02:13:12 · Marcus Milione, Jordi Hays
[02:13:12] S4: think about it. But Yeah. I mean, like it started like everybody else. You sign up for a half marathon, you're like, okay, I gotta train and I'm gonna give myself a time goal. Then like anything else, it's a sickness and then it just gets worse and worse. [02:13:24] S1: Did you start do you still feel pressured? Were you feeling pressure to be the best runner out of your customer base? Like, mean, like, I feel like you're you're you're you're kind of running two races, you're building a business, and then I can imagine it really gets in your head because you start sharing some times that you're running and then Yeah. You're competitive and you want to improve. Walk us through that that journey. [02:13:52] S4: Yeah. I mean, the beauty of posting on the Internet is that you get to hear commentary from everybody on the Internet. So I always approached it as if we're going to make a performance running apparel, I better have some half respectable times. I'll never be elite. I may never be sub elite, but I at least put in the time and effort and try to run fast. Yes. [02:14:21] S1: And then, at what point did you start getting approached, to do, you know, big partnerships like this drop this week? Because these type of things are typically, you know, you you brands need to like meet in the middle. The best Mhmm. The best partnership, right, is like a win for, you know, sort of like legitimizes the rising brand and then makes the the this maybe the more legacy brand like, you know, cooler and more relevant and and, but timing matters a lot for these things.
02:14:21 · Jordi Hays, Marcus Milione
[02:14:21] S1: And then, at what point did you start getting approached, to do, you know, big partnerships like this drop this week? Because these type of things are typically, you know, you you brands need to like meet in the middle. The best Mhmm. The best partnership, right, is like a win for, you know, sort of like legitimizes the rising brand and then makes the the this maybe the more legacy brand like, you know, cooler and more relevant and and, but timing matters a lot for these things. [02:14:52] S4: Yeah. I I think it was toward the 2022. So we you know, coming to the end of our second year, I got an email from Jason over at Saucony who kind of heads their it's called energy, but partnerships. And it was really cool. I mean, they the email started out just lifestyle because at this point, the brand wasn't as heavily focused on the performance running piece, it was a lot more menswear and jewelry and stuff like that. So he wanted us to work on a lifestyle shoe that kind of fit into that world. And then when they brought us up to Boston, I kind of pitched the idea of, well, we should do a running shoe too because we run and we're also making performance apparel. And so it was lifestyle first, then the running shoe came, and then now we've had two running shoes. [02:15:45] S1: And then and then how are you thinking about beyond beyond running? Like what are there other are there other categories that you're particularly excited about? Or do you want it to be a brand that can exist anywhere that your kind of like idealized customer goes?
02:15:45 · Jordi Hays, Marcus Milione
[02:15:45] S1: And then and then how are you thinking about beyond beyond running? Like what are there other are there other categories that you're particularly excited about? Or do you want it to be a brand that can exist anywhere that your kind of like idealized customer goes? [02:16:04] S4: Yeah. I look at I mean, an athlete spends a lot of time outside of sport, and so I think that being able to provide products, like, as I call them, off court is important. But from, like, a performance sporting side of things, I think we're really focused on running right now. But I'm I'm interested in a lot of the endurance sports. You know, cycling is very interesting. But for right now, just just the running piece.
02:16:04 · Marcus Milione, John Coogan, Jordi Hays
[02:16:04] S4: Yeah. I look at I mean, an athlete spends a lot of time outside of sport, and so I think that being able to provide products, like, as I call them, off court is important. But from, like, a performance sporting side of things, I think we're really focused on running right now. But I'm I'm interested in a lot of the endurance sports. You know, cycling is very interesting. But for right now, just just the running piece. [02:16:31] S0: How are you thinking about, like, growing the business? It's such an interesting, like, origin story because it's not, okay, I was in business school. I raised money. I went to a design firm and set up an eDTC website. Like, that era existed. And there were a couple companies that made it through, a lot of companies that we've talked about that didn't quite make it or wound up selling off at a at a discount. And it feels like at some point, if you're not already there, there might be like a crossroads of like Mhmm. Are you gonna take a run at being, you know, the next Nike, raise as much money as possible, retail footprint all over the world, like go crazy? Or, you know, more, you know, family business, compound slowly, grow, grow, grow, do things tastefully. And there's obviously like a whole, you know, a whole gradient of pathways in between. But what feels natural to you? [02:17:29] S4: It's hard to say. I mean, since like, we're bootstrapped now in year five. And obviously, like [02:17:35] S1: Take it all the way. [02:17:36] S0: Was it [02:17:36] S1: the gong? Take it all the way. We're hitting the gong for that.
02:17:36 · Jordi Hays, John Coogan, Marcus Milione
[02:17:36] S1: the gong? Take it all the way. We're hitting the gong for that. [02:17:41] S0: The gong for the anti funders. You love love to see it. [02:17:44] S4: So so obviously, like, you know, it it caps what you can do and how big you can do do certain things. But Yeah. I mean, in my mind, I want the brand to be as big as possible on, like, a global scale. I don't think when you're trying to build something like that, going slow and building a really strong foundation is a bad thing. You know? Yeah. I don't think us being almost handicapped in the bootstrap way from from a money standpoint is Yeah. [02:18:10] S1: Look at look at the last look at the last, you know, month. You had Airbnb pivot to being or sorry, Allbirds pivot to a Neo Cloud. You have Everlane, you know, sell to Sheen. Examples of high growth? If you're doing anything like cool in apparel and you're executing well, you're gonna go grow quickly, but high growth appears to be entirely at odds with like building a lasting consumer lifestyle brand.
02:18:10 · Jordi Hays, Marcus Milione, John Coogan
[02:18:10] S1: Look at look at the last look at the last, you know, month. You had Airbnb pivot to being or sorry, Allbirds pivot to a Neo Cloud. You have Everlane, you know, sell to Sheen. Examples of high growth? If you're doing anything like cool in apparel and you're executing well, you're gonna go grow quickly, but high growth appears to be entirely at odds with like building a lasting consumer lifestyle brand. [02:18:42] S4: Yeah. I mean, I think the there's a playbook where you just turn on the meta ads faucet and just like throw money at it. Right? But I mean, we do very, very, very little advertising at all. I mean, we're really just, I would say, 99.5% organic. Mhmm. And that feels like a really nice strong foundation where if we want to turn on the paid advertising, it it just makes our life a little bit easier because we're building a brand that people know and you're not just like getting fed ads all the time and then you end up buying it and you're not you have no real like affiliation with the brand. [02:19:21] S0: Yeah. And the worst CPMs you'll ever have are when you're you know, there's no brand awareness. Like, every year you delay that, it gets the economics probably get stronger and the TAM gets even bigger. Mhmm. How are you thinking about bots? What what what is a do not buy decoy listing? Explain to me like how all this fits together in the modern era.