Primary: Christina Carbonell and Galyn Bernard

The apparel industry - be it high fashion or everyday wear - is a crowded and noisy market to crack. Just think about the sheer number of athletic shoes or jeans available at both ends of the price spectrum! So conventional wisdom is: to stand out, branding is really important. But for Christina Carbonell and Galyn Bernard, the co-founders of the children's clothing line Primary, branding was the last thing they wanted on their designs. The two women bucked other industry conventions, too: they only sell basic building-block pieces, using bright colors, in styles that hardly change year after year. No glitter. No cartoons. No pithy sayings. And no gender differentiation: the clothes are categorized as either babies or kids. Despite early struggles, eight years after launching in 2015, Primary is now a profitable company with annual sales over $50 million. This episode was produced by Casey Herman, with music by Ramtin Arablouei Edited by Andrea Bruce, with research help from Chris Maccini. You can follow HIBT on Twitter https://twitter.com/HowIBuiltThis & Instagram https://www.instagram.com/howibuiltthis, and email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Guy Raz?

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• 0:46Guy Raz?

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• 1:32Guy Raz?

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• 2:16Guy Raz?

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• 3:00Guy Raz?

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• 3:45Guy Raz?

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• 4:27Guy Raz?

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• 5:13Speaker 01

  I think for me, what I most remember about that time was feeling really scared about the idea of leaving. But also, I remember Christina feeling pretty definitive that she was going to leave.

• 5:25Guy Raz?

  Even though you initially came to her with this idea,

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:28Guy Raz?

  she was the one who was more like, let's go.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  Yes, totally. And there was a lot to believe in. There was an idea to believe in. There was a partnership to believe in. And why not? We have every reason to believe this could be a huge success, but if it isn't, I know it's going to be an amazing experience.

• 5:48Guy Raz?

  Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

• 6:01Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz and on the show today, how a radically simple idea, kids' clothes in basic colors and evergreen styles, turned into an indie apparel company called Primary, now a multimillion-dollar brand.

• 6:20Guy Raz?

  In a crowded category, say, in something like energy bars, it usually makes sense to try and stand out, to focus on branding. Same goes for apparel. It's why Balenciaga can sell a T-shirt for $500, even though the cost to make it might be 10. But the founders of Primary, a direct-to-consumer kids' clothing brand, decided to do something totally counterintuitive. They built a company that is almost contemptuous of branding, except for, on an inside label, the word "primary" never appears on the clothing. The styles are basic: T-shirts, jeans, hoodies,

• 7:02Guy Raz?

  solid colors, timeless patterns, stuff that wouldn't look out of place in 1975 or 2025. And finally, the clothing isn't separated by gender. No pink for girls, or blues for boys. You just pick baby or kids. When Christina Carbonell and Galen Bernard launched the company in 2014, they knew they were entering a pretty tough space. Brands like Carter's, Children's Place, Gap, Old Navy, they dominate the kids' apparel category. And it's worth around $50 billion a year, just in the United States. Trying to make it as a small, independent brand facing

• 7:45Guy Raz?

  those giants is really hard. And for many years, it was a struggle for Primary. What Galen and Christina were trying to do was to make high-quality, long-lasting basics for kids that wouldn't break the bank. The two founders like to joke that because their professional resumes are pretty similar, they are basically the same person. But while they both graduated from Ivy League schools, Galen from Princeton and Christina from Penn, and they both went to Harvard Business School, their backgrounds are actually very different. Galen was an only child and a top high school golfer in Indiana. Her dad was a physician and her mom was a homemaker. Christina, on the other hand, was the first person in her family to attend college and

• 8:29Guy Raz?

  raised in Maryland by a single divorced mom.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  My mom, at the time my parents got divorced, kind of really had to start over. She had been, she was young and had been a hairdresser and had to start over, became a secretary and was working a lot.

• 8:43Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  I was definitely very self-reliant and had learned from my mom that it was going to be really important that I did well in school and that that was going to be key to my independence. And one of the main lessons I probably learned from my mom, the thing she emphasized the most, was be able to take care of yourself. And to be specific, never have to rely on a man, to be honest.

• 9:08Guy Raz?

  Yeah. And, I mean, you were, I mean, you must have been a very good student in high school. You went to Penn for college, but did you go into college with that mindset, like, I'm going to go study economics, maybe get a job in finance and make a lot of money so I don't have to ever rely on anyone else?

• 9:27Speaker 01

  I did. And also, even in deciding where to go to college, my mom had instilled in me how important it would be, but she also couldn't really guide me on how to go about it or where to go. And so I remember buying a book of all the colleges and I pretty much skimmed the entire thing to choose what schools to even apply to. And was very fortunate to get into Penn and it was a huge turning point for me in really creating my future.

• 9:56Guy Raz?

  So when you graduated, you went to go work for Kraft right out of college in sort of branding, marketing. And I guess, I mean, that this was the beginning of a path for you, probably, where you thought, this is, I'm going to go work in corporate America and rise up the ranks.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  I could not have been more excited. I really felt like I had made it. And I remember walking into the company store at Kraft Foods and being surrounded by Macaroni and Cheese and Maxwell House Coffee and all of these brands and being able to buy all these things at a discount, too.

• 10:33Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Just feeling like, I can't even believe I'm here. I have made it.

• 10:37Guy Raz?

  And what did you do? I mean, tell me a little about your job at Kraft, because you were there for like, six, seven years.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  I was. I got to work on a lot of really cool brands at Kraft Foods, from Maxwell House Coffee in the beginning, which was fun. I remember going on my first advertising shoot in Montana, and it might have been the second time I had ever flown on a plane.

• 10:58Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  And it was just so exciting. I also worked on brands like, cereal brands, like Fruity Pebbles, which was super fun. And later Kraft Salad Dressing was a brand I worked on. I have this story of what success looks like at a big company when you're pretty junior there. And one of the projects that I worked on was, I drove the initiative to put that lid on Kraft Ranch Dressing so that it's a slow pour rather than like, all coming out at once, which is especially helpful for kids who like to, of course, dump ranch dressing onto everything.

• 11:38Guy Raz?

  Wait, you mean like the squeezy lid?

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I did that.

• 11:41Guy Raz?

  You're the, you're the person behind the ranch dressing squeezy lid?

• 11:46Speaker 01

  I am.

• 11:47Guy Raz?

  Wow. That should be the first thing on your LinkedIn bio. That, that should be the, like, that has changed the world in some ways.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  This is what innovation looks like at big companies, and I was quite proud.

• 11:59Guy Raz?

  Yeah. All right. So you're working at Kraft, and I guess a few years in, Kraft actually sent you to get an MBA at Harvard Business School.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  They did, which was enormously helpful. At the time, I was paying back quite a lot of loans from undergrad, and so Kraft Foods sponsoring my MBA at Harvard was huge for me.

• 12:21Guy Raz?

  Yeah, bet. And I read that after you got your degree, you, you went to work at Kraft for a few more years, and then... I guess you took a short break when you had kids, but around like 2007, I guess you felt ready to get back into the workforce, but you didn't go back to craft, right?

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Definitely. So I was ready to work again, and I came across a company that at the time was called 1-800-DIapers. And I noticed that it was located about 10 minutes from where I lived in New Jersey.

• 12:52Guy Raz?

  And had you, do you remember how you found out about it?

• 12:54Speaker 01

  I saw a job listing for a role that was not what I do. It was a product buyer position, and Mark Laurie's name and email were on it. And so I wrote to him cold.

• 13:07Guy Raz?

  And he was unknown. We know who he is now.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  He was unknown.

• 13:10Guy Raz?

  He was on our show a few years ago. He's an amazing entrepreneur, but he was just some dude who, at that point-

• 13:15Speaker 01

  Some dude with a diaper company.

