This episode of On Point features a conversation with Brian Elliott ‘14 and Andrew Wolgemuth ‘15, Co-Founders of Wove, a 21st century jeweler bringing the jewelry designer directly to couples for custom engagement ring creation. Brian and Andrew discuss how years of military experience are applicable to entrepreneurship and help drive their work. They also talk about how they’re disrupting the engagement ring industry by changing the way people buy engagement rings.
This episode of On Point features a conversation with Brian Elliott ‘14 and Andrew Wolgemuth ‘15, Co-Founders of Wove, a 21st century jeweler bringing the jewelry designer directly to couples for custom engagement ring creation.
Brian Elliott is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for reinventing outdated consumer experiences. At Wove, he focuses on Digital Product, UX and Marketing. He previously worked in two former venture-backed, consumer startups. Prior to this, Brian served as a Platoon Leader in the U.S. Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment, leading a team of 40 Special Operators in unconventional environments around the world.
Andrew Wolgemuth grew up in an entrepreneurial environment working at his parents' jewelry company. After attending West Point and serving as a Platoon Leader in the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment, he attended Stanford GSB’s Ignite Entrepreneurship Program where the idea for Wove was born.
In this episode of On Point, Brian and Andrew speak about their varying paths to attending West Point, and discuss how years of military experience are applicable to entrepreneurship and help drive their work. They discuss how the tight knit West Point community helped support their vision and afford them their success. They also talk about how they’re disrupting the engagement ring industry by changing the way people buy engagement rings.
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“I think it is so important for founders to find people that they're compatible with. And I think what really accelerated that for Brian and I is this shared background of West Point, and then even more specifically the range of regiment. I think there's a very specific standard, very specific type of person that usually ends up there. And I think that really allowed us to have kind of instant confidence in who each other were and probably accelerated that dating period quite a bit. I always think about it now, like if I had to go out and find another co-founder, I would be scared to death, because you know, you face a lot together and there's a lot of things you have to overcome, and I think having that sense of shared values is so important.” - Andrew Wolgemuth
“I think there's this question that is, how do I start a company? Right? And I think what I would challenge folks that are with that company is to reframe and say, you know, how do I test an idea? And if you remove the stress and the pressure of starting a company, which comes with all of these legal constraints and structural constraints where you're really focusing on the wrong thing, but instead say like, I have an interesting idea, what's the fastest way I can test this without a technical build. And you go out and test that idea, you remove the constraints, and the barriers, and the how am I gonna fund this, and you just go out and focus on the hypothesis.” - Brian Elliott
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(02:18) Segment: AAR
(04:47) Experiences at West Point
(10:48) Choosing military branches
(16:48) Segment: Sit Rep
(22:52) Starting Wove
(25:23) Where Wove currently stands
(29:30) Most expensive ring sold
(32:29) The process at Wove
(39:44) Segment: SOP
(42:22) Segment: Giving Back
(44:24) What’s next for Wove
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West Point Association of Graduates
[00:00:00] Narrator: Hello and welcome to On Point.
This episode of On Point features a conversation with Brian Elliott ‘14 and Andrew Wolgemuth ‘15, Co-Founders of Wove, a 21st century jeweler bringing the jewelry designer directly to couples for custom engagement ring creation.
Brian Elliott is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for reinventing outdated consumer experiences. At Wove, he focuses on Digital Product, UX and Marketing. He previously worked in two former venture-backed consumer startups. Prior to this, Brian served as a Platoon Leader in the U.S. Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment, leading a team of 40 Special Operators in unconventional environments around the world.
Andrew Wolgemuth grew up in an entrepreneurial environment working at his parents' jewelry company. After attending West Point and serving as a Platoon Leader in the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment, he attended Stanford GSB’s Ignite Entrepreneurship Program where the idea for Wove was born.
In this episode of On Point, Brian and Andrew speak about their varying paths to attending West Point, and discuss how years of military experience are applicable to entrepreneurship and help drive their work. They discuss how the tight knit West Point community helped to support their vision and afford them their success. They also talk about how they’re disrupting the engagement ring industry by changing the way people buy engagement rings.
Now, please enjoy this interview between Brian Elliott, Andrew Wolgemuth, and your host Tim Hsia.
[00:01:42] Tim Hsia: Welcome to On Point founded by Eddie Kang, West Point class of 2008. I'm Tim Shaw, West Point class of 2004. And today I'm joined by Brian Elliott, class of 2014 in Andrew Wolgemuth class of 2015, Brian and Andrew, how are you? Two Tim?
[00:01:58] Brian Elliott: How are you? Great to see you again, like.
[00:02:00] Tim Hsia: Let's get into our first segment AR or for our non-military listeners after action review.
In this segment, I'd like to touch on specifically what other veterans can learn from you, your process and your journey. So, Brian, can you please tell us about your decision to attend west point?
[00:02:14] Brian Elliott: Yeah, I had about opposite pass in front of me as an 18 year old. So. Path number one, which was like go to the university of Chicago and go have a lot of fun and, you know, compete in wrestling in college.
And then I had path number two, which was go to west point and follow my dad's footsteps in public service and ultimately inspired by my dad chose to go to west point. Um, When I reflect on that, my dad was a guardsman. He wasn't a west pointer. I'm not some sort of extra lineage, but when I was a kid, my dad volunteered to go to Iraq, you know, 4 0 5.
And I remember it was, it was truly a volunteer billet that he wasn't a task assign to it. And I remember that decision really had a huge effect on me as I was evaluating to very different paths of my life, where he took a step to sacrifice his time away from his family to. Give to the greater good. And just remember being like so inspired by that, like still this day, I think that's ultimately what drove me towards, towards that path and ultimately, uh, meeting drew in a decade later building, uh, the best engagement reexperience possible.
