The $10 Billion Tech Company that Happens to Sell Clothes

0:00 I've never applied for a job that I've had. How can someone listening set up their career where job opportunities come to them? There's a few different things people can do immediately. So, one is what advice would you give somebody at this age for career, for life? What did you want to hear?

0:14 Oh, I just wish that I had had someone just a few steps ahead of me to just like tell me the truth.

0:20 Fashion and Founders is your resource for breaking into fashion, leveling up your career, and building a breakthrough business. So let's get into this week's episode. Hello, and welcome back to Fashion and Founders Podcast. My name is Victoria Smith, and this week I'm joined by Dakota K. Isaacs, head of brand strategy and narrative at Quints.

0:38 Dakota has a fascinating career path. And I think one of the most valuable parts of this episode, Dakota has not applied for the jobs she has held. They came to her. So how do you become someone where opportunities literally come to you? Keep listening to find out what she says. And then, of course, we get into Quince, which is a very interesting example of fashion tech.

1:01 They reached a $10.1 billion evaluation, disrupting many industries. And we address a lot of the questions people have about the brand from dupes, the middleman, their caviar. I think you guys will really like this episode. And if you could please leave the podcast a rating or review and follow or subscribe to the show wherever you listen, it really helps the podcast grow and continue to get incredible guests like Dakota.

1:26 So let's get into the episode. Hi, Dakota. Hi. I am so excited to have you on the podcast. We met at the Fashionology Summit. I was trying to think, I was like, when did we meet? Yeah. Because I now see you everywhere. Oh, amazing. But I remember somebody was like, oh my gosh, you have to talk to Dakota.

1:44 She's the chief storytelling officer at Quince. And I was like, wow, what a title. And I asked you about that. And you're like, so not quite. I was flattered. Not quite. Exactly. So what do you do at Quince?

1:57 Sure. So that is a very nice, a very flattering idea. But you know, my role is head of brand strategy and narrative, which it is funny because to the point of making titles up, I mean, all of the titles and roles that I've had in my entire career have kind of been these funny things that don't really make a lot of sense.

2:14 I think at one point my title was director of Desium USA. I mean, it was just like of the country, right? So I think I've always had these like kind of funny titles. But with this one particularly, what we thought about was okay, what am I actually doing? And I think there's been such this search for storytelling, et cetera.

2:33 But to me, I actually think it's bigger than just a story. It's the entire narrative because it's, you know, how does it touch everything that we do that a consumer experiences? So that was kind of the idea. I mean, I'm who knows? I'm sure it'll change again. But, you know, I think something that's like an encouraging thing for people everywhere is like go broad with your title while you can.

2:54 And then you can figure out what are kind of your superpowers and lean into those things. But that was kind of the idea.

2:59 Yeah. I'd love to start with before Quince. You actually worked in Beauty at Decium, which was the parent company of the ordinary and many other brands. How did you land there? What was that experience like?

3:12 I mean, I, you know, I was, let's think, 24. And kind of a fact, which I think you've said in and I saw in your notes, was that, you know, I've never applied for a job that I've had. And I think that, you know, I was 24. And I have to give a shout out to Stephanie Salzman from Fashionista, who had sent me an email from the team in the UK, because the ordinary at the time, Desium was based in Toronto, it still is.

3:38 And then they had some team members in the UK. And, you know, she forwarded me an email from one of them talking about wanting to start up the US business. And she she basically, bless her heart, she said to me, like, you need to take this interview. This brand is going to explode. Like basically, you're an idiot if you don't have this conversation with them.

3:54 Meanwhile, I was like, Well, I'm gonna go work at Sephora. You know, I wanted, you know, traditional big beauty. I had, you know, when I was younger, I had a quote from Estee Lauder framed on the wall of my sorori house. Like, I really had always wanted to be in like big beauty. And so had a 15-minute or so Skype, it was Skype at the time call with the co-founder of Desi of Nicola Kilner.

4:16 And I always say, like, those 15 minutes changed my whole life. And it was just an instantaneous, I mean, my whole family and friends were like, We've never, what is this tiny? Because it was just des people didn't know. I mean, the ordinary hadn't launched in the US. It was just what is, you know, you're going to go to what?

4:30 You're it's a little Canadian company. What is this? And so I mean, best biggest risk at the time, but best decision I ever made.

4:38 What made you feel ready to take that risk at 24 years old? Because that's usually when people play it really safe. Yeah.

4:44 I mean, so it's interesting. I had come from, I was also the first employee at a PR agency right before this happened. So something about me is I did 12 internships in undergrad, which sounds really aggressive. And I will say, like, nobody has to do that. You do not need 12 internships. But I do think what I learned a lot was mostly what I didn't like.

5:04 And I think that's a really important skill for anyone to develop. Like, who doesn't? There's so many things that of course we all like, right? But figuring out what you don't like, I truly believe is more important than what you do. And so that experience gave me so much opportunity to figure out, okay, I don't like this, I don't like this, I don't like this.

5:22 I mean, I had done everything from, you know, traditional journalism and magazines, and I had seen kind of TV studios, and I'd really explored kind of the whole gamut. Again, kind of the trend line for me is I got a call from someone I had interned with at Fashion Week in the spring before that had basically said to me, like, hey, I'm starting a PR agency.

5:40 Would you want to come when you move to New York? And again, so flattering that they he had even remembered me and had kind of given me my first shot. But I think that I learned very quickly, like my tolerance for risk is extremely high because I believed really deeply in this fundamental principle of like fail fast.

5:57 Like you are going to fail. This is kind of the one thing we all know will happen at some point. And so it's like the speed, it's this bounce back rate. And so I think, I mean, I had nothing to lose. And I was, you know, just excited to have a job on like most of my friends might, you know. I think it was like March of my senior year, knowing I had a job a few months later, which is such a privilege.

6:18 I appreciate. But to answer your question, I think just this understanding of I wasn't afraid. And so it just kept allowing me, you know, I'd taken the risk once. And it's kind of like it's like neuroplasticity, right? You teach your brain, okay, this is safe for me to take it. It might be scary, but it will pay off.

6:34 And then I just did it. So when I went to Destiny, it was the same thing of just this, okay, I'm gonna make this scary jump. And if it doesn't work out, like I trust myself to figure it out if it doesn't.

6:44 Wow, 12 internships and undergrads, crazy. That's three a year.

6:47 So basically I doubled up. I feel like this is kind of the trick. So I am from Kentucky originally. I went to school in South Carolina at the College of Charleston, and which is just have you been to Charleston? No. It's just like the most magical. I just feel like everybody needs to go magical, most magical place.

7:01 I'm on actually their communications department now on the on their board and help to kind of with curriculum and students, and you know, it's been such a rewarding experience. But as part of it, I mean, there weren't media, big media internships in Charleston. There wasn't PR internships or marketing or these types.

7:17 There were some of these things, but like not to the level that I wanted to go. And so I would come up to New York in the summers and I would double up. And I would do one internship for like Monday, Friday, and then the other Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And it just, again, it these are things that like people don't tell you you can do.

7:34 Something about me is that I kind of like to break some rules. More like, not like don't pay your taxes, but rules about what we are told is normal or like told this is the way it has to be. And so I think for me it was this well, how can I get more experience? How can I learn more? And so it was just structuring it to be in that environment.

7:56 So that's how I just kept getting more. And then I would, you know, be asked to come back for fashion week and intern. For the record, I was like paying my own flights, sleeping on couches. I mean, I had to pay for the credit to get the internship. So, like this was no, you know, now, and of course, all of interns, you know, at Descame when we pay interns, I was like, man, what I would give, right?

8:17 And so I think, you know, it was it was really hard, but the most valuable thing I ever did for sure.

8:23 And I think so good for people starting out to hear and see that you're in this director, leadership, decision maker role at a $10 billion company now, but you started with these internships.

8:34 So yeah, I mean, you know, I think there's something interesting, right? Of like a lot of people have said to me, Oh, like, I don't know, I don't like, I don't think I could do or like how they can't really see the how. And I keep saying to them, like, a few things. One, break it down into tiny pieces.

8:49 And two, I'm not special. And when I say that, people are like, I'm like, no, I have plenty of confidence. It's not about self-esteem. It's saying that I promise you, if I can figure this out, like I am a girl from Kentucky, if I from a small town too. If I can figure this out, anybody can. And so I think it's just, you know, you can't hit a target, you can't see.

9:08 So put the thing out, put what you want, and then, you know, do the building blocks to get there. And I think especially people in college right now and just early 20s in general, mid-20s, people want to help you. I think that's we're so afraid. I mean, if there's a Virgo watching, you will appreciate this.

9:24 But like, like myself, you don't want to ask for help a lot of the times. You kind of want to just do things on your own. And I promise, like, people really want to help you, especially young women. Like, this is a really, I mean, it's a big passion of mine. So this is the one thing I say to people like, people want to help you.

9:37 Yeah. Okay, going back to Dessia. I love all this start. Like, I always like to start with people's start because I think it puts it into perspective of where the conversation will go. What was it like working at a startup not knowing if it's going to succeed? Because you we didn't know Estee Lauder was gonna come in, which spoiler, oops, but like, what was it like not kind of not knowing the stability of your company?

10:02 It's so funny you say it this way because it sounds so obvious, right? When you're saying it, you're like, what was it like being like, hi, you're making like no money? Are you really sure? You just want to like tie yourself to this big idea. But I will say, I drank the Kool-Aid. I drank the Quince Kool-Aid.

10:18 I mean, this is my energy, is my superpower. Like, I deeply believe in the work and the and the promise of what these brands and businesses stand for. And so for me, I just I believed in the mission of, you know, it was radical transparency. And that was what, you know, especially with the ordinary is what the focus was.

10:38 And so I think I loved it. And so it kind of didn't matter whether or not it was gonna work or not. And I know it sounds silly now, but I just knew it would. Like I just believed so much in what we were doing and the disruption. And I actually kind of loved when people would tell us no, you know, the industry kind of looking at us and being like, uh, I mean, we were not loved initially by the industry.

11:00 Really? Yeah. I mean, maybe by consumers, consumers 100%. I actually think a lot of the editors originally, because they really understood, right? But at least in the US and in my remit, no, I mean, other brands, absolutely not. And so again, it's like this challenger mindset. I have a little bit of this like challenger mindset, and I also just believe in like giving people access and letting them decide, right?

11:26 I am not a marketing person by trade. I mean, it's funny now. I kind of would consider myself more of a generalist, if anything, because you know, I would open stores, I would hire a team. I think I did PR for like two days, and then it was like, okay, we need to hire a team. And I was like, okay, I've never hired anyone before.

11:44 And then it was like, okay, we need to open retail stores. And I was like, never done that either. I worked at an ice cream store in high school. Like, okay, I can figure this out. But so it's just, it's that mindset of like, I can figure it out. Yeah. And I think because I was at that age too, of like, I had nothing to lose, right?

12:00 It's not like I had this big salary. Like, what was I, what was I gonna lose? I had like a dream and a lot of ambition and, you know, probably a a lot of delusion and optimism, which is luckily like still things I have. I always describe myself as a Pollyanna, which I don't know if you know this term.

12:16 I think of in Sex in the City when they say she's like the Park Avenue Pollyanna. So good.

12:22 A dream. I mean, you know, I think it's just this. I do have a little bit of delusional optimism. I'll also say, like, I nearly died right when I turned 30. I was in the hospital. I had a really scary experience. I had been on a business trip opening Sephora, Mexico for the ordinary and spent five days on a bathroom floor.

12:37 And, you know, it really changes your relationship with just your life and how you spend your time and what's important to you. And so I think that, you know, I've always been quite high-energy, delusional optimism, but it just kind of furthered that in me for sure. And so, anyway, I know I deviated way away from probably your original question, but at the time, what my role was when I started in the business, which was 2017 or so.

13:02 I mean, I was very fresh out of school. It was just saying yes to everything. I did everything. And so why I stayed, despite having no idea if it was gonna work or not. And I will say, like, I stayed during a crisis of the brand. I read about that, yeah. Right. So I right, that's a very nice way to put that.

13:21 Um, so we actually made a film, a documentary about it that I was the executive producer on that actually won at Driveca last year that tells that told the story, which was a really it was a privilege to be had to be asked to participate in and to be able to do that. But you know, as part of it, I mean, I I was publicly fired on the cut.

13:37 That's a really bizarre thing for someone at 25 to read about. Oh God, you were 25. And obviously it broke my heart. Yeah. I mean, I love you, I told just told you how much I loved the business and I believed in the mission, and I was so my personality was so tied into it. I mean, I really, my friends were like, it was just all this, and that was really hard.

13:59 But again, like kind of what you're hearing almost this theme from me is like I have had difficult things happen, and all it does is be like, all right, get knocked down nine times, get up 10. And then you said the ordinary is the 11th. The ordinary was the 11th brand. So I think I was saying to you before, but like when people tell you, you know, stop at 10, or like, okay, if you haven't figured it out by now, like hang your no.

14:20 But I think it's it's such good, like just life advice for try one more time. And so there were plenty of brands before the ordinary and they were all successful in their own right and kind of the scale and size of the time. But I mean, I'll never forget the WBD story that we had worked on announcing the Ordinary's launch in the US.

14:38 And, you know, it's framed in my apartment now. And a friend of mine, Allison Collins, who was over at WWE for a long time, wrote that story. And I saw her the other day. And it's just, it's really nice to have these, you know, kind of like lifelong, career-long relationships now with people that are like, you know, she was saying to my now CEO, she was like, Oh, Dakota and I were in the trenches.

14:57 Like, you know, you go through, I think that's what's really exciting about this industry at large, is like, especially fashion, beauty, any kind of any of it. You make friends with like the assistants, the associates, like when you're starting. And these are the people that you just see throughout your entire career.

15:10 And I think it's also why, you know, reputation is so critical. Totally. How you treat someone, of course, but but these are the people that that you're meeting at 22, 23, 24. They're gonna be the decision makers at 32, 33, 34, beyond, beyond, beyond. And so yeah, I think be good. Yeah, and people remember how you treated them.

15:31 Absolutely. And I think I learned a lot about, as I said to you before, about what I did not like uh in internships. I mean, I've been I was screamed at for the way I organized magazines one time because they were not. Oh, I had done them a girlfriend of mine, the two of us were organizing magazines and we were interns, and we had organized them in alphabetical order because that's what we thought we were supposed to do, and then we got screamed at because they were not by issue date, which I which could sure.

15:56 I'm like, oh, okay, I can understand that now, but you know, just the way, and I remember being like, I really hated how that person had made me feel because it was so unkind and it was just so over the top of how you need to get a point across. And so a lot of those bad experiences taught me how I want to be with my teams and interns, et cetera.

16:21 I mean, my first fashion internship, I was 19 and I walked into the agency and I was like, because I'd been told, you know, all millennials just like think they are gonna be at the top of the ladder tomorrow and da-da-da-da-da. And so I'd kind of been told, like, you know, you go in and you tell them they'll you'll do anything.

16:40 So I went into this interview and I said, I'll sweep your floors, I'll take up the trash. Like, I mean, I really like put my heart and soul on this table after I had saved up every dollar I had to fly to New York to like ask someone to basically take their trash out. And you know, I remember her laughing at me being like, it's okay, we have people to do these things.

16:57 But it was just, I think that kind of like, I'm not above anything, I'll work hard, and that's still how I am now. Like I was at the peninsula where I was doing some press appointments, and I am opening the boxes, packing the Mac up, setting it to FedEx. I mean, I am at a startup, which again is the theme of my career startups.

17:16 But anyway, I think it's kind of to your point. It's like people remember. And I remember every single person who treated me exceptionally well, and they're they're mentors of mine. And I also remember every person that did not. And sometimes I see them now out in the world at conferences and certain things.

17:35 And you know, it's but again, all you can do is like be gracious and you know, yeah, smile.

17:40 No, I was with someone yesterday who probably had like over a hundred thousand followers when I asked them to come on the podcast, and I had like 5,000 followers, and she was so nice, said yes, whatever. Now I've grown so much, and she still like is treating me the exact same way. And I'm like, I remember the people who came back around when I hit a certain follower count, and I'm like, I can't believe it matters that much to people and the way that they'll respect the opportunity, or just like it's it's interesting.

18:08 Well, it's sad.

18:09 I mean, it's really sad, right? Because it's like, wait, I'm the same person, right? That you then you were then, and like obviously you've had tremendous success, but you're still the same person that you were then. And I think it's one thing I've well, actually, no, I'm I'm trying to justify it. And I actually can't justify it.

18:25 Like, I'm gonna be honest, I can't justify that behavior. No, I mean, I've had my versions of those experiences where I've had people that like I was dying to even get them to respond to an email before, and now they're coming to me.

18:38 Yeah.

18:39 And, you know, you you cheekily kind of like smile when you get it, and then you're like, okay, you know, now back to work because this is not about me, this is about the business, and this is about something bigger. But yeah, I can imagine for you it's an it's it's interesting.

18:51 Yeah, it's funny. Okay, I could talk about your career like all day because I think you have so many stories. One of the biggest misconceptions I've heard about building a fashion brand is that going global just means turning on international shipping. Your customers can become global incredibly quickly.

19:07 Someone might discover you on TikTok in London, someone else might find you on Instagram who lives in Paris, and suddenly you're getting orders from countries you never actually plan to launch in. And behind the scenes, selling globally gets complicated very quickly. You're dealing with international shipping, duties, taxes, customs, compliance, different pricing expectations, and somehow still need to deliver a seamless customer experience.

19:32 This is another reason I've become so interested in what swap is building. Swap Global essentially handles the infrastructure behind selling internationally. One of the biggest pieces is something called total landed cost. Instead of your customer ordering something and then discovering an unexpected customs bill when it arrives in their country because no one wants that, swap calculates the duties, taxes, and shipping up front so they know what they're actually paying at checkout.

19:57 And at a time when tariffs and international trade rules seem to be changing constantly, swap is also keeping track of those changes and helping brands stay compliant rather than requiring your team to become an international trade expert overnight. The brand can still remain the merchant of record. You keep control of your checkout, your customer data, and your customer relationship.

20:17 And this is what good fashion technology should do. Your customer doesn't need to know about the complicated infrastructure happening behind the scenes. They should just be able to discover something they love, buy it, and have a great experience, whether they're in New York, London, Paris, or anywhere else in the world.

20:33 So if you're building a fashion brand and you're starting to see international demand, or you're already selling globally, but the operational side has become a headache, swap global is definitely something I would look into. I feel like we have to get into Quinn's. I am so fascinated by this company because it's technically a tech company that sells clothes.

20:54 And I think everyone's first reaction to it is like, I think they have really good cashmere, but like, how is this happening? And they don't really get it. They order something, they like it, and there it there's like this caution to it almost. And then people drink the Kool-Aid, whatever. How does this actually work?

21:11 What is the origin story? Yeah. How are the prices real and happening?

21:16 I love all these questions. Yeah, there's a lot. No, and and you know what? I'll what I'll say is I was a consumer first, which is really important. I was a consumer of this brand for a long time. I actually remember sitting in my Soho office at the ordinary with my team, and this was maybe 2019, right when Quince was launching.

21:34 Yeah. And I remember seeing the cashmere sweater and being like, it's the ordinary for clothes. Like it was it was just this immediate, instantaneous, like the way that the pricing was explained, the transparency being really, I mean, for me, it was the ingredients being shown on the product pages, right?

21:52 Of the 100% grade A cashmere, right? All of these things so visible. So I was a very early Queen's consumer. The brand launched in. January 2019 with a $50 cashmere sweater that is still $50 today, despite being on its seventh version, which I think is really important. And I think we can kind of get into it, but I want to answer you on the origin story, which I think is just so interesting.

22:13 And so I brought you this is for context, these towels, more so to feel. And I know you're wearing your quince sweater, but like these are the so feel this just like the weight. Okay. And I'm telling you, I was like staying in a nice hotel last night, and these are a panther. Um anyway, I digress. But point being that the business started in 2019.

22:35 So we have three co-founders. Two of them are a married couple. And so they, as many of us do, will go on like one very nice vacation a year. And as part of that, they had these five nights where they were sleeping on amazing bedding, had amazing towels. And I think I am someone that does this, so I can really appreciate it.

22:53 They were flipping over the tags. They really wanted to own these items at home. What they then figured out was okay, that towel cost $80 to buy. That's really expensive for a single towel, right? But it was so nice and they wanted, et cetera. They ended up tracing the origin back, finding the manufacturer.

23:10 Do you want to know how much the towel costs to make? I do want to know. $7. And so that's a pretty big gap. Yeah. It is sold for $80. It costs them $7 to make. How is that possible? Right? It's similar to a lot of questions at the ordinary being like, why are we paying this way? What is it that we're paying for?

23:29 Why is it that only for a certain number of days a year I really get access to like really incredible things? And so that's the origin of the business. Starting to say, okay, how can we all get access to nice things every day? And again, it's funny because it sounds so simple. Yeah. Right. But it's really hard to do.

23:46 Because here's the thing we know a lot about really expensive brands and really high quality, right? So high quality, high price makes sense. Low quality, low price also makes sense. The hardest thing to do is high quality at a low price, right? Like when we start thinking about it, who does that really well?

24:06 And so there you have Quince, kind of as this answer. But to your point about the technology, something that's interesting, and I know you mentioned the valuation. That valuation is not a fashion valuation. It's not a retail valuation. Like that is a tech valuation. And I appreciate that people will say, okay, but are you just like selling cash mirror but saying you're a tech brand?

24:27 No. Two out of the three co-founders are engineers. About 300% of our entire team, which is just now crossing a thousand, are engineers. And so someone yesterday recently said to me, They're like, okay, but what do the engineers do? Right. Like, especially for someone that comes from more of like a marketing or kind of a fashion back, you're like, okay, like I understand the word engineer, but like, what do you actually do?

24:49 What they do is they looked at the entire retail model and they figured out, okay, there's a lot of inefficiency. Because when I told you kind of that like $80 versus the seven, like this huge gap, that gap is really wasteful. And the gap comes from a lot of guessing. So when I was at the ordinary and we were launching Ulta, I was working on the forecast.

25:09 Like I was looking at a physical end cap and trying to figure out, okay, how many bottles do I need to place for the order in order for a six-month fill supply? And that's a lot of math and it's a lot of calculating and it's a lot of guessing. And so I remember doing that and I was forecasting, aka for me, it was guessing for something that was happening in eight months from now.

25:30 And I kept wondering, like, how do people, this is really hard. And of course, these are people's actual jobs. And I was like 27 and probably not the best forecaster in the world. But I remember really thinking of like, how interesting is this that we are predicting what someone in the future is going to want?

25:47 How do we know what they're going to want? Like, there's so many trends in consumer. We're like, are we matte? Are we glowy? Like, what does the consumer look for? What are the trends going to be in eight months from now? And people spend a lot of time thinking about these things. But that experience had kind of always left a question mark in my head.

26:05 And again, you then think for fashion. Okay, fashion is the same. What they're doing and what this industry does is you're taking a lot of guesses. And so when we talk about this $7 actual cost, $80 price point, all of the things in the middle are guesses. Every guess adds more money to the equation.

26:24 And so that's why it's not that people are sitting in a room being like, how can we rip you off? Like that's truly not the problem. The challenge is not individual brands, the challenge is the retail system. And there's something called the bull whip effect, which I think it'd be actually interesting for people to look into.

26:39 And I think it explains a lot of this theory. But it's, you know, when you look at kind of each piece from a manufacturer, from a sourcer, you know, from each element of the supply chain, each piece of that actually adds waste. And so you're sitting on this excess inventory, and then you have to mark it down, right?

26:56 And it all comes back to guessing. And so all that guessing produces waste and inefficiency. And so what Quince does is close that gap. The gap is closed through technology. That technology is made in-house through the engineers. So most of the time in businesses, you are kind of, you know, when it's a software, okay, you're buying that software, you're gonna buy this person's software, right?

27:17 You're building it, and each of those is adding more money. Quince, everything is built in-house from the ground up. And that's obviously what the engineers are focused on. So an example I'll give you to like make it a bit more concrete. When a manufacturing partner has the product ready to go, so you say, okay, like I've placed my order, right?

27:34 It's ready. So okay, you're ready to go. Can when can you guys come pick it up? Usually the process between saying it's ready and then getting a transporter to come pick it up can be like two weeks. Quince engineered a process to reduce that into 48 hours. What does that look like then?

27:50 In terms of what is the process? Like, is it getting a better delivery system?

27:54 I mean, and this is what, like, so you can imagine, like, this is the stuff that blows my mind. Because if you think about it, this is every single element of the entire business has been built that way to basically look at every single piece and saying, okay, how can we cut out the waste? How can we make this more efficient?

28:10 And that's how the price is possible. Because again, if I'm looking at this big gap, and that's why I say the like $7 to $80 difference, each piece of that, how do we just close the time? And that's why it's really the focus about the supply chain. Once people start understanding, like that's how the business works.

28:28 It's not that we're using cheaper fabric or, you know, some weird labor practice. It's engineered that way from the start. So hopefully that makes more sense. It's interesting because I mean, the more I learn about it, the more I'm like it is incredible to actually go through the work of every single element of the business thinking, okay, how can this be done more efficiently?

28:47 It sounds easy when you say, like, why can't we all have access to nice things? It's really hard to do.

28:51 One of the reasons I wanted to have you on in particular, and then to talk about Quince is it's a really unique version of like fashion tech. And that has definitely been a theme of the podcast. And honestly, the podcast started way more about sustainability. Yeah. And these questions I had about the supply chain and why things are the way they are, and why is it so just like clouded and there's so many questions and we don't know why things are happening?

29:18 I think one of the narratives, because this is this is your role. So like I kind of almost want to share what I feel like I've heard other people say, give you the opportunity to respond is like, oh, this isn't sustainable, like it's dupes. And like, how is Quince different from a Shein?

29:34 Oh, I mean, it's interesting, right? So think of, I'm like, oh, but no, it is interesting. But people say it's a really good question because if you think about it, they have done a really incredible job from a supply chain perspective, right? Shein? Yes. Okay. Absolutely. They've revolutionized in that piece of the world an incredible supply chain model.

29:53 That being said, so I think there's kind of some similarities there you can look at of that piece. That being said, it's a fundamentally different business in terms of what our actual objective is. Our objective is the most high quality product that we can deliver, period. And so when you look at that, I'll give an example.

30:08 I know I said it before, but our cashmere sweater is on its seventh version update. So think of it as software, the same way that your iPhone updates. We are on version seven of the cashmere sweater. So what's changing? Everything. I mean, so what we really look at is consumer feedback. And so, for example, how can we actually add more cashmere into the physical product itself?

30:28 How can we make this softer? How can we make it pill less? How can we make sure that when you put it in the wash that it actually doesn't shrink, right? All of these types of questions. How can we make it better? It's this relentless improvement. To me, nothing, there's no copying of relentless improvement.

30:44 I mean, we are obsessed with delivering the best of the best of the best of the best and getting it right. And if we don't get it right, the product doesn't deserve a place on this on the site. So hopefully that makes sense because I think that I'm a consumer. I get it. But I when I think of things like linen bedding or a silk slip dress, who owns this IP?

31:04 Right. And I think for us, it's figuring out what is the consumer actually looking for? We won't do it unless we can materially make it better than anything on the market. I mean, we are quality obsessed. And so that's why I say like that to me is the obvious differentiator, is everything we do is for the consumer because we are consumers.

31:20 But the, I mean, the biggest thing is we are quality is the North Star quince. And that's why if it was just about producing, producing, producing, creating more, more, more, like that's not our game. I think some people do a really good job of that, of trend and and you know, kind of jumping on trends, et cetera.

31:37 That's not how we work. We work on high quality pieces that you don't have to replace. I usually say that I have like an emotional support cashmere on at all times. But the one that I usually wear, that's like it's a cream color, I've had it for four and a half years. That goes in the washing machine.

31:51 I just, I think to me, that's the biggest thing is it's like these aren't things that are meant to be worn once. This is stuff that is meant for real life for every day. And it's not, it's not some luxury reserved for certain days. It's meant to be for every day. But again, like it's very, very hard to do.

32:08 It's extremely hard to deliver this level of quality at this price point. But that's why no one does it because they can't.

32:14 It's interesting because I think a lot of the people who I've at least met in person or who've messaged me that listen to the podcast, I think they usually come at fashion with a problem that they want to solve, like it's kind of an entrepreneurial way. And that's I think where the tech component comes in because it feels like you could change something in the system.

32:32 I almost feel like that's the type of person Quince would hire. Like, are there specific kinds of segments that you've seen people come into when they're like, I want to improve XYZ part in the model? Like I saw inventory or I saw that material quality is you know diminishing when people wash it. Like, do people kind of come in with this purpose of trying to make something better?

32:54 Absolutely.

32:54 I mean, I think we have an incredibly high talent bar. Yeah. I mean, I've never seen anything like this. And I am hiring all the time, and it makes me feel incredible about the people that I work with, which are the best people I've ever worked with and just the smartest, brilliant, kind, just like no ego.

33:11 They're amazing. And as because that's part of it, like we're all working towards the same mission. We have one person we work for. That's the consumer. To your point, when people come into the business, yeah, I mean, you have to come in scrappy and hungry and looking for problems to solve, I think, or else you're not, you're not gonna last.

33:26 Because, you know, we aren't trying to maintain the status quo. We are trying to relentlessly improve what exists. And that is why you can sell everything, you know, from cashmere to caviar to couches at unbelievable prices, is a relentlessness to delivering on that quality. Because I think something that's important, and I don't know if I really mentioned it before, is that it's not like we're making, how could we on $50 cashmere a ton of money off that first purchase?

33:49 The most important thing for us is the return customer. And the only way you get a return customer is by delivering on quality the first time. So for example, maybe someone comes into the brand from an Instagram ad. Usually it's like the moms. It's like someone's mom is like, oh, I've ordered you this, right?

34:05 There's a lot of, I kind of hear those stories. But a lot of the times when someone comes into the brand, okay, they'll try it, but they're kind of to you, I think you said it earlier, like, what's the catch? Too good to be true. How are you selling me this level of cashmere at this price point? So they'll come in, they'll try the product, and then they realize, okay, like I believe you, right?

34:23 I believe you. I have trust in what you're saying. I see your numbers, I'm wearing it. I put it in the washing machine, still holds up. Okay. Once we've earned that trust, then that's what gives us the permission to ask them, you know, to move with us across categories. Because the idea that you would buy caviar, which you put into your mouth from the same place that you are ordering your cashmere sweater, that's a big psychological jump.

34:48 Yeah.

34:49 And so we have to earn that consumer's trust. And I think that's again one of our biggest differentiators because that's really hard to do. And I mean, our that's why I say our North Star is trust. We are not just trying to sell you one thing one time. We are trying to bring you into the full ecosystem for you to trust us in one thing.

35:03 We're not trying to have 50,000 versions of a sheet. We're trying to give you the very best thing at the very best price. So, like the linen sheets, for example, you know, the flax fields in Normandy, where they source these from. It's like we don't need to have 10 different options of linen sheets. We do the hard work running it through our system to deliver you the best possible product to make it easier for the consumer.

35:26 And so when we were talking about the technology underneath, that system underneath, because another thing I get, and I'm I'm curious your thoughts on this, is what are you guys doing? You have too many, like what now you have diamonds? Like what? You have so many things, right? The question is at the top.

35:40 Why can't we all have nice things? That's the question. At the bottom is this technology infrastructure that underpins it, that really supports the full supply chain. Then you see all these categories, and we have over a hundred categories. So when you're seeing, you know, something like diamonds, for example, the person who leads our fine jewelry business, she came from De Bears.

35:57 She knows fine jewelry, right? So it's we have the experts, the best in the business for whatever those respected categories are. They know the best manufacturers, they know the people to call. We go straight to the source. And again, it's what it's our technology system, supply chain, that is what allows us to deliver it across all those different categories.

36:18 So it's not that we're having to start from scratch every single time. It's the same business, which I think is something that people probably don't realize.

36:25 I want you to break down the economics here a little bit too, because we are talking about Black Friday, Suburb Monday, the sales. You're like, oh, we don't really do that actually, because you know, we're we're can't we're yeah, we're setting a price for a reason. So, how is this a $10.1 billion company if the margins are so low?

36:46 Because you have to think about the amount of trust that has been earned from a consumer from the first point, they come back and shop across their lives. So, you know, it is very common to hear someone, and I hear it a lot when I meet with like community members in real life, and we've been hosting a series of pop-ups, they will pull up their phone and show me pictures of like, oh, my betting's from Quince.

37:07 I think that once again, people believe in the quality, you start seeing that they come back again and again and again and again across everything of their life. And so that repeat, like repeat is the king there. When it comes to the cashmere sweater, for example, people that have purchased or make a purchase on like their, you know, first cashmere crew neck from Quince, when they come, the people that come back to buy it again usually buy three more cashmere sweaters from us in within a 12 month span.

37:31 So we have earned their trust and then they believe us and they will come back to shop more. The idea is that when you are looking for something of exceptional quality, you have one place you start your search, quince.com. Like the well, ideally the app.

37:45 But you know, you're pushing the app now.

37:47 But yeah, absolutely. We just did a live stream for the first time in the app last week.

37:52 Guys thinking of doing more live selling.

37:54 Yeah, it's been really interesting. I mean, so we just did this first test.

37:56 Yeah.

37:57 Blown away, just like the conversion alone within the app. But equally, I mean, the consumer comments, like seeing the consumers interacting with each other and just the way that they're talking. And wait, can you do you have this in petites? And okay, like we had so much asks around sizing, which I thought was really interesting.

38:14 We got asked a lot about plus sizing, we got asked a lot about petites, we got asked about tall. I mean, so it was really, I mean, it was an incredible place to get consumer feedback in live time. We work, again, for the consumer. We work on customer reviews. And so, across over a million reviews on our site, which that number still like boggles my head, a million reviews.

38:34 I one time saw on a Reddit post someone being like, oh, Quince says Quince's reviews are fake or they're deleting my reviews. And I was like, guys, the reason that this is not true is because if we were like guarding our reviews, you wouldn't come back. Like, because that would mean that the product isn't what we say it is.

38:50 Do you know what I mean? And so to have an average rating, again, across a million different reviews of a 4.7, that means that 80% of your reviews have to be five star. I don't know about you, but that's a lot. Like, so hopefully that explains a little bit more of kind of like it's the repeat, is really the way that we win.

39:09 We are not a promotional business. What does that do? It trains the consumer to shop in that way, where what we are focused on, and I it was interesting your point about sustainability earlier, is not delivering waste in the first place. And sustainability is a word. I'm curious your take on this because I feel like overused.

39:25 Right? And a misused, really misused. I remember an example I had, and I won't give too much detail, but I had seen a lot of returns, not at Quince in the past. And I'd seen a lot of returns one time from a retailer sent back. And I remember thinking, like, oh my God, like I remember someone pointing to me, like, those are returns because like some like the label was messed, or there was something here.

39:44 And I realized, like, oh my gosh, the waste that exists. And I think again, from Quince, it's the opposite idea. Because let's all be clear the number one thing we can do if we do not want to be wasteful is don't buy anything. Yeah. The number two thing would be buy, you know, thrift. The number three thing is don't buy from a company that is just producing things that are gonna end up having to work down the supply chain and be discounted and then, you know, sit in a landfill.

40:11 So we only produce what a customer is actually asking for. And that is engineered from the beginning. So we aren't sitting on waste. We aren't sitting on overproduction. The reason, again, we're not doing sales is we don't have things to mark down to be sold. We are only producing in that as close to real time as possible.

40:29 We can talk about carbon neutral offsetting and we can talk about things like, okay, you know, our packaging, making sure that it's biodegradable and these types of things. The number one thing you can just not do in the first place is just don't produce waste. And so I think that's what people don't even realize about Quints.

40:46 Can we break down as well? Because if someone's listening, they may not know that you guys are direct to manufacturer. Yeah. How does that actually look? Because I think we hear about pre-orders and people cutting out the middleman. Oh, what is this actually?

41:00 It's like, so what's interesting is like I came up in the wave of DTC brands. Yeah. Right. And the whole idea with DTC, direct to consumer. I think that that's really nice sounding, but all they really did is took out the retailer component, right? Versus what we do is look at every single piece of the entire supply chain.

41:24 That is actually direct to consumer, right? But it is manufacturer. I mean, that's who we're working with in the first place. So these are our partners. I know I mentioned before, but going to the best in the best, whether it is linen or cashmere or silk, leather. It's who is the person that makes the very best X in the world.

41:44 Then we go directly to them. We work on that relationship. There's plenty of negotiations that our team is ruthless about because again, who do we work for? We work for the consumer. We are trying to get the very best price possible that we can. So then from there, you know, we're shipping it directly.

42:00 So we do have some warehouses in the US, but again, we're not sitting on a bunch of inventory. We are now at two-day shipping in the US for the most part, which is pretty insane. Yeah. I mean, I remember when I first started ordering Quince, it took me like two weeks, I think, at one point.

42:14 So like it is amazing how fast it's getting. Yeah, I ordered bedding from Quince actually, and it said it was gonna take like two weeks. And I was like, oh, okay. And then it came two days later and I was like, what? Okay, great. So you're only two day, great. What just happened? You guys told me like two weeks from now.

42:29 Well, and that's the thing. It's like, I think a big piece of this business is don't overcommit. It is so much better to not overpromise and under-deliver, right? Like we would like to underpromise, we'll do our best and then over-deliver because you know, our chief merchandising officer talks a lot about this idea of like, we're not saving a lot, like we are bringing joy to people.

42:48 Like, how do we create just like a little bit more of a moment of joy in people's lives? Like, whether that is this really nice tin of caviar arrives that you could just like host your first dinner party, or you know, whether this gift for your mom is a really nice cashmere sweater, it's how do we bring these like little moments to people's lives?

43:05 And so I think that's why if we get something wrong or you are not happy, I mean, the length that the team will go to make sure that you get it right, we are in the business of building trust. The way that we build trust as a business is on quality, period. Full stop. And so that's why we have a 365-day return policy.

43:21 I actually do want to ask you about returns. I think that is a place where tech or someone innovative needs to fix returns. And I think that the biggest part of that is sizing as well, and just sizing being misrepresented and being different across so many different companies. How is your team approaching returns, sizing, like really the transparency there?

43:46 Because that's a problem that maybe an engineer can solve.

43:48 I think when we look at the return piece of it specifically, the majority of what gets sent back to us can absolutely be refurbished. Use the example of like an extra small and a small. I've tried it on just to make sure, okay, this. A little too tight, I try it on. That's not gonna all of a sudden now be, you know, marked down and go through this kind of whole wasteful supply chain piece.

44:06 We're going to refurbish it. And whether that means re-steaming it, I mean, it's getting it into the best tip-top shape that's humanly possible. It's about not producing waste in the first place and not giving the consumer something that they would need to return in the first place, making the product as good as we can be.

44:19 So I think that there's always going to be with any brand a certain amount of products that get returned from, you know, a sanitary perspective, but like you just can't put back out into the market. But for the most part, we have the technology, again, with the engineers to get everything in a place where it can be sold.

44:34 I mean, I just remember hearing that some companies, when you return a piece, they throw it away or they just like won't sell it anymore. And that baffled me, honestly.

44:44 It's so confusing too, because think about it the same way you're in a dressing room. When I go to a store and I'm trying something on and I'm in a dressing room, do you think that they're like, oh, okay, great, we're gonna take this off the rack and throw it away just because it didn't fit you? It's the same thing in our world as well.

45:00 I don't know. It boggles me that that's ever the idea.

45:03 So if you're finding the best of the best, cashmere, whatever, diamonds, you're probably using the same places in origin that a lot of these other companies are starting at. Yeah. Are they like getting mad at you? Are like what is that relationship like? Because I don't know if you saw this, but in the beauty world, there was this product that came out for like eye patches where you kind of twist it and it's Oh, I sure have heard this.

45:29 And one company after the other kept coming out with it, and they were like, Did you guys copy each other? And turned out the manufacturer just kind of sold everybody the same thing, saying like it's innovative, whatever. What is that relationship like? Because usually manufacturers are kept quite secret and it's not something anyone likes to talk about.

45:48 You know what's so interesting? Because I will say, like, you can just Google who these manufacturers are.

45:53 Yeah. Like it's not a secret. There's this girl, I don't know if you've seen, I think it's called Sustainable Fashion Friends. Okay. And she will like out people who like kind of pretend who their manufacturer is, or like people who are upping prices way too much, but then somebody else has the same one and she's like revealing it.

46:10 I like her. I mean, I don't know her, but I like this idea because I mean that's kind of the Quince model, right? Of just saying, like, guys, we're this is not some big secret. And I think that's why also when people will look at Quince and be like, this is too good to be true. It's like, where do you think we all are getting this stuff from?

46:27 You can Google this. And so I'll give you an example. A category that's new for us is flowers, as in fresh flowers delivered to your door under $40 with shipping and handling included. Nobody does that. And so, for you know, garden roses, figuring out the best farms in the world, you can Google this stuff.

46:44 I think you asked a good question of like, okay, are other brands getting mad that you guys are doing these things? Because I think, again, look at what I shared with you about the ordinary at the beginning. Like, absolutely, because we were kind of telling the secret that people didn't want us to tell.

46:57 And so this is where I say a little bit of this challenger mindset comes up, right? Where it's what we are doing is not revolutionary in terms of figuring out who makes the very best thing. What is frankly revolutionary is the technology and the systems underneath it that allows it to happen at the speed and the price that the model works at.

47:15 But the actual thing, the incredible quality thing, that's not a secret, right? I hope that what we have done and continue to do is just make everybody else like pony up. I mean, we've heard from some luxury houses about all it does for them is just mean that they have to improve their quality. Because if they're this close to Quince and they're five times the price, the consumer is going to know.

47:41 And I think we need to give the consumer a lot more credit than most people do. And that's we believe the consumer is educated and informed enough to make a decision on their own. And so we give them all the information. It's right there on the product page. Anyone can see it. You can see the cog, you can see all the breakdown, you can see what it's made out of, you can see the reviews, and then you make the decision.

47:58 If you really want something with a logo, go, go for it. That's not us. But I think what the ambition is, if we can make the entire industry have to increase their quality, who does that benefit? The consumer. And so that's who we all work for.

48:11 You came in and there was a narrative about quints. And it's kind of your job, I think, to tell a different story, tell maybe the real story that you know that you're kind of sharing. But in the core of this, how do you humanize a $10 billion tech company? Because it's really easy to tell a story about a scrappy startup or a founder, but not for a large tech company.

48:33 So has this new message been landing? Like, what has this work been doing?

48:38 Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because that's a really nice valuation, right? Like that's an incredible number, and the team is so deserving of that. They have worked unbelievable. I mean, I've never seen the discipline, the relentlessness. I mean, we are in a three-hour meeting every Wednesday where we read negative reviews.

48:56unknown Oof.

48:56 Yeah. But but again, like we we have to because we live or die based on the quality of the product. And so it's funny because I think that Quince has an incredible reputation on the product, right? If you kind of look at the pyramid of like the press, the bottom period from a product perspective, anybody Google it.

49:17 I mean, wire cutter, all of it. It's everything is about this cashmere sweater, right? And so I think people really understand this is great quality product. I think that message is very clear. I think what people don't understand is how and why. And so that's what my focus is on is the how, which is saying it's so much bigger than the story that anybody knows.

