We left MILLIONS of dollars on the table because of this

Transcript: 

Jared Ward: 0:00

What's going on, guys? This is our most recent episode of Ops Unfiltered. Today, I have a very special guest. This is Parker Burr.

 

Parker Burr: 0:07

What's up, Jared? What's?

 

Jared Ward: 0:08

up man. We just had a conversation a couple weeks ago. Parker is the former co-founder of Feet Clothing. Where are you currently based at right now?

 

Parker Burr: 0:19

I'm in Connecticut. I just moved back here to grow up a little bit. I spent like 10 years out in Southern California chasing all the dreams, and now we've got a baby on the way. So we decided to move back near family in Connecticut.

 

Jared Ward: 0:30

Amazing man. Yeah, so you had feet clothing. For people who haven't heard of it, it's actually a well-known brand in LA. I think you guys are for a time. We're kind of like the sweetheart brand of LA. You were big in the e-commerce scene, just for the people who don't know what feet is.

 

Parker Burr: 0:50

What was it? What did you build? And so I guess to like paint the whole picture. I'm 31 currently and I started feet in 2014. So I must've been 20 years old or 19 or somewhere around there. I was in college. I saw this crazy trend where guys like you and I started wearing crazy socks for the first time. Prior to that, we just wore white socks and didn't think about it for two seconds. So I kind of noticed this trend. I was like why are dudes wearing socks with bananas and monkeys and stuff? What is going on here? So I won a pitch competition in a class, got 300 bucks, watched a bunch of YouTube videos, learned how to print patterns onto socks.

 

Jared Ward: 1:25

Wait, what class was this? What?

 

Parker Burr: 1:26

class. It was a class at UMass. It was this professor, bob Lowry, and he had a pitch competition and out of his personal checkbook the winner got 300 bucks. Wow, so I won. I took 300 bucks, bought a heat press, watched a bunch of YouTube videos, learned how to print patterns on socks and feet was born and like that was the whole vision from the beginning. I just thought I could do that and I went after it for 10 years. I blinked and 10 years went by and it was a crazy journey. So that was really like the origin story.

 

Jared Ward: 1:56

I'm always curious with e-commerce founders, like did you ever think this was going to be like a 10 year thing, or did you just like, did you know what you wanted to do at the beginning when, when you started to get some traction?

 

Parker Burr: 2:11

or no way, man, I really didn't. All I could see was like the next step. I couldn't see step number 10, but I could see like the next step. And I just did that repeatedly over and over and like I think it was like um, kind of a confirmation bias, like with every little bit of progress then I felt more confident taking the next step. Um, it doesn't mean there weren't missteps and stuff like that, but it was like I was making just enough progress to stay hooked on it but absolutely had no idea I'd be running after that for 10 years. Um, you know, I even had different people come to the business thinking, oh, come join for a couple years. And you know it's like man, these things are built, these things are marathons, not sprints, they're built over the long haul. Um, direct to consumer was really young. We didn't start as a direct to consumer business what year was this, by the way?

 

Jared Ward: 2:56

the 2014, 2014. We started selling socks, okay, yeah yeah, it's crazy, dude.

 

Parker Burr: 3:00

We were singing socks like to our friends on campus, like there's not a sexy business. That doesn't even sound like a good idea to do in the first place. You know what I mean.

 

Jared Ward: 3:07

How were you doing the printing of the socks? Was it just like a local screen printer? You just found it.

 

Parker Burr: 3:13

Yeah, I found this thing online, this YouTube video. I literally was like how do I print on socks? And I bought a bunch of socks at TJ Maxx and Marshalls and then I of socks at tj maxx and marshall's and then I watched youtube videos to figure out how to print and, like, press this pattern onto socks, um, and it was like just a unique time, that that was kind of new technology. Um, and that's what we started doing. They're like really vibrant, fun, catchy socks.

 

Parker Burr: 3:35

Maybe your editor can throw like look up like I put an image of the ogs right here because it was. It was just a really fun time.

 

Jared Ward: 3:42

When you saw these things, you were like I've never seen anything like this before so why did you branch out then to basics and to like, I think, I think the next product was a hoodie, like the softest hoodie in the world, what, yeah, what?

 

Parker Burr: 3:54

caused that? It's a lot, of, a lot of uh thinking and experience. A lot of years of experience led me to get there. So, like it was probably like a three, four year journey of just trying to figure out how do I sell socks at scale. And I met the, the co-founders of chubbies, and they're really the ogs of the space, right, these guys were like hey, you gotta check out this thing called shopify and that's how you sell online. No, all right, we'll check this thing out. This is 2014. Um, so we build a shopify store and we're like all right, like now, what do we do? And it just kind of opened our eyes, little by little, to direct a consumer as a business model and understanding, like the power of like paid, social and all those things at that time when it wasn't really known. Right, like the playbook is known today, it was not known back then.

 

Jared Ward: 4:36

I'm so curious so to talking about this playbook like it's, it's almost impossible to fathom nowadays to like well, of course you go to Shopify, of course you try. Amazon Like what was back then, like in 2014, 15, 16, before you talked to the Chubbies guys and was like, hey, you should try the Shopify thing. How did you think the business was supposed to progress back then? Just like slowly expand physical distribution, or like Totally.

 

Parker Burr: 5:03

I thought you sell your socks to surf shops and sport shops and then that's how you build a business and that's that was the norm. And one of our earliest investors uh, western mass guy he said you guys should really check out like selling online. And I remember saying to him like dude, no one buys socks online. What are you talking about? I wrote him off for like years. Like two years later I'm like hey, I got this crazy idea like we're gonna sell online, we're gonna be a direct consumer business, and it's crazy, those things like. Looking back now you're like how did you not see that? But like that wasn't the normal behavior. We didn't buy online even just 2014 like we do today. It's changed so much. It was so not obvious at that time. It's crazy to think about. Now you're like what are you talking about? Of course, you.

 

Jared Ward: 5:42

that's incredible. Yeah, it reminds me how e-commerce has oh my God it's changed so much over the past 10 years, even just since 2014. It reminds me of.

 

Parker Burr: 5:52

I just watched this clip yesterday of Steve Jobs unveiling the iPhone and he's like watch this. And he's like how are we going to scroll? And he just scrolls with his finger and the crowd is like oh my, oh, my God, they couldn't sit in their seat. You know, that wasn't that long ago, that was 2007. That's not that long ago.

 

Jared Ward: 6:09

You know that's incredible. So when did you expand to hoodies?

 

Parker Burr: 6:16

Pretty late man. So I started in 14, probably by 18, 2018. I really understood the direct to consumer model at that point in time. I was like I understand direct to consumer, I understand the power of paid social, I understand tax and AOVs and the math behind this business. And that math tells me that socks are not the best item to take advantage of this opportunity. So I said, okay, I'm kind of in this clothing business. What could I expand? That doesn't feel like too far of a reach, but but I can have some competitive edge. And I was on this plane going to japan with a bunch of friends and we're like, well, who's known for the hoodie? Like we looked at every piece of clothing. There's a lot of hat companies, a lot of t-shirt companies. Right, you can, how many t-shirt companies can be named? There's a lot of these different companies, even socks. There are a lot of guys making socks yeah, stance, stance.

 

Jared Ward: 7:02

I was going to say stance, you know.

 

Parker Burr: 7:03

Richard Poore, a bunch of these guys were making them, but, like, no one was known for the hoodie and I'm looking around all my friends and I are wearing hoodies every single day. It's like the most worn item amongst me and my peers, but no one's known for it. So I was like, okay, made the best hoodie ever. And I was like it'd have to be incredibly soft and comfy, right, that's why you wear a hoodie to be cozy. And it would have to be visually appealing to like be able to pick up eyeballs online, right, because, like, if it doesn't stand out, it's really hard. Um, it needs to be visually different and visually striking. So what I did was I flipped the fabric inside out, so it was fuzzy on the outside and smooth on the inside, and that was really pretty revolutionary.

 

Parker Burr: 7:41

Like people saw this hoodie and then, once I branded it blanket blend, um, it just kind of hit. So I'm on this plane to japan. We're trying to figure out this name for this hoodie, and a friend and I are, like you know, we like alliteration this, not the other. We said blanket blend and it was honestly just a pivotal moment in the business when I released blanket blend. We tripled the business that year, um, so 2018, you guys were at what revenue.

 

Parker Burr: 8:06

Like almost $10 million we were shy of maybe not 18, probably 19. We were almost $10 million in revenue.

 

Jared Ward: 8:15

So you guys went from three to three-ish to 10-ish, something like that.

 

Parker Burr: 8:19

Exactly. I think we were doing like two to three when we were in the stock business and then we're pushing towards 10 when we come out with this hoodie and we're like, oh my gosh, we can't keep these things in stock. So it was a crazy time. It was like, oh, this actually works. It made me appreciate now, looking back, product market fit. The market wanted the thing that we made. For a long time. When we were selling socks, it felt like we were pushing a boulder up a hill. When we released this hoodie, it just took off. And I think now, when I think about future ventures, I'm like that's what product market fit looks like. Right, when the market really wants what you have, you don't have to be that convincing to give it to them.

 

Jared Ward: 8:55

Got it so now pivoting a little bit to. You said something like we couldn't keep it in stock um I think, this is my opinion. I think we probably share the same opinion. It's like it is e-commerce founders underestimate inventory troubles big time and your cash turns on inventory what did as a rookie in? Well, you weren't an e-commerce rookie, but like uh, you probably were still sort of like an inventory rookie on, like how to keep it in stock and like how to actually forecast and demand plan.

 

Jared Ward: 9:32

What mistakes did you make in 2018, 19, 20? When the hoodie was just popping off man every mistake.

 

Parker Burr: 9:38

I think, like you, you know naturally in this era like it was really popular to focus, for the founders, to focus their time and energy in the marketing piece and try to really understand the vehicle that's going to drive it forward, and we all as a whole underestimated the back end and because of that you leave a lot of money on the table. When things take off and then you sell through, that's great. But, on the contrary, when things don't sell and then you have the wrong inventory, these businesses live and die by their ability to be efficient with their inventory.

 

Parker Burr: 10:10

And their cash Inventory-based businesses. That's what I mean. To me, it's one and the same right. It's just a different form of cash. So I'm just like, yeah, inventory and cash, that's how you live and die in this business, and poor management probably left millions of dollars on the table for sure.

 

Jared Ward: 10:29

So obviously L business and, uh, poor management probably left millions of dollars on the table for sure. So I'm obviously luminous ops unfiltered. We're in, we're in, like the software business. What was your tech stack in?

 

Parker Burr: 10:33

2018, when this was popping off, oh my gosh. On the back end, our tech stack was a contractor that we paid a couple thousand dollars a month to tell us what to order.

 

Jared Ward: 10:38

That was our tech stack he would just send you a google sheet. Oh baby, let's go.

 

Parker Burr: 10:45

This is going. You know these signals are looking good. Buy this much of this. We'd be like all right, sounds good, you know.

 

Jared Ward: 10:51

And then it sells out and you're like what the fuck.

 

Parker Burr: 10:54

You suck, yeah, yeah. So it's just like you know, I think one of the best in the business at this is my friend who started Cuts, stephen Brearley. I think something brilliant that he did very early on was he did the Friday project. So he had a core line that sells well and then every Friday they dropped a limited edition item and it's a simple idea, but I think it's like the most efficient way to expand your product line while de-risking it and then kind of pushing LTV to the max, because you're giving those consumers another reason to buy and come back and check you out every week.

 

Jared Ward: 11:26

Well, also curious because, like, so many people are going through what you go through. So let me know if this is correct or not. Like so I'm assuming, feet you guys outsourced fulfillment to a 3PL really early. You stayed in marketing and product like the entire time, or like during during this, this phase that things were exploding. Um, yeah, you just hired some random guy to like tell you how much to order. You didn't, you didn't really value tech. Like okay, well, what if we had something to plug into our 3pl? And like write all of our pos and like keep everything in one spot. Um, yeah, I, what do you wish you would have done back then?

 

Parker Burr: 12:07

That's a good question. I think I wish we kept it lean and mean. I think in that era a lot of these companies got bloated both in the back end and the front end. Big heavy marketing teams, big heavy operations teams I'm just a big fan. I think direct-to-consumer as a business, or businesses that are primarily direct-to-consumer, I think they businesses that are primarily direct-to-consumer. I think they need to be lean and mean. Money needs to go into product and marketing right and then the operations to make sure that you're meeting all those expectations. But, like, keep it lean and mean. I think we just got over in front of our skis time and time again in multiple iterations, like I built this business probably three times. We built it as a sock business, grew it quickly, took a couple million bucks, fell flat on our face, rebuilt it from scratch, built it up as feet that you saw a couple years ago. Then it fell flat and now it's being built up again. So it's like an interesting growth cycle that we've gone through a couple times now. Oh my goodness.

 

Jared Ward: 12:59

How do you avoid that hamster wheel?

 

Parker Burr: 13:03

Because I did a post about this recently.

 

Jared Ward: 13:04

Where it's, it's like there's so many brands that that they turn you. If you turn off meta ads, like your business dies and that's not like that's not a brand, um, which, no problem. It's freaking hard to build a brand, but I I think people a lot of times walk around with this false sense of security. We're like, oh no, we're like a, we're a mini insert big brand name here. And it's like, no, actually, if you turn off your acquisition channels, it would probably die. Like, how do you, how do you balance that?

 

Parker Burr: 13:37

yeah, even just on that note, it's interesting. Right, someone is going to make money. As you're building your business, you're going to pay someone to grow. Right, and by someone I mean some form of paid social, a landlord. If you're a retail business, like someone's going to eat off of it, you're going to pay someone for the growth. I think the idea of, like, simply existing and selling is not a reality. Like that doesn't exist. Someone's going to get paid. You want to build a big retail business? You're going to pay rent, right? You want to build a big online business? You're going to pay for paid social. I think, like sure, if you're one of the leading creators in the world, you can have this organic traffic built in. But the idea of building a business that is just propelled by organic awareness is sounds great in theory, but I would challenge, I would say, 95 of businesses. That doesn't apply to probably more. You know someone's going to get paid for you to grow yeah, do you think?

 

Jared Ward: 14:34

do you think like the modern brand, or at least like the modern brand, that's truly going to last the test of time? They have to to do a true like omni-channel mix and still keep it lean, like they have to have physical presence all over is yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Parker Burr: 14:51

1. I think like we're at an interesting time where, uh, internally in a business, I would encourage brands to operate as lean and mean as possible and really focus on tech stacks or place headcount, and then, uh, externally, you need to do more things than ever, so you need to be in more channels. You know to do more things than ever, so you need to be in more channels. You know working with more acquisition channels. It's like, yeah, they're like what's up? They're like going opposite ways. Right, both of those trends are going opposite ways, so it's a challenging time, but I think the most exciting thing is I think you're gonna see 10 million hundred million dollar brands built with just a couple people I think native comes to mind for yeah famously operated by five people and joely million dollars.

 

Parker Burr: 15:32

Like right, yeah, like that's, yeah, totally exactly, these are. These are like the brands that I look up to personally 100.

 

Jared Ward: 15:39

No, I you. You talked about something before. How do you want there's? I think there's a fine line between bloated NetSuite tech stack, like okay, you don't need NetSuite, but then also paying somebody a couple thousand a month to send you a Google Sheet Scrappy. How do you walk that fine line between a super bloated, too big tech stack and like okay, well, we're leaving money?

 

Parker Burr: 16:11

Like we're not managing the best. Yeah, I think it's like these tech stacks for direct-to-consumer businesses just seem to grow out of nowhere. Every month we would look and, oh my gosh, what is all this different tech that we have? But then when you really get down to it, it's like what are the most essential tech products that this business needs? You know, like I think that's the more important question to ask is to think about, like there's more tech than ever, there's more tech vendors than ever. Like what are the most essential things? Like you need to dial in your operations. It's a non-negotiable right. It's literally a non-negotiable.

 

Parker Burr: 16:45

You can't just make this stuff up Like you need something. I think that's why we're seeing companies like yours be built, because these merchants need it. They're like I can't afford the operations guy, that costs $300,000 a year. There's gotta be another alternative, and that alternative is software. So to me it's just like what is your alternative? You have kind of two ends of the spectrum. Pay a random person a couple thousand dollars a month to hopefully get it right With that, your give is probably maybe you're not getting the most value out of them, right, but your take is that they're not as expensive. The other end of the spectrum is a big, expensive COO. Reality is you can't afford them in this business, right? So you can't afford the things you actually need. What's in the middle Software?

 

Jared Ward: 17:30

I feel like a theme that we're talking about here is like in all of these different topics, there's a fine line between like too scrappy and then like really bloated. It's like there's NetSuite tech stack and then there's like guy on Google Sheet and then there's like guy on google sheet and then there's like um small ops team and then like 300k coo. There's like getting a little bit of money to help you fundraise and there's like raising 10 million at 100 by. You know what I mean.

 

Parker Burr: 17:59

Yeah, yeah and then realizing, like it's a, it's a toggle right, like you, as the founder or, you know, operator, need to decide like, which things do we really need to spring for the big, expensive version of, because it's just like it's a, it's a competitive advantage. And then, which things do we need to find, like a, a middle ground, what comes to your things? That we need to be most cheap cheap with, you know.

 

Jared Ward: 18:18

I'm genuinely curious, cause you you said something like I think all e-comm founders at some point, like they look at all the freaking tech that they're using and you're just like what the fuck is this, what are? Are there any ones? Cause you were in that era, the 2014 to 2020.

 

Parker Burr: 18:33

Are there, are there any pieces of tech that stick out to you, like, oh, that was so cool, like I don't know, like route or like I don't know, like something that's interesting, like what was so cool at that time, man, you know, like I don't know specific to shopify tech, stack like shop, like the apps. Back then it was just a different landscape. I'm trying to think of something that we found, uh, really valuable. I'm not let me. Let me think on that as we carry on with the conversation. I'll see if I'll see if I can come up with something no worries I'm not, I'm not sure.

 

Jared Ward: 19:06

Okay, so I want to pivot the conversation a little bit. We've been talking about feet and, like e-com companies in general, how you blew up, you go through cycles, how you know, striking a balance between bloated and scrappy. I'm actually more curious as somebody from the East Coast and who moved out West and spent a big portion of your life. Um, that must've been a journey. Um, how did, how did living in LA change you for good or or for bad?

 

Parker Burr: 19:39

Yeah, I think like man, I could talk about this one for hours. Um, I grew up in a small town in Connecticut Great family, you know, great friends, all the things and then I move out to this big city of LA. I never lived in a big city really. I went to school in Western Mass, so like middle of nowhere, college town.

 

Parker Burr: 19:58

So when you show up in LA, you're like first of all, there's shiny object syndrome everywhere, right, like there's just everyone's doing all these things and I think I was so shocked at how many people were willing to just step on you for them to get ahead. I think that was like the biggest eye-opener to me. I was like whoa, like I just don't operate like that, like I operate, like you know, with the best intention and arms open, and all of a sudden I felt like people were stepping on me to get past me and that was the most shocking feeling. I don't know if it's specific to la, just big city, just the real world, even you know, because at the point in my life like I'm really just entering the real world do you remember like?

 

Jared Ward: 20:32

a welcome to la moment where you're just like oh shit, I guess people are like that here you know, what's funny is I actually remember more good things than bad things.

 

Parker Burr: 20:40

Uh, the good things were when I met jake, the founder of movement, and he takes us into his office. These guys are pioneers of the direct-to-consumer industry and he's like I'm going to help you. That's so cool. I'm like why, in my head, that's what I'm thinking Jake changed my life in this business. He opened my eyes to direct-to-consumer more than anyone else, and he did it for no reason than to just be a good guy. He't want equity in the business, he didn't want money, he didn't want consulting fees, he didn't want anything. He was like, hey, I'm doing it over here, I see what you guys are doing. I think he can help you. He went out of his way to help us, like so I'm thankful for him.

 

Parker Burr: 21:15

Um, like, people like jake were the ones that just make me think about like that's incredible, wildly successful people willing to help the next guy. You know, jake brandon from liquid, iv barelli from cuts like that was kind of my crew when I was in la, and these guys are all wildly successful and uh, they're all just willing to just help each other and that was a really special, uh kind of camaraderie thing that we had going in la that I'm thankful for that is.

 

Jared Ward: 21:40

That is a crew of legend right there.

 

Parker Burr: 21:42

That's, that's so cool yeah, you guys are like. You guys like the ecom godfathers.

 

Jared Ward: 21:44

Uh, that's really cool yeah, you guys are like, you guys like the e-com godfathers.

 

Parker Burr: 21:48

Uh, that's really cool yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool so how did uh, do you think?

 

Jared Ward: 21:54

do you think operating in la like in the e-commerce scene affected some of your decisions to take money and to like expand at all costs or um?

 

Parker Burr: 22:07

for sure, for sure, right you're, you're, you're surrounded by the most successful people in this industry. For the most part, or some of them, uh, any numbers you put up seem small compared to theirs and it's hard not to just compare and contrast right, just directly. I think, like the social comparison was one of the biggest struggles that I ever had. I mean, look at the crew I was hanging out with right Brandon bought a house next to LeBron from Liquid IV. Right Jake is one of the most successful exits and direct-to-consumer and Borelli built cuts. So just in my immediate social circle I'm like these are some of the most successful people ever. I feel like a failure, no matter what level of success I have.

 

Parker Burr: 22:53

So social comparison has always been something that, like man was so hard. The flip side of that, they made me think really big. Yeah, it's a pot. You know it's a give and take, it's a pro and a con. Like they made me think really big. I don't know if I never got exposed to that like and I stayed in western mass or connecticut, I don't know if I would have had that exposure to think like maybe I could sell something for 100 million dollars one day. In Brandon's case 500 million or whatever they sold for, right, like they just made me think so big and realize that it's possible, and I think that is probably the thing I'm most thankful for.

 

Parker Burr: 23:17

So it's a give and take social comparison on one side is really hard, but also like they. They inspire you to dream bigger and think bigger and realize that, like your own, your own uh thinking is your biggest limitation.

 

Jared Ward: 23:28

Got it. That's really interesting. Um, did you uh, cause I know you had a co-founder at feet. How did how did you guys meet and how did he come into the business? I believe his name is Taylor, right.

 

Parker Burr: 23:41

Yeah, so, uh, we were at UMass. Um, I was running a different business at the time that I started, when I was 18. I was making lacrosse uniforms for teams and it was really taking off, doing great. I was making money, had a couple different trucks and trailers that we would go to these events and sell all this stuff and the business was great. And those customers wanted to buy socks and that's what kind of sparked my interest to get into the sock category.

 

Parker Burr: 24:05

So we were in this class and there's this kid in the front of class talking about this big, this big like fraternity teacher company he's building and he sold $25,000 of stuff and he was talking up his own game pretty big and I was like who is this guy like? And for some reason I was like like screw that. Like I've sold over a million dollars, like why is he getting all this attention? So I went up to him and we talked about it and before we knew it we were just working on feet together. So brought him in to continue to build feet. Oh, wow, that's awesome. That was the early serendipitous moment, but I think it was just the synergies of he's building, I'm building. We're kind of loosely in the same space. Maybe together we can go further.

 

Jared Ward: 24:54

Oh, that's really cool.

 

Parker Burr: 24:55

And what was your dynamic like through the years at Feet? Did you guys have different approaches? Was it all sunshine and rainbows? Yeah, it was all sunshine and rainbows all the way through. No, I think it changed over the years. In the early days, we both knew very little right, so we were just trying to take on as much information, meet people and learn and try to grow this business any way we could. Um and that was a really interesting time we said so much to learn right, like how do you raise money? How should you raise money? Like how do what is the tech we need to build this business? We were just so green to the world so I think we were able to like hold hands and go through that together, which is really special yeah um, and then at some point our relationship became so not even our relationship.

 

Parker Burr: 25:33

Our thinking became so much the same that there was very little growth that we were getting out of each other as business partners anymore. Because we grew up together all through our 20s, we were working on the same projects together. So it was no longer like Jared, if you and I work together, we probably have very complementary skill sets. Right, you understand software operations, I understand marketing, product consumer like. Right, we have complimentary skill sets, whereas me and Taylor skill sets were very much the same. Um, and when that starts to happen, what happens is, uh, you, you don't have anyone pushing, pushing your thinking or influencing thinking a different way. So I think I I think that's when it was like we both needed to go find new growth elsewhere ah, that makes total sense.

 

Jared Ward: 26:11

I mean, it happens, well it's. I don't know if you follow y combinator, but uh, they give so much great advice around, like finding a co-founder, and like one of their biggest things is, yeah, that have complementary skill sets. So, for example, with me, like I need a tech co-founder, like who, specifically is is great on product management, and, um, who can actually like code really well. Um, that's, that's really interesting. Um, when did you guys decide to take on fundraising money?

 

Parker Burr: 26:43

so we, we, we raised a little bit of money pretty early on, probably in the first year or so. We had someone approach us say, oh, I can invest $250,000. And I'm like that's the most money I've ever seen. Sure, we'll take it. That was the level of thinking you know.

 

Jared Ward: 26:59

What valuation and what percentage did you give up for that?

 

Parker Burr: 27:02

I think it was your standard seed round where we raised like $ probably a million and a half valuation where, like, the valuation is really irrelevant, it's more just like kind of an agreement for if this kind of works, this is how much equity I need. But like back then, man, I remember raising 250 grand, we had to spend 20 grand on legal to secure that money. Like what a joke that is. You know, like thank God for Y Combinator coming out with a safe note that could have been done without any lawyers. A safe note, write a check, let's go like in 30 minutes, you know. But we spent like months securing this 250k and I'm thankful for the guy that did it. But what a funny fundraising story is.

 

Parker Burr: 27:35

After we took that 250k, I had someone else approach us and she said, hey, I'm in San Francisco, I'm not a venture capitalist, I'm just a single angel. Are you guys looking for money? And I was like we just got 250K, I don't need any money. You know, like that was my reaction. I was like we don't need money. Like we have more money than I've ever seen.

 

Parker Burr: 27:54

Year later, I'm like out of money. You know, I'm like what are we going to do? I'm like all right, let me figure out who that woman was and call her back. So back. So I call her back. Hey, we talked like a year ago. We're making stocks, you know we're actually raising money, and we went and raised a million dollars from her. So pretty early on we had like over a million bucks, you know, a million from her, 250 from the previous investor who we ended up buying out in the future a couple years later. But we raised, we raised early and I think at that point we raised a million dollars at a $ 10 million dollar valuation and we're off to the races. So that million dollars really enabled us to like pick up, pack up, move to la, open our warehouse, um, really give it a go, um and kind of send it. So that was really like the thing that unlocked it so I have two regret questions in hindsight.

 

Jared Ward: 28:41

Do you regret raising so much money um? I love working with the angels that we brought in.

 

Parker Burr: 28:45

These are both individuals. Um, do you regret raising so much money? I love working with the angels that we brought in. These are both individuals, you know, not from a venture fund, it was. There's more just money into the business and then, if this works out, maybe one day they can see a return on it.

 

Parker Burr: 28:58

What I do regret is in 2022, right about the time I hit the biggest burnout of my whole life my board and Taylor are like let's go raise a bunch of money and swing for the fences. And I can't. Honestly, I can't remember 21 or 22. More recently, they're like let's go raise real money. So they went and raised another two or $3 million from venture this time. And when you go like venture, once you go that route, it's like a one way door. You can't go back. And that is probably the point where I'm like I wouldn't have done that. I actually didn't want to do it. I didn't want to raise money. I wanted to keep it lean and mean and just keep the business for the long term, because I didn't have investors breathing down my throat saying they need money back, but raised a couple million bucks from venture and that was. That was my biggest uh misstep, but the angel money I would. I would do that again in a heartbeat.

 

Jared Ward: 29:47

Interesting, um for sure so it sounds like there's a difference between angel money and venture money exactly what sounds like there's, there's a specific threshold, it's. It sounds like you. Let me know if if I'm hitting on something but like if it's angel money is fine, it's like okay, that can get you. But the problem is like a later round where if you raise this money, it means you're committing to nine figures and up revenue and valuation. And sometimes that's not the reality for the brand you're building.

 

Parker Burr: 30:21

Yeah, exactly, and literally a few months after we raised that couple million dollars from venture direct-to-consumer, just collapsed as an industry, like Allbirds valuation I think Allbirds is public right. They were down 98% since their high Like just insane. These businesses are going bankrupt left and right. So all of a sudden the valuations and the multiples in this industry plummeted. We just took in this fresh cash and now I'm doing the math and I'm like there's no scenario here where it makes sense for me to keep working on this business, because I would need to take no additional cash and sell for hundreds of millions of dollars for me to make a lot of money, and that one just doesn't make any sense.

 

Jared Ward: 31:01

What was the fatal mistake in this e-commerce collapse? You see all birds IPOoing like crazy valuation and then like everything crashes. What was? What was the fatal flaw in people's thinking?

 

Parker Burr: 31:13

I think the fatal flaw in people's thinking was that venture money should play in this industry. You know, the multiples weren't there. These businesses got valued really high for the past 10 years. Um, they got overvalued and then, when it actually actually came to the day of like, okay, are these profitable businesses that have real long-term value?

 

Jared Ward: 31:29

The answer was not like we thought right, Not yet at least, or like not in this. Not Shopify Amazon, at least for most brands.

 

Parker Burr: 31:38

Yeah, I mean, when you look at this industry, it's built on a bidding system. Right, All of your channels are built on a bidding system, so naturally that creates a race to zero. So if you think about that, like Allbirds comes in kind of, has some success, is able to pull in a bunch of revenue, Well then other people see that come in. It's driving the cost to acquire a customer up Like it's naturally a race to zero. So all of a sudden there's all this venture money floating around. People are spending more and more to get a customer. It's just created this unsustainable cycle where valuations are too high, People are willing to pay too much to get a customer and lose money. And for what? Why are you willing to lose money? When are you going to actually recognize the value of those customers?

 

Jared Ward: 32:18

Interesting. Another regret question this is something that I?

 

Jared Ward: 32:25

I think about frequently, because so I've, I've started so many freaking companies like some succeeded, some totally flopped. I, I, I used to always think I had to bring on somebody, like, give up a ton of equity, to like bring on a co-founder. Um, looking back, do you, do you think it was a flaw or do you think it was a mistake to bring on a co-founder so early? Um, do would you, or at least would you, recommend to other e-com founders, like, would you go the route of, yeah, bring on a co-founder, it helps so much. Or would it be? You know you can do a lot more than you think you can I think.

 

Parker Burr: 33:09

I think that connection or that answer is directly related to if you know what your desired outcome is. If you know that early on, then you can actually answer that question. If you don't know which probably most founders don't actually know what their true, like in their soul desired outcome is, again, there's no wrong answer you can. My desired outcome is to be a billionaire right or to, like, build a lifestyle business forever, like. Those are different, those are different scenarios and then, based on that answer, you can decide the co-founder or not co-founder route. Like to me, I don't regret it at all.

 

Parker Burr: 33:43

I think it was like circumstantial time and place and it made so much sense and like man, what a journey I went on through all of my twenties Like there's no way I can knock that, like I don't know what I would have done if I didn't do that. So no regrets in terms of that. But it's interesting now as I start different businesses. Because now when I start shameless plugs right now is like my email marketing service right, we have an email marketing service for direct-to-consumer brands and it's doing great.

 

Parker Burr: 34:11

My whole vision for the business was have five to 10 clients and never any more than that, and I want to keep those clients forever. That's so cool. That's my vision, right, and what's cool is I opened that, I think, a year and a. I have seven clients right now. I'll keep them forever. Maybe I'll get a couple more, but that's the whole business. I'm succeeding in that business. It profits every month. My employees get paid. Our clients love the work. It's a fantastic business and I'm thankful now because when I created it, it's not just like forever up. Bigger is better. Actually, that's not the case for this business. The case for this business is have five to ten clients, keep them forever, keep them happy and turn a profit and get everyone paid. That's the whole vision for the business.

 

Jared Ward: 34:51

That's an amazing answer and I agree. I think it's less about like should you bring on a co-founder? It's really the wrong question. It's what do you want and then what's required, how do you recommend? Because I've been 20-something years old too, too, and starting a product business and or starting a software like how. How do you get clear on that, though, in your 20s? I feel like I can do that now pretty easily, yeah, but like back, then I had no clue and that might be the answer.

 

Parker Burr: 35:20

Right, you might have to go through the, the roller coaster tip of the understand the whole ride. You know, like, like we can only do that now. Looking back, when I was 20, there's no way I didn't have the perspective, experience or anything to base my thinking off of like, so I don't know how I would have even got there, like if I, if I was 20 years, 20 years old today, I probably I still wouldn't have the perspective to be able to understand what I really want out of it and be objective in that. And you know, I think, like, when you're 20 and you're just getting going and the world romanticizes the idea of being this big entrepreneur, making all this money, blah, blah, blah, blah, like that's pretty attractive.

 

Parker Burr: 35:55

When you're 20, what you don't realize is the gives, like, the sacrifice you have to make, right, like, so you just start to go through that journey and then, from there, you, maybe, I think you just get smarter and smarter as time goes on. Some people, though the caveat is, some people get lucky, some people hit it just right, yes, and it all works out and that's totally fine. Yeah, you know, but for me it's like, I think it's a lifelong optimization where I try to get better at it every time and that's it, you know.

 

Jared Ward: 36:29

Burnout up, burnout you you talk about burnout your your biggest burnout experience in your life. What, uh, what happened set the stage. What, what was going? On and then when did you hit a wall?

 

Parker Burr: 36:36

yeah, it was. Um, my timelines are a little blurry, probably because I haven't gone back to like, pinpoint all of them, but big round numbers in terms of timelines and then I'll give you the reality of actual burnout. But, like, 2018 released the hoodie. 2019, businesses booming. 2020, the spring before covid. I'm like, uh, we hear of this incoming. Uh, you know, covid, whatever this thing is and, um, my, my main investor, that investor that gave us the million dollars, is like, hey, like probably got to lean it out. Like this thing can put us out of business. You know, people are going to stop spending like this. This could be it. I'm like, wow, like, after all these years, like I'm going out of business.

 

Parker Burr: 37:16

Like, two weeks later, pandemic hits. Everyone's at home, spending their um, their money that they're getting in the mailbox. They're spending their money and what are they doing? They're buying alcohol and buying comfy clothes to be at home. So our business is booming. Like we're making headlines with our blanket blend. Everyone's wearing them. We have celebrities buying from us. All these things. Business is great. So just that roller coaster is like a complete 180 right there. Um, so 2020 is good.

 

Parker Burr: 37:40

2021 is a little harder by the time 2022 comes around now, like there's this internal decision in the organization to like really send it, and I think I didn't know enough at that point in time to say I absolutely don't want to do this. Only now, looking back can I see oh, I didn't intuitively want to do that and I kind of trusted the instinct and the vision that the people around me had. So we kind of got this pressure to grow at all costs and we made some really big bets on headcountcount big expensive headcount that we couldn't afford. Then it led us to raising money. So all of a sudden we're digging this hole and I think the reason I hit burnout is because I wasn't in touch with, like, what I actually wanted to do, and what I actually wanted to do was the opposite of all the things that we were doing right. So the more we dug this hole deeper, the more that I just crumbled and then one day I just I, I I couldn't even answer an email, like if you emailed me, I couldn't even. I was like I'm too tired. I just was like all I wanted to do was was curl up in a ball on the ground and talk to no one for like weeks on end until I could recharge um.

 

Parker Burr: 38:40

So I call my, my, my first investor and top advisor, and say charlotte, uh, I'm toast, toast, I don't know what's going on. She's like you need a leave of absence. And I was like I don't even know what that is, but that sounds good. So I take a leave of absence for 30 days, do nothing for 30 days. It goes by like this End of 30 days.

 

Parker Burr: 38:59

People are calling me, you ready to come back, and I'm like I got to be honest with you. I'm just scratching the surface. I'm like taking care of myself, and they're like, okay, well, how long do you need? I'm like I don't know. Like, well, we need a timeline. I'm like I have no idea. Like this is, I'm in this era now of like taking care of myself, like this could be years. I don't. I've never. I've never had this before. I have no idea. So I'm getting this kind of like respected pressure from them, like they're kind of respecting what I'm doing, but I'm also I can't give them answers. So it's driving them nuts a little, but I couldn't um. So I just hit this burnout.

 

Parker Burr: 39:31

Um took a bunch of time off. We named my co-founder the interim ceo, uh, and I just did nothing for like months on end and walked my dogs, like, just like, took care of myself, started going to the gym, focusing on what I eat, all the basic stuff that you hear in the headlines, like I had to do that for the first time, like very consciously, and I recharged, dude, and I think I'm still kind of on that journey of recharging now it's 2024 and I think it's been like this multi-year like recovery of of probably 10 years of neglecting myself, right like 10 years. Like, yes, my life was awesome, but I also just didn't. I wasn't in touch with myself, I was just doing what my business needed. So that's a long story, but that's kind of uh, that's kind of like the the gist of the gist of the burnout that I went through wow, that's actually really powerful, I think.

 

Jared Ward: 40:17

I think I'm going through something somewhere right now, um not not in the business of luminous. Actually, I feel like very in touch with luminous in our vision but like this idea of like looking inward and asking yourself what do wait, what do I want to do I think that's a question I have not asked in in 10 years and I'm actually like that's, that's actually a topic of conversation in like my therapy sessions is like yeah, yeah. But like what?

 

Parker Burr: 40:44

do you want to do? We're the same age, right? Are you like 30, 31?

 

Jared Ward: 40:47

31, yeah.

 

Parker Burr: 40:48

Yeah, 31. So we're the same exact age. This is like a very predictable thing around this age. And if you haven't read this book it's called the Amazing Development of Men. I had a friend recommended it to me. I'm not even that big of a book person and when I say I read it, I listened to, but it was incredible. Man, like everything you think that's so unique, all of a sudden you're being introspective. Blah, blah, blah. This is predicted. It happens to every man somewhere around 30 years old and then somewhere around 50, something similar happens again. I can't recommend that book enough. I'll listen to it over and over and I probably will start listening to it again.

 

Parker Burr: 41:20

I'm going to listen to it, that's awesome, and everyone I've recommended it to says like this is awesome. It's just like you think these things are unique to you right? Because, of your experience, but they're not. It's actually very predictable, that's really interesting you kind of find comfort in that. You know you're like oh, this is how it goes.

 

Jared Ward: 41:36

Okay, so burnout happens, you, I'm guessing you get bought out.

 

Parker Burr: 41:42

Kind of? Yeah, kind of Kind of. So burnout, yeah, burnout happens. I'm kind of like I was the biggest shareholder of the business I own like 69% of the business but I couldn't show up to work. You know kind of an awkward situation to be in. At the same time, direct-to-consumer business valuations are plummeting. We have this new capital, but then we're burning it at an accelerating pace. So it's just like this storm of like, oh my gosh. So, yeah, I take a bunch of time off. Then I have kind of a falling out with my co-founder and all of a sudden he gets very angry towards me for taking this time and stuff and he couldn't understand it. And then every problem was then my fault for creating it and there was no credit given for any of the good in the business, right, only all the bad is my fault. And we had this big falling out. So I was like, cool, I'm out. Um, uh, you can be the ceo, I'm out, I, I my, my mental health and like my, my own sanity is more important to me than this business. I don't care, um, so I left um.

 

Parker Burr: 42:40

Over the next like few years we're just like negotiating all this equity and stuff and it's just a brutal process. Long story short, basically the venture money that came in absorbs like 60 of the business for the money that they've already put in. So my co-founder publishes this art self, writes this, this article, and publishes how he was the founder of this business and and he was the ceo and it sold for uh, it was once valued at 70 million dollars. Like this is not true. He published this article like, pump himself up and look, really, look incredible. But the reality is the business, the venture capitalists that put money in, took over 60-something percent of the business for money already put in. So no one actually took money off the table and he was the CEO for I think 15 months before he also stepped down. So yeah, don't believe everything you read online. I just try to speak the truth. That's kind of how it all panned out, wow.

 

Jared Ward: 43:35

Man, that must have been difficult because you have to watch. I mean, maybe by that point you didn't perceive this business as your baby, but I'd like to think there's something emotional.

 

Parker Burr: 43:47

For sure, the weirdest thing is one day I wake up and my email is deleted as your baby, but I'd like to thank you like there's something emotional, like for sure I, I. The weirdest thing is like one day I wake up and my email's deleted. I'm like my email's deleted. Like I bought those domains, like I, this is my business, like what. I don't have access to my. You know what I mean. It's weird. Things like that that you're just like whoa, that's weird. But at the same time, the flip side of that is it's kind of cool, like this thing is living on without me, like I think that's kind of the dream.

 

Parker Burr: 44:09

The only part of the dream that I couldn't really recognize was like getting the big foam foam check standing on a stage. So I didn't get that part. But I got the dream of like building something that lives beyond me and now it's operating and people know it, like we had. We had people like hundreds of thousands of customers buy our stuff. Like if you go in the you're probably going to see someone wearing something from us and that's kind of cool.

 

Jared Ward: 44:28

That's amazing.

 

Parker Burr: 44:30

You know like objectively, I'm like that's kind of a cool outcome. You know like not bad.

 

Jared Ward: 44:36

Do you and the feet team still talk, or you and your co-founder?

 

Parker Burr: 44:39

Yeah, still talk. I have a great relationship with investors in the business. Some of the team now is like all new. I don't really know them. It's kind of funny when we had a store and I was kind of in the midst of my burnout. We had a store in in la and I went in the store and I'm asking them questions about these things and in my head they don't know who I am and I was like that's kind of weird, like it's kind of wild right like that is cool bigger than me and it's kind of cool like it's a I don't know if't know If I dreamed up the outcome for this business.

 

Parker Burr: 45:10

I think I got most of the things I ever wanted out of it, so I'm thankful for that.

 

Jared Ward: 45:15

Honestly, it's amazing, though. I'm really happy to hear that you guys are still on good terms. You still talk to the people in the business and you've been able to frame this outcome in your mind in a really healthy way. It feels like um yeah, I think so.

 

Parker Burr: 45:31

I think like don't get me wrong. Like, of course you wish you got the big bag of money, but like I was able to make money all along the way, you know, like I never had a job, like that wasn't working for my own business. You know, like that's pretty cool all my 20s, like I never applied for a job or anything, um, so I was able to build this business, travel the world, do all these things. Man, I have so many crazy, incredible highs, incredible lows. One of the notable lows this would be a good little sound clip.

 

Parker Burr: 45:55

But I remember I'm driving to a factory downtown LA and I'm getting a call from Amex. I answer as my primary business card holder and they're like all your stuff is frozen, you are way overextended, you haven't been paying, blah, blah. And I look at it and basically I have zero dollars to my name and I owe a half million dollars. So I have zero dollars, I owe a half million. But in this business you need to spend money to make money, literally. You know the cliche. But you literally need to spend on ads to make more money. But but my spending vehicle is gone. So I have no cash. I have, I have no leverage and I have a half million dollars. A half million dollars I've personally guaranteed on a credit card. And that moment, man, I remember the exit I was at in LA and I was like I don't know how I'm getting out of this one. So you know, that was one of those moments that probably sticks with you for a long time.

 

Jared Ward: 46:46

Well, how did you resolve that?

 

Parker Burr: 46:48

What happened? Oh my gosh. So I went back to our primary investor and I said here's the plan. I think I can do this. And I was half confident, but she was more confident than me and she's like you can do this. She goes I'm going to give you a loan for 250 K so that you can get this vehicle working. Like she believed in me more than I believed in me and I think I repaid it all all the debt and her 250 like within a year. And it worked and it's like, but like my back was against the wall. I know where to turn. I explained the vision, what was working, what didn't, and it worked. That's crazy. Now, man, it makes me sweat thinking about it even now. That's amazing.

 

Jared Ward: 47:25

That's amazing. So are you really jaded towards e-commerce and product businesses now? Do you want to do it in the future? Now, you're such a wealth of knowledge you could crush an e-com business now.

 

Parker Burr: 47:47

Or are you just super jaded? I'm definitely a bit jaded, but you know, now I've been working with flagship for uh which we can dive into for a year and a half, so I've had exposure to over 500 direct consumer brands of varying level of success. Right, guys, like true classics I work with they're doing a couple hundred million a year. They're kind of like the darling of the of the space right now, or one of them. And then I've worked with really small mom and pops that are shipping out of their kitchen. Um, so I still love the idea of like creating something and bringing it to life and then selling it and getting the satisfaction and the feedback loop of like the consumer buying it and enjoying it. Like, I still am a little bit hooked on that process.

 

Parker Burr: 48:25

Um, does that mean I need to go and create my own direct to consumer business right now? No, but maybe I can make tools to like give these direct to consumer founders a better chance at success, because I know how hard it is. Right, like, I think everyone looks at these direct to consumer founders as like a great customer to sell to. I look at it as like how can I help them do better and become more profitable and build a bigger, stronger, healthier business for the long haul. I think that's pretty interesting. So I'm certainly still flying around this industry. I'm not going to start my own direct-to-consumer business today. I don't have any burning desire to do that. But I'm still heavily involved in this, especially between Flagship with creators and influencers for these brands and then builders for the email marketing service. Like. I'm still very much operating in this world, but I'm not gonna start a direct consumer brand today why why flagship?

 

Jared Ward: 49:14

because I remember that was you know. You went through a burnout period and I bet that next move was very intentional. Why why flagship?

 

Parker Burr: 49:21

yeah, yeah, flagship was really interesting, man.

 

Parker Burr: 49:23

Um, so when I, when I kind of stood back up after this long period of burnout, I was like, all right, let me just go work with a couple different companies on a fractional capacity to get the wheels turning right.

 

Parker Burr: 49:33

So I, like you said, like I can add value to these different businesses and then I'll just do it in a fractional way to be able to get exposure and see what is really like, what is really my calling. And I met the founder of flagship. His name is yusuf and, um, he just was totally inspiring to me, like he was one of the most exciting conversations I've had and you know, in all in the past couple years. Um, he said this is the thing I'm going to build and we really need people to connect us with shopify brands and I'm like that's my world, you know, like it's just such a perfect fit. I'm like most people in this space know feet, know me or know someone I, so I just have that network where I was like this is a perfect plugin and I believe in Yusuf and it's probably like 80% I believe in Yusuf and I would have probably been the janitor for his office, because I respect and admire him so much.

 

Parker Burr: 50:19

The role almost didn't matter, that was just a bonus. And he was like hey, you know, I started there on a contract. And then, I think, within two months, he was like you got to come full time, and to which I said dude, I don't, I don't really do jobs. I've never had one. I don't think you should, probably I don't think you should hire me here, but uh ended up doing it anyway and it's been a fun, fun run.

 

Jared Ward: 50:42

Oh, that's really cool. What is Flagship?

 

Parker Burr: 50:44

Excuse me, yeah, what is Flagship?

 

Jared Ward: 50:47

What is Flagship? What do you guys do?

 

Parker Burr: 50:50

Yeah, basically, flagship enables brands and creators to work together on a commission basis to find mutual success. So our big vision is we want to build the ads manager for the creator economy. So historically, you would go arrange a deal as a brand with a creator or an influencer. You would negotiate it back and forth and it's very one-off and it's really hard to scale. This industry has lacked scalability of creators and influencers as a channel. That's what we're building. We're building the infrastructure for creators and brands to be able to actually scale with each other. Imagine a world where, in the same way, you can go from spending $100K month to a million a month on Facebook. Imagine you could do that with creators. That is like the actual tooling that we want to build.

 

Jared Ward: 51:32

And why was that such a pain specifically for you at Feet? What was the pain that?

 

Parker Burr: 51:37

you felt.

 

Parker Burr: 51:40

Man. I mean we worked with some of the biggest celebrities in the world. We worked with Logan Paul with his first merch ever. We built socks for him. He sold them, integrated with his videos, sold a half million dollars of socks in the blink of an eye. We worked with Kirsten Cavalieri. She sold a half million dollars of socks in the blink of an eye. We worked with Brody Jenner and all these incredible celebrities. But it's very spiky and it's hard to replicate. So what if we could actually round up thousands of creators that could talk about us at all different times? We'll pay them on a commission basis and we build it in a way that, like the brand, can kind of throttle it and be in more control. And that was really, really interesting to me. It's a big. It's a big, it's a big problem. You know it's a big thing to solve, but if we can crack it it gets pretty interesting.

 

Jared Ward: 52:21

Wow, what an amazing way to take all of your experience in your network and do something very meaningful.

 

Parker Burr: 52:30

Yeah.

 

Jared Ward: 52:31

I have a question, though, because you're going from entrepreneur, ceo, founder, fundraising like you make the rules to now being, like a, you're a W2 employee. How has that shift been, is it?

 

Parker Burr: 52:47

Yeah, it's been fascinating man. Um, and actually do you mind if I just pause for one second, I'm gonna move a call yeah, oh sorry no worries, I'm good, I can totally move this my bad dude.

 

Jared Ward: 53:00

Ah, I should have winded this down no, no, that's all good Okay. Let me see On the bright side. We're going to have a lot of really cool clips for you, though.

 

Parker Burr: 53:18

Yeah, dude, it's going to be awesome. I love it. Okay, Do you want to re-say that, or are you just going to edit it out?

 

Jared Ward: 53:23

I'll edit it out. Yeah, okay, cool Okay cool.

 

Parker Burr: 53:27

Yeah, I mean big changes. Going from running your own thing and you know what it's like to be the founder. Everyone's on your back and it gets really heavy at times, but with that you get so much pride and joy in the work that you're doing. So then jumping into a different company I joined as I think I was employee number two or three at Flagship I think number three actually at Flagship so very early, three co -founders, I'm employee number three, so there's six of us working around the table. So it was very much like early stage. I wanted exposure to tech, I wanted to work with Yusuf and I wanted to like apply all my skills and network.

 

Parker Burr: 53:59

For those reasons it made a lot of sense to go work on the business and it's enabled me to do a lot of other things that I don't know if I could have done them when I was running feet, you know, because it's just when you're the founder of the business, as you know, the business consumes you 100% of you. Since working at Flagship like I got married, I bought my first house, we got a kid on the way Like it's enabled me to do these other things outside of work and like lean in there while also just while also just contributing and adding real value in an organization. So there's so many pros and cons. It's just such a nuanced situation where it's enabled all these other things. I've been able to bring a lot of value to the business internally. It's been a big change. It is what it is, but it's definitely interesting. Getting a W-2 from someone else for the first time, that's definitely interesting. Getting a w2 from someone else for the first time, that's definitely fascinating, yeah, okay.

 

Jared Ward: 54:50

Well, are we ever going to see Parker Burr launch a kick-ass d2c brand again, or are those days done for now?

 

Parker Burr: 54:59

you know, I don't know if I'll launch a brand again. I'm not sure yet I'm there's some. There's some nuances to that as well. Like I think it's fascinating the idea of working with creators and celebrities to help them develop brands. I think that's fascinating. I know a lot of people doing that. But the idea of just developing a brand out of the blue and then trying to bring it to market I probably wouldn't do that. I think it lacks a competitive edge, with the only caveat being if you have something truly proprietary, with the only caveat being if you have something truly proprietary. So if you have something proprietary, that becomes really interesting. But having something proprietary is really hard. So I think it would depend on the product and if it made sense, it doesn't mean I don't believe. I still believe there's massive businesses to be built in this space and there are people winning at it right now.

 

Jared Ward: 55:54

But I think, for now, I think I'm sticking with software and services to enable these businesses to be more successful. Okay, awesome, well, offline, I'm gonna, I've, I'm always tinkering on this like for me. I'm always just like a tinker with, like consumer products. I'm always like it's just like a creative outlet for me. Um, I'm gonna, I want to share some like product prototypes and ideas that I've had. I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

 

Parker Burr: 56:10

I was going to do it on the podcast, but this is going to fail. I was going to say I think we should give a freebie I have a freebie and this is something that I've been thinking about and then you should give a freebie and we'll see if anyone engages with it. You want to go first or you want me to go, it doesn't matter to me.

 

Parker Burr: 56:22

No, I'll do the second All right cool, One of my ideas that I've been chewing on. You know I have a whole book of ideas in my notes app, but this idea is it's only a couple of weeks old. But the idea is what else could we do to monetize the traffic that these direct-to-consumer brands are driving right? So all these direct-to-consumer Shopify brands are getting all this traffic, which has value, and the only way they're really monetizing it is through selling their own goods. So then you see software like Disco come out and enable those same brands to sell other brands. I think that's fascinating. But what else could they sell? Are there other ad placements they can sell? There's some value to that traffic.

 

Parker Burr: 57:08

If you aggregate all of the traffic across all Shopify stores, there's a lot of value there beyond just buying a product. So what does that look like? Could a post-checkout ad to sign up for Netflix be a thing? I don't know what it is? Could it be more applicable? Could it be post-checkout on a country merchandise website? Then serve Morgan Wallen country song ad, you know, like, like, what. What could happen there? To like further monetize the traffic to, to prop up these brands for another way of monetizing that's actually so interesting.

 

Jared Ward: 57:35

I feel like that goes, and right now there's a big expansion in back-end tech, specifically on like your, your cart add-ons. It's like route and shipping insurance and loop and it would be so cool if somebody aggregated all the data and then like cross-sold advertisements and add-ons.

 

Parker Burr: 57:50

That's actually a sick idea something there, right, the? The concept is there's a lot of traffic, but traffic has value. We all agree on that. So, like, what else could you do to monetize? Maybe, like there's probably some form of advertising, but I don't think it's sell other brands, products. I think that's been done, there's resources to do that, but like, what other ways could I monetize it? You know, where else could it be?

 

Jared Ward: 58:10

it's like. It's like taking the concept of of an add-on, like somebody doing an add-on that just gets drop shipped on the side but like on steroids, like across, like it could be digital streaming it could be like yeah, dude, what if?

 

Parker Burr: 58:23

what if? You know, on the home page of of a brand, um, on on the homepage of a brand, you can have a bar that is, ad placements, not like banner ads, but like music, you know what I mean. Like you can rack up these views for music so you discover new music that way, or new videos or content Like it's just fascinating. I'm not sure what it. You know the idea requires more work, but that's a freebie for everyone.

 

Parker Burr: 58:49

I'll build it with you. If you're, if you're technical, if you're technical, I'm down to build it with you. So that's my first idea.

 

Jared Ward: 58:55

That's freaking awesome. Okay, so for my freebie. My freebie is a baby gate idea. So it's antiquated, looks shitty. So either you spend less than $100 and you just get like prison bar vibes and it like blow through your drywall and then like so, even like the more expensive gates it's they're not really that great looking you end up having to do like a custom baby gate on, like Etsy or house. In fact, that was actually my business for a while.

 

Jared Ward: 59:30

I dropped out of college to start building like barn door hardwaring baby gates. So that's where I kind of noticed this. So I was just like, okay, everybody's buying these rustic wooden baby gates. But like what if I could sell a retail package that looked beautiful and was super easy to install, like I'm talking like comes out of the box like plop, plop, tighten, like with a lever and like that's it, it's, it's, it's good to go and it looks beautiful. Um, I I always figure that like, okay, if you could, if you could, if you can manufacture this high quality materials, really address all the problems. Cheap, expansive baby gates into a space where it's like really sturdy, really good Retail for less than 200 bucks oh my God, that's like a $100 billion idea. I love that one.

 

Parker Burr: 1:00:20

I think probably more. And like I like it for the price point, I like it for the utility of it. So you're not just competing on being cool, but there's true utility in the thing that you're selling. Um, and then aesthetic. You know you have to meet certain aesthetics so that would be a little bit uh uh of an area for you to figure out. But, um, I think it's pretty interesting. You can imagine the content selling this, you know so I actually actually did a.

 

Jared Ward: 1:00:48

I'm going pretty far down this route, like I've done a prototype. Obviously, this these are not this is not good looking, but, like I've done, like a really good looking version. It can account for baseboards and chair rails and, um, I actually I have an actual prototype that is not prototypey and it actually looks beautiful. It looks like a barn style gate, but this was like the first concept of it.

 

Parker Burr: 1:01:11

But oh, it's so good, but so good. You're right. I, my, my, my, my in-laws have all these dogs in their kitchen and they keep them in the kitchen, so they have like three baby gates keeping the dogs in the kitchen all ugly, all ripping down the walls all in the way and gross. Like all ripping down the walls, all in the way and gross, like they're not attractive, you know, like it's not cool.

 

Jared Ward: 1:01:33

Let me say, before we close, I want to show the. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the. I have a actual, I have some actual pictures of the finished one and then we'll we'll close the podcast out, excited to see this one.

 

Parker Burr: 1:01:45

Yeah, all good, excited to see this one If I can freaking find it.

 

Jared Ward: 1:01:55

Oh, here here we go. This is this is oh, this is great, right here, okay, okay here, share my screen again. It's funny. This is like. This is the stuff I do on the side for fun like.

 

Parker Burr: 1:02:11

This is stuff I do on the side for fun. Oh so cool. It looks great, dude so yeah, that was that's my idea.

 

Jared Ward: 1:02:27

I don't have enough time to launch it, though, or money right now, like I'm still you know, I'm still like in tech. When you're at, even when you're at like series a, and like you have undeniable traction, you're still just rich on paper. You know you can't really make much money, so I just don't have what it takes to really go into it.

 

Parker Burr: 1:02:52

Yeah, that's interesting, man. I think the best way to launch that pre-sale, pre-sale, get it out there, gauge the excitement. I think that's really interesting. Join some baby groups, ask people to talk about it, just test the waters before you actually sell anything.

 

Jared Ward: 1:03:11

Yeah.

 

Parker Burr: 1:03:12

I was worried about pre-sale.

 

Jared Ward: 1:03:15

See, I've thought about doing Kickstarter, but I've always heard, oh, but you have to spend too much money on Kickstarter, oh, you've got to spend at least $100K. I'm just like I don't.

 

Parker Burr: 1:03:25

You either spend it. It either spends profitably or you don't. You know, like that's kind of interesting man.

 

Jared Ward: 1:03:31

Yeah.

 

Parker Burr: 1:03:32

Well, I like it. I think it's the coolest game I've ever seen. Thanks, man, I appreciate that. Future Darren, future Parker. We got baby gates and advertising embedded on websites. It's pretty inspiring.

 

Jared Ward: 1:03:45

Exactly. Yeah, Netflix is going to be advertising my baby gate to some random mom. Okay, Exactly. Well, man, that was awesome. That was a blast. I appreciate the time. And where can everybody? I mean, I don't know if you're like actively, but I know you post on LinkedIn and you have an Instagram, but like do you want people following you? Where can they find you?

 

Parker Burr: 1:04:07

So I would definitely say, on linkedin, check me out on linkedin, like that is where I have the most interesting conversations with people outside of like podcasts, like this, but that's where I'm interacting with people. On linkedin, I'm posting about stuff that is inspiring, interesting, offensive, like just things that just spark conversation. Um, and sharing all my learnings on my journey so far and just connecting with other founders like Jared and talking about the journey. So definitely just check me out on LinkedIn. I'd love to connect with everyone.

 

Jared Ward: 1:04:34

Okay, awesome. Well, thanks, parker, and we'll see you around man Bye.

 

Parker Burr: 1:04:41

Thanks, Jared.