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Business of Home Podcast
Flamingo Estate takes a luxury approach to the natural world
00:54:22
Richard Christiansen, the founder of multifaceted lifestyle brand Flamingo Estate, shares how design, celebrity and a love of farming came together in a perfect storm.
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- [00:04]
Dennis Scully
This is Business of Home. I'm your host Dennis Scully. Every week I'll be speaking with leaders and innovators from all corners of the home industry. My guest this week is Richard Christiansen, the founder of Flamingo Estate. Richard started the company as a Covid experiment, selling local produce out of his bookstore's parking lot. It quickly became something much more a multifaceted brand that brings a luxury approach to the natural world, selling everything from beauty products to boxes of avocados. Along the way, both celebrity and design have played a key role. Richard has collaborated with everyone from LeBron James to Kelly Wearstler, and his home, a refurbished 1940s Spanish style house in LA's Highland park, has been a main character in the Flamingo Estate story. I spoke with Richard about learning to love saying no, why customers need to be tricked into embracing sustainability and how he struggles between the pressure to get big and the need to stay small. This podcast is sponsored by Ernesta. Lay the foundation to a beautiful home with Ernesta's high quality custom size rugs. Featuring an array of refined colors and patterns, Ernesta's custom size rugs are made to fit every space and arrive in only two to four weeks. And with Ernesta's exclusive trade member benefits, you can get dedicated Support, free unlimited 12x12 samples and exclusive discounts to help achieve your clients design goals. To learn more about Ernesto's Trade program, visit ernesta.com this podcast is also sponsored by Harpin and Forbes, a family owned company that for nearly three decades has delighted the design community with its versatile collections of hand woven natural window coverings. Committed to sustainability, Harpan and Forbes utilizes natural fibers meticulously hand weaving each piece to the exact dimensions of your windows for a perfect fit. Beyond window coverings, they also design an exquisite range of statement wall coverings and Belgian linens. Planning a visit to High Point for Spring market? Be sure to experience the Latest Spring Summer 2025 creations from Hartman and Forbes at the Wesley hall showroom, including a new collaboration with renowned designer Barbara berry. Or visit hartmanforbes.com to find a luxury showroom near you. And now on with the show.
- [03:01]
Richard Christiansen
Let's go back. Before we even get into Flamingo Estate.
- [03:07]
Dennis Scully
And all that it has become, let's talk about an earlier time in your life. Richard.
- [03:14]
Richard Christiansen
I'm sorry, a stressful. A much more stressful time in your.
- [03:17]
Dennis Scully
Life perhaps when you're jetting all over the place.
- [03:21]
Richard Christiansen
You're Jet Blues Customer of the year.
- [03:24]
Harvey
And you're you really did your homework. Wow.
- [03:27]
Richard Christiansen
Right? Oh yeah, yeah. So I mean you were once running yourself ragged. So let's, let's talk about what you were doing and what was going on for you.
- [03:36]
Harvey
Well, maybe the more interesting part of that is what got me to there before that because I grew up in Australia and very, very rural Australia. My mom and dad are farmers and you know, my brother and I have a twin brother, we would spend, we were very remote and we would spend our days watching American television. And I like Dynasty and all that sort of stuff and was like, oh my God, America, it's so glamorous. And so like really couldn't wait to run like as fast as I could out of rural Australia. But I really understood the grunt and grind of farming. I understood the margins, I understood my parents worked back breakingly hard and as all farmers do, I really understood the, the non stop stress of it. But sort of as a reaction to that rent to Europe to go to university and then to Italy and then to Sweden and then just like really was determined to, I don't know, work in luxury, really work in design, work in beautiful things. I didn't really have that upbringing, you know, and so I was just chasing that and that got me to Benetton where I was working in my 20s when Olivier Tescani was there, who as a 20 something year old, let's say 22 year old working there, getting this education, working directly for him, it's such a powerful brand. He was such a force of nature and to work under him was amazing. And then that, you know, that got me to America and long story short, sort of jumped around and started my agency, my advertising agency when I was, I was 28 and so chandelier was my business. Sorry to back up, my agency was called Chandelier. You know, just haunted by the idea of having to go back to rural Australia, just like worked and worked and worked and just didn't really have much of a personal life. I had just, I built an office and bigger office and got more people and you know, by usual metrics was doing really well, was earning much more than my parents probably had and you know, how dare I complain. But I was on the inside, just, I just was so unhappy, but I couldn't put my finger on it and so had an office in Hong Kong, had built just different offices around the place, a lot of stuff and I was sort of the quarterback, you know, I was pitching and I was, I was running the business and I was the creative director of all that stuff and got to work with all these giant brands that As a kid, I craved to work with, you know, Hermes and Cartier and all these brands. I just, like, ached, ached to work with and got what I wanted, you know, And I was so unhappy, kind of thinking that was what success felt like, actually. And so, like, equal parts happy, and then equal parts just like, oh, my God, what am I doing? And so kind of a little bit on autopilot, but yet working. My. Just working all the time. And I spent. I say a lot that I spent more time in the four walls of that office in New York than I did anywhere else in the world. And I was the first day, and I was the last out. I worked every weekend. And that went on until all the way through my 30s and into my 40s, until it all ended spectacularly well.
- [06:44]
Richard Christiansen
And as you say, I mean, you.
- [06:45]
Dennis Scully
Were working with these incredible luxury brands.
