Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 134. Tim Brown, Co-Founder of AllBirds

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134. Tim Brown, Co-Founder of AllBirds · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: If you're not seeking feedback about your business idea or
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: just in life from people that you respect and in
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: some cases people that you don't, you're dumb. If you're
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: listening to it all, you're even dumber. You must have
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: the confidence to sort of ignore a lot of people
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: that in some cases no more than you, to kind
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: of to take different ideas and things on board, but
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: to not ultimately to still to follow your instinct. That's
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: really really important and that takes courage at times. And
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I think we sort of between Joey and I and
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: our partnership, we're able to kind of navigate through both
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: you know, and Orwards was born and started to sort
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: of work, and it was just a really really exciting time.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Hey Hurdlers, Emily Aboudy here bringing you Episode one four
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  Speaker 2: of Hurdle, a wellness focused podcast where I sit down
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: with inspiring individuals to talk about everything from their big
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: wins to how they've gotten through some of life's toughest moments.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: On the show, you can expect vulnerability, motivation, and candid
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: discussions with everyone from top athletes to aspiring entrepreneurs on
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: what it really takes to follow your passions.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: My mission is.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Simple to inspire you to be your best self, move
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: with intention, and have some fun along the way. For
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: today's episode, I am chatting with Tim Brown. He is
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  Speaker 2: the co founder of All Birds.
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  Speaker 4: Now.
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  Speaker 2: You may know All Birds originally for their cozy wool
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  Speaker 2: runner shoes, but more recently the company's expanded to running
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  Speaker 2: seekers and underwear, and just last week they launched their
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  Speaker 2: debut clothing collection, including T shirts.
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  Speaker 3: And crew necks and cardigans.
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  Speaker 2: In today's episode, Tim talks to me about it all,
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  Speaker 2: including how we went from playing professional soccer and going
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: to the World Cup to focusing in on what he
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: refers to as a curiosity project. I'm using air quotes
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: here that later became All Birds. From the get go,
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  Speaker 2: Brown was highly passionate about sustainability and creating a smarter
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  Speaker 2: sneaker without aggressive branding, and he talks me through the
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  Speaker 2: challenges that came hand in hand with that, how he
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: met co founder Joey Swillinger, and even shares the biggest.
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  Speaker 3: Lessons he has learned along the way.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Before I get into it today, I do want to
• 2:31
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  Speaker 3: Use the promo code Hurdle for fifteen percent off any
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  Speaker 3: product today.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: I do want to thank all of the hurdlers that
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: came to book club last week.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: It was a blast.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: I set the date for the next book Club Wednesday, December.
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: Ninth, at eight p m. Eastern, So save that date.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: I promise I will announce the book club pick asap.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: To be kept a loop on that and all other
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: things that are going on with the hurdle community. Make
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: sure you're subscribed to the Weekly Hurdle in our following
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  Speaker 2: Hurdle and me over on social media it's at Hurdle
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: podcast and at Emily a Body.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: And with that, let's get to hurdling. Today. I am
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  Speaker 3: sitting down with Tim Brown. He is the co founder
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  Speaker 3: of All Birds. Tim, how are you doing good?
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  Speaker 1: Thank you? Yeah, good, it's great to chat with you.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks for thanks for having us on.
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  Speaker 3: Of course, I am amped for this. It's actually quite funny.
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  Speaker 3: I was chatting with my dad last night and out
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  Speaker 3: of nowhere, without knowing that you and I were going
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  Speaker 3: to chat today, he says to me, you know, I've
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  Speaker 3: been thinking about getting a pair of All Birds.
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  Speaker 1: Well, he's you know, without knowing you're dead. He sounds
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  Speaker 1: like a good man.
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  Speaker 3: He is a good guy. He's it's funny now, especially
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  Speaker 3: because you guys aren't just you know that that sneaker
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  Speaker 3: that you started with. So before we get going, why
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  Speaker 3: don't you clue me in into the offerings that Albirds
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  Speaker 3: has at the moment?
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  Speaker 4: Sure?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, So All Birds is, you know, selling foot well,
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  Speaker 1: primarily were focused on sustainable material innovation and then also
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  Speaker 1: some apparel, So we've got some underwear and socks and
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  Speaker 1: some more stuff coming, but it's really about the materials.
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  Speaker 1: And we're about five years in and a team of
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  Speaker 1: of sort of nearly five hundred people now based here
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  Speaker 1: in San Francisco.
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  Speaker 3: When you say a team of nearly five hundred people,
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  Speaker 3: does that kind of blow your mind?
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  Speaker 4: Oh?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. I mean this, I'd like to sort of
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  Speaker 1: say this was a bad idea for a long time
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  Speaker 1: before it was a good one. And I pretty much
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  Speaker 1: have to pinch myself most days in terms of sort
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  Speaker 1: of how far this has come and from an idea
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  Speaker 1: that I started working on back in New Zealand sort
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  Speaker 1: of circuit two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine,
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  Speaker 1: and to have come on this journey over the last
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  Speaker 1: quart best part of a decade has been really special.
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  Speaker 1: So I feel really really, really really fortunate. But this
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  Speaker 1: is the this is the problem when you go and
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  Speaker 1: build something and I sort of sit here today and
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  Speaker 1: I know that there's so much further we can go,
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  Speaker 1: and so many other things we need to do. That's
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  Speaker 1: the That's the blessing and the blessing and the curse
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  Speaker 1: of trying to build your own thing. It's it's never
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  Speaker 1: quite where you want it to be.
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  Speaker 3: I have to like say the obvious before we even
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  Speaker 3: really dive into your backstory, because you mentioned New Zealand,
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  Speaker 3: so you've certainly come a far away, but socks natural
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  Speaker 3: progression underwear maybe not so expected.
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  Speaker 4: You just sort of, I guess, just creeping up the body.
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  Speaker 4: I don't know, like.
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  Speaker 1: I'd like, I'd like to sort of say that there
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  Speaker 1: is Yeah, there was obviously something counterintuitive about the idea
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  Speaker 1: that the materials that you make your shoes on would
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  Speaker 1: also be suitable for underwear. But I think it just
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  Speaker 1: speaks to, you know, the importance of having natural fibers
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  Speaker 1: and the potential of having natural fibers against your skin
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  Speaker 1: versus synthetics, and we sort of see the opportunity all
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  Speaker 1: over the place. And underwear is probably it's a particularly
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  Speaker 1: important contact point and sort of one we feel like
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  Speaker 1: we could do a great job. And we've just come
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  Speaker 1: out with underwear not that long ago, and so you're
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  Speaker 1: really really really proud of that product and also surprisingly
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  Speaker 1: hard thing to make, which has taken us a long time,
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  Speaker 1: but we've landed in a really.
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  Speaker 4: Good place, huh.
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  Speaker 3: And you also mentioned five hundred employees. I remember reading
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  Speaker 3: at the end of last year you guys had some
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  Speaker 3: big hopes for growing how many stores that you had.
