The Best One Yet - 🍫 “Addicted to chocolate” — Hotel’s Chocolat’s value. Away’s billboard luggage. Spotify vs Apple layoffs.

Episode Date: January 24, 2023

Chocolate is the newest addition to our recession-proof products list — because you’re addicted to it (literally). Away Luggage was crushed during the pandemic but is now living its best life thanks to Revenge Travel. And Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and now Spotify have all announced layoffs, but 1 Big Tech company hasn’t: Apple. So we found out why…$SPOT $AAPL $WRBY $HCHOFFollow The Best One Yet on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodAnd now watch us on YoutubeWant a Shoutout on the pod? Fill out this formGot the Best Fact Yet? We got a form for that tooLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Tuesday, T-Boy, Tuesday, January 24th. And today's pod is just the best one yet. T-B-O-Y, it's a T-Boy. I'm gonna have to stop you for a second there. Jack, uh, Yettys, remember when I said that I wanted a bouquet of birthday balloons for my birthday? Go on.

Jack delivered a bouquet of human-sized T-B-O-Y birthday balloons for my birthday. The balloons were way bigger than I expected them to be. Jack, I just got one thing and one thing I got to say to you. What? Thank you so much for the news. For our first story, Chocolate is the latest surprise, recession-proof products. Because according to one chocolate CEO,

Chocolate is the world's top legal drug. For our second story, the only direct-to-consumer startup thriving right now is Away Luggage. Because Away doesn't sell suitcases. They sell billboards. And our third and final story, you got Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta,

Now Spotify, the big tech layoffs keep on coming. Except in one company. And what is that company, Jack? Apple. Apple isn't doing layoffs. But Yetis, before we hit that fantastic mix. Wonderful mix. I love this mix, Jack.

Happy Lunar New Year to all the Yetis wearing red right now. The Lunar New Year, the biggest holiday of the year in China across Asia. Actually, biggest celebration on the entire Earth. Think Thanksgiving meets New Year's Eve, meets Christmas, but no turkey. Let's add a little dash of a hundred. In there, why now? Yetis, by the calendar of the moon, we just entered the year of the rabbit. The fourth animal in the Chinese zodiac, it is a good animal.

Now, yeties, we know what you think. We do know what you're thinking. You got the year of the tiger. That's scary. The year of the dragon. That's us. The year of the rabbit? Come on.

Yeah, it's a little lame. Rabbit, that's a prey, not a predator. What's going on here, rabbit? If you think the rabbit is lame, you'd be wrong. Uh-huh. Do not underestimate the rabbit. Besties, do not belittle the bunny. Because the rabbit may be a small animal in the Chinese.

Zodiac, but it's a strong animal. Jack, have you seen the hammies on these rabbits? They got legs as long as the actual rabbits. These creatures have a Tom Cruise need for speed, if you've ever seen. We're talking about the fastest animal in the zodiac. It's the rabbit. And on Wall Street, the rabbit is the savviest of investors. Because get this, when a rabbit hops, it jumps decisively.

Like an investor committing to a strategy. But here's the key. When the rabbit hops, it doesn't just keep on hopping forever. No, a rabbit will always pause to. look back. Because the rabbit is always reflecting. Reflecting. But the best part of a rabbit. Yeah, what is the best part of a rabbit, Jack? The big ears. I thought you were going to double down on the reflecting. No, it's the big ears because they listen to so many pods, Nick. Yeties, we know the Lunar New Year celebrations had an awful start for many over the weekend.

But Nick and I wish all who celebrate the best Lunar New Year yet. Channel the Rabbit, be the rabbit. Let's hit our three stories. Boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is an or not. That's a fat tip. Tea Boy City on your at list. If you know, you know, because we're ready to go.

We can't wait no more, so just start the show. Start the show. For our first story, chocolate, as in the chocolate chain Hotel Chocolat, just had its best holiday sales ever. Because in a recession, we're all chocoholics. We are. Literally. But, Jack, before we jump in, I actually have to ask you, because I don't know this about you.

Dark milk or white chocolate. Who's doing white chocolate? Who's doing white? It's a very legitimate chocolate, my friend. Call it vanilla. Have you even had white chocolate? Oh, by the way, for the record, the answer was C all of the above, Jack. I'm dark chocolate with hazelnuts and some dried fruit.

That's an ideal chocolate brick. Sometimes you put my milk chocolate and my dark chocolate. In the meantime, Hotel Chocolat is not a company family. by Johnny Depp, it's actually a very legitimate publicly traded company. It's a British chocolate chain. It is. It is a chaco chain. It's the Starbucks of cocoa over in the United Kingdom.

