Advice Line with Kip Tindell of The Container Store

Today’s callers: Juliette in France wonders how to raise awareness of her “magical” cooling device—without a costly ad campaign. Then David in North Carolina looks to grow the wholesale channel of his engraved gifts business in light of thinning retail margins. And Kaitlin in California wants to leverage the virality of her supportive, bordered sheets and create an enduring sleep brand. Plus, Kip reflects on The Container Store’s bankruptcy and acquisition, and plugs patience and persistence as the keys to sustainable growth. Thank you to the folks at CoolaWand, Hazel Grove Customs, and Kaomi Sleep for being a part of our show. If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode—where Guy and former show guests take questions from early-stage founders—leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to [email protected] or call 1-800-433-1298. And be sure to listen to The Container Store’s founding story https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-container-store-kip-and-sharon-tindell/id1150510297?i=1000680305547 as told by Kip and his wife Sharon in 2024. This episode was produced by Alex Cheng with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Jimmy Keeley. You can follow HIBT on X https://x.com/HowIBuiltThis & Instagram https://www.instagram.com/howibuiltthis/ and sign up for Guy’s free newsletter at guyraz.com http://guyraz.com/ or on Substack https://guyraz.substack.com/. 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.

• 0:01Guy Raz?

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• 5:39Guy Raz?

  Hello and welcome to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on this show, who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. All right, let's get to it. Joining me today is Kip Tindell. He's the co-founder and former CEO of The Container Store. Kip, welcome back to the show.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  Thank you. Really happy to be back. We had a lot of fun last time. I hope we can this time.

• 6:20Guy Raz?

  We did. It was great to have you back. So you were first on the show back in 2024, when of course you told the story of The Container Store. It's an awesome story. In 1978, you and your friend Garrett Boone opened the first Container Store in Dallas. Your wife Sharon joined pretty soon after. And a lot of people don't understand what a big deal it was at the time, because back then, people couldn't just get containers or corrugated boxes for moving. You had to go to the trash bins and find flattened boxes if you want to move house. And so the idea of a store that sold those things was kind of revolutionary. Fast forward, of course, the business expands massively. I think by 2013, you went public. And today, there are about 100 locations. It's a great story.

• 7:05Guy Raz?

  And as always, for anyone listening, if you missed it, we will put a link to it in the show notes. Go back and check it out. It's really fun. So Kip, the timing of our original episode was interesting, if you remember, because soon after we spoke, The Container Store, which you are not involved with at all anymore, but it announced it was filing for bankruptcy. And then, I think a few months ago, it was actually acquired by Bed Bath & Beyond for about $150 million. Now, again, I know you and Sharon stepped away a long time ago from the business, but I was wondering, I mean, you have probably infinite thoughts about what happened, how it happened. I'd just be curious to hear.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  It was the most fun, wonderful, great, successful business for 43 years.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Nobody loved their work more. And we retired about eight or nine years ago, and it hasn't done that well since. Like a lot of entrepreneurs, we struggled to find just the right people to sell to and all of that. But retail has also changed with the advent of Amazon and online. And so it's been interesting. It is upsetting and painful to watch your baby, which this was definitely our baby, 16 hours a day, seven days a week for 43 years. Not do too well here recently. But not that many businesses last for 50 years anymore.

• 8:27Guy Raz?

  No, that's right.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  And if you look at all the top businesses 20, or 30, or 50 years ago on the New York Stock Exchange, most of them aren't so great anymore. And that's the thing we learn as we get older, is nothing is all that permanent.

• 8:42Guy Raz?

  Yeah, indeed, indeed. Kip, you briefly mentioned this idea when you talked about Amazon, right? So much has changed in retail. What do you see happening in retail today that is even more potentially disruptive? That could be the next thing that is going to shape how we shop?

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Well, the whole frictionless, no-people-involved definition of service. The difference between The Container Store and Neiman Marcus and companies like that, where you have this individualized, great salesperson selling a solution, I mean, a solution, not an item, that's kind of gone away. And now people are doing it on their own. There's really no people involved. There's no reason to have the highest-paid, best-salespeople in the industry anymore. I mean, we would have people come in that have been driven crazy by their toy storage area of their home for four or five years. And in 45 minutes, we could solve that problem for them. And when they left the store, they were elated. But it's hard to do online,

• 9:45Speaker 01

  and it's not what retail is really all about anymore.

• 9:49Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I mean, you could go into a Home Depot or a Container Store with what your problem was on ChatGPT or Claude and say, tell me exactly what I need to buy, how I install it. And I guess it can be done.

• 10:05Guy Raz?

  Although I, saying that, I still think that there is an opportunity to really offer excellent human-to-human customer service. And I think the brands and the stores that do that right, might find themselves in a really great position. You know, I have a local hardware store here that I go to, that's not as big as Home Depot, but the people who work there are really knowledgeable. And you know, look, I like Home Depot, but the reality is, you go to Home Depot today, and it's not always the case that people can really be helpful.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, since I've retired, I really enjoy great food and great wine. And if the waiter is great enough and really understands the food enough, I can really increase the enjoyment of my meal by how much knowledge that waiter has about the food, asking these detailed questions and whatnot. And there's still a lot of that in retail, but I hope it doesn't continue to diminish. And I hope that some people take it forward to have more of that, because there's a great joy in life when it occurs.

• 11:02Guy Raz?

  You know, a lot of, a lot of founders, Kip, ask me about growth, right? And there's differing views and changing views on growth now. For a while, it was grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. Now, there's a lot of focus on profitability, which I think is smart. What is your sort of philosophy around growth in retail? And how do you think about it?

• 11:20Speaker 01

  I mean, the entrepreneur, be it retail or anything, needs to decide how, you know, how fast they can grow without getting away from what brought them there in the first place. I mean, you know, I always pegged our growth at 20% a year, which in those days, 20% growth was astronomically fast. Now, it's not anymore, you know, with technology companies and that type of thing. But boy, retail back then, 20%, and I just stopped it at 20% because going faster than that, it would be like the RPM needle getting too far into the red. And we did that for over 40 years. I read every article I can find where there's sort of a nouvelle rebellious attitude that you don't have to grow at all.

• 12:03Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  It helps to grow a little bit because there is inflation.

• 12:06Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  You do want to reward great employees and that type of thing. And so, but this excessive growth is, is why so many companies frankly, don't make it. I mean, be humble enough to figure out what your limitations are, grow at that rate, and then do it for a long, long time, rather than trying to grow at astronomical proportions in a short period of time.

• 12:26Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Kip, you know, I think a lot of people, you know, who think about, well, one day, you know, I'll have made it, and I can retire, and here you are. You've done it. What are you prioritizing now? What is, I mean, you mentioned travel, of course, and things that you can do. But what about in a bigger way? What are some of the priorities that you and Sharon have kind of established for, you know, for the rest of your time here on earth?

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Sharon and I built this business together, and I love, I think you should work with the people you love. People say, oh, you shouldn't work with your spouse, you shouldn't work with your friends. Yes, you should. That's who, that's exactly who you should work. It doesn't always work out, but it doesn't always work out to work with people who are not your spouse and not your friends. And we loved it, I think more than anybody I know love their work. But now we love retirement even more than that. I mean, the freedom, my God, the lack of stress. I feel like a liberal arts student trying to decide what I'm going to major in. You know, I could do whatever the hell I want.

• 13:25Guy Raz?

  I love that.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  It's just incredible.

• 13:27Guy Raz?

  I love that.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  And I've really, I enjoy people that say that they enjoy growing older. I'm trying to do that. I think I do. I think the 60s are better than the 50s. I think the 50s are better than 40s. That's got to stop. I doubt the 90s are better than the 80s, right?

• 13:47Speaker 01

  That's got to stop at some point. But so far, we're loving growing older. So I would just submit to anybody listening that, I don't care how much you love your work, make time in your life for a little bit of retirement, because it is, it is just gloriously free.

• 14:02Guy Raz?

  I love that. All right. Kip, what do you say? Should we take our first call?

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Yep, love to.

• 14:07Guy Raz?

  All right, let's do it. Welcome to the advice line. You're on with Kip Tindell, co-founder of The Container Store. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just one line about your business, please.

• 14:17Speaker 02

  Hi, Guy. Hi, Kip. Before we start, I just want to say thank you so much. I've learned so much from listening to how I built this over the past years, and it's quite surreal to actually be here. Today, I'm Juliette Bruce, and I'm calling from Provence in the south of France. I'm the founder and creator of Cooler Wand. It's a reusable magic wand with a detachable frozen star that cools hot food and drinks pretty much in seconds, and has surprisingly become much more than that.

• 14:47Guy Raz?

  Well, okay, so thanks for calling, Juliette, and thanks for the kind words. All right. So you are based in France, or living in France right now, and you have a, so it's a wand with a, a frisable star on it, and you use it to cool drinks?

• 15:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:01Guy Raz?

  Am I getting that right?

• 15:02Speaker 02

  That's absolutely right. The frozen star of the wand lives in your freezer whenever food or drinks are too hot, or someone needs, actually, you know, now someone needs to soothe a bump, or an ache, or an itch. It's there. The frozen star cools in seconds without watering anything down.

• 15:19Guy Raz?

  I got it. Okay, okay. So now I'm, so this is for children, or I guess kid-oriented, because it's a wand.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 15:26Guy Raz?

  With a frozen end, and it's designed, I'm assuming it's designed for kids?

• 15:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, originally, my market was towards kids. It's a very magical thing. I obviously designed it for my kids myself. I've got three children, and they've always had really big problems with hot food. And it came, the idea just came because I thought it already existed. And I had no idea that something like that didn't exist before.

• 15:50Guy Raz?

  So you created it?

• 15:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely, from scratch. So I'm a scenographer originally. I design windows, and I create worlds for luxurious brands like Hermes. And I love creating worlds. And so I really thought my kids just needed a magic wand to cool their food down. And so I just went into production, drew it out, and then found, I mean, it was a really crazy road of finding the right people to obviously produce it. And I'm really high on quality, so I didn't want to have it produced with wrong materials, because today, people really don't want plastics to be badly made. So I've been really, really tight with the production, and we produce in Portugal.

• 16:31Guy Raz?

  Yeah, because Portugal, I remember buying baby food containers that were made in Brazil and Portugal when my kids were, you know, just like 15, 16 years ago, because that we would freeze baby food, and they were BPA free. So this is basically, it's like when you have a reusable ice cube that you might put in a cocktail. Essentially, it's the same concept. It's the star is the, and, and a kid can get a hot mug of cocoa and just stir that thing in there, and it'll cool it down instead of putting an ice cube in, which was always our, our fix. But then it waters down the drinks. How have you been doing, I mean, where are you, I'm assuming you're selling these on your website only right now?

• 17:04Speaker 02

  So far, I've sold direct to consumer through my website, of course, as you said. I place Cooler Wand in nine independent retailers in France, and one in Malta right now. I've been initiating discussions with power pharmacies. I've also reached out to cafes, family-friendly spaces, and even hospitals, actually, to test the environments where families can get a natural experience of it. And actually, recently, my son was in hospital, and the first thing he asked me, when they asked him if he wanted a cold, he asked for his Cooler Wand. So I realized that it was actually something very emotional and soothing for him.

• 17:38Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  I think the magic of the wand is so cool. And, you know, that's, that's a big part of this. And also, I chuckled, you know, I guess with the, the heat wave you've, you've had in Provence lately, you can't just wait for the food to cool, it's going to take a while.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  Well, to be honest, every adult has it out at the moment, I have to say, because cooling the temples really helps as well.

• 17:59Guy Raz?

  Juliette, before we dive in further, tell us what your question is for us.

• 18:02Speaker 02

  Yes. So my question was, I don't have the budget to launch the kind of awareness campaign a completely new product category probably needs. How do I create enough opportunities for people to discover it, so that it has a chance of becoming part of everyday life?

• 18:21Guy Raz?

  Okay, I want to bring Kip in. Kip, I'm curious, from a retail perspective, right? If Juliette was looking to get this into a store, like if somebody put this into the container store, how would a customer discover it?

• 18:34Speaker 01

  Well, it would be, it would be actually well-placed in the container store, because you have a very high service level, you know, so that they could relate, you know, the product. I was thinking this is more of a specialty independent retail store product than a mass merchant where there's no service at all. It's very interesting. I guess it's BPA free, yeah. And I think it's so important that you, you said you really were particular on that. And you just need to make that clear to everybody. I mean, particularly parents, right? And so that's, I would say that you need to just quintuple your efforts to make sure everybody understands that that is the materials that you've, that you've used.

• 19:14Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I mean, I think that's absolutely critical. You know, Juliette, what, I mean, this is a, a challenge, right? With somebody who has It doesn't have a significant budget, but of course, you know, we all have access to these social media tools. And again, this is something that doesn't necessarily benefit from advertising, but from the demonstration, seeing it in action, you know, and I can imagine, you may already be doing this, but I can imagine literally doing a version of the same video 1,000 times, just in different ways, you know? I can even imagine like a video of a mug of hot cocoa and you have a thermometer in there, in that mug, and you have the kid start stirring it and you watch the thermometer go down and you're, and you just, you don't

• 19:58Guy Raz?

  even need to comment. It's like, are you a parent? You have this problem every day. Here's the solution. You know, I'm sure you've got social media accounts and just make that a version of that video again and again, infinite video ideas. And I'm talking about like low, you can literally just put an iPhone on a stand, right?

• 20:16Speaker 02

  I love that. That's a great idea.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  Build up the fun and magic because God knows we need more fun and magic in the world.

• 20:23Guy Raz?

  Uh, that to me is, is one way. And then the other way is just seeing if you can identify parents of small kids who are influencers, but not mass, not million person influencers, but maybe they have a thousand followers and just message them. See if you can send them one.

• 20:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, we've had, we've had a really, really luck. Actually, I had an influencer who's for ADHD children and who I didn't know. And she actually bought the product and she talked about it. And actually that really helped a lot because it was so real and true and not forced or not. And that's what I find, I have trouble with is the fact that I just really want people to find happiness in this tool and not try and sell, you know? When you're in the, this industry and obviously you create dreams for people and this is what we do in retail or, you know, in advertising and all this, we're very hard on ourselves on basically what we're supposed to achieve. And obviously this takes obviously budget and I'm, I'm getting there. I just, it's about investment and I believe in it. So.

• 21:24Guy Raz?

  I mean, Hermes, the, you know, right? Their, their ad budgets are in the maybe hundreds of millions. I don't even know, tens of millions for sure. But this is, I mean, this could be fun. It could be really fun to just make these very simple videos with your kids or friends of your, you know, kids who are friends of yours.

• 21:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. Our Instagram is doing quite well. I mean, we have quite a lot of traction on there. I mean, we were, I mean, I don't know how much it is good traction, but we have a video. It's a half a million views and like 12,000 likes. And it's, it's really, they do like that. I'm, I'm on that trajectory. I just need to keep pushing and doing what you're saying, like just trying to make it more and more creative.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  Lots of times it just takes that relentless pursuit of the things that are working really well right now. And then after what seems like a forever amount of that, you get a few breaks where some big things happen and you get a little bit more scale, you know? Being patient has a lot to do with being humble and, and being okay with it taking a while. And it actually might take a long time, but that's the surest methodology. And if you do this sure and slow, steady thing, you have much less chance for failure and much better chance, I think, you know, for, for success.

• 22:34Guy Raz?

  Uh, the brand is called Coolawand. Juliette Bruce, thank you for calling in. Good luck.

• 22:39Speaker 02

  Thank you so much.

• 22:40Guy Raz?

  Thank you.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 22:43Guy Raz?

  All right. We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller and another round of advice. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to the Advice Line right here on How I Built This.

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• 27:43Guy Raz?

  Welcome back to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz and my guest today is Kip Tindell, co-founder of The Container Store, and we are taking your calls. And Kip, are you ready for our next call?

• 27:54Speaker 01

  I'm very ready. I can't wait. Here we go.

• 27:56Guy Raz?

  Let's bring in our next caller. Welcome to the Advice Line. I'm with Kip Tindell, co-founder of The Container Store. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a line about your business, please.

• 28:05Speaker 03

  Hi Guy. Hi Kip. I'm David Hyam and I'm from Burlington, North Carolina, and I own Hazel Grove Customs. At Hazel Grove Customs, we design, personalize, and engrave giftable items, including kitchenware, home goods, accessories, and novelty goods.

• 28:19Guy Raz?

  Thanks for calling in, David. Okay. So this is a, you personalized gifts and you said home goods and novelty goods. So like.

• 28:26Speaker 03

  Oyster suckers, knives, my best items are outside of the kitchen are going to be golf ball markers and train whistles.

• 28:32Guy Raz?

  Oh, nice.

• 28:33Speaker 03

  Most of our stuff is laser engraved.

• 28:35Guy Raz?

  And you do all the laser engraving onsite, in-house?

• 28:38Speaker 03

  Yes, we do just about everything in-house. Correct.

• 28:40Guy Raz?

  Cool. Tell me about the business. How long have you had it? And how's it, how are your sales? What's your expected revenue this year?

• 28:47Speaker 03

  Yeah. So the business was started in 2012. I ended up buying it in 2016. I was looking for another business. This was, I kind of bought this as a side business at the time. Then COVID came and COVID was actually spectacular for the business because we were mainly focusing on online sales at the time. But wholesale is where it's at. Wholesale has been growing significantly year over year. Year-to-date wholesale is actually just above 50% of the business.

• 29:13Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 29:13Speaker 03

  And the margins on wholesale are shockingly actually better than retail because people are buying a whole lot more at wholesale and they're not buying like a $6 or $7 item that I have to turn around and ship. So this year I'm hoping for about 350. Last year we did just over 300. We're up about 15% over the year before.

• 29:32Guy Raz?

  Got it. Okay. And your question for us?

• 29:34Speaker 03

  So like I said, we sell both retail and wholesale and wholesale sales have increased significantly over the past couple of years and have higher margins and a higher AOV. So how should I determine what the best path to grow wholesale? Is it adding more independent retailers, pursuing larger retail accounts, investing in trade shows, hiring sales reps, corporate gifting, or concentrating more on the channels that are already producing results?

• 29:57Guy Raz?

  I want to bring Kip Tindell in. Kip, thoughts, ideas, or questions for David?

• 30:01Speaker 01

  Uh, it sounds like a good business. Remember to enjoy it. It looks like you have a, a good future ahead of you. Specific to your question, you said, should I focus on adding more independent retailers? Yes, I think that's a good avenue. Pursuing larger retail accounts? Well, no, I think you should pursue the independent, smaller ones, even though the grandiose part of human nature is that you want to, you know, the larger ones will come once they see the independents doing really well. So if you're just patient and humble, which entrepreneurs struggle with that, but if we're patient and humble, the big things will come.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  Keep out that stuff that's really working, the channels that are already producing results. And so I'd say more independent retailers. Investing in trade shows? No, because trade shows are fading. You know, we have wholesale websites and all of that. I wouldn't, I wouldn't spend the money and time and effort into trade shows, but you mentioned sales representatives and I would do those. I have a lot of opinions about the sales reps. I mean, sales reps are great if they're on commission because they don't cost anything unless they're, they're selling. I guess same advice I give everybody, just focus on the things that are really working. I'm kind of boring in that pursuing humble, slower growth, but that's a good way to keep from going out of business, too.

• 31:26Guy Raz?

  Kip, I, I, I agree with you. I mean, look, he's doing, you're doing now, half of your business is coming from wholesale. And I think you want to really analyze the best, who your best wholesale customers are. You know, you want to identify the channels that are producing like the highest value and also the most loyal accounts because basically that's a proven playbook, right? And so you, when you hire sales reps, they are, you've already identified who your ideal wholesale customer is, and that's who they're going to be chasing.

• 31:57Speaker 03

  Okay. And we've already, we started, we, we've tried to narrow it down to see who, what type of business is a good customer for us. So we've been doing cold outreach to some of these businesses and it's turned into a couple of thousand dollars worth of sales over the past month. So it, I think there's potential there.

• 32:12Guy Raz?

  Yeah. And what about direct to consumer?

• 32:14Speaker 03

  Direct to consumer, we, our main channel that we use is Etsy. That's where we essentially bought an Etsy business 10 years ago. It does well. Etsy sales are, they're okay, but they're, they've been relatively flat for the past couple of years.

• 32:27Guy Raz?

  Lot of competition too on personalization on Etsy, yeah.

• 32:29Speaker 03

  It is, and with that too, the shipping rates have gone up. So now it's 650 to pretty much send any package at minimum. So I can't be selling those $10 items and charge 650. Customers don't want to pay that, so.

• 32:40Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  Corporate gifting, it sounds like your product would be great for corporate gifting, but how do you, how do you build a corporate gifting thing? What have you learned about that so far?

• 32:50Speaker 03

  They, we have some good customers that do corporate gifting, but that's all been inbound. I have not been successful doing any outbound outreach to them. They found us through Fair and they'll come, they'll buy sometimes four, five, six, 700 item, or units of an item that they want personalized. We'll turn it around within a couple of days and hopefully they come back.

• 33:09Guy Raz?

  Hmm. I mean, that inbound stuff is terrific and, and the key there, and you know this, is to provide the absolute best customer service possible. You know, we did an episode recently on the show about a company called Sweetwater and they are the biggest, they sell more musical instruments than anybody in America. They, it's the biggest, they sell audio, video equipment. You know, Amazon could crush them, but the secret of that, that business's success, as you'll hear in the episode, is customer service. They are so good at it. It's like Zappos, that Zappos model. And if you're getting that inbound and people are ordering, you know, 700 golf tees or,

• 33:52Guy Raz?

  with the company's logo on it, you want to make sure that you are treating them like a first-class customer, you know, and like a Michelin three-star customer, right?

• 34:01Speaker 01

  That's a great way to, to look at it. And the, the bigger things come once you do all of the smaller things right.

• 34:09Guy Raz?

  And if you can remember details, you know, one of the things Sweetwater does is their customer, I think they call them customer service engineers, they have index cards, I mean, they're electronic now, on every customer. They ask about their kids, they ask about their families, and people call up and they'll say, oh, isn't your son now old enough for college? And you know, they'll say, oh, how, how'd the football team do this season? I mean, literally.

• 34:30Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 34:31Guy Raz?

  And people are blown away by that stuff.

• 34:33Speaker 03

  No, no, I like that idea.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  We used to, we, after nine 11, we had people come in the store just because they needed somebody to talk to.

• 34:40Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  So we thought we must have a pretty good relationship with our customer, that they saw that as, you know, the place to come. And so building that with your customers, it will, it will, it will get hard to do it at that level as you become bigger, but by doing it that way now, you will become bigger, I think.

• 34:58Guy Raz?

  Yes.

• 34:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. Steady, steady.

• 35:01Guy Raz?

  David Hayam, his company's called Hazel Grove Customs. Good luck, man. Thanks so much for calling in.

• 35:05Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 35:06Guy Raz?

  All right. Good luck. Yeah. It's a really competitive space, the personalization channel, but you know, if you get the, the economics right, it sounds like they, they have it right. I mean, they're, they're doing most of the stuff in-house with laser engraving. It can be a great business.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  I think so. And I somehow have the intuition that they're going to do very well.

• 35:26Guy Raz?

  Yeah. I love this idea also. He, he mentioned that he bought the business a few years ago, and I'm hearing from more and more younger people, recent college graduates, who are getting interested in the idea of buying an existing business. Now, this is not a new strategy or tactic, but I think for a long time, people just thought it was boring, you know? But, but that's really, especially as more and more baby boomers are just looking to retire, a lot of them want to sell their business and, and many of them want to sell their businesses for a relatively small amount of money. Sometimes are also willing to mentor whoever buys it. And so there are some really interesting opportunities out there.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  Yep. If you can do it, it speeds it up a lot. And to do it all, all yourself, it started as all-consuming.

• 36:13Guy Raz?

  All right, we're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to the Advice Line right here on How I Built This.

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• 37:44Guy Raz?

  Welcome back to the Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz and today I'm taking your calls with Kip Tindall. He's a co-founder of The Container Store. And Kip, what do you say? Next caller, you ready?

• 37:54Speaker 01

  Let's go, Guy. This ought to be great.

• 37:56Guy Raz?

  All right, let's bring in our next call. Welcome to the Advice Line. You're on with Kip Tindall, founder, co-founder of The Container Store. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business, please.

• 38:06Speaker 06

  Hi, Guy. Hi, Kip. My name is Kaitlin Kael and I'm calling in from Orange County, California. I'm the founder and CEO of Kaomi Sleep, a company creating products that redefine how people experience comfort at bedtime. Our flagship product is the Sherpaness, a fitted bed sheet with soft supportive borders built within the perimeter.

• 38:22Guy Raz?

  Okay, welcome to the show, Kaitlin. So Kaomi Sleep, this is a, and I'm looking at your website now, and I want to describe this for people who are only listening to the show, which is, it's like a soft border, like full rectangular border around your mattress, like baby bumpers in a crib, but for adults, sort of, right?

• 38:42Speaker 06

  Correct. It's like a fitted sheet that pulls over your mattress and then the borders on top are sewn within the perimeter so they don't move. So as a teenager, I struggled with anxiety and every night I built a fortress of pillows and stuffed animals around me just to feel safe and secure enough to fall asleep. The problem is that by morning, everything had shifted or fallen off the bed, and that's why I created the Sherpaness, because we found that so many other people related to this.

• 39:09Guy Raz?

  So it's like a, like a, I mean, it's not like a weighted blanket, but it's a similar principle, which is you have this kind of comfort around you, right? Like that you are surrounded by these bumpers and you're sort of inside the bed. Tell me about, about the business so far. You, you launched this when and, and how are you, and how's it been doing so far?

• 39:27Speaker 06

  I launched Kaomi Sleep in November 2025, only eight months ago, while attending USC Marshall's full-time MBA program. And in just eight months, we've done $635,000 in revenue.

• 39:40Guy Raz?

  Incredible. Congratulations.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 39:43Guy Raz?

  All right, before we jump in further, tell us your question.

• 39:44Speaker 06

  So the Sherpaness had over 197 million social media views, 100% organically, which allowed us to scale through a pre-order model without raising outside capital. My question is, how do founders turn a viral product into a lasting brand?

• 40:00Guy Raz?

  Okay, that's a big question. Kip, I want to bring you in here. Really cool idea, right?

• 40:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. I would say that with the exposure you've had, you, you probably don't need to worry about sales as much as you need to worry about people copying, you know, what you have because of the, you know, so the, getting the patent, you know, we, we had a lot of success early at The Container Store and when we had absolutely no money, people were opening stores and calling it Suzie's Containers and that type of thing. And we didn't have enough money to hire patent attorneys to defend against that. And so I would think really early on, one of the main things you need to do is to find somebody. Patent attorneys are like golfers. You know, there's Kip Tindell on the golf course and there's Tiger Woods on the golf course. You want Tiger Woods, but maybe they could participate with you in a way, since you're

• 40:50Speaker 01

  not able to spend all your money on patent attorneys right now, maybe they can share in the future gain while protecting you while you're still vulnerable to all that because you can't afford to protect it.

• 41:01Guy Raz?

  Yeah, Caitlin, are you, what kind of protections are you working on, do you have in place?

• 41:05Speaker 06

  Right now, we have a provisional patent for the Sherpa Nest and then we also have the Sherpa Nest pending a trademark and we actually have experienced a lot of scams and copyright infringements. I think we had over 113 different accounts scamming other people using our product and images and we have been able to successfully take some of them down just by serving them DMCA's. And so that's what we've been doing so far to protect our brand. I'm not sure how scalable or sustainable that is, but I totally agree with you, Kip, that it's something we need to look out for.

• 41:37Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I mean, listen, this is a, both a good and bad problem to have, not, not only what Kip was talking about, but the virality problem because, you know, we've seen this and we've had versions of this question on the advice line where you just put something out there and it just hits. And, and then the concern is how do you capture that for the long haul, right? Because the algorithm changes or, you know, virality is borrowed attention, right? And so the question is, and it's a good question, is how do you, it's not how do you maintain that momentum? You won't be able to get 197 million views again and again and again, but it's how do you capture as much as you can and build a brand around the feeling of what you're

• 42:21Guy Raz?

  talking about and not the product, because the feeling is security. I guess one of the things I would do, aside from just really leaning into, you know, as much as you, as many videos and as much of that as you can, is other sort of secondary items, right? Like different patterns or fabrics or maybe pillows, maybe you're thinking about these things already, you know, different kinds of, but I would really start to think about, okay, we're building a sleep brand here. You know, just like Eight Sleep is a sleep brand, just like Calm, you know, these, these meditation apps are kind of, they're sleep brands. How can we be a 360-degree sleep brand with this as our hero product?

• 43:05Guy Raz?

  People are, are spending a lot of money on sleep and that to me is, is where the opportunity is.

• 43:11Speaker 06

  That's a great idea. Totally agree.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  I think you have a great tailwind in that the world is really interested in getting more sleep now. We've identified that as perhaps the most healthy thing you could do for your, you know, for your health. And the viral thing, great, embrace it. I still think you should get seven or eight hours sleep, but maybe this is the time that you just really redouble your efforts to relentlessly pursue those things that seem to be working the best. Forget about the things that you haven't thought of yet that you think might catapult it to the next level. Those things usually aren't there or around the corner or they're coming later if you'll just do an even redoubled, better job pursuing the things that seem to be working the best, you know, right now.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  And then you'll maybe hit another viral moment a little bit farther down the road.

• 44:00Guy Raz?

  And when it comes to the knockoffs and the copycats, I mean, it's gonna happen. I would be really careful not to let it distract you and obsess you because as we've seen on the show in the past, it can really damage businesses. TRX, you know, that, that was, they fought copycats for so long, eventually it was okay, but it can really consume you. I would focus really on building the brand as the, you know, the sleep brand.

• 44:25Speaker 06

  That's definitely something I'll look into.

• 44:27Guy Raz?

  Yeah, it's a really cool idea. It's, the brand's called Kailme Sleep. Caitlin Kao, thank you so much for calling in.

• 44:33Speaker 06

  Thank you so much for the advice.

• 44:35Guy Raz?

  Yeah, good luck. I love when people come up with just original ideas that, you know, things that you just haven't seen before. And I should be careful when I say original because of course, you know, everything is derivative of something else, but still like, this is cool. I haven't seen something like this out there. A cozy, right? Yeah, it's cool.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  From our own experience, you know, it's very original, very personal, and I think that's gonna help her do very well.

• 45:00Guy Raz?

  Yeah, for sure. Kip, before I let you go, a question for you. If you could go back now to when you and, and Sharon and Garrett were starting out, knowing what you know now about the business, retail business, what would have been helpful, do you think? What could you have told yourself back then that would have been helpful?

• 45:17Speaker 01

  Everybody said that we were admirably patient. You know, we weren't in a hurry to have a thousand stores or anything like that. We were patient and we were getting it right. And Tiger Woods, when he's leading a golf tournament, I worked with a nonprofit group that sponsors a tournament here in Dallas. And when, when Tiger was winning the tournament, he wouldn't go running around at night like everybody else. He went to the driving range and practiced more, you know? And so just that type of relentless humility, you know, driving to be even better than you've been in the past and patience. I think that builds a business more truly than anything else.

• 45:55Guy Raz?

  Yeah, it is great advice. That's Kip Tindell, co-founder of The Container Store. Kip, thank you so much for coming back onto the show.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  It was great being with you again. All the best to you.

• 46:04Guy Raz?

  It's great to have you. And by the way, if you haven't heard Kip's original How I Built This episode, go back and check it out. We'll put a link to it in the show notes. And here's one of my favorite moments from that interview. July 1st, 1978, the first container store, I guess, is opened. Do you remember people walking into the store in those early days saying, "You're charging for empty boxes?"

• 46:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot of people said that. My father had a birthday party and I was the bartender and, you know, they're like, "Son, you're gonna open a store selling empty boxes? You know, that, that's gonna be really hard," you know? And it was humiliating. And boy, trying to explain it before we actually put the products on the shelves and opened the store was embarrassing.

• 46:51Guy Raz?

  Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at guyraz.com. Each week it's packed with tons of insights from entrepreneurs and my own observations and experiences interviewing some of the greatest entrepreneurs ever. And if you're working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business, the issues or questions you'd like help with, and hopefully we can help you with them. And make sure to tell us how to reach you.

• 47:25Guy Raz?

  You can send us a voice memo at [email protected] or call us at 1-800-433-1298 and leave a message there. And we'll put all this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Alex Cheng with music composed by Runtine Arab Louis. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Jimmy Keeley. Our production staff also includes Kerry Thompson, Carla Estevez, Casey Herman, J.C. Howard, Sam Paulson, Chris Messini, Catherine Seifer, Diva Grant, and Elaine Coats. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to How I Built This.

• 48:09Guy Raz?

  If you're running a small business and payroll benefits and hiring feel like a lot, you're not alone and Just Works is ready to help because you don't have to worry when it just works.