Well Made

In many ways, the cannabis industry still feels like a grey area. That's why Recess founder Benjamin Witte didn't set out to build a brand on top of an ingredient — he wanted to build a brand on top of a feeling.The creative community has adopted the fruit-infused CBD drink with open arms, which is very much by design. The pastel gradients, neon signs, and ephemeral imagery are all meant to evoke that easy sense of creative calm.Lately, Benjamin has spent most of his time pushing for the FDA to issue final regulations for CBD. With clear regulations, his team has plans to expand way beyond fizzy drinks. In this episode, Benjamin shares how he hired writers to build a story driven marketing team, how he's generating the most impressions for the least amount of money, and what new products Recess has in the works.

Barkbox hasn't followed the conventional direct-to-consumer-brand growth plan. Since launching Barkbox in 2012, Henrik Werdelin and his co-founders have launched several companion brands including Super Chewer and Bark Bright — dog dental hygiene products.These products may seem obvious, but the strategy behind them is not. Rather than expanding from dogs to other pets, Bark chose to dig deeper into the nuance of the dog space. Instead of launching these new products under the Barkbox product line, they launched them as new brands.It's all part of the framework to innovate independently of brand clout and see if a concept can stand on its own.In this episode, Henrik takes us through his Acorn Method and shares how the method has guided major decisions around choosing Bark's companion brands, incubating new talent, and keeping their entire team dedicated to the mission of making dogs happy.Find more links and images from this episode on the Lumi blog.

While it feels like a new trend, every couple decades, there is a new take on minimalism. Writer Kyle Chayka has studied minimalism's many iterations over time and he argues that our modern interpretation — one that's rooted so deeply in aesthetics — is as far as we've ever been from true minimalism.In his first book, The Longing for Less, Kyle is on a quest to illuminate the origins of minimalism. He critiques various modern interpretations including the Marie Kondo methodology, the Wirecutter-top-pick purchases, and the sharing economy. These new philosophies and practices can all be part of a minimalist life, but Kyle believes that to be true and lasting, minimalism should be rooted in supply chain — in simplifying the steps between an item being made and an item being purchased.On this episode, Kyle and Stephan weave their way through minimalism through the lens of stoicism, Marxism, and Bauhaus. They discuss how these movements reinterpreted minimalism within constraints of the time, and how our time of "simplified" technology puts us as far from minimalism as we've ever been.

Peter Dering knows that there's some controversy around purchasing carbon offsets, but as the founder of Climate Neutral, he thinks it's an immediate path forward. Before Climate Neutral, he founded Peak Design. He and his team design photographic accessories and outsource the manufacturing. After visiting one of his factories, he was looking around at all of the materials and energy that went into production and he started strategizing options to cut down on resources where they could, and offset carbon where they couldn't.He and his team always made sustainability a priority, but they wanted to do more to quantify their footprint and measure improvements. Peak Design took a huge step in January by getting B Corp certified. The other huge step they took was starting the nonprofit, Climate Neutral.Peter found out that paying to offset carbon is not an unwieldily cost — it's actually affordable. Carbon Neutral provides a consistent system to measure carbon usage and pay to offset it. Hear exactly how Carbon Neutral calculates emissions businesses, and how offsets can actually make a real impact for climate change.Find more links and images from this episode on the Lumi blog.

The grocery store model hasn’t adapted with how people shop. Traditional big box stores stock up on everything under the sun and rely on small margins based for big cart sizes. With traditional grocery stores struggling and US consumers being slow to adopt online grocery, Emily Schildt saw an opportunity to prioritize discovery over convenience as a way to help people find brands they actually love.Pop-up Grocer is a highly curated 30-day activation featuring grocery brands that get an A+ for innovation, nutrition, and design. Emily has thoughtfully positioned Pop-Up Grocer to be an exciting space that leaves people wanting more. Just ahead of their Venice launch on February 7, she is sharing the careful balance between curation and discovery, the importance of location, and the paths envisions for Pop-Up Grocer in the future.Find more links and images from this episode on the Lumi blog.

There are dozens of tools out there to build and launch products, but Very Great has set out to launch brands — companies creating products that improve lives and keep people coming back. They're doing it with a platform that centralizes the functions of any consumer brand. From research and development, through launch and logistics, Very Great is an infrastructure to build a brand that lasts.So far, co-founders Eric Prum and Josh Williams have helped to launch three brands in the Very Great family — W&P Design in the housewares space, Wild One in the pet space, and Courant in the tech space. Hear how Very Great ideates to create products that inspire loyal customers, their approach to building genuine brands, and their strategy to make a bullet proof supply chain.Find more links and images from this episode on the Lumi blog.

Fast Company Senior Staff writer, Elizabeth Segran is an expert in the cross section where fashion, technology, and ecommerce overlap. For every company that recycles innovative materials for fabric, opens an immersive retails space, or builds a sustainability initiative into their model, she's there to cover it. That's why we invited her on the show to reflect on the past couple decades of consumer trends and — more importantly — make some insightful predictions about what's to come. On this episode, Elizabeth and Stephan weave in and out of micro and meta. Listen to hear how gradual consumer shifts have created substantial changes in what people expect of brands and which brands they're choosing to buy into.Find more links and images from this episode on the Lumi blog.

Phone cases don’t need to last a lifetime, but in a landfill, they might. Pela cases are made from a blend of biopolymers and flax scraps meant last a few years — basically, the lifetime of your phone. When you get a new device, you can compost the case or ship it back to Pela. As more and more consumers are choosing sustainable products, phone cases may not be obvious, but the impact is significant.Jermey Lang founded Pela part-time, doing the initial research and development with government funding. Eight years later, they’re expanding to eyewear and other new products that are the right fit for their Flaxstic material. Hear how Pela developed Flaxstic and how they’re making a place for themselves in the responsibility economy.Find more links and images from this episode on the Lumi blog.

To take on their huge ambitions of making Grove Collaborative and 100-year company, CEO and Co-founder, Stuart Landesberg only looks far enough ahead to see the next milestone. He doesn't let perfection get in the way of progress.As more and more people adopt sustainable purchasing habits, the going philosophy seems to be, do what you can and make incremental improvements right now. On this episode, Stuart talks to Stephan about how they made incremental progress to get where they are and how they plan to get where they're going.

Trade Coffee ships customers new coffee based on their tastes. It's a subscription, but CEO Mike Lackman says that part s a necessary evil. Some subscriptions help you discover new products while others help you replenish the products you already love. Trade does a bit of both.Mike comes from an operational background and this episode is a deep dive into how Trade approaches each component of their supply chain. From the roaster dashboard to their new compostable bags, every step has been optimized to create a journey that keeps customers coming back.Find more links and images from this episode on the Lumi blog.