YouSaid · the spoken record

Vicki and Rich Fulop

lines on the record: 138
first: 2020-04-20
most recent: 2020-04-20
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

“And the clock was going to start running, so we all knew this. So after winter break, January 2014, Ben decided to leave. So we were still in the development process. We hadn't launched yet. He essentially got an offer he couldn't refuse from Samsung in Korea. And he was staring down the barrel of his student loans and really taking his chances on this idea that everyone seems to be telling us no about. He took the offer with Samsung and went his own way at that point. It was down to me, Vicki, and David to get this thing launched.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As far as I know, and it was kind of a crossroads of do I go all in on this business knowing that if it doesn't succeed, we're not really sure what our future will hold or try to find a new job so that we can have a stable income and decided to at least roll the dice and see where we landed after that.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That is absolutely right. I mean, extremely scary at the time because I was the only one of us working health insurance was a big concern. And we took, I think, a few more loans out to be able to support ourselves. So I was fired for my job, you know, no calls or anything. I was just let go.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I guess at roughly the same time I should mention here from what I understand, Vicky. And this is not to embarrass you because it turned out to be fortuitous, but you were fired from your job, your PR job. Is that right?”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I'm assuming that even with that check, that money is not going to go very far, right? Weren't you guys? I don't know getting nervous at this point.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, I have a mountain of chips on my shoulder, though, from these people, though I could tell you, because I heard it so many times. Yeah, so the only investor, the only institutional investor that took a chance on us was, believe it or not, the NYU venture fund. So here we are for NYU students and NYU was willing to write us a check at some point. It wasn't pre-launch, but that was the only institution that was willing to write us a check. And that check was ultimately for, I believe it was $100,000 or so. And that was the biggest check we've ever seen.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, no, that's not at all how it went. We heard no, we heard stupid. Well, with VCs, you don't really hear no, which is the frustrating part. You hear you're too soon, you're too late. Let me think about it. Check back in with me. No one really wants to tell you, no, that's stupid.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You go to investors and you show them this stuff and you would say, Hey, we're going to totally disrupt the bedlin industry. And they would say, awesome idea. Here's a million dollars.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Do they, okay And you had that factory in Israel make those samples for you. So you had them, and you were keeping them at your apartment?”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's seven pieces. It's like the whole bed. The do they cover, the duvet cover, four pillowcases, flat sheet finish. It's the whole shebank, which is typically not how their merchandised also. It's usually very piecemeal. So we wanted to incentivize people and make it easy by bundling.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so between August 2013 and April 2014 when we launched, we were kind of just working on the idea and figure out how are we going to fund this, how are we going to market this, how do we get into production and so on. What happened was in that timeframe is we couldn't raise a dollar. Everybody thought it was a pretty stupid idea.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“She got the name Brook Linen, which is great. I mean, perfect. You're in Brooklyn, you live in Brooklyn, you're making linen. So what did you do next?”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that's kind of what we thought. Also, it didn't really work so well. But Vicky and I went and we met somebody at a party at some point. And she was kind of like, oh, what do you guys do? And we said, oh, you know, we have this business based in Brooklyn and we're making linens. And she's like, oh, Brooklyn, that would be great. And we're like. Interesting. You know, that's we're looking for something that's a unique word. We also thought this is where we are. We were working out of David's apartment in Brooklyn at the time for the most part. So there was something to who our customer was here and the branding and our taste that could be useful to kind of hook the brand onto.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. Meantime, Vicky, you are still working at the PR agency while rich and his other partners are kind of getting the gears in motion, right?”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That is correct. So, all those countries, with the exception of the European ones, all have free trade agreements with the US. So Peru, a lot of Central American countries, Japan, Korea, Israel, they all have, so there's absolutely no tariffs or duties coming in on the goods.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, here's something that I read which is interesting, and I think if it's true, really smart, which is you actually deliberately looked at factories in countries that have free trade agreements with the US because you thought that would be a way to save on tariffs. Is that true?”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They have a few, not many, but I went there and I met the CEO and the team there, and I had a little bit of advantage that I went to Jewish day school when I was little. So I understood Hebrew. didn't tell them that. But when I was there, they were so thorough and honest and informative and they were speaking amongst themselves that it left me a really good impression. They were just show him the dies, show him the sourcing of the dies, show him the show him this, show him the machinery. They wanted me to see everything and they were so proud of the work and the facilities of the team. We knew that they had quality, so we kind of piggybacked on a few production runs to run. I don't know, $10,000, $15,000 worth of betting that they actually fronted us at the time.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was kind of the result two leads after a whole lot of cold calling and sampling. We kind of just whittled it down to find our best contenders and then David and I had a connecting flight through France. We made a pit stop there and then went and continued on to Israel. We ultimately found our factory there and checked all the boxes we were looking for.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Textiles are totally different. Because when you think about how big a uncut textile is, it's just not, you have to run thousands of yards of fabric through a loom to weave it in any particular color or fabrication and then to cut and sew, think about if you spread out a king-sized sheet, the cutting tables and facilities you need to do that on a one-off basis. Yeah, massive. So we built relationships along the way where they were willing to take a chance. The fact we ultimately went with was willing to actually take a chance with us.