Marketing for the now the marketing for the now marketing for the now marketing for the now 10 minutes, 12 remarkable guests for two hours, answering a singular important question: are you ready gary? What do you think? Hey everybody, i'm andrea sullivan cmo of vaynerx and welcome to vaynerx, presents marketing for the now we're officially kicking off our summer series. So we've got a new format, we're cutting it back to one hour, there's still 10 minute conversations with ceos founders and cmos across a ton of different industries. Some of our interviews are going to be led by gary as well as some are going to be led by vaynerx leaders. Today we actually have a bonus guest uh, which is aj's brother.

So if you can stick around from 1 30 to 1 40 to close out the show, today's question is: what are your predictions for the rest of 2021 marketing for the now and let's get started first up, we have the amazing jerry davard, who is a serial Cmo and the founder of black executive cmo alliance, which she will tell us all about jerry, will be interviewed by patrick bennett. Creative director at vaynermedia welcome, jerry and patrick. Thank you, andrea hi, patrick hi, jerry. Thank you so much we're kicking it off we're number one.

I know that's a pressure right. I i think i think we can handle it. I think we can handle it. So i mean that was a very brief look at your cv, but i mean besides uh founding the black executive cmo alliance.

I mean you've also been a cmo at like office depot adt, citibank, you've had leadership positions at revlon, nfl general mills. All these places you've been named like one of the 75 most powerful blacks in corporate america, which is just what a title you know uh, but we met actually nearly 20 years ago, when i was just a young creative uh working on the verizon account, but a Very smart, young, creative and still a young, creative right - i mean i'm getting up there. You know you got ta shave to keep the grays away yeah. No, i all of that is always very interesting, and some people live on that.

That just happens to be what i've done. It's not kind of who i am. I think i've learned a lot. A lot of companies like most marketers we've worked in a lot of organizations, and so we can kind of figure out.

You know solutions from a 180 degree angle, there's not one way to solve anything and that's what i've learned in all the industries and sectors and countries that i've lived in um to work in this amazing profession that i love. I love it. I love it. So you know getting right into it.

Why? Why now you've been in this industry for a number of years, you've done some incredible stuff. Why is now the time for becca now it's the time it comes down to, if not now when, and if not me who it really was, it came out of a desire of wanting to make sure that people understood the breadth and the depth of the black Marketers that were out there today, because i got really tired of seeing all these roundups of the best of and the leading and the most and they're, not being people. That looked like me, and sometimes people pose this as a supply problem. But it's really a demand problem and wanting to open up the scope of what you saw as a successful marketer and what young marketing professionals were looking at to see.

Does anybody look like me to let them know that they could be that and that they had? What they needed in order to be successful, and i wanted to corral a group of amazing cmos, because i knew that their mission was to pay it forward - was to give back, and i wanted to do it at scale because everyone was doing it individually. I'm mentoring. Two or three people i'm talking to five or ten people, but how do you do that at scale so that we can have impact? And i see your cute son? Oh look at that. We have a guest, hey buddy.

I think your mom's over there keep going over there. Speaking of like seeing thank you speaking of like seeing people like, i was lucky enough to be able to see you right in this uh. You know leadership role at verizon 20 years ago and that you know we don't know, but that could have completely changed my trajectory. You know it wasn't.

Until years later i was working at at digita as a as a group. Grave director did, i ever see another creative director at my level, that was, that was black, that was mark williams, who went on to work at chase and a number of other great places. So you know when you think about just that simple act of existing. That's pretty powerful it.

You know what patrick you're so right and we underplayed that, because what happens is that, when we're in these jobs we're putting kind of one foot in front of the other and trying to keep on top of everything we're doing or need to do we don't think About who's, looking at us who's watching us who you're inspiring until you get those notes, i'm sure you've gotten them. We all get them that says you know when i was uh. I saw you and i realized that i could you know a lot of and a lot of times. You can't be what you can't see, because you start to say well wait a minute.

If no one looks like me. Does that mean that i can't because it's not a level playing field? We know that we all don't start at the same. You know starting line. Sometimes we start back there and you have to catch up, and when you catch up, you have to a lot of times.

People feel that they have to be flawless, that they, their execution, has to be perfect, and the thing that i've done is shared all the stupid mistakes that i've made the landmines that i stepped on. So that hey, you know. Yes, you have to be damn good at what you do. You have to show up and have solutions, but you can overcome adversity.

You can come back from having tripped it's not falling down. It's the getting back up. I love it. I love it.

So you know you talk a lot about eight people. Sorry, you have 28 members of the black executive cmo alliance. That can also share those experience. So you know, that's not a one-off right, exactly exactly you know, i love how you talk about meaningful corporate diversity and and what that means in an organization i mean the talk of today is the next six months right um.

You know it number one. I think we can both agree that this should really be a top priority, for you know any marketing organization anywhere. Am i right, i think we can agree on that. It should absolutely be a top priority, and so okay, let me let you finish well.

