Y Combinator Startup Podcast - #52 - Making Physical Retail as Easy as Opening an Online Store - Ali Kriegsman and Alana Branston of Bulletin

Episode Date: December 8, 2017

Ali Kriegsman and Alana Branston are the founders of Bulletin.Bulletin is a platform that allows brands to share the cost of a physical store.They currently have two locations, one in SoHo and one in Williamsburg and there are more to come.Ali and Alana went through YC Fellowship and then the winter 2017 batch.The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon.

Hey, how's it going? This is Craig Cannon, and you're listening to Y Combinators podcast. Today's episode is with Ali Kriegman and Alana Branson. They're the founders of Bulletin, which is a platform that allows brands to share the cost of a physical store. They currently have two locations, one in Soho and the other in Williamsburg, and there are more coming. So Ali and Alana went through the YC Fellowship program, and then they later went through the winter 2017 batch YC. We ended up meeting up in New York to talk about what they're working on. All right, here we go. There were a bunch of questions about you guys kind of like pre-YC.

And I think maybe the easiest way to do this is like flow through from there. So like before you guys were in YC and then fellowship and then core and then now. So going all the way back, Phil Thomas asked, what did you learn from the fellowship and that you applied during the main YC core program? Yeah, I think so we did the fellowship in winter of 2016 when Kevin Hale was running it. And so I think for us, YC Fellowship was all about, like, figuring out product market fit and, like, figuring out what we were, because we didn't know. When we got in, we were basically, the concept was this, like, cooler curated Etsy. So everything was online.

We would find these cool emerging brands, sell their product online and, like, have, like, a content element to it. And so it wasn't really working. We had, like, some brands selling with us, but there was, like, clear problems. And so I feel like fellowship for us was about like acknowledging that like this wasn't working. Yeah. And like really. Kevin actually, Kevin like really.

Kevin's good for that. Yeah. Yeah. He really is. Yeah. So acknowledging that wasn't working. And then it's almost kind of gave us permission to just totally tear that down and try a million other things.

I think before we kind of got into YC and just got into that whole mentality, we were like, this is our company and this is what we're doing. And we're going to just keep doing this. until it works. And I feel like Kevin and like the program in general basically allowed us to be like, okay, this isn't working. Let's try like literally 15 other concepts and see and get something with some momentum and go

with that. And so I feel like we basically used, I think it was two months that program and we were just ran like experiments every week. So we're like, okay, what if we and most of them were ridiculous? What was the worst one? Okay. There were so many bad ones. The worst one was.

was so we were selling all of this beautiful dishware and like whole decor on our site and Kevin was like why don't you go to restaurants

and see if they need help designing their stores and like if they need like a programmatic like interior design solution or like a way to replenish like forks and knives and stuff so we spent the entire day

the two of us, like bopping around to different Brooklyn restaurants and being like, how do you like find your mugs? And this is like a business where they have like razor thin margins. We're like, what do you think about like if everything was handmade and like way more expensive and like probably breaks more often? They were like, no, we would never use this. Yeah. And we also knew nothing about the restaurant industry.

And like there are programs that they, some guy pulled out his phone and was like, here's an app where I can order like 800 lines. on demand if I need it. Like this has been figured out already and we're like, okay. Okay. We're not going to do this. Yeah. Yeah.

So that was definitely the worst, the worst one and the funniest one. Funny. And then like, so by the time you started working on your product as it is now, that was before YC core, right? That's what you applied with. Well, there was a whole like chunk of time after YC fellowship where we had realized that this editorial magazine model wasn't working. We, in the spirit of YC, asked our users. So we asked all of the brands that sold on our platform what they wanted. And it turned out that they actually needed

more help selling offline than they did selling online. So they weren't really looking for another like multi-vender online marketplace or another Etsy or anything of that nature. A lot of them made boatloads of money doing like craft fairs and selling in retail environments or doing pop-ups or markets. And so what we did was we listened to that and we said, okay, what if we basically just started doing this as many times as we can, as frequently as we can, as inexpensively as we can, just to see if there's a there there. So I'll let Alana take over how we found our 18,000 square foot parking lot. But we basically, we ran outdoor pop-ups, pitch tents in Rainer Shine,

