Effecting industry-shifting growth and success in the retail space

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[00:00] SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:06] SPEAKER_02: Hi there everyone, I'm Phil Bliss, founder and CEO of Canada's podcast,
[00:10] SPEAKER_02: coming to you today from Toronto.
[00:13] SPEAKER_02: Today we're going to meet Emily Hosey.
[00:16] SPEAKER_02: Emily has a track record of affecting industry shifting growth and success
[00:20] SPEAKER_02: in the retail space at fashion powerhouses like TGMAX, Sex with Avenue, etc.
[00:29] SPEAKER_02: She's also a dynamic millennial mom and she recognized a huge void in the baby gear retail market.
[00:38] SPEAKER_02: And like Great Entrepreneurs decided to sort of discover in that area.
[00:46] SPEAKER_02: Her solution was Rebelsto, a certified B-Corp that's purpose driven company dedicated to creating a marketplace
[00:56] SPEAKER_02: that can exprans and retailers to parents across North America.
[01:01] SPEAKER_02: Her innovative AI powered ecosystem enables frictionless movement of overstock open box boxes,
[01:09] SPEAKER_02: which are story terms and quality used baby gear between buyers and sellers.
[01:15] SPEAKER_02: In four years Emily has brought her vision of a recombus and circulatory economy to life across two countries
[01:22] SPEAKER_02: and has saved over 180,000 pieces of baby gear, remaining up in line.
[01:28] SPEAKER_02: Oh, I'm told.
[01:29] SPEAKER_02: So Emily, welcome to Canada's podcast.
[01:32] SPEAKER_02: Great to meet you.
[01:34] SPEAKER_02: As I said earlier, I've been reading about your venture and it's very interesting.
[01:41] SPEAKER_02: But let's talk about your background and the interesting parts about that.
[01:48] SPEAKER_02: So before we get too much into the business end of it, tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do and or have done and, you know, how you got here basically.
[02:00] SPEAKER_03: Sure. Well, first of all, thank you for having me and sharing having an interest in learning more about me and the company.
[02:09] SPEAKER_03: So my name is Emily Hosey.
[02:11] SPEAKER_03: I am a millennial mom to I have a five year old and a three year old.
[02:16] SPEAKER_03: And I'm also the founder of Rebel Stork.
[02:19] SPEAKER_03: We are nationwide across the United States and Canada and we are considered the largest baby gear liquidator and returns recomers platform in North America.
[02:29] SPEAKER_03: And prior to Rebel Stork, I also was in the retail industry.
[02:35] SPEAKER_03: I adore the retail industry, specifically the off price channel of the retail industry.
[02:42] SPEAKER_03: And so prior to starting Rebel Stork, I was the VP of merchandising for winners and marshals, which is part of the TJX companies.
[02:50] SPEAKER_03: And prior to that, I was in a different off price model as a VP of merchandising at SACS Fifth Avenue, the off fifth division based in New York City.
[03:00] SPEAKER_02: Cool. Yeah.
[03:02] SPEAKER_02: So you've worked with them. They're pretty big brands.
[03:06] SPEAKER_02: You know, why did you move to entrepreneurship? What was the thing that made you move?
[03:15] SPEAKER_03: I think I mean, from an early age, I always knew that I eventually wanted to have my own business, but I just wasn't.
[03:23] SPEAKER_03: I knew it would be in retail, but I wasn't quite sure.
[03:26] SPEAKER_03: I didn't have the idea. I didn't know what it would be.
[03:31] SPEAKER_03: And I think, you know, throughout my career, I always tried to work at the leading and just like companies at the leading leaders in the industry, where I could like learn as much as I could and work underneath some amazing creative leaders that push boundaries.
[03:53] SPEAKER_03: And I think I just got to a point in my own career where I guess like my mind frame flipped from I'm so lucky to have this job working for X company to this company is really lucky to have me working for them.
[04:09] SPEAKER_03: And it was kind of at that moment.
[04:10] SPEAKER_03: I realized that I think I'm ready to start my own thing.
[04:15] SPEAKER_03: And the idea came to me when I threw a life experience, which I think that's common.
[04:21] SPEAKER_03: I mean, you would know from interviewing so many entrepreneurs, but I think a lot of times the ideas come from your own personal experience.
[04:28] SPEAKER_03: And so when I got pregnant with my son, I wondered like, well, where's where does the baby, where does baby gear liquidation go?
[04:37] SPEAKER_03: Where can you go to buy deals on baby gear and that kind of started the whole process?
[04:46] SPEAKER_00: It's interesting.
[04:48] SPEAKER_00: So what have you found best about being an entrepreneur versus being an employee?
[04:58] SPEAKER_03: Your decisions, you feel the benefit or the lack of benefit from every decision that you make.
[05:07] SPEAKER_03: You can move very quickly. You have to move very quickly.
[05:12] SPEAKER_03: You start with one idea and you go down that road, but you kind of, you know, your re-examining whether or not you continue the course or you pivot in like a 60 90 day period versus a year to two years.
[05:26] SPEAKER_03: It's just very fast paced. And I really enjoy that.
[05:33] SPEAKER_02: So you've done very well in the short time. What's the greatest challenge you've faced in the business today?
[05:42] SPEAKER_03: I would say there's probably two that were the biggest challenges over time.
[05:48] SPEAKER_03: And they've become less of a challenge, but they were, you know, it was a lot of hard work to kind of get to the point of it's not so much a challenge.
[05:58] SPEAKER_03: I would say the first is raising capital is extremely challenging.
[06:05] SPEAKER_03: Just in general, as a female, it can sometimes have a little bit more challenge associated with it.
[06:12] SPEAKER_03: But then that kind of becomes less of a challenge once you have a track record and you're proving your business and your unit economics are working.
[06:21] SPEAKER_03: So I don't think it's ever easy, but the challenge that existed in the very early days has lessened.
[06:28] SPEAKER_03: And then I would probably say the second biggest challenge was, you know, we, Rubblestork created an industry that didn't exist.
[06:36] SPEAKER_03: So baby gear returns were being thrown into landfills. And we came along and we're like, well, we don't, like there's, there's another solution.
[06:47] SPEAKER_03: We can take those, those returns and we can be your recomers partner and resell them safety vetted on our platform.
[06:55] SPEAKER_03: And I think just disrupting an industry that had been working for so many years and decades doing what they'd always been doing was it was sometimes like, you know, running into a brick wall every single day.
[07:12] SPEAKER_03: But then, you know, eventually the brands and the retailers come come around and they partner with you. And we always joke internally, like we remember those days.
[07:26] SPEAKER_03: Some of the brands and retailers don't acknowledge those days, but like we remember them and it was really hard.
[07:33] SPEAKER_03: But then once you kind of get that first brand, that first retail are on board, then everything kind of there's momentum and it gets easier.
[07:42] SPEAKER_03: But I would say that we're the two biggest challenges.
[07:45] SPEAKER_02: You have a, you know, I'm sure because you really are creating work, have been creating a new channel and you retail channel, if you like.
[07:55] SPEAKER_02: And you've probably come up against some unexpected challenges.
[08:02] SPEAKER_02: Have you found a way of handling them so that you can successfully overcome them?
[08:10] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, I think as it pertains to like a lot of our businesses dependent on our supply pipeline.
[08:19] SPEAKER_03: So the relationships that we build with brands, the relationships that we build with retailers, because we're processing their returns.
[08:28] SPEAKER_03: So yeah, if one of your big partners is having challenges and goes bankrupt for say, or, you know, one of your big clients decides to exit an important part of the business that, you know, those returns are funneling to you, then that can cause a challenge.
[08:46] SPEAKER_03: But I think just always having, you know, we have a rule of thumb that there's never one supply channel that will account for more than 20% of our business at any given time.
[08:57] SPEAKER_03: And I think that's, you know, that's just an awesome.
[08:59] SPEAKER_00: It's a great rule of whistle.
[09:01] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was kind of embedded in me and the team when we were at, you know, TJ X and SACS off fifth that you really can't, I mean, you need diversification.
[09:12] SPEAKER_03: So even when you sign a huge contract, you celebrate for one minute and then you're like, oh my gosh, this is such a big contract.
[09:20] SPEAKER_03: It means we need so many more big contracts.
[09:22] SPEAKER_03: Or else this one big contract will occupy too much of the portfolio.
[09:27] SPEAKER_03: So I think, you know, we're pretty strict on that.
[09:30] SPEAKER_03: And so that's, that's been kind of helpful to stick to that rule is you can't just get excited by one big win and be like our, you know, let's sit back and relax.
[09:41] SPEAKER_03: You're constantly hustling.
[09:43] SPEAKER_03: Sure, you're diversified.
[09:46] SPEAKER_02: But if you go back in time, what advice would you give yourself?
[09:50] SPEAKER_02: You know, before you've been just moving back in your early 20s.
[09:56] SPEAKER_03: I don't think people necessarily realize the amount of like what you give up when you become an entrepreneur.
[10:05] SPEAKER_03: You know, you really do put everything into the business.
[10:11] SPEAKER_03: And so for me, it's like, I don't have a lot of time in my life for like personal interests and hobbies.
[10:19] SPEAKER_03: It's really my family and the business.
[10:23] SPEAKER_03: And I think not many people realize that.
[10:26] SPEAKER_03: That you know, when you start a business like your HR, your operations, your logistics, like your finance, you're kind of doing everything as the team grows that obviously changes.
[10:39] SPEAKER_03: But that is years before that changes.
[10:42] SPEAKER_03: You know, we have, we're four years old in Canada, two years old in the US.
[10:47] SPEAKER_03: Our business is quite large in a very short period of time.
[10:52] SPEAKER_03: But like we have 43 full-time employees.
[10:56] SPEAKER_03: But it's like the past two years that it's been that prior to that, there was like eight of us.
[11:02] SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, you really are doing everything.
[11:06] SPEAKER_03: And so you have to be like really committed to wanting this to work.
[11:11] SPEAKER_03: Because it occupies you. There's no off switch.
[11:15] SPEAKER_02: What's the best piece of advice that you've received? You know, I kind of advice that you keep, you keep beside you, you know, that it's there.
[11:26] SPEAKER_02: It's sort of implanted.
[11:27] SPEAKER_02: And you know, what's what's that?
[11:32] SPEAKER_03: The best piece of advice I've ever been given has been to just like keep your head down and stay really focused on what you're trying to do.
[11:44] SPEAKER_03: And not be distracted by what other people are doing.
[11:48] SPEAKER_03: I think that that's the most important, I think, in the age of, you know, social media and LinkedIn.
[11:55] SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of the great stuff being shown and it can be distracting.
[12:02] SPEAKER_03: You know, reading about other people like seamlessly raising so much money and it's so easy and it happens so quickly.
[12:10] SPEAKER_03: Like it's, if that's true, it's an anomaly.
[12:13] SPEAKER_03: You know, businesses growing 10X with like, you know, these crazy margin numbers, like again, like those are very few and far between.
[12:23] SPEAKER_03: And so I think, you know, just keeping your head down and not being distracted.
[12:28] SPEAKER_03: It was a line that an old boss of mine said that if you spend your time counting other people sprinkles than your ice cream will melt.
[12:37] SPEAKER_03: And I think we talk about that a lot here at Rebel Stork is we know our mission.
[12:44] SPEAKER_03: We know the four things we are focused on that we must accomplish and heads down on those.
[12:50] SPEAKER_03: And like don't worry about, you know, what's going on around us.
[12:58] SPEAKER_02: So that's good, that's good mentorship.
[13:01] SPEAKER_02: What specific advice would you give to somebody that sort of like you were two or three years ago, kind of thing?
[13:09] SPEAKER_02: It's just starting just thinking of starting up and we have a lot of viewers and listeners like that that listen to us together, kind of feedback.
[13:19] SPEAKER_04: You have to have really tough skin and you have to be able to, you know, be a great leader.
[13:29] SPEAKER_03: I think like you have to be able to get, you know, rejections and nose over and over and over.
[13:38] SPEAKER_03: And then walk out of the conference room and be like, guys, we had a great week.
[13:42] SPEAKER_03: Like let's keep going. And I think that, you know, for a lot of entrepreneurs or people looking to start their own business.
[13:50] SPEAKER_03: Like if you're doing something truly different that hasn't existed before, you will have more nose and hurdles than clean roads and yeses.
[14:03] SPEAKER_03: So you have to be like not tough, but you have to have a really thick skin and you have to be able to have so much confidence in yourself that you're almost delusional.
[14:14] SPEAKER_03: How much confidence you have because otherwise you won't be able to, you won't move forward.
[14:20] SPEAKER_02: So why do you see yourself in the next five years?
[14:22] SPEAKER_02: Thank goodness.
[14:27] SPEAKER_03: Owning the baby gear industry, obviously.
[14:31] SPEAKER_03: We, you know, we see ourselves partnered with every brand and retailer that we currently are plus more.
[14:41] SPEAKER_03: Possibly expanding internationally.
[14:46] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean, I see myself still doing this.
[14:50] SPEAKER_04: I mean, that's for sure.
[14:53] SPEAKER_04: I mean, probably that bigger team, bigger team.
[15:00] SPEAKER_02: Let's have some fun questions now. Yeah.
[15:03] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's good. Good. Good. Good insight.
[15:07] SPEAKER_02: So if you're doing what you're doing now, what would you be doing instead?
[15:14] SPEAKER_03: I do believe I would still be in the retail industry. I just, I, and I think I would have my own business.
[15:22] SPEAKER_03: That would not be different.
[15:25] SPEAKER_03: Would I, would it be like a tech marketplace AI returns liquidation company like complex, like maybe not maybe it would be the clothing line or maybe it would be, you know, something more direct to consumer.
[15:42] SPEAKER_03: But I definitely it would be in the retail industry for sure.
[15:46] SPEAKER_02: I don't know you've got much time, but what book are you currently reading, listening to and would recommend to people.
[15:56] SPEAKER_03: So I keep two sets of books on my, on my night side table.
[16:04] SPEAKER_03: One is a business book and one is like a beach read.
[16:09] SPEAKER_03: So depending on how I'm feeling of like, oh my gosh, I need a break from business or oh my gosh, I need to lean in and learn something from another successful entrepreneur depends on which one I pick up every night.
[16:23] SPEAKER_03: I'm right now in the beach read phase. I just finished the seven husbands of Evelyn, you go.
[16:29] SPEAKER_03: It was a New York Times best seller. I, you know, let kind of gives your mind a break.
[16:38] SPEAKER_03: In terms of business books. Oh my gosh, I read so many.
[16:43] SPEAKER_03: One book that I read multiple times over and over that's on my bedside table is blue ocean strategy.
[16:50] SPEAKER_03: And my old boss at Sacks, he gave it to me and I love it. And it's all about.
[16:59] SPEAKER_03: It's a great book and like finding that blue ocean that new idea and really leaning into it versus going into, you know, sharp, infested waters where there's 50 million people doing the same idea and you're just nipping at the same.
[17:15] SPEAKER_03: At the same thoughts. So I do like that one a lot. And every time I read it, I'm learning something different that I didn't pick up on the first time and probably because our business is always at a different stage when I read it.
[17:29] SPEAKER_03: So those are the two that I'm going back and forth on right now.
[17:34] SPEAKER_02: This is kind of a dumb question for someone with two kids. Even a morning or a night person.
[17:42] SPEAKER_04: And I guess I'm like, but you kind of have to be both as a parent.
[17:48] SPEAKER_03: Mornings. I'm a morning person. I like to get up. I like to go to the gym. I like to drop the kids at school.
[17:56] SPEAKER_03: My husband and I alternate.
[17:59] SPEAKER_02: I was a morning person, but we shared it.
[18:02] SPEAKER_02: You know, so we do the morning run.
[18:06] SPEAKER_02: My wife would do the afternoon run.
[18:09] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we do that too. Mornings.
[18:12] SPEAKER_03: Like if I want to go to the gym, then he'll do like we alternate. It's like gym, no drop off or no gym drop off.
[18:20] SPEAKER_03: I do a lot of work at night. I feel like it's a time where I can really sit down and focus.
[18:26] SPEAKER_03: Yes, the kids are a little bit older now.
[18:29] SPEAKER_03: But before I used to always get a little nervous going to bed because you never know.
[18:34] SPEAKER_03: As a parent what the night will bring.
[18:37] SPEAKER_03: So I would always be worried to stay up too late, because you know how you can have.
[18:41] SPEAKER_03: The kids getting up in the middle of the night.
[18:43] SPEAKER_03: But I feel like my kids now are older.
[18:45] SPEAKER_04: five and three that that's not a worry anymore and I can work kind of
[18:51] SPEAKER_00: whenever. If you had to pick one word to describe yourself what would it be and
[19:00] SPEAKER_04: why would you choose that word? I think I would describe myself as relentlessly
[19:09] SPEAKER_04: resourceful that I think I mean you have to be and to be honest when we hire
[19:21] SPEAKER_03: people at Rebelsdork that's the one quality that we look for. Like I don't
[19:26] SPEAKER_03: even necessarily care at certain positions obviously if they have like the best
[19:33] SPEAKER_03: experience in the exact role that we're hiring for but if somebody is relentlessly
[19:38] SPEAKER_03: resourceful they will do very well here and they can be moved around to
[19:43] SPEAKER_03: multiple different positions and they'll figure it out. I would say that
[19:48] SPEAKER_04: that probably is my the I would describe myself as that and I think that's one of
[19:53] SPEAKER_00: my biggest strengths. What's keeping you up at night? Apart from the kids?
[20:00] SPEAKER_04: Apart from the kids. What keeps me up at night?
[20:08] SPEAKER_03: If I talent keeps me up at night like making sure that I have the right
[20:13] SPEAKER_03: amount of talent surrounding me and the right amount of talent surrounding our
[20:20] SPEAKER_03: employees and that talent pipeline I mean we're growing really quickly which
[20:25] SPEAKER_03: means hiring a lot of people and like making sure that we have the right
[20:31] SPEAKER_03: people on the team like we this business like you I can have a great idea but
[20:37] SPEAKER_03: if I don't have a great team around me like there is no business so you know
[20:43] SPEAKER_03: that is one thing that always keeps me up is like do we have enough people?
[20:49] SPEAKER_03: Are they the right people? When we need to expand are we good at bringing on
[20:53] SPEAKER_03: people that disrupt the right like it you know it's a different dynamic so I
[20:58] SPEAKER_04: would say that is you know I'm always thinking about that.
[21:03] SPEAKER_02: Interesting. Been a good interview we're just just about at that time that's
[21:09] SPEAKER_02: great. People get a hold of you Emily if there's something you've said that
[21:14] SPEAKER_02: they want to want to ping you on basically. Yeah well we are everywhere so you
[21:21] SPEAKER_03: can find me on LinkedIn the company on LinkedIn you can find us on Instagram
[21:28] SPEAKER_03: TikTok YouTube you can also sign up for we have like a like a newsletter you
[21:36] SPEAKER_03: can sign up for that on our website and we love hearing from our audience we
[21:44] SPEAKER_03: call them our flock and we love hearing from we get a lot of feedback we try
[21:49] SPEAKER_03: to action the feedback yeah so you can find us all over the place. Well thanks
[21:59] SPEAKER_02: interesting interesting and a prize you've got very much thanks for taking the
[22:04] SPEAKER_04: time.