Keith [00:00:01] This is The Changeup. I'm Keith Hernandez, and this week we welcome Claire Mazur, co-founder of Of A Kind and co-author of Work Wife. We learn what it feels like to start your own business, sell it, walk away and then start something new. We also dig into the dynamics that make a powerful business partnership that lasts. And finally, I get a lesson in the art of the Amazon crushing. Awesome. Claire, great to have you here. Thank you for joining us.
Claire [00:00:29] Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. Such a good excuse to talk to you.
Keith [00:00:33] Yeah. You know, that's really the reason I'm doing this podcast. That's right. As people that I love, that I don't get to see because of the pandemic, it forces us all to get in front of a camera in front of a microphone and chat.
Keith [00:00:44] So thank you for doing it.
Claire [00:00:45] It's why everybody does a podcast.
Keith [00:00:46] Exactly. So you've been doing one for a while, right? It's been, what, six years since you started.
Claire [00:00:51] Yes, 2010. 2015, exactly. Yeah, a little over six years.
Keith [00:00:55] OK, cool. What have you learned in those six years? Wow.
Claire [00:00:59] I wish I could say that I've learned something about podcasting. OK, what have I learned. The biggest thing I've learned is. Is just watching an industry change because it has changed so much since I've started it specifically around the ad revenue and the ad model and how people are thinking about buying ads with podcasts. I think that's been a fascinating learning. I think I've also learned that consistency is such a big part of it. And and and that goes for all content, but also life in general. Just, you know, showing up regularly is sometimes half the battle. Yeah. And I think my initial reaction to being like I haven't actually learned anything is just because I do think for me anyway, the podcast is so much just like showing up, doing it, and then I immediately forget everything I said. And then friends will text and be like, oh my God, I love that thing. And they'll deliver a no-context thing. Like, I have no clue what you're talking about. And they're like on the podcast this week, you said that thing. And I'm like, oh, right. So I don't know that I've learned things in that way. But yeah, I mean, I love podcasting as a format in general. I think it's been a lot of fun.
Keith [00:02:02] So you do the podcast with Erica that you have called your work life not only in person, but you published a book together. Talk to me a little bit about your relationship with Erica, what you got, what you have created over the past decade together because a lot
Claire [00:02:18] so much so. Erica and I actually met in 2002, my freshman year in college. We both went to the University of Chicago for undergrad. And we're really good friends all throughout college. And then both moved to New York after graduation and in 2010 had this idea for a company called Of A Kind. And the premise was that we would sell pieces, limited edition pieces from emerging fashion designers, and tell the back story of the pieces and the designers who made them. And, you know, at the time, people weren't really combining content and commerce. And so it felt I mean, it was really sort of new and fresh, this idea that we were going to put just as much effort and energy on this website into selling as we were into storytelling. And it was also sort of the height. I don't want to call it the height of fast fashion because it feels like fast fashion has been at its height for a while. But it was really fast. Fashion was really hitting its stride. And this idea of small makers and limited edition pieces was really novel. And we launched that company in 2010 and grew it for nine years and over the course of the nine years expanded into beyond just fashion. We did home and beauty and like all lifestyle and out of that company grew a lot of things that, you know, the podcast, this newsletter that we continue to do now, all sorts of things that were effectively sort of content marketing, but were just things that interested us and that we were excited about at the time. And so we can get more into this later if you want. But we sold the company in 2015 to Bed, Bath and Beyond, shut it down at the end of 2019.
Claire [00:03:53] And that same year in twenty nineteen, we published a book called Work Wife about the power of female friendship to drive successful businesses. And it was based on our story, but also the stories of 13 other duos and trios of work wives. These women who were friends and had led, started or led businesses together. And really it explored like what it is about female friendship that in an office or in a business environment leads to better business results and how you're starting to see business norms change because women bring themselves to the office in that way, whether it's like about transparency or collaboration and creativity and very basic things like, you know, the way women tend to share really easily with one another. And so what it can mean for a business environment if the people that you're working with understand what sort of wins, losses, trials, tribulations you're dealing with at home and how that impacts work. So that was our book, Work Wife.
Keith [00:04:49] And I want to mention, you know, you said it was amazing case Studies with the other people that you talked to. Everyone should read it, right? Not just one, because. I picked it up at a pretty critical juncture where me and my business partner were just starting out, also just trying to figure out our working dynamic and our working relationship. And I think I read it in like two nights and both nights stayed up till 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. And Abby was like, are you still reading that book? And then when I finished that, she was like, you finished that so fast and was like I every single chapter had an application for what I was dealing with at that time. So it for anybody starting a business especially, and was looking for a founder or figuring out who their founders would be, it's super crucial.
Claire [00:05:30] Keith that means so much. I really you've told me that a long time ago, but I've kind of forgotten. Thank you. I am really glad that it helped you.
