Tasteful Bachelorette Party Gift Ideas

Tasteful Bachelorette Party Gift Ideas Weddings are eventful occasions where love meets matrimony and life as husband and wife will begin a new chapter.  However, before the wedding, the bachelorette simply must have a party to symbolize these new beginnings.  One of the first things you need to do is to establish a theme for the party and plan everything around that idea.  Remember, the party should be fun and memorable, but not tacky.  Its time for bride-to-be to relax and enjoy a few special moments before her big day.  If you are thinking about what to get the bride, then take a look at these tasteful bachelorette party gift ideas. Get your friend some sexy lingerie to wear on the honeymoon.  In fact, have everyone bring the lingerie they prefer to wear.  Leaving the gift tag off, the bride will attempt to guess which one of her friends brought it based on the style of the lingerie.           You can never have enough of your favorite beauty supplies and make-up.  You can consider giving the bride a make-over, her favorite scent or a home crafted gift basket. Make it easy to bring along supplies by giving her a designer tote, fully packed with make-up essentials, oils, creams, bath products, sun shades and much more.   One of my favorite ideas is personalized champagne glasses.  After the party, the bride can take them home to keep. Gift the bride a spa day.  A spa gift certificate can be used at her convenience or gift a night at an upscale hotel with those amenities. Create a book of the bachelorette party.  This is relatively inexpensive and it will provide a lifetime of memories.   Intimate adult gifts other than sexy lingerie can be tasteful bachelorette party gift ideas.  You may visit your local vendor or order online.  These are items she can use on the honeymoon or at anytime to keep the honeymoon thriving. Another fun idea is to have a photo shoot of everyone attending the party.  Hire a photographer so everyone can join in on the excitement.   Gifts for the bride should be useful or at least fun, but you always want to keep it classy.  You can opt to buy jewelry, a bikini, a beach cover up or towel if the honeymoon destination requires it.  Find something that she needs and incorporate that item into the partys theme.  Its all a matter of taste.  The atmosphere should be lively and unforgettable.  Tasteful bachelorette party gifts ideas are available in store or online whichever way is best for you, however, based on the brides likes or dislikes.  From the decorations to the food and drinks, it should be about the bride to be.    Her big day is likely to become lasting memories for everybody.    

Sample Resume Objective Statements

Sample Resume Objective StatementsSample resume objective statements are written to help you demonstrate your skills and qualifications. Your resume is the first thing people see when they go through your file, so it's important that you make it look as professional as possible. You need to set your strengths and skills up front. With that in mind, here are some sample resume objective statements.First, take a look at a sample resume objective. This can come from a work sample, an applicant tracking system, or even the company's official job posting. It should include the following:'As a representative of (employer's name), I have the skills and training necessary to meet the responsibilities of this position' 'I am capable of meeting the objectives of this position.' 'I am a fit for the job', 'I am the most qualified candidate for this position.' 'I am a good team player and this is an exceptional opportunity for me.' 'I have met the requirements for this position' 'I am dedicated t o my work.' 'I am the most creative and dynamic person for this position.'In each of these sample resume objective statements, you should list all of the characteristics that you are looking for in the position that you are applying for. This can help you highlight exactly what you are going to bring to the table.Next, be sure to outline your specific goals for the position. Write down your personal goals for each of these statements. These should include things like how you want to contribute to the company, increase the number of your department, change the culture, and a whole lot more. Make sure to include how you are going to accomplish these goals as a whole.If you are targeting a specific level within a company, include that in your resume objective. For example, if you are aiming for a management position, you would include the following. 'I am skilled in several aspects of leadership and management and I am the most creative and dynamic person for this position.'Lastly, you will need to include the appropriate reference. When you are receiving a position that requires a reference, be sure to include the specific reference that you are sending to. This will help ensure that you do not leave any questions about your history out of the context of the position.As you can see, there are a few ways to use sample resume objective statements in your own job search. Remember that employers are interested in receiving resumes with a great balance of skills and experience, so make sure that you don't send just one. A great resume is about showing everything that you have to offer.

What Are Resume And Suggest Tips For Writing A Good Resume?

What Are Resume And Suggest Tips For Writing A Good Resume?If you are looking for tips for writing a good resume, then this article is going to answer your questions. I want to offer you some suggestions that will help you start by planning your resume on the job interview stage.What is resume and suggest tips for writing a good resume? To get your dream job, what you must do is provide your potential employer with the best opportunity to know about you. Your resume is an easy tool to use to improve your chances of being hired.There are two effective ways to use your resume. The first one is to build a resume that looks like an encyclopedia, with details about you and your qualifications. The second one is to create a profile of yourself, which must include the right information about your personality, talents, skills, goals, and personal qualities. In the end, you must give your prospective employer a summary of what you have done in the past to prove that you can do the work that h e or she is looking for.Resume writing tips will help you understand that what your employer really wants to know is where you think you want to go and what do you see as the obstacles in your way. You must come up with solutions that he or she can relate to, if they agree to hire you. If they do not agree, then you can't do anything about it. Use your resume to set objectives for yourself, such as getting promoted, getting paid, working more hours, get promoted, etc.A resume is not the only tool that can make your job search easier. You can also use networking, referrals, and free information to help you search for the right jobs. Social networking is the key to getting that first interview. Go online and see what jobs are available that you might be qualified for. Check out websites that will let you share what you know about the company that you are interviewing with and see if any employers are reading your profile.All the information that you put on your resume are taken into c onsideration when hiring, but how do you know if the employer knows your history? Recruiters may ask for references, even if they don't accept you immediately. Take the time to create a statement about your employment background, even if it's a small section of your biography. You may need it at the interview. One tip for writing a good resume is to check it once a week, especially if you are applying for more than one job.Check out the websites of professional recruiters and read what they write. They are very well qualified in the industry that you are searching for. If they don't have something interesting to tell you, go for another. There are many sources that will help you gather the information that you need about the companies that you are currently interviewing for.What is resume and suggest tips for writing a good resume to make it stand out from the competition? The more information you can provide about yourself and what you are looking for, the more likely that you are going to be hired.

7 Things I Wish I Did Sooner to Advance My Career

7 Things I Wish I Did Sooner to Advance My Career When you’re in the thick of things at work, it’s easy to neglect the fundamentals that can make a big difference to your career (and life). By “fundamentals”, I’m referring to how you approach everyday activities: your mindset and behavior, and the way you spend your time and energy. These are powerful forces that can propel you forward or hold you back. If you’re aware of them, you have a much better chance of making them work for you. That’s why I’m sharing with you some of the key fundamentals that I’ve learned over my 24-year corporate career. I wish I had known these sooner, but I hope they’ll help you move your career ahead faster and more easily. 7 Things I Wish I’d Done Sooner Stopped Worrying I’m a worrier. But worrying takes a lot of energy and I let it drain my batteries for far too long. Last year, I decided to take control and hired a mindset coach. The mental tools and strategies she shared have helped me feel less anxious and better able to get out of my own way. Of course, this meant making an investment in myself both financially and time-wise. But I’ve found that investment in yourself is always worth it. What worries are holding you back? Started Believing in Myself A natural extension of worrying is doubting yourself. What if I’m wrong? What if nobody wants to work for me? What if I blow it at the client meeting and we don’t get the deal? These kinds of fears prevented me from speaking up at times. At other times, it led me to defer to others so I wouldn’t have the opportunity to fail. What I didn’t appreciate at the time is that when you pass up the chance to take the lead, you lose out on opportunities to be visible, and to practice and learn. Over time, that loss of opportunity can be a career killer. While I’m still a work in progress, I’ve made improvements over the years by coming up with a mantra and learning to change my self-talk. Are you being your own best friend? Exercise Regularly I find there’s a correlation between my physical state and my mental state. When I finally found a fitness routine that worked for me, I felt calmer and more confident. I became more patient and less judgmental. I was even more creative. In short, I became a far better leader for my team and my own performance improved. For me, exercise is a way to expend and gain energy while connecting with people in my community and getting stronger. The key is to find a regular routine that fits in your life. What might work for you? Take Time to Strategize and Plan For achievers, there are few things more rewarding than getting things done. I love that satisfaction of checking things off my “to do” list and knowing that I’ve accomplished something. The trouble is, it’s all too easy to get hooked on doing at the expense of thinking and planning what you should be doing in the first place. And in today’s environment, it’s even more important than ever to regularly review your strategy and plan because things are changing so quickly. I do three things to ensure that I keep my focus on the big picture. First, short, medium and long-term planning once a quarter to set the stage for what I want to accomplish and why. Second, set aside an hour every week (usually on a Sunday evening) to plan out the following week to 10 days. Finally, write down my intention and next actions for each project before I start doing it. This way, I know when to stop working on a given task. When do you think and plan? Learn to Say “No” To be successful in your career and life, it’s important to have time and energy to invest in the right things. And the only way to have that time and energy is to learn to create boundaries so you can focus on your priorities. This means saying “no” when something doesn't fit with your mission and game plan. But it’s not always easy to say “no.” The key is to find ways to say “no” in a graceful way that doesn’t offend people. The benefit is that you’ll have more time to do the important things you want to do. And you’ll feel less stressed. What could you say “no” to more often? Stop Being a Perfectionist As achievers, putting out perfect work is drilled into us. In grade school, I prided myself on getting straight A’s on my report card. As a teenager, I used to practice piano for hours a day, including playing each section of music over and over again until I could play the entire piece perfectly. At work, I was expected to proofread documents without missing any typos so that the finished project was perfect. But perfection is overrated. It can slow down a project and prevent you from producing results. At times, my focus on perfection made me a terrible boss, keeping people working late to get things perfect when what we needed was “good enough”. While it still takes conscious effort, I can now let go of the need to be perfect and right about everything. Allowing myself to experiment and make mistakes has helped me learn and accomplish more than before. What would it feel like for you to stop being a perfectionist? Delegate More Often When there’s a task or project to do, my first instinct is to do it myself. It’s the old adage, “if you want something done properly, do it yourself.” Plus, I don’t want to inconvenience anyone else. This means I end up doing things that are necessary, but that I’m not necessarily best-placed to do. Like trying to create PowerPoint ® slides myself when my analyst can do it faster and better. Or cutting and pasting the same email to 10 different clients instead of asking my assistant to do a mail-merge. This inability to delegate also has a negative impact on your team. If you’re handling every client conversation, your team doesn’t have the opportunity to contribute, grow and learn. Once I started delegating and being okay with asking for help, I had more time to think about strategic things and work on the next iteration of what was important for the firm. I also had a happier, more productive team and more people who wanted to work for me. Being able to delegate is a critical component of being good leader. How could you become a better delegator? Conclusion The thing about fundamentals is that they’re easy to ignore, especially in the busy-ness of our daily lives. Yet it’s precisely the way we go about each and every day that determines how successful we will be in our careers and lives. It’s worth identifying the elements that might be standing in the way of you fulfilling your potential. And when you do, you can challenge yourself to experiment with ways to change your approach for the better. Whatever the elements are for you, I encourage you to start taking steps so that you don’t have quite as long a list as I do of things you wish you’d done sooner! What’s the one thing you could address that would most improve your career (and life) trajectory right now? Leave a comment and let me know.

Making Your Next Career Path Count IM HIRED

Making Your Next Career Path Count A Career with a Difference     If you’ve decided your current career isnt right for you then it might be time to move on. But before you do, you need to make a new plan of action. You’re never stuck in a job role, but jumping from career to career on an endless quest to find the dream job isn’t fun. You should be aiming to find something that you can see yourself doing for a long time. The point is that there’s an ideal career out there for everybody. You just have to find it. If you want some help to make your next career count then here are a few ideas that might just sound perfect to you. Picture Source Healthcare Careers If you’re a caring person then this is the perfect type of career path for you. The healthcare industry can be incredibly demanding, but the reward of helping others and making an impact on people’s lives is well worth it. If that’s something you’re missing from your current career then it might be worth considering potential job positions in this industry. Obviously, you can’t snap your fingers and become a doctor overnight, but there are more career opportunities than that. You might even want to consider a career in therapy and counselling if you’re more interested in helping people with emotional struggles rather than physical ones. You’d have to study for a clinical mental health counselling masters to get qualified if you’re interested. If you want to work in the healthcare industry then there are many different routes you can take. Each role comes with its own specific challenges, but it’s a great opportunity for anyone who wants a career that’ll make a real difference to the world. Tech Careers If you’ve always been technologically-minded then that’s a skill you definitely shouldn’t squander in this digitally-oriented world. If your current job involves you doing nothing more technical than making spreadsheets then you need to pursue a career path that allows you to realise your talents. You could study to become a software engineer if you’re analytically-skilled, a profession that’s highly valued in the tech industry. Or you could pursue a career in web development if you want a more flexible job role that you could start more easily (many companies provide on-the-job training). Charity Careers We talked about healthcare careers earlier in this article, but that industry isn’t for everyone. Still, you might want to help people in other ways. A career in the charity sector could be the right way for you to make a difference. If you’re sick of stereotypical corporate atmospheres then you might want to work for an organisation with the simple mission of bettering people’s lives. Starting a career in this industry can be a steady climb. But it’s worth the work for the reward of helping others. You might start as a fundraiser and end up being a charity’s fundraising manager or an events coordinator. It’s the kind of career you pursue to make a change rather than to earn a big salary, of course.

Choosing a Professional Resume Writing Service in Dallas

Choosing a Professional Resume Writing Service in DallasIf you are looking for a professional resume writing service in Dallas that is capable of producing great results, then take your time and do not make any mistake. Try to take into consideration several things before hiring any company. If you know that they can meet your needs and expectations, then you need to start your search from there.Make sure you hire only those reputed and reputable companies who can meet your demands and expectations. There are many companies that you can hire and at first sight, you may feel it is difficult to make a decision. Well, one thing to keep in mind is that you do not hire a company just because they offer the best and top quality services but more importantly, it has to fit your budget. Thus, if you need top quality services then choose those companies who provide these services at the same time.Most of the companies today are ready to provide your needs and expectations. Their websites are very informative and you can read different articles about the company from the different review sites available on the internet. Besides, when you are looking for a particular company for your needs, you have to consider several factors like:Resume writing services in Dallas offer full-service support. These services include writing your resume, placing your resume online, creating a professional cover letter, updating your existing resumes, sending resume to companies, etc. You need to understand that these companies not only provide you with all the above services but also require a lot of hard work and commitment from you as well. So, this also means that you need to be sure that you can deliver your promise with utmost efficiency.Some companies take you for a ride and just send your resume to many companies without even providing you with their services. They use words like 'fast'quick', which implies that these companies can give quick and efficient services but in reality, it is your service thatis taking them so long. Also, these companies make it appear that their services are less expensive than others and you get what you pay for.Price is another major factor that you should take into consideration. The other factors that you should consider before hiring are the quality of the website, the credibility of the company, the number of years of experience, the work culture, the financial conditions, etc. In the world of internet marketing, sometimes these factors are not considered. Thus, you need to carefully check and evaluate the number of years of experience, the working culture and the financial conditions of the company before hiring them.Once you have decided to hire a company, the next thing to do is to make the right choice and avoid the company that requires you to pay more than the value of your investment. Thus, make sure you do proper research and check the company first before hiring them. Remember, there are many companies who may want to deceive you. Thus, always choose a company that offers honest and professional services.