So I'll hand over to drew.
[00:03:18] Andrew Wolgemuth: Yeah. I, I actually had like [00:03:20] Brian, I had no military background really whatsoever. My family, uh, was my dad's side in, in farming. My, my mom's side were scientist. But around middle school or high school, I don't know if you've ever seen the show, uh, discovery channel, surviving the cut, but I remember watching the, the special forces, selection and assessment being like, I want to do that.
So wanted to enlist. My parents were like, absolutely not. You're gonna get a, get a degree. And my sophomore year, my dad was like, Hey, you should check out west point. So it was really fortunate to have someone in my life, uh, named Jim Carter, who was. The chaplain at west point, um, a few years ago. And that's really who introduced me to the west point community.
And from that point, I kind of fell in love with this idea of, of being able to attend and six attempts at the S a T later got in. So it was, I was pretty excited to attend. True.
[00:04:10] Tim Hsia: Did you apply one year and then had to reapply another
[00:04:12] Andrew Wolgemuth: year? I did not. So I got really lucky. I was fully prepared to go to the prep school or, or go somewhere else for a year, but I was probably one of the last people to be admitted to my class.
And I think I found out. In like January or February, which is I think pretty late compared to most cadets. And what
[00:04:28] Tim Hsia: were both of your west
[00:04:30] Brian Elliott: point experiences? Yeah, I optimize for fun, Tim. Uh, so at a very deliberate path where I wanted to get just good enough grades to get stationed in Europe and be the, you know, last cadet to get stationed in Europe while having as much fun as possible with my friends on the weekend.
And, uh, By that account west point was an absolute success for me. Drew might have had a different plan going in.
[00:04:52] Andrew Wolgemuth: Well, I was gonna say, I think I optimized for survival, so I, I, I love my west point experience the first year. I [00:05:00] absolutely hated it. Like just about everyone, um, was really close to leaving, ended up staying and loved the last three years.
So I wrote on the crew team, got to study abroad and Portugal had some amazing opportunities that, um, you know, I absolutely
[00:05:13] Tim Hsia: loved it. We've interviewed four star generals, venture capitalists, and their description of their west point in time has just been so interesting. Some of her, like, I barely made it through the first year and I was gonna leave, but then my father said, just give it another month and I decided to stay on.
So it's just always fascinating to hear, uh, people's experience, Brian. It sounds like you did excellent backwards planning. Were you able to get into.
[00:05:36] Brian Elliott: Yeah, we ended up in Germany. I think I was like the last cadet to survive the cut into the, uh, the infancy Germany placement, and definitely made the most of my
[00:05:44] Tim Hsia: time over there.
And so beyond plebe, what was, uh, your kid experience? Did you walk a lot of hours? Were there particular classes that were super impactful? Any mentors.
[00:05:53] Brian Elliott: Yeah. I was a systems major as were all of my roommates. We just really went through the whole thing as a cohort for like four years and shared the same mentor, shared the same activities.
Uh, so really like a lot of group thing going on in company age four, but Nope, I loved systems engineering. It's like a discipline of like how things fit together in the world. And it's just naturally how my brain works. So the fact that. Discipline that I could nest my thinking in was a lot of fun. So I, I got a lot of passion out of that from like an extracurricular standpoint.
Uh, I wasn't athletic enough to even make a club squad team, but I, I jumped into training for dive school. My sophomore year went through that and then spent the next couple years. Training cadets and prepping them to, to go to dive school. And so I focused a lot of my extracurricular activity into that [00:06:40] small niche of people.
And I, I just found them to be incredibly motivating as a, as a group of people that were willing to commit to that level of training. And so that's, that was my group of folks outside of the company. I rarely
[00:06:52] Tim Hsia: talk a lot in this podcast. Well, Maybe listeners are like, no, Tim, you talk too much, but I want double click on this, which is you're talking about CD QC.
Yeah.
[00:07:01] Brian Elliott: Yeah. That's where I, uh, spent a lot of my time training up cadets after I
[00:07:04] Tim Hsia: went CD QCs, combat divers qualification course. And so you went to CD QC your summer before your cow year? Yeah, when I was cadet, it was very hard to get one of those courses.
[00:07:15] Andrew Wolgemuth: It was when we were there too. Brian's being humble.
It's like, I think the hardest, uh, summer training you can get. So
[00:07:22] Brian Elliott: I owe all of it to this. Like, I was not a swimmer, I never like swam competitively, but like the swim team just like drug me along through the whole course and through the train up. And I, I took like so much away from that experience just about like how strong collective mindset is.
And so like the first time I. Achieved any of these activities was when I was surrounded by a group of people that just said, Hey, like you can do it. Just like push through. And so like, that was a really, really powerful group of people and kind of time in my life to realize like, if you just surround yourself with the right people, it doesn't matter if you've never done it before.
Like you can probably get it done. This is a
[00:07:59] Tim Hsia: very sensitive point. You brought up. I really wanted to CD QC. I trained up yearly. Cal year, even first year with the hope that I could do it after first year. And, um, a lot of my west point classmates know, I spent a lot of time training up for that, but unfortunately never got to go to the course for a variety of reasons, but that's awesome.
That's quite an accomplishment.
[00:08:19] Brian Elliott: Tim. I [00:08:20] understand. You're pretty young still, you know, maybe, uh, coming as a civilian and gonna wrap in. Um,
[00:08:24] Tim Hsia: no, no, Andrew, we'd love to hear about your three years at west point
[00:08:28] Andrew Wolgemuth: beyond . Yeah, no, I, I loved my time as a cadet junior and senior year walked a few hours. I wasn't like.
You know, near the century club or anything like that. But most of my time, the first two years was spent with the crew team. And then the last two years really got involved with the crew of guys that I was able to go to Portugal with. But yeah, loved my time as a cadets kid, you know, the, the, the typical airborne summer.
And then, uh, I did Sears school my last summer or, or second to last summer, but absolutely loved it. Um, had a great experience and then yeah, was very, very excited to graduate.
[00:09:02] Tim Hsia: You two know each other
[00:09:03] Brian Elliott: at west. We did, but I was, you know, a year older than drew. So I always acted like I was, uh, too cool for him.
We had a lot of mutual friends that like really are, are what eventually drew us together after west point specifically when we were both in the range of regiments, I think when we really, really gained a meaningful relationship and drew,
[00:09:19] Tim Hsia: what major were you?
[00:09:21] Andrew Wolgemuth: So I was actually a management major. I was very much focused on getting the best GPA I could.
I thought it was gonna basically. You know, the next five plus years of my life. And so kind of optimized for GPA, which actually, I, I think it worked out okay for me. I started off as an econ major and switched. So I don't know what that says about me, but I actually ended up with an okay GPA. Uh, if I went back, I, I probably do it the same way.
One of the things I look back on. Isn't even what my favorite course content was. It was, it was the professors that I had in those courses. It's interesting. I don't really remember any details about any class in particular, but I remember almost all of my favorite [00:10:00] professors from, from those courses and, and stay in touch with a lot of them.
If I had any advice to like a future Cade would be choose classes that you're inspired by the professors and, and kind of lean into them as mentors.
[00:10:12] Tim Hsia: Brian too cool for school as a cadet. I
[00:10:14] Andrew Wolgemuth: remember Brian more as an acquaintance at west point. Um, always hanging out with the dive team, uh, or, or the CD QC guys.
And I was kind of like, you know what? I I'm like the, the crew guy. I don't know if I fit that, uh, that level of, of coolness, but yeah.
[00:10:30] Tim Hsia: Brian, walk us through your decision to choose infant.
[00:10:34] Brian Elliott: I was inspired by a few mentors as well. Like Andrew's experience having some instructors in the systems department, guys that were from the ranger regimen or guys that were, were SF that were, you know, previously in the branch of infantry.
And so just interacting with them as humans, you know, they were so inspiring and talked about just really being at. The decisive point of the army as an institution. And that was very attractive to me. And so if, if I was gonna do the army and that was what I was gonna do, I wanted to be at the decisive point of the organization and truly experience it and be able to have influence on soldiers that were at that decisive point and, and sort of get them through those, those moments in time.
And so love that I chose infantry would do it 100 outta
[00:11:16] Tim Hsia: 100 time. True. How about your decision to branch? Yeah. I,
[00:11:20] Andrew Wolgemuth: I think the biggest decision like Brian was, was mentor. So I got really lucky. My plea mentor was David , who was like legendary in the ranger regiment. I think he was like first captain as a cadet when he was at west point.
Awesome guy, kind of somebody that encouraged me to, to stay at west point through my PLE beer. And I think it was [00:11:40] probably someone that was very influential in changing my mind from going the, the SF route to pursuing ranger regimen. Couldn't speak like more highly of them. But that, that was really a big decisive point.
I, you know, when I went to west point, I imagined my life would look like band of brothers afterwards. And so I was like, if I'm gonna do the army, I wanna do army things. Uh, and so that's really what led me to wanna do infantry. You know, it's probably why Brian and I are both in entrepreneurship. There's like, Not a whole lot of task that, uh, or applicable skills to the real life after infantry, besides leadership.
So I, I loved my time in the infantry loved IIC. I was at fourth ID after the army and then was at 2 75 in Seattle for the last three years. But yeah, would, would do it exactly the same if I did it again. Points
[00:12:24] Tim Hsia: one. UTLA was my first captain when I was a plea. So definitely know that, uh, he was also in the same bat time, first Bega 25th ID during my first deployment incredible person.
I'd say I'm very biased here, but his wife is even more impressive. Haley's a classmate.
[00:12:39] Andrew Wolgemuth: Oh, she's amazing. Awesome. Yeah, no, uh, absolutely had some time with Hailey as well. Play beer. Their, their story is just incredible. They're like some of the most resilient, strong willed people. I.
[00:12:51] Tim Hsia: Both of your journeys sound like it's heavily driven by mentors, but given both infantry, both Rangers, both entrepreneurs, a little bit of a state of masochistic streak in both of you.
[00:13:04] Brian Elliott: Uh, I, I think that's fair to say. Yeah, if it's hard, it's probably worth doing somebody told me once. I hope that ends up being true, because I've really leaned into that, uh, and learned in the, the infantry in the time of the range regimen to at least have a, a high tolerance for pain, which [00:13:20] could be the most useful skill as an entrepreneur.
[00:13:22] Tim Hsia: Brian. So drew walked us through his army career really quickly. Can you walk us through, so you went to Germany and then could you progress through.
[00:13:30] Brian Elliott: Yeah. So, you know, went to Benny actually went to ranger school two weeks after graduation. So we were like the first class to flip that. So showed up, had no idea what I was doing there.
So that was like, that was a blast cause then went to, to Ibel like after that, which made Ibel look way more fun. So really optimized for fun in that route. Went to Germany, loved my time out there. Great group of folks, grateful tune, amazing platoon Sergeant and team. Spent about five months of that time in Poland, just driving around in strikers, getting to see the, the country and, and then, you know, assessed into the seventies fifth and, and went to Savannah, Georgia, which it's first ranger of battalion for a reason.
I always tell Andrew and, and so got the opportunity to spend a few years there lead a platoon into, into Syria, right? When that kicked off, which was, you know, really everything that I, I had, I had helped for in terms. Having an opportunity to, to be there and experience all of that training up to a culminating moment and just like very humbled by the folks that I was able to, to go on that deployment with and the things that they were able to do.
