Vuori: Joe Kudla

27:25And I had this acute awareness of what it would be like to be on my deathbed, looking back and saying, gosh, I saw that opportunity so clearly and I didn't pursue it. And I just wasn't willing to live with that. I couldn't live with that. when we come back in just a moment how joe sets out to design activewear that does not scream activewear stay with us i'm guy roz and you're listening to how i built this

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30:05One more thing before we get back to the show, please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And it's totally free.

30:21Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's around 2013. Joe leaves his consulting firm, Vaco, and starts working with a new partner, Chris, to start an activewear brand for men. We needed to raise money, and we would have calls with private individuals, sometimes financial institutions, really anybody that was willing to talk to us. We put together a brand deck and a business plan. And we took a lot of investor calls and sadly got a lot of rejection in those early days. What was your pitch? Tell me how you would pitch me. I mean, you'd come in and say, we're going to start a men's lifestyle brand.

31:01And I'm like, well, what does that mean? Tell me what you would say. Well, it was very much, you know, Lululemon had really exploded, but they weren't resonating necessarily with men. You know, it was one of the fastest growing active apparel brands in the space. but men's was an afterthought. We saw yoga and this active lifestyle for men as just a wide open space with nobody really competing for it. And people were like, well, what's the IP? What's the customer acquisition hook? Are you guys digital marketing experts? And we were kind of cut from the old school. Chris built a legacy wholesale brand.

31:37Neither of us had a lot of e-com experience or we weren't thinking about the business through more of a tech or digital lens first, we saw an opportunity to build a community around the brand that was different than what existed in the market. And this was around 2013, when all those started, you started to see an explosion of DTC companies, raising money, some of them succeeded, some of them didn't. But imagine that also some of the questions were like, so wait, you're gonna make like what like yoga pants or yoga tops, like tell me what you're gonna make for guys. it almost never even got to that point honestly i think when people realized that there was nothing proprietary or there wasn't a customer acquisition gimmick or hook to the business a lot of meetings were short and there was a lot of passes you know it's just funny you know when you talk about a relationship with rejection being a model and working in europe it was constant rejection and then my experience at veico to trying to be a salesperson when i was a pretty shy guy naturally I developed a really unique relationship with rejection.

32:42And so that was all building my backbone up for trying to raise capital for an apparel brand because it was kind of like starting a band and telling your friends you're going to be the next Rolling Stones. People are like, yeah, good luck. But nobody was interested in investing. Well, yeah. I mean – and I'm sure they were like, yoga – guys aren't going to buy yoga gear. They don't do that. They're going to come in with their Adidas and Nike shorts. Yeah. I mean, I remember going to yoga classes in Nike shorts. That's what I would do. Yeah. I didn't think too much about it. So I imagine the pushback was like, it works for women in Lululemon because yoga is still perceived to be like sort of a sport for women, even though that's not true.

33:28But I think that would have been the pushback you were getting. Yeah. You know, we saw the success Lou was having. I mean, they really defined a new category within active. They were working with better materials. You know, the dirty secret in our space is that the big brands, you know, they were really premium footwear offerings, but they never really had a premium apparel offering. Whereas like Lulu inherently was working with fabrics that were much more expensive. So before you did any cut and make of the garment, just the textiles, which is a huge ingredient in making a great garment, they were just better.

34:00Yeah. And so we wanted to do something really cool, premium and do something for men. And it just did not exist in the market. But probably – and Lululemon, there's a femininity about the name too, a perception probably, Lululemon. So I say this as somebody who has some Lululemon apparel for men. But I imagine that people at the time that you were trying to raise money from would have said, well, if Lululemon wants to do this and it's not working, why are you going to work? I don't remember that question specifically, but I think just in general, people looked at me, somebody that didn't have a track record of success in apparel.

34:45And even with Chris, Chris was there because he had a great background. He had had some success in consumer retail, in footwear primarily. But they just looked at us and said, no, these aren't going to – I think some people saw the opportunity, but maybe questioned whether I was really going to be the guy that was able to go and do this and disrupt this space. So any luck raising money from private equity or VCs in 2013, 2014? No, nothing. Nothing? It was really challenging. And how much were you looking to raise? I think our original goal was$2 million. You couldn't raise the money from private.

35:27So from what I understand, you decided to go to reach out to your network of friends and family to raise the money. Yeah. I think our first raise, we had a goal of a couple million dollars. I think we raised$400 ,000 to$500 ,000, somewhere in that range. And that was enough for us to get started and start working on samples and starting to bring some products to life. All right. So let's talk about now next step. You raised a little bit of money. You're on this full time and it's just you and Chris, but who is going to help you? So let's just start with just designing the apparel. Did you have somebody that you could work with or that you could source?

36:09Yeah. So Chris had some experience with a woman named Rebecca Bray, who he worked with back in his action sports days dating back to planet Earth. And Chris always felt Rebecca would be a really good fit for Fiore. And we sat on a couch in Chris's living room and talked about the vision, the idea for the brand. And she just loved it. She just saw what we saw in the active space. And so we hired her almost as a consultant, an independent contractor. And in the evenings, I would go over to her house and we would chip away at it. And tell me how you would do that. Like you would say, I'm looking for like this kind of waistband and this kind of fit.

36:57Like what would you say? How would you describe what you wanted? Yeah, I mean the first thing we were aligned with was like we wanted to create a more casual point of view in the category. You know, there's a saying in our space that, you know, activewear is turbo, meaning it's like it looks like really technical activewear. product that identifies you as somebody that's going to the gym or competing in a sport, you know, and we wanted to be the antithesis of that. So we wanted it to be effortless, easy to wear. We wanted to have functional details that would support you through a workout, but we wanted to almost hide them from eyesight.

37:34And it wasn't that turbo kind of technical look and feel that was so commonplace in the active market. You know, speaking of technical performance wear, right? Like, I mean, how did you even know what kind of fabric you wanted? You didn't want like stretchy, right, tight-fitting pants. You wanted something, but not like loose, like 80s sweatpants or thick. You wanted something thinner, lighter. I mean, how did you even know what kind of material you wanted? Well, it's been an evolution. This industry was just being developed. Premium active wear was very new. And so where to go for sourcing, it was a puzzle.

38:12It was like a scavenger hunt to figure out where to go to source. So the first products we brought to market was, our first product was the core short for men. And it's still our best-selling men's athletic short. And the idea was to create a short that almost looked more like a board short that was designed for surfing so that it would resonate with our community. But it had a built-in supportive liner. It would support you through a great workout. It would move and stretch with your body. It had an elastic waist. And we put a draw cord on the outside of the shorts that was natural, that just looked more West Coast, more California-esque in its aesthetic.

38:47All right. So when did you – so you basically – 2013, you kind of jump into this fundraising, trying to get into the designs. You bring in Rebecca. Rebecca Bray is her name, I think, right? Yeah. And how long before you land on the design where you're like, that's it, that's the one? Do you remember how long it took? We loved the core short. When we brought that short to market, we started showing buyers across, whether it was big national chains or it was fitness stores, they looked at it and they were scratching their heads like, what is this? It looks like a swim short. This isn't activewear.

39:25And we even had some activewear buyers tell us, this is never going to sell in New York City. you know maybe on the west coast but but never here in new york but that was that was it it was the core short that was our first product we were like this is the one all right let me let me back up and fill some gaps in before you go to market with this so you've got a design and by the way were you able to hire anybody else or was it really in the first year just bringing in consultants yeah so you know it was really myself and rebecca initially and then the first person we hired with the little fundraising that we had done, because I chose not to take a salary from the business just to be able to keep the lights on longer.

40:08The first person we hired was Nikki Sekilio, who is our CMO today. And Nikki's been with me since day one. Rebecca's still with us today. But Nikki had an incredible marketing background. She was most recently before Viore with a company called Prana, which is like an outdoor kind of climbing Patagonia-esque brand. And then also she worked in the surf industry. She worked for a company called Globe and OP back in the day. And so she had this interesting hybrid background between action sports and surf and beach culture and yoga and performance and outdoor. All right. So you sort of land on a design for the shorts.

40:51Where did you source the place that was gonna make you the samples? So Rebecca brought in a gentleman who she had been working with in another business that did some golf type of apparel. He did some surf apparel and he was an agent. And he represented a factory in China that had some experience working with these types of stretch performance materials. And so that's who we contacted and started working with on these first designs. How did those initial samples come out? Were you happy with what they made? No, the first samples, the fabric was way too heavy. The prints weren't executing properly.

41:33The liner didn't fit well. And, you know, today it's funny, we have these big technical design teams and they're pattern makers. They're experts in making product fit exceptionally well. In those days, it was Rebecca and I, we were winging it. You know, we would get a sample in my size, I would try it on, and we would talk through how to change the fit. And we would try to communicate that to the factory. And then we would get another proto back. Our vision is to create the best product on the planet. But when we started, the product kind of sucked. And we had a lot of work to do to improve it.

42:07All right. And so it took you about a year and a half, right, before you were ready to launch that first product. But before we get there, did it feel like your pace was the right pace or did you feel like it was taking too long? I think at the time it felt like it was taking a long time. Obviously, I was a little naive. I hadn't built an apparel brand with offshore production and all the complexity of sourcing these types of materials. And then from product ideation and design through like delivery of production, it's a long time. And so to be chipping away at something, to be burning capital and not being in market getting real-time feedback can feel like a slug, can feel like a really long time.

42:52So what were the biggest – I mean the biggest obstacles presumably were just – I mean there was everything. But what do you remember in that first year and a half just getting frustrated over what kind of things were driving you crazy? well there were other brands that were launching around the same time that had similar ideas or similar takes on this category whether they were women's or men's but we were we were hearing that some of these brands were having a lot more success raising capital than we were and so i developed a complex that man these other brands have a lot more money they're going to outspend us they're going to out market us and ultimately just beat us to market with a similar idea because here we were, we had raised a couple hundred thousand,$400 ,000.

43:40I wasn't paying myself. We were working in a garage from one of our investors that didn't require us paying rent. It was a true bootstrapped business. And I had a little bit of an insecurity around whether or not we could go out and compete with these brands that were raising a lot of institutional capital and getting big kind of retail names on their boards. And that was really nerve wracking. When we come back in just a moment, how Joe and his team embark on a risky new strategy when their first business model does not pan out. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This.

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48:55Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. So it's 2015, and with dwindling cash and an eye on competitors with a lot more money, Viore launches its first products into the world. The initial idea was that we would sell through gyms and yoga studios. You know, and studio fitness was exploding. So these concepts, whether it was SoulCycle or it was CrossFit or, you know, Orange Theory or Equinox, There were studio fitness concepts popping up everywhere. And so you were seeing a lot of women's brands that were popping up that were selling in these studios and gyms and building great little businesses.

49:37But there was never an offering for men of any, nothing really substantive. And so Viore felt like, well, we can be that brand. And, you know, it may not be a huge business, but a great jumping off point to kind of get started. All right. So you start to roll it out. Like, do you remember how much money you guys spent on your first order from the factory in China? Was it, you know, half a million dollars? I mean, was it a big purchase? I think it was less than that. But we ordered 500 units per color of, I think, like three items. It was the minimum order quantity, but it was maybe like, I don't know,$100 ,000 worth of inventory.

50:18Yeah. And you ended up getting them into places like Equinox and CorePower from the get-go? Not initially. We were selling into a lot more independent yoga studios. Yeah. You know, your one-offs or chains that had three or four doors. I don't think the product was quite ready for national distribution with CorePower or Equinox at that time. But presumably, I mean, this is the way to go, right? Because you're going to expose your brand to your audience. You know, we got some sell through, but it was typically when a guy left his shorts at the office. So he didn't have something. He would buy a pair of our shorts.

51:01So there was that. And it wasn't just yoga studios. We were selling into some surf shops, some outdoor shops. We were calling on the big guys and trying to get meetings. And we actually did get a lot of meetings. I remember the first trip I took was to New York and I just packed a suitcase and I toted my products around, walked into a bunch of different gyms and talked to some more sophisticated buyers at specialty shops. And people just looked at the product and they didn't really get what we were trying to do. Again, it just looked very different. It didn't look like activewear. And therefore, we got a lot of passes.

51:37And keep in mind, this is at a time when premium activewear wasn't a category that was sold at Nordstrom. It wasn't sold at REI or outdoor shops. So if you explain to somebody that you were going to build this premium men's activewear brand, people just were like, that's not a top priority for our business. You know, right now we have a challenge where everybody's wearing Lululemon. All of our female customers are wearing Lululemon. And if we're going to get into activewear, it's going to be a women's brand to address the need to service that woman. So yeah, that was a really low point for me because we just didn't know if our business strategy was going to work.

52:22Did you think that maybe you were wrong? Maybe guys aren't looking for this. I mean I knew that our community was. I saw it so clearly, and I believed it wholeheartedly. But of course, there was definitely that, a lot of self-doubt. I would go home to my now wife at the time she was my girlfriend, and I had some really long nights and was just doing a lot of self-reflection. Here I was, somebody that had thrown away a career at a company that I had built. to pursue something, you know, with a lot of friends and family money, and it wasn't going really well. And so, yeah, those were some dark days.

53:13And I mean, I guess pretty much within a year after you launch, you sort of realize that your strategy isn't working. And so you guys, you do like a major pivot. I guess you decide to start selling direct to consumer. I mean, at that time, you know, DTC was starting to take off. So was it clear to the team, like, you know, we got to go do this. We got to just try and sell through websites. I think it was scary. You know, we had a little bit of capital left. And so we did take some meetings with digital agencies that would help us with our advertising strategy. And what we understood was that you had to spend a certain amount of dollars in order to get enough data pushed through your website so that you could then be responsive and make adjustments and ultimately find your customer online.

54:13And so the idea of taking the little precious capital that we had left and investing it into what appeared at the time, having no experience in digital advertising, it just appeared, it was like you were just blowing it into the wind. That was really scary because if it didn't go well and we didn't define this engine of growth quickly, we were going to be out of business and that would have been lights out game over. Who is the marketing strategy? I mean, how did you find the right? Because there are hundreds of digital marketing companies that were pitching you. And how did you land on the right one?

54:51Well, you know, it's so interesting because back in those times, my reflection was that advertising on search was very much a proven industry, but social advertising was very new. And we got a list of names and we ultimately landed on a digital agency that we trusted. And so I remember we got started in this advertising and we started paying a lot of attention to the ads and what was kind of getting a better response than others. And after an okay response, I remember our first month we invested$5 ,000, we got$5 ,000 back. And so we were like, okay, we just gave away essentially a lot of product, but we got some new customers wearing the brand.

55:30And the next month we invested maybe$7 ,000 and we got$8 ,000 back. And it was like that kind of a build. We were like getting our product back for our inventory or getting our money back. And it was – these were static ads that you would see on Facebook or were they videos? Yeah, they were static ads. Oftentimes they would have a guy doing a yoga pose and then we would have a message on that image that said something like versatility is a virtue. or one short every sport, this is men's yoga, things along those lines. We were testing a lot of different copy. It was a really defining moment for me.

56:08I remember I was sitting on my couch on a Sunday, and I remember I just pulled up Photoshop, and I lined up all of our different colors and prints of this core short, the short that we had launched with that was the differentiator. It was our reason for being. and then across the top on a white background it just said run surf hike train travel chill and the idea being conveying like that this isn't to be put in a box like we're not going to tell you one specific end use this is a versatile athletic short and that ad started to get really awesome traction and it was like before you knew it we were putting $10 ,000 in and we were getting$20 ,000 back in a month.

56:55And then we were putting$20 ,000 in and we were getting$60 ,000 back. And all of a sudden we had this engine of growth that we could take back to investors and we could show them the data. And while some guys were wearing it to yoga, what we heard loud and clear was that what people really loved about the brand was the product and its versatility. And so I wonder how, like, it seems like from the, really from that moment, right, when you go DTC, it's working, but you also decided to work with retailers, brick and mortar stores as well. And a lot of DTC brands then even now won't do that because you can make a lot more money just selling direct to consumers.

57:38Can you kind of give me, sort of help me understand why you wanted to work with brick and mortar and do DTC? I think partly because we had to out of necessity. We weren't flush with the capital. And so keep in mind, over the first few years of the business, we raised$2 million of capital from friends and family. No financial institutions. Some of our competitors had raised$20,$25, upwards of$50 million. We couldn't compete with them solely on the social playing field. So we knew that we needed to complement what we were doing and we needed another customer acquisition vehicle. And we knew that wholesale could be a critical component of that.

58:23So after kind of hitting the pause button on wholesale while we were developing and building our digital community, once we established an engine of growth and we got out of the gates and these wholesale accounts could take note of what we were doing, a lot of the no's that we originally got when we first showed the samples to these buyers turned into yeses. Were you under pressure to sell at different price points? I mean, was it the same price in those stores as it was in the website? It was the same price, but because we were a premium brand, we sold a little bit higher than where the market existed for wholesale.

59:00So activewear in the wholesale market historically was dominated by Nike and Adidas and these big brands, and they really didn't have a premium I'm offering. So their athletic shorts might've been$52. Ours were 68. And so when we first launched, before we had built a direct community on our website, buyers would just say, we don't sell activewear at this price point. Not only does this not look like activewear, but this is priced out of our range for our consumer. So what'd you do? Well, after building that model online and people started seeing that we were getting momentum, them, they started changing their mind.

59:39And we ended up getting a call from REI, which is a really fun story. Nikki worked with a gentleman from Prana, her Prana days. He was in their marketing department at REI, but she introduced me to him. I connected with him when I went out to Outdoor Retailer, which is a big trade show. But he took a meeting with me and just talked to me about REI and the inner workings. And I brought him a bag of clothes. And I just said, this is for your time. I just wanted to thank you. We didn't have any expectation. There was no ask of giving him that close. We got a call from him and he asked if it would be okay for him to connect us with the buyer, the activewear buyer at REI, because he was wearing the hoodie that we gifted him in the hallway.

1:00:21And the activewear buyer asked him what he was wearing. She said, I really liked that hoodie. Who makes that? And he said, oh, this is the startup down in San Diego called Viore. And the next thing you know, we were on a plane up to Seattle to present the line to REI. And that was really the first big wholesale partner that we had as a brand. So one of the things that happened during, you know, sort of as you're building, because, you know, you're still a small company, right? But by the way, do you remember how long before you reached a million in revenue? Did that happen in 2016 or did it not happen until later.

1:00:59Yeah, that happened in 2016. Let me ask you about competitors at that time. Roan, Outdoor Voices, they were raising money doing deals with private equity, bringing in big executives. Were you nervous when you were seeing the kind of money they were attracting and the deals they were doing at that time? Were you like, God, we're in trouble. They could crush us. Absolutely. And I felt like others might beat us in the market. They might end up just beating us to the ultimate goal that I think a lot of us saw in the market. And Roan was kind of a, I mean, even now, but it was certainly a bigger competitor at the time, right?

1:01:35Yeah, the CEO of Equinox once told me in a meeting that Roan was like Biggie and Viore was like Tupac because they were originated on the East Coast at a very similar time that Viore started. They wanted to create a premium men's activewear brand. They kind of built it through the lens of the East Coast and that lifestyle, we saw the same opportunity, but we built our product and our brand through our lifestyle and our community here on the West Coast. But they had an advantage, a financial advantage, right? I'm assuming they had raised a lot more money than you had raised by the time, by 2017.

1:02:14Yeah, they had raised a lot more money. And so again, real reason for insecurity. You know, when we showed up at trade shows, it was always Veori and Roan as the only two premium men's activewear brands in a sea of women's brands. And so we were very competitive with them. We were very in tune with what they were doing. And yeah, so it was hard to see them have a lot of success raising capital when we weren't having as much luck. When do you remember feeling like, okay, we're, I mean, because I think by 2018, you were going to do maybe$30,$40 million in revenue that year. I mean that's a massive jump from when you first launched in 2015.

1:03:00That year, do you remember feeling like, okay, we're in a good place. Like we are – it's all growth from here. Yeah. You know, I think it's – there were two things. We built a really great business online. The second was when REI called and they wanted to bring in Fiori and they brought in some other emerging brands like Rhone and some others. And then they brought in some legacy brands, the big names that everybody knows. And they put this activewear concept together on their floor. And they did it in 10 of their biggest metro market doors. And I remember the buyer, the first time that I felt like we might be really onto something here, the buyer called me and said, Viore blew out the competition.

1:03:41And you guys had the most productive inventory in those 10 doors. And they were very surprised. And so they asked us if we wanted to grow from 10 doors to 70 doors in the next season. But now this is the first time we had a data point where we sat on a national level with virtually no real marketing next to some of the best brands that we grew up aspiring to as kids. And having so much success in that test really built a lot of confidence in the garage. So we were really excited. And you sort of now around that time got into the Lululemon space. Well, you already kind of were, but you released a women's line.

1:04:29I mean, was that because women were seeing men buying it and they were saying, hey, why don't you make clothing for us? Yeah, it was always a vision to be a dual gender brand. And so we always knew women's would follow. We just knew that men's was the right business strategy to lead with. And so 2018 was when we decided it was time. And we designed a very small capsule for women's and we brought it to market. And today, 50 % of our business is actually women's. You hit profitability, I think, within two years of launch, which is really unusual. I mean, part of it is your price point was higher.

1:05:07People were willing to pay$68 for shorts. But part of that had to have been efficiency. So what were some of the things that you did to save money to become profitable? Like tell me about some of the strategies you've used to become profitable within two years. Yeah, I mean I was an accountant by trade. So conservatism I think was just embedded into who I was and as an operator of the business. But I never understood the idea of acquiring a customer at a loss. And that became a very popular trend is to spend$200 to acquire a customer that would only spend$150 with you. And so after your margin and everything, you're losing a considerable amount of money.

1:05:53And the argument was, well, once you acquire a customer, over time, they'll continue to buy with you and they'll become profitable a year down the road or sometime in the future. And that really never made sense to me because you always have to market to your customer to get them to re-engage and buy. So we're very particular about the contribution margin of every dollar we spent on advertising. It had to yield a specific return. So that was one. Number two, I never took a salary from the business. I lived very inexpensively in a little tiny apartment. And I found ways to make my savings go a really long way.

1:06:31And then I made requests. So the people, you know, a lot of people that joined me in those early days worked for a fraction of the price of what they were worth on the open market. And they believed in what we were building. And so we just we were a true bootstrap business. So, I mean, basically, this takes you to your first really big fundraise, which I think happens in 2019, which is$45 million. And this is really the first time you brought in a lot of money from an outside investor, right? Yeah, the business was growing really fast. And so we weren't in a place that we needed capital. And I think that's the funny thing about this entrepreneurial journey is when you need it desperately, it wasn't available.

1:07:16But as soon as we didn't need it, there it was. But we chose to partner with Norwest Venture Partners because they were really supportive. They saw the vision for the brand clearly. They believed in us. They believed in the management team. And they wanted to be invited guests. They wanted to be along for the ride, be helpful where they could be helpful, but not really disturb the creative nucleus that we cherished so much at the brand. And so, yeah, we raised our first round. A lot of the money ended up going to shareholders because the business didn't need capital. So we didn't go out and put a bunch of money on the balance sheet at that time because we didn't want it to create bad habits.

1:07:58We were very proud of the discipline and the financial rigor with which we were building the business. So we didn't want a big check sitting on our balance sheet to disrupt that. So essentially, a lot of early investors got some liquidity. Yes. So you are now – I mean you've got some funding, but also it sounds like you've got cash flow coming in. I mean you're able to kind of grow simply through sales. And from everything I've read, I mean you hit 2019, 20 are going great. And then you've got the pandemic, which of course would turn out very differently from how it started. Yeah. It was one of the scariest moments of my professional career.

1:08:46We got calls from all of our wholesale partners that said, don't ship us any inventory. But we had inventory that was on boats or was already in our warehouse that was dedicated for them. When we got those calls, it had a downstream effect. We called all of our suppliers and we said, please hold the production lines. Don't make us any more inventory. We've got to work this out. And then quickly, as people started getting comfortable with their new lifestyle, they started shopping online. And all of a sudden, what I thought was a panic and calling my suppliers and telling them not to make inventory, I called them back and I said, you know what?

1:09:23I don't think we're making enough. And that was a roller coaster of emotions over a couple-month period. And coming out of the pandemic, you, I guess, were approached by SoftBank, the giant Japanese investment bank, SoftBank, to maybe make an investment. Did they come to you unsolicited? Yeah. We weren't looking for capital. But, you know, we had ambitious plans for Viore. And that was a really big moment for the brand because short of an IPO, I think it was the first time that maybe the market understood how special this business is that we're building. And it wasn't just an investment. It was a$400 million investment that valued Viore at$4 billion.

1:10:12One of the largest investments and valuations to be made in a non-public apparel company ever. And for some people, that was the first time they heard of Eury. Like some people were like, what? Who? $4 billion? What is this company? Yeah. We didn't have a real big share of voice in the media. We were kind of overlooked. And so that was a really special moment for our team because we all got to celebrate this incredibly special thing that we all built together. Joe, when you think about growing up in Va'Shawn Island and then outside of Seattle and then trying modeling and a couple of failed brands and then really a couple of years of just really working hard to get traction with this brand.

1:11:01And how much of where you are today do you attribute to how hard you worked and how much do you think had to do with luck? Just luck of people being interested in this product of the weird, odd luck of the pandemic. Just all those things. Do you think that they matter? I think every little piece of that is a part of a big equation. I don't think there's one thing that defines our success. All those things that maybe have felt like defeat in the moment, when I look back with hindsight, I realized they were the biggest blessings. And I didn't do this alone. You know, whether Nikki and Rebecca in the early days, you know, Chris and the formation of the idea, like so many incredibly talented human beings that are still so close to me today.

1:11:50I think it all plays a part. The one constant is you have to work hard. Because luck might open a window or a door, but it's the hard work and the preparation that allows you to walk through it. That's Joe Kudla, founder and CEO of Viore. By the way, his founding partner, Chris Miller, still sits on the company's board. And if you get a chance, check out some of the videos of Chris skateboarding. He's won a ton of international awards. And in 2015, he was inducted into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame.

1:12:25Hey, 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 as always, it's totally free. This episode was produced by Ramelle Wood with music composed by Ramteen Arablui. It was edited by Neva Grant. Our audio engineer was Gilly Moon. Our production staff also includes Casey Herman, J.C. Howard, Sam Paulson, Alex Chung, Carrie Thompson, Elaine Coates, John Isabella, Chris Messini, and Carla Estevez. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.

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