Keith [00:05:36] Yeah. And it's something that I've told other people to read as well when they're venturing out and thinking about what to do. Because I think a lot of people get this advice, find a technical partner, you know, find this right. And it's this thing where yours is way more nuanced about, I think, the human behavior and psychology that goes into a partnership versus the technical skills that go into partnership.
Claire [00:05:57] Well, especially if you're founding a business together, it's truly a marriage. And if your personalities don't work, if you're not taking the time to think about the relationship, in addition to and alongside the business, it's just not going to work, and I do think, you know, culturally we've gotten to a place where with romantic relationships, we all sort of acknowledge like it takes time and work and it's not always fun. And you have to talk about things you don't want to talk about. But the same is true of, you know, partnerships at work. And it was just really interesting to see how different women had been approaching this. And, you know, I think we were coming from a place of women seem sort of more likely to naturally have some of these conversations and do these things. But to your point, it's not exclusive to women, you know, and it certainly shouldn't be.
Keith [00:06:43] Yeah. So when you were starting the company, were you working a full-time job before or was it something that you wanted to get out of the corporate world and into your own business?
Claire [00:06:52] Yeah, I was working at the time in arts management, so I had been in a bunch of different roles and arts administration and at the time was working actually for a national organization of theaters, of professional theaters. And I was looking at the time for my next job and struggling to figure out what it was. And this is tangential. But I had sort of lost faith in the nonprofit structure as a way of supporting arts and artists. And so was really interested at the time in, you know, for-profit companies that were starting to crop up to support artists and creative projects. So Kickstarter was one and another one was 20 by two hundred still exists. This company was run by John Beckman, who was a curator, and they saw limited edition art prints. And again, this was something that at the time was really new and revolutionary and to me signaled a lot of potential change for how the visual art world worked. And so I was really interested in working for her and had been sending (Erica was like my friend who I would send cover letters to) to be like, can you read this and just make sure it sounds good? And I sent her my cover letter for a job at twenty by two hundred. And then after, you know, I think I did that while I was at my day job and then on the subway ride home started to think about, you know, like is this, could this model exists, could this 20 by 200 model exist in other markets basically. And then got home emailed Erika "read this instead of my cover letter". And that was the seed of the idea for Of A Kind of we were both really excited about it. So we did both eventually leave our jobs. And Erica was a full-time magazine editor at that point and had been for five years. I think she
Keith [00:08:24] she stayed on a little bit longer, though, correct?
Claire [00:08:25] Yeah, a little bit longer. Yeah. We quit. We like we both quit around the same time, in part because, you know, we were having those hard conversations around, like what is actually realistic here and like we need to sign a partnership agreement and what does that look like and all of that stuff. And but she also, you know, had, I think more of a vision of a career trajectory at that point than I did. I felt pretty disenchanted with where I was and really didn't know what my dream job was, whereas she at some point had had a dream of being like the editor in chief of a magazine. And I think by the time we had, the idea Of A Kind came around, was starting to realize that she didn't think she didn't know what that job would look like by the time she might get there. So I think it was a little bit more of a leap for her to sort of abandon the plan she had, whereas I was just like, wow, this seems so much more appealing than what I'm doing now. And, you know, we were young, we were in our 20s, so we didn't have a lot to lose. And it's not to, like, take anything away from us. But when people are like, you were so brave to do that, I acknowledge it was brave and a lot of ways it didn't feel brave at the time because it was like, what do I have to lose, you know?
Keith [00:09:31] Yeah. So I love that you brought up the partnership stuff because I was some of the most interesting content when I was reading your book. Talk to me a little bit about that and the importance of kind of doing that. Again, me and my business partner, he had started a company before, so he knew the value of it was like, I think we need to do this and work through it. I had never done something like that. Talk about the emotional conversations you had to have, but also the intellectual conversations you had to have to kind of get that operating agreement on paper.
