took the the most amount of debt I've ever had. On anything in my life. Wow. Just to advertise on Howard's turn.

0:20 You're putting all your eggs in that basket. Yeah, without a plan for what I was gonna do if it worked, but I believe so strongly that somebody like Howard was gonna put us on the map. I believed it was possible. Sounds kind of nuts.

0:35 It does, actually. Now that you say it. Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements. I'm Guy Roz, and on the show today, how Scott and Missy Tanner fell into an industry they knew nothing about. Made their lives even harder by setting a high bar.

1:06 And grew Bow and Branch into one of the country's top Betting brands. Mm-hmm. Even if you think of yourself as a risk-averse person, it doesn't mean you're incapable of taking risks. We do it every day. Walking down the street is a risk. Going swimming is a risk. Getting into an Uber is a risk. The last seven Ubers I've taken have driven like crazy maniacs. But all of these things are normal mitigated risks. The chances something will go haywire are pretty low. And if you think about the risks you take starting a business, there's a pretty wide spectrum. Many of the stories we've told on this show are about businesses that started as a side hustle.

1:52 The founders kept their day jobs and one foot in the startup. just as a hedge. But sometimes people who have a greater appetite for risk just go for it. They quit their jobs, give up the benefits and health insurance and throw everything they've got at the idea. Or in the case of today's story.

2:13 They take out massive loans, mortgage their house, and live with crushing debt for several years. Knowing that the business could also fail. When Scott and Missy Tannin launched Bull and Branch, they knew nothing about bedlinants. Well They knew what the average consumer knows thread counts, Egyptian, Turkish linen, and And they discovered that all of those things can be somewhat misleading, which we'll get to.

2:41 But what they also did was take a big swing for the fences early on. A two million dollar advertising bet that was financed through loans and lines of credit. But as you will hear, that gamble and others they took Paid off. Today, Bolin Branch is one of the leading luxury linen brands in the US.

3:02 The company also sells home decor, mattresses, even furniture. As for Scott and Missy Tannin, They both grew up in the nineteen eighties and nineties, Scott in New Jersey, Missy in Ohio. They met at college when they were both juniors at Vanderbilt University. In Nashville.

3:20 We got set up on a blind date. My girlfriend Marnie was going to a football game with Scott's friend Drew, and they were both like, Hey It's the day of the game. Neither of you have a date. Why don't you go together and set us up? Um, this was back in the nineties where You had to have a date to go to a football game at Vanderbilt. It was southern. You the girls would wear cocktail dresses and the guys would wear

3:46 It was it was cre and ties. Wow. And I love football. And at Vanderbilt People generally go to the games at halftime. I was like, that's nope, I'm going when the team runs out of the tunnel, I'm gonna be there the whole game.

3:58 And my buddy Drew was like, come on, take this girl, Missy. And I'm like, I'm not going with some girl that can't find a date. Like I actively don't want a date. And then Marnie, who was Missy's friend, was like, Come on, Scott, just just go. Well, the four of us will hang out. It'll be great. And I said, if she can be here by kickoff, I will take her. Otherwise I'm out of here. At the end of the first quarter, Missy shows up. And I still went with her, thank goodness. But I was I was I was a little upset that I missed the first quarter of the game.

4:23 And that that's it, you become a couple And when both of you graduated in nineteen ninety nine, you must have been Kinda serious because Missy, you moved to I think you moved to New Jersey with Scott, right? Yeah, so

4:39 Graduation was kind of um A bitter sweet moment, I would say, for us. Unfortunately, a month before we graduated college, Scott's dad passed away. Um so that kind of Really shook our world.

4:53 By the time we graduated a you know, a month later there wasn't even a decision to be made. It was more like okay, we're we're we're moving to New Jersey. We're gonna help your mom get her feet on the ground, we're gonna help you get your feet on the ground. But this will be our two to three year plan. Um I'm sorry to

5:10 I'm sorry. Uh I mean, I mean, I know we're this happened over twenty five years ago, but it must have been Really hard. Was your father ill? Scott.

5:20 No. Um he was born with a heart. defect. Um and He just happened to be at dinner with my mom and and like massive heart attack out of out of nowhere. Um And and so None of us were prepared.

5:35 You know, I mean the the whole period of time is such a blur and I was so close to my dad and and and certainly idolized my dad in in in so many regards. Um That I was made to become an adult really fast over that month long period because coming back and and getting into that space of of okay, you know, I I've gotta figure out how to close down my dad's business and find a job myself out of college and and find a place to live and help my mom get back on her feet and

6:03 There's no question that my mom wouldn't and I would not have gotten through that summer with were it not for Missy, because she basically lived with us and So from that point on we we were We transitioned from being Kind of. College.

6:16 Boyfriend, girlfriend to Like really a couple. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

6:21 Um but but of course I mean you had to start your life too. Um and I guess I guess Missy, um you worked You start to work as a as a third grade teacher and um and Scott you Went to go work for Nabisco. Um sort of I guess on on the digital end of things and and eventually I guess you kinda help them

6:40 uh a kind of reimagine a website that they had into what, like kind of like a a gaming site for for kids, like a gaming site that promoted Nabisco products? Yeah, so I kinda really was able to convince the organization to look let let me run with this, but let's make this a real gaming website. For these kids so that it is valuable real entertainment for them that they would otherwise pay for or get somewhere else. And then we'll own all the advertising inventory in that experience. This is Candy Stand. Candystand.com. And and just describe it g give me a basic sense of what it was. So you have to take your mind back to the internet in the early 2000s. So you actually loaded a website that was like you would see on the corner in New York City and it looked like a candy stand. But underneath it was link to different games. So we ended up, you know, over time creating 200 unique

7:34 online games. So it might be billiards and on the pool table was breathsavers or uh home run derby and it's big league all over the uh signage in the stadium. Miniature golf was one of our most popular games and you know each of the holes you were maybe hitting it through a lifesaver or bouncing it off of uh a piece of gum that would have more bounce and elasticity. Um, so these were really casual fun games like what you play on your iPhone today. Um, but it was just delivered Over the internet. Hm. And and I'm just just to come kind of m compress the story a a bit here, um

8:06 I think a f a few years later, like in in two thousand eight. You actually wind up co founding a company w was called Fun Tank, and and that company acquired This thing candy stand and you basically start running it, right? Yeah.

8:20 And it it It really caught fire. I mean we we were doing twenty to thirty million people a month were coming to this website. Wow. Which was nuts. And totally unmonetized. And that was because what, it you didn't have advertising? Like wow.

8:34 What what was the challenge there? I mean, what was your plan to monetize it? We just had to Insert advertising inventory on the website. Okay. And could you could you do that? Was it did that work? It did. Um, it worked immediately.

