Hexclad: Danny Winer

31:00And this is as we're seeing more and more juice shops pop up. I'm like grudgingly coming to grips with the fact that this may not have legs. I want to point something out here, which I think is really important and critical, which is you left your safe job as you were getting close to 50. I mean, you had a very good career, a good salary. I mean, you really started this business when you were like 49. And a lot of people think, oh, God, that's late. I mean, in fact, it's not. But the other thing is that – and I've said this in the show – there's a lot of evidence to show that late sort of entrepreneurs who are older – not late but older – have a much higher rate of success because they come to the table with a lot of experience.

31:53But it is scary because the stakes are somewhat higher. Like if you fail at 49 or 50, it's just harder to recover than if you're 25. You know, I'm so glad you brought that up because it really, it's very important because the fact is there's something about this country that is both amazing and challenging, which is we love an underdog story. We love a rags to riches story. But also there is this level in our country where we want to knock people down when they hit a level of success. Yes. And celebrate the 25 year olds who fail. We pity the 50 year olds who fail. Yeah. Were you, were you nervous about, about doing that in your fifties and your late forties?

32:41And was it any part of you like, God, this is, I'm nervous. It's scary. There's a level of terror to it. Luckily, I think very often ignorance is bliss, right? So what you don't know, you know, can't really hurt you, so to speak. So there were certain areas where I've said it a couple of times, I was naive, especially starting with Juicepresso. And maybe this overconfidence that because I was a good salesman and I really believed in the product, I could convince you that this was in your best interest to buy this. And we saw that business drop month by month by month. And the thing is, this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life.

33:26And it was one of the smartest things because I had a look, I had to look very closely at this and go, this business is not salvageable. And my ego wanted to fix it. But the thing is, sometimes you got to pull the plug, right? And sometimes you need somebody else to tell you that. It's very hard looking in the mirror sometimes. Very often, we're looking all over the place for the reason why we're not doing well. And then we skip the mirror. In this place, I played a role, but I misjudged the market. That's what I did wrong. I don't think the way I brought the product to market, the way we tried to sell it, I think we did the right thing there.

34:07I misjudged the market and shame on me. And we were in the juicer business like on a Tuesday night at 5 p.m. And the next morning at 9 a.m., we were not in the juicer business anymore. When we come back in just a moment, how trying to avoid Chinese premier Xi Jinping led Danny to start Hexclad. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.

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37:57Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2015, and even though Juice Presso made about$5 million, Danny and Cole know the business doesn't have legs. So they amp up their search for new products, and Danny even heads overseas to check out some Asian trade shows. And there, in the basement at the Canton Fair, Danny finds it, a new nonstick technology he believes he can turn into a cookware success, thanks in part to one very important man. I think one time somebody asked me, well, who do you owe it all to? And I go on a way, I owe it to Xi Jinping because he showed up at the Canton Fair this day to cut like the opening day ribbon or something.

38:44And I'd been at the preview day the night before and I met somebody, I don't even remember what it was. He had some interesting product. And I said, okay, I'm going to meet you tomorrow at noon. and I go to show up to walk into this hall and there's just 30 Chinese soldiers there and they've got their guns there and they won't let me in and apparently I'm being directed I got to go down three flights of steps into the basement walk all the way and come back up on the other end and I'm like I'm looking at my watch and I'm like damn Xi Jinping you're making me late to my meeting and so I head down into this basement area and I think for anybody who's ever been to a trade show like this.

39:24They'll sell every last bit of real estate they can get somebody to set up a booth in. And I'm walking down there and this is another one of the moments of my life where I'm like, I'm not on my phone. I'm not looking right, I'm looking left. And I look and I see this round plate, steel plate with hexagons all over it. And I go, hmm, that's interesting. So I walk over and immediately, you know, they, most of these booths, they hire like young college students because they can speak some English. And this girl comes up, she goes, Oh, do you like that? That, you know, she's like, yes, we invented that.

40:04That's the line. Everybody says it could be 10 booths selling the same tea kettle. And they'll all be like, Oh, we invented this. We invented, you know, they're all claiming ownership. And I'm like, okay, sure you did. I go, this is interesting. Have you, have you ever made a frying pan with it and they go oh yeah we're experimenting with them right now and i go inside their booth and they show me one pan and i'm like well this would never sell in america and a gentleman walks up and he spoke english so we started talking he goes yes we're really developing you know the frying pans and that and i go oh i used to be in the cookware business and he goes oh, we're like, well, so where do you sell in the US?

40:46And I started saying, well, you know, we've sold all over. And then I get to, and I've also done a good amount of business with Costco. And his eyes lit up. He's at Costco. Oh, we would love to do business with Costco. So I kind of jumped on that. And I'm like, well, you know, I know them very well. And, but I go, I think I've seen this tech. I lied. I'm like, I've seen this all over the Canton Fair. He goes, no, no, this is ours. I go, no, come on, tell me the truth. And he goes and gets a book. And in the book, he's just got page after page of global patents. And I'm like, did I actually run into the real deal?

41:25Like the guy who actually did invent this and has the patents to prove it? Because I've never seen anybody pull out a book with patents before. Yeah. And oftentimes you go to these trade shows and there's like 40 of the same version of the same product. But this was, he's basically saying, no, no, I'm the inventor. This is our product. Can you explain what it was about it that appealed to you right away? I mean, it's a nonstick pan with these like hexagon shapes on the lining of the pan. Why was that intriguing to you? Why was that interesting to you? Well, for a couple reasons. So to say, essentially what they do is they laser etch these hexagons so the non-stick is sitting in the removed portion of metal so it sits slightly recessed so one of the biggest problems with non-stick pans with people you scratch them with a metal spatula and then they wind up peeling and flaking and they get they get into your food and they last three months exactly and also they don't sear very well.

42:33Essentially, to get a good sear on a nonstick pan, you have to overheat the pan and you will destroy the pan to get a sear. So I'm like, wait a minute, you've got this steel, which you can get a sear at a lower medium heat. I'd been selling cookware for 15 years at that point. I'm like, people complained about not getting a good sear. They complained about they're nonstick peeling. And then they're like, oh, by the way, because of the design, it's also oven safe to at least 500 degrees. So just to be clear, I mean, most nonstick pans are and were aluminum pans. The vast majority were, yes. There were some, I mean, I think ScanPan was doing steel and a couple other.

43:21All Clad was doing it for a while, But for the most part – It was aluminum with a coating of that Teflon-style coating, right? Which you can still get them versus that. And this was different because it was steel, which conducts heat better. Well, aluminum does too, but steel is preferred by serious cooks. And it had this nonstick element, but it was different. It wasn't like Teflon. It was these etched hexagons. Yes. that covered the whole surface of the pan. Yes. So you come across this brand. What's the guy's name, by the way? His name is Mr. Lee. Okay, so you start to talk to him. And at that trade show, at that point, I can't imagine you were thinking, I want to sell these.

44:11Or were you? Were you thinking, I got to lock this up? I knew they had something special. It was not ready for the Western market, but I was excited about it. So, you know, when I went back to my hotel room, I was alone and I called Cole, you know, and I'm like, this might be a winner. You know, we talked about it. And then essentially I went back the next day. We talked more. They're like, look, we're going to make some new samples a little bit deeper because they were too shallow. And I go, great. I go, I'll help you. I know what will sell in America. So that was in the spring of 15. I wound up spending almost, I'd say, until around August 1 of 16.

44:58So we probably spent 16 months working on the pans together. Okay. I want a bunch of questions. So basically, once again, like with the Juicepresso, you've got to come up with a deal where you are going to be the exclusive distributor of this product, presumably for a country or territory, maybe more. but this was different because it wasn't just that you were going to distribute his products you were actually you wanted him to design to use his technology to design cookware to design pans pots other things that you wanted to help him build because you had experience in that how does that work well i would say he was already working on cookware he was thinking of the needs of the Korean market, which are slightly different than the needs of, say, the U.S.

45:50market. So I was giving them feedback of what I would need to make that product successful in the U.S. And really, this, in the beginning, was a handshake agreement. You know, there was a lot of faith on both parts. And I know this is strange, but we trusted each other. like when I still see him I'll fly over once a year at least to see the factory and he and I just look at each other and we kind of laugh and hug because there was a lot of trust in it he's like I'm not going to sell to anybody else in America and you're going to trust that I'm going to make the product great and not cut you out and for that first year we both openly said we're taking chances on each other because they were very small.

46:41He just had this great idea and he had a factory to produce it. And I told him my plan and I said, you know, I want to be a direct consumer cookware brand. I go, I want to sell online because I want to control the story. And by the way, this unique design needs its story told. How many people did you have working for you? Was it just you and Cole? At that point, we were so bootstrapped. We were me and Cole and our assistant as full-time employees in the office. You were doing everything. And then you'd outsource things like maybe some sales and bookkeeping. Yeah. We had a 3PL handling stuff for us.

47:23We used outside bookkeeping. We had at that time, because we were still growing the roadshow at Costco. So maybe we only had about 15 employees there. But they were all on contract. Yes. How did you pay for the initial orders of, I mean, by this point, the pans and the pots are starting to be made and manufactured in Korea. Where did you have the cash to even pay for those first orders? So we'd gotten to the point that we were kind of, we were breaking even on the juicer. So maybe a tiny bit of profit there and like say may mayish june we placed our first cookware order at the end of july we kind of had it perfected we made the cookware we could only afford one 20-foot container at the point because we cole and i had to come with the money out of you know our pockets and we found a way it was even it was cheaper for us to send the cookware over unboxed so we could fit more in a container and then box it in Cole's backyard.

48:33Roughly, how much money did that cost you? That first order wasn't that much because it was a small container. I think it was around$75 ,000 worth of product. And then once you sort of package and sell it, probably would sell for at least twice that. Yeah, probably more like three. Three times that. And by the way, did you have a name for it yet? I mean, they had a name for what they came up with, but you were going to brand it as something different, right? So, yeah, we had to make the boxes. And Cole and I, it was 930 at night, and we had to trademark something the next day, 9 a.m. And we're like, Cole's like, what about hex clad?

49:08I'm like, nah, I don't. I don't know. I don't like it. Hexagon and clad. Like, you think of, like, there's all clad. There's other cookware that's clad. There's clad, yeah. Clad, yeah. So Cole's like coming in. And I'm like, we can think of something better. And then finally, like an hour later, he's like, dude, come on. We got to come. All right. Hexclad. And people have always like, we love your name. You know, your branding company that came up with it. They did great. Nah, Cole just came up with it at 930. And then we just, we had to go start making the boxes the next day. And in fact, and we've gotten compliments on our logo, the Hexclad logo.

49:47We had no money to hire an artist or a company to design it. So I found a website that does these contests between artists all over the world. So I put it up there like$299 to make the Hexclad logo. All right. So you've got a logo. You've got this initial order. But if you want to go big, you need some serious money behind this to generate, you know, to basically get some inventory produced. Um, and so did you, I have to imagine you thought, well, let's go out and raise money. I mean, this is 2016. I mean, this is the height of the, I mean, there's a lot of money going to DTC companies at that point.

50:25This, this was the start of it. So I went out, tried and raised money and mostly in LA or New York or most, mostly in LA and up North. and I may have had one meeting in New York and I got this. There were a couple of things like one, they didn't get the pan. And I'm like, am I not explaining this technology properly? But they were like, okay, it's different. I go, yeah, I go, this is a new advance in a tired, old business that hasn't known any innovation since Teflon came out essentially. And it's scratch-proof. It's nonstick, scratch-proof. I want to say scratch-resistant. If you dig in there with a knife, you can scratch it.

51:12But if you're cooking normally, you grab a metal spatula, metal spoons, whisks, it's fine. And they're like, okay, that's good. And they go, okay, well, listen, forget, let's just say everybody loves your idea. How are you going to get shelf space? And I went, aha, I don't want shelf space. They're like, what? Yeah. I go, I don't need all clad shelf space at Bed Bath & Beyond. They're like, well, how then? I go, we're going to be the first direct to consumer cookware brand. We are going to take out the middleman. We're going to market to our customers and start a journey with them. And people were like, you cannot sell cookware that way.

51:55People don't buy their cookware that way. They looked at me like I was out of my mind. So there wasn't a single investor you met with that was interested in? A few people mildly interested, but not really. And look, I didn't completely blame them. Part of me was like, you know, I'm like, I need to maybe do a better job of telling this story. But really what it is was consistently people were like, nobody's going to buy cookware this way. And it was, and it was, these were hard no's. they weren't like let's go to committee they were like hard nose and so during during 16 and 17 you know we i cashed out my 401k that i'd had i my return my roth my i took all the money out paid penalties i everything i'd had saved up i had 90 of my life savings by the by the time we hit tied up in the company.

52:57We applied for credit cards and we were paying one credit card with another credit card. We may have even exaggerated a couple of things to get another credit card. How much money did the two of you have to put in? I would say we were probably flirting with like around between the two of us, like 800 grand, 900 grand that we had in. Yeah. That's scary. I mean, because at this point, You know, you being 50, over 50, saving that amount of money, you know, you're already thinking, OK, in 15 years I'm going to retire. I've got to – so to take$400 ,000 or$500 ,000 of your whole life savings out, pay the penalties to put into this thing.

53:42And then if you're wiped out, that's not going to be good. Yeah, I'm probably going to be tending bar again or, you know, or selling. Until you're – Yeah. Yeah, I'll tell you, guy, that was terrifying. And this is the part where I want to encourage entrepreneurs. But I would wake up panicked at 4 a.m. in 16 and 17 because now we're all in. Still with the juicer, we'd started breaking even at least. We're not feeding the machine, so to speak. And I still had money in the bank. But now this took more money to develop, and we were very good at stretching a dollar. But it was frightening. Why were you so confident in this product?

54:33I mean, it's kind of a rhetorical question, but you went to all these VCs, and they looked at it, and what they're looking for is innovation, right? Like an AI-wired, you know, like an internet-connected pan or something that is very different. And to most of them, they just saw a pan that was a slight variation on Teflon to them, right? You're saying, no, no, this is totally different. But why did you, even after hearing all that pushback, why did you think that this was so special? Well, Cole and I had spent a good chunk of our adult life selling cookware. We know that people buy it. People cook.

55:16People are cooking more. You know, I think I mentioned now I'm also being validated by the explosion of Instagram chefs, of food content producers, you know, and I got questioned by my boss and by other people. Now I've been proven right on this. And I was confident and I knew this. I knew that I could sell that this was a great product. So we launched our website in November of 16. and I still have the email. We sold a 10-inch pan. Why this person bought it, we started running Facebook ads and I wanted to understand what people were reacting to. So as we hit that end of 16 and beginning of 17, I think I even booked a gourmet show and I went there with Hexclad and nobody knew it yet.

56:15and and i remember it was like all day friday i didn't sell anything and i'm like i'm worried and i had one of my one of my best friends came with me at the time he's like i'll help you out we'll do it you know he was a good salesman and and we hadn't sold anything and it was one o 'clock on saturday i'm like oh god maybe i am wrong well then one o 'clock i finally connected with somebody and they're like, I'm going to get it. Okay, I'll take it. And then I kept demoing. I'm like one after another. And all of a sudden cut to three hours of me not like just talking nonstop. And we'd sold 18 of our frying pan sets.

57:00And also I was realizing what was resonating with people and what wasn't. What was working and what wasn't? What I'd realized was I found I was not only just promoting the benefits, but I was apologizing for the things that weren't as good about it. Like, for example, if you take a Teflon pan out of a box, the Teflon pan will clean up easier. now our pan's going to clean up much better than an aluminum or a stainless steel pan but it's only going to clean up about 85 as well as a teflon pan but the benefit is you don't have to worry about metal and all those other things and once i honed in on all that stuff then we started connecting and people started buying so what what about i mean because it was supposed to be direct to consumer were your facebook ads it doesn't sound like the facebook ads were really moving product.

57:56Well, we had no money, first of all. So we were spending like a thousand bucks a month in 16. But also what this gave us an opportunity to do, as we did a couple of these shows, I was able to take my learnings and then tweak the Facebook ads a little bit. And then what happened was I decided to take a chance to reach out to my Costco connection. All right. So you decide, I mean, you had this in a Costco with a juice preso. Yes. And you and Cole say, let's try this again. Let's try to bring these pans to Costco. So I think about a year after you get your first shipment in, you get a chance to do an in-store demo in Costco.

58:40It's November of 2017. Is it in one Costco or is it going to be in multiple Costco? What they do is they give you one test store with a couple of backup test stores. I mean, And they have the option that if it's completely disastrous, they could pull the plug, I guess. But I think usually they're going to give you a few stores. And so where did you – did you go yourself to demonstrate it? I went there. I relied on one of my old reps from my old company who had needed – was looking for a new opportunity. And we've been talking. And he really liked the product. And he's like, I'll do it for you.

59:14Wow. So really, if you get into Costco, it's not a guarantee that you're going to succeed. Like there are products that did try Costco and don't exist anymore. Oh, yeah. Because their margins are very slim. They require – I mean they demand a very low price. Yep. And you got to move product in order to make money there. Yes. Um, you know, it's scary, but I also knew I went back to me standing at the St. Louis food and whatever gourmet show when we had done it months earlier. And I just saw like, I knew what people did in demonstration with this. Like they, it resonated. They liked it. What kind of foods did you make?

59:57Just omelets? Yeah. Like, Oh, cause they want to see an egg cook. And I think we did cheese, you know, Then we make a quesadilla for them, some sticky stuff, and then talk about the deal and show about the value props. You make some dumb jokes like, ladies, this is husband-proof cookware. You can use the metal spatula or whatever it might. But when we got that opportunity, Fountain Valley, I remember we sold in the neighborhood of$5 ,000 worth of product that first day in one store. I mean, that sounds like a lot to me. Is that a lot? Sure. Yeah, that's a lot. I guess if you're doing 20 grand a month, doing five grand in a day is pretty awesome.

1:00:38And in the roadshows, your schedule, they're 10-day events. So I think when we finished, we were flirting with around$40 ,000 in that 10-day period. And what was the goal? What was the metric that you had to hit in order to prove it out? I'm guessing we more than 3X'd what they were hoping for. Wow. All right. So you prove this out and now you are going, and what does that mean? Does that mean they come back to you and say, okay, well, let's go national? Well, immediately, they're like, great numbers. And we already had store two and three scheduled. So that means those are going to go through.

1:01:16In the couple days between the starting of stores two and three, they offer us two or three more stores. And we're like, yeah, let's do them. Well, now store two goes equally as well. And we're like, we cannot afford to have inventory sitting around. So now we're running into inventory problems. And we were still at this point, like having product come in unpackaged because we couldn't afford. So we would literally line up boxes in Cole's backyard and we'd run down a line and I'd be like 12 inch pan, 12 inch pan, 12 inch pan, 10 inch pan, 10 inch pan. hand packaging them to save money. And then we'd be like taping them closed.

1:01:59And we had so many paper cuts on our fingers that there sometimes would be little blood spots on the box. And we would have to take Windex and go back and clean the blood off the top of the box. And we would drive them to the Costco to sell them. Yeah, it was scary and exhilarating at the same time. When we come back in just a moment, how Danny and Cole turned this backyard business into a$500 million company in under 10 years. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.

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1:05:04Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So 2017 to 2018 is a pivotal time for Danny and Cole. Costco puts Hexclad into more and more stores and sales grow. And the guys figure out how to make ads work for them on Facebook and really connect with customers. So essentially what was happening in the first half of 18 was we were, I would say, putting almost 100 percent of the money back into the company. There was no taking salaries. There was no, you know, there was none of that. I remember like finally the first time Cole and I took a paycheck in July of 18. And we were each able to take, I think,$10 ,000.

1:05:55And that was like – we were like$10 ,000. We made it. So, all right. So, 2019, the direct-to-consumer side of the business really takes off. and do you remember roughly what you got? I mean, 10 million in sales in 2018. Do you remember what you guys did in 2019? We almost doubled that. So we were up in the 18, 19 range and yeah. And by the way - And profitable. And profitable. So really we were profitable by the middle of 18. But you had to be, you still had to be somewhat nervous because you had seen with the juice press, awesome sales and then the whole thing just fall apart yes i mean you're always going to be a little nervous and i guess if you're not nervous you're you know not doing your job properly right you should always be concerned because of course then you hit 2020 which is the covid year um and now all of a sudden all eyes turn to really to to computers and phones everyone's stuck inside And a lot of direct-to-consumer businesses, Peloton and others, just went crazy.

1:07:12And did it also have that same effect on sales for you guys? Were people just ordering cookware because they were stuck at home now? Well, there were a couple things. And what was interesting about that was as we're selling right along with the production capacity of our factory, Costco shut down the Costco roadshow. Right, because of the pandemic. In March, they became groceries only. And if it wasn't groceries, they weren't selling it. So now we had all this additional product that we'd paid for. so essentially now you were expecting to sell x not x plus y but cole and i you know now we're heading into april one we're like we don't know quite yet that people how long they're going to be locked up and how long they're going to be shopping we're still doing pretty well online this is before nobody no one was talking about a payroll protection plan yet this was just that was a couple months away and then we also went well we got all this cookware how much money do we have in the bank and i remember we had a million bucks and we just looked at each other and we're like let's blow the whole million on advertising on meta and we spent a million bucks in april and i think i think in february we had we were doing a million a month online and we sold$5 million in April online.

1:08:43And we're like, so we go, I will probably be able to start taking a salary in May. I guess that summer, summer of 2020, somebody on your team, because you'd staffed up and you had to staff up, right? And you had somebody who noticed that Gordon Ramsay had been following you guys on Instagram. Yes. And so obviously you reached out to him most probably the most famous chef on the planet well so i guess initially to to give him pans right yeah to sort of send him some some gifts you know it's it's been such a strange journey and i even that that's like one of them uh you know i mean gordon ramsay is the biggest chef on the planet and they know him everywhere and we wouldn't to see that he was following us on instagram was like wow and i you know what i learned later was somebody gifted him a pan i I think during the pandemic and he was home like everybody else.

1:09:40He's cooking every day for his kids. And so we did reach out and we're like, can we send you some more pans? And whoever answered on his team said, sure. And then we also just said, does, you know, Gordon involved with the cookware company? And they were like, I don't think so. And that led to, we're like, well, we'd love to talk. And I don't know, a few days later, I was on a call with Gordon's business manager. And, you know, we're discussing, you know, what could this look like? And I mean, it's a bit surreal. And initially they were thinking, okay, maybe a commercial, right? That you wanted him to do a commercial.

1:10:20He threw out the options. He's like, you know, Gordon, like if he likes your product, you know, he'd do a commercial. It's expensive. But he also. Probably like a million bucks. I would guess. At least. You know, yeah. He never gave me an exact number, but I knew it was a lot. And then, you know, and it's short term unless you keep buying it. But then he said, but Gordon likes your product. You know, Gordon's, by the way, a very, very shrewd businessman. And he's like, he likes your product. And I think he'd love to participate. And I'm like, well, let's see what that looks like. And the idea would be, hey, maybe he actually becomes an owner, part owner.

1:11:02Yeah, that's what we were looking at. I mean, really, we wanted to say, were we a good fit? What are our goals? How do they fit ethically together in a way? That's one thing I think that Gordon and I have in common. We're both very hardworking. We don't want to half-ass anything. like my product is a great product it's well made it performs well and i won't sell something that way and gordon's the same way and we kind of saw that in each other and gordon's very enthusiastic and he's got great ideas like ways you can market stuff and so we got on this call and i was intimidating you know i just go on the screen it's like we're on right now but there's the biggest chef in the world on the other side and we start talking and i i had 20 minutes scheduled for the call.

1:11:55And Gordon and I talked for an hour and 20 minutes. And we just talked about everything we could do. And I think when we got off the call, everybody involved was like, yeah, this makes sense. You know? Then you just had to get the lawyers to ask what it actually would mean. And so you, of course, we know, I mean, people who know HexClyde know, you made it, you came to an agreement with him. And what did that mean? I mean, it meant that he would post on social media. You would film videos of him using it. What was it going to mean to have him as a brand ambassador and an equity holder? You know, we'd put faith in our relationship with Mr.

1:12:33Lee early on with your hopes that there's a follow through with everything. Yes, there's a contract that has X, Y, and Z deliverables. If that was the way we approach this relationship, I would say, I don't even know if we would still have a relationship with Gordon because it's been like a very fluid type of relationship. Like, yes, we're going to do a certain amount of content every year and Gordon's going to collab on some posts with us. And he's like, I want to use the cookware in a lot of my restaurants and that was all good but what he didn't need to do and it's not in any contract was i'm going to put it on my tv shows so you know we started doing that and like they called me and he's like you know i know we've been talking about doing something in canada he goes i'm going to be in vancouver at at the end of february why don't we do an event he didn't have to just offer that it's like he he does stuff like he's always thinking like Like, what can we do to take this to the next level and the next level and the next level?

1:13:43Yeah, I mean, he is a very good – I mean, he's probably easily the best sort of food entrepreneur on the planet. I mean, in part, he's a great chef. He's got a Michelin three-star restaurant, but he's also a personality that's managed to become so much bigger than his restaurants. And, you know, I imagine that, I mean, having him again, you know, it actually reminds me a lot of a story we did on the show a year or two ago about On Shoes, a brand that was founded by, you know, three Swiss guys, not very well known. they scaled it on their own. They turned it into a real powerhouse. And then Roger Federer became really interested in doing something with him.

1:14:28He's Swiss. They were Swiss. And, you know, and Roger Federer's involvement helped take on to the next level. You know, all of a sudden, it wasn't just a really popular shoe brand. It's like now one of the most popular running brands on the planet. And it was started in 2012. So there's a lot of parallels there, right? Like, Like, you guys got it to a pretty great point. But then Gordon Ramsay is interested, and he can help you really supercharge it. Exactly. I mean, I think we would have continued to scale. And he'll sometimes, you know, poke fun with me when we talk. He'll be like, oh, you know, thank God you got me.

1:15:04And, you know, and I'll joke. I'm like, thank God you got me too. And we're a good team. But, yes, like, look, Gordon brings you eyeballs. And that's what this business is about, right? You want eyeballs. Because if you have a good product and you get the consumer's attention, when they're ready to purchase, they're going to consider you. So Gordon gets a lot of people to consider our product. Maybe that didn't know about us. I mean, in the first full year that he was a partner, I read that your revenue is$170 million. And there's no question that that was a huge help. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

1:15:43Absolutely. It was huge. Maybe we scale that year. Maybe we do get it. We do 100 % again and we go to around 100. It's always hard to guess, but I know this. When you get somebody like Gordon who's passionate, you add that all together. It's just a recipe for growth. Yeah, no question about it. But I mean, this is now expanded into like, if you go to the Hexclad website, you know, his signature is on there and it's not just pans and pots. I mean, it's like you guys are doing knives and you're doing cutting boards and aprons and other tools. I mean, there is like, this is like a bunch of different things that you are now.

1:16:28You've really expanded out into a bunch of different places. so like we do want to kind of own the kitchen and that was when like when i met with gordon i talked about this like i this is what i want i go i want to innovate in every kitchen category so when we can innovate bring something new a better mousetrap we're going to do it if we can't totally innovate, I want to make something that's of the finest quality that just looks sexy as hell. It's amazing because, you know, in a, I mean, of course, it was a long, I'm sure it's felt like a very long journey, but right, 2017 to 2025. And, you know, you probably, you might hit 700, 800 million this year, who knows?

1:17:18And how many people now work for Hexclad? How many employees do you have around the world? We have in the neighborhood of, and by that I should know the exact number, but we are hiring pretty regularly still. Globally, I'd say we're around 235, 240. So pretty efficient for the amount of revenue you're bringing in. And everything is still made in Korea or have had to build second factories in other Asian countries? So we make different things in different places. Like I told you, our steel is manufactured in Japan for that. Most of the cookware is made in China, actually. Our wood products are made in Slovenia.

1:18:03Our eco-friendly aprons here in LA. Okay, so we do have a lot of global locations where we do manufacture. And we're looking to expand that and diversify further in the next year or two. So, Danny, here you are, 60 years old. 59 still. I'm clean. Okay. But this is your 60th. No, I mean, I think this should be immensely proud. You know, you're hitting your 60th year and you start a business at 50. You know, that's a big risk. And it was a while before you saw any money. And now you are, you know, a majority owner here. You have no investor still. I mean, Gordon Ramsay is an equity holder, but no outside investor still.

1:18:50We got one outside investor last year. We did release that. Oh, that's right. Right. Right. Right. 100. Gordon Ramsay's Fox. Fox. The partnership of Fox and Studio Ramsey Global. They put in 100 million. Yeah. No, I mean, it really is an amazing gamble slash sacrifice to make and then to see it pay off is, I mean, it just must be an incredibly fulfilling feeling, you know, just this like gratifying. That's the word I was looking for. To be able to sit there and be like, we did this. We made it. This worked. You know, it is. And I, and I hope like, you know, I hope people, if they get one thing, and I love that you brought up my age multiple times because we are taught like, you know, you, you know, there is a fear.

1:19:38If you're gambling your, your livelihood, you got a husband or a wife and you got kids, you got like, I didn't have that. So it was easier. So, you know, I'm not as brave, right? I was only screwing over myself if I failed, really. Yeah, it's still something now. It absolutely is. And it is terrifying. But I think that if you see a hole in the marketplace, if you think you have a better mousetrap, don't go to the roulette table, but take measured risks on yourself and on the fact that you have something that the market wants. Because that's how great stuff happens. That's how we get innovation.

1:20:18and I applaud it even for people that that failed with it I mean you know failure has been one of the best things to ever happen to me if juice presso hadn't failed hex cloud would not be as successful when you think about the journey you took you know and where where you are now how much of of where you got to do you attribute to the to the grind and the work you put it and And how much do you attribute to luck and timing? You know, just people just watching social media and getting into cooking and I don't know. What do you think?

1:20:58I mean, look, that's a really good question. Is there luck involved? There is chance, whatever we want to call it, luck, chance. Did a pandemic help? Yes. Do I think we were already wildly successful? Yes, we were. You know, there's stuff I can control. I can't control a pandemic, right? I can't control, you know, a boom or a recession. I can control my work ethic, you know, that I can control. I can control me knowing that I have turned over every rock to make sure this is the best product, that I've looked at every marketing plan to know that this is one that's going to bring us a set level of revenue next year.

1:21:43I can control that. And it's kind of like being kind of out in rough seas. I can man the tiller, right? I can stay there and I can forego sleep. I can't control which wave is coming when. If I'm controlling the tiller, I have the best chance of us getting to our place successfully. And so I think that's what I try to do in my life and in my business is be the best guy at the helm to be able to control any storm that happens because it's going to come, right? It's just a matter of time. Danny, thanks. God, thank you. This was fun. That's Danny Weiner, CEO and co-founder of Hexclad Cookware. By the way, during his time trying to break into Hollywood, Danny landed a few background parts in commercials, but his potential big break, he got a role in a film called Rising Sun, starring Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes.

1:22:48It wasn't even a bit part. It was like I was a cop, like a couple cops show up, and you can't even see me in it, which was so disappointing because originally I had a line and it was short. And I don't know, it was like one of these, like just the facts, please. Even though I did get to meet Sean Connery. Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, please sign up for my newsletter at GuyRoz.com or on Substack.

1:23:22This episode was produced by Carrie Thompson with music composed by Ramtin Ereblui. It was edited by Andrea Bruce with research help from Catherine Seifer. Our engineers were Gilly Moon and Jimmy Keeley. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, J.C. Howard, Chris Massini, Sam Paulson, John Isabella, Iman Ma 'ani, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.

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