How can a startup with a small, lean team institute a 4-day workweek? Especially one that has customer service at its core? Matt Hornbuckle, co-founder of Stantt, talks about how Stantt implemented a 4-day work week and what needed to change at his company to make it successful.

Topics:

• How Stantt started the 4-day workweek as a trial
• Why getting the team involved from the beginning was crucial
• How Stantt set expectations with the team
• What else need to change to make the 4-day workweek a success
• How the team manages customer service on Fridays
• When and why the company goes back to a 5-day workweek temporarily
• How Stantt is measuring success of the program
• Why Matt wishes they had done this sooner

Music by Eino Toivanen, kongano.com

Learn more at Retail X Series and follow @retailxseries on Twitter and Instagram.
To submit a pitch or to find out more about Sapna Shah, check out Red Giraffe Advisors.

Everyone knows that markteplaces are hard to build. And apparel marketplaces are even harder. This episode features Trisha Bantigue, CEO of formalwear marketplace Queenly, who talks about how she built a fashion marketplace using tech innovation to create a better, stickier customer experience, in an apparel sector that has historically had low trust, low frequency and high return rates.

Topics:

• How Trisha’s background made her uniquely qualified to start Queenly
• Why starting with power users was important and why she chose to start with a P2P marketplace
• Why and how adding brands to the marketplace made sense for Queenly
• The various technologies that Queenly has built and incorporated into the app
• Why Trisha believes the tech Queenly built works well for them
• How Queenly started selling their virtual try-on as an API to other brands
• Why your “why” is so important in the startup journey

Music by Eino Toivanen, kongano.com

Learn more at Retail X Series and follow @retailxseries on Twitter and Instagram.
To submit a pitch or to find out more about Sapna Shah, check out Red Giraffe Advisors.

How do you craft a customer journey for brick and mortar retail? How do you get to know your customer deeply? How do you build a company with the customer at the center? This episode features Louisa Schneider, CEO and Founder of Rowan, who will talk about how Rowan built a focus on the customer, from the earliest days through their retail expansion to over 40 locations.

Topics:

• How Louisa thinks about fundraising for a brick and mortar business
• How the Rowan model evolved based on the need for better branding and customer focus
• How product and service problem areas became opportunities to improve the customer experience
• Why Rowan hired a firm to do customer research and the surprises they found
• What the customer journey looks like
• How the brand reflects the customer experience and how that consistency is maintained across 40+ stores
• Which metrics Rowan uses to track their customer cohorts
• Louisa’s advice to be present during the key foundational activities in your startup

Music by Eino Toivanen, kongano.com

Learn more at Retail X Series and follow @retailxseries on Twitter and Instagram.
To submit a pitch or to find out more about Sapna Shah, check out Red Giraffe Advisors.