Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / Episode 26: Caspar Coppetti, Co-Founder On Running

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Episode 26: Caspar Coppetti, Co-Founder On Running · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

0:02
Speaker 1: I know what you're thinking, why is Hurdle coming out
0:05
Speaker 1: on a weekend? While I met a runner named Zoe
0:08
Speaker 1: this week who asked me to pretty please push this
0:11
Speaker 1: out before tomorrow's marathon so she could listen to it
0:14
Speaker 1: on the run.
0:14
Speaker 2: And who am I not too induld to hurdler?
0:18
Speaker 1: So welcome to episode twenty six of Hurdle, a podcast
0:21
Speaker 1: that talks to top CEOs and entrepreneurs who got through
0:24
Speaker 1: some of life's most difficult moments hurdles of sorts by
0:28
Speaker 1: leading into wellness.
0:29
Speaker 2: My name's Emily.
0:30
Speaker 1: Avadi, and I am geeked out to bring you the
0:33
Speaker 1: first ever full episode of Hurdle Live with on running
0:38
Speaker 1: founder Casper Capetti. Now, I know if you've been following
0:41
Speaker 1: along with the podcast, you've heard the term hurdle life before.
0:44
Speaker 1: And in the past, Hurdle Live has been what I've
0:47
Speaker 1: called quarterly gatherings of past podcast guests from panel discussions
0:51
Speaker 1: in the New York City area. But this episode is
0:54
Speaker 1: the first truly live recorded episode of Hurdle where it's
0:58
Speaker 1: just me and and I feel like I'm channeling my
1:02
Speaker 1: inner guy raz and I have a guest and a
1:04
Speaker 1: live audience, and it's a bunch of fun. A quick
1:07
Speaker 1: shout out to the sponsor of today's episode, Athleticgreens. Gearing
1:11
Speaker 1: up for the New York City Marathon this week, I
1:13
Speaker 1: was super strict and making sure that I was getting
1:16
Speaker 1: in all the best nutrition, and Athletic Greens is definitely
1:19
Speaker 1: a piece to that puzzle, complete with twelve servings of
1:22
Speaker 1: fruits and vegetables. Having the Greens powder as part of
1:25
Speaker 1: my morning routine makes me feel like a better me.
1:28
Speaker 1: They're offering a special deal for Hurdle listeners. It's twenty
1:31
Speaker 1: free travel packs valued at ninety nine dollars with your
1:34
Speaker 1: first purchase. Just go to Athleticgreens dot com slash Hurdle
1:38
Speaker 1: aclaim It no code necessary. Again, that's Athleticgreens dot com
1:42
Speaker 1: slash Hurdle. So now let's talk on Running in Casper Coopetti.
1:47
Speaker 1: In just eight years since its debut in twenty ten,
1:50
Speaker 1: On has emerged as one of the fastest growing running
1:53
Speaker 1: shoe brands, now in more than five thousand running specialty
1:56
Speaker 1: shops across the globe. In episode twenty six, and I
2:00
Speaker 1: talk about the pressures that come with starting an athletic
2:03
Speaker 1: company from the ground up and how their cloud technology
2:06
Speaker 1: which will break down a little bit, sets them apart
2:08
Speaker 1: from other huge contenders like Nike and Asex. We also
2:12
Speaker 1: dive into the super scary hurdle moment he had after
2:15
Speaker 1: a factory in China manufacturing their shoes went bankrupt. He
2:19
Speaker 1: tells me the insane story involving a cargo plane, of
2:23
Speaker 1: how his team still managed to fill outstanding orders, and
2:27
Speaker 1: about the necessary break he took from the hustle to
2:29
Speaker 1: cycle throughout the Swiss Alps and get his mind right
2:32
Speaker 1: to come back and lead his company. By the way,
2:35
Speaker 1: pretty cool thing that they're doing for hurdle listeners. You
2:37
Speaker 1: guys have the chance to put on shoes and gear
2:39
Speaker 1: to the test for thirty days. Head on over to
2:42
Speaker 1: paragonsports dot com. Pick your favorite shoes or apparel pieces
2:46
Speaker 1: out and apply the code Paragon hurdle.
2:49
Speaker 2: That's paar ago.
2:51
Speaker 1: N hurdle at checkout, running them for thirty days, no pressure,
2:55
Speaker 1: put them through their paces, and if you'll love them,
2:58
Speaker 1: keep them. If you're not convinced, just send them back
3:01
Speaker 1: for a full refund. Cool thing too if you're a
3:03
Speaker 1: local to New York City. This also works in the
3:06
Speaker 1: store located on eighteen and Broadway. Just say Paragon Hurdle
3:09
Speaker 1: at the registers and that's it. Marathoners, good luck tomorrow.
3:15
Speaker 1: We worked so hard for this.
3:17
Speaker 2: Now it's time just to have some fun.
3:19
Speaker 1: As always Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, at Hurdle Podcast, shoot me
3:23
Speaker 1: an email Emily at Hurdle dot us to say hi,
3:27
Speaker 1: and with that, let's get to Hurdle Live. Today, I
3:48
Speaker 1: am sitting with the one, the only, Casper Copetti, the
3:52
Speaker 1: co founder of on Running.
3:53
Speaker 3: Casper, Hi, Emily, thanks for coming out.
3:58
Speaker 1: I want to say I'm super stoked to be here,
4:01
Speaker 1: not just because it's New York City Marathon week, which
4:06
Speaker 1: is a big deal. I'm Monday. How many marathoners we
4:09
Speaker 1: have in the house. A lot of marathoners, let's go.
4:12
Speaker 2: I'm excited for that.
4:14
Speaker 1: But I'm also super amped because although I've done panel
4:18
Speaker 1: discussions with past podcast attendees, I've never recorded an actual
4:23
Speaker 1: episode of Hurdle for the first time in front of
4:27
Speaker 1: a lot of people. So thank you all for being
4:29
Speaker 1: my test group, and for Paragon and for On for
4:32
Speaker 1: enabling us to do this tonight.
4:35
Speaker 2: Casper, You're not from here.
4:37
Speaker 3: I'm not from here, but the big city still scares me.
4:41
Speaker 2: He flew in yesterday last night. Yes, Okay, so Casper
4:45
Speaker 2: is from Switzerland.
4:47
Speaker 3: Okay, I grew up in a very small town. Okay,
4:50
Speaker 3: think thousand people, lots of cows, mountain goats. I remember
4:54
Speaker 3: the first time we came to New York and before
4:56
Speaker 3: on this nine years ago, in a cab coming in
5:00
Speaker 3: from JFK, and I saw the big sky and I
5:02
Speaker 3: was like, oh, what am I doing here? Nobody's waiting
5:05
Speaker 3: for us here, and I literally wanted to turn back.
5:09
Speaker 3: And yeah, that was the first hurdle we had to
5:11
Speaker 3: overcome to conquer New York to actually just going to Manhattan.
5:16
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about On for those
5:18
Speaker 1: of the people in the room that aren't really familiar
5:21
Speaker 1: with your brand.
5:23
Speaker 3: Uh.
5:24
Speaker 2: When I first heard.
5:25
Speaker 1: About On Running, it was that you guys wanted to
5:28
Speaker 1: create a Goldilocks sneaker that didn't.
5:31
Speaker 2: Exist in the market.
5:32
Speaker 1: So talk to me a little bit about what kind
5:35
Speaker 1: of what is an ON sneaker?
5:37
Speaker 2: What makes an ON sneaker an ON sneaker.
5:40
Speaker 3: It's a very different running sensation. We reinvented cushioning. We
5:44
Speaker 3: found a very different way of absorbing impact forces, which
5:48
Speaker 3: are a problem for every runner. The way we solve.
5:50
Speaker 3: It is with a geometrical element that absorbs the shock.
5:54
Speaker 3: It's very very soft than you land, but then it
5:56
Speaker 3: becomes firm. It compresses and as you push off your
5:59
Speaker 3: your efficient you're not losing any energy. You're feeling the ground.
6:03
Speaker 3: So it's basically your best cushion shoe and your track
6:06
Speaker 3: spiking in the same product.
6:07
Speaker 1: And you said, when originally creating the sneaker, you came
6:12
Speaker 1: to understand that there are the foot moves in two different.
6:15
Speaker 2: Types of ways.
6:16
Speaker 1: It moves up and down, and then it also moves laterally,
6:20
Speaker 1: and this sneaker is made to support that lateral movement exactly.
6:24
Speaker 3: So when you run, you're basically not just jumping up
6:28
Speaker 3: and down, but you're going forward, so your foot comes
6:31
Speaker 3: down with the formal momentument then you pull back, so
6:33
Speaker 3: you have a lot of sharing forces, and that's what
6:37
Speaker 3: causes a lot of the injuries related to running. And
6:40
Speaker 3: let's face it, about half of the people that run
6:43
Speaker 3: have injuries either every year or dare reccur because it's
6:47
Speaker 3: a repetitive movement and if just a lout thing is
6:50
Speaker 3: off and you have that constant pounding and d sharing forces,
6:54
Speaker 3: people do get injured. And ON is solving that problem.
6:58
Speaker 1: Okay, So I hear this and in my head, I'm like, well,
7:02
Speaker 1: this tech didn't just pop up overnight. So why don't
7:05
Speaker 1: we backtrack a little bit and you talked to me
7:08
Speaker 1: about what you were doing before ON because I was
7:12
Speaker 1: founded in twenty ten in Zurich, Switzerland, So talk to
7:16
Speaker 1: me about what happened before twenty ten. Give me a
7:19
Speaker 1: little bit of your backstory.
7:21
Speaker 3: So I was, you know, growing up in a small mountain. No,
7:24
Speaker 3: there's not that many options, so you know, obviously there's
7:27
Speaker 3: snow and there's mountains. So I was this ski racer
7:30
Speaker 3: and then I was about ten years old as a
7:34
Speaker 3: person snowboarding and it was like, wow, this is really
7:37
Speaker 3: cool and I wanted to snowboard. So I dropped out
7:38
Speaker 3: of my racing team on the ski side and I
7:41
Speaker 3: bought my first snowboard. And this was when Craig Kelly,
7:45
Speaker 3: these guys we were just about starting and so I
7:48
Speaker 3: was one of the first snowboards in Switzerland. I was
7:50
Speaker 3: very young. I was ten eleven years old, and you
7:53
Speaker 3: know when you're young and you have the environment that
7:56
Speaker 3: I learned very quickly and I went on. I became
7:59
Speaker 3: part of this was international team, I got sponsored, I
8:02
Speaker 3: got to travel. This was this is really good, and
8:05
Speaker 3: you know, but then somebody got really serious. People were
8:08
Speaker 3: going for the Olympics, and some of my friends ended
8:10
Speaker 3: up going. And I didn't like the training. I didn't
8:13
Speaker 3: like the running I had to do. I hated running,
8:17
Speaker 3: and and yeah I did, I did mountain biking. But
8:22
Speaker 3: then they're also I liked the downhill stuff, the thrill.
8:24
Speaker 3: I raced downhill for a while. I liked the big
8:26
Speaker 3: chumps and all that, and the endurance ports was always hard.
8:31
Speaker 3: And then many many years later, I connected with my
8:35
Speaker 3: co founder, Olivier, who was a very good try athlete,
8:38
Speaker 3: and and yeah, he he ended up giving me a
8:42
Speaker 3: prototype of onunds, and all of a sudden, running was
8:46
Speaker 3: less painful and it was more fun. And I started
8:48
Speaker 3: running more and I started running almost every day, and
8:51
Speaker 3: and that's how I became a runner.
8:54
Speaker 1: It's kind of crazy, right, because I feel like there
8:56
Speaker 1: are so many barriers for some people to court become
9:01
Speaker 1: a runner. Like you feel like you don't have the
9:04
Speaker 1: level of endurance like you're talking about, or you feel
9:07
Speaker 1: that I just don't have the time, or you feel like, please,
9:11
Speaker 1: I can come up with a thousand excuses. So you're saying,
9:15
Speaker 1: for you, all you needed was the right shoe, because
9:18
Speaker 1: I still feel like for some people you could be like,
9:20
Speaker 1: this shoe is going to make you run a mile
9:22
Speaker 1: in four minutes, and they'll be like, but I don't
9:24
Speaker 1: really like running?
9:25
Speaker 3: Yes, you know. This is actually a choke I use
9:29
Speaker 3: often when I'm when I give a presentation, ask people
9:32
Speaker 3: do you run? And then hands go up, and then
9:34
Speaker 3: like do you enjoy it? And then all the hands
9:36
Speaker 3: go down, you know, and then and obviously here we
9:39
Speaker 3: were talking to a group of runers that are about
9:41
Speaker 3: to run the New York City Marathon. If you're a
9:45
Speaker 3: runner and you want to feel what it feels like
9:47
Speaker 3: for a non runner to start running, just stop running
9:49
Speaker 3: for half a year and try to get back into it,
9:51
Speaker 3: and it's really really hard. Right. So for me, my
9:55
Speaker 3: problem is I'm six foot four, so my core is
9:58
Speaker 3: maybe not the strongest. One of my lex is a
10:00
Speaker 3: little bit shorter and much stronger from snowboardings. I always
10:03
Speaker 3: had an IT band issue, so eight ten fifteen K
10:07
Speaker 3: in Toron I would get this six cruciating pain and
10:10
Speaker 3: with the on system, the clouds that went away. I
10:15
Speaker 3: didn't have that pain anymore. So I had the asurance
10:18
Speaker 3: from outain biking and then from growing up in the
10:21
Speaker 3: Alps ski touring and all that, so then running actually
10:25
Speaker 3: became pretty easy.
10:26
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the clouds for someone who's never
10:30
Speaker 1: seen an on sneaker. Essentially, what you're looking at is
10:34
Speaker 1: like a sneaker that's got what you call to be
10:37
Speaker 1: clouds on the bottom, which really looks like semi circles
10:41
Speaker 1: with holes in the middle, and they're supposed to make
10:44
Speaker 1: me feel really great and make me super fast. When
10:47
Speaker 1: you first saw the on sneak guard design, were you like,
10:50
Speaker 1: this looks bizarre?
10:53
Speaker 3: It was. It was really really weird, you know it.
10:57
Speaker 3: Actually it started a little bit earlier. Olivia, my co founder,
11:00
Speaker 3: he called me and said, hey, I invented this running
11:03
Speaker 3: shoe and I need help in and bringing it to market.
11:06
Speaker 3: Can I come see you. At the time, I was
11:08
Speaker 3: a brand consultant for a company called Young RUPI Kim
11:11
Speaker 3: in Switzerland led out on the phone. I'm like, oh,
11:13
Speaker 3: you're stupid. I mean, there's no you know that nobody's
11:16
Speaker 3: waiting for a new running shoe company, and there is
11:18
Speaker 3: a six Stars night, there's a new balance. There's no
11:21
Speaker 3: chance you're going to succeed, and he persisted. He came
11:24
Speaker 3: in and he showed me this product. I was like,
11:26
Speaker 3: it looked like a soccer cleat, you know, like a football.
11:29
Speaker 3: Sh was like, that's weird. And then I put it on,
11:32
Speaker 3: it felt even weirder. And that's that was actually the
11:35
Speaker 3: first hurdle we had to overcome. You know, as we're
11:37
Speaker 3: in New York City. I'll tell you a story. The
11:39
Speaker 3: first time we came into New York, we went to
11:42
Speaker 3: see a store called Jack Rabbit, and at least they
11:46
Speaker 3: gave us an appointment. I don't think Paragone gave us
11:48
Speaker 3: one back then, but they gave us an appointment. And
11:53
Speaker 3: basically the buyer they just she just laughed at us.
11:57
Speaker 3: She was a really mean woman and yuah, and she
12:01
Speaker 3: refused to put the shoes on. So imagine this. We
12:05
Speaker 3: had traveled from Switzerland to New York just to see her,
12:08
Speaker 3: and she refused to put the shoes on because they
12:10
Speaker 3: were so weird looking.
12:13
Speaker 2: And then what happened?
12:15
Speaker 1: Did you just like tell that story and then we
12:17
Speaker 1: never came.
12:18
Speaker 3: Back like well, then then we walked out because Ollie
12:21
Speaker 3: and I we we had this thing. We refused to
12:24
Speaker 3: talk about the shoes or the tech if somebody hadn't
12:27
Speaker 3: tried it, because it's a very unique sensation. And and
12:31
Speaker 3: and then we know we we we started sending out
12:34
Speaker 3: test shoes to all the important stores, you know, and
12:37
Speaker 3: you have to know a lot of the running stores
12:39
Speaker 3: are founded and owned by former professional runners. We were like, hey, yeah,
12:44
Speaker 3: this is this is a really good product. Then you
12:46
Speaker 3: know they will see the benefit of it. The problem
12:49
Speaker 3: was that they thought it was so weird. They probably
12:53
Speaker 3: were afraid of getting injured, so they even though they
12:56
Speaker 3: received the free pair, they would never try them. So
12:59
Speaker 3: we changed strategies again and we started going on runs
13:04
Speaker 3: with store owners and and that's how that's how we started.
