Well Made
Rachel Blumenthal, Rockets of Awesome: Designing Awesome Clothes, Backed by Data – Well Made E43
May 8, 2018 · RSS · Apple Podcasts
After 12 years and two other companies, Rachel Blumenthal landed on Rockets of Awesome — a kids clothes subscription that moms love too. Before launching Rockets of Awesome in 2016, Rachel ran her own jewelry brand (where she made the jewelry) and Cricket’s Circle, an online baby registry and resource site for new moms.
Rockets of Awesome was a natural culmination of her past experiences and her new role as a mom. The brand simplifies parents’ lives by delivering a convenient, risk-free way to find stylish clothes for their children. Behind Rockets’ space-themed aesthetic and bright blue coloring box is personalization via data. From the initial style quiz to tracking what items are returned or repurchased, they’re using information to customize and improve the experience for parents and kids.
On this episode of Well Made, Rachel talks about using data to lean into product choices and mitigate risks as a startup (13:57). She gets granular about where algorithms, keep rates, and clicks drive design and operational decisions (16:57), and how they stay lean while managing inventory (19:30) and reverse logistics (23:08). Rachel also shares direct-to-customer lessons she learned from working with her husband, Neil Blumenthal, co-founder of Warby Parker (38:31). Lastly, she talks about building a brand that speaks to the current generation of parents and kids (46:38).
Follow Rockets of Awesome’s journey on Twitter and Instagram.
You can find this and all future episodes on iTunes, Google Play, and here on the Lumi blog. This episode was edited by Evan Goodchild.
