# Scaling Creative Brands: AI, Collabs, and Production

**Podcast:** How I Built This with Guy Raz
**Published:** 2026-02-26

## Transcript

Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab.
I'm Guy Roz.
This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges.
Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show, who will help me try to help you.
And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call, and you just might be the next guest on the show.
Our number is 1-800-433-1298.
Leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you like help with.
All right, let's get to it.
Joining me this week is Alexa Hirschfeld.
She's the co-founder along with her brother James of Paperless Post.
It's an online invitation company.
Alexa, it's great to have you back on the show.
It's great to be here.
Thank you for having me.
And I apologize for my voice, battling a cold, but but I'm feeling great.
So, Alexa, you were first on how you built this unit-brother on it in 2024, and you guys got this idea, and it was that you wanted to kind of recreate the beauty of a physical invitation, but to do it online.
And now, almost 20 years later, like hundreds of millions of invitations have been sent.
Um, it is a great story.
And and if you guys haven't heard it, we'll put a link to it in the show notes.
I mean, I remember we talked about this when you were on the show because one of the things that makes paperless post unique, many things, but one of the things is you have no ads on the websites or in the invitations.
People pay to use your designs and your service, and it it really feels like a like a high-end invitation.
Um, you know, like something you'd get in the mail.
Uh we've used paperless posts for so many important occasions in our lives.
My my wife's 50th birthday party last year, for example, and they're so beautifully designed.
I'm sure, you know, you get this all the time where people are saying, well, you know, AI is going to be coming for this for design and for creativity.
And and I know that you also have some AI technology that you're working with to help people design cards, but I wonder how you think about sort of protecting the business so it's, you know, it's thriving in in 10 or 20 years.
Of course, yeah.
I am an a real believer.
I think AI is pretty amazing, and I think it can be an accelerator of human creativity rather than, you know, a replacement for human creativity.
I think that having more AI generated content uh in on the internet and in the world is also going to create more of a demand for human created content and for really it's just gonna raise the bar for quality.
For us specifically, um the way that we are really focused on using AI at the moment is in taking work that users don't need to do out of the process of designing.
We're working on ways of collapsing steps and taking time out of the process of customizing, but enabling people still to put their fingerprint on the design.
Yeah.
Um, you you put out a blog post um late last year about loneliness.
People are not spending time with other people for obvious reasons.
People are on screens and communicating through screens, and you wrote a blog post about this and how you're trying to do your part, I guess, as a business, in trying to get people to hang out more casually, just to have like, you know, spontaneous parties or get togethers or gatherings.
Yeah.
I think that for a lot of reasons, people haven't been prioritizing spending time with real friends and family in person because they have this idea that they are keeping in touch with friends and family by seeing kind of images and stories and holograms of their friends online and different types of social media.
And I remember after COVID seeing my friends at at, you know, I was actually at a wedding and thinking, wow, you know, you're so much funnier and more nuanced and sensitive and interesting than than I than I remember.
And then what I was getting from you in exclusively, you know, online form.
I think real life makes people more dimensional and just better than they are when they're kind of like just represented in two dimensions.
And so my advice is to really prioritize that type of interaction with the people in your life.
Yeah, absolutely.
And so you guys are, I guess, trying to you've in introduce a product that's that's trying to sort of create a more informal invitation, right?
Because when you get a paperless post, I think people think, oh, this is a formal party, or you know, but you you guys introduce something called the flyer, which is, I guess, designed to be texted, right, right?
Not not necessarily emailed.
So FIRE, yeah, Flyer can be all of our invitations can be texted, but you're absolutely right that Flyer is a more casual, lighter weight version of our of a paperless post that is um less expensive than our classic product.
There's a lot of free options.
It's for people who want to express the aesthetic of their party, but not express that it's gonna be a wedding necessarily.
It just maybe it's just a potluck at your house for Friendsgiving.
And what we want to do is enable people to have more parties that don't need to be a big deal, because then you'll do it more.
Yeah.
Um, Alexa, what do you say?
Should we take a call?
Let's do it.
All right, let's bring in our first caller.
Welcome to the advice line.
You're on with Alexa Hirschfeld, co-founder of Paperless Post.
Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.
Hey guy, hi Alexa.
I'm Jess Walker in Washington State, and I'm the founder of Five Dot Post, a greeting card brand that specializes in cancer support, grief, and empathy-driven cards.
Awesome.
