Advice Line with Sarah LaFleur of M.M. LaFleur

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.7 • 31.4K Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2026

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today’s callers: David from New Jersey struggles with self-doubt as he works to grow his muscle-scraping soap brand. Then, Marnie from Australia wants to convince customers that her colorful tick-repellent socks are worth the premium price. And David from New York wants his company to end the practice of throwing away burned out candles.

Plus, Sarah recounts rebuilding her brand in the wake of the pandemic and the changing fashion preferences of professional women.

Thank you to the founders of Sorsoap, Tick Socks, and Siblings for being a part of our show.

If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode—where Guy and former show guests take questions from early-stage founders—leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to hibt@id.wondery.com or call 1-800-433-1298.

And be sure to listen to M.M. LaFleur’s founding story as told by Sarah on the show in 2020.

This episode was produced by Carla Esteves with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Jimmy Keeley.

You can follow HIBT on X & Instagram and sign up for Guy's free newsletter at guyraz.com and on Substack.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	When I started how I built this, there was so much to figure out. Booking processes, production
0:05.2	schedules, timetables, sponsors, promotion, it was honestly overwhelming. And what I realized pretty
0:11.6	quickly is this. When you're building something, the last thing you want is to waste time
0:17.2	juggling a bunch of different tools that don't quite work together. That's why finding the
0:22.4	right platform matters. And for millions of businesses, that platform is Shopify. Shopify is the
0:30.6	commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S.
0:37.6	From household names to brands just getting started.
0:41.5	Tackle all those important tasks in one place, from inventory to payments to analytics and more.
0:47.8	No need to bounce between different tools.
0:50.1	See less carts go abandoned and more sales go with Shopify and their shop pay button.
0:57.1	Sign up for your one pound per month trial today at Shopify.co.com.uk slash built.
1:04.5	Go to Shopify.com.com.uk slash built. That's Shopify.com.com.uk slash built.
1:16.6	Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each
1:28.6	week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on this show who will help me try to
1:33.7	help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might
1:38.2	be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you like help with. All right, let's get to it. Joining me this week is Sarah LaFleur. She's the founder and CEO of the women's clothing brand, MM-Lafloor. Sarah, it's great to have you back on the show. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.
2:01.4	Oh, excited to have you. You've been on the show twice before, actually.
2:04.3	First time was in February 2020 to tell us the story of building M.M. LaFleur.
2:09.7	And like many founders, we've had on the show, you started the brand because you had a problem to solve, which was you were a corporate consultant.
2:18.1	And just too many clothing options didn't really fit in with what you wanted to wear. And that, of course,
2:23.4	was back in 2011. And then along the way, you built this awesome brand. But then you had some
2:28.4	challenges, especially during COVID. And we're going to get an update about what happened.
	...

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