I was gon na say, and so you know, as we consider like, making a difference and making a dent and towards getting towards meaningful corporate diversity like let's help people out like what are some tangible ways or tangible steps. Some organizations can take before 2022 to make a difference. So it's not even 2022. It's how about making a difference today and yeah.

I'm glad i you know, let you finish. I felt like kanye i'll. Let you finish uh but uh. It really is.

Not only should it be a party because there's a lot of rhetoric after the murder of george floyd, there were companies that came out with you know grand protestations around what they were going to do at last count. There was 60 billion dollars that was pledged toward deni initiatives as a result of companies recognizing that they needed to do more all right. So that's rhetoric. Those are hashtags.

Those are you know proclamations, but but what have you done? And i think that more and more employees are starting to hold organizations accountable for their words and so you've pledged that. But where are you on the commitments that you made and, more importantly, than what you said and where you are, is what are the consequences? Much like any executive or any marketer does not have the opportunity to stick around. You know quarter after quarter year after year, if they don't meet their numbers. If they don't meet their objectives, then, if you've stated that you want to have significant improvement in representation in support and development in retention, then how are you doing and what are you doing in order to make your objectives? Some of this is evolutionary, but most of it is revolutionary in that you have to be very intent about creating change and understanding where the barriers are and not allowing them to continue.

So what we have to do is ask the question: what did we say? Where are we and more importantly, what am i doing about it? You know too many times we say somebody ought to it's like what am i doing? What does my direct report team look like? Do i have any people of color? Do you have any blacks reporting to me? Am i mentoring any people of color students of color leaders of color? Am i asking my organization to be accountable for where we spend our money and how we spend it? It's those kinds of questions that you have to ask the organization, but, more importantly, you have to ask yourself and decide that you're going to be the change that needs to you know lead for others, and i love it. You know at the beginning there you touched on something that i think is like incredibly powerful. I think a lot of organizations have been dinged by padding their diversity numbers by bringing in the most junior people. While the you know the top echelons remain.

You know as they were, but you were just putting the power in the hands of everybody. You know whether you're on the c-suite, whether you're you know somewhere in the middle or whether you're entry level uh. If this is important to you, you can hold your organization accountable. If there's one thing, i would say that people can do is to ask the question where what did we say and where are we on what we said we were going to do and is that enough? What more can i do by showing up by advocating by being an ally by supporting by calling it out? You know so many times we see things that need to change, but we're we are in fear and i'm finding that more and more people are willing and interested in having the conversation about what they can do.

So you can start by saying what have we done? What do we need to do and here's what i think we can do so everyone? Everyone has a piece in this in this uh solving it, because it's not easy, but it has to start with caring, and it has to start with your personal commitment and also, you know, just really being very honest diversity audits are really important. Where are you on the numbers? Nothing stops the conversation like data, i love it. You know i could. I could really talk to you all day.

I wish this was like an hour where we could hang out, but you know i got to tell everybody watch the black executive cmo alliance watch becca. You know whether you uh want to know how to impact your organization, whether you want to take part in some of your education opportunities or some of your uplift opportunities or some of the find out ways to pay it forward. That is the place to be uh. Jerry, thank you so much for joining us on marketing, for the now and and for joining us uh with such an important message.

Thank you, patrick. They can check us out at black exec dot com. I love it. Thank you jerry! Thank you, patrick fantastic.

What you're building thank you next up? We welcome cammy and zubine cami dunaway is the cmo of duolingo the world's most popular language. Learning app cami is also an author. She has an amazon bestseller, fit matters: how to love your job outside of work, you'll find cami in her vintage 1967 kenskill camper trailer, uh cammie will be interviewed today by by our very own zubin molavi, president of vayner commerce. Welcome to you both thanks, andrea thanks for joining us cammy great thanks, zubin excited to be here absolutely.

I also want to thank jerry and patrick that was uh riveting. I uh like patrick wish that went on for an hour as well. I hope that uh we can make that happen. Cami.

Thank you again for joining us uh. Why don't we start with giving us a background uh about your illustrious career and why you joined duolingo sure, so i have been fortunate to work for some great brands. I led doritos and cheetos. I was at yahoo for a while when it was really a fun great place to be.

I was at nintendo as head of sales and marketing. So one of the the common themes for me has been i like to help accelerate growth with brands that already are in a point of strength than that have a product market fit that really resonates with consumers and that's certainly the case at duolingo. They grew to be the most popular language learning app in the world with actually no marketing just completely organically, and i think it's because we've created a really special product that is perfect for digital generation. It's gamified to keep you motivated.

It uses ai to make the experience very personal, and it's also very mission oriented as a company. We, we really believe in free access to language learning as a way to just help. People advance - and so you know it's a kind of a dream - gig - to build a marketing group on top of that foundation. That's amazing.

I think i first heard of duolingo. I think it was like in 2011, when um they got a lot of notoriety for taking and kind of creating meaningful use out of captcha, and for those of you that don't know essentially the captcha thing that pops up nowadays that goes what's the crosswalk or pick All the crosswalks or the motorcycles or whatnot back in the day it used to be like five characters, or it used to be a string of sentences or words and duolingo essentially took that and what they did is they allowed people to translate content and start to Build this machine learning, um environment: it was so compelling at the time of like taking something that we're using every day and adding meaningful use to it. Now we'll get to that in a bit. I think we've got a interesting topic around that, but um speaking of growth, speaking of impact, speaking of changes so clearly uh with a pandemic going on uh people in the workforce across the the country in the world there were commonalities.

They faced challenges that they faced. What are some of those challenges that you face with duolingo that were perhaps unique to duolingo what was uh? What went well for you over the last 18 months and what can others that are paying uh? That tuning in right now can learn from yes, so um covid really was a time of explosive growth for us in that period, when the world health organization proclaimed a global pandemic, we grew 67. There were like 30 million new users who came to duolingo to learn a language and that surpassed any growth we had seen in the past, even in big periods like new year's - and you know i think about my own experience during the pandemic. We all wanted something that we could just feel good about right, something that we felt like we had some control over and that just felt like we were doing something positive in our life.

Um, you know, excuse the phone, i guess that happens, and so you know taking five ten minutes a day to learn a new language is a way of expanding your world and being able to learn about new cultures and build new relationships. It was just something that um really gave people a bright spot in the pandemic, um, and so for my team. That meant that we really had to you know change a lot of our habits. We had to be really agile, we're very global organization, and so we also had to acknowledge that.

Maybe when there was a moment of optimism in the u.s, things were still really bleak in brazil or in india, so really taking time to listen to the sentiment of consumers around the world and try and make sure that we were tapping in to where the consumer Was at any particular moment, but it it was an exciting time of growth. We love people, learning a language and there are a lot of people learning a language during coven yeah. Absolutely i think, the inability for people to travel a lot of things like duolingo ended up giving them that kind of experience. If you will that they couldn't have in the physical world of being able to, i can't travel to france.

So why don't? I learn french or i can't travel to spain. Let's learn spanish um and i think it's it's what's interesting as well is like. There are different sectors clearly that did remarkably well during the last 18 months and some that just incredibly poorly and the key is understanding how you take that and now in your case, leverage that as a platform for growth moving forward yeah - and you know there were A lot of silver linings, for example, one of the things that we had to pivot on is we started a few years ago doing what we call duocon so bringing our super fans together to just talk about all things like language pop culture technology, and we had Planned this big event in brooklyn in 2020 and had to pivot to online, which you know, caused a lot of scrambling and a lot of sleepless nights. But the silver lining was that we ended up having over 115 000 people tuning in to this virtual duocon from 130 countries, and so the reach that we were able to accomplish by being virtual rather than physical, just turned out to be a really great thing.

And so you know, as we move forward we're going to be virtual again this year and probably always keep a virtual element, because it enables us to involve people who can't get there physically absolutely and given the fact that you have a digital product, you have an Online community, it allows them to kind of connect more meaningfully uh than without it that's fantastic yeah. I want to kind of switch topics for a moment and ensure that our audience is getting um even further value from this. So when we think about marketing and product relationship 95 of brands out there, product influences marketing, so you've got these products and then marketing has to do something in terms of getting those products in front of the right people you're in the five percent and uh you're. In the five percent in that marketing has in your organization, actually influenced product which, intuitively speaking, is how it should be done, because marketing is the closest to the consumer, they're listening to the consumer and they should be able to influence product roadmap.

But what i found remarkable is that your journey got you from understanding how human and people's bathroom behaviors impact their ability to learn a second language. So i'd love for you to leave us uh. That final question tell us how bathroom behaviors impact a second language sure. So one of the things we hear from consumers is, i just i want to learn a language, but i don't have enough time to learn a language, but we were doing some research and realized that we all spend an average of 14 minutes a day on the Toilet and so we thought, how do we make people like get more productive use out of that time? Let's help them learn a language while they're on the toilet, so we actually created duolingo roll, which is toilet paper that comes in five different languages and just enables you to you know, learn some quirky phrases and that uh in that downtime.

So it was a ton of fun. We became a trending topic on twitter. We have had thousands of requests for toilet paper. We put it in weworks in china, so yeah it's uh, it's fun to show up in unexpected places, just like duo, our owl.

Absolutely no, and i think that it's just one further example of how marketing can influence product in a meaningful way, and it's not just uh gimmicky, if you will there's actual value that somebody gets and it's core to your brand, it's core to learning a language in Your down time, so i thought it was remarkable and i'm glad you shared that story with us thanks. It was a lot of fun for the team. That's awesome, cami! Thank you so much for joining us. It was an absolute pleasure great to meet you thanks.

So much thank you cami and zubin. I love that last one that was great next we welcome stephen and claude stephen sikoler is ceo and founder of journey. A company committed to helping all people live, happier, healthier and less stressed lives. Couldn't we use a little bit of that and talking with stephen today is our beloved claude silver, vaynerx's, chief heart officer.