Thanks for calling in, Jess.
So tell tell us more about the cards.
How do what are they, when you get one?
What do they look like?
So I came up with this idea in 2018, um, shortly after my late husband was diagnosed with cancer in our mid-20s.
Um, the support cards we were seeing in the cancer space really felt like they resonated with a different demographic, and we were young and we were fighting this in a way where you use like humor and and it was just different.
So the cards that I created, specifically in the cancer space really lean into that using humor as medicine.
Like if you can't laugh about it, it can be too heavy, that kind of energy.
And it really resonated with the cancer community in general.
Wow.
Um, and it's grown beyond the scope of just cancer cards.
Um, we have full year-round seasonal everyday cards.
It's uh a much wider scope at this point, but receiving a card that really resonates because it's it's written by someone who's really been there.
And and that's been the heart of all of our cards.
I, you know, I know that a lot of people have experiences where cancer comes into your life somehow, a friend or somebody in your family or somebody you love, and it's really hard.
You don't know what to say.
You don't know how to react or respond.
You don't, it's and you don't want to say the wrong thing.
I've talked to people who are survivors, and and and they'll say the worst thing I heard was when people are like, we're gonna beat this together.
You know, some some people, but some people do want to hear that.
Um and I'm looking at your cards, and they're so great.
They're so creative.
Chemo is tough, but I know someone tougher.
Cancer can suck it.
Um, cancer has no idea what it's coming for.
This is so shitty.
I'm here for anything you need on a card.
What a great idea.
I love this.
Right.
It's it's just what you actually want to hear when you're going through it.
Sometimes you don't want to see a sad flower that just says get better.
You want to hear what you're thinking.
You want to have that reflected to you.
And too, to what you said, the main goal of Five Dot Post was to lower the barrier to entry to support someone because you get nervous to say the wrong thing.
And I want to make it to where we provide the words for you so you can just go ahead and be the supporter.
You don't have to be scared to say the wrong thing.
And to be honest, you're never gonna say the wrong thing.
Like it might resonate more or less, but it's it's they just want you to show up, and we just want to make showing up easier.
Yeah.
And so you expanded this to birthdays and graduations and Father's Day and Mother's Day.
And do you do you write all the cards?
I do.
Um, I am the designer for everything.
I come up with all the words.
Um, we've recently expanded in the last few years to I don't have to do everything now.
Um, I have a fulfillment center.
We're in about uh 700 small retailers around the country as well as national retailers.
Um, but I am still the designer for everything, and they're all my words.
How's the business doing?
Give us a sense of what you guys are doing in sales.
Yeah, um, the last two years we've been about uh 350,000, both 2024 and 2025.
Um, and it's we're in a bit of a transition year, where this year um I have entered a partnership with a pet brand called Sweetpaws, Marissa Gertie, and she's actually been on the advice line.
She was on the advice line.
She makes the cheese rings for dogs.
Exactly.
The teethers, yes.
The teethers.
We ran into each other at a trade show last year and decided to do pet sympathy cards, taking what I do really well, what she does really well.
That's awesome.
We created this collaboration.
Um it has grown exponentially in the first 12 months, and um that partnership is we're now on Chewy.
We won three golden tickets at Walmart's Open Call.
And in a few weeks, we're gonna be launched at every Petco nationwide.
So yeah, so we're in a huge growth spurt right now.
So Justin PO's for that partnership.
It's already exceeded last year's revenue just in January of this year.
So amazing.
It's an interesting time to be running my business.
Wow, I love this idea.
I mean, pet sympathy cars and to to do them well.
So before we jump in a little bit further, what's your uh tell us what your question is for us my question is when a collaboration like Sweetpaws by Five Dot Post, which is what we've been calling it for with all these new retailers, when it grows beyond its original scope, how do you decide whether to keep that combined brand name or evolve it into a standalone identity?
And are there benefits to maintaining a visible connection to the original brands versus creating something totally new?
All right, so you've got Sweetpaws with with your brand with five dot post and and Alexa, you've done a bunch of collabs.
You've done collabs with Martha Stewart, uh Richard Scary, the Richard Scary books that are incredible cars and trucks and things that go.
It's an amazing collaboration that you guys are doing a paperless post.
Uh what I mean, collaborations are an awesome way to scale a brand, an idea.
Uh, but there's, you know, questions and and and things that you've got to figure out as as they come.
Yeah, congratulations.
It's really an amazing story.
And congratulations on the traction also that you're seeing recently.
And I think my first question for you to understand how to better answer yours is how much brand recognition do you believe that your original five dot post brand has?
I think that's a great point.
When we first started, we didn't know it would take off.
So we were like, people will find these cards, and then that will create the opportunity to send customers to both of our respective businesses.
We thought that was like a positive marketing tool, and we're now seeing just as we're we're launching this stuff that it's it's a little confusing for customers because they're like, who's what like it's also quite wordy, sweet pause by five dot posts.
So we're we're just trying to decide maybe this is a bigger thing than either of our respective brands, even though we've both had success in our own worlds, perhaps it makes sense just to create it as a separate identity.
Cause to your point, it does seem like it it is growing at a more exponential rate than either of our our respective businesses at this point.
How have you how have you set up the collaboration?
It's it's is it under five.post uh or is it a separate?
Yeah, we have a separate LLC that is sweet paws by five dot post, and we're both 50% owners of that LLC.
Got it.
Okay.
And so I mean, I guess the question is if this business is is really sort of gonna blow up and and and grow.
I mean I I was looking at pet accessories.
I mean this is a $30 billion global business.
It's a huge this accessories.
That doesn't include food or you know dog other dog care products.
It's just accessories.
So you're talking about a huge market and I wonder whether it's it it would just be worth kind of creating a new brand around this and really focusing on that this is a as a as a separate business.
I think that makes a lot of sense and and again to your point we we also we started with cards and then we also have giftable lifestyle products as well like accessories and things.
So it's like there are going to be a lot of products under this new entity.
So I do think maybe what you're saying to have it be its own standalone would make a lot more sense to consumer.
I guess the other question I have is how important the brand is for the sales of five dot post and if it is important and you want to have a brand that makes sense for your product line and this collaboration, the other thing you could do is keep five dot posts, create a a brand that makes sense for this new collaboration and have them both live under an umbrella company, which doesn't need to have a consumer-facing brand, but you could imagine spinning off other brands underneath that that are owned by that umbrella company that really speak to customers in different moments in their life with different you know different needs.
That's a really cool idea.
Yeah, I like that.
Yeah, in other words, you've got your human brand, right?
Which is your which is five dot post, and then you've got your animal brand, which is which is uh this new entity.
Um and by the way, how how are you thinking about protecting your designs and your you know in your IP, for example?
I mean, is I I don't know, Alexa.
Is it I mean, in in in sort of the with what you do and and your designs and even the things that you guys write, can you can you protect those things?
So you can protect them.
I don't if we're talking about patents, um it's not gonna stop other people for tr from trying to copy your product, especially from a design perspective.
It's it's really easy for a copycat to go right up to the edges of what's legally acceptable and offer a knockoff product.
I don't think that any other provider of products is gonna be as good a version of you as you are.
I think that you should probably shouldn't spend time worrying about patenting designs.
You should focus on continuing to innovate and to offer this full authentic experience, which you really have.
And I think copycats, they might look like your product, but I think for the people that are that are really looking to buy something that is gonna send the right message to the to the other person, they're actually they're gonna pay attention to the details.
And I think in many cases, consumers aren't as easy to trick, and pandering to them with copycat inauthentic messages is just it's not as effective as copycats might think.
I really appreciate you saying that.
And I think that's great advice because I have copycats.
It it feels like whack-a-mole.
Like I have a handful of trademarks, but there's really not a whole lot you can do other than spending hours of your very valuable time as a CEO trying to reach out to have them removed and and have cease and desist.
And and I think what you're saying is really powerful because you're right.
It is it's not just the sentiment, it's not just the image, it really is the whole experience.
And I think that's gonna be a large part too with this new business is creating that experience for these pet parents and celebrating their identity as a pet owner, not just I got this that says like I heard my dog.
It's it really resonates with who they are as a person.
And also the brand that it's coming from and the story of the brand that it's coming from is something that uh, you know, copycats aren't gonna as authentically tell a story around.
I think that also is an argument for keeping five dot posts what it is and having the story behind that brand and with the new collaboration, having the right story behind that brand because that's something that's really hard for like an AI copycat to you know authentically communicate.
Yeah, absolutely.
Uh Jess Walker, the brand is called Five Dot Post.
Congrats.
Uh, what a great idea.
I love I love it.
Love what you're doing.
Uh keep us posted.
Good luck.
Thanks so much.
Thank you.
We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, another caller, another question, and another round of advice.
I'm Guy Ross.
Stick around, you're listening to the advice line on how I built this lab.
Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab.
I'm Guy Ross, battling a cold, but I'm getting better.
Uh, my guest today is Alexa Hirschfeld, co-founder of Paperless Post.
Uh, and Alexa, you ready for our next call?
Absolutely.
All right, let's bring in our next caller.
Welcome to the advice line.
You're on with Alexa Hirschfeld, the co-founder of Paperless Post.
Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business.
Hi, my name is Carolyn Horeski.
I live in Cresta Butte, Colorado, and the name of my company is the Creative Garland Company.
At the Creative Garland Company, we create decorative garlands that are known for their distinctive designs, sparking conversations and elevating otherwise ordinary decor.
Think Ski Chairlift garlands with dogs and cats as riders, upside down, sleeping bat garlands, bicycle garlands, just to name a few.
All right, Carolyn, welcome to the show.
Thanks for calling in the Creative Garland Company.
Okay, I'm I'm embarrassed to admit this.
I was like, what's a garland again?
And then I went on your website and I was like, oh, that's a garland.
So can you just can you just indulge me for a moment for the five people listening who don't know what a garland is?
Can you describe what it is?
Sure.
Well, I think most people when they hear garland, they think of the nice floral, beautiful uh garlands um on a line so that you would decorate an area a lot of times for weddings, parties, things like that.
And they're made out of paper, like cut paper.
Yeah, really thick cardstock paper.
As well as I've just started getting into making some out of acrylic as well, but most of them right now are cardstock.
Cool.
All right, and tell me about the business.
How did you come up with this idea?
I didn't, I mean it it's cool.
I'm looking at all the things that you make, and do you have a background in crafts and well, it all started during the pandemic, and my daughter wanted one of those little cricket machines that you can cut paper and make stickers.
She wanted to make stickers, and you know, of course, being a little kid, she got bored with it within two weeks.
I took it over.
Uh, started getting into paper art and design, selling at our local farmers market, and then uh for one Christmas market, I came up with this chairlift garland idea and it sold out.
Like ski chairlifts.
Yeah, and so I thought I was on to something, and I just took that idea and kept growing it.
It's so cool.
So you are so you've got, I'm looking at your site, you've got all kinds of garlands, wedding garlands, bride and grooms.
Uh do you um sell, I'm assuming only through your website?
I sell through my website.
I also do wholesale, and then I've still been doing in-person markets um locally and then statewide as well.
And and tell me a little bit about how the business did in 2025.
It did well.
We're growing, you know.
I would say that I really started this business in the spring of 2024.
Um, that's when I got a new machine, started working on it, and um, so last year was my full first full year in business, I would say, and it did about 43,000 in sales, which I was pretty happy with, and I just keeps growing.
And you are making all of this yourself in Crested Butte?
Yes.
So you get like all the paper stock sent to you, and then you have like in your garage, you've got or you've you're just constantly cut because it's it's these are hand cut, and then you're putting them on the twine yourself.
Uh I used to put them on the twine.
I am now packing the twine with the objects so that the end user can do it.
That's the thing it's fully adjustable to, so you can move the objects to fit your space.
But you're still cutting every single one.
Yes.
Yes.
Wow.
That's a lot of work.
Okay, uh, before we dive in a little further, what's your question for us?
Okay, so my business has reached a point where I can no longer handle production on my own.
How should I evaluate the decision between building an in-house production team and workspace versus outsourcing manufacturing, all while protecting product quality, brand identity, and the creative flexibility that got me here?
Okay, Alexa, thoughts for Carolyn.
My thoughts for you, first of all, are that I don't know that it's really this in-house versus outsourcing question that you need to answer.
I think that especially for creative brands, it's it's more sequence and hybrid than that.
So my advice is to think about what do you have to do and what things that you currently do are repeatable and you personally don't need to do.
Uh so for example, you know, concept and design, um, ideas, new SKUs, limited runs, that's probably one type of thing you do.
Then there's the production of the components, like cutting, printing, raw materials, probably there's assembling and finishing, like, you know, string, sorting, and with then there's fulfillment packaging, etc.
And I think the question is, you know, if something defines your brand, it needs your taste.
If it changes often, that's the kind of thing you should keep close.
But if it is consistent and repeatable, systematize it.
Um, you know, I think you are already scaling your business, and so you're you're just you need to decide what has to stay artisanal and what can become a system.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, I I I totally agree.
I mean, you have a what you're bringing to this, I'm assuming are the designs, right?
You are designing everything.
And that's the part I love.
I love doing that, and I love creating new ideas and they just come to me all the time.
It's just the time I don't have to do everything.
But so you're thinking your your question is, should I outsource this?
Like, should I send the production elsewhere or not?
And I I guess if somebody else worked with you part-time and did them out of your garage, would that be a solution or not really?
Yes, it would be.
Uh, I need to get out of the garage.
I do have a space down the road that I'm looking at that hopefully will come to fruition and I can rent that.
The space in town in Crested Butte.
Uh a little in Gunnison, about 30 miles down the road.
So I I think that you have an opportunity, right?
To, as Alexa said, to find, I mean, maybe you're small, you're doing 45,000, but clearly you're growing and there's demand.
And so you may be in a position to hire somebody hourly, part-time, to do those kinds of things, right?
Because when you're talking about outsourcing, you're talking about a whole different world.
It's like long, you got long lead times, and there's minimum orders that you quantities that you've got to order, and they can't be as flexible.
Like now you can just turn on a dime.
If someone's like, hey, you know, I'm throwing a party for my wife's 50th and she loves musicals.
Can you make garlands?
You can do that right away.
You can make something like that.
And so the minute you outsource it, it's it's trickier.
I mean, and you can really only outsource once the variability of your product is low.
You know, in other words, once you're like what people are ordering, the demand is predictable.
Like if if the sleighs account are accounting for 60 or 70% of your business, then that might be a time to think about doing it.
I agree with that.
I think also that the part-time suggestion is really smart.
What's nice about part-time hires is that it's sort of an extended interview where you can see is it working or is it not?
And if it's working, then that is just the best way of vetting uh the quality of your working relationship with somebody is actually working with them.
So that's a nice thing.
Also, you know, less commitment.
Another thing I might consider is are are there certain parts of your process that those skills are required for manufacturing something else that maybe local, like the cutting, for example, are there other products that need to be cut in a similar way where you could find someone who what who you aren't just training from the ground up, but actually they have skills in that part of the production process that you could leverage.
I think that putting your creativity towards figuring out what parts of what you're currently doing in-house you can start to hire somebody else to do would be a good use of time.
Okay.
Yeah, you know, I'm looking at your signs.
These are so cool.
And by the way, I think your prices are pretty low.
I mean, are you is that standard?
I mean, it's you know, 25, 30 bucks for one of these handmade garlands.
Well, I love that you say that because some of the feedback I get is the opposite.
That some people think it's a little too expensive.
Uh, but I always have to reiterate to them that hey, it's you know, it's handmade, it's made in the USA.
Um, kind of drive those points through.
So it sounds like right now you are, you know, you are in a uh in a great position to kind of grow incrementally and and find somebody part-time.
I mean, uh, that could be helpful to get somebody to start doing it and to enable you to go to the trade shows and to to do more business development and design.
Yes, I love that idea.
And I love that idea of having the part-time person kind of vetting them as we go and and seeing how they could work out if if it ended up being a good fit.
Awesome.
Uh Alexa, any last thoughts, with words of wisdom for Carolyn?
I think that you know you should just think about how you can make your job into the part that you love and that you're really excellent at, and use some of your creativity to figure out how you can solve for the other steps of the process that you know well, you can do well, but you don't have to be the one to do well.
Okay.
Yeah, awesome.
Awesome.
Congrats, uh, Carolyn on this idea.
It's really, really cool stuff.
Uh, the Creative Garland Company, uh, thanks for calling in.
Thank you so much.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Bye.
Stay with us because after the break, we'll talk to another founder working to take their business to the next level.
That's after the break.
I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab.
Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab.
I'm Guy Raz.
And today I'm taking your calls with Alexa Hirschfeld, co-founder of Paperless Post.
All right, let's bring on our next caller.
Uh hello, welcome to the advice line.
You're on with Alexa Hirschfeld, co-founder of Paperless Post.
Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business.
Hi, Alexa, and hi guy.
My name is Sayuri Tsuchitani.
I am quoting from Los Angeles, California.
Sumo Yoga is a unique yoga concept that redefine body positivity by empowering individuals to feel strong, grounded, and fully accept their own bodies.
Cool.
All right.
Well, welcome to the show.
So it's a sumo yoga.
So tell me what it's your product that you're selling.
I am selling tatami yoga mat.
Tatami Yoga, like tatami, those straw floors like that you find in traditional Japanese homes.
Yes, yes, yes.
Got it.
Okay.
And so tell me a little bit about this business.
How did it start?
I'm assuming you are you are yoga practitioner.
Yes.
Um I love uh yoga and um I go to studio religiously, but um there's always been one thing that bothers me the smell of yoga mat.
And when when I went back to Japan to visit visit my mom, I realized she hasn't changed the tatami glow since she first moved to the house.
And there's uh still fresh, clean, and comforting after all those years.
And I decided to create the tatami yoga mat with my experience with my uh growing up in Japan.
So so you are importing these yoga mats from Japan?
Yes, I am making in Fukuoka, Japan, and importing to United States, yes.
And and I I just spent two and a half weeks in Japan and stayed in a in a Ryoken with Tatami floors, and it was incredible.
And I wish I'd lived there all the time.
Um so I know how amazing this material is.
It's like a grass, right?
And it's woven and it's cured.
Like and tell me a little bit about your business so far.
Where are you?
You're selling these online, are you selling them anywhere else?
I'm selling this at a little Tokyo farmer's market every Saturday.
Got it.
And how are they doing so far?
What's been the the response?
So far, um I sold uh that my net gloss is 200 five 2500 dollars at the moment, so it's slow start.
Um but I mean also in a US sumo community, and they're uh liking my product.
And and tell me a a little bit about this idea of sumo yoga.
Like obviously I know what a sumo wrestler is, and I'm looking at your website, and there are the first thing you see is a sumo wrestler.
What what is that?
What's the idea around sumo and yoga?
Yeah, so I grew up w um watching sumo on TV with my great-grandmother, and then years later, um I started doing oh, sumo and yoga combined, and I create this sumoyoga concept, which is the squat base, which is called Shiko.
And that helps.
Squat-based yoga.
Yeah, sumo squat basically.
To the West, yeah.
Nice.
Uh I love sumo squats.
Very, very good for you.
Um so so it sounds like you're you've got uh this concept of like uh this sort of a a brand concept, but you're starting with these tatami mats, and so do you have this idea of other products that you w want to create, or like a yoga studio or a uh a kind of a a type of yoga that you want to promote or create?
I would like to create a little bit more um product-based, and um I am working on making a Huroshiki uh yoga carrier, which is the P Tob cloth wrapping with a Japanese Huroshi Wei.
And also I'm looking for um creating a um tatami box so that you can use wood while you're doing a yoga sequences.
And and how much are the mats?
How much do they cost?
Uh 199.
199 per mat.
Okay.
And and before I bring Alexa in, uh tell us your question for us.
Yes, uh, my question is um sumo yoga is unfamiliar to many people, making education essential to its growth.
I want to explore the most effective tactic to educate a nationwide audience about sumo yoga while promoting body positivity and self-acceptance and simultaneously drive e-commerce sales of tatami yoga.
All right, so a lot, a lot that you wanna do.
You want to you wanna educate people about sumo yoga, you wanna promote body body positivity, and you wanna sell your your yoga mats.
Um I wanna bring you in, uh Alexa.
Any thoughts uh or questions or ideas for Sayuri?
Yeah, so I think that education is essential here, and it's important that it's very crisp.
When something is unfamiliar, people need a quick mental hook before they really you know ask more questions and lean in.
And I'd encourage you to define sumo yoga early and consistently.
So, for example, it's a yoga practice inspired by traditional sumo movement, whatever the right words are, it's not wrestling.
It's designed to be accessible across body types and focused on strength, flexibility, balance, and confidence, whatever the right words are, you'll know better than me.
But I think that that definition up front helps people understand who it's for and how it's different from other yoga practices or other wellness practices.
And I think one of the questions people will definitely ask is can I use this for all yoga?
Right.
And if the answer is yes, I think it's really important to say that clearly because it reduces friction and it will expand the audience pretty meaningfully.
Um and I think that the goal isn't to explain everything, it's to explain just enough so that if people's curiosity is is piqued and they wanna understand more.
Yes.
Yeah, Sayuri, I I agree.
I mean, I I I think about the yoga market, and we've done many athleisureware brands on this show, Lululemon and and and uh Viori and and many others.
We're talking about if you if you think about yoga alone as a global market, it's a hundred and twenty billion dollar global industry.
It is a massive industry, right?
And if you wanna capture some of those consumers, I really think you want to lean into the mat.
Sumo yoga can be the brand and it can be inspired by sumo wrestlers, but I I think you want to be careful not to confuse people because you you want to make sure that people see these mats and think, oh, this is better than a you know a rubber mat or or whatever other material you know mats are made out of.
This doesn't smell.
It's natural, it's from Japan, it's handmade.
And I think that that you want to kind of reverse what you're emphasizing here.
Because I when I go to your website, I see a sumo wrestler, and then I see mats that are $200.
And unless you know what tatami is, many people might think, well, a straw mat for 200 bucks.
I think you want to explain why these are so special.
The the artisanship that goes into them, the the the curing, the this particular kind of reeds that are used to make these mats, the the trained artisans who make them in a specific part of Japan, and how you are making them specifically for yoga and why it's a better experience.
I think you really want to kind of reverse what you're emphasizing now and focus on the mats and maybe back into the sumo stuff later on.
Does that make sense?
Yes, it does make sense.
Yeah, definitely.
I was also struggling.
How can they learn my message to the audiences?
That was the main question as well, not just the selling the tatami yoga mat.
So it was very clear now.
I completely agree with that.
I think that it's very compelling and relatable, the story that you said about loving yoga, but not loving the smell of the of the mats, and then describing your grandmother's tatami yoga mat.
Yeah.
I think that is alone is just very compelling.
It really is.
It's a great story.
I mean, a lot of yoga mats are made from natural materials like rubber, but you know, people don't always like that.
And here you have your life experience growing up in a home with tatami floors.
It has natural grip, it's very durable, it's antimicrobial or antibacterial, whatever it is, and it lasts forever, and it's entirely natural.
There's no synthetic materials.
And I think that would appeal to a lot of people, especially the kinds of people who are part of this 120, 130 billion dollar global yoga industry.
Yes.
Yes.
I completely agree.
So I think Alexa, we have uh you've I think we've given uh uh uh Sayuri her marching orders here.
Really lean in on the mats and on what and what the benefits of the mats uh are.
Yeah, thank you so much.
Thank you so much for your advice.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for calling in, Sarah.
The brand is called Sumo Yoga.
Uh good luck.
Thanks for calling in.
Thank you so much.
Bye guy, bye, Alexa.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Um, Alexa, before I let you go, I want to ask you a question.
I I've been asking all the guests who come onto the advice line, which is if you could go back to, you know, 2009 when you and James started Paperless Post, and and it's a great story.
We're gonna, you know, every everybody should check it out because you guys have had a lot of ups and downs and some crisis moments as well, especially around COVID.
If you could go back to 2009 and give yourself advice on what you know now about how to run a business, what what would have been helpful for you to know?
Yeah, I think that focus and always keeping the main thing, the main thing is a really important piece of advice.
I think there are a lot of interesting ideas that can be distractions, those can be experiments.
I'm not saying don't experiment.
There are a lot of scary things that happen, like the competitors or funding that doesn't come through or press that you don't like.
And I think instead of looking over your shoulder too much at those risks or those threats, think about why do you exist?
What do you offer to your customers or to your your users, the people who need you and who need your product and who you want to serve, and that's the main thing, and you have to just keep that in mind the whole time.
You know, we the world has changed so much since we started, but I think we know very well who we serve.
To just stay focused on what you know what the main thing is, I think as as things evolve, you're it's a lot easier to roll with those changes and adapt.
Yeah, for sure.
Um, Alexa, thank you so much for coming back on onto the show.
It's great having you.
So great to see you again, guy.
Thank you so much.
That's Paperless Post co-founder Alexa Hirschfeld.
And by the way, if you haven't heard Alexa's original How I Built This Episode, uh go back and check it out.
We'll put a link to it in the show notes.
Thanks so much for listening to the show this week.
And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter.
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This episode was produced by Ramel Wood with music composed by Ramtina Rablui.
It was edited by John Isabella.
Our audio engineers were Debbie Daughtry and Cena Lafredo.
Our production staff also includes Casey Herman, Sam Paulson, Alex Chung, Chris Messini, Carrie Thompson, Catherine Cypher, and Eva Grant, Nora Gill, and Elaine Coates.
I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to the Advice Line right here on how I built this labor.