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Elevating Women in Direct-to-Consumer Brands: A Candid Conversation on Accessibility with the "Queen of Experiential Retail" and Founder of re/tell
91 Plays1 year ago
Update: I recently launched my newsletter, The Sheconomist, and would love for you to subscribe: sheconomist.com - I share so many tools and resources that help young, high-achieving women with radical money and career self-advocacy.
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Today, we're joined by the remarkable Joy Fan, Founder & CEO of re/tell, who is a visionary entrepreneur and two-time founder, often referred to as the “Queen of Experiential Retail”.
Joy is deeply committed to celebrating women-owned DTC brands, increasing female founders’ visibility, and making retail spaces more accessible. She emphasizes the significance of consumers adopting local buying habits to strengthen communities.
In a candid discussion about funding and the challenges of entrepreneurship, Joy shares insights on the fundraising landscape and the importance of staying true to your core strengths. She advocates for a nurturing and community-based mindset in building and growing companies, challenging the traditional "hire fast, fire fast" mentality.
Join us in this engaging conversation with Joy Fan as we explore the intersection of real estate, entrepreneurship, and the power of women supporting women.
If you are a founder who would like to place her product inside high traffic retail destinations, visit: https://www.retell.co/brands
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Transcript
Introduction & Mission
00:00:00
Speaker
I find that women are so beautifully interesting. There's so much they want to give. They're the first people who always come to the table and say, hey, how can I help? Even when they're in the midst of all the obstacles themselves. I'm Tamina and I'm extending a heartfelt invitation to you as we join forces in reclaiming economic power for women in a world that is often structured against us.
00:00:24
Speaker
We'll dive into the minds of accomplished female leaders, investors and entrepreneurs to equip you with the confidence and knowledge to build wealth for yourself and other women. So buckle up, get ready to learn and be inspired to take action.
Guest Introduction: Joy Fan
00:00:39
Speaker
Today's guest is a woman. I've had a massive woman crush on ever since I met her for the first time. When you meet someone and the energy in the air just shifts, well, Joy Fan is one of those people. Joy is a two times founder, operator, and urbanist.
00:00:56
Speaker
democratizing access to affordable real estate. Joy spent her early career in environmental design, brand marketing, and real estate asset management and has since disrupted the traditional commercial lease model into license agreements and popularized the global strategy of pop-ups as a founding member of Storefront, the largest marketplace for short-term retail, which has since been
Joy's Impact on PropTech
00:01:21
Speaker
acquired.
00:01:21
Speaker
She is known for creating the retail-as-a-service model adopted by hundreds of DTC brands, REITs, mall app operators, developers, and landlords, and unlocked PropTech playbooks for the masses as a contributor to the ultimate pop-up guide. She is also an active committee advisor for women in PropTech and a part of Mayor Eric Adams' New York City Small Business Advisory. Joy, I'm absolutely thrilled today.
00:01:51
Speaker
Oh, thank you so much. It's a pleasure. Amazing. Let's dive right in. We have so much to talk about today. So Joy, this podcast is all about helping women build wealth, not only for themselves, but also for other women. I always like to say that a wealthy woman can walk out of almost every room she feels uncomfortable in and create opportunities for other women along the way because financial independence
00:02:18
Speaker
equates freedom. And I like to start out with the same question for all of my guests.
Women's Support & Connection
00:02:23
Speaker
So my question to you, Joy, is what does women supporting women mean to you specifically? And how does that show up in your life on a daily basis?
00:02:32
Speaker
Oh, I love that question. As a daughter of a very strong mother and sister of two incredible women, I have an older sister and a twin sister. I always saw it as a natural rhythm for myself. And why wouldn't we? And I do think that
00:02:49
Speaker
When you are able to see someone who either reflects something of interest to you or something completely different, it's an opportunity to actually share an exchange. My sisters and I, we have a lot of great similarities, but a lot of differences too. So I think we were armed with being able to desire connection from an early, early age. I find that when I'm around other women, I love to be able to hear their stories, understand
00:03:18
Speaker
where their pain points are, it just makes life a little bit more interesting.
Entrepreneurial Challenges & Opportunities
00:03:22
Speaker
And so as I grew into more entrepreneurship, I saw that there was a lot of things that were areas of opportunity that were that became larger and larger and larger. As you grow your career, you also see that you serve a specific subgroup.
00:03:37
Speaker
And many of us got to work with a lot of individuals who were maybe either allowing us to kind of move up the ladder who were the opposite gender or other women who were kind of pulling us up. And I always see it as if you're able to look far into the future and hopefully we're able to see that it would be with many of us arm in arm being able to support one another.
00:04:01
Speaker
It just makes it easier. I feel like I've had practice since the wombs as being a twin. Maybe a bit of that is why I find it so natural to be able to do so. But when I find other women actively asking questions of other women and saying, great, what are your hopes and dreams? What do you want to build? What are your desires?
Community & Connectivity
00:04:19
Speaker
And being able to say, great, let's get there together. That's so, so, so beautiful because it actually
00:04:24
Speaker
drives and enforces that anything can be possible. Of course, there's so many more bumps in the roads, many, many obstacles. I think that whether you come from immigrant family or individuals where there have been either more rhythm of sacrifice, that's something that we're all trying to work towards is how do we drive more equity in individuals who may not have as much as we do. And so for me, it's a natural rhythm. I find that women are so beautifully interesting. There's so much they want to give.
00:04:54
Speaker
They're the first people who always come to the table and say, hey, how can I help? Even when they're in the midst of all the obstacles themselves. So it's really exciting for me always to, again, look in, see where I can be supportive. And of course, that's why when you and I met and you instantaneously said, hey, how can I be of support? I just I love that. I think that I'm very attracted to that kind of energy individuals who
00:05:19
Speaker
in the balance of billions of things we're all doing, you will always leave room for the abundance of giving.
00:05:25
Speaker
I love that. Oh, that warms my heart so, so much. And I couldn't agree more. Women, at least most women, I've had the pleasure and honor of meeting and building relationships with beautiful, beautiful souls. And when you meet those special types of women, to your point, it comes so naturally. They open up, they create and hold space for you, oftentimes leading with vulnerability, which is oftentimes
00:05:50
Speaker
in a great way to establish trust with someone that you literally met probably because another woman or another woman introduced you, right? That was the case for the two of us, right? And you have since introduced me to incredible women and it's just, that's literally what I live for. If I could just meet incredible women all day, every day and like write them a bunch of checks taken on
00:06:17
Speaker
to build amazing things and then paid forward to future generations of women, that would be my dream, dream job. And it's been so great to be able to have the opportunity to do that specifically in our very vibrant New York City community because it's such a fabulous place for
00:06:35
Speaker
female entrepreneurs and founders, investors to come together in this joint mission of supporting one another, both personally and professionally. So that's probably been my biggest highlight of having moved to New York because it was a little bit different when I was still in Europe. So really, really appreciate to have incredible women like yourself in my life. Oh, thank you.
00:06:58
Speaker
Well, I do see that dream being actualized sooner than later for yourself. It's something that I know that you put out there, and it would be an honor for all of us to be able to have that check by someone who is a visionary as you are. Thank you, Joy. Oh, God. To our listeners out there, this is the power and the magic of women supporting women. We need more of that in this world. Joy is just
00:07:21
Speaker
a fabulous example of someone who holds so much space for other women. Let's pivot quickly, Joy, because I definitely want to talk more about your incredible work with retail, the company you've built.
Mission to Democratize Retail
00:07:36
Speaker
Many people in the entrepreneurial world refer to you as the queen of experimental retail. I think that's a really cool name and title. We just heard it in the interview of this wealth of experience across
00:07:49
Speaker
Brand design and real estate and your company retail seems to be the culmination of all the different unique professional milestones you've reached over the years. So I would love for you to tell us more about the value proposition of retail and why you believe in the marketization of access to affordable real estate so deeply.
00:08:11
Speaker
Yes, it has been a labor of love and you kind of look at specific things that you do in your past. There wasn't a straight line. There wasn't really, I would say, PropTech as a description when I was going to school. Even entrepreneurship wasn't really something that was
00:08:30
Speaker
a after-school program when I was going to school. And so I'm so pleased that it's more in the verbiage for so many young people. But back then, you kind of go through the motions of life. An obstacle comes up, you look at it and when you're young, you think anything is possible. So you kind of go through that and see that, okay, well, if there's an obstacle there, how can I improve it?
00:08:52
Speaker
that was as you saw a culmination of the things that i was doing i was within the branding and marketing space creating brand and then in the real estate asset management side i understand the value of real estate and so really mixing the two sounds like ingredients
00:09:08
Speaker
I saw that why not be able to have more brands go into physical real
Evolution of Retail Strategies
00:09:13
Speaker
estate. In 2008, the recession really caused a lot of splintering of how real estate was done. And there was rising vacancy. It was between, I believe, four to eight percent in a jump within the span of 2008 to 2012. And so that was such a big, big, big jump.
00:09:30
Speaker
in that time period. Of course, now we've come across during the pandemic where there was some unique positioning with real estate during the height of the pandemic. I would say from learning about a lot of the things of how real estate has been done, it's very static. The real estate was always
00:09:47
Speaker
twenty forty year locked leases in two thousand twelve we created a license agreement which was popularized by again storefront and many others and we made that more and more popular because there was demand for it so. Director consumer brands also became a term that was more utilized and you could see that so many entrepreneurs and online brands wanted to jump into physical retail.
00:10:11
Speaker
but they didn't know what's gonna happen five ten twenty years for that matter and we really really took the time to say great why not popularize license agreement which allowed more and more brands to take on terms that were less than a year when you do you risk the real estate and you don't tie them
00:10:29
Speaker
It allows for people to really try. What I was seeing, again, in working through storefront and then leading all of us was that a lot of the brands that we were working with constantly were desiring for again, something that was a little bit less expensive and less risk. And if you think about it, pop ups are between a quarter to half a million dollars to do it really, really well. And that's just for one month.
00:10:51
Speaker
If you wanted to do a for a year, you would have to probably have 2 million in funding. While we were able to offer this up for a lot of direct consumer brands who had venture dollars, what I saw was that there was a 90% of brands who did not have this. And so many of my friends are incredible entrepreneurs.
00:11:09
Speaker
many of them are women entrepreneurs leading incredible female brands when you look at the consumer tied to what is trending and what people are purchasing we know that the consumer powers between eighty five eighty six percent and many of the women are deciding for the household what to purchase as a new mom for me i've always
00:11:30
Speaker
look at the things that i'm purchasing is it also trending around the individuals around me and many people say great the convenience is being able to push a button on our phone and have it be delivered either same day or within the hour to me i always put the back and say wouldn't be nice if we could just go downstairs and actually just purchase the things that we want and so.
00:11:49
Speaker
A lot of the causation of why we created this was being able to say, great, we looked at the data and I would say 90% of the brands that were requesting short-term retail wanted something that was going to be listening about two months. And if anything, there was a splinter between brands who wanted something that was activated for a weekend and then one that was actually going to push sales. And so when we saw those two cohorts of brand types and then looked at what was the desired price points, it was way, way, way low.
00:12:19
Speaker
So we looked at ways to be able to actually lower contribution margins and be able to say, great, could it be more in the line of shared space? The pandemic happened and it became a tailwind for this concept. And so we knew that we had to quickly drive again some sort of product in front of our users to say, is this the right thing? Our product actually is a function of a lot of feedback from incredible brands that are great friends of ours and
00:12:47
Speaker
got to be able to say, is this the right product? Is this something that you guys foresee? And then on the flip side, so many storefronts were heard, so many brands were displaced over the pandemic. I think at the height of the pandemic, it was around 36% vacancy. And so that's pretty insane.
Post-Pandemic Support for Women-Owned Businesses
00:13:05
Speaker
So that's a jump from 2008 I mentioned to you.
00:13:08
Speaker
4% to 8% and for it to be that high. I mean that hurts anyone who has been in this space for a long time. So we quickly navigated and said we have to create this as soon as possible and got feedback from brands. We soft launched last year and we've been at it and focused ever since trying to give brands access to all mixed use. We're in Manhattan, we're growing into Brooklyn and we just hope that
00:13:33
Speaker
Our brands are as loud as they have been in sharing with us what they want and hope we can continue to serve them. What really resonated with me based on one you just shared was that this is labor of love based on all the active listening you yourself participated in.
00:13:54
Speaker
as part of this very vibrant entrepreneurial system that you've been a part of for many, many years, right? You're trying to figure out, okay.
00:14:04
Speaker
What is a common pain point that a lot of my friends and community members have? And then you identified this massive pain point, which obviously the pandemic kind of forced you to pivot a little bit and create additional need here. And now that we're in this post pandemic phase, in-person shopping has come back, right? We're thinking a lot more about sustainability and accessibility because I feel like those are two trends that have really been accelerated as a direct result
00:14:34
Speaker
of the pandemic and people taking a step back and reflecting on what is it that I really care about in life and how can I live my life in a way that is more aligned with my actual personal values. And I feel providing not only people in general, but specifically small business owners, female business owners, right, with opportunities to put themselves out there and increase their visibility. I think that is one of the few positive outcomes of the pandemic, right? So I love that this has really been
00:15:04
Speaker
an evolution that started many years ago when you were still a founding member of Storefront and all the experiences you've accumulated over time since then. And again, I'm coming back to this theme of community. And Joy, you're just an extraordinary community builder. Yes. Of course. I mean, it's just the truth. To give our audience a concrete example,
00:15:29
Speaker
This past March, Women's History Month, I had the pleasure of attending a fabulous event that you hosted in Soho where over 200 female founders and members of the ecosystem came together to celebrate women-owned direct-to-consumer brands and it was packed, it was buzzing.
00:15:48
Speaker
It was just very, very special. I got to meet some fabulous women who've since become supporters of mine and introduced me to other fabulous women and vice versa. Evidently, your work has a huge impact on female entrepreneurs because you help increase their visibility and make retail space a lot more accessible. I've been touching on that. So let's talk a little bit more about that accessibility piece here because
00:16:12
Speaker
Lack of excess is a common theme for women in general. We just established that already when you're discussing how the idea for retail came about.
00:16:23
Speaker
lack of access to capital, lack of access to networks, the boys club, you name it. Right. So would love for you to elaborate a little bit more on prior to retail existing. What were some of the biggest hurdles that not only small businesses in general, but particularly women owned DTC brands were consistently facing you're, you're mentioning.
00:16:49
Speaker
the financial lack of access, the lack of flexibility, but are there more things that we should talk about today? Yeah, I would say headlines are always meant for paralysis and keeping us feeling less than, right?
Community-Driven Retail Spaces
00:17:04
Speaker
I like to always flip the narrative and look at the power of the wallet. We at the same time
00:17:09
Speaker
own and drive this large, large amount of power and consumption. And as I mentioned, 85 climate, 86% of that consumer dollar is from women. And so while building businesses where a lot of that has to be shifted and change, and I think rather than erring on the side of
00:17:30
Speaker
anger or paralysis, it's being able to actually come together. And I find that so many women I know are so great at that, is putting things into action. That was really it, is that retail is, again, labor of love, identifying key areas, being able to say, great, if the data says this, then why haven't we done it? And so our action was, well, then let's do it. And so you can try to go and convince many, many people. And that's what I see is like the ask for permission piece that we get sort of stuck into.
