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Joy Mangano
if you truly don't care about that consumer, they know it. And you really immerse yourself with that consumer as you grow. And if you do that, I think your odds for success are far greater.
Mike Hoffman
Today on your next move, navigating changing consumer habits and achieving sustainable success beyond trends. Joining us is Poshmark founder Manish Chandra. He helped build a social e commerce marketplace that transformed secondhand retail and has 150 million active users to date. In 2023, the company was acquired for $1.2 billion and inventor and entrepreneur Joy Mangano is here. Joy has developed the miracle mop, my little steamers, the Joy hangers and more. Today she's the co founder of Clean Boss, a non toxic cleaning supply company which had 253% revenue growth between 2021 and 2024. Now as we all know, consumer habits are changing fast. So how can your company shape them and capitalize on them? Maneesh and Joy are here to share their insights on understanding where consumer habits are headed, weathering trend cycles and building trust with customers. I'm Mike Hoffman, editor in chief of Inc. Welcome to YOUR next move, produced by Inc. And Capital One Business. Now. Manish Joy, welcome to your next move. We're so excited to have you here today.
Joy Mangano
Thank you.
Manish Chandra
Thanks for having us.
Mike Hoffman
So today we're going to talk about sort of changes in consumer behavior, both what you're seeing happening across the economy right now and also how companies can drive changes in consumer behavior, which I think is such an interesting topic. And both of you have done that with your. So Joy, let's start with you with your companies, Clean Boss and previous companies. What you've done which is really interesting is sort of reinvent staples of the consumer economy, bringing innovation to them and getting people to accept that innovation can you talk about your story both with Clean Boss and with previous companies.
Joy Mangano
Sure. So a lot of people say, you know, you made something and you showed it to me and I didn't even know I needed it yet. But it's, you know, I've been inventor since I'm a young girl blowing up toasters. And you know, I think innovation for me personally comes out of my own life. I believe I'm the ultimate consumer. So way back when, when I was a mom, I'm sure a few people have seen the movie Joy is my life story. Oscar nominated that Jennifer Lawrence couldn't be prouder. But truly through the struggles of, you know, I'm a cleaning fanatic obviously came the struggle. First self ringing mop. And oddly enough somebody said there is no category, there is no industry for self ringing mops. And then you know, there's 50 of them and there's a whole new stick. Good category. So many things I've done like that, whether it be a velvety hanger, you know, nobody needs a velvety hanger. But it changed an entire industry as well. Are things that come from my life and innovation. Looking at things and saying how can we make them better? For I am the consumer, I love the consumer and that's how I function in business. And now, you know, I always say don't be afraid to start over. And I did with Clean Boss, which is truly my mission and the legacy that I want to leave in life is waking up the world to a new way of clean that's non toxic but has to perform better than those toxic cleaners. And we work on that every day.
Mike Hoffman
And was there a moment either early on with Miracle Mop or with Clean Boss where you thought, oh, I've really got something with consumers. Like they're, they're responding to the new idea that I'm bringing to them.
Joy Mangano
Well, it's interesting. I'm in an industry, you know, I appear in front of America Live for 30 years now. I started when I was 2 and, and it was almost like the stock market. Right. So I'd launch a product and you literally those numbers are real that you see on TV so you immediately know if they love it or hate it. Right. That's not the time that you really want to know that you want to. But obviously we do research before that. But the barometer is there for me. And so I've been connected with the consumer directly that way. But literally they used to, you know, now you can do it on social, but they used to call and talk to Me live on TV and say, I love this. Can you make this color? So even though we have shifted so much, the feedback is still there. The need for feedback and the ability to react to that feedback.
Mike Hoffman
That's great. And so, Manish, you have Poshmark, which is the great fashion platform. If Joy has a Prague company, you have a platform company that you've developed. How did you get consumers to embrace the idea that this was a great way to buy and sell clothes?
Manish Chandra
Yeah, when we started, people didn't actually even have mobile phones that we think of as iPhone, Android today. And so we had a pretty interesting task, which is how to get people to even take photos. If you can imagine going back to 2011, girls did not want to take photos of each other, which seems so contradictory to the behavior we see today where we have hundreds of phones taking photos all the time. So we actually had to buy. We hacked the whole system. We bought 100 at that time called iPhone, video, ipods and gave it to our community. Then we used to host live events, which we called five at five, Bring five clothes from your closet and take pictures and post them online. And then we actually started to host local events, which we called posh parties. Then we brought those events back into the iPhone app. And that whole process of iteratively teaching people how to take photos selling was the early phase. But what turned out to be really interesting is one of the artifacts we had was we allowed people to curate items from each other so you could share an item from somebody else's closet on the app, another person could share that item. And that led to that initial formation of the community. And of course, the whole sort of process of iPhone photo taking, people exchanging photos, and being able to quickly convert, say, a skirt or a dress into a listing and then sell it was one of the key drivers of how we remove friction in the early days.
Mike Hoffman
And one of the things I think so fascinating about Poshmark, right, is that the community has sort of developed, or maybe you've helped them develop all these sort of rules and kind of like social contracts. Right. There's like the. The idea of the three day rule or the 30 minute rule. And how did those sort of develop and come into being?
Manish Chandra
Well, they evolved a little bit by intent and a little bit organically. I think part of the thing of developing community is to follow the community where it goes and foster it. So sharing was sort of one of the early habits we created. We welcomed every single user when they first joined the app, which was easy to do when we had hundreds of users and thousands of users. And then as we were getting to hundreds of thousands of users, it became harder. So we launched a greeter program that we enabled one user to greet the others coming in. We would prompt them and say, hey, Jane has joined, so Mary can welcome Jane. And that became very popular in terms of how people connected. We also had local meetups. So people would meet locally and they would imitate what we were doing in our meetups. And so we would send them boxes of products that they could use to do local meetups. So there was a fostering of the local community. And then as people connected with each other, they would travel, fly, connect, go shopping together, go thrifting together. So that started to form sort of a national community. And then we fostered it by creating a national festival conference called Poshfest. And that started back in 2013. And I remember 150 people flying from across the country to Las Vegas and they didn't know who they were. And at the end, many of them become best friends. They've attended each other's weddings, et cetera. So a lot of that community building was very hands on in the early days.
Mike Hoffman
And how much for your companies are you able to drive consumer change versus taking that feedback? Like, once you start to get the first bit of feedback, how do you strategically think, oh, this is how I can use this to iterate. Joy, let's start with you.
Joy Mangano
Well, I mean, that's a perfect example of what Manish is saying. He was listening to the consumer, and it couldn't be a better name your next move, right? It's, you know, he was going, we all go move to move to move. Even though we try to think ahead, you still have to take it one step at a time. And I think if you're not listening to that consumer, if you don't respond to it, you miss so much. And for me, certainly inventing products. So he's got a platform that he's transforming. I'm transforming, I'm creating product from, you know, this doesn't exist. Joy, can you do something right? And that's out of thin air. You have to say, how can I solve that problem? It is a driver, it's a connection. And when it truly, it comes down to also in the end, the authenticity, if you truly don't care about that consumer, they got it, they know it. And you really immerse yourself with that consumer as you grow. And if you do that, I think your odds for success are far greater, far greater.
Mike Hoffman
Manish, what do you think about that.
Manish Chandra
I'm thinking in the same thoughts. That is, you have to learn to love, to serve someone. If you're serving a community with passion, then you're listening to them, you're responding to them. But it's not that. What they say X, you do X, you sort of listen to X, you listen to Y, and then from there may come a Z. That is the final innovation, which is quite different than what X and Y is. So you're sort of leading, listening, leading, responding, sometimes, you know, taking a step back, which I have done as well, where you take something forward, you get a lot of feedback, you take step back and then you go in a different direction. So all of those things are really part of the journey and sometimes you have to leapfrog. So, for example, in 2022, we were listening to the community and there were a lot of innovation happening and we launched live streaming. And initially people were like, who's going to buy on video? What's going to happen? Even though that's been around for a long time.
Joy Mangano
Exactly.
Manish Chandra
But it was really hard for people to imagine. And then suddenly, a year later, so many people came to us and said, this is the best thing. You know, I'm starting to earn six figures, seven figures doing live streaming, and it's taken off. So we had to kind of make a pretty big bold move and encourage people to go on camera who've never gone on camera before. And many people have found that that's their calling.
Joy Mangano
Yep.
Manish Chandra
They want to be like Joy in a small kind of mediator way.
Joy Mangano
Well, you know, you say such the pearls of wisdom. Right. Are, you know, I call it, you have to shift your skis. I'm a skier. But when he was talking about take a step back, changing your direction, you really, if you do that, you absolutely benefit from that. Because there I look at the world, everything is a product. His platform is a product. Right. And for me, inventing a product is a product. Right. When I walk, people look at and see colors and things and I look at products. And so something may start out, out in my brain one way, but when I get to the end of that mountain. Right. It's completely different in many ways. So you have to be able to shift your skis, is my phrase, and. Or take a step back and so that you're answering that consumer. Because today there is never been a smarter consumer and never been a consumer that's so experiential with who you are and what you do.
Mike Hoffman
That's interesting. Can we talk about the steps back or the misfires, like, what are examples of things that, you know, you tried this, you started to go down a path and then you realized, we don't
Joy Mangano
want to talk about that. I'm kidding.
Mike Hoffman
Yeah, yeah, it's good. It's good. Manisha, you want to go first?
Manish Chandra
Sure. I'll talk about something recently that we did. So in 2024, you know, we were looking at a lot of innovation happening in the pricing of our platform. And Poshmark has had the same pricing since we started. So we charge 20%, seller keeps 80% of every sale, and then there's sort of a minimum of 295. And we were sort saying, let's shift some of the balance, the burden between buyer and seller. And so I thought a lot about it and sort of, I would take the full blame for it. But we worked with the team and we implemented a new fee model. And beginning we got some positive feedback, but very quickly it turned out it was the wrong model. And we sort of saw for a month how much stress it was causing on the platform.
Mike Hoffman
And was this stress on. On the sellers?
Manish Chandra
On the sellers, on the buyers, on the revenue, everything. Like it was a fully. It was stressing out the whole system. And I had to go up, apologize to the community and pull back that fee structure. And it was, you know, a lesson in sort of how to deal with really major things. Because the challenge of the marketplace is even micro experimentation with something that has a big network effect is harder. And so I think for me, it is that if you make a mistake, it could be a big mistake. And you sort of go in and say it was a mistake and have the courage to pull back. And then today, we still have the same model that we had 14 years back, which is actually amazing to have a marketplace which has had no change in fees for almost over a decade now. But that little experiment told us how many things that are just working have sort of a bunch of cascading things
Mike Hoffman
that come together, like dependencies.
Manish Chandra
Dependencies. Yes.
Joy Mangano
Well, I have to say, you know, I have to have a winning hit every month. When you go on live TV and you're bringing in millions of dollars of that product. Right. So we try to get it right. But I must say, it was took a short amount of time for me to realize, you know, you can build something and create something that's every feature and benefit wonderful, and what is the cost to the consumer? And for me, I learned very quickly that the definition of what I do is to create innovative product. But at the best quality, at the best value. Right. So something may be $99, but in somewhere else, in another form, it's $300. So for me, my goal was always to make a product that would, you know, make life better, but be it of value, the quality of the product that you're getting is a true value. It's so hard if you don't focus on that. You can go down those lanes and say, yeah, I love that, you know, but if it's always at the forefront of my mind, along with how is this going to change somebody's life and is this going to be a massive value for them when they get it and feel like it's great and I
Mike Hoffman
got a good value, is price sensitivity among consumers much higher today than it was certainly during sort of the zero interest rate era?
Manish Chandra
I think to some degree that's true. I mean, it's kind of a little bit of a bifurcated problem in terms of the core. But the core focus on value, with the inflation sort of being still a factor, is still there.
Mike Hoffman
Joy, what do you see?
Joy Mangano
Yeah, so I think price sensitivity, when you talk about it, it's because the customer is curating more. Right. You know, when I was a little girl, the only person that delivered anything to my house was the milkman in the milk box. Right, right, right. Okay. Well, today, right. You know, you're getting your salad, you're getting your coffee, you're getting, you know, everything and. Right. You know, and so the consumer has changed, and I think they are able to navigate and compare. Right. So you really are in a much big of what I'm offering. And I'm gonna go back. It has to solve a need for them. It has to be experiential for them in the right ways. But they, you know, for me as a consumer, I always feel great when I get something at a great value. And I think most people are like that.
Mike Hoffman
You both have talked about experiential marketing, and whether it's in person, events or sort of the experience of watching someone on live tv, how have you sort of developed a philosophy around experiential marketing and then how do you build that into your brand? Let's start with you, Manish.
