George Heaton | How He Built Represent Into a $140M/Year Fashion Brand

0:00George Heaton: George, how much is your company going to do in revenue this year? Probably about 140 mil. 140 million dollars. Go to the post office every single morning with this big bin bag of orders. This accountant turns around to me and is like, if you boys haven't got 100 ,000 stashed away, it's probably not worth you carrying on doing this s***. And I was like, I rang Mike and I was like, Mike's back brother. I was like, who'd he said this? How much have we got in PayPal? He's like, 150k. I was like, alright, we're f***ing doing it, man. The name of your company is Represent, and I believe you received like a letter from a company in Europe called Represent.

0:30George Heaton: This letter came through and I was like, holy s***, what's this? You're going to get sued. Like, we're going to lose everything. We're going to come for you for the profits for the past six years of the brand. He could have said any number he wanted. And I would have either had to have paid that number or I would have gone bankrupt. When you had to wire that money, man, how dark of a period was that for you? Do you know what? It was the best time of my life. Really? There's a 19-year-old. They have$500 to their name. You can't give them money or connections. All they have is one phone call with you.

0:56What would you tell them to do for the next 12 months?

0:58George Heaton: for the next 12 months, I'd say. What's going on, everyone? Welcome back to the School of Hard Knocks podcast. I'm James, I'm here with Jack and Josh, and we have an incredible guest for you all today. We are out here in Beverly Hills with Mr. George Heaton. George has built one of the most recognizable global streetwear brands in the entire world. George, how much is your company gonna do in revenue this year? Probably about 140 mil. 140 million dollars. But I want to start before the millions of customers, before the global recognition, take us back. You started this company, right? I think what's so fascinating is you kind of, your story is the definition of modern entrepreneurship.

1:39You didn't start this business. You didn't inherit a global brand. You built one. And you started the company, I believe, was it in your backyard, like your dad's garden shed or something like that?

1:48George Heaton: Well, originally the bedroom, my bedroom, and then it ended up in the shed. And then it ended up taking over my mom and dad's house. So what was the exact moment that you realized that this is going to be a hundred million dollar company? I didn't think about that until it was a$50 million company. I had no clue. I never knew. I'd never met anyone that had ever made more than 10 million or 20 million. So as we got to those, like those milestones for ourselves, I was like, shit, there's another limit there. And I think that was one thing that actually held me back a lot in the earlier days. I'd never seen it and touched it and to believe it for it to come true.

2:22So you think one of the most important things for any young entrepreneur, anybody that, like you have to be exposed to it. Exactly. I always love the example of when you're in Beverly Hills, you got to go see, touch the world's voice, go rent that house in the head of the hills.

2:33George Heaton: You got to see it for yourself. That is the exact mindset that I had as soon. I came out here in 2014, I think it was. Yeah. And I drove around Beverly Hills and I was like, there is so many people here that have made so much money. Whether it's inherited or whatever it is, it means there's money there. So there's people that are going to spend it so we can get to that level of wealth. Correct me if I'm wrong. You studied graphic design when you were in college and you had a professor that said graphic designers only make like$40 ,000 a year. Yeah, exactly. That was it. Yeah. But the light bulb kind of went off where you were like, instead of doing this for someone else, I'm going to just kind of print some designs on T-shirts.

3:07Was that the start of this kind of journey or what was the initial awakening where you were like, because like you said, if you hadn't been exposed to somebody that made at most$10 million a year, what was that awakening where you're like, I want to do this for myself and see where it goes?

3:19George Heaton: I think if I take it back even further than that, right, when I was a kid, my dad had a cool house and a Range Rover. Right. We had the coolest house in our little town. What did he do? He sold car, well, minibuses. So he'd buy minibuses from an auction, convert them into disabled, accessible, and sell them on. So he made a bit of money. He had like three people working for him. His whole thing was like, never employ too many people, George, and I kept small for a long time, believe in that. However, he'd done well for the family, right? so I got to go to these places where the other people in my town didn't get to go like there was a beach town called Abbasoc in Wales which is like the Malibu of England but it's not it's tiny right and I met people there that were actually wealthy like people whose dads were making 10 million dollars which yeah I understand on the grand scheme of things it's not huge but from where I was from that was huge that was a light bulb moment as like a teenager they're like oh there is more to it than what I can see in the town that I'm in so that really started me thinking like how do I do this kind of shit like young age young age went to college I knew I wanted to do something to do with art I tried to work for my dad all my life couldn't do it I was always like creatively expressive and I sat in that lecture room and I heard that thing and I was like holy shit that's not even gonna buy me a Range Rover I'm not doing that and I was like all right this time this time of like it was 2020 2010 2011 band merch was a huge thing and streetwear was just popping off obey diamond supply supreme they were like the the fucking pinnacles right and i was watching them brands and i was thinking you know they're not doing anything special they're making t-shirts and hoodies how hard could it be and then we just went in george for you when so obviously you're making t-shirts there's a rise in streetwear yeah for you though when were you you're just kind of like, man, like this could actually be a legit company.

5:14Like when, when for you and did it click from just like, I'm just going to start doing this graphic design thing, printing it on t-shirts to where, uh, you know, you and your brother had like a little bit of a vision for like, Hey, obviously maybe not a hundred million dollars, but to where you guys like, man, cause we kind of had a similar moment too, in our company's journey where, you know, we obviously had our media channel and we got exposed to a couple other entrepreneurs who were doing, you know, seven, eight, nine figures a year. Gotta see it to believe it, right? They're like, you guys got to build a media company, not just a channel.

5:45And that changed everything for us. So what was that moment like for you? And what were some of the, you know, maybe initial challenges that you had to face early on to get things going?

5:54George Heaton: The good thing is for me, like I wasn't, I didn't have any goals with it. I just knew that this is what I wanted to do. So for the first three years, I was at university doing graphic design, even though that first lecturer that I sat in on week one told me that I would only make 40k a year I stuck through it for three years because I'm one of them people that I can't start something and not finish it like I have to get it done whether it was because my family wanted me to do it or I was paying ten thousand dollars a year whatever it was so I did the I did the art and the graphics and the shipping and figuring out how to use like big cartel at the time all of the nights and in the mornings and I just grinded through it for three years and then my brother came in within them three years it was like two of us doing it brought my best friend in and then we went to this accountant this accountant who wrote everything down on paper and like i had to keep all my receipts for shipping because i'd go to the post office every single morning with this big bin bag of orders and uh he was like he tallied up the whole business and all i had then was a paypal account and a big cartel which if you boys don't remember big cartel because you're quite young that was like shopify back in the day well all you could do is process your payments through paypal so i had this PayPal with like 150k in it after like two years and this accountant turns around to me he's like if you boys haven't got a hundred thousand stashed away it's probably not worth you carrying on doing this shit and I was like I rang Mike and I was like Mike's my brother I was like dude he said this how much have we got in PayPal he's like 150k I was like all right we're fucking doing it man and that's that's when it took off when we really like uh built out a team and started to think about it like this is the rest of our lives now.

7:30So how did it go from selling t-shirts to friends and family to actually going out to markets? So what did that early marketing look like for Represent?

7:39George Heaton: There was nothing. There was Facebook. We only had Facebook. So the little beach town that I talked about earlier, I would set up stalls there at my friend's shops and try and sell clothes. I sold nothing. But there was a festival on, and it was called Wake Stock, and we had some artists from the UK play there and I threw them caps onto the stage. This is how desperate I was to get my thing recognised. Just do anything you could. The guys put the caps on and we got the shots and I was like, okay, sick. We've got artists wearing the brand now. That'll give us some more exposure. And then Mac Miller came into the UK and he was on an English tour and he came to Manchester and Instagram had just started.

8:19George Heaton: I think it was 2013 and I was messaging everyone who was around him like proper hustling with it and i managed to get a reply from one of his managers and he said come on the tour bus after the show so i'm sat there with this backpack on listen at the mac miller show full of clothes like my back's sweating like i'm waiting waiting to get on this tour i'm stood there for like two hours after the show the door opens and this guy's like oh come on in came on in giving this backpack took he took the clothes upstairs mac miller comes down with the clothes on then he puts it on his profile picture on twitter and facebook and i was like holy shit we're fucking building a brand yeah and that started that's what started it i have to ask you because i've heard you talk about this in prior interviews that one of the most important things you think every entrepreneur should do when they're starting out or as early as possible is they have to own the ip the name of your company is represent and i believe you know you let us know what year you received like a letter from a company in europe called represent could you just talk about how critically important it is for a business owner like at what point in time when they're deciding to start a company, they need to look to try and trademark everything on all the IP that they possibly can.

9:31And then also just, you know, what that process is like and how you mitigated, you know, that company reaching out to you. Yeah, I mean, it's everything, right?

