Digital Social Hour - Shawn Nelson On Humble Beginnings & Future of Lovesac | DSH #222

Episode Date: January 8, 2024

On today's episode of Digital Social Hour, Founder of Lovesac Shawn Nelson comes on the show to talk about the origin story of Lovesac, how the company has grown and what were some of the pivotal mome...nts in the company's growth. APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8Ci9 BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: Jenna@DigitalSocialHour.com SPONSORS: RocketMoney : https://www.rocketmoney.com/DSH LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:01:12 And we watch and react to the maddest internet clips. What do we discuss, Ozzy? Drugs, rock and roll, aliens, all that kind of shit. Drugs, rock and roll, aliens, and all that kind of shit. Come and join Ozzy and myself. Visit osbournemed media house.com to get special access to come on what do you say do you think it's the wildest show on the internet no i think you've done a great job with that and one of the things you take serious is customer
Starting point is 00:01:37 feedback customer service right yeah yeah so you kind of follow jeff bezos approach with that model we're trying to build a relationship with you so that when we invent the next thing, we know you, you like us, and your experience with that first thing was so good that you're in. Like, holy crap, I just bought this couch because I couldn't fit another one up the staircase. Welcome back to the show, guys. Digital Social Hour. I'm your host, as always, Sean Kelly. Got with me another Sean today.
Starting point is 00:02:04 I got Sean Nelson with me today. Love that. How's it going? Good, man. Good to be with you. Yeah. One of my favorite brands ever, man. Thank you so much. That's really flattering. Yeah. I mean, you got to tell me how you made them so comfortable because I've never seen that. Yeah. Well, you know, I just made one. I wish I had a better story. I was sitting on my parents' couch and thought it'd be funny to make the biggest beanbag in the world. I got off the couch, drove down to the fabric store, bought some fabric, brought it home, laid it on the floor, looked at a baseball, cut it out, two figure eights, started sewing it up.
Starting point is 00:02:36 Wait, you cut up a baseball? No, no, no. I looked at the pattern of a baseball and just started cutting up the fabric. I only got a foot or two into sewing and jam my mom's sewing machine on like this heavy you know beanbag vinyl and my girlfriend's mom finished sewing it up and then it was two or three years of just using it out about college you know on the on the on the ground everyone's like where'd you get that everywhere we took it wow and uh it was a side hustle in college for a few years. Yeah. Which college were you at? University of Utah.
Starting point is 00:03:09 Nice. Yeah. So you've been in Utah for a while? Yeah. I was, I was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. Okay. Currently reside in Southern Utah, St. George. And, but I've lived, I mean, California, Mexico, China, Taiwan. I've been all over the place. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. I went to Utah a few years ago. The culture there really was a game changer for me because I never, I grew up in Jersey. There's no Mormons over there. So I didn't, I didn't even know what it was. So then when I went to Utah and I was the odd man out, I was like, Whoa, this is pretty interesting. But I respect the culture, you know? Yeah, no, it's a, it's actually, Utah's weird. It, as you've probably observed, you know, interviewing so many people,
Starting point is 00:03:46 there's like a real hustle culture out of Utah. There's a lot of entrepreneurship, a lot of small businesses. I mean, just one after another after another. I think there's something to the culture for sure. Yeah, I did notice that. There's some people grinding out there in Salt Lake, but you're in a different part, right? I am.
Starting point is 00:04:02 I mean, I came up in Salt Lake, but now I'm with my family in southern Utah, St. George. It's actually only about a couple hours from Vegas. It's awesome. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Nice. Yeah, you drove over here, right?
Starting point is 00:04:10 Yeah, it's like red rocks, low elevation, palm trees. It's totally different. Nice. I mean, you make it sound easy, but I've been on some beanbags where I literally get back pain from them. Yeah? Yeah. Well, first of all, in our first love sack store we had
Starting point is 00:04:27 a poster like we had all these crazy posters that we shouldn't even have we had like elvis's image and uh you know james dean and anyway we had l and bob marley we had these different posters we just like you know uh superimposed a love sack in there and the elvis poster said it's it's not a damn bean bag uh because it's it's not it's filled with filled with chopped foam you know it's it's a bean bags filled with those little white beads yeah they're actually kind of hard right just move around but the but the foam was like what was magic and and we had to put like we had to engineer it so the air could get out because they're because they're kind of like a big vault like a big beach ball right when uh you first sit on it. And so you have to engineer it so the air can get out.
