Reebok's Founder Goes All In on AI - Joe Foster

27:54Because this is not sneakers. These are not sneakers. This is not footwork. Now, Crocs are everywhere. Everywhere. wear it's a funny story about uh crocs there was a story there was a movie i don't know if you know it's um it was a dystopian future and the set designer the there was like we have to find the most hideous shoes that no one's ever heard of we're going to get these and they put crocs on everyone and by the time production was done crocs had taken off so this is interesting that how things can change you never know what's coming you've been you've done stuff and you know we've already talked obviously we we've been communicating about this and i should probably get closer to the mic, but you had me digitize my feet and you had that environment.

28:35Walk me through that process of development as you're going through. And, you know, I go out and I take pictures of my feet, which really wasn't pictures, just 3d images. So I don't have pictures on the internet out there. So yay for that, but you're out there and they digitize it. Walk me through that process. How did you figure out that we need to customize it for each individual person? Yeah. So there's a couple of different pieces to what we're doing. Um, one is the unique design component of AI and enabling people to express themselves differently through that. Another component is custom fit.

29:04And so you can make something visually that looks really exciting and different, but how do we actually use the benefits of this 3D printing technology to make something that feels different too, just as much as it looks like it's the future, it needs to feel like the future. And so we're working with Zellerfeld, which is our factory partner in Germany. And this is also using another company called Volumental. And basically we take a photo of each foot like you went through you put an eight by eleven piece of paper next to each foot we get 12 different data points including your arch height length width insights into your instep and with that data just is simply through a photo like you did um and it's trained with ai to be able to understand the environment and that paper is your reference point we can go and translate that over into a printing process and a printing process for each individual foot so each foot is individually scanned like that really matters and we're because some people have a left foot that's longer or wider than the right foot.

29:56My stuff we're doing, which I didn't expect. Yeah. You find that out. It was pretty darn close, but all of a sudden it was just a little bit off. And I was like, is something wrong with me? Am I broken? So after I sent this stuff over, I literally went and I checked everything to find out. I'm like, okay, is it normal to have different size feet? And I just called my relative. It was a doctor. And I was like, is it normal? I was like, yes, it's normal. Relax. I'm like, okay. Because I have my hypochondriac moments. I'm like, something's wrong with me. They're like, no, not that at least. Well, it's a cool thing, Charles.

30:19Like you kind of start to realize this when you, when you do this, most people don't even, I mean, they can go their whole lives. They don't even know they have different size feet. They're buying a pair of shoes. They're wondering why it doesn't always fit them correctly, but maybe they need to, now they actually can understand that they may have different size feet and may need different sizes. Well, here, you don't have to worry about that. You order one size, you don't have to buy two different, you know, et cetera, two different pairs. You can actually get something that fits you. And the fit experience is really good when it's done correctly.

30:43It's amazing. I mean, it fits just like, it fits like a glove. It's a great experience. So walk me through the kind of like the long-term vision of what you guys are trying to do this, Because you're backed by Joe, who is a visionary, and he changed the ballgame. And he absolutely did. And then you've got your ballgame of what you're trying to do. When you guys have come together to do this, you're leveraging an immense amount of experience and an immense amount of success. You're leveraging AI as well. And the enthusiasm. What does that look like? What are the two of you trying to build here?

31:10Well, the vision here is to basically become the content creator of Shoebrand. Like right now, if you look at the world of footwear. Right. What does that mean? I'm going to stop you there. What does that mean? It's high level. Okay, yeah. So if you look at the world of footwear today has been very much driven by signature endorsements and athlete endorsements. I think one of the biggest turning points in the industry has been the Jordan deal, right? And you see how Nike decided to make a custom shoe that embodied the essence of one individual player. And it was colored and it was a brand new design.

31:43It wasn't just taking a shoe that was existing and putting it on somebody. It was making something custom for them and putting their essence into it. And then this whole wave of people wanting to be like Mike, to play like Mike, and they felt like they could play like Mike by wearing his shoes. That was something that came about from that. And now there's been this push beyond that where you have other athletes, of course, getting shoes. But then you have people that are in the hip-hop world that have been able to get their own shoes and have created stuff. It was for a long time thought it needed to be tied to performance.

