Advice Line with Joe Kudla of Vuori

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2:01Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show who will attempt with me to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. You can also send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com. And make sure to tell us how to reach you.

2:42And also, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. It's full of insights and ideas from the world's greatest entrepreneurs. You can sign up for free at GuyRoz.com. And we'll put all this info in the podcast description. All right, let's get to it. My guest today is Joe Kudla, the founder and CEO of Viore, one of the best known athleisure brands out there. Joe, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much, Guy. Excited to be here. We're excited to have you. And if you guys haven't heard the story of Viore, we'll put a link in the podcast description or you can search for Viore and how I built this on your podcast app.

3:19It's an awesome episode. Joe, one of my favorite things about Viore is that it really failed a few times before it took off. It basically started out as a graphic T-shirt brand and that kind of fizzled out. And then you tried to sell the product to guys at yoga studios and that didn't quite work. And then finally, you decided to kind of reframe the story. You kind of rebranded it as clothing for all kinds of things, hiking, surfing, working out, running, hanging out with friends, playing with your kids. And that resonated. That's when the brand really started to take off around 2016, 2017. Yeah.

3:55I remember you calling this pivot a Hail Mary. You were like down to your last$10 ,000 or$20 ,000. dollars. Why do you think that simple shift in how you marketed the product, why do you think that worked? I think it always comes back to being intimately aware of who your customer is and what it is that you're making that connects with them in an authentic way. And so we had our ideas about who the customer was and what they would like about our product, But it wasn't until we started listening and developing that direct relationship and just hearing it from them that it became crystal clear. So I think that's the most important thing you can do in those early days is like you have to like develop this relationship with your customer and be open to acknowledging that maybe you don't have it right on the bullseye.

4:49Yeah. You know, a lot of startup brands and even some of the colors we bring on today may assume that it takes it just takes lots and lots of money. And in some cases, that's true. If you're trying to build, you know, a car company like Tesla, you need a lot of cash, right? But in your case, I mean, I think scarcity because you couldn't raise money. And in fact, you had raised money on previous ventures and it didn't work out and you didn't really want to take that risk with other people's money initially. And so you didn't have a lot of money to work with. But because of that scarcity, I think it forced you to make really good decisions, right?

5:21Absolutely. And those decisions have really become kind of full circle back in vogue. You know, if you think about the businesses that our parents and our grandparents built, you know, it was about - They didn't have venture capital. Yeah, they didn't have venture capital. It was about the fundamentals, great products, great brands, great culture, great relationships with customers, all the fundamentals. and and i think we've lost a little bit of that because money got really cheap for a while and it was really easy for founders to go out and raise a lot of capital and you know it's interesting because we're seeing a little you know while there's still a big venture community there's a lot of money out there um you know in the last few years people have become very discerning with how they invest and so people have had to kind of rethink their their business models a little bit And I think those old, you know, those things that were old are very much new again, a return to profitability and generating free cash flow and all those things.

6:14Awesome. Okay. Joe, thank you for coming back onto the show to this time as an advice giver. Are you ready for our first caller? I am. Yeah. Excited. Let's do it. Let's welcome our first caller. Hello. Caller number one. Hello. Welcome. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business. Hi, Guy and Joe. I'm Lori Bouges. I'm in Miami, Florida, and I am the founder of Green Cloud Apparel, which is an elevated medical apparel line for women. Cool. And tell me what your question is today. We are at two and a half years in from opening, and we will be profitable next year.

6:55And I'm wondering what to do as we become profitable to grow. So thinking about putting it more into marketing, maybe hiring a co-CEO, maybe going for a VC. Got it. Okay. So let's start with the product. These are scrubs, like medical scrubs. Yes. And scrubs have been, I'm assuming, basically the same probably for the last 50 years, just the blue or that kind of polycotton material that just is kind of loose fitting and with the drawstring and that's it, right? So guy, scrubs were created by and for men solely for the operating room. I am myself a physician. And so we've just sort of stayed in that box this entire time.

7:42And it's just the right time to branch out and make them fun, super comfortable, but like totally boss. So every day I go to work, it's a very important day. And I want to set that attitude and tone for the day. And when I put these scrubs on, I stand a little bit taller. I maybe speak a little bit louder. My patients notice, my colleagues notice, and it makes all the difference. Yeah. By the way, I'm seeing here, you actually served in the U.S. Army. You were a combat veteran. Yes. I know the uniform very well from that end, too. I know what it's like. I was the only female in my group of physicians that deployed to Baghdad to serve our soldiers and Marines.

8:29Wow. Thank you for doing that. That's incredible. I spent some time there as a reporter back in the day and was at the field hospital in Balad Air Base. I met some incredible doctors back 20 years ago. All right. Well, first of all, congratulations on your road to profitability next year. And you're going to have some profits and you want to know how to spend that money. Can you give us a ballpark of how much money we're talking about? I mean, is it under$50 ,000, under$25 ,000? It'll be about$100 ,000 that we will have. And so it takes a while to figure out product and get proof of concept and find the right manufacturers and material.

9:08So that was where I was spending most of my money. And along the way, I did try a few ads on Meta. but I felt like I was just getting swallowed. And it was so painful to put$2 ,000 for this month and just not see the return. And so I'm wondering, do I need a marketing person? Do I need a co-CEO that is more in the business world than I have been, although I've learned so much? Do I need extra help from outside? Yeah, Joe Kudla, what do you think? Well, first of all, congrats on the, like I said, the road to profitability. That's not easy to do. So I think you have an awesome product. And what I love about you is this really does look elevated.

9:57Like to me, this feels, you know, very different from anything I've seen before, which is awesome. You know, what we always said at Viore, we brought a new perspective to the activewear market. And I really feel like you're bringing a new perspective to the healthcare market. And I guess one of the questions I would have is like, is there any roadblocks like at hospitals? Like, do they have dress codes at all? Or are people free to wear? Like, there's no resistance for somebody to wear like an elevated look like this in a hospital? No. The only roadblock may be the color. So every hospital seems to have a different color.

10:34So I get messages every day. We need seal blue. We need burgundy. you know, and so, you know, I'm trying, but I'm also like wanting to create the colors that I love. And, you know, I recently released pinstripe and I really wanted to add a little bit of fun. And so I'm kind of going back and forth between what hospitals require and then what I want to do. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you. Thank you for that clarification. I, you know, those kinds of things are just important to think about, but the healthcare market so big and there's so many one-off offices where people are wearing scrubs that like, even if the big hospitals have, you know, color restrictions, like there's just such a massive market here.

11:16But, you know, to answer your question, you know, where to spend money to grow, I, you know, when I reflect back on Viore's journey, I, I always thought about three things. And, and that was like, number one, like, do I have the right people on board? And you mentioned, And do I need a CEO or a marketing person? For me, it was a marketing person. The number one thing we were trying to do in those early days was define an engine of growth, something that you can take to investors and say, look, we have a proven recipe. And with more investment, I can go out and do this all over the country. So I think a marketing person is really helpful in thinking about that.

11:55The second thing is product. I mean, product is everything in this business. you know, you just always have to be asking yourself, is the product amazing? And make sure you are getting honest feedback. Like, is the product good enough? And if it's not, I think your best money is always going to be investing in like your supply chain and making an amazing product that people just love. You know, then it's like, okay, what is your sales and marketing strategy? And it is important that you have a presence digitally, that you're showing the community that you're building, you know, like this is something that I think women are going to get excited about.

12:32And, you know, if I, if I reflect back on my journey at Viore, it's old fashioned, but we promote product. We identified people that live in our product, you know, for us, that's trainers and yoga teachers and Pilates instructors for you, it's healthcare workers. And it might be difficult to do. You'd have to get creative on how to do it, but identify those influential tastemakers within every healthcare office setting across your geography and seed them product, make them ambassadors of the brand. And hopefully they'll post about it on social media. Then you have UGC that you can repost and you start to build a community around the brand.

13:11Love it. I totally agree, Joe. And I think that you have an opportunity. You know, I think about the brand Bumble. It's a completely different brand. It's a dating app, right? But how did Whitney Wolf launch that product? She went to Southern Methodist University and brought it to sorority sisters and she had them use it. I mean, I feel like you're in Miami. There's tons of medical schools around there. I feel like one of those pathways is to get it on the bodies of female medical students. I would imagine that they have a little bit more flexibility in what they can wear. And that, to me, is an opportunity to really generate buzz.

13:47To me, it's about trying to get it onto people at the beginning of their careers. Joe, a question for you about looking for a marketing person. How would Lori go about that? I mean, she's, you know, got a really prominent position in her field, but probably doesn't come across a lot of marketers unless I guess unless you're like operating on them in the middle of the night. You know, like how would you find that person? You know, if it was me, I would probably be looking at companies that are in your space, maybe other scrub companies that have had some success, even though it's, you know, maybe they're more centered right down the aisle.

14:23But they understand the market. They understand the customer. and look for somebody that's, you don't need somebody who's at a VP level. Find somebody who's young and hungry and wants to go show up at conferences and put up the booth and talk to people and has a passion for what you're building. And in the early days, you might wanna think about granting a little bit of stock options or some equity to somebody to motivate them to join you. I mean, in my early days, our head of marketing took a 50 % pay cut to join us because she believed in what we were building and she had some skin in the game.

14:59They're not gonna be co-founders technically, but they're gonna be right there alongside you in these really early formidable years. And you might wanna motivate them with some upside via equity. Okay, no, that's a great idea. For sure. Lori, thank you so much for calling in. The brand is called Green Cloud Apparel. Lori Borge, congrats on getting close to profitability. Thanks for calling in. Thank you so much. What a lucky day. Congratulations, Lori. Good luck. Good luck to you. Thank you. I think it's really cool. Yeah. I think she has a shot. She could really up-level the look and feel in healthcare.

15:35I think that would be, it's an awesome mission. And this is something that looks nice, that you could actually walk out of the hospital and maybe just go out to dinner and not have to change. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Wow, look at that outfit. That's so nice. These are my scrubs. Yeah. It's cool. It's like, it should spark conversation, you know? Yeah. And that's what I'm saying. Like if the product is good, this should work. Yeah. And I'm excited for her. I mean, think about it. 20 years ago, nobody would have worn Viore joggers to a nice restaurant. Now it's normal. Yeah. The world has changed.

16:10I mean, I think there is a return in the world to people want to look nice. They've come out of COVID and they've been living in, you know, casual clothing and like they want to look good, but they still want to be comfortable. Like nobody is walking away from comfort. But figuring out ways to merge like the feeling of a sweat pant with like a more elevated look I think has a lot of potential. So I think she's right on the bullseye. Okay, Joe, we're going to take a quick break. But when we come back, an Irish luxury handbag maker trying to create an international brand. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to The Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab.

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19:43welcome back to the advice line on how i built this lab my guest today is joe kudla founder of viore all right joe let's take our next caller hi guy hi joe welcome tell us your name where you're calling from and a little bit about your your business so i am brendan mcavoy i'm calling from Ireland. I am the co-founder of My Name is Ted, and My Name is Ted are Ireland's first heritage luxury handbag brand. It was inspired by my grandfather, Ted Carberry, who made leather bags using his mouth and left hand in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Okay, a million questions for you, but before I get to them, what question do you have for us?

20:21So we're finding it challenging to scale the business internationally with international retailers, US retailers, And we'd love to hear from you guys on how you feel the best next move would be to try and scale sustainably, but also at a really good level to make an impact to the business. Okay, cool. Let's start with the story. So your grandfather was a leather craftsman who sewed using his mouth? So he was originally a saddler. And in 1959, he lost his speech, his memory and the use of his right hand side. He had a stroke? He had a stroke and complications during that. But he had 11 kids, so he had to find a way to get back on the saddle, excuse the pun.

21:07So he taught himself while getting treatment on how to make small leather goods, satchels, really useful products, and was very successful, had two workshops, had some wholesale accounts, and everybody kind of went to him, whether it was you wanted roller skates fixed or you wanted something for somebody starting school, etc. So, wow. So you came across a story about your grandfather, inspired you to start a business around leather goods. And I'm looking at your website and mainly what you sell are handbags. They're beautiful handbags. I mean, tell me about how you even came up with the design or how you even start, like, because now I see you make them and they're made in Italy and they're, you know, handmade.

21:49Like, how'd you get to square one? so by being patient by allowing the thought of how do we start here so the fact that ted crossed from right-handed to left-handed uh to make his products and get through life our product initially was a men's product we thought but actually more women bought it than men either for themselves or men so it was like satchels briefcases that would convert to backpacks so cyclists could commuters could use them but very formal um the ceo of irish fashion council compared them to Hermes at one point. So really high end. But 80 % of our customers were women. And they were saying, when are you going to do some ladies handbags?

22:28And through a chance piece of inspiration on a rainy night in Dublin, sitting in traffic, I got the inspiration for the door bag collection. And that just elevated the brand at a totally different pace than what was happening with the wallets and briefcases and satchels. Oh, yeah. So to clarify, because I'm looking at the the site, the door bag, it's this sort of brass buckle on the bag that looks like a doorframe. Like if you've ever gone to, anybody listening, if you ever go to Ireland, you always see these posters of like the doors of Dublin, right? Or the doors of Ireland. And it's like a bunch of doors.

23:02So cool. And this is like a door, a beautiful brass doorframe as the logo on the bag. Is that a fair description? that is a perfect description and it was like sitting there looking at the doors they all looked that they were built at the same time but tell totally different stories and that just led me to think wow why has nobody incorporated a door into a bag you open and close them you secure your belongings you live in them everybody has a door that is nostalgic or creates good memories for them so it's kind of like the henry ford model it's um any type of bag as long as it's inspired by a door is where it's ended up going.

23:46You're selling in like boutiques throughout Ireland? Yeah so we would be seasonally in like Brown Thomas which is like Saks Fifth Avenue, Burkdorf, that type store. We have a number of five-star hotels which are excellent for us in their boutiques so lots of tourism does really well so Dramoll and Castle, trump doom bag amongst others and then we've some boutiques we did go to new york to coterie back a year and a half ago um and we met some boutiques there and we've had good success with them from philadelphia boston new york to sell through has been good they're continuously reordering um but yeah we we want to try and scale that side some more so you're trying to figure out how to get more retail partners in the U.S.

24:34and beyond. Joe, let's bring in the expert, Joe Kudla. What do you think? I mean, first of all, this is just so cool. So congratulations. I love the novelty of your product. I love the heritage. I mean, you have something that I wish that we had at Viore, and that's just this connection to this heritage, this story. It's really awesome. And so I do have a couple of questions, and I'm just curious, Like, who do you perceive your competition to be? Is this, because I think it plays into distribution in the U.S. in a big way. And I'm not an expert at the luxury market. I want to disclaim that. But I'm curious, like, do you see this as like a Louis Vuitton Hermes competition?

25:18Or do you see this as more of like an accessible luxury? Like I see the price point. Like Kate Spade. Yeah. Yeah. Because the price point is closer to Kate Spade's, maybe a little bit higher. Yeah. so so we work for a lean and where we want to be is we want to be that when anybody is considering rewarding themselves with a luxury purchase that we come into the reckoning so whether that is loewe gucci chanel etc we want to be in the thought process um but like kate spade and your Hint March would be price point wise where we would be in that space. Yeah. Yeah. I ask because, you know, we do business with Nordstrom.

26:02We don't do business with Neiman Marcus or Saks or, you know, those kind of higher end wholesale partners. But, you know, I'm a student of retail. And so one of the things that I've heard is like, you know, at Neiman Marcus, for example, it's like a war. Like these luxury brands are at war for space, you know? And so if you're Neiman Marcus's buying group, you're looking for, if you're going to give space to a brand, they need it to be at a$3 ,500 price point because they're going to move those units. So you're going to have, I think, a harder time at those accounts at the price point you're at.

26:40So I think aligning price point and distribution is really important. I think whereas like Nordstrom and Bloomingdale's, this feels very approachable and very aligned. So I think just getting clear on that and like who your competitive set is and aligning your pricing strategy with that in the US is going to be really important. But even at Nordstrom and Bloomingdale's, you know, it is a competitive space. And, you know, but that's all apparel. We're all in a competitive space. When I entered the market at Viore, people were like, how are you going to compete with Nike or Lululemon or Adidas? Like the market is so crowded and we had to figure it out.