A Walmart Executive Who Sold One of His Startups for $3 Billion Reveals How He Became Wildly Successful

A Walmart Executive Who Sold One of His Startups for $3 Billion Reveals How He Became Wildly Successful Marc Lore’s first big startup sold diapers before it was bought by Amazon for more than $500 million. But after it was acquired, Lore says he felt let down. “It was this really depressing sort of moment where we didn’t even want to go out for a drink,” Lore said on Business Insider’s podcast, “Success! How I Did It.” “It wasn’t a celebration. It was sort of like mourning.” After Amazon he went on to found a competitor, called Jet.com, which he recently sold to Walmart for $3 billion in cash plus stock. He’s had a number of reasons to celebrate, and now he’s the president and CEO of Walmart eCommerce in the US. And the stock is way up. On this episode of “Success! How I Did It,” Lore explains how he founded several companies with his childhood friends, and what made the Walmart deal different than Amazon. “So when people say, ‘Yeah, but you sold,’ and I said, ‘Well, we sold the company, but we didn’t sell out, which we did the first time.'” Some of Lore’s keys to business success are: Radical transparency with employees so they believe in your vision. Coming up with creative ways to launch your product (he gamified the launch of Jet.comby offering 100,000 stock options to a stranger, and got tons of people to sign up). Working with cofounders you like. Lore has started companies with the same childhood friend. Having a background in finance and a vision for a giant, multibillion-dollar opportunity to tackle. These can help you keep a startup afloat and raise venture capital. Choosing the right buyer if a company wants to acquire your startup. Lore says he felt depressed after selling Quidsi to Amazon but much better after selling Jet to Walmart. The key difference: He feels he’s a more integral part of Walmart’s organization, and his team isn’t being left alone to operate without help. Following is a transcript, which has been edited for clarity. Alyson Shontell: We started our conversation by talking about how he grew up on Staten Island and went to Bucknell University. Marc Lore: I’d always been an entrepreneur. In grammar school and high school I loved entrepreneurship. But when I went to college and was graduating â€" this is in ’93 â€" there really wasn’t this sort of tech community and startup community that there was now. I would’ve loved that. But then it was sort of banking or law and medicine, things like that. I studied finance in undergrad, spent the next seven years working in banking as the market and the whole dot-com boom was sort of taking off right, and I sort of couldn’t take it anymore. At one point, I knew I didn’t want to be in banking. I knew that wasn’t my calling. I wanted to be an entrepreneur. And so I found and contacted two of my best friends from grammar school, said, “Hey, how are you guys doing seven years into your career? Do you want to start a company?” And, yeah, they both did. And so the three of us started The Pit. Shontell: The Pit was different than what you’re doing now; it was a trading company for sports cards, right? Lore: Yeah, it was meant to be a sports stock market where you can buy and sell professional athletes, like stock using the baseball card as a proxy for the athlete. So you never had to take delivery of the cards â€" we just kept them in a vault â€" and people would just trade them, buy and sell. We had market makers, we had price charts and ticker tape, and everything. It was really fun. It was a great experience. Shontell: The finance background is really valuable in entrepreneurship. Money, and dealing with money, and figuring out the finances â€" if you don’t know how to do that â€" can be a really fast way for your startup to die. How do you think having that finance background has helped you in your business ventures? Lore: There’s a lot that has to do with financial planning, of course. But also financing the business is critical, and being able to sort of think through the financing rounds, and what it does to the share price, and what it does to investor returns, and understanding risk and reward. You know, I spent most of my career in risk â€" financial risk. And so it’s no different, really, in the way venture capitalists think about the investment. They’re putting in money, and there’s a small probability of a big outcome, and how do you create the right, you know, risk profile for the venture capitalists and be able to communicate it in a way that makes sense? I think that’s a big part of raising capital. Shontell: The Pit wound up being successful. It’s not easy to make a first startup or any startup successful, but it sounds like you guys were. And you exited either right around the time the bubble burst, for about $6 million? Lore: After the bubble burst â€" nine months in. Shontell: Wow. Lore: The bubble had burst, and we never raised any venture capital. It was all from angel investors before that, to start this company. And we’re doing well, bubble burst, and we thought, “OK, time for the next round; let’s raise some venture capital.” And the whole market was just shut down â€" nobody would even take a call. The whole thing had blown up, and then we got an offer from Topps, the baseball card, and Bazooka, the gum manufacturer, and we took it. How Lore founded Quidsi out of personal need Shontell: And so the next company was Quidsi, in 2005. Lore: Yep. Shontell: And that was again with a childhood friend â€" was that the same one? Lore: It was Vinnie Bharara and Lax Chandra, the first business, and then me and Vinnie did the next business. Shontell: So what’s it like to found a company with a childhood friend? I mean, you’ve clearly made it work. Lore: Yeah, you know, it’s all about enjoying what you do on a day-to-day basis. And getting to come to work and build something and do it with your best friends is, you know, it makes it that much more enjoyable and fun. And that’s why I do it; it’s almost entirely about the fun of the experience, and, like any experience, doing it with people you enjoy being around makes it that much better. Shontell: So it sounds as if the idea for Quidsi came out of personal need. At this point you have a family and you needed diapers. Lore: I’d just had a baby â€" first baby â€" and, you know, it’s sort of a pain having to go out for diapers, usually last minute, and I was looking online, and there really wasn’t any place to get good prices and fast delivery on diapers, which was kind of crazy. This was back, probably in 2003, 2004. Started doing some research and realizing that people thought about it â€" obviously many, many people had thought about it â€" but they said the economics didn’t work, because the diapers are too heavy and bulky to ship. And they’re already loss leaders. So if they’re already loss leaders, then you have to pay all this money to ship these bulky things. You could never make money. Shontell: What’s a loss leader? Lore: Loss leader means products that retailers lose money on to drive traffic into the store. So like brick-and-mortar stores, they don’t really make any margin on diapers, but it drives traffic into the store. Now, think about having to ship these big, heavy boxes; you could never make money. And that was sort of what we’d heard time and time again, and then we thought, “Wait a second, why couldn’t diapers be a loss leader for an e-commerce site in the same way they are for brick and mortar?” The loss profile might be different, but we would drive traffic and moms to the site, and then we’d sell them everything else, and that was sort of the thesis. And that’s how it sort of played out. We lost money on diapers, we made money on other baby products, whether it be baby clothes or strollers or car seats, or baby care, stuff like that, and then we started selling pet stuff under a different domain, Wag.com, and drug-store-type stuff. And then toys and clothes, and in the end we had, like, 10 specialty websites that were kind of built off the back of this core demo, this mom who had a baby in diapers. Shontell: So how did you scale a company in 2005? This was a year after Facebook launched. It was not a viable source of people like it is now. So how did you get people on your site early on? Lore: We did, obviously, the basic e-com, like search-engine marketing, but there wasn’t a ton of search-engine volume on diapers at the time. A lot of it was old-fashioned direct mail, billboard, and subway advertisements. We really focused on the big urban centers. And at one point had an incredible share in New York City and San Francisco â€" that’s where a good majority of our business was being done. Shontell: And you didn’t have really have any e-commerce background before now â€" now you’re a huge e-commerce name, but at the time â€" Lore: Zero, yeah, nothing in retail whatsoever. And we started actually selling product, because it was self-funded in the beginning by Vinnie and myself, and we would just sell stuff online, and then go buy at BJ’s and Costco and Sam’s Club, and we really had to do that because Procter Gamble wouldn’t sell us diapers direct. For at least two years they said no. They didn’t think that was a viable business, so they weren’t going to sell us, so we had to continue to buy from the club stores. Until the clubs eventually [realized] we’d clean them out. So many clubs would beg Procter Gamble to sell to us, because their customers were coming in and they weren’t getting any diapers. And they couldn’t stop us from buying it. And it was not until they called Procter Gamble and said, “Please, would you sell to Diapers.com?” that we got it. That was sort of funny. Shontell: They would stop you in the store and be, like, “Who are you guys, and why do you keep buying all this?” Lore: Yeah, and we’d tell them. In the beginning they’d say, “Listen, here’s the deal: Leave us some diapers, and we’ll help you put it on the truck.” And so we did that for a while, and they were happy and we were happy, but we weren’t getting and going direct. It was harder and harder to buy truckloads and truckloads of diapers, like, every week. So then we said, “Let’s take a different strategy here. Let’s clean them out and ask them to call Proctor and Gamble,” and the strategy worked. Lore decided to sell Quidsi, and regretted it Shontell: In 2009, that’s the first time Amazon got on the radar. It sounds like a vice president was sent in to have lunch with you. Is that what happened? Lore: We did meet some executives from Amazon considerably early, a year or two earlier than when we sold, ultimately. Shontell: So what happened in that meeting? Because the way that the tale goes, Amazon began to kind of threaten you and be, like, “You must work with us, or else we’ll kill you on price.” Is that what happened, or has that just been blown up? Lore: Yeah, that has just been blown up. It expressed an interest in learning more, and it was a good conversation, and we said we’d stay in touch. They said if we were going to do anything, with anyone else, please let them know first. That was really it. It was a pretty standard conversation that one would have with the startup that you were interested in staying close to. Shontell: Was that interesting? Were you thinking about selling? Does an entrepreneur ever really not think about selling? Lore: At that point we weren’t thinking about it at all. I mean, we were growing, doubling each year, having fun, really enjoyed coming to work, enjoyed the people we worked with, hiring great people. There was no interest whatsoever at that point. Shontell: You guys would do experiments on the site where you felt like Amazon was changing the price based on what you were doing: You would toggle the price on your site, and then you’d go watch Amazon toggle their prices to kind of undercut later. That has to be kind of daunting as a startup to be, like, “Oh, my God â€" Jeff Bezos is literally making his prices based on my company.” Lore: Yeah, my memory’s sort of vague at this point, because it’s starting to approach 10 years ago. But I remember it being yeah pretty competitive, pretty intense, every day. It was a battle. Shontell: So how do you survive a big company that wants to play in your space? Lore: We sort of doubled down on the brand and the emotional connection, and just kept pressing the tiny little touch points that we did for customers that were differentiated so that it wasn’t about price, so that even if we had higher prices we’d still have a very healthy business. And so that’s what we did, and so after they did drop prices pretty significantly â€" like, unheard of in diapers â€" it didn’t impact us as much as it did other people, including themselves. We didn’t lose that much business â€" we lost some, sure, but you could argue that what was left were the customers we wanted anyway. The people that were spending a lot of money on the site. It wasn’t just about the price of diapers: They liked the service, they liked the brand, and everything we stood for in terms of the values and stuff. So actually, after that happened, we withstood that, we actually had a new sense of confidence that, “Wow, we’ve really built something here that goes well beyond price,” and that’s really what a brand is, right? It’s price-defensible. You can’t beat a brand by just depending on price; that’s what private labels do all the time. Same quality, lower prices doesn’t mean that people still don’t want Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, because the brand has a meaning, right? Shontell: Eventually you did sell, for a hefty price. I think both Walmart and Amazon, it sounds like, were interested, and ultimately you went to Amazon for more than $500 million, a massive exit. So that is probably a game-changing moment in your life, right? Your last company had been sold for $6 million. This is like life-changing number, a life-changing thing for your company. How do you process that? How do you decide where to go? Lore: You think we would’ve been celebrating, like, “Wow, we just made enough money that we never have to work again,” that sort of thing. “Family is set, grandkids are set,” and everything. And it was this really depressing sort of moment where we didn’t even want to go out for a drink. It wasn’t a celebration; it was sort of like mourning. That’s what it felt like. And it was really weird. We were like, “Why do we feel so bad right now?” Like, we just sold this company and made a lot of money, and we just didn’t feel great. Shontell: Why do you think that was? Lore: We had a real purpose. I think a lot of entrepreneurship is about, like I said, having fun building something, being empowered to make decisions and run, build your own unique culture, hire the people you want to hire, watch them grow and develop, and go on to bigger and better things, and learn while they’re there. It’s, like, there’s a lot of benefit of doing it that go beyond dollars and cents. And I think that hit us, like, “Hey, in this new structure, this new world, a lot of the things that made us happy are not going to exist anymore.” And so you start to realize there’s not any amount of money that can buy your substantial drop in happiness, right? There’s really no price for that. I think that’s we kind of realized. It’s like, “Hey, nothing’s really going to change.” We had a nice house, nice cars, clothes, food, like, we were living fine before. It wasn’t like the money was going to suddenly bring us from poverty to sort of sustainability, right? And we knew we’d always be able to make money; we had good, you know, salary earning potential outside of this. So I guess the money really just didn’t do it. And people ask, “Well, then why’d you sell if you knew this beforehand?” We didn’t exactly know how we’d feel, and we also knew at that time it was much harder to do $100 million and $200 million raises; nobody was really doing that back in 2010. I think the venture community was more skeptical at the time about what would happen in the future, how much more aggressive might they get things. And we were thinking that it would be a safer way to go, I guess, at the time. Shontell: So it wasn’t long before you were thinking about the next thing. Lore: I learned a really good lesson: both how I approached acquiring companies, and also how I think about being acquired. I think traditionally what you hear when companies acquire companies, they say, “Let’s just leave the company alone, let them do what they were doing, don’t mess with the culture. Of course there will be things that poke at it, but they will be really happy, because we’re not sort of interfering at all.” And that on the surface sounds pretty logical, but if you’re suddenly part of a bigger organization, and you’re left alone, it feels sort of isolating, and the acquirer feels like they’re empowering because you’re doing exactly what you’re doing before, because you don’t have the latitude to sort of operate completely independently. And at the same time, you know that there’s a bigger mission and vision that you sit underneath that you’re not a part of. It’s kind of like depressing, right? So, empowered to do what, exactly? Right? Like had Amazon said, “Hey, don’t leave them alone, give them the keys, they know baby, let them run baby for the whole mothership, let them drive this whole mom strategy.” Totally different. Would’ve been excited probably, probably would’ve gone down a different path completely. How Lore took on Amazon by founding Jet.com Shontell: So you’re almost too isolated. Lore: Yeah. And one of the things we did when we went out here at Walmart and bought these different companies, Hay Needle and Shoes.com and Mod Cloth. We’re trying to empower the leaders to actually impact the overall organization. And that’s hard to do, but empowering people, I think, is the magic, as opposed to isolating. And that’s a lesson I learned, because I felt it, and now I’m trying to use the lesson on myself here at Walmart. Shontell: So let’s go back to Jet for a second. So you come up with this idea. You and I actually met at a party, you were excited, you were like, “I got this idea on pricing and I’ve got this innovation on price, I think I can just get really low prices that haven’t been seen before.” And what you were ultimately talking about was this company, Jet.com. So what was that innovation you felt like you had, where you could do something that hadn’t been done before in e-commerce? Lore: When you think about what prices you can charge online, it’s directly correlated to what your costs are. If your costs are lower, you can charge lower prices, and a big portion of the costs are centered on logistics: shipping and fulfillment. And shipping and fulfillment are incredibly volatile on e-commerce transactions. Shipping could be just a few percent of sales or it could be 50% of sales; it really depends on the size of the basket, the weight of the items and things. If you were shipping something that was heavy, and low dollar value, like a $15 heavy bag of dog food, it could easily be $10 to ship that. Whereas you can pay $5 to ship, you know, $150 worth of apparel, right. Like, it changes dramatically. It also changes based on location and proximity to the customer. And I realized that everything was being priced to the average logistics cost, in general. And what I thought was, “Could we at Jet sort of untangle that and really make these costs transparent to consumers as they shop, and then empower them to make choices around saving money by pulling logistics costs out of the system?” And so, for example, in the easiest, most basic case, in a third-party marketplace, you go to buy in a marketplace and there is the seller with the best price. If that seller is located across the country, they get killed on shipping. If the customer’s located down the street, they’re really happy. So shouldn’t customers know that? And shouldn’t the retail be able to change its pricing based on proximity? And so making that transparent is easy for an item, but at the basket level, if you’ve got two things in your shopping cart â€" like a bag of dog food and a dog bowl and you search for a dog leash â€" surfacing products that can ship in the same basket from the same warehouse in close proximity is going to be way cheaper to ship than if the leash has to split-ship, like in a completely different package from a different place. And so we built these algorithms to do this in real time, and we created this concept of smart savings, where we’d give customers at the product level incentives to choose certain products over another, when the marginal cost to ship was lower. The result was bigger baskets, lower shipping costs, and ultimately the ability to charge lower prices. Shontell: And did you find that that ultimately worked? Adding a lot of transparency to shopping carts? Lore: It did. The basket size was higher, the shipping cost were lower. Yeah, it absolutely worked. Shontell: One of the original ideas you had was this $50-type Costco model where you had a membership and then, pretty soon after the launch of the company, you did away with that. Lore: We never actually launched it. We were trialing it early on. So my thoughts around competitive advantage is always, if you have a competitive advantage, see if there’s ways to double down on it. And then we thought, “Wait a second. If we charge for membership, charge customers $50, we don’t have to make any profit on the products we sell, we’ll just make our profit on the membership. So we could take prices down even further.” So sort of doubling down on an advantage we already had, that was the original thesis. And then as we got into it and we were testing early on â€" this was really early on â€" the economics just worked better to have more sales and make less margin and not charging membership than charge it. Shontell: I feel like sometimes founders start a company based on an idea and they’re hesitant to say that it doesn’t work, and do away with it. Was that a hard decision or was it just based on numbers? Lore: Not at all â€" it was just really logic. You can’t get married to these decisions at all. I mean, you have to be open, constantly rethinking. I think it’s one of the things that I’m learning here being at a big company versus a startup. At a startup, you’re changing your mind so quickly because you’re processing information in real time. And as you get more information, it’s almost like machine learning. You get more information, you change your decision. You get more information, you change it again. You get more information, you change it again. And in a small company you can bring everybody along pretty easily, because there’s, like, 10 key people, and they’re sort of involved in every decision, and they sort of track, where in a really big company, it’s much harder to do that. And that’s been a big challenge is just balancing that, you know, “Get information, adjust, move fast,” with the communication piece. I think that’s always a challenge, and I ’m learning that lesson and how to sort of deal with that every day. Shontell: So scale was really, really important, and you had a cool innovative thing that I didn’t even know was possible to do, to gamify getting early signups. You offered 100,000 stock options, I believe, to whatever stranger was able to get the most people to sign up for Jet, before it really even launched. Lore: Yeah, we had an app with a ranking system, and the more people you got to signup, you can see where you ranked relative to everyone else. And it was like a fun competition; people liked to see their ranking go up and down depending on who they told. Shontell: But that brought in, what, hundreds of thousands of users? Lore: Hundreds of thousands before we launched, yeah. Before the stock was worth anything. Shontell: Those guys probably got a pretty good exit when you sold to Walmart. Lore: The top person is probably around $1 million. Shontell: That’s amazing. Well, that’s a cool strategy. It seems like it worked really well. I guess Quidsi, you had raised a lot of money, but this one it seemed as if you were just, like, “Let’s go big really fast.” I think you raised something like $80 million before it even launched. Lore: It was $55 million in the seed round â€" that was with the business plan. And then before we launched we did another $100 million. Shontell: You had a business plan? I feel like people don’t do business plans anymore. Lore: No. We had a business plan. Shontell: I guess if you want to raise $55 million on seed round, then maybe have a business plan. What was the thought process behind that? Was it just, like, “We need to get to scale really fast, and I need as much money as possible”? Lore: Yeah, being a mass merchant, scale’s incredibly important. So we knew we had to spend a lot of money in marketing, and we knew we had to get big fast. And we needed to get and generate billions of dollars in revenue, and get on that sort of trajectory to get to a number where the business economics make sense. Shontell: If you can raise that much money pretty early on, it can’t be just because you’re a great serial entrepreneur. How do you get investors sold, and employees sold on this huge vision that you’ve got? Lore: Part of it is having the big vision and not being afraid to take risk and go for it. The asymmetric sort of risk profile of sort of the possibility of a big outcome, I think, is really key. It’s just not that interesting to say, “We’re going to spend the next five years and build a couple of hundred-million-dollar businesses,” like that’s not that interesting from an investor standpoint. I think in terms of the financial planning, being meticulous about what the long-term plan looks like, what do the at scale economics look like, and how you’re going to execute and work backward from that. Right, so being really clear about “This is what we’re going to do, then we’re going to raise more money, and then we’re going to create more value, and we’re going to do this.” That was a big part of it, too. How core values influence a company Shontell: I think that you had three philosophies when you were starting Jet. Trust, fairness, transparency. Lore: Yeah, those were our core values. Shontell: So easy to say, hard for some to do in practice. Lore: Yeah, this is another lesson I learned after doing a few companies. I wanted the values to be values that the company lived and exhibited in the way in which it operated and the moves the company made. And so a great example of that would be in terms of transparency: The company was very transparent with financial information, about how the company is doing. We created an app where people could follow along the daily performance of the company. We were transparent with salaries; everyone knew what everyone else was making in the company. Shontell: Like even you? Lore: Yeah. Shontell: Wow. Lore: Everyone. It was posted. It tied into the fairness where everybody at the same level in the company made the same amount. So whether you were a man, woman, doesn’t matter, like everyone gets the same, and I thought that was really important that there wasn’t any sort of weird unconscious bias happening, that everybody at the same level got the same amount. And when we hired somebody from the outside, we would basically size that person up and everyone would interview them and say, “Yep, director.” And then we’d go back and say, “OK, everyone thinks you’re a director, go on LinkedIn, check out the other directors, we really feel like you’ll feel like you’re a director. Here’s what you make.” And people would say afterward, like, “I just really appreciated not having to negotiate, knowing that it was fair.” I think a lot of times people just want to know that it’s fair, right? Like, most companies you don’t know what people are making, and then you find out, and then you’re like, “Wait a second â€" that’s not fair.” I’ve heard that word over and over and over being used. We eliminate that, because it’s open, everyone’s making the same, and so that’s one example of how we live those values. Shontell: How interesting. Can you still do that at Walmart? Lore: No, we can’t. Shontell: It’s a massive company. Shontell: So pretty quickly into the company, first off, you get to a billion-dollar run rate, so you do scale really fast. But then, these offers come back. You have Walmart knocking on your door. What was it within a year of launching? Lore: Within a year, yeah. Deciding to sell a second time Shontell: So how did you weigh things at this time, going from an experience where you sell and you don’t even want to get a drink with your cofounder because you’re kind of depressed, to this, where Walmart comes knocking? Lore: It was really interesting … So I met Doug. Shontell: Doug McMillon, the CEO of Walmart? Lore: The CEO of Walmart. And we had a few discussions, and it was really in the beginning just about partnering. How can we work together? And we both realized that we shared a similar vision of wanting to create this e-commerce business that customers absolutely loved, and so we shared a similar vision, we were sort of building trust. And then at one point he said, “Hey, we have the same vision, we both are looking to do the same thing. Do you think, given our assets, your assets and stuff, that working together, we have a higher probability of getting there faster?” And I just thought about it and felt, like, “Yeah, definitely.” The assets of Walmart were incredible. I did feel like we can get there faster; I felt like we can do more; I felt like it would be fun. The one piece was I didn’t want to go down this path that we did last time, which was, “Hey, we’re going to let you do your thing.” Because I learned that lesson before. And Doug said, “No, we actually want to give you the keys, and have you, your team, take the best of both worlds and drive this thing forward.” And so that was incredibly compelling at the time, and we built a lot of trust and realized at that point, like, that slight difference in sort of mentality meant everything â€" that was the difference between being depressed and being really happy. And so when people say, “Yeah, but you sold,” and I said, “Well, we sold the company, but we didn’t sell out, which we did the first time.” We didn’t sell out because the vision we had is the same. Now we can get there faster with a higher degree of certainty. And that’s all it comes down to is, like, can you achieve the vision you had set out to achieve? That’s when it really clicked for me, I was, like, “Wow, that’s everything: You buy a company, you have to make sure that the vision is intact and can get there faster than they would’ve on their own.” And if you can solve that, that’s going to be super successful in the future. Shontell: Were you able to be transparent with the team as this was going on? Lore: Could not. It was really tough. We were super transparent, and for legal reasons we obviously couldn’t talk about it. That was really, really tough. Even after it leaked, we couldn’t talk about it, and that was tough. Setting priorities as a leader Shontell: Acquisitions are really easy to mess up, but it seems like everything has been smooth sailing, and stocks up 40%, you’re now running all things digital e-commerce at Walmart, CEO and president of Walmart.com. So what was the state of Walmart when you came in, and what was your first order of priorities? Lore: Early on, it was just to assess the organization and the structure and the people, and set a clear vision, make sure we have the right people in the right spots. Then, after the first six months, we started doing things to change the customer value, like going to two-day free shipping with no membership, launching easy reorder, and pickup discount, start to leverage Walmart’s unique assets. And did a few acquisitions to help drive some of the long-call categories, bought a couple of digitally native vertical brands, Bonobos and ModCloth, that’s more about playing offense, and giving us access to unique assortment. And then we built Store 8, which was really about preparing for the future. We really wanted to help shape the future of retail, and I didn’t want to have the same people thinking about the business today also thinking about the future, so we said, “OK, let’s segregate that from the rest of the business, call it Store 8, and we’ll build startups.” It’s a sandbox to kind of play around with potential innovation concepts. It was really to say, “No, let’s treat it, like â€" what startup would we build today that we think has a chance to change the future of retail? What’s the vision?” And that’s what really got me excited about coming to Walmart. Shontell: You’ve got a long career ahead of you, but you have an impressive career behind you. If you were to give advice to someone who was a budding entrepreneur, kind of wants to take their first big swing, knowing what you know now, what would you tell them? Lore: I think the very first thing is that you want to surround yourself with the absolute smartest, most capable people that you possibly can, both hiring, also advisers and investors. Those relationships you make are not only helpful in the business you’re currently in but will be the next one and the one after and the one after that. And so if you’re going and willing to work super hard, and be tenacious, and take risk, and surround yourself with great people, then even if that business doesn’t work out, you’ll know pretty quickly, especially if you’re taking risk and being aggressive. And you’ll take those learnings, take those relationships, and be able to start again from a higher platform. You keep wanting to move to a higher platform each time, right? I didn’t know this at the time, but I was fortunate to make a lot of good relationships early, and those relationships stuck with me each venture that I did beyond that, right? So, I’d probably say that’s the most important thing. Shontell: Great. Well, Marc, thank you so much for your time. It’s been fun. Lore: Thank you so much, Alyson. I appreciate it. This article originally appeared on BusinessInsider.com.