32:11You want to play with the athletes, you're wearing the athlete's shoes. So it expanded that way. But then with hip-hop, it was proven it was about lifestyle appeal. It was about the look and people wanted to feel like their favorite artists and it didn't need to be attached to performance. That took some time. The third wave, which we believe could be the biggest wave in the industry today, is backing people that have lifestyle appeal, that have influence, and fan bases that are outside of those two. That are creating content, that are engaging with people every single day on these social platforms.

32:38Half the youth today wants to be like content creators, Charles. That's what we're seeing statistics-wise. When these brands were built, they wanted to be the athletes. And now it's shifted. And so we want to give these people, these creative individuals, the opportunity to express themselves in this category. And with using AI and 3D printing, we can now make a shoe in a couple of months, put it out there and see what these people can do, and give them the opportunity to have a full canvas in this category, which hasn't been possible previously. And it's part of the reason why they haven't got these opportunities, because you have to commit to 18 months, and it could be a million dollars, half a million dollars in expenses.

33:10You have all your mold costs, you have your inventory costs, you have minimum order quantities, You've got your design expenses, your time in the sketch room, and it goes on and on. So the risk becomes too high. Whereas now we've lowered that barrier to entry and it could be the biggest opportunity. So what is the end goal? Joe, as you're sitting here, you've got your birthday coming up. I think you're having 90 birthday parties. We talked about that earlier. Absolutely. What is the end goal of this? How did you get roped into this? This is brand new innovation. These are things that are even cutting edge even for me to walk into.

33:39How are you walking into this? Well, you know, even with Rebump, there was an end goal. And I don't think this is an end goal. I think the thing is to get this going. See where you can go. Where is the end? People say, where's the future? My answer to that is space. Yes. Endless expanding space. And that's where we're at. Jeff and I started as two people. Here we've got two, and Ben has got quite a few people now who he's working with. But you start small, and then you keep adding things on. Right. You look for the next route. and Ben has come up with this idea which has now got the interest of the media.

34:19The interest of the media is, oh, well, this is a change. How far is it going to change? How far is it going to go? So now if Ben wants to talk to somebody, they will listen. Right. And they will listen and they're interested because it's creating news. So in creating news, this is marketing. Again, it's like we were with Reba. We were creating a marketing thing and as the marketing goes along, then you invent the product to go with it. Right. So when you first started, you know, you found a way to penetrate the market by going to a very specific niche. They already had the KLT, the know, like, and trust.

34:50They were in there. They were athletes. They were already there. They had these groups. We live in a very different world. Ben shows up and he's like, hey, I'm going to do this. We're going to 3D print this. You've got this experience, which worked back then. What is the things you first told him? Like, hey, this is what we need to start first doing and start having to penetrate a market. Because, again, things are completely different now. Well, I think to penetrate the market is exactly what Ben has done. And if you want really get it down to earth, what is it? If he speaks to you and say, you know, I want to talk about this, this, and this, and I've got Joe Foster coming along, he's a founder of Reebok.

35:25That's the key. That opens the door. That opens the door. And Ben goes through. So this is what we're using now. Ben knows a lot more about technology than I ever will. Because I knew what I knew, but at my age, technology's gone. So the only way I can hook up to the technology is to hook up to Ben. To leverage Ben. Right. So just like when you, in the past, you used to leverage the salespeople in that environment, you guys are leveraging, you're leveraging Ben. So if someone's at home and doesn't have a Joe Foster, which would be nice if they had, if they had that, but they don't, there's only one of you.

35:56If they don't have that, how would you advise someone to get through that door and kick that door open when they don't have a Joe, when they don't have celebrity status, when they don't have that social proof? How do you penetrate that market? Well, if you want to penetrate a market, you have to find a way in. and we can go back to white space. So, number one, you need to know. Jeff and I knew how to make footwear, although we went to college to learn a little bit more. What did college do for us? Yeah, it taught us a bit more about leathers and this and that, but the best thing for us happened with that college when we did take that step and we were thinking, oh, we need a machine.

36:31Where did we get that from? Right. Ask somebody at college. That was a source of information. Right. So get yourself a source of information. You know, know where you can go. I mean, we got some bad information from college, but they learned from us as well. You know, they were saying, can we mold spikes into the soul? And they would say, well, I don't know. That might burn this. Yeah, but your mold is metal. Spikes are only metal. There were things that we were teaching. But the thing is that go into that space. work, you know that people can just help you. Simple things, but just keep going in that space.

