E53: Julian O’Hayon: "Blvck Paris Is Born from the Darkest Times of My Life"

26:46We are living in like an ecosystem with a lot of people need to like, you know. What I feel like sometimes, yes, actually, sometimes I have a little pinch in the heart. I have to tell you when I put some stuff like that. Why? because it actually goes a bit against my values, which are like, to be honest, to be authentic, to be yourself, to always do what you like and stuff. But it happens, I really love watches, you know? So in the way it goes with me, in the other way, I just like, I don't care and I care in the same time. You know what I mean? I say that I don't care what people think about me, but obviously I care because it's my business.

27:20It's what I want to show. You know, I reflect. And for example, if black, I didn't post anything of my success on socials. People will not believe that black is like a big thing. Yeah. So I feel like that I need to prove myself so that people will believe. I will like, you know. Completely understand. It's part of the game. It's part of the game. Yeah. I play in this game, fashion, etc. It's the game, you know. If I was working for something else, I wouldn't maybe like stop Instagram at all. I talked. I want to ask you, what would you post or would you post at all if you were not in this luxury fashion game.

27:57What would the true Julian post on Instagram if you're just a normal dude? When I started Instagram, it's business straight. I never had like a private. I did a private after. I posted like five photos and then I closed it because I don't want to go private, private, like personal on Instagram. So everything or nothing. For me, it was business or I don't use it because I hate people who think of like, no, I am like this. unfortunately, but I used to really hate this kind of a culture. Yeah. I mean, like, we need to post everything we do. Oh, wait, wait, wait. Before I think, let's do a story. Let's do it.

28:31I do it. You know, I'm this kind of dude that, you know, can't control it. Part of the game. Change. So you said you changed five years ago? Yeah, because I wanted to do a brand. Before I was doing like B2B, you know, I was working with companies. So I was... Wait, let's start with that first. So you were at university, to go chronologically, you were at university. Five years. Two years bachelor, two years master. Yeah. And then you said, I think when you were 21, you started to. The same time I was in the university, I started to do, basically I did a lot of business that all of them doesn't make money.

29:11It was all like valuation, blah, blah, blah, et cetera. Can you give some examples of businesses that. I told you, I can tell you some names, but there was nothing these names today. But what? It's like application mobile and a lot of startups like this, you know, or project for social people, blah, blah, like Facebook vibe. Anyway, me, I was more like a designer. People text me because I was the best in the design. I was doing design for all these projects. And I kind of always liked the lifestyle. So I had some money that I was doing with websites, but that was the only thing that was money for me.

29:44It's when I work, you know, in the website stuff. So after... Sort of consulting work that gives you cash versus, I'm going to build this next app where I can put some, but like basically the classic 2010 story because of the Instagram and Snapchat kind of ages and basically a lot of low interest rate environments. We have this crazy valuation in tech, which we as students, we see entrepreneurship is this, is I build a 1 billion company in one or two years with crazy valuation, which is what happened to Instagram and a bunch of others. And that's my definition of success because that's what I'm seeing everywhere in media.

30:20So you were trying to do a bunch of that and then you realized this is not making any money, right? So look, me, I was not trying to do it. I had always had the feeling that I would not do money. I knew it. I have a very good feeling with things, but I loved the social part with my team to design and to show them. And they're like, wow, the best design in the world because I was the one providing the happiness, the only like tangible stuff in the project, you know? So I love this kind of, the design, I love the design. That's my thing. I always loved the design. So after what happened is I did my web agency design.

30:50It was starting to work well. Just like I was like, I bought like a Porsche 911 when I was 22, 23. And I go to the university with that. So from the cash, from the design agency. From the design agency. Which was called? Anchor. Anchor. Instagram and never changed the username. Why was it called Anchor? For a specific reason or? To be honest, like everything was like taken on Instagram. They have to find a username. And I don't know, I like this kind of like a beach vibe. So, you know, around that anchor, it's like something for the boat. Yeah. Then I change the H, I put K. Yeah, it's available.

31:25Okay, let's do it. It's stupid. I don't have a better story to tell you. I don't want to like you. I think that's what, that's most of the stories for like business names. Like people are looking for like the amazing story and then you're like, I was just looking for a freaking domain name that was available or an Instagram handle that is available. Yeah, exactly. That was that. So I was doing this. It was making money. It was making me happy, you know? And then... We were making a lot of money and saying, I can afford the Porsche. You were more saying, I make the money. I'm buying the Porsche because I want to show...

31:54I was living with my parents till I was like 22, working in university, studying in the university. I didn't have like any fees and stuff. So when I reached like 120K, I just spent all of it, you know, and then I ate spaghetti, you know? I love spaghetti. It happened, so it's all good. So it was this... I didn't have the money to buy the insurance because no insurance wanted to insure me. So the reason they didn't want to give you insurance is because too young or because you didn't... It was 22. And it was, you know, I was driving a Volkswagen Polo before that. Actually, I bought like some car in between, you know, that are nice, but not like a Porsche 911, like a race car.

32:32So it was kind of... What do you think about this decision of buying that Porsche at that age? If you look back. It's good. No, I don't need the cars. No, I need. But I don't need to own them like I used to before. I can rent them and travel around the world. I have a few cars, but they are like more for business, you know. So, yes. I don't have this. I love cars, but it's okay. I don't need anymore because I used to drive. Like I had as well a Lamborghini Huracan a bit later, you know, that I bought and stuff like this. So, I do two years ago. So, I mean, I have the experience with this. I don't need to.

33:12How did you feel when you bought that first Porsche? Best day in my life. How long did it last, the happiness from buying the Porsche? Honestly, all of it. Like for five years until I sell it. Amazing. Because I moved and I couldn't drive for a few years. So I just sold it. And until the last day, I never felt like something that I like. Like since the day one, I was doing nightmares of it. it took me one year to find the perfect Porsche 911, all black with all the, like, you know, I'm crazy about what I do. Anything that I do, I'm crazy about it. So for me, if I tell you that it was the perfect Porsche 911, instead I took like eight months, one year to find it.

33:51And then for me, it was the love, all the time. Amazing. Yeah. So you build this design agency, right? It's a website design agency. So what's nice with that? Yes. What's nice with this type of business is that actually you don't have a lot of costs, you know. So the money you can get, you are not like you sleep well at night, you know. You secure like 100k a month, you know. So after that, if you don't want to do costs, you don't. Me, I was not working with like, I had some project manager inside the office. A small office that a friend of my father like give me for 200 bucks a month or something like that.

34:29You know, nothing. and then i had all the developers based in bielorussia servia like a team that works exclusively for me not an agency you know and uh they were like very good very motivated actually mostly in the beginning so i was sleeping good at night until i got bored so i was working like like just to let you know why i got bored i was like first doing it for startups small money so I can do everything I want the creativity then I started to work with LG, Bang & Olufsen, Huawei, Samsung, all the big companies in the technology that was my niche and they give you the chart the graphical charts and everything so you need just to copy past yeah and then I was a lot of development work so project manager the client they complained to me I said no there is a project manager complain to him you know and but now I trust you not him and stuff and at the end And I just like went crazy and I stopped.

35:23But the money is there. So basically you have this trade-off. It's not worth it. So with the startups, you can do a lot of things and be very creative, but they don't have much money. They don't have much money. And then you can go with the big corporations, but it's very bureaucratic, politic. I mean, I have a data analytics consulting company since eight years, so I know exactly what you're talking about and everything is outsourced. which I want to talk about because it's good to outsource.

35:55Building a lean company from day one and which is also what you've done with Black, right? Yeah. And the first, how much it makes sense to have like almost no fixed costs, but also it's, I would say the problem with, It's not a problem as per se, but what's the first question that most people ask you when you tell them you have a business? How many employees do you have? You know, like the kind of vanity metric, which is how many employees do you have? Because they think that how many employees you have, like how many followers you have online is basically saying how much success you have, right?

36:38So that's what you need to do. You need to adapt to how people think. You cannot do to be authentic in the old way. Me, I'm trying to be authentic with myself, but with my business, I'm trying to do it in the way I can. But at the end, I'm doing what people want to see. So for me, it was important to invest a lot in the marketing, to have a lot of followers. You know, we have like 1.4 million. And that was something that actually converts people to say it's legit, you know, because I never heard of this brand or something like that. But what I noticed today, actually, it's a lot of people, uh, when you say black, they actually knew about it.

37:14and they uh that's something nice because we promote for so long especially in the us and in asia actually because that's where we do the marketing you know so you're saying you're doing this agency then you start to work with these big corporations then you start to say man the money is good but like i have zero creativity it's boring and i'm not doing that for the money anyway because i'm a pure entrepreneur and i love design right i was in depression at this time so depression because of this. There is always some starting event when I do like a little depression or crisis, you know? Is it something that happens often, these depression periods?

37:52If you look back, now that you are... No, it's not business anymore. For business, less. More like personal life, you know? That's why I'm less confident, less. Okay. No, but for the business side, you get confidence with the time. More you get confidence, more you are smart. That's how I believe, actually. More you think,

38:14without overthinking stuff. You know, you are like, you have more the feelings, you know, you can do stuff easy, fast. It's important for people to see you too. But you are, here you're doing a split between business and personal life, right? And you say, now basically I don't have really that many premiums anymore because of the business, but the personal one, yes. But at the end of the day, when you feel bad, you're a person, right? So it's the same whether it's business or not, right? Of course. What are, because there's a lot of people like struggling with mental health, especially today, you know?

38:45Yeah. What are a few things that you do when you don't feel good that help you get back on track? Unless I trick my brain. I trick my brain. Okay. How do you do that? That's like, in a way, it's like lying to yourself, but with good arguments, you know? So you're trying to take the best out of the situation to emphasize that, but take the worst as well. That is in your way and make it your way. And me, I can do that overnight. There are some examples of like, oh, I felt bad because do you even identify the cause or just like, I know exactly what to think about to make myself feel better.

39:34Obviously, everybody is different, obviously. Look for business, I've left this, but for example, like when I'm in with a girl and something and she, I don't know, I feel like something is off, whatever the reasons, then I can make this trick to make her down in my mind and make me up in my mind and go quickly over something else because I'm very sensitive guy. So I need to protect myself, you know. So this is something that I can do. But for the business side, now I'm just saying myself, work better. I don't know. When is the last time that something like that happened in business?

