02:04:59 · Jordi Hays, Mark Swan, John Coogan
[02:04:59] S0: When did you actually start the company? [02:05:02] S3: We started the company two years ago. Very cool. We were... Myself and my two co founders were at Revolut before this, founded the business two years ago, got backed by Sequoia Capital in our seed brand, then, you know, past two years, yeah, we've scaled. You know, this year alone, we've gone from, 50,000,000,000 of assets to to over 700,000,000,000 of assets now across our customers. And it's been, you know, an amazing journey so far. [02:05:24] S0: Massive progress. Feels like... [02:05:28] S1: You should raise money too. [02:05:29] S0: Oh, I know. I know. [02:05:30] S3: Yeah. And Actually, yeah. And and 70. And today, we raised, yeah, 70,000,000. Yeah. Exactly. [02:05:37] S0: Wealth management, there's, [02:05:38] S1: like seven different levels of [02:05:39] S0: It's interesting because, like, the the concept of, like, AI for wealth management Mhmm. I I feel like you guys are maybe probably the hundredth company to come at this with that pitch. Yeah. But you guys had this massive advantage in that you started like two years ago. Yeah. And that you could be like, we're gonna be able to build all these features. We can do it and really think about this platform at one time versus like companies that have taken cracks at this category historically were like... Are now like, oh, okay. Like, what's our... They were AI for wealth management, but it was really like they were having that same moment two years ago being like, what's... Well, what are we really gonna do with, like, AI?
02:06:16 · Mark Swan, John Coogan
[02:06:16] S3: I I think also though, like, you know, people people got it wrong. Right? They they said that AI will replace financial advisers, and and they're just wrong. Right? I mean, like, the wealth management is a highly trust first service intensive relationship business. And so, I think the core thesis of Nevis is, how do we use AI to help advisors not replace them? And you have this... Like, you look at the market, right, like the demand for financial advice is also exploding. Right? Like, the number of millionaires in The US is growing about eight times faster than the rate of the population. And at the same time, the number of financial advisers is actually decreasing. And so the question is, like, how do you use AI to make the adviser... The human adviser more efficient as opposed to things like robo or you know, trying to you know, replace the advisor which I think just misses the whole point. [02:07:04] S1: Yeah. What's the strategic... What's the nature of the strategic investment from Charles Schwab? How how... Like, are you already working with Charles Schwab? Is there someone there that has a vision of how this evolves and you can fit your your company in there? [02:07:20] S3: Yeah. We we worked very closely with Charles Schwab for for the past two years, but their investment in our series b helps us accelerate what we can actually do with what we call authorized agents on top of Schwab. [02:07:31] S1: Oh, So a lot of the work I that saw financial advisers do... Okay.
02:07:31 · John Coogan, Mark Swan, Jordi Hays
[02:07:31] S1: Oh, So a lot of the work I that saw financial advisers do... Okay. [02:07:34] S3: Yeah. Yeah. So what a lot of financial advisers do is actually, like, operational work on top of those custody platforms. So things like moving money open custody accounts take up the vast majority of the manual work. And so through our partnership with Schwab, we can unlock new opportunities to help automate those workflows and, you know, benefit our mutual customers, which are these RIA firms. [02:07:56] S1: Yeah. You're the anointed one. Well well, Muse and all the other agents are getting banned from Charles Schwab. Are... Yeah. Like, come on in. [02:08:03] S0: Come on in. [02:08:04] S1: You get to go into Schwab, which is very cool. [02:08:07] S0: Love the business. Make... [02:08:08] S1: Congrats on the progress. [02:08:09] S0: Yeah. Thank you so [02:08:10] S3: much for hopping on the show. I appreciate it. Thanks for [02:08:12] S1: having me on. [02:08:12] S0: Great to meet you, Mark. Sure. See you
02:08:12 · Jordi Hays, John Coogan, Christa Pitts, Chanda A. Bell
[02:08:12] S0: Great to meet you, Mark. Sure. See you [02:08:13] S1: at Let me tell you about Railway. Railway is the all in one intelligent cloud provider. Use your favorite agent to deploy web app service databases more while Railway automatically takes care of scaling, monitoring, and security. Up next, you know it's the road to Christmas, and we have a Christmas deep dive with Chanda Bell and Christa Pitts, the cofounders and co CEOs of the Luisa Stela Company. The company behind the elf on the shelf, We are going to bring in these twin sisters and talk about this incredible business. Welcome to the show. What's Thank you so much for joining us. How are you doing? [02:08:48] S4: Great. Hi. [02:08:49] S1: Thank you for joining. I'd love to get an introduction to kick this off from both of you and take us on a little bit of the journey of the company and the Sorry. Love Christmas around here. We have been counting down the days to Christmas trying to interview as many people. I'll take [02:09:06] S0: it down a notch [02:09:07] S1: But a little the economy, we have multiple levels of Christmas adornments on the Chiron. But I'll let you kick it off... [02:09:14] S0: A little more mild. [02:09:16] S1: Let's do a little bit of Christmas. [02:09:17] S0: Yeah. A little [02:09:17] S1: bit of Christmas. [02:09:18] S0: But... Working working on it. Working on it. It. That's better. That's better. We can... Thank you. [02:09:23] S5: Christa, we finally find people like fashioned out of our own heart. Yes. Like the love of Christmas is real here. We love it.
02:09:23 · Chanda A. Bell, Jordi Hays, John Coogan, Christa Pitts
[02:09:23] S5: Christa, we finally find people like fashioned out of our own heart. Yes. Like the love of Christmas is real here. We love it. [02:09:32] S0: Started our Christmas countdown at like a hundred and twenty days. [02:09:35] S1: A hundred and twenty days. We were deep in August. It might have been 95 degrees here in Hollywood, Los Angeles, but, we stuck it out. Now it's getting a little cool here. [02:09:44] S0: We heard those sleigh bells ringing. [02:09:45] S1: We heard the sleigh bells ringing. And we're in the... Yeah. [02:09:49] S5: We're only two months away. So it's gonna be here before... [02:09:52] S0: We're only hours away. Yeah. Over... Think over the last ten hours. [02:09:56] S1: Hours away. Anyway, I'm glad to have you on the show. But yes, let let let's go through the story. I would love to hear about your entrepreneurial journey, and then I'm sure we'll have questions about the business and and Christmas in general. [02:10:10] S4: Sheva, do you wanna run with that one?
02:10:10 · Christa Pitts, Chanda A. Bell, John Coogan
[02:10:10] S4: Sheva, do you wanna run with that one? [02:10:12] S5: Sure. Happy to. So, you know, this this was not something we thought we were gonna start a business around, when my mom and I, sat down in 2004, to write a story based on our own family tradition, really based on our elf that used to come at Christmas time, and it would watch during the day and report to Santa at night. And the morning when we woke up, you know, we would race around the house trying to find the elf to see where, you know, it came back. And when I had my kids on my own, and it's roughly 2005, and I'm having tea with my mom, and I look up and I see our elf sitting on a shelf. Mhmm. And I'm like, mom, you know, we should we should write a story about our elf. I had no idea what I was saying, and I had no idea what that would mean for us, and certainly, no thought that we would be starting a business. But when we couldn't get anyone to publish our little story based on our own family tradition, you have a good idea and that's all it will ever be, or you're going to have to to step out in faith and do something with it. And, that's the path that we chose. And so now, we're we're twenty one years in, and we have a whole Santaverse and a whole world of storytelling Fantastic. [02:11:27] S1: All built [02:11:28] S5: on this opportunity to work for Santa Claus. [02:11:31] S1: And what is the shape of the of the business? Is it... How much is consumer products versus books versus other revenue streams? Like, take us through the the...