How I Built This with Guy Raz - UPPAbaby: Bob and Lauren Monahan

Episode Date: March 29, 2021

As a product developer, Bob Monahan worked with some iconic brands: the Pump at Reebok, the Taurus and Mustang at Ford. When he moved on to work at a baby products company, he happened to discover another set of wheels that caught his eye: a sleek-looking stroller that could accommodate a car-seat or a bassinet. Bob was itching to start his own venture, so in 2006, with the help of his wife Lauren, he launched UPPAbaby and started selling a European-style stroller at an "entry-level luxury" price. As a dad himself, Bob guessed that other dads would be intrigued by UPPAbaby's design; meanwhile, big-name celebrities started to use the stroller, and photos of them pushing it helped accelerate sales. The brand grew quickly, and 15 years after its launch, UPPAbaby employs over 100 people and sells strollers in more than 50 countries.How I Built This Summit - information and tickets at:http://summit.npr.orgSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. I talk to entrepreneurs all the time who are looking for a way to upgrade their digital footprint. Well, whether you're just starting out or you're scaling your business, Squarespace is the easiest way to build a great website that stands out. It's an all-in-one website platform that gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your products, and get paid. Anyone can use Squarespace's cutting-edge design tools to build an online presence that truly reflects what makes your business special.

There are templates, intuitive drag-and-drop editing, and even an AI-enhanced website builder. Then, Squarespace's built-in analytics tools help you make smarter business decisions. Review website traffic, learn where to focus engagement, and track revenue all in one place. Looking to grow your business, Squarespace even offers fast, easy business financing

through Squarespace capital. Go to Squarespace.com slash built for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code built to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Loans issued by Celtic Bank and serviced by Stripe, all loans subject to credit approval. This show is in partnership with Airbnb. This past summer, I took my family to Vienna, and it was incredible. We spent our days wandering the old streets, stopping for coffee and pastries, visiting museums, and just soaking up the history of one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And one of the things that made the trip so special was the home we booked on Airbnb. It had tall windows, beautiful old details, and plenty of space for all of us. And being in that home on Airbnb, right in the middle of Vienna,

walking distance from so much of the city, made it feel less like a visit and more like we were actually living there. Plus, taking a trip is the perfect time to host your space on Airbnb. Your place with all of its personal touches and its amazing location could make someone else's vacation even better. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca.com slash host. We were in an old shoe factory. We had an elevator that was a cargo elevator. No air conditioning. And the way we did furniture there, when you were done with a piece of furniture, you put it in the lobby. And then when you wanted a piece of furniture, you just went and got it, put it in your desk. So we didn't buy any furniture.

So we had somebody in customer service sitting at a second grader desk. From NPR, 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 the show today, how Lauren and Bob Monaghan found the sweet spot for selling their high-end, up-a-baby strollers, by capturing two key marks. markets, A-list celebrities, and everyday dads. If you've ever been discouraged from pursuing a business idea because someone tells you the market is saturated, all you need to say is burgers.

It's estimated there are more than 50,000 burger joints in America. And yet, wherever you are right now, somewhere in America, a new burger restaurant is about to open. Because burgers in the U.S. alone rake in more than... than $115 billion a year. So saturated or not, there is still clearly an opportunity. Just think about the number of beauty brands we've featured on this podcast alone. Because the thing is, saturation isn't necessarily a problem. In fact, every single market is in some way saturated.

The key is figuring out how to distinguish your brand or idea within that market. Take RX bars, for example. When Peter Rahal launched his energy bar in 2013, there were already hundreds of other brands on the market. But instead of competing for customers at the supermarket, Peter marketed his bars at CrossFit gyms, places that attract people who don't eat grains or dairy or sugar, a diet consistent with the ingredients in Peter's energy bar. And that's how he turned RXBarr into a $600 million brand, a brand now owned by Kellogg's. This strategy, going in through a side door to find your customer, also helps to explain, in part, how Bob and Lauren Monaghan managed to build one of the most successful baby stroller companies in a market that people also said was saturated. By the time they launched their Upababy modular stroller in 2006, consumers had a wide variety of choices to pick from.

But what the Monaghan's realized was that they could appeal to two very specific and even overlapping customers, people who wanted a fancy stroller, but at a lower price point, and dads, men who weren't ordinarily purchasing things for babies. Bob Monaghan had spent years working in the baby products industry, and about 20 years ago, he started to notice that men were getting interested in baby strollers. And with that insight, Bob and Lauren saw an opportunity to build a brand, a modular, well-built stroller that could tackle snowy New England winters, but also looked good at the beach, a stroller that would appeal to everyone. Now, before Bob got into the baby products business, he studied mechanical engineering and even did a stint at Ford.

Lauren grew up outside of New York City, and as a kid, she was a pretty good ice hockey player, so good, in fact, that she ended up playing Division I hockey at Yale. It wasn't, we were not the strongest team. I think we were bottom of the ivies. We won some games, but we lost to the stronger teams. I could be out there on the ice and I could play against them and I could defend against them. But I certainly wasn't quite at that next step level. Right. I'm a pretty strong skater and I loved to shoot. Love scoring goals.

Is women's ice hockey as physical as men's ice hockey? I mean, I know it's changed a lot professionally. There are fewer fights and things. But in women's hockey, when you played, were there fights? I mean, like, I don't know anything about it. I actually was saying the other day, there were some fights once in a while. I can remember punching someone. And she cross-checked me into the boards.

I know exactly where I was in the rink. I turned around. I smacked her. I got thrown in the penalty box. And my coach said, you're always going in for retribution. She was going already. You couldn't see his hand up. But if you hadn't turned around and thrown the hit, you wouldn't be in the box, too.

But it's super, super fun. So you played hockey. And I guess after you graduated, you thought about, like, pursuing psychology. But you eventually gravitated back to sports. And you actually worked for the NHL for a while. And then to Reebok, is that right? So, yeah, I ended up, I wanted to be involved in sports events, and then I got a job with the NHL. They bring in a set of people to work on the NHL All-Star Game and Fan Festival every year.

And from there, I went to Reebok. I went into the marketing department. So through a connection in that group, I ended up going and working for FIFA on the Women's World Cup. So that was a large, large-scale international event. So that was really exciting to be a part of. And I want to bring in Bob here for a moment because Bob, you were also working at Reebok at around this time. What was your job? What were you doing there?

We were in the advanced products group. So like my boss invented the pump. I had those. I saved money for like nine months when I was in high school to get those shoes. I have a picture of me with like really skinny and short and these giant feet. And those pumps? Yeah. The pumps.

The time. Yeah. So it was a really cool year. And I ended up in a group that called 3D foam. It's where you make foam and rubber combined together. And that there's no rubber outsold of the shoe. But we were like the cutting edge of that. And I ran a couple of marathons in them.

They're amazing. You didn't need the rubber outsole. You didn't glue it. You didn't need all these like gadgets. And that's the way they're all made now just about. Yeah. Right. Because it's comfortable.

light, easy to make. So that was the technology I ended up working on. All right. So you're both working at Reebok in different parts of the company. It's the late 90s. And how did the two of you meet? Bob? What do you remember?

Well, let me see. It was near, yeah, 98. And we were in the gym. I was doing my setups. She was over doing stretches or whatever. And I heard her talking about how she loved to play hockey. And there's no hockey around or whatever. She couldn't find a place to skate.

So I was walking out the door, I said, well, I just, I started the Reebok skate, an old rank near my house. I just started this pickup skate for people who played hockey at Reebok. And so we started a week of two earlier, and I invited her. And she didn't come. You were playing like a regular pickup game, hockey game? Yeah. Yeah, like I played in high school too, but whatever. I didn't play in college, tried out, but didn't play.

So I just ran pickup skates because it's a fun way to get exercise. It was Friday morning before work. So Lauren's not a lover of getting up early. So I think that was part of the problem. But she came the next week. Eventually, so you came to the game, Lauren. And, I mean, did you think, hey, you know, maybe he's interested in me or did you think he's in his body to play hockey? No, I didn't even really remember what he looked like.

But I was working out with a friend. And so I called her and I said, what was that guy's name again? I think you knew him. I want to skate. And so she knew who he was. And she actually said he's pretty cute. And so I left a message on his Reebok voicemail saying, oh, I'm really sorry I haven't come, but I'm going to.

And then I went and pick-up skate is you go in and you play, and then you toss the person organizing it 20 bucks afterwards. So I went to go, you know, give him the 20 bucks and the guys are in the locker room. And I knocked on the door, but, you know, there are towels, whatever, and he's there in his towel. And so I kind of gave him the 20 bucks and I walked out. And I was like, oh, well, he is kind of cute. So.

It's only 10 bucks, by the way. Was it? I know it was one bill. It's only 10 bucks at the time. Yep, that was that. All right. So you guys, we know the story because you're married now, so eventually this hockey game leads to marriage. And I guess, Bob, you didn't stay at Reebok that much longer after you guys got married, right? Like, you went to go. No, I got laid off about three or four weeks into us playing hockey together.

Wow, you got laid off. Yeah, so if it wasn't for our hockey, we probably, that would have been it. Yeah, I was on. She was on her way into Reebok. I was on my way out. Wow. So your division was just like they cut it back? Yeah, they just took the whole 3D foams group.

And I don't know, maybe I wasn't particularly loved by some people. And so that was definitely a big change for me getting laid off. I didn't see that coming. So this was just like weeks after the two of you met? Yes. Wow. So you got laid off from Reebok. And what did you go work, Bob?

I just, I mean, my thing was I didn't want to move. I enjoyed working on product development and sourcing stuff in Asia. And the only companies were footwear companies or juvenile products companies because Hasbro is just south of us in Rhode Island. And because of they're there, there was a safety for its first year. Some juvenile products companies had sprung up in the area. And I just looked and the first year's hired me as a project manager. So just a quick question.

What does the first years make? Like, what's a product that they make that I would know? They made, well, what I made was monitors and gates. I was in the safety team, but they made sippy cups. They made breast pumps. They made... Oh, wow. It was kind of like the early stages of a lot of this gear that now is pretty prevalent.

And we tried to, like, outsource a lot of what you did. And then you outsource the stuff in Asia, and then you manufacture it. And it was definitely, I don't know, with Rock Bottom, because I actually enjoyed the job. You know, it was fun doing what. what I did, but it was a whole, I didn't have kids. I didn't really know much about the industry, but it was just a product. And career-wise, I went to a dinky little company and making a lot less money. And I think you guys, you get married in the early 2000s, and you have your first kid.

And Lauren, did you stay working after you had your first kid? Did you stay at Reebok? So I didn't. I decided that I wanted to be home. Yeah. I actually thought I would really love being home. all the time with young children and then decided that maybe not so much after a little while, but just shortly before I had Jake, I stopped working.

And Bob, you worked at the first years for a while, and then eventually you moved to a company that made pretty similar products called Safety First. Yeah, yeah. And I guess you were still working on Baby Gates there, but at this point you started having some ideas for your own products, right? Yeah, it was more like, so I'm in product development all the time. have ideas a little frustrated. I guess I wanted to be an entrepreneur.

I wanted to start a company. And two of what I consider my best idea is, one was a baby gate system that would be partially built into the house when you buy the house. Yeah. And then you just snap it in when you need the gate, if you have pets, kids, whatever. So I got a patent on that and I got a patent on the easy leaf hauler. The easy leaf hauler. Easy leaf hauler, yes.

What's the easy leaf hauler? It's a giant tarp with sides and pegs in it for raking leaves. We just have a tarp and you just rake the leaves on the tarp and then you move the tarp. Is that basically it? Yeah, but mine had sides on it. It was like I call it giant dustpan for leaves. That was my slogan. A giant dust pan for leaves.

I love this. So wait, and you actually went so far as to patent this idea? Yeah, we patented it. We still sell it. You can still buy it. You can buy it on Amazon right now. The easy These videos of me

Raking leaves In my backyard in July Easy leaf hauler I'm looking at it right now On Amazon It's 22 bucks I didn't There you go

Or 32 bucks I didn't even So do you make money off this Do you make good money off this today? We break even Okay you break even We break even Wow

It's like a dust pan meets a leaf bag meets a tent Like a camping tent Yes All right So you start to kind of brainstorm on a bunch of different ideas

And then you also had in this idea that you patented to produce baby gates that were like you could just slide them in. Like the house was built with the receivers that you could just slide in the baby gates. Yeah, the whole thing was to give the parts that go in the house to the builder. And the builder would just install them like an electrical outlet in the tops and bottom of stairs. And then when you want it, it has my little logo on it. And when you want it, you just look for the logo that's got our website. and you just call us or email us or whatever,

and then you measure, we ask for the distance, how wide is the opening, and then we send you a gate. We send you a custom-fit wooden gate. And it just slides in to slides? Yeah, and just this little panels pop open. You snap it on. It takes you less than a minute.

Great. And you're done. It's a great idea except for one big problem. It depends on the cooperation of home builders. Yes. And, yeah, that's why it never worked. Right. All right.

But you're pursuing. this idea. And by the way, I guess around the same time, you were doing some research on high-end strollers. Is that right? Yeah. I worked in the high-end stroller market near the end of my career of Safety First, working on bringing the Quinney line into the U.S. Quinney is a – that's a – Quini stroller. It's a kind of stroller. Yeah, it's like a high-end, higher-end European stroller. Back in the day, there was Bugaboo. And the stroller was kind of – in the United States, It was kind of stagnant. You had various licenses that you put on.

It was like you had a plane stroller with a NASCAR. Dale Earnhardt's, like, number on the side and be checkered board style or big plastic-y, like Winnie the Pooh things that you saw. And, you know, I did all that, mass market stuff. Safety First was making, was making these strollers. And these were just like cheap umbrella strollers. Exactly. So they have this brand Quinty they want to launch.

That's an expensive stroller. And that's where I became aware of it. where like how we're going to bring the Quinty in, how we're going to launch it. Are we only going to launch it in specialty? Like, there's this whole thing going on. And I was in charge of, like, putting this whole analysis together. What made that stroller special? They were just very modern looking and they were modular and you could put an infant car seat into it,

like this whole maxy-cozy snap in system that's still around today. I mean, they were all aluminum. One of them would automatically open. just very modern, very Dutch design and all that. So trying to figure out how they were going to launch it in the United States. And I did a lot of work on that. Later on, it became aware that I wasn't going to be the guy that launched it. I was just going to do the background work.

Yeah. It was more of an engineer than a marketing person. I think they wanted a real marketing person to launch it. And because of that, I guess you left. You left that job. And it sounds like maybe you felt, you know, like, like they weren't giving you the chance to run this thing. Yeah, I felt that way and also two things.

That, yeah, I was disappointed that I wouldn't get to do that. I was also disappointed that the person they were probably bringing in to do it. It was my old boss at Reebok who laid me off. And then I had these opportunities. I want to do something on my own. And by the way, you have a kid at this point, maybe two kids. Just one. Just one.

But you left your job at safety first. And was that, were you nervous? about that? Did you figure, look, I'll just try this out. And if it doesn't work, maybe I'll go back to my job or I'll find another job. It was definitely scary because we had the house, the kid, and went to trade shows and tried to get it moving. I still dabbled in the juvenile world because that's, you know, I thought in the gate side and stuff like that. So I guess it's kind of like throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what hits. By the way, every time you say juvenile products, it makes me think of like, it's such a weird term, like jail. Yeah.

This is what that's what the industry is called, juvenile product. Like, they can't just call it like baby products? JPMA is the governing body. Juvenile products, man. I don't know. Yeah. You're right. But it's just, it's baby products.

But juvenile products is the industry. Yeah. So you are, it sounds like you're basically coming up with different ideas. Yeah. And I guess you went to Taiwan to visit a manufacturing facility. And was this related to the gate idea that you went to Taiwan to sort of talk to a potential manufacturer to make the gates for you? Well, like, I source products in Asia for eight years.

So some of the factories make gates and also strollers and things like that. Other things, right. And a lot of, I had great relationships with a lot of factories over there. So, yeah, I was just, you know, talking these guys and like, hey, listen, I'm starting my own company. I'd love to work with you. I want to do my own brand. You know, is there anything that we can work together on? And along with gates, there was the whole stroller side of it.

And I was just, one time when it was over there, there was a model that the concept of it had some modularity to it where the seat would come out where you can put a bassinet in or something like that. And it was fairly half-baked at the time, but I'm like, that is, that's exciting. Like, I think we can do something with that. Right. And I also became aware of how hot this market was. Like, like dads were getting excited about strollers. There were blogs. And this is 2005, you know, blogs were big deals.

And these guys were getting so passionate. arguing about, you know, the Quinny versus the bugaboo and like the features and the wheels, the air-filled tires. And it was just something that was surprising. And it actually made sense to me. It was something they got excited about and it felt that they could participate in and then something they could enjoy, you know, strolling with your baby. All right.

So you start to become aware that there is an opportunity in the stroller market because the strollers that are being talked about on blogs and stuff, these are not cheap. These are going to be, how much were they, the strollers at the time? They were 500 bucks at that time. 550. For a quinny or the Bugaboo. And these were like, these were strollers that like you would see on the upper west side and then the west side of LA. Yeah.

I mean, that's what people showed off. That's what you walked down the street in. I mean, you make a nice car seat or a gate or a monitor. It sits in your house. Who cares? The stroller, like I said, it's the people talk about. It's out there. Right.

Like with our kids, I think that probably the funnest thing that you registered for back in, like, when we had our first in 2002, so 2001-ish, was the layette. It was the really cute clothes when they were first born and their sheets and whatever set you got for their crib. That was a big focus. And that was kind of a bigger purchase. And the crib, the furniture for the house, which wasn't that exciting, but it was a bigger purchase. And grandparents would pitch in and buy you your first crib. until these modern products started coming out. And as Bob said, he started seeing all this interest coming in from the dad's side of things, blogs about strollers. That didn't exist prior to the early 2000s. A lot of it was a guy thing, almost more than a woman thing. It was like guys get into the modularity, guys get into the aircraft aluminum tubing, the wheels, the big wheels that look like race car wheels.

There's just a lot of things coming to. together in that whole arena that like, okay, this, you know, I don't have a patent in this. I didn't, I haven't come up this whole concept of the ground up, but I knew that there was, that there was a, this is supplying an unmet need. There was a huge need in this area. And Bob, at this point, you left your job at safety first. And now you're thinking about basically creating a new stroller. Like, like, is this the idea that you think has the most Promise? Yeah. And, you know, Lauren's dad was a good friend of mine, and I think he wanted to help me out a little bit. And like, it wasn't, you know, he helped me, you know, with a little bit

of capital to help me get going with us, but it really wasn't a big deal. And her dad, he was in commercial real estate in Manhattan, right? Yeah. And we went, we had some meetings. I had some concepts. I guess, I mean, it was a little bit scattered, as you can tell right now. There was a lot of things on the table. But, you know, I think he believed in me enough that, you know, let's, let's give this guy a bit of a shot. When we come back in just a moment, how Bob and Lauren quickly discovered that one thing that can really sell your stroller is a photo of Sarah Jessica Parker pushing your stroller. 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. from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So it's around 2005, and Bob Monaghan has walked away from his job at Safety First to work on his own idea, a stroller that's sleek and European-looking and modular. What the modular strollers do is you can take the seat out and you can reverse it. You can face it away from you or towards you and then recline it. You can put a bassinet in. And you can, And you can put a infant car seat in. So those were the things that, I mean, wasn't new to the stroller.

This was like another way to do it. Yeah. We owe a lot of credit to Bugaboo for kind of like pioneering the market. But in my opinion, it wasn't the most user-friendly stroller. So, yeah, we're going to have the high-grade aluminum. Yeah, we're going to have the high-end wheels. And yeah, we're going to have the modularity. But you are going to be able to pop us out of the box and snap it all together.

So we really focused on ease of use, good customer service. that was our angle on the modularity type stroller. And by the way, you call your company up a baby. How did you come up with that name? That was our daughter, McKenna, who wanted to be picked up all the time, and she would say upa all the time. She would walk around with her hands up in the air. She wanted to get picked up.

You say upa. Upa, upa. She was happy as can be on your hip. All right. So you have this idea in mind of what you want to start. stroller to look like. And by the way, you know, when you sort of were thinking in your mind about this, because Lauren, you were still not yet fully involved in the business yet, right? Am I right in 2005? No, not in 2005. Nope, no, not yet. I joined about 2007, I believe.

So, Bob, when you have a design concept and you know you've got connections in China to manufacture something, how long did it take you from like the design to the point where you could get like, I don't know, a hundred strollers made? Did it take like a year or more? It took about a year, maybe a little bit less. I'm trying to think we sold our first strollers in the September of 2006. And we air freighted 100 in from China for a trade show. So you had to make 100 strollers initially? That was the number we picked, yeah. And we kind of, we just bought them. sight unseen we were it was a risk but we just yeah it felt good enough about it so you um you've got

the plans you go to this factory you've got the the concept for the stroller and i guess before you even sold any strollers you just presented the concept at at a trade show in in florida yeah yeah was the idea right because there was the kind of high-end bugaboo and quinny strollers and then the the sort of the lower end models. Was the idea that you would kind of find the middle ground, like you would offer something that was less expensive? Yeah, that was the goal would be some middle ground, or maybe upper middle ground.

Right. Call it, you know, like entry-level luxury or something like that. So May of 2006, you're going to head to this trade show. And from what I understand, like this is around the time that it was scheduled around the time where you were going to have a kid, like where Lauren was going to have your third child. So what happened? I could explain. My sister, who was also pregnant with her child, said, I'll go to the hospital.

I'll go. Bob, you can leave. And so we had the baby, and Bob flew out that day. My sister and I hung out at the hospital, and then I brought the baby home. You had to be at the trade show. So the day your kid was born, like right after, you just got in a plane. I flew to Florida. It was our third child.

We've been down this. We've been down that road before. So we were kind of getting new pros, third and five years or whatever. And so I flew out that afternoon. And my team who I just, one person I didn't know, the other one, we just hired like a few weeks prior. It was just you and one employee at this point? Yeah, our first employees, Molly, was running our sales. And she just started.

I didn't really know her that well, but she was going to go down and get things going. Before you got there. Start setting the, before I get there. and her cousin Hooter, who had just gotten out of jail, came and helped set the booth up. And then he managed to cut himself and bled on a bunch of the stilers. He cut himself while he was setting up the booth? Yeah, cut himself.

I mean, I never met Hooter, but it's a good guy, I guess. Nobody noticed it that much. And, yeah, so they set it up, and it was largely set up by the time I got there. And it was just a table and a couple of strollers and your name, up a baby? Yeah. You sit there and hopefully somebody will come by.

And I remember Albi Baby out of New York came by. They were one of the best specialty stores. He said something like, you're trying too hard. He says, it's a nice concept, but you're trying a little too hard on the fashions. I mean, I was doing the fashions, which was there. What's the fashions? I forget. They were like light blue with silver or something like that.

Oh, you're talking about the colors on? Yeah, the fashions, yeah. And did you get a lot of interest at that show? were people stopping by and really expressing interest in what this stricelow was? And presumably the goal was to take orders, right? Yeah, that's not an order-taking show. That's generally an industry show. I mean, there was some interest, to be honest.

It wasn't great. I mean, I actually, be quite honest. I felt pretty confident, but it wasn't, I don't know. Maybe we didn't present it right. Maybe there's too much going on my booth, but it wasn't. It was okay. All right. So you come back from that show, but you know.

know that you are going to, I guess, go to another trade show. This one would be in Las Vegas in the fall of that year, 2006. And that's a show where you actually sell things, where you take orders for things, right? Right. So, so you had a hundred of these strollers made and you go to this show in Las Vegas. And how did they do? Did they, did you sell all of them or some of them? We sold 42. It's pretty good. Yeah, it was like people came to, uh, And a lot of the brands coming in from Europe, the new brands were, I don't know, more, higher end, been around for longer. And they were like, you had to order 20, you had to order $10,000 worth. And they'd come up to us and like, what's your minimum order quantity? We go one. And who were buying them? I mean, I'm assuming these were smaller, probably boutique-y type stores, right? Yeah, we, Lorham can maybe help me out with this.

I'm pretty sure that Albi's bought them. We had some group in Puerto Rico that bought some. Yeah, yeah. And we had, who was the one that started up with us in New York, that your mom bought a stroll along? Oh, I knew you were going to ask this. And I'm going to have to remember they've been gone for so long. They're on the Lower East Side.

That's where my parents bought my pram. But she, yep, she brought some in. Also probably because Albies, there was a bit of a competition, lower east, upper west side. They were the two established longtime specialty. juvenile retailers. It's where if you were in Manhattan, when you were having a baby, that's where you were going. This was, by-bye baby was certainly up and coming fast at that point, but these guys had been around for decades. These were family businesses. But, I mean, you leave this show,

you sold some strollers, and then what? Like, you got to start selling more strollers. But imagine you walk away from that trade show with a lot of business cards. You already had some connections in the industry. So were you just, like, working the phones, trying to call anybody you could to get meetings? Pretty much. It's weird. Like, I think. I think that, you know, we started with 40, and they all sold, and then everybody re-uped. The next month, we sold 100, and the next month we sold 175, and the next month we sold 250. Like, it just kind of kept going. I don't really recall, the nice thing about all of this is that we are our proximity to New York,

and that was the birthplace of this whole movement of this high-end product, and the New Yorkers have been good to us, and they use their strollers more than anybody. They don't just throw it in the trunk of their car. They lived out of their strollers. Right. We sold New York is where we grew, and then that's how it all happened. Yeah.

I had a college friend who had opened a store. She didn't sell strollers called Little Tykes. And I remember calling Tyke and saying that was her nickname and talking to her about the different stroller stores in Manhattan and where do people go and who do you think we should get in touch with. So she gave us a bunch of insight in names and numbers and, you know, you really want to be in this store, that store. And here's who to talk to. I read that in that first year in the fall of 2006, you decided to spend, sounds like all the money you had or a lot of the money you had, to hire a good public relations firm to get the word out about up a baby.

What, tell me what you did. So a close friend of mine who lived in Manhattan had a friend who had a friend who had a PR, agency, and so we decided to commit for a year what was at the time, yes, a really, it seemed to us to be very expensive investment to kind of help us get the name out there. And did that help move the needle? Were they able to actually get the word out? They really did. They did. The PR agency would work with celebrity stylists or managers, and so they did. They showed them our stroller, and one of our very, very, very for celebrities, which we're really excited about was Brooks. Shields. And what they would do is they would show them the stroller and they would offer,

would your client like one? It's this new high-end stroller and it does, and they'd tell them about all the functions. And so Brook Shields is a, she's a model, she's a tall lady. And she was really excited because one of the features that Bob had designed in, Bob is 6'3 and I'm 5'3. And a frustration with strollers were that a lot of times a taller guy or mom kind of hunched over. So he had designed a handle that telescoped out to accommodate what was comfortable for him, but also what was comfortable for me. And the way that he had done the rear axle also had a certain curve to it that you weren't going to kick it with your leg with a longer stride. And so Brook Shield saw these things and was really excited about it and actually wrote us a thank you letter saying this is just, it's so nice to have a product that works for me with my babies. So that was really cool.

And that, yes, so that's correct. That story was correct. And Sarah Jessica Parker was a big user early on. Wow. And Lauren always gets the thing that she looks like Sarah Jessica Parker, even when she was in New York. So that was kind of a funny tie-in. We're having kids at the same time as them. And she was using the strollers.

That was super exciting. And from what I gather, one of the, I mean, getting the strollers into the hands of celebrities really was going to, I mean, that really, began to create visibility. And basically, you were giving the strollers to the celebrities for free, right? I mean, it was sort of a chance for you to give it to them. They would take it and then they would push it around. And that created more and more visibility, right? It did, although I wouldn't want to over-emphasize that piece of it.

To a consumer, I think that what it tells them is this is someone who can have anything they want. They're a celebrity. They're famous. They make money. And they're using this product. this is their choice. It must be great because they could choose anything. So there's that element of it. But really, articles are far more powerful and media coverage is far more powerful than a

picture with a celebrity for sure. But we were very cognizant early on that the number one driver of what a parent starts to look at for their baby products is products that their friends have told them they should buy. So that was really important was to really, really engage and be there for your customer because that was who was telling the next customer what they should be getting. And so at this point, Lauren, you are fully involved in the business. And I think you kind of take over sales and marketing, right? And Bob focuses on product development. Is that more or less what happened? Yeah. I think Molly had a baby, our only really sales. oriented employee. She got pregnant and someone needed to take over sales while she was going to be out. Part of it was I was the target consumer.

And so Bob would get my input. And so obviously I was always very aware of what he was doing in terms of launching the brand. And once I started, once I jumped into sales to help out and started meeting these retailers, it was mostly a little bit here, a little bit there. and then as the business grew and some of these areas needed more focus as we decided to bring in a PR agency for a year to really launch us, those were areas that were not areas that Bob was going to be focused on. He was focused on building the products. So Lauren, 2007, which was your first full year in business, you guys did about $1.3 million in sales. You guys have, I think, two models at this point, the Vista, which is sold for like $5.99, and then the G-Light, which is a far less expensive version of $99.

And was it just mainly the two of you guys at that point, or did you have, yeah, I mean, who is working for you? Well, so we at that point, I think Molly had come back from attorney leave, and we had a sales rep who has been our VP of sales for a long time. We had hired her, Joanne At Patelos, and she just, she had so many really, really great relationships with retailers across the country. She's based out of California. So she was on board, and then we had Trung, VP of Design. He was still consulting for us at that time. And did you have, I mean, a small office at that time in, where was it? We were in Rockland, and we were in an old shoe factory.

Eventually grew to be about seven or eight, nine people. Right. And the way we did furniture there, when you were done with a piece of furniture, you put it in the lobby. And then when you wanted a piece of furniture, you just went and got it and put it in your desk. So we didn't buy any furniture. We had somebody in customer service sitting at a second grader desk. But yeah, it was like the bathrooms were on a different floor. We had an elevator that was a cargo elevator.

We had no air conditioning. So I'll tell you, you know what paper weights are for? You learn what paper weights are for when you don't have air conditioning. The windows open. So that's what a paper weights for. it weighs down the paper so it doesn't blow away when the wind blows. So it was interesting. It was good. When we come back after the break, how the Monaghan's managed to dodge the economic crisis of 2008 by introducing a small but crucial tweak into their sales strategy. 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. So in 2006, And 2007, Upabababee strollers are mostly being sold in specialty retailers, but they're getting more and more attention. And that attention got Bob and Laura in a meeting with a much larger retailer, Bye Bye Baby. They agreed to meet with us, and we flew down to New York. And they looked, and they said, well, it's interesting. But we really don't take a chance on startups. And we said, well, we really think that there's market demand for this.

And they said, well, are you going to be the next bugaboo? And my response was we're not trying to be the next anything. We think that this is a niche. It's not being hit at all. We think that the offering, that just makes parents' lives better. And they said, well, you know, we really don't take the chance. So we'll wait and we'll see what happens. You know, we'll give it a year.

And Molly said, we will be the next bugaboo. And I said, well, that's not our goal. Our goal is to be successful with our products. And we left. And they were, as I said, they're nicest can be. about a year later, they said, yep, we're seeing it more and more. So they took us in. And then 2008 comes around. And this is the beginning of a global economic crisis. What do you remember, Lauren, about that time? Were you guys worried?

So actually, kind of the opposite. When that happened, where we had entered this industry, the more expensive models that were out there, you know, the Bugaboo in particular had a tremendous amount of market share. all of a sudden that became a purchase people really were thinking about. They really looked at what you were getting for your money. And so our offering, it was a little bit less expensive. And so it was you can have something that's super high function, but you don't have to pay those extra couple hundred dollars. Yeah. We also, on a sort of a sales strategy behind the scenes, when we had gone into the retailers, and this was where Joanne had come in, she was pretty knowledgeable about what margins look like for retailers. And at the time, she said, if we come in and we give them a margin that's a little bit bigger than what they're used to, they'll be making more money on the consumers purchase that's actually less. And so that worked really well. So retailers were very happy to push a less expensive product because in the end, the money in their pockets was actually a little bit more. So it worked really well for us, actually, that down.

turning the economy, which is kind of crazy, but it did. You know, I'm curious about two things. The first is, is the stroller market huge? Is it a huge sort of potential market? And then the second question is, I'm assuming there's like a brief window when the vast majority of your customers are interested in your product. It's like a, you know, one to two year window or three year window, let's say. And if they have multiple kids, they might just reuse the same stroller, right, as we did with our kids.

Did people ever say that you look, there's just a limitation to how successful or big this can get? No, nope, never. The strollers are something people were excited about buying. And it's a new consumer because before you have children, before you're pregnant, you really don't think about strollers. Yeah. So these are just people get, they're pregnant, they're super excited about the next phase of their life. And they're super excited about all the things that come with it and purchasing their first stroller. is one of those things.

And we really looked at that and said to ourselves, people are generally having their kids later. They have more money, but they tend to have two or three kids in fairly quick succession, kind of how we did it. And so we were the first stroller to go from, you know, you have a stroller,

and you can add a second seat, and now you can add a piggyback. So we could put three kids on our stroller. And you're talking about a six-year window, and it's really became a valuable purchase. and it resonated and it stuck for quite a while. At what point, Bob, did you feel like, okay, this is going to be really successful. This is going to work.

I think I remember me and Trung looking at the numbers and I don't know. We wanted to. Trun is our VP of design and went with us from. He was consulting even in the very early days. And I don't know what the numbers were. It was like a container a month was like three. hundred strollers. And if we could sell a container a month, we just thought that we were there.

And that meant that the assembly line was dedicated to us or kept the assembly line going in Asia. That was pretty exciting. Lauren? I mean, I think that that sounds about right. That was, you know, that was exciting. I think when, you know, adding more reps for more regions around the country and just having the sales floor full of people talking to all retailers from all over the country, you know, when you kind of went to a show and it wasn't, oh,

I hope people come by, but it was, you know, the reps have appointments booked all day, every day of the show. That's pretty great. You have regular customers who are really supportive and excited. I can remember a college teammate of mine who lives in Brooklyn calling me and saying, I'm seeing her strollers everywhere. It's like, really, that's great. I want to ask you about affordability because up-a-baby strollers are generally things that a certain type of consumer can afford. and you do have sort of lightweight umbrella strollers that you sell. But the main ones, the modular strollers that we're talking about, they are not cheap.

And when you thought about who you were going to target, did you land on this idea that the consumer who could afford the stroller was probably where you should target your energy? Because that was going to be sort of the way to create a sustainable business? or did you ever think about, you know, sort of a lower-end modular stroller, you know, much less expensive than the ones that you sell? Well, I was, I was, I had been semi-fustrated making product for mass market for most of my life. So it was like, we want to make the stuff, again, with like us as the target audience, we want to make what we like. And so it wasn't about, hey, we want to make something that costs us much so other people can't afford it. people think we're cool. It's like, no, these are the, this is the one we want and this is what it costs. It's not, we always joke around, but it's not, like, we talked about gadgets you could

put on the stroll or a certain, like, there's no gold, there's no fake chrome, there's no rhinestones, there's no, there's no anything that you don't need. So it's all the stuff you want, and this is kind of what it costs. And yeah, as a consumer, you've got different choices, but we weren't trying to do it to be a leader or anything. This is just what we felt the best product would be. But can you make, I mean, is it possible to make a quality stroller with quality features like up a baby stroller at a price point that, you know, somebody making, I don't know, a lot less money a year could easily afford somebody who might go to Target or Walmart

to get this stroller? It would be less. It's just not as good. I mean, it's just, you know, Hyundai still has a radio. It's got wheels, the tires, power windows, power, whatever. but it's not, and it's what your values are. There's somewhere in there. Either the rivets aren't stainless steel and they're going to rust,

or it doesn't have bearings, they're ultimately going to wobble, or it's got EVA foam instead of PU foam in the tires that's going to wear out. I can go on and on. There's like everything on the stroller you can buy steel, powder-coated, or you can buy aluminum-adamand-adized. There's just a million little things, and each one you can choose, in terms of manufacturing and what's on it, what the materials are, the durability. This is what it costs.

You've now worked together for 15 years, almost 15 years on this business. And that's 15 years of building it together and then also coming home and raising the kids and pick up and drop off and soccer practice and whatever. And Bob, I mean, how do you make that work? Has it always just been easy? Like you do your thing and Lauren does her thing and it's all great? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely, I'd say, there's definitely been some tough times because we're not always going to agree on everything. But right now we really kind of like we have our lanes and we do our thing and we just, so we have a system over the 15 years, I think that works. I agree. There were brawls early on. I think we, you know, over time we've really sorted out, as Bob said, systems. We have systems in place and, and, you know, there's still.

times when it's, well, how many people think we should do this and how many people think we should do that. And it, you know, it's a bit of a vote. But it's, no, I agree. I agree. We've got a system. What was your biggest dispute over that you can remember? I mean, a lot of the push to me is like, is it a sales decision or a brand to sit, you know, some decisions you make are like, what's going to sell the most? Okay, then we're going to do that. Well, okay, yeah, I understand that would sell. But for the brand, you know, this is what we want to do and I can't really articulate why we're going to do it, but that's kind of what makes us unique. And so some things you just sit, you're not always trying to like do the most volume

or whatever all the time. Some things you're just going to make decisions about the brand. And to me, those don't always make sense, but. I'd agree with that. I think some product, product features functions, you know, we'll say from a sales perspective, people are not going to buy that. They're not going to pay for that. That's awesome. But you're over designing it. We can't do that we're not going to sell it. And then you have, you know, engineering design saying, but this is the best way to do it. It should work this way. So I'd agree. Those are probably a little push and pulls. But I stay out of fashion. I don't do any fashion. I used to get involved with naming. I don't get involved with naming anymore. So those are certain things, you know,

like I named the first two strollers, but now I've been fired from naming. But yeah, so I mean, it's whatever. Certain things just going to let go. In fact, I don't mind because that's a whole, that's a monster. And there's certainly better people than I to do that. So, again, we know, we learn what we enjoy and what we're good at, and we try to stay focused on those. All right, Bob, you guys have made quite a bit of money. And at what point do you just get out of the baby stroller business

and, I don't know, become a philanthropist or an angel investor or go, you know, skiing all the time? Like, when do you do that? I don't know. I mean, I definitely wouldn't mind doing some things like that before the body goes. Everything's kind of working right now, so those thoughts certainly enter your mind. But I do enjoy coming into the office. I enjoy the people I work with.

They're my family. People treat me nice here, which is kind of nice too. But right now I get a pretty good balance where I get to sneak out a little bit here and there and do my thing. And I have good people that can cover for me. Yeah. But it sounds like, if I'm reading between the lines, that one day, yeah, there's a possibility maybe sell the business or something else or just kind of step away from working every day. And is that fair? I mean, yeah, that's fair.

We each have our little pet projects that we're able to do, as Bob said. We've got some great people, great teams and some flexibility. And Bob has ownership in up in New Hampshire. That's super cool. And I'm working on a big rink project and academy project. A rink, like an ice skating rink? Hockey arena. A big hockey arena, yep.

Well, I built one in the backyard, yeah. Yes, and Bob built his in the backyard. Yep. Yes. Bad, bad winter for that backyard rink. Not good this year. Bob, how much of the success of your company do you attribute to luck and how much do you attribute to hard work or other factors?

Well, hard work makes luck. You know, in some ways, I say make your own luck. I'd say I'll go say two-thirds hard work and one-third luck. What about you, Lauren? What do you think? I'm going to say a lot less luck and more really good timing, great opportunities. The opening in the marketplace, the people ready to transition to a more sophisticated product, all of those things.

The timing was really important. There may have been a couple of things that were lucky, but I think less lucky. but just being in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing altogether. You know, Bob, you were the one who came up with this idea originally when you were trying to come up with some kind of business idea. And I wonder if you could go back to that younger, less experienced version of yourself and give yourself some advice or encouragement. What would you say? What would you tell yourself? You know what? Looking back on it, I know this, I don't know, like, I don't know what I really would have done differently.

It's almost like pushing a wheelbarrow or something like that. It's like, okay, how are you going to push this wheelbarrow a mile? Well, I know, you know, if I take one step, I'm closer, I take another step, I'm closer. So it was just kind of like, don't give up and just keep pushing. Because ultimately, you know, whatever, why not you? Why does it have to be somebody else? It can be you. Somebody else. That's Bob Monahan and Lauren Monaghan, co-founders of Up a Baby. I'm curious about one thing. Are you okay if I ask you a slightly personal question? Depends of what it is.

Maybe. Who would win in a hockey shootout? Well, it depends. She's out of practice. I just played two hours ago. I'd kill her. I'm very out of practice. You were a Division I hockey player, Lauren.

Yeah, so I have a terror. my hip. I need a little surgery from back in my playing days. I was a shooter. I would kick her ass. I was a really good shooter. I liked shooting the puck. So I don't know. I mean, I'm putting my money on Lauren. All right. I'm going to take your money. I'll take your money. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. If you're not a subscriber to the podcast, please do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to write to us, our email address is H-I-B-T at npr.org. And if you want to follow us on Twitter, we're at How I Built This or at Guy Raz. On Instagram, we're at guy.org, or at How I Built This NPR. This episode was produced by Casey Herman with music composed by Rumpteen Arablui.

Thanks also to Liz Metzger, Ferris Safari, Dareth Gales, J.C. Howard, Julia Carney, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Janet Ujong Lee. I'm Guy Raz. And you've been listening to how I built this. This is NPR.