13:07
Speaker 3: We literally I would I would call an account saying
13:10
Speaker 3: in Hamburg, Germany, which is a two hour flight from Zurich,
13:14
Speaker 3: and I was like, hey, I'll be in the city
13:16
Speaker 3: this week and you want to go for a run,
13:17
Speaker 3: And he's like, yeah, sure, Wednesday morning would run. I
13:20
Speaker 3: would work and then I would book a flight and
13:23
Speaker 3: hotel if I there, spend the night and just for
13:26
Speaker 3: that one run.
13:26
Speaker 2: And it's an expensive run.
13:28
Speaker 3: It's an expensive run, but it's worth it, and and
13:31
Speaker 3: that's how we started. And today On has about five
13:33
Speaker 3: thousand stores globally that that carried the product, and between
13:37
Speaker 3: the three founders, we've probably run with six to eight
13:40
Speaker 3: hundred of them.
13:42
Speaker 1: Keeps you fit, keeps you fit, keeps the guy running
13:45
Speaker 1: who didn't really like running in the first place.
13:48
Speaker 2: Okay, so you backtrack a little bit again.
13:53
Speaker 1: You're like, Okay, the shoe looks weird, but I'm interested
13:56
Speaker 1: in it.
13:57
Speaker 2: It feels good.
13:58
Speaker 1: And at the time you're talking about your friend, your
14:03
Speaker 1: friend Ali, but you're not talking about David. So how
14:05
Speaker 1: did the three of you come together to create this company.
14:12
Speaker 3: I had always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and the
14:14
Speaker 3: reason for that is I don't like people telling me
14:18
Speaker 3: what I have to do. So the problem is, you know,
14:22
Speaker 3: with starting a company, you need to have an idea,
14:25
Speaker 3: and David and David had that same same dream. And
14:28
Speaker 3: we had worked together for two companies, McKinsey and Company
14:31
Speaker 3: Management consultancy and the branding company, and so we were
14:36
Speaker 3: brainstorming all these crazy ideas and you know, we had
14:42
Speaker 3: maybe five or six years and none of them are
14:44
Speaker 3: really good, and we got frustrated and we decided to
14:47
Speaker 3: go on a long hike. It just was up in
14:49
Speaker 3: the mountains and I never made the connection between the
14:53
Speaker 3: weird running shoe that I saw maybe two months earlier
14:56
Speaker 3: and our struggle to find a business idea until I
15:00
Speaker 3: was on this hike and in the Swiss National Park
15:02
Speaker 3: and I was like, hey, David, you know this might
15:05
Speaker 3: sign it sound a little strange, but what about a
15:08
Speaker 3: run issue company? And he's like, are you crazy? And
15:11
Speaker 3: I explained and and on that two hour hike we
15:14
Speaker 3: we actually came up with a lot of the ideas
15:16
Speaker 3: that are now the foundation of On. And then I
15:19
Speaker 3: introduced him to Olivia and yeah, that's that's how we
15:22
Speaker 3: started the three of Us.
15:25
Speaker 2: And where does the name come from?
15:27
Speaker 3: So when when you put a pair of ons on
15:30
Speaker 3: U pun intended, it feels like you're switched on the
15:34
Speaker 3: these cloud elements they are. They act like little Swiss
15:39
Speaker 3: balls under your feet, so you're balancing on them and
15:42
Speaker 3: what that does it activates your postural muscles, so you
15:45
Speaker 3: feel switched on. And we had about eight hundred names.
15:49
Speaker 3: Mind you, we came from the branding side, so we
15:51
Speaker 3: asked him of our copywriters to to come up with names,
15:56
Speaker 3: and the best on there was probably paused like a bear,
15:59
Speaker 3: you know, with the paw, which is obviously every stupid name.
16:02
Speaker 3: So one morning, one morning, I came back from a
16:05
Speaker 3: run and there was a TV production car parked in
16:08
Speaker 3: my street. It said ON Films. I was like, on,
16:12
Speaker 3: that's kind of catchy. And then we went on and
16:14
Speaker 3: we went out and the and uh and and on
16:17
Speaker 3: was still available and uh yeah. So that's that's how
16:20
Speaker 3: we got about.
16:22
Speaker 1: So let's sorry to interrupt you, but I want to
16:25
Speaker 1: I'm still kind of curious about the cloud.
16:29
Speaker 2: So I just can't stop looking at it.
16:32
Speaker 1: What I want to know a little bit more, I
16:34
Speaker 1: guess about is the engineering behind it, because I watched
16:37
Speaker 1: a lot of YouTube videos. Let me tell you, guys
16:39
Speaker 1: have a lot of YouTube content on the content. Wow,
16:43
Speaker 1: I'm just I feel like this is gonna be puns
16:46
Speaker 1: on my Within the content, it's that you see, you
16:49
Speaker 1: can watch videos of what happens to this shoe as
16:52
Speaker 1: it compresses and as you lift off. And so from
16:55
Speaker 1: what I've learned of the mentality behind ON, it's that
16:58
Speaker 1: they act like pillows, so when you step down, it's
17:00
Speaker 1: super cushiony. Then the pillows compress and it gives you
17:04
Speaker 1: a hard surface to spring off of. So it's like
17:06
Speaker 1: combining a cloud with.
17:09
Speaker 2: A tracks mic.
17:11
Speaker 3: That's exactly.
17:11
Speaker 2: Man, I'm good at this, you know.
17:15
Speaker 3: Yeah. Do you know you want to know where then
17:18
Speaker 3: income came from the clouds?
17:20
Speaker 2: Yeah?
17:21
Speaker 3: So you know, when you start a business, you're scared.
17:25
Speaker 3: Can I spare it on this show or not?
17:27
Speaker 2: I would prefer if you did it.
17:29
Speaker 3: You're scared. You're scared a lot. And uh so, you know,
17:34
Speaker 3: we did some some testing and we went to a
17:37
Speaker 3: big event in Zurich, it ironm and Switzerland. We rented
17:42
Speaker 3: a booth and we had some tests to stare and
17:44
Speaker 3: a hundred people or so put the shoes on and
17:47
Speaker 3: ran in them. And I remember this lady from Germany.
17:50
Speaker 3: She came back after her testaurant and her eyes were
17:52
Speaker 3: wide open and she was like, oh my god, these shoes.
17:57
Speaker 3: It feels like it feels like walking on clouds. And
18:01
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, that's kind of that's kind of neat.
18:03
Speaker 3: And you know, like Nike had air and we have clouds.
18:06
Speaker 3: Would you rather walk on air or on clouds? So
18:09
Speaker 3: you know, we we we did clouds.
18:11
Speaker 2: It was clouds.
18:12
Speaker 1: It was okay, So oh, round of a pause, first
18:16
Speaker 1: live podcast round of a Pause. I've been at eight
18:19
Speaker 1: thirty six pm. I always remember this moment.
18:22
Speaker 2: Guys.
18:23
Speaker 1: All right, so you've got some clouds, you've got one
18:26
Speaker 1: hundred people trying on your shoes.
18:28
Speaker 2: I want to know more about that.
18:29
Speaker 1: Like, obviously when you came to New York City, they
18:33
Speaker 1: weren't as enthusiastic about this weird looking piece of footwear.
18:36
Speaker 3: Well, but that's the thing. They who stay, I mean,
18:39
Speaker 3: the the retailers weren't so the average runner person, you know,
18:45
Speaker 3: they were less opinionated about, Hey, I know this stuff.
18:49
Speaker 3: You know, this is how a good running shue was built.
18:51
Speaker 3: They had they were they had probably less of a
18:53
Speaker 3: preconceived that year. And another group that was very receptive
18:58
Speaker 3: to the product was runners with injuries. And one very
19:03
Speaker 3: famous runner with injuries was Takela Lorup. She won New
19:07
Speaker 3: York City Marathon twice. She has the world record on
19:09
Speaker 3: pretty much every distance. And she got word of this
19:15
Speaker 3: wonder product from Switzerland and she called us and she
19:19
Speaker 3: literally said, hell, I'm takel loop from knee like the tackle.
19:22
Speaker 3: She's like yeah, and she had an appointment with the Pope.