If you love chocolate, by the way, and you love hotels, you should know that this company just opened a chocolate hotel on a cocoa farm in the Caribbean. True story. Again, publicly traded company. And when we read about this next product, we were so sad they're not in the United States yet. You regrets this was not on the wedding registry. And huge regrets, that wasn't our honeymoon destination, by the way. This company is famous for their chocolate technology.

It is. Exhibit A, the velvitizer. The velvitizer. This is a product they make that foams your hot chocolate like it's a latte. Well, they just announced that sales jumped by 10% over the holidays. Their best holiday quarter ever, and they're adding 50 stores. As a result, their stock just jumps 7% because we're not zooming like we were during the pandemic, but we're still eating chocolate like we were during the pandemic.

Plus, chocolate prices aren't popping with inflation like ever. every other food you eat. Get this. Coco is one of the least affected food products by inflation. Grocery prices are up 13% in the past year in the UK. Cheese is up 22%. Not good looks. But chocolate has barely budged. It's only 6% higher in price than last year. So yeties, Jack and I were fascinated about this story. We wanted to know what were the reasons for this chocolate surge. And it turns out chocolate has two key secrets. The first secret the CEO told us about. The first secret is that chocolate is addicting.

Literally. The CEO said that the number one legal thing consumers can do right now is binge chocolate. Like that's it. You can't, if you're getting stressed out right now, there are a lot of things that are illegal that you probably want to do. You can't blow something up. You can't hit something. Interesting, that's where you went, Jack. Unless you have a punching bag.

Also interesting, this is the direction that you're going in. I'm very interested in. But you can eat chocolates. And guess what? When he says that chocolate feels like a drug, scientifically speaking, the CEO of Hotel Chocolat is right. We jumped in T-Boystile to a study from Harvard Medical School. Okay? Chocolate actually possesses the three components of addiction.

It does. And yeties, that is why when it turns midnight and you get a craving, you are turning to fudge in that fridge. You are not grabbing figs. Actually, you are grabbing figs. I know you are there. I actually got some chocolate covered figs for my birthday and they were delightful. Perfect. From my mother.

Well, chocolate's uniquely high fat to sugar combo leads to similar levels of brain stimulation as addicting drugs, according to Harvard. Now, yadies, we're not talking Reese's and we're not talking Kit Katz here. We're talking 80% grade A pure chocolate straight out of some farm. This is Nick, this is Jack. We're both chocoholics. Guilty is charged. Which leads to chocolate's second secret.

So don't put a finger on that butter finger. Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddy is over in the chocolate? industry. The winner in a recession isn't cheapness, it's value. Yeties, another interesting thing the Hotel Shuccolat CEO said, when times are tough, you sniff out quality. He's talking about value, which is price relative to the payoff. It's a subtle distinction. It is a very fine line, but it is an important line because value is different from cheapness. Nick and I have been keeping track of surprising recession-proof products whose demand has stayed up despite the economy. Jack, whip out the whiteboard. Where were a couple of those recession-proof products? Mick and I have been keeping track.

products, man? Alta Beauty's lipstick. Crispy Cream's donuts. These products have low price, but also high pay off. They're all affordable splurges. They maximize your feeling and they do it at the lowest cost. Same with chocolate. We're talking about value. Uh-huh. And in a recession, the real winner isn't cheapness, it's value. For our second story, Spotify, just joined the layoff train. They're cut in 6% of the Spotify staff. But there's one big tech company that isn't doing And we had to know who's that company and why are they not lying people off? But first, Spotify, it's the rare hybrid company straddling both the media industry and the tech industry. And those were two pretty pretty good industries to be straddling, weren't they, Jack?

Those two industries soared early in the pandemic. Yeah, because the pandemic was the couch economy. You were stuck at home. You wanted tech audio companionship. We all did. We were there with you. People flocked to the Spotify app and they honestly flocked a podcast too. They did. So Spotify leaned into podcasts hard.

Spotify started dishing out million-dollar podcast deals like they were Oprah. Yeah, Spotify spent about a billion dollars on exclusive deals with big personalities, not too shabby. Growth was good for Spotify. So Spotify hired, aggressively hired. Get this. Jack, can you whip up the numbers? From the start of the pandemic through today, Spotify hired 4,000 people. And how many people does Spotify working there now, Jack? They have 10,000 today. Ipso facto, nearly half of Spotify today, was not at the company three years ago.

It's grown really fast. But Spotify, as we mentioned, is both a media company and a tech company. And Jack, how have tech and media been straddling things over the last 12 months? Not well. They've both been hit badly in the past 12 months during this downtime. Okay, get these growth numbers. Spotify's revenue growth has slowed from 35% in 20,000. 2021 to just 3% last quarter.