40:14Wow. It never happens actually. I don't know. I'm sorry for that. I don't have like an example that comes up to my mind. It's small things, but in business, I'm always been like, I've always been confident in business. I never had this issue, except in the very beginning when I started. Yes, this more because I was with people and always about the people that was not completing me in the business. We are trying both to be CEOs, you know? That doesn't work to CEOs. So a co-founder? Co-founder issues? Yeah, co-founder issues. Everybody has co-founder issues. Absolutely. So that's what's really interesting is no one talks about that.

40:52But the main reason, one of the main reasons why most businesses fail is not cash flow problems. I mean, cash flow is a big one, but or product market fit or whatever. It's freaking co-founder issues. And no one talks about that. And, you know, the ego and insecurities and just like one who doesn't realize that there is basically not much space for ego in the relationship, the same as a relationship with a woman. Like as co-founders, if you have too much ego or if just one has too much ego and doesn't really know how to control it, you're going to have problems. And whether the business is doing well or not, it's going to fuck the whole thing.

41:29I had this problem. I had this problem. Big time. Can you tell us more? And when was that? I discovered anxiety actually my life the first time I had anxiety because I was living in a little cloud until I was like 19 20. I didn't think you know too much I was not the kind of dude overthink or deep you know I became that okay so for me I didn't unlock my potential until late so when I was 19 20 I was in the business this business like about the movies I was talking about and I was like uh partners with not my best friend a very good friend okay and we are all like it's about the personalities were all over.

42:06Most of us wanted to be like the CEOs, the managers, or co-CEOs. Did you start because you were just friends or because you were complimentary on skills? We start because he was more driven entrepreneurship than me. He was not like that much into like making money and stuff. You know, it was not really me. I was a passionate guy, very chill. And him, but I was talented. I was the talented one. I've always been the talented in my group that don't give a shit. Did you realize that? That you were really better than others? No, it took time. It took time. It took not too long, to be honest. Everybody saw what I do and they're like, well, it's the best design I've ever...

42:46I was doing better work than Snapchat and stuff like this. That's how people see it, actually. So I was actually... I had the eye for that. I was very good. Look, it's not that I'm humble or not. It's just like I believe what I say. You need to be self-convenient and aware of your values. Absolutely. So yeah, basically I was doing this kind of a design for a lot of startups and that's how I got like recognized. So he and me wanted to like partner, everybody wanted to be my, that I'm designing the project because, oh, you sell a project and the beginning it's with the design. Yeah. The design sells and then you can get funds and develop it, you know?

43:21So I was at the roots of it. So what happened with this dude? Two CEOs, co-CEOs. Did you decide at some point, oh, we're co-CEOs? Yeah, we were co-CEOs in the paper. We had a little business card with co-CEO, KCO. I know he looks, we were like 19, you know? And me at 19, I look like 15, I don't know. Reminds me when I was 22, first company, and I had my business card, Kevin, CEO. And I go to my dad and I give the card and he lost. He's like, you're 22 and you're CEO. Yeah, who do you think you are? But you need to believe that in the beginning to be able to do it. Because now people see the lifestyle, see what I achieved and stuff, see that we opened 20 stores worldwide, a bit more than that.

43:59so now for people yes okay you are the CEO but before you do all of this me too actually I never I didn't now even now I remove all CEO I don't I'm not a CEO yeah I'm a founder and a creative director that's where I see myself and even like the people in my team when they say the CEO say no no no call me creative director that's what I'm doing yeah same as Elon is the is the engineer basically of Tesla yeah I prefer this approach so and it makes much more sense so it's less of an ego game within the company and like, hey, look, I'm the CEO. No, this is what I'm doing and like, you're doing that and we're all like equally important for this because the company is basically a bunch of people coming up together to work on a mission.

44:41So, what happened with the co-CEO? Or what didn't happen? So, that was the same dude that was trying to get in all the informatic projects with me to get the good scores, you know? Okay. I'm going to say this in the podcast. It's going to be funny. Are you still in good relationship with him? Yeah, great. Okay, cool. Nice thing to laugh about it. I love this guy. I love it. It's one of my best friends. Okay. But at the time, we had some issues. More me than him. He was trying to fix stuff. Me and more destructive, you know? Okay. I tried to drive over him once. So? I remember like in the university.

45:21I was crazy a bit. But no. With the car. Yeah, but not like. he was like just to scare him he was trying to boot like no don't leave so like i move a bit you know it was like okay okay so you had a fall you say fall out in english like why because too much ego from both sides so this anxiety it's because i didn't feel good in the relationship i didn't put up well i don't know something i'm starting to feel anxious about it and it's hard for me to and I was not the dude that was talking a lot in communicating. You know, that's something that I learned after. So I was always like putting some words of what I feel, but it was not rough and like really what I feel because I wanted to be politically correct, you know, and not too much.

46:10I don't know. My parents are like this, you know, so I learned it after by thinking by myself. so this is something that but anyway what happened basically is that we wanted to do another fundraising we raised like uh 200k and we need to raise like 500k to go to the next round and uh i was like no i don't want to to continue i don't let's uh let's stop let's stop and without like i did everything so that it's not going to to happen this uh serie a you know okay basically because I wanted to, I learned that I need to be alone. I need to be, it's my business, I need to create it and then hire the people, not fund it with someone.

46:52That's what I learned. So sole founder. Yes. Or someone with like minority shares, but like you need to make sure that you are the one who makes the decision because at the end of the day, one person needs to make the decision. If these two people were kind of equal, you can have equal shares, but one should be the one who drives the decisions and the other should be kind of like the right arm or otherwise it's not, it's not possible. It cannot work. Like, oh, I'm going there. You're going there. We're rowing in. You're already rowing against the current, but like you're rowing in different direction too, like it's impossible.

47:24For that, you need to make your proof. You know, you need to build for me the business that works in the beginning so that you can inspire people to work for you in a very legit way. When you are your, the own boss, you don't like off your activities, you know, it's you who knows the field, you know what I mean? So for this, for me, you need to start alone, which is the most complicated because I see all my friends, they want someone because they have trust issues. They don't want to do it alone. They prefer to fail together, you know, to bring someone with them in the failure. So you're saying you don't need a co-founder.

47:59I mean, in general, telling people, hey, you think you want the co-founder, but it's just because you are afraid or you're scared. But like the way you entrepreneurs out there, like most of you, You probably don't even need a co-founder or you know what to start with because if you have your idea and your conviction and your passion, like you're going to be able to make it happen. Not alone because you need help from people, but like you're going to even be able to drive your vision much better if you don't have someone who is thinking differently. But that works for your main project. Me Black is my main project.

48:32I am co-founder of other projects, but I'm completely, there is no ego issue. There is nothing. I know my role. I know what I do there. I'm not working actively on any other projects, but I used to. And now I invested in some projects, okay? So when you know your place, it's okay. And when you have your own, your main activity, if it's your main activity and you are co-founder with someone, that's where the trick happens. But if you just provide the service from the company that you own or something like that and you get shares, there is no problem basically to co-founder something with someone.

49:03Yes, the takeaway is every company needs a leader and that leader needs to be clearly defined and have the kind of decision-making power because if you have two kind of equal people in terms of, at least on paper, decision power, it's much more likely to have problems, right? Yeah. That's perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Follow-up. Follow-up. That was...

49:32Discord. Why? that's how we roll i feel almost never drink alcohol to be honest otherwise i can't keep my life pace it's impossible like just yeah if you over drink but if you have like a few glass chill i mean i'm more like not drinking for like a couple of weeks and then going one night but that's the problem when you go one night crazy then the next day you are like i had this three days you mean i'm if the next three days i'm like brain not working i'm sometimes good like Cheers. Cheers. Santé. Santé. So, you made the Series A of this app fail. Yeah, exactly. I didn't make it fail. Let's say I didn't help to make it succeed.

50:18And I told him, like, I'm not sure if I want to continue on this project. But you didn't mean that. You actually didn't want to continue on this project. No, I didn't want. Yeah. I didn't want. I mean, it's for sure. I didn't know what was the feeling. I remember actually I was in New York with my family, with my parents, and I start to feel my heart and stuff. And I didn't know what it was, you know? So anxiety. What was anxiety? So anxiety for you, because there's different way anxiety shows up, right? For you, it's like, you feel like tense. You feel your heart. Like my stomach is blocked. I cannot eat.

50:51My heart beats fast. You have problems to sleep. You think a lot. Washing machine. Yeah, exactly. Stuff like this. And I didn't know that I was someone who don't think too much, doesn't think you know, I think that, I think, but not like today. So I didn't know that anxiety feeling. Is this the first time it happens or it happened many times before that, but you never were able to identify what it was? Like it happens before, but not as strong as this time. So before it was more like I'm stressed. That's how I felt it, you know? And this, I felt like, okay, there is something wrong, you know? Like it was not a little stress of something.

51:29What did you do at that moment? Or for you, the only way out was saying, I need to get out of this company because that's how I, because I can't handle this situation anymore. So I was talking with my family. I was talking with some of my friends. So always very open about that. I'm open about everything I can explain. So you say, that's how I feel. I feel bad. I feel all this stuff. Okay. I was not as open back then that I was today, that I am today. Now today I can talk about like something that my girlfriend here doesn't want me to talk, you know? And before it was different. It was like I chose my world.

52:09I didn't want to appear like a bad person. I wanted to keep in the, you know, in the murs and stuff. Is it more for your own image or is it because you don't want to bother people? Because a lot of people who have anxiety, depression, I also had big problems before in my life. like you don't want to bother people too much or like be this kind of like with bad vibes, you know? Yes, exactly. It was this. I was like always like trying to be in a good vibe with everybody and that was me. No, it's not this. Have you ever felt ashamed of it? Feeling that way? I didn't know. I thought it was the normal way to feel.

