AI has made building cheap.

The cost of being wrong is still expensive.

I help organizations make better AI and growth investment decisions before committing major capital.

→ Book a Growth Strategy Call at Precoil.com/EMT

Summary

In this episode, I’m joined by Maggie Baker, she’s the Founder of Threadeco, an eco-friendly clothing company rethinking how people discover, buy, and keep fashion.

Maggie talks about how she started with a high-end fanny pack business that landed some serious celebrity traction, but still failed when the economy shifted in 2008. That experience taught her hard lessons about pricing, channel risk and adaptability.

Years later, she turned those insights into Threadeco, when she was inspired by imperfect produce boxes.

Maggie shares how she tested her early MVP with a Google Form, friends and family, hand-packed boxes, and no real payment system. Fast forward to today, business is thriving and we discuss how she is now blending retail, styling and subscriptions together.

It is a great conversation about learning the hard way, starting scrappy, listening to customers, and building a business model that can actually adapt.

Takeaways

1. A past failure became the foundation for a better business model. Maggie’s high-end fanny pack business got retail traction and celebrity attention, but the 2008–2009 downturn exposed pricing, channel, and adaptability risks she had not fully tested.

2. Testing does not have to be sophisticated to be useful. Threadeco started with a Google Form, friends-and-family beta testers, hand-curated clothing boxes, and manual feedback loops.

3. The first version of the model revealed the wrong customer. Early testing showed that customers who only wanted to try on many items and return most of them were not a good fit for Threadico’s economics.

4. Threadeco changed the model based on learning, not imitation. Instead of copying Stitch Fix, Maggie shifted to a prepaid five-piece box with limited exchanges, creating a model that better fit her inventory, cash flow, and customer behavior.

5. The brick-and-mortar store became more than a retail channel. The store functions as a warehouse, styling space, discovery engine, and subscription acquisition channel.

6. Location testing mattered. Moving within Old Sacramento changed the business dramatically, showing how even a two-minute difference in storefront location can create a completely different retail outcome.

7. The next big test is integrating physical retail, subscriptions, styling, and tech. Maggie is exploring an app that connects customer style profiles, boxes, in-store experiences, and stylist recommendations into one ecosystem.

Guest Links

Maggie’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/getajobla/
Threadeco: https://www.threadeco.com/

AI has made building cheap.

The cost of being wrong is still expensive.

I help organizations make better AI and growth investment decisions before committing major capital.

→ Book a Growth Strategy Call at Precoil.com/EMT

Summary

In this episode, I’m joined by Eric Lowe. He’s the CEO and Co-founder of Aptiva Health, an outpatient group that offers specialized care in orthopedics, physical therapy, pain management, and mental wellness.

Eric shares how solving one problem at a time helped him scale to 14 locations and why he believes great businesses are built by developing people first.

We dig into launching an ambitious healthcare marketplace that had all the ingredients of a great product, only to run headfirst into the brutal realities of marketplace dynamics, timing and customer education.

Eric also details how his team uncovered a breakthrough business by integrating mental health directly into orthopedic recovery. He shares how they experiment with new healthcare models before overinvesting, and why listening closely to patients and providers often reveals opportunities you never could have imagined.

If you’re building in healthcare and trying to figure out how to test bold ideas, this episode is for you.

Takeaways

1. Great businesses come from solving the next problem. Long-term growth often compounds from consistently identifying and solving the most pressing issue in front of you.

2. Not every customer problem is yours to solve. Sustainable businesses focus on problems they are uniquely positioned to solve while aligning value across all stakeholders.

3. Marketplaces are brutally hard to build. Even strong solutions can struggle when adoption requires changing deeply ingrained customer behavior.

4. Sometimes the customer isn’t who you think it is. Success often comes from recognizing when the original target market needs to shift entirely.

5. Unexpected opportunities can outperform your biggest bets. Some of the strongest growth opportunities come from adjacent problems you discover while serving customers.

6. Adoption depends on reducing friction. New solutions succeed when they fit naturally into how people already behave rather than forcing entirely new habits.

7. Culture is built through actions, not slogans. Teams buy into organizations when leadership consistently demonstrates the values they claim to stand for.

8. Big investments require proving the economics first. When capital commitments are high, getting the financial assumptions wrong can become incredibly expensive.

Guest Links

Eric’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericloweaptiva

Aptiva Health: https://www.aptivahealth.com/
Broker Driven: https://brokerdriven.com/

AI has made building cheap.

The cost of being wrong is still expensive.

I help organizations make better AI and growth investment decisions before committing major capital.

→ Book a Growth Strategy Call at Precoil.com/EMT

Summary

In this episode I’m joined by Courtney Honda and Slava Borisov co-founders of Puptqe. What started as a deeply personal response to a health scare involving their dog Champ has grown into a unique retail experience built around community and creating memorable moments for dogs and their owners.

We explore how they tested their way through one of the most competitive retail categories imaginable, discovering that success wasn’t about competing with big-box stores on price or selection. Instead, they focused on creating experiences that customers couldn’t get anywhere else, from dog-friendly events and memberships to immersive in-store moments designed to turn visitors into loyal advocates.

We also get into the realities of building a brick-and-mortar business, including lessons around site selection, customer retention, community-driven marketing, and the surprising acquisition channels they tested to help them grow. Courtney and Slava share how they learned to stop trying to serve every pet owner, focus on their ideal customer, and transform retail from a transaction into an ongoing relationship.

If you’ve ever wondered how to test a physical retail store in a crowded market, this episode is for you.

Takeaways

1. Differentiate by owning a niche, not by competing on price - Puptqe succeeded by becoming a destination for dog experiences and hospitality instead of trying to out-discount larger pet retailers.

2. Make the experience the product; sales will follow - Customers come for the events, community, and memories, which naturally drives purchases and loyalty.

3. Stop marketing to everyone and focus on your ideal customer - Growth accelerated once they identified who their best customers were and tailored their offerings around them.

4. Retention matters more than acquisition - Long-term success came from creating reasons for customers to return again and again, not just making the first sale.

5. Community and word-of-mouth outperform paid advertising - Loyal customers and local advocacy generated more sustainable growth than trying to outspend competitors on ads.

6. Understand customer behavior, not just demographics - Knowing how customers spend their time and make decisions proved more valuable than basic age, income, or location data.

7. Design every customer touchpoint intentionally - Every interaction, from the greeting to the checkout experience, was crafted to create memorable moments.

8. Consistency beats constantly chasing new tactics - Small improvements executed repeatedly created stronger results than jumping from one growth idea to the next.

Guest Links

Courtney’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/courtney-honda/

Slava’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/slavaborisov/

Puptqe Website: https://puptqe.com/