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  Speaker 3: I'm sure there has been a big amount of challenge
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  Speaker 3: with that when it comes to what's going on in
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  Speaker 3: the world. So how many stores does All Words have
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  Speaker 3: at the moment a little bit.
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  Speaker 1: Over twenty I think it might be twenty one, including
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  Speaker 1: some of our stores in Europe, in Asia, Japan, China,
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  Speaker 1: and in New Zealand. There's one store in Auckland. So
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  Speaker 1: you know, retail has been really successful for us. It's
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  Speaker 1: been something we're really excited about. But it has slowed
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  Speaker 1: down over the with all the uncertainty over the last
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  Speaker 1: few months. But it's something it's a channel we really
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  Speaker 1: really believe and it's been such a source of fun
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  Speaker 1: and you know for us, and it's a place where
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  Speaker 1: we learn an enormous amount that's so great. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: if I have any sort of product questions or bring
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  Speaker 1: our ASSISTANTCE store manager and soho in New York, Jeff,
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  Speaker 1: because he's so knowledgeable about how our customers are interacting
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  Speaker 1: with the product. So there's a lot of these unintended
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  Speaker 1: benefits to retail that have made it a really sort
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  Speaker 1: of special part of our business, and we're certainly excited
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  Speaker 1: about the potential of it moving forward.
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  Speaker 3: I dig that. Well, of course you mentioned New Zealand
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  Speaker 3: that you've said you've been had a store over there.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, a lot has happened since you started it out.
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  Speaker 3: So why don't you bring me back to growing up
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  Speaker 3: in New Zealand. Talk to me about what that was
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  Speaker 3: like for you.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, New Zealand's a special place. That's where
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  Speaker 1: I grew up. And you know, some of the people
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  Speaker 1: listening might have been there. If they haven't, I you know,
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  Speaker 1: when this all settles down, I encouraged them to get
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  Speaker 1: down there, lived there through high school and after that
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  Speaker 1: kind of came to America for the first time as
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  Speaker 1: a I think a seventeen nearly eighteen year old, came
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  Speaker 1: over to America on a soccer scholarship to the University
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  Speaker 1: of Cincinnati when I was eighteen, so left there and
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  Speaker 1: came to America, but grew up in New Zealand, and
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  Speaker 1: it's a special place for me. My family's still there,
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  Speaker 1: my brother, a lot of friends, so it's a special
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  Speaker 1: part of the world for me.
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  Speaker 3: Did you know that you wanted to come to the
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  Speaker 3: States to play soccer? I?
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  Speaker 4: You know.
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  Speaker 1: I the soccer was starting to become an increasingly important
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  Speaker 1: part of my life, and I'd made an age group
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  Speaker 1: sort of New Zealand Under twenty team. But the real
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: big driver behind it was actually my auntie, who was
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  Speaker 1: from North Carolina, had been a tar heel and was
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  Speaker 1: really had opened my ideas to the potential of taking
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  Speaker 1: my education through the American collegiate system and actually.
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  Speaker 4: Bought me a book.
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  Speaker 1: This makes me feel so old when I say this,
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  Speaker 1: but like a book listing all the Division one soccer programs.
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  Speaker 1: It was about three inches thick and it had the
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: name of each coach. It was like an almanac, the
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: name of each coach, the email address, website. So this
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: is kind of like two ninety nine two thousand. I
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: remember loading up my dial in modem and emailing all
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: sorts of universities to try and connect the dots on
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: getting over there, and was able to make it happen
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: after a fair amount of work. But it was a
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: really special part of my life to be able to
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: do that.
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  Speaker 3: Did you have encouragement from your family to take that
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: sort of initiative or do you think that that was
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  Speaker 3: just like you felt like that was your only option.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I feel as though a lot of people
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: might not have taken that same level of responsibility on
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: what their potential future could be.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I think, you know, I'd had the benefit of
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: my father being being English and my mum being a
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Kiwi and both of them having traveled, so I think,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: and you know, in New Zealanders a sort of brought
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: up living in a corner of the world that's pretty
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: remote that you know that travel and seeing the world
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  Speaker 1: is sort of something that a lot of people will do,
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  Speaker 1: and maybe not necessarily for university.
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  Speaker 4: But I got really excited about.
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  Speaker 1: The idea of being able to take my sport further,
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  Speaker 1: which I loved, but also continuing my education, and at
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  Speaker 1: this stage I had started to sort of circle on
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  Speaker 1: the idea of design and studying sort of that as
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: a as a as a path forward, and the idea
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: of bringing those two things together with a trip overseas
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  Speaker 1: was sort of really exciting. And I remember my games
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: I've been playing in this sort of like the national
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: competition in New Zealand, and the games have been on TV.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: So I literally like edited together this VHS tape of
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: like My High Life and made copies of it and
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: then sent these out to a range of coaches and
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  Speaker 1: I ended up getting you know, a handful of a
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  Speaker 1: handful of and it was, you know, it was My
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: parents were always like, look, if you want to do it, great,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: If you don't want to do it, great, which has
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: always been sort of.
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  Speaker 4: Their approach, and I will support you whatever you want
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: to do. And I and I went for it, and
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  Speaker 4: it was one of the best decisions I've ever made.
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  Speaker 3: Do you remember your first impressions upon arriving here in
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: the States?
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  Speaker 4: Oh? Absolutely, well.
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  Speaker 1: I mean I'll speed a bit where I stayed with
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: a friend in LA and literally the first place they
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: took me was Palm Springs, and so I remember just
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: watching someone eat their dinner with a clip Entrey pulling
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: like slot machines and feeling like I was on a
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: different planet. But you know, I ended up having a
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: different scholarship offers from a range of different sort of places,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: and ended up going to the University of Cincinnati, which
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: had this incredible design program, which is what I was
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: helding on studying. And so I ended up in the
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: middle of the country in Cincinnati, and you know, I
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: kind of didn't really know where I was going or
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: what I was what I was doing, and you know,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: ended up just in this place that I spent four
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: really really happy years studying this at this fantastic school,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: and you know, in a part of the country that
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: obviously now living in San Francisco is very very different.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: So but it was great and I loved it from
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: the very first minute. I remember just being struck by
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: how confident people were, Like I just I know, again
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: that feels like overly sort of simplistic, but I remember
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: coming to this football team and I really just was
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: not quite sure I should be there, and yet I
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: saw there are a lot of people kind of walking
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: around with like a language of confidence that was pretty
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: foreign to me in terms of how I'd been brought
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: up and and yeah, so there was there was, you know,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: but overall I kind of I fit straighted and I
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: just I loved it from the first minute.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: How did you start to embrace confidence on your own
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: that seeing it being something that was so prevalent around you?
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, and this has been one of
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: the gifts of the many gifts that America has given me,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: is just you know, that courage to back yourself a
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: little bit and to to have the courage to kind
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: of go and sit in the bar and then raise
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: it a little bit and imagine something bigger than you
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: possibly could have thought possible. And I know that again
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: sounds a little bit funny, but you know, I think
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: in New Zealand that's sort.
