From Watching The Price Is Right to a $1 Billion Valuation: Shawn D. Nelson, Founder and CEO of Lovesac

This transcript has been generated using AI technology. There may be errors or discrepancies in the text. The opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the show or its hosts.


Susan Sly 00:00
 Hey there, Susan here. I hope you're having an amazing day, wherever you are in the world, whatever you're up to. In this episode, I get to sit down with the founder, product inventor, and CEO of Lovesac, and they're on a mission to create the most loved brand in America. We are going to talk about what it's like to navigate uncertainty with the economy. We're going to talk about entrepreneurial grit. We are going to talk about a purposeful, faith-driven regime that really assists with helping ground this founder, and what it's like to deal with entrepreneurial anxiety.
And whatever it is you're going through—if you are thinking about starting a business, if you are in the throes of a business, you're fundraising—this is the episode for you.
I have gone through the most amazing leadership program for the past several months, and I've made a decision to continue for another year. And as a result, I've literally taken myself apart and put myself back together—as a founder, as a mother, as a woman out there doing big things in the world. And even with this show—this show is going to go through, and it is going through, a complete upgrade. The conversations are going to be deeper. They are going to be more in service to you, the listener, wherever you are at. And they are going to be much more raw and real.
And so I am grateful you're here. And before we get into the show, if you have a woman in your life that you love—or you are that woman—and you woke up this morning and you were uncertain and you hadn't slept and you were frustrated and you felt alone, then I would encourage you to download my newest creation, my newest venture: thePause®.
Our app is available in the App Store, in the Play Store. Who is it for? It's for women 30+ who are dealing with the confusion and chaos that surrounds our health, that surrounds perimenopause and menopause. And I designed this app to be your companion. We have an AI coach. Her name is Harmoni™. She named herself, which is pretty darn cool. And she is evidence-based. She's there to provide you with guidance and support. We have incredible symptom tracking that allows you to identify your symptoms and also get feedback. And we continue to build.
Did you know that less than two and a half percent of tech companies in 2023 had at least one female founder? So we have myself as the founder and Dr. Mia Chorney as our co-founder and Chief Medical Advisor. So we are a company for women, by women, and we would love your support. So go check us out in the App Store, in the Play Store, download today, give us a five-star review. And definitely, the best way to support women is supporting women-founded businesses.
So with that, I'm going to get into today's episode with the amazing Shawn D. Nelson. He is the founder and CEO of Lovesac. He is also the best-selling author of Let Me Save You 25 Years, which is also his podcast, which has included incredible guests including Mark Cuban, Gronkowski—you all know I'm a Patriots fan. We will talk about the Patriots just for a brief second, I promise. And most importantly, he's an incredible father of four.
So let's jump into this episode of Raw and Real Entrepreneurship®.

Susan Sly 04:04
 This is Raw and Real Entrepreneurship®, the show that brings the no-nonsense truth of what is required to start, grow, and scale your business. I am your host, Susan Sly.

Susan Sly 04:20
 Well, Shawn, it is so great to have you on Raw and Real Entrepreneurship®. And first and foremost, celebrating everything you're doing in the world—your show and your incredible success.
I want to dive in deep right off the bat. You and I were discussing before the show—we're living in a really interesting time. We have Gen Z coming out of college—if they're going to college—the job opportunities aren't great. We're seeing declines in terms of jobs for kids who are, you know, 21, 22. You started Lovesac when you were 18 years old. What, in your opinion, do you think is different about the climate now? And do you think you could have started this business in this existing climate?

Shawn D. Nelson 05:18
 Oh, I mean, it's a different world. What's funny, upon reflection—we were bootstrapping. You know, we were selling these giant sacks full of foam because I had made one, people liked it, as our side hustle in college—before I think "bootstrapping" was a word. You know, all these clever buzzwords, all these business podcasts, all these tools for entrepreneurship, startup ecosystem, you know, paid coaching, all that—it wasn't even a thought. It didn't exist.
You know, there were business classes at school—I was in them—taking accounting and all this other stuff. And in fact, you know, operating a business there—first of all, I would encourage any young person to find a way to operate a business through college. Anything, even the dumbest, smallest—I don't know—vending machine, car wash, who knows? You know, windows business. Operating a business through college was so instructional for me.
I felt like I was the only kid in class that understood these words that we’re learning in economics. You know, the law of diminishing returns and, you know, pricing power and relative whatever—like, all of these terms. We learn words for it. Everyone else was like memorizing them, and I felt like I was living them. And I didn’t know that until I knew it. And it was extremely valuable for me.
So in a lot of ways, I think it's more accessible than ever. You have so much resources—free. You know, your podcast, my podcast—Let Me Save You 25 Years. I'm sitting down with Mark Cuban. I'm sitting down with, you know, Gronkowski. I'm sitting down with some of the most successful people in the world just talking about what it took to become a success. That wasn't available. That wasn't available to me. And so we were just stumbling our way forward.
So in a lot of ways, it's easier than ever. In a lot of ways, it's harder. It's way more crowded. You know, the minute you have an idea, there's 10 others.
And you know, a weird tangent—even way back in 1998 when I founded Lovesac—believe it or not, there were two other foam bag companies born that year. That's just the way the universe works. You know, you make an asteroid movie, and there's three asteroid movies. You know, it's really weird. And so you have to kind of have that—and I didn’t know that, right? At the time, like, the internet was barely getting going. I became aware of this much later. And of course, Lovesac—I think—won that race. But some of those companies are still out there.
My point being, this day and age, the day you have an idea, there's probably 10 others. So you have to accept that and charge into it. But you also have more resource than ever.

Susan Sly 08:14
 You said something really fascinating. Well, I mean, so many things—and sidebar—I danced with Gronk at a charity fundraiser. And I'm a longtime New England Patriots fan, always, every day. So I will shout out my Patriots every show I get.
Thinking about 1988, right? I was 16 years old. I was coding, and I was already on, I think, my third business venture. There's a question that comes up—because I get a lot of people writing in, they listen to the show in the car with their kids.
Do you think entrepreneurs are born, or do you think they can be made?

Shawn D. Nelson 08:54
 I think entrepreneurs are born. I think they also can be made. But I think—I talk about this a lot because it's not talked about enough.
After all the conversations, all the, you know, testimonials about grit and persistence and all these things—they're all true. But the underlying, invisible strength that I think an entrepreneur must have is the ability to thrive in uncertainty.
And that's a weird thing because it's hard to even put your finger on—what does that mean? Uncertainty, by definition—it's an ambiguous term. But I think humans would rather know they have cancer than suspect it and live for those few weeks while you're waiting for the tests. You know, like, it's—
And that kind of uncertainty—that's a stark example, right? But these uncertain pressures that we can't even know where they're coming from—you know, competitors that we don't know exist, economic turmoil that we feel might come, but, you know, the end of a cycle that seems to never come—these are the things that destroy people. That just make it impossible for people to, like, function—or thrive anyway.
And I think that—and so it's not really about entrepreneurship, but I think that, you know, if it were—you were Columbus, you know, leaving the coast of Spain, sailing off into uncertainty, right? That's the capacity I'm talking about, right?
So in a different day, it might be manifest differently. But in our day and age, entrepreneurs have to carry that in this form. And it's the kind of thing that people don't think about.
And everyone—look, everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, just like every kid wants to play in the NFL. It sounds cool. You can get rich. You know, it's celebrated in our culture. It's like the modern gladiators of our time or something.
But no, not everyone is born with that capacity. I think you might be able to develop it. But it's—and so there's lots of other things, by the way, that come along with being a successful entrepreneur. But that is—that is a common denominator that I've found amongst pretty much all successful people. And it's not often spoken of.

Susan Sly 11:17
 That—the capacity to execute. And to your point, I just went through this, Shawn.
I had a scary scan, let's call it. Like, once every few years, I'll go for a full-body MRI—and they're going to find everything. And so it came back, and the doctor calls me, and I'm driving to L.A., and I get this call.
And I'm volunteering at this personal empowerment event that I'm really passionate about—this work. And he calls me, he's like, "Susan, there's something in your left breast. I want you to get, like, you know, a 3D mammogram right away."
And I was going in, Shawn, that night to serve 150 people—going through, like, some in-depth processes. And I'm like, okay—pulled off, got myself in a—sat in my car. That was my pity party. I'm like, okay, get back in the car. Keep driving. Let's go.
And the capacity as an entrepreneur to be able to say, like, okay—life is life-ing. However, I have payroll to make. I have customers to serve. I have a big vision in the world. And that can just be up on the shelf until I can deal with it.
Made the appointment. But to your point—it was four weeks before I got the scan. And then another week to get the results back.
And I'm like—the not knowing. But it wasn't going to take me out of the game.
And this is a question—in reading your story, because it's been, you know, in so many media pieces and, you know, it's come up time and time again. What I'm curious about is your ability to execute.
Because how many people of all ages have ideas every single day about businesses to start—but very few actually execute.
So you're watching The Price Is Right, back in the OG Bob Barker days—like, I'm all in, I'm vested, I'm enrolled in that story. But you actually executed. That's different.

Shawn D. Nelson 13:17
 Yeah. Well, first of all, I just want to say what you just expressed is exactly what I'm referring to.
And I think that people like you underestimate your ability to do that because it's natural for you to be able to compartmentalize—put that on the shelf and just keep working through.
Do you—that's like—I don't know. It's just what you do.
And that's my point. A lot of people think they want to be an entrepreneur, but they don't have that capacity—that capacity that seems so natural to you. That, you know—it's still hard. You're aware of it. But like, it's just what you do.
I'm the same way. And I'm not saying that to tell—I'm saying that if you don't have that, you might not want to go chasing this. Because you're going to be faced with something like that—daily, weekly, monthly, annually—all the time.
And it does crush some people.
In terms of your question—my ability to execute—it comes back to the number one Shaunism in the book. The first podcast I ever recorded. You know, I follow these little Shaunisms through my podcast—and have more since.
Just do something.
Just do something.
You know, I think Lovesac gets to employ a few thousand people. 300 locations across the U.S. We're on a path to building the most loved brand in America.
Sounds like a crazy thing? You watch. We will do it. We're building a Nike. We're building an Apple. We're building a brand that's here for 100 years. And it's from an unlikely place.
We started with giant beanbags. Now—couches. We'll go a lot further. We'll get to that later. We'll do all that—
Because I was watching The Price Is Right, had this dumb idea, like, what if there was a beanbag from me to the TV—like the whole floor.
And instead of thinking about that and talking about it to my friends, I just turned off the TV. I got in my 1969 Ford Mustang. I drove down to JoAnn's Fabrics.
I bought seven yards of tan vinyl and black vinyl—because it was on sale. I brought it home. I rolled it out. I looked at a baseball. I cut out two figure eights. I started sewing them together. I jammed my mom's sewing machine. It killed the motor.
My neighbor helped me finish it. Put a zipper in it. Looked for crap to put inside. Couldn't buy enough beanbag beads.
Went to Michael’s—your I is unfathomable. Looked for soft stuff. Found my parents’ camping mattresses rolled up with a bungee cord. Cut those up on a paper cutter—you know, like the kind you chop paper into strips with—turned them this way. Squares.
Filled the thing. It took me three weeks to stuff—all kinds of weird stuff. Old blankets. Packing peanuts...
Susan Sly 15:57
 And Yellow Pages. I understand. Yeah, yeah.

Shawn D. Nelson 16:00
 I was using the Yellow Pages eventually to source foam from. And when I say that—speaking, I have to, like, caveat—because half the audience doesn't even know what I'm talking about.
Before Google existed. And I just kept doing the next thing, which is Shaunism number two: just do the next thing.
And before you know it, you understand workers' comp insurance. You understand, you know, registering with the state and national. You understand trademarks. You understand, you know, contract law. You understand how to read a lease.
You just keep doing the next thing.
And I know that sounds really dumb and basic, but it's the doing and the ability to do now. You know, I reflected on it five minutes ago. You know, I received—it’s so dumb—I received a new license plate. And it kind of sat there.
It's like—I'm hustling to go install that thing before this podcast because it's like, I just have a "do it now, do it right now" attitude.
Because otherwise, these things sit on the shelf and they cause us problems later on, you know, or they go nowhere.
And so just having this proclivity to do it now.

Susan Sly 17:06
 What is the craziest idea that you've had—that you know in your mind, you're like, "I know this is insane, and I'm going to execute on it anyway."
Because I'm not—I don't care about public ridicule. I'm going to step out on the edge.
I just did a ropes course. So the vision is, you know, stepping on that ledge—you're like, I don't know, 50 feet in the air—and you're diving for a trapeze bar. Like, you're just going to dive off.
What’s the craziest idea?

Shawn D. Nelson 17:46
 Oh man. You're talking to a person that grew up as a teenager trying to one-up himself and his friends every night of his life, doing a lot of crazy stuff that I really shouldn't even talk about.
Not—you know, we were nothing—mostly pretty harmless. But we just tried to do just crazy, stupid stuff every night of our life.
And in fact—and I’m not talking partying. I never drank. I never partied. It's not that.
It's, it's, you know, stuff with cars and stuff out in the world. And I think, like, it actually drove—it made me realize at a young age that, like, you really are capable of anything. And if you can think of it, you can probably do it.
And as that started to manifest in business, I think—I mean, I'm about to do one tomorrow. You know, this will probably come out after this is live.
But, you know, we had this idea to call—I wonder if our couches would resist my Ford Bronco, like, driving up onto it. Like, could it actually hold the weight of, like, an oversized, overtired vehicle, you know?
And actually, we were kind of skeptical. And so I tested it out front and, you know, planted one against the curb and drove up onto it. And sure enough, like, didn't even, didn’t even creak. It was crazy.
And I’m about to do it. You know, I'm about to make a big video of it and go park the thing up on top just to prove how—and then run over a competition’s couch. Watch it sink to the floor, break the springs and—
Like, but like—it’s a dumb idea. It’s not going to set the world on fire, set the internet on fire. But you know, it will prove my point. And it will be memorable.
And you're not going to get that from Pottery Barn.
And so, you know, do the things you think about.
And they might lead somewhere else, by the way. Forget about the dumb, you know, car on the couch thing. Sometimes these things lead other places, you know.
But you only find out—you can only see around that corner after you’ve driven around that corner, you know? And that’s why we have to do the things that we think of.

Susan Sly 20:06
 Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. There's no question. I can't wait to see that, first and foremost. I had a—

Shawn D. Nelson 20:13
 @Johnoflovesac on all social media. You’ll see it.

Susan Sly 20:16
 Yes, yes. I’m sharing that.
I had this idea—this will—the show will be out after I’ve already done this.
So I’m laying there, having a massage. And I’m like, okay, how do we take thePause® and have it be a viral sensation?
I’m not a big believer initially in paying for traffic because your CAC is going to be so big, it’s like throwing spaghetti against the wall.
So Shawn, I’m like, here’s what I’m going to do. Less than two and a half percent of all tech companies have at least one female founder.
So what I’m going to do is—for every 100 new subscribers we get, I’m going to take a cake to the face.
My dream is to be caked by Steve Aoki. So what I’m doing is—wherever I am when those subscribers hit—I will pull over and I will get a cake and get caked in the face.
And I’m like—it might be the stupidest idea, or it might be a viral sensation. I have no idea.
And that’s—that’s my point. Of the 400+ entrepreneurs that I’ve interviewed for this show—execution, even when it’s tough, even when it might seem stupid—is one of the biggest pieces.
And for you—the company at one point is on the verge of debt. And the 90% failure rate for startups—that’s not just for tech startups, it’s for all startups.
And what was it for you that kept you in the game and didn’t walk away and become a statistic?

Shawn D. Nelson 21:53
 Well, first of all—just to end, just to—I love your cake idea. I love your cake to the face idea.
I think that it's a perfect example of—you have to make your own luck.
You can’t get lucky with something like that unless you, unless you do it, you know? So you could talk about it. You could ask your friends, “Do you think it’s dumb?” Some would say it’s dumb.
But you just have to do these things.
And by the way, you have to not just do them once. You have to do them.
And you may not get lucky with it, but it may lead you to some other path as well.
So—we make our own luck.
As far as these toughest times—how did we not become a statistic, failing even in the face of a Chapter 11 reorg?
We had to start over. We had—we had had so much debt. We had raised venture capital. Their big idea was, “Hey, you 20-somethings did a good job getting this far, but the best path will be to bankrupt the company, shut down most of your stores that you signed dumb leases for because you were dumb kids, and try to get through that tunnel and reemerge with a clean balance sheet. And, you know, we’ll try and buy you back.”
And that was not the path that I wanted to take. But I was kind of put on that path.
And I remember in that darkest of time—because those—you know, living—it's one thing to go out of business and deal with that embarrassment.
But when you've just been made a little bit of a celebrity—I had won a million dollars with Richard Branson on TV as an investment through a reality TV show on Fox Network—nationwide, big deal. Local celebrity, for sure.
And kind of a minute later, you're on the front page going through a Chapter 11. It’s humiliating and embarrassing.
And people have been hurt. And people lose money through these situations. And, you know, you default on some debt. And it's—it's just—it's terrible. It's the worst place to—it’s—it’s the absolute worst outcome for business short of maybe going to jail.
And so I remember, I’m at my parents’ house. They—they can’t help me much. You know, my mom was a ballet teacher, growing—you know, self-employed that way. My father was a real estate agent.
And I have people that hate me. I have articles written about me. I have—you know, and meanwhile, the company has to keep running. Not only keep running—it has to do pretty well in order to get through this tunnel.
And I’m flying out to locations that we had just opened a month ago—dismantling them at midnight to get out of the lease. And, you know, we can only work in—
And I’m burning the candle at both ends. I’m exhausted. I’m humiliated. I’m reviled.
And I asked my parents, like, “What—what should I—should I just get out of this thing? Like, what should I do?”
And I remember—my mom gave me the best advice I ever had. And I don’t—you know, she again, no experience as an entrepreneur.
But she—she was getting a little bit emotional. And she—she’s pretty sturdy.
And she finally kind of said—well, as she stood up from the table and kind of walked out of the room, she said, “You can quit, or you can keep going.”
And as dumb as that sounds—that's it.
And if you keep going more than you quit—and there—there are times and there are things to quit—but overall, if you keep going more than you quit, you’ll make it somewhere.
And on top of that—I love this advice I had on my old podcast from Dan Pink, the famous author—you know, he was on, we were talking about a similar subject.
And he said, you know, “How about this? Whenever it’s a tie and you’re just not quite sure—let the tie go to the runner. You keep going.”
Like, unless you are really certain that this thing needs to be quit—if you feel any of that, you know, could go either way—you keep going.
Susan Sly 26:04
 Your mom is a very wise woman.

Shawn D. Nelson 26:06
 Of course. Listen to your mother.

Susan Sly 26:09
 Do you—I know for myself as an entrepreneur, I call them WKMs—wall-kicking moments.
And you've spoken often about the miracles alongside the mistakes, and this concept of—we can really miss the miracle.
What do you do, Shawn, when you are so in it—like, you know, whether it's attorneys, it's HR, it's like all the stuff?
The biggest company I've ever scaled had 100 employees. I mean, you're way beyond that. But those days as a CEO—there's so much happening.
What is your process that allows you to step out, step back, and ensure that you don't miss the miracles and that your head is in the right space?
Because I see that every entrepreneur that I've had on—like whether it's Glenn Stearns, billionaire, or Dave Asprey, or anyone—Jesse Itzler—everyone has a process that allows them to quickly snap out of the doingness of it and get back into the beingness.
And I'm so curious about what yours is.

Shawn D. Nelson 27:32
 For me, you know, I woke up this morning with some anxiety.
You know, obviously the world is a dumpster fire in many respects.
Yes, our category—you know, you're in tech, at least. You're in a place where everyone's looking. You're in AI.
I mean, furniture—consumer—are we in a recession? I mean, in our category, we are.
You know, is housing, which we're linked to, thriving? No.
Do I have competition coming out of the woodwork that I created by having the success we've had?
They all want to essentially copy us and do what we're doing, right? And they don't have our expense structure.
They don't—and they don't have our momentum either.
And—I wake up with this kind of anxiety.
And I practice my morning mantra.
I do—you know, I really do three things in the morning. And I try to keep it really simple.
I pray, which, you know, includes meditation, if you—if you're—I think doing it right.
You know, these pop culture versions of ancient practices are not so clever when you get down to it.
They are eternal principles, regardless of what name you put on it.
I read. I read scripture. I'm a religious person.
And I practice my morning mantra. It's simple. These are things that I say to myself.
Call them affirmations, whatever you want.
And I've just basically—you know, we might have a great moment in this conversation, Susan, that I'll add a line to.
And I built this thing—it’s a Frankenstein together.
And one of the lines—and you say it to yourself out loud, if you can, and if you can't, I read it quietly—but, you know, these lines are ingrained in me because I say them every morning.
And one of them is like, "I will not operate from a place of fear."
So when you're saying that to yourself shortly after waking up to a little bit of anxiety, that's it.
It's not "I'll try not to." It's not "I'll choose." It's "I will not operate."
So I flip it.
And it's like—if I'm feeling any fear, I refuse to.
I refuse to feel it. I refuse to wallow in it. I refuse to accept it.
I will take a buoyant, positive—
And you might say, "Look, man, that's like you're being ignorant."
I'm aware of what's going on. I'm aware of the challenges.
Of course your mind can't not be aware.
But I refuse to operate from that place.
So how do I operate not from that place?
Well, it has to be from a place of love, from a place of strength, from a place of confidence, obviously.
And that mantra—with 50 other lines, you know, like that—keep me on the rails.

Susan Sly 30:22
 Do you have a go-to scripture?

Shawn D. Nelson 30:27
 Well, I am a practicing Mormon, right?
Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
And, you know, pursuant—I'll choose one from the Bible, right?
Pursuant to the fact that we—we both draw from the Book of Mormon and the Bible.
Let me—let me, let me get the—I want to make sure I get the reference right.

Susan Sly 30:55
 And for the audience—the global audience—one thing Shawn probably doesn't know, and most of you don't know—I grew up in the Mormon church.

Shawn D. Nelson 31:04
 Did you really?

Susan Sly 31:06
 I really did.

Shawn D. Nelson 31:06
 I didn't know that! That's—yes.

Susan Sly 31:06
 Yes. Yes.
So we were always going here in this show. So this is the—this is going to be the fun reveal.
So I get to hear Shawn's go-to scripture, and then I’ll share which one—when I woke up in anxiety—that I got on my knees and opened the Bible this morning.
Shawn D. Nelson 31:26
 So I'll give you, I'll give you a favorite scripture.
So, Second Timothy. Second Timothy, Chapter 1, Verse 7: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, right? But of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
And so when you feel fear, you know where it comes from—at least you know where it doesn't come from.
And these are the—you know, and these—some of these things, you know, manifestation and prayer, meditation, whatever label, you know, you want to put on these things—they're absolutely real.
They're probably more real—I mean, look at, look at, look at the way the world is evolving, right? What's even—what's even, you know—truth anymore? What are facts anymore?
Like, even facts have a hard time existing anymore. You know, things that—
 "No, no, you gotta—I saw the video, I saw it with my own—"
How can you even?
And so the things that used to be concrete are more fluid than ever.
And what's wild to me is—these spiritual concepts, these eternal concepts, are more reliable than the facts that we are presented.
And it's amazing to me as I've grown older, how it's actually, in my opinion, become more that way—not less that way.
You would think that science and technology and AI would erode any semblance of spirituality and truth.
But actually, these eternal truths that are immutable and bigger than, you know, the daily facts that surround us—that we can't even rely on anymore—are... it's where it's at.
And that's been a huge testimony for me, and that's the reason I refuse to give up my faith. And it's—it's been very useful to me.

Susan Sly 33:27
 Yeah. Yeah.
I love that you shared your morning routine. I have a very similar one, which involves prayer, meditation.
I heard Joel Osteen say once, "Prayer is when we're talking to God. Meditation is when we're listening."
And my go-to—I have two go-tos. One is Psalm 23, right? That is the—and I've had many moments where I chose forgiveness. I chose to let it go.
And literally, there was a—you know, a feast prepared for me in the presence of my enemies—the detractors.
And my other one is Mark 11:22-26: "Whatever you ask for in prayer and believe and have faith, you will have. If you say to this mountain, 'Be removed and cast in the sea,' the mountain will be removed and cast in the sea."
But 26 is, "First, you have to forgive."
And forgiveness is right in—as an entrepreneur—because I see a lot of people who hold on to stuff, and it's taking up so much oxygen in their lives.
And I'm like, you are not going to get to the next level if you're just so unrelenting in that lack of forgiveness.

Shawn D. Nelson 34:39
 Yeah, the—the—

Susan Sly 34:40
 The question—the question I have for you is—thinking about, you mentioned—and this is Raw and Real Entrepreneurship®—we talk about the economy, we talk about the landscape.
I love that you shared about anxiety. Entrepreneurial anxiety is real. Yeah, sure—real.
So, prayer for you, scripture, faith—what do you do outside of business—the podcast, creating—that fuels your energy, so that you can come in and play a big game every single day?

Shawn D. Nelson 35:21
 Yeah, I make a lot of time now for the things that I've learned to love.
And those things have changed over the years.
Late—over this last number of years, it's been dirt biking.
You know, I got into riding motorcycles on dirt very late—in my 40s.
Probably shouldn't—you know, these are the type of things you really should have learned as a kid.
Which is why, of course, all my kids ride—even my daughters. The littlest—11-year-old—they all ride dirt bikes.
Because it's one of the few things that I've found that is wildly physical.
It's probably—if you do your research and you ride hard—you know, you're not just cruising around on a dirt road—if you're riding very difficult trails, it's wildly physical.
It may be the most physical sport that exists.
Every muscle in your body is utilized to the max. Your heart rate will often be up toward 180 on a sustained basis—more so than even mountain biking, which is hard to believe.
Because you're—there's a lot of research behind this.
But more importantly, you—these are things—surfing is another one for me—you have to be present.
If you're not present, you're going to die, or you're going to have radically bad outcomes.
And I've never had what I would call a radically bad outcome.
And I've become, you know, pretty advanced.
We ride the Baja 1000 every year with my buddies. We race it, you know—
And it's not about action sports or whatever—that's just what captures me.
My point being, though—and it—you know, I wake up before dawn. And I'm not even an early riser naturally.
I'm more of like a night owl. Get my work done—you know, I'm doing emails till midnight on my laptop kind of thing.
But like, I'm excited to wake up to do that.
You get me—you try and get me to wake up for the gym—I mean, that's just pain.
I'll do it—maybe—you know, if I need to. I've had different stages in my life.
But like, dirt biking, surfing—gets me out of bed.
So like, okay, you know—if I—if I be true to your feelings—like, I hate the gym. So I'll find other ways to do it, you know, that actually make me want to do it and have these other benefits.
And look, that's me.
But the point being—you have to make the time.
And I call it—another Shaunism from the book—“Play along the way.”
If you don't play along the way, this thing will eat your life.
I would have woken up now at 48 having, you know, waited to live.
I'm still not liquid. You've exited how many companies, Susan?
And all my wealth is in LoveSac. And I'm doing fine.
And I'm a public company CEO. I'm not one—you know, I'm paid well.
But like, I would have never had a life if I didn't live my life along the way.
And that's hard to do. And it was always hard.
And I was—you know, there are times at LoveSac where I couldn't sleep for three days, and I worked through this or that.
But somehow, all along the way, in the seams and cracks, I have made it a priority to play.
And I don't regret it.
And I think, in fact, it's been a superpower of mine.
Because when I've stayed sane—I’ve, I think in general—you know, I'm a loving person overall, I try to be.
And I've had reasonable success, because these things have kept me sane and kept me grounded and kept me physically fit.
And so—you can say, I don't have the time for it.
And again, there are moments I don't have the time.
But I find those seams and cracks, and I take it.
Susan Sly 38:52
 Yeah, yeah. And I love that you talked about the, you know, beingness with your kids, because—so I've never been dirt biking. I used to be a professional triathlete, and my biggest equity stake has not been exited yet, but I can tell you, Shawn, when it does, there will be a party. And right on.
And in thinking about what you’re talking about—just before we went into the show, we were talking about Utah and St. George, and there's a marathon there that I was saying to Shawn is like one of the best qualifiers for Boston.
And for me—lately I've gotten in this bad habit where I'll be like running and doing calls, which is like, why am I doing this? Like, you know.
But this is like, I'm time optimizing, I tell myself.
And—and you're inspiring me to get back in, to do the play and to take that time and, and, you know, the beingness as opposed to the doingness.
Because that idea that I had for the caking—I was getting a massage, and I was like, no, I am taking Thursday, and I am going to go for a massage.
And that's when I had this idea—while I'm laying there and getting—
Every entrepreneur I've had on the show that's ever had an exit, or IPO, or whatever they've done—they have something that they step away and they—that’s where they get the ideas.
And I'm sure when you're out there dirt biking, even though—like, I know you're not doing calls while you're dirt biking.

Shawn D. Nelson 40:25
 No.
But you know, even product design—I'm inspired by a grill that I put together the other day. And there was just this little detail in this dumb grill that actually is now—it’s not this exact thing—but it inspired, you know, a change to a product that we're making here at LoveSac.
My point being, you know, I could have paid someone to put the grill together.
Like, living your life, you know—getting outside of your own routine—it’s like CrossFit, you know what I mean?
And doing things with your hands and doing physical things.
And if all you're doing is your craft 24/7, you have a very myopic and limited point of view.
And you may not think that. You may think you're just deep in your craft.
But I’m inspired by theater, movies, books.
So like—even, even, even, you know, when I'm watching a show—decompressing with my wife late at night, you know, she wants to watch an episode of this or that, or binge something—those can be inspirational moments if you let them be, if you're open to inspiration.
You know, on the creative side, on the marketing side, and all these things.
And I look—I kind of look for that, you know.
It's not just vegging out. And that’s the problem—is like we can scold ourselves and we can become workaholics and eschew these things in the name of productivity and read another book—and I read a ton of books and that too—
But I just feel like for me, a wildly diverse set of activities that naturally draw me in—as long as you're not just truly vegging out—if you're willing to accept those, even a massage—
Man, sometimes I wish I had two a week, because I have so much inspiration in those moments, you know.
Take them that way, you know, and don't feel guilt over doing the things you love—especially if you're actually trying to draw inspiration from them.

Susan Sly 42:26
 In my research on you—and this is a question—did you go on a mission? Was your mission…

Shawn D. Nelson 42:33
 Yes, I got to serve a mission in Taiwan. Mandarin Chinese.
It was amazing. Changed my life.

Susan Sly 42:39
 That's what I thought—that's where you served your mission.
And—and for people who don’t know—when someone goes on their mission—you were what? How old were you?

Shawn D. Nelson 42:49
 Nineteen. Made our own way. Didn’t even get to choose where we go.

Susan Sly 42:53
 The resilience.
So I do have a friend—this is a funny story. You asked why I'd gone to St. George. So one of my friends lives slightly north of you, and his mission was Maui.
And I laugh. I’m like, really? Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, that was rough.
But what did your mission teach you that you’ve brought into entrepreneurship?
Because Shawn, I acknowledge you and commend you.
I mean, going to Taiwan, of all places, is not Maui when you're 19 years old.
And for people who don’t know—when you go on your mission—I think everyone, regardless of religion, should experience that kind of beingness where you’re not watching television, you're away from your family, you're out there serving.
And—and what did that teach you about building LoveSac?

Shawn D. Nelson 43:46
 A hundred things.
And even at this point in my life—I have now four children, right? 17, 15, 13, 11.
And as my wife and I talk about it—and you know, let’s take the religion out of it for a second, even though I’m very committed and religious—but just as an experience, as a life experience, I really think, if you pressed me, I would rather see my kids serve a mission than go to college.
Now, of course, I hope they do both. And it's their choice—like, we won’t push them. Like, it's—they’ve got to choose. Make these choices, right?
We’ll guide them and encourage them.
But—and it’s because I experienced growth at 19 years old on a mission that I could have never gotten, you know, in my freshman, sophomore years of college.
And I did go on and complete university, and that was great too.
But like—to have to wake up every morning in a strange place.
You know—there’s no adult supervision, so to speak. You know, you're kind of on your own.
You've got to cook your own eggs. You've got to drag yourself out of bed at 6:30.
You've got to read. You've got to pray. You develop these habits.
And you do it for two years, and you do it every day.
And then you're out the door by nine.
You know, you’re learning a foreign language, which is its own level, you know, of opportunity.
And from 9 to 9—like, you're out there 12 hours.
You know, you’re not an exchange student doing a few hours of school, then, I don’t know, messing around for the rest of the day on your computer.
You are out there in the streets for 12 hours a day, in the sun, in the rain, in the hurricane.
Hopefully, you can get an appointment so you can, you know, get a roof over your head and go talk to someone about God for an hour or two.
Doing service for other people the whole time.
For two years—with one day off a week. And even that’s not a full day, right? We call it our preparation day.
And at night, we go back out again that same night.
And so—the amount of discipline and rigor that you develop doing that.
The amount of—and it's lonely. You're away from—back then, we couldn’t even call home but twice a year. Mother’s Day, Christmas.
Now they let them FaceTime once a week and stuff like that. So it’s a little less—technology has made it a little easier.
Sales skills. You know, you're knocking on doors. You're selling really the toughest thing—it may be free, but people don’t want to hear it.
And so—learning rejection times a thousand, you know, at a formative age—and muscling through it and having some success and bringing some people to Christ.
And again—just doing service all along the way.
We’re always available for service.
If you see a couple of Mormon missionaries in your neighborhood and you've got to get this fence painted—they'll help you if you ask them.
How could you possibly match that?
How can you possibly match that?
And I don’t mean to look at it so secularly, because it is a spiritual choice, and it’s a deep commitment.
But I am so grateful for that opportunity, and it’s affected me in every way.
And probably had a piece—people ask all the time, “How did you have the grit?” Like the question you asked earlier.
I believe that for sure, some of it came from that experience.
For me anyway.
And I think that’s a muscle you develop your whole life. But that certainly didn’t hurt.
Susan Sly 47:15
 Yeah. And the piece for everyone listening too is—with Shawn's heart.
And the reason, you know, the discussion around execution is—when I was growing up in the Church, like, Saturdays were sports days, right? Like we just—we just do. And Mondays, we—we just do.
And it's—it's this—the big piece is it's so easy now not to do. It's easy to scroll TikTok or scroll Instagram and live vicariously through someone else's life, as opposed to being out there and the beingness of our own lives.
And one of the things I’ve done with our company, even though we’re early stage and I'm bootstrapping, and I'm like, oh my gosh, like, okay—we’re writing another check for salaries and doing all this stuff—
We go and serve. We go and feed the homeless on—you know—at least once a month as a team.
And I don't care where we are in a sprint, Shawn, for our tech or whatever—we were in a sprint, we were under due diligence.
I decided to pull back from the VC because I felt like we were trying to put a, you know, a square peg in a round hole.
And that wasn't the vision for the company.
We have a huge vision—to create an environment of love, healing, possibility, and freedom for 10 million women on the planet.
And it wasn’t going to happen.
And so we're in the sprint where I'm bootstrapping, we’re doing all of it—and I’m like, guess what, guys? We’re going to feed the homeless today.
And that was something for me—even, you know, as someone that—you know, God is number one in my life—it’s like, yes, I'm going to pull everything to the side, and we’re going to go serve, because that’s how we reground ourselves as a company and a community.
And for my virtual employees, those service days—they get to go and choose whatever project they’re going to do and then come back and talk about what they did.
And I think that—you know, anyone listening—I really, really hope that you’re hearing from Shawn this piece around, like, this—this isn't for Shawn and I about religion.
It’s about who we be in the world and how we show up.
So my final question for you—I mean, there's so much—I mean, I look at my kids, four kids as well—16, 20, 23, and 28—would they—would I—you know, I’ve always been like, yes, you gotta go to university and you get to do those things.
As we head into—we started the show talking about economic uncertainty.
We talked about, you know, we don’t know. Neither—you know, you and I have no idea.
We don’t know when we're doing this show. We don’t know what Powell is going to choose to do with rates.
We do not know. Recession, no recession—we can use our custom GPTs and do predictors and all kinds of things.
Regardless of the road ahead—what will you choose to do to execute on your big vision for this company?
And—and share what that real big vision is, not just what we read in the news.

Shawn D. Nelson 50:29
 Sure. Yeah.
So I wrap up my book, Let Me Save You 25 Years, with the 25th Shaunism—as we tell the LoveSac story in all of its detail—with this idea:
Maintain top ambition with infinite patience.
And it took me a long time, as like a cocky, headstrong, capable, young, out-of-the-gate, rippin’ entrepreneur, to develop patience.
And it sounds so contradictory to people that have ambition—and “Do it now,” I said earlier on this podcast—“Do it now!”
But simultaneously, right?
If you can maintain your highest ambition—
So for LoveSac, our mission—not our purpose, I’ll get to that—what we’re trying to do as a business is to build the most loved brand in America.
Not couch brand. Not furniture brand.
Because we all have Apple, and it’s probably the biggest brand—maybe.
But do we love Apple? Has Apple done us good?
You know, you give me—or you, Susan—a few hundred billion in cash, I think we could cure cancer, man. I think we could do so much.
And instead, we get better Memojis and a battery that you still can’t change out.
So—they may be huge and amazing, but—
And if I can achieve the most loved brand in America, it's probably pretty big too. Probably pretty successful. Probably pretty valuable.
So that's my North Star as a business.
And to maintain that, even through now the fourth year of—let's call it “furniture recession”—in fact, it is worse for my category, this business, than 2008, '09, and '10 were—which was a housing-led recession by definition.
Like, by the numbers.
Not LoveSac—LoveSac’s been beating the category. We’re okay. We're kind of holding flat, growing a little bit.
Most of my competitors are back to their 2020 sales level.
If that had happened to us, we’d be less than half of what we are today.
Okay, so we’re doing all right. But this is what I've been living for years.
Yet my ambition has not changed. It will not change.
And if I gotta go five years, if I gotta go six years, I will muscle down and get through that.
And I would love to be hiring more and growing more and putting more product out there faster—but I gotta watch my expenses. I’m a public company.
I love the public markets. It keeps it honest.
You know, you can't just lose money forever. You can't just hide your—your stupid cousin in the—you know, the leadership structure.
Because, like, there's no sacred cows. I'm not a sacred cow. I have to earn my keep, as do we all.
And so I love the transparency of being public.
But to come back to your question—
Our stated purpose at LoveSac—the thing that actually energizes us beyond trying to do something real big and, you know, have this big brand someday—
Is to:
 Inspire humankind to buy better stuff so they can buy less stuff.
Which is pretty antithetical to that example I just haphazardly gave you about Apple.
Because they want you to buy one every other year at least.
And they will do everything in their power to make that happen—including the stuff that you think is kinda true but you're not sure, but you know.
And if I can build the brand that I’m describing around that idea—like, I’m sitting on a couch piece that is 18 years old.
It’s older than my oldest child. It’s been with me through every move.
It can be married up to the brand-new technology from LoveSac.
It can have StealthTech. It can have the recliner—because we keep making things that are reverse compatible.
And it’s on its probably 10th set of covers. These ones are weird because I wanted to do something weird.
And that’s what you can do.
And it looks brand new and smells brand new. And you would never know that unless I told you.
That is what’s called a Designed for Life product.
You can only find products like that from LoveSac.
You know—I barely know you, right? You have a couch in your life.
If I challenge you—just, your back pillows are getting saggy, your big fat dog's squishing one down—just get a new back pillow refresher.
Could you? No.
What model do you have? When did you get it? Do they still carry it? What about that color?
At LoveSac, we never even drop our fabrics.
So that you can come back six years later and be like, “Look, I just need one cover of one arm because my cat scratched it.”
No problem. We got you.
That is a different brand than exists out there in the world today.
That is what I’m passionate about.
That’s why—after 27 years now—I’m like, “Well, geez, that didn’t hurt that bad. I could go another 27.”
And that may be what it takes to achieve the most loved brand in America.
And if it does—I will have spent my life doing something worthwhile.
So if you can figure out your mission and your purpose—which I think are different—and you can wake up every morning and not forget it, and stay aligned to it—
Even through the fourth, maybe fifth year of tough times—six, seven, eight, whatever it takes—
That is maintaining top ambition with infinite patience.
And yeah, you can say, “Well, what about so-and-so? Man, in their second year, they raised a billion dollars.”
Of course, there's headlines like that.
Man, someone just got struck by lightning yesterday. I'm sure of it. I have no idea.
Okay—the headlines are going to show you the most ridiculous cases.
And they are ridiculous cases.
For every one of those, there's 10,000 others like you or me—or at least me—slogging along, still doing great things.
And I believe, you know—but do you have the patience sometimes, you know, to manage through it and not lose that ambition?
Yeah. So that's how I wrap up the book.
And that’s what I guess I would leave you with.
And I'm very grateful somehow to be here—to be doing it now.

Susan Sly 56:53
 Yeah, well, Shawn—your vision, your mission—is inspiring.
Thank you. And I love that I get to have a front-row seat and get to support in every single way.
I've thought very deeply—when, you know, you were just talking about reverse compatibility—and what comes to mind is NVIDIA.
When Jensen has reverse compatibility with his product, that’s why NVIDIA outperforms AMD all day every day.
That's why Jensen’s philosophy—he doesn’t lay people off.
I have many friends who work there. Friends that directly report to him.
But he made the decision that that’s what he was going to do. And so it has changed the game.
And very many people have tried to emulate what they’re doing at NVIDIA.
And like, everyone can make semiconductors, but what they can't seem to replicate is the heart of that company.

Shawn D. Nelson 57:57
 So—which, by the way, if I understand correctly, didn’t come overnight.
I mean—talk about patience. He muscled through for decades to get where they are today.

Susan Sly 58:07
 Yes, absolutely.
And—and I’ve—I’ve had the privilege of being at NVIDIA’s head office, of seeing Jensen in the Sphere with Antonio Neri when I was speaking at HP Discover.
And who he is, and how he shows up in the world—even in an AI world, a tech world—and his vision of what he's creating with the company and the people, and that alignment—
It just shows that it is possible to say, “We are going to do things like reverse compatibility. We are going to focus on our customers. We are going to focus on the user experience. And we’re going to be very myopic about it,” right?
And I love that.
And so—thank you for being on Raw and Real Entrepreneurship, Shawn.
And let’s go. Let’s—let’s do this. Let’s—I’m enrolled. Let’s create the most loved brand in America.

Shawn D. Nelson 59:01
 Let’s go. Let’s do it. Thank you.

Susan Sly 59:06
 For everyone listening, wherever you are in the world—as I always say—God bless, go rock your day.
And if the show has brought you anything in terms of wisdom, in terms of ideas—please share the show. Tag us both.
And God bless. I will see you in the next episode.

Susan Sly 59:28
 Hey, this is Susan, and thanks so much for listening to this episode on Raw and Real Entrepreneurship.
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And with that, go out there, rock your day, God bless, and I will see you in the next episode.

This transcript has been generated using AI technology. There may be errors or discrepancies in the text. The opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the show or its hosts.