What I Know

The past few years have been catastrophic for many coworking spaces. WeWork’s dramatic crash was the most well known–but spaces created by and for women, too, hit walls due to pandemic lockdowns and leadership crises. But in Minneapolis, there was a holdout. It’s called The Coven, and it is a coworking space with virtual and in-person memberships, designed to be inclusive and welcoming to all types of entrepreneurs, creatives, and workers. Host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin spoke with The Coven’s co-founder and CEO, Alex West Steinman, about how she and three friends launched their idea with backing from their community–and precisely how she built a sturdy business that withheld the pressures of the pandemic and the George Floyd protests, with a little help from that very community she nurtured.

When Matthew Herman quit his job in L.A.’s fashion industry to work full time on his brand, Boy Smells, he’d been pouring wax and formulating fragrances for candles in the evenings in his kitchen for more than a year. Since growing his brand into retail and direct-to-consumer sales, he’s maintained his creative vision–and still is the brand’s creative director. He explains to host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin how his creative mind works, including plotting out mood boards for new fragrances, and naming the company’s candles–which is one of the most fun parts of his job.

It started as a side-hustle, pouring wax for candles at his dining-room table in the evenings. But what Matthew Herman began selling was soon attracting the attention of major fragrance houses…and customers around the world. In building his brand, Herman burned through his savings in 18 months…and that was before the pandemic hit. But during it, direct-to-consumer sales took off. But so much interest all of a sudden almost broke the business. Host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin spoke with Matthew about his innovative approach to branding, naming candles, and designing concepts that embrace complex dualities–and add up to a brand that’s helping to blur the gender binary in retail.

Stu Landesberg, The co-founder and CEO of Grove Collaborative, describes why he has gratitude for his job and puts positive energy into everything that he does.

Since he was a grade-schooler, Stu Landesberg dreamed–as odd as it sounds–of starting a sustainable home-products company. When he founded it, in 2012, he called it ePantry, and it didn’t exactly soar. Investors were lukewarm–and customers hard to come by. But with a rebrand and reshaped strategy in 2016, Grove Collaborative started finding lots of eco-minded consumers online and over social media. This year, as the San Francisco-based company turned 10 years old, it was valued at $1.5 billion. In June, it went public with help from a Richard Branson-backed SPAC. Host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin speaks with Landesberg about his journey, from struggling to keep the lights on to running a public company with hundreds of employees–and his promise to the future to be entirely plastic-free by 2025.

The founder and CEO of Madison Reed, Amy Errett, started her career in finance, and before long, was managing large teams through sizeable changes. She’s become known as a leader who creates, and navigates, organizational change. Her secret isn’t in strategy–it’s in leading with love, and with an open heart. She explains to host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin how building a fast-growing company is like putting the right variables into a Petri dish and letting it flourish.

Amy Errett might be a natural leader, and an expert team-builder–but she wasn’t always a founder. She spent her early career in banking and investment companies, before turning to venture capital. But once she was at the table with startup founders, making decisions on who deserved funding infusions…she realized she wanted to be not in her seat…but rather, the CEO’s seat. She founded Madison Reed in 2013 out of San Francisco as a hair-color subscription brand. She’s grown it–even as the pandemic shut down 12 beauty bars she’d opened across the country–to a company that has raised more than $220 million, in part from Jay-Z’s Marcy Ventures. Now, she has her sights set on opening 20 more stores in 2022, and hiring up to 800 people. Amy spoke to host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin about her rich career and her thoughts on leading growing organizations through big changes–including navigating the unknown, seeing around corners, and helping large teams make dramatic shifts.

The co-founder and chief executive of Strava explains how storytelling is wrapped up in being able to take risks. He first ventured into the unknown in 1995, wanting to build a community of athletes. He didn’t know how that story would end–and it certainly wasn’t immediately successful. His company has grown to 100 million athletes in 200 countries–and he tells host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin that along the way he’s learned to take chances to “get to create the story.”

When Michael Horvath, the co-founder and CEO of Strava, meets with employees, he doesn’t just start saying what he’s thinking. Instead, the first thing out of his mouth is: “what’s on your mind?” His company, Strava, is an app that serves 100 million athletes, to help motivate their movement, connect them with a community, and improve their safety. And these days, it’s a company of more than 400 people–which has both informed, and necessitated, Michael’s leadership style–which is a lot about listening, and letting employees grow into their passions and skills.

The co-founder and chief executive of Colossal Bioscience is setting out to de-extinct the 4,000-years-extinct woolly mammoth. As his company grows fast, he has a goal to be totally transparent about the company’s audacious moon-shot mission–one that a lot of people think is impossible. To that challenge, he brings his skills as a diligent student, and a marketer, who can translate complex systems and concepts to a broad audience.