Made By Gather’s Shae Hong on innovation, kitchenware and collaborating with Drew Barrymore

Episode transcript, edited for clarity

Bill Thorne: Welcome to Retail Gets Real. where we hear from retail’s most fascinating leaders about the industry that impacts everyone, everywhere. Every day. I’m Bill Thorne from the National Retail Federation, and on today’s episode we’re talking to Shea Hong, founder and CEO of Made By Gather. We’re going to talk to Shae about his entrepreneurial career path, the philosophy behind his portfolio of kitchenware brands, and his newest partnership with Drew Barrymore.

I’m going to hand the microphone over to my colleague, Susan Reda. So, Susan, take it away.

Susan Reda: Welcome to Retail Gets Real.

Shae Hong: Thanks for having me, Susan.

Reda: We’ll start with the easy stuff. How did you get started in this business? I know that you started this company very young, and so, the expression is people start with a silver spoon. You must have had a silver toaster.

Hong: Actually, a silver internet appliance. I started my first consumer tech company in my college apartment. I was a senior in college at University of Washington, and went through the whole kind of startup era in Seattle. This is in the late nineties, so this is the pets dot com era. You know, had an amazing run, like, went from zero to 160 employees in 18 months. Met a lot of incredible people. Learned a ton. And in 2003, after leaving that company, I decided to start Made By Gather, which is a kitchenware company. So that’s how I got started.

Reda: So why kitchenware?

Hong: You know, I, I’ve always loved product. I’ve always loved design. And at that time, that’s when I was 25, was back then, in 2003. But at that time, I looked at the product that was out in the market and it was very boring.

Reda: Womp-womp.

Hong: Yeah. We like to call it a sea of sameness. Everything looks the same. And so, I was just inspired, like, why can’t we do things differently? Why can’t we make stuff that looks amazing that people get excited about, that they want to leave out on their counter because they’re like pieces of art. So, it really all started because of design, and as a 25-year-old kid, I thought I could do it better than all these big companies that were doing it at the time.

Reda: I love that. I love that kind of energy. So, what was your first product?

Hong: My first product was actually a quesadilla maker. We sold millions of quesadilla makers. It was very small but very chic, and it had this really cool chili pepper handle, and people loved it. They couldn’t get enough of it, and from there we just kept going, and designing, and making cool products.

Reda: Did you feel like you were designing for a certain demographic? Your own friends? How did that all come together?

Hong: You know, I don’t think I knew back then. Like, I was just trying ideas. Like doing things, succeeding, and failing, and figuring it out. Now we’re very thoughtful about who we’re designing for and who we’re targeting. But, you know, back then … I was just trying things.

Reda: Absolutely. Scariest part of starting your business.

Hong: You know, I think just getting used to failure, right? And picking yourself back up all the time. Like, it doesn’t get easy even now. Like, even in the last year there’s been times where there’s things that hadn’t gone as planned or had failed and, you know, you got to get back up and get back at it. So, I think, you know, dealing with failure is always the scariest part.

Reda: You have a number of different brands under the umbrella of Made By Gather. We will get to the one that we will feature here at Big Show, but tell me a little bit about Bella and Crux and some of the other brands, and how they are established.

Hong: Yeah, I mean our business Made by Gather really has kind of three pillars, and those three pillars are three different brands.

Beautiful, we’ll be talking about on the Main Stage. Bella was the first brand that we started. And we started Bella in 2011, and if you can kind of think back to 2011, there wasn’t any brands that were speaking to young people. At the time, they were called millennials. They were just kind of getting out of college and starting to buy home products. And so, Bella was all about being the voice of the millennials and we were like the first kitchen brand on Facebook, and, you know, designing really cool stuff. We launched with Target and Walmart and it was really fun, and it’s still a big part of our business and it really focuses on … right now it focuses on kind of design and value. But we have something big coming on Bella this year that’s going to be pretty exciting.

Reda: OK, stay tuned folks.

Hong: Yeah, big, big, big, big reinvention and launch coming, so stay tuned.

Reda: That sounds wonderful.

Hong: And then Crux. Crux was launched in 2016, and Crux was, you know, looking at those millennials who had started to, you know, nest and buy apartments or, you know, settle down, and start to care about what was in their kitchen, and being a little bit more elevated. And so let’s create a brand that connects with them, and really connects with them through culture. So, Crux is really all about embodying culture, and when I say culture, I mean all different types of culture and, just being … .you know, doing things that are unexpected. Collaborations with DJ Marshmello, partnership with the Ghetto Gastro, like, you know, things that you wouldn’t expect from a kitchen company that, you know, that really connect emotionally with that customer.

Reda: OK. I need to stop you. I have to hear about this collaboration with the dj, DJ Marshmello? What is it about?

Hong: He’s a gigantic world-famous DJ. He wears the helmet that … it looks like a marshmallow. And he’s … I don’t know … he’s had like 20 number one songs …

Reda: Oh, OK, Shae’s going to make me hip somehow.

Hong: Go on Spotify, go look up Marshmello. But, you know, he started making YouTube cooking videos, like five years ago, and I just happened to meet him through a friend. And, I was like, ‘Why are you making these cooking videos?’ And they were all kind of based around … as a DJ, he performs all over the world — Singapore, Shanghai, Paris. And so, every city that he went to, he would try to learn how to make a food from that or make a dish from that city. And then he would make a YouTube video on how to make it, and he’d be wearing the helmet. And Marshmello doesn’t talk, so it’s like just all kind of him creating the recipe. So, he was doing that, and they made a lot of videos, they made hundreds of them. And so, when we were looking for a collaboration and it just kind of organically happened. We’re like, ‘Let’s partner and create a Crux Marshmello air fryer.’ So, there you go.

Reda: That’s wonderful. And Ghetto Gastro? A similar type of story?

Hong: Ghetto Gastro is little bit different. Ghetto Gastro is a group of guys based here in New York that really started as a movement around bringing attention and awareness to food insecurity, and to the idea of being a chef, and food and cooking being important in their communities. They’re from the Bronx and they’ve become global now, and they’ve done so much. They were in a Ford commercial. They’ve spoken all over the world, done TED Talks.

But that was really about … in meeting them … there’s three of them: Les, Pierre and John. When I met the three of them, we just really connected on this, like there’s nothing in the kitchen that speaks to them or to me. And we had a lot of things in common around culture, diversity, fashion, and so that, that’s how that kind of just organically happened and, we launched in fall of 2020 with William Sonoma. And it was like, we crashed their website, (it was unbelievable) with this waffle maker, and now, we’re in all Target stores, and it’s been a fun run.

Reda: So, what I’m hearing, and, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but … by understanding different cultures and how different cultures cook, you can adapt appliances that have become so rote and traditional and make them special for all of the unique groups out there.

Hong: Yeah, I think it’s … Look, I think there’s this huge opportunity, which is why at Made By Gather — we’re so excited because the heritage brands are still doing the same thing for the most part that they’ve been doing for 25 years. And the customer has changed, right? So much has changed, whether it’s just the access to fashion and trends. You know, I look at my kids who can find out about things on social media, like, instantly.

Reda: Before you did.

Hong: Yeah, and then I think about when I was a kid and you know, I had to watch Michael Jordan play to see what sneakers he was wearing. But now my son can see what shoes SGA is wearing the day that he’s wearing them. So, there’s this … the speed of being on trend has moved so fast that there’s this opportunity to create brands and products in the kitchen, in the home, which is so unexpected, that actually speak to that idea where the heritage brands just aren’t doing that. They’re still kind of, ‘Hey, the toaster looks like this. Let’s keep selling it. It’s been working for 20 years.’ You know, if it’s not broke, don’t break it.

Reda: Just making the same thing in a different color doesn’t always cut it.

Hong: Doesn’t always work. Yeah.

Reda: So, let’s talk about the Made By Gather business model and your target customer. How do you define that?

Hong: Well, we’re really all about, you know, innovating and creating things for the next generation of home cooks is what we like to say, and that’s millennials and Gen Z. So, we’re really focused on that customer. And …

Reda: And look out, Gen Alpha’s coming. That’s your kids.

Hong: I haven’t started designing for them yet, but …

Reda: No, they don’t cook.

Hong: That’s the funny thing is, they like what we’re doing. So maybe there’s …

Reda: Bring them along.

Hong: But yeah, we’re all about bringing brands and products to that generation, to those generations, and just being, you know, kind of the leaders in this space.

Reda: You talked about a few collaborations. Here at Big Show, you’re going to talk about one of the biggest, and that is with Drew Barrymore on the Beautiful Collection. So, tell me a little bit about what you feel like makes a successful collaboration and then how did this come about with Drew?

Hong: I’ve learned there, there are a lot of different elements. It’s not just one part of it. It really starts with this trust and vibe between Drew and I. We met, we connected, we built trust with each other.

Reda: Did she jump on your couch?

Hong: No, she didn’t. She didn’t. But she came in my showroom and started asking me why all these things looked the way that they did and challenged the norm right out of the gates. She had a lot of ideas and, yeah, she had a really strong point of view, which is I think important.

Another important part of a successful partnership is that both partners have to bring different points of view to be able to create something special. So, it starts with this trust and vibe that she and I have, and then, you know, my job, I’m a creator at heart. I’ve always loved to create products, it’s what gets me most excited, but over 20 years I’ve been lucky to be mentored and to be coached, to be also a great executor, to build teams, and to bring, really be the facilitator for Drew to bring her ideas to commercial life. So that when she thinks of an idea for a Drew chair, we figure out how to manufacture it, how to market it, how to ship it, how to get it to Walmart, and how to make it successful together.

Reda: So, the Beautiful Collection exceeds kitchen. It’s much broader.

Hong: Yes. Yes. So. When we created Beautiful, just Drew and I, again, this goes back to, we always kept this very close relationship where the two of us were kind of creating our own vision. We believed that we could create a brand in Beautiful that would extend past the kitchen. But we wanted to start in the kitchen and build credibility.

So, we built cred, credibility in the kitchen, but really believed that the lifestyle around Beautiful, which at the core is really about women designing product for women. Like Drew looked, her comment in my showroom when she came in was like, ‘Hey, who makes all this stuff? Like, it looks like a bunch of guys have. Like, I would never design this stuff.’

And I looked around and I’m like, ‘You’re right. We did,’ right? We are designing kitchen products. And she’s like, ‘Well, that’s not what I would make for myself.’ So, it created this vision for us to like, ‘How do I help her bring that to life? Let her design things the way that she would want them to be seen in her kitchen.’ And that has now been able to extend beyond kitchen products into home.

Reda: I know that Drew is an incredible advocate for color.

Hong: Mm-hmm.

Reda: How did that mesh with where you were headed and how has that made you rethink color in the collections that you produce?

Hong: It’s a really important one. Color hadn’t really worked in the kitchen very well. So, prior to meeting Drew, we had tried color a lot actually. Like I’ve always loved color, like with the first launch of Bella at Target was metallic blues and reds, and it was very colorful and fun. And it didn’t work. It didn’t sell. And then it was rose golds and white and gold, and that didn’t sell either.

It was a moment where Drew’s instinct around today with the customer (and I think this is an important business lesson I’ve learned), is that things change. So, you can’t always go back and say, ‘Hey, what I did five or 10 years ago didn’t work, so I’m never going to try it again.’ Because the customer changes, right? And what they’re interested in changes.

So, Drew really challenged like, ‘Why does this stuff have to be stainless and black?’ And she wanted to be color. When we launched the collection, she wanted to launch with sage green. By the way, sage green has never sold in kitchenware ever to any scale.

Reda: It’s actually very soothing.

Hong: Yeah, it’s very chic. So, she pushed us on it, and you know what? There was a moment where I was just like, ‘I got to start getting comfortable being uncomfortable.’ And so, we went with it. We sold out in 72 hours, and I mean, and it wasn’t just one product, it was a whole bunch. So, she has this incredible eye for color. You used the word fun, but she really, it’s really chic. She sees color as chic. Of course, it’s fun because color brings vibes out of you that are different. But she has this ability to pick colors that are elevated and chic, but are color, which I think is one of her superpowers.

Reda: That’s really interesting. And, and I can’t help but think of, flicking the channels, and going past a home shopping network and every single appliance that they offer now is offered in 12 colors. And I sit there and think, ‘Are they really selling all those colors?’

Hong: Yeah. Yeah.

Reda: It’s usually just a couple that really resonate and it seems like Drew has her finger on the pulse of what colors are really going to resonate, and that’s really important.

Hong: Yeah. It’s that, and then it’s being strategic about those colors, like, I think … again, the way that we sell has changed, so, 10 years ago we didn’t, we couldn’t launch an exclusive color online and sell out, and intentionally sell out. Like, we’re not going to make enough to keep going. We’re going to sell a thousand or 5,000. So, I think we’re just trying to be really strategic with colors that we want to keep special. So, like we have a rose that just launched that is really chic, and is selling incredibly well out of the gates, and it won’t be around forever. So, it’s like, it’s understanding how to use ecommerce and that connection with the customer to do things differently.

Reda: So, most of the color is sold online. Is it that, or? To what degree can you take that in-store inventory and really explore the chic colors?

Hong: We’re doing both. We’re doing both. Yeah. I mean, it’s very difficult to put eight colors in a Walmart store, you know? But not difficult to put two or three, you know, on a feature or on a, you know, on a pallet or on, yeah, on a home pad. So yeah, we’re doing both.

Reda: So, what do you love about your job and what do you hate about your job?

Hong: What do I love? Um …

Reda: Easy part. Yeah, go ahead. The love stuff …

Hong: The creation stuff is the most fun. Believing in an idea that nobody else believes in, sometimes even to be honest, your own team. They can’t see it yet, and you just feel so passionate about it. You’re just going to will it to happen. That part of being an entrepreneur probably gets me the most excited. Like when I’m at my best, I’m like, going with what my gut tells me, when everybody tells me I’m wrong. That’s usually when I’m at my best. So that, that’s the part I love the most.

You know, look, there’s also a bunch of things you have to deal with that are not fun, like shipping delays and, you know, goods. There was a point when we launched Beautiful, we had 200 containers floating outside of Long Beach because of the shipping crisis. So, you know, that is all part of the job, right? You got to deal with the good and the bad. And, you know, it’s like I always tell my daughter about life, like, ‘If you want to be great, you actually have to be great at doing the hard stuff. Not just the fun stuff.’ Like everybody wants to do the fun stuff, right? But can you get yourself motivated to do the hard stuff?

Reda: People who can problem solve and still have a smile on their face and not have a meltdown? That’s a very unique person. But it’s kind of what you need to survive in retail. It truly is. I can’t help but wonder about, I am most familiar with apparel cycles and less familiar with home goods and furniture. So how often do you get to be knee deep in that creative process?

Hong: Often. We look at the planning process a bit differently, I think, than maybe our competitors. We’re building our plans three years out, and that’s all the way down to color and innovation, and it’s constantly being updated. So, the three-year roadmap that we had two months ago will get shifted in the spring to add another season. So, we’re constantly looking out, and just driving, and I think that’s what makes Beautiful so exciting for the customer is that we just keep coming out with new, exciting products. Whether it’s a colorway — we just launched a product called The Perfect Grind, which is this amazing, grind and brew, single serve coffee maker that’s been selling like crazy. So that’s innovation. So, we’re in it all the time. Product is king.

Reda: I love that. What’s next for Made By Gather in terms of using technology to move the needle? I write a lot about technology and follow technology. Are we getting to a point where we’ll talk to our toaster or talk to our appliance, and it will understand the command we’re giving it?

Hong: I don’t know about that. I think we’re, and when you ask what’s next for Made By Gather, we are … we have learned an incredible amount from what we’ve done with Drew and Beautiful, and we’ve been able to invest and build an incredible team. That’s the thing that’s so special about being successful is that you’re able to invest in things, invest in the future. So, we are hard at work on what’s next and it’s going to be us taking everything we’ve learned — from a technology perspective, data insights, consumer insights and testing — to really kind of, to really make something incredibly special that nobody’s ever seen next. We want to do another, ‘You’ve never seen this before’ and it’s in the works.

Reda: Is there another collaboration in the works?

Hong: TBD. Can’t share that yet.

Reda: All right. You said you love to cook. Tell me a little bit about that. What is your favorite thing to cook for family and friends?

Hong: I love to cook, mainly because it gets me off my phone and off of checking email. But the most, I think the thing that I’ve enjoyed about it the most is that it really … when I see my kids get excited about something that I’m making like that, you know… they’ve had the chance to go to nice restaurants. We live in New York, so there’s great food around. But I make steaks once a week. It’s pretty religious, usually on Sundays, and when I tell them that, and my daughter’s response is, ‘Yay’ on texts or heart on text, like that makes me feel pretty good. And then we’ll go to like a nice steakhouse, and she’ll be like, ‘Daddy, your steak is better.’

Reda: That’s the ultimate compliment. So, do you sear on the stove and then put it in the oven? Are you a butter on top? Come on. Reveal.

Hong: Okay, so I’ll tell you, I’m a sous vide person. I love to sous vide, so I put the steaks in a sous vide bag, and I put like herbs, butter, garlic. I sous vide them for like 90 minutes. You know, you can kind of leave them for as long as you need, so, if like the football game’s going into overtime, we’ll wait. And then I sear them at a really high temp, and that’s my secret.

Reda: That’s it. I love it. I love it. Our podcast is listened to by lots and lots of students, so we always ask our guests what piece of career advice you would give to those who are listening.

Hong: Yeah. I’m lucky. I’ve had a lot of great mentors, so I’ve gotten a lot of great advice along the way. I think the first one, and like the most important one is to just not be worried about hearing the word, ‘No.’ You know, or somebody telling you like it’s not a good idea. Like you got to just take the first step and you got to believe. Look, it may not work. You may fail, but it’s the trying that you get the most out of. It’s where you get all the learnings from. So just getting comfortable with, no. I mean, I’ve heard no so many times in my career.  Like there was a buyer at a retailer based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin — we’ll probably help you figure out who it was — and I literally called this buyer for three months every single day at the time that I knew that he got in the office. And he wouldn’t answer. And then he started to answer and he wasn’t interested. But like three months in, ‘OK, let’s have a meeting.’ You know, fast forward two years, we had a $30 million business with them. We were incredibly successful and like, if I would’ve taken the first two ‘no’s,’ we would’ve never had a chance to figure that out.

Reda: I love those stories. I love we can wear someone down until they see …

Hong: Give you a chance.

Reda: Yeah, just, just give me that crack of the door. Let me come in. Give it a shot. Other stories like that?

Hong: Other stories like that. You know, I mean, I think what Drew and I did with Beautiful, right?

Reda: That started in 2019 and launched in 2021?

Hong: Yeah. I learned a lesson from that. Like, I would share the idea with people because you want to hear, ‘Oh, do people think this is a good idea? Do they think it’s really cool?’ And people form their own ideas about whether or not they think it’s going to work, and they’re not really in it with you. So, there was a lot of naysayers, there was a lot of people that thought we were crazy. Even after a launch, there was a lot of people that said, ‘Oh, this is a fad. This isn’t going to last.’

And like, we’ve built a mega business off of Beautiful with incredible runway, and it’s a brand that’s going to be around for a long, long time to come. So, there was a lot of naysayers there. And now, you know, as I’ve learned from that and matured, like, I won’t ask as many people what they think because they really, they really don’t know. They’re not in it with you.

Reda: And there’s a lot of people that thought Drew was a fad, and she wasn’t. And, and you know what? She has remade herself and her career so many times, and I think that’s why her show and this collection connect across generations.

What I remember of her and the movies I recall is very different from what, you know, a young person is going to say, ‘Oh, I interact with Drew and I saw her in x,’ and … I remember seeing, as we were preparing for the interview later this afternoon, watching Drew carry product out to folks in their cars who had pulled into a Walmart parking lot, and they purchased something, and she brought them the item and something else …

Hong: Yeah.

Reda: … and the joy. They all knew who she was. They were tickled by it. It just … that’s a special collaboration, is what it is.

Hong: Yeah. She’s special. Yeah.

Reda: So, here at Big Show, we’re talking about the future of retail. I’m going to ask you, what excites you most about the future of retail in general?

Hong: Yeah. We’re just really excited about leaning into disrupting our category in the home business. When you do things like look at MPD data, and you look at the market and who the competitors are that are big, these are big companies, you know, they’re down-trending. There’s not a lot of innovation. There’s a lot of heritage in the brands, and those brands are big brands that the baby boomers made incredibly big businesses, right? Because they fell in love with them. So, I’m just excited that we’re here, and we’re just getting started, and we can just continue to disrupt, and take market share, and really bring just a totally fresh approach to the category.

Reda: Was there ever a little part of you that would like to open your own store?

Hong: Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. When I was a kid, for sure. I used to run a baseball card stand, but even now, I think the idea of creating an experience around your brand that you get to see people, interact with in person, could be really exciting, right? And you control the whole experience. It’s not the planogram or the modular that dictates how it looks. It’s you. So, yeah, I have thought about that.

Reda: I truly believe if you’re going to open a store today, it has to have inspiration and vibe. It can’t just be product on the shelf. And when you see that that unfold — and there are a handful of new stores that have opened here in Manhattan. Have you been to the new Wegmans?

Hong: Which one?

Reda: There’s a Wegman’s now on Astor Place.

Hong: Oh, no, no. I’ve been in Wegmans before. That’s a great retailer.

Reda: Right. It’s like you want to go into that store because it’s a great grocery store. When you go into the one here in Astor Place and you’re kind of like, ‘Oh, this is fun.’ People don’t generally say grocery shopping is fun, but it is. And when you can create that vibe, and that’s the same thing here, it’s just how you’re going to bring it to life. So, I look forward to what’s next to come, but it has been a pleasure talking to you, Shae. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Hong: Yeah. Thanks for having me on.

Thorne: Thank you, Susan. And thank you all for listening to another episode of Retail Gets Real. You can find more information about this episode at retail gets real dot com. I’m Bill Thorne, and this is Retail Gets Real. Thanks for listening. Until next time.