Arena Show Part II: Brooks Running (with CEO Jim Weber)

[0] So have you gone running yet and your custom -acquired ghost 14s?

[1] Dude, the ghosts are amazing.

[2] They are the best sneaker I have ever known, bar none, hands down.

[3] I used to have adrenelins.

[4] Adrenalins are also great, but I literally wear them like all day, every day.

[5] But, David, those shoes are only for active runners.

[6] You're misusing the point of the ghosts.

[7] Well, with a baby, I mean, I'm literally wearing a baby walking the hills up St. Francisco.

[8] I'm burning more calories than I did when I was running every day.

[9] It's true.

[10] It's just a slow run at the end of the day.

[11] That's all you're doing.

[12] Who got the truth?

[13] Is it you?

[14] Is it you?

[15] Is it you?

[16] Is it you?

[17] Is it you?

[18] Sitting down.

[19] Say it straight.

[20] Another story on the way.

[21] Who got the truth?

[22] Welcome to Season 10, Episode 8, the Arena Show, presented by Pitchbook of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and the stories and playbooks behind them.

[23] I'm Ben Gilbert, and I'm the co -founder and managing director of Seattle -based Pioneer Square Labs and our Venture Fund, PSL Ventures.

[24] And I'm David Rosenthal, and I'm an angel investor today back home in San Francisco.

[25] But man, what a special day that was in Seattle.

[26] that it was, and we are your hosts.

[27] We're going to go right here into the on -stage introduction of Jim and the Brooks story, so I don't want to give too much exposition here except to say that if you've been sort of thinking Brooks is this like shoe brand and what can tech people possibly learn from a hundred -year -old shoe company prepared to have your mind blown.

[28] Jim's one of the most dynamic guests that we've ever had on Acquired.

[29] And I just got so many comments leaving the arena, just absolutely floored with all the great takeaways and lessons and quotes that people wrote down from Jim.

[30] So make sure you enjoy that.

[31] Okay, listeners, now is a great time to thank one of our big partners here at Acquired, ServiceNow.

[32] Yes, Service Now is the AI platform for business transformation, helping automate processes, improve service delivery, and increase efficiency.

[33] 85 % of the Fortune 500 runs on them, and they have quickly joined the Microsofts at the NVIDias as one of the most important enterprise technology vendors in the world.

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[35] They're also a major partner of both Microsoft and NVIDIA.

[36] I was at NVIDIA's GTC earlier this year, and Jensen brought up ServiceNow and their partnership many times throughout the keynote.

[37] So why is ServiceNow so important to both Nvidia and Microsoft?

[38] companies we've explored deeply in the last year on the show.

[39] Well, AI in the real world is only as good as the bedrock platform it's built into.

[40] So whether you're looking for AI to supercharge developers and IT, empower and streamline customer service, or enable HR to deliver better employee experiences, service now is the platform that can make it possible.

[41] Interestingly, employees can not only get answers to their questions, but they're offered actions that they can take immediately.

[42] For example, smarter self -service for changing 401k contributions directly through AI -powered chat, or developers building apps faster with AI -powered code generation, or service agents that can use AI to notify you of a product that needs replacement before people even chat with you.

[43] With ServiceNow's platform, your business can put AI to work today.

[44] It's pretty incredible that ServiceNow built AI directly into their platform, so all the integration work to prepare for it that otherwise would have taken you years is already done.

[45] So if you want to learn more about the ServiceNow platform and how it can turbocharge the time to deploy AI for your business, go over to ServiceNow .com slash acquired.

[46] And when you get in touch, just tell them Ben and David sent you.

[47] Thanks, ServiceNow.

[48] All right, listeners, please note that this is not investment advice.

[49] It definitely was an investment advice last episode.

[50] And without further ado, on to our conversation with Jim Weber, the CEO of Brooks Running.

[51] All right.

[52] Now, for our final act of the evening, we have a very fun local story that we've been dying to tell.

[53] Brooks Running.

[54] I mean...

[55] So I think a lot of people are probably familiar with this brand, especially in Seattle.

[56] especially if you are a runner.

[57] But the story of this business is absolutely unbelievable and extremely undertold until now.

[58] So when the CEO, Jim Weber, took the helm in 2002, the company was losing $5 million a year.

[59] It was $30 million in debt.

[60] It was a week away from missing payroll, and the board was like having weekly meetings to figure out how to make payroll.