• 13:17Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  And so I wrote to him cold and just asked him for a job. I had no idea what it would become. I had no idea who Mark and Vinnie, the co-founders, were. Pretty quickly, though, during the interview process, they shared their business plan with me. And this is my first exposure in my career to really entrepreneurship. Could not have known what an amazing example it really was and would be. But the business plan itself was, it was like a 30-page narrative, and I'd never seen anything like it. It was so well thought out. It was insanely ambitious. I didn't even really know what to make of it, to be honest, but I thought it sounded cool. So I was just ready to give it a try.

• 13:56Guy Raz?

  At that time, it was 1-800-DIapers became, of course, diapers.com and then Quidsey. And for people listening to this episode, you should check out that episode with Mark Laurie, because it is a kind of a masterclass. So you go and work for them. And what did you initially, what did you do for diapers.com?

• 14:14Speaker 01

  I was their marketing director, essentially, and I was part-time for about two weeks. And then it was clear that it was going to be full-time. And, you know, early memories, we were maybe five people at the time, so it was just a few of us in a small office.

• 14:30Guy Raz?

  Okay. Unbelievable, because it, of course, became a huge company, but just five people.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  Yes. And I remember just saying, you know what, I'm going to go see if I can make a new print ad for Parenting Magazine. And that first print ad that I did actually featured my, at the time, two-year-old son, standing at my front door with a box of diapers on the doorstep with the headline, "Diapers and More Delivered to Your Door."

• 14:55Guy Raz?

  Nice.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  And that was the kind of thing I was doing for them in the very beginning.

• 14:59Guy Raz?

  All right, so let's pause for a moment and move over to Galen because this is, this obviously will make sense when we get back to both of you. Galen, it's funny because you and Christina did not know each other, but you kind of had these weirdly parallel lives. Like Christina went to Penn, you went to Princeton, and then you both went to HBS to study business. And you also worked at Kraft.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  I did, yes.

• 15:28Guy Raz?

  Like, not at the same time as Christina, after Christina had left.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Right, and in the same office. I was in the Tarrytown office, too.

• 15:35Guy Raz?

  It's like that movie Sliding Doors.

• 15:36Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 15:37Guy Raz?

  That's a terrible parallel. It's something.

• 15:39Speaker 02

  It's not a bad movie.

• 15:40Guy Raz?

  So you would get, I mean, you would go on to work for Kraft, as was mentioned, and then Kohlhaan, so very different kinds of products, food, apparel. And was your sort of, were you ever thinking, I'm going to start my own business one day? Or were you thinking, I really want to just be a brand manager for big, different companies?

• 15:59Speaker 02

  It's funny, sort of both of those at different points. I think, like Christina, when I got to Kraft, I was like, this is it. This is like the career that I want to have.

• 16:08Guy Raz?

  Free macaroni and cheese forever.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  Forever. I mean, the Kraft store was no joke. It was awesome.

• 16:14Guy Raz?

  Kraft Singles, grilled cheese sandwiches, forever.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  Totally. Well, also, I mean, you may remember this, but my forever was the brand that I got to work on, which was Crystal Light On The Go.

• 16:24Guy Raz?

  Oh, interesting.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  Yes, so I grew up with Crystal Light, like, in the pitcher, in the fridge, like, every kid in the 80s, probably.

• 16:31Guy Raz?

  Yep.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  But then, like, the innovate, my sort of version of Kraft innovation was these on-the-go sticks that you would just, like, pour into your 16.9-ounce bottle of water. And it was so delicious and so...

• 16:43Guy Raz?

  And it must have been a huge product for Kraft.

• 16:45Speaker 02

  It was huge. It was really huge. It was a huge growth driver for, I mean, the whole category was powdered beverages. And so Crystal Light, sitting among, like, a lot of these heritage brands, Tang and Country Time and, you know, sort of brands that weren't as relevant. Yeah, so being on Crystal Light On The Go was an amazing experience.

• 17:02Guy Raz?

  All right, you worked Kraft for a couple of years and then to Kohlhaan, before you ended up landing at what became Quidsey, which was started as 1-800-DIapers, and this is 2010. How did you end up there?

• 17:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's funny, I, when I was at Kohlhaan, I was working with a woman who told me about this sort of job posting that she had gotten from a recruiter. For a merchandising role at a company called diapers.com. And at the time, I was pregnant with twins. It was maybe like spring of 2009. And she told me she wasn't going to pursue it. And I thought about it for a bit and I was like, actually, if you wouldn't mind sharing that job description with me, I'd love to talk to the recruiter about it. And so I did. And I ended up sort of going down to the office at that point was in Montclair. And so I went down. And that's when I met Christina.

• 17:55Guy Raz?

  All right. So Christina, you'd been made head of marketing at Quidsy. And we're moving into leading the retail side. And the company was growing. You guys were launching like a bunch of direct to consumer websites. I think there's like soap.com and wag.com for pets. So at the time, what were you hiring Galen to do?

• 18:18Speaker 01

  I think Galen, as she said, was initially interviewing for a merchandising role. But ultimately, we hired her to be the marketing director for diapers.com. And what I remember most, by the way, about Galen in that interview was that she was pregnant with twins and could hardly breathe.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, I was nervous and also just had like two humans pushing on all my things.

• 18:41Guy Raz?

  So you started at, when you started at Quidsy, Galen, you probably took some time off pretty soon after because you had two kids.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, actually, so I think my last interview was like two weeks before I ended up having the kids. They were two months early. And I remember they had been born, but were still in the NICU when Christina and Vinnie called me to give me the offer. And then I didn't start until after I had been home with them. So I started at the beginning of January in 2010. So I had been home with the girls for like four months or so before that.

• 19:14Guy Raz?

  And that year, like seven, eight months down the road.

• 19:21Guy Raz?

  Quincy gets acquired by Amazon, so you become an Amazon employee.

• 19:24Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 19:25Guy Raz?

  So just tell me a little bit about your relationship. You know, did you guys, I mean, you were, were you working super closely together every day?

• 19:33Speaker 02

  We were. It was sort of an all hands on deck all the time. There was a ton of pressure to sort of continue the amazing momentum that we had already seen on diapers.com in terms of sales, but also to get all of these other verticals launched. So there was a ton going on. And so we worked really closely together. And it was just, it was hard. It was really hard. We learned so much, but there was just a ton of pressure and we all loved it. I think I, you know, I think we all just wanted to make sure that we hit the metrics that we had in place and our plans were really aggressive.

• 20:09Guy Raz?

  You would basically work together for four years at Quincy. I know, Galen, you mentioned that at times you had, you thought about maybe starting your own thing. Christina, did you, was that in the back of your mind or not quite?

• 20:23Speaker 01

  I think Galen was thinking about it a little bit before I was. I knew that I would probably after seven, you know, to eight years, that I was ready to make a move. But I was less clear that it would be to start a business of my own.

• 20:37Guy Raz?

  And Galen, even while you were at Quincy, was that still, was that ideas percolating in your mind or?

• 20:43Speaker 02

  I think not quite. I think I was just open to ideas that popped up and definitely always thinking about what I wish for, for myself, you know, in sort of a shopping experience or stuff for the kids or a service or things like that. I think just like, yeah, wouldn't it be great if there was like a travel service that could do la la la. Like those types of conversations happened a lot, but not in a sort of serious way really, until we had, we had the primary thought. And so then it became, you know, we sort of got to the point where we were both probably ready to leave regardless. And so we're either going to do this or we're going to sort of go our separate ways and get new jobs. And what are we going to do?

• 21:24Guy Raz?

  All right. Well, let's, let's back up for a second, rewind the tape and tell me about. About that idea. Both of you guys were moms. So and and children change you. I mean, this happened to me. Like, I, all of a sudden, found myself dancing at mommy and me groups because because you could, you know, it just it frees you up to do things that you wouldn't normally do. Like, you got to shake, shake, shake your booty. You know, and you're doing it with your kid. At the and and it does change. It changes a lot of things in your life and often leads to business ideas. So just kind of walk me through the conversations that would eventually lead to like, hey, this is something. What do you remember?