52:43I didn't think by myself, you know? That comes later. That comes actually when you get successful. When you get successful and people see it and you see that you're good, talented and stuff. Then you get confidence. So then you start to think with your ego. OK, ego is like a big kind of problem, but it's as well like a big solution to a lot of things. And the ego gets you some adrenaline, some like make you think outside of the box, like who you are, why you do this, why people see this like that. So why you need to do to and to plan like really like more. and you have more this, you're afraid to fail even more and everything, you know?

53:25So ego is kind of good, I think. And that's when I started to be more authentic. Ego is good. Can you elaborate more on that? Because I had a guest before, mega successful. And he said that ego is the first thing you should dissolve as quick as possible because it's the thing that's going to prevent you from any good thing to happen.

53:52And it's interesting if you have a different view on that. Yeah, because probably he has a different definition of ego than me. You know, ego for me, there is something behind it that is more deep, you know, in the ego, is that it makes you believe in yourself and it makes you, it's just at a certain point, you know, so, okay, maybe if you take off the confidence of it, it could be right. but for me the ego it's something that make you like believe in yourself and then when you believe in yourself you are able to take the decisions without being influenced by others basically you know so you know you believe in your uh and then you can make some you know you have some visions that people don't know about it like for example me in black i know all the history of it so when people give me their advice i know what i want i know what is the vision because i already learned they don't know everything so the ego makes me like stand my my position on what i believe and at the end um it's that's only one part of it you know the ego makes you like as well like some adrenaline to be able to talk like nice before i was not the kind of a guy that could talk in a podcast i was like going to be like this sweating you know you know what i mean and uh now i can talk like what i believe i don't care because you know at the end uh I love myself, you know?

55:10That's what everybody should. And I think that everybody should, for sure. That's what everybody should do and say, but a lot of people don't love themselves. And the problem is, if they don't love themselves, they cannot love other people. Yeah. By definition, it's not possible. Of course. But that's a subject for another day because then you enter into, like, the relationship subject and the attachment style and all that stuff, which is fascinating, but we have enough subject to talk about. So ego, where is it? You talked about when it's good. When is it bad? So it's bad when you have like this kind of, when you are afraid to fail, you know?

55:49And you have this ego that prevents you from actually trying some stuff that can make you look funny or whatever, you know? So this ego prevents you for this probability that you can be successful in something else or whatever. So that's a problem with it. But another good thing is that it makes you perfectionist. So everything that you will do will be perfect. So you need to find the right balance, because ego can be very bad, but it can be as well good. Do you have examples of what you didn't do because your ego told you, oh man, I would want to do that, but if I do it and I fail, I'm going to look stupid.

56:33So, for example, when I like post on socials, etc., my ego made me stop to be active actually on socials myself as well a bit. It's a part of the reason I stopped to post on Instagram as well. I noticed. So it's like last is like two years ago. Yeah, exactly. And because actually it puts me, I will tell you something. I was very active on Instagram I was posting like twice a day I was doing all my design etc which was taking all my time all my energy and I need to think always about the next post you know and it was I was and now it was in this time that I was getting like a bit depression and stuff you know so my day could be great if I have enough engagements in my post I could be bad if my last post didn't work and it's kind of a stuff that and I don't like Instagram so when I started to become more authentic, I started to stop this, you know?

57:24Like still today, I'm afraid of that. So now what I do, it's I post only on my business account because my business account, it's me, but it's not me. You know, it's not my face. It's not my, it's a business and it's different. People like all the business page, they don't do like that much engagement as a private person. It's completely different. So you realize it was all external validation and you said that it's not good for me. No, exactly. For my mental health, I don't want to do. and I started to be much better when I stopped two years ago to be active on Instagram actually. Actually I stopped because it was COVID.

57:56I could not do, I was always home and stuff. So, you know, it's nothing to do with the show. And nothing. I mean, you can post one of the 25 ,000 pictures you've taken at that trip to still make people believe that you're there, which is what everybody does. But like, no one will believe you anyway. You're like, bro, we're all home now. I don't believe you anymore. Okay. But me, I was not someone who would do that. For me, in my mind, it was like, if you don't post what you did in the trip in the next week, you don't post never. That's why you said before, I want to do a picture now because we're here.

58:28Right? No, that's because I wanted to, because look, with the photo, etc., I need to enlarge it. Probably is not going to be in the iPhone format. So it's more easy, you know, we do one now. I can edit it, check, check.

58:42That's it. So let's get back to 24 years old. So you have this agency that you say, I'm getting depressed because of that, right? Because I don't love what I'm doing anymore. It doesn't make sense to me anymore. So what happens at that moment?

59:02So at that moment, there was a lot of stuff in my life that was not going right. For example, I had like a relationship, my first love, basically found my first relationship, girlfriend. you know and basically i was in love more of the relationship that i was in love with her because i never had like i'm a rich guy i don't like to see girls like this you know so i stayed five years with her five years and a half and then i decided to break to break up because actually i didn't see her i never saw her actually as like the my future you know what i mean so that was this so even though i was not like that deeply in love and everything it i had the attachment and everything it was like going rough you know for me uh the business it was dark too i didn't like it so that's when i became like very lucky in the depression phase like i had some bad thoughts and stuff like this but um that's at this phase that i started to build black actually that all my patience all my sadness came and i started to to build this all black everything you know because i wanted like an image that is like super luxury super like unreachable or black everything.

1:00:09And that was a kind of my vibe, like, you know, to compensate for a huge hole inside, you know.

1:00:18But did you directly have a business idea or you were just saying how do I express my kind of darkness? because you said like in the beginning was oh i'm on instagram i'm i'm gonna post like a starbucks like black right so yeah how it started it's like me as a designer not as a brand with anchor my instagram i was starting to post like some all black everything like a concept like a starbucks in black a mcdonald's in black like brands like household brands that you see every day but you don't see in black and you see it in black now, you know, it could be like even toilet paper and it works. So people was like crazy about this concept.

1:00:56It was new for them, you know? So I became like the kind of the all black, everything, you know, the all black guy. So then I started to kind of bank on that. So that I, I still had the agency back then, you know, it was the end of it. So then I, I saw that people really loved it. It was viral. So what I did, I bought the black handle on Instagram to make it like a a concept, not a brand yet, a concept when I post stuff in black, you know, and then it came to a brand. I started to sell accessories. I started to sell clothes. We did a collaboration with Hugo Boss in the beginning, et cetera, et cetera.

1:01:32And that's how we, I, I, I, I built it as a brand. How did the first collab happen? Because it's not a, you don't have the brand concept or company behind it yet. So like, how does this even happen? So actually, I had the contact of a guy living in my country that has all the license for UgoBoss for office accessories. So we didn't do like a streetwear collection. We did like an accessories collection for office. So I started to like take an umbrella and brand it a bit black and UgoBoss, you know, some accessories that, because it was mostly like notebooks and pens. So I had to find like some accessories that are like, could be lifestyle, you know, like a power bank.

1:02:15but i listen a bit differently that was the first collection to be honest it didn't work at like good like what works good the first collection was the first black one collection we released off close hoodie and stuff and the accessories accessories people like are crazy with it so basically we started with this and we started to do more so black you have to know i want to be like just to say that now it's that black is not about it's not a street streetwear brand it's a We don't do only clothes at all. We have a black home collection to decorate your home. We have some restaurants, black food restaurants.

1:02:52Now I'm going to Tokyo next week to visit some of them. You know that we are opening. Now we are doing some pop-up there in Osaka. We are building some hotels too, black hotels. What kind of restaurants? It's more, for now, we are investing in like all cafe pastries, etc. Nice. So all the pastries that we use charcoal and stuff, if you already did that, like a cookbook to do like 200 recipes in black, you know? But the concept is built from you from scratch or you're approaching brands or kind of like local coffee shops that you love already and say, Hey, let's do a collab together and I might just purchase you to have the know-how.

1:03:29No. We, yeah, we work with like people that have the experience of it. We do collabs kind of, but it's not collabs because it's only the black branding. it's more like they get paid and uh but we want to work with like for example we do we did like a cookbook and in the cookbook we work with like uh 30 different chefs uh in the world that did some black recipes for us to like a black spaghetti with like ink or to do like a charcoal cake all in black or whatever you know like every recipe is there like a black pizza to a black risotto you can find anything and cocktails too. Uh, but we throw a lot of parties to a lot of events.

1:04:11Uh, we did one in, uh, London, did one for the fashion week in New York now recently. And, uh, we attract a lot of people, usually 500 to 1000 in the events. And the concept is that everything is black. We serve you black dishes, black cocktails. We give you black gifts in a bag. And that by itself works already this concept of all black everything okay are you trying to be profitable with each of these kind of like ventures or it's more a branding thing where i'm trying to be that to be profitable in everything that i do but obviously it's like an ecosystem which everything sells for something else so when we are going to promote like a food store etc people who are going to hear about black and want to see what we sell as well so everything is interconnected and that's what I love about it is that I can do anything I want.

1:05:03If I have a new passion tomorrow, because I have a lot of passions and a lot of stuff that excites me, you know, I can do it in black. I wanted to do the restaurants and stuff. I can do it. I am like very like deep into the 3D. I'm doing all the 3D work by myself and by myself. And it's something that I like to do for the stores. I design my stores. I want to design a black villa that we are going to open and rent it. We did actually a black penthouse in Europe, in Paris that was for rent. Though it's not actually for rent anymore because I had some problem with the landlord anyway. But she was working by, we were like all the football players was going there and crazy.

1:05:37Yeah. How do you, how do you delegate in your design department? Cause if you're the guy who has like all these ideas, but at some point you can't do everything yourself, it's impossible. Yeah. How do you do that? When you have your specific vision of what the brand should be and kind of like your ego, founder ego, plus I'm not the CEO, I'm the designer, right? Like creative director. How do you delegate? How difficult is it for you? So look, in the minds of people, I am the CEO, but in the real life, my sister, Steffi, that works as well at Black, he's more acting as a CEO because she knows all the numbers, all the stuff, et cetera.

1:06:21It's more like an ego stuff. But to me, I don't have like, I put my ego for this on the side, I don't care. So the thing is that me, I'm more delegating the creative side. I have troubles to delegate, but I did try a lot with a lot of people. I give chances, but I'm too picky to every time like someone disappoints me. It's by, you know, so what I do, it's like I have some good guys inside, like Zoran, for example, I will as well send him the podcast. He's a very talented man. He's a very talented guy that we hired like a year, year and a half ago that do all the other 3D parts, you know, that we don't do.

