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Business of Home Podcast
Framebridge brought custom framing into the 21st century. Now it's courting designers
00:50:29
Founder Susan Tynan shares the story of her DTC framing company
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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 to leaders and innovators from all corners of the home industry. My guest this week is Susan Tynan, the founder of Framebridge. Like a lot of direct to consumer companies, Framebridge raised tens of millions of dollars to disrupt a stagnant industry. In this case, custom framing. Unlike many of its peers, Framebridge has managed to last. Susan's company now has a sizable manufacturing operation, dozens of retail locations, and thousands of customers who frame everything from art to diplomas to matchbooks. I spoke with Susan about a new collaboration with Farrow and Ball, why she wants to open a lot of very small stores, and why she wants to reach the trade. This podcast is sponsored by Rowe Furniture and Krypton, where performance meets design as your domestic custom upholstery specialists. Roe's trade program offers beautiful crypton fabrics, complimentary samples, concierge service and freight included delivery. Order custom pieces online anytime. It's Roe Row on your schedule. Join today at rowfurniture.com join this podcast is sponsored by Laloy, maker of rugs, pillows and wall art for the thoughtfully layered home. Laloy is headed to High Point Market with new collections from Amber Lewis, Bridget Romanik and the launch of a new partner. They'll also have new Laloy collections, plus one of a kind vintage rugs and accessories. Make an in person or virtual appointment to see it all@leloyrugs.com that's l o l o I rugs.com and don't forget to follow Aloy Rugs on Instagram and TikTok. And now on with the show. Before we dive into the frame part.
- [02:12]
Of the conversation, I want to get a sense of early days for you and where you grew up. And an interesting fact about your early family life was a lot of moving around, if I recall, because dad was a. Well, you, you tell us about what your. What your dad did.
- [02:31]
Susan Tynan
Yes. So moved around a little as a kid because my dad was in the Navy and, and then had a career in the maritime industry in shipping. And when I was a little kid, elementary school, he got a job in Cleveland running a tugboat business and so the family moved to Cleveland and I very much consider myself a Midwestern kid having grown up there. And I got to see a lot about what work looks like through my dad's experience. The tugboat business is challenging operationally and you know, you're really only called in an emergency situation. And so I remember, you know, my mom being nervous about you know what we heard on the answering machine at home, because there's a lot of swearing when things go wrong. Anything that requires a tug is not plan A. That was really interesting. Interesting. And I also just learned a lot from my dad's leadership style, which was really all in. And we really just sort of almost worshiped his work, like, knew that that was what he took pride in and what he was really focused on. And he really was focused on the people in his organization. And so I just saw that. Like, I saw that, and I think I. I could have been scared away from sort of how much it took to run a business like that, but I think I just always knew one day I'd want to do something like that.
- [03:49]
Dennis Scully
And were you as a. As a young person, were you coming up with lots of ideas for things that you might do?
- [03:54]
Susan Tynan
Yes. I don't know that any of them were the one, but I always had ideas. I really, as a kid, you know, really stuck for a while with this pancake delivery business, truly looking at, you know, when the patents would wear off for the cases that hold pizzas for pizza delivery, thinking like, oh, great, that'll be an important part of the delivery system for pancakes. But, yeah, I think I always had ideas, and I always. I guess I just saw what it looked like to run a business and thought that would be for me.
- [04:24]
Dennis Scully
So then with that in mind, and you talked about being a young woman of Cleveland and thinking of yourself very much as a Midwesterner, what are sort of. We always hear this reference to Midwestern values or what that culture is like. What did that mean for you?
- [04:43]
Susan Tynan
Yes. So it's interesting because it's truly my own. My sister was older when we moved to Cleveland, and my mom is from New Orleans. And so a lot of sort of hospitality and style comes from my mom. And my dad was from New York. So, like, they were not Clevelanders. But I am a Clevelander, and I think that is about being honest and straightforward. I have no other way to be. And I think that has. It wasn't always the path I think that leads to success in raising venture funds and scaling a business. But I think for investors who have stuck by me, I'm sure they were grateful for that. Like, I am going to tell you the truth. And we're also going to do what we say we're going to do.
- [05:28]
Dennis Scully
Let's talk a little bit about the path that got you here because you went to business school, did some consulting, spent some time with the Obama administration, if I recall. Tell me a little bit about that. About that path.