8:47 And then we went out and solicited partnerships from folks like folks like Disney and Coke and American where we were creating Branded games for them. I mean it seems like this was gonna go You know

9:00 Just stratospheric, right? I mean you you guys managed to acquire this Website. Tens of millions of people visiting, you've got advertising on it. Um but Ultimately it didn't that didn't happen. I think in two thousand ten and you guys sold the company to Publishers Clearinghouse. I'm assuming because it just

9:19 It it didn't actually quite take off in quite the way you Just thought it would. It actually crushed it. For the first two years. Okay. I mean, like the you've heard the term born on third base. This fun tank was born on third base. Right and It was rounding third, heading for home, and the iPhone came out.

9:36 Right. And people's Behaviors with games. Changed. Overnight.

9:42 It was actually not when the iPhone came out, it was when the app store. Opened up. So all of a sudden people migrated away from playing games on websites to playing them on their phones. That's right. And it it it decentralized everything too, because there's no need to go to a website. Where

9:57 when you download from the app store, you're just choosing the games that you want to have on your device. So discovery changed. And so we were in a world where we paid nothing for customer acquisition. It was all viral. People were coming to us and we were left with a great portfolio of IP. But A very rapidly dwindling. And so Revenues.

10:18 Plummeted. Hm. I mean I'm clearly the I don't I I I I don't believe that candy stan dot com exists anymore. Um And di did you I mean did you Walk out of that deal with Publishers Clearinghouse?

10:32 with a lot of cash. I mean except for life. I mean, you know, it seemed like it was going up and up and up and and and you owned Fifty percent of it. And and then it got acquired, right? I I'll say this, like it it was a cash deal and and so it wasn't like I got three magic beans for it. Um so You know, but it was it was the equivalent of a few years' salary, candidly, um, and enough to give me a cushion to to do something else. But

10:57 I also actually felt weirdly satisfied. Um, taking a business and leading it through an acquisition and diligence process, I I I lear I I I learn how difficult that is, and it was very challenging. Yeah. You know, but Uh, unfortunately, like my story takes a bit of a turn there in that Within a few weeks my mom gets diagnosed out of nowhere with pancreatic cancer. Um and so The blessing of it all was that I had less

11:23 financial pressure and I was able to take the time and the published screenhouse people were amazing about it. You know, I spent the year with my mom. um while she was fighting it and had the surgery and and did all those and and she ultimately passed a a little over a year later, but You know that. what Fun Tank and and that acquisition brought me was was that opportunity, which I can never

11:43 Um I can never get back and and never think. Everybody enough for. Yeah. So you knew I mean wow, I mean t y both your parents you lost in a in a basically period of ten years. Um

11:55 But now you had a little bit of a cushion. With the acquisition to take a a a couple years off. But you you know, that was about it. You would have to go back to work. Because I think at this point, Missy, how many kids did you guys have at this point? We had three daughters.

12:12 It three daughter three young kids. Yeah. But it sounds like in your mind you you started you were already thinking about the next thing. I mean you had to because uh right and and the next thing Was the next thing in your mind going to be, I don't know, going to work for somebody else, maybe join an um you know, a a V C Firm. Was it Start my own thing. Did you did you have an idea in your head?

12:35 You know, the easy thing was consulting. And I just didn't Love it. Um and I didn't love it because I'm a hands dirty guy and it's like You're playing with someone else's toys and you have to put them away at the end of the day. And and I think it was that process that made me realize that, you know, I'd always say I'm not an entrepreneur, because I always thought I was too conservative and and too afraid of risk and kids and and that sort of thing. And I realized at that point that like

13:00 I've gotta give it a shot to go start something myself. I just wasn't sure in what But I also really missed Tangible products. But I think don't you think that time in your life when you were consulting I feel like

13:14 We both got to just see and hear about these emerging brands and startups and And people trying things differently. But also there was always like um I felt like a a h a human, like a tangible, um

13:29 Charitable peace. To most of the brands you were working with. Um, similar to like a Tom's model where they would have a give back or a donation as part of their their brand. There was something just inspiring about business at the time too, that it didn't have to just be Business for business. It could

13:47 Also make a a change. So tell me a a little bit about some of the ideas that you you started to think of. I mean, you were doing consulting. But w at what point did you start to think about Maybe I should look into starting my own thing.

14:02 Yeah, you know, I was I was working with a company called Alten Lane, um, which was doing made to measure menswear. And I started to realize You know, that that brought me like eye to eye with brands like Bonobos that were just starting at the time. And and looking at how they found one thing and in their case it was Khaki's pant khaki pants that they did really well. And I bought them, I'm like, wow, they're delivering on it too. And I started to realize like wow, Warby Parker?

14:30 The Nobos, yes, they're making a product, but they're playing customer acquisition arbitrage. They are just trying to acquire a customer for a little bit less than they're making and scale that profitability. And they're playing in categories where They're competing with really, really big folks, but those folks are not nimble and they're probably not playing with a current deck of cards when it comes to this sort of digital media landscape. So I felt that okay, I just need a product. that I can go compete with with in a fragmented market with big players. And win on customer acquisition arbitrage.

15:03 And so you started to think about what could it be and and you mentioned Okay, men's suits and w what what other things did kind of crossed your mind? Um I thought about laundry detergent. I thought about food products as well. Toilet paper. Toilet paper was a big one. I still think there's a market for the first world's first luxury

15:22 Toilet paper. Luxury toilet paper? Why not, right? It's a shitty business. What would luxury toilet paper do? Yeah, it would be I mean would it be like thicker toilet paper? Because that exists. No, I see I think it's not thicker. I think it's It's figuring out a way to get them the

15:40 The experience you get with a bidet. Off a roll. Oh, interesting. Better cleaning.

15:49 I obviously didn't know this rock guy. Yeah. And I don't think I would have been involved if this was the route. No idea is a bad idea. No idea is so you're you're thinking of things and you're doing consulting work. But clearly you're looking for something. So tell me about your experience.

16:07 with I mean you just You just What yeah you got a new bed, you wanted to get better sheets. What was it what what was it yeah. Good, Missy. We were renovating our bedroom, um, and for the first time of being married 15 years, moved from a queen bed to a king bed.

16:23 And I know that sounds so cliche, but That was what was happening. We go to department stores specialty retailers, and you know, after Doing this renovation for a year it it

16:36 Everything feels like a big decision, you know, and you've already spent so much money on all the different you know, construction and finishing elements that it's like I just wanted to know what I was purchasing with these sheets. And sharing these troubles with Scott of how I didn't know, you know, w what was thread count, does Egyptian cotton, does that mean it's from Egypt? Does that matter? Like what really matters? And all I really wanted were some soft sheets.

17:02 Mm. Uh it was literally overnight that Scott woke up and he was like This shouldn't be a problem. I mean that that really was the light bulb moment that now In his mind he had this product or this category that was underserved, no one was playing in it. you know, could he at the time, I wouldn't even say I was part of this quite yet. Um, is this something that he could lean into?

17:27 Th that's really what it was, like The starting point was Oh my god, this is so easy to make. These are giant squares of fabric. There are a million suppliers that would love to sell me them and private label them. Like. This is just what I was looking for. Yeah. So when you you start a b you would think that when you start a business you first research, then you order and then you sell.