So like every tech and media company right now, Spotify sadly announced layoffs yesterday. Yeah, specifically, the Spotify CEO said, like so many other leaders, he was too ambitious during the pandemic that the trends would continue forever. So, like so many other leaders, he is correcting his overhiring by letting go of 6% of his staff or 600 people right now. And this major round of layoffs, that's just sad to see, is also going to cost Spotify a lot of money. Because Daniel Eck is giving the laid-off employees

five months of pay and health insurance. A $50 million cost to Spotify. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Spotify? Don't be like so many other leaders. Yeties, last week, Jack and I were just telling you on the pod that the only ideas worth pursuing were the contrarian ones. Well, during the pandemic, what everyone was doing was hiring like crazy.

Microsoft and Google, on opportunity to cement their digital dominance. So Microsoft and Google increased their head counts by 50% in the two and a half years. Oh, I stop there. Meta and Amazon, they wanted to own digital commerce. Those two companies more than doubled their head count during the pandemic. Add it all up. And now all of those companies, they're all laying people off, except for one company. The one big tech standout that hasn't announced layoffs yet. Who is Jack? Is Apple? Apple, Because during the pandemic, Apple was contrarian. Tim Cook only grew the company by 20% in the two and a half years of the pandemic.

It was contrarian for tech leaders to hire cautiously during the pandemic. And now it is saving them from layoffs. You know, our moms used to tell us when we were kids, don't be like everyone else. They did. Well, in business, don't be like so many other leaders. Now a word about our sponsor, Robin Hood. You can do just about anything from your phone, but some individuals. They've just been slow to move.

The finance industry was slow to move from phone to computer and then from computer to app. Robin Hood wasn't. It's the Silicon Valley-based brokerage that's been updating app since it was born in 2015. Using the Robin Hood app for your stocks and crypto is almost as easy as downloading it. So you can invest to your pace on your terms by downloading the Robin Hood app. If you're not investing on Robin Hood yet, to get started, go to robin hood.com slash T-Boy and choose your free stock.

That's Robinhood.com slash T-B-O-Y limitation supply. Stocks are offered by Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC. Crypto offered through Robin Hood. All investments involve risk. By the way, this podcast is not owned by or part of Robin Hood and we are not employees of Robin Hood. For our third and final story, even though Jack has a violent aversion to white chocolate that we just discovered. I'm sorry, man. I didn't mean to pick on your chocolate. We have a platform here. You can do good with it, Jack.

All chocolate is good chocolate. In the meantime, away luggage is our third story because away luggage just hired a new chief marketing officer. Why did they hire her? Because she knows what their suitcases really are. Okay, if we're going to talk about suitcases, I remember from visiting you in Berlin over college that first suitcase you had. I don't think I told you what my luggage really was. What was the situation with that thing? Nick, I had two hockey bags for my study abroad. I was going to say, your luggage looked like my actual lacrosse equipment.

With no shoulder straps. My shoulders were ripping apart in the airport as I carried those two things. It was the only luggage I'd seen that was made of rubber. It was quite a schlapp. It was quite a schlapp. But Yetis, we're not talking about Jack's old college luggage. We're talking about away luggage, which is a unicorn company. Away suitcases.

That suitcase that everyone on the flight you took recently had. Away suitcases are like the unofficial sponsor of the SFO to JFK flight bath. Away luggage followed the direct-to-consumer playbook. They basically said, hey, you know what Casper mattresses did to mattresses? Let's do that for suitcases. Jack, the last time I flew from San Francisco to New York City, there was more away luggage than there were passengers. Following in Casper's footsteps, Away hit unicorn status in 2019.

They were worth $1.4 billion. Yeah, Jack and I called it a brandicorn because it was worth more than a billion dollars, but it was all about the brand. But then this whole novel coronavirus thing, shut down the airports, and Away was the hardest hit of all the private startups. Because Yetis, when you're locked down, you're not buying luggage. But plot twist, Nick. Yeah.

A few years later, Away may be the top of the private direct-to-consumer brands. Get this. Thanks to your revenge travel, Away's holiday luggage sales are at a record high. Up 60% from 2019 before the pandemic. So Jack and I jumped in T-Boy style to Away, and we started wondering, If Away is a brand-first company, then is their most important person really the CEO? No, it's not. No, it's not.

Who is it, Jack? You could argue it's the chief marketing officer. The CMO, which leads to the news about Away. Away just announced their new CMO. Carla Dunham. She controls the brand now. And this new chief marketing officer says she's going to keep paying for Away's TV and streaming commercials. She also said she's going to continue paying for TikTok influencers to show off that beautiful suitcase.

on their flight to Honolulu. But Yeties, here's the thing. The best way to understand that your 10-year-old, two-wheeled glorified duffel bag needs an upgrade, what is it, Jack? It's to see Away's four-wheel dancing suitcases in real life. Boom, which led to the surprise news. This new CMO is going to add more physical away suitcase stores.