19:26
Speaker 3: That's how famous she is, all right, So she she
19:29
Speaker 3: did a fundraise and she ran from somewhere in Germany
19:32
Speaker 3: to Rome to meet with the Pope, and she had
19:34
Speaker 3: about twenty people run with her to raise awareness or
19:38
Speaker 3: her money for her foundation. And so they ended up
19:42
Speaker 3: doing about eighty k a day over one thousand k,
19:46
Speaker 3: and she ran in a pair of on cloud surfers,
19:50
Speaker 3: very prototype, and she was the only person of the
19:53
Speaker 3: group that was able to run every day. So she
19:56
Speaker 3: went from being injured and not being able to run
19:58
Speaker 3: to doing that, and then you know, we're good around
20:01
Speaker 3: Then we got a really famous triathlete in the shoes
20:05
Speaker 3: that was known for being very strong on the swim
20:07
Speaker 3: and the bike, but she would lose the World championships
20:11
Speaker 3: on the last ten k in the run because she
20:13
Speaker 3: would end up walking. And before I knew it, she
20:15
Speaker 3: she came thirty seconds to the Roman world record. That
20:19
Speaker 3: got work, got out and we ended up getting the
20:21
Speaker 3: Roman world record by Freddie Fanlde two years later, and
20:26
Speaker 3: we got an Olympic silver medal by an athlete that
20:29
Speaker 3: was usually injured. So so you know, that's that's how
20:33
Speaker 3: it started.
20:34
Speaker 1: I've got to ask this first to be an entrepreneur,
20:39
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of entrepreneurs they want they
20:42
Speaker 1: want to do that, or maybe they're forced into doing it,
20:46
Speaker 1: whatever the case may be.
20:49
Speaker 2: Just because you want it doesn't mean you have the
20:51
Speaker 2: money to fund it.
20:52
Speaker 1: So where in the earliest stages of on does the
20:55
Speaker 1: funding come from, especially when you're kind of dealing with
20:58
Speaker 1: this hurdle, which is that people that don't really know running,
21:04
Speaker 1: which might be the people that are could give you money,
21:07
Speaker 1: are like, eh, this looks kind of weird.
21:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, I mean we were not fresh out of university,
21:13
Speaker 3: you know, we are we had careers. Only was a
21:15
Speaker 3: professional athlete. David and I. We we were in management
21:19
Speaker 3: and we had some savings. We also had some some
21:23
Speaker 3: mortgages in our house and everything. But we had about
21:26
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty grand each that we put into
21:29
Speaker 3: on And remember we we spoke to some people that
21:32
Speaker 3: that that were in the industry and we were like, yeah,
21:34
Speaker 3: what do you think how much money does it take
21:36
Speaker 3: to to start a run issue company? And the agreed
21:39
Speaker 3: on number was about five million. We had four hundred
21:42
Speaker 3: and fifty and some of it was in cash even
21:45
Speaker 3: so that's how that's how we started. And uh, look,
21:48
Speaker 3: you know you have to be a little bit crazy.
21:50
Speaker 3: You have to be a little bit naive and and
21:53
Speaker 3: and it worked and people liked it, people bought it,
21:57
Speaker 3: and we grew.
21:58
Speaker 1: Okay, So right now I have a statistic, Give me
22:04
Speaker 1: a statistic about On's position in the market right now.
22:07
Speaker 2: It's rapidly growing.
22:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, so so On is by far the fast growing
22:12
Speaker 3: running shoe brand globally. Since we started. Every year we've
22:16
Speaker 3: grown on an average of eighty two percent. This year
22:20
Speaker 3: is over seventy percent. And we're doing this across the globe.
22:24
Speaker 3: We're in about fifty countries. The biggest running shoe markets
22:29
Speaker 3: are the US, Germany and Japanese are also our biggest markets.
22:33
Speaker 3: In the US, we're probably the number eight or seventh
22:35
Speaker 3: ranked running brain right now. In Germany we're the number three,
22:38
Speaker 3: and so what's the number one? So it's actually gone
22:44
Speaker 3: quite quite fast. But you know, if you look at
22:46
Speaker 3: a market like the US or Japan, we can quadruple
22:52
Speaker 3: on sales and we're still you know, we're still just
22:55
Speaker 3: a blip in the ocean, just a blip.
22:58
Speaker 1: But not every year saw such successful growth. So I
23:05
Speaker 1: kind of want to hear about the tough stuff, because
23:09
Speaker 1: when you're building a company from the ground up with
23:11
Speaker 1: two of your buddies. It could seem like the sky's
23:14
Speaker 1: the limit, and sometimes it just kind of stall it all.
23:19
Speaker 2: So let's talk about that.
23:20
Speaker 1: Let's talk about some of the hardships you had in
23:23
Speaker 1: your earlier years starting this company.
23:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the first three or four years were really, really,
23:31
Speaker 3: really tough. I didn't I don't think I had a
23:33
Speaker 3: single waking moment where I didn't think about the company
23:36
Speaker 3: or running shoes, and it really gets to you. And then,
23:40
Speaker 3: I mean, there's obviously a lot of very positive things
23:42
Speaker 3: that you do, you experience, but when you're designing, building, shipping,
23:47
Speaker 3: selling a product, a lot of things can go wrong,
23:51
Speaker 3: from product not being strong enough, breaking falling apart. One
23:57
Speaker 3: of their low points was when so this was our
24:00
Speaker 3: our second season. So we shipped the first product in
24:03
Speaker 3: July twenty twenty ten, and we got some good response,
24:08
Speaker 3: and we got some accounts that we had really worked
24:11
Speaker 3: on for a long time, and they gave us some
24:13
Speaker 3: initial orders for February twenty eleven ship date, and we
24:18
Speaker 3: really wanted to execute on spot. So we sent one
24:21
Speaker 3: of our guys, our R and D level. He was
24:23
Speaker 3: an intern, but still he was our R and D guy.
24:26
Speaker 3: And we sent him to China and he spent the
24:28
Speaker 3: Christmas and years at the factory and he came back
24:31
Speaker 3: he's like all good. And the day he landed, we
24:36
Speaker 3: got a phone call from China and they said, hey,
24:40
Speaker 3: we're very sorry for me, but the factory went bankrupt
24:43
Speaker 3: and all your unfinished product is still in the factory.
24:46
Speaker 3: The police has sealed the factory. He cannot get it
24:49
Speaker 3: to get it out. And by the way, it's three
24:52
Speaker 3: weeks away from Chinese Year where everything shuts down in China.
24:57
Speaker 3: So we didn't have any product. And yeah, we were
25:02
Speaker 3: we were for sure going to die as a company.
25:04
Speaker 3: But you had orders. We had orders. But you know,
25:06
Speaker 3: if you have orders and no product that you can ship,
25:08
Speaker 3: but that doesn't help. And you know, if a retailer
25:11
Speaker 3: gives you one chance, and if if you don't deliver,
25:15
Speaker 3: you're you're out. Yeah, so then you know, we got
25:20
Speaker 3: into crisis mode. And and and somehow our partner in
25:24
Speaker 3: China found a way to get the product out of
25:26
Speaker 3: the factory. But about thirty of it, thirty percent of
25:29
Speaker 3: it was was dirty. They just literally threw it on
25:32
Speaker 3: a on a truck and and and and got it
25:34
Speaker 3: out of the factory as quickly.
25:35
Speaker 2: As possible, but the factory was sealed.
25:38
Speaker 3: I wasn't there. I frankly don't want to know, but
25:44
Speaker 3: the problem was so we had bottom units and operas
25:46
Speaker 3: that were not put together yet. So then we had
25:48
Speaker 3: to find another factory. And this is right before Chinese Year,
25:52
Speaker 3: which is kind of like Christmas, so everybody was about
25:54
Speaker 3: to go home, so we had to pay the factory
25:58
Speaker 3: work is triple wages, so they would stay for another
26:03
Speaker 3: four or five days and put everything together, and then
26:06
Speaker 3: we couldn't find any any vessels that no vessels would
26:09
Speaker 3: leave ports, so we had to put everything on a plane. Uh,
26:12
Speaker 3: you know, and basically all our profit of that season
26:15
Speaker 3: was gone. But at least we were able to fulfill
26:18
Speaker 3: the orders.
26:18
Speaker 1: Probably a lot of really cool photo ops on that plane,
26:21
Speaker 1: all the sneakers.
26:23
Speaker 3: Well it was a cargo plane and we probably were
26:27
Speaker 3: only small, but this was maybe thirty thousand pairs. Yeah,
26:33
Speaker 3: so now you know, if we're delayed in shipping, we
26:36
Speaker 3: shipping a couple hundred thousand pairs by air, So you know,
26:40
Speaker 3: now we actually do rent out full planes.
