Brewing the Perfect Scent with Daniel Patrick Giles

Join Lara on Coffee N° 5 as she sits down and has coffee with Daniel Patrick Giles, the visionary CEO of Perfumehead. Discover how the pandemic influenced his scent journey, the science behind fragrance creation, and the importance of understanding your target audience. Learn about the link between memories, emotions, visuals, and branding, and debunk common myths in the fragrance industry. Tune in to hear a fascinating conversation about the power of scent and the passion behind Perfumehead's unique fragrances.

We'll talk about:

• How blankness can inspire.
• The role of COVID-19 in Daniel’s scent journey.
• Why scent is an identifier. 
• How to create fragrances that’s attractive to your target audience.
• The link and difference between memories, emotions, visuals, branding and you. 
• Vetting fragrance houses.
• How the final scent formula is designed. 
• Debunking myths that industry novices have. 

For more information, visit Daniel Patrick Giles' Linkedin.

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Also, follow our host Lara Schmoisman on social media:

Instagram: @laraschmoisman

Facebook: @LaraSchmoisman

Transcript

00:02
Lara
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to coffee number five. My coffee is warm, and I'm ready to have a very unique conversation today because I met Daniel a little while ago, and he was telling me about his perfumes, and I was telling him, I wish I can try them because I suffer from migraines and I cannot put anything on my body. And I even had migraines going from smelling someone next to me, and it's bad. And Daniel was telling me something that I didn't know, that my perfumes won't give you migraines. And I say, why is that? But I will introduce you first to Daniel Patrick Giles. And welcome to coffee number five. Thank you so much for being here. 

00:53
Daniel
My coffee is cold, but it's. I've got my coffee ready. 

00:57
Lara
Coffee's coffee. 

00:59
Daniel
Coffee's coffee. Right? So I first have to say welcome to the osmocosm, where every scent has a story and every story has a scent. 

01:09
Lara
Oh, I like that. I like that. So we have a lot to talk about. I don't think we ever had in 170 episodes anyone talking about perfume. And perfume is such a rising industry right now. I see this coming up, and coming up, are we learning from the French? Are we trying to cover something? Why? 

01:32
Daniel
I think so much changed during and after Covid. And I really saw a new customer emerging from COVID who really wanted to center and surround themselves in scent, made them feel good. You know, a lot of the history with fragrance is about attracting someone else. And I think there's a whole generation of people who are wearing scent for themselves, how it makes them feel a form of self expression. That's how I've always viewed scent. But Covid, because were so isolated during COVID I think people brought scent into their home. They use scent as a way of making themselves feel good. My Covid experience just quickly was I got Covid pre vaccination. I almost died of COVID I lost my sense of smell during COVID So I really have a great appreciation for scent and my Covid experience, really. 

02:40
Daniel
You know, I was building perfume head a couple of years before that, but it really changed my perception on scent. And so I think, how come? Because I. When you lose it, if you've ever lost your sight or smell or hearing, there is a blankness that happens that I had never experienced before. So when you went outside and you smell nothing. We are having a coffee. Could never smell a coffee for three months. So it just sort of. It takes something really beautiful away from your life that I think we underappreciate I think we are so inundated with scents in our life. You go into a grocery store, everything is scented, laundry detergent, getting to a. 

03:34
Lara
Coffee shop, smell the coffee. 

03:37
Daniel
Correct. Can you imagine not being able to experience that? 

03:40
Lara
No, of course. 

03:41
Daniel
So for me, it was, I just developed a much greater appreciation for scent. And I think there's a real change in how people view scent, how they use scent. I see it every day. There's a generation of young boys, there was an article in the New York Times a couple weeks ago, about 1516 year old boys buying $400 fragrances. 

04:06
Lara
Wow. 

04:07
Daniel
Yeah. So it's become, I think, an identifier for people as well. And one of the things that I've really noticed being in the stores is people always try one of perfume head scent on, like, cosmic cowboy, and then they'll say, what else could I put over top of it to make it my own? So there's a real sense of individuality with sent to. 

04:31
Lara
Well, I remember before migrants and that my mom was always into perfume, my dad, my brother, everyone used perfume, and each one used their own that I keep using over years and years. And I remember my grandmother going with a little put it also in strategic places. And so we have a lot of more knowledge now where to put the perfume to last. Yes, I'm going to ask you that question in a minute, but I want to understand the science of how create this unique sense. Are you creating them based on what you like? Did you do a market research? How did you come up with those qualities and how many skills you have that it will really resonate with your target audience? 

05:22
Daniel
Yeah, great question. So I'm not from the fragrance industry. I've had a career in fashion and beauty, but my passion has always been sent from a very young age. And when I decided to leave my corporate life and start this, I knew that I wanted to start a fragrance brand. I've been working on the brand almost four years before I even launched. There are nine fragrances. And when I looked at the industry sort of from the outside in, I thought it was really flat and kind of boring. It was either celebrity driven or it was driven by sort of like girl on horse trying to escape a guy, you know, these sort of silly scenarios. And so I have a collection of fragrances, and I was finding it difficult to find something I loved. I found fragrances were very polarizing. 

06:22
Daniel
Either it was really weird or just smelled like Santel, 33, baccarat Rouge, Mojave. There was a lack of originality in fragrances. For me, I am a product person first and foremost. Product is everything to me. I think if you, as a founder of a brand or building a brand, if you don't have great product, you're really starting at a disadvantage. And I believe that great product sustains a brand through anything and everything. And so I started my journey, really, based on where I live and what I love. So I didn't do customer research. It was really what I felt I couldn't find. I live in Los Angeles. You live in Los Angeles. We're Angelenos. I love living here. I think it's. I've lived here for over twelve years. It's a city that surprises me and delights me and disappoints me every day. 

07:24
Lara
Absolutely. 

07:26
Daniel
Yeah. 

07:26
Lara
It's a love hate of living in love hate. 

07:29
Daniel
Correct. 

07:30
Lara
Yes. 

07:30
Daniel
And we hate traffic. 

07:32
Lara
We love to have the beach, the mountains, to have everything. 

07:36
Daniel
Totally. So I started thinking about, you know, what my story was going to be, what the. Because I believe storytelling is the next most important thing. And I use Los Angeles as my muse and sort of the favorite, my favorite places in Los Angeles. And Los Angeles is a very fragrant town. We may not like some of the smells, but it's, it, you know, there's beautiful scents here, some really not so beautiful, but it also has, there's so much history here. There's so much sort of iconic things here that I really drew inspiration from. And so I really built the brand based on what I call a love letter to Los Angeles. Places like the Chateau Marmont. I live across the street from the chateau. I used to stay there before I lived here. Here. 

08:34
Lara
I love the chateau Marmont. 

08:35
Daniel
Fantastic. It's got so much history. 

08:38
Lara
I was about to say that it's just the stories that walls can tell. 

08:43
Daniel
Okay, so when you say that is really. Room number is based on the stories that are embedded in the walls of the chateau. And I worked with four french master perfumers, and I, I created. It's almost like I see scent very cinematically. And so as I was developing the brand, I visualized. And I think it has a little bit to do with my background as a fashion director, and a creative director is I put these storyboards and poems and music and colors and tear sheets of what I wanted to achieve with each scent of. And the perfumers and I worked on that, and they had never had, you know, when you work with a perfumer who have, you know, these people have decades of experience and they're trained and, you know, how do you put top heart and base notes together? 

09:45
Daniel
They're most likely given a written brief that is very basic. And it probably says, I want it to smell like this, and these notes. And I think what happened with my experiences that I really put that into how I presented what I wanted to be achieved with each fragrance. 

10:09
Lara
You want more like a sensory memory. 

10:11
Daniel
Correct, correct. And it was very sensorial for them. So there's a wonderful spread in british vogue of Margot Robbie at Flamingo Estate. She's in the pool. Then there's another shot of her with a white shirt on, sitting on a leather couch in Flamingo estate. And that was one of my tears. And constance, who's one of our perfumers, she looked at the picture and she was like, oh, the green could be vetiver. The leather couch, let's put leather in it. The crispness of the white shirt. Let's make this a citrusy, very fresh scent. And we built it through imagery, through stories, through music, and created these nine beautiful selves. 

10:57
Lara
Basically, what you're creating with this line are emotions. 

11:00
Daniel
Correct, correct. Very much so. It's not memories. So, you know, memories is a huge part of the old fact of response, and I totally get all that. I have always seen scent through emotion and through, it's very visual to me. It's not about, oh, my mom wore this, or my dad wore this, or, you know, this. 

11:24
Lara
I love that, because now I feel like there are so many brands created on memories. 

11:29
Daniel
Correct, correct. 

11:31
Lara
Which is great, but memories are in the past. 

11:35
Daniel
Right. And so I often say I like to center and surround myself in scent, which means you have to be very present, and it's of the moment. I am a big believer in not living in the past. I like living in the moment, and I think that's what I try to infuse into creating these fragrances. 

11:57
Lara
Let me ask you a question, because you have this very unique combination that I have. It's similar. I used to teach digital media for the fashion industry. So in order to teach something, you need to understand the people who are learning or what they're learning. But I always believe that there is such a connection between fashion and beauty wellness that is not being taken advantage to the full potential. Because I always had ambition to when every time I ask my clients, what about the new beauty brand that I'm speaking with, it's like, what do they wear? I want to know what brands my client wear. It tells you so much, how they want their clothes tailored, how they want their stitching. There's so much in fashion that we can learn about our Persona. 

12:53
Daniel
I couldn't agree more. And when I started perfume head, my main objective was the craftsmanship of France with the coolness of Los Angeles. And I grew up in. I'm from Canada originally, I worked for a luxury retailer named Holt Renfrew. I was there for 15 years, and it was an incredible experience for me because I was exposed to every fashion designer in the world, every major fashion house. So we would meet with these maisons and houses, and you would be exposed to all that craftsmanship. You would be exposed to the time it took to make something and the hands, you know, the craftsmanship of it all. And I just love that. And I wanted to infuse that into perfume head because for me, craftsmanship, it's such a dying art, but it's something that is so special and we can't lose. 

13:57
Daniel
And I would also say, I think. 

13:59
Lara
It'S dying because we cannot afford it, not because it's special, because it makes it very special. I have a few pieces from my grandmother, even a handkerchief, and look at it. And it's art. 

14:11
Daniel
Yes, yes. And the other thing I would say is, you talked about fashion and beauty. For me, everything is about beauty. I see beauty in everything from nature to clothes to. For me, beauty means so much more than putting a product on your face or it's just, I wanted to create a beautiful brand that people would love, they would cherish, they would feel something when they wore it. And I think beauty is at the root of that. And I think beauty sometimes is misconstrued with not about how it makes you feel more about a product. 

14:53
Lara
And I think nowadays is considered more an industry. But I agree that the beauty is more about the combination of everything we put together or it works or it doesn't work. And, you know, sometimes I wonder, like, there are some people that wear that outfit, and it will never work on me. So beauty depends of each person. 

15:15
Daniel
Very individual. 

15:16
Lara
It's very individual. The same as a fragrance. 

15:19
Daniel
Yeah. And I think that's why, going back to your original question, I think people are rediscovering or discovering the beauty of fragrance because there was a period where fragrance was very, you know, people did not appreciate it. You got into an elevator, and somebody would sort of overwhelm you with scent. And what I love is when someone says to me, oh, my God, I just, you know, I put on your fragrance, and I feel so good. People compliment me. It's become part of who I am. 

15:54
Lara
Oh, I love that. And you reminded me when you said overwhelming, I had this math teacher in high school. She was wearing poisson. That was her. 

16:04
Daniel
Oh, Dior Poisson, yes. 

16:06
Lara
Oh, my God. Every time that she will come in the hallway, everyone will hide, because we know that the teacher was coming. 

16:13
Daniel
Right. 

16:14
Lara
Smelled her a mile away. 

16:17
Daniel
Right, right. Yeah. We don't like that. We don't. And that's to me, believe me, I'm. 

16:24
Lara
Sure it traumatized more than one in my class. 

16:27
Daniel
Correct. And that's where the memory of fragrance really sticks to me, that a memory of a bad fragrance is something that really sticks. I mean, my nose has become so sensitive to smell now. You know, you can really believe me. 

16:42
Lara
I don't think I remember the name of any of my classmates in that class, but I remember the same perfume. When I started the podcast, I was talking about this very unique quality that you were talking about, the ingredients and why a lot of people are not wearing perfume because of allergies, migraines, you name it. Why is this produced? Why people are having this reaction? Superfood. 

17:10
Daniel
Yeah. So the fragrance industry, there's sort of two worlds. There's the naturals, the extracts, and then there's synthetics. And what happens a lot of the time is that most fragrances are 95% to 100% synthetic. And if you don't have. If you don't know where those ingredients or where this, where it comes from, you don't really know what's in there. So of course you're going to get migraines. Of course you're going to have allergies from it. 90% to 95% of our fragrances are natural. And one of, again, going back to product, I wanted to have access to the most beautiful natural ingredients in the world. Now, there are some ingredients that have to be synthetic now. Musk, Amber, they just don't exist anymore. And so you saw a big shift from natural into more synthetics. 

18:13
Daniel
And that, you know, that can be good and it can be bad. The biggest existential threat to the fragrance industry is climate change. Because if you are using naturals that are grown, you know, flowers that are grown in France or India or South America, and they're having droughts or they're having, you know, really extreme warm weather, that has a huge impact on your ingredients. As a result, a lot of brands have gone to more synthetic fragrances. Now, there are good synthetics and there are bad synthetics. I think that it's also a cheaper way, in some cases, of putting a fragrance together. 

19:00
Lara
Does it matter what you manufacture perfume. 

19:06
Daniel
I think it matters. So it's a really good question. Our ingredients come from all over the world. The oils are put together in France, and then we pour in Los Angeles. So I like to say crafted in California, made in France. It's about the oil. It's about where the ingredients are coming from. Because in the fragrance, when you have a fragrance brand, you have to work with one of five to six fragrance houses. You just can't sort of go to, you know, you just can't go get ingredients willally nilly. You have to, you have to work with a fragrance house. So you have to vet the fragrance house. Where do they source their material? How do they source, who do they work with? And then they work with the master perfumers and then bring the final oil to you that is then macerated. 

20:02
Daniel
We macerate for about four to six weeks, and then that creates the final formula. 

20:07
Lara
How many alterations you had of each? 

20:11
Daniel
It's a great question. 

20:14
Lara
I know it's not easy. And how did you say, this is it? And did you try to do all of them together? I know there are too many questions. 

20:21
Daniel
I have great questions. So we started with seven, and in my mind there were nine. I come from a family of seven kids with two parents. So I wanted, so that's my little o to my family is the nine. So I started with seven. 

20:38
Lara
You're busy, mom. I can. 

20:40
Daniel
My God bless her. She was incredible. And we started with seven. So I know this is hard to believe, but most of them had only two revisions, really. We worked a lot prepping, and so the final was not a surprise. We communicated a lot, we talked a lot, we looked at things a lot. But when it came down to the actual experience of smelling them, there was this incredible synergy. I can't even describe it. 

21:20
Lara
You feel it in your skin. You got the chills that this is it. 

21:24
Daniel
I really believe that. And I think there's a lot of love in our fragrances because I became very close with the perfumers. They're great friends of mine now. And so it was a beautiful experience in putting the fragrances together. But, you know, I'm also a big believer that if you don't get it right, sort of one, two revisions, I think you lose something. I think when you started wrong. 

21:56
Lara
To me, you scratch that, you start overd. And one, let me ask you a question, because I been talking with a lot of founders that they told me I made a mistake of talking too many mothers or too many friends, and everyone has an opinion and I always tell them, this is your brand and it's not your mother's. This is your brand, it's your beliefs. So if you put the ideas it needs to come back to your idea, and if it's not right for you, nothing else matters. You need to be able to stand by your brand. 

22:31
Daniel
Correct? And if you. So I believe everything. I believe very much in my intuition. I also believe that when you get too many people commenting on things, you're kind of breaking down the molecular structure of an idea. 

22:48
Lara
I love it. I cannot use that. That's really good. 

22:52
Daniel
You're sort of playing with the universe in a way that you shouldn't. And it's important to have people's viewpoint, but you have to be the one to believe in it. I know what I like. I know what I was trying to achieve, and I think it's through my years of experience. I think if I was younger, I would have been doubting myself. I think sort of, you know, the universe brought everything together at that time, and I was very confident in what I was looking for. And while opinions mattered, I felt my opinion was the most because I had to stand behind it. I'm the one that has to go out and sell it. What was important to me was when we launched at Violet Gray, that the customer, that was my sort of litmus test. What would the consumer like? 

23:53
Daniel
People, I don't know. People I'm meeting for the first time. And that's when I really saw the momentum, the excitement. I haven't smelled like something like this before. That's important to me. I don't, you know, I don't want to be arrogant, but going in and building, when you're building your own brand, you have to sort of be confident enough to know what you want to achieve. 

24:18
Lara
Yes. You get. I always say it's like raising a child. I feel like one of the hardest thing of being pregnant or having a baby was everyone's giving you advice. 

24:28
Daniel
Right. 

24:29
Lara
It's so hard, and it's like at some point, say, enough. I follow my instinct, and if I want, I have questions, I go to the professional, ask questions. 

24:37
Daniel
Right? Yeah. 

24:39
Lara
So the beauty industry was shaken up this year a little bit because of Mokra. A lot of smaller brands are concerned with how mocha affects me. And I'm asking this question because, honestly, I don't know how Mochra affects the fragrance industry. 

24:56
Daniel
I think it will affect it a little bit. I haven't seen or read anything that shows that it's going to, you know, here's the thing. I went into this. When you start a new brand, here's what I would say. It's a very good question. I looked at everything very deliberately. So when you're building a brand from scratch and you have no history, you can decide, is this going to be a clean. Are these going to be clean fragrances? 

25:31
Lara
That was my next question, that I want to attach it, because in the beauty industry, you have crater standards, Sephora clean standards. In the fragrance, you have the same standards. 

25:40
Daniel
Yes, you do. And then you have Ifrah. So you also have to vet your fragrance house. What are their standards? Fragrance is a very mysterious industry. If you fall into sort of that trap, you have to work with really high quality companies, quality people. There's a lot of innovation happening in fragrance right now. A lot of how the notes and the fragrances are extracted. There's lots of innovation. There's a lot of green science happening in fragrance right now. So I think an industry that was sort of falling behind has really caught up. And this all comes through the fragrance houses. But I built the brand knowing that I wanted it to be clean. I wanted it to use technology and science in how we put our ingredients together. So I made sure that were IFRS certified. Credo, Sephora, you can do that going in. 

26:41
Daniel
I think the challenge with a lot of brands that have been in the industry for, you know, five to ten years is they have to go back and redo things. 

26:50
Lara
Yes. 

26:50
Daniel
That, to me, is where the impact is. 

26:52
Lara
So what you're saying, basically, is trust your instinct. Make sure who you work with, that. 

26:58
Daniel
They are the real, very important. 

27:00
Lara
And, and just follow your gut. 

27:04
Daniel
Follow your gut and do your homework. Yes, do your homework. I mean, I spent four years. Now, that's not four years consistently because I had a full time job, but it was four years of, I wanted the best bottle. I wanted the same bottle manufacturer that Chanel uses. And while I've been in the industry, I'm a nobody to them. So I had to really do my research, really prove myself to these companies, because I wanted to work with the best. If my competition is Frederick Mall, Byredo, Killian Creed, then I have to create a product that can sit next to that can smell as beautiful or more beautiful than that. I'm a small fish in a big pond. I have to actually work harder. So I really did my homework. 

27:53
Daniel
And there is a bit of a myth, I think, in the beauty industry, and I'm sure you've seen this, where people think that because, you know, a celebrity has done a brand that it's can happen overnight. You can be uber successful, huge amount of work, heavy lifting, magic doesn't exist. It sure doesn't. 

28:13
Lara
And many times if something happens, it would be very short lived. 

28:18
Daniel
Correct. 

28:19
Lara
I always say you either creating a brand that is the infinite game, it's a legacy, or you have a collection of products that you're selling. 

28:30
Daniel
Correct. So, Mike, I talk. It's so funny you're saying this. I am building a forever brand. I am building a hundred year brand. And there is a big. And if you don't understand what kind of brand you're building, you're in for some big disappointments. So there is nothing wrong with building a brand that you can build really quickly, sell makes, but it will not be around in ten to 20 years. 

28:55
Lara
Yeah, absolutely. So when you imagine this brand ambition, this brand, immediately. So you thought, I want my brand to be in this store? In this store, or is something that it came later? 

29:09
Daniel
Not at all. It was all. It was all part of the homework I did. And I, you know, you've worked with a lot of brands. I've worked with a lot of brands. A lot of brands jump into it without doing their homework. And then they spend a lot of money with people with packaging, and then they hit a wall, and then they have to redo because they're learning some very hard lessons. I think I've been extremely fortunate in my career to have had incredible mentors, to be working with incredible companies. So I've had a firsthand view of the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I knew that I wanted to be in Bergdorf's. I knew that the first store I wanted to launch in was Violet Gray because it was in Los Angeles. It's down the street from where I live. 

29:58
Daniel
I could go. 

29:59
Lara
And how did you go about it? You just went to Violet Gray to say, hey, I want this. I want you to have it in my. No. 

30:05
Daniel
I tracked down, I had known Sarah Brown from being in the industry. I was a huge fan of what Cassandra Gray had done with violet Gray. I did hunt them down. I sent them a presentation, and I told them that I wanted to launch this brand with them. I told them that they were. 

30:26
Lara
I love that. He said, I hunt them down because that's a work of a founder. That's what the founder needs to do. You need to do what you need to do to get where you need to be. 

30:36
Daniel
Listen, a lot of doors get slammed in your face. You have to, you know, you really toughen up. But you can't give up. You have to. If you know, I'm doing this. I would say this is, I've had about four chapters in my career. This is another chapter. But you have to really go into this with your sort of fighting gloves on. Determine passion. You've got to have passion doing this. You don't want to take no for answer. And you get a lot of no's, but you have to be perseverant on doing don't burn bridges, 100% don't burn bridges, never. 

31:15
Lara
But at the beginning, you're nobody. So you need a lot of proof of concept too. 

31:20
Daniel
So just to that point, I had a history of fashion. I worked for benefit cosmetics, Pericone MD, two faced. So I went into this like, I have experience. Nobody knew who I was in fragrance, nobody cared. I had to prove myself. And you prove yourself through hard work, through passion, through conveying what you want to achieve with people. And people are very generous, but people don't want their time wasted either. 

31:55
Lara
But also people wanted to see that you show up. It's been part of an industry, it's been part of you who. And in Spanish, we have my audience always hear that. I always say, the same thing that I say in Spanish is dime con quien andas italire con que quien. Tell me who you hang out with and I tell you who you are. 

32:15
Daniel
Oh, wow, I love that. 

32:17
Lara
And this goes to me, is something that I use for all my clients, like how you position your brand. You need to composition it between who you want to hang out. Hang out with those founders too. Make friends, because honestly, founders collaborate, so they are not competing. No, don't stop with that. Those are my competition. You can be your competition in their market, but they can be your biggest Ollie's. 

32:39
Daniel
I agree. But you know, they're in the beauty industry. That is, that can be lacking. I think there's a new, I think there's a new group of people who are much more collaborative. I love helping people. I think you love helping people. 

32:55
Lara
Yes, I do. 

32:57
Daniel
You know, if you've been through an experience where someone hasn't helped you or given you a hand, you can become jaded. But I, I always put myself in somebody else's shoes. And I'm thinking, well, what if I was asking that question and I was like, I don't want. You're my competition. I can't talk to you. I think that's very unfair and I think it gives a bad impression of we're all here to help each other. 

33:23
Lara
Exactly. We have one life, and it's all about karma. Yeah, I have those bad experiences all the time. But guess what? Karma is back. And sometimes they come back to you. 

33:38
Daniel
I don't think you can ever be jaded. That's my other thing. Be optimistic, be positive. Be kind to people. Number one, to your point, do not burn bridges. Industries are small. Everybody knows each other and follow your God. 

33:55
Lara
I mean, my instincts never fail me. Even with people that I said no, I cannot just reject them because I had this feeling, and I try and I force it. Always end up wrong. And that's the opportunity. That's when I really burn bridges. When things go bad, if I won't even go there, nothing will happen. 

34:19
Daniel
Yep. You know, the other thing I would just add to that is I think a lot of founders go out looking for money with an idea. And I think a better way to approach it is try to save some money, or you need to be the first investor in your own company. And I see so many people looking for money off an idea, as opposed to sort of putting your money where your mouth is and really. 

34:48
Lara
Absolutely. 

34:49
Daniel
And it'll make you make better decisions, it will help you focus, it will cut out a lot of noise when it's your own money. And then as you sort of have proof of concept, you start getting some momentum, then go out and raise money. But I'm a big believer, try to do it on your own as much as you can. Now, that can be from family or whoever, but when you have a seat at the table and a stake in the game, it makes for a much better product and brand. 

35:22
Lara
Yeah. And the brands that I see, that some brands you're not ever going to born successful unless you are a celebrity and that you put tons of money into it. And again, I don't know how long those brands are going to stay around. Who knows? I wish them well. But for someone who starts from scratch and having a brand that unknown, this is going to be a marathon. So you need to make sure that you create sustainable strategies to keep alive and to create that legacy. But at the same time, that you align yourself with the right people, that you have a team, 100%, even your pr person, people that you feel. I always say you need to have an accountant that you feel like you can share everything with. 

36:08
Daniel
Correct. 

36:09
Lara
You cannot have an accountant that you're afraid to talk to. 

36:12
Daniel
Correct. I've been very fortunate because I've worked at several companies and I've collected people along the way. So we have a very small team, but they all come with. I have a relationship with them. I've known some of them for 20 years. They have great experience. It's practical experience, and it just makes for a better, just a better everything. You know, surrounding yourself with the right people is really important. And people who want to see you win, people who have your back. 

36:53
Lara
Yeah. They're your cheerleaders. They're not there for the money. They are there. And that's something we discussed before about service providers. There are many kind of service providers. Find someone who align with your budget, with your beliefs, but also that they are willing to grow with you. 

37:11
Daniel
Correct. And I think we've both worked with a lot of service providers or seen a lot of service providers who want to help and want to be involved. To me, it's all about execution. So I can't afford to just have someone come on board to tell me what they think I should do. If I'm bringing someone in where I have limited resources, they actually have to be able to do something. Yeah. 

37:35
Lara
And there are too many big ideas out there. If you can. You want to create a photo shoot from helicopter, and you need to make sure you have a budget for that. 

37:45
Daniel
Correct. So that doesn't help me when I'm just trying to put sort of juice in a bottle. Right. It's very important because a lot of people think that they have to go really big. To me, it's kind of like every day is the building. It's not sort of one big thing that's going to change everything. It's what you're doing every day. It's how you're interacting with your customer every day. When I send out a package through our e commerce, I write a personal note to everybody. But it's important to me because I know what I would want to receive if I was on the other end. It's those small things that turn into big moments. It's not big moments. That sort of. 

38:32
Lara
It's all about that experience. I get, for example, I love how Chanel, they used to get the little box, that it makes me feel special, like the little bug. 

38:43
Daniel
And don't we all? I mean, we all want to feel special. We all want to feel good. Life is tough. Life is tough. 

38:50
Lara
Life is tough. And every time that you buy something, I think we give it for granted. And when everything that we buy should be something special is a gift to ourselves. 

39:00
Daniel
Yes, I agree. Love your dog in the background. 

39:05
Lara
Thank you. Quite puffy. It's hard to control. But thank you, everyone, for being here today. Daniel. 

39:13
Daniel
So thank you so much. Really appreciate it. 

39:16
Lara
This was an incredible talk. And, you guys, I will see you next week with more coffee. Number five. Thanks.