The fact that Away is adding physical stores right now shows how far they've come from the depths of the pandemic. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddy? over at away luggage. Your product isn't a product. It's a three-dimensional billboard for the brand. Yet he's a three-dimensional billboard for the brand. That is what the new away CMO calls away's physical stores and we like that idea. If you're building a store for your physical product, you want the store to be seen too. We loved that idea about stores as 3D billboards, but honestly Jack and I

kind of want to take it a step further. It's not just away stores, away's suitcases themselves are 3D billboards. Any product can be. Away's suitcases are so recognizable, the passenger sitting across the aisle from you in 34B wants to Google. And that brand recognition that Away has, it's led to dozens of knockoff suitcase companies trying to carry on for the rest. So the way we see it, Away's success is that its suitcase isn't a suitcase. That suitcase is a three-dimensional billboard for the brand. That's why Away's new CMO is doubling down on physical marketing. Jack, can you whip up the takeaway? for us for T-Boy Tuesday. Hotel Chocolades chocolate sales are higher than ever. Stuck, the landing on

the pronunciation. The winner in a recession yetis. It isn't cheapness, its value. For our second story, like so many other leaders, Spotify hired big during the pandemic, but now it's laying people on. So don't be like so many other leaders. Be contrarian. And our third and final story is away luggage. It was grounded during the pandemic, but now it's adding physical stores again. Here's the key. Your product isn't a product. It's a three-dimensional billboard for the brand. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Nalesh Patil over in Chantilly, Virginia.

The world's largest desert. What is it, Nick? You think it's the Sahara. First thing I'm thinking to Sahara. Maybe Gobe. No, but Sahara. The top of the African continent, it's one giant stretch of sand. Now, that's what we would think.

Maybe what you would think. But technically, the largest desert on Earth, where is it, Jack? Antarctica. Yeah, because according to NASA, a desert is any... space with less than 10 inches of rain a year. Now, Antarctica is not hot, which is what you picture with deserts. True story. But it does get less than 10 inches of precipitation.

If so facto, Antarctica, the world's coldest place is actually the world's biggest desert. He must be a South Pole elf. He's an angry elf. Yeah. You'll look fantastic today. And if you haven't yet, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, you can drop down and we'd love to get one of your reviews. It's Nick's daily routine to read the reviews.

It's really fun. I wake up every day and day. And every once in a while, he sends it to me because he likes it so much. It makes me happy, and then I get really happy when I get to make Jack happy. I reply by adding one of those exclamation points, usually on the text message. We actually spend a little too much time on it, but we'd love your review either way. Yeah, I would. Yeties, Nick and I, we'll see you tomorrow.

Can't wait. And before we go, happy birthday to Chun Schlesinger-Free down in Tribe. And happy birthday. to Simone Handu in Bangkok, Thailand. And to Lauren, happy birthday. Hope you're having a fantastic celebration. And happy birthday to Felipe Crophy, who's having a birthday and expecting his third child down in Miami.

In the meantime, we better see some ring picks because Sarah Kermis and Joel Hereth just got engaged down in Austin. And Sissian, down in New York. Thank you for listening to every single episode of T-Boy in 2022. She just wrapped up the final two she missed. Predictions pod. That's a good one to finish on. That's a good one to finish on.

This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon and Nick and I both own stock of Apple, Spotify, Away, and Robin Hood. Now a word about our sponsor, Robin Hood. Jack, rule number one about a kitchen renovation, tell your friends about your kitchen renovation. We know the cabinets are expensive. Well, in the pandemic, a lot of companies renovated their businesses, focusing on apps and digital.

Robin Hood didn't have to. It was built digital from the start. Robin Hood's mobile first and intuitive design makes investments. a little easier for every stage of your investing journey. Whether you want to trade options, ETFs, or stocks through Robin Hood Financial, or buy some Bitcoin on Robin Hood Crypto, you can do all that right on the Robin Hood app.

If you're not investing on Robin Hood yet, to get started, go to robin hood.com slash T-Boy and choose your free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash TBOI. Limitations apply. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC, all investments involved risk. By the way, this podcast is not owned by or part of Robin Hood, and we are not employees of Robin Hood. Dude, you know, I take no offense when you cut my... I love when you cut my lines, by the way.

And like, don't even worry about it. Yeah, say more because I get a sick satisfaction of cutting them later.