Manish Chandra
I think experiences and connections are really part of the product experience. So when you think of a product like Poshmark, the community connection, sort of who you know is also in the community, what you feel about the company is all part of the entire experience. So for us, it's been about authenticity. So you can't really fake it. I think the consumer today, as Joy is talking about, is super savvy out there. Number two is how do you embrace a very large world where there's diverse point of views? So how do you sort of take the conversation to a place that elevates it, but at the same time embraces everyone? So one of our core values is embrace your weirdness, which is all about embracing the uniqueness that makes you you. The third thing which is there in these connectivity pieces is how do you sort of bring different voices, different generations, whether it's a Gen Z working with a boomer together. So those kinds of connectivity requires you to constantly innovate. And that's been part of the evolution of these experiences that we've done. But I think the two things I would say is be authentic and be embracing of a much larger group of people, because over time, growth comes from bringing more and more people into your core demographic, isn't it?
Mike Hoffman
I think this is true that Poshmark actually took a while to decide to have a men's business and then got into it. And it actually was a quick success.
Manish Chandra
Yes.
Mike Hoffman
And maybe a surprise success.
Manish Chandra
No. So we started very focused. We started focused on women's. We started focused on just fashion and just iPhone back in 2011. And by 2016, 2015, we were thinking of, you know, how do you expand? And one of the simple expansion thing was, you know, there's men and women in this world. How do you sort of embrace men? And I remember sending out a member to the community saying, you know, we're going to be launching men's and kids. Kids was no problem. But men's was sort of huge pullback. You're going to. As if we're going to invite people who are going to just raid this community and mar this community. And so a lot of women send me an email, you know, why are you inviting men to this community? What's going to happen, et cetera, et cetera. And in fact, I remember one of my board members called me and said, you know, maybe we should pull back from the men's launch and just do the kids launch right now. And for some reason, I was like, it doesn't make any sense why we can't have men's products. We launched it and then I started to get complimentary emails from the community saying, oh, men are great. They just quickly come and buy. They don't ask very many questions. We love these men. And so I think sometimes you have to take that step and just sort of go on faith that, you know, men actually do buy some fashion in America.
Mike Hoffman
Sure, sure.
Joy Mangano
Otherwise we'd be in trouble. Well, so, you know, I think keyword that is on my pillow probably is authenticity. Right. You know, it's if you are not passionate and authentic about what you do. So me standing up in front of America for 30 years, when they look at the product, they look at. And so you know, I think that consumer, you know, you can see when you hear Manish talk about how he's incorporating, you know, the feedback and everything, you have to. And you have to be part of that and create that community. And they know. So clean boss. You know, I reinvented myself and we want to wake up the world to a new way of clean. We want to take people away from toxic chemicals to non toxic. But if you're going to do that, you have to give them a better proposition and you have to perform better. Because we all use what our mom used or what our dad, you, whatever, moms, I'm sorry. But you know, in cleaning and so we have a mission, we have a passion and for me we have a culture that we actually, you know, is, you know, you never really. That wasn't at the top of your list as a CEO or business leader, you know, it now is. And it and the consumer is all part of that. And they feel that. And if you're not delivering that and they're not feeling that when they're buying the product. You know, when somebody buys a product or I'll be walking through an airport and they'll show me a handbag they bought from me and they'll tell me all about it, like I didn't know about it. And so I know that they are part of what we've created.
Mike Hoffman
When did you have that moment of realizing, oh this is beyond me and I have to build a culture in my company that sort of supports this authentic and community centric point of view.
Joy Mangano
Right? Well, the point is when you know they're there and they are with you in this and they're rooting for you and they have ideas and you know, it's like not listening to anybody around you is really what you can, you know, make the analogy of. And as we say today, that consumer. So even the retail brick and mortar is, you know, how they're moving ahead is they're thinking of experiential. Right. How do you make brick and mortar more experiential? Right. So and that's involving the consumer. Right. And I think there's everything right about that when we do and research before we, you know, my research could be talking to somebody, my friends, or it could be a very technical research lab research. But it's. If you don't do that and you don't incorporate the people who are going to be your customers, then I feel like you're missing the whole picture. Right. It's so critical.
Mike Hoffman
What about with Poshmark? How did Poshmark's culture come to be and how did it bring both internal and external voices to the table?
Manish Chandra
Yeah, for us, I think because we are a community oriented platform, the outside and inside ended up becoming very synergistic. So we had foundational values that kind of evolved over the first couple of years and then we codified them, which I still, I think, think most of our employees can probably remember, which is, you know, you start with love, lead with love, and money comes. So money is sort of always after love, which is really focus on engaging your customer. Number two is embrace your weirdness. Make sure that you realize you are unique and everyone else is unique and you can be strong with other people.
Mike Hoffman
Can I ask just to double click on that one. Is embracing your weirdness a weird vibe to have in the world of fashion or in the world of apparel?
Manish Chandra
Well, I think if you think of weirdness as something that is about really embracing all of us, you know, when I look at you, or uniqueness. Uniqueness, but also just the fact that we all feel that we are a misfit in the world. Like we look at each other, you know, you look like a normal guy, I look like a normal guy, you look like a novel person. But inside we fit in, but you're weird and we don't feel like we fit in. Once you recognize that, then it's actually easier to accept everyone else because really no one is normal to be factual. And that allows the embracement of a lot of different point of views. And then the third thing, which is there is as growth is very essential to what we do, but the only way you can grow is as a community. So that was sort of the third value. And the fourth thing is people matter the most and everything else is subservient to that. And those values have for some reason or the other, endured over a decade or more at Poshmark and allow us to sort of keep inventing many things in that sort of broader framework.
Mike Hoffman
Well, that's interesting.
Joy Mangano
Very smart.
Mike Hoffman
So I'm curious. One thing that strikes me that is a theme between both of your companies is you both were able to change consumer behavior through your products, through your platform. But also you were sort of piggybacking on a much larger trend that was changing consumer behavior, right? So QVC and home shopping and sort of that was a huge change in the way that people bought products. And as well like the iPhone and social media and the advent of social shopping was a huge change, sort of especially in those early days. Learn the new technology or the new way of doing business that was happening. And how did you ultimately come to master it? Joy, let's start with you.
Joy Mangano
Well, so if you're talking about QVC and HSN and now, you know, even TikTok, everything is live streaming, live shopping, right? You know, so I can honestly tell you the only class and I was. I prided myself on being a straight A student. The only class I. I ever cut in college was public speaking. So I always say, God got me back, because how did I end up being an inventor speaking in front of millions of people every month? So it wasn't anything. It was by happenstance, truly. And if you saw the movie, you'll know. It was like, oh, you think this product is so great? Get on stage and sell it. Right? It was a new, at the time, very new venue. I mean, it was something that I hadn't even heard of myself. And I guess when people say you are the queen of whatever, it's because it's like, I'm talking about my children. When you are so close to what you do and you are designing, developing something from sometimes just in my brain, right? Not even seeing something that triggered. We can make that better. I think it becomes very natural and, you know, even, you know, clean Boss, the new mission and company that we're on, you know, I don't even look at. We're growing so fast and we're looking. There is a trend, right? You know, the consumer is looking at what is safer, what is healthier, what is the right way, you know, to clean it. Not, you know, but I don't look at it as growing in sales. I look at it as every time we have a bottle of our botanical, the strongest disinfectant cleaner in the world, and somebody has it in their hands, a mom. We are taking away a toxic cleaner from that household. That's how I view it. And it's the legacy that I want to leave. And oddly enough, my founding partner is Pitbull, who is a. You would think Joy and Pitbull are. What is that all about? But his mother was a cleaning lady and he.
Mike Hoffman
I can imagine the sequel to the Movie now.
Angela Lee
Exactly.
Joy Mangano
Oh, yeah, it's even better. Part two is better. Right? So. But he is very philanthropic and he along with me, this is our mission together. I mean, he's a fabulous. I can't sing and dance like him, but he's brilliant and a love. And we together really want to do that. That's, you know, like somebody said, how can you change the world? You can. You absolutely can. With a self ringing mop. With a site that brings people together to have fashion in another way. And boy, do I have something that goes with fashion coming out. So. But you can do it. And I think everybody should know that, you know, the beginnings of us, our careers or what we did, you know, and that's why Pitbull and I, he always says, we came from the basement, right? We from. You can do it. You can do it. You just have to keep doing it right. And you have to pay attention to that world around you, the consumer around you.
Mike Hoffman
Do you have an anecdote from your early trips to the studio, to Tampa, where you were suddenly had a moment of realizing, like, oh, this is going to be a big thing. I'm good at this.
Joy Mangano
Yes.
Mike Hoffman
Or I need to learn how to be good at this. How did that come together?
Joy Mangano
Yeah. Oh, there were. There definitely was that moment. And it was like a double moment because, you know, people used to ask my children, well, what does your mother do? They didn't know how to answer it. You know, I was like this crazy person making this stick with, you know, cotton on the end, you know, anyway. So, you know, I was very that venue at the time. So it's, you know, I guess it's like anybody going on live streaming for the first time or TikTok or any other form at the time. If you can think back, hundreds of operators in front of me taking calls and if like nobody rang the phone and nothing happened. So it was a miraculous moment because to step on that stage and I'll never forget it was a stage that revolved. True story. And to be able to talk about something that everybody said, people aren't gonna get it. And I'm like, they're gonna get it. They're gonna get it right? And watching. There was a live screen up there to watch. All of a sudden, as I talked and talked about the features and benefits and educated. And people understood what you were doing. Right. Whether it be a site, whether it be a product, and to watch it just start ticking up to the thousands was probably a moment I will never truly be able to duplicate except Having my three children in life again. And it defined for me what I did. I invented product, I created product. For the first time, I felt like I knew what my path was for the rest of my life.
Mike Hoffman
That's fascinating, Manish, for you, when you were sort of seeing you were giving iPhones to early users and you were starting to see social shopping or live streaming become sort of a real thing, how did you foster that? How did you learn from that? And how did you sort of make that part of what made Poshmark so successful? Sure.
Manish Chandra
So, so in 2010, I'd left my first company that I started, Caboodle, and I was thinking about what to do next, and one of my friends on vacation took this photo and soon it was on a social network that was very popular then called Facebook. And so Facebook, I was like, fascinating. You may not remember it, it used to be. And so you take this photo and that sort of process. Whereas, if you remember, in 2010, we would take a photo on an SLR, we would take out an SD card, we would put it in a reader, upload to a computer, and then upload the photo. And so that speed and velocity was very fascinating to me. And around that time, actually a little photo app was being born that I was playing with called Instagram. And so when I look at these two things, it became clear to me that there's going to be a new way of sort of how to think about commerce, how to think about new apps. And that was the genesis of the Poshmark from a technology perspective. And then certainly looking at our clients, that my wife will kill me for saying this, but they were like unopened shopping bags. Forget about stuff that was new and unworn. So combination of that led to the creation of Poshmark. But the whole process of thinking that this iPhone or phone could do stuff required a big leap of faith back then because people didn't have the phone. It was quite a limited device at that time. And so what I decided to do was for six months, give up my laptop and live my entire life on an iPhone. So fall of 10, I could do literally everything on the iPhone except for building spreadsheets.
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Manish Chandra
tried to do banking using the mobile browser, et cetera. And I was convinced that if I could do 90, 95%, this is gonna be the platform. And that allowed us to bet on the iPhone in the early days. And that's sort of what leap of faith we had to take back in 2010, 2011, and find investors who believed in the fact that everything could be done on the phone and you didn't need a computer. Doing that allowed us to create a app, a platform that was native to the phone before, sort of that was important, made sure that everything was happening there. So when you had that phone, you could do everything. You didn't need to go to the laptop or anything. And that required us to design things in a different way. And because we had built that deep empathy by living our life on the phone, we could sort of say, you know, this doesn't work, that doesn't work. So we had to do a lot of things. That was very pioneering back in. In 2011, as we were going forward. The second big thing was distribution, because people didn't know how to look at phone apps. People didn't know how to get to a phone app. There was not sort of basic advertising. So it was very expensive to actually convince someone and market to someone. So that's where we came up with the notion of physical events and went out on a tour across Texas, California, Florida, trying to convince people that this is sort of the way to do stuff and that we work with what you used to call fashion bloggers in today's world. They'd be called influencers and creators.
Joy Mangano
Exactly.
Manish Chandra
And so we use a combination of sort of working with them. And so we were doing things that are sort of very commonplace today, but they were very pioneering at that time. And the other thing we did was formation of local community groups, which became very grassroots in the early days and allowed us to both get specific knowledge about our product and what was happening, but also at the same time, kind of evangelize out to folks. And then we had to take on many different things because the Payment systems, the shipping systems, taxation systems were not geared towards what we were trying to do because the vision we had was that imagine you're a girl sitting in a dorm room, you came back from a party, you could literally turn around, post that dress on Poshmark, sell it, ship it, without sort of having to become a licensed seller or all of these pieces. So we had to take on many different challenges from U.S. postal Service to local taxation, to sort of how payments were working. And many of the systems broke and then we had to build them back together. And I remember in 2013, we were challenging so many of these systems that none of the payment providers in America could actually service us. So we got progressively rejected by every single payment provider. And I was on a trip and my CFO called me and said, I think we might have to shut down the site. And in that process, we had to fly back. And there was a transaction that happened. Braintree got acquired by PayPal, which was part of ebay. In that whole sort of transaction, somehow miraculously, we got the approval to have a payment processing system that's been the foundation of Poshmark.
Mike Hoffman
Wow. That was a real save the company moment. Yes.
Joy Mangano
You know that as an entrepreneur that exemplifies that entrepreneurial trip. You might think, you know, when you go to Poshmark to hear what the history there is. And I'm all about entrepreneurship, you know, throughout the world, not just here in America. And the steps, the obstacles, he walked. Right. He went through them. Right. And you. So if you believe in yourself, your next move, you have to keep moving. Right. And I mean, I'm listening to that and I'm thinking I could be telling the same story in a different way, but I think that, that successful entrepreneurs have that similar story. They don't stop. They find another way. If you can't do it that way, there has to be another way. So, you know, I think that's fascinating. So proud of you. I'm so proud of you.
Mike Hoffman
Yeah. So if the iPhone was a huge sea change and online shopping and payments as you talked about, or you know, home shopping and direct to consumer, obviously AI is one of the big sea changes of the moment. And how are you preparing your companies to integrate AI or address AI? How do you think about community and experiential in an AI and data driven world? And how do you use it yourselves and how do you use it as leaders?
Joy Mangano
Well, I want it to be 55,000 AI joys. Do you think that's a good idea?
Manish Chandra
Absolutely.
Mike Hoffman
55,000X fails. Right.
Joy Mangano
And, well, you know, of course, you have to incorporate it the way every company does it in a different way. You know, where it might take me. You know, I fly somewhere, we film a production for a commercial, a direct response commercial. Right. You know, for one of our products. And then you're watching these companies with technology developing technology for us that they can pop out 50 different versions of me talking about product in 15 minutes. Right. So you have to sit back and think, okay, what can I do with this technology? In a good way, right? In. In a way that, that's positive. And so, you know, I think it helps our employees in certain, you know, so many ways for information gathering. And, you know, it just. I personally don't even. I haven't discovered yet the multiple ways. And you may know me a little bit already from the. That there will. There are just so many ways yet even to come to enhance business and enhance the consumer experience and help them navigate through things.
Manish Chandra
I think for us, AI has been a game changer. And we've started to implement and incorporate AI into Poshmark for the last couple of years and sort of it's accelerating. So one of the big things is that we can really, at a deep level, understand your style preferences. And, you know, if you think of hundreds of millions of products that are available on Poshmark at any given point in time, being able to connect you, you and curate stuff very specifically for you and recognize the changing trends that are happening is extremely powerful. We also can help convert an item into a listing and help you sell that. Understanding the product, generating sort of the listing, understanding the pricing, recommending, pricing, all of that stuff is certainly a work in motion. I mean, it's still early, but there's a lot of work happening there as well. And then I think as a seller, working with your shopper, being able to communicate more effectively, do things that are helpful for the shopper, kind of like a seller's assistant almost. That's another role that AI can take. And then if you think from a consumer and a shopper perspective, AI can give you sizing help, recommendations, almost like a little shopping assistant, styling assistant. There's a company I've invested in called Alta, and they're building these mini avatars of you that can allow you to sort of get into shopping. So I think when I think of AI, I think of it as a massive wave. The velocity of it is much faster. I think the last time I can think of was when Internet first arrived 20 years back is when the speed I don't even think the mobile speed was as fast as AI is moving. And, you know, one of the challenges that comes in is, am I relevant for this evolution? And I think at every wave you always feel that. And certainly as you get older, you feel even more, look, am I more relevant here? And you see a lot of these folks are like 20, 21, 22, creating companies and doing things. And I think a way to think about it is that if you plunge yourself into anything new, wholesale, instead of resisting it, just sort of swim with it. That's, I think, the way to kind of embrace it fully. And the other thing I would say is that a lot of times there's a lot of fear around AI, whether it'll take away jobs or it's going to create major challenges, probably will create major challenges, probably will transform jobs. But I remember a visit to Pompeii, which is a city that was buried in Italy, volcanic ashes for 2,000, 2,500 years. And when you look at that city, or you go to Cairo in Egypt, which is 6,000 years old, the stupidity that we did, the fallacies we had as human beings, the interests we had are exactly the same. So I think if our intelligence doesn't save us much, my prophecy is that our stupidity will definitely save us.
Mike Hoffman
Amazing.
Joy Mangano
Or end us.
Mike Hoffman
Well, you mentioned thinking about yourself as a leader and relevance. And you've both gone through transitions, right? Selling your company, moving on to be you in the fall, gave up being CEO and are now a board member of Poshmark. And as you go through those transitions, bringing on and working with a partner with Clean Boss, I'm sort of curious, how has your role changed and is it at as energizing and satisfying? How is it different and how does that make you feel as founders?
Joy Mangano
Well, you know, It's I think 30 years ago when you're, you know, growing a company, the first thing in your mind is not culture back then. Today, the first thing in my mind is building a company. So defining your mission and then creating a culture that understands that mission and embraces that mission, because then the consumer knows and can make their decisions. And the community that you create becomes a very cohesive and interactive community. And so he has it visibly right, and I have it through product, right. And so I think that. And as a leader, so as I've gotten just a little bit older in the last few years, I learned that the intelligence, the people around you, the talent that you bring in, you know, when you start something, it's like, oh, my friend, I need packaging since she was a graphic designer. Let me ask her to help me. Right. This is a very, very different world. And if you're going to grow quickly, you want to bring in talent that believes in the mission is part of your culture, you know, because I hire first and foremost for culture and then we look at the talent because there are many things you can learn, right. And so, and as fast as AI is changing things and everything, today as a leader, I less am involved in detail by detail. And I've been able to give up to let go of some of that to knowing and trusting the company of employees around me that are family now. Right. You know, so to speak. And I think that business in general really has to have that empathy in the world. I think corporate leaders have to have. It's not about the business, it's about what is the business doing, who is the business changing, what are they impacting in the world? And so as a leader, my brain is in a totally different. Even though I'm creating product, my brain as a leader is very, very different today than it was 30 years ago. Very much so.
Manish Chandra
So I think Joy talked about it. I think a lot of it is about letting go. I feel like in order to grow, you must let go. And you know, when you think about what are you letting go? To some degree, what you're letting go is parts of your ego, right? You're letting go of responsibility and this and that. But a lot of it is about ego. And what does that mean? It means really what you're doing is trusting that there's many other people who you can partner with to carry on your mission or even make the world bigger and better. And so to me, a lot of this journey has been about letting go and allowing sort of different energies to come in and different kinds of partnerships to come in. And of course, you can only let go if you're partnering with people you trust, you respect them, you build sort of long term partnership with them. And so for example, at Poshmark, the new CEO Namsan Kim is actually the person who was partnered with me when they were purchasing the company or worked with him for almost four years now. So as we transitioned the company to him, it was easy to let go and partner with him and support him in the journey. And I think that is really the key thing is as we embrace new things and look at new things, how do you let go? And to me, part of it is always continuing to keep your mind young and your spirit young and sort of looking at things from A fresh perspective. And one of the technique I use personally is to listen to new music and new artists every week. So, you know, you get your Spotify recommendation, and, you know, typically, you look at the top 10 songs, they're, like, playing to your sort of core, and then you get the bottom 10 songs, and they're weird and awkward and always start. Obviously, it's in the first 10 songs, but then I listen to the bottom 20 songs.
Joy Mangano
You definitely listen to the weird and awkward. I knew you were gonna sing it.
Manish Chandra
Absolutely. Absolutely. Like, last year, we had 1100 artists on my spot. So that's the key, is how do you sort of engage with the new. Because if you're just tied to what you know or what you believe in or what you hold, you're not able to evolve. And evolving is also evolving your identity and who you are. And that's been the exciting part for me.
Mike Hoffman
That's great. That's great. So, last question. Obviously, the name of the series is your next move. So for each of you and for your companies, what's your next move? We'll start with you, Joy.
Joy Mangano
Well, you know, easy and difficult to answer, right? Because we are launching a new product, which you're gonna love for fashion, but it's expanding our footprint because, as I said, as a business, the mission, you never lose sight of that mission. And it's to wake the world up to a new way of clean. And with the technologies today, if you really immerse yourself in it, you can. And Pitbull and I have said this. We can transform, you know, a world where cleaning has a lot of, you know, you're hearing about, oh, this has something in it. Don't use it now. Right. And so our goal is to, you know, my next move, my present move, my future move, and my legacy is to enable a young mom. Because when I was a young mom, I didn't have that choice, and it was very difficult. You locked your cabinets, the children. Right. To make it all. A whole different world of product around you. Certainly cleaning product and other things beyond that that we know are good for us and will enhance us, but do the job that they have to do. You couldn't do that, you know, 20 years ago, but as I say, with amazing technology, we can do that today, and we'll continue to do that. And for me, that. That is the move that I think the whole world has to make in some form or fashion.
Mike Hoffman
Manish, what's your next move?
Manish Chandra
Well, I've just stepped out of Poshmark, so, you know, Specifically for me, I'm just taking a little bit of time off and vacation. Vacation, definitely vacation.
Joy Mangano
I don't know the definition of that word.
Manish Chandra
I know, I know we need to spend some time to do that. I'm discovering the meaning of that. But you know, working with a lot of young entrepreneurs, so that's sort of where I'm doing, you know, spending some time looking at AI. For me, it's a little bit going hands on. I've been so far away from actually working on technology myself that I bought a little robot and I'm actually working on coding in Python, but not coding, using AI to code. So it's been kind of fun to discover basics of how to work with the technology. On Poshmark front, what we're doing there is really reinventing the app in a big way. So you'll see a lot of major changes in terms of how we are evolving and getting it ready to for the next sort of five to 10 years.
Mike Hoffman
Quick and one little follow up. The first time. Founders that you've been working with, is there something about them that's different from or interesting compared with your experience?
Manish Chandra
I think the speed with which these founders are moving is extraordinary. I think the age is extraordinary. I think on an average these founders are probably like 25 years old. The teams are very small, and the speed with which they're able to scale revenue or users or whatever their core metrics are, it's really, really extraordinary. I mean, one of the companies, I think they're up to millions of users in 4 and a half months of their launch with very little in marketing. You know, a lot of it is product innovation. So it's fantastic to see that.
Mike Hoffman
Terrific. Well, Manish Joy, thanks so much and we'll be back shortly. Now, the most effective employees think strategically, solve problems, work collaboratively and are results driven. In short, they think like business owners. Today, Jason Krieger, vp, head of Customer management at Capital One Business, is here to talk about how leaders can motivate and inspire their team members to think like business owners. Welcome, Jason.
Jason Krieger
Thanks for having me.
Mike Hoffman
So, as we all know, successful companies often became that way because they hired great talent. So what's the difference between being a high performing team member and someone who thinks like an owner?
Jason Krieger
Yeah, it's a great question. You know, a high performing team member handles their tasks and responsibilities well and shares best practices and lessons learned with their teams. But someone who thinks like an owner takes things a bit further. They think strategically, they take ownership of outcomes and they exercise a really High degree of next level thinking.
Mike Hoffman
We all know the concept of having too many cooks in the kitchen. So how do you bring team members into a decision making process without slowing that process down altogether?
Jason Krieger
Let me give you an example from my own team. Last year we started thinking about how to better structure the team and we asked a host of questions like should we structure based on products or geography and how do we gauge success? And we divided our team of 60 people into groups of five and we gave them an MBA style case study about the team which gave them some parameters for restructuring. And then we asked each group to tell us how they would restructure the team overall. And after hearing from the teams, the actual changes were easier to get buy in because we had the buy in from that exercise. So I'd say don't be scared of creating places for feedback. People can accept change more easily if they know they have a voice.
Mike Hoffman
And what are some ways to help your team connect their roles and their goals to the organization's bigger goals and bigger purpose? Why does that matter?
Jason Krieger
A frontline leader has to know a person's why as well as what is on their vision board and constantly connect their weekly work to those two things. A leader of a span of control has to connect the team's work to an emotional connection. And there are two ways I like to do that. So I like to talk about can't imagine a world without and that is that our customers should say that about us, about us as people and about Capital One as a business. I ask them to think about products or companies that they feel this way about and spend time thinking about how they're going to recreate that for their customers.
Mike Hoffman
And let's talk about recognition. What role does recognition play in this process? And how can you make sure people feel genuinely appreciated for taking initiative or thinking beyond their day to day tasks?
Jason Krieger
Yeah, recognition is super important. And according to a recent survey conducted by Gallup, they found that employees who receive high quality recognition are nine times as likely to be engaged as those who don't. And the key to the Gallup research is that the question asks about recognition in a time bound way. Have you received recognition in the last seven days? That's really the key. And so recognition doesn't need to be over the top. A simple thank you for the work on that project last week or I noticed a contribution that you made to XYZ today is the easiest way to engage your employees.
Mike Hoffman
Every company wants collaboration, right? So how can leaders truly facilitate collaboration across teams so people don't just stay in their lanes.
Jason Krieger
It can be good in certain circumstances to stay in your lane. For instance, I wouldn't be someone who should weigh in on our underwriting policy. But more broadly, I recommend that you identify three to five large core priorities each year with three to five sub projects under each priority. This allows focus. Large priorities are led by senior leaders with sub projects led by cross functional leaders, who usually bring in cross functional employees. Almost every project needs representation from multiple teams to get the best outcome. And so modeling this team based approach to problem solving is critical for senior
Mike Hoffman
leaders and for founders who are watching and who want their teams to care more and to take more responsibility. But they don't know quite where to start. What's the one practical first step you'd recommend for them?
Jason Krieger
Yeah, so delegating, in my opinion, is the hardest thing to do as a leader and the best thing for you. It's also the best thing for your employees. It's how they learn and in turn, it's how you scale.
Mike Hoffman
These are great insights. Thanks so much for being with us today.
Jason Krieger
Yeah, it was my pleasure. Thanks for having me, Mike.
Mike Hoffman
All right, so next up, we'll take a closer look at one of the key strategies today's guests use to their advantage.
Sarah Lynch
What's really driving changes in consumer behavior? I'm Sarah lynch, recognition Program Director at Inc. Here with Angela Lee for a deeper conversation about where consumer habits are heading in 2026 and how to build that consumer trust. Angela, thank you so much for being here with us today.
Angela Lee
Thank you so much for having me.
Sarah Lynch
Let's talk about Clean Boss and Poshmark. What have each of these brands done really well to build trust and be authentic with customers?
Angela Lee
I think that both of these companies are really good examples of keeping pace with current consumer trends. So if you think about CleanBoss, they're a really great example of value. They might not be the lowest priced product, but they talk a lot about longevity and the fact that the products are really user friendly. I think there's something really accessible about their products. And then on the Poshmark side, I think that radical transparency, if you think about really understanding where the products come from, making sure that they're trustworthy, they do a really good job of that as well.
Sarah Lynch
So Manish and Joy really listen deeply to their customers and their communities. Why is feedback more critical than ever before? And how can brands really leverage that feedback?
Angela Lee
So I think one of the things that's really hard about feedback right now is that the pace of feedback and the publicity of feedback is just very different than it was five or ten years ago. If you think about a TikTok video going viral on a product review, that could happen overnight. And so my recommendation to founders is to get as much early feedback privately as you can early on so you can make those mistakes. But if you do make a mistake, own it. And very publicly.
Sarah Lynch
When it comes to finding that brand voice and really being authentic with that voice, what advice might you have for a founder or marketer? Listening and to how to hone in on that?
Angela Lee
The two things I would tell a marketer is to first figure out where your consumers are finding you and talking about you. Because the voice on Instagram is very different than the voice on TikTok. And then find out what customers are saying about you. I think a mistake that marketers, founders often make is they're like, these are the 17 product features. That's not how we talk to each other about products. We say, you need to buy this because. And if you can really articulate that because well, and explain that in a voice that resonates with the customer, that's how you're going to grab their attention.
Sarah Lynch
Can you actually give us an example of a company or a brand that really successfully evolved with changing consumer habits? It rather than just chasing trends?
Angela Lee
I think that Dove is a really good example of this. You know, Dove went from selling conditioner to selling confidence. Right. If you think about what we thought about Dove 10 years ago, we really just thought of them as personal care and now we think about them as a brand that really gets women. They're very inclusive. They make you feel good about putting on their products. And so they actually shifted what they were selling by really listening to what their customers wanted.
Sarah Lynch
What are the best ways that founders can actually get that ear to the ground and really hear from their customers in the ways that are going to be most insightful in fine tuning their brand?
Angela Lee
As companies get larger, it's natural for founders to get further away from the customer. And the more that you can really try to stay close to the customer, whether that's by going to events, you know, even literally. Like if you're doing a food product a couple times, being the one who's delivering samples at Whole Foods can be really useful to see how people interact with the product. And then, I know this is a boring tip, but people are really bad at doing customer research surveys and they ask incredibly leading questions. Right? So if you ask the question, do you think Sprite is refreshing? People are probably going to say, yeah, I Think Sprite is refreshing. But if you instead ask the question, use three adjectives to describe Sprite, you're going to get a much more honest, authentic, customer driven answer. And the closer you can get to that, the better that you will understand your customer.
Sarah Lynch
Looking forward to 2026 and beyond. I'm interested if there are any insights you would give founders, Angela, about what they should be keeping an eye on as far as evolving consumer habits. This moving forward into the future.
Angela Lee
We often think about consumers in channels. This is how I communicate to them over direct email. This is how I communicate them to them over Instagram. And oftentimes those rules are siled in an organization. And the more you truly I know omnichannel is a term that was coined maybe 20 years ago and I think it needs to come back and really understand what does that holistic customer experience look like and what does your brand look like from all angles.
Sarah Lynch
Thank you so much again for being here with us today, Angela.
Angela Lee
Thank you so much for having me
Sarah Lynch
back to you, Mike.
Mike Hoffman
And one of the goals of this show is to connect our audience with founders like you. So now it's the time in the program where we get questions from our viewers for your next move. And so the first audience question is this. How do you determine whether a consumer habit is just a fad or something that's more of a long term trend? Manish, let's start with you.
Manish Chandra
I think if it pertains to something that consumer needs at the very core, it is likely to last. If it's something that's very temporal or just a variation on something, it's likely to be a fad.
Joy Mangano
Well, I don't work with trends. I love trends, I buy trends. But we are focused on our mission with products that are sustainable and will impact life for very long term. So non toxic cleaners, for instance.
Mike Hoffman
Next question from a viewer is when you think about consumer data, whether it's data that's generated within your companies or data that you get from another source, what data do you keep an eye on? What do you look at and how does that inform you how you operate? Joy, let's start with you.
Joy Mangano
Well, critical. So for us it is something that we are constantly looking, especially when you're creating product. Right. Because you're hearing what's missing, what I don't like and what I want to happen. And it guides us many times.
Mike Hoffman
Amazing. And Manish, what research do you look at or data?
Manish Chandra
So with data, I would say there's two ways to think about data. One is Volume, which is sort of how we always think about data. You know, how many things are selling or sort of what is the demographic of adapting. But the other way to think of data is ratios. And ratios actually are much more sustainable and can be looked at when you have small amounts of data or large amounts of data. So for example, one of the everlasting facts of Poshmark has been that our average spend time of a user on a daily basis has been north of 20 minutes. Wow. That's a very useful metric because it's the time spent per user and that's a core metric to keep an eye on.
Mike Hoffman
Our next your question is this. How do you deal with tough customer feedback, one star review, negative reviews on social media? Do you look at them and how does your company address them?
Joy Mangano
That is critical in product design. And we literally will change something in the future because of that, that we live, breathe and eat those five star reviews, hopefully, right or not. So and that's your feedback. That's your feedback of if you're doing it correctly and if you need to change something great.
Mike Hoffman
Manish, how do you deal with complaints?
Manish Chandra
Yeah, I mean, I think you have to engage with all of the feedback. In fact, the bad feedback, the one star feedback is super critical to the evolution of the product. I always say that hate is a form of love. Apathy is what you don't want to have. You don't want to have silence. If people are talking, that's a good thing.
Mike Hoffman
Great. And so for our final viewer question, you are founders, but you are also consumers too. How do you find your own personal habits changing and what does that tell you about sort of the nature of nature of the business and the economy right now?
Joy Mangano
I can answer that because I think shopping as a sport and so it's like laying in bed. If I can't sleep, I'm just like, you know, searching and oh, I love that I'm going to get that purchasing anything now there is a whole vista of information that the decision becomes smarter. And that's why we have the smarter consumer, because they can really get themselves into many areas to make that decision a right one for themselves. And I think that's all good.
Mike Hoffman
That's great. That's great. Manish, what about you?
Manish Chandra
For me, I think it's AI. In Barcelona, I walked into an ice cream shop, took a picture of the ice cream shop and asked for the two flavors I should order. And that kind of speed is something I think will be part of the things.
Joy Mangano
Oh, you got my answer.
Manish Chandra
And rumors it's powerful. You know, it's like really, really powerful from that perspective. So I think we have to all adapt to it. But I'm kind of excited about where the world is going there.
Mike Hoffman
Joy Mangana, CEO of Cleanbox, and Manish Chandra, the founder and board member of Poshmark, thanks so much for being here today. On YOUR NEXT move.
Joy Mangano
Thank you.
Manish Chandra
Thank you.
Mike Hoffman
And thank you for watching. We hope today's conversation shared some insights into trends that matter to your business. Join us next time where we'll explore industry disruptors, category defining brands and the strategies you need to make your next move. I'm Mike Hoffman, Aeron chief of Inc. Thanks for watching. And we'll see you next time on YOUR NEXT move.
Episode: Navigating Consumer Habits—Beyond Trends
Host: Mike Hoffman (Editor-in-Chief, Inc.)
Guests:
This episode explores how innovative business leaders navigate fast-changing consumer habits, spot real trends versus fads, and build authentic, lasting brands. Joy Mangano (famed inventor, now co-founder of Clean Boss) and Manish Chandra (founder of Poshmark) share practical wisdom on reinventing staples, fostering community, embracing authenticity, responding to feedback, and adapting to major technology shifts like AI and mobile.
Joy Mangano describes her lifelong philosophy of inventing by being the "ultimate consumer":
“Everything I’ve done...comes from my life and innovation, looking at things and saying how can we make them better? For I am the consumer, I love the consumer and that’s how I function in business.” (02:47)
She highlights how transformative products (e.g., the Miracle Mop, velvety hangers) arose by identifying unseen needs.
Manish Chandra shares Poshmark's origin story—noting the leap of faith in building for iPhone in 2011 and creating social behaviors ("sharing," "greeter" programs, local meetups, Poshfest) to foster trust and connection:
“Part of the thing of developing community is to follow the community where it goes and foster it...We welcomed every single user...launched a greeter program...created a national conference called Poshfest. A lot of that community building was very hands-on in the early days.” (07:26-08:51)
Both guests stress continual feedback loops:
“Even though we try to think ahead, you still have to take it one step at a time...If you’re not listening to that consumer, if you don't respond to it, you miss so much.” (09:03)
“You have to learn to love to serve someone...You sort of listen to X, you listen to Y, and from there may come a Z...You're sort of leading, listening, leading, responding...” (10:16) He cites launching live streaming (2022) as a significant leap that paid off despite initial skepticism.
Manish details a failed 2024 pricing model experiment on Poshmark that required public acknowledgment and rollback:
"We implemented a new fee model...very quickly it turned out it was the wrong model...I had to go up, apologize to the community and pull back that fee structure.” (13:33)
He notes the interconnectedness (“dependencies”) of community marketplaces.
Joy emphasizes relentless focus on value:
“You can build something that’s every feature and benefit wonderful, and what is the cost to the consumer?” (14:29)
Both founders capitalized on much larger societal trends (home shopping, mobile/social commerce):
“I gave up my laptop and lived my entire life on an iPhone for six months…” (30:13, 32:41)
They recall hurdles with technology, distribution, regulations, and the need for continual adaptation and deep empathy for the modern consumer journey.
“If you make a mistake, it could be a big mistake. And you sort of go in and say it was a mistake and have the courage to pull back.” (13:33)
“Authenticity...is on my pillow probably...If you are not passionate and authentic about what you do...” (19:51)
“I was the ultimate consumer. If you truly don’t care about that consumer, they know it.” (02:47, 09:03)
“Hate is a form of love. Apathy is what you don’t want to have. You don’t want to have silence. If people are talking, that's a good thing.” (60:08)
This episode offers a rich, candid look into how visionary entrepreneurs like Joy Mangano and Manish Chandra shape—rather than chase—consumer behavior. The keys: deep empathy for customers, loving the problem, authenticity, willingness to iterate (and to admit mistakes publicly), embracing new platforms and technologies, and investing in community and culture. Their stories illustrate that sustainable brands aren't built solely on trends—they’re built on relationships, continual learning, and honest dialogue.