E139: The future is members only fashion brands.

28:39He's like, what do you do every day? I'm like, I dropped my kid off at school. I go to the office, I go to lunch. He's like, you got to come golf with us. You golf, right? I'm like, I can, I guess like I was never really great. Went to this place called Braymar. I made a birdie. I'll never forget it. And I got hooked 2017. I was like hook, line and sinker joined Wilshire country club. And now I'm in, right? I'm like who I am as a person. I'm like, I think I'm always trying to solve for stuff. I'm seeing white spaces. I'm like always questioning, like, why is this guy so well-dressed? He's like the most well-dressed guy in my golf club goes into his locker, puts on a costume of like Adidas, terrible shorts, terrible shoes.

29:24I'm like, what happened to you? You know? So I was like, it was like light bulbs are going off every day. And I think what really happened was Foot Joy invited me to design kind of this premium guest designer program, me and Todd Schneider and a few other designers. And that like really kind of like hooked me into the golf world. And I said, I need to come back in here. And I wasn't really making anything for years. And I love making stuff. I think what gets me off the most is getting a sample in a box from Italy and looking at it. I'm like that those moments are the money's great. The fame, the you know, the all this stuff is great.

30:02But what I really love is like the the making stuff part. So that's kind of what brought me back into the golf world. Then just the pageantry of golf, the history of golf, the fashion side of golf and how you can, it's really the only sport in the world where fashion is a factor, you know? I mean, basketball, you have a, you can walk in through the runway in the morning, you know, before the game, I guess that's a factor, but like you can play golf in anything, you know which is very fun for me it's like a great playing field for me yeah and i think i really do think we're seeing um because there's so much lack of like a homogenous culture in america it's like you you bring up the jordan sneaker and it's like look there's some great sneakers coming out right now but it's like basketball is is more and more for basketball fans right like right it is it is it is not this like you know or baseball is the same thing it's like it's like These groups of people are just being smaller and more niche and hyper-focused.

31:07I think golf's the perfect thing to be focused on. And we watch brands really explode focusing on CrossFit or whatever else. So I do think the future is just serving a niche community a lot. I think golf will continue to be a great community for that. Okay, I got to take a break and tell you a quick story from a few weeks ago. We were at eCommerce Fuel Live. This is Andrew's live event that he does once a year. It's like 200 brands. They do a great job. And this story is just too good not to share. So like, bear with me while I tell it. And I'm at the opening night party. I'm talking with Amit, CEO of RichPanel, one of the great sponsors of this podcast.

31:44And Amit and I are having a good chat. And beside me walks in Katie to say hi to Amit. And Amit looks up and I swear to God, this is true. He goes, hey, Matt, is this your EA? And before I could react, Katie absolutely dares him a new one. and says, I am not Matt's EAI. Matt is my EA. So if you ever wanted a lesson in how to stick your foot firmly in your own mouth, this is it. Ahmed could not catch a break the rest of this event, deservedly so, right? And by the end of it, I think she actually said, I will never switch to Rich Panel unless you give me a 100 % discount. Now, I know this is a strange sponsor read, but I just needed to tell the story because I think it's kind of funny.

32:28So I don't think Katie's going to get a 100 % discount, but honestly, I don't think you need it. switching to RichPanel is going to pay for itself anyway. They are genuinely one of the best teams to work with. I mean that. We work with them at our brands. They have more than paid for themselves in their software. So if you want to reduce tickets by like 30 % or more, save on your SaaS bill, go into Black Friday without any chaos, give RichPanel a shot. Just go to richpanel.com slash demo. And Amit, if you're listening, dude, that's just a terrible, terrible example of what you say to somebody when you meet them the first time.

33:03Oh, and Amit promised me there's actually a super special promo code. If you use SorryKaty, SorryKaty, you'll get 20 % off your subscription. Give it a shot. I wanted to talk about selling your business to private equity. Is it hard to sell a business that has your name on it? It's like your name's on the box. It's true. You know, I fought with that early on, But I thank God I named it Buscemi and not John Buscemi. So in 50 years, it could be some other, you know, someone could be like, hey, it's just some Buscemi guy, you know. It's not like Tom Ford or Mark Jacobs or Ralph Lauren, right? That's one.

