The Reboot Chronicles with Dean DeBiase

I recently spoke with Carl Martin Lindahl, CEO of SVP Worldwide, on an episode of The Reboot Chronicles about how millennials are driving the company’s growth, what the latest technological advancements are in sewing and what new opportunities lie ahead for the company in terms of innovation and partnership.

SVP Worldwide is the world’s largest consumer sewing machine company and home of the legendary SINGER®, HUSQVARNA VIKING and PFAFF® sewing machine brands. Through their innovation and pioneering of offerings in the Internet-of-Things (IoT) segment, SVP Worldwide has helped make sewing today not only bigger and better but also higher-tech than ever before.

Millennials are Making Sewing Trendier Than Ever

According to an industry report, the sewing market is growing at a steady rate and surprisingly much of this growth is coming from millennials. “During the coronavirus lock-down, we have seen an explosion in growth - people have gotten into sewing to the extent that we had not anticipated at all,” says Lindahl.

The 2020 shortage of everything from boats to bicycles has extended into sewing machines, according to CNN. He says millennials are accounting for about 65% of the total growth of the industry on a global basis. According to Lindahl, there are multiple trends driving this growth among the demographic:

Upcycling. Lindahl believes that sewing can reach the level of art, or be a form of recessionary self-expression for consumers, especially Comic-Con attendees, who are willing to spend $500 dollars on a costume. Lindahl believes that the upcycling trend is primarily responsible for attracting customers, particularly those who are very conscious about sustainability, the environment and reuse.

Home Entertainment. Children who have been locked down during the pandemic are also now finding a way to learn how to sew with parents teaching their kids how to sew.

Urgent Care. Lindahl says sewing market growth was also driven by the increased demand for facemasks, respirator covers and the desire of consumers to donate to local healthcare systems.

He states in support of this SVP has donated thousands of machines to help consumers and local non-profit organizations. “We are donating sewing machines directly to hospitals and organizations to help sew face masks, gowns, respirator covers, and other PPE. We are in a unique position to help during this challenging time," says Lindahl

On this episode of The Reboot Chronicles, industry veteran Stirling Murray, CEO of Red Tree, the UK's leading international brand consultancy, joined me to discuss the challenges facing the global health, beauty and wellness industries.

Deep Roots

Stirling’s roots are deep in the beauty industry, having worked for copious companies, including Unilever, Estee Lauder, and Chanel globally. Red Tree is one of the top action-oriented consultancy groups that provides strategic advisement to a mix of large and startup brands, and the group also manages certain brands in specific regions around the world. He calls it “country managers” managing brands internationally, a new gig-economy type service that I think most startups and many large companies, across sectors will be considering in the 20's.

On this episode of The Reboot Chronicles, I took a look at startup Atolla, a custom skincare subscription company created by Co-Founder and CEO Meghan Maupin to dive into the insights of AI in skincare data and technology.

Meghan, an MIT graduate, created Atolla to target customer skincare concerns at a very personalized level. Her background lies in design, mass customization, 3D printing, and manufacturing. During her time at MIT, she struggled to take care of her skin and figure out the best products to target her skincare needs. With her creative background, she assembled a team where she and her fellow co-founders tackled skincare concerns through design, data science, and dermatology. After graduating, she began working with her team to build the technology, secure a patent to apply to their custom formulation process, and eventually launch in 2019. Atolla sales have skyrocketed, reaching more consumers, and increasing revenue monthly.

On this episode of Reboot Chronicles I had a no BS conversation with Rishad Tobaccowala on how we can stay human in the data-driven age, and what it means to be human in light of all the technology and data that’s flying around us. Named by Business Week as one of the top business leaders and top five marketing innovator by TIME, Rishad uncovers insightful secrets in his book Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data about how balancing the analytical and intuitive sides of business can lead to increased profitability and even joy!

As most of us have plunged deeper and deeper into digital-data-driven worlds, the power of originality, storytelling and genuine human connections has never been more critical. But as data has become more available and we are more depended on it, common sense and empathy have often been discounted with negative results. So I wanted to know: how do we stay human in the age of data and can CEOs actually reboot or restore the soul of their businesses?

"I have been fascinated by the amount of innovation happening in the food and beverage sectors by big corporations and startups around the world. I invited Ellie Rubenstein a friend and CEO of a new private equity group, Manna Tree Partners, for an episode of The Reboot Chronicles to discuss the future of food and the importance of private equity and venture investing in the next-gen of human health."

We recently sat down with Jesus Mantas, IBM’s Senior Managing Partner, who provided us with some powerful insights into how the company is approaching digital transformation while also humanizing technology.  For digital transformation strategy to succeed, companies need to be designed to excel at time-to-market and time-to-customer performance at scale. According to Forbes 45% of organizations believe faster speed to market is their primary goal in digitizing their efforts by adding in AI and machine learning-driven intelligence.

Read the full article here: https://www.revieve.com/blog/digital-acceleration-and-the-humanization-of-technology

In this episode of The Reboot Chronicles Podcast, Dean DeBiase interviews Ann Winblad, Founder & Managing Director Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, a venture capital firm she co-founded in 1989. She is a well-known and respected software industry entrepreneur and technology leader. Her background and years of experience in the software industry have been chronicled in many national and international business publications.

Hummer Winblad Venture Partners was the first venture firm focused exclusively on software. In her 30-year career as a venture capitalist, Ann’s firm has launched over 160 enterprise software companies and led investments that pioneered successful companies across the enterprise software sector: Business Intelligence, Analytics, Software Development, Integration, Data Center Optimization, Cloud Computing and Security.

In this episode of The Reboot Chronicles Podcast, Dean DeBiase interviews Matt Renner, Microsoft President US Enterprise. Matt is a tech industry veteran who leads a $13B division with an organization of over 2,000 people servicing thousands of clients. In this interview, they discussed what Matt’s team is doing to help the world’s largest brands reboot their growth and innovation in unprecedented times.

In this episode of The Reboot Chronicles Podcast, Dean DeBiase interviews Tim Draper, founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Draper Associates, and Draper University and early investor in Skype, Hotmail, Tesla, Baidu, Twitch, and SpaceX. They discussed how the global economy is being transformed in the age of cryptocurrency and Coronavirus.

Join Dean DeBiase and SiriusXM host and former NA chairman of LVMH, Pauline Brown, who oversaw a portfolio of 70 brands in 5 sectors ranging from fashion to cosmetics, as they discuss her new book, Aesthetic Intelligence, and unpack how aesthetics impacts retail success (and failure), why style and design are as important as scale and speed for emerging brands, and her time in global private equity at The Carlyle Group.