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: Of not the way that you're you're brought.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Up to sort of always talk that if you have
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: a big idea, you kind of you come across as
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: arrogant or you know, And I think this pros and
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: constant both. And I think the answer lized Summer in
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: the Middle and you know, the power of humility, you know,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: I think I believe in completely too so, but the
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: idea that you could go and have a big dream
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: and go after it was sort of something that that
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: I sort of saw clearly from the very first day.
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: And you know, I think.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: There was a lack of sort of criticism. People just
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: tended to kind of be really excited about the positive
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: stuff and move on from the negative stuff a lot
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: more quickly than I was used to it. And you know,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I certainly have taken a lot of lessons from that.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: I dig it. Okay, so you're there, you're studying design.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: At what point do you say to yourself, well, actually,
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: maybe I'm going to take this sport thing a little
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: bit further right now.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Well, I just it was just it was the best.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: I was kind of doing both of these things and
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: loving it. But the design stuff, really, I mean I
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: had a challenge when I first got there because I mean,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: since that's a big, big school twenty five thirty thousand
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: students something like that. But the design school was not
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: the place where athletes went to study. And I really
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: had a battle to prove that I was serious about
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: studying there, in a fight even to kind of get in.
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: And so it was always full on and I remember
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: just they'd run.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: These studios from nine to twelve and then two to
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: five in the afternoon and practice was always at three
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: and I just felt like I was always sprinting somewhere.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: But it was great, and the design thing was just
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: an enormous unlock. And I can almost remember the week
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: where I just finally, this is just exact and I
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: don't know some people might have had that experience.
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: We're like, this is just what I meant to be doing.
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: And I loved it.
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  Speaker 1: And the football thing, you know, I loved a little.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: I didn't quite have the same feeling, but I loved it,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: and it was a competitive thing, and I remember one
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: at one point the coach come up to me and
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: sort of asking, if you know I was interested in
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: taking it further, and if you know, MLS was an option,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: and so you know, that opened up the idea that
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: I kind of take the sport further. So I went
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: after that as well and ended up not being drafted,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: but found myself after university in the Los Angeles Galaxy
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: changing room trying to trying to see if I could
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: make it at the next level.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Just found myself in the Galaxy changing room, like just
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: one day, woke up and I was like, how did
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: this happen?
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Well, it was you know, I didn't get drafted, So
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: that was that was sort of something that you know,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: I hoped might happen, and then started to open up
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: to the world of agents and coaches and how these
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: types of things happened, and literally sort of got an
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: opportunity and just went for it and landed landed on
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: a plane in la and tried to make it work.
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: And very very quickly got that it wasn't going to.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: So that was like the first sort of blow where
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: this thing that you were thinking about doing is very
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: and it, you know, is sort of ripped away from you.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: And I was sent down to one of their feeder
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: teams for an opportunity, the Richmond Kickers. So I very
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: quickly found myself in Richmond, Virginia playing for the Richmond
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Kickers in the second Division and did that for a
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: little while, unsure about how much longer I could kind
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: of really stick with this before I got on with real.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: Life, you know, But you stuck with it for a
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: little bit longer, because the Kickers wasn't your last stint,
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: was it.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: No, And I said, look, I'm going to have a
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: fully fridged professional contract. I'll do this. I did it
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: for a season and it was great.
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: Fun.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: But I was like, look, I need I need a
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: proper professional contract here. I need to prove myself I
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: can do that. I think I said it, you know,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: time frame on it. I forget it was a year.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: I've got to go out and find myself playing at
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: a level that is you know. If I can do that,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: great and I'll kick. If I can't, I'll move on
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: to something else. And I ended up going to England,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: where my father was from. I was actually born there
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: as a little kid before we moved out to New Zealand.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: So I had a passport and went on trial at
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: a bunch of English clubs and again faced more rejection,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: and one in particular at Swansea, which is a club
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: in Wales that plays in the English competition. And I
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: got rejected from there on a January afternoon in the
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: UK and forever anyone who's spent time there, it gets
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: dark at like two thirty in the afternoon. It rains
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: every day, and it was miserable and I was in
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: a phone box having just been released, seemingly kind of
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: out of options, and I remember that being a low
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: point in my pursuit of a professional sporting career.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: How did you pick yourself up after that.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Well, so I rang my dad and so of course
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: the hemispheres and New Zealand are flipped right, and I'm
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: literally in this like red phone books and it's raining
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: and freezing cold, and I'm staying in some I don't
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: know where, I'm staying somewhere not very nice, run out
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: of money. And I rang my dad and of course
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: it was like Christmas time in New Zealand and everyone's
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: at the beach and it's sunny and warm. And he
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: picked up and it was a family barbecue and he
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: answered the phone and he said, what's going on? And
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: I said, look, this is really hard. I just don't
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: think I can do this anymore. I'm really thinking about,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: you know, packing it in. And he said, look, you know,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: it's beautiful warm here. We miss year. We really wish
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: you were here. I've kind of got to get back
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: to the barbecue and the family. And if you want
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: to quit, I'm not going to tell you you can
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: do that. Quite frankly, I'm surprised that you've even gone
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: this far, and I will support you whatever way you
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: want to go, but don't don't call me for permission
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: to quit.
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: I'm not going to give it to you.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: And interesting, what an interesting thing though, just like how
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: often are we kind of as humans like just looking
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: for someone else to tell us that something is okay?
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, And it's completely true, And I guess the lessons.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: And I'm probably given my old man a little bit
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: more credit than he deserves here because maybe just literally
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: didn't want the steak to burn. But the way I
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: remember it as you know, hey, you know you should
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: be doing this for yourself, and if if that's not enough,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: then stop doing it, and whatever way you want to
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: go is cool, like, and but I'm not the one
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: that's going to tell you to keep doing it, and
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: I'm not equally not going to be the one that
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: tells you to stop doing it.
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: So you make the call and and equally with.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: The sort of the warm acknowledgment that it's really hard
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: and that I'd gone further than you know I should have,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: and that I should be proud of it, whatever whatever way,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: and then very quickly getting back to the barbecue and
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: leaving him in the in the freezing cold phone box
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: wishing over to New Zealand. But it was it was
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: a spur, and I, you know, and so I decided
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: to quit. I go, I don't want to do this
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: thing you want. It's too hard. And I got back
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: on a plane in New Zealand, and of course along
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: the way got an offer to go play in the
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Australian A League when someone got injured and a butterfly
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: flipped its wings in the world turn on its axis,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: and I got one last opportunity in Australia and ended
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: up playing in this incredible emerging league in Australia called
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: the A League for a team in Australia and then
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: for a that actually happened to be founded in my hometown,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: if you can believe that, and ended up playing sort
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: of seven or eight years. They're having this incredible experience
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: and being part of a New Zealand team that went
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: to the World Cup in twenty ten. But for you know,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: a few different things here or there, it wouldn't have
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: worked out. But I certainly look back on that moment
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: and it was permission to quit or permission to keep going.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Was actually sort of a real sort of special moment
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: for me.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: When you reflect on your time of playing soccer, especially
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: toward the later parts of your career at this time
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: are you having an itch to go back to any
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: of the design work that you loved so much in college.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, I never, I never let it go. I was
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: I was hauling my laptop around with me, reading every
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: book I could get my hands on, and just trying
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: to I just I was addicted to the strategy and
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: theory of design and innovation, and you know a bunch
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: of I've a few of them actually that I've subsequently
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: got to meet, like Tim Brown, ironically enough, the namesake
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: who found it IDEO. I remember reading his books and
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: starting to sort of open up to this idea that
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: design was about you know, coloring stuff and then creating things,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: but it was also about strategy and started, I think
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: even from that point imagining kind of going back to school.
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: And puring my creative.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Education with with one in business and and so started
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: to you know, I just for me, it was a
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: release from the sport, because if I thought too much
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: about the sport, it wasn't healthy for me. So it
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: became a kind of a hobby along the way. But
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: I never let it up, not for a second.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: Where does your burning passion to get into the sneaker game,
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: How does that all start to come to fruition.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, I mean again, I just you know, I think
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: I'm so I find myself playing in the A League
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: and playing now at a good level really and starting
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: to have the dream, which I think kind of came
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: from about two thousand and six two thousand and seven,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: that hate New Zealand could go to the World Cup
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: in twenty ten, and there was this big opportunity and
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: that I would you know, I'd started to play for
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: the senior team at that stage, so I was really
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: excited and completely committed to sort of trying to be
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: a part of that. And New Zealand had been to
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: the World Cup in nineteen eighty two but hadn't been
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: for effectively twenty eight years.
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: So there was this big opportunity and we were drawn
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: to play.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: The Asian fifth place qualifier, so there was this real
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: opportunity and so that was sort of happening, and so
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: the sport was really intense, and I was living in Wellington,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: in my hometown, playing for a club there as well,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: and again started to continue to explore my creativity and
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: my design and I.
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: Started to look at footwear.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: I was sponsored by one of the big Sports week
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: companies at the time that shall not be named getting
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: lots of free gear, which actually ended up being one
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: of the cool things about playing sports professionally. Maybe you
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: might even say one of the best things. And I
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: just get lots of free gear, and it was all synthetic.
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: The design.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: Tended to be bright, bold, always about about logos, and
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: it changed all the time, so if you even if
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: you fell in love with one of their products, and
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: many of them were great, you often couldn't get them again.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: It was almost the sort of like intentional redundancy of
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: their approach. And it was very hard to find simple
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: as someone who you know from the earliest ages had
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: picked my logos off clothing and it really had a
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: kind of a minimalist design philosophy.
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: It was very very hard, at least in New Zealand
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: to find.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: You know, shoes that were simple, and so it was
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: it was an itch really that I decided to go
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: scratch and I found a footwear factory online and one
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: of my off seasons just went to visit it and
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: I again found myself in a footwath factory for the
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: first time, asking a lot of really simple questions.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Taking a break from today's episode to give some love
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• 26:41
  Speaker 3: That's so interesting, though, because I think for so many
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: just the idea of trying to figure out what footwear
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: factory to visit. Nevertheless, actually getting in the car and
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: going there or making contact with someone like you really
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: had this passion ignite within you to make this big
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: move and to go do it.
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Well, and then maybe that's given me way too much
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: credit because just to be clear, I wanted to kind
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: of have a holiday as well and get away from
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: New Zealand at the time, and there was no great,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: big plan I just I had. It was a curiosity
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: project where I was. I had a problem that was
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: my own. In hindsight, I probably should have written a
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: business plan and looked at a bunch of things that
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: I didn't. I just kind of dove into it, and
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: but gosh, I found myself and I was fascinated by
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: this world, and it was so antiquated, Like the way
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: that shoes were made was so manual, it was so
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: focused on the cheapest. Everything hadn't really changed as far
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: as I could tell, for a long, long, long, long time,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: and was full of all these inconsistencies, and as far
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: as I could tell, I you know, I subsequently found
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: what I've I've come to understands my innovation alarm going off,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: where I'd ask like really simple questions like what is
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: a size ten? And and why you know, why aren't well,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: why do you ways just use synthetic materials? And why
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: is this that that way? And I could never get
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: a good answer for any of these things. So subsequently
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: realized that it was usually because there wasn't one and
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: there was a whole lot of opportunities to do things differently.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: And I think, you know, ten years on from that
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: first visit, I feel that even more strongly as it
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: relates to making shoes, So kind of trusting your instincts
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: in those early stages is pretty powerful. But it ended
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: up being kind of a catalyst to go and make
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: some shoes, which I did, and sell them to my
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: teammates and really sort of imagine the idea of building
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: a brand.
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: In a business.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: Well, first of all, I think that concept of asking
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: questions that are quite simple, that idea can be very
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: intimidating sometimes because it's as though you feel as though
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: you should know the answer, and because you feel as
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: though you should know the answer, a lot of the
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: times we don't like get the courage to just ask
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: the simple question.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: You know, I think that's completely right. And you know,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: when I look back and reflect back on that, it
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: was the experts that often gave me the worst answers,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: that couldn't explain the simplest terms, and we often find
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: we get caught behind jargon and established ways of working,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: and that child like ability to just why why why
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: often oftentimes can unlock stuff. And you know, I sort
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: of think oftentimes too, you're looking for pushback or frustration
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: as well. Like I feel like that never really phased me,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: but in hindsight, it was quite valuable. And I think
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: now you know, if ever you're having an idea that
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: everyone is giving you high fives on and is telling
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: you it was awesome, it's probably a good sign that
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: it's not. You actually want people to disagree with you
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: and challenge you and assume that you don't know something,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: because that usually means you might be onto it, onto
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: something that's unique or an insight that's been overlooked. And
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: you know, what I imagine doing was making a shoe
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: out of wall, out of natural materials. I saw an
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: opportunity to bring this design philosophy and combine it with
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: the idea of materials that cost a little bit more,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: that hadn't been that had been overlooked by the footwear
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: industry that traditionally sort of defaulted to doing everything as
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: cheaply as possible.
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: And it kind of brought me to wall and.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Opened up this whole sort of legacy industry in New
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Zealand that is a very very big part of our
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: history there, but had been underutilized and not really sort
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: of considered in the context of footwear. So I set
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: out to make a wool shoe. Who would have guessed that?
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: And sort of spent the best part of three three
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: or three maybe even three years working out how to
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: do that.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: What did your teammates say at first when you showed
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: up and said, Hey, so I've been working on this thing.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Oh brutal, absolutely, you know what are you doing? I mean,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: you've got to realize these guys are getting free stuff
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: and now I'm going to charge you for this thing
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: that I'm creating. And so it was pretty brutal, but
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: they in many ways were a pretty were pretty strong
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: testing ground, right Like, if I could convince these guys
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: that got loads of free gear from all these sportswear
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: companies to shell out some money for the thing I
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: was creating, I was probably going to be on to
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: a winner. And so again that leaning into the criticism,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: it's been a pretty consistent thing, and a whole series
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: of points through this, through this journey have been helpful
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: and and so you know, and set out to do
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: that and sold a few peers and but ultimately, you know,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: the creation of the wall material for the upper was
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: the big, the big thing. It was a real challenge
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: and that that involved a research grant that I had
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: to apply for. So it was a lot of different
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: pieces that kind of came together and you know, literally,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: you know, through three years, through going to the World Cup,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: at least you know, multiple factories at this point, hundreds
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: of prototypes, if not more like just went on and
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: on trying to get the single vision of the single
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: shoe that I'd imagine and and and we'd imagine with
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: other people that were helping me. Ultimately went to the
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: World Cup in twenty ten with New Zealand, which was amazing,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: and then decided to retire and go to business school
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: in London. And so I actually, you know, twenty twelve
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: now in London, showed up at business school with a
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: few simple shoes made from wool, an idea that maybe
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: this could be a business.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: Was it hard to step away from soccer as your
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: main career.
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: No, not at all. You know.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: It was like I just didn't want to be the
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: last guy at the party, and to be part of
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: that New Zealand team that had gone to the World
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Cup was like beyond my wildest dreams and I was
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: incredibly fortunate to have that experience, and I knew that
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: it was it just on some level had stopped being
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: the most important thing to me and it was time
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: to move on. If I was going to be respectful
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: of the effort that had got me there, it was
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: the right time to leave. And I copped a bit
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: of flak for it, to be fair, and a lot
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: of people felt like I was maybe some people were
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: glad to see the back of me. Other people felt
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: like maybe I was leaving a little bit too early,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: and I left with a years I think on my
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: contract sort of tore that up and tore up the
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: sponsorship from the Sportsweek company and found myself in London
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: as a student again. But it was incredibly exciting and
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: it was just the right time. I think I was
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: thirty two, just turned thirty two. It was the right
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: time to go and try something else. And I'm really
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: proud that I decided to go backwards a little bit
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: so I could go forwards again.
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: Negative feedback on that decision for you.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, of course, But again, any good decision
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: probably has a little bit about it. I think if
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: you're trying to please everyone, usually that means you've gone wrong.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: But I mean from the people that mattered, it was like, okay, great,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: and I took some time off, I traveled, you know,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: and then showed up at the Lund School of Economics
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: to study all the subjects I'd.
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: Avoided through my undergraduate school.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: And so they actually sent me this letter where they
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: said it was kind of I would love you to
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: come in a couple of weeks early and work with
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: the kind of the undergraduate students because like, you haven't
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: studied any of this stuff before, and you know, the
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: subtext was how have you been accepted into the school?
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: But I did, and it was just you know, I
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: started at the back of the class and I went
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: to this university. So my father and my grandfather had
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: worked on Fleet Street for those people that know London
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: and it's and the LSE was sort of the school
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: for them and just down the road from where they work.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Neither of them had gone to university, so it was
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: it was a cool thing to kind of come full
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: circle in terms of where my family had sort of
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: spent some time and literally living in a dorm, went
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: back to being a student again and and it was amazing.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: And I, as part of the program, got the opportunity
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: to come to an entrepreneurship to a business school in America.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Came to Callogg for a quarter, which is the NBA
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: program at Northwestern University in Edminston and Illinois. So spent
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: a quarter there and took an entrepreneurship class with a
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: prophisical car to cast who's this amazing character used to
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: be the CEO of dot com, who runs this great
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: class on basically starting a business, and found myself in
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: his class with the doors locked, as he likes to do,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: pitching an idea to a room full of fifty students
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: with the hope that my idea would be picked to
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: form a group around for this entrepreneurship class, and ended
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: up getting wool shoes picked. And I sometimes think like,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: had that not been successful, I wouldn't be chatting with you.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: It was sort of sort of ten weeks with Carter
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: in that class were really foundational for taking this from
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: a product to sort of a business idea, and that's
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: what I said set out to do.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: I would think that if I was one of the
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: students whose concept wasn't homed in on for that ten
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: week period, like I might be a little bit better
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: that you get all of this free support.
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: It was amazing.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: I found myself with like a couple of like Baye
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: consultants who were so extraordinarily smart, asking all these questions
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: about the business and margins and supply chain that I
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: hadn't really given a thought about. I had a couple
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: of prototypes that still admittedly looked pretty awful. They were
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: almost like medical shoes, like that you might weel like
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: if you have a problem, or like one of your
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: legs is longer than the other, or sort of like
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: so they didn't look very good, but we stuck with
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: it and we had this incredible period and got to
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: the end of the class and Carter, who i'd started
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: to sort of get to know really admire as a teacher,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: and pulled me into his office one day and he goes, term,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: you know, if everyone in this class, you seem more
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: committed to the idea than most. But I just want
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: to let you know that I think this is a
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: horrible idea. I'm really worried that I'm really worried that,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: you know, you won't know when to quit, and so
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: I think you should sort of throw it out on
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: Kickstarter or something so it can fail and then you
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: can get on with your life, because otherwise I'm worried
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: you won't and you'll get stuck. And so it was
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: like this like brutal kind of conversation and ultimately one
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: of those moments when you know you can interpret that
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: two ways. This guy's basically I don't know if I'm
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: allowed to say this, but like this guy's a deck
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: or you know, or he cares and I've found almost
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: time and time again, people that go out of their
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: way to be that honest with you usually care and
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: they see something in you. And he was right, and
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: I went home for Christmas. I took him at his word.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: I said, you know what, I'm going to give this
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: a go, went home for Christmas in New Zealand, spent
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: seven hundred dollars on a cameraman with the help of
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: my brother and on a family friend's farm in Partanui,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: which is just north of Wellington, shot a Kickstarter video
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: for a wool shoe called the wool Runner that ended
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: up sort of taking this whole thing out to the
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: world and it was a pretty cool moment that couldn't
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: have happened without my brother's prodding and support.
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but when you start a Kickstarter you have to
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: have like a physical product that you're promising people who
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: are willing to contribute money to you. So at the time,
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: did you even have any physical samples or shoes that
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: you knew like, Okay, we can mass produce this in
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: some way.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: I think we had six pairs or something, maybe eight,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: and they were in different colors made of the wall,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: and I think I had enough wall for a thousand
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: peers from this research grant and another factory that I'd
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: found in Portugal, and so I threw this thing up
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: in March of twenty fourteen on Kickstarter and not expecting
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: kind of anyone but my mum to buy a peer,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: quite honestly, and it took and it.