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's interesting because I interviewed Sarah Kaus of Swell. And she said that she could get a small run, product run, from a factory in China, that with her bottles it was actually pretty easy. So it may just be different in textiles?”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think we went to France and Israel. So what we were looking for was a factory that kind of ticked the boxes of what we wanted to deliver to our customers. So China was problematic for us to start as we called and got more familiar with how business is done there. And Ben was familiar with this as well from having lived there. It's a very complicated place to do business. First is MOQs or minimum order quantities. They're extremely high. So I remember getting on the phone with them and they're like, how many containers do you want to order? Wow. It was kind of like click at that moment where we got the wrong conversation. We're talking in how many fitted sheets and pillowcases, not containers is really interesting.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Least favorable. We did everything We did the cheap way. All right. So I guess in the summer of 2013, you and David, David Fortune, you go off on a trip to try and find a factory that you can work with. That's correct.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We put, I mean, the four of us used our savings that we had, honestly, that we had tucked away. And this was kind of what we put it towards. If I remember correctly, we put in about $4,000 or $5,000 a person to incorporate and start the business. And that was it. We put it into the pot. We did it on like legal zoom.com. And we incorporated here in New York where the taxes and everything are like the least favorable. We did everything wrong, of course, but we did the cheap way”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So you've got some research under your belt. And so at this point, you're not really using a whole lot of money, right? This is like the spring of 2013. You don't require a whole lot of money. I guess you are calling up factories and getting samples, but you're not really spending a lot at this point.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And for us personally, also, it felt like shopping for them was, I think, kind of a chore. So we also thought the direct-to-consumer model, it'd be nice to not have to go to Target or Bed Bath Beyond, just make it a little bit easier and a little bit more frictionless.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's no Warby Parker. There's no Nike. There's no brands that people can align with and say, I like the look, I like the value, I like the price point. It speaks to me as a customer. There was just nothing out there that did that.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It really had to do with the branding guy. Like, there was no brand that spoke to people, and people are so brand obsessed in every category. And this was one that just was there for the taking that nobody really could hook into.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Although here's my question, right? Because at the time, I might have said to you guys, I don't see why this is a problem. I mean, if I go to Target and it says 1,000 thread count and it's on sale and it's the price tag says $89.99, but it's on sale for $49.99. I'm thinking I'm getting a great deal here.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the feedback we got was, I don't know, I need new sheets. I guess I would just come here. What brand do you love? I don't know. I don't know any brands over here. How much are you willing to pay? I don't know, $100 or so. People didn't really think about where does the cotton come from? There's all different kinds of cotton, whether it's Pima cotton, Egyptian cotton, Turkish cotton, and so on. They all feel differently. All the different weaves that you have, if it's Jacquard weave or piqual weave or satine weave, there's so many variables and nobody knew the information. So I wish there was a better solution is kind of what bubbled up to the top.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And what kind of trends did you find out of interviewing 500 people? Because Jen Rubio and Steph Corey did a similar thing with a way. They went to hundreds of people and said, what kind of suitcase do you want? And the answers they got, if they took into account all the feedback, would have been a suitcase that nobody wanted, because it would have had everything on it. And all the bells and whistles and it would have looked like a Frankenstein suitcase. So how are you able to look at the data and the trends and say, okay, this is actually looks like people really want this? What was the this that you were seeing?”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, so we did a few things. So we would go to fabric stores around the city. We'd cut fabric and send them out to factories to try and replicate. But the most important thing we actually did was we went and we surveyed about 500 prospective customers really by hand and live. So we went to first we went to like the big box stores and the department stores and we would just nag people in the bedding section and say, hey, you have a second. A lesson we learned is an easy way to disarm somebody for a quick survey is let them know it's a student project and it very much was at the time.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The foundation of a company going. Totally. This is like the X-Men here. And X-Men watches it. The Avengers. You've got the PR, you got the marketing. Alright, so you start really kind of, I don't know, I mean, with sort of the four of you or just kind of meeting up and just kind of grinding through ideas at night and on weekends.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I pitched him on the idea, and he also kind of had an entrepreneurial bug. And so he got in rooms with me and was calling and modeling and helping in those early days. And soon after, another weak spot was legal and accounting. And David, he's a JD MBA at Sterns. So he'd practice law and he was also an accountant in prior career. We had like the three of us plus Vicky's secret weapon of this public relations and pitching. I thought we had all the ingredients to at least get the foundation of a company going.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yep. So first I approached Ben. Ben had a background working in supply chain in Southeast Asia. He'd lived in China and in Laos and Vietnam. And so he knew languages and he knew how supply chains work. And at this point, I'd never been in a factory in my life. So I was like, oh, you've been to a factory? Like, help me out. You're in. It's kind of, you know, if you're willing.