The Exchanges

Q category creation, and I'd love to start today with that, and with something that you've said to me before, being the best businesses are those built in a new category. So I'd love to present a fair argument and address both sides, so let's start with that, and why you think category creation is, or category architecture, so to speak, Is the best way to build value as a business?

A Absolutely. So this is something that we feel very strongly and think a lot about at Dia. And I'd say overall, really the foundation of that thought is the idea that in our view, to be successful in an enduring and transformative way, you really have to be able to own an important problem in the minds of your consumers. It's how we approached our business. I think if you can own a problem in the mind of a consumer and really represent the solution to her, you come to own a category, you come to create a category, and you are able to architect a set of experiences that wouldn't be possible otherwise. And for us, I think what we realized was the category that we wanted to be a part of really didn't exist yet. The flip side of the numbers that we were just talking about on the demand side, there are a hundred million women in the U S who are size 14 or above that in and of its It's astounding, but the really, really astonishing part of it, and the reason why we believe the new category needed to be created in our market is because the actual industry side, this is one of the most artificially constrained markets that we think exists. So that hundred million women today is spending only 20 cents on the dollar, what women in smaller sizes are spending, and foundational to our business is the belief that that is not her fault. That is absolutely a supply side failure, and if we are a…

AI assessment note: “own an important problem in the minds of your consumers”

Q Well, I'd love, though, to get started today with a story and the story of how you came to found Deer & Co. What was the start there?

A Deer really is a business that was founded from very, very personal experience, both for me and my co-founder, Lydia. I've been a plus-size woman all my life. And I've always enjoyed fashion and style. And the truth is that shopping above a certain size, it is a pretty fundamentally different experience and one that is honestly quite painful. You know, these are experiences that have been very formative for me in my personal life and somewhat fortuitously for six years ago at this point, Lydia and I were at Harvard business school together and we stumbled upon an article from the New York times about the rise of a new class of bloggers specifically focused on plus size fashion that really piqued our interest. Because this was a topic that we both really spent time with personally, and that led us down a path of really coming to the discovery that these experiences that we both had really such personal connections to, experiences that was shared by an astounding number of women in the U.S. There are a hundred million women in the U.S. who are size 14 or above, which is what the industry classifies as plus size, and the truth is that It is an incredibly universal experience across that community within retail, and so we set out to really do nothing but help solve that problem for that community of women, and that's where Dia began.

AI assessment note: “business that was founded from very, very personal experience, both for me and my co-founder”

Q Well, I'd love, though, to get started today with a story and the story of how you came to found Deer & Co. What was the start there?

A Deer really is a business that was founded from very, very personal experience, both for me and my co-founder, Lydia. I've been a plus-size woman all my life. And I've always enjoyed fashion and style. And the truth is that shopping above a certain size, it is a pretty fundamentally different experience and one that is honestly quite painful. You know, these are experiences that have been very formative for me in my personal life and somewhat fortuitously for six years ago at this point, Lydia and I were at Harvard business school together and we stumbled upon an article from the New York times about the rise of a new class of bloggers specifically focused on plus size fashion that really piqued our interest. Because this was a topic that we both really spent time with personally, and that led us down a path of really coming to the discovery that these experiences that we both had really such personal connections to, experiences that was shared by an astounding number of women in the U.S. There are a hundred million women in the U.S. who are size 14 or above, which is what the industry classifies as plus size, and the truth is that It is an incredibly universal experience across that community within retail, and so we set out to really do nothing but help solve that problem for that community of women, and that's where Dia began.

AI assessment note: “Lydia and I were at Harvard business school together and we stumbled upon an article”

Q Absolutely. I'm super interested to hear about that kind of year of maybe slightly more leanness without the institutional investors. And what do you learn from the year of bootstrapping and how it maybe changed your mindset to operations?

A This is fundamentally linked to the idea of really being able to crystallize the nut of the problem for the customer that you're trying to solve. Fundamentally, what we did in the first several months of not having any funding was just spend time with customers. There was nothing fancy about what we were doing. We were shipping product in free USPS boxes. We were buying inventory at stores and shipping it to customers. Everything was completely, you know, the scrappiest possible articulation of what our ideas were and what was fundamental about it was not to have the bells and whistles, but to really be actually able to peel all those things away and try to understand fundamentally what does this customer need from us. What is she going to need for us to be able to do this differently for her? And not having resources was actually the most clarifying way to be able to do that.

AI assessment note: “not having resources was actually the most clarifying way to be able to do that”

Q What's the best piece of advice you've been given on the dear journey?

A The best piece of advice that I've applied to the dear journey is probably something that I learned a lot earlier. From my wise, wise mother who is full of one-liners. And one of my favorite is she always says, you don't have the luxury of thin skin on the front lines. And that's been one that's really interesting for us because the truth is that D is a very, very personal endeavor. You know, in a lot of ways, this is a business that I'm building for myself and for women like me. And despite the fact that it is so personal, I can't take any of this personally and really being able to charge through the ups and the downs, the rejection, the challenges and And having that armor that's required for true resilience in an endeavor like this is something that I value very, very much.

AI assessment note: “she always says, you don't have the luxury of thin skin on the front lines.”

Q category creation, and I'd love to start today with that, and with something that you've said to me before, being the best businesses are those built in a new category. So I'd love to present a fair argument and address both sides, so let's start with that, and why you think category creation is, or category architecture, so to speak, Is the best way to build value as a business?

A Absolutely. So this is something that we feel very strongly and think a lot about at Dia. And I'd say overall, really the foundation of that thought is the idea that in our view, to be successful in an enduring and transformative way, you really have to be able to own an important problem in the minds of your consumers. It's how we approached our business. I think if you can own a problem in the mind of a consumer and really represent the solution to her, you come to own a category, you come to create a category, and you are able to architect a set of experiences that wouldn't be possible otherwise. And for us, I think what we realized was the category that we wanted to be a part of really didn't exist yet. The flip side of the numbers that we were just talking about on the demand side, there are a hundred million women in the U S who are size 14 or above that in and of its It's astounding, but the really, really astonishing part of it, and the reason why we believe the new category needed to be created in our market is because the actual industry side, this is one of the most artificially constrained markets that we think exists. So that hundred million women today is spending only 20 cents on the dollar, what women in smaller sizes are spending, and foundational to our business is the belief that that is not her fault. That is absolutely a supply side failure, and if we are a…

AI assessment note: “to be successful in an enduring and transformative way, you really have to be able to own an important problem”

Q Can I ask, where are the core supply side failures in your mind?

A Truly, it is a failure almost at every place in the value chain for this customer. It goes so far back as to say, on the supply side, we have design educators who are not teaching what it looks like to be successful in garments for this customer. There are nuances to technical design and to grading and to construction. That really are required for success on the supply side that makes its way down the value chain into manufacturing and brands and retailers, all of whom also fundamentally don't view this customer as a core customer, right? And as a result, overcoming those challenges that would require additional investment becomes much, much harder. And I think where it really manifests itself ultimately is in the customer experience where as a plus size woman, the options that you have available to you, both in terms of what garments are available in your size and how you're being asked to shop for them, Are just fundamentally broken. We talk a lot about what it feels like to shop in a physical store as a plus size woman. The truth is that that can be very anxiety ridden in an environment that's very uncomfortable. Everything from, you know, sitting rooms being too small to not being sure whether or not your size may be carried in a store are really things that impact the customer experience. I think traditional e-commerce channels have opened up opportunities for this woman i…

AI assessment note: “Truly, it is a failure almost at every place in the value chain”

Q Absolutely. I'm super interested to hear about that kind of year of maybe slightly more leanness without the institutional investors. And what do you learn from the year of bootstrapping and how it maybe changed your mindset to operations?

A This is fundamentally linked to the idea of really being able to crystallize the nut of the problem for the customer that you're trying to solve. Fundamentally, what we did in the first several months of not having any funding was just spend time with customers. There was nothing fancy about what we were doing. We were shipping product in free USPS boxes. We were buying inventory at stores and shipping it to customers. Everything was completely, you know, the scrappiest possible articulation of what our ideas were and what was fundamental about it was not to have the bells and whistles, but to really be actually able to peel all those things away and try to understand fundamentally what does this customer need from us. What is she going to need for us to be able to do this differently for her? And not having resources was actually the most clarifying way to be able to do that.