in this almost 20,000 square foot parking lot in Williamsburg for six consecutive months. Yeah, it's the worst. The idea was that we wanted to test this concept without spending a lot of money. And that's kind of what we did from the beginning. And so we were just looking for the cheapest possible space to run these things. And it works the same way it works now. Like the brands would pay a weekend fee. come up. They'd come up in person and sell their product. And so we looked everywhere. And the first

place we ran it was at a bar. There was like a bar with like a big courtyard. And so these brands, we had like 40 brands a weekend on a good weekend. And they'd pay like about $300 a weekend. And that would give them a table and a chair that we provided. It's like very luxury. And they would basically come and like set up their product like a little booth. And we would just like run a market for Saturday and Sunday. So our weekend. and our lot like it was just this is all we would do and so we did it at this courtyard and then we wanted a bigger space so I found this like massive like overgrown it looked like like a toxic wasteland parking lot like it was totally overgrown it's it's like this asphalt parking lot

sitting on top of a swamp oh perfect it's like prima it's like you cannot develop on this property yeah oh god okay but it was a very good location it was like in Williamsburg in Brooklyn right off the subway stop. And so we just called like the phone number on the parking lot like gate. Yeah. And so they, we made a deal with them. We got it for super cheap where we could use it every weekend. And yeah, we ran it from like April of 2016 till the end of October that year. And it was a total nightmare because we were outdoors. It was like rain. It would be like the middle of July in New York City and like really hot. Brands would just like text us and be like, it's a hundred degrees. We're not coming. Oh, really?

Yeah. Just because it would be so hot and it would be like to stand outside is probably like inhumane. Like it was crazy. There were a few weekends that were inhumane. Yeah. But the good thing was that we were like starting to actually make money and the brands are making money and we were like starting to prove out the model and we could see like, okay, we now know like we've proven that like brands want to sell in person.

They'll pay to sell in person. There's definitely this like lack of, you know, easy to access physical space. And yeah, I feel like we were able to like prove that that summer. Okay. And then so at what point did you decide like, all right, let's do YC? So at the end of October, we were like, this is crazy. Like we can't do these markets anymore. And so we started, we were like what would be like a more long term solution.

And so we started looking at actual physical retail spaces like normal inside. Like not swamps. Yeah, I remember. No swamps. And so we found a store, which we. We still have now. It's like a great store in Williamsburg. And we basically moved to the same model, this like membership-based model to the store. And so the brands would pay this monthly fee. They'd get access to space. But the store was totally run by us. So they didn't have to show up and it allowed us to like work with larger brands. And so we really felt like that model was working even better. And like we were onto something bigger or like this isn't just going to be like another like we booked it out in less than two weeks. It was crazy. Yeah.

Like we had, I want to say, like, 35 brands paying the membership fee within 12 days of announcing that the store was going to open. Wow. And so these are all people that were doing the parking lot version? Some of them were, and then some of them were brand. A lot of the parking lot of people were like, peace. Yeah. You're like, I don't want to ever see you again.

No, some of them were from the parking lot. Yeah. There are a lot of friends that have stuck with us, like, from the very beginning. Which is amazing. That's cool. Yeah. But mostly it was new brands. Mostly new brands.

Because it was kind of open the door to other types of slightly larger brands that maybe wouldn't sell in a parking lot all weekend, but they're not carried in Sephora all over the world yet. So to put a finer point on that, Brian Chappell asked, how did you actually find your first customers? So you filled it quickly, but how did they even find out about you? So to answer that, I'd say when we launched the digital, like shoppable magazine version of bulletin, we would just reach out to brands that we loved and be like, can we do a

profile on you and a long interview and original photography and make this beautiful page for you? And they'd be like, yes. So we would do that. They would see zero sales on our website, but so pretty. But it was really like no one had anything to lose in this situation. And so through just maintaining those relationships and then eventually moving into the market model, we reached out to those brands that had been on the editorial site, they, you know, said, oh, I know these two girls that I worked with on this previous iteration of a company would recommend other brands to do the parking lot. And it was honestly, we always had a great referral number. And I think that that was how. And I think with opening the store, it was basically tapping the network of

brands that had been doing the pop-up. And then, you know, creating a nice little email and sending that to brands on other e-commerce sites that we thought might want to sell in person. We obviously looked at New York now, Renegade other sites that did this like IRL sales thing that we were trying and just always had very, I would say, like very successful outreach with potential customers. And we still do. Yeah. And what was your, what was your strategy around pricing? Like, how did you that out once you open the store. As far as the membership fee and everything. Yeah.