And then, you know, once Afghanistan, the year after that doing about the opposite of what I did the year prior, so I went from. No electricity, no running water to being in the embassy the next year at Afghanistan, hanging out, setting the initial hopes for the future peace agreement with the talent that absolutely fell apart.
But, uh, that's what we were least thinking about at that time in, in history. And, you know, got out a little after a little after five years, uh, the
[00:14:54] Tim Hsia: space I wanted double click on a common army acquaintance. Who's not a west pointer, but [00:15:00] someone who has been, I think, a pretty big impact in both of our lives, Scott keen.
and so he was my company commander. I think he was your Battan command.
[00:15:09] Brian Elliott: In Germany. He was, yeah, Tim. And so he, uh, he assessed me for my ranger PT test, like head to head, funny story on this. So Scott, he was a, the regimental exo and spent a lot of his time in the ranger regiment for context. And then he, he was my battalion commander in Germany and you know, he tells me, Hey, like I'm not letting you go to RA until you complete the whole R P T like with me head to head.
And I lived like 25 miles outside the base. And the, the morning I was doing the. Good morning has the RPT with Scott. Colonel Cheney. We used to call him my car broke down, so I had to bike into work. And so I biked on my not road bike into work. I mean, it was like 25 kilometers, not miles, and then had to do the, the full test and five mile after just doing 25 mile bike ride and like squeaked out like a 39 minute, like five mile.
He was like, not psyched with me or my lack of planning, but ultimately like, let me go RA I very, very thankful for that
[00:16:07] Tim Hsia: who was in better PT. You or Colonel Chiney.
[00:16:11] Andrew Wolgemuth: He was
[00:16:12] Brian Elliott: definitely a better mountain biker than me. He had thighs that were like the size of my torso, but, uh, I think, I think I had him beat just because of age.
Fair
[00:16:20] Tim Hsia: enough. Just because I want him to listen to this episode. I was always better than Scott Keeney in PT, in every aspect. And, and he was a fantastic company commander. So we're gonna move on to this next segment, the sit rep or the situation report in this segment, we're gonna dive into what our guests are focused on today and how their vision is transforming the future of industry and society.[00:16:40]
Could you please give the audience an overview of your post-military career and bring us to where you're at today with.
[00:16:46] Brian Elliott: Yeah, happy to Tim. So I transitioned outta the army to AE tech startup. That was really B2B to C at the time, uh, eventually transitioned to B2C and got to understand what it is like to be in a chaotic company that does not have product market fit.
That gave me undue confidence. I think. That I could go out and figure it out better on my own. So I tried and I did for a while, and so started a company in the consumer space that was really focused on, you know, providing stress solutions to employees and monetizing through some, some unique partnerships.
And so, uh, launched that company called olden, raised a few million, put the team together. The company ultimately did not work out due to the number one reason why companies don't work out, which is co-founder conflict. And so. Learned a lot from that lesson, mainly don't team up with three people. You don't know, there's a perceived lack of options at that point in my career, but I'm super thankful for the experience and getting to go zero to one and drive all of those lessons into wove here with drew.
And so the timing worked out perfectly after all that I knew I had a few criteria for what I wanted to work on. You know, one was. Two was a problem that I had felt personally, and that I knew was deep because of my experience with it. And then three was value alignment with the person that I was building it with.
And so all of those lined up with drew and the opportunity here at wove. And so been working on this for the past year and it's been an absolute blast getting to see. The moment in couples lives when we helped them mail this moment. As a quick aside, I [00:18:20] got engaged. I tried to get engaged several years before this and bought the experience pretty badly.
I, I, I ended up not getting married. And so when I say I know the problem is real, I definitely felt it. And when drew came to me with the space, he was thinking about operating in, uh, it was really the stars aligned. I'll let drew tell a bit about his background real quick. Before we go
[00:18:37] Tim Hsia: to that and hear drew tell a completely.
Story and how he's, uh, responsible for all your successes? Uh, getting aside, Brian, um, a lot of our listeners are veterans transitioning. Did you think about business school or. I
[00:18:50] Brian Elliott: thought about it. I applied got in ultimately deferred that option and Dory it in. And so I think Brendan who runs, retain learning to folks wanna follow that on LinkedIn or on subs.
I recommend it does a lot of good writing and thinking about this subject in particular. And ultimately I think, I think everyone's decision is like super unique. I don't think there's a right answer or a right approach for how or.
[00:19:15] Tim Hsia: True please.
[00:19:16] Andrew Wolgemuth: No, absolutely. So I actually wasn't planning on leaving the military initially had my next duty assignment picked out and knew exactly where I was going, but like right before my third deployment had a little bit of a military accident ended up.
During a nighttime stress shoot, breaking my neck jaw and knocking out most of my teeth and kind of led me down this road that I didn't want to go down towards, you know, a med board. So submitted a few waivers to stay, wasn't able to stay. And it, it triggered this. Kind of moment in my life where I was like, okay, like what's what's next.
And the obvious choice was, was B school. So spent most of my two week block leave at the ranger regiment gives you twice a year studying for the GMAT for a ton [00:20:00] of time and resources into that applied to. Schools. I was really interested in entrepreneurship, kind of from the beginning. And so based on that kind of picked schools that I would be interested in, got into a couple, uh, got wait listed at GSB.
That's really where I wanted to go. Um, I know I'd throw that out there cause I know you're a GSB guide, Tim, but essentially ended up getting out of the military. And taking the next three months and working in my family's business. So my family owns a brick and mortar jewelry store. That's kind of the connection to the jewelry industry for, for myself and, and for Brian, but it's been about three to four months working in the business, learning everything I could from my dad kind of evaluating if I was going to take over the family business or pursue this idea that had been stewing in my, in my head about wo.