Starting point is 00:05:08 But then when it escapes, you just sink into a pillow. So it's essentially like a giant pillow bigger than your body. And that's what always made us famous, got us started. And now we sell more couches than anything. We invented this really cool couch. You can have the rest of your life called Saxionals. And I mean, that's 90% of our sales now. sales now whoa okay so you've pivoted the business majorly to the couch industry then oh yeah big time i mean love sack i mean at this point you know we started
Starting point is 00:05:34 as a side hustle in college we start you know we eventually opened a store in a mall in salt lake i came here to henderson yeah to open our second store and then off to California to open more and move the factory from Salt Lake to Mexico. It's just this long story arc. I mean, it's such a wild story. I'm actually, it's our 25th anniversary this year. Wow, congrats. Thank you. I'm publishing a book called Let Me Save You 25 Years
Starting point is 00:05:58 that, you know, it should have never taken this long. But now, you know, Lovesac's pushing three quarters of a billion in sales. Damn. As a public company on NASDAQ. That's insane. And fastest growing furniture company many, many years in a row over the last decade. Wow.
Starting point is 00:06:15 Yeah. So what makes the couch or the sofa, you said, right? Yeah, it's called Sactionals. Shout out to today's sponsor, Rocket Money. Guys, you ever feel like money's just flying out of your account? Well, this app might be able to help you. Because there's something called subscriptions that are eating at your bank account every single month. And there's apps you don't know about.
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Starting point is 00:07:33 able to cut down on those prices. So all in all, shout out to Rocket Money. Great product. So stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash DSH. That's rocketmoney.com slash dsh that's rocketmoney.com slash dsh link will be in the description below actionals what makes that different from like just going to bob's furniture or something oh yeah no this is uh first of all it's a couch you could have the rest of your life in fact we just moved house back from san die. Utah, it's a long story. And I'm packing some of our Sactionals pieces in the move. I've had some of these pieces longer than my children. They're 15, 16 years old.
Starting point is 00:08:14 So it's essentially a couch you can add to, grow, change, rearrange, kind of like Legos for couches. They're very expensive. They'll last you your whole life. They're really well built. We call them designed for life, built to last a lifetime, designed to evolve as your life changes. You can move, you can relocate, you can wash them, change them.
Starting point is 00:08:32 I've been through eight or nine different cover sets, fur covers, stripe covers, patterns, any fabric. And these attributes actually have made them the most sustainable solution to furniture. And so that's really a hallmark of what we do as well. So this design for life approach, making things that are built to last a lifetime, designed to evolve, is really our mantra now. And we'll extend it throughout the whole home.
Starting point is 00:08:59 And that's how we're growing toward a billion in sales and not such a side hustle anymore. Yeah, that's incredible, man, because I've gone through so many couches. It's not even funny. Even when you pay like $5,000, $10,000, they only last a few years. Oh, yeah, no, no, not these. This will change your life. We'll have to get you into one, man. Yeah, how much are they?
Starting point is 00:09:17 Yeah, so you're going to pay $5,000, $10,000, $15,000. I mean, it's not uncommon for people to put $15,000, $20,000 setups. Let me tell you why. Because our perfect spot is not necessarily like your proper living room. We can do that too. It's beautiful. But we're for where you watch TV, hang out, play video games. We now have a surround sound system built in, completely invisible.
