YouSaid · the spoken record

Alan Newman

lines on the record: 63
first: 2021-01-25
most recent: 2021-01-25
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“There's no question that you have to be a little lucky to be successful. I don't think anyone is successful without a fair measure of luck. But I attribute a lot of my success to my unwillingness to give up, to no matter what challenge I'm facing, no matter how things, how bad things look, I'm glad that I have not given up and I've stuck with it. And if you don't have that passion, if you don't have that love for what you're doing, you won't make it through the hard times. You won't be around to experience the luck that might be waiting out there for you.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There were a couple of people who were on the board briefly but cycled off pretty quickly. And it was a little awkward, quite honestly, but there were also some incredibly wonderful people who were new along with me. And it was a terrific experience, and it's been a terrific experience. I have had a unique opportunity to sort of continue to shepherd my legacy with Unilever in a way that I never imagined I'd have the opportunity to do. Yeah.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, first of all, they got to make sure that they want a co-founder. It's not for everybody, as Alan has suggested. Some people maybe like him and I are happier being in the leadership role alone. If you're going to have a co founder, I think you need to have a very, very transparent and clear agreement about the relationship, not just who's doing what, but how you handle these agreements, how you handle things that when things go wrong. It's a challenge. I mean, it's, you know, to me, in some way, being married is like having a partner and it takes a tremendous amount of work. I think if you're not prepared to do the work, you shouldn't get into the relationship.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I certainly think that that's a possibility, but who knows? I mean, as I said, I learned a lot from Alan. He's an incredibly talented and capable guy. He had many skills that I didn't have. And, you know, in many ways, I tried to do the things that seventh generation that I had learned from him. He was a master at creating an incredible culture and community. So, you know, who knows how things might have gone had we stayed together. We didn't, so no one will ever know.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Feel like I have to take responsibility for what happened to me. It didn't happen all on its own. I contributed to what happened. I have to understand how my behavior led to getting fired. I was very headstrong. I was impatient. And I was too focused on doing what I was passionate about doing and not focused enough on ensuring that I had brought the board along with me.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was and I did Yeah, it was like a child that had been stolen from me. I was incredibly depressed, sad, angry. And yeah, it hurt. It hurt. Boy, I don't know that I've ever cried as much as I cried in the weeks and months following that experience.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Totally unexpected And, you know, it was done in a somewhat brutal fashion because not only was I let go, but I was let go over the telephone on a Saturday morning and told that I wasn't even allowed to go back into the office ever again.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There was a third area which we had hired this guy Chuck Maniscalco, who was going to be the sort of business operational leader. He was the Gatorade guy who grew Gatorade from a billion to four billion. We hired him together. I came to the conclusion that he was the wrong person for that role, that his values really weren't aligned with the company. My mistake, my fault. The board loved him and the board wanted to keep him and the board was very nervous about the tension between Chuck and myself.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“More public speaking, more building the movement of responsible business. You know, I was a board member of Greenpeace for 13 years. I was getting arrested for standing up for things that we believed in. And my board was definitely not comfortable with a CEO who was getting thrown in jail. That was one area of tension. Another area of tension was employee ownership. We had built ourselves up to having a company where the ownership of 20% of the company was resting in the hands of the employees. One of the things that I was the most proud of, hoping to get that to 30%. And that was another source of tension with the board because they felt that the employees had enough stock. They didn't really need any more.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't think so. I mean, you know, 2010 was the best year financially that the company ever had with about a 50% growth rate. But there were a series of factors that had created an increasingly tense situation with the board. One was we were in the middle of going to raise about $30 million of additional capital. There was definitely concern about how my shifting role would play with those new investors.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, in 2007, I began to reflect on my own personal goals and the impact I wanted to have. And it wasn't that I didn't want to be working at seventh generation. It was that I wanted to be doing different things than I was doing. I didn't want to be completely focused on the monthly profit and loss statement. I didn't want to be obsessed about product development. What I really wanted to do was help build this responsible business movement. And I wanted to write more. I wanted to speak more. I loved being the public face of the company, but I didn't love doing all the things that a traditional CEO does.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Paper towels that's focused on reusable diapers rather than disposable diapers. And that's why seventh generation just this year came out with cleaning products that had no water and no plastic packaging. Now, that's still not good, but it's better than having the plastic waste that we have with our traditional cleaning products.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, first of all, I totally agree with you, and it's a fundamental challenge that the whole green responsible products industry faces. To be quite honest, it's often about being less bad rather than good. And I think we've gotten the two things confused. I think that when you're buying a seventh generation diaper, you're causing landfills to fill up. You're causing increased climate change. You're causing water pollution. You're having a bunch of negative impacts. They're just not as bad as they would be if you purchased another brand. But being less bad is not being good. And I think we really need sort of a sustainability 2.0 that's focused on good products, that's focused on cloth wipes rather than”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Basically, meant we had a small group of much more powerful, influential investors who were relatively traditional in their investment strategy. They liked the mission, but they loved the business performance and sales growth. And some of the things that they considered to be silly or extraneous, they were willing to put up with as long as the sales kept growing at a fast pace.