IAF Celebrity: Rob Kalin (Etsy Brand Culture)

Etsy and its gifted founder Rob Kalin is an interesting story of intrinsic motivation and social DNA. One that the IAF (Intuitive Alignment and Fulfillment) gift can learn from--especially when it comes to the Brand Culture of Intimate Ecosystems.

Etsy is a peer-to-peer (P2P) e-commerce website focused on handmade or vintage items and supplies, as well as unique factory-manufactured items. Etsy has over 54 million members and went public on April 16, 2015. The company's valuation was $1.8 billion and raised $237 million in IPO proceeds.

Etsy was founded by Rob Kalin who is an IAF. The IAF's core competence and Brand Culture is Intimate Ecosystems which, in this case, was imprinted upon Etsy.

IAFs are very well known for gravitating to people on the economical, social and emotional fringes. This is because of their empathy and compassion. While the IAF is well known by many, they prefer to operate in smaller inner circles where it is all about intimacy and relational depth versus wide a social network (like the EIA). This is why Etsy has been successful. As Kalin puts it:

"We want to allow the makers of the world to claim authorship for what they're making, This is what Etsy stands for: The little guy being able to organize a better marketplace."

Intimate Ecosystems Empowering Other Ecosystems

A marketplace is an ecosystem. The IAF is able to create an intimate ecosystem that empowers other ecosystems. In this case, the Etsy ecosystem empowers the ecosystems of all its crafters in a very intimate way. This is why Etsy has so many features for the handmade entrepreneur. Kalin, as an IAF, was actually known for providing almost too many features during Etsy's development. This is because the IAf is intrinsically motivated to take care of every minute detail to ensure their intimate ecosystem aligns and fulfills their customers. Kalin is truly passionate about the makers of the world.

Kalin himself is seeking personal fulfillment. For the IAF success is not enough. They need to feel fulfilled according to a vision in their hearts. This is why they tend to be very involved in that vision. Kalin continues:

"I'm a hands-on guy, I need to be building things to feel like I'm making a meaningful contribution, and I didn't want to sit around as some kind of wall decoration-slash-mascot for culture."

Kalin also once told his team after a stint away and returning as CEO:

"I'm here to restore a sense of wonder, a sense of poetry, and a sense of foolishness to Etsy."

This is classic IAF. All of this comes from the heart which is why the other MDNA gifts are drawn to work with an IAF.

Kalin is no longer the CEO of Etsy as he was reportedly fired. While we don't like to be presumptious, we do believe, based upon public information, that the IAF in Kalin was unable to make the shift necessary to meet the demands of being a public company. It is very common, when a company goes public, that a CVS or DLF leader at the top is needed. It's not that the IAF cannot be a CEO. It is just that not every IAF is willing to move past their emotions and sensitivities into the often harsh realities of scaling execution and generating ROI that shareholders want to see. This is not an indictment on the IAF. Nor is it impossible for an IAF to lead (Steve Jobs anyone?). This is imply an observation we have made over many years of working with the IAF and Intimate Ecosystems Brand Culture. In fact all the other gifts, UCD, SSA, KWR and EIA, also need serious help (including getting over themselves) when a business grows to a certain size.

Yet the social DNA of Etsy carries on. Current CEO Chad Dickerson gets it. Here is how he describes the ethos (the heart of what we call Brand Culture) of Etsy after spending time with Etsy crafters.

"Etsy is a platform that provides meaning to people, and an opportunity to validate their art, their craft.... all commerce is about real human interaction. At the end of every transaction, you get something real from a real person. There is an existential satisfaction to that."

Please note that these are unofficial profiles only and have not been verified. Description is only based upon public information and may represent either primary or secondary MDNA profiles. This profile is intended for educational purposes only to demonstrate the possibilities of MDNA for those that have been personally assessed.

CVS/DLF Celebrity: Jeff Bezos (Amazon Brand Culture)

How did Amazon.com become the “Everything Store” we know today?

Let’s take a look at its founder Jeff Bezos and how his intrinsic motivation and social DNA created the online retailers’s Brand Culture.

Jeff Bezos – DLF (Dominion Leadership & Freedom)

Bezos is a DLF through and through. In 2013, a book entitled The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone revealed what his employees have known for years. On one hand, Bezos is compassionate, charming and a humorous person in public. On the other, he is an abrasive leader that dominates with fear and demand respect. He is known to be driven, bold, and caring nothing for consensus and civility. He can explode into what some employees call “nutters.” His standards are exacting and his rebukes devastating. And the way Bezos makes deals or acquires other companies is nothing short of complete domination with absolute refusal to lose in any way.

We’re not here to bash anybody’s character. Nobody can argue the success of Amazon. These are just the facts and reveal the positive and negative traits of the DLF gift. For every strength that comes from this type of Motivational Value System, there can be a weakness.

The DLF has no issues wielding institutional authority. Here are some choice Bezos quotes as reported by the author Brad Stone:

“Are you lazy or just incompetent?”

“I’m sorry, did I take my stupid pills today?”

“Do I need to go down and get the certificate that says I’m CEO of the company to get you to stop challenging me on this?”

As a DLF, Bezos imprints his intrinsic motivations and social DNA into the work culture. Amazon is renowned for being a confrontational and competitive place to work. In fact Amazon’s 14 leadership principles demand it. Here is an excerpt:

“Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit: Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.”

Some thrive working at Amazon. Other former employees would never go back. Whether you agree or disagree with his approach, the truth is, in order to manage a $300 billion plus organization with over 150,000 employees, a DLF approach is essential. This brings us to Amazon the company itself.

Amazon Brand Culture: Scalable Systems through Valued Access

When a DLF like Bezos founds a company, it is imprinted with the Brand Culture of “Scalable Systems.” This is the “promise” of the brand and basically means the company wants to be bigger and better using systems to grow. Everything in Amazon, from marketing to warehousing and now delivery by drones, is about systems to help the brand scale. While Amazon started with books, many don’t see the full scale of its enterprise. For example, Amazon Web Services handles the computer infrastructure of thousands of technology companies, universities, and government agencies. There’s also TV and tablets just to name a few more.

Amazon also has the secondary Brand Culture of “Valued Access.” This is the “personality” of the brand that makes value as accessible as possible to all customers. The Valued Access Brand Culture is imprinted by a CVS (Compelling Value & Stewardship). If it is the secondary of the company, then it is typically also the founder’s secondary. But all secondary Brand Cultures can be changed over time by new leadership and market dynamics. In this case, we do believe that Jeff Bezos is a DLF/CVS.

To summarize, Jeff Bezos, as a DLF/CVS, imprinted the Brand Culture of Scalable Systems through Valued Access. Case in point, here is Amazon’s vision statement which is evidence of the Brand Culture:

Our vision is to be earth’s most customer-centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.

That’s the official vision that has shaped Amazon into becoming the Everything Store. But in simpler terms, according to Bezos, “You won’t find a cheaper, friendlier place to get everything you need than Amazon.” There is your DLF/CVS in a nutter nutshell. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

In the end, there is a lot every DLF and CVS that wants to build a successful company can learn from Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s Brand Culture. You don’t have to be an online retailer either. Who knows, maybe someone armed with this MDNA will provide some stiff competition.

Read the full article on Jeff Bezos and the book here (it’s a great read) >

Please note that these are unofficial profiles only and have not been verified. Description is only based upon public information and may represent either primary or secondary MDNA profiles. This profile is intended for educational purposes only to demonstrate the possibilities of MDNA for those that have been personally assessed.

EIA Brand Culture: Victoria's Secret

What is the real success behind the Victoria’s Secret brand?

It’s all in the the EIA gift. Victoria’s Secret is a fantastic example of MDNA and Brand Culture.

The “Core Why” for the world famous brand was born when Roy Raymond walked into a department store to buy his wife a gift of lingerie. He had a horrible experience. He felt like the sales associate treated him like a pervert. Everything from the product design to the visual merchandising was wrong for him.

He then realized that other men had the same experience. So he decided something had to be done. First, his concept was to create a store where men would feel comfortable to shop. Second, the product would be sexy as sensual lingerie was not an accepted everyday fashion at the time. Finally, the name Victoria’s Secret was chosen in association with Victorian class with her “secrets” underneath.

The idea took off. He made millions at first.

Not much is known about Roy Raymond other than his suicide after selling Victoria’s Secret (we’ll get to that). But based upon his intrinsic motivation to start the lingerie brand, we would profile him as an EIA (Empowering Inspiration and Attraction).

The EIA is all about the social experience–their own and others’. Social Experience is the Brand Culture an EIA imprints as the DNA of a company. Roy’s idea was all about bringing men together for a social experience. It is not uncommon for the EIA to invest in appearance for the sake of social experience. Victoria’s Secret turned lingerie, which was at the time limited to being affordable, practical and reliable, into a sexy product, delivered through a sexy experience, designed to enhance the social experience of customers.

Yet Roy did not fully embrace the EIA MDNA within Victoria’s Secret’s Brand Culture.

The first Victoria Secret’s catalogs were all about sensuality and appealed to men. They verged on erotic. All the stores were designed to give the same sense with dark woods and a sensual ambiance. The issue was that this only appealed to men. Raymond did not understand that the social experience needed to expand beyond one gender into the masses. This is what an EIA is designed for. Reaching the masses with a message and starting movements.

It wasn’t until Roy Raymond sold Victoria’s Secret to Leslie Wexner that the brand’s true DNA and culture were realized. Wexner  redesigned and modernized everything to appeal to both sexes. The social experience of buying unmentionables was no longer shameful or limited to men. But now it also embraced women’s social experience as well. Sexy lingerie became main stream–you could say it was a movement.

Tragically, Roy Raymond failed at recreating the same social experience in high-end children’s retail. He then took his own life.

Today, Victoria’s Secret is still a Social Experience Brand Culture. It appeals to the EIA in us all. What other lingerie line can pull off a fashion show like a rock concert and dominate media?

Victoria’s Secret Exposed and Challenged

The Social Experience brand must understand how to navigate the core competence of attraction. In other words, the EIA must understand what attracts others and why. The important principle behind this is reality. The EIA must embrace the reality of what is being attracted, positive or negative, and what needs to happen to attract properly.

An example of this is the Aerie lingerie line from American Apparel. How does another lingerie brand compete with Victoria’s Secret and attract a market?

Reality.

Aerie went complete in the opposite direction of Victoria’s Secret’s airbrushed and photoshopped visual approach. Aerie is embracing the realities of female body image. Aerie models are no longer touched up. They truly listen on social media to their target customer’s negative experiences of trying to buy lingerie that is appealing and fits without have a Victoria’s Secret body. The #AerieReal campaign has been a massive success. (A road that the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty had already paved.)

This is what happens when a Social Experiences Brand fully embraces reality to create a different type of social experience. Through social experience the brand really connects with their stakeholders. EIA stands for empowering inspiration and attraction. Aerie, targeting the 15-35 year-old female that is backlashing against the “frankenbeauties” in media that harm body image, is empowering and inspiring women while making them more attractive.

In our opinion, Aerie has figured out the real secret.

KWR/EIA Brand Culture: The Chef's Table

In season 2, episode 1 of The Chef's Table on Netflix, Chef Grant Achatz of the restaurant Alinea was featured. Chef Achatz is an amazing example of KWR (Knowledgeable Wisdom & Responsibility) fused what appears to be an EIA (Empowering Inspiration & Attraction) restaurant experience. In other words, when it comes to Brand Culture, Alinea’s Core Brand Culture is KWR/EIA: Perfecting Precision through Social Experience.

The KWR Chef

Chef Grant Achatz has taken culinary precision to a whole new level. The KWR’s Core Brand Culture is “Perfecting Precision.” When a KWR runs a business, they take knowledge, information, wisdom and push it to new levels of perfection and precision. When it comes to food, the menu at Alinea combines science and every human sense, including emotion. In his story, Chef Grant Achatz talks about his pursuit of perfection and we can clearly see how precise his craft is. From how to make food float (a completely edible balloon made with sugar filled with helium) and the timing of every course, Chef Achatz is always pushing the boundaries. Another interesting aspect is how food is manipulated, just like information can be. A tomato is made to look like a strawberry and vice versa. Molecular information is manipulated to the delight of every diner.

Another sign of the KWR is how Chef Achatz developed passion for cooking. He was first taught the knowledge, in chemical details, on how food tastes good in which combinations (fries wrapped in pickle if I recall correctly). Once he had the knowledge, his intrinsic motivations were activated.

What is even more impressive is that Chef Achatz refuses to get comfortable with success. Alinea could easily create a “greatest hits” menu, making a pile of money without risk, but he has truly embraced the principle of responsibility. To this culinary master, he believes he has a responsibility to keep perfecting precision. Sometimes this means scrapping the entire menu.

You really have to watch the episode on Netflix to understand. There is a reason the term “molecular gastronomy” is used to describe this food.

The EIA Restaurant

What takes that food to the next level is the restaurant experience. Take a moment and watch this little feature on Chef Grant Achatz.

This is where Chef Grant Achatz has learned the secondary MDNA of EIA. The EIA is all about “Social Experience” when it comes to Core Brand Culture. At Alinea, everything, from the space to plating, is a social experience. They actually put food vapor into a pillow, under the plate, so that when you cut into the food, the pillow releases a scent of nutmeg, just to complete the whole experience. This aroma is meant to evoke memories of social experiences. This is KWR perfecting precision in an EIA social experience delivery.

The Power Combination

Every KWR benefits from an EIA. The KWR uses knowledge and takes responsibility for perfecting precision. But without the EIA to empower, inspire, attract and create a social experience, that KWR knowledge can stay obscure and never benefit the world. In the same way, the EIA can benefit from the KWR in that sense of responsibility, especially when it comes to timing. The KWR can slow the EIA down and make that EIA really think through actions before firing from the hip.

Working together, the KWR and EIA can be a powerhouse. Chef Grant Achatz and Alinea are just examples of this in action in one industry. Imagine the same being applied to others.