#015: Steph Liu - The Secrets Behind Scaling $100M Brands

What have you had to sacrifice on building one of the best agencies in the country?

Honestly, a lot. I think this goes for everyone, like time with your family, time with your friends. You, you have to sacrifice going out, other pleasures in life, you know, things like that. But the reality, it's never, ever even once felt like a sacrifice to me. I just think in life you have to be passionate about what it is you're doing, cuz it, it'll never feel like you're giving up something else.

Steph Liu is the founder and CEO of Levitate Foundry, the largest female-founded Shopify Plus partner in North America that has helped grow hundreds of mid-sized brands. Based in Austin, Steph is also an active angel investor and entrepreneur with more businesses in the pipeline. In this episode, we cover how Steph scaled Levitate into one of the fastest-growing agencies in the country, how to balance work and life fulfillment, and why she keeps launching new brands. Today we have Steph Liu from Levitate Foundry. Thanks for joining us today, Steph.

Thank you, Ben Sharf.

You are an old, old friend.

Old friends.

But before we dive into background, can you give like 5-second overview of various projects you have going on?

Various projects. So I'm the founder and CEO of Levitate Foundry. We're the largest female-founded Shopify Plus agency in North America. I started the company 4 and a half years ago. Uh, so we are a growth marketing firm, 90% e-commerce, B2B. Um, working on that. I am personally involved in Many consumer brands, some of them celebrity. And then, uh, yeah, I have a, uh, I have a passion project. It's Artemis. Um, it's called Artemis. It's a personal safety device for women that I'm working on.

I love it.

Yeah.

Let's start here. The whole idea of turning pro is that there are multiple phases of personal growth, professional growth, but there are always certain turning points where you just kind of level up into something different that you'd never had before. So let's start on the business front, especially founding. Multiple companies now. Yeah, maybe taking us back to 4 and a half years ago, if that was the first turning point, what have been the turning points over the past couple years where you've really leveled up as an operator?

Hiring, growing, hypergrowth. I think a lot of companies have really experienced hypergrowth over COVID, and, uh, being able to lead a team and grow that team is not an easy feat.

In every founder journey, there's multiple points where you level up in some way as an operator, as a founder, something related to usually personal growth or professional growth. Walk me through the specific milestones with Levitate Foundry specifically. We'll start there. Yeah, you really just leveled up as a founder.

Yeah, absolutely. I think as a founder, in the beginning you have a vision and then you have to build a team. So at some point between year 0 and year 2, you're growing your vision as an independent operator and then you have to start building a team. And that team building really changes around year 2, year 3. And then from there you have to learn how to lead a team. So as a founder, you're constantly trying to take your vision and bring it to life, build the team around the vision. And then I, I think by year 4, for a lot of founders, it's about how do you get everyone rowing the boat to the same sort of rhythm. So your job as a founder fundamentally changes. You're not the vision person anymore. I mean, it's a lot vision in the year 1, year 2, but in the end you're really just about, it's really about coordination, coordination on that boat and getting everyone to row to the same pace is a very, very difficult task. And I think for me, for the last couple years, it's really been that transition of taking a vision, bringing it to life, bringing in the right people, and then getting everyone to row the boat to the same rhythm.

Was there a specific phase of those maybe 3 or 4 different phases of Steph as a founder and operator that was by far the hardest? Or are you in the hardest phase right now?

Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.

Every phase is the hardest until you get to the next one.

Exactly right. It always feels so hard. Um, I think, I think getting people bought into your vision is hard, and you gotta kiss some frogs, right? Yeah, I've kissed a lot of frogs to find the right ones. Really, you really do. Getting people bought into your vision is very, very difficult. I think that's a huge milestone for any founder, whether you are VC-backed, whether you're going through an incubator, um, selling your idea to investors and then getting team members bought in, and not just bought into the idea but really like care passionate, right? Like passionate enough to like dedicate their time and attention. Because as a startup, you have very minimal resources that you have to allocate in a smart way. So you got to hire the best talent for what you can afford, but you need people that are passionate. And I think like that's probably the hardest— that's the hardest first milestone. And then it takes years to get everyone sort of rowing, you know, to the same rhythm.

Yeah, I think it's the unwavering conviction So like the thing I always think about is the conversation. I don't know, you're a solo founder? So, so, so I'm not as cool as either of you guys. I have co-founders, so maybe what I'm about to say you guys can't even really empathize with. But I think what's interesting is the conversations that my co-founders and I have behind closed doors versus like when you're talking to investors or your employees or whatever it is. Yeah, because there are for sure moments where we look at each other and we're just like, fuck, like, yeah, this isn't working. This isn't what we thought it was. But you need that unwavering conviction when you're talking to anyone outside of that room where it's just you guys.

Yeah.

Because the second you don't believe in yourself, no one else is going to believe in you.

No one does.

And that I think has been a huge learning experience for us. And then to your other point about selling the dream, you want to go after A+ talent. And oftentimes if someone really is A+, they probably have other people coming after them as well. And so that's the part that makes it hard, I think. One story that I want to just bring up, because I know this is like something that doesn't happen very often. We just hired an engineer a few months ago who effectively tried to build a derivative of what we're doing.

Yeah.

That doesn't necessarily have like the sales chops. So like it just didn't materialize, but so passionate about this very bespoke thing that we're building. I was like, we need this guy.

Like he gets it.

Yeah.

And I don't think that happens very often, but it was a super cool thing.

Yeah. I'm curious about vision. I genuinely, I would text you this separately because I want your advice here. We're going through a phase right now that as we're attracting really top talent and not only attracting that talent because you, it's not just the pitch of what you do, it's the vision that you're building towards. And as we're signing bigger and bigger customers, there's a, I'm going through this weird phase right now where we're a year and a half in or technically 2 years in now where my usual, like, hey, we build a content engine that can drive revenue. That's not a vision.

That's just like what we do day to day.

And I'm realizing that. Just as we get bigger and bigger and bigger, there needs to be a vision that the best talent in the world is attracted to and wants to go work at.

Yeah.

Like, and I'm realizing that, but then I'm like, what is, what is our vision? Like, do I have to just come up with this? Like, what is your experience?

So that's a really, really good question, Adrian, because the founder always has a vision, I think. And that vision comes to life with the team. Hmm. It comes to life with the team because every additional person you add on to your team is now adding their energy, their frequency, their vibe into that vision. And that vision is constantly changing. And I think it's so important— what I've learned through my mistakes, my experiences, my success, honestly— is you want to bring good people in with good energy, a good vibe, good— that, that align with the vision but can also add and contribute to that goal. Because that vision is constantly going to change. To your question, and I think every founder goes through this, right? It's like Okay, I have this great idea for product. It's a great product-market fit. I'm gonna— I attract the investors. Great. Okay, now I gotta build a team. Okay, but that product is going to change over time. The culture of the company is going to change over time. And I think the culture of the company is ultimately defined by the next person you add. That person is going to change the perspective of the person from before. That person's going to change the perspective of the person that you're going to hire 10 times from now. And like, the people you have in your company will change the vision of your company.

So one of our previous guests made a comment, Prince from Factory Quality, about how every time your team doubles in size, it basically like breaks the operation. You have to like refactor it, I guess.

Yeah.

What is your decision-making framework, uh, to continue to recalibrate as you're scaling from like a sheer people perspective?