She fosters a culture of belonging and is indeed our heartbeat welcome, stephen and claude hello. I can't hear you claude. Can other people hear you hello, hello here we go. Thank you for joining us.

Why today it's my pleasure. How are you i'm great, and i just want to thank cami and jabin - that was a great segment and patrick and jerry? I now know all about bathroom insights and i'll, be thinking about that for sure, as we go on so we're here to talk about journey and to kick us off, can we hear a little bit about your journey? How did you get here sure so? I started journey in 2015 march of 2015 after 12 years of running a b2b business, so i basically helped organizations celebrate and inspire their employees, and so i knew how important it was for people to feel seen and recognized, and it was a few years before that In 2011 that i went to sydney australia to open an office for for that company, and i found meditation and other mental health practices originally through buddhism. Actually, and it was really transformational for me fast forward. A few years later, moved back to new york, sold the company and thought there was a real opportunity to help people by bringing them a lot of these ancient practices in a really simple approachable, secular way, and obviously, if the last six years, or especially the last 18 months have taught us anything, it's that having a good, solid mental health practice can be really uh essential in today's crazy world and so started the company, with the help of real experts on the mental health side on the workplace, wellness side and we help organizations Keep their people healthy, happy engaged and you know centered, i love it.

I mean we're all craving human connection more so than ever, as you just mentioned in the last 18 months, and you know you and i have known each other now for a bit and never met in person, and so this connection is real and i can't wait Until we actually can meet in person, can you walk us through a couple of the things that journey actually offers like some of the tangibles in terms of mental health meditation? How does a person kind of work with the the app the program yeah? Absolutely so what we set out to do was build the leading preventative mental health product, so basically the product that people will use on a day-to-day week-to-week basis to keep themselves mentally and emotionally fit and balanced, and so that includes a whole host of tools, resources and Probably, most importantly, support to navigate both work and life. I think we all know that what happens at work shows up at home. What happens at home shows up at work, and that's even before the two were. You know so co-mingled the way they they are now, and so we teach a variety of practices in a really simple approachable way.

So things like breath, work, meditation, cognitive, behavioral therapy, positive psychology, neuroscience um and because our clients range from very traditional investment banks and law firms to startups at nonprofits and charter schools. We need to be able to meet people where they are so make it really approachable and delivered in a way that people can say. Yes, that's for me um, so we have digital products. We do formally on-site things that are now done virtually through teams and zoom, and things like that, but everything we do is rooted in human connection.

So it's about live group learning, so we believe that people learn best in a group when they have a teacher and others that they can interact with and learn from uh. The second sort of core pillar is peer support. The idea that, having the support of peers colleagues friends, makes a big difference in terms of being seen and normalizing experiences and having people deeply engaged, and then the third is proactive health. How do we encourage inspire nudge people to do something on a day-to-day basis? To keep themselves mentally and emotionally fit the same way.

We brush our teeth twice a day or take a certain number of steps. You know to to move our bodies. What's the mental health equivalent of that you know, the word preventative is something you don't hear a lot. Unless you are, you know, working on preventing, cavities or preventing.

You know your arteries from being clogged, so i think the idea of this is a preventative way of going about your mental health. Mental fitness is phenomenal, it's it's just so it's clutch, i think today, you know the topic of today is: where are we going in the back half of 2021 and i'm wondering if you have any thoughts you want to share around human connection, wellness uh the world Of mental fitness, mental health sure yeah, i have, i have a few thoughts um. So first i think you know we've. We have done really well with these vaccines in getting them developed, super quick and pushing them out, and so countries, and in particular regions that have high vaccination rates, will continue to grow and that's exciting.

And what we're starting to see is people spend more money on experiences versus things? I read a stat the other day that it was the first time. I think this this last month was the first time where uh restaurant sales surpassed at home eating. For the first time since the beginning of the pandemic right - and so it's very core to who we are as human beings to crave connection and and human experience, so we're going to see things like travel come roaring back, which we're already starting to see and um. You know the safety precautions are still in place in different parts of the country, but it's becoming safer and safer to travel.

I think, on the on the flip side of things. Unfortunately, underserved communities will continue to struggle um for a wide variety of reasons. So, that's something that i think we as a society need to address uh, but when it comes to sort of my, i hate to call anything my area of expertise that might be overstating it but sort of the world that i that i live in um. You know people are still working at home and lives between work and home are kind of blended in a way that doesn't create the boundaries for healthy living right and so we're seeing companies and individuals struggle with burnout.

People saying you know i need. I need a break, and so hopefully because it's the summer here in the states, because people are feeling a little bit safer, people will start seeing friends again visiting family members and having that real, deep, authentic connection, that's just core to who we are so my my Hope is that, as the economy grows over the back half of this year, we'll start seeing people start to feel healthier again because of that one component of their life is is now starting to get fulfilled. You know that bucket's starting to fill up again, because so many of us were were alone for such an extended period of time. Yeah i mean we're wired to belong, we're absolutely wired to be in community in connection with each other, and i love the fact that journey has that component of support, because we're not supposed to be on this island in you know loneliness bill and it's been a Really rough ride for many many many people, i think uh.

