[{"_1":2,"_3":-5,"_4":-5},"loaderData",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"actionData","errors","root",{"_139":-5,"_140":-5,"_141":142,"_143":144,"_145":146},"routes/clips.$id.$slug",{"_9":10,"_11":12},"clip",{"_13":14,"_15":16,"_17":-5,"_18":19,"_20":-5,"_21":22,"_23":24,"_25":26,"_27":28,"_29":30,"_31":32,"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_44":45,"_46":-5,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":-5},"canonicalUrl","https://howleaderslead.com/clips/3320/if-its-hard-to-build-its-tough-to-copy","id",3320,"title","If it’s hard to build, it’s tough to copy","subtitle","transcript","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.960\nmoving physical product and going through what is a massive undertaking to\n\n2\n00:00:06.960 --> 00:00:08.160\nprint with quality\n\n3\n00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:12.710\nand to make sure that your card stock is the biggest card stock, you're\n\n4\n00:00:12.710 --> 00:00:14.080\noffering a recycled\n\n5\n00:00:14.080 --> 00:00:22.560\noption that's still high quality. Those things take time to perfect. I think\n\n6\n00:00:22.560 --> 00:00:23.280\none of our biggest\n\n7\n00:00:23.280 --> 00:00:29.080\nmoats is the fact is how difficult it is to scale printing and customer service\n\n8\n00:00:29.080 --> 00:00:30.880\nat the peak,\n\n9\n00:00:30.880 --> 00:00:35.840\nat the same quality level, when most of the universe orders their holiday cards\n\n10\n00:00:35.840 --> 00:00:36.640\nin the space of three\n\n11\n00:00:36.640 --> 00:00:40.020\nweeks. So you can imagine like it's really built in the church streets or\n\n12\n00:00:40.020 --> 00:00:41.520\nSunday that is so difficult.\n\n13\n00:00:41.520 --> 00:00:46.750\nAnd that's what I mean by you know you're doing things that are so painful. As\n\n14\n00:00:46.750 --> 00:00:47.680\na founder with\n\n15\n00:00:47.680 --> 00:00:51.650\nvery little capital, take the midnight shift, that sort of thing, you know, fly\n\n16\n00:00:51.650 --> 00:00:52.960\naround the\n\n17\n00:00:52.960 --> 00:00:57.070\ncountry to pick the paper out personally and to and have cards sent to your\n\n18\n00:00:57.070 --> 00:00:58.080\ndesk personally to\n\n19\n00:00:58.080 --> 00:01:03.940\nreview them, pick the paper out from the mills, go figure out your printing\n\n20\n00:01:03.940 --> 00:01:05.440\nnetwork, stand that\n\n21\n00:01:05.440 --> 00:01:11.470\nall up, write that write all the metrics that track your quality. It just goes\n\n22\n00:01:11.470 --> 00:01:12.160\non and on,\n\n23\n00:01:12.160 --> 00:01:16.320\nbuild the systems to track quality. Those are things that are\n\n24\n00:01:18.640 --> 00:01:19.960\nNot very pleasant tasks.\n","pretty_transcript","start_time",1801639,"end_time",1881659,"keywords","Product, competition, competitor, differentiation, product differentiation, quality, retail","slug","if-its-hard-to-build-its-tough-to-copy","origin","cms","mux_playback_id","8skwxGMxv7OCktcp7lf9WV5dj53lLffi5TGsvEmsbRw","mux_asset_id","QX58rciUdBHsnA4jb9IWwvEz8qqs4rfZfmvLbeC6NOg","leader_id",277,"episode_id",428,"updated_at","2026-05-07T15:41:30.000000Z","meta_title","meta_description","og_image_media_id","web_url","https://www.howleaderslead.com/clips/3320/if-its-hard-to-build-its-tough-to-copy","og_image_url","leader",{"_13":36,"_103":104,"_105":106,"_107":108,"_25":109,"_110":111,"_61":112,"_58":112,"_113":114,"_68":115,"_39":116,"_117":-5,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_118":119,"_91":120,"_44":121,"_122":123,"_124":125,"_46":-5,"_126":127,"_128":129,"_95":130,"_51":-5},"episode",{"_13":38,"_15":52,"_27":53,"_17":54,"_55":56,"_18":57,"_20":-5,"_58":59,"_60":-5,"_61":59,"_62":-5,"_63":64,"_65":66,"_67":-5,"_68":-5,"_69":70,"_71":72,"_73":74,"_35":36,"_39":75,"_41":-5,"_42":76,"_43":-5,"_77":78,"_79":80,"_81":82,"_83":84,"_85":-5,"_86":-5,"_87":88,"_89":90,"_91":-5,"_46":-5,"_92":93,"_94":-5,"_95":-5,"_51":-5},"og_image_media","See the possibilities in people","see-the-possibilities-in-people","Great leaders see possibility in people that others miss. Lead with the belief that people are capable of more than their current circumstances might suggest. Your job is to find that potential and draw it out.","summary","

Minted Founder Mariam Naficy was ready to shut it all down. She’d spent nearly all the capital from her angel round, but nothing was selling.

Then, she experimented with crowdsourcing stationery and card designs from independent artists, and everything changed.

Sales exploded. And 18 years later, Minted is in 75 million homes worldwide, empowering tens of thousands of independent artists and designers to make a living.

And it’s a testament to Mariam’s ability to find the potential in people that others miss. Whether it’s with customers, independent artists, or her own team, she leads with the belief that people are full of possibilities, and it’s up to leaders to draw them out.

Hit play and see how to become the kind of leader who gets the best out of the people around them. You’ll also learn:

The question to ask before you fire someone
How to build a competitive moat around your business
Why your brand should be a big factor in your approach to AI
One surprising strategy that can help you be a better listener

","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.760\nHello friends, and welcome to another episode of How Leaders Lead with David\n\n2\n00:00:03.760 --> 00:00:04.480\nNovak.\n\n3\n00:00:04.480 --> 00:00:08.000\nToday we have Maryam Nafisi on the show. She's the founder of Minted,\n\n4\n00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:12.600\nwhich is a design-driven, crowdsourced marketplace that connects artists with\n\n5\n00:00:12.600 --> 00:00:13.200\nconsumers\n\n6\n00:00:13.200 --> 00:00:16.400\nto deliver high-end stationery home decor and art.\n\n7\n00:00:16.400 --> 00:00:20.340\nNow, Maryam is the type of leader who knows how to get the very best out of her\n\n8\n00:00:20.340 --> 00:00:20.720\npeople.\n\n9\n00:00:20.720 --> 00:00:23.840\nWhether it's with customers, independent artists, or her own team,\n\n10\n00:00:23.840 --> 00:00:27.920\nshe leads with the belief that people are full of possibilities.\n\n11\n00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:32.200\nAnd in this episode, you'll learn how to embrace that same belief so that you\n\n12\n00:00:32.200 --> 00:00:32.480\ntoo\n\n13\n00:00:32.480 --> 00:00:37.040\ncan get the very best out of your team. Enjoy this episode with David and Mary\n\n14\n00:00:37.040 --> 00:00:37.040\nam,\n\n15\n00:00:37.040 --> 00:00:38.480\nand I'll see you at the debrief.\n\n16\n00:00:38.480 --> 00:00:50.960\nMinted has products in over 75 million homes worldwide. Have you ever walked\n\n17\n00:00:50.960 --> 00:00:51.920\ninto someone's house\n\n18\n00:00:51.920 --> 00:00:56.960\nand spotted a minted piece on the wall without them knowing who you are?\n\n19\n00:00:56.960 --> 00:01:02.800\nYes, it's happened in public places, like offices that's happened.\n\n20\n00:01:02.800 --> 00:01:10.550\nOn Samsung Frame TVs, I often see minted art that those TVs are all over the\n\n21\n00:01:10.550 --> 00:01:10.880\nplace,\n\n22\n00:01:10.880 --> 00:01:15.730\nor just an office where there might be holiday cards that people have pinned up\n\n23\n00:01:15.730 --> 00:01:16.000\n.\n\n24\n00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:19.120\nSo, yeah, it's fun to encounter the product in the real world.\n\n25\n00:01:19.120 --> 00:01:22.960\nYeah, it's going to say, \"What's that like when you walk in and see something\n\n26\n00:01:22.960 --> 00:01:24.320\nthat you created?\"\n\n27\n00:01:24.320 --> 00:01:31.330\nIt's humbling. It's sometimes it can be overwhelming, but I guess after it's\n\n28\n00:01:31.330 --> 00:01:31.600\nsort of\n\n29\n00:01:31.600 --> 00:01:37.040\nalmost a lifetime of work, 18 years. So, I guess that's what happens when you\n\n30\n00:01:37.040 --> 00:01:37.920\nspend a lot of time on\n\n31\n00:01:37.920 --> 00:01:43.470\nsomething. And you've spent a lot of time on some great things. Your mom is an\n\n32\n00:01:43.470 --> 00:01:44.400\nartist,\n\n33\n00:01:44.400 --> 00:01:49.700\nyour uncle is a graphic designer, your Aunt Mason is a well-known installation\n\n34\n00:01:49.700 --> 00:01:50.800\nartist in LA.\n\n35\n00:01:51.440 --> 00:01:56.470\nArt was basically the family business to a certain extent. Was there ever a\n\n36\n00:01:56.470 --> 00:01:57.360\nmoment growing up where\n\n37\n00:01:57.360 --> 00:02:04.580\nyou thought you might actually become an artist yourself? No. I unfortunately\n\n38\n00:02:04.580 --> 00:02:05.600\ndid not get any of\n\n39\n00:02:05.600 --> 00:02:09.600\nthose genes. They skipped me, but I really enjoy being with artists. I love\n\n40\n00:02:09.600 --> 00:02:10.480\nlooking at beautiful\n\n41\n00:02:10.480 --> 00:02:16.310\nthings. I am very sensitive aesthetically, so I really enjoy beautiful art,\n\n42\n00:02:16.310 --> 00:02:17.680\nbeautiful design,\n\n43\n00:02:17.680 --> 00:02:21.680\nand I really love working with people who can take those creative risks and put\n\n44\n00:02:21.680 --> 00:02:22.080\nthemselves\n\n45\n00:02:22.080 --> 00:02:25.790\nout there, because it's really like almost exposing a part of you. It is so\n\n46\n00:02:25.790 --> 00:02:26.480\npersonal,\n\n47\n00:02:26.480 --> 00:02:29.370\nand I really respect people who can do that. What's your favorite piece of art\n\n48\n00:02:29.370 --> 00:02:30.080\nthat you have in your\n\n49\n00:02:30.080 --> 00:02:36.580\nown home? I have a piece, I have a photographic piece that is by a female\n\n50\n00:02:36.580 --> 00:02:38.800\nartist named Lala Acedi,\n\n51\n00:02:38.800 --> 00:02:44.820\nand she interpreted her childhood, took a photograph, but first she calligrap\n\n52\n00:02:44.820 --> 00:02:45.040\nhed\n\n53\n00:02:45.040 --> 00:02:49.640\neverybody and everything with calligraphy in the photo. She actually drew on\n\n54\n00:02:49.640 --> 00:02:50.320\npeople's faces.\n\n55\n00:02:50.320 --> 00:02:55.520\nIt's an amazing piece where it looks like someone laid it. That's probably my\n\n56\n00:02:55.520 --> 00:02:56.240\nfavorite piece in my\n\n57\n00:02:56.240 --> 00:03:01.560\nhome. For anyone who hasn't heard of Vinted, what is it and what's your\n\n58\n00:03:01.560 --> 00:03:02.720\nbusiness model?\n\n59\n00:03:02.720 --> 00:03:09.360\nVinted is basically connecting the creativity of tens of thousands of people,\n\n60\n00:03:09.360 --> 00:03:09.840\nartists and\n\n61\n00:03:09.840 --> 00:03:14.800\ndesigners around the world with consumers. We crowdsource the art and design\n\n62\n00:03:14.800 --> 00:03:16.320\nfrom independent\n\n63\n00:03:16.320 --> 00:03:20.940\nartists, and we turn that into customizable templates in holiday cards, wedding\n\n64\n00:03:20.940 --> 00:03:21.600\ninvitations,\n\n65\n00:03:21.600 --> 00:03:27.140\nalso wall art that consumers anywhere can purchase. I would call it a big\n\n66\n00:03:27.140 --> 00:03:28.400\ndesign marketplace,\n\n67\n00:03:28.400 --> 00:03:33.000\nand it's global. The artists and designers are from over 100 countries, and\n\n68\n00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:34.320\nconsumers are\n\n69\n00:03:34.320 --> 00:03:40.160\nin the US. Actually, the artists and designers are all over the US as well. A\n\n70\n00:03:40.160 --> 00:03:41.520\nlot of small towns,\n\n71\n00:03:41.520 --> 00:03:46.480\nI would say smaller cities in the US, which you wouldn't necessarily think of\n\n72\n00:03:46.480 --> 00:03:47.600\nas the design hub\n\n73\n00:03:47.600 --> 00:03:53.180\nof the US. There are artists and designers in all of our cities. We have formed\n\n74\n00:03:53.180 --> 00:03:53.920\na community of\n\n75\n00:03:53.920 --> 00:03:56.940\npeople who really care about each other, who have become friends with each\n\n76\n00:03:56.940 --> 00:03:59.520\nother, who earn money on\n\n77\n00:03:59.520 --> 00:04:06.880\nour platform, who make a living. It's about probably something like 80% women,\n\n78\n00:04:06.880 --> 00:04:09.040\n60% are moms,\n\n79\n00:04:09.040 --> 00:04:14.790\nand so you've got a lot of moms selling to other moms, if you will, because the\n\n80\n00:04:14.790 --> 00:04:15.760\nconsumers are\n\n81\n00:04:15.760 --> 00:04:19.930\nmoms as well. Or they're either brides, or if you're getting married, or they\n\n82\n00:04:19.930 --> 00:04:20.880\n're becoming moms\n\n83\n00:04:20.880 --> 00:04:24.360\nfor the first time. I can't wait to dive deeper into how you leave. At first, I\n\n84\n00:04:24.360 --> 00:04:24.960\nwant to take you\n\n85\n00:04:24.960 --> 00:04:28.980\nback a little bit. What's the story from your childhood that shaped the kind of\n\n86\n00:04:28.980 --> 00:04:30.000\nleader you are today?\n\n87\n00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:36.130\nI grew up in about five countries, because my dad was a development economist\n\n88\n00:04:36.130 --> 00:04:37.200\nwho worked on\n\n89\n00:04:37.200 --> 00:04:42.720\nagricultural development. We worked in countries that were receiving US or\n\n90\n00:04:42.720 --> 00:04:44.240\nUnited Nations aid,\n\n91\n00:04:44.240 --> 00:04:48.960\nand he worked with farmers. We went to all sorts of places. We lived in Kuwait,\n\n92\n00:04:48.960 --> 00:04:49.840\nLebanon,\n\n93\n00:04:49.840 --> 00:04:56.640\nTanzania, Iran, and Egypt. I would go around with my mom sometimes to markets.\n\n94\n00:04:56.640 --> 00:04:57.520\nYou would go out to\n\n95\n00:04:57.520 --> 00:05:02.140\na market to buy something. Either it was the butcher, or there would be a\n\n96\n00:05:02.140 --> 00:05:03.680\nspecial butcher shop,\n\n97\n00:05:03.680 --> 00:05:08.280\nor a special vegetable market, or you would go to the bazaar and buy something\n\n98\n00:05:08.280 --> 00:05:08.800\nbeautiful,\n\n99\n00:05:08.800 --> 00:05:16.400\nlike a handmade item. I think I just got a really good sense of how millions of\n\n100\n00:05:16.400 --> 00:05:17.520\npeople in the world\n\n101\n00:05:17.520 --> 00:05:26.320\nmake their living, and try to set up as independence. I care a lot about\n\n102\n00:05:26.320 --> 00:05:27.440\nempowering the dignity of\n\n103\n00:05:27.440 --> 00:05:32.480\npeople in their work. How do you create dignity and joy and passion in work?\n\n104\n00:05:32.480 --> 00:05:34.560\nThat has affected me\n\n105\n00:05:34.560 --> 00:05:40.160\npretty deeply. You really saw entrepreneurialism in action? Yes. I think people\n\n106\n00:05:40.160 --> 00:05:40.800\nhave to really\n\n107\n00:05:40.800 --> 00:05:44.340\nhustle to make a living in a lot of these countries that I was living in. As I\n\n108\n00:05:44.340 --> 00:05:45.120\nunderstand it,\n\n109\n00:05:45.120 --> 00:05:50.080\nyou came to the United States as a refugee from Iran. What was that like?\n\n110\n00:05:50.080 --> 00:05:55.440\nIt was pretty disconcerting at the time because my parents, who were about 40,\n\n111\n00:05:55.440 --> 00:05:59.090\nhad to financially mostly start over again. It was pretty clear there was a lot\n\n112\n00:05:59.090 --> 00:05:59.600\nof financial\n\n113\n00:05:59.600 --> 00:06:09.120\nstress. I would say it was a pretty harsh transition. On the other hand,\n\n114\n00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:17.040\nI was in a pretty good public school district in Maryland. That was very lucky\n\n115\n00:06:17.040 --> 00:06:17.600\nbecause I felt\n\n116\n00:06:17.600 --> 00:06:28.080\nlike my teachers were fantastic. I was a pretty applied student. The US was,\n\n117\n00:06:28.080 --> 00:06:30.080\nand I still think\n\n118\n00:06:30.080 --> 00:06:37.360\nreally is a place where people can follow their passion and can apply\n\n119\n00:06:37.360 --> 00:06:38.800\nthemselves and really lift\n\n120\n00:06:38.800 --> 00:06:43.780\nthemselves up. I feel very lucky. I actually think, my dad thinks of us as\n\n121\n00:06:43.780 --> 00:06:44.320\nrefugees,\n\n122\n00:06:44.320 --> 00:06:47.200\nand I think of us as immigrants. It's funny that we have a different definition\n\n123\n00:06:47.200 --> 00:06:48.400\n. I asked him,\n\n124\n00:06:48.400 --> 00:06:52.680\nwhat does that mean to him? He said, a refugee is somebody who leaves unwill\n\n125\n00:06:52.680 --> 00:06:55.120\ningly and an immigrant\n\n126\n00:06:55.120 --> 00:07:01.520\nleaves willingly. I feel pretty lucky, actually, all things considered that\n\n127\n00:07:01.520 --> 00:07:02.320\neven though that was a\n\n128\n00:07:02.320 --> 00:07:08.720\npretty unwilling event or transition, I ended up here. I can't imagine my life\n\n129\n00:07:08.720 --> 00:07:10.000\nnot being in the US.\n\n130\n00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:13.120\nIt was unwilling because it was during the revolution, right?\n\n131\n00:07:13.120 --> 00:07:18.850\nYes. I was actually a little story about me is that my dad that night said,\n\n132\n00:07:18.850 --> 00:07:19.360\nthis is a very\n\n133\n00:07:19.360 --> 00:07:23.530\nhistoric moment. Why don't we go for a walk? I'm going to show you, let's go\n\n134\n00:07:23.530 --> 00:07:24.000\nout and on the\n\n135\n00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:27.330\nstreets of Tehran and see what this is like. My mom said, \"Oh no, it's too\n\n136\n00:07:27.330 --> 00:07:28.480\ndangerous. You shouldn't\n\n137\n00:07:28.480 --> 00:07:32.700\ngo.\" He said, \"No, no. I think she's old enough.\" I was eight and I took my\n\n138\n00:07:32.700 --> 00:07:32.960\nlittle\n\n139\n00:07:32.960 --> 00:07:37.040\nVivitar camera that I had just been given for Christmas and I walked out with\n\n140\n00:07:37.040 --> 00:07:37.920\nhim to the streets\n\n141\n00:07:37.920 --> 00:07:42.520\nof Tehran where people were celebrating and people were pulling big statues\n\n142\n00:07:42.520 --> 00:07:43.600\ndown. It was like a big\n\n143\n00:07:43.600 --> 00:07:49.370\nparty. Everyone was feeling pretty happy. I think they didn't quite understand\n\n144\n00:07:49.370 --> 00:07:50.800\nwhat was around the\n\n145\n00:07:50.800 --> 00:07:56.100\ncorner. I took pictures of the revolution with my little Vivitar camera, which\n\n146\n00:07:56.100 --> 00:07:57.200\nI still have.\n\n147\n00:07:58.080 --> 00:08:04.630\nAfter college, I understand you ended up at a very prestigious investment bank.\n\n148\n00:08:04.630 --> 00:08:06.240\nBut you left\n\n149\n00:08:06.240 --> 00:08:14.320\nto co-found Eve in 1998. That's one of the first beauty e-commerce sites in the\n\n150\n00:08:14.320 --> 00:08:14.960\ncountry, in the\n\n151\n00:08:14.960 --> 00:08:21.650\nworld. What made you want to break out and leave a cushy gold shoe firm or\n\n152\n00:08:21.650 --> 00:08:24.320\nwhatever and be an\n\n153\n00:08:24.320 --> 00:08:28.260\nentrepreneur? Goldman was fantastic. I learned a lot about... Well, first I\n\n154\n00:08:28.260 --> 00:08:28.960\ndeveloped a work\n\n155\n00:08:28.960 --> 00:08:34.190\nethic. The analyst program, you work really long hours. You get used to that. I\n\n156\n00:08:34.190 --> 00:08:36.640\njust didn't see\n\n157\n00:08:36.640 --> 00:08:42.770\nmyself as being passionate about finance. I really felt at that point that I\n\n158\n00:08:42.770 --> 00:08:44.560\nneeded to go see\n\n159\n00:08:44.560 --> 00:08:47.630\nsomething else. I came to California and then I was exposed to entrepreneurship\n\n160\n00:08:47.630 --> 00:08:48.400\n, this concept,\n\n161\n00:08:48.400 --> 00:08:53.500\nwhich had never been... I never even remotely thought about because my family\n\n162\n00:08:53.500 --> 00:08:54.400\nis not a business\n\n163\n00:08:54.400 --> 00:09:00.420\nfamily. Nobody in the family is in business. I came to San Francisco and saw\n\n164\n00:09:00.420 --> 00:09:01.600\nwhat was happening\n\n165\n00:09:01.600 --> 00:09:06.260\nhere. What I really loved was the application of risk, the ability to take a\n\n166\n00:09:06.260 --> 00:09:07.520\nrisk, fail, and get\n\n167\n00:09:07.520 --> 00:09:16.320\nup again, and that people would be accepting of risk-taking. First, I felt that\n\n168\n00:09:16.320 --> 00:09:17.600\nthe idea of the\n\n169\n00:09:17.600 --> 00:09:22.200\nUS being the biggest consumer market in the world, that you could actually\n\n170\n00:09:22.200 --> 00:09:23.520\ncreate an experiment\n\n171\n00:09:23.520 --> 00:09:27.200\nand have the world's largest experimental petri dish, if you will, for an idea.\n\n172\n00:09:27.200 --> 00:09:27.840\nTo see if you have\n\n173\n00:09:27.840 --> 00:09:32.640\ngood ideas or bad ideas, that was fascinating. Second, I felt that it didn't\n\n174\n00:09:32.640 --> 00:09:33.760\nreally matter who\n\n175\n00:09:33.760 --> 00:09:36.300\nyou are. If you had a good product and people wanted your product, people\n\n176\n00:09:36.300 --> 00:09:38.080\nwouldn't care if you\n\n177\n00:09:38.080 --> 00:09:41.880\nwere female, if you were Asian-American. They don't care. They'll buy what they\n\n178\n00:09:41.880 --> 00:09:42.800\nreally love.\n\n179\n00:09:42.800 --> 00:09:47.330\nAnd so I felt like it was a really great equalizer. And third, honestly, David,\n\n180\n00:09:47.330 --> 00:09:48.320\nI'm a pretty big\n\n181\n00:09:48.320 --> 00:09:54.480\nshopper. I love shopping. I spent all my time to my mother's great chagrin.\n\n182\n00:09:54.480 --> 00:09:55.200\nWhen I wasn't doing\n\n183\n00:09:55.200 --> 00:09:59.800\nhomework, I was in the mall in the 1980s, the 1980s shopping mall when we moved\n\n184\n00:09:59.800 --> 00:10:00.640\nback here.\n\n185\n00:10:00.640 --> 00:10:05.300\nAnd I really love beautiful things. I love looking at them. I like to touch\n\n186\n00:10:05.300 --> 00:10:06.720\nfabrics. I would go\n\n187\n00:10:06.720 --> 00:10:13.520\ntouch and tailor fabrics all the time. And I am a consumer. And I'm passionate\n\n188\n00:10:13.520 --> 00:10:13.920\nabout\n\n189\n00:10:13.920 --> 00:10:17.880\nshopping and creating shopping experiences for people and beautiful objects\n\n190\n00:10:17.880 --> 00:10:19.280\nthat they might really\n\n191\n00:10:19.280 --> 00:10:24.480\ntreasure. And that's just me. So I thought, if I can really entrepreneur and\n\n192\n00:10:24.480 --> 00:10:25.120\ncreate great\n\n193\n00:10:25.120 --> 00:10:28.470\nproducts and experiences for people, that's what I'm going to be passionate\n\n194\n00:10:28.470 --> 00:10:29.040\nabout. And\n\n195\n00:10:29.040 --> 00:10:33.660\ntherefore, that's what I'm going to be best at. Because if you're really\n\n196\n00:10:33.660 --> 00:10:34.320\npassionate about\n\n197\n00:10:34.320 --> 00:10:38.160\nsomething you spend 24/7 thinking about it versus something you're not so\n\n198\n00:10:38.160 --> 00:10:38.800\npassionate about,\n\n199\n00:10:38.800 --> 00:10:42.160\nyou're not going to be as good as people who are passionate about it.\n\n200\n00:10:42.160 --> 00:10:46.950\nAnd I really enjoyed your commencement speech that you gave to Northeastern.\n\n201\n00:10:46.950 --> 00:10:47.120\nAnd\n\n202\n00:10:47.120 --> 00:10:51.920\none of the things you talked in there is that by taking the path of\n\n203\n00:10:51.920 --> 00:10:53.920\nentrepreneurship,\n\n204\n00:10:53.920 --> 00:10:59.520\nyou could create your own culture as a female. Because you worked in a very\n\n205\n00:10:59.520 --> 00:11:00.880\nmale-oriented\n\n206\n00:11:00.880 --> 00:11:07.360\nculture, and which you didn't find necessarily female-friendly. Do you mind\n\n207\n00:11:07.360 --> 00:11:08.080\nsharing your thoughts\n\n208\n00:11:08.080 --> 00:11:13.920\non that? Sure. I mean, I think when you're an entrepreneur, you're creating\n\n209\n00:11:13.920 --> 00:11:14.720\nculture in many\n\n210\n00:11:14.720 --> 00:11:18.660\ndifferent ways. So one of the things you can do is say, you're going to be\n\n211\n00:11:18.660 --> 00:11:19.360\ngender is not going\n\n212\n00:11:19.360 --> 00:11:22.380\nto come up at all. You're not even going to think about gender at all. It's\n\n213\n00:11:22.380 --> 00:11:23.600\njust something that\n\n214\n00:11:23.600 --> 00:11:28.220\ndoesn't come up. So that was pretty appealing. I think there are certain\n\n215\n00:11:28.220 --> 00:11:29.680\nindustries that are still,\n\n216\n00:11:30.240 --> 00:11:35.760\nI think, predominantly male, have a little bit more of a male leading culture.\n\n217\n00:11:35.760 --> 00:11:39.470\nI don't think it was the only reason I wanted to create my own companies. Pred\n\n218\n00:11:39.470 --> 00:11:39.920\nominantly,\n\n219\n00:11:39.920 --> 00:11:44.540\nwhat I wanted to do was create products that sold very well and that people\n\n220\n00:11:44.540 --> 00:11:45.120\nloved.\n\n221\n00:11:45.120 --> 00:11:49.060\nSo it was really about creating consumer experiences and products that people\n\n222\n00:11:49.060 --> 00:11:49.360\nloved.\n\n223\n00:11:49.360 --> 00:11:53.360\nBut I do like this idea of creating a culture that is, for example,\n\n224\n00:11:53.360 --> 00:11:58.880\nat Minted, we have a culture that even everybody is pretty analytical. Even the\n\n225\n00:11:58.880 --> 00:12:00.160\nmerchants who pick\n\n226\n00:12:00.160 --> 00:12:05.560\ndesigns are pretty analytical. So this means that we are hiring and training\n\n227\n00:12:05.560 --> 00:12:06.400\nmerchants\n\n228\n00:12:06.400 --> 00:12:12.150\npretty early on in their careers. And for example, there's a test we give\n\n229\n00:12:12.150 --> 00:12:13.680\nmerchants that they,\n\n230\n00:12:13.680 --> 00:12:16.430\na financial model test where they have to be able to build their own financial\n\n231\n00:12:16.430 --> 00:12:16.720\nmodel\n\n232\n00:12:16.720 --> 00:12:20.400\nin order to be a merchant at Minted, which is not necessarily the same\n\n233\n00:12:20.400 --> 00:12:21.520\nrequirement that other\n\n234\n00:12:21.520 --> 00:12:26.160\nretail companies have for their merchants, as an example. It's about what you\n\n235\n00:12:26.160 --> 00:12:26.880\nput into the hiring\n\n236\n00:12:26.880 --> 00:12:29.980\nprocess and how you promote people, how you find people, how you find\n\n237\n00:12:29.980 --> 00:12:31.440\nopportunities for people that\n\n238\n00:12:31.440 --> 00:12:36.040\nI find so fascinating. But one of those things is the fact that we don't really\n\n239\n00:12:36.040 --> 00:12:39.840\ncare. We don't care\n\n240\n00:12:39.840 --> 00:12:43.640\nabout the surface stuff. We don't care about anything that's surface. We care\n\n241\n00:12:43.640 --> 00:12:44.240\nabout things\n\n242\n00:12:44.240 --> 00:12:49.240\nthat are deeper than that. Content, the content, the strategy, the thinking,\n\n243\n00:12:49.240 --> 00:12:50.080\nand we don't really\n\n244\n00:12:50.080 --> 00:12:56.520\ncare about gender. And I want to get our way into Minted, which we will do in a\n\n245\n00:12:56.520 --> 00:12:57.120\nfew minutes, but\n\n246\n00:12:57.120 --> 00:13:03.280\ntell us a story of how you acquired the Eve domain. That's a hood.\n\n247\n00:13:03.280 --> 00:13:10.980\nYeah. So my partner and I, Varsha and I came up with this name, Eve.com, E-V-E.\n\n248\n00:13:10.980 --> 00:13:11.920\ncom. So that's a\n\n249\n00:13:11.920 --> 00:13:15.910\ngreat name. That's a great URL, three-letter URL, which even in 1998 was\n\n250\n00:13:15.910 --> 00:13:17.040\nstarting to become\n\n251\n00:13:17.040 --> 00:13:22.790\nquite expensive and valuable. And we looked up the domain owner, and at that\n\n252\n00:13:22.790 --> 00:13:23.440\ntime you could find\n\n253\n00:13:23.440 --> 00:13:27.400\nthe person very easily. Now it's kind of obscured. And we called the person who\n\n254\n00:13:27.400 --> 00:13:28.400\nwas the owner,\n\n255\n00:13:28.400 --> 00:13:33.680\nand it was a mom in Virginia who had several children, and one of them was a\n\n256\n00:13:33.680 --> 00:13:34.240\nfive-year-old\n\n257\n00:13:34.240 --> 00:13:39.020\nnamed Eve. And she had bought, I think the older sister's name was a much\n\n258\n00:13:39.020 --> 00:13:39.920\nlonger name,\n\n259\n00:13:39.920 --> 00:13:43.370\nher older sister's name. So she bought one for the older sister and one for Eve\n\n260\n00:13:43.370 --> 00:13:44.320\n. Little Eve was\n\n261\n00:13:44.320 --> 00:13:49.110\nfive years old. And she said, \"Look, I bought these URLs, and I can't make the\n\n262\n00:13:49.110 --> 00:13:50.960\ndecision.\" Well,\n\n263\n00:13:50.960 --> 00:13:54.160\nfirst she thought, \"Who are these people? These two young women calling me.\n\n264\n00:13:54.160 --> 00:13:55.600\nThey're not serious buyers.\n\n265\n00:13:55.600 --> 00:13:59.450\nI don't know what to do with them.\" So she said, \"I'm going to put you on the\n\n266\n00:13:59.450 --> 00:13:59.920\nphone with Eve,\n\n267\n00:13:59.920 --> 00:14:03.080\nand you have to convince Eve.\" So I said, \"Sure. Okay. I'll get on the phone\n\n268\n00:14:03.080 --> 00:14:04.880\nwith Eve.\" And this little\n\n269\n00:14:04.880 --> 00:14:08.530\ngirl, this is before I was a mom, so I had no idea how to talk to a five-year-\n\n270\n00:14:08.530 --> 00:14:09.840\nold. I'm at this point,\n\n271\n00:14:09.840 --> 00:14:16.000\nI'm 28. This little girl answers the phone, and I said, \"Would you like to sell\n\n272\n00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:17.600\nus your URL?\"\n\n273\n00:14:17.600 --> 00:14:23.580\nShe's like, \"What?\" And I said, \"Would you like to sell us your URL?\" That\n\n274\n00:14:23.580 --> 00:14:24.640\nconversation was like\n\n275\n00:14:24.640 --> 00:14:28.480\nships passing the night. This little girl had no idea what I was talking about.\n\n276\n00:14:28.480 --> 00:14:30.240\nAnd I was,\n\n277\n00:14:30.240 --> 00:14:34.260\nI'm sure her mom thought it was pretty funny, the whole situation. It was very\n\n278\n00:14:34.260 --> 00:14:34.880\ncomical.\n\n279\n00:14:35.440 --> 00:14:40.000\nBill Gross, our investor, later stepped in, called the mother, and really\n\n280\n00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:40.960\nshowed us what negotiation\n\n281\n00:14:40.960 --> 00:14:44.900\nreally looked up, which was, \"Okay, you're going to get stock and eve.com,\n\n282\n00:14:44.900 --> 00:14:46.000\nhonorary board seat,\n\n283\n00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:49.940\nchips to Disneyland, free educational software from my startup. How about that\n\n284\n00:14:49.940 --> 00:14:51.040\n?\" And it was a yes,\n\n285\n00:14:51.040 --> 00:14:54.830\nat that point. And I was like, \"Okay. We should have probably done something\n\n286\n00:14:54.830 --> 00:14:55.600\nlike that.\"\n\n287\n00:14:55.600 --> 00:15:01.600\nSo we did end up with the URL, but not before my very somewhat humbling\n\n288\n00:15:01.600 --> 00:15:02.560\nconversation with this\n\n289\n00:15:02.560 --> 00:15:07.570\nfive-year-old where I could not make the deal happen. That's funny. And you\n\n290\n00:15:07.570 --> 00:15:08.320\nraised $26\n\n291\n00:15:08.320 --> 00:15:13.750\nmillion and went from zero to 120 employees in six months, and you had\n\n292\n00:15:13.750 --> 00:15:14.960\nimpressive revenue\n\n293\n00:15:14.960 --> 00:15:19.040\ngrowth right out of the box. What did leading at that kind of speed teach you?\n\n294\n00:15:19.040 --> 00:15:20.720\nI think it was just\n\n295\n00:15:20.720 --> 00:15:24.760\nabout first keeping your head down when there's a lot of competition in the\n\n296\n00:15:24.760 --> 00:15:26.080\nmarket. So it's very\n\n297\n00:15:26.080 --> 00:15:30.360\naproposter this time right now. Actually, it seems very reminiscent of the AI\n\n298\n00:15:30.360 --> 00:15:31.440\ntime we're in right now,\n\n299\n00:15:31.440 --> 00:15:35.610\nbecause at that time, there was VC money flowing in to fund. We went in first.\n\n300\n00:15:35.610 --> 00:15:37.120\nWe opened up first,\n\n301\n00:15:37.120 --> 00:15:40.690\nbut there was something like four venture-backed competitors who launched right\n\n302\n00:15:40.690 --> 00:15:41.280\nafter us.\n\n303\n00:15:41.280 --> 00:15:46.080\nAnd you could end up panicking, looking over your shoulder, et cetera. But I\n\n304\n00:15:46.080 --> 00:15:46.800\nfound that just\n\n305\n00:15:46.800 --> 00:15:50.550\nkeeping your head down, making sure you were executing and doing the absolute\n\n306\n00:15:50.550 --> 00:15:51.600\nbest job possible\n\n307\n00:15:51.600 --> 00:15:55.100\nfor your customers, focusing on that rather than on your competition, was the\n\n308\n00:15:55.100 --> 00:15:55.760\nway to win.\n\n309\n00:15:56.080 --> 00:15:59.840\nWe ended up being the largest in the market and ended up successfully selling\n\n310\n00:15:59.840 --> 00:16:00.320\nthe company\n\n311\n00:16:00.320 --> 00:16:05.520\nbefore the dot com bubble burst in April 2000. So we sold the company for a bit\n\n312\n00:16:05.520 --> 00:16:06.640\nover 100 million\n\n313\n00:16:06.640 --> 00:16:14.220\nafter operating it for just a year. And so all things told, it was successful\n\n314\n00:16:14.220 --> 00:16:15.040\nfor our investors.\n\n315\n00:16:15.040 --> 00:16:20.400\nBut I think it really came from focusing on competition, not on focusing on the\n\n316\n00:16:20.400 --> 00:16:20.880\ncompetition,\n\n317\n00:16:20.880 --> 00:16:25.920\nbut focusing on one's self and what one is doing. I'm not sure I'd recommend\n\n318\n00:16:25.920 --> 00:16:27.360\nbuilding 120 people,\n\n319\n00:16:27.360 --> 00:16:32.880\na 120-person company that quickly, if you don't have to. But if you feel like\n\n320\n00:16:32.880 --> 00:16:33.600\nyou have to,\n\n321\n00:16:33.600 --> 00:16:40.160\nI think I learned having great partners. My partner and I divvied up the work.\n\n322\n00:16:40.160 --> 00:16:41.360\nSo she had to hire\n\n323\n00:16:41.360 --> 00:16:45.170\nthree VPs and I had to hire three VPs, for example. And then those vice\n\n324\n00:16:45.170 --> 00:16:46.240\npresidents hired\n\n325\n00:16:46.240 --> 00:16:49.840\neverybody else. And so we really had partners to do something like that well.\n\n326\n00:16:50.560 --> 00:16:55.760\nAnd your timing was great because the dot com bubble just burst. There's no\n\n327\n00:16:55.760 --> 00:16:56.640\nquestion about that.\n\n328\n00:16:56.640 --> 00:17:04.390\nWhat made you so prescient? What made you sell Eve and looking back, is there\n\n329\n00:17:04.390 --> 00:17:05.360\nanything you'd\n\n330\n00:17:05.360 --> 00:17:10.080\nhave done differently? I think what made me sell Eve is that you're not going\n\n331\n00:17:10.080 --> 00:17:10.560\nto believe this,\n\n332\n00:17:10.560 --> 00:17:16.320\nbut we actually raised three rounds in one year, which is sort of nuts. That 26\n\n333\n00:17:16.320 --> 00:17:17.360\nmillion was raised\n\n334\n00:17:17.360 --> 00:17:21.040\nover several rounds inside of 12 months. And then when we went to raise the\n\n335\n00:17:21.040 --> 00:17:21.760\nfourth round,\n\n336\n00:17:21.760 --> 00:17:25.920\nwe started getting questions like, when are you going to be profitable?\n\n337\n00:17:25.920 --> 00:17:30.520\nAnd all of a sudden I sensed some market resistance to raising for the first\n\n338\n00:17:30.520 --> 00:17:30.560\ntime.\n\n339\n00:17:30.560 --> 00:17:35.160\nJust a little bit of a little bit tougher questions versus the previous three\n\n340\n00:17:35.160 --> 00:17:35.360\nrounds,\n\n341\n00:17:35.360 --> 00:17:39.380\nwhich were just much, much very, very easy for us to raise. So I started\n\n342\n00:17:39.380 --> 00:17:41.600\ngetting a bit nervous.\n\n343\n00:17:41.600 --> 00:17:45.540\nIt's not like I could foresee the dot com bubble bursting, but I started\n\n344\n00:17:45.540 --> 00:17:47.440\ngetting a little concerned.\n\n345\n00:17:47.440 --> 00:17:52.040\nAnd with entrepreneurship, I feel that you take one big risk, and the rest of\n\n346\n00:17:52.040 --> 00:17:52.720\nyour experience\n\n347\n00:17:52.720 --> 00:17:58.700\nis spent de-risking from then on. So you take this one massive risk in starting\n\n348\n00:17:58.700 --> 00:17:59.120\nthe company,\n\n349\n00:17:59.120 --> 00:18:02.880\nand then you're trying to de-risk from that point on. Obviously later, you\n\n350\n00:18:02.880 --> 00:18:03.600\nmight take smaller\n\n351\n00:18:03.600 --> 00:18:07.600\nincremental risks, and sometimes you have to re-event companies entirely. But\n\n352\n00:18:07.600 --> 00:18:08.880\ngenerally speaking,\n\n353\n00:18:08.880 --> 00:18:12.370\nI was in de-risking mode, and I felt that there was a little bit of a signal of\n\n354\n00:18:12.370 --> 00:18:12.880\nrisk.\n\n355\n00:18:12.880 --> 00:18:18.960\nSo when we were first approached to sell the company, I went to my partner. I\n\n356\n00:18:18.960 --> 00:18:19.200\nsaid,\n\n357\n00:18:19.200 --> 00:18:24.740\nI felt like we should sell. She supported it and agreed, and our investors\n\n358\n00:18:24.740 --> 00:18:25.200\nagreed.\n\n359\n00:18:25.200 --> 00:18:28.800\nImportantly, we had investors who we trusted, and they trusted us.\n\n360\n00:18:28.800 --> 00:18:36.250\nGood call at the right time. You then shifted gears and started minted. How did\n\n361\n00:18:36.250 --> 00:18:37.280\nthat idea come to you?\n\n362\n00:18:38.480 --> 00:18:46.160\nSo I was thinking about the fact that the designers I was seeing online were\n\n363\n00:18:46.160 --> 00:18:47.040\nplaying\n\n364\n00:18:47.040 --> 00:18:52.560\nPhotoshop ping pong, first of all, where they were ping ponging designs back\n\n365\n00:18:52.560 --> 00:18:53.520\nand forth to each\n\n366\n00:18:53.520 --> 00:18:56.880\nother and making them better. So I saw this like crowd collaboration happening.\n\n367\n00:18:56.880 --> 00:18:58.960\nAnd I was thinking\n\n368\n00:18:58.960 --> 00:19:02.440\ngenerally that I was on the one hand coming at it from a financial engineering\n\n369\n00:19:02.440 --> 00:19:03.120\nperspective,\n\n370\n00:19:03.120 --> 00:19:06.020\nand on the other hand, looking at cultural change. So on the financial\n\n371\n00:19:06.020 --> 00:19:06.880\nengineering side,\n\n372\n00:19:07.600 --> 00:19:12.240\nI was thinking about stationery was interesting to me because online station or\n\n373\n00:19:12.240 --> 00:19:12.880\nonline cards,\n\n374\n00:19:12.880 --> 00:19:17.570\nbecause there was this inherent viral component that if someone sent you a card\n\n375\n00:19:17.570 --> 00:19:18.160\n, you would turn\n\n376\n00:19:18.160 --> 00:19:22.760\nit over and see what the logo was who made the card. So there was this inherent\n\n377\n00:19:22.760 --> 00:19:23.520\nvirality I was\n\n378\n00:19:23.520 --> 00:19:28.200\ninterested in. I was also looking to start a business at the time that I was\n\n379\n00:19:28.200 --> 00:19:29.040\nthinking about\n\n380\n00:19:29.040 --> 00:19:31.960\nentrepreneurship generally, starting another company. So I was looking at a\n\n381\n00:19:31.960 --> 00:19:32.960\ncouple of ideas\n\n382\n00:19:32.960 --> 00:19:36.900\ntransparently. It wasn't that just this one idea came to me. I was looking at\n\n383\n00:19:36.900 --> 00:19:38.080\nfor certain characteristics\n\n384\n00:19:38.080 --> 00:19:43.140\nin a business. So I was actually seeking a business idea to start. And I wanted\n\n385\n00:19:43.140 --> 00:19:45.360\nto find one that had\n\n386\n00:19:45.360 --> 00:19:52.640\nlow cash needs to start a high average transaction size, high margins, and that\n\n387\n00:19:52.640 --> 00:19:54.160\nideally had an inherent\n\n388\n00:19:54.160 --> 00:19:57.940\ndistribution mechanism. And then so that was like the financial engineer part\n\n389\n00:19:57.940 --> 00:19:58.320\nof me.\n\n390\n00:19:59.040 --> 00:20:03.960\nOn the cultural side, I was fascinated by this idea that there was talent\n\n391\n00:20:03.960 --> 00:20:04.880\neverywhere.\n\n392\n00:20:04.880 --> 00:20:10.130\nAnd I'd seen these, I'd seen talent overseas. I'd seen designers and artists\n\n393\n00:20:10.130 --> 00:20:10.880\noverseas. So I\n\n394\n00:20:10.880 --> 00:20:14.370\nknew there was talent everywhere. I just couldn't help but feel that when I\n\n395\n00:20:14.370 --> 00:20:16.000\nwent to other card\n\n396\n00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:20.000\ncompanies, either in retail or online, that the designs were not strong enough.\n\n397\n00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:21.440\nAnd that the\n\n398\n00:20:21.440 --> 00:20:28.450\nprinting technology was more like, why not take the beauty of a, if you walk\n\n399\n00:20:28.450 --> 00:20:29.200\ninto a stationery\n\n400\n00:20:29.200 --> 00:20:34.530\nstore in Italy and you see these beautiful marbled backs and these foil, the g\n\n401\n00:20:34.530 --> 00:20:36.160\nilt edges and the\n\n402\n00:20:36.160 --> 00:20:44.240\nthick card stock that is partly made out of cotton. Why couldn't we take those\n\n403\n00:20:44.240 --> 00:20:45.200\ntechniques and bring\n\n404\n00:20:45.200 --> 00:20:49.920\nthem to print on demand technology and really create something super beautiful\n\n405\n00:20:49.920 --> 00:20:51.040\nand create beauty on\n\n406\n00:20:51.040 --> 00:20:55.280\na mass scale? And so I felt that there was an opportunity to do that.\n\n407\n00:20:55.280 --> 00:21:00.560\nAnd unlike Eve, which started out gangbusters, as I understand it,\n\n408\n00:21:00.560 --> 00:21:07.200\nminted, you had a hard time generating any kind of revenue. What happened? I\n\n409\n00:21:07.200 --> 00:21:08.720\nmean, how do you break\n\n410\n00:21:08.720 --> 00:21:14.470\nout of that? Yeah, that was a pretty much a disaster. So we had a spent most of\n\n411\n00:21:14.470 --> 00:21:15.280\nour money\n\n412\n00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:20.800\nbecause I was doubting myself on the crowdsourcing bed of this. I was thinking,\n\n413\n00:21:20.800 --> 00:21:21.440\nyou know, maybe we\n\n414\n00:21:21.440 --> 00:21:27.190\nshould sign on its stationery brands and distribute them just like V1 of the\n\n415\n00:21:27.190 --> 00:21:28.720\ninternet. So most of\n\n416\n00:21:28.720 --> 00:21:34.560\nthe money I spent on building that and actually hired a woman out of business\n\n417\n00:21:34.560 --> 00:21:36.320\nschool as our\n\n418\n00:21:36.320 --> 00:21:40.630\ndirector of finance. And then because we didn't have any finance to speak of,\n\n419\n00:21:40.630 --> 00:21:41.760\nno finance activities,\n\n420\n00:21:41.760 --> 00:21:47.280\nI said, do you mind building the website? And so she was working on this by day\n\n421\n00:21:47.280 --> 00:21:48.000\n, she was working on\n\n422\n00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:53.840\nbuilding out the website. And by night, I was thinking, I still am really drawn\n\n423\n00:21:53.840 --> 00:21:55.280\nto crowdsourcing\n\n424\n00:21:55.280 --> 00:21:59.120\nfrom independence. I think I'll go to rent a coder. Have you ever heard of rent\n\n425\n00:21:59.120 --> 00:22:00.000\na coder, David?\n\n426\n00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:07.230\nIt's a website which is just called rent a coder. And you can just go find an\n\n427\n00:22:07.230 --> 00:22:08.800\nanonymous coder.\n\n428\n00:22:09.360 --> 00:22:14.160\nAnd so I went to rentacoder.com and found a engineer to work with me at night.\n\n429\n00:22:14.160 --> 00:22:16.000\nSo the\n\n430\n00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:21.060\nevenings, I was working with him to build this competition structure. And so I\n\n431\n00:22:21.060 --> 00:22:22.080\nbuilt this\n\n432\n00:22:22.080 --> 00:22:27.340\nlittle tiny experiment. Most of the money was spent on building something\n\n433\n00:22:27.340 --> 00:22:28.240\ncompletely\n\n434\n00:22:28.240 --> 00:22:32.840\ndifferent. But by night, I was still torn, I still drawn to this idea of crowds\n\n435\n00:22:32.840 --> 00:22:33.360\nourcing from\n\n436\n00:22:33.360 --> 00:22:37.980\nindependent designers. When we opened our doors, we were offering the branded\n\n437\n00:22:37.980 --> 00:22:38.800\nstationery product\n\n438\n00:22:38.800 --> 00:22:42.780\nand nothing was selling at all, not one sale. It was like crickets, it was\n\n439\n00:22:42.780 --> 00:22:44.320\nterrifying. We'd spent\n\n440\n00:22:44.320 --> 00:22:49.360\nalmost all the angel round, we had lost, we had raised two and a half million\n\n441\n00:22:49.360 --> 00:22:50.880\nand a whole year,\n\n442\n00:22:50.880 --> 00:22:59.200\nand nothing was selling. And as sort of like the last gasp, I held a design\n\n443\n00:22:59.200 --> 00:23:00.000\ncompetition for\n\n444\n00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:03.120\nsave the date cards, which are these like, save the date cards are what you set\n\n445\n00:23:03.120 --> 00:23:03.680\nout when you're\n\n446\n00:23:03.680 --> 00:23:08.250\nabout to get married. But I think we had received 65 entries. And I thought, I\n\n447\n00:23:08.250 --> 00:23:08.880\nsquinted up and I\n\n448\n00:23:08.880 --> 00:23:13.810\nthought, you know, these look pretty good. And we launched those and those, we\n\n449\n00:23:13.810 --> 00:23:14.880\nstarted getting one\n\n450\n00:23:14.880 --> 00:23:18.830\nor two sales a week of just that product, but we didn't have enough data. So we\n\n451\n00:23:18.830 --> 00:23:19.840\nthought we were\n\n452\n00:23:19.840 --> 00:23:22.590\ndoing terribly, we thought we should shut this company, we should maybe we\n\n453\n00:23:22.590 --> 00:23:23.600\nshould shut the company\n\n454\n00:23:23.600 --> 00:23:29.600\ndown. We pivoted towards holiday cards doing the same thing. And then sales\n\n455\n00:23:29.600 --> 00:23:30.720\nwent absolutely\n\n456\n00:23:31.760 --> 00:23:34.780\nthrough the roof, which is a separate story, I can tell you about if you're\n\n457\n00:23:34.780 --> 00:23:35.520\ninterested. But\n\n458\n00:23:35.520 --> 00:23:40.120\nin that interim, nothing was selling when we were doing working on wedding\n\n459\n00:23:40.120 --> 00:23:41.920\nproduct. And I think in\n\n460\n00:23:41.920 --> 00:23:45.010\nhindsight, it was a lack of traffic to give us the right data to judge the\n\n461\n00:23:45.010 --> 00:23:48.480\nbusiness. We should have\n\n462\n00:23:48.480 --> 00:23:52.050\nreally probably focused entirely on crowdsourcing and gone with our true gut\n\n463\n00:23:52.050 --> 00:23:53.200\naround crowdsourcing\n\n464\n00:23:53.200 --> 00:24:01.010\nversus brands. And holiday cards, you know, you can read better because there\n\n465\n00:24:01.010 --> 00:24:01.600\nwas a\n\n466\n00:24:01.600 --> 00:24:05.250\nmuch, much more concentrated demand at the holiday time. So you can really get\n\n467\n00:24:05.250 --> 00:24:05.520\nthe kind\n\n468\n00:24:05.520 --> 00:24:09.520\nof traffic and the kind of response you need to really measure whether your\n\n469\n00:24:09.520 --> 00:24:10.400\nidea is working\n\n470\n00:24:10.400 --> 00:24:15.320\nwell enough. So, but in the meantime, the headline headline is, I almost shut\n\n471\n00:24:15.320 --> 00:24:16.480\nit down. It was almost\n\n472\n00:24:16.480 --> 00:24:21.790\na non non starter. And as I understand that you ran customer service yourself\n\n473\n00:24:21.790 --> 00:24:22.720\nin the first three\n\n474\n00:24:22.720 --> 00:24:28.300\nyears, what did that teach you that you couldn't learn any other way? Well, I\n\n475\n00:24:28.300 --> 00:24:29.360\nwould write the customer\n\n476\n00:24:29.360 --> 00:24:34.090\nservice manuals, I would run the shifts, I would run the shifts until we shut\n\n477\n00:24:34.090 --> 00:24:35.040\ndown at one in the\n\n478\n00:24:35.040 --> 00:24:39.680\nmorning, you know, and I had a newborn baby by the way at the time. So I had a,\n\n479\n00:24:39.680 --> 00:24:40.400\nI started minted\n\n480\n00:24:40.400 --> 00:24:45.460\nwhen my daughter was born. So yeah, so I, I would run the midnight shift, you\n\n481\n00:24:45.460 --> 00:24:46.480\nknow, I would shut\n\n482\n00:24:46.480 --> 00:24:50.190\nit, I would shut the thing, the operation down at one in the morning. At that\n\n483\n00:24:50.190 --> 00:24:52.320\ntime, we were operating\n\n484\n00:24:52.320 --> 00:24:56.490\non Outlook boxes, we didn't have customer service software. So we were, I was\n\n485\n00:24:56.490 --> 00:24:57.520\ntriaging all of the\n\n486\n00:24:58.480 --> 00:25:03.840\ninbound emails into folders and boxes that interior that the like internal\n\n487\n00:25:03.840 --> 00:25:04.800\nboxes that\n\n488\n00:25:04.800 --> 00:25:08.640\ncustomer service representatives would then pick up out of those folders.\n\n489\n00:25:08.640 --> 00:25:12.450\nI think what did I learn? Well, first, you know, that there's a saying that I\n\n490\n00:25:12.450 --> 00:25:13.440\ndidn't understand it\n\n491\n00:25:13.440 --> 00:25:19.840\nbefore, but it's you build the church for Easter Sunday. I did had no idea what\n\n492\n00:25:19.840 --> 00:25:20.880\nthat meant until I\n\n493\n00:25:20.880 --> 00:25:25.480\nran this business, which means you have to build the capacity to run a very\n\n494\n00:25:25.480 --> 00:25:26.640\npeaky business, which\n\n495\n00:25:26.640 --> 00:25:29.760\neverything, anybody in retail really understands. I did not understand that. I\n\n496\n00:25:29.760 --> 00:25:31.600\nmean, I think you\n\n497\n00:25:31.600 --> 00:25:35.770\nhave to retain great people for as long as you possibly can year over year and\n\n498\n00:25:35.770 --> 00:25:36.640\nthen the operation\n\n499\n00:25:36.640 --> 00:25:39.790\ncan actually get stronger. So the more we could build up business where we\n\n500\n00:25:39.790 --> 00:25:41.040\ncould afford to keep\n\n501\n00:25:41.040 --> 00:25:45.260\ncustomer service managers in place and retain them over years, that's when you\n\n502\n00:25:45.260 --> 00:25:46.000\ncan really achieve\n\n503\n00:25:46.000 --> 00:25:49.960\nthose improvements. That's one, how difficult the job of customer service\n\n504\n00:25:49.960 --> 00:25:51.120\nreally being on the front\n\n505\n00:25:51.120 --> 00:25:56.520\nline is with customers is a very, very difficult job. And I think if everybody\n\n506\n00:25:56.520 --> 00:25:57.520\ncould extend\n\n507\n00:25:57.520 --> 00:26:02.560\ncourtesy to those people who are on the phone as customer service reps, I think\n\n508\n00:26:02.560 --> 00:26:02.960\nthat would be\n\n509\n00:26:02.960 --> 00:26:07.650\nterrific because it's a difficult job in retail and restaurants, hospitality\n\n510\n00:26:07.650 --> 00:26:09.360\neverywhere. And to see\n\n511\n00:26:09.360 --> 00:26:13.540\nmost customers are fantastic, but sometimes it can be very difficult. You can\n\n512\n00:26:13.540 --> 00:26:14.240\nget a difficult\n\n513\n00:26:14.240 --> 00:26:19.770\ncustomer on the line. And so I think trying to maintain the morale of your\n\n514\n00:26:19.770 --> 00:26:21.040\nemployee base\n\n515\n00:26:21.680 --> 00:26:24.480\nand make sure that they can be treated with respect, that that can be pretty\n\n516\n00:26:24.480 --> 00:26:25.200\ndifficult for\n\n517\n00:26:25.200 --> 00:26:32.430\na business owner. I'm sure you've had many experiences like this yourself. So I\n\n518\n00:26:32.430 --> 00:26:34.320\njust, I think I just\n\n519\n00:26:34.320 --> 00:26:38.940\ndeveloped a lot of appreciation for the retail job itself, for hospitality\n\n520\n00:26:38.940 --> 00:26:40.400\nretail. I hope you're\n\n521\n00:26:40.400 --> 00:26:44.160\nloving this conversation. Be sure to stay tuned to the very end of the episode.\n\n522\n00:26:44.160 --> 00:26:44.880\nDavid and I are\n\n523\n00:26:44.880 --> 00:26:48.330\ngoing to debrief some of the concepts that he talks about in this episode so\n\n524\n00:26:48.330 --> 00:26:49.120\nthat you can have\n\n525\n00:26:49.120 --> 00:26:53.200\nsome real practical takeaways to apply right away to your leadership and to\n\n526\n00:26:53.200 --> 00:26:54.160\nyour life.\n\n527\n00:26:54.160 --> 00:26:57.280\nStay tuned to the very end of the episode and I'll see you at the debrief.\n\n528\n00:26:57.280 --> 00:27:03.360\nI love this idea that I learned you have, which is you, is that your customers\n\n529\n00:27:03.360 --> 00:27:03.520\nare\n\n530\n00:27:03.520 --> 00:27:08.720\nbasically friends and family, treat them that way. You know, tell me about a\n\n531\n00:27:08.720 --> 00:27:10.240\ntime that that mindset\n\n532\n00:27:10.240 --> 00:27:16.220\nactually changed the decision you made. We started by just selling to friends\n\n533\n00:27:16.220 --> 00:27:16.800\nand family and they\n\n534\n00:27:16.800 --> 00:27:20.000\ntold their friends and those friends told their friends in a sense. I feel like\n\n535\n00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:20.960\nthere's six\n\n536\n00:27:20.960 --> 00:27:25.560\ndegrees of separation between a company and its customers. I tried to infuse\n\n537\n00:27:25.560 --> 00:27:26.560\nthat into everybody\n\n538\n00:27:26.560 --> 00:27:31.200\nso that everyone could personalize and feel like in a sense, like humanize the\n\n539\n00:27:31.200 --> 00:27:32.080\ncustomers on the other\n\n540\n00:27:32.080 --> 00:27:36.680\nside of the phone. They were really friends of your friends. I got to know\n\n541\n00:27:36.680 --> 00:27:37.920\ncustomers personally,\n\n542\n00:27:37.920 --> 00:27:41.640\nwho would order with us over and over again, and I would try to get assigned\n\n543\n00:27:41.640 --> 00:27:42.560\ntheir tickets\n\n544\n00:27:42.560 --> 00:27:47.280\nevery holiday season for years so that I could personally serve them and be\n\n545\n00:27:47.280 --> 00:27:48.880\nthat voice and\n\n546\n00:27:48.880 --> 00:27:54.860\nbe that familiar person on the other hand of the line. It was small decisions\n\n547\n00:27:54.860 --> 00:27:55.360\nevery day,\n\n548\n00:27:55.360 --> 00:27:59.230\nthings like I'd see an email coming in in French, I could read French and\n\n549\n00:27:59.230 --> 00:28:00.240\nunderstand it,\n\n550\n00:28:00.240 --> 00:28:06.960\nso I would try to help with some French inbound, for example, or I became close\n\n551\n00:28:06.960 --> 00:28:08.000\nto a customer and\n\n552\n00:28:08.880 --> 00:28:12.880\nwould serve her every year. She was my bellwether in the sense that if I could\n\n553\n00:28:12.880 --> 00:28:13.680\ntell that she kept\n\n554\n00:28:13.680 --> 00:28:18.880\ncoming back, I was doing something right. One year, I thought to myself, \"What\n\n555\n00:28:18.880 --> 00:28:19.600\n's happened to her?\n\n556\n00:28:19.600 --> 00:28:23.660\nI haven't heard from her,\" so I reached out to her and her son had had an\n\n557\n00:28:23.660 --> 00:28:24.880\naccident, had died.\n\n558\n00:28:24.880 --> 00:28:34.980\nWe instead offered, and it was just odd because this had happened right about\n\n559\n00:28:34.980 --> 00:28:35.600\nthe time when I\n\n560\n00:28:35.600 --> 00:28:39.770\nhad been thinking, \"Where is she? What's happened to her this year?\" Maybe we\n\n561\n00:28:39.770 --> 00:28:41.520\nfailed her. Maybe our\n\n562\n00:28:41.520 --> 00:28:47.520\ncards are not strong enough. She hasn't come back, but that's what happened. I\n\n563\n00:28:47.520 --> 00:28:47.520\nsort of felt very,\n\n564\n00:28:47.520 --> 00:28:54.880\nI cared a lot about our customers as people, not just as transactions, and we\n\n565\n00:28:54.880 --> 00:28:56.400\nthen helped her\n\n566\n00:28:56.400 --> 00:29:02.650\nand stepped in to make memorial cards for her son. I think those kinds of\n\n567\n00:29:02.650 --> 00:29:04.080\nthings, you put good\n\n568\n00:29:04.080 --> 00:29:08.680\ninto the universe, there's then good word of mouth about you as a company. I\n\n569\n00:29:08.680 --> 00:29:09.440\ncan't necessarily\n\n570\n00:29:09.440 --> 00:29:18.700\nprove that that particular instance changed our trajectory at all, but I like\n\n571\n00:29:18.700 --> 00:29:19.600\nto feel that word\n\n572\n00:29:19.600 --> 00:29:23.050\nof mouth is very, very important. I always think about the net promoter score,\n\n573\n00:29:23.050 --> 00:29:24.720\nand I do think\n\n574\n00:29:24.720 --> 00:29:28.940\nthere's that. That's a proven concept, and I do think that putting out good and\n\n575\n00:29:28.940 --> 00:29:29.520\ntrying to make\n\n576\n00:29:29.520 --> 00:29:33.560\nyour customers feel good and infusing your entire organization with that\n\n577\n00:29:33.560 --> 00:29:34.880\nmentality and philosophy\n\n578\n00:29:34.880 --> 00:29:40.960\nis going to help your culture will help your business as a consumer brand.\n\n579\n00:29:40.960 --> 00:29:48.560\nI've heard you say that you grow and insulate your business by doing what\n\n580\n00:29:48.560 --> 00:29:51.040\nnobody else wants to do.\n\n581\n00:29:51.040 --> 00:29:56.400\nWhat's too hard for others to do? Talk about that. In the valley, a lot of\n\n582\n00:29:56.400 --> 00:29:57.360\npeople want to move\n\n583\n00:29:57.360 --> 00:30:03.360\nbits. They don't want to move atoms. Moving atoms, moving physical product, and\n\n584\n00:30:03.360 --> 00:30:04.000\ngoing through\n\n585\n00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:12.240\nwhat is a massive undertaking to print with quality and to make sure that your\n\n586\n00:30:12.240 --> 00:30:12.880\ncard stock is\n\n587\n00:30:12.880 --> 00:30:16.770\nthe biggest card stock. You're offering a recycled option that's still high\n\n588\n00:30:16.770 --> 00:30:17.440\nquality.\n\n589\n00:30:17.440 --> 00:30:26.230\nThose things take time to perfect. I think one of our biggest moats is the fact\n\n590\n00:30:26.230 --> 00:30:26.560\nis how\n\n591\n00:30:26.560 --> 00:30:33.360\ndifficult it is to scale printing and customer service at the peak, at the same\n\n592\n00:30:33.360 --> 00:30:34.400\nquality level,\n\n593\n00:30:34.400 --> 00:30:38.240\nwhen most of the universe orders their holiday cards in the space of three\n\n594\n00:30:38.240 --> 00:30:38.960\nweeks.\n\n595\n00:30:38.960 --> 00:30:42.320\nYou can imagine it's really built in the church streets or Sunday that is so\n\n596\n00:30:42.320 --> 00:30:43.520\ndifficult. That's\n\n597\n00:30:43.520 --> 00:30:49.160\nwhat I mean by you're doing things that are so painful. As a founder, with very\n\n598\n00:30:49.160 --> 00:30:50.400\nlittle capital,\n\n599\n00:30:50.400 --> 00:30:55.700\ntake the midnight shift, that sort of thing. Fly around the country to pick the\n\n600\n00:30:55.700 --> 00:30:56.320\npaper out,\n\n601\n00:30:56.320 --> 00:31:00.240\npersonally, and have cards sent to your desk personally to review them.\n\n602\n00:31:00.240 --> 00:31:06.560\nPick the paper out from the mills, go figure out your printing network,\n\n603\n00:31:06.560 --> 00:31:13.120\nstand that all up. Write all the metrics that track your quality. It just goes\n\n604\n00:31:13.120 --> 00:31:13.760\non and on.\n\n605\n00:31:13.760 --> 00:31:17.920\nBuild the systems to track quality. Those are things that are\n\n606\n00:31:20.320 --> 00:31:26.160\nnot very pleasant tasks. They're very unpleasant tasks. What's something you're\n\n607\n00:31:26.160 --> 00:31:27.600\nlearning about AI\n\n608\n00:31:27.600 --> 00:31:32.880\nmeant that other leaders can apply to their own business? I think we have\n\n609\n00:31:32.880 --> 00:31:33.920\nsuccessfully\n\n610\n00:31:33.920 --> 00:31:38.720\nimplemented AI and customer service, actually, as Asian assistance. It's really\n\n611\n00:31:38.720 --> 00:31:39.520\nhelped us with\n\n612\n00:31:39.520 --> 00:31:44.550\nscaling to peak because the problem with training a workforce, and you've got,\n\n613\n00:31:44.550 --> 00:31:45.680\nlet's say, three\n\n614\n00:31:45.680 --> 00:31:49.520\nweeks to train a temporary workforce that you're flexing off for the holiday\n\n615\n00:31:49.520 --> 00:31:50.320\nseason is that you\n\n616\n00:31:50.320 --> 00:31:56.480\nhave very, very little time to train. Then people are there for the four-week\n\n617\n00:31:56.480 --> 00:31:57.280\nholiday period like\n\n618\n00:31:57.280 --> 00:32:01.900\nin all of retail. There's this very concentrated period where you have to train\n\n619\n00:32:01.900 --> 00:32:03.040\n, flex the workforce\n\n620\n00:32:03.040 --> 00:32:08.100\nup, and then back down again. I can't say enough about how valuable it is to\n\n621\n00:32:08.100 --> 00:32:10.960\nhave Asian assistance\n\n622\n00:32:10.960 --> 00:32:15.760\nwhen answering tough questions. We have a very complicated product because it's\n\n623\n00:32:15.760 --> 00:32:16.560\nall custom.\n\n624\n00:32:16.560 --> 00:32:21.760\nCan I add this bell and this whistle? You have to be able to answer pretty\n\n625\n00:32:21.760 --> 00:32:23.040\ncomplex customer\n\n626\n00:32:23.040 --> 00:32:26.980\nservice questions, and you have to have everybody understand everything so you\n\n627\n00:32:26.980 --> 00:32:27.920\n're not having to\n\n628\n00:32:27.920 --> 00:32:31.760\nrun it up the ladder into a manager to answer questions that are tougher.\n\n629\n00:32:31.760 --> 00:32:32.800\nHaving that Asian\n\n630\n00:32:32.800 --> 00:32:37.830\nassistance can really scale human. It takes a bit of pressure off that the\n\n631\n00:32:37.830 --> 00:32:38.800\nAsian has to remember\n\n632\n00:32:38.800 --> 00:32:43.600\neverything that they just learned in two weeks. I think that's been incredibly\n\n633\n00:32:43.600 --> 00:32:44.240\nvaluable. It could\n\n634\n00:32:44.240 --> 00:32:50.800\nbe useful for other complex businesses where the knowledge base is complex and\n\n635\n00:32:50.800 --> 00:32:51.440\nyou have to scale\n\n636\n00:32:51.440 --> 00:32:58.800\nquickly. That's one thing that's been very helpful. I think there are, and this\n\n637\n00:32:58.800 --> 00:32:59.360\nis speaking\n\n638\n00:32:59.360 --> 00:33:05.120\noutside of minted for a moment, I think there are a number of merchandising on-\n\n639\n00:33:05.120 --> 00:33:06.480\nsite marketing and\n\n640\n00:33:06.480 --> 00:33:13.200\nother tools. Optimization to be found in the agents, promotional testing tools,\n\n641\n00:33:13.200 --> 00:33:14.000\nwhat promotions\n\n642\n00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:17.190\nshould be offered to which kind of customer coming into the site. Many of these\n\n643\n00:33:17.190 --> 00:33:17.840\nthings are,\n\n644\n00:33:17.840 --> 00:33:23.600\nat this point of sale, proving to be quite helpful. I think I've personally\n\n645\n00:33:23.600 --> 00:33:23.920\nseen them\n\n646\n00:33:23.920 --> 00:33:27.280\nmoving the needle in different applications. I think they're worth looking into\n\n647\n00:33:27.280 --> 00:33:27.520\n.\n\n648\n00:33:27.520 --> 00:33:30.960\nHow are you personally using AI to make yourself a better leader?\n\n649\n00:33:31.520 --> 00:33:39.200\nIt's interesting you ask. We've been turning on different AI note-taking tools\n\n650\n00:33:39.200 --> 00:33:40.320\nduring meetings,\n\n651\n00:33:40.320 --> 00:33:46.160\nand some of them have the ability to tell you who's talking, what percentage of\n\n652\n00:33:46.160 --> 00:33:46.480\nthe time\n\n653\n00:33:46.480 --> 00:33:52.090\ndifferent people are talking in meetings. There's a lot of conversation\n\n654\n00:33:52.090 --> 00:33:54.320\nanalytics you can do to say,\n\n655\n00:33:54.320 --> 00:33:58.000\nhow well did that meeting go and how did I participate in that meeting?\n\n656\n00:34:00.480 --> 00:34:03.600\nThis is making me very self-conscious. I'm talking so much in this interview,\n\n657\n00:34:03.600 --> 00:34:03.920\nbut-\n\n658\n00:34:03.920 --> 00:34:05.120\nWell, you're supposed to, you know.\n\n659\n00:34:05.120 --> 00:34:10.000\nI'm supposed to hear. But in a meeting, as a leader, I'm trying to manage down\n\n660\n00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:10.560\nthe percentage\n\n661\n00:34:10.560 --> 00:34:16.060\nof time I'm talking in meetings. That's one way I'm using it. I want to spend a\n\n662\n00:34:16.060 --> 00:34:16.880\nfair amount of\n\n663\n00:34:16.880 --> 00:34:21.960\ntime listening, obviously, not talking. I like using it for that. I haven't\n\n664\n00:34:21.960 --> 00:34:23.760\nfound yet any solution\n\n665\n00:34:23.760 --> 00:34:27.490\nthat analyzes things like how are people feeling in the room based on the\n\n666\n00:34:27.490 --> 00:34:29.440\ntranscript, but I'm sure\n\n667\n00:34:29.440 --> 00:34:33.000\nthat's coming. I'm sure somebody's working on that, and that'll be very\n\n668\n00:34:33.000 --> 00:34:33.840\ninteresting, right?\n\n669\n00:34:33.840 --> 00:34:41.000\nThe other thing I think could and should be developed is like a Mariam bot,\n\n670\n00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:42.480\nwhich if you want it,\n\n671\n00:34:42.480 --> 00:34:46.450\nor let's say you have a manager, it doesn't have to be me, but any manager,\n\n672\n00:34:46.450 --> 00:34:47.120\ntheir direct\n\n673\n00:34:47.120 --> 00:34:50.880\nreports could talk to their bot version of themselves and say, what would so-\n\n674\n00:34:50.880 --> 00:34:51.920\nand-so think\n\n675\n00:34:51.920 --> 00:34:56.520\nabout this? You could almost test and get feedback from your manager in an non-\n\n676\n00:34:56.520 --> 00:34:57.760\nemotional setting,\n\n677\n00:34:57.760 --> 00:35:00.400\nwhere emotion has been removed. It's not quite as pressureful.\n\n678\n00:35:00.400 --> 00:35:06.800\nSo you're speaking AI. Now you're the Sea of Arcade AI. Tell us about this\n\n679\n00:35:06.800 --> 00:35:07.840\nbusiness.\n\n680\n00:35:07.840 --> 00:35:14.320\nI think the future belongs to platforms that empower individuals, or small\n\n681\n00:35:14.320 --> 00:35:14.880\nbusinesses and\n\n682\n00:35:14.880 --> 00:35:19.500\nindividuals, and the reason increasingly is so because of AI actually, where AI\n\n683\n00:35:19.500 --> 00:35:20.400\ncan actually\n\n684\n00:35:20.400 --> 00:35:27.440\nliberate and enable a company of one person. So I think one of the extreme\n\n685\n00:35:27.440 --> 00:35:28.560\noutcomes of AI\n\n686\n00:35:28.560 --> 00:35:33.760\nwill be to allow an individual, let's say you're a TikTok influencer who's\n\n687\n00:35:33.760 --> 00:35:34.880\nreally great at marketing\n\n688\n00:35:34.880 --> 00:35:38.880\nand you've got a specific style point of view, you could backwards integrate\n\n689\n00:35:38.880 --> 00:35:39.920\ndesign products,\n\n690\n00:35:39.920 --> 00:35:44.520\nlaunch products, and market them and probably set up all your finance, your\n\n691\n00:35:44.520 --> 00:35:45.600\nfulfillment,\n\n692\n00:35:45.600 --> 00:35:50.560\nyour operations using AI tools now. So literally, you could have companies of\n\n693\n00:35:50.560 --> 00:35:51.200\none person.\n\n694\n00:35:51.200 --> 00:36:00.000\nSo I think really the future belongs to platforms, frankly, like Minted that em\n\n695\n00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:00.080\npowers\n\n696\n00:36:00.080 --> 00:36:05.400\nindividual artists, or Arcade that empowers individual manufacturers and makers\n\n697\n00:36:05.400 --> 00:36:06.400\n. So what Arcade\n\n698\n00:36:06.400 --> 00:36:12.160\ndoes is we train models for manufacturers, makers, based on their data, such\n\n699\n00:36:12.160 --> 00:36:13.360\nthat when you talk to\n\n700\n00:36:13.360 --> 00:36:17.360\nthem using their model, images appear that they can actually manufacture. You\n\n701\n00:36:17.360 --> 00:36:17.920\ncould say,\n\n702\n00:36:17.920 --> 00:36:25.500\nI'd like a flat weave olive green rug that's shaped, that's, you know, a\n\n703\n00:36:25.500 --> 00:36:26.480\nrectangular flat\n\n704\n00:36:26.480 --> 00:36:31.570\nflat weave, maybe let's say throw in some lavender, olive and lavender flat\n\n705\n00:36:31.570 --> 00:36:32.160\nweave rug.\n\n706\n00:36:32.160 --> 00:36:37.760\nWhat that's going to do on Arcade is it's going to ping the models of those\n\n707\n00:36:37.760 --> 00:36:39.120\nmanufacturers that make\n\n708\n00:36:39.120 --> 00:36:44.240\nflat weave rugs. Every image that comes out has been trained using bare photos\n\n709\n00:36:44.240 --> 00:36:45.360\nand therefore is the\n\n710\n00:36:45.360 --> 00:36:48.610\nknot type and the texture that they can make. It's not going to come out of\n\n711\n00:36:48.610 --> 00:36:49.600\nsome generic model\n\n712\n00:36:49.600 --> 00:36:54.880\nthat produces something they can't make. For example, Moroccan manufacturers\n\n713\n00:36:54.880 --> 00:36:56.160\ndon't like to use\n\n714\n00:36:56.160 --> 00:37:01.230\nsynthetic dyes. They really only use natural dyes, whereas my Indian\n\n715\n00:37:01.230 --> 00:37:03.040\nmanufacturers in our network\n\n716\n00:37:03.840 --> 00:37:09.840\nare able to use synthetic dyes. So if you have to use the images coming out of\n\n717\n00:37:09.840 --> 00:37:10.560\ntheir respective\n\n718\n00:37:10.560 --> 00:37:14.290\nmodels, and by the way, they also knot rugs completely differently, even in\n\n719\n00:37:14.290 --> 00:37:14.880\ndifferent\n\n720\n00:37:14.880 --> 00:37:18.740\nregions in these countries, Arcade is basically building the largest group of\n\n721\n00:37:18.740 --> 00:37:19.920\nmanufacturer models\n\n722\n00:37:19.920 --> 00:37:25.950\nin the world and allowing you to prompt to make products using text or image on\n\n723\n00:37:25.950 --> 00:37:27.920\ndemand.\n\n724\n00:37:27.920 --> 00:37:30.640\nThis is going to drive innovation through the roof.\n\n725\n00:37:30.640 --> 00:37:35.840\nI think so. Hopefully that's the future we see. It both increases business for\n\n726\n00:37:35.840 --> 00:37:36.720\nthose manufacturers\n\n727\n00:37:36.720 --> 00:37:40.530\nbecause you can actually talk to them visually with images and hopefully it\n\n728\n00:37:40.530 --> 00:37:41.760\nallows really anybody\n\n729\n00:37:41.760 --> 00:37:45.540\nto become a product designer. You can envision something yourself. You could be\n\n730\n00:37:45.540 --> 00:37:46.880\nan interior designer\n\n731\n00:37:46.880 --> 00:37:52.000\nand envision something. You could be a TikTok influencer and design something.\n\n732\n00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:57.980\nWe find that both individuals want to use this, but also businesses want to use\n\n733\n00:37:57.980 --> 00:37:58.480\nthis. So we have\n\n734\n00:37:58.480 --> 00:38:04.000\na B2C arm that's very obvious on our site, Arcade.ai, but we also have a B2B\n\n735\n00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:05.520\narm that's not as visible\n\n736\n00:38:05.520 --> 00:38:10.590\nwhere the manufacturers themselves are asking for their own models so that, you\n\n737\n00:38:10.590 --> 00:38:10.880\nknow, when\n\n738\n00:38:10.880 --> 00:38:16.460\nCreighton Barrel comes to me and asks me for a rug pitch, I'm a rug maker, I\n\n739\n00:38:16.460 --> 00:38:17.200\ncan pitch them\n\n740\n00:38:17.200 --> 00:38:22.400\na presentation of all of these rugs built from my model, and I can use that to\n\n741\n00:38:22.400 --> 00:38:22.880\nactually pitch\n\n742\n00:38:22.880 --> 00:38:26.850\nthem better. That sort of thing is what we're doing for manufacturers and\n\n743\n00:38:26.850 --> 00:38:27.600\nbusinesses\n\n744\n00:38:27.600 --> 00:38:32.560\non the other side of the marketplace. So after 18 years of building Minted,\n\n745\n00:38:32.560 --> 00:38:38.540\nnow you're back to day one building Arcade. What is it in you that makes you\n\n746\n00:38:38.540 --> 00:38:40.480\nwant to start over?\n\n747\n00:38:40.480 --> 00:38:44.180\nYeah, I did that from Eve to Minted too, where I started Eve sold it and did\n\n748\n00:38:44.180 --> 00:38:45.200\nMinted. Yeah, I think\n\n749\n00:38:45.200 --> 00:38:50.050\nit's just that I like creating new products. I like creating beautiful products\n\n750\n00:38:50.050 --> 00:38:50.880\n. I feel like\n\n751\n00:38:50.880 --> 00:38:55.850\nwith Minted, I could create beautiful stationary products and paper products.\n\n752\n00:38:55.850 --> 00:38:56.640\nWith Arcade,\n\n753\n00:38:56.640 --> 00:39:04.000\nthe world of ceramics, rugs, furniture, textile is all open. And that's really\n\n754\n00:39:04.000 --> 00:39:05.040\nexciting. You can make,\n\n755\n00:39:05.040 --> 00:39:09.660\nit comes back to David, me as the shopper, you know, like I can actually now\n\n756\n00:39:09.660 --> 00:39:11.040\nmake all the products\n\n757\n00:39:11.040 --> 00:39:15.100\nthat I'd like that my friends who are interior designers can make, who want to\n\n758\n00:39:15.100 --> 00:39:15.680\nbuy that they\n\n759\n00:39:15.680 --> 00:39:19.720\ncan make those products. It can open up the whole world of all these makers\n\n760\n00:39:19.720 --> 00:39:20.720\nthat you normally\n\n761\n00:39:20.720 --> 00:39:24.890\nmight only be able to make with if you went on a trip, on a physical trip to\n\n762\n00:39:24.890 --> 00:39:25.760\nsee them and talk to\n\n763\n00:39:25.760 --> 00:39:33.710\nthem, you know. So that's really a joyful act for me. And of course, I really\n\n764\n00:39:33.710 --> 00:39:35.280\nam fascinated\n\n765\n00:39:35.280 --> 00:39:39.900\nby this technology shift. This is probably like the third or fourth technology\n\n766\n00:39:39.900 --> 00:39:40.640\nshift that I'm\n\n767\n00:39:40.640 --> 00:39:45.440\nwhere I'm sort of guiding independent creatives through a technology shift. You\n\n768\n00:39:45.440 --> 00:39:45.680\nknow,\n\n769\n00:39:45.680 --> 00:39:49.020\nwith artists, I had to guide them through a number of shifts with Minted, you\n\n770\n00:39:49.020 --> 00:39:49.440\nknow,\n\n771\n00:39:49.440 --> 00:39:53.970\nonline invitations, wedding websites, all this digital transformation. And you\n\n772\n00:39:53.970 --> 00:39:54.000\nknow,\n\n773\n00:39:54.000 --> 00:39:56.560\nhow are we going to do this in a way that protects artists and their\n\n774\n00:39:56.560 --> 00:39:57.920\nintellectual property and\n\n775\n00:39:57.920 --> 00:40:02.950\nmakes a living for them? Here, it's a similar problem. How is AI going to eat\n\n776\n00:40:02.950 --> 00:40:03.840\ninto my intellectual\n\n777\n00:40:03.840 --> 00:40:11.840\nproperty? What's going to happen to me? How do I navigate? In a way, above all\n\n778\n00:40:11.840 --> 00:40:12.960\nelse, I'm interested\n\n779\n00:40:12.960 --> 00:40:16.640\nin creating an opportunity for other people to make a living that comes back to\n\n780\n00:40:16.640 --> 00:40:17.360\nyour original\n\n781\n00:40:17.360 --> 00:40:21.350\nquestion. I think of people and their work being their work being a really\n\n782\n00:40:21.350 --> 00:40:22.480\nimportant part of their\n\n783\n00:40:22.480 --> 00:40:28.300\nidentity and their dignity. And if I can help other people make a living in a\n\n784\n00:40:28.300 --> 00:40:29.280\nway that gets\n\n785\n00:40:29.280 --> 00:40:34.480\nat their passion and preserves their dignity, I feel like that is a service to\n\n786\n00:40:34.480 --> 00:40:35.600\nthe world. You\n\n787\n00:40:35.600 --> 00:40:42.540\nknow, I do really enjoy that. So I think I think AI could really amplify human\n\n788\n00:40:42.540 --> 00:40:44.240\ncreativity and\n\n789\n00:40:44.240 --> 00:40:48.060\nbusiness, not, you know, replace it. I see a lot of opportunity for\n\n790\n00:40:48.060 --> 00:40:50.080\nindependence. Actually, I think\n\n791\n00:40:50.080 --> 00:40:56.800\nAI most works for independence. It most works for small companies and\n\n792\n00:40:56.800 --> 00:40:57.600\nindependence. And I think\n\n793\n00:40:57.600 --> 00:41:02.200\nit could be dramatically helpful for independent artists, actually, independent\n\n794\n00:41:02.200 --> 00:41:03.280\nmakers, manufacturers,\n\n795\n00:41:03.280 --> 00:41:08.580\nand entrepreneurs. I think it's going to enable all these independence. And\n\n796\n00:41:08.580 --> 00:41:10.560\nreally, that's why I\n\n797\n00:41:10.560 --> 00:41:15.180\nthink that's really the future is companies like ours and platforms that really\n\n798\n00:41:15.180 --> 00:41:15.920\nempower these\n\n799\n00:41:15.920 --> 00:41:20.000\nindependence. And this has been a lot of fun. And I want to have some more now\n\n800\n00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:20.720\nwith my lightning\n\n801\n00:41:20.720 --> 00:41:24.370\nround of questions. So are you ready for this? Yeah, sure. Three words that\n\n802\n00:41:24.370 --> 00:41:25.600\nbest describe you.\n\n803\n00:41:25.600 --> 00:41:30.480\nPersistent, passionate, analytical. If you could be one person for a day beside\n\n804\n00:41:30.480 --> 00:41:31.200\nyourself, who would\n\n805\n00:41:31.200 --> 00:41:36.560\nit be? I'd be Beethoven. Who would play you in a movie? I hope Maggie Q would\n\n806\n00:41:36.560 --> 00:41:37.600\nplay me in a movie.\n\n807\n00:41:39.520 --> 00:41:44.510\nThe city from your childhood, you'd most want to go back to the inaccessible\n\n808\n00:41:44.510 --> 00:41:45.120\none, Tehran.\n\n809\n00:41:45.120 --> 00:41:49.440\nThe minted product in your own home, you love the most. I've got a big\n\n810\n00:41:49.440 --> 00:41:55.420\nart print by Prima Studio from minted. What's something you've been curious\n\n811\n00:41:55.420 --> 00:41:56.160\nabout lately that\n\n812\n00:41:56.160 --> 00:42:01.520\nhas absolutely nothing to do with work? Telling stories via filmmaking. What's\n\n813\n00:42:01.520 --> 00:42:02.080\nthe one thing\n\n814\n00:42:02.080 --> 00:42:07.330\nyou do just for you? Probably shopping. Strolling through them while they're\n\n815\n00:42:07.330 --> 00:42:08.880\nshopping. Yeah,\n\n816\n00:42:08.880 --> 00:42:13.480\nbesides your family and friends, what's your most prized possession? I have\n\n817\n00:42:13.480 --> 00:42:14.640\nthis ancient\n\n818\n00:42:14.640 --> 00:42:20.720\nglass bowl from Iran from 680 and it's still completely intact. And I touch it\n\n819\n00:42:20.720 --> 00:42:21.760\nand it has ridges\n\n820\n00:42:21.760 --> 00:42:26.880\nlike somebody hand formed this. And it just is incredible that I could touch\n\n821\n00:42:26.880 --> 00:42:27.520\nall the ridges\n\n822\n00:42:27.520 --> 00:42:32.730\nthat somebody formed by hand that long ago. If I turned the radio on in your\n\n823\n00:42:32.730 --> 00:42:33.920\ncar, what would I hear?\n\n824\n00:42:34.560 --> 00:42:40.160\nA weird and eclectic mix of many decades, including the 70s, 80s, now\n\n825\n00:42:40.160 --> 00:42:47.200\njust wrap everything. I mean, it'd be like a very, very, very eclectic mix.\n\n826\n00:42:47.200 --> 00:42:52.400\nWhat's something about you a few people would know? I was a sports editor of my\n\n827\n00:42:52.400 --> 00:42:53.280\ncollege newspaper.\n\n828\n00:42:53.280 --> 00:42:57.680\nWhich one of your daily rituals? Something that you never miss?\n\n829\n00:42:57.680 --> 00:43:02.240\n10 minutes of yoga in the morning. All right, that's great. We're out of the\n\n830\n00:43:02.240 --> 00:43:06.080\nlively round. Just a few more questions. We'll wrap this up. You and your\n\n831\n00:43:06.080 --> 00:43:06.720\nhusband, Michael,\n\n832\n00:43:06.720 --> 00:43:12.030\nyou have two kids. How do you think about leadership at home? The number one\n\n833\n00:43:12.030 --> 00:43:13.440\nthing that comes to mind\n\n834\n00:43:13.440 --> 00:43:20.080\nis that as a parent, I want to role model happiness that I can be happy. I want\n\n835\n00:43:20.080 --> 00:43:20.720\nto role model that\n\n836\n00:43:20.720 --> 00:43:27.440\nyou can be happy to my kids. What do you see as your unfinished business? I see\n\n837\n00:43:27.440 --> 00:43:28.080\ntwo things,\n\n838\n00:43:28.080 --> 00:43:32.800\ntelling stories about a past that maybe some people haven't been able to see\n\n839\n00:43:32.800 --> 00:43:33.840\nand been\n\n840\n00:43:33.840 --> 00:43:40.850\nexperienced. The unfinished, the other part is drawing a line more directly to\n\n841\n00:43:40.850 --> 00:43:41.520\nempowering people\n\n842\n00:43:41.520 --> 00:43:46.600\nwith an income platform. Okay, last question. What's one piece of advice you'd\n\n843\n00:43:46.600 --> 00:43:47.440\ngive to anyone\n\n844\n00:43:47.440 --> 00:43:52.040\nwho wants to be a better leader? I would say persistently try to find what's in\n\n845\n00:43:52.040 --> 00:43:52.960\nyour blind spot\n\n846\n00:43:54.720 --> 00:43:58.180\nand find people who will tell you what is in your blind spot. I will be honest\n\n847\n00:43:58.180 --> 00:43:58.560\nwith you.\n\n848\n00:43:58.560 --> 00:44:06.000\nWhat would be your blind spot? I think my persistent blind spot is I'm so\n\n849\n00:44:06.000 --> 00:44:06.880\nfocused on\n\n850\n00:44:06.880 --> 00:44:16.480\nI'm more of a T than an F on the Myers-Briggs scale. I have an intuition when\n\n851\n00:44:16.480 --> 00:44:17.200\nthings are\n\n852\n00:44:17.200 --> 00:44:22.950\nsome intuition around how people are feeling, but it's not my absolute number\n\n853\n00:44:22.950 --> 00:44:23.440\none strength.\n\n854\n00:44:23.440 --> 00:44:26.480\nI have to actually stop and really pay attention and think about it. It's a\n\n855\n00:44:26.480 --> 00:44:28.720\ndecision I have to make\n\n856\n00:44:28.720 --> 00:44:34.940\nthat it's very much, it's not an intuition. So when I'm running around getting\n\n857\n00:44:34.940 --> 00:44:35.680\nthings done,\n\n858\n00:44:35.680 --> 00:44:40.560\nI have to stop and go, \"Okay, don't forget, stop in the coffee room and say hi\n\n859\n00:44:40.560 --> 00:44:40.560\n,\"\n\n860\n00:44:40.560 --> 00:44:45.360\nbecause otherwise I'm sort of blasting off to my next task. I'm very much like,\n\n861\n00:44:46.400 --> 00:44:52.560\nwhat's on my checklist today? What am I doing today? I feel that my ideal\n\n862\n00:44:52.560 --> 00:44:53.760\naround the table,\n\n863\n00:44:53.760 --> 00:44:58.380\nI need empaths, around my leadership team who compliment me, because obviously\n\n864\n00:44:58.380 --> 00:44:59.680\nnone of us can\n\n865\n00:44:59.680 --> 00:45:03.360\nbe everything to everyone. We all have our different strengths and weaknesses.\n\n866\n00:45:03.360 --> 00:45:08.720\nI think I've always felt that every job should have human dignity. I mean,\n\n867\n00:45:08.720 --> 00:45:09.680\nevery person needs\n\n868\n00:45:09.680 --> 00:45:16.080\nrespect. Everybody should be treated with respect.\n\n869\n00:45:16.080 --> 00:45:21.280\nI have human dignity. If you can help unlock the potential of the individual,\n\n870\n00:45:21.280 --> 00:45:26.160\nwhich is what you're doing, you're making a dent in the universe. You really\n\n871\n00:45:26.160 --> 00:45:26.480\nare. You should\n\n872\n00:45:26.480 --> 00:45:36.720\nfeel really good about that. Thank you, David. David, I don't know if men have\n\n873\n00:45:36.720 --> 00:45:38.320\nas much experience\n\n874\n00:45:38.320 --> 00:45:43.900\nwith minted as women do, but I feel like I see minted cards all over my house\n\n875\n00:45:43.900 --> 00:45:45.040\nall the time because\n\n876\n00:45:45.040 --> 00:45:49.210\nof all of the babies that people are having and weddings that people are having\n\n877\n00:45:49.210 --> 00:45:49.440\nand\n\n878\n00:45:49.440 --> 00:45:53.660\nholiday cards that I get. I feel like I am my minted household, especially\n\n879\n00:45:53.660 --> 00:45:54.480\naround the holiday\n\n880\n00:45:54.480 --> 00:45:59.080\nseason. Well, I imagine you are, and I think you're probably correct in saying\n\n881\n00:45:59.080 --> 00:46:00.960\nthat not many men are.\n\n882\n00:46:00.960 --> 00:46:07.760\nThat's probably a fault. Men, we should be looking for ways to really let\n\n883\n00:46:07.760 --> 00:46:08.960\npeople know what we think\n\n884\n00:46:08.960 --> 00:46:14.080\nand finding really cool cards to do so. You're probably right, and I'm glad you\n\n885\n00:46:14.080 --> 00:46:14.640\n're a minted\n\n886\n00:46:14.640 --> 00:46:19.200\nhousehold. You know, and Maryam shared that she was drawn to the idea for mint\n\n887\n00:46:19.200 --> 00:46:20.320\ned because on every\n\n888\n00:46:20.320 --> 00:46:23.900\nproduct, on every card, on the back of it, you can see that it's printed by\n\n889\n00:46:23.900 --> 00:46:25.440\nminted. So it's,\n\n890\n00:46:25.440 --> 00:46:30.860\nit has this almost viral component within the product itself. And I mean, when\n\n891\n00:46:30.860 --> 00:46:31.360\nshe was talking\n\n892\n00:46:31.360 --> 00:46:34.380\nabout that, I was just like, well, yeah, and every time I have to create an\n\n893\n00:46:34.380 --> 00:46:35.200\ninvitation for\n\n894\n00:46:35.200 --> 00:46:39.800\nsomething or send out a save the date for one of my friend's wedding parties, I\n\n895\n00:46:39.800 --> 00:46:41.440\nimmediately and\n\n896\n00:46:41.440 --> 00:46:46.220\nonly think of minted. Well, that's interesting how, you know, just a little\n\n897\n00:46:46.220 --> 00:46:47.840\nphrase printed by minted,\n\n898\n00:46:47.840 --> 00:46:54.080\nyou know, just, you know, you remember, and it takes you to your core. And, and\n\n899\n00:46:54.080 --> 00:46:54.560\nyou know, one of\n\n900\n00:46:54.560 --> 00:46:59.540\nthe things I love is how she, she crowdsources her ideas. You know, she gets,\n\n901\n00:46:59.540 --> 00:47:01.520\nshe gets, you know,\n\n902\n00:47:01.520 --> 00:47:07.610\nartists to submit their ideas. And, you know, she picks the best ones and, and\n\n903\n00:47:07.610 --> 00:47:09.120\nthat allows her to\n\n904\n00:47:09.120 --> 00:47:14.240\nreally get great content very efficiently. And the artist wins and she wins. So\n\n905\n00:47:14.240 --> 00:47:15.200\nshe's able to find\n\n906\n00:47:15.200 --> 00:47:19.370\na win-win in her business model, which is great. You know, David, in addition\n\n907\n00:47:19.370 --> 00:47:20.960\nto that creative take\n\n908\n00:47:20.960 --> 00:47:25.860\non how to source product, she also has a really interesting way of setting\n\n909\n00:47:25.860 --> 00:47:27.440\npeople up for success\n\n910\n00:47:27.440 --> 00:47:31.480\nin her business. She talked about, you know, when someone's underperforming in\n\n911\n00:47:31.480 --> 00:47:32.080\ntheir role,\n\n912\n00:47:32.080 --> 00:47:36.800\nshe asks herself, why did I originally hire this person? What did I originally\n\n913\n00:47:36.800 --> 00:47:37.600\nlike about this\n\n914\n00:47:37.600 --> 00:47:41.440\nperson? And then based on that, she tries to move that person into a better\n\n915\n00:47:41.440 --> 00:47:42.560\nrole, as opposed to just\n\n916\n00:47:42.560 --> 00:47:47.160\nfiring them because it's not working out. And I really like that approach. But\n\n917\n00:47:47.160 --> 00:47:47.760\nfrom your perspective,\n\n918\n00:47:47.760 --> 00:47:51.760\nDavid, how do you know when someone has potential in a different area versus\n\n919\n00:47:51.760 --> 00:47:52.720\njust not being a fit\n\n920\n00:47:52.720 --> 00:47:56.090\nat all? That's something you really got to, got to work through is you watch\n\n921\n00:47:56.090 --> 00:47:56.880\nsomeone in action.\n\n922\n00:47:56.880 --> 00:48:02.230\nAnd, and what really turns them on and where they add value and, and\n\n923\n00:48:02.230 --> 00:48:04.480\ninitiatives, you know,\n\n924\n00:48:04.480 --> 00:48:08.240\nthat can kind of tell you that maybe, hey, this person shouldn't be in finance.\n\n925\n00:48:08.240 --> 00:48:08.720\nMaybe they should\n\n926\n00:48:08.720 --> 00:48:12.380\nbe in marketing or maybe this person shouldn't be in marketing. They should be\n\n927\n00:48:12.380 --> 00:48:13.040\nin more of an\n\n928\n00:48:13.040 --> 00:48:17.600\nanalytical type job. So I, but I think you got to watch people in action. But I\n\n929\n00:48:17.600 --> 00:48:18.400\n, I think that,\n\n930\n00:48:18.400 --> 00:48:23.270\nthat the insight that I, I love the most from this podcast was, was this\n\n931\n00:48:23.270 --> 00:48:24.320\ninsight that you just\n\n932\n00:48:24.320 --> 00:48:28.160\nmentioned is that if you're, before you fire somebody, think about, you know,\n\n933\n00:48:28.160 --> 00:48:28.800\nwhy did you hire\n\n934\n00:48:28.800 --> 00:48:32.250\nthem in the first place? You know, I, I never really thought about it that way.\n\n935\n00:48:32.250 --> 00:48:33.920\nBut I think\n\n936\n00:48:33.920 --> 00:48:38.520\nthat's the first thing you should do is, is, is go back and say, Hey, what was\n\n937\n00:48:38.520 --> 00:48:39.600\nit about this person\n\n938\n00:48:39.600 --> 00:48:44.220\nthat I really thought they had, but they don't have, or what is it about this\n\n939\n00:48:44.220 --> 00:48:45.520\nperson that, that they\n\n940\n00:48:45.520 --> 00:48:50.160\nhad that got me excited about them? And, you know, I don't know if that's going\n\n941\n00:48:50.160 --> 00:48:51.280\nto take you to a\n\n942\n00:48:51.280 --> 00:48:55.330\ndifferent position for them or not. But I just like that, that, that thought\n\n943\n00:48:55.330 --> 00:48:56.320\nprocess.\n\n944\n00:48:56.320 --> 00:49:01.350\nIt humanizes the whole thing. I feel like when leaders make decisions on how,\n\n945\n00:49:01.350 --> 00:49:01.760\nwhether or not\n\n946\n00:49:01.760 --> 00:49:05.090\nto fire somebody, it's very performance based and results, of course, matter.\n\n947\n00:49:05.090 --> 00:49:07.440\nBut I like that it\n\n948\n00:49:07.440 --> 00:49:10.770\nreminds you of, you know, the essence of their humanity and why you liked him\n\n949\n00:49:10.770 --> 00:49:11.760\nin the first place.\n\n950\n00:49:11.760 --> 00:49:18.260\nWhat I think you need to do, and is you always have to, you know, coach first,\n\n951\n00:49:18.260 --> 00:49:20.320\nthen fire, okay.\n\n952\n00:49:21.360 --> 00:49:25.600\nBut if you're in your coaching, I think going back to the beginning, you know,\n\n953\n00:49:25.600 --> 00:49:26.560\nwhat was it about\n\n954\n00:49:26.560 --> 00:49:31.200\nyou that got you excited about them? You know, I think that's an important\n\n955\n00:49:31.200 --> 00:49:32.160\nthing to bring up. In\n\n956\n00:49:32.160 --> 00:49:35.390\nfact, I think if I was coaching somebody and they were struggling, I'd say, you\n\n957\n00:49:35.390 --> 00:49:36.480\nknow, when I hired\n\n958\n00:49:36.480 --> 00:49:39.930\nyou, you don't want to think that really got me excited about was your ability\n\n959\n00:49:39.930 --> 00:49:40.800\nto do this, this,\n\n960\n00:49:40.800 --> 00:49:45.380\nor this, you know, and it just doesn't seem to be happening here. What do you\n\n961\n00:49:45.380 --> 00:49:46.560\nthink is the issue?\n\n962\n00:49:46.560 --> 00:49:51.440\nAnd hey, maybe it's something inside your company that's creating that or maybe\n\n963\n00:49:51.440 --> 00:49:52.400\nthat person doesn't\n\n964\n00:49:52.400 --> 00:49:56.340\nfeel free enough to do that. But it's just such a great way to start a positive\n\n965\n00:49:56.340 --> 00:49:57.840\ncoaching session.\n\n966\n00:49:57.840 --> 00:50:01.650\nAnd then I think you got to coach people on what they need to do to be\n\n967\n00:50:01.650 --> 00:50:03.440\nsuccessful and give them a\n\n968\n00:50:03.440 --> 00:50:08.040\nchance. And if they aren't successful after the coaching, then it's time to\n\n969\n00:50:08.040 --> 00:50:09.520\nfire. But I just think\n\n970\n00:50:09.520 --> 00:50:15.010\na coach first mentality really works. And going back to the beginning, you know\n\n971\n00:50:15.010 --> 00:50:16.000\n, of why you hired\n\n972\n00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:19.650\nthat person really makes a lot of sense. And that's the insight that I really\n\n973\n00:50:19.650 --> 00:50:20.560\nactually like the most\n\n974\n00:50:20.560 --> 00:50:25.160\nfrom this, this conversation. David, the next real concept that came through in\n\n975\n00:50:25.160 --> 00:50:26.240\nthis episode is\n\n976\n00:50:26.240 --> 00:50:29.990\nMiriam's passion for what she does. You two talk about when she left her\n\n977\n00:50:29.990 --> 00:50:31.280\ninvestment banking job\n\n978\n00:50:31.280 --> 00:50:35.880\nand co-founded Eve, which is one of the first e-commerce beauty companies that\n\n979\n00:50:35.880 --> 00:50:36.720\nexisted. And\n\n980\n00:50:36.720 --> 00:50:40.670\nyou said, you know, what made you make the job? And she just came out and said,\n\n981\n00:50:40.670 --> 00:50:42.000\nI love to shop.\n\n982\n00:50:42.000 --> 00:50:47.120\nAnd she does love to shop. And it's what's guided many of her ideas and\n\n983\n00:50:47.120 --> 00:50:48.400\nbusinesses in her career.\n\n984\n00:50:48.400 --> 00:50:53.000\nAnd I think, I think this passion that she has really helps her create great\n\n985\n00:50:53.000 --> 00:50:53.440\nexperiences\n\n986\n00:50:53.440 --> 00:50:57.610\nfor her customers and for her people. And I wouldn't know from your perspective\n\n987\n00:50:57.610 --> 00:50:58.000\n, I mean,\n\n988\n00:50:58.000 --> 00:51:02.800\ndo leaders really need to love the world that they work in? Do they need to be\n\n989\n00:51:02.800 --> 00:51:04.320\npersonally passionate\n\n990\n00:51:04.320 --> 00:51:09.200\nabout their business and their product? Or is it something that you can do\n\n991\n00:51:09.200 --> 00:51:10.800\nwithout that passion?\n\n992\n00:51:10.800 --> 00:51:15.080\nYeah, well, I think you better fall in love with it sooner or later. Okay, that\n\n993\n00:51:15.080 --> 00:51:16.000\n's my opinion. You\n\n994\n00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:22.310\nknow, I remember having a podcast with Tom Nolan, who was the CEO of Kendra\n\n995\n00:51:22.310 --> 00:51:24.400\nScott. And he obviously\n\n996\n00:51:24.400 --> 00:51:27.850\nwas not into ladies' jewelry. But over time, I think he really became\n\n997\n00:51:27.850 --> 00:51:29.040\npassionate about that\n\n998\n00:51:29.040 --> 00:51:32.980\nbusiness, you know. But I think you got a big head start if you're working on\n\n999\n00:51:32.980 --> 00:51:34.400\nsomething you love.\n\n1000\n00:51:34.400 --> 00:51:41.920\nAnd I think I'd have a hard time working on things that I didn't have a clear\n\n1001\n00:51:41.920 --> 00:51:43.040\ncut passion for.\n\n1002\n00:51:43.040 --> 00:51:48.240\nAnd I found my performance to be even better when I was working on something\n\n1003\n00:51:48.240 --> 00:51:49.920\nthat I love more than\n\n1004\n00:51:49.920 --> 00:51:55.170\nsomething else. For example, I came up in the package goods business of Frito-\n\n1005\n00:51:55.170 --> 00:51:57.440\nLay and Pepsi.\n\n1006\n00:51:57.440 --> 00:52:02.770\nAnd, you know, I learned a lot of skills and it really helped me. But the\n\n1007\n00:52:02.770 --> 00:52:04.080\npackage goods business\n\n1008\n00:52:04.080 --> 00:52:08.360\nwas slower moving than the restaurant business. So when I got in the restaurant\n\n1009\n00:52:08.360 --> 00:52:08.960\nbusiness, it was\n\n1010\n00:52:08.960 --> 00:52:12.520\nvery retail focused. And, you know, I could see the results almost immediately\n\n1011\n00:52:12.520 --> 00:52:13.280\nin terms of what\n\n1012\n00:52:13.280 --> 00:52:18.140\nwe did. I love people, I love food, I love marketing. And yeah, I loved it a\n\n1013\n00:52:18.140 --> 00:52:19.360\nlot more than I love\n\n1014\n00:52:19.360 --> 00:52:23.020\npackage goods. And I remember when I had a chance to go back to Frito-Lay when\n\n1015\n00:52:23.020 --> 00:52:24.000\nI was in the restaurant\n\n1016\n00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:28.600\nbusiness. And I said, no, because I loved what I was doing. And that was the\n\n1017\n00:52:28.600 --> 00:52:29.600\nbest decision I ever\n\n1018\n00:52:29.600 --> 00:52:33.640\nmade because it put me in position ultimately to end up running young brands.\n\n1019\n00:52:33.640 --> 00:52:34.480\nBut it was the\n\n1020\n00:52:34.480 --> 00:52:41.070\npassion that kept me there. And so yeah, I think you can probably run any\n\n1021\n00:52:41.070 --> 00:52:42.160\nbusiness to a certain\n\n1022\n00:52:42.160 --> 00:52:46.720\nextent without having passion for it. But I don't think you can run it as well.\n\n1023\n00:52:46.720 --> 00:52:50.370\nIt's so funny you bring up that episode we did with Tom Nolan because I just\n\n1024\n00:52:50.370 --> 00:52:51.600\nsaw recently that\n\n1025\n00:52:51.600 --> 00:52:56.640\nhe is now the CEO of a giant tire manufacturer, like tires for cars. Am I going\n\n1026\n00:52:56.640 --> 00:52:58.000\nfrom Kendra Scott\n\n1027\n00:52:58.000 --> 00:53:04.120\nand jewelry and retail to tires? It's so interesting to me, but it brings to\n\n1028\n00:53:04.120 --> 00:53:05.040\nmind, you know, the fact\n\n1029\n00:53:05.040 --> 00:53:09.440\nthat if you have real transferable skills, you're focused on the customer and\n\n1030\n00:53:09.440 --> 00:53:09.920\nyou know how to\n\n1031\n00:53:09.920 --> 00:53:14.480\ncreate a great culture where everybody counts, you really can make a big impact\n\n1032\n00:53:14.480 --> 00:53:15.520\nin drive results\n\n1033\n00:53:15.520 --> 00:53:19.400\nregardless of industry. Yeah, well, we'll find out how much she loves to tire\n\n1034\n00:53:19.400 --> 00:53:20.160\nbusiness.\n\n1035\n00:53:20.160 --> 00:53:26.960\nDavid, another theme that came through in this conversation with Maryam was\n\n1036\n00:53:26.960 --> 00:53:27.840\nthis idea of an\n\n1037\n00:53:27.840 --> 00:53:32.440\nentrepreneurial mindset. And she talks about when she started minted, she was\n\n1038\n00:53:32.440 --> 00:53:33.360\nactively looking for a\n\n1039\n00:53:33.360 --> 00:53:37.980\nbusiness idea, but not just any idea. There were certain criteria that she\n\n1040\n00:53:37.980 --> 00:53:39.120\nneeded this business\n\n1041\n00:53:39.120 --> 00:53:43.970\nidea to have. And it's very clear that she takes this entrepreneurial mindset\n\n1042\n00:53:43.970 --> 00:53:45.040\nto everything she does\n\n1043\n00:53:45.040 --> 00:53:49.040\nin every division of her business. And I'm curious, you know, in your\n\n1044\n00:53:49.040 --> 00:53:51.200\nexperience working with entrepreneurs\n\n1045\n00:53:51.200 --> 00:53:56.660\nand your experience developing great CEOs and leaders, what do you find in the\n\n1046\n00:53:56.660 --> 00:53:57.760\nbest entrepreneurs?\n\n1047\n00:53:57.760 --> 00:54:01.550\nHow do they think? The first thing I would say is learn from the best\n\n1048\n00:54:01.550 --> 00:54:03.440\nentrepreneurs. And if you\n\n1049\n00:54:03.440 --> 00:54:07.090\nreally want to great answer that question, go back and listen to the podcast I\n\n1050\n00:54:07.090 --> 00:54:08.240\ndid with Jeff Yang.\n\n1051\n00:54:08.240 --> 00:54:13.770\nYou know, he's a serial entrepreneur and he creates a lot of businesses and\n\n1052\n00:54:13.770 --> 00:54:14.640\nsupports a lot of\n\n1053\n00:54:14.640 --> 00:54:20.000\nbusinesses with other entrepreneurs. And you know, but he really drives home\n\n1054\n00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:22.160\nsome of the key traits\n\n1055\n00:54:22.160 --> 00:54:26.760\nthat the entrepreneurs have. And I think first and foremost is, you know, there\n\n1056\n00:54:26.760 --> 00:54:27.760\n's just an incredible\n\n1057\n00:54:27.760 --> 00:54:35.970\npassion for what they do. Okay, there's a huge desire to, you know, to\n\n1058\n00:54:35.970 --> 00:54:38.000\nbasically solve problems\n\n1059\n00:54:38.000 --> 00:54:44.160\nthat exist. And you're passionate about solving that problem. And there's just\n\n1060\n00:54:44.160 --> 00:54:45.040\nan incredible\n\n1061\n00:54:45.040 --> 00:54:48.980\nlearning mindset. You know, you start out as an entrepreneur where you have to\n\n1062\n00:54:48.980 --> 00:54:50.080\nalmost do everything.\n\n1063\n00:54:50.080 --> 00:54:53.220\nSo you got to learn every aspect of the business if you're going to be\n\n1064\n00:54:53.220 --> 00:54:55.200\nsuccessful. And then you\n\n1065\n00:54:55.200 --> 00:54:58.910\nrealize that you can't do it all by yourself. And you got to have people around\n\n1066\n00:54:58.910 --> 00:54:59.680\nyou to get done\n\n1067\n00:54:59.680 --> 00:55:04.430\nwhat needs to get done. And these people learn how to grow as the business\n\n1068\n00:55:04.430 --> 00:55:06.880\ngrows. And that mindset,\n\n1069\n00:55:06.880 --> 00:55:11.480\nI think is really important. But go back and listen to Jeff. Jeff, Jeff will\n\n1070\n00:55:11.480 --> 00:55:11.920\ntalk about it.\n\n1071\n00:55:11.920 --> 00:55:17.920\nYou know, much better, much better than me. And what do I remember from him\n\n1072\n00:55:17.920 --> 00:55:18.720\nthat, you know,\n\n1073\n00:55:18.720 --> 00:55:22.190\nwas really great. It's about hiring people. He said, you know, you have A's, B\n\n1074\n00:55:22.190 --> 00:55:23.680\n's, and C's in your\n\n1075\n00:55:23.680 --> 00:55:27.840\ncompany. A's are like, everybody wants to have the A's. I mean, you know, they\n\n1076\n00:55:27.840 --> 00:55:29.040\n're the superstars.\n\n1077\n00:55:29.040 --> 00:55:34.040\nAnd then you got to have B's. Okay, B's, you know, get things done. They're not\n\n1078\n00:55:34.040 --> 00:55:35.360\nA's, but you\n\n1079\n00:55:35.360 --> 00:55:40.160\nreally need them. And not everybody can be an A. But he said, C's, you got to\n\n1080\n00:55:40.160 --> 00:55:41.520\nget rid of the C's.\n\n1081\n00:55:41.520 --> 00:55:45.600\nBecause the C's, C's are like cockroaches. They get in your cupboard and they\n\n1082\n00:55:45.600 --> 00:55:46.880\ncan't get them out.\n\n1083\n00:55:46.880 --> 00:55:50.560\nOkay. And they just keep coming back. And they just keep coming back and get it\n\n1084\n00:55:50.560 --> 00:55:51.440\nagain and again.\n\n1085\n00:55:51.440 --> 00:55:56.000\nAnd you know, I love that. But the real point that he's talking about there is\n\n1086\n00:55:56.000 --> 00:55:56.560\njust, you know,\n\n1087\n00:55:56.560 --> 00:56:00.010\nyou know, as an entrepreneur, you got to talent is key. And you got to make\n\n1088\n00:56:00.010 --> 00:56:01.280\nsure that you hire\n\n1089\n00:56:01.280 --> 00:56:04.610\npeople that can take your business to the next level. Well, David, there's some\n\n1090\n00:56:04.610 --> 00:56:04.720\nreal\n\n1091\n00:56:04.720 --> 00:56:08.370\ngold in this episode. And I think that anyone listening, even if you just take\n\n1092\n00:56:08.370 --> 00:56:09.360\none of these ideas\n\n1093\n00:56:09.360 --> 00:56:12.080\nand apply them to your leadership or to your life, it's going to, it's going to\n\n1094\n00:56:12.080 --> 00:56:12.720\nmake you a better\n\n1095\n00:56:12.720 --> 00:56:16.240\nleader. Yeah. And I think that's what makes podcasts what they are. I mean, if\n\n1096\n00:56:16.240 --> 00:56:17.040\nyou can get some a\n\n1097\n00:56:17.040 --> 00:56:21.210\nleader on and listen to them and see how they attack their business, you're\n\n1098\n00:56:21.210 --> 00:56:22.000\ngoing to find\n\n1099\n00:56:22.000 --> 00:56:24.930\nsomething you can take with you. And, you know, for me, the biggest thing I'm\n\n1100\n00:56:24.930 --> 00:56:26.480\ngoing to take a take\n\n1101\n00:56:26.480 --> 00:56:31.080\nfrom this is that if you're about ready to fire somebody, think about why you\n\n1102\n00:56:31.080 --> 00:56:32.160\nhired in the first\n\n1103\n00:56:32.160 --> 00:56:36.240\nplace. Okay. And maybe that'll take you down a different path. The other thing\n\n1104\n00:56:36.240 --> 00:56:37.200\nis, is that there's\n\n1105\n00:56:37.200 --> 00:56:41.020\nnothing like passion to really get the best out of you when you you're really\n\n1106\n00:56:41.020 --> 00:56:42.080\ngrowing a business. So\n\n1107\n00:56:42.080 --> 00:56:45.130\nif you if you're blessed enough to be able to work in a business that you're\n\n1108\n00:56:45.130 --> 00:56:46.080\npassionate about and\n\n1109\n00:56:46.080 --> 00:56:50.740\nyou get up every day and you love it, like Warren Buffett would say, you know,\n\n1110\n00:56:50.740 --> 00:56:52.400\nI tapped my, you know,\n\n1111\n00:56:52.400 --> 00:56:57.000\nI tap dance on the on the way to work. I mean, man, that gives you a leg up.\n\n1112\n00:56:57.000 --> 00:56:57.600\nAnd then, you know,\n\n1113\n00:56:57.600 --> 00:57:01.820\nI think all of us need to have an entrepreneurial mindset, you know, as leaders\n\n1114\n00:57:01.820 --> 00:57:02.880\n, you know, solving\n\n1115\n00:57:02.880 --> 00:57:08.160\nproblems, constantly learning, growing with the business as it grows, you know,\n\n1116\n00:57:08.160 --> 00:57:09.920\nhaving a relentless\n\n1117\n00:57:09.920 --> 00:57:13.600\npassion for putting the right talent around you to be successful as the\n\n1118\n00:57:13.600 --> 00:57:15.120\nbusiness grows. I think\n\n1119\n00:57:15.120 --> 00:57:20.030\nthose are those are things that we can we can all all all do and be successful\n\n1120\n00:57:20.030 --> 00:57:20.960\nif we do it.\n\n1121\n00:57:20.960 --> 00:57:24.320\nWell, thank you again to Maryam for coming on the show. And thank you, David,\n\n1122\n00:57:24.320 --> 00:57:25.120\nfor this wonderful\n\n1123\n00:57:25.120 --> 00:57:28.940\ndebrief. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in to another episode of How\n\n1124\n00:57:28.940 --> 00:57:29.920\nLeaders Lead.\n\n1125\n00:57:29.920 --> 00:57:31.760\nWe'll see you next Thursday.\n","is_pinned",false,"pinned_at","is_featured","featured_at","mix_url","https://chtbl.com/track/DCB44F/traffic.megaphone.fm/DVL3155522248.mp3","dx_media_id",3654,"video_media_id","thumbnail_image_media_id","published_date","2026-05-07","itunes_episode_id",290,"youtube_id","3CZDhy-KOXs","2026-08-19T21:39:10.000000Z","Listen to this leadership podcast with Minted Founder and Chairman Mariam Naficy and discover the power of seeing the potential in people.","dx_url","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/vUEiaBJJPicdIyxtN9skUuRYZV0MiL5PvbnvnOmH.mp3","dx_filename","vUEiaBJJPicdIyxtN9skUuRYZV0MiL5PvbnvnOmH.mp3","dx_mux_playback_id","fd2h9GcDEh602y6Z4b01LytIYWgMlhVLsk1VFmRE401S02s","dx_waveform_url","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/waveforms/3654.json","video_url","video_mux_playback_id","duration",3460745,"thumbnail_url","https://img.youtube.com/vi/3CZDhy-KOXs/maxresdefault.jpg","thumbnail_image_url","dx_media",{"_13":66,"_96":80,"_97":78,"_98":-5,"_31":82,"_33":99,"_100":-5,"_101":84,"_87":88,"_102":-5},"video_media","thumbnail_image_media","filename","url","status","e02MtkKZiNLmqBR9vqK011KFeoY52S8RZ1n4HOjt9OoYw","mux_upload_id","waveform_url","preview_media_id","first_name","Mariam","last_name","Naficy","job_title","Minted, Founder and Chairman","Naficy, Minted, retail, ecommerce, woman, founder, entrepreneur, female, Asian","external_links","https://www.instagram.com/mnaficy/,https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariam-naficy,https://www.entrepreneur.com/entrepreneurs/how-she-pivoted-and-saved-her-startup-which-now-does-300m-in-revenue",0,"image_media_id",3636,3637,"2026-07-20T20:32:25.000000Z","send_push_notification_at","image_url","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/FfaToTw5sSPe4qwWbXZlQey80GO5S0w2X440prpX.png","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/Fkq2FJpkHDU2JxxGnZQigdlilIkHlQVtz731fv8n.png","https://www.howleaderslead.com/leaders/277/mariam-naficy","industry_id",4,"industry",{"_13":123,"_134":135,"_136":138},"industries",[133],"image_media",{"_13":114,"_96":132,"_97":119,"_98":-5,"_31":-5,"_33":-5,"_100":-5,"_101":-5,"_87":-5,"_102":-5},{"_13":115,"_96":131,"_97":120,"_98":-5,"_31":-5,"_33":-5,"_100":-5,"_101":-5,"_87":-5,"_102":-5},"Fkq2FJpkHDU2JxxGnZQigdlilIkHlQVtz731fv8n.png","FfaToTw5sSPe4qwWbXZlQey80GO5S0w2X440prpX.png",{"_13":123,"_134":135,"_136":137},"name","Retail and E-commerce","pivot",{"_35":36,"_122":123},{"_35":36,"_122":123},"user","token","favorites",[],"collections",[],"env",{"_147":148,"_149":150,"_151":152,"_153":154,"_155":156},"GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID","644017954836-qpllhu38r0tsrtfq85ukntcvsb0akbht.apps.googleusercontent.com","APPLE_CLIENT_ID","com.howleaderslead.webapp","APPLE_REDIRECT_URI","https://www.howleaderslead.com/auth/apple-callback","APP_URL","https://howleaderslead.com","GTM_ID",""]