I think we had an idea of what brands were willing to pay from the markets. Like we could look at an existing market and see like, okay, this one is a massive one and they were charging $1,000 a weekend. And so we started very low. And yeah, I think we had an idea of what they would pay from that and then move that over to the store. But like even now we keep that number like very accessible for brands. Like we like the idea of, you know, brands that are emerging to be able to partake in this.

And you get like a very, a wider range of brands that would sell in the space, which is kind of cool. Okay. Because, yeah, I mean, like, what kind of scale are we talking about? Like, what are, do you, do you even know the annual revenue numbers of a lot of these brands? Of the brands. Yeah. I would say on the smaller end, you have brands that have literally just started, like they maybe sell their products on Instagram. And like they probably couldn't even tell you what the number is revenue wise.

which I think is kind of cool to have like a certain percentage of the products in the store be like this very homespun vibe. But there's, I mean, we have brands that sell in Sephora. We have brands that are like big brands that are doing, or I wouldn't say big brands, but maybe they're doing like 10 million a year in revenue. Okay. So they're still, you know, out there building their brand, but like they have manufacturing figured out and distribution and yeah, just like a much more established brand.

Okay, got you. So Adora had a question for you about store expense. Was she one of your group partners? Yes. Her fellowship and core. Oh, okay. She's been there from the beginning. OG.

She asked you about a couple things, but one of which was store expansion. So for you guys, like, how do you think about opening up new spaces? How do you find them? Do you think it will work in every city? What are your thoughts? Yeah, for us, so we have started in New York City, obviously. We have two stores here. We'll be doing one more.

store in about a month. We'll have three stores for 2017. And yeah, I think we, it's tempting to want to just do this very quickly. We have so much demand from these brands that want to get into spaces. It is expensive to open a store. Like there's like real cost behind all of this, obviously. So definitely trying to be careful there. But I think now that we have these two successful stores, we'll, you know, have the third opening soon. It gets easier for us to like look at the data to understand like what's performing, what products are performing, what neighborhoods work best for us. And I feel like even now, like, we have such a good idea of like what a successful store looks like as far as square footage, as far as location, the types of neighborhoods.

So we're getting smarter about it. And I think as the company grows, it's easier for us to actually look at things like customer data to understand like what the next city is. So like we have our online business still, like understanding where those. customers are from helps us decide like okay maybe LA is the next place that we're going and yeah just be smarter about it not go crazy yeah I will say when it comes to how we pick actual stores and the availability of stores um real estate is in crisis right now um in particular retail real estate and I mean you can speak more to it but we don't really have a dearth of real estate um people like reaching out to us to have us help them make their spaces successful.

Yeah. Which is really exciting that, you know, both ends of the marketplace when it comes to having a wait list in Williamsburg and in Olita for our two stores and then also having this like pool of, you know, real estate folks that want us to open bulletin spaces for them and with them. It's, it's really exciting. Okay. So can you contextualize that a little? little bit for people because I don't think it's totally obvious like even in I'm trying to think like maybe it was in Carroll Gardens where there's just like strips on like on main drags of like stores

just vacant. How did that happen and like how are you guys making money off of that opportunity? I mean it's good for our business but I think yeah I think everything started to change a little bit as like people's shopping behavior has changed. I think like Amazon definitely plays a role in it. I don't think it's the entire reason that everything has changed so much. I think people have less of a reason to go to the store for their normal, like, just utility kind of purchase. And so I think those traditional retail stores do, like, get hit because of that. And then for us, it does turn into an opportunity because I think all of these property owners or brokers, they'll cut deals with us that we would have never gotten nine months ago.

