David Wilmot is the Founder and CEO of Tuli, a social shopping platform. He is a 4-time founder and CEO with 3 successful exits and Fortune 500 executive experience. He is a passionate and decisive leader with a track record of delivering results for founding teams and shareholders.
Before Tuli, David was the Chief Operating Officer for UCode and Head of Operations & Sales at Pressed Juicery. He is obsessed with developing people and building mission-driven businesses that make the world a better place.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- David Wilmot talks about his background and passion for entrepreneurship
- The entrepreneurial struggles David’s father faced and how that prepared David for his own entrepreneurial journey
- How David became an executive at Starbucks and what he learned from the experience
- David’s experience as part of the Pressed Juicery team, the opportunities he saw there, and the role IP played in the company
- The strategies David and his team took to set Pressed Juicery apart from its competitors
- The work David did while at UCode and the lessons he learned
- David’s inspiration to start Tuli and the vision behind the company
- The new features David’s working on for the Tuli platform
- Where to learn more about Tuli
In this episode…
People naturally want to be part of a community and connect with others. Unfortunately, online shopping through social media and e-commerce platforms isn’t the best place for connecting. As more people transition away from the mall and towards the screen, that feeling of being in community with others while shopping around starts to evaporate.
However, with the growth of e-commerce, many people are choosing which products to buy based on other examples of community: online reviews and recommendations from friends, family, or influencers. This is why David Wilmot created Tuli, a social shopping platform: to help online shoppers connect with others and easily find recommended products. By building inclusive online communities, David hopes to bring the warmth of retail shopping to e-commerce, one keyboard at a time.
In this week’s episode of the Innovations and Breakthroughs Podcast, host Rich Goldstein is joined by David Wilmot, the Founder and CEO of Tuli, to talk about building a community around e-commerce shopping. They talk about how David’s social shopping platform works, why it’s important to be part of a community, and how David’s background drove him to entrepreneurship.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
- Goldstein Patent Law
- Rich Goldstein’s book: The ABA Consumer Guide to Obtaining a Patent
- Tuli
- Tuli’s contact email: info@tuli.com or press@tuli.com
- David Wilmot on LinkedIn
- Pressed Juicery
- UCode
- DoorDash
- Instagram Shops
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by Goldstein Patent Law, a firm that helps protect inventors’ ideas and products. They have advised and obtained patents for thousands of companies over the past 25 years. So if you’re a company that has a software, product, or design you want protected, you can go to https://goldsteinpatentlaw.com/. They have amazing free resources for learning more about the patent process.
You can email their team at welcome@goldsteinpc.com to explore if it’s a match to work together. Rich Goldstein has also written a book for the American Bar Association that explains in plain English how patents work, which is called ‘The ABA Consumer Guide to Obtaining a Patent.’
Show Transcript
Intro (00:09):
Welcome to innovations and breakthroughs with your host Ritz Goldstein, talking about the evolutionary, the revolutionary, the inspiration and the perspiration and those aha moments that change everything. And now here’s your host rich Goldstein
Rich (00:34):
Rich Goldstein here, host of the innovations and breakthroughs podcast, where I feature top leaders and the path they took to create change past guests include Rex’s Ari, Bob Serling, and Stephen Key. This episode is brought to you by my company, Goldstein patent law, where we help you to protect your ideas and products we’ve advised and obtained patents for thousands of companies over the past 26 years. So if you’re a company that or designing one protected, go to Goldstein patent law.com, where there are amazing free resources for learning about the patent process. And you can email my team@welcomeatgoldsteinpc.com to explore if it’s a match to work together. You could also check out the book I wrote for the American bar association that explains in plain English, how patents work it’s called the ABA consumer guide to obtaining a patent I have here today. David Wilmot, David is a four time founder and CEO, as well as former Fox and also pressed Juicery where he helped expand from 600 million in sales in just 24 months. He’s raised more than 150 million to help build brands. David is a mission-driven entrepreneur in that any venture that David gets involved at its core. It’s my honor to welcome here today. David Wilmot welcome David.
Rich (01:51):
My understanding is that in growing up, you didn’t have many advantages. Um, and um, you put a to put it lightly. You, you, you were poor, you described yourself as coming from a poor background, but you ended up in entrepreneurship, um, at the helm of some significant companies. So, I mean, tell me about, about ground then how you took a and entrepreneurship.
David (02:16):
Sure, sure. Yeah. So first of all, thanks for having me. It’s exciting to be on the podcast. Um, so a little bit about my background. Um, yeah, I grew up very poor. Um, I, my parents were young. I grew up in a mobile home and, uh, even memories of, uh, you know, my parents selling, uh, you know, clothing or, you know, diamonds or something like that, um, just for food. So we could be so, you know, from a young age, um, I was forced in some ways I think to, uh, understand problem solving at a different level. And I, I grew passionate about community and really innovation even at a young age, um, because of some of the struggles, you know, I think I, I, I built a, for lack of a better word, probably a chip on my shoulder that I really wanted to kind of innovate a new life. And so that’s kind of my initial passion, um, toward entrepreneurial entrepreneurship and solving problem.
Rich (03:06):
Got it. So you, you wanted to innovate your life, you want it to innovate, um, like basically that sets you on a path of innovation. Is you want it to create something new for yourself? Uh, yes.
David (03:17):
Yeah. You know, I, I think my, not only just myself, but my family and the community, you know, we, we lived in a really small mobile home park and it was, um, it was a difficult and depressing place. Um, you know, people of all ages, you know, barely struggling to eat, um, very high crime rates, those types of things. And, you know, for years and years I spent there watching people struggle and it, you know, it was sad and it, and it kind of helped me understand my passion around community and really, truly trying to bring people together regardless of, you know, socioeconomic status. So that’s kind of how the, how I grew up and where my passion for community and entrepreneurship started. As I got a little bit older, um, you know, into my kind of high school years, my dad founded a company.
David (04:05):
And so I was able to see firsthand at a young age, the difficulties of that, you know, we started the company out of, out of a house. Um, you know, we had an extra room in the house and he had his desk up there and that’s how the whole thing began. And, um, you know, it was, it was difficult. There were days where I saw him crying in his office or borderline having nervous breakdowns on the couch. And, um, he was a true reality into the challenges of, of building something, you know? Um, and so I was very grateful to see those, uh, some of those early lessons from him.
Rich (04:37):
Wow. That’s amazing. So, um, so you, your father really started the path, that’s Reno shift there. Like he, he founded his own company and he went through those struggles and, um, and I guess that, that, that showed you that it wasn’t all entrepreneur, right? Like that there were, there were real struggles and there were real challenges. And so, um, and I guess as opposed to a lot of young entrepreneurs who just see the, uh, kind of, um, other people with startups and, and seeing startups explode and do so well, and like, it’s like, uh, kind of you, you went into knowing what it was like, and, uh, so it only got better from there,
David (05:20):
Right? Yeah. You know, as, as a student, um, I, I wasn’t the greatest students. I was, I was somewhat out of the box and continued to challenge people in the challenge teachers and to push back. And so, you know, I think from a young age, kind of that entrepreneurial gene, if you want to call it was, it was definitely in our bloodline. Um, and I think in some ways that’s good in some ways it’s bad, but yeah, as I got older, I think, you know, going through some of those challenges and then seeing him, uh, you know, deal with the same types of things, you know, a lot of people think that being an entrepreneur or innovating is, is glamorous and it’s the opposite, you know, it’s difficult and it can be lonely. So for me, it was very lucky to see that. Um, and then, you know, in my teenage years, I, I was already, um, trying to figure out ways to make money.
David (06:09):
Um, even 12, 13, 14 years old, I was starting a little companies, uh, you know, dealing with baseball cards and I’m trying to figure out ways to make, you know, turn the dollar of a baseball card into $10. Um, and then, you know, I, I started a fish, a fish hatchery in my parents’ basement where we were, um, making money that way. So, so yeah, I think from a young age, it was always, uh, kind of this obsession that I had to, um, to ultimately figure out how I can build things and create things. And, uh, I always loved bringing people together for those.
Rich (06:42):
Yeah. And, and, uh, it seems the community has been at the center that you’ve, that you’ve done. Um, and, uh, we’ll talk about Tuli a bit later, but first I want to ask you about, so, so you, you, you were involved in a few other businesses including Starbucks. So how did you get involved in to be an executive at Starbucks?