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we had a very unusual experience with Albertsons about two weeks after we got on the shelf and we were celebrating and excited because it was the first traditional grocery store, there was a labor strike at Albertson's because they were trying to reduce the healthcare benefits that their employees had. We were so idealistic that we felt that those were not the values that we wanted to be associated with. And we had a contingent of our employees pushing to take the products off the shelves. And we debated and we debated and the whole company sat down in a meeting together and some brilliant young man whose name I can't remember came up with this idea that we should take all the profits we generated from selling in Albertsons and donate it to the workers strike fund to help the workers extend”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, beyond the focus on the natural food industry and whole foods, our first traditional grocery store was a grocery store called Albertsons in Southern California.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Unlike our diaper business, I mean, when we got into the diaper business, I was traveling in Europe and I saw these brown diapers. I said, wow, unbleached diapers made from non-chlorine bleached pulp. And I said, I got to have these. We got to sell these. And they were a success from day one. And that added, you know, about a third to our sales. That was a huge, huge driver of our growth and expansion.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, sure. We created this product made of zeolite that you would put in your refrigerator. And basically what it did was take the humidity out of your refrigerator to allow your vegetables to last longer and your refrigerator to run more efficiently. So it was an amazing product. It's used in many professional institutional refrigerators. I loved it. I loved the idea, but it was far too complicated a story to tell on a retail shelf. That was a total failure right away. No one bought it.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I mean, the truth was we sold health and safety first environment second and as an and these products really work as well as traditional products. We believed that in order to really set ourselves apart, and particularly to appeal to these new moms who were having kids for the first time, that health and safety was critical as well as the environmental benefits. And yes, the products had to work, but that wasn't our niche. Our niche wasn't we're cool and will look nice on your bathroom shelf. We appealed to a quite different market.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We would show that data, but we would also show a lot of sales analysis. And basically what we said was not only are these products healthier and safer, but you will make more money per square foot by selling them than you will selling traditional products. You'll have bigger margins. You'll sell more with less space. And honestly, that financial argument was often what was a winning argument because these retailers are in the real estate business and they look at how much revenue they can generate per square foot of shelf space. And if you can create more profit per square foot, they're happy.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, every product we sold we sent to an independent lab and tested our performance against lysol tide or bounty. And we had pretty good test results. We were 90 or 95% as effective. We weren't 100% as effective or more effective. But we felt that we got the job done for most consumers. And that was what would be good enough.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, it was huge. And it basically unleashed growth that would propel us from $10, $12 million to five years later, almost $50 million. Whole Foods had so much credibility with the consumer that that trust rubbed off on us as well. So, you know, we had sort of the Whole Foods stamp of approval by just being present in the store.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the mail order catalog had a problem. I mean, it was a very wasteful business, whether you got one, two, or three customers for every hundred catalogs you mailed. You were creating tons of garbage and tons of waste for all the people that recycled those catalogs without even opening them. Postage costs were rising, paper costs were rising. So we decided to place our bet on the natural product industry and work on getting more and more retailers like Whole Foods and Bread and Circus and Mrs. Gucci's on board with the brand.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Strategy was working, and the challenge we faced was we had raised about $5 million of additional capital, and the board and I came to the conclusion that we had two very different businesses. And they both demanded lots of money. And we decided that we should do something that appeared highly risky and bet on the wholesale retail business rather than the mail order catalog business because that was my intuition about where the biggest upside was in the future.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we sort of did three things. We built up our line of branded seventh generation products. We were selling in the catalog a lot of other people's products. So if we were selling sheets and towels and t-shirts. Those were not ours with our name on them. So we expanded the assortment of our branded products. So that was number one. Number two was we redesigned and relaunched the mail order catalog, hoping to get better results than we had been getting. And number three, we started experimenting, actually having my brother, Peter Hollander, go to natural food stores in New York City and put our products on the shelf to see if they actually sold And we got a pretty quick feel of what was moving. And there was no question that three products dominated the assortment. Bathroom tissue, paper towels, and laundry detergents.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did, and at a certain point my perception was that potential was in a very different direction than the one we had been proceeding, that rather than having a catalog business, I had developed the vision for a wholesale business where we would sell our products to retailers and attract consumers in retail stores to buy the brand. Know that was a business that I had my own experience with because of the books on tape business. Sure. And I just didn't understand and know the catalog business the way Alan did. Alan had done it for years and knew it well. I didn't.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We actually did see each other several times. And I don't know who instigated this me or Alan, but we went to see a third party to try to reconcile our differences. And we had a series of meetings with a sort of marriage counselor type person to see if we could mend the relationship, which I don't think happened very success”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I'm not sure that I thought he wouldn't be surprised. And I was probably relatively certain that he would be angry and hurt. For me, I think it would be crazy for me to expect anything else.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When I reflect on this, you know, anytime you have a close relationship that falls apart and anytime you hurt someone, there's nothing to feel good about. I mean, that's a bad situation and that's a personal failing on my part. But my reflection is that one of the things we could have done that we didn't do is put things in writing when Alan left. So a written document that says Alan's taking six months off and he will return at the end of six months and fulfill the position he had before. I mean, that wasn't written down anywhere. So we were left with very different experiences and different points of view about what the outcome of the sabbatical would be.