Like, if we want to do, you know, a short-term license. agreement and test out a location and do it at a discount with like the option to renew. Like there's just so much that we can do now because of what's happening. What's happening meaning like a single store is just way too expensive? Yeah. It's there's basically a mismatch between the cost of real estate and like how much it traditionally costs a brand to take on a lease. Also restrictions around how long that lease should be, you know, brokers and property

owners want five to 10 year leases. They want long-term leases. But for brands, you can see by all of the like hundreds and hundreds of brick and mortar, thousands of brick and mortar stores belonging to big brands that have closed this year alone, that they're not like the store is not their profit center anymore. And so it just, it, it surely does not make sense to like throw tens and tens and thousands of dollars behind a lease every month and, you know, do build out and staff and make. maintain it when there's, you know, who's to say that that will actually yield crazy revenue for them. Right. I think it's, it's not obvious if you live in a big city. Yeah. Like, what are you talking about? Like all these stores are opening up everywhere. And in reality, most of them

aren't even making money. They just look cool to be in Soho. Well, there's been a crazy spike this year. I just read a report in how many stores are opening. Like, there are a lot of brick and mortar stores opening. But I think that's only possible because real estate, um, players are realizing that the terms that they've set for their inventory to date is just not going to fly anymore. I feel like a lot of it comes down to like what the, what brands are using the stores for now. I think is like what has really changed. So rather than it being like, you know, kind of an old school retail brand signing a 10 year lease and being like, we want our customers to come here and like buy product, I think you see a lot of these like newer players

and direct to consumer startups that are using it. as more of a marketing channel or as a way to interact in person with this massive digital audience that they've grown. And so in those scenarios, like, it doesn't make sense for them to sign a 10-year lease. Like, that doesn't, like, if you are comparing it to, like, a Facebook ad or, like, some other kind of marketing, you wouldn't buy, like, a 10-year Facebook ad or something. Like, you would, it makes more sense for it to be targeted and short-term and something that is experiential and more on the marketing side than, like, yeah, like, your major profit.

But real estate. hasn't caught up to that yet. Yeah. Yeah. It's a problem. Yeah. Are they catching up to you? Like, are you guys this like arbitrage right now until the market changes or is this always

going to be an opportunity? I think that you'll see a lot of these direct-to-consumer startups, especially the ones that have been around longer and you already see people like, were we doing this where they have like more traditional longer-term leases and I think that totally makes sense for them. But I think you'll see a mix of both. I think, like, it's nice for the customer to have this kind of influx of rotating stores and experiences. But I think for, I think for, like, the smart direct-to-consumer startups that, like, nail the experience and nail, like, the purpose of their store, it, like, you can kind of move into a long-term lease. And that's actually, like, what we're starting to do with our business.

Like, we started off with these six-month license agreements where we would test out a space. and in our Williamsburg store and our Nolita store, it works well for us. We've kind of nailed the experience, and so now we've moved to long-term leases there. Wow. Yeah. And so, like, we have, like, much more reliable supply

or we can book out brands like months in advance and not be kind of, like, shuffling all over New York, which is like, which is not. Pack your bags. We're going to. Yeah. Yeah. We don't want to be there.

Too bad. Yeah. Do you guys have, did you have to get, fancy with your fundraising because this is kind of non-traditional right like having all these leases and stuff is it different than a normal startup raising money um i think for this stage it didn't seem to be too different i think we definitely you know ran into a lot of questions about like this is like a physical like physical thing and a real estate thing like there's a lot of questions obviously um but i think we had enough traction and data to show that like okay the unit economics

of this shared retail space works and that it is very scalable because of the membership model. But yeah, I think anytime you're dealing with real estate or anything. I think we work definitely paved the way. I feel like we work with their co-working model. Granted, you know, their light years ahead of where we are and it will take some time to get there. But I think that, you know, given how well they're doing and their evaluation and just how

how prolific they are and how many spaces they open up. It's like, oh, okay, physical space isn't necessarily like the scary devil, like, end all of, it's not going to kill us. So, yeah, luckily we had them as a roadmap. So speaking of killing, Adora, Adora asked why did old department stores, like, just die off? Like, what's your thought? So many reasons. I think it's a few different things. And Alana kind of touched on this the way that the Internet has just.

changed how we shop. The internet will win at a series of things that stores will always fail at. With the internet, you can get anything you need immediately. There's a wide selection. You can toggle for a specific price in a specific location, a certain delivery date. I think with department stores, that's what they still do. It's like when you walk into a department store, it's just like a massive empty space with a ton of different product categories. it's not tailored to a specific customer. There's no like experiential or discovery element. And it all just seems kind of ad hoc.

