We'Re super excited to announce the launch of our slack community for D2C pod. This is a space exclusively for D2C founders and operators to connect, share ideas, ask questions and support each other. You'll be able to engage with the best minds and operators and consumer and currently we're on a wait list and it will open up the community Once we reach 150 members. So apply using the link in the description and we hope to see you on Slack. So before we kick off today's recording, I've got one more for you. Keeping up your momentum this year starts with the right selling tools and if you're looking to increase revenue, grow faster, build more pipeline and close more deals, check out the all new sales hub from HubSpot. You'll be able to manage your whole sales process plus my favorite part, the reporting. It's super intuitive, powerful and customizable.

Plus the whole thing is powered by AI so your teams can spend less time on tedious time consuming stuff and more time on developing relationships.

All.

Also, no one likes a clunky platform that takes months to onboard onto, but getting set up on Sales Hub is really quick and easy. It's free to get started, the pricing will scale with your business and with more than 1300 integrations and add ons, you can tune it to your exact needs. Visit HubSpot.com sales to start selling with Sales Hub.

What is going on DTC Pod today really excited for our conversation. We've got Parker Thatch on the podcast and we are joined by co founders Matt GRY and Irene Chen. I'm really excited for today's conversation because Matt and Irene have bootstrapped a business to eight figures over the last 20 years. And you know, one thing that we always talk about is the longevity of businesses, right? It's one thing to like spin up a business that you know may take off and then may come crashing down as fast as you started it. But to really have to a bootstrap a business to eight figures and b have that longevity where you're able to have that successful business over the course of, you know, 20 plus years, it's a really different and exciting thing. I'm sure you guys have a ton of learnings, lessons, experiences all along the way. So we're really excited to dig into the story. So maybe that's where we kick off.

Matt and Irene, whoever wants to start, I'll let you kick us off. Why don't you give us a quick background about yourself and how you guys got started. Started Building Parker Thatch.

I'll start. Okay. So my name's Irene. Hi. Let's see. Crazy weird background that I have. My first job out of college actually was at Arthur Anderson in a very tiny little group that did sort of consulting for their account that they did accounting for. So very different from fashion.

And that's where I learned how to really time manage and really learn how to do a great business like a model and a spreadsheet. That's what I kind of had the background on. And then after two years, I decided that I was going to move to New York and start a career in fashion. And so the way I got into fashion was actually through my modeling and Excel spreadsheet skills. And that's how I got into it. And then when I got there, I really wanted to learn all facets of this business. And so at the end of my career in New York, I became really proficient in product development. So that's my.

And I worked at Donna Karan and at Calvin Klein in the like the late 90s, which is there were like top three different, you know, businesses there. It's Ralph, Calvin Klein, Donna Karen. So I kind of got to play in the two, the two, two houses there. So that was great. And that's where I really learned, you know, how to make a product in all aspects of the fashion business, you know, but not, you know, it's different when you have to do it yourself. How's that? And so after the year, around the year 2000, that's when I met Matt in New York. And Matt could kind of tell you a little bit about himself. And then we.

And then you'll see how our skill sets kind of melded.

Yeah.

And how we started a business.

I think that's perfect. So, Matt, why don't you take us back to the year 2000. You guys meet and. Yeah. Talk to me about how things started to come together.

Yeah, for sure. So for my. Just a bit about my background. So I had come after a lot of schooling in different domains, sort of at the confluence of ultimately the technology, technology and design and sort of as informed, with a liberal arts background and with a focus on visualization of large sets of information. So I've been trained as a graphic designer. I've been trained in computer science, I've been trained in humanities. And then I had gone to work at that time in the late 90s, intel research up in Oregon, and we were visualizing. Hey, look, if the user interface for operating systems didn't have to be two dimensional, if it was a three dimensional experience.