17:48 I actually was planning to cut out the research part of it. And just Order and sell. I wanted to go as fast as I possibly could. So just find there's tons of these factories around the world. You just slap your label on it and'cause that's what happened is I uh I Googled

18:02 You know, like suppliers, and I I live in New Jersey, and fortunately, they're all here. They're all in New Jersey and New York. So I was like, This is great. These are suppliers who who produce the material in China or wherever, but they basically they're the local sales office for factories. Um in in India, China, Italy. Portugal. Yeah. Um Everywhere. Yep. And I walk into the showrooms thinking like, all right, I just want pricing on this. And they're like, Okay, great. Well what are your Size requirements, labeling requirements, and which trim detail do you like? I was like, um you know, phone a friend.

18:35 Yeah, Scott would not be the person in our household to make any Betting textile decision. So let alone try and make sheets for the country. Like d that just So that's really when I jumped in. With Scott to Just even in the beginning it was so simple and and

18:55 and innocent like hey I'll go with you to meeting I'll pretend like You have a company, you know, and we'll go ask some questions together. And We didn't know anything. And so We also at those meetings were asking the questions like Well, so tell me, this is so exciting. Where's the factory? Where's the cotton come from? Like and that's when they couldn't even tell us

19:17 You know where the locations were, what was going on. And that's when we really decided to take a beat. Let's step back. And really research this. So for example

19:30 Something is labeled Egyptian. Right. Yeah. Thousand thread count Egyptian cotton. And I think most people assume, oh That's cotton made in Egypt. And there and and by the way I don't know any or uh you hear like Turkish towels, you know, like Turkish Like

19:46 And I don't know anything about this. I'm just assuming that that that means it's really great. Well it's like I mean You think about Egyptian cotton, right? Like you you sudden you close your eyes and you imagine somebody on the banks of the Nile River like cultivating this rich soil from Cleopatra's time and the cotton comes out of it is the finest and um one of the very first suppliers that we met with, which was was selling Egyptian cotton sheets

20:11 And I'm like, Well, I'd love to go see the farms. And they they looked at me like I had seven heads. I started to realize that these folks had no idea what their own supply chain looked like. They couldn't trace their own supply chain. And they were the ones selling me the product. So I I actually took it upon myself to reverse engineer their supply chain because I I I tend to

20:30 get a little bit crazy about this stuff and and when I don't have an answer, I dig and I dig and I dig and I dig. So I was calling their factories I was finding, you know, and I found that these Egyptian cotton sheets that they were selling me were woven in China. They just named a plant. A cotton plant in China, Egyptian cotton. So they could call it that. So the way that cotton was grown in China? In China.

20:52 It's not like champagne that has to come from champagne. You would think, but no. What were you I mean, uh basically, I mean, again, You guys wanna find out how this is sourced and and how this whole process works and and if If so, why were you so interested in that? Wha why why was that so important?

21:10 We just kept it was sort of like you know when you ask someone a question and They give you an answer, and you're like, I can tell they're not being totally forthright with me. We felt that in all these meetings with these suppliers. But Then when you start diving in into your own research and and and and doing it online, you you come across A lot of news articles, and you start realizing like, okay, you know, deep inside, I kinda know the textile industry has a crummy reputation.

21:36 And you start realizing why. Yeah. We both were really drawn to organic cotton after reading an article in The Guardian that talked about farmer suicides uh in India and how the conventional cotton business The the farmer is extremely disempowered. And the article talked about how Yeah, they were actually drinking.

21:56 The Pesticides. In the fields committing suicide, and it's like you learn these things. And and І старт сай, окей, за систе.

22:07 And like Uh Missy and I just kept looking at each other like we can't be a part of that system. There's gotta be a better way to do this, or it's not worth doing at all. And And that was how we started learning about Organic farming. And so we start seeing these sort of

22:22 These alternate paths out there that the whole system is ignoring. Maybe even before this I would say when we were s on our research and exploration, we reached out to Anyone. You know, whether it was a mill that was weaving fabric or an importer

22:41 We just wanted to see the landscape, just we didn't know, you know, so I would say we we got in I don't know what Scott, maybe twenty, thirty different Types of fabric. From all over the world. So at that time we weren't We didn't know where we'd end up manufacturing and

22:58 What I did was I took All this fabric, or these pillowcases. And I would just go around myself friends, family, and we would do blind field tests. Which one is the softest? I wanted to know how it would hold up, how it would feel.

23:13 And really That led us to India, I would say, when we started thinking about cotton. Um And their expertise there. With growing cotton. weaving cotton. Um, they have a long history there.

23:28 Once you start to gather All this. This kind of you know, information. You were paying attention to T the Toms and and other DTC companies that were sort of

23:39 quote unquote social enterprises. Is that I mean, did you start to think, Well, that's what we should be doing? We should be focusing on on sourcing this in in

23:50 Let's say and I I hesitate to use the word m the most ethical way,'cause I Full disclosure. I have some personal issues with this whole idea. We've had lots of businesses on the show and You know It's it it's complicated.

24:04 Right. I mean there are great brands that don't always source things in the same way the other brands do. But but just for argument's sake here. Did that idea of sourcing this in a way that you felt was was to your own personal ethical Standards.

24:21 Did that become critical? From from that moment on. For us It wasn't about sourcing a product. It was about making it.

24:31 And making it from scratch. And Knowing everything about it. From start to finish, so that we could be proud of what we were making. We just wanted to know that the people on the other side of the world who were making our product. weren't being taken advantage of.

24:47 That was really important to us, and that they were safe. At the same time I remember just being Consumers just being normal people, watching the news, and Rana Plaza also collapsed at that time. And this is a huge disaster. I think hundreds of people were killed in this fire and in in his factory in Bangladesh.

25:07 And so that was the moment, right? Where We'd abandoned the notion of okay, we're gonna w work with one of these importers and and source our products. Like that was gone. You wanted to work directly with a Mm factory in correct. India

25:23 Correct. But we kept'cause it was gonna be way harder to do this the way we wanted to do it. And then you know, late April Twenty thirteen, Rana Plaza collapses. We're watching it on the news, and I can vividly remember sitting in our family room and Missy and I looking at each other saying, That's the system. We can't be a part of the system. Mm. You know,'cause at this point, look, you're a year plus into this.

25:45 Our friends know we're working on this crazy betting idea. We were past the point of no return. Like we were gonna launch a betting business. And so that was the point where we said, forget let's forget this conventional route. We've got to go the route of Full traceability from end to end. We'd never at that point had never walked or stepped foot in a textile factory, nor had Missy. And yet we were about to determine where we were gonna do all of these things to to achieve the product. And and so, you know

26:11 What if we're not just building a business, but we're proving something like Can it be done? When we come back in just a moment. Why an industry insider tells Scott it probably can't be done. And why Scott and Missy?