We know that we know the stats so in terms of you know getting in touch with journey to someone just like log on and see if they can, you know bring this into their company. I mean this is this: for me, it sounds like a slam, dunk yeah. Well, i appreciate that um we've we've been fortunate in that um. There's a lot of whether it's senior leaders um at the c-suite or hr folks, who see this and say hey my company.

Could use more of this um, so people can reach out to me directly. People can find us online and you know on linkedin, on instagram on facebook on you know all the places um, but really we we always work to try to make it very relevant for that particular audience because, like i mentioned, like we work with harlem children's zone, As is a partner of ours for many years, right, they're very different than some of the law, firms like davis, polk or wachtel, or some of the other folks, we work with right. And so how do you make it very personal for people in a way where they say yes, this is for me it doesn't feel like it's, it's some woo-woo thing or something built for someone else or oh. I don't need this um.

You know because, at the end of the day, the truth is we all. We all really do need that that connection and in our final moments, can you leave us with just one bit of mindfulness tip something that we can do today to just take a minute. Yeah, i mean, i think it's not much more difficult than just closing our eyes and just taking like one big, deep breath in and out and just having that pause can really reset re-center, allow us to kind of ground and connect. And, of course, if we have more time to take three breaths or five breaths, but you know we often go from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting, especially with zoom right with no break in between to even go to the bathroom.

Even just saying you know what i'm just going to close my eyes and just take that one breath can be really re-centering, so a very small tip, but my tip for today. Thank you so much for being here and thank you for the tip. It's great seeing you claude, thank you for that breath of fresh air, stephen and claude. Next.

We welcome gary and dylan lissette, ceo of utts brands. Dylan joined us in 1995 and represents the fourth generation of family of a family-owned business, and he took this 100 year old brand public last year. We're so excited to have you dylan, hello, hey gary! How are you doing i'm well dylan, nice shirt brother. How do you, like my backdrop, i like it, i like it, i like what i'm seeing i like it a whole lot.

I didn't know how how blue and orange would clash but uh. I think you look great brother, it's exciting, uh, so dylan. I think. Let's get right into it, because these go very, very fast uh.

I can see everyone in the chat. A lot of utz og fans love your product um, but for what we're here for um? What are your predictions for the rest of 2021? What are you seeing? What are you feeling what's emerging what's declining and maybe before that 30 45 seconds on us just to give context for a few people that won't know yeah for those who don't know about us um a hundred year old business, full-line based in pennsylvania but have grown Regionally into a national company over the last 100 years we have uh 1.336 billion dollars of retail sales per iri and that's uh up uh a ton over last year, um uh, because of covid, and because of a lot of things that we'll talk about i'm sure Today, gary and uh excited to be here with you and excited to be working with your crew as well. Thank you so so to that point, uh dylan uh. What what is and obviously for uh for everyone's knowledge, dylan, uh and utz, are working with vayner x and the sasha group um anything from a marketing standpoint or a consumer consumption standpoint where people are buying the product.

What is the biggest kind of like if i said you know, kind of that fun business, talk that you can have over a cocktail? Hey? What do you really? What are you really predicting you we're going to see here the next six months anything stand out. I mean what i would. What i'd definitely say is that people are coming out. Um people are traveling, a small format you know last year was it was all the small format was closed down right you, you know, think about negative, educating, educate everybody on small format.

Yeah, a small format would be like up and down the street business. The bodegas just think about new york city think about august or july of last year was dead. Right people were not going to their office, they were not picking up a sandwich, they were not picking up a bag of chips, they were home or they had fled the city to some other place and they were staying put inside their house. So i think that the number one biggest change that is going to occur and is occurring as we speak today is the fact that people are coming out that small format the return to the office uh.

Maybe it's hybridized, maybe it's! You know two three days a week, but that return to the office will stimulate the small format we've seen last year, where we had a uh uh, literally like a a stretch of 10 12 weeks, where that that channel of business really shut down uh, it's exploding. This year, so i think, as people get out as they travel as they enjoy the weather as they get outside, as they start traveling back to work as they start vacationing again. Um that whole small format is really lifting and it's lifting brands, like you know, dirty potato chips and zaps potato chips. That's why i'm wearing the zap shirt today, but it's lifting those uh brands up very nicely this year.

So that's that's a big change for this year. What about on the the marketing front? You know as an executive, navigating all these years. You know. Obviously our relationship speaks to a contemporary point of view, either shift or affirmation.