- [05:42]
Susan Tynan
Yes. So I think actually the path does pick up in high school, where I worked in the Gap in high school and in college. And I really think, looking back, I think a love of retail was sparked there. I loved working with customers and I loved being great at it, knowing, like, if you walked in, I knew which jeans would look great on you. But then I went on, I did work in consulting, I went to Harvard Business School. I came out and worked for what I call other people's startups, really interesting businesses and fintech and taxis and, you know, health it in email promotion. Like, I worked in other people's startups and I learned so much and really got a bug for working that fast with smart young people, took a break and worked, as you mentioned, in the Obama administration in the budget office, where I learned a lot. It felt like a huge privilege to work there. But I worked mainly on technology projects. But I think what I saw working at startups was that it was just invigorating to be working at a pace and in a environment where anything was possible. And so that I loved. I think not until I started Framebridge did I realize that working for someone's startup, in a startup and doing your own startup or different levels of play, different levels of.
- [07:05]
Dennis Scully
Very different. Yeah.
- [07:07]
Susan Tynan
You know, it's funny, in the startup world, I was 37 when I started Framebridge, which is like old, as I found, which is funny.
- [07:15]
Dennis Scully
Well, it's interesting. And I was just recently talking to Alex Shuford, who has a huge family furniture business, and he was talking about how important it is to work in retail and how much you learn there. And I wish for everyone that they would have the opportunity to both work in retail. And then, as you were just saying, to work for a startup and to experience the excitement of we're going to make the most minute change on the website tomorrow. And we've all been working on it. And wait till you see what a difference this is going to make, the speed at which our customer is going to be able to go through the order process or we've updated again just often. It's some little tiny thing that you've all been working 247 to improve on the list of things that you identified as the most important thing to do right now. Now. And I hope everyone gets that experience.
- [08:10]
Susan Tynan
It's exhilarating. Both, actually, both of those experiences are exhilarating. Working with customers directly, hearing from customers directly is very exciting. And then also on the startup side, I think being With a young team trying to figure it out, where you're like, the pivoting is nonstop. That's really fun.
- [08:33]
Dennis Scully
Yeah, no, no, it is. But you also ended up at Living Social, which was a huge deal. So tell me about that, and let's tell people what living.
- [08:43]
Let's remind people who might not remember.
- [08:46]
The Groupon LivingSocial days.
- [08:48]
Susan Tynan
Exactly. Both of those companies were out, and the same time, Living Social was a. Was really an email marketing company, but it was local marketing, and it helped small businesses find new customers, and it helped email subscribers just consumers discover the exciting parts of their city. And so there was a time when everybody couldn't wait to look in their inbox to see what the Living Social deal of the day was. Also, some people are familiar with Groupon. That was the big competitor. And so it was fun. I learned from every aspect of it. Super high growth, a technology business, very good at acquiring customers. So that was really fun. And it was actually so fun. I saw it from afar. Colleagues I had worked with before had started it and were running it. And I was working in government at the time. And as I said, that was such a privilege. I knew how important it was to be in government, but I was looking at what they were doing, and it just looked so exciting and fun. And so they called me up and said, would you ever join? And I was like, great, I'll see you soon. And so that was.
- [09:49]
Dennis Scully
I'm on my way.
- [09:50]
Susan Tynan
I was like, packing up my laptop bag. No, it was very exciting. And so actually, several of my early team members came from Living Social. And now, like, you know, zoom out a decade, and framebridge is actually owned by a holding company run by the old CEO of Living Social. So it all ties together well.
- [10:13]
Dennis Scully
And it sounds. And as you say, people would. People couldn't wait to open their inbox and discover this often quite generous coupon for some service or some place that you could go in the city and have an experience or do something. And some of them were framing.
- [10:29]
Susan Tynan
Yes. The direct connection here was I was managing the category of deals related to home services. And so I got to know that category and why people were excited for discounts in certain services. And there were things like, you know, air duct cleaning or whatever that people wanted, but then there were things, you know, there were categories that always did well, and that was framing, custom framing. And as I unpacked, why are people grabbing these deals for custom framing? It was really one. The customer had been conditioned to know that, frankly, it was. They felt it was a Ripoff. So they were like, you know, I'm going to wait for.
- [11:06]
Dennis Scully
They felt that framing was really expensive.
- [11:08]
Susan Tynan
And so I got to wait for a deal. You never buy that at, you know, you never buy it unless you have a deal. And then frame stores themselves, there was just such a range that I felt like we could. You know, people were trying to figure out which was a high quality store and which. Which was not. And so I think that was hard to sort through. And so I started looking more. More into the business and sort of reflecting on my own experiences with the category. And then I also had a personal experience, actually a set of personal experiences. But the first one was I went to a local frame store with four national parks posters. And these were posters that I had collected on annual hiking trips with my sister. But the experience in the frame store was bad. And they cost $400 each for metal frames that did not look good. And it took weeks to get them back. And more than anything, the man working at the store was kind of a jerk. He was sort of like, ugh, you know, like, this is not fine art. I don't know what you've brought me here.
- [12:07]
Dennis Scully
Oh, oh. He. He sort of implied this was beneath him to even frame your national park.