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So your business school, and there's other smart people at business school like you, and I guess you approach two of your classmates to kind of join you, David Fortune, Ben Hyman. Tell me the story. You went to them and said, hey. I've got this idea. Do you guys want to get involved”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, no, no, no. No, a combination of. So I wanted US-based, but the textile industry is totally shifted overseas over the last call, 100 years or so. So there's a few parties that remain. They're very expensive, and they still do it. But I was just calling anyone and everybody that was willing to talk to me to get some samples in here for Vicki and I to look at was really I used every moment I could Before, after an in-between classes to really pound the pavement”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I started cold calling. And after I got a little smarter around the fabrics, I was calling factories all over the world, really, just to figure out and get samples and see who would deal with me. And there was tons of obstacles. And I remember one specific call I called this guy. And he laughed at me on the phone and he said, I haven't spoken to anyone under the age of 50 that wanted to get into this business. These are”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Amazing. So, okay, so it sounds like Rich. Like, this idea is obviously getting traction in your head, right? And so at this stage, do you start calling around to find manufacturers?”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right, so you are doing all this research on. On sheets and thread counts, and which I mean, it sounds really interesting actually, because we spend a third of our lives sleeping. So a third of our lives are going to be spent on bed sheets. When you think about it that way, bed sheets are pretty significant part of our lives.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, people think that they're getting this premium product, but they're actually just sweating their ass off at night and they want to like it so badly because it's high thread count, but it's actually not what they're looking for. And that was when we first kind of realized, actually what we're after is a lower thread count that's more lightweight and breathable and has that like crisp crinkly. Freshly pressed dress shirt feel to it.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think the two findings that were most eye-opening was the misinformation around thread count. Because if I was going to call a factory, I was going to say, and I want a high quality product, what I would have done is said, what's the highest thread count you make and send me samples of that? But that is just fundamentally wrong as it pertains to sheets. Thread count is actually the number of threads vertical plus horizontal in a square inch of fabric. So there's actually a finite amount that you can have like it's a finite amount of space. And that number actually with true single ply yarns is about 400 or 500 or so in a square inch. Anything beyond that is just marketing essentially and tricks by manufacturers to really attract the consumer to some number that they could anchor them and think that, hey, it's better because it's more.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We wanted to Barnes Noble in Union Square, New York, and you just got a bunch of books on textiles and you just read them in the store?”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I cared a lot about the quality. I really wanted those nice designer sheets. So it was like, if you can figure out the supply chain to make these nice sheets that we can afford and people like us can afford, that's a game changer. But we just then was researching how do we back into it as customers and create this texture that we want. I digress, but we went to Barnes& Noble. in Union Square and we kind of sat down there with textile books to kind of figure out how sheets were made to achieve the feel that we wanted”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. I felt like those brands and channels never stopped talking to my mom and never considered that I'm now a customer potentially and they need to appeal to me as a 20-something year old guy and So, I thought there was an opportunity for reinvention there that can speak to the more millennial customer that ultimately cares about different things than my parents might have.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So you were inspired by Warby Parker and those sort of direct to consumer models thinking, hey, here's a category where most people just go to Target and just buy like Ralph Lauren sheets or Laura Ashley branded sheets or whatever. And they're probably all made in the same factory in China, and they don't really. People don't really aren't getting what they think they're getting, and I can do a better job. That was sort of your mindset.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, we were at the time, as far as what we were aware of direct to consumer and direct to consumer brands that are born online was very, very new. So I'd worn glasses my whole life. I just changed to Warby Parker, and I'd gone to Lenscrafters at the mall prior to that. But Warby Parker was a very, very interesting, focused offering. It was a cool brand that seemed like we focused on this product, made it better. We don't care about the other stuff. We're just concentrating on this.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I love those baguette hot do So you get the sort of seal of approval from Vicki, but what do you do? What was the next step that you took to actually learn more about this possibility?”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Correct. Choose your fabric. Choose your designs made for you A key piece actually was also I wanted something that was gender neutral because I felt like every presentation and photography and marketing only spoke to a female customer and I felt very underserved. So I really wanted to position this where it was accessible and appealing to men as well, which was something that was really not being done there. And that was a different component of it.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But the turning point was January 2013 when I was on my winter break between my first and second semester. I was home with Vicki. And I remember telling her that I was kicking around this idea for the first time, actually. I'd heard for years that's a stupid idea. That's a stupid idea. This one, she was kind of like, you should just go for it. That's actually a really good idea.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A little bit of both. Another thing happened at the time that kind of got my gears turning as I was preparing for recruiting and interviews in business school. I got myself a new suit and someone referred me to this custom suit manufacturer in the city. And it was a great experience. You go up into the showroom, they show you all the fabrics you choose, what type of fabric, the design, and they custom fit it to you. And I never had that experience before. So then I circled back to the sheet idea and was thinking about a new sheet concept where you can customize your own bedding ensemble. And that was like really where I thought, okay, maybe there's some sort of interesting business idea around that. I thought it was a good opportunity to kind of put pen to paper.”
2020-04-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT