Honeylove’s Betsie Larkin & Igor Lebovic: Building a $200M Company Together

Matt Bertulli (0:00)

I would love to start, so first off, Igor, Betsie, thank you for coming. This is nice, we're in person, we're here in Austin.

Can we just start with, number one, Honeylove, the name, where did that come from? And then number two, what is Honeylove? A lot of our audiences, like young men in e-commerce, totally may not be your customer.

Betsie Larkin (0:20)

Yeah, fair.

Matt Bertulli (0:21)

So we have to explain things for them first.

Betsie Larkin (0:23)

Okay.

Matt Bertulli (0:24)

So maybe take us away there.

Betsie Larkin (0:26)

Yeah. So when I chose the name Honeylove for the brand, I wanted something that wasn't going to put us into a corner. I wanted something that could allow us to expand. So even though the first product was shapewear, undergarments for women, the name Honeylove felt like something that if we decided to expand, it would be able to hold that.

Then the name itself, it was like a nickname that my mom had for myself and my sisters. It was like, I don't know, it just felt kind of sweet. It was like a very like, this is for women. Yeah, just kind of like pay respect to my mom. She's amazing. And it just kind of rolls off the tongue. Cool.

Matt Bertulli (1:08)

And how long ago, so when did the company start?

Betsie Larkin (1:10)

What year?

We were formed in 2016 and that's a whole story, but we didn't launch until 2018 Okay. So I can tell that whole story or?

Matt Bertulli (1:20)

Yeah, let's do it. Tell me, tell me, what's the gap?

Betsie Larkin (1:23)

Yeah, so in 2016, I had just, I'd actually been working on the ideas a little bit. I was like ready to like get going, open up the ability to work with other people and pay people and that type of thing. So I formed the company. But then I get a phone call from Armand Van Buren, who I don't know if you know who he is.

Matt Bertulli (1:43)

I'm an EDM person.

Betsie Larkin (1:44)

Amazing. Okay, cool. Great. Love that.

So he's like one of the top DJs in the world, DJ or producers.

And he's like, hey, you know that song we did, I wanted to see if you want to come on tour with me. So it's going to be some 40 some countries. We're going to tour all over the world. And this is like right when I started Honeylove. Okay. So for the first two years, it's about a year and a half I was on tour. I was actually out on the road with Armand. And I was working on Honeylove like backstage. I would have a two-hour break between the two songs that I performed with him on that tour. And I was back there like being a nerd in my dressing room, like working on sketches, talking to factories, working on the kind of initial community.

Matt Bertulli (2:30)

So I've never had somebody tell me their side hustle was while they were on tour. That's a first, that thought to be a first for sure.

Betsie Larkin (2:38)

I know we were talking about how a lot of direct to consumer companies like our unconventional founders, but that I kind of take the cake. Yeah, you're definitely the most unconventional.

Matt Bertulli (2:47)

We get these research briefs beforehand and I started reading and I'm like, really? Like, this one's new. Let's talk about that. What is the... So let's just like personally then.

So your degree in math, love arts and music and that's your whole thing. How did you come up with the... So why the idea for the company though? So like I get the name, but like what was the thing that you saw that made you want to even start this?

Betsie Larkin (3:14)

Yeah, no, this is like the weirdest part. I think like me starting a shapewear company is the most surprising thing to me and to everyone else I know. The idea for Honeylove really came from wearing shapewear on stage. So I wasn't wearing it in my day to day life, but I was performing in front of these audiences of like tens of thousands of people. And I wanted to look my best. I wanted to feel confident. I wanted to think about how I looked. So I was like, oh, shapewear, that's a good idea.

The first time I tried shapewear, it rolled down in the waist. It created like a rubber band around my stomach. That sounds not nice. And it was like cutting off my breathing.

Matt Bertulli (3:50)

Oh, and as a singer, that's not useful at all.