New Product Launch Playbook Behind 9-Figure Ecommerce Brands

Summary

OPERATORS Podcast: New Product Launch Playbook Behind 9-Figure Ecommerce Brands

Date: April 29, 2026
Guests: Katie (Caden Lane), Curtis (Portland Leather Goods), Host (A/Matt)

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Episode Overview

In this highly requested episode, the OPERATORS team sits down with two powerhouse product founders: Katie (Caden Lane) and Curtis (Portland Leather Goods). Together, they pull back the curtain on the secret tactics and mindsets driving high-velocity product development and launch cycles at 9-figure eCommerce brands. The episode focuses on ideation, product expansion, data vs. gut, customer feedback loops, pricing strategy, merchandising, inventory management, and the difficult choices involved in what to keep, cut, or reinvent.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Who Comes Up with Product Ideas? (00:00-05:31)

• Host sets the stage: Product development is one of the most-requested topics, second only to “how do I sell my business?”
• Curtis: “It’s me…It’s me and McCoy, our marketing guy. I started this thing in a garage.” (01:30)
  • Origin stories matter; founder-led vision and pattern recognition are crucial.
  • Iterative, hands-on process: product tables in the office, constant review.
  • Example: The circle bag was invented to stand out online, resulting in half a million units sold. “Dumbest sounding thing ever, I know. But online…your buyers just go ‘boom.’” (02:40)
• Katie: Similarly, founder-led; new category expansions start with her inspiration and vision. Supported by a seasoned product designer who understands brand taste. (04:00)
  • Brands focused on many SKUs (vs. “hero product” brands) rely on rapid, constant launch cycles.

2. Inspiration and Ideation: Data vs. Gut (05:32-09:06)

• Curtis admits heavy inspiration from everywhere (airports, coffee shops) and from constant customer and market observation.
• “Pattern recognition” is a superpower built by repetition and competitive drive.
  • “Never say in your company, ‘Which one do you like?’ Say, ‘Which one is going to sell the most?’” (07:45)
• Katie affirms: much is “gut”—but validated through quick market exposure and customer feedback.

3. Frequency of Launches & Product Calendars (10:32-14:17)

• Both Curtis and Katie maintain a staggering weekly launch cadence—2-3 launches per week.
• This cadence is a marketing flywheel, driving return customer rates and creative freshness. “Return customers are strong because we’re constantly showing something new, which is beyond important.” (11:17)
• Product launches are meticulously planned against revenue forecasts and historical comps.

4. Where Do Ideas Come From? Customer-Backwards Development (13:09–18:29)

• Katie: Store visits act as “my focus group.” Observing buying patterns, gift bundling, and pairing is insightful. (13:09)
• Trends come from social (staff of “25–35 year-old moms”), in-store observations, and marketing-led opportunities.
• Both brands use active communities (e.g., Facebook groups with 200,000+ members) for teasers, polling, and feedback. (15:32)
  • Curtis: “We can put out a teaser and they’ll tell us what they want…we can gauge that very, very quickly.”
  • Also, “C grade” sales for exclusives drive revenue and loyalty. (23:19)

5. Managing Merchandising, Variety, and Choice Paradox (27:06–34:44)

• Katie and Curtis debate SKU bloat, choice paralysis, and website merchandising:
  • Remove underperformers, optimize assortment, and avoid “hoarding” weak SKUs.
  • Use offbeat colors or trends as visual anchors—even to increase the appeal of best-sellers (“ugly, trendy things to make best-sellers look better”). (28:02–29:26)
  • Data is crucial: “More product is not always better…every click is a better chance they’re going to leave.” (27:35)

6. Pricing and Margin Strategies (35:04–44:47)

• Launches often start with price testing (A/B/split) to determine optimal conversion and margin.
• For high-performing “hero” products, resist raising prices for short-term gain—$99 bags are intentionally underpriced vs. perceived value to optimize customer acquisition. (39:31)
  • “If it’s a hero product…don’t touch those prices…The key to Internet marketing is: is this deal too good? I’m going to buy it. I’m coming back.” (41:46)
• Margin is made up elsewhere: on non-core products where modest price increases are less visible.
• Advertising rarely supports accessory/attach-rate products directly due to low AOV.
• Offers and ad strategy: use bestsellers as traffic drivers then upsell/cross-sell ad-ons.

7. Customer Feedback & Closing the Loop (49:28–53:57)

• Curtis and Katie both see social engagement (VIP groups, social comments, polls) as more valuable than customer service tickets.
  • “The people that love your brand are in social, commenting, sharing in your VIP groups.” (50:39)
  • Customer service input is important but doesn’t always represent core loyalists.
• Product and marketing functions need to be tightly integrated for customer feedback to translate into product strategy.

8. When to Expand Product Categories—and When to Cut (53:57–77:48)

• For hero product brands, category expansion is key for long-term growth and customer retention.
• Both agree: it’s important to “kill your darlings,” cut underperformers, and not be emotionally attached to products or past successes.
  • “You have to be willing to flush ‘em.” (61:46)
• Brand name shouldn’t limit expansion (e.g., “Leather” in Portland Leather Goods is not a barrier to selling canvas or footwear). Evolution is necessary—even if it contradicts legacy “success stories.” (57:56–60:56)
• On operational side: In-house manufacturing enables rapid iteration and testing, with the flexibility to cut losses quickly.

9. Biggest Mistakes & Lessons For Operators (46:11–76:15)

• Katie: Early mistake was staying too narrow—handing off customers to competitors when their kid outgrew the flagship product.
• Curtis: Sustainability comes from constantly evolving, not resting on past wins.
• Advice for operators:
  • Continually evaluate customer buying cycles—if the main offer is naturally long-cycle, add new products to increase LTV and reactivation.
  • Test new products with caution but persistence.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Curtis: “Never say in your company, ‘Which one do you like?’ Say, ‘Which one is going to sell the most.’ Very different verbiage.” (07:41)
• Katie: “My whole goal is to get to a place where in this company, the only thing I’m working on every day is product.” (03:54)
• Curtis: “I walk around the office, ‘How many are we going to sell? First hour? First day?’ You start to just get the pattern recognition.” (06:47)
• Katie: “The people that love your brand are in social, commenting, engaging, sharing in your VIP groups…That’s where the value is.” (50:39)
• Host/Matt: “You can’t be a hoarder…Every click that someone does on your website is a better chance they’re going to leave.” (27:35)
• Curtis: “The marriage of product is with marketing and growth. It’s not with, ‘oh, we’ve created this and this is what our company is.’” (63:17)
• Katie: “If it’s going to complicate our processes and operations, and if it’s going to complicate it, I don’t want it.” (75:45)
• Curtis: “We’re more profitable, we’re faster, we’re leaner, and we can beat out the competition because we do it.” (77:05)
• Katie: “I think brand is just as important when you’re $1 million versus $100 million and making sure that their experience…[is] the right one.” (47:59)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Origins of product ideas: 01:30–04:55
• Gut vs Data in ideation: 06:41–08:33
• MVP and pattern recognition: 07:00–08:33
• Leveraging online communities: 15:32–16:56
• Launch cadence and new product planning: 10:32–12:27
• Customer-driven product development (customer backwards): 13:09–14:17, 22:46–23:19
• Managing assortment, merchandising, & SKU bloat: 27:06–31:50
• Pricing & margin strategy: 35:04–42:12, 41:46 (Curtis’ “Don’t raise your price” philosophy)
• Killing underperformers; emotional attachment: 61:34–62:27
• Brand expansion beyond core product/category: 57:42–61:26
• Lessons for hero product brands on category expansion: 53:57–56:38
• Biggest regrets/“should have launched sooner or killed faster” Q&A: 72:30–77:48
• Curtis and Katie’s banter/humor on product ownership: 78:55–79:06

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Tone & Takeaways

The episode is honest, rapid-fire, practical, with healthy debates and playful founder banter. Both Curtis and Katie are direct, data-driven, and not afraid to poke fun at each other’s (and their own) past mistakes. The overall message:

• Product innovation is the lifeblood of 9-figure D2C brands—but relentless expansion must be balanced with ruthless editing.
• Community and marketing are not “add-ons,” but at the core of product development.
• Scaling up means codifying processes without losing the founding “gut feel” and customer obsession.
• Let data inform, but never stifle, founder intuition.

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Key Operator Learnings

• Be both visionary and iterative: Great products are created at the intersection of gut taste and pattern-recognition validated by data and community feedback.
• Launch early, launch often, but prune hard: Test small, move fast, kill quickly if it’s not working, and never be afraid to evolve.
• Brand and customer trust matter: Brand names shouldn’t box you in; trust is more important than optimizing every margin dollar.
• Community feedback outweighs support tickets: Social and community groups are your best source of product and trend intelligence.
• Don’t let past successes prevent future innovation: Evolve quickly or risk irrelevance as customer needs and trends change.

A must-listen for eCommerce operators looking to build resilient, innovative, and customer-obsessed brands.

Transcript

[A]

This has got to be the most like requested topic that we get. It may be number two next to like, how do I sell my business? But it's at least top two. And it is basically like, how do, how do you guys make products? Where do the ideas come from? How do you design them? Who makes them? What does the team look like? How much money do you spend on like all of this stuff, everything, Product. Anytime I post a website, do you want the operators to talk about it is almost always product development if it's not to do with banking. So I figured, you know, the two best people to bring on to talk about product are the people who make a weird amount of product. And that is Katie and Curtis.

[B]

Well, product is the isabiggy. And so this one, when we heard what the topic was, he's like, hey, can we talk about this a little bit? I'm like, no, we, this is like hours and hours. This is the game. The product is the game.

[A]

So I would like to know because I, I've seen your numbers, both you guys, and how much stuff you make. Who, who, who, who creates? Like, who, who comes up with all the ideas in your companies for products like Curtis, let's start with you. You're sitting with your factory behind you. It's always our favorite background. And you were telling Katie and I like, you've got a pretty serious product team. Where do all the ideas come from in your company? Who's deciding what to make?

[B]

You know, we were talking about that on the ride here with my assistant Mariana and it's me. Like, this is the energy. It's. Yeah, it's me and McCoy Merkley Maverick, who is our marketing guys. Because I started this thing in a garage and I said, what can I make to go to art festivals that people are going to buy? So every day I was thinking, what do I do? And then you go on to Etsy and then you go on to Shopify and you're like, how do I make more money? I need to change my product, increase my product, do more, more, more, more. I've always been the drive. In the early days we used to hire people in. They're like, oh, I had a design background and I worked for so and so and I put together a deck and I did all this and I'm like, that sucks. Like, I need a bag right now. That one of our top selling bags is a circle bag. How did I come up with the idea of the circle bag? Because we had different size bags that all were rectangle. So they all Looked alike. When the photographers would redo them, they all look the same size. So I wanted. And they put things next to it to show you the size. I'm like, well, instead of a rectangle, let's do a circle. And we've sold half a million of those bags, right? Dumbest sounding thing ever. I know. But online, you go down the page and they're all rectangle, and you see a circle and your buyers just go, boom. So to this day, I have a huge team, and every day I put them right on the floor with me, outside my door. We have tables that are set up for every month for this year that have all the new products, a bunch of new SKUs and new things. And I can walk out every day and say, that looks weak. That's not good enough. We need more here. We need this. We need to try this. Katie.

[C]

It's so hard for me not to talk over Curtis. They said, don't talk over Curtis. And the whole time I'm like. I'm thinking Matt's immediately. He's gonna ask the question of, like, so is this, like, gut feeling things or data? I'm just gonna tell you probably everything Curtis does is gut feeling.

[A]

Like, no, obviously, like, obviously, it's just a. A taste thing that Curtis has. Is it similar at Caden Lane?

[B]

How.

[A]

How involved are you? I know you have. You both have product teams, too.

[B]

We'll get there.

[A]

But how involved are you, Katie, in the process with, like, we're gonna. We're gonna go into this new category. We're gonna make this new sku.

[C]

I mean, I like listening to Curtis. We're the exact same. I think when you think of, like, I think of everything in E Commerce as basically or especially like, direct to consumer. There's like, hero product brands, right? And then there's, like, us, the people that are like, 5,000 life SKUs isn't enough. We need more. So, yeah, I mean, it's. I live and breathe product. Like, my whole goal is to get to a place where in this company, the only thing I'm working on every day is product. So it's. Yeah. But I do have a senior, like, product designer Emily, that's been with me for almost nine years and just grown with the company, and I can truly trust her. I mean, she knows my taste. Her taste is just fantastic. And she's. She's living and breathing it, so I do have really great support. But at the end of the day, when we go into new product categories, Matt, like, not just pajamas or swim or newborn Right. Like, not the same body styles we've always done really brand new product types. It usually starts with me.

[A]

Yeah, it's like you have a, a sense of like, I want the brand to go in this direction. I want to go into this new category. That's a KD thing. That's like a sort of a vision thing. Do, do you, either of you, I mean, Curtis, you mentioned that you're like going on Etsy. You're looking at Shopify. Where do the ideas come from? Like, so like, I'm just. You know what the nice thing here is I can pretend I'm not actually having to pretend to be product stupid. I just genuinely am. So like, this is great for me because, like, I'm just going to learn today. Where, where do you go to find the inspiration to say, like, oh hell,

[B]

we should do that.

[A]

Because I doubt you're just sitting around thinking, like, you know what? Circle bag, like, that's what we're going to get into. Like it. It's got to come from somewhere. Am I the guy fingers on keyboard building software with Claude code? No, and I hate when people ask me that. But I love that my team is now able to use Claude and Claude code with Fulfill. They're doing some incredible things that just weren't possible six months ago. I don't know if any other ERP is doing this too, but Fulfill has a new CLI tool and an mcp. So my team can open up Claude on their phone and ask for information out of Fulfillment. They can vibe code custom dashboards right in Fulfill. We can hook open Claw up to Fulfill now to do work for us. If you're excited about the future of AI in your brand, this is such an obvious place to leverage it. All of our supply chains are complicated beasts. Fulfillment and Fulfill has just made it even easier to improve yours. This is real money stuff.

[B]

As a guy, I have to be careful. Let me explain why. When you own a bag company and you travel a lot, you walk through airports and you're staring at every woman's bag like you really are. You look like the creepster. Like, what is that what you're like walking up? You're like trying to take a picture of it. Like that subtlety that every woman knows somebody actually the loser taking a picture, you notice every bag. I never noticed them before, but the last 10 years I noticed. Now we talk about, do you use data or do you use your gut? Matt, I know you were a very good high school basketball player and you got to be competitive to Play basketball. You have to. I believe the pattern recognition I've gotten from being competitive. So when we have any type of new SKU or new product, I walk around the office, I'm like, how many we're going to sell? First hour, first day, 500, 8001-200200-03000. And you do that every time you have something new and you're like, everybody look. No, that one only sold 883. That one sold 1600. What did it have? It had a crossbody strap. It had an outside pocket. It did this. The price was different. You start to just get the pattern recognition. And not just me. Everybody talks about it. We line them up on a table. We don't just say, we're going to do this. Everybody. Which is going to sell the most? Never say in your company, which one do you like? Say, which one is going to sell the most. Very different verbiage. I didn't learn that for years. I was dealing in Portland with very, very opinionated women. Which one do you like? And then they would hook into that, and they were just like, no, I like this one. Which one's going to sell more? Then they could say, oh, I'm unique. I like this one. But I think our customers are going to like this. It changed the conversation. So, yes, there's some data, yes, there's your gut, but you learn pattern recognition. Katie, I have a question.

[C]

It's so hard not to interrupt because you don't take a breath when you're talking, and so I can't get in there. But. But, Curtis, what you're talking about is, like, body styles of purses. What about when you're thinking about. Okay, so what is something that somebody's like, what's an AOV play or an LTV play? Like, maybe adding wallets or maybe, I don't know, deal, like different kinds of straps or luggage or, like, do you ever think about what other kinds of products could. Can I make out of leather? So where do you get that inspiration? Because it's not. Is it at the airport still?

[B]

Or everybody who has an opinion, like, the guy who serves you coffee every day, hey, dude, you know what you need to do is do a leather backpack. Like, they all know the name is leather. I had a gentleman at my coffee shop in Solo in Portland. I literally say, you need to come out with a leather backpack. I'm like, oh, really? Wow, good idea. The next week, because we had one in development for months. We came out with it. I went for my coffee. He asked for a Commission. He said, I gave you that idea. Maybe you should give me some of the money on that thing. Right. After 10 years being obsessed all the time, I'm always looking. Now, another thing that we have, and I don't want to dominate because your business is more interesting than mine is. My marketing is always begging for new right marketing. And I have the best marketing guy in the business. McCoy Berkley Maverick is the best. And he literally came down to Mexico, where I'm at all of January, brought his family down, rented a house, came into work every day. It was product only. We discussed all the new products, all the new styles, how do we advance more expensive line, less expensive, cut the costs, put footwear, deluxe lines, deluxe bags, more of this. Anything we talked about, we were talking because marketing, the job gets a lot easier when they have new products to sell. When you're an online company. Yeah. You know, what gets the new customers, what gets the return customers? New products.

[C]

How often do you launch new products? Every week.

[B]

Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of every week.

[A]

So, Katie, you worse. Katie. I have very similar launch cadences, Curtis. So, Katie, your launch, you launch weekly as well, right? Like, net new product two to three times a week?

[C]

Yeah, two to three.

[A]

Yeah. So, like, walk us through your, like, how, how that works, because I want to get into this part specifically.

[C]

Okay. So I'm going to talk in a big circle and you can stop me if, if any of it's interesting to you. But what Curtis said is he's constantly launching new products because people want new, marketing wants new, and that's what, what we really, what drives our new products and prints is being able to have launches. Right. And constantly new creative. Like, I would die if we were just creating the same creative for the same product over and over again. But it's so nice to be able to say, you know, we're leaning into this trend or this color or this new product type. But, yeah, so we do launches every two to three weeks also. And it definitely keeps our, you know, return customer rate very strong because we're constantly showing them something new, which is beyond important. It has absolutely been what has, you know, grown our company. And just with I think this past year, which I, I told you, Matt, aside from this, but I have to tell y', all, I did a whole rundown with Claude before this podcast about product launches and how many we've done, it blows my mind how many products that we've launched. And people do like to talk about, well, how do you come up with new product? Like, especially in like you said, the conversations we're with, with all these other brands. And I think that Curtis and I probably underestimate how easy we just throw new product to the marketplace. And it isn't always that easy, like coming up with new things and new styles. Right. Like it just.

[A]

Well, I have to, for me it's, for me it's always been a question of like, where, where, how do you even know what to make? Right. And I think there's a. Clearly a process.

[B]

Yeah, you know it.

[C]

There's a, you know it. Yeah. And to me, like we're, we're leaning into a whole new category in a couple months. We're launching pet, which is we're known as the baby brand. Right. And completely leaning into pet. I think a lot of it is that it's not necessarily. I'm walking through the airport and I see a mom pushing a stroller with a newborn and I'm like, I'm doing that. We watch trends very carefully. We watch what, you know, influencers are putting on their babies. What.

[A]

Okay, I was going to say where, where do you see these trends online?

[C]

I mean my entire staff is 25 to 35 year old moms. So a lot of them are coming, right, and saying this is what we want and we need. I, I think I spot a lot of it in marketing opportunity. So we have a, that our one brick and mortar store, which I've always said is like my focus group because I get to go in, I spend a day there, I see what new moms and grandmas are coming in and asking for what's selling, what's selling together. Like we launched stuffed animals just because everybody that buys pajamas as a gift buys a stuffed animal with it because it like makes the gift bag heavy. Like it presents this wonderful gift. Gifting is a huge business for us. So looking at product types as to what pairs with other things, like it would be, nobody's gonna buy, I don't know, shoes together, like children's shoes with a stuffed animal. But a lot of our products and how we merchandise bundling is more about what is mom buying alongside of our hero product, which might be a newborn outfit or a pajama or family matching swim or whatever.

[A]

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[B]

No, not three things. Number one, we have a Facebook group called the Insiders, which is over 200,000 people who. They're active every day. So there are hundreds of posts a day. So we can put out. Hey, here's a teaser. And they'll tell us what they want, and you can gauge that very, very quickly.

[C]

We do the same thing.

[B]

Number two, we run our metrics out for the entire year. I have my daily goals for the entire year written out. Right. So you start. Here's our goal for the year. Here's our months. Here's what it's going to do. Here's our day. And you look at that and you say, wait, June feels a little weak. What can we fill in for this week? Well, let's put a better product there. So we're currently have to order the leather, we have to do the designs, the samples, the die cuts, the making, the photography, the SKUs, the logistics, everything, and all the media to hype that up. So we are working on Christmas right now. Like, we have a 12 days of Christmas where we'll have 20, 30 new products. We're designing those right now. I think we have everything ordered all the way through August or September of this year. So we're way ahead. We didn't used to be. It used to be as soon as we could make it and get a picture of it, we put it out Right. Like, that's what you have to do when you're a million or 10 million. But now we have to put our schedule and figure out what that is.

[C]

Yeah, you're comping. You're comping year over year. We do the same thing. So we look at our launch calendar and literally, like, we call it like our activations calendar, and we'll go through and match. Like, okay, last year in July, we launched a print. Right. That just killed it. And so we make sure that we're trying to really, like, strategize prints that will match up so that we're. Because, I mean, we track revenue down to the day, which I'm. I know you do too, Matt.

[A]

And.

[C]

Yep.

[A]

Occurred too. Everybody. We all forecast daily, which I think is, like, so important.

[B]

It is.

[C]

But it's the difference. Like, I mean, actually, I think it's the perk to having such a large catalog is that we get to fill the gaps and the holes. So EAS with new. And if it's not a new product type, maybe it's just a new color or, you know, Matt and I do a lot of personalization. Curtis. And so the nice part of that is that there's no inventory attached to it. And so we can cut. Like, if all of a sudden cactuses are trending. Matt's got 10 new cactus phone cases, and I have swaddles with cactuses all over it without even risking any kind of inventory commitment. So we get to test trends a little bit easier. Where you have to say, I. Okay, I think the color butter yellow is going to trend, you know, and then you're. You're having to commit to a certain amount of a color and go forward. But to your point, June, which sucks in retail usually. I think that's why you said June is that we do. And I mean, right. Like June gloom.

[A]

It's a thing.

[C]

Yeah, June. And yes, absolutely. So we tried to purposely put some of our best launches in there just to paddle weeks that we think might be soft. So. And. And Matt, too, like, going back, since we're having to take turns talking so well and we're doing such a good job. Aaron. I know. So you just launched the straps to the phone cases and that's like. And you said you sold out of them, right?

[A]

Sold out in the first, like, two days.

[C]

But to me, that's, like, so brilliant. And I. There's so many different products that can come out that. That go alongside of phone cases. And the same with, like, Curtis and his bags. Like, you think about wallets and you know, what else can I put with it? And different. Maybe it's a little purse to go inside of a bigger person. I think that's the really fun part about product expansion is it's not that we're all just pulling out random products that we see that we like, we're strategically thinking about what is going to be something that adds to the cart value like and goes seamlessly with it, like what's an easy upsell, you know. And then there's the thought process of what's a whole new product category. Like how did we think about launching pet? Right. And because that has nothing to do with baby products. But is it something that my customer is also purchasing?

[A]

Yeah, it's.

[B]

We.

[A]

Yeah, we just added phone straps. It's actually pela. We have not done a lot of category expansion because we were so focused on LOMI for so long. And that product is such a monster on resources.

[C]

The product development alone on it. Right. Is like.

[B]

Is insane.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Like the bill of materials, like there's hundreds of parts in Elomi Mechanical, electrical, there's firmware software. Like there's. So we didn't do a lot in PLF for three years and now this year we're adding I think six or seven brand new categories and straps was the first one. And I saw that the launch data and so I've always had this view that like products are either going to be like acquisition products, so you're going to acquire new customers with them or as a primary and then if they're a primary acquisition product, maybe they're a secondary lifetime value product so people come back and buy more. The straps, our theory was like this is straight up just attach rate and cart builder. That proved to be true. Like our new customer rate on straps was lower than a case customer. But then the average order value was

[C]

like 22% higher for a new customer. But it brought back your current customers totally.

[A]

Like, and it was nice to see more repeat revenue than we typically get. So like I'm starting to get a taste for what you guys are talking about where like there is just make things that make. Make great products that people want that your people want is like the thing there's.

[C]

But like with your straps, I bet you you're probably not going to run ads on Meta just for phone straps because the margin's not there or not the mar. Maybe the margins there. But you're not trying to sell a

[A]

strap by allowable CAC's not there. Right. Because it's a lower AOV product. But we are running ads and they're bringing in case customers, which I think is really fun.

[C]

And I think the combination of phone case plus strap. So that's how we look at new product types, too. A lot of our product types that we have, we don't even run ads for. Right. Like, it's not. There's no major, like, site traffic that we're driving to a certain collection for pacifier clips.

[A]

But yeah, I can see that on, I can see that on Curtis's site too. Like, there's clearly, like, you're not running it for like a $21 leather keychain.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Like, that's a hard product to advertise just for people listening. I think that's like, Katie, that's a brilliant call out. It's like not everything what Curtis was talking about of like marketing, leading the product development cycle. That doesn't mean that you're trying to pump everything into an ad machine. That's not what that means. It just means, look, our customer will probably buy this. We should make it right. Like, it's fit, it fits the brand, it fits everything. I want to hit on this, like, and I don't know, Katie, if you do the same thing, because you mentioned this Facebook group community thing that you have, that seems like a really valuable resource in getting, like, what do people want?

