Kip Tindell
Co-Founder and Chairman Emeritus, The Container Store. On 1 show, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveauthorcontainerstore.com ↗
Kip Tindell co-founded The Container Store in 1978 and served as its CEO until 2016. He authored the book Uncontainable and advocates for stakeholder-driven business models.
1shows
2appearances
28statements
7resolved
5supported
0contradicted
71%fully supported
Everything Kip Tindell said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Tindell: Modern retail no longer needs the best, highest-paid salespeople
“There's really no people involved. There's no reason to have the highest paid, best salespeople in the industry anymore.”
Tindell: Specialty Retailers Must Take Equity in Early-Stage Vendors
“So you almost need to buy equity in these little vendors, because as we make them rich and famous we get squeezed out in favor of the mass merchants.”
Tindell: Entrepreneurs should work with their spouses and friends
“Sharon and I built this business together, and I love, I think you should work with the people you love. People say, oh, you shouldn't work with your spouse. You shouldn't work with your friends. Yes, you should. That's who, that's exactly who you should work.…”
Tindell: Trade shows are fading and not worth the investment
“Trade shows are fading, you know, we have wholesale websites and all of that. I wouldn't spend the money and time and effort into trade shows”
Tindell: True Employee Genius Requires Intuition Over Pure Logic
“You're not really genius unless you're not just using logic at work, you're using intuition at work. We want you to use your intuition. We authorize you to be brave enough to you. You'll make more mistakes, but you'll also be much more genius by using your int…”
The Container Store Achieved Sub-10% Turnover Versus Triple-Digit Industry Rates
“You know, later on Fortune Magazine's running around saying we're the best company to work for in America, but the way we measured that was by having single digit, less than 10% employee turnover in an industry that had triple digit turnover.”
Tindell: Furniture Stores Are Boring and Lack Foot Traffic
“The problem with furniture stores is they're boring. There's no traffic, and you can hear the drone of the air conditioner. You know, there's no people. There's no air of excitement. So that, that steered us away from furniture and the housewares.”
Tindell: The Container Store Could Safely Grow 20% Annually Via Cash Flow
“We figured out that we could grow about 20% per year safely and securely without the RPM needle getting into the red, without screwing everything up. Faster than that was a little frightening, and there was enough money for us to grow at 20% a year.”
Businesses Succeed When Top-Selling Products Have the Highest Margins
“If your best-selling product's also your highest gross margin product, you're going to do well.”
Tindell: Public Markets and PE Distract Leadership From Core Business
“Each of those steps dramatically changes the business as you begin to worry about things like equity and partners, You know, until then, you're able to focus on employees, product, and customers, and Wall Street banks and equity owners are not a distraction. Y…”
The Container Store's 2013 IPO Was The Founders' Unilateral Decision
“Yeah, it was our unilateral decision. They never thought that we would ever agree to that thing.”
The Container Store Paid Employees Twice the Retail Industry Average
“So we would hire great people, train them, Pay them twice what anybody else would pay them, and then hope that they would interact for an hour with our customers to reorganize their linen closet.”
Costco's Jim Sinegal Advised The Container Store to Cut 8,500 SKUs
“Jim Senegal, the Costco guy, and I had a running debate for years. We had 10,000 products. He said, you should have 1500 products.”
Tindell: A Business's Most Fanatical Customers Make Its Best Employees
“The most fanatical customer is going to make your best employee.”
Tindell capped The Container Store's annual growth at 20% for 40 years
“I always pegged our growth at 20% a year, which in those days, 20% growth was astronomically fast. Now, it's not anymore, you know, with technology companies and that type of thing, but it, boy, retail back then, 20%, and I just stopped it at 20%, because goin…”
John Mackey Was Kip Tindell's College Roommate in Austin
“And one of my college roommates, the, my wacky friend, John Mackey, the founder of Whole Foods.”
Tindell: 90% of Container Store's Launch Products Had Never Been Retailed
“So the products that we started with were all commercial and industrial in nature, and I would say, 90% of them had never been retailed before, and we were thrilled by that.”
The Container Store Launched With Only $35,000 in Capital
“35,000 dollars was all we had to start with.”
Owen and Luke Wilson's Father Suggested Naming 'The Container Store'
“Yes he suggested probably 50 or 75 names. This was one of those. He was a good friend of John Mullen's, the father of his famous sons.”
The Container Store Avoided Outside Capital For Decades, Reinvesting Earnings
“We certainly didn't want to, you know, raise capital and add new investors, and we didn't do that for many decades. We generated a lot of earnings, and then we put that money back in the business. We just incrementally grew Totally financed by the earnings of …”
Container Store Founders Took Only $700 Monthly Pay For Years
“We paid each other 700 dollars a month for a long, long time, and then we went to a thousand dollars a month. We didn't spend money on anything except growing the business, and so that, that went on for many, many years like that.”
Neiman Marcus's Stanley Marcus Praised Early Container Store
“He walked into the store the first week or two we were open, and he walked in and he said,
You know, this is the greatest retail store I've ever been in.”
Elfa Products Accounted for 25% of The Container Store's Sales
“It was the ultimate
Way to design a closet, and it was about 25% of our sales.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Kip's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Co-Founder and Chairman Emeritus, The Container Store | 2 | 28 | 71% 5/7 | full record on How I Built This → |