Social Currency with Sammi Cohen

Bala started with $5,000, a sketch and a yoga class that wasn't hard enough. Today, the brand behind the bangles on every workout influencer's wrists is growing 50% year over year with just 12 full-time employees.

This week, Sammi sits down with Bala co-founder and CEO Natalie Holloway, author of Bootstrap Empire, to unpack how she and her husband Max went from burnt-out ad agency employees at 72andSunny to building one of fitness's most recognizable brands. Natalie shares the Kickstarter number that would have made her walk away, why she walked into Shark Tank asking for $400K for 10% and walked out with $900K for 30%, and what happened when the episode aired just two weeks before the world shut down.

Then, Natalie opens up about the post-COVID bust that forced Bala to lay off nearly its entire team, the spending mistakes she'd never repeat, and why she chose small business loans over venture capital to keep control of the company. Later, she breaks down the reality of dupe culture, from navigating patents across countries to confronting retailers who sell knockoffs next to Bala, and explains why the brand created Move by Bala for its upcoming Walmart launch.

Plus, Natalie shares how Bala plans to become the "female Rogue," the repeat purchase challenge of selling products people keep for years, why she walked away from a New York City fitness studio the night before signing the lease, and how she and Max keep work and marriage separate.

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Here's What Sammi Covers with Natalie: 00:00 Natalie Holloway's Social Currency 05:45 How Advertising Prepared Natalie to Build a Brand 07:05 Why You Can't Be Married to an Idea 08:05 The Origin Story of Bala Bangles 11:35 From Account Person to Product Designer 13:10 Launching Bala With $5,000 14:20 The Kickstarter Number That Would Have Made Her Quit 15:40 Climbing "Cringe Mountain" 19:55 Inside Bala's Shark Tank Deal 21:55 What Happens After a Shark Tank Deal Closes 22:20 Airing Two Weeks Before COVID 23:55 The Post-COVID Bust and Laying Off the Team 26:10 What Natalie Would Have Done Differently 29:10 Why Bala Chose Loans Over Venture Capital 32:00 Fighting Dupes and Patent Infringement 34:15 When Your Retailer Sells Your Dupe 37:10 Do Dupes Actually Make Bala Bigger? 37:55 Move by Bala and the Walmart Launch 39:00 Growing 50% a Year With 12 Employees 40:15 Building the C-Suite 41:00 Bala on TikTok Shop 42:40 What Lululemon Is Getting Wrong 44:15 Becoming the Female Rogue 46:10 Solving the Repeat Purchase Problem 48:00 Why Bala Walked Away From a NYC Studio 50:10 Lightning Round 51:20 Natalie's 30-Minute Meeting Rule 52:40 Social Currency Corner: AI in Marketing 54:50 Listener Question: Running a Business With Your Spouse

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For the first time in its history as a public company, Peloton turned a profit. After years of billion-dollar losses, the fitness brand posted $63 million in net income this fiscal year. Just three years ago, it was a punchline.

Today, Sammi unpacks how Peloton went from pandemic darling to cautionary tale and back again. She revisits the crash that wiped out $40 billion in market value, founder John Foley's exit, and the Sex and the City reboot that turned a Peloton bike into a plot device. Then, she breaks down the turnaround strategy led by CEO Peter Stern, the former Apple executive who built his career on subscriptions, not hardware.

Sammi walks through the bets that got Peloton back in the black: aggressive price increases and cost cuts, a viral ad campaign starring Heated Rivalry's Hudson Williams, a global partnership with Spotify, and a new push into commercial gyms. Plus, she explains why the stock dropped more than 11% on the day Peloton announced its historic profit, and what that says about whether Peloton is really back.

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Here's What Sammi Covers Today:

00:00 Peloton's First Profitable Year

01:50 Partner Message - Mercury

02:50 From $50 Billion to Punchline

03:45 John Foley's Exit and the 87% Wipeout

04:15 The Pandemic Bubble Cautionary Tale

04:55 Enter Peter Stern, Peloton's Apple Hire

05:45 The Four-Pillar Turnaround Plan

06:15 Price Hikes and Cost Cuts

07:30 The Heated Rivalry Ad That Went Viral

08:15 The Spotify Partnership

08:58 Peloton's Commercial Gym Bet

09:55 The $63 Million Turnaround

10:25 Partner Message -Mercury

12:45 Why the Stock Fell Anyway

13:15 A Shrinking Subscriber Base

14:40 How to Show Social Currency Some Love

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Nearly a billion people open Snapchat every month, and almost half a billion use it every single day. Fifteen years after Evan Spiegel and his co-founders launched the app, formerly known as Peekaboo, out of a Stanford dorm room, Snap is betting its next decade on something you wear on your face.

This week, Sammi sits down with Snap co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel to talk through the evolution of the company, how he thinks about being one of the most copied products in social media, and Specs, the $2,195 AR glasses more than a decade in the making. He explains why he sees the copying as a compliment to great design, why hardware is a much harder bet for competitors to follow than software, and what convinced him a decade ago that computing needed to move off screens and into the world.

Evan also breaks down the viral meme that introduced Specs to a mainstream audience, how the company thinks about privacy on a device built to record, and why Spotlight, Snap's video feed, has become one of its fastest growing products by rewarding authenticity over AI generated content. He shares his prediction for what Snap looks like in 2036 and his take on the ongoing debate over minimum ages for kids on social media.

Toward the end, Evan gets personal, talking about parenting four kids in a world full of screens, what his wife Miranda Kerr has taught him about skincare, and the story behind his family's donation to an organization that relieves medical debt.

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Here's What Sammi Covers with Evan:

00:00 Evan Spiegel's Social Currency

03:42 How Snapchat Started as "Peekaboo"

05:57 The Insight That Turned It Into a Messaging App

08:47 Being Social Media's Most Copied Product

11:06 What Evan Still Signs Off On at Snap

12:32 The Decade-Long Bet on AR Glasses

16:05 The Timeline for Mass Adoption of Specs

17:05 Evan's Live Reaction to Sammi Trying Specs

20:47 Why Specs Are Priced Like a Computer

22:29 The Viral Meme That Introduced Specs to the World

23:58 How Specs Are Designed Around Privacy

27:35 Why Spotlight Is One of Snap's Fastest-Growing Products

33:00 Evan's Prediction for Snap in 2036

37:42 Evan's Take on the Social Media Age-Gating Debate

41:22 Parenting Four Kids in a World Full of Screens

41:29 What Miranda Kerr Taught Him About Skincare

43:31 The Story Behind the Undo Medical Debt Donation

46:03 Lightning Round

49:37 Listener Question: Staying Motivated Building Hardware

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How does a scrappy startup beat Amazon when Amazon copies your product, undercuts your price and slaps its own name on it? According to Square co-founder Jim McKelvey, you don't. Except, once in a while, someone does.

This week Sammi revisits one of her favorite conversations ever recorded for Social Currency: her sit-down with Jim McKelvey, the artist-turned-entrepreneur who co-founded Square (now Block) with Jack Dorsey. Jim opens with the story of how he once stripped down in a trade association's office just to get a meeting, and explains why getting someone's attention is always the real first step in any pitch. He breaks down why he intentionally designed Square's original card reader to work poorly, and how that "flaw" turned millions of small business owners into free advertisers for the brand.

Then, Jim tells the almost unbelievable story of how Square survived Amazon's attempt to copy and kill its business with Amazon Register, why he studied history to understand how rare that survival really was, and how a conversation with Southwest's Herb Kelleher led him to write his book, The Innovation Stack. Jim also opens up about his years as an independent director of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, what he learned living through zero interest rates, the pandemic and the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, and how the role reshaped his politics. Plus, he explains why his media venture Invisibly failed to save journalism despite cracking the monetization problem, and details his newest venture, Fast Trials, an attempt to slash the cost of FDA drug trials so more life-saving drugs can make it to market.

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Here's What Sammi Covers with Jim:

00:00 Jim McKelvey's Social Currency

02:03 Why Sammi Is Revisiting This Episode

05:09 The Striptease That Landed a Six-Figure Deal

08:00 Why Getting Attention Comes Before Any Pitch

11:01 Why the Square Reader Was Designed to Not Work Well

14:23 Respecting Your Audience's Attention

17:56 Why Jim Doesn't Use Social Media

19:00 The Power of the Pause

20:22 The Real Origin Story of Square

24:32 How Square Survived Amazon's Attempt to Kill It

28:04 The Commandment From Herb Kelleher That Became a Book

32:11 Why the Rules of Innovation Are Different

36:27 The Hardest Part of Doing Something New

37:28 Serving as an Independent Director of the Federal Reserve

40:22 What the Fed Taught Jim About Political Neutrality

42:19 The Allergic Response to Ideas That Don't Fit

43:22 Why Invisibly Failed to Save Journalism

47:04 The Monetization Model That Actually Worked

49:26 Jim's New Venture: Fast Trials

54:31 Advice for Building in Regulated Industries

58:08 Jim's Don't-Do List

59:48 Social Currency Corner: Tipping Culture

01:02:20 A Listener Question on the Future of Fintech

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A federal judge just ordered an ice cream company to hand over nearly $24 million because their pint looked a little too much like someone else's.

Today, Sammi breaks down the case of Van Leeuwen versus Rebel Creamery, a lawsuit that is about way more than ice cream. She explains how Van Leeuwen's pastel packaging, designed by the firm Pentagram in 2016, became one of the most valuable assets in the company's business and helped drive a nearly 50% jump in sales velocity. Then she unpacks how keto ice cream brand Rebel launched with strikingly similar packaging, despite a buyer warning them beforehand that it looked like a ripoff.

Sammi digs into the legal concept of trade dress, which protects the overall look and feel of a product rather than any single design element, and explains why the court sided with Van Leeuwen. She also covers the idea of "reverse confusion," why Rebel's missing design paperwork sank their case, and how the judge's finding of bad faith unlocked a massive damages award under the Lanham Act.

Finally, Sammi shares why this case matters for every founder and brand builder today: in an age where AI can replicate any aesthetic instantly, the real competitive advantage isn't the look itself, it's being able to prove you own it.

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Here's what Sammi covers today: 00:00 The $24 Million Ice Cream Lawsuit 00:59 Partner Message: Mercury 02:16 Van Leeuwen's Origin Story 02:44 The Pentagram Packaging Redesign 03:34 How the Design Became the Brand 03:50 Enter Rebel Creamery 04:17 The Wegmans Warning 05:00 Van Leeuwen Files Suit 05:25 What Is Trade Dress? 06:06 Proving Consumer Confusion 06:46 The Concept of Reverse Confusion 07:10 The Paper Trail That Won the Case 07:46 Rebel's Missing Evidence 08:25 The Judge's Bad Faith Ruling 08:34 The Good Faith Remote User Defense 09:10 How Rebel's Profits Became the Damages 09:50 The $23.8 Million Verdict and Redesign Order 10:16 Partner Message: Mercury 11:26 Why Provable Ownership Matters in the AI Era 11:47 The Founder's Takeaway 12:30 How to Show Social Currency Some Love

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Dan Clancy's resume includes NASA, Google and Nextdoor, an unlikely path to becoming CEO of one of the biggest live streaming platforms in the world. This week, Sammi sits down with Dan to unpack what actually makes Twitch different from every other social platform: a community that survives even when the algorithm doesn't.

Dan explains why he still streams himself as "DJ Clancy" (despite never once DJing), what that experience taught him about belonging that he couldn't have learned any other way, and why Twitch's average watch time of 73 minutes says more about human connection than any growth metric. He breaks down how creator monetization actually works, why gift subscriptions often outperform tipping, and the advice he gives anyone intimidated by starting their first stream.

Then, Dan gets into why platforms like YouTube have tried and failed to poach Twitch's top streamers, what's still defensible about Twitch a decade after everyone copied the format, and how he thinks about AI as a creative tool rather than a threat to authentic connection. Plus, he opens up about the songwriting career he only discovered in his fifties, the identity boxes we build for ourselves, and the life advice he shared with Sammi that she says she'll be thinking about for a long time.

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Here's What Sammi Covers with Dan:

00:00 Dan Clancy's Social Currency

02:29 From Theater Major to Tech Executive

04:35 What Theater Taught Dan About Leadership

08:30 Streaming as "DJ Clancy"

10:10 What Live Streaming Taught Dan About Community

12:05 The Pitch to a First-Time Twitch Viewer

15:00 Comparing Twitch to Bingeable TV and "Cheers"

15:40 The Power of Horizontal Connections

18:04 Twitch's Core Demographics

19:30 How Twitch Differs From TikTok and YouTube

23:10 How Creator Monetization Actually Works

26:10 Advice for Streamers Just Starting Out

28:00 Short-Form vs. Long-Form Content Strategy

28:51 Why Collaboration Drives Growth on Twitch

29:46 Why Gaming Is a Co-Creation Activity

30:50 Balancing Online Community With Real-World Connection

33:10 What Still Makes Twitch Defensible

36:00 Could Twitch and Amazon Build Social Commerce?

38:25 How AI Fits Into Live Streaming

42:50 Why Every Tech Revolution Comes Back to Connection

46:00 Dan's Songwriting Journey and Breaking Out of Old Boxes

49:08 Dan's System for Embracing Failure

52:26 Cori Marchisotto, e.l.f. and Brands on Twitch

56:44 Listener Question: Supporting Twitch's Volunteer Moderators

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Chili's now goes through 65 million pounds of mozzarella a year, up from just 12 million four years ago. The reason traces back to a single TikTok video of a cheese pull that quietly turned a decade-old menu item into one of the biggest comeback stories in restaurant history.

Today, Sammi breaks down exactly how Chili's pulled off what one analyst called the best turnaround in restaurant history. She digs into the operational fixes nobody saw coming, from a shrimp-counting ritual that wasted hours of labor every day to a salt shaker redesign that cut seasoning time by more than 80 percent. She also traces how CEO Kevin Hochman, who came from Procter & Gamble and Yum Brands, rebuilt the kitchen experience from the inside out while his marketing team leaned into the viral moment instead of manufacturing one.

Then, Sammi unpacks the marketing engine behind the comeback, including the Triple Dipper's rise from a forgotten combo platter to 16 percent of total sales, the launch of Nashville Hot Mozzarella, and nostalgia plays like the Boyz II Men jingle and the Margarita of the Month program. Finally, she reveals the number buried in Chili's most recent earnings report that complicates the celebratory headlines, and what it means for the road ahead, including the struggles at sister brand Maggiano's Little Italy.

Go check out the incredible Fast Company article on Chili's comeback: https://www.fastcompany.com/91549042/chilis-comeback-restaurant-retro-redesign

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Here's What Sammi Covers Today:

00:00 Chili's Mozzarella Explosion

01:30 Sammi's Intro to the Story

01:40 How Far Chili's Had Fallen

02:20 Kevin Hochman Takes Over

02:50 "Marketing Brings Them In, Ops Brings Them Back"

03:13 The Listening Tour That Started It All

03:29 The Shrimp-Counting Fix

03:54 The Ordering Glitch Costing 15 Plates a Night

04:15 The iPad and Wi-Fi Overhaul

04:33 The Salt Shaker Fix

04:53 Cutting the Menu and Adding Staff

05:13 Reformulating the Food

05:41 The Viral Cheese Pull Video

06:17 The Triple Dipper's Sales Surge

06:57 The Launch of Nashville Hot Mozzarella

07:30 Nostalgia Marketing: Boyz II Men and Margarita of the Month

08:05 The Three for Me Deal and "Value Theater"

08:24 The Numbers Behind the Comeback

09:11 Rolling Out the Retro Redesign

09:19 The Number That Complicates the Story

09:36 Why Traffic Is Actually Down

10:00 Maggiano's Little Italy Struggles

10:24 What's Next for Chili's

11:27 How to Show Social Currency Some Love

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Last year, $100 billion in housing payments flowed through Bilt's platform, and one in four apartment buildings in the US now runs on its system. So how did a rewards card for rent turn into one of the biggest players in AI-powered commerce?

This week, Sammi welcomes back Bilt founder and CEO Ankur Jain to unpack how the company has evolved from a direct-to-consumer card product into a full ecosystem connecting apartment buildings, local merchants and now AI agents. Ankur explains why the card now represents a small fraction of the business, how Bilt responded when a portion of customers started gaming the rewards system, and why listening to customer feedback in real time reshaped the recent Card 2.0 rollout.

Then, Ankur breaks down Bilt's viral Rent Day celebrity collaborations with stars like Madonna and A$AP Rocky, the strategy behind its unbranded scripted series "Roomies," and why the company is investing in original entertainment instead of traditional advertising. Later, he makes the case for why Bilt, Google and Anthropic are the only companies positioned to power agentic commerce in the physical world, and how its new Neighborhood Concierge tool can plan your night out, book your workout classes and even pay your restaurant bill automatically.

Plus, Ankur shares how Bilt builds trust with landlords and merchants by making them co-owners in the business, what he thinks is next for AI hardware in the home, and the productivity system that's changed how he works.

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Here's What Sammi Covers with Ankur: 00:00 Ankur Jain's Social Currency 03:38 A Full-Circle Moment at Bilt's New NYC Headquarters 04:19 Where Bilt Started and the Affordability Problem 06:17 How the Bilt Card Became Just 11% of the Business 07:29 Building Housing's First Unified Platform 08:54 The Hotel Experience Analogy 11:36 Card 2.0 and the Trade-Offs of Cutting Off Bad Actors 13:46 Listening to Customer Feedback in Real Time 17:00 Inside the Rent Day Celebrity Collabs 19:41 Stories From Madonna and A$AP Rocky 22:07 The Martha Stewart vs. Ryan Reynolds Moment 22:25 Why "Roomies" Was Launched Without Bilt's Branding 25:16 Building Community Through Bilt's Comedy Series 25:56 Neighborhood Concierge and the Agentic AI Future 27:23 Why Even the Big AI Models Aren't Integrated Locally 29:23 How Consumer AI Behavior Is Shifting 31:31 Why Bilt Belongs in the Same Sentence as Google and Anthropic 34:03 Building the Pipes for Both Sides of the Ecosystem 35:15 What Wins Over Landlords and Local Merchants 37:00 The Seamless Checkout Experience at The Corner Store 40:26 The Disney and Amazon Comparison 42:37 How Small Businesses Compete Like the Big Guys 44:26 Lightning Round 45:30 Ankur's AI-Powered Productivity System 46:44 Social Currency Corner: Could Bilt Enter AI Hardware? 48:50 Listener Question: Building Credibility as an Outsider

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They launched a year apart with nearly identical pitches: shop online without the guilt. Everlane sold radical transparency about factory costs and markups. Reformation sold sustainable, vintage-inspired style with a wink. Both became the "ethical option" for a generation of shoppers, both took private equity money within months of each other in 2019 and 2020, and both saw their founders step back from day-to-day operations around the same time. Then their paths split.

Today, Sammi breaks down how a public reckoning over workplace culture nearly sank Reformation in 2020, and why it recovered anyway. Meanwhile, Everlane's unraveling was quieter: leadership turnover, stagnant product, mounting debt and a liquidation loan that eventually led to Shein acquiring a majority stake in a deal that wiped out shareholders.

Sammi also digs into Reformation's July 2026 IPO on the NYSE, including a $92 million loan taken out just before filing that funded a dividend to existing investors, and what that means for the public investors buying in now. Plus, why the brand whose entire pitch was "know your factory" ended up owned by one of the biggest names in fast fashion, and what Everlane founder Michael Preysman is doing next.

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Here's What Sammi Covers Today:

00:00 Two Brands, One Ethical Fashion Pitch

02:26 Partner Message: Bilt 02:28 Everlane's Radical Transparency Origin Story

03:59 Reformation's Vintage, Style-First Beginnings

04:38 Style First vs. Story First 04:15 The Private Equity Fork in the Road

05:20 Reformation's 2020 Cultural Reckoning 06:41 The Founder's Exit and the Aftermath

07:56 Everlane's Quiet Decline 08:29 Layoffs, Debt and Fading Relevance

08:44 Partner Message: Shopify 09:05 Shein Acquires Everlane

09:48 Reformation's Path to an IPO

10:16 The $92 Million Dividend Before Going Public

11:52 Reformation Debuts on the NYSE 12:16 What Really Keeps a Mission-Driven Brand Alive 12:38 Michael Preysman's New Brand, "Still Radical"

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About two million couples get married in the U.S. every year… and despite economic pressure, they continue to spend an average of $34,000 on the big day. So, why has the wedding industry remained so resilient?

This week, Sammi sits down with The Knot CEO Raina Moskowitz to unpack the business of saying “I do.” Raina shares what it was like leaving Etsy to replace The Knot’s longtime founder, how weddings have changed in the last decade, and how Gen Z is reshaping the industry.

Then, Raina breaks down the economics of the modern wedding, from the growing divide between elaborate celebrations and intimate ceremonies to why guest count remains the biggest driver of cost. Later, Raina addresses the New Yorker story that questioned The Knot’s business practices and explains how customer criticism influenced the company’s product roadmap, including its new “Close the Loop” feature designed to reduce ghosting between couples and wedding professionals.

Plus, she shares how The Knot is integrating with ChatGPT, what AI could take off couples’ plates during the planning process and why trusted data may become even more important as wedding searches increasingly begin inside AI platforms. Finally, Raina weighs in on wedding trends, the influence of celebrity weddings and how she knew she was ready to stop being the strong number two and take the CEO seat.

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Here’s What Sammi Covers with Raina:

00:00 Raina Moskowitz’s Social Currency 

02:03 Partner Message: Shopify

02:58 Raina’s Career Story

05:37 Scaling Etsy During the Pandemic

07:08 Leaving Etsy to Become CEO of The Knot

10:03 Is There a “Right Time” To Take the Leap?

11:47 Replacing a Longtime Founder

13:45 How Weddings Have Changed

16:08 Traditions Couples Are Ditching and Keeping

18:10 Partner Message: Bilt

21:36 Wedding Planning

25:39 How the K-Shaped Economy is Reshaping Weddings

32:30 The Push for Greater Vendor Pricing Transparency

35:55 The Social Media Effect37:55 The “Fake Brides” Story

40:04 The “Close the Loop” Feature and Reducing Vendor Ghosting

45:13 How WeddingPro Helps Small Businesses Grow

48:08 The Knot’s ChatGPT Integration and the Future of AI Planning

51:47 Lightning Round

53:06 Social Currency Corner

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