Rob Fraser: The Power of Focus

24:17And what do I think can be improved? And I ultimately wanted, at the time, I loved brands like Lululemon and Red Bull. Those were two like kind of top tier brands for me around their athlete marketing, their product development. I just, I loved everything about those brands. I was like, I don't really, I'm not technical. I didn't have like a particular set of skills. I was like, apparel seems like a more, an area that I could get into and understand. I've got some skills I could do there. And what's, you know, what's like the simplest form of apparel? At least, you know, My thinking back then was like, oh, I kind of know socks.

24:46Socks seem like a good place to start because relatively low risk in terms of how much I would need to invest to get started. It was the culmination of all of those things. And I could probably tell a story right now of why socks were this incredible business opportunity, which they are. But at the time, I was just like, socks are cool. I think socks could be improved. And it turned out as I went further down that path, I uncovered how much opportunity actually existed in socks. And, you know, ultimately the insight was the entire world was moving towards athleisure. We were coming into a less traditional, less formal way of dressing and much more into a more functional way of dressing.

25:24And we can see that with our clothing, the pants I'm wearing right now, for example, or the yoga pants. And when I looked at the sock category, they remained use case specific. So the recycling socks or running socks or dress socks, I was like, why isn't there a yoga pant for the foot? That was the idea. Like, look at the yoga band, how versatile that is. You can wear it exercising, dress it up down casual. I was like, what a functional, fantastic and fashionable piece of apparel. It's like, why are our socks not like that? And so that was the simple idea. And I got kind of obsessed with it. And I was like, this can be improved.

25:57I remember the first time I tried on a pair of your socks. I had never thought about socks before. I mean, I was the guy who sort of went to the store and like, what's the cheapest per pair of socks that I can get? Put them on your feet. They sort of cover up your feet and that's what they do. And then I tried on a pair of yours and I forget how I got the first pair. I think a friend gave it to me. And then I instantly went to your website and I ordered, like I threw out every sock in my drawer and I just ordered a brand new drawer of socks. I had never thought about the difference between a good pair of socks and a bad pair of socks.

26:29And I still have no idea, but I know your socks feel really good. What's the difference between a good pair and a bad pair? So what you said is not uncommon. If you think about socks in general. They're the world's worst gift as you're a kid. It's what your parents always would get you as a gift. Yeah, if you're bad for Christmas, here's some socks. Exactly. It was almost a punishment. And then as an adult, you've learned to almost hate this product and buy it begrudgingly at the department store. It's an afterthought. No one actually thinks about their socks. And so we're living in this world of 90 plus percent of the population is thinking a lot about everything they wear except for one of the most important things.

27:03It's really the pair of apparel that touches the ground with you, right? And it's kind of foundational to the feeling right up standing and walking and everything you do. The idea that this was an unaware category was super interesting. But what makes a sock special? I mean, there's so many things. Like the common socks you'll buy, they're just low quality. The seams, they're not seamless. So they're going to create hot spots and pinching. They're going to be typically probably low quality cotton. and so they're going to absorb sweat which leads to blisters there's a ton of different things if you look at you know any good athletic soccer and specifically ours they're going to be seamless they're going to be moisture wicking they're going to have support so there's going to be support in the arch to help with you know mid foot fatigue there's going to be strategic cushioning so like where is the foot making contact with the ground we could go on for days but ultimately what i was trying to solve for was like i want something that is going to be incredibly comfortable useful across a bunch of different sports or activities.

28:02And it was born out of a personal need, right? Like I said, I was going to school, I was working a job and I was still training and staying active. I was doing some triathlons at the time and I wanted a pair of socks that could do all of those things. Cause the cycling socks I mentioned I would wear at school, they weren't great for running. They would fall down. The cuff wasn't compressive enough. And so I was like, that led to that kind of discovery of like, why isn't this better? And ultimately a good pair of socks should be supportive. They should look good. They should feel good. And you should be able to do almost everything in them.

28:29I mean, that seems obvious, but it wasn't at the time. It's crazy. They're almost like compression socks too, right? Like they feel really good around your feet and your feet just feel happy. Yeah. That's the fine balance of like, it's like a hug for your feet, you know? And, but how do you not make that too compressive? And how do you make that work across a wide variety of foot sizes? And we're not always perfect, but that is the goal. Like it should hug the leg and not fall down, but it also should come off the leg without leaving marks, which is a tough thing to do. We are striving to always improve that, but I think we've got a good mix.

28:58And your story is not uncommon. The people will come in and they'll buy a pair typically because a lot of our socks have fun designs on them. What we recognize early on is socks are this, like I mentioned with cycling, socks are this way that people can express individuality. And within that people have different ways they like to do that, whether they like to celebrate different animals they love or, you know, nature landscapes or their favorite food. So we discovered that like, it's really hard digitally because we're primarily sold all online. We're also sold in store, but primarily online, at least for the majority of the business, how through the computer screen or the phone screen, can we convince you that this sock feels good without putting it on your feet?

29:37That's really tough. An easier way is to give you an emotional response being like, I love cats, for example. I want to buy that sock because it has cats on it. But what we know is that's the best pair of socks you're ever going to put on. And so that person buys the pair of socks because they like the design, they put it on and then like you, they come back and go, oh my, like, I didn't even know socks could feel like this. And they replaced their sock drawer with it. And that's, that's quite literally, you know, our mission is to like, or our vision for the business is to replace the sock drawer.

30:04I truly believe that we should be able to make a great all day performance sock that someone could line their whole drawer with based on what height they like and what kind of material they like. And you shouldn't have to make a decision in the morning anymore of what you're going to wear. Like that sock will do it for you. Did you have a business partner when you started? I was in school when I started the business. I was in my second year. I just had the idea. When I said I'm going to start a business, I was quite literally listening to that book, laying in bed, having my nightly identity crisis, some existential crisis.

30:35It just snapped me. I was like, I'm going to start a business. I got up right there. I started to open my Apple notes, started thinking about different brand names and went to school. I talked to my good friend at the time. I developed a great friendship with a classmate. We would do all our class projects together. We actually got a job together outside of work. I was doing some rep work for a brand and I got him involved. We're doing some field marketing. And so we got on well. We're friends. We worked well together. And I didn't expect the business to work. I was like, it was, it's like, what are the odds?

31:04Here's this like former athlete guy that's kind of like not particularly great at school, has no business experience, who set a goal to build a sock company. Everyone looked at me like I was crazy. Like some people still do. Right. And so I was like, this would be way more fun with a friend, which by the way is like the world's worst reason to start a business with someone. This is because it's fun to do with a friend that I've learned in hindsight. But you know, ultimately what I didn't ask myself at the time, which I think is so important for entrepreneurs and just people in general to ask themselves is what happens if this goes right?

31:34The common knowledge is for people to hedge their downside. They go, what happens if this goes wrong? And that's very, that's fair. People want to protect themselves. And these are ultimately risky endeavors. But I didn't ask myself at the time, like what happens if this goes right? Because if you think about it, and I try to always tell young entrepreneurs is like, what would be more painful? Failing because it didn't work or failing because it did and you didn't capture the opportunity. That would be so much more painful. And I felt like that kind of happened in my cycling career. So, you know, I'm working really hard now to not kind of repeat that mistake.

32:04But yeah, I started it with a business partner and it was fine when it was kind of like just something we were doing. But, you know, ultimately, as it started to get a little bit of traction, like I said, I didn't expect it to work. but that doesn't mean that I wasn't incredibly committed. You know, I was obsessed. The second I decided to do it, I was all in. I was reading every business book I could find. I was, like I said, I had entrepreneurial tendencies. I just didn't know they had manifested in sport for so long that I was like, oh, I found business now. And I just got obsessed with it. The same was not true of my business partner.

32:35That wasn't kind of his thing. You know, he wasn't necessarily, I don't think he would identify himself as an entrepreneur. And so as things started to grow and we were pretty lucky with some early success, the business started to work. You know, in the first year we did, you know, multi six figure revenue of just selling socks kind of around town for the most part. The first socks I sold, I just took to school in a Tupperware and hand to hand combat and sold them to students, teachers, basically like, you know, we're not friends if you don't buy these. And so that was like how it got started.