1:07:03And he knows everybody like the best of the best, you know. And this guy is very talented, but very like me, like open, like a free spirit, you know, that's a bit hipsters, but like he knows everything. So what I said, like for me, it's hard to find like someone good enough to delegate so i don't have a lot of people like that i delegate to but when i do and i find someone good it's for the long term it's like you know but i don't have a lot of uh to goodness i have to do sometimes everything by myself yeah because i have confidence in me so even if i don't know something i would believe that i know it's better than the other because of the tastes i have the taste and that's what matters the technique is something that you cannot like this you know it's all about taste

1:07:54when did you start black exactly six years ago like in the beginning it was black shop we were selling other brands and stuff and it was more like all black everything but after six months I dropped this this because you know when you depend on too much people and there is problem of delivery and stuff it's too much a shit show you know so after I started to do like black myself I started with MacBook skins actually really like a shit quality to be honest when I when I started but like uh I don't know like what I started the methodology was I post something on Instagram so back then I was like 100k followers 200k not millions but it was more like it was good enough to try all the ideas you know I test something I put like I don't know a card game in black it went crazy we did it after that we developed the project and uh and sales because we already test the id on instagram or social pinterest or pinterest or whatever you know so that's how we started to test the ideas you know we test the id if it works yes we put it on a sample after the sample we produce it if the sample is good enough and after we start the marketing and the sales and uh that's basically how it works.

1:09:07If you look at the beginning and now, like what are the key, like evolution of the business? Like how big did it grow? So I would say that now we are less pushing on the social media part and more on the business part. Where did it go is that recently we opened more relationship to sell offline, online too, you know, with other like shop online. Um, and then I would believe that we are more focused on the money, like the profit, you know, like business point of view. But me, I try to keep it like very authentic. My job, my sister that is like more active on the financial part, she's more thinking about the revenues and stuff.

1:09:53Me, I'm still more in the want to please everybody part, you know. So I don't care to invest money. She tells me, no, we cannot invest that much money for a photo shoot, for example. That was like recently. you know we need to put this budget but me i'm more like we have it's going to be the best collection in the world we need to boot the maximum of the photo shoots is going to convert etc so i have this kind of uh balance with someone to put my uh feet on the ground you know otherwise i only want the best and i spend the best so you need to be you know how big is the business now I would say it's value between 80 and 100 million dollars today, which is not yet my goal.

1:10:36What's the goal? You said the billion dollar? Billion dollar is my goal for now. A profitable business? It's profitable already. Never had investors here. I spent the money I want. So zero outside investors? Zero. which that's what i'm very proud of it is that i feel like the business is so like clean and virgin in the way that it's very rare to have a business that works that much money and i and that is owned only by the family you know because it's owned by the family i give shares by the way to my sisters both sisters working there you know and we own the company because my sisters i can trust them like nobody in this world you know and you can do whatever you want with the business you don't You don't have external pressure.

1:11:19Yes, exactly. So you can really do this as a founder-led company where we have this long-term view and you don't have any short-term incentives that are not - Yeah, but we are thinking to maybe raise money because if you want to reach to this 1 billion goal, you cannot do it with a few million dollars, you know. You need to have like a 100 million dollars coming with a big vision, you know, or something huge, you know. So basically strategic partnership with big investors who have a lot of distribution and a lot of stuff, so you can go to the next level in terms of... I'm thinking of it, but some part of me is like, I don't want to give any percent of my company.

1:11:54I don't want anyone to tell me what to do. So I'm not sure if I want to stay there and grow slowly or to invest a lot of money and grow expandently and to be a billion-dollar company. That's my challenge, you know? Which is probably linked to what makes you happy. You know, what makes you happy in life? Because the number thing is endless. Like I've been on the podcast, we had people, you know, like... Yeah, billions and stuff. Yeah, like 1 million, then now I want 5, then I want 10, then I want 100, then I want a billion. And there's always, as you said before, there's always someone who wants more.

1:12:32It's good. So you will... You need an objective. I mean, my objective at first was to be like a million dollar brand, you know? That was my objective. I didn't know what is a million dollars, you know what I mean? And now it's 1 billion. And before I did, like, I got featured on Forbes magazine, Forbes to be like a million dollar brand. It was after two years of I've been black. I saw the article, I think. The one where they talk about the co-founder. Yeah, Australia. Yeah, so I had a co-founder actually, but I bought all his shares. He's not in the company anymore. Because, yeah, I had another problem with...

1:13:04It was not like the first one, because this guy was very nice guy, very, like, talent smart. He worked hard, etc. He just wanted to do studies and he was actually very involved in the crypto. And he lost all this money in FTX also. Talking about the co-founders. The co-founder of Black. That you met on Instagram, right? Yes, actually. Because he lived in Australia, you were in Europe. That's a very interesting angle. Is it true? Well, you make your research. Absolutely. I do a lot of research always. Yeah. And again, I've been in multiple businesses. One of them, I met for one of these businesses, I met my co-founder on Twitter.

1:13:47You met your co-founder on Instagram, which for our parents' generation or other generation, the same as the, let's build a lean company and outsource everything, kind of like new kind of doing business, right? Before it's more, let's employ people here. Let's have as many people as possible because it's kind of like what people ask when you have the, you know, you build a company. Let's be kind of like, I have a societal responsibility to hire locally. Like our new generation, thanks to the internet, we're like, I can hire there, boom, much better margins, be more lean, no fixed costs, only variable, the smart way, right?

1:14:23I mean, arguably, like it's not too stupid to do that way. Same, you meet your co-founder online, which is like a really way of doing business. In crypto, for example, everybody meets online, and you never realize. And for example, this guy that I built this business with, we didn't meet for the first two years and a half because it was COVID, right? So how did you approach this? I meet this guy online. We build a company together. So me at the time I was active on Instagram. I had like hundreds, thousands, something like that. I don't know followers or more. And I was getting reached by people.

1:15:02People like reached out to me to, yeah, I want to do business. And I said, that's how I found like even the agency that I was working on for the development of my website before, you know. And this guy, I worked with him on another project called Overbooked. And it was a project for entrepreneur because it was my, you know, kind of sector back then. It was when I was like doing like a project management tool with him. He developed everything, he learned, etc. And he was very serious. So I test him like this for six months. Okay. and i still had you need to know my agency the development agency that i manage so i didn't have like full time to give to to be able to be on black so i give him like a small minority chair of uh black black shop actually back then and uh in exchange he was like the operational guy i told him like you are doing all the operations and make sure that everything is running smoothly etc and i told him let's let's forget overbooked overbook was a test it's not making money it's going to make money.

1:16:00I want to do a real business with real products, you know. So it was like, okay, it was like really fun of me, followed me like, it's the kind of guy who has mentors and I don't, I don't have a mentor or something like that. I don't like this idea. Actually, I don't like to. I don't. I'm sorry, but I don't. I never listened to a podcast. I never listened to anything like that. I don't read books. I learn everything by myself on YouTube or whatever. Because it's my personality. But a lot of people like him, he has mentors, he want this, etc. For me, this is like kind of a shield to say like, yes, I'm going to succeed with this because you don't have the confidence enough what it takes to make it successful yourself, you know?

1:16:38No, but also, I understand that because it's the same as, I mean, everything in life, you have top 1 % entrepreneurs, 99 % employees, which is not good, better or worse, right? We need that for us. Exactly. And also you have people who create content and you have people who consume content. It's also like this kind of like one to 99 % ratio. Exactly. So like people who actually, if you listen to like Gary Vaynerchuk or these guys, they're like, there's the people who produce, right? And these people who consume, which is not bad again, but there's really these two games, which is one you're kind of like stuck to your phone all day.

1:17:12And the other one, you're like, how do I kind of like use this at my advantage? Right? Yes. And even had this friend of mine today who is actually from Israel. and he was telling me, Kevin, you should read the biography of Elon Musk. I saw it. I was like, no, I'm not going to read that. I'm not going to ship. No, it's a shout out. So basically, he's like, Kevin, you should read. And I'm like, I really wish I could read it, but I'm working until 1 or 2 a.m. every freaking day, Saturday, Sunday included, because today is Saturday. I have to prepare this. Tomorrow, I'll like to prepare next week.

1:17:44I don't have time. I really want to, but I'm learning by doing versus learning by reading or listening. which, so I completely understand your point of view. And I don't think, again, I don't think one is better than the other. It's more like, I mean, you have 24 hours. Like, I need to sleep at least seven to eight hours because otherwise my brain doesn't work. So, like, the rest of the time, what do you do with these hours? So, me, I'm not someone who, look, I have time I work, like, a lot, and I can work until five in the morning, and I don't have to have, like, a good alimentation, a good fitness and stuff.

1:18:17I mean, it's all in my mind. this is something like that push the blood to my brain you know and i don't need any like so i can work like very late and do my stuff but now i feel like in my time i prefer to like enjoy life as well a good time you know so outsource a lot of stuff but i still try to put my energy on black you know when i can like focus you know because at the end your business it's what gives me like this kind of confidence and this kind of motivation. Like when you have something else in your life that goes not well, I'm sure that I have black I can focus my energy on and I will be good.

1:18:58You know, it's a kind of a balance. So the balance is so important because at some point as you age or become more mature, you start to realize it's very rare in the case that everything is going well at the same time. like there is a, we always say life is like a pendulum, you know, like, and sometimes you go to an extreme or the other, but like there's kind of this in between. And if you have, for me, I found the same, like if I have really this passion that drives me in like businesses, it's an amazing balance when the relationship with my girlfriend is over, which is what happened two months ago, right?

1:19:34And it's sad, but like you're just there like, okay, now, and I'm not hiding into work. It's more like, oh man, have this mega drive that is like very healthy, I think. Most people might say, oh man, you're boring. You don't come out with us. Like it's because we're building a new business. We're front loading phase and everything. And, but you have this internal drive that makes you happy. And at the end of the day, do I feel happy? And for a man, at least if you have this like bigger mission, that's when you feel happy. Yeah. But at the end in your life, I always said that, but you have like, like three pillars, you know, that needs to be like satisfied.

