Podcast Summary:

Your Next Move – “The New Rules of Forecasting”
Podcast: Your Next Move (Inc. Magazine & Capital One Business)
Date: December 16, 2025
Host: Mike Hoffman (Editor-in-Chief, Inc.)
Guests:

• Kim Vaccarella, Founder & CEO, Bog Bag
• Rachel Liverman, Founder & CEO, Globar
• Alex Shad, Senior Director, Tech Finance, Capital One

Episode Overview

This episode delves into how modern entrepreneurs approach forecasting—balancing data, intuition, and organizational growth to navigate uncertainty. Host Mike Hoffman is joined by two founders from different sectors: Kim Vaccarella, who scaled Bog Bag from a beach bag idea to a $100M enterprise, and Rachel Liverman, who built Globar into the world’s largest facial membership business post-pandemic. The episode also features forecasting insights from Capital One’s Alex Shad. Together, they explore new challenges in forecasting amid rapid change, what metrics matter, how investors shape the process, and the critical role of leadership ambition.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins & Growth of the Businesses (01:00–01:59)

• Bog Bag: Founded in 2008; products made from EVA, driven by the founder’s personal needs.
  “It’s just big and spacious and waterproof and washable and durable … all those things I needed when I was looking for the beach bag of my dreams.” (Kim, 01:07)
  • Hit $100M in sales last year, expanded staff from 5 to now “over” [implied: many more].
• Globar: Launched in 2019 (right before COVID) as a membership facial business, now with locations from D.C. to Boston. “Our focus is on customized results … helping you feel more confident in your skin.” (Rachel, 01:37)

2. How Founders Approached Forecasting (02:16–03:46)

• Early forecasting was reactive—"let’s get through tomorrow." It matured as demand grew and team expanded.
• Kim (Bog Bag):
  • COVID surge created a two-year backlog:
    “That was the first look into forecasting: how am I going to meet all this demand and still have product to continue to grow the business?” (Kim, 02:20)
  • Introduced demand planners and formalized forecasting in 2024.
  • Distinction between evergreen “core product” and limited editions—balancing stock of each is a juggling act.

3. Who Owns Forecasting? Intuition vs. Data (03:46–05:36)

• Rachel (Globar):
  • Finance teams manage models, but intuition and founder experience remain central. “Intuition is really your forecast for a long part of the business. For me, almost to this day, we still use my intuition. It’s like an art and a science ... numbers are just numbers without context.” (Rachel, 03:54)
  • Inputs from leadership and market “pulse check” are crucial.
• Kim (Bog Bag):
  • Forecasting is cross-team: COO oversees, input from planning, wholesale, D2C teams.
  • Founder still makes final calls when forecasts seem too conservative. “I think you’re missing the mark on this … you did not order enough of this, and you’re going to fly through it. And that has happened.” (Kim, 05:27)

4. Competitors vs. Core Metrics (05:36–06:44)

• Rachel:
  • Avoids fixating on competitors:
    “I barely look at competitors … I think it’s distracting. It gets you nervous—compare and despair.” (Rachel, 05:40)
  • Focuses on Net Promoter Score (NPS), macroeconomic trends; maintains three forecast cases—base, stretch, downside.
• Adjust approach depending on consumer sentiment.

5. Forecasting with Investors (06:44–08:50)

• Rachel:
  • Welcomed help from private equity:
    “When you bring on private equity … I didn’t have systems. So it’s been really fun … if I don’t know something, my private equity partners have been there for me to help me figure that out.” (Rachel, 06:53)
• Kim:
  • Fashion-focused private investors: they emphasize prioritizing core products and SKU rationalization. “They taught me about forecasting, that it’s the most important thing … and we have so many SKUs … how do we maximize the top 80% of our sales?” (Kim, 07:51)

6. Forecasting’s Impact on Marketing & Operations (08:50–10:33)

• Kim:
  • Always-on marketing for core products; creative pushes for limited editions.
• Rachel:
  • Supply forecasting involves staffing (“human supply”), not just products. “Marketing and operations are in lockstep every day, all day … once we did nail it ... the business just started to take off.” (Rachel, 09:22)

7. Balancing Ambition, Intuition, and Conservative Forecasts (10:33–12:29)

• Rachel:
  • Leaders must set high, even audacious, targets:
    “It’s my responsibility to lead with aggressive goals and empower everyone to say … you’re underestimating what this business can do. We can 10x this, no problem.” (Rachel, 10:47)
• Kim:
  • Agrees: Set goals higher than conventional targets to inspire growth. “If the goal is set for, let’s say it’s $150 million, I’m like, it’s $170 million! There’s no reason you can’t get to $170.” (Kim, 11:41)

8. Top Line vs. Profitability & Stage-Driven Focus (12:29–15:29)

• Kim:
  • Initially fixated on sales; with partners, learned EBITDA is crucial for exits and investor relations. “I hate the word EBITDA with a passion … [but] if your EBITDA’s not there, it’s just not there … it’s going to rely on that number.” (Kim, 12:34)
• Rachel:
  • Early stage: drive awareness (top line), accept weaker margins.
  • Later stage: shift to profitability focus, especially with outside capital. “Even if I spend a little bit more on them and my margin on them is a little bit lower, at least they’re talking about Globar out there.” (Rachel, 13:34)

9. Daily & Weekly Key Metrics (15:29–17:59)

• Both CEOs use daily dashboards (sent at 8am) to monitor:
  • Revenue (yesterday, weekly)
  • Membership sales (Globar)
  • Average Order Value (AOV), churn, sell-through rates
  • Unexpected events (tariffs, shortages) prompt immediate action
• Kim:
  • Focus on creating incremental sales and studying consumer behavior for product development. “The good thing for us is our Bog Bag customer is a collector. So design has been a really big element in there too, right. How do we keep it fresh but different enough that we get the emojis where they say, ‘take my money.’” (Kim, 17:59)

10. Next Moves: Looking Ahead (18:05–18:55)

• Globar (Rachel):
  • Expanding product lines, deeper into the CPG (consumer packaged goods) space, more U.S. locations.
• Bog Bag (Kim):
  • “World domination”—international growth, innovation, and expanding beyond beach use.

Expert Advice Segment with Alex Shad (Capital One)

(20:19–22:28)

• Key Trends for Businesses to Watch:
  • Customer buying behaviors (preferences for subscriptions, bundles, payment types)
  • Category shifts, social/cultural/environmental changes
• Finding Reliable Trend Data:
  • Free/affordable sources: Google Trends, industry publications, social media tools, trend forecasting sites (e.g., Exploding Topics, Trend Hunter), customer surveys/reviews.
• Identifying Trends vs. Fads:
  • Look for alignment with customer values, longitudinal growth, direct customer inquiry, and test with low-risk pilots.
• Future-Proofing Products:
  • Make trend-watching habitual, act only on brand-aligned trends, keep business models flexible, and use customer feedback.

Viewers’ Questions: Founder Q&A

(23:12–25:42)

• How often do you communicate forecasts to your team?
  • Rachel: Only when a change in strategy/process is required. “Usually there’s no need to get everyone distracted by a reforecast …” (Rachel, 23:12)
  • Kim: Bi-weekly to monthly—more often this year due to rapid changes. “We’re really talking about it probably every two weeks.” (Kim, 23:26)
• Signs forecasting models need adjustment?
  • Rachel: >10% deviation triggers review. “If it gets over 10% … I like to say to my finance team, let’s relook at it.” (Rachel, 23:45)
  • Kim: Constantly monitoring sell-through informs adjustments. “What are we selling through? What’s happening today and that’s being looked at on a regular basis …” (Kim, 24:06)
• Identifying internal vs. external factors?
  • Rachel: Trial and error/testing.
  • Kim: Internals are controllable; externals (tariffs, etc.) need to be balanced. “Those external factors … we can’t really control. So how do we even them up?” (Kim, 24:45)
• Best way to involve teams in forecasts?
  • Rachel: Transparency, explaining “the why,” inviting solutions. “People love to be involved in a solution. Good, bad, ugly.” (Rachel, 25:17)
  • Kim: Frequent team updates, collaborative problem-solving.

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Forecasting Philosophy:
  “Intuition is really your forecast for a long part of the business … an art and a science.” —Rachel, 03:54
• On Growth Mindset:
  “If the goal is set for $150 million, I’m like, it’s $170 million! There’s no reason you can’t get to $170.” —Kim, 11:41
• On Early-Stage Focus:
  “For those first four, five years of my business, I was like, just get people through the door, we’ll figure out profitability later.” —Rachel, 13:34
• On External Shocks:
  “There’s like a black swan event like every five minutes.” —Mike, 02:48

Timestamps: Segment Highlights

• [01:00] — Introduction to Bog Bag and Globar
• [02:16] — When forecasting became a discipline
• [03:52] — Who “owns” forecasting, the role of intuition
• [05:36] — Benchmarking competitors vs. inward focus
• [06:44] — Forecasting & the role of investors
• [08:50] — Inventory management and marketing
• [10:33] — Balancing ambition/intuition with data
• [12:29] — Top line revenue vs. profitability
• [15:34] — Daily/weekly data review
• [18:05] — Future plans: what’s next
• [20:19] — Expert segment: trends & data (Alex Shad, Capital One)
• [23:12] — Audience Q&A: frequency, signals, team engagement

Tone & Takeaways

The discussion combines candor and optimism: both CEOs emphasize the messy realities of fast growth and unpredictable cycles (“black swan every five minutes”), yet advocate for visionary, ambitious leadership and adaptation. The “new rules” of forecasting are flexible, founder-driven, team-inclusive, and always evolving—as much about asking the right questions as finding definitive answers.