Amazing Teams Podcast
We started this podcast because we love teams, especially amazing ones. Michael Jordan said it best, "Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships." This is what we're all about!
Our mission is to help others build amazing teams by having authentic conversations with remarkable people who are building amazing teams. We will explore the tactics, strategies, and frameworks that have helped them succeed.
Amazing Teams Podcast
The ROI of Delight & the Power of a Well-Thought-Out Gift with Katy Carrigan
In this episode of the Amazing Teams podcast, we sat down with Katy Carrigan, CEO of Goody, to explore how thoughtful gifting drives employee engagement and recognition. They discuss the power of personalization, celebrating milestones, and building a culture of appreciation. The conversation also delves into leadership transparency, empowering teams, and how Goody navigates growth while keeping the recipient experience at the heart of it all.
We dive into:
- Why physical gifts often have more impact than monetary ones
- The common oversight of missing work anniversaries
- How remote work calls for more intentional recognition
- Why action and follow-through are key to building trust
Tune in for Katy’s insights on creating meaningful moments that make teams feel truly valued.
Resources:
- Connect with Katy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Goody
- How Katy became the CEO of Goody
Katy Carrigan (00:02.222)
There's a lot of research out there that really indicates by sending an actual like gift or physical item, the value of that item and how much the recipient remembers it, and the engagement and motivation. It has a much higher increased value than like a monetary gift because that just gets in the moment. It's a very high satisfaction, but he gets forgotten about really quickly.
Doug Dosberg
This podcast is brought to you by Heytaco, the only peer-to-peer recognition platform that uses tacos to help teams around the world share gratitude. I'm Doug. I'm Una. This is our podcast, Amazing Teams.
Doug Dosberg (00:48.846)
Hey everyone, welcome to the season three of the Amazing Teams podcast, where we explore all things that make work better. Today we are excited to be joined by Katy Carrigan, CEO of Goody. Katy, welcome to the Amazing Teams podcast.
Katy Carrigan
Absolutely, thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here.
Doug Dosberg
Of Course.
Una Japundza
Katy, tell us a little bit more about what Goody is.
Katy Carrigan
Yes, absolutely. So in a nutshell, Goody is a gifting platform helping companies celebrate their employees, clients, prospects. We actually originally started out as a mobile consumer app launched right at the end of December 2020. And we created this app, put it out in the world. And something that we realized pretty quickly is that the people who were using the most and spending the most money were professionals. And that really indicated to us that there was a gap in the market, that people wanted an easy-to-use to use tool that had gifts that people actually wanted and were excited about giving in the professional context. So we made a pivot towards the end of 2021 to build a tool for companies. And that's really been our focus over the last four years is to provide a platform, a marketplace that allows people to come in and easily celebrate…
Katy Carrigan (02:09.885)
… important relationships with items that people want at the end of the day.
Una Japundza
I received a gift from Goody probably in December or January, and was such an awesome experience. I did not want to choose my reward until I was in person with a team so they can experience with me what choosing a reward looks like. Does everyone get to choose what they want to purchase from Goody when they get a gift?
Katy Carrigan
Yeah. It is one of our like foundational ethos here is the gift of choice and the idea really letting your recipient pick out what they want. So I'll say the majority of times the gift is sent on Goody, you're either picking what you want from a budget set by the sender, or you have this ability to swap a gift. So even if someone has sent you, let's say cookies, and you're don't have a sweet tooth, you want to swap it for something else, you have that option.
But at the end of the day, it is up to the sender. So that's actually a setting that they get to choose where they can decide, do they want to give that recipient choice? But we highly encourage it when someone's sending a gift.
Una Japundza
What is the most purchased item in the Goody marketplace?
Katy Carrigan (03:16.45)
Ooh, okay. So on the sender side, people are, like I said, traditionally sending a gift of choice, meaning that they're coming in and they're setting a budget and then letting the recipient choose. So then what the recipients are choosing is really interesting.
So the categories that tend to do very well are wellness and home goods. So that tends to be where people are leaning in. And so, like last holiday season, for example, whitening strips were really popular. And I love that. And like a tea kettle and air fryer had also been some pretty popular guests. And so I love thinking about those because you would never, as an employer, like to gift those items to your employees.
Una Japundza
Here's an air fryer for all your outstanding contributions to the team.
Katy Carrigan
Exactly, but people love the air fryer. It actually still gets chosen very frequently.
Una Japundza
That's amazing. What is the most popular day to gift employee rewards?
Katy Carrigan (04:16.246)
Employee Appreciation Day is always our highest volume in gifting day. So the holiday times are always super busy, but that's like, you know, every day for like a three to four-week period is like super busy. But if I think of like the one day where we see the highest gifting volume overall, continues to like be our high watermark is Employee Appreciation Day, which is simply the first Friday in March.
So we're finding year over year, more and more companies are celebrating this holiday. So if your company isn't doing celebrating the appreciation day yet, I would highly recommend marketing on your calendar, talking to your leadership team. It's becoming just a very common day for employees to feel celebrated. And I bet your employees will probably be feeling left out if you're not doing it.
Una Japundza
We've had a lot of teams send crazy taco mountains during Employee Appreciation Day. They send a lot of recognition messages. Doug, what's your thought when you hear about employee rewards, and you added the reward option into Heytaco like years ago, custom rewards, right? When you hear about all these rewards, how does it make you feel?
Doug Dosberg
I'm intrigued. mean, obviously, Una, you know the story behind the rewards addition to Heytaco many, many years ago. Yeah, I mean, we obviously have opinions on rewards here at Heytaco, mostly around monetary rewards, connecting monetary rewards to recognition, and using it as a motivator. I mean, that's pretty much it. That's what comes to my mind.
Katy Carrigan
Yeah, we, I mean, like monetary rewards are great. Don't get me wrong. I think every house can appreciate a little bit more money in their pocket, but we, on the gifting side, I do find that there's a lot of research out there that really indicates by sending an actual like gift or physical item, the value of that item and how much the recipient remembers it and the engagement and motivation, it has a much higher increase….
Katy Carrigan (06:15.482)
…increased value than like a monetary gift because that just gets in the moment. It's a very high satisfaction, but it gets forgotten about really quickly.
Doug Dosberg
For sure.
Una Japundza
So true, especially like the more generic, like an Amazon gift card, like you just apply it to your next household purchase.
Katy Carrigan
Exactly. And I think our whole thing is really concentrating on what are gifts that feel really high quality that you maybe have been eyeing or want to try that brand yourself, but you haven't wanted to spend your money on it. And now you all of a sudden have the opportunity to get that item or try it out. Everyone's been talking about all these great recipes that can make it an air fryer, but you just haven't been able to justify buying one for yourself. And now, oh, cool. I can actually get this item that I've been wanting to try, and not feel guilty about accepting it and choosing it, versus if I get an Amazon gift card, and be like, I should apply that to household items or groceries.
Una Japundza
It feels a little, what's it called, splurging if you bought, purchased something else on Amazon that's not your next household bill or Whole Foods bill or whatever.
Doug Dosberg (07:17.442)
So, do you guys curate the items that are available? Is that how that works?
Katy Carrigan
Yeah.
Doug Dosberg
Okay.
Katy Carrigan
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We put a lot of thought into the brands and products that we're bringing into the marketplace. So we are definitely trying to have a very big marketplace so everyone can find exactly what they're looking for, but doing it with the eye for curation. So thinking about that, if we're going to have a, you know, candle, we don't want to have like 50 different candles, but what are like, the cool, great brands, the different ones that can work for unique situations that you're sending.
So we do think a lot about the partners that we're bringing onto the platform as well, because we know a lot of companies also like to shop with values. So we tend to look for brands that can help complement those values of the company. So, whether it's sustainable, female-founded, BIPOC founded, et cetera.
Doug Dosberg
That’s cool. Now, can the customer also curate, or do you curate for the customer?
Katy Carrigan
They can also curate. So we do have the functionality where if a customer wanted to go in and say, hey, you know, want to give my employees choice, but not like the entire catalog, I'm going to curate it down to five items, ten items, they have that ability to do so.
And we also do swag as well. So customers also have the ability to come in and put their logo on the physical items and our swag selection. And we have a lot of areas of the digital brand as well.
Doug Dosberg (08:41.134)
Gotcha.
Una Japundza
It's so fascinating because you have to be really good on the merchandising end and understanding kind of what do people want before they even know that they want it and always have this catalog that's being refreshed and renewed like probably, when Dubai chocolate goes viral, you're like, how do we get Dubai chocolate in our catalog? Whatever, like you have to be so on top of things.
Katy Carrigan
Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's exactly it. Like, I think water bottles are this interesting example, right? There's always a different trending water bottle from it, going from like Stanley’s to Owala to I think Frank's is like a popular one now, but it's like constantly to lark. Like, how do we make sure that we're offering the coolest water bottles at the moment? So it is a lot of that, let's stay on trend. And we just constantly try to keep the catalog fresh. A fun status that we're adding about if you do a hundred products a week.
Una Japundza
Wow!
Doug Dosber
When you add, you take away items?
Katy Carrigan
Yes.
Doug Dosber
Okay.
Katy Carrigan (09:34.006)
Yeah. So we're constantly kind of like recycling out. Now it's not always like a one-to-one, like if we add, we have to take something out, but if something's not doing well, some things are not, you we're about to go into summer. So we're beefing up our kind of like outdoor activities, warm weather type of products. not going to, know, we can turn off more of those like winter-type products. So yeah, there's oftentimes some merchandising team is doing a lot of work to make sure that products feel relevant and exciting.
Una Japundza
As an expert in employee rewards, what do you see companies do so poorly when it comes to rewarding their employees that you're like, please stop doing that and start doing something different instead?
Katy Carrigan
Yeah. So I think that work anniversaries is a really interesting one because I find that companies are either not doing anything, like programmatically. And so what happens that goes really poorly is that some employees are getting recognized while others are not. So that's always like, really, I would say a poor experience because, it's okay, my deskmate over here got a balloon on their desk for their three-year anniversary because it was on a Wednesday, but because my anniversary fell on like a Saturday, no one recognized it or cared about it. So that's something I would say is like a really big thing to look out for.
So on the people side, I think it's important to really put that policy in place and then just make it systematic where you are using a program like Goody or Heytaco to make sure that that's just automatic, that people's anniversaries are getting recognized and celebrated. And then, if you're doing it, make sure that the recognition is equivalent to like the years of service.
So, I don't know if you will ever get into the Reddit threads, but there are some really, really poor work anniversary gifts I've seen. Like it's, you know, someone was posting recently, it was like their 10-year anniversary, and they got a mouse.
Doug Dosberg (11:29.646)
Like a computer mouse or a live, living mouse?
Katy Carrigan
I actually think a live mouse would be better.
Una Japundza
I agreed. It would be way better than a computer mouse.
Katy Carrigan
Yeah, a computer mouse. It's like, here's a mouse to get your job done. So what we're seeing is that companies are doing really well, and to your asking, really about can we do particularly curations is that the companies who set up like solid service anniversary programs have different items and gifts to pick from at different years of service, and they increase. It's very clear that it's increasing. So your 10-year gift is going to be nothing like your 1-year gift because hey you literally just gave a decade of your life to this company.
Doug Dosberg
I know that feeling.
Una Japundza (12:09.774)
I feel like in that case it's better to not give anything than to give a poor gift, right? Because it leaves such a bad taste in the mouth. You're like, I'd rather have not just gotten a high five, or don't even mention it.
Katy Carrigan
Yeah, or just like a nice thoughtful note, like a card and a thoughtful note, have people sign, like the, then putting like a very small item with it that just really doesn't represent the amount of like time, effort, energy you just put into the company over the past X amount of years just doesn't land well. So I would, one, I would definitely recommend that companies are celebrating work anniversaries. And then when they implement a program, make sure that it's systematic so no one ever gets missed and that it's representative of the years of service that someone has put in.
And I've seen like companies maybe don't have like a, they don't think they have the budget to do this. Then maybe do, we're gonna do like everyone, five, ten years. So there's these different milestones, or there's really fun programs I've seen companies put into place that at each milestone, there's a particular gift that really represents, so you have that on your desk or if you have that piece of swag, it means you're part of this club or you're an employee who's been around for X amount of years. So there's different ways too that I think companies can think about how they can instill their own brand into that type of invent instead of just being like intimidated by, I don't have enough budget, or that seems like it's too much work to organize.
Una Japundza
To not get recognized because your anniversary is on a weekend. It feels like being born in July as a kid and never getting to celebrate your birthday with your friends at school.
Katy Carrigan (13:47.47)
Yeah. I love that comparison. Exactly.
Una Japundza
It doesn’t feel good.
Okay, before we get into your team at Goody, how do you do employer gifting at Goody with your team? You obviously use Goody to reward your employees. How does it go? What milestones do you celebrate? Things like that.
Katy Carrigan
Yeah, so we do do work anniversaries, and we do have different gifts based on tenure. We do, do birthdays as well. We also always celebrate Employee Appreciation Day. We celebrate Goody anniversary as in like the company's anniversary and holiday gifting. And then there's also, you know, I definitely encourage my managers to send gifts like as needed after like a big project, brand, someone on the team has a big life moment, marriage, baby, et cetera. Really great to use the platform.
I do like to, on work anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, I don't tend to send like branded gifts. So I let people really choose from the catalog. And then things like our company anniversaries tend to be like a more it was swag store type gift. So yeah, we are using it all the time.
Doug Dosberg
That's awesome. Are there any items that you've had in your marketplace that were controversial that you had to remove? And if not, that's fine, but I'm just curious.
Katy Carrigan (15:08.288)
I don't think anything is necessarily like controversial or spicy in that type of way. Cause I think they're probably filtered before they hit the platform. Like, we have enough of an eye there to be thoughtful. I will say that there have been like times where we put up products and then we realized like quality issues, and so we would take them down. And sometimes the way we realized that is that enough people have picked the item, and they're giving us feedback because after a gift is received, we always send a like a survey to recipients, like how's your gift? And it's really great. It's an opportunity for us to hear directly from the recipients on if they really enjoy the item or if there's an issue. And if we see that there's like a trend on a particular product, we'll just take it down because. You know, we don't, we want to make sure that we can really stand behind that things are, are meeting high quality. So, or could sometimes be, like we've one vendor who had this great set of mixing bowls. They were beautiful, but the way they were packaged, they were constantly showing a broken. Because it was like a nested one. So, like the third bowl was constantly showing up broken. And we were just like, you guys had to fix your packaging if we're trying to keep sending it. So we do have, cause there's that whole logistics part of like sending the physical items that we think about. So that tends to be where we'll take away items.
We do have things like, you know, Manscaped on the platform or Mac Weldon that has like boxers in it or like shaving stuff, I don't choose it all the time, and I think companies are fine with it, so.
Doug Dosberg
Nothing, no Shinesty products.
Una Japundza (16:42.706)
Yeah. Shinesty. Are you familiar with Shinesty?
Katy Carrigan
No.
Una Japundza
Okay. In your free time, it's not very public appropriate, but you should look at Shinesty..com and they just have the most hilarious swag that's like themed and stuff. And it's definitely, you'll just, I see you looking at it right now. It's just like the website, just the front page will tell you everything you need to know about the brand, but I'm a fan of their marketing materials.
Katy Carrigan
Okay. All right. I'm excited to dig into this.
Una Japundza
They're just silly. They're just silly. I don't think it's good for employee gifting necessarily.
Doug Dosberg
It depends on your company.
Una Japundza
Okay. Tell us more about your team. I saw you had a retreat recently on LinkedIn in Banff. How big is your team? Where are you located? Tell us more about the composure.
Katy Carrigan (17:31.212)
Yeah, absolutely. So we have 32 full-time employees. We do have a number of contractors that flex up and down during our like holiday season, as you can imagine, but we're 32 and strong. One of my favorite facts about Goody is that our average tenure is three and a half years, and Goody started in December of 2020. So, we have the majority of our team that has actually been here from like very early days. And I think that is a testament to how amazing the team is and how much everyone enjoys working with each other. And those retreats are really important because we are a fully remote team. So we have a little bit of hubs in like New York City and San Francisco, but overall people are across the U.S., a couple of people in Canada, a couple in Brazil. And so once a year, it's really important that we bring the entire team together for a full week.
Doug Dosberg
2020, not the best year to maybe get started in business, right? With COVID happening and so much change happening. That's interesting.
Katy Carrigan
Yeah, I think actually it was like, in the same way though, was everyone was like distributed. It was like really hard to send a gift to someone, like, where are you? You would have to like text them to be like, what's the address? You know, do you have any allergies? Like, can you get it to somebody? So I think it's also as a result of us being really distributed and a bit more isolated during that time, where something like Goody was like this amazing tool, like gave people had an opportunity to still feel connected and celebrate loved ones without having to, you know, do the logistics or figure out how you're going to actually get a gift to somebody.
Doug Dosberg (19:07.534)
That's a great point. Yeah, cause it's not like you're in the office and you can just drop it on somebody's desk and thank them.
Una Japundza
And the asking for the address is such a pain point. It's like, what's their address? Am I going to get it right? This way, you send a link and they just get it. Such a more awesome experience.
Katy Carrigan
Yeah, exactly. And our thing too wasn't just like, you know, not just sending a link of, fill out this form, but how do you maintain this really delightful recipient experience to, you know, open that link and feel that dopamine hit of unwrapping and seeing that card and thoughtful message. So we really think a ton about that recipient experience as well.
Una Japundza
Doug, that probably resonates with you as a UX guy.
Doug Dosberg
Yeah, definitely. think that's the way you do it, right? You think about the user, the person using it, the whole copy machine thing. Think about the people that actually going to be using your machine and solve their problems, and think about their experience using it.
Katy Carrigan (20:04.494)
100%.
Una Japundza
Katy, what do you think has helped the majority of your team stay at Goody for such a long time? And especially through the pivot from the B2C to the B2B model.
Katy Carrigan
Yeah, I think as we have grown as a company, there have been new, interesting, unique challenges. And I think the longer people tend to stay with the company, they get this deeper context so they can hopefully feel more empowered to take on those challenges. So even though maybe their background, they don't have that particular expertise, but they have the expertise of Goody. So now they can take that point of view into that challenge to help solve it.
So I think that's continued to help keep people around is that as we grow as a company, you know, it's important for me to think about how are they also growing as employees and having new opportunities to help like learn, know, okay, so the company went from, you know, it's zero to 1 million, 1 million to 10 million, you know, we're on this journey to our 100 million mark and the challenges are going to be a lot different than they were from zero to one.
Doug Dosberg
For sure.
Una Japundza
What's your biggest challenge as the leader of the team when it comes to the team? Not necessarily the business, but the team, the growing and scaling team.
Katy Carrigan (21:15.084)
Yeah, one thing that I sometimes find a bit difficult or something that like I think a lot about is we are a small team, right? So we're only 32 people. We're hiring a few more people, but we're not going from 32 to a hundred employees quickly. And so what that means is that I like to have this like flat of an organization, I will say, is like we can to allow for hopefully quicker decision-making, more empowerment. But then I think it gets very hard because, traditionally, the way people think about how they move up in their career is that corporate ladder of there's like, I'm going to be at this level for three years and then I go to the next level and the next level.
But when you're small and we have very few levels, it's harder to know exactly, like, well, what defines the next promotion level at Goody? If it doesn't mean that I can give you, like, more reports, or it changes your reporting position generally because you can't really go beyond my reports, right? At the moment, I can't be the manager of 32 people here.
So, I would say that's something that's pretty challenging, being smaller is that I think, you know, to before the reason people stay is when they feel engaged and there's like, see growth in themselves, and they're becoming like a stronger and stronger professional. And a lot of times, that we've taught that equates to like title changes, monetary changes, et cetera. But as like a small company ourselves, it can be difficult to really define, like, how do we celebrate that growth in a way that makes sense for us as a company and you as a professional, and what that means for your resume.
Una Japundza
Have you found any solutions that work at least for now in terms of how to help people grow without changing five different levels of management in a smaller company?
Katy Carrigan (22:59.266)
Yeah, no. haha.
So we're gonna, I wish I had some advice or yes, if anyone listening has something they thought or if you guys have any ideas there, but I think one thing I will say is that I try to be a really transparent leader and communicative leader. So like, you know, talking about like one of the challenges we're facing here, I try to talk openly about it with the team. It's not that like I don't want to get everybody, like a VP title, or make or change the titles. It just like, I have to think like, well, what does that actually mean? Like, longer term, or if we were to grow to the team by another 20, how does that like slot in? Like, what are we setting so long-term advance?
So hopefully with a lot of open conversations with the team, we can figure out a solution together that makes people feel like, you know, they're getting rewarded properly for the amount of effort and engagement they're putting into the company, and they're getting that growth. But it also makes sense for us long-term as we're setting up the business.
Una Japundza
It's a super hard question. I used to work at a company where we had different levels and roles, and with each role, there was different set of results, but the role doesn't correspond the title. Like the title is kind of, you put on LinkedIn, whatever helps you get your job done, right? Like, don't, know, don't make yourself a CEO if you're not like there's only one, but just say whatever VP of sales, but internally your roles could be these three roles that take care of these results. And each of those kinds of has like levels you go up and it turns out it attracts people who don't care about the title, right? The title is a little bit of like a vanity metric because it's external, but internally it's a lot of like, are you making an impact on the team, and are you getting compensated in a way that makes you feel valued and that's in line with your career goals? Right? So it sounds like with your team, they probably feel more compelled to be a part of a growing company to get to the hundred million dollars than whether they have a VP title or not.
Katy Carrigan (24:47.906)
Yeah. I think so. And I hope so. I think, then I think on my side, the best thing I can do is for everyone here is to just be as honest as possible with what we can offer and where we're at, because I do see, you know, the end of the day, is like a, it's a contract between two, entities that like, Hey, this is what we can offer you. This is what we need and expect in return. And you're like this, great. I agree to that. I can meet those expectations, and you all meet this side. And I think what's really unfair is that a lot of companies will do is that they withhold information from their employees, not allowing them to make decisions with all the data available.
And so then they feel in the dark, they're not gonna be as engaged. They don't understand why something is or isn't happening. And so I'm very much in the like overshare pre-b camp of like, I want people to know exactly like what we're doing here, where we're at, what the goals are, what are some of the challenges, why, you know, we can't do X, Y, and Z or why we're going to like focus on this area versus that.
So then everyone can feel empowered to make the decision that's like best for them. Because if I have people consistently choosing every day that they want to show up here and this is the right place for them, we're gonna have way better results and get to our results faster than trying to like drive people along.
Una Japundza
Have you, after you started sharing things, did you have people quit who were like, yeah, thank you for sharing. This is not for me, and I'm going to opt into something else.
Katy Carrigan
I wouldn't say equipped, but would say like a big thing here at Goody is we definitely like have high, like we look for high performers and like in the point of my expectations, that I think if people don't meet the performance, then, then they'll sometimes have to have a conversation. So that's probably not right because of our expectations of what we need, and from the performance of an individual, we're just not quite getting from you. Of course, hopefully getting people the opportunity to like step up and see if it is a fit, but you know, we've had moments like that with that we needed to just really question of like....
Katy Carrigan (26:41.134)
… is this the right environment for you to be set up for success? Because it's another thing of being a small company is that we don't have a lot of like room for like a ton of like mentorship in the same way. Cause everybody has to have so much ownership in their role that, and like we've had to realize that too, as we hire is that, you know, as much as, I'm excited for the day when we can bring in people who like, who are a bit more green or just like new, new professionals. But at this moment, like we just don't have the bandwidth to coach people and set them up for success, than that. So on that side is like, we know that, and then therefore the people we bring in, we expect a lot of autonomy and output from them.
And again, that's kind of part of what the relationship is. These are our expectations and what we need from the role. And if you can't meet them or this isn't the right place for you to be successful, then yeah, maybe it's not the best fit.
Una Japundza
Sounds like you make those decisions quickly. Not too quickly, quickly, which is good.
Katy Carrigan
Yeah, I think you learn, right? And you learn it. And it makes us better, I think, as hiring the more we do it to also then how we best ensure that, again, even in the interview process, we can be super transparent of like, for us, if you're joining Goody, you're not gonna have the same holiday break that maybe other people have or that your family has. Like, it's just not the reality of our business whatsoever. Like, it's our busiest time. It's all hands on deck. We don't, you shouldn't be taking PTO during Q4, really, like we don't, that's not something we do. We have a, we do the first week of July off as a company. So everyone has summer break. So I do think it's important to find other ways to like make up for it. Cause I know that's a traditional time, but I would never want someone to join and then it becomes a holiday season or they, and then they're like surprised, or they're like, Oh, you know, why am I, why am I working on Christmas Eve?
Doug Dosberg (28:29.996)
That’s really interesting. You kind of make me wonder, is it, do you see like a seasonal pattern with business? I'm guessing?
Katy Carrigan
Oh, 100%.
Doug Dosberg
Yeah.
Katy Carrigan
Yeah. I mean, it's similar to any e-commerce, right? Like this is an, um, I think what's different is that, uh, I'm sure B2B, and SaaS has like Q4 can often be big for them or whatever their Q4 is. But, um, I would say like as a marketplace, we're much more similar to like e-commerce patterns, where, right. They're, they'd also see spikes during holiday times when, uh, just spend as much higher overall or consumer products.
So it's very true. Then you'd imagine even more than e-commerce, we're like a gifting company. And what's very cool, and I talk about it a lot with my team, is that we're not manufacturing intent here. Like, we don't need to do that. Like, gifting intent is super high all the time. This is something that is, you know, human nature trust. We've been doing it since the beginning of time of like a way to indicate to someone that they're valuable, is to use your resources, time, money, et cetera, to, you know, caveman time.
So, going to bring you these, these rocks, these things I hunted, right? To showcase that, like, I appreciate you. And that's still something we're doing today with right, whatever our resources is to celebrate one another. And what we're doing here at Goody is just making it so much easier to do that, and almost like a better experience in doing it. So my thing all the time is like, I don't, the intent is out there. People are doing it. How do I just make sure they're doing it on our platform?
But it's the seasonal question. The intent of doing it is so incredibly high when it comes to November, December. And so a lot of people discover us during that time.
Doug Dosberg (30:12.064)
That makes sense.
Una Japundza
Katy, very simple question. It's very broad. Feel free to answer it as you wish. But what do you think makes work fundamentally better?
Katy Carrigan
Yeah, that’s very broad
Una Japundza
Yes, it’s very broad. So you can define it for yourself as you wish.
Katy Carrigan
I think we're fundamentally better when I think about what, is feeling like you're solving a really interesting problem. I think that's what I really enjoy in every day, that the problems can often change, but I'd like overall, I do think that, like, I were looking to solve a problem here, and like, how did you go back to this? So, like a lot of people are doing this thing today, but they're not doing it in the best way that they possibly could.
So, like we're starting to answer that in a better way. And now, like one of our very problems, how do we get more people to know about it? But having like your problem or defined or an interesting challenge or problem you're looking to solve and then like truly believing you can solve it, I think, makes work more fun and engaging.
Doug Dosberg (31:12.732)
I think that's a great answer. Another question.
Katy Carrigan
I don’t know if I answered that correctly.
Una Japundza
I don't know if there's right or wrong. It's a very personal experience.
Doug Dosberg
Another question, not as great as that question, but definitely burning, that tower of books behind you, is that on your to-do list, or is that?
Katy Carrigan
I hope you can also see the
Una Japundza
I love the color-coded, by the way. Color organized.
Katy Carrigan (31:35.5)
Okay. I love a physical book. love to read. I try to get a Kindle that just, don't know, I need to like turn the pages. I like carrying it around. So I do. Then, cause I love looking at my books afterwards. So the majority of those books I have read. Some of them are on the list, but I have read most of those books, but it's been..
Doug Dosberg
I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.
Katy Carrigan
No, totally fine. But yes, I have different stacks or in different parts of the apartment.
Una Japundza (32:02.1)
What types of books do you like to read?
Katy Carrigan
I would say, I think reading is like one of my escapes. And so I tend to like fiction. I like historical fiction, thrillers. And then we have a Goody Reads book club internally, and I'd say we tend to do more business-focused. But one that has been the most popular thus far from the book club has been “Unreasonable Hospitality”.
Una Japundza
so good.
Katy Carrigan
So good, right?
Una Japundza
Yes.
Katy Carrigan
Yeah, really inspired the team. We still talk about like our Blue Spoon moment…
Katy Carrigan (32:33.422)
… internally. So if you read the book, you'll know what that means. But, um, so I like with the team, uh, that's when I tend to get my more of like nonfiction business reads. And so then we kind of discuss and think about how we can incorporate some of the themes into Goody.
Una Japundza
That book, Doug, is about Union Square, the name of the restaurant group in New York. They won a Michelin, they got a Michelin star and stuff, and it was about how they integrated the kitchen and the front office, like the dining room team, to like produce a unique experience. But what I love about that is they would do crazy stuff for their guests. Things that definitely like, if someone looked at it, it would be like the ROI, zero, negative, right? And we often think about the ROI so much when it's like sometimes, like, I think Tony Hsieh said, what's the ROI of hugging your mom? Like, just do it. Like you don't think about the ROI. So that book is definitely a good like prose in the camp of sometimes you just do the right thing even when it costs you money. It's okay. Things will be fine.
Katy Carrigan
And it's like, and right in the long term, it pays off from like the word of mouth, the brand awareness. So just like, again, positive experience and the, that someone associates with your brand. And so when they like, you know, they eat dinner there once, but then whenever someone brings up New York, it's like, Hey, I had the best dinner of my life at this place. And so much part of that was beyond the food, but also the service.
Una Japundza
Has this book inspired your team to create such a moment for a customer or a gift receiver so far?
Katy Carrigan (33:58.2)
Yeah, I think it, I think particularly it's definitely inspired us a lot in particularly like in different CX issues of like, what's the right way to handle this? How do we ensure that someone is high the experience even when something goes off? But on one that I think is a really good example is one of my CSMs, she's incredible, but she had a call with a customer who mentioned something about collecting soil from different parts of the country. So then she asked the team to all send her bags of soil, so that we could label them, put them in cute jars we have from the marketplace, and then she sent this customer soil from different places.
Una Japundza
That is amazing. How did they react? I just envisioned this person opening a box with dirt from all over the country.
Katy Carrigan
But I mean, they're incredibly appreciative and like, you know, that's truly like going above and beyond, right? And that's it. And I think that's what's been really cool is that, you know, at the beginning of a lot of, would say, like sales calls, particularly there's all the like, you know, trying to get to know someone, you're being friendly, break the ice before you get down to business.
But I think what this indicates is that when you do that with Goody or you do that with someone from our team, is like we're actually listening. And I think what's been really fun for that, too, is that we think about it because we have this wonderful marketplace of goods. One of the customers I'm talking to said that they're having a baby or they're gonna get married. Okay, well, I need to make a note of that so then I can like send them a gift for that occasion coming up. So when I think that's like what the big part of it is, just like listen to people, like see people for who they are, for who they are outside of like, …
Katy Carrigan (35:34.626)
… their work, their profession, but as just like humans. And then what are like small acts that we can do to like celebrate them.
Doug Dosberg
That's awesome.
Una Japundza
Doug, should we go into gratitude?
Doug Dosberg
Let's do it. Katy, thank you for joining us on the podcast today, but before we let you go, we do something on the podcast where we let you give out tacos. So, for those listening that don't know, with Heytaco, everyone has five tacos to give each day, and you can give your tacos to someone to recognize them for something they've done or to just simply show your appreciation. So, Katy, the question to you is, who are you giving your five tacos to?
Doug Dosberg (36:12.191)
And why?
Katy Carrigan
Yeah, I am going, five tacos, in question on giving up tacos, as this is my first time doing it. Can I split my tacos up?
Una Japundza
For the purpose of this exercise, you can do it any way you want. You can give all your five tacos to one person or half a taco to one, half a taco to another, however you'd like.
Doug Dosberg
We had someone give them to themselves. So yeah, however you want to give it.
Katy Carriga
No, because the first thing that just came to mind is I took last week, took a few days out of the office. And so I always really appreciate that I have such an amazing leadership team who can step up to really take over and make sure I have coverage when I'm out. I think another big part of having a fun place to work is making sure your employees like to take a break and recharge.
Katy Carrigan (37:07.83)
So we try to, as much as I know, I sounded really harsh on like Q4, no PTO, but like throughout the rest of the year, a lot of people are taking breaks and recharging. And so I really appreciate that my leadership team gave me like great coverage, and it was able to take some time off this past week.
Doug Dosberg
Perfect.
Una Japundza
It’s a pretty good taco.
Before we wrap up, I do have to tell you, so I met, well, I've heard about Goody, obviously a lot of our customers use it, but I went to a conference and your team had a booth, which was by the way, the most fun booth because it had swag and a wheel. I mean, all the booths were empty by day two, your booth was not. And I talked to someone, I believe it was your VP of sales, and I'm blanking on her name. And I said, Hey, I'd love to talk to someone about teaming up Heytaco and Goody for rewards. And the next day, you sent me a note, and I was like, oh my god, she passed on that information. Cause sometimes you just don't know people like, whatever, I'll forget and stuff. The next day, you're like, Hey, let's chat. So taco to her for actually doing what she said she was going to do. Sometimes you just never know when you meet people at first. So truly appreciate.
Katy Carrigan
She's part of my leadership team and exactly for that and where I can have being out and have that coverage, because it's a group of people who say what they're going to do and they actually mean it, and there's a lot of action to back it up. So yes, absolutely. And I was excited that she did introduce us. I do think, I still think we need to get that integration going.
Una Japundza
Oh, for sure.
Katy Carrigan
We would love to power your reward marketplace.
Una Japundza
So, the people who are listening to this podcast trust me. So, coming up, thank you, Katy, again.
Doug Dosberg (38:46.414)
Thanks Katy.
Katy Carrigan
Thank you so much for having me.
