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The Doing Business in Bentonville Podcast
To create an ecosystem that connects leaders of all kinds – industry, community, student, educational, civic, investment and entrepreneurial – to help overcome Omnichannel Retail barriers through exclusive, insight-rich content.
The Doing Business in Bentonville Podcast
Ep. 125 - Why Omni Retail Is The Future Of Parenting Brands
What if the secret to national scale is hidden in a story time circle at your first store? We sit down with founder and CEO Monica Royer to unpack how Monica + Andy grew from a neighborhood, experience-led boutique into a parent-trusted brand now selling online and in 1,200 Walmart locations—without sacrificing organic quality or the brand’s soul.
Monica walks us through the earliest days: a Lincoln Park shop that doubled as HQ and community center, where music classes and new-parent meetups fueled real product insights. Those hands-on lessons set the tone for everything that followed, from fabric choices and fit to bundles that match the rhythm of early parenthood. When the opportunity to go mass arrived, the team had already sequenced the crucial pieces—sourcing, quality control, and a codified set of brand values—to deliver the same standard at scale.
We get candid about the tradeoffs behind the strategy. Monica shares what keeps her up at night, how leading a growing team changes decision-making, and why a great co-founder can be the difference between stalling and moving with conviction. She breaks down omnichannel the practical way: treat DTC as home base, anchor to five core values, and let assortment flex by channel without confusing the customer. Along the way, we explore post-COVID shifts, the risk of playing it safe, and why community is still a better growth engine than ads.
If you’re building a consumer brand, this conversation is a field guide to scaling without drift: start close to the customer, make quality non-negotiable, sequence your operations before you widen distribution, and preserve the story that made people care in the first place. Subscribe, share with a founder who needs a nudge, and leave a quick review to tell us which insight you’ll use this quarter.
Well, welcome everyone to Doing Business in Bentonville. I'm Deanna Baker, your host today, and I have a wonderful guest that I want to introduce you to, Monica Royer. Monica, I want to read your bio. Okay, so you all will find this woman fascinating just like I do. So let me kick it off. Monica Royer is the founder and CEO of Monica and Andy, the children's and family brand that parents can rely on for the products, products, the resources, the support needed to confidently navigate every stage of raising a family. Inspired by the birth of her own daughter, Monica created Monica and Andy in 2014 to provide softer organic fabrics, better designed clothing and essentials, and a seamless shopping experience for parents. As an advisor to her brother Andy Dunn, the founder of Bonobos, by the way, Monica gained first-hand experience in the potential for direct-to-consumer business models to disrupt an industry. She channeled her passion for high quality, safe fashion, and entrepreneurialism to drive the continued growth and evolution of Monica and Andy. In 2023, the brand collaborated with Mass Retailer Walmart, launching its new collection, MA by Monica and Andy, online and also in 1,200 stores. As a veteran of the direct-to-consumer and retail space, Monica has been featured on CS Magazine's trendsetters of the year. I'm quite impressed. And Crane's Chicago business 40 under 40 list. With a young daughter at home, Monica has made it her personal mission to empower other female entrepreneurs and young girls to reach their potential through her podcast, The Mentor Files, which will launch its third season last year. So you're a professional podcaster. I still feel like I'm getting my feet wet.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, you know what? Even after a hundred podcasts, I don't feel professional at all. It's kind of actually the same about my my job, no matter how long I've done this. It still feels like it's day one every day.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's good. That's good. And you act quite comfortable within the space. So um thank you for joining me today, Monica. Yes. I'm really excited to give this audience um a view inside what brought you to where you are now and and uh what you see within the future for your brand. Um and so let's just start at the beginning with what brought you into retail.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me, Deanna. I'm excited. I would say maybe sheer stupidity, Deanna, is what brought me into retail, to be perfectly candid. As you said in my bio, um I had a front row seat to the 1.0 of the direct-to-consumer experience. My brother uh was a founder and CEO of Bonobos, which he launched in 2007. Um at the time I remember he told us that he was doing it. He said he was gonna be selling pants online. And in 2007, we were like, nobody buys anything online, why would you do that? And he said, you know, he had a vision for the future, and a few other people did as well. And so, in retrospect, I saw him embark on what was one of the hardest journeys of his life, and I have to take myself back to why on earth I would also do the same thing because nobody could say that I didn't know how hard it was gonna be. But I think I had a brand new baby and I was really focused on what organic, and I had seen the way that bonobos had built this more one-to-one relationship with their customer, and I thought, parents, moms, we deserve that too. And so, like a complete fool, I said of starting my own company.
SPEAKER_01:I'm gonna call it fearlessness, not stupidity, um, which I think is you know a thread that I've seen with entrepreneurs is just that fearlessness and passion to to drive the idea. Um, and so congratulations on that.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you. It is too late to turn back now, and I will say it has been more fun, it's harder work than I ever dreamed of, but it it's like an addiction. It's like you can't stop. And so I feel every day I have to tell myself, like, instead of complaining, um, because it gets really tough, you know, you choose it. Every day I'm choosing to do this, and so that's what kind of gets me through. I don't have to do it, and I just have to remind myself a lot of the problems that I have are privileges to be managing through, and so you kind of have to accept that and stay pretty positive to keep going.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and just telling yourself, not everyone gets to do this, yeah, right? And so you get to do something that you love, and if you're like me at all, um I love the creativity of the whole process and um just the spontaneity of a day and the and where it can take you. Yes. I think that like totally jazzes me. Um so there's something about this space I think that works well for people who want the variety and just the excitement and the adrenaline rush.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. And I feel like even, you know, getting the chance to meet you and now spend time and and work together, um, the people that you get to meet and the experience, you kind of have to pinch yourself sometimes and say, Whoa, um, I didn't have any background in doing this. And you just it's it's incredible, like the people that come into your life when you're doing it. So I feel i incredible gratitude for that.
SPEAKER_01:I feel the same way, and I'm coming from you know the opposite end of the spectrum as far as business goes. Um, and so you know, it's it's interesting. Our paths have crossed uh a few times in in the past years. Uh one through Andy, right? And just getting to meet you, um, which was wonderful, and now um, you know, hopefully being able to partner with you in a way to grow your business, um, which is a whole new muscle for me uh coming from you know the world's largest retailer um and such a massive business, but to kind of see, you know, one end on the D2C spectrum now, frankly, moving into Omnichannel. Yes. And, you know, a few years ago, my seat at the table at Walmart was moving brick and mortar into omnichannel. Um, and it's all so connected. So I'm enjoying the fact that I need I get to grow and need my soul as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I think the most exciting thing about this moment in time, despite the headwinds of so many different things unfolding for all of us in the last like five or six years from a retail perspective, which is basically all I know about retail, is the last, you know, five or six years. But I think the really exciting thing in being able to even partner with you is I think everybody is forging a new path forward. And so it's so fun to be able to take like the mass experience that you have at Walmart coming out of like one of the most amazing and biggest retailers in the country. And and I will say like a huge shout out to Walmart who took a chance on an emerging brand like Monica and Andy, too. If you had asked me four or five years ago, did I see a business unfolding at Walmart, let alone anywhere else, I would have said no. As direct to consumer businesses, we really thought, oh, we're the best at curating for our customers and like we're so good. And getting to know the Walmart team, you take a step back and you're like, wow, there's people that really know how to curate for their customers. And so as we look at the future, and I know you and I have talked about this, there's a whole new world that's unfolding that's kind of starting to combine like the amazing scale of mass retail with really like these new and emerging brands. And I think that we're gonna start to see a changing of the guard as it relates to some of these long storied brands that have been out for like a hundred and plus years, and there's a few new players on the horizon that are changing the way that this next generation of consumers starts or shops, and I think it's been really fun to be able to marry the experience that you have, and I think even from your perspective, how you're looking kind of back at me through it too, that's where I have found it to be the most interesting and exciting. It's like there's innovation happening and you kind of have to be ready for it, but it's kind of fun.
SPEAKER_01:Well, there's innovation in the way the customer shops. Um, and I also think that there's innovation that has been desperately needed in the last, I'll call it five or so years, just around uh creative product. And there's a time that being ubiquitous is good with a brand. I would say it's not. And I think since COVID, so many people have had to like play it safe with all the highs and lows of inventory and supply chain disruption. Um, it feels like the time is ripe and to look to these smaller brands who have a new idea, um, innovation in product. Um it it can come in all kinds of forms. I think the customer is ready for it. And then the nuts and bolts of it is whether you're a big box or uh a D2C smaller brand, is how to deliver it seamlessly to the customer because they don't care, they just want it. After how when, you know, in what manner they want it. So that's the behind the scenes stuff that I think we're all figuring out every single day. But I think the main goal for me is how do you shepherd through that fresh idea or product for the customer that you think that he or she will want. Um the hard part is just us figuring out how to do it seamlessly.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. I think that we kind of the way that the brand unfolded for us, and I didn't plan it this way, but I think has been fairly seamless in how we it's been sequenced is when we started off as a direct-to-consumer business, we had our first store in Lincoln Park in Chicago. Our office was in the back of that store. I had a four-year-old at the time that I launched the brand. And so, right out of the bat, I was like, all right, what am I going to be doing with her on a day-to-day basis while I'm working? Because I was like at home and still part-time going back and forth. And so, right away the brand became experiential because we had art and music and story time. We kind of stumbled into this idea that experiences can drive customers and it can drive maybe the stage of customer that you're looking for. So if we wanted more customers that were at the pregnancy stage, we could have more programming that related to that. If we wanted people that had toddlers, we could bring in programming that related to that. And so I think for the first three years, every day I came face to face with our customer, I saw how they interacted with the product, and that really helped to form like the true DNA of the brand. And I think had I not had that opportunity, had I been able to afford an office that wasn't part of the store, I would have done it. But I wouldn't have learned as much as I did. And so when Walmart came knocking at the end of 2022 through a single customer service email, knew enough about Walmart to be like, oh my gosh, I want to make sure that I get back, was in Bettonville within a couple weeks. And I saw a company that was hungry to figure out how they served this next generation of parent. And so the fun part was, and if you all are out there thinking about scaling, starting a business, I think being able to start on your own at the scale that you can pace and manage is really helpful. I don't think in any way we would have been successful if we had somehow come out of the gates onto a Walmart shelf. We had too much to learn, and it we had like the time and the patience and the ability to do it through that early stage interaction with our customer. And then I think the second component was really supply chain. We just happened to have brought in an incredible head of sourcing that had really poised us to be able to scale, even though we weren't quite there yet. And so there were so many factors that had to come into play in order for us to be able to serve the relationship that Walmart was looking for us at the time. And so I didn't realize how sequenced it is as I look back on it. But I think lesson for those that are listening is like you don't necessarily want to scale too fast in those early days. You want to be able to test the fit of your product in the market and really see how that customer responds to it to be able to learn and iterate before you have to take on any really significant scale.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. So interesting that I I someone told me once that to create a new product or service, you need to go find the problem and then make a solution for the problem. Like don't create something and then go try and find a use case for it. And so that's really what you did uh with moms in that store, and they were missing experience and community, and you you solved for that, and the product was kind of a natural evolution from that that original idea. Um, how do you now that you're growing with Walmart in this case, how do you, as you're scaling, keep an eye towards incubating that original idea and thought so that it doesn't become watered down or generic?
SPEAKER_00:Definitely. I think that one of the things that we've that I've really reflected on as the business has scaled is that as much as we love to be able to work with Walmart and these Omni-retailers, and by the way, I think it's really important to deliver the same quality product for us. We wanted to make sure as we scaled with Walmart that we saw that there was something so universal about parenthood that everybody across every different background is excited, you know, they're having a child. Like those firsts are so universal for parents that we wanted to make sure that the product experience that that parents had with Monacanity also felt universal. So one of the first things we really thought about was like, how do we deliver on like that level of quality? But to the question that you're asking, I think the direct-to-consumer business is the heartbeat, it's the heart and soul of the brand. And so I almost like to think about it as home base. And so you might like to travel and go to other places. There might be places that you go to all the time, but you really can't forget what home looks like. And so for us, that's our North Star. And I think whether it's at Walmart or the direct-to-consumer business, like really having somebody that keeps the customer at the center of the conversation at all times is so important too. Because, you know, I noticed during COVID, it's like things became so transactional. To your point, we didn't have products, and like what were you gonna sell? And you found yourselves like marketing exactly what you had, and what you had maybe made some sense to the customer, but it wasn't the whole package. And so we really had to take a couple of steps back after COVID and say, how do we re-center around this customer? How do we make sure that we're keeping that parent at the center of that conversation? And so I think that's universal between direct and consumer and omni, but omni is where the magic begins. And so you can't, as you scale, you've really got to keep sight of your values and why you started the brand. And I think, again, I'm not, you know, 40 or 50 years into it yet. So maybe we'll check back in another 20. But for right now, at this stage, it's like really making sure that we're constantly returning to that North Star, that we're feeding that center and that heart and soul, because that's what gives us the energy to be able to go out to these other places.
SPEAKER_01:And I would think telling that story so that others can see the passion uh through the brand, does it need to change whether it's on D2C, your your own website, or in a store or that store's e-commerce arm? Like uh should it show up exactly the same? Do you tailor it to the specific customer? How do you think about that?
SPEAKER_00:I think you have to really map out as you start to scale in any really significant way outside of the direct-to-consumer business, and you should have this for a direct-to-consumer business anyway, is like, what are the values that are the most important drivers of why customers love you? And you have to stay true to that set of values at each turning point. That said, if you can keep those five core things in the same place, that may allow you to think about a merchandising strategy in which you're able to offer slightly tailored things in different places. So I think that's a long-winded way of saying you don't need to be exactly the same everywhere, but you need to have like a core center of values of your brand that make that resonate and that you make sure are going to consumers at whatever place. And so I'll take quality. Quality and organic cotton are two like really strong centers of this brand. We want to make sure that like everywhere we are, we're an organic and God certified brand. We need to stay true to making sure that that's what we're delivering when organic and God certified is an available part of the whatever product that we're making. Two, quality is really important. For better or for worse, we put our name on the on the brand. And we have to make sure that we live up to that every day and in every place that we are. And so I think that's something that was even as we started to scale at Walmart, making sure that like we challenged ourselves to say, hey, even at this scale, it does not change the fabric weight, it does not change the quality of the product that we're giving. And so I think we could go on and on to what a couple of the other ones are, but I think a brand has to stray true to those core values at any point. And even if you think about brands that we might love, whether it be Starbucks or any other mass place, wherever you're going to it, you have some expectation of what you're getting and you want that to be somewhat similar. They might not be the best example because that's pretty much the same every single place you go. But making sure that you've got that anchor that customers and that can come to rely on and make sure you stay true to, I think is the most important part. So you can't scale if you don't know that center yet. You gotta really build that center first.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I would I would think, you know, being uh solely D2C, you control it all. And then as you start to think about uh, you know, omni relationships with in a wholesale uh environment, there are certain things that you do need to be able to negotiate or you know balance against the the principles that you were just talking about of it's different than my vision, but it doesn't change who this brand is at its core. Um and so understanding where you can make those changes that make it fit better with that retailer, um, and then what parts are just because it was different than the way you did it before doesn't make it wrong or you know for your brand. Um so those are like millions of decisions I think that you're going through as you're growing, yes, you know, with these different channels. Um so I almost hate this is kind of a loaded question, but like what keeps you up at night, you know, that like really like every day you're working through issues and and things pop up, but um, is there anything that above others that that you worry as you grow?
SPEAKER_00:I'll say something that is maybe more surprising. I think the day-to-day trials and tribulations for the business, despite how stressful they are, I've become somewhat immune to, which may not be healthy as I think about it. I think what keeps me up at night is like the life choices that I make that are associated with this business. And it comes down to me as like a mom, as a wife, as a daughter, as a sister. You know, I've dedicated so much of my life to doing this now. And there's not a particular end in sight, right? There's still more growth, more opportunity, um, more scale to achieve. And as you know, I've brought Bella almost everywhere with me. I had multiple miscarriages after I had her, you know, really wanted to have like a second child, and I didn't, I didn't didn't do that. But in some ways it built this really unique relationship with her and I. And so when I'm up at night, you know, I think about like, I wish, should I be spending more time with my parents? Am I like the things that I have right in front of me right now? Am I doing will I will I look back on the decision to dedicate so much of myself to this? And and only time will tell what I missed out on and what I wish I would do. And I will say transparently and honestly, you know, I've learned that like you can have a lot, but for me it's not all at once. And so I don't have a lot of friends, I don't get a lot of social time, but I get to spend a lot of time with my family. And so I sometimes realize that like I have to make choices that maybe if I had a different career path, I wouldn't choose. So for me, when I think about the bigger picture, it's never about this decisions I'm making from a company perspective, it's more about the life choice that I've stepped into that I didn't realize at the time I was making that I would be a decade of dedicating every waking moment to this. And I wonder if I look back now, I don't think I would change that decision, but 10 years from now, I don't know what I'll say.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Well, it's interesting. I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum, you know, working for uh Walmart over 30 years, and I would tell you I had the exact same concerns. Um I was married for two months and was hired by Walmart. It arrested my sense my ability to cook. Um I'm sticking to that story. So um, but literally, you know, every child I had uh was welcomed while I'm a working mom at Walmart. And uh, you know, all I can say to that is your support network is actually on this journey with you. You know, and you may not notice it all uh, you know, in the in the heat of the moment, but uh it wouldn't work if you didn't have your parents and your brother and Bella and everyone, you know, surrounding you and cheering you on. Like that is part of what makes you you. So balance is literally you can have it all, just not all at the same time. I think that's so true. And life is a limited resource, and so you know, I think it's it's part of all of our journeys as we try and go and do something that's really meaningful to us with something we have passion around, and that's you know, anything worth doing is it's gonna be hard. Yes. Um, and so I think those are the things that we struggle with and probably keep us in the center.
SPEAKER_00:It's very true. I had it recently, as you know, this summer, like a scare with breast cancer, which turned out to not be anything. It was a biopsy that you know came back and I had to undergo like numerous tests after that. And it got me to really thinking during that time, you know, wow, what if my time's more limited than I think it is? And like, would that change the choices that I'm making now? Um, unfortunately, it I came through that okay, but it changes you a little bit as you experience some of those things. And I think that if there's something at work that I agonize over more than anything, it's like the people. Am I doing right by the team? You know, once you're in charge of like somebody's paycheck, you know, I still feel like inside I'm like 16, but I realize like, whoa, I'm far, far from 16 at this point. But in your heart, you're kind of like you're some age, whatever that is, right? Um, but my life responsibilities have outpaced sort of what I feel like my actual emotional maturity can be at some time. And so that, you know, do I do right in that sense? And and if I even think about like, you know, companies like Walmart investing in us, like, can I do right by what they want to? So I feel like it's interesting, a smaller company, you can almost take more risks, there's so little to fail because there's it's like you could fail and nobody would care. And we're still a small company, relatively speaking, but you start to get bigger and a little bit more scared that, like, wow, there's something really to lose. And when you cross the chasm between nothing to lose and everything to lose, it changes how you make decisions about things.
SPEAKER_01:Has that ever caused you to stall or um to you know stop from making a decision that needed to be made? And how did you push through it?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think that one thing that I've been really fortunate about is I've got, as you mentioned, like great support from my brother who's the Andy and Monica and Andy. Um, but I have a really wonderful co-founder, Brian. And I think that I don't think I could have done this alone. I think to share that daily level of stress for a decade with another human being, you know, you kind of don't realize like your, oh, your BFF is gonna be like this, you know, for me, like this business school person that I just like, hey, like we should do this together because I I knew that I needed somebody with like a different skill set than me. And choosing a co-founder is almost like in a different sense, like kind of like when you get married, you're like, you want to share values and like you're you know, you're sharing financial responsibility, and so the decisions that your spouse makes affect what you do. Very fortunate to have chosen well in that capacity and have a wonderful husband. Making a business partner decision is one degree less, but like equally important because you have to share those values, and in both cases, I've grown with that person when I think you know, you can find divided values at any stage, and you can see after being married for as long as I have now too, I realize like, wow, people can really change in different ways, and we're just fortunate that to have grown in the same direction, and it's just like that. So I think that having somebody to share that stress with has made all the difference, and I'm so grateful for that, even though you know half the time we probably want to strangle each other, but that's that's normal. Um, I think that like at the end of the day, what sometimes the team doesn't get to see is that like we'll always end the day with a laugh or something else. We kind of have to let it go. It's like you can't hold on to it. That's right, that's right.
SPEAKER_01:So what are your dreams for uh how much time should I give you? Let's say five years from now, what would your vision be of Monica and Andy?
SPEAKER_00:I think that as I think back to where we started, the goal was always how do I bring an experience, like a better product to parents? That's what it where it began. And I think in a lot of ways that's where it ends, but at a much different scale than anything that I ever dreamed about. I'm kind of like this uncool Midwest mom. When I even think about the companies that were starting at the same time as us, and on the podcast that I do, oh my gosh, it was like the Away founder and the Allbirds founder, and like kudos to like all the people that paved the way to do a lot of this work. I think my passion is exactly the same place where I began, which is like, how do we deliver a better experience for parents? And now getting to work with Walmart and um at work at a bigger scale, there's more responsibility to it, which is how can we help to shape the decisions? How do we represent this next generation of parents? And the new goal is like, how do we just ourselves and with other partners just develop better products for parents and children, things that are more organic, more sustainable, healthier in any way. How does everybody have better things to choose from? And so that's the passion that drives me more now is the scale at which it can be done. But it's that same center, it's that same customer in the center of that. And I think because this emerged, you know, when I had my daughter, Bella, I was like so eager to like that was so special that that moment and doing all of it that I thought, I really want to do something that like touches the lives of babies and moms and children. And it was too late for me to become an OBGYN at that point. I was like, that ship has sailed, and I probably can't go back and do that. So what's the next best thing? I can't deliver babies, but like, how do I I knew how special that journey was for me and how difficult it was in so many ways with all of the other things that happened with other pregnancies? And it's like every day waking up and we even with the team, like we are a small part of one of life's most amazing journeys. And how do we build on that?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think the idea of solving the needs can take you in lots of different directions depending on the reaction you get as you go through the journey with customers. So, you know, I love the the fact that you are nimble and I encourage you to continue with that even as you do business with much bigger players um who they're fighting that whole, you know, big ship, I need to be nimble. They're fighting that too. And so, you know, to to just not let uh any kind of a machine slow you down from being that heartbeat for the customer and pivoting where you need to pivot and let the retailer catch up with you. Um and I think that's how you're gonna stay at the forefront. That's what I have seen with other brands. And I used to joke from my seat at the table with Walmart uh with brand owners, and I would say, Don't let us mess up your brand. And they're like, What? I'm like, No, I'm serious, like, don't let us do anything that's gonna be counterproductive to the longevity of your brand. Um, because there's so many competing uh forces, you know, and you're everyone's trying to make their PL. Don't let us ruin it because that's the magic that makes that brand special and why we want it, you know, within our assortment. So uh I love the fact that you're staying nimble and true to who you are. Um if we're gonna wrap this up and you're talking to people, Monica, who are in this same space or maybe they're early on their journey with a new brand, how how do you give them courage to go forward? And is there any kind of a a blueprint that you would say start here?
SPEAKER_00:I would say that the less conventional of a founder you are, the less that that you maybe were groomed to run a company, maybe the more successful you'll be. And I'll explain what that means. I didn't have a single finance class that I ever took. Um, I never envisioned myself running a company, and it doesn't mean that you can't do it if you have those things. But what you said earlier was really interesting too, which is like this idea that you know, what's the blueprint and what's the roadmap and how do you solve like a problem for consumers? I think, and I've worked with a lot of like wonderful women in business school that I've had an opportunity to meet in Chicago. We've got both Kellogg and Booth there and folks in general. And I think sometimes you'll meet people that like want to start a business and they're like, okay, what problem can I solve? I know I want to start a business. That could go incredibly well, and I'm sure there's very successful businesses that have come from that. But what you were talking about earlier, finding a problem in life that you don't feel like somebody else is solving and being that solution, that's probably the most powerful way to do it. And I think because New Parenthood was so lonely, it was so overwhelming for me, it was so difficult that the brand started out from a product perspective, but it became a community, it became an experience. If I wasn't living on that journey as that customer during that time, the I don't think the brand would be here. And there was a lot of other moms and dads that worked with me during that time that helped to form those early days. And so I think if you if you have an idea and a problem that you want to solve, even if your resume doesn't suggest that like you could that this is your background, go for it. Do it, take the leap. I walk into every room kind of pretending like I feel like I deserve a seat at the table, kind of like the fake it till you make it. And that's why I've been so so um adamant about bringing Bella with me. I want this next generation of women to, I want them to feel like they deserve that seat at the table. And so that also drives me these days, too. But if you need to hear it, you do deserve that seat at the table. So take it and solve the problems. Moms are, you know, moms are a huge part of the wallet share. Like we control a lot of the purse strings. We should control a lot of the decisions that are being made on what we're what we're able to buy to, and I'm really passionate about that going forward.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. And if anyone uh is uncertain, there is no rule book. Uh if there was, if there was a path, right now, everyone would be doing it, right? And the part of it is to do it in spite of having the questions, do it in spite of not having all the answers. You'll figure it out as you go. Yes. And you'll surround yourself with great people who can help you make those decisions.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:Um, so you know, I think that would be my encouragement, whatever whatever job you're in in this crazy retail world, that the answers are yours to to solve. Uh, the the questions are yours to solve. Listen to the customer, um, meet them where they are, and literally there is no dumb idea. Um, otherwise, everyone in this world would be doing it and saying retail is such an easy career. I am so glad that I picked this because I didn't have to make one decision. Um, so I just want to thank you today, Monica, for joining me. Um, I think there's plenty of new brands, and I want there to be new more new brands. It's the lifeblood of a fantastic living, breathing assortment for retailers. And so the more we can make a space for those new ideas to be heard, the better off I think we'll all be in the retail environment.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. It's fun. We'll keep we'll keep on the journey. Thank you so much for having. Absolutely. Thank you. Thanks.