9:38George Heaton: I think that's first principles. That needs to be like at the top of your checklist when you're starting a brand. And when you say when you're starting a brand, what if you haven't necessarily proven it yet? Like you - It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because you believe that you're going to prove it eventually, right? So then that name is going to be part of that brand DNA. it's going to be the identifiable thing about that brand so you need to own that name one thing that i got wrong like you said earlier i went for years not realizing there was this other brand called represent what type of company were they were they sold boxes like shorts um in czechoslovakia or somewhere and i didn't know about them because they barely had a website they had a little store that looked like a corner shop um and i thought nothing of it this letter came through and i was like holy shit what's this we ended up speaking to some lawyers and it became this whole fucking snowball effect of like you're gonna get sued like we're gonna lose everything you're gonna have to let go of all your company like the people that are employed by you are gonna have to go and find new jobs like we're gonna come for you for the profits for the past six years of the brand this was 2018 so the company was doing you know eight figures at the time or how i was making like seven million seven million yeah so i lost my mind over it for like this took two years to get to get started and what ended up happening how did you kind of come to a resolution with them um we ended up just going back and forward with lawyers and trying different ways to get into them and and at the end of the day he wanted an amount of money to then change his brand name his brand name his brand wasn't pretty much nothing but it didn't matter because he owned the name that we were using are you able to share how much money you ended up sending them to change the name oh multiple millions yeah multiple millions yeah i think that that's such a powerful lesson because we're kind of in that process right now of like ensuring you know that hey across the board and we're running there's already things we're like man we can't necessarily do this because this is already happening right and the school of hard knocks right is is somewhat of a common phrase right and so i just think that you know it the lesson there is that it's like it doesn't matter how much it costs you're going to end up making way more once you kind of own it You got to play defense a little bit.

11:44George Heaton: 100%. And I think, you know, we went around it with all these different routes. But at the end of the day, what it was going to come down to was how much he wanted for it. It had nothing to do with how much I thought it was worth. The ball was all in that guy's court. He could have said anything. You're looking at that brand. You're just like, man, this thing's not doing anything. He could have said any number he wanted. And I would have either had to have paid that number or would have gone bankrupt. But now I have to ask, though, because I know that this is probably a conversation with you. when you're like you know especially when it happened when you when you had to wire that money man how how dark of a period was that do you know what it was the best fucking time of my life really because this thing came off me i was i felt like i was chained in i felt like i was stuck i couldn't show anything on social media because i knew they were watching so i didn't want them to know how much like we were even making or what we were doing the size of the brand the people in the brand i wanted to keep us under a rock so we were living under a rock for two years as soon as that happened bro chains came off and we're like all right we've got to give this everything and the brand fucking blew up from them that's powerful right yeah man and i think that was 2018 right you were doing 8 million yeah like five years later you were doing 80 million or something like So we paid that bill in 2020.

13:04George Heaton: We went from, in 2020, we went from 8 to 12 to 20 to 50 to 80 to 100, just like that. What was the secret behind that rapid growth? I think it was the chains coming off. I think it was us being able to express ourselves and show who we were and become like forward facing founders of the brand. And we did content and we did cool shit. And then we did a few podcasts like the Stephen Bartlett show and stuff like that. and everything just came together at the right time. And my theory has always been if I can make the fucking perfect hoodie and the perfect t-shirt and we can price it at the right price where it's not too high for everyone to be able to afford it, but it's still as good as the brands that are 10 times our value will eventually succeed.

13:45George Heaton: And that just started to happen. George, one of the big things that our brand has been focused on this year is expanding globally. We did an interview with a gentleman named Jamie Salter who owns Authentic Brands. I know, Jamie. and he uh where he's coming on the podcast friday friday in new york city telling us that hi and uh yeah you know in the interview he mentioned uh it was it was like like like how did what was the question yeah you know jamie you've built you've owned i mean this that guy owns everything every he's got a monopoly yeah he is i think i think when people like i don't think people understand like he's one of the most savage entrepreneurs like the way the business runs as well no stock no sell no i think soon though i think he might be going public soon but yeah but oh no no sorry he holds no inventory he owns all these fashion brands and none of them he doesn't know any of the stock he owns the ip wow that's all of it so i was asking him you know what's the best branding and marketing advice that you could give to a young entrepreneur and he said one word global and so for us uh you know this year like we we just did a trip to nigeria where we uh interviewed a bunch of entrepreneurs out there i think like the week after posting all the videos we went up over 700 000 followers on instagram uh just from that that tour 30 days in 30 days it was ridiculous just insane growth and i know for you guys like obviously you move you came out here to la in 2014 what was that impact of like taking the brand outside of just from being like a brand in the uk to like going global with it what did that look like it's everything right but you've got to do it right you've got to have you've got to have the conviction that your brand aesthetics everything weights dimensions whatever that may be in with me it's fashion so everything has to slightly change to adhere to that market you know everyone shops differently all around the world for me I'm building a fashion brand you know in the UK we all look the same and dress pretty much the same but the way we go to market is different the way we shop is different in america you have this calendar of insane events that everyone creates products around you know in the uk we don't have that so you've got to you've got to really put yourselves in their markets like you guys going to africa you got to be there to fucking feel it and see it yeah to be able to actually work like that what are some of those things in the uk that you would say like i'm very i like what you said about there's differences in how you go to market right uh obviously usc you mentioned there's a calendar of like people career projects what are what are some of those other differences between like maybe some different markets that you've had to go into in the uk like if if a brand takes off it takes off and everyone wears it and it doesn't matter if all you guys in the same room have the same t-shirt on it's like a pride thing and it's cool in america well especially in la where i am that's not a thing you know if you if i walk into a bar in england i'll see a 50 represent t-shirts and i'll be like this is so fucking cool and everyone wearing them also thinks it's cool but if you did that in america everyone would be like i'm going home to change so you've got to try and wait unique yeah yeah there's a lot a lot like it's it's kind of like a sheep mentality in the uk but it's great for brands um where it's not the same in the u.s there's a there's a saying that we love and it's if you stay small enough long enough you'll be big enough soon enough in 2012 when you started the brand you paid yourself nothing yeah 2013 nothing 2014 nothing 2015 nothing it wasn't until 2016 until you started paying yourself and you said it was minimum wage.