Claire [00:09:58] I mean, so by the time we'd gotten to the operating agreement, we'd both committed in pretty big ways. I think it was we agreed that two nights a week we would meet up after work and work on a business plan, work on a marketing plan and do all this stuff. So we had already gotten out of the way that we were both committed to this, that we were both on the same page about the creative vision and what we wanted this to be. And, you know, that we could and liked working together, which is something we also knew because we had worked together on a bunch of extracurriculars in college. But it was sort of nice to have had those months where we were like, OK, like we're both serious about this. So it wasn't as if, like, the partnership agreement was the very first thing we did. And I don't think that would have made sense. But by the time we got to the partnership agreement, it was, you know, who's what is the equity breakdown here look like and who's the CEO and what does this look like long term and who gets veto power and who's who gets final say over what things? And it was super painful. And, I think I knew at the time even and I was right about this, that it was like ideally one of the hardest processes that she and I would go through with each other and that it was also really necessary and that it would be the type of thing where, if we could get through that, we could get through pretty much anything else because it's truly challenging to be like, you know what, I think I bring more to the table than you or vice versa. Or, you know, or I'm only comfortable if I have the final say over X, Y, Z, and you're bearing a lot of like egos and insecurities. And also we were young. And also you have people in your ear, whether it's your parents or lawyers or friends who are like, do you really want to do this? And don't you think you should have this? And do you think she should have that? And I think it taught me a lot about just like the importance of having those hard conversations and being able to come out the other side and not hold it against, you know, hold it against one another, that you're just like, OK, we've done that. Now we're going to move forward and we're never going to think about it again. And honestly, like, we kind of didn't until we had to. And there were some important points where we had to. But it was like once it was done, it was done and we moved on. But I was glad to have done it. The other thing I will say about it is that one of the things we talk about in the book that I think is really important is this idea that Erica and I tend to, whenever we're approaching a new type of project or work in our business that we've never done before, so whether it's like figuring out how to launch a podcast or approaching like a new legal process that we've never had to deal with before, our habit tends to be that we will do it together like we will both be on the calls. We will both be super involved in all of the details. And then at some point, we don't both need to be involved because we both, you know, we've got a handle on it. We've agreed on what it looks like and how it should be approached. And so let's say, like, I'm handling all the ads for our podcast or something. If in the beginning we were doing it as a twosome and she was privy to everything then A. we've both agreed on what that process looks like. And B, if I ever need her advice or help with something, she has enough insight into how it works, that she can help with that and she can come at it from an informed position. In those early days when we were starting the company, I was the only one really interacting with the lawyer around incorporation documents. And when I look back on that, like, I think that that was bad for that very reason that I had the lawyer in my ear. I had the insights around like, what exactly is equity and what is investing schedule look like? And I think in retrospect, she should have been in every single one of those meetings and on every single one of those phone calls. It was just, you know, the early days we both had jobs. It was like, OK, I'll do this, and you meet with the accountants. And that's one of those things where I think if we'd been like more of a united front on that then the conversations that followed wouldn't have been as challenging.
Keith [00:13:41] That's great insight in when you were creating those documents, was it just your guys who thought that it would be you two? Or was there already the intention to grow the team a little bit as you were creating those documents?
Claire [00:13:53] It's funny. So we had a lawyer in the beginning Of A Kind, a big lot like white-shoe law firm that represented all of the big VC-backed startups. And this was because we needed a lawyer. And my mom, who was in biotech, knew a lot of lawyers who dealt in VC because she thought biotech startups are obviously VC-backed. And so she somehow found this person for me. And I think just by virtue of having that lawyer, we did a lot of things as if we were a startup, even though we thought of ourselves as a small business. And one of those things was the lawyer saying, well, you need to think about this in a way where you're A. leaving a little bit of equity for employees and advisors and B. structuring this in a way that it will make it easy for you to fundraise eventually and to raise an equity round. So, I mean, at that time we were like, of course, we're going to fundraise. Of course, we're going to do this. It was 2010. Like Foursquare was just like hitting its stride rent. The runway was getting really big. Kickstarter was getting really big. So it was this moment of like New York having its big startup boom. And again, like, I couldn't have articulated this at the time. We really thought of ourselves as a small business. But we also were like, of course, we're going to meet with investors and that's how we'll raise money for this business. We did at the time also go in person to the Small Business Administration of New York City. And we were like, so how do we get a loan? And they were like, what are you talking about? Was 2010 like we're still, you know, just getting past the recession. So it just felt like the way. And so, yes, to the long-winded way of answering your question, we assumed that that other people would have equity in the company.
Keith [00:15:24] And so you carved out like the 20, 25 percent or
Claire [00:15:28] something like that. I can't I truly cannot remember exactly what it looked like, but I know that we were, like, fully ready to, you know, just raise millions of dollars from Sequoia or whatever, you know, like, of course we will.
Keith [00:15:41] How big did the company get in terms of employees
Claire [00:15:43] before we were acquired by Bed Bath? The largest we had ever been was five total, including myself and Erika. So it was two of us and three employees. And then while we were at Bed Bath, we grew to 10 total. And of course, it doesn't include all the freelancers and contractors and everything, but that was full-time.
Keith [00:16:00] OK, how did the dynamic change when it went from you and Erica, the work wife team to now three other full-time employees in the office and the dynamics that went with that?
Claire [00:16:10] It's so funny because I genuinely have so much love for everyone who's ever worked for us. Like and I'm not just saying that because maybe they'd hear this or something, but we were really good about hiring. And I still to this day, I think, talk to every single person who's ever worked at Of A Kind and have so much affection for all of them. And yet I also really don't ever want employees ever again. And I'll probably have them again, you know, or I should be so lucky.
Keith [00:16:35] So why is that?
