It’s one thing to develop a hugely successful product and build a company around it - Willow Tree is that product and industry leader DEMDACO is that company - it’s another to constantly reinvent yourself, going on three decades now. Demi Lloyd, CEO of (and the DEM in) DEMDACO, talks about the less than glorious early days, how a small group of people came together - and how they’re keeping it going and growing all these years later.
9:00 - “If we’d known…six months earlier how much money we were losing, we probably would have closed down before Willow Tree even launched.”
12:40 - “You always need to reinvent yourself…go back to those ideas that made you and Willow Tree and DEMDACO…that put you on the map.”
14:50 - “We are emotion-based, we try to be with people in moments where they need encouragement, or supply some joy or delight… and lift the spirit.”
22:08 - “A wonderful product idea, really coming to fruition…can only happen when you have people working on products and merchandising and marketing that really get it, and believe it, and feel what you call this emotion-based idea of bringing joy…you somehow have been able to bring that for your team.”
23:24 - “People don’t always stay for 24 years…new people coming in and out… you need to embed this desire to lift the spirit in intangible ways into your culture…into the essence of your company.”
27:58 - “We’re no nirvana… there’s all kinds of problems and we mess up. But we think that by inculcating this very deliberately into the culture…if we’re really messing up at least it catches us and slaps us in the face.”