Hey friends,
Back again with another edition of The Founder recap - this is Episode 47. If you’re new here, my goal is to give you a quick synopsis of what got me thinking from this week’s episode of The Founder Podcast in 5 minutes or less.
No idea what The Founder is? Read this.
Mission control:
Learn -> Founder favorite resources
Free money -> Discount codes
And who am I?
I’m Kallaway - a future founder trying to get some answers before I jump in the ball pit myself.
Let’s get it.
This Week’s Episode (Ep 47) 🛌
Guest -> Leo Wang, Co-Founder & CEO of Buffy
Mission -> Buffy is on a mission to help you live comfortable without making the planet uncomfortable.
Episode available on -> Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Website
In this episode we talk with Leo about…
👶 The origin story of Buffy
⭐ The unique insight that makes Buffy special in the home goods category
🔬 The playbook for iterating and refining your core values as a brand
🧶 Sustainability in textiles -> the power of eucalyptus, hemp and recycled polyester
😣 The struggles that come with exponential growth
🔨 Brainstorm of the week -> Home goods products designed to deliver comfort while traveling and furniture as fashion
Summary 🔍
What is Buffy and how did Leo get started?
Despite coming from a thriving family bedding business with big box retail customers like Target and Bed Bath and Beyond, Leo initially wanted nothing to do with home goods.
After graduating from NYU and the London School of Economics, Leo spent time at McKinsey, working mainly on economic development projects in the Middle East and Africa.
Eventually, Leo began experimenting with startups and started thinking about where he might have a competitive advantage.
What was once a “no fly zone,” home goods quickly became a no brainer given his deep family knowledge and rolodex.
Contrary to his family’s approach, he started out with a mission to disrupt the industry by bringing sustainability to the forefront, using materials that could create comfort for the consumer and the environment.
After making a Squarespace site and selling his first few hundred comforters out of a storage space as a proof of concept, he brought Buffy to the masses in 2018.
In year one, Buffy did $15M+ in revenue and was off to the races.
Throughout our conversation, Leo details the volatile highs and lows that come with explosive growth and how Buffy is thinking about positioning for the future.
🚀 Here’s why I’m a fan and excited about Buffy 🚀
During our conversation, Leo put on a masterclass in brand building.
He believes the playbook for defining your core values and brand ethos should be based around a process of repetitive reduction, starting with ~10 or so things that you want to stand for and continuously whittling them down to just 2 or 3.
With Buffy, they wanted to be the best in the world at:
Comfort
Ease of purchase
Sustainability and sustainable materials
Typically, you don’t see consumer products brands aim for both comfort and sustainability. In the 1.0 wave of environmentally conscious DTC brands, most focused on sustainability needed to give up functionality in order to achieve their ecological goals.
In home goods, and bedding specifically, you might have seen a company using more eco-friendly materials but needing to sacrifice on quality. On the flip side, other brands are optimizing for “comfort at all costs” and not as concerned with the environmental impact.
I love what Buffy’s doing because they are optimizing for both ends of the spectrum. They believe a world exists where they can make the most comfortable home goods that are also sustainable - having their cake and eating it too.
It’s not unlike what we saw from Matt Scanlan of Naadam with cashmere clothing. And it makes sense…Matt’s an investor in Leo and Buffy.
Leo’s Startup Manifesto 📜
What’s a Startup Manifesto?
During each episode, I ask all of my founder guests this question:
If you had to write a Startup Manifesto with 5 of the most important key lessons or pitfalls to avoid when starting out, what would they be?
Here’s what Leo had to say:
Make sure you have a material advantage of some sort for whatever business or industry you’re in. Don’t come in and take the same thing people are already making and just describe it differently. Really challenge yourself to have a true competitive advantage. You might be the most intelligent person on earth, but it is really good to have that [competitive advantage] in your back pocket.
Don’t make the mistake of overthinking too much. You need to go out and test things immediately. I recommend everyone read Steve Blank’s 4 Steps to an Epiphany to guide your thinking around how to discern if your idea is going to work. Steve talks about product development vs customer development. Talk to customers to understand what they would pay for. Before I started Buffy, I didn’t know if anything would be successful or work.
If you’re going to start a consumer brand, one contrast to think about is Casper vs Patagonia. The Casper team saw a market opportunity, threw dynamite in it with leverage and tried to take advantage. That’s super different from a brand that’s built overtime on top of trust, stories, experiences that ultimately drive the highest ROI of growth and profitability. This is like Patagonia. Decide what your values are and use your brand to bring them to life.
There’s a leaner, simpler and scrappier way to do everything you’re doing. Trust that if it works that way, it should be done that way. Entrepreneurs often think they need to build big, complex teams and spend lots of money on growth when they likely don’t need it. Less is more.
Know what kind of entrepreneur you are. I think of myself leadership skills as immature. Buffy taught me how much I don’t know and the small sliver of things I’m really good at vs all the other things others are better at.
What Got Me Thinking From the Episode 🤔
After reflecting on my conversation with Leo, here’s something that really got my wheels spinning:
The Dark Side of Exponential Growth 👍🏽
As the interview progressed, Leo shared an intimate story of personal failure with Buffy.
As I alluded to above, Buffy did $15M in topline revenue during their first 12 months in business. The next 12 months was also a big growth year for the company.
After two years of explosive growth, Leo and the leadership team were forced to scale the organization incredibly quickly.
A team of 5 became 60 in the blink of an eye.
Things like culture, process and organizational rigor are incredibly hard to scale at that speed.
Unfortunately, year 3 came with headwinds and more than half of the staff that was brought on to meet those lofty expectations had to be let go.
Leo said those series of weeks were some of the toughest he had faced in his entire life. He felt like he had failed as a leader and had to step away from the business for a few days to reset.
I share this specific story because it illuminates the peaks and valleys of startup life.
One day you’re flying high and within a matter of weeks, you could be facing complete despair.
If you haven’t listened to the interview, I encourage you to listen to this part of the episode (29:53) and dive deeper into the resilience required to be a startup CEO.
Wrapping it Up 📕
I hope you found this interesting and inspiring! If so and you want to help support our journey to bring The Founder to millions of people across the world, here’s a couple things that would be really valuable to me and the show:
If you enjoyed this post, share it with one friend that you think is on the same wavelength.
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Listen to the full podcast episode with Leo on Apple or Spotify. If you don’t have an hour to listen to the full episode, pick a couple of topics you’re interested in and skim through (topic time codes in the show notes).
Watch the full episode and our top clips on YouTube.
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Till next time ✌️
Kallaway
Want more? Check out other founders we’ve featured on the show!
— 📩 46. Morning Brew | Alex Lieberman
— 📖 36. Toucan | Taylor Nieman
— 🛋️ 34. Burrow | Stephen Kuhl
— 🛌 30. Eight Sleep | Matteo Franceschetti
— 🌵 25. The Sill | Eliza Blank
— 🥦 22. Levels | Josh Clemente
— 💍 11. The Clear Cut | Olivia Landau and Kyle Simon
— 🥘 7. Kettle & Fire | Justin Mares
— 🥾 2. Thursday Boots | Connor Wilson
See any mistakes or have feedback? Let me know (kallaway@thefounderpod.com)