Well Made

Adam is the guy to make videos for Silicon Valley's star companies. In many cases, he's even the guy starring in them. His team at Sandwich Video takes on all kinds of apps, gadgets, and ecommerce products while trying to represent the people often ignored on screen. Most recently, they've even started using their talents to embark on a more social mission. He talks about all this and more on this episode of Well Made.

If being a female founder/CEO is rare, being a female founder in the sex industry would seem nearly impossible. As a severe side effect of a stage three cancer, Polly Rodriguez found herself going through menopause before she was old enough to go to a bar. To manage with the side effects, a friend advised her to buy a vibrator to deal with the drastic change in her body. She went to a Hustler Hollywood and discovered how mortifying the shopping experience was. 10 years later, she started Unbound Box — content and products to lead them to live a life that's sexually empowered. ​

On this episode of Well Made, Stephan talks to Gabby about the growth of human grade dog food brand Ollie since they launched in October, the research that went into their design, and what insight she brought from her days at Primary, a kids e-commerce brand.

Through good times and bad, Iris Alonzo was the Creative Director at American Apparel for 11 years, and now she’s on to her own venture with fellow American Apparel creative Carolina Crespo. The brand is called EVERYBODY and it’s founded on unwavering principles of manufacturing practices that are good for workers and the planet. On the podcast, Iris talks about what she learned from American Apparel, the unique design process behind the clothes at EVERYBODY, and the making of their Trash Tee — the first tee made from 100% recycled cotton.

Jess is the Creative Director and co-founder of Frank Body, the signature coffee scrub brand that really pioneered a genuine, signature voice on social media, that's now a pillar of memorable customer experience. In this episode, Jess talks to Stephan from her homebase in Melbourne, Australia about launching Frank Body, crafting the signature voice of Frank, facing the challenges of the retail space, and the business books she's been reading lately.

For two years, Craig Elbert was the Vice President of Marketing at Bonobos, and now he runs a vitamin company. So, what's the connection between great trousers and daily vitamins? Besides Craig, it's the category of Vertical Commerce Brand. Craig experienced first hand the overwhelming lack of clarity in vitamin and supplement stores. With his background at Bonobos, he saw this as an opportunity to use the direct-to-consumer, VCB model to build a brand that people loved. In this episode of Well Made, Stephan talks to Craig about and the first few months of launching of Care/Of and how he's brought his marketing experience to the world of vitamins.

Running a business for 13 years, Lumi founder Jesse Genet has learned a lot of the ins and outs of entrepreneurship. She's been an entrepreneur since she was 16, so on this episode, we fielded questions from listeners about everything from small space living (Jesse lives in an Airstream trailer) to finding the right systems for your business. In this episode, Stephan also talks to Jesse about her recent viral essay — Running a Business with Boobs: The Things I Never Say. In 13 years of entrepreneurship, Jesse has raised over a quarter million dollars on Kickstarter, pitched on Shark Tank, participated in the Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator, and built a company into seven figure sales without a venture investment, and she hasn’t even turned 30. In her essay, she talks from firsthand experience about the five things people should never say to a female CEO.

Parachute Home redefined how we think about sheets. Turns out, thread count doesn’t matter, patterns are overrated, and all we really wanted was a comfortable place to sleep. Ariel Kaye founded Parachute for that reason and now they’re expanding their brand to bring comfort to the entire home. On this episode, she gets into the nitty gritty of what it takes build brand loyalty and manufacture comfortable home goods.

Cotton Bureau created a community of design loving t-shirt wearers to support fellow designers and find ridiculously comfy tees. Now, they’re scaling up with the help of a new space and VC funding to launch they’re new project — Blank by Cotton Bureau. On this episode of Well Made, Cotton Bureau founders Nathan Peretic and Jay Fanelli drop the big news about why and how they're making they’re own tees from scratch, why they raised their seed round and how Pittsburgh has impacted their brand ethos. Visit the Lumi Blog for more more on Blank by Cotton Bureau, and photos of some awesome tees.

Miki Agrawal's career as a social entrepreneur covers the three Ps — periods, pee, and poop. As you might expect, tackling the three Ps has meant breaking taboos and facing stigmas, not only in the face of skeptical consumers, but also investors. On this episode of Well Made, Stephan talks to Miki about her fundraising challenges and how she's fueled by creating products in blue ocean markets that create a positive impact. Visit the Lumi Blog for links to Miki's brands and images of the artful branding.