There's like kitchen wear with like maternity clothes, with baby clothes, with like fancy handbags. It's just like this never ending. Yeah. And it's like if I wanted to explore product like that, like if that's where my head's at, I'm just going to go on Amazon or I'll go on the internet or I'll go on Bloomingdale's.com. I'm not going to like physically show up. So I think department stores have failed because the things that they're good at or the things that the internet is good at and the internet will just always win because it's right at your fingertips. I think the other thing that department stores aren't good at is just product selection and, you know, replenishing the store with fresh new product.

They can't be super reactive. Oftentimes they're buying a ton of product up front. They're doing like crazy flash sales to offload products so that they can make, way for new product, but that just seems to cheapen the entire department store experience. So I feel like they're just kind of stuck in this weird middle ground where the things that they're doing to try to improve or actually hurting them in a lot of instances. I don't know if you'd add anything to that. I think in a lot of cases, too, they have these massive footprints and these stores have been

around for like a long time. So it's no easy task to be like, oh, let's just renovate, you know, hundreds of stores across the country that are. massive, like they're in a very difficult position. Where, yeah, innovating is not easy. Yeah, for them. And we're obviously at an advantage of people very new at having like two small stores, but I think for us, like, we're able to see like, okay, we know that like we can

compete with Amazon and like the internet with experience and with these stores that are experienced driven and that are like, you know, built around a certain community. And so like being able to start from that point and build from there, it makes it a lot easier for us to do that. Yeah, obviously. So there's the one advantage. It's heavily curated, right? Like, you're definitely picking people, picking vendors, rather.

So how are you deciding, like, what goes in a store? So Mike Malcow, I mispronounce everyone's name, and I say it on every pocket. Sorry, Mike. It's okay. How do you know what users want at these stores? It's, honestly, it's a ton of data feeding into our selection process. So we look at Instagram. We look at the posts that are performing well, not only on our Instagram, but like what is going on in the zeitgeist of Instagram right now?

Like what is our customer looking at? What is she liking? What is she engaging with? So even just there, so you've segmented to female buyers at this point in time, yes, for both of our stores. We obviously look at sales. Like we, this, this like successful store didn't crop out of nowhere. Like, as we've told you, we had markets that sold product. We had this initial version of the store before we turned it into this editorial theme that

sold product. Like, we have three years of data around things that have definitely not performed well. And then the things that have done pretty well. So that information has been really helpful. And then Maggie, who I mentioned earlier, basically goes through all that data and looks at the brands that are applying to sell with us. And she says, okay, this brand is great. like these are the five products that will perform best or like we're really low on this product

category. I think it should be this aesthetic over this one because last month like this crafty look like didn't do well across five different product categories. So it's very there is like a lot of data being fed into the decisions but we always have like our own human touch on what we think. We in ways we are our customer. So it's like not like what do we like. But we, you know, it's a little bit of our taste thrown thrown in. Was there something that you both love? and didn't do well at all. A product? Yeah.

I'm sure. Oh, yes. I can think of something. So I was in L.A. for a period of time in 2015 during our editorial version of and there's this amazing, amazing designer. His name is Andrew Hahn. First name Andrew spelled normal. Han spelled H-A-A-N.

He does these instances. He does these insane, beautiful, hand-drawn geometric prints on graph paper. And I did this whole photo shoot with him, this long interview. He's like the kindest, most lovely, unbelievable man in the universe. And we put his stuff, his work in our Williamsburg store. And I think he's so, and granted, they're expensive. They take a lot of time. They're around like, like, 125 to 200.

