The Exchanges

Q What is the, uh, what's the most unusual thing that you've been asked to frame?

A Oh, yeah. We framed a lot of unusual things. Um, we did frame a ponytail, which was fascinating, but, but sure, you know, we're up for anything. My favorite, actually, one of, one of my favorite things we framed was a, um, cardboard, um, piece of a kid's fort, and it had the rules of the fort on it, and these kids had done it when they were young, and the mom had saved it And framed it for them when they were in their early twenties. You know, they're framed rules of the fort, but they were really, really endearing. Like, be kind. Like, the rules were really, you know, reflective of the way you should be. And, um, and the mom wrote us a note saying, you know, these kids get iPhones. Like, I give them everything. And this, like, was hands down the best of Christmas. And so I, you know, that was like, you get it.

AI assessment note: “we did frame a ponytail, which was fascinating”

Q Because a lot of people are secretive at the beginning, right? They think, I don't want to tell people my idea, they'll steal it. But you, you, you told people about this idea you had?

A I did, and it was essential I did. Because, you know, I needed to know, would people actually use this? Did people think it was a good idea? And so I started talking to everybody about it. I can think about, you know, truly an image of me at a cocktail party or at, you know, a friend's baseball game and, and just thinking about, you know, telling people the concept. And then I kept hearing these same stories about either me or my partner, you know, and, and the story was always involving 600 dollars worth of The framing, and I bet I wouldn't believe it, and I'm like, I do believe it. That's why I'm gonna fix it.

AI assessment note: “I did, and it was essential I did. Because, you know, I needed to know”

Q Why did you decide to go to investors from the get go rather than just pool together money from family and anywhere you could get a little bit here and there and do it on your own?

A Yeah, I joke a little bit that we were somewhat unlean in the beginning, in that we believed, I believed, that in order to actually do this business well, it had to be done at such a high quality. And that was that the site had to look beautiful, the packaging had to be branded, you had to trust us enough to roll up a diploma and send it to us. And I really thought, like, there is no Really minimally viable product version of this business. It has to be great out of the gate. Like that, that anything to just test whether the concept worked wouldn't work. We had to do it great. And we had to do it ourselves.

AI assessment note: “in order to actually do this business well, it had to be done at such a high quality”

Q Why did you decide to go to investors from the get go rather than just pool together money from family and anywhere you could get a little bit here and there and do it on your own?

A Yeah, I joke a little bit that we were somewhat unlean in the beginning, in that we believed, I believed, that in order to actually do this business well, it had to be done at such a high quality. And that was that the site had to look beautiful, the packaging had to be branded, you had to trust us enough to roll up a diploma and send it to us. And I really thought, like, there is no Really minimally viable product version of this business. It has to be great out of the gate. Like that, that anything to just test whether the concept worked wouldn't work. We had to do it great. And we had to do it ourselves.

AI assessment note: “there is no Really minimally viable product version of this business. It has to be great”

Q What is the, uh, what's the most unusual thing that you've been asked to frame?

A Oh, yeah. We framed a lot of unusual things. Um, we did frame a ponytail, which was fascinating, but, but sure, you know, we're up for anything. My favorite, actually, one of, one of my favorite things we framed was a, um, cardboard, um, piece of a kid's fort, and it had the rules of the fort on it, and these kids had done it when they were young, and the mom had saved it And framed it for them when they were in their early twenties. You know, they're framed rules of the fort, but they were really, really endearing. Like, be kind. Like, the rules were really, you know, reflective of the way you should be. And, um, and the mom wrote us a note saying, you know, these kids get iPhones. Like, I give them everything. And this, like, was hands down the best of Christmas. And so I, you know, that was like, you get it.

AI assessment note: “we did frame a ponytail, which was fascinating”

Q Tell me how you were sort of organizing your life, because I'm imagining you got to talk to your investors, your board, you've got a bazillion emails coming in. You're also like running the staff. Did you ever want to just like scream and tear your hair out?

A Yeah. I remember hosting a board meeting, um, at our production facility at a, at a, like a rented conference room nearby, because I thought, maybe I should bring them in on this backlog issue, and they should actually take a tour of the facility and see what's going on. You know, maybe in this case, honesty is the best policy. So I remember touring with them, and they saw these, like, numbers on the board, like, let me get this straight. You have that many yet to build, and you're building this many a day, like that. That math isn't going to add up. And so at that point I just sort of had to, you can't, you know, run two truths. You have to, you have to bring everybody in with what you're dealing with.

AI assessment note: “You have to, you have to bring everybody in with what you're dealing with.”