Ariel Kaye | Parachute

Suzie Welsh Devine | BINTO

When Suzie Welsh Devine saw women struggling to find the answers they needed at overcrowded fertility clinics, she knew there had to be a better way. At the time, Suzie was a women's health and fertility nurse, but she came from an entrepreneurial family. Seeing a gap in the market, she combined her business savvy, passion for women’s health, and personal insights into fertility treatments to create BINTO, short for “Bun in the Oven.” She hopes that the company will change the way we see women’s health, supplemental treatments, and the medical industry as a whole. “Wouldn't we be better off focusing on preventative medicine over inpatient care?” Suzie asks in this episode of The Empowered Challenger. “Are there other ways of handling things before we move to prescription drugs? That’s really what we’re interested in.” Suzie founded BINTO in 2016, with $20,000 she’d saved and without traditional investors. Initially, she targeted the supplements to women receiving fertility treatments. Using the industry-disrupting powers of direct-to-consumer selling, and personalized marketing and products, BINTO is challenging an industry that’s been tough to crack. Since then, Suzie has started looking beyond fertility treatment, at other elements of women’s health that need a revamp. “I think we’re just at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our potential, and what we want to be,” Suzie says. FEATURED CHALLENGER 👱‍♀️ Name: Suzie Welsh Devine ⚙️ How she challenges: Through BINTO, Suzie hopes to provide women at all stages of life with monthly supplement subscriptions customized to their needs. 💊 Company: BINTO [https://mybinto.com] 💎 Noteworthy: Suzie knew she wanted to go into nursing after a trip to Malawi with the Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance when she was 16. She got her nursing degree from the University of Virginia, and is still a licensed nurse. 🔍 Where to find Suzie: LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzie-welsh-devine-3419178/] | Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/suziewelshdevine/] CHALLENGER WISDOM Highlights from the conversation appear below. 💡 CHALLENGING YOUR EXPECTATIONS OF YOURSELF “The world of wellness was always floating in the back of my mind as something I was passionate about and really interested in. Did I know this was going to be my career? No, not a clue.” 💡 Offering convenience is disruptive “Five years ago, no one was doing what we're doing. We really believe in personalized medicine, and we’re direct-to-consumer. We aren’t sold on a shelf and we don’t use bottles: Everything comes in easy, grab-and-go daily packets. As a nurse, I know that medication adherence is huge, and that means your supplements too. Building the brand in a way that’s easy for customers is key.” 💡TAKING ON THE MARKET CLICHÉS “We're a scrappy startup, and we didn't work with an agency off the bat. It was just the team creating [the packaging]. In the fertility market, [the marketing] is a lot of baby bumps and hot pink. We wanted it to feel warm and fun and inviting, without having baby bumps everywhere.” 💡 TUNING OUT THE BACKGROUND NOISE “People who haven’t built something think they know how to build something better than you do. I’ve had to learn that everyone has their two cents, and they think building a company is easy. Just take it with a grain of salt, and ignore it like white noise in the background.” 💡 THE NEW WAY TO ADVERTISE “We do traditional pay-per-click ads, and we do some influencer work. Social media has been one of the biggest benefits to starting a brand today. If you’re starting a brand, you need to be present on social media channels. Instagram has been a phenomenal way for us to gain customers for a lower cost.” 💡 HARNESSING THE DISRUPTIVE POWER OF PERSONAL CONNECTION “Word of mouth is really powerful. Any time that I can get in front of a group of women or potential customers, it sells. We used to do a lot of live events [before the COVID-19 pandemic]. Accessing fertility communities and doctors’ offices through B2B partnerships is also very powerful for us in terms of sales, because it speaks to trust. If someone’s doctor is telling them they trust a brand, they’re more likely to buy it.” 💡 AN ALTERNATIVE TO TRADITIONAL INVESTORS “I'm really glad that we were able to test things without a lot of investors involved. A lot of running a startup is throwing darts on a dartboard, and testing, and figuring it out. We were able to do a lot of the testing and figuring out on our own, so that when we have fundraised, we haven’t had to go through many painful points.” 💡 CUSTOMERS FIRST, COMPETITION SECOND “It's about our customers. If I get caught up in what other people are doing, then I forget about our core customers and I'm not serving them. Of course, it’s important to be aware of the competition, have a pulse on it, and know what's going on in the market. But we need to focus on our business and serving our customers, giving them what they need and creating products for them to move forward.” Top Quotes: “There's a lot of noise out there in the market and we just have to continue to cut through it and prove that we should be the trusted number one.” “To a potential entrepreneur listening: There are lots of ways to start a business and gain access to capital.” “When we started five years ago, no one was doing this. Now there are some indirect competitors in the market and women's health is really booming. It’s a good sign that other people think there's a lot of value to this market as well.”

Stan Chia | Vivid Seats

When Stan Chia joined Vivid Seats in November 2018 as its CEO, he was excited about giving the profitable online ticket marketplace a stronger consumer-facing identity. Stan, who previously held executive roles at Grubhub and Amazon, joined the online ticketing company at a time when the secondary ticket market was growing by double digits year over year. Then the pandemic hit and live events ground to a halt. As Stan puts it, events were the first “to shut down and almost the last to come back.” On this episode of The Empowered Challenger, Stan talks about steering the company through the pandemic and how he’s positioning Vivid Seats to win consumers’ hearts (and dollars) as the pandemic moves into the rearview mirror. With fans excited to get back to concerts, sports and other kinds of live entertainment, Stan says trust is critical when you’re the company selling people their tickets. Consumers want to be assured that gathering in crowds will be done safely and that purchasing tickets is a hassle-free experience from a provider that will stand behind purchases. Even before COVID-19 upended life as we know it, Vivid Seats was building out its loyalty program, which enabled consumers to earn rewards on every transaction. Now, Vivid Seats has enhanced the program in an effort to make it “almost infallible from the value that we deliver to customers,” Stan explains. Now, anyone who uses the Vivid Seats platform earns 10% on every ticket purchase. Plus, the program looks for ways to add “surprise and delight elements,” such as exclusive parties and experiences. It’s part of Stan’s plan to “emerge stronger” from tough times. Tune in to this episode to hear more about how Vivid Seats differentiates itself in the online ticketing space through partnerships with Rolling Stone magazine and more, and why Stan doesn’t believe in focusing too much on competitors (even though he respects what they do). FEATURED CHALLENGER 🧑 Name: Stan Chia ⚙️ How he challenges: As the CEO Vivid Seats [https://www.vividseats.com/], an online marketplace for live event tickets, Stan places a significant emphasis on building recognition among consumers looking for a safe and trusted place to get tickets online. 🎟️ Company: Vivid Seats [https://www.vividseats.com/] 💎 Noteworthy: Stan was born in Singapore and served in the Singapore Armed Forces when he was 18 years old. He learned a lot about leadership during his military service, including the importance of leading by example — “I don't expect anything of anybody that I wouldn't be willing to do myself,” he says. 🔍 Where to find Stan: Twitter [https://twitter.com/stanishungry] | LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/stanchia/] 🔍 Where to find Vivid Seats: Twitter [https://twitter.com/vividseats] | Instagram [http://www.instagram.com/vividseats/] | Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/VividSeats/] CHALLENGER WISDOM Highlights from the conversation appear below. 💡FANS ARE ITCHING TO GET BACK TO LIVE EVENTS (SAFELY) “What we look at is safety first and foremost, making sure that as we facilitate events like this, that we're really understanding and considerate of comforts and discomforts of customers, right? As the world tries to figure out what the future looks like … there is a huge amount of pent up demand after 14, 15 months of total isolation as we were in lockdown. What we've seen now across the spectrum — music festivals selling out and record pace … there's a lot of excitement from fans to get back, but I think, also, certainly confidence that they can do that and they will do that in a safe way.” 💡LEVERAGING A REWARDS PROGRAM AS A DIFFERENTIATOR “One of the things we decided to differentiate ourselves on was a rewards program….we were one of the only rewards programs out there where every transaction you bought, you would earn something on that. And we said, Hey, also, we're going to build an amazing app. We're going to make sure all of these great personalization features are there. And between August of 2019 through February of 2020, we saw our app volume go from about eight to 9% to 40% of our volume. So huge adoption from consumers … they appreciated the design that our product and our engineering team had put into that as well as the value of our rewards program.” 💡PEOPLE LOVE BUYING EVENT TICKETS ONLINE — BUT TRUST CAN BE A CHALLENGE “The challenge in this industry [selling tickets online] … is this a safe industry? Is this a place where you can get tickets? Like, who am I buying from? Who's going to stand behind this? Is it hassle-free? Am I protected as a consumer? I think that's something the industry faces and something that we've really tried to get ahead of.” 💡HAVING A CLEAR BRAND THAT RESONATES WITH CONSUMERS “We want our brand to be synonymous again with consumers when they think about live events. The emotions that we believe we represent to someone who wants to put their faith in us. So trust, value, service, all of these things … we want to make sure that truly our consumers feel that on the brand side … When you think of Vivid Seats, it's about experiencing it live, and celebrating the power of shared experience to unite people. That's what our brand is built on.” 💡ON HAVING THE CONFIDENCE TO MAKE LONG-TERM INVESTMENTS “We are actually first-transaction profitable. So we are profitable on every single transaction … I think if you didn't have as strong of a balance sheet or a P and L as us, you might be a little more handicapped. You might be a little bit more short-term oriented. Our view is certainly that of the long-term both from a psychological perspective, but also with the confidence that we have the balance sheet and P and L to support that.” Top Quotes: “We’re walking the walk. We’re not just giving ourselves a label that we can’t live with.” “I don't focus so much on the competitors. … I want to make sure we are there innovating on behalf of our consumers, that we're really building things that they either currently want, or they don't know that they want — but once they realize it's there, they will appreciate it.” “Through a really difficult and trying time, I think we stuck to our values. We stuck to what matters.”

Michael Rich | Psudo

Michael Rich has been obsessed with sneakers for almost as long as he can remember. Michael got his start in the shoe business at age 16 when he sought out a job selling shoes at his local mall. After college, he went on to work on the manufacturing side and traveled across the world making shoes in foreign markets. For years, he dreamed of creating a sneaker brand of the future. Finally, he launched Psudo, a DTC sustainable sneaker brand, in 2019. “These are your ‘running around shoes,’ not your running shoes,” Michael says on this episode of The Empowered Challenger. Sustainability is core to the brand. The upper part of the shoe is made from recycled plastic water bottles. The sneakers are made in a Milwaukee-based solar-powered shoe factory, while its packaging is made from 100% recycled content. Psudo shoes are also made entirely in the U.S. While shoe manufacturing is rare in the United States — Michael estimates less than 5% of the shoes Americans wear are created domestically — he was determined to make it part of Psudo. And though it wasn’t easy, he’s found the benefits of domestic production to be significant: more control over the process, nimble response to customer demand, and shorter manufacturing runs. Marketing the challenger brand hasn’t been easy — especially for Michael who didn’t come from a digital marketing background. He believes Psudo’s innovative design coupled with the brand’s commitment to transparency are key ingredients for Psudo’s growth. Ultimately, Michael believes in the magnetism of a good brand narrative: “[P]eople will be reaching out more and more to do collaborations, to have the opportunity to do a podcast like this … I think one thing kind of takes care of the other.” On this episode of The Empowered Challenger, he also discusses his plan for creating a “circular brand” that customers can return for repurposing and get a fresh look. FEATURED CHALLENGER 🧑 Name: Michael Rich ⚙️ How he challenges: Michael is the founder and owner Psudo [https://psudo.com/], sustainable sneakers that are made in the USA and sold directly to consumers. 👕 Company: Psudo [https://psudo.com/] 💎 Noteworthy: Michael has been immersed in the business of sneakers since he was a teenager. When he was 15 years old, he started trying to convince a local shoe shop owner to hire him. 🔍 Where to find Michael: Twitter [https://twitter.com/onlyoneusa] | LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-rich-05074b2/] 🔍 Where to find Psudo: Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/ShopPsudo/] | Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/shoppsudo/] CHALLENGER WISDOM Highlights from the conversation appear below. 💡STARTING A CHALLENGER BRAND REQUIRES PERSISTENCE “Every entrepreneur, if you ask them at the end or in the middle: if you knew how hard it would be to get here, would you still have done it? And I've bet a lot of people probably might say no, but then when you're sitting here and you have this little nugget of a company and you want it to be something more, it just inspires you to push forward. There are a lot of highs and lows as an entrepreneur and running a business … It's making sure this UPS shipment got delivered … all that logistical stuff that goes into running a business.” 💡ON CREATING A NEW PRODUCT WITH A FAMILIAR FEEL (AND A LOT OF OF TRANSPARENCY) “The main thing that I wanted to do as an entrepreneur … I wanted to innovate a product that was unlike anything else that was on the market, but make it feel very familiar. And I also wanted to be very transparent about how I'm doing it, what I'm doing … that type of honesty doesn't exist. And when I look at our benefits and our branding and what we bring to the table, I think it has plenty of room for growth. And, what we call scale in this industry is what we're aiming for — and it doesn't happen overnight, and it certainly takes longer than anyone wants. I'm sure all the other brands would probably say the same thing.” 💡A DEFINED BRAND IS YOUR BEST CUSTOMER ACQUISITION STRATEGY “We are working on Psudo 2.0 — what that looks like, what that voice is … dig deeper into the manufacturing and really tell exactly what we're doing … if you do that, then the other part of it — the customer acquisition, the business — will come. … we have proven the concept, people like the sneaker, the main thing is just really focusing on that brand ethos, voice … I feel like that third part, the business side of it, will just be there.” 💡WHEN CUSTOMERS BEHAVE LIKE CUSTOMER SERVICE REPS “What I love more than anything is when a customer might reach out and ask a question online. Maybe it's more of a general question not to the brand specifically. And then the reply comes from someone else in a real positive manner. That's the best, because that's way better than me answering that same question or anyone from my team.” 💡CREATING A ‘CIRCULAR BRAND’ FOR ONGOING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS “My holy grail, blue ocean is to create a circular brand where you buy a pair of sneakers, you return them back to me, they get recycled into a new pair of sneakers and to do that all locally. We have a path to do this. We have a plan to do this. And so that's kind of where we want to be. I don't know how long that's going to take — maybe it will take three years, maybe it will take five years. But for all fashion companies, I think everyone is interested in getting to this type of process where you literally take your own product back and make it into something new. Because end-of-life is the biggest challenge for making any product.” Top Quotes: “I’d say it wasn’t necessarily luck, It was just a lot of determination to get [it] right — to get the fabric right;  to get the sole right; to get the shape of the last, as we say in the shoe business.” “I wanted to innovate a product that was unlike anything else on the market, but make it feel very familiar. And I also wanted to be very transparent about how I'm doing it, what I'm doing … as transparent as you can be.” “The thing about one product that we make — it's not going to be for everyone — but I do know that we have put out a good product and we stand behind it and we're very transparent.”

Ariel Kaye | Parachute

Known among her friends as the person to call for design tips, Ariel Kaye realized that she had an opportunity to use passion for interior design to start a home goods company. But instead of creating just another brand that sells bed sheets, towels and other products for the home, Ariel wanted to create a company that prioritizes its relationship with customers — in a way she wasn’t seeing in the industry. When she launched Parachute, Ariel focused mainly on bedding, emphasizing the value of quality sheets when it comes to getting restful sleep at night. “Sleep is so important. [Bedding] impacts your life in such a phenomenal way,” Ariel says on this episode of The Empowered Challenger. “I knew that bedding was such an opportunity to build a connection and trust within the customer base to literally get in bed with them every night.” Though Ariel was new to entrepreneurship, her background in advertising has helped her see an opportunity to be a guiding light in this industry. She knows how to put customers first, cultivating the kinds of consumer-company relationships that are unique and make her company stand out amongst the rest. Tune in to this episode to hear how she changed career paths to fulfill her dream of challenging the home goods industry from the inside, as well as how she’s positioned Parachute to help people create their dream homes. FEATURED CHALLENGER 👩 Name: Ariel Kaye ⚙️ How she challenges: With Parachute, Ariel aims to challenge the home goods industry by encouraging a deeper relationship with consumers. 🛏️ Company: Parachute [https://www.parachutehome.com] 💎 Noteworthy: Ariel published her first book, “How to Make a House a Home [https://www.amazon.com/How-Make-House-Home-Purposeful/dp/1984826468],” in 2020. 🔍 Where to find Ariel: Twitter [https://twitter.com/arielkaye?lang=en] | LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/arielkaye/] CHALLENGER WISDOM Highlights from the conversation appear below. 💡  THE COURAGE TO MAKE A CHANGE “I was sort of realizing that I was hitting my head in the ad world at this big agency, and I wanted to do something different. It was one of those aha moments where I realized that I wanted to do something more entrepreneurial where I could have real control over the process.” 💡 LEVERAGING THE PROFESSIONAL SKILLS YOU HAVE “[Advertising] was a really great background for me to start my own consumer-first business because I had this experience thinking about how to motivate and inspire the customer. It’s considered rather untraditional to have my background and then move and to become an entrepreneur and CEO, but I think it’s part of my secret sauce.” 💡 TURNING A PASSION INTO A CAREER “When I was in graduate school, I started an interior design blog, and I was always helping friends decorate their apartments in New York and changing my own spaces and was really passionate about it. I saw this opportunity in the home space because I was really passionate about design and comfort and sleep and all of these things.” 💡 STARTING FROM SCRATCH AND GETTING CAPITAL “Getting capital to fund this thing was definitely a hard one. I didn’t have savings for this; I didn't have family members who were going to provide me with capital to get the business off the ground, so I had to find outside capital to support. I didn't know anything really, except the types of products I wanted to sell and what they wanted them to feel like. I had some intuition around how to build a website that was going to be functional, but pretty much everything else was a challenge.” 💡  ON HOW SHE SEES THE COMPETITION “We pay attention [to competition] because it's important to understand what's happening in the industry and the market. But we’re really focused on being uniquely Parachute and focusing on our quality and our design aesthetic and the products that we're introducing.” 💡 BALANCING THE HUSTLE “I appreciate the hustle and the grind, but I think there's a way to have that excitement and enthusiasm and hustle, and also go have an evening to see your friends, on a bike ride, do whatever you want to do that is your hobby and brings you joy.” 💡 QUALITY AS A PRODUCT DIFFERENTIATOR “Our products are designed to last. We don't use any toxic chemicals or artificial dyes. They're really, really well-made, and we're designing and manufacturing our products in factories that have been around for over a hundred years. It’s not stuffy, it's just comfortable.” 💡 BUILDING A BALANCED TEAM “I was doing this on my own up until about three weeks after I launched. I hired my first employee who had a financial background because I needed someone that could help think about our budget and placing orders early on, so I could focus more on the marketing and branding, and customer service. In any business, you're looking for people that can do just about anything and everything. By the end of the first year we had about eight employees, and really it was important to get that support.” 💡 DISRUPTERS AREN’T AFRAID TO PUSH THE LIMITS “We're constantly pushing ourselves. We make sure that we have a budget set aside for testing purposes and experimental spend. And some ideas might be busts and that's okay too. That's part of growing.” Top quotes from the episode: “I wanted to make a bigger impact. I had some friends join early stage startups and start their own companies, and I saw this passion and this impact and this excitement and it just clicked that I wanted to do something that I could have more control over.” “We hear from our customers, ‘Oh, I love [your products] because they feel so Parachute!’ You can’t really pinpoint what that means, but you feel it. That brings me more joy than anything.” “During the first few years [of starting a company], it's like you're on a rollercoaster. You get up and have these incredible highs, and then 20 seconds later you’re crashing. There was a lot of fear and self-doubt that came along with those early days.”

Kim Malek | Salt & Straw

Kim Malek built a successful ice cream business around one central idea: community. As the CEO and co-founder of Salt & Straw, Kim disrupted the idea of a typical ice cream shop by building an inviting, accepting environment that showcases local artisans and unique flavors. Kim's career started at Starbucks, where she worked in marketing when the iconic coffee brand only had about 30 stores nationwide. With previous marketing experience at companies like Yahoo!, Adidas, and (RED), she learned a lot about what it takes to build a global brand. "I always like to say I learned enough to be dangerous about a bunch of different things —  operations, real estate, branding, but most importantly… building a company based on people and how you treat people," Kim says on this episode of The Empowered Challenger. During her years in corporate America, Kim kept her ice cream shop vision on the back burner. After a decade of toying around with the idea, she moved to Portland, Oregon, and was struck by the strong sense of community in the entrepreneurial city. She knew it was "the perfect vehicle" to bring her ice cream store idea to life. She partnered with her cousin, Tyler, to figure out a unique ice cream making process. They shopped around town and found standout local ingredients —  chocolate, salt from a local saltmaker, and cheese from local farms. They realized they could foster a true sense of community by focusing on "farm-to-cone" ingredients, highlighting the artisans who made them. One of Kim's favorite pieces of advice is to not take advice. She welcomes stories about the experiences of fellow business owners and entrepreneurs but, unless you're in her exact shoes, she doesn't want to be told what to do. If Kim had followed everyone's advice when she was starting her business, she'd never be where she's at today. Kim started by opening a single store in Portland’s Alberta Arts District. Now, there are 25 more throughout the U.S., plus a successful ecommerce business. FEATURED CHALLENGER 👩 Name: Kim Malek ⚙️ How she challenges: As the CEO and co-founder of Salt & Straw, Kim disrupted the idea of a typical ice cream shop by fostering a sense of community with its "farm-to-cone" creations and expertly-trained staff. 