{"id":709,"date":"2025-07-07T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/how-sharkninja-took-over-the-home-with-ceo-mark-barrocas\/"},"modified":"2025-07-07T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T14:00:00","slug":"how-sharkninja-took-over-the-home-with-ceo-mark-barrocas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/how-sharkninja-took-over-the-home-with-ceo-mark-barrocas\/","title":{"rendered":"How SharkNinja took over the home, with CEO Mark Barrocas"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It\u2019s summertime, which means it\u2019s time for our annual grilling episode. In years past we\u2019ve talked to the leaders of Big Green Egg<\/a>, Traeger<\/a>, and Blackstone<\/a>, and it\u2019s always fascinating how those companies have all the same kinds of problems and ideas as any of the tech companies we have on the show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In fact it\u2019s funny \u2014 in what can only be described as a perfectly Decoder<\/em> situation, I really wanted to have Blackstone CEO Roger Dahle back on the show this year because his griddle company is such a success that he\u2019s in the process of buying Weber<\/a>, the biggest name in the space. But he\u2019s stuck in antitrust review so he couldn\u2019t come on the show. Grilling episodes man \u2014 they\u2019re the best.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, all that meant that I finally had the opportunity to have SharkNinja CEO Mark Barrocas on the show. We\u2019ve wanted to have SharkNinja on the show for years now, mostly because it has the best name of any company I think we\u2019ve ever had on Decoder. It perfectly describes the structure of the company: there\u2019s Shark, and there\u2019s Ninja. And just in time for our grilling episode, the Ninja division of Mark\u2019s business just launched its first ever grill<\/a>, the FlexFlame, earlier this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Listen to Decoder<\/em>, a show hosted by The Verge<\/em>\u2019s Nilay Patel about big ideas \u2014 and other problems.\u00a0Subscribe\u00a0here<\/a>!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

But as you\u2019ll hear Mark and I really get into, SharkNinja is really a product design company more than anything. It has what you could only describe as a kind of relentless approach to product development \u2014 SharkNinja launches 25 brand new products a year across dozens of categories in countries around the world. So while we do spend a lot of time talking about the decision to launch the FlexFlame grill and what the business of grilling looks like for SharkNinja, you\u2019ll hear Mark and I talk a lot about the company\u2019s broader philosophy around product development across all of its different categories.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because a lot of that philosophy, which was developed back in the late 2000s for markets like vacuum cleaners and blenders, is now being applied to everything from slushy machines and pizza ovens to LED face masks. You\u2019ll hear Mark explain that they have a product engineering and design team of more than 1,300 people around the world dedicated to figuring out new twists on household staples. It\u2019s also remarkable how many of the products are built around fan technology, which comes up a few times in this conversation.<\/p>\n

In fact, a key component of the new FlexFlame grill is a fan that lets it do a lot of different things. But the grill industry, as you might know, is a fiercely competitive market with a lot of brand loyalty, and product features alone might not be enough. I can\u2019t tell you how many furious reader comments and emails we received when the CEO of Big Green Egg took a shot at Weber<\/a> on last year\u2019s grill episode. People love their grills, and they will fiercely defend them.<\/p>\n

So I really wanted to ask Mark how his style of product development worked in the context of gas grills \u2014 and whether he\u2019s envisioning Ninja\u2019s outdoor grilling products as premium devices you keep for a long time, or as ones that might rust and get replaced after a few years as you would an iPhone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mark and I also spent a good deal of time at the end talking about marketing. SharkNinja spends more than $700 million a year<\/a> on advertising, a great deal of which now goes to product placement and content creators on Instagram and TikTok. You\u2019ll hear Mark recount his history of selling products on television infomercials back in the 2000s, and how that\u2019s now evolved into having his appliances become viral sensations online.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mark has a lot of thoughts about the state of the creator economy, which is already in the process of getting totally upended by cheap and limitless AI video, and whether he sees it teetering on the edge of a crash that could transform how he markets and sells his most popular products.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This episode is a real ride \u2014 Mark\u2019s background from infomercials really comes through at times, and I think you can tell that I found myself just trying to hang on throughout this one.<\/p>\n

Okay: SharkNinja CEO Mark Barrocas. Here we go.<\/p>\n

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Mark Barrocas, you\u2019re the CEO of SharkNinja. Welcome to Decoder.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thanks so much for having me.<\/p>\n

I am really excited to talk to you. I\u2019m fascinated by SharkNinja as a company. It\u2019s been around for a long time, but you\u2019re having a bit of a renaissance lately. On top of that, this is our annual summer grill episode, and you guys just launched a new line of grills. So it\u2019s perfect timing. Couldn\u2019t be happier about it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Great, really happy to be here.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk about SharkNinja as a company to set the stage a bit. I think a lot of people know Shark, and a lot of people know Ninja. You\u2019ve started marketing the main company a little bit more recently. Tell me about this company. Why have the two brands? How is it structured? How do you think about SharkNinja as a company?<\/strong><\/p>\n

As you said, the business behind these two great brands is SharkNinja. People know the Shark brand. We built Shark into an over $3 billion [a year] global business. We have the Ninja brand, which is over a $3 billion [a year] global business. Now, we\u2019re actively marketing the SharkNinja business behind these two great brands, and trying to explain to consumers that we\u2019re problem solvers. That\u2019s what our business is all about. We find problems that others don\u2019t see, and we solve problems that others can\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We can get more into how we do that and why that\u2019s unique to SharkNinja. We\u2019re in 37 product categories. We sell in 27 countries around the world to everyone, from a high school kid doing a TikTok or an Instagram video about our products all the way up to a 60-year-old guy who\u2019s focused on outdoor grilling or smoking. So, we\u2019ve got a big demographic base and big socioeconomic group of consumers.<\/p>\n

The idea that you\u2019re going to market the central company, SharkNinja, as problem solvers comes up. There are lots of big household brands that exist in that space. OXO is <\/strong>very famous for this In the kitchen<\/strong><\/a>, where everything is somewhat uniquely designed, a little bit different. It\u2019s\u00a0 not a direct competitor to you, but the marketing there feels familiar. This is going to be the highest bit of design product that you can get. There are lots of others that play the same game. Is that what you\u2019re thinking about? Do you want people to think of you as a design company or is it something else?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No. We want people to think of us as a consumer problem-solving company. You can focus on consumer products and look at it through a technology lens. You can say, \u201cHey, I have this core technology, and I\u2019m going to take it and\u00a0 apply it to two or three or four different categories of products that might be applicable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Our core technology is consumer problem-solving. We\u2019ve got a big team of ethnographic, consumer insights researchers. We\u2019re mining consumer data, online reviews, social media content, and comments. We\u2019re in hundreds of consumer homes around the world every year. We\u2019re in restaurants. We\u2019re in commercial environments looking at how people clean or cook there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We\u2019re trying to find either a problem that a consumer has that they may not even know that they have \u2014 and we can talk about examples of that \u2014 or we\u2019re trying to find things that the consumer is doing outside of the home that they\u2019re not doing inside of the home. Ultimately, I think those two different things become the germs of innovation and ideas that we then have our 1,300 engineers around the globe focus on. And you say, \u201cWell, hold on, vacuum cleaners have been around for 100 years. Hasn\u2019t every problem been solved?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll give you a great anecdote. We went into 100 consumer homes, and we watched consumers vacuum. During the cleaning session, about eight or 10 of those turned over the vacuum, took a knife or a scissor, sliced the hair off the brush roll, pulled the hair off, threw it in the garbage, and finished their cleaning session. At the end of the cleaning session, we said to them, \u201cIs there anything you do to change your vacuum cleaner?\u201d They said, \u201cNo, it works great.\u201d We said, \u201cWell, hold on a minute. How about that time when you turned it over and you nearly cut your hand and you sliced it?\u201d They started apologizing for the product. They started saying, \u201cWell, I have two daughters with long hair. I have three dogs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A consumer works around the problems of the product. Well, for us, that becomes an idea. So, we go back to our engineers, and we say, \u201cCan we develop a vacuum brush roll that doesn\u2019t wrap hair?\u201d Eighteen months later, we came out with Shark\u2019s Self-cleaning Brushroll, and it became the number one selling vacuum cleaner in the United States.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s just a little example. We do that in category after category after category, which is why we\u2019re not limited to two or three or four categories. We\u2019re in 37 different product categories in and outside the home.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot there that I want to unpack. You\u2019re talking about a lot of upfront investment in product development. Many of your competitors don\u2019t do that. They really do take core technology and reapply it in different categories. Many of your competitors are based in China. They\u2019re selling on Amazon, and they\u2019re selling clones of your products. They don\u2019t have to front that investment, and they can keep their costs low. <\/strong>
<\/strong>
<\/strong>How do you think about that dynamic? What you\u2019re describing requires you to constantly front the cost of innovation that will almost certainly get copied at higher rates across the board.<\/strong><\/p>\n