$150 depending on the print. And he sold two and like that was that. And that was just kind of us like loving him and loving, knowing how much labor went into these prints and like how detailed they were. And we thought they were absolutely stunning and they just didn't perform. But has art performed well in the past? Prince do well. Yeah.

I think what we've learned with both of the stores and just in general is these like the lower price point products work for us. And so we've. kind of made the entire vibe of the store, this very, like, accessible price point. Like less than $100 type stuff? Yeah. Even, and then like our average order value right now is like $40. And so I think it's, it adds to the experience of it where like anyone that walks in can buy something. It's not this like exclusive and accessible place. We were just looking around being like, cool, I literally can't do anything in here. And so yeah, I think everyone,

it kind of like puts a smile in it ruins face. Yeah. And knowing who our customer is and what her disposable income looks like based on our information. It's like, you know, I don't think there's a world in which at this point we'd ever create a store like that because that's just not, she, she can't shop with us if we do that. That's funny. Okay. So going back to applying for YC, both of you are non-technical. Is that accurate? Okay. What is your advice? So Deepak asked, what's your advice for non-technical founders applying to YC? I would say, I mean, for us, So we applied three times. So we applied for fellowship.

We applied a middle time where we didn't get in because we had just pivoted to the market thing. And then we applied the third time and finally got in. But I think to be able to one be persistent and keep applying. But I think for us, we were able to show a lot of traction every like six months when we were applying. Like even when we started, like Ali and I were still working at our old job. But like we had built all this stuff and built this whole like editorial site. The second time we applied, like, we had this whole new model and we had like revenue and it was like, it was, yes, we had just pivoted, but like we had done a lot in a short period of time. And then I think the third time, the big difference was we had a ton of traction.

We had been working on it for over a year. And I think we were finally able to make the argument that like this is very scalable. And then for the non-technical side to be able to like really explain and like explain confidently that we didn't actually. need that at this stage of the business. So I think obviously, like, you know, most YC companies, like, have a technical co-founder and that's, like, a massive part of their business. I think for us at that stage, like, we were really able to explain why we, like, weren't really at the stage just yet where we needed it. And I think we were approaching the stage where we were going to need it. And now we have a bunch of remote developers that are releasing,

kind of building everything for us. But, yeah, I think we were just able to, to really show that like for this stage of the business, like we're okay without a technical co-founder. Same advice for you, Ellie. Yeah, I would say the same thing. I think definitely speaking confidently to why you don't need that person. I mean, I think something that we always really emphasized was like we were cobbling together like preexisting platforms that did what we needed at the time. Yeah.

So for us, it's like we're focused on building a profitable business and why should we spend time building a technology when we don't even know what it needs to look like yet. We clearly, from telling you our story, we had no idea what we were building. And thank God we didn't build anything because it would have taken a ton of time and a ton of money. And Alana and I both from the get-go, we're like, we want to create something that from day one, someone is handing us money to give to them. Like, we want to create a service.

We want to create a product that we know people need from the start and then refine the service and the product around that customer. So now we're building this platform after learning for the past two years, like, what tech do we need to do, like, retail as a service in this way? Like, how will our customers work with us, like, more easily and more efficiently through this technology? Like, what do the elements actually have to be? Right. I guess the advice I'd give would be, I mean, if you're building a, if you're building, like, a very, if you're building software, like, get a technical co-founder. Like, you know, it's really important to have someone by your side to go through the ups and downs.

And if the product is going to be tech from the start, like, I don't really know why you would outsource that. But otherwise, if you're doing something unconventional like us, we were doing like a retail real estate business, you know, just really go in there ready to explain why it's, you know, the tech isn't necessarily first and foremost right now. And I think we, like, by showing everything that we had cobbled together was kind of impressive on its home. We're like, well, we have Squarespace doing this and we have Shopify doing this. And like there was like six different existing platforms that were really doing the job. And I think our biggest bottleneck was like figuring out all of these things about the business and about the next space and real estate. Like it had nothing to like technology wasn't holding us back in any way. So I think proving that helped.