• 22:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I think what I remember most is that it was a pretty reasonable combination between the experience that we had had at diapers.com and just sort of personal experiences, shopping for our own kids' clothes and sort of coming away with the what if there was a diapers.com type solution, which in our minds was like amazing customer service, really easy to shop for all the great sort of right products that busy parents need that are also easy to replenish, but sort of applied to the clothing category where, I think, personally, shopping for our own kids, we were frustrated and, you know, had a bunch of questions about like the market that existed.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  So, you know, my kids are girls, but they never liked pink growing up. And I remember early on one year them wanting orange jackets for winter. And I had to buy them from the like, in quotes, boys' section because the sort of girls' coat offering was like pink, white, teal. And so and so that was just a like, huh, that doesn't make any sense. Like, these coats are basically exactly the same. These kids are four. And then I think the other big one was around just simplicity. You know, Christina and I grew up with brands like The Gap and Benetton that sort of stood for these great go-to styles that were sort of timeless and not overembellished and not trendy,

• 23:26Speaker 02

  just great colors and great fabrics that all sort of like mixed and matched together. And we couldn't find that for our own kids, and we missed it.

• 23:34Guy Raz?

  Yeah, Christina, what do you remember? I mean, what was frustrating to you about? Because I, I mean, I'm thinking. Like when my kids were little, I'd just, you know, we'd just go to like Old Navy or whatever and, you know, buy a bunch of stuff there. And like, you know, you buy cheap clothes for your kids because they're going to grow out of it. And then, you know, ideally you give it away. But I don't remember like a lot of pain points, just buying clothing for them. What was it, what was frustrating to you about that process?

• 24:01Speaker 01

  It was true for me, too, that I was doing the same thing. I was just shopping at sort of the go-to places at the time, the gaps in Old Navy's of the world. But I remember Galen walking into one of these fun lunches with maybe a glass or two of wine. And she started to talk to me about it. And it was less that I felt like there were these enormous pain points and more that we started asking these why questions that then felt like the light bulb was going off. Like she said, like, why is it only certain colors for girls and boys? Why are we making like crazy expensive clothes that are dry clean only for babies? Why do you have to, you know, why can't you rebuy something that you really like because it changes every single season? All of these things maybe

• 24:43Speaker 01

  didn't start out as enormous pain points, but when we started talking about them, it just didn't seem to make sense. We had just accepted those things.

• 24:50Speaker 02

  I think the biggest problem for me is that at a high level, it felt hard and no fun. And when you're shopping for kids, it just should be fun. And so that was the thing that I think always just felt like, ugh, like, okay, every five seconds these kids need new clothes. And every time I go to do that, I don't know where to shop because I'm not really loyal to any brands in particular. There aren't any that I love and that I'm so excited to go, you know, check out. And then it's like a little bit of a slog because it's expensive. And so that, to me, was sort of like, there has to be a better way. And one of the things that we sort of rallied around from the beginning was that when we wanted parents, when they shopped at Primary, to feel like they won, which certainly wasn't

• 25:33Speaker 02

  a feeling that we had shopping at any sort of other clothing brands for our kids.

• 25:37Guy Raz?

  Yeah, Christina, what did you, I mean, when Galen was telling you about this concept, where did you feel like, okay, we can really do this differently? Like, this is the problem with existing kids' clothing, and this is how we can solve it?

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, there were two parts of it for me. One was being able to picture this assortment and the brand that we could build. And I could picture it right away. And what I pictured was at a time when clothing in general and kids clothing included had become so complicated, so proliferated with slogans and over embellishments. What I pictured, and we sometimes described it this way early on, was like the Lego of kids clothing. I pictured these simple styles in these beautiful, solid colors, the full rainbow of every color. And just how amazing that would be.

• 26:32Guy Raz?

  So like, basic t-shirts and short sleeve polos and long sleeve shirts and trousers, just hoodies, just very classic designs that were timeless.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And what was interesting to us was that that was really exciting to us, but it was really boring to everyone else who was in this industry. This was the afterthought to them. The basics were boring. And remember that we had come from diapers.com. Nothing's more boring than diapers. Clothing was like, itself was a huge step up in terms of excitement. And to us, there was just a lot of parallels.

• 27:12Guy Raz?

  So when, I mean, when you were, like, you were talking through this idea, right? At what point, because this is like, there's a difference between talking through an idea and then taking the leap, right? And saying, let's pursue this. And there's a lot that has to happen. So how long do you think before you got to the point where you're like, yeah, let's try it? Was it like six months, a year, three months?

• 27:38Speaker 01

  I do think it was about six months from sort of like, here's the concept, let's talk about it a little more, let's talk about like whether we'd want to do it together. And I think we decided that maybe right before the holidays. And then we ended up leaving on Valentine's Day in 2014. And so I think for me, what I most remember about that time was feeling really scared about the idea of leaving. But also, I remember Christina.

• 28:08Speaker 02

  Like feeling pretty definitive that she was going to leave.

• 28:12Guy Raz?

  Even though this you initially came to her with this idea, she was the one who was more like, let's go.

• 28:17Speaker 02

  Yes, totally. But so I remember feeling like there was this window that we both had where we had had these amazing jobs. We had this experience. We had these incredible role models in Mark and Vinnie. And we had this idea that we really were passionate about and felt like actually we were pretty well suited to try. It almost felt like, not to be over dramatic, but like a little now or never on this idea. And also, I think we sort of gave ourselves a pep talk that if we tried this and it didn't work, we could probably go get other reasonable jobs. And so I feel like I like closed my eyes and we actually quit together, I remember. And I definitely was crying.

• 29:00Guy Raz?

  Christina, you were ready to go. You were itching to try something new. But your mom had raised you to never be dependent on anyone to... I mean, were you in a position where, you know, if this didn't work out, you'd be fine?

• 29:14Speaker 01

  I was by that point, and I was grateful for that. And I do think that I felt like I was, I had earned it. I had finally reached a point in my life where I could take risks like this. And, and why not? And there was a lot to believe in. There was an idea to believe in. There was a partnership to believe in. We had done enough thinking to really believe that there was a business model behind this. And I remember thinking to myself, we have every reason to believe this could be a huge success. But if it isn't, I know it's going to be an amazing experience.

• 29:43Guy Raz?

  When we come back in just a moment, how Galen and Christina's idea went from a business plan to a hugely successful launch, and how a few months later, it almost fell apart because of a critical mistake. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.

• 30:05Guy Raz?

  Does your team want a website that looks and feels handcrafted but is still fast to ship? Well, Framer is built exactly for that. With Framer, you design on a visual canvas with responsive layouts, hosting, and a CMS built in, so the work is production-ready from day one. And you can get it done with help from Framer's AI agents. Framer is the AI website builder that helps creators, teams, and businesses ship production-ready sites faster than ever while getting every detail right. Prompt, inspect, edit, and publish in one place at a whole new pace. AI agents and humans work together. The agents bring speed and scale, and people bring taste,

• 30:50Guy Raz?

  judgment, and control. Learn how you can get more out of your site from a Framer specialist or get started building for free today at framer.com/built for 30% off a Framer Pro annual plan. That's framer.com/built. Rules and restrictions may apply. AI isn't just opening new business opportunities, it's changing the way businesses get work done. The questions they ask, the decisions they make, the routine tasks they can hand off. That's the idea behind NetSuite Next, the next generation of NetSuite with AI woven into the tools your business already relies on. NetSuite Next surfaces insights exactly when you need them,

• 31:35Guy Raz?

  puts agents to work on routine tasks and problems, and lets you ask complex questions in plain language, like talking to a knowledgeable colleague. But technology is only part of the story. AI is also reshaping how people and teams work together, and that shift is already underway. That's why NetSuite wants to put a new expert-created business guide in your hands today. It's called "Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI is Changing Everyday Work." And right now, it's yours, absolutely free. Inside, you'll discover how AI could reshape work across your entire organization, and how to position your business to prosper from it. If your revenues are at least in the seven

• 32:19Guy Raz?

  figures, get NetSuite's free business guide, Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI is Changing Everyday Work, at netsuite.com/built. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com/built. netsuite.com/built.