- [06:48]
Richard Christiansen
That you had only dreamed about as a young person, right? I mean, and you thought this was the brass ring. You thought this was what success looked like, right? But here you were totally miserable, and you're thinking this is.
- [07:04]
Harvey
Is what success is, secretly miserable. But also, like, you know, I also. I was an outsider to fashion. I was. I didn't go to art school. I never went. I never studied design. I was always had a bit of imposter syndrome. And so the one thing I took away from all those years, people would come and they would ask us. They have projects for us, and they have different briefs. Big, very big companies and very, you know, interesting companies. And I think. But I think at the end of the day, they all had the same question, which was, can you help us act small again? Not can you help us be small, but can you help us act small? Because they had grown too big to be funny or vulnerable or take risks or listen, but really understood that no matter what the brief was, in hindsight, they just all wanted to be small again. And I really think about that a lot. It keeps me up at night in terms of what we're doing now. The pressure to be big, but the need to be small.
- [08:00]
Richard Christiansen
So after Chandelier and you tell me, I mean, Covid if I understand, Covid comes, right?
- [08:08]
Harvey
Yeah. So Covid came, and I was the really sort of. This sort of all starts to get interesting when Covid hits. I was here in Los Angeles. I had already bought the house, which is obviously Flamingo State is my home. I live there, and was called that before it was ever remotely thought of as a brand. So I was here at the house. I also opened a bookshop in Los Angeles. Because there's no. There was no good bookstores near me, and I really wanted to read European magazines, and I couldn't find any. So I just was like, fuck it. We'll just open a bookstore. So we opened a very big bookstore, and I used to work the bookstore on the weekends. And I remember this woman walked in and she said, oh, you know, what's going on with this Covid thing? And I kind of was like, Americans are overreacting. And. And then like that, you know, a week later, the New York team said they're gonna. We have to shut down the office. And then one by one, sort of, our clients all started to pull back budgets. And then we got. I remember we were on a very big Hermes project, and they kind of slowed that down. And I. And it had been a long time coming, this project, and I was like, oh, wow. And then just like, client by client by client, I got the calls that they were pulling back their spending. And, you know, it's. An agency is a service business, you know, so we really made a mockup on production and that sort of stuff. I could feel this, like, wave of enormous anxiety that. That the. The company would start to buckle under the weight of payroll. And these dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of people who I had spent my 20s with and my 30s with, who now had kids, who now married, who had been loyal to me as a. As an employer and a friend, that I had to tell them they all had to leave their jobs. And so it was just like my worst fear. And I think because my. My entire self esteem and image and idea of self worth was tied to that job. It was just my. My greatest fear was that I'd have to lose the lease of our beautiful office in New York. And anyway, and so, like, you know, this thing that took 16 years to build just came to a grinding halt in about six days. It was crazy. And then like the. The. Maybe the beginning starts where this. This I. I learned about this farmer who I sort of knew, who said she was going to lose her farm because her vegetables went to restaurants and the restaurants had all closed. And I said, oh, you know, we know how to sell stuff. Bring your vegetables to the bookstore and we'll sell them. And. And that was sort of where it starts. That first, very first Friday of COVID we sold boxes in the. In the back of the store. And that. That just created a bit of a what you now know as this, like, incredible momentum around vegetables. And for those first few weeks, it was just wild and. And Beautiful. Because I was working on something creative at a time when there was nothing else going on. I was also, oh, my God, how am I going to keep the team excited? What? How? Like, are we going to stay in business? Are we not? This was sort of a fun distraction. We just put our head down and sold veggies. I, for the first time, was at home with my dogs. And I was not on the phone to New York and wasn't worried about these clients who I was so, so exhausted from sucking up to. And I. I started to cook, and I started to take long, hot showers, and I got a bicycle. And I was like, sort of slowly getting back in touch with my body. I was like, I just wanted to feel sexy again. I wanted to feel alive. I wanted to not feel exhausted. I just. And it sort of began with just being in the garden and taking and eating again. And I never really enjoyed food. I always know I worked in fashion, so always thought I was fat. And so I never really enjoyed food so much. And I was cooking, which I never had time to do. I was sleeping, and I was. I was really, for a brief moment, early Covid, so happy that I had a minute. And I was trying to figure it all out in my head. Like, this is the worst time of my life. I've just financially lost a ton of stuff. But also I was feeling quite. I don't know, something was changing. I actually had gone to New York not long after that because we had to move out of our big office. And one of the things in that office that many people remember, we had an enormous library. But we couldn't take them with us. No one. No one wanted to come out to the streets. No one wanted to come to collect them. So we just were going to either drop them at schools or deliver them to people we knew. So anyway, I was in the office in the building. We had to get, you know, permission to get inside because the office building had closed. And I walked in and this is. Sounds like. I know this sounds very Bennett Brown, but I've walked in and there was a. There was a book on open that said with a quote, something like, now my barn has burned down, I can see the moon. And I remember thinking, oh, how appropriate. My barn has burnt down. And I just remember it so clearly, walking in that day and then thinking, this is probably the last time I'll see this office after being in here for 16 years and packed up our stuff and left and came back home. And I really felt a sense of, like, one door was closing and another door was opening, right?
- [13:27]
Richard Christiansen
You come back home, you come back to the house, and as you say, you're cooking and you're just kind of getting back in touch with yourself, right?