[61] It was a business of pretty modest size.

[62] It was a $60 million revenue business.

[63] And when we talk about this revenue number, you know, it's not SaaS numbers.

[64] Like there's extremely real costs in making shoes.

[65] So you can imagine not making a ton of money, well, actually losing $5 million a year.

[66] So that business had been around for like 90 years.

[67] And it sold all sorts of products at every price point to frankly a pretty random set of consumers in every category, not just running.

[68] So enter, Jim.

[69] Jim came in and bet the company exclusively on serving active runners as a segment, and he cut all other business lines.

[70] Over the last 20 years, he's grown the business to over a billion dollars in revenue, billion with a B, and well over a billion, and is thriving and thrived even through the pandemic.

[71] So along the way, Brooks was acquired by Berkshire Hathaway, and Warren Buffett personally elevated Brooks and Jim to make the company a direct report to him.

[72] Jim is a leader, a visionary, and a fighter, not only growing the business over the last 20 years, but personally fighting and beating cancer.

[73] Please welcome Jim Weber.

[74] Hey guys, it's great to be here, Ben.

[75] Thank you so much.

[76] Here we go.

[77] This is great.

[78] What a show.

[79] So, Jim, we figure you have a lot of footwear already.

[80] I've got some shoes, and I sold six more pairs tonight.

[81] That's awesome.

[82] And this morning.

[83] Thank you for hosting the run.

[84] It's fun.

[85] So we have an acquired hat for you.

[86] Acquired bag with some more goodies in it.

[87] Very nice.

[88] From the acquired family.

[89] Best Jim bag at the company, for sure.

[90] Thank you.

[91] We hope to see this in the trailhead store starting in 20203.

[92] I love the gold.

[93] That's the first gold trim we've got on an accessories bag.

[94] It's great to be here.

[95] Well, my first question in the way that I want to just tee this off, I mentioned it's an untold story until now.

[96] I hear you just launched a book, so congratulations on that.

[97] Thank you.

[98] Thank you.

[99] Could you just tell us a little bit about that?

[100] What is the book?

[101] So the book is running with purpose, and Brooks has been a fabulous journey, and I'm a person that believes in life the journey is to be just cherished and enjoyed because the finish lines are fleeting, And we all want goals, we all want finish lines, but you've got to enjoy the journey along the way, and I think we're all creatures of our journey.

[102] So Brooks has been through a lot, and it's a David and Goliath story, it's a turnaround story, it's a purpose -driven, culture -driven brand story.

[103] It's a focus niche challenger brand story in an industry like so many that's dominated by platforms, one really, really fabulous platform.

[104] And so we've navigated that.

[105] We're building a really cool brand with lots of runway yet for growth.

[106] And it's a great business, too.

[107] And so I wanted to tell that story because if you're not a runner, we haven't marketed to you.

[108] I mean, we are so focused.

[109] Every nickel has gone to people that are putting one foot in front of another.

[110] But the story continues, and I wanted to tell it.

[111] It's great.

[112] Well, David and I got to read an advanced copy of it, and then I actually just re -listened the audio book when it dropped earlier this week, actually that you narrated, which is very fun to hear your voice while I was running on the Burke by your office, listening to your voice.

[113] It was a very surreal experience.

[114] I want to go all the way back.

[115] I'm going to play David's role on this one.

[116] Let's go all the way back to when you first encountered Brooks in 1998.

[117] Talk to us about how you came to the company and where the company was at at that point.

[118] Yeah, so I, I've had a really fun career.

[119] I became a consumer products person after some banking.

[120] Pillsbury, M &A, corporate development strategy, got to run a brand.

[121] I've always wanted to run a business.

[122] And I ended up following an exec to the Coleman company, so I sort of became an outdoor sporting goods guy.

[123] This is Coleman, like, camping.

[124] Coleman camping, but they owned a whole bunch of different businesses.

[125] And I so badly wanted to run a business, a little division they had down in Phoenix, hit the wall, you know, just almost fraud in the counting and everything else.

[126] And I came back from a SWAT team and I told my boss, I want to go run that.

[127] Put me in, coach.

[128] Put me in.

[129] Ran that, turned it around, sold it.

[130] Went up here to another Coleman division.

[131] O 'Brien Water Sports.

[132] It's in our backyard here in Redmond, Washington, a brand.

[133] And I ran that for several years.

[134] Turned around, got profitable.