00:17:58
Speaker
Or you just kind of say, if I'm spending more than, again, half my time or 85% of my time asking others if I should, then that's a real clear indicator that, yes, it's got to happen. And so then you bring advocates into place. The biggest thing is being able to bring individuals who are going to be either your biggest champions or
00:18:19
Speaker
be able to kind of open doors and windows for yourself and so that's really been it i think having been in this for a long time most people don't look at commercial real estate and say oh what's the compassion for commercial real estate is kind of unique but i would say that it is the
00:18:36
Speaker
number one thing that actually drives community so when we sit in a neighborhood most of it is like great what is the rental price and we're all really influenced by that but i would say is like the vacancy and i say every time we look around and we're paying a high premium to not only live in the city this great city,
00:18:55
Speaker
And seeing vacancy is that we're paying also a premium to then have to order ourselves something online and have to have to access it that way and have it be shipped. And so it's really about aligning our behavior with our core goals and our impact is so much tied to that. Right. And so when I think about why this is so important to me and why more and more and more brands should have that visibility is because when women are the decision makers, we should see that the sum of
00:19:24
Speaker
either products out there should be women led and owned and built because we're the ones really consuming it. And so when it's tested, we were able to actually then draw out what should be the neighborhood products that we get to purchase right then and there. It actually saves us time and it saves us money.
00:19:44
Speaker
That's where I think that the link between understanding how neighborhoods are built, how communities are built, that shared resource of us being able to go downstairs, be able to purchase from our friend who created an incredible period round like August, or for us to be able to say, great, what kind of snack foods do we want? Is it going to be gluten free? Is it healthy either for my child or for myself?
00:20:06
Speaker
or for my family or someone I'm taking care of. And these are all things that, again, as decision makers within the household, we should be able to also decide what shows up in our neighborhoods and how it's purchased. And so that's the sum of what retail is. It's no doubt that it is.
00:20:22
Speaker
named retail. It's spelled R-E-T-E-L-L dot C-O for the listeners, of course. But it's no doubt that we utilize that word as a play on words to say we believe that the greatest brands have a story worth telling. And so at the sum of it, we want for all the brands and those founders to be able to share their story loudly and to be able to say, I created this because of what? And most often I find that
00:20:45
Speaker
female founders have such an incredible story that it's really, really about something that they either lived through or partake is another one. I love the founder and then had a chance to hear her speak at a CPG event. And she just was all out of love saying her kid had these allergies and things like that. And I find so often, again, it is these incredible individuals who are taking the risk to say, hey, this happened to me.
00:21:12
Speaker
And I'm hoping either to prevent it or to be able to support something. And yeah, that's why it's something that is such a passion point for myself. Our team members were all sort of in it, really, really hoping and believing that at the face of being able to rebuild commerce and rebuild neighborhoods, we can be able to actually place these brands that we feel like have something to say and are actually refueling our economy.
00:21:39
Speaker
I think it's so powerful to incorporate that narrative of the community coming together and actually deciding on what their own or our own neighborhoods should look like. Cause oftentimes you move to a neighborhood and you think there is my favorite supermarket. Maybe there is like a park nearby and I'm somewhat close to the subway, right? Especially in New York city.
00:22:04
Speaker
But I don't really ask myself, okay, how can I contribute to my immediate community, my neighborhood?
Collaborative Retail Spaces
00:22:12
Speaker
Like, yes, I know that when I buy something from my favorite Thai place around the corner, it's going to be great for that small business. But I don't, I don't necessarily think about, okay, this is how I can actually be more proactive about shaping the future of this neighborhood that I love.
00:22:30
Speaker
So dearly, in my case, the Upper East Side here in Manhattan. So I think that's really, really interesting. And I started seeing some of these pop-up opportunities show up across so many different businesses in the city as yourself, because you're the expert there, Joy.
00:22:46
Speaker
There's coffee shops where you can now start buying a very, very diverse set of brands from tea and coffee, but also household items, sometimes clothing, right? And I think that's just like a beautiful evolution of retail when two very different types of businesses can come together, share physical
00:23:08
Speaker
retail space, also share some of the cost associated with it, but reach a bigger audience together and thereby growing closer together as a community, as a neighborhood.
00:23:22
Speaker
that's really, really beautiful. Yes, you're absolutely touching upon something that I think is what we consider that the camaraderie between online and physical retail, right? No doubt there's been thrown around this idea of omnichannel. We say that it's really important to be able to have
00:23:38
Speaker
physical presence because we are as individuals, as humans, we're multi-sensory. So we really light up when we get to actually use our senses, whether it's taste, touch, smell, sight. And so when we get to do those things, we find that it drives more and more and more ROI conversion for our brands. And so
00:23:59
Speaker
being able to, again, double up with having a placement in, again, a coffee shop, a co-working space, another retail store, a hotel lobby. We look at it as mixed use. We're really providing and arming our brands to show up exactly where their consumer is.
00:24:15
Speaker
And so they can be the power of seven in terms of things being in places where you're already going. That's really our philosophy, is we're optimizing the discovery touch points for our brands to be able to see. If we show up at your nearby coffee shop and then we're there again at your coworking space and there again at your social event,
00:24:33
Speaker
the likelihood that you're gonna say, wow, I'm seeing this, I really trust it. And then really that sort of community, then also trust it, right? If you're maybe tasting from Zaza chips and saying, great, this is so delicious. And someone else is like, yeah, this is amazing. And you suddenly find yourself scanning the QR and being able to purchase it for your home for your next party. We find that in the convenience of higher dwell time,
00:24:59
Speaker
more people are able to socialize and purchase. But the days of going again to space and spending a whole day Saturday, it's still happening
Importance of Physical Retail
00:25:08
Speaker
for sure. But it's fewer in terms of us kind of getting out of our way. And that's really important is that the pandemic has shifted entirely how consumers actually can discover product. And while digital channels are about
00:25:22
Speaker
less than three, but we see that our brands are able to convert at a 40% and higher. And so that's where the Hubert point is. So it's exciting. And to us, it's only a natural fit to be able to utilize our platform alongside their digital channels. But at least, again, that discovery and an optimal discovery for any human is there. And we're driving the convenience of learning about the product, and then you can actually ship it to yourself.