SharkNinja has two main competitive advantages. One is disruptive consumer innovation. We spend 7 percent of our sales on R&D and innovation in an industry where competitors spend 1 percent of sales or less on innovation. We bring 25 new, ground-up products to market a year. I\u2019m not talking about a new product as a new color or button. These are ground-up, brand new products across so many different product categories.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We enter into at least two new product categories that we\u2019ve never been in before every year. Before last year, we were never in the skincare business. We were never in the outdoor cooler business. Last year, we went into four new product categories. We made an LED, infrared, cryo face mask, which was our first FDA-approved medical device<\/a>. We launched a slushy machine that went viral on social media. We made our first outdoor pizza oven. You can\u2019t think of more diverse categories. The common stream through all of those is that they all solve a consumer problem.<\/p>\n

I think this is a great time for the <\/strong>Decoder<\/em><\/strong> questions. Usually, we talk about some controversy at the top, but you\u2019re describing something that\u2019s so interesting that I think the structure will actually help explain a lot. How is SharkNinja structured? How many people do you have, and how is it organized?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve got nearly 4,000 people around the globe. From a structure standpoint, we have an executive management team that is half homegrown, with\u00a0 people who have been with me for 17 years. That\u2019s rounded out with other folks who have joined the organization and have been able to bring scale or global experience into their areas, like product development, engineering, sales, and marketing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those folks have been with me a long time. We\u2019ve really helped build the SharkNinja secret sauce together. We\u2019ve rounded that out with great talent from other great companies and with other great experiences to build a really strong management team.<\/p>\n

How is that organized? Do you have a Shark division and a Ninja division? Is it all one company? How\u2019s that expressed?<\/strong><\/p>\n

From a functional standpoint, the administrative roles are all corporate SharkNinja. There\u2019s a corporate CEO, a corporate general counsel, a corporate COO, and a corporate people and culture leader. When you start to get into the individual teams, we break it up. There\u2019s Shark Home, which involves cleaning, home environment products, fans, and air purifiers. We have Shark Beauty business, which is haircare and skincare. Then we have the Ninja business, which is everything that we do within Ninja. So, that\u2019s how we break down the business. There are two brands, but inside of those two brands is Shark Home, Shark Beauty, and Ninja.<\/p>\n

If I look at that broadly and I just look at your competitive set, Shark and Dyson have always been back and forth. There\u2019s been some lawsuits, some patent disputes. Some of those have settled over time. There\u2019s a lot there.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

To your point, Dyson invented fan technology and it tried to express it across a number of different products that led them into beauty. It got into hairdryers, then expanded into the rest of the beauty products, and it\u2019s done well. How are you thinking about Shark? You started with your core technology, you ended up at beauty, and now you\u2019re going to do the rest of it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If I go back 17 years, we were a small business. We were a $150 million [a year] business. I\u2019d love to say that there was a grand plan of how to become a $6 billion global business without acquiring a dollar of revenue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Could you tell me? That would be great.<\/strong><\/p>\n

To be honest with you, we just wanted to make great products that consumers loved. If I go back to 2008, what we realized was that the consumer was getting more and more power in terms of being educated before they made a purchase.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2008, there was a thing called Consumer Reports<\/em>. You opened up Consumer Reports<\/em> and it told you the eight vacuum cleaners to buy. If your vacuum cleaner wasn\u2019t listed in there, you were going to have a really hard time gaining awareness. What my partner and I at the time realized was that consumer online reviews would be the great equalizer. You hear that today and say, \u201cWell, what great equalizer is that?\u201d Well, back then, people often bought from one brand or based on an expert recommendation. What started to happen was consumers started going online and started writing honest reviews about their experiences with products.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Soon, consumers weren\u2019t going to open up Consumer Reports<\/em> before they would go out and make a purchase. They were going to go online and look at 10 million of their closest friends to figure out which vacuum cleaner or blender to buy. And they were going to get honest opinions. That is one of the major drivers of our business. If I go back 15 years, we built our business one five-star review at a time. So, if you had a great experience with a Shark vacuum, you say, \u201cHey, I might try Shark\u2019s air purifiers that just came out,\u201d or, \u201cThey got into haircare? I might try their haircare products.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting. What we look at is what gives us the right to be in the category. The right to be in the category is not because you have a brand that you can just put your name on because you see a sales opportunity. What are we bringing to the consumer that they can\u2019t get anywhere else? What\u2019s an unmet need that the consumer has? We set a very high bar on that within the company. There have been categories that we worked on for 10 years and never brought a product to market because, ultimately, we came to the conclusion that the consumer and world don\u2019t need us. So, being anchored on this beacon and asking what gives us the right to be in the category has led us very methodically to the next opportunity and the next opportunity and the next opportunity.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s one that you\u2019ve been rejecting for 10 years?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I loved the power tools business. I think the Shark brand can translate into power tools. We used to think of ourselves as in the home. We\u2019re making a lot of products now for outside the home. I thought power tools were a great opportunity. We\u2019ve tried it three, four\u2026 Ultimately, we got to the place and said, \u201cYou know what? We\u2019re not bringing anything that\u2019s game-changing or solving a massive problem that somebody else isn\u2019t solving.\u201d And we decided to go back to the drawing board.<\/p>\n

I will tell you also that there are categories that we tried for eight years, and we eventually cracked the code. An example of that is the carpet extraction and stain cleaner category. We became the number one selling vacuum brand in the United States in 2014. Ever since, retailers and consumers would say, \u201cWhy aren\u2019t you getting into the carpet cleaning business? That seems so logical from a brand extension standpoint.\u201d The honest answer was that we never came up with something that was great.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We finally cracked the code on that about two and a half years ago with a product called the Shark CarpetXpert. It cleans carpets better than anything else on the market. It\u2019s much more lightweight, much easier to use. It does it with an attachment called the Stainstriker. In a short period of time, we gained over 20 percent market share in that category.<\/p>\n

This shows us that just because we might bang our head against the wall a couple of times doesn\u2019t mean we won\u2019t eventually crack the code. We may figure it out. When we do figure it out, the innovation really connects with the other competitive mode of the business, which is creating viral demand for our products. We spend 11 percent of sales on advertising in an industry that spends very little on advertising. So, you\u2019ve got a disruptive product that solves a consumer problem, and you\u2019re able to go out and talk about it on things like social media, experiential events, and TV. When those things come together and you get it right, it really connects with the consumer. Not just in the United States but globally.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a really fascinating piece of the SharkNinja story, and I think it tells a bigger story about the advertising market, particularly on the internet, than anyone really is giving credit to you. But I want to stay in corporate structure for one more second. So you\u2019ve got Shark Home, Shark Beauty, and Ninja. Ninja feels like kitchen products?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kitchen and outdoor. We do outdoor cooking, we do outdoor coolers. Yeah, kitchen and outdoors.<\/p>\n