33:01And so ultimately after a year, it started to get real, like the work required nights and weekends is like the common stories go. And, you know, it became pretty clear that this was out of line with his values. You know, we didn't have those discussions early on of like, what do we want out of this? Because we were doing it for fun. We were friends. We just wanted to have a good time and try, try something and really kill time. And during school, like we always expected just to continue with school and kind of continue on. But that for me evolved very quickly and like, oh no, I can do this. You know, like I really like this and there's a big opportunity here.

33:33And so, So, you know, ultimately over time that tension started to grow and the gap between our abilities to have conversations of what's going on, because I was just like consuming knowledge and trying to learn at such a rate because I was obsessed with it. It became very difficult for us to be aligned on what we wanted out of the business, which ultimately led to him leaving the business and quitting. True to form, we didn't have any proper resolution for that. We didn't have a shareholders agreement. We didn't like, we just did almost everything wrong when setting up the company, which is really easy to do because there's almost no great resources for helping an entrepreneur.

34:07And ultimately, to get the proper legal agreements is expensive. We started the business with$1 ,000 each, right? So put$1 ,000 in. That's all we had and it all went in inventory. There was no money for a legal agreement or a lawyer. And you're in the honeymoon phase of business. Of course, you're never going to fight with your partner, right? Everything's great. It's going to be successful. But once it gets real, that's when those kind of things are super important to have at least a discussion about and there was no discussion and so he left the business there was no resolution and that kind of led into this this period of where i had to figure out how to how to resolve that and it was super messy and ultimately ended up um coming to an arrangement and buying them out about it ended up kind of closing two two and a half years into the business and kind of march of 2019 is when uh he officially left the business and i got full control and that's kind of what i peg is like the real start that's where i was like i'm all in because i had to go take out a personal loan to make it happen of like$150 ,000, which was insane, right?

35:06I remember we finally agreed on a number and I didn't have that money. I had student debt. I had the exact opposite of money in the bank. But I was so committed around that. We talked about earlier around just the mindset and the willingness to kind of just go all in. I went to every bank in town and I was like, okay, I've got credit cards I'll draw out on. I've got a line of credit. I've got some student loans. My then girlfriend, now wife, she was like, I'll sign on, we'll get some loans. And I was able to kind of put the money together through all these various, very high interest, high risk kind of funding sources.

35:42Because I didn't want to ask anyone. I was like, I believe in this, but I don't want to put anyone else at risk. I'm willing to take this on and put it on my shoulders and go. And the act of doing that, actually, my now father-in-law reached out doctor. He's like, hey, look, I appreciate that you were willing to do this, but I'll loan you the money. And I'm forever grateful for that because A, it was a vote of confidence and it allowed me to kind of push on. And I was super proud to be able to pay him back in a couple of years too. We paid him out relatively quickly and the terms were super fair anyways, but it's like, I want to get his money back.

36:14And I take that responsibility incredibly seriously. Otherwise, this Christmas dinner is going to be pretty awkward. Yeah, yeah, of course. But I had such high conviction that I would do anything to get that money back. If the business wasn't going to fail, that money would go back first. And I take those sorts of things. When people bet on me or my employees or investors, whatever, I take that incredibly seriously. The number one thing you should be focused on is doing right by the people that believe in you and bet on you. Who was the first person to ever bet on you? My mom. Yeah. So I went to university and dropped out.

36:44So that was a big riff in our family because going to university was the safe path. That was the known path of... My dad sold insurance and And my mom, when she had us, stayed at home. And it was super traditional, super go to school, get whatever job, build a family. And so the idea of kind of going all in on this cycling career at the time was just like a pipe dream for the most part. And it wasn't really anything yet. It was a big riff. But my mom, I could tell deep down, she was like, I know you got this. I know you'll figure it out. Because what I would always say to my parents at the time, and I was telling you about this yesterday, is like, whenever I have these big goals, I kind of hold two beliefs.

37:22One belief is, I'm absolutely sure I'll pull this off. I have no doubt I will figure this out, but I have no idea how I'm going to do it. I could not articulate that, which is very difficult for a parent because they're like, I want to believe you, but I need to see some pathway forward. What is the plan, dude? Yeah, it ended up working out. And it was the same thing in business too. It's like, I have no idea how I'm going to do this, but I do know I can do it and it's going to work out. My mom being like, you know, kind of just on the side, you know, being like, I know you'll figure it out. That was, you know, so important.

37:55She's always kind of been in my corner like that. And certainly the person to kind of bet on me and understand I was different. You know, she understood that like I was intensely passionate about things as a kid and I don't think also she really had a frame for entrepreneurship like because it just wasn't a discussion. Like I had all these little things going. I had my own little my own little bike shop repair. I built an office in my bedroom closet. I was always doing these. I just didn't know what it was. I was obsessed with the idea of kind of building business. I built bike teams. I would get all the kids in there.

38:26We build teams. I was organizing people. We had like schedules. And so I was always building teams, leading teams, building little businesses. And I just didn't know what I was doing was entrepreneurship or building a business. That was just what came natural to me and what I loved to do. And so she knew I was different. So she knew when I was kind of going to go on a different path. She encouraged that, which I'm forever thankful for because it's hard to be the only one that believes in yourself sometimes. How important are the people you surround yourself with towards happiness and accomplishing your goals?

39:00I think it's everything, really. Let's talk about business or just life in general. It's like you want people around you that are rowing in the same direction, right? You want people that have goals. You want to be able to swap and share insights. You want to be able to encourage each other. The power of having like a great network or group around you is kind of a double-edged sword sometimes too, though, because although the like a great network of people are going to propel you forward and teach you things you wouldn't know, sometimes you start to kind of try to keep up with the Joneses a little bit.

39:31So in particular, like as I started to get some level of moderate success in business, my network started to grow and I started to become friends with people that were much further ahead than me. And it almost led to this insecurity, you know, like for the five years before I was building my business, relatively unknown, didn't really know anyone else building a business. I was really operating authentically and like what I wanted to do and setting goals that I thought was achievable. and then I'm immersed in this world where people are thinking much bigger, which is on one hand, great, you know, lessons of thinking bigger and realizing like, oh, I am limiting myself.

40:01But at the same time, trying to shorten the time horizon to try and catch up to these people that I admire. There's just no way to rush that process. And every time I've tried to rush that process, particularly over the last couple of years, it's ended up backfiring. You know, like this year in particular, I made a conscious effort to be like, no more. I'm going to go back to operating authentically, doing what I feel is right, listening to the vice around me, but filtering it and using it to the best of my ability. And it's going so much better. It's really back in that way of operating authentically.

40:35And so I think you have to be careful as your network grows that you're not trying to compare yourself to those people as much. And you're just gathering inspiration from them. When you're around a lot of smart people too, ideas are going to start flying and it's your, you need to have the confidence and willingness to say like, that's a great idea. That one's not for me. Or how do you synthesize those ideas? Because in the early days I thought, well, these people all know a lot more than I do. And sure, they know maybe it's more about business, but they don't know more about my business. They don't have all the context of what's going on.

41:06They don't understand the complexities of simply introducing a new product, right? Like that has so many supply chain implications, marketing any implications. Sure. The most common advice I got from people is, oh, you sell socks. Have you thought about doing underwear? It's like, yeah, of course I've thought about doing underwear. But those are completely different supply chains, psychologies. Now it's gendered where socks are unisex. There's so many considerations, but on the surface, it's good advice. And so I've had to really learn that advice is welcomed and appreciated, but it's my job to synthesize and actually use it when it makes sense.

41:40So just start accumulating all of that and making sense of it. And I've stopped applying a lot of it when it doesn't make sense anymore and being okay with saying no, which is tough when you're surrounded by smart people, right? You've got investors, you've got mentors, you've got advisors. And of course they're smart, they know what they're doing. But I think it's really important as an entrepreneur to know you know your business best, right? And the advice is there to help guide you, but sometimes it's not what you should be doing. Walk me through some of the changes you made specifically this year.

42:09What's different between the mindset approach, attitude, processes that you're doing this year that have led to incredible results versus what you were doing last year? I'd say the number one thing we talked about was removing ego. Let's just not do things because we think they're the thing to do. Let's just do the right things. We need to understand that we can't necessarily change the market. We can't create demand that's not there at our current size right now. We need to be okay with the ebbs and flows. And we don't need to, when things are not going well, or we're in a slower period, we don't need to try and artificially inflate that.

42:47We don't need a Hail Mary. You know, silver bullets and like hacks and all these things, they're so appealing to an entrepreneur. every entrepreneur is like, you're just in it, right? It's so hard. And when someone has this new hack or new thing, it's that fallacy of like, oh, that one thing I'm not doing is going to solve all of my problems, unlock all of the growth. And it's just not true. And the worst thing that can happen is the one time that maybe that silver bullet does work because then it teaches you that, oh, there's hacks here. So I always kind of caution, like if you get lucky, just appreciate it.

43:20But these hacks typically don't work. What we ended up doing is just extending the time horizon. Like I said, I was trying to rush before. For what reason though? It was literally expectations I had put on myself. No one around me was saying, you need to grow at X or do Y. It was really me just feeling like I needed to gain acceptance of people that already accepted me. It was kind of weird. And it was really just the self-discovery of being like, no, these people already accept me. I'm doing what I do. It's kind of that kid again, right? Of like, oh, if I don't keep performing and outperforming and winning, maybe they won't like me anymore or I won't be accepted anymore.

43:56And then just being okay with like, look, you know, I have to just operate this authentically. And I asked myself, what would it look like for this business to be around in 20 years? Forget about what we grow this year. How do we build a business that endures over time? And that makes the building so much more fun. Like how do we actually get back? I fell back in love with the product again this year, right? Like I love socks, you know, it's such a weird thing to say, but one of my superpowers is I actually really love socks and care about the product. And that comes through in the product that we offer.

44:27People love them as well, because I'm obsessed with making it better. And I'm obsessed with the customer feedback around it and falling in love with the product, serving the customer, extending the time horizon and not doing things because your ego is dictating it. That's a pretty good recipe for business success. The thing that gives me the most joy is, you know, I'll sit down with our team now and we're talking about the future and it feels like we're on our toes and not our heels now. And they're also feeling really inspired. And they're saying, you know, even when, you know, like there's still challenges, you know, business is still super hard, but we're dealing with the hard problems calmly.

45:00We're like, we can figure this out. We've learned the tough lessons and we planned for this versus throwing Hail Marys. You know, it's like we were operating from a position of just trying to play catch up on, on hitting our arbitrary goals that didn't really matter. And it ultimately led to an unhappy work environment. It was stressful and it just wasn't fun. I was like, why are we doing this? We do this because we enjoy what we do. We enjoy learning and improving. And that was the big unlock is ultimately just extending the time horizon being like, what makes us happy running this business? It's interesting when you think about extending the time horizon, there's so many different ways to do that, right?

45:39Not going into debt. There's operating from a position where we can run a marathon instead of a sprint. it's not taking advantage of your customers and treating them as a win-win like you're going to be a customer for life is there anything else that comes to mind when you think of extending the time horizon in order to extend the time horizon i need to be physically and mentally as healthy as i can be same with our team this doesn't work if we're not all operating to the best of our ability to and the business has been so stressful like any business over the last 10 years that it really took a toll on my body specifically over the last two years we had a few very stressful events and I didn't deal with them.

46:15I dealt with them well in business, but the rest of my life kind of fell apart in my body and realizing that that's not a sustainable path to go on. Like being an athlete for so long and a younger, like in younger in general, it was like I death gripped through life. You know, I was just like, I learned very early with the injuries I rode through is like, oh, you can just, just make it through this. You can just brute force your way through this. And that's not the best approach always in business. And especially if you have an extended a time horizon and longevity in mind, right? It's like the same idea of, are you better off consistently working out or going once a week and just like demolishing yourself and the consistency is going to be better for sure.

46:53I had kind of like three goals this year is like get the business back to a place where we're thriving and having fun, get my health back to a place where I feel confident and inspired and like kind of all in on this. And the third one was a little more personal. It was just like, you know, I had a new kid, I have two boys and one was born this year was really just like, you know, like really focused on the family. Cause I had my first kid during like the real thick of business and during COVID as well. And, you know, I really wanted to kind of enjoy the process of this. So it was kind of like, you know, family business and health were three core pillars and those things holistically all need to be kind of going well for me to operate at my best.

47:31You know, we talk about work-life balance, which is like, I, I, I hate the concept of it in entrepreneurship, you know, like for, for an, Yeah, like a salaried worker, like sure, like balance should be, you know, something that you're thinking about, but in particular in sport or high performance careers or something that you're doing, it's like you need to tilt the scale in your favor, right? And that's by definition, no balance. However, I think what gets missed here is that part of the work for an entrepreneur like an athlete is like your health and your personal relationships. If those aren't in a good spot, you're not operating at 100 % efficiency.

48:05And so that's part of the work, right? what's not part of the work is maybe partying or doing things that you shouldn't be doing that are going to set you further back. But people think about, if I say work-life balance is a joke, people are like, oh, what about your health? Health is included in the work. And I think it's such an important part of it too. It's like, how can you be a high-performance entrepreneur? How can you tilt the scale in your favor? How can you change the odds? And I think your ability to be sharper, more alert, physically and mentally fit is going to do so much benefit for you, especially as the business grows too.

48:41The business now in its current stage is much more dependent on me thinking clearly and having good ideas and meeting people and being on when I do that. And that requires me feeling good. I like how you said tilt the odds in your favor. I've never really understood this concept of balance. The balance implies that you're perfectly equal in these things. And so I always think of this as like a mosaic. So you have a border and you have different size pieces. And some of those pieces are family, some are work, some are maybe your hobbies. Health is definitely one of the big pieces there. And they shrink and they sort of like, but they can never go away.

49:19Sometimes work's going to be more of a priority. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes you're going to, family's going to take over. So the pieces expand, but they can never really go to zero. And health is like so foundational for all of these. But when we get busy, the first thing we do is like, what do we do? We skip lunch or we get a really crappy lunch. We stop working out. We stop sleeping really well. And we think we tell ourselves that we'll just make up for it later. And we start making worse and worse decisions. We're cranky, we're irritable, and it just compounds negatively. Yeah, it almost ensures destruction, right?

49:49So I've got a protocol now because that's what happened to me two years ago when things were going poorly. That's what I let go. And it just, it cascaded into a two-year event, which I'm sure could have been much shorter. And I just treat it much more like an athlete. You know, if you're injured, you go into recovery protocol. So if you're dealing with a high stress event in business, what's your recovery protocol? What's that look like? How do you build that? How do you build that into a system and follow it? When these things happen, you can't solve them overnight. And so like working an extra three hours, I mean, sometimes you need to stay up late.

50:18You know, there were late nights because I'm literally on email chains with my lawyers for dealing with stuff. But that's not every night and that's not super common. And you can moderate that stuff. Letting your health go is kind of the worst strategy I've found, honestly, because getting through those times is down to resilience, perseverance. And if you let your health go, and when it did, that's when very rarely have I ever felt like I couldn't do something. When my health was in a poor spot about two years ago, going through the thick of it, But that was one time where I was like, I don't know if I can do this much longer.

50:51Like if I don't get better, I honestly don't know if I could do this or I would trade this business to feel better because I'm just so sick right now and I just don't want to do it anymore. That was the only period. So that's when my health left. I was like, oh, was that the lossy? That was the cease and desist that led to our ultimate rebrand. Yeah, that was like the first. Walk me through that. We're five years into business operating under a former name and it's going really well. It's 2021. Our business that previous year grew 135 % year over year, and we were already growing an average of 100 % year over year.

51:26So it was just up and to the right. I was physically feeling good. I was fit. I ran a half marathon PR that year. Everything was great. It's the year I think we met and I was raising. We bootstrapped the business from the start. and like I said I started to build a network and this opportunity rose to raise some money that not only there was kind of three parts to it you know there was a personal security part to it there was capitalizing the business for the first time like actually having some some firepower behind what we want to invest in and then also inviting in some voices that I was so desperate for of people I admired so it was kind of this opportunity I remember telling you know a bunch of friends and my wife being like, you'll never get this.

