YouSaid · the spoken record

Angie Hicks

lines on the record: 57
first: 2024-10-31
most recent: 2024-10-31
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

“Engineer was Sina Lefredo. Our production team also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estevez, Elaine Coates, JC Howard, Catherine Ceypher, Carrie Thompson, Sam Paulson, Devin Shorts, and Neva Grant. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at guyroz.com. Each week it's packed with tons of insights from entrepreneurs and my own observations and experiences interviewing some of the greatest entrepreneurs ever. And if you're working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business, the issues, or questions you'd like help with, and hopefully we can help you with them. And make sure to tell us how to reach you. You can send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298 and leave a message there. And we'll put all this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Chris Massini with music composed by Rumtin Era Blui. It was edited by Jon Isabella.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Literally in like a hundred square foot office sp We didn't have a phone system, we had a phone. And so we needed a second line, we got a second phone. So I do remember times when I'd be like sitting on the floor in the office, literally like toggling between two physical phones with no hold button.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And by the way, if you guys haven't heard Angie's original How I Built This episode, got to go back and check it out. You can find a link to it in the podcast description. And here is one of my favorite moments from that interview. Started calling you, and you are the only person manning the phones”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, not taking things too seriously sometimes. You know, I tell the team a lot and I have for years, I'm like, we're not running the ER No one's dying here. So let's kind of not make these decisions so heavy. Let's not stress so much because we need to make our decisions and move on and kind of learn from them.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I think especially as a young person, I'm like, are there things I wish I knew more of? I'm like, if I would have known more about business, I might have bailed, right? Because I knew what I was doing. There was a bit of ignorance as bliss, but I think.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know looking back at where you started and where you were anything you wish you'd known back then or that would have been helpful for you when you were starting out that could have, I don't know, helped you get through some tough moments?”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Maybe one Yeah, for sure. Angie, before I let you go, I want to ask you about something that I ask a lot of guests who come on the show, which is, you know, you're coming to a table with so much experience now. You have the benefit of perspective in hindsight, which is, by the way, anyone listening, this is why we very rarely have guests on the show who are under 30, because not that they're not smart or interesting, even if they made hundreds of millions of dollars, it's just you can't buy time. You can't buy like life experience. And so we often will say, hey, come back and let's talk to you when you're 40, right? And we've made a couple of exceptions, but generally it's that time scale that we're looking for. You have it, right? And so I wonder when you think about”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right It's really amazing how all of these opportunities have cropped up in the last ten years. And really, I mean, my kids do online language. We went to Italy this summer. My wife, who's super disciplined, did three months of Italian with somebody in Italy at like six in the morning, like three times a week before we went to Italy.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Keisha, good luck. The brand is called Bridge the Gap Spanish. We'll be cheering you on and can't wait to see what you do.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I never give up on something that works, but But you should always be testing into the next thing. So, you know, so if it's one of those where it's like, hey, this really works, so maybe you're spending 80 or 90% of your marketing dollars there because you can just kind of, it's performing. But you always want to be thinking about what's next because, you know, marketing moves fast and you don't want to get caught flat-footed. So you want to know kind of what a handful of vehicles that work well.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so we did have the benefit. We patterned Angie's list after another business that had been around for about 70 years. So we had the benefit of understanding that business model and we ended up buying that company. So in that scenario, we knew these paid members were going to stick around for kind of five years, six years. So we could build out a pretty robust LTV lifetime value and then I use 10%. That was about what we were spending to acquire a new homeowner. We're like, hey, we'll spend 10% up front. And we knew we were underwater when we did that in year one for sure, but we knew as we scaled that we had kind of a path on that money that we knew that it was going to return. And we were very diligent about making sure we were proving that out.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, exactly. So I'm curious question for you, Angie. I'm curious to know when you were in the early days with Angie's list, what percentage was going towards acquiring new members versus new. Like helping those who were currently with you. Because I think that's where my struggle is.