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The following podcast is a dear media production.
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She s a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire.
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Fantastic.
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And he s a serial entrepreneur, a very smart cookie.
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And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride.
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Get ready for some major realness.
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Welcome to the skinny confidential him and her.
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People didn t take digital seriously at all.
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They didn t take social seriously.
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Retailers weren t selling online yet.
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And so the fashion space was definitely not using any sort of like marketing technology at all.
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And I finally got a meeting.
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I m sure it was some sort of pity something from somebody and sat in the room with her.
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And she was like, look,
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I work with celebrities and models.
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And if I started cutting checks to people who take pictures of themselves in mirrors and alleys and in front of garage doors, I would lose my job.
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I mean, that was the conversation.
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But I did spend probably too much time even trying to create partnerships with legacy industry.
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to try and prove out the value of creators or to like legitimize creators.
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And then I finally gave up on it.
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So like, well, they don t want us to succeed.
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They don t understand we re maybe taking jobs where we re like, actually turning this whole industry like upside down or reinventing retail.
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Like it s just, you know, was this almost like kind of silent thing that happened and then it just took over.
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This episode is a gem.
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Today we re sitting down with blogger turned tech entrepreneur.
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I feel like that doesn t even do her justice.
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She s a boss.
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She is a mother of four, and she has really become someone in the web space that people look up to.
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And that is Amber Vance Box.
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Amber is the founder of affiliate marketing system, LTK, which used to be known as Reward Style, and it connects digital content creators with brands and retailers.
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I have personally worked with LTK for, I want to say the last seven years, and it s such a great way to monetize.
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If you re a macro creator, a micro creator, if you just started out, they really support creators everywhere.
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Today, you re going to learn how she built the largest creator software in the world.
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She started in her dad s house.
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It s a wild story.
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You re also going to learn about the mindsets of successful entrepreneurs, the full LTK story, how she scaled her business, building an empire as a mom of four, and how to choose your priorities.
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I personally really like this episode, too, because she opened up about how she thinks about her time.
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And you know how I love to talk about time.
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It s one of my favorite subjects.
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On that note, Amber Vence Box, welcome to the show.
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This is the skinny confidential, him and her.
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Before we get into this, I have to give you a compliment.
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When I was like a really small blogger, you guys invited me to the reward style con at the time.
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It s LTK now.
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This is years ago.
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I want to say this is like almost 10 years ago.
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And I get invited and I reach out to them and I say, can I please interview Amber on my blog?
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Didn t have a podcast, nothing.
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And you said yes.
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And you allowed me to interview you at the conference when there was, looking back, I m like, oh my God, there was so much going on.
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You had like 300 creators there that you were managing.
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Now that I know how it is to throw a wedding and a toddler s birthday party, I m like, oh my God, she was probably so distracted.
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I sat you down and you let me interview you for the blog that you guys can go back and read like 8, 10 years ago.
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I have a very clear memory of that because I remember you had a book, you had blonde hair.
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I think it was like a health book and this was like before being healthy was even popular.
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If that s okay to say, at least in Texas, it wasn t, or in my circles.
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And I remember your book, and I actually still have your book on my bookshelf.
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So any book that our creators have written, I have a whole section of them.
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And it s usually the one that they ve given me.
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And I remember being so impressed with you because I was like, this girl is in her own lane.
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She cares about things that people aren t necessarily thinking about yet.
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Clearly there was an audience for it.
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And you were doing things so differently and you just had such enthusiasm.
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I actually wrote this on the card of the little gift that I brought you today.
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I was like, do you remember that time?
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So it s funny that we both kind of thought back to that story.
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I remember I asked you your wellness tips and you were like, this is again before health.
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And you re like, honestly, Lauren, I love Diet Coke.
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This is amazing that someone s being honest because you re building this huge multi-million dollar company and you re like, you know what, I love a Diet Coke.
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And I m like, you know, so do I with a burger.
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Room service, there s nothing better.
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Diet Coke s pretty good.
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Amber, welcome to the show.
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Oh, thank you guys.
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Okay, this has been a long time coming.
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You have built a massive business.
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I mean, it s wild and I want to get into the evolution of it.
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Let s go way back to when this was a seed of an idea.
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Talk to me about where you were, what your house looked like, what your life looked like, what your everyday looked like when when this was no LTK.
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Yes.
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Well, I ll throw you back a little bit to even like early childhood.
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I loved to make things and I would see things and just, you know, I just felt empowered that I could create them, whether it was like
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a pair of earrings that Jessica Simpson wore.
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And I was like, well, my mom s not going to buy them for me.
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So like, I ve got to figure out how to make them.
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Or there was, I think Jennifer Love Hewitt wore this like Prada dress on People magazine and we re cutting it out and showing my grandmother who was a seamstress.
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And it was like, great, come to my house for a week and like, let s make the dress.
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And it was always just kind of create things.
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So I loved creativity.
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I loved being in the space.
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I always felt very empowered.
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And I, let s see, I mean, before that I did so many things in the industry.
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I always knew I wanted to be in fashion.
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I didn t know really where I d land.
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I thought first that I was going to be the next Rachel Zoe.
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So I wrote a business plan for my parents and I sat them down at the kitchen table.
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I was like, look, there s this woman.
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I m gonna be the new version of her.
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And so here s like how I m gonna back into this.
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But the next step for me is I need to go to LA and I ve got to start like building my contacts.
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And so my dad was like,
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Will you take your brother too?
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Did you grow up in Texas?
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I did, yeah.
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And so where does that entrepreneurial spirit come from if you go to your childhood?
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I mean, to go to your parents and present a business plan that you re going to be the next Rachel Zoe, I m like, Zaza needs to hear this.
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Like, how did that even transpire for you to get to there?
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You know, now having my children, I m like, there is like a real strong genetic thing there.
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And then I ve been also, you know, how you re raised.
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I think my mom took TVs out of our house from an early age.
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She was like, I just don t want you spending your time here.
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Like you can go play outside or like there are activities in our home that we could do.
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I always remember our babysitters like being prompted with either something that we would cook or something that we would like make or create.
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Like there was always an activity.
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I probably spent a lot of time like in my room alone, just like making things and doing stuff.
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So I m an introvert and that lends itself very much to just, I don t know, a lot of time by itself.
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My dad also, once I got older, encouraged us to be entrepreneurs.
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His take on it was that he was able to like, you know,
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come pick us up from school and have lunch or go to our games and be involved because of his, you know, choosing to to build his own business.
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And so that was a lens that I always kind of thought through.
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And I think, you know, I guess jumping ahead a little bit, I knew what I wanted, whether it was the Jessica Simpson earrings or the dress or the purse that I needed to go buy or whatever.
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And I would just always like figure out a way to do it.
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Like I never felt like there was a total roadblock.
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My parents were encouraging, but they also were
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hands off in a lot of ways as well.
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Like they sort of let me run and then it was like, so what did, what did you do?
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Or I think about you ve been applying to college and being like, oh, I got into this school.
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And they re like, is that where you want to go?
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And I was like, yep.
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And we never talked about it again.
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It was just kind of a little bit like that, but I can see very similar traits in at least like one of my children right now.
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And so I m like, those are things that are maybe sort of built in.
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I love all of those tips.
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I m taking a couple of those tips.
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So after you do your Rachel Zoe presentation, what is the trajectory that you re on towards LTK?
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So I go work in L.A., decided that it was very long days, a lot of schlepping.
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I was like, well, I m spending more time in the car than I am actually styling people.
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What year is this?
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Just for reference, because I want to think about that time in L.A.
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So this was 2006.
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Summer 2006.
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And then the next summer, one of my best friends, she wanted to be in broadcast journalism.
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And so she got an internship at NBC.
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And she was like, we want to move to New York with me.
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And we ll like figure out somewhere to stay and you can get an internship there.
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And so I ended up getting an internship with Takun, who at the time was kind of one of Inowentour s favorites.
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And it was like a team of 12, maybe.
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And so everything you did there was meaningful.
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So I think I started out working in like the wholesale team and probably like data entry and ended up being the fit model by the end
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of it.
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I sucked at getting his food, so I was fired from that very quickly.
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And I learned a lot about the wholesale side of the business.
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All through college, I worked in retail, and it was a mom and pop shop, and I was the only consistent employee.
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And it was almost like my dollhouse.
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They didn t care a whole lot about what I did, and they were happy that I took initiative.
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And so I would
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remerchandise a store, like go pitch brands to buy.
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I was in school learning, you know, PR and communications.
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And so I was like, wow, like I now know how it works on the back end with these wholesalers, like what they want to hear from a store.
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I m learning about kind of how to pitch yourself on this PR side.
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And they would essentially, you know, pay the bills.
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And I kind of got to play house in the store.
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But before that, I mean, even starting as far back as fifth grade, I used to knit scarves in the back row of fifth grade.
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And I got kicked out of class because you re not allowed to vend scarves in the back row of fifth grade math, apparently.
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I got kicked out of a lot of classes.
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It wasn t for knitting scarves.
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You were not knitting scarves.
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You were trying to look up my skirt.
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Knitting scarves was not on my bingo card.
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But I can relate to getting kicked out.
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Well, you know, it went from that to like I would repurpose denim.
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So people would give me their denim and then I d charge them 20 bucks to make it into mini skirts.
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And then I started the jewelry line because people wanted those Jessica Simpson earrings.
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And so then I started and then people would drop off their prom dresses and make me jewelry for it.
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And so there was always something entrepreneurial happening, you know, behind the scenes.
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But fast forwarding to like right before LTK, the jewelry business actually took off.
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So when I met my husband, Baxter,
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He was entering grad school at SMU and I brought my laptop to his house at night and I would just be kind of like keeping up with my business through a spreadsheet.
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And he looked over my shoulder one day and he was like, so tell me what all is happening here.
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And he s like, these are pretty big numbers.
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I was like, yeah, it s going really well.
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He was like, well, so where is all this money?
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And I was like, I m looking great.
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And, you know, like I m buying shoes, I m buying handbags.
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I work at this store.
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I get actually to buy things at cost because I m like the buyer.
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And so I m ticking off like I want one of those and one of these.
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And to me, it was this side gig that.
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was going to provide the fund money, but it was actually multiple times larger than my full-time job from an earnings perspective.
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So I left my full-time job to pursue the jewelry business.
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Many failures there we can definitely go through at some point.
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Maybe that s the next episode.
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And then I started doing personal shopping.
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So I learned from the store that people would come in, they had these clients, they would earn a commission from the store, but they didn t have to actually work at the store.
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And so there were several in Dallas at the time, and they had relationships with all of these different boutiques, and they would go in and pull for their clients and deliver.
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So when I left the store, people still wanted me to help dress them.
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So I took them on as personal clients, and I went around and did that.
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I negotiated with all the different retailers.
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So when they were packing for their vacation, I would go around town, collect the coolest clothes in their size, dress them, style them, photograph it, exchange the sizes that didn t work, all of this stuff.
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Lot of work.
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Lot of work.
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Lots of schlepping.
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Actually, the worst part of that job was collecting.
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So you re pulling from all these different retailers.
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I remember sitting in someone s lobby and I was waiting for a $34 check because that was the commission on the sweater or whatever I had sold.
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And you re sitting there for an hour and a half and you re like, oh my gosh.
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And you re doing that all over town because I just didn t have a team.
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So the personal shopping bit.
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I, in 2010, launched a website to market my personal shopping.
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And my thought was, okay, well, I m going to document all this.
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I m going to demystify it.
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People are going to understand my personal style.
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I ll get more clients.
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And this is going to be great.
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So Dallas Morning News does this full page article and it says meet the blogger and blogger is
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like huge type font across the whole top of the page.
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And it s my picture and it s like, Hey, this girl, you know, from around town, like she s this jewelry line and she was this shop girl and now personal shopper.
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She s actually going to do the personal shopping online for free.
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And I knew the editor because I would always feed them anytime we had cool stuff come at the store, I d call them and tell them to come get it and shoot it for free.
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the Dallas Morning News.
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And I was like, why did she not listen to me?
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Like, that s not what I told her.
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I told her that I launched this website to market this personal shopping business.
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I m not doing it for free.
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And that was in the spring.
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And by October, I was like, I am doing that job for free because all of my clients wanted to really consume my recommendations and shop for me, but just online, like they want to do it after their kids go out with a glass of wine.
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They don t want to book time with me to have to do all this.
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I had, you know, at the time building a website was really expensive and I had built this custom website.
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I had hired a photographer.
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I was posting three times a day, which I was very proud of myself because Who, What, Where was the only other website that I knew of and they posted once a day.
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Is this like around like 2008 now, 2009?
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So this is 2010, spring of 2010.
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Yeah, spring of 2010.
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And so I m posting three times a day on this blog.
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I ve hired this photographer.
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I ve built this website.
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I ve still got my jewelry line going and I am, this is all one woman show.
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So I m just like working around the clock.
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And by October, I had realized that I d cut myself out of my personal shopping business by starting this website because people were just getting the tips, buying the things directly.
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And they would even text me like, oh, I shared your newsletter or, you know, oh, I got that bag.
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Oh, my gosh, I was the first of my friends, like loving this website.
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And I m like, $100 commission, $30 commission, $12 commission.
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I m just like tabbing this up.
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I m like, they think they re being so supportive, but I am literally still at my dad s house eating cereal.
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This is not working.
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And that was the moment we decided to launch LTK.
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And where was affiliate at this point in this world?
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Like, could you go to Nordstrom s and get an affiliate or was this not even a thing then?
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Because I m trying to even just remember.
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Yes.
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Okay.
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So affiliate technology existed.
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It was bigger in Europe.
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It was like for trains, insurance companies, like it was very like coupon and industrial.
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When we decided, and when I say we, so Baxter and I are very much a team in this.
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He had helped me with the jewelry business to like launch that online and to go into multiple retailers.
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And so we d already started doing business together.
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And with this, you know, by that fall, he was like, what are you, what are you going to do?
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Because now you re the, now this is like a cost center for you.
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And it was supposed to be something that you were making more money.
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And so we went on a walk with our dog to Starbucks down the street in Dallas and
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He was like, you know, rainbows, unicorns, like anything s on the table.
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How do you want to make money on this blog?
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And I was like, well, I just want credit for what I m doing.
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Like I used to make money offline.
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They were happy to pay it.
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Like, can I, can they just do the same online?
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And he was like, well, okay, well, like, what would this system be called then?
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And I don t know why we went to branding first, but initial conversation and I was like, well,
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I think it would be RewardStyle because if you have great taste and you re showing people things that they do like and they buy it, then you ll make money.
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And so we literally got on domain.com and RewardStyle was available and we bought RewardStyle.
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And then for the next many months, I would sit at home kind of after I shipped all the jewelry and post on the blog and I would get on PowerPoint and I would draw like
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I didn t even know the word wireframe, but I was drawing wireframes of what it was like, click here, it does this.
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And then late night, like 10 o clock, we had a graphic designer who would come over and I was still living in my dad s house.
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So this is now up in the game room at my dad s house.
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And he would come over and he would stay till like wee hours in the morning, translating what I did to something that an engineer could actually then go code.
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And I remember actually at the time, my dad was like, I don t know what, I remember like hearing him tell his friends, he s like, I don t know what she does up there.
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These like weird guys come over.
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She s like giving them craft beer.
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And I was like, yeah, that s because that, like I was trying to get them to work.
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I was like, let s do something.
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This is, you know, what they re like interested in.
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And so, yeah, we spent like every night, evening, weekend doing that kind of building out what was like the really, really, really basic, like super MVP version of what we launched as RewardStyle, what you now know of as LTK.
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I look back at when I was asked to become a member, it felt very sexy is the word.
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It didn t feel industrial like the other ones felt.
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It felt pretty and girly and feminine and something you wanted to be a part of as opposed to something you d want to hide in the basement.
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Well, the thing is, I wanted to say, well, two things.
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One, I think this is interesting, why I keep asking about the timelines is because I think you guys were kind of swimming in similar, like Lauren was known as a blogger first and so were you before the term influencer or creator or any of these things existed.
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But like in the early days, the only way you would really make money is if somebody paid for like a banner spot on your site or if they, you know,
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paid you some commission for doing some kind of promotion.
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And I don t think people now in the creator economy realize what it looked like then.
1
SPEAKER_02
But then the other thing I wanted to say, which I just think is interesting to observe, we ve done this show for a while and we get asked all the time, primarily from young people, how you find your passion or how you find your purpose or the thing you re going to do.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I think people look at what you ve built or what Lauren s built or what any of the
2
SPEAKER_00
The other people have come on and they don t realize that all of these little things of you being a buyer, like styling people, doing the blog, tasting a bunch of things, starting the jewelry line informed all of the things for you to create what you ve created.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s not like you just jumped, like one day woke up and said, Oh, I m going to do this thing.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the reason I point that out is a lot of people think they re just going to stumble to the big idea.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I think the way you stumble into that is by doing all the different things along the way to figure out that.
2
SPEAKER_00
Does that make sense?
2
SPEAKER_02
I think that my superpower is actually understanding all sides, like having played all the parts.
2
SPEAKER_02
Like I was a retailer.
2
SPEAKER_02
I was a manufacturer.
2
SPEAKER_02
I was in wholesale.
2
SPEAKER_02
Like I was in styling.
2
SPEAKER_02
I had my blog and I actually didn t realize that working on all and then was trained in PR.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so then working on all sides of the industry just informed my ability.
2
SPEAKER_02
Okay, like what does everyone need and like how do we make it where everybody wins all together?
2
SPEAKER_02
and built a system that way.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I tell anyone, regardless of what industry you want to be in, do all the jobs, work on all the sides, and deeply understand it.
2
SPEAKER_02
Because I think that s what brings you to the aha moment.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think it s the only way you can become an original.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of ideas that are kind of second, third, fourth movers, but to have the original idea that s new, it s typically a culmination of a bunch of experiences that you can only get by having those experiences.
2
SPEAKER_00
Does that make sense?
2
SPEAKER_00
Somebody else at that time could not have come up with that idea because they weren t seeing it or thinking about it the way that you were thinking about it because of your experiences.
2
SPEAKER_00
Completely.
2
SPEAKER_02
And actually, you know, when you talk about that time period.
2
SPEAKER_02
OK, so let s bring people back.
2
SPEAKER_02
I was on a BlackBerry.
2
SPEAKER_02
So was everyone.
2
SPEAKER_02
Like iPhone was not ubiquitous in the market at all.
2
SPEAKER_02
App Store was like barely launching if it had launched.
2
SPEAKER_02
When you thought about online retailers, there s really only two online retailers.
2
SPEAKER_02
There s Shopbop and Net-a-Porter.
2
SPEAKER_02
Luckily, they had almost every product that I was talking about.
2
SPEAKER_02
So I was kind of between mid-market and luxury for my clients.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so Shopbop was like that mid-market and then Net-a-Porter hit luxury.
2
SPEAKER_02
And those were our first two retailers.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I actually remember getting on the phone, and this is by the way, like pre-LinkedIn.
2
SPEAKER_02
So like, how do you find people?
2
SPEAKER_02
Like, this is a really, it wasn t that long ago.
2
SPEAKER_02
It was like 14 years ago, but it s like the world is very different.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s a little vintage.
2
SPEAKER_02
So, you know, getting on the phone, for example, with Net-a-Porter, and I ll come back to, well, I should start with Shopbop.
2
SPEAKER_02
So Shopbop was our first, and somehow I got ahold of somebody s email and got on the phone with them.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I told them,
2
SPEAKER_02
hey, me and a couple of my blogger friends, we really want to talk about Shopbop and we think we can drive traffic and sales to you and tell people about Shopbop and be top of mind.
2
SPEAKER_02
Would you want to work with us in this way?
2
SPEAKER_02
We ll earn a commission, yada, yada. 
2
SPEAKER_02
And they said yes.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I remember I came downstairs and they were very forward thinking, obviously, being first to digital.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I came downstairs and I was like broken out in hives.
2
SPEAKER_02
My dad was like, what s going on?
2
SPEAKER_02
And I was like, shop up said yes.
2
SPEAKER_02
But I was so stressed and so intimidated to even just be on the on the phone.
2
SPEAKER_02
They were already owned by Amazon at the time, too.
2
SPEAKER_02
And Amazon was way smaller then, but but still huge.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I just remember thinking, like, I m basically on the phone with Amazon.
2
SPEAKER_02
Like, this is like almost it was overwhelming.
2
SPEAKER_02
My body was broken out in hives.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then with Net-A-Porter, like how I got to them.
2
SPEAKER_02
I would ask everyone I knew if they knew anyone at NET-A-PORTER.
2
SPEAKER_02
So they re based in London.
2
SPEAKER_02
And again, pre-LinkedIn, all of this stuff.
2
SPEAKER_02
The way we ultimately got to NET-A-PORTER was an intern s boyfriend s sister lived in London.
2
SPEAKER_02
Her roommate was a graphic designer at NET-A-PORTER.
2
SPEAKER_02
And that s how I got the call with NET-A-PORTER.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I literally was wearing, like, maybe some, like, softie shorts.
2
SPEAKER_02
I put on, like, a silky blouse.
2
SPEAKER_02
I got a Skype account.
2
SPEAKER_02
I put pearls on and, like, slicked my hair back and tried to, like, act like this was, like, a real
2
SPEAKER_02
thing and it took months for them to agree.
2
SPEAKER_02
But when you talk about things being sexy, I wanted to link to Miu Miu and Prada and they were selling Miu Miu and Prada.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I was like, I am in a commercial relationship with Miu Miu and Prada.
2
SPEAKER_02
Like, I want to be a fashion editor.
2
SPEAKER_02
I want to be able to talk about these things and like earn money by talking about these things.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so that was one of the first huge moments of like, this is very cool.
2
SPEAKER_01
So a couple things.
2
SPEAKER_01
How many employees do you have right now at this moment?
2
SPEAKER_01
There s over 800 right now.
2
SPEAKER_01
OK, so I want to talk about the trajectory of the employees.
2
SPEAKER_01
Who is your first hire and who s your first strategic hire?
2
SPEAKER_01
And also, who is your first creator?
2
SPEAKER_02
The first hire was bringing that engineer on full time.
2
SPEAKER_02
So this was like totally bootstrapped.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I think Baxter and I both put in like, it was four figures, I probably put in like $1,000 or $1,500.
2
SPEAKER_02
We were like piecing along paying this engineer hourly to translate those
2
SPEAKER_02
kind of wireframes and we would meet him on the weekend.
2
SPEAKER_02
So he had a full time job too.
2
SPEAKER_02
We would go like meet him literally in Dallas, buy him some brunch.
2
SPEAKER_02
Again, like you find ways to like get people to show up for things and talk to him about like the intent of like what we were trying to show him.
2
SPEAKER_02
I d kind of like translate the wireframes, if you will.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then he would spend the next week doing it.
2
SPEAKER_02
And we d come with like another check if we can buy some more hours.
2
SPEAKER_02
And that s kind of how it was working at that point.
2
SPEAKER_02
our first actual hire was him.
2
SPEAKER_02
Before we were able to hire him, we gathered our friends actually at an Irish pub.
2
SPEAKER_02
And we re very into... What s that Irish?
2
SPEAKER_00
Shepherd s pie.
2
SPEAKER_00
Shepherd s pie.
2
SPEAKER_00
I thought you were saying Irish car bomb.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was like, sold.
2
SPEAKER_02
But anyway, we gathered our friends at an Irish pub and like literally circled up 10 people and we re like, hey, Amber was making money offline.
2
SPEAKER_02
We ve now done this online thing like these, you know, this one retailer has said, yes, she is making money.
2
SPEAKER_02
It is working.
2
SPEAKER_02
The technology is working.
2
SPEAKER_02
Will you guys like throw in on this?
2
SPEAKER_02
almost all of them did.
2
SPEAKER_02
One, who is an investor today, as a professional investor.
2
SPEAKER_02
He was like, well, Baxter, if this is such a big opportunity that you re telling us it is, why are you not quitting your job and doing it with her?
2
SPEAKER_02
And he was like, okay, I ll quit my job by the end of the year.
2
SPEAKER_02
He worked to make that happen.
2
SPEAKER_02
And we raised from friends and family.
2
SPEAKER_02
Our first hire was that engineer.
2
SPEAKER_02
We got a studio apartment in Mockingbird Station in Dallas, which at the time was a very cool place to be.
2
SPEAKER_02
It was a mixed use, one of the first mixed use.
2
SPEAKER_02
It looked out over SMU.
2
SPEAKER_02
We had like a Starbucks downstairs, which we thought was very cool and like all the cool stores.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I remember Baxter was really nervous because he thought that we were going to get kicked out or be in like legal trouble because we were running a business from this place.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I remember with the leasing agent walking through, I was like, I m going to work here.
2
SPEAKER_02
Is that OK?
2
SPEAKER_02
He s like, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I was like, I m probably going to live here, too.
2
SPEAKER_02
He s like, yeah, OK.
2
SPEAKER_02
I was like, I don t care.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so anyway, we did that.
2
SPEAKER_02
I was actually sleeping on the futon in this little like loft.
2
SPEAKER_02
It was like the tiniest of times, truly the smallest thing they offered.
2
SPEAKER_02
And the team didn t know it at the time.
2
SPEAKER_02
Actually, I would like fold everything.
2
SPEAKER_02
We put everything away before they got there in the morning.
2
SPEAKER_02
But I so desperately wanted to move out of my dad s house and just like be a launched adult that I I made that kind of all work.
2
SPEAKER_01
So how do you start to pick who you re hiring to build this?
2
SPEAKER_01
Because this is, you gotta have the infrastructure, the foundation, and also how do you choose the creators simultaneously?
2
SPEAKER_02
So on the creator side, SMU had started a fashion media program, which was really before their time, to be honest.
2
SPEAKER_02
So people were actually forced to have websites like for their school.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so I used to have a section on my blog that was called Girl of the Moment.
2
SPEAKER_02
And every month I would pick someone who was doing something interesting and every Tuesday I would feature them.
2
SPEAKER_02
But I d go into their homework closet, I would style them, I would shoot them.
2
SPEAKER_02
And like every Tuesday there d be a new set of photos and outfits and like pieces.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s like a four part interview basically.
2
SPEAKER_02
I really loved that series.
2
SPEAKER_02
But two of the people that I featured on Girl of the Moment,
2
SPEAKER_02
actually did have websites.
2
SPEAKER_02
So one was a school website and then the other one had a Tumblr that she did with her best friend and they would have like wine night and then just basically pin a bunch of pictures to this Tumblr.
2
SPEAKER_02
You can call it that.
2
SPEAKER_02
They would tumble photos.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so I went to both of them first and I was like, okay, here s what I m doing.
2
SPEAKER_02
It is working.
2
SPEAKER_02
I m making money.
2
SPEAKER_02
If you are talking about products or showing things people can buy, if you ll just tell your audience that this is a pair of
2
SPEAKER_02
Citizens for Humanity jeans and actually link that using our tools, then if people buy things, you ll make money as well.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so they were the first two that I got set up.
2
SPEAKER_02
I remember I wanted one of them specifically, I thought had great taste and was really working hard at it.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I remember going out and actually buying a pair of white jeans from her because I wanted her to see that it can actually work.
2
SPEAKER_02
And it did.
2
SPEAKER_02
And she was so excited.
2
SPEAKER_02
The next batch of people, so one was I went to what was called IFB, so Independent Fashion Bloggers, like back in the day.
2
SPEAKER_02
I don t know if you ever went to those conferences.
2
SPEAKER_02
So I went to this before, like this was maybe early 2011, so before we like actually launched.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I was like, I want to figure out how these girls are making money.
2
SPEAKER_02
I had no blogger friends.
2
SPEAKER_02
I went to New York by myself and went to this conference.
2
SPEAKER_02
And when people would come off stage, I would just run up to them and be like, hi, I m Amber.
2
SPEAKER_02
I live in Texas.
2
SPEAKER_02
I m not your competition.
2
SPEAKER_02
Like, will you tell me how you make money?
2
SPEAKER_02
And I were talking to Leandra, main repeller,
2
SPEAKER_02
And she was like, well, I like I get free clothes.
3
SPEAKER_02
and I get invited to parties.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I was like, so you don t make money?
3
SPEAKER_02
I was like, you were on stage.
3
SPEAKER_02
How d you get on stage?
3
SPEAKER_02
And that was pretty much everyone s story is like everyone either was living at home or had some other job and this was a passion project for them.
3
SPEAKER_02
And so I remember coming back home and telling Baxter, none of those New York girls make money either.
3
SPEAKER_02
And so that kind of like helped us along our path of like, well, there is probably a real need for this.
3
SPEAKER_02
So Leandra was actually one of my first phone calls.
3
SPEAKER_01
Huge at the time.
3
SPEAKER_01
Huge at the time.
3
SPEAKER_01
She was one of the biggest bloggers.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s like one of the biggest bloggers, just to give Michael context, if you don t know who that is.
3
SPEAKER_02
I know of the Mandrapella.
3
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, so I called Leandra from that same game room upstairs and I was like, hey, you remember how you like, you know, how s it going?
3
SPEAKER_02
Are you still living at home?
3
SPEAKER_02
Yep, still living at home.
3
SPEAKER_02
I was like, so I started this thing to help people make money.
3
SPEAKER_02
Like, you know, you talk about all this stuff.
3
SPEAKER_02
If you ll use these links, you can, you know, make just do what you re already doing.
3
SPEAKER_02
But if we have a link for it, then you can use that and you can make money and we ll get you paid and we track it and send it to you and all that.
3
SPEAKER_02
She was like, okay, I ll try it.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then she started making money and she called back and she was like, can I like tell some of my friends about this?
3
SPEAKER_02
I was like, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
And so then all of a sudden you have like La Fashion who was like running content for Who At Where and then like Glamour Eye was big and like they re all referring each other because everyone was doing it as a hobbyist.
3
SPEAKER_02
But like how exciting to actually have money to buy the things that you re talking about, step one.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then
3
SPEAKER_02
to move out of your apartment, step three.
3
SPEAKER_02
So it was really like first kind of the network that I had met.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then we started going after just bloggers that I followed online.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I remember one of them specifically, I think she even, well, she used a blog spot, but she basically would just post photos of herself and outfits and it was clothes that you could never track down.
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean, this is before Google Lens.
3
SPEAKER_02
This is before like anything of, you know, being able to find what someone s wearing.
3
SPEAKER_02
Is this Fashion Toast?
3
SPEAKER_02
Well, I don t want to say who it is because the rest of the story I m going to tell you.
3
SPEAKER_02
But no, but when I finally did like track her down, because she had like no information, no text, no anything on this website.
3
SPEAKER_02
So when I finally did track her down and got on the call, I was like, I think that people want to buy what you re wearing.
3
SPEAKER_02
Like every day you re posting outfits.
3
SPEAKER_02
And she s like, this is just what I love.
3
SPEAKER_02
I m just doing no one s here to buy things.
3
SPEAKER_02
And so I told her, I was like, just link that one dress and like see how it goes.
3
SPEAKER_02
And this was like on a Friday afternoon because she had a full time job.
3
SPEAKER_02
People couldn t find the dress at the time.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
She wasn t even saying where she got it, a brand, anything.
3
SPEAKER_02
It was literally just the name of the blog at the top and just a series of photos down the page.
3
SPEAKER_02
So I was like, just tell people what you re wearing and then link the ones that you can.
3
SPEAKER_02
And so that was on a Friday night.
3
SPEAKER_02
By the next morning, we were sitting at Sonic, Baxter and I, and I look up to see how it s doing.
3
SPEAKER_02
And she sold 83 of this dress.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I called her.
3
SPEAKER_02
I was like, you re not going to believe it.
3
SPEAKER_02
People are actually shopping.
3
SPEAKER_02
You sold 83 of these.
3
SPEAKER_02
And she is still today one of the largest influencers in the world.
3
SPEAKER_02
But those were some of the early days.
3
SPEAKER_00
two sites that I m always shopping on when it comes to clothes.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that is Revolve and Forward.
3
SPEAKER_00
Revolve s a luxury sister site.
3
SPEAKER_00
So both of these sites have the best of the best brands in my opinion.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I feel like everything has like curated edits.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I go on to Revolve and I ll get my favorite James Pierce v-neck tees.
3
SPEAKER_00
They re the best tees.
3
SPEAKER_00
I have white and black.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then I ll go on forward and I ll get some shoes, maybe a handbag.
3
SPEAKER_00
I love their jeans.
3
SPEAKER_00
They have these Kate jeans that I m wearing on my Instagram story right now that are black and fitted and so chic.
3
SPEAKER_00
And both of the sites have amazing belts.
3
SPEAKER_00
I also wanted to tell you, I don t know if you know this, but Revolve carries skinny confidential products.
3
SPEAKER_00
So now you can go on and you can get your body sculptor.
3
SPEAKER_00
I created this body sculptor to break up my cellulite after having a baby and it s absolutely amazing for summer and you can grab all your bikinis.
3
SPEAKER_00
And everything on there is just like on the pulse.
3
SPEAKER_00
They have new arrivals every single day.
3
SPEAKER_00
They have authentic high quality products.
3
SPEAKER_00
Everything has inclusive sizing options.
3
SPEAKER_00
They ve really thought of everything.
3
SPEAKER_00
But the best part, I have to tell you, is it s fast and free shipping and they have returns.
3
SPEAKER_00
From last minute getaways to party dressing plus seasonal upgrades revolve has you covered with fast two day shipping and easy returns on all of them.
3
SPEAKER_00
So go to revolve.com slash skinny today to shop my curated selection.
3
SPEAKER_00
I did like a whole page for you guys for every occasion and season.
3
SPEAKER_00
And don t forget to check out their latest arrivals while you re there.
3
SPEAKER_00
They have new arrivals daily.
3
SPEAKER_00
So there s always something new to shop.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s R E V O L V E.com slash S K I N N Y to shop my picks.
3
SPEAKER_00
I have to tell you, ever since I had a baby, I m really into clean beauty and clean makeup.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s just something that I ve really been paying attention to.
3
SPEAKER_00
I try to be as non-toxic as possible.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m obviously not perfect, but I try.
3
SPEAKER_00
If you are looking for a deodorant that s natural, high performance, and free of aluminum and parabens, Salt and Stone deodorant has got your back.
3
SPEAKER_00
So this is a deodorant that really works.
3
SPEAKER_00
If you want a deodorant that s strong, that actually lives up to the hype, that provides you 48 hours of protection, this is it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Another thing about this deodorant, so sometimes when I try
3
SPEAKER_00
non-toxic deodorants, I noticed that they can be hard on my underarms.
3
SPEAKER_00
And this one s super gentle.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s because they specifically made it with seaweed extract and hyaluronic acid.
3
SPEAKER_00
And this moisturizes the skin.
3
SPEAKER_00
It also has probiotics to help neutralize odor.
3
SPEAKER_00
So they ve really sort of thought of everything.
3
SPEAKER_00
My favorite scent that they have is the Bergamot.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think it smells so fresh and delicious.
3
SPEAKER_00
They also have body mist versions, too, as well.
3
SPEAKER_00
So you can like enhance your scent on the go.
3
SPEAKER_00
So if you re going to the gym or the supermarket or you re working, you can carry this body mist in your bag and it just helps with scent.
3
SPEAKER_00
Personally, the biggest plus for me here, though, is it s free of aluminum and parabens.
3
SPEAKER_00
So important when you re picking a deodorant.
3
SPEAKER_00
I just find it especially for women.
3
SPEAKER_00
You have to find a deodorant that has no aluminum.
3
SPEAKER_00
Visit saltandstone.com and use code skinny at checkout.
3
SPEAKER_00
You get 15% off your first purchase.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s s-a-l-t-a-n-d-s-t-o-n-e.com code skinny and you get 15% off your purchase.
3
SPEAKER_00
The one I like, like I said, is the Bergamot.
3
SPEAKER_00
As you know, I have been super open about things that are more on the taboo side.
3
SPEAKER_00
And one of those things is air sculpts and air sculpts the move.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I got this for underneath, like not my actual jaw and chin, but underneath.
3
SPEAKER_00
I got like a little bit of fat removed.
3
SPEAKER_00
It made such a difference.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then I also did my arms and I just feel like it tightened my arms.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was already working out and lifting really heavy weights.
3
SPEAKER_00
So this is honestly just a really great way to permanently get rid of stubborn belly fat in one session.
3
SPEAKER_00
So AirSculpt was invented in 2012 by a celebrity cosmetic surgeon who we had on the podcast, Dr. Rollins, and over 60,000 people have enjoyed the AirSculpt difference, including, like I said, yours truly.
3
SPEAKER_00
Essentially, it s a minimally invasive body contouring procedure, and it s all designed to get rid of permanently stubborn body fat in one session.
3
SPEAKER_00
So for me, it was no needles, no scalpels, not stitches, and it was all while I was awake.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the procedure was so gentle.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was like fully relaxed.
3
SPEAKER_00
and they can even take your natural fat and use it to enhance your boobs, butt or face as opposed to implants or synthetic dermal fillers.
3
SPEAKER_00
I did not do that, but I ve heard great things.
3
SPEAKER_00
So like I said, I snatched my arm and underneath my chin, I was like at a restaurant wearing my chin strap, rocking it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I loved it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was literally there the next day going out to lunch at walking the beach, having a glass of champagne.
3
SPEAKER_00
Don t tell Dr. Rollins.
3
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SPEAKER_01
When it started to really gain momentum, creators that that you can call out that have just just took it by storm and like really did a great job where you guys were like, holy shit, this is going to be a massive business.
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You know, it was never like a single creator.
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It was honestly like everyone was so excited because we were all making money and then like started making material money and then people s parents started to get
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excited and like read their blogs and like their dads were like suddenly interested because it was like, whoa, this is actually real money.
4
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Like this isn t a joke.
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And it makes sense.
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Like you re giving a service to your audience and like you re getting to do what you love.
4
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So, I mean, I used to actually serve on the Dallas Fed as an advisor.
4
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And I think what was interesting about them inviting me and like the way they introduced me to the audience was
4
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Amber s employing a group of people that might not otherwise have had jobs or be contributing to the economy.
4
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And I was like, that s a really that was, you know, several years ago they said that I think people understand the creator economy now.
4
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And there s true entrepreneurs that like start out like I am going to make it as a creator.
4
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But at the time, I think it was very true where this was passionate people who were spending their discretionary time sharing what they love with their community.
4
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And it was starting to make, you know, a meaningful impact on the economy.
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It s so interesting because people now pursue this as a career path and they understand and we ll go and speak, I m sure you ve spoken, a lot of people speak at schools as an occupation to pursue.
4
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But the timeline and why I m so interested in it, it doesn t seem that long ago, but it feels like a long time ago.
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I remember sitting with Lauren when she was starting and people were like, how are you ever going to make money on this?
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Why would you do this?
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A lot of older guys and girls were like, why would this ever make sense?
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Parents, nobody believed that this was going to be something where people could make a living.
4
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And obviously that s been proven to be different.
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It was just such a weird period of time when there was a group of very passionate people doing this for no money or for trade.
4
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And I think you re one of the people that helped a lot of these people go and make a career of it.
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Because at the time, there was a lot of brands that were maybe taking advantage of that creativity and be like, hey, I ll give you a free trip or here s a free outfit or a free meal.
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And it s funny because like those brands had such an outsized win at the time for that, as we all know now, now everybody s paying.
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But it s just weird because I think a lot of people don t realize at that time there wasn t a clear path to make money.
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It was like a huge leap of faith from a lot of the early people that were in the space.
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I think what you ve done too that s so incredible is you ve helped a lot of people who are really creative be taken really seriously.
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Like when I was first starting, I remember I saw sales that I was doing for a juice company.
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I saw the back end somehow.
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And it was like hundreds of thousands of dollars of sales, which when I m just starting with my little blog, that s a lot.
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So I remember taking the owner to lunch and saying, hey, you need to pay me a commission of this.
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And I believe that I should get $30,000.
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This is just the amount that I had calculated.
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for all these sales.
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And he looked at me and laughed and was like, you re out of your mind, like you re cute, like patting me on the head.
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And what Reward Style did for me at the time, now it s LTK, was you guys came in and I was able to work with another juice company where the commission was seamlessly integrated where I didn t have to have that conversation.
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And the brand, it was a win for me, a win for them, and a win for the audience because they were able to shop and support what I was doing.
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So it really helped me when I was just starting out, really be taken seriously.
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Legitimize.
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Yeah, which was really cool.
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That s incredible.
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And I love that that s actually
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I think so many people who were working back then will just be nodding their head as they listen to this because the status quo was... Well, first of all, Blogger wasn t even part of the dictionary until 2017.
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So it was not part of common vernacular.
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When I talked about Shopop and Net-a-Porter being the only online sellers, they truly were.
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People came online after that.
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We actually helped Vogue.com launch.
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So just to give you a sense, we were that far in and then our team swarmed and helped them.
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We literally went to New York and helped them.
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And by the way, they had someone who was previously an intern launch this website.
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People didn t take digital seriously at all.
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They didn t take social seriously.
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SPEAKER_01
When we talk about the word affiliates,
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Retailers weren t selling online yet.
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And so the fashion space was definitely not using any sort of marketing technology at all.
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And so the first step was getting them to actually sell things online.
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And then the second step was trying to track down, because pre-LinkedIn, who in this company is maybe responsible for it.
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SPEAKER_01
And I remember going to a major retailer who had launched their online
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And I finally got a meeting and I m sure it was some sort of pity something from somebody and sat in the room with her and explained that we could at least drive traffic, not sales.
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And she was like, look, I work with celebrities and models.
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And if I started cutting checks to people who take pictures of themselves in mirrors and alleys and in front of garage doors, which was very common at the time.
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SPEAKER_01
And such like a rude diss in a way.
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Oh, yeah.
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She was like, I would lose my job.
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I mean, that was the conversation.
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And then if you remember, like even over the years, there was a whole movement of like bloggers from Fashion Week.
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I don t know if you remember that whole like truly it was like across traditional media, like we re going to ban them from Fashion Week.
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It was a pejorative word.
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I mean, there were many years where this I ve always been a champion of creators.
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You ll see like you ll hit some passion points and I really go off about this type of stuff.
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But I I still think creators are undervalued.
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I m like working to solve all those problems.
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But I did spend probably too much time even trying to create partnerships with legacy industry.
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to try and prove out the value of creators or to legitimize creators.
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And then I finally gave up on it because they don t want us to succeed.
4
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They don t understand we re maybe taking jobs where we re actually turning this whole industry upside down.
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We re reinventing retail.
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It s not going to be their shtick.
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And it didn t matter because what we re doing is
4
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cultural.
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It didn t need the approval of any magazine editor or any leader of an association.
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It was this almost silent thing that happened and then it just took over.
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You know what s interesting though, and you ll probably be passionate about this, for the longest time, I think many of us were trying to convince a lot of people from that world to take this world seriously.
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And I was in a conversation the other day, I won t say, I got to be careful how I say this, with someone, but I basically asked this firm, like in a future world,
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do these kind of creators and these kind of entities need you more than you need them? 
4
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Fast forward five years, and it was like this kind of shocked look on this firm s face because it was a realization moment for them to survive.
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And you ve seen many of these legacy companies kind of falter and go under, and you see that with media and you see that with all sorts of things.
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But I think there s finally this realization of like, oh shit, either we missed the boat or we got to take this very seriously.
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Because in a future world, publishing or fashion or media,
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if you don t start taking this economy seriously, like you re just not going to survive.
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And so it s been empowering for me as an operator because I spend almost no time now trying to convince those people and just like, hey, if you miss the boat, like I ll see you down the line five years or I won t.
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I mean, I think that this goes along, though, with being a disruptor.
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You get to the point where you re like, I m not in the business to convince you.
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Get on the train or get off.
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And it s just like that s how being a disruptor is.
4
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And I think that this is all part of it.
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It s you re going to get the pushback.
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You can t blame certain people, though.
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It s just a lot of people are scared of change.
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They don t like uncertainty.
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They like to keep the status quo.
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Or like you said, they re worried that their job s going to be diminished.
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The worst thing is someone said, we ve always done it this way, so we have to keep doing this.
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So like there s empathy to be deployed.
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But I just think the way I think about everything now is not not what s going on right now.
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But what does this look like four or five, six, 10 years down the line?
4
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I want to talk about us speaking at LTK, a conference that you guys have.
4
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It s an incredible conference that supports creators.
4
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You can get more into it.
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But when I was speaking, I recognized that there are women in this audience that are making a million plus a year.
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And if you look at their Instagram, you don t you wouldn t know that it s not in your face.
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And I think that that is an impressive amount for women, a lot of women, mostly women to be making.
4
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And I don t think that that s talked about enough and given enough credit to.
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Can you speak on these top performers that you guys have on LTK?
4
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For sure.
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This makes me so excited because I actually remember
4
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We did a book several years ago, maybe around 2017, and it was like to know what the influencer next door.
4
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And my whole point in doing the book was on this journey to legitimize.
4
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It was like I was doing all of these things, anything I could to make sure that people understood the stories of these creators.
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So this book is global.
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It s 100 creators from around the world.
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with their various stories.
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One girl s like, I worked at Mac.
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I always wanted to have my own makeup line.
4
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Then I became an LTK creator.
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I learned that I could and now I do.
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It s these really empowering stories.
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They re very short.
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One woman, I called every single person to be in the book and talked to them and asked for their permission.
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and kind of explain the project.
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And one woman that probably everyone in this podcast would know was like, absolutely.
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She was like, because my in-laws don t talk to me at the dinner table.
5
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They only think that doctors or lawyers are the ones that are do well.
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And this family is all doctors and lawyers.
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And they think I m a piece of trash.
5
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And they set me at the end.
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They think I run up debt for our family because I carry all this, you know, nice designer bags and whatever.
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And she was like, I m so sick of people not understanding that my husband is a doctor and I make way more than him.
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And she was like, in this book, she was like, I m going to give
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it to the whole family for Christmas.
5
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And it was like this like legitimacy, like proof point.
5
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And honestly, like you said, I think a lot of these.
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So there are now almost 250 women who are LTK millionaires.
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There s thousands of them that are making a full time wage on LTK.
5
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And like you said, it s not overly obvious.
5
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There s several people I can think of, tons of examples where
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besides them and their spouse, they don t change anything about their lifestyle.
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They don t change the content that they re writing about.
5
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And so people actually have no clue what s going on behind the scenes.
5
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Meanwhile, they re like, I m paying off my house.
5
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I m studying my kid s college.
5
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We re going on vacations.
5
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Things are a little different, but it s important.
5
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I talk to creators a lot about, hey, look, if you started, for example, in the affordable fashion space,
5
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and then you get rich and you want to talk about like really expensive stuff, like your audience didn t also get rich.
5
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And so that s like the fastest way to lose your business is to just like sort of alienate them.
5
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And so I think a lot of what you re kind of speaking to is like those women in the room, it s almost unassuming.
5
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And that s actually part of like the audience that they serve as things have changed for them, but they are savvy enough to understand things didn t change for everyone.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so they re still serving that audience.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think that my journey with you guys has been so interesting because at first I was just linking out like the top I was wearing or the jeans I was wearing.
5
SPEAKER_00
And now what I ve done is I ve deployed massive strategy to make this as something to diversify my income.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s something that s like an extra thing where I have like a fashion budget or whatever that s really amazing.
5
SPEAKER_00
So now what I do is I link the entire outfit I m wearing
5
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Because you do get questions over DMs of exactly what it is.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I obviously I do what I can, but I don t have time to answer every single one all the time.
5
SPEAKER_00
So it really is like a one stop shop destination for the audience to really get all the points from the cell phone cover that I m using to the nail polish gel that I have on.
5
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to even like the tennis bracelet I m wearing.
5
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Like it s like they really can get the full experience and it s not pushy.
5
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It s just like here s the information if you want it.
5
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Right.
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If anyone s listening and they re just using links, I would recommend switching over to the full.
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t you could the full look.
5
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Is that how you call it?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think it s.
5
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Honestly, the people who do really well on LTK, I think it s even important to foundationally just set, why does LTK exist as a platform, as the shopper platform that you use?
5
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Because actually we started the business B2B.
5
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It was totally behind the scenes.
5
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It was a system where we were actually just able to track what was happening between a creator and then when they send their customer to that retailer, we re billing on it, we re paying out to the creator, it s all under the covers.
5
SPEAKER_01
The reason that we expanded to have that shopper side of the marketplace was that we launched, you know, 2011.
5
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I had a blog you used at the time, Facebook or Twitter to drive traffic and Pinterest launched.
5
SPEAKER_01
You use that to drive traffic again back to the blog.
5
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And then the Instagram days started and you re like, wow, this is a mobile closed social walled garden.
5
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I can no longer link out.
5
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I ve been hired, quote, hired by my audience to do this thing for them.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like I m helping them go shopping.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s really hard to take them shopping on Instagram.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so we actually start and then, you know, of course, then Snap came about even harder to get your community to like to kind of provide that service to them.
5
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So what we saw, and, you know, I think you spoke to this, Michael, earlier about really your job as an owner or founder is like being a futurist.
5
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And so like Baxter and I take that job very seriously.
5
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And we re looking at trends constantly and saying, well, if this plays out, then this, and if this plays out, then that.
5
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And like, where does that intersect?
5
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What s the top of the puzzle box?
5
SPEAKER_01
And so in three years, we believe XYZ will happen, which means our creators will need this thing.
5
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And so it often takes that many years to get to a product that s viable by the time that you need it.
5
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Right.
5
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And if you don t have it, you re kind of too late.
5
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So, we started building LTK as its own platform starting as early as 2013 because we were like, wow, there s a new platform popping up every two years.
5
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They re all scaled consumer businesses.
5
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These are new places for our creators to essentially go fishing for people to join their community
5
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But the biggest risk to them actually in this new universe is the fragmentation of their audience.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because if they can t on demand reach that 20,000 that are there and that 10,000 that are there and that 2.3 million that are there, and all of a sudden it s broken across all of these different platforms, across all of these different retailers and media formats, then you actually don t have anything to sell.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like when you talk about selling that juice, like you actually need a group of people who trust you or following along and who are available that you can reach when you have that campaign going on.
5
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We started investing in LTK as that platform that was a differentiated home base where you re still using all of the platforms that you can in order to find new audience, but then you re bringing them home.
5
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And our thoughts for LTK is like, this should be the most competitive place to go shopping.
5
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When I say competitive, our shoppers are trained on world-class platforms.
5
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They are getting the best experience anywhere they go.
5
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I don t want, when they come to my creators,
5
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you know, LTK, for it to be a lesser experience.
5
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So we ve been investing heavily to make sure that when they come, they re getting that whole outfit.
5
SPEAKER_01
But maybe it s not even just your outfit.
5
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Maybe it s like you re on a new like keto path and you found all these keto snacks or like you re into running now and like here s your running gear.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s everything.
5
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The reason I take you down that whole path in that story is your most engaged community does want to buy into your lifestyle and not just when they see it pop up on TikTok, on the interest feed, or on Instagram.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so if I love your style, when I m ready to go shopping, just the same way I d open up to go to a retailer, I want them to go to you and be like, well, I want to see what Lauren s wearing, what she s eating, what she s doing, and you are a destination.
5
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And that honestly,
5
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I think creators are a hospitality business.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so it s just better service to have it available, indexed, searchable with all the codes, all the shoppable details.
5
SPEAKER_01
And candidly, even beyond probably what you re sharing on social media, because you re trying to attract someone with your best, honestly, to your own platform.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m curious, for my own selfish self, how you ve managed to scale so seamlessly.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I m sure you re going to say it s not seamless, but talk to us about what the growth has looked like and what you ve learned and how you scaled and how you ve maneuvered.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s a book called The Messy Middle, and on the cover of it is this chart.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s this loop-de-loop-around chart, and that s what it looks like.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s definitely not as smooth and easy.
5
SPEAKER_01
We had our first employee for the first year and an intern, and then it started being able to grow the business again, bootstrapped
5
SPEAKER_01
lots of bumps and bruises.
5
SPEAKER_01
I mentioned my jewelry line earlier and the jewelry line did really well.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then it hit a ceiling because I had no training or experience working with other people.
5
SPEAKER_01
So in that that store that I worked at all of college, it was me and the owners.
5
SPEAKER_01
But I got to do whatever I wanted to.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was like a cat in there.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes, total.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then like with the jewelry line and and being a perfectionist and wanting things a certain way, it was like annoying to me to take the time to try and teach someone and then they re not as motivated.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like I was the worst manager ever.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so
5
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The jewelry line totally... I feel it.
5
SPEAKER_01
I get it.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
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It hit a ceiling.
5
SPEAKER_01
There was no more.
5
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I had reached my limit.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that s honestly, even talking about teamwork and how you scale this stuff.
5
SPEAKER_01
I like to think that LTK is the Baxter for every Amber because I hit a point and it was like, I have this core skill set and it s really valuable if you can monetize it correctly.
5
SPEAKER_01
But I am missing this whole other side that I really need someone else to be able to do.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so us coming together, this was for both of us our first, not our first entrepreneurial endeavor, but our first successful entrepreneurial endeavor.
5
SPEAKER_00
So what on a day to day basis, who does what?
5
SPEAKER_00
Like, what s the energy?
5
SPEAKER_00
Like, are you more creative?
5
SPEAKER_00
What s the vibe?
5
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So I think we re both creative, but so he s our CEO.
5
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I am our president has always been that way.
5
SPEAKER_01
So from a reporting structure standpoint, we are, we have two GMs.
5
SPEAKER_01
So general managers like core GMs.
5
SPEAKER_01
So we have one over a creator shopping and then one over the brand side of the platform.
5
SPEAKER_01
And those both
6
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report into Baxter.
6
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He s much more the creative UI UX team reports through me and then the press kind of communications directly to me and then marketing kind of like dotted line.
6
SPEAKER_01
And are you working in office nine to five or is it fluid?
6
SPEAKER_03
So we re every day full time working.
6
SPEAKER_03
And so we actually a year ago moved out to far west Texas.
6
SPEAKER_03
Our whole team has been remote since 2020.
6
SPEAKER_03
And so we now have people working in almost every state.
6
SPEAKER_03
And we like I actually work at a desk in our bedroom.
6
SPEAKER_03
And then we do that with four kids.
6
SPEAKER_01
What s the trick?
6
SPEAKER_01
Amber, you got to tell me the trick.
6
SPEAKER_01
What s the trick with that?
6
SPEAKER_01
How do you work in your bedroom with four kids?
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t understand that.
6
SPEAKER_01
Lock the door.
6
SPEAKER_01
Like lock the door.
6
SPEAKER_01
You have to put like bars and a silencer.
6
SPEAKER_03
Like how do you do that?
6
SPEAKER_03
You know, during the school year, of course, they re at school all day.
6
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And actually it s longer than most people because it actually is longer days where we live.
6
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And then also to get to school is anywhere between 30 and 45 minutes.
6
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So send them to school six hours away.
6
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And what are the ages?
6
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So my oldest is eight, my youngest is three, and there are four of them.
6
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So I have a second, first, kinder, and pre-K.
6
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And this is where I m so intrigued by you, and I say this to you every time I see you.
6
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How are you able to be so hands-on and build such an empire with four children?
6
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Like, what is the secret?
6
SPEAKER_03
Like, I don t know, it s a little psychotic, but I think I, Baxter and I both wanted a big family and we knew that early on.
6
SPEAKER_03
We also dated for six and a half years.
6
SPEAKER_03
And most of that time, actually, we were dating two years before we started the business and then another, what, four and a half during and then got married in the middle of it.
6
SPEAKER_03
By that point, we had already like,
6
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I don t know, been together for so long.
6
SPEAKER_03
And I think the interesting, if there s an interesting, because I don t love that that was the storyline, but everything was always like moving a gold post.
6
SPEAKER_03
It was like, once we hired this person, I ll have some more spare time or like once we get to this point, then we ll be able to like date more.
6
SPEAKER_03
And then like, and honestly, that was part of the problem and why we dated for so long was that we both worked around the clock nonstop.
6
SPEAKER_03
It s all we did.
6
SPEAKER_03
We really weren t dating during that time.
6
SPEAKER_03
We were just like coexisting as like co-founders.
6
SPEAKER_03
And so
6
SPEAKER_03
It was always like, we ll win, we ll win, we ll win, then we ll get married.
6
SPEAKER_03
And then at some point, it was like that day of freedom didn t come.
6
SPEAKER_03
And so we re like, okay, well, maybe it s never going to come and got married.
6
SPEAKER_03
And then that was our perspective from then on.
6
SPEAKER_03
It s like, well, we want a big family that we re not going to wait.
6
SPEAKER_03
There is no perfect time to do that.
6
SPEAKER_03
We had Birdie and then Boyce 18 months later, and then we had his sister Busy 17 months later, and then Boots two years later.
6
SPEAKER_03
Oh my god.
6
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All Bs.
6
SPEAKER_03
All Bs.
6
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, that s his side.
6
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I didn t fight that fight.
6
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So cute.
6
SPEAKER_00
Everyone on his, on Baxter s side is all Bs.
6
SPEAKER_00
They re all Bs.
6
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
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That s so cute.
6
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Why can t we, we should have been all Ms.
6
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M is not as good as B.
6
SPEAKER_01
Wait, so how are you managing all of this?
6
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Is there a secret?
6
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I asked Jamie O Banion, who you know, obviously Dallas, how she does all of it.
6
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And she said, Lauren, when I lay my head down on the pillow, it s either I was a great mother or I was a great businesswoman.
6
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It s never been both in one day.
6
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And I thought that was great advice because it s true.
6
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It s like you can t do it all.
6
SPEAKER_03
Jamie actually gave me some wonderful advice early in having children because I asked her a lot of the same questions.
6
SPEAKER_03
We both were entrepreneurs in Dallas.
6
SPEAKER_03
And she was like, Amber, you need to figure out what core memories you want to have.
6
SPEAKER_03
And then you book those things like they are meetings and appointments.
6
SPEAKER_03
She was like, for example,
6
SPEAKER_03
if you want to be the one taking your daughter to dance practice, then you book that like a meeting.
6
SPEAKER_03
This was like pre-2020, but like booking it and you block it and you protect it.
6
SPEAKER_03
And she was like, if not, it will just never happen.
6
SPEAKER_03
And she s like, there s other things about like, for example, volunteering at school.
6
SPEAKER_03
She was like, if I m the head of the PTA, my children will never see me.
6
SPEAKER_03
And so that s not really doing something for them.
6
SPEAKER_03
She was like, but bringing cupcakes to class and like celebrating kids  birthdays or like being a mom, whatever.
6
SPEAKER_03
She s like, they see me.
6
SPEAKER_03
I m like part of that.
6
SPEAKER_03
And so that s actually for them.
6
SPEAKER_03
And so she was like, I just try to think of these things strategically.
6
SPEAKER_03
And I have used all of that advice.
6
SPEAKER_03
The mom guilt thing is like super real.
6
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I think about it all the time.
6
SPEAKER_03
Like the struggle between like prioritizing, you know, Baxter and my children.
6
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Like I hate to say that honestly, so many times Baxter gets the back seat when he like totally shouldn t.
6
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I try to not do that.
6
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And it s, I think it s because I feel like we have them for this like short period of time.
6
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I need them to like be great people and I need to be influential in their lives.
6
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That s actually why we moved to the ranch a year ago was I just felt like I was on this hamster wheel in Dallas where both professionally, personally, our families are there.
6
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It was like no matter if I said no to like 90 percent of things people asked me to do.
6
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First of all, I had guilt for saying no because I m a pleaser.
6
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And then the second thing was it still left zero time for myself, for Baxter and I to have time together and for me to see my kids.
6
SPEAKER_03
And I was just like, something has to change.
6
SPEAKER_03
And I am clearly not capable of changing this by saying no to people.
6
SPEAKER_03
And so we ve just got to eject for a minute and go like regroup as a family, because I had always heard that by the time your kids are eight, they sort of are who they re going to be.
6
SPEAKER_03
And Bertie was turning eight.
6
SPEAKER_03
And I was like, well, wow, I ve been really uninfluential in her life.
6
SPEAKER_03
And so now I doubt that.
6
SPEAKER_03
I probably give myself less credit, but it was definitely not as influential as I wanted to be.
6
SPEAKER_03
And so moving out there, it s like, you know, my evenings are now discretionary, like my weekends are discretionary.
6
SPEAKER_03
And so that s time that I m actually spending with them.
6
SPEAKER_03
So like the workday is like fully for LTK and then nights and weekends are not for LTK.
6
SPEAKER_03
And so I do very little work business travel.
6
SPEAKER_03
Like I push back a lot.
6
SPEAKER_03
And surprisingly, it s worked out.
6
SPEAKER_00
Did you know that drinking too much water can actually dehydrate you?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yes, this is counterintuitive.
6
SPEAKER_00
Should you really actually be drinking eight glasses of water a day?
6
SPEAKER_00
Are you drinking too much water?
6
SPEAKER_00
Sometimes that may be the case, and it s likely because you do not have the proper electrolyte ratio in your body, in your system, which is why Lauren and I love Element so much.
6
SPEAKER_00
We ve been taking Element for years.
6
SPEAKER_00
We take it every single day when we work out, when we feel a little dehydrated.
6
SPEAKER_00
If you re somebody that kind of gets headaches or you get that mid-afternoon slump, it s not just because you re dehydrated.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s also likely because you don t have the proper electrolyte ratio.
6
SPEAKER_00
What we love about Element is they have the proper electrolyte ratio of magnesium, sodium, and potassium to get you the best hydration possible when you take it.
6
SPEAKER_00
I personally take it each morning when I go to the gym workout.
6
SPEAKER_00
I just throw it in my water.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s a way to get me to remember to take it.
6
SPEAKER_00
And then as I m sweating in the gym,
6
SPEAKER_00
and losing that electrolyte ratio.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m also replenishing it, getting that energy, getting that focus.
6
SPEAKER_00
One of the things I ve noticed since taking it is I only need one cup of coffee now in the day.
6
SPEAKER_00
And in the past, I was taking multiple cups of coffee throughout the day because I was getting that afternoon slump.
6
SPEAKER_00
Now that I m properly hydrating, I don t have that afternoon slump anymore.
6
SPEAKER_00
My brain s on fire.
6
SPEAKER_00
I can think throughout the day.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t crash.
6
SPEAKER_00
So this is just one of the many things that I found since taking Element.
6
SPEAKER_00
They have so many flavors at this point, so you re guaranteed to find an Element flavor that you love.
6
SPEAKER_00
Try the fan favorites like Citrus Salt or Raspberry Salt, get spicy with Mango Chili, or mix Chocolate Salt into your morning coffee for a mean mocha.
6
SPEAKER_00
So check it out, get your free sample pack with any drink mix purchased at drinkelement.com slash skinny.
6
SPEAKER_00
And if you re an Element insider, you have first access to Element Sparkling, a bold 16-ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water.
6
SPEAKER_00
Again, that s drinkelement.com slash skinny.
6
SPEAKER_02
I am in LA, I am with my entire family, and I wanted to squeeze in a workout all week.
6
SPEAKER_02
So who did I call?
6
SPEAKER_02
I called P.Volv.
6
SPEAKER_02
I called the owner of P.Volv, Rachel, who has been on the podcast, and I said,
6
SPEAKER_02
Please can I try out the trainer who trains Jennifer Aniston Peevolve? 
6
SPEAKER_02
And she was like, yes, I m going to set it up.
6
SPEAKER_02
So she hooked me up with Jennifer Aniston s personal trainer.
6
SPEAKER_02
You may have seen it on my Instagram story.
6
SPEAKER_02
Her name is Dani.
6
SPEAKER_02
She also teaches on the On Demand streaming platform.
6
SPEAKER_02
And I have to tell you, I was blown away.
6
SPEAKER_02
Not only is it a functional workout method, but it is hard.
6
SPEAKER_02
It sculpts, it strengthens.
6
SPEAKER_02
I felt energized.
6
SPEAKER_02
We worked out like three times.
6
SPEAKER_02
We went outside on the grass.
6
SPEAKER_02
We went in the gym.
6
SPEAKER_02
We went in my hotel room.
6
SPEAKER_02
It was so versatile where we could work out.
6
SPEAKER_02
And after every single session, which was like 45 minutes,
6
SPEAKER_02
I felt sore, strong, sculpted, and just like ready to conquer the day.
6
SPEAKER_02
I just think it s so innovative with the resistant equipment.
6
SPEAKER_02
Everything, there s this one like long band that you put your fingers in, it s patented, and you basically stretch and open everything while you re building muscle.
6
SPEAKER_02
You should know they re opening studios throughout the United States and Canada.
6
SPEAKER_02
They have one in LA.
6
SPEAKER_02
They re opening one in Austin soon.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s not just another workout routine.
7
SPEAKER_01
game changer.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s a total lifestyle.
7
SPEAKER_01
Try it out at pvolve.com slash skinny.
7
SPEAKER_01
Use code skinny for 20% off site wide.
7
SPEAKER_01
That s pvolve.com slash skinny with code skinny for 20% off site wide.
7
SPEAKER_01
Man, I m about to introduce you to a hack.
7
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_01
This is a good one.
7
SPEAKER_01
These days, things are changing a lot.
7
SPEAKER_01
One day, you like nude.
7
SPEAKER_01
One day, you want to go all black.
7
SPEAKER_01
One day, you want to change all your furniture to brown leather.
7
SPEAKER_01
And this is the hack.
7
SPEAKER_01
This is the hack for furniture.
7
SPEAKER_01
Enjoy furniture on your terms when and where you want it, and then change it up again and again.
7
SPEAKER_01
You don t have to be tied down by your furniture.
7
SPEAKER_01
Long gone are the days of when you have to bring your furniture into every area of your life.
7
SPEAKER_01
People want to be fluid.
7
SPEAKER_01
They want to be able to change your mind.
7
SPEAKER_01
And there is this furniture rental company called Court Furniture.
7
SPEAKER_01
So essentially, you can get the furniture and services that you need to make every life transition as seamless as possible.
7
SPEAKER_01
I think this is amazing if you re in college.
7
SPEAKER_01
I think this is amazing if you just moved in with someone and you re like testing it out.
7
SPEAKER_01
It could be a short term, a long distance move, relocating, starting a new job, a new chapter.
7
SPEAKER_01
It just gives you optionality.
7
SPEAKER_01
Court really has the solution for you.
7
SPEAKER_01
If you re looking for furniture rental, they really have everything covered.
7
SPEAKER_01
I think this is a great place to really let you lean into those different areas of your life.
7
SPEAKER_01
You can be in your rent, not own era, and you can step into your move when and where you want to era.
7
SPEAKER_01
I, for me, I m someone that never wants certainty in my life.
7
SPEAKER_01
I want to always,
7
SPEAKER_01
have options.
7
SPEAKER_01
Whether you re moving for work, for school, or you simply want a more carefree life, Furniture Rental is for you.
7
SPEAKER_01
You can also go select one of Cort s move-in ready packages and receive a free professional styling.
7
SPEAKER_01
Build your own Furniture Rental package today at Cort.com.
7
SPEAKER_01
That s C-O-R-T dot com slash podcast.
7
SPEAKER_01
C-O-R-T dot com slash podcast.
7
SPEAKER_01
doing what you do, I know doing what I do, you have to have friends that are flexible and have fluidity and are low maintenance.
7
SPEAKER_01
If someone is mad at me that I can t come to their birthday party,
7
SPEAKER_01
I don t, I don t know what to say.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m not, I m maybe not the right friend.
7
SPEAKER_00
I couldn t come to the birthday party before anything was going on.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I just, I think that you have to have friends that understand the ebbs and flows of it and you re going to do what you can.
7
SPEAKER_01
And if you can t have friends, if friends are guilt tripping you, it s just for me at this point in my life, it s not the right friends.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I think if you look through a lens of, and this has really helped me, is this worth being away from my kids?
7
SPEAKER_00
The rule is you re allowed to celebrate your birthday 16 and under.
7
SPEAKER_00
Then 18, then 21, 30, 40, 50.
7
SPEAKER_00
I like these rules.
7
SPEAKER_00
If it s your 37th birthday, I m not coming.
7
SPEAKER_01
Also, the rule also is I hate to break it to everyone.
7
SPEAKER_01
If you invite someone to your birthday, you need to pay.
7
SPEAKER_01
Don t invite a big group and then make 600 people split the check.
7
SPEAKER_01
You got to host.
7
SPEAKER_01
I like, Hey, I m sorry.
7
SPEAKER_00
Nobody cares about your 26th birthday.
7
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t matter.
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t matter.
7
SPEAKER_02
I m also with you, Lauren.
7
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That might have been some people, but I, yeah, I think that you don t get to do that.
7
SPEAKER_02
Like tell them where to go, where to be, and then to not take care of them.
7
SPEAKER_00
If it makes either of you feel any better, because I hear you on the mom guild, because I hear it on this show.
7
SPEAKER_00
I grew up with a mother who was always working and
7
SPEAKER_00
At the time, who knows how you re prostituted, but later in life, I m really grateful for that because it was such a strong example.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m with a woman now who does the same.
7
SPEAKER_00
When I think about it as a kid, I think it was a good example because she still works and she needed to do it to be happy.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I ve now been attracted to a strong woman that doesn t.
7
SPEAKER_00
Also, a lot of my business relationships and interactions are with women that also work and do that.
7
SPEAKER_00
And so I don t think you should feel guilty because I guess what I m saying is Birdie probably sees that example and it ll rub off in a positive way, in my opinion, just as someone who grew up with that.
7
SPEAKER_01
I get though what you re doing by moving to the ranch.
7
SPEAKER_01
I had to move to Austin.
7
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes you have to step out of the noise to gain clarity.
7
SPEAKER_01
Did you feel like that?
7
SPEAKER_02
Oh, entirely.
7
SPEAKER_02
There s so many layers.
7
SPEAKER_02
And actually, before I get to those layers, one thing that was relevant to the conversation about why you re saying yes and no to, I think some of the best advice my dad has ever given me is he said, Amber, when you say yes to something, you say no to something else and make sure you know what the no is.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I was like, wow, that just becomes really clear.
7
SPEAKER_02
Because there s so many things that you re offered and opportunities, right?
7
SPEAKER_02
Like, come speak at this, host this thing.
7
SPEAKER_02
And some of them are wonderful things and with wonderful people.
7
SPEAKER_02
And it s like, well, that means that this week I don t get to go on a date night with Baxter.
7
SPEAKER_02
That means this week my kids saw me twice or whatever.
7
SPEAKER_02
And so is that the exchange that we re going to make here?
7
SPEAKER_02
But coming back to the clarity piece, I think that there was a lot.
7
SPEAKER_02
You know, we had for the first many years of our business, Baxter and I literally at some points, like we re basically sleeping at the office.
7
SPEAKER_02
Like we did not even take weekends off.
7
SPEAKER_02
It was nonstop.
7
SPEAKER_02
After we got married, we started taking weekends off.
7
SPEAKER_02
So that was in 2014.
7
SPEAKER_02
And then let s see, once we had Birdie 2015, we actually started working more normal hours, like
7
SPEAKER_02
I d say like eight thirty to five to me that was like short day because I was like, oh my gosh, if I actually keep working like this, I actually, Birdie will live in my house and I will never see her because I m going to leave before she wakes up and then I m going to come home after her bedtime.
7
SPEAKER_02
And like we could literally be like roommates at this point.
7
SPEAKER_02
So coming here earlier was like way healthier, but and then like hiring people.
7
SPEAKER_02
But we had, I think, you know, as we all know, like your friends start having kids, they start like hosting these things and they re in leadership positions or they re leading the fundraiser or whatever, and you want to be supportive of them.
7
SPEAKER_01
With four kids, though.
7
SPEAKER_02
Oh, I mean.
7
SPEAKER_01
I mean, you got your friends have got to understand it s a season.
7
SPEAKER_02
No, it is.
7
SPEAKER_01
Susan, hang on.
7
SPEAKER_01
If you re my friend right now, hang on.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m doing my best.
7
SPEAKER_00
I think people with kids understand, but it s hard to explain to people without kids.
7
SPEAKER_00
I have a lot of guy friends.
7
SPEAKER_01
There s people with kids that don t understand, Michael.
7
SPEAKER_01
Michael, you got another hour?
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
But you know, I mean, I want to talk about it because it would be crazy for me not to talk about this investing.
7
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_02
Well, jump back really quickly, though, just on the ranch thing, because I think I d basically gotten to this point where, like, I had I was fully responsible for this life that I had engineered for myself.
7
SPEAKER_02
But it was.
7
SPEAKER_02
It was unmanageable.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I think that everything in life comes back into balance.
7
SPEAKER_02
And like the pendulum had just swung way too far.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I needed just like alone time and peace.
7
SPEAKER_02
And honestly, just even like health, like the comment about the Diet Dr. Peppers, that was like, oh yeah, I was shaking like for a day.
7
SPEAKER_00
Dr. Pepper s good.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m sorry.
7
SPEAKER_02
How did I mess that up?
7
SPEAKER_02
I remember it was dr. Pepper.
7
SPEAKER_02
Oh, yeah.
7
SPEAKER_02
No, I mean Constantly, but I was just I didn t even know about the truth I didn t have time to think about the choices that I was making and so we moved to the ranch I actually I got a new doctor that was gonna work with me remotely I did tons of blood work because I was like I can actually feel since my fourth child like something is wrong my body and My other doctors were not figuring it out.
7
SPEAKER_02
And so I switched to this other doctor and
7
SPEAKER_02
do like tons of tests.
7
SPEAKER_02
He s like, oh, actually, you have this one hormone that is four times past the like the like highest bound of like what s normal.
7
SPEAKER_02
I can t believe you re even just like functioning like this causes like hair loss, rage, sleeplessness, like all of this crazy stuff.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I was like, well, that makes sense because I thought I was just really stressed out.
7
SPEAKER_02
He s like, oh, yeah, it ll make you really stressed out, too.
7
SPEAKER_02
So honestly, getting all that worked out and then just like through like natural means and then getting space for myself to just like breathe and become
7
SPEAKER_02
candidly healthy.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s now been a year and it is like tremendous the amount of like personal progress I have made.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I told myself that we were going out there for the kids and me to spend more time with them.
7
SPEAKER_02
But candidly, like this has been a health journey all my own where like I feel so much more just like centered than I did before we left.
7
SPEAKER_02
I would encourage that for anyone.
7
SPEAKER_02
Like I had no idea what was going on in my body and neither did anybody else.
7
SPEAKER_02
I know you guys focus like a lot on health and that s been a huge part of our story this year is like cooking at home, understanding our ingredients, just making a lot of different choices.
7
SPEAKER_02
We thought we were informed before and we had no clue how uninformed we were.
7
SPEAKER_01
Is there anything wellnessy that you guys do together all the time?
7
SPEAKER_02
So Baxter is more of like a workout nut than I am.
7
SPEAKER_02
He has like started running and so now he s like running half marathons and marathons.
7
SPEAKER_02
So he ll be back at the New York Marathon this year.
7
SPEAKER_01
But you ve had four kids and you look so good.
7
SPEAKER_01
Is this genetics?
7
SPEAKER_02
It is actually genetics.
7
SPEAKER_02
He really wants me to run with him.
7
SPEAKER_02
I have very little passion for running.
7
SPEAKER_02
I like lifting weights.
7
SPEAKER_02
I like feeling and being strong and like being healthy.
7
SPEAKER_02
So anyway, I ve become way more active because of his like encouragement.
7
SPEAKER_02
But he is like running daily.
8
SPEAKER_02
I ve got a sauna and like a cold plunge, he does that.
8
SPEAKER_02
I ll do the sauna, I m not into the cold plunge.
8
SPEAKER_02
But I had no idea even how much like sodium, I mean, shocking, I was drinking four Diet Dr. Peppers, but like the amount of sodium that was even in my body, like cutting out fast food, there are no restaurants within an hour of our house.
8
SPEAKER_02
And so we cook every single meal.
8
SPEAKER_02
And I mean, even that, I feel like my body just like fully deflated.
8
SPEAKER_02
Like you can look back to pictures years ago and even having like a cow protein allergy, I had no idea that I had that.
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And you re just like, wow, I just looked,
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I might have been around the same weight, but I just looked different.
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Yeah, I get that.
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But I think sometimes it requires, and I ve said this on the show, a change in environment to start looking at all that stuff clearly.
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Yeah.
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Like, you know, we lived in L.A.
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That s what rehab is.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, sure.
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But we lived in L.A., which is arguably a healthier place than many areas of the country.
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You have a lot of alternatives, but when we were there, we were not healthy.
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You know what I mean?
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You get so caught up in the pace of the business and the pace of the environment and the people you know and the family and this and that, and you kind of don t have time to stop and breathe and think for a moment.
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This is obviously not the country where we live in Austin, but for us, we came out here isolated away from our family and friends and core group.
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And so really we use this space as what you re talking about.
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And when we go to LA or New York, it s the other stuff.
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But I think like for people that are struggling with their health and wellness and mental well-being, you can t, this is not as easy to do for everybody, but sometimes like just a little move or a change in environment can like just reset.
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Completely.
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And it allows you to be a couple.
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Like what I m hearing from you is like ejecting from like even friends and family.
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It allows you to like refocus on yourselves.
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And Baxter and I very much found that all of a sudden you have this extra time for each other and for like conversations and doing things together and learning things together.
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I think it s been really healthy for our relationship.
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I love our family and I ve got to be careful saying this because I know many of them will listen.
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And we wish we were near them and we try to visit as much as we can.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t know if they ll listen.
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SPEAKER_01
They might be sick of you.
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SPEAKER_00
No, they re not.
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SPEAKER_00
I know they re tuned in.
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I don t know.
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I make it a thing.
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I call every one of them individually.
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SPEAKER_00
Did you hear that episode?
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Anyways, but you know with family, with friends you can get out, but with family there s so many obligations and so many again birthdays and you know.
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in-laws and it s hard to say no all the time, so having a little distance when we go, we can be really intentional about spending time, but it s like this hamster wheel.
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When we lived in San Diego, there was a family event every other Tuesday, you know what I mean?
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I think Amber understands after hearing your experience.
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The advice is move away from your family, just leave them, get rid of them.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh my gosh, now I can t listen to this.
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You have gotten investments for LGK.
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I don t know what you ve shared publicly.
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Maybe you can share it here.
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But I want to know how you prepare for that, how you did that with no experience, how you ve grown on that.
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It was a shocking experience.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I know.
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It s so much work.
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Oh, my gosh.
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So, you know, the bootstrapped round, that one is pretty straightforward.
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You know, it s now like if my friends are doing something I believe in or I believe in them, like I think that that s a
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It s amazing to be at that level and in a company that succeeds.
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Right.
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I m really glad that we I have I have like two sides of the story, I guess.
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So we raised that round.
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Our series A was not until way later and it was like around 10 million.
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That was the most miserable process I ve ever been a part of.
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Why?
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I felt like the contracts they were putting for me were usury.
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And I told people that.
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Your antennas went up.
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Uh, yeah.
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I was like, wait, I ve been building this business.
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I did this thing.
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I m the critical person, but you get to run my board and my company and own most of it.
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SPEAKER_02
And it, you know, it just, there was just a lot of terms that when you got down to it, it was terms that maybe actually on the surface looks like everything s great.
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Like I m getting this investment thing at this point.
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And then you go down to like,
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the stuff they get to control.
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And you re like, well, actually, they control everything because they control this stuff.
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And so I found it really offensive.
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There was one group that we got to the truly the finish line with like day of funding and it fell apart.
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And that was the group that I really struggled with the entire time.
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And like we flew out to San Francisco to have like breakfast to like talk it out.
8
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So I was like, I get that.
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You think that I m just like you just don t get an amber because you ve just never raised money before and you re just not in this industry.
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And this is just how things work.
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And I was like, this is so highly offensive to me.
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And so, of course, you know, Baxter had been in the industry.
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He took it a little bit less personally, but I think probably also appreciated that I actually said what anyone should have been saying, which is like, this is so ridiculous.
8
SPEAKER_02
So, you know, you go on this whole like roadshow tour, you re showing everyone your stuff again, back to like context of time.
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SPEAKER_02
This was when so this was 2015 was our series A. I was pregnant with Bertie.
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I didn t share that.
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SPEAKER_02
Like one of the investors, we walked in and the receptionist was like, OK, Baxter s here.
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SPEAKER_02
He brought his wife.
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SPEAKER_02
So that type of a context, but also people didn t know the word blogger.
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SPEAKER_02
This is pre-dictionary.
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SPEAKER_02
So this is like a couple from Dallas who is young, is in this industry that no one gets or understands, they re not personal users of, they re not buying things online.
8
SPEAKER_02
There s so many kind of
8
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roadblocks at that point.
8
SPEAKER_02
Now it s a highly investable industry, of course.
8
SPEAKER_01
So how did it change on your second round?
8
SPEAKER_02
So after that, we were like, we re never doing this again.
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SPEAKER_00
But quickly, for those young founders that are maybe going through this and thinking about capital, what are some of the maybe terms or things you would tell them to look out for in hindsight, and now that you ve done this in so many subsequent rounds?
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Well, I have a couple of things, too, just about fundraising.
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It s been glorified by the industry.
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There s a PR machine that makes raising money the sexiest thing.
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And I remember we used to launch all this stuff, and I had this PR background.
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I would write into TechCrunch.
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I d write into all of these stuff like, hey, we just launched this, or we hit this threshold, or this many users, or whatever.
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SPEAKER_02
And they re like, great, what s your valuation?
8
SPEAKER_02
I m like, well, we re a family owned like private company.
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SPEAKER_02
And they re like, great, well, who are your investors?
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SPEAKER_02
And I was like, my dad and my friend, you know, but I m like, but what does it matter?
8
SPEAKER_02
Because we just like hit all these metrics and and literally no one would write about us at all.
8
SPEAKER_02
And so the first that was like really frustrating.
8
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But I would also tell people,
8
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If you and I think probably I don t know if this was a set on your podcast or someone else s or like if this was in conversation with like Gary V. But like if you have a billion dollar business, but you re losing 300 million, you don t really actually have a business.
8
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And so it doesn t matter like the scale and what all you have going on.
8
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If you like, I d rather sell ten dollars and like make nine like I did better than that other group.
8
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And they worked a lot harder for it than I did.
8
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And so.
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I think that you have to really think, are you a business that needs investment, requires investment?
8
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What is the ultimate outcome?
8
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What are you doing with this?
8
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For us, there was two things.
8
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One, we needed to attract better talent.
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SPEAKER_02
We felt like in order to do that, we needed to actually get written about.
8
SPEAKER_02
We had ideas that we couldn t fund.
8
SPEAKER_02
So it was like, we can fund slow growth, but we know exactly where we re going.
8
SPEAKER_02
We know that this works.
8
SPEAKER_02
We ve already proven it out.
8
SPEAKER_02
And so we wanted to basically pull our roadmap forward.
8
SPEAKER_00
You knew exactly what the capital was going to be used for.
8
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t like this, hey, I m going to raise $10 million and we ll figure it out along the way.
8
SPEAKER_00
And you re so right.
8
SPEAKER_00
So many publications, all they want to write about is the amount invested.
8
SPEAKER_00
And a lot of times, say they want to write a piece on you, if you won t give them that information, then they don t want to do the piece.
8
SPEAKER_00
And sometimes it s not beneficial to that founder to give that information.
8
SPEAKER_00
And again, I think that it s such a weird way to justify an exciting business by the amount of money someone s raised.
8
SPEAKER_00
Because it s the thing.
8
SPEAKER_00
Is the thing working or not?
8
SPEAKER_02
And then I think there s this layer two of like edification.
8
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Like there are investors who can sharpen you and help you see around corners as just like business owners and thinking through the big picture.
8
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And certainly we were early in our career and just young too.
8
SPEAKER_02
And so there s opportunity to be sharpened in that way.
8
SPEAKER_02
But when you re looking for an investor group, you know, finding someone who
8
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can be aligned with your outcome.
8
SPEAKER_02
Like, is your outcome short or long-term?
8
SPEAKER_02
Like, that matters, right?
8
SPEAKER_02
And like, what kind of experience do they have or what sort of like network or like, do they even understand the business that you re in?
8
SPEAKER_02
There s just, there s so many things about it.
8
SPEAKER_02
I think going in, people are like, I just want to raise from anyone who will give me a check.
8
SPEAKER_02
But then your job becomes investor relations and then you re dealing with either an unsophisticated group or a group that s like misaligned.
8
SPEAKER_02
It was a really upsetting and stressful time.
8
SPEAKER_02
And you have someone like in your business.
8
SPEAKER_02
later for series B. So after that experience, we were like, we were never doing this again.
8
SPEAKER_02
And we were like, we re going to become profitable, like as quickly as possible.
8
SPEAKER_02
And we already basically were, but like not meaningfully profitable.
8
SPEAKER_02
We, for many years before the SoftBank investment, were profitable and had been making distributions actually.
8
SPEAKER_02
And we were like, we have to own our future.
8
SPEAKER_02
We cannot be sitting here waiting for either someone to invest or buy or go public or whatever.
8
SPEAKER_02
We need to have every option on the table.
8
SPEAKER_02
And the way that you do that is be ideally for everyone, be a growth company and
9
SPEAKER_00
and be profitable.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s so funny to like, if you re like pulling the lens way back, like, of course, like, right, like, be profitable.
9
SPEAKER_00
And you know, if you need capital to do something faster, and it makes sense, great, but not at the need of like, you re burning all of this money constantly, to the point where like, if someone doesn t fund you, your company s dead.
9
SPEAKER_00
Right, right.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
9
SPEAKER_00
Then they don t have a company.
9
SPEAKER_01
No, completely.
9
SPEAKER_01
And that just limits all the risks that you can take.
9
SPEAKER_01
You get in a bad situation and then you re raising again.
9
SPEAKER_01
And then guess what?
9
SPEAKER_01
Your stock is actually worth nothing.
9
SPEAKER_01
Your stake is worth nothing.
9
SPEAKER_01
So then you re a slave to something because your name s attached to it because someone else owns the whole thing.
9
SPEAKER_01
There are so many dynamics involved in that.
9
SPEAKER_01
So where are you guys at now?
9
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
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Our family still owns the majority of the business.
9
SPEAKER_01
We ve done a series B. We raised capital from SoftBank.
9
SPEAKER_01
So they had pursued us for many years.
9
SPEAKER_01
We were in a position to make a lot of decisions, whatever decision we wanted to at the time.
9
SPEAKER_01
What I found really interesting in our conversations with SoftBank, which if you know SoftBank is typical of them, I had never had this experience with an investor before.
9
SPEAKER_01
if they re passionate about you and you as an investment, like they re going to push you harder than you can push yourself.
9
SPEAKER_01
And this was the first time that I had a three females walk into the room and come to Dallas and be there several times and then say like, tell me your dreams.
9
SPEAKER_01
And over the course of like months and weeks, whatever, we like laid out our roadmap and what we were doing and all this stuff.
9
SPEAKER_01
And they re like, you re not dreaming big enough.
9
SPEAKER_01
and with like a dead serious face.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, wow, everyone has always told me like, this is going to kill you.
9
SPEAKER_01
This is going to take you down.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like this is not going to work because whatever.
9
SPEAKER_01
And it s just like you go into that sometimes like wanting to be sharpened the second time, you know, but to actually hear that, I was like, wow.
9
SPEAKER_01
And you guys, I ve seen a lot.
9
SPEAKER_01
So like, let s go.
9
SPEAKER_01
So they bought into the business.
9
SPEAKER_01
And again, it was like pull roadmap forward.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like we know what we re doing.
9
SPEAKER_01
We know what levers that s going to look like.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so we grew from just over 300 to now 800.
9
SPEAKER_01
And it s, you know, I would say actually just now like April.
9
SPEAKER_01
So that was like December of 21.
9
SPEAKER_01
So basically what, like two years later, it took us all that time to kind of like hire and then like also kind of curate within that hiring, like making sure that these are the right people and this is the right things to be doing.
9
SPEAKER_01
But this month, there s so many products coming online that I m like, this is what I wanted.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like, this is what I thought having this many people would be like and get to do.
9
SPEAKER_01
And it s just like Christmas every day.
9
SPEAKER_01
So it s a 14 year overnight success story.
9
SPEAKER_03
Amber, if people want to shop your LTK page with all your beauty, your diet, your clothes, your jewelry, where can they find you, number one?
9
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
9
SPEAKER_01
So the vast majority of my content, all plus more is on at Amber Vins Box on LTK.
9
SPEAKER_03
And I m at Lauren Bostick.
9
SPEAKER_03
So you guys can go look at all.
9
SPEAKER_03
I have every single thing you could possibly want linked there.
9
SPEAKER_03
And if there s someone that s listening, that s a micro influencer, a macro influencer that wants to start monetizing through their affiliate links on LTK, can we leave a link in the show notes where they can go apply?
9
SPEAKER_01
Let s do it.
9
SPEAKER_01
And on LTK, you re earning both a transaction revenue, so a commission on all the sales you re making, but also half of our business is the collaborations business.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so we re selling everything from, you know, talking about the right product at the right time to, we just actually launched Connected TV.
9
SPEAKER_01
You can make commercials for brands there.
9
SPEAKER_01
You can license your brand.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like they re actually, we launched a product last year, even called Marketplace.
9
SPEAKER_01
We can go in and like actually brands post all the campaigns they have running.
9
SPEAKER_01
You can pitch yourself for them.
9
SPEAKER_01
We ve actually tripled the number of campaigns that are running.
9
SPEAKER_01
over the last few years, and it s already half of half of the business.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so however you need to monetize your business and to do it like in a really integrated, natural way to the platform, it s on LTK.
9
SPEAKER_03
Also, if you guys like Skinny Confidential products, we are on Shop Skinny Confidential is on LTK.
9
SPEAKER_03
So you can go apply to LTK, get accepted, and then you can go talk about all the Skinny Confidential products you want and make a commission.
9
SPEAKER_03
Amber, where can everyone find you and LTK?
9
SPEAKER_01
So LTK on the app store, whatever app store that you re using, go down, load LTK stands for like to know it, but we ve shortened it.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so LTK app, and of course we re across all social media.
9
SPEAKER_01
And then for me socially, I m on Instagram and LinkedIn, both at Amber Vinsbox.
9
SPEAKER_01
And then really, if you actually want to see what s really happening in my life and on an up-to-date basis, it s all on my LTK.
9
SPEAKER_00
Thank you for doing this.
9
SPEAKER_03
Thank you for coming on.
9
SPEAKER_03
Go read the blog post that I did on Amber.
9
SPEAKER_02
It s a vintage one.
9
SPEAKER_02
Hope you loved that episode with Amber.
9
SPEAKER_02
Don t forget, Mint Roller has launched.
9
SPEAKER_02
The ice roller for the girly on the go is live on shopskinnyconfidential.com.
9
SPEAKER_02
One side is a contour and the other side is an ice roller.
9
SPEAKER_02
It truly is the sweetest little treat that you can throw in your clutch or handbag.
9
SPEAKER_02
You can use it during a workout.
9
SPEAKER_02
However, whenever, I just used mine for an entire week while I was traveling and it was a lot lighter than the ice roller.
9
SPEAKER_02
So I think to have one at home as your iconic ice roller and then to have one that you can throw in your bag really is the move.
9
SPEAKER_02
Go to shopskinnyconfidential.com before it sells out.