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: Took it.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: It sort of took off, and we saw after four
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: days had to shut it down, sold one thousand peers
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: did I think one hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: You can still watch the video.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it's still up there some embarrassing corner of
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: the Internet of me sort of chasing cheap around on
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: this farm. And it was the beginning of kind of
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: the next chapter. And I think it's sort of Carter
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: was exactly right. It was the moment where you, you know,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: you forced this thing to be something real, forced, you know,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: get your idea to a place where you'll see if
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: people will actually take their wallet out and buy it.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: And so that's what happened, and you ended up having
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: a waitlist of multiple thousands of people, and it was
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the worst year ever trying to deliver
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: on this, but it was it was really the start
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: of this thing becoming, you know, bigger than just a
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: curiosity project.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: So where does your co founder, Joey come into the max.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: So I'm a year into this, I got a little
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: bit of a I was working in a kind of
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: a business incubator with a little government grant, another another
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: one in the UK, with a couple of young guys
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: that were helping me, who were worked really really hard
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: to sort of just deliver on this Kickstarter campaign. I
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: got to the end of that year and it was
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: it was I was pretty miserable, to be honest with you.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: It was it was making anything as hard. Making shoes
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: is particularly difficult, making shoes with materials that have ever
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: really been used in football when you don't know how
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: to do any of that is sort of extraordinarily complicated.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: And I was using some of the Kickstarter funding in
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: my own savings to kind of like make it work,
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: and so no investment at that point, and it was
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: just it was kind of feeling like it was impossible.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: And I got to the end of that year and
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: actually got an investment offer, randomly enough from a US
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: based investor, and Joey and I had been friends before
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: that he'd actually been an early supporter of the Kickstarter campaign.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: His wife and my wife had been roommates at college,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: and he was based in San Francisco, and I would
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: say I knew him well, but we knew each other.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: And I ended up getting this investment offer, and I
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: kind of knew it wasn't very good, and so I
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: was ringing around trying to find some people to give
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: me some perspective and guidance and advice on how I
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: should approach this, and knowing Joey like I know him now,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: you know, I asked for the He could have blown
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: me off. He could have given me the perfunctory five
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: or ten minutes, and he jumped on the phone straight
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: away for an hour and given me a full analysis
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: of all the papers and documents.
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: And a perspective on what I should do, which was
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: walk away from this deal.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: And then I just thought I was very grateful for that,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: and so that's what I did. I kind of, you know,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: I decided that was sort of the end of the
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: road for the idea. It was maybe time to quit.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: It was another sort of Swansea phone box moment.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: A Swansea phone box moment. But I mean, he gives
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: you this advice and then are you like, Okay, well,
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: now you're going to come in and do this thing with me.
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: Well there wasn't even that.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: I ended up taking my first job, my first ever job,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: and I literally walked away from it, and I had
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: shoes boxes like overflowing in our tiny apartment, and I
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: just had lost my confidence with it, quite honestly, And
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: I still distinctly remember this one memory of like or
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: a couple of memories of again being in London, you know,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: in my early thirties, where everyone else, my wife's friends
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: and all our friends felt like they were in this
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: like pinnacle moment of their career where they were starting
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: to earn money and just flying and work out what
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: they were going to be, and I was going the
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: opposite direction, sinking like a stone. And I remember like
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: going out for dinner and I would just dread the
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: moment when people would ask me what I was doing,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: and I would what.
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: Are you up to?
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: And I'd just squeak out like bullshoes, And then when
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: we'd leave the dinner, they'd sort of pat me on
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: the head and I could feel like my confidence was
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: just eroded by this idea and I couldn't work out
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: how to do it, and I felt like I sort
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: of made a mess of this thing, and I ended
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: up graduating from LC and then I just decided, look,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go get another job. And I went
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: and worked for like an innovation agency, and literally the
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: day I started that, Joey rang me back and said, hey,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: we should we should totally do this. And I've been
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: thinking about it this, you know, there's a big opportunity
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: here and what do you think? And so I literally
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: flew on a plane to San Francisco for a couple
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: of days to spend the weekend with joe to imagine
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: if we should work together to take this idea to
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: the next level.
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: Wow, talk to me about where your head was at
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: on that plane ride.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: Free, you know. And again I just think it's like
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: I hadn't given up on this idea, but I'd taken
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: another job, and so I just the idea that all
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, I was just stepped away from this
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: thing that you get so close to and so intensely
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: associated with to understand that no one really cares and
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: any sort of pain that you might feel as in
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: your own head, and if it works great, and people will,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: you know, support you, and if it doesn't, that's great too,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: And so it gives you a little bit of perspective
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: and and and so I felt I felt really sort
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: of free, and I and I and and clear that
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: I really always believe that there was something in the idea,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: but but not too you know, in that sort of
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: nice state of mind where you you really committed to
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: make something work, but you realize if it doesn't, it's
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: not the end of the world, which is like a
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: good a good place to be for sort of performing,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: whether that be in sport or sort of life in
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: a word sort of way. So that was the mindset,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: and I found in Joey the partner that you know,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: this project had been missing.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: I think also like in terms of the mindset thing
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: it's too old. It's like one you're concerned about others,
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: impression of whatever your path may be or whoever it
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: is that you are. And then also whether it's in
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: sport or just in our profession, I mean, like we
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: identify with these terms or these things that we're doing.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: Like I enjoy running, I identify as a runner, I identify
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: as a journalist, I identify as a daughter and so
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: if something were to happen that would take one of
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: these roles away, whether that's an injury or a necessary,
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: unexpected like job change. It's like when you have to
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: like make a pivot and you lose a part of
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: your identity. That can be really confusing and hard and
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: very uncertain.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I've had really good training. I think
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: a little bit in terms of my sport, I just
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: eventually get to the point where it's like Tim the
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: soccer player didn't play well in that game, or Tim
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: the soccer player lost that game, but Tim the person
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: is still great, and.
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: Those two things are different.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: And so it was really helpful I think for sort
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: of some of the preshes of entrepreneurship and sort of
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: having a bit of perspective on, you know, what's really important.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: And I would say that, you know, I had that
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: perfectly right, but I certainly sort of had some tools
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: to sort of deal with some of that stuff. And
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: I think it can become all consuming when you're trying
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: to build something or when you're pushing yourself to kind
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: of the limits to try and get something really difficult
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: across the line. So i'd sort of i'd sort of
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: was a little bit more comfortable than maybe most with
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: sort of how difficult that might be. And and so,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: you know, with Joe was off an opportunity to go
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: do it with, you know, with someone new, and really
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: importantly found the purpose and all of this too, because
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: I think some of the other questions I was starting
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: to ask myself were, you know, why am I making
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: what am I putting myself through this.
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: Like a shoes.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong, like I liked shoes, but I
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: wouldn't say that like I dreamed of making shoes one day,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: or you know, as much as it would be great
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: for the story, I didn't grow up on a sheep
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: farm as much as I was passionate about wool and
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: the properties of the material. So I was kind of
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: asking what is this all about? And I think in Joey,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: I found not only a business partner, but also the
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: source of the purpose, which you know, for me at least,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: really really important part of taking on really important challenges
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: sort of understanding the larger why around what you're doing.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: So it wasn't just about making a sneaker that utilized
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: wool as a material. It was bigger than that. It
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: was about making a sneaker that really was better for
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: the environment than the other options out there. I think
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: I read a statistic ones it's like there are like
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: twenty billion pairs of shoes made every year.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: This means exactly right, Like I was making a shir
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: at of wool, solving a kind of this curiosity problem.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't enough in all the ways that like
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: playing sport professionally, as much of that had been a
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: dream for me growing up, it wasn't enough for me.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: It had to be about playing for my country as well,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: and doing this thing that was sort of larger than
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: just the idea of winning or losing, you know, a
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: couple of games. And similarly with the business, it was like,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: you know, unlocking the idea through Joe's experience that the
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: world was at this tipping point in terms of needing
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: to find more thoughtful ways to make products that had
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: you know, net zero impact on the environment and needed
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: to do so quickly. It was an enormous opportunity. And
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: that the fashion industry was ten percent of global emissions
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: and footwear industry made, to your point, lots of shoes
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: that they didn't really consider the impact of the environment
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: and the process of doing so was it just an
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: enormous opportunity and we sort of we spent this weekend together.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: His family were away at the time, so it was
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: this weird, sort of like opportunity. I just went for it,
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: and we sat down and kind of imagined the business
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: that that we'd tell our grandkids about.
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: If we could pull it off.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: And I came back from San Francisco and said to
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: my girlfriend now wife, who was just in love with London,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: who's actually from New York or ugly enough, and hey,
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: what do you think about San Francisco? I really think
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: that we should go do this, And to her normal
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: us credit, she said yes. And we found ourselves very
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: very quickly making plans to sort of shift around the
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: world to take a crack.
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: At this first question, where does the name Alberts come from?
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: So when people first came to New Zealand, there was
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: nothing but birds, So it was a nod to the
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: provenance of the idea. And also this you know, this
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: concept when the birds are okay, their environment is okay,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: they're like a bell with it for the health and
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: wellbeing of the world, really, and so it was a
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: it was this cool thing and Joe and I largely
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: worked where Joey's expertise went out and raised the seed
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: round of a couple million dollars and came to San Francisco,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: started working out of his mother in law's house, and
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: came up with the name All Birds and prepared to
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: launch the business I think with four four other employees
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: on the first of March twenty sixteen, I think, so,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: I think we raised the money. In August, we moved.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: I actually got married around the same time as well
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: as like all these things going on, and found ourselves
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: literally just north of San Francisco, working in his mother
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: in law's house. But just a quick one on the name.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: So we fell in love with this name and it
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: was like, great, this is the name All Birds really encapsulates.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: And we sort of had this idea we weren't really
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: going to use birds in the name. It was not
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: about literally birds. It was a concept and we loved
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: it and then sort of signed off on the name.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: And I remember finding out joe rang me someone had
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: found out that all birds meet kilos of cocaine in
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: street parlance, and like it was like, oh, this is
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: this big disaster. We've named this thing after like drug terminology,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: and so we did go. We decided, you know, it
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: didn't matter, and no one knew that. And if we
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: didn't know that, who cares. And so we went for it,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: and All Birds became the name, and we didn't look back.
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: And it was a really exciting time.
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: Thank god you didn't look back. I realized as I'm
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: listening to you talk to me about this. Funny little
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: side note is that I didn't ask you when that
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: year that was the worst year of your life, Like
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: what happened with all of those orders when you had
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: some of the materials but you weren't necessarily in the
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: position to fill these orders.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, it was just it was just it was just brutal,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: and it was the product was kind of made a
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: little bit wrong, and we got some of the sizing off,
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: and then you know, we were shipping shipping these shoes.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: There's about a thousand them to all these different countries
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: with you know, and I'd get an email from some
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: guy and like, losing money on this, by the way,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: And get an email from a guy in Toronto who said,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: love the shoes. But you know, I would have read
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: and you've sent me blue and and like and I
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: was just like, I really don't know what to do.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: I can't really sort of change that, and and so
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: just realized, you know, I was doing customer service by myself.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: So I'd wake up each morning just knowing what walking
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: down the stairs and knowing I was walking into an
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: inbox full of like people that you know, for whatever reason,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: had had some sort of issue with what was going on,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: and it was just it was just it was just
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: brutal and hard. And I think, you know, it's always
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: the case. Given give me a lot of empathy for
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: some of the harder parts of operating in business, particularly
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: in shoes, but I just it was just very difficult.
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: When would you say that post launch, you really felt
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: like you guys were onto something truly successful, and Albert's
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: was gaining some momentum.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: Well the first week, Time magazine called the shoes the
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: most comfortable in the world.
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: So that was a good one. That was a good
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: that was a good moment, you know.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: But the truth we went on to I think we
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: wrote a business plan, and I think we did in
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: the first month or two what we said we do
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: in the first year, and this thing just kind of
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: took off and exploded in ways that we could never
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: have imagined. But you know, I really don't think it
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: was ever a sense in you know, of of too
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: many high fives. I think it's always been a little
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: bit of a sporting mentality. Okay, on to the next one,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: almost maybe to the to our detriment at times where
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: we just both Joe and I have been so focused
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: on the importance of this purpose and the opportunity that
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: we had that there hasn't been too much of that.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: And you know, I think this constant sort of reflection
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: on where we could get better, it has been pretty
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: foundational for us, you know, from the beginning.
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: But I do remember a.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: Moment where my mum called me and I don't know
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: if you're familiar, but New Zealand's got this really lovely,
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: pretty impressive leader at the moment called just Cinder Adn
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: who was thirty seven, even younger than me, elected as
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: Prime minister, and she visited and met with an Australian
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: Prime minister for the first time, which is a big deal,
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: kind of trans tasma meeting, and her gift to him
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: had been a pair of all birds.
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: And Mum rang up and she goes, oh, you've made it.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: And the joke was that the Australian Prime Minister already
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: had a pear, and I was like, wow, this thing
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: is so it just kind of a bunch of a
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: bunch of little cool things like that that are data
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: points that you're on the on the right track, and
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: then you start to see them on the street and.
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: We were away.
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: Do you have a point in growing this business where
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: you finally start to realize that maybe you're getting to
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: breathe a little bit easier. I mean, you went through
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: such a really stressful few years that from you know,
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: the kickstarter to the launch, I can't imagine I would
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: imagine now, even though the business is obviously still growing
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: and you're still iterating and still making new things, that
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: you got to a point where you were able to
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: finally prioritize a little bit more balanced and overall wellness
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: for yourself.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: You know, it's really interesting you say that, like i'd maybe,
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: ironically enough, when I was playing sport running around probably
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: pushed myself to such a degree and were so focused
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: on what I wanted to achieve that I sort of
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: stopped enjoying it a little bit. And my mom said
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: something to me when I retired and just before I
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: left to London, it like me, like I still remember,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: she goes, look, turn, we're so proud of like what
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: happened with your sports, so so proud, couldn't be more proud,
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: but we're looking forward to having you back a little bit.
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: And that one hit me like a brick.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: And I made this sort of promise to myself that
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: whatever i'd i'd kind of go on to do that.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: I was never I was never even get that close
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: to something. I was going to find a way to
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: just sort of enjoy it a little bit more and
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: and take some of the some of the pressure off myself.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: And I think, so I've just I've never I don't
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: want to say it's been easy, but I've never I've
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: never let myself get to that degree. It just it's
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: never It's been important, but never that important.
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: And you know, Dad now family.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: It was always anything that kind of was going to
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: impact my relationships or my friendships or my family, you know,
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: then that was a line I just would not cross.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: And we were fortunate Joe and I's partnership we shared
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: that like he had twins at the time, and ibviously
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: we'd met through our wives, so we've made this promise
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: to each other that whatever happened and our partnership was
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: never going to impact their relationship, and so some of
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: that stuff was really foundational and pretty important to the
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: sort of the way that we approached it. So I
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: guess one of the things the great things about being
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: an entrepreneurs that you get to one of the hard
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: things is you get to you have to do everything yourself.
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: One of the good things is you get to kind
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: of write the rules, and very very early on, we
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: imagine the sort of a culture and values and a
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: way of working that was going to hopefully sort of
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: make this a place where your health and well being
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: was not compromised.
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: What would you say is some of the best advice
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: that you have received in building this brand since twenty sixteen.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: People often focus a lot on what they're going to be,
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: and oftentimes it's a lot easy to find out what
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: you're not going to be. And I think to build
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: a business, it's so much about focus, and there's so
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: many shiny objects and imptations and grass is always greener
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: that you have to get extraordinarily disciplined about saying no
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: to a lot of stuff so you can focus on
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: the one or two things that are going to.
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: Help you win.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: And in our case, we launched with one shoe and
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: we were going to We're going to live or die
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: by the quality of that product that we made. We
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: ended up selling a million pairs of that one shoe
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: and in the first sort of you know, a couple
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: of years, a year or so, eighteen months and so.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: But with the number of footwear experts and I remember
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: one in particular who came in just before launched and
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: so of said, hey, this is you can't I know
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: a lot about shoes, and you can't sell shoes this
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: way online with one style. It's not going to work.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: And we stuck with our guns and we decided to
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: focus and say no to a lot of things. And
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: I think that focus was really foundational for us. And
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: which is the second point with feedback, and.
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: I've touched on it, but.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: You know, if you're not seeking feedback about your business
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: idea or just in life from people that you respect
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: and in some cases people that you don't, you're dumb.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: If you're listening to to it all, you're even dumber.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: You must have the confidence to sort of ignore a
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: lot of people that in some cases, no more than
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: you to kind of to take different ideas and things
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: on board, but to not ultimately to still to follow
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: your instinct. That's really really important and that takes courage
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: at times. And I think we sort of between Joey
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: and I and our partnership, we were able to kind
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: of navigate through both and you know, and Orbards was
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: born and started to sort of work, and it was
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: just a really really exciting.
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: Time, completely different making an athletics sneaker versus making your
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: classics sneaker.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: Well, I always wanted it was called the will Runner
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: because I always imagined it would be a running shoe,
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: and we couldn't quite get there.
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: It was just too difficult.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: But this idea that wall was the you know, the
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: world's sort of best performance fiber, was how I'd kind
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: of grown up in New Zealand. And so this year,
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: four years in a little bit over four years in,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: we actually launched that running shoe called the Dasher that's
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: been really successful for us in April of this year.
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: So we managed to get there. It just took a
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: little bit of time.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: So we now sell the running show and I wear
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: it all the time, and I'm really.
• 58:06
  Speaker 4: Proud of that product.
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: What excites you right now?
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: I have to say these are challenging times on just
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: about every front. I mean I sit here today and
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: like a few few not that many miles away sort
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: of the fires are raging in California, and it just
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: feels like a dangerous, scary time for the world. I
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: think there's lots to sort of to worry about. I mean,
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: I think maybe it's partly because as an entrepreneur you
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: need to be you know, I sort of think in
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: times of difficulty, you find out a lot about people,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: yourself even and I think in terms of all birds,
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: I think we've seen enormous resilience from our team and
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: our business through this difficult period. And then more broadly,
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: you know, without being too funny, as it relates to
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: sort of our purpose around climate change in the environment,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: you could be forgiven a year or so ago for
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: being pretty cynical about how people were thinking about it.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: Even when we started the business in twenty sixteen, the
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: idea that we were going to use sustainable materials that
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: we oftentimes had to pay up for. Our factory often
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: look at us like we had six heads, like what
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: are you doing? No one's going to know no one cares.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: And I think we've really seen that change. I mean,
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: I think it's a couple of years ago that you
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: know that there was these youth marches started. Greta Tumberg
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: started sort of taking fridays off school, the young Swedish
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: activists literally fridays off school and protesting by itself on
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: the steps of the Swedish Parliament. It's not that long
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: ago that happened, and it's ignited this whole kind of
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: youth movement around the environment.
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: And you know, I.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: Think even with COVID, I think there's some positives to
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: take out of a horrible situation for so many because
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: I think we've seen a problem in the pandemic that
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: hasn't respected traditional borders or industries or ways of working.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: And we've seen a kind of a global community, albeit imperfectly,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: rise up to tackle this challenge. So you know this,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: So there's like anything else, there's a difficult period. But
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: there's some stuff that I think is really promising for me.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: Where I said at the moment.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: Right now, you have an opportunity to offer yourself back
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: in that right phone booth a piece of advice looking
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: back on that hurdle moment right now, what do you
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: tell yourself.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: You know that it's going to be okay?
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: And I think I mean Steve Jobs, He's got this
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: wonderful quote from a Stanford commencement where it's sort of
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: an old paraphrase sort of you just got to trust
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: that the stars of the dots will connect moving forward,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: that the stars will align moving forward. You obviously know
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: in retrospect they do, but to imagine the path forward,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: I think you have to trust in your instincts, with
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: some sort of calm or higher power, that all these
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: things are going to work out.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: And they do.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: And I think if you trust in that, then I
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: think it allows you to make counterintuitive decisions and to
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: follow your instincts a little bit more freely knowing that
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: it's going to work out. And I think I just
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: would have been a little kinder on myself. I would
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: have continue to put pressure on myself. I'm going to
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: do that for as much as I'm around, but I
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: just would have been a little a little kinder and
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: a little bit more patient, and I would have enjoyed.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: Some of the downtime that I had been that is
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: probably not.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: Around me at the moment as a parent running a
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: bigger business, but you know it's all going to work out.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: But I would cavey that and say, I just I
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: was really fortunate. I had a couple of loving parents
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: that were there and a bunch of support that not
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: everyone gets. So I realized that I'm saying this from
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: a position of privilege and you know, so that not
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: everyone has, but certainly for me, I just would say, hey,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: be a little bit.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: Kinder on yourself.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: Thanks so much for your time today, Tim, I really
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: really appreciate it.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: Great to chat. Yeah, it's been it's been good. Thank
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: you very much for that. Thank you very much for
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: having me.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: I really enjoyed it, of course. And how do the
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: hurdlers keep up with you and all? And give me
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: all the details on where they can find you online.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: All Birds I mean you should be able to find
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: it All birds dot com. We've got retail stores and
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: a bunch of places, hopefully a few more in good time.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: And big shout out to our team and everyone who's
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: working at all Birds for all the hard work they've
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: done for a pretty difficult period. At the moment, which
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: was not really a question, but I'll take the opportunity.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: Anyway, perfect. I am at emily A Badi at Hurdle Podcast,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: Another hurdle conquered. Catch you guys next time.