26:26 refuse to listen. Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to how I built this. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's late 2013, and Scott and Missy are aiming to start a bedlinen brand with a pretty high bar. Super soft cotton. Organically sourced and made in India at a factory that treats its workers fairly. And to accomplish that

27:04 They find an Indian manufacturing partner named Rajat. Rajot was somebody that that Look we sent Or life savings and then some? Two

27:14 Rajat in India hoping he would send a boat back in eight months without us ever visiting. Like that that is sometimes when I'm not sure if I'm an entrepreneur, I I think back to those things. Um but the reality was When this became important to us, the the validation and understanding and certification. Is critical. You can't have one without the other. Otherwise, you get into a space of greenwashing, or you could be accused of greenwashing. And number one is the cotton. And if it is if if we're marketing it as organic I wanna know that it's actually organic, right? We're also paying a lot more money for it.

27:48 So we worked with um Gots, which is the global organic textile standards, to ensure that they were certifying it. And for for the product to be certified and the company to be certified, it means you need traceability certificates. So you have to have full documentation. From the moment the purchase order is placed, you have to have full documentation on that that accompanies essentially the bushels of raw cotton that come out of the fields. And stays with the cotton as a finished product when it leaves the factory. And the second piece we had to think about was factory. So that's where. bringing in fair trade was important because they were looking at they looked at two things. Number one, and and what they're most famous for is ensuring that workers are paid a fair wage, which puts them

28:30 above the living wage, which, you know, in many countries the minimum wage is below the living wage. And and so that became very important. But they also do consistent inspections and audits of the factories themselves. Uh are the fire exits clean clear? Um are the workstations lit properly? Are people allowed to unionize? Um and all of those things. So from our very first PO until today, the the tenants of that same system exist. Every dollar we spend with um a farmer or a fa at a factory, uh we are ensuring and validating independently that no cycle of poverty is being continued.

29:07 Uh I'm curious, did anybody say, you know People just don't care about transparent they don't care about the ethics of sheets. They just want good sheets. They want a good price. Everybody said that people don't care about Anything but price.

29:21 You know, you don't eat the sheets, and nobody really cares about organic. Um and and that was kind of the consistent message I got. But then separately, I reached out to folks that were in the world of sustainable textiles, whether that's through t-shirts and apparel and things like that. And they were all extremely skeptical. Of missing my intentions. Because they're like, Well, you're not one of us. You haven't grown up in this space.

29:45 with us and now you're coming in, are you just trying to like See a commercial opportunity and and exploit it. Yeah. And you can understand that skepticism. Looking at some you know, y and thinking, Hey, you haven't paid your dues, I started out in the factory sweeping the floors and now I'm running the company and who are you guys?

30:04 Exactly. I mean who are we? And and well that's probably a fair question. So so I I found it was really hard to get Clear information. W like there was nobody out there that I can remember that validated what we were doing. And I'll tell you a funny story, guy. The first time I went to our factory, uh Rajat's factory in Calcutta, his dad who had started the business was um in his late seventies at the time, and he took me to lunch. And after I'd spent a week there, and he said, Scott, I think what you're doing is a very bad idea. I had already ordered. I already spent, you know.

30:38 my entire life savings on sheets through him, and he's telling me I think this is a bad idea because I I just don't know that there's a market for what you're trying to do. And When I look back, that was the Some of the the the biggest dose of bravery that Missy and I had to have was that We just couldn't find anybody that would sort of say, Yeah, I get what you're doing, this is gonna be awesome. But you felt like

30:59 It didn't matter. I I think that that it it's gonna be It's gonna work. I felt what's the worst that can happen? Like you're supposed to say I had this vision of it all coming together. I was like, Well Worst comes to worse, you know, give me a couple years I can liquidate it and we'll get some of our money back and and so why not go for it? Yeah.

31:19 Let's talk about the name. uh because you're gonna start gonna start a brand, right? And so you decide to if you start to think about names and you come up with bowl and branch. Tell me about about the name. It was probably uh Scott, wouldn't you say we played for about a month with the name and kept thinking of so many different ideas. But then the third grade teacher and me

31:42 I was just so inspired by what we were doing through this cotton plant. And so I just Googled what are the pot parts of a cotton plant. And You know, there's a bowl and that's the pod where the fibers, the fluffy white fibers grow and it opens, and that's what you think of the the cotton fibers and

32:06 You know, grows on a branch. Wow. And so we tried all different iterations, you know, branch and bowl, bowl and branch, got the URLs and really just sat with it and We were like, That's it. Yeah. Amazing'cause I just assumed it was like a made up name, like like uh like two names of people like

32:26 Fitzwilliam and Gilford, like you see that are like soap brands that that are you know, that are not that old, but they look like they come from, you know, jolly old England. Yeah. When I'm in retail stores, half the people ask me, Are you bowl or branch? Right. You know But you know what's funny? Like when you think about where the category was,'cause it was all dominated by private label. And everything was like Sounded like British royalty, the Buckingham Betting Collection. And so we really did want to take

32:52 A departure from that. Yeah, everything was like regal or elegant, or you know. Like that was supposed to mean it was good. Right. Okay, so you have this name, you've got the order in, and you wanna get

33:05 You want you want your products to be ready for Christmas of twenty thirteen, right? Because that's when you can I mean you've got to signific, which from what I gather was absolutely Every penny you had in savings.

33:22 I was only planning on spending about three fifty. Yeah. And then we put about half a million in. And that was to buy and it was to s to design and to buy all like as you say At least one container, shipping container full of of linens? Yeah, th that's exactly right. So that was just white and ivory sheets.

33:41 White and ivory sheets. And pillowcases. Pillowcases. So it's just gonna be The initial order was going and and you were going to because you were direct to consumer, you were gonna sell this online. Yeah, a hundred percent online. That's right.

33:57 Okay. So you guys You have to pay in advance, right? You didn't get like terms on these sheets. You have to pay for this in advance. I I paid for all of it. In advance. Uh because they didn't really know that you were supposed to ask for terms. Right. I was like, Oh, you know, it's like Amazon. I

34:13 Order something and I pay for it. Alright, so you ordered What a thousand, two thousand sets of this stuff. Yeah. A little over I think about two thousand set sounds about right.

34:23 You had to be just going back to like the tracing the transparency of it. How are you able to be sure? that every part of the process was up to your standards, the cotton, the the actual workers in the factory. I mean Was it at this point you just had to trust that everybody was? was reporting this to you correctly?

34:42 So that was the initial um plan. So we place that initial order in late May of twenty thirteen. Um and so up here in the northeast the community pool opens uh On Memorial Day and maybe pool. Community pool. Pool. Okay. Yep. So maybe like a weekend or so after that, um

35:01 Missy and I are up at the pool and we see our friend Chris and we're like, Hey Chris. And Chris is in the socks business. Guess what? We're starting a sheets company. He's like, You're doing what? And we think it's really funny. We're like, This is great. You know, this is what we're doing, is where our life is. And he goes.

