TrueLife - Rochelle Webb: Weaving Threads of Culture into Fashion Innovation

Episode Date: October 7, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Introducing Rochelle Webb, a visionary at the intersection of technology and fashion, who is transforming the global design sector. With a diverse portfolio of fashion expressions and a penchant for wanderlust, Rochelle’s journey has led her to create Optimist Made, a platform that brings unique international narratives to American consumers. Her closet is a diary of her adventures, and now, she’s sharing the gift of unexpected opportunities with designers, stimulating economies, and making unique items accessible. As a seasoned marketer, Rochelle’s experience spans Fortune 500 companies and unicorn brands, with a notable achievement in media planning for Call of Duty’s record-breaking launch. Get ready to explore the world of innovation and international flair with Rochelle Webb!https://optimistmade.com/ One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Hears through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. I hope the sun is shining. I hope the birds are singing and the wind is at your back. I have an incredible guest for you today, an incredible show.

The one and only I would like to introduce to you, Rochelle Webb, a visionary at the intersection of technology and fashion, who is transforming the global design sector, with a diverse portfolio of fashion, expression, and a pinch it for wonderless. Rochelle's journey has led her to create Optimus Made, a platform that brings unique international narratives to American consumers. Her closet is a diary of her adventure,

and now she's sharing the gift of unexpected opportunities with designers, stimulating economies, and making unique items accessible. As a season marketer, Rochelle's experience spans Fortune 500 companies and unicorn brands, with a notable achievement in media planning for Call of Duty's record-breaking launch. Get ready to explore the world of innovation and international flair with the one-and-only. Rochelle Webb, thank you so much for being here today. You are an incredibly patient, beautiful, and amazing person. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, George. it's such a nice introduction. It's so great to be with you today. And I'm a hollow to you in Hawaii. It's an inspiring place to live. In some ways, it reminds me of some of the pictures you have. With the green foliage and just being surrounded by nature, it's really beautiful, right? It's something to be said about being inspired by that.

Yeah, Hawaii was actually one of the first markets that we entered when we launched Optimus Made. And so we spent time in both Oahu and Maui meeting with, designers in your area. So it's very near and dear to my heart. I could see that. Maybe we can speak about how your heart and your passion for fashion was shaped. How did this thing come? You have a whirlwind of experience in different corporations and business. Maybe you could speak a little bit towards that. Yeah, I'm very much of a person who's naturally walking through life as my own ethnographic study. And so I'm always looking and studying what's happening around me, how people are behaving, where things are broken, where there's opportunities. And I'm also really

into determining how to find growth and how to fix problems that need fixing. And so in my career, as a global marketer, I've tended to sit on brands that we're looking to fix a very specific problem. And during that time, I watched a lot of executives sort of fall on to this issue of not having enough data to make the decisions I need to make in real time. So they started operating very much from their gut. And that will work to a certain point. But I'm like, there's got to be a better way to do this. You know, they've got to be able to merge the two because that's the reason why we call marketing and art and a science. And so it was that journey for me that, you know, I was just hunting and gathering experiences along the way that led me to figure out that when I created

my own company, I wanted to create something that fixed all of these things that I had observed over the course of my career. And that's how often this made really came to be. I also have been very much an underdog my whole life. You know, I, you know, I don't look like the dominant culture. I always look different to people that I went to school with as a black woman and I, you know, I had to, you know, work very hard to get opportunities and to be seen and be heard. And so I always felt a little bit like I was running in mud for a long time to get opportunities, but I knew that I had to be a master networker. And I love people. So it kind of worked out for me. And in doing that, it made me realize that I wanted to make life just a little

bit easier for other people. And so part of the altruistic nature of optimists made and the work that I do comes from the fact that I just want to be helpful. I'm a nurturer. I'm an empath. And I just want, I don't want others that have a lot of talent to get lost in the shuffle. So I'm the person that's enjoying, like, looking for those people and becoming their dream catcher. So. I love it. I can see that strand of optimism meets opportunity meets, hunting and gathering. There's something to be said about people who have gone and found their way

and tried to make their way through the corporate system and found it to be so constricting and so sort of like weight on your shoulders. Like, yeah, but what about all this? This is so much better. And it sounds to me like that's maybe part of the spark that caused you to go your own way

and maybe break the shackles of the corporate structure a little bit. Absolutely. I mean, and sometimes it can be really hard to get an executive to listen to and what about this? And so you have to find a really compelling way to get them to listen. And so, yeah, my life has very much been about that.

And you sort of get creative and how you accomplish a bit of that, you know, oh, look over here, squirrel, squirrel, and so I've become pretty good at that because, and that's where my, you know, being a natural storyteller comes in. And if you look at the platform of Optimus Made, one thing that I hope comes through very clearly to people that visit the platform is the stories that are buried in there. And everything has a story from the models that are wearing the clothing to each and every product, to every designer, to the different geographies where we have infiltrated. Everything has a story, how the company was started. So as you move through the experience on the website, it's a collection of stories. And that's very much when I say wonderless, I want people to get caught up in that.

I want them to sort of disappear from their life for a moment and take an adventure somewhere. And so that's really what it's all about is really just transporting people to a new and exciting place for a moment. You do a fantastic job at it. And if we look at the Ariadne thread that runs through all the work you do, whether it's working on games and then telling stories which allow people to live their own hero's journey. and kind of find themselves to the fashion like that. That's a great way for people to begin to understand and forget about who they are. And it's almost synonymous. What a great way to wonder lust, I guess.

That's a beautiful way to describe it. Yeah, exactly. And I think where it comes through for me the most and where it's the most exciting is when I do hold pop-ups and people are able, because it's an online e-commerce platform and that's where the world is heading. We're right in the middle of digital transformation. but it's really important to stay connected to your community too. And so I do make sure that I have several pop-ups throughout the course of the year.

And I'm trying to move to the point where I can start traveling these pop-ups all over the world because I want to continue to meet more and more of my community. And when I have these pop-ups and I get to see people experience the product and firsthand watch their reaction. I don't get to see that when they're surfing the Internet and they're looking at the website. But when they're at a pop-up, I get to see their natural, authentically. reaction to all the treasures that I've brought back to them. And I get to see them, you know, very much unabandedly take risk, you know, and maybe put things on they wouldn't normally

when they're getting, you know, because it feels fun and exciting because it's a story buried in there. And oftentimes what you'll find is some customers end up buying a product because of the story, not necessarily because it's what they would normally wear every day. And when I know, when I see that happens, I know that I've done my job. And, and especially when I get, get that call after the fact of or a text or a message on my site saying like every time I wear this product, I end up telling stories about it because I get so many compliments on like how interesting it is or, you know, asking me where I got it. And I just, and that's exciting to me because the story is living on. And there's something really important about leaving a legacy

behind. And that's one of the most important things I do for these designers is I retell their stories and I make sure they're appreciated and I make sure that they're creating legacy so they're and they're seeing and they're heard, and that they have staying power. Because when you don't have a lot of resource to nurture your brand, you can't compete with these sort of big behemists that are out there that can afford to spend a lot of money telling their story over and over again. So it gets really sticky. So these smaller brands, you know, they just have to kind of like sit at the markets.

And it's a very localized experience. So I'm trying to globalize an experience for them. It's beautiful. It's hard to compete with I'm loving it. I have lots of money. Let me just throw this garbage at you over here. Exactly.

Exactly. Do you know what I love? I love this idea of like legacy, fashion, and stories. And it does seem to me that when someone from a designer with whom story they identify gets to put on an article of a clothing, it's like they get to be part of the story.

In some ways, is that what's going on? they get to be part of this emerging story. Yeah, absolutely. And it was really important to me when I launched the company to make sure that with every single product that I put on the site, that I actually rewalked them, the person through the journey of how I found the product and what the feeling was like and how I found each designer and how, you know, when I was in London, I really had to, you know, be involved with this one designer and I didn't have any British pounds on me.

And she only accepted local denomination. And I literally, the only thing I had with me was my brother and credit cards. And I knew the credit cards weren't going to work. So I literally wiped him dry of every British pound he had on me to make this deal happen. And so it's just fun stuff like that. It gets to live on as a part of the story. And I've even met strangers as a part of, and they're like, what are you doing? Because I'm like, I'm buying all of this stuff.

And they're like, what is this lady crazy lady doing? And then I explained to them that I have this company and what I do. And they're like, that's so. interesting and I'm like, well, do you want to help me source? I mean, I've literally asked perfect strangers to help me source and they become a part of the story. And so it's really, you know, I've actually, I'm launching menswear, you know, very in the next few weeks. And, you know, I know, I know kind of what works for women. I can kind of get very close to sizing for women because I'm just, I know the female body. But for men, it's a little trickier. I'm like, I don't know. Like, would

this fit, you know? And so I grabbed. random men. I'm like, can you try this on for me? I feel like it's similar to my, you know, size to my friend will. And so I'll have to try something on. And I'm like, yep, that would fit well. And so people are like, I don't understand what you're doing, but I'm going to go with it. So it's, it's a fun ride. And I get to meet a lot of interesting people along the way. Yeah, it's, there's something that shows through in what someone does when they're passionate about it. And it's, it's contagious in a way. And I think that that sort of contagion that is built in the relationships in the business is something that's transferable.

You can see it in the relationships. You can see it in the clothing. You can see it in the designer. And it's interesting to see how these real-life relationship assets or these real relationship characteristics can change into fashion. I'm like, well, this brings me to a few. I have some interesting questions about fashion that I've been dying to ask people. And so especially with what you're doing, how do you think that your approach to sustainable

fashion. Challenges conventional, conventional consumerism and materialism. Oh, well, first of all, it's all in the sourcing, right? And so that was really mission critical for me when I started the company was that it was responsible. And I'm actually a board member for the organization 1% for the planet, which is their key mission is to protect our environmental legacy and to create a more sustainable world. And so that's deeply ingrained in who I am as a person. And so I knew whatever I started had to live against that mission and that purpose. And so part of what's natural to the process is that because I'm working with very, with independent young designers, they own their supply chain.

And so I'm able to, you know, on most occasions, I'm actually meeting these designers inside of their facility, where they're actually making the product where they're cutting and sewing. And I'm actually seeing with my own eyes where the product is made. And so because of that, I'm able to make really calculated decisions about who I get involved with because I know that the items are being made responsibly. I only buy in small batches to mitigate how much waste I'm sitting on because it's my intention that every item I purchase sells through the system at some point. And so because I don't want to be, you know, filling landfills with wasted product and things like that. So I'm very specific about what I source and how much of it. And that's what's the magic, actually, behind the platform.

It kind of all works because, you know, if you look on the site and you look at different product, it'll tell you how many of those products exist, you know, on my site, which means you will be one of three people in the United States to own this product if you buy it. This is a one-of-a-kind product. You'll be the only person that owns it. So it's a bit of, you know, kind of like a founder's edition. of like, you know, you're only one of a few that have this piece. And so people love that. They love feeling unique and special, knowing that if they buy this thing, they're not going to walk into a party and three other women are going to be wearing it.

And so it kind of just, the mission of being sustainable works with the magic that is optimist made and the experience I try to create for people. But that is a very serious sort of filter that I use in terms of deciding who I want to work with, is making sure that they do have sustainable processes. They are responsible. I don't work with any products that have any sweatshops. In fact, we're in the middle of launching a private label right now where we're actually making our own product, based on insights that we've gathered over the course of our sourcing journeys. And the manufacturer I'm working with to make that product, it was the same process.

with them as well as making sure, like, are you responsible? Who's working in your factories? What are the conditions? And making sure that we are staying true to who we are as a purpose-driven company. I love it. I love it. And I think it speaks a moment ago you spoke about the power of exclusivity and how a woman can come in and be dazzling and unique and also reflect the fact that she is conscious of

society and her values in a way. And as a man, like, I never really thought about it. it from that angle. But yeah, what an incredible way for someone to make a statement about their values and who they are with fashion. What is the relationship there between, maybe you can expand on that a little bit? Yeah, I mean, inherently people want to feel special. Maybe like, you know, not everyone wants the overt attention, but they want to feel special and they want to feel seen. And, you know, some people would like to be more seen than others. You know, there's certainly a spectrum.

But at the end of the day, you know, most people just don't want to drift into the background and disappear. And so, you know, to me, I'm trying to celebrate and appreciate that side of the individual, but in the way that is most meaningful for them. Like whatever that means to you, I want to find that and connect with that. And so it's not a one-size-fits-all, which is why you'll have. see in the offering, and there's such a diverse and versatile offering to what we bring to our platform is because we want to respect all walks of life and appreciate all senses of style and all personalities and the fluidity that is human beings, right, and how they express themselves.

And the most valuable resource that we have other than time is ourselves and how we're seen in the world. And I often tell people, I'm also a professor within a university here in Los Angeles. And one of the things I tell my students is, you know, your perception is your reality, right? So how people perceive you as really, you can look at yourself in the mirror and have an opinion about yourself. And typically, people are much harder on themselves and they should be. But you need to listen to what people are telling you in the way that they see because that's the reality. That's your true mirror because when you, unless you're staying in your home 24-7, your real reflection of who you are is how you're seen as you're moving through the

world. And it's very important to, like, hear that, to be in tune with it and to reflect that and do what you can to reflect that back. If you like who that person is, and if you don't like who that person is, figure out how do I change is? How do I become more, how do I walk and step more with the person that I want to be, right? And that's when you start to sort of, like, self-identify where you want to make changes and whatnot. But typically the person, that they see in the world as they're moving through the streets is a pretty darn good person. It's much better than who you see because we're very quick to be hard on ourselves. And so, you know, I'm very, the practicality of just all of that is important to me and making

sure that I fall in line with that same sort of conviction on my platform. And so, you know, the value of people expressing themselves is very much. That's why, like, giving them stories they can hang on to and that are repeat. you know, pass and part because that's something tangible they can hold on to. And then those stories become a part of them. My stories become their stories once they purchase that product, right? And it's just, it's really heartwarming too when I hear when I'm in a room where someone's become a customer and they're talking to other people who are not yet a customer. I love how other people sell my company. And again, it goes back to what I was saying before. You know, I have

opinions of what my company is, but when I listen to someone sell my company to somebody else, that's what my company actually is. Though that's the buzz that's floating around out there about what Optimus Made is, so it's really important to me to lean into that and understand that. And a big part of our founding story was that it was important to me as a marketer to be very consumer-led with my platform. And so everything about the platform involves the consumer firsthand. The models are real people.

The models are also the people that help give me advice on what I should source more of because as they're trying things on, they're telling me that they love certain things and this thing is a tailored fit. And so it's all information for me. And while they might not realize it, it's informing what I do next, the next step that I take on the next sourcing trip. And then, you know, when I'm doing pop-ups and I'm seeing the community react to the product and when I'm on social and I'm doing social listening and I'm seeing what people are saying about the product, That's all information. And so, and that all makes me better and different or different, you know, in the future, right? Because it starts to really inform, you know, how I run the company, how I source the product, how I show up in the world. But what's really cool about that is it starts to become less and less about it being my company.

And now it's about our company. Yeah. That's what I'm striving for. I'm striving to build a company that's our company. It's the collective R. And it's the community that sits around the company that has ownership in it, too. Michelle, that's beautiful. You have a really deep drawer on the idea of behavior.

No wonder why you're so awesome. It seems to me like I'm going to take the most successful biggest companies in the world and get rid of all their garbage and does actually care about what the customer says. I'm going to build it up from here. I commend that. I see it almost fractal in a way when you're describing how an individual looks at themselves and how other people see them and you're able to take that and move it and put it into a company and allow it to build from the ground up.

That is impressive, really impressive. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of a lot going on in there. It's mind blowing it away for me just to try to process all that. Thank you for putting it out that way. What ethical considerations do you think drive your commitment to reshaping the fashion industry through the marketplace? That's a huge, that's hugely important to me, honestly.

And it's funny. I always say, you know, I actually was never a bad. baptize or anything. I don't like have ownership of any religion, but I said I tend to like follow the Catholic religion somehow. I went to a school that had a very strong Catholic lean to it, K through 12. And then I went on to a Jesuit university for undergrad. That's it. I get it. So I get it. I carry Catholic schoolgirl guilt with me everywhere I go. But what I love, and I think the reason why I've been drawn to these two Jesuit universities and What I love so much about what they do is are very heavily rooted in service.

And everything is about being in service to your community and being in service to the people around you. And how can you help? And I tend to want to default to that is how can I help, right? How can I be helpful? So when I think about my most valuable resource, which is time and my money that's going into this, I'm like, I want to use it to be helpful. And so I'm always trying to think about with everything that I design and the architecture. of the company is like what is this doing for the people around the company right and um and because of that it does make me think to myself like for the people within the organ like the people that are

immediately impacting what we do which is making and selling things um there's an ethical component to that as well and so one of the big things um so when i started the company it was like okay what am i trying to fix here and i was trying to fix the fact that as a global market or whatever I traveled around the world, I would do all my shopping on business trips versus when I was at home. Because when I was at home, I was trying to decompress and recharge from being on the road. So the last thing I wanted to do was shop. But when I was overseas, I was like, I'm never going to see this again. Or I might not see this again for a long time.