[C]

Data.

[B]

It's not just that. It is. We had somebody that was at Rothy start a Facebook group and they mentioned us and they offshot. So we had a couple thousand people. They recall Portland Leather, something I can't even remember. And we're like, well, we want to stay away from it. We don't want to get involved. It's our fans. And finally I said, screw it. Let's create the Portland Leather insiders. We went to 2000, 3000, 5000, 10,000. I believe that they bring in between 30 and 50 million dollars a year. Just that group.

[C]

Well, yeah, they're, they're, they're his biggest fans. They're his. Right. Like the same with us.

[B]

Yeah, we can have a C grade sale. C grade sales. All the stuff we make that is not good enough for premium. It's not almost perfect, but the leather's good and they want it. And we'll put up 10, 20,000 bags and they'll sell out in 10 minutes. And it's only available to people on that insider group. So they all line up and get there. And like, you could just see the rocket ship on Shopify as it takes off.

[C]

Curtis, do you ever Purposely create product that's C grade just to be able to give them something that feels exclusive to them.

[B]

We create unique bags that are a grade that we put in the C grade. So when people get up, they're like, I can't believe.

[C]

This is awesome.

[B]

Right? Because there's the hype. Yeah. So yeah, no, we feed that machine, we'll sell 120,000 bags at that C grade sale, and none of them will last more than 10 minutes on that site. And it's just a great way to bring in 6 to 8 million extra dollars. Right? So. But a lot of the stuff that we're talking about is not crazy complex. Everybody overthinks business, right? You're like, hey, Matt, you had a strap that hooked your phone on there that sold out. I'm like, the craziness of this. I can't believe it. I was listening to an audiobook of this guy and he took and skate. I think he ran like Kentucky Fried Chicken. And Burger King took it over like, yum. They were small. He's like, we did this big marketing thing. We took 5,000 employees from, from Burger King and we had them go to McDonald's for hours and sit there and see if they do. You want to know what we learned? They sold a lot of breakfast and they're open 24 hours a day. I'm like, dude, I could have known that by walking into Eddie McDonald's that that's what was moving the marker. Right? What did that do? It gave them the confidence to spend the money and the capital and the people and the resources and allocate what you have to do to open up more or to create new breakfast. So the reason that mark the products had to come from the top is it's not just, hey, I want to do this. Your employees will be too cautious. I'm aggressive. I'll say, no, no, no. Why do you have two people on that team right now? Why don't we have five? Because if it works, it's not the first sale. It's one year, two years, three years. That could be a $30 million category. Let's get more people, more money, more testing.

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[C]

Curtis, do you ever worry about though, if you keep launching more new products like you, let's say you expand from three launches to five launches a week. Do you worry about like bloating your inventory and not driving the key ones like your. Your body styles and your colors that you do high volume, right. But all of a sudden you went from the collection page ofCircle purses five pages to 10 pages and you're having to kind of like, I don't know, like the volume is spreading out over

[A]

more SKUs than creating like choice paralysis for the customer maybe?

[C]

Exactly. Like, do you ever worry about that or do you cut like we. We do sale on sale basically four times a year. And our goal is to cut as many styles and skus each quarter that we launched that quarter so that we try to maintain the same level of product assortment, but we're constantly pushing fresh and new. Do you do the same thing or do you keep everything?

[B]

Yeah, you can't be a hoarder. Like, oh, that's bringing in $10,000. I gotta get that. No, no, no. You're losing efficiency on there because every click that someone does on your website, you is a better chance they're going to leave. So you can run analysis to say, hey, we have 16 colors of this particular product. We launched these. Or what happens with us is there's browns and browns and blacks, right? You have a yellow one and it just jumps off the page. So everyone clicks on it.

[C]

Let's talk about merchandising. That's what you're saying. It's so. Matt. We didn't even. I didn't even think about this. But he's. What Curtis is about to say is so important. You. When you have a high catalog, like a high SKU count catalog right online, and you do the same thing with your phone cases. You sometimes need ugly, trendy things to sell the things that people like, don't know that they want anyways. Like if I. The whole time, right? Yeah. So like Kristen, my CFO is constantly like, we have too much stuff. You quit launching things. This is stressing me out in operations. And I'm like, shut up, woman. Because Let me tell you, if I don't like, yes, green is our best selling color. I can't have a page where all I'm showing them is green. I need to bring them in with, with trends or maybe a color that's like, oh my God, I can't believe they did that. And all of a sudden makes our best selling product look even better. And so it's not about just having like variety, right, and you're trying to distribute volume over it. No, it's about having a certain, like, you want to surround your beauty products with like complementary things that make something else look even better. Like Curtis. I bet if I were to go to Portland Leather right now and click like your colors, I bet you guys even merchandise colors next to each other that look well together, right?

[B]

I'm glad it's you. And I can say you said this is what Curtis is going to about to say and not at all, not even close. Not even like that was what I was going to say. If you're a regular guest, Katie, I would not even worry about it. But being you, wrong, wrong and wrong.

[C]

Well, what are you going to say that's smarter than what I said? Because let me tell you, I guarantee if I go to your website, I could tell you which ones are your best sellers and which ones are in there just to make the other ones look better. But enlighten me, Curtis, tell me how

[B]

I was going to go a little the data, the data is going to say this. If I have 16 colors in a bag or a product or a wallet, the browns are always going to be your new customers are going to be really solid sellers. But a yellow, a yellow mixed in with all that is going to get attention and people are going to click on it. It can actually cost you on your product development page by people clicking on that. Because you can check the conversion rates of people choosing that colors compared to an omega brown, all the browns and blacks, right. So you can also track are they clicking on that and then leaving your site. So I spent money to get them there. They made it all the way to that page. The majority of them clicked on that stupid yellow. And it closes at a much lower percent than some of the others. You need it off that page.

[C]

Well, quit advertising your ugly yellow purse then. And then people won't click on it. Is that what you're saying, is that you're just constantly watching to make sure that, that what you're advertising is the highest.

[B]

It's a simple theory to say, hey, more product is not always Better and just more because, hey, they have too many choices. You know, it's the great marketing sales thing of this. Shoe salesman was the best salesman. They said, what is your. Your key? And he said, if a woman comes and I show her a pair of shoes, if she asks for a second, I'll show her that. If she asks for a third, I'll say, great, which one do you want me to put back? Right. Don't just give them too many choices, because that gives them nothing. We can see that the data shows that more people click on it because it jumps out, but more people leave because of that. You have to weigh the decision. Is it better to have that or not? And that's a data decision. That's a. That's a marketing. That's maverick. Having all these people looking at all of these in one by one saying, no, you've got to get rid of that color. You cannot do that.

[A]

When you've got to do that, does that inform? This is actually great. The whole merchandising is a great place to go. Does that inform then future product development? So do you close that loop internally, Curtis? So, like, if marketing is looking at performance on site, this ad gets the click. But maybe that product doesn't sell. It actually just created getting a click. But we got to put the browns up because that's what people buy. When you guys go make product, are you making product in that lens of, like, this is going to get attention, but it might not sell. Like, you know, make, make a leather bag that looks like a lobster, because lobsters are super cool right now with all the open cloth, but, like, nobody's going to buy a damn lobster bag, like that kind of thing.

[B]

Without a doubt, we do that. And what we do is we're watching the website and they like fun. They like excited. We do all kinds of stuff for our. We do that. But if it's hurting a product page, we'll take that. And you know, Matt, we talk to a lot of people on here. You have the best podcast for people who are at nine figures, because you can learn from other nine figures. But a lot of people who watch you are 1 million, 2 million, 5 million. They want to figure out how they're, how they're going to get there. And so what we do is it's the story of Wendy's. I don't know if you know Wendy's. Everyone said they made their cheeseburgers square. That's what made him successful. It's not. They had it fresh when you walked in the store, so they would put it on there. And I remember as a child, I asked, like, what do they do if nobody walks in? They put the burgers out to make them fresh. Nobody comes in. Do you know what do they do with those burgers? They chomp them up and they push them off the edge into the chili.

[C]

I don't. This is a horrible plug for Wendy's. That's kind of gross.

[B]

Oh, Katie. It's brilliant marketing. If we have a product that's sitting up there and it's actually hurting our page, you want to know what we do? We move it into our C grade.

[A]

Oh, you move it. Okay.

[B]

So it will sell out immediately. We'll still get okay margins, but then the conversion on our thing will go. Or we have mystery boxes. We'll put it in a mystery box. Or we'll do it as a screaming deals. We'll get money out of it right away to clear it off. There's. But we make the page stronger over a long term because when you get a big company and Matt and Katie, you know this, you'll make a decision and then you're like, oh, we'll keep looking in on this and you'll forget about it. And eight months later, you're like, oh, we did that for a week and nobody changed it. We've been doing that forever. So this is a way to constantly clean up your website, move it off, get the cash back into the system and make room for the new things that are coming out to make people here happy. Or. Or like Kristen. We always want to make Kristen happy. Katie. We want to make her happy.

[C]

That's right. She's scary.

[A]

Katie, do you ever. On a. Like a very high. Like, let's say you. You hit a print or a. A pattern, a design, like a what? I don't know. What do you. What do you call, like, a different sort of style? Is it a style? Like if I have one swimsuit, that's one style versus another, then you have prints. Right.

[B]

So, like, there's.

[C]

There's a product type which is like a actually different product. Right. And then a product style, like you're saying like a different kind of swimsuit and then prints, too.

[A]

Okay. So when something is selling really well, do either of you increase the price?

[C]

Oh, gosh. I know where you're going with this because.

[A]

Yeah, I just want to know for the. I want to. I want to try to help the people that Curtis is calling out. Like, if you're starting out, what to make, how to price it and how to manage the inventory. That is the job. So like I want to, I want to hit everything.

[C]

The first thing we do when we launch a brand new product type, not necessarily styles like what you're saying with different swim styles is that we price test it. We use intelligence actually it's really easy. So we'll go in and say does this product need to be $36 or $38 or $89 or 94 or whatever. And then we'll price test it sometimes. And this is only for products that are limited edition which really is holiday. So when we launch Halloween or Thanksgiving or Christmas, we will increase the price if we see in the first week that we're going to have a sell through without risking. Right. Because you don't, what you don't want to do is increase your price so much that you risk selling through or having to discount it later on. So it's a constant battle. But I, I think it would be very cool to have and I can't. You told me this. Somebody's doing kind of a live. It's like when you go to buy a flight, right? And you go in to get an airline flight and you're, and it tells you one price and then you go back that evening and all of a sudden the price is more expensive.

[A]

And yeah, it's like they always show you like 4 PE, like 4 seats remaining at this price. This is a, it's a hotly contested thing I think with the ftc.

[C]

Yeah, it is. And, and there's rules around it, right?

[A]

Like you can, yeah, it has to be real. It can't just be, it can't be made up scarcity. But I, it doesn't, you know. Okay, so like all of us sell things that are not what I would call like problem solution products. And I've, Curtis, I've talked to McCoy a whole bunch about this, right. He, he calls it like we all sell buy my products. You know, like this is, it's like you see the picture, you, you like it, you buy it.

[C]

We don't have to explain what it does.

[A]

Yeah, I don't. And a lot of D2C E commerce content and advice has to do with like offers, angles and like you know, problem solution solution type selling. None of us here sell those products. Like I, I sometimes get away with it because like I'll go after toxin free and like healthy with our materials. But when you're in a, a category where it's like an obvious product, right. Like it's a leather bag, it makes no sense. To me that everybody everywhere should pay

[B]

the same price because you think maybe

[C]

people in different states should have to pay different prices? Is that what you're saying?

[A]

I don't know. I think this is like such an interesting thing. Like when it comes to making product, this is constantly. This for me is always a, A conversation internally is like, if we're going to make it, how much are we selling it for? And that how much are we selling it for? Turns into a pretty like real conversation.

[C]

It's so risky though, Matt, because Curtis and I both have these VIP groups that are from people everywhere. And I think the second you break trust with your customer.

[A]

I totally agree. You don't want to do it in a shady way.

[C]

Like, can you imagine, Curtis, if, if Susan told Kathy that like her price was $4 more than somebody else's? I, I get what you're saying. Like is there opportunity, right, that maybe we're missing? But I think you can constantly use. Curtis is dying to talk. Look at him. I'm just gonna keep, I'm not gonna take a breath like how you do and you can't get a word in. Ask me another question. Hurry, I guess.

[A]

Okay, so let me just, let's just say this. The you, Katie, you said that when you launch a product, you will split test the price to figure out the ideal selling price. Curtis, when you, you mentioned earlier that when you guys are developing product that like you said, like Mav is in town and you guys are talking about like everything that's coming and there is a price conversation. Can you expand on that a little bit? Like how do you decide how much to sell something for? Do you have margin targets?

[B]

Like yeah, yeah, we're going to be, we're going to be all in cost to goods at a certain thing. Some need to be a little higher. A lot of them need to be a little bit lower. You've got to figure that out. It is a big conversation and we always fall on the same side and that is don't raise your price. Now if you think that, let's go back to these people who are starting their company. We made every mistake in the book for the time first, first five years. So hey, we have a product that's not selling. Oh, let's put some ads behind it, make it sell. Worst idea in the entire world. You only want your ads behind the best product. But we didn't know that. Oh, put it at the top of the page so people will buy it. No, only have your best sellers up there. Right? So a best Seller is one that is going to sell 300,000 bags, not 20,000 bags. So raising my price on something is only going to affect that. In terms of the new customer acquisition, I love the $99 price for a leather bag because it should be 200. And the difference between 108 or 120 and 99 is huge for new customer acquisition. So I don't want to raise my prices. If it's a hero product and we have eight hero products. Right. Of all of our banks, there's only eight products that we spend lots of money on a day to day basis. Right. I don't want to touch those prices. We've ab tested that. We realized by gaining $4 on the price of that we'll spend $6 more getting a new customer. So why would we do it? Right? So marketing is always going to say no, no, no, no, no. Make all your money by adding one or two dollars or on these other bags that don't have the ad sets. No one's going to think the difference between 18 or 19 or 22 and 24 or 32 and maybe even 38. That's where you get your margins. But don't do it on your hero product. Keep the cost. Make it a deal. The key to Internet marketing is is this deal too good? I'm going to buy it. I'm going to try it. My expectations are, are blown away. I'm going to give it five stars. I'm coming back.

[A]

I actually like, I'm going to take this away because this is great. Katie, do you do this like the products that you're actually like products or styles? So in my case it's like styles prints that you're running ads against. So like these are the products that people are coming in to buy. Are those your best offers? And then are you making up the margin on the stuff that are like this is not an ads.

[C]

I. What do you mean? Well, offers like are you saying like the best deal, best price?

[A]

Yeah, it's the best deal.

[C]

No, we don't even know. I mean we like we'll run for our newborn customers, right? Which is our, our, our just our most important customer to acquire as a new customer because we have her the longest. We all of our hero products that we're advertising, not one of them lands on a PDP for that actual product. And we have absolutely. We've ab tested this a thousand times. My media buyer is constantly like we should do more pdp. Meta tells me that and I'm like no, it doesn't work because what I'm doing is similar to what Curse is saying. I'm using my hero products, right? Like the best colors and the best styles to drive the traffic to my site. And then they're landing on a best sellers page. And that doesn't just have that product type on it because I want her to explore, right. All the different products with it. And then I'm going to upsell her mat as she goes along the way. So it's not about offer, it's about. I mean, it's about cart value, right? Like, I want her to land on the page and find three things that she wants, not just one. But my products aren't as expensive as Curtis's. So he's really honing in that, like $99 or whatever, right. Percy's talking about, which is important. But for us, like, if they're coming in for a footy that they're going to put their baby in, our goal is to also sell her a personalized swaddle and a name sign and something for mom to wear. So merchandising back to like, what Curtis was saying becomes so important. And it's so important for any large catalog, like high. I mean, I think we have 160 product types. Types. So that's not styles. Like when, like Swim is one product type. So it's. And then there's maybe 20 styles under that. So what we constantly struggle with is, is optimizing our menu. That's the hardest part is keeping that many product types and having customers find what they're looking for when they see it in a commercial or an ad or whatever. Like, how do we get them? Because what is the value? What's the value in driving them to the PDP for the one product that was in the, you know, in the ad that they saw maybe on Instagram or TikTok, when I really need them to go find three other things with. Helps with an AOV, right? It's all an AOV play.

[B]

That's just a test too. Like, you test what. What's better for an ad. Are you going to a pdp? Are you doing it? So that's the marketing team. So, Matt, I wanted to just to mention something that it's very apparent when Katie's here to help some of the business owners that are out there to understand people have watched podcasts I've been on, and some of my own customers say, this guy's an okay. All he talks about is marketing, right? It's all about money. It's all about money. It's all about marketing, right? Well, I'm on a marketing podcast, you jerks. Put me on a customer experience podcast and let me talk about how often we think about what makes people happy, how it looks, how that feels, how it fits. And the lifetime thing. You can hear that when Katie's talking. She's talking marketing, but she's talking customer. You have to balance that in a business. Like, right. It's not just how do I get a new customer, how do I get my roa, how do I get meta cranking, how do I get this working? It's not the game. The game is balancing the marketing and the customers and the experience and everything they have. And it's really apparent when Katie's here that you can hear underneath the marketing brilliance and the operation brilliance that there is a we care. We know who, our customers, we're giving them the right thing.

[C]

Curtis, you know what the biggest mistake is I made early on, before I knew, before I had any of you guys as a sounding board and before I knew anything, is that we had, we were known for a certain product, right? Like this newborn outfit. And it was a one size thing and we grew to probably 30, almost 40 million just on what I would have called a hero product, right? Like it's all our brand was known for. And I was literally handing my customers off to my competitors because I wasn't evolving and changing with her. And when I figured out that I need to have things that I can continue to sell to her because she may carry your brown purse for years, right? And she doesn't need a new brown purse because your quality is so amazing. So she's not going to come back and buy another brown purse. What else can you sell to her that she keeps coming back over and over and over again? Because we're not a, you know, a CPG product. Like there's nothing that they're not eating my pajamas, right? Like it's, they're growing out of the sizes and I need to be able to accommodate that. But thinking about product expansion is also what else is she already buying and how do I do that? And it's not necessarily creating new products that don't exist. It's taking products that maybe already exist out there in the market and doing it just a little bit better or giving them the quality that they know and love.

[B]

Doing it in your way.

[A]

Like sometimes it's honestly the, when you're in a non consumable, it is often just like these are product categories that work. I'm going to do it in our way. Like they don't. It's, it's, it's better because it's just your brand's way. Like we make everything just more sustainable for, than everybody else. Like that's, that's basically our shtick and people buy from us because like they

[C]

trust us and there. Bingo. That's exactly it. And if one person happens to say, well I heard in Texas they get better pricing than in New York or California. I mean it's. At the end of the day, I think brand is just as important when you're 1 million versus 100 million and making sure that their experience, if they have a damage problem product. What's the experience like? Like the customer relationship, which is what Curtis is saying and how they like I want her to come to my website and just shop it just to see what's new without the expectation of buying something.

[D]

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[A]

Do you, do you guys ever think like, do you guys ever feel that the product team should own customer service?

[B]

No, no, no.

[C]

That was, that was a horrible question. Matt. You should.

[B]

That was a great question to be wrong with. Right?

[A]

Yeah, no, I know. Like that's fine. But so explain why.

[B]

No, it's fantastic. It's a great question. Because they're so attuned designers, product people, they not only create it, they watch it. Right. Really closely. And not sales as much as so and so said this. They put it on Instagram, it got these like somebody said they want it like this. Well, we have millions of customers. Just the fact that five of them said they want this doesn't mean we need to go into that. Right? Like, oh, lots of people are saying Maverick and I are saying how many is lots of people.

[C]

Yeah. And customer service. Yeah. Customer service isn't. Matt, I think what you meant to say was should products.

[A]

I'm playing the dummy.

[B]

I'm.

[A]

I'm meaning to say what.

[B]

I'm.

[A]

I'm. Because you should, like, listen, guys, like, we get questions on this stuff, right?

[C]

I have a. And I am. I'm. I have a little nugget to give. It's not customer service. The people that reach out to customer service are not the people that love your brand. They're not. They're the ones that want to know where their order is or they're the ones that had a problem. They're the ones that just want to complain. To complain. Plane. Right.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

The people that love your brand are in social, commenting, engaging, sharing in your VIP groups. My entire brand team looks and reads every single comment that's on all of our products. We do sneak previews on launches. We, in our VIP group, we ask them color preferences. Sometimes when we do product development and we come, let's say we're like launching a football print on a pajama. We have two variations of football, and we'll go to our VIP group and let them just vote on it, and we get feedback from them like that. That's where the value is. Your product team should be so intertwined with your marketing team that there's no differentiation. Like, products should not. Not be communicating with social. Like, who cares about. I mean, not who cares about customer service? But there's no value maybe in what customer service is feeding back to product. When we do our monthly reviews with, like, all of our director levels, we do have the customer service team report on, right? Like, what are trends that they're seeing? And we have to ask that question that you said, like, okay, maybe 10 people complained about X, Y, or Z, but what was the volume that we really sold on that one product? And is 10 people feel like it's a problem or is it not? Does that make sense? Whereas we go to social for the what's working? What are they asking for? What's the feedback so valuable?

[B]

Matt, I. I think, you know, anything that provokes really good thought, and you really helped me think of a couple of things here. I want to tell you guys about a meeting we had one time I was in Portland. It was like a, like 60, 70 of the employees, and customer service, who has a very hard job, has to deal with all the crap. The head of customer service got up and said, customer service knows more about our customer than anybody. And they're all like, yeah. And Maverick and I sat there and went, we walked into the conference room afterward and closed the door and I went, what that they do they honestly believe they know our customer better than we do? No possible way do they know it better. Right. We let them believe that. But it leads me to think that nobody in your company, we talk to entrepreneurs, we talk to operators, we talk to people who run companies. And if you're 1, you want to be to 10, if you're 10, you want to be to 50. And if you're 50, you want to be to 500 million. Right. In order to do that, you have to take control of some of these situations. Design and product people can come up with ideas. The reason you, the operator has to be involved is they're going to be too tentative. They don't understand the long term goals. They're going to say, I think we should make a thousand of these or let's do it in three colors. And I'm the one that comes in and says, no, I see the big picture. Let's do more. This here's the money. Because that takes time, money, capital, attention. And by putting attention here, you lose attention someplace else. You've got to balance that out. I believe new products are the most important thing. So we literally just slammed that. I had them on the same floor right next to me. I can walk over and see the teams and see what they're working on every single day. So when I walk up the stairs, I can say, ah, what's that? What's that? When is that coming out?

[C]

Curtis, what if, like, think of our friends that make one hero product, they're one hero product brands and they wanted to lean into product expansion. How would you tell them, like, what's the first, first thing they need to do?

[B]

I'd say they watch the operators podcast and listen to Sean and Mike talk about this all the time. And Sean say, I sell a wallet. And every wallet I sell means that person's out of the market for a wallet for the next seven years. Right. Like, I have the worst thing in the world to sell. I need to go into this and this and this. He knows that his business is capped out. There's only so much money you can spend on Meta. You have to have other categories for that incremental revenue. So listen to the operators more. And Sean will hit on that every single week and say, you don't have to kiss his.

[C]

He's not here today.

[A]

Like, you know, we can look at category expansion. I think, Katie, the, the answer is like we get this question a lot, right? So should you expand products, markets, or channels? First, first. Today, we're obviously very deep on product, but often if you're a single hero product, there's. There's more channels to go into, and there's possibly even more markets where that product will work. Adding. I, I think this is, like, the question is the right one, Katie. The way I look at this, like, if you're a smaller company, the question is typically, like, when do you start investing in new product development?

[B]

Right.

[A]

At what size are you? Like, okay, I'm definitely going to tap out the, the addressable market here for my brand. I get this all the time. Like, I talk to a lot of operators. We all do. And it's.

[C]

I think it's. Isn't it just watching the. And it's. It's also a little bit of watching the buying cycle of your customer. To Curtis's point with Sean, he saw that they're buying a wallet and they may not. They may not come back for two years and buy another one. And if you have a product and you've grown to a certain level and that's the case, which is what I did at the very beginning, is I need another. Another way to acquire new customers. And hopefully it's a way that I can acquire new customers and also bring back the customers I've already acquired through our first product, right?

[A]

It's at what size, Katie, did you start to have that conversation? Like, it's you and a small team like Curtis. Same thing. Like, you start off with a certain number of products, and at some point you make the realization, like, oh, geez. Like Curtis, you started this whole show with, like, it's just about the product. Like, everything we do is about the product.

[C]

But I think it's about, like, also, Matt, like, so many brands get stuck in. Well, this is the product I'm known for. Like, I've done this for 21 years, the way Kate and Lane started. And the products that we have today, the products we started that we did the first 10 years, don't even exist anymore in our brand. And that's okay, right? Like, it's okay to evolve as a brand and with your customer and what their wants and needs are. And I think it's recognizing that if you had a product that maybe wrote a trend, right? And you see it plateauing, do you lean into something else? And what does that mean? Because that's kind of a scary thing for a small brand, right? Like, I grew to 5 or 10 million, and on this one product, and all of a sudden it's halted out. And I've tried these new marketing, you know, strategies and these new. I'm trying different customer cohorts, and I'm expanding into Omni Channel and going into wholesale. It's not working. And I think that you have to ask that really hard question to yourself of, okay, was I a trend? And now what can I do differently? Or how do I evolve my brand to the next step?

[A]

You. Okay, so, Curtis, I got a good one for you on this. Katie. This is like perfect Portland leather goods. Does leather limit you? Would you ever make something not from leather?

[B]

We made 3 million last year on canvas inserts for our bags that we didn't make. We outsourced to somebody else. We did footwear, and we sold 35 million in footwear. It's going to be coming back next year. We have a lot of things that are there now. That comes down to a couple things. That was so brilliant. Think about this. And I'm not kissing operators. I'm a hater, everybody. I like to go against the grain. So everyone said that the operators podcast with Hudson from Comfort was awesome. And I'm like, I'm not.

[C]

Wait, wait. Hudson's my friend. You better be careful what you're doing.

[B]

I'm not gonna watch it just. Cause you guys tell me I'm gonna like it, and I'm not one of those people. I finally watched it. I'm excited. Son of a. That was.

[A]

It was awesome.

[C]

Oh, he's. And he is an amazing human too, which makes his story even better.

[B]

He said, hey, we made this. I'm going to call it a hoodie or a sweatshirt. Okay? Every product person came, okay, now do sweats. Now do T shirts. Now do this. What is his number one seller right now? A blanket. No one was coming to him about blankets, right? So everyone says, hey, leather's in the name. Oh, should you make men make men's wallets? Hey, have you ever thought about making men's wallets? How about making a wallet like, oh, you guys are killing it, right? Those ideas are obvious. And you build on success. We sell leather bags. You want to make more leather bags? Sometimes killing off some of those ideas of who you were is the only way to get to who you need to be. And every company, if you talk to a company in problems, somebody who's been running a D2C company for 10 years who's having trouble, they'll spend 95% of their time telling you about a success they had five Years ago. Right. Oh, did you just understand? We were in Nordstrom's for six months. You're like, great. That was in 2012. You're bankrupt. Time to move on. I've moved on from ideas we had in January. Right. So absolutely. You gotta cut some of that success and you gotta stop listening to people who think they know your brand. You can create whatever brand you need to.

[A]

Yeah, I. Listen, I asked the, I asked the question, Curtis, even though it sounds like it's a silly question. I remember talking to Sean about this. Like they originally. So I have the very. One of the very first ever Ridge wallets. My wife bought it for me when they did their Kickstarter. Right. And I, when I met Sean and I'm like, great product, man. I've never bought another one because it's. It's awesome.

[C]

It lasts. Yeah.

[A]

And they had to. Eventually they dropped the wallet from Ridge and they became Ridge. We're known as Pila Case. Right. Like you're Portland Leather. You have no idea how many people get tripped up just by their name. Right? Like if the product category is in the name, they're like, I can't actually make anything else. I don't know that that's true at all. It's not like you're hurt us. Like, I don't think you're running out to change the domain from Portland Leather Goods to Portland things. Like, you're not going to do that.

[B]

Right. But business owners are people, you know, if you're running a nine figure business or a ten figure, it doesn't mean you're not a person with the same emotions. Right. We've all had to. Oh my God. Is Portland in the name a good thing or a bad thing? Oh, we have to hand make everything in Portland because we're called Portland Leather Goods. Oh, we can't sell that because it has leather in the name. Right. We can't do that because it's a name. We're a marketplace.

[C]

Typical entrepreneur. Problem is you think everything is more important than it really is.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, that's a great point.

[B]

But.

[A]

And I guess Kurt, like what I'm also hearing, which I think is just a really good takeaway for people, is like product is everything. And you also have to be willing to. To shoot your own kids. Like, you gotta be willing to just like flush em.

[C]

I don't think shoot your own kids was a good analogy. But yeah, whatever.

[A]

Like. Well, because like. No, no, seriously, entrepreneurs, we. We treat like. I know people who treat products like children, Katie. And they shouldn't they're not actually children.

[C]

My company is my child. Yes.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And look, there's lots of examples in, in founder stories of like, founders who literally will burn their own company down to rebuild it in a way that it needs to. In these two, Steve Jobs being the most famous one, he showed up and just rebuilt the damn thing. So I think, Curtis, you're making a good point. It's like product is everything, but then you can't be married to them in such a way that like, it's not everything.

[B]

Right?

[A]

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[B]

The marriage of product is with marketing and growth. It's not with, oh, we've created this and, and this is what our company is. Right?

[A]

That's a good.

[C]

That's right.

[B]

There's a great thing. Everyone's read Rick Rubin's book or you've heard Rick Rubin on something and he'll say, you don't make for the public. They don't know what they want, yet you create something that makes them want that. I create great music and they like it because if I try to recreate what's already there, I'm already behind. So you have to be a little bit ahead of what's going on there. And we really try to do that. Nothing is sacred. My number one goal in the world is to add value to my company. Company. That's it. Every decision I make is there to add value to my company. You're like, oh, Curtis is really unique. He's really complex. Not really. What can I do to make the company more valuable and that is grow new product categories?

[A]

Can I ask you both this? I. You just made me think of this. Curtis Katie, how much of your. Like, if you look at all the types that you're in, the product categories that you're in, how many of those were like, just totally off the wall? I have a gut feel like we should make this product versus. Oh, the, the. There's clearly demand in the market for this. I want to make something that already has demand.

[C]

Yeah. First I was gonna say all of them. So your first part. Then you said the second part. And some of them have that. And I think it's. I have to ask myself, what am I creating this product to solve? Is it a new customer acquisition or is it a AOV LTV play? Right. And I think that the. Is there a hole in the market? Right. Or. Because I love everything you just said, Curtis. But. But actually you don't have to constantly reinvent the wheel. Right. Like you can take something that's out there already on the marketplace and just do it better. Like, there is a lot of opportunity in that too. But most of it is. Gosh, Matt, most of our new products is just.

[A]

But the bangers, like the ones that like do tens of millions of dollars killer, are they like, oh, there's just existing demand. I'm going to make my version of it. Or did you actually hit something new?

[C]

I'm going to give you examples of that. There's two different ways when we look at it. When we. We launched swim as a category thing three years ago. So people buy swimsuits. Yes. And they buy swimsuits. And I saw a huge hole in our. In the children's industry for just cute family matching swim. I knew there was opportunity there and I guess a TAM really. Right. That I could get out of the gates. And so we went deep on it. And in the first year we did like 7 million of swim. So it was a huge success. Out of the gates sent. Now other. What did I say? Like 30 product types. Types is what we launched this last year. And not all of them were huge inventory buys at the beginning. And most of them, in fact, we sell out of. And then we let people pre order them because it's an inventory management thing. And I'm constantly having to battle that voice in my head of like missed opportunity because maybe I should have ordered more and then I wouldn't be dealing with back orders or I would have sold more or whatever. But what's worse is if you over buy. Right. Or you over expect performance from a product type and then it doesn't and now you're forced to liquidate that cash. Right. Like and move through that inventory. So I like to think of it as we launch so many new product types of year. We try to keep variety and personalization gives us that variety. Because we can take something that doesn't have an inventory. Right. And give. We can test almost before we go deep on it. But we try to, we lean conservatively into launching new product types. Because I would rather have a new product type that grows at a healthy rate to be a large percentage. Right. Of our.

[A]

Like, I want to make massive bets on every product I am not making. That's not how you approach it.

[C]

No, I would rather say I think that this product type has large potential. But we're not gonna, we're not gonna go big on it.

[A]

I mean try to walk into it, not like sprint into it. Curtis, the circle bag, I just, what made me think of is, listen, I'm listening to you talking like you launched a bag where there was no inherent demand. You were like, I just think somebody should make a circle one. It was like literally the Shreddies moment, you know, where they, they made the diamond shreddy. It's like they just turn the thing around. It's like I'm just gonna make a different shape. How many same question to you, like your biggest and most successful products were there signals that there was already demand and you were just satisfying it? So I'm making my own version of it and better or different or are your biggest and most successful products like now? We made something that nobody had seen yet.

[B]

The circle wasn't, you know, the first year it was just an average seller. And then it caught on and then Medicot, it took off. It did not take off right away. Right. It was solid because. But we couldn't run ad sets. And then we got to the place where you could run ad sets. Probably eight of our tests, our 10 best selling products of all time were created by me and Maverick.

[D]

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[C]

I love that men are designing purses. I just, it's.

[B]

I didn't want to say we're giving the basics. We're not actually in there doing all of the.

[C]

The cut of this because we know McCoy so well, too. I just want to. And don't correct me if I'm wrong, but I just want to visualize both of you standing in front of a mirror trying on purses and being like. And McCoy's like, Curtis, that bag looks so good on you. And you're like, I know, it's circle back.

[B]

Strap length is perfect.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I will not get involved in certain conversations. I always bring it back to the big things. But the strap length, I don't care. I don't want to. No, no, no, no. This buckle. No, no, no, no, no. I'll tell them what they like. I've got good fashion sense that I can do that. But the details of all this stuff, I want away from it. But it's directional. You push the team in the right direction, then you give them the confidence, guys, I think we're going to sell immediately. 3,000 the first day. It's going to be 20,000 the first two months. Right. That's the confidence they need to say, wow, this is something where my work is going to show. Right. And again, I'm going to tell everybody, if you have a lot of choices in product, get them physically put them on a table, not on a computer screen, and say from left to right, which one will sell the best? Okay. You. Now you put them in order. Okay. You put them in order. Okay. Everyone's saying these three are near the top.

[C]

Yeah. And they're not all wins. Like, I think what you're like, I imagine your product team or the section in your warehouse is very similar to our headquarters, which is just a hot mess because there's product everywhere. Like, when we go into developing new product, sometimes what we originally reach out to our manufacturer for to prototype or get samples of, it completely changes by the time we take it to market. Right. And so we'll just have product everywhere. And we. We're all in office, so it's easier for people to walk by and ask questions and make comments and things like that.

[A]

I actually agree with that. I can't. I don't know how remote companies do Product development in consumer. No, it's just slower because, like, we. Like my product team is sitting out in front of my office right now. I go out there and it's a hot mess, but I can see everything. I'm with Curtis. Like, I can just walk around and I can see all the samples. I know what's coming. Last week I heard them testing a new product because I had to hear it. And I'm like, that sounds terrible. And I was just like, I like the process. I'm just not as, like, deep in it as you guys are. Okay. I just want to be mindful of time And Curtis, what you guys. Curtis and Katie, what you guys just said. I've got a couple questions I'd like to close on because I think they're important because we've been talking about how we make products. The first one is, is there a. Is there a product in your catalog right now that you're like, we should have launched that way sooner. Like, why the hell did we wait so long to get into this category or this, whatever it is? Curtis, you go first. And Katie, I want to know your answer.

[B]

No. No, not really. We launched so much. I mean, where you see part of my factory behind me. But this is only a small part. We're 280,000 square foot. This is just one of the sewing rooms. We have the leather rooms and the cutting rooms and the matching rooms, the settees and the like. So this is a small part. We sell out of every bag that we make. So we're, we're scaling production at the same time. So not really our top selling bag right now. I think kind of hit the fashion of the last couple years right at the right time and is scaling up. I think you can't beat the market on that. I think that you get something that works. You're going to make your yearly goals, you're going to make your revenue, you're going to make your profit. Like, don't always be thinking the next thing's going to solve my problem. Yeah, you're always working on the next products, but your business has to be running well to start with.

[A]

Katie, is there a category you wish you'd gotten into sooner?

[C]

Yeah, all of them

[A]

isn't only the two opposite answers of each other.

[B]

Like, I.

[C]

When Curtis is talking, I think you could see my face. I was like, that one and that one and all of them. Most recently, we have been leaning into Mommy and Me matching. We did these loungewear sets that, where the mom can match the daughter. And like, I Sleep in.

[A]

Oh, they're so good.

[C]

They're so good. I sleep in them every night. And you know why we didn't do it before is because they're more expensive, and we thought our customer was a little bit more price sensitive. And so we tested them first, I think, at Christmas. Sold out of them, like, in a couple of days. Luckily, got to place a reorder in time before the holidays come around, because we launched Christmas in August, which stresses y' all out every year, but it

[A]

freaked me out at least. Yeah.

[C]

All of you guys. Yeah. I'm like, bring it. Bring it earlier. Bring it earlier. But, yeah, that's.

[B]

I really want to say this. I'm sorry. I've really got to say this. If you're testing new product, do it in April, May. Okay. Why? If it takes off, you can read data in June, July, and you can get a big reorder in. In time for Christmas. If you're ordering somewhere around the world, right. You don't launch it in August and say, oh, my gosh, it took off. Put a big order. Great. Will be delivered on December 18th. Right. So the earlier you're doing that, then the better you are in the rear. Some people don't do that. They look for the launch to be it. You got to think about reorder number one and number two, if you're doing that. So time that out accordingly for Q4

[C]

products, for gifting products, for sure. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's a great call out, Curtis. Okay, final question for both of you. Is there a product you wish you'd killed faster?

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Katie.

[A]

Yes. Which one?

[C]

Well, yeah, all kinds of them.

[A]

Are you kidding?

[C]

Like, I should have.

[A]

No, but is there one that you're like, God, bloody hell, that was expensive.

[C]

Yes. We did an entire Collegiate collection, which. Because everyone was doing licensing, and I had fomo and I was like, I need to do licensing. And the. It did well, but the reason that we killed it is because it went against our theory. Have you guys heard of the. The KISS philosophy?

[A]

Keep It Simple Studio? Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

That's everything we do. Like, I'm like, if it is going to complicate our processes and operations, and if it's going to complicate it, I don't want it. And Collegiate was a nightmare, managing all the licensing fees and not even the fees, just all of it. Right. Like, getting the approvals and. And going. It was a pain in the. And we cut it. And we should have cut it sooner because it wasn't worth it. Even though it was profitable in the whole thing, it kept. It took away time from my company.

[A]

Licensing is brain damage. We've done shows on licensing, man. Is it brain damage? Like, there's just. There's just. I have no better way to say that. Somebody's like, have you ever done licensing? I'm like, huh? Would you do it again? I'm like, no. Like, it sucks. Curtis, is there any product where you're like, we put a lot of time and effort into that. We should have killed it sooner.

[B]

No. And on the app here. Okay, so, Katie, let me explain. You can order from overseas. They can design sample, and you have a big shipment coming in. I have a manufacturing behind me, so I can put a PO in and have a product in three to four weeks. So we make a test run, and then depending on where it is, we can make more. And we just. If it's not selling the right way, not heading in the right direction, you just don't put in the new POS and it drifts away.

[C]

Well, gosh, Curtis, if I was as smart as you, I wouldn't have my problems.

[B]

It is not. I have created up. Somebody asked me once, tell me about the what. What's the key to running a manufacturing? I said I would not do it. The only good thing about it is to give the right product at the right time. That's it. If I could just snap my fingers and have all that solved, then I wouldn't have this big manufacturing. I would do it. But we're more profitable, we're faster, we're leaner, and we can beat out the competition because we do it. So I will not give up that advantage. But would I rather just put a PO In? Damn straight. We do that.

[C]

Own the process. I think Matt would agree. And, Curtis, not everything we do comes from other factories. We make a lot of it ourselves, too.

[A]

Yeah, all three of us actually make a lot of product.

[B]

Wow. Wow. Yeah, that's because I need to come to San Antonio and see your amazing house that you built and see your facilities there. Okay.

[C]

You are more than welcome to come join. You're just right across the border for me, so come on over.

[B]

There's a direct flight.

[A]

Well, look, I think this. I. We're at time, and I, I, I have to go. I've got a call coming. So. This has been fun. I actually learned.

[C]

I don't want to hear from y' all anymore.

[A]

No, I actually, I'm with Curtis. Like, I think we could talk about product for, like, four hours, and there'll always be a thing to find and a string to pull on. This is such a big topic. That's why I think that every time we release an episode on product, it's never enough. Like, people are like, yeah, but what about this and what about that? Like, there's just so much here. So I appreciate both you guys coming on and sharing experience, because I think it is valuable, Curtis, to the. To every size of brand. Like, it's just valuable to see how these machines work at all levels. So I think that was. That was a lot of fun. And you didn't kill each other, which was great.

[B]

We're winning.

[A]

What, like, today is just about winning? Absolutely.

[C]

I think Curtis insulted me, like, three times. Yeah.

[B]

But I did it with a lot of love and very subtly.

[A]

All right, we talked product. Thank you, Katie. Thank you, Curtis. Thank you for, like, making this a cordial conversation. That is the podcast. Let's get out of here.