[135] They sold it.

[136] There's a pattern here.

[137] And then, you know, I went on to Sim Sports, a snowboard company.

[138] And, you know, we turned that around.

[139] And it ended up changing hands.

[140] And so there I was.

[141] And I joined the board at Brooks.

[142] I joined the board at Nautilus, which was formerly Beauflex.

[143] Oh, yeah.

[144] And I did some banking work, middle market M &A, marketing companies to investors.

[145] But on the board at Brooks, I had an inside view of what was happening there.

[146] And a good friend of mine, Helen Rocky, had run it successfully in the 90s, but she left.

[147] It was owned by J .H. Whitney Capital, really top notch for my money, middle market M &A firm.

[148] private equity firm, and they bought it, but the partners had left, Helen, the CEO had left Brooks, and it started to go sideways.

[149] New partners at Whitney, all new management.

[150] They went through three CEOs, and so...

[151] And you were on the board the whole time.

[152] I was on the board.

[153] So I had a look inside, and it was a crisis.

[154] Weekly, you guys have experienced this, weekly board calls on Fridays.

[155] The bank is not going to fund.

[156] They want more capital.

[157] It was, it was exciting, as they say.

[158] So, after a couple of months, we did a lot of work.

[159] I saw an opportunity, and I jumped in.

[160] And I love running businesses.

[161] I love solving the puzzles.

[162] But by that time, and I sort of tell it in the book, I really wanted to play the long game.

[163] I wanted to build a brand.

[164] And, you know, the TAM, I love your industry.

[165] The market in running, it's the biggest category in all of sporting goods.

[166] It's the biggest category in athletic footwear.

[167] it always has been.

[168] It's about a $30 billion category globally, apparel and footwear.

[169] So all we had to do is get, you know, and we could survive, and we've just kept at it by design, because I just decided I want to play the long game and build a brand, build value.

[170] And so that's why I'm still there.

[171] I'm a weird duck.

[172] But I've got, I've had four owners, and I've played through each one.

[173] And kept that opportunity out there for the next owner.

[174] And there we went.

[175] At that moment, though, I mean, Ben mentioned you did a little this, a little that.

[176] It's like that line in Wayne's world about like, oh, I've got a collection of hair nets and name tags.

[177] Like, I mean, you were making football cleats?

[178] Like, what was Brooks at that point in time?

[179] So every brand in athletic fortwear and apparel plays the whole, you know, athletic director's purview, right?

[180] Right.

[181] You're in every sport.

[182] And what no one understood that I found out later is that the mindset in our industry, literally came from owning a factory.

[183] When you had a shoe factory, you had to keep it busy all year long and keep the people employed.

[184] So you went from baseball cleats to wrestling shoes, to bowling shoes, to running shoes, to foot, you know, you had to make everything.

[185] And the business developed that way.

[186] And you had to view it as like, the product you made was like a factory that made shoes.

[187] Right.

[188] And so most of it we were losing money on.

[189] And that was the secret, right?

[190] So And then performance running shoes that really started at that point, about $100.

[191] And then we had court shoes and family footwear.

[192] We called them barbecue shoes and lawnmower shoes because that's what you did in them.

[193] And all of it was very low margin.

[194] All of it was tying up inventory and cash.

[195] And the retailers were ambivalent about it because we were number eight or nine at everything.

[196] Our brand was not strong.

[197] But when we made the decision to burn the boats on everything but performance running, The industry had never seen that before, and most people thought we were crazy that we wouldn't survive.

[198] And so you came in as CEO, I think in 2002, maybe late 2001, but...

[199] April 2001.

[200] Okay.

[201] Was Whitney looking for you to do the thing that you had done several times in your career before, which was just get the business to profitability?

[202] Or did they have a notion that you had an inkling that you could build a big, powerful brand here, and actually build a tremendous growth business?

[203] Yeah.

[204] By this time, you know, I understood what they needed.

[205] And I'd talk about it a little bit at my book.

[206] I'd run three and I was a little bit smarter, fortunately.

[207] They had to liquefy.

[208] There was no question about it.

[209] They were going to sell.

[210] And the employees knew that I was just coming in there to sell this thing.

[211] They had a pool on how long I'd last.

[212] But I wrote on my board, one of my favorite coats from Benjamin Disraeli, the secret to discuss is constancy of purpose.

[213] I wanted to create value.

[214] I want to build a brand.

[215] I want to