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's so hard because we didn't talk during his sabbatical. At least I don't think we were talking during your sabbatical. And for two people who were so close to all of a sudden be that separate, you know, left a lot of room for each one of us to be having our own thoughts in totally different directions.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, but I tend to hold a grudge. So I did feel sort of abandoned with a mess that I was not thrilled about having to sort out”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, you know, it's hard to separate what I felt at the time with my memory of what I felt. I felt abandoned, I felt angry, I felt like I was on a ship that was sinking and my partner who was supposed to be steering the ship with me just stepped off and left me alone with a boat that was really sinking. I mean, I didn't know whether the thing would survive. And, you know, when things don't work out, both parties have some responsibility. So there's no question that I probably didn't behave the way I should have. I might have felt like, you know, if you leave now, don't come back, but I might not have said that.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was like jumping out a window and not knowing how far you're going to fall because every week we missed our numbers and every week we missed our numbers again. And it was incredibly scary and disconcerting.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it was the combination of the recession and the fact that the excitement that people had about the environment during the 20th anniversary of Earth Day did not carry through. Many, many people who bought something and we expected that they would buy something else didn't.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“With the help of the 20th anniversary of Earth Day. The amazing thing was that the media wanted to find stories about the environment. And we were a great story. We got a huge amount of publicity. We had maybe it was a year or two later, but I remember we had a four-page story in People magazine that was unheard of for this tiny little Vermont company.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely because we had a culture where we didn't want people to feel like they couldn't be open and share the mistakes they made. And if they made a mistake and covered it up, the only thing that happened is someone else would make that same mistake. So that was part of the genius of the culture that Alan began to build at the company.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had a multiplicity of feelings. I mean, in some respects, I loved what Alan was doing and I learned a tremendous amount from him about how to build a culture that was aligned with the values of the business. And that was really cool. And yet at the same time, I took a lot of shit for the nap room from investors. It was like... You really need a nap room. Is that a good use of our capital? But I, you know, Alan was a great teacher and I came to really appreciate the culture. He was talking before about what people don't know. I mean, one of my fondest memories is that in our staff meetings, we would actually give a prize out to the person who made the biggest mistake that week And they would get a coupon to go out to dinner with their friend or their wife.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, in those days, it was sort of elderly French ladies who used them to go shopping with. They were not in vogue. They weren't cool. But we sold so many of them. It was just incredible.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We had so many orders for this string bag. People were waiting, and this is no joke, they were waiting over a year to get their string bag. And I remember Alan and I took a wonderful trip to France to visit the factory to try to figure out how to get them to make more of these things. And they couldn't believe we were selling them.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, and they thought we were crazy, by the way, because, you know, we were selling unbleached 100% recycled fiber bathroom tissue, which was the scratchy stuff that you found in a gas station.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, we were working with a co-packer who would help us design the product and do all the manufacturing. So we had one co-packer that made all the cleaning products down in New Jersey and a tissue paper manufacturer out in Wisconsin that made all the paper products.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think part of the breakthrough was, you know, if you sell someone a low flow showerhead, they only need one of them. And I think the breakthrough was getting into the household product category with paper products and cleaning products because those were multiple frequent purchases. People were going to buy those over and over and over again. And we got to the point where about 25% of our sales were made up of these household products like bathroom tissue, paper towels, and laundry detergent.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. I mean, not only authenticity, but Alan actually knew what he was doing. He knew the catalog business. He understood how it worked. He understood the marketing and the operations of it. And I couldn't have done it on my own. There was just no way that was going to happen.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The key to raising money for seventh generation was the people who had invested with me in my prior business made a lot of money for every dollar they put into the company they got $10 back. They were happy”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, but 99 out of 100 people didn't buy, so you had the cost of printing and mailing the catalog. And it's the lifetime value of those customers that you hope will turn the business around at some point. But that point was very, very, very far in the future.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, my recollection was we spent way more money acquiring customers than they generated in revenue. So every time we acquired a new customer, we lost money. And the hope was that over time, over years, they would repeat their purchases and they would become profitable. But they weren't profitable at first.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was a good business, an opportunity to use business to have a positive effect on the world. And the way the relationship started was I offered to write a business plan or help write a business plan for the business to raise money And that evolved into us becoming partners in the business. And that happened, I believe, in January of 1989.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. I mean, I love the idea of a business that instead of teaching people how to marry money was helping them solve environmental challenges we were facing.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, exactly, exactly. And somehow I tracked Alan down and I basically said I'm sort of heartbroken that Renew America has walked away from this. I'd love to help in some way if you're going to continue and I could raise some money. I have some connections. I think I could be helpful. And my recollection is Alan said, gee, I'm in the middle of getting this first catalog out. Let's talk in the new year in January.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My memory is that I, perhaps, unlike Alan, loved the idea of the Renew America catalog, I thought the idea of selling people energy efficient, environmental products was a great idea.”
2021-01-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT