cayla o'connell davis is the co-founder and ceo of subset, the organic cotton underwear brand rethinking what goes into your most-worn layer. she joins sean to talk about bootstrapping in an expensive category, the high-rise brief that vogue put on the map, a first-of-its-kind program that takes back and recycles your old underwear, and the scrappy, unscalable tactics, from free undies on the street to galentine's day roses, that built the brand.
We're creating space for the brains behind the brands we love, and asking good questions along the way. The result is a deep dive into the how and why of brand-building, from blueprints to launch day, customers as community and the detours in between. big lessons, easy listening.
In this episode of Read Receipt, Sean sits down with Cayla O'Connell Davis, co-founder and CEO of Subset, the organic cotton underwear brand rethinking what goes into your most-worn layer.
Cayla bootstrapped Subset in one of the toughest categories to fund, buying inventory five to six months ahead and launching with just four styles. One of them, the high-rise brief, got written up by Vogue and became a cult favorite that carried the brand out of the gate.
She gets into the scrappy, human side of growth: a first-of-its-kind program that takes back and recycles your old underwear, handing out free undies on the streets of New York, Galentine's Day roses with a buyback card, and why she markets an unseen product more like a perfume brand. Along the way she shares hard-won lessons on doing the unscalable things on purpose, and protecting time to stay creative several years in.
Tune in for an honest look at building a mission-driven brand through organic cotton, grassroots marketing, and a refusal to grow the easy way!
For 20% off Subset, use code READRECEIPT.
Chapters:
00:00 - Cold open
00:36 - What Subset is
01:00 - The family-run factory in India
03:00 - Bootstrapping an expensive category
04:24 - Launching with four styles and the Vogue high-rise brief
07:26 - The first 16,000-unit order
09:02 - Would she launch with PR today?
10:40 - The take-back recycling program
13:35 - Recycling as acquisition, then Trashie and SuperCircle
16:40 - What's driving new growth now
17:30 - Giving away underwear on the streets of New York
18:00 - Cotton vs synthetics: the health case
22:06 - The "ask me about my underwear" sign
28:32 - Galentine's roses and being a fun brand
31:30 - World-building for a product you can't see
33:33 - Getting flagged as adult content in paid ads
34:56 - New-media marketing: just be yourself
39:14 - Protecting time to stay creative
42:34 - Close
Cayla O'Connell Davis: I held up a sign on the street corner in front of Blank Street Coffee that said, "Ask me about my underwear," and just like talking to people and like spreading the word.
Sean: I am super excited to have you back for another episode of Read Receipt. It's a deep dive into the how and why of the brands we love and the creatives behind them. From blueprints to launch day, customers as community, and the detours in between. Big lessons and easy listening Read Receipt is hosted by Antidote, the email and SMS marketing agency by people who hate boring email
Cayla O'Connell Davis: If you go Subset, you never go back. People find us because they're very excited to have, you know, find a company that's actually, like, taking responsibility for the products that they're putting out into the world. So you have the fast fashion companies that are producing at a really high rate, and then that's going into a landfill. So we're trying to prevent that at all costs, making it a circular supply chain.
Sean: Do you travel to India? Do you travel to, to the factory often at all?
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Honestly, we never go. With Zoom now, I feel like we're able to really just communicate everything online and, like, we just have such a good relationship. It's time, it's time. We should, for sure. But no, I haven't gone with this company. Like, we're--
Sean: So interesting. That's so interesting- I
Cayla O'Connell Davis: know ...
Sean: that you can, that you can do that and have a good relationship with them. And also- Yes ... you said you've become their main customer over time.
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Yes. Yeah.
Sean: Yeah,
Cayla O'Connell Davis: we just-
Sean: That's great have really- To have, like, such an impact on them too over the long haul. Yeah. I feel like it would be awesome to go.
Cayla O'Connell Davis: It w- it definitely will be. Like, they're kinda very spread out in terms of their supply chain. It's all in the same region, but their offices are in Mumbai, and then all of the production is in the south. All of the cotton fields are in the Maharashtra region, so it's very spread out. Wow. So it'd be, like, a, a multi-- like, a, at least a week-long trip, and so we've just never, I don't know, prioritized it. But we, we absolutely should, and we would love to, 'cause they've-- they're a family-run business as well, and, like, we know everyone in the family, and it's very- Oh my
Sean: God. It's
Cayla O'Connell Davis: wonderful. That's so cool. They come, they come, they come to New York. So we do see them in person. We just haven't been to, yeah, the facilities. But we would love to. Oh my God. And yeah, the- That's
Sean: so fun ...