Or the next time I come back here, this thing won't be here. So I became very irrational about the things I was purchasing when I was traveling. And so that became my collection of what became my closet. And what was really, you know, as I sit here and I look at my closet and I appreciate all these cool items that I've purchased in different places around the world. What I recognized was, wow, like, people would ask me where did you get that? Where did you get that? And I would say, and they're like, why don't you ever buy something here where we can buy it too? And what I realized was that, you know, these people were being very much contained within that small high street or that small market where I ended up finding them.

and they were never going to really move beyond that. And I was like, that's what I'm fixing. I want them to move beyond that. I want their walls to get bigger. I want them to grow. And so when I decided that for myself, I started to, again, tap into the behavior. What is a day in the life of these designers, right?

And I started to ask a lot of questions as I was moving through the world in this way, as a shopper. And what I was finding out is that, you know, that people really love their products. And even they would have people all over the world coming back because someone sent them there that had visited their their part of what they were they were also very much struggling to put food on their own table. Like they had to go to this market. They had to make a certain amount of money every day. And they were living very much hand to mouth where some like to me was a massive disconnect.

If you have this kind of global appreciation for your product, then why are you struggling to survive? So there was that ethical concern built into the nature of what they do. And then I said, well, you know, has anyone tried to help you scale your business? You know, and they said, we've tried, we've tried. And people have come here and said they're going to sell our product on consignment. So we'll give them a bunch of product. They're going to put it in their store in America or whatever country they're coming from. And then they take our product and we don't see any money and we never see our product again.

And so basically they're stolen from. And so they're very reticent to want to do deals with people because they've been screwed over. in the past. And so that was really hard for me to hear because I'm thinking, here's this beautiful person with this beautiful talent. Why would someone want to take advantage of them? But I also know the reality of that is how the world works, right? Like some people are just driven by being nasty. And so that to me was the crux of the issue I was trying to solve, the problem that I was trying to solve. It was very distinct. And so I was like, okay, well, how am I going to fix this? And the way that I fix it, which might not be sexy to investors, but when they see the margins and they see

the sell through, they start to understand, like, oh, okay, there's a real business here, is I carry the risk. So I invest in these designers. I buy their product outright, and I buy it in bulk, and I bring that back because I'm trying to invest in them. I'm trying to give them the amount of business that maybe will take them a couple, few months to the make in one hour. So they can get a sense of what does that kind of scale feel like when someone just comes in and appreciates your product for what it is and kind of wipes you out of all your inventory so you can go on and continue creating because that's the thing they really want to be doing. And so I'm very much, you know, about carrying all the risk for myself.

The other part of that was that I was very clear about the fact that, you know, We were in the middle of digital transformation. A lot of things were moving to e-commerce. It got even more propelled during COVID. And so where we are now is people are conditioned to Amazon where you can order something and they can literally be on your doorstep in six hours. I mean, we've gotten that tight on the turnaround. But typically within two days, if you're a prime member,

you can have a product on your doorstep. So I was very clear in my head about what my competition was. And I knew if I did not control the whole supply chain that I wasn't going to be competitive. And this is the biggest problem with small businesses when they entered a market as biggest fashion, a category's biggest fashion, is that they don't have the operations built into their businesses to be able to deliver quickly to people. And so people are like, okay, well, I can get this thing from here, which is close enough to what I want and know that I'm going to get in a couple days or I could order this thing in A, maybe never

receive it or it's going to take me months to get it, like six weeks for it to arrive on my doorstep. So I was trying to close that gap too in the customer experience. And so all of these things combined meant that I really did need to carry the risk on behalf of these designers. And so from the ethical standpoint, that really did allow me to sleep a little bit easier at night, knowing that I was that one person that came along and didn't screw them over. And so we very much live by this idea and this mission of making sure that everyone gets taken care of. And so it's worked so far for us. And it's a really important red thread to how we work as a company.

Yeah, it's beautiful. I think, first off, thanks for doing that. I think it sets an example for other people who want to be successful. And another example that I see is you investing in relationships where people would preferably or bigger companies or other business models tend to invest in what's profitable. But what could be more profitable than investing with someone who has talent, who in the future is going to be more talented, and you're allowing that creativity and building that relationship? It's almost like relationships as currency in a way. Absolutely. I mean, I will tell people that these,

my designers are my family, you know, and they take me under their wing as much as I'm taking them under my wing. So it's a very mutually beneficial relationship. I mean, I'll never forget Sammy and Guadalajara, Mexico. You know, I had been to Mexico City and I'd obviously be into the beach cities and everything, but when I started this company, I wanted to go to the fashion capital of Mexico when we launched there. And so I went to Guadalajara, knew nothing about it other than just like some basic online research, which is typically how I enter into a new market.

