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

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

“When this became important to us, the validation and understanding and certification is critical. You can't have one without the other. Otherwise, you get into a space of greenwashing, or you can be accused of greenwashing. And number one is the cotton. And if we're marketing it as organic, I want to know that it's actually organic, right? We're also paying a lot more money for it. So we worked with GOTS, which is the Global Organic Textile Standards to ensure that they were certifying it. And for the product to be certified and the company to be certified, it means you need traceability certificates. You have to have full documentation. From the moment the purchase order is placed, you have to have full documentation on that accompanying is essentially the bushels of raw cotton that come out of the fields and stays with the cotton as a finished product when it leaves the factory. And the second piece we had to think about was factory. So that's where bringing in fair trade was important because they were looking at”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Rajat was somebody that look, we sent our life savings and then some. Rajat in India, hoping he would send a boat back in eight months without us ever visiting. Like that is sometimes when I'm not sure if I'm an entrepreneur, I think back to those things. But the reality was.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Full traceability from end to end. We'd never at that point had never walked or stepped foot in a textile factory nor had Missy, and yet we were about to determine where we were going to do all of these things to achieve the product. And so, you know, what if we're not just building a business, but we're proving something? Like, can it be done?”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Correct, but we kept because it was going to be way harder to do this the way we wanted to do it, and then, you know, late April 2013, Rona Plaza collapses. Watching it on the news, and I can vividly remember sitting in our family room and Missy and I looking at each other saying, that's the system. We can't be a part of the system, you know, because at this point, look, you're a year plus into this. Our friends know we're working on this crazy betting idea. We were past the point of no return. Like we were going to launch a betting business. And so that was the point where we said, forget, let's forget this conventional route. We've got to go the route of”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For us, it wasn't about sourcing a product, it was about making it and making it from scratch and knowing everything about it. From start to finish so that we could be proud of what we were making. We just wanted to know that the people on the other side of the world who were making our product weren't being taken advantage of. That was really important to us and that they were safe. At the same time, I remember just being consumers, just being normal people watching the news and round of plaza also collapsed at that time.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Maybe even before this, I would say when we were on our research and exploration, we reached out to anyone, whether it was a mill that was weaving fabric or an importer. We just wanted to see the landscape. We didn't know. So I would say we got in, I don't know what, Scott, maybe 20, 30 different types of fabric from all over the world. So at that time, we weren't We didn't know where we'd end up manufacturing. And what I did was I took all this fabric or these pillowcases and I would just go around myself, friends, family, and we would do blindfield tests. Which one is the softest? I wanted to know how it would hold up, how it would feel. And really, that led us to India, I would say, when we started thinking about cotton and their expertise. There with growing cotton, weaving cotton. They have a long history there.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We both were really drawn to organic cotton after reading an article in The Guardian that talked about pharmaceutes in India and how the conventional cotton business, the farmer is extremely disempowered. And the article talked about how they were actually drinking the pesticides in the fields committing suicide. And it's like you learn these things and you start saying, okay, there's a system here. And like Missy and I just kept looking at each other like we can't be a part of that system. There's got to be a better way to do this or it's not worth doing at all. And that was how we started learning about organic farming. And so we start seeing these sort of these alternate paths out there that the whole system is ignoring.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just kept, it was sort of like you know, when you ask someone a question and they give you an answer, and you're like, I can tell they're not being totally forthright with me. We felt that in all these meetings with these suppliers. But then when you start diving in into your own research and doing it online, you come across a lot of news articles and you start realizing like, okay, deep inside, I kind of know the textile industry has a crummy reputation and you start realizing why.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One of the very first suppliers that we met with, which was selling Egyptian cotton sheets. And I'm like, well, I'd love to go see the farms. And they looked at me like I had seven heads. I started to realize that these folks had no idea what their own supply chain looked like. They couldn't trace their own supply chain. And they were the ones selling me the product. So I actually took it upon myself to reverse engineer their supply chain because I tend to get a little bit crazy about this stuff. And when I don't have an answer, I dig and I dig and I dig and I dig. So I was calling their factories. I was finding, you know, and I found that these Egyptian cotton sheets that they were selling me were woven in China. They just named a plant, a cotton plant in China, Egyptian cotton, so that they could. Call it that.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it's like, I mean, you think about Egyptian cotton, right? Like, you close your eyes and you imagine somebody on the banks of the Nile River cultivating this rich soil from Cleopatra's time and the cotton that comes out of it is the finest.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, for example, something is labeled Egyptian cotton, right? Thousand Thread Count Egyptian cotton. And I think most people assume, oh, that's cotton made in Egypt. And by the way, I don't know anything, or you hear like Turkish towels, you know, like Turkish bathrobes And I don't know anything about this. I'm just assuming that that means it's really great.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, Scott would not be the person in our household to make any bedding textile decision, so let alone try and make sheets for the country. That just wasn't going to fly. So that's really when I jumped in with Scott to just even in the beginning it was so simple and innocent like, hey, I'll go with you to meeting. I'll pretend like you have a company, you know, and we'll go ask some questions together. We didn't know anything. And so we also at those meetings were asking the questions, well, so tell me, this is so exciting. Where's the factory? Where's the cotton come from? And that's when they couldn't even tell us, you know, where the locations were or what was going on. And that's when we really decided to take a beat. Let's step back and really research this.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Basically, they're the local sales office for factories in India, China, Italy, Portugal. Everywhere And I walk into the showrooms thinking, like, all right, I just want pricing on this. And they're like, okay, great. Well, what are your size requirements, labeling requirements, and which trim detail do you like? I was like, um... Phone a friend”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's really what it was. Like, the starting point was, oh my God, this is so easy to make. These are giant squares of fabric. There are a million suppliers that would love to sell me them in private label them. Like, this is just what I was looking for. So when you start a bus, you would think that when you start a business, you first research, then you order, and then you sell. I actually was planning to cut out the research part of it and just order and sell. I wanted to go as fast as I possibly could.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was literally overnight that Scott woke up and he was like, this shouldn't be a problem. I mean, that really was the light bulb moment that now in his mind he had this product or this category that was underserved. No one was playing in it. You know, could he at the time? I wouldn't even say I was part of this quite yet. Is this something that he could lean into?”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were renovating our bedroom, and for the first time of being married 15 years, moved from a queen bed to a king bed. And I know that sounds so cliche, but that was what was happening. We go to department stores, specialty retailers, and after doing this renovation for a year, everything feels like a big decision, you know, and you've already spent so much money on all the different construction and finishing elements that it's like, I just wanted to know what I was purchasing with these sheets and sharing these troubles with Scott of how I didn't know, you know, what was thread count? Does Egyptian cotton, does that mean it's from Egypt? Does that matter? Like, what really matters? And all I really wanted were some soft sheets.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I started to realize, wow, Warby Parker, bonobos, yes, they're making a product, but they're playing customer acquisition arbitrage. They are just trying to acquire a customer for a little bit less than they're making and scale that profitability. And they're playing in categories where they're competing with really, really big folks, but those folks are not nimble and they're probably not playing with a current deck of cards when it comes to the sort of digital media landscape. So I felt that, okay, I just need a product that I can go compete with in a fragmented market with big players and win on customer acquisition arbitrage.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, you know, I was working with a company called Alton Lane, which was doing made-to-measure menswear. And I started to realize that that brought me like eye to eye with brands like Bonobos that were just starting at the time. And looking at how they found one thing.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, the easy thing was consulting, and I just didn't love it, and I didn't love it because I'm a hands dirty guy. And it's like, you're playing with someone else's toys and you have to put them away at the end of the day. And I think it was that process that made me realize that, you know, I'd always say I'm not an entrepreneur because I always thought I was too conservative and too afraid of risk and kids and that sort of thing. And I realized at that point that I've got to give it a shot to go start something myself. I just wasn't sure in what, but I also really missed tangible products.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Three young kids But it sounds like in your mind, you were already thinking about the next thing. I mean, you had to because, right? And the next thing, what is the next thing in your mind going to be, I don't know, going to work for somebody else, maybe a VC? Firm, was it start my own thing? Did you have an idea in your head”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The blessing of it all was that I had less financial pressure and I was able to take the time and the publishing screenhouse people were amazing about it. You know, I spent the year with my mom while she was fighting it and had the surgery and did all those and she ultimately passed a little over a year later. But what Funtank and that acquisition brought me was that opportunity, which I can never give back and never thank everybody enough for.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'll say this it was a cash deal. And so it wasn't like I got three magic beans for it. But it was the equivalent of a few year salary candidly and enough to give me a cushion to do something else. I also actually felt Weirdly satisfied. Taking a business and leading it through an acquisition and diligence process, I learned how difficult that is. And it was very challenging. You know, but unfortunately, like my story takes a bit of a turn there in that within a few weeks, my mom gets diagnosed out of nowhere with pancreatic cancer. And so”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So you have to take your mind back to the internet in the early 2000s. So you actually loaded a website that was like you would see on the corner in New York City and it looked like a candy stand. But underneath it was linked to different games. So we ended up over time creating 200 unique online games. So it might be billiards and on the pool table was breath savers or home run derby and it's Big League Chew all over the signage in the stadium, miniature golf was one of our most popular games and you know each of the holes you were maybe hitting it through a lifesaver or bouncing it off of a piece of gum that would have more bounce and elasticity. So these were really casual fun games like what you play in your iPhone today, but it was just delivered. The”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I kind of really was able to convince the organization to, look, let me run with this, but let's make this a real gaming website for these kids so that it is valuable, real entertainment for them, that they would otherwise pay for or get somewhere else. And then we'll own all the advertising inventory in that experience”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No. He was born with a heart defect, and he just happened to be at dinner with my mom and like massive heart attack out of nowhere. And so none of us were prepared. You know, I mean, the whole period of time is such a blur. And I was so close to my dad. And certainly idolized my dad in so many regards that I was made to become an adult really fast over that month-long period because coming back and getting into that space of, okay, you know, I've got to figure out how to close down my dad's business and find a job myself out of college and find a place to live and help my mom get back on her feet. And there's no question that my mom wouldn't and I would not have gotten through that summer were it not for Missy because she basically lived with us. And so from that point on, we were, we transitioned from being kind of college.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so graduation was kind of a bittersweet moment, I would say, for us. Unfortunately, a month before we graduated college, Scott's dad passed away. So that kind of really shook our world. By the time we graduated a month later, there wasn't even a decision to be made. It was more like, okay, we're moving to New Jersey. We're going to help your mom get her feet on the ground. We're going to help you get your feet on the ground. But this will be our two to three year plan.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I love football. And at Vanderbilt, people generally go to the games at halftime. I was like, that's a nope. I'm going. When the team runs out of the tunnel, I'm going to be there the whole game. And my buddy Drew was like, Come on, take this girl Missy. And I'm like, I'm not going with some girl that can't find a date. Like, I actively don't want a date. And then Marnie, who was Missy's friend, was like, come on, Scott, just go. Well, the four of us will hang out. It'll be great. And I said, if she can be here by kickoff, I will take her. Otherwise, I'm out of here. At the end of the first quarter, Missy shows up and I still went with her. Thank goodness. But I was a little upset that I missed the first quarter of the game.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We got set up on a blind date. My girlfriend Marnie was going to a football game with Scott's friend Drew and they were both like, hey, it's the day of the game. Neither of you have a date. Why don't you go together and set us up? This was back in the 90s where you had to have a date to go to a football game at Vanderbilt. It was Southern. The girls wear cocktail dresses and the guys would wear coats. And ties.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Mattresses, even furniture. As for Scott and Missy Tannin, they both grew up in the 1980s and nineties. Scott in New Jersey, Missy in Ohio. They met at college when they were both juniors at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or in the case of today's story, they take out massive loans, mortgage their house, and live with crushing debt for several years, knowing that the business could also fail. When Scott and Missy Tannon launched Bull and Branch, they knew nothing about bedlinins. Well, they knew what the average consumer knows, thread counts, Egyptian cotton, Turkish linen, and they discovered that all of those things can be somewhat misleading, which we'll get to. But what they also did was take a big swing for the fences early on. A two million dollar advertising bet that was financed through loans and lines of credit. Today, Bowl and Branch is one of the leading luxury linen brands in the US. The company also sells home decor.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Welcome to How I Built This show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. Guy Raz, and on the show today how Scott and Missy Tannin fell into an industry they knew nothing about made their lives even harder by setting a high bar and grew bowl and branch into one of the country's top betting brands.”
2024-11-11 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT