On this episode of Behind Her Empire podcast, hear from Ellen Bennett, founder and CEO of Hedley & Bennett, maker of durable, functional and slick-looking aprons and kitchen gear.
After attending culinary school in Mexico City, Ellen cooked in some of LA's most prestigious kitchens and found that the aprons she wore fell apart. Thus, Hedley & Bennett was born. Her aprons are now found in more than 6,000 restaurants and hotels, as well as hundreds of thousands of home kitchens around the world.
<p>Key Takeaways:</p><ul class="ee-ul"><li>Ellen thrives on the challenge and adventure of "the abyss" -- of not knowing what's coming next.</li><li>After high school, Ellen moved to Mexico City and took on a bunch of odd jobs, including stints as an English tutor, model and lottery television announcer, before attending culinary school.</li><li>Back in L.A., she cooked in some of the city's most prestigious kitchens, and while she immersed herself in the world, she and a colleague couldn't shake off the idea of reinventing the essential pro-kitchen tool: an apron. She wanted it to be "proper" and beautiful, so that the wearer felt awesome and legit — a product which, at the time, did not exist.</li><li>It was the need for operational infrastructure that pushed Ellen to find a strategic partner.</li></ul><p class="pull-quote">By the time I was old enough to recognize happiness, I think that I could very clearly see people's genuine joy in situations that had nothing to do with resources, and they had nothing to do with money and it just had to do with life<i>.</i></p><p class="pull-quote">Today with Instagram and everything, you have to constantly be reminding yourself that everyone is on their own path. And just because something looks shiny on the outside doesn't mean that it's shiny on the inside.</p><p class="pull-quote">Most of the time, you have the tools right in front of you. It's just like, how are you arranging your life and your time and your day to take advantage of them? And it takes hitting the ground floor of life sometimes to really embrace them totally<i>.</i></p><p><i></i> —Ellen Bennett</p><p><em></em><strong>Ellen Bennett</strong> was raised in Los Angeles. She was trained in culinary school and some of L.A.'s top kitchens before founding Hedley & Bennett</p><p><i><em>Want to hear more of the Behind Her Empire podcast? Subscribe on <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/show/behind-her-empire" target="_blank">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/behind-her-empire/id1514068478" target="_blank">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6hn08EnS8Vh3RLMZVqpjyM" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-behind-her-empire-63368006/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">iHeart Radio</a> or wherever you get your podcasts.</em></i><br></p>
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Boosted Commerce, which hunts for top-rated companies on Amazon to buy, is about to go on a massive shopping spree of its own, purchasing 100 consumer packaged goods companies over the next four years with funds from a $87 million raise it announced Thursday.
The company uses its experience and resources to boost already successful Amazon sellers, hence the name. Rather than gamble on unproven concepts or spend hundreds of millions on research and development, as large corporations like Procter and Gamble have traditionally done, Boosted employees scour Amazon looking for companies with top reviews and offer to buy them and close in fewer than 45 days.
<p>"When you find something that is ranked in the top five and has thousands of reviews, you know it's a good product," explained co-founder Keith Richman. "We're buying them and we're accelerating their growth."</p><p>For sellers, many of whom are mom-and-pops living in far flung locales around the world, Boosted offers a chance to take money off the table and bring in management expertise to help scale their company. </p><p>"We know the space very well," said co-founder Charlie Chanaratsopon. "The sellers are burnt out. Their life savings are in the brand. They are generally excited and pretty relieved [when we reach out]." </p><p>Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) businesses now represent 60% of gross merchandise sold on Amazon, according to Boosted, and there are now eight million third party sellers on Amazon with 367,000 joining this year alone.</p><p>Some merchants have described <a href="https://digiday.com/marketing/amazon-consolidated-marketplace-sellers/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">bullying tactics by the retail giant </a>and lawmakers <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/29/bezos-cant-guarantee-no-anti-competitive-activity-as-congress-catches-him-flat-footed/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">have been investigating</a> whether Amazon engages in anti-competitive behavior, but Richman says they see the online retail giant as a friend rather than a foe.</p><p>"Obviously we're not afraid of them," said Richman. "Amazon is incredible and when we look at the ecosystem of retail distribution, we look at them as a force to bet on."</p><p>Still, even though Boosted uses the ecommerce retailer to source products, part of its strategy involves broadening a company's distribution to include other outlets like Walmart and Shopify, which founders often do not have the expertise to do themselves. </p><p>Chanaratsopon previously founded Charming Charlie, a national chain of 290 stores that sold women's jewelry and accessories before filing for <a href="https://www.retaildive.com/news/charming-charlies-pending-liquidation-a-reminder-of-bankruptcys-limits/558650/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">bankruptcy for a second time last year</a> and closing its stores. </p><p>Richman co-founded Voi Technology, a leading European based mobility company and previously co-founded Break Media, OnePage, and Billpoint Inc. He currently serves on the board of directors of GrubHub, The Meet Group and Vostok New Ventures. </p><p>Investors in the round include Torch Capital; CrossCut Ventures; Elie Seidman, former CEO of Tinder; Tucker Kain, president of Los Angeles Dodgers; Ken Ramberg, founder of Good Pods; Scott Hendrickson, co-founder and partner, Permian Investment Partners; and Thomas O. Staggs, former chief operating officer of The Walt Disney Company. (dot.LA chairman and co-founder Spencer Rascoff, co-founder of Zillow and Hotwire, also participated.)</p>
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Terry Boyle, co-founder and CEO of Behold, says his newly launched retail platform aims to solve a major pain point for online fashion consumers: Having too many options.
When on-boarding to the site, customers take a few minutes to plug in their fashion likes and dislikes, as well as their body type and sizes. Guided by machine learning, Behold's customers receive personalized outfits and streamlined choices, based on their shared preferences.
<p>For example, if a search is plugged in for black shoes, Boyle says, "we don't bring you back seven thousand five hundred black shoes...we bring you back 20. And then we see...what you think and how you react, and then we bring you back more."</p><div class="rm-embed embed-media"><iframe allowfullscreen="" height="90" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/16038614/height/90/theme/legacy/thumbnail/yes/direction/backward/" style="border: none" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="100%"></iframe></div><p>Hear how Boyle, who's been in fashion tech for over 10 years — most of them spent at the venerable Nordstroms — is competitively positioning and running his trailblazing company, in which I'm a small, personal investor.<br/></p><p><em>Want more? Subscribe to Office Hours on <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/zillow-group/office-hours-with-spencer-rascoff" target="_blank">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/office-hours-with-spencer-rascoff/id1124608295" target="_blank">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/5mXgvbUsaOv7JJQRecBdYw" target="_blank">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-office-hours-with-sp-28214033/" target="_blank">iHeart Radio</a> or wherever you get your podcasts.</em></p>
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