35:18 Literally white as a ghost. He's like What do you know about what you're doing? We're like, oh no, it's great. We found this amazing factory at blah blah blah. And He's like

35:29 you don't have like boots on the ground there? Like like how are you inspecting like what are you doing from a quality standpoint? And then Missy and I start looking at each other. This is the first of many times where we're like, oh geez, we thought we knew a lot and we don't know anything. Um And Chris literally pulls out a cellphone. This is a Sunday. And he calls this guy Sal. And he says Sal, I'm here with my friends, Missy and Scott.

35:51 And I need you to talk to them. And and so Sal Sal's a company called Pacific Wave. He's from India originally, uh and and lives here in New Jersey. Um, and he has a team of folks and they provide boots on the ground inspections that monitor your entire manufacturing process so that you're getting reporting not just from the factory, but you're getting it from an independent source or somebody that is essentially an extension of your team.

36:16 Alright, so you guys have somebody on the ground now Making sure that This is up to scratch. But I guess In November of twenty thirteen. You get the initial samples that that uh are the coming in from India. And these are the samples that you just want to look at and kinda sign off on so you can get this huge container of of

36:39 Sheets. Uh but there's a problem. Guy. We had only made white and ivory sheets.

36:48 That was it. White and ivory sheets for our first launch. The white sheets come in. Look beautiful. The ivory sheets come in. And have this greenish tint to them.

37:01 You couldn't see it during the day. But once it got to be the nighttime, there was this like limey creamy green color that these sheets Yeah. And I was like, I can't, I can't sell these. So here we're up against Scott saying.

37:20 Okay, we need to launch, they need to ship these, you know, everything was finished, we need to ship these Sheets and I was like, I just can't do it. I can't tell my friends, my family, go buy the white ones. Don't buy the ivory ones. Yeah. It delayed us, you know, another three months of weaving and dying.

37:43 But we will never look back because at least we launched with What we knew in our hearts was The very best that we could do. Alright, but you could not you you were not able to participate in that. Christmas.

37:58 That was a killer for us. Uh Because You know, I looked at it and and I'll be honest, I was like, Oh, it's close enough. Like can't we just sell'em. Let's just sell it and ship it. Like let's go. Um and and I was I was You know, it shows you when you're in a tight financial spot. You will make shortcut decisions because I I just wanted to see the money coming the other direction and start paying this back. I relented and and like

38:22 Yeah, I mean Missy wins every argument d by default. That's why we have such a good marriage. Um but But but no, I mean realistically, like that was a that was a brutally difficult thing. That was saying, Hey, we're gonna suspend the idea of money coming the other direction for three months. We were sitting personally with like maxed out credit cards at that point. Like the bank account was empty and and that was uh That was a hard moment. Really hard. So Basically you had to wait until

38:48 early twenty fourteen to really launch the brand. I mean, I'cause I think you don't you didn't launch until January twentieth of twenty fourteen. Mm-hmm. And Initially it's Very quiet. Very few orders.

39:00 Mm-hmm. Um, which isn't surprising to me. I mean you're uh an unknown brand, but really Not much n not much in sales. I mean the first three days were amazing because everybody I'd ever met Bought the sheet. Yeah.

39:13 All your friends and Yeah, and so it's like and and I think that's the typical thing, right? You you're like, Okay, this is gonna be great and then all of a sudden you're searching the orders for like Someone you don't actually know that's buying. And and it's like okay, three days in, like we got one. Um and I'm like, is it weird if I call her the next day and see if she likes it? Like you know, yeah, probably is. Um but you know, at this point, so the so we launch it late January. By the time we get through February and into early March, it's like It's getting to the point, guy, where like I was getting frustrated seeing zero dollars and I would go in and buy something. Um Just so that the report didn't show zero dollars, which is ridiculous. I don't know why I thought that would make me feel better. It did though.

39:55 Yeah. And and you guys didn't have a a a PR agency at this point, right? Like I read that you were just Like picking up the phone and and calling different people in the media to try to get some buzz. Um and finally I think you gotta

40:09 A break like a pretty Big break. Yeah. I I had taken a a call with um a woman named Christina Binkley who

40:18 wrote at the Wall Street Journal, but wasn't she said, Like, listen, I don't know that I'm I'm I'm gonna write about this. I'm just really curious because I've I've read a lot on your website and whatnot about your business and I don't understand how you can be All of these things that you say you are from a sustainability standpoint, organic standpoint. And yet

40:39 Your cost is kind of in line with with the the mass market products, like Are you just losing a bunch of money? Like, how is this working? She just assumed you were selling a premium product for less than you're paying for just to acquire customers. Correct. So she just asked me, she's like, H how are you doing it? Like and so I was trying to explain, you know, how we put this supply chain together and and one of the things that we were able to do was suck out a lot of the extra costs. Like reduce transportation time, like like looking at small things that we can do to improve efficiency. Um and by the way, by going direct, there's an importer somewhere that's used to making a fifty point margin on this stuff that's just not gonna get it, right? And and so um she calls me back

41:18 And she says, Hey, you know, I keep thinking about your business, um I I I and I've told a couple people and and I still just don't believe it. I was like well How about this? Like Do what if I just showed you my books and I'll show you what we're paying for everything? And she's like, Oh, that I'd love to see that. So I showed it to her.

41:37 And she calls me back after that. We spent probably a couple hours together and she's like, you know, I talked to my editor. If you're willing to let me publish your cost of goods, like I I would write a story about you guys. I was like

41:53 Wow. Okay that That's interesting. Um, and you know, of course I call people like Sal and everybody No, don't do it, don't do it and I was just so like at the point there were no sales coming in. We needed some energy. We needed something. And so I was like, You know what?

42:08 Sure, why not? And um we had a trip planned to go see Missy's parents who live in Florida. And we have like four straight days of no sales, which we had not gone that long with no sales. And her parents aren't there yet. And Missy's like, do not tell my parents. They are gonna freak out. They already think we're crazy. They already thought we were crazy. They end up coming in town and we still have no sales. Um

42:28 And they surprise us and say Hey, you guys have been working so hard. We're gonna watch the kids. for night and we're gonna send you um over to Miami. for a night and the two of you was our anniversary um coming up. So they're like the two of you are gonna have a night together. Which was like so needed. And

42:44 We're going across Alligator Alley, which is like this this highway of limited cell reception in Florida, and my phone starts blowing up. I was like, What what's going on there? Like, did you not see the video that Wall Street Journal posted? So we get to our hotel, I open up the computer and I see this like three minute video about us and what goes into the cost of a set of sheets. And I look and we had done like Seven thousand dollars in sales. Biggest day by far we'd ever had. I couldn't believe it.

43:12 So I I emailed Christina and she's like Oh yeah, there's gonna be an article. Pick up the paper tomorrow. It should be good. So we wake up in the morning and I I pull open our System. And we had done over a hundred thousand dollars in sales. Wow. And this is like ten o'clock in the morning.