I really like going in as a blank canvas and allowing myself to be painted on by everything that happens to me once I arrived there. And so Sammy from the company Takasami was my first meeting. And thank God because she and I became like sisterly from the moment that we met. She was so kind. I mean, we spent hours together to showing me everything. We went to, we were in their cut and sew area where they manufacture the product. And she took me around some of their stores in the local malls. And she was, then she introduced me to this friend of hers who has the largest tequila cat club. in the world and we did some tasting. So that was a highlight meeting of the day. We were very happy. I got to experiencing tequila with the worms in it. But again, this was all part of the story and everything. But what she did was she then said, you know, this is amazing what you're doing. And I know so many other people that could benefit from this. So she started introducing me to her friends. She told me where her most famous ramen place was, which I had one of the

best meals of my life at this little ramen restaurant that I would have never found on my own. You know, and she truly, I mean, every day she was checking in. We would meet up and the company is really her mom's company and the name comes from a combination of her mom's name and her sister's name. So it's the two sisters and the mom who all run the company together. So Takasami is a combination of all of their names. And so then she made sure that I met her mom. They took me to a fashion show that her mom was attending as a guest of honor because her mom is a very well-known person in the fashion space in Mexico. And so I really instantaneously felt like I had a built-in family in a place that I knew nothing about. And I suddenly felt very safe in this place that I was visiting as a

stranger. And so, and that's not the first time that's happened. But it's really meaningful to me. And so when people come and buy the product or ask me about product, and I'm typically always wearing something from one of my designers. And so people are like, where did you get that? And now I have an answer. I'm like, you can get one too, an optimist made. But it always comes with a deeply rooted story in the person behind the product. And so that really just elevates the piece that you're wearing.

And so it makes it feel more real, tangible. And like, people can actually see the person that they're helping when they buy the product. And so it's fun for me to have that close-knit relationship with my designers because the story just rolls off my tongue because it's real. It's authentic. It would be like talking about a family member. And so when I reflect on the last four and a half years of doing sourcing and bringing product to the people and having like this site now where we have, you know, hundreds of skews, it's, I think about all of those stories and my relationships that I built along the way. And that's really exciting. It just makes it really special.

and as something that like Etsy can't create. And that was the biggest thing that I heard, you know, when we think about your question earlier about, you know, the expression and like what makes us special and the ethical nature of like the designer relationship and my relationship as the company owner. And a lot of people said, we've tried Etsy, you know. And like this feels like the closest thing to Etsy,

but she's like, you know, but they will always tell me that, you know, they can't get any service or help when they go on Etsy as a platform. it's very much self-service. It's for makers to put their product on there. No one's really like taking ownership over their stories and helping them shape that so they can retell it in a way that's repeatable and ownable by the end user, the customer.

And so they were like, we're working with you feel so different because we feel like we're being taken care of. And that's important to me. That's the feeling I want them to walk away with. What a story of connection. And I never thought about it from this angle, but there's like a, when I think of the particular story about Mexico, I started thinking about geography and I started thinking about lessons learned. Like, what a great way for people to learn. Like, let's see if they want to learn about the fashion designer. Oh, this person's in Mexico. What part of Mexico? What kind of fabric are they using? Is it like, like, all of a sudden you start learning so much about that geographical area. How could you not have a connection to them? And it's like the people that are producing that particular garment or something. Now they're learning about the audience in another country. So it's like this beautiful geographic bridge. that's happening. Yeah, and it's pretty inherent to who I am. So a lot of people that know me

and who've experienced going to a social event with me, they're like, wow, you really go in. You really go in from hello. So I don't really know. I'm so just inherently curious about people when I meet them and I want to hear their story. And typically people want to share. No one ever ask, right? I can't tell you how many times I've gone to social. settings and I've been with a husband and wife couple and I'm meeting one of them for the first time or both of them for the first time and I'm just I start asking a ton of questions and the couple will be like I never knew that they've been married for 30 something years right I've never heard that story before I never knew that about you so they start learning all of this stuff about each other based on the

questions I'm asking and so it's like like anyone that knows me will tell you like she is not shy about asking very out there questions and going really deep, really fast with people. But I don't know. That's my way of connection. And that's where I get my fuel from. So people will say, like, you're such an extrovert. I think I'm more of an ambrivert because I do very much need to be by myself. Sometimes I need to be alone to recharge so I can rise to the occasion when I'm in public

settings. But it is, you know, if I go to a public setting and I'm just going with emotions, moving with the room. I'm not really having, I'm having surface level conversations. I get very tired, sleepy, and bored very quickly. But when I'm in a social setting and I'm having a real conversation and we're cross-exchanging information about things that have happened in our lives and we're getting very personal, then that's how I get charged up and I get excited. And then that's one of them the last person to leave the party. And people are like, Michelle, we're kicking you out. And I'm like, really? Is it a time already? You know? So I just feed off of like,

hearing other people's stories. It makes me really good at my job in terms of meeting these designers because I'm able to learn and reshare a lot of what you were just describing back to the customer as well. Yeah, there seems to be when you touch that ember that's burning inside of somebody, that passion, it's contagious and it's connecting. When we speak a connection, it makes me think of innovation. And how do you think the innovation in the fashion industry relate to progress

and its potential societal and cultural impact. Yeah, so there's a lot of innovation that's trying to happen, right? And when we go back to your question about sustainability as well, you know, there's a lot of upcycling, and that's a way of bringing community together and trying to sort of bolster connection amongst people, right? Because you're taking a product that is old that was yours and you're passing it on to somebody else to make it new for somebody else, right?

And so that's also a way of trying to fix this, like, this issue of overproducing product and whatnot. And so I think all of those things are great. But then that's where the problem solver and me as Rochelle comes into play. And I'm like, what's the real problem here? Because why are we upcycling to begin with? Why do we have this extra product that we need to give a second life to? So it's not wasted. Like, why are we doing that?

And if you really break it down, it's because we're producing too much to begin with. And that's why working with the type of designers I work with is important because they're naturally capacity constraint, right? They can only make as much as they can in the amount of hours they have in the day or their small team has in the day. So they don't have the capacity to overproduce because they're not using everything's handmade. They're not using machines. Whereas fast fashion very much uses, you know, a lot of machines to make a lot of bulk very quickly. And so that sustainable component is naturally built into the way that I do business. But then beyond that, I was like, why, like, how deep is this issue of overproduction?

So I started studying that. And what I found out is that 30% of products that are made every year are never sold. And I was like, you know, and as someone who I consider myself to be an environmentalist, that's a big problem for me. And so I'm like, that needs to be fixed. So I always knew when I started Optimus Made, there was a bigger concept behind it because really what I was trying to fix in the beginning was the story I started with was I saw all these executives sort of making decision from the gut because they weren't getting data fast enough. And that was part of what I wanted to fix with technology in the future. But then once I started the marketplace side of the business, I started to learn how broken the supply chain and production and product development is. And I actually, before I started my company, was how to roll at Quicksilver, the surfwear brand and snowware

brand and skateware brand. And I actually saw firsthand how broken the supply chain and operations issues were in the apparel industry. And so I was like, huh, I'm like, so yeah, there's this issue of people not having data fast enough, but there's also this issue of things being produced because there's not enough information there. And so I felt like I had to bring some intersectionality between the two. And that's what inspired this technology that I'm now building called Optimus Labs. And what Optimus Labs is, is that right now, the way that people are making decisions on what

they make and how much they are making is all based on statistics. So they're getting statistical data from either like Shopify, right, because their websites house on Shopify. So then Shopify has a reports tab and you can go pull, you know, how much. should I sell in this quarter? How much did I sell year over year? How much did I sell on this same day a year ago? How much, how many dresses have I sold? And it will break down in a lot of different varieties, you know, your way of selling based off of numbers. And then you have things like just counting, right? So doing basic inventory, this amount came in. And when I'm doing inventory, I see we have this amount left. And so then you figure, out that like this is how much we sold and then you put that into like an Excel spreadsheet or whatnot and then some more sophisticated companies might actually invest in programs that do this for you or have a CRM that helps you get to this information but at the end of the day this is all numbers base it's all numerical when this goes back to where we started right is that it's actually about the

behavior and if you tap into the behavior that's what's giving you the really rich data to help you understand what and how much you should actually be making. And no one is studying behavioral data to inform in a real way to form their decision on what they're making each season. So what ends up happening is you wake up and you say, huh, I really need to re-refresh my closet with some dress shirts, right? And so you're like, okay. And so you have a vision in your head of what you think looks good on you. And then you go to the store, you go online, and you're looking what's out there. And all the things are out there, this light blue shirt jumped off the racket. And you were like, I'm going to buy this.

And it fits me. And it's available in my size. And you take that home with you, right? And you wear it and you look great in it. But is that the thing you actually wanted? You know, and I think that we as customers end up settling because the thing that we actually want as customers is a thing that's not available to us. And the manufacturer will never know that because they don't have that product

available. So we all go out with a vision in our head of what we want, but then we find the thing that's closest to it. I'm not saying that people are buying a bunch of crap they don't want. I'm just saying that it's a brand's job to manufacture that they're predicting based off of statistics is going to be a hero. They get someone like me to put a bunch of marketing dollars to shove a message down people's trucks. McDonald's. You know, like, Like, you know, you know, jingle that you were singing earlier. And that sticks in your mind. And then you think to yourself, that's the thing I'm going to go by.

That's what you heard, right? Yeah. I am like, how can I stitch, how can I close that gap between getting the thing that's in people's head and getting that information to brands, they can actually manufacture something that's closer to what's in people's heads? So this technology that I'm building through after Optimus Labs does that. It does take the statistical data, operates more off of behavior.

I love it. So it sits behind e-commerce platforms and it's actually studying human behavior and how people are moving through product, what attributes they're care about, what they're hovering over, what they're clicking on. There's a subtle survey component that pops up to say, is this product perfect the way that it is?

Would you rather see this in a long sleeve? Would you rather see this in a button-up versus a crudac? Right. So that's all a way of getting information that's beyond what's on the page. And then what you can do now with AI very quickly is look for patterns. Yeah. And so you can start to find patterns because you might want it that there's probably several

other people that want the same thing you want. But there's no environment right now for you to get those thoughts out there. So a lot of people are trying, what you're seeing in fashion right now is a lot of people are trying to figure out real-time production. And they're trying to figure out how can they start to get more customized? because that's what the customer is craving. They want more of these customers. We've seen this in the sneaker industry, right?

But then they only make a small batch of this one sneaker and they cost a fortune. You're boxing a bunch of people out that can't afford that sneaker, right? And I find that to be very unfair. And so I'm like, how can we get information to brands to make them smarter and get them more predictable about what they can create at scale? So they can make more calculated decisions on what products to develop. So that's really what my technology does.

And that's where I'm trying to take the space is actually making brands smarter about what they should be manufacturing and starting. So over time, as more customers are coming in, the technology is getting smarter because it has more information to work with. And so what you hope to see in time

is that you're creating more brand loyalists because if you're using this product, then you're starting to make more products that your customers actually looking for because the technology is actually gathering behavioral data to help inform that. And then customers will stay there because they're like, this company understands me, right? Have you ever been in a conversation with a friend and you're talking about something and then

you leave that coffee chat and then you go on to Facebook because you want to see what's going on there? And then you're getting an ad for something that you were just talking about. Yeah, of course. Right. I mean, it's very similar, you know, that what they're doing there is they're listening and then serving you an ad experience that matches the conversation that you were having. having to make your ad experience super relevant.