Cayla O'Connell Davis: the business has-- Yeah. It'd be so fun. I agree. We need to, we need to make it happen. I feel like it just always gets pushed down on, you know, the priority list. And we're, like, totally bootstrapped and self-funded, so that's also a very expensive trip. And, you know, when you're thinking about where am I gonna spend the dollars on the business this quarter, that has, has not escalated to a need. If it becomes a need, sure. But yeah- Okay ... certainly not something we're, we're investing in at the moment.
Sean: Wow. So you guys bootstrapped the whole time. It, it's an expensive category to start a business in, right?
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Yes. Anything that requires a product and working capital when you have like a long lead time like ours, like we already in apparel have, you know, the cash conversion cycle is a little bit more lengthy. But when you're working with fair trade and when you're working with organic, it's actually much longer. We have to buy into our purchase orders at least five, six months in advance. And so yes, it significantly changes our cash flow as a business and the cash outlay is much more like challenging from the get-go. We have to have very agile and incredibly thoughtful planning throughout the year to make sure that we're responsibly allocating budget toward the right SKUs. And honestly, that's one of the reasons we don't like overproduce. We only do a couple drops a year and it's usually just color refreshes. I think we went through a period where we over-diversified a little bit and then we kind of pulled it back to see, you know, doubling down on, on what really works for our customer and what they really want from us. So that was a learning for sure, a very good lesson.
Sean: How did you end up launching the, the brand and like testing demand because you were bootstrapping
Cayla O'Connell Davis: it? It was a lot of gut feeling, a little bit of research. I mean, I am the customer, so I was designing for myself. We started with just four styles out of the gate, and that was a low-rise thong that was kind of a very different construction than you'd ever seen in the market before. So that was really unique and it was a huge benefit and people loved it, and still do. We had a low-rise bikini out of the gate, a hipster that was a mid-rise, and our high-rise brief. And the high-rise brief like broke the internet. It was like Vogue's favorite style. They-- we-- they wrote about it on Vogue Runway. We like sold out of all our product that we thought was gonna last us six months in a very short amount of time, which sounds like a good problem, but it's a tough problem to deal with when you have a lot of demand all of a sudden and people are, you know, looking, looking for the product. So I think it was a lot of just knowing what I wanted from a company and the styles that I enjoyed wearing and talking to friends and doing a little bit of that kind of just con- you know, consumer outreach. And we launched with just four colors, and we actually kept that assortment pretty tight for a while and just kept trying to meet demand because it exploded out of the gate and we were just trying to keep up with it for the better part of two years. And then COVID happened as we launched in- Our first year in business was 2019, and then COVID launched and it was like our-- we like 3X'd overnight. It was nuts. And so we were just trying to keep up, and we didn't even invest in additional categories until probably '21. '21 is when we introduced a new... a bra and bralette collection. In between that, we launched a mid-rise brief, and I always say like our customers designed that because they were looking for an in-between some of our styles. You know, we had kind of hit on all the franchises out of the gate and needed to kind of answer to something that was almost like a ubiquitous... And that has almost-- it sometimes-- it's like always in the second behind our high-rise brief, which has like a cult following. It's al- almost eclipsing it now in terms of just the distribution on sales.
Sean: How, um... I'm gonna ask you such specific questions. I hope you're-
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Go for it ...
Sean: okay with this. Um-
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Totally.
Sean: How much volume of product did you order on the first run, and how did you build demand and get all of like the press place- placements? It sounds like the press and internet buzz is what drove initial sales.
Cayla O'Connell Davis: 100%. So our first purchase order, I believe, was 16,000 units. Wow. But 4,000 of that was the high-rise brief specifically because we had a minimum for the, like, leg elastic that we had to meet just for that style. And so I think anybody who's, like, a good planner would've looked at this and said, "This is a terrible strategy to buy into." In retrospect, it actually was kind of like kismet because that was the style that everybody latched onto and Vogue wrote about and, like, blew up. And so thank goodness we had way more of that than any of the other styles. And I, I mean, it's a great style. Like, I love it. I think people love it for a reason. The Strategist just wrote about it last month. You know, I think it's, it, it really holds up and it's like a multi-generational kind of fit. But yeah, so we invested out of the gate in press and I think it's a very different game now, like this was 2019, but press was pretty, I would say, like, important to just, you know, having that social proof and Vogue, you know, they weren't doing any affiliate links at that point in time. It was really about the story and believing in the brand and something that was newsworthy.
Sean: I do have a question on this, though. Yeah. So you invested in PR back then. Yes. Would you do it differently if you were launching it today?
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Hmm. It's so different. It's so hard to say because the pr- like publications I guess now there's like
Sean: TikTok and-
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Yeah I think what you're really gonna get, like, better return on investment is, is really on probably influencer marketing, which is crazy to say. I think that social proof is necessary from publications and maybe a h- a, like an answer/non-answer is we work a lot with affiliates, and I think like, you know, the mommy bloggers of the world still matter in the publication media space, and they did then and they do now. And that is kind of what I think of as press these days is, like, coverage from affiliates and roundups and newsletters and Substack. I think, I think that that is kind of where I would also focus if I were launching today. But you know, I mean, having those accolades from household names is really powerful, and it's just different now because everybody l- is like pay to play, and so it's not quite... Earned media has gone away. You know, I think Wirecutter, which actually they just gave us top pick for women's underwear last month, our mid-rise bikini. Thank you, Wirecutter. They are like the last publication of like non-biased, you know, testers, and that is a huge accolade, and thank you again to The New York Times for that. But I don't know, Vogue, like Vogue means something also. Like when we, we invested in press when we were first launching, we were hoping for a launch story and they publicized our launch, and it was a story not just because we were a new brand, but we were a brand that was focused on sustainability and trying to rethink the supply chain in fashion and just trying to set a new standard for production. And we also had a first of its kind, state-of-the-art recycling program for intimate apparel where we took your old undies because every woman has underwear in their drawer that have been there for decades too long that they need to get rid of. But it feel-- Like how do you get rid of it? Like you don't, you can't donate it. It's not like something you can drop off at Goodwill, but it feels really weird to throw it away because you shouldn't. Like textiles are something that you shouldn't throw out, you know? And so we started collecting it, it-- which was crazy. We had this, the, like the system that existed back then that we built, there was no way in Shopify to have a reverse label without an order. So you couldn't send something... You couldn't like create a return label unless somebody had ordered something. And I would say 60% of the people who recycled with us still today are net new. They are new to us. They've never even heard about our underwear. They heard about our recycling, so they're coming to us for the recycling program. And we were like issuing manual labels. Did
Sean: they buy eventually or n-
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Yes Yes, and I lo- thank you for asking that because the sys- the program was if you recycle, we'll give you a pair for free. And so they would recycle with us and send us their stuff, but we were printing like manual labels issued to individuals like en masse, and it was totally inefficient and crazy. And we spent so much time building out a custom system for that, like years. And then we would collect, like I would get like hundreds of boxes of people's old underwear into my apartment and have to deal with it. Yeah, exactly. And then we would give them free pairs, and it was a great incentive, and it was a really incredible acquisition tool for us, and it actually was way competitive to anything we were spending on paid media
Sean: You're like, "It actually was way more expensive than I ever realized because I had to store old underwear in my home."
Cayla O'Connell Davis: In my home. Yes. We did get rid of it. We sent it to a third party that would recycle it, and that was the whole point is like all of this textile waste can be used for something else. And so most of it at that time, I will tell you about the upgrades we have made since, but we were bringing it to a recycling house in Brooklyn and then also in New Jersey, and they would chop it up into what's called shoddy, like a fabric fiber pulp. And that would be used for insulation in like buildings or stuff a couch with it, or they would make it into like a soft composite and use it as rug pads or fill boxing bags. So it was a very cool program, and it still is, but it became so big that we had to sit down and say to ourselves, "Okay, this-- are we gonna be a recycling company or are we gonna be an underwear company?" And ultimately, the recycling company was costing a lot more to run than it was actually returning on because the volume was so crazy and the operations were so expensive, and it wasn't working like a profit center anymore. And so we decided to outsource it. And so now we work with two partners that are top of the class in the industry, and they have really started the industry because we were also doing something that no one had ever done before, and it was like a very hard problem to solve, and it still is, and they're still working on it. Uh, but we work with two companies called Trashie and SuperCircle. And Trashie has a really cool offering where you just buy a bag, and we sell the bag on our website. It's called the Take Back Bag, and you can fill it with anything. So not just your old undies, but you can also put shoes in it, you can put pants, like pillowcases, whatever, and send it to them and they upcycle, downcycle, resell, whatever, and then you get a discount back to literally, I mean, every store in the world is on their website, and you can get a discount at Apple. You can get a discount at Subset, which is amazing. And now, yeah, that has helped us really scale. We've, we've recycled over two million items, you know, since we started it. And with SuperCircle, what's really cool is the returns that we get we can't resell because you can't resell underwear that's been unpackaged, and we wouldn't anyway. But we actually send it to them and they, uh, recycle it in fiber-to-fiber recycling. So it's going back into the cotton kind of feedstock and supply chain, and that's being made into secondary garments.
Sean: That's cool. Has the recycling program-- Back then, was it one of the main acquisition tools and is it today or has that changed?
Cayla O'Connell Davis: It was historically. Today, it still is, like, yes, I would say it's less of a contributor, but it is still a very significant one. I wish I could speak to the percentage, but we have actually had a lot of new customer growth over the past few months, and so I can't say that the mix is the same. But it's been incredible, and people find us because of it, and they're very excited to find a company that's actually taking responsibility for the products that they're putting out into the world because Fashion is not like that. You know, you have the fast fashion companies of the world that are producing at a really, really high rate, and they're just making more and making more, and then that's going into a landfill eventually. So we're trying to prevent that at all costs, particularly with our product and making it kind of a circular supply chain.
Sean: What is driving the growth now? You said there's been a big influx of new customer growth.
Cayla O'Connell Davis: There has, yes. I mean, I think we've been really focused on new customer acquisition over the last six months. It was kind of like our mandate in January to the team, and 'cause we had predominantly really-- We have a wonderful, really amazing community, and our retention is incredibly strong. Like I always say, if you go Subset, you never go back. Generally speaking, if you get product in your hand, you will wear it and you will buy more. And so we kind of just predicated our strategy on that, of we need to get some new customers into the mix and start to spread the word here. The response has been incredible. I go onto the streets of New York, I hand out free underwear, and that really comes back. It's amazing. We do free undie giveaways all the time because I am so confident in our product. I believe that if you try it, you will come back and buy it. Um, and we have seen that proven out. Uh, but I will also say that I think it's really cool, yeah. It's awesome. I mean, that's the number one thing we focused on out of the gate is, is a great product and it still stands, so we will always prioritize that. But the other thing I was gonna say is the-- I think the, the conscious collective or the consumer is waking up to the realities of most of my clothing is made out of plastic. Like, why am I wearing underwear that is the same material as a garbage bag? That is not good. And you know, I think Netflix's Plastic Detox movie had a lot of impact on the zeitgeist, and the wellness girlies on the internet. You know, everybody is like, "Oh, I am thinking about my health and longevity and my fertility," and like even men, my sperm health, what have you. You know, cotton underwear is much better for your body than synthetic alternatives are. Not only because cotton breathes better, synthetics don't breathe. They trap heat and they trap moisture, and that's like a breeding ground for bacteria, which is just no girl's friend. And then, you know, the materials and the finishings that are put on most clothing is very toxic. You know how you have formaldehyde, which is an anti-wrinkle agent. Why do we need that on our underwear? You don't need that on your underwear. Like, nobody cares if your undies are wrinkled. They're actually gonna be not wrinkled the second ti- second you put them on. And that's like a known cancer-causing substance, you know? So we, because of our standards with the Global Organic Textile Standard and OEKO-TEX, we prohibit any of those heavy t- heavy metals, toxins, forever chemicals, the PFAS, the VOCs, anything on the restricted substances li- substances list in the Europe, we go beyond that. Like, you want your underwear to be clean, especially around your best bits. You know, we can't be having exposure to microplastics and also toxic chemicals as, you know, anyone. Yeah. But certainly not women. Yeah. So-
Sean: Formaldehyde is so interesting too. It's like, is that used on clothing? Like on denim?
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Most cl- most clothing.
Sean: Okay. Then that makes
Cayla O'Connell Davis: sense. It's a very, very common finishing, like performance substance that's put on in a final wash on clothes. You can, you can get it out conceivably if you wash it. If you wash your new garments a lot, it will come out-
Sean: Who
Cayla O'Connell Davis: doesn't do that? ... eventually.
Sean: Just get new clothes and then just wash over and over again.
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Over and over and over again. Yeah. But I think like I'm just-- I'm dubious, like if a company is doing that, what else are they putting on it? And, you know, the dye stuffs are super poisonous as well. You know, you've seen-- I don't know if you've seen, but there's a lot of like class action lawsuits going on around the Sheins and the Temus of the world and even like Lululemon and, you know, some of our, our beloved household names that I don't wanna, you know, speak to too much. Beloved. But they-- it's 'cause of the forever chemicals in the products.
Sean: Yeah.
Cayla O'Connell Davis: And you're sweating in them if you're working. It's a lot of the athletic brands because you're sweating in them, and when you sweat into something, like it goes ba- your abs- your skin is your largest orgin- organ for absorption in the body, and so you're, you're really exposing yourself with what you wear.
Sean: Yeah. My wife, anytime, anytime I go in the sauna My weakness is that sometimes I'll wear board shorts in the sauna.
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Mm, mm-hmm.
Sean: And especially like if friends are over, and she's always like, "That is so bad and gross." It's
Cayla O'Connell Davis: not great.
Sean: For
Cayla O'Connell Davis: you. Just wear a towel. Yeah.
Sean: I know. I know. Just wear a towel. I try not to do it. Um, I try not to do it. Yeah. That's always been something though that I've been aware of, is sweating in anything that is synthetic. Is-
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Yeah ...
Sean: yeah, not great. Um-
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Credit to you for knowing that because a lot of people don't, and they're just waking up to that now, so.
Sean: Well, it's really not me. It's my wife who's aware and will shame me for, for doing it. So-
Cayla O'Connell Davis: That's all right.
Sean: The, the, the undie giveaway piece is so fun and outside of the norm of what people would talk about when thinking about new customer acquisition, acquisition. Where do you focus, like, your time on spreading the word of the brand? Is it-- I know you mentioned affiliates, influencers, and then interesting, like fun ideas like going out into the city and giving away product. How, how do you spend your time on growing the brand?
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Well, we do a lot of that. I mean, I think the-- I have been like pedal, like what is the, what's the word? That when you hit the pavement. I've been hitting the pavement, like just trying to get in front of people. I think that, you know, with a digital first company, it's so easy to just kind of like exist behind the screens and connect in the DMs or connect over email. And I do a lot of DMing, don't get me wrong. Like I slide into a lot of people's DMs like from my personal account, just giving them, giving-- like asking them if they wanna try the product, no strings attached. And nine times out of 10 they post about it anyway 'cause they just love it so much and I-- or they like email me and it's like, "This changed my life. Like I love, you know, oh my gosh, I need to change all my underwear over." So I do a lot of that. But yeah, I mean we're just trying to get in front of people, like real people on, on the streets of New York talking to them, like asking them... I held up a sign on the street corner in front of Blank Street Coffee that said, "Ask me about my underwear." And just like talking to people and like spreading the word because-- And that's like maybe a little unhinged and like- Oh, yeah ... I'm happy to do that. Um, because like the education, I think like what we were just talking about, about natural fibers being better for your body and just the need to kind of like upgrade your underwear drawer for your, your wellness and just to also like feel better. And that's been really successful and it's so fun. I worked in a shop for like six, six or seven years, all while I was in college and grad school, and I miss that, you know, like the customer service of it all, like just talking to a woman while we're trying to find jeans for her, and I love that and I really love like just connecting with our customers directly. So, and I think like in this world where there's a lot of AI happening, people miss analog connection. So we've been kind of, yeah, leaning on more grassroots and scrappy techniques to acquire customers, but also just to connect for sure.
Sean: So also like I feel like nowadays everyone would just talk about Facebook ads and Instagram ads, which obviously you guys probably do as well. But then I think people don't do any of the other aspects that you can-
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Yeah.
Sean: Yeah ... to like literally just tell people about the brand and product. And it also seems like you can control some of that more.
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Yeah.
Sean: I don't know why, like, you know, if you were spending all of your time like on the Facebook ads- aspect of things, which is important. Or even the affiliate outreach and outreach to influencers, like that also is somewhat controllable. As long as I keep outreaching to people, there's gonna be conversations happening. People will most likely post over time. It won't be everyone, but as long as I keep inputting the effort, I'll get something on the back end. And feels like doing the personal connections and being on the street is good energetically And then on top of it, you talk to people, realize what they care about, hear about what their questions are or what they're interested in. I would assume you get a bunch of content out of doing that. And then-
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Yeah
Sean: yeah, it like kind of feeds back into everything and brings life into the brand in a way that I feel like is hard, hard to do. Or I, I feel like nowadays most people would hear that idea and just be like, "I don't know, that would be hard to, to do consistently. What does it even bring back to you?" It's like more faith-based in a way, which sounds weird to say, but yeah. I
Cayla O'Connell Davis: think it is hard, you know? It's like you really have to be-- You, you have-- I mean, I'm just putting myself out there on the street talking to strangers. Like that's a skill in and of itself that a lot of people don't wanna do that. I get it, you know. Um, especially when you're holding a sign like asking about my underwear. Who knows what, who knows who's gonna walk up to you and talk to you? I don't know what kind of- Yeah ... person you're attracting with that kind of message. No, I'm kidding. But no, it is- It's very ... it is difficult. Yeah, seriously. It is difficult for sure, and we have ways to make it like trackable and bringing it back and trying to make it, you know, back onto the online and making sure we're capturing the customer out of the gate with respect to that. Like we're not just trying to- Oh, we're like giving them coupon codes or getting their email or, you know, asking them questions for like a focus group that's more intimate. I think that there is something there also with connecting with a person- I agree ... like one-on-one. And people are always like, "Oh my gosh, you're the founder and you're doing this?" And I'm like, "Yeah." Like, who else better to do this than the person who came up with this crazy idea? You know what I mean? Like, obviously, um, my, my team is there helping me and everything, but then they'll slide into my DM later and be like, "Oh, it was so great to meet you. Like, I'm loving my undies," blah, blah, blah, and, "I told my sister about it." Or they come back and they're like, "I brought my coworker and I brought my girlfriend and they wanna try some too." We underestimate that perhaps a little bit too much in, in the D2C world.
Sean: Well, I, I think also you have to do interesting, fun things- Mm-hmm ... to be an interesting, fun brand to interact with online. And I feel like people don't really do that much or like underestimate how impactful that would be to aura around the brand. Or like you think about content production. It's like- Mm-hmm ... you would literally never be able to produce content that's as engaging as that without doing the thing. Like-
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Exactly
Sean: there's no idea- We- ... you could come up with that would give you the like random shit that would occur In real life.
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Totally. Right. Totally. We did this kind of similar, but we did on Galentine's Day. We just handed out roses on the street to every woman walking by, and it was crazy. We got out of the Uber where we were unloading to get onto the street corner with hundreds of flowers, and we were immediately swarmed. People were like, "What is this?" And it was so touching, and it wasn't even about the product. People were just like, "This is so joyful and is bringing... This is so kind that you're just giving out free flowers." And of course, we add a little buyback card on the flower, like, "This is from, you know, your friends, your, your gal pals at Subset. Like, here's a discount code for your, for 20% off your first o- order." Um, but it was like, again, I think to your point, like creating that, like aura or that buzz or just like that goodwill in, you know, around the brand and, and just like human, human to human.
Sean: Yeah. I think it's so awesome. I also think it brings like new ideas and new life into what you're doing, which is way more interesting if you are connecting with people, versus if you're like, "I'm just like, I spend all my time on the product, on connecting with the factories. We buy Facebook ads, and we come up with ideas of ways to get more views on Instagram and all these platforms," and all of them like are kind of- insulated, like they're away from anyone really. Like, we just work on it on our own, in our own bubble. I feel like over time that would be hard to, like, keep bringing new energy into it versus, like, if you go out into the real world and connect with people like that in fun ways that might not even relate to the brand that much, like it feeds back into it in a way that's so helpful for everything.
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think it's kind of this idea of world building and, you know, kind of also this is kind of a funny thing because we have a product, but I also-- I often think about our product as something that is like adjacent to like a perfume brand or like a ca- you know, even like a candle, like something that you don't see. So you have to think about like building the world around it and like this lifestyle around it because just like in a perfume brand, you can't smell that product. So the commercial is gonna be all about the emotion and the aspiration and what have you, and then you actually connect with people IRL, and then they can smell it. But, you know, I think underwear you don't see. You don't see somebody walking around. We don't have a visual product, and so I think about it from a marketing and brand building standpoint as something that is an unseen product as well. And so how can you activate that and build a world around it and the experience around it? And so we lean a lot into content that speaks to like daily rituals or your sustainability practices as an individual and like good citizenship and, you know, being a conscious and responsible consumer. We also lean into humor a lot and yeah, I think that's, that's kind of part of it. And, you know, that is also a challenge with influencer marketing because some people don't wanna post themselves half naked on the internet. I don't blame them. I get it. You know, early days when we were spending very small budgets on Meta and on Google, we were constantly limited in our audience because they thought we were pornography. So that was like an unforeseen challenge in our category until we got a rep to be able to like bypass, you know, that this is not, you know, this is safe for work. It's okay. You know, and we had a lot of challenges with marketing in general because from in the paid verticals because of just, you know, decency laws, I guess. So- How do
Sean: you think about- ...
Cayla O'Connell Davis: that was an interesting obstacle
Sean: How, how do you think about world building and content now outside of even like the, the IRL activations? How often are you doing those?
Cayla O'Connell Davis: We try to do them every other month, I would say, in various capacities. So, and that honestly really started this year as well, so it's fairly new. Um, so I would say we started it in the spring.
Sean: Do you feel
Cayla O'Connell Davis: like it's had a big- And then we're just- ...
Sean: a big impact?
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Yes. Definitely. Definitely has had an impact, and it's been really exciting to, like, build on that too, come up with other ideas. We have a launch in the fall that we're really excited about where we're gonna do some more kind of on the ground activations and experiences as well that are really exciting, you know, for a company like ours where you can't necessarily have people walking down the street in your product because, you know, they are probably wearing clothes. But to connect and activate with them on different levels i- in person is really fun.
Sean: Yeah.
Cayla O'Connell Davis: And it, like to your point, is like totally not related to the category, so that is for- forthcoming in September.
Sean: I, I was listening to a podcast with one of the investors from, honestly I don't know anything about them, but from A16Z, which is like a huge venture-
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Investment firm
Sean: fund.
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Yeah. Yeah, venture. Yep.
Sean: And they-- He was talking about how media today... Like back in the day you'd have to go on a podcast, like, or a, a TV show. Now you go on a podcast, but back then you would get like media training about what to say about the product, what to say about the brand-
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm ...
Sean: and how to present well, and you-- E- everything would have to be related to the product and the brand always. Yeah. And now with new media, it's actually almost better to have nothing related to the product and the brand, and to just be who you are-
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Yeah ...
Sean: out there, and then people will find out about the brand and the product. He was talking about like tech examples, so he was talking about, uh, the founder, it's kind of a random example, also not really like the greatest example, but, uh, the founder of Palantir and how like you would expect that he would, with how big that- Sean, right? Yeah. Yeah. How big the company is, like that he would be like very- he would talk about the company. He's like, if you actually watch his interviews, he barely will ever say anything about the company. He says, like, his opinions about what's happening in culture and in the world right now. Almost never talks about the company, the product, or what they do. And yet those media appearances, like, obviously help boost the prominence of that company and business in the world, and he's extremely, like, un... He, he's not, like-
Cayla O'Connell Davis: It's not
Sean: selling ... aware. Yeah. Or even, like-
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Yeah ...
Sean: he's not trying to present anything really. Like, it would probably be like the reverse of any coaching you would get to do that. And so- Yeah ... I feel like you doing the on-street activations, I, I think in the future people will do this more often. Like-
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Mm-hmm ...
Sean: you'll almost try and spend the majority of your time, like, doing that stuff, doing podcasts, being out, like, and sharing publicly more often to get the, the world around it built more easier so you spend less time thinking about what it is. 'Cause that's another thing I think is so interesting, like, in the brand building space. Like, I feel like- Mm-hmm ... most of the time what you do is talk about, like, what it would be like or how you would do it or, like, strategizing what it would be. Mm-hmm. And I think in the future there'll be less of that and more doing and being yourself and sharing it publicly so the volume of, like, interactiveness goes up with less effort. Because as long as you're, like, cool with who you are, I guess.
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Yeah. I think that's a really good shout. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense, for sure. Yeah. And it, like, it also speaks to, you know, some of the more basic principles of marketing, which is like the association or just like seeing the brand name several times. You know, people don't know what it is until they-- you hit them seven times or something, I think is the, the- Yeah ... old adage in advertising. Um, but yeah, like you think about like corporate sponsors like putting on like, you know, Diplo concerts or something- Yeah ... in Cannes and y- like that tracks. I think they figured it out a little bit that this was- Yes presented by so and so for sure. Yeah.
Sean: Yeah.
Cayla O'Connell Davis: And other ways to do it, like I think about how cool the Levi's and Gillette execution around the stadiums were for the, the World Cup, even though they weren't allowed to be li- they weren't licensing the brand officially, you still knew. Yeah. You still could tell. Like those are really good examples of kind of circumventing that and building a world around.
Sean: I love the ideas. How do you keep, how do you keep yourself in a playful enough space that you come up with logical ideas like that and allow yourself and your team to follow those paths?
Cayla O'Connell Davis: That is a wonderful question. I'm so glad you asked that because I consciously have made a really distinct effort in the past probably, yeah, like since the top of this year and the end of last, to just kind of get away from, I don't know, the, like the day-to-day kind of rote process and like work-work, you know? Where you're like in your emails, you're on Slack, you're like cranking stuff out. I set aside like really dedicated time to just literally think and to step away from my computer in order to be creative. And whether that's like taking a walk or going to a museum, like I live in a neighborhood where there's a lot of museums and galleries and right by Central Park. It allows me the space to kind of be free, and yeah, I really feel like especially, you know, I'm several years into this, like the burnout can be really real. I had my second child last year, and maternity leave is always kind of like a false, false truth when you run a company. And so but I, y- I think with my second child, I had a lot more like free time mentally and kind of leaned into that time when I, when she was napping or, you know, I had a little bit of me time to like really kind of just lean into creative brainstorming and getting back to like, why did I start this company? Like what brings me joy from it personally as well? Um, and that's the stuff I really like really and have fun with, and just thinking outside of the box, but also kind of going back to really like just 101 kind of basics of like, let's call, let's call our customers on the phone and talk to them. Like talk to them, like what are they loving? What are they not liking? Like wh- where are we meeting them? Where are we missing? You know, just kind of getting back to the basics of, of the brand and doubling down on, on the inspiration.
Sean: That's awesome. So hard to do, in my opinion.
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Yeah, fair. I mean, you really have to-- I've really had to carve out time because it's so easy to be like-
Sean: Busy
Cayla O'Connell Davis: it's so easy to be busy. Exactly. And, you know, as a mom as well, like when I do have time, that is not like I'm thinking about, oh, I should like, you know, go and, go and, you know, play some Legos or, you know, do whatever. But-- And I do, don't get me wrong, like if my mornings are very protected before, you know, my workday starts. But then, yeah, like my Mondays, I do not schedule meetings. My Fridays, I don't schedule meetings because I'm trying to free up time that's either deep work or deep creative work, and I typically set aside like one day a month to do really deep, like ideation. And that can, that can be in product, but that is also in marketing.
Sean: That's awesome. Well, I love, I love the ideas behind the brand and really respect what you've built. Thank you. So thank you for coming on and hanging out.
Cayla O'Connell Davis: Thank you so much for chatting with me and yeah, having me on the pod.
Sean: I would love to stay in touch too.