Claire [00:16:37] Because I think two things like you asked about me and Erica, and I think it was hard from that vantage point. I think we figured it out and we got into a flow. But it's certainly hard in the same way. It's hard for like a couple when you have a baby and you're like, it's not just us anymore. And now we have to figure out how to navigate with this third force in the room. But I think it's also because I cared so much, I really cared what they thought about me. I cared if they thought I was doing a good job. I cared if they were happy. I cared about everything. And I cared so much about the business, too. So I desperately didn't want to be a micromanager but had a hard time not being because I felt and I think knew to some extent that like the attention to detail and the hyper-focus on everything was part of what was making the business a success. And so I just found it to be a challenging dynamic. And it really weighed heavily on me. And I didn't realize how much it weighed on me until we shut down Of A Kind. And I just felt such a sense of relief around not being responsible for someone's emotions and paycheck. And I felt deeply responsible for both of those things.
Keith [00:17:41] So talk a little bit about that day you found out that you're shutting down and it sounds like a little bit of relief, but it also probably was a little bit of hurt, right?
Claire [00:17:50] Oh, my gosh, it was so sad. But I think in a lot of ways I had processed a lot of the grief beforehand because Bed, Bath and Beyond had been going through a really big transition all year. So I think they told us in September or October, that it was being shut down and because it is a public company, a lot of their dirty laundry is in the newspaper. And so the dirty laundry at that time was that they had activist investors who wanted to push out the board and the CEO. And so for months we had been having conversations at our team meetings because our employees were asking us, like, OK, saw this thing in the news, what's happening? You know, are we going to lose our jobs? And so it was public conversation of like, we don't know what this means for us. And eventually, the activist investors were successful in pushing out the board and the CEO. And we knew that at that point, all bets were off. You know, that we had been acquired by, you know, the CEO and the head of marketing who had been the head of Biz Dev, who had been there for a really long time. And all those people were gone by the time they shut down Of A Kind and shut down a number of other companies. And so. I think we walked into that meeting pretty sure we knew what was happening,
Keith [00:18:57] which is better than being blindsided,
Claire [00:18:59] totally better than being blindsided. I will say, like I look back at my journal from that year and like every entry is like, I'm so worried about our jobs and I'm like anxious about our jobs. I was really glad to have been able to have those open conversations with our employees leading up to it, which was like this weird silver lining of it being a public company where if it weren't, they wouldn't have known. And even if I had had insight into it, it would have been so terrible to be like surprised. You had no idea this was coming. But again, because this was in the news, there was some preparation for it and it was really sad. And it was also one of these things where, you know, we felt like we could kind of see what the new direction of the company was going to be, and we felt like we had a lot to offer and they made the decision to shut down Of A Kind under an interim CEO, and then when they found their future CEO, it was someone who had been at Target for a really long time. And we were like, wow, like we get this. I mean, before we joined Bed Bath, we'd actually done a big national partnership with Target. Which was like part of the starting point for a conversation with Buy Buy Baby, where we were like maybe they'd want to talk to us because we could do something similar for them, you know what we did for Target? We'd been in 350 stores with these like Of A Kind kiosks. So it was a little heartbreaking in that way of like, man, if we could have just held on for a little longer, I think we could have really connected with this new leadership. But at the same time, we had been doing this thing. We'd been working on it for ten years at that point. And in retrospect. So I think our last day in business was November 1st, twenty nineteen. And, you know, we all know what happened next. And I was so grateful that it happened when it did because it meant we got to sort of like put it to rest properly, like give it its due we got to like, you know, we had a party, you know, and said goodbye and
Keith [00:20:47] it's important that. Yeah, sure. For everybody is
Claire [00:20:49] important. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then you know, and I think it would have been it had we kept going and had we had to face covid, you know, worst-case scenario, we would have shut down under covid and had to have that really traumatic experience. But do it all over zoom And like best-case scenario, I cannot imagine having tried to run that company remotely like over Zoom. I mean we were dealing with physical products and not as though we were shipping them, but there were samples coming in every day and it just I did feel grateful at that moment not to be running it. Not that, not that it wasn't scary and hard in other ways because we had just we were just about to start like this, these new careers. And it was like and now there's a pandemic. Yeah.
Keith [00:21:33] So you did end up starting this kind of new career during the pandemic? I think we met maybe a month or two before that when you got. Yes. Getting getting going on this. So, yeah. Talk to me about how you and Erica got the newsletter built up the podcast, built up the consulting business through this whole pandemic.
Claire [00:21:53] Yeah. So I mentioned we had started the podcast and the newsletter when we were Of A Kind. And the concept of both of them is really just like lifestyle and discovery-driven, very much like the same spirit as Of A Kind where it's just like us sharing the stuff we love with a heavy emphasis on shopping, but like also just lifestyle and friendship and relationships. And so we knew that when of a down that we wanted to continue doing it. And we did to some extent have to start from scratch again with things like the newsletter list. But we had an audience and we had a following and we renamed the podcast and the newsletter. But the sort of like brand ethos remained. And so there was that sort of reputation and relaunch both the newsletter in the podcast. And we also decided we wanted to consult for a while. We thought about like, is there another business we want to start? And there wasn't, especially because every time we would think of a new business, we wanted to start. It was retail and we both felt like we really needed a break from retail. It's especially now. And so we were like, all right, like let's consult for a while. And timing-wise, so our last days were November 1st and we're like, well, we need to give ourselves a break because no one will ever give it to us. And so let's like plan on starting like. Up in earnest around like February, March of 2020, which of course was perfect timing. But we, you know, sort of like put out the word like we're available to cancel and like, it was a slower start than we would have liked, but it was immediately gratifying in the ways that I hoped it would be, which is that after 10 years of working on one thing that I'm so close to and have absolutely no perspective on, to work on many things at once, where I have some distance from them and like to worry about other people's problems has just. Been so refreshing, and I'm sure at some point, you know, client services will start to be exhausting and painful in its own ways, but for now, I really like it. I really like working on other people's problems.
Keith [00:23:48] That's great to hear. Yeah. And you know, the service, it's funny because my business is also a service business and some investors have said, well, you can't really scale that. And my answer to that is I don't want to I like the three to five problems. Yeah. That I know this is the three to five thousand that could be brought on there. Yeah. Before starting the consulting company again, the newsletter in the podcast I've been doing for many years. We've been there's this flutter on Twitter about the content creator market. The reality is people have been creating content for decades, maybe even centuries. Yeah. Your company especially Of A Kind. You always had this model of creating original content around the brand and building a brand personality for yourself. Can you talk about the importance of kind of building Claire and Erica, along with Of A Kind and how that helped the business,
Claire [00:24:40] yeah, I mean, it's interesting, I mentioned Erica came from magazines and so she had a strong sort of like editorial perspective and approach and has always taken a sort of very sort of like. I want to call it formal, but a structured approach to like, here's how we do storytelling, here's what our voices and here's how we think about this. And I think that's been really helpful. But it also it was in some ways and you know, that there were certain aspects of it that were really intentional in that way. There were other parts of it that were not intentional. It was just that we were the only two employees. And so we signed every email, Claire and Erica, because we were the ones writing it. And we modeled all of our stuff in the beginning because we did not have money for models. And like it seemed, it was just like, of course, we will be the ones modeling it. So it very quickly became like a part of the business. This idea of Claire and Erica. And, you know, one thing that we would always say is like the voice that we used to write about Of A Kind and to write to our customers is the same voice that we used to write emails to each other and that we would use to chat each other all day when we were at our jobs. And that just felt really natural to us. And that then it became, as you said, the sort of like Claire and Erica brand that was built up alongside the business. And I think for all nine years of that business struggled with exactly how those two things interrelate. And certainly, like it was clear that they benefited from each other, but we were never super comfortable with going full-on girl boss and like doing the sort of Sophea Amoroso route. And I'm glad we didn't. And yet, even now, we still struggle with it a little bit. I mean, the podcast in the newsletter are so much fun and we both love them so much. And yet there's a certain amount of relief to me that they're not my only income. Yeah, and I struggle with that because of course, I want them to grow as you want any business to grow and you want more of an audience for any sort of creative pursuits you're doing. And yet I recognize that there's a certain amount of pressure that comes with that growth. And I don't want to always have to have something to say. I don't like always want to also have to answer for stupid stuff I said. And so the idea of growing the Claire and Erica brand, I think has been what has naturally come out of our personalities and our approach to business. But it's never been like, let's sit down and vision board how we get to Oprah status, you know.
Keith [00:27:04] Yeah. Is there a difference now where because you have done brand sponsorships or have kind of put things on Instagram or some of your other handlers from companies sending your product, does it change your relationship from where you were a buyer before? Now you are, you know, helping them.
Claire [00:27:21] So, yeah, that part I actually really like. So we did some. We did we sold ads at Of A Kind both in the newsletter, in the podcast, but was never big business. And now obviously it's a much bigger part of our business. And the thing that I is really fun about it is we no longer have to worry about anything being competitive with Of A Kind because there was always this like a challenge in being a retailer who was also selling ads because you'd be like, I don't know if we can promote this thing or that thing or whatever. And it's really fun now to just be able to be really intentional and about which advertisers we link up with and to really be able to say, like, I actually try this thing and I like this thing. I mean, we turn away advertisers. If it's like that seems like snake oil or that's not something we'd actually use. But the same goes for brands that aren't advertising with us. We're like, I'll share stuff on Instagram that somebody sent me because I think it's interesting because I think. My audience tends to be our audience tends to be interested and just look to us to give them a survey of what's on the market. It really is discovery-oriented. And so there is I think our listener tends to be the person who's like, I want to know what all the hot CBD brands are like. I don't want to just know the one. I want to know them also. Yeah, I like to post that stuff and I like that there doesn't feel as much weirdness around it as there did when I was also had clothes and jewelry and other stuff to sell to also be like but also this other brand.
Claire [00:28:43] Yeah. That's an important distinction. Yeah. Are you just getting ridiculous stuff sent into your house all the time?
Claire [00:28:49] It's some. There was like a turning point in the pandemic where. Yeah. It started because people don't have don't know where else to spend their marketing budgets
Claire [00:28:57] and like
Claire [00:28:58] send it, declare war just like to everybody. And this is like another funny thing to wear as part of this, like, tension that I just described it fully, never considered myself like a professional influencer. And I don't feel obligated to post everything that somebody sends me or like I don't. I try not to, like, do things because it's like what a blogger would do or something like that, and yet especially this past year. Businesses are sending me something. I'm like, they need the help. I really want to share this stuff. And so, like I do try to share what I think is relevant. But the businesses have started sending a lot of really insane stuff because like money that would go into a fancy event or an activation or whatever it is now just going into custom gift boxes, which is nice. And I like it. And I discover a lot of stuff that way. And I also give a lot of stuff away to friends and family. And the funniest part of all of this is that I got a box at some point that was full of really, really random, weird stuff. It was before the whole like water bottle craze that is happening right now. But it was one of those water bottles that would encourage you to drink a certain amount of water. And then it was like a weird radio flashlight thing. And I was like, who sent me this? Like, did a podcast listener send me this and thought that I should, like, put this on the podcast or like, did a brand send me this? I was sure that it had been intentionally sent to me and it had been intentionally sent to me. But lo and behold, it was something called a brushing scam where Amazon sellers send their product to random people so that they can then become verified customers, so that then they can write a review for the products. Wait, what? It's a little complicated, but basically start with the premise that reviews on Amazon are everything right? Yeah. So how do you get more reviews for your product? If you have to purchase the product in order to write a review, you just start sending it out to random people and then you write the review. Oh wow. So people get your address and they just send you stuff so that they can then write the review on their behalf. But I thought I was like getting sent this gift and I thought it was the most random gift. But then I started getting more and more of this random stuff from Amazon and eventually figured out what was going on is really bizarre.
Keith [00:31:08] Has that spigot turned off?
Claire [00:31:09] Did I get it shut off? Unfortunately. Or fortunately? We had to throw a lot of that stuff away. It was like a men's G-string started coming. It was really weird.
Keith [00:31:21] Does the influencer stuff now incorporate your family in any way? You know, you have a wonderful child and he's just pretty, pretty freshly. Most of the time I've seen him.
Claire [00:31:30] He is, although he has not been made part of like he's not I've not sold any ads or Instagram posts or anything that are sort of predicated upon him. I mean, I think I'm trying to think if there's and I don't know that I'd feel comfortable that I like sharing him because I really like him. He's cute. I like him. I also just really have a fun time dressing him. I was like when I found out I was having a boy, I thought it was going to be way less fun to dress him. But it's been really fun. And so but I also try, if you can believe it, I actually like do exercise some amount of restraint because I do have some conflicting feelings about it, both for myself, because I don't want to just be seen as a mom. And so I worry that if I like everything I post as my kid, it's just like then that becomes my entire identity. But also for his sake, you know, he might not want to be posted constantly. Yeah. One day he'll have something to say about it.
Keith [00:32:23] Yeah. Right now he doesn't know what's going on, but exactly something you and I share a hobby that I wish I did more of is running. Can you talk about how important running has been to you throughout your career?
Claire [00:32:34] Oh, my gosh. So important. I don't think anything about my life would look like it looks if I didn't run, if I hadn't started running, which I started doing in 2008 as a way of getting off antidepressants that I had been on for a really long time. So I had started anti-depressants the summer after my freshman year in college and had just never gotten off of them. And like I think in part because. I had started seeing I would just get different psychiatrists because you move after college, and so these people are just like at that point, they're just like, cool, it's my job to maintain your medication. And if they're still working, then they're still working. And I also think because like you usually your therapist is usually separate from your prescribing psychiatrist, like, yeah, which seems crazy to me. It's like people were just like if it's working is working like, well, we'll stick with it. And so like six or seven years later it was like, what am I still doing on these things? And like actual the like one of the major impetus for it was what I would starting to get weird neurological side effects like these, like sort of vertigo and stuff. Oh. So I was like, all right, now is the time to get off this. And I truly wish I could tell you what gave me the idea that exercise would be the thing that would help me cycle off antidepressants. I knew I was really scared of cycling off them because I didn't want to get depressed again. So I wanted to do it really gradually. And I was like, I'm just going to start running, too. And that'll sort of replace the endorphins. And I know it seems crazy to be like, I don't know where I got this idea because now in 2021, everybody knows that exercise is really good for your mental health. But in 2008, nobody was talking about that. You know, clearly somebody was because it's not like I just made it up, but like somehow I got it in my head that I should exercise. And so I started at the same time I was cycling off anti-depressants. I would go to the gym and get on the treadmill for like ten minutes at a time every day. And I was just really consistent about it and worked my way up to 15 minutes. And anybody who has ever gotten started to run after not doing for a while knows that ten minutes is like truly painful, especially on a treadmill. I get just so hard.
Keith [00:34:33] Exactly. How I started to is. Yeah, just do ten minutes. Yeah.
Claire [00:34:36] And that ten minutes is so hard. It's like they always say like there's a minute in real life and there's a minute and treadmill life and it's like it's very, very different minutes and then and it worked and I like immediately was like wow, this actually works for me, it really helps with my anxiety. And I was just lived in constant fear of being depressed or anxious, which I think is like a common thing for people who deal with depression, anxiety. Like when you're good, you're good, except for the fact that you're so scared of feeling bad again. So I was really just like hyper-focused on being consistent about it and never missing a day. And now it's been however many years later and I still do it. And now, you know, I've incorporated other forms of exercise, but running is still my primary form. And I think the thing that's like most helpful for me, for my mental health, and it's just the one thing that I've always been really good about making time for and making clear to everybody in my life that it's a priority, whether it's like, you know, when we started Of A Kind, I was like, we have to I run in the morning so we can't start until 10 a.m. And when I, you know, had Cam, I was really focused on making sure that this was this one thing that I could still do. And I think, you know, there's the physical and psychological benefits. But I also think as someone who had never been athletic in my life and was not particularly good about habits in general, picking up this thing taught me that, like, I can do hard things that I think I can't do. I can form new habits late in life. I mean, it felt late in life to me at that point. I was like twenty-six or something, but it was like, wow, like I can do things that seem like not the type of things I would do and that like that's just given me so much. It's made me be like there's other habits I could form or drop if I needed to. And there's other hard things I can do and I can like yeah, I can be in control of my mental health, which is probably the most important, you know, control to some extent. I can have a tool. I read this thing. There's all of these studies now to try to understand why running is of all of the like exercises in sports. Running seems to be the thing that it's like really powerful as an anti-depressant, like any form of exercise is good for you. But running, in particular, seems to be good in one super interesting theory that I read recently is that because it is such a high-stress sport, because it's so high impact, I guess is the term on there, on your knees, on your knees and all your joints, every time your foot hits the ground, your body thinks it's being injured. So it releases the endorphins. It releases whatever chemical your body uses to sort of heal the pain or just deal with absorbing the pain, even though you're not actually being injured. I'm sure I'm butchering this, but it was like it made sense to me. I was like, OK, right. Like your body thinks it needs to, like, heal you or blunt some pain. And so it's like releasing this happy and or this happy energy.
Keith [00:37:23] I love that inside. I kind of agree with it. Are you running every day or near every day?
Claire [00:37:27] I do run, yeah. Well, like five to six days a week. Yeah. Although I got a peloton in the spring and that became I was like having a serious affair with that for a while. But now I'm now I'm back to a more balanced life.
Keith [00:37:41] OK, cool sidebar. Let's talk about the Ali Love wedding because... Chris knows I was a big love fan.
Claire [00:37:48] I think about you all the time. I know that because I think you and I like. Yeah. Chris went to a Nets game with you. Right, right, and I and then he and I went to a Nets game and he pointed out and he was like, yeah, Keith really likes Ali Love. And then.
Keith [00:38:05] Yeah, and now. And now she's this peloton mega influencer. I always was like, she's got good energy. She's going to I was like, she's going to go far. Right. I see it. Chris turned it into me loving her. But yeah, now she's making other influencers wear different dresses every single day. Amazing. Truly want to go back. There's a little thread there that's kind of fun on talking with Erica about. I can't come in until 10:00 a.m. because I'm going to run, especially now. Right. We're all sitting at home or the most are the lucky ones of us are still sitting at home and not going into an office or not going to work their job physically in person. How important is it to set those boundaries for your partner, but also for the working dynamic? Like we have this opportunity to rewrite how we work and the times that we work. Is that something that you were deliberate with, especially with the running, or is it something that you had to learn on the way?
Claire [00:38:59] I think we were really deliberate with it. I mean, we were also in our 20s and working for ourselves for the first time. So I think there was a combination of two sort of like opposing instincts, one, to give ourselves a lot of structure so that we weren't just like flailing and that that was really coming from Erica to wear it. Like she knew that she really valued structure and wanted to have set schedules and have set hours and all of that because, you know, how else are you going to, like, not just dissolve into a puddle of, like, overwhelm and whatever and lack of accountability. But also there was, I think, the instinct to like if we're going to start our own company and deal with all of the headaches of working for yourself, we should also give ourselves like the things that we need. And we were working so hard. I mean, we just like really especially then just ground ourselves to the bone. And we knew that. And so we were good, I think, about where we could giving ourselves freedoms or just benefits, you know, of some kind. And now I look back on that start time and I'm like, that was so important. And that was like an ethos that we carried through all of Of A Kind words just like it gets back to the entire work wife sort of philosophy that I explained earlier. Just like people have personal lives and the impact work and like and work impacts your personal life. It's a two-way street. And so, like, you have to make allowances for both. And if you can give people later start time so that they can work and they can work out in the morning, like, why wouldn't you? It's good for everybody. And certainly, you know, there were aspects of Erica's life that we sort of structured the work, you know, our working style around to. And I look back on that now, and I think that's something I'm really proud that we did. And although I don't know at the time if I would have identified it as like counter to a standard business practice or anything like that, it just was common sense.
Keith [00:40:43] Yeah. Especially at that time. I think it was right. You might not have noticed it, but all the startups in New York and San Francisco were running 60, 70 hour weeks. Yeah. Burning out. Right. I think we know mutuals who literally burned out because. Yeah. So it was it is important. Yeah. One thing we're doing is at least I take off Fridays as much as I can. Yeah. Yeah. And just work as hard as I can Monday through Thursday and give myself that extra day for myself.
Claire [00:41:08] I'm super interested in what becomes of the workweek because I think we've been doing something similar or not like every Friday, but somewhat every other Friday. And then sometimes it is every Friday and it's just like Fridays. Fridays tend to be a day where we, like, definitely don't have meetings often take the afternoon off like that, kind of do what you can. And I think a lot of people have been doing it since we started working from home. And I would rather work really long hours and work after Kim goes to bed and, you know, during Monday through Thursday and then take Friday off. And I I suspect that we'll start to see a lot more of that.
Keith [00:41:41] I think so, yeah. I think more and more people are realizing I think somebody put it, you know, Saturday and Sunday, it's still family days. You do need that one day or those few hours to yourself. So I'd be remiss not to ask before we leave what trends? You're a trendsetter. You've seen things before. What are kind of two or three big trends that you're seeing, whether it's in digital marketing, advertising, fashion, retail that other people should be up on?
Claire [00:42:07] Oh, gosh, great question.
Claire [00:42:09] What am I seeing? I mean, in fashion and design, in general colors, just making such a big comeback. And I mean, you know, for so long, it was the Airbnb esthetic, like everything's white, everything's super neutral. And now I think that, like, is starting to feel a bit dated. And also just in reaction to the pandemic and people needing joy and people being at home all the time, people are looking for bright colors. And I think the nice thing about it, too, though, is that for everybody who did go hard at, you know, neutral palette, whether it's in their wardrobe or at home, so that makes it all the more easy to add bright colors because like you've got a blank canvas to work with. This has been a super interesting thing when it comes to podcast advertising. We've been having a lot of success with dedicated episodes. OK, so instead of people just buying an ad spot, people are buying. Full on episodes dedicated to their brand or their story or their founder or whatever it is and. We're obviously like even more selective about those than we are with the ad spots, and we're pretty selective about the ad spots, but like, you know, we don't want to be doing a full episode that we don't think our audience is going to enjoy. And it's not interesting to us. But the ones that we have done have just performed really well. Our audience has responded really well to them. They've turned out to be good episodes. And I just think it's really interesting as a model, I'm curious to see where it goes. It's definitely something that we've been getting a lot more interest in all of a sudden. So I'm curious to see how much more of that there is.
Keith [00:43:36] Awesome. Where can people find your newsletter and your podcast,
Claire [00:43:39] a thing or two HQ dot com. You can sign up for our newsletter there and we do a free Monday newsletter every week. That's ten things that we discovered that we love. And then our podcast is available. Wherever you listen to podcasts, it's also called a thing or two and also comes out on Mondays. And then we have a paid subscriber newsletter that comes out on Thursdays. And that's our secret menu.
Keith [00:43:58] Oh, very cool. One last question. What advice would you give to somebody who's starting to think about leaving the corporate world and jumping in and starting to do their own thing?
Claire [00:44:07] I think talk about it all the time because it helps you, I think, just to tell everybody, because, one, you never know who's going to have good advice or great connection or just be able to help you, but to like it helps you well. And because it holds you accountable. Right. Because you've told people. But I think talking about it with other people helps you feel out what your level of comfortability with it actually is and what you actually want this thing to be. Because it's one thing when it's inside your head and it's another thing when you have to describe it to somebody else. And it's like, are you embarrassed or are you nervous? You shiers it like energize you when you finish telling somebody what it is you want to do. I found that to be a really helpful part of the process and it really is.
Keith [00:44:44] Excellent advice. Claire, Mazur, thank you so much.
Claire [00:44:47] Thank you.
Keith [00:44:51] Thank you for listening to the change produced by Elena Wiedlin with original music by Roger Kaiser. If you liked what you heard, she'd appreciate your support. I'd like to share your comments subscribing wherever you listen. Thanks once again