37:14Because I assume that if you're going to try and get into this space, the other thing you need, if you're nothing else, if you've got money. Right. If you've got a ton of money, you can buy your way into the space. Makes sense. That's what makes it a bit easier. So as you're going through these, there's a process. And the universal thing that I'm hearing across all of this is in the beginning, you saw egos kind of battling each other. And then you and Jeff came and said, we're not going to do this with ego. You go do you. I'll go do me. You go, you know, we're going to do in silos. We're going to do our thing.

37:41We're going to learn from each other. We're going to ask, ask these individuals and we're going to focus on the experience and really say, you know, this is really about the consumer and we're going to focus on the experience. One of the things that's huge that we talk about experiences with people is the, the opening things, the, the open box, the, the, the experience of receiving things and open and having that experience. I know you snuck in with a box here, which I'm guessing you're going to show me what's in the box here at this point. Um, but the experience of opening that, what is, why did you guys decide to do what you guys did and how you guys did it.

38:08And I guess we're going to share what this is. So let's do it. This is the box. We're going to do this. Okay. So Joe, we might knock over your book finally. Okay. So we made it through here. We might. All right. So this is, this is our box. This is our explore slide inside of here, which was as made history. Charles is the first AI designed commercially available slide shoe that you can get. Okay. And it's made in Germany. Made in Germany. It's a factory that produced the Air Max 1000, Nike's first fully 3D print shoe, some other cool collaborations. But it's produced this... We needed something that could capture what AI could design in a physical product, and that's what you have here.

38:43Gotcha. So you brought a German shoe to someone whose last name is Schwartz. Okay. Okay, awesome. So I'm a little nervous now. My last name is Weiss. I know it's going to jump out of this box now. All of a sudden, if it tells me to get on a train, I might run. So, okay. So it's just the opening box experience. So you put Step Into the Future. Yes. All right. And then mine is customized, because I have yours that has signed it. You got a little note there. So we have the note. Mm-hmm. And And so we have stuff. And the first thing I see is I've got socks. Yes. I'm guessing not 3D printed. No. Walk me through these.

39:10Well, these are just kind of a complimentary to give you something a little nice to wear. Okay. I think they are, like, it does feel good to wear the slides with socks. Okay. Just with the 3D printed material and stuff. I found it's probably the best experience to wear them with rather than without. So we have this. We have the socks. Okay. And then the shoes come. Wrapped up here. I'll let you do this because this is you guys. Yeah. so i've never seen these before so this is interesting to know so these were okay so these were literally scanned off my feet i my feet are not that big there's no way my okay this is the joys of having size 13 feet i have mammoth feet okay look at how look at how detailed it is and it is and look at the bottom too like you can see all around we didn't miss any piece and you've got you got the and this is all 3d printed yeah if i bend this is it gonna break well no it's actually it's one print and it's pretty strong it's really strong but then feel the top, but that's actually more of a mesh and squishy.

40:02Oh, it's a totally different feel. But it's the same material. So internally, it's structured uniquely with triangular structures that allow for that feeling at different areas with density. Have you seen these ones yet, Joe? I've seen them. I've got a pair. Gotcha. We've got some nice photos of Joe in them. How durable are these? How long? Very durable. This is not for athletic wear, but as a lifestyle product. I can't run in these. I can barely run as it is. Look at the size of my feet. This is why. But you see how much thickness there is here? it's like a sneaker level sole on a slide so the slide category has been so overlooked and something that people are wearing for errands when they're for casual wear but it hasn't been designed for that so we tried to bridge this gap with these this is the explorer slot so i'll put that one there so that people can look at it while i'm looking at this one so this is the other one how long does this take to print and what are the problems you had so because again this is there's a new market this is ai we're trying to get things rocking and rolling you're trying to go from you know again acquisition to fulfillment yeah going through the process this is new tech what are some of the iterations and some of the hurdles you've run into because there's people are going to look at this and they're like hey we've made ai to create this what are some of the hurdles you've run into what are the things that you've used and models are like hey we thought this was you know publicly made i'm going to try and knock over more water that's the goal um where we come in and we do that what are some of the problems and the hurdles that you've run into when you've created these when because ai is new and nobody really knows what's going on at this point what are some of the innovations that you have found that make this more successful well so So like you both mentioned about being an entrepreneur and trying things, right?

41:24This is a process that's not established as an industry-wide process. We have to figure it out. So we figured everything out as we go. So what we first realized, and this is through our designer, Kadar Benjamin, who's in India, who's an expert in this category, is we realized that if we could simplify the process of actually getting to the concept that we all agree on, that would save a lot of time and energy. If we can use AI image generation, that would be super ideal. so we start with generating images with ai and then we really refine a concept we're really good at coming up with something that's super precise not just typing a couple words like really getting to it so we have a concept a visual in 2d that is pretty much what we want to make instead of going into the sketch room and sketching one after another after another refining it going back and forth that can take a lot of time once we do that we generate basically a we have a sketch done and we generate 3D model from the sketch using AI.

42:17So instead of it being done by hand, you've got this whole 3D model you have to do. We have that done. How did you get there? That's the question. What are the proven steps that, so if people are like, hey, I want to do things of this nature, maybe it's not shoes. Maybe it's something else with AI. How do you survive this brand new thing that's completely evolving and it's moving faster than anything else we've ever seen? Because I used to own an IT company. I don't know how fast it was. AI is not even remotely that slow. It is unbelievably fast. We used to say one year in tech was seven years.

42:42Now it's like one day in AI is seven years. It's so fast. What are some of the steps that you do to handle that influx and those proven things that are changing? Well, I think you have to just attempt stuff. And you have to also look at certain categories of white space. Like this space, there isn't a blueprint. We know digitally and with software what you can do with AI. But for physical products, people are not actually doing anything with physical products being designed by AI that you can get now as a consumer. So you don't have an expectation. You can do whatever you like. So you can just get into the room and experiment.

43:11We know image generation with AI. You can create a concept of anything you like. So that's a base point. We know that if you make something that's a sketch based on that, you can generate a 3D model. You can do that for any type of product, whatever it is. And then we also know that if you want it to be textured like these types of patterns and textures here, which are inspired by a spaceship and different images we fed, you can use a model to do that. So you can kind of break down any product you like to make into something like this because those rules apply across the board. We just happen to do it for footwear.

43:40So when you talk about the idea that influencers are going to be able to do this, you know, we talked about it off camera that the ultimate goal is that there's going to be customized versions of these. And because right now, this is where we are with this tech, which means probably in about 20 minutes, we'll make another leap and bounds in AI. When they're doing this, so people will ultimately be able to create this, not only customized for their feet and the individual shapes of their feet, but their designs based off their, how they're doing it and how they're coding with it. What software helps them get there?

44:06What are the things that you got, you use to get there? So I know we're going over here, Joe, but we got to talk about tech here. I got to get to geek out. I won't go to sleep. Perfect. So we use like a traditional image generation software, MidJourney, ChatGPT, other things like that. So this is MidJourney and ChatGPT? Yeah, pieces of it are. No way. Yeah, ChatGPT can make real shoes here. Not the whole thing, but pieces of it. Then we use a software called Viscom, which is an industry more design oriented piece of software. And then we have a generative model, like an AI model that you can train on different pieces of artwork or other stuff, which generates it just, if you look at it digitally, it's like tons of patterns being made on the shoe and you can iterate through them super fast and kind of come up with what you like.

44:47Different ones. Yeah. And that's just trained on stuff. And how long do one of these take to print? It's about 30 hours per shoe. Oh. Yeah. But there's many printers and it's getting faster. Okay. It's a process, like if you see traditional printing where it's layer by layer by layer by layer, this is like that. But what happens is it's printed like this on a slant. So you've got this support material that prints alongside it that you break, kind of break off after. And then this is what you're left with. Okay, so I know I'm going to get in trouble if I don't ask. What happens to support material?

45:17It gets reused. It gets reused. I mean, we can do something with it. And how long do they normally last? I mean, again, the idea that this came from my cell phone, that I took pictures of my feet next to a piece of paper. And then now I've got this shoe that took 30 hours of print, but I've got this shoe. It's wild. Yeah. What is the durability? How long do these, I mean, you've been wearing them. I'm not going to talk to the tech guy. You go away. You're going to tell me lies. So you have a pair of these, obviously. I have a pair, but I don't wear them all day. Gotcha. I mean, it's back in the UK or wherever we are, we take them with you.

45:53It's another thing to carry them with. Right. Because they're not heavy at all. They're durable. Yeah. I would say that from my experience, they'll probably wear you out before you wear them. Really? They are pretty long wearing. Huh. This is very thick here. Right. So you've created this new thing. You're pioneering a market. You've had this experience before. What are the hurdles you're running to? What are the barriers that you guys are facing as you're like, hey, here is this shoe. This is customized. what are the resistance that you're running into? Just like, you know, you mentioned before, you're like, why would I do Reebok?

46:23When you get that resistance here, what are some of the things that you guys are using to get around that? Well, you've actually just covered it yourself. 30 hours to print to you. That's the resistance. That's the problem. That's temporary though. Yeah. Well, we're saying it's temporary as yes, when nobody's moving into that space, nobody's been able to do anything about it. So the beautiful thing is they have this originality, they have this individuality as well, and this is great. But in order to sort of get into a reasonable business, you've got to do volume. So this is the trick. At the moment, we're building image.

46:58We're building marketing. We're building a name. People will start to talk about Sinterly. This is what we want to do because, you know, we have to move left. We have to move right. We have to move in different directions now to find things, either machine in which we'll do this in 30 minutes instead of 30 hours. Plus, we need other products. Other products which are, again, AI driven. I think Ben has come up with the strap line. What's the strap line? We have a new good slogan that our creative director helped us with. It's called Design by Tomorrow. Okay. Everything we do is going to be Design by Tomorrow.

47:32Step into the future. So Design by Tomorrow. Design by Tomorrow. And what we need to do, like Joe mentioned, is build stuff to scale. So this Design by Tomorrow ethos and mentality is all how we're going to design our new stuff. We have a shoe we're building now that we want to scale around the world that has AI involved in the design process, but it's produced traditionally. So we see this, like you mentioned earlier about creators, it's a two-pronged approach. One prong is let's go give creators a shot at making their own original shoe. We can make a brand new design with them creatively leading and put it out in three months.

48:01And now we can find out how well they'll do. If that goes well, we can make something traditionally produced that we still design creatively with AI that we can scale much further with this type of case study. And a case study like that is super important and helps you get way further with retail and beyond. And that's a system that we can keep doing over and over again until this becomes much faster, much more affordable. It's still two or three times more expensive to make this with 3D printing than a traditionally produced product. All right, so you guys have made these shoes. And the market, obviously, you're getting the name out and you're trying to build that excitement.

48:30What are the hurdles that you've run into recently that just stopped you guys in your tracks? And then how did you pivot around them? Because you have this new innovative technology that's just unbelievable. what are the things that are running into you guys that are causing issues? So we're working to scale. Scale is how you can really build a brand that's successful. You have to have a great margin when you scale on what you're doing. With 3D printed shoes, it's two or three times more expensive than producing anything traditionally. Now you can make a product much faster and develop it for much lower costs, but building to scale is really the way you win, and that's what Joe's done.

49:01So for us at Sintelay, we are working actively to build products creatively designed with AI so we can push boundaries visually and fashion and be fashion forward and then go from there. And so I think it's a great way for lots of entrepreneurs as well when they start out is to come up with a way that you can make a mark in the space. This became a breakthrough product, a viral product, because we did something different that no one else in the category has done. And then you can kind of build off of that there. But once you establish a presence, it's much easier to then go get to scale. And that's what we're doing.

49:29When you're doing operations, Joe, and you're scaling, because you've scaled so well in what you've done in the past, what are some of the, if you sat down there, it was like there's these three or four things that before you scale you need to have this done effectively because everyone wants systems and scaling but they don't understand if culture isn't there if leadership isn't there if those things aren't there and tactical what are the things that you found with your success with scaling as you're scaling this in a brand new age right well for us to scale we as i said in in the uk we became leaders as far as our product was concerned we've done all we could do we needed to find somewhere else so going to america that was the next step is we want to do volume, you've got to find the market.

50:08For us in those days, it was America. I think today it's still, America still is the biggest market that you can make the biggest impression in. So you've got to decide, well, what do you do? For us, it was a matter of how do we get into the American market. And it took me 11 years. It took me a long time, no matter what. It was difficult. I think today we have social media, which is so different now. and so it's figuring out different things on social media. It's to keep putting the scintillate in front of people and then keep putting new ideas. So I think the next idea that Ben is coming up with now will be a product that we can manufacture traditionally and we can do volume.

50:55But what we've got to sell is the idea that this is AI-driven and this is where we're coming from. We're coming from designed by tomorrow. We're coming from that. And I think if you underline that this is the one thing that's new in this business is that we're still not going into the, with an idea, going into the factory and giving it to a designer and he starts doing a drawing. Now we've moved that forward. So we know we can't make this in 30 minutes yet. Yet. Yet. But we will still strive for that. Right. How can we make sure that 3D is the future? For a certain part of the footwear industry, the footwear industry is not going to be something which you just mold in one.

51:38Crocs is good, and Crocs has a place, but they're only small. You look at somewhere like Nike today, their demand must be between 20 and 30 million pairs a month. Jesus. A lot of shoes. That's a lot of shoes. That's a lot of shoes. And I know that because at Rebot, when we were sort of at the top though, we were not doing what they're doing, which is a 20 million revenue. We were doing a nice four to five and we were taking five million pairs. Only four to five. A month. Yeah. Only four to five. Only four to five. So what I think what's unique about this and the USP with this is a unique selling proposition with this is it's customized specifically for my foot.

52:18Yes. That is a different ballgame because if I go buy a pair of Nikes, I refuse to buy Puma or Adidas because again, last name Schwartz um when you understand we're going with that when you do this and it's customized specifically for me and I think people want that customized feeling and that customized approach like yeah it's it's from the future but it's customized so that could be the idea of getting a white space yeah kind of trying to go into that white space and that white nature what are the hurdles that you guys have run into that have almost made you want to quit that you're like I just can't do this anymore and then how do you survive that feeling of oh okay and we push through because a lot of people have that as entrepreneurs.

52:54We fail. It's the only way we succeed. Yeah, but you know, that may be an entrepreneur, but it's not an optimist. It's not the person you've got to be. You've got to be somebody who likes the Knox. We were 18 months into our company and we had to change our name. Okay. Because we had to register, and we couldn't register our original name, which is Mercury. So, okay. We found out, and if you read the book, you'll find out how we did it because that's the story. So we changed the Reebok. Four years into our product, we got a letter from Adidas because our silhouette was two stripes and a T-bar.

53:28And they said, this infringed the three stripes. We're still a small company. What do you do? We were really pleased we got a letter from Adidas. Right. You got a letter from Adidas. They knew where we are. Right. We've caused the players. What do we do? Oh, we just change our silhouette. Right. So it's an approach. And so we developed these, we not only developed the idea of white space, we also developed the idea that challenges are opportunities. And I think that's what we're looking at now. You might not have the answer immediately, but if you think this is an opportunity. But it sounds like that's the fun of it.

54:02Yeah. That it's almost a game. It's an optimistic game versus everything else. You just touched on the most important thing that people ask me. What's the three most important things of operating a business? And I say, well, first of all, it's fun. Right. The second one, more fun. And the third one is going to be a real hoover. Exactly. All right. What is the funnest thing about this for you, Ben, doing this? Because obviously having Joe guide you is something that most people will never have in their lifetimes. But what is the most fun thing for you? And then obviously I'm going to Joe. I'm going to ask you the same thing.

54:33It's all about fun now. Yeah. Well, this whole thing is a journey. And it's an exciting journey. I mean, to be a disruptor in this category is like amazing. You know, to build something that no one else has done. This has become a piece of history. I mean, I think AI is going to be designing a lot more going forward. It's faster. It's more affordable. That usually always wins. So this is a major piece of what's going to happen in the future. So to be a disruptor and to build innovative products is what I think is just the most exciting thing ever. But waking up and getting the advice of Joe and Julie and the years of experience they have, it just puts us in a much better position to be successful.

55:09And I mean, it just prevents a lot of mistakes. I mean, they've got world-class expertise. So what are those things that you've done that have prevented those mistakes? Because now I'm going to be curious, what are the questions you asked that you're like, oh God, thank goodness, Joe and Julie helped me out with this. Well, it's one, one piece of this is focus, right? Like you can go and launch your product everywhere in the world if you want. But, you know, Joe understood the importance of launching in the U.S., focusing on the U.S. We're going to be focusing on the U.S. as, and everyone else can kind of come to us as we build over here.

55:37You know, so understanding that, understanding where to put my time. Joe's like, you don't need to be the shoe designer. You know, you've got focus, have somebody else focus on the design, have someone else focus on this. You'd be more operations, putting pieces together, have some creative oversight and understanding where to balance the time. So these are things he's learned from a career of going from bootstrapped to building the number one shoe company in the world at a point doing the four to five billion we were just talking about, you know, and these are tactics that I think anyone can apply.

56:04It's channeling your energy and focusing in the right directions. And it sounds like it was rooted in what you and Jeff were doing. Like, okay, you go do this, I'm going to go do this. Those same things that from the very beginning just fortified it. Okay, so what are the things that have asked him the same question? On your end, what has been the most fun that you've had with this process? Well, you know, it was fun when Jeff and I started. Okay, some of the days are not fun. But if your attitude is, let's have fun. You're your own person. You can do what you want. Right. You can do it. And let's try and see if we can find people to buy it.

56:35But that was fun. Building the company was fun. When we did get to that$4 billion and whatever, and we've got that many lawyers, we've got that many people working in product, we've got that many accountants. Everything is a machine. And the last thing I want to be is a machine. Right. So I ended up just traveling the world, waving a flag, because I built the global distribution. So I was going meeting the guys. But that's all I was doing. Gotcha. Just meeting the guys. Bastard gel. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And that didn't work. You know, it's like, okay. It stopped being fun. What am I doing? Why am I doing this?

57:08Yeah, it was no fun. And then you stopped. Yeah, and I was doing it on my own. A lot of it, I was just flying on my own. That's why today, when I travel, Julie and I travel. Yeah, she's with us. If you want me, two tickets. Perfect. That works. It's as simple as that. Well, we were going to just have her on here and not have you guys here at all. Absolutely. Well, she could answer all your questions. Probably. Which she did when we first saw it. But, you know, so the fun now is the unknown. to push in those boundaries. When are we going to, you know, okay, so this doesn't work. It's like you were saying that scanning your foot, that's something original.

57:41How can we bring that into mainstream? How can we do it? And we don't have the answer, but we've got to think about it. How can we do this? We might even cheat. Now you say, what, cheat? Well, let me take it back to my grandfather. My grandfather, I mean, it was me a lot, if you like. That was how they used to sell their shoes because athletes wanted his shoe. They had to write in and we would send them a self-measurement form. In fact, funnily enough, I have a pair of shoes on, which are now using that as an inner sole. Using the measurement. The same thing. The same thing. So, okay. So they would put the foot on.

58:26It tells you where to put your foot and there was a mark where you put your heel and then draw around with a pencil. Well, can you imagine a pencil if it bends that way? I don't know if I could reach that far anymore. Yeah. Would you get it accurate? Right. You're not going to get this level of detail. No, no. So you draw around it. Right. But then, you know, the questions they ask, one of the questions was, what's your normal shoe size? Gotcha. So once we send all this in, they think it's, what's his normal shoe size? Oh, eights, right. Send him for eights. So I actually have a selfish question about that.

58:55Why am I a size 12 in some places, but a size 13 somewhere else? Is this like a fun joke you guys do with us? In a way, yes. It's all to do with the last because normally they measure the foot from the ball to the heel. They don't measure the toes because toes can be squished. So it's from the ball to the heel. That's a normal measurement really of a shoe. And then, you know, with women's shoes, they were pointed toe. Right. So it's all to do with how somebody builds the last. That makes sense. And it's a lot to do with toe spring or heel height. and every time I go into a shoe shop, the debtors and I will walk through, I put my finger inside the shoe on the heel and just press it.

59:34If the toe lifts, I know they've made the shoe on the wrong last. Makes sense. They didn't. And this is one of the problems. Gotcha. This is not the same. Right, it's different. But yeah, but that's what you normally do. Yeah. Right, so this is the ballgame. We're usually talking about, you know, regular footwear. So, you know, a company may have one set of lasts and then it decides that, Well, we'll put three-quarters of an inch heel on a men's shoe or maybe a bit more. Well, you can't do that. You've got to have a last which is built to that. So there is this variation as to, okay, what can you do?

1:00:10Do you keep the heel height the same? And if you want to, you can do it. You can just design the upper differently. So you've got to learn all that. I don't want Ben to learn that. I want Ben to keep pushing the stupid ideas. Let's do something different. I've never heard anybody as an entrepreneur come in with the level of playfulness and joyful with it. You know, everything else is very tactical. It's very going in the environment. Okay, do this, do that, hunt profit. You're hunting, for lack of a better term, pleasure and joy in what you're doing, making it fun, which is a different game than I've ever heard anyone else.

1:00:41Well, to me, if you're not having fun, why are you bothering? I agree with you wholeheartedly. We have a great friend here in Fort Lauderdale, and he's just written a book because it's start, scale, exit, repeat. Start, scale, exit, repeat. That to me might be an entrepreneur, but you're not having fun. Right. And that's a different ballgame because I've spent my entire career just scaling, exiting, and repeating. Or maybe you're having fun just doing that. So how do you, when you see businesses and you say there's this one tip, there's this one piece of advice other than having fun, Is there something that surpasses that?

1:01:18Or is this really the, hey, this is what you really want to do above all else when you're looking at businesses? I think that whilst you're having fun, you've also got to aim to make some money. Right. You've got to aim to get it right. If you can disrupt the world, if you change the world, if you can do something different. I think when we talk about white space, eventually we'd look for lots of money. We succeeded. But the biggest one was aerobics. Right. Aerobics was a big one. It took us from$9 million to$900 million in four years. So I think it's a bit like the entrepreneur who might want to keep on starting, scaling, exiting.

1:01:51I think when you're building this, okay, we may not do another shoe like that again. That might be the same thing. That might be a business. The next one might be a new business if you want to look at it that way. When you want to find the one that can really go, wow. Gotcha. But what we do build and what we built with Reebok was the name. Right. That was the one thing. No matter what we put it on, that's the name. So we're building a brand. And you might say there's different aspects to that brand that we're selling and we'll find something. And this has created a lot of interest. This is great, but we know we have it.

1:02:23The big handicap is volume scaling. When you're building a brand, what is the thing that's most important? Because you're talking about building a brand and how powerful. As Reebok became a brand, this is going to ultimately become a brand. Yes. What are the things that are the most important when it comes to that? Integrity. Okay. I think you need integrity. You need whatever you're making. People know that you believe in it. Right. And if you believe in it, even if you get it wrong, you believe in what you're doing is right. Then you're honest when you say, oh, we've got to change because. Right.

1:02:58So integrity, I think, is so important to the brand and to a name. Okay. Ben, I'm going to give you the last one. With all the stuff you've learned, having access, if you could tell yourself before you met Joe, before this journey started, before these shoes ended up here, what would be the one thing that has proven to be the most success and the biggest thing that's helped you succeed that you've learned in this process? Well, it's actually on a point you made earlier. Um, I think that it's about never giving up and people talk about this and they, it's cliche and different things like that. It's, I think it's the most important thing besides fun.

1:03:29Fun is important too. Um, if you have a vision and a drive and you want to make something happen, you keep making one step for every single day you're going to go somewhere right you know and and i think if you keep trying things then you always and you're putting up shots consistently you always have a shot to make it you know so like this thing started off differently when i first talked to joe and julie about this it was we want to do some stuff digitally in games and you know be be more around that and pushing technology in that sense and then we realized that it made more of a sense to kind of launch this around ai and what we could do with a physical product because we did a lot of research around and there wasn't anything like that and things kind of pivoted a bit.

1:04:08Um, but there's this like kind of consistency of just keep pushing forward all the time. And if you're enjoying what you're doing, you want to do that naturally, you know? So I think that's the most important thing is like, if you have this vision, you got to just relentlessly go after it. I appreciate both of you. I thank you for these. Thank you for letting me knock over water earlier as well. That was fun. Um, thank you guys for doing this. I really appreciate both of you coming on the show. Thank you so much. Thanks for having us. Thank you. It's great. It's been a pleasure and thank you that concludes this episode of the proven podcast remember it's not what you think it's only what you could prove we've proved a ton of things on this episode go prove it yourself don't guys trust us don't trust our guests go out there implement you want more go to the proven podcast.com and there's more examples just like this thank you for joining us