Starting point is 00:09:43 It's our patent. It's our invention. It's called Stealth Tech. It's in the couch? Yeah, we partnered with Harman Kardon to develop it. But patent it's our invention it's called stealth tech it's in the couch yeah we partnered with harman kardon to develop it but it's actually our invention we took it to them they helped us uh manufacture and it is it'll blow your mind because you have like 4d immersive surround sound inside of your couch you can't see anything yeah it's completely invisible it doesn't you don't see any speaker or anything really and yeah you see nothing wow and that's why it's called you know stealth tech yeah and it's and you know it's other it's other technology as well you can set your phone on the arm it'll charge your phone you know it's just invisible but um when you experience
Starting point is 00:10:16 this i mean you know you you've been in a lot of big homes you know fancy home theaters whatever yeah this is different because it's a little bit like more like watching a movie like in your car because you're you're inside of it you can feel it you know you're dodging bullets because it's so close like the the surround speakers are 12 inches from your skull so it's just a very and it's really tasteful you know it's not necessarily blaring it's really yeah so even even like sports you know you'll hear like the sneaker squeaking on the court you'll hear like the chat wow yeah and you'll hear the chatter in the stands behind you really yeah because it's all there in the feed but in most even in most home theaters you don't
Starting point is 00:10:51 hear that i never hear that the fans no i'm telling you it is really weird so we're really proud of it it's got us blowing up you know and i mean that's 3 000 alone to add the stealth tech yeah so these are expensive couches but you're going to have them your whole life. How do you know they'll last someone's whole life if they're only 15 years old? Well, I don't know. So far, mine are 15, 16 years old since we invented them. That's already way past average.
Starting point is 00:11:16 Oh, yeah. These are just really well-built. They've evolved a long way. Actually, some of these ones that are older that I was talking about, they're not even good compared to the stuff we sell today. They still work the same. You can hook them together,
Starting point is 00:11:30 and when you put covers on, you'd never know. My pieces that are old, they look exactly the same to you until I peel the covers off and show you the differences, but from a construction standpoint. So look, not to bore you with couch construction, but we really, inventing this, really forced us to become really passionate about product design about quality because we because we wanted to make a couch that could ship in a box make it
Starting point is 00:11:56 internetable make it you know all the reasons that you would do this including just like moving or relocating you can move this thing in a honda on your own. Really? Yeah. I mean, my kids can move this thing. Like, because it's all in pieces, right? And there's only two pieces. That's it? Yeah, you buy a bunch of seats and a bunch of sides. Wow, that sounds pretty good. Because sometimes setting up a couch is like super hard, honestly.
Starting point is 00:12:15 No, it's, I mean, you know, it's some work because you've got to put the covers on each piece and stuff like that. And, you know, we're working toward a scenario where we'll even come do that for you. But no, it's really cool stuff. even come do that for you. Right. But, um, but now it's really cool stuff and, and,
Starting point is 00:12:28 uh, it's kind of magical. Yes. If you ever get a chance to go to a love sack showroom. Yeah, definitely got to try one out. Yeah. Blow your mind.
Starting point is 00:12:34 It's very different, man. So 25 years. So if you were to look at that on a chart and the revenue was there, was it just straight up the whole time or were there peaks and valleys? No, man. I mean,
Starting point is 00:12:44 love sack. I mean, that's part of the reason for publishing the book this year, Let Me Save You 25 Years, is the story is crazy. I mean, in the early days, we were shredding foam using farm equipment. Like I got an agricultural loan from the United States government to buy a tractor and a 1970s hay buster because I couldn't afford like some half a million dollar German shredding machine.
Starting point is 00:13:10 Yeah. 70s hay buster because i couldn't afford like some you know half a million dollar german shredding machine yeah this is like me and my buddies right in like some old warehouse trying to make these things and so we got this big order we had to make like 12 000 units really fast for like a holiday kind of thing and so i i bought a tractor i got a loan from the government to do that and and it was you know it's that kind of gritty bootstrapping story before i think people were even using the word bootstrap you know we were just kids in college trying to survive and then that led us to one thing and another we opened the store people tried to buy our couch in the corner that was just there to look pretty next to the sacks and um and so look we blew up out of the gate in the store and we actually started selling franchises even because we just like who knew it took off i mean we were just hoping people wouldn't laugh at us right and then you know we were selling six
Starting point is 00:13:49 figures out of the gate approaching a million sales our first year nice came down to henderson open another store started franchising and then a couple years into that raised i have crazier i i won a million dollars on tv with richard branson What? Yeah, I won his reality TV show. Wow, congrats. He just sponsored the podcast, actually. Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah. So there you go.
Starting point is 00:14:10 So tell him we're buddies. But yeah, I won his answer to Trump's Apprentice. He did one season. It's called The Rebel Billionaires on Fox, 2005. That's how old I am. And that led to Venture Capital. Venture Capital came in. Their first move was like, hey, let's bankrupt this company. Let's get out of franchising.
