UPPAbaby: Bob and Lauren Monahan

As a product developer, Bob Monahan worked with some iconic brands: the Pump at Reebok, the Taurus and Mustang at Ford. When he moved on to work at a baby products company, he happened to discover another set of wheels that caught his eye: a sleek-looking stroller that could accommodate a car-seat or a bassinet. Bob was itching to start his own venture, so in 2006, with the help of his wife Lauren, he launched UPPAbaby and started selling a European-style stroller at an "entry-level luxury" price. As a dad himself, Bob guessed that other dads would be intrigued by UPPAbaby's design; meanwhile, big-name celebrities started to use the stroller, and photos of them pushing it helped accelerate sales. The brand grew quickly, and 15 years after its launch, UPPAbaby employs over 100 people and sells strollers in more than 50 countries. How I Built This Summit - information and tickets at: http://summit.npr.orgSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• 0:00Guy Raz?

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• 0:45Guy Raz?

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• 1:30Guy Raz?

  based on one small decision. Visit usbank.com/business to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is US Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. Some restrictions apply. Our presenting sponsor today is Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Every founder on this show started with a hard question. Not the marketing plan, the 2:00 AM kind. Is this idea any good? Am I the one to build it? Should I quit my job? Anthropic got built the same way. A public benefit corporation founded on one Hard question. How do we make sure AI goes well for people?

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• 2:58Guy Raz?

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• 5:09Guy Raz?

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• 5:25Speaker 01

  We were in an old shoe factory. We had an elevator that was a cargo elevator, no air conditioning. And the way we did furniture there, when you were done with a piece of furniture, you put it in the lobby. And then when you wanted a piece of furniture, you just went and got it and put it in your desk. So we didn't buy any furniture. So we had somebody in customer service sitting at a second grader desk.

• 5:52Guy Raz?

  From NPR, it's How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

• 6:05Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how Lauren and Bob Monahan found the sweet spot for selling their high-end, up-a-baby strollers by capturing two key markets: A-list celebrities and everyday dads.

• 6:24Guy Raz?

  If you've ever been discouraged from pursuing a business idea because someone tells you the market is saturated, all you need to say is burgers. It's estimated there are more than 50,000 burger joints in America. And yet, wherever you are right now, somewhere in America, a new burger restaurant is about to open. Because burgers in the US alone rake in more than $115 billion a year. So saturated or not, there is still clearly an opportunity. Just think about the number of beauty brands we've featured on this podcast alone. Because the thing is, saturation isn't necessarily a problem.

• 7:08Guy Raz?

  In fact, every single market is, in some way, saturated. The key is figuring out how to distinguish your brand or idea within that market. Take RX Bar, for example. When Peter Rahal launched his energy bar in 2013, there were already hundreds of other brands on the market. But instead of competing for customers at the supermarket, Peter marketed his bars at CrossFit gyms, places that attract people who don't eat grains, or dairy, or sugar, a diet consistent with the ingredients in Peter's energy bar. And that's how he turned RX Bar into a $600 million brand,

• 7:53Guy Raz?

  a brand now owned by Kellogg's. This strategy, going in through a side door to find your customer, also helps to explain, in part, how Bob and Lauren Monahan managed to build one of the most successful baby stroller companies in a market that people also said was saturated. By the time they launched their Up-a-Baby Modular Stroller in 2006, consumers had a wide variety of choices to pick from. But what the Monahan's realized was that they could appeal to two very specific and even overlapping customers. People who wanted a fancy stroller, but at a lower price point, and dads, men who

• 8:36Guy Raz?

  weren't ordinarily purchasing things for babies. Bob Monahan had spent years working in the baby products industry. And about 20 years ago, he started to notice that men were getting interested in baby strollers. And with that insight, Bob and Lauren saw an opportunity to build a brand. A modular, well-built stroller that could tackle snowy New England winters, but also look good at the beach. A stroller that would appeal to everyone. Now, before Bob got into the baby products business, he studied mechanical engineering and even did a stint at Ford. Lauren grew up outside of New York City, and as a kid, she was a pretty good ice hockey

• 9:19Guy Raz?

  player, so good, in fact, that she ended up playing Division One hockey at Yale.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  It wasn't, we were not the strongest team. I think we were bottom of the Ivies. We won some games, but we lost to the stronger teams. I could be out there on the ice and I could play against them and I could defend against them, but I certainly wasn't quite at that next step level.

• 9:44Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 9:44Speaker 02

  I'm a pretty strong skater and I loved to shoot, loved scoring goals.

• 9:48Guy Raz?

  Is women's ice hockey as physical as men's ice hockey? I mean, I know it's changed a lot professionally, there are fewer fights and things, but in women's hockey, when you played, were there fights? I mean, like, I don't know anything about it.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  I actually was saying the other day, there were some fights on some while. I can remember punching someone. She cross-checked me into the boards. I know exactly where I was in the rink. I turned around, I smacked her. I got thrown in the penalty box and my coach said, "You're always going in for retribution." She was going already. You couldn't see his hand up, but if you hadn't turned around and thrown the hit, you wouldn't be in the box too. But it's super, super fun.

• 10:22Guy Raz?

  So you played hockey and I guess after you graduated, you thought about like pursuing psychology, but you eventually gravitated back to sports and you actually worked for the NHL for a while and then to Reebok, is that right?

• 10:36Speaker 02

  So yeah, I ended up, I wanted to be involved in sports events and then I got a job with the NHL. They bring in a set of people to work on the NHL All-Star Game and Fan Festival every year. And from there, I went to Reebok. I went into the marketing department. So through a connection in that group, I ended up going and working for FIFA on the Women's World Cup. So that was a large, large scale international event. So that was really exciting to be a part of and yeah.

• 11:07Guy Raz?

  And I want to bring in Bob here for a moment because Bob, you were also working at Reebok at around this time. What was your job? What were you doing there?

• 11:16Speaker 01

  We were in the advanced products group. So like my boss invented the pump.

• 11:21Guy Raz?

  I had those. I saved money for like nine months when I was in high school to get those shoes. I have a picture of me with like really skinny and short and these giant feet and those pumps. Yeah.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  The pumps, the tongue. Yeah, so it was a really cool year and I ended up in a group that called 3D Foam. It's where you make foam and rubber combined together and that, there's no rubber outsole to the shoe, but we were like the cutting edge of that. And I ran a couple of marathons and they're amazing. Like you didn't need the rubber outsole, you didn't have to glue it, you didn't need all these like gadgets. And that's the way they're all made now, just about?

• 12:00Guy Raz?

  Yeah, right.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  Because it's comfortable, light, easy to make. So that was the technology I ended up working on, so.

• 12:07Guy Raz?

  All right. So you're both working at Reebok in different parts of the company. It's the late 90s and how did the two of you meet? Bob, what do you remember?

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Well, let me see. It was near, yeah, 98 and we were in the gym and I was doing my setups. She was over doing stretches or whatever and I heard her talking about how she loved to play hockey and there was no hockey around or whatever. She couldn't find a place to skate. So I was walking out the door. I said, well, I just, I started the Reebok skate, an old rink near my house. I just started this pickup skate for people who played. Hockey at Reebok. And so we started a week or two earlier and I invited her and she didn't come.

• 12:47Guy Raz?

  You were, you were playing like a regular pickup game, hockey game?

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, like I played in high school too, but whatever. I didn't play in college. Tried out, but didn't play. So I just ran pickup skates because it's a fun way to get exercise. It was early, it was Friday morning before work. So Lauren's not a lover of getting up early. So I think that was part of the problem. But she came the next week.

• 13:09Guy Raz?

  Eventually, so you came to the game, Lauren, and I mean, did you think, hey, you know, maybe he's interested in me? Or did you think, maybe just, he's in his other like body to play hockey?

• 13:18Speaker 02

  No, I, I didn't even really remember what he looked like. But I was working out with a friend. And so I called her and I said, what was that guy's name again? I think you knew him. I want to skate. And so she knew who he was. And she actually said, he's pretty cute. And so I left a message on his Reebok voicemail saying, I'm really sorry I haven't come, but I'm going to. And then I went and pickup skate is you go in and you play and then you toss the person organizing it 20 bucks afterwards. So I went to go, you know, give him the 20 bucks and the guys are in the locker room and I knocked on the door, but you know, there are towels, whatever. And he's there in his towel. And so I kind of gave him the 20 bucks and I walked out and I was like, oh, well, he is kind of cute. So.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  It's only 10 bucks, by the way.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  Was it? I knew it was one bill.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  It's only 10 bucks.

• 14:03Speaker 02

  10 bucks at the time. Yep, that, that was that.

• 14:05Guy Raz?

  All right. So you guys, we know the story because you're married now. So you eventually, this hockey game leads you to marriage. And I guess, Bob, you didn't stay at Reebok that much longer after you guys got married, right? Like you went to go?

• 14:18Speaker 01

  No, I got, I got laid off about three or four weeks into us playing hockey together.

• 14:23Guy Raz?

  Wow, you got laid off?

• 14:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. So if it wasn't for hockey, we probably, that would have been it. Yeah, I was on, she was on her way into Reebok. I was on my way out.

• 14:32Guy Raz?

  Wow. So your division was just like, they, they cut it back?

• 14:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, they just, they took the whole. 3D foams group and I don't know, maybe I wasn't particularly loved by some people. And so that was definitely a big change for me getting laid off. I didn't see that coming.

• 14:47Guy Raz?

  So this was just like weeks after the two of you met?

• 14:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:51Guy Raz?

  Wow. So you got laid off from Reebok and what did you, where did you go work, Bob?

• 14:56Speaker 01

  I just, I mean, my thing was I didn't want to move. I enjoyed, you know, working on product development and sourcing stuff in Asia. And the only companies were footwear companies or juvenile products companies because Hasbro is in, is just south of us in Rhode Island. And, and because of, they're there, there was a safety first, first year, some juvenile products companies had sprung up in the area. And I just looked and the first years hired me as a project manager.

• 15:24Guy Raz?

  So just, just a quick question. What does the first years make? Like, what's a product that they make that I would know?

• 15:31Speaker 01

  They made, well, what I made was monitors and gates. I was on the safety team, but they made sippy cups, they made breast pumps, they made.

• 15:38Guy Raz?

  Oh, wow.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  It was kind of like the early stages of a lot of this gear that now is pretty prevalent. And we tried to like outsource a lot of what you did. And then, and you outsource the stuff in Asia and then you manufacture it. And it was definitely, I don't know if it's rock bottom because I actually enjoyed the job. You know, it was fun doing what I did, but it was a whole, I didn't have kids. I didn't really know much about the industry, but it was just a product. And career wise, I went to a dinky little company and making a lot less money. So.

• 16:09Guy Raz?

  And I think you guys, you get married in the, in the early 2000s and you have your first kid. And Lauren, did you stay working after you had your first kid? Did you stay at Reebok?

• 16:21Speaker 02

  So I didn't, I decided that I wanted to be home.

• 16:25Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  I actually thought I would really love being home all the time with young children and then decided that maybe not so much after a while. But just shortly before I had Jake, I, I stopped working.

• 16:36Guy Raz?

  And Bob, you worked at the first years for a while and then eventually you moved to, to a company that made pretty similar products called Safety First.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:45Guy Raz?

  And I guess you were still working on baby gates there, but at this point, you started having like some ideas for your own products, right?

• 16:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was more like, so I'm in product development all the time. I have ideas. A little frustrated, I wanted, I guess I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to start a company. And two of what I considered my best ideas, one was a baby gate system. That would be partially built into the house when you buy the house. And then you just snap it in when you need the gate, if you have pets, kids, whatever. So that I got a patent on that and I got a patent on the easy leaf hauler.

• 17:21Guy Raz?

  The easy leaf hauler?

• 17:23Speaker 01

  Easy leaf hauler, yes.

• 17:25Guy Raz?

  What's the easy leaf hauler?

• 17:26Speaker 01

  It's a giant tarp for, with sides and pegs in it for raking leaves.

• 17:30Guy Raz?

  But you just, we just have a tarp and you just break the leaves on the tarp and then you move the tarp. Is that, is that basically it?

• 17:36Speaker 01

  But my, yeah, but mine had sides on it. It was like, I call it giant dustpan for leaves. That was my slogan.

• 17:40Guy Raz?

  A giant dustpan for leaves. I love this. So wait, and you, you, you actually went so far as to patent this idea?

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, we patented it. We still sell it. You can still, you can still buy it.

• 17:52Guy Raz?

  You can buy it on Amazon right now. The easy.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  There's videos of me raking leaves in my backyard in July.

• 18:00Guy Raz?

  Easy leaf hauler. I'm looking at it right now on Amazon. It's 22 bucks. I, I didn't.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 18:05Guy Raz?

  Or 32 bucks. I didn't even, so do you make money off this? Do you make good money off this today?

• 18:10Speaker 01

  We break even.

• 18:10Guy Raz?

  Okay, you break even.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  We break even.

• 18:12Guy Raz?

  Wow. It's like a dustpan meets a leaf bag meets a tent, like a camping tent.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  Like a tent, yes.

• 18:20Guy Raz?

  All right. So you start to kind of brainstorm on a bunch of different ideas. And then you also had this idea that you patented to produce baby gates that were like, you could just slide them in. Like the house was built with the.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  The receivers.

• 18:34Guy Raz?

  Receivers, that you could just slide in, slide in the baby gates.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, the whole thing was to. Give the the parts that go in the house to the builder and the builder would just install them like an electrical outlet in the top some bottom of stairs and then when you want it, it has my little logo on it. And when you want it, you just look for the logo, it's got our website and you just call us or email us or whatever. And then you measure, we ask for the distance, how wide is the opening? And then we send you a gate. We send you a custom fit wooden gate.

• 19:03Guy Raz?

  And it just slides in two slides?

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. And just this little panels pop open, you snap it on, it takes you less than a minute.

• 19:09Guy Raz?

  Great.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  And you're done.

• 19:10Guy Raz?

  It's a great idea, except for one big problem. It depends on the cooperation of home builders.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  Yes. And yeah, that's why it never worked.

• 19:19Guy Raz?

  Right. All right. But but you're pursuing this idea. And and by the way, I guess around the same time, you were doing some research on on high end strollers. Is that right?

• 19:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. I worked in the high end stroller market near the end of my career at Safety First, working on bringing the Quinny line into the US.

• 19:40Guy Raz?

  Quinny, Quinny is a, that's a

• 19:42Speaker 01

  Quinny stroller.

• 19:42Guy Raz?

  It's a kind of stroller. Okay.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like a high end, higher end European stroller. Back in the day, there was Bugaboo and the stroller was kind of, in the United States, it was kind of stagnant. You had various licenses that you put on. It was like you had a plain stroller with a NASCAR Dale Earnhardt's like number on the side and it'd be checkered board style or big plasticky like Winnie the Pooh things that you saw. And, you know, I did all that mass market stuff.

• 20:08Guy Raz?

  Safety First was making, was making these. And these were just like cheap umbrella strollers?

• 20:13Speaker 01

  Exactly. So they had this brand, Quinny, they want to launch. That's an expensive stroller. And that's where I became aware of it is we're like, how are we going to bring the Quinny in? How are we going to launch it? Are we only going to launch it in specialty? Like, there's this whole thing going on. That's where, and I was in charge of like, putting this whole analysis together.

• 20:31Guy Raz?

  Hmm. What did, what made that stroller special?

• 20:35Speaker 01

  They were just very modern looking and they were modular and you could put an infant car seat into it, like this whole maxi cozy snap in system that's still around today. I mean, they were all aluminum. One of them would automatically open. Just very modern, very like Dutch design and all that. So. Trying to figure out how they were going to launch it in the United States and I did a lot of work on that. Later on, I became aware that I wasn't going to be the guy that launched it, I was just going to do the background work.

• 21:04Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  I was more of an engineer than a marketing person. I think they wanted a real marketing person to launch it.

• 21:09Guy Raz?

  And because of that, I guess you left. You left that job and it sounds like maybe you felt, you know, like they weren't giving you the chance to run this thing.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I felt that way and also, two things, that yeah, I was disappointed that I wouldn't get to do that. I was also disappointed that the person they're probably bringing in to do it was my old boss at Reebok who laid me off. And then I had these opportunities, I wanted to do something on my own.

• 21:38Guy Raz?

  And by the way, you have a kid, at this point, maybe two kids.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  I just one.

• 21:43Guy Raz?

  Just one, but you left your job at safety first and was that, were you nervous about that? Did you figure, look, I'll just try this out and if it doesn't work, maybe I'll go back to my job or I'll find another job?

• 21:54Speaker 01

  It was definitely scary because we had the house, the kid, and went to trade shows and tried to get it moving. I still dabbled in the juvenile world because that's, you know, I thought in the gate side and stuff like that. So I guess it's kind of like throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what hits.

• 22:13Guy Raz?

  By the way, every time you say juvenile products, it makes me think of like, it's such a weird term, like jail, yeah. This is, is that what, that's what the industry's called, juvenile product? Like, they can't just call it like baby products?

• 22:23Speaker 01

  Juvenile, JPM is the governing body, juvenile products. I don't know, yeah, you're right, but it's just, it's baby, but juvenile products is the industry.

• 22:32Guy Raz?

  I got you.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:34Guy Raz?

  So you are, it sounds like you're basically coming up with different ideas.

• 22:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:38Guy Raz?

  And I guess you went to Taiwan to visit a manufacturing facility and was this related to the gate idea that you went to Taiwan to sort of talk to a potential manufacturer to make the gates for you?

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Well, like I sourced, I sourced products in Asia for eight years, so. And some of the factories make gates and also strollers and things like that.

• 22:58Guy Raz?

  Other things, right.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  And a lot of, I had great relationships with a lot of factories over there. So yeah, I was just, you know, talking to these guys and like, hey, listen, I'm starting my own company. I'd love to work with you. I want to do my own brand, you know, is there anything that we can work together on? And along with gates, there was the whole stroller side of it. And I was just, one time when I was over there, there was a model that, the concept of it, it had some modularity to it, where the seat would come out, where you could put a bassinet in or something like that. And it was fairly half baked at the time, but I'm like, that is, that's exciting. Like, I think we can do something with that.

• 23:33Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  And I also became aware of how hot this market was, like, like dads were getting excited about strollers. There were blogs, and this is 2005, you know, blogs were big deals. And these guys were getting so passionate, arguing about, you know, the Quinny versus the Bugaboo, and like, the features and the wheels, the air filled tires. And it was just something that was surprising, and it actually made sense to me. It was something they got excited about and felt that they could participate in, and then something they could enjoy, you know, strolling with your baby.

• 24:04Guy Raz?

  All right, so you start to become aware that there is, there's an opportunity in the stroller market, because the, the strollers that, that are being talked about on blogs and stuff, these are not cheap. These are gonna be, how much were they, these, the strollers at the time?

• 24:19Speaker 01

  They were 500 bucks at that time, 550.

• 24:22Guy Raz?

  Before Quinny or the Bugaboo, okay. And these were like, these were strollers that like, you would see on the Upper West Side and then the West Side of LA?

• 24:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that's what people showed off. That's what you walk down the street in. I mean, you make a nice car seat or a gate or a monitor, it sits in your house, who cares? The stroller, like I said, it's what people talk about, it's, it's out there.

• 24:44Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 24:45Speaker 02

  Like with our, with our kids, I think that probably the, the funnest thing that you registered for back in, like when, when we had our first in 2002 to 2001-ish, was the layout, was the really cute clothes when they were first born and their sheets and, and whatever set you got for their crib. That was, um, that was a big focus and that was kind of a bigger purchase. And, and the crib, the furniture for the house, um, which wasn't that exciting, but it was a bigger purchase and grandparents would pitch in and buy you your first crib, um, until these modern products started coming out. And as Bob said, he started seeing all of this interest coming in from the dad's side of things, blogs about strollers. That didn't exist prior to, you know, to the early 2000s.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  A lot of it was a guy thing, almost more than a woman thing. It was like, guys get into the modularity, guys get into the aircraft aluminum tubing, the, the wheels, the, the big wheels that look like race car wheels, you know? There's just a lot of things coming together in that whole arena that like, okay, this, you know, I don't have a patent in this. I didn't, I haven't come up with this whole concept the ground up, but I knew that there was, that there was, this is a supplying an unmet need. There was a huge need in this area.

• 26:00Guy Raz?

  And Bob, at this point, you'd left your job at, at Safety First and now you're thinking about basically creating a new stroller? Like, like, is this the idea that you think has the most promise?

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, you know, Lauren's dad is a good friend of mine and he, I think he wanted to help me out a little bit. And like, you know, it wasn't, you know, he helped me, you know, with a little bit of capital to help me get going with this, but it really wasn't a big deal.

• 26:30Guy Raz?

  And her, and her dad, he was in commercial real estate in Manhattan, right?

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. And we, we went, we had some meetings, I had some concepts. I, I guess, I mean, it was a little bit scattered, as you can tell right now. There was a lot of things on the table. But, you know, he, I think he, he believed in me enough that, you know, let's, let's give this guy a bit of a shot.

• 26:48Guy Raz?

  When we come back in just a moment, how Bob and Lauren quickly discovered that one thing that can really sell your stroller is a photo of Sarah Jessica Parker pushing your stroller. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 27:17Speaker 03

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• 27:51Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So it's around 2005, and Bob Monahan has walked away from his job at Safety First to work on his own idea, a stroller that's sleek and European-looking and modular.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  What the modular strollers do is you can take the seat out, and you can reverse it. You can face it away from you or towards you, and then recline it. You can put a bassinet in, and you can put an infant car seat in. So those were the things that, I mean, it wasn't new to this stroller. This was like another way to do it.

• 28:31Guy Raz?

  Yep.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  We owe a lot of credit to Bugaboo for kind of like pioneering the market. But in my opinion, it wasn't the most user-friendly stroller. So yeah, we're going to have the high-grade aluminum. Yeah, we're going to have the high-end wheels. And yeah, we're going to have the modularity. But you are going to be able to pop this out of the box and snap it all together. So we really focused on ease of use, good customer service. That was our angle on the modularity-type stroller.

• 28:58Guy Raz?

  And by the way, you call your company "Upa Baby." What is-- how did you come up with that name?

• 29:03Speaker 01

  That was our daughter McKenna, who wanted to be picked up all the time. And she would say "Upa" all the time. She'd walk around with her hands up in the air. She wanted to get picked up. Say "Upa."

• 29:14Speaker 02

  "Upa, Upa, Upa."

• 29:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:16Speaker 02

  She was happy as can be on your hip.

• 29:19Guy Raz?

  All right, so you have this idea in mind of what you want the stroller to look like. And by the way, when you were thinking in your mind about this, because Lauren, you were still not yet fully involved in the business yet, right? Am I right, in 2005?

• 29:34Speaker 02

  No, not in 2005. Nope, not yet. I joined about in 2007, I believe.

• 29:40Guy Raz?

  So Bob, when you have a design concept and you know you've got connections in China to manufacture something, how long did it take you from the design to the point where you could get, I don't know, 100 strollers made? Did it take a year or more?

• 29:57Speaker 01

  It took about a year, maybe a little bit less. I'm trying to think. We sold our first strollers in September of 2006. And we airfreighted 100 in from China for a trade show.

• 30:10Guy Raz?

  So you had to make 100 strollers initially?

• 30:13Speaker 01

  That was the number we picked, yeah. And we just bought them sight unseen. It was a risk, but we just, we felt good enough about it.

• 30:23Guy Raz?

  So you've got the plans, you go to this factory, you've got the concept for the stroller. And I guess before you even sold any strollers, you just presented the concept at a trade show in Florida?

• 30:38Speaker 01

  Yep, yep.

• 30:40Guy Raz?

  Was the idea, right? Because there was the high-end Bugaboo and Quinny strollers and then the lower-end models. Was the idea that you would find the middle ground, like you would offer something that was less expensive?

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was the goal, would be some middle ground, or maybe upper-middle ground.

• 30:59Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Like entry-level luxury or something like that.

• 31:02Guy Raz?

  So May of 2006, you're going to head to this trade show. And from what I understand, this was scheduled around the time where you were going to have a kid, where Lauren was going to have your third child. So what happened?

• 31:20Speaker 02

  Oh, I could explain. My, my sister, who was also pregnant with her child, said, "I'll go to the hospital. I'll go. Bob, you can leave." And so we, um, we had the baby and Bob flew out that day. My sister and I hung out at the hospital and, um, and then I brought the baby home.

• 31:35Guy Raz?

  Well, you had to be at the trade show. So the day your kid was born, you like right after, you just got on a plane?

• 31:40Speaker 01

  I flew to Florida. It was our third child. We'd been down this, we'd been down that road before. So we were kind of getting through pros, third in five years or whatever. And so I flew out that afternoon and, um, my team, who I just, one person I didn't know, the other one we just hired like a few weeks prior.

• 31:58Guy Raz?

  It was just you and one employee at this point?

• 32:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, our first employee, Molly, was running our sales and she just started. I, I didn't really know her that well, but she was going to go down and get things going.

• 32:10Guy Raz?

  Before you got there?

• 32:11Speaker 01

  Start setting the, before I get there and her, uh, her cousin Hooter, who had just gotten out of jail, um, came and helped set the booth up and then he managed to, uh, cut himself and bled on a bunch of the strollers.

• 32:25Guy Raz?

  He cut himself while he was setting up the booth?

• 32:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, cut himself. I mean, I never met Hooter, but he's a good guy, I guess. Nobody noticed it that much. And, uh, yeah, so they set it up and it was largely set up by the time I got there.

• 32:38Guy Raz?

  And it was just a table and a couple of strollers and your name up a baby?

• 32:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, you sit there and, and hopefully somebody will come by. And I remember, um, Albe Baby out of New York came by. They're one of the best, uh, specialty stores. He said something like, "You're trying too hard."

• 32:57Speaker 01

  He says, "A nice concept, but you're trying a little too hard on the fashions." I mean, I was doing the fashions, which was scary.

• 33:02Guy Raz?

  What's the fashions?

• 33:03Speaker 01

  I forget. They were like, they were like light blue with silver or something like that. I don't know. Yeah, the fashions, yeah.

• 33:10Guy Raz?

  And did you get a lot of interest at that show? Were people stopping by and really expressing interest in what this stroller was? And presumably the goal was to, to, to take orders, right?

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, that's not an order taking show. That's generally an industry show. I mean, there was some interest, to be honest. It wasn't great. I mean, I actually be quite honest, I didn't, I felt pretty confident, but it wasn't, I don't know. Maybe we didn't present it right. Maybe there's too much go in my booth, but it wasn't, it was okay.

• 33:38Guy Raz?

  All right. So you You come back from that show and but you know that you are going to, I guess, go to another trade show. This one would be in Las Vegas in the fall of that year, 2006. And that's a show where you actually sell things, where you take orders for things, right?

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:55Guy Raz?

  So, so you had 100 of these strollers made and you go to this show in Las Vegas. And how, how did they do? Did they, did you sell all of them or some of them?

• 34:07Speaker 01

  We sold 42.

• 34:09Guy Raz?

  That's pretty good.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was like, people came to us and a lot of the brands coming in from Europe, the new brands were, I don't know, more higher end, been around for longer. And they were like, you had to order 20, you had to order $10,000 worth. And they'd come up to us and like, what's your minimum order quantity? We'd go one.

• 34:28Guy Raz?

  And who were, who were buying them? I mean, was, I'm assuming these were smaller, probably boutiquey type stores, right?

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, Lauren can maybe help me out with this. I'm pretty sure that Albee's bought them. We had some group in Puerto Rico that bought some.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  And we had, who was, who was the one that started up with us in New York? Your mom bought her stroller, Lauren?

• 34:51Speaker 02

  Oh, I knew you were gonna ask this. And I'm gonna have to remember, they've been gone for so long. They're on the Lower East Side. That's where my, my parents bought my pram. But she, yep, she brought some in. Also, probably because Albee's, there was a bit of a competition, Lower East, Upper West Side. They were the two established, long time specialty juvenile retailers. It's where if you were in Manhattan, when you were having a baby, that's where you were going. This was, Bye Bye Baby was certainly up and coming fast at that point. But these guys had been around for decades. These were family businesses.

• 35:22Guy Raz?

  But, I mean, you leave this show, you sold some strollers, and then what? Like, you gotta start selling more strollers. But imagine you walk away from that trade show with a lot of business cards. You already had some connections in the industry. So were you just like working the phones, trying to call anybody you could to get meetings?

• 35:38Speaker 01

  Pretty much. It's weird. Like, I think that, you know, we started with 40 and they all sold and then everybody re-upped. The next month, we sold a hundred. The next month, we sold a hundred and seventy-five. The next month, we sold two fifty. Like, it just kinda kept going. I don't really recall. The nice thing about all of this is that we were a proximity to New York. And that was the birthplace of this whole movement of this high-end product. And the New Yorkers have been good to us, and they they use their strollers more than anybody. They don't just throw it in the trunk of their car. They lived out of their strollers. Right. We sold. New York is where we grew, and then that's how it all happened. Yeah.

• 36:20Speaker 02

  I had a, um, so I had a college friend who had opened a store. She didn't sell strollers, um, called Little Tykes. And I I remember calling Tyke and saying, that was her nickname. Um, and talking to her about the different stroller stores in Manhattan. And where do people go? And who do you think we should get in touch with? Um, so she gave us a bunch of insight in names and numbers. And, you know, you really want to be in this store, that store, and here's who to talk to.

• 36:46Guy Raz?

  I read that in that first year, in in the fall of two thousand and six. You you decided to spend, it sounds like all the money you had, or a lot of the money you had, to hire a good public relations firm to get the word out about Up a Baby. What, tell me what what you did.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  So a a close friend of mine, who lived in Manhattan, had a friend who had a a PR agency. And so we decided to commit for a year what was, at the time, yes, a really, it seemed to us to be a very expensive, um,

• 37:16Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 37:17Speaker 02

  investment to kind of help us get the name out there.

• 37:21Guy Raz?

  And did that help move the needle? Were they able to actually get the word out?

• 37:25Speaker 02

  They really did. They they did. The PR agency would work with celebrity stylists or managers. And so they did. They they showed them our stroller. And one of our very, very first celebrities, um, which we were really excited about, was Brooke Shields.

• 37:39Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 37:40Speaker 02

  And what they would do is they would show them the stroller, and they would offer, would your client like one? It's this new high-end stroller, and it does, and they would tell them about all the functions. And so Brooke Shields is a, she's a model. She's a tall lady. And she was really excited because one of the features- That Bob had designed in, Bob is 6'3" and I'm 5'3". And a frustration with strollers were that a lot of times a taller guy or mom kind of hunched over. So he had designed a handle that telescoped out to accommodate what was comfortable for him, but also what was comfortable for me. And the way that he had done the rear axle also had a certain curve to it that you weren't going to kick it with your leg with a longer stride.

• 38:25Speaker 02

  And so Brooke Shields saw these things and was really excited about it and actually wrote us a thank you letter saying, this is just, it's so nice to have a product that works for me with my babies. So that was, that was really cool. And that, yes, so that's correct. That story is correct.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  And Sarah Jessica Parker was a big user early on.

• 38:46Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  And Lauren always gets the thing that she looks like Sarah Jessica Parker, even when she was in New York. So that was kind of a funny tie in. And we're having kids at the same time as them and she was using the stroller. So that was super exciting.

• 38:59Guy Raz?

  And, and from what I gather, one of the, I mean, getting the strollers into the hands of celebrities really was gonna, I mean, that really began to create visibility. And basically you were giving the strollers to the celebrities for free, right? I mean, it was sort of a chance for you to give it to them. They would take it and then they would push it around and that created more and more visibility, right?

• 39:21Speaker 02

  It did, although I wouldn't want to overemphasize that piece of it. To a consumer, I think that it, what it tells them is this is someone who can have anything they want. They're a celebrity, they're famous, they make money and they're using this product. This is their choice. It must be great because they could choose anything. So there's that element of it. But really, articles are far more powerful and media coverage is far more powerful than a picture with a celebrity, for sure. But we were very cognizant early on that the number one driver of what a parent starts to look at for their baby products is products that their friends have told them they should buy.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  So that was really important, was to really, really engage and be there for your customer because that was who was telling the next customer what they should be getting.

• 40:16Guy Raz?

  And so at this point, Lauren, you are fully involved in the business. I think you kind of take over. Sales and marketing, right? And Bob focuses on product development. Is that more or less what happened?

• 40:28Speaker 02

  Yep, I think Molly had a baby, our only really sales oriented employee. She got pregnant and someone needed to take over sales while she was going to be out. Part of it was I was the target consumer and so Bob would get my input. And so obviously, I was always very aware of what he was doing in terms of launching the brand. And once I started, once I jumped into sales to help out and started meeting these retailers, it was mostly little bit here, a little bit there. And then as the business grew and some of these areas needed more focus, as we decided to bring in a PR agency for a year to really launch us, those were

• 41:13Speaker 02

  areas that were not areas that Bob was going to be focused on. He was focused on building the products.

• 41:20Guy Raz?

  So Lauren, 2007, which was your first full year in business, you guys did about $1.3 million in sales. You guys have, I think, two models at this point, the Vista, which is sold for like $5.99, and then the G Light, which is the far less expensive version, $99. And was it just mainly the two of you guys at that point, or did you have, yeah, I mean, who was working for you?

• 41:48Speaker 02

  Well, so we, at that point, I think Molly had come back from attorney leave and we had a sales rep who has been our VP of Sales for a long time. We had hired her, Joanne Potelos, and she just, she had so many really, really great relationships with retailers across the country. She's based out of California. So she was on board. And then we had Trung, VP of Design. He was still consulting for us at that time.

• 42:14Guy Raz?

  And did you have, I mean, a small office at that time in, where was it?

• 42:19Speaker 01

  We were in Rockland and we were in an old shoe factory. Eventually grew to be about seven or eight, nine people.

• 42:25Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  And the way we did furniture there, when you were done with a piece of furniture, you put it in the lobby. And then when you wanted a piece of furniture, you just went and got it and put it in your desk. So we didn't buy any furniture. We had somebody in customer service sitting at a second grader desk. Yeah, it was like the bathrooms were on a different floor. We had an elevator that was a cargo elevator. We had no air conditioning. So I'll tell you, you know what paperweights are for? You learn what paperweights are for when you don't have air conditioning and windows are open. So that's what a paperweight's for. It weighs down the paper so it doesn't blow away when the wind blows. So it was interesting. It was good.

• 43:04Guy Raz?

  When we come back after the break, how the Monahan's managed to dodge the economic crisis of 2008 by introducing a small but crucial tweak into their sales strategy. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 43:37Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. So in 2006 and 2007, Upa Baby strollers are mostly being sold in specialty retailers, but they're getting more and more attention. And that attention got Bob and Laura in a meeting with a much larger retailer, Bye Bye Baby.

• 43:58Speaker 02

  They agreed to meet with us and we flew down to New York. And they looked and they said, well, it's interesting, but we really don't take a chance on startups. And we said, well, we really think that there's market demand for this. And they said, well, are you going to be the next Bugaboo? And my response was, we're not trying to be the next anything. We think that this is a niche. It's not being hit at all. We think that the offering, that that just makes parents' lives better. And they said, well, you know, we really don't, don't take the chance. So we'll wait and we'll see what happens. You know, we'll give it a year. And Molly said, well, we will be the next Bugaboo. And I said, well, that's not our goal. Our goal is to be successful with our products. And we left and they were, as I said, they're nice as can be. And about a year later, they said, yep, we're seeing it more and more.

• 44:43Speaker 02

  So they took us in.

• 44:44Guy Raz?

  And then 2008 comes around. And this is the beginning of a global economic crisis. What do you remember, Lauren, about that time? Were you guys worried?

• 44:56Speaker 02

  So actually, kind of the opposite. When that happened, where we had entered this industry, The more expensive models that were out there, you know, the Bugaboo in particular had a tremendous amount of market share. All of a sudden, that became a purchase people really were thinking about. They really looked at what you were getting for your money. And so our offering, it was a little bit less expensive. And so it was, you can have something that's super high function, but you don't have to pay those extra couple hundred dollars.

• 45:29Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 45:29Speaker 02

  We also, on a sort of a sales strategy behind the scenes, when we had gone into the retailers, and this was where Joanne had come in, she was pretty knowledgeable about what margins look like for retailers. And at the time, she said, if we come in and we give them a margin that's a little bit bigger than what they're used to, they'll be making more money on the consumer's purchase that's actually less. And so that worked really well. So retailers were very happy to push a less expensive product because in the end, the money in their pockets was actually a little bit more. So it worked really well for us, actually, that downturn in the economy, which is kind of crazy, but it did.

• 46:12Guy Raz?

  You know, I'm curious about two things. The first is, is the stroller market huge? Is it a huge sort of potential market? And then the second question is, I'm assuming there's like a brief window when the vast majority of your customers are interested in your product. It's like a, you know, one to two-year window or three-year window, let's say. And if they have multiple kids, they might just reuse the same stroller, right? As we did with our kids. Did people ever say to you, look, there's just a limitation to how successful or big this can get?

• 46:46Speaker 02

  No, no, never. The strollers are something people were excited about buying. And it's a new consumer because before you have children, before you're pregnant, you really don't think about strollers.

• 46:59Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  So these are just people, they're pregnant, they're super excited about the next phase of their life, and they're super excited about all the things that come with it. And purchasing their first stroller is one of those things.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  And we really looked at that and said to ourselves, people are generally having their kids later, they have more money, but they tend to have two or three kids in fairly quick succession, kind of how we did it. And so we were the first stroller to go from, you know, you have a stroller and you can add a second seat and now you can add a piggyback. So we could put three kids on our stroller and you're talking about a six-year window and it's really became a valuable purchase. And it resonated and it stuck for quite a while.

• 47:42Guy Raz?

  At what point, Bob, did you feel like, okay, this is going to be really successful? This is going to work?

• 47:50Speaker 01

  I think, I remember me and Trung looking at the numbers and I don't know, we wanted to-

• 47:56Guy Raz?

  Trung is your-

• 47:56Speaker 01

  Trung's our VP of Design and been with us from, he was consulting even in the very early days. And I don't know what the numbers were. It was like a container a month was like 300 strollers. And if we could sell a container a month, we just thought that we were, we were there. And that meant that the assembly line was dedicated to us or kept the assembly line going in Asia. And that was pretty exciting.

• 48:19Guy Raz?

  Lauren?

• 48:20Speaker 02

  I mean, I think that that sounds about right. That was, you know, that was exciting. I think when, you know, adding more reps for more regions around the country and just having the sales floor full of people, talking to all retailers from all over the country. You know, when you kind of went to a show and it wasn't, oh, I hope people come by, but it was, you know, the reps have appointments booked all day, every day of the show. That's pretty great. You have regular customers who are really supportive and excited. I can remember a college teammate of mine who lives in Brooklyn calling me and saying, I'm seeing your strollers everywhere. And I was like, really? That's great.

• 48:56Guy Raz?

  Now, I want to ask you about affordability because up-a-baby strollers are generally things that a certain type of, of consumer can afford. And you do have sort of lightweight umbrella strollers that you sell. But the, the main ones, the modular strollers that we're talking about, they are not cheap. And, and when you, when you thought about who you were going to target, did you, did you land on this idea that this, the consumer who could afford the stroller was probably where you should target your energy? Because that was going to be the, sort of the, the way to create a sustainable business? Or, or did you ever think about, you know, sort of a, a lower end modular stroller, you know, much less expensive than the ones that you sell?

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Well, I was, I was- I had been semi frustrated making product for mass market for most of my life. So it was like, we want to make the stuff again with like us as the target audience. We want to make what we like. And so it wasn't about, hey, we want to make something that costs us much. So other people can't afford it. People think we're cool. It's like, no, these are the, this is the one we want. And this is what it costs. It's not, we always joke around, but it's not like, we talked about gadgets you could put on the stroller or certain like, there's no gold, there's no fake chrome, there's no rhinestones, there's no, there's no anything that you don't need. So it's all the stuff you want, and this is kind of what it costs. And yeah, as a consumer, you've got different choices, but we weren't trying to do it to be a leader or anything.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  This is just what we felt the best product would be.

• 50:27Guy Raz?

  But can you make, I mean, is it possible to make a quality stroller with quality features like up a baby stroller at a, a price point that, you know, somebody making, I don't know, a lot less money a year could easily afford, somebody who might go to Target or Walmart to get this stroller?

• 50:46Speaker 01

  It, it would be less. It's just not as good. I mean, it's just as a, you know, Hyundai still has a radio, it's got wheels, it's tires, power windows, power, whatever, but it's not, and it's what your values are. There's somewhere in there, either rivets aren't stainless steel and they're going to rust, or it doesn't have bearings, they're ultimately going to wobble, or it's got, you know, EVA foam, instead of PU foam in the tires, it's going to wear out. I can go on and on. There's like everything on the stroller you can buy steel powder coated, or you could buy aluminum anodized. There's just a million little things and each one you can choose in terms of manufacturing and what's on it, what the materials are, the durability. This is what it costs.

• 51:26Guy Raz?

  You've now worked together for 15 years, almost 15 years on this business. And that's 15 years of building it together and then also coming home and raising the kids and, and, and pick up and drop off and soccer practice and hockey, whatever you know, and, and Bob, uh, I mean, how do you make that work? Has it always just been easy? Like you do your thing and Lauren does her thing and, and it's all great?

• 51:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it's definitely.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  I'd say there's definitely been some tough times because we're not always going to agree on everything. But right now, we really kind of like, we have our lanes and we do our thing and we just, so we have a system over the 15 years, I think, that, that works.

• 52:10Speaker 02

  I, I agree. There were brawls early on. I think, I think we, you know, over, over time, we've really sorted out, as Bob said, systems. We have systems in place and, and, you know, there's still times when it's, well, how many people think we should do this and how many people think we should do that and that, you know, it's a bit of a vote, but, but it's, um, no, I, I agree. I agree. We've, we've got a system.

• 52:34Guy Raz?

  What was your biggest dispute over that you can remember?

• 52:38Speaker 01

  I mean, a lot of the push to me is like, is it a sales decision or a brand decision? You know, some decisions you make are like, hey, what's going to sell the most? Okay, then we're going to do that. Well, okay, yeah, I understand that would sell, but for the brand, you know, this is what we want to do and I can't really articulate why we're going to do it, but that's kind of what makes us unique. And so some things you decide, you're not always trying to like, do the most volume or whatever all the time. Some things you just got to make decisions about the brand and to me, those don't always make sense, but.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  I, I'd agree with that. I think some product, product features, functions, you know, we'll say from a sales perspective, people are not going to buy that. They're not going to pay for that. That's awesome, but you're over designing it. You can't, we can't do that. We're not going to sell it. And then you have, you know, engineering design saying, but it's, this is the best way to do it. It should work this way. So I, I'd agree, those are probably a little push and pulls, but, um.

• 53:33Speaker 01

  I stay out of fashion. I don't do any fashion. I used to get involved with naming. I don't get involved with naming anymore. Um, so those are certain things, you know, like I named the first two strollers, but and now I've been fired from naming. But yeah, so I mean, it's whatever, certain things you just got to let go. In fact, fashion, I don't mind because that's a whole, that's a monster and there's certainly better people than I to do that. So again, yeah, we know, we learn where we're, what we enjoy and what we're good at and we try to stay focused on those.

• 54:05Guy Raz?

  All right, Bob, you guys have made quite a bit of money. And at what point do you just get out of the baby stroller business and, I don't know, become a philanthropist or an angel investor or go skiing all the time? Like, when do you do that?

• 54:21Speaker 01

  I don't know. I mean, I definitely wouldn't mind doing some things like that before the body goes. Everything's kind of working right now, so those thoughts certainly enter your mind. But I do enjoy coming into the office. I enjoy the people I work with. They're my family. People treat me nice here, which is kind of nice, too. But right now, I got a pretty good balance where I get to sneak out a little bit here and there and do my thing, and I have good people that can cover for me. Yeah.

• 54:50Guy Raz?

  But it sounds like, if I'm reading between the lines, that one day, yeah, there's a possibility, maybe sell the business or something else, or just kind of step away from working every day. And is that fair?

• 55:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's fair.

• 55:05Speaker 02

  We each have our little pet projects that we're able to do, as Bob said. We've got some, we've got great people, great teams and some flexibility. And Bob has ownership in up in New Hampshire. That's super cool. And I'm working on a big rink project, an academy project.

• 55:20Guy Raz?

  A rink, like an ice skating rink?

• 55:23Speaker 02

  Hockey arena, big hockey arena. Yep.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  Well, I built one in the backyard, yeah.

• 55:30Speaker 02

  Yes, and Bob built his in the backyard. Yep.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:34Speaker 02

  Bad, bad winter for that backyard rink. Not good this year.

• 55:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:38Guy Raz?

  Bob, how much of the success of your company do you attribute to luck? And how much do you attribute to hard work or other factors?

• 55:46Speaker 01

  Well, hard work makes luck. You know, in some ways, I say make your own luck. I'd say it's, I'd say, I'll go and say two thirds hard work and one third luck.

• 55:58Guy Raz?

  What about you, Lauren? What do you, what do you think?

• 56:00Speaker 02

  I'm going to say a lot less luck and in more really good timing, great opportunities. The opening in the marketplace, the people ready to transition to a more sophisticated product, all of those things. The timing was really important. There may have been a couple of things that were lucky, but I think less lucky, but just being in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing altogether.

• 56:27Guy Raz?

  You know, Bob, you were the one who came up with this idea originally when you were trying to come up with some kind of business idea. And I wonder if you could go back to that younger, less experienced version of yourself and give yourself some advice or encouragement, what would you say? What would you tell yourself?

• 56:47Speaker 01

  You know what? Looking back on it, I know this, I don't know, like, I don't know what I really would have done differently. It's almost like pushing a wheelbarrow or something like that. It's like, OK, how are you going to push this wheelbarrow a mile? Well, I know, you know, if I take one step, I'm closer. I take another step, I'm closer. So it was just kind of like, don't give up and just keep pushing because ultimately, you know, whatever, why not you? Why does it have to be somebody else? It can be you. Somebody else.

• 57:16Guy Raz?

  That's Bob Monahan and Lauren Monahan, co-founders of Up a Baby. I'm curious about one thing. Are you OK if I ask you slightly a personal question?

• 57:27Speaker 01

  Depends on what it is.

• 57:28Speaker 02

  Maybe.

• 57:29Guy Raz?

  Who would win in a hockey shootout?

• 57:32Speaker 02

  Well, it depends.

• 57:35Speaker 01

  She's out of practice. I just played two hours ago.

• 57:39Speaker 02

  Now she's...

• 57:40Speaker 01

  I'd kill her.

• 57:41Speaker 02

  I'm very out of practice.

• 57:43Guy Raz?

  You were a Division One hockey player, Lauren.

• 57:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I have a tear in my hip. I need a little surgery from back in my playing days. I was a shooter.

• 57:50Speaker 01

  Oh, I would kick her ass.

• 57:51Speaker 02

  I was a really good shooter. I liked shooting the puck. So I don't know.

• 57:55Speaker 01

  I'm still getting better.

• 57:55Speaker 02

  I mean, I'm...

• 57:56Guy Raz?

  I'm putting my money on Lauren.

• 57:57Speaker 01

  All right. I'm going to take your money. I'll take your money.

• 58:02Guy Raz?

  Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. If you're not a subscriber to the podcast, please do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to write to us, our email address is [email protected]. And if you want to follow us on Twitter, we're at How I Built This or at Guy Raz. On Instagram, we're at guy dot raz or at How I Built This NPR. This episode was produced by Casey Herman with music composed by Rantin Arablouei. Thanks also to Liz Metzger, Farah Safari, Dareth Gales, J.C. Howard, Julia Carney, Niva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Janet Wu-Jung Lee. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.

• 58:55Guy Raz?

  This is NPR.