At the company, you\u2019ve got 1,300 engineers. Are they split between divisions? Do you have central engineering? Do they compete for resources? How does that work?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have 1,300 engineers today around the globe. They\u2019re based in Boston, London, and Asia. There are certain functions within the company, like electrical engineering, that might go across different categories because they\u2019re subject matter experts. But it\u2019s not just the number of engineers that we have. It\u2019s the competency of those engineers. We\u2019ve got mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, mechatronics, app IoT, and software engineers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I think you\u2019d be really surprised if you went inside one of our products. There\u2019s an enormous amount of technology in a product that retails for $199. If I went back seven or eight years, most of it would be mechanical engineering. Today, the software team and the electronics team, together with mechanical engineering, have allowed us to bring so much more functionality to the product, allowing the consumer to have so much versatility with it than they ever were able to before.<\/p>\n

So, when the Ninja team says they\u2019ve got an idea for a gas grill and they need a bunch of software engineers to work on the app to run the FlexFlame system, and those same engineers are being pulled towards the next project, how do you divvy up those resources?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a challenge, But here\u2019s what\u2019s super exciting about it. If you\u2019re an engineer and you work at a company that has one product category that you sell, eventually after three or five years, you get to the point where you say, \u201cLook, I\u2019ve gotten tired. If I want to go to another opportunity or I want to work on something else, I have to find a job in another company.\u201d At SharkNinja, you can find your next job within SharkNinja. You\u2019ve been working on vacuum cleaners for three years. You want to try something different? How about air fryers? How about outdoor cooking? How about fans? How about robots? How about hairdryers or skincare?<\/p>\n

I think the cross pollination of engineers is so powerful for us. Our ability to\u00a0 to put out an intercompany message that says, \u201cDoes anyone have experience in LED lights? Does anyone have experience in airflow technology?\u201d To be able to see the number of experts we have internally is incredible. If you\u2019re a company, you might have to go outside and find a whole lot of subject matter experts. We have a whole lot of subject matter experts inside that are red teaming each other\u2019s products.<\/p>\n

The joke I\u2019m always making on <\/strong>Decoder<\/em><\/strong> is that if you tell me your company\u2019s structure, I can tell you 80 percent of its problems. You\u2019re describing two big divisions, both of which are growing and aggressively launching new products. There are some subdivisions on the inside.I\u2019m guessing if the Ninja team steals a bunch of LED lighting engineers from the Shark team, they\u2019re not going to be happy about that. That\u2019s you. You\u2019ve got to mediate that dynamic. How do you mediate those resources? How do you allocate them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think a lot of it comes down to the needs of the product. We really don\u2019t look at it rigidly by if it\u2019s a Shark product or Ninja product. We start with a product pipeline of ideas, which might have 65 ideas that we start with. Over time, we whittle that down. We might put something into a prototype, get it into a consumer\u2019s home. We thought it was a great idea, but the consumer says they\u2019re not interested so we throw it away.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We might just put something on packaging. We might not even put it into a prototype. We might show them a box front and say, \u201cHey, does this get you excited?\u201d We might look at something and say, \u201cIt\u2019s great, but it\u2019s too expensive and we don\u2019t think it\u2019s commercially viable.\u201d Maybe it\u2019s too early for the consumer. Maybe there\u2019s a problem, but the consumer doesn\u2019t even know yet that it\u2019s a problem.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll give you an example. They just mandated composting in New York City. It\u2019s very interesting. A New York apartment is going to have to sit there with their food scraps, putting them into this little plastic bin and this little bag. They\u2019re going to have to wait seven days. What do you think happens to that bag on day four or five? It doesn\u2019t smell great. So, we had some young engineers that were super passionate about solving that problem. The challenge with it though is that it\u2019s not in enough municipalities. The consumer hasn\u2019t engaged with it enough to realize what the problems are. So it may be something incredible but it\u2019s two years too early.<\/p>\n

So, we\u2019ll put that in the parking lot, and we\u2019ll say, \u201cLet\u2019s revisit that when it comes to the next product innovation cycle.\u201d We really do look at it at the product level and not at the brand or company level. I think that\u2019s what helps us assess how to divvy up resources.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The other thing I would say is that we use a tremendous amount of outside experts. This is a company where it does not have to be invented here. We are looking for the best and brightest people to help us solve consumer problems. In any given month, we could be working with as many as 50 outside subject-matter experts. They could be on things as little as gear systems or troubleshooting a particular heater that we might have.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s something that I don\u2019t want to underestimate because at a lot of engineering companies, engineers feel like, \u201cHold on, you hired me<\/em> to solve it, so I have to solve it.\u201d We\u2019re sitting here saying, \u201cAt the end of the day, we want the consumer to open up the box and enjoy the product.\u201d The consumer doesn\u2019t care whether you made 100 percent of the product internally or whether you brought in five subject matter experts to help. We do a really incredible job of getting the best and brightest people to help us solve these problems.<\/p>\n

That really comes down to how you think about investing in the core technologies. I\u2019ll just stick with Shark and the vacuum cleaners, blow dryers, and air purifiers. At the core of that technology are high-efficiency small motors. They can move a lot of air. You can express that in multiple kinds of products. That\u2019s a very competitive segment. That\u2019s the patent lawsuits. It\u2019s deeply competitive.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

You can go buy that core technology. Once you\u2019ve developed it, the goal is to ramp it over time and take margin out of all that upfront cost. But you\u2019re launching into so many new categories. You\u2019re going out to buy lots and lots of new core technologies from 50 different subject matter experts. How do you think about managing those life cycles? Where do you think about spending the money on new technologies that will last for a long time and let you take margin out and where do you think the technology is mature, and what you need to do is actually expand the category?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting. I\u2019ll go back to the example that you gave on vacuum cleaners because I think that\u2019s a good one. We have patented a no-loss suction vacuum technology, so the consumer can pick up whatever they want and won\u2019t lose any appreciable level of suction over the life of the product. But as you start identifying the next consumer problem, you start having to then build evolutionary or add-on technologies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I want to give you some examples that I think you might find interesting. We had great no-loss suction technology when we developed our first vacuum cleaner, which was called the Shark Navigator, We cleaned carpets better than our competition, and we did it at a fraction of the price. Those were the core things. In 2009, we found that the American consumer was really interested in cleaning carpets. That was the proxy of a great vacuum cleaner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2010, we said, \u201cOkay, what\u2019s the next problem for us to solve?\u201d We went into consumers\u2019 homes, we watched them vacuum. In the homes that had stairs or multi-level homes, they would plug the vacuum in, pull the hose out, and clean the first three steps of the stairs. They would then unplug the vacuum, walk upstairs, plug it in, and clean the top three steps. The middle three steps would never get clean because the hose was never\u00a0 able to reach that far. So, we looked at that and we said, \u201cWhy is the vacuum tethered to this base on the ground? What if you could lift it away, walk around with the vacuum cleaner, and have 30 feet of travel with the cord?\u201d That product was called the Shark Navigator Lift-Away. It\u2019s still the number-one selling vacuum cleaner in the United States. We solved the problem by having vacuums that not only cleaned on the floor but cleaned above the floor as well.<\/p>\n

Now you might say, \u201cOkay, hasn\u2019t everything been developed?\u201d Well, three years later, we want to know what\u2019s the next problem. The next problem is cleaning under furniture. You don\u2019t want to move the furniture. How do you clean under a bed? Imagine what under a bed looks like when you haven\u2019t cleaned it for two years. So we developed something called Powered Lift-Away. You took the canister off the vacuum, and we had power that went down through the hose and to the nozzle. You could now take your nozzle, just like a canister vacuum, and go anywhere, under furniture or under beds. That became the number-one selling vacuum cleaner in the United States when it came out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So you say again, \u201cWell, has everything been invented?\u201d A few years later, we said, \u201cWow, we do a great job at cleaning carpets, but we aren\u2019t doing as great a job cleaning hard floors.\u201d With carpets, you need a really aggressive brushroll to clean. On floors, you need to be able to pick up the fine dust. So we looked at that and realized they were in conflict with one another. What if we developed a vacuum cleaner that had two brushrolls: an aggressive brushroll that cleaned your carpets and a fluffier brushroll that could pick up the fine dust on your hard floors? That technology was called Shark DuoClean. Today, that\u2019s still our best-selling vacuum cleaner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, finding the next problem and the next problem will lead you into new technology and new evolution. By the way, all of these things that I just mentioned to you are patents. They\u2019re all things that only SharkNinja does at this point. But we\u2019re constantly on this quest to find the next problem, and then that leads us into our innovation pipeline.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to push back on you just a little bit. I know the <\/strong>Decoder<\/em><\/strong> listeners quite well. I know what they\u2019re saying to you in their cars as they listen. The vacuum cleaner market is pretty mature. It is ferociously competitive. There are products from LG, Samsung, Dyson, you name it that do all of these things and more in different ways. I hear what you\u2019re saying. You see the problems and you innovate for the customers that you see and the problems they have.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

But the market is competitive. How often do you spend thinking about where the market is going, where the competitors are getting ahead of you, and how to leapfrog them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nearly every day. This is what we do. We\u2019re consumer problem solvers. We\u2019re trying every day. Look, we had zero market share in the vacuum industry in 2008. Today, SharkNinja has over 40 percent market share in the upright vacuum cleaner market in the United States, which is the largest portion of the vacuum cleaner market in the US. We became number one in 2014, and we\u2019ve never given that up. Why? Because we\u2019re continuing to innovate and innovate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We\u2019re driving up the average sell price. You could buy a Shark vacuum for $129, or you could buy a Shark vacuum for $499. We are bringing the opening-price consumer up into our brand. We don\u2019t have something for the $79 consumer, but I think the consumer looks at performance, value, quality, and innovation.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve got to bring all four of those things together for the consumer. I think you might have innovation, but the consumer needs all of this and value is a huge component of it. The opening-price consumer can step up to a $129 Shark vacuum. The high-priced Sephora, Ulta consumer can buy a $499 vacuum. There is no brand that cuts across such a broad price range and such a broad feature range.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The other thing that I think we do a really effective job of is being the vacuum for you when you move into your college dorm room. We want to be the first vacuum for you when you get your first apartment, when you get your first house, when you have your family, when you get your first pets, and when you wind up as an empty nester. I don\u2019t think there is a brand out there selling corded vacuums, cordless vacuums, robot vacuums, hand vacuums, or shop vacuums that is doing such an effective and compelling job of innovating and innovating while also having extraordinary value and great quality.<\/p>\n

One of the things I think about a lot here is how companies grow. You\u2019re describing people buying lots of vacuums over time. A long time ago, I had the <\/strong>former CEO of Sonos Patrick Spence on the show<\/strong><\/a>, and I said, \u201cIs your whole plan that people will just get bigger and bigger houses and you\u2019ll sell one more speaker every time?\u201d Is that the plan in the vacuum business? People are just going to buy new vacuums at a steady clip?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think the more macro question is how do we grow and how do we think about growth? We think about growth with this three-pillar growth strategy. One is gaining share in our existing categories. We enter categories, and within three to four years, Shark or Ninja becomes the number one or number two market leader in that category. There\u2019s still lots of white space within our existing categories. We\u2019re in an industry with an available [total addressable market] of $120 billion. Last year, we were a $5.5 billion business. So, we\u2019re less than 5 percent of the overall market.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Number two is expansion into new product categories. Many companies say they can expand into new categories, but either the retailer or the consumer doesn\u2019t let them. They don\u2019t see them in those categories. I think we\u2019ve been really effective at taking the Shark and Ninja brands into many different places.<\/p>\n

Then, third is international expansion. This year, over 40 percent of our business is going to come from outside the US. So, when you think about us compared to brands that are able to scale globally, we launch 25 new products a year and we sell20 out of those 25 products n every market. The same product. We look at the consumer from a product innovation standpoint across this matrix. How does the American consumer think about a product? How does a European consumer think about the product? How does an Asian consumer think about the product? I think that\u2019s an important point to note. We\u2019re not just innovating for one type of consumer, we\u2019re innovating for a global consumer.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to ask you the other <\/strong>Decoder<\/em><\/strong> question, and then I want to talk about expansion, particularly into grilling. This is our grilling episode. We spent too much time on vacuums.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the other <\/strong>Decoder<\/em><\/strong> question. How do you make decisions? You\u2019ve laid out a lot of frameworks here. It\u2019s clear you\u2019ve thought about this a lot. What\u2019s your framework for making decisions?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have something, and you can go to our website and see it.\u00a0 We\u2019re very focused on culture. Culture is our competitive advantage, it really is. We have 5,000 patents. We have great brand names. We have incredible innovation. What has enabled us to grow at a compounded annual rate of 21 percent a year for the last 17 years is the way we think. I\u2019d invite you to go onto our website and look at a document called \u201cOutrageously Extraordinary<\/a>.\u201d The idea is that we have this inextricable desire to be the absolute best we can be. That comes with this inherent fear of failure. How do we get rid of the fear of failure because you tend to play it safe when you\u2019re worried about failing. So, for us, we set what we call these \u201cunimaginably high bars\u201d in a game worth playing.<\/p>\n

You will seldom see a meeting at SharkNinja where you say, \u201clet\u2019s go after this,\u201d and everyone in the room walks out and says, \u201cI think we can do that.\u201d Most people are going to walk out of the room saying, \u201cHow the hell are we going to do that?\u201d We\u2019ve just set a bar that seems absolutely impossible. So, we think that courageous leaders set an unimaginably high bar in a game worth playing. Even if you fall short of that, you will still do something extraordinary. If I set out to have number one market share going from zero, and that\u2019s our goal and we wind up being number two. But hey, we started from zero. So we\u2019ve got to set a very high bar to start.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The second is this idea of leading with a relentless desire to know more. Answers in business are not surface level. People want an easy answer to a tough question. The answers lie deep, deep in the business with trying to understand the root cause of the problem. What is the mousetrap that you\u2019ll create that will besustainable, that can\u2019t be disintermediated by a Chinese factory that\u2019ll come in and sell a low-cost product on a platform? So how do we have this desire to know more, or know more than anyone else that is competing against us? We want to be explorers, not tour guides.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most of what we\u2019re doing, is in uncharted territories. My expertise ran out eight years ago. I\u2019m running on fumes when it comes to expertise at this point. Every day, we\u2019re exploring new territory. We\u2019re pivoting quickly. We\u2019re getting smarter every day. We use the phrase \u201cwe reserve the right to get smarter\u201d at the company. We make a decision, new information comes in, and we decide tomorrow that we\u2019re going to change the decision. I think one of the things that many companies, or many leaders, get stuck in is saying, \u201cI made a decision, so I just have to go in that direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

We want to constantly be on the lookout for if the decision we made was stupid. I stood up in front of our town hall at\u00a0 a corporate meeting a number of months ago, and there were some questions about changes that we had made last year. I said to the organization, \u201cI made a change because previously I was being stupid and I\u2019ve decided now to be un-stupid.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

What was the change?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The concept of un-stupid went viral around the company. People felt empowered to say, \u201cI want to be un-stupid today. We\u2019re going down this path. It doesn\u2019t seem like we\u2019re going to be successful. Let\u2019s pivot and change.\u201d SharkNinja\u2019s not curing cancer. We\u2019re trying to delight consumers. We\u2019re trying to positively impact people\u2019s lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, the change that you mentioned is how we were investing dollars in the company. We have to stay focused and invest dollars in areas of growth: growth when it comes to product development, growth when it comes to geographic expansion, growth when it comes to marketing and building awareness for our brands. I think we got too scattered and went after too many shiny objects.<\/p>\n

There are lots of great initiatives for a company to go work on, but you also need focus. You need to make sure there are certain things that are sacred in a company, and that\u2019s what requires the investment. Everything else might have to wait in line. You just can\u2019t do everything at once. So, we had to pull back on some of those things, and we had to make some tough decisions about where we were going to invest and where we were going to hold for a little while, and then relook at it going into the next year.<\/p>\n

This is a perfect tee up for your decision to invest in grills, but I have to know, what did you pull back from? Was there anything specific?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think we went after a lot of technology projects. We were implementing Oracle at our company. We were re-platforming our e-commerce site. We\u2019ve got this great partnership with Salesforce, and we\u2019re launching a new e-commerce site in September. There were certain things that were just really mission-critical. There were other things that were really just nice-to-haves. They were not going to make or break our business, they were not going to create a competitive advantage. So, we had to decide what are the most important things and what it isn\u2019t the right time for.<\/p>\n

All right. Let\u2019s put all this into practice and talk about grills. I love talking about grills. Can you tell? I\u2019m eager to do it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Great.<\/p>\n

This is one of my favorite episodes of the year, to talk about the grill industry. You\u2019ve laid out a lot of frameworks here. You\u2019ve said, \u201cWe should have to deserve to be in the market. We need something better.\u201d You\u2019ve laid out not wanting to get away from the core areas of growth. The grill market is ferociously competitive and extremely well-served with lots of innovative companies.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

It feels to me like the people who are really into grilling like having different kinds of things as opposed to just one thing. I see it in backyards all over my town. If you got one, you\u2019ll soon have two. It\u2019s also been disrupted. One of our very first grill company guests was <\/strong>Roger Dahle<\/strong><\/a>, who founded the grill company Blackstone. He\u2019s in the <\/strong>middle of buying Weber<\/strong><\/a>. He actually couldn\u2019t be on this year because of antitrust. He has to go through FTC review to buy Weber. That\u2019s a big disruption. He bought the market leader. Why enter this market? Where\u2019s the differentiation? How do you think you can get to number one?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think you have to go back to the fact that Ninja is the kitchen market leader. We built up a lot of brand equity in air fryers, ovens, cookware, blenders, coffee makers, and all kinds of things in the kitchen. So, three years ago, we decided that it was time for us to go outdoors, and we did it by developing a product called the Ninja Woodfire Grill, which is a grill, a smoker, and an air fryer. It was all electric and it sat on your tabletop. We felt like there was a really unserved need. I\u2019ll give you examples. People who live in apartments can\u2019t have propane, but they can have electric outside \u2014 campers, RVs, boats, and things like that, along with tailgates, and you can just plug it in.<\/p>\n

We found that people who owned a grill weren\u2019t going to invest in another smoker. So, we found that people would be interested in buying something that was small and could fit on a tabletop next to their outdoor grill, or vice versa. If they owned a smoker, now they could own a grill. We saw this in the vacuum cleaner business. You have an upright vacuum, a cordless vacuum, a robot vacuum, a hand vacuum. So, we went into the market, and in a very short period of time, we took big market share. We\u2019re the number-one selling electric outdoor grill right now. We sell a number of different versions of it. We then went into outdoor ovens. So, we\u2019ve got a really great\u2013<\/p>\n

Wait, can I just ask something? Sorry, you\u2019re just in my wheelhouse. Having the number-one selling electric outdoor grill feels like a small part of a huge category.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is. But you have to understand that you have to enter in a place where the consumer accepts you, and then you have to figure out what\u2019s next. So, we go into tabletop grills and then expand from that into tabletop ovens. Now, we\u2019ve got this outdoor oven that allows you to cook up to 700 degrees Fahrenheit, roast, and make pizza in it. That becomes a nice business for us globally.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then, we decide where to go next. We\u2019re doing great in tabletop, but now, as you said, there\u2019s this big $5 billion market around large format, outdoor cooking products. So, we look at it, put ourselves in the shoes of the consumer, and ask, \u201cWhat\u2019s the empathy of the consumer?\u201d The consumer goes to the Home Depot parking lot on Memorial Day weekend and tell one of the orange aprons that they want to buy a grill. The person says to them, \u201cWell, do you want a grill, or do you want a smoker? Do you want a pizza oven, or do you want a roaster or a griddle?\u201d<\/p>\n

That becomes the first problem for the consumer. \u201cI\u2019ve got to make a choice.\u201d Maybe there\u2019s multiple grills outside in your neighborhood, but this person is saying you have one to choose from. \u201cWhat do I do? Do I want a griddle? Do I want a grill? Do I want a pizza oven? Do I want a smoker?\u201d So, we started with that and thought it felt like a really credible problem for somebody to solve. It took us two years, but we developed the world\u2019s first grill that\u2019s powered by propane, electric, and a cyclonic fan. That\u2019s three things. There are incredible patents and technology in this product.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, if you have those three things, what can you do? You can have incredible temperature control. Once I have incredible temperature control and I can move and circulate the air inside, I can grill, smoke, have a fully functional pizza oven, griddle, and roast. We called it the Ninja FlexFlame, and it\u2019s the world\u2019s first product that can do all of those things under one hood.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, we envisioned a world where the consumer can now go to the Home Depot parking lot, ask that same question to the orange apron, and that person will respond, \u201cWell, sir or ma\u2019am, you could either have a grill or a smoker, or<\/em> Ninja\u2019s got something that does it all.\u201d And not just something that does it all and does it so-so. It grills like an incredibly professional $1,000-plus griller, smokes as well as a $1,000 smoker, makes Neapolitan pizza in a few minutes, griddles, roasts, and has incredibly even cooking performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We came out with that product a couple of months ago. You can go online and look at it. It\u2019s a 4.6-star rated product. It\u2019s doing great. We launched it with an ad campaign with David Beckham. We think this opens up a whole new global opportunity for us.<\/p>\n

You said cyclonic fan. There\u2019s that fan again. This feels like core technology for you guys. Is it related to the Shark fans?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, sure. We understand airflow, we understand motors, and we understand electronics. Think about your grill 10 years ago. You put a bunch of charcoal into a pot, you lit it up, and it had some flame and it grilled for you. This product\u2019s got a cyclonic fan. It\u2019s got amazing amounts of electronics in it for precision temperature control. It has wood fire pellets that allow you to smoke. It has electrical power and it has propane power. What would a team of 1,300 engineers be thinking about if they wanted to build the most amazing product outdoors? I believe most consumers aren\u2019t in a position to be able to have four different products on their outdoor patio.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So we came out with this product, and we launched it at $999. We think this product offers breakthrough innovation, market-leading performance, great quality, and an extraordinary value for what it delivers.<\/p>\n

I apologize, but I\u2019ve had a lot of grill company CEOs on the show. I\u2019m telling you, it\u2019s one of my favorite episodes of the year because all of the grill industry\u2019s problems are the problems that every other company has, but we don\u2019t think about that industry in the same way.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, I would broadly describe the business models of your competitors in the grill industry as breaking down into two camps. There\u2019s Big Green Egg, which wants to sell you a very expensive product that will last for a lifetime and that you will pass on for generations. They\u2019re owned by a family foundation, and they\u2019re not chasing profits in that way. It\u2019s totally fascinating. There\u2019s some high-end grill companies that also think the same way. Then there\u2019s everyone else, and they say, \u201cWe\u2019re going to put a hunk of metal outside. In three years, it\u2019s going to rust out, and you\u2019re going to buy a new one.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

But being able to do everything at $999 combined with, \u201cOh, boy, my hunk of metal rusted out and it\u2019s going away\u201d is not a winning proposition. So, how do you think about that cycle, because those are basically the two camps. Are you trying to last forever, or are you trying to get replaced on a cadence outside?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Look, there\u2019s obviously a replacement cycle for the product, but our business is about innovating and putting our products into retirement before their usable life ends. It\u2019s no different than what Apple does. If you have an iPhone 14, you don\u2019t really need the iPhone 16 when it comes out. Your iPhone 14 is just fine. But there\u2019s some technology. It\u2019s got three cameras. It\u2019s got some other things in it. That\u2019s\u00a0 SharkNinja\u2019s model. If I relied on a replacement cycle, someone would buy a product and they\u2019d come back four years later to buy the next product. I want the consumer to get excited about what we do and say, \u201cWow.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Air fryers are a great example. We came out with our first air fryer, which had four cords and did an amazing job air frying your food. We immediately got feedback from consumers that they wanted larger capacity. So, we developed five-cord, six-cord, and seven-cord air fryers. We then found out from consumers that they were batch cooking. They were making the chicken tenders and french fries for their kids and putting in the salmon and asparagus for themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We said, \u201cWhat if we could develop an air fryer that could cook two things at the same time in two independent baskets?\u201d And that became the number-one selling air fryer on the market. We then, shortly after that, found out that consumers loved that concept, but it took up too much counter space for some consumers. So we took that side-by-side air fryer, stacked the baskets on top of each other, and made the world\u2019s first stackable air fryer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, we found that consumers go home, prep their lunch, and take it to the office, or they meal prep their food for the whole week. What if we could develop an air fryer that fits in the palm of your hand? That\u2019s a product called the Ninja Crispi. Now\u00a0 there are consumers who are bringing these healthy glass cooking vessels to work. They bring their air fryer pod. Instead of putting their food into a microwave that\u2019s going to make it all soggy and mushy for lunch, they\u2019re actually air frying their food at their desks and eating it for lunch. They\u2019re meal prepping in the beginning of the week, and then they\u2019re just putting their Ninja Crispi on top of it.<\/p>\n

So, if you look at the file on our direct-to-consumer business, you have consumers seven years ago that bought a four-quart air fryer and then bought a dual zone air fryer two years later. Then, they came back two years later and bought a Ninja Crispi. That\u2019s how we think about the business. I can tell you that two or three years from now, we\u2019re going to come out with some innovation that\u2019s going to be even better, even more exciting than what we developed with the Ninja FlexFlame, and it will allow the consumer to make a decision. Maybe they\u2019ll give that product to a neighbor or their child, whatever it might be, because Ninja or Shark has come out with the next great innovation.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m compelled to point out that the core mechanical component of an air fryer is a fan. Just saying it! It pops up over and over again in this conversation. You\u2019ve got a lot of fan technology. It\u2019s wild to see how disparately it can be expressed.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

You\u2019ve mentioned software a couple of times. It\u2019s in the FlexFlame, it\u2019s in a lot of the other products. One of the running themes on the show is that once you start investing in software, that just becomes an exponentially increasing cost. The servers have to stay up, the apps have to be updated. Apple\u2019s going to keep releasing new phones and change the design language of iOS on a whim whenever it wants to. Is that all in-house for you? Do you contract that out? Because one of the biggest complaints I see with smart grills and smart appliances is, \u201cWell, I bought this expensive thing, the app broke, and now my grill is useless.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a great question. I would say that about 75 percent of it is in-house, and about 25 percent of it is out-of-house. This is an industry and a market that is changing so quickly. Having an app that is standalone on your phone, like Waze or Uber, is very different from having an app that is connected to some sort of hardware device. It\u2019s a whole different situation. We\u2019re the first to admit that we need to bring lots of great minds around this. So, a portion of that is absolutely outsourced, as we look at testing, validation, and development ideas. But we do have a great internal core team working on that. It works on that with our robot products and our outdoor cooking products.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The concept of an app on a product is very interesting. I remember going to trade shows six years ago where every single booth just commented,\u00a0 \u201cWe have an app.\u201d I remember going down once into one of our engineering labs, and there was a blender there. A person handed me their iPhone and said, \u201cHere, use the blender.\u201d I went on the iPhone and I pressed go for the blender to start. I said, \u201cWell, our blenders just have one button. Unless the app can put my bananas, my strawberries, and my protein powder into it while I\u2019m in bed, why do I need an app on this particular product? I can just fill everything up and push a button. We have a technology called BlendSense with sensors that know when the blending is stopping.<\/p>\n

With apps, the really important thing to understand is when the app is a vanity exercise versus when it\u2019s bringing true value to the consumer and unlocking something in the product that they wouldn\u2019t be able to do if the app didn\u2019t exist. I think that\u2019s the case with robots. There\u2019s a case to be made with outdoor cooking. But as you said, it is very complex putting an app together with some sort of hardware and making sure that all of those pieces connect for every house, every router, every consumer that\u2019s using it. So, we\u2019ve got to work with both in-house and out-of-house people to help us do that.<\/p>\n

How do you think about that cost? There\u2019s the consumer experience of, \u201cI bought a grill five years ago, they never updated the app. Some of my features went away because iOS changed.\u201d That\u2019s one side of the experience. From the company perspective, what I hear so often is, \u201cWell, there\u2019s no recurring revenue model for this product that supports ongoing development of this app.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

You brought up Uber. Uber\u2019s business is that app, and it spends a lot of money developing that app. Do you have that kind of model in place where you can say, \u201cOkay, here\u2019s the ongoing support cost of the FlexFlame Grill that will make sure we deliver updates to the app?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Something interesting for you to know is that we update our robot app nearly every single month, and that goes out to all of the devices out there. It could be a product that somebody bought five years ago. There\u2019s constant, constant updates as we\u2019re looking at data from the apps, getting testing feedback, getting return information, or getting customer service questions. We could be adding bug fixes or we could be adding new feature functionality.<\/p>\n

But you\u2019re not charging subscription revenue?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, no.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s just cost. So how do you think about that cost versus the margin of the product at the onetime sale?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We look at it as all about positively impacting the consumer. I need the consumer to have a great experience so that they come back and when we go into the next category, they say, \u201cI had a great experience with this Shark or Ninja product, I\u2019m willing to try them in the next category.\u201d You brought up other outdoor cooking companies and other companies. You have to understand that most companies have a business model where they want to sell you a product, and then they want to sell you another product four years later when it comes to the replacement cycle. I want to sell you two products a year. I want to sell you a cordless blender. I want to sell you an espresso machine. I want to sell you an LED infrared face mask. If you have a bad experience with one of our products, I\u2019m going to lose that whole recurring revenue stream from you as the consumer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been doing this for 17 years. I want to do this for another 20 years. Over that period of time, there will be a finite number of consumers. And every day, as a business, you\u2019re either gaining loyal consumers or you\u2019re losing frustrated consumers. So when you say, \u201cWell, what\u2019s the ROI on that?\u201d What\u2019s the ROI on happiness? The ROI on happiness for SharkNinja is infinite. That\u2019s how we\u2019ve built our business. It\u2019s not even a question as to whether we\u2019ll go and do it. The answer is we have to do it. We have to make sure that our consumers are happy.<\/p>\n

This conversation is really interesting, and there are two themes. One is that fans are everywhere, and the other one is how much you\u2019re willing to talk about costs, things that cost money against growth. You\u2019re constantly expanding. You\u2019re launching 25 new products a year. It feels like you see growth as the engine that justifies whatever costs come about. Do you see an end to that growth?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hopefully not.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m just asking because at some point. You\u2019re going to run into a category problem, where you\u2019re Apple and you have to make a car.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Look, I\u2019ve been told that now for 15 years. \u201cMark, you have a $500 million business. Could it get any bigger? Now you have a $700 million business. Can it get any bigger?\u201d If you\u2019ve worked at a company that\u2019s growing 1 percent or declining 2 percent, it\u2019s tough. Inflation is going up 3 or 4 percent. There\u2019s not much money at that point to invest, innovate, reinvent yourself, and all of those things. Part of what we\u2019re trying to do is disrupt ourselves. We were known as Shark, the steam mop company, 17 years ago. Then, we were Shark, the vacuum company. Now, if you speak to a college-aged person, they think we\u2019re Shark, the beauty company. We\u2019re constantly reinventing ourselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0So, what growth allows you to do is invest, but investing alone is not enough. It\u2019s not enough just to have money to invest. It\u2019s about how willing you are disrupt yourself. Are you willing to take your old business model, rip it up, throw it away, and start new again? Are you willing to pivot quickly? Are you willing to say, \u201cI\u2019m going down a path that likely won\u2019t work or that someone else is going to catch up to me?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

We go into these categories\u2026 I\u2019ll invite you after we\u2019re done with this, and it does apply to your air model. We have a product called the Shark TurboBlade. It is an indoor fan with 350 million impressions on social media right now. It is going viral on social media. When you look at that, you say to yourself, \u201cWell, Mark, it\u2019s a fan.\u201d No, it solves an incredible consumer problem that the consumer didn\u2019t even know that they had. It also creates a category of one. We\u2019re not in the fan business, we\u2019re in the TurboBlade business. We\u2019re in the comfort business. So again, growth is the pathway. But it\u2019s the mindset and the culture that allows you to be able to say, \u201cI\u2019m willing to rip it all up and start over again.\u201d We\u2019ve got to create a definable competitive advantage.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s something really interesting, and honestly refreshing about the idea that you essentially see infinite new categories that will allow you to invest in some of the costs. I see a lot of your competitors saying, \u201cActually, to preserve our margins, we have to stop investing in a bunch of stuff because Chinese companies are coming or Amazon is available.\u201d Amazon at this point is ChatGPT for products. You type something in, and 5,000 suppliers will show up to sell you variations of the same product.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The other piece of this, which I think is really interesting \u2014 and I want to make sure we spend some time on it here at the end \u2014 is how you think about marketing and about the brand. The brand is getting more upscale. We have a Shark vacuum from 1,000 years ago. I know that the plastics you\u2019re using now are much higher quality than the one we have.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You\u2019re moving up, and a lot of how you\u2019re moving up is marketing on social media. Adweek had a story reporting that you\u2019re <\/strong>spending $700 million a year<\/strong><\/a> on advertising. That\u2019s 11 percent of your sales, and all that is going to creators and product placement. As we\u2019re speaking, the whole ad industry is at the Cannes Film Festival in France right now talking about the future of the ads. I look at your spend and I think, \u201cOh, this is the meteorite. This is going to hit the earth, and everything\u2019s going to change.\u201d You\u2019re at the bleeding edge of it. Why make that bet? How do you think that is going, and where do you think it goes from here?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go back 16 years. At that time, 100 percent of our ad spend was on what were called long-form infomercials, which were 30-minute infomercials. My partner would go on TV and run demonstrations. He and I would develop demo ideas to do. Why? Because we didn\u2019t have any money at the time, and so we went on TV. A certain amount of the sales came to us directly and paid for the advertising expense. But a large portion of the sales went and got sold at retail outlets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, every company has to find their white space. So let\u2019s start with that. People would say to me, \u201cWell, you\u2019re on infomercials.\u201d Okay, but that was our way of expressing to the consumer what was unique or different about our products and the problems that we were solving, and it helped build our brands.<\/p>\n

I want to go back to the point about the online reviews in 2008. When I was a kid growing up in New York in the \u201980s, there was the Sims Store, which would say, \u201cThe educated consumer is our best customer.\u201d Well, in 1985, there were not many educated consumers. If you had a problem with a product, you returned it to the store, and you told your mom, dad, or friend that you wouldn\u2019t buy this product. There was no forum where you could get the information out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, when online reviews started, that became a great selling vehicle and a great referral vehicle for us. It evolved as you got into 2014 and 2015 on Facebook. You\u2019d have these big Facebook group chats with 30,000 or 40,000 people exchanging recipes and ideas. Then, right before COVID and during COVID, it really started evolving into social media with Instagram and TikTok. Today, it\u2019s so much more than that. The platform we are going to have the highest increase on this year will likely be Reddit. We\u2019re spending more on Pinterest. We\u2019re spending more on YouTube.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are now these ways for consumers and creators to express themselves, and for others to be able to get information about the product. So, if you go back a number of years and you were advertising, you created one message. You created one ad, you ran that one ad at nine o\u2019clock at night on NBC, and the only people that saw it were the people who were watching NBC at nine o\u2019clock at night. Go look at the comments section on some of our new products. \u201cWhen is this product coming to Portugal? When\u2019s the product coming to Norway?\u201d<\/p>\n

Wed did a really interesting exercise. We went and mapped how buyers consume social media all around the world. You\u2019d be interested to know that they\u2019re not just consuming it in English in the United States, Canada, the UK, and Australia. They\u2019re predominantly consuming it in English in the Netherlands, Poland, the Nordics, and the Middle East. So, one of the things that\u2019s really driven the global expansion of our business is that there\u2019s already pent-up demand for our products even before we even bring them into a market.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll give you an interesting example. We were launching our Ninja Slushi in Norway. Social media got wind that one of the major retailers was going to have a Ninja Slushi product. The temperature outside was 5 degrees Fahrenheit. There were 400 people lined up outside of the store to buy a Ninja Slushi. That all came from this social media awareness that has no borders and just permeates all around the world.<\/p>\n

One of the things I think about a lot with the creator economy is that there\u2019s the organic demand, which you\u2019re describing. People see things. The content can travel anywhere with little regard for borders. Then, there\u2019s your spend. You are spending on creators and influencers. That is a huge part of the market. It is a growing part of the market. There\u2019s a ton of excitement there. There\u2019s a ton of money there.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I see a supply and demand problem in the influencer economy. I think the creator-branded content economy is headed towards a crash just because of supply and demand. There\u2019s an infinite supply of creators every day, and more creators are coming onto these platforms. There\u2019s AI, which I want to talk about for one second here, that\u2019s creating more and more content. There\u2019s only so many people with only so many minutes. You can see the supply is just going to outstrip demand over time. Are you seeing your rates that you\u2019re paying influencers go up or down in response to this?<\/strong><\/p>\n

So I look at it a little bit differently. I think the crash that\u2019s going to happen will be a big shakeout for those who are not creating compelling content. If you\u2019re able to build super compelling content, you become very valuable to brands and to market with. I think there are a lot of people out there who are nailing it on their content, and they\u2019re not investing in themselves, not evolving, and not continuously getting better.<\/p>\n

You as a creator might be able to do something for a brand, and you\u2019ll say, \u201cHey, I did this post.\u201d But I think you really need to be looking at the lifetime value you could be doing with this brand, not that one post. What if I was working with a company that was coming out with 25 new products a year, and they called me up every year to work with them on five of their products? I wouldn\u2019t be thinking anymore about the short-term impact of getting through that one post and moving on to something else. I think that is what will to evolve and change over the course of the next year or two years as the metrics and the data become much faster, much more transparent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I think we already have dashboards in the company where we can immediately look at a person, scorecard them, and be able to say, \u201cThese are creators we don\u2019t want to work with anymore. These are creators we want to work with tremendously moving forward.\u201d I don\u2019t think that was something that was looked at as closely or managed as effectively since there was this big swoop up. I think you will see that change considerably over the next 18 months. You will find that the best creators really rise to the top, and there\u2019s a real bifurcation of the market.<\/p>\n

When you look at those scorecards and dashboards, what are the metrics that you\u2019re measuring to figure out who\u2019s worth working with and who\u2019s worth dropping?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019re looking at engagement metrics. We\u2019re not just looking at views. We\u2019re looking at likes, shares, and comments, and we\u2019re looking at the types of comments. Are they commenting about something that you did that got them excited about the product, or are they commenting about something that maybe you wore in the spot?\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, there are tools and metrics now that have allowed us to get so much more educated. If I go back even 24 months ago, you\u2019d get excited about a post that had 500,000 views. That 500,000 views is not the answer anymore. It\u2019s now about drilling down and really understanding if a cohort of people engaged with that content. Did they get excited about that product? What did they do once they saw it? Did they just scroll to the next one, or did it elicit some type of reaction or feedback? I think that the world is getting much more educated and intelligent about that.<\/p>\n

I want to read you this quote from Mark Zuckerberg, because what you\u2019re describing is a trend I see everywhere, which is that this industry is professionalizing. There\u2019s going to be some winners and there\u2019s going to be some losers. It\u2019s really interesting to me that your background is in infomercials because I see all of these social platforms turning into marketing channels.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

You\u2019re describing the individual creator as something like a new generation ad agency or a marketing firm. They\u2019re independent marketing agencies, they partner with you for a long duration, and they think of you as a client and they\u2019re trying to deliver results to you. You could see how that would play out, but for AI. The platforms see that money, they see your $700 million, and they want it for themselves.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I say this as explicitly as I\u2019m saying it because I have Zuckerberg here. He said this on stage at various conferences. <\/strong>He said it to my friend Ben Thompson<\/strong><\/a>, who recently interviewed him. I\u2019m just going to read you the quote: \u201cIn general, we\u2019re going to get to a point where you\u2019re a business, you come to us, you tell us what your objective is, you connect your bank account. You don\u2019t need any creative, you don\u2019t need any targeting demographics, you don\u2019t need any measurement, except to be able to read the results we spit out\u2026 I think it is a redefinition of the category of advertising.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

So he\u2019s saying, \u201cYou, Mark, are going to show up, and you\u2019re going to say, \u2018I just need to sell some grills.\u2019\u201d Meta is going to AI generate some advertising, put it in their feeds, and deliver you sales. How do you feel about that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think the professionalizing piece is spot on. The multi-year journey that we go on to develop a product and the insights that we get by having the product in 1,000 consumer homes, and all of this feedback that we get prior to launching the product that informs our creative and really allows us to hone the messaging and the testing. I think there\u2019s a model out there where people say, \u201cYou know what? Forget all that. Just put out 10,000 pieces of content and see what hits. For the ones that hit, amplify, and for the ones that don\u2019t hit, go away.\u201d<\/p>\n

I still believe that with what we do, with the knowledge that we gain and the testing that we do, there is a need for great content, a real understanding of the product, and a real understanding of how the product is going to delight the consumer in their home. I think there\u2019s a role \u2014 I call it fishing with a big net and throwing the net out there \u2014 but I also think that it is not going to be as overly simple as the way it\u2019s described.<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s the other pressure on rates, though. I can feel that coming, that the platforms will find a way to take money out of the rates that the creators are getting paid. Like Instagram, for example. Today, creators make no money from Instagram. Their money is almost entirely from brand sponsorships and other integrated marketing. I think Meta will some of that money over time. How do you feel about the rates you\u2019re paying to your best creators now, and do you think they\u2019re going to go up or do you think they\u2019re going to go down?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It goes back to your supply and demand conversation and the metrics piece. I think the people who are doing amazing, compelling content will probably be more valuable, and they\u2019re probably going to be worth more. Conversely, I think there\u2019s going to be a whole group of people you were overpaying for, and you\u2019re going to realize you were overpaying. You\u2019re either going to have to negotiate those prices down or decide it\u2019s not a fit. It\u2019s no different than the way you look at TV networks. There are TV networks that deliver you the viewership you want at a certain price, and there are TV networks that don\u2019t deliver it.<\/p>\n

Again, I think this is great for the industry. I think this is great for content creators. People have said to me, \u201cMark, what happens if TikTok gets banned?\u201d The content creator community is here to stay. They will find other platforms. They will go to other places. They will find ways to express their creativity and what they\u2019re doing. They\u2019re providing great insight to people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got to tell you something, When I go to a city, one of the first things I do is I go on TikTok and look for the best food places in that city. There\u2019s amazing amounts of content and information that is so useful. I think in the end, this is going to be great for the content creator community, but it is going to be a situation where those who are doing great work are going to get paid more, and those who aren\u2019t are going to have to reinvent themselves.<\/p>\n

Can I ask you an existential question? I know why it\u2019s great for businesses that are trying to sell things. I can see that pretty clearly. I know why it\u2019s great for the creators. They\u2019re making a lot of money with essentially infomercials. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s great for the people who consume media to open all the different apps on their phone, which are taking more and more time, and be awash in a sea of paid sponsored marketing messages.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ultimately, these platforms are just becoming marketing channels. That is the money that drives the entire content ecosystem on every single one of these platforms. How do you think about that? You are a consumer of media as well. How do you experience that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We want to be relevant wherever the consumer is engaging and consuming content. We want to be relevant wherever the consumer is choosing to shop. I think it is the error of any consumer products company to not go where the consumer is going. I think if you head off to a different place where the consumer is not, and you just hope that the consumer would go there \u2014<\/p>\n

No, I understand the company\u2019s needs and why you\u2019re there. I\u2019m asking about you as a consumer of media, when you open TikTok or Instagram and it\u2019s all marketing messages.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Look, as a consumer, I\u2019m consuming content in lots of different ways. I have my Apple News feed that I open up in the morning. I have my Bloomberg subscription that I open up in the morning. I\u2019ve got options. I don\u2019t have to open up Instagram. I don\u2019t have to open up TikTok. I can open it up for the purposeful things I want to open it up for. But there are lots of other ways I can get information. I think it\u2019s really up to the consumer to make that decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll give you a great example. We just put the SharkNinja brand on Brad Pitt\u2019s race car in F1: The Movie.<\/em> We never thought about investing in Formula 1 or movies in the past, but we were just at the premiere, and SharkNinja had incredible placement. So social media is one place. The point is how are we a part of culture? Culture could be experiential events. Culture could be movies, TV shows, or outdoors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m fascinated by what LVMH has done on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street. Their store\u2019s under construction, and they cover the entire store in a Louis Vuitton suitcase. You\u2019ve got people on every corner snapping content in front of it. So again, I think it\u2019s about being relevant where the consumer chooses to ingest content.<\/p>\n

We got to add a <\/strong>Verge<\/em><\/strong> subscription to your list of subscriptions. It\u2019s very important to me that we throw that in there.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

You\u2019ve given me so much time, this has been great. Last question. You\u2019ve got all these new products every year. As you look out over the next 12 months, what\u2019s the one that we should all be looking out for?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wow. You\u2019re going to get me in trouble if I tell you.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the idea. You get in trouble right at the end.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m really excited about our beauty business and the roadmap we have coming out in hair and skin. I have two twenty-something-year-old daughters. That\u2019s just a category I have a lot of passion for. My wife is a beauty enthusiast. So I\u2019m really excited about what we\u2019re doing in beauty.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the Ninja side, I\u2019m really excited about what we\u2019re doing in the kitchen to bring things to consumers that make their homes and lives better. I think what we\u2019re doing with the Luxe Caf\u00e9 is incredible. The consumer can get drip coffee, iced coffee, and espresso, and can froth hot milk, cold milk, dairy milk, and non-dairy milk. I think we\u2019re doing that in coffee. I think we\u2019re doing that in slushies. I think we\u2019re doing that in ice cream. I think we\u2019re doing that in cooking. I\u2019m just so excited. The roadmap of ideas we have in Ninja is really fulfilling this mission of positively impacting people\u2019s lives every day and in every home around the world.<\/p>\n

Mark, this has been great. We\u2019re going to have to get you back. There\u2019s a lot of stuff I didn\u2019t get to talk about that I really want to talk to you about. So we\u2019ll have you come back soon, maybe before the next grill comes out.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Look forward to it. Maybe fan season.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m telling you, once you start seeing fans, they\u2019re everywhere.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Great. Thanks so much.<\/p>\n

Questions or comments about this episode? Hit us up at decoder@theverge.com. We really do read every email!<\/sub><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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