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Keisha, I'm curious about before we get into sort of your question, tell me a little bit about how you are differentiating what you offer from, I mean, there are big companies out there that have been around for a long time. I think of like itaki, I think it's called, that offer one-on-one online training in many, many languages with people around the world. So, how do you, what are you offering to attract people to what you're offering that makes it more appealing?”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It. And from what I understand, you kind of relaunched this earlier this year. So still early days. How have you been able to find customer students?”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's awesome. Tell me a little bit about how the business model works. Is it a monthly fee? And how many classes do you get a week?”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, if I lived by myself, I would just have like, I don't know, some cardboard boxes and IKEA couches. But we have blankets draped over the sofa or strategically placed pillows. And I would never think of, but they look really nice. They look really good. They do. Right. They do. Alright, we're gonna take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking calls with Angie Hicks of Angie. Let's bring in our next caller. Hello, caller, welcome to the advice line. Please tell us your name. We're calling from, and just a little bit about your business”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thank you. Bye Yeah, it's amazing how little, and I'm going to sound like a complete man here, but how little things like a tablecloth or table mats just like completely transform a room, which I've just discovered because we just got a bunch of them on our dining room table and I noticed that something was different. I said, oh, this dining room table is so good. I said to my wife, she said, yeah, because I bought new table mats or placemats.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Indeed. Diana O'Connor, the company the brand is called Weston Table, congrats on your success. Good luck. It sounds like you are well on your way to scaling this thing.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did, I did. So I had my co-founder, and then he eventually joined the business as the CEO about three years after we started. So, you know, I had an easier path on that journey because I had an advisor that was wanting to step in. So that worked out perfectly and kind of let him kind of take that kind of scale and let me focus on the things that I enjoyed focusing on. So it was a good balance. You know, one thing you might also think about is you're kind of talking about these interviews. I mean, if you're looking for a CEO, maybe, you know, like you could go out looking for a CEO or you could go out looking for a chief operating officer and finding someone that can kind of come in and then, you know, kind of work their way into the business and then, you know, maybe, you know, in a couple of years, they take that CEO seat as you guys develop comfort around that as well.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But then also building in the infrastructure that incentivizes that person to stay and realize the vision in the project. I mean, we had this story with Kava. Kava is now a national food brand. The original founders were Greek-American buddies who had a restaurant. And eventually, many years into the business when they were kind of small scale, they found somebody who wanted to join them. And he helped scale that business into a national brand. And it's been a phenomenal partnership for all of them.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that it's an interesting arguments on both sides, right? We did an episode with Mike Sinnyard, who started specialized bikes, and it was really, you know, he ran it for a long time, and then he was encouraged to bring in professionals to scale it. And that did not work out well at all. It almost tanked the company. This is a cautionary tale. And he went back and retook it over. And now he went back to running it. But we have plenty of examples where people brought on others, operators who had different skill sets and really were able to realize the vision of the founder and to take it to the next level. And I think that to me it's that balance. It's like interviewing, spending time with that person months maybe, having lots of conversations.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Cool thing is, I think we're at a space right now where if we brought someone in and they wanted to be a partner, and I mean a true partner, an investor partner, somebody who's willing to put what I've put into the business and do that as an equal.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I could. Not because it was like, you know, I kind of found it fun or whatever. I was getting ready to have my second child and my second child was born in the spring when I would buy all the media. And, you know, I was going to take a whopping six weeks off with my new one. And so I had to give someone else that job. And, you know, that break and being forced to make that decision was one of the best things that happened. We got better rates because she just wanted to make sure she kind of knocked it out of the park. I didn't buy media anymore, which meant I could spend my time doing things that were more valuable to the organization.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah. And I think that's important to know, like knowing what you're good at, knowing what you want to do. I mean, you commented that you came out of finance. Like, I know it's easy for you to do the books, but it's not necessary for you to do the books. You need to be able to read them, understand them. And I have no concern that you're going to be able to do that. No one's pulling anything over on you. But just because you can doesn't mean you should. So, you know, finding people that can kind of take some of those tasks off of your plate, that just allows you to do things. My best example is I used to buy all of our media.