I think that's a really great piece of advice. Like something that people even on the technical side should consider. because so often they're like, well, should this be in Ruby or Python? And like how much machine learning do I need before I apply to YC? And for the most part, no one is using their product. Yeah, you just need to like get it out there and like see how people would use it. Yeah. Yeah.

If we had spent a ton of money building some like beautiful editorial platform and we would be like out of business, like we would have run money already. Right. Like this is the easiest way to find silverware for your own. Yeah. Yeah. It exists. Just push it out there.

I don't know. That's so good. Do you remember what the actual numbers are? This is such a common question I figured I'd ask. What did your growth look like before YC when you applied successfully? Before we applied successfully. Yeah. So this would have been like October of last year. Our growth numbers were great then because that's when we started to do the markets every single weekend. And then we had just launched the store. So that summer, our numbers, our revenue is like doubling every year. month because we had more and more markets coming up and all of those were fully booked out. And then we had just launched the store. So we had like six months of space to book out for that and all of that's prepaid. So like our numbers looked really good because of that. And just kind of tangentially, do you guys have counterintuitive opinions about retail that you think the market's changing in a way that most people don't? I really, I have like everything

swings like a pendulum. So I don't know. I think about the store that we're opening for holiday, for example, and the entire, like, ethos of the store is, like, bringing back the nostalgia of, like, going with your girlfriends or your family to the mall

and, like, getting these mall vibes. Yeah, and, like, getting, you know, walking out with, like, a ton of shopping bags on your arm and piling it into the trunk. And I feel like with so many things going on right now with like the state of our country and how the internet and like all of this attention being on the internet and all this time spent being on the internet has just like kind of reached a tipping point where I feel like people are looking and being like, hmm, like I don't know if I want to be

like staring at my computer all day or like staring at my phone all day or like in this internet world 24 seven. I feel like there is going to be a pendulum shift away from this and toward like interaction and being in person and connecting face to face. And so I don't know when that's going to happen. Obviously, these things happen in like decade-long chunks. But I hope it comes soon. And I think that that definitely informs how we approach retail and how we approach building our stores. Like in our holiday store, there's going to be like a lounge area, an activation area where people can like explicitly do events and do workshops and do things where there's like community building and actual human interaction.

So I don't know if that's necessarily counterintuitive. But I feel like a lot of people are figuring out, trying to figure out, like, how do we make Instagram more shoppable? Or like, how do we make our newsletters more shoppable? Or like, how do we do this? And it's like, my greatest joy in life is walking by our Nolita store on like an odd hour on like Tuesday at like 3 p.m. Maybe and seeing that it's packed and just being like, wow, they're like, we're not wrong. And there are women that like actually want to physically show up in a store and they, the customers communicate with each other. And they all, I always get DMs on the book.

bulletin Instagram about how much they love our retail staff. And it's like, it warms my heart. And it just makes me confident that like this could be the direction retail is going in. And if so, we're on the cusp of it. Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think you also see a lot of, um, a lot of trends in like in store retail design right now where people are getting like magic mirrors and like these crazy screens in the store and like you can connect your online account and like just all this technology in the store. Connect your online account. No, literally. No, I know, I know. I know. I know. I know, I know. But I think that's something that we have really shied away from.

I think that, like, we really like the store to feel like this, you know, in-person experience and it's not about, like, kind of going back to the internet or, like, somehow having a screen in your face again. And so I don't necessarily know if that would be counterintuitive, but I think for us, yeah, to approach the store design in this, like, new way where it is about the community in the store and about the experience in the store and not about, like, another. Well, is there a future of your star without any employees? I don't think so.

I think that's for us. It's such a big part of the experience. I think there's some technology that we are thinking about that will ease the checkout process where the point of the employee being there isn't to ring them up, which is part of what they do now. So I'd like to free them up even more where they can to spend more time interacting with the customer.

But yeah, I think the in-store team is such a huge part of the experience and like makes that probably like 50% of the like positive feedback we get. So yeah. We still need humans. I'm sorry. Unfortunately. All right. If you weren't working on Bulletin right now, what would you work on?

You could work on it together if you're right. Well, we will we, would we have like gone through Bulletin or would it just be like Bulletin never happened? Oh, all right. Alternate reality. No. So today. Okay. literally today.