33:43But, you know, I didn't sell my business to, you know, take a check and like say, ha ha, gotcha. You know, it wasn't like that. I know some guys that do that in business, like they just kind of raise money, sell to private equity, take the money off the table. roll the dice, see what happens. I actually sold a minority stake to private equity because I thought my brand was going to 500 million in revenue, like, and they were going to help me get there. Like, that's, that's a real fact. So it was hard to, you know, to get into the, to get into the weeds a bit. I learned very quickly, I was entrepreneur my entire life.

34:25then you go to you know a 40 million dollar a year revenue business never doing that in 30 months you know zero to 40 million in 30 months private equity comes in they were great lion capital amazing partners but they came in and said hey we need to take the ceo you had before you know he's a friend of yours he did a good job but we need like the ceo to take us from 40 to 400 No problem. We need the CMO. We need the I learned very quickly how corporate culture and culture, building a culture and then changing that culture, how that can kill a brand very quickly. It's so important. And we had a CEO that came in that tried to change the culture.

35:12It was it was all about their it was really like more about their opinion and and and kind of changing what Buscemi was culturally, not only in the world, but as a company. and that was a big wake-up call for me. But I would do it again. I would definitely do that again. The private equity side was really great. They were very helpful. Obviously, the capital helped. But from a name standpoint, I always say, at least it's not called John Buscemi. John, let's talk about this point about PE coming in and the changes they want to make because actually I don't think it's something that we talk a lot about doing deals and getting deals done and what it's like to do a deal.

35:55but like this is the after the after the deal right what happens and yeah i've been around this world that i've experienced it in multiple times where first of all these private equity guys are great numbers guys they're really smart and they understand like big picture how to build a business and how to attack a market and what a good they definitely know what a good business looks like right for sure but then they then they come in and like every business has like its specific DNA and how it runs internally. Like I know how we run internally. I have a good sense for how Ridge runs internally.

36:31And from an outsider, it's like, oh, we need to get a professional CEO to really scale this business. You know, like, well, we need a CMO. We need a real CMO that really understands brand. And it's like, but it's so easy to think that that change is doable or necessary, but it's actually really, really hard. You look at the DNA of your company and you're like, wow, how does these changes, these changes, significant changes at the top level of management, how is that going to fly? Because at the end, the company is the living organism of a lot of people getting done. And that's actually, we, we, we early on when I first joined HexCloud there in, during the pandemic, you know, we were, we didn't know how big we were going to be.

37:22We knew we had a great business, but we didn't realize we're going to get to this. And we had a lot of conversations with PE and, you know, there was one that we, that we had a really good conversation with and we kind of liked them, but they really wanted to make some big management changes. And we were just like, that's going to screw it up. At least now, right. We were like, we've got, we know what we need to do for the next two years. And maybe we're not like expert in everything, but like we can, we can figure it out. And the value of letting us figure it out is going to be better than bringing people in who are going to really change the culture.

37:53And, and really just like all of a sudden the, what built the business, the people that built the business are like, just like in a different place. And you have to be really careful to make sure that essentially the new team can do it, right? Like if you look at, look at Apple and Scully versus Steve Jobs, and it's just, it's really interesting to me. Yeah. It's really interesting to me that you guys went through that. And that was, I wasn't expecting to hear that. And also you, you coming in are, are, are that too, right? And it could go either way. You made, you obviously enhanced the business, you know?

38:28So it could have went either way for us. I was friends with the founder. Okay. Yeah. So you You already had a cultural link. You had the link, yeah. Well, I also want to talk about what Buscemi was doing was very unique in the world. No one was doing luxury streetwear at the time. Like for the audience, this was before Balenciaga had the$2 ,000 sneaker that looks like socks or whatever, right? So this is like very, very early in luxury streetwear. And it's, I mean, I don't think there's any, there's very few CEOs they could have hired who could have got that business to$400 million. Well, it's funny that you said that.

39:03I had a guy work for me named Mike Amiri. He has a brand called Amiri now. He was my accessories designer. Do you know the Amiri brand? Oh, yeah, killing it. Yeah. He worked for me. And, you know, we shared a showroom together in Paris. And he had like some of our, you know, we've shared a few customers. And now he's the$500 million a year fashion business because he kept it and didn't sell to private equity. I mean, I'm very happy for him. He's killed it, crushed it. But I think what happened to us was our CEO came in and she wanted to Vince, I call it Vince-ify us. So she wanted to do Buscemi attainable luxury when we were supposed to go the other way like Chanel, make it more expensive, more expensive, more expensive.

39:52So it was like, do a diffusion brand, you know, and that's going to work. And then that was actually, that was the kiss of death, trying to think we could go this way instead of that way. And you could see most brands, Chanel, Hermes, these type of brands historically have raised prices instead of lower prices. And instead of diffusing, they went to the mountaintop. Dude, it's counterintuitive, right? Everyone thinks lower prices, more units. I mean, everyone knows who listens knows I love James Purse and James Purse has done the same thing. Just like make the shit as expensive as possible. Continue to protect margin.

40:30And going Going back to Jason's example, Jason, you guys were roughly$100 or$200 million and you had this private equity conversations. And yeah, if they would have brought in new management, I don't think they would have built the biggest cookware company of all time, right? You guys are doing public company numbers now. They probably would have the whole thing up because it's just when you have unbeaten paths, it's very hard to hire in leadership who knows what to do, right that's right it has to be so discovery first so um cool jason what are the questions you got man what i love one of the things that i love about john is is that he's so super connected right and like it just i feel this is a superpower that that people are are missing that they don't they don't build those networks and and those relationships so i wanted i wanted to talk about that skill john that you have and then i also want to talk about Redan, you're going to more detail on the strategy for your new business.

41:29Oh, I just want to make sure for the audience that we hit on this trend forecasting idea again, because I think it's super interesting. But let's start with how do you know everybody? You know, again, I always say that I got lucky the time I grew up and when I was born and my age and how my journey started in New York City and then came to California. you know, like New York, you know, through skateboarding, I think that's where it starts, where you start to, as a skateboarder, it's very, it's very tribal. Um, like we talked before. So I was a 13 year old, 13 year old skateboarder skating through Long Island, going to New York city.

42:06And you see another skateboarder, you're like, get over here. You're like my bro. Like you're, it's like this brotherly thing. I was, I think I learned to your, I want to attach myself to like people that are doing the same things as me and like, and stay in touch with them and, and have a relationship. I think that's where it started through skateboarding, where it was like this tribe. And then, you know, while you're in New York at those times, it's like, you're going to an art show because the skateboarder friend of yours is also an artist. And then you're going to, oh, you're going to a movie premiere because the skateboarder friend of yours is now an actor.

42:43Oh, now your friend went pro and lives in California. I went to California state in LA when I'm like, this is like, I'm not even 15 yet, you know, 16 years old. And these art, music, fashion, you know, people opening stores and the music business. And like, I think that's where, that was like the breeding ground for my like 5 ,000 phone numbers in my phone, you know. You know, it's one thing to be directionally right about your margins and another to be precisely right. And that's the big difference between saying our margins are around 30%, 20 % and knowing it was 24.7 % on Shopify and 28 % on Amazon yesterday.

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44:52So stop flying blind. Start operating with absolute financial clarity. If you don't have a Saris dashboard, if you don't have Saris Pulse, you're leaving money on the table. Check out Sarah's Pulse. That's S-A-R-A-S. And see how daily precise data can transform your business's profitability. But you really like, it's amazing how you managed to cultivate that because it takes work, right? And like, there are a lot of people with a very strong online persona. I feel like there's a lot of people that, but they don't get out and like press the flesh. And in our industry, there are a lot of events and people, they definitely go to the events, but they sort of stay within the same grouping.

45:38Like all the same people go to all the same events. Sean has been really great about cultivating community with chat groups and showing up at events. But I think there's like a next level that that younger people like because, John, we're around the same age, like younger people that like it's very easy to be behind a screen. Yeah. And, you know, but like get it getting out there. And I've seen it. I've already seen it. You know, we love John and I love golf, both love golf. Like I've seen the incredible connections I've made just getting out there and meeting people through golf. You, you know, because we have golf in common, we became friends really fast.

46:23Right. And those commonalities. But I think that's a missing link that people have today. It's like just getting out into different worlds and seeing them cross over with your world as opposed to, you know, Ecom Fuel and Commerce Roundtable and Beanstalk. And these are all great events where like a lot of times that's only, but that's the only place that people see each other. so I think like broadening the horizon yeah I have I've always been uh I've I've always I think I've always had this weird curiosity too where that fuels my some people you know in my world would would never go up to you know someone and ask them a question or say hey can we have a call or like me I'm a little bit like it's like the audacity of my networking like thing it's like I have, I, I don't, I don't care.

47:16Like I want to talk to you. Like I'm going to approach you, text you, get in touch with you somehow. And that's a really great way to build, you know, a whole network for your whole life. You know, that's what I've been doing. Well, dude, and don't ask, don't get right. If people want to hang out, they have to, they have to ask. I've learned don't get fed, man. Totally. Um, but I want to go back to that idea of, you know, signaling, um, you know, I think skateboarding, you could see someone physically skateboarding, you're like, oh, we have something in common. I think that's why golf also works.

47:46I think that's why the guys wear the Patagonia vest, so they can find other guys wearing Patagonian vests. What's hard in our industry is that when you're walking on the street, you don't know who's in e-commerce. The reason why we make the chat groups, the reason why we're so active online, we have the podcast, is because we want people to find each other and have that sense of community and talking because it's a lonely job. When you were grinding away, you had other CEOs to call because you had that network. So we're trying to find more ways to get that network out there. It's like what, it's like you're at a party and you see like maybe Gordon even does this, the guy with the chef coat on.

48:21You're like, that's obviously like the chef's here. You know, he's like walking around with the white chef's coat on at the party. You're like, he's signaling to everyone. He's like, I'm the guy that cooked all this food for you. I'm not just wearing a black t-shirt. That's what, that's, that's basically, that's how the world goes around for me. It's like, I'm always trying to signal either to make someone feel uncomfortable, you know, or not in a bad way, but like through fashion, you know, that's why I made the sneaker, you know, it's like, I made this sneaker to signal to everyone that like, this is like the craziest thing that you could put on your foot.

48:57It's like gold lock, like bouncing off the back of it. You know, that was like a signal, you know, Redan, which is my new brand. You have to be a member, you have to join the membership to have access to buy the clothing. I think that's a really, I always just love the idea of that exclusivity through going to very exclusive places. It really started with, I don't know if anyone's been on a, oh, I'm sure a lot of people have been on someone's yacht. And I love the culture in the yacht world where you could leave and they give you the hat and then the long sleeve t-shirt with like the yacht schematic on the back with the name of the yacht.

49:35She's always thought that was cool. Like that's like the ultra extra club. Like this woman named Claire, she's actually a yacht broker in Boca Raton, Florida. My friend, Brendan and Ron Cohen and a few other people know her. And we went on there for lunch one day and she was like, you want a t-shirt and a hat? I'm like, absolutely. And you come back to LA and I'm wearing this hat says Claire on it in gold foil and a white hat. And people are like, what's Claire? I'm like, it's just a boat I went on this woman owns. And then, you know, it's just like, I love those like deep cut. Like I remember seeing Blackberry Farm hat for the first time, you know, in Tennessee.

50:15And like, I wanted to start a deep cut brand like my, you know, for a long time, like where you, it's like, if you know, you know. And that's, that was the kind of the beginning of Redan. And then I said, I love golf. Let's do it in the golf. I could have done any, I could have done any, it could have just been a fashion brand. Right. But golf is so, it's the best sport. And I mean, I don't know if you golf, Sean, but it's like, it's insane. John's becoming a tennis guy now, which is good, which is a good alternative. That's a very, that's a very close second to golf. I think it's number two. I'm working my way to golf, but let's, so let's talk about the beauty of Redan.

50:54You are building a brand, not for everybody. Right. So you're very explicitly for that off the jump. I think everybody, when they launch a brand, they want the biggest market ever. They're like, we're going to build a brand for everybody. Everybody can shop here. You're specifically like, no, you have to be a member. So you're limiting access. And then you're making it a niche inside of that. You're not a fashion brand. You're a golf brand. So this is the brand you want to hold forever? Is that why you're doing that? I think so, yes. Yeah. Yeah. I believe that, well, also Redan, not only is it a, well, let's talk about Redan.

51:32Redan is four pillars. So the first pillar is a clothing collection made in Italy, exclusive to the membership. You have to be a member to have access to it. Number two, we do collaborations and double label projects with some of the most sought after brands in the world from Footjoy. We're doing something with Tiffany, Bettinardi Putters. We're in talks with James Purse to actually do something, your favorite brand, and a few other really great brands, culturally relevant menswear brands around the world that we're talking with. Number three, we have a concierge. So preferential tea times at some of the best courses on the globe, signature events, city events, one-day events, two-day events, three-day events that are curated by my team, whether it's Cabot Citrus Farms or Bandon Dunes to experiences in Scotland and experiences in New York.

52:25We've done one of the great trips we did this year. We did a two-day, two-night trip. We partnered with Casa Cipriani in New York, which is also a private club that I'm a part of that we did a partnership with where eight guys came to New York. We stayed at Casa Cipriani. We took helicopters to due process in Jersey, played golf, came back, had dinner at Teresi in the private dining room in Little Italy. And the next day we took the ferry over to Bayonne, played golf, had lunch, and everyone went their separate ways. So it's like luxury apparel, luxury experiences, and things for golfers that have kind of, what do you get the golfer that has everything?

53:13It's Everdan membership. And the last pillar would be the community that we're building. You know, we're at 275 members currently. We joined, oh, sorry, we launched it in January. And we want to get to, you know, 800, 1 ,000 and kind of, and cap it and see where it goes from there. Yeah. I love the very defined scope off the rip, right? And you could see somebody doing this for tennis for you know everything right like they just make getting the elite yoga people together and like hey this is this is the next level version of this it's for the people who live and breathe this because that's where i think the culture is going it's people who fall into these obsessions now is jason allowed to be a member jason has jason's a founding member um proudly i can say that oh man so any club he's in i i can't join unfortunately that's okay but he can take you out he could take it to the member guest what's really um you know i want to find really interesting about it is having you know been around the golf world um i think there's certain everyone is flexing something in life right like from the certain like the hat from the boat or whatever else you're wearing it you think it's cool and it's like a little bit of a flex and i remember when i talked to our mutual friend brendan about about it uh what you're doing with Dan, you know, he pointed out that the flex now is you like, you go play at a nice golf course and you buy a shirt or you buy a hat and you like wear that around and people talk.

54:42And maybe if you're a member of it, that's, that's, that's the massive flex, right? That's massive. Yeah. You, you're, this is like your takeoff on the flex because the flex is like, it, you just like wearing some weird, colorful, like golf shirt. And you kind of like, once you go somewhere else, it looks kind of silly, you know, whereas, you know, so how do you, you're, you're like, that's what I mean about like trendsetter. So you saw the trend about how people like to flex, oh, I went and played at due process or abandoned or Shandakok, whatever. And you're like, okay, we're going to take, we're going to take that flex to a totally different level, right?

55:20We're going to transform that flex. I think that's brilliant. Yeah. Thank you. I think also where I've been and not to sound arrogant, maybe the, for, you know, on the, for, for the sake of sounding arrogant, I feel like I built this brand for me. And I've, I, I think there's a guy, I think the tribe of guys like us get bored very quickly. And we need to do things like this to kind of like hover above the, the, the noise, you know, and we have our own little thing. And I also read a book, you guys should go on Amazon and buy this book called one upsmanship. it's a great little tiny book about like the culture it's been around forever I mean women do with handbags guys do with cars watches clothing it's like it's just a thing and then someone wrote a book about it which I think is hysterical but I think it would they wrote it in the 80s or the 70s we it's like social currency like um to the max you know and I love I deal in that.

56:18I deal in scarcity, social currency, flexing, FOMO, one-upsmanship. Like this is my, this is, I, this is where I love, I swear I, I, I, I shine in the, in these moments, you know, I think. Yeah. Well, John, that's why the diffusion line of Buscemi didn't work. I remember it coming out and it was$300 sneakers. Yeah. It was like, it was a, it was a sad moment for me, but I couldn't do anything, you know, it was like, yeah. Cause you guys ended up dropping something below a common project, a price point, which was like, oh man, you guys had all the pricing power. All right, folks, this episode is brought to you by our friends at Northbeam, the marketing attribution platform that every smart performance team should be using.

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59:04Because if you're still flying blind on clicks only, you're missing the full picture. Going back to this idea of monoculture and trend setting, right? Do you think there's ever going to be a place in the world for like a Vans again? Just like, you know, Vans is everything to everybody, right? They sell a billion pairs of shoes a year or whatever, right? Or a gap, right? These are brands that like just became synonymous with like middle America. Do you think you could still build those today? or do you think it's just like a from scratch like a new vans yeah no i don't i don't know i mean i've i've been involved in a few of these kind of startup footwear brands i've done done a few things i think you can but it's gonna have to come through like a tribe you know like viore if they come out with a footwear brand right like they already have their i think they can only come through now when i thought before brands i hated when when when big brands came out with like footwear collections it was always like i'm not going to wear that it's like terrible but then like ame leon dorae i don't know if you know that brand from new york that's the ame collab sorry yeah so ame i think they broke the rule of that because the platform they've built of i think it's the coolest holistically the coolest brand in the world now like just from every from the media side the what they're doing the price the porsche collabs the north fit like they've done that they've done such an amazing job of building that but i think like a pure play sneaker brand like van i mean on did it i mean yeah i guess it could be done i feel like on did it they came out of nowhere i remember on i remember the i think i met the owner of on he had like a bag of on in his like a duffel bag walking around like like he was the sales guy too now it's what multiple billion dollar valuation business yeah so maybe it can happen i yeah it can they're worth 20 billion dollars but to your point is it 20 yeah it's 20 they they went through um a cult right they were like oh we're a shoe for tennis people and now they're for everybody right so like i do think if you're going to build a mass market brand it has to be for somebody to start it has to be poignant because on was just for people who played tennis.

1:01:21And then now every granddad is wearing them when they walk around. Yeah. I think it's also like, I've called like the Brentwood mom effect, like golden goose. I remember like you get the Brentwood mom, you're, you're good. You know, you get the Henry. I feel like on's like a Henry brand and high earner, not rich yet brand. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think you're nailing the head there. Right. I have a friend that's running Skylark for Justin Bieber. I feel like that was another time when I saw, you see when, when celebrities come out with brands, sometimes they're just like, I feel like, I feel like if there's a, I know the behind the scenes of Skylark, they, they have like all the great things you need, like a great designer, like a super great designer and an amazing like taste level team behind.

1:02:11And then you have Justin, the superpower, super charge it. I feel like there can be another Vans. I feel like maybe Federer helped on with that. I feel like there needs to be that 50 million follower Instagram plus person involved in these brands now for it to like really just because everyone's on the phone. You're on your phone, right? You're not like Ame did it because they did it brick by brick in New York City. And then now I got to believe they have a massive performance marketing budget now, like probably ridiculously big, right? But they built it like brick by brick, so they didn't have the person, you know what I'm saying?

1:02:55Yeah, I think Kif is the same way. But dude, it's so interesting to hear you talk that you can still build these giant brands, but it's just changed so much in 10 years. Because maybe 15 years ago, it was getting POs in that pair of showroom, And now it's like, okay, build something niche for like the thing that you love, really care for it, become an expert in it, and then like have that, you know, X factor, that superstar behind it. You need a superstar. And you can grow that out. I also remember when I got lucky, Virgil Abloh, a couple of us, we were, I launched Buscemi before the algorithm on Instagram and I had 50 ,000 followers at the time before.

1:03:37So I was like, you know, I put a picture up of my shoe. It was like 50 ,000 likes, 4 ,000 comments, you know, like just, you know, and then shared earned media. I feel like doesn't exist anymore as much as it back in the day. Yeah. I earned all of that, you know, it was like wild. And like, it's so sad to tell new brands. It's like, look, wholesale's dead, earned media's dead. All that stuff, that playbook is just, it's gone. Now it's like you have to be outlandish and you have to be for some specific person. That's why I love the idea of this exclusive club. All right. Jason's got a question and then I'm going to end it with a question about where the future is going.

1:04:15So Jason, hit your question. Yeah, I just wanted to see, and this might be kind of like a tough question out of blue, but like you see how brands catch fire, right? Like on caught fire. There's this catch fire phenomenon. And I'm curious how much of it, there's got to be a significant amount of randomness because there's randomness in everything. A few things happen and then, boom, we sort of caught fire at a smaller scale than say an on. But even look at Birkenstock. So that's your world, right? You grew up around shoes. I actually look at it and it's just like it's amazing to me because when I was in college in the 90s, basically the deadheads were all wearing Birkenstock.

1:04:59You know, and I'm like, these are like not the people I want to. Yeah, I was not a deadhead guy. Like there were so many people at Arizona State where I went. Like they just they were just nuts. They were just it was like deadhead city everywhere. But and now you look even my it's every 10 people, every 10. Chief Information Officer Jeff Faber. Shout out Jeff who has no style whatsoever shows up to my place wearing freaking Birkenstocks now it's like incredible like brand new too like crispy Birkenstocks yeah yeah so I'm curious what do you have a you can you comment on that and and more generally yeah I think I think what I well generally on on Birkenstock or or just in general generally about like catching fire you know because everyone wants to have like that viral brand like everyone we talk to it's like everyone wants that right like but it's it's like a one in a whatever a billion, but like that whole, like any, do you have any thoughts about like how that happens?

1:05:54You know, I, I, I really do think it's like starts in these little micro communities of like, you know, Sean said early micro, uh, I don't know exactly the terminology you said, but I feel like whether it's London or Japan or Tokyo or New York and, and something starts at like, it's literally like kindling, you know, I, I, I think I remember when Birkenstock, I think I remember about 10 years ago seeing some of the coolest people in the world that are like not even on Instagram. They're like, you know, artists or brand owners that weren't very social at all wearing something. And I remember seeing like a black Birkenstock in Paris Fashion Week, like I'm one of the coolest people in the world.

1:06:37And I was like, that guy's wearing Birkenstocks. And then I was like, he got me. And then it just I feel like it really is. Starts in these little, you know, communities, the hush puppy, New York City in on on Lafayette Street. And you see like the then it's like it goes to me and then I go and then it's two, four, eight, 16, 32. Like, it's really just that. I think what I'm trying to say is you can't even overthink it. It's as simple as that. It's as simple as just influence brick by brick by brick. It's fashion's infectious, right? People want to be cool. They want to have the new stuff, right?

1:07:19That's why I think private member only club makes a ton of sense. All right, John. I got two things. I want to plug a designer to you, okay? So there's a guy, Mega Yacht. He makes knockoff luxury merch, and I think it's hilarious. you should check out mega yacht yeah mega yacht what a great name too yeah check him out on instagram like he he makes bootleg merch and it's awesome i uh like ironic but or like actually knocking off no no super ironic like okay super ironic yeah he'll put like bart simpson wearing gucci stuff on there and like it's just i think it is a good example of niche culture where i'm like i think this is funny i love fashion and he obviously loves fashion so you should check out mega yacht.

1:08:01And the second thing for the whole audience, for the whole world, you were super early and correct about streetwear. You were super early and correct about action sports. You were super early and correct about luxury. And like everywhere luxury was growing, where it was a combination of all those things. Where is the trend the next five or 10 years? If you, if you had to spend time and money, where are you spending time and money? I'll make you guys a$5 bet. You'll see multiple members only fashion brands in the next five to 10 years. I think that's where it's going. I think I was just a shame are going New York.

1:08:36And like, then I'm like, get invited to lunch at San Vicente bungalow. And I'm like, I'm like, the past four days, I have not been other than a private club in New York city. And they're growing like wildfire, just hospitality private. But I think brand side, I feel like you're going to see, I think the trend is going to go towards these kinds of like little micro communities or, or like little private brands where that's the next level, even for, I think for, you'll see it on the females, the women's side as well. That's, that's my, that's my trend forecast for the day. I think you're totally right.

1:09:13I think people are sick of not having community. I mean, dude, Kith is opening up that, uh, members only paddle ball club. You know what I mean? No, I joined. Yeah. I, I, uh, I was, I'm a founding member. Okay. Well, you can get an Irwan smoothie in New York. One of the few people who can get that done. I'm a big fan of the Kith Ivy. I think it's going to be amazing. Yeah, man. I think you're right. And you're not the guy to bet against. You've been right a lot with all of these trends. So member only club. And we have the Rodan plug. There's only 275 members right now. If you want to join, get in quick, cap out of the thousand.

1:09:52And you know, it's funny. It's a hundred year trend. I was just talking to someone about the links club in New York city. It's got CB McDonald's, a famous, uh, golf architect. He, he, he designed Chicago golf, national golf links in the Hamptons. And he started the links club because there was about five or 10 clubs that he couldn't join in New York city. Like back in like pre war of like right after his great depression, there was hundreds of these clubs. So it's, I think it's coming. So that's my trend for the day. Dude, it's a good plug. Seems like it. Yeah, seems like it. John, thank you for joining us.

1:10:34No, thanks for having me, guys. It's a pleasure. Good luck with Redan. Good luck with everything else. I'm sure people in our community will be hearing more from you. Thank you so much, guys. Legend in the flesh, man. Super excited to talk to you. You guys are great. Thanks, guys. Good morning. Have a good day. See you soon. All right. Thanks for making it all the way to the end of this episode. wherever you are in the world. It is awesome to have you here. If you do not already subscribe to this show, that is my one ask, is please go to whatever platform you are watching or listening to this on.

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