- [13:40]
Harvey
On the same sort of week, in that same period, that first week of COVID I met Harvey, who has become my partner in work and in life. And so when, you know, met someone new, he's a wildly creative, creative director, he. It was also sort of a fun adventure. We both started working on this funny thing, these vegetable things. And then, you know, just like, you know, I remember so vividly that time. It was so wonderful. And also like Covid gave everyone such a protective bubble to do things a bit differently. So the health department shut us down for selling vegetables in a store. And I getting a notice from then I went home, I ordered some food and some wine on Ubereats or something and. Or Seamless or something, and it got delivered to the front gate of the property. And I thought, oh, wow, that's what we should do. We should just deliver stuff. If we can't have people come, we can just take it there. So we put a. There's a marquee above our. There was a marquee above my bookstore, which is now filming Go Store. But the. At the time, the marquee, I just put the letters on there that said drivers wanted, you know, cash, work or something. And we had grandmas and nurses and dads and like anyone that had a car. Remember, no one had a job. Remember, everyone was like, freaking, oh, yeah. And so we had, you know, in a. In a month, we had 50 drivers. And we'd pack the phone, would pack on pick on Wednesdays, pack on Thursdays, and we deliver on Fridays. And we got another warehouse, a much bigger warehouse. We kept getting bigger warehouses because we. We just had the volume of produce coming in to do these vegetable boxes. And one farm, which then became two, which can became three, which today there's 128 in the flamingo Network. Like, but at that time, you know, maybe it was a dozen farms. And it was so much fun to be in the weeds of people doing interesting things. And we were just like up early drinking coffee, sorting vegetables. There was a real joy to this work, which I hadn't felt for a long time. And really just like there was a cause and effect and a real, like, oh, we're delivering something that people really need and they really love. And so that was. That just continued the growth of that. And we were very lucky that people Instagram the boxes and were on the doorstep of Hollywood. So we had a lot of people with good followings start to post for us. And, you know, Chrissy Teigen was one early person, 34 million followers or something. And then, you know, and then ripple through like many, many other celebrity circles of people who were very grateful posted. And then you sort of had some friends who were. Most of my friends were photographers who were not working. And so I said, you know, come over to the house. I know you normally shoot fashion, but just come over to the house and just shoot some vegetables.
- [16:28]
Richard Christiansen
And shoot some vegetables. I mean. Right.
- [16:30]
Harvey
You know, And I think that's why from the very get go, we were born on Instagram. Like, we were such an Instagram brand because we were showing up in a way that no one had in that in farming, in vegetables. You know, it felt really differentiated. And I think now I know, like, we had put everything we learned for 16 years, or me at least, about luxury goods, and we put that lens onto the garden, which no one had really done before. You know, when you think about farming or vegetables or the earth, it gets so agrarian, it gets so earnest. And we were not that at all. We were very polished and we were very sexy. And then on top of that, the, you know, people would. I would get the box on Fridays and I'd be like, oh, my God, this is giant box of vegetables. What do I cook with it? And I didn't really know and. But I also had friends who were chefs who were also not working. And I said, well, come over to the house on Thursdays. Let's do a video about what's in the box and what we can cook. And then we'll put that out on Fridays and we'll also include the recipes in the box. And that also had an enormous effect. People were so enamored by the videos. I think at a time when people just wanted comfort, you know, they wanted good food. And so I think a combination of that Instagram ability of that early period and that content, which was just fooling around in the kitchen with vegetables, was a rocket ship. And we got off to this, like, crazy start. Yeah. And then I had. I had honey there, I had bees. So honey sort of came soon. And. And then what was interesting, maybe, I don't know, maybe a year in, and the timeline's sort of a bit wobbly, but like a year in, I was like, oh, my God, we've got a real business here. This is wild. And made. Just made so much stuff. Started to make stuff at home. This. This guy Martin Brosius came in, who had an olive oil farm in Northern California. And he, he was really sweet. He walked into the house and he said, you know, can you, can you sell my olive oil? I heard you're helping farmers out. And I said, I, I don't think we can, I don't think we need it. And he was walking out and I was like, oh, actually maybe we could make soap from it. And that's how we got into the beauty industry. And that changed everything. You know, today that's most of what we do. You know, not to get ahead of myself, but I think this is one of the most interesting things about Flamingo State as a project was that we didn't know what we were doing. And we, people would come to us and say, you know, I've got an Idea, I've got 50 acres of this or I've got seven acres of that. I've got sage, I've got. There was this great biodynamic herb farmer in South Carolina who had the most amazing, the most amazing herbs. And we're like, well, let's make tea from it or let's make steams from it. You know, where you put like herbs in hot water and inhale them or let's, you know, so we just had these, I think we made 150 products in the first year and a half or something. I'm just like, let's try something. How hard can that be? And I think about that now, I think just in terms of product depth for most businesses, that's just insanity. But we just had all these people join us, just had farmers come and join us and people that were making stuff and it was, it was beautiful. Help them out and, you know, make sure that they didn't run out of money. My parents had lost their farm when I was a kid, so I know how rough it is if you're growing stuff. And I've learned so much about all sorts of things farming related that I didn't know. But I think the one thing I did know was what farmers need is consistency more than anything else. And so if we can now say to a farmer, we will take all of your Sage for the next four years and we will guarantee the price. And we're not going to, we're not going to bargain you down. And you know, that's real security for people and it's really important. So anyway, that's sort of what we started to do. But we're sorry, I lost track. What I was going to say a second ago was that I think the, the not knowing how to do stuff, we're like, well, how hard can that be? Let's make hand soap, let's make body wash, let's, how hard can it possibly be? And because I think we had never done it before, it was almost the upside down way of starting a business. You would otherwise say, like, oh, I want to start a bath and body business, what do I need to go source? For us it was like, oh, I've got all these ingredients, what are we going to make? It was the other way of thinking. And so, you know, we just started making stuff the old fashioned way. You know, it wasn't until much later when we became a proper business that people were like, why are you not using palm oil? Why are you not using a contract manufacturer? Why not using synthetic ingredients like this stuff? Which was never a choice. We just like simply didn't know even an option, you know. And so, and we were so far into it by the point that that became an option. You know, I think the thing that we, that I'm maybe like the most proud of and the most worried about is that we can continue to source things the, the right way, that we can work directly with people on the ground, that we can build a giant, very profitable business, not sourcing or making things the way most large bath body or beauty businesses do. And I can turn around to estee Lauder and L'Oreal and all those big conglomerates and say, see, someone can do it. No one has ever scaled a business working this way. No one's ever scaled it working like arm and arm with people on the ground, with regenerative farmers and with people who treat soil well and the planet well. No one's ever, ever scaled a business like that. And I'm gonna do it and, but anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. We were, we were, we were reminiscing about the early days, but that's how we started. It was very much vegetables. And then how can we take food grade ingredients and do other things with them?
- [22:21]
Dennis Scully
We're taking a quick break to remind you about Hartman and Forbes. This spring, Hartman and Forbes unveiled a new collaboration with internationally renowned designer Barbara Berry, celebrating the artistry of light texture and the timeless beauty of nature in a collection of hand woven window coverings and natural wall coverings. If you're attending High Point Spring Market, experience this collection in person along with their latest spring summer 2025 designs at the Wesley hall showroom to discover other unique collaborations by Hartman and Forbes and register for your trade account. Visit hartmanforbes.com and now back to the show.
- [23:07]
Richard Christiansen
And as you were describing earlier, this remarkable customer base that you had because you were delivering these boxes in the early days to the. The doorsteps of these Hollywood homes and, and the, and the photography and the images, you. You were. You were putting this. This luxury branding around farming and vegetables and so. Right. And so. Because I was trying to think why so many people in the design world came to you. And it resonated so much for people. And everyone who, who follows you is just so engaged by the presentation and the product, and then underneath it, all of the messaging around slowing down and this conflict that it sounds like you're wrestling with right now about, as you were saying at the beginning of the conversation, that so many companies were coming to you in your early days, how do we get small again? Yeah, right. And as you've talked about before, yes, act small again. Be a big company. But, you know, one of the things that you said to me last time you and I spoke that really resonated with me was they lose their ability to just even have a sense of humor.
- [24:24]
Harvey
Yeah, right.
- [24:26]
Richard Christiansen
And they take themselves too seriously or they, or they can't. They can't sort of get out of this corporate mindset. Right.
- [24:34]
Harvey
Yeah. And I saw it again and again and again over the two decades I was working in. In. In creative. Yeah, for sure. And so I'm obviously worried about that for us as we grow, you know, and it gets more complicated when you take on investment, which I know we'll talk about. The. Quite. The question about the design thing is interesting. I think just before that happened, I remember we had an event at the bookstore. But the bookstore was interesting because we're in Highland park, you know, and there's like, it's Highland Park. It's not Hollywood. It's the other side of town. And I remember someone saying, like, you're crazy doing a bookstore here. And. But we had Jurgen Teller come and launch his book. And then, you know, and Brad Pitt came to that party, I remember, in the bookstore. And then we'd often have these sort of large book releases at the store. The Missoni family came to do something, and we, for example, and then we'd take everyone up the hill to the house and we'd have dinner. And so the house started to get in the view of people in design, because the bookstore was about design for that. So, you know, people would be up there, people would take photos. The very last event we did before COVID hit, the weekend before was Kelly Warsla's book, her book that she launched. And I remember sort of having every. Every sort of like design person in Los Angeles at this party. And then it went up to the house and we sort of leveraged, you know, took everyone on the story with us, where we started to talk about vegetables instead. And it's interesting how those communities collided and how they continue to collide. And this idea of. I'm more articulate about it now, but this idea of putting culture back into horticulture, which is something I think we are trying to do all the time. I think that's why, you know, now that my love is really the environment and what. How our impact on what we're doing. And whenever we talk about that, whenever we talk about that engagement falls to the floor. People don't really care. Sick of being told about it. And I don't blame. There's enough to worry about and there's enough stuff. I think people are sick of feeling bad about stuff. But we notice it very clearly when we talk about the environment or the money we give back or the stuff we're doing. No one really gives it any attention when we photograph the house and we put a candle and that people go nuts for it. So the there is this little bit of a flamingo is a very honest endeavor on my part, but it's also very dishonest in a sense that we. I now know that a little bit of my job, my job is dog whistle marketing. Like, we want people to think it's a cool, happening brand. We want people to love it just because it's that. And under the hood, if you dare look under the hood, you'll see that there's a lot of good stuff going on, but we're not really talking about it that often because we need to trick people into spending the right way. And that's what I mean by dishonest. We sort of need to trick people into, like, doing the right thing without realizing they're doing the right thing. And so when I think about putting the culture into horticulture, I'm like, you know, the. We've tried hard to do a bunch of really unusual collaborations. Like LeBron James did a Honey and, you know, Kelly Wearsler did a Honey and Tiffany Haddish and Julianne Moore and we did a Honey Olive Oil with Laura Dern and we did a thing with the Dalai Lama and the Sesame street came over to the house and we did a collaboration with Porsche. And like, so much, so much stuff that doesn't really belong in The. In the sort of prism of, like, regenerative farming. And it doesn't really make sense, but because of that, it kind of. It needed that tension to work, you know, And I think we talk about this a lot now because AI obviously has made copying us very easy, and we see it often. But what you don't. What AI can't really do for us is come up with that conceptual lens of, like, okay, I'm going to take an artist. I'm going to take AI Weiwei or Ed Ruscha, two people we did products with, and I'm going to make them make a product with Mother Nature. And that tension is really interesting. It's going to keep us, I hope, current and aware of what's going on in pop culture. So I think that's something we also did really well, and we never paid any of those people. They all did that stuff because they wanted to do the right thing and they were interested in food or nature or the environment, and they're really good people. The energy of that is different from, like, oh, I'm going to do a celebrity fragrance, you know, and so it's like, I'm going to build. I'm going to do a. I'm going to put beehives on the top of my roof, and I'm going to sell honey to a charity, which is what LeBron did, which is wonderful and kind of weird.
- [29:02]
Richard Christiansen
You've built this huge following and obviously this big business that, again, you sound somewhat conflicted about. And I'm trying to fully understand the conflict that's going on for you, because when you and I last spoke, and we were talking about. You were talking about not wanting to grow just for growth's sake and not wanting to lose all that is so special about. About. Right. You were talking earlier, even about the methods that you were using to make the soap and the apothecary. And you said to me that because it's going to be local or natural ingredients, I can't scale that cream and promise L'Oreal or whoever that each one is going to be exactly the same, because of course, it isn't.
- [29:55]
Harvey
I can promise something that's going to be the same, but I don't want to promise them it's going to, because what I. What I'm excited about as we grow. I love the idea of radical inconsistency. This idea that if something is made naturally and it's made from a real plant and it's made from a, you know, the ground, it will. That. That will taste and smell different season to season. It'll. It'll change because of the amount of rain it gets or the amount of sunlight or that sort of stuff. So, you know, if. If something is. Is made that way and it's not made in a, you know, from synthetic materials in a factory, not only could it, but it really should be radically different season to season. And we've come to love that idea in wine, and we've celebrated it in the wine industry. We sort of start to celebrate it with olive oil. So I'm like, well, why can't we do that with hand soap? Why can't we do it with moisturizer? And if it truly is made well, and it's made that way, how. It's kind of boring to me that we go and want the same, the exact same thing every time you walk into a store. And so it should always be incredible, it should always be remarkable, but it doesn't necessarily need to be the same. And so that's something I think about a lot. It gets difficult, though, because then you're dealing with international compliance. You're dealing with compliance for different retailers. Like, the, as you know, scale is the enemy of intimacy in a way. And so as you, as you start to need to scale that stuff, it gets more complicated. For example, we have a subscription box that we do every three months, which, so the one we just released yesterday, it's just only sourced from farmers in Hawaii, just the Hawaiian Islands. It all comes from the Hawaiian Islands, from farmers doing good stuff there. And so this idea of just like, let's be a bit crazy in that place and surprising for ourselves too.
- [31:36]
Dennis Scully
Well, so, Richard, tell me, at some.
- [31:38]
Richard Christiansen
Point, some investors enter the room. Yes. So. So who. Who shows up? Tell me a little bit about taking on some investment or what happens there.
- [31:51]
Harvey
It's interesting because I didn't. I never had to get investment before or never thought about that. And I think in fairness, obviously, investors are there to make money. You know, we're a complicated business. You know, we're sort of a. It's funny this. This culturally, I think what people love is a really easy to understand single category business. Like, you know, we are in the food business, we're in the flour industry, we're in the fresh produce business, we're in pantry, we're in bath and body, we're in beauty, we'll soon be in fragrance. So we've sort of got all these separate things happening. And so those are the early conversations. People were like, oh, my God, what are you guys doing? And. And you're doing too much. And. Which I never believed in. They're like, oh, you know, why don't. I mean, we'd go to meetings and be like, what are you, a beauty company? Wait, are you a food company? Are you. What? And I was like, no. I mean, we're none of those things. We're an ingredient company. And, you know, but in my heart, I felt like I wanted to make the stuff that I needed to use every single day to live a happy life. And I wanted it to be made really, really well from people like my mom and dad who are just growing stuff. Honestly, like, it wasn't for me. It felt really easy to understand. It's like, this is my home, and this is the stuff I'm using in it. Join us or not. You know, it was really hard for people to understand it. And we'd. We'd have these conversations with finance people and VCs and different investors, and they were like, you gotta kill Pantry. It's a much lower, you know, margin than Beauty. And go. Beauty. You gotta go only to Beauty. Beauty's the margin. And then. Or, you know, where. But what's. What's. Where are you gonna sell? What's. What's the goal? When. When you leave, when do you exit? Who do you exit to? And none of those conversations were ever about, what are we doing with the planet, you know, what are we doing? What are we doing with all these people with this amazing opportunity? And so, you know, and I remember this one meeting. We went to Paris. We went to see LVMH Harvey. And I went there and kind of walk in, you know, in my work boots, and they're like, oh, my God. What. Who. What are you doing? And one of the. Why. Why are you dressed like that? And I remember very distinctly being in this meeting, and this guy said. He said, why are you here? And I said, I'm here because you want to own luxury. And I believe Mother Nature is the last great luxury, and we're making her stuff. And I promise you, in 10 years, you're going to want to buy my business. And they laughed at me. They kind of. And they didn't give us any money. But the. But what he did say, which I. I was so grateful for and has stayed with me every day, he said, you're doing something that luxury brands and LVMH really, like, is hungry to do. It's the thing we do. I don't think you even know you're doing it. And I don't think you're even doing it that well. And I said, what? What is the thing we're doing?
- [34:45]
Dennis Scully
Yeah.
- [34:46]
Harvey
And he said, you're scaling scarcity. There's only so much champagne in the world. That region is not getting bigger. There's only so much leather, only so many Birkin bags. There's only so many. Insert designer thing here. The scarcity of it is the luxury and your entire supply chain is about scarcity. Your lavender foam can only make this much lavender a season. Your sage farmer can only make this much sage. And it really set off a light bulb in my head. I remember turning to Harvey in the meeting and I was like, oh my God, this is the advice we needed. And it was then, only then really, that we sort of stopped trying to pretend we were bigger than we were. And we were just like, okay, we've got 400 bottles of this thing, take it or leave it. We're not making more. Or we've got 200 of this, we're releasing this tomorrow and they will sell out in two days. And not being embarrassed that we didn't have, you know, reliable, consistent supply of something, we really started to embrace the scarcity of it all, which was actually the truth of it. You know, we were kind of hiding that up, hiding that a little bit. We were like, oh my God, we're so embarrassed. We don't have enough or we're going to sell out or we don't have enough to go into a store to have consistent supply. And then we said, like it. This is actually the, one of the best things that we have is the honesty of the supply chain for those products that are harvested that way. So. But then the discussion about money, we started to talk about funding.
- [36:11]
Richard Christiansen
Sorry, yes, no, no, let's talk about those investors. So let's talk about who finally does say yes to you and why and what happens.
- [36:21]
Harvey
Well, a bunch of people have and they've said yes for different reasons. And I think we had 162 meetings before we got our first funding. I thought it was going to happen after the first one and I was so sad it was gonna take 12. And we got with so many meetings, people couldn't figure us out. And I think that the day you take someone else's money is the day you, you're almost never going to not be asked to make trade offs, you know. And we had this interesting call, not with our investors, but it was one in one call I had with this kind of well known investor and her team. And she said, you know, what's your Margin on your hand soap, you know, straight out of the gate. And I was like, oh, it's this, this, this dollar amount. It's quite good. And she said, oh, don't come back and see us until it's at 90. We're not interested in talking to you. You got a 90 margin. And I said, you know, we'll never have a 90 margin.
- [37:20]
Richard Christiansen
90.
- [37:21]
Harvey
We can't have a 90 margin because the farmers will get. And we can't make things the way that we want to. We can't. I will not use palm oil and directly palm oil as a, as the, the main ingredient. I won't, I won't cut corners. I won't. I don't want to use synthetics. I don't. I really want to try as hard as we can to do the, the very best we can. And that means I can never do that. And so it's, I can never have a 90% margin so that, you know, that it's just interesting and that, that those conversations which happen constantly and just like for the like two years we were looking for funding, we needed the money because the business was growing so quickly. But it really took a toll on me. I was exhausted after that process and really demoralized actually. And just, I got really like angry with venture capital world. I was just like, these guys are gross and they were only thinking about margins and money. And I know that that's, that's the business they're in, right? But I also, it took a while to find people who were also like, okay, yeah, we could. What I really want to do in my heart of hearts is build a very profitable, really big business. But I also want to do it in a way that leaves the world better than we found it. And I do think we can do both. It's just going to take work and make things the right way, the old fashioned way.
- [38:40]
Richard Christiansen
I want to make the connection with home in an even more direct way because you went through this period of rediscovering, literally rediscovering food and the enjoyment of it. And there's a whole part of your book chapter that's called Eat Real Food. Right. And it's just all about getting back to what food is local and what food is in season and all of that. And then this whole notion around even the ceremony of making a meal and sharing a meal and getting back to all of that, which I think so many people have lost. Right.
- [39:31]
Harvey
The book started because I wanted to think, well, who else do I know who's built a world and guarded it fiercely. Who's really trying to have figured out what they need to be alive, feel really alive and then have policed it really hard. And so that's sort of how it started. And of those like, you know, 15 interviews, one of my friends, David Leon, who someone who's become a friend anyway, and David says, you know, I've always said that scale. I have said that scale is the enemy of intimacy, which is true in hospitality, it's true in, you know, in all sorts of areas. He says something different. He said that scale is the enemy of ceremony. And it's so interesting because he said the promise of technology is that it would give us more time to do the things that we want to do. But in fact, as we know what it did was give us more time just to scroll endlessly. And that that has come at the cost of ceremony needs time. And now we have given ourselves no time. And so we're losing ceremony. And I think about that in terms of just like setting a table or making someone a meal and cooking something the right way. You know, we need ceremony. Ceremony is why we go to church, it's why we get married. Like ceremony is part of our, these ceremonies are part of our, the cadence of living. And so I love that idea that ceremony needs to come back. In terms of home. For me that shows up as just like I'm going to set a table, I'm going to have a tablecloth, I'm going to light a candle, I'm going to cook a meal and we're going to sit together. We're not going to look at our telephones while we eat. It is so to me like not just like nice. It's incredibly critical that we do that.
- [41:15]
Dennis Scully
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- [42:02]
Richard Christiansen
There are these walks through your house that you do when you're going to get your Saturday box and the dogs are with you and right and you get, and you get glimpses of your Beautiful home. And it's so interesting to me to see everyone comment about your fabulous kitchen or. Right. The house itself. And I can't remember the design involvement and all of that, but the house itself seemed to become a big focus for people, and you kind of let people in in a fun way. Tell me a little bit about that.
- [42:38]
Harvey
Yeah, I mean, I remember I said, you know, we're not a celebrity brand at one meeting, and someone said, oh, that's not true. Your house has become a celebrity. You know, it's my home. We live there. It's not a very big house. Everyone thinks it's this giant sprawling house. It's not as wide, one and a half bedrooms. It's. But it's very intentional. And it's. It's. It's beautiful. It's. I work. My friends studio co and this beautiful people in Paris worked on it with me. And, you know, it's. It doesn't feel like a HGTV open plan, beige home. It's. It's got lots of interesting textures, and the house has got a lot of deep history, you know, as, you know, used to be a porn studio for 65 years. So. And it's a incredible, incredible garden. The garden is my favorite room. So it's just. It's a. It's a collision of a lot of different references, but it's a really thoughtful place. And. And it's nothing that we don't need. Like, we have no storage, so we don't. No storage. The house has no storage. And so we. We really are very judicious about what we bring in and what we bring out. And we. We don't. We don't have a lot of clutter. And we're not like, buying cheap stuff to put in there. I don't have a television. We don't have a microwave. We have a rotary phone. There's some real intentional parts to try to slow myself down and just like, do things a little bit more slowly. Yeah, it's a really beautiful home. I'm very grateful for it.
- [44:02]
Richard Christiansen
Well, it seems to get quite a response when. When you. When you share little bits of it. So the other thing that I wanted to ask you about. So there's another section of the book that's. That's entitled Prune youe Your Roses.
- [44:14]
Harvey
My favorite chapter. Yeah.
- [44:15]
Richard Christiansen
So interestingly, you start off with this whole sort of talking about the bonsai and talking about.
- [44:20]
Harvey
Right.
- [44:20]
Richard Christiansen
These incredible scissors that are pruning.
- [44:23]
Dennis Scully
And then suddenly we take this turn.
- [44:26]
Richard Christiansen
Into social media, which seems laden with social Media keeps us in a cycle of shame. You write, and we start comparing ourselves and we get stuck in this sh. Should loop of, oh, I should be getting more vitamin D, and I should be. I mean, so tell me, because again.
- [44:46]
Dennis Scully
You seem to be this man who is conflicting here.
- [44:49]
Richard Christiansen
Social media is this huge driver for your business. You've got all these followers, people are hanging on your every word. And then you reveal social media, this real struggle. I mean, tell me about this.
- [45:04]
Harvey
Cut yout Roses is about that chapter. It was actually the interview in that chapter is with Kelly Werstler. Kelly's like the most disciplined person I know. And in so many ways, you know, she's vibrantly creative, but she's very disciplined with her time. And, you know, she's one of those people. She and her husband and her kids are the one of those. Those groups of people where. I know you felt this, where you go and meet them and you feel like you raised your vibrational energy. Like, you really feel. You stand up a bit straighter when you're with them. You really feel like they are living at full vibrational energy. Never heard her say a bad word about someone. I've never heard her gossip. And then they want their friends to be really successful. And, you know, so Kelly was talking about the book. The. My part of that chapter talks about in gardening, you know, you chop your roses back for them to come back stronger. You have to take your scissors to them. You need to cut them back hard for them to come back strong. And she does that with her time. You know, she doesn't. She doesn't spend time with people she doesn't like. She doesn't say yes to a lot of things. She is very intentional and really, like, even in her design language. But she's famous for. People think Kelly's a maximalist. She's actually not. She's a minimalist. She really. It's about real focus with her and real, real focus. She's learned to say no. And it's so hard for us, many of us, to know how to say no to things. Right? So. And was for me for the longest time. And so I love that chapter. This is. I think that's something we can all relate to, especially that last part of that saying no to stuff. Like, I don't. I don't like going out. I say no to almost everything now. I love being at home with my dogs and my goats and my chickens. I love it more than anything. I love saying no to stuff and. And not in a sheepish way. I really rejoice in that.
- [46:55]
Richard Christiansen
Well, so in that context, and we were just talking earlier about the investors and the pressure to grow, and now you find yourself not wanting to say yes, right. To a lot of things. And whether it's going and talking to a big hotel chain that might want to put your product in all of their many hotel rooms around the. The world, maybe years ago you would have been on. You would have leapt at that. Yeah, right. But now it sounds like you're. You're pausing and saying, is that. Is that really what we want to be and where we want to go?