The shit goes crazy somehow. It's still going on. Say like you can't restart it. You have to do something else. Okay. Okay. Okay. I definitely, I think, I mean, I don't want to speak for you,

but I feel like we're both at a place where I don't see us ever going back to like a normal job. Or like working for someone else again. I don't know what I would do though. Like I feel like this is just, it would be so sad. I just haven't thought about anything else in so long. An insane asylum. I think I would love to do, I mean, for me, like, the most fun part about what we do is, like, the store design and, like, bringing, like, life to these kind of, like, weird old New York stores, as weird as that sounds. And so I think something with that, I could, like, be happy doing.

Okay. Maybe, yeah, just designing other stores. So basically, bulletin, I don't know. I would definitely be writing. I write a lot for bulletin. across like our email and our social and like the editorial site that we once had. It's like it comes very naturally to me and it's one of those feelings. I know like coders get this way when they code.

It like makes me high when I'm writing something. So I don't know. Maybe I'd write a book or become like a tech journalist or I don't know, work for a good cause like a nonprofit of some kind and handle their communications. I think that would be really fun. What was the most meaningful thing you learned at NYC? Do you have something? I was going to say, I would say working,

so Michael Seibel was our group partner, and I just feel like he was always so good about getting us to focus on the one thing that we should be focusing on. And so part of that was just like him being brilliant and picking the thing we should be working on. But I think getting into that mindset of like, like really, really identifying, like, what your actual one issue is and not worry. Like, I don't know.

I think, like, YC is it's a crazy, busy time. And there's so many things to be worrying about, like, as it always is when you're running a company. And I think just always going back to that and being like, okay, like, what is the one thing that you need to be working on and solving and, like, the thing that can actually affect your business and not getting bogged down with, like, the millions of other things you could possibly be doing. And he's so good about just like in his very soothing voice, like getting you to focus on, yeah, that one issue. I think something that we learned in both YC Fellowship and YC Corps, in both instances, we were working in isolation. I mean, during YC Fellowship, we didn't have a team.

And then during YC Corps, our team was mostly based here and we would go back and forth, but work together in San Francisco. I think I definitely learned, especially since it was such a pivotal time for us and we were growing and figuring out what the one thing was, like, the ability to listen. I think in group office hours, just the way that that structured, where you literally go around the room and listen to every single founder, talk about the problems that they're facing, you know, you give suggestions if you have any, like, stake in what they're doing or if you have any expertise of like ways that you can help. And I think just listening to each other, like, when you're together all the time in that very like pressure cooker environment, you have to make

very quick decisions. You know, you have demo day coming up. Like, what are you going to present? What business are you building? Like, what is going to be the thing that helps investors understand that like this is the future and that like they really shouldn't be missing out on this opportunity? And I think just, yeah, I think it was one of the best times of us like bouncing ideas off of each other and just amongst a group of really intelligent people that were doing such different things. So, yeah, I think it made me a much stronger listener overall. Yeah, I mean, it's such an interesting experience thinking back where you, I don't know, it's like the one time where everything else in your life really stops completely.

It's muted. Yeah, it's so crazy. And I mean, I guess it always feels that way in a sense when you're running a company. But I think this was like the one time where we had moved out of New York. moved out of our apartments and everything. And yeah, it's just such an interesting kind of experiment to go through. It's like what happens when I literally don't do anything else? And when I'm living in like a studio, like a 500 square foot studio with my co-founder,

eating every meal together. And it's just all you do and all you think about. And so, yeah, I think like that level of intensity is just, it was, yeah, really cool to do that. And I think coming back here and kind of like returning to normal life, that obviously stuck with us, but I don't know. It was just like a cool thing to go through. Also pick a good co-founder.

Yeah, because if you end up doing YC, and even if not, like, you're stuck for a while. Well, it seems like things are going okay still. Yeah, yeah. No, I feel, I think, I don't know, I feel very lucky. Me too. All right, cool. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. All right, thanks for listening. So, as always, the video and transcript are at blog. dot ycombinator.com. And if you have a second, please subscribe and review the show. All right. See you next week.