What's been the most interesting thing that you've seen from a marketing standpoint, since this is marketing for now, whether it's how people interact with social or television or outdoor or does anything stand out yeah i mean the number one thing i i think that we've seen and Especially we we used to do a lot more sponsorship. You know we used if we had 10 billion dollars to spend on marketing. We used to spend a lot more on sponsorships and we're really moving away from that we're moving directly to digital social, as most people are aware, but what we really love about. That is the fact that it's connecting with people - and i think it was one of the last guests stephen at journey - said you know, meeting people where they are, and i think that's so important, because it's absolutely right, i think our brand in general has grown through The you know, 100 years of existence to what it is today by meeting people where they are, and i think that social and digital connection of really being able to connect directly to somebody uh in a very particular manner.

Uh. That's not just throwing up a billboard. You know that a hundred thousand people pass, and you know one thousand of them happen to you - know, catch it and and think about it, but really being able to connect, but then create like that um that 360 connection, where we're connecting with them they're connecting back To us we're connecting and it and it's going back and forth and we're doing a lot of you know kind of cool stuff with that right now, do you feel that you know there's a lot of mon there's a real mix that watches this show. You have a lot of entrepreneurs senior executives, and then you have a lot of fortune 500 cmos ceos.

I've always felt that from madison avenue to main street one of the things that were really surprising uh is the disconnect for entrepreneurs that are watching they'd. Be surprised. How much big companies or bigger or bigger brands than their small business really valued? What i? What the industry calls reach right like hey? If we run commercials, if we run those billboards that will work - and it's i almost live in this bizarro world, because for them they blindly believe what's going on, and here is how they see stuff. Why? For the fellow executives that are watching, what do you think makes it hard to go away from a big baseball sponsorship or running a bunch of television and getting a lot of grp's or the way that you know how brands are built or how procter gamble taught Like there's an institutional 50 years of how this is done, that is getting disrupted because of the internet, and you know we're 20 years now into the internet and still the majority of big companies still want to go for potential reach versus what i think we're seeing Together, which is really winning on relevance, which actually then makes people buy stuff yeah.

Well, i think you also have to make sure that what you're spending, if you're spending a dollar you have to know that it's working, i mean that's one of the things i think is that when you do, i mean we would liken this to say. Well, if we were a large uh beverage company, we could go spend you know three million dollars on the con. You know on a commercial and then you know hope that it it works and and put it out there and then roll the dice. And it's a dud and it falls apart.

I mean you have no kind of roi that you can say that dollar worked and it worked here at a 4.2 return or you know. If we went over here it was 5.9. Let's go somewhere between the 42. You know, let's adjust our messaging, so i think that that's the that's the new world, i mean it's it's talking about where you're i just had the benefit of uh hosting uh 12 under 17 year olds for a week at my house uh last week, and we Had two from two from italy: two from spain, two from germany, one from bermuda, one from bahamas, these kids, these young consumers, the consumer of tomorrow - were on their phone the whole time they didn't.

I don't know if the tv ever turned on. So if you're thinking about connecting to tomorrow's consumer, you know what's funny that is all often and anecdote people share. I don't think people realize how many 30 40 50 60 year olds are on their phone during commercials and now with ott. How many commercials are even getting through yeah yeah yeah anyway, so we really like it yeah, please final thoughts, 30 seconds 60 seconds.

What should uh, executives, entrepreneurs or or leaders be thinking about for the rest of 2021. Anything else pop out, i mean honestly very quickly. I i thought about this: a lot. It's it's man, people want to get out, people are excited to get out, they've got money in their pocket; they want to.

They want to reconnect. We had a barbecue yesterday saw somebody hadn't come out of the house for a year. They are so excited to be out and about and to engage and to interact. That's how people should be thinking for the rest of this year.

I think it's going to be very positive, uh very exciting time for um for everyone for all brands, thanks for being on my friend, all right see ya, love the optimism that was awesome. Next, we welcome che huang he's the ceo and co-founder of boxed. A warehouse club delivery service che is a serial entrepreneur and started boxed in 2013 in his parents garage now. Eight years later, the company delivers anywhere in the united states and he's going public, and you should know he's a star wars fan and has a couple of stories around that gary.

He has a better story than that andrea watch. This jay, my man great to see you please tell everybody where you went to high school. I went to high school uh, where gary grew up as well: edison new jersey at a school named jp, stevens, uh and out of that school. There's a bunch of random entrepreneurs, man gary, you know, you know a bunch of them man.

Why? Don't you list off? Do you know a couple of them to list off for everybody? Because everyone's so everybody before lists, maybe one or two others? I moved in in eighth grade, so i never i mean my whole life. I thought i was going to jp stevens. I already i the way my where i lived in a townhouse. I already knew my path because i could cut through the back.

It was all very exciting and then my parents moved me to hunterdon county, so i never got my jp stevens experience but check to your point. I read that article that there was an article written once about all those entrepreneurs and you being one of them wild stuff yeah. So you got uh us here right, you're, honorary jp, stevens, yeah gary. I don't know if they gave you that yet, but i want it uh we're gon na we're gon na we're gon na lobby for that um uh.

You know, uh the one of the co-founders and the former ceo of blue apron was out of jp as well. Three out of the four co-founders of boxed uh nature box was founded out of jp stevens, um uh, a bunch of uh, just a bunch of there's, there's more and more. You know yeah wow yeah. It is, and even once in a while, i just meet a random entrepreneur who, or someone at a conference just say: hey.

You know jp class of xyz and i'm like. Oh my gosh. I see a lot of people in the comments. It is a good idea.

Move to edison and send many kids there. If you wanted to be entrepreneurs, jay uh, why don't you give one minute on fox for the few people that don't know what it is? Yeah boxed is an online wholesaler, so we not only are an e-commerce retailer uh, but we are also now an e-commerce enabler on our ecommerce retail side. We service both b2c as well as b2b customers with snacks, pantry items, everything you need to run your household or your office when it comes to pantry, snacks and coffee. On the enablement side, we now package up all that software and hardware that we built.

So all the front end systems, inventory management systems, warehouse management systems, even the physical robots that we engineer and build ourselves. We now enable other retailers in the enterprise to use that technology stack via the new sas business. So that's what we built uh, basically in almost eight years, from a garage in edison. If i asked you before.

Actually let's go into it, because we don't have a lot of time. Your personal predictions from your purview of the rest of 2021 on consumer behavior, on opportunities on marketing strategies on uh buying friends, since during that game, wherever you make it, i i you know - and this might be kind of bold bold talk and maybe a little bit Too much, but i fundamentally believe from what i've seen that we are going into the most prolific back to school back to work period in not modern american history, but american history. I think we've never had this many folks, not in the office. You've never had this.

Many americans not in school and everyone is going back around labor day - maybe not five days a week, but certainly some days of the week, and that is going to create huge, huge, huge, probably opportunities as well as supply chain challenges as well. So i i fundamentally believe that's coming up in 90 short days on that prediction for the rest of year. Do you feel as though um people are going to go into a mixed environment? Do you think that that we have crossed the chasm of the five day? A week commute is that your intuition, or do you think, we're gon na? It's like one of those things you know like? Is this gon na be a moment that looks like you know how, when you're driving and a cop cars lights, go on and you're scared shitless and you grab your boat? You know if it's the first time, you've driven with both hands and then the car goes by and you're like so relieved, but for the first like 12 minutes, you drive 55 and then somehow you don't even realize if you're back to 73. Do you think that people are saying it but we'll find ourselves in april of 2023 close to where we were, or do you think the societies got comfortable with meetings on zoom and other platforms and we're there? I think um uh.

I think the latter so meaning that um. I certainly don't think when we go back to work this september, it's gon na be five days a week, everyone's flying halfway around the planet, just for a one hour meet and greet. I i don't think that's going to snap back to like the way that um that we used to be back in 2019 and before, but certainly i think, a significant portion of it will come back. And this is not me just being in the pool and just saying hey, i promise you it's not ice cold jump in as well um.

Even you know today in the office we're seeing more and more people come back and when people see each other um and hang out they're all going out uh for happy hour today, it's just a different atmosphere. Now, i don't think people are gon na come back again, five days a week, just for that, but certainly a few days a week if you live uh in and around the office um, i think the other stuff uh um that you mentioned before about 2023 yeah Man, like you, know, it's no longer an affront if you have to dial into a meeting or or zoom, so if you're, trying to pitch the biggest client that you potentially can have, and if you have to zoom in, i think that's going to be acceptable. These days uh after it's pandemic, i think you probably wouldn't want to do that back in 18 or 19, but but these days i don't think anyone would be offended that you don't fly halfway around the world, just to shake your hand, yeah. I think i think, let me it's funny.

This is an interesting thing. I probably think 25 of my travel in 2019 would never happen in 2022. If you, if i had to throw a number for you, just think, because i think i've done a lot of chicago miami boston for one meeting, there's just no way, there's no way you you, you have a number of a prediction that for you, let's just yourself. If i said that gut feeling, so i'm an outlier in the sense that dude i flew 250 268 000 miles in united in 2019 dude.

That was like it's brutal, most of it economy too. So i have the i have the scars uh from that year. Uh and i love united, you know uh, but it's just it's just long flights. You know um so because the first uh um customer of ours on the sas side of the house was based in japan.

You know i was doing in 2010. I did six or seven day trips to tokyo, and so i don't think we're going to be doing day trips to tokyo anymore. So at least my mileage will will probably cut down by at least half i'll do a lot of the domestic travel uh. But no more international meetings just for one handshake.

I think that's behind us so, but i do think 25 is a fair number um, potentially if you're an airline cmo or exec out there. I think what i'm seeing just anecdotally, at least, is that um, some of the leisure travel that revenge travel is, is definitely going to come back and maybe bolster some of that lack of business travel in the coming year and years. I assume boxed, you know, benefited in a lot of ways by consumer behavior during covid anything um anything fun to share with us here you can share like funny things. People were buying or or or maybe even more.

Interestingly, for predictions of 2021, anything that has emerged any categories any products, anything kind of like i'm just being nerdy now and being selfish, just curious. I love this, i'm a retailer at heart, so i love this stuff dude. I i mean you know gary we've known each other for a few years now, and i always joke that. I i'm i'm like a toilet paper salesperson and like there's always this running joke until 2020, when, like you know it, it got real man and it became like the most popular profession on the face of the earth, and i had high school friends hit me up.

It's like yo, we haven't talked in 20 years brother, but, like you got some of that toilet paper for me uh and i'm like. Oh my god, do you any sense why toilet paper was so high? I'm still a little like. Please tell me: there's a lot of there's more flex and other things like most folks. Think toilet paper is just you know, you have a table sized machine pumping out toilet paper, modern toilet paper, manufacturing plants and machines are basically three stories tall and it takes about 300 million dollars of capex to build one.

You need to be by a fresh water source. This is full on warcraft man. You got ta like be by the water or you you know in order to build one of these things, and so, if you put if, if gary and shay made our own toilet paper, company dude and we put 300 million dollars in that machine, we are going To crank that thing, 28 hours a day, 12 days a week, so when, when there's a surge in demand, it's not like they're, like oh, just crank, up excess capacity, there's no extra capacity, those those machines are running 97 capacity already and to build another one. It's going to take years, and so there just wasn't that that point, but why are human like? I don't know like to me like i'm not so like like to me napkins and tissues and like jumping in the shower like i don't.

I feel like people are too bougie, like i i didn't know like i think we've just become soft like like leaves like there's options out there. People there are definitely options out there, and so funny anecdote is that i was so confident in my ability to procure toilet paper just given what we do, uh that we actually caught ourselves in our household without toilet paper uh and i had to uh uh. I had to scramble and do the the walk of shame to our fulfillment center and take one take a pack off the uh off the shelf, and i saw multiple people in the fc. Look at me just like shaking their head.

I'm like yo dude times are tough man. I i underestimated how much we had at home um but yeah. There could have been other things, man and it was a shocker for for me and us brother continued success. I'm proud of you all right thanks gary cheers.

Oh, that was too much you like that. I love that one we're too bougie for toilet paper right now. We got it i'm supposed to go fully or go fully bougie and get a bidet. You know like one or the other.

That's right all right! Our next guest is the incredible kara golden. She is. The ceo and founder of hint and kara is a super woman. She was named the ey entrepreneur of the year and was one of i love this in styles, badass 50 list nice check out her podcast, the kara golden show and get her book undaunted.

Overcoming doubts and doubters welcome, kara hi great to see you great to see you how you been good. How are you good cara is, you know, built an amazing company. Most of you who are watching right now are very aware of hint. I i got to meet kara over a phone call very early in that journey and was so impressed with the way they got distribution for that product.

I remember being on a beach or something and here and talking to you about getting into starbucks and things of that nature, and just it's been really a joy to watch. You build this company. Thank you. I i remember that call as well, so why don't you tell why? Don't you tell people really quickly because i'm sure it'll be at least five percent, that don't know the brand? Let's start there and then we'll go into what you're seeing in the streets.

For the rest of 2021, so i i have it here in case uh people are wondering what that is uh, so it's an unsweetened flavored water that i started actually 16 years ago for so for people who are thinking that there's overnight success stories, i mean it. It takes time to build quality and great brands, and, and i'm really proud of what we've done and uh yeah started 16 years ago. In addition to building a great product, we've built a different way of actually going to market over 50 percent of our business. As direct to consumer um, so when you look at you know the beverage industry as a whole uh there are.

There are certainly companies the big soda companies that are selling on amazon and and box and and others, but having a direct business and having that direct relationship with the customer is something that we've uh built for the last eight years. Um and it's a solid incredible subscription business that many many people are using, what um, what stood out for you before we go into what's happening in 2021, there's been a lot of contextual covert conversations. Anything anything stand out from you did anything catch. You off guard was anything a pleasant surprise from a consumer behavior standpoint as far as the pandemic yeah.

So at the beginning of the pandemic, it actually right before the pandemic uh hit, i guess the end of 2020. We were really focused on automating uh, a lot of our plants and so uh most people in the beverage industry were like. Why are you doing that? By the way i didn't come from the beverage industry? I came from the tech industry and my husband is our chief operating officer and he also came from the tech industry, so we kept thinking about well what, if somebody sneezes on the line right as we're filling a bottle, we don't have preservatives in the product. What happens so we wanted to get the people out of the room.

We've been working on this for four years to get the people out of the room by the end of 20 or sorry. By the end of 2019, we had everybody out of the room and automated and got got you know those people away from where the actual phil was by the time the pandemic hit. We learned that as an essential product in a pandemic. You have to be running your plants 24 hours a day you have to uh, you know, do your best practices to best efforts to actually supply the store shelves, so people were hoarding toilet paper, but they were also hoarding water bottle water and products like hint.

So being able to actually run our facility without any hiccups, because we we had planned it out was a tremendous tremendous advantage. In addition to that, we do everything here in the u.s, so we've always believed that get things as local as possible.