43:28 And by two in the afternoon, we were completely Oh. Of inventory. By the time the day and the next couple of days were done, we did almost a half a million dollars in sales. Still to this day we've not had anything like that that has ever happened.

43:45 When we come back in just a moment. While Scott and Missy decide to take another leap. By advertising on the Howard Stern Show. And why, in order to do that? They have to put their own house.

43:57 On the line. 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 Raz. So it's the spring of 2014, and with a boost from a newspaper article, Bolin Branch linen starts to sell so fast that Missy and Scott cannot keep up. Not only did we not have enough inventory, we couldn't figure out a way to make it fast enough. You know, from that point on, I mean, it sounds exciting that you have all these back orders, but I was on the phone with customers nonstop from that point forward for like a year.

44:46 Um with folks is we could never catch up. It took us almost a year to catch up with demand. And it sounds like oh some some would say that's a champagne problem. It is a champagne problem, but you know, ultimately you're in the business of satisfying customers and they go from like At one point they're like Oh yeah, I'll be patient, but People's patients will wear out at some point. And and so, but the benefit was they were pre-ordering, so we were kind of getting interest free financing on our next purchase orders. Oh, because your customers were prepaying and and waiting. Yeah, because I didn't have the tool within the system to not charge them until it shipped. So I was just charging them up front.

45:20 And we were honest about that. And then you got all this cash to order more inventory. So so we were like flush with cash, light with inventory. And at the same time. We looked at all the cash we had and Missy was like it's time to change the product line.

45:35 To add more stuff. Yeah. I mean so here it was like There's a whole world out there. So that's when we started adding like

45:44 A light gray, a dark gray, a light blue, a dark blue, you know, like I didn't even know I didn't even know Pantone was a thing. I'd never heard of Pantone in my life. And I was just finding fabric shirts, you know, like, Oh, I like this blue, I'll cut it up and and send it over. They were just like, You need to set a standard. What's the standard? And I was like I had no idea you could Yeah, you could use a tool like Pantone and get actual cotton fabric in that color, you know. Um, and so when they'd send the lab dips back, I remember for our blue, I just carried those around with me for like two weeks, taking it to soccer practice to friends, like Hey, do you see the difference between these two? Do you like this one? I like this one. And I think within the next six months, I I Scott, I feel like I added like a hundred and fifty SKUs all with the same

46:31 I thought everybody needed Three Euro Shams, the King Shams in front of it, and a lumbar shams. So we had all these Just pillowcase shams, you know, that I guess people didn't really need all that.

46:46 And then we also hired uh a somebody to help us with customer service. Cause it was the eight hundred number really for our first two plus years in business rang my cell phone. Um So it was great. We offered twenty four seven support. Um

47:00 the downside of that was that I offered twenty four seven support. Um the support line was your literally your cell phone literally my cell phone. My favorite um moment was uh I one time we were taxiing to the runway and I was trying to do an exchange for somebody and the flight attendant's like yelling at me to put the phone away and I'm like, Missy, cover me. Um, you know, and that's how it was. So really until mid twenty fifteen We didn't add on to our team in any sort of like experienced or professional capacity. In that first year,'cause I think you guys did about a million and a half dollars in sales, and you were profitable by year by the end of of that first full year.

47:39 And and Presumably you wanna be increase sales, right? And so At this point I guess the options are Do more social media ads. try and figure out maybe get some more earned me un you know earned media, et cetera.

47:55 Wha what were you thinking about? How are you thinking about ways to acquire new customers? Well, my my goal for twenty fifteen was to turn on customer acquisition and My initial thought was to do exactly what I had perceived. Warby Parker and everybody else to be doing and I had set out to do, which was to turn on the you know, digital customer acquisition engine through primarily Google and Meta. Um

48:19 And It was not working. Uh. At the end of the day I was I was paying a lot in media and not seeing a lot for it and And and

48:30 I I thought about like my own media consumption behaviors and Um Audio was really interesting to me. There weren't a lot of brands playing in audio, but when you looked at their CPMs and you look at the the total audience, really, really big. And so we we started doing a couple very small tests. Um on Sirius XM.

48:49 And when you think specifically about Sirius XM. Radio is free. For everybody. So you're a certain subset of person if you're actually willing to pay for it, which to me was a was an indicator of a luxury customer, a customer that might be open to a more luxury experience or more premium experience. Um And it gives you a national footprint. Buying radio media, especially when you're small, is really, really hard because

49:14 it it's so fragmented. Um and so we started advertising in in Sirius XM and we saw, even though it was a very small spend, we saw some kind of immediate elasticity there. Like This this Thesis was working. And and I felt like I wanted to take that step up to the big leaks. Um

49:32 I was like I I I really wanna try I really wanna try starting. You wanna be in Howard Stern. Desperately. But I'm imagining that that's much more expensive. The minimum to get on Howard Stern was two million dollars. Two million dollars just to uh do a and that's what, a year campaign or something? So it'd be it would be a commitment over the course of the year. There probably would have been some cancellation terms where I could get some money back, but it was a big number. You gotta put two million dollars in to get on a stern. Okay. Absolutely. Well, they gotta b I mean they pay him a lot of money. They gotta get that money back. Exactly. Exactly. I remember before he went to Sirius XM you talk about Snapple when he's on commercial radio, Snapple, Snapple, Snaple. He you could argue he made Snapple. He really turned that into

50:13 A brand a big brand'cause he talked about it. But they made they they had this minimum requirement. It wasn't like hey you can just buy an episode or two or three. You had to buy two million dollars. You couldn't just put in a hundred grand. Correct. I mean you're you're you're doing like Maybe three million dollars in revenue.

50:30 And you're gonna spend two million dollars on how on a Howard Sternhead? It can't sound sounds kind of nuts. It does, actually, now that you say it. Um It was I mean, we had done a million, yeah, like a million and a half in our first year. Uh we had planned a double. That was our plan and our inventory plan against against the next year and putting all your eggs in that basket.

50:51 Yeah. Um, without a plan for what I was gonna do if it worked, because that would be a lot more inventory, but You know, the truth is is that I just I I believe so strongly that Somebody like Howard was gonna put us on the map.

51:05 Yeah. I believed it was going to happen. I believed it was possible. Well, and you were one of his audience members who you had the squatty potty, you had Tommy John's underwear, like everything he he was telling you, you know. Avian, tequila, like all these brands that he really you buy. Yeah. And that was the same thesis. To make it authentic, he'd have to use the product. Yeah, and and so before we ever broached the subject. We had to get product

51:32 to him, so we had to have him custom made because he has a custom sized bed. Oh,'cause he's like six foot five or seven or however tall he is? Exactly. Like'cause he's very tall and his wife is very tall as well. Um Yeah, so we m we made them the sheets, we sent them out, and it's like you wait and all of a sudden I get a message from Oh my gosh, Beth loves these sheets and so does Howard.

