Meet the Designer Scaling Brands to $400M

12:58Felix Thea:And he said, you should come out. And I sort of hemmed and hauled out. I was like, I don't know. I mean, come on. I'm not sure. And he said like, we're going to pay for your ticket. I'm going to buy you a beer and we're going to have a dinner. So like, just do it. And I flew out and I just didn't know those jobs existed. I didn't realize that world existed, even though I was associated with it through school. but then it was like an epiphany. I always use that word. When I walked through the front doors at Adidas, I said, man, I have to get a job here. I knew it immediately. It was just like, whoa, I just did not know this world existed.

13:27Felix Thea:And so I was lucky enough to get the job. I started my career making pool slides, like, you know, little flip-flops. And it was a huge category of Adidas. They gave me a lot of leeway. They taught me everything I know in terms of shoemaking, but they also sent me around the world. And it was probably the easiest transition from non-business to business or non-business to a career because I'm in with the same people. I'm speaking the same language. I was in the soccer department. We would travel and meet all the players. So I spoke that language and that's sort of how I got started on it. And then the biggest thing I always tell people that I've done is I put my hand up for every single opportunity that arose.

14:04Felix Thea:I've never said no. I'm very comfortable being uncomfortable. I think as we said before, I'm really comfortable taking opportunities that I have no idea how I'm going to figure out. and that's what I did. So at Adidas, after about five years, somebody had called me from Ralph Lauren and said, have you ever made, you know, dress shoes or women's shoes and all these? And I said, no, but I'll do that. And I was willing to go, you know, take a chance, go to Ralph. I made women's high heels. I made men's dress shoes out of England. You know, you travel the world making shoes and I always took every opportunity.

14:37Felix Thea:So Ralph would say, you know, we need to make runway shoes in Brazil. Who can do it? I put my hand up. I had no idea what I was doing, but they were cool enough to let me do that. I was very open about it, but I said, like, I'll come back in four weeks and I'll give you what you're looking for. And so it was a self-belief in that, that I could figure it out and reverse engineer it. But also I don't think opportunities arise twice. And so I was like, I'm going to take this every single time. And that's sort of how I've lived my career in my life.

15:03Michael Petry:Yeah. I read something that Ralph sent you around the world so that you could solve one problem at a time or something like that.

15:08Felix Thea:Yeah. I mean, that's basically the idea, right? Is like who can make, you know, espadrilles in Spain. I'd say I could do that, but no idea what I'm doing, right? Who can make men's hand zones in Indonesia? Well, I could do that. So yeah. And the same, like at Prada, I didn't think they would knock twice. So I said, I'm going to do that. And so I moved to Italy.

15:23Michael Petry:Do you think that's a common trait for successful entrepreneurs to be able to say to yourself, you know, I don't have the technical expertise per se, but I have enough confidence myself that I'm just going to figure it out.

15:34Felix Thea:As I've met a lot of entrepreneurs now throughout my life. I think the thing I find most common is your ability to be comfortable when you're uncomfortable. And I think the only growth happens when you're pushing yourself out of your normal boundaries. And I think that's what most entrepreneurs are doing on a daily basis, right? Is pushing their limits and pushing their boundaries and exploring new territory.

15:54Michael Petry:Talk to me about the design element of boots and of footwear. Are you coming at this with profitability in mind first? Like what is the pecking order of priorities, let's say?

16:09Felix Thea:Yeah, I think one of the knocks occasionally has been that I'm commercial, which I always find to be a funny knock on me, right? So people want to pigeonhole design is art versus commerce. And I always find that there's an intersecting there. There has to be. And I don't consider myself an artist because if I was, I'd have gallery showings or my stuff wouldn't see the light of day. The real commonality for me is how am I going to make something that's commercial that people want to buy? So I don't know if there's a pecking order in it. For me, I want to see something that's cool, that's innovative, that is visually pleasing.

16:49Felix Thea:My belief is that if I like it, then I think the consumer is going to like it. I know that might be a selfish belief, but I think I get paid a lot for my taste level. Not similar to, say, somebody like Rick Rubin. And people pay him for his taste level of music, not necessarily his engineering expertise. So if he says, I like it, his general belief is that the consumer is going to like it. And that's sort of the attitude I take about it. But, you know, I am a for-profit enterprise. I talk about this all the time. I have always sort of made a joke. I'm not a dot org. I'm not a nonprofit. I'm a for-profit enterprise.

17:21Felix Thea:And that has now become my calling card, right, where I've had multiple exits. I can speak very freely and very confidently with finance people or design people. So I've sort of discovered throughout my life I'm a good left brain, right brain. And that has been a really signature part of who I am. It helps me, you know, in an entrepreneurial land, it helps you when you talk about burn rate. And you're not just talking creative all the time. You're talking about finances and what your burn rate is and what your inventory position is and turns and things like that.

17:52Michael Petry:What is the importance of profitability as you scale? So you've taken businesses from, say, 10, 20, 30 million to 400 plus million in revenue. Obviously, profitability plays a different role when we're talking about a 400 million dollar business than it does with respect to an early stage startup.

18:12Felix Thea:It's a tough question because it's nuanced. And you have to pick sort of lanes and you have to sort of pick your poison at certain points, a lot of times in terms of margin versus volume. And so you'll meet investors that'll say, we don't do anything for less than 90 points of margin. I appreciate that position. I don't disagree with that position, but maybe sometimes that'll push you into a price point that doesn't get you the volume. And so those are the questions you always have to ask yourself. I think in particular as a startup, you have to be really conscious about that. Not to say that you don't have to be so conscious about it as a big brand, but big brands have machinery.

18:52Felix Thea:So if you look at somebody like Toomey, which when I picked it up was$800 million, that has machinery. And it exists every single day. It has multiple different price points. You have a lot of SKUs going. So you can play with your margins throughout different SKUs. Maybe you're going to make 100 points of margin on this, but you're only going to make 40 points of margin on that. But that also has an impact based upon your overhead and things like that. So to me, it's nuanced. And I think people try and take a broad stroke approach to it. But every product comes under the margin microscope for me.

19:22Felix Thea:And whether at the end of the day, I don't think about it in those terms a lot of times. Most of the time, I think about it in terms of value. I think when you offer a value to the customer, you have to be price agnostic. And I talk about this a lot. It doesn't matter if you make a 1999 flip-flop or you make a$1 ,000 shoe at Prada. The customer has to see value. And if you can create value and margin within there, to me, that's the winning formula.

19:48Michael Petry:But value is a highly subjective term, whereas price point isn't as much. You can push back on this if you want. But the way that I think about it is, let's just use boots as a category for a moment. $300 boots sounds very expensive to me, whereas$100 boots doesn't. So if someone was to ask me, so what about value for money at$300 or$500 or$1 ,000? I'm not sure as a consumer that I'm able to understand value the way that I understand price point.

20:21Felix Thea:Correct. Yeah, great question. I'm not sure. Great statement. So value is relative to your wallet at the time, right? Right. So the question you have to ask yourself is from a brand positioning standpoint, who do you want to be? So in my opinion,$100, we'll use your numbers,$100 boot is a transactional item. It will not last because of the way it's made, the way it's manufactured, the leathers you use, whatever it might be. A$300 boot is more of an investment. And that's the value I think you try and create as a brand. And that's at least my calling card. I create things of value that I think stand the test of time that get more repeat.

20:57Felix Thea:So that's how I look at value. Value is always relative to what you have in your wallet at that time, right? And value is individual. Each person has their own sense of what that amount of money is to them. But I think if you make a product that is worth investing in, people start to enjoy it. They tell their friends and the word of mouth starts to spread that this has value.

21:17Michael Petry:How are you generating that word of mouth for Golden West these days?

21:21Felix Thea:Yeah, a lot of it, obviously, a lot of it has to come through social. That's sort of the world you're in. Obviously, we did a pop-up to launch our brand. Anytime that you can get somebody in the boots, wearing the boots, trying the boots on in person, your job is a lot, lot easier, right? It's easier to sell a$400 boot or a$300 boot when somebody feels the leather, touches the leather, puts it on and says, aha, this is why I caused this. So the challenge there is how do you get it to do it online? But the majority of storytelling you see now comes through digital. It just is. when you're a startup also, or when you're a young brand, you don't have enough budget to do multiple pop-ups, to do retail yet.

21:58Felix Thea:So you're trying to find ways to interact with the consumer on a regular basis through digital, whether it's social, whether it's through DMs. Crazily enough, a lot of people have my texts and text me and phone me, random customers. So I talked to basically anybody about what the boots are, where they're made, how they're made, what the inspiration is, why it's priced like this or whatever it might be. So that is one of the avenues. Obviously, you have somebody kind of huge and laney. And I think that's the understatement, you know, she's really the female country music star. She's able to tell that story.

22:31Felix Thea:She's able to tell it obviously in person, but you also see wearing the product, which is to me, a testament of, of her like and love for the product and her belief in the products. She's not just the name on the door. She sees everything. She talks to me on a basically daily basis every other day at the worst. And we talk about what that means and how we're going to interact in particular with her fan base. You have to bring her fan base up from where she grew up in Louisiana to where she is today in Nashville. So that's a constant dialogue and how we reach them. And are we messaging them and making the right products for them?

23:07Michael Petry:How are the roles and responsibilities divided between the two of you? Do you see Lainey as a chief marketing officer and you're the COO?

23:17Felix Thea:No, I don't know. I see things in the light of entrepreneurship. I see it as a really flat organization, probably. It's all hands on deck all the time. And, you know, whoever's got a spare five minutes is putting in, you know, we have a really tight, nimble team. I see Lainey as the North Star for the brand. That's really how I look at her. And, you know, whether it's, you know, you're disseminating information on what she wants the brand to look like from a marketing standpoint or from a product standpoint, or you're getting inspiration from a song. She's the North Star, 100%. And so, you know, you march to her sort of the beat of her drum, right?

23:52Felix Thea:And say, this is why we look like this. And this is every single thing you do is through the lens of whether it is right for Lainey and whether when somebody looks at that, they say, this is Lainey Wilson's brand. It's not my brand. It's Lainey Wilson's brand. And so, you know, I might make this stuff and I might set the creative direction, but it's also all her vision in what you say is if it doesn't represent her, then we can't be doing that.

24:15Michael Petry:Do you think about the category itself and how competitive footwear is right now?

24:21Felix Thea:It is a common question. I look at it as real opportunity. I think there's a lane for everybody in here. I think there is enough food on the table for everybody to eat. But certainly, I'm keenly aware of the brands that are out there. I'm keenly aware of what they do, how they do it. I try not to reference them, to be honest with you. But, you know, when I do product talks and when I talk to Laney or even internally, I never name drop any. other brands. It's not my thing. Not because I don't respect them or anything like that. I have huge amount of respect for what they're doing. And I think if you focus on them too much, then you're not doing your own job right.

24:56Felix Thea:And if we take care of ourselves and we create our own lane, that gives us a reason to exist. So whether, and I'm happy to name drop here, right? Whether it's Tecova's or Ariat or Boobarn or people like that, they have all carved out a really great space, but it's up to us to create our own space and have a reason for being. So the marketplace is crowded for some people. For me, I think there's a lot of room in it for a lot of other people. I think you'll see there'll be new startups along the way, right? I'm of the belief that I have no idea who's coming behind me, but I'm sure there's other boot brands popping up behind me that I'm not aware of yet.

25:28Felix Thea:I think that's cool. It's no different from sneakers. Every day, there's a new sneaker brand or there's a new drop. So I think there's space for everybody. I think the thing you have to do is create your own lane and create your own sort of space and reason for being.

25:38Michael Petry:It's challenging to strike a balance between how much you should think about the competition or the competitive landscape versus how much you should just focus on your own lane and your own products. And I don't think, you know, ignoring competition is necessarily the right answer. And I don't think obsessing about the competition is necessarily the right answer. In my experience, it's sort of this healthy balance, which seems to me like you've been able to strike.

26:05Felix Thea:I think so. You know, I totally agree with you there. I don't ignore them for the sake of ignoring them. I'm totally aware of what they're up to. But also to your point, like if I spend too much time worrying about another brand, then I'm not focusing my energy on my own brand and creating something new and unique. And I'm not sure what the mix is there. You have to be totally in tune with what's happening in the marketplace. So therefore, you should know every single inch of what your competitors are up to. At the same time, you have to be able to create your own lane and figure out what your story is, not what their story is or what other people perceive your story to be.

26:40Michael Petry:Right. That makes sense. In this world of boots, when quality and durability are characteristics, let's say, of value, how do you think about generating repeat purchases or repeat orders or getting people to come back

26:57Felix Thea:to the brand and buy more when we're talking about a product that should probably last you

27:03Michael Petry:a good amount of time.

27:04Felix Thea:Yeah, it's a good one. It came up, probably the first time I saw it was really a fry. You know, you're in the boot space, you're selling$300,$400 products. And I think that goes back to a couple of different points where you're trying to make products that have value, that have, you know, we talk about it in terms of like heirloom quality stuff, things that last a long time that you can hand down, you know, a mom can hand to her daughter, things like that, that are really, really cool and boots by nature, if they're made well, that's why I think price matters a little bit here. If they're made well, it will last you a long time.

27:37Felix Thea:If they're made with the right leathers, they're produced with a Goodyear well, if they're made in the right factories, those things are cool. So I think what you're going to get is repeat customers for the brand, not necessarily the style all the time, right? So if you think about it, Nike and Air Force One, that's a common thread where they have repeat customer on the Air Force One all the time. Not because it's not made well, but it's still a$90 shoe that is going to wear out pretty quickly versus a$350 boot that's going to last you four or five years. But what you're trying to do is introduce the concept of a new boot from your favorite brand.

28:08Felix Thea:Our most popular boot is the Somewhere Over Laredo. We just introduced the Somewhere Over Laredo Shorty. And to me, that's a nice extension on the brand. And maybe we'll come out with a bag or a belt. So how you do brand extensions off those thematic plays is how you're going to get repeat customers. and also different price points. So maybe you paid$450 for this. I'm going to come back and show you something at$350 that is more fashion forward and might not have the same longevity as the$450 boot. So there's different sort of models and formulas you can play with.

28:37Michael Petry:I want to ask you about this chapter right now in Golden West's life cycle, which is still so young. Like when you think about how old the business is, less than a year, let's say, given your track record and your history and your experience, it's so fresh. Is there one particular thing that you've done in the first six months that has really moved the needle on the business?

28:59Felix Thea:Ooh, that's a good one. I will tell you this, that the brand is young. The pace at which we worked out to get the brand stood up is the thing that I'm most proud of. You know, we had the concept and then really what happened was Laney asked if we could launch it at CMA Fest, which was in June. And the normal footwear calendar is about a 12-month calendar. These things are long. It takes some people call it 18 months. We stood the brand up in basically four months. And to me, not only do we do that, but we created, and this is my opinion, and I rarely consider myself an expert, but I will say I think I'm an expert in this space.

29:38Felix Thea:I think we have the best boot in the marketplace with somewhere over Laredo. And I think you're starting to see the customer gravitate towards it. And the customer is telling you this. So to me, yeah, that's the moment where you say, we found a formula. And a lot of times it takes you a minute at a brand to find sort of what your voice is or what your formula is. And we did it in, you know, call it 12 weeks. Right. And so that's living, breathing 24 hours a day, thinking about the customer, thinking about Laney. How do we how do we tell Laney's story through boot making? How do we tell the brand story through not just, you know, Instagram and TikTok, but how do we tell it from a UX standpoint on our website?

30:17Felix Thea:Right. So that's what I'm really proud of. And I think that we've done a tremendous job of doing a lot in a call it six month period. But really to get the brand stood up in 12 weeks was just an unbelievable achievement for everybody involved.

30:30Michael Petry:Okay, opposite side of the same coin. Has there been a mistake, like a key moment in the first version of this where you look back and you wish you would have done something differently?

30:43Felix Thea:No. My brain doesn't operate like that. I'll tell you that. So maybe I'm not the right person to ask. But I don't look backwards on that. I look backwards for learnings, let's say. My brain is always on the front foot. I'm always moving forward. You know, we haven't made any mistakes, but maybe somebody else from the outside would say, well, they could have done this. But if I live in that space and I'm generally, I wake up, my natural resting position is very positive. And I just talked about actually, I had a meeting this morning and I said, I don't view things as mistakes. I view things as learning opportunities.

31:14Felix Thea:Could we have done something better? Or, you know, we had a couple of marketing events that people wanted to have more down funnel traffic. But the argument backed on that would be, we learned and now we can benchmark next year on how we're going to get more down funnel traffic. But in our first year, we're able to now have these learnings. So I don't look at those things as, you know, mistakes or it didn't go as well as we thought. Those are just clear opportunities to do better. And that's how I sort of look at those things. So that's just my natural resting position i don't look at it like that if you do i think living in the past and even we talk about a lot like to me it winds back almost being data driven you're always looking backwards i never want to look backwards if i'm looking in my rear view mirror how am i going to tell you what's going to what's happening in spring 2027 gotcha but

31:59Michael Petry:for biggest learning would you say more bottom of funnel traffic that was the biggest thing

32:05Felix Thea:Yes and no. The learning there is just, and this is a perfect spot to talk about, right? It's hard to get more bottom funnel traffic when you don't have top of funnel awareness. And that's sort of the balance you're trying to figure out is what events are we doing or where are we showing up where we get top of funnel, where we're getting more awareness that then drives bottom funnel. So in general, I think that the current stat is for a$400 item, it takes seven to nine touches for someone to buy the product. Product agnostic, whether it's a boot, whether it's, you know, whatever apparel, seven to nine touches for a product around$400.

32:39Felix Thea:So how are you touching them? Where are you reaching them? How are you getting that top of funnel to drive the bottom funnel? That would be our biggest takeaway probably as a brand from a business standpoint is, right, what are we doing top of funnel to drive bottom funnel sales? and that'll be a conversation. I think it's on my calendar tomorrow, right? Are these the moments? Are these the things? You know, we'll reassess the three things that we did this year. Are those, you know, should we repeat those? Should we amend those? So yeah, that would be the takeaway for sure. And for me, that's why I say I'm a pretty good left brain, right brain.

33:11Felix Thea:Obviously, I think creative is probably primarily top of funnel and the business part is bottom of funnel, but I'm interested in both of them. And, you know, anybody at the companies, I sit on as many calls as I can to try and learn. I try and be a lot smarter today than I was yesterday.

33:25Michael Petry:What are you focused on? What are you most excited about?

33:27Felix Thea:I'm actually focused on a full calendar year. To me, it's really exhilarating, right? And actually having the time to map things out. I think when you start up, you're just on this sprint where you almost can't see straight. You're just, dates are coming at you so quickly, products rolling so quickly, opportunities coming at you so quickly. And we now have the opportunity to sort of map tentpole moments out, which we didn't have in the first six months of the business. I'm really optimistic about that. I feel really great about the product and the pipeline. I'm probably sandbagging here. I feel even better than great about the product and the pipeline.

33:58Felix Thea:We feel just really amazing about what we have. And just the opportunity this year, Lainey's been on tour the whole year. That's her full-time job. She is a musician first and foremost. This is not her full-time job, right? This is my full-time job. So in 26, she doesn't have as many tour dates. and the opportunity to work with her even more, to get her more involved in the business, have more one-on-one meetings in Nashville with her is going to be good. You know, I fly out and see her in LA and we have a backstage meeting. Well, it's a little bit different backstage when you got to go on and your head might be, I'm at the forum and I sold out the forum and I got to get up in front of 35 ,000 people versus taking an entire day to sit with her in Nashville and marinate over concepts and things.

34:34Felix Thea:So I'm really looking forward to all of that.

34:36Michael Petry:Are there any specific trends that you're paying attention to that may shape what you're specifically doing at Golden West?

34:42Felix Thea:Obviously, the overall trend in music, right, which I think there's a massive shift in music, what you see from rap, and you're starting to see a lot more country coming in. But you're also seeing sort of an intersect here between country and rock. You're seeing, you know, Big X, the plug come in there. So I think that category itself is explosive. And I think that the country music category. So when I look at it from a trend standpoint, I start to look at it almost in the concept of the urbanization of country. And so how is that going to play out, right? There's a lot of Houston rap that has gone on throughout the years.

35:16Felix Thea:Now, there's a lot of people. You look at Travis Scott. Travis Scott has a Ford F-150. I think a lot of people know him for his Lambos, but he has a Ford F-150. He's very well versed within country. You look at somebody like Post, right? And Post is obviously very well versed in country. So you start to read the tea leaves on that. And, you know, one of the things I sort of get paid for is look into my crystal ball and say at the end of 26 or the beginning of 27, these are going to be the trend. So, you know, culturally, I'm looking at where that category goes from a boot making standpoint, let's say our product making standpoint.

35:46Felix Thea:You know, it could be as simple as am I seeing more tall boots and short boots? Am I seeing more white than red? So we're looking at all those different trends. Are we looking at higher heels versus lower heels? Are you looking at exotics, you know, snake and ostrich and things like that? So all those trends are coming into play. And I think one of the things that I talk a lot about is keeping an open mind. And for me, it's not just as a creative, as an entrepreneur, you have to be really, really open-minded. And I think you have to take in information from everywhere. And you have to absorb it.

36:16Felix Thea:And you have to keep your mind open. Even though if you don't agree with it, you can say, actually, the consumer is moving here. And maybe I should open my mind up. My wife always told me this story and I wasn't sure about it, but I'll tell it here. And I actually fully believed it and I jumped onto it. You know, you don't own ideas and you don't possess them. And when you need an idea, you don't have it for some reason, right? Like I have to have an idea in the next five minutes, but you don't have it. Ideas are out there in the atmosphere. And I've heard, I think Mick Jagger talked about it.

36:43Felix Thea:I've heard Noel Gallagher talk about it when they talk about songmaking. And if you open your mind up and you open your brain up and you're open to receiving new information, fully formed songs would fall into their lap. And for me, that's how I look at information. That's how I look at boots and the marketplace. So if I open myself up, fully formed ideas are going to come to me versus trying to noodle on it and say, I need an idea right now. And you're not possessive of those ideas, really. Right. They're coming to you through, you know, through the atmosphere and through all these different places you're finding, whether it's the Internet, whether it's in person, whether it's on socials.

37:14Michael Petry:Let me ask you before we wrap about motivation. You're saying that your default mode is, let's say, quote unquote, optimism, which I think is great. But when you look at, say, the next cohort or generation of founders and they're asking you, you know, what should they be thinking about? What should their default mindset be in order to be successful? Are there any key sort of motivational quotes or pieces of advice that you would share?

37:38Felix Thea:The thing that works for me is Zuckerberg's move fast and break stuff. That is exactly how I operate. I move very fast. And I think you have to have a willingness to look at risk versus reward. And you have to be very calculated about it. But there is certainly risk in there. And again, you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable and being able to work within sort of chaos at times. That is what I tell every founder. I spoke at NYU. I'll speak at my daughter's high school. I tell everybody that. And if you can be comfortable being uncomfortable, you should be successful. But it can be a very lonely road at times because you can be way out on a limb in what your belief is.

38:18Felix Thea:And you're talking to yourself in the middle of the night and saying like, I need to convince the entire team of this. I need to convince the artists of this. I need to convince everybody. But you have to believe it yourself. And, you know, people talk about it a lot and it's very popular. I always talk about manifestation. There is a lot of manifestation and what happens in entrepreneurship and what happens at a brand, but you have to put in the work and you have to work tirelessly. And so, yeah, my natural wrestling position is very positive. There are certainly moments in my life where I am down, where I'm like, this does not, you know, you're trying to figure out how you're going to get through this moment to make something successful.

38:51Felix Thea:That's not always positive. You're trying to work your way through it. And that's the grind is real. But, you know, if you don't wake up positive, if you don't believe in yourself and believe in your ability to do it, then it's actually hopeless to project that outwardly. So that's why I think for me, the Zuck quote where it's move fast and break stuff works because I want to move at a rapid tempo. I want to bring things to market quickly. I want to experience everything quickly. I want the consumer to ingest it quickly and say, yeah, this resonates with me. And I think this is cool.

39:21Michael Petry:This isn't your first rodeo, let's say. And you've got deep expertise in business building. do you feel like you have enough energy, enough enthusiasm? How do you avoid, let's say, maxing out on capacity or burning out?

39:37Felix Thea:Great question. I find it a difficult question, to be really honest with you. I operated at a very, very quick pace. Philosophically, I think as a young brand, and even when I went to Fry and when I went to Tumi, one of the things I did is quicken the pace. I believe in a very, very quick pace. And I find that if you're on a very quick pace and you're steady with it, it tends to be a lot easier because your expectation is right. I know with the speed, you know, if you're driving 55 the whole time, you can set your cruise control. I find it difficult when you go from zero to 80 and those sort of peaks and valleys, I find those to be where you burn out.

40:13Felix Thea:If you're operating at a quick pace constantly, I find it to be a little bit easier. Now, I might not be the right person to ask. I am thrilled with what I do. I love exactly what I do. I never find myself burnout. Occasionally you might get defeated because something didn't go the right way. And I don't look at that as burnout though, but I do find the older I get, the more experienced I get, the longer, you know, I do this, you have to pick your head up and enjoy some really big moments in there. To me, that's critical to burnout. So I'm lucky I get to see Lainey in concert, right? Even though it's work.

40:50Felix Thea:And I think when I was in the early stages of my career, I was able to go to all these sporting events at Adidas. I didn't enjoy those as much as I probably should have, right? Where I'm thinking about why did they change the laces on the shoes that we sent them or whatever. But, you know, to sit backstage or sit in the crowd and watch Lainey perform and have a beer and say, like, right, I get like, this is my job. Those moments, you can't, you can't miss those and you can't take those for granted. So I think you have to pick your head up sometimes and say like, this is a cool industry I work in and this is a cool thing that I'm doing.

41:22Felix Thea:And granted, just like every other job, it's a job and you got to work really hard. But just to sit back for half a second and say like, yeah, it's pretty cool. That's how I sort of get through it. Again, like maybe I'm not the right person because I love what I do and I wake up almost every day like, yeah, I'm so stoked to be able to do this.

41:39Michael Petry:But I think celebrating the moments is not something that's generally popular in the zeitgeist, right? The entrepreneurial zeitgeist. It's sort of like this hard driving sort of messaging.

41:52Felix Thea:I couldn't agree with you more. I don't think those things have to be binary like that. I think you can get on a team call and celebrate for half a second and say, hey, check this out. Look at what we just built. Look at what we just did. Look at the sales. I think those things are moments that people pass by. And even from a, not just from a personal standpoint, but from a team building standpoint, right? If you just pound people into the ground every day and don't celebrate those moments, you won't have a team that sticks around. You won't have a motivated team. And it goes from the person that packs the boxes in the warehouse, the person that does your social posts to everybody that does senior management.

42:30Felix Thea:You have to take those moments and say like, hold it, everybody. Let's back up for one second. This is pretty cool. And then keep going.

42:37Michael Petry:No, it's very exciting. And we can't wait for the next collection to drop, Michael. It's been great to chat with you today.

42:42Felix Thea:Thank you. Thank you guys for having me.

42:43Michael Petry:This has been amazing. A lot of fun. And thank you for tuning into the show today. Make sure you're subscribed to Shopify Masters and drop some feedback on today's conversation right here below while you're at it. We'll catch you in the very next episode. Thanks.