🍦 Company: Salt & Straw [https://saltandstraw.com/] 💎 Noteworthy: Kim was a recipient of Portland Business Journal's Woman of Influence Award. She has also received recognitions from the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network and was on Inc.'s Female Founder's 100 List. 🔍 Where to find Kim: LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-malek-81aa2/] | Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/kimberlymalek/?hl=en] ## CHALLENGER WISDOM Highlights from the conversation appear below. 💡 THE HALLMARK OF AN IDEA WORTH PURSUING "I wake up every day with a good healthy dose of fear that shoots me out of bed nice and early. I earn my keep every day. In terms of taking that leap … I had this idea for so long. I'd been carrying it around for so long, but I knew it was a good one —  it wasn't a fleeting thing. It had been like 10 or 15 years that I'd been working on it, and I was able to start putting the pieces in place. Once I got the ball rolling, it was almost a foregone conclusion. I couldn't stop myself, it just drove itself forward, not that there weren't tons of challenges along the way." 💡 FEAR CAN EITHER FREEZE YOU — OR FUEL YOU "I think fear can either freeze you, or you can use it to fuel you —  you have to make that decision. I experience a little of both, to be honest, but it mostly fuels me and drives me forward. I think the ideal thing that I always try to remind myself of is to not make decisions out of fear —  that doesn't usually end up well." 💡 THE EASIEST ROUTE ISN'T ALWAYS THE BEST "We were exporting that idea or spirit of Portland when we grew into different cities, and we carried that forward into every city … I find that people really embody that and appreciate it. It's fun for them to learn about other local artisans through ice cream. It's a lot harder, it's a lot more work, it's more expensive, but I think it's worth it." 💡 PUTTING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ABOVE ALL ELSE "Internally, we say ice cream is 49% and the experience you get at Salt and Straw is 51%. So when you go to our stores, we really try to transport you into a different environment and experience, take you out of your everyday life into a beautiful, warm environment. We overstaff our stores with a big team that's really well-trained, especially on connecting with people. We spend tons of time teaching folks how to read signs: if someone wants to get in and out, we can do that. If they want to sit and taste every single flavor on our menu and talk about the story and history behind it, we can do that." 💡 NEVER COMPROMISE ON YOUR VALUES "Danny Meyer, who started Shake Shack, is on our board. He tells a story that I love. He says that, over the years, people would always say to him, 'The culture's changing.' And, as the founder, it's like a dagger in your heart when you hear that. Sharing with him stories and concerns of mine along those lines, and how do you grow and maintain your culture? He said, finally, he had this big lightbulb moment where it's okay if your culture is changing and evolving, that will happen. But what you cannot do is compromise on your values —  you have to stay true to your values, you have to keep them at the forefront." 💡 YOU DON'T HAVE TO TAKE ANYONE ELSE'S ADVICE "I've sat across the table from too many people who have said, 'Make sure you can get out of your leases because this isn't going to work!', 'You should really do yogurt instead of ice cream', 'You can't do this —  you can't invest in your people that way.' All of the really important tenets of what I was trying to accomplish, I was told were impossible. If I had listened to any of that advice, I wouldn't be where I am. So I think it's just so important to be really clear about what you're about and to learn from other people, but not take advice." Top quotes from the episode: Kim Malek: Quote #1 "Fear can either freeze you, or you can use it to fuel you —  you have to make that decision. I experience a little of both, to be honest, but it mostly fuels me and drives me forward." Quote #2 "You wouldn't believe the letters I get from customers on a weekly basis about really incredible, life-changing stories and experiences they have with our team. That, more than anything, makes me feel like we're on the right track." Quote #3 "I think the secret is when we onboard our new team, we spend a lot more time talking about the values of the company, hospitality, how we treat each other, and how we take care of each other than we even do about ice cream. It adds up to our team really feeling like this is more than a job."