YouSaid · the spoken record

Emily Weiss

lines on the record: 97
first: 2019-01-16
most recent: 2019-01-16
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

“I mean, we have 100 part time employees just in retail, just in two stores, in addition to our 200 full-time employees. So the needs of the company have changed into the point about learning how to be a CEO, my job changes every quarter. I have a whole new set of responsibilities that I've never faced before. And so I lean on mentors like Katrina Lake who joined our board last summer, who has had”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, well, we're certainly a growth stage company now. So, you know, I think about it a little bit like we spent the first, let's say, two years, two, three years making something that anyone gives a shit about. That's like your goal as a startup at first, you know. And now our goal is really to build an enduring business. There are a lot of mechanics and a lot of BizOps and processes and people processes. I mean, people alone is such the heartbeat of a company.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Has been something that, again, I'm very, very proud of. And so there hasn't been this kind of attention creep or the sort of pressure. We have a great board. There hasn't been this kind of growth at all costs approach, either internally or externally from our investors yet. Because they really believe in the long term ambitions and the potential of the company.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Secondly, no, listen, I mean, I remember reading a long time ago one of the first books I read five years ago before launching was Ben Horwitz's book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things. Yeah. And I believe it's a quote from him that is no one prepares you to be a CEO, you become a CEO by being a CEO. Certainly, every startup has its own, well, certainly there are growth stage challenges that every startup faces that I don't think this is Mai or anyone else's first time at the rodeo experiencing these things. But I also think not to kind of beat a dead horse, but staying very focused.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a lot of money, but we've really done a great job of sticking to our plan. I mean, we've had triple digit growth year over year for four years with really amazing repeat rates, 50% of our revenue last year came from repeat customers. And our NPS, even as our net increases, so we had over a million people become customers in 2018. And typically you see NPS kind of going down, right? It's harder to maintain quality and that kind of recommendation while ours is going up. And again, I think all of those results come from this obsessive devotion to the customer and making the right decision for people.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's very twitchy. And so to think that you're trying to build something that is going to continue to be reproduced, it's not an MVP, it's not about iteration, it's about creating a physical thing that is going to grow with people over decades. And that's really kept us focused.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At Walmart really ruin our ability to think about ourselves being able to create long term value, I think, with that one-to-one customer relationship. So intentional growth, again, that's an example of really intentional growth. Two, I would say, is focus. I mean, we've said no to a lot of things, including opening hundreds of stores, for example, of hundreds of glossier stores, even though our two stores do incredibly well and are very popular. And then I would say the third thing is just quality. I mean, again, I think it's never been harder to create longevity, whether it's in relationships, whether it's in physical products. I mean, we're in an era of fast fashion, fast content, just the tension span of people and of consumers.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it depends. I mean, in the D2C space, I can't think of a lot that have gone internationally. But for us, we have always focused on, I would say, two things that have I'm very proud of, or I would say three things. One is very intentional growth. So if we wanted to 5x revenue overnight, we could just go into multi-brand stores.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not that much when you look at other beauty companies, whether they're incumbent companies or whether they're new startups. And part of that is because of our channel. We sell everything direct so we don't have to worry about shelf space and filling up a gondola with a bunch of stuff just so we can get the real estate.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were supposed to launch with a face wash. That was sort of the goal at the launch of the company in 2014. But I looked at what we had after 20 iterations and said, is this actually better than what exists? And the answer is no. And it's like, does anyone need another beauty product that's like okay That's why we've kept our entire, I think we have a total, we launch a new one every couple months. We're at, I think, 29 products now.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I think it's just again about listening so that we don't have to manually go through every single comment and be like, how many times did someone say conditioning? And we can say, all right, people are really excited about conditioning. Are they happy with the products that they're using or is there an opportunity to do something better? And it's interesting because even today we say no to 20 out of 21 ideas whenever the question is, can we actually put something out into the world that's better than what exists? That face wash that I described.