I think so. That's a good comment from, from Prince. I think so. I want to— I run a service business, so I would say for every 5 people you hire, it's not even double. It's, it's like for every 5 to 6 people you hire, now everything shifts, right? Because we're a service business. Your product business, very different. You can staff on 10, 20, 30 people. They're just, you know, they're at the rhythm, rhythm of the product. For us, it's people. It's a people business, right? Um, so you just, you just, it's, you just gotta hire the right people.

For every client that you take on, every repetition you go through, every year that goes by, how do you ensure that standards don't go down? Not even from 99% to 98%, just saying this is going to be harder work and we got to do this, but fuck, we're not lowering our standards.

I know, and that's number one. My clients know that's number one for us, and that's really the selling point of Levitate. And you know, we've kept the team relatively small, between 40 and 55 people, and I think it's a great size to have you know, top-tier talent, be able to manage the quality. You need really, really good mid-level managers that care and are passionate. And I think it's really at that mid-level that you need to really just hire for. Like, you need amazing people at that mid-level to manage those teams below. Um, you gotta swap them out.

I want to go a little bit deeper on this because this is— I want to dig in, I want to dig into this because I, I do. So my team's 8 now.

Yeah.

Uh, I do believe that your hiring process and your ability to identify talent is actually one of the main dictators of like your, like the percentage of success.

Yeah.

What is your process? Like what are the traits you look for? Like what are the hard-hitting questions you ask in your interview process? And like, yeah, what are the things you look for where your intuition's like, this is their person or get me the hell away from this person?

Interesting question. All right, I'm gonna actually ask you that question first. What do you look for?

So, and you can tell me if this is a bad answer, I think what I look for as a team of 5, 6, or 7, or 8 is gonna be different than what I look for when my team is 20, 30, 40.

Yeah.

Right now, one of the most important things for me is being autonomous and being a critical thinker.

Yeah.

Because we can't have delegators, we need to have executors. So like you can't, you have to be, it's okay to ask questions and you need to ask questions because you're new to something and you need to learn. But I need someone who's has like confidence in themself to actually try and execute and deliver something. Not feel like hesitant or scared because as a very small team, everyone needs to be producing output. And when you're like dishing out a substantial salary to someone as a pre-seed company, like one bad hire at this stage can really fuck you up bad.

Life stage is so important. Let me just set that as a precedent. What you're going to hire and it goes back to what I was saying every year of the company is, you know, there's vision, then there's bringing in the right people to lead the company, then there's bringing in the people to row the company right in the right direction. So life stage is really important. I hire for literally 3 things: charisma, loyalty, intelligence. I told, I told my, my CEO this actually. It's really, it's really interesting. And so I don't know, someone told me this one time and it's always stuck with me. And throughout my career I've also sort of hired with, and I'll tell you, so think about the people that you know in your life that are extremely intelligent, extremely loyal, and extremely charismatic. Like, Just who do you know that's like that?

Very few, except for Ben Sharf.

Adrian Sharf.

It's true.

There's a lot of highly intelligent people that I see jump from company to company to company and have no loyalty to like a vision.

I think of those three, the charismatic and the intelligence, I can name a ton of people. I do agree with you that the loyalty is probably the hardest.

Yeah.

So do you agree with that?

Absolutely. So I will tell you something right now. One of my biggest mistakes when I first started the company, I hired a lot of people with a lot of, uh, intelligence and charisma. Mm-hmm. No loyalty. It's really hard also in a service business because you need people that are loyal and it to be able to scale. And honestly, like the first people I hired, I wish, you know, they would've stayed cuz it helps you scale faster when you have the same people around to help grow. And I love promoting within, I really believe in promoting within. The problem is when you have super, super, super intelligent people, They're always looking for the next thing because they're restless. Right. And can't blame 'em.

And they wanna level up for themselves.

Yeah. Can't blame 'em. Right. So I, I think it's really difficult. I think if you can find someone who is extremely intelligent, extremely charismatic, and extremely loyal, hold on.

How do you vet for loyalty?

Hold on.

Question.

That's a really good question. I think, you know, references, asking the right questions in the interview process. References is a big part of it because, um, through references you can really get to know someone. You ask questions about how do you know this person, how, like, especially some, like, I get references on friends. I want to meet their friends. I want to hear about the story of 10 years ago, 15 years ago. How has this person been there for you? How is this person loyal? I think getting to know somebody through their friends is, is really important.

Also, if somebody has old friends, if somebody has friends from 20 years ago It's almost the fact that they have someone like, it's like they have someone that can give to you as a reference is almost like enough knowing that that person even exists.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And also obviously like LinkedIn, people jumping, like, like here's the thing. I, I personally, when I hire, I don't care if you graduated or not. I don't care where you're from. I care about how smart you are and how loyal you are ultimately. Like I actually, my two big ones are loyalty and intelligence. Um, because I think if you can find someone who's really loyal and really intelligent, they will stay with you. Charisma cannot be taught. I've, I've tried. Um, but also in a lot of roles you don't need charisma, right?

So hiring the right person, I don't need my engineers to, I, I, I don't need my engineers to laugh once.

It's like, right. But in a sales role you need charisma.

Yeah, true.

But salespeople are not loyal. That's the problem. If you can find a salesperson that is charismatic and loyal, that is golden.

I found the solution.

A co-founder.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

It's a great rev here.

What?

We'll put them on a great profit share. Yeah.

Yeah. But then they go and find one that's even bigger.

Probably true.

Well, they have to, they have to be loyal to the cause.

Here's, here's another question on this topic. And maybe this is a little bit of a hot take, but like, what is your perspective on hiring someone who's unemployed or was let go versus like just poaching good talent from somewhere else?

Oh, there's no, I mean, I've, I've hired people that have been let go. I think, you know, I, I really try to get to know people for who they are.

I care that they're vulnerable about the real story. Like if someone gets laid off, I want you to tell me the truth.

Exactly.

You can literally say to me, a manager told me I wasn't good enough.

Yeah.

If you have the ability to say that, I think that says something about you. Yeah.

Yeah.

But then I also have founder friends who are like, I want to go poach someone from a top competitor company because they're in that role for a reason. So I don't know. I think it's something that goes back and forth.

I like vulnerability and I like honesty. And I had a friend recently reach out to me and was like, he was like, look, I made a mistake, I got laid off, and I told the company that I didn't, and now they're doing a background check. I'm like, why would you tell— why? First of all, why? Because who doesn't love honesty? Think about it. Who doesn't love honesty in this world, right? Like, I think honesty and vulnerability and truth is more important, honestly, than anything. Because if you can be honest with me and you can be vulnerable and you can own up to your mistakes, and I know that you're— we're going to build that trust, and I'm going to be able to trust you with my company and tasks and my clients and, you know, my product. And I think that's is more important than anything ultimately. Yeah.

What, how do you think about surrounding yourself with good friends, good founders, good colleagues, people that you personally can be vulnerable with?

Yeah.

I think something that we've talked about a lot on this podcast is when we're going a million miles an hour, who's looking out for Ben? Who's looking out for Adrienne?

Yeah.

So I'm curious in your case, like after a whirlwind of meetings, when you're back at your hotel, like who can you go be vulnerable with? How do you make sure to protect time for yourself? Who's looking after Steph?

That's a really good question. I think it's your, yeah, it's your friend group. I've, I'm lucky. I'm really lucky. I have a great co-founder in my new project Artemis. I am a solo founder, um, in Levitate, but I have an amazing leadership team, you know? Um, and, uh, they're, you know, they're my partners in the business, you know? And, um, really, really good friends, really good friends like you that, you know, I've met throughout this journey. Founder friends, they get it. You know, you gotta surround yourself with people that get it. That understand where you're at and that you can be vulnerable with.

Ultimately, do you have the ability to segment your work relationships versus your personal relationships, or is there like an overlap between the two?

You know, it's interesting, a lot of my friends now are actually like clients I've helped launch before, right?

Thanks for coming over. Yeah, that's such a badass agency founder thing to say.

Companies I advise. I mean, JD started— I was an advisor at his company. Now he's an advisor. My company, I mean, love the guy. You, I mean, how did I even know how we met originally?

But no idea.

I have no idea. But we've just done so much over the years together. Um, and, uh, no, I, I'm such good friends with my found— like my jewelry companies. God, these are all gifts from my jewelry companies. They're so thankful of, you know, I built this woman a $30 million jewelry business and we'll be lifelong friends. You know, it's just when you're really in the trenches with people, and you're helping them with their business and you get to know their families and you get to know their parents and they get to know you and they see the blood, sweat, and tears you're putting in for them. I mean, that's lifelong bonds, right? And so, yeah, it's interesting. I was scrolling through my phone the other day. I was like, wow, I, all my friends are my clients.

That's actually so true.

And that, and that is how you have a 0% churn rate. Make them, make them the bridesmaids in your wedding.

Right, right, right. Or like companies I'm advising, you know, and it's, it's, it's a It's a vibe, man. I love it. It's a vibe. Yeah.

I think that's something that's not talked about in starting a company.

Yeah.

By far that's been the most fulfilling and rewarding part. It's not only people that you work with, like we're starting this together. You were our first— shout out Steph— was the first client of Verbatim.

Yes.

2+ years ago.

Happy to support.

Whole reason we're in business.

Oh my gosh.

Even like we have all done business together, but the, the customer-client relationship is I don't think talked about enough because I really have met incredibly fulfilling relationships and very good friends.

Yeah.

It's funny. Sometimes I'll talk to Karina and she's like, who is this person? I'm like, this is my best friend. I love Prince though. Um, and she's like, who are these names of people? I'm like, oh, we've been working together for 9 months and we're in each other's Slacks and I Slack them every day.

Yeah.

That stuff really matters.

The lightbulb moment for me, just in terms of sales was when instead of approaching it as like, the customer of the business. It's like you're approaching it as building a friendship with each other. Yeah. Because then if they do organically become a customer or client, you, it feels like you want to see them win and they want to help you win because they're a friend and you're supporting each other, not because it's so transactional.

Yeah.

As like a business thing. I mean, yeah, look, there's levels to it. Of course there's situations where that happens, but my favorite are the founders that I'm working with who are like one of my best friends and I can be vulnerable with them about what's working and what's not, but they know at the end of the day I'm doing what's best for their business and they actually trust that It makes it way more fun to do sales as well.

Yeah, I think a lot of it is also intention. It's the intention. And I think, let's take a step back for a minute. I think agencies get a really bad rep because of all the agencies that have come before us and all that will come after us. And I do think there are a lot of agencies out there that are not honest. Somebody actually said this to me the other day. It was a SaaS founder. He was like, you run— so you claim to run an honest agency. He's like, I've never heard of an honest agent. I'm like, I have good intentions. I'm honest here. I tell my clients how I really feel. I tell them if I don't think their business is going to succeed. And I'm just very honest. Because guess what? If I'm honest, they're gonna stay. If I'm honest, I reduce churn. If I'm honest and I tell them what I can do, they don't feel like they were lied to. That's how I run my agency. But at the end of the day, I will tell you this. So I've met a lot of my friends— I actually met my co-founder for Artemis. He was one of my first clients. He was one of my first 12. I think he was client number 10. Ben was like client number 10 in like 2018 or 19. Yeah, he was my client. I helped him launch Disco. We started working pre-launch. And, uh, I've seen him go through so— all the challenges that any founder goes through: raising money, um, trying to be profitable, you know, all the things a founder goes through, CAC issues, CPA issues. You know, I've referred him to other agencies over the years, and we just became such good friends that we were like— when it came time to start this company, we're like, we're gonna do this together because we know we can build this thing together. And I can think of probably like 4 or 5 other people that were my clients that I'm like, yeah, I'd go start a business with you. Yeah, I've seen you like literally run through a wall, you know.

I think it opens— I think when you have a genuine relationship, again, not just talking about like, hey, we can both grow our businesses together. Yeah, but it opens certain channels of communication, of trust that goes both ways. Like I was talking to— I introduced you to Tommy Clark.

Yeah.

Um, uh, here. Yeah, uh, we all know Tommy. Shout out Tommy. But I was talking to him and we were just slacking together And I was like, if it was a regular agency partner, cuz he's I think gonna build a kickass social agency, a regular agency transaction, I wouldn't have said certain things to him, but I was literally slacking with him. I was like, dude, performance is down. I run agency. You should do X, Y, and Z things. And like, that's just gonna make you guys better. I would not have told him that if you weren't, if you weren't actually friends.

Do you remember what I said to him when he was sitting on the roof?

No.

I literally told this guy how to fix his pricing model and I prefaced it with saying, but you're gonna grandfather me into your old one before I tell you what your new one's gonna be.

True story. All right.

And he sent me contract with the new one. I said, no, it's not what we agreed on. He's like, oh shit, sorry. He sent the other one and I signed it.

Oh, amazing.

You can improve the business.

Like, basically what I do— do you know what time is business?

Oh, so it's the new pricing model. What's the old one?

I basically just said to him, like, the, the, the goal for you shouldn't be to scale the number of clients.

Yeah.

It should be to gradually just increase where your base retainer is as the demand builds up. And then you just drop your ones that can't match that new price.

Yeah. He's like, performance model. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

So I was like, I was like, you should, whether, I don't know what your number is, whether it's 5, 10, 15 clients, keep that number consistent. Then work your way to a point where clients are paying you $1,500, $2,000, $2,500 a month because you have the results to show for it. And he's like, oh, that's interesting. And I was like, but, but you're not gonna raise the price on me, right? He's like, okay, fine.

It's brilliant. I think, cause he's creating value. He's creating lead gen traffic followers. It's actually really brilliant.

He's awesome. I mean, I told, I just started working with him a month ago.

Wait, so now you want the, you want the baseline fee? You want the retainer fee?

No, it's just less of a retainer. Uh, no, no, no, not a performance model. It's just increasing your base.

Okay. Got it. Got it.

Uh, but I started working with him a month ago and my reason for it is that I'm not a great writer. I'm much more articulate verbally, verbally. So to be able to give someone my verbal thoughts and they can transcribe it to SoundSmart.

Yeah.

Uh, it's been like one of the biggest unlocks for me, even just in digesting like my own thoughts and my own ideas that I want to put out into the world.

Love it.

Question for you. This is unique to service businesses and you used to run a service, used to run a service business.

Yeah.

Scaling it. And as you mentioned, right, just working with a smaller group of clients at bigger and bigger prices, that communication, like there's a, there's a tier every time if you just hit a certain point and you're like, hey, I love you, but you paying me $2K a month is not going to work anymore because I got to dedicate some time elsewhere.

Yeah.

How do you communicate and go through those stages of business? Because I'm sure in 3 years from now you guys will be charging $50K a month retainers, right? And it just keeps changing. But tell me more about that.

It does keep changing. I think, I think the macro economy is a big part of this. Um, we don't have many $2K a month retainer clients cuz we're not, we're not self-selecting them first and foremost. And if we did, it would be because we really cared about the product or the mission or we're doing, you know, take an equity or something, you know, something like that. But I also think that, um, you just have to, you gotta have those conversations. And also a lot of those clients over time, they fall off due to financial reasons anyways. The macro economy right now, you see what it's like in the D2C environment. So it's self-selecting, I think. Yeah.

Good.

Yeah.

Uh, I'm gonna shift gears just a little bit.

Okay.

What are your thoughts, uh, on being a founder working on multiple different projects at once?

Oh, you know, I have realized over the years that I'm really an entrepreneur. I think I do better, like, I do better when I'm doing different things. Uh, I'm a very much creative left brain, right brain. Um, and, uh, yeah, if I was doing one thing, I don't think I'd be as successful.

And did you bootstrap the agency? I did.

I started it on my kitchen table.

And so you're also working on a brand. Is that also bootstrapped?

Uh, yeah, it is. Yep. As it is, as it stands right now.

I guess maybe it changes the equation a little bit if you raise like Basically what I'm getting at is like raising money for one venture that you're working on, but you're also working on like a side project. Like, what is your personal perspective on that?

I think investors want to know that you're dedicated, but I think the world is changing, and I think the way that people— like, people's minds work very differently, you know. This is why for me also, I, I like to get to know someone, you know, for who they are before I hire them. You can't just look at a piece of paper and say, oh well, Steph has this company and then she has this other venture-backed company and she's not dedicating enough time. Well, you can't really quantify how much I produce in the amount of time. That's the other thing, right? It's like I do more in 8 hours than like the next person that I know really. And it's like, you know, and it's like, I, for me personally, I'm actually more creative, more effective, more efficient actually if I have like 2 or 3 different things going on because it allows me to take a step back, like get creative. Like, I gotta take time off on the weekends to just think. I think, I think a lot of founders and CEOs like do that, um, just, just to be more productive in general.

I'm gonna sleep like a baby tonight. Yeah, you're good.

Do you get burned out or stressed?

Oh, we all do, we all do, but you got to keep showing up.

You either say you get burned out and stressed or just lie to the person who asks you the question.

Yeah, do you not?

No, I do, but you just have to like—

I will say, you know what, Adrian, I will say, and like the I would say I've probably known you, what, 6, 7 years? Long time. Long time. I don't think I've ever seen you stressed. I think you have a really good poker face.

Oh, thank you. I'm stressed 24/7.

Wow. Okay. But you, you come off so chill.

I mean, I think that goes back, but that goes back to the point I made earlier around like, for me, the founder conversations versus the conversations when you're out in the public.

Yeah. Right.

Like I think Adrian and I can sit here just the two of us and you can look at me and be like, shit, I'm like, my mind's moving a million miles a minute. What's your advice on this and this? Yeah, but if he has to show up for something, like, he has the discipline to be able to do so.

Yeah, well, let me put it this way. Actually, I have seen you stressed.

You definitely have.

I definitely—

days of your bed, I'm stressed.

But the way he carries himself when he's stressed, like the way you carry yourself, you're still so calm. Like, everyone handles stress in a different way. My team knows when I'm stressed. I think everyone handles stress obviously very differently, but you know, you carry yourself in a very Chill vibe.

Thank you. What activities do you have to do that are non-negotiable every day to make sure that at least on a daily basis, you know, you're not like really burning the candle at both ends?

A day in the life.

A day in the life. So I start off my day with a cup of coffee and a meditation.

What time?

I'm not really a morning person, so I get up around 8:00, 8:30.

Love it.

And I'm on CT, so that's like 6:30 for my team. They, you know, they— most of my team is on PT. I have a couple of people on ET. But yeah, I had 2 coffees by the time it's 2 PM. I eat my first meal at 2. It's really good for your health, by the way, if you eat later in the day. I try to meditate for at least 45 minutes.

Right in the morning?

Mm-hmm.

Wow.

Yeah. And when it's not like 110 degrees in Austin, I like to sit outside by the pool, just like really just like get my vibe.

What do you do? Do you listen to like guided meditation, instrumentals, no stillness, no sound?

So it's different every day. Sometimes it's just close my eyes. I've gotten to a point where I can actually visualize. Visualize myself in my little meta— like, my little meditation room in my head. My little metaverse. Um, do you guys familiar with Dr. Joe Dispenza?

Yes.

Okay, so he wrote an amazing book like a decade ago. Um, it's, uh, Becoming Superhuman. Um, yes, Becoming Supernatural. Sorry, I always think superhuman. It really is about becoming superhuman, but it's titled Becoming Supernatural. Really great book. Went to a lot of his retreats over the years. He talks a lot about being able to, with your mind and meditation, getting into a brain frequency, a higher— effectively a higher vibe that really allows you to start manifesting and attracting things you want. But ultimately what it is, is it's calming down your nervous system. It's getting to that place where you're not stressed. It's getting to that place where you have intense focus. And yeah, he's been, he's been a good, like, influence on my life. I actually met him 2015 in Sedona, and then I recently went to his week-long retreat. It was life-changing.

Very cool.

Awesome.

Silent Retreat. Retreat or meditation?

It was a wellness meditation retreat. Yeah, it's great, it's great, he's great. Um, but yeah, so I try to meditate every day. Uh, there's also a shout out to the Tripp app in VR. My friend Nadia Reeves created this app called Tripp app. They're one of the Time 100 Best Innovations last year, I think. So I've done some of that. It's an amazing— if you have an Oculus, you should check it out. Um, really, it's visualization, it's meditation in VR. Really, really cool. So you can do like 25-minute, 35-minute an hour-long meditation in there. If I'm having a hard morning or if I'm not really feeling it, I wake up anxious, put on my Oculus. I do it in the Trip app. I turn the AC down to 70 degrees. There's something about 68 to 78, you know, degrees. I do a cold plunge. I try to do a cold plunge in the morning if I can.

Which plunge?

Uh, well, there's one at the gym and there's—

yeah, which one do you have?

Uh, I don't even know, actually.

We have a culture outside.

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, every day.

We're waiting on the chiller to come.

So how long can— how long?

I mean, I usually do it for like 5 to 10 minutes, but like 5 to 10 minutes, a long time.

I thought it was supposed to be like 6 minutes.

Wow. I'm still under a minute.

That's too—

so I'm going to challenge you. So like the whole purpose is to be able to get over that hump of the first minute because it gets exponentially easier once you break the threshold.

I'm still under a minute.

But look, you do it. A lot of people don't even do it. Yeah, we negotiated as part of the sponsorship for the run that we could keep on.

Which run?

You gotta do it. Uh, yeah, I mean, we'll open up a can of worms, but I'm happy to, happy to dive into it. Uh, I'm starting a YouTube channel called— well, this— by the time this is live, the YouTube channel will be live already, but it's called Birthday Series.

Okay.

And the concept of it is every episode is a different creator, and they blow out a candle and make a wish, and then we go do the wish with them. So the wish has to be something actually on their bucket list. So we had a running creator who wanted to do a relay run from Montauk to Times Square, which is 131 miles.

Wow.

So we did This is the map of the run. We did a 131-mile relay run. We had 2 teams of 10. Uh, each team was in an RV. There was 20 runners, 22 sponsors. It was a 24-hour race. The rule was that 1 person had to be running at all times. Uh, and we had like a 17-person production team and 20 runners.

How long did that take?

It was like 24— how long was it, Phil? 28 hours.

Wow.

Uh, you did this?

You went on the run?

Yeah, yeah. I produced the whole thing.

Wow.

But the craziest part of the whole thing was that, uh, it came down to the final 20 seconds between the two teams, which statistically is borderline impossible.

Yeah.

Uh, we literally, one team is like two blocks behind the other running down Fifth Avenue to Times Square.

Um, amazing.

But we, we had a cold plunge sponsor and instead of money, I told him I just wanted a plunge to keep in my apartment.

Oh, that's nice.

But you keep running with your day. So post cold plunge.

Well, I don't do that every day. That's why I'm still under a minute. I mean, it's, I don't know. I mean, yeah. Okay. Uh, then we get to work at the desk.

9:30 through—

9:30 through— I mean, I try to be like out by like 4:30. I go out, I go to the gym, I go to a class, I go to Pilates, all the things. I'm back by 6:37. You know, I order my food. You know, it's all, you know, pre-made stuff, healthy stuff.

And then I'm working late too.

Working, working.

So you do another shift?

Yeah, I do another shift.

The night shift.

The night shift.

What's the night shift hours?

The night shift on— I don't know, it depends. Um, 7:30 to midnight. Whoa. Depends. Yeah.

What is the difference in the type of work that you do? So I'm sure you wake up to just slack and I know, I'm just gonna guess the night work's the deep work.

The morning work is talking to people about—

Exactly. Yeah. All day. I, you know, it same for you in the morning. Morning. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think for, yeah, I'm a night person, but I think for me being able to get out at around 4:30 and like go to the gym and take your mind off of the 8 hours worth of calls you just had is you, you gotta do that. You just, it. You just gotta do that, and then you can come back and sort of get deep into the work and send out your follow-ups and all the things. But it's important to move your body. It's, it's very important to move your body every day, in my opinion.

Yeah, I love, I love that they answer that question because every time someone responds, I think of Matt from Hereon. So, uh, well, we asked him that question. I actually blurted out laughing when he started because I thought he was kidding. He wakes up at like 2:30. Wow.

What time does he go to bed?

4:00 PM. I don't actually know, but I was like, so Dan was like, wake up at 2:30. I was like, wait, what?

What?

He gets a workout in, does like 2 hours of work before his kid wakes up. And I just like, and then you, I hear you like, I woke up at 8:39. It's just so interesting to hear. Cause like, you know, different strokes for different folks.

I think Tim Ferriss used to do like all his book writing with wine until like 2:00 AM and then wake up at like 10 or 11.

Yeah. Yeah. Everyone's, everyone's, everyone's circadian rhythm is different. Everyone has different hours of focus, times they like. I do find a lot of peace in the middle of the night. There's a lot you can do in the middle of the night when the world is quiet. But, uh, yeah, I'm definitely like to get my sleep in.

I also think that's what's beautiful about entrepreneurship versus corporate world is you're not beholden to someone else's schedule. You have the autonomy to figure out what works for you as long as you're disciplined to be able to do that.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, my company is also flexible in that way too. So we have PT to ET, and we also have a couple people— actually, we have a couple people in Hawaii too. And I'm, I'm very, I'm very freedom in the reign of that actually. So some of my clients actually asked me this yesterday. They were like, wow, you had a, we had a media, a senior media buyer taking a 6:00 AM call on Ryan. Like, oh, that's fantastic. I didn't even know she was doing that. But you know what? I bet she leaves the office at 2:00 PM to go surfing or whatever we are. I'm totally okay with that. I am all about giving people freedom to do that. And I think, I think because of that, like they appreciate their job more. Um, the flexibility is really, really important. I have the flexibility, as long as my employees—

good work.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We were talking about this literally an hour ago. You asked me if I was giving my team off for the day before July 4th, and I said that our— we don't— I don't operate or manage people based on time they spend. It's purely deliverable-based. Yeah, especially for people who aren't talking to clients all day. I don't care if you work at 3 in the morning or 2 PM, as long as you're hitting deadlines. Yeah, like when you get on the product call, you actually did what you said you were going to do. No questions.

Well, that's an intelligent and loyal person is going to do that, right? That's, you know, I think it's really important to hire for those traits, going back to the original question. But yeah, someone who's really intelligent, loyal, someone who— like, a great hire does not need to be micromanaged. 100%, end of story. And if you have to micromanage them, probably not right for your company.

It's a good indication. Yeah, 100%.

Exactly.

What is life like away from work? What do you like to do?

Oh my gosh, so I'm actually a musician.

Oh yeah, I did not know that.

I know.

What do you play?

I'm a singer. Wow, great music. Yeah, I played the violin. I started the violin when I was 4 years old.

Guess who else played the violin?

You?

6 years.

Really?

First chair in the orchestra in middle school.

Oh wow, that's intense. That's tough. Which orchestra?

I was like, my middle school orchestra. Not like— hold on, hold on, hold on. Let's take a step back here. This is middle school.

I'm not—

it wasn't like a serious orchestra. Okay, 6 years in, I was doing private lessons at this point. My teacher finally agreed with me that I was too aggressive for violin and I should stick to hockey. At which point I went to my parents and was like, "I'm done. I hate this. I need to get out of this." It was my dad's rule when we were little that all of us had to play a musical instrument because he felt it was very good for the development of the brain. It was funny because my dad would go to work and my mom would be the one at home fighting with me every day. Little did I know she wasn't the one who was forcing us to play to begin with. I think it was great in hindsight. I just got to a certain point where I was like, "This isn't for me anymore." But I did play violin for 6 years, which I think is still a cool fun fact.

Do you still play?

No, I haven't touched it in over a decade.

I'm going to buy you one. Wait, continue.

Yeah.

When do you make time for this stuff?

Whatever I can on the weekends. I think, I think part of being a marketer and part of like starting a business is creativity. I think actually because I'm lucky, like my parents started me in music when I was really, really young. Like I think I picked up the violin when I was only 4 years old.

She's so good. I can just tell.

I can't even imagine. I'm like, if I had a 4-year-old kid, I mean, that could be like this big, right? So I'm really grateful to my parents actually for starting me then, because I think music is creativity. Anything you're doing, whether you're playing, you're singing, you're writing— like, I was writing songs by the time I was 8 or 9 years old. That's creative. That was my first company, was writing music. My first song was, was music, right? It's— I mean, my first song was like, you know, built like building a company. It's like you— the ability to exercise your left and right brain from a really young age, I think it's, it's really, really important. Keeping that going also, you should pick up the violin sometime.

I'm trying to find—

Yeah.

One common trait of both of you and other founders that I'm friends with is constantly having new challenges outside of work. I think it's really important.

Yeah.

Just generally curious, competitive people tend to do that.

Yeah.

Um, one thing that I'm attempting right now is to learn a new language and let me tell you that it's tough.

Yeah.

As an adult.

Yes.

Which one is it? Portuguese.

Portuguese.

So I'll tell you one tip coming from someone who speaks one language. I have a friend who speaks 7 and I asked him, I was like, dude, how? And he said, the number one thing you do is change the language on your phone. It's the thing you spend the most time on. And even though it's going to suck at the beginning, it's the fastest way to start learning.

Yeah.

So I don't know if your phone's in Portuguese.

It's in Spanish right now.

I should talk to her in Portuguese. Yeah.

That's what we're doing. I think we also have to, I've been doing like a weekly actual tutor separate and then we're doing—

He's serious. You got an actual tutor for this.

Yeah, wow, that's something on my long list of like challenges that I want to get to, but it hasn't made its way to the top of the priority list yet.

I feel like a child, like learning a new— it really, it really humbles you.

You know what hurts me? So I want to learn Hebrew because I'm Israeli, my dad's from there, my whole family's there. And my younger cousin started speaking English to me, I was like, wow, this is embarrassing. Like I was having conversations with my 10-year-old cousin in English, and like when I first met them we couldn't communicate because they didn't know a lick of English, and now They're like responding to my Instagram stories, having full conversations in English. I'm like, this is crazy.

Wow.

I need to like figure it out.

I'm curious for you, we're talking about different pieces of growth of the business personally. What learnings from the business have you taken that have changed you as a person?

Learnings?

Or rephrase this.

You know what it is? Yeah. I think it's like getting to know people for who they are and not having, you know what it is? It's like, I think, I think in the beginning of the business, I was so optimistic about people, and then as people sort of started to let me down— the disappointment—

you reverse the approach until they prove you wrong.

Yeah, exactly. Don't trust anyone until they give you the reasons to trust them.

That's so— do you carry that mantra into your personal life and business?

I think, I think so.

Wow.

It's absolutely carried into my personal life, and I think it's allowed me to also create more boundaries. I'm just— I Look, deep down I'm like this like really soft person. Like I love my friends, you know, I'm, you know, I grew up in a very, uh, intelligent, loyal, charismatic, very— I grew up in a very sort of like connected community. Um, a very small town. That's in California.

I don't even know where that is.

Very small town. Yeah, right. Very small town. Um, so small town girl mentality, that sort of thing. Very like caring, very loving towards my friends. But I think, you know, in this In this world, you got to give people a reason, or people have to give you a reason to trust them. I think that's really important.

Are you the same? I'm the opposite in my personal life.

Really?

I'll give you my trust until you break it.

Yeah.

I think business, I'm more in the camp of like, why should I trust you?

Yeah.

But personal life, I try to give you the benefit of the doubt as I get to know you.

Yeah.

Because that's me wanting to be vulnerable and putting my guard down as we get to know each other to give the relationship the best opportunity to succeed.

Absolutely.

The second you do something, I'm like, all right, see ya.

Yeah, I know. But the second they do something, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that giving people second and third and fourth chances is definitely something I did earlier on in my career that I think more similar to you, like pretty trusting at first, but this is something I'm learning now. Um, especially as we work with more clients, we work with more partners and people we're doing business with that aren't directly active customers. Um, there's a lot to be, a lot to be said about when, when one thing happens that you hear someone didn't talk very nice to you or about you behind your back or something. Um, like we have a, there's like a couple investors that I look at their whole portfolio and I'm like, these are all potential customers, but for some reason none of them wanted to work with us or some of them pulled out of contracts with us. And I'm like, interesting. There's overlap here. I wonder what's happening. And when you start to see that again, this is literally just with a couple of people, which is fingers crossed stays that way. The minute that I have one gut reaction of like, I don't think they're rooting for me behind my back. That stuff is like really disappointing. And that's one thing I've gotten much more guarded about or wary about.

Yeah.

Of people are always nice to my face. I'm similar to you. Most people like to your face, they're not going to be mean. They're not going to say anything bad.

Yeah.

But the minute that you hear like someone talking something about your head behind your back, especially when you run a company. You're the face of it. It's your reputation, um, every single day. That stuff I think has, has made me a little less trusting.

It's made you guarded.

Guarded.

It's made you guarded.

I think for me, in a world of chaos as a founder, with the things you're dealing with on a day-to-day basis, like, you have to be mature enough to just remove the negative energy.

Exactly.

You can't dwell on it. You have to accept that, like, absolutely you're not doing something right until someone disagrees with it or you're pissed off, because like you know, controversy for better or worse, it means you're on a path to something. I don't know if it's good or not, but it's something. And so I think you have to be willing to like move it aside and accept that that's not your person and that's okay. Like, you'll see them at the finish line. It doesn't have to even be facetious, but just know that there's very few people at the top in this world where every single person unanimously loves them.

It's lonely at the top. And just to get back to what you said, because, um, yes, and just, I, I think also kind of like from where you're coming from, I get it I have a sign on my desk, this little plaque. It's the only plaque I have on my desk. It says, haters are gonna hate. My best friend got it for me.

I love that.

You know, and it's, it's so true. And I look at it every day. It's so true because the higher up you get in your business, the more clients you have, the bigger your product gets, the more money you raise, it gets harder. It gets harder because that's just the way of life.

And yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. And I think ultimately, right, like you have, for me, my approach is look, non-attachment. I practice non-attachment every day. I think it's important to not be attached to the people around you and what they're saying and what they're thinking. I just let people be, and if, if, if they give me reason to trust them and to really open up, I will do that. But I will be non-attached to you. I will do my job. I will have the best intentions for you until you can prove, and I can see that, that, you know, I can really open up. Yeah.

What have you had to sacrifice on the path of building one of the best agencies in the country.

You're sweet. Uh, we are the largest female-founded Shopify Plus agency now, which is super cool.

But, uh, yeah, North America.

In North America.

That's so bad.

North America.

Don't leave that detail out.

We love North America. Honestly, a lot. Time with my friends, you know, I don't, I can't remember the last time I went out.

Um, do you drink?

I don't drink actually. Yeah.

I'm telling you, dude, it is the common thread of high-performing people. No, I'm not scolding you. I'm just saying, like, all the high-performing people that I'm starting to be around, I had stopped drinking 7 months ago.

Okay.

It's just so interesting to me.

Yeah, I don't drink.

I don't push the agenda on anyone. I'm just fascinated to meet another successful person. Like, I don't drink.

Maybe 10 years. Look, I'll have a sip if it's someone's wedding or birthday or whatever, you want to participate, but I'm not attracted to alcohol. It's never really been a thing for me, but I don't think that not drinking is making me successful. I think maybe it's a, you know, it's not like binary.

If you either drink or you don't, you're successful.

Yeah, I think, I think I've given up, you know, time. I think this is— I think this goes for everyone, like time with your family, time with your friends. You, you have to sacrifice going out, other pleasures in life, you know, things like that. But, but the reality is like, it doesn't— it's never ever even once felt like a sacrifice to me. I'll be honest with you, that's the cool thing, because I'm obsessed with my company, with Levitate. I'm obsessed with Artemis, this amazing personal security company I'm building that's going to change lives of women and children and families, you know. And you— I just think in life you have to be passionate about what it is you're doing because it will never ever ever feel like, you know, uh, it'll never feel like you're giving up something else.

I could feel the passion in her just saying that.

Yeah.

Do you want to talk about Artemis for a second for people listening? Uh, whatever you can disclose.

Yeah, sneak peek. It is a patent-pending revolutionary personal safety device. Um, it's connected to an app It's an actual hardware device that we actually invented. We spent the last 2 years, my co-founder and I, Ben Smith, we invented the device with our co-founder Dan Harden, who's an amazing industrial designer, has like 400 awards in the design space. And we've gone through so many renditions. It's been an amazing journey to create a personal safety device that I think is gonna be really game-changing. And I think the world has, as you can see over COVID, become less safe. Crime rates are up. This is a, this is a real fact. This is a stat. And I think in general, the world is becoming less safe in general. And I think people are starting to feel that. And we, the mission is really to protect, protect all of us.

Can you disclose what area of security or not?

Personal security. Yeah.

It's really dope.

Personal security. So it's, it's to keep you safe actually.

Yeah.

As you're walking on the street at night, in the mornings, you pull your device out and it's really marketed to, to families. To individuals. Um, so I think in the market right now you can either— so, so our, our, our mission is really like, look, there's a couple options out there. You can buy a gun or you can buy a pepper spray or you can buy a taser, and there's really nothing else in between. And we are that alternative to a gun, a pepper spray, and a taser. We're the alternative. We are, you know, we're an IoT device. We're a very innovative device. Um, we are, you know, 2023, fast forward, tech-enabled, uh, Wi-Fi-enabled, uh, video camera-enabled personal security device. Um, and we'll also have a kids product here soon enough as well.

So yeah, a lot of, a lot of people that aren't founders or entrepreneurs think about starting a company one day and they're like, I'm gonna start a company, make a bunch of money and retire.

Yeah.

But every single successful entrepreneur I know is just immediately starting the next thing that they've been working on the side for.

And so tell me more about that because building a company is so, even though we all love it, I think we're addicted to it.

Yeah.

But it's fucking painful. Like it's a lot of work and there are sacrifices even though we love it. It is painful sometimes. And so tell me more about like why you're even, you know, Levitate's gonna be successful forever, but oh, thank you. The next big thing, it's like, all right, let's go do this painful thing again.

Yeah. You know what's funny is, um, I had a lot of my clients and friends be like, hey, you run Levitate, you've worked with hundreds of brands. I was in beauty before this. I was in consumer, um, for a long time. I'd been at, you know, brands. I've started brands. I've helped them grow. Like, why don't you just launch your own brand? And I'll be honest with you, I never felt passionate enough to launch my own brand cuz I, I work with so many beauty brands. We're so many, you know, CPG brands and we're so many health and wellness brands. I get my, uh, excitement through my clients. And if I have an extra minute, I'm spending it on my clients cuz they're paying me good money for my thought leadership here. And that's what I've done for the last close to 5 years. But, uh, Artemis is really personal to me, I think, because, um, I just care so much about the vision, the mission, the cause. Like, I genuinely want to feel safe. I want my friends to feel safe. Um, I had a bad experience a few years ago in Southern California. Um, and, uh, I didn't feel safe. I didn't feel safe. Um, I picked everything up. I moved into a new house. I got, you know, bulletproof glass. I didn't feel safe. And that was the first time in my life I felt so unsafe. I grew up in a Christian community. I grew up in a very small community. And I started talking to my friends, and a lot of them didn't feel safe. And part of it was 2021, 2022, the macroeconomics, the politics, everything that happened during COVID And then all the people that you see getting assaulted in the news and in New York and all the things, the subway stuff, all the stuff that's happening. And I just felt, wow, like, wow, I gotta do something about this. And that was the first time in my life I was like, I wanna start a brand. Like, I wanna start a product. You know, it's finally something felt meaningful to me.

So I'm curious, most people that are in and around the Shopify ecosystem, I think starting a brand is probably the hardest thing versus a software company or an agency. By far.

Yeah.

And most brand founders I know are like, yeah, I would never do this again. I'm definitely gonna start an agency next time. So being in that ecosystem and then saying, you know what, that's actually what I wanna do.

Yeah.

Is that just, this is not only a pain point for me, but for a lot of people. And like, yeah, if, if someone's gonna go solve it, I have the right chops to solve it.

Yeah.

I think you gotta feel it from in here.

Mm-hmm.

Um, I think you gotta feel it and, uh, yeah, it's not easy to start a brand, but I think once you find the right product market fit, all of that, I think Again, I see a lot of founders, they have great product-market fit, they've raised $5 million, they, you know, super smart Harvard people, they, you know, and why can't their business scale over $10 million or $20 million in revenue? There's no heart. There's no heart. And when, when times get tough and it's time for them to poke their head through that wall, they're not gonna do it cuz it's not in here. So that was always the mentality for me, right? It was like, I, I don't wanna start another skincare brand. It's not gonna be, impactful to the people around me. Like, I work with so many skincare brands and they're all amazing, but I just, you know, it's like, for me, it's like, for me personally, it's always been what is that thing that like is important to me, can make an impact, and that I can do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Can we nerd out for a minute on the Shopify ecosystem? Yeah. We don't get many guests on here where I can just be an absolute nerd, and I'm like, I want to run a few minutes. What are your thoughts on headless commerce? And I apologize for people listening who are like, okay, that was interesting, and I have no fucking clue you guys are talking about.

Common. Yeah.

Headless is great. I think it's made a lot of headwinds. It's been a lot of PR around headless over the last 3 years. You know, we have built some headless sites. We've migrated some brands that were sold on headless way too early back onto Shopify.

Just did that.

And I think there's been a lot of PR around headless, but I think, you know, headless can be an amazing, amazing, um, tool. For brands that are right for it, that are ripe for it, that have the right setup for it, that are in the right markets. And it makes sense from a, you know, from a market perspective. And I think it's com— I, you know, there are brands that are way too early that are being sold on it. And, you know, we, we've migrated a lot of them back to Shopify, you know, so.

And what, what would you say are like the trends that you're seeing in just like the commerce enablement space given the, the macroeconomic environment, the things that you think are gonna help brands stay alive?

Yeah. I think it's, so we were talking about this actually prior to the, to the, uh, the, this podcast starting, but I think a lot of it is consolidation, which is funny enough what, what you're working on, right?

It is.

Yeah.

Uh, yeah. I, I agree with that.

I agree with that.

I agree with that.

There's a lot of consolidation.

I really, really agree with that thesis.

Yeah. There's so many apps in the ecosystem. There's so many amazing apps. There's, there really is a tool to do, and, and we have our shortlist of tools that we like to to use, obviously the big guys, and then there's some small ones that are great. But ultimately there's so much out there, and most brands that are like— a lot of our clients doing over $100 million, they don't need 30 Shopify apps.

Their features, they're not— I'm just going to use this opportunity to hammer it home— like, their features, they're not products. There's no reason that you need to be stuck with 30 separate expenses, 30 support teams. Ultimately a slower website or lower performing website because your site speed, your Core Web Vitals are hammered by And I think the other point that's so interesting to me, and I'm curious your perspective on this, one of the things that we found is there's a huge drop-off in terms of like the marginal utility of a certain app or functionality after a certain threshold. And so what I mean by that is like, you have a, let's say you have an app that you use to enable upsells in your cart, right? You're like, okay, it does that. And now I'm paying extra because they tell me that they use AI to like surface the product at the right moment for the consumer on the website to like, increase your AOV.

Yeah.

Most brand merchants are like, does it do the thing? Does it sell?

Yes.

Okay, great. Like, I don't really have time or care about like the last 25% of it. And we found that like, that's where a lot of the increased prices are coming from is like trying to be unique and creative beyond like the core functionality, which is why when like someone asks me, because I get this question all the time, how are you going to tell me that you're going to compete with like these category winners in different verticals by building it all into one? It's like our value prop isn't that it's gonna be the best in every single category, but by combining something that's good enough in every single category, that holistic product ends up becoming exponentially more valuable.

Yeah.

Because it's cheaper and it still gives you enough of what you need to compete in the market. Right.

It becomes a self-sustaining ecosystem in and of itself. I do think back to, back to what we were talking about earlier, actually headless. I do think life stage of company is really, really important. Apps obviously clutter the backend of your site, makes your site slow. Site speed is a big part of everything we do. We're, you know, we do media, we do lifecycle marketing, and we do CRO. Those are the three pillars of what Levitate does. And all of them, it's, it's the triangle, it's a trifecta, right? It's the three work together. And if your site isn't working fast enough and you're a big company and you got 100 SKUs, okay, maybe headless is right for you, right? Because headless is great for increasing site speed, decoupling, that sort of thing. But ultimately going back to the original app question, it's like, yes, brands don't need 100 apps.

I think working on the marketing side of like, we work with a lot of like B2B SaaS companies in the e-commerce space.

Yeah.

Something that I've been talking to with a lot of my friends in the space, I'll probably be texting you more often, is doing background checks and real diligence before we take on new customers, specifically e-commerce infrastructure, because as an agency we get a great rep when we're growing a company. Yeah, there's a lot of companies that like I'll talk to and they're great and they're like, cool, we just raised capital.

Yeah, let's work with Verbatim.

You guys can do the content. And I'm like, wait, wait, what's your pricing model? And they're like, oh, for free. But you know, we'll figure it out down the line.

Yeah.

And they're like, what do you mean? You have like 20 customers and they're not paying you. What makes you think that just adding content is gonna make you a ton of money?

Right.

And so doing that diligence beforehand has increased literally over the past month.

Yeah.

Because of, I think impending consolidation.

Yeah.

We're just a lot more wary cuz like we don't look good if we can't grow a company that's not even grown in the first place.

Right.

Can I talk about one category that you actually played in?

Yeah.

That blows my mind.

Subscription. Yeah.

The amount of commerce-enabled companies and their value prop is subscription, and all of them have raised millions of dollars and all of them are doing the same thing with like a little bit of change. I can't wrap my head around it. And it's even at a point now where the founders are like bashing each other on Twitter and it's almost comical to me, but I don't understand, like, you know, the later players in the game, like who woke up and they're like, we're gonna go build a subscription app. And it's like, why are you entering a space that has 7 other players? Like that notion carries across a lot of different commerce and even categories. And I don't— I can't wrap my head around like what— why would an investor like invest in it or why would a founder want to spend their time doing that when there's so many players in the space?

LTV is important. You invested in a subscription app.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Can't talk about that on air.

Okay.

No, no discussing investments except Platter. Shut up, Platter.

What's your thought process around that? I mean, there are a lot of subscription apps. I'm not—

I haven't invested in any, but, uh, Well, I won't talk about subscription apps specifically, but in terms of investing, like I do comically small checks.

Yeah.

And it's mainly just like if I, if someone has intelligence, charisma, and loyalty, and I honestly just want to like be along for the ride and mainly it's literally me giving the money to just learn from them. And like the investor update that you're writing up, when I get every investor update that I get, if I get them, because I've put very small check sizes.

It's—

I'm learning so much every, every single time. You're learning from the smartest people that I've met, and I'm getting a rundown of how they think about revenue, growth, product, engineering, go-to-market. And then the next month I get another one.

Yeah.

And that's one of the fastest learning curves that I have. Yeah. And it's also—

you're paying for access. Investing in relationships. I actually had a founder, or a founder friend who also invested a couple weeks ago. He's like, Dude, I'm not investing necessarily to make money off this company. I'm investing in access to whatever the hell you're going to do over the next 30 years. Yeah. I was like, wow, that hit differently. Just like when you said that.

Yeah.

I think the most important thing to do that I've learned so far is just be around people with insanely high growth rates, personally and professionally, because it's not intoxicating. It's impossible for you to not level up as well.

Yeah.

If I'm texting you all the time, you all the time, it's hard not to learn a lot and start growing at the same rate.

It's momentum, right?

It's momentum.

It's when you're around people that are naturally inclined to momentum, you kind of pick up that speed as well. Yeah.

Agreed.

And if you can pay for access to 20 or 25 different people with higher momentum than you, it's hard not to consider yourself part of those circles.

I think it's like you, if you hang out with a group of 10 people and all like the other 9 are like successful, however you would quantify that, whether it's the amount of money they made or the company they build or whatever, and you literally only spend time those people, it's like so hard not to like level up yourself. Yeah, like to me it's almost as, as extreme as like jumping out of a boat in the middle of the ocean and like not hitting the water. Like when you're really just around those people all the time, I think that's half the battle is putting yourself in the room with those people because then subconsciously you're getting exposed to ideas and methodologies for how you just course correct and make incremental improvements in your life. And we talk about this all the time, how obsessed I am with just like daily actions compounding. And you look back 2 years later and you're like, wow, where I am today versus where I was before, it's not even like comparable.

Yeah, there's that famous quote, I think it's around Twitter all the time, of you hang out, uh, if you hang out with 5 smokers, you're gonna be the 5th. If you hang out with 5 runners, you're gonna be the 6th. Yeah, something like that. I think I butchered it. Um, but it matters. And even not— it's like the parasocial relationships too, that I— this is the first time we've met in like 5 or 6 years, but even just being on like threads and calls and texts with you, that really impacts Information you consume.

It does. Yeah, because the world is changing. Like, digital contact is everything. I feel like— I mean, I feel like we are the bestest of friends, right? Actually, this is the first time we're meeting in person.

Yeah, right? I'm so confused. I know, right?

You rarely come to New York though.

I know. We've done so many videos. Remember when we did the video series?

Yes, OG podcast.

You just like casually told me that. It was like 7 minutes.

We started a podcast years ago.

Years ago? 2 and a half maybe.

That's so exciting. Uh, I think we're probably coming up on time, but I want to do— I want to do a quick rapid You can also contribute to this one if you want to.

You were going so fast last time.

Yeah, I know, because I was in the rhythm.

Yeah, he was in the zone.

All right, you can start. You want me to start? I might use the same questions because I'm so intrigued by them. What's one class in college that you wish you would have paid closer attention to?

Econometrics.

I don't wish I would have paid— I hated it. Everything about it. I compartmentalized it and never think about it again.

Well, I would have liked to pass it. So.

Okay, fair. What do you think are the 3 most common traits of high performers?

Ability to pivot, uh, diligence and intention.

What is one thing you're not great at right now that you're trying to work on?

Not being so hard on myself, which I know we all are in this room.

We can keep going.

Who do you look up to?

Uh, I think my parents. Well, yeah, they immigrated here first generation. My dad came here with like $50. Just seeing them like always work hard, work. I can think, I think work ethic is important. Yeah. Being surrounded by that. Yeah.

My, my quick aside, my dad is 63.

Yeah.

63.

Yeah.

And grind like no one I've ever seen.

Yeah.

Mine too. And he's older than that.

Really?

Yeah.

Like weekends, late nights.

I'm inside. My dad is a plastic surgeon. I have a wedding this weekend. My parents are in town because it's a friend of mine. They're invited to the wedding. He's working in New York on Sunday. He's seeing patients before he goes back to Buffalo.

Wow.

I'm like, dude, what are you doing?

That work ethic sticks with me.

That's where I got it from. I mean, he was in the Army. He was a military guy, so I think that's a huge piece. And he was a professional athlete. Now he's a doctor, so it's like you don't lose that.

My mom's a teacher and she wakes up at 6 AM every single— because it's like middle and high school starts early.

Yeah.

And every day wakes up and teaches 6th graders art, which is the hardest thing.

The hardest thing all day.

Art all day.

Wow.

That's crazy.

I could not handle that.

Wow.

And I think we all handle stress. Imagine trying to coordinate 6th graders all day.

Nope. That's the hardest job ever. I think it's harder than my job.

I think it's insanely hard.

Insanely hard.

Steph, thanks for coming on today. That was awesome. It's now your turn to shine. Look at the camera. Let people know where they can find you.

Hey guys. Yeah, you can find me at Steph@LevitateFoundry.com. That's also our Instagram handle. And you can go to our website, LevitateFoundry.com.

Good stuff.

Thanks, though.

Thanks, guys.

Cut.