YouSaid · the spoken record

Scott Tannen

lines on the record: 81
first: 2024-11-11
most recent: 2024-11-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“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 it sounds cliche. It sounds like a little much, but that's where the grit and determination comes from when you know that the goodness you're creating goes so far. It's just powerful.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Look, if you don't have luck Lack of luck's going to 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 just can remember in the early days, like sitting around the dinner table and Missy just saying, like, look, no matter what, no one is going to outwork us. So much of it is the great, 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 got to just push something over the finish line. Not because we expect other people to be here or anything like that, but it's just this fierce commitment to our business. And, Guy, I'm going to be honest with you. It is not lost on either of us. When you step foot in our factories and you look across”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, look, I love this company. I love what we're building. I don't know that I would love it as much if it wasn't Missy and I doing it together. And now with daughters that have grown up with this business, I think having lost my parents young that even further enhances the importance of family and the closeness of family. And I think had we not been doing Bowl and Branch together and had either one of us been doing this independently, it could have broken us either as individuals or as a family going through some of the tough times we've gone through. But the fact that we're in it together and we both trust the fact that like we're doing the best we can.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 makes a decision on or wants to do, even, you know, me signing away our house to Howard Stern. Like, you know, I trust him wholeheartedly, 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. And, you know, from the beginning, it was like, if I could make it, Scott could sell it.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, they are. So at that time, we took in that investment, but they also took everybody else off the cap table, including in that Missy and I wanted liquidity opportunities for our employees as well. And so we made sure that that happened. Now, Missy and I rolled over our shares because we, you know, so I think unlike a lot of Catterdin businesses, Missy and I are very significant shareholders. So the dynamics changed, and none of those early investors are with us anymore. Most of them honestly made somewhere between 12 and 15x their money, which isn't bad for a three-year investment.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. At the end of the day, you're worried about your fully diluted share for two things. You're worried for control, and then you're worried about what it means for you financially on an outcome at some point. Missy and I operated from day one and still do today. We are not focused on an exit. It's not something valuations are not things that we talk about internally in the business. We're committed to this business and running this business for a long period of time.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Were very attractive, right? So, you know, but I felt that they were the right partner. I could close it quickly. I could solve the problem and get back to focusing on the business. And so that's what we did. And so, even though we were now bringing in more of a professional investor, I was very hesitant to let go of any kind of control of the business and where we were going. So in exchange for really good terms, they had to trust Missy and I to operate this business. And that was a trade we were willing to make. And candidly, I think we would make again.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that was the first time we brought in an institutional partner. So we brought in a group called Silas Capital. They had been advisors for us. And they jumped at the opportunity because, again, when you have a crunch, you have to put an aggressive offer out.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, in order to have the cash to pay for the orders, you had to raise more cash, I think, in 2017, right? You went back to your previous investors or your shareholders and said, hey, we need an emergency infusion.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Bigger build than we had the cash to build against, right? Again, when we're paying for our goods largely up front. So we got into a very big cash crunch 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 $5 million in personally guaranteed debt from the SBA. So there was no ability to raise additional debt. And so at that point, I realized that I needed to raise equity. 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.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, what happened in 2017 was interesting because the business was really, really going strong. But we had really kind of underforecasted our growth, which we got to a point where our inventory build for holiday and what we needed to meet demand was going to, it was going to be.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, you know, in those moments, I just feel like. I've learned anything, and maybe it was the benefit of being in my late 30s at this point and not a 20 something entrepreneur where I was like, 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. And had I not been able to raise that money. When does the business go out of business when they can't pay their bills? Like, that's it.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I needed the capital and I needed it fast. So I put aggressive terms out there, reached out to the true definition of friends and family. And I needed about $2 million. And I closed it in a week and a half.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“More cash from us because we have to pay our bills on time. And at this point, we do have terms, right? So we're trying to pay these bills. And it's the most stressed I've ever been. The history of this company because I was like this obligation to the folks that we really rely on overseas and all of the social programs that are attached to this money, like I didn't want to let them down by delaying payment. I couldn't raise debt from the SBA fast enough to pay these bills. It was at that point, you know, I had enough people that had been knocking on my door to invest in the business that”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were relying on a lot from her, but she made a mistake. And it was late in the summer, and we were starting to get our invoices against our holiday purchase orders, right? So business is doing really well from a consumer standpoint. But our cash position is weak. What's happening here? And we realize at that point when we get a shipment that delivers to our warehouse with these boxes and the warehouse calls us and says we can't have enough space to store all this. Like what is this? And it's kind of like, you know, the world goes inside out in a moment and you suddenly realize what's shown up is it's not just and miles of cardboard boxes, but that's cash. That's all of our excess cash. And then some. Meanwhile, I have my entire supply chain waiting on.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we were playing this game of keeping up with demand and we have to get caught up. And so we did that in 2015 and I think met demand. But along with that, you're making a lot of decisions really quickly. And I didn't know at the time, but we had placed an order for 10 times the number of boxes that we needed.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Almost overnight. I mean, actually overnight. Literally. In 2015, Thanks to Howard, we ended up going from a million five in sales in 2014 to almost 13.5 million in our second year. Wow. And the only thing that really changed was Howard in the mix. And to keep up with demand. We spent millions of dollars airing in goods just to have it here on time so that we could satisfy demand. So it's the only year in our history we ran a loss. We lost $200,000 that year. But really as a result of Howard, we were on our way.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The first time he read We did three times what we thought we would do in sales from one reading. Wow. It was outrageous. And still, to this day, we have an hour advertised on Howard in a couple years. We still have people walking into our retail stores saying, oh, yeah, I know you're from Howard Stern.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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. So I'm rooting for all of them as long as they're in second or third place. Because I'm a competitive guy and I want to win. And so to be honest. Our products are not competitive. We're not reaching a similar, like those are mass market products that are conventional, and we're creating something entirely different for an entirely different customer.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, looking back, it is a massive risk. At the time, I was just so focused and 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 so I was, I had the fear in me of not moving fast enough. You know, it wasn't, look, I make it sound like it was an easy decision. When you realize, like, when Missy and I are sitting in a lawyer's office for a closing on a $2 million term loan, it is very real.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the great thing about the SBA is also the dangerous thing 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 $2 million house. And so I took the most amount of debt I've ever had on anything in my life Just to advertise on Howard's”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I know. And so, of course, that only fuels what they actually legitimately like the product so much though that I'm like, there's got to be something here. And I finally decided to take all of the equity out of my house and then some. And I got a $2 million term loan from the Small Business Association.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, without a plan for what I was going to do if it worked, because that would be a lot more inventory. But the truth is that I believe so strongly that somebody like Howard was going to put us on the map. Believed it was going to happen. I believed it was possible.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 an indicator of a luxury customer, a customer that might be open to a more luxury experience or more premium experience. And it gives you a national footprint. Buying radio, media, especially when you're small, is really, really hard because it's so fragmented. And so we started advertising in SiriusXM and we saw, even though it was a very small spend, we saw some kind of immediate elasticity there. Like this thesis was working. And I felt like I wanted to take that step up to the big leaks. I was like, I really want to try Stern.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, my goal for 2015 was to turn on customer acquisition. And my initial thought was to do exactly what I had perceived. Worby Parker and everybody else to be doing, and I had set out to do, which was to turn on the digital customer acquisition engine through primarily Google and Meta. It was not working at all. At the end of the day, I was paying a lot in media, not seeing a lot for it And I thought about my own media consumption behaviors, and 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 total audience, really, really big. And so we started doing a couple very small tests on SiriusXM. And when you think specifically about Sirius XM,”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Literally, my cell phone. My favorite moment was I one time we were taxiing to the runway and I was trying to do an exchange for somebody and the flight attendants like yelling at me to put the phone away and I'm like, Missy, cover me. And that's how it was. So really until mid-2015, we didn't. Add on to our team in any sort of experienced or professional capacity.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then we also hired somebody to help us with customer service because it was the 800 number really for our first two plus years in business rang my cell phone. So it was great. We offered 24-7 support. The downside of that was that I offered 24-7 support.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had no idea you could, yeah, you could use a tool like Pantone and get actual cotton fabric in that color, you know. 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, Scott, I feel like I added like 150 skews all with the same fabric, of which then it was like, you know, I thought everybody needed three Euro shams, the king shams in front of it, and a lumbar sham. So we had all these just pillowcase shams, you know, that. Guess people didn't really need all that.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, so here it was like there's a whole world out there. So that's when we started adding like 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 had 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 send it over because they were just like, you need to set a standard. What's the standard? And I was like,”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not only would 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 with folks because we could never catch up. It took us almost a year to catch up with demand. And it sounds like, oh, someone would say that's a champagne problem. It is a champagne problem, but 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. Paper's patience will wear out at some point. And so, but the benefit was they were pre-ordering. So we were kind of getting interest-free financing on our next purchase orders.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And this is like 10 o'clock in the morning. And by 2 in the afternoon, we were completely out of inventory. By the time the day and the next couple 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.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They already thought we were crazy. They ended up coming in town and we still have no sales. And they surprise us and say Hey, you guys have been working so hard. We're going to watch the kids for a night. We're going to send you over to Miami for a night. And the two of you was our anniversary coming up. So they're like the two you're going to have a night together, which was like so needed. And we're going across Alligator Alley, which is like this highway limited cell reception in Florida. And my phone starts blowing up. I was like, what's going on there? 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 $7,000 in sales, biggest day by far we'd ever had. I couldn't believe it. So I emailed Christina and she's like, oh yeah, there's going to be an article, pick up the paper tomorrow. It should be good. So we wake up in the morning and I pull open our system and we had done over $100,000 in sales.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of goods, like, I would write a story about you guys. Was like Wow, okay, that's interesting. And 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? Sure, why not? And 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 going to freak out.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Correct. So she just asked me. She's like, How are you doing it? And so I was trying to explain how we put this supply chain together. 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 looking at small things that we can do to improve efficiency. And by the way, by going direct, there's an importer somewhere that's used to making a 50-point margin on this stuff that's just not going to get it, right? And so she calls me back and she says, hey, you know, I keep thinking about your business. And I've told a couple people and I still just don't believe it. I was like, well, how about this? Like what if I just showed you my books and I'll show you what we're paying for everything? And she's like, oh, I'd love to see that. So I showed it to her and she calls me back after that. We spent probably a couple hours together and she's like, you know, I talk to my editor. If you're willing to let me publish your call,”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I had taken a call with a woman named Christina Binkley who wrote at the Wall Street Journal. She had said, like, listen, I don't know that I'm going to write about this. I'm just really curious because 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, an organic standpoint. And yet. Your cost is kind of in line with the mass market products. Like, are you just losing a bunch of money? Like, how is this working?”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and so it's like, and I think that's the typical thing, right? You're like, okay, this is going to 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 it's like, okay, three days in. Like we got one. 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. But at this point, so we launch it late January. By the time we get through February 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 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.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Let's just sell it and ship it. Let's go. And I was. It shows you when you're in a tight financial spot, you will make surecut decisions because I just wanted to see the money start coming the other direction and start paying this back. I relented and like. I mean, Missy wins every argument by default. That's why we have such a good marriage. But. But no, I mean, realistically, that was a brutally difficult thing that was saying, hey, we're going to 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 that was a hard moment, really hard.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“White sheets come in look beautiful. The ivory sheets come in and have this greenish tint to them. You couldn't see it during the day, but once it got to be the nighttime, there was this like limy, creamy green color that these sheets cast. And I was like, I can't. I can't sell these. So here we're up again, Scott saying, 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 by the white ones, don't buy the ivory ones It delayed us another three months of weaving and dying fabric and then making the sheets again. 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.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right, so you guys have somebody on the ground now making sure that this is up to scratch. But I guess in November of 2013, you get the initial samples that are coming in from India. And these are the samples that you just want to look at and kind of sign off on so you can get this huge container of.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're like, this is great, you know, this is what we're doing, is where our life is, and he goes literally white as a ghost. He's like. 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, you don't have like boots on the ground there? Like, how are you inspecting? What are you doing from a quality standpoint? And then Missy and I start looking at each other. Those are the first of many times where we're like, oh geez, we thought we knew a lot and we don't know anything. And Chris literally pulls out a cell phone. This is a Sunday and he calls this guy Sal and he says, Sal, I'm here with my friends, Missy and Scott, and I need you to talk to them. And so Sal Sal is a company called Pacific Wave. He's from India originally and lives here in New Jersey. 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.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, maybe like a weekend or so after that, 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”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you had to be just going back to the tracing and the transparency of it, how were you able to be sure that every part of the process was up to your standards, the cotton, the actual workers and the factory? I mean, was it at this point you just had to trust that everybody was reporting this to you correctly?”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. Okay, so you have this name, you've got the order in, and you want to get your products to be ready for Christmas of 2013, right? Because that's when you can, I mean, you've got a significant, I think you put in almost half a million dollars, which from what I gather was absolutely every penny you had in savings.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When I'm in retail stores, half the people ask me, are you bowl or branch? Right. But you know what's funny? Like, when you think about where the category was, because 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 a departure from that.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's amazing because I just assumed it was like a made up name, like two names of people, like Fitzwilliam and Guilford, like you see that are like soap brands that are not that old, but they look like they come from jolly old England.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was probably 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 in me, I was just so inspired by what we were doing through this cotton plant. And so I just Googled what are the 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 cotton fibers and, you know, grows on a branch. 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.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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, worse comes to worse. You know, give me a couple years. I can liquidate it and we'll get some of our money back. And so why not go for it?”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. I mean, who are we? And probably a fair question. So I found it was really hard to get Clear information, 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, Rajat's factory in Calcutta, his dad who had started the business was in his late 70s at the time. And he took me to lunch. And after I had spent a week there, and he said, Scott, I think what you're doing is a very bad idea. I'd already ordered my entire life savings on sheets through him. And he's telling me, I think this is a bad idea because 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...”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Everybody said that people don't care about And they were all extremely skeptical of Missy and my intentions because they're like, well, you're not one of us. You haven't grown up in this space with us and now you're coming in or you're just trying to like see a commercial opportunity and exploit it.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They looked at two things number one and what they're most famous for is ensuring that workers are paid a fair wage, which puts them above the living wage, which in many countries the minimum wage is below the living wage. And so that became very important. But they also do consistent inspections and audits of the factories themselves. Are the fire exits clear? Are the workstations lit properly? Are people allowed to unionize? And all of those things. So from our very first PO until today, the tenets of that same system exist. Every dollar we spend with a farmer or at a factory, we are ensuring and validating independently that no cycle of poverty is being continued.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT