Grove Collaborative CEO Stuart Landesberg: A culture of expense discipline is key

For a time, Grove Collaborative was one of the rare places where you could order reasonably-priced hand sanitizer online.

That availability wasn't for a lack of demand. "Demand had been building, and all of a sudden for a week it was off the charts. And we had a big decision to make that week," CEO Stuart Landesberg said on the Modern Retail Podcast. "Do we want to prioritize our existing customers or do we want to prioritize going after new customers?

Grove ended up focusing on existing customers, and limiting orders on certain items, allowing it to stay under its maximum shipping time of four days.

"We probably left a lot of money on the table by doing that, in the short term," Landesberg said. But he reckons that that kind of consistency for the eco-conscious home supplies company -- which hit unicorn status last year -- will allow it to thrive in the long term.

"Having clear and virtuous values and then ruthlessly sticking to them is essential to creating 100-year brands," Landesberg said.