David (07:02):
Sure. You know, so good question. I, um, as I got a little bit older, I, I founded a couple of companies and sold those companies. And I, at about 24 years old, I was, um, I call it a, a quarter-life crisis. Um, I had made some money. Um, I had had a house in nice cars and kind of, uh, you know, I was living a good life, but I was not satisfied internally. And, um, I felt like I needed to, I think, learn a new, uh, I think a new level of humidity and to be able to learn a different type of business. And so, yeah, I, I met my, uh, my now wife we’ve been married for, for awhile. And, um, she actually worked at Starbucks at the time and she said, Hey, why don’t you, why don’t you come? And, uh, and see if you like it.
David (07:48):
So, you know, at the time I was, I was unsure, but I started over there as a barista and I’m working kind of part-time, I had some money coming in from my other business sales. And, um, so I, yeah, I went over there. I was making coffee and cleaning bathrooms and, um, you know, the whole deal. And it wasn’t, it, it was an incredible journey. I think, you know, the first year there I came in with, uh, I would say some arrogance and I was very quickly humbled and, you know, Starbucks did a really great job of teaching me, you know, humility. And I had some really great mentors and leaders over there that really challenged me to think about, I think, community in a different way to think about, you know, why I was doing things. Um, so specifically at it’s one thing to get a result, but how you get the result is, um, you know, is a, is a totally different thing.
David (08:37):
Um, and then the, the types of people that you impact along the way, and the types of people that you can bring along with you. So Starbucks was great for that. So, you know, I was able to move up through the ranks there. I spent some time, uh, on some different teams over there, um, you know, operations teams, uh, I did some stuff on lean teams and it was great. It was a lot of, I met some wonderful people over there and it was a great journey for about seven, seven and a half years. Very thankful.
Rich (09:02):
Very cool. And then, and then juice. So you went from coffee to juice, right? Right. So, so how did that happen? How did you end up in the juice business?
David (09:11):
Yeah, so, you know, when I, when I left Starbucks, um, I was, you know, kind of debating if I wanted to found another company and I had an opportunity to join, um, the team over at pressed Juicery. Um, pressed Juicery was a kind of small, but growing, uh, pressed juice company. And at the time, you know, just was very much a commodity. Um, but the brand was beautiful. And, um, you know, I, I believed very much in, um, in the founder. So when I, when I joined the company, I took over operations and sales kind of the front end of the business. And, um, and it was bumpy. Um, you know, there was some volatility at the time, like with any startup and there was kind of, you know, two roads. It was like, if we, if we don’t fix this and get things moving in the right direction, um, you know, we didn’t know what was going to happen. And, uh, you know, we all came together and we were able to kind of right the ship, which was excellent. We had some very brilliant people over there, um, working on processes and different kinds of innovations over there. And yeah, we were able to, um, to have some success over there, which was great and started a national expansion from Hawaii to New York and, uh, partnership with Costco.
Rich (10:21):
Yeah. So, um, I guess what was the opportunity when you came in there and you saw, um, that things were going okay, right. But there was an opportunity for something bigger that you were able to right. The ship and, and aim to what was the real opportunity that you saw on the juice business?
David (10:42):
Yeah. You know, the, the founder had a brilliant eye for just the aesthetics design. Um, and he was an excellent marketer, um, and sales person. And, um, we had a COO over there that was also equally as brilliant in different ways. And so, you know, the, the, the executive team, we, we came together to, um, you know, to really kind of understand how do we scale this thing? Cause there’s lots of juice out there. You can buy juice at any, you know, any retail company, you can buy it at any grocery store. So the questions were, how do we, how do we solve a few of these issues from price point to getting people to drive over to their location, get out of their cars. Um, things like speed, right? Those types of things. And one of the things that the company was working on that, um, is still a spectacular product today was, was a product called freeze.
David (11:34):
And so when we looked at the business, you know, the, the innovation was specifically, how do we innovate consistency inside of the stores from an operational standpoint, but also be able to innovate on some of the product that would bring people in consistently and deliver a product to customers was a different kind of product versus something you’d find on the shelf, right. That wasn’t a commodity. And so we had a, we had an excellent head of product over there. Um, the product team created, um, a soft serve, uh, similar to yogurt, but it’s completely, you know, offered some veggies. Um, it was excellent. And what that did is it stabilized kind of the customer experience. Um, so we would see these swings with juice on certain days, um, and that product stabilized kind of the traffic flow, which made operations easier, you know, controlling labor, those types of things, um, really simplified.