Starting point is 00:14:32 Let's buy back all the stores. You're at like 40 stores. We're going to pare it down to just 12 really good ones and then grow it again. And it was right on the heels of being Branson's protege, winning a million on tv it was just like embarrassing to take a moralizing oh yeah man so i've been through a full chapter 11 rework wow there in 2006 rebirth the company we probably at the time of the rear i don't know we were doing
Starting point is 00:15:00 20 or 30 million then we started over at you know 10 10 let's say 10 10 ish and then um actually it's about seven ish so we we 10x the company from about that start over from 2006 to 16 we essentially 10x the company and then we did it again wow and so you know now like i said last year's was was like six 650 million and it's still growing very rapidly that's crazy yeah so but selling mostly couches now so so i mean every kind of up and down the worst kinds of ups and downs and and some really great times as well good for us like it was for you right e-commerce was popping during that yeah e-commerce the home category yeah you know now not so much for home but but even through this this tougher time post home Love Sack's been growing really fast.
Starting point is 00:15:47 We continue to beat the market, beat the category, and it just comes down to, I think, good product. We've got a great team, really sharp marketing. Yeah, your marketing, I definitely want to dive into that. You've worked with some of the biggest influencers and creators. What kind of approach do you take on the marketing side? Yeah, so one of the funny things about marketing at Lovesac. Let me step back all the way.
Starting point is 00:16:12 We were born at retail in 2001, our first store. We were told malls are dead. What are you doing signing a lease in a mall? This was in 01? Yeah. All these headlines. This is dead,s are dead. Malls are dead. Like, what are you doing signing a lease in a mall? This was in 01? Yeah. Oh, wow. You know what I mean? Like, all these headlines.
Starting point is 00:16:28 Like, this is dead. That is dead. E-commerce is dead. Digital is dead. You know, whatever. All these dead headlines. Malls are dead. 2001.
Starting point is 00:16:37 That's early. Yeah, man. Here we are in 2023, whatever. And I've got 250 locations, most of them in malls and crushing. Marketing's constantly evolving, but it's not as always dramatic as people say. There's peaks and valleys. My point being, whether it be the mall game,
Starting point is 00:17:00 the retail game, and then we pivoted into internet, obviously, through these shrinkable sacks, because we suck all the air out of those sacks. Because we can, because it's not a beanbag. The foam shrinks, so we can ship it at one-eighth its original volume. That was the idea. Well, how could we do that for a couch? People kept asking about this couch. How could I shrink the couch
Starting point is 00:17:17 down? That was all we were trying to do. But then along the way, we made it washable and changeable and all these other attributes, designed for life. Yes, they ship in boxes. That waschangeable, and all these other attributes designed for life. Yes, they ship in boxes. That was good for the internet. So then digital marketing kicks in. And then by 2016, we finally grew the stones to test into TV,
Starting point is 00:17:37 which who watches TV anymore? Not me. I'll tell you what, man. Someone does. Yeah. Because TV is more than half our ad spend. Really just crushes what now so our our row ass in digital now is insane it's insanely high on social media uh yeah i mean across all digital because though you got a blend in tv where you can't measure it the same way as digital so my point is the two working together for us,
Starting point is 00:18:06 that's been the unlock. Got it. And then you marry that up, of course, with a physical presence, because we sell a remarkable product. When you hear about it, you're kind of like, what? And to your point, even if you're just talking about a sack,
Starting point is 00:18:17 when you go sit in one. It's game changer. Right. But you have to sit in it. So for us, the combination of physical, TV, believe it or not, still to this day, and digital has been the trifecta. And look, I think the evidence is, like if you look at us as a retailer, we're not a retailer.
Starting point is 00:18:35 We don't carry inventory. We're not really a retailer. You don't go into a- Oh, you can't walk in and buy one? No. Wow. I mean, you can, but it'll ship to you. Okay.