- [12:12]
Susan Tynan
Yes. And so I thought, like, that was bad. And so I dreaded picking them up one because I didn't want to pay for them, but it was because it.
- [12:21]
Dennis Scully
Was quite a financial transaction.
- [12:23]
Susan Tynan
I know. And I say at the time, definitely, they cost more than my couch at the time. And so I just thought, like, that is weird. And I just gained more and more conviction that this thing should exist, and it should exist in a way that.
- [12:37]
Dennis Scully
Delights people and take me from feeling so strongly and excited that you've got this idea now what?
- [12:45]
Susan Tynan
So I had been at Living Social. I got an opportunity to move to a taxi app. It was called Taxi Magic. And it was at the time of earlier days of Uber and Lyft, but still, they were clearly the front runners. And so I was there, and I already had the idea for Framebridge. But I think in my head, I thought, well, that's pretty risky. I bet I'll get the same feeling just having a leadership role at another company. And I didn't. I couldn't drop it. I really kept thinking about Framebridge just every second of every day. And so I decided to keep sort of moving with it. I had a friend, actually a friend from Living Social, who helped me consider the idea. I laughed because at one point she sent me an email that was like, you're on your own. My husband and I have decided to travel the world for a year. So she was like, it's a good idea for you, but great, you go run with it. Yeah, I don't need it.
- [13:47]
Dennis Scully
I'll see you in a year.
- [13:49]
Susan Tynan
But, you know, that was really helpful. I had a lot of conversations with her and then I, you know, I just, like, I just was incubating this idea and then I realized, like, I just had to do it full time. And I think by that time I had had a few conversations with people who would be potential investors. And it was clear to me that for an idea like this, one that hadn't been developed and two, had a lot of work that had to be done, that the way I was going to attract investors was by showing them I was all in, and I had to do that by quitting my job.
- [14:22]
Dennis Scully
Well, and at the time, what did you imagine were the complexities of this, of this business?
- [14:30]
Susan Tynan
I remember sitting in a coffee shop in Washington, D.C. working on the first model, the first financial model for the business. Like that went with the pitch materials. And I remember dragging out the row that would have the number of people required to do this business with some assumptions on how much labor goes into a frame. And I thought, ooh, wow, this is gonna take a lot of people. And like, there's sort of no way around that. And so I thought like, wow. And I think that was me starting to understand what it would take years to build, but that we were actually building a manufacturing business, you know, because I think I was pitching an e commerce business.
- [15:13]
Dennis Scully
Right, but in order to, in order.
- [15:15]
To supply or in order to facilitate the E commerce business, you needed the manufacturing business.
- [15:22]
Susan Tynan
Both economically, we needed to be vertically integrated. We had to build the. The whole, the whole reason for this thing was that we, you know, we could offer high quality, custom framing at a more approachable, more affordable price if we did it ourselves and did it centrally. And so that was the thesis, and that has borne out. But in doing so, we would have to be manufacturers. And so the other piece, and the piece we realized right out of the gates too, is that is and continues to be how we can be great and be defensible and have a fast turnaround time and. And be very knowledgeable about framing. You know, nobody has framed more matchbooks than we have. I feel I can say that declaratively well.
- [16:09]
Dennis Scully
So I wonder, and I can't remember timing wise, if Warby Parker was in people's heads or dollar Shave Club or some of these brands that were looking to disrupt Right. By cefo. Okay.
- [16:23]
Susan Tynan
And I would say that Warby Parker continues to be, you know, a role model for us. They were ahead of us. And so certainly we watched even as they pivoted into retail and became a retailer.
- [16:35]
Dennis Scully
Yeah. Which was interesting. And something that, I mean, I don't think they had imagined early on, but with the notion that here's something that seems like it's really expensive and there's this big monopoly, this big Italian company or whatever it was that's making most of the frames, and we can make it for so much less. And here we go. And did you sort of have this same notion? Was it all of these components from overseas that were causing framing to your posters to be $400 for your national Parks posters?
- [17:12]
Susan Tynan
It's really just the nature of how framing is delivered. It's, you know, in order to have that really large assortment of frames, frame stores don't have inventory. So when you walk into a frame store, you select from the assortment, and the frame store purchases materials from a distributor and the distributor purchases from someone who's making the components. And so that leads to long turnaround times and higher prices. And so we said one, we didn't believe that an overwhelming assortment was an advantage. We really thought, like having a beautiful curated assortment was an advantage. That is what the consumer was looking for. So we would have a tighter assortment and that we could go deep on them. We could buy them in very large quantities because of the volume of framing we were doing. And we could also use our materials much more wisely. Right. Because of the, again, the volume of framing we're doing, we had much less waste. And so that was the thesis, and that's what we're executing.
- [18:25]
Dennis Scully
We're taking a quick break to remind you about laloy. This October at High Point Market, Lelloy is hosting special events in their showroom you don't want to miss. On Saturday the 25th, they'll start a keynote conversation with Amber Lewis, Julia Marcum, Anna Bond, and Laloy's newest partner, who we can't reveal just yet. They're also hosting a book signing and a meet and greet with Amy Astley, the editor in chief of Architectural Digestive and the author of Ad at Home. Learn more about those events and book your appointment@leloyrugs.com that's L O L O I rugs.com and don't forget to follow laloirugs on Instagram and TikTok. And now back to the show.
- [19:16]
So early on, it was an online business. You were going around with your pitch. And how was. How was the venture capital community receiving this. This pitch at the time, Susan? Because I know that's an exhausting process.
- [19:30]
Susan Tynan
It's like on the one hand and on the other hand, on the one hand, we were very successful. At some point. We were. We were like breaking records in terms of how much money we were raising. I think for, you know, I was trying to think of what the record was. It was literally, I think, like female entrepreneur in the mid Atlantic. So not. I mean, not a. Not an Olympic gold, but it was. It was a record. And so we were able to successfully raise money, I think, for one reason. In the beginning, it was like, it was kind of a novel idea. It was a category that nobody was looking at. And I didn't tie the thread together. I think one of the reasons I left the taxi business was like, that was an exciting business, right. But there were huge competitors who had a lead. And I saw this opportunity for something that nobody else was interested in, frankly. And I was interested. And so I think that story was interesting to people in the beginning in terms of raising venture money. But what allowed us to continue to raise venture money was proving through customer data, through data, that we got people to do it more often than they ever had. So it was always, I think raising venture capital is tough. People were like, it's a craft business. I think that was tough. I think I had to really show people, no, we want to own the category that I had the ambition. We had the ambition to build a big business. But it was, at the end of the day, it was sort of the data. You can't fake that. Customers come to us, they like us, and they come back. That allowed us to continue raising money.
- [20:56]
Dennis Scully
So why did you sort of have this space largely to your. Did people just not find this sexy or fun? Right. The framing.
- [21:05]
Susan Tynan
Right. I think it's a really fragmented space. It is a big space, but not as big, obviously, as, saying, changing mobility. Right. So I think that was one of the reasons. But I think there were some little competitors. There remain some competitors. Competitors today. But I think what we got right is that we cared about design from out of the gates. And when I look at our initial team, it was three women I had worked with actually before. So they were part of the living social crowd. But two of the three were designers, and one is sort of exceptional on product and customer experience. But, you know, for that small of a team to have put that Much of emphasis on design, I think was really important because at the end of the day, why do people do this thing? They do this thing so their piece looks more beautiful and it's preserved and they do it so their space looks more beautiful. And so I do think that other folks who were approaching it just as a disruption story or technology story, but didn't really have the love of the product, the physical product, were not able to reach this scale.
- [22:09]
Dennis Scully
And tell me, tell me why you needed $80 million.
- [22:13]
Tell me what all that. Because I mean, if I recall, you were, every year you were getting another round and it was, yes, we always.
- [22:20]
Susan Tynan
Said it would be two years and then it was always one year, which investors don't love, but is the reality, I think, of most people's businesses. So there are a lot of businesses that came and went in the direct to consumer era and they were, you know, just sort of marketing and brand on top of something that already existed.
- [22:40]
Dennis Scully
Right.
- [22:40]
Susan Tynan
And so we certainly spent a lot of money on marketing, but. But mainly we spent it on building out manufacturing and the systems that support our manufacturing, the decision support tools that allow us to be great at custom picture framing and to get it right every time and to make sure that we know the difference between truly how to stitch an Hermes scarf or a Chanel scarf, the difference between, you know, a cycling jersey or a hockey jersey or a peewee hockey jersey. Building that business at scale was the business. And so that was like the beginning of the journey. And then midway through building framebridge, we realized the best way to grow was retail. That takes capital too, but I think has been just terrific for us. Like that is, that is our future and is pretty exciting.
- [23:35]
Dennis Scully
And when you first had to have that conversation. Well, tell me when you first realized that that was the next step that had to happen and then having to tell your investors, hey, guess what, now I need more money to go do this. And wait till you hear it's not necessarily your favorite thing.
- [23:51]
Susan Tynan
That's right. We had several venture capital investors who I do think were clear eyed from the beginning about the type of business we were building, that it was vertically integrated and that they were, you know, their capital was going toward building out these capabilities. But we were E commerce, it was online. So they were great and supportive. And we were five or so years in when we decided to test retail. You know, I think the board was probably split at that point about how they felt about it. And I think we probably got some advice from people in and outside of the business saying, you Know, do it in a really lightweight way. And one thing I'm really grateful for is we did not. We opened.
- [24:35]
Dennis Scully
We did not take that advice.
- [24:37]
Susan Tynan
Well, that the biggest secret of a startup is you've got to listen to all the advice, but you have to know what to filter out. Right. And so in this case, we really said, there are so many reasons to believe retail could work for us. And you mentioned Warby Parker. We saw that we had an investor at the time who was in Warby, and he said, I see in your data, it's just a very similar story. And we knew our customers, our customers were coming to our corporate office with art in hand, hoping to talk to someone.
- [25:06]
Dennis Scully
Well, that's what I was wondering, because the E Commerce side of this actually sounds really complicated to me. People, to your point, are sending. I mean, if they're burning.
- [25:14]
Susan Tynan
Yes. They're mailing us their wedding invitation.
- [25:18]
Dennis Scully
Or their wedding invitation. Exactly. I mean, I would be. I would be nervous about the whole process.
- [25:23]
Susan Tynan
Right. We had a corporate office in Georgetown, in Washington, D.C. and we would have people drop in, and I would laugh because I would see, you know, like a member of our accounting team trying to give design advice to a customer who walked in. But we were just like, I get it. So there was enough to make us know this was going to work. And so our first two stores were in the wash in Washington, D.C. and Bethesda, Maryland. So DC, where we're from. And we built them out like real stores. Like, we're. We're gonna do this, and we're gonna hire real store managers, and we're gonna. We're not gonna test this tepidly. I think part of that was because we knew people needed to feel comfortable dropping their art off. They needed to have a full experience. If we were gonna figure out if retail worked, we had to do retail for real. And I think I'm also grateful that we didn't hold ourselves to an economic goal that was fuzzy. You know, I think a lot of brands do where they say, well, if you blur your eyes and you add in online sales, or if you blur your eyes and you say it's a marketing expense, it's really a billboard. Sure, we do see those benefits, but the stores are profitable. We find stores that can be profitable, we build them out to be profitable. And so I think that's. That also makes the results of whether retail makes sense a lot more clear, as you say.
- [26:39]
Dennis Scully
I mean, many will say, oh, this is a great marketing tool for us. If we have some locations in Key markets and people can drive by, see us, it'll lead to more online traffic. And I'm sure that it probably does help with that metric, but there's a lot more. The retail stores, to your point, have.
- [27:00]
To be businesses on their own because.
- [27:02]
Susan Tynan
To the point that led us to this conversation, right. They do take capital to build out. That is an investment. And so we have to do so knowing that there's a formula that works.
- [27:13]
Dennis Scully
I'm always trying to share with listeners sort of what are some of the realities, the complexities and challenges behind really building this out? Because we all know that there are times when, yeah, it's pretty rough. So I mean, without having to go into lots of painful memories for you, I'm just curious what, what turned out to be more challenging perhaps than you had first imagined?
- [27:40]
Susan Tynan
I would say two things that are challenging about our business are one, just the having to be great at everything like that really is an added complexity. So we are retailers, we're technologists, we're designers, and we're manufacturers. And so for a grow a small business, that's a lot to take on. So I think that was one thing. I probably didn't, I probably didn't anticipate how that would continuously be something to work through. And then I think just the other piece was always, you know, we have to match supply and demand. Every business has to. But for us, if we get it wrong, it's not that we're sitting on stock that we have to mark down. We have people and we have to train people. And so getting that right, getting our forecasting right, has been a big part of, of our business. And I think we're in just a really better place right now. The retail business is actually very helpful for forecasting. And now we have several manufacturing facilities, which makes it easier to manage demand across several facilities. It's not, you don't get wiped out because the flu goes through one facility or a snowstorm. So the business is much more stable to operate today than it was before. But that was hard. And I think we, the, the lowest points I've ever had were those when we were behind. Our customers are modern shoppers. If we tell them it's going to take a week and it takes three weeks, that's bad. And our net promoter score goes right down and we all feel sick about it. So, so keeping on time with high quality is, is what we all live for. And so being good forecasters, good training programs, good recruiting programs, that has been.
- [29:35]
Dennis Scully
Critical to our scaling and help me understand Better how?
- [29:40]
The point you were just making about retail actually helps you be better at forecasting. Are there just a set of assumptions that you can now make with certain confidence about.
- [29:51]
Susan Tynan
Okay, yes, they just are. The stores are just their own little businesses in some ways that we get to understand how they perform. And we understand if that store has, you know, Blockbuster Saturdays and Sundays and a little bit quieter during the week, or if that store has traffic throughout the week, like we just get to understand the stores more. I think the online business, because it was so driven at the time by paid marketing, could be more volatile. And our business today is based on really fundamentals like we provide a good service for people and they like it, and that's an easier business to forecast.
- [30:32]
Dennis Scully
Well, exactly. I mean, you mentioned earlier that the challenge that D2C faced and why the venture community sort of lost its, its love.
- [30:41]
Susan Tynan
Yes, it did.
- [30:42]
Dennis Scully
For putting so much money.
- [30:44]
Susan Tynan
But I'm grateful for them for the time we had together.
- [30:47]
Dennis Scully
Yes, yes, exactly. You were fortunate to get all that money raised while you could because they certainly changed their tune. And as you say, the economics of it online marketing just got so much more expensive. Customer acquisition costs just went through the roof and then all of the same old tools and tricks didn't work again. We spoke with the founder of Bonobos a while back and he said, I couldn't do it today, I couldn't do it like, like that, you know, there. It just wouldn't, it wouldn't happen. And, and so, funny enough, the retail business, which sounded like back in the day, oh, not the old fashioned, all that cost, all that overhead, training all those people, to your point, turns out there's a lot of predictability there. And, and then if you've done your homework on the right locations, which it sounds like you're pretty, pretty good at it. I know you've told me you sometimes sit on your hands if you don't feel like you have the perfect location, knowing you need to be somewhere.
- [31:44]
Susan Tynan
We want to be in a great location with a very small space. And so we have to, we have to just be disciplined about that.
- [31:52]
Dennis Scully
Yeah, I mean, and that's interesting and you should explain that because, I mean, I was surprised when I went into.
- [31:56]
The local Bronxville frame bridge, which is.
- [32:00]
Lovely and the people were delightful, but I was surprised it was as cozy as it was. But that's a big part of your plan is that controlled square footage.
- [32:10]
Susan Tynan
So we're looking at 700 to 1100 square feet, and that includes back of house. And so a Lot of our sort of perfectly Sized stores are 400 square feet selling space, and it's because we don't have inventory. Right. And so I think the model, the old retail model or the traditional retail model that makes sense for people is, you know, what is your sales per square foot? And ours obviously is pretty impressive because we're so tiny, but. But it doesn't. But the assumption there is that a bigger store will sell more. And because we don't have more merchandise to sell, that's not the case for us. On the other side, though, we do want to be located where our customers are in. And so we are looking for great real estate because we want to have the benefit of foot traffic and we want to be where customers are running their errands so they can easily find us and drop in.
- [33:09]
Dennis Scully
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- [34:06]
And let's talk about the designer and trade customer a little bit. Because a huge potential market is interior designers who would be a great repeat customer and who frame a lot of art, but perhaps are skeptical of a new vendor, one that's online, perhaps one that's showing their prices to everybody else. All of those things come up. Right? So tell me how you've been thinking about that and trying to form partnerships where you can.
- [34:42]
Susan Tynan
Yes. So we love the design community, of course, not only because they're good customers, but because their influence on other customers is so important. We know that we have customers who first learned about Framebridge from their designer and so that, you know, that sort of stamp of approval is invaluable. So I think for us, we're trying to continuously figure out how we can make life easier for designers, you know, doing layouts of gallery walls, supporting them with our fast turnaround times, making sure we're never holding them up, things like that. But we also want to make sure one that they get to know us for our designs and have influence on them as well. We have a partnership that we're extremely proud of that we've been working on for a few years with Farrow and Ball. And so we think that's going to be very exciting for the trade. As I said, it took years to figure out, really, because as they should be, as all brands I admire Faro and Ball insists you can't use their colors without actually using their paint. And so we had to figure out how to to use their paint on frame moldings that we could use for custom frames. And so we have a collection coming out with several of their paint colors on our frames with matching mats, and they look amazing. It's a new chance to introduce ourselves to the trade. You know, I think there's just an assumption that anyone who started online did so with maybe quality shortcuts. And so it's very important for us to show people that we didn't and that we take design and craftsmanship very seriously.
- [36:27]
Dennis Scully
No, that's a great point. And I think the Shade store and some other companies would tell you that they struggled with overcoming that in the early days. Right. Because there just was this perception that, oh, you can't possibly be as good as my 200 year old workroom nearby that I've been going to for ages. And I wonder how from a manufacturing standpoint, you demonstrate that as well.
- [36:52]
Susan Tynan
So a couple ways. So in our own facilities, we are, we have terrific training programs. And again, I'm going to use the word reverence again, a lot of reverence for the art we're framing and the work we do. Our company values. Make it special is a company value. Show pride is a company value. Build to last is a company value. Our values are really about the pride and the detail in our work. So I think in our US based facilities, that is what we do. Some of our woods, our wood moldings are made through a partner partnerships in Italy. And I think there, we show there, there is heritage in those frames. A lot of our gold frames are hand leafed and that's done by, you know, people with generations of training. And so that's really. And you know, it's funny because our head of merchandising, Tessa, you know, people will say, well, you know, you can do this piece on a machine. And she's like, I can see across the room that that was done on a machine. And so, so, you know, she was like, test me. And so that's the part where, you know, we just have people in Our business who really care. And I think at the end of the day, you can just sense that in a business.