00:25:48
Speaker
I love that. So we've now spent some time talking about the individual experience of consumers within our individual communities and neighborhoods. Can you share some stories or anecdotes from female business owners that you've worked with over the past few months that made you think, yes, this is exactly why I'm doing what I'm doing?
00:26:09
Speaker
Oh, all the time. Come walk with us. It's always fun. I think that the biggest thing sometimes when people have a big question mark, I haven't seen it in action. As I say, great. Come, let's walk a neighborhood and let's just jump in and take a look. And for our small business owners,
00:26:25
Speaker
The biggest thing during the pandemic is that they had to be very conservative about traffic, and that was dictated by safety. So either occupancy had to be cut in half or 25% to half. That was the burden of the small business owner having to schedule, reschedule. And all of this stuff is like, great, based on the safety. But at the end of the day, New York did an incredible job of ensuring that we were both safely open, but also
00:26:53
Speaker
driving traffic back in. It's still tough because, again, so many of us are working remotely. And so sometimes people don't even leave their house in a full day, right? You can get everything shipped to yourself. What we find is that the shift happens when you're locked up for so, so, so, so long. We're seeing that many people are finding reasons to go out. But because you have that hybrid and remote, the going out is more going to a social event, going to a bar, going to a coffee shop.
00:27:21
Speaker
So if we position our products exactly there, it really becomes a light bulb moment. I would say that we've worked really closely with the folks at the mall in and we love that love, love, love their team. And so for them, we get to for this next month also provide a opportunity for their members to actually try a lot of different
00:27:40
Speaker
F&B from snacks to drinks and alcoholic drinks and so our brands love this because it again it drives exposure to an audience that they want to get in front of that they know it's going to be high dwell time that it drives sort of this familiarity and so for us being able to bridge that and say we're exposing these brands to exactly the consumers that they want to be exposed to and
00:28:02
Speaker
And then being able to say, great, now the relationship is tied in a bow because they're able to give feedback and it's not lost in the nuance of someone just kind of grab and go. We really are direct to consumer friendly and are allowed for the attribution metrics to be shared. And so for our brands, it's something that just lights them up. I would say that.
00:28:22
Speaker
It's always a journey. We're always listening. You can always see me sort of listening to consumers all the time interact with our products and spaces and places. So can't wait to be able to share with you guys some of the nuanced learnings that we have for the coming months. Absolutely. I love that so, so much because it's so important to your core, right? And you can tell just by listening to you. I could listen to you talking about this for hours and I'm relatively new to the world of
00:28:51
Speaker
Prop tech and commercial real estate and it's something that is so so interesting to me but because you show up with such a high level of Authenticity and you can just tell that your heart is really in this it's contagious so love listening to you talk about this passion of yours joy and
00:29:14
Speaker
Let's shift gears a little bit because this is not the first time you're building a new venture, right? And I'm sure there were tons and tons and tons of learnings you've taken away from your time scaling and ultimately exiting with Storefront in the past. This is a very broad question, Joy, but what are you doing differently this time around from a founder, new venture perspective, both from a business and from a personal perspective?
Innovation Challenges in Real Estate
00:29:39
Speaker
Always listen to your users. I think when in doubt, whether it's team discussion, discussions with outside, you always have advisors, investors.
00:29:49
Speaker
individuals saying maybe it's something that's happened before. I think when you create an innovative product, it's difficult because there's a lot of risk in it and we have a duty to be able to de-risk and say these are specific data sets. But without having full pool of data sets and saying we know this, how do you ensure that you're arming individuals or yourself?
00:30:11
Speaker
with being able to say this is the right thing and i think when you're building something entirely new new category altogether we're looking at mixed use space and taking that access space and turning that as a profit for space owners and as an opportunity we call it turning access into access for brands and so for us it's so clear because it's nuance and that sharing
00:30:32
Speaker
space. And I think real estate has always been really landed into just more the landlords and the real estate brokers and property owners. And so we're looking at it's really a partnership between brand to brand and small business owners get it because they're also taking the risk. And so what I've learned is that when we between the team or as we jump into either a new milestone or something that we're looking forward to as a goal,
00:30:58
Speaker
Forever in disagreement or to have a, I don't know, moment, we always turn to our users and say, great, well, let's just leave it up to them. That's the trust that we get to have, the loyalty that our users have at any moment. I mean, sometimes.
00:31:11
Speaker
It will be weeks and we'll go back in and say, hey, can you just take a look at this or give us feedback on this specific feature? And they're always quick to respond. And so I find that that's something that the rhythm of being able to build a company and feel like you're going fast, fast, fast, fast and you're
00:31:30
Speaker
having a lot of people with many, many hands and how something should be built. Quite frankly, I find it just more fun when you can actually just get real feedback from the users and say, well, I guess this is what they love, this is what they want. It also allows us to move more quickly because there's more focus.
00:31:47
Speaker
I feel like with our team, we always use that as a tool. I love that. So moral of the story here, listen to your users always, always ask questions, ask lots of questions and invite them into your space, into your venture space, into your business planning, into your iterations. I think that's a very, very valuable lesson.
00:32:13
Speaker
What about from a personal perspective?