Now, I'm like digging out a level deeper and doing that with data and how people manufacture product. So I love it, Michelle. You know what would be fascinating? Like if they're already listening and maybe your product already does this, but what about speech patterns? I believe you could have a conversation with someone and talk to them for 40 minutes. And if they said the color blue five times, they probably like something blue. They say the word tight, but you can learn a lot from a conversation about how people see

themselves and see themselves in the world. I bet you they could translate into garments. And especially for you, someone who can see the inherent talent in a fashion designer can obviously pick out the words of what someone is thinking about with the behavior mixed behind it. That's a fascinating concept. Talk about customizable. Like, boom, here's this thing you love.

How did you do that? Right, right. Because the thing is, is that the thing that people's wants and desires are buried in their unconsciousness, right? Yeah. And so it's like, and so you just have to be perceptive enough to know how to listen for that. But, you know, and you always find when you ask someone to a direct question, like, they'll give you an answer, but they have to really think about it. And then you're like,

okay, how much of that answer was manufactured? The real richness and, like, information comes from natural conversation as you're talking about. Yeah. So it's looking for those patterns and things are just happening naturally. And that's what this product is all about. It's grabbing patterns amongst natural behaviors and not manufactured behavior. So you're right on. You You are right on. You know what? What else is fascinating to is like the psychological breakdown of a person in the clothes they wear.

Like you can probably tell a lot about the way someone feels about themselves on a certain day or if you look at their wardrobe, it speaks volumes of them, right? Absolutely. 100%. I mean, that's your one way that you get, even if you wear literally white t-shirt and jeans every day, that is your way of expressing yourself. Like that's me. I mean, Steve Jobs is.

iconic for his black turtleneck, right? He always wore that in jeans. Like, you know, but he's known for it. And actually has become, you know, Elizabeth Holmes, a little controversial. He aspired so much to be like him, that she started doing the same thing. I mean, that is a, it is a look. It's an expression. Even though some people might consider it basic, it's still a way of expressing yourself.

And so I absolutely think that I wholeheartedly agree with that. It's like, you know, that getting to the way that people need and want to express themselves is so important. And that means something different to everybody. But I think you'll find there's more people in common with how you express yourself than not in common with you. And, you know, those just might not be the people you're surrounded by. But when a company like mine can gather information from a whole lot of people, suddenly you start to see how small the world starts to be. become, right? And it's great for companies because when you're able to deliver information that's couched in behavioral data in that way, then you're actually making them more profitable because

they're starting to make product that resonates more with their customer, right? So they're going to be willing to pay more for it. Yeah. Because they're like, this is exactly what I want. It's the same way that when I was traveling overseas and I would see something. I'm like, I have to have that because I don't know when I'm coming back here. When I come back here, they're probably not going to have that in the window. So I need to buy it now. I'm very irrational. I probably pay a lot more for that product because of that whole environment of what's happening to me in that moment and that it feels out of reach. If I don't buy it right then and now, then I would if I saw that product in a Target or Bloomingdale's or a Fred Siegel here where I know I can just, if I see it one day, I can go back the next and it will probably still be there.

So there's an irrationality of scarcity and something being gone that people will pay a price for, right? And so when people feel like, oh, wow, you have product that's really like fits me, they're going to pay more for that. So as a company, and then also you will find you'll have to make less skews because you'll be more precise about what people want. You'll have more information. So then you're reducing your waste. So you're not wasting money and wasting product. you're able to charge more for the product you're selling because it's exactly what people want and it starts to feel more custom. And because you're not having to make as much product, you're not having to put as much overhead on the table in order to carry the company.

So having a product like this is a win, win, win for a company because it's just literally making them more efficient and more profitable just by arming themselves the power of data. Yeah. It's beautiful. I think it speaks to this idea, too, when we start talking about scarcity in a way. But I think there's a positive, I think that there's a positive attribute to scarcity that no one's talking about. And it has to do with language. The same way a letter makes up a word, a word makes up a sentence, a sentence makes up a paragraph, a paragraph makes up a story, a story makes up multiple books. The same way one article of clothing begins to make up a suit, a suit makes up a collection. And all of a sudden, you're building this language to people.

And what sounds to me, what you're doing is you're creating a language that identifies with the customer that speaks to who they are versus I want to make money. Like, that's such a better language. Like, I love that. It's a beautiful way to do it. Yeah, absolutely. You're spot on with that. And that's because that's what's important to me.

Yes. You know, the bottom line, of course, is important, right? but she was not the only thing. And I, you know, and I would tell an investor, like, of course I'm going to, I want you, I'm going to return your money at a multiple because like, why else, you know, would I be asking you for your money if I couldn't, didn't think I could do that? But at the end of the day, like, for me, it is really about providing an experience that people actually want.

And when you, right, it goes back to something you said earlier. It's like when you're doing things you love, like, you know, and a lot of, you hear this in life, it basically doesn't feel like work, right? And so it's like when you're feeding the customer in a way they want to be fed, you'll find money comes easier that way than you have to need to work so hard to manufacture it. Because if you really get behind what goes into getting a product to market and getting people to buy it, there's a lot of like guesswork that goes into that and a lot of money and a lot of waste because you, you test and learn in certain areas and it doesn't work.

like, oh, well, but if you're a big company, it's kind of like a rounding air, it gets absorbed somewhere else because you end up making money over here. And so you're able to make those sort of risk of the stage. I can't afford those risks the stage I'm in. So because I'm operating out of a place of scarcity and just like everything matters to me so much, I'm very much more, I'm a lot more conscientious about the decisions I'm making and how I'm making them because I have to be. And the other thing that's important to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, know about this technology that I'm building is that I think that what we end up seeing is that people start companies and they just immediately want to go feed these enterprise level

companies because they're like, if I just get a few of them, I'll be wildly successful. And that's great, but people forget about the small companies. And small to medium sized businesses make up 85% of our GDP. Enterprise level companies make up 15%. So I'm like, okay, you guys keep going after that. I'm going to go for small and medium-sized businesses because, again, it goes back to the altruism of serving the have-nots and the underdogs, because that's where I come from. And I want to make their lives easier. So every decision I make about my company is like that functions built into it.