- [38:16]
Dennis Scully
Well, it's interesting because, as you say, the skepticism that comes from companies that are born online is challenging to overcome. And the design community is very particular. Right.
- [38:31]
Susan Tynan
As well they should be. They're dealing with demanding clients, too, so I get it.
- [38:37]
Dennis Scully
Yeah. And often clients have collections and valuable art and all of that, so they're not taking framing to just anyone. But that's interesting about the Farrow and Ball partnership. And how does that roll out across the country? So how does that become known to everyone?
- [38:59]
Susan Tynan
So we're rolling it out up first to the trade, which will be our first time doing that. They'll have early access, and then we'll make it available online and in our stores to everyone. And as I said, I think this is truly the Faro and Ball team, over their 80 years, I think, has only had certainly less than half a dozen collaborations like this. So we're very proud to work with them. And again, and I think part of what we do is try and make things approachable to a broader audience. And so we're excited to show it off to our end consumers, too, and to get them to try something, to have a taste of that. Of something. That's pretty aspirational.
- [39:46]
Dennis Scully
Yeah. Well, I mean, and that's interesting. And I was wondering about the price point differential with that, if Farrow and Ball's involvement.
- [39:53]
Susan Tynan
Probably, yes. And these will be premium priced. But again, we have to look at value and we have to say, for what you're getting, is this fair? And I think maybe I'm coming back to my Midwestern roots here. I think. I think the price is certainly transparent and fair.
- [40:09]
Dennis Scully
Well, so getting back to the manufacturing side of the.
- [40:13]
Of the business, and I'm.
- [40:14]
And I'm sorry that we have to talk about tariffs, because I. Yes, my. You know, it's not my favorite subject. People think it is because I spend all my time talking about it, but actually, it's one of my least favorite subjects. But it is such a reality for people. And so I just recently had George Mattook on talking about his linen company, and he's like, guess what? The linen, it's coming from Portugal, it's coming from Italy, it's coming from India. Yes, of course it is. Right. And so he's feeling incredibly under the gun with the current administration's policies. You just described beautiful things coming from Italy. Suddenly you're faced with a different cost structure. Tell me how all of this has been going down for you.
- [40:57]
Susan Tynan
So we're certainly impacted and impacted negatively by the tariffs, but we, but it is manageable for our business. And we, like many companies, are going to try and absorb as much as we can before passing on price changes to our customer. So, you know, I think the way I see it as a leader is we were venture backed, we lived through Covid. This is another one. We just, you know, where it's like another challenge being thrown. This is another one I don't like it will do it. I think if I wanted to, you know, have a lesson for others, I would say, like, we truly are building U.S. manufacturing jobs. That is how we grow. We just opened up a facility in Henderson, Nevada, so we absolutely are the type of business you would want to support. And yet, you know, we feel like other companies were sort of punished with the tariffs because some of our inputs come from Italy. And as we talked about those, some of the techniques to finish that wood, like hand leafing, that skill does not. There's no capability for that in the United States or not at scale. Nor do I think that's the future of American jobs. And so we're like sort of a picture perfect story of like, this is why terrorists have impacts that even some of our machinery. Right. Is from Europe. So like all of the story is like, it's not great for us, but it's definitely manageable. And again, because so much of our costs are labor, American jobs, we are not as impacted as other furniture retailers for sure. And so we can live through it in any form or fashion. As much as I wish it didn't come up.
- [42:44]
Dennis Scully
Right. Right.
- [42:45]
But I mean, to your point, it certainly has an impact and you think you'll be able to, to weather your way through it. We all sort of wish it wasn't happening in the, in the way that it, that it is.
- [42:57]
Susan Tynan
We absolutely did have those same stories other people did where we were like, you should see our emails. We're like, what, what do we have? You know, literally, what do we have in the ocean? And then we had the, you know, the experiences like everyone else, which is like, you know, where there was, I think like a week where you could get things as long as you were, you know, sort of got them on a boat. I should have called out my tugboat friends. As long as you got them on a boat. But truly it was sort of laughable. And they were like, you and every other American company are trying to do this. Nice try. And so of course we hit the water when we're going to be tariffed on it. So that was sort of almost unneeded chaos, but again, totally something we can.
- [43:40]
Dennis Scully
Certainly survive, but from the other side of being a manufacturing company, because, I mean, interesting. And we talked earlier about people. So how big is the manufacturing side of it? How many people are required? And tell me how you're. I'm imagining opening that many stores. You're probably expanding that manufacturing capability as well.
- [44:01]
Susan Tynan
Yeah. So we have several hundred people on the manufacturing team and then we grow it about 20%, 25% the team for the holiday season. And our corporate team is pretty lean and mean and we'll certainly have other corporate leaders needed. But for the most part, we have the team to scale the business on our corporate team. It really is growing and developing our field teams. That's the future.
- [44:31]
Dennis Scully
What's it like hiring people out there? Hear lots of stories about, oh, it's a little bit more challenging of late to hire and find good people.
- [44:39]
Susan Tynan
We're getting great talent, actually seeing, like, I hope it's not just a softening of the broader labor market. I hope it's actually people, you know, drawn to framebridge. But I believe it's a combination of both. And so I think hiring is going well. We certainly, like everyone else who lived through Covid, had some challenging years, but we're in a good place now. And again, I think we have a lot to offer in terms of growth and development.
- [45:06]
Dennis Scully
And the subject of AI and AI seems to these days also go along quite a bit with robotics and what people are trying to do to find all sorts of efficiencies. Is AI transforming your business at this point, do you find?
- [45:25]
Susan Tynan
I think there are definitely pockets where AI will be very exciting. I think all of our corporate team is very excited. I laugh. I'm like, wow, this is a very robust presentation put forth to me. I'm like, I think this is just like, increase the volume of deliverables I'm getting because everybody has these tools at their fingertips. But I think that there are a lot of interesting ways it can augment what we do. And I'm an early adopter of everything, so I'm really excited by it. But I will tell you again that I've really had this. Aha. That our business, at the end of the day, there will be nothing that shakes us from needing more people to mount art and build frames and needing more people to interact with customers and help them design their piece. And so I'm really happy about that, that we can be augmented by AI in different ways, but we won't be replaced by it.
- [46:23]
Dennis Scully
We talked about marketing and customer acquisition costs earlier. What is working today? What is really attracting people?
- [46:33]
Susan Tynan
Less of a reliance on it. Truly, having built a brand. Truly, that's what's working now. Having built a brand. And that was by marketing and by delivering something of value to people. We are probably maybe equal parts paid, social and search, but as a percentage of sales, just much, much, much lower than we ever were. So our paid marketing efforts are much less than they used to be. They're very effective when it makes sense. When someone needs a Mother's Day gift or a Christmas gift and just the reminder that we exist and that you could click through with a photo, that makes sense. But over the year, you know, we do things like we do television, linear television still and direct mail and that's more.
- [47:23]
Dennis Scully
Do you think we have to remind.
- [47:24]
Some listeners what television is?
- [47:26]
Susan Tynan
I mean, do you think I truly. Every week my husband says, can we please stop paying this bill? And I don't know why I'm clinging to it, but we definitely spend on marketing to say, hey, we're framebridge and this is what we do. And when you're ready, we're here. And I think that's important and hopefully some design inspiration in that. But really, I think, I do think. I was just saying you shouldn't look at retail stores only as a billboard. But do I think they're a billboard? I do think they are.
- [47:53]
Dennis Scully
Sure.
- [47:54]
Susan Tynan
And I think now that customers have a few ways to have heard of us, maybe they got a Christmas gift from someone once and then they see a coming soon window in their town. I think it helps. And I think also to the again, the heritage or I guess lack of heritage of being an online first company. I do think now having this meaningful retail fleet help show people that we're really here and that we framed millions of pieces.
- [48:27]
Dennis Scully
Well, it's. You know, I referenced the Shade Store earlier in the conversation. One of the things I think that they did so brilliantly, strategically, was knowing that they wanted to target interior designers is partnering with the Kips Bay show houses around the country and having those, having those window treatments showing up in all those rooms in all of those houses. I don't know what other things you're looking at to penetrate the trade, but that is certainly a model that seems to have worked quite well.
- [49:01]
Susan Tynan
Many things Shade Store did we have admired. I think there's a lot to admire.
- [49:06]
Dennis Scully
Yeah. No, no, no. It seems a playbook that is worth studying because this is not an easy industry to crack, and so I admire you. And listen, it sounds like this Farrow and Ball partnership, as you say, has been in the works for some time and you've got it ready to go. And at the time that this airs, it'll probably just be rolling out so people can discover that. Susan, I'm so glad to get to spend time with you and I thank you so much for chatting with me about all of this.
- [49:38]
Susan Tynan
This is wonderful. Thank you. I really appreciate it.
- [49:43]
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@podcastusofhome.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 Nicholas and edited by Michael Castaneda. I'm Dennis Scully. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you next week.