17:10George Heaton: Yeah. And now, of course, you've increased it over time. But why is it important for entrepreneurs to approach it that same way when it comes to taking returns out of their business? I think like delayed gratification is a massive thing, right? I also think if you believe it, eventually you'll be able to take it. So for me, it's like live. You boys have been to Andy's place, you know. Andy's one of my fucking, he's the GOAT. Priscilla? Yeah. Legend, really? He is the GOAT. Fucking love that guy. But he would always say, you know, live way below your means until you're able to live way above your means.

17:42George Heaton: And that's the approach that I took. I listened to every single one of his shows, MFCEO from fucking 10 years ago. And that shaped my whole business, my mindset on everything. George, what's the biggest hidden cost in running an apparel company? Like, because, you know, the apparel brands are known for not having the best margins in businesses. What have you seen as the biggest hidden cost that makes apparel brands really tough to be profitable? um i think it's uh stock i think it's overstocking i think the problem is is you can never tell how much you're going to sell you know if you've got a cpg company and you know how many orders target or walmart i put in every year you can kind of gauge the stock with fashion it's so fragile it's up and down people don't want this one day if the weather gets nice hoodies stop selling but you don't know when the weather's going to get nice you don't know what what's coming now around the corner you don't know what trends coming everyone starts wearing crop tees in austin what happens then do you got a shot on your whole library if you've got stock of three years where everything's long what happens right so i'm going to say stock you brought up andy frisilla as well and you've been to his factory before i've not been there we're going next month okay you're gonna have a blast but it's so awakening and fascinating to see there that you'll see obviously i'm sure you've seen the behind the scenes is that he owns a lot of the means of production i mean it's genuinely fascinating the inventory that he has it's that something that you've also done to increase profits and represent business like do you have other partners or have you tried to own some of the production and all those different aspects or have you kind of you know yeah if you want to touch on that a little bit yeah no I've never done it um I've always been like very hands-on with my factories and trying to figure out their business plans and for me there's it doesn't make sense for me to own the factories that are making our products I mean if all I did was sell t-shirts and hoodies I would make a factory that makes t-shirts and hoodies but in fashion everything's different you can't make a pair of shoes in a hoodie factory you can't make a knitted jumper in a hoodie factory you can't make a jean in a hoodie factory every single one of them is specialized and every single person that works on their machines are specialized so you've got to really have a wide factory base we have 55 factories that work for represent so for me to actually build them and own them and be able to supply them with the product it would be unfathomable i don't know any fashion brand that does it really George, for you, I know that over the course of Represents History, you guys have launched different lines of clothing per se, like a women's wear brand, 247.

20:07like what was kind of like and we're kind of doing the same thing with our brand just on like media side like launching different sub pages when you guys are thinking about a new line to launch like what kind of goes through that thought process and that creativity process of like hey i think we we need to launch a line for this demographic or in this space for me it was

20:26George Heaton: always from day one i always wanted to create a wardrobe for myself and what do i need and even though that's pretty selfish it's like if I'm the modern guy that's age 25 to 35 like what is it I'm going to go in my wardrobe for I need something to train in I need something to wear to the office I need something to wear on a night out I need something for dates I need whatever I want to create that whole thing and even though a lot of brands say you got to focus on one focus on what you're good at for me it's not about that because I want to be able to offer the full wardrobe but also when then things turn up and off or down and up I can go into something else so I could be nimble and change.

21:01You got to be careful in terms of like how you approach the categories because it started off with more streetwear style. At what point were you like okay I've conquered this niche I'm ready to move on to the next category and how do you go about selecting which category which category you're to go into next?

21:18George Heaton: Usually gut instinct and testing. I like to test a lot of things like I said earlier I like to create things for myself. If I'm if you know in 2021 I really got into my fitness journey and I realized that in the market there was nothing that gave me the feeling that represented in activewear so that made sense I was like okay what am I going to create in this space it's different to what everyone else is doing and still holds that DNA of rep and I started 247 and you know three four years later it's the fastest growing part of the business something that I think is fascinating is you talked about the rapid growth of the brand and starting off a company is one thing you know there's the early stages finding the product market fit even just having the money to get the stock but what's the biggest bottleneck of scaling a company from 10 million to 100 million i think most brands that be able to crack that there seems to be a limit around 30 million where most people i speak to that's where they're stuck all the guys that that come through my office or i'll meet them when i'm out at fashion weeks they all seem to be stuck at this like 30 million range and for me it's a hero product that will take you through that.

22:26George Heaton: So it's one product. I mean, we have a thing called Owner's Club, which is a simple logo, hoodie and t-shirt, small on the front, big on the back. That itself drove nearly half my business in 2022 to 2025. And you talked about the hero product. When you think people are purchasing represent, do you think they're purchasing the product or are they purchasing the identity behind the brand? I'd like to say both. I'd like to say product because I'm fully focused on making the best product but also like the identity from the brand is what we do every day that's what we hold that's the glue that holds us together you know the content the marketing how we talk about the brand everything like that it's all one thing right i want to talk about the content for a second because one of the things that you said was one of the factors on that massive growth um you know going from you know an eight figure to a nine figure company was you know you going on you know big podcasts like the Stephen Bartlett podcast, how big of a role do you think the founder story and the face of the founder plays in a brand being able to grow that dramatically in that period of time?

23:29Because a lot of people will make the argument in today's world that, you know, you don't need to have a front facing founder. In this case, for the apparel business or, you know, other similar industries, do you think it's really helpful when the founder story is out there and he's a present figure?

23:42George Heaton: You can find success both ways. I think it just decide it it depends on what you decide you want to do if you don't want to do that then you can build a brand without it I've seen many brands come up and not need that for me um it's the thing that started working back then so I just pushed harder and harder on it and it worked and it worked even better you know when I walk down the street and some people recognize me that are wearing represent and some people don't that makes me realize okay there's more to this than us as people you know there's people that buy the brand just because they love the fucking product doesn't need to be oh they've seen george heaton on a podcast i need the brand to be way bigger than what i am i don't want to be the sole person behind it you know that's like a key man risk right yeah yeah i don't want to be that although i want it to help the brand yeah definitely and i mean kind of speaking to that like you've uh i mean you started this with your brother right uh what was that like uh because i you know obviously we're brothers we we have a company together and you know for a lot of people i usually typically recommend them not to work with family or friends uh just because i think like a lot of people can't handle like maybe there's some ego involved yeah or they just say you know they they uh there's too much emotion involved in it but i think like we've developed a uh kind of a rule of like no yes men it's just like hey you have to tell it how it is like if if we got to argue about something we got to argue about something but we're so locked in on the vision that we'll get through the the disagreement how often are you doing that arguing disagreeing i mean probably like not as often as like i'd say But I mean, definitely, like, I mean, there's definitely times where like, you know, maybe Josh and I will disagree on something or James and I will disagree on something.

25:16And we don't let it like get between us from like a business relationship standpoint. It's more so it's just like, hey, we're both trying to win.

25:24George Heaton: Yeah. We just see the path to get there differently. So you answered the story yourself, right? You both have a vision for where you want to be, whether that's a monetary vision or, you know, a brand perception vision, whatever that is. as long as you have that vision together and you don't step away from that and one of you doesn't go another way it will always work i know everyone says never fucking get into business with your family but like for me i do this for my family and my brother does this for his family so you know when you've got two forces doing the same thing you're gonna have double the energy right just like you boys definitely i can only imagine scaling into a hundred million dollar company in that period of time like you had to learn a lot about people bringing the right people on i'm sure that the team scale dramatically but you have a very i guess you could call it contrarian uh you know hiring and firing process that i think pretty much aligns with us for the most part which is hire fast but fire faster can you tell us how you adopted that mentality and how how critical that's been for the success of bringing in the right people to be fair i adopted that from my ceo i brought a ceo in um i was going to rapid growth period like we were about 20 million going on 50 million i brought this guy in from puma um phenomenal guy he's still with the brand today so he's been there for nearly five years was there part of you bringing in the ceo from puma that you were worried about because here's your creative vision yeah and your brother have grown into a 20 million dollar company and we're gonna get back to the time but i want to i think this is important though right because especially you know when you have such an attractive you know company that you know i'm sure that you've got a lot of demographics that you're hitting it makes it attractive to somebody like a Puma executive, right?

27:00Or somebody at Puma to come and build that company with you, the CEO of it. Were you at all kind of hesitant? Was there a period of time where you were like, you know, if I do this, then they're going to want to get creative and they're going to mess with my process.

27:12George Heaton: Were you concerned about that? Do you know what? I wasn't at the time. I knew that we were scaling way faster than what I was able to control. I'm not a CEO. I'm not a guy that wants to sit down and have conversations and hire people i want to make art and we were busting at the seams like i think there was 15 people in the business when we're going on 50 mil and like everyone's running around like fucking how many people did you say 15 so everyone's stretched everyone's working nice everyone like me and mike are in there we don't see daylight and we bring this guy in and he's like all right here's the metrics that we got to get to we're going to make this business sustainable and we're going to grow and we're going to go into all these geographical channels and start learning about at different places in the world where we can sell to.

27:54George Heaton: And if I wouldn't have done that, I would have capped the business where it was by myself. There is something to be said about that though, because, you know, here you are, you're bringing him a guy, I'm assuming he was in a much more structured environment being at Puma. The systems and, you know, a little bit from being a part of that corporate company, he was actually able to add a lot of value, a little bit more structure to the company, I'm sure. Yeah. And I was learning from it. I didn't know anything at the time. you know back then it was struggled to find anyone even on youtube or instagram or whatever that would talk about the ins and outs of fashion and how you actually scale it's a very secretive industry so i needed that advice from someone who had been there and seen it and he'd been at nike he'd been at adi he'd been at puma he'd been at the fucking billion dollar brand so he gets it um and he brought in that infrastructure and been able to build out the teams and did a fucking good job of building it to where it is today and can you elaborate a little bit more on the hiring process.

28:48George Heaton: I want to go back to that. Yeah. Just kind of talk about it. Fire even faster. Yeah. I feel like you can get a good gauge of someone within an hour conversation, right? And you can feel like if they fit in the brand, but you're never going to know until they're actually in the brand and you can make the wrong decision by thinking someone isn't going to fit in the brand because the way they come across or they had a bad day on that interview or just the way they presented themselves. But you don't know until you try. I've brought people into my brand where I would think this is not going to work and they will fucking prove themselves time and time and grow and grow and become absolute beasts.

29:20George Heaton: So, you know, it's like don't judge a book by a cover. Why did you end up giving them a chance? Because they're able to prove to me that they're better than me at what I needed them to do. So what you're saying is sometimes you have to put your ego aside as the founder. 100%. Definitely when hiring, yeah. Yeah, because, you know, yeah, you can have too many chefs in the kitchen, but more advice on things that you've not been through. You know, I've not been to a 200 million yet or a billion yet. I've got people in the business that have been. So they're going to have a better point of view on something at that scale when we're there than what I am now.

29:56There's that saying that I love is if you want to build a billion dollar company, you got to have multiple people within your company who could build and run a 10 million or a hundred million dollar company themselves. 100%.

30:06George Heaton: Yeah. It's all about talent. It is. and I want to throw a scenario at you okay there's a 19 year old and their dream is to build the next represent one day they have$500 to their name you can't give them money or connections all they have is one phone call with you, what would you tell them to do for the next 12 months? for the next 12 months I'd say for the next 12 months you need to realize that it's going to take another fucking 10 years regardless of how fast technology is moving and all that shit you know there's there's a million guys that won that phone call right so then he's got a million fucking guys that are competing against him how are you going to beat those a million guys that's what i'll think about i'd think about like okay you got to stay true to your brand you got to stop you got you got to not be in a mindset of discounting you got to choose your price points and stick to them don't let things happen you know we're we're in this industry where everyone's fighting to the bottom everyone's trying to get a sale right so everyone's prices are dropping you end up in this bottom line we call it the bottom feeder where like once you go down to that you're never coming back up so you've got to stay true to your prices stay true to your brand and build a fucking cool brand that people want to be a part of i like what you said there because i mean there's so many um people who just like they're they're trying to out price the market like they're like oh well you know this is what the market's charging so i'm going to charge this and they're like well i'm not getting sales so let me lower it right and lower it and then now people look at your brand at that price and that's the perceived value yeah it's like oh it's a ten dollar t-shirt exactly it's a fifteen dollar hoodie uh it's just something it's just so cheap when it's just like if you stay true to it and you just let it persist and it's like people always associate your brand at that price point of higher value what does he say it's like hard decisions easy life easy decisions hard life and if you apply that to your pricing strategy if you're going to go and make those easy decisions right now and make a ton of money in the first year or five years or whatever it is it's gonna fucking it's gonna come crashing down later on so make the hard decisions now wait it out yeah george you sell a significant amount of you know your clothes uh online but you've also been able to get into some of the biggest retail stores in the world you tell us about how big of an impact that's had on the business as well i know one of the big ones in london is harrods yeah yeah is that how do you say it harrods harrods yeah come on get it together selfridges all them big boys yeah um for me that was like a marketing tactic that just basically spread the word about the brand you know if you want to enter a new country like we talked about earlier test the waters with them stores like a nordstrom in the u.s put it in five doors and see how sell-through is if there's a little bit of appetite for the brand then you can expand um so it makes a big impact when someone can go into a city go into that retailer and see your brand whether that's the first point of contact with the brand or the seventh point of contact it means they're seeing the brand and they're able to then buy into it now when you're going to for example a nordstrom in the us harris in the uk are you providing them with the credibility here it's like hey look we've done this much online like is that kind of like like are you trying to like sell them like on your product or like how difficult is that process to actually get in there because i'm sure that there's a lot of brands competing for that spot on the shelves in their stores so are you just trying to show them as much credibility and proof of you know what you've done no we kept away from it for a long time we wanted i always said to my team like let's become undeniable to the point where they're fucking knocking on our door don't go knocking on their door because if there's no demand for your product and you put it in that store and it doesn't sell they're not coming back so we waited so many years until i was walking around this um like a fashion fabric show in paris and i remember getting my first email from selfridges saying they wanted to buy into the brand and i was like here it goes boys and if you do well in one store all them buyers talk all them buyers talk at fashion week every six months and they'll be like represent selling represent hot pick up represent and then they all start flooding in you know what they call that build it and they will come build it and they will come that's there it is build it and they will come a lot of quotes going down on this podcast one of the things i'm just so curious about is like is is a retail store the new top of funnel like awareness because i see like some stores and whether it be in the airport or maybe just on a major like major excuse me major retail strip mall and like there's no way this company is making a lot of money right now or to be able to afford this rent right is it just for like that new top of funnel awareness now and you rely on like the paid advertise on the back end to to clean it up or what does that look like my branding i think it's different for every single brand um for me it was like it was a moment in time where I didn't want to just be an online brand so it's like where do we open these flagships how do we test if it's going to work and then you know like if you want to be a global brand you've got to have a footprint you've got to be able to tell people to come into the store like you know if you boys are in West Hollywood I want to be able to pick up the phone to you and be like well meet me at the store come and have a look at our product there's nothing better than that and even if even if them stores are not fucking washing their hands are profitable there's still a place where people can come touch feel sense smell everything about your brand and that makes them then feel heightened about what you are as a brand opposed to a fucking screen with a website on it one of the tactics that you used early on to like get people to wear your brand was like you went to the concerts you threw the hats on stage you you know would wait and be able to give your product to artists to different artists uh kind of going back to the 19 year old situation like what would be you know i guess and obviously there's organic social, there's paid, there's a bunch of different stuff.

35:45But let's say you're that young entrepreneur again, like what would be your go-to-market strategy in 2026, trying to get a brand off the ground?

35:55George Heaton: I think first and foremost, it's all about products, right? We are in fashion. So product is the number one thing. You know, you can get away with a cool brand and not cool product until someone buys it and never comes back. So number one is product. Make sure the product is undeniable. make sure it's better than everyone else in the price point of the market whatever that is and then it's got to be cool you know if you want to if you dm a rapper or something and your product is actually cool they'll reply everyone reads their dms yeah you know i'm sure you guys have dm'd a lot of people before and they've replied yeah because they think oh yeah channel's insane you look at these guys they've got so much energy the only reason i followed you guys back in the day because i would watch them youtube and be like these guys are fucking cool as fuck like No one else is doing this shit.

36:38George Heaton: So there you go. Your undeniable product, what you're doing, and then follow it up with a message or a DM. It's free to do. Having a great product is the best form of marketing that you'll never have to pay for. It was like Naval Ravinkai. He said that you don't have a marketing problem if you have a great product. You don't have a sales problem if you have great marketing. But the one that it ends with there is the product. You don't have any problems if your product speaks for itself. Pretty much, yeah. I mean, you've still got to do the rest of the work, but sure fundamentally your product is a foundation yeah George you said that success to you and the reason why you're doing this is for your family to make them proud to you know just take care of them right that's one of the things you talked about and you mentioned that your dad was um you know he was I guess kind of buying and flipping kind of like selling cars or minibuses and whatnot so he had a little bit of that entrepreneur seed in him are there any other lessons or guiding principles that your dad gave to you that you know I've really sat with you to this day that you know that you'd pass off on to other people as well what did your dad what were some of those core lessons that he taught you he taught me some funny things he always said if you can't afford it twice never buy it that was always something I thought about when I was like buying cars when I was younger and stuff like that and then he was always like never owe anybody anything you know like pay for it up front get it done um and you know in business especially when you got to have cash flow and terms and line sheets and all that kind of stuff doesn't really make sense to that but on a personal level i'm always like clear of that of anyone never owe anybody anything never owe um you know like a lease on a car a mortgage on a house i'd never want to do any of that it's such a simple concept but when you really think about it like i mean i don't know about the other three you guys on here i i hate feeling like i owe people something whether it's like it's always in the back of your mind exactly and that's one thing you don't want in the back of your mind you don't wake up thinking that you owe somebody something well it's also like when you just like the the horror stories of you know hearing how one person went out and asked somebody to borrow something or whatnot and that person never getting paid back it's like i'm never going to be that person you know what i mean yeah i'm going to be that person it's just a mindset right and a principle i think there's another principle in there on the flip side is you never lend someone something that you can't afford to lose sure that's a good one as well you know keep that one in mind yeah well george we like to end these podcasts off with two questions for our guests man this has been an awesome conversation sharp tactical to the point this has been great i'll start and jack will finish us off here so george the four of us sitting up here if we were to all die tomorrow and you could leave one more guiding principle with the younger generation with the young entrepreneurs tuned in that want to build a hundred million dollar company one day what would that be what would you tell them delayed gratification 100 life is actually long i know people think it's short but it's not 10 years from now is a very long time away so do the things and build for the future you don't need it all right now and i know social media makes it look like everyone else is getting it now but don't worry about all that shit do it for yourself did you struggle in those five years when you weren't paying yourself at all like and i love this because there's such a relatable aspect here to the three of us our first couple years even when we when the company was doing 30k a month in profit we're paying ourselves two grand a month and you have to do it but did you struggle at all with that concept when you were in London in Mayfair seeing the Ferraris drive by man did you ever get a glimpse of that and you were like man I mean I want to start kind of taking the money out of the company touch on that real quick no I never thought like that just because I knew that one day I would always get it um and you know self-belief is such a massive thing right so I always knew I could get it I just don't have it right now you don't need it right now and even when you do get it it's like you never needed it anyway I love it Jack yes sir and george for you with the brand and the life that you've led how do you want to be remembered um i just want to be able to leave this brand behind and it'd be way bigger than what me and mike are you know we touched on it earlier about like the brand being bigger than the founders i want to be able to step away from this whether it's me that's by me dying or i get too old to think and do it again um i want the brand to continue i want it to be a fucking legacy brand that's that's my goal man i don't know anything else either so i'm going to do this till the day I die.

40:50Yeah, but George, this was excellent, man. We appreciate you coming on the show today, my friend. Everybody tune in right now. Be sure to like and subscribe for amazing content, amazing episodes coming every week to the Hard Knocks podcast. Every week we're reading you guys incredible business moguls, just like George Heaton right here, you guys. So stay tuned for incredible episodes happening every week. We're also going to put the link down in the description for you all to follow along with George's journey. Follow him on his socials. Follow the Represent brand. I have to ask you, is that shirt from Represent?

41:14Always is. All I wear is Represent. I mean, I'm getting, I need, I'm going to have to get. I got you some of those. I got you some of those. I don't have one like that. You got three new customers right here. Yeah, that's right. We do, my man. But nonetheless, we're going to put the link down in the description to represent to Georgia Socials, to his handles for you to follow along with him. And one more thing, we're going to put the link down in the description for you to get access to and join the number one entrepreneur community in the entire world. Every week, we host live calls with the eight, nine, and ten-figure entrepreneurs we interview on the School of Hard Knocks, where you can ask your questions directly to the eight, nine, and ten-figure entrepreneurs we interview.

41:45We can't wait to see you on the inside. With that being said, we'll see you in the next episode. Thank you.