49:37 It's not just the product, you know, there's there's there is the system behind it. But then the why, which is that the why answers the question of why can't we all have nice things? And so I think it excites me to be able to tell this story and to be able to start sharing it with people because I don't feel like I work at this, you know, 10 billion.

49:55 You, it's funny just to hear it sound that way because it very much feels like a scrappy startup to me, but the markets will want to call it what it is, as it's so deserving.

50:04 So I kind of want to end on you and your career. You had mentioned at the beginning that none of the roles you have had you applied for. You didn't apply for these jobs. How can someone listening set up their career where job opportunities come to them? Because it's such a tough job market, especially in fashion.

50:24 How do you just become someone with that reputation where there's things that you were doing, you think that left this impression on people?

50:31 There's a few different things people can do immediately. So one is, especially if you're in like, please work in an office. And I know that's like people don't want to hear me say that. Go into an office. I promise you, just like the conversations you'll be a part of, listening. Like I used to ask, can you BCC me on your emails just so I can see how you write to someone?

50:47 Like I genuinely had wanted to know, okay, how do you pitch an editor? I don't know how to do this. Can you BCC me on an email just so I can see how you do these things? I would ask at the end of the day before I left the office. I interned at Birchbox and I had one time, I had gone around the office, the first time I did it, and I went to every single department and I asked, is there anything you can I can do for you before the end of the day?

51:06 Is there anything I can do for you before the end of the day? It's so simple. And I promise you I was remembered for that. And so I think that the number one thing for me has always been how do I be a person of value? As in, how do I add value to a company, et cetera, to a person? Don't focus so much about like getting promoted and the next thing and the next thing.

51:26 Focus on horizontal growth, not vertical growth. Because I promise you, like you'll hit the thing, you just have to keep trying. And that goes back to the 12 internships. It's like just keep trying. And I really do believe like follow up, show up, read up. Those three things. Because if you come prepared, if you've read up, you know your stuff, you know the person, you know what's important to them.

51:46 You follow up, always send a handwritten thank you letter. Like I'm Southern, but I just think this is like I love the letter, yeah. Huge. And show up. Like, if you say you're gonna do something, do it. Because the number one thing is if you said you're gonna do something and you don't do it, you're you're done for me.

52:02 Good advice. I saw you have a substack called the Big Sister Playbook. I am about to turn 27. I think most of the listeners are roughly my age, maybe give or take a couple of years. What advice would you give somebody at this age for career, for life? What did you want to hear?

52:19 Oh, I I have so much I could say on this, which actually is why I started the Substack because and it's essay formats. I felt right around when I told turned 30, and I told you I almost died when I turned 30. I had gotten everything on my list. I had checked all of the boxes that I was told, whether it was money or love or success, career, all of these things that I wanted to do before 30, I had checked the boxes.

52:44 And I kind of sat there looking around, being like, oh wait, now what? There was still this, like, I don't know, I don't want to say unfulfillment, but I was still like, oh wait, nobody told me that once you get everything you ever wanted, it doesn't change anything. It's like it though, it has to be you.

52:58 And so I feel really strongly that the advice given to young women right now is kind of falls into two camps. One is like, wait your turn, get promoted, work up this ladder, or it's like TikTok just manifest it and like all your dreams will come true. And I'm like, that's not exactly how it works. So what I have done is taken this kind of outside lane, which is startups, scrappy, you know, not asking for permission, but definitely asking for forgiveness.

53:23 I just wish that I had had someone just a few steps ahead of me to just like tell me the truth. And so that's why I started it as a way of just being like, here's a story about something that actually happened to me. And I'm really candid, like whether it's my current breakup or whether it's something that happened to me 10 years ago.

53:42 It's like, this is a story of something that happened. Here's what I took away from it. And now I zoom 10,000 feet up of here's how it could actually be beneficial for you. I feel really strongly about this of just like people, you you can't, again, I know I said to you, like, you can't hit a target you can't see, but it's also I really believe in expanders.

53:59 And I believe in having proximity to possibility is what changes everything. And so I hope to be that. I mean, I have my own plenty of expanders, but I really hope I can be that for someone else.

54:10 Proximity to possibility, I really like. I think that's what the feeling you get by like moving to New York or a big city where your industry is in. It's that sense of possibility because you're just like in it, even if it's not happening to you. Get in the arena.

54:24 Like, get in the arena. You should, when you arrived to New York, you should be working your ass off. You should be like coming home, like kind of dirty, honestly, because you're like, I've been on the subway and you're like, something dropped on my head, and you're like, I'm exhausted. I had to change my shoes on the subway platform.

54:38 And like, but your eyes should be sparkling. Like you should just be like exhausted, but get knocked down nine times, get up 10.

54:45 Well, we're almost at time. I wish we could keep going. I'm like, come back on and we'll do like a follow-up. I can't believe that Quint sells caviar, and you were just telling me a very crazy story. So I'm gonna let you take it from here.

54:57 Oh, I mean, I feel like I can show my phone. Can I show the like I won't? I'll I'll overlay it. Okay. Well, it was just on Monday, I was at Martha Stewart's house and she had served us these amazing smashed potatoes with Quince Caviar. And I remember thinking, like, okay, if it's good enough for Martha, it's good enough for for everyone.

55:19 And it kind of just reiterates the whole value proposition of the brand, which is like people that know exceptional quality know Quince because I've had this experience in many different times where I was recently at like some CFDA event and someone that I had used to intern for who was so fabulous, only ever wore Armani, like just looked unbelievable head to toe.

55:42 She was asking, like, oh, what are you up to now? And I told her I was at Quince. And again, she looks insane, clearly is wearing full Armani, peels back her blazer and she's like, This is Quince. And I think there's just, again, it's this idea that like those who know, like, if you get it, you get it, because you can look and see what this is made out of and you can see the facilities and you see the manufacturers.

56:01 I mean, that's transparency. If you want something else, you go get something else. But what we're trying to do is if you want exceptional quality at an almost unbelievable price, like we will deliver it for you every time. And I think that's our ending.

56:13 Amazing. Thank you so much for coming on. Where can everyone find you?

56:17 Okay, well, quince.com, quince app. I'm like the number one fan of the Quince app right now. It's a dangerous place for me to be. Dakota K Isaacs on Instagram and Big Sister Playbook is my Substack.

56:28 And I think that's it. Yay. Okay. Well, I think everyone should go check out the Substack. I was reading through it and I wanted to ask. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me.