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, we're not thinking about that because I see them as two very different sort of things. I see one very much as sort of a software product that's all about, again, kind of democratizing beauty and letting people sort of share everything and anything that they've used and learned about with no kind of interruption, no sort of ads or interruption and no sort of limitations or censorship. And I see the others being able to continue to create hardware and physical products that hopefully continue to represent, hopefully people are like, oh, yes, that's exactly what I wanted. Thank you. But I don't think a lot about kind of how do you sort of push product into an environment where people are not looking to buy things but are more looking to just discover answers.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, but today we haven't done nearly enough to be able to sort of scale our ability to organize that in such a way that we can make sense out of it.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, how are we able to provide people with quicker matches and better matches? And as a company, how are we going to be able to listen at scale to user feedback or to people talking about what sucks about beauty and what they want in beauty?”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I think what's interesting for us is A, we sort of achieve our mission of kind of giving voice through beauty, so really activating people to be able to say, to sit up a little taller and say, this is what I know, this is what I think We started with a blog where it was very manual, very analog, two times a week. That's not really a good way to give people, to help people find who or what they need because you're only getting whatever 50, 40, 40, 40, 88 pieces of content a year.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think there's something interesting about following, and I think that again gets into sort of the perverse kind of incentive when you want, when you're kind of incentivized by do you like you or the idea of you? Or, and are you getting rewarded for being you versus are you rewarding for a piece of content that really helped someone? Thank you. This was a great recommendation. So we think a lot about the possibility of really positive spaces on the internet for women. We think a lot, or let's say majority for women or women-based. We think a lot about the value in utility, in sort of social utility in the future of kind of more utility-based networks.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All experts. Every one of us has an opinion about the stuff we have put on and either thrown out because we thought it sucked or we use it for 30 years.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like 30 minutes later, that you're like, oh my god, I finally figured it out. And this kind of corroborates what's happening in stores because you have 50% of people who go into a store today who ignore the salesperson to take out their iPhone, to either text a friend saying, I'm standing in Sephora, what mascara should I get, or they go on Google search. And so, you know, when you think of the existing kind of social networks, they're really networks. They're not utilities. And we think a lot about, well, what would happen if there were a social utility wherein people could really connect to find the information or the inspiration that they need really quickly? So that's what we're working on.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it's really about finding the person who you trust. And if you look at how people are searching for beauty products today and potentially fashion products or other more subjective categories, your best choice of action is going to Google and typing in best mascara. And it's not until page 7 that you find a non-SEO'd, non-branded, non-compromised, non-da-da-da-da, just a human being whose opinion you learn more about this human, they also had a wedding where they needed a mascara that wouldn't drip and their eyelashes are also short and sparse or whatever it is That's a tough journey. You're in the land of 15 tabs.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You can find me afterwards. Listen, again, if you think of beauty and you think of these platforms and kind of what people need with relation to beauty, it is a very subjective category where there's no one right answer. There's no single source of truth. You know, my best mascara could be your no mascara. Or your wrong mascara.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think so. I think we mainly invest in Instagram, but the thing that we're really excited about right now is actually designing our own platform.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You choose Well, it's hard. They have massive competition because you choose one. Every 15 years or every 10 years, and that's your choice. And so if you don't make that sale, then you have to wait another how long to get a new mattress. Whereas, as we all know here with beauty products, personal care products, I have five lip balms from different brands in my bag. And I think It's really important just to again kind of encourage the conversation to happen, period.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“450 billion going to be 750 billion in five years. What we're interested most in is creating this democratized conversation. And so what we do a lot on our channel on Instagram is really celebrate people's stories. So we really say we try to find people who maybe use Boy Brow or a Glossier product, but what we really want to do is sort of evangelize that person's whole routine and all of her discoveries across whether that's a L'Oreal product, a Mac product. We don't see them as competition. No. And if you think of other kind of direct to consumer categories, be it maybe a suitcase or a mattress or something like that. So Casper or a way.