Framebridge: Susan Tynan

Susan Tynan's experience in the ephemeral e-market of LivingSocial made her want to start a business that she could touch and feel. She got her idea after experiencing sticker shock at her local framing store: she was charged $1600 to frame four cheap posters and figured there had to be a better way. So she created a mail-order framing company that offers fewer designs at much lower prices. Framebridge is now three years old and still feeling growing pains, but is slowly reshaping the rules of a rigid industry. PLUS for our postscript "How You Built That," how Alexander Van Dewark created a portable mat that helps people mix cement without a wheelbarrow or a paddle. 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?

  Hey, really quick before we start the show. If you are anywhere near the Washington DC area this Thursday, November 30, you will not want to miss a live taping of the show. My guest will be Robert Johnson, founder of BET, Black Entertainment Television, and the first African-American billionaire in US history. And then, a week later, on December 6, I'll be in Atlanta to interview Arthur Blank, co-founder of Home Depot and the owner of the Atlanta Falcons. If you haven't been to a live taping yet, you have to check it out. You'll meet tons of other fans of the show, other people starting their own businesses. And hey, come say hi to me and the team after the show. How I Built This Live is supported by American Express Open.

• 0:43Guy Raz?

  Come see us this Thursday, November 30 in DC, and next week, December 6, in Atlanta. Get your tickets at nprpresents.org. That's nprpresents.org. OK, here's the show.

• 1:02Speaker 01

  There were days I thought, well, it is possible this thing doesn't scale, and it's possible we won't dig ourselves out. We can't keep up with the orders.

• 1:09Guy Raz?

  So the issue was not that you were framing them badly, but that it just took too long?

• 1:13Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. We were framing them perfectly, it just took too long. We started to see really angry emails, people saying like, "This was the very special gift for my grandmother's 90th birthday, and you ruined it."

• 1:25Guy Raz?

  Oof.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  And it felt terrible.

• 1:36Guy Raz?

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

• 1:47Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and on today's show, how Susan Tynan accidentally spent $1,600 framing posters and then turned her sticker shock into a more affordable idea called Framebridge.

• 2:03Guy Raz?

  So there are pieces of artwork hanging up in my house that cost a lot less than what it costs to actually frame them. You know, you drive to the store, you get the matting, you pick the frame, the glass, and soon enough, you're down like 400 bucks. And so then, if you're like me, you just stop framing stuff. You end up turning a closet in your house into like a photos and artwork storage center. And this is exactly the opportunity Susan Tynan saw about five years ago, when she started to think about how to make framing cheaper and easier. Now, at the time, Susan was already a veteran of a bunch of startups that mostly failed. But through those experiences,

• 2:47Guy Raz?

  she figured out how to raise money to start Framebridge. And so far, she's managed to bring in more than $37 million. But unlike a lot of the companies we've had on the show, Framebridge is still in its building phase. It's still working to become a sustainable company. And Susan is still working like crazy, still starting early and still staying late. And she says she got that work ethic from her dad, who used to run a small tugboat business on Lake Erie in Cleveland.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Tugboats, meaning the little boats that help big boats. And so it's really an operationally intensive business. And our family really revered his job and what went into providing for our family. And then, you know, we ate dinner at 7:30 because that's when dad got home from work.

• 3:39Guy Raz?

  That's so cool. Like, I've never met anybody who's involved with the tugboat business.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. There's something just iconic and awesome about tugs. So, you know, I certainly have been on my share of tugs. And I think my one sort of party trick when I got to be a teenager was if we were at an event downtown and there was a tug out on the water, you know, my dad would have them honk their horn when they went by us.

• 4:02Guy Raz?

  So your dad had-- and did you-- were you involved in the business at all? Did you do anything?

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we'd pinch hit. I remember, you know, if the receptionist was out, we'd go in and answer phones for my dad and that sort of thing. There were certainly-- This, again, reverence for work and what it took, that it didn't come easy. You know, I can just imagine my dad on vacations on the phone or the phone ringing late at night. And if something goes wrong in a business that operationally intensive, it's really gone wrong. So I remember that drama.

• 4:31Guy Raz?

  Do you, did you grow up thinking entrepreneurially, like, I'm going to be an entrepreneur? Because, I mean, we're around the same age, and I don't remember that being a big part of our culture as kids.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  No, I think I looked at my dad and I thought I was going to be the boss. But, but I didn't, that wasn't like, I'm going to be the boss and great things come with being the boss. It was like, and all the responsibility that comes with that. And so I, I guess I had that vision of a business career.

• 4:58Guy Raz?

  Youth, but so you didn't think, I'm going to go to college and then become like a lawyer or something like that?

• 5:03Speaker 01

  No, I didn't. And I certainly had a lot of ideas, none of which were great, like, there should be a pancake delivery service. But, you know, I was always thinking along those lines, always solving consumer problems, though.

• 5:17Guy Raz?

  Susan went on to study at the University of Virginia, and then she got a degree at Harvard Business School. She dipped her toes into the startup world for a little bit, and then she went to work at the White House during President Obama's first term. But around 2011, Susan once again caught the startup bug.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  So at the time, some, some guys I had worked with previously had started a startup in a hot new space called Daily Deals. So the company was called Living Social, and I was watching them from afar and was just sort of jealous of-

• 5:50Guy Raz?

  It was exploding.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  It was exploding.

• 5:53Guy Raz?

  That was the Daily Deal thing, and they're still around.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:56Guy Raz?

  And, and you were seeing friends of yours who were-

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:00Guy Raz?

  And you were thinking, I gotta get into this.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  I gotta get on it. I am so jealous, like, truly. I joke, when, when one of them called and asked me if I wanted to join, I sort of had, like, my desk packed up. I was like, I'm ready.

• 6:12Guy Raz?

  Wow. So you pack up and you are like, great, I'm, I'm going to do this. And what did you do at Living Social?

• 6:17Speaker 01

  I'm going to do it.

• 6:18Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  So how it worked was they sent emails with deals to local merchants and shops. And so they decided they would do some specialty ones, hired a guy to run travel, and hired me to sort of do anything else. So I did, you know, first, family-friendly deals, and then home services deals.

• 6:36Guy Raz?

  So like, what kind of deals?

• 6:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, so deals for, you know, things like jamboree and childcare services and things like that, things that a family might be interested in, apple picking. And then it was just sort of like, what else could we sell into what other groups?

• 6:51Guy Raz?

  What was that time like? Because I, I mean, this is not that long ago. We're talking about like six, seven years ago. I mean, I remember Living Social here in Washington DC. It was huge. I mean, it just seemed like everyone was throwing money at it. What was it like working at the time?

• 7:06Speaker 01

  It was really, really exciting. You know, we were all really driven. We were all really bullish. We knew that speed mattered. And in that case, in that industry, it really did. And so it was fun because we had to unlearn. I had to unlearn some things. I was coming right out of the White House. I mean, you had to, like, this email doesn't have to be checked by 10 people. We just got to get it out the door. And it was exciting. It was like a gold rush.

• 7:34Guy Raz?

  At its peak, do you remember what Living Social was valued at?

• 7:37Speaker 01

  No, it was a couple billion.

• 7:38Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a couple billion. And I remember even the business lines I was running, I got to launch them and I got to 80 million in sales, like, you know, in a year and a half.

• 7:47Guy Raz?

  So was it just insane? Were you working all the time?

• 7:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was, I was working a lot. But again, I was coming from a job where I worked a lot. So it's clearly something I'm used to. And also, it was funny because I had, you know, a baby at home and it was certainly a startup party culture as well. And I sort of found for myself there. I laughed. I sort of became sort of like a mentor aunt to a lot of people. Like, I was aware I was a little bit older.

• 8:14Guy Raz?

  Because you were in your 30s?

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly.

• 8:18Guy Raz?

  When did you start to see, I don't know, things at Living Social kind of turn a little bit? When did you start to notice that maybe, maybe this isn't going to work out the way everyone thinks it will?

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Well, I think, obviously, you see, in the metrics, you see growth slow. And it makes you start to question certain things. And then, obviously, you see talent leave. And so when, you know, some people I admired started to leave, just even the composition of the whole experience began to change.

• 8:50Guy Raz?

  But, I mean, what happened to Living Social? I mean, I know it still exists in some capacity, but what, what actually went wrong?

• 8:58Speaker 01

  You know, I think it's a multi-part answer, some of which was, you know, that the exchange was really that local merchants would get loyal customers. And so that had to be the case. And I think in some cases, that trade-off didn't exist. And so some of the best merchants said not interested anymore. And so then the emails weren't as exciting and they didn't have the best restaurants and stores. And so then customers became less interested in the idea. And so it was a, when that cycle was reinforcing, it was unstoppable. But when it, you know, started to unwind, it got hurt.

• 9:33Guy Raz?

  Did that, I mean, did that kind of give you insight into just the, just the hyping of new things, new technology, new products, new apps? Like, I don't know, not to pick on Living Social or Group Owner, but just, I mean, there are tons of these examples where, you know, one day a company's valued at, you know, $5 billion. And then it seems like a year later, it's sort of like the emperor's, you know, emperor's new clothes. Everyone's like, well, what is actually, what's the value here?

• 10:00Speaker 01

  Well, I think no doubt it led me to a business that I could touch and feel. So I think, yeah, I just learned, you know, some of those businesses are hard to, hard to know whether they're going to be transformational or fleeting.

• 10:16Guy Raz?

  So at what point did you decide to leave?

• 10:20Speaker 01

  So growth was slowing. And I think more importantly, I felt my personal development was slowing. And I thought, you know, I really, I want to run something. I just do. And I was sort of just feeling that urge.

• 10:35Guy Raz?

  Were you anxious about your future?

• 10:38Speaker 01

  I was. I don't think I was anxious about my future at that company. I was anxious about my future in general. I just wanted to get on it. And at that time, I had started to think about building my own business. And my head was going there when I got a job offer that sounded interesting.

• 10:58Guy Raz?

  What was it?

• 10:59Speaker 01

  So it was working for a taxi app. It was called Taxi Magic, that was, actually had an iPhone app to hail taxis, pre-Uber. And so I thought, well, that'll sort of scratch this itch. That'll be close enough to doing my own thing.

• 11:12Guy Raz?

  Was it a well-funded startup?

• 11:14Speaker 01

  So at the time, it was, but certainly nowhere near Living Social.

• 11:18Guy Raz?

  Living Social was like free snacks.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The foosball, the whole thing. You know, the company sales retreats.

• 11:27Guy Raz?

  Beautiful graffiti on the walls.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 11:30Guy Raz?

  So you were trying to convince taxi companies to adopt Taxi Magic's app or whatever. And then you would click on the app and then you could order a taxi that was aligned with Taxi Magic, that worked.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 11:43Guy Raz?

  And how long did you stay there?

• 11:45Speaker 01

  I wasn't there long. I was there only about seven months because as soon as I got there, I realized that I really wanted to do my own thing, that I just, that that feeling could not be stated in another way.

• 11:58Guy Raz?

  Yeah. And so what did you start to do? Did you just start to kind of brainstorm possible ideas? Did you?

• 12:06Speaker 01

  No, I had my idea.

• 12:07Guy Raz?

  You had your idea.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  I did, I did. I had had this idea for a long time, that someone should make custom picture framing better.

• 12:15Guy Raz?

  How did you get the idea?

• 12:16Speaker 01

  The idea originates truly back probably eight or nine years. I had National Parks posters that I had bought on these annual hiking trips I went on with my sister, and I took them to a local frame store to be framed. It was just a terrible experience. It was really intimidating and really expensive.

• 12:36Guy Raz?

  Like more expensive than the posters? Much more expensive than the posters?

• 12:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, the posters were $40 each and the framing was $400 each. So I spent $1,600 on frames.

• 12:47Guy Raz?

  And so you were thinking, what, this has to, somebody has to change this?

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just thought, no. I first thought, well, I will never do this again. And so I just always had, like, I had a mixed reaction even toward the posters when I finally picked them up three weeks later. I just thought, like, how did that happen to me? I just started going about my life and I kept noticing things that I would like. And I thought, well, you can't have that, you can't frame it.

• 13:11Guy Raz?

  So just pause for a sec, because this is, I'm having flashbacks to my conversation with the Warby Parker founders, which was similar, because glasses are so expensive. And they were asking why. I mean, it's just plastic and... You know, some hinges, right? And so why, why is the framing, why is framing so much money?

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, so for a local store, they don't store any inventory. They don't store any of their materials in their store. And so when you go in and you select from the 1,000 frame styles on the wall, the frame store is actually buying those materials for your piece when you place your order. So it takes weeks and it's really heavily marked up. They're buying from a distributor. So our innovation, which now doesn't seem like much of one, was really like, well, why don't we choose frame styles we believe are beautiful, invest in them and make it centrally?

• 14:05Guy Raz?

  So you can't, so basically you have some options, but not, not infinite options?

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Right. You have 40 styles rotate driven by trends, but we don't, you know, we don't overwhelm you with 1,000 frames you didn't want anyway.

• 14:19Guy Raz?

  And you have the inventory there?

• 14:21Speaker 01

  And we have the inventory.

• 14:22Guy Raz?

  And the concept was that, that you would roll up your artwork, mail it in, and then it would come back framed?

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Yes, that was the concept. The concept was for less than half the price of a retail store with very clear upfront pricing, you'd choose from a beautiful selection. We'd mail you packaging, you'd mail us your art. We'd send it back to you in a couple of days, ready to hang.

• 14:43Guy Raz?

  So this idea was in your head. You're working at Taxi Magic. But if you had this idea for a long time, what was the spark that actually got you to do this? To actually believe and make a go for it?

• 14:56Speaker 01

  So it's sort of multi-steps. At Living Social, I sold a lot of framing deals. And so people, I knew customers were looking for a deal on this category, but they didn't, they still didn't like their experience in the store. And so that sort of validated it. And then when I got to Taxi Magic, I thought, gosh, you know, so many smart people are competing in this category. And I have a category I am just so eager to make better, and nobody's thinking about it. So I should.

• 15:26Guy Raz?

  So you started to tell people about this idea?

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did.

• 15:30Guy Raz?

  Because a lot of people are secretive at the beginning. They think, I don't want to tell people my idea, they'll steal it. But you told people about this idea you had?

• 15:39Speaker 01

  I did, and it was an essential idea because I needed to know, would people actually use this? Did people think it was a good idea? And so I started talking to everybody about it. I can think about truly an image of me at a cocktail party or at a friend's baseball game and just thinking about telling people the concept. And then I kept hearing these same stories about either me or my partner. And the story was always involving $600 worth of framing. And I bet I wouldn't believe it. And I'm like, I do believe it, that's why I'm going to fix it.

• 16:12Guy Raz?

  But everybody presumably was saying to you, what an awesome idea, Susan. But let's just be honest here. A million conversations like that happen every day.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  So to this day, at least twice a month, someone says, you know, me and my friends, we were talking and we were coming up with that same idea. We had an idea for a framing company, a disruptive framing company.

• 16:33Guy Raz?

  People say that to you?

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, all the time. I'm like, oh, great, okay.

• 16:36Guy Raz?

  Well, here's, I guess, a sort of a meta question here, which is, is an idea enough? Because there are a lot of really awesome ideas out there.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  No, an idea is really not worth much at all. I mean, so at least in our story, it's worth almost nothing. It's all the hustle.

• 16:56Guy Raz?

  I mean, and so were you financially secure enough to take this leap, to actually leave your job and try this?

• 17:06Speaker 01

  No. So, yeah, we were living a life that required, you know, we had two hardworking parents and required two salaries for our mortgage and our two kids. They were one and four at the time, two little girls, and obviously childcare for them. So, yeah, it was kind of a crazy time to decide to start a business. And I think a lot of people wanted to tell me all the reasons this couldn't work.

• 17:32Guy Raz?

  So what was the first thing? I mean, so the first thing you did is you start talking to people and telling them about the idea. And what was the first concrete thing you did? Did you know anything about framing?

• 17:44Speaker 01

  I knew nothing about framing. So most notably, I signed up for a framing course that I took at a Hampton Inn. And so they actually take, you know, bring small framing equipment into a conference room.

• 17:58Guy Raz?

  This is not sponsored by Hampton Inn. It's just like somebody rented out of Hampton Inn.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  No, it's like a tour of America.

• 18:05Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  And you can learn to picture frame. And really, the advertisement is like, "Look, it's the highest margin business. Come learn how to frame."

• 18:13Guy Raz?

  Wow, that was... So the class was, "Learn how to frame, then you can start to open a shop because the margins are so high."

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Yes. And so it was really important for me to make sure I knew what I was getting into on the production side, but also, yeah, to make sure it was viable.

• 18:28Guy Raz?

  OK, so you leave your job to learn how to frame?

• 18:32Speaker 01

  I leave my job to learn how to frame, and I go to a trade show in Las Vegas.

• 18:37Guy Raz?

  Just to check it out?

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Just to check it out.

• 18:40Guy Raz?

  What did you see?

• 18:41Speaker 01

  That was actually a little bit of a low point because I thought, you know, what have I gotten myself into? I just was sort of wandering around looking at frame styles. I actually, you know, certainly had opinions on what styles I liked and had some design learnings. But really, I just thought like, what am I getting myself into? I remember standing alone on the Vegas Strip, just sort of having paid my way there out of my own pocket, thinking like, what am I doing? Like, am I ever going to pull this thing together?

• 19:11Guy Raz?

  When was that trade show? In 2013?

• 19:14Speaker 01

  That trade show was in 2013, yeah.

• 19:15Guy Raz?

  So 2013, and you were there to like, take notes and to just... And what did you want to do with that information?

• 19:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot was, I was still in the, "Let me make sure I'm not missing something" phase. And then also like, well, gosh, I'm going to have to get started. So I'll have to call these people up and tell them I want to buy equipment and want to buy, you know, wood moldings.

• 19:36Guy Raz?

  So you were trying to develop contacts in the industry by going to that trade show?

• 19:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I have to tell you, there are a few folks I met there who are still vendors to this day, and I really give them credit for listening to me because I do think most people just ignored me.

• 19:49Guy Raz?

  Or didn't like it.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Oh, well, absolutely didn't like it. And there's something, to this day, I think I'm still trying to explain to people. It was really because of reverence for the end product that I started this business. So I actually think... Getting something custom framed is really, really special. And so I believe that. I just believed more people needed to access it.

• 20:11Guy Raz?

  But presumably, some of these frame folks were like, we don't want this kind of disruption. We don't want your Harvard Business School degree to come in and make this thing cheaper for consumers.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.

• 20:25Guy Raz?

  Which you can understand.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  Of course, of course. And so going on and building this business, I have run into that a number of times. But I think it required someone out of the industry to be able to sort of plot it from the consumer's viewpoint from the beginning. And I think by this time, it felt like too late to back out. And so at that point, I started trying to pitch investors.

• 20:48Guy Raz?

  Why did you decide to go to investors from the get go rather than just pool together money from family and anywhere you could get a little bit here and there and do it on your own?

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I joke a little bit that we were somewhat unlean in the beginning in that we believed, I believed, that in order to actually do this business well, it had to be done at such a high quality. And that was that the site had to look beautiful, the packaging had to be branded. You had to trust us enough to roll up a diploma and send it to us. And I really thought, like, there is no really minimally viable product version of this business. This business has to be done.

• 21:34Guy Raz?

  It has to be great out of the gate.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  Yes, like that anything to just test whether the concept worked, wouldn't work. We had to do it great, and we had to do it ourselves.

• 21:41Guy Raz?

  So how did you, how did you get the money to do this? Because I have to assume you needed a lot of money to build an app, to get the materials, to hire a team. Like, you had to, how much money were you looking to raise?

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, so hilariously, I remember saying I was looking to raise $50,000. And initial investors saying, you realize that's not going to be enough money. But, you know, once I really got into it, we decided we really, we raised $1.5 million. So we were going to raise a real round, you know, a real seed round out of the gates.

• 22:09Guy Raz?

  And what was your pitch to investors, by the way? Were you like, a million and a half? Dollars valued at $10 million. Like, what'd you say to them? Did you even know what to say?

• 22:16Speaker 01

  No, I didn't. I didn't know any of those things and quickly learned. And you learn because all the meetings start to sort of meld together. And you learn those things along the way. But the pitch was really clear. And in a way, I'm really proud of, we built the business we pitched, which was, you know, I went in and said, "Look, you know, custom framing..."

• 22:34Guy Raz?

  It was just you at the time?

• 22:35Speaker 01

  It was just me. I say "we" because there were some people on the PowerPoint pitch deck who now have joined. But they were just like aspirational team members at the time.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  So, yeah, it was just, you know, I said like, "Hey, custom framing's too expensive. And it's a pretty big market. It could be way bigger if someone made it less expensive and less of a hassle. And here's how I'm gonna do it."

• 22:57Guy Raz?

  How did you find people to even pitch to?

• 23:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, so an investor at Living Social, and I met up for breakfast. He was actually wondering why I had left Living Social. It was just a sort of a social call. And I had no business pitching him at that time because it was really not a strongly enough developed idea. But I told him, you know, I pointed to frames on the wall and said, "You know, those should only cost $100. Do you know that?" And he sort of leaned in and said, "You know, you should do this." And he's a really intense guy. And so I thought, "Well, gosh, that was the reaction I wanted."

• 23:33Guy Raz?

  You're like validated right there.

• 23:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so I...

• 23:36Guy Raz?

  Can you tell me his name?

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, Tig Savage of Revolution Ventures.

• 23:39Guy Raz?

  So he's in the Mid-Atlantic, a pretty well-known investor?

• 23:43Speaker 01

  He is a well-known investor.

• 23:45Guy Raz?

  Even nationally, I guess.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Yes. And he also calls it like he sees it. So I knew like, this is not someone who would be just blowing smoke.

• 23:52Guy Raz?

  So you're having breakfast or lunch with this guy, and he's like, "Go for it. You've gotta do this." Who's in?

• 23:58Speaker 01

  He said, "This is a good idea."

• 23:59Guy Raz?

  Oh, cool.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  "This is a good idea." And so, great, we left. And about a week later, he sent me a one-line email. "How far along are you?" And I thought, yes, OK. And certainly, it was not a promise of anything, but it was enough to make me think like,

• 24:15Guy Raz?

  He's in.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  This is an idea. This, we got it. I'm going to build this thing.

• 24:19Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  So he said, pull a few pieces together, come up with, you know, what are you doing next? And how you get this thing off the ground and come, we'll talk about it. We'll pitch this thing for real. So I had a pretty good presentation, I thought, of how I would pull everything together.

• 24:33Guy Raz?

  And he was going to be the first guy to give you the seed money?

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:36Guy Raz?

  And you were looking for a million bucks?

• 24:38Speaker 01

  Yep. And I went in and I went through everything in the deck and he said, huh, huh, this isn't enough. I just don't think there's enough here that we can make an investment at this time.

• 24:53Guy Raz?

  What, like, how did he go from saying, go do this, to saying, yeah, I don't, I'm not feeling this? Like, what was it that he did not like about your pitch?

• 25:03Speaker 01

  I think he didn't like the uncertainty part of it. We had, you know, I had ideas of how I would pull everything together, but, you know, it didn't have anything yet. And so I think he felt like, I can't come back and say, I found this great early-stage company, but they haven't done anything yet. And I remember walking home that night, it was the distance I needed a cab, but I walked home that night thinking like, oh, my gosh. I was crestfallen.

• 25:35Guy Raz?

  So that's done. Now you've got to move on to the next investor.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. And by this time, I'm, you know, I'm spending money at a trade show, at a framing course.

• 25:43Guy Raz?

  Out of your own pocket.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  Out of my own pocket.

• 25:46Guy Raz?

  And you are not independently wealthy.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  I am not independently wealthy and I am no longer salaried.

• 25:52Guy Raz?

  Were you looking at your bank account and thinking, OK, there's a certain point where I'm going to hit a limit, like $10,000, $20,000, $30,000, and I'm going to be in big trouble?

• 26:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. I remember actually having a serious conversation with my sister in January of '14. I was staying with her in New York, because so many investors are in New York. And so I was staying on her couch. And she was sort of like, I'm your big sister, I'm the one who has to tell you, like, eventually you're going to have to give up.

• 26:22Guy Raz?

  In a moment, how Susan Tynan got off her sister's couch and into her own framing factory. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 26:45Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So when Susan Tynan's first investment pitches went nowhere, a lot of people told her to give up. But of course, she didn't. She convinced some engineers to help with the website for Framebridge, and she promised that eventually she would pay them.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  I had really convinced the engineers, like, oh, this is all happening. We're going to get money, so start building. So they did start coding. We started building Framebridge. But I mean, even at that point, I think we were still refining what the name for Framebridge would be. And yeah, so I started building as though it would be funded. Obviously, anything that required a big check, I couldn't obtain. But otherwise, certainly, I could get samples of materials and things like that. And so I just started proceeding as though it would happen and meeting anyone who might be able to write a check.

• 27:40Guy Raz?

  And just using your own money for bits and pieces here and there.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  Using my money for bits and pieces. But at that point, things started to pick up more. And I think, again, a lesson in just if you're moving as though the business is going to work, the rest is going to happen for you. So at that point, I had gotten connected to another investor I knew as well.

• 28:00Guy Raz?

  In the DC area?

• 28:01Speaker 01

  In the DC area, national investor, a female partner at a venture capital firm. We had lunch, and I told her the idea. And she said, you won't believe this, I was searching last week for this solution online. And I know it doesn't exist. I looked for it. She said, I love this. I get it. I know this need exists.

• 28:22Guy Raz?

  And she gave you money?

• 28:25Speaker 01

  Oh, it wasn't that easy. It was definitely a series of meetings and sort of show me how you're putting this together. And I think in the same way, it was a lot of like, well, show me more and then next time, show me more. And so she was the first to actually sign up.

• 28:39Guy Raz?

  And how long did the process of when you started to raise money to when you actually raised the million or a million and a half that you needed? How long did that take?

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Meetings wise, it was, you know, 10 months, but really intensely, probably about four months, which felt really grueling, but I think is, you know, as these things go, sort of an easy run.

• 28:57Guy Raz?

  That's fast.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:59Guy Raz?

  Four months to get the money. So you have like a little over a million bucks in your hand, in your bank account. You're looking at those zeros. What do you do with that money?

• 29:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. First thing I did was hire my first employee, a woman named Tessa, who had worked for me previously. And so truly, the day the wires hit, she quit her job and joined me.

• 29:21Guy Raz?

  And what'd she do?

• 29:22Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 29:23Guy Raz?

  She was like-

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. She runs merchandising and creative, but I mean, we did everything. We began actually doing a lot of product sampling. So we were sitting in this coworking space and we were getting these boxes of, you know, wood chips, wood moldings being sent to us, which doesn't really go in a coworking space. So they kept saying every night, you know, you have to bring your, you have to leave with your boxes. And so we would Uber home at night with boxes of sample materials. But we just started, again, doing everything on all fronts, like meeting with packaging vendors, meeting with UPS. Like, it was just a, in hindsight, I don't even know what that work plan looked like, but we were just sort of doing every single thing at one time.

• 30:06Guy Raz?

  And what was the plan? Like with that seed money, the plan was to build an app, a website, and launch?

• 30:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the plan was to build an app and a website and to find some framer friends to do the initial production. And I remember we said, for the first 9,000 frames, I don't know why we said that, but the first 9,000 frames, we'll just find someone who will do it for us.

• 30:26Guy Raz?

  You mean like an outside frame company?

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:28Guy Raz?

  Okay.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  And I think that was a way to get our initial investors comfortable with the fact that we were, had no experience on the manufacturing side, but-

• 30:36Guy Raz?

  You had to find a framing company that would do this, but they were expensive.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  Right. So we didn't. So we didn't. So we started talking to, you know, framers and to see if we could get them interested in what we were doing. And we realized, I had just a lot of, like, we couldn't control quality, we wouldn't be certain about anything. And both of us- Are sort of sticklers for quality, for precision, and we just did not feel comfortable with it. So we realized in order to even buy materials, we would need a warehouse. And so if we needed a warehouse, we might as well get framing equipment, and we might as well make the very first frame. And so I had to tell our investors, like, congratulations, you're going to own a frame factory. And we drove around the DC metropolitan area,

• 31:22Speaker 01

  which is not really an area known for industrial spaces. But we found a space and started building.

• 31:29Guy Raz?

  So you ordered like equipment to make frames, which I guess is like, what, like bandsaws? And what did you get?

• 31:37Speaker 01

  So we actually met a guy through our travels. We had met a vendor who said, you should talk to this guy who sells used equipment. And he was a great guy, owned a frame store, and said, like, why don't I moonlight for you guys and help you get this thing set up?

• 31:50Guy Raz?

  And how did you, how long did it take? Like, from the time you got your investment to the time you actually launched the website and the app? How long did that take?

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we got money end of February. By April, we signed a lease on a facility, on a production facility. And July, we did a soft launch.

• 32:10Guy Raz?

  That's pretty quick.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was. But I mean, we felt under pressure. I mean, we had, again, a lease for a warehouse and not a functioning website.

• 32:19Guy Raz?

  A lease for warehouse, which you were paying rent on. And were your investors like, okay, guys, come on, clock's ticking?

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, they definitely were. I think every week, pre-launch, felt scary, both from an investor perspective and from just an unknown. I mean, this was just a real field of dreams, right? This was a, I bet customers really want this service. And until we launched, we wouldn't know.

• 32:45Guy Raz?

  So you launched in July of 2014. And how do you get the word out?

• 32:51Speaker 01

  Right. So hilariously, we started with, it was a password protected site because we didn't want to be overrun, which was not to be a worry. So we launched with that little beta site in July. And then August, we opened up and, you know, told our, everybody we knew on Facebook, got a couple of orders. But they were all sort of, you know, one degree of separation, two degree of separation, I went to college with that guy type thing. And so we started to send out frames to folks in the press. And first couple of months, we got two big hits, Architectural Digest and InStyle.

• 33:25Guy Raz?

  You just framed like random things and sent it to them?

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, but not random. We were like, what exactly would, what frame style would this editor at this magazine like? What is something about their life we can figure out so that the content of what we frame is interesting? You know, we were really thoughtful. And those, those were really validating.

• 33:44Guy Raz?

  Wow. And so they wrote about you?

• 33:46Speaker 01

  They wrote about us.

• 33:47Guy Raz?

  And did that have a measurable impact?

• 33:49Speaker 01

  So it had a, I mean, at that point, we were selling so few, anything was measurable. So it was measurable. But everything sort of manageable. And at the time, we had said, like, we'll really be something if we're selling a thousand frames a month. And we had told our head of production, be prepared. And he was in the framing industry. And he was like, good luck, girls. Like, you're not going to get to a thousand frames a month. And so that was true of the first month or two. And then late October, someone, a home decor blogger, wrote a blog post. And we had our first real sales spike of the day. And that was the first day we thought, okay, like, it's on.

• 34:25Guy Raz?

  How many orders were you getting in a day?

• 34:29Speaker 01

  So at that point, we were probably, what felt overwhelming, we were probably getting in 50 or 60 orders a day. The four folks who worked in production were making the frames. But the team of us who were, you know, making the website and the marketing and everything, were the shipping team. So at 4:00 PM every night, we pushed aside our laptops and walked to the back of the factory and bubble wrapped and packaged up the boxes.

• 34:52Guy Raz?

  Including you, the CEO?

• 34:53Speaker 01

  You better believe it.

• 34:54Guy Raz?

  You were, you were like wrapping up and?

• 34:57Speaker 01

  You better believe it. I had, I truly remember an early board meeting, it was on the phone. And I thought, oh, my gosh, they don't know that my hands are covered in paper cuts. Like, they don't get it. It was just at a level of all hands on deck. So that continued, okay, but we were approaching our first holiday. And this guy, this part-time head of production, came in one night and said, and this was in early November of our first year, said like, mm, this is too much stress.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  You know, I sort of didn't sign up for this. I would, thought I'd get you guys started, but I don't need this. And I said, yeah, we're about to hit our first holiday and things are picking up. Like, I need you. And he said, I'm happy to help make frames, but I don't need all this responsibility.

• 35:43Guy Raz?

  This is the guy who's running the production and he's like, I'm out.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  I'm out.

• 35:49Guy Raz?

  And you said?

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Well, I'm not sure I can say what I said. No, I said, I think I tried to appeal with the like, please don't let me down. But there was really sort of, he really was like, I just, you know, I took you this far, I'm out.

• 36:06Guy Raz?

  Are you freaking out?

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Oh, my goodness, yeah. You know, he'd do everything. And so that was one of the, you know, there are probably a dozen times where you say like, is this the end? I hope it's not the end, you know?

• 36:17Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  And then you think about everyone and like, your investors who believed in you, and then you believed in this guy who said, I'll just work part-time and that was fine. And how did we get into this?

• 36:27Guy Raz?

  So what'd you do?

• 36:28Speaker 01

  So I immediately called a friend who had worked in operations for Living Social. And so he put me in touch with another colleague of ours. So, you know, this sort of mutual friend colleague was in between gigs and said, this will be funny. I can do this. I can learn. Sign me up. And so truly, within two days, we had a new head of production who had no experience in a warehouse, but was good with his hands.

• 36:53Guy Raz?

  And how long did that take?

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Oh, it was like two or three days.

• 36:56Guy Raz?

  And he knew how to make frames?

• 36:58Speaker 01

  No, but he was sufficiently handy and had really thought it would be fun. He just said like, I can do this. And we knew, I mean, he's, you know, super nice and super smart. And day three, he breaks his leg in the factory. So I was like, OK, well, we're out again. And so then we just sort of, the four of us, the regional corporate team had to just stand in and figure it out at that point. He came back on crutches and we got through our first holiday.

• 37:28Guy Raz?

  So you guys make it through that Christmas and then I guess a couple of months later you hit another crisis, right?

• 37:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. We did a really clever Father's Day promotion where we asked about the style of your dad and had, you know, unique craft paper designs, if you had a preppy dad or hipster dad. And it was really clever marketing, but broke our factory, basically.

• 37:53Guy Raz?

  What happened?

• 37:54Speaker 01

  It just required that they match not only all the components of a custom frame, but also the right craft paper. And we started to slip into a production backlog.

• 38:04Guy Raz?

  How many orders did you get?

• 38:06Speaker 01

  So we started, it was really the daily issue in that we were selling about 100 frames a day and making about 70. And when we got into this Father's Day backlog and the first summer, there were days I thought, well, it is possible this thing doesn't scale and it's possible we won't dig ourselves out.

• 38:27Guy Raz?

  It won't scale because you start to realize we cannot keep up with the orders?

• 38:30Speaker 01

  We can't keep up with the orders.

• 38:31Guy Raz?

  I mean, that seems like a good problem to have.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it felt like a good problem to have, except we were all so oriented to customer delight that we started to see, you know, really angry emails, people saying like, this was the very special gift for my grandmother's 90th birthday and you ruined it. And it felt terrible. And I remember having this really intense debate about do we send the email to customers who think it's going to come in three to four days that says it's going to come in two to three weeks?

• 39:02Guy Raz?

  So the issue was not that you were framing them badly, but that it just took too long?

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. We were framing them perfectly, it just took too long. And so that leads to the bigger question, can we get out of where we are today and can this thing even work?

• 39:15Guy Raz?

  Because you need it to work, it has to be as convenient and quick as going to like your local frame store.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  It has to be quicker. Our customers are internet shoppers they care about. You know, on Tuesday, they're getting ready for something they're doing on Saturday and we have to deliver.

• 39:32Guy Raz?

  Tell me how you were sort of organizing your life because I'm imagining you got to talk to your investors, your board, you've got a bazillion emails coming in, you're also like running the staff. Did you ever want to just like scream and tear your hair out?

• 39:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember hosting a board meeting at our production facility, at a rented conference room nearby because I thought, maybe I should bring them in on this backlog issue. And they should actually take a tour of the facility and see what's going on. Maybe in this case, honesty is the best policy. So I remember touring with them and they saw these like numbers on the board, like, let me get this straight. You have that many yet to build and you're building this many a day. Like that, that math isn't going to add up. And so at that point, I just sort of had to, you can't run two truths. You have to, you have to bring everybody in with what you're dealing with.

• 40:28Guy Raz?

  So how did you solve the problem?

• 40:30Speaker 01

  We hired a lot more framers. We got a talented head of production operations who knew how to dig us out. And really, it required all of us just give up weekends for a couple months to get out of it. I remember one conversation where I said, you know, we're not going down like this. And a woman who runs product for us said, we're not. And so I was like, okay, we sealed that. We're not going down like this. I really was thinking, I once read that like, how fast you can jump up from a burpee is correlated with your life expectancy. And I think that's a lot like a startup. It's really how fast, like, oh, the production manager quit, we got a new production manager. You're like, it's

• 41:14Speaker 01

  like, as fast as you can keep going.

• 41:17Guy Raz?

  So when did you start to see the light at the end of the tunnel?

• 41:21Speaker 01

  We had sort of a euphoric next Christmas. So holiday season is really big for us. For uploading digital photos too. I mean, it is just a great, easy gift. So we have a big spike at the holidays. And so I think, once we had, you know, a professional operations team, and we lived through that crazy spike of a holiday season, we realized like, we've got something here.

• 41:47Guy Raz?

  So Framebridge is like three years in now. Is it like smoother sailing with the company? Or do you still have crises?

• 41:55Speaker 01

  No, there's always a crisis.

• 41:57Guy Raz?

  What, has any of them happened recently?

• 42:00Speaker 01

  No, there really isn't. It's like, it's always what you didn't see coming. So relatively recently, at the beginning of this year, we were raising more money. And, you know, sort of at this stage in a venture, it's because it's a job well done. We've got a real business here. And so I had spent months on the road, talking to investors, including my own, and had stitched together a round of funding. And I had been told I was to receive a term sheet for the funding the next day. It was a Tuesday. So this is on Monday. And I knew Tuesday I was getting a term sheet. And so I was starting to feel a little bit of relief because it is certain, you know, my job is to think strategically, focus on the customer, but also to keep the business funded. And so was feeling good. I was doing my job. We had a brand new CFO.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  He was three weeks in on the job. And we were talking that Monday night. And he said, you know, you're going to kill me. I said, oh, my God, are you taking a vacation? We've got to get this thing closed. And he said, no, I got another job.

• 42:56Guy Raz?

  What?

• 42:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:58Guy Raz?

  Three weeks in?

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Three weeks in. So anyone who's ever worked for a business knows that people watch what the CFO does. Because, I mean, you're like, what's going on there if your CFO leaves? So I immediately knew, like, this is going to spook the hell out of everybody.

• 43:11Guy Raz?

  Everyone's going to think you're in trouble.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  Yes. And most importantly, it's going to spook these investors. And so my first thought was, shut up. Why did you tell me that? Because it's one thing to leave, but like, if you leave me right now, I have this knowledge and I have to tell people. And so, you know, to his credit, he had been in the running for a public company CFO job, really big job, it was his dream job. Those things happen. But the timing just could not have been worse. So I left the building like a ghost. I remember a couple of colleagues asked me about minor things and I like, couldn't even answer them. And I went for a run. And it was sort of like, what do I, do I just get the term sheet, close the funding, and then say, oh, surprise, this guy's leaving?

• 43:55Guy Raz?

  But you can't.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  But you can't. And so I went on, sort of like, just sort of frantically called all the members of my board to try and get out ahead of what I knew would be really, sort of, an explosion, which it was.

• 44:08Guy Raz?

  They reacted by saying, what?

• 44:10Speaker 01

  A mix of things. This is really bad, you know that, yes. But we'll get through it.

• 44:15Guy Raz?

  How big was this round, by the way, that you were trying to raise?

• 44:18Speaker 01

  It was 17 million.

• 44:19Guy Raz?

  It's a lot of money.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  It's a lot of money on the line. And so you can't, you know, people want to believe 17 million dollars is going to, you know, a good company. You can't blame them if this all-star, and he was really an all-star CFO. And I remember, I'll never forget, one of our board members, he said, oh, he's on vacation, but he'll try and call you. And he called me and I could hear a steel drum band in the background. And he said, we're just gonna have to do so well, this guy feels sick. And I said, okay, you're right. That's what we're gonna do. And so then everyone started to come around. But I had to do sort of like, you know, sports psych with everybody to say like, come on, you believed in this business, you believe in me, we got this, we're gonna do this, this can't throw us off.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  I mean, I really had to like, bring everybody together like it was the beginning of the company.

• 45:06Guy Raz?

  And so you got the money.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  We got the money. And we live to fight another day.

• 45:10Guy Raz?

  And this happened relatively recently.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  It happened relatively recently. This is about six months ago.

• 45:13Guy Raz?

  So, I mean, the difference between your company and so many of the companies we've featured on the show is that you're still in the thick of it.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:20Guy Raz?

  You are not like, able to just sit back and say, ah.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  No, we're in the throes.

• 45:25Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  Like, what's gonna happen with our major competitors? Like, are they gonna try and launch stuff we're doing, probably? You know, will we get to be a sustainably, you know, healthy business? Yeah, it looks like it, but, you know, but it's really, requires sort of a commando crawl still.

• 45:42Guy Raz?

  And still crazy amount of work, all the time?

• 45:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a crazy amount of work all the time. Like I said, there are just so many talented people now to share it. But I can't help myself. Like, I do always want to be skimming, you know, customer support tickets and things like that.

• 46:00Guy Raz?

  How much to this point have you raised?

• 46:03Speaker 01

  We've raised 37 million dollars.

• 46:05Guy Raz?

  I mean, at some point, all these investors...

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, they want something back.

• 46:10Guy Raz?

  They want something back. And so they're gonna either...

• 46:11Speaker 01

  Send them.

• 46:12Guy Raz?

  And there are two options. It's either you go public or you sell to somebody else, right? Are those the only options?

• 46:18Speaker 01

  Those are probably the two most likely options. Yeah, the good options. Do I think we can be a big enough company to go public? Absolutely. And I think we can be a fundamentally good enough company, too, and understandable enough and a forecastable enough business to go public. Yeah, I believe that. I also believe all of those things that make us interesting would make us interesting.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  As a partner of another business.

• 46:42Guy Raz?

  Does it, I mean, obviously, you couldn't do what you've done without those investors and that money. But does any part of you kind of think, I wish I could have figured out how to do this without taking in money?

• 46:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've given up a tremendous amount of ownership. I think people would be shocked by how much. So at some point, I bet I'll reflect on that. But really, I think a lot about the fact that I don't think it would have worked unless we had done it in this really full way, this really high-quality way. And the money allowed me to recruit truly the best people, these terrific people, and use very good materials and have a very open liberal return policy and everything that has to go into building a great company. And so I just don't think I could have done it another way.

• 47:30Guy Raz?

  I think a lot of people, I think a lot of people hear $37 million and just assume that you have $37 million. But, I mean, of course, that's not the case, right?

• 47:41Speaker 01

  No, and I'm not the highest-paid member of the team by any stretch.

• 47:44Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  So that is interesting. I think that's very confusing to people. There's a lot of, you know, this thing is real. We employ a lot of people. We are growing really rapidly. Those are, you know, real.

• 47:57Guy Raz?

  But you are not, like, swimming in money and throwing it up in the air.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  No, that is a funny thing. We still have, you know, cash-strapped conversations.

• 48:07Guy Raz?

  Do friends of yours just assume that you're, like, rolling in cash?

• 48:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I laughed because I started to get a lot of things from, like, all the schools I went to. A lot of like, oh, I bet you're a big donor. I'm like, oh, not yet.

• 48:19Guy Raz?

  Yeah. But the thing is, is that there's a very high possibility that you will, this will make you very rich. If this turns out the way your investors imagine, you imagine.

• 48:31Guy Raz?

  It can make you into a very rich person. How important is that to you?

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Right. It sounds cute, but it cannot be my focus. It truly, if I take my eye away from the ball at all on what we're delivering, it will crumble. I strongly believe that.

• 48:47Guy Raz?

  And this is just like, has to be, far and away, the hardest thing you've ever done.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  Oh, it is so hard. I laugh about, you know, saying, well, I worked at a lot of startups. Like, that has nothing to do with this. It has nothing, it is like barely even preparation for this. It is extremely hard. I mean, it's just, it's like, in some ways, I almost think like, come at me. Like, I have, I'm emerging so much stronger. Like, you could throw anything at me.

• 49:16Guy Raz?

  Susan, I know that you guys are still in the, in the building mode and phase of the company. But this is a question that I ask, you know, pretty much everyone on the show, which is, do you think that so far, you know, your success and the success of Framebridge is because of your hard work and intelligence? Or, or is a lot of it just luck?

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course, a lot is luck. Truly, all my early team was plucked from different jobs. And so, a lot was being able to really pull everything together. And like, it's really a windsy road. A lot is luck, but a lot is hustle. And I think, I think a lot about the intersection, I guess, luck and belief. I believed in this idea. I believed I could do it. I still believe it will be a big business. And I think that translates to luck. So, a lot is like, I just believed enough.

• 50:11Guy Raz?

  You know, one thing we don't always talk about on the show is just the amount of personal sacrifice that it takes to build a company, right? Like, you know, time spent away from your partner, or your kids, or your family. And you probably haven't taken, you know, a whole lot of vacations over the past few years. Is it still worth it?

• 50:32Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And it's really, it's the people understanding this dream part that's worth it. It really is walking through our facilities and seeing what people framed. Like, that is just amazing. It's like, I believed you had this stuff, and you did. And so it truly, I'll see someone and they'll have like a scarf from The Running of the Bulls or passes from Disney World. And I'm like, yes, like, I believed you wanted to frame that stuff and you got it. You understood what we did and you're doing it with us. And that is just a, it's just a thrill.

• 51:07Guy Raz?

  What is the, what's the most unusual thing that you've been asked to frame?

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. We framed a lot of unusual things. We did frame a ponytail, which was fascinating. But, but sure, you know, we're up for anything. My favorite, actually, one of, one of my favorite things we framed was a cardboard piece of a kid's fort and it had the rules of the fort on it. And these kids had done it when they were young and the mom had saved it and framed it for them when they were in their early twenties. You know, they're framed rules of the fort, but they were really, really endearing, like, be kind. Like, the rules were really, you know, reflective of the way you should be. And, and the mom wrote us a note saying, you know, these kids get iPhones. Like, I give them everything.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  And this, like, was hands down the best of Christmas. And so, you know, that was like, you get it.

• 52:05Guy Raz?

  Susan Tynan, founder of Framebridge. By the way, remember that first investor she pitched? Tig Savage? The guy who encouraged her to start the company and then told her he wasn't ready to invest? Well, it turns out Susan managed to change his mind. And Tig's actually invested in Framebridge in every subsequent round. And today, he sits on her board.

• 52:41Guy Raz?

  And stick around because in just a moment, we're going to hear from you about the things you're building.

• 52:48Guy Raz?

  Thanks for sticking around because it's time now for how you built that. And this story begins with Alex Van Dewark of Chico, California, who has a question.

• 52:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's-- have you ever mixed concrete before?

• 53:01Guy Raz?

  I personally have not mixed concrete before, but Alex has mixed a ton of it, especially when he was a teenager, helping out with small jobs at his dad's construction company.

• 53:11Speaker 02

  And typically, what you do is you grab a bag of concrete, you put it in the wheelbarrow, you break it open, you throw water in there, and you use a shovel to mix it around. And then you wheel that wheelbarrow wherever you need, and you pour it.

• 53:24Guy Raz?

  And when you do this over and over, it can get to be a real pain.

• 53:28Speaker 02

  It takes too long, it's messy. And then pouring it is just too challenging to do. So my dad and I would say, OK, we need a better way to mix this stuff.

• 53:38Guy Raz?

  And so one day, kind of on the fly, really, Alex and his dad ditched the wheelbarrow, and they decided to use a lightweight tarp instead. They poured the cement and the water onto the tarp and then held it up between them.

• 53:52Speaker 02

  And instead of using a shovel or any other tool, I would just use these four corners, and I would kind of pick one side up at a time and effectively fold the pile of concrete and water over itself. And it would mix very quickly. And then you could just sort of pick up the tarp from one side and pour it in to where you needed it.

• 54:11Guy Raz?

  OK, so it's a pretty basic hack. And Alex really didn't think much of it. But a few years later, when he was taking business classes at college, he said to his dad, you know, maybe we can make a thicker tarp to mix cement and then sell it.

• 54:25Speaker 02

  But for us, it was like this really difficult leap. And, you know, how do we create something that does what we want it to do without knowing how to create it? We didn't really-- we're not experts in the textile industry. We know how to mix concrete, and that's it.

• 54:42Guy Raz?

  So in order to market a mixing mat that people would actually want to buy, Alex had to invent a tarp that would form kind of a bowl when you held it, so the cement wouldn't spill out. And then the tarp had to be tough and waterproof. And even after he and his dad found just the right material.

• 55:00Speaker 02

  It's called a polyester denier blend, and it's coated with PVC.

• 55:04Guy Raz?

  Even after they found that, they still had to find a way to make the actual mat.

• 55:09Speaker 02

  I was calling people in China and Mexico, trying to just see like, OK, who can make this? And I thought it would be easy. And that took years to do.

• 55:20Guy Raz?

  Well, they finally got the mat manufactured a few years ago. But when they pitched it to their dream retailer, Home Depot, Home Depot said no.

• 55:30Speaker 02

  The funny thing is, I spent probably a year learning the same lesson over and over, which is you're not gonna get into Home Depot if you're a nobody.

• 55:40Guy Raz?

  So this is where a brand-new business has to pivot. And that's exactly what Alex did. He figured maybe he could get churches and charities to buy the mix mats and then donate them to places that really needed them.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  You know, a huge amount of people that are impoverished in rural areas of the world that have absolutely nothing, and they live on dirt floors.

• 56:01Guy Raz?

  And Alex says several donors have already bought the mats to help rebuild after natural disasters in places like Haiti and Mexico.

• 56:08Speaker 02

  You know, it started off as this low-tech product. We just wanted to sell to make some money. And it has transformed into an opportunity to help people.

• 56:19Guy Raz?

  That's Alex Van Dewark, co-owner, along with his dad, of Up LLC, which makes the mix mat. For now, the business is not making a ton of money, so Alex is still working with his dad's construction company and keeping his day job as a firefighter. If you want to find out more about the Mixmat, head to our Facebook page. And of course, if you want to tell us your story, go to build.npr.org. And thanks for listening to our show this week. If you want to find out more or hear previous episodes, you can go to howibuiltthis.npr.org. Please also subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts or however you get your podcasts. You can also write us. It's h i b t at npr.org.

• 57:02Guy Raz?

  You can tweet us. That's at howibuiltthis. Our show was produced this week by Rachel Faulkner, with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. Thanks also to Neva Grant, Sanaz Meshkhanpour, Claire Breen, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Diana Mustak. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This from NPR.