This is staying connected with xfinity to make moving. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and twohour appointment windows. Click, call or visit a store today. Good morning. Coming up on your business. Clothing rentals. Christine, founder of begin i b finds out thats how well fill our closets. Terry crews adds business startup to his lineup. If youve used a public bathroom and the door wouldnt close, you want to see the elevator pitch. Will our shopify judges give it guy . We have information to run your business. Thats all coming up next on your business. Msnbc your business is sponsored by american express. Dont do business without it. Hi there everyone. Im jj ramberg and welcome to your business. The show dedicated to helping your growing companies. Christine hunsaker is one impressive ceo. She had a big idea to use data, k technology to apply it to any business. Didnt matter to her what business. That led her to the retail industry. A space that a lot of People Arent Clamoring to get into these days. Undeterred. She launched a Clothing Rental Company in 2011 and used it as a case study for her bigger
company Castle Changing the face of clothing rental and making it a Turnkey Service for all. When Christine Hunsaker talks about the genesis of her Clothing Rental Company, gwynnie bee. You hardly hear the word fashion. In spite of her product, her passion is not clothing. My nerdy thing are marketplaces and economic models. I get excited about that. Not so much whatever industry you apply that to. After 17 years in technology and data startup, christine wanted to do something ambitious. As for the criteria, she was product agnostic. We came up with three core principles, long lasting institution, use Data Technology to disrupt and positively impact the end lives of customers. Where she landed was retail. An industry in turmoil ripe for
a new revenue model. Her thought . We rent so many other things, cars from uber, rooms through airbnb, why not clothing . When you launched this company, you said you can rent your clothes. What was the response . Crickets were chirping. This wasnt a surprise. Christine knew shed have to educate the consumer. Thats why gwynnie bee existed. This company which she put millions of dollars into was a proof of concept. The first pitch step has a platform. Its going to take us a little while to get there. We will eventually get there sniept the platform is castle. It now takes up the bulk of christines 400plus person company. Castle is a service that allows any retailer to enter into the new economy for apparel. Its the technology, the logistics, the front end Consumer Experience and even the Customer Service that allows any retailer to quickly offer a
rental service to their consumers. I have my own clothing line, jjs clothing. I use your service and now im renting it out easily. Youll have jjs rental. Com or whatever fancier name you come up with. You dont like that name. Jjs stale box. Maybe my brand wouldnt work but there are big names that thil they can. Christine signed up ann taylor, new york and company and express. Jim hill is the chief Customer Experience officer of express. The rental model actually makes a lot of sense for a fairly large number of consumers, for them to try new styles, look at new trends that they might want to explore. Rental for us has been something weve been looking at for a while and were excited to launch it. Christine thinks shell launch 6 to 12 brands on the platform pretty soon. This is the realization of the dream she set out to accomplish when she launched gwynnie bee. Which begs the question, why did she go through the trouble to create her own Consumer Brand when really she wanted to be the back end for others . Its incredibly expensive to build out this service. You have to understand what you have to figure out what matters from a metrics perspective. We made a lot of mistakes, but we did that on our dime with our consumers and our inventory. She thinks if she went to the retailers off the bat we would have been laughed out of the room. By the time she pitched them, she had seven years of Running Gwynnie Bee under her belt and came with piles and piles of data. All the product, the warehouse, the customers, its all part of the platform, part of castle. Gwynnie bee is a tenant as express or new york and company or ann taylor. I think of myself as a consumer. I will buy anything that sequined in hot pink. But only going to wear it once. I think the average woman wears 20 of her wardrobe in a given year. She had made her mistakes, as she said, on her own dime. At one point early on, we realized that the clothing wasnt coming back from an external cleaner quickly enough and we visited the cleaner and all of our clothes were stacked up in a corner from floor to kriel. When your head of logistics called you and said theres a kofrn full of gwynnie bee clothing dirty, piled up here, what was your reaction . I dont think im allowed to curse. My initial reaction is, this is ridiculo ridiculous. Now that she had big brands on board, shes collecting new data which will help her answer the biggest question she gets from potential partners. How does this not cannibalize the customers coming into the stores and buying things. Necessity buy differently than they rent. This is not a replacement for ownership. This is a complement to ownership. Im buying black pants and i see this amazing big flowered shirt that i want to buy but dont want to spend money on it. Now ill rent that. Yes. What the brands are seeing is that people are spending not only more time engaging in the brands but a significant amount of more money with the rent. Christine and her partners have been quiet about castle. They wanted to make sure everything worked. With express, the launch was big. Christine hunsaker says her platform helps retailers attract new customers and increase their spending. Christine joins us now. After seven years, you feel like were ready. We dont need to keep it quiet anymore. We can now start talking. Americas got terry crews. Thats what the brooklyn 99 star said when he was named the newest host for the hit nbc
show, americas got talent. What many of the former nfl players loyal fans might be surprised to learn is that terry was gifted with the ability to draw from a very early age. He has spent a lifetime hoping for a chance for his innate talent to truly shine. Well, a few years ago, that opportunity came. Terry became a buzzed about Furniture Designer almost overnight. Take one look at the life of Television Star terry crews. Hey and you will see he is living proof that dreams really can come true. Actor, nfl player, artist. The brooklyn 99 star pursued multiple careers throughout his lifetime all with passion and ambition. Two years ago terry added yet another somewhat unexpected title to his resume. Furniture designer. When someone comes up to you and says i love your furniture, what do you think . Let me tell you, thats probably one of the best compliments i could ever get. When the Furniture Line came out, it was my version of a 200 million movie. You know what i mean . Because it was a release. There were people who viewed it. I sat back, like, do they like it . And the reaction. People are like, this sofa, this chair, these tables and it really hit me. Terrys passion for art started at a very early age. After graduating high school he received an art scholarship. But soon after that, the world of football lured him in. In 1991, the Los Angeles Rams drafted terry and for the next six years he played for a handful of nfl teams. But his creative fire was always burning. When i would get cut from an nfl team, i would go back in the locker room and ask the players if they wanted their portraits painted. I would say look, man, i am going to do you over the city. You are going to be a giant. Youre going to look amazing. They were like, man, how much is that . Im like sign right here. You get cut from an nfl team. You go back into the locker room to all of your old teammates and say let me paint you now. Thats right. Its humbling. You had to really eat crow. What i learned is thats the ego that gets in the way. Your own pride is your own problem. When his Football Career ended, terry headed to the west coast with his ayes set on hollywood and for nearly two decades, he has entertained audience ws his flair for humor and undeniable talent. In 2014, terry crossed paths
with jerry helg at the helm of a modern murn tur company. He said i know youre an artist. I did research on you. He said im interested in what you can do. I was like, me . Youre kidding . My design, my sketches . Youre free from expectations, right . My thoughts were ill show him everything. If it sucks, hell say thank you very much. It doesnt work out. But oh, my god, he was like, this doesnt work, this works. Im like, that works . Hes like this works. Terrys first furniture collection launched in 2016. A big success for bernhardt. Hes a dreamer and doesnt understand the word stop, no. He finds a way. Wood around the back, man. He has an incredible sense of scale and proportion. He knows how to make beautiful lines and beautiful shapes. Collection number two launched this year. This is the key. Being a good businessman or a good artist, its about knowing how to market. A lot of artists dont know how to sell. Its one thing to be an amazing artist. But you have to be a great salesman. When you think of business, you think of competition, though. You have to beat out the competitors. What happens is people are trying to compete to be like you. The ones who are the most creative are not competing. Theyre always on their own level. Here i would do the back the couch and try to make it threedimensional. You say how can i make it more interesting. You might draw over it. It might be cooler if i did a circle over that. This is what i learned to do as a a kid. Thats kind of cool. When you are creative, you can last. You can stay in your own lane and be your own thing. I think to be a really, really successful businessman is one who has created this thing that no one else can compete with. The fact that my mom passed away about three years ago and she would always tell me, she said you know what, all this football and all this other stuff, she goes baby, remember, youre an artist. You are an artist. Thats the first thing you are. She wasnt able to see it. But i still feel her like looking down on me and her pride at the collection. Her pride at, like, hes this is what you always talked about. This is what you are. The design world really embraced me. For todays elevator pitch, weve partnered with shopify. One of the leading platforms. They work with more than 600,000 merchants. Were out of our studio and here at the row dtla where shopify opened a space. A permanent space that will help merchants grow their business. Now, there are two great prizes if the Elevator Pitcher wins. The first is they get to have their product in one of the Shopify Stores getting lots of consumers to see the product. Number two, this is pretty amazing, they get a mentorship with someone if from shopify and get a lot of help figuring out how to grow their company. Lets see how the pitcher does. Todays Elevator Pitcher is suzanne estes. Good to see you. Thak you. You too you came from where . Florida. Came crosscountry for this. Lack a loo, right . You know what, if you ever need a jingle for the end of your commercial, i can sing that for you. Okay, good. What would shopify mean for
you if you won this in . It would change the world. I need a product that needs to be visualized. Everybody has this problem. But shopify will allow me to visualize this. And be in their stores . Definitely. Do you have any mentors . I do not. To be able to have someone to bounce things back off of would be awesome. Youre a physics teacher. I am. You said youre an introvert. You must be good at presenting because youve been teaching for all these years. Im guessing you have great reviews, the little time ive spent with you you seem fantastic. Thank you. Let me talk about who youre talking to. Harvey, the coo of shopify. Hes been doing it for a while. He knows what works. And michelle was in your shoes. Know that you have someone who can empathize with you. Shes the ceo and founder of lively. She gets it. Good. If youre feeling nervous at
all, look there and know somebody exactly understands what youre feeling. Thank you. All right. Lets see how you do. Okay. Hi. Im suzanne from florida. I am the inventor of the lock a loo. I know youve experienced this before. Youre out and about with your besties and the need to go arises. You end up in a bathroom with a broken lock or no hook. You end up hovering over the toilet seat holding your bag with one hand and trying to prevent anyone from walking in on you with the other. What are you going to do . Lock a loo. Its attached to your bag and open the stall door and put it between the door and the doorjamb and slowly close the door. It holds your bag up off the dirty floor and prevents anyone from walking in on you while doing your business. Shopify, are you going to join me and partner with me to get the word out . I know everybodys experienced this situation, but nobody knows
theres a solution. So lock a loo. Help me keep america bag safe hands clean and your business private. Lock a loo. I feel like that one deserves a round of applause. Amazing. You got to do some commercials latenight television. I got some questions. Is it a Door Fastener or something to help hold your purse . It hold your bag up, up to 20 pounds. But it prevents anybody from walking in on you. It doesnt lock the door but gives anybody an awareness that someone is in the stall. Most stalls are hovering like this and people push and people say im in here. How often does it arise . Is there any Data Research . There is no data. I said about the hands clean. Youre only touching up here, so the germophobe. I use it all the time. It also works in a Shopping Cart and hold it and twist it in the slats and it holds your bag secure in a Shopping Cart. I use it in a lot of different purposes. Im going to let you deliberate. Thank you. By the way, i love the setup here. You built this yourself, right . I sure did. You wouldnt get it i all the time put my bag on the hook and i need another hook. Exactly. It works for both. How much money have you put in the company . Ive put 30,000 into it. It was a patented product. A lot was for the patent. 30,000 of your own money. We got to get this out there. We sure do. Im going to bring them back in. Got to hear what you think. Come back into the bathroom. The moment of truth. Will the lock a loo be in the
shopify store. The answer is no. But i bet theres a good reason. Its not a no. Its not yet. First thing is, we think your product is interesting. But it needs more product development. If people are putting them on your really nice purses or handbags, it has to look really good. It looks like a prototype. I do have a manufacturer i have a mold designed and built. I think actually as you develop your product, make it more custom solution as opposed to somebody that seems hacked together. I think youll get more customers with. I think its important to understand the market size and how much youre addressing. Focus group and understand how much the need arises for the women around you and youll be able to understand how broadly you impact the world. By the way, start with a survey. A cheap survey before you go doing market research. I love that the problem that we talked about right here is you have it developed. Great entrepreneur. By the way, you learned how to design and print these by yourself. Youre on your own. Youre almost there sfliemt congratulations. Thank you. Getting a customer once takes a lot of work, so you do not want to lose them once youve got them. Here are the top five tips for creating repeat business. One, stay in touch with the customers you already have. Send emails to them, remote special offers, wish them a happy birthday, and send appointment reminders, if you can. This is a great way to get repeat business. Two, create memberships. This is a good way to increase the number of loyal customers you have. You can create offers that bring in more business. Three, provide excellent service. Have a good Customer Relationship team. That can make all the difference. For a lot of Small Businesses, how you talk to the customer is just as important as what you
say. For, ask for feedback. Using surveys is one of the best ways to find out what youre doing right and what youre doing wrong. Also, you can simply ask people when you talk to them. And five, stay active on social media. Keep an active presence on all your social media channels, and that will help keep your brand in your customers thoughts. We are in the middle of the third season of our podcast, been there, built that. I get to talk to Business Owners about the highs and lows of running their customompanies ans been really, really interesting. In 2010, Karen Sideman Becker took a big risk and bought the Company Clear which had gone into bankruptcy. That is the Biometrics Company that gets you through security at the airport and other places very soon fast. Now it has over 2 million customers. She talks to me about how important it is to be innovative and why she takes an optimistic
approach to life. I hope you get a chance to listen to it. And if you do, please leave some comments. We would love to hear what you think. Please check it out. Its called been there, built that. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Still to come, growth hacks you can implement today in your p business. And the conundrum of collecting data on your customers while still protecting their privacy. Youre in the business of helping people. Were in the business of helping you. Business loans for eligible card members up to Fifty Thousand dollars, decided in as little as 60 seconds. The powerful backing of american express. Dont do b