Episode 52 of "Document the Journey" — a spontaneous Q&A in Krakow between host Sam (Matthew Kelly) and Jordan Smythe, founder of Gleam. Jordan (age ~24) discusses Gleam’s origins (founding around March 2019), a major turnaround where he fired ~11 employees to save the business, growth ambitions (moving manufacturing to the U.S., expanding retail/marketplaces), and product-focused strategy. The transcript includes a revenue fragment: 'roughly on track to do about 1112 this year.' The episode closes with show updates and subscribe/CTA.
Questions this video answers
March 2019 (Jordan: 'Hell, March 2019. No, sorry. Four and a half.')
About 11 ('had to fire, like, 11 people on the spot in about a week's time.')
Transcript quote: 'Now roughly on track to do about 1112 this year.'
Krakow, Poland (explicitly mentioned in the closing).
Episode 52 ('Back with episode 52, document the journey.')
Chapters
Back with episode 52, document the journey. We're here with fucking Jordan Smythe, founder of Gleam, and you may recognize from the Bali episode. Late April, I think it was. We're in Krakow. We're doing a spontaneous episode. I'm just gonna ask you some shit and drop some insane value. As always.
I feel small, convenient.
We'll get cozy.
Let's get cozy. We got Holly Smythe behind the camera.
On the app rolls. We're about 44 deep. This is a new format of the Midnight Cod.
I can't believe this is actually going up. There's a Midnight Cod.
No, it will. How many years of gleaming? I'm gonna go, like, quick fire.
Yeah, sure. Five and a half now.
Five?
Hell, March 2019. No, sorry. Four and a half. I'm bad with the day.
That exit's gonna feel good.
I'm bad with the day.
Sir, what's the single hardest day of gleaming?
Hardest day?
Yeah. Oh, wait. Sorry. Context. People that haven't watched. Go. Go. Click back and watch the full episode. Gleam is doing what? How much per year?
Now roughly on track to do about 1112 this year.
So to give context. Big fucking brand. He's only 24.
That was eight. Hardest day.
Yeah, hardest day.
Toughest for me personally, or you mean big?
Yeah, yeah, for you, for the brand. In the past five years. That's a long time.
Oh, probably the day I realized I did turn the company around and fire my whole team. Had about 11 employees at the time. It was, like, around. Like a new. A new year period, I think. 2021. Moving into 2022. And we had about 10 or 11.
Give me short answers. Relative assurances.
Yeah. So, I mean, we were. We were in a real. Real die position. And I just realized that the only way to turn the company around is strip back to skeleton level. And, you know, part of that change was to fire the whole team and move in a different direction with the workforce that we had. So, yeah, had to fire, like, 11 people on the spot in about a week's time. That was pretty intense. That was probably the hardest.
That's why you're the world's most mature man. Best day of gleaming so far.
Best day. One of the Black Fridays, probably. Nah, maybe the best day is always, like, the first day, I feel, you know, and you realize you've got something that you can build, and then from that, it's just like a continuous grind, which every day is amazing because you learn so much. But I think the best day was when I realized that, like, this is something that I can commit to for, you know, a very long time and see through to the end when like you've got that validation that this is something you've got. And that was obviously very early on, within the first like three months. So I don't know the date, but yeah, yeah.
If you start a brand now from scratch, what are the few things you would focus on religiously in 2023?
2023 being different product, market fit, Making sure you're actually solving a problem. You're not just creating something that's already out there and you just like think that yours is different because most likely it's not. Make sure it's close to you, it's like really close to home. I think it's something that's continuously said and talked about but the value of it is unparalleled. If you are really close to your business as a person and who you are or even your product, for example, I think that's going to show in so many ways from the commitment that you have to the company, how late you'll stay up working on it, what you endure to get the company to a certain point. So I would say find something that you can solve a problem with in a market that you already in as a consumer and in something that you are willing to commit your entire life to, you know, because there's no other option.
Once you start something next five years, what are you focused on to go from where you are now to 100 million.
Continuing to build out our product line, move manufacturing over to the states fully so it's much more efficient. Expand, expand retail and marketplaces. Making sure we're like accessible to everyone everywhere. Making sure people can buy gleaming everywhere and you know, whether it's brick and mortar stores throughout certain countries or online on certain marketplaces. So it's there and then it's just continuing to develop products with certain innovation in a market and trying to become the number one brand in our space. Because I really think that there's a huge possibility there. So we'll see. That's what we're pushing for. Yeah.
Product or marketing? Do you have to pick one?
I used to say marketing back in the drop shipping days, probably now product because I think marketing now can be templated or systemized and. But product cannot. Back in the day used to be able to take like these in our drop shipping days, right.
You take like any 10 bird shotgun method timber. Book of scaling, book of scaling secrets.
150 pages of scaling secrets. Now you. Back in the day I think you used to be able to take a winning product and apply and apply like a certain marketing strategy and everyone kind of had a different way of approaching marketing. However, now I think the product does a lot more speaking and you can kind of apply the same, like general marketing strategy. But the product has a lot more weight now, I think because consumers are smarter and that's what they're going to look at closer. They're not going to look at the marketing strategy, they're going to look at the product. So I think, personally, I think the product holds a lot more weight now versus before. Are you still marketing?
If you had to start a brand in a completely new niche off the cuff right now, what would it be? I maybe know what it is, but maybe you don't want to share the world's best brand idea that no one's heard of. Maybe we'll get Harley Smythe, who's behind the camera right now, to come on and may or maybe not speak about that in a minute.
But no, no, no, no. In a completely new niche versus compared.
To skincare, Same mushrooms.
I was. I was.
Makes me sound wise.
I was going to say somewhere in the space of holistic health, I think there's a lot of awareness now around.
Ice bath.
Unconditional, you know, methods of developing yourself in regards to, like, health, mental health, physical fitness. And I think there's a lot of money to be made in that space. So something in that space. I don't know. Would it be. The ice bar thing is cool. I think it's overdone now, but, yeah, same. Yeah, it would be somewhere in the space of holistic health because then you're providing true value to people as well. You know, you're actually helping people with their lives and becoming better people, which is what I also try to do with Gleatman. So similar goal. Yeah.
I guess. On that bombshell, this is probably too long for documenting the journey episode. As always, the POD is coming back. Season three. I've decided not to bin it because everyone fucking messages me begging for midnight pod full man to come back. It is coming back very shortly. On that bombshell, subscribe to the pod. This is documenting the journey a bit different. We're actually in Krakow, Poland right now. I didn't say that. Very fucking random. At the end of a European tour. Cheers for watching. We'll catch you in the next episode. Go subscribe and follow these cunts down below and we'll see you in the next episode.