Starting point is 00:18:41 No matter where you buy from us. We even do pop-up shops occasionally in Costco. We have shop in shops in best buy because we do the stealth tech yeah so that's our that's our shop that's our person it's our point of sale it's our customer it's our record data you own it we own it all we we do zero wholesale oh really we are 100 direct even in those channels you don't want to ever go wholesale not right now like we're really i mean think about it i got you know full retail margin i'm in full control the customer they're a friend you know we we are able to reach back out and say the next thing and you can add like stealth tech you bought your saxonels eight years ago guess
Starting point is 00:19:20 what that was nice of you to give us money then we just made it better because you can add it to what you already have everything we invent is reverse compatible wow like the stealth tech is reverse compatible with the satchels you bought eight years ago really yeah that's crazy that's designed for life yeah and so we have a very different point of view look it's easy to look at love's i can dismiss it like ah it's like this beanbag company that's a silly name whatever but i think we've got a lot going on. And I guess the evidence was, this is where I was getting around to,
Starting point is 00:19:47 is we have, I think, some of the highest sales per square foot of any retailer on the planet. The only retailer, forget furniture, the only retailers that beat us that I'm aware of is Apple and Tiffany's. You're in good competition there. Right?
Starting point is 00:20:04 Well, think about it. You leave an Apple store. How much did you spend? You're spending at least $1,000. You leave a Love Sex store. How much did you spend? $5, $7, $10, $15. I got five employees on the staff in total.
Starting point is 00:20:20 Maybe one of them there at that time. And it's smaller than this room we're sitting in. So you keep a lean operation at each place, no inventory costs, no inventory. So it's a very unique business and we're very proud of it. And, uh,
Starting point is 00:20:35 I think tragically underestimated on, you know, even on the public markets and that's okay. You know, I mean, we'll just keep doing our thing for another 25. Yeah. I mean, I think everything's down right now because of the recession.
Starting point is 00:20:43 Right. Oh yeah. Well, and, and I just think think you know love sack's an easy one to dismiss because we you know it's this beanbag company and like where do they come from you know but um yeah we're really proud of the business we're building you know we've been profitable for a long time nice you know and uh still growing at a very rapid pace so that's awesome yeah so did you
Starting point is 00:21:06 embrace e-commerce at first or was that a pushback because a lot of retailers kind of don't really take it serious even to this day almost like walmart doesn't really yeah we we had lovesack.com cranking in 2002 wow so you were early we were really early and we were trying to figure it out i mean you know it's it's crazy like how scrappy it was and we were trying to figure it out. I mean, it's crazy how scrappy it was and we were and how clumsy that whole thing was. But we didn't even, I don't think, realize what we had at the time. Like I said, we were sucking seven-eighths of the volume out of these sacks and shipping them.
Starting point is 00:21:40 I mean, that was a cool combination. It worked, obviously. But I don't think we realized how special that was. So think about it. That's like, I don't know, 15 years before all the mattress companies started doing what they were doing. Right. And we were doing it with sacks.
Starting point is 00:21:54 And then we did it with a couch. But it really took us a long time to, I mean, we were having early success. But because we took a traditional retail approach in the beginning, we were essentially like a furniture company. Once we had couches, we started doing rugs and lamps and bowls and baskets and decorative accessories. That's what you do. And it was actually in 2015 when we got rid of all that stuff.
Starting point is 00:22:15 We saw what was going on with direct-to-consumer, Warby Parker, even Casper, Tesla, even with their showrooms. We said, why are we trying to out pottery barn, pottery barn? We'll never get there. So let's get rid of all that stuff. Let's focus on our really cool internetable products and let's go heavy digital and let's figure out this TV thing. I'm still blown away by this TV thing.
Starting point is 00:22:42 Isn't that wild? Because I always see this stuff on social media like Super Bowl ads are 10 mil people actually make money off that you think? Look for us it's more of a performance game but at the same time we're actually gravitating
Starting point is 00:22:57 listen the holy grail of if you want to make a million bucks 10 million bucks 50 million bucks you can do it by hawking stuff on the internet, whatever that stuff is. And I don't disparage it.
Starting point is 00:23:10 If you want to be around for 25 years and you want to build something that can grow past a billion or two or 10, it ultimately comes down to a brand. At the end of the day, there's lots of places my wife can buy black yoga pants. Why should Lululemon be able to charge what they charge? Brand. In the end, that's the holy grail.