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wow, okay, so you've really scaled this quickly, which is awesome. Are you talking about, I mean, in your perfect world, would you want to have a CEO and that would free you up to kind of focus on the creative side and the things that maybe you enjoy doing more?”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think this is a really deep question for me because at my heart, I'm a creative person. I was trained as a financial person, but my heart is with the creative. And in order to really see the dream completely come to fruition, I need to spend more time finding ways to entertain people. And that's really difficult when I'm CFO, CEO, HR, and finding a way that I could focus on what I'm really good at. And give up the things I'm not good at. And by finding a partner or an investor that would take this journey along with me, like you said, you have to be careful about who you pick, but is it necessary? You know, like, when's the right time?”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think we are meeting a place in the market where people are responding to. During COVID, people were stuck in their homes and they basically had their husbands and children and Amazon as their best friends. I love and I still love Amazon, but I got to thinking about all the things I missed on the outside world. And what I really missed was that beautiful window shopping experience, that sort of casualness of just, you know, making your house a home by going out into the world and finding things that speak to you in your travels, in your life. And I wanted to take my artistic talent and turn it into a website.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Gotta get there faster. Okay. All right, good. But you're coming with all this experience as a parent. I mean, managing a household, talk about real world experience. That's no joke.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wow. I just want to say, I love that so much. And if you listen to the show, you know how much I love founders who are over 45, over 50, which is to Cynthia Tice. 57 started Lily's chocolate, sold it for $425 million 10 years later because people think founders are like 22, 23, and it's not true. Most first-time founders average age is 39, 40. You started this business when you were in your 50s. I love that. Awesome, and everybody listening should know it is never too late.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I see, okay, that makes perfect sense now. All right, from what I understand, you launched us in 2020. Were you in that field? Like, were you in home goods and sort of home decor before you started this e-commerce business?”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is cool, although she was saying that they just like to go on the trails, which actually sounds really fun. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, another collar, another question, and another round of advice. I'm Guy Ross. Stick around. You're listening to the advice line on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and my guest today is Angie Hicks. She's the co-founder of Angie. Welcome to the advice line on how I built this your own with me and Angie Hicks. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm like, you know, now, and I just stumble and bang my knee, it takes like six months for that bruise to heal. And I'm only 50.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, there's both. I mean, you're going to find both kind of networks of angel investors that you could find online and things like that. But also, think about your own community. I mean, I'm in Indianapolis and I know that, you know, as you kind of learn about the community, you'll find people that are in your community that are potentially doing angel investing too. And so kind of balance those two as you kind of network because it's really about having that strong relationship. So you want to make sure that you've got someone that, you know, kind of believed in you can cheer you on and be a real advocate for you as you go along. So kind of developing that personal relationship will be important.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Had in common? That's the tribe that you want to start with, the Motocross. You really want to go to those events. You want to get these things on the bodies of women, right? You want them to wear this stuff. You want to build a loyal tribe. But then from there, you've got to kind of go to the next circle, the next circle and widen it out. But you could have that plan in place now, even if you don't implement it now”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Whether it's like all kinds of things. Yeah, snowboarding, like all the things that it just women are, it feels like women are put second. So I completely agree. We're itching to get there. When we actually started, we wanted to do everything at once and then we realized that probably we would lose a little bit of our message and our brand. And so we honed in and picked the one sport. We had in common”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Female Motocross as a market is too narrow ultimately. And I want you to listen to our episode that we did on Black Diamond, the now sports company. But it started out as a brand just for mountain climbers. That wasn't enough to build and scale a sustainable brand. They couldn't make it. They eventually had to expand out to skiers. Now it's all kinds of outdoor gear. And so to me, what could work for you is to put together a plan that you bring to some of the angel investors and say, look, right now we're focused on women's motocross because that's our core. But down the road, we want to focus on women's skateboarders and surfers and kayakers and hikers and all kinds of athletes. Like, to me, there's an opportunity to think in a much bigger way, even if motocross is the core of what you do and where you start. In my view, it's not enough.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We are terrified that we're going to I have two thoughts for you, Paige. The first is I'm assuming that probably a number of the women in Motocross are already sponsored by the Red Bulls of the World. We did a story on On Shoes a couple months ago, and they grew that brand, but eventually they partnered with Roger Federer, and that took that brand into the stratosphere. It's the first, really the first shoe brand to challenge the dominance of Nike and Adidas, certainly with running. So there's a world where you bring in a writer to be a partner, an equity partner. The second thing I would say, and this is a little tougher, but I'm going to give you some feedback that I hope will be helpful, and it's a little bit tough love here, which is...”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Align so much with my sister and I. We are so protective of our brand because it is so different than what exists. And I think that's why we've taken a little bit of a slower grow approach over the years. People have said, well, why don't you pay influencers and why don't you do this? And we said, well, We only want to do something if it feels right and if it matches our brand to a T. So, the same with investors, you know, listening to the how I built this podcast, and you hear some people stories of investment partnerships going wrong, and we are terrified that we're going to partner with the wrong person and it's just going to tank our business.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I want to ask you about where you are right now. You started this in 2021, and I know I'm looking at your site, and it's apparel, right? So sweatshirts and crop tops and jerseys inspired by dirt biking, can you give us a sense of sort of roughly what you're doing in revenue? Right now, have you cracked 50,000, 100,000 in sales?”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right, before we answer your question, I want to bring in Angie Hicks. Angie, I'm sure you've got lots of questions for Paige, so let her rip”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Got it. All right. So you're building up, if I'm not mistaken, what sounds like a lifestyle brand inspired by Motocross, but apparel for women.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right. First of all, tell me about women's Motocross because, I mean, it sounds like there's a community there, but probably not as well known as the male writers.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wow, okay, well, welcome to the show page. Thank you for calling in. First of all, dirt bike, we're talking about Motocross, like those motorcycles that you'd see people leaping and dirt and jumping. And that's what you're talking about”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. All right, Angie, why don't we take the first call? Please introduce yourself, tell us your name, tell us where you're calling from, a little bit about your business.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. So, and it was actually something I had thought about even years earlier than that, you know, it was becoming a situation where we felt like list probably dated us. You know, we did more than just a list of contractors. You know, we did more than just give you a name. We would actually help you get scheduled and get connected and, you know, full impact. Yeah, take you much further in the process. So we're like, how do we think about modernizing it and giving it a fresh name? And so, you know, we took the same, you know, we took approach that many brands take and kind of shortening their names. Lots of brands over, you know, kind of over time end up shortening their names.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Angie, tell me about the name change from Angie's list to Angie. What changed about the business to kind of warrant that rebrand?”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Anybody, anybody. To me, exactly. So if you think about what that does culturally to the organization, having accessibility and being able to do that, probably just the opportunity brings more value than the conversations themselves because they always know they can. Like have an idea for the business, tell me directly. Having a problem, tell me directly. I will help you. And it also helps encourage the team to solve things throughout the organization as well. And there's not, you know, there's not any problem that I'm not willing to tackle directly”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, about a year and a half ago, I decided to open that up to our customers. So now any pro in the network can sign up to chat and we'll do a Zoom call and talk about whatever they want to talk about.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I actually love what I do as a chief customer officer. It's a lot of fun, and I really try to bring a human touch to a tech company. I think all too often we live in a world where we can actually talk to a human being. A bot. You think exactly. I'm like, I think a well-placed conversation, building relationships can add a ton of value. So several years ago, I had started doing office hours for our team. When our team got too big that I didn't know everybody, and I'm an introvert and I'm not one that's going to go out and say, hey, what are you, how are things going? What are you working on, et cetera? So I set up office hours for employees and they could come talk about whatever they wanted. It was 15 minutes. quite honestly, I got more out of it than they did. And I think it was an important cultural shift.”
2024-10-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Angie Hicks of Angi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT