YouSaid · the spoken record

Susan Tynan

lines on the record: 84
first: 2018-12-10
most recent: 2018-12-10
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

“So there's a wall of 10,000 frame styles. You choose, they measure your art, then they order from a distributor the materials in little chopped up pieces to come to their store. And so that takes a couple weeks and it's expense. It's heavily marked up. And so we said, we'll centralize all this.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, people are, I got it. And then now, increasingly with social proof, people trust us and they get it. But certainly the industry was suspicious. We came in saying, and I believe it, like this is new demand. And I think we've been able to prove that for the most part.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For all the reasons that it was possible to come in. Well, one, they didn't have any storage. If we were talking to vendors and there was another, like there was someone else in the value chain, like, why were we doing this whole thing? It just seemed, and most importantly, we couldn't control quality and we couldn't start getting faster or smarter, faster. From the very first frame, we launched everything together. We got used equipment. We hired some framers and we launched our website.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, no, no. It was an evolution. All right, okay. Nice, well set. But it happened really quickly. We did not do that with one frame. I started meeting with framers and I thought, wait a minute, what am I doing? I can get equipment. We can do this.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, every day it's lining up supply and demand because we actually have to build unlike other companies. We actually have to build everything we sell. And so yes, it's both. So we had to build it all together at the same time. So I had pulled in a couple folks, sort of the best people I knew from places I had worked and the second closed the funding, hired them on. And so then we started working on everything all at once. By that time we had done some of the product development of the app. But we built a website. We found a warehouse right outside of DC. We located ourselves in the warehouse. And then we truly had to, we had originally told, I had told investors that we would outsource the framing for the beginning because we didn't know anything about framing.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so I think I really struggled with that. It was like, I get it. But what's most interesting to a hot topic, right, on people's data. But what's really interesting is you know what people value in their lives. We definitely do. We know if you got married or if you love dogs, but like, that's not what's most interesting is that we provide this service in a much smoother way and you're going to incorporate in your life more. But I definitely think there are investors who want something more. I actually remember an investor saying A, it wasn't sexy enough. They try and do sexier stuff. And two, it just seemed like a line drive. Like it's just too obvious.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. And interesting, I will give us credit for this. I mean, we had product market fit when we lost. I mean, we launched and we started selling because it made sense. I think that's the other thing, actually. This is interesting with pitching. I've only gotten East Coast money. I really think there is something really sort of fundamental, clear about what we're doing. And we have interesting stuff to say. Absolutely, we are growing the category. This is net new business. That's cool. But it's not, you know, it's too tangible.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, and I think it's going to be really hard for you to convince me that people won't want to pull things down from the cloud and live with them in their real lives. Of course they do. And so that's understandable.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's really amazing. And then, well, I used to actually report back from the road, and I remember my mom took an interest in this and would say, did you meet any women today? Always, I'm like, no, mom, of course not.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I laughed one day in two different cities. I got the exact same anecdote, which was I don't understand the use case. If I'm in Aspen with my friends, I would take a picture and then I could frame it. And I thought, this is amazing. I'm in two different cities on the same day. And that was the only use case you could come up with.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Totally. And so I think there's both a lack of understanding of it, but also when I went out there, I think there was somewhat of a question of my ambition. Like I wanted to build a very large business, and this is how I was going to do it. But I think paired with like a mom going out and pitching a frame business, I think you had to know me to know.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Count them on my hands. No, any hands. Interesting, even though this would obviously be an industry I might be interested in, I think the fact that it's like a crafty industry is a double whammy. So I think that the”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right We had to believe two things. You had to believe this was a category worthy of disruption, which obviously a lot of investors did not believe. And then you had to believe I could get it done.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tranches. Right. And so you were trying to, and you were trying to find investors like Steve Case or Tam who would work with you at Living Social or elsewhere. That's right. It wouldn't bother you, really, who trusted you.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I was in my late 30s when I started it, so I joke a little bit. I did it like a woman I was totally prepared at the time I started. And so I was able to raise, I raised money out of the gates and I raised money from people who knew me as a manager from other jobs. Right. So I was a known entity to them in that capacity.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Nobody's working on it. Well, that's the first thing they always say. But I think that's only because you had to have the reverence for design, some tech understanding and some willingness to figure out the manufacturing. So it was really just, could you put all the pieces together?”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is what I'm gonna do. All right. Oh, the other reason I did it was because I was in this taxi business and I thought here's a problem with a at the time, hilariously we thought was like a $15 billion.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, no, because it was broken. Right. Truly. And because every time you ask someone about what they frame, they tell you about the sticker shack. And then the second question is, well, tell me about it. And they say, like, well, actually, I went to Nepal. And let me tell you, like what is exciting, like people have stuff they love.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Got interested in a personal need. I had four national parks posters. I took them to a frame store. They cost $400 each to be framed. And so I thought $1,600 for posters seemed crazy. And so I just started talking to everybody about the idea and everybody had a similar story, delight at what they framed and sort of sticker shock from the experience.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. Not many. The craft jeans. Yeah. But really, it was that younger customers should love this too. They experiences, they create amazing content. Why wouldn't they also, they would, is just the way in which it was delivered wasn't appealing to them. And then the second part, which I didn't know how we would do, but since we have, was I'm sure if we aggregate all this demand, we can somehow deliver it in a way that is less expensive. And so that's really by streamlining our operations, by bringing manufacturing best practices to this industry that had not been brought there before.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. And it's local. It's very local. It's very local. It's fragmented. And it should be a bigger category than it is. We truly believed it was constrained because of the price and the way it was delivered. And importantly.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So Freenbridge is custom picture framing half the time, half the price of traditional framing. We do it all centrally. We send people packaging. They send us their art or they upload a photo and we print it and frame it. And I think really sort of two pretty obvious theses that we've been able to prove out, which was one, if someone made this easier and more affordable, people would do it more often.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, and they were actually the first to have an iPhone app to hail a taxi. Right. And so thought, well, that would be an exciting place to be, certainly because industry-wise, something was going to happen there. But by that time, I had had the idea for Framebridge and it was brewing in me. So explain what.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This was Steve. Yeah, Steve was looking social, and both Steve and Tim backers of Framebridge, which I think is sort of the The best thing we see in tech, right? So I left in 2011. And it was, yeah, it hadn't, the future was unclear, but it wasn't as exciting.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They did. But the growth was happening so fast that it all took place so quickly. It's interesting because I have since formed a company that is so sort of fundamental. Like we place something of value in someone's hands. And that is definitely a result.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. So I think there were some offline versions, the yellow pages, and then also there were versions of this that were Yelp. I mean, things exist that were connecting local stores with customers in the community. And so there was going to be a set of solutions to come out of that. I think in some ways I learned there's an issue when it comes to easy. And I think it came too easy. And then it was just like a feeding frenzy for both companies to grow as fast as possible. We didn't have to think enough about what happens next because it was coming so easy.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. So is it too So it required two sides to work. And when it worked, that cycle Was really supportive of one another. So if merchants got good customers. And then good merchants would do deals, and then customers would open those emails. And then when it started that, I think merchants started saying we're not getting good customers, we're just giving away the store. And so then Premier vendors didn't want to be in the emails. And then the emails. And then also, of course, how do you make more money in that business? We had to put more and more deals in emails. And then just for the customer, it became less and less interesting. So just sort of unraveled pretty quickly.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I knew them from a previous startup. And so I was watching them and sort of almost waiting to be called, maybe too prideful to say I'd love to join. And someone called me and said, we're going to start a sort of new business lines, want to join.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm not going to ask your opinion. Well, I definitely was amazed at the caliber of the people. Truly, the smartest people in every field rushed in to the first administration, to Obama first. And so it just, it was an awe to be around these people. And so I just feel sad about that.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Let's look at the data. Let's unpack what's happening and make recommendations, and then also have the fun of being able to say you're calling from the White House. So that speeds things up. Yeah What a privilege.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I worked in the budget office and I had a role that was really to solve management issues that could become political issues. So it wasn't a policy job. It was truly things like response to the oil spill, response to GI bill delays that current administration still put that right now.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly, but actually wound up doing a big project for the postal service, which I find myself back in a warehouse. But then sort of meandered through a few different consumer tech jobs and grew to love it, loved the consumer orientation and the speed. And so certainly that was what I loved most about living social. I was actually in the Obama White House when friends from a previous job started living social.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's so much to talk about. Unfortunately, you got me on a bad day. It's the Facebook disaster day, which is like yesterday and the day before. But it was a pretty bad story in the New York Times. We're going to talk about that to being a CEO and sort of tech responsibility. But let's talk a little bit about you yourself and how you started Framebridge. There's not many startups started by women. We'll talk about that issue and why. I'm sorry you're going to have to carry water for all women, but there we have it because tech is such a non-diverse place So let's start with your background. It's a really interesting background. You were Living Social. I knew who was the CEO? What's his name? Tim O'Shaughnessy. That's right.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hi, I'm Kara Swisher, editor at large of Recode. You may know me as someone whose house is decorated with frame printouts of Twitter arguments, but in my spare time I talk tech and you're listening to Reco Decode from the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today in the red chair is Susan Tynan, the founder and CEO of Framebridge. Before starting the company in 2014, she worked at Living Social. We'll talk about that. And the Obama White House, that's quite a resume, Susan. Welcome to Reco.”
2018-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why it's OK to be analog in a digital world · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT