George Heaton - The Clothing Brand That Should’ve Died, But Became a Cult

26:47Lead times get bigger. Merchandising takes more time. Retail then puts their orders in. You've got, sometimes we're working on nearly 20 months lead times. Wow. For a product. So if I can then make a little team here and just start putting things to market quick, informing the decisions of what's going to go on there later on down the line, that's like gold dust. And no one's really doing that in the industry. So you're right now in 2027 building at your line? Yeah, we just, just this morning before this podcast, we did summer 27. So like high summer, June, July 27. Interesting. We're going to go super, super deep into product.

27:22I want to finish up on the community and event side. you said something and you said it kind of subtly and quick, but I want to highlight it a bit more of just the evolution of where you started and where you are now from a retail and community perspective. For people out there listening, they're just starting. What do you recommend they do? Should they just be doing meetups? Should they be doing pop-ups? Because obviously now you have retail stores. What does that maturation look like? For us, we started with pop-ups. We saw what product was working, whether, so for me, it was like, okay, if we do an exclusive piece for a certain city, do a pop-up in that city, then people have to go to there to get that certain piece.

27:59Obviously, you've got to create the demand for that piece by selling out of different pieces before that that are similar. So if I did one graphic, let's take, for example, owner's club graphic. It's a big represent on the back. For people that don't know the brand, it's our logo carry. You've got a logo there and a big one on the back. If that sells really well online, I know I can take that graphic, adjust it a little bit, whether it's going to say London, Los Angeles, whatever it's going to be, and then put that into an exclusive pop-up where I can do a store for two days, bring that community in.

28:28Then they go back to the big community and go, I've got one of these, there's only 50 of them made. Price points start going up, people start reselling them. And then everyone goes back on the website and buys the other one because they can't get that one. So Quickstrike product based around the geography of where you're doing the pop-up. Right. That creates demand in that place. and then they go to the site to be able to buy something similar. And something that you've done really, really well too is you're taking it a step further and you're looping in more of those hobbies of your ICP. Like you're doing High Rocks races, marathons, and then you're doing merch directly correlated to that.

29:01Yeah, exactly. So if we pop up at a High Rocks where they're doing a world championships, we'll do a t-shirt for that special colorway, maybe some sort of graphic, give some away on the run that morning and then we'll do a little pop-up. What's up guys, it's Mark. Hope you're enjoying the episode. I know I have a lot of new listeners. So I just wanted to give you guys initial context on who I am, where I've been, and where I'm going. I got my business career started with a nine-figure hat company, Melon. I was one of the first original guys and eventually became CMO. For the last 10 years, I co-founded and I'm CEO of Iconic, one of the world's leading art brands.

29:34You've probably seen us on social media. We have tons of licenses. Michael Jordan, Peanuts, Monopoly, Tiger Woods, Rocky, 50 plus. Beyond Iconic, we've also built and executed major global campaigns with brands like Adidas, MLB, and Leo Messi. That business operator background is actually why this channel exists. You're getting real tangible value from people that have actually done it. If you want to keep learning and leveling up, make sure you subscribe to the channel so you don't miss any episodes. More subscribers equals bigger guests, bigger locations, and ultimately more value for you. Enjoy the rest of the episode.

30:12All right. I want to dive deeper into, you know, you mentioned High Rocks. You have a team of, I wouldn't even say influencers. I would probably say they're athletes. Yeah. For the people out there listening, there is a lot of people that want to be on that quote unquote team. Yeah. Probably the most asked question every single day. How do I get on the team? How do they get on the team? Tell us right now. You don't get on the team. The team gets on you. No, it's they selfishly. I made that team because it's people who I want to learn from. it's the best in the world at what they do people with great personalities and that are doing shit that like no one else is doing i don't want a track athlete that's showing up to the olympics every four years i want someone who's running across the country doing things unheard of getting world records and then that night going out and getting drunk and smoking like that's that's what i want i want people that are doing things unimaginable you want obsessed but also interesting.

31:09Obsessed, interesting, stylish, whatever you want to call it. Like it's a group, we like to call it our group of Avengers because they're all different, but they're all just doing crazy things. And you have all different types of athletes as well too. You have high rocks, you have lifters, you have marathon runners, all different types, right? Yeah. Mainly, mainly runners, endurance and high rocks. They're the three, the three like things we exist in. So your advice for people out there listening to get on the team would be just do interesting shit and be authentically yourself. Not really, no, because that's becoming a crowded space now.

31:38I think you've got to have a huge personality. And that doesn't mean you've got to have a huge following. It's just got to be cool, man. Like we recently took on Russ Cook, the guy who was the first ever human to run across Africa. And I sent him some clothes whilst he was in Africa and he wore them the whole way through. I didn't pay him anything. Got like millions of views every single week on YouTube at the start of when we did 247. And the reason why he wore them is because he was like, I fucking love the brand. It's sick. I love what you're doing. I love what he's doing. So that's a perfect partnership.

32:08I don't want to pay someone just to wear my clothes. Like I want to have a relationship with them. There's a lesson in that as well too. So you recommend for people out there, never pay first, seed first, if they resonate with it and then just engage from there. Yeah, definitely. I think it's personality driven. Like we all, I got everyone together a couple months ago and we all ran across Iceland. And like, it was the funniest thing ever. Like three days of just absolute chaos with all these like elite athletes just having fun. You know, other brands don't do that. they don't and they definitely don't have as eclectic of a roster that you have that guy's the hardest keezer that's his name on instagram right eclectic that's the way to put it with a big he's got red hair and he's got like that big beard yeah he looks like an alien that guy yeah he's crazy i want to go back a little bit into products when we spoke i don't know a couple weeks ago and just talked about some stuff that we wanted to talk about i wasn't aware of how passionate you were about product and like where you're at right now with the products let's let's talk about like what's your overall philosophy on kind of product development at represent we always stick to the core principles as quality first right so for me i i'm a visionary i like to see into the future i like to know what i'm going to want to wear next year and usually that drives what everyone's going to want to wear next year who's our customer so if i can stay in that lane and i can bring perfect people in that can head up quality and production and all these other things like sourcing, then if I can give them that vision, they can bring to me what I kind of want.

33:39So it's like a back and forward on how to get to a certain place with a certain product. I'm very detailed on how I want things to fit and feel and like down to the cuff length by a millimeter. Like I'm really like dialed in on that. So from a tactical perspective, are you giving to your production team like, Hey, I like the silhouette of this pant. I like the material of this t-shirt. And then you're kind of working backwards through it. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Test fits, test fabrics, test necklines, test every single detail before it gets to a point where then it's what's the graphic that's going to go on it?

34:10How are we going to wash it? What year do we want it to look like it's made from? Like there's so many different elements that come into it. And then I've got my brother who is like the most detailed graphic designer in the world. So I do, I do believe we've got the best graphics team in the world and we're producing the best graphics in the world. So them garments need to match them graphics for it to become the best thing. And then once it becomes the best thing and we go to market and prove our point, then to keep rolling from there. How does margin live in your head? Do you even think about margin or are you just doing the creative and then the production team needs to back into the margin?

34:41Yeah, that's one problem I have is that I don't pay attention to margin. I prefer to get things to a perfect level and then decide how we're going to attack that, which a lot of people in the business don't like me for because obviously I want the best of the best, but they want to be able to make margin, which obviously you have to, to make the business work. So there's always a compromise, no matter what, whether that's the margin compromise or a slight tweak in fabrication compromise or where it's made. Interesting. And what about kind of like testing and iterating on these? I see a lot of times on your stories, are you getting the samples?

35:15You're maybe running in them or wearing them a bunch of times, then you're just giving the feedback loop goes through that? Yeah. Feedback loop is all ourselves. We'll all like to wear and test things. And obviously with the athletes with 247, they'll wear and test it. And from a product perspective throughout, I don't know, 15 plus years now, what would you say has been the hardest product to produce throughout the whole entire time? It's always footwear. Footwear is a 3D thing that's got to fit onto your foot. You know, a t-shirt is usually like ball pieces of fabric and a collar and like it's 2D, you know, it's designed 2D.

35:48It's designed on a sketch. It's pretty easy to make. All you do is need like stitch lines up. footwear is so intricate because you've got to get a last and you've got to have a rand and then you've got to put the sole onto the midsole and then there's so many different details that come into play with it that can just tweak it and ruin it slightly and one thing that i always struggle with is like sketches of footwear usually don't look like the end result you can produce the sickest sketch ever you can get a design from a designer and go like this is the shoe this is this is going to be amazing and then when you see the the samples come to life there's always a change you know like i always put it in into a into a framework of like car design you know when you see like rolls royce come out with a prototype and you're like fuck that is insane but then the reality of the car is completely different that's what footwear is like damn i don't imagine sizing and inventory is probably way harder from like i love your footwear but it took me a while to understand and get you know you do euro sizing i'm obviously us to find the right yeah shoe for me specifically it's difficult and as well like everyone's so baked in with like you know your nikes your addies usually stick to your lane in footwear and then your clothing brands you'll stick to that it's hard for someone to come over and buy the full range you know like most kids are wearing new balance but then they'll wear levi's jeans and whatever t-shirt they won't wear a levi's shoe and there's a reason why levi's don't make shoes is because they know they can't play in that space so it's always a small part of the business and a hard part of the business when running the fashion line we're gonna get deeper into that how big of a part of the business is that i'm just curious single percentage five percent eight percent so that's the hardest one what about the most successful product you've ever launched across representer 247 jersey owners club t-shirt owners club hoodie and that is that evergreen represent owners club that anybody and everybody can wear all the different colors logo carrier great quality products just sells like this every day.

37:41We don't even need to talk about it. How do you deal with competitors and knockoffs? Because you want to know when you really have made it? I was in the Philippines. And then I was in this knockoff place it was called Green Hills. And this is when you've really made it, bro. There's like Versace, Balenciaga and Represent was there. And there's just dupes. How do you deal with people just knocking you off? I think you've got to look at it as a fun, like there's a few ways to look at it. You can say, great. it's promoting our brand because it's got our brand name on it so when people see it out they're seeing your brand anyway and the first point of access if they type in represent will be us always it won't be the fake stores that's one way of looking at it another way is looking at it is like they're taking food off your table so then how do you go for them can you attack them in terms of like you know sending letters or can you tell them to stop or there's so many different ways you can go at it for me i just don't like to even think about it like just carry on in our own lane and just do what we're going to do they're always going to be behind us because they're copying what we've already done they're not copying what we're about to do i love that mentality yeah just stay focused on you and the customer not the competitor there is there is a story of nigo the guy that started bait he actually made his own when it started happening to him he made his own factory and made his own fakes wow i love that did he undercut himself lower undercut himself i think that i might be wrong but apparently did 300 million on his own fakes in one you.

39:08Wow. And he sold it to all of the green hills in the Philippines of the world. That's smart. I like that. We're talking about a lot of wins. I want to talk about some losses. What about flop? What's been the biggest product flop you've ever had? And then what did you learn from that? Ooh, I think it's so funny because you know, like when I walked in here and you said like, it looks like you can sell anything. You can sell shit on a wall. Like that's not true. It might look like that. Guys, I think George could drop anything tomorrow on the internet and you'll do six figures day one. No, it's not true.

39:39Maybe a one week lead up, a little go-to market strategy across all different platforms, a little TCCs, TCCs, limited units, limited time, six figures. I would bet six figures that you would do six figures. No, it's tough. Some things don't work. Some things don't hit. And like I said earlier about the long timelines, we can miss a beat. We can miss a trend. If a wide leg is in and we're designing it and we're 18 months out from market and it's not in in 18 months, we can miss it. There's a lot of products that we do in our mainline, collections where we're dropping a hundred pieces. Some of them products won't sell one on the launch.

40:11Wow. Yeah. Give us an example. Give us something that did not do well as far as sell-through goes. I don't know any specific product off the top of my head, but usually it's when things are priced higher and they don't get a lot of talk about them. So me and Mike aren't wearing them and they'll get launched in a collection where they've only been shot on one lookbook shoot. So they're only in one outfit. People then will scroll through 80 products on a launch and not, not look at it and not take, take it on. So. Direct correlation between you, your brother and the content you put out and the sell through.

40:44Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. That's wild, man. Yeah. Looking back and giving advice to kind of your younger self and to the, the newer founders out there, what's the one thing that you wish you knew about product development kind of earlier in your journey? I actually wish I was able to make product myself. I've never been able to make anything. I've stitched a few t-shirt lines in factories, but I can't physically make a product. And the first five years of the business, I struggled with that because team was small. We didn't have much like money to play with. It would have been so much easier if I had to know how to make things and do it my way.

41:17So I think that that would have been a great thing to learn. Actually going in there and being like almost like a seamstress in nature and understanding and knowing how to build it. Yeah, because you can tell it seems just how you want things to look, but if you can't do it yourself, it's always different to how you want it. It's interesting. Wrapping up on the product side, where do you pull inspiration from? What tools do you use? Are you on Pinterest? Are you saving stuff on Instagram? I know you. I know you're on social a lot too. Are you screenshotting things? What does that look like? Yeah, screenshotting everything.

41:48Pinterest, Instagram. I love buying books. I love buying archive books. there's a place called book soup in la we buy every single book that comes in there graphic design books rock and roll books like surf history skate history all that kind of stuff we pulled from all the archives i love that that's so interesting i don't know if you know oran john oran meets world it's a great episode he's big and he goes overseas and he's just like dude i hoard out on finding old rock magazines and stuff like that because you can't you can't find it on internet it's unbelievable how much you can create out of one magazine or one book i'll buy a motley crew book and it will create a full collection for us whereas you could spend six weeks on the internet traveling everywhere looking for things to take pictures of and not not get that kind of content so i think books is like insane so books magazines i'm not a big pinterest guy i know from like a a design inspiration a lot of people use pinterest obviously the like in on a more fashion realms like Vogue Runway, WWD, things where you'll see other people's stuff.

42:49Love that. And then there's trend forecasters and stuff like that, which you can get into. I don't personally get into them myself, but I know some of my team do that. Who is someone that you look to from a fashion perspective that you think is ahead of the curve? An individual, I'm curious. Give someone a big shout out here right now, specifically from a fashion perspective. All right, let me have a think about this. yeah alright there's a cool brand called House of Errors I think they're actually based in LA content's insane bro I follow them as well too it's very unique like Nets with like one-off like weird random designs on them that's a good call really cool stuff Cody Phillips as well I think he's great he like makes his own stuff really cool Cody Phillips and House of Errors does Cody Phillips do like the the cargoes and the baggy stuff yes I've seen that before I asked someone you know everything bro I was at a coffee shop like three four weeks ago and I asked someone where they got the cargoes from and they mentioned that guy Yeah, he's super cool.

43:41There's also so many cool like young designers now that are just doing amazing things that like just don't have the platform to get huge and probably won't get huge because they're so unique in the way they make things. And like, that's cool to be in that swim lane. But in terms of like huge brands that are doing well or creative directors and stuff, I feel like it's gone really boring these past few years. Everyone's moving around all these different fashion houses. And like, to me, like I don't, I don't read the news anymore on fashion just because it seems like it's the same thing over and over.

44:13But my favorite brands, I love The Row. The Row. The Row. The Row, I don't even know what that is. So it's Mary-Kate and Olsen. Bro, a billion dollar brand. Didn't even know that. Like full house Mary-Kate and Olsen, the twins? You wouldn't know you're wearing it because there's no branding, there's no nothing. It's just amazing fabrics, amazing silhouettes. I think they might have sold to Chanel at like a billion valuation. They have a store on Melrose Place, but the product's beautiful. Closing up on the product side, for the founders out there that are in the mud and they're doing sub seven figures, what type of resources should they be using to understand and know how to build clothing and build a clothing company?

44:57Obviously, you've learned a lot on the fly. What are some good things that they should be reading or looking at or studying? I actually think it's more about where you're going and what you're doing. If I was you, I would go and find factories more locally. So if you're in the UK, there's loads of factories. If you're in LA, there is so much downtown. You can learn so much. You can go and say to a few factories, look, I've got this brand. I want to do this many t-shirts, this quality. They will walk you around the full factory and they will show you exactly how they're doing it for other brands.

45:24You can go in a factory now making Chrome Hearts denim. Like that's some of the best denim in the world. You can learn just by being in that factory for a day. You don't even need the internet. Yeah, what's crazy about downtown LA too, it's probably a 10 to 15 block radius. And a lot of people, they, I don't want to call out the brands, but I know some brands that they'll do mass production overseas and they'll do smaller, like SMS, like salesman samples, and they'll do runs of like 50 or a hundred locally. And you're right. You could literally go in the best brands in the world and see the materials and the process that they're using.

45:55Yeah. That's, that's the best way to learn by being there and being physical with the factory owners and understanding how a garment's made. All right. Let's get into the fun part here. something that you've never spoke about. We're going to get into the numbers. How much revenue will represent due in 2025? I'm not sure it'll be exact, but around, we're talking dollars because we're in the US right now. Yeah. So US dollars, around 135 million. Jesus, man. How much did you do last year? 94 million pounds. So around one something dollars, I'm not too sure. And then the big part of the conversation that we really, really want to go deep into is you sold a part of the company.

46:33That's something that you've never really spoke about publicly. I guess to just start it off, how much equity did you sell? What was the valuation? Tell us about that. Sold 20 % of the business. We got valued, again, in dollars, about$250 million, all secondary capital. So it went to myself and my brother because the business is successful. It doesn't need cash. So we took money off the table, which is something for 15 years we'd never done. Never paid ourselves a salary above minimum wage for 10 years. so we were very all in on this business so when we were going through the trademark issues we didn't have a penny to even put into it because everything's been in the business and it's always been that way and you know i've read so many books and listened to so many interviews of people that sold parts of the business and then the business goes like this because they kind of check out because they've made all the money now like we've made generational wealth but for me like this is all i know this is what i love doing the money doesn't mean anything to me it's like a safety if anything bad happens, right?

47:32And great, I can buy my fucking family houses. I can buy my mom and dad a house on the beach, take them on holiday 10 times a year, whatever it is. But for me personally, like I'm all in on the business and I will be, I guess, until the day I die. But that thing happened last year. Like we talked about earlier, D, a mutual friend. Shout out to D Murphy, first episode. Thanks, D. He introduced me to Rothschild and then I handed this over to my CEO. We did a huge amount of like sales pitching and stuff like that. I wasn't massively involved with it because I didn't care at the time. It didn't matter to me whether we were going to sell a little bit or not.

48:06I wanted it to be a minority sale. I didn't want to lose control of the business. So me and my brother are still the major shareholders. Nothing's changed since that day. We're still firing. So probably the best thing I've ever done and I would recommend doing it, but I wouldn't make it a goal. For me, it wasn't a goal. Like I've never sat there and thought, all right, I want to sell a little part of the business. Let's go to market. I think that's where you go wrong. You said something there that's very interesting and for people out there, I mean, in negotiations, he who cares the least has the most amount of leverage.

48:36And the fact that you were not even involved in the process and you just let it go on says a lot about why you got probably, I would assume a great deal. Yeah. I mean, I probably pitched the brand in a meeting room with my CEO, with Mike, with my CFO three or four times during that whole process. And that was a year long. And then one day we're sat in a product meeting and We got the call-ups. Benny calls us into, Benny's my CEO, calls into his office. We sit on a Zoom call. We say yes. 10 minutes later, yeah, it's like you fucking made it, but you still carry on doing the same thing. Tell me about key man risk there, because you keep mentioning over and over, and I completely agree, that you're such an important part of the business.

49:20And for someone to buy into the business, if one day you and your brother would just leave, I would imagine that the brand would have trouble, at minimum at the growth trajectory that you guys are on right now. So what was that conversation about and how do they make sure that you stay involved in the business moving forward? I think it's just trust. Like this is all we've done since we come out of college or school. I'm not going to go and leave. I promise them and I'm not going to go and leave. I've shown 15 years of dedication, taking zero fucking cash out of this business. Why would I go and leave now?

49:54I don't know anything else. I don't want to do anything else. Like this is my life. I want it. I want it to be a part of my life. Represent is me. I am represent. Like that's it. It's so funny when Zuckerberg turned down whatever it was, like a billion. He's like, why would I sell it when I would just go do the same exact thing again? Because I love doing it. You know, if I was to sit here and think, oh, what would I do next? I'd do the same thing. So why? Why not carry on doing the thing that we built? What about in the actual process? If you could do the process again, would you have done anything differently?

50:26The process of? Selling a piece of the company. well no I don't think so it was a great thing that we did it was a great time in our lives like we'd done something amazing and we'll probably do it again in a few years yeah you said something earlier too I think Aaron Levant formerly of Agenda an iconic fashion trade show now the CEO of Complex I was in his office a couple years ago he said something that resonated with me so much and I'm so glad that you agree with it is entrepreneurs I don't even know what the number is almost all entrepreneurs fail. Almost no entrepreneurs make it to year five.

51:03Almost no entrepreneurs get an exit. And these people out here, these leaders, they always say kind of like leaders eat last. And quite frankly, you did it and I did it too. But the chances of you actually getting an exit is such a small percent chance that when you have an opportunity to secure the future for you and your family, you need to look at it. Like, I'm so glad that you said that it was the best decision. You highly recommend it. That's not to say that you're working less, but now like you have financial stability and now you can be comfortable and you have an open brain on just going hard now.

51:36Now you can just focus on going even harder. Right. Yeah, like you can do the math on how much money we made, but at the end of the day, I think it was the last guy you had on, Sahil Bloom. Is that how you say his name? Yeah, Sahil. He said something actually. He said like, no matter how much money you make, you're always going to want two to three times more of that. that's just a natural thing and it is and I was thinking about that today and I was like it actually makes you want more so it's a good thing that it happened because now I want more whereas until that day I didn't know what I wanted but the other thing you said earlier on this just just before is like he who doesn't need it has the leverage right until the day that that deal happened I didn't care I didn't care if it was going to happen or not I cared that okay my team are going to get a little bit.

52:20I cared about them because they put so much fucking work into doing it. But for myself personally, if that fell through on the day of it going through, I'm not care. I go home, I go to bed, I do the same thing the next day. Nothing changes. So it's so interesting. And I'd read a lot of stories about people going through these deals and it not happening. I think you just said then like 0.1 % it actually happens. So I didn't have any expectations. The second that money hit the account though, that's tens of millions of dollars. How did that feel? I guess you get like freedom, right? You get a little bit of freedom.

52:55You actually go, oh, I can kind of relax now. But my mind just automatically goes to, all right, my fucking mom and dad brought me up. They gave me the best fucking childhood to be able to build this brand. So what can I do for them? Clear that out of the way first. What's the rest of my family need? Clear that out of the way. Then the rest is mine, right? I can do whatever I want with it. but also I'm not going to be stupid with it. I've spent 15 years building a brand with no money. So why would I go and use all that money now? So I don't know. We'll see. It's not been that long. I don't, I don't know.

53:29What did you do with that first big check though? I'm sure you bought something crazy. You brought something crazy. What'd you get? My mom and dad, a house. And my sister, a house. I bought a vintage Rolls Royce. Nice. Yeah. I don't know what, that's it really. Yeah. Nothing crazy. Was there like a trigger or an inflection point that made you open to selling? Because it seems as though you weren't even kind of thinking about it and it happened. And you mentioned kind of D there that he made the introduction. Was this something that was not even top of mind? And then he said something to you to somebody else?

54:03What was that trigger point? I think the trigger point was the amount of success we were having. And when you get in that kind of success on daily revenue basis, and you're making that much profit is like, shit can this come to an end and how do we secure ourselves if it's going to tail off or if it's going to come to an end like i don't want to then have to reinvest all that money and nothing work so like how do you ride that wave and do something with it so your advice to founders out there would probably be like take chips off but at the same time if you want to keep going just make sure that you keep control of the company which it seems that you have yeah take control and only take chips off if the fucking business is successful and people want it if people aren't coming to you wanting to buy your business then don't go to market with it because you're going to get nothing there's a big difference between buying a business someone buying your business and then you selling a business it seems as though someone bought your business they were interested in it there was interest in the market yeah there was loads of interest in in the states in the uk like all over the world like there was interest in it we we'd done a lot of press like talking about our numbers and doing a lot of things all over the world and opening stores that like, there was a lot of heat around the business at the time.

55:13And like, it's continuing to grow and it's going to be successful. And like, I don't know, the next one, I want the brand to be worth a billion dollars. So like, how do we get there? I know we've got partners involved. Like, how can they strategically help us to get to this point? Because before that, it was just me, my CEO, my CMO, whatever, all the boys and the girls and the crew and not knowing where they're going. So now we've got like people in and advice and a chairman who was like CEO of Doc Martens for so many years and floated that for billions. So I've got all these people around me now that can advise on how we can get to the next level.

55:50When did you realize you needed a quote unquote professional CEO? Was it during this process or was it earlier? No, it was earlier. It was when we'd launched Owners Club and it started going like crazy. And we were doing, the demand was way more than what we could do in terms of resource. and I had like a 20 person team at the time in the business. We were probably doing around 20 million but on track to do 50 million that year. And I'm not a fucking people person. I'm not an operator. I'm not an employer. I'm terrible at that kind of stuff. If someone walks in the room for me for a job and they look cool and they talk right, I'm like, yeah, get in the business.

56:27Whereas my, I had - You also need a high VO2 max, guys. High VO2 max and make sure the silhouette, the drip is nice. Yeah, and you've got to have a little bit of muscle there as well. Guys, don't get tricked either. He's a 48 Laws of Power guy. He acts dumber than his mark. I've known him for a very long time. You play this little game where sometimes you play dumb sometimes. George, I know you're reading them books, baby. I know you're on the podcast. You're reading them books. Yeah, I've read all the books. I've done them all, dude. I spent, during that time, since 2020 to 2024, where my business went from 7 million revenue to 95 million revenue.

57:02Jesus. all I did was read all I did was literally go to work at 6am train do the work go home at five read for three hours go to bed do the same thing for four years straight no girlfriends not going out no television no nothing that's all I did train work read build this business up to a size where I needed to hire that c-suite and I didn't know what a c-suite was at the time I've not read business books, dude. I've read like mental clarity books. I've read the atomic habits of the world. Great book. James Clear. I love that. Yeah. I've listened to all the podcasts, but I'm not a businessman.

57:37I'm a creative, right? So I'd met this guy so many years ago when we were doing a collab with like a little football capsule thing. And he was the MD of Puma at the time. And obviously he's, he's managing thousands of staff and doing all these crazy logistic things and all the business side of stuff that I'm not good at. Whereas I'm creative, he's not creative. But now his style's sick and he gives a good insight when we're doing product meetings and I bring him in. But he was everything that me and Mike were missing. And we'd been brought up by my father who had taught us to keep all your cash in your bank.

58:12Don't employ more people, stretch yourself as far as you can. So I was at this team that was bursting, trying to do 50 million out of a 20-person team that was no chance. He came in and he was like, right, I'm going to do this, this, and this. Will you let me do this? I was like, take it away from me, see what you can do. And it took like a year and within a year, we was at like 50 people. Now we're at 180 people in the business. Jesus. So I want to know more about your relationship. What is his name? Spenny. Spenny. I want to know about your relationship with Spenny. And what was that initial feel out process to then eventually hiring?

58:46Was it a formal process or it was just vibes? We went to New York for four days, went on a little trip, got drunk, met some stores, did some business, like enjoyed ourselves. I already knew him a little bit prior to that. But for me, there was no formal hiring process and there was no one else in the process. It could have been out of five different people. There was no one else. I didn't know anyone else that could be a CEO of my brand. I didn't want to go out looking for it. It just seemed to click at the time that this guy that I've met, I knew he had the things that we didn't have and I knew we had the things that he didn't have because we sit in a room together and do it together.

59:22And it seemed to have worked. It did. And I feel like he's kind of formalized everything. Obviously, if you've gone from 50 to 180 people, everything is systematized now. How has your role changed from when he came on to now? I was trying to do too many things, way too many things, trying to be involved in everything, then at night trying to get creative and it not working well. So he took all the business side from me and Mike. He put Mike into graphics where he's the best at rather than trying to do everything. And he put me into product and content, which is what I love doing. so I don't have to deal with the other things.

59:56Yeah, I go into board meetings and I understand trade and I get business updates but my two levers now which I love doing is content and product. That's all I care about. So nothing else has to come into my realm that's going to disrupt content and product and I believe we've got the best content and the best product in the world. So it seems it's worked. And obviously you've empowered him to run the business. what is that comms and that flywheel of like, how often are you checking on the business? What are the key things you're looking at? Is it revenue? Is it EBITDA? Like what are the things that you're looking at that's important?

1:00:29Revenue and EBITDA is not really a thing that's important to me. Wow. Customer feedback is super important and product. Like he will handle the revenue and the EBITDA. And my philosophy is, is that if we're doing everything we can as best as we can in terms of product and content, then that stuff will take care of itself. And I know it won't physically take care of itself. It's got fucking teams of finance people and marketing and whatever and all that kind of stuff. But if I can do what I can do the best at, then the rest of the business should work. And he gives you full autonomy to do this.

1:01:07what about the other way how do you handle like disagreements that you have it's funny disagreements the thing is my my like i said earlier i'm in product and i'm in content he doesn't disagree with the product or the content and i don't disagree with the ways he wants to take the business and where he wants to open stores and who we're going to do deals with in terms of like wholesale partners and relationships and collabs so you know the the kind of two separate things and i'll get his advice on stuff and he's also a fucking great guy. Like he'll say yeah to anything that I want. That's his role.

1:01:41He wants to make me and Mike happy and he wants to grow the business and it'd be successful. This seems like an amazing relationship you have. Is this also the same type of relationship that you have with your new partners? It seems as though Spenny gives you autonomy on the product and the creative side. And then from the venture partners that you have now, who communicates with them? Is it Spenny? Spenny and the CFO communicate with them more regularly than what me and Mike do. we'll always check in with them on product and content and how we're doing in terms of like what we're developing over the next few years but in terms of business that that's dealt with by that side not really me what mistakes do you think people make when let's just call hiring in general it seems as though you're going a lot off vibe but it's worked pretty well i did until that day he hires very well like i i will sit in meetings like we're hiring a gm for the usa at the moment and I've done a few meetings back to back with him over the past few weeks here.

1:02:35And he knows how to hire. He knows what to look for in people. I get excited when someone tells me like they developed the first Yeezy shoe and I'm like, all right, let's get you in. So yeah, that's his forte. What is the biggest thing that you've learned from him? Biggest thing I've learned from Spenny is that I don't need to be protective over absolutely everything. Let other people have autonomy me and let other people thrive in in workplaces where i'm not great at like predict predicting numbers that need for the merchandising to know how many products we're going to sell out of i'm not great at that i'm not looking at the data let other people do that and let them come to you and show the success that they're doing and then let them run with it you're a wise man here emotionally letting go of control how hard was that for you was it was this also a figment of the fact that you got some liquidity so you felt a little bit better about yourself like tell us about the liquidity came three years after he started wow yeah yeah that was only late last year he's been in the business now four years nearly so how and why are you thinking like this is this just deep work you're doing from a self-awareness perspective that you just ultimately knew you weren't the guy to bring it to the next level on the business side i just know that i'm i'm a creative person like that's the bottom line and if i'm focusing too much on business aspects of things, my creativity battery disappears.

1:03:56And if I'm only giving that much to it at the end of the day, then that's not going to drive the business forward. What drives us forward is what people see, what people see on Instagram, what people see on YouTube, what people see me posting. If I'm in the numbers all day, every day, they're not going to see that. So I need to do what I'm good at. And that means giving away a lot of, yeah, like decision making and whatever. But I'm willing to do that because it works. Yeah. You're in front of the house. He's back at the house. Something that I implemented, you would love it. The CEO Bloom, you said you listened to the podcast.

1:04:28You should check out the book. It's life-changing. What's the book called? The Five Types of Wealth, it's called. And it just breaks up like physical, mental, time, social. There's a couple of things. A is one time a month doing a think day. And then second is dividing up your calendar and making sure among other things. There's like deep work, but then like setting aside time, like for creative work, right? Like it's very hard to be creative where you're in the midst of all this absolute chaos. So now for you, like, what does your day-to-day look like right now? Well, it's changed a lot. And in the UK, it's completely different to where it is now in LA.

1:04:59I'm eight hours behind my office. So I wake up at like around four to five and I'll work on the UK things usually until around 10 a.m. So it's not deep work. It's emails, it's calls, it's product check-ins, it's everything like that. So I get off work at around 10, 30, 11 a.m. here in LA. So that's done. The UK then has gone to sleep. I'm not getting any more messages apart from my brother that's kicking ball night about something. So then I can pump my phone down and I can focus on what I want to do here and to build the US business, like I can go and meet factories here. I can decide what product we're going to do for here.

1:05:40Like we're really focusing on the US. So I've got, I've kind of got two days in one. So it's like 5am till 10 to 11am UK work. Then it's gym, eat, kind of chill out for a little bit, get to the office in LA for 12. And then I've got 12 till whenever I go to sleep to decide what I want to do today. Whether that's creativity stuff, whether that's content stuff, whether it's product. I've got so much time where people aren't messaging me and I'm not having to put fires out. And from like a KPI perspective, it seems as though you need to stay on track for product deadlines and scheduling, but they're on the creative side.

1:06:15You're just doing whatever you want. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like a good life, baby. Dude, this is my dream life. This is all I ever dreamed of. And this is what I get to do. And although the first half of the day is very stressful and sometimes it makes me go I want to get a flight back so I can just touch and feel this stuff right now like I get that second half of the day to kind of like not wind down but just really be inside my own mind on creativity and what direction I want to go which in the UK I would spend like an hour where not touch my phone and go and sit in an office and try and draw and figure things out whereas now I got like a full half day to do that every single day what are those other things throughout the day that are kind of those non-negotiables I would say eating clean and going to the gym are obviously two of them.

1:06:59What are those other things that you need to be firing on all cylinders? I don't think there is anything else. I think as long as I'm trained, as long as I've slept well, and as long as I'm eating well, I'm 100 % all in. I don't need much else. I don't need wind down time. I don't need to go on dates. I don't need to do any of that kind of stuff. I love working. stepping back as founder i want to get closure around that what is like the myth around that i think it's so subjective like i think he went back into his company because they tried to do a sale and it fell through and then he had to come back in so i think it's so different to every single company i think i've been lucky to be able to step out of the role of of ceo and hand the reins over to someone else at a point where we're growing like crazy and he can utilize that to then grow even more.

1:07:50I can't imagine how it'd be in a really bad time. And we've not been through that yet. But you know, like I understand why founders then want to step back in because things aren't going right. I've not got to that point. Hopefully never will do because we all kind of feel like we know what we're doing, even though we don't. So I think you've just got to choose the right time to do it and not when you're in turmoil. I think if you're in turmoil and you've got your back against the wall, letting go of things is so much harder. I think when you're seeing success and things are going the right way, that's when you need to make the move into like letting go of things and letting other people try and test different avenues that you're not so compatible in.

1:08:28I completely agree. I think it's never, I argue all the time, it's never too early to sell a piece of your company to get that liquidity because it's very hard when you're up and up and up. The second that you plateau or go down, it's a completely different conversation on so many different levels from a hiring, from a sail from anything, kind of zooming out a bit, I'd love to understand and know, because the narrative is just so fucked up out there about doing a million and you got to do 20 and you got to do 200. You've been on this journey for fucking a hundred years. So why don't you give the people right now, just context of like year one, year two, like a million, two million, like.

1:09:01Yeah. This is probably the best thing to say because I've never really spoke about that, but I started in 2011. All right, I might not be perfect on the numbers, but 2011 to 2014, I never made a million. 2014, I think we did our first million. Then 14 to 19 was four, five, five, six, four. Like there was no growth. I was stagnant. I got to that point where the trademark thing hit me, self-help bucks and all that kind of thing hit me. And I realized I was at a point where I was like, for me to get to the next level in my business, I need to get to the next level in my life. So I needed to start implementing these different things, whether it's routines from Atomic Habits, whether it's business from Andy Frisella, whether it's fucking motivation from Ed Milat, bleed that into my team.

1:09:52Hopefully we can all grow together. And the business just started growing and growing and growing. All bootstrapped. We never took investment on till I recently sold a little part secondary. You said something there that's very, very telling. and I completely agree. It's the main reason why I do this podcast is there's a direct correlation between the growth and maturation internally of the leader and the CEO and the actual company. If you're getting better as a leader and an individual leading the company, the company will grow. It's lead by example. It's a ripple effect. Our first fucking podcast when there was that poster behind me that said the leader was at the back, that was the moment for me.

1:10:29It was like, right, I need to fucking show everyone in this business how to actually work, how to work hard, how to do the right things, how to make the right decisions. And if I'm doing that myself, the people around me will start doing it. It's the same reason I put a gym in the business. I started going to the gym. I was like, oh shit, I'm becoming best friends with the people in this gym because we're training together. We're going through hard times together. We're winning together, competing together. If I put that in the business, that brings a hundred people in that are all in different parts of the business that don't really know each other, sweating together and fucking working hard together and then achieving the goals together, how much better is that going to make the business?

1:11:08And the business goes like this and this. Yeah. I mean, when you were on my podcast, you were definitely probably like 17, 18 % body fat and you were kind of sporadically going to the gym. And I look, I'm looking back right now, the inflection point, I literally think it sounds crazy. Like putting aside like the self-help and optimizing internally Atomic Habits, 75 hard. It was just becoming a maniac of fitness and discipline, correct? Yeah, 100%. However, I do think that there is a time and place for that, your life. You know, I probably didn't speak to a girl for them five years. Nothing. I didn't let anything come in between me, my training and my work.

1:11:47Nothing came in between. They were my priorities. Obviously, I'd see my family, but like, I wouldn't go out. I wouldn't socialize. I wouldn't go on dates, none of that stuff wouldn't reply to a girl. Like, nah, I needed to get to a point where like, I felt good about myself. What is that like for you having a girlfriend now that there's another person that is a quote unquote priority for you? What is that like? It was really tough, really tough at first because all I'd ever done is be selfish for myself, like to be able to run my business and do my business. And, but the thing is with, with her, she's accepted that and she understands like the journey that we're on as a business and like she, she knows what I'm doing and why I'm doing it like the longer picture.

1:12:29And yeah, things can get frustrating at times when I don't come home because I'm fucking in the office till 11 PM. And then before she's awake again, I'm back in the office again. But I, I don't know. This is just life. You got to figure things out on the way. Would you argue that to have success in business, you have to be selfish? 100%, yeah. Especially if you're on your own, you're bootstrapped, you've not got any help. You've just got to go all in on yourself. What about work-life balance? Rep is life and life is rep. So I can't comment on it. I can't comment on it. When I did Stephen Bartlett's diary of the CEO, he said that was the first thing he asked me.

1:13:09He was like, what do you think about work-life balance? And I was like, bullshit. It just blew up. But I don't know. I think if you love what you do, then there's no need for balance. It sounds so simple and kind of cheesy in nature. Like if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life, but it's actually true. I can't understand people that are doing stuff every single day that they don't enjoy. Like I would rather get 20 cents on the dollar and do something else that I enjoy. Like we have one life here. What are we doing? Yeah, people need purpose, right? And if your purpose is that thing that you work on, then you're fucking done.

1:13:42You're set. You know what you're doing. you think you'll be doing represent the rest of your life i hope so yeah i don't i don't see anything else man this is this is what i love doing and i think what's amazing about what you're doing under the notion that you obviously launched 247 cadence which we'll talk about as well too it is evolving with you i look at you i look at like ronnie from kith and like you can see his maturation of you know he gets married he has a kid and then he launches a kid's line Like you start seeing that the brand grows with you. So I truly do believe that represent is at a point now where it's, I really think it might've already crossed the chasm where like you guys can be an iconic brand that lives forever.

1:14:25Like I truly do believe that. Yeah. I don't know what that is. Where is that point of like legacy? I think that point of legacy is. Because like you said earlier, if me and Mike died tomorrow, does the brand still grow? does it still become successful? You got to get working on that AI, George Heaton, the second coming of you in the metaverse. I mean, for me, I look at your brand and yes, there obviously is a relationship with you personally, but I do think that there's certain pieces to your brand. Like you talked about like the owner's club. Like I feel like that has like an identity in its own.

1:15:01And as the brand grows, if you prioritize, I'm not going to say having less impact on the sales, but like building up the brand and other parts of the identity, I think it'll be able to live on its own. That's the goal. The goal is to have these, these product categories that go without me and Mike that we don't need to be so heavily involved with. And that's what happened with owner's club. I can walk past 20 people wearing owner's club in the street in the UK and they don't know who I'm, which is fucking great. That means we are building a legacy. Like you don't have to rely on me being in my DMs and being at the stores and opening whatever store it's going to be.

1:15:35You know what I mean? Interesting. So the core owners club, like that t-shirt, which a lot of people, other brands have like knocked that off in some way, shape or form that you think gets that everyday person, but then those signature high-end pieces are more people that are buying into your lifestyle. Yeah, exactly. That's how it is. You mentioned something there. I would argue that you're famous, like you have fame. How is that? How have you handled that under the notion that like you have people that look up to you, like grown men that look up to you and you get stopped in the street like how have you handled that emotionally i think it's so minor like yeah every time we go out there's going to be someone but i think it's sick i love it because these these guys and girls that are following us they're like bought into the lifestyle like i will go for a run and someone will go like this and show their 247 tattoo but i'm fucking part of the brand bro that to me is amazing i'll go home and have the best day ever because of that.

1:16:28So it's not, it's not like fame on a level of like a musician or an actor that are playing different roles to get that fame. I'm playing my role. I'm being me and people love me for that. So I love it. Yeah. I mean, the importance of actually, like there's like balance of being a brand and being a real person. Like you, your brand is just actually who you are. So you're just documenting just who you are. That's it. And if people come up to you and they've done the research on you and they know you, then And what have we got to hide from? How has that grown over the past? I mean, you guys have basically doubled in size over the last couple of years.

1:17:04Like more people that are stopping you on the street. Like, is it getting really, really crazy lately? Like how has the slope been as far as like, quote unquote, fame goes for you? I'm curious. It depends where you are. It depends where you are. Sometimes you'll step out of the taxi in London and you'll get like five people straight away. But sometimes you'll be in LA and you won't know all day. And then someone will tap you on the shoulder and air one or whatever. So it's never like too much. It's never like what you see on the internet of like actual famous people. It's people that love your brand and that, you know, you know who that guy is.

1:17:37As soon as they spot you, you know, you spot them. You're like, that's a rap guy. I want to - But it has grown like monumentally over the past couple of years. And I think that's down to our YouTube because we're so authentic on the earth that like, as soon as you start watching us, you feel like you know us. So you can come up to us in the street because you know what you're going to get with us. Whereas if someone's a, let's say an actor, you don't know their personality. You've only ever seen them acting as somebody else and maybe a few times on like a red carpet or whatever. Yeah, that goes back to actual real human and then the brand.

1:18:09Like your brand is you as a human. How much of moving to the US has impacted you personally and then the brand? Me personally, tenfold. I would suggest anyone that gets success in the UK, I would say move over here. I think the, maybe it's Los Angeles as a bubble or New York as well, or even Miami and Austin and stuff, wherever I've been. There's so much like love for success here. Like I would not talk about anything in the UK. I wouldn't even talk about like what car I drove or how much like revenue we did last month or whatever. Over here, people love it. They want to know this. They congratulate you.

1:18:51They enjoy success. Like everyone here is trying to get successful and no one's afraid of it. In the UK, there's a bad mindset of it that no one wants anyone to be more successful than them and they'll put you down for it. The UK press have done it to everyone who's ever got successful. I've had it when we've done a full day of interviews with press and then they've gone and wrote something up that makes it seem like we're fucking not the people that we are. And it's like, why would you do that? We had Simon on here. He's from Australia. It's the same exact culture in Australia. He said that he had to get out of there and here is just refreshing because it's very aspirational nature and everybody wants to go bigger and bigger.

1:19:29Um, that's the best thing about America aside from the weather and everything else that's going on in LA. I love it. The weather is undefeated. It's been crazy here the last week. What about opening up a store? What has been the strategy? You're in the UK, you come here, you open up a store fairly soon. What has been the store strategy for you guys? For me, it's like, I want people to come and see that product. I'll go back to the start where it's like the, as soon as you see the product or you try the product you're in right you bought into the brand and for me having a storefront where there's footfall and there's people coming trying the brand that haven't been online to check it out like you're going to get that customer for life right you're going to get loyalty so opening stores for me is about retaining loyalty and finding new people this the strategy overall in the us is like we're such a small business here out of the 135 million we're going to do this year yeah we're only like 30 of that will be the u.s wow so there is a path a very very clear path to a billion of only 35 of us in the u.s that's that's where we see such like opportunity there's five times the amount of people in this country yeah we don't shop the same and there's a lot of things we've got to change within the business to be able to attract those people but we're here we're doing it i've lived here now for nearly two years like i know what i'm doing we're doing the right collabs we're putting the right stores in place like we're gonna we're gonna roll out in sacks nolstrom neiman marcus all the big players so there's there's no doubt that that's gonna happen over the next couple years for context i know we're not talking exacts here of the 130 30s in the u.s that other 100 i would assume like what like 70 or 80 a visit in the uk and the rest of the world 70 in the uk wow so you have rest of the world only 30 wow so you have you probably I'm not going to say you've tapped out in the UK, but you've really put your footprint there.

1:21:19That's the thing. That's why I moved here. Because I was like, I don't want to hit the top in the UK and just stay there. Why would I want to do that? I'm going to go somewhere else and fucking figure out this market and move to that place and see how people shop, see how people want to buy, where they go, what they do. Like, dude, the whole brand in terms of like the fabrics and the fits and like the weights of stuff we use is changing because I've moved here and I understand what people want here. That wouldn't happen if I stayed in the UK. We'd carry on making heavy tees and trying to sell the same graphics to the same people.

1:21:52We have a lot of people that are international and I know there's different nuances to it, but for anybody moving to the US, that's like, that's big. Like the leader of the company is leaving UK and coming here from a logistics and just overarching strategy perspective. What are the biggest lessons or recommendations you'd give to someone that is moving their business to the US? What are the pitfalls? time difference is the biggest problem. Like I, my business is still in the UK. Like I said, there's 160 people working out of the UK. There's 10 here. So time difference makes, makes it a problem, but also it gives you then a breath of fresh air that it's like you've started up again.

1:22:30I'm treating the US like a startup for me. It's like a separate business. We're going to start doing local production here. We're opening stores here. We're like managing all our distribution from here now. So there's, that's, that's like a negative and a positive. Other things, it's just like the the culture is different the culture is very different just learning how to become a part of that culture and get locally ingrained with like what people do where people shop how people see things like it's completely different to where i'm from so from a logistics logistics perspective you're doing local production now what about from like a 3pl a pick pack ship are you still shipping from uk or do you have here as well all's moved to here now everything has moved to here now 3pl in the u.s wholesale partners in the u.s retail wholesale and creative team now in the US.

1:23:14So I would imagine that as a, I mean, you guys are doing volume, well-oiled machine. Do you guys own the 3PL or are you partnered? No, no, no. I partnered with one. Yeah. Partnered in Orange County, a company called Scale. They're really good. But we have 3PLs in Netherlands, in London, like we've got quite a lot of them. What's the biggest advice you'd give to someone on a 3PL side? I'd say do it yourself until you have the leverage to be able to get a good price from a 3PL and then let it go. I'd say, unless you're a very good operator, I would give it away. I know I've got friends that own their own warehouses and I've got friends that use 3PL.

1:23:48For me, it's like, that's a whole nother beast that if they're so good at it, why would I want to do it? Especially when you start getting into compliance with retail. If retail wants specific things, you guys are more in premium, Neiman and Nordstrom. But if you're in like mall retailers or the bottom, their compliance, bro, is absolutely crazy. Like some of the biggest pick pack ship companies aren't even compliant with these stores. That's how few people actually know how to handle this business. On the retail side, you obviously have the flagship here. What has been the holistic strategy as far as, let's just call it individual boutiques, then you have a little bit more, I'm not going to say mass, but like Bloomies and Nordstroms.

1:24:28What has been the holistic strategy for Represent over the years? Rollout retailers. So big players like Flannels, Neiman Marcus, Harrods, Selfridges. Roll out with them. Make sure your Selfrew is great. then take space from them. So usually they'll give you like one rack. And then if you sell well, they'll give you two racks. Then if you sell better, they'll give you a couple stands and a rack. And then you can start building out your own space. So you've got to test. You've got to test and test and test until you get to a good point. Once you get that big space, see where your traffic is coming from, where them consumers are, then open a retail space there.

1:25:04Like for me, it's a no-brainer. We've been doing it 15 years. We know that our main consumer is in Manchester and London. so we opened a flagship in manchester flagship in london the reason i opened this store here was because i wanted to put that pressure on ourselves we've not got many customers here we don't know what we're doing here let's fucking go in head first try and build out a little community locally and see how it takes us and on well surprisingly that store in la does as much revenue as our manchester one wow that's insane it doesn't make sense and that's a big overhead too big overhead that location?

1:25:39Do you know what? It's not too bad. Why? They did a good deal on it. Yeah. Tell me more. What was that deal? We, we signed a two year lease, which is nothing for$18 ,000 a month. Damn. For that location? Yeah. And there's stuff in the back too, right? Yeah. We got a double garage in the back storage space, three and a half thousand square foot of shop floor. But like that was a test just to test materials and fabrics of how we wanted our Manchester store to look. because that was such a big overhead and how the London flagship will look. If you go to that London store, it's like a gallery. It's insane.

1:26:12Like the concrete we use and the lighting and like the screens, everything's crazy. I mean, I thought that LA store was like 35 or 40. It's nice. It's huge. Great. Perfect location as well. You're like, perfect. I want to make it look as though it's 40 and it's only 18. Guys, we're giving you our rent payments on this podcast. First to give you valuation, revenues, rent payments. Yeah. One thing that's different here is like you can get clientele you can take numbers and you have a black book and people will come in and spend on the drops whereas in manchester and london it's more like a people will check in also people in the uk will check the price of things and the aov is so much lower than what it is in la but la is destinational and everyone most people here are making a lot of money that's why they're here so they'll shop a lot more expensive people don't care about that msrp at all here no people come in and just drop five grand like and not even not blink an eye and just go.

1:27:05It's great. Guys, this episode is sponsored by ManyChat, the tool that is quietly powering all those comment to DM posts that you guys are seeing across Instagram. I am personally a power user of ManyChat. I absolutely love it. I use it for my personal brand, the podcast and Iconic. When we started using it, Iconic was doing 8.5 million impressions a month. We're now doing over 20 million impressions a month. It boosts engagement. It drives more reach. It allows you to collect emails and segment them with crazy precision. In short, you create a customized experience and you can collect data. They're met as official business partner, trusted by over a million accounts, and it's free for your first thousand contacts.

1:27:45The links below in the description, start turning your comments into conversations. All right, we're going to fire off a ton of questions. Some of the people from the community drops a question. Oh, is this the the Q &A yesterday. Bro, I'm not going to lie. I mean, we've had, I don't know, 15 or 16 episodes while this is out and probably probably like 20. You have a rabid fan base. They came in and they asked a lot of questions. So we're going to fire off a bunch. I guess let's first start with who's your biggest inspiration outside of fashion and what have you learned from them? Outside of fashion, I'm probably going to go to fitness.

1:28:21I'm probably going to look at dude probably david goggins i know it sounds fucking who's going to carry the boats yeah who is going to carry if that if that guy didn't motivate you to start running and start your fitness journey and like have give you that voice in the back of your head i don't know who fucking will who's going to carry the boats with cam haynes at like 18 to 22nd video i send that to my girl probably probably quarterly sometimes who's going to carry the boats you gotta just let them know you gotta let him know that someone's gotta do it over here oh shit yeah oh Andy Andy MFCEO Frisella that shit fucking changed my life yeah let's talk about that always give him a shout out yeah let's talk about that Andy Frisella I've done it before ironically we're gonna give Luis another shout out in Arizona when I was living in Arizona in 2021-ish yeah fresh off an enjoyable New Year's Eve I did my first 75 hard on like the second or third sick that will absolutely change your life yeah that changed my life what has it done for you 75 hard gave me discipline gave me repetitive constant discipline that was that start that 2020 thing that was what did it 75 hard sticking to them rules and then just carrying it on through the rest of the years and listening to his podcast at the time as well he was very much like me and at that time i was not outspoken and like i wouldn't i wouldn't be worried but i'd kind of be like in my shell about how i talk to people and how I come across, but the way he articulated himself and like, he always uses this phrase of like aggressive patience.

1:29:51I think about that with everything that I do, because you've got to, you've got to be patient with the team and like, you've got to realize things take a lot longer than what you expect them to be, but you've got to be aggressive with it. It's like macro patience, micro speed, right? It's like, you got to go fast and aggressive at the same time, see the bigger picture. That's it. I want to give a shout out to, we both know him as Eli Webby. You mentioned David Goggins and you mentioned Andy, he signed with First Form. Yeah. Dude, The turnaround on that guy is absolutely incredible. I've got goosebumps.

1:30:17Bro, we talked about it earlier the last time I went to the club. I think that was like, it wasn't worth it. He was there probably. He was the guy in the club. And now this guy is running 250 miles with Goggins. Eli Webby is literally the poster child for discipline, focus, and turning around your life and recreating yourself. Dude, it's crazy. Like I'm literally full of goosebumps. I was talking to him this morning and like he's a fucking great friend of mine. and even reading his book and stuff and just seeing what you can do kind of shows anyone they can fucking do anything. I remember when he ran his first marathon and now he's running 240 miles, racing 240 miles like it's a fucking joke, just doing it every couple months.

1:31:00For context for people listening, this guy ran LA, all of the clubs, went through a little incident to say the least, went off the grid, wrote a book, came back as the most savage runner I have ever seen before in my life. He's like a top 20 runner in the world. Amazing book too. He is endurance. Yeah. Shout out to Eli. And shout out to Andy for sell it too. I'm a firm believer in 75 hard. What is a quote unquote waste of time that you secretly think is actually valuable? For me personally, Instagram. Go on, tell me more. My girlfriend hates sometimes when I'm on Instagram, but I'm literally working.

1:31:36I'm looking at things. I'm replying to customers like I'm doing my work. I think it's such a valuable thing if you're building a personal brand or an actual brand. Use it. Use it for the right thing. Don't use it for the wrong thing. And from a platform perspective, is it Instagram is the one? Are you just talking about being on any and all the platforms to respond to your customers and to just get inspiration? Yeah, I guess any platforms, but my main platform is Instagram. That's where I started. That's where most of my followers are. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you said something too. It's for everybody listening is taking a step back, understanding and knowing what you want and how to get there.

1:32:09And if being on Instagram is a piece of how to get there, then you should be on. Yeah. As a creative and not as a consumer, like be in that mindset when you're on it, understand what you're on it for. Guys, we're going to pop up on here after as well too. We're going to look at George's phone and see how many hours he was on his phone yesterday and how many pickups. I think it's going to be a lot. I think it's going to be seven, eight hours, maybe a hundred plus pickups. What's a pickup? Oh dude, I'm tracking pickups now. What is that? Picking up your phone. Oh, can you track that? Bro, you have a problem.

1:32:36You definitely have a problem too. My average screen time is five hours, 40 something. Oh, that's not that bad. No, but I use my laptop as well for everything. So I've got Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, it's all on their WhatsApp. From a platform perspective, I think we could be on the same page that Instagram is kind of the North star for you from an inspiration and consumption perspective. Yeah. What's that second one? YouTube, a hundred percent YouTube. I don't watch TV. I watch YouTube. I'll follow the right people on YouTube, whether it's business or fashion or things that I enjoy watching.

1:33:08And that's all I watch. Subscribe to George's new channel and ours. Thank you. See you guys out there. Let's go on to the next. What's a risk you took that you encourage others to try? I'd say on a personal level, not brand, go and sign yourself up for something, whether it's a half marathon or a high rocks event, go and compete. It'll do things to you that's never happened to your body before. You will absolutely fucking shit yourself for hours before it and then you'll go and race and then you'll feel like you've you've completed life i think it's the best thing ever what was that first one for you it was a hyrox in 2021 like when no one knew what it was but i was sat on the toilet for three hours before it just shitting myself thinking i'm going to war i love that dude i think hyrox i've been saying it since the beginning and i feel like you guys puma a couple others i've like aligned with hyrox I think CrossFit is dead.

1:34:03I mean, you look at Matt Frazier, who's the Michael Jordan of CrossFit. He's doing Hirox now. Yeah, they all are. Power pays off. I think Hirox is on a rocket ship. I think they're going to blow up. Growth is unbelievable, bro. Yeah. When I moved here two years ago, no one knew what it was. Now everyone is doing it in America. I've been on, I saw you were on it early and I was like, George knows. Yeah. It seemed fairly obvious that this thing was going to blow up too. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it seems so obvious. It's like it's a uniform course and then like they have, what's that one guy? I've talked to him on DMs.

1:34:30Hunter. Hunter, Hunter the Sheriff. That's my, that's my dad, bro. Bro. It's like these like WWE UFC characters and they're like brand, they're actually like branding them as opposed to, you know? Yeah. He was my first sponsor. First 247 sponsor. I was like, I need that guy. Watched his little documentary of him cutting trees down. And I was like, this is it. Hi, Ross. He's an interesting character. Get him on here. He's got some fucking stories. Yeah. Yeah. That no one knows about. Unbelievable. I like that. What was the most surprising DM or message you've ever received that change your perspective?

1:35:04The most interesting ones and the most surprising ones still to this day, and we get a lot of them, is when the brand has changed someone's whole life. Someone will send you a selfie where they got into 247, they started following us and the athletes, and they're down 40 pounds in the racing marathons, and their whole life has just completely took a U-turn. i feel like it's the same but nowhere near as big as like what 75 hard does to people that that feedback from the person that's doing it will give you the drive and the motivation you need to carry on doing whatever you're doing for the rest of your life are you changing fucking people's lives that never gets old no that never gets old you'll never read that one of their messages and go oh look another one we go fuck i'll take from from an emotional perspective does 247 almost give you more juice and do you get more excited about that than represent at this point it it fucking goes up and down it depends depends what we're launching what we're talking about what's going on with 247 but it's it's so much easier to activate with because it's sports and also that whole realm is so so much more fun to be engaged with you know fashion's very closed off if you're cool or you're not cool like that's that's a tick and a cross whereas in fact in fitness right you can go to the gym and there's fucking 50 people and they're all fist bumping you and you're making new friends and you're enjoying like progress in your life so that's attached to the clothing side of it for us so i love that part of it and are you guys like cross-selling from 247 to represent from like a list perspective and a social perspective like doing utilizing brands i try to separate them try to separate them out but also like 50 of our 247 customers buy represent so they they do have a big crossover and look represent has given 247 the authenticity to be a luxury fucking fitness line i think if i started 247 away from represent like it would never have grown to where it's growing to now for context for people listening how big is like 247 if you mind sharing it'll do about 35 million dollars this year it's only three years old and it's only had a team for one year it was just me for two what is the trajectory look like for that what was it like 5 10 35 how how's that gone it went half a mil five mil 15 mil wherever it's at now 30 something mil do you think that could be the billion dollar thing wow and when your partners came in and invested in the company both companies are under the hold car oh yeah it's all the same thing yeah and i don't think i would split it out however maybe there should be 247 stores on their own at some point you know if you look at the the business of like an aloe yoga or a lululemon they do small footprint stores with like 50 skews in there like i could put them all over the states or all over the uk just as 247 stores different concept different layout to represent but we'll see it is there there is contrast in your LA store, like you go in, it's kind of luxurious.

1:38:11You got the footwear on the left, you got the clothing on the right, and then you kind of go into this little back and it's like sleek and clean. And you feel like you're on some like silver surfer athletic type shit. Same in the Manchester and the London store. So they're compartmentalized, but they're in the same, they live in the same space. Yeah. I think for me, I don't know which has a quote unquote bigger TAM, total addressable market, either like the represent side or the 247, but I just feel like the emotional tie on the 247 side. That's what Guess is. Yeah, dude. I think that's going to be, and you want to talk about from a key man risk perspective, I would argue that 247, I'm not going to say can live alone without you now, but I think, yeah.

1:38:51Because you have the hunter, the sheriffs and the geezers and these guys that are absolutely animals. Yeah. Like dude, one guy in there, Jake did, and he's a guy I've met at the gym before we started 247. and he would be, he would train me. I've seen this guy, Dearden JK. This guy's a machine. Bro, I met him at this gym that I would train at before I built my own gym. And I would see how he would perform compared to everyone else. And I would be like, this guy could probably be one of the best athletes in the world. Six months later, he goes, George, let me be the coach at your gym that you're building.

1:39:24I was like, dude, I don't know if you could do that. There's going to be no one coming in from the office to train. He's like, I don't give a fuck. Let me be the coach. He comes in, he coaches, everyone every morning still to this day he has gained millions of followers he is the most notable guy in high rocks he's in the elite 15 the guy's running marathon at under 220 like he is the fucking the the perfect specimen of someone who's gone from zero to insane athleticism discipline like i feel like sometimes i'm his dad because he's always asking me for advice but to see him go from nothing to where he's at now in like three years that that shit is fucking unbelievable and he's 247 hardcore till he dies he can he can run that without me i don't need to be the face of that sounds like a good problem there yeah that that leads me to my next question directly kind of in correlation to that networking do you think that's overrated or underrated personally i've been terrible at it all my life sat in four walls and not took advice from anyone not spoke to anyone just built my business now i can do it a lot more now i'm in la i can network i can learn from people i love that i love that i've got time to go and learn sit here and talk to you learn things from your business learn things from whoever's business learn from the athletes that we bring on in 247 i think it's a massive thing i think if you want to grow you've got to learn and to learn you've got to go to the I've done it before know what their mistakes were don't go down them paths I think you got to you got to you got to learn your own mistakes right it's like dating isn't it but at the end of the day if someone can give you advice on what to do and they've done it before you typically if you do that it'll work makes sense what celebrity wearing represent has had the most impact on your brand oh impact in terms of like you saw sales from it you can define impact however you'd like i'm gonna say i'm gonna say there's two different three different times i think in 2012 when i just started i brought a backpack of clothes to mac miller because he was on tour in manchester and i knocked on his tour bus and his manager was like yeah come in come upstairs and like gave him these clothes and it was like the most surreal moment ever for me and he put it on and he wore it and it was his twitter profile picture and his instagram profile picture and shit and i felt like that gave me like something to talk about in the brand where it wasn't just screen printed t-shirts anymore it was like it was endorsed by like one of the coolest fucking rappers at the moment that that and maybe it didn't give us sales but it gave us like authority to say we're a brand not just a fucking t-shirt 2017 we met justin bieber in a bar and he loved the fucking product and we took it we again took it in the car to where he was staying and he wore it for like the rest of his tour and all that stuff sold out that was great and then kourtney kardashian wore it and i don't know why or how on one of the like keeping up with the kardashians things which i'd never seen but loads of people messaged me that night and then this fucking tracksuit just sold like crazy for like months i didn't know she had gas like that i didn't it was like this green sweatpants and hoodie and yeah it went crazy typography they see the represent logo or not even yeah there was a represent logo on it and it was like tie-dyed interesting uh what's a belief you held five years ago that you've since changed your mind about maybe relationships maybe relationships maybe i thought like you know you couldn't get to the levels of success that you want to if there's other people involved in your life that you've got to prioritize but i think you can do it's just that i've spent so long on my own doing this thing to get to a level where then I'm able to go and do that.

1:43:10I never tried it whilst I was growing. So whether it had worked or not, I don't know. So that's a tough one. That's interesting. What's your relationship? When you was building Iconic, like what were your relationships like? Oh dude, I was from 16, 17, 18, 16, 17 and 18. We were working every day, all day, minimum amount of humans. You can't have relationships, right? Yeah. And then I think we went on a big influencer kick, but that was an isolated one day a week where we'd have tons of influencers coming in. I think things have changed a bit where you can get an asymmetric benefit by, I would say it's one thing to network that gets you smarter and more access, but it's a secondary layer, which you've done so well, is documenting it.

1:43:57When you document it, then you just get way more benefit. You just get the entertainment, you get the social proof. I mean, there's just so much stuff that you get through that. So I think filming, if you're an interesting human and have something to offer, I think if you're going to network and you find a way to get the content and distribution behind it, I think that that's a big play. But I think that you shouldn't network and you should stay in a hole and work in the first chapter. I firmly believe that. But you've got something to offer. Dude, if you've got nothing to offer, why would anyone want to speak to you?

1:44:27I was very surprised with your answer on networking. I'm going to be completely transparent with you on that because I think that if you are not interesting or have an interesting product or brand, then I don't think anybody's going to want to talk to you. And then you're playing from a game of you don't have the leverage where you're, it's like, it's cold traffic. Like you're going into somebody versus someone already knowing and understanding who you are and, or they reach out to you. Right. I've never done that. I've never gone in cold and like with nothing. That's what I'm saying is I feel like you did not network for like a long time.

1:44:56You just built a great brand. Yeah. And then people kind of gravitate towards you. So interesting. What's a relationship or connection that has had an outsized impact on your journey? Outside of D making the intro to the guy that bought a huge piece of your company, let's give an extra shout out to D on that one. Thank you, Uncle D. Go to ghost.io, ghst.io. If you have excess inventory, look at this. It's an ad read within the podcast. Love you, D. Say that one again, sorry. What's a relationship or connection that has an outsized impact on your journey? Oh, my CEO connection. Fucking, that guy is like, he's like my best friend.

1:45:35Like the relationship is insane and it propelled the business so far. So that's my number one. One word to describe Michael Heaton. Maniac.

1:45:50Why will Cadence win? First RTD electrolyte drink in the market. insane marketing, fantastic team behind it. And does it taste good? It tastes like Coca-Cola and I don't drink Coca-Cola. Tastes fucking great. Guys, the flavor is cola, 500 milligrams of sodium. And this is great for probably after your run. Yeah. This is an athlete's drink. Like if you're sweating and you're training hard, like that's, that's what you want to be putting in you first thing in the morning or after a workout. What I thought was so impressive is I got a, like a package from you guys when you first launched. And the packaging was so interesting that it gave you, it was like a bunch of different products within it.

1:46:33And it gave you inside of the packaging, the sequencing of how and why you use a different product. So you can kind of embed it into your everyday life. Yeah. Pre-workout, post-workout, anytime before bed, stuff like that. Yeah. But that was brilliant. So Ross, the co-founder, he's so dialed on just the communication of it and like how he talks to the customer. And, you know, there's so many like back and forwards in where I see representing 247 and where cadence is in terms of things we could learn off each other and understand how you market to a consumer. And like, he's done so much like deep work on trying to tell that story and making it so easy for the customer to realize like how they're going to take it and when they're going to take it and how it's going to benefit their life.

1:47:14Like, it's so sick. Fliarity and message wins. It is. It's very, very simple. Even the branding is very clean. Yeah. Everything is simple and direct. Which, you know, the electrolyte market is so like busy and full of like graphics and shapes and colors. And like, this is just so clean and like to the point. Yeah, I think that this like fits perfect in your portfolio where it's like your pricing and positioning is like upper middle or premium for represent 247 and for Kata. So it's like perfectly integrated into your life. Very true. One word to describe Ross Mackey. Dialed. dialed what is the hardest stage of a company probably the start probably that first year i can i still like think back to them times where you just don't have a fucking clue what you're doing you just stab in the dark but also they're the most enjoyable i agree i would argue too and this is something that as i've gotten older i'm now like so adamant about it is like it's just so hard to bet on a first time CEO.

1:48:21The reality is, is like, you're technically a first time CEO, but like, think about you now when you start something new or when you invest your time and resources into cadence, like you've just been through so much shit, bro. You've been through the amount of experience that you have and you've seen that it's just like, I really think it's about just like getting through your first one, whether you win or lose and just gaining the experience and the contextual understanding of how business operates, I think is so huge. Dude, 100%. You have to do everything possible in them early stages to actually understand where you can give things away and how they're going to run it.

1:48:56I've not yet become like an investor. I've not yet become like put my money into things that aren't mine. We've talked about this on the podcast before. Bro, S &P, Bitcoin, invest and represent 247 and Cadence. I've done a couple little medium guys. Nah, bro. I don't care unless I'm fully involved with it. I don't care. Well, the thing is with you, you know, it's going to happen. It's happening with me is if you invest, that doesn't mean you're an advisor. I get it. You invest your money and we're here to like help, but like you didn't give me advisor shares. I invested money. Like people are going to want to get access to you and then it starts decaying away from your time.

1:49:33So my recommendation to you would be to not do that. That's just, I'm not doing one man, one man's opinion. What are your thoughts on alcohol? Actually, that could go back to the question where you said something five years ago that has changed. Like I quit alcohol for years when I was going through this stage of like finding yourself, but I will occasionally drink now. If like it's someone's birthday party or we're having a fucking celebration, I'll have a drink. But that doesn't ever mean I will have a drink at dinner or I'll just randomly have a drink at night. Like that never happens. I'll pick and choose my battles.

1:50:09And I think that's the way you should do it. so you know maybe there's going to be two nights over one week where there's a big thing happening all the companies involved and you want to celebrate and then there's someone's birthday have them have them drinks on them nights but like between that and after that and before that when there's not something to celebrate just don't do it i'm on the complete same page with you man i drink probably 10 to 15 drinks a year i would say 75 of them are with my wife's father watching football during christmas and that's just like a special moment yeah it's a special moment that also you don't forget like dude if i'm going to go out and have a really good time and drink that is usually like something i'll never forget and i enjoy it but if i was going to be like if i was not going to drink and everyone else is drinking and i'm miserable in the corner wanting to go home why would i do that yeah i feel like even when we were talking about all of this kind of people just over-optimize their life, like it's not a big deal if you have like five or 10 drinks, as long as it's like a one or two drinks and you're like strategic on when and why you do it.

1:51:15Yeah. I'm in the same camp as you. Yeah. I'm also not one of them people that will get absolutely obliterated or like they know when to stop or like, you know, I'm not an addictive person. So I'm, I'm all right. I understand that some people are and they just can't stop when they, when they start. So it's a different answer in every context, right? agree last couple questions that i ask everybody favorite book or podcast and why favorite book probably the art of seduction robert green baby the goat the goat the goat and favorite podcast of all time i think it's episode 18 of the mf ceo which is the 75 hard podcast yeah wow we will link that below um i'm not huge on his podcast i've read his book and i've done 75 hard before i'm gonna go into it yeah he splits it out into different things now so he's got like one part of it is like a q a which i love one part of it's like about the news which i've never listened to and then he has stories of people that have done 75 hard now so it's all very different at the start it was just him rambling on getting really fucking angry for years i love that this guy's the mayor of Missouri.

1:52:30Yeah. Entrepreneur or brand that you want to give flowers to and why? You mentioned a couple. Why don't you take some time and think about someone that you want to... Yeah. 424, amazing brand, small retail space on Melrose. They've been going a long time. Like the attention to detail and like the level of product that I think, if you say Guiamo? Guillermo. Guillermo. He's putting out. It's fucking beautiful. I think he's doing really good things for LA. If we keep this specific to LA and now I'm like kind of local here. Give the flowers to the city. So yeah, 424. I love, there's a brand called Horse and Booze.

1:53:08It's like a jewelry brand. I think their product is absolutely beautiful. Love that stuff. So shout out to them guys. Maybe give one more. Community Goods. Community Goods. I don't even know what that is. That's a little coffee spot opposite my office. It is fucking rammed all day, every day. They have figured it out, bro. bro you just gave the code to everybody listening they're gonna come find you at community goods now you guys want to go find george you know what the coffee is great as well like it's really good i'm a monody's guy you ever go monody's it's good i don't know it where's that one of them's in venice one of them's in like a culver-ish i live in playa it's good stopping my addiction to vanilla latte though last question how big can represent b i don't think there's a limit i don't think there's a limit on it i don't know what the ceiling would be especially with 247 activewear now is so much of a percentage of fashion and like growing like crazy if you read the business of fashion or whatever news articles you're looking at activewear is going like this fashion is not going like that the health and wellness thing is is so much upon us isn't it that that's that's the at the moment nice man dude i had an amazing time where could everybody find you?

1:54:20Your personal, the companies, everything. I'm usually on Melrose at that coffee spot at 6am. Now you can find me on Instagram, George Heaton, Twitter, George Heaton, YouTube. I think it's george.heaton just made a new YouTube account. So if you want to follow my personal one, that'll be on there from now on. That's it really. Any other wise words or stuff that you want to tell to the world while you're on this platform? Yeah, it's going to take a fuckload longer than you think it will, but it'll be worth it. hockey stick. That's what we call it. I like that. All right. What's up, guys? If you guys got this far in the episode, I would assume that you enjoyed it.

1:54:59If you got any value, it would mean the world if you hit the subscribe button, give it a like, post a comment, tell a friend. We could keep going bigger. Bigger guests, bigger locations, more value. See you in the next episode.