1:20:08Your relationship with yourself, your relationship with the girlfriend than with the work, but you know that from Freud. So at the end, it's like a chair, but you can compensate with something else to heal something that is not working. You know what I mean? So what I believe is like, when something is not working in the relationship with your girlfriend, you broke up, there is nothing you can do about it. Just time will heal and make you understand. So that's why I say that you need to focus on something else. But the relationship with myself, I think I love myself already too much. So I cannot like, you know.

1:20:43So this is the work, you know. It's beautiful to hear that because there's so many people who say, I don't love myself. I love myself too much already. I swear. So. I swear. It's just like the truth, you know. And like, so basically like you need to love yourself. Like no one is going to cheer you up as much as you cheer yourself up. I think because I stay a lot alone, you know. When you stay a lot alone, you have time to love yourself. When you are with people all the time and try to avoid something, try to party, to stuff, see friends, because I don't feel then you don't have time to even learn yourself and love it.

1:21:13Me, I was someone that was always like in my own space. I like I'm like, I say to myself that I'm introvert, but I'm very extrovert. I'm very good with social like I get good with like everything social to make friends, people love me, girls the same. But this is not what I like. It's because I want to prove something external validation. Yeah, but I think that actually I'm introvert kind of guys and i know it it's just like people are feeling not good to say openly i'm introvert just me i'm i started to put my ego for this on the side but for some you know you need to try to put your ego at profit for yourself you know and to do it like to use it as like the best way possible so some stuff you need to be able to okay that's an example why i put that on the side Sometimes because I believe that's how I took my brain.

1:22:02I believe that if you think that you will put this on your side and you will like the fact that you say something that is like make you sensitive to other people will actually make you up, you know? So you need to understand the psychology of people. It's not because you don't need to be ashamed of something. People like people of weakness. People love transparency. Absolutely. So that's why I'm like, I'm confident to say like a lot of stuff that I am because at the end it makes me who I am, you know? Because most people feel the same. They don't have perfection. Absolutely not. And before you said, oh, you know, I had dark thoughts, like 24, I had dark thoughts, like I had some thoughts.

1:22:39I started to think about my own story, which is like I also had like very dark thoughts, suicidal thoughts. Even at some point for three months, I couldn't sleep alone because I had like this problem of like suicidal thing where I was basically going to do it if I was not checked on by someone. Like you had some suicidal thoughts? actually like i had like some strong flashes that would make me basically pretty much do it right so i was like i cannot sleep alone because i don't trust myself yeah that's after three years of like taking medicine when was it 23 to 26 okay so five years ago okay and i mean after taking what was the reason of that sorry if i can ask so i took some medicine for my hair hair product Like it's completely stupid.

1:23:26Like that is basically something that destroys your hormones. So it changes you at the hormonal level. It's called procreation, finasteride. Okay. And this makes you depressed? It destroyed me completely mentally, physically, neurologically. I had a cognitive impairment. I had visual problems. I had memory loss. Even in this conversation, I would basically not be able to, I would have a conversation with clients. And in the middle of the conversation or with a prospect, and instead of saying, oh yeah, we did this assignment, I would say, oh, we did this banana. Like random words. Completely fucked up.

1:24:02And then at some point, I would just be like four days in my bed, like sick, you know? What did you learn? I guess you didn't know it was from the pill in the beginning, maybe. I need a year and a half and then have a lot of different problems and then still be in denial. And then at some point, meet with a friend of mine from university who had the cancer, like phase three out of four, basically four out of four, you're dead. And then he told me about his story about cancer and I'm extremely empathetic. So like, I feel everything you're going to tell me. Plus I was completely fucked up already since a year and a half.

1:24:35So I'm in this bar with him and he started to tell me about the cancer thing. And like, I'm starting to feel like I'm already fucked up and feel terribly bad, but I need to listen to him by respect, right? Of course. But I feel the thing, like he tells me the whole thing about the chemotherapies and all that stuff and how it's a nightmare it is. Wow. And then I'm like, okay, I'm just going to say nothing. But I start to feel like anxiety everywhere, like physical and everything. Pins and needles. And then at some point he tells me, ah, but then I got better with the chemo. And then he tells me, but after four months, the cancer came back.

1:25:08And then he says, ah, then I have to do an operation. And he shows me his belly with the scars. scars. And at that moment, it's too much, you know? So I basically faint. And I wake up on the floor and I have like 10 people around me. I'm like, I don't even know if I'm in Switzerland, in London, wherever. And then I'm like, fuck, like I just fainted. And the guy who had cancer, like a really bad cancer, like testicular cancer that came everywhere in his body, tells me that, and he's the one bringing me to the hospital. After I did like, and I'm like, I feel so ashamed. I'm like, the dude had the worst fucking thing ever.

1:25:48And he's bringing me to the hospital. What a shame. That day, basically something broke up in me. And I started a panic attack every two or three days for no reason. Like I could even like go to a restaurant, like panic attack, one hour on the floor. So I couldn't do anything anymore. I had to stop working, which is why we sold our first company. Because I couldn't, I was the guy who was doing all the business. Co-founders were amazing, but good employees. like there wouldn't be any business, right? And I was like, I'm so fucked, I can't work anymore. It's impossible. And, but I was still taking a pill.

1:26:15I didn't know you managed to stop found to heal because today you look. So after six more months, I went to do, I did a lot of things, acupuncture. I went to Thailand to learn Reiki, you know, like energy healing with your hand to do it to myself. Like I was actually treating cancer patients, like, but I was like, actually it's for me, but I'm not going to tell people. I did yoga, everything, but it was not working. What worked? Nothing. So at some point I'm like, at some point - But you're still taking the pills that make you - I still take it because I didn't know it was this. I don't know whether that.

1:26:49Because I heard that I have a friend that take this and tell me, but it's not good, but for him, it depends on the people. For him, he takes this since 18 and he doesn't have any problem. Yeah. If you have bad luck. I'm very sensitive to alcohol, whatever I put in my body, very sensitive. So probably unlucky. At some point, long story short, I try everything, you know, entrepreneur mindset. I take this as a game. I'm like, man, I'm gonna find a solution to this shit because no doctor understands the post-phenasteride syndrome. Okay. So I go to do some hypnosis. My mother, she's like, oh, there's this hypnosis.

1:27:24My massage. And then believe in this. Huh? You believe in it? I believe in everything. Like to be honest, I'm very curious and open-minded. Okay. So I'm like, I'll try it. Like worst case, it does nothing. In this case, it helps me a bit. I do that one session of hypnosis and the session goes wrong. I get out of that, call me suicidal. Yeah, literally like she did something and after like, and my parents, everyone was on holiday. So like, because I was back home because I had to heal myself, right? So I was back at my parents at 26. I'm like, oh man, like I want to take some time off the business of London where I was basically the business to focus on myself.

1:28:03she fucks me up and become, that's the moment where I become like really suicidal. And I'm like, I have these strong flashes where I'm like basically dead on the floor in the middle of blood with my wrist open. And like, it was so strong, the flashes that it was making me go to the, take a knife and basically want to do it. You know, people were very suicidal, like they compare that to like sneezing. Except if you sneeze, you're dead, right? So you have this itch and like - And you need to not sneeze. You need to not sneeze exactly. So it's not like, oh, I'm so depressed. I'm so sad. I'm going to kill myself.

1:28:37No, no, no. It's like you have like an impulse that you can control, right? And same as people kind of kill other people. So like, I almost want to say like, I'm kind of like, I understand people commit suicide. Like basically, I mean, a lot of people. And also I read a lot of 50 % of people have suicidal thoughts in their life, whatever. It's kind of like more common, which you said before, the more you open up. I didn't have like a suicide, suicide, with my French accent, it's hard to say, but I didn't have like this thought, you know, me, what I had was different. It was more like, I was dark, but I loved my life too much to have these thoughts.

1:29:14But yes, sometimes you ask yourself, what if, you know, just this what if part. I didn't have like this full commitment part, but like what if, you know, and, you know, it makes you like control, you know, you can decide about your life. But that's it. Stop there. I think at least one person out of two has these thoughts. From what I read, like a lot of people go through that. For me, it was basically, as someone I'm like, this is too much, I need to find a solution. What are the worst diseases that exist out there? Cancer probably is one of them. So I go, how do people cure cancer? Juice fast, 90 days.

1:29:47You don't eat anything, just drink juice. Plus you do a bunch of other stuff, chemo and all that stuff. Water fast, 10, 21 days. And so I just stopped eating for seven days, just took water. And I was like, okay, how did this medicine affect me? I'm going to find something that has the opposite side effects of this medicine. So basically I need to, because it was for hair loss, right? So basically I need to have something that make me lose my hair. And also the medicine was for prostate cancer. So I need to have something that's side effect is lose my hair and potentially give me prostate cancer.

1:30:18And I discovered the entire world of biohacking, which basically is taking natural herbs, testosterone boosting herbs, nootropics, mushroom to like regenerate neuroplasticity, all that stuff is an amazing field where you do a bunch of mix of fasting with taking herbs and a bunch of stuff. And for me, it worked amazingly well. I did that for many, many months and like another fast and then three months, very strict. And then another fast. And after a year, I was just like, so me, I'm not like in this vibe. Me, it's everything in the mind. I don't think that there is a huge impact. I think that the world outside, what you eat, what you do, what you, your health, the fitness and everything, it's just going to improve you to be like a better version when you do your stuff.

1:31:03But for me, everything is in your mind. So you need to take the problem to tackle it from, from inside, you know, and not from like a therapy and hypnose. Hypnose, it works only if you believe in it. If you don't believe in it, it will not work. That's how, that's what I believe, you know, at the end. So for me, I realized that all these, you know, therapy, whatever, is external that are good to kind of cope with the situation. But the only way you're going to heal from real shit, depression, anxiety, whatever illness is from within and from within could be your mind, but it's also, for example, fasting is like amazing because you have this, it's called autophagy.

1:31:38So it's basically eating up all your bad cells and it's amazing for physical and mental health. So what can I do and complete life-size changes in my life to heal myself? because no one else would be able to do it for me. And also they have their own life. They see you one hour here and there. They have their own anxiety and business and thing. So it was really like a life-side change that made the whole difference. And then I started to build businesses again. I'm doing amazing. How old are you? 31. 31? 32. 32. And I look young. Oh, maybe not. You look like a... You would be like 27, 28. Exactly.

1:32:17But here in Asia, they think that I'm like 35, you know? 35? I was like shocked, you know? Usually people ask me for ideas to wave and drink sometimes for 21 years old, you know? How do you take it? 35, I don't like it. 21, I love it. Like everybody, you know? For me too, it's like, I thought you were 40. I'm like, okay, thank you. Thank you for the compliment. No, I thought you were my age actually, 32. Okay. No, but like people here for me, it's the same. I hear it often like, oh man, they think that you're old. we talked about cancer yeah your dad had cancer i told you yes exactly we had like a lungs um both the lungs cancer resophage i don't know how to say it english i don't know how to say that either anyway resophage yes so it's the um the tube that we have in the exactly the tube that we have that connect the stomach so what happened actually it's that i was in the restaurant with him it was just after my breakup of the five years and a half relationship actually in the same time and uh he told me i did some tests etc i did the test he was with my mom you know i was like okay how it went not good so what do you mean not good i have a cancer so i uh it was uh um four or five years ago was people that don't remember uh in France in Paris in your restaurant and then I I stand up and like I see everything like blurry you know I just go to the toilet and I cried I'm like very sensitive I told you so so yeah it was like one of the worst moments actually in my life and I thought everything was right like I cried I uh like clean my face come back like everything happened like we're going to go over it's okay etc and i thought it didn't affect me you know but i think that's like a reason that affect that makes maybe this is the reason that you know it was in the same time i founded black actually you know and i was getting into this dark vibe and stuff but my brain was like hiding me from this fact at the time i thought it was okay i was like so you're suppressing your emotions basically instead of yeah yeah the problem is like when I really love something someone or you know and something that breaks my uh trust confidence I can erase that event from my mind you know like I'm tricking my mind that's what I'm telling you like before to be able to to not take all the pains so I just need like one night to take it out and after I'm like a different person each time um that's not necessarily good but at least it helps with the pain so so you were you were managing basically one night to go from like your father telling you that he has cancer to like being that's different that was too strong for this I'm talking about like basic events this was too strong like I just never took it on me except now after the time when you know but uh I did at at the time I was like, no, it's okay.

1:35:31I don't know. Like just trying to, my brain don't think about it. It's like, everything's fine. You know, you're hiding to yourself all the problem and it's going to be fine. Hopefully it went fine, you know, but it was like very risky cancer and stuff. So he took the best surgeries went well, but I never imagined that I would, I was trying, I don't know, my brain didn't imagine that I was going to actually lose him, But it made me think a lot about the life, the death. And I had this kind of process in my mind very late at 24 that we can die. It's stupid, but I didn't think we can die. I thought I was invisible.

1:36:08That's actually not late. Because before you said, oh man, to raise my own potential, I took a lot of time. I was 19 or 20. Most people don't even realize the potential until they are eight years old. You say, I didn't, I realized so late that basically life is finite, 24 years old. A lot of people, I think you need to have some really bad events like that or someone dying or near death to like start to realize about the fact that life is finite. And even you still keep living because what else can you do anyway? Of course, I had this friend. So I was in the university in the last year. and um i had like a friend who was sent to another university that is close to my university because i had a business i could not go outside of the country and i was doing all the projects with him and this friend was like uh completely like um how to say it's like in the in the like in the dark side of his time he was drinking alone sending me like videos of him drinking and saying like I am not, I'm a bullshit, blah, blah, blah, etc.

1:37:13Blah, blah, blah, etc. Okay. So thinking very low about himself. Yeah, very low esteem, etc. I start to do, to become very good friends with him. I come, I see his families and everyone like around him, his sisters, etc. And then one morning, like I knew something was wrong, you know. And one morning I come in his place and I saw like his family is crying and everything. He's like just suicide, you know. I was like 23. Committed suicide. Yeah, it was like a tie, you know. his family seemed like dead like this. And I was so affected by this. It was the first time I see someone that I was becoming a very good friend and everything.

1:37:54So that was such a tragic event for me. I took it very sensitive. I went after to the funeral. I started to cry a lot. And then his father looked at me like everyone and said yes, I'm sorry for your loss, etc. I was on the line. I see his family And then he saw me, what happened? What happened? Crying, you know, like this. This father was like in love with him. I saw him all the time making him like a coffee and taking his arm like this. And him, he looks like from a good family, everything was right, you know. And that was like the first contact I had with the death, actually, before my father cancer that I thought something might happen, etc.

1:38:30It was him. So this affected me, but make me grow as well, you know. What did you learn? And like, what did you change in your, did you change things in your life? After that, no. I said, no, it didn't change me in the way that I am, but it changed me in the way that I started to think more about like others and empathy and what people feel and why I, you know, like people die around your, you see more every day. You say like, okay, maybe I could have done something, but me, I'm not like that. I said, no, I could not. I'm not taking any like responsibility on anything of this. But does it make you more empathetic when you're having a conversation with an employee who is not performing well, for example, thinking like, I should be nice to this person?

1:39:14Obviously, there's boundaries and limits, but I should be kinder or more empathetic because everybody's going through something besides job, work. There's a reason why people act a certain way. Not really. I took it personally, but it didn't affect the business side of my life. The business side, for me, is completely different of my side. me business and me it's like i never mix it you know like i mix it but i don't mix it really well like it didn't affect on this it affected more on the fact that uh like about the life about myself about the relationship with others about like how the others feel i can lose someone why i didn't like do something to prevent that like i thought about it quickly and then i thought i could do nothing like people I talked to some people apparently like he broke up with someone like a year and a half ago so it was a long time ago but he was really in love he didn't like apparently this person like date his best friend or whatever and you know like for me people that sorry for him but people that commit stuff like that for that kind of reason they are weak in their minds they are me I didn't even have like that the thoughts of killing myself in my life I'm not saying that I'm strong or anything, but I'm saying that you should see the big picture in the life.

1:40:34You should not like see like, Oh, you feel bad today. So you want to commit suicide. You know what I mean? It's something that is deeper than that. So for me, they are just weak and stupid. That's what I believe for all the people that I cannot say it's bad, but you know. So at least they're very selfish. Yeah, they're selfish because they are like the family that love them. I was still me when someone died. I'm not talking about the people who died because to die is like a relief, you know, for the life. Is that going to be in pain or anything? It's a pain for all the people that surround this person at the end.

1:41:07How much do you think social media played a part in black success? A lot. A lot. A lot. Like, it started with social media from the beginning. Actually, I'm happy that we rebound to Brandon's business because he was getting too dark. But yeah, so actually like the social media was the beginning of black, you know, like that's how we actually like find the customers, what they like, what you want to produce, what are the markets of black, you know, like to be honest, we are like really present in the Asian market like Taiwan, Japan, Maca Hong Kong in US, you know, we are opening a store in New York, we're opening a store.

1:41:55We already opened actually a store in New York like two weeks ago, a month ago, three weeks ago. And now we are opening in California and Santa Clara in the 11th of November. But the socials is the main part of Black from the beginning because Black was a social brand before becoming a fashion brand. And we listen to the customers give us what they need, what they want. And that's how actually we learned. I learned. I was doing that work at the time. what people want, what people need, you know. Of course, I did a lot of product that didn't sell. I remember about this soap. I did a black soap and nobody bought it.

1:42:33This product we kept for the website in six months. But anyway, I mean, the socials, what I mean by that is the insight of the market. So it's very important. Very important. Is that like the thing that will make you really like convert and get to the customers? but it's the thing that will get you like the insight to what type of product they want, how to sell it, how to communicate because the marketing in the brands is like 99 % of the job. The product, as long as you respect some fabrics and some stuff. I mean, I saw like all the fabrics used by the big brands. We use the same. It's not about the quality, you know?

1:43:15So what's really interesting is you're a very creative person but you have a very data-driven approach. Of course. That's exactly what you're saying here. I studied engineering. Yeah. This is my insight, my background, you know. So social media is amazing to build basically a brand and the following and kind of like a cult. But at the same time, it's even more amazing to collect data about your customers and test products and see what works and what doesn't and taste. You can do stuff by feeling if you want, etc. It will work in the beginning. but if you want to grow to from a 1 million to like a 10 100 million brands like i did you need to you need to get this extra data extra insight that will make you learn quicker you know that's what i believe like you really need to get the data but from the beginning i did it like to what people want you cannot like invest money and yeah i hope they will like it You know what I mean?

1:44:10You need some kind of hypothesis to be confirmed. How powerful is social media? How powerful of a tool is social media in the fashion industry?

1:44:29Depends for who, but for fashion in general, it is important, but not that much important. I see a lot of brands that is doing like very bad on socials, you know, and I don't like they sell a lot and they do like hundreds of millions and there was billions. But you see like their socials, they are like not good, you know. But for new brands, this is very important. Like mine, you know, six years is not like new. But it's not like old, you know what I mean? It's a new brand. So I need to get this extra that other brands don't have because we are not legit in the eye of everyone. So you need to appear like a legit brand that they heard about it.

1:45:10So the social are like, you need to do some stuff in the socials if you really want to, to overperform, you know, to do something great. Do you think that these fashion brands that are not good at social media are leaving money on the table? Or they don't really need that social media part because it's more of a, how do I go from zero to one, rather than from one to a hundred? It's different. They are like, it's too big organization. They have a lot of stores. They have a lot of resale points. They always make a lot of money. They're trying the socials, but in a way that they outsource to like a studio that tell them like, yeah, we know it's, you know, but they don't know the brands as much as they do.

1:45:47And I didn't mean it's different because I did all the activities on the companies since the beginning. I was always there to learn something and then I outsource it. I don't outsource it straight. You know, I always learn some activity. And once I know how it works, then I like to outsource the delegate. So that's how I work, you know. It's basically the, when I built my first company, I had the, as a mentor, the founder CEO of a company called Checkout.com. I think I know this company. It's called Guillaume Poussard. He basically, it's worth 40 billion now. Yeah. And he owns 80 % of the business.