David (12:26):
So, you know, it was a really innovative thing. We, you know, we had to work with different companies to customize, um, you know, yogurt machines, you know, what the product team did, um, and to think about, you know, how do we market it and how do we execute it from an operation standpoint. Right. Speed. Um, those types of things. So it was, yeah, it was, it was a big, uh, you know, I think step for the company there, I left the company and, and, um, you know, they continue to innovate. There’s a great team over there, but the innovation was a huge part. I think, of the, you know, the company’s success
Rich (12:55):
Role. Did IP play in, in that, um, innovation and in, in your positioning of, of the, the company among the competition?
David (13:03):
Sure. Um, you know, the, I think anytime that you’re innovating, um, food and beverage, there’s, you know, obviously you’ve got, you know, whatever goes into that particular product, it’s just part of that IP, but a lot of it is, you know, how has that product produced, um, things like shelf life, right consistency. Um, so the IP was important because, um, we were the only company at the time innovating on a completely, uh, fruit and vegetable based soft serve. You know, there’s a ton of other products out there at yogurts and all that. And, you know, they’re filled with chemicals and colors and all that stuff. So the filters in those products bring consistency to the product, um, like out of a soft serve machine. So when you take those fillers out, you lose that consistency. Um, so our, our, the team that was innovating on this, you know, we had to, um, you know, find a way, how do we do this in a, in a healthy way and still have it be consistent when, you know, veggies and fruits are not consistent.
David (14:07):
So that was part of the, you know, the team, uh, that was producing the product to be able to deliver a consistent product all the time. And then we worked, um, having, uh, we worked with a couple of different companies to actually have the soft shirt machines customized for us, so they would be able to handle this type of product. Um, so the temperature in which that it served up, all those types of things are part of the IP, um, and were really trade, you know, trade secrets to some extent, uh, to, to bring that product to market.
Rich (14:35):
Hm. And, and I guess, like you had to solve some problems, you had to solve some problems in terms of, uh, how to run juice through a soft serve machine. And, you know, like once you solve those problems and there was an opportunity for IP. Um, and, and I guess one of the things is that the commoditized and so differentiation needs to play a big role. You need to differentiate yourself to compete.
David (15:05):
Yeah. We had, you know, our, our head of product over there. Um, Justin was a brilliant guy and Jill was, uh, you know, another gal that was, it was brilliant on the backend. And yeah, we all worked together on, on that consistency from where and how the product was put together to kind of that experience into the stores, you know, which, which my team was in control over. So yeah, we, we worked together to bring to your point, the consistency of it was a huge, um, a huge piece that we needed to focus on, or that was probably the biggest inconsistency. Um, and yes, I think specifically with the IP, you know, we were able to get enough data to understand, you know, make some tweaks in the product, tweaks in the machines and overall tweak in the experience to, to have it be an overall great experience. Um, and yeah, it was, you know, I think definitely something that, uh, you know, was a difference maker for the company, you know, and include us to the product team. And, um, yeah, we were able to, to, to have some success with that. I mean, you know, the company still continues to innovate on that product today, which is good.
Rich (16:09):
Great. So I guess one more stop on the journey before we get to Tuli node. So, so tell me about you code and what was the, what was the vision there that, uh, what’s your, what your
David (16:23):
Sure. Yeah, so I, um, I joined U code as a, as a partner. Um, and, you know, I was originally interested. So what you could was is we were building a proprietary coding curriculum for kids and, you know, what was so interesting to me about it is the unit economics were really interesting. Um, but you know, the founder and I, I think big picture saw eye to eye on the things that we wanted to execute. And we decided to, you know, to, to work on building this thing. And so we started building, um, curriculum, so there was totally proprietary to how we saw, you know, how he saw, uh, developments and, um, the way that we wanted to teach kids and, you know, bringing people together. Um, and it was so cool, you know, we would see, you know, kids of all ages come into the centers, learning centers and, you know, whether they were six years old or 16 sitting there learning the code together, and they were building things together and, you know, creating things together.
David (17:24):
And it was, it was cool to see these kids come together. Um, we had a development team that was actually building the curriculum from videos to write step by step instructions. And, um, you know, some of these kids went on to work at Google. Um, and so, you know, that was really important to be able to build our own proprietary curriculum. You know, there was a lot of the elements of IP in that, um, that, you know, the way that, again, that we taught was very different than some of the other companies trying to do this. Um, so that was a great journey. Um, you know, we ended up, uh, expanding a little bit and, you know, I think some lessons learned that, you know, we all had there, we didn’t, we weren’t able to execute to the level that we expected. Um, and so that was a, you know, that was a lesson learned that we would all take forward, uh, you know, with us, the companies still exist today. And I think the maneuvering some, some different challenges of COVID. Um, but yeah, definitely some, some good things and some lessons learned. Hmm.
Rich (18:19):
Great. Um, and so then now, um, to the present moment, so a two Lee is the company that you are, um, that you found logistic currently, um, working on that you’re growing, you’re, you’re coming out with, uh, uh, you know, new technologies, new features first. So tell me, tell me about that. Like, what was the, like, kind of, what was the, um, the inspiration for this company? What was the thing that you saw out there that said this needs to be innovative?
David (18:47):
You know, um, again, going back to kinda my childhood, my passion still is within the community. And, you know, when, when you kind of look around the world, um, and I’m going to get a little philosophical philosophical for a minute.
Rich (19:01):
I love
David (19:04):
When, when the mall, when malls came out, the idea of the mall, it filled a void and there’s, that’s a human need that we all have to be part of community to be connected to each other. And, you know, people are lonely. And, um, you know, I read a statistic recently, 63% of people in the world have said that they are lonely to some extent, um, in their life, you know, which is a massive number. Um, and you know, obviously social media, uh, you know, technology and phones and COVID is not helping the situation. And so now that you’re seeing, you know, malls die off, you’re also seeing some elements inside of them all die off. And so specifically when I would go to the mall with my mom, I would go to connect with her. I would go to have fun and we’d walk around and we talked and we’d go to the food court. And, you know, she used to love to window shop and she’d run into friends over there and right. It wasn’t even always about buying things. It was about being together. It was about community. It was about connecting with other people and e-commerce today is not built like that. It was never built to be community driven. It was never built to be focused around kind of human connection. And, um, you know,
Rich (20:14):
It’s like click here, add to cart, complete transaction.
David (20:20):
Exactly. And don’t get me wrong. I mean, you know, companies like Amazon are spectacular, you know, I, I think that what Amazon has built is obviously their Amazon, right. It’s incredible. Um, but we, we wanna, we wanna build a, you know, a new kind of version of that. And we very strongly believe that, you know, data shows that the, how people are spending time on, on mobile devices to the amount of time they’re spending on social to, um, how they’re looking at, you know, some of the old types of marketing, um, are showing that, you know, it doesn’t work anymore. Um, and so you’re starting to see the shift into not only just social media, but how people are buying, they’re buying based on recommendations, um, from other people, whether it’s friends or family or influencers or celebrities, um, you know, it, you’re not getting the, the days of like visiting, you know, some sort of.com, um, are th that that world is changing and they’re starting to shift over to more type community, um, you know, community technology.
David (21:23):
So when we built this, our, our passion was how do we really solve community shopping and social shopping? So, um, yeah, we, we built, uh, two leads, so is a social shopping platform. Um, it’s a pickup and delivery technology. We have a white label solution for moles and multiunit operators, things like that, but at the heart of what to Lee is, it’s really about connecting with people you can of course log on and, and, and, um, shop from shoppable posts and make recommendations. Um, and so the idea is when you go on to, to lead, you’re pulled straight into the Tuli shoppable feed, and you’ll be able to search for products and, and see products that other people are posting family members, celebrities, some of your favorite shops, it’s curated. So you’re not going to find, you know, commodities on there. Um, for the most part there, you know, it’s a very curated kind of cool community.
David (22:14):
Um, and so, you know, we’re not done yet in the next year. We’d have a lot of innovation coming, um, different types of video shopping, uh, we’re working on, uh, you know, AR and VR type things. Um, for what we believe is that, you know, the future of commerce, um, we’re working on different types of closed group, shopping communities, um, you know, cool group events where you can, you know, if, if you buy something and 10 of your friends buy something, you get the products for free. Um, so there’s some kind of cool, neat things, but I think that the core of it, you know, we really want it to be mission-driven and we want to bring people together. And of course it’s shopping, right. But, you know, similar to the mall, we want to be able to inspire people and have truly be a community that’s inclusive, um, welcoming, you know, open to anybody, um, all over the world that, uh, that that’s, you know, that’s looking for that, if that makes sense.
Rich (23:04):
Got it. So it really is about building community, um, and, uh, kind of seeking to bring the, the warmth of retail. Right. I don’t know if it’ll be described as warm, but the warmth of, of our experience of being like, with our family, with our friends, going to the mall, seeking to bring that into, um, what’s more of an e-commerce age.
David (23:32):
Yeah. You know, like I, I’ve had some friends that have been, you know, some of the executives at companies like door dash and like door dash is a great company. Um, they’ve got, they’ve built a great product. Obviously they just IPO for a lot of, and I’m happy for them, but again, it’s very transactional. And so, you know, we are trying to, we acknowledge the, we’re trying to solve a big problem, you know, bringing warmth and community and human connection to e-commerce is a hard thing. And it hasn’t been solved yet. Um, you know, Instagram just launched, uh, you know, the Instagram shops, um, which is part of what we’re working on. And, you know, Instagram has done a lot of great things too. I don’t think that, I think that they’ve missed the Mark, you know, as big as in awesome as Instagram is, um, I think there’s still large opportunities there.
David (24:17):
So yeah, this is what our team is, is focused on. You know, I think we’ve, we’re working on, um, solving a huge part of that problem. I don’t think we’ve solved it all yet. Obviously. Um, there are still some things there that we’re working on again, you know, how do you create a digital community where people feel kind of truly connected to one another, you know, in a mall you could go and you can sit at the food court and you can talk, right. Um, well, until we were one of the only companies where you can shop from shoppable posts, but we also do food and we’re working on an integration with door dash. So you can actually order food inside it to leave having the food, deliver your house and continue shopping with friends and family, which we think is really, really cool. Um, but yeah, I think that there’s some elements in there that we’re still innovating on, on how warmth, when you think about warmth, how do you define that in the digital world? And that’s really what the problem is. Um, so yeah, we’re, we’re working to solve that. We have a great team of people that are passionate about the, some passionate about bringing communities together and, um, and yeah, that’s really what our obsession and we’re, we’re maniacal about it. So it’s still some still some work to do, but we’ll get there.
Rich (25:23):
Fascinating. And, uh, so, so there’s some, some features and aspects of it that you’re working on now that you particularly excited about. Do you want to talk about,
David (25:33):
Yeah, definitely. So we’ve got, we’ve got version two of the app. That’ll be coming soon in the next few months. Um, we’ve got some cool elements of video shopping, uh, you know, we’re, we’re defining kind of what the group shopping experience is going to look like. And, you know, we’re, we’re working to add in some, some, again, some elements of warm. So think about, uh, you know, when you go onto, uh, uh, any type of shopping platform, again, it’s very transactional. So for us, we want to think about how do we inspire people every day. Um, and so, you know, some of these things are little things, but imagine being able to open it up and be inspired by the community quote every day, um, imagine being able to send somebody in the side of the platform, a random encouragement with the click of a button, you know, you can encourage a friend or whatever that may be.
David (26:21):
Um, not only can you follow, you know, influencers and celebrities that you love. Um, but in some cases you can actually, you know, talk directly to them or be in, you know, a virtual shopping experience with them. That’s maybe close to 10 or 20 of them to be able to build a relationship with some of these people. Um, so there’s some really cool things that we’re, we’re discussing right now that are coming over the next 12. Um, our development team has their hands full I’ve. Uh, I’ve been called, uh, you know, crazy at times. Um, but, but that’s okay. You know, we’re, I think our goal is really to innovate commerce and to bring a new experience. You know, one of the cool things that we have inside of Tilly that I love is, um, we we’ve built in a, an influencer agency inside of truly.
David (27:07):
So for all of these merchants that maybe don’t know how to market don’t know how to engage with influencers, it’s built into Tillery so they can log on, they can find an influencer that they like, and at the click of a button, they can market through that influencer and run campaigns, not only on to lead, but a lot of the other social platforms as well, you know, whether it’s IgE or Facebook or YouTube or Snapchat, whatever. Um, and so that’s, you know, that’s a really cool thing and we’re working on again, how do we, some of these influencers are really amazing people and they very much aligned with our values and our mission. And so we’re, you know, we’re working on how do we, instead of making that, just a transaction where somebody says, Hey, go buy this purse. That’s really amazing. Um, how do we bring warmth to that experience? How do we bring human connection to that experience? You know, so, um, I can’t share everything because we’re working on it now, but those are some of the problems that we are trying to solve right now.
Rich (28:00):
Well, that’s amazing. I mean, that, and that really captures the spirit of what you’re doing, which is creating community using tech, um, and, um, and bringing warmth to the, um, e-commerce, um, shopping or to creating a e-commerce shopping solution that creates community at the same time. And, uh, and I think that’s, that’s amazing. And I think that only happens when you’re mission-driven
David (28:24):
Thanks, rich. Yeah. I mean, look, man, like we, our team loves what we do and, you know, when I think I’ll get philosophical and you’re getting for a minute, but you know, when I think about, you know, there’s a lot of different religions and beliefs on why we’re all here, right? Nobody, nobody really knows. But at the end of the day, when I think about my life journey and my legacy or my family’s legacy, you know, we want it to Lee. And for myself personally, I want to uplift, uplift people’s lives. And I want people to have a better life because of something that I can share or something that we can build as a team. And that’s really kind of what drives us, you know? Um, it’s not really the money. I’ve had a lot of money in my life and a little, and I’m not any happier either way.
David (29:09):
Um, and so at the end of the day, yeah, I mean, we were really want to build something that we can be proud of. Our, you know, obviously my family, our kids, those, you know, can be proud of, but I think more importantly that really connects people. And, um, and I think there’s some different things that, that will launch in the next 12 months that we’ll see more of that come to fruition. Um, but yeah, I mean, we wanna, we want to lead it inspire people. We want to lead, uh, to be a place again where, you know, if somebody is feeling down, they can, they can come to Tilly and they don’t need any, of course, sure. We want people to shop and buy things. That’s how we money and merchants make money. And the whole thing works. But you know, more importantly, we want to be able to build elements in there that bring people back and bring people back in the right way.
David (29:50):
You know, there’s, as you probably know, um, you know, a lot of these social media platforms have done different types of things to, to hook people, right? Like the notifications, um, is, is a dopamine reward. That’s pumped into your brain every time you, every time you see that notification, it’s the same thing, conceptually that drugs do, um, to your brain. And so, you know, there’s a lot of, a lot of thought that goes into that. And so we’re, you know, we’re trying to understand how do we build a social shopping platform? That’s I think a morally and ethically a little bit different, um, still of course, you know, a place where people want to consistently come back to, but we want to be able to build that hook in a way that, that makes people feel great instead of makes people feel sad or depressed. And there’s a lot of data that shows, you know, if people go on to feed the, you know, the more people use Facebook, the more depressed they are is what the data supports. Right. Um, and so we don’t want to lead to be that we weren’t, you know, the more people that visit to lead, the more positive, the more inspired they are is really what our goal is.
Rich (30:55):
Yeah. That’s amazing. And it sounds like that’s what you’re doing. Um, and so if people want to learn more about you or get in contact with you, how do they go about doing so
David (31:04):
Sure. So they can, uh, uh, send an email to info it, tooley.com or press@tulane.com. And that’s just T U L i.com. Um, and yeah, we would, if anybody has questions we’d love to hear from me. If you have, uh, there’s any, you know, curated merchants that have an excellent product that think could be a great fit. Uh, we’d love to connect you with our sales team and welcome you to the Tillary family.
Rich (31:25):
Great. Um, so David, thanks so much for being here. Really appreciate your contribution to our audience. And, uh, again, thank you
David (31:33):
Rich. Thanks for having me on. I enjoy the podcast and I look forward to it.
Outro (31:41):
Thanks for listening to innovations and breakthroughs with your host, rich Goldstein. Be sure to click, subscribe, check us out on the web@innovationsandbreakthroughs.com and we’ll see you next time.