Shopify Masters

How to Save Lives & Build a Brand

Episode Summary

While the bike helmet industry screamed "you need this for safety!", Gloria Hwang did the opposite. She made helmets so beautiful that 25% of Thousand customers are wearing helmets for the first time ever. Thousand now offers helmet and bike accessories in 20+ countries with financial backing from REI and the Clif Bar Family Office. Gloria talks all things customer loyalty, business branding, and nailing your product roadmap for maximum impact. She intimately shares how a personal tragedy inspired a mission to save 1,000 lives, and how that number grew to 1,300+ through their lifetime crash replacement guarantee. You’ll learn the counterintuitive strategy that made safety cool, and why Thousand wins with culture instead of competing on tech features.

Episode Notes

While the bike helmet industry screamed "you need this for safety!", Gloria Hwang did the opposite. She made helmets so beautiful that 25% of Thousand customers are wearing helmets for the first time ever. Thousand now offers helmet and bike accessories in 20+ countries with financial backing from REI and the Clif Bar Family Office. 

Gloria talks all things customer loyalty, business branding, and nailing your product roadmap for maximum impact. She intimately shares how a personal tragedy inspired a mission to save 1,000 lives, and how that number grew to 1,300+ through their lifetime crash replacement guarantee. You’ll learn the counterintuitive strategy that made safety cool, and why Thousand wins with culture instead of competing on tech features. 

For more on Thousand click here. 

You’ll learn: 

• Why fear-based marketing fails and what works instead
• The psychology insight that built a $10M+ brand across 20+ countries
• How 25% of customers are first-time helmet wearers
• Transitioning from maker to manager over 10 years
• Taking back the product roadmap to return to core differentiation
• Why solving customer problems beats chasing growth at all costs

Chapters:

00:00 Introducing Gloria Hwang, Founder & CEO of Thousand

1:30 How to Change Customer Behaviors 

4:11 The Personal Tragedy That Started Thousand & The Design Philosophy That Wins Every Time

5:15 Why 25% of Customers Are First-Time Helmet Wearers

7:30 Steps to Get Further Differentiated & Beat Out The Competition 

9:55 Strategies for Collecting High-Quality Customer Insights 

16:00 Expanding to 20+ Countries & Quality Standards

19:50 The BEST Advice Gloria Has Ever Gotten 

24:30 The Hardest Transition Gloria Went Through & How to Tackle People Problems 

29:20 What to Ask for When Pitching Investors (Surprise, it’s NOT Money)  

32:48 How Motherhood Changed Her Approach to Business