Amongst my absolute favorite days at Lovesac are new store Grand Openings. San Francisco Center is at the heart of downtown SF, right near Union Square. We’ve searched for the right location in the area for years and finally got to put a brand new Lovesac Store in the heart of the bay area. Come along via video to experience the lines and the excitement of a Lovesac Grand Opening event….and meet Eric. Eric is a Lovesac super-fan that showed up to wish us well and tell us his unique appreciation for Sactionals.
From my vlog…
San Francisco Center brings out the Lovesac loyalists
Lovesac loyalists line up through the mall for a store grand opening
Always time to choose from our 300 plus fabrics
I am so grateful to Eric, and to the hundreds of other customers that made our Lovesac Grand Opening event in San Francisco one for the record books. I am always so humbled to meet so many fans and supporters–especially to hear their stories and the unpredictable ways that Lovesac seems to make life better for people. There are few times where I have more fun.
From time to time I am interviewed for various podcasts or magazine articles about entrepreneurship, business, and the like. Besides the inevitable telling of the infamous Lovesac story, I get asked a lot about company culture–often referred to as “corporate culture,” which I bristle to just by nomenclature alone. (It is for this reason that you’ll never see us refer to “Lovesac Corporate.” Instead we use “Headquarters.”) But I digress…
Company culture is in the eye of the beholder. If people who work at Lovesac think our company culture sucks–then it sucks. If people who work at Lovesac think our company culture is awesome–then it is awesome. What people on the outside think doesn’t matter very much–except, of course, when it comes to attracting talent. Either way, it is my fault. And what’s really crazy is that after all these years, I can confidently say it always both sucks and is awesome at the same time…because you can’t please everybody all the time. Just get used to that.
But I find the perception from the outside is that Lovesac seems to have a really cool, alive, and vibrant culture. So I get asked that question over and over: How do you build company culture? My anti-climactic response: Do stuff. I vlogged about it… We do some weird things at Lovesac HQ to keep things interesting…
Have an idea? Think of something that sounds fun, or cool, or interesting? Do it. Try it. Spend a buck and go for it. Many “cultural” events don’t cost much or even cost anything. A week ago while I was out of the office visiting Lovesac stores one of our HQ Sac’rs took it upon themselves to throw a spontaneous “Chips and Dips” party at like 3pm on a weekday. They gave a few days’ notice, sent an email around to everyone at HQ and who knew–they had an amazing turnout of chips and dips and people from all departments just hanging out, having a good time on a random Thursday.
You know you have culture when you don’t have to “do” it all.
But until that day–just do things. Whether you are the “boss” or not. We all end up spending most of our waking hours not with the ones we love, but with those we work with. It is kind of sad you think about it–but it is the human condition. With all of the time we must spend at work, it might as well not suck, so be sure about how to go about presenting a companies vision and begin with making your workers not hate the culture they’re surrounded by. After all, as I remind all department heads at Lovesac when we have our Tuesday meeting (which itself is a brick in the wall of our culture here): If our culture at Lovesac rocks–it is your fault. If our culture at Lovesac sucks–its your fault.
The truth is: It’s all our faults. Every last one of us is part of a company culture, and what are we doing to make it not suck.
The saga of the Lovesac story continues with this second installment on my daily CEO vlog called “Get Off the Couch.” I do my best to recount every gory detail that went into the earliest days of the Lovesac–before it was even called a Lovesac! It was really just this huge not-beanbag thing that I had made and people loved.
I had to put it away for 2 years to serve a mission for my church and when I came back I had the good fortune to meet Dave Underwood–who became the head of Product Development at Lovesac and is still here today, 18 years later. Whether you are a budding entrepreneur or just someone who likes a good story, the history of Lovesac won’t disappoint…and I’ve never told it like this before, to anyone.
My daily vlog called “GET OFF THE COUCH” has a different theme for every day of the week. Thursdays = Throwback Thursday, and it is my plan to draw from my past experiences to tell stories of value. While there is a 20 minute company history video available at Lovesac.com that tells the “whole” story, all I can say is that it is not the whole Lovesac story. #ThrowbackThursday
The Lovesac story is a saga. The Lovesac story is gritty. The Lovesac story has more twists and turns than I could possibly cover in 20 minutes, let alone 20 episodes.
This sexy beast of a car makes the unabridged Lovesac Story…worth a listen
So enjoy this, the first of what will hopefully be many #ThrowbackThursday vlog posts allowing me to go deep, get into detail, and tell y’all how it really is (was). I am grateful to all of you who have supported me and this brand through all these years and all of our good times and bad. I’m especially grateful for the hundreds (thousands now) of Sac’rs who have given months and years of their lives in Lovesac Stores across the nation building this company one couch at a time.
Let’s face it. Lovesac’s don’t cure cancer. But every now and then we hear from loyal Lovesac fans who have experiences we could have never foreseen when we set out to make the world’s most comfortable seat. At our latest Lovesac store grand opening in Novi, Michigan we heard just such a story. You’ve got to see this.
And its not just random. We often hear from parents of children with autism, muscular dystrophy, and all kinds of other challenges where somehow a Lovesac can be therapeutic and helpful–at the very least, make their life more comfortable. And we love it. We are humbled to be a part of so many lives and homes.
Please share YOUR Lovesac therapeutic experience in the comments below. We’d LOVE to hear it.
There is just nothing more fun than bringing a new Lovesac digital showroom into the world. If you’ve never been to a Lovesac Store Grand Opening, make sure to get on our email list or pay attention to our locations page as they are a party not to be missed. People come out in the hundreds to take advantage of amazing deals, free food, and just to share the love on grand opening day. Some people even drive hundreds of miles to get there. It is always so much fun. Check it out in the Facebook video below….worth a look.
I’m starting a vlog! Seems like the thing to do. Its called “Get Off the Couch” and its all about my personal business philosophy on entrepreneurship and making things happen! The Shawn Nelson, founder of Lovesac, way of doing business. Please subscribe on YouTube and show some love. I’d love to hear from you there. Comment, ask questions, and I’d be happy to address them.
We had the pleasure of dropping by our our good friend, Travis Pastrana’s, place this week down in Maryland to see what might be possible if we filled his well-worn foam pit with some Lovesacs. His whole house is already Sac’d out, why not the back yard too? Invite a couple of the biggest YouTuber / Social Media Celebrities in the world, namely Logan Paul and Roman Atwood, and the chaos is sure to take care of itself.
Given so many Lovesacs at his disposal, Logan of course went immediately to: “Think we could launch a Lovesac from a slingshot–at a flying Travis Pastrana?” Well, here it is…
Roman came with a personal goal of learning to backflip a motorcycle into a foam pit full of Lovesacs from none other than the best in the world, Travis Pastrana. Somehow he nearly gets Travis killed. Here it is…
Thanks to Travis Pastrana, Roman Atwood, and Logan Paul….all good friends of the Sac. All of them have Lovesacs and Sactionals filling their entire living rooms. We love you guys–proud to have you in the #LovesacFamily.
An email sent to all Lovesac employees (my weekly “Thursday Thought”):
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! Has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
— Calvin Coolidge
One of our “permission to play” values at Lovesac is: Passion. I think that most of the time when people think of “passion,” they conjure up images of excitement, energy, and action. Enthusiasm is powerful, but can be short-lived, and is more of a symptom or a result, than it is a deep-rooted disposition. Passion is deep. Passion is persistent. Good days…bad days…everyday is conquered again and again by those who are truly passionate. Those who can just dig it out. Lovesac people are passionate. Lovesac people are persistent. Lovesac people are persistent.
RESPONSE FROM OUR VALLEY FAIR STORE LEADER:
Love this message. I asked my team to really read this and share with me something about their career at Lovesac they are passionate about. This really hit home for me yesterday. I just got to my house in Maine yesterday for a week of PTO and I was sitting on my sactional and really had an amazing moment. Before I moved to California I had this amazing 8/10 in my home. I took a 2/4 with me to California and it is now in my living room out there in my new home. I fly across the country and am sitting on this 6/6 in my “old home” and realize my sactional is on this crazy freakin journey with me. What was once a big part of my home is now a part of two homes, it will ALWAYS FIT in my life. When I sell these sactionals a piece of me is in all these people’s homes. I played a part in them finding a couch that will be forever new to them and will always fit in their lives. They will enjoy each other’s company, they will raise their kids, they will watch breaking news, they will laugh they will cry they will be given sorrowing news and take comfort in someone’s arms on this couch; and not even realize how much of life their couch has seen. I remember being told that the man I called my best friend, my mentor, and most importantly my grandfather passed away and falling into my dads arms. That couch held my tears and my screams and I didn’t even know it. A lot of life happens on a couch. I don’t know about you Shawn but that’s some powerful stuff. Thank you for the permission to play and be a part of people’s lives without them even knowing it! Enough sappiness, in a long winded way, THANK YOU! — Ry
Maine Sactionals:
With all my pieces together, I can build this monster…
California Sactionals:
…But when it came time to move and keep it light, I kept it light