51:55 From somebody at Sirius XM, the ad team, or Yeah, somebody it was actually one of his producers. They said they love the sheets. They're like k no, and and it wasn't like Hey, we want you to advertise with this. It's like can he get more? And do you make in purple because Robin Quivers would like him in purple. And this is no no promise to endorse or talk about it or anything. It was just nothing. We want they like it and we we're we're famous and we want more free sheets. I know, and so of course like uh that only fuels What I'm like, they actually legitimately like the product so much, though, that I'm like, there's gotta be something here. And I finally decided to take all of the equity out of my house.

52:34 Uh and then some. And um I got a two million dollar Term loan from the Small Business Association. Wow, you took a Uh you took a line of credit against your house to advertise to spend two million dollars on an ad campaign on Howard's turn.

52:51 Yeah, and the great thing about the the SBA Is also the dangerous thing is that You don't need to have anywhere close to the collateral. of the amount of loan you take. I did not live anywhere close to a two million dollar house and and so I took the the most amount of debt I've ever had on anything in my life. Wow.

53:07 Just to advertise on Howard's turn. It it's interesting that you earlier you said you know, I'm not Really an entrepreneur, I'm not a risk taker. But this is a massive risk. Yeah, looking back.

53:18 It is a massive risk. At the time. I was just so focused and I was I really believed I mean you have to think about back to where the business was at this point. I had demand I couldn't keep up with. So I was like this thing's a runaway train. I need to feed it before Someone else comes along and takes the opportunity that we're not taking. And and so I was

53:38 I had I had the fear in me of not moving fast enough. No, it wasn't look, I I make it sound like it was an easy decision. when you realize like when Missy and I are are sitting in a in a lawyer's office for a closing On a two million dollar term loan.

53:54 Like it is very real. Yeah. Meantime, there are two other competitors that had started around this time. We've done Uh some of your competitors in the show. There was Brooklyn and there was Parachute.

54:06 Uh, were you worried also about About those brands cutting into your share your market share? You know, it's interesting. The reality is this. Small businesses that are all running up against a system are helping each other more than they're hurting each other.

54:21 So I'm rooting for all of them as long as they're in second or third place. Um You know, and and because I'm a competitive guy and I wanna win. And so to be honest our products are not competitive. We're not reaching a similar like th those are mass market products that are conventional and we're we're creating something entirely different for an entirely different customer. All right. So you're

54:43 most people were probably putting their money into maybe at that time early influencers and Instagram, which is still early days, but That's where their dollars were going, which was well spent. at the time you're thinking, hey, you know How about old school radio?

54:58 Howard Stern. Mm-hmm. The first time he read We did three times what we thought we would do in sales from one reading. Well,

55:07 It was Out. Orageous. And still to this day we haven't our advertised on Howard in in a couple years. We still have people walking into our retail stores saying, Oh yeah, I know you're from Howard Stern.

55:20 So that just Spiked sales. Uh almost overnight. Almost overnight. I mean actually overnight. Literally. Um in twenty fifteen Thanks to Howard.

55:32 We ended up Going from a million five in sales in twenty fourteen to o almost thirteen and a half million in our second year. Wow. And the only thing that really changed was was Howard. uh in the mix and to keep up with demand. We

55:46 Spent. millions of dollars airing in goods just to have it here on time so that we could we could satisfy demand. Um so it's the only year in our history we ran a loss. We we lost two hundred thousand dollars that year. But really as a result of Howard we were on our way. Alright, so now It's the middle of twenty sixteen.

56:06 Mm-hmm. Things uh things seem like they're doing pretty well. But you have You run into a cash crisis. that year. What uh what happened? I mean, like not just a mini crisis, a significant crisis that would require you to do Some pretty dramatic things to uh make sure the company didn't go under

56:27 Which is Nuts. Wha what was going on? So We were playing this game of keep keeping up with demand and and

56:35 We have to get caught up. And and so we did that in twenty fifteen and and I think met demand. But along with that, you know, you're making a lot of decisions really quickly. And I didn't know at the time, but we had placed An order for ten times the number of boxes that we needed. Cardboard boxes to ship things. Cardboard boxes. The branded cardboard boxes. Okay, but but accidentally you ordered ten times the number you needed? Yeah. There was literally

57:01 an extra zero added at the end of the purchase order. And nobody was like, Wow, they're they're really uh crushing it. There's a lot of it. I mean it's a case where you're a growing business and you don't have your system of checks and balances. So at that point, we had hired a a planner and and You know, um It was an accident. We were relying on a lot from her, but she m she made a mistake and

57:26 It was late in the summer and we were um Starting to get our our invoices against our holiday purchase orders, right? So business is doing really well from a from a consumer standpoint. Um But our cash position is weak. Like w what's happening here and

57:45 We realize at that point, um When we get A shipment that delivers to our warehouse with these boxes. And the warehouse calls us and says Mm.

57:56 We can't we don't have enough space to store all this. Like what What is this? And it's kind of like, you know, the the world goes inside out in a moment and you suddenly realize What's shown up? Um

58:08 Is It's not just You know. Miles and miles of cardboard boxes. But

58:14 That's cash. That's All of our excess cash, and then some. Meanwhile I have my entire supply chain Waiting on

58:23 more cash from us because we have to pay our bills on time. And and at this point we do have terms, right? So um we're trying to pay these bills and it's the most stressed I've ever been, um in the history of this company because I was like I I th this obligation to the folks that we really rely on overseas and and all of the social programs that that are attached to to this money, like I I didn't want to let them down. Um by delaying payment. I couldn't

58:51 raise debt from the SBA fast enough to to pay these bills and Uh it was at that point, you know, I had enough people that had been knocking on my door to invest in the business that You need you needed capital. I needed the capital and I needed it fast. So I put aggressive terms out there. Um, reached out to, you know, the true definition of friends and family and I needed about two million dollars. Um

59:14 And I closed it in a week and a half. So how much of the business did you guys have to give up? It costs us at least fifteen to twenty percent of the business. Well. This mistake could have

59:26 Yeah, right. It could have it could have put you in a Really bad. It did put you in a bad position, but it could have It could have been worse. Yeah, I mean.

59:35 Okay. You know, in those moments I I just feel like If I've learned anything, and maybe it's maybe was the benefit of being in my like late thirties at this point and not a twenty something entrepreneur. Where I was like

59:48 What I have to do is solve this problem. I have a cash problem, and the only thing I can worry about right now is solving the cash problem. Yeah. And and had I not been able to raise that money, Like What's when does the business go out of business when they can't pay their bills. Like that's it. Yeah.

1:00:02 Um There was another kind of I I don't know if I Maybe catastrophic is the right word, but you had to raise more money again in twenty seventeen. And it it'd be really interesting to f hear about what happened.

1:00:16 Yeah, what happened in twenty s twenty seventeen was interesting because The business was really, really going strong. Um, but we had really kind of under forecasted our growth. Um, which we got to a point where our inventory build for holiday and what we needed to meet demand.