Since getting out. And the other thing I'll throw out there is one of the things that allowed us to really get a head start on the road was on my way out the door out of the military, had the opportunity to do the Stanford GSPs ignite program, which is essentially a one month crash course. And entrepreneurship.
You get to have the opportunity to work with GSB professors, um, some amazing peers and really test out a venture idea. And work on developing the earliest stages of a business. Um, and so really that was where we first started working on woe and, and this idea, bouncing ideas off, developing what the consumer journey would look like.
And. After about three months of working in my family's business, kind of doing this on the side, teamed up with Brian and, and that was [00:21:40] kind of the confidence boost I needed to, to fully quit the family business. Um, kind of goes back to the masochism that you were talking about, you know, kind of had like a very easy path in front of me.
And I felt like I left that. Um, because we, we had so much faith and we do have so much faith in this idea and what we're building. And, um, yeah, that was kind of the first six months out of the military. We, we were super fortunate. We were able to re raise a. Round of funding pretty, pretty quickly on, and then kind of the rest is history, but yeah, a very like, um, non-typical military transition.
It was really hard the first six months kind of transitioning from the military, figuring out what was next. And, but, you know, a major silver lining was, was teaming up with Brian and, and kind of finding the, the confidence to go out on a limb and go all in on an idea. And, and that's been like one of the hardest things, but also one of the most ones I think I've ever.
[00:22:33] Tim Hsia: So many follow up questions on woe first is how did you two meet? So you two knew each other at west point. What came about saying you two are gonna work on woe? Yeah.
[00:22:42] Andrew Wolgemuth: So my brother-in-law Tom Curran was a 2015 west point guy was at 1 75 with Brian. And so Tom had been like very involved, obviously, you know, with Brian at 1 75, I was obviously talking to Tom like every week and he knew what I was working on.
And he was like, oh my gosh, you have to team up with Brian. Like this would be a great partnership. Brian definitely fills like all of the holes that I had in entrepreneurship, you know, raising capital, how to start a business, major holes, Brian kind of filled those gaps in this partnership. And so [00:23:20] Tom, like, I think we have to like really, you know, give him a good bit of credit for putting us together.
And I remember Brian flew down from Boston one weekend. I think it was like three days after we had made like a text acquaintance. Uh, I think we had one video chat over 30 minutes, like the next weekend Brian flew down and I think within like five days we were like, okay, let's quit our jobs and do it.
It was very fast. And, um, didn't look back at all
[00:23:44] Brian Elliott: to worked at all bit as well. One of, one of earliest contractors and employees there. And then Tom worked with me. In Savannah. Uh, and so we had years of established, kind of a relationship where drew and I only worked really together in passing as 1, 2 75 would, would take over the helm, uh, when 1 75 ripped outta country.
And they would try to take their credit for, for everything that we did. So, uh, I'll joking aside, like having that relationship where I, uh, Tom worked for me as a, as a founder and knew how well drew and I would work together in that specific environment, which is so contextual. And so different than working hand in hand in military, just
[00:24:20] Andrew Wolgemuth: to kind of add, you know, something else as well.
I think it is so important for founders to, to find people that they're compatible with. And I think what really accelerated that for Brian and I is, is this shared background of west point. And then even more specifically range regiment, I think like there's a very specific standard, very specific type of person that usually ends up.
And I think that really allowed us to have kind of instant confidence in who each other were, and probably accelerated that dating period quite a bit. I always think about it now. Like if I had to go out and find another co-founder, I would be scared to death because you know, you, you face a lot together and there's a lot of things you have to overcome.
And, [00:25:00] um, I think having that, that sense of shared values is so important.
[00:25:04] Tim Hsia: Last week I was in Austin, I ran into Evan seal, another west point entrepreneur, and he was telling me how delightful his fiance and wife is about to ring. And he got the wing from you all. I'm curious, a lot of questions associated this one.
Are there other veterans that, uh, wove has served his wove now helping more than just veterans. And so if you can share a bit more about where wove is now and what you all are. Yeah,
[00:25:30] Andrew Wolgemuth: absolutely. So I think to date, we've worked with 30 plus west pointers on their rings, um, which has been an amazing opportunity.
You know, I've worked with my ranger privates. I've been able to work with a ton of people from across the military that, that are at this stage in their life where, you know, they want someone that they trust. They want know getting a quality product. They want to have this amazing experience with their partner.
Uh, and so the. The idea for woe actually kind of first started when we were working with a lot of service members overseas, that they wanted to build a ring. They wanted to be able to step off the plane, getting back from Afghanistan or Iraq and pop the question to their loved one, but they didn't wanna ship a five to, you know, $10,000 engagement ring overseas.
So that's really, you know, what triggered this idea of sending replicas instead of sending final. And so, you know, our replicas look and feel indistinguishable from the final ring they're made with non precious materials. So, you know, if I held up a final ring and a replica right next to each other, you couldn't tell 'em a part service members have played a huge part in the founding of this company.
And then as we [00:26:40] transitioned into COVID, uh, with many of our more non-military friends that wanted to get proposed, but jewelry stores were closed or they wanted to buy from us. But, you know, they lived across the us, this business model really kind of grew. And we realized, you know, this is something that is so much bigger than, than just serving the, the veteran or.
The military community, and we can really offer this to everybody no matter where they're at. So I think COVID really accelerated our timeline, but yeah, I think serving veterans and, and serving those in the military is obviously always gonna be very, very near and dear to Brian and I, it gives us probably the most joy out of working with any client is, is working with, with our friends in the.
[00:27:21] Tim Hsia: Wanna double click on that. I just recall when I was a young Lieutenant or first Lieutenant and USA had a jewelry store back then an online jewelry store, which they don't have anymore. And I actually have talked to the Corp dev folks at S a a and said, you know what happened to it? Why'd you shut it off.
And, uh, you all should work with wove. I'm curious, why do you think there's been such product market fit with veterans and, and of course, like now you all have expanded to civilians, but what is it about that veteran cohort? I
[00:27:50] Brian Elliott: think there's actually a pretty clean product market fit with people that trust the experience.
I think we. Break the trust barrier so much faster for folks that folks that are veterans and they see our background and they hear the story and they're sort of drawn to it from a marketing and acquisition perspective. And so I think that's what allowed us to enter that community and gain so many clients and customers there.
That being said, we've really broken the trust barrier. I mean, that broken as in, you know, people trust the experience, [00:28:20] it feels, it looks. Real and legitimate to an outsider that would just stop by our website where, you know, when we were just getting lean startup method, uh, it didn't have as much of that social proof that you would expect to spend $10,000 plus sometimes on an engagement ring.
And so it was really easy for that community to look at our background and trust what we said. And now our customers everywhere are the social proof of how incredible our experience is. And, and really like how, how high of a quality, our product. I
[00:28:49] Andrew Wolgemuth: think also a lot of the military communities kind of always in this state of transition, you're always moving.
You're likely not living in your hometown where you know, a jeweler. So, you know, we can really serve people anywhere. We've sold tons of rings to Alaska, Hawaii, you know, all over the place. So I think that's also a big factor.
[00:29:08] Tim Hsia: If you can share this, uh, but if you can, what's the most expensive ring that's been bought.
Gosh,
[00:29:13] Andrew Wolgemuth: we've sold like some, some 50 around $50,000. Uh, that's like the, the highest price point we've hit. We've worked on some $75,000 rings that are in the works. But I would say our, our average order value is around for an engagement ring around, you know, 10 to $15,000.
[00:29:32] Tim Hsia: $50,000 on an engagement ring. If so, uh, don't tell my wife that.
So full disclosure, um, context and myself are investors in wove, but it's not just me. There's a number of other west pointers, uh, Sam Ellis and Mike LeFer. And I wanna say, Brian, your classmates with Sam Ellis. We're not
[00:29:50] Brian Elliott: classmates, but he, uh, he's definitely like served in more of a, like a mentorship role for me right when I got out.
And so, you know, Sam put a, a large bet [00:30:00] on me in, in my first company and that didn't work out. And then he turned around and put another bed on me right away. And so that's the, that's like the greatest. Professional compliment I've ever received from somebody. And like, I feel pretty indebted to him for making that bet and embedding on me to, to make it work.
And so very, very grateful for his mentorship and his belief in what we can build here. And he will get whatever allocation of any future company I build that he so desires.
[00:30:28] Tim Hsia: Talk more about the west point community and how that might have empowered you all. So, um, your customers, a number of them are veterans and west pointers, your investors, anyone I miss any contingent, anything else you wanna elaborate on?
[00:30:42] Brian Elliott: I think we had even more. Veterans invest than that we had, you know, we had PenFed invest. We had general Nicholson backing an early investment from us. I remember like I, I saw general Nicholson in 2018 when I was in Afghanistan and we got to spend some time together because I was working at the embassy.
And then, uh, a few years later he's investing in my Andrew and ice jewelry company. And so it's, it's, it's kind of funny how folks move in parallel like that. And in the group of folks that Mike pulled together, In this syndicate for us, there's several veterans, even in that cohort. And so very, very proud to have several veteran investors in an incredibly diverse cap table.
Uh, not just from a military experience perspective, but, but from all representations. And I think one of the reasons we have such a diverse cap table is like, This product doesn't necessarily speak to like typical venture capitalist based on their background. But if you are a veteran, you get it. If you are a [00:31:40] woman, you get it.
And so that's typically what our cap table looks like.
[00:31:43] Tim Hsia: General Nicholson is a west pointer and he talked about his west point experience briefly with me one time. And I just wanna highlight. The west point community and this podcast AOG associated and west pointers wanna help west pointers. Anything else you all wanna share on current day wove, you are currently open for business and looking for more customers to delight.
Anything else?
[00:32:06] Brian Elliott: Yeah, Tim, I think it might be helpful if we just gave a quick overview of the process for folks that, that are interested drew, do you wanna take it away on that?
[00:32:14] Andrew Wolgemuth: Really what we wanted to, to build with woe? And what we found looking at the industry is that this industry really hasn't changed in like the last hundred years.
You know, it's, it's someone walks into a jewelry store, they buy a ring, they leave, they propose. And so there's been so many things that have happened in our world development, since that have really allowed us to, to change the way people buy engaged rings. And so really what, what we created and what our process is, is a couple will visit our website at woe.
They'll fill out our, our design quiz, which allows us to discover what they're looking for, what their style preferences are. And based on that information, we match them with one of our jewelry designers who then we'll get on a zoom call with the couple, help them discover what they're looking for. And within 24 hours, we get them a technical sketch of really beautiful sketches.
And we've had customers literally frame these in their house after receiving them. And once we give them that sketch and, and we discover, yes, this is what we're looking for. that's when we deliver a realistic replica ring to our clients. So, uh, it typically takes about 10 days, oftentimes less. Uh, we get our clients a realistic replica [00:33:20] ring that, that looks and feels indistinguishable to the final ring.
Um, this allows them to test drive it from home, wear it out, see what your friends and family think, make sure that you absolutely love it. You're making the right decision. And once you're ready, we'll, we'll help you with diamond selection and then we'll build you the final ring. Um, and then kind of that added bonus is you get to keep the.
As an adventure ring or a travel ring, you know, if, if you go to R Jane arrow and you don't wanna risk, you know, losing a $10,000 engagement ring, you can, you can take your with you. So, uh, there is no other company that is, that is offering this level of service or, or this process with the custom replica ring.
And so we're really excited. It really only became possible in the last couple years with, with 3d printing technology. So we really feel like we're ahead of the market. And really excited to, to offer this process to our couples.
[00:34:09] Brian Elliott: Goodness said it better myself, which is good, very aligned material. I think a few things that folks love about the process.
One is it truly is one of a kind design for couples. And so you're not gonna have the same ring as. As somebody sitting next to you, even a small detail to know it's truly built for you because you're gonna wear forever is something that couples really love. The second is the try before you buy. That's just the Tru unique proposition that people love.
But the third thing that folks love is, is it's crafted right here in the United States and, and most engagement rings are not. And so we have. We have true, you know, master Goldsmith, right, right behind me over here that are putting these rings together. This isn't built factory style overseas. And that ensures the quality of craftsmanship is incredibly high.
It's built for life. It's built for you to be able to hand down, you know, decades into the future. And so proud of the craftsmanship. That goes into each and every one of these rings that that's [00:35:00] truly built to last a lifetime. So those are the reasons that folks usually usually buy with us beyond just loving the story.
And we're just like really excited to have this experience for couples that is to navigate what, what can be a rather stressful purchase and, and kind of a confusing user experience. So the fact that we could, we could simplify. And we could be on folks' team and we can deliver a product that we're really, really proud of.
Uh, and that like, we're proud to, to give to folks that we served with, which is the highest, I think, quality barrier that Andrew and I could ever get to is, is shipping a ring to people that we served with, I think makes us proud of the work that the folks that here are doing every single day.
[00:35:38] Tim Hsia: Give me a second to extend this analogy, which is when I see a ring, I see something that's really beautiful, but I know that there's a lot of work put into it and I would say that's the same for entrepreneurship.
And so can you talk about some advice you have for aspiring entrepreneurs or veterans who are transitioning that are thinking about entrepreneurship?
[00:35:56] Brian Elliott: Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm happy to. And so I think there's this question. That is how do I start a company? Right. And I think what I would challenge folks that are, that are with that company is to reframe and say, you know, how do I test an idea?
And if you remove the stress and the pressure of starting a company, which comes with all of these legal constraints and structural constraints where you're really focusing on the wrong thing, but instead say like, I, I have an interesting idea. What's the fastest way I can test this without a technical build and you go out and test that idea.
You remove the constraints and the barriers and how am I gonna fund this? And you just go out and focus on the hypothesis. The founder of Maven wrote a much more eloquent article [00:36:40] on this than I just described called minimum viable testing. We'll drop it in the show notes here, but really focused on testing the single hypotheses that you wanna test figuring out what the white hot risks of failure are and going out and, and de-risking and worrying less about.
Okay. I wanna start a company I'm ready to go. And I, I think that's the approach that I think drew and I, at least we, we took, I took the second time around. Um, I wish we take it the first time around and really de-risking the major parts of, of the user experience, ensuring that it's an experience that people love and then dive into, okay, how am I gonna form the team?
What's the capital structure, really make sure the unit economics work out. Once I have a truly unique hypothesis formed ads, and don't be afraid to ask for help.
[00:37:23] Tim Hsia: Entrepreneurship can sometimes seem really cool, but it's a lot of work and a lot of people analogize, entrepreneurship and, and many things to a marathon.
And so going back to that ranger five mile, would you say it's somewhat accurate? What you're doing at wove is multiple five milers just right after each other.
[00:37:42] Andrew Wolgemuth: Absolutely. Yeah. We're both laughing because it's like, there's certain days where I feel like you. Some days are easy and some days you wake up and you feel like you have to literally will this thing into existence and it's not gonna happen without a fight.
And, you know, we've iterated on this idea probably five or six times. So going back to Brian's previous statement, it's, it's so true, but yeah, absolutely. I think, I think the one thing, like I divide my whiteboard in two every day and it's creating value in its running operations. And at the end of the day, like I need to be doing more and more things on the creating value side of that column than running operations.
You know, those are things that we can train [00:38:20] talented people to do, but if you're not creating value every day, then, then your company's gonna stay stagnant. So completely agree. Lots of, lots of daily, five
[00:38:27] Brian Elliott: miles, Tim. I think the analogy for the community here might, might actually be, uh, it's like a long rock March, and only because it's a lot of transferring weight back and forth, you know, and thankfully Drew's a great, uh, a great wreck marcher, but that's really what having a great co-founder is, is, is somebody to, to share the load.
And then creating a team of people who, who wanna take that load, and then you're able to put more and more value into your rep R act. And so, um, I think that analogy for this community probably makes sense as folks can remember being on some rather long hikes, uh, in the woods and having a partner there that said, Hey, I'll.
I'll take some of the, uh, I'll take some of the Mr. Carry the two 40 for the next stretch and knowing how meaningful that is in that time. And that that's what having a partnership and entrepreneurship for me feels
[00:39:15] Tim Hsia: like, love it. Um, let's get into our next and third segment, the so P or standard operating procedure in this segment, we're going to talk about the personal routines, habits and words to live by that have been instrumental to both of your success.
What routines or habits did you have in the military at west point that you still adhere? I think
[00:39:33] Brian Elliott: the habits is the mindset of prioritization, Tim, that carries over from west point to the time in the army to, to now. I dunno if you wanna wanna call that a, a habit, but rather an approach where, you know, every quarter, month, week, and day it's, what is most important and prioritization is not in my mind about adding think it's about what you're gonna deliberately say no to.
And so, you know, all the way back at west point, if, if I'm gonna say no [00:40:00] to. Studying for this tea. And instead go run stadiums, uh, with my roommate to, because we, we wanna do X, Y, and Z in the future. The result of that is we're not gonna do as well on the tea. And I'm okay with that because of the priorities I've said.
Right? And, and so entrepreneurship, there's an infinite number of things that you can do and choosing the one or two things that you're gonna move the needle on in a day, week, and month. And acknowledging that's about what you can accomplish effectively is truly. The skillset that I've taken from west point all the way through to running an operating world.
[00:40:34] Andrew Wolgemuth: It's funny. I'm thinking, cuz Brian always tells me he is always like one shiny object at a time. It's so true. I think, you know, being able to prioritize what's important right now and what's actually gonna push the needle for the business. I think the biggest thing for me is, is finding life balance.
Like, you know, that range mindset is you put your head down and you, you do do do until it's done. You won't be able to. Like that. And so I think it's super important to, you know, take care of yourself, find time, you know, to work out, make sure you're eating, sleeping as silly as it sounds. There are things that you forget to do.
And so, yeah, I think that, uh, you know, that goes back to your co-founder goes back to your partner for the first like six months of woe, Brian and I, we didn't take a paycheck. My wife was like cooking meals for. Uh, was basically the honorary, uh, co-founder cleaning up after our messes, but I think finding the right people that are gonna support you and love you through is also a, you know, a, a huge thing as well.
[00:41:26] Tim Hsia: Andrew, I wanna say recently you ran a marathon in
[00:41:30] Andrew Wolgemuth: Antarctica. Yeah, that was, uh, that was my wife's doing, she signed us up for that, but, um, it was awesome. It was, it was a pretty great event. I probably [00:41:40] wouldn't do it again. She's a wild.
[00:41:42] Brian Elliott: I gotta give, uh, Sarah msmith credit because, uh, she came in ahead of Andrew on that one, his
[00:41:47] Andrew Wolgemuth: training slacked a little bit.
Yeah. The, the startup bot isn't conducive to, uh, to, to marathons anywhere, let alone Antarctica let's
[00:41:55] Tim Hsia: move on to our final segment, giving back. What advice would you give to any young veterans listening, toss, just starting their civilian careers and wanna start a company of their own. We kind of touched on this a little bit, but any more additional.
Yeah.
[00:42:09] Brian Elliott: I think the willingness of other west pointers to provide you a perspective is unlike any other community. And so taking advantage of that, there's no one that's like, oh, you just left, you know, Bain, or you just left Jack Trinity college. And like, I'm gonna take a call with you because we both went to Trinity.
I mean, and maybe there's a little bit of that, but not to the extreme sense of, of belonging that this community offer. And like that's, that's how I got started, right. At transitioning outta the military, just LinkedIn messaging, like a bunch of complete strangers that, that went to west point in a lot of different spaces to test out ideas.
And I think that's what makes this community very, very special. I try to use some of my time whenever ask to at least provide a perspective. To folks that are curious to, to learn more. And I think in that it's important to not inundate yourself with opinions that you put a lot of value on, but rather gain, gain a diverse set of perspectives from folks in the community and then sort of wait.
The value of each of those perspectives based on is this person on a path that I wanna follow. And so I think the [00:43:20] ability to reach out and the ability to weigh the value of the input that other folks
[00:43:23] Andrew Wolgemuth: get. Yeah, I was, I was gonna kind of build on that as well. I I've been really pleasantly surprised. I wouldn't even say surprised, but the west point community is very eager to help.
Other west pointers. So I don't think I've ever reached out to a west pointer on LinkedIn or, or via text or email without getting a response. You know, we we've seen that with, with Sam Ellis, you know, we've seen with you, Tim Mike LeFer was, uh, I wrote crew with Mike. He was, you know, helped us, helped raise capital for our first round.
And yeah, the network I think, is something you have to lean into because I think it is very different than other, other educational institutions.
[00:43:56] Tim Hsia: We close this podcast out. How are things at wove? Um, what are the next milestones or what's the next R March? You all are
[00:44:03] Brian Elliott: on, yeah. Things are quite well at wove Tim.
It's this very exciting time in the business. So, uh, just went through a small hiring sprint, grow the team pretty significantly to, to offer even more to our consumers. And so I guess a small thing that you'll get now that you wouldn't have gotten a year ago is you'll actually get unique video content.
If you're. Your ring being crafted from start to finish. Once you provide that to couples when they get their final ring, so that, you know, when they share with their friends and family, they actually kind of have this nice social proof of this thing being crafted right here in the us for them. So we're excited to, to be offering that with an amazing content creator here, uh, on site.
Uh, and then really the, the next horizon is we're gonna be launching a new version of a digital product here, uh, in a, in about two months. And really what this is going to allow folks to do is to. In a more seamless way with their jewelry designer and, and share photos back and forth. We'll have a [00:45:00] recommendation engine.
That'll be providing folks options based on how they answer quizzes, uh, and just really go through the, the experience in, in a more streamlined way. It's really driven through high touch and chat right now. And so we'll taking that into product diet and some of those touch points for folks, uh, all the way through curated diamond selection and being.
Your final appraisal and that'll kind of all live in your Wolf account forever. And so taking some of these things that are, that are higher touch and just, you know, putting a, a UI around it that feels appropriate for the brand
[00:45:29] Tim Hsia: amazing that's unfortunately all the time we have Friday, Andrew, however, once you all have tremendous success, please don't forget us and hope we can have you back on the podcast.
This has been fantastic, and I hope you all enjoy the rest of.
[00:45:42] Brian Elliott: Thanks
[00:45:42] Andrew Wolgemuth: so much, Tim. Thanks so much, Tim.
[00:45:45] Narrator: This has been a production of the WPA, a OG broadcast network. Please take a moment to rate and review the show and join us each week for a new episode. Thank you for listening.