AI assessment note: “not having resources was actually the most clarifying way to be able to do that”

Q of kind of an incumbent like Amazon there, though. We've seen many large acquisitions in the consumer in the DTC space from the likes of Jet to Dollar Shave to Bonobos. I'd love to hear your thoughts then on whether this is a consolidatory environment to you as a founder and operator in the trenches itself now, or you think we will see this next-gen crop of incredible consumer companies?

A I think it's probably both. Again, I think that that's very category dependent, right? I think that, you know, there've always been categories like CPG or beauty that inherently are consolidating categories. And those are really exciting outcomes for those, for those companies. I think, you know, the things that we think about in terms of the range of potential outcomes for any business and our business in particular, really on the one hand is, is a very personal set of considerations, really the ambitions of the founder, the The preferences of the founders and the board and how the company itself thinks about its future. And then the other one really is the category in which the company operates and what the dynamics of that category really dictate to an extent about whether or not standalone businesses are feasible or whether or not being a part of a larger platform is critical for success. I think in our case, we've always been very clear about the scale of our ambitions and the commitment that we have to Fundamentally change a landscape for a community of over a hundred million women, and that has been true from day one, and the level of conviction that's really grown with time, and one that we share with our board, obviously. And then in terms of the category, I think this is a category in the way that we view it, that we're architecting ourselves, and so we have no doubt …

AI assessment note: “I think it's probably both. Again, I think that that's very category dependent”

Q Can I ask, where are the core supply side failures in your mind?

A Truly, it is a failure almost at every place in the value chain for this customer. It goes so far back as to say, on the supply side, we have design educators who are not teaching what it looks like to be successful in garments for this customer. There are nuances to technical design and to grading and to construction. That really are required for success on the supply side that makes its way down the value chain into manufacturing and brands and retailers, all of whom also fundamentally don't view this customer as a core customer, right? And as a result, overcoming those challenges that would require additional investment becomes much, much harder. And I think where it really manifests itself ultimately is in the customer experience where as a plus size woman, the options that you have available to you, both in terms of what garments are available in your size and how you're being asked to shop for them, Are just fundamentally broken. We talk a lot about what it feels like to shop in a physical store as a plus size woman. The truth is that that can be very anxiety ridden in an environment that's very uncomfortable. Everything from, you know, sitting rooms being too small to not being sure whether or not your size may be carried in a store are really things that impact the customer experience. I think traditional e-commerce channels have opened up opportunities for this woman i…

AI assessment note: “we have design educators who are not teaching what it looks like to be successful”

Q the performance of the business by looking at a couple of metrics. I think it was in the morning. I'm intrigued. What metrics do you use as that kind of guiding indicator you said about the traction there with Micah and how they analyzed it? To you, what is it? Is it kind of be it traffic to side? Is it kind of revenue generated? What is your guiding metric?

A You know, I think for us, the goal is to be able to create and nurture and expand on long-term relationships with our customers. And so the metrics that we think are most indicative of the overall health of the business and the impact that we're able to have on the community that we serve is what that relationship looks like over time. So how is her experience getting better with every subsequent interaction that she has with us? How precisely can we measure that improvement? What does it mean about how long we are able to work with her and how much value we can create for her over that timeline? So for us, really measuring the health and the success of the relationships that we're able to build with customers is amongst the most important things that we measured.

AI assessment note: “measuring the health and the success of the relationships that we're able to build”

Q the performance of the business by looking at a couple of metrics. I think it was in the morning. I'm intrigued. What metrics do you use as that kind of guiding indicator you said about the traction there with Micah and how they analyzed it? To you, what is it? Is it kind of be it traffic to side? Is it kind of revenue generated? What is your guiding metric?

A You know, I think for us, the goal is to be able to create and nurture and expand on long-term relationships with our customers. And so the metrics that we think are most indicative of the overall health of the business and the impact that we're able to have on the community that we serve is what that relationship looks like over time. So how is her experience getting better with every subsequent interaction that she has with us? How precisely can we measure that improvement? What does it mean about how long we are able to work with her and how much value we can create for her over that timeline? So for us, really measuring the health and the success of the relationships that we're able to build with customers is amongst the most important things that we measured.

AI assessment note: “measuring the health and the success of the relationships that we're able to build”