 It seems like you've cracked the code on next-gen Braziers. Did Victoria tell you her secret? She did. I felt very lucky. Abby Morgan, co-founder and CMO of CUP. Are you ready to answer some questions? I am. There are a lot of bra startups. What makes CUP different? We've really leaned into design and innovation, as well as creating a presence that's creative and founding feelings. So leaning into kind of the intersection in the nexus of marketing, but also like incredible product innovation design. So what are those innovations? It's really solving for fit and function. So fit meaning most of our competitors offer about 15 to 17 sizes. We are offering, by the end of the year, 55. And then the other thing is really the function piece. Most make them out of non-performance materials, like a lace or something like that. And we're looking at high-performance mesh, which is used a lot in like athleisure. Who did the branding and what was the brief? They were two illustrators from Paris, and there really wasn't a brief. It was the name, and then it was kind of just giving like who are we reaching, the emotional category, the sensuality, and the nature of what we're trying to create with the product. Do you work with an agency or a constellation of them? We work with a few select agencies, but we've mostly been trying to create an agency in-house. We really believe that owning your own creative IP is very important. I love everything about the brand, the name, the logo, your advertising, who is responsible for all of this? Myself and then also our creative advisor, Lauren, who was one of our co-founders. Feels like a happy accident that the two use in the cup logo look like boobs. Is that intentional? Yes, absolutely. Your tagline, We Support You, is fantastic. Who wrote it? Again, it was a group brainstorm, and it really means like we support you both figuratively and literally with product. Your brand has so many layers to it. Cup, meaning the bra of a cup, your unique spelling, so it's not a generic cup, but a bra cup, and then the two use become the boobs. Which came first? The name came first, and then the logo followed. Explain the cup consumer to me. Anyone who emotionally connects with our bra, so you could be 80 years old, or you could be 17, but if you're looking for more fit, function, and style, and you don't want to compromise, you're a distinctive consumer, you connect with us. When did you have your aha moment? Lauren and I knew we wanted to create a brand and work together, and then Kieranen said that bras are an amazing opportunity, and it done a lot of R&D in terms of the market, so that's how it came together. How much of your success is product versus marketing? I think 50-50. I really think that we care about the intersection of both of them, and we've funded and put really incredible experts and teams behind both of them, so I think the product speaks for itself, and so does the brand. My boo-possessing sources tell me that buying a new bra is maybe a once-a-year purchase, and most people have one favorite bra that they wear all the time. What does this mean for the bra business model? It's something that from a consumer behavior perspective we're trying to break. These are things that we wear every single day. They stop supporting us after a while because they have a certain lifetime, and we should be updating them to make sure we feel supportive, so that's something we're trying to change. Did you sell fewer bras during the pandemic, because let's be real, no one wore a bra on quarantine? No, we actually saw a huge uptick, and I think that was because there were a lot of consumers who were, for the first time, trying bras online, so we actually saw a pretty big uptick, which I think is congruent with the market. All right, what are Flowcode? Flowcard. So this season of I'm With The Brand, Flowcode is sponsoring. They are a next-generation QR technology that makes gorgeous QR codes with robust technology that allow you to directly connect with your customers. Right now on screen, people are seeing your beautifully customized Flowcode. As people pull their phone outs, it will link to a customized Flowpage that they will create for you. It's a robust kind of mini-micro site that you could have anything there. What would you love Flowcode to put on your Flowpage? Wow, I'd love them to bring swim to life video and just showing the tactile nature of it and the movement that you can have in these swimsuits. You weren't the first new bra company, but it looks like you're doing really well. Where are you investing most of your media dollars? Definitely social media. We're looking at really diversifying those channels, but we're really, really focused on social. How important are influencers? They're important, but we don't measure influencers just in terms of social. Word of mouth is so important for us. So looking at full leaders versus influencers is big. If you had one marketing dollar to spend, where would you spend it? Probably Instagram. What's something popular now that drives you crazy? Instagram. I noticed your photography and a lot of bras allow the full boob to shine. How do you get around Instagram's community guidelines for that? It's really trying to change the way women are actually portrayed. It's not as sexualized, but it's actually focusing more on sensuality and allowing us to just be natural. I would say it's like a consensus across industry that's changing, it's not just cup. What's the weirdest customer feedback you've ever received? Probably a lot around nipple coverage and just the expectations. And it's like, you can see these bras. There's not that much nipple coverage. What percentage of your content success would you give to the kind of seeing the boob? Not that much, especially cause we're moxing to women. And those are the people who are for the majority buying our bras. If anything, it's more that you're seeing more shapes and sizes and realizing that embracing your natural size and shape is actually really beautiful. Does size inclusivity ever turn people off? No, I don't think so. I think if anything, we're constantly being asked why don't we make larger? It seems like you've cracked the code on next-gen braziers. Did Victoria tell you her secret? She did. I felt very lucky. Who do you want to steal market share from? Victoria's secret. Are you in retail? Not yet, but we had plans before the pandemic and it's something that I'm really interested in. How do you make sure your brand resonates and doesn't check boxes? By constantly listening to the consumer again and evolving the message. We have conversations about what's culturally happening, how should we shift this, and never just kind of sticking to a campaign. So that's very reactive. What's been your biggest investment to date? Into our products, definitely R&D. What's been harder than you anticipated? Standing out and really communicating the function of these bras across digital. What's not going according to plan? COVID, it's really hard to manage a remote team. It's really hard to keep people excited and manage kind of working at home and the different things that they have and pressures that they have. So really trying to navigate that. What's the best part of the job? The team, working with the team, working with people and coming up with ideas, for sure. What keeps you up at night and what time you wake up in the morning? I wake up at 5.36 a.m. What keeps me up at night is just making sure that the business, that we stay dominance, that we stay growing and that all of our employees are happy. So far in your company, what's been the best day and what's been the worst? Best was when we launched Cup. Worst was when COVID hit and just trying to figure out the mess of that. What's been the biggest lesson you've learned so far? That there is no playbook for leadership and it's constantly changing and you have to constantly be reading, taking in, learning, listening and evolving. What's been the coolest moment so far? Go back to the launch day and just seeing you set the website live. We didn't have any paid marketing at that point and it was like, oh, people are buying. This is insane. It looks like you're doing everything right. Am I wrong? Always room for improvement. I think we've got a long way to go. There's a massive market out there and I'm excited about kind of the potential and the opportunity that we can seize. When will you know you've made it? When every household in America and hopefully the world knows Cup as a brand. Abby Morgan, CMO and co-founder of Cup. Thank you so much for coming on and answering my questions. Thank you, Ian. I'm Ian Wishingrad and I'll see you next time on I'm With the Brand.