1:00:34 was gonna It was gonna be a bigger build than we had the cash to build against, right? Again, when we're We're paying for our goods largely up front. So we got into a very big cash crunch um towards the end because we increased our POs to really try to capture that growth. So again, I had to shake the can down the road because I had at that point I was already sitting with five million dollars in personally guaranteed debt from the SBA. So there was no ability to raise additional debt. Um

1:01:03 And and so at that point I I realized that I needed to raise equity. I mean, I mean, separately I tried to refinance my house during that period of time and the bank rejected us because we had too much debt in the business. So in order to to to have the cash to Two pay for the orders. You had to

1:01:21 raise more cash, I think, in twenty seventeen, right? You went back to your previous investors or sh your shareholders and said, Hey We need an emergency infusion. Yeah. Um and that was the first time we brought in um an institutional partner. So we brought in a group called Silas Capital.

1:01:38 They had been advisors for us and um, you know, they look they jumped at the opportunity because again Um When you have a crunch, you have to put an aggressive offer out and the terms were probably really attractive. They were very attractive, right? So um you know, but but I felt that they were the right partner. I could close it quickly. Um I could solve the problem and get back to focusing on the business, um

1:02:01 You know, and and and so that's what we did. Yeah. And so even though we were now bringing in more of a professional investor. I was very hesitant to to let go of any kind of control of the business and where we were going. So in exchange for really good terms, They they had to they had to trust Missy and I to operate this business and and that was a trade

1:02:22 we were willing to make and candidly, I think we would make again. I mean I think it makes a lot of sense'cause that you probably had to give up More of your ownership at that point, significant amount. Yeah, it was it was about another ten percent. Which I I think

1:02:35 It it makes sense to me that that You know, a lot of founders are unwilling to do that. But I think that there are many instances where it makes absolute sense to do that because Now you've got real you've got additional stakeholders who are invested in the success and the growth of the brand. That's right.

1:02:55 You know, at the end of the day, you're you're worried about your fully diluted share. for two things. You're worried for control and then you're worried about um what it means for you financially and an outcome at some point. Um Missy and I operated

1:03:10 From day one and still do today, we are not focused on an exit. It's not something we you know, valuations are not things that we talk about internally in the business. Um We're committed to this business and running this business for a long period of time. And you gotta big investment, I think a hundred million dollars from a a private equity firm, El Catterton.

1:03:29 In twenty nineteen. Uh, which presumably means that they are the majority owners of the of the business now. Yeah, they are. Um so at at that time we we took in that investment, um, but they also took everybody else off the cap table. Um And including in that um

1:03:46 Missing I wanted You know liquidity opportunities for our employees uh as well. Uh and so we made sure that that happened. Now Missy and I rolled over uh our shares because we we You know, so so I think unlike a lot of catered in businesses, Missy and I are very significant shareholders. So the you know, the dynamics changed, um, and and none of those early investors are with us anymore. Most of them Honestly made somewhere between twelve and fifteen X their money, um, which isn't bad for a three year investment.

1:04:15 Yeah. Not at all. And and in terms of of of how you guys sort of handled. working together. I mean I I I've said this before in the show. I I work with my my wife. I think it's great.

1:04:29 a lot plenty of people we've had on the show are like, I could never work with my partner or my spouse. It just wouldn't work. Um and then others have. Uh, we've had others who've divorced while they're running a business. Um how did how did you guys make it work? I mean, is it just that naturally you were both interested in different parts of the business?

1:04:47 Yeah, I think that's the biggest key to it. You know, Scott has such a command for the marketing side, the business side. And I trust him wholeheartedly with Anything he's gonna do. makes a decision on or wants to do even

1:05:03 You know me signing away our house to Howard Stern. Like, you know, I I trust him wholeheartedly. Um, but I think Conversely, he would trust me wholeheartedly with anything having to do with products. But at the same time, so much of it is intertwined.

1:05:20 And You know, from the beginning it was like if I could make it, Scott could sell it. You know, look, I love this company. I love what we're building. I don't know. that I that I would love it as much if it wasn't Missy and I doing it together. And now

1:05:38 You know, with with daughters that have grown up with this business. Uh I think having lost my parents young, um uh that that even further enhances the importance of family and the closen of family. And and I think had we not been doing bowl and branch together and either one of us been doing this independently, It could have broken us either as individuals or or as a family.

1:06:00 going through some of the tough times we've gone through, but the fact that we're we're in it together and You know We both trust the fact that like We're doing the best we can. Yeah.

1:06:11 When you think about uh you know, the journey you took and and where you are now. I mean, how much of of this do you attribute to the work you put in and how much do you think has to do with luck? I mean, there were, of course, lucky moments, right? Um, you know, like meeting that guy at the pool and and You know, and and uh and also f finding this guy in India and this factory, but but how much of of where you got to Do you think just has to do with good fortune and how much

1:06:37 Due tribute to the work you put in. I think there's been a little luck along the way. I think it's been all that we've put into it. I think it's all about heart and grit. That our team has and that we have.

1:06:48 That make it. Look, if you don't have luck The lack of luck's gonna kill you at some point along the way. There's no doubt about it, right? But It comes back to a lesson like and I I I just can remember in the early days like sitting around the dinner table and and Missy just saying like look we

1:07:06 We no matter what, no one is gonna outwork us. So much of it is the gr if you're willing to do the dirty work, right? You're willing to take the trash out at the end of the day. You're willing to come into the office when nobody else is here on a weekend because you gotta just push something over the finish line. Not because we expect other people to be here or anything like that, but but It's this it's just this this fierce commitment to our business. And and guy, I'm gonna be honest with you. It is not lost on either of us. When you step foot in our factories. And you look across

1:07:38 The knitting tables and You see faces and people whom now we've known for a decade. And You realize like We're also doing this for them, and I it's it sounds cliche. It sounds

1:07:50 Like a little much, but that's where the grit and determination comes from. When you know that like the goodness you're creating goes so far. It's just powerful. That Scott and Missy Tannin. Co-founders of Bowlin Branch. By the way, in twenty twenty four, the brand made a surprise appearance at the Met Gala in New York.

1:08:11 The theme of the event was sleeping beauty, and so Bow and Branch provided bed sheet cotton for the gown actually worn by tennis star Maria Sharpova. And appropriately it was a gown in a color described by one critic Is tennis ball yellow? 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 if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, sign up for my free newsletter at guyros.com. This episode was researched and produced by Catherine Cyfer, with music composed by Ramteen Erablui. It was edited by Neva Grant, and our engineers Robert Rodriguez and Gilly Moon. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Carla Esteves, JC Howard, Sam Paulson, Devin Schwartz, Chris Massini, Carrie Thompson.

1:09:04 John Isabella and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening. To how I built this.

What you see above is a preview of the first minutes. One unlock costs 10 credits and covers this episode forever: full segment and word-level timestamps on this page, plus .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like.