• 32:36Speaker 03

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• 33:21Speaker 04

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• 33:37Speaker 05

  My name is Nazar. I'm from Washington DC. And hands down, my favorite episode of How I Built This was with Tristan Walker of Walker and Company. I can't tell you how many times I've listened to this episode. Whether it be for a pick-me-up or a bit of inspiration, Tristan's words and his faith just always seem to do the trick for me. And I'm now on a similar path as a young black entrepreneur, one that was undoubtedly influenced by something Tristan had said that episode, which is that you should do the thing that you're uniquely positioned to do.

• 34:07Guy Raz?

  If you want to share your favorite episode of How I Built This, record a short voice memo on your phone telling us your name, where you're from, what your favorite episode is and why, a lot like the voice memo you just heard, and email it to us at [email protected] and we'll share your favorites right here in the ad breaks in future episodes. And thanks so much. We love you guys. You're the best. And now, back to the show.

• 34:39Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2014 and Christina and Galen have just quit their jobs. They're determined to start a direct-to-consumer kids' clothing brand. And the idea is to sell just the essentials in solid colors at an affordable price. And of course, the first order of business is to write up a business plan.

• 35:02Speaker 02

  I think we actually said to each other, like, let's just take a week to get our haircut, to maybe go to the dentist, to like, catch up with the kids, and then we'll start. So we had a little one-week catch-up. And then we felt like we needed to just immediately start working on the business plan. And so we found a space that we were really excited to work from. WeWork had just started around then, and we sort of looked at it, but it felt expensive. And so we actually both joined the Reebok Sports Club on the Upper West Side in New York and worked from there for like, maybe six months or more. We met every morning, like, in workout clothes with sort of like, the loose intent to maybe exercise that day.

• 35:47Speaker 02

  We very rarely did. But they had great Wi-Fi, and they had a cafe with delicious food. And so that's where we pulled our business plan together, from the Reebok Sports Club.

• 35:57Guy Raz?

  Just working out and then having coffee.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  Not working out, not working out.

• 36:01Guy Raz?

  Not working out, okay. All right, nothing, no judgment. I'm not judging you. And the idea, Christina, from the beginning was to raise money, was to find investors and to see if you can start that way.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  It was. I think we knew that we would need a significant amount of seed money in order to build a website and hire a small team. I think, Galen, at the time that we launched, where we...

• 36:27Speaker 02

  I think we are six.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  Six people.

• 36:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:29Guy Raz?

  And so how much did you guys think you needed to raise?

• 36:32Speaker 02

  Our target was $750,000 to basically get us to the point where we were ready to launch. So our first inventory buy, obviously some product development along the way. And then mostly, otherwise, it was people who could help us build a website, could help us think through sort of the creative and what does the brand look like? And also, you know, sort of start to get clothing designed and made.

• 36:56Guy Raz?

  So let's start with the fundraising, because I want to break it down, how you really got off the ground. I have to imagine two Harvard MBAs, deep experience in retail, in startups, in consumer and direct to consumer. This was like a no brainer. Like, you guys walk in and you could raise the money pretty easily.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  I wish that was true.

• 37:21Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. I mean, I think we going into it, Guy, if we're being honest, probably thought kind of like you described.

• 37:32Guy Raz?

  I mean, you knew Mark Laurie. He was probably going to introduce you to a bunch of people. I mean, your resume is alone, no brainer, right?

• 37:39Speaker 02

  Yes. And he definitely did. He and Vinnie were so helpful with introductions.

• 37:44Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 37:44Speaker 02

  But I think we just grossly underestimated how hard it would be. And also how, being honest, like how much we didn't love it. I think communicating our vision, when it was so crystal clear to us, we could like see it perfectly, like communicating that to someone who, you know, had less experience in the apparel category, maybe didn't shop for their kids' clothes, was hard. Yeah, and I think also it just felt like salesy to us. Like, we had this idea and we often would walk into a pitch knowing that we needed to be like, and this is the most amazing idea you've ever heard.

• 38:19Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  And instead, authentic to us, we were sort of like, yeah, well, we have this, you know, we have an idea for a clothing brand that we think is going to be pretty great. And so it just wasn't, it wasn't awesome out of the gate.

• 38:30Guy Raz?

  Were there, I mean, in, you know, in some of these meetings with investors, were there any investors who were like, look, you got to put a logo on there? You know, you've got to have a big P or something that... And were you guys, if you heard that, were you just like, no, the whole point of this is to not have a logo or to be sort of brand name focused?

• 38:52Speaker 02

  Yes, this is... Maybe one of our favorite stories, and it was, it happened in the Reebok Sports Club in like one of their tiny phone booths that we had to fight people for every day. But an investor, definitely early investor call, suggested exactly what you said, that like the clothing needed to be recognizable on the playground. How could it ever work if it wasn't? But rather than suggesting a logo, actually suggested that we put huge expletive zippers on everything, like as an example.

• 39:22Guy Raz?

  You just said expletive. They didn't want the zippers to have expletives.

• 39:25Speaker 02

  No, but like huge effing zipper was like the recommendation.

• 39:29Guy Raz?

  Big zippers, like a giant zipper on like the hoodie.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  Yes. That was, that was a recommendation.

• 39:35Guy Raz?

  It's not a bad idea. Not a bad idea. I think, I can see, I can see like a big fat zipper, like a three inch zipper.

• 39:44Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 39:45Guy Raz?

  That's kind of cool.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  That was, that was a suggestion. Well, that can be yours. That's a free, free idea for you guys.

• 39:52Guy Raz?

  I'm starting my new zipper apparel line.

• 39:53Speaker 02

  Today.

• 39:54Guy Raz?

  Big zipper. Bigzipper.com. But, but so, you know, but I understand the thinking behind it, right? I mean, somebody is saying, can it be replicated? Can you actually protect your, your brand or product? You can understand the skepticism from some people initially when they're like, wait, it's just a basic shirt.

• 40:13Speaker 02

  Exactly. And that for us, it was like, yes, exactly. It's just a basic shirt and it's so hard to find. So I think that was part of it too, was that we kind of knew from shopping this category so much and from all of our friends who were doing the same, that although it seems like it's everywhere and so easy to do, it just wasn't. And also I think as we learned and got into it, by focusing on it, we could actually do it really well in a way that was sort of profitable and, you know, a solid business and the basis of an amazing customer relationship where, yes, a bunch of other companies could and do sell a basic white t-shirt sort of in the corner of their store. But it's an afterthought. And so the experience around it and sort of the, the benefit of it is just very different for those brands.

• 40:57Guy Raz?

  And here, the other question is, I mean, the kids market is, it's an interesting market because of course, unlike adult apparel, kids have to, you know, they grow out of stuff. They got to buy a bunch of stuff. But I also wonder whether it's a more fickle market in some ways. That like kids like one toy and then it's hot for a month and then that's it. They like, nobody's talking about it anymore. You know, fidget spinners. Who's doing fidget spinners, right? Is there that kind of ephemeral quality to kids' clothing?

• 41:33Speaker 01

  I think I would say that one end of the spectrum, sure. There's a lot of fun in shopping for trendy, fashion-driven clothing and trying new things all the time. But at the other end of the spectrum, you do want some go-tos, some things you can count on. And one thing that we've really learned even more so over time about kids is that comfort really matters. And so when they find a legging that feels just right, you know, or a sweatshirt that is super comfortable, they want to be able to get it again. And at all of our competitors, everything was changing, even those basics, every single season, so that the next time around, it was made from a slightly different fabric, or it had a different fit, or now it had a ruffle on it. And so for those go-tos, they just didn't exist in the same way everywhere else.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  And there is definitely a need for those, for kids and for parents, so that you're not reinventing the wheel every time.

• 42:23Guy Raz?

  You just want a shirt without Bart Simpson on it.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  Exactly. Please.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  Or mommy's little slugger. That was our favorite slogan.

• 42:33Guy Raz?

  Or, I mean, admittedly, I bought, when all my kids were little, I bought them like punk band shirts, just because I thought it was funny.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 42:40Guy Raz?

  You know, Ramones.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  Do as much as you can before they can speak.

• 42:44Guy Raz?

  Yeah, just throw that on them. So, all right, so you have this, you got the pitch. And you also wanted, in your pitch, to offer the clothing for under 25 bucks? That was the idea? Everything was under 25 bucks?

• 43:00Speaker 01

  That was the idea, yes.

• 43:01Guy Raz?

  My god, these investors must have been like, wait, so you want to, no brand and under 25 bucks? And you want my money?

• 43:09Speaker 01

  In hindsight, it does sound funny. It's a tough proposition to get behind. But yeah, we wanted the clothing to just be clearly accessible. I think we wanted to make incredibly high-quality fabric, durable, soft, all those things. But we wanted people to be able to buy these as sort of like easy, no-brainer go-tos. Not the cheapest in the market, but also not expensive.

• 43:33Guy Raz?

  Got it, okay. So the idea was you wanted to raise 750,000. I think you actually raised more than $2 million.

• 43:41Speaker 02

  We did, yeah.

• 43:42Guy Raz?

  You did manage to find people who weren't skeptical.

• 43:44Speaker 02

  We did. We found some people. We followed all the breadcrumbs. I think, you know, we've said we had probably more than 50 meetings. Ended up with two sort of lead venture investors as well as like a bunch of friends and family who, you know, were sort of excited about the idea and wanted to be supportive. So, yeah, we raised two and a half million in that seed round.

• 44:05Guy Raz?

  All right. So you get the two and a half million. This is June of 2014, I think. And with that money, presumably, you want to create, you know, a number of different piece of apparel and you've got to manufacture it and you've got to design them. So with that money, what did you initially do? I mean, I'm assuming first thing you did was hire a couple of people.

• 44:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, we did. And I think we started, well, there were sort of two pieces of it. One was, were the sort of things that we had had direct experience with before, which was sort of like the building of the website and creative, what do we want the brand to look like and the photography and things like that. And then the hardest work, I think, for us was just figuring out how to make great quality clothing, which we hadn't had any direct experience making clothing and just completely underestimated how hard that was to do when you had never done it before. And so that was the thing we spent the most time on, was trying to figure out like who to partner with, what factories would make these clothes, how do we figure out what fabric to buy.

• 45:07Speaker 02

  That led us to just ask for help from anyone we could, who had any connection to the apparel industry at all.

• 45:15Guy Raz?

  Were either of you guys prepared to design the clothing? Did you feel confident that maybe you guys could sketch out some designs?

• 45:21Speaker 02

  Well, sketching, no. But I think we felt like we had a really strong point of view in terms of what we wanted the clothing to look like and we could reasonably represent it with, you know, combinations of things that we could shop in the market. We also had a really clear sense of what we wanted the color palette to be, which was another big differentiator. So

• 45:45Guy Raz?

  And just clear, like, primary color, yellow, greens, blues, reds.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  Yes, all the colors. So when we launched, I think we had 35 styles in total, and most of them came in over 20 colors.

• 45:58Guy Raz?

  35 styles, so like, what, t-shirts? Give me a sense of it.

• 46:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. So for kids, it was t-shirts, PJs, leggings, pants, sweatshirts, joggers. And then for baby, too, we had baby suits and zip-footed PJs and things like that. So that was sort of the crux of the assortment. We had a little cardigan sweater. Yes, pretty basic assortment.

• 46:21Guy Raz?

  And then I have to assume that during that time, you were trying to figure out, trying to locate a factory or factories that can make this stuff for you at reasonable costs. So how did you, tell me about the process of trying to find those places?

• 46:35Speaker 01

  So as Galen said, we were way underestimated what it would take to figure out how to connect with factories and get the clothing made. And in the beginning, we tried to do it ourselves. We tried to get leads on specific factories and actually call someone there.

• 46:48Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  And we also learned that those are often well-kept secrets. People don't want to always share that information either. In the end, we got a good reference to an agent. And I think what we concluded was that we were going to need one, an agent who would be the intermediary between us and factories that they knew well and could connect us with.

• 47:08Guy Raz?

  In China?

• 47:09Speaker 01

  China and India.

• 47:10Guy Raz?

  All right. So primary.com, you launch March 31 of 2015. 31 styles for babies, girls and boys, everything under 25 bucks, which sounds like a great deal. So how did you, how did it do? I mean, obviously, there are millions and millions of websites out there. You launch and people have to discover it. So how to do initially?

• 47:36Speaker 01

  First of all, the first thing we did from a marketing perspective is we armed everyone we knew, friends, family and investors with a personalized promotion code that gave anyone that used it free shipping for a year, which was kind of a crazy offer. And that was a really effective way to just leverage everyone we knew to get the word out on day one.

• 48:02Guy Raz?

  What do you remember about the launch, Galen?

• 48:05Speaker 02

  I think two things, there's one before and one after. The immediate before the launch, Christina and I went to the warehouse to see like the sort of first delivery of finished product that we were about to go live with. And we were opening boxes and pulling out product and looking at everything. And I mean, part of it was just so overwhelming that like we'd been thinking about this for so long and now we were actually here and here was our primary clothing. So really proud on one hand. On the other hand, there were definitely a lot of products that we opened up and sort of looked at and were like, this doesn't look great. And so I maybe was crying a little bit also.

• 48:45Speaker 02

  And one thing in particular, I mean, footy, zip footies for us have become like a pretty core product, but like we opened, there were a few colorways of that zip footy and the feet had somehow been cut as like triangles. I'm not kidding, it was, it looked like little dinosaur feet on these zip footies. And we were like, oh God, like we can't sell these. What is happening? And so, yeah, so there were a bunch of styles that just weren't, weren't right. And so, so that I remember very clearly. And then like the actual launch itself, I just think like felt so exciting.

• 49:23Speaker 02

  My kids were staying with my mom and sent me the cutest video, like, go get a mom. And that was awesome. And you know, our little team, there were six of us when we launched and we'd all been in the office late that night and it was just sort of like, ah, we did it. And so it was just a huge, like proudest moment.

• 49:41Guy Raz?

  I think I read you sold out your, all of your inventory in that first, you know, in a couple of weeks.

• 49:47Speaker 02

  We did. We sold through things more quickly than we thought. I think also, we just had an enormous miscommunication, I think part of having never done this before ourselves, on the lead times to get back in stock on things.

• 50:04Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 50:05Speaker 02

  And so in our minds, we thought that when we placed a sort of reorder, that we would be able to get back into product in, within eight weeks. And so, we were very careful. We ordered, you know, enough inventory to start, to last us at least that long, plus some cushion and safety stock formulas and all the analytics. But the reality was that to place a rebuy, like, we weren't going to get product for like, three to four months. And so, things got really scary. Because not only did we sell through it faster than we thought, but also to get back in stock on product was going to be like, two to three months longer than we thought it was going to be. And so then, all of a sudden, we have

• 50:47Speaker 02

  huge momentum from the launch. We're so excited. Everything's sort of like, working to start. And then we have no inventory for like, a couple of months. And that was not good.

• 50:57Guy Raz?

  So you basically sell it out, which is great. But then you've got nothing to sell for months.

• 51:04Speaker 02

  Right. Exactly. Nothing to sell and not a lot of cash runway. And we just somehow totally missed, like, maybe the most critical detail of all, like, the first two years, which was how long the lead times are to get product. And so, yeah, I don't even like, know how to explain it, because we just totally missed it.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  We definitely missed it on getting in front of those lead times. And we, I think, also assumed it would be reliable. And the reality is, it just isn't always reliable. Things are late sometimes. So the result of it really was that our intended year one just didn't quite materialize, because we just didn't have the inventory for it.

• 51:42Guy Raz?

  You had this amazing launch.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 51:44Guy Raz?

  But then, it was like, flat.

• 51:46Speaker 01

  And then we just had to almost go on pause. And so our plans for year one kind of got pushed into year two. By the time we got to year two, we figured those things out. We were able to get the inventory that we needed. And then we could have a more meaningful launch, essentially. It was kind of a take two on the launch in some ways.

• 52:04Guy Raz?

  And that year, raising that money, I guess you guys had a took a hit when one of your investors, something happened with an investor who had committed and then I guess pulled out what happened.

• 52:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, even sort of with all of these headwinds, little inventory happening. We knew we needed to raise our Series A. We did a bunch of pitches again, just like we had in the seed round. Ended up connecting with an investor who was really interested. We were really excited about, had a term sheet that we had signed and were just sort of waiting for the signature back. When we got an email that was something to the effect of, you know, hey, guys, do you have a minute to jump on the phone?

• 52:49Guy Raz?

  And that's never good.

• 52:50Speaker 02

  Which is never a good thing.

• 52:52Guy Raz?

  Never good.

• 52:53Speaker 02

  And so we jumped on the phone and yeah, the message was, you know, I'm so sorry, but I have another company in my portfolio that is sort of pivoting into the same space and I can't make this investment now. And so more tears. That was like one of, I mean, there were a lot of moments in that first year where we were like, oh, well, like this is, this is over. And so that was really hard.

• 53:24Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 53:24Speaker 02

  But I think to the credit of our existing investors from our previous round, they were able to sort of bridge us into the spring so that we could sort of go back out and raise a proper Series A.

• 53:37Guy Raz?

  I think you ended up doing about a million dollars in year one, not, not bad at all, pretty good, but, but probably lower than what you were hoping.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  That's exactly right. And it was a big learning year for us. As far as figuring out the marketing, we definitely had some misstarts there, too. We tried some ads on Facebook that basically flopped out of the gate.

• 53:57Guy Raz?

  What did they say?

• 53:59Speaker 01

  Well, they said brilliant basics under $25.

• 54:03Guy Raz?

  Brilliant basics under 25 bucks. Here's the ad.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  Exactly. It was, and it was straightforward, and it was the premise, but in the context of Facebook, it just didn't break through. And then, at the same time, what was really interesting was from, you know, year one, we were getting a lot of great feedback from the customers who had shopped us. And we were noticing that the things that they were saying back to us about what they loved about our clothing were better than our ads. They would say things like, "No crappy princesses. I'm down." So our next ad went out, focused on our core baby suit product, and said something like, "Not all baby suits need to say 'little slugger.'" And it was a night and day difference.

• 54:46Guy Raz?

  That resonated with parents.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  Resonated, yes.

• 54:49Guy Raz?

  Because it said, "Not all baby clothing needs to say 'little slugger.'" Okay, I get it. But here's a question, right? There is obviously a huge market for that stuff. I mean, you can go into, you know, Old Navy or any store, I'm just picking that one, and a lot of baby clothes say Daddy's Princess, or, you know, I'm the boss, or whatever, I'm just, you know, something like that, you know. So there is a risk to putting out an ad like that, right? Because you're appealing just to a specific type of parent who doesn't like those. Like, "I don't like them." Is that a big enough market?

• 55:23Speaker 01

  So there were two interesting things about it. The first point is that when we put that ad out there, that's exactly what people started talking about. Some people liked little slugger, and some people didn't. And they started talking about it, and these ads were getting a ton of engagement. And so it broke through, and it was, you know, driving discussion. And the other thing I think we would say is that brands are not built by playing it straight down the middle. And so we felt strongly about leaning into our point of view. And our point of view doesn't have to be for everyone, and we're not against, you know, other brands doing other things, but we started to be pretty clear about the fact that we were no logos, no slogans, no sequence. It was a clear position,

• 56:06Speaker 01

  a clear point of view, and the brand really started to be formed.

• 56:11Guy Raz?

  And when you, I mean, one of the things that I'm curious about in terms of inventory is... Unlike a lot of apparel brands, you could probably overestimate, I mean, or order more inventory than you needed because it wasn't like your styles were changing. These were evergreen styles, right?

• 56:30Speaker 02

  Yes, and that was a huge benefit for us, both in terms of sort of learning about demand from early on and not having to get it exactly right because we knew whatever we weren't going to sell in that season, we could just keep on the site because it wasn't going out of fashion. And also kind of resulted in a really great customer experience because we could lean into inventory confidently. It just meant that we were in stock at a really high rate. And so, you know, we wanted to make sure that for these busy families, we always had the black leggings or the t-shirts that they needed. And we were able to do that because of this point.

• 57:06Guy Raz?

  So sort of year two, which is 2016, you're starting to focus more on how to market it, right? And I think one of the things that you, one of the major changes or a major change you made, I guess, in 2016 is you basically stopped having boys and girls sections. You just went to the website and it was just ages.

• 57:27Speaker 02

  That's right. And in retrospect, I don't know why we didn't start that way. I think we probably did just think that we had to follow conventional wisdom there and how else will people know how to shop? But we had otherwise offered, you know, this assortment that was for everyone. We just offered it across boys and girls sections. And what was interesting was that our customers sort of called us out. We got notes from customers saying, why even have boys and girls sections? And we were like, yeah, why? And so, we, we pretty quickly did away with those and started marketing just to baby and kids and have ever since.

• 58:02Guy Raz?

  Yeah, Gail, I'm curious to get your take on that. I mean, you know, we're living in a time where everything is Unfortunately politicized, but I mean, was there any concern that by eliminating the boys and girls categories? Because most websites, you know, have men's, women's, children, you know? I'm curious, were you worried at all about any kind of backlash around that?

• 58:25Speaker 02

  So we actually weren't. I think, like Christina said, it just, you know, the second we heard it, it made so much sense. It was just sort of one step further from, you know, wanting my girls to be able to buy orange jackets. At the beginning, we did get some questions, though, around the functionality, which is, you know, yes, every store has boys and girls sections. So aren't you worried that your conversion's going to fall off? Or customers might not be able to find what they're looking for? And I think we just felt like maybe that could be true, but also we weren't worried about it because we felt like it wouldn't be that hard for people to find clothing because our categories were very straightforward and our site experience was was good. I think the other thing, too, that I would

• 59:09Speaker 02

  just add on, you know, sort of showing kind of every kid in every style, is just that we've learned from from customers, too, how meaningful it is for their own kids to sort of see themselves in our clothing. And so, boys can feel comfortable buying anything they want and same for girls. And so it just gave us a lot of conviction to keep going.

• 59:33Guy Raz?

  When we come back in just a moment, how Christina and Galen credit their close relationship, they've called it their superpower, as one of the keys to their success as co-CEOs. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This.

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• 1:00:59Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So by 2018, three years after launch, Primary is growing fast. They're up to a few dozen employees and around 30 million in revenue. But how to keep growing is always in the back of Christina and Galen's minds, all while trying to stay true to their brand and its style. One of the questions I have is like, you didn't really have to spend a lot on, I'm assuming, new designs, or am I wrong? Because so much of your designs are intentionally there to last forever. You're not like, or at a certain point, did you guys have a conversation where you're like,

• 1:01:42Guy Raz?

  hey, you know, we should have like a fall line or a winter line? Like, we should have, you know, maybe do these more sort of seasonal lines or something like that, or collections?

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  So many conversations.

• 1:01:55Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, we did. And I think it was once we started seeing this sort of loyalty and repeat customer base that was continuing to come back at a pretty predictable rate, that we started to feel more comfortable and confident leaning into kind of extensions on the core of what we had launched with. It was some new categories that we felt were sort of big and that we had kind of earned a right to play in, like outerwear and swim. But also, you know, we had customers too who loved us for the simplicity of our solid, colorful basics. But we're also like, I don't know, maybe you guys think you could throw in a stripe? Or, you know, rainbows can be colors too.

• 1:02:38Speaker 02

  And so then, you know, we sort of thought about it and, and stripes felt to us sort of almost as timeless and classic as solids in some instances. And so we started with stripes. You know, our rainbow stripe t-shirt was, was maybe one of the best-selling items we had ever sold.

• 1:02:55Guy Raz?

  It's amazing. It's like a shirt I wore as a kid.

• 1:02:58Speaker 02

  Right. I know. Isn't it so fun?

• 1:03:00Guy Raz?

  I have that shirt, a version of that, yeah.

• 1:03:01Speaker 02

  Yes, it's so happy. But these extensions into sort of classic stripes and, you know, a star print or something like that felt reasonable. And so those were the things that we started to introduce more seasonally, but like 10% layers on to the, the core of the business, which was much more year-round.

• 1:03:18Guy Raz?

  I mean, I'm curious about this idea of evergreen, really, because, I mean, what we think of as basics today, I think really we're thinking of like 80s clothing that really kind of blew up in the 80s. But how do you actually make something that is evergreen? I mean, are you, are the things that you guys make identical to basics from the 80s? Or, or are there updates that make them look like they're of our time now?

• 1:03:45Speaker 02

  I think it's a combination, and I think it depends on, on the style. So when we started, you know, so our concept of evergreen was that if we were going to launch something, we needed to believe that we could sell it for at least five years. And so for us, I think it wasn't, it had to be evergreen forever and ever, but like five-year horizon, so it wasn't, you know, super trendy. But at the same time, we're, you know, shopping the market all the time and, and making sure that there isn't anything we're offering that is, you know, suddenly outdated, that we just need to take another look at.

• 1:04:18Guy Raz?

  To me, the concept of evergreen clothing is actually kind of genius because fashion changes so much, even things like- When I was a teenager, it was all baggy clothes. Lot of baggy, and then it went skinny. And then I'm like, I'm looking at my nephews and they're baggy again. And my sons are baggy, like, he doesn't wear skinny. I'm still wearing skinny jeans like a weirdo. Like, I'm a middle-aged man, and I'm like, what happened? I'm like, looking around, I'm like, I didn't get the memo. So, I mean, how do you adapt to those kinds of things?

• 1:04:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think I would say that we just continue to remind ourselves how enormous this market is and how many other people are doing those things. And so it takes the pressure off a little bit. Like, a lot of people don't want the sort of like newest, latest trend and are just looking for the things that we were looking for when we started the company, which is solid, reliable, great quality, beautiful colored, you know, sort of gender neutral clothes that they can count on and come back to year after year as their kids grow. Because so many competitors aren't focused on that at all, we feel like there's just an enormous market still left for us, even if we don't do a lot of the trend.

• 1:05:38Speaker 02

  So it helps to take the temptation away a little bit.

• 1:05:41Guy Raz?

  Tell me about your relationship as co-founders. I mean, Christina, you hired Galen, and I think both of you guys are co-CEOs, if I'm not mistaken. Is that right?

• 1:05:54Speaker 01

  We are.

• 1:05:55Guy Raz?

  So how do you divide and conquer? I mean, how do you? Do you just sort of focus on areas that you're, each of you are separately more interested in?

• 1:06:03Speaker 01

  So we have one main way that we divide and conquer that has evolved over time. And that is that Galen focuses more on everything to do with the clothing itself, from design and sourcing to merchandising and planning. And I focus more on the marketing and creative side. Beyond that, I do think we probably just, in different situations, play to our strengths or things we feel strongly about. And so we work together on all important decisions, but in lots of areas of the company, from operations to our customer care team, to, you know, our financial planning. And we just both get involved and sort of divide and conquer as we go.

• 1:06:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was funny from the beginning because I think what we did see in the market was even co-founders that were much more complimentary in terms of their backgrounds than Christina and I, who, as we've said, are basically the same person on paper. But I think we have worked together now for so long, so starting in 2010, so coming up on 14 years together, we know each other really well and we trust each other so much and I think just respect each other. It makes it easier to work together because of those things. And so even in the divide and conquer, it's so helpful to know each other so well because we can use judgment on things where I know when I hear something, whether I can just

• 1:07:30Speaker 02

  go ahead and make the decision and Christina's probably going to be fine with it. And we have gotten really efficient at knowing when to just like make a decision and go on our own versus bringing it to the other person. In an instance where we don't totally agree, we're both very happy to sort of let the other person, whoever feels strongly, be the decider.

• 1:07:49Guy Raz?

  How do you, I mean, I think just this year, 2023, when we were talking, will hit profitability, which is awesome, congratulations.

• 1:07:58Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:07:59Guy Raz?

  But that's still stressful and stress can test any relationship. How have you guys withstood the stress of, you know, the ups and downs of the business? I mean, have there been times where you've had arguments or there's been tension between you?

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  I think the first point we would make is that in those times of stress, it helps to not be alone, to not feel alone. And so having each other usually alleviates a lot of that stress and we can work through it together. But do we have times of stress and tension? Sure. I think the rule between us that's been really important is that we never let that go on and fester.

• 1:08:38Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  So if we start to feel like some sense of tension or someone's, you know, getting annoyed, maybe we're just stressed that day, we'd make a point to talk about it right away.

• 1:08:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, I agree. And actually, as an only child, like Christina has said, that she feels like she's sort of like taught me how to have a sister.

• 1:08:58Speaker 02

  Where you can have arguments and disagreements and it doesn't mean that things are totally broken or not going to work. It's just like part of how relationships are. And so I've definitely evolved.

• 1:09:11Guy Raz?

  There's so many things that you guys have done that have been counterintuitive, right? Like eliminating the boys and girls section, or, you know, trying to he built a company around primary, basic clothing with primary colors, evergreen clothing. And those two things have worked. There's a third thing you did. You instituted a four day work week. You're like France. You're like Sweden. I mean, I love that. I think it's awesome. I want to work. One day a week, actually. One day work week and six days of just, you know, hiking and hanging out with your kids, hanging out with my wife. But tell me why you did that. Because it, I can hear a lot of leaders hearing this and thinking, okay, how does that work?

• 1:09:55Guy Raz?

  So what was the, tell me the idea behind it.

• 1:09:58Speaker 02

  So the original idea actually was from a podcast. And

• 1:10:04Guy Raz?

  That you heard somebody talking about?

• 1:10:06Speaker 02

  That we heard. So it was Youngmi Moon, who's a professor at Harvard Business School. She was talking about the four day work week and how she herself was sort of disappointed that it hadn't become more of a thing in the US. And her, her sort of premise was that as a culture and a society, like the hallmark of advancement is more free time for people. But she hadn't seen that happening and just couldn't understand why.

• 1:10:32Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:33Speaker 02

  And so then COVID happened. And so I had this four day work week in the back of my mind. And in those moments, it felt sort of even more relevant. And so we just started with a little bit of an experiment that was just like, we gave everyone Friday off, like maybe just starting as one Friday off, like a surprise, sort of like everyone takes the day off tomorrow. And everyone was so appreciative. I think we all felt so much better coming back to work on Monday morning, that we then sort of instituted that for like a month. And then we did it for the whole summer. And then, you know, we felt like we weren't really missing a beat work wise. It's also, it's always hard to know what the pro forma would have been like, but could you have grown faster? Or could you have done more things working five days a week?

• 1:11:17Speaker 02

  The honest answer is who knows? But I think we just ourselves felt the personal benefit so much. The team was so appreciative and loved it so much that we decided to sort of keep it permanent. And the way we do it and describe it is not that no one's ever working on Friday. It's more meant to be sort of a catch-up day where we don't have meetings. And so it's just an extra day for people to recharge in sort of whatever way that means for them.

• 1:11:48Guy Raz?

  I love this idea of a four-day work week. I think it's awesome, right? But on the other hand, I can see the argument that the four-day work week just limits productivity, that actually, and I don't know, I don't have the data on this, maybe I'm totally wrong, is, you know, are you seeing changes in productivity?

• 1:12:08Speaker 01

  I think we would argue that it has benefited productivity as well as employee loyalty, which both have very tangible benefits for the company. And so, again, to be clear, when we went from five days to four days, it wasn't like we were strictly saying, you will now work 32 hours a week instead of 40 hours a week. The idea was to offer people very meaningful flexibility by having no-meeting Fridays and allowing them to recharge and take care of personal things on that day and otherwise get their work done. And what we're finding is that people are getting their work done. They're meeting ambitious goals. We, you know, are having a great year this year, for example, growing and will be profitable.

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  And we're doing that with a very productive team that is also very loyal. Most of our team has been here over four years.

• 1:13:00Guy Raz?

  So in a sense, I mean, it is like another way to retain. We know this, like, when you lose an employee, it's a pain.

• 1:13:07Speaker 01

  It's expensive.

• 1:13:07Guy Raz?

  Because it's expensive. You've got to retrain somebody new. It takes six to nine months to get them up to speed. Employee turnover is not ideal for companies. This is a way to keep people, to incentivize people to stay, I guess.

• 1:13:20Speaker 01

  Definitely. And, you know, you often send surveys out to your team about various things, and it can be hard to get them to do them. You have to remind them. When we sent out the survey about the four-day work week, I have never seen anyone respond faster. We got responses from the entire team within about eight minutes. And I think that they were maybe terrified that we were considering doing away with it and just wanted to make sure we knew how much they loved it. And yeah, in all of our actual surveys about employee satisfaction, I think the two things that our team cites the most are our mission and the four-day work week.

• 1:13:55Guy Raz?

  I saw a story recently about how Columbia, I think it's Columbia Sportswear. They're shifting their manufacturing out of Asia to Central America because of COVID. Sort of that experience taught them that like this is, you know, you can't really bridge the Pacific as much as they thought they could. And it's interesting, they're opening all of these factories and Mexico apparently is really benefiting from this. A lot of factories opening in Mexico, in Guatemala, Central America, in Peru. Is there a world where you would look to this landmass here, North, South America, to bring more of your manufacturing there, just in case there was a disruption?

• 1:14:32Speaker 02

  I think potentially. We have looked at it a little bit so far and sort of where we've netted out, at least to date, is that because those regions just have sort of less access to cotton, it is a little bit harder on both the development front, but also the sort of transport of the fabric, which you would need to potentially import into those countries before you make it. And so it adds a little bit of complexity. With that said, though, we're still curious about it. It's hard not to be when, you know, the lead times of getting something from Guatemala are three days on the water versus three weeks. And so it's definitely sort of on the radar.

• 1:15:15Speaker 02

  But for now, I think we're sort of firmly in Vietnam and India with still a little bit of production in China.

• 1:15:21Guy Raz?

  Tell me a little bit about the end game here. I mean, you know, whenever you go to investors, obviously, you know, they're giving you that kind of a timeline and they want a return eventually. And usually that means selling or going public. What are you thinking, Galen? I mean, you know, you know, that's the trajectory. So it has to be in the back of your mind, what's going to happen or where it's going to go.

• 1:15:48Speaker 02

  It's definitely in the back of our minds. I think I would say from the beginning, even though we did raise venture capital money and we sort of understood what came with that.

• 1:16:00Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I think we raised about $60 million over the course of the years, right?

• 1:16:03Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. We started this brand because we wanted to be the next Gap. And not because, you know, we thought that there could be like a quick exit or, you know, some sort of like quick cash and then we're on to the next idea. And so we've always had. Probably a longer term mindset than maybe a lot of our investors. But I think the other thing is that like the investors that we have, they believe in us and they believe in our vision and they actually hugely to their credit, haven't been antsy for an exit because I think we all see the possibility here and now that we've

• 1:16:45Speaker 02

  hit profitability, you know, sort of feel even more so that we're really on to something. I think at the same time, we feel excited about getting to where we think we can go faster, which doesn't necessarily have to mean raising more money, but the idea of having a partner at some point in the future who maybe has some deeper pockets than we do and who also has had experience in additional distribution channels or physical retail or international or, you know, sort of other growth areas that Christina and I and our team haven't had direct experience with would be great.

• 1:17:27Speaker 02

  And so those are things I think that we will be exploring over the next couple of years, just in terms of sort of next steps.

• 1:17:33Guy Raz?

  So tell me about where you see this brand in. I mean, you mentioned Gap, you know, Gap started in the late 60s and, you know, it was a different time and Gap is Gap. I mean, it has problems, but it's obviously an iconic American brand. You're now in year eight, so take me to year 15. Where do you see primary? Where do you want it to be?

• 1:17:56Speaker 01

  I think when we look at the big players out there that have been around for a really long time, we think we can be a half billion to billion dollar brand, just like they are. I think the question is how to get there. The fact that depending on how you approach it, it could take a really long time or it could happen a little faster.

• 1:18:15Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:15Speaker 01

  Right now. In our quest to get to profitability, which is happening this year, the truth is, we're probably in a, we're in a mode that we sometimes refer to as steady Eddie. Yeah, that makes sense. Right. Which is, I mean, especially in this market and even otherwise, right? You want to be able to, you want to be in control of your own destiny and that's the way to do it. We've built something we believe in so much, the last thing we want to do is blow it up for no reason. We don't need to add undue risk to this business. And at the same time, we don't want it to take 30 years. And so it's honestly something we're still navigating. And whether we end up having an opportunity to do that with a partner or with further investment, could very well be part of it.

• 1:18:58Guy Raz?

  When you think about the journey you guys took and how you met and, you know, and where you are today, and you've got, you know, a pretty awesome brand that you've built and a company that's growing. How much of this place you're at now do you attribute to, to the luck? And how much do you think has to do with just the hard work you put in and, you know, your decisions and skills?

• 1:19:20Speaker 01

  Definitely a combination. I think examples for us of what has felt really lucky are, I mean, first of all, just meeting the right partner. A lot of people would like an amazing partner, but they're like, how do I find one? And, you know, sometimes when you want to find one, you can't just go find one. And I think those moments that, that hit you, that make you, that are just the spark of an idea. I mean, those are just lucky moments. The fact that Galen's Girls couldn't find the orange jackets, as annoying as that was at the time, was the, the spark, you know, of an idea that I don't know if we would have come to otherwise. And at the same time, I think we would certainly say in e-commerce in particular, if anyone thinks it's glamorous, it just isn't.

• 1:20:04Speaker 01

  And to be successful in e-commerce, I mean, it is just a lot of grinding it out, a lot of like blocking and tackling. How many more cliches can I use?

• 1:20:15Speaker 01

  It just, it just is. And so I think that there's no way that an enormous amount of hard work isn't necessary to be successful in this industry.

• 1:20:27Guy Raz?

  Galen.

• 1:20:28Speaker 02

  I think we've just learned too, how important timing is to whether something can work or not. And so I think probably on balance, I lean a little more luck as the answer. And I think too, so many founders and companies have like worked so hard and had a good idea and been really smart about it, but it just didn't quite work. And so I think, yeah, there's a little bit of like, we've, we've been lucky on the timing and some of the decisions that we happen to get right. Cause I think the, the difference between like a company that makes it and a company doesn't often comes down to something like really small. So feel very lucky to be where we are.

• 1:21:14Guy Raz?

  That's Galen Bernard and Christina Carbonell. They're the co-founders and co-CEOs of Primary. By the way, of all the different colors they sell, they say one of the most consistently top-selling for both babies and kids is black. Apparently it's pretty hard to find black in children's clothing.

• 1:21:38Guy Raz?

  Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. This episode was produced by Casey Herman with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Andrea Bruce with research help from Chris Messini. Our engineers were Robert Rodriguez and Josh Newell. Our production staff also includes Neva Grant, J.C. Howard, Kerry Thompson, Alex Chung, John Isabella, Sam Paulson, Carla Estevez, Catherine Seifer, and Malia Agudelo. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to How I Built This.