Starting point is 00:23:34 Nike. A lot of places buy shoes, man. And they essentially, at this point, there's so much. It's crazy. You walk into Walmart. I don't mean to pick on Walmart but Walmart is what Walmart is and you start
Starting point is 00:23:50 walk through their clothing and stuff and if you really look at it it's no longer garbage quality like the world supply chain where you're talking about Asia where you're talking about even South America where you're talking about Eastern Europe it's all out there like the ability to make quality whether you're talking about Asia, whether you're talking about even South America, whether you're talking about Eastern Europe,
Starting point is 00:24:07 it's all out there. Like the ability to make quality shoes, quality pants, quality jerseys, it's out there. If you have the ability to market, that's the harder part. And you've obviously cracked that code. But what's my point? My point is that at this point,
Starting point is 00:24:20 even quality at some base level is no longer the separate, the real differentiator wow it's brand yeah and so even for us like we have patents that that's why you don't see anything like sectionals yeah like when you when you see what they do on video and when you go into a showroom and play with the blocks you'll understand you patented it yeah it's very we have like 40 patents it's very special got it. We've defended it very aggressively. That's why there's nothing quite like it.
Starting point is 00:24:48 The truth is the patents will eventually run out and there's always different ways to do things. The real defense is to build a brand. The evidence of that is in the great brands around us. The great brands you're wearing. That's an audacious thing I know for a company called Lovesac. is in the great brands around us, the great brands you're wearing, the great brand, you know, like that's where the re like, and that's,
Starting point is 00:25:06 that's an, that's an audacious thing. I know for like a company called love sack to say, but that's our goal. You know, we're not here to just talk stuff on the internet. We really believe we can build a brand that people love. Yeah. And that's our ticker,
Starting point is 00:25:18 even on wall street. No, I think you've done a great job with that. And one of the things you take serious is customer feedback, customer service, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:25:27 So you kind of follow Jeffzos' approach with that model. Just like we DMed, I DM with our customers every day. When's the last time you DMed with a public company? Not you, but the CEO of a company that you bought something from. I'm proud of that because that, and my point is not me, my point is the attitude in our company is that way. Right. From me to the showroom associates to our, you know, customer love team. Like we're just there because ultimately that's our goal.
Starting point is 00:25:54 Like we're not just trying to sell you something. We're trying to build a relationship with you so that when we invent the next thing, we know you, you like us. And your experience with that first thing was so good that you're in like holy crap i just bought this couch because i couldn't fit another one up my staircase or something like that whatever reason you bought you know i i i've got dogs that chew i wanted to have something dog proof kid proof my kids spill washable that's cool we'll sell it to you for that reason but but really what you bought was a truly sustained hyphenable couch to be with you the rest of your life and
Starting point is 00:26:31 frankly after life happens to you for four or five years and your kids mess it up and your dog chews one corner of it and all you had to do was turn it around and hide it or change the cover and it's brand new again whatever now you start you start to realize, oh, that's what I bought. And then we invent stealth tech. You can add it to what you already have and you feel a little smarter. That's the relationship I want with our customers. I love that.
Starting point is 00:26:54 I'm so impressed with your motivation. After 25 years at the same company, you still seem to have that fire in you, Matt. Oh, man. You know what's funny is I've been through those moments. I mean, I've been through those moments like, hey. I mean, because the way for me to become a bazillionaire is to sell my stock, move on to the next thing,
Starting point is 00:27:13 build a company that I own 100% of. You know what I'm saying? We're already a public company. We've been through VC, private equity, all that kind of stuff. And I've thought about that. But I love what we've become you know i began as like i told you man i wish i had a better story i just made a beanbag to be funny yeah wasn't even a beanbag but people loved it and then we just kind of hung on we survived we hustled ups and downs the worst
Starting point is 00:27:39 kinds of ups and downs and then uh you know somewhere on this end of it we've become this super sustainable solution that's that's not just like let me give you a funny example we recycle already more plastic bottles than any company i'm aware of wow into fabric why because couches are huge and i sell a lot of them right you know bigger than shoes bigger than hoodies t-shirts whatever that's cool like we're you know we're going on hundreds of millions of plastic bottles recycled into our fabric. We barely talk about it. Dang.