- [47:36]
Harvey
Yeah. I mean, I want to grow. I want to be big. I want. But I want to be. I want to do it the right. I want to do it the right way. And the conversation about the hotel chain. As you know, I was in a. Yes, I was at a conference visiting a big hotel chain who. Enormous hotel chain who would like us to do. Put our products in there in all of their hotel rooms. And I think this is one of those moments when the rubber hits the road and you're like, okay. For us to do that. Most people would do was. Would be to license our name to someone who would make our products either water down the products or make them much cheaper, you know, using less expensive ingredients. That's the only way you can make that happen with the margin they want to pay. I don't want to do that, though. I don't want to use palm oil. I don't want to use cheap ingredients. I don't want to outsource our name just to have it in the shower of a hotel. I want. I want it to be really well made. And so then there has to be this real hijacking of the way that we think about large distribution in hospitality, especially actually, especially in hotels and. But beauty industry generally. And I mean, this is. It shows up more. It's. This conversation is happening. I'm very happy to hear it's happening. In terms of food, it happen. We talk about it a lot in my book about the need for us to eat local and source local. And we shouldn't be flying things across the world. There's absolutely no reason why you should be able to get a watermelon and in Los Angeles in the middle of winter. We should not be able to do it. We shouldn't be able to do it. We should not be importing flowers from South America to Los Angeles to use in people's homes here. We should not be flying stuff across the world, but equally here. You know, David, Says in his interview with me, like, every city is an island. Essentially. We are flying in things. No matter where we are. We need to rethink that. We. And obviously there's a lot of work going into that. I think that conversation is happening with food. I'd like it to happen with body care and beauty and that sort of stuff as well. So when we talk about going into thousands of hotel rooms, I'm like, okay, well, how can we do that in a way that. How can we source that locally? How can we. Why are we making soap in. In Los Angeles and shipping it all the way to Europe when we could make it there, or we could make it in Australia, we could make it where we are. Something. There's different solutions to this. And I, I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I think we. Someone needs to be like, hey, this time out, this is crazy. Our planet is on fire. How do we do something really beautiful but do it the right way?
- [50:07]
Richard Christiansen
And we face the same challenges in the furniture industry where. Right. With all of this product that's just made in haste. Now, interestingly, I mean, this is not an intended consequence perhaps, but you and I are talking shortly after the president has just announced a whole host of tariffs, many of which are going to be against some of our key trading partners. And so some of that is going to affect farming and the furniture industries and a host of other industries. And maybe it will cause people to think a little bit differently about all of this product that we're, that we're bringing in from all around the world. And to your point, I don't know though. I don't, you know, you're not hopeful about that.
- [50:56]
Harvey
I think it's easy for us to say fast fashion is bad and fast home is bad, but I still have a ton of friends who love Zara home. And so again, I think from a business point of view, my view on this, and it's not, it's only my personal view is that people don't care and that we need to build a brand that that's just beautiful and people crave because it's beautiful and the same for home goods as it would be for fashion or beauty. And then surprise. The kinder surprises. It's also made really well and we're doing the right thing and we're doing. We're treating the planet fairly and we're. We're paying people well and giving money back. Like, I think that to me is the only way we can, we can sort of conquer that beast. Is by we not feeling like we're having to sacrifice something by doing the right thing. But actually this is the surprise gift with purchase. That's always been my feeling about this business. People have got enough to worry about. I don't blame it that people are switched off to the environment. I don't, I don't. It makes me angry, but I also don't. I understand that everyone's got their own shit going on and everyone's just trying to do the best they can with what they've got. So as a brand, I think it's our responsibility to take a. To take a higher road, but not to make that the leading. The leading foot.
- [52:13]
Richard Christiansen
No, exactly. And then I think. And then I think you've got to share how you're doing it.
- [52:19]
Harvey
Yeah.
- [52:20]
Richard Christiansen
With everyone. Because I think in. In their heart of hearts, a lot of people would love to be able to do that.
- [52:25]
Dennis Scully
They just don't have the faintest idea.
- [52:28]
Harvey
Yeah. About it. And I think the same is for business owners as well. You know, it's tough. It's really tough having a business. I really admire anyone who tries. It's really hard. And so I would like to absolutely be there. I. I wish people had told me before I started how it was to fundraise and what it was like to go out and get money and how it was like all that stuff. I never. And operations. That stuff. I really didn't know and I wish I had. I wish maybe. I mean, maybe if I had have known I wouldn't have done some stuff. But I guess it all ended up just fine.
- [53:00]
Richard Christiansen
And, and listen, and maybe LVMH still will buy you out and a few years because you'll be helping them.
- [53:06]
Harvey
Who knows? Who cares? I don't. You know, where we've got our heads down. We're doing our work. Hobby often says to me, like, don't look left or right, like keep your eyes on your own homework and really like taken me a while. But that's. I really. I'm really. I've got my eyes on my own paper and I. We're just going to keep doing our thing and we watch the space. We'll figure it out, you know.
- [53:26]
Richard Christiansen
Yeah, no, I'm confident that you will. Well, Richard, I'm. I'm thrilled to get to talk to you. I thank you so much for making the time.
- [53:33]
Harvey
Thanks a lot. That was fun. It's so nice to chat.
- [53:38]
Dennis Scully
Thanks for listening. If you'd like to keep up with the latest design industry news, visit us online@businessofhome.com where you can sign up for our newsletter, browse job listings, and join our BoH Insider community for access to online workshops, a free print subscription, and much more. If you have a note for the podcast, drop us a line@podcastisinessofhome.com if you're enjoying these conversations, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps others to discover the show. This show was produced by Fred Nicolaus and edited by Michael Castaneda. I'm Dennis Scully. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you next week.