Adam & Ryan Goldston: Founders of APL – Banned by the NBA, Luxury Performance, Credibility, & Innovation That Moves Culture

0:00You're about to make a trade. Which you do you listen to? Is it get optioning those options? or let's do a little research. Learn more at finra.org slash trade smart. Well, thank you guys so much for being here. Of course. Happy to be here. Thank you guys. The Stad Guy podcast. We're excited to get started. I know it's going to be amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much. I mean, I've been a big fan of your work since I was in high school. So it was a real shock to me when we first met at a Laura Piana event in LA. and I actually, even though I'm super tall, I've always been a terrible basketball player.

0:42I've been horrible. And I was always trying to find that edge. And I remember one day I was watching, I used to be a sneakerhead growing up, and I was watching some sneaker unboxings. And I saw this one guy talk about these shoes that were banned because they had this like lock and load tech where as you jump down, they would launch you back up. Yeah. Kind of like Wakanda. Like the Black Panther. and vibranium and i thought this is um i need this this is super cool and i don't think you had european fulfillment at the time no it was based in the uk so i went through the whole customs headache but i got them they were like green lined with green and they had like carbon fiber on the outside exactly and uh i was still a terrible player but at least you could jump higher it made you dunk better i did jump higher i did jump higher for sure and i remember i i I had this quiet period for a couple months after where I didn't hear much of the brand.

1:39And then out of nowhere, I was seeing so much about APL online and then seeing it in real life with a whole different aesthetic, with a whole different customer base. And it was still this incredible peak performance, but it also reached a lifestyle audience that I think the only performance they were doing is shopping. You know, it was amazing. So I'd love to hear more about your story and how twin brothers working together, college athletes, came into this world of competing with the greats. So we'll tell you the full story, but I'll start by saying like when we met you and obviously realized how tall you were, we started APL and created technology because we weren't 6 '10", but we were still college athletes.

2:26So we wanted to try and jump as high as we possibly could and we could jump really high, but we wanted something that would instantly make us jump higher. So that was the genesis for it. Ryan tells the story really well in terms of where we started, how we've built, what we've become. But we created it for ourselves and like we really felt like we had this personal need and everybody has specific needs that outside of like the basic human ones. and to us at that moment in time when we created it our hardcore need was that we instantly wanted to jump higher and so that was the reason why we were able to put in the effort that we did to start APL and obviously what it's become today amazing around the world with your host the start guy we welcome you back to the start guy podcast sharing stories of excellence with those in the know for those who just know yeah i mean so we're 16 years in so i'll do my best to to sum it up quickly but yeah adam and i were both basketball and football players in college at usc and i was an entrepreneurship program and i used the apos my business plan and i told my professors there's three things that are going to make it special one we're going to create a shoe that instantly makes you jump higher two we're going to price it at 300 which at the time was twice the price of anything in the market.

3:48And three, we're going to start by selling direct to consumer exclusively through our website. And this is back in 2008, 2009. And my professors told me it wouldn't work for all three reasons and would be a massive failure. So I still have the business plan with the grade. I didn't get top 10 in the business plan competition. And we started two months before we graduated. And then on October 19th, 2010, the shoes got banned by the NBA. Wow. So the reason why they got banned is we created a patented technology load and launch, which when you compress all of your energy, it propels you upwards instantly.

4:22And when we did the biomechanic testing, we found that normal guys off of college campus got up to three and a half inch increase instantly. Whereas like elite athletes could get five or six inches. And so that day was the number one news story in the world. It was the number two, three, and 17 most search terms on Google. There's over a million articles posted within 10 days. We sold nine months of inventory within three days and so for the next four years we just sold exclusively through a website men's basketball shoes and at the time like we were working out of a 60 square foot office and there's four people and then we always had this vision of creating this category which was luxury performance and we felt like we had to start in a micro niche where we had authenticity and credibility and being college basketball players at usc we felt like that was the spot.

5:08But on June 17, 2014, we launched our men's and women's running shoes. Our first retailer for men was Saks Fifth Avenue. Right away, we had the two top selling SKUs there. Our first retailer for women was then a Porte, which we launched with on January 1st, 2015. Within six days, became the fastest selling new designer of all time, hit our season's target sell through, and then grew the business from there. And the reason why we went to these really high-end luxury wholesale partners is we wanted to build this category and do it in an authentic and efficient way. And so we started selling in Saks, Barneys, Net-a-Porter, Mr.

5:45Porter, Harvey Nichols, Selfridges, Le Bon Marche, Level Shoes, Lane Crawford, you name it, we were there. And then in 2016, Adam and I became the first two members ever inducted to the CFDA from an athletic brand. So it was the first time they were saying, not only is this sport, not only is it performance, but it's also luxury and fashion. So that was a big moment for us because it started to really open the door of us creating this category. And then August 8th, 2017, we launched with Lululemon. We became the only third-party brand sold in their stores. We launched in 23 stores across North America.

6:22Adam and I went to all 23 within 38 days. So, and it was everywhere from from los angeles new york toronto calgary dallas detroit all these different places and when we did it their their market cap was 7.9 billion dollars over the next 20 months a number of things changed but a big thing being apl in their stores and their market cap rose to over 24 billion wow and we expand to hundreds of doors so it was a really amazing thing to kind of see the impact we were having in these environments and for us to see there was working in every single location. So then on November 24th, 2019, we opened our first flagship in Los Angeles, The Grove, which we feel like is an incredible destination to experience the brand and the first physical representation of what APL looks like in the real world.

7:12We grew through the pandemic. We then partnered with Red Bull Racing for F1 in 2023, became the most dominant season in the history of F1. And then in November 9th, 2023, we opened our flagship in Soho, which is, we feel like the most incredible physical space that you could experience for retail. And we call it the world of APL. And we've done all of this without raising a dollar of outside capital, owning 100 % of the business, and just being on this incredible journey. So it's been really, really amazing to have this vision that started as athletes in college and then build it to where it is today and carve out this category and really own it of luxury performance.

7:56It's amazing. It's really, really the most incredible story. I'm shocked. It's so amazing. I think you're actually downplaying the impact that you've had on passion culture and the way that people now mix in athleticism and performance into even formal wear. and I think you guys were very much ahead of the game with perceiving running shoes and performance shoes as a luxury piece and the placement that you put APL in with brands like Sax and with Net-A-Porter was super ahead of the game but can be seen today with people who mix in things like a whoop with the most formal outfits or an Apple Watch at a gala.

8:51And I think it's functional, it's comfortable, but more than anything, it's a statement. For us, the thing that you hit on was what was really important to us. And when we started APL, our goal was to build the luxury performance category. We needed to have our foundation be in performance because luxury, it's a little bit easier to navigate in through price point, through materials, these other things, but performance either performs or it doesn't. And we saw a huge white space in terms of building out this market that didn't exist and also creating things for ourselves that started from that point of view and that perspective that we felt others would eventually gravitate towards and come into.

9:37And so for us, like that was what a huge opportunity was. And I think one thing that makes us really unique too, is that men feel like it's a brand for them, but women feel like it's a brand for them. 65 % of our business is female. And so that is something that is really important to us and something that we've leaned into from very early on. And I like to give a sports reference. You're supposed to go where the puck is going, not where it is. And for us, we believe that this is where culture was going to go. And we felt that we could influence it through the design decisions we made, the technical innovations we created, in that if we did things correctly that we believed in, other people would see it the way that you just articulated it.

10:21And so that's, scary might be the wrong word, but it's difficult, especially when you don't have a large brand, you're very small, you have limited resources, and you believe in this thing that others don't. And something that Ryan and I always talk about is that when you make non-consensus right decisions, you get these huge outcomes. And it's hard for anybody else to see it and anybody else to believe in it. It's part of the reason why when we were really small, we had to be independent because other people couldn't see where we wanted to go. And so, but we had this almost blind hope, blind vision in terms of what we wanted to execute against and then made decisions as we were going to help bring this to reality.

11:06You still have to get lucky. Like there's luck that's involved. And I think a lot of times when people reach really high levels of success, it's difficult to acknowledge that there's luck involved with it too. But luck comes from like being at the right place at the right time and working very hard too. And so you can influence luck. You can't always create it, but you can influence it. And so we believed culture would be at that point eventually and that we could help create the path to go there. We didn't do it ourselves, obviously, but we did something that we felt like was very unique and was differentiated.

11:39And I think that's why we've had the success we've had and we still feel like we're at the beginning. So there's still so much more to do and we're really unique in terms of the way that we approach things. I love that. I mean, there's so much to unpack and so much to talk about here. I have a thousand questions, but I do want to go back to that moment at USC. Was it a Marshall business school? Yep. I also went to business school as an undergrad and I did a hundred of these pitches, none of which I ever took to life. And I can speak on behalf of my classmates. None of us ever took anything out of those classrooms, really, especially nothing that the teachers rejected.

12:16Coming from this level of authority in business schools, a lot of these professors are entrepreneurs themselves. So when they give us a thumbs up, it feels good, but a thumbs down feels equally bad. So how did you get the confidence and what was the feeling that you actually felt about your idea that made you pursue it with such little resources and such little conviction from authority? This episode is brought to you by White Claw Surge. Nice choice hitting up this podcast. No surprises. You're all about diving into tastes everyone in the room can enjoy. Just like White Claw Surge. It's for celebrating those moments when connections have been made and the night's just begun.

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13:13That's a great question. And when I think back on it, it comes from a couple of places. So one, being an athlete, you deal with uncertainty in every game. So the only thing you can trust in is any preparation you've had, the skill that you have and your belief that when you're on the court and you go to the basket, you're going to score. It was kind of that same mindset that we were bringing to the entrepreneurial world. The other part of it, too, and we've talked about this a lot, both together and then obviously to others, that if someone tells you it's a bad idea, you don't necessarily need to listen.

13:48And if someone tells you it's a good idea, you don't necessarily need to listen. You need to be the person that feels and truly believes in it. And so it was something that we were very passionate about. We really believed in it. We felt like it was something that was missing from the market, both from a performance side. And Adam, one of the things that he's always talked about is the best innovations come from a need, not a want. And it felt like we needed to jump higher because we were competing on the court at such a high level. and we felt like we needed this product and then we just really went after it and I think one of the other parts of it too is and Adam said it but the non-consensus right decision so we went into a category thought about it a different way and believed in it like in our bones and so we felt like also and I think this part's important and you can relate to it when you're in business school, but when you're that young, you don't feel like you really have anything to lose.

14:48So while experience is valuable and knowledge is valuable, inexperience is just as valuable, if not more valuable, because you don't know what you don't know. And so you can just blindly go after it and hope. And that optimism a lot of times gets you a lot further. And we felt like it really did for us. And then the other part of it, which is, I think, a crucial part, is we felt like we needed it in the sense that we wanted a product that can make us jump higher, that also didn't have big and blazing logos, let the material, the color, the technology and design tell the story. And those things have framed the ethos and the vision of the brand.

15:28But we felt it back then. And there was also something, I'd say, rewarding about the fact that everyone didn't believe in it. We're the type of people that if you don't believe in it, it just fuels us that much more to go after it. And I think that's a special type of person to be an entrepreneur. You need to feel that way. Someone's no just means I'm going to show you that it's going to happen. And for us, that was the fuel that we had. I was also like kind of playing like a game of telephone, telling Adam all the feedback I was getting from the program or the professors. And that made Adam like that much amped up more to go after it as well.

16:09So I think that was all of the parts and the fact there was two of us. So just as a team, we were able to go after it and really like approach it from a thoughtful perspective. And we have different strengths, but we work really well together. And I think that obviously comes from the athletic heritage too. So yeah, I mean, I really believed in it, even though the program didn't. And I didn't let that define me also like something that you asked about was the confidence aspect and I think a lot of times people think of confidence as this Thing that you have that's unshakable no matter what situation you're in at any given time and I think you can Develop that over time as you've proven things to yourself not to others and so like because I think true confidence comes from the things that you've done and held yourself accountable to and that you've executed against.

17:07And so to have confidence at a young age, you have to have proven to yourself that you can do things that are very difficult. And our sports career, like to Ryan's point, had proven to us that like when we put in lots of work, lots of effort, it's not always the exact outcome that we believe, but it gave us the confidence to know that we can and will succeed if we try enough times. And I think also the higher your confidence arises in certain things, the lower your fear starts to dip. Doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, but it means that you have the internal tools to deal with those things as it becomes present.

17:48And to Ryan's point, and I think he articulates it really well, is that you are at that age, you're so, you haven't done enough to know that you probably couldn't do this. So you're brave enough to try it. And so we were brave enough. We also, again, back to the luck aspect, uh, was during the recession when we're starting it. So there were not an extraordinary amount of options. And so our risk of failure was, was pretty low because our starting point was very low. So like if you fall off the top of the building and you hit the ground, you know how that probably ends. If you fall off a single step, you can get up pretty quickly.

18:29And so that's the perspective we were looking at when we started. I mean, it sounds much better as we say it today. It wasn't as crystallized as we were starting. We just were willing to do it and believed in it. But that's where it came from. And to Ryan's point, Like he was in the program and I was, and I was, uh, in sociology and communications, but he would come back to the dorm each night and he would tell me what like the feedback was and that fueled us. And we had this list of goals when you would walk out the door to the, like into the hallway from the dorm room. And on one of the things on the wall was prove the disbelievers wrong.

19:10and so like it wasn't necessarily for other people it's more so that like we don't need somebody else's acceptance we need to believe in it ourselves and if we do the hard things and we do them well other people will end up seeing it eventually so that was like the genesis of where and why we started it but i i am also thankful and grateful that everybody didn't believe in it because ryan wouldn't have tried as hard as he did in the program he wouldn't have pushed as hard as he did and he wouldn't have worked on it as consistently as he did with me so i think like again sometimes when you're in the moment you're frustrated for with what the circumstances are and what the feedback is but if you can adjust that like and use that as a positive force which again we did didn't necessarily know that's what we were doing at the time you can get these tremendous outcomes and end up here on the sad guy podcast and when people don't believe in it, it makes the story better.

20:12So the story is infinitely better because of the beginning that way. We're cognizant of that. We know that. And for what it's worth, the professor that doubted it has become an incredible supporter. So it wasn't from them being a bad guy. It was from them just not seeing the vision. It's really incredible. And I think it's evident in your product releases as well, because you've had this development conviction that can be seen over time where you made a bet on a certain product category or certain silhouette that paid off years later. And I think a great example of that is logos are a statement in the same way that no logo is also a statement.

20:59Yeah. And growing up, logo was a bigger thing. And I remember my dad would say, there's no need for logos that the silhouette will do the talking and i thought it was just such like a dad a dad mindset you know and also there was no modern silhouettes or anything with technology that wasn't big on logo i think we take the examples of nike with the swoosh apple like logo is such a big part of just product development in general anything new in technology would need the logo to show what it is. Fast forward maybe 10 years since your initial band basketball shoe and I start seeing APL around, it's part of a silhouette and a wardrobe of a person that is very logo-free.

21:50Yeah. I see it mixed in a lot with the Laurel Piano crowd. I see it with the Audemars Piguet watch lovers I see it with people who are truly practicing athleisure or a performance benefit lifestyle mixed in with luxury and performance in their day-to-day for what I mean by that is someone who is very busy at work and wants to look elegant in meetings but also wants to be comfortable and also wants to move quickly they're mixing an APL and that's now a trend and it's a cooler and cooler thing to be understated. But you guys made that bet long before that. So I'd love to know what the thought process was to make such a big bet and to make such a big leap when you're already successful in sportswear and performance to go to Saks and Net-a-Porte and tackle women's wear and this totally different silhouette that must have taken a lot of conviction.

22:54yeah it definitely did and the part about it that we loved is we were creating stuff that we felt like connected for us to like you really started from creating product that we we wanted and we loved we also looked at it from the standpoint of if you looked at a wall full of other brands and ours was sitting right there no logo was our logo and it allows you to really focus on the silhouette. It lets you to focus on the materials, the color, the texture, and while we're speaking of those things we're obviously talking about a piece of footwear, but when we approach the world that's how we look at it as well.

23:31And we feel like there's a cohesive look that a lot of times people start and build from their feet. So giving somewhat of a blank canvas that focuses on these really incredible details and the actual proportion of the silhouette, the material and how it can tell an incredible story allows you to then express your personality in a different way. And so we really believed that there was a big audience for this. They just were not being catered to. And there wasn't a product yet that was designed that could fit seamlessly into their lives where they could change their clothes throughout the day and keep their footwear the same.

24:11And so that's what we fully intended to do. And like we live and breathe it. So we haven't worn another pair of shoes in decades. And it's really because we've created these products that we feel like can be brought into every aspect of our life. I think from the female perspective and creating the silhouette, going to those different retailers, it's been a lot of fun too, because it allows us to be even more exploratory with color as well. And what we've seen is the customer will buy one pair, a lot of times in a core color, whether it's ivory or black or gray, and then they'll come back and really get into the brand in all of these amazing ways.

24:48And I think from our perspective, that's how we always viewed it. We viewed it as building this wardrobe, fitting seamlessly with the luxury brands that exist in the world, but allowing you to perform at these incredibly high levels. And we definitely saw it early on and got significant pushback for a lack of a logo. But we believe that into the future, that was going to be something that a lot of people really wanted. And the coolest thing in the world is seeing people wear your product that you don't know. So when you see someone out in the world that doesn't know you and you don't know them and they're wearing the product because they've bought it and love it and feel like it ties into the aesthetic of who they are, that's the coolest thing.

25:36I mean, something that you said that stands out to me and is important is when we think about the positioning of APL, and I think you said it in an amazing way in terms of the synergies, whether it's people that are wearing Laura Piana, wearing Audemars Piguet, or these other types of high-end luxury brands. I mean, Hermes, similar type of thing. There's not these huge visible logos on a lot of the things where you see APL as complemented with. And when you think of athletics, you always think of sports, obviously, because of athleticism. but we've always thought of like creative athletics and so like for us like to we wanted to expand what the definition of that is right so like the person that's like a creative athlete exists in this world they're doing other things they're stretching themselves to levels they didn't know that they could do they're creating things that didn't exist before and they're trying to deliver at these incredibly high levels i mean i'll use chefs as an example That's a strenuous physical activity, right?

26:43And it gives you the opportunity, whether what's on your wrist or what's on your feet, to express yourself in a different way and you still want to perform. And to your point, like when you talk about the boardroom or the office, there's no reason why the old uniform has to necessarily exist today. Everything evolves over time, right? And back to the hockey reference, you want to be where the puck is going, not where it is now or in basketball where the past is going to be you want to be in those passing lanes or further and so for us we always viewed that through APLs that's the lens we have the the pinnacle of sport with formula one and being the partners of Red Bull but we also have it where the pinnacle of creatives are wearing the product and they're using it to express themselves through design material color technology innovation and like ryan won't say it but like ryan's a master of color theory so like when we're building these colorways we're trying to elicit emotions when people see the product because if you can establish this emotional connection to a product it will just take it much further and to the thing that you said as well in terms of the people that are wearing it we had never set out for every single person in the world to wear our product we wanted to create something that pulled people in in people gravitated towards yeah that means that not everybody's going to love it but the people that do it means a lot to them and to me that's like the beautiful part of a brand and it's the reason why brands can exist in different parts of the category like we're the pinnacle of where we exist in our market and that's something that we take a lot of pride in and we've built it over a long sustained period of time and it means a lot to us and so for us like as we continue to expand it gives us a greater opportunity to lean into those strengths and then continue to pull the people that you're referring to and so for us like that's been a huge thing and when we think about like what we stand for beautiful performance has always been something that's important to us and we never felt like you had to compromise aesthetic for function or function for aesthetic that there is a beautiful way that you can bring them together and again it the people that gravitate towards it are going to love it and understand what makes it special and you may buy it because of the small logo but chances are you're buying it because of the beautiful materials the textures that we create the amazing and intricate color stories and then once you put them on like nothing feels like them either.

29:18So those are things that we're extremely proud of. And that's a true point of differentiation for us. I love the topic of the color theory and the coloring. And I'm generally very curious about obsession and a focus on mastery in one lane. And I think looking back at your success, it's easy to downplay the obsession part of things and say, a couple of guys started the shoe brand, shoe brand did well, now they make more cool shoes. I think that that would be really oversimplifying the amount of decisions you would have had to make along the way to really focus on shoes. Because when the basketball shoes did well, you could have made a line of athletic wear, you could have made basketballs, you could have done a hundred things.

30:07And you had hundreds of decisions you've had to make throughout to really focus on your craft and stay obsessed with the identity of APL, which developed and grew over time, but it sounds like stayed true to those initial values you wanted to maintain in the brand. So I'd love to know more about your love for obsession in your respective crafts. I'd love to know more about your love for color and how that started. And Adam, what is it about APL that you obsessed over over the years that allowed it to stay in this narrow lane that brought you to where it is today? It's interesting the way you said it because I couldn't agree more in terms of the focus in neurones.

30:56So we always say constraints lead to creativity. So when you have endless options, it's actually pretty challenging to make strong pointed decisions because you can essentially go anywhere so i think because we started in a place where we had such tight constraints we had to be very focused in terms of how we did things and how we leaned into it i mean one of the things is like we have an insane schedule because we go to sleep like like almost like 4 a.m every single night it's so contrary yeah so i mean it's the exact opposite of of what you would think based on the things that we do. But part of it is because we know that we're so much more creative during the evening.

31:42And so being able to optimize your schedule to be able to be creative when it makes the most sense for you, I think is amazing when it's possible. It's not possible for everybody. Do you not wake up at 4 a.m. like Ashton Hall and put your face in a bucket of ice? I didn't dunk my face this morning, but I might have to try it. we go to sleep when when ashton is waking up okay but it's it's worked it's worked really well for us in the beginning was much more challenging because we didn't have the benefit of being able to wake up later so like we had to basically go on four hours a night of sleep which that is not a it's not it's not ideal but as we got further into it we were able to build the schedule around it.