[Voiceover]: Welcome to the checkout. We catch up with previous guests of Add to Cart, where we ask them five quick questions to understand more about them and leave you with a little extra inspiration to get through your Friday. Today's checkout features Stu French, children's author, digital transformation executive, and Ethical co founder. What a combo. Stu and his wife Tegan started Ethical in 2020 and are now distributing kids books all across the world. Stu, welcome to the checkout. I've got five quick questions for you to learn a little bit more about yourself. Number one, what is the weirdest thing you've ever bought online?
Stu French: This is a really dangerous question to answer. I'm going to give a safe answer to this. And it hasn't arrived, which has really annoyed me. I bought a 1 50th scale engine. Um, it's like a tiny V8 engine. I quite like mechanics and, yeah, I wanted to kind of build this engine from scratch. I bought it randomly. I was hooked on a Facebook ad and it hasn't arrived. It's the weirdest thing I've, I've ever purchased and I was really interested to see it. It hasn't arrived. So you remind me I need to chase that company down like a little.
[Voiceover]: Like a car engine.
Stu French: Yeah, it's like a V8 engine that's like at a 150th scale and it's fully working. It looked fascinating. Maybe it wasn't real. Maybe I was. I was hooked. It was. It was literally too good to be true.
[Voiceover]: That's brilliant. Okay, cool. Number two, who is your favorite retailer?
Stu French: I would say Allbirds. I think the Allbirds. At least an online retailer. I think the experience is absolutely unbeatable.
[Voiceover]: I think you'll have a lot of agreement from all our listeners on that as well. Number three, which retail fad do you wish was history?
Stu French: Oh, news agencies. That's probably a random answer. I think, like, the concept of a news agency going and buying lotto tickets and like all the crap that they store in there. Like a random conglomeration of stuff. Like these stores that just like, just have such a diverse purpose and no focus. Like, I just think that era is dumb. I mean, yeah, there's lots of examples, but news agency is the first one that comes to mind.
[Voiceover]: Kind of feels like beating up the weak kid in the playground, doesn't it? Yeah.
Stu French: Yeah. I have a friend with a news agency, actually. He's going to get really angry now, but. Yeah, sorry,
[Voiceover]: I'm probably the one propping them up. I still get five newspapers delivered over a weekend. It's kind of my amazing guy. I get it. Number four, can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?
Stu French: I would read Uncanny Valley. Yeah, Uncanny Valley. It is about early startup culture in Silicon Valley. Fascinating read from a perspective of a female being in the early days of Silicon Valley startup culture and all of the problems that come with kind of the bad gender dynamic and imbalance, particularly at that point. So, yeah, fascinating read. Definitely, definitely recommend it.
[Voiceover]: Was it written recently or is it a few years ago?
Stu French: Yeah, it's written recently. Yeah, it's kind of a memoir. Like looking back on it. Yeah. Uncanny Valley. Massive, massive fan.
[Voiceover]: Awesome. Good one. And the last one I've got for you is finish this sentence. The future of retail is already here. Beautiful. You're seeing it in the US and bring it to Australia. I love it.
Stu French: True.
[Voiceover]: Stu, thanks for joining us on the checkout.
Stu French: You're welcome. Thanks, Nathan. Cheers.
[Voiceover]: To hear more from Stu, jump back into episode 54 where we discuss how we use third party logistics as the backbone to quickly set up Ethical around the world as a disruptive distribution channel for children's books. We also discuss why he thinks Amazon is not a threat, but is actually a partner to his book business. And he gives us a big, big, big secret. Writing kids books actually isn't that hard, apparently. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep adding to cart.
