The Unconventionals

Latest Episodes:

The Shinola Story: Making a Modern Brand in Detroit Jul 20, 2016

Show notes

If you want to understand the future of luxury brands, you should take a close look at Shinola. This five year-old company chose Detroit — the original maker city — as the setting for a mission that is ambitious and unconventional: making watches and other highly-crafted products, creating jobs, and building a valuable design brand in the process. Shinola understands that buying — particularly when we're considering a high-end product — has changed. We want great products, but we also want a deeper connection, which means a story we believe in, a mission we can support, and transparency in how a company does its work.

In this episode, The Unconventionals travels to Detroit's historic Argonaut building to talk with Bridget Russo, Shinola's Chief Marketing Officer. They talk about revival: of a city, of manufacturing, and of categories like watches and vinyl that were written off as dead. They discuss how Shinola balances attention to craft with a need to scale, and how it stays focused on great products while remaining faithful to a broader mission.

GE and the Art of Brand Reinvention Jun 22, 2016

Show notes

GE is Thomas Edison’s company, with a heritage of industrial innovation that goes back more than 100 years. But you’d be excused for missing this during the heyday of GE Capital, when financial services delivered 50% of corporate profit.

GE is shedding its financial services division. And it’s no longer in the refrigerator and microwave oven business. But the GE story is more about reinvention than retreat. It is looking to its mission and history as guides for how to reimagine itself. GE is deliberately applying its DNA around invention not just to its products but in how it tells its story to the world.

In the first episode of our fifth season, host Mike O’Toole sits down with Linda Boff, GE’s Chief Marketing Officer, about the recent changes GE has undergone. They discuss GE’s move to the forefront of the digital industrial market—the internet of “really big things.” And they talk marketing and brand—there is perhaps not a more innovative B2B marketer on the planet, and we can learn a lot about where GE is placing its bets in social platforms, content marketing, not to mention its brand strategy.

Rethink Robotics: The New Face of Industrial Robots Jan 26, 2016

Show notes

Even though they’ve become a necessary part of society’s progress and have made life much easier, robots are a lot of work. They require teams of programmers in order to perform the most basic tasks, and every worker on the line needs to learn the safe way to interact with them. Yet, they were all we had.

Rethink Robotics set out to find a better way to integrate these disruptive machines into manufacturing. The solution was Baxter — a friendly robot that works alongside people rather than replacing them. It doesn’t require a bunch of programmers to get started. You simply grab the arm, walk it through the desired action, and let it get to work. Once you show it how to do something, it can do it over and over again. And, by design, Baxter is completely safe to be around.

In this episode, we chat with Jim Lawton, Chief Product and Marketing Officer at Rethink Robotics. Hear how these collaborative robots are so comfortable to work with that co-workers dress them up and take photos with them, and how the company is working towards a future where robots are accessible to everyone — from factories to classrooms and even your living room.

Everlane: The Online Clothing Retailer With Nothing To Hide Dec 20, 2015

Show notes

Think about your favorite piece of clothing. You probably know what you paid for it, but do you know how much it cost to produce it? The tag may tell you what country it was made in, but do you know exactly where? If you shopped with online clothing retailer Everlane, you’d know these details.

Typically, the fashion industry keeps the difference between production costs and retail price under wraps. But Everlane is driven by the mission of “radical transparency,” and will openly tell you anything about pricing, and supply chains, factories, and employee policies, too. In fact, the only thing they keep secret is revenue, but that’s just for competitive purposes.

In this episode, we visit Founder Michael Preysman at Everlane’s San Francisco headquarters. He talks about how higher price doesn’t always mean higher quality — and how the domino effect of being transparent is helping Everlane do the right thing and build a coveted clothing brand.

You can also subscribe to The Unconventionals on iTunes and Stitcher. And be sure to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter as well.

Bridj: Driving a Better Commute with Pop-up Mass Transit Oct 19, 2015

Show notes

The morning commute on public transportation is rarely easy. You hope for a reliable, fast and comfortable ride but probably end up with a not-so-pleasant start to your day instead. That would all change if you used Bridj — a startup determined to give people a better way to get around.

Bridj uses billions of data points and algorithms to understand how cities move and create pop-up mass transit. Users pinpoint their current location and their end destination in the Bridj app. Bridj gives them a common pick up location, where they’ll commute to a common drop off point with a small group in a 14-person van. The pick up and drop off points are both a short walking distance for everyone. It’s not door-to-door service, but riders are guaranteed a seat and free WiFi — and it’s cheaper than taxis and faster than buses and subways.

In this episode, host Mike O’Toole is joined by Bridj Founder and CEO, Matt George. They chat about how Bridj is disrupting the city by making more jobs, health care, and communities accessible — and how the company hopes to further this disruption in the future.

From Faster Commutes To Better Communities, We’re All Working For Waze Sep 16, 2015

Show notes

Waze is the world’s largest community-based traffic and navigation app, and its 50 million users are dedicated to outsmarting traffic together. The maps are crowdsourced from roads users have driven on — so they’re always up-to-date. And to take it a step further, drivers can share real-time information about construction, congestion, and speed traps, which alerts other drivers and helps them find a faster route.

In this episode, we talk with Julie Mossler, Head of Global Communications and Policy at Waze. She discusses how Waze depends on large, active communities to help drivers avoid traffic headaches — and how the company got started before those communities were existed. We also check in with David Rogers from the Columbia Business School for a deeper look into why Waze has succeeded with crowdsourcing while so many others have failed.

What’s Old is New: What We Can Learn From Vinyl’s Resurgence Aug 06, 2015

Show notes

Music is generally an accompaniment to life — unless you’re listening on vinyl. Records make the music an event. You engage with the music and appreciate it for the art that is it because it isn’t portable, sharable, or ephemeral. In today’s world, that’s as unconventional as it gets.

Open Airplane: Putting Private Aviation Back in the Air Jun 05, 2015

Show notes

Imagine how frustrated you’d be if you had to take a driving test every time you rented a car. Well that’s what private pilots deal with when they rent a plane outside of their home base or flight school. It takes months of training and thousands of dollars to get a pilot’s license, but simply having one doesn’t mean anyone will honor it. So pilots pony up more money to demonstrate their skills just to get the right to rent, or simply don’t fly.

In this episode, host Mike O’Toole chats with Rod Rakic, Co-founder of Open Airplane – a company getting more planes in the air by raising standards for pilots and lowering the barriers for everyone else. The two discuss how Open Airplane managed to woo the insurance industry, even after Lloyd’s of London called them crazy — and how society as a whole, not just aviation, is benefiting from their service.

Rumi Spice: Soldiers Turned Entrepreneurs Fight Opium With Saffron May 07, 2015

Show notes

When thinking of great places for a startup, Afghanistan probably wouldn’t jump to the top of your list. But a few Army vets sensed an opportunity while serving there, and Rumi Spice — a company looking to grow the American saffron market— was born. More valuable by weight than gold, a saffron crop meant Afghan farmers could septuple their annual income with a single sale. But first they’d have to stop growing poppies. Which is difficult for a variety of reasons. Including the Taliban.

In this episode, host Mike O’Toole is joined by Kimberly Jung, Co-founder of Rumi Spice. They chat about the many hurdles the company has to get over, both in the U.S. and Afghanistan, and what Rumi Spice is doing to build its wasta — the Afghani version of clout.

You can also subscribe to The Unconventionals on iTunes and Stitcher. And be sure to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter as well.

Small Is Beautiful: Why Heady Topper Probably Won’t Be Coming To A Store Near You Jan 08, 2015

Show notes

If you produced what many view as the best beer in the world, with a 100% rating by Beer Advocate, you’d probably expect to be living a life of fame. But that’s not the case for John and Jen Kimmich —founders of The Alchemist Brewery and the folks behind the world renowned Heady Topper. With the crazy demand for the highly rated double IPA, it’d be easy for the Kimmich’s to find a few investors and triple the size of their 9,000-barrel, Waterbury, VT facility. But instead, they chose the unconventional route — staying small. They’d rather be in control of every decision and not have to answer to a board of directors, even if that means not living large.

In this episode, host Mike O’Toole visits the Kimmich’s at The Alchemist. They discuss why they “don’t want to be gigantic for the sake of being gigantic” and why getting big is not the only way to make an impact. For the Alchemist, success is about making great beer, contributing to a growing craft beer movement, and building a company to last in their Vermont community.

You can also subscribe to The Unconventionals on iTunes and Stitcher. And be sure to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter as well.