52:08All my business heroes want to give me money and invest in the company. This seems almost like cheating. This is incredible. So I pounced on that opportunity. But literally, the day the money hit the account, we raised millions of dollars. It hits the account. I get an email from my lawyer that says urgent in the subject line. And that's just almost never a good thing. And it's from my IP attorney, which I rarely hear from. It was our first ever cease and assist. and it basically said, you know, there's a company that believes they have rights over your name and is demanding that you do X, Y, and Z.

52:42And one of those would stop using the name. And so I was kind of like immediately just shook because we just raised all this money. We've been in business for five years. And that was the first time, you know, in sport and in business to that point, everything was something that like I was solving problems that I created. I wasn't battling somebody like I was in charge. this was something happening to us that I was completely out of control on. And I had no frame for it. I had never gone through it before. I didn't know anyone that went through it. For maybe half an hour, I was like, this is a death blow.

53:15I was kind of let myself. And then I called you, actually. I called a few other people. I was like, okay, this is not uncommon, but it was incredibly stressful. It basically led us onto this six-month journey of rebranding and changing our name. And that's an incredibly complex process for a business that's been around for five years. And how do you even start that process of communicating the messaging? What is a name that's going to work? And the stress, I think ultimately the stress came down to was not messing it up, right? I had so many people that relied on me at that point. I had a young family.

53:50I had employees. I had investors. I had what felt like the world on my shoulders. And none of them were putting that pressure on me. I put it on myself because I told you, I take these responsibilities incredibly seriously. If someone gives me money or bets on me, like I said, it's my duty to do right. And so I wasn't going to not put 110 % effort into it. And I had to learn. So I basically, over the next six months, became quite educated on IP law and figuring out kind of everything and working with the best attorneys. And we found the best people and working through the rebranding process and kind of going through discovery of what is a brand.

54:25you know like when i started it i kind of just picked a name that that i liked and yeah we filed trademarks we did all the right things but i didn't do any diligence to see if there were other brands using similar names and so this time around i had to be like what's a brand name that could champion a business going forward we've been in business for five years people know about us it's not a massive business but it's growing and what's one that's protectable and you've got a timeline because you've got a person on the other side saying change your name by this date or we're going to sue you and it's just like so you got a gun to your head and you've got this huge list of things you need to accomplish.

54:55And it was incredibly daunting. And this was, you know, the one time, uh, like I had no one else to lean on. Like my team couldn't do this for me. Investors couldn't. I had to do all of it and kind of absorb all of the stress work directly with the, like, I don't have a, like, I didn't have a co-founder or an operating partner at that level. So like, it's me on email chain with all the attorneys understanding all the complexities of it and then figuring out how are we going to go down this process? And so, yeah, it was ultimately the stress of that. And, but like I said, now kind of a few years removed, I'm incredibly thankful for that period.

55:28I just like learned so much, like the buyout of my co-founder. That was kind of what I coined as like 150 grand. That was my MBA. I learned so much during that process just around what is a shareholder agreement? What's the importance of it? Like around co-founder dynamics and values and buyouts and the way we had to do everything. I learned so much at that period. This was now another learning opportunity of like, oh, okay, we're, we're operating in a different league now where like, this is a thing and people, you have to play a little bit of defense people are going to throw like shoot arrows at you you know and so that was an arrow and ultimately i let the second arrow hit me which was my reaction right you have the first arrow which you can't control the second arrow is like how you deal with it and i forget where i'm quoting that from but someone says that i loved it because it's like you can choose not to get by the second arrow and i chose to kind of like not do the right things in terms of taking care of myself i give myself grace now because i didn't know any better i didn't have protocols built i didn't know i was going to get burned out because similar to work life balance.

56:20I believe burnout is the result of working a lot on things that don't fill your cup, that are out of line with your mission. It's not from overworking. The common thing is like, oh, if you work 80 hours a week, you're going to burn out. It's not true. I can work 80 hours, 100 hours a week on things I love and feel very energized and excited and you're obsessed with it. But working that 80 hours on this legal stuff, which was completely counter to what I wanted to do in our mission, it was such a distraction and a sideshow. And it's draining. It was incredibly draining. The stress, the anxiety around it.

56:51I smile, right? Because it's just like, if I think back, there's so many incredible stories. And it was just like such a rewarding thing to go through knowing we've been on the other side. And we've now under our new name Outweigh sold more product than we did ever as our old name. But it just was incredibly difficult. It goes to show you that as you get more successful, you start to attract attention. A lot of people like to compete with lawyers instead of product. That's the losing mindset. Those people that are doing that are operating from a place of fear and they're playing more defense than offense.

57:20And that's not how I like to operate. I'm much more of a friends in business kind of guy. I think like business is not a zero sum. I think everyone can win. The markets are massive, especially in the stock space. It's a$50 billion market. But yeah, we went from no legal issues to three in one year. So it wasn't just that one. I got like within the next six months, got two others around completely unrelated things as well. And I was just like, it was almost comical, you know, it's just like kick me while I was down. And, but I learned how to deal with those things. We resolved all of them. But yeah, man, it's, it's, it's something you just kind of have to go through.

57:59What went into the decision to rebrand instead of fight? So every bone in my body wanted to fight, right? I came from a career of where like, you're in a sport, you're competitive, like your number one goal is to fight. It's to win, right not physically but like fight for that podium spot like that's what you're doing but i had to this time prioritize everyone else as well and think through what how does this affect not just me but everyone involved like i mentioned and it was just a lot of discussions you know first it started with like if we do decide to fight what's that look like and the quotes i got were it could take you two years per country you fight this in and up to a million dollars there's the financial and then there's the brain drain of doing that.

58:40And so you weigh that against what are the financial and other implications of changing the name. And ultimately, you know, what I landed on was this understanding of what our brand is, which is why this whole process was incredibly rewarding is because I got to really dig into like, why do people buy our product? If we were a brand, like a luxury brand where we were trading on our name as a big piece of the value, this was going to be a big problem. But we were product driven. So people bought us because they loved the product. The name in that scenario was a reference to the product. And the way I thought about it was like I broke brand down into kind of three core components.

59:17And I like to use kind of like analogies to help visualize things. I visualized a brand as a human. And we'll use you as an example. Okay, so you've got three things primarily. You have your name, how you look and your essence. And so your name is how I'm going to reference. I'm going to call you or I'm going to talk to you about other people. But if you came to me and said, you know, now my name is Dave, that would be like a little weird. It takes some adjusting, but like it doesn't change who you are, whatever. No problem. We can figure that out. How you look if suddenly you came and had shoulder length hair somehow and yeah, and, and change how you look and look completely different.

59:54It would take some getting used to how to recognize you, but ultimately you'd be the same person and I would still want to hang out with you. If you came, looked the same, had the same name, but were a completely different person and our interactions were different, I would question whether or not you were the same person. Whereas you changing your name or how you look doesn't change who you are. Brand is ultimately how you make someone feel. And it's the essence of the company. Understanding that gave me a lot of kind of like a much more kind of positive path forward of realizing, okay, we're changing the way people reference us and we can communicate this story.

1:00:29We're not changing how we look. We're able to maintain our logo. We're able to maintain our product and everything that made us visually look the way we do. That's not changing our mission and vision. That's not going to change. It's going to evolve with our community, with our customers, but we had to change our name. And so once we understood kind of like, what are the implications here and how should we be thinking about it? It became a lot less daunting, not easier, but less daunting to figure out we're just changing how people reference us. And thankfully, people don't buy our product because we put our name on it.

1:00:59Our name is just the way that we're referenced in the world for the most part. And there is goodwill. There's not to say that a name is not important. It is incredibly important, which is why we took so much time to figure out a new one. Once we could communicate that message and do that authentically and try to get that message to as many existing customers as possible, we can control the narrative there. And also understanding that this only really affected people who've heard of us. And when we looked forward, it's like all the majority of the growth was still in front of us. So this doesn't actually matter for people that never heard of us because they wouldn't know our current name from a hole in the wall.

1:01:29So it's like, OK, that also makes it a little less daunting. It's like we have a community of customers here that know about us. We know how to reach them and we're going to be very authentic. So we actually ended up creating a little YouTube series where I walked people through and brought them along on the rebranding process. I was like, here's what we're doing. We interviewed like hundreds of people of our customers being like, what does the brand mean to you? We're going to evolve this and we're going to actually like take it in a direction that you now help us build. When the name changed, that was almost a part of the ego I'd attached to.

1:01:59Like I made this thing. It's mine. That's where that kind of like left, which I think was really a good thing. So it's like, this is our brand now. This is the customer's brand. This is the team's brand. We're all building this. And I think that's really important for an entrepreneur is to let go of that my, my, mine, because you need to be able to delegate. You need to be able to bring in people that are better than you. You need to realize that your job as the entrepreneur, the founder, is to really get the thing going. And if you're the person to scale it, do that as well. But you need to build the system around you.

1:02:30And so that was also a really unique time where I was like, it felt like what I had created, the name I created kind of died a little bit. like that phase died a little bit and we were reborn as like I had this kind of other analogy as like up to that period we were you know we were a caterpillar in the first five years and we went into a cocoon and emerged a butterfly it's like it called it our butterfly moment and you know although like we look different or with a new name or whatever we're still the same thing we're just kind of now we've got wings and now we can fly and it was like it was kind of this beautiful little way I made myself feel better and explained that to the team.

1:03:05And it's like, this is our butterfly moment. We can either, like I said earlier, we can choose to let this unfortunate situation hold us back or propel us forward. And so we went through the mindset of how do we actually use this as a springboard? How do we bring the community along for us and actually walk them through this and make them feel involved and like their voice was heard and it ended up working out really well for us. I suspect you're going to have a lot more legal challenges as you go from eight figures to nine to hopefully 10 as you get more and more attention. At dinner last night, I think David said this too, is like, you know, you're not a real entrepreneur so you get a legal letter, right?

1:03:38And he's not the first person to say that to me. And it's just so hard when you get the first one, like anything in business, you know, it's like. the first time it happens to you, you feel like you're the only one in the world this is happening to. and it's very lonely, especially if you don't have a network. Like if you don't have a network in particular, that can be very scary. Thankfully at that time I had people to be like, oh, this happened. They're like, oh, no big deal. Like you'll do it. And now I met with a young person and kind of something similar was happening. I'm like, no, you'll be okay.

1:04:05And it felt good to kind of be that voice. I could see them kind of like start, the wheels were starting to turn and starting to get stressed. I was like, look, just trust me. I was in your position. Like you will be okay, but you need to do this. You need to like take care of yourself and kind of walk them through what we did. ultimately, if we can share those lessons, I think they're so important. I welcome the challenges. I'm happy to be in a period of like smooth water right now. But ultimately, the challenges, like I said, are how we grow. And you're right. It's part of business. It's like people are shooting arrows and you're going to get hit.

1:04:36It's what are you going to do about it? And learning that what seems like a death blow often is not, is how you build that resiliency and the ability to keep pushing forward. So now when we got each subsequent legal letter, that initial shock impact and how I dealt with it was better and improved a lot and how I managed those things. And that's ultimately the goal is how can you build that resiliency and how can you build the teams? And we've got incredibly great attorneys now and processes for when these things happen. You only build those over the first time it happening, right? It's like no one's building up an IP attorney team and the whole process around IP infringement if you don't have issues there.

1:05:11I can say things you can't, but like some of the stuff that people are claiming is just like absolutely ridiculous. It shouldn't be granted that this has any sort of intellectual property rights whatsoever. Yeah. And I'm intentionally having to be quite vague and not even mentioning what our previous name is because that's in these agreements of what I can and cannot say, but you're right. The unfortunate thing about IP law specifically is it almost exclusively operates in the gray area, right? In trademark infringement in particular, what they're looking for is, will the non-observant consumer, in other words, a person who knows nothing, who's not paying attention, would they be confused between one brand and another?

1:05:49That come down to logos or words. And that's a hard thing to prove. And ultimately, who's going to prove that over time is the person with a lot of money because they're going to argue different things. It's a battle of bank accounts. The battle of bank accounts, it's a battle of time, right? Like how much time are you willing to spend? Like I said, it was like much more than a million dollars. It was the two years, the two years with no certainty. So I was like, that's too much of a looming, you know, Too big of a risk. Too big of a risk. And generally these things are without, they're pretty baseless, but they're usually bigger companies with firepower.

1:06:18I want to come back to the mosaic or balance with two young kids, a rapidly growing business. What have you learned about using your time effectively? It's had to evolve, right? Because I've been in a few different, I've worn a few different hats to the different scale of our business. And like as a founder, you start day one doing everything. And as the business evolves, you start to hire people, but you're still doing a lot of the things and you're micromanaging. I hadn't done this before, so I'd do all the mistakes and you're overriding things and you don't know any better. But eventually you start to learn, like I mentioned with kind of how we evolved after the rebrand, like you've got to bring in better people than you and understand how are you best applied, right?

1:07:02How are you the most effective in your job? And how I manage all that now is like I kind of had to, for myself, relearn what work is. How do I hold myself to account? How do I judge myself? Because the other kind of downside of entrepreneurship is you don't have a lot of feedback as a founder. When you have a boss, you're getting feedback, you know, if you're hitting marks or not. And, you know, we have investors and stuff, but our investors are also like entrepreneurs and they're great. So they're not exactly kind of keeping tabs as much as like a boss would, for example. people and so you have to one hold yourself to account and figure out what that looks like and for me I had to reinvent that I was like work today is not what it used to be it's not hands on the tools as much it's not overriding decisions it's not getting too into the weeds it's not losing touch I still have a very firm kind of finger on the pulse of the business I have a lot of consumer feedback sent directly to my inbox I want to know what's going on at that level, but it means not getting involved in the weeds and kind of doing those jobs.

1:08:04And so work for me is how do I like the mosaic? How do I holistically make sure I'm in the best mindset to have a good idea? I say my job is to really have a good idea once a quarter, like a really good idea. And those ideas move the needle quite substantially. And they often require a lot to go into those ideas. But I've got such incredible people working on kind of the day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month stuff. My job is to be looking six to 12 months out and then further, but typically six to 12 months, because I think beyond that you're guessing. In six to 12 months, we can make a pretty good idea of where we need to be going.

1:08:41And ultimately, it's to have those good ideas. So how do I put myself in a position to have those good ideas? That's a lot of reading. that's a lot of consuming just basic information out there. So reading even just like the publicly traded companies in our space, reading the reports, how are the CEOs thinking? How's the market looking at these businesses and what are they saying? It's networking with people, extracting those insights. I call it almost like engineered serendipity as well. It's like, how do you put yourself in a bunch of different situations to just extract an idea? How can you go idea harvesting?

1:09:14I look at that as my job to basically go out there and collect the information, come back and synthesize it and apply it in which way makes the most sense for our business. And of course, that's not all I do. I would love to, that's all I do, but I get pulled in to the business, problems flow uphill. And so there's still those things. But thankfully, I've got incredible people that kind of head those off now as well. And my area of excellence and where I'm the most effective is when I'm creative. And so I'm creative when I'm not stressed. When I'm creative, I'm thinking about those ideas and networking and kind of operating.

1:09:48But the lack of stress also comes from taking care of myself. And so it's been tough though to redefine work as that because it doesn't look like sitting in front of a computer. It doesn't look like nine to five. And so I had to battle with this. Like, am I working hard enough? And it was this realization that like, oh, I'm out of the death grip phase. That's no longer serving me. I can't just sit down and death grip a good idea. I can't just sit there with a Google Doc and be like, good idea time. That's not how it works anymore. My work is 24-7, the mosaic. It could be something my wife says.

1:10:21She's incredibly smart. She gives me tons of ideas. She's the real co-founder in the business, right? Those early days, who am I going over everything with? Her level of business knowledge would be higher than people going with MBAs. She's seen it all. Talking to her about things, walking through problems, talking to everyone. it's just like work looks like that. And so it's spending time with family, but it's, it's, are you, can you extract something? Is there an insight that comes out of that as well? Another way to look at the mosaics is seasons, right? There's seasons where you need to be busier and I've really identified where those seasons are and, and that's communicated with my family and, you know, my wife and partner and where that's going to be kind of all in like what's in, we'll just say, what season are we in?

1:11:02Right. And how do we adapt to that and make sure that we're operating at the best of our ability in all areas that matter. What have you learned about simplicity and focus when it comes to operating a business that most people miss? I think the tendency to do more is just the common path people go down. They're like, okay, I've got some level of success. How do I replicate that by doing more? So like, for example, we sell socks. Should you sell underwear? What people fail to realize there is, have you fully maximized the opportunity that's in front of you? I mean, really? optimize it. I mean, the power of focus is so important.

1:11:37The way I kind of like explain this to our team is imagine you're running a race and you're in the lead pack and you're doing a good job. And out of the corner of your eye, you kind of catch another race going on. You're like, oh, that looks fun. And you hop the barrier and you're in that, but now you're middle and back of the pack. You didn't prepare for that race. You don't really know the landscape. Oh, and you're now falling behind in the race you're running because you haven't built the infrastructure to maybe have another teammate that could run that race who trained for it. For example, that'd be like hiring or developing a different line of business.

1:12:07But what a lot of entrepreneurs do is they try to run multiple races. And that's like a surefire way to burn yourself out and also just not give the attention and focus to what really matters. We're taught that to get more, you have to do more. And I just don't think that's true. I think to get more, you should be doing less, typically. You should be subtracting. So going into this year, we're very clear on our goals. Almost like a bit of an insecurity. We were chatting about this too, is like, are socks enough? You know, is it a big enough goal? But outside of my own ego, it's like, why aren't socks enough?

1:12:40Right? It's a fit. Like I said,$50 billion industry. We're a leader in it and we're doing really well. And we're of that market size. We're just scratching the surface. If you would even say that, right? It's a massive market. it. And so what I always go back to is like, we've barely maximized the opportunity here. We're at the start line still. Why would we do anything else? And we love doing this. And I think that level of focus empowers you to like really become an expert at it and become a master of it and extend the time horizon. Not to say we won't do other things in the future, but right now, the best opportunity we have in front of us is what we're doing.

1:13:18So why would we take any of that focus away. And every time we've kind of faltered over the past years, it's been, like I said, chasing a silver bullet or trying to go down a path that is just out of line of our circle of excellence. You know, like, why are we doing this other than, and it wasn't really a, those paths were never something I was like, this is what we need to do. Like the conviction I have around socks, it was advice or, or, or grasping for growth or trying to figure it out. And I think like in anything in life, focus is so incredibly important. And business is also just so hard.

1:13:52Like life, there's just always things coming at you. Being able to simplify what you're doing your day-to-day to deal with those coming in. Like I said earlier, we now, of course, still have problems, but our ability to deal with those problems is incredible because we're not so underwater with everything we're trying to do. We're just so ready to deal with what's ever coming that way. And I think the focus and just the mental clarity around it and being okay with socks, which is, it sounds kind of funny now that I say it, but just being okay with that is so important. And it's just unlocked this level of love of what we're doing again.

1:14:28When it comes to design, how do you go about anticipating what people want? It's become more data-driven. In the early days, I designed what I liked, of course. And young entrepreneurs or people starting their first business, they have solutions looking for problems. So that's what they teach you in business school, like come up with a solution and go try and find the problem. Whereas you should be solving problems, right? You should be looking for, and particularly if it's your first business, you should be solving a problem you deal with because otherwise, why are you qualified to do that? And so, like I said earlier, I was solving my problem of a pair of socks that could do it all.

1:15:02Figure out where your advantages are and what product path you want to go down and why that matters. I'm not that unique. What I like, there's likely millions of people that are going to like these designs as well. And so that was the simple start, not trying to guess what people wanted. I was really trying to just solve my own problem. That's evolved now to having core categories of what we know people like. And like I mentioned earlier, the designs are a way that we get people into the business. So we kind of design things around nature, animals, food, abstract, funny. And that's really a way to evoke some sort of emotional response from people.

1:15:36Give them that kind of like giggle or laugh that maybe they want to buy that pair and it makes them feel a certain way. But ultimately what's super exciting too is we found that designs act as a certain level of inspiration for people. It's one of the first pieces of clothing you put on in the morning. And what I would do with socks is I would lay them out. How I'm feeling that day is the kind of design I would use. And I heard that from customers and friends as well. They're like, oh, I've got this important meeting today. This is the pair of socks I wear for that. So I think that's a really cool aspect of the product too, is like, can our product be this thing you put on in the morning that inspires you to go after your big goal?

1:16:12One of our internal kind of goals is to inspire personal bests. That's kind of why we do what we do at a brand level. We don't really care if you get to the finish line first, but we want to make sure you get to the start line, you try and you set a goal and you actually go for it. I think that's just so important to move forward and kind of remove the outcome, but like really focus on getting started. And yeah, so ultimately like the designs follow that kind of pathway and we're trying to inspire people but also just give them what we know they like. Our best selling stuff and what people buy the most of are just really basic stuff.

1:16:41And I've kind of evolved into wearing more basic designs. We're both wearing basic versions of your socks. That's the season I'm in is more basic. Well, I got like more of a retro inspired kind of design going on, which I really like right now. But yeah, the designs are just this fantastic way people express themselves. And I love seeing what our customers, how they kind of move through the world with them on. And I love to ask them when I see them, like, hey, why'd you choose that as well? Like, why does that mean something to you? We've got incredibly talented designers now and they use a lot of kind of insights and data.

1:17:08And then sometimes we'll just throw shit at the wall too. Like I'll have an idea, you know, like of course, like founder has an idea for something stupid and we'll try it. And typically those don't do well. One thing I have had to get better at is not letting my preferences dictate what goes out. So if I dislike a design, I have to ask myself, I have to remove kind of my personal preference, be like, do I think our customer base will like this design? Because we're now much bigger than my preference and it's no longer the million or so people that are like me. It's much bigger than that. And so that was challenging because like it is your business and you ultimately kind of want it to be in line with what you like.

1:17:39But again, it plays into that. Like it needs to evolve to be much more than you. Because I don't like, for example, one of our best on designs right now is a cat and I don't like cats. So I'm just like, secretly I'm like, I don't want to see it do so well. But at the same time, I'm like, hey, people love it, you know? And like, cool, power to them too. Like people love cats. I don't like cats, you know? I'm allergic to them. That's why I don't like them. But I think that's really cool. And that was important is getting out of my own way too and realizing like that comes down to just hiring good people in general.

1:18:06It's like you hire them because they're better than you. It's like, so guide them and have your inputs, but you know, make sure you ultimately let them bring forth something that is better than what you would have done as well. What have you learned about taking big swings? I think it comes down to like, why are you taking that swing? So I've taken big swings that were authentic and they were like the big goals, like even just starting the business or trying to go after certain athletic goals. But then there's big swings that are trying to solve problems in a faster way. So maybe making a big hire that you're trying to rush because you think they're going to come in and be able to solve all your problems.

1:18:40Just choosing a co-founder because you think it'll be more fun. These are just never good reasons to kind of take big swings because you're relying on hope and that hope is just generally a bad strategy. The big swings I've taken where they weren't in line with my authenticity and kind of why we're doing them, like I talked about earlier, that personal mission and drive of why are you doing what you're doing? That's what's going to take you through the hard times. That's what's going to make you endure. And if you're going to take the big swing, you've got to know it's going to come with a lot of turmoil.

1:19:07It's going to be challenging and you've got to be ready to back that up. When I think about it now, I try to imagine I'm in a room with 100 people and I'm explaining my rationale for taking a big swing. And I like to imagine that I need to do a good enough job that the majority of the people will be like, that makes sense. At least that's rational why you want to do that. So I try to take myself out, metaphorically put myself into a room and be like, would most people agree with this? And then the second question I like to ask is, would I be happy with this decision in five years? So I like to extend the time horizon on that.

1:19:39It's like, is this solving a short-term problem, but creating a long-term one is something I've had to learn the hard way, of course. But I really try to do that now. And even if it's going to be short-term, good, long-term, bad, I just, no way. It's just, it's not worth it. What have you learned about hiring? I learned that I got really lucky early on. And so that, like I talked earlier about the worst thing of like hacks or doing hard things that work out for you is that you get lucky. So I got incredibly lucky with my first few hires who are all still with us. And they've scaled and grown with the company and they're leading major parts of the company, which is incredible.

1:20:12During the period of high growth, we had to build the team and build it fairly rapidly because we started growing pretty quickly. And honestly, I just was not experienced enough to really do that properly. And hiring for what I would say now are probably the wrong reasons. Hiring for org chart, not really what needs to be executed. Hiring in ways because that's just how it's been done. because I was just trying to like look around what I've been. I'd never done this before. Not really questioning if we should be hiring or subtracting, right? So a lot of hiring happens because there's just a lot of inefficiency in the organization.

1:20:48And I think that's a really important thing is like, do you need a person or a process or do you need to stop doing that entirely? And so when we were half the size we are now, we had twice as many people as we do now, which is crazy because we were just so inefficient. I really didn't understand the concept of subtraction and how we can build efficiently. The biggest hiring mistake I made was thinking like, you know, going into our second year of not hitting the growth goals, like I arbitrarily set, ego really attached to it. Like we need to do better. We need to kind of keep the good times rolling.

1:21:18You know, COVID was this big inflationary period for e-commerce businesses and direct-to-consumer businesses. Like everyone started shopping online, you got this huge boom and the market started to draw down really hard. And so you're trying to find growth and exceptional growth in a market that's going down, it's very challenging. But I was kind of hardheaded about it. And I was like, surely we just need an experienced person to come in and lead marketing. I ran a good process in terms of diligencing the person that I ended up hiring. But the mistake I made was not filling the top of funnel. I didn't get enough candidates of that same quality to compare and contrast them against.

1:21:51They were able to tell me exactly what I wanted to hear. I got good references, all the typical things. Yeah, ultimately, the lesson I learned there was like, I need to actually take what they're saying, compare it to other people as well. And so I took a big swing. That was, this is one of those big swings that I took that wasn't authentic. It was like, it was trying to accomplish something that like - Trying to force something. Trying to force something and shorten the time horizon. And it just went incredibly wrong. You know, it turns out they were not exactly truthful about their experience.

1:22:17Like they weren't as good at the job as they were. They were working other jobs during ours. It was a remote. They were, you know, based in the US. We're here in Canada. I got played. It felt like almost violating because it was just like totally like I'd never dealt with that before. It was it was just it was very weird. It didn't only work. It caused a lot of internal conflict as well because like it was a big org shift. The guy currently had running marketing was now replaced with this expert. And that's, you know, wasn't a great move on my part as well. And that was kind of the last straw, you know, like last year, mid year is where we kind of like that didn't work out.

1:22:50That's where I just like wiped the table clean and said, like, here's everything we're not doing anymore because we're just going to strip this down. We're going to subtract and rebuild because this just isn't working. And I don't care about these growth goals anymore. Like we need to get back to a place where we're operating authentically and doing good work and fulfilling our mission. We're just like we're not even listening to the customer anymore. Right. We're doing things, trying to chase growth and that chasing growth will will as a consequence force you to start doing things that, you know, aren't inherently good for your brand or you're going to new categories.

1:23:19that don't make sense or change messaging that's out of line with why your customers are there in the first place. And so again, as painful as that hire was and getting that wrong, it was just kind of the last straw of like another lesson learned for sure. But last straw of like, no, I need to rethink how we're doing everything right now and the internal team. And that's where you went for simplicity and sort of focus. Yeah, that was July of 2023. I was like, this is where we're resetting. And that's really like the success we're seeing now is the result of a thousand things we've done over the last year.

1:23:48We're not doing anything special right now. But the choices we made in July and subsequent choices after that all built this forward momentum of doing the right thing that are now all working. And so people, you could ask me right now, it's like, what are you doing that's leading to your growth this year? I couldn't really answer that question because it would be, well, here's how much time do we have, right? Are we going to do an eight hour podcast? Because there's literally a thousand things we did. It started with subtraction, but it goes much deeper than that. It goes into everything that we do.

1:24:19And it's been so fulfilling to do that, though, because from that point on, we've just been building and it's felt way more like it did previous to the tough times. I remember we went for a walk July last year and we were talking about Bill Walsh's book, The Score Will Take Care of Itself. Instead of focusing on the revenue, the score, just focus on the things you control. The revenue will be the revenue, right? I can't like go like the early days where I could force my classmates to buy a pair. I can't go force people to buy socks now. And I think like it's not going to move the needle if you're knocking on doors.

1:24:52Well, exactly. Maybe a little bit, but yeah, not, not, not where we needed to. And I'm not shy to still get out there and hand to hand combat. I will do it. If you're focused on the work and you're focused on fulfilling the promise you have to your customers, like the results will come. If you, if you do a good product and you market it well, and the goal for us is socks on feet. The product is so damn good. I want to get more socks on feet because then people will come back. So how do we do that effectively? The same is true of sport, right? Like every time I got to the start line to race, like anything could go wrong.

1:25:18There's no guarantee I'm going to win. Like if I focus too much on the results, you lose sight of everything else that's important of just actually executing. Like my job was actually just to do what I trained for. And that's all you can really do, right? Like those people out there will be like, we don't have goals. I think goals are still important. I think goals are incredibly important. You need a North star, but that's how we think about goals. Much more of a North Star, then we need to hit this. Because those are fairly arbitrary. We're not a public company. We're not having to do earnings reports that are going to move our stock prices.

1:25:46It doesn't matter. If we're doing good business and we're growing and our customers are happy and we're profitable and we can do that over 20 years, we've got a pretty damn good business. I have a saying with the kids, which is the lack of patience changes the outcome. There's a natural pace to a lot of things and we get into a lot of trouble when we try to speed that up. I agree with that wholeheartedly. That has been kind of the theme. Sometimes these things can work, but I think very rarely over the long term they do. That's not to say don't try things as they come up to. I think like I always try to be cautious of telling people like, oh, don't try the hacks.

1:26:22Just focus on long term. Sometimes you need to try things and you need to like touch the stove once or twice. But generally speaking, if you prioritize the long term and do good business, it's going to work well. And in life, like even with just health, man, it takes so long. You know, it's just like, if you actually want to build a resilient body and a healthy body, like it's just, it takes time. Same with the business and sport and results. It's just like, be kind to yourself. I found it's like, you don't need it all right now. You know, you just like one foot in front of the other, steady progress.

1:26:49You went through a process recently to learn not to care as much about what other people think about you or what you're doing. I kind of had this current fear or like I got to a certain level in my cycling career where I peaked, but it wasn't where I wanted to peak. It wasn't kind of the ultimate goal of, well, the ultimate goal would have been winning, being the best in the world, right? I never got there. One year I was number one in Canada, but I don't feel like I had unfinished business there. I just didn't reach the top. And looking back, there were a lot of things I wish I did differently.

1:27:22When I was looking here, I was like, I don't want that to happen again. So I was trying to search for like, what am I not doing? What have I never done before that I should be doing to try and challenge myself and grow? So I actually texted a mutual friend of ours, Andrew Wilkinson, and I was like, here's kind of what I'm going through. I didn't know if it was therapy I needed to do. I didn't know if it was a business coach. Like I just knew I needed to work through this and understand myself better and just learn more about like, what is my superpower ultimately? Like, where should I be focused?

1:27:51And I just want to make sure I'm doing everything I can. And he mentioned this guy, Jack Skeen, who does this roadmap process where Andrew had done it and a few other people in the business community had done it. And it's this kind of extensive process where you work with Jack and you do some clinical kind of like psychology tests, understand kind of your tendencies. And he does interviews of your close friends and family, people that have opted in to being around you. for the most part. They see something in you. And then interview calls and coaching calls with him. The goal of that is to understand yourself better and understand what your superpower is.

1:28:31I didn't go into it with the goal of trying to care less about what people think. That was an outcome of the process. I actually didn't know what to expect. I just knew that I wanted to be taken apart and put back together. I wanted to actually piece by piece really understand myself Like I wanted to dig into the childhood and be like, what does drive me? Why do I do the things I do? Why am I so intense? Why do I have these goals and need to achieve them? Why are my expectations so high? A lot of why I was moving through the world was acceptance and caring about what people thought, like attaching my worth to how other people thought about me.

1:29:13and that was a really unique insight of just like I wasn't living authentically you know and I was kind of limited by the belief of others I never really struggled with caring what people think unless I like admired them or cared like cared about their opinion and I think it's important to like prioritize what people you care about think but that can't limit you and it can't change what you feel is right and what you need to do as well. And so going through that process and building the systems and kind of building the understanding of how do you deal with that? One thing I did daily is I'll kind of do some journaling.

1:29:55And I just started asking myself every day, when did I not say or do what I was really thinking or feeling? Because I didn't want to moderate myself anymore. That's not to say be rude, but it's not to... If we're having a a conversation and I disagree. I want to be more willing to say that because I don't want to have a fear of thinking that the other person across the table is going to not like me anymore because I disagree. It's like, is that a good friendship anyways? It sounds obvious, but a lot of people operate that way. It's very natural to want to fit in and want to be accepted. And so it can be a bit scary to be really authentic.

1:30:30And it causes resentment if you're holding that in. Well, totally. Yeah. It's exhausting because you're actually not living your true self. you're like a chameleon. And that's where a lot of people who think they may be introverted, I think, are just actually limiting a lot. They're just kind of molding to their environment. That's why they're so exhausted after this. They're just around the wrong people or they're not being authentic. So learning strategies on how not to care, that's a lot easier said than done. But asking myself that question and kind of knowing I have to be accountable to that allows me to be more authentic because I don't want to answer that question.

1:30:59But here's where I moderated myself. And I'm happy to say I've only once in a couple of months had to answer that question and not be like, yeah, I moderated myself here. It was just out of fear. It was like a public speaking. I didn't want to get up and talk. It's like, I don't know. I cared what people thought for some reason. It kind of affected me. Outside of not caring what people think, the real kind of unlock there was I said superpower. And it came down that my love and appreciation for socks and the utility and how they can improve what I see there. And learning how that can be enough you know like learning that um i would like i mentioned earlier i was insecure about socks being enough like i do now feel i'm in a spot where i know a lot about business i've got a lot of experience i kind of had this this angst of like are socks the best utilization of these skills that i've built and i kind of mentioned that to jack he's like well that's kind of silly like if you're doing shoes would that be enough what about tennis rackets.

1:31:58And I was like, oh, I've never thought about it that way. I was like, you know, Nike's a great business, right? It was shoes for such a long time. I was like, no one ever was like, that's a lame business, right? I was like, socks. I was like, I've mentioned a couple of times, it's a big market. I was like, why isn't this enough? Why in my head are socks, you know, not as good as shoes or rackets or some tech thing? It was just this kind of like self-imposed sort of limiter of like, I don't know, of like, I guess caring what people think because I don't have a better idea right now. And I really love what I do.

1:32:30And so it was really helpful to understand that because it, like I said, it helped me. I was already falling back in love with kind of the process, but it was like, it almost allowed me to kind of like fully commit to it again and be like, oh no, socks, you know, are enough until the next idea comes. I kind of challenged them because I was like, oh, I did all this work and like socks are my superpower. And he's like, no, they are right now. Your ability to like take a product and see how it can be improved is your superpower, but you don't have another product in mind right now. He's like, that will come and you'll know when it comes.

1:33:01He's like, be okay with where you are. And that's been a kind of theme for me is, you know, I got to see the feedback and read the report. And, you know, one of the things that like Rob tries to rush through life and I do like, I'm always like onto the next thing. I don't celebrate the wins. And it's just like, I'm trying to rush to the next thing. And it's like, as I get older too, and I'm trying to appreciate the moments and smell the roses. And a good example of this is when I was cycling, I got to travel the world and see all these incredible places. I was so intense and so focused that I would not enjoy anywhere.

1:33:33I'd be in Spain or Italy and I would be so tunnel visioned that I didn't even give myself time to like appreciate where I was. And I always told myself, I'll be back. I'll appreciate it later. I haven't been back, right? Like it just ended. And I look back, I'm like, I think I would be a lot more fulfilled if like I actually just smelt the roses, right? Because like the results are one thing, but like the experiences and the opportunities to like be there. And like, we always look back and like, we don't talk about the results. We talk about the experiences and the journey. And unfortunately I just like, didn't take time to appreciate the journey.

1:34:06And so I'm really trying to do that now. And, you know, it's just way more fulfilling to be like, we're in it. One of my favorite quotes is one of my favorite shows, The Office. And it's like the final episode and Andy says, he's kind of reminiscing. He's like, I wish someone told us we were in the good times, like in the good old days, right? He's like, they're looking back and they're like, I wish they would tell you before it ended. And I'm kind of getting goosebumps talking about it. It's like, I'm in the good old days right now, right? Like I know when this business is over, as tough as it is or whatever we're going through, or even like raising young children, I try to remind myself, like, these are the good old days.

1:34:41Like another thing I read, it was like, you know, like it can be hard to take your dog. I have a dog, hard to take them out in the rain. But when they're gone, how much would you pay to take that dog for a walk right now? It's almost like rewinding a little and just being like, remember when you wanted what you have now? And just being happy and content with that, but also still striving for more. And maybe there's a title of a book by David Sokol, which I like, which is Pleased But Not Satisfied. And it's sort of like you can be happy where you're at and you can still drive for more. That's something I've struggled with is like, I'm incredibly happy this year.

1:35:17And like, and I've been, you know, struggling with like, people ask like, what's your biggest challenge right now? And I'm like, or what's your biggest problem? I'm like, I feel like I've spent two years fighting problems that like, I'm in kind of like a solution phase right now. On one hand, hyper ambitious, but on the other hand, content, because content is almost like counter to ambitious, right? And it's how do you balance those two things? Not to use balances. It's like, but how do those two things live simultaneously? And maybe it comes down to seasons, but that's the thing I've ultimately been like, when I'm in a creative space, it's not tied to the result as much.

1:35:50It's not like, yeah, I'm in a place now that's incredibly hard to even imagine 10 years ago, but there's still so much where I want to go. But I'm not driven and I never was driven. I think that's why I go back to sport as the ultimate motivator where I said everything's earned, not owed. The goal of starting my business was never financially driven. It was this deep desire to accomplish something, and that hasn't gone away, and that won't go away. And so there's no level of income where that's going to leave me. And so it comes down to how are you resilient or why are you doing what you're doing?

1:36:23It's that personal mission of why are you doing it and being authentic. I think that's a great segue to the question we always end with, which is what is success for you? This changes over time because my life's changed so much over the last few years. I feel like I'm learning a lot of hard lessons and a lot of great lessons. And I look at my young children, I'm like, I want to do the best job I can to share these with you and give you kind of a bit of a head start. You're going to go through pain. You're going to go through tough times, but I want to do as good of a job as possible to prepare them with these lessons that I've learned.

1:36:56And I try to do that through young entrepreneurs too. Like I do a lot of work with the local schools and I try to share these lessons on different platforms too, just because like I didn't have anyone to go to. I didn't have that. My whole network was athletes and all that. So when I was going through all the early challenges, it was kind of me and just internalizing it. I'm like, I want to be that voice that says, you'll be okay. And I think success looks like being able to show my kids what hard work looks like, show them doing that while having a great family life as well and honoring my partner and that.

1:37:28Just sharing the lessons. That would be success is the kids grow up and they're in a good spot. You know, like what's more important than that? And I think ultimately having fun while doing all that, operating in this zone of being healthy and being happy and that would be success, man. That would be winning.

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