Behind the Brand®

[00:00:00] Jeff Adamson: Welcome to Behind the Brand presented by Neo. We take an inside look at the leaders behind today's most influential brands. I'm your host, Jeff Adamson. As co-founder of Neo Financial and SkipTheDishes, I'm fascinated by what it takes to build great companies. On this podcast, we'll learn from leaders that are reimagining, transforming, and innovating in the financial and retail industries across Canada. Let's get going!

I'm excited to introduce Joe Parenteau, the CEO and Co-Founder of Fable, a sustainable home goods company, revolutionizing the at-home dining experience. With a background as a technology leader and operations expert, Joe knows a thing or two about building teams, building products, and driving sales.

In a bold career move, Joe made the leap from the tech industry in 2019 to co-found Fable alongside Tina Luu and Max Tims. With transparency, sustainability, and ethical production at its core, Fable is a lifestyle brand that designs and delivers premium dinnerware products. With a commitment to becoming a zero waste company, Fable embodies the ethos of balancing profit and purpose. Joe, welcome to the podcast.

So the, the thing that's on my mind, Joe, is I wanna know how a guy from Regina, I'm from Saskatoon, you're from Regina. Um, normally there's like a rivalry, we're gonna put that aside for today and talk about how a guy from Regina ended up in Barcelona, Spain.

[00:01:25] Joe Parenteau: Yeah, I mean, well, it's definitely not a short story, but it, uh, it took a long time and a lot of work to get there. I was pretty eager, at a young age, to get outta Regina and go explore some new places. Found myself down in Missouri for university. Moved back home, worked at an accounting firm and then, and then moved out as soon as I experienced one more winter in Regina. I got outta there and I moved out to Vancouver.

I was in Vancouver, I worked in the tech industry quite a bit. I was working at a bookkeeping company called Bench Accounting, learned all about like startups and hig- paced growth operations and strategy, and really didn't do any accounting, even though my background is in accounting. From Bench, I really found my true love for entrepreneurship and I think it was very inspired by what they had built there ultimately wanted to try and build that for myself.

I worked at a couple other startups after that. You know, found this problem in dinnerware and in home decor and was a little bit frustrated with, you know, that experience of shopping at IKEA at a young age and this, the shopping experience being simple, effortless, and you know, they're serving you meatballs. It's so quite an enjoyable, you know, pace.

But when you look for premium home decor and you're trying to find products that are ethically made, sustainably made, you're left with very few options. You know, you turn to the typical culprits of Pottery Barn, West Elm, Williams Sonoma, EQ3, CB2, and wasn't really inspired by what they were putting together as a collection, not inspired with how they present their collection and couldn't, couldn't really find the thing that ticked all the boxes.

I shared that same story with my two co-founders who I had met at Bench Accounting, like the tech company, previously, and they were like, “Hey, why don't we do that?” And you know, we were like, “Oh, well we come from tech, you know, let's deal, let's build the physical product. How hard could it be?”

Turns out really hard. And we were, you know, battled through it for a little bit and ultimately built a company that was fully remote, like people live and work wherever they want. I got outta here and moved to warmer weather out in Spain.

[00:03:13] Jeff: Why not Hawaii? Why not Columbia, Brazil? I mean, Barcelona I've been there, it's an incredible spot. [Would] love to go again. Was there some sort of business advantage to being in Barcelona?

[00:03:22] Joe: Well initially we were living out in Toronto for a tech accelerator, my wife and I. We moved and got a Visa, we just wanted to kind of, you know, find somewhere new. That, that was really the motivation. We looked at Nashville, it was the middle of a pandemic, the border was closed. We looked at Europe. Our suppliers at Fable, some of our biggest suppliers are in Portugal, so we actually, our first Visa was in Portugal, so we lived there for the first year. We then fell in love with that warm weather and Spanish tapas and found ourselves over in Spain so that's where we were able to get our residency.

[00:03:51] Jeff: That’s amazing. And that's one of the beauties of remote work is that it's letting people kind of experience different cultures and, you know, do things that, you know, perhaps if you were stuck doing the commute in Toronto, that maybe you, you wouldn't be able to do.

I want to actually talk about your shift from post-university. You're a college athlete, NCAA golf, is that right?

[00:04:08] Joe: NAIA, which is like the other league there.

[00:04:10] Jeff: Okay, got it. What were your first jobs out of university? Did, like, did you go kind of straight into like the big four or did you go straight into the startup path?

[00:04:18] Joe: Like right after university, I was a bartender. I was bartending at two different places out in Regina. And then I eventually found a job in Saskatchewan. It's like the largest independent accounting firm. It was there that I probably learned the most, even more than university. They really trained me. I really learned about, you know, office profession and you know, how to navigate that world. So that was really where it all got started. Then I moved out to Vancouver and that's where I fell in love with the tech industry and, you know, startups themselves.

[00:04:44] Jeff Adamson: I feel like people's upbringing does kind of have a huge impact on how they kind of carry themselves, how they do business. What is it about growing up in Saskatchewan that you've kind of carried with you in your career moving forward? Like when you movee from Saskatchewan to Vancouver, did you find that they just had a totally different way of doing business and that, like your idea of how businesses should be done was different? Or was it pretty consistent?

[00:05:07] Joe: You know, my upbringing was very much pretty entrepreneurial. Like in terms of like how my family promoted things inside of our house. Like what we did for toys, it was Lego or items like that. It was very much about building and crafting and, you know, taking control of different situations. So I think in naturally because of that, I was always going to, I was always leaning towards business, always leaning towards like starting something on my own and always, you know, a lemonade stand at a garage sale or building stuff with Lego and submitting it to the Lego magazine. I think that's like my biggest claim to fame is I was pictured in the Lego magazine for a submarine I built when I was like eight. That always was like a big part of my upbringing.

But you know, from there in Vancouver I thought it was, it was definitely different. It was a heck of a lot warmer and a little bit cooler in the summers. But ultimately, you know, I think people in Canada are all very similar in the sense of supporting each other and, you know, building a community.

[00:05:57] Jeff: When you were at Bench, I guess, what was it about that experience? You said you, you went from 30 employees to 250. [For] a lot of people though, that's a pretty chaotic environment, that's a pretty intense environment. What was it about that experience that kind of gave you that fire of like, “Hey, I want to go out and do something like this on my own.” Like to me it's like a lot of people are like, that sounds like a heck of a lot of work and a heck of a lot of chaos. Like, I'll rather do something a little bit more comfortable.

[00:06:20] Joe: Yeah, yeah. I think maybe that's just the nature of who I am. I get most excited when we were 30 people and ultimately, I left bench for no other reason than it was too big and there wasn't the chaos that was there when we were early days. And, you know, there was still great potential with the company and there's, there still is, but the chaos that was 30 people is what excited me. I loved being in the storm fighting fires and, and seeing the unbelievable potential that things have and, you know, trying to bring that to reality. So ultimately I think that those early, early stage startups inspired me of like, that's where I was meant to be.

You know, when I worked at an accounting firm before, it was like 80 people, I wasn’t inspired day in and day out. Certainly I think I was making more money there, but I was more inspired when I was at that smaller stage and it was every single day something new and something exciting and you're ultimately building and building something for the future, which felt very rewarding.

[00:07:06] Jeff: Yeah, you’re touching on something that I think comes with experience and maturity of understanding like what stage is the right stage for you and I, that's something I had no idea about, Joe, where I was like, how you can be the right person for a certain stage and the wrong person for a different stage or the company can be a wrong fit for you. How did you go about learning that?

Like for example, if you're, you're an early stage guy it sounds like. You enjoy the problem solving, the collaboration, the figuring it out. Once it becomes super process-oriented and it becomes more about, you know, governance and risk. That's something that doesn't really give you much of a thrill, although I'm sure you've, you know how to deal with those things. When you realize that, “Hey, I'm not really enjoying this,” a lot of people don't look themselves in the mirror and say, “Oh, I'm actually just an early stage guy.” Sometimes they'll look at it and say, “This company isn't a good company.” Like, why were you able to kind of take the ownership and kind of reflect and say, I like the early stage, rather than kind of pointing the finger back at the different companies you worked at.

[00:08:02] Joe: Oh, you know, honestly, with you, Jeff, I think there was a period in time when I did point the finger back at the other company and say, “Oh, why is it not the way it used to be?” But I think, you know, you eventually come to the realization that, you know, you have to be accountable for your own situation in life. And fundamentally came to realize like, what is going on at Bench is fantastic for Bench and that's the path it was always meant to be on but for me, that's not the stage I wanted to be at.

I was very fortunate, I went traveling for three months in Europe where I fell in love with this, with the continent. When I came back, I realized like, this is not where I want to be. While I love the people I work with, I love the challenges, but it wasn't the right stage. And I left and then I went to a be the first employee at a tech company in SF. And then that was a whole other thing when I was employee number one over there. And that was a real startup.

But yeah, I think that, you know, you gotta look internally. And I think for me it was, I had to come to the realization, to stop pointing my finger, I guess at the other company and start saying like, well, how can I take control of this situation? 'Cause Bench is not gonna go back to being 30 people, as that was never the plan and I don't want that for them anyways. So I think it was that realization that, you know, kind of gave me that insight.

[00:09:04] Jeff: I’ve heard the problem statement, you basically, the way you outlined it was you had these experiences, you know, at the Pottery Barns of the world and you know, not to say anything bad about them, but you know, they're not maybe doing it the way that you would want to do it.

You've had the IKEA experience, but when it came to kind of high-end home goods, you kind of felt like there was a gap in the market. What was it about that problem that got you excited about it? Like, and I love the, by the way, the fact that you're passionate about just like solving that problem. And I've seen your product by the way, and it's incredible. Like it's a total other level above what else is out there and every little piece of the experience I can tell has been thought through, so kudos on that.

But I'm just curious. I love always, understanding like when smart, motivated people focus and kind of obsess on, you know, when you were a kid, I doubt that you were like, you know, hey, when I grow up I wanna like, sell high-end dishware and cutlery. Like I doubt that's what you were thinking, but here you are and you sound super fired up about it. So tell me about that, tell me about the why behind the problem itself.

[00:10:05] Joe: I mean like when I was a kid, I most certainly wasn't thinking about dinnerware. I did have this insight that I feel like is very true is that most people, whatever they want to do when they grow up, 99% of the time, they don't end up doing that. And I was always under the mindset that like whatever I think I want today, I always grew up wanting to be an architect, 'cause I was building with Lego all the time, and I was, it was never meant for me. I suck at drawing. I was not that great at some areas. I was like, this is never gonna work. I think that I was always open to whatever came my way, if it was the right problem at the right time, I wanted to solve it.

And I always knew that, you know, from working at Bench, I think they really pulled that out of me, that what I am is, I wanna be a problem solver. I like to find problems and come up with creative solutions. What happened at Fable ultimately was that you, I didn't think, oh, I'm gonna go build a dinnerware company. I have seen this market opportunity and I didn't analyze it that much. I did nothing, right? It was simply this experience of me trying to buy dinnerware went into these stores, that this was horrible. Why is there not a better brand for this? Why has someone not built the Warby Parker of dinnerware? Why doesn't this happen?

And it, and then there was many conversations after that with co-founders and people that I consider advisors to me at this point. Why don't you just do it like, and I'm like, I don't know anything about dinnerware. Like, you can figure it out. Like no one knows anything about dinnerware. The best person to go figure it out is gonna be the person who's most motivated to do it.

So it was really that situation, you know, just motivated to solve the problem, but also just willing to, you know, dig my feet in the trenches and, and figure it out. The three co-founders, we knew nothing about anything about physical products. We didn't even know what Shopify was barely. It took a lot of work, but you know, you can figure these things out.

[00:11:35] Jeff: It's really awesome that you guys have kind of gotten together and I think that's really overlooked when people who go to work at startups or even other companies, like, 'cause you said all three of you are from Bench, is that right?

[00:11:44] Joe: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. In some way or another. Two of us worked at Bench and then the third co-founder, her husband was a co-founder. So we had met her a few times 'cause she's very close with us.

[00:11:53] Jeff: Okay. It's those relationships that you build while you're, you know, wherever you are. Whether that's at a big company, at another startup we've got six, seven hundred employees here at Neo and when someone comes to me and says, “Hey, Jeff, like I'm quitting, I wanna go start my own thing.” You know, you're always sad to like lose great people, but when they say they're leaving to go and start something of their own, that just gets me so fired up. And then it's more just like, well, like, “Hey, how can we help you?” Like, you know who else is gonna get excited about this?

Because I just think that we need so much more of it in Canada. Like we keep, I don't know, like what do you think it is about Canada, Joe? You've been to Silicon Valley, like you've been to SF, it sounds like where you worked at an early stage business and there's something about staying kind of comfortable here and kind of working in, you know, good, high-quality jobs, but then not really taking those risks. Like what do you see? Like, why don't we start more companies here? Why don't we kind of shoot for the stars?

[00:12:42] Joe: You know, like I don't, I'm not sure why maybe Canadians haven't built more, but I also think there's a lot of Canadian companies that people don't know are Canadian, frankly. And I think that Canadians are inherently less boastful, but we're more to ourselves and more, like we don't really tell people when things are going really well. You know, there is this like humbleness of Canada, I think that exists.

I think ultimately that also leads to not a lot of people knowing what is Canadian and what is actually from the United States. And I think that, you know, there are big companies out there who have been very, Canadian companies who have been very vocal about like, “Hey, we're Canadian. We're Canadian,” and help promote it. But I don't think there's that many. I think there's, there's quite a few others that I know have seen, you know, unicorn valuations in the tech space that don't talk, that they're from Canada. They still, while everything's here in Canada, they don't identify as being that Canadian, you know, success story. So I think that that's also a big part of it.

[00:13:28] Jeff: Well, like what is it about being Canadian that they're trying to shy away from? Like, why do you think that they wouldn't want to? Like, isn't there… I think there's like a ton of strengths from being from Canada. Canadians are way more down to earth. I think that we have a, like an approachability. There's much more like a, you know, integrity in the way that we conduct ourselves. Why wouldn't more people to be kind of proud of those Canadian roots?

[00:13:48] Joe: I think Canadians are very proud. I, I guess that's not what I'm getting at. To draw an analogy, I lived in the United States for three years when I went to university. And I could tell you every night I went out to a bar there was a USA chant, you know, “USA! USA! USA!” every night. I've never been to a Canadian bar [where] people are chanting “Canada!” unless the hockey Olympics are on.

I think there's an inherent difference between the people, where we're not chanting, you know, maybe, I think we're patriotic. I think we care a lot about Canada, but I think there's this humbleness that people don't, aren't as vocal about where they are, where they're from, that I think Americans have, which I think is a great trait for Americans 'cause it's very clear what is American and what isn't.

[00:14:24] Jeff: Yeah, it's more quietly proud, but like, I think that it needs to change a little bit. Like I don't want us to lose all the good things about, 'cause I don't know if I want us all cheering, like chanting ‘O Canada’ every time I go out.

But like when I was competing with Team Canada on the wrestling team, there was this like swagger that American athletes had. And sometimes they would have no right really, they maybe didn't have the talent. Maybe they didn't even have the work ethic, but they had that confidence. They're just like, “I'm from, I'm American…”

[00:14:47] Joe: Number one.

[00:14:48] Jeff: “And so that means I'm gonna win.”

Yeah. Yeah. We're number one. And sometimes they actually would go out and win and they have no right winning, but you know, it's that confidence that they have that they're like, “Hey, because I'm American, that means I need to win.”

You see it come through in a lot of companies too. A lot of the companies, you're like, this is not a well-run company but they just will it into existence.

[00:15:03] Joe: I agree.

[00:15:04] Jeff: Tell me about some early pivots. It's not been all smooth sailing, getting Fable to where it is now. Like you’ve got a really slick product, slick website. I know that behind the scenes things aren't always like that. Tell me about some pivots that you had early on that that really stand out.

[00:15:17] Joe: A lot. Yeah, a lot. I wouldn't say there was any major pivots of Fable where I'm like, “Oh my God, we went from making suitcases to dinnerware.” There wasn't anything like that drastic or you know, that juicy to share. But I would say there was, you know, a lot of conversation at Fable around where we should make our products, who should make them, and you know, how we want to tell the story of the products that wasn't clearly defined when we first started the business.

So the biggest pivot right outta the gate was shifting all production into Portugal on the ceramics. And it's not something we were doing at the start. We started out, we looked to where everyone else looks. We went on Alibaba, and we're like, “Wow, this is okay.” Quality came in, wasn't very good. That's kind of on us and we fundamentally were like, this is not the story we want to tell. This is not why we created Fable. We want to be talking about who's making it, telling maker stories, videotaping, you know, how it's made. And we weren't really getting that reception outta the suppliers that we were talking to before that. So yeah, fundamentally that was our first biggest pivot.

I would say, the second was when we moved fulfillment from third-party logistics into in-house. So we manage all of our fulfillment ourselves right now, besides a few partners in the UK. That was the biggest challenge we were facing is for the longest time, 3PLs couldn't figure out how to ship our products 'cause they're so breakable. And they weren't putting enough batting, they were putting too much batting. We were just, could not dial that in. We went through three different, 3PLs in under a year. Trying to figure out a solution. People said, we can't work with you. Your product's too big. Your product's too heavy, your product's breakable. And then we'll try and it didn't work and we'll try, it didn't work. Or you're too small, you're too big. And we just could not dial in that success. So I think it was January 2021, we had shifted, pulled everything outta 3PLs. Turned off shipping for a few weeks and released a warehouse. And we had no idea how to scan products or do anything. Like, we didn't have any connections at Canada Post or FedEx or UPS, and we moved it all in-house.

I think that's one of the best decisions we made. We saw instant gains in margin, instant, like customers were happier, but that was a big pivot for us and it really, you know, we went from selling products and really focusing on marketing to actually, we have a whole operations system we need to create and, and have run very smoothly, which was never really the case.

[00:17:20] Jeff: Sounds like you've been talking to the guys over at Article.

[00:17:21] Joe: [Laughs] A little bit, yeah.

[00:17:23] Jeff: They kinda had the same situation where like they looked at where all their complaints were coming from and it was on the fulfillment side. You know, and it's, it's pretty common too, like you see this in businesses where they kind of manage a certain part of the value chain and then they just continually expand across the value chain. Like Amazon's a good example. Apple's a good example. And then it becomes like, like how much more difficult did your business become? Like fifficult in the sense of like the complexity of what you needed to manage. Once you got into into the fulfillment piece?

[00:17:47] Joe: Two times it was like double the complexity.

[00:17:50] Jeff: Only double? Okay, that's actually, you're probably doing it really well then. Like when we started out Skip, we only, all we would do is just send an order to a restaurant and then we would just like wipe our hands, we were done. We didn't have to do anything. The restaurant could cook the food, deliver the food, that was it.

And then we realized, well, there wasn't all that many restaurants that actually deliver in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, or like 90% of the towns and cities in Canada. So we started doing logistics while our CTO was on his honeymoon. And when he came back we were like, yeah, we're actually doing delivery now.

It was just like, he understood how painful this was gonna be. We had no idea. We were like, yeah, we've got like five drivers, they're out there, like, they're crushing it. Our order volume is going up and it 10 x’d the complexity of the business for us. Are you actually managing like the actual drivers themselves or are you just warehousing and kind of managing the inventory?

[00:18:36] Joe: Yes. It's just the warehousing. So we have, we weren't really seeing the issues with like the FedEx component. It was just really about the boxing and the storage and inventory management side, re-boxing, packaging, getting all of that sorted by ourselves. That was where really the challenge came in.

[00:18:50] Jeff: And so do you have, how many warehouses do you have across Canada and are you in the US yet or not?

[00:18:54] Joe: We just have two in Canada, and then we ship down into the States.

[00:18:58] Jeff: Okay, got it. Why D2C? Why direct-to-consumer and why not look at partnerships with other organizations that you felt were gonna be able to uphold the brand standards that you have?

[00:19:08] Joe: We didn't even know that that existed, to be honest with you. I think it was just blatant ignorance. I didn't even know that the idea of like mass distributors was a concept we could even explore. I think we could only really build from our own experience, which was, “Hey, I want better plates. I want better ceramics. I want something that stands for sustainability.” And the best way to do that was was on the e-commerce side. We all also have a little bit of a tech background, so I think we're always looking for a way to put it on the internet versus just sending it to a distributor to get it out to the world.

[00:19:35] Jeff: What are some of the challenges with the D2C model that you didn't see coming? Like, and I think there's a lot of people out there, especially with the pandemic, they picked up side hustles, they're wanting to get a business going. And I think, you know, you guys are kind of, I think you have product market fit, like it looks like you guys are scaling. Was there anything that you were like kind of gotchas that you found discovered after the fact that you think other people might benefit from understanding?

[00:19:59] Joe: We had to learn a lot on the rising costs of like, to acquire a customer. Like CAC costs. That was a really interesting component to us where, during the pandemic, it had pulled forward a lot of the demand and that's not something we really quite understood that demand was getting pulled forward, CAC levels were quite low, so areas of the business we thought we were optimizing were actually didn't really matter when what we should have been focused on was things like margins. Because with low CAC, margin wasn't as much of a concern for us at the time.

I think the, you know, the other gotcha is, I think the D2C model is definitely shifting and it's evolving. I think a lot of brands I talked to and how we had approached it originally was we looked at Away, Warby Parker, Casper as inspiration. How did they scale? How did they get to that level? And the path that they took is not the correct path anymore. That is not the way to do it. And I think it took a lot of realization that the way that they did it through the marketing channels they used isn't the same as how it's today.

Actually, you need to be looking at some, maybe the younger brands for, you know, how are people getting creative on the, you know, people who are doing more newer ways of expanding your business? I think that that's something that I, you know, we'd fall in the trap to, or other people too.

[00:21:05] Jeff: The average person has no concept of how expensive it is to acquire customers on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok like, a lot of people think it's all organic and they don't realize that like every time they click on an ad, every time they even see an ad that basically costs a company money. The cost per click now is astronomic.

[00:21:25] Joe: Yeah.

[00:21:26] Jeff: Like what have you found to be what some of the effective channels that you're using?

[00:21:30] Joe: Well we use all the traditional channels. Like everyone else, right? So we are still using Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. The way we get the most customers though, today and always has been, is word of mouth. I think our product generally lends itself to that experience. You're at a dinner party, you see the plates on somebody else's table, and then you like it, right? And you're like, “Well, I should buy some of those for myself.”

The other way that we, you know, really focus on reducing our reliance on those paid channels is through repeat customers and repeat purchasing behavior. One of our very first hires was hiring a retention marketer, which is a little bit obscure for like, we didn't have any growth marketers, right? We, the first person we hired was retention marketing. All we care about is how do we create, make Fable a repeat purchase machine where people come back and love the product, wanna buy some more.

So a lot of our investment actually goes into product development and on retention tactics. But in terms of growth, you know, where we're seeing success right now is through, I wanna say like B2B partnerships. So we're working with restaurants or different hotels and really trying to get them product at borderline cost to us because we know people can go in there and experience it.

The early insight was, hey, our people are hearing through word of mouth. Hey, Jeff went to a dinner party, you saw some Fable, then you went and bought Fable. But how do you get that to happen at a bigger scale? You need to go onboard restaurants. Hotels where people are having turnover. Lots of people, and they can experience your products in those settings.

[00:22:43] Jeff Adamson: That's super clever. I actually, I love, you know when people are investing in product and partnerships over clicks and impressions, I just think that’s very difficult. It's hard to scale, but especially like earlier stage, it's just so much more cost effective, 'cause I don't think customers are gonna care how much you spend on Facebook advertising. I think they care about, you know, a good product. You know, they want to know that, hey, we're using the same dinnerware that like the best restaurant in town is using.

I'd love to hear a little bit more in detail on those partnerships. Like how do you structure them from a, like getting your brand out? Because like, I can't remember the last time I like looked at the back of a plate at a restaurant, even though I probably have done it. Like, do you try to get your brand somewhere else in the restaurant by saying, Hey, we'll provide this to you at cost, which is a no-brainer that they should do it, but then you wanna make sure your brand gets visible without taking away from, you know, the hotel or restaurant brand. Is there some hacks that you've come up with, of getting your name out there more?

[00:23:33] Joe: Well, yeah, I wouldn't say they're hacks is probably what everyone is thinking is the obvious answers, right? Like we've done like dinner parties where we're listed on the menu. We've done hotels where when they leave and checkout we offer, we ask to get in their email flow and offer an exclusive discount on the Fable products. But you know, a lot of the people are flipping over the plate or looking at the bottom of the wine glass and seeing the Fable logo. So we are still seeing people come in that way. Yeah, it's a combination of a lot of different tactics. Still no like, major silver bullet one way or the other. But you know, it's kind of a, it takes a lot.

[00:23:59] Jeff: [00:24:00] Most of the dinnerware that people are seeing at restaurants and hotels just isn't that the quality of yours anyways. And which is, could be, could be why it's more effective when it's your product. Have you found that restaurants or hotels, like, do you have a team focused on each vertical? Or how are you guys actually like going about it? Is it just you kind of making the calls yourself?

[00:24:17] Joe Parenteau: It's just me. Yeah. Yeah. So at Fable, you know, our approach has always been that we'll hire someone when we know it can work or when we have an indicator that it's gonna be successful.

So when we opened our first warehouse, my co-founder Max, who doesn't, never driven a forklift, but now is a skilled operator, opened the warehouse himself, right? So, like it, we have always approached it in that way where we're not gonna go bring in a big external team or hire a bunch of people unless we're pretty certain with a high, yeah, pretty high degree [of] certainty that it's gonna work. 'Cause we would hate for someone to leave one job to come to Fable, to then realize that like that doesn't work.

And these channels, while we're seeing success today with restaurants in some of those other areas, that shifts so quickly. And that's, I think, speaks to the, the speed that direct to consumer’s moving in. We constantly have to be looking for new channels. But luckily for us, Jeff, we did hire a director of sales who starts next week, so we do have someone coming in to take that off my hands.

[00:25:10] Jeff: Well, it's good then, based on your framework then, it seems like it's scalable. How did you, I'm curious to know, like how did you come up with your founding team? Like, I feel like a lot of people think of entrepreneurship as a kind of a solo thing, but you know, you've got two other, two other or three other co-founders? How did you go about finding them and was it, “Hey, here's the idea. Do you wanna start this type of company with me?” Or was it, “Hey, we all want to start a company. We don't know what it is yet. We just need to find something that's cool and we're gonna do it.”

[00:25:39] Joe: Yeah. Well it's never, you know, just one conversation and it's never, you know, a pure straight line. I was sharing this problem with, with Jordan. One of the co-founders of Bench I mentioned earlier, and he said, “My wife's actually really looking into plates right now.” So there was a[n] easy alignment there that we were both like, “Hey, we're, why are we both looking at this? Like, should, should we team up?”

She has a background in web dev. We, you know, having a web dev person on your team is a no-brainer and she, you know, she's phenomenal at her job. So it was like an obvious answer that we should get on the same team. And Tina and I just work really well together. You know, just general, you know, she's a down to earth person. Wants, willing to get her hands dirty and wanted to make it happen. So that was an obvious answer.

My other co-founder, Max was, you know, I think he was looking into biodegradable diapers or something. He's also an entrepreneur at his, at heart and a guy from Alberta and he was very much trying to figure out like, what did he want to do, in the, you know, for his own startup. And we were playing beach volleyball together, we've been friends for years. And, um, I was telling him like, “Hey, I'm working with Tina on this thing.” And like nothing came out of it.

He's a good at-home chef [and] one day we wanted to take some photos of some plates and I said, “Hey, could you come over and cook some food to put on these plates?” And, he was like, “Yeah, yeah, of course I'll come over.” And, you know, I think, I think the team just gelled really well and then we asked Max to join in and it was a really good fit right outta the gate.

So, it wasn't a clear path. We did, we were like ultimately not looking for a third person, not looking for another person. It just happened. And you know, when those things, the stars just align, you know, you're just kind of in the right spot.

[00:27:11] Jeff: You know, the web dev side of things makes sense, but like, how do you guys divide up responsibilities to say, Hey, you're gonna own this area, you're gonna own this area without just kind of everyone doing everything.

[00:27:21] Joe: Yeah. Well, I mean, at the start. Everyone was kind of doing everything, to be honest. And it was, it was chaos. And we did something the very first, like couple weeks in, called like domain setting. So we listed out all the main domains. Where would we want VPs of everything, right? We want a VP marketing, we want a VP tech, we want a VP product, a VP web product, all these different roles that we'd eventually want in the company.

And we started saying, who's best suited to do these? So you know, where's your skillset lie? And let's be honest with each other. Like who should be doing what? And then we aligned people to that. And we right-sized it a little bit, you know, Max is a great jack of all trades, so he's always willing to let go of some things or take on some other.

That is actually still a process we do today with our leadership team at Fable. Probably like every two quarters we'll have a meeting on just domains. Who's doing what? You know, now we have partnerships as a big part of our business. Who should be doing that? And should it be Joe anymore? Is he the best person to be doing this? Who has capacity? Who should be taking on this new objective? So it's a constant conversation on aligning responsibility.

[00:28:15] Jeff: Joe, like outside of the domains, like what are the attributes that you look for in kind of your early team? You got your founding team, what are the attributes that you look for in a founding team?

I'm not saying like someone who knows how to code, it's more around like, the characteristics. Then the kind of next cohort of early employees, you know, scale up employees. How do you see those people as being different?

[00:28:36] Joe: Yeah, that's a good question. I think outta the start, you'd really need to look for problem solvers. People who can identify a problem, explain the problem, and then already have solved the problem. Not, they know the solution, but they've already solved it. People that see a problem and just instantly go solve it. Don't wait for permission, but they're just like they're kind of aligned on that.

Second, I think it's just that alignment on values. When we talk about the company values and the brand values and how we like to work, you've gotta see pure alignment there, right outta the gate. All three founders said, we want a remote company. I want it. Max, “I wanna live in Costa Rica”. Tina, “I wanna live in Toronto”. And I was like, “I gotta get to Spain or something”. So ultimately, we all aligned that we're building a remote company and all the team members would have to align to that, or we weren't gonna bring people in who wanted in-office. Now, once we have the, you know, that kind of core team, people solving problems, it's great because whatever comes up, you know, that person's smart, you know, they're gonna figure out a solution for it. Sometimes you make mistakes but, you know, you battle through it.

When you bring on that next wave of people, you're also, what we found is, we also look for problem solvers. 'Cause your first employee, through the first like 10, they have to solve every problem, right? There's just no, like, “That's not my job.” You have to be able to do that. We look for people who have like, past experiences where they've been put in those positions. Like obviously other employees who worked early stage startups is a no brainer, but that's, you know, there's not that many of them or that maybe they're doing their own thing now, right? Those people always turn out to be their own, doing their own business at that point.

We also look for people who've done like gardening or something like that. People who've done like hard work where you're like, I have to get my hands dirty and they're not afraid to go get their hands dirty. And once you have that team aligned, we started looking at specialists so that we say, well, what's the biggest problem here? Like, we need a copywriter. We don't need a jack of all trades. We need someone who's just like, every day writes amazing copy and that's what they love to do. That's their life's passion. And then you start finding those specialists and filling in the gaps.

And we have more gaps than I could count at Fable right now. More specialists than I'd want, than we can afford to hire for the next five years. But ultimately, you know, you have those, you have those core group of ten people who can fill in, and then you start filling in those gaps. And you know, the copywriters of the world, the retention marketers, the designers, you get those spots filled in.

[00:30:44] Jeff: There's no better feeling than when you hire a specialist who basically can like, show you how bad your work is and how much better they can do it than you.

[00:30:51] Joe: Yeah.

[00:30:52] Jeff: And you're just like, oh my God. Like, it's like, well, it's a weird feeling 'cause you're like, oh my God, we've been doing it so bad for so long. But like the good feeling of, finally there's someone here who knows what good looks like and who knows what great looks like.

[00:31:03] Joe: I know.

[00:31:04] Jeff: Such a mixed feeling.

[00:31:05] Joe: Yeah, I see it, today we still see the same problem. Sometimes I'll design something up and I'll send it to our Creative Director and he goes, “That's ugly”.

I'm like, “Well, I appreciate the feedback Sung but like, oh my God, I did my best on that”. But you know, now there's definitely a clear skill gap that you quickly realize and then they make such an impact when you get 'em on the team.

[00:31:22] Jeff: You've mentioned sustainability a few times and, you know, I feel like there's some companies out there that are like, it's a marketing ploy for them. There's some companies out there, like we had, I don't know if you know David Luba from tentree, they're from Regina as well. You know, they were like, they identified it as being like a tree planting company that sells clothes. When you talk to David or you talk, you know, to Derek, these guys are like deep in the tree planting world. They've gone down the rabbit hole.

But I feel like a lot of other companies are like, “Hey, we think we can get in on the sustainability trend and we'll acquire more customers, we'll lower our CAC”. So I'm like, I'm curious, like why do you guys have that as part of your brand? And it's okay that the answer is either way. Like, hey, listen, if you can lower your CAC, if you can sell more of your products by being a sustainable company that's also good for the planet, that seems like kind of a win-win to me. A lot of people don't think of sustainability when it comes to dinnerware, so why did you guys?

[00:32:13] Joe: Yeah, it's a good question. I, you know, my comment is I think it can lower CAC, but it definitely doesn't lower margin. I think it makes margin incredibly challenging, and when you look at contribution margin, it's, it doesn't help any much on the CAC side of the business.

You know, for us at Fable, sustainability, I think more relates to our personal values and like brands that we like to purchase from. So it wasn't like we looked at dinnerware and said, holistically, there's a problem in the world with how dinnerware is made. We didn't know that. I, that's not like, yeah, it's like really not, it's not that big of a problem. But when we looked and said, well, we wanna create a brand that we can be proud of, that we're excited to work at every single day. We looked at what brands that we like to shop with and it was sustainability. Ultimately, that's where the sustainability came in.

It's not that we wanted to, or that we think that plates are destroying the entire world. These are, it's clay. Like it is, it's okay. You can put it, you know, it composts down, you can use it in concrete, like there's a lot of ways that clay is okay for the world. But what we did know is that for us, sustainability was a core value for us personally, and that's something we wanted to roll up. Now, you know, the way we think about sustainability is not only that, it's just also how you treat your team members and the work environment you create.

That's why ultimately why we moved to like a B Corp or a Benefit Corporation was because the way that the value we actually have, while sustainability is a big, big core of that ethical craftsmanship, a huge piece of that, it's also just about running a company that, you know, aligns to our values. And that's, you know, how we, you know, compensate employees, how we treat employees, and all the way through the sustainability aspect. We felt like that B Corp or Benefit Corporation actually encapsulated all of that. So that's what we think about alignment.

[00:33:45] Jeff: We had the founder of THE TENSPOT on and so she's like [a] hardcore entrepreneur and she had values, then I think she ripped them up after year two, and then spent another year kind of coming up with new ones. And her team are so fired up about their brand, their values, that some of them, I think they have like six employees that actually got like the company logo tattooed on their body.

[00:34:07] Joe: Crazy.

[00:34:08] Jeff: So I'm curious to know, like, did you guys come up with your values day one and then you've kind of left them etched in stone? Or are you waiting to kind of see what type of values you need in order to run the type of company that you want? Like what kind of values do you need in order to actually succeed in this business?

[00:34:24] Joe: We wrote our company values two times. Once was at the very, very start of the business and once was six months later. Since that six months, that was in 2020, we haven't changed them. They've been the same. It's something that we spent a lot of time on, we dug into, but that being said, there probably will be revisions in the future.

You know, the world's changing, we're changing, and the business is changing. And they may adapt, especially as you add more team members and you go from six employees to 20, to 80 to 500 employees. You need to adjust those types of things and that is okay. And we're comfortable with that. But to date, they've served us really well and the team's really fired up and motivated by them. So we haven't had any major need to [make] big, you know, big adjustments or revisions.

[00:35:08] Jeff: How did you know that they needed to be changed after six months? Like what was it about the original values that you were like, “Hey, we need to rip these things up”?

[00:35:14] Joe: There's too many of them. So we couldn't, like, no one could memorize them 'cause there was like 10 different things. They were not worded that well. We didn't have a copywriter, so when we got a copywriter it was like, we’re gonna adjust these. And they didn't mean much, they were just very broad and they weren't specific. You know, you can put a company value down that does, can mean a lot to a lot of people and we needed to add some more verbiage behind them, like to explain that company value to the team.

It was more about adding definition. Fundamentally, things didn't change. You know, we were still focused on sustainability, still focused on building a great workspace and still making shopping for home decor easy and effortless. Like there's a lot of the core company direction hadn't shifted but the language on it was moving quite a bit.

[00:35:56] Jeff: Where do you wanna take Fable? Like you guys have, you know, built an amazing brand, you've got an amazing product. Long-term, where does this go?

[00:36:04] Joe: You know, for us it's evolving, but the vision we've always set out to be is, to feel right at home, is really the coin term that we always play around with. And what that means is when you walk into your house, you feel, you feel good. You feel good about the pieces you have, your space looks beautiful, and you know, it was easy to put together, right? That entire space. Now, we're a tabletop brand today, and really if you looked at what our product team's developing today, it's not tabletop.

So we're very much focused on becoming a full home decor brand and expanding each other categories across the space. But we envision a beautiful, effortless experience that's, you know, with products that are made sustainably and ethically. The future of home decor shopping. And we're trying to figure out, you know, how we make sure Fable’s a name in that space and becomes a household name for them.

[00:36:50] Jeff: That's amazing. I'm curious 'cause like you are very much product centric business and one of the other great product guys we had on was Mike Gettis from Kilne. So he's the ex-Endy mattresses and he was kinda describing his process for iterating on product and like he oversimplified it in a big way. Like, I think he gave me like a one word answer where he's like, yeah, we just, we iterate. But then it turned out like they used like customer reviews and they had like automation in place to like quickly like, and tons of process. Like it sounds like you're coming up with lots of new products soon. What's that product kind of development release, iterate cycle like within Fable?

[00:37:30] Joe: Monthly is the cycle. So every month we're looking to release a new product, so we should always be dropping something new. The way we look at product today has shifted since the past. We always thought, oh, hey, well, we'll be able to you know, turn products over in three months, and that's simply not the case when you want to create something very good and also find the right supplier that aligns to your company values.

But ultimately, right now our process is we identify different addressable markets. That's always the starting point. We talk to a boatload of customers. Talk to potential customers. We actually just hired a, well not just hired, but we've had a customer researcher on our team, so that's all she does is look for opportunity. And we aim to design a beautiful product, but also partner the design with function. And I think in home decor, that's what's a lot is missing, right?

You have beautiful pieces, but there's a function element, and we didn't know this at the start, but when we launched our glassware, it's like this, ion-toughened pieces that make them more shatter resistant 'cause they're more dense. If you dropped it on like the wood floor, it shouldn't like, shatter in the same way that it would, if it was a very thin piece. But when we realized that you can have these function elements inside of your pieces, that's what we're aiming for now. So it has to be beautiful. It has to have a good function and then of course has to meet our brand values and product principles.

[00:38:45] Jeff: That's amazing. When people ask you, Joe, you know, “What's your exit strategy?” What do you tell them?

[00:38:49] Joe: I tell them that, I'm not sure. I explain that we're on a highway, we're moving very quickly and we know that if we keep doing the right thing, so we build a big business that has, you know, strong metrics and a good community behind it, the exit paths to get off the highway will appear, and we can choose whichever one we want. But we don't get too hyper-focused on, you know, how is Pottery Barn gonna buy Fable in the future?

We don't really even get caught up in that situation. We're not looking at something in the immediate term anyway. So for us, it's just really about building this beautiful car that can cruise down the highway and we'll find the right exit that, that meet, that makes sense for us and the community.

[00:39:26] Jeff: Great answer. I'm always curious what people, how they think about that. That's similar to how we think about it too, where we're like, you can tell when you meet someone who's building a company to sell it.

[00:39:33] Joe: Yeah.

[00:39:34] Jeff: Versus someone who's building it to solve a problem and building it to create value. Of course, like, you know, there's exits that are gonna appear. If you're not actually creating value or solving problems, then then those aren't gonna appear. And it's like, like someone who's like, “Hey, I wanna start a company simply because I want to get rich.” I mean, I think it wears off over time. I feel like you, getting outta bed in the morning and sometimes it's just too difficult if you're just there for the money. But if you're there and you like see, the feedback coming in from customers who love the product and you see the joy that your employees and your team have from like building something beautiful. That's something that I think is way, way more motivating than kind of getting a great exit.

To finish things off here, what's the kind of key message that you wanna get out to our listeners about Fable? Or even about starting a company?

[00:40:19] Joe: For, you know, starting a company, I think, you know, when I was, before Fable, very much listened to a lot of entrepreneurs who I was like, oh my God, these people, it's a big company.

Or you know, they've solved these things, it's a big hurdle. And I, what I wish people would've just told me is like, just start. Just like it's not easy. It's never easy. In fact, it probably gets harder. There's no real like, magic, silver bullet. There's no perfect idea. There's no wrong idea. It's just really about like taking step after step, day after day, and you ultimately get to a great outcome. If you're willing to do that and have the tenacity to move through the challenges that you're gonna face.

I think, you know, with Fable, I think we're just really excited for some of the new pieces we have coming out and, you know, really shifting, you know, our messaging from, you know, bring joy to every meal, which was the original value of the bus[iness], you know, original vision for the business to ultimately, feel right at home. And I think there’s gonna be some big shifts coming up in the next six to eight months. So we're excited to share that with everyone soon.

[00:41:15] Jeff: fable.com, go check it out if you haven't. Where can people learn more about you? Where can they learn more about Fable? Is it just right on the website?

[00:41:23] Joe: Yeah, just right on the website fable.com or @dinewithfable on Instagram [are the] best places to check us out. We’re also pretty active on LinkedIn as well, so check us out there.

[00:41:31] Jeff: Big fan, Joe. Big fan of you guys. Appreciate you coming on, grateful for your time and I'm looking forward to seeing where you guys go.

[00:41:38] Joe Parenteau: Thanks Jeff, much appreciated.

[00:41:44] Jeff: Thank you for tuning into Behind the Brand. If you enjoyed today's show, please subscribe and leave a review on your preferred podcast platform. If you’re interested in learning more about Neo Financial, visit us at neofinancial.com.

Behind the Brand is a production of Neo Financial and MediaLab YYC. Hosted by Jeff Adamson. Strategy, research, and production by Keegan Sharp, Alana Tefledzuk, and Kyle Marshall.