Fake reviews waste time and money, and everyone knows it. We sat down with Eric Scheinkop, founder of the Desire Company, to unpack how expert-led, real-world product reviews can restore trust for shoppers and deliver clarity for retailers—while building a company that scales without losing its soul. Eric shares the origin story behind putting veterinarians, doctors, pro athletes, and even astronauts in front of products, and why a simple seal of authenticity gives customers the confidence they’ve been missing.
The conversation moves from product truth to organizational truth. Eric walks through his shift from do-it-all founder to leader who teaches, delegates, and protects quality without bottlenecking growth. We dig into the hard stuff: why your best seller shouldn’t manage sales, how a single bad leadership hire can set you back a year, and the moment he embraced a quarterly org review to spot overflowing buckets before they break. You’ll hear the “rubber vs glass ball” framework for prioritizing, and how thrice-weekly all-hands align a remote team without drowning people in meetings.
Culture sits at the center of it all. Eric and his co-founder intentionally hire for ethics and kindness first, then skills—because trust is the product. He’s candid about learning to welcome feedback, building psychological safety so even interns speak up, and giving leaders autonomy to act like CEOs of their lanes with an “ask forgiveness rather than permission” bias. If you care about scaling with integrity, designing a team that moves fast, and creating customer trust that compounds, this story is a playbook you can use today.
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