How I Built This with Guy Raz - Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop

Episode Date: April 20, 2020

On the first day of their Vegas vacation in 2012, Rich and Vicki Fulop sat down on their hotel bed and immediately had the same thought: "These sheets are really nice!" The fabric was the perfect blend of cool, crisp, and soft, but the sheets turned out to be way too expensive to buy. So, Vicki and Rich wondered if it was possible to make high-end linen at reasonable prices; linen that would appeal to a younger market, "not just our moms." After many stumbles, they built Brooklinen into a $100 million brand, and are hopeful they can withstand today's economic turbulence. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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on Facebook.com slash how I built this. This is like amateur hour here. Like we had no barcodes on the boxes. So you didn't even know what was in there. No, we would just tear open boxes and hope it would check to see it was the right size and be climbing all over. This whole room was filled essentially to the ceiling, like packed to the gills with boxes and pallets. And we're literally climbing on top of these mountains of boxes, tearing them open and hoping that it's the right size and color in there. It was just a comedy of errors. Rahman PR, it's How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists,

and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on today's show, how what happened in Vegas did not stay in Vegas when Rich and Vicky Fullup got inspired to sell high-end. sheets and grew that idea into Brooklyn in a $100 million brand. So a not insignificant number of stories we've told on this show started around the time of the Great Recession of 2008. And that's because lots of people couldn't find jobs, so they had to create their own. And while the situation now is somewhat different, I have no doubt that in five years from now, we'll be featuring a lot of stories about ideas that were

hatched in the middle of the pandemic. Because think about it. When have you ever spent so much time in your home? For most of us, never. Normally, we get up, we do our morning routine, we leave for work, we spend the day out, we come home, evening routine, and sleep. And so these days, you might be coming up with ideas for things around your house that could make your life better. And some of those things might turn into the next great business story. Now, it didn't take a pandemic for Rich and Vicki Fullup to try and figure out how to make their bed more comfortable. It actually took a trip to Las Vegas. They stayed at a hotel with amazing bedlinens, but turns out they couldn't afford to buy them. And even if they could have afforded them,

they realized they had no idea why they were so expensive. And we can all probably relate to that, right? Because if you're like me, you go to Target or T.J. Max or Marshals and browse the bedlinon for the best thread count at the best price. But does a super high thread count really matter? Actually, not really. And what's better? Satine, percale, flannel, twill, who knows? So after spending some time researching the industry,

Rich and Bickey decided to launch their own brand of direct-to-consumer sheets, as good as you'd find in a high-end hotel, but at a fraction of the price. Basically, as Rich will explain, Warby Parker, but for bed linens. And that brand they launched in 2014, Brooklinen, initially couldn't get a single investor interested.

But last year, Rich and Vicky sold over $100 million worth of bed linens, and they've expanded way beyond sheets and pillowcases to furniture and art and lots more. But of course, like everyone else, like all of you listening, they're trying to figure out what the next few months could mean their business. When we sat down to talk, I was in my home studio in Oakland, California, and Rich and Vicki set up some microphones we sent out to them at their apartment in Manhattan. I am in our bedroom, and I have this mic and boom hooked up to our night table, and Vicky is in our living room with the Mike and Boom hooked up.

Yeah. And are you up high, like when you look out the windows? What do you see on the streets in New York? We are 14 floors high, but to be honest, you don't see much these days. It's kind of like a ghost town. Yes, it's dead silent. Wow. But on a typical work day, it could be pretty loud down here. There's just a lot of activity, but not in this climate situation, moment. I don't know what the correct word is.

Yeah. That's our dog. Well, sorry. He's done. It's okay. He's done. By the way, what's your, what's the dog's name? Dukes.

Dogs name is Dukes. D-U-X. He was named after a character. By the way, miraculously, Dukes only barked that one time during our entire interview. Anyway, Rich grew up in northern New Jersey. His dad ran a deli and convenience store,

and his mom ran a photo development shop. And Vicki was born in the former Soviet Union in Belarus. Her parents were both doctors who eventually settled down in Rhode Island. And both Vicky and Rich wound up going to college at the same time to the same school, NYU. But they didn't actually meet there. We actually never met at school, believe it or not.

So same class, same year, actually had many common friends. And we were kind of interconnected and very much in and around each other. But we'd never met until about six months after graduated, we found ourselves living in the same apartment building in Manhattan. And we met there through a mutual friend that was actually visiting Vicky. So a friend of ours said to me, my friend Rich lives in the building, his power's out. You know, can he come have dinner with us? And we said yes.

And then that was how we met. I remember specifically my roommate at the time forgot he was responsible for the power bill, didn't pay it. I ordered some Chinese food delivery while I have to work. And there I was eating my Chinese food in the dark in my farm. It's got a sad story. And a mutual friend said, hey, I'm in your building. Do you want to come join? And clearly, I was up for it.

Needless to say. And this is, I guess, what, around 2007? This is January 2008. 2008. All right. And did you start dating right away? I mean, did either of you call each other or text each other something and say, hey, you want to, or was it kind of a slow burn?

I think we started dating right away. Yeah. After that meeting and her. apartment. Coincidentally, we shared the elevator the next morning in our building. It was a rather big building. So it was like an almost immediate reunion. And I kind of took my 20 seconds in the elevator to make my move with her.

And I would say it was the fastest dating experience you could possibly do because, you know, it was like beat you in the lobby at 8 o'clock. It was kind of the planning process. And things moved quickly from there. And at the time when you started dating, what were the two of you doing? doing? I was working for an online over-the-counter currency and commodities broker called Gain Capital. And Vicki, what were you doing? I believe I was a paralegal and I was studying for my L-Sat. Or maybe I had just taken it and I was already applying to schools.

Got it. So your goal was to get a lot degree, right? Okay. The two of you, I guess a couple years later, not a guess you did get married in 2010. And when you got married, I guess you were about to get your law degree, Vicky, and Rich, you were sort of doing a bunch of different jobs. A lot of jobs around, I guess, marketing-related stuff. Sort of. At that moment, I actually just chose to restart my career, and I was a sports fanatic, and my dream was to be Jerry McGuire growing up. To be an agent. Yes.

So I actually got an opportunity through a mutual friend after I got laid off to work at Creative Artist Agency, CIA, in their sports division. Yep. And I was touring around the country with Manchester United and FC Barcelona. Doing, wow. Yeah. So it was a joint venture between CIA and Major League Soccer. Okay. Okay.

Okay. So I had my dream job. The only problem was I wasn't making any money. It was an internship. And I was, what, 25, 26 at the time. so I was making a few bucks an hour. But I really took that opportunity to reset my career and really follow my passion. And Vicki, when you graduated from law school, did you go and work for a law firm or apply for jobs at firms?

I didn't. So I would say probably by my second year, I felt deeply that I really didn't want to practice law. I knew in my bones I really didn't want to practice and it wasn't right for me. I wasn't going to work as hard at that as maybe I would doing something else. I really wanted a creative outlet. So I started interning during my third year, kind of. And I landed an internship at Torrey Birch in public relations while I was in school. That kind of was, well, opened the door to me to work in public relations, which is what I ended up doing after law school.

You went on to get a job at a PR agency, right? PR agency. That's correct. Got it. Rich, I guess at a certain point, you're doing work, you're involved with major league soccer and kind of pursuing this thing that you're really passionate about and you decide to apply to business school. Why? Why did you decide to do that? I mean, I came from a family of entrepreneurs, you know, albeit small businesses. So I very much had the itch to do that. I always was kind of in business. I remember in middle school and high school, I was. buying and selling concert tickets and sporting event tickets. These were in early days of eBay and whatnot.

I was always trying to make a little money. Always had a job. I was just trying to find my path, really. And I thought I would take my GMAT and kind of see where I could land after that and if it would be a worthwhile path to pursue. It's interesting because I grew up. My parents had a jewelry store. They're not small business, entrepreneurs,

and I saw them struggle, even though they eventually did okay, and worked so hard. And that actually, the opposite reaction, I didn't want to do that because of all the struggle and the uncertainty that went along with it. But in your mind, you always thought, I think I want to do something? Always, always. My parents never had a boss. They were their own boss always. So that's the structure that I always was familiar with growing up.

And I really like that freedom of controlling their own destiny. And that really inspired me. And I learned a lot. My father would leave at 4 in the morning every day to go to the deli because he had to wait for the newspaper deliveries so they wouldn't get stolen. It was in Newark, New Jersey, was where his deli was. And he would close at 6 p.m. be home by 6.30, 7 o'clock. And to be honest, he'd be in bed by 8. 8.30.

So it wasn't a lot of time to stop. spend with him every day. But he worked hard and I mean, we weren't the richest people, but that was a very, very happy kid. And, you know, my parents definitely made it happen. Yeah. And Vicki, your parents were doctors. Did you, was there anything in your mind about entrepreneurship, about doing something like your own thing? Or were you not quite really thinking about that at that point? I think I've always had maybe a far off dream of making something out of nothing. I can't say that it even was fully fledged as I'm going to be an entrepreneur. I had always wanted to design things and kind of make things that might make people happy to make

something out of nothing. But I didn't really think that it would become a reality, to be honest. She, to add to what we both just said, I hadn't found what my business is, but I'd always been kicking around. So I had some really, you know, in hindsight, stupid ideas that she, she probably wisely talked me out of. I had a puppy portraits business that I was trying to pursue. And I was also, I was really passionate about these European-style hot dogs that you eat vertically in like a baguette that I experienced when I traveled. And I wanted to really start like the next, you know, McDonald's based on those, those vertical hot dogs also did not go very far with that. But, you know, I was always kicking around ideas. Yep. So you go off to business school at NYU, so you're

still in New York, Rich. And Vicki, you're working at the PR agency. Right. But I guess before you started business school, the two of you took a trip to Las Vegas for what? For fun or for work? No, no, just for fun. It was about two weeks before it was August 2012. So it was a couple weeks before.

Went to Las Vegas in August? Yeah, well, I had this, we had a small window and wanted to do something fun. Yeah, probably not the wisest choice. It's like, 110 degrees. It's like going to Winnipeg in February. We probably got some package deal. That was pretty cheap at the time. All right, so you're in Las Vegas in August.

Yep. Probably just walking through air-conditioned tunnels from one casino to the next. Yes. And you stay, where did you stay? We stay at the wind. And from what I understand, this is the kind of beginning of what would become your business. Tell me what happens. Yeah, so we check in.

We're tired. We just traveled. We put our stuff down in the room and we both kind of just sat on the bed. And we both had this weird moment where we both had our hands on the bed and we're like, ooh, these sheets are really nice. It was a very strange thing to like have a meeting of the minds about. But we both kind of did at the same exact time. Yeah.

They were really cool and crisp and soft, which seems contradictory, but it wasn't. kind of like when you get nice sheets for the first time and you slip into bed and you're like, ooh, like this is a good, this is nice. Yeah. That was, it was just kind of that feeling. Yep. And we were not textile people. We didn't know, you know, anything about this.

We knew if something felt good or didn't feel good at the time. And this definitely stood out to us. And just curious, did you have a conversation pretty soon after and say, we should maybe get these sheets for our apartment? like we should find out what they are. Yes, literally in the room. Okay, I got you. We were like, let's get these sheets. And interestingly, the Wynn sells everything in the room.

So they have a store in the lobby where you can buy the lamps. You can get the carpeting from the Wynn at your house if you so choose. So you go to the shop and you find the sheets. We found them and we were so excited that we found them. Going to bring them home. And this is another important moment to note that I was unemployed. the time and she was the breadwinner working as a PR assistant. So when we took a look at the sheets and the sheet set was $450. The duvet cover was about $350 and the pillowcases to match were

about $150. So we put that all together, you know, we're just under $1,000 for that set of sheets. Wow. Yeah. We put them back on the shelf. And was it like 500 thread count? Like what why were they so expensive? I mean, obviously there's a branding they think. there and but presumably they must have been you know well made presumably but but we didn't know anything it just felt good to us and to be honest at that time we're like up the higher the thread count the better which you know now we know is a bit of a fallacy yeah but at that point that's all we knew right all right so you have this experience lots of people have had this experience at hotels great sheets or great bedding or great pillow and you go back to new york and did you keep

thinking about those sheets? I did. Yeah. I am very persistent on that kind of thing. So I was digging deep to figure out who the manufacturer is, where they come from, why are they so great. I found myself in forums and on these old... Like internet chat rooms? Internet chat room type situations. Because you were looking to buy the sheets, what, like in a cheaper way? Yeah, kind of, you know, see if a set fell off the truck somewhere or something. I don't know. just kind of trying to work around, you know, to get those $1,000 sheets. And to be honest, the most surprising thing at the time was I found out I wasn't crazy. There was dozens, if not hundreds of people on these threads all talking about the same thing,

trying to do the same thing and chatting and strategizing about it. About these sheets at the Wynn Hotel? Exactly. Yeah, I remember that as part of why it eventually led to starting the business was in Rich's deep research. I was like, why can't you just get them from the manufacturer? And that's where we were like, why can't you just get sheets from the manufacturer? That seems so much smarter. Why doesn't that exist?

Meantime, Rich, you start business school. And do you continue to think about sheets when you get to business school? Or do you kind of hunker down and do the business school thing? 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 and 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, you know, I circled back to the sheet idea and, you know, was thinking about a new sheet concept where you can customize your own betting 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. But the turning point was January 2013 when I was on my winter break between my first and second semester.

I was home with Vicky. And I remember telling her that I was kicking around this idea for the first time, actually, like 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. And what was the idea you were talking to her about custom sheets? Yes. So custom sheets. People could order the bed sheets that they wanted. Correct. Choose your fabric, choose your designs, made for you. Got it. A key piece actually was also was 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. And Vicki, you thought this was kind of a cool idea. Maybe, yeah, maybe there's something to custom bedsheets. Yeah, I thought it was a great idea. Yeah.

I will say, I also, I think I was pretty supportive of the hot dog idea, too. Yeah. It's a good idea. I love those baguette hot dogs. Yeah. So you get the sort of seal of approval from Vicky, but what do you do? Like, what was your, what was the next step that you took to actually learn more about this, this possibility? Well, we were at the time, as far as what we were aware of, like, direct-to-consumer and direct-to-consumer brands that are, you know, born online.

It was very, very new. So I'd worn glasses my whole life. And I'd 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. 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, you know, Laura Ashley branded sheets or whatever. And they're probably all made in the same factory in China. And they don't really, people aren't really getting what they think they're getting. And I can do a better job. That was sort of your mindset. Yeah. And 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. Yeah. 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, sheets that we can afford and people like us can afford, that's a game changer. Yeah.

But we just then, it was researching how do we back into it as customers and create this texture that we want. So I digress, but we went to Barnes & Noble. It was 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. Wait, you walked into a 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? Yep. Yes. What were you learning about sheets that, I don't know, basic common sense wouldn't have already informed you? 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 four or five hundred 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. But the funny part is that as that goes higher and higher and higher, that number, anything in excess of 500 is essentially a inferior product. It's more dense and less breathable. No idea. Yeah. 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, you know, freshly pressed dress shirt feel to it. All right. So you are doing all this research on sheets and thread counts and which I mean, it sounds really interesting actually. Because, you know, we spend a third of our lives sleeping. So a third of our lives are going to be spent on bed sheets.

which when you think about it that way, that's actually, but veggies are pretty significant part of our lives. Definitely. And everyone's a customer, theoretically. It's 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, like, start calling around to find manufacturers? Yeah. You know, I started cold calling, and, you know, after I got a little smarter on 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 U.S.-based manufacturers that you're calling. No, no, no, no. A combination of, so I wanted U.S.-based. But the textile industry has totally shifted overseas over the last, call it, 100 years or something. So there's a few parties that remain. They're very expensive and they still do it. But I was just calling anyone in every, anyone that was willing to talk to me to get some samples in here for Vicki and I to look at.

It was really, I used every moment I could before, after, and in-between classes to really pound the pavement. So you're at business school, and there's other smart people at business school like you. And I guess you approached two of your classmates to kind of to join you. David Fortune, Ben Hyman. Tell me this story. You went to them and said, hey, I've got this idea. Do you guys want to get involved? 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 in Vietnam. And so he knew languages and he knew how supply chains were. 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 if you're willing. 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 modeling and helping in those early days. And soon after, another weak spot was legal and accounting. And David is a, he's a JD MBA at Stern. So he'd practiced law and he was also an accountant in prior career. So we had like the three of us plus Vicki'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. Totally. This is like the X-Men here. And X-Men, the Avengers. You've got the accounting, get the PR, you got the marketing. All right. So you start really kind of, I don't know,

I mean, were the sort of the four of you or just kind of meeting up and just kind of grinding through ideas like at night and on weekends? Yes. So we did a few things. 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 just nag people in the betting section and say, hey, you have a second. A lesson we learned is easy way to disarm somebody for a quick survey. let them know it's a student project, and it very much was at the time.

What were you asking? What are you shopping for? Why did you come here? Where did you previously shop? What are you willing to spend? Why are you searching for this particular fabric? Or what brands are you aware of? It was like a rapid fire.

I would call it 10 questions or so along those lines. Just to prove that we weren't crazy, and there was some sort of market here. And what kind of trends did you find out of interviewing 500 people? Because, you know, Jen Rubio and Steph Corey did a similar thing with the 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, you know, all the bells and whistles and it would have looked like a Frankenstein suitcase. So how are you able to look at the data on the trends and say, okay, this is actually, looks like people really want this.

What was the this that you were seeing? 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 you're willing to pay? I don't know, 100 bucks or so.

People didn't really think about, you know, 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 like Jakard weave or Percale weave or Satin weave. There's so many variables and nobody knew the information. Yeah. I wish there was a better solution. It's kind of what bowled up to the top. 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 a thousand thread count and it's on sale, and it's, you know, the price tag says $89.99, but it's on sale for $49.99. I'm

thinking I'm getting a great deal here. It really had to do with the branding guy. 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 could hook into. There was no Nike of sheets or there was no, there was no Warby Parker of sheets. Right.

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. Got it. And for us personally also, I 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. 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. Yeah, we're spending thousands of dollars, I would say hundreds and thousands, not hundreds of thousands.

And how did you have even thousands? We put, I mean, the four of us, you know, 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 legalzoom.com. And, you know, we incorporated here in New York, where,

where the taxes and everything are like the least favorable. We did everything wrong, of course, but 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, yes. And where did you go? 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. Right. It was like it was kind of like click at that moment. like we got the wrong conversation. Yeah.

We're talking in like how many fitted sheets and pillowcases, not containerers, is really. That's interesting because I interviewed Sarah Kouse 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? So textiles are totally different because if I 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, you need, 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 factory ultimately went with was willing to actually take a chance with us. Wait, but you decide to go to France and to Israel to look for a factory. Why those two countries? It was kind of the results to 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 continued on to Israel. We ultimately found our factory there. It checked all the boxes we were looking for. A factory in Israel? And what, I mean, I didn't even know they have textile factories there. 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'd went to Jewish day school when I was little.

So I understood Hebrew. And I didn't tell them that. But when I was there, they were so thorough and honest and informative when they were speaking amongst themselves that it left me a really good impression. They were just, show him the dyes, show him the sourcing of the dyes, show him the family, show him this, show him, show him the machinery. Like 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. And what would $15,000 with the betting get you?

Like, how many sheets? A couple, one to $200, $100, $1 to $200, I would say. Wow. So that's not, I mean, that's really small. Yeah. And by the way, do you still work with them today? We do, yeah. And we've grown our businesses together.

Wow. Yeah. 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 U.S. because you thought that would be a way to save on tariffs. Is that true? That is correct. So all those countries, with the exception of the European ones, all have free trade agreements with the U.S.,

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. Canada. Canada as well, who we spoke with. And we make our down products all in Canada from Canadian inputs and down. So that was a key piece of ultimately bringing that supreme value proposition to the customer. Because at the end of the day, all those contribution costs, the customer ends up paying for them in a multiple of that. So they don't see it.

but every little thing that's done, they end up putting the bill for it. So we thought we can give a great product at a pretty compelling price to the customer. And we just whittled it down to that. Right. Meantam, Vicki, you are still working at the PR agency while Rich and his other partners are kind of getting the gears in motion, right? That's right. I'm still plugging away. Paying the bills, helping to pay the rent.

Exactly. And feeling sheets at night and working with Rich on the actual design. and just kind of waiting for them to get all of these ducks in a row, essentially. And when you finally incorporated this company in August 2013, what was it called? It was called, I think at that point it was Brooklinen, which we are. So the original working title was Sabanus, which is Sheets in Spanish, believe it or not. Sabanus, that was going to be the name of your company? Yeah, it was a little too generic.

Yeah, but that didn't work out. How could you sell those in Spain or in Mexico? It would just be called sheets. Yeah, that's kind of what we thought also. It didn't really work so well. But Vicki and I went and we met somebody at a party at some point. And, you know, 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. Yes. You know, we were looking for something that's a unique word. We also thought, you know, 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. Wow.

So you got the name, Brooklyn, which is great. I mean, perfect. You're in Brooklyn. You live in Brooklyn. You're making linen. So what did you do next? Yeah. So between August 2013.

and April 2014 when we launched, we were kind of just working on the idea and figure out, you know, how are we going to fund this? How are we going to market this? Where we, you know, how do we get into production and so on? What happened was in that time frame

is we couldn't raise a dollar. Everybody thought it was a pretty stupid idea. You went to actually to investors and you started pitching this already in the, in 2013? Yep. Our hardcore bundle, which is our flagship product, It comes in like this briefcase box with a handle.

And the bundle is a flat sheet, a fitted sheet, two pillowcases, and is that? It's seven pieces. It's like the whole bed. The duvet cover. The duvet cover. Four pillowcases, flat sheet, fidget. It's the whole shebang, which is typically not how they're merchandised also. It's usually very piecemeal.

So we wanted to incentivize people and make it easy by bundling. And you had that factory in Israel make those samples for you. So you had them. And you were keeping them at your apartment? Oh, yeah. That's right. So you go to investors and you show them this stuff and you would say, hey, we're going to totally disrupt the bed linen industry. And they would say, awesome idea.

Here's a million dollars. Yeah, no, that's not at all. 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. You know, no one really wants to tell you. know that's stupid. No, because they don't want to be the person that you talk about on this show five years later. Right. I have a mountain of chips on my shoulder, though, from these people. 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, like, 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. But I'm assuming that even with that check, like, like that money is not going to go very far, right? So, I mean, weren't you guys, I don't know, like getting nervous at this point? Yeah, so we're all in school, in business school. And we're all hedging while working on this, we're all interviewing, either it's consulting or different roles. Because you're taking out big loans to go to business school.

Definitely. And I guess at roughly the same time, I should mention here from what I understand, Vicki. 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? That is absolutely right. I mean, extremely scary at the time because I was the only one of us working. Yeah.

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 cause or anything. I was just let go. Just to cutbacks or whatever. 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. Yeah. 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, you know, he was staring down the barrel of his student loans. and really, you know, taking his chances on this idea that everyone seems to be telling us know about. So he took the offer with Samsung and went his own way at that point.

It was down to me, Vicky, and David to get this thing launched. When we come back in just a moment, how the first big shipment of Brooklyn and sheets got stuck at a shipping yard in New Jersey and while sending those sheets off to customers became a major pain in the butt. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's April 2014, and Vicky Rich and their remaining partner, David Fortune, are trying to get Brooklyn in off the ground. They're low on money, and the clock is running down, so they decide to launch a Kickstarter campaign. But first, they want to generate some buzz about the brand, so they reach out to some influential publications and writers.

The plan was, okay, we're going to get, you know, a set of samples of basically sheet sets that we were going to give away in hopes that these writers would actually like our product enough to then write about the fact that we were doing a Kickstarter to raise money to launch our business. Yeah, I mean, what people don't realize, myself included and most people is that just, you know, journalists and writers aren't just discovering things on their own and, you know, spinning their wheels to, like, figure out something to write. about. They're pitched constantly and they, you know, self-select, you know, what they want to write about. Yeah. It's funny, we talk about this, like, my mom to this day, whenever we get a PR placement, Vicki works in our teamwork really hard to get those placements. And they're like, how did the Wall Street Journal know to write about you guys? That's amazing. You know, it's, it's like, that's not really how it works. Because we've been knocking on their door for 10 years, five years, yeah, no, right, right. I think a piece that was skipped also was how we got in front of these

people is pretty funny. Oh, yes. So I remember like it's yesterday where Vicky, me, David, and David's girlfriend at the time, Tina, who is now his wife, we're in the apartment and Vicki's writing these handwritten notes. 60 handwritten notes. Wow. The notes were key because otherwise it would just be some random, you know, like who's setting me this random package. You see them. You notice them, right? You notice a handwritten note. Yes. Yeah. So we're all packing and boxing. We chose queen size for everybody was the whole production run because 65% of beds are queens, so we figure we'll play the odds that this is what they need. So we boxed them all up in the apartment, 60 sets and

handwritten notes. We rented a U-Haul van, and we had like this this itinerary of all these addresses up 6th Avenue and 3rd Avenue of where all the journalists are. And we just pull up in front of the mailroom. We hustle in, drop off the packages with the notes, and then continue on and crossed our fingers. Okay, and you're doing all this right to generate buzz for the Kickstarter. And what was the goal you said, by the way? So our goal was $50,000 on Kickstarter. And the way we thought about that was we want to get a really aggressive number

so that if we don't hit it, like we know there's no interest or we really have something here. And how much did you end up raising? $237,000. Wow. Oh, you, like, exceeded your goal by times five. I mean, that's incredible. Yeah, we were there in like two or three days. So when all this traffic came in from those bloggers and people that you dropped off the samples to?

Yes. I would say most of it. Right. So what was the offering? Like, if you gave $100, you got a sheet set, something like that? Yeah, our seven piece with Duvet cover, with everything and free shipping. Yeah, I think we offered it at about $150. bucks. And by the way, how much does that cost today? That same product today costs $2.25.

Oh, wow. So you got a good deal back in 2014. Yep. By some stupid entrepreneurs that didn't know what they were doing. Right. Exactly. So basically, you were, this is going to be a big money loser. You didn't realize it at the time, but you get $236,000 in. Obviously, Kickstarter gets its cut, but you're left with this money, and now you've got the money to do a legitimate, production run, right? And how many, by the way, how many people did you have to send bedsheets to? 1,750. And did you have a fulfillment center? How are you going to actually get the sheets to the customers? So we got space in Greenpoint, which is a neighborhood in Brooklyn. I believe it was about a 2,000 square foot space. I don't know if I'd call it a warehouse. It's kind of like a raw. No, no, no, it was just a big room.

I'm not sure if I'd even had heat, to be honest. Yep. Okay. And then you put the order in with this factory in Israel. Yep. So the Kickstarter finished in May 22nd. We were on course to fulfill in 90 days, which we promised on our Kickstarter page would have been August. But of course, whatever can go wrong does go wrong.

We were all set to go. But then all the goods came in and we didn't have our import bonds in place. We didn't even know what that was to legally. be able to import goods into the country. So all of our goods were seized at the ports in August. What paperwork do you have to do? So you need a trade bond in place. That's something that you have to register for every year for the right to import goods. And you did not know this. No, no, no idea. All kinds of paperwork. I didn't know what a bill of lading was at that time or a commercial invoice, you know, to declare. There's just a lot of like complications with logistics. We had just no idea we're doing.

We told them, you know, send us the paperwork and put it on the boat and we'll go collect it. So we didn't really understand kind of the scale of what we ordered for these customers. So how did you get them? And they're seized at what, I guess New Jersey is where the big shipping guards are, right? Exactly. So I got a zip car in the city. I went from to Jersey. I drove to the shipping yard, honestly.

I don't know if anyone's ever seen on like the Jersey Turnpike. You see you pass all those containers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I drove in there. And that complex is huge. And I was just banging the door. And I'm like, somewhere in this yard of thousands of containers, I need to find mine and get it out of here. Like, tell me what I need to do.

Wow. Ultimately, he found a way to get it released. And it cost us probably two weeks, which was very frustrating from a customer relations standpoint, because we promised we'd be fulfilling and we were late. And that's the last thing you want to do with the consumer is have their money. Because you raise the money. Yeah, you raise the money in May of 2014. He promised to deliver in June of 20.

2014. Yep. And at this point, it's what? August. August. Okay. Are people writing in like, where is it? So I can't remember. Rich might have even taken a picture at the shipping dock to at least share with customers and say like, hey, we're stuck in customs. We're trying. People were appreciative that at least, you know, they knew where their stuff was even if they were really delayed in getting it. Yeah. The worst thing you can do from a customer service standpoint, we learned this lesson very early, is just say nothing, honestly, and just go dark and, you know, undercommunicate. That just frustrates people and always better to overcommunicate. So, all right, eventually the sheets of presumably get released.

You got 1,700 to fulfill. And are they all, you just get like, is it all prepackaged? You just have to, like, take them off the pallets and put a shipping label off and just send them out out to people? No, we were building the boxes ourselves, putting the handles into the box, each box. We built a little assembly line. It was me, Rich David and David's girlfriend, Tina, who's helping us out very generously, donating her time. And, yeah, we were building each box, packing the sheets into the box.

We also really wanted to make tote bags to package the sheets in. And we thought that, you know, it was like an eco-friendly way to send people their sheets instead of sticking them into plastic. So we were taking the plastic covers off, putting the sheets into these tote bags, putting the tote bags into the box, taping the box. Wow. How long would it take you to assemble one order? Like a 20 minutes, 10 minutes?

What? I was slow. 10 minutes? Wait, why was it so complicated? Because you got to build the box. Yeah, well, we have to build every order custom. So everybody had a custom ensemble of mixing and matching fabrics. Oh, wait.

Also, we had no warehouse system. Oh, you could get different colors or fabrics in your order? Yeah. We, you know, we run it's just pleased the customer. So we had six patterns with our Kickstarter. We said mix and match, do whatever you want, kind of tell us what you want. Huge mistake. You're saying people could do like pinstripes and whites and grays in the same box.

Oh, yes. And this is like amateur hour here. Like we had no barcodes on the boxes. So you didn't even know what was in there. No, we would just tear open boxes and hope it would check to see it was the right size and be climbing all over. This whole room was filled essentially to the ceiling. packed to the gills with boxes and palettes, and we're literally climbing on top of these mountains of boxes,

tearing them open and hoping that it's the right size and color in there. Like, it was just a comedy of errors. How long did it take you to finally deliver the sheets to the backers? When did you finally do that? What was it, two months, Rich? After you got them, so this would be like September? September, yeah. And were you still going out trying to raise money?

Oh, yeah. We had to, because we really wanted to launch the business. business at e-com and you have a real standalone business, not just the Kickstarter flash in the pen. And we knew time was not on our side because we had momentum at that point and, you know, we would be kind of kind of out of it if we waited too long. So when did you launch your website? October. October. Yep. And just out of curiosity, you raised $236,000 from Kickstarter. Some of that went to Kickstarter.

The rest of it, you had to pay to manufacturing. all this stuff. How close were you to running out of money? I mean, we were out of money. We were over. Like we had to make it work somehow, and we kind of were constantly shuffling the deck. It took, I got back on a plane alone to go back to the factory in Israel and talk to them. And I said, hey, we want to scale this thing up.

And ultimately, I convinced them to front us the inventory without paying and give us some sort of favorable terms. And I said, I promise you that the next order will be twice as big if you just give me time and the flexibility to sell this down. Just take a chance on me because it's pretty small at this point. And they did. They believed in me. And they sent it without us sending them a dollar. That's amazing. What I'm wondering about is when you launched, right, I read that you actually sold out a seven-month inventory in four days.

like there was a clamor for this yeah we built up a lot of buzz ahead of launch you know we're launching next week here I come we had a landing page we had a countdown we had a lot of stuff we tried to just you know bottle up as much of what we could and then and then execute

as soon as we went live and we spread the word and Vicki wrangled all the media and had them lined up to go live right when the site did and all in concert and we just blasted through our inventory and it was a really funny moment because we were so excited that we had, you know, a few hundred orders and we're

high-fiving and celebrating. And then we realized we had no more inventory to sell for the next month or two. We had nothing on order because we didn't realize how like replenishment works and forecasting and different things. So that's just, I mean, it's, I mean, how did you deal with that? Did your website crashes? This is still the four of you, right, running this company? It's three of us at this time. It was me, Vicky, and David. Right. And then actually, we came out of the gates and we had a wildly successful launch. And then that is when David resigned, actually.

He went through with the launch. Well, his girlfriend at the time wanted to move back to San Francisco where she'd grown up and had roots. And he had a difficult choice to make. And he moved out to the West Coast with her to pursue a family life. with her. And it was one of those moments that was very, very critical to the future of the business because Vicky was not pulling a salary at that point for us. So I was very, and David and I were pulling very small salaries. We had prorated $50,000 or so we gave to ourselves at that moment. So by him resigning, she was able to take his salary and ultimately have us press on for at least

a few more months to see what happens. That must have been intense right then as you're starting to kind of get some traction. But it sounds like you hit cruising altitude really fast. I mean, I think 2015 you did three quarters of a million dollars in revenue in that year. How were you managing? I mean, at what point did you get like a fulfillment center and people to sort of help out? I mean, I'm assuming even with 750,000 revenue, you can't hire lots of people. because most of that money is going to make more product.

But how are you dealing with the demand? We did everything ourselves. Yeah. So Rich went out and did find us a 3PL, a third partner for warehouse and logistics. Third-party logistics. Third-party logistics. So that we weren't paying for our space and Greenpoint anymore. We were working out of our apartment,

so that freed up our time to be a little bit more effective in getting the word out operating. Yeah, I mean, it was really trial by fire. At that moment, I had to learn really quickly how to do the books. And I'm self-taught on all of that stuff to this day. And I have a really good handle of the business. But it was actually another thing that kind of worked in our favor because we had very little money and very little skill on this front. But we just had to know how far every dollar went. We were not venture-backed or anything. So it's, you know, every dollar counted. It made us work very efficiently. And I think go us. far as we could until we had to bring someone on. We brought an intern on who ended up being the

first employee at the company. He jumped in as a jack of all trades also, helping with customer service tickets, figuring out Facebook, searching for a developer. But we were doing everything ourselves until we could find someone else. Yeah, in terms of the growth. So we did including the Kickstarter in 2014. We did about four or five hundred thousand. Then 2015 was two million for the year. And then for the year of 2016 it jumped to about 20 million or so. It's this crazy. What explains that? At that point, it really was word of mouth. Yeah. Maybe just a few more placements, a few more people to help turn it around a little bit. That's all it could have been because we weren't doing any advertising.

Here's what I'm wondering. You did this all on your own. I mean, bootstrapped this thing. And in March of 2017, you actually went out and raised $10 million from VC firms who I'm sure were beating down your door, maybe some of the same firms who were kind of giving you the cold shoulder or just dismissing you just a few months before. Why did you decide to take outside money at that point in March of 2017? Dean. We kind of had to. We were a victim of our own success at that point. With the demand rising, we had to buy into more inventory. We were expanding our product mix. So at that point, we had multiple lines of sheets. So we had launched our Lux line. We'd launched comforters and pillows. And you got to buy into all these different supply chains. We were also still six or seven people at that moment. So, you know, kind of doing whatever we could and everyone's wearing a lot of hats. I had one of those critical moments actually also that stood out of my mind. At a time when I had trouble fundraising until we kind of hit our stride, I passed Neil Blubenthal from Warby Parker, who I don't know.

Yeah, so I passed him on the street walking by one day, and I stopped him on the street because I recognized him. I pitched my idea, and I told him in like literally a three-minute convo. I asked him, I was like, hey, here's my situation. How did you get out of the gates and raise money so fast? And so, like, had you make the finances work? And he's like, we did it. It was really, really hard. We ended up going to New Jersey and to other states and talking to community banks and

whoever was willing to talk to us about loans and just figuring out a way. Like, don't be attracted by the shiny VC light. There's other ways to get capital. And that was one of, like, quick education I got from Neil in literally five minutes on the street from somebody I'd never met before, but respected his business a lot. You know, we got a bank loan that was, um, Not big, but it was something to help us pump into inventory. And we had a skeleton crew running, so we had to hire some people.

Our core team, they just kind of saw, helped us build it from the beginning and super nimble, super lean, the same values of just kind of make it work and, you know, roll up your sleeves. I mean, so you were doing so much work with third party logistics teams, right, because you couldn't afford to hire people. You needed the capital. And this is important because no bank is very, I mean, probably almost no bank was going to say, here's $10 million. Here's a $10 million loan. You just were not able to, no one can get that. That's almost impossible. Yeah, no, that wasn't going to happen, especially with one year of financials behind this.

So you needed to go out and raise money for the big money. So you do that. And I mean, I think that year it was like almost 50 million in revenue. and you know, you went on to open a brick and mortar store in Soho. You're now, I think you went on to raise another $50 million just this past year in 2020. Let me ask you about that. I mean, is it, you know, when you're running a smaller enterprise, right, when you bring on a lot of capital, that means a bigger marketing budget and a bigger, just a bigger budget to do more stuff. And it also means for a lot of companies, you're going to spend more. You're actually not going to be profitable. I mean, you guys on your own were making a profit because it was your money.

You were sending it out. Money was coming back. And he couldn't waste money. You had to be really careful with it. Did you find yourself after you raised a lot of money that you were spending more than you were bringing in? Oh, yeah. We got on the drug really, really quickly with that after we raised. our Series A, and it was not a fatal mistake to the business, but it was certainly a point in time

that was not one that was easy for me as the CEO. We dropped into the negative in terms of our EBITDA at that moment, and that was really anxious times because, again, I came from a business where I was counting money at the end of the day with my father, right, singles, you know, that was bought sandwiches and lottery tickets. But we had an advantage. And in hindsight, the fact that we were trained on a shoestring with no money to fund the business from the get-go, the bones of the business and the unit economics and the margins and everything were really, really good and built well because they had to be in the early days because we didn't have that extra money. So we had our hands on the dials at all times. You built this initially on bed sheets, and now you offer up, like, different kinds of bed sheets and duvets and pillows and you, got loungeware and you've got this whole spaces by brooklyn where you curate really cool i checked

it out some really cool furniture and lighting um that you also sell um i mean it's smart right because a company that just sticks with the one thing that they make um once a bunch of competitors come in it can be hard to compete is is that the thinking like you want to kind of be more than just about sheets you want people to think of you as a home decor or like a lifestyle brand? For sure. Oh yeah. I was going to say, you know, we consider our category to be comfort and at home. It's not necessarily bath. It's not necessarily bedding or it's not necessarily apparel. It's just kind of you and your home and everything around you. We want to own that experience from when you get home from work and you change into your comfortable clothes. You know, you watch some TV,

you go to bed, you wake up, like that entire experience of just being comfortable in your house. it's not really about like, oh, how do we make the next buck? Let's launch this product. That's not how we think about it at all. We survey our customers. We see what they want from us and what they're looking for. Spaces, for example, was a product of our customers repeatedly asking us about props on our photo shoots that were like kind of secondary in the picture. It's like, where's that cool bed frame from or that night table or that vase?

It's really like, oh, you're interested in that. We will figure out a way to bring it to you. Yeah. So last year, 2019, your revenue hit, I think, close to $100 million. It's just incredible. I mean, you started this in 2014. It's just insane. We are now in the beginning of a very different and uncertain period.

We don't know how long we're going to be inside. We don't know what's going to happen to our economy. We don't know if this is going to be worse. We don't know. Are there ways you can kind of build resiliency into your business now to mitigate some of the challenges? Because there is going to be a slowdown for your business, like with every other business. There already is, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we're fortunate that we've prepared for this a long time.

We actually, 2017 and half of 2018 were not profitable. and then we turned that ship in the second half of 2018 towards a focus on profitability kind of back to our roots. And the goal was really to control our own destiny. So right now we're in a decent spot, but who knows how long this will last. Yeah. And I'll add that there are some areas. I think, Rich, you know, loungeware, we had a couple launches, things that we were going to come out with that we're not going to be able to launch it. But we're just going to communicate with our customers and let them know what's going on.

you know, that's all we can do. And humanity is, especially in a difficult time, I think, generally really understanding and trying to support each other as best they can. And that's what we're trying to do too. Yeah. What if sales, like, really, really dramatically declined for six months? Are you going to be okay? We're going to be fine.

Thankfully, you know, we don't have a big part of our business that's exposed to our brick-and-mortar stores or to wholesale channels. We don't sell in the big box stores or the department stores, which are clearly suffering as a result of this with people not going out. So our business is mostly single channel e-com. And, you know, this is a lot of people are at home, you know, and thinking about their home environments and, you know, their comfort from their workspace or their bed or wherever it is. So it's not like we're going to fall off the face of the earth. Obviously, as a CEO, I'm always thinking about the worst case scenario. And what if? But it's not something that's like newly keeping me up at night in light of this stuff.

How much of your journey and your success do you attribute to your both of you, your intelligence and hard work and how much do you think it's because of luck? There's a mix. I mean, I think it's lucky. There's some things that are crazy lucky, like that Rich ran into Neil Blumenthal and he suggested that, you know, he'd look at banks. Like, that's crazy luck. but a lot of it was working really hard and talking to people and trying to get the word out

like day in, day out, pound the pavement. So that part, I can't say it was lucky. It was just, you know, just doing it. Yeah, I mean, look, we didn't raise a ton of money out of the gates. So I think to answer a question, it's probably 50-50. If Dave didn't leave the business when he did, then Vicki couldn't have come on and taking a salary, which means we, you know, we might not have been able to. continue if that hadn't happened.

You know, like she said, if I hadn't had that quick conversation with Neil and a thousand other conversations that I've had with other entrepreneurs along the way to find out little tidbits. Yeah, but it's stopping that person on the street and emailing them. I think part of it, like, and try to give that back also. Like, I think Rich especially takes a lot of coffee meetings because he always talks about all the people that when he reached out to them gave him advice. So, you know, he and I both try to pee that forward.

That's Vicki and Rich Fullup, co-founders of Brooklyn. And by the way, do you have any, I don't know, any regrets about the hot dog baguette thing? You could do it. You could sell the hot dog baguettes in your brick and mortar store in Soho. It's not a bad idea. It's not a bad idea, actually. I don't know. But I don't know.

I think I'll save that one for someone else. You know, again, luck that I went for this one and not that one. You know, who knows, one of the sliding doors moment, I guess, of what comes. could have happened. But you never know. You never know. Maybe there's another career for me. Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also write to us at hibt at npr.org. And if you want to send a tweet, it's at How I Built This or at Guy Raz. This episode was produced by Diba Motasham with music composed by Ramtin Arablui. Thanks also to Candice Lim, Julia Carney, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Rainy Toll. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This. This is NPR. If you're looking for your next binge watch or you want the latest on all the big movies and albums, NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour has you covered.

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