Pullman Voices: David Hieatt

0:00What does a commitment to education really look like? We're thinking about how we take stock of what our experiences have taught us and how we use those to push boundaries, take risks and make positive progress. And how we pass on the lessons we learn to the next generation. This is Pullman Voices, the podcast by Monocle Radio that offers fresh perspectives from cultural pioneers, business leaders and creative minds, challenging how we see and engage with the world. I'm your host, Tom Edwards. Today's topic is always learning, and our guest is someone who's never taken the conventional route through education, the Welsh entrepreneur David Hyatt.

0:40If the path is easy, it's well-trodden. It's not a path maybe that you're going to feel the most alive. David has a varied CV. After being thrown out of college at 18, he tried his hand at a number of odd jobs, which we'll hear about later, before realising his calling was in copywriting. After spending his 20s at some of London's most prestigious ad agencies, including Saatchi & Saatchi, David returned to Wales. He went back to his childhood love of sportswear to launch his own fashion brand, Howie's, in 1995. 16 years later, David sold the company to Timberland and started a brand new venture called The Do Lectures, a platform to share ideas by some of the world's most interesting thinkers and creatives through live events and online lectures.

1:24Then, in 2012, David found himself back in the fashion industry. The Welsh town of Cardigan used to be home to the biggest jeans factory in the UK and therefore hundreds of highly skilled craftspeople. But the factory had closed down, leaving a huge portion of Cardigan's residents unemployed. David saw an opportunity to give the town's residents their jobs back and preserve this wealth of sartorial knowledge by launching height denim. Today he talks about why taking the path less trodden can be the most rewarding, and what he's learnt along the way, whether that's from a teenage summer job, the head of an international agency, his daughters, or the grandmasters of denim.

2:12David, a warm welcome to Monocle. Lovely to have you with us. Thanks for journeying in. One thing we're going to be talking about is this idea of progress and maybe redefining what progress is, what the metrics are, should be. What does that mean to you? If we think about, you know, a lifetime of learning or making progress as a business or as an individual, if we look at redefining that kind of progress, where does that, I don't know, where does that prompt you? In what direction does that prompt you to step, David? I mean, when you're in your 20s, progress is different. And then suddenly, like, I just had my 60th birthday.

2:47So I suddenly go, oh, so progress now is used to be like, oh, let's go and do more things. And suddenly progress now is, well, let's do less things, maybe try and do them better. And we're really good at adding things to our life. We add complexity to our life, but we don't subtract probably enough. So for me now, progress is can I subtract? So if I subscribe to one thing, can I unsubscribe from two? is a really beautiful story and it talks about like a simpler set of goals. I thought it was really interesting. When I was at Saatchi's in my early 20s, I really got on with the MD there, Peter. And he said, Dave, so what are your goals?

3:32I said, I'm just going to win a ton of awards. It's just going to become known as a really good copywriter. He's like, oh yeah, that's really good. I said, what are your goals? and he said, I want to canoe to work. And I just looked at him and went, oh, you win. You've got better goals than me. I always thought about that. And so that, for me, was progress. And lo and behold, when we moved back to Wales, we bought this house next to the river and I bought a canoe and I canoed to work. And I was just thinking, I was canoeing to work, I was just thinking of Peter, I was just going, man, this is progress.

4:10That's very David, if I dare say it, that you don't just realise your own goals, you actually realise someone else's goals as well, which is pretty good. That sounds like a really important moment, if not a complete pivot, but a moment of realisation about what that needed to mean to you. Were there other times, I don't know, even earlier in your life, because I know you had a mixed experience in terms of some organised aspects of education, things like this, even maybe as a child and as a young adult, Now, did you always have this sense that the way you needed to learn to add skills, this idea of adding and taking away, that you maybe looked at that a little bit differently?

4:47Do you remember doing that, interrogating those things even when you were a kid? I was really obsessed by an early age from like sort of sports brands. So my bedroom was covered in posters. So Adidas, Puma, everything. and at 13 I would go to like these companies and tell them like if they don't change their marketing strategy they're probably not going to survive so like 13 I had to put a tie on my mom let me on a train but I always paid attention to that thing and you know I got thrown out of college and basically the four of us who were mates all were at the bottom of the class and we had a lot of fun we did all sorts of things but nothing to do with education we started so many businesses and crazy things.

5:32And so I get thrown out. And of course, I like this big overdraft and I was planning on getting another grant. And so me and my friend in the summer, we've just got to get this overdraft sorted. And he said, well, go and start a painting company. And there was this moment we go, right, I don't know anything about painting. And so he said, we'll call it Slap and Dash. And he said, go and write a note and we'll put all these ads in the post office. And that was the first moment where I suddenly go, slap and dash. It's a terrible name. We're going to get no custom from this. And I literally just wrote this thing at the bottom and said, like, with a name like this, we have to be good.

6:15And all summer long, we were busy as hell. But it was the first moment where I suddenly realized that writing something to really connect with another human being was really powerful. even on like a post office door. Dave, you mentioned obviously Sarchies, like a sort of storied name. Remind us of this story of how you sort of got your foot in the door at Sarchies. Yeah, I mean, I first got their attention by doing this thing. And, you know, we'd been unemployed for a year and a half. So it was kind of getting to the point of going, we need to do something. So I went down to the Financial Times building where they printed the newspaper.

6:52And I asked one of the guys, could I have some just, you know, pink paper? And he's going, what for? I said, I was just doing like a school project. And he went, okay, you're fine. For a day and a half, I made this ad. I recreated one of the famous Saatchi ads for YTS. And I knew they were doing a campaign in the Financial Times paper, right? So I recreated my version of their ad. And then I went into reception and I just said, I've got like an urgent package for, you know, Jeff Stark, the creative director. And I need to hand deliver it. I went, fine, okay, just go up. And I knew at eight o 'clock in the morning, no one was going to be there.

7:28And all the papers were laid out on his desk. So I got the Financial Times and I cut his ad out. And I put mine in, glued it in, folded the paper back. And then I waited till about 11 o 'clock. And I phoned up his secretary and I said, Jeff, so you've read the FT this morning? And she went, oh, it's you, is it? I went, yeah. She said, oh, you better come in. Then I got a job at Sarchi's. But then one day, Louis Dreyfus, who was CEO, he came in one day and he said, I'm going to buy Adidas. And I'm going, oh, well, that's my first love. And so we spent six months trying to write ads for Adidas based on all the posters in my bedroom as a kid.

8:11And we didn't win the pitch. And I'm going, well, no, no, I'm going to win the pitch. and then I took a£20 ,000 pay cut and went to work for the company that won the pitch and for a year and a half I just wrote ads and the creative director, whether he was right or wrong didn't like the ads I was writing, he didn't like the voice and I'm going, I love the voice so I kind of left, but I took all these things away with me and that's how I started Howie's so that was the voice the point is, we can be really distracted about the things that we're seeing or can be really focused. And I think some people are just really conscious of them and they really double down on the thing that they're interested.

8:53Like craft is really paying attention to the thing that you're really super interested in. Well, and that's really interesting. You talk about it as a craft. And I think the payoff comes from the trust that the consumers, right, end up within those brands that you shape and that you build. Just to go back to what you're saying there about this way of accumulating, information, absorbing it. And you mentioned that's unusual, right, for the 13-year-old with his necktie to do some brand consultancy. How did you think about that at the time? You must have known you had this sort of hyper-awareness to what was around you.

9:28Did you sort of know that maybe you had a, if not a unique perspective, certainly an unusual one? Did you sort of know that that was what was happening? I guess I did because everybody else was interested in other things. And so, I was doubling down and so like anything that was anything and and i'd turn up at all these football places and they're going that's a nice tracksuit and going yeah i got this idea and i sent it off and they sent me this tracksuit and they just looked at me just going who does that i'm going who doesn't do that so i guess there's always the hungry learner there's always that person like just go oh my god they're just so into that thing and it doesn't have to be sports brands it could be beer mats or it could be anything.

10:11And the hobbies that we have are really good clues of what we do when we're not paid to do anything. So they're a really massive clue of like, maybe you should double down on that. There's a small tranche of hungry learners who really pay attention to what they're really interested in and they honour the craft. And I think a lot of people don't honour it as much. The ways into these businesses have maybe been a little unorthodox. Do you think that lots of potentially great businesses, maybe founder even before they get going, because people are in a compartmentalised way of thinking or they're being very structured about this is what the books say it has to be, has a willingness to think more creatively and just take the path less travelled almost?

10:55That's partly responsible as well as a great idea for the successes of these businesses, right? Look, there's two ways to go about it. It's like do something you really know something about or do something you have no clue about at all. Through the do lectures, I've met some incredible people. There's a story about this pub in, you know, like, I don't know, two hours north of New York. And there was a conversation that took place. They sat this waiter down and said, look, you are a wonderful human being, but you just happened to be a crap waiter. And this guy said, oh, yeah, I know. Well, I've got this internet idea.

11:35Maybe I should go and do that. And the guy who owns the pub said, yeah, do you know what? I think humanity would thank you for that. And the guy was Perry and he went on and started Kickstarter. And that's funded, I don't know, a billion or two billion dollars worth of creative ideas. But he didn't know how to do it. And I keep thinking, you know, because my daughters are in their 20s. and they keep saying to me, I don't have enough experience. And I go, oh, but like the best learning is by doing. But the problem is most people don't do, so they don't learn. And we got a thing on our wall in work is like no prototype, no meeting.

12:16Go and do something that is a version of it, even if it's small. And people go to me, oh, I don't know about start an event. Start five people. Then if you really like it, do it with 10. So many brilliant people don't go and do things because they don't take the first step. Like the Do Lectures is a really interesting example. For the first three, four, five years, it was really hard to sell tickets. Now it's not, right? So, and we didn't know anything about doing events. We knew nothing, absolutely nothing. Me and Claire are complete introverts. Don't like, we just like small crowds. And then suddenly there's 150 people on your farm and you go, ah.

12:55but the interesting thing was even during that time where you just go my god this just doesn't add up we didn't know anything about it we learned but it was going but there's something there and the interesting thing for me now is the importance of gatherings small gatherings right we just know how to do a hundred person event just better than almost anyone after 10 years of just learning how to do events like you you learn these stupid dumb things that people go do you really do that you go yeah and we've got like three types of wood so there's one for heat and there's one to get it going but there's also really the most important piece of wood is orchard wood for smell and that's the thing people go oh my god this smells amazing you go really yeah well we've worked that one out and then you go from naivety not knowing and not giving up to you know you get a call from, I don't know, the world's biggest events company going, we really want to go and do this thing around the world.

13:54I'm going, do you know what? I just want to do it on my farm. And they went, oh, don't you want to see the number? I'm going, I definitely don't want to see the number. And the point of that story is do stuff that's small but brilliant. And everybody wants to go and scale something. How about just doing really cool shit that really, really fires your belly? And that's enough. And that's interesting because I suppose if you have a potentially revolutionary idea that could change your life or a sector or the world even, well, there's so much jeopardy and uncertainty or the perception of that. So you need to learn how to take the risk and you need to learn even whilst you're, you still need to learn whilst you're doing, even if there is no framework.

14:43But what are you learning? You're only supplementing your own experience. It's quite a complicated process, isn't it? The thing is, if the path is easy, it's well-trodden. It's not a path maybe that you're going to feel the most alive. Because you kind of know, as soon as you've got a formula, as soon as you know, oh, well, you know, this company did it this way and they did this and we'll just follow that path. And you go, good job, knock yourself out. but to be alive is to have uncertainty and just go do you know what i could fail at this thing every startup is 80 chance of failure and and if you're doing something quite out there then the odds are higher but risks and experiments are doing something you don't know if it's going to work and those are the experiments those are the things that actually do change things because maybe only one in ten come out, but the one changes a lot.

15:41So you've got to be comfortable with risk. I mean, your mum wants you to have safe dreams. And you need to be having dreams that scare the hell out of you. And actually living a really beautiful life is to do something you don't know if it's actually going to work. Let's look at some of those scary moments then. I mean, I would imagine, I don't want to put words in your mouth, David, but if you set up a denim wear company, lots of jeopardy, lots of ambition. If you sort of incorporate these other pretty ambitious goals to sort of revitalize a community, bring jobs back, this is super, super ambitious.

16:19Is that for you when it's got real and when it's got scariest? Because you're talking about people's prospects and driving community. Is that the scariest or do you find it more scary when you're not doing things at that level of ambition? Yeah. I mean, it's the The moment any business gets scary is when you employ another human being and because you are suddenly very responsible for them. And so you want to take risks, but you also want to make sure they've still got a job. And so with Hyatt, we just come off the back of doing Howie's and we felt a little bit burnt. We weren't sure that like running around the same track was really the thing we wanted to do.

16:52And then for a year I went running and I did a business plan. And then somebody phoned me up and said, why aren't you doing the plan? I said, I don't know if I want to run around that track again. I feel a bit burnt on the last one a bit. He said, yeah, but it's not for you. It's for the town. And I went, oh. And that's where purpose gets you in all sorts of trouble. Oh, God, yeah. Okay, I could do it for the town. I could do it for the grandmasters. I could do it because I kind of love makers. I could do it because it's just literally the salt of the earth. Makers are just rock stars. When you're working, like the grandmasters, and the grandmasters are called the grandmasters because they've done a ridiculous amount of hours of learning something.

17:35It's the Gladwell thing about chess master. But they've done not 10 ,000 hours. They've done 20, 30, 40, 50 ,000 hours. What's beautiful about them is they just keep showing up. They're just the best people to be around because they're just so honest. Like hard work is so honest. David, if you are a master craftsman or woman, 50, 100 ,000 hours, honing. One might think, not that you've become complacent, as you said, the amazing thing is they keep coming back for more. Do you think these are people also, though, who have an appetite for continual learning? I guess there's always ways to improve that craft, even when it's already so finely honed.

18:19That must be fascinating to see where that appetite is for these people. I also think the appetite is, I've learned this, I want you to learn it. And so you want to pass the baton on and you know uh grandmaster claudio said to me once he said do you know the biggest sadness i had was i thought i'd never be able to pass my skills on to anybody else and so there's the learning there's also the teaching and so to pass the baton on to the next generation and make a town to be a maker town has to make so the problem is that at the moment is for us is there's a lot of candles on the birthday cakes. But I think they love the thought of just teaching others.

19:03Talking about learning, how do you run a business with sort of education in mind? The interesting thing is you want people to stay, but you also want people to leave. And I was trying to get somebody to join us and they were paid really good money. I'm going, well, you're on really good money for your age. So if money is the only motivation, you should stay there. I said, but can you answer me this? Are you still learning? And he went, I'm not learning. I said, at your age, earning is not as important right now as learning. And he came and joined us and did really well. And I went off and started a company.

19:38So I think the importance of a company is to help people stay and help people leave. Because if they stop learning, they go, oh, you should go. You should definitely go. So I like that thing of just being thinking of people saying, maybe we just have a chapter with you, but it's going to be one hell of a chapter.

20:05Many thanks to David Hyatt. This is Pullman Voices, a Monocle Radio production for Pullman Hotels. This episode was produced by Holly Fisher and researched by Paige Reynolds. I'm Tom Edwards. Next time we speak to the CEO of Workathon, Julia Hobsbawm, about digital decency. I think that we've got to just think differently both about the world, how the world works, and to understand that we are all connected in it and we're connected fundamentally by economy, technology and culture. In other words, we all feel something. For more on Pullman Voices, head to Pullman's Instagram page at Pullman Hotels.

20:48And for more information and hotel bookings, you can visit pullman.accor.com. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, head to monocle.com forward slash radio or wherever you get your podcasts to follow and subscribe.

21:11Thank you.