1:46:26And so he was telling me, you need to dominate your company. whatever thing is happening in your company, you need to understand it first and dominate it. Of course. You need to dominate everything. Otherwise, you're not going to be able to be like a big, big brand. So it's exactly what you're saying, basically. 100 % agree. You need to understand this part and this part and the distribution and the marketing and the sales and the finance, and then you outsource. But you need to have a really deep understanding of that before. If you're just outsourcing from the get-go, like you are not dominating a company anymore, so you're putting yourself at risk.

1:46:54Exactly. 100 % agree with that. But you need to, but me, I'm a quick learner. I don't, I told you, I don't do a podcast. I don't do tutorials a lot, etc. I like to learn by myself because since recently, because I believe I'm smart enough. If someone else did it, I will do it. Why not? You know, I will learn it. And that's the way of thinking that makes me actually be confident enough to make my mistakes and to learn from it quickly. Okay, I'm going to give me a quick check. Forget, you know, in the past. That's how I see it. So, I agree with that statement, for sure. What's the pivotal factors that led to Black being that recognized and growing that much on social media?

1:47:43What are the techniques you used? So, in the beginning, I started with socials. Like, we are big, it works well, I get 100K followers soon because my other Instagram was active on, I promote it. and actually just went viral in the algorithm on Instagram. I was getting 20K followers a week, you know, and it was going crazy. So, in the beginning, it was more like, let's see that you are big and mysterious too because, you know, you are the best part, you know. So, yeah. Which still, when we look at your account today, Personal One, it's actually the word I was looking for in the beginning. Like you're showing some part of your life, but it's very mysterious.

1:48:24And it's part of the brand, obviously. Like even before I was like, It's part of me. I'm giving my personality to it. I'm giving 100 % of myself to what I do. Which is so interesting because like this conversation is like the opposite of what you can see online. Even before I was like, how is the guy going to show up? Maybe he's not going to show his face. You know, you don't know, you know, because the person like is it creative, but like you're just a normal dude. I'm like a spontaneous guy. I don't like to, I have a problem with fake it, you know? so on social i cannot appear as myself and fix something so if i appear myself myself like today i need to have like a spontaneous real-time conversation like this podcast i didn't think about it at all before i don't think about stuff i just like to be if i think about stuff it's going to be like there'll be a show i don't like to be so i learned that for me the best way to be myself is to like basically like I was on the taxi to come here and I was planning uh managing with my girlfriend uh the trip in Tokyo we are going to Tokyo soon so which is tomorrow right you're leaving tomorrow exactly so I was thinking about that like yeah it's going to be fine yeah because that's the best I can give you it's the authentic version of myself that don't think before acting and I learned that that's it so that's what I gave you so fake it till you make it and then so for key to meeting was the beginning because you need to learn really to know that people are not going to buy you if you just like authentic and you are a good person they're going to buy you because they know that people want to buy this brand and because it's hype etc so all the brands are doing that obviously all the brands and all the people who are brands too are doing that in the beginning yeah obviously and then what's the pivot tell them where you say okay, we say we think it and like, we're kind of like starting to make it.

1:50:14It's building a business, building a brand is all the same. You're building momentum and the way you build momentum, you need to kind of oversell a bit everywhere here and there until you get the momentum. And then like the, the thing is taking care of itself. So I was lucky enough actually from the beginning to actually make some sales, a lot of sales I want doing like already like 100, not a lot, but like 100, between 100 and 200k a month in like after six months of operation. But to be honest, it was like break even. You have a lot of costs, you know. So I was already like with this ego that, yes, I'm making 150k a month.

1:50:50But on the other side of the paper, you know, I don't get a lot in my bank account. So yeah, it was like, I mean, I tried to stay positive. So I was happy with this, to be honest, you know, I was very happy with this. and then I just started to see the potential I always knew it was going to be a success I just knew it like people tell me something they wait wait wait a few years you will see like I knew it you know it wasn't like I just knew it I don't know to tell you otherwise that I knew it because I don't know why I knew it but I knew it yeah I had this feeling usually I'm not wrong with the feeling so I knew it it's the gut feeling of the entrepreneur the one that's going to make you start the thing even if no one believes in it the one is going to make you keep your line and mission.

1:51:36Even if people tell you, oh, but I think this, I think that. Yes, I'm listening to you, but I don't care. Like basically, and the real entrepreneurs, they will tell you. They will all tell you. The feedback of people is good, but you have your own idea and your own vision of the future. So listen to them, but follow your gut feeling and your intuition. Yeah. Because that's how you get to. So it was not a gut feeling. It was like, for me, how I see it is a knowledge, you know, it's going to be successful. I swear, like, I cannot tell you how much I was confident with this. Like, I'm not confident in a relationship with someone and stuff like this.

1:52:08But with this, I was confident because it was only me who can impact this. Nobody else. So that's all, like, actually, I kept working and motivated and passionate. And I make it, like, grow every year, you know, just with confidence. I think that confidence is, like, some people don't see it, but that's the most important. I don't think people are more stupid, a bit more, but not like completely more stupid and more smart than others. I think that everyone has a potential that is hidden in self and needs to be unlocked. That's my vision on it, okay? So it's basically linked to almost the people who make it either have this hyperconfidence or they have this like almost delusional...

1:52:55Delusional. Delusional sense of self-belief where you're like, I'm going to be able to make that thing. I know. And most people will be like, why would you be able to do that? And just because you believe in it so much, you're able to make it happen. And actually other people, if they had the same sense of self-belief, which most people would classify as delusional, they would also be able to make it happen. Yeah, but - Provided on the skills and everything, obviously. Of course, and as well, like you need to have like a lot of confidence, but you need to be as well, like keep your feet on earth.

1:53:32You know what I mean? You need to be able to see, like you don't need to think that you are the best. You need to know your default, your limits, you know what you're good in, what you're not. You need to be completely impartial with yourself, you know, like put your ego in the sides in a way. because ego for me, it's like, it's a big thing. It's not just the ego. It's a lot of concepts that goes behind it. So you need to put your ego in the side and to be able actually to think as a third person. You know? That's how I do every time for anything in the life. Even when I'm ordering food. You know what I mean?

1:54:12It becomes like something that I do like all the time. It's like to try to think like, what do I really want to do? What do I really want to do? What do I really want to achieve? What do they want? You know? Can you give a food example? Because I don't really understand it. That's stupid, but it's like, I don't know. I want to eat, like, for example, wagyu because, you know, I'm in Japan. It's wagyu time, you know? And then I'm taking it to myself, but what I really want to eat. So I imagine myself eating some food. So no, actually, I want like a risotto. I don't know. You know, I'll give you an example.

1:54:41Okay. Yeah. So it's basically being less impulsive and more taking a step back. So having the confidence, basically like summary, having like the confidence, the supreme confidence you know but being able to to to to not like put your ego like you are the only person in this world and to try to see it okay but is it good or not and why whatever i need etc you know it's like a two dimension kind of vibe So you've been on this Black Paris journey for six years. And at some point, there's this crypto thing that comes into your life, right? And this NFT thing that you were able to make a connection with for the business.

1:55:29Can you tell me more about that? For sure. So actually, what happened is like two, three years before the NFTs came up, the concept of NFTs, you know, actually the popular concept of NFTs, I was actually learning the treaty. uh yeah yeah so i started to learn blender i keep actually with blender and like i was not good in the first year but i started to become very good after two three years you know and then the nft concept came and it was a time when we were trying to expand black to digital market so we were trying to do like um we did like some icons to put like your iphone with a team that is all black It went crazy.

1:56:13We sold like half a million dollars of digital product, you know, in like a month. We started to make presets to put your photo as like the black, you know, concept when everything is black and white and stuff. We sold it as well, like ebook and stuff like this. And the NFTs was perfect because I was like a digital product is like a money that you come straight without any cost. so you can finance other activities with it. Because when you do like products, you need to invest in a huge chain. When you have like a sample to come, you launch the production. Two months after that, the production is going to be ready.

1:56:52They need to send it to your warehouse. We have like several warehouses in the world, in US, in Europe, in China, everywhere, you know. And then you need to send half in the boat, half in the plane. Anyway, there was a huge process. Digital products. I designed some icons, et cetera. I sell it. i get the money they get the link that's it's finished there is no people complaining about the product they receive like you know so what did you do so i did like all this and then ft scam and me i'm like really about all of this uh arts artsy vibe this is me you know and i loved it just like you know the fd getaway uh was going to be popular i don't like them i talked to them they are very like pretentious just about the money but make your space that's why we did the collaboration.

1:57:37They are more human. You know, we fit with a good fit with them. So we did like the dark mode series and the dark mode series. It was more to put like Black Paris in the NFT map, you know, to introduce to the community all about Black Paris branding, you know, all the aspects of the branding. And what was important is that I do all the artworks by myself. No help. I did everything by myself all the 3d work that i learned prior to that two years before that so was it was a lot for me because i was like kind of exposing myself naked into a new community that i don't know and it's my art it's gonna sold out or not this is something public you know when it's allowed or not yeah so at the end it's not like when i release like a collection or i work great why it doesn't work nobody knows when you do nfts people know it's gonna sell out or not you know etc the price it sells out so for me it was a lot of pressure actually a lot of uh that's when I knew a bit more stress you know with NFTs is very stressful environment as you know crypto in general yeah and uh so I introduced the one series was a huge success so I'm very happy about it sell out in the first day first day it was not like a collection you know it was more like um artsy cut of one of 10 one of 20 limited pieces you know then we did actually three series with them three dark mode series and after that i wanted to introduce like the collection you know the collection like you know the all these collections of 10 000 units etc but i didn't want to do just a collection to go like grab money vibe you know i want really to really have like a sense behind it that's why with the black genesis collection i linked it directly to the core business of black which is the membership which means when you own you buy an nft first of all you will all the access to like 20 30 40 percent of the store like lifestyle as long as you hold the nfts you know it has a value that you can sell if you don't want to be part of it anymore you get invited to some events that are produced by black you get like a bunch of benefits and free products etc so so that was a bit like the the introduction to the crypto market for black Yeah.

1:59:58You told me you had like 100 ,000 people on the white list before? Yes, exactly. So actually, the marketing of Black goes well with the... Like we have like an audience that is really like gamers as well. And the gamers and the NFTs and the cryptos, it's a bit connected. You have a lot of gamers in this field. So first, there was a lot of already people who learned about Black and feel connected to black or feel like want to be part of it because black is kind of the badass vibe you know that people gamers etc that are a bit like more introvert would love to be like yes i have a black it's it's cool you know what i mean so it was a perfect fit so actually the project like i saw like as long like as soon as i released like a little discord etc it started to become crazy people talking about it etc it was like word of mouse and i don't know like some other project like a site us some people invent a collaboration with us that we didn't do so we did like a great marketing in a way that we are like 100 000 people subscribed to be able to just buy the nfts and you're doing all that stuff yourself on this course is everything yourself no i had a team actually me i did all the nfts collection myself i did all the 10 000 avatars i learned everything myself from scratch me i'm doing 3d but for like entire design for products but I don't do like 3D for humans stuff like this and you are selling like NFTs that you care human so it took me like two months to learn how to make humans in 3D like everything is so hard you know so I learned that very quickly and when I found like the face the perfect face that can be generative in 10 ,000 units to look like a man and female that's funny actually because everybody told me that the NFT looks like me actually that's so fast i don't know but that makes me laugh about it you said there is another drop coming soon yeah so there is another drop coming um soon um okay i will talk about it but still confidential because we are going to release information in like a week or two so it's not maybe out before that anyway yeah anyway so we are going to do like we are working we just signed actually with a collaboration with Paris Saint Germain PSG okay nice yes and it's going to be a dual actually drop it's going to be like Web3 and Web2 you know we are going we do like the collaboration with Crypto.com it's going to be available there amazing as a mystery box the president of Crypto.com is to make on the podcast in a few weeks actually ah yes Eric yeah ah okay amazing it's a small word yeah amazing okay so what are you guys going to do so we have like a dual collaboration physical if you want you know physics and digital and it's going to be as well the collection like of products is going to be available in uh our stores in the us and asia i think yeah i need to check it but i don't know every store so i'm not managing everything uh in the day on the daily and i'm not actually like i did all the design for them for the clothes, the streetwear, etc.

2:03:07But I'm not involved, to be honest, completely in the marketing in the way that I have too much collaboration and stuff coming. So I need to focus on my stuff, you know. But what do people actually get from buying this drop? Concretely? So basically, PSG drop, they get like a physical limited collection, black type PSG that only going to be available via this drop. No. Okay. So this is something that unique that we do with them. And actually, PSG really fits the brand Black Paris. the way we were from the same cities uh they dress as well they like black and all of this kind of vibe so so for us it's like it was a good um let's say opportunity you know so we have other collaborations coming too but to be honest i cannot say names because my sister if she's that she would kill me she's in the she doesn't like when we share stuff because we signed contracts you know i understand and we have like i understand some agreements with them until it release but we did like recently uh release for example a collaboration with a kissa ring in foundation uh more artists was very popular actually we released it like three weeks ago so we are think we are actually working with a other artist from new york very famous that will be released next year uh we have as well some exciting collaboration with uh some more um not streetwear brands you know brands that doing like i don't know like food cards game and stuff that you see every day, but just in all black.

2:04:31And that's the vibe I want in black. I don't want to do a collaboration with another brand that's similar to mine. I want to do a collaboration with like an IKEA or something like that. You know what I mean? In the end, I want something that people don't expect to come. That's what I want. What are you guys doing with Coincidium, your kind of official Web3 partner? Yeah. So actually, they really believed in us since the beginning. They want to invest actually in us before we release anything crypto related. And we know them personally. We came to see them a lot. Whether it's like when we were like in Portugal, I was doing like a presentation in a conference.

2:05:11They came there to see us because it's in Gibraltar. They are located not so far. So we know them on top of this personally. And then we love those guys. They are very smart, insightful. and us the crypto is not our field we are more like web 2 companies so the cryptos is something that we like to ask the advice of people who know best you know basically so they're like an advisory partner for the web tree okay let's say it's yeah cheers cheers cheers because now is a pivotal moment of this conversation where we're going to talk about fast fashion fast fashion So you built a luxury fashion brand, right?

2:05:55Yes. And on the other hand of the spectrum, we have these brands such as Shine, H &M, Mongo, Zara, of these world that were also called fast fashion. Yes. What's the problem that fast fashion, like Shine, brings to this world? I love fast fashion, actually. Like Zara, for me, is my favorite brand, I want to tell you. For me? I use the most to be honest it's not I use the most it's like when you own everything you do and you accept it yeah Zara it's my favorite brand why okay it cost me a lot less than some Dior t-shirt or L 'European or whatever brands you know but at the end you get much more value for it because me I don't like to anyway wear a logo that people will see it and after if I wear it again I look like you know what I mean I like simplicity so everything else I wear black or brands like Zara No.

2:06:50And I'm telling you that because I was like the kind of guy who cannot go out without wearing like a Dior polo or whatever, you know. Before? Yeah, before. Wow. Okay. No, I know everything in the fashion, you know, I know it works. And I know there are selling like some dreams that I don't need to prove myself anymore. So I needed to go to a phase of success to understand what is behind it. And this brand is for insecure people, basically. That's for that. They are created for poor, not for the rich. Let's repeat that. Very interesting. Very good for a viral short clip. So who wears... So we're talking about fast fashion, right?

2:07:27And Zara and H &M that a lot of people can criticize because it's not sustainable, the way they basically produce. But actually here, we're talking about Dior, right? I mean, whatever luxury brand. Okay. You're saying that Dior, for example, is a brand for insecure people. Why? So a lot of people have something to prove. Most of the people work in a job in 9 to 5, and they don't know how to prove themselves. So for me, the luxury is a concept that has been invented for the poor. It's a product for the poor, basically. I was poor before I was wearing like Dior and stuff like this all the time. I needed this, you know, to prove that I am someone.

2:08:18But now I know who I am. Everybody knows. And the people I want them to know who I am, they do. So for me to wear a Zara t-shirt is even more a flex. I don't give a shit, you know. So what do rich people wear? Zara, what else? Like, it depends. You know, everyone is different. There are still some rich people that feel like they need, they have money, so they need to spend, you know, but they're insecure in other ways, you know. Money is not everything, even though it's most of it, but you know. That's so interesting because it reminds me of my time in 2021, peak of the crypto bull market. I was living in Dubai with these crypto friends that some of them we both know, right?

2:08:58Yes. And they would all have this, I mean, Patek, Richard Mill, everything. Then you would have this gold chain like wrappers. Okay, but watch is different for me. Okay. Watch is different, but they would basically have a lot of different watches, but like as shiny as possible. The gold chains, the Dior t-shirt and everything. And I would be the dude who, since I'm basically 15 or 16, I have my black Zara t-shirt, 20 bucks. The one is like a bit, the one that is a bit like tight because like I do gym and everything. I feel good and I don't give a fuck actually. Today I made some effort because I was like, okay, we'll dress well for this podcast.

2:09:38But usually it's just like a Zara black t-shirt that at some point where, you know, the thing with these Zara t-shirts is at some point you wash them and they become kind of like less black. It's just because you like them more than the other brands. So you watch it, you wear them more, you know what I mean? Yep. So basically at some point you wash them and I can't wear that anymore because it's kind of like gray and black, but I wear them for gym then. So it's kind of like recycled for gym, right? And these friends actually, I would always make fun of them. It's like, man, you need to, but because most of them, they were very poor when they grow up.

2:10:08Right. So like the way to overcompensate is I get wealth, like nouveau riche, and I need to spend all these different things and show off. And even the rings are like diamond and everything. Right. And, but they always told me, I was like, man, not me. I don't give a fuck. I mean, I love a cool watch, but like I have my Zara t-shirt. I felt great in it. Like, because for me, it's all about how you feel in your mind and your body. And if I feel like I look good, like I don't need to wear a suit or amazing brands to look better. Like I feel like, and they always told me, actually, you were like, oh, we love you for that because of your simplicity.

2:10:40Now you're telling me that you also love your Black Zara t-shirt that's like 15 bucks. Yeah, but it's something that I learned like recently, like not so long ago when in the process of like knowing myself and being like the most authentic version, not the best version, but the most authentic version the most the best version is something that you saw on instagram but the most authentic version for me is the like that's the best version of yourself that you can be actually at the end you know yeah like okay i like me the expensive stuff that i spend my money on is watch okay but at the end it makes me like more rich than someone who will buy like a gucci bag or whatever you know what i mean in the way that if you buy goods there is a value like an asset like a relay state and for me the only thing that defines us as like in the fashion way should be simplicity and then the watch is something that you know tells a lot about someone like a story you know it's just like it's personal right now like some people think that it's very fake you know all the watches doing everything and me too i was thinking that like recently actually and just like i grew some attachments to this concept you know What would 32 years old Julian tell 18 years old Julian?

2:11:53You met him today. So look, there is nothing to tell. You learn by the mistakes. You learn by your experience. I cannot say something because it will influence my past and I will overthink this and then I will like, no, what will I say? At the end, like everything I did was for a reason to learn something about myself. So I like everything. I like everything about, I told you I really love myself. So everything that I did, I have no problem with that. Maybe on the business side, that is, you know, maybe yes, I think I can teach me some stuff, but I will not understand it anyway because I don't experience this.

2:12:29I know, I know myself when I was 18. I was as well stubborn that I am today, but without knowledge, without like experience. So at the end, like, okay, yes, whatever. You know what I mean? I would talk to myself like this. so I'm guessing that what I did that I like is that I always try you know and people who are like afraid to try they would just lose time me I tried since I'm like that's my luck I tried since I'm like 12 13 so instead of being like successful at 42 I am successful at 20 32 or even before actually but you know what I mean it's like I get more time before me but you need to try you need to do your stuff the faster you try the faster you fail the faster you sail, the faster you learn, the faster you get to success.

2:13:14I would not be the same one without all my mistakes, without all my, you know. That's made like who I am today. So there was nothing to tell about this. I mean, cheers for this conversation. Thank you so much for doing this, man. That was amazing. Of course, I loved it. That was amazing.