005: In Conversation with Dan Pelosi and Ruggable on Designing for Joy

Most creator partnerships are evaluated by their outcome: impressions, engagement, and sales, but those metrics rarely tell the story of how the partnership happened in the first place. Today, Signals brings together Dan Pelosi and Lauren Sherman, CMO of Ruggable, who recently partnered on a collection of rugs and doormats inspired by Dan’s colorful, joy-filled world. What began with a gifted rug, a few affiliate links, and a well-timed DM eventually evolved into the brand’s first Ruggable & Friends partnership.

Note: This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Nothing is more appropriate for my Grossy girls than a washable rug. It’s exactly what I stand for: make a fucking mess, clean it up, make a mess again, repeat.

Emma Apple Chozick: Dan, can you tell me about how Ruggable first entered your world?

Dan Pelosi: It actually goes back about three years. My mother-in-law renovated her kitchen and put down a Ruggable rug. I shared it, and everyone immediately started asking where it was from. I wasn’t an affiliate girly at all. I had no way of tracking anything. I was just sharing things I genuinely liked.

Then, a little over a year ago, I got on ShopMy, and it was the first time I could actually see what I was doing from an affiliate perspective. I shared that rug again, and people still loved it.

At the same time, people were DMing me multiple times a day about Ruggable’s tomato doormat, so I bought it and started sharing it. Then it became Ruggable, Ruggable, Ruggable.

When I finally saw the numbers of what I was selling, I remember thinking, “Oh my god, I’m the new ABC Carpet & Home.” It sort of hit me that there was an appetite for Ruggable and me together.

Lauren Sherman: I should mention, first and foremost, that our Chief Commercial Officer, our CEO, and I had all been fans of Dan for a very long time.

I think it was Thanksgiving Eve when Dan had posted one of our Architectural Digest collaboration rugs. There was a lot of momentum around it, and people kept asking what it was. Black Friday was starting, so I DM’d him and basically said, “The girls need to know this is on sale.” From there, it turned into a bigger conversation, but honestly, when I DM’d him, I was just shooting my shot. I said, “If you ever want to do anything bigger, we’d love to.”

DP: As soon as you said, “We should do a collection,” I was like, “Oh, I live here now.” I had a million ideas immediately.

LS: When you were excited about it, we knew it was sort of a dream partnership for us.

EC: Once you’d both decided to do it, what happened next? What did the design process actually look like?

DP: I work with a lot of brands, and I love all of them, but the jump from Lauren and me laughing in the DMs about doing a collaboration to the first presentation they showed me was incredible. They already had a framework. They were like, “This segment is for the Grossy girls. These are the true design pieces inspired by your home.” It was rare, it was thoughtful, it was intentional.

LS: Half the team already followed Dan. Half the team was learning who he was. Creative reviews were fun because people would say things like, “Dan would never say that.” The people who knew him were teaching the rest of the team a new language.

DP: It made the entire process such a breeze.

EC: What’s interesting, too, is that Ruggable traditionally partners with brands like Architectural Digest, which feels like a more traditional home collaboration. Dan, you obviously have a beautiful home, but you’re primarily known for cooking. Is that fair to say?

DP: It is. I started as a cook, as a home chef. But I’ve always tried to weave more lifestyle content in. Last year, my kitchen was a Domino cover story. People are always asking, “What’s that painting?” “What’s that chair?” “What’s that fabric?” So, whether someone discovers me through food or not, my intention has always been much more than food.

EC: That’s why I think this partnership makes so much sense. Lauren, was this unexpected on the Ruggable side? Were you traditionally looking at people through more of a design lens?

LS: When I joined the brand last August, one of the first things I did was a consumer segmentation strategy. The reality was that our strategy was basically two things: performance marketing and collaborations. Some partnerships were incredibly successful, such as Architectural Digest, Liberty, Morris & Co., and those will be with us forever. But some partnerships simply didn’t make sense and didn’t serve the consumer.

We’ve cut our collaboration strategy by almost 60% over the last six months because we wanted to be much more thoughtful about who we partner with. We now have a tiered model.

We have RGX, which includes larger-format collaborations like Architectural Digest and Liberty. But our customer segmentation work showed there were buying occasions we weren’t serving.

So with Dan, we created an entirely new tier called Ruggable & Friends. It’s about democratizing the brand with smaller formats and products under $350, those dopamine-hit purchases that bring joy into your home.

When we thought about who could embody that – someone with a design point of view, someone who could reach a new audience, someone whose brand is rooted in joy – Dan was a natural choice.

EC: And by the way, design needs more fun.

DP: I agree. It’s all so fucking serious. The reason I post anything is that I’m laughing on the other side of the phone. I just want things to bring joy. When we decided to do this collaboration, I kept saying it needed to be fun, whimsical, and make people smile. That’s why people follow me.

EC: What felt different from the Ruggable side? Was it purely conversion numbers, or something else?

LS: I’m a brand person at heart. The first question is always: are we taking the consumer somewhere new? The rugs themselves are massively different from anything we have in the collection today. Even if Dan’s performance had been half of what it was, he brought a design aesthetic we didn’t have. That’s worth its weight in gold.

Then on the performance side, yes, we looked at revenue, clicks, volume, but we also looked at audience overlap. There was some crossover between Dan’s audience and ours, but we genuinely believe we’re reaching a different consumer.

I’ve done a lot of collaborations in my career. I’ve never done one where you can walk in already knowing there’s demand.

DP: I also want to give Lauren and her team credit. Never once during this entire process was it about selling rugs. I kept asking things like, “What does your customer want?” And everyone kept saying, “This is you, stop trying to design for our customer. If you like it, we like it.” That was so refreshing.

I have a colorful home. I take risks. I cover pantries in floral wallpaper. People always ask how to do that. What excites me about this collection is being able to take little pieces of that world and make them accessible.

I always say doormats are like the mug drawer of your house. They’re a place where you can be weird. You can be expressive. You can have fun.

A doormat is the first impression someone gets of you.