26:44
Speaker 1: That's that's normal, just a full plane. Just gonna borrow
26:47
Speaker 1: this plane.
26:48
Speaker 2: Real quick.
26:49
Speaker 1: So you get the shoes. The orders are obviously filled late,
26:55
Speaker 1: but they're filled, and what does the year overyear look
26:59
Speaker 1: like at that point?
27:02
Speaker 3: So yeah, we we ended doing about triple what we
27:07
Speaker 3: did in the first half year, which we which was
27:09
Speaker 3: very good. But then the year after we you know,
27:12
Speaker 3: I mean, we knew we were going to grow, and
27:14
Speaker 3: we did one one mistakes that I think a lot
27:17
Speaker 3: of entrepreneurs make. They take their wildest dreams or highest ambitions,
27:24
Speaker 3: and that's what they tell that's what they put in
27:27
Speaker 3: the budget, that's what they tell the bank. And we
27:30
Speaker 3: did exactly that, and we we grew very quickly. We
27:36
Speaker 3: almost doubled that year. We think we grew uout eighty percent,
27:39
Speaker 3: but our plan was to do like plus one hundred
27:42
Speaker 3: and fifty. So we came short. And we you know,
27:46
Speaker 3: we we knew we were going to raise some money
27:49
Speaker 3: to to to finance the next production backge, but we
27:56
Speaker 3: have planned on a on a round in August and
27:59
Speaker 3: were out of money end of May early June. So
28:04
Speaker 3: you know, we had a month where we're like, okay,
28:06
Speaker 3: are we going to make payroll? We tipped in our
28:11
Speaker 3: last savings that was very very little, and uh, you
28:14
Speaker 3: know that was that was a low point where I was.
28:17
Speaker 3: My bank account looked like the day I finished college,
28:21
Speaker 3: even though I had been working for ten years. So
28:24
Speaker 3: that that was a very bad, bad moment. And uh,
28:27
Speaker 3: you know, these are the times when you kind of
28:30
Speaker 3: find out can you rely on your partners or not?
28:32
Speaker 3: Are you trying to take advantage of you or not?
28:34
Speaker 3: In a bad situation. And luckily everybody was there for us,
28:37
Speaker 3: and I knew we had this. I had actually a
28:40
Speaker 3: flight planned to the US, and the morning of that flight,
28:44
Speaker 3: I went, I went to the notary to sign all
28:47
Speaker 3: the documents. The money was paid in, and you know,
28:51
Speaker 3: I knew I was either going to be on that
28:52
Speaker 3: plane miserable or I was going to be very happy.
28:55
Speaker 3: So I was already quite happy. Then at the gate
28:59
Speaker 3: they upgraded me to class. So I went from like
29:02
Speaker 3: completely you know, super stressed hour you know, are we
29:06
Speaker 3: going to go bankrupt? To oh, wow, this is a
29:09
Speaker 3: really cool trip where we have money in the bank
29:11
Speaker 3: and we can go on.
29:13
Speaker 1: So the money is in the bank, But then what
29:15
Speaker 1: happens because you start functioning on a low amount of
29:18
Speaker 1: funding at the time, So how does it really turn around?
29:27
Speaker 3: About three and a half years in we started being profitable.
29:31
Speaker 1: That's a pretty quick turnaround for a young company.
29:36
Speaker 3: It is at the same time, and we you know,
29:38
Speaker 3: we run on a pre proven business model. It's not
29:41
Speaker 3: like you're you know, if you're an internet company and
29:44
Speaker 3: you're just scaling like crazy and you're trying to get
29:47
Speaker 3: gain market share. With us, it's basically, we build product,
29:50
Speaker 3: we sell it to a retailer at the profit, and
29:52
Speaker 3: they sell it at a profit to it to the
29:54
Speaker 3: end consumer. That's pretty straightforward then, and we had to
29:59
Speaker 3: kind of maybe toned down our growth ambitions a little
30:02
Speaker 3: bit to make that happen. But it's the best thing.
30:05
Speaker 3: It's the best feeling in the world to be profitable.
30:07
Speaker 1: How did it feel at that point when you were
30:09
Speaker 1: kind of worried about letting down your employees and how
30:12
Speaker 1: did you handle that mentally? What did you do after
30:16
Speaker 1: that when you kind of got through it.
30:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a moment where everything got too much,
30:21
Speaker 3: you know, and you have trouble sleeping, and you know,
30:25
Speaker 3: the good thing is, you know, sports is always there
30:27
Speaker 3: for you. And so I just jumped on my bike
30:32
Speaker 3: and I said I need a weekend off and I
30:34
Speaker 3: rode my bike through the Swiss helps at about maybe
30:37
Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty and forty k and three thousand
30:39
Speaker 3: meters of climbing every day. And it was a really
30:42
Speaker 3: really cool experiences just to clean my head. And this
30:45
Speaker 3: was when the tourtois Wist was going on, so I
30:47
Speaker 3: was basically following the pros. I was always like one
30:50
Speaker 3: day behind on the stages, and yeah, I was just
30:54
Speaker 3: cleaning my head. I was, I was. I came back
30:58
Speaker 3: with a very clear vision and had a really cool experience. Uh,
31:03
Speaker 3: my last day of riding, they I I was at
31:07
Speaker 3: the start line of the of a of a time
31:11
Speaker 3: trial that they did and they mistook me for one
31:14
Speaker 3: of the riders in the race. So the police they
31:17
Speaker 3: they they waved me in and uh they know they
31:20
Speaker 3: wanted me to start the races. No, I'm just here
31:23
Speaker 3: to watch the race. It's actually pretty funny. So it
31:26
Speaker 3: all turned out, well.
31:28
Speaker 2: Did you raise?
31:28
Speaker 3: I didn't race.
31:31
Speaker 2: Okay, So you go on the.
31:32
Speaker 1: Bike tour, you clear your head, and you come back
31:35
Speaker 1: and do you feel reinvigorated to kind of get back
31:38
Speaker 1: into the saddle with your company.
31:39
Speaker 3: See that that's the thing, you know, building a company
31:42
Speaker 3: is not a sprint. It's a marathon. So you know,
31:45
Speaker 3: there's the smith out there about you know, being in
31:47
Speaker 3: a startup entrepreneur and and and and sleeping at the
31:50
Speaker 3: office and that only goes a certain a certain way,
31:55
Speaker 3: a certain distance, and then you just burn out. And
31:58
Speaker 3: and I feel that's that's a real risk. And I
32:01
Speaker 3: think when when you're when you're not sleeping enough, not
32:05
Speaker 3: eating well, not exercising, you're not You're not that you're
32:07
Speaker 3: at your peak. So so when I see now when
32:12
Speaker 3: I coach young people that you know, we obviously a
32:15
Speaker 3: lot of people reach out now and they want to
32:16
Speaker 3: get advice. That's one of the things. It's like, hey,
32:19
Speaker 3: look look out after yourself and then try not to
32:22
Speaker 3: burn out and and and that's the good thing about exercising,
32:26
Speaker 3: you know, on we have this thing running is part
32:29
Speaker 3: of your job. So if you want to go for
32:31
Speaker 3: a run at ten in the morning or four in
32:34
Speaker 3: the afternoon, or if you want to do a workout
32:37
Speaker 3: during a long meeting, that that's that's all.
32:39
Speaker 1: Okay, quick break from today's episode with Casper to give
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32:53
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32:56
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32:59
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33:02
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33:37
Speaker 2: And now let's get back to it.
33:48
Speaker 1: So talk to me a little bit about growing the company,
33:52
Speaker 1: because it starts with the three of you and then
33:54
Speaker 1: you slowly get employees.
33:56
Speaker 2: Do you even remember your first hire at this point?
33:59
Speaker 3: I remember very very well. So our first hire. I
34:03
Speaker 3: was a girl, Karina was her name. She had her
34:06
Speaker 3: first day in my kitchen so she's she had her
34:09
Speaker 3: first day of work actually at my house in my kitchen,
34:13
Speaker 3: and we we we hired her from a from a
34:15
Speaker 3: Ski Ski Bear brand in Switzerland, and she probably like
34:20
Speaker 3: the day she walked into into my house, he was like,
34:22
Speaker 3: what did I do? Why did I leave my job?
34:25
Speaker 3: And why am I sitting in the kitchen and with
34:28
Speaker 3: these weird guys. This year alone, we grew from one
34:32
Speaker 3: hundred and sixty people to three hundred and eight people.
34:36
Speaker 3: So so you know, that's another hurdle when you're when
34:41
Speaker 3: you're small, you're able to touch every single person in
34:44
Speaker 3: the company, You're able to to to see what they're doing,
34:47
Speaker 3: and you're able to leave by example. As soon as
34:51
Speaker 3: you get to say, sixty eighty people, that you can
34:55
Speaker 3: no longer do that. Especially we have offices now in
34:58
Speaker 3: about seven locations around the world world. So you know,
35:02
Speaker 3: that's where when when when culture and values coming to play.
35:06
Speaker 3: And we were very, very afraid that that the culture
35:09
Speaker 3: we had builded on would you know, be taken over
35:11
Speaker 3: by outsiders. Now these people come, they jon us from
35:14
Speaker 3: Google or Nike or other brands, and that is a
35:19
Speaker 3: that was a real, real fear and challenge. But it's
35:22
Speaker 3: turning out that, uh, you know, we have people that
35:24
Speaker 3: start with with ON maybe three months ago, and you know,
35:28
Speaker 3: and they meet the new b and then you'll be saying, oh,
35:31
Speaker 3: have you been with ON for a long time? Yeah, forever?
35:33
Speaker 3: You know, it feels like forever. And they're already passing
35:36
Speaker 3: on the values. That's it's pretty cool to see.
35:39
Speaker 2: I had David Seek on the podcast.
35:42
Speaker 1: He's the creator of a program at Equinox Cup Precision Running,
35:46
Speaker 1: and David said to me that if you try to
35:48
Speaker 1: do too many things good, you'll never do one thing great.
35:52
Speaker 1: And I feel like that's applicable to where you're at
35:55
Speaker 1: now in your company, and that you have to learn
35:59
Speaker 1: to lot go.
36:00
Speaker 2: When you get comfortable doing that.
36:02
Speaker 1: Like I mean, I feel like so much of being
36:04
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur is getting comfortable with the uncomfortable. So when
36:07
Speaker 1: your team almost doubles in size, that had to be
36:10
Speaker 1: stressful for you.
36:12
Speaker 3: Oh, it's super stressful. You know. If I look back
36:14
Speaker 3: over the last year, that was probably what I am
36:17
Speaker 3: My colleagues we lost sleep over the most. But you
36:20
Speaker 3: know the thing is if you know that they're just saying,
36:22
Speaker 3: if everything feels under control, you're not going fast enough.
36:26
Speaker 3: And that's actually very true. So, you know, growing at
36:29
Speaker 3: the speed that on it early on, we had to
36:32
Speaker 3: we had to learn how to let go. So what
36:34
Speaker 3: we tried to do is we tried to you know,
36:36
Speaker 3: say some you know, somebody takes ten decisions during the month,
36:42
Speaker 3: the way I see it, if they have values as
36:46
Speaker 3: a guideline and they know that they're actually want to
36:48
Speaker 3: we want to take, they'll probably take five decisions exactly
36:51
Speaker 3: the way I would. They will take three or four
36:54
Speaker 3: that I would take differently, but they don't really matter.
36:57
Speaker 3: And maybe one where you know, I don't I don't agree,
37:02
Speaker 3: and then let's talk about that one and and and
37:04
Speaker 3: learn from that and then help them make a better
37:07
Speaker 3: decision next time. But it's better than not to take
37:10
Speaker 3: these decisions. So you know, as long as you're moving
37:12
Speaker 3: in the right direction, we care less about whether it's
37:16
Speaker 3: a light you know, dark dark gray or light gray.
37:20
Speaker 2: Okay, so the company is growing rapidly.
37:24
Speaker 1: What was it like for you when you guys started
37:26
Speaker 1: to really expand into the foreign markets. Like you said,
37:29
Speaker 1: you're probably about number eight here in the United States,
37:33
Speaker 1: But when you started to come here and you would
37:35
Speaker 1: see your product on the shelves and that must have
37:38
Speaker 1: been kind.
37:38
Speaker 2: Of a trip.
37:40
Speaker 3: Oh it is. It is the biggest trip ever. I
37:44
Speaker 3: still have this habit. I don't do it in Switzerland anymore,
37:46
Speaker 3: but I say, I'm in Shanghai, or remember maybe two
37:52
Speaker 3: three years ago in San Francisco. But I was running
37:54
Speaker 3: and I saw I saw someone in a pair of
37:57
Speaker 3: you know what. I thought it was a pair of ones,
37:59
Speaker 3: and so I ran out after that person happened to
38:01
Speaker 3: be a woman, and I, you know, I caught her,
38:04
Speaker 3: caught up with her in this dark alley, you know,
38:06
Speaker 3: and I'm like, like, how do you like your shoes?
38:08
Speaker 3: Just like he said?
38:10
Speaker 2: Weirdo?
38:10
Speaker 3: You know, but it never it never gets old. And
38:14
Speaker 3: you know when you're when you're in Tokyo and you
38:17
Speaker 3: see somebody wearing your shoes, it's a very cool thing.
38:21
Speaker 2: You know. That's a really creepy story.
38:23
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's one of hundreds that happened, but
38:27
Speaker 3: it's one that's memorable.
38:32
Speaker 1: When you look at your current position in the market
38:36
Speaker 1: and kind of as this industry is evolving as a whole,
38:40
Speaker 1: like what do you hope that on is bringing to
38:44
Speaker 1: the table now? Because I feel like, what's interesting about
38:46
Speaker 1: the company is that it is so rooted in research,
38:50
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of the time when you
38:52
Speaker 1: go to buy a pair of sneakers, the first thing
38:54
Speaker 1: that someone at a great running store like Paragon would
38:58
Speaker 1: say to you is, don't buy based on aesthetics. You
39:01
Speaker 1: gotta buy based on how you feel. So for you, guys, uh,
39:05
Speaker 1: what do you hope that you're bringing to the table
39:07
Speaker 1: in this market?
39:08
Speaker 3: I think you know, if if the store tells you
39:11
Speaker 3: that you should buy based on field, that's already progress
39:15
Speaker 3: from where we were maybe five years ago, when people
39:17
Speaker 3: would almost like prescribe a running or you're your pronating
39:20
Speaker 3: you need a post because there's a lot of research
39:24
Speaker 3: out that actually shows if they feel good for you,
39:26
Speaker 3: they are actually good for you. Because everybody, every person
39:29
Speaker 3: has their own way of moving. So you know, basically,
39:32
Speaker 3: we're we're we're engineering that sensation, that's feeling and and
39:37
Speaker 3: and we hope that if somebody puts on a pair
39:41
Speaker 3: of Bonds they will feel the best in that store.
39:45
Speaker 3: We're you know, we're based in Switzerland, and coming out
39:48
Speaker 3: of Switzerland, you cannot make a mediocre product because people
39:52
Speaker 3: expect highest quality but also price wise, you know, we're
39:54
Speaker 3: we're probably the most expensive country in the world, and
39:57
Speaker 3: we have a lot of staff and all our engineering
39:59
Speaker 3: there so On only makes very high end product that
40:03
Speaker 3: have a certain price point and we hope that that
40:06
Speaker 3: that's people feel that and they appreciate it, and that
40:09
Speaker 3: they're willing to spend the extra book and that that
40:12
Speaker 3: will go a long way.
40:16
Speaker 1: When you look over the past, what has it been
40:20
Speaker 1: eight years now, and you think about some of the
40:25
Speaker 1: hardships and the missteps that you've had, what would you say,
40:29
Speaker 1: at this point may have been one of your most
40:31
Speaker 1: successful quote unquote failures from this time with On, so
40:37
Speaker 1: something that's gone drastically wrong but has kind of shaped
40:41
Speaker 1: you and maybe your company to be a little bit better.
40:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I'd say about two years ago, we launched
40:50
Speaker 3: a trail running shoe called the Cloud Venture. And we're
40:57
Speaker 3: pretty we always have a tight sketchule, so we had
40:59
Speaker 3: to see planned in Park City, Utah. We flew about
41:03
Speaker 3: sixty retails and journalists there and you know, the product,
41:08
Speaker 3: it's a really really, really cool product. It's very runnable.
41:12
Speaker 3: Our athletes loved it. All the tests has loved it.
41:15
Speaker 3: So we gave you know, the shoes had just come
41:17
Speaker 3: in from a factory. We hadn't even unpacked, and we
41:19
Speaker 3: literally hand them out out of the box of a
41:22
Speaker 3: plane and we went on a run. It was a
41:24
Speaker 3: beautiful run, and you know, spirits were high. And we
41:27
Speaker 3: got back to the hotel or to the lodge, and
41:30
Speaker 3: we did some stretching and we started looking at people's
41:34
Speaker 3: shoes and the shoes were falling apart, and we're like, holy,
41:40
Speaker 3: I'm not supposed to s fair. So it turned out
41:43
Speaker 3: about thirty percent of the shoes were broken, and it
41:48
Speaker 3: you know, we learned that the manufacturer had changed of
41:52
Speaker 3: the specs last minute and it wasn't durable enough. And
41:57
Speaker 3: you know, at this point we were like, okay, we
41:59
Speaker 3: have to do a full recall. And you know, we
42:01
Speaker 3: did a quick math and it would have cost us
42:03
Speaker 3: about two million dollars, which was pretty much the profit
42:07
Speaker 3: that we were going to do that full year. So
42:09
Speaker 3: you know, that was a really really, really bad situation.
42:13
Speaker 3: But then you know, as we as we we we
42:15
Speaker 3: started analyzing, we saw the problem was serious, but not
42:20
Speaker 3: that serious, so we didn't do a recall, and we
42:22
Speaker 3: made some some running changes on the product and and
42:26
Speaker 3: we you know, we replaced the shoes that broke and
42:29
Speaker 3: the shoe. The shoe was well received. So what we
42:31
Speaker 3: learned is even if it feels like the world's coming
42:35
Speaker 3: to an end, it usually doesn't, you know, And we
42:39
Speaker 3: got very resilient. So in the beginning it felt like
42:42
Speaker 3: on would go bankrupt or you know, the world will
42:45
Speaker 3: come to an end, which is at that point pretty
42:47
Speaker 3: much the same thing. Once a week, and then it's
42:49
Speaker 3: once a month, and it's once a semester. And now
42:52
Speaker 3: the world hasn't ended in in two or three years,
42:56
Speaker 3: two years, so so so we definitely learned from that
43:00
Speaker 3: and we're very cool now. So something really bad happens
43:03
Speaker 3: and you know, some staff coming in they're like, oh,
43:05
Speaker 3: you know, we have this huge problem and we're like
43:08
Speaker 3: all cool and relaxed, and they're like, oh wow, we
43:11
Speaker 3: guys are really really cool, and we're like, well, we've
43:14
Speaker 3: been there before.
43:17
Speaker 2: You learn from it, You learn from it.
43:19
Speaker 1: Someone once told me that if you're tripping, or if
43:22
Speaker 1: you're tripping or falling, most of the time, at least
43:24
Speaker 1: you're falling forward. And I always think about that when
43:27
Speaker 1: I'm like having a total misstep, I'm like, at least
43:30
Speaker 1: it's a miss step in the right direction, like it's
43:32
Speaker 1: just small progress.
43:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, And people tend to stress out about things Like
43:37
Speaker 3: if you're stressing out about an opportunity, say a sponsorship
43:41
Speaker 3: you could do, or you know, this great thing that
43:43
Speaker 3: might go away, sometimes it's just good to sleep over it,
43:47
Speaker 3: or you know, take a step back and if it
43:49
Speaker 3: does go away, maybe it wasn't the greatest opportunity.
43:52
Speaker 1: You said at the beginning of On that it was
43:57
Speaker 1: like in your mind twenty four seven, you woke up
44:00
Speaker 1: drammed to eight.
44:01
Speaker 2: You slap everything you did was on.
44:05
Speaker 1: How would you say now that you find that work
44:08
Speaker 1: life balance with this bustling company.
44:12
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, my work is also my life.
44:15
Speaker 3: You know, I don't necessarily make a difference, but I
44:19
Speaker 3: can chill out now. I can have other thoughts. I
44:25
Speaker 3: can I can think about other people's stuff more than
44:29
Speaker 3: about mind. Say when I go on a vacation. I
44:34
Speaker 3: was on a surf trip earlier this year for two weeks.
44:37
Speaker 3: I did not once check my email. I did not
44:40
Speaker 3: once look. You know, I didn't get any voicemail or anything.
44:43
Speaker 3: We have this thing where if somebody's off, if the
44:47
Speaker 3: world ends, they get a text message, but only if
44:50
Speaker 3: they can save the world, otherwise you will know about
44:53
Speaker 3: it when when you get back. And that's actually a
44:55
Speaker 3: pretty good system. So yeah, definitely things have have improved
45:00
Speaker 3: the early days.
45:01
Speaker 2: Have you ever been the world saver?
45:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's it's really a team effort. So that's
45:08
Speaker 3: one thing that you know as es me. You know,
45:10
Speaker 3: how did they be come into the picture? We knew
45:13
Speaker 3: were trying the impossible. We're trying to create a performance
45:18
Speaker 3: shoe company when there's already enough of them. So we
45:23
Speaker 3: knew we needed a very strong team. And one thing
45:25
Speaker 3: that that on this is in twenty thirteen, we realized
45:29
Speaker 3: that three founders, we were always the bottleneck, so decisions
45:33
Speaker 3: would stall with us, and and we decided to bring
45:37
Speaker 3: on two more people. And typically what you would do
45:39
Speaker 3: is you would build below you because it feels great
45:42
Speaker 3: to be the boss. We did the opposite. We built
45:45
Speaker 3: next to us. So we brought in two people even
45:47
Speaker 3: though they weren't there at the beginning, that are equals
45:50
Speaker 3: with us now a CFO and a CEO. And now
45:53
Speaker 3: we have a lot more capacity. And you know, when
45:56
Speaker 3: I'm on a on a surf trip or our snowboard trip,
46:00
Speaker 3: I re appreciated that I know there's four other guys
46:03
Speaker 3: looking after the business, and when they're away, I'm looking
46:07
Speaker 3: after their They're part of the business as well.
46:09
Speaker 2: So we talked about failure.
46:10
Speaker 1: But when you look at the last eight years, what
46:14
Speaker 1: would you say has been one of the best pieces
46:16
Speaker 1: of advice that you've been offered as an entrepreneur.
46:24
Speaker 3: You're surprised me with all these questions. A bit more
46:27
Speaker 3: fun that way, though, Yeah. I one piece of advice
46:33
Speaker 3: I got recently was that, you know, in a partnership
46:38
Speaker 3: like the five of us us have, it's about serving
46:43
Speaker 3: the others. Like something that I do, I do it
46:47
Speaker 3: for the others, and I want to do it well
46:49
Speaker 3: because I'm doing it for them. I'm not doing it
46:52
Speaker 3: for myself or I'm not asking them to do something
46:55
Speaker 3: for me. But I contribute to the whole thing. And
46:58
Speaker 3: the other thing is that works as long as everybody
47:01
Speaker 3: has the same drive and the same standard and that
47:04
Speaker 3: they want to achieve the same the same outcome, and
47:08
Speaker 3: luckily the five of us were in a situation. But
47:10
Speaker 3: that was a very surprising view from somebody that had
47:13
Speaker 3: worked in a partnership for many years.
47:16
Speaker 1: My mentor always told me that he feels like he's
47:19
Speaker 1: been this successful.
47:20
Speaker 2: His name is Fred Santapia. He's episode three. I think
47:23
Speaker 2: I've heardle.
47:24
Speaker 1: He told me that he found success by always hiring
47:29
Speaker 1: people that he felt like were at the time or
47:32
Speaker 1: maybe still are better than him. So by hiring people
47:36
Speaker 1: that just totally blew his socks off, he knew that
47:38
Speaker 1: he was building a strong team. Whereas I think that
47:42
Speaker 1: a lot of people can feel intimidated or taken aback
47:46
Speaker 1: by someone that challenges them, and they play it safe
47:50
Speaker 1: by maybe not partnering with them or working with them,
47:54
Speaker 1: But in reality, what kind of service is that actually doing?
47:58
Speaker 3: Fully agree to that, So I've been I've been making
48:02
Speaker 3: myself redundant every six months at on, you know, basically
48:05
Speaker 3: you know where We've been hiring so many people and
48:08
Speaker 3: they they they do what you know. In the beginning,
48:11
Speaker 3: I packed shoe boxes. I'm no longer doing that. We
48:14
Speaker 3: have people that are very good at packing shoe boxes.
48:16
Speaker 3: But we also hired sales directors that now look after
48:20
Speaker 3: accounts or whole countries that I started and I don't
48:24
Speaker 3: even go there anymore. Like you know, Switzerland, our home market,
48:27
Speaker 3: we're with the number one brand there. We have about
48:28
Speaker 3: four percent market chare. I hardly spend any time there
48:32
Speaker 3: with the accounts or the media or the athletes sponsor,
48:37
Speaker 3: and it's great. You know, when I'm at home, I
48:39
Speaker 3: feel like a tourist. You know, I can, I can
48:41
Speaker 3: move about and you know, it's not business. It's a
48:45
Speaker 3: very good feeling because we have somebody taking care of
48:47
Speaker 3: their market.
48:48
Speaker 1: We're obviously here in New York right now with the
48:51
Speaker 1: marathon on Sunday. Like I said, it's a super exciting time.
48:58
Speaker 1: As someone who learned to love running, what kind of
49:03
Speaker 1: advice would you offer to other runners who either sometimes
49:08
Speaker 1: feel like they're at a low point or maybe it's
49:11
Speaker 1: you know, mile sixteen at the Queensboro and they're like,
49:13
Speaker 1: why the hell did I sign up for us to
49:15
Speaker 1: begin with?
49:16
Speaker 2: What do you say to them?
49:19
Speaker 3: We definitely hang in there. You know, it's it's embarrassment.
49:22
Speaker 3: It's not a sprint. So you know, even if you're
49:24
Speaker 3: maybe not feeling well, you eat something, you drink something,
49:28
Speaker 3: and just give it a little time and your strength
49:31
Speaker 3: will come back. You know, when you're and you're racing
49:35
Speaker 3: the first time, it's easy to get carried away. You know,
49:38
Speaker 3: training feels hard, but racing feels like you're flying and
49:41
Speaker 3: all these people around you and you're going with the flow.
49:43
Speaker 3: And so you say you have a race strategy and
49:46
Speaker 3: you want to run a three thirty or four hour marathon,
49:49
Speaker 3: stick with that pacemaker. They know what they're doing, you know.
49:53
Speaker 3: If they're the three thirty pace maker, you could probably
49:56
Speaker 3: run a two forty five, But they're doing it for you.
49:59
Speaker 3: And if you get a that allowed it out of
50:01
Speaker 3: kind of running after the three twenty pace maker, you'll
50:04
Speaker 3: suffer and you'll end up with the four hour pacemaker
50:07
Speaker 3: before you know it.
50:09
Speaker 1: I interviewed Chilean plan again last week, and she told
50:12
Speaker 1: me that to PR this marathon, I had to run
50:16
Speaker 1: negative splits, and if I didn't run negative splits, I
50:19
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna PR the marathon, which is scary. I mean,
50:22
Speaker 1: it's not scary like I'm gonna survive, but PR the marathon.
50:26
Speaker 1: But I feel like it's like you can plan, just
50:29
Speaker 1: like within business, right, you can plan and plan and
50:32
Speaker 1: plan for all the variables. But until you're in the moment,
50:37
Speaker 1: sometimes even the best planners are gonna hit a hrle
50:40
Speaker 1: along the way.
50:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know the thing with the negative splits that
50:44
Speaker 3: usually doesn't work.
50:45
Speaker 2: Oh, come on, she is such a pro. No, you're
50:49
Speaker 2: giving me a different advice here.
50:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's not something that the regular people should try.
50:54
Speaker 2: So what should I do? Tell me? I need to know,
51:00
Speaker 2: you know.
51:01
Speaker 3: Just take it easy. I mean, if you're able to
51:02
Speaker 3: run the second half of your mouth and faster than
51:04
Speaker 3: the first half, it's probably a good strategy.
51:07
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm game for that goals right, all right, So
51:11
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna start to wrap.
51:13
Speaker 2: This up here, final two questions.
51:17
Speaker 1: We're in the we're a mile twenty five and a
51:20
Speaker 1: half of twenty six point two twenty six. Maybe we're
51:24
Speaker 1: in the point too, Maybe we're in the final spread. Anyway, Okay,
51:28
Speaker 1: you right now, meet someone that feels like you did
51:36
Speaker 1: when you are kind of being approached by these guys
51:38
Speaker 1: with this rocky idea, and this person doesn't even know,
51:45
Speaker 1: like how to begin. What's a piece of advice you
51:48
Speaker 1: give to someone who wants to start something of their.
51:51
Speaker 3: Own, Get on the playing field. You know, there's a
51:54
Speaker 3: lot of people that overthink it, and they're they're afraid,
51:59
Speaker 3: and they, as you say, they don't know where to
52:02
Speaker 3: start to start, and and ask people, you know, the
52:07
Speaker 3: that's that's the main thing. Pretty much everything has already
52:10
Speaker 3: been done. So you ask people that have done it,
52:14
Speaker 3: and and and they will they will tell you how
52:17
Speaker 3: they did it, and that that will lead to other
52:19
Speaker 3: people that they know and and and that's for example,
52:22
Speaker 3: how we found our first manufacturer. We had never manufactured anything,
52:27
Speaker 3: definitely not a shoe. And we found somebody that knew
52:31
Speaker 3: somebody that made Choose. They were not running shoes or
52:33
Speaker 3: performance shoes, but they introduced somebney that they knew, and
52:37
Speaker 3: and so on, and that's how we end up finding
52:39
Speaker 3: our first factor in China.
52:41
Speaker 2: For the guy who.
52:45
Speaker 1: Is anxiously taking out the last money that he has.
52:50
Speaker 1: Right now as you sit here, you have the opportunity
52:53
Speaker 1: to offer the casper that's maybe like I need to
52:57
Speaker 1: take this bike tour. I got to get the hell
52:59
Speaker 1: out of here. He's conquering that figurative hurtle moment. What
53:04
Speaker 1: kind of advice do you offer to him now? Looking
53:08
Speaker 1: back on.
53:08
Speaker 3: It, Well, looking back is always a lot easier. Look,
53:17
Speaker 3: we're we're you know, we're holding onto things way too
53:20
Speaker 3: much as people you know, and and and we had
53:22
Speaker 3: this thing where we said, look if we failed with
53:25
Speaker 3: on we're just going to go and you know, we're
53:28
Speaker 3: just going to get a job and get back to work.
53:31
Speaker 3: You know this this it felt like this, this wasn't work.
53:33
Speaker 3: This was fulfilling our dream. And I never felt freer
53:39
Speaker 3: than in that moment where I had lost all my
53:42
Speaker 3: money basically, you know that that's when I was truly free.
53:45
Speaker 3: I felt like, yeah, there's nothing, nothing tying me down.
53:50
Speaker 3: So don't be afraid of that, of that moment. And
53:52
Speaker 3: and don't be afraid of you know that once you're
53:55
Speaker 3: in the game, it's actually you just go with the
53:57
Speaker 3: flow that that's that's all you can do. But the
54:01
Speaker 3: moment before you decide on doing it, before you make
54:04
Speaker 3: that down payment or before you quit your job, that's
54:07
Speaker 3: a tough one. And for for On, it took us
54:10
Speaker 3: almost a year to take the plunge, to jump off
54:14
Speaker 3: the ledge. And looking back at the Caspers, back then,
54:18
Speaker 3: I was a really really you know, I was chicken
54:22
Speaker 3: uh and and laugh at that, and I laugh at
54:24
Speaker 3: people now that that that that behave that way, But
54:27
Speaker 3: you know I was like that jump and and and
54:30
Speaker 3: and start and start what your dream is and and
54:33
Speaker 3: you'll find out what it works on if you don't jump,
54:35
Speaker 3: You'll never.
54:36
Speaker 1: Know Casper's thanks so much for sitting down with me.
54:40
Speaker 1: Let's go a hand for him. He's so awesome. Thanks
54:43
Speaker 1: so much to pare it On and for on Running
54:46
Speaker 1: for doing this with us tonight. If you have a second,
54:49
Speaker 1: I'd love for you to open your podcasts up and
54:52
Speaker 1: subscribe to Hurdle. Also follow Hurdle podcasts on Instagram and Twitter.
54:58
Speaker 1: If you need anything, you can always read me Emily
55:01
Speaker 1: at hurdle dot us. We all face multiple hurdles in life.
55:05
Speaker 1: I want to hear about yours. Tell me where do
55:08
Speaker 1: they find you? Where do they find on?
55:10
Speaker 2: On Instagram, on social, on the web. Give me all
55:13
Speaker 2: the deats.
55:14
Speaker 3: Okay, so it's on running dot com or on running
55:16
Speaker 3: on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook? What have you?
55:21
Speaker 1: You're not an active social media I dropped out fall
55:27
Speaker 1: back you. Uh, It's it's cool. Everyone knows their thing.
55:30
Speaker 1: Social media is just not yours.
55:31
Speaker 3: I have more time to work out.
55:34
Speaker 1: I am at Emily Abody, another hurdle conquered.
55:39
Speaker 2: Catch you guys next time.