Starting point is 00:28:08 Because our path to sustainability is not that. It's making stuff that actually sustains. Who's talking about that? Like nobody. And not just because it was built well, but because it was built to last a lifetime and designed to evolve with you as your life changes, which means you have to design it with some attributes
Starting point is 00:28:31 that will allow it to be reverse compatible with things in the future. And we got lucky on a few of its attributes that I won't bother explaining to you. But as you see us design other products in the future, that's our brief. So whatever we do next, it will follow that mantra it's harder to design things that way costs a lot takes a long time patents all that but i but anyway i think i think that's that's our that's what we will become
Starting point is 00:29:00 and that's what we'll be known for and and so my point is, that's why I'm still here. I actually think what we're doing is pretty cool and I'm proud of it. And now I'm like, man, you know what? I'll just do it for another 25. Let's go. Let's go. Let's build something that's here in 50. Legacy.
Starting point is 00:29:19 Why not? I didn't mean for that to happen. And I certainly never thought it would when I was just selling beanbags out of a mall or even couches. But now I'm certain we can do that. Wow. What keeps you going?
Starting point is 00:29:35 Is this company the main thing of your life? It's everything. For my business life, the truth is, in my book, Let Me Save You 25 Years, coming out later this year, I have these 25 little chapters. It's only like, you can read the whole thing in 60 minutes. It's a short book. Yeah. It's a long story, but I've tried to compress it really short. It's got a hundred pictures in it. It's like, it's like a coffee table. It's pretty cool. I think it'll be a neat book, but, um, one of my little 25 chapters.
Starting point is 00:30:05 So it's, it's like a bit of story. And then the thing I learned, like, you know, the bit about the bankruptcy, what I learned from that, the bit about the,
Starting point is 00:30:10 you know, all that. And I have this story, this one chapter where I share these Sean isms. And the, and the, and the thing I learned in this one was, and it's,
Starting point is 00:30:20 in fact, it's engraved on this ring I'm wearing. Everything else is dust. So you ask me, you know, is this everything for you? The truth is, my family is everything. I've got four kids. They're amazing. We're really tight.
Starting point is 00:30:36 I've got an awesome wife. She's amazing. She's here with me now to celebrate our 20th anniversary. I'm not making this up. This weekend. Wow. Yeah, so it was fun to be in vegas but um you know that's that's the main thing so i think like that keeps me going that keeps me grounded that gives me so much satisfaction you know like i like to surf i
Starting point is 00:30:58 like to dirt bike but there's nothing that compares with like watching your kids figure out how to surf and how to dirt bike. That's like, that makes, that makes it just seem silly. Yeah. Like doing it yourself. Like,
Starting point is 00:31:12 Oh, I'm going to go really fast. I'm going to ski really good when you watch your kids do it, man. So my point is just, uh, that keeps me going. But then the challenge of building something like forget the money I'll make
Starting point is 00:31:22 or whatever, you know, like the challenge of building something that's, that I'll make or whatever, you know, like the challenge of building something that's, that's good, you know, that's beautiful, that, that people like building all these relationships,
Starting point is 00:31:32 even, you know, whether it's, whether it's you, whether it's my employees, whether it's our customers, um, our,
Starting point is 00:31:39 our, our suppliers, you know, overseas even, I know some of our sewers in China. Wow. By no, I'm serious by name. I speak Mandarin. I lived a whole other story. I lived know some of our sewers in China. Wow. No, I'm serious by name.
Starting point is 00:31:45 I speak Mandarin. I lived a whole other story. I lived over there a few years of my life. Yeah. And they've been sewing for us for 13, 14 years. Dang. And they have a career here.
Starting point is 00:31:56 And it's awesome. And it's sent their kids to college. I'm proud of that. Yeah. It's all part of this hashtag lovesack family. So I know this is not your typical interview yeah i know that there's a lot of hustlers that are in it then they then they you know they exit and then they do this but that's our story no i'm fascinated man i really am it's
Starting point is 00:32:16 been great to get into your mindset a little bit is there anything you want to close off with uh you know uh keep an eye out let me save you 25 years it's going to be a fun book it's a podcast to go with it okay and you know we might have to we might have to get you on there
Starting point is 00:32:30 oh I'm down talk about one of these it's a different take talk about one of these ideas but you know you can find me Sean of Lovesack I'm everywhere
Starting point is 00:32:38 YouTube the company obviously Lovesack and you know just really grateful to hang out with you learn from you. Thanks for coming on, man.
Starting point is 00:32:46 Go get yourself a SAC Shull, guys, if you're watching this. I'll see you guys next time.

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