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, we think about it as sort of our number one social media channel. A lot of customers write into us. So again, we get sort of, we get five DMs a minute, which we respond to. And we really care about this one-to-one, about the customer. So our customer experience team is actually in our kind of marketing team. It's not sort of this dark corner of the office where you have to slave away listening to answering where people's packages are, like an overwhelming number of our ideas for us that they need to filter across the company. And so Instagram for us has been an incredible tool to show a lot of user generated content. We show a lot of other brands because what Glossia is here to do is not just sell Glossier products, it's actually to kind of increase the entire pie when it comes to this industry that's”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, yes, Instagram, we launched on four years ago, and we have about 1.7 million followers now, and almost half of them are actually not even in the United States.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly, that hey, you look good, but you could look better. You're really missing something, you know, and it's really been this industry based on a lot of rules and a lot of sort of like, this is how it's done. And so I think it's a really exciting time because of, I mean, obviously it's a scary time in some ways because of what social media you were seeing the underbelly of it and we're seeing a lot of disconnection. But what's interesting is what's possible when you can really think of the kind of utility in being able to connect through a topic like beauty and be able to help one another from all corners of the internet.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I hear technology is, I mean, you didn't have Instagram launched two months after into the GOSS launched in 2010. YouTube and its rise of the beauty influencer really only happened in the last five years. So, it wasn't possible, but B, I think the consumer again had to really break free from this notion that she didn't know enough. Or that it's”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it depends what you mean by people getting into it. I think in general, this is a highly emotional category. And beauty is an incredible conduit for connection and increasingly.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And if you think about brands of the future and sort of consumer behavior and where that's going, you have 80% of millennials saying that they trust a stranger's review on the internet as much as a loved one's opinion. You have people saying, seriously, you have people saying when a postmate's doesn't get there, guess where you can go? You can go on Twitter and like tear into postmates for all of your 200 followers or your 2 million followers to see and hear. So the customer has never been more right than she is right now. She has never wanted to be more involved with the things that she buys from a value set perspective from how can I be heard? I want to be seen and heard. My opinion matters.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was like five years ago that some companies would say, oh, we're not going to invest in Facebook. Oh, we're not going to hire a social media editor. And so there's been a real lack of transparency between major companies, be it Beauty and other brands, retailers, consumer brands, major lack of transparency historically, a major number of hoops to jump through before you can actually connect to a company.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, listen, when I was growing up, I loved beauty and I would go to the mall and I would go to CVS and I would try beauty brands. Even when I was growing up, and this might have been whatever, 15 years ago or 20 years ago, we were still in a time where, again, brands really controlled how you felt and really kept a while. It was not so long ago. Let's not forget that companies rejected the idea of even having social media teams.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“First of all, it influenced who we shot for the pictures, so we passed a redhead who looked very Emma stone like. But more importantly, I mean, I'm being a little facetious. That did happen, and that was certainly an input. But what we learned from people was that anything from one comment that said, hey, why don't you cut the water with 50% rose water? That would really add some hydration. It would smell amazing. We thought that's a really great idea. So let's do that. So I think that's a good example of, you know, you can be an incumbent beauty company and pay Google, I don't know, $100,000 to serve you the top beauty search terms or trends. Or you can read one of the five DMs that Glossier gets a minute. And there might be one nugget in there that says, hey, why don't you cut the rosewater, have 50% rose water? And that is an aha moment for us.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I was not doing her at all in that mirror. And I've never been Dewey, but I'm hoping someday if I use whatever So, what did you do then? But when you, okay, we're going to do an Amazone face wash.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's great. Well, a lot of them said, you know, he said, Who would play your favorite Dream Facewash in a movie? And they said, Emma Stone, Eddie Redmain, Julianne Moore. I'm like, you guys are really answering this. And they did, and I thought that was very interesting because they all had sort of fair skin and sort of red hair. And we thought like, okay, maybe this is about sort of a sensitive skin wash or something that And so I would say that's quite arty Art and science”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Let's see I mean, the thing that really stands out to me, which I find hilarious, is when we launched our Milky Jelly Cleanser and said, It's our third best selling product”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I don't know. We stay very connected. I would say every team at the company, we're about a third tack across engineering, digital product, data design. And then we have in-house creative team, we have in-house R&D development. And I think we're all very connected to the customer. I mean, we have all of our net promoter score feedback and comments from every single customer who answers it constantly taking into a Slack channel that everyone from me to my assistant to an intern can read every day just to stay connected to the customer. And sometimes it's a single comment or sometimes it's a macro trend that we hear about that translates into innovation.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say our approach has been this is something that people are really curious about, I think, especially in this age of machine learning and we really getting, for us so far, you know, a lot of it has been quite analog. It's just been posting on the platforms that we have or in a Slack channel.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hopefully, yeah, hopefully in 30 years' time, Boy Brow will connect a 15 year old in the Middle East to a billionaire in Silicon Valley and will be cross-generational and cross-socioeconomic. And we get very excited about creating quality things that make people want to talk about them, just period full stop. And 70% of our growth so far has been through owned, earned, peer-to-peer, organic because people just fundamentally want to share that they enjoyed their boy brow.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, we've just typically had a pretty simple premise, which is make incredible things that can really stand the test of time that has equaled so far building these very modern essential products that we hope become icons in the same way an iPhone or an Air Jordan become essential products.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, really, really dictatorial. Really dictatorial. And kind of, I think in a way, like really not giving people enough credit to be able to say, hey, actually, I use this deodorant every day, so I am an expert at this deodorant. And seriously, we're all experts at the things that we consume and the things that we use. And what we're trying to do is provide the tools, be it the physical products that we've created over the last four years or the digital conduits that we're creating now and in the future to help people use their voice, to help people really use their voice and say, hey, how can I help someone else talk about what they've learned about beauty and their products? And hopefully inspire others.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is really how it started out of a blog that began in 2010 that was all around this premise that people are going to drive purchasing decisions in the future, not algorithms, not upselling cross-selling, if anything, upselling and cross-selling people's opinions, right? Helping to evangelize people's voice such that people can decide what they want. And at Glossier, we've really taken user feedback and asked them for things like what products to make, where to go in terms of pop-ups or countries, and fundamentally have been able to really change the relationship between brands and customers. Because, you know, traditionally, the way that I grew up with beauty products and brands was always sort of from brand kind of speaking tops down to customers saying you're not good enough, saying you don't know what you want, let us tell you what you want.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, fundamentally, we just think about how do you give people amazing experiences. So I think in that way, perhaps we're similar to Amazon in that they're extremely devoted to the customer. We're very devoted to the customer from the standpoint that we don't want to put things that aren't amazing into the world. So since we launched, we've always relied a lot on user generated content and feedback.”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the way we look at it is that we're building this people powered ecosystem. We have co created since we launched four and a half years ago with our consumers. The reason we're able to do that is because we know who they are. So we have a direct relationship with every single person who buys something from us, unlike all of the incumbent companies that have been built through retail channels. We've never existed through retail channels. We don't have plans to exist through retail channels. And the reason being we think that through using technology, we can do three things very differently than what all beauty companies have done in the past. One is channel. The second is discovery. And the third is listening at scale. So”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So Glossy is a pretty unique kind of beauty company that's also a tech company, so it's hard for me sometimes to answer that question. Are you beauty or are you tech? I think we're both. And right now at a glance, we're about 200 full-time employees across three offices, New York, Canada, and London. We're about 70% female. Our board is 60% female. Our engineering team is 50% female. It looks a little different than most tech companies. And we just crossed last year well over $100 million in revenue. Right. Very excited about that. So when you”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Have a lot, and I told Emily I'm super interested in business. I'll confess to you, I'm not the biggest beauty person, as you can see. And I wore my fancy jacket tonight for you. But I Because I think it's really”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm excited to do this. Last time I was here, I was interviewing Hillary Clinton. So, this is a step up. It is not. She was sitting right here”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hi, I'm Kara Swisher, editor at large of Recode. You may know me as the founder of a dental hygiene marketplace called Flossier. Me, but in my spare time, I talk tech and you're listening to Rico Decode from the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today we're going to play an interview I conducted on Monday with Emily Weiss, the founder and CEO of Glossier. We spoke at the 92nd Street Y about her online beauty business and why I think Donald Trump needs the boy brow. Let's take a listen. Thank you”
2019-01-16 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Glossier CEO Emily Weiss · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT