July 2, 2018 Eli

Magic Beans is turning 14: A message from Eli

One of my favorite podcasts is How I Built This. It’s an NPR Podcast with a fantastic host, Guy Raz. Every week, he interviews entrepreneurs from some of the most well-known companies in the world. In our industry, he’s interviewed Melissa and Doug, and also the founder of Aden + Anais. He’s also done interviews with people like Sarah Blakely from Spanx, and Howard Schultz from Starbucks.

It’s so inspiring for me to hear about the journeys and the highs and lows of companies that I respect. I listen religiously. Every Monday. I drop off my daughter at school and flip on How I Built This on the way to the office.

I can’t help but think about Magic Beans when I listen to this program. Growing a business is a journey. When Sheri and I decided to open a retail shop in our neighborhood fourteen years ago, we could not have imagined where it would go and what we’d accomplish.

We now have six stores, customers who shop from all over the country on mbeans.com. Our YouTube channel has over 20,000 subscribers and is globally one of the most respected, viewed and influential channels for baby products on YouTube. We created Drool, the best baby expo anywhere, and most recently we’ve launched a series of virtual warehouse sales using Facebook Live (if you haven’t been to one yet, they are pretty fun even if you’re not shopping for baby gear).

Similar to the brands featured on How I Built This, we work hard every day to make smart choices to evolve our business, and to navigate the ever-changing world —especially when retail is changing at such breakneck speed. We’re definitely far from where we’ve come from, but we’re also not close to where we are going to end up.

Thank you for joining Sheri and me on our journey as we build our business. I am so blessed to wake up every day energized and inspired about what we do.

And finally, if you’re new to the Magic Beans community or if you’ve been shopping with us since day one, please join in celebrating with us this Saturday, July 7th both in-store and online – you can see the details here.

And who knows, maybe Sheri and I will be on How I Built This one day?

Happy Birthday Magic Beans.