Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:02:40 · Thomas Berolzheimer, Julia Berolzheimer
[00:02:40] S3: Yep. [00:02:40] S0: We were both going to University of the Pacific. He was a year older than I, but our families had grown up together. So I knew about him. I knew his grandparents. So when we met, there was sort of this shared history there between our families. And it was just one of those immediate immediate best friends and really have not spent a ton of time apart since we met then. And it was just a year later in 2011 that I discovered a website called lookbook.new. And it was a site where people could... It was essentially sort of an Instagram for outfits. It was where people could upload photos of themselves, and it was sort of this whole world I discovered because Instagram didn't exist yet. And I was somebody who has always loved fashion, and it was... It felt like this untouchable category to me. I I... My only access to it was online and magazines. I didn't know anybody in the fashion industry, and this felt real. These real women across the world who had their own unique take. It wasn't a model. It wasn't a celebrity. And I found that really interesting and immediately turned to Thomas and said, you know, you need to buy a... Or we need to buy a camera and you need to take pictures of my outfits. And that's really how the the the blog started. We started on Blogger, which many bloggers started back in the day. And I never in a million years would have thought that this would become our career and that an entire industry would develop, you know, because of the idea of sharing online.
00:04:29 · Alexa von Tobel
[00:04:29] S2: Thomas, I know that when you met her, you did not wanna be her best friend. Can't even fathom that that's what went through your head. I give us the sort of high points. You know, you guys have now built a massive business just like really as somebody who's learned more about it. It's so impressive. Give us the high points over the last decade of, like, sort of the milestones. And, Thomas, the compliment to you, you've always been very tech forward and really leaned into the tools and how you think about it. So just maybe give us a sense of the evolution, including Gal Meets Glam when you did a licensing deal. Give us a quick sense of all that.
00:05:05 · Thomas Berolzheimer
[00:05:05] S3: Yeah. I said... So we launched our own brand, Gal Meets Glam Collection, in 2018, and I would say that's actually a really good reference point because everything before then, you had affiliate working a lot, and then you would... We were starting to work a lot with sponsored posts, and then we were like, we wanna own something. We wanna create a product of our own. And so then Julia worked with designers, and we did a licensing deal and had a amazing, huge success of a launch of Gal Meets Glam collection. And that ended up being all consuming for us and not like... We were selling so much product, but because it was a licensing deal, not seeing so much of the money being returned back to us. And so it became really hard for us to to grow and then continue and invest in that business. And I would say, like, that was really when people were saying, okay. This is the influencer brand era, and, like, everyone was starting a brand. And I feel like we've kind of... We went through a phase of that, and we've sort of I feel like it's fizzled out. You've... Now I would almost say that there's bigger brands being built that aren't necessarily, like, influencer brands or celebrity brands, but influencer brands don't see them as big of a thing. It's more like how do you get influencers behind other brands, which is why I like ShopMy coming in. You know, affiliate's been around for a really long time, but I feel like ShopMy has done it differently, which we can go go into more.
00:06:32 · Alexa von Tobel
[00:06:32] S2: Julia, I was gonna throw to you, which is the creator economy has grown into a, you know, $500,000,000,000 global industry. I mean, it's wild. Curation being, you know, you mentioned ShopMy, Thomas being... And obviously, we're investors and on the board of ShopMy. Curation being one of the most powerful things. Julia, you love to curate. Can we just talk a little bit about for, like, your... How you start every morning and and what you do every single morning? You can can can serve all of us with great product and carried it so well?
00:07:06 · Julia Berolzheimer, Alexa von Tobel
[00:07:06] S0: Every morning. And this is just out of habit, something I've been doing for so long. And just as somebody who... I love being a consumer. I love discovering a new brand. I love introducing new brands to our audience. I am constantly shopping and buying. I mean, I would I would say, you know, I I think most people think that influencers or creators just get free product all the time, and I'm sure there's lots that do. But I turn down 99% of the product that comes my way because I want to buy it, test it, and try it on my own. And in the morning, I check all of all of my favorite retailers. I check the new arrivals. I get early access to some brands and retailers. And I'm really going through with my lens and my eye and deciphering what I think... What I would wear, what I wanna share, what I think has sort of, like, the JB feel that we will then integrate into blog posts, our shops, social content, and then narrow down what I'm gonna buy and shoot. So, I mean, every day, I'm sort of calling from many different places on the Internet and figuring out what I would recommend to buy so people don't have to do that. [00:08:19] S2: Julia, what sites are you hitting? Polish maximalism, which I know we've discussed is really... You own the category of polished maximalism, which I love, and I love [00:08:31] S0: Thank you. [00:08:33] S2: What's your process?
00:08:33 · Alexa von Tobel, Julia Berolzheimer
[00:08:33] S2: What's your process? [00:08:34] S0: I mean, I know most retailers have new arrivals first thing in the morning. So I go through, and I sort of scroll until I... It's not some, you know, technical AI search way, but I think just having that human interaction of, like, I know what the last product from yesterday was. You know, it's two and a half pages in, and so I stop after that. It takes me a couple minutes. And I do that on, you know, ShopMy, Net A Porter, Nordstrom, Tuckernuck. And then I go in and check to see, you know, what of my favorite brands have new arrivals. I'll... You know, just... I'm constantly saving things on Instagram to go and discover. So, I mean, the search is always happening. [00:09:24] S2: One of my favorite things is that you guys care so much about quality and not having somebody... Like, Julia, you literally approve every single thing that you curate. Yes. Talk more about your view on quality.