And so when I thought about building this technology, I wanted to build it like easy and intuitively enough where any business of any size could pop it right onto their e-commerce platform and see the immediate benefits. of what this product can do for you. So I'm really building it for those smaller companies, not the larger companies, but the larger companies can use it. And so I'd like to say that I'm the Shopify of product developments. Because when Shopify came on the scene, it cost $25,000 to $50,000 to build a website. So it was very inaccessible to people to build websites

because it costs so much money to build a website. And then Shopify came along, and they found some developers who were able to code an experience where you could drag and drop pictures, into the right places. There were templates already set up for you. You type the copy in, and it tells you exactly what copy needs to be typed in there,

and boom, you have a website in five minutes. And so now we're seeing this huge, when you think about digital transformation, we're seeing all this e-commerce. The growth in e-commerce has been stratospheric over the years, over the past 10 years, because of Shopify. They have enabled any company of any size

to be able to build a platform. And what you've also seen is, like large companies have now seen the utility in this. So companies like Zara, like huge companies, they use Shopify. So you will get the large players anyway if you build something that works well, right? And when you see a lot of people that when that, when they're using a product and it's working for them, these larger companies are not dummies. Like they're like, oh, we need to be competitive. We want in to like put me in coach. And so I, to, me, it's just, it's exactly the way it should work. And it just so happens that like, it allows me to, like, give something to the companies that really aren't used to being catered to. And that's really important to me. Because I wish there were more resources out there for me that were readily available. But it seems like you have to be at a certain point. But you can, before you can afford those luxuries. And I don't think it should be that way. Yeah. I couldn't agree anymore. There's nothing more beautiful than a rose in the desert. A rose in the desert is worth a million roses in a garden. Yeah. And there's so many out there. And there's so many out there.

There's so many waiting to be discovered. And I think it speaks volumes of where you came from and who you are expressing the work you're doing. I love that. Thank you for finding the others, if that makes sense. You know what I mean? It's a beautiful thing. And we need more of it. Rochelle, this is an amazing conversation.

And I want to be mindful of your time. And I'm so thankful for everything that you've given to myself in the audience today. I know we're coming up on this. But before I let you go, what do you have coming up? Where can people find you? And what are you excited about? Yes. So coming up, I have a lot. So I launched my private label about a year ago. We rolled off two custom candles that we generated feedback from our community. And we built two cents for these two candles that we rolled off the line that are Optimus Made owned.

And now the next thing that we're launching is an athleisure collection. So we're doing a yoga pantom jogger that were custom made. with the data from our customers and what they were looking for, and then put together by myself, working with some people who are influencers in the movement space to see what they like and didn't like and building that into the design. And those are actually being shipped as we speak

so that we can get those launch. And then we're building a whole capsule collection around it, so his and hers hoodie and a duffel bag. And what's really cool about it is we're collaborating with this amazing artist called Ali Sabat. And he has this really interesting way of approaching art. And it's just very visually interesting. And so he's going to be doing, I'm collaborating with him

and another one of my friends in the movement space, Natasha Needles, who owns a local yoga studio here in Hermosa Beach called Soho Yoga. And together as a collective, the three of us are designing what the look and feel of this athleisure collection should look like. And so we're in the design process right now. With that, everything will be getting printed in the next few weeks. And then we're having a big release party for it on November 4th, locally here in Hermosa Beach, but then it'll also be available online for purchase as well. So I'm really excited to see the growth of our private label. And also to know, the reason that private label exists is to help prove out the

the reason why this technology on building exists. So we're using data to inform the products that roll off of this private label. So these will be the first two products that are truly fully informed by customer data, which is really exciting. And then we have a couple other pop-ups after that. So we have another one at Soho Yoga on December 9th. And then we have another holiday market, which is going to be in combination with a bunch of other makers.

on December 17th. And so that'll be the close out of our live experiences for the year. And then you'll see a lot of new product from our sourcing trips over the summer in Spain coming to markets very soon. And then like I said, menswear will be launching in the next few weeks as well. So lots of stuff coming up. And you can find all of it at www. dot optimist, like optimistic, made, M-A-D-E.com. So www.w.w.com.

We're on all the socials at OptimistMade. And you can get the full online experience there. You can talk to us. Please talk to us. Again, we're very consumer-led, so we'd love to hear from you. And I'm just really excited about where we are as a company. Like this, my full vision is starting to come to life right now. You know, I was staging it out.

And so we were going through our acts. So we've sort of been through Act 1, 2, and 3. Now we're in Act 4, and it's sort of the big ta-da, of the vision that I have in my head. So I'm fundraising right now, and I'm super, super excited to see where the company is going to go from here because this is where I expected to really take off. And so I'm just holding on,

but I'm ready to be taken anywhere the world's ready to take me. So I'm excited. I'm excited for you. It's so fascinating to see the world of AI uses a tool to create consumer and behavior and create products like that. And if past relevant behavior is the best predictor of future behavior,

I can't wait to see Optimus Made Explode. You guys are doing amazing things over there. Thank you. Gentlemen, please go down and check out all the show notes. Check out everything. Check out the pop-ups. Check out. Be the first person to go wherever you're listening to know.

Be the first person in your community to start wearing this because it's going to blow up and there's such a great story behind it. Be part of that story. So ladies and gentlemen, go check out to show notes. Check out, Rachel, reach out to them. Their customer, love, that's all we got for today. Hold on briefly afterwards, Michelle, I'll talk to you briefly after us.

I'm going to hang up with our friends. That's all I got, ladies and gentlemen, Aloha.