Personal Growth & Time Management
00:32:15
Speaker
You've probably evolved as an individual. Your priorities have probably changed over the years, right? You're in a different stage of your life. Maybe you're giving yourself a little bit more grace. You're probably wiser. Walk us through what that looks like.
00:32:31
Speaker
It's a beautiful work in progress. I will say I consider myself more of an operator slash entrepreneur. There's different set of strong suits in terms of being a founder and the individual who is in front of creating the ask with
00:32:48
Speaker
either venture and we were talking about this in terms of being able to have that access to capital. I definitely have been able to and I quickly always look in and say where are opportunities I can improve and what are my strong suits. I try to dictate that pretty quickly so that I'm not spending so much time saying where can I improve and improve but saying do I have other individuals around me who could do it better.
00:33:10
Speaker
I feel so fortunate that our team is made up of some of the greatest that as individuals who are the best experts at their domain. You can quickly see how well they are able to do it. I like to always dip in and say maybe I'll try and dabble just so I know again and it gives me a little bit of empathy to understand what their strengths are, what the individuals I have armed our team with and I would say that our team they're so good at what they do. So I think being able to always look at what are
00:33:38
Speaker
my key opportunities, but not having to do it all. Delegation is something that's so core and key and something still work in progress. My relationship with time has certainly shifted as a new mom to a young seven-month-year-old. And I just think that now I look at it as an observation of time value. And it's great to be able to do that. I think that I'm way more optimal with each minute. It used to be even more stretched in terms of hours.
00:34:06
Speaker
But I find that my multitasking skills is now I'm armed with being able to have foresight onto is it going to actually align with future goals, current goals. So those are things that still work in progress. I'm definitely open to if individuals have a time management, either book or tool. That is something that I'm always, always looking at. I do a lot of time blocking on my calendar and that has worked. But part of being an entrepreneur as well as a mother
00:34:35
Speaker
is that some of it is so unknown and you have to really catch it as they come and so the obstacles are constant and so I do think that being a mother has been probably one of the most entrepreneurial things I've done because you can do and you can work so so so so hard at it and there's still a big big open opportunity of areas in which you have no idea how it's going to be and it's a lifelong journey and so I think it also keeps me open to
00:35:02
Speaker
This is a lifelong journey. It's why we really believe in what we're doing. And it's not if, but it's when. And you really just start to, you know, jump into things that you're uncomfortable with, but you just do it because you see the larger outcome and they can be incremental, but it can be way, way more rewarding. So it feels familiar as I'm raising my seven month year old to be able to say, I don't know the outcome, but I know that if I put in the good work, it just, it feels right.
00:35:29
Speaker
I love that huge fan of leveraging the Eisenhower Matrix for determining how to structure my days.
Task Prioritization Strategies
00:35:39
Speaker
You're familiar with the Eisenhower Matrix, I'm assuming, Joy, right? Yes, but I feel like I need a bootcamp of sorts to be able to put it in practice. As an entrepreneur, I always looked at it as like 24 hours and that's what I felt the gift of time.
00:35:54
Speaker
was based on those 24 hours. But now being tired is a different tired. Being able to balance many things, it's just a little bit different. I think it makes me a lot smarter about it, but it's still a work in progress. But I'd love to hear your view on it and how you've been able to hack your world and your time management.
00:36:14
Speaker
I mean, I have the utmost respect for you because I don't have a child sitting at home, so I cannot even fathom. I have just so much respect and admiration for working moms specifically and even more so for
00:36:30
Speaker
female business owners with kids. I cannot even imagine that's actually one of my biggest fears because I do want to have children one day. I want to have biological children one day. And the stories I've heard from women, things around miscarriages and birthing trauma and postpartum depression. And then we haven't been touched upon the things like gender pay gaps and how they differ between moms and dads and how it's already bad for single
00:36:59
Speaker
women who don't have children, but it gets significantly worse for women with mothers. There's that motherhood penalty that fathers simply do not get. And so I digress. We can, we can absolutely always dive in and jump in. I think it's so important to have open discussions about both in personal and business practice, both in, surrounded by friends, both female and male and professionals within that space as well.
00:37:28
Speaker
It's so top of mind. I found that so many of my male friends as well have a top of mind too as their partners go through it.
00:37:37
Speaker
And it isn't something that should be done in silo. We're in an epidemic where the thought of having children or starting a family as the news and it's constantly again in that negative state and we are in a recession. And so I do think that because we feel like we can control time and environment, we sometimes put it off. But I think it's one of the most important things to be able to discuss because it goes into the central bowl of
00:38:04
Speaker
What do I want? And it has to be, who do I see myself in the next 50 years? Not in the now, but in the next 50 years, and be able to take my working towards those things. Having a family with kids or without, it's just one of the most beautiful things. And I look at it as our community, again, being able to say, how are we arming ourselves with individuals that we can call to support us and be able to support? The more we always think about who do we want to arm that with,
00:38:34
Speaker
pretty much very, very similar to running a business. You want to be able to say, who are the individuals that I light up? Who are maybe who have the strengths that I don't have? And so when you're able to lean on that, I find that a lot of my friends who are really incredible at multitasking and seeing and arming themselves with individuals who are different from them, who have skill sets that are different, are really, really good at, again, doing the parenting as well. And so I think the assumption I fell to is that
00:39:04
Speaker
It was this other category of muscle and almost like we had to be ready for it and train for it. I mean, honestly, I would say every parent I've ever known, there's no ready. There just isn't. But just like building a business, there just isn't. And I will say that we did not foresee things that were happening in the past few months happen, right? From bank infrastructures and these things, you develop the mindset that it's like, look, if you have the right people around,
00:39:33
Speaker
me with anything, I'll be ready. And so that's part of it. So I would say I would be pleased to continue the conversation around this. All I hope is more and more individuals just are able to speak about it, feel comfortable to speak about it, because we, in terms of the balance of time, right, then at some point we don't have that choice anymore. And I do think freedom is tied into having choice and how we utilize that time. And so
00:40:00
Speaker
the unfortunate thing is that women's science is there and has been incredible in terms of ibf but we are locked into being able to say there is a taking time but i will say the most incredible entrepreneurs and female entrepreneurs who are doing it so well they have
00:40:15
Speaker
this incredible, incredible resourcefulness. And I look to so many of my incredible female friends who are doing it swimmingly well, but they're also very unhonest about when it's hard. So again, I think that's the most cherished moments is when I hear friends say, Oh man, I just had a tough day and I just need to tell you about it. And I go, I'm here to listen. And then when they're up for it, we say, let's come up with a
00:40:38
Speaker
So that's the best. Oh, absolutely. And I've definitely heard from a lot of women as well that becoming a mother, it unlocks this new superpower in you. I mean, there were already so many superpowers just by virtue of being a woman and being
00:40:54
Speaker
raised in this world and having to overcome a lot of obstacles, right? But being a mother gives you a lot more clarity to your point, what is important to you in life. Your minutes you were mentioning earlier become a lot more precious. So as a result of that, you really have to prioritize sometimes ruthlessly, right? To make sure that you invest enough time in your top priority, which is your family, right?
00:41:19
Speaker
So in that sense, I am looking forward to being able to unlock that power at some point in the not so distant future, hopefully. But going back to the time management topic, because I do want to share some of the things that worked for me really well. And in addition to the Eisenhower matrix, which basically on the y-axis, you have importance. And then on the x-axis, you have urgency.
00:41:45
Speaker
Ideally, the first quadrant is the top right quadrant. Yes, I'm trying to illustrate that for our listeners right now who will only be able to listen to our voices. The top right quadrant, if you think back to math class, that one is actually
00:42:02
Speaker
the most important one, the tasks associated with it that are important for medium to long term success, but not necessarily the things that are super urgent from a day to day from an operational perspective. So those are the things that we tend to put off, even though those are the things 20% of tasks that oftentimes unlock 80% of your success.
00:42:28
Speaker
Those are the things that we should probably focusing on getting done on a weekly or at least in a biweekly or monthly basis. But because they're oftentimes not urgent or like fires we have to put out, we tend to deprioritize even though we shouldn't. So I'm always very mindful of making sure that I progress in those areas as well and those
00:42:47
Speaker
forced quadrant areas because I know that those will be most impactful to me long term. And the second quadrant to the left of it, we have the ones that are important, still important, but not quite as important from an impact perspective, but very urgent. And those are oftentimes things that you have to get done on a daily basis from operational perspective, internal meetings, for example, or if you're in a client facing
00:43:13
Speaker
role the way I am responding to client emails with requests. So lower importance for yourself, but very urgent. And then if we move down to the low importance, but kind of like still somewhat high urgency quadrant, those are the things you should actually delegate if possible, because oftentimes other people determine the urgency, but for you, it's actually not that urgent, right?
00:43:42
Speaker
So those are things you can ideally outsource to other people. You could probably still do those things really well for yourself, but that's not where you should be spending your time and energy. So that's the third quadrant. And then the fourth one are just things you should stop doing altogether because
00:43:58
Speaker
They're just not important and not as urgent either. So that's how I try to think about it. Something else that has really helped, I set a lot more boundaries around my calendar. So for my nine to five job, I don't take meetings before 10 AM and I don't take meetings after 4 PM. I wear a lot of different hats. So in order to make it work
00:44:22
Speaker
Simultaneously like I have to set those those boundaries then within that 10 to 4 p.m. Time frame I tried to be really really focused joy I know that you were recently raising funding for retails seed round and Unfortunately, we all know the horrific stats around women having raised less than 2% of women
00:44:41
Speaker
VC dollars in 2022. It's so frustrating. But curious to hear from you what support systems you were able to tap into when you were looking to raise
Fundraising Challenges & Successes
00:44:52
Speaker
funds. Were there any organizations or networks or individuals that were particularly helpful to you?
00:44:57
Speaker
Yes. So we did a pre-seed and closed one in October, 2021. And it was really just individuals who had worked with me previously. And last year, it was interesting because we did go out for a seed round. We knew that we were a bit early.
00:45:15
Speaker
And many of our advisors and just friends in the founder space were like, look, it's a land grab. The market's going to crash. Let's see how it goes. And so we're confident in the value we're bringing to our users. We had over index and demand from both.
00:45:31
Speaker
the space partners and the brands. And so for us, we knew that in order to build a really sound business at scale and open new markets, at some point we'd have to have a sum of capital infusion in order to do that well. I think for us, it's not necessarily being able to say do we need the capital just for the idea, but it's being able to say we have a high standard that we want to do it so, so well that people come back and for it's about the retention of our users.
00:45:59
Speaker
I would say that it was the timing of sorts. It was kind of the perfect storm. The market was crashing. We were a bit early in terms of conversations, but I'm so glad we did it because I will say that so many people have now been proactively reaching out to us, which is the best dynamic to have with investors.
00:46:16
Speaker
You know, you can't deny when you're actually building value. And I would say that the one thing that I would always share with all founders, male, female, but specifically female, is focus on your core strengths and do that. Well, it's undeniable. I would say that for myself, it's actually being able to get user adoption and driving revenue. And I will say that last year when I pivoted to fundraising, creating the ask for funds isn't my strong suit. I'm actually quite used to being able to make money.
00:46:46
Speaker
then ask for money. And so there was a little bit of this imbalance of my strong suit. And so that's something of practice. I no doubt for the greater team and I've had incredible advisors say joy. It's something that you guys need a capital infusion. Don't think of it as something that you have either maybe not a strong suit about, but rather
00:47:06
Speaker
be able to arm yourself with either the individuals or the people to strengthen that. And so it's something we're jumping back into for sure. But I would say our core focus for this year is revenue, revenue, revenue, driving value, profit.
00:47:19
Speaker
all of these things that at the end of the day, if you're a really, really great business, green has no bias. There's just the color green and that multiplies when you do it super well. And so I try to ensure that our team stays focused on that. But sometimes you hear that. I mean, 2022, when I think all the headlines of what was the sum of a capital given to minority or underrepresented and women founders, it's very, very depressing.
00:47:47
Speaker
I think that it's because the infrastructure doesn't allow for people to see the impact that these incredible diverse individuals and minds are able to offer and i find that more female have higher impact and have a nurturing sensibility that allows for higher retention companies.
00:48:06
Speaker
So when we start to actually shift the narrative and see what do we value and maybe more companies now will be built with a nurturing mindset and be able to grow internally as opposed to this high churn mindset. The days of being higher fast and fire fast.
00:48:21
Speaker
Maybe it's a little bit more of really know what the value you're bringing and hopefully be able to grow within. And so I think that there's so much importance of being able to do that as now that the individuals was kind of saying we have like our team so patient around some of this from like last year and us navigating the fundraising process.
00:48:40
Speaker
and then being like great and there's a little bit of optimism and realism that has to happen when you're a founder. You have to be able to say when do you kind of push and when do you actually say this is what's happening? When do you share transparency and when do you ensure that you are not saying too much so that everybody stays focused? A lot of it we're still learning and I'm always open ears to best practices. I think that that's something
00:49:05
Speaker
that is a strong suit for us is that we're all sort of here to absorb the best learning so that we can actually bring the best product to our users. And so that's a bit of it. Again, this all goes back to community, active listening, and both of those putting you in a position where you then can actually create and add real value. And then the money follows eventually one way or another, either through revenue or, as you were mentioning,
00:49:34
Speaker
attracting potential investors proactively, which is fantastic. So I'm so thrilled for you. And I know you will go places with retail because it's just such an incredible idea and it makes a ton of sense. So I cannot wait for you to expand globally eventually. I hope that's long-term vision. Oh, absolutely. Look, Joy, I'd like to close with the same question for each of my guests. What's a financial milestone you've achieved that you are the most proud of?
00:50:03
Speaker
I think even having raised our pre-seed, looking back to the very first conversations I had with a few advisors, it was very not in my culture to ask for a lot of things. Maybe even just personally, I come from immigrant parents. They've hustled. They've worked hard. Both of them worked when we were growing up. And so you really, really
00:50:25
Speaker
find independence and you thrive and being able to say, if I can make it out on my own and you become resourceful in that. And the ass piece of it was kind of strange. So I had a dear friend of mine who I just said, look, I need to put this in practice. And a few actually of my friends and champions and visors have put it really, really point blank and said, look, at the end of the day, money is borrowed and venture borrows from LP borrows when it's just,
00:50:53
Speaker
bangs ball it's just it's a cycle and it's really the ones who know how to drive value that get to have. It more quickly right and so i think that that's something i have absolutely been charmed by by listening to that.
00:51:11
Speaker
advice and be able to say if I don't create the ask and now it's just become something that I know that it's a larger mission that in order for us to provide spatial equity for the greater economy for there to be more products in people's hands that are the right products that actually get to fuel our neighborhoods in order for us to do that we have to keep pushing and I have to be very unapologetically asking others to say we know that this is the product that
00:51:37
Speaker
will be built no matter what. It's not if, it's when, and if you really believe in align with this for the future, for your children's children, and to really say we are at the detriment to our own decision making if we don't allow ourselves and our own consumer behavior to actually be reflected on how we purchase in our neighborhoods. So that's a big piece of it, but I so appreciate you going deep and asking these incredible questions, so thought out.
00:52:03
Speaker
Thank you, my dear. This was honestly one of the biggest highlights of my week. So thank you for that. I'm so glad that we met. And I know this is just one of many, many conversations that we will have moving forward. So thank you for taking the time today to have this wonderful conversation. And I cannot wait for our listeners to be able to benefit from your wisdom and your magic. So thank you.
00:52:29
Speaker
Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure. I could do this again for hours, and we will, and I look forward to it. But yes, thank you so much for having me on and just sharing with me as well. Thank you, Joy.
00:52:43
Speaker
Hey there, not so fast. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you've listened in from today. Reviews are a podcaster's most important currency. It helps me create visibility for the incredible women who join me on this show. And if you've made it this far, I'd like to believe that supporting women is one of your favorite pastimes.
00:53:08
Speaker
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