Gwyneth Paltrow on building a lifestyle media brand: ‘It has to mean something’

How much do you rely on data for decisions?
The intersection between numbers and creativity is the most fascinating part of what we do. I like to be constrained by the numbers. If I want to create something, but the margin is terrible, I won’t do it. But it’s all very nascent for us. We just hired a business intelligence analyst who is helping us mine through all the data on customer behavior, like how our customers differ when browsing for, say, fashion versus vitamins.

How has the Goop audience behavior changed?
Historically, we’ve had two very different cohorts: shoppers versus readers, from two very different socioeconomic backgrounds. What we’re seeing now is that readers who never shopped are starting to shop more, while shoppers who never read are starting to read more.

How hard is it to mix content and commerce?
With content, we’ve always been led by the questions that both we and our friends want answered. We make products that we want to help solve a particular problem for ourselves. We’re not trying to chuck shit at a wall to see what works. We’re creating things that are aligned with our values and bringing context to all of the product..

What’s next?
We have a lot to do. There’s a lot of audience that we have yet to reach. Thirty-five percent of our audience is international, but we don’t currently ship internationally.. We’re in big-time growth mode, and we’re trying to build an underlying structure and processes to support that. We’re just at the very tip of the iceberg.