Everyone you're listening to superwomen today's guest is Susan Feldman the founder of in the groove Susan felt, like there was a whole segment of women namely women in the 40 to 50 to 60 plus category that are often forgot about not talked about and very much underserved and wanted to make a place where you could go you could be seen and celebrated and just hang out and buy. See things and feel like you're not left behind. So this is Susan Feldman on super women. First of all, welcome. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here Rebecca. It's a nice to see you. You brought some sun from California. I know it's a gorgeous day still really fucking cold cold very cold like a nice and sunny but cold. So we first met when you were with one Kings Lane. You were a co-founder. Yeah. I'd love to start earlier and hear a bit about you know, how you got your start in a totally different industry. And then what made you do the sleep? Faith now two times. Yes big leap. If a is a big Ravine underneath Outlet. Yeah. So where should we start? Let's start from you were in sales. I was so I actually went to business school after working for four years and trying to maybe switch my career. I've been in retail my I come from a retail family and my dad was a retailer. It's kind of in my blood. I worked at Macy's High School College got out of college went into a retail. L training program went back to business school thinking. Hey, maybe I should be an investment banker but ended up at Macy's in New York. So I just like could not get that out of my system. But very soon after getting there. I went to what they call the other side to your side to the wholesale side. So actually working for manufacturers selling to stores and I did that really for the majority of my career running sales and marketing organizations. And you know, I love retail. I love working with the stores. Actually, there's something very entrepreneurial about it because you feel like in some way you own a piece of the business helping them grow the business and make the business profitable. But I had gotten to a point where we were talking about this earlier that I just wasn't really having as much fun as I had had and I was at a point in my life. My we had just moved to California from New York. So we had been there for a few years. I had this idea for one Kings Lane and my head that I would have been talking about for a year. Here and I just got to a point where I had said to my husband like I need to do something different. So it's either go look for another job retire or do something like start this new company that I had a vision for but it was scary to actually try to do that. You know, I just kept talking about it. So I give Bob a lot of credit for the beginning of one Kings Lane because he's like, okay, so just go do it and like what's Worse that will happen. And did you have the idea for what it became fully formed in your head when you were talking about it? Yeah, pretty much like I had a very clear vision for what I wanted to create and you know, it was interesting because I just like needed somebody to sort of given that push and Bob was funny because he's like either go do it or stop talking about it. That's right because I feel like I have million ideas all the time. I'm sure you do as a creative person and you sort of let them percolate a Nate and whatever and then you know two weeks later like yeah, that wasn't such a good idea. I want to the next thing but the one for one Kings Lane, I could not Shake. I was literally talking about it thinking about it. I was obsessed with at the time. It was Flash sales that had just sort of come on to the retail saying and I had with a company that I had worked with prior to starting one Kings Lane. I participated in one of these, you know a flash sale event and I saw how powerful they were and the velocity that you could sell products. And you know the excitement that kind of came with it and nobody was doing anything in the home space. The home space was kind of wide open which sounds so crazy today because I feel like everybody's very home Centric now. Yeah, but back in 2007. It's actually the you know, the retail and the e-commerce landscape for home was pretty Barren to say it when you find your big retailers online, but other than that there really wasn't much there. And so, you know when you said, okay, I'm going to start this I'm going to do it. What were those Those next steps and were you terrified and I was scared to death, but I think you know, it's kind of funny. I think when talking to Bob kind of put things in perspective because it was like, okay like let's just talk about this. Like what's the worst thing that would happen the worst thing that would happen was it wouldn't work right fail. So you have to deal with failure, you know, when you go out and you build a site and you did you have to raise money as well. Well, so now because if you recall this was back in November, Allison a that, we formed our LLC and the world was basically imploding. Yes. I remember had fallen apart and so we didn't even try to raise money. So basically it was like the worst that would happen is that we would not be successful and we would lose whatever money we had decided to invest in the company. So it would you know the worst that would happen to be a bad investment and it still was scary. But once I decided to do it as kind of, you know, kind of amazing what happens you just put blinders Anders on and you know, there's always naysayers and you bump up against that all the way along the way but you just so I keep pushing through it you like. Okay did that didn't work that persons not going to partner with me. I'll go find somebody else. Totally. It just make it you just figure figure it out. You just like you don't even know like people once one Kingsland launch is so funny. People say, how'd you do that? I'm like, I don't know. It's a really good question. Like how we did we just like literally we were like a force, you know, we'd literally formed our company and November 2008 and one. Playing launch the end of March 2009 and that was it. We were off and running and how did you convince people being that you were the first into to do this with you? Because I know when your when when we started see by aware or we you know, try to change models. It's really hard and people don't believe you and they're unsure and then you do it and everyone's like oh, yeah, we're going to get on that bandwagon, but it's a little bit like that Nike video. That's out that like you're crazy. Yeah, you know like it really you think you're going to do this like, you know, you've never Ever been at home space before and you're gonna do what so I think you know, I haven't been around the block so to speak like I understood if I could get enough people to fill our calendar for a month it just meant basically 20 different vendors to do one event that if I could do that and we did a good job with those sales. Then we would be fine because then they would tell their friends and other people in the industry and word would start to spread and Do you even begin to acquire an audience? Well, so that was so there were actually a couple things we had to do it to build the website. We had to build the vendor base. We had to build an audience and we had to build the brand or that's actually in reverse order. So the brand was first so we came up with the name created one Kingsland we decided that we wanted to launch with because we were an email based business 5,000 people the day we launched so we started a campaign which is very hard to To do to get people to sign up prior to launch because you're basically signing up for nothing. Right? And so we thought what with this customer want that we could give them so you could if you signed up and gave us your email you had the chance to win an Hermes throw. Yeah. So that was that was the hook. Okay, and you know, there wasn't the social media platforms that we have today. So it was really Word of Mouth like, you know, you maybe would sign up and send it to your friends or maybe not because you wanted a chance to when the Hermes But it was really funny the day we launched our developer engineer called me at five of eight or email us went out at 8 o'clock in the morning. So our first email was getting ready to go out and he's like this is really weird and I'm like what he goes. You have exactly five thousand people signed up right now not like 4927 or 50 103 of 5,000 people. Wow, which is our goal. And I said send that email right now. It was like I felt like it. It's a sign or something. Yeah, that was our goal and we were right at our goal and the email went out a little before 8:00. And like I said, we were just off and running, you know, we did I don't $1,600 the first day the second day we did like $32,000 and by the fifth or sixth month. We were doing almost a million dollars in sales. Yeah, so it was like very hyper growth and it was really fun and crazy at the same time. And at the same time we had to build a vendor base because we had to have Dr. Sell so we were out hustling, you know for the five months that we were building the site getting people lined up on the calendar and you know, to be honest, it sounds like it was all easy, but it wasn't but that the recession actually worked in our favor because people had a lot of excess at all, like they never had excess inventory before so they had no idea what to do with it and the home space. It just was something it wasn't apparel you tend to end up with excess or over cuts. It was not something that was really Lee ever happened and home so people were kind of desperate because they had inventory they didn't know what to do with it. And so they're like you seem like you know what you're doing well take a chance. Like what's again the worst thing to happen nothing to lose and then Not only was it great for them because they sold the product but we did such an awesome job of presenting their brand like a better job actually, then they were doing that. They loved working with us because all of a sudden we elevated who they were. Talked about you know, what was inspiration, you know behind the brand and nobody had ever done that for them before right? So it was like a win-win for everybody and was that sort of naturally what you're really good at is that branding and storytelling it was and the other thing which I think we did really well back then which now it's a very overused word, but nobody was really doing it the time was we really curated what we were doing. So people are vendors that we worked with would show up and they'd present to us. Here's what I can. Can give you to sell and we would go through it and we would like take things out of it. Because if we felt it actually didn't tell their Brand Story well or a diluted the presentation of what we were putting out to our customer base. We said we can't sell that for you. And that was okay because I we did a better job selling the stuff that was there. So they appreciated that in the end. Yeah, so during that high-growth time while that is obviously really exciting time. What was some of the biggest challenges you faced. And that kind of where do you start where does one start at that time? I think you know, the biggest one is always people because if you're in a hyper growth mode like you you need people and almost like you're running so fast in the business is growing so fast, the only way to actually kind of keep up with it as almost a throw bodies at it. And you know, you don't it's just hard because you want to get the right people in there. The people that are really passionate about the vision, you know, Know what you're doing and we were fortunate I think in the beginning because we really attracted people that were really obsessed with what we were doing. And so that was the first bar the people had to pass that even get into the company, you know, because everybody was so passionate about home who was working with us, which is great. But hiring is definitely I think it it doesn't matter how little or big you are. I feel like getting and building the right team is the hardest thing to do. It is the hardest I would say people is the People and putting a puzzle together and you gotta have good people you do. You know, you just have one bad egg. Let me tell you about its had a bunch. Yeah, and it's like it's blue stinks fast. But yeah, so during that time were your kids older at that point. Yeah. So I was it was actually kind of interesting because the right as a we were launched in one Kingsland my youngest was a senior in high school. Okay, and literally as I Is forming my LLC she got accepted to college. So that was good that was checked done and she was pretty much footloose and fancy free. So she actually helped a lot in the beginning might she was the only I have three kids and she was the only one that was home during the early days and she had a great time. It was kind of fun. She became almost like my PA cuz I literally was like chained to my desk all day. So she would grocery shop. She would go to the dry cleaners if I needed clothes she would Good work ethic. Yeah, and and she did photography for the site to because she was a very good photographer and that a great Studio at school and she said to her teacher my Mom's starting this business. Could I bring some product in and photographic because we're trying to figure out the creative and the photography thing early. It actually hurt photography. We used probably for two years on this site was funny silver picture frames. She did nice. So you have a wild ride it's you know, you did it for what almost 10 years right seven seven years. And then what at that point what made you say? Alright time to do something new or yeah, I'm to go I think you know the business had such massive growth and it really needed certain resources to get to the next level which was building stores, which now, we have a new store in SoHo, which is exciting a store in the Hamptons. And you know reaching that customer the business evolved I should start with that. So the business became move from a flash sale site to really a legitimate retailer where you could go and find beautiful things every single day. So that was a very big change at the business and you know, it became really by 2000 and probably 15. We realized like it wasn't just about reaching the customer just through the internet like you had to be where they were so that meant building stores, you know catalogs things like That and I think we're at a point where we just felt like we needed sort of somebody that haddock expertise in that and Bed Bath & Beyond came along and that's him actually like it made a lot of sense and so in June 2016, we sold the business to them and it's been great. Like I said that you know, they've done that they've sent out. I don't know six eight catalog since they've been part of them open up stores going to open up hopefully more stores. So I think you know, the business has to keep changing. Wrestling today's world. Nothing stays the same right? Like you have to keep iterating on a you do such a great example of eyes being I think on The Cutting Edge and I think that's what we needed to do. And I think we recognize that it was going to take a little bit more than what we had to get there. Right? So was it hard to sell off your oh my God. Yeah about that. You know, it's interesting. I moved a lot as a kid growing up. So I sort of feel like I learned how to suck it up pretty well. But and so I Feel like I did that, you know when we sold the company the people Bed Bath & Beyond were nothing but gracious and they wanted me to be around as a figurehead of the business. So, you know, I did everything I could for the transition and I'm like, I've got this this is like fun and like I think I realized that I so didn't have it and that, you know the idea of like basically selling one of your tools trip was really hard and I I had immediately had an idea for in the groove, you know the business that you're talking about, but I couldn't get it started. It was really interested. I'm a very much a doer and I kept trying to get started. I couldn't get it so I couldn't figure out what was wrong like why I wasn't moving forward on it had a lot of meetings nothing was happening and then I realized, you know, I needed a break I needed to sort of really take heart of like what that Journey had been reset clear my head like sort of Think about all the good bad and whatever that had happened over the course of the seven years and sort of put it in its place before I could actually move on and create something new. So, how long was your break for? Well so that we saw the company in June 2016 and I launched in the groove in end of September last year. Okay, 2008. So two years two years. It was two years. Yeah. I mean it was It was it was interested. I just didn't understand that I needed to do that. You know, I finally like when talk to a therapist that helped was it weird for you to go from being very entrepreneurial running a hectic business and then nothing. I was experiencing that over the last couple of years of the business. I'm in I was there but the business has gotten so big that like, I had been the chief Merchant for the first five years of the business and it's gotten so big that it didn't make sense I lived. In LA and the whole merchandising team was in New York. So we promoted the person that was the you know, my number one or the person that reported to me made her the chief Merchant. So when we did that I became less and less involved in the business and it totally was a struggle. I was really hard, you know, it was hard to feel like I was sort of involved but not involved that wasn't the decision maker anymore. I was kind of on the sidelines but I was it was like I felt a little bit in limbo to tell you the truth. It was it was Was challenged it and then I think actually selling the company was really the final that was the, you know closure of all that but it was it was hard. It was definitely hard. So you saw your therapist. What else did you do during that time to like we survived and that was good talking to somebody objectively. It was that was definitely helpful. I think you know, I got a healthy. So I really I mean I exercise actually I tried to make that part of my daily routine all Through one Kings Lane because I think when things are so hectic having a workout routine makes sense. So I did that. I have more free time. So Bob and I traveled a little bit which is good. And you know, I just I don't know spent a lot of time running around doing things that had nothing to do with what I had. Yeah had a purpose probably so you then decided. Okay, I've had enough time off. Well, it actually wasn't like that. So about the time that we started selling the company I had the idea. For get in the groove. I just wasn't sure what to do about it. I wasn't sure if it was a big enough idea. And so I spent the next year kind of researching it and doing like what I did with one Kingsland like sitting with it and I still like it. It's still feel like a big idea. So I did that. I did some focus groups around it talked to a lot of people I did research on the demographics is basically what had happened is about the time you're selling the company a friend of mine that I went to Stanford with Who is super successful posted a picture on Facebook with three girlfriends that said hashtag? They're celebrating somebody's 50th birthday hashtag at 50 were not invisible and I think they thought it was funny and I thought it was like so not funny. I thought it was actually really sad and I thought why are they saying that like, I wasn't feeling that way, you know, actually I was 53 when I started one Kingsland. I never even thought about my age actually until our PR people would say Vanity Fair what's do article on you and Allie and but the only way they'll do it as if you put your age in there. I'm like sure why not like, you know, who cares so I didn't understand like where that was coming from. I started talking to a lot of women and started to realize that you know around 50 women go through so much like we just don't even realize but it's physically, you know, whether it's menopause emotionally, maybe become an empty nester professionally things start to happen. Sometimes it work a lot of times if you're empty nester all of a sudden you're trying to reconnect with their spouse. So they're just like a million forces come in, you know on and happening to women it later in life. And I think it's a tough place to navigate and I think some people get through it fine and other people don't and I felt like there was an opportunity to do something around this because when I looked at into the internet, you know digital space. I'm like, where do women my age go like who's talking to us? RP of it as a damn great content, but you know not a brat my mother whose 90 loves it, you know straight think it's fantastic. It wasn't like speaking to me and nobody was talking to me and what I thought was like a cool modern way. And by the way, if you talk to women in this demographic nobody feels their age anyway, but they don't want to be looking at content and hearing things from that have pictures of 22 year-old her. Early in it totally and but there was nothing out there, you know, and so I was like, oh my gosh, like this is a huge opportunity. I could do something in this space. Like I can curate all the informations out there for sure, but I can actually go out there and create a platform and curate merchandise product information story and bring it to this demographic in a way that is easily digestible. It's like sound bites is way we take in information today. Hopefully provide them with information that keeps them in the groove because what I started to learn and talking to women so crazy people said this all the time. I feel invisible. I'm like, how could you feel invisible you're like the CEO of a major corporation? I know but I feel invisible like nobody. You know, I want where do you think they're feeling invisible? I think like socially they probably at one point ten years prior would walk into a room people may be turned around and now they walk into a room or a store. I mean I see. This all the time I walk into like a boutique and there's a 23 year old salesperson video. I play like nor you I don't know why you have more wherewithal then not only that but if they had a brain in their head, they would know we also spend two hundred fifty percent on the more than anybody else and have more wealth than anybody but they don't so we're trying to change some of that too and made people understand that because we are today healthier wealthier more engaged generation than Generation in history, you know of this demographic so it's different and I think it's time that with everything else that's going on with change that conversation run aging. Hi everybody. I want to tell you a little bit about the platform. I use to distribute this podcast. It's called anchor it is the easiest way to make a podcast and it gives you everything you need in one place for free, which is what you can use right now from your phone or your computer and it allows you to record edit your podcast. So it sounds great. They're also distribute your podcast for you. So you can be heard anywhere on Spotify Apple podcast Google podcasts and so many more And I guess what you can make money with no minimum listenership, which I can tell you is a game changer. So download the anchor app or go to Anchor dot f m-- to get started. So what would you say to someone like me who's deep in the beginning of this journey with three kids? Yeah and Mayhem and I already am scared about my children leaving the nest. Yeah, what would you what would you say and how it's different with each generation? Right? I mean, you know, I think you give your kids the the tools right to go out and leave and live a very successful life if you'd give them all those those are like Say you give to them and in return they come back fully. Well, they will look I promise you look I'm back. I made a perfect example my daughter who's graduated from business school. She's in Los Angeles. Like she actually asked her to like hey, Mom, will you drive cross-country with me this over? You know, so they did they do come back, but I think you have to let them fly right up, but you give them a tool so that they can do that. Well, yeah, I joke that I already hate whoever my son's going to marry. It's probably my mother-in-law feels about me. Yeah absurd that so what have what has been the exciting part of launching something new and what has been the terrible part. Yeah so different than you know launch in 1 Kings I dived doing this solo. So that's been really different. Whereas. I had a partner with one Kings Lane Ali pinkos. It's been a lot harder to do because I think I'd know too much. So, you know, the two years that it took me to do this, obviously. Part of that was you know sort of coming to terms with the whole one Kings Lane Journey, but it was also me second-guessing myself all the time and having conversations. Like should I do this? Well, no, I don't know if I should do this because if I do this now, I know this happens where as before like when we did one Kings Lane, we were just moving and shaking nothing stopped us because we didn't know any better. We were almost like, you know dumb it's not the right word. But you know, we had a vision and we understood who we what we We're doing and we didn't know a lot else and we just kind of went for it. Now. I've been through this, you know whole journey of one Kings Lane and so I find myself second-guessing myself a lot. And sometimes I just have to say Okay. I'm going for it. Like I need to put it out there. So it took me way longer than I wanted it to to actually get this done and put it out there. So that's been really different and hard and I think just being solos is a really different experience like I miss having It bounced ideas off of and you know have those conversations when you're like haven't talking to yourself all the time about this a good idea. I don't know if this is a good idea. Yes, so that at that I miss I do miss that and that's been I think challenging and so tell me about if you go to get in the groove.com. What's there there's so much there. So it's really a folk. We really focused a lot on fashion and beauty and wellness and then you know, we have other things like there's a lot of really great. First-person stories accounts people that have I think really amazing sense of humor is to tell stories, you know about things that are like bringing up kids and this is kind of silly but somebody wrote this is funny. She's ever said I realized like it's been so long since I've actually been able to walk around naked because like, you know, I have boys and kids and whatever and I went on a writing Retreat and was in a hotel room by myself and it was she goes on till this very funny story about happened. So, you know, it's really Range of different things you'll find stories about acronyms. What the hell do these things mean? So you can tax with your kids who know we have some recipes on there, but the majority of it is really about like what we're seeing and sort of the fashion and Beauty space and what we like what we're using. We have a whole section called Groove approve which are products that we've tried that we love. So hopefully if you buy them you like them as much as we do week is hard for us. We're a small Scrappy team. I wish we could test Everything we can't. Yeah, but the ones that we do that we like we put in there. We have a menopause registry which of the things that we think will be helpful for you and you're going through menopause which are beautiful cotton pajamas to vibrators vibrators to skin creams all different kinds of things. So we try to take a an approach that keeps things kind of with a good sense of Our little irreverent but provides a lot of information for the person that's coming to the site awesome and you don't want to go to in the groov.com. No, don't cut it and the group it's not safe for work. Yeah. Well, you might want to go there but go to get in the groove.com. Okay, unless you're looking for a some vibrators and sex toys than you would want to go to in the group. We have them on our site that to so you could just come together the groov.com perfect. Yeah one-stop-shop exactly. No need to go there. So when one of the things I like to ask all my guests or two things I should say is something we'd be surprised to know about you you made it maybe like something that I did or did or a habit or okay. Yeah, I love Howard Stern. Okay. Listen to Howard Stern for way too long. Okay kind of it's actually been sort of interesting to listen to them. As long as I have because he's definitely evolved so it's sort of been fun, but that's sort of like I guess. I think he's great. He's like really good interviewer and I enjoy listening to him. Yeah, there are times that I did. I turned the talking about. Yeah, so that would be good. Maybe another one. This is kind of a fun one when I was 16. I worked on the crow Agency on a rodeo. Whoa. Yeah. So you worked in a rodeo. Yeah. It was on an Indian reservation in Montana. They have a big rodeo every summer and I I worked on that. I love that one. Yeah, well with your job lots of different things I did tickets. We also worked in the arena. So we were like pulling and pushing down like, you know Gates and ropes and all kinds of stuff like that. But did you ever almost get run over or you were gonna get run over but I definitely like embrace the experience to the point that when I came home my family was living in California at the time. I got off the plane wearing a cowboy shirt braids cowboy hat and I had a toothpick Classic. Yeah, very funny mother is like that but that was fun. Awesome. Yeah, my last and final question is what would be just a great piece of advice? You'd love to leave our listeners with being that you know, you've had several careers and seen big low high, you know highs and lows of everything. Yeah. I think I mean there's a couple things that I just talked about but I think one of them is to one is a keep things simple. I think it's even more important today. Day, and I'm feeling it more and more and maybe because I'm getting older but I just feel like less is more. It's like I feel like it's sort of our hashtag for you know in the groove and I think you know just staying focus on what it is that you really love and what you want to do and what you're good at. You know, like I think that was one of the lessons I actually learned with in the groove originally started out. It was going to be like kind of more of a Content site and it's very quickly, you know morphed into its content. But we have a lot of shopping on this site and that makes a lot of sense for me because that's what I do. I'm a merchant. That's what I'm good at and I think I fought it for a little bit in the beginning but then when I embraced it, it was like way better that I did that so like, you know, I think what you love you hear people say but also like, you know do an assessment and inventory and be honest with yourself about what you're really good at doing as well. Totally. Yeah, I to do that recently. Yeah. It's like I'm actually really good at PR. So I should do more of that exactly that it's sometimes it's hard to have those conversations because you're on a path and you're like, how do I get off this path to do something else and I feel like I went through that with just getting the starter which is probably one of the reasons that it took a little bit of time to get it started to yeah, totally Susan. Thank you so much. Thanks for having Rebecca. That was Susan Feldman to find out more about what she's building. You can follow her at in the group.
Everyone can identify with the feeling of being invisible sometimes, but for a whole generation, that feeling may be more a matter of endurance. Unfortunately most cultures don’t value older populations as they once did, and western society is especially guilty of that. Susan Feldman was saddened when she saw a friend’s Instagram post joking about being invisible after age 50, and she decided to do something about it. Having taken two years off after launching, building and selling One Kings Lane, Susan launched a very different venture, In the Groove, a website largely focused on beauty where women of all ages can see a reflection of themselves. Filled with fashion tips, health and lifestyle information, and even a menopause registry (! ), In the Groove proves that looking good is always in style. Thanks for listening! We love our listeners! Follow Superwomen on Instagram. Big Ideas   Building an audience from nothing. [07:04]  The many internal and external changes that come around age 50. [20:07]   ---   Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/superwomen/support 