Stock Watch: Running Shoes

Icebreakers with...Erika Thompson of Texas Beeworks

Amanda Jewell Saunders

If there are two constants in Erika Thompson’s life, they are: Texas and bees. She started Texas Beeworks in 2014, became a full-time beekeeper in 2019, and signs all her emails with “Bee Well.” But she’s most famous for documenting her calm bee removal services on TikTok.

After strapping into a bee suit, we asked Thompson a few Icebreakers—but please, don’t try this at home.

You have 9 million followers on TikTok and huge followings on other social platforms. How do you balance creating content with actually being a beekeeper?

I always say creatures before content. I'm so thankful for the ability to show people the important and incredible work that bees and beekeepers do every day. But it can be a challenge. I think a lot of people don't realize that, first and foremost, I'm a beekeeper. And then after many, many other things, I'm putting together social content. 

What was the moment when you decided to take beekeeping from a hobby to a career?

About two years ago, I was trying to convince myself and everyone around me that I could leave my good office job and be a full-time beekeeper.

Then, one day I was sitting at work, at my office job, and I opened my email and saw a note from Jeopardy! They were asking me to help create a clue category about bees. And that’s when I thought, “They could have asked anyone.”

What Jeopardy! category could you win that isn’t bee-related?

Oh my gosh. [Asks husband off call] What do I know a lot about, non-bee related? [Husband responds, “Texas.”]

What word would best describe you in high school?

Dork. I was in orchestra, I was the captain of my high school bowling team, and I loved Star Wars. Our school even called the kids in orchestra “Orch Dorks.”

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Looking for Direction

Important note: This section has a new author, as we're reluctantly going to let Kate Noel focus on her day job of running HR at a 120-person media company.

Who could ever fill Kate's Shaq-sized shoes? The one, the only Shane Loughnane. A Western Mass. native, Shane's been navigating sticky workplace dilemmas since he was forced to fire his dad from their paper route venture (don't worry, he received a generous severance package). More recently, Shane's held professional roles across a variety of industries, and he'll be an invaluable sounding board for all your workplace challenges. Let's get this party started.

I don't like my current job but I have no idea what I would rather do instead. Do you have any advice for people like me?—Ashlynn in Denver

As Baz Luhrmann (Australian director, writer, producer) once put it, “Some of the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds still don’t.” This is a relevant topic for me, as I’m somewhere between 22 and 40 and honestly haven’t figured it out yet, either. And that’s totally okay.  

The first thing you should ask yourself is whether it’s a specific aspect of your current job that you dislike, or if it’s the line of work that you find unfulfilling. If the former, perhaps it’s worth a conversation with your boss: A modification of your current responsibilities, a new role inside the company, or potentially a job switch within the industry would reignite the fire.  

If you think you might want to try your hand at something different, start by documenting your non-income generating hobbies and interests—is there a way to monetize any of them? If the answer is, “Maybe, but there are roadblocks,” consider starting small. Even if you can’t up and quit your current job today to pursue it, what would it look like to start something on the side, take a class, or cold email a newsletter editor until they cave and let you write something? 

Still nothing? Pick up a book on something you know nothing about (the Brew has a whole shelf full of recs). If it’s not doing it for you, pick up another one. Most people who haven’t found a job that they are passionate about have stopped looking for one. You’re never too far behind, and it’s never too late.

And don’t forget to wear sunscreen.

—Shane

Something bothering you at work? Ask Shane here.

Shein’s All That

Instagram

If you’re not a Gen Z woman with a penchant for online shopping, you may have never heard of the world’s fastest-growing e-commerce company, Shein. If you are in that demographic, the brand likely follows you around the internet like an overly attached chihuahua. 

But, unlike a chi, the online fashion retailer has a big bark and a big bite:

• Estimated revenue in 2020 of nearly $10 billion
• Annual revenue growth of over 100% for eight years running
• A $15 billion valuation, as of last summer

Oh, and its app was downloaded more than Amazon on the US App Store in June...nbd.

Now that you’re listening, here’s the background

Shein is an online-only, fast-fashion retailer based in China, with a focus on women’s apparel. But calling it “fast” is like calling pickle juice delicious: It’s a vast understatement.

The first wave of fast-fashion retailers (Zara, H&M) became popular by creating new designs and getting them to the sales floor in five weeks or less. Fast fashion 2.0, known as “ultra-fast fashion” and popularized by brands like ASOS and Boohoo, got that process down to a week or two. Shein turns around a new design in as little as three days.

Fashion Nova made waves back in 2018 when its CEO bragged about launching 600 to 900 styles a week, per Vox. Shein added over 7,000 new styles to its site last Thursday alone (see for yourself here). The key to its speed is its well-oiled supply chain management.

Shein’s order flow is as frictionless as a Slip ’N Slide covered in soap

First, as laid out in Not Boring’s excellent deep dive, Shein analyzes trends and user data to decide which style to churn out next. An in-house design team then sends it to a Shein supplier located in China’s manufacturing hub, Guangzhou.

Here’s where the magic happens: Suppliers start by making a small batch of the product, but once it goes live on Shein.com, real-time shopping data is sent to the factory floor to inform whether to scale production up or down. If the item is being clicked on and added to carts furiously, Shein’s software (which all of its suppliers are required to use) tells the supplier to make more.

As factory production gears up, Shein.com’s algorithm recommends the product to more shoppers and its marketing team blasts it across social media.

But moving this fast has resulted in Shein breaking things. Its flywheel sometimes outpaces sound decision-making, meaning products like a “Metal Swastika Pendant Necklace” have ended up on the site.

Looking ahead...rumors have swirled in China that Shein would IPO sometime in 2021, but that was before Chinese authorities cracked down on the country’s biggest tech companies, especially when they tried to IPO on US-based exchanges. So we may have to wait a while to learn the juicy financial deets.

Open House

Welcome to Open House, the only newsletter section that begs the question, “How exactly am I going to use a screened-in porch in the Texas heat?” We’ll give you a few facts about a listing and you try to guess the price.

Zillow

 About two hours southeast of Dallas, you’ll find today’s home in the historic district of Tyler, Texas, aka the Rose Capital of the World and home to the largest rose garden in the US (spanning 14 acres and featuring at least 400 varieties of roses.) This 5,091 square-foot home built in 1965 comes with:

• 6 beds, 3 baths
• More arches than you can count on one hand
• Fancy-shmancy carved ceilings
• A huge parking lot in the back

How much for the Texas palace? Scroll to the bottom of the newsletter to find out.

Just Click It

1. Which singers have the biggest vocabularies? (WordTips)
2. AI-generated art is actually pretty good. (Berkeley)
3. Tunnels are our transportation future. (Austin Vernon)
4. How to unplug from work. (Founder’s Journal)
5. The $5,000 quest for the perfect butt. (The Goods)
6. Should we be building Olympic charter cities? (Virginica)
7. How we spent our time in 2020 versus 2019. (FlowingData)
8. USA Gymnastics isn’t in charge of its future. (The Cut)
9. The 25 most significant works of postwar architecture. (NYT Style Magazine)
10. Inside the first-ever scientific study of post-mortem meditation. (Tricycle)

Higher learnings: Cannabis legalization is moving slowly here in the States. In Latin America? Not so much. Find out how a major legislative change positions Colombian cannabis cultivators as global leaders in this press release from Flora Growth.*

Meme Battle

Welcome back to Morning Brew's Meme Battle, where we crown a single memelord every Sunday.

Today's winner: Claudia in Manchester, MI. Seriously, people. 

This week's challenge: You can find the new meme template here for next Sunday. Once you're done making your meme, submit it at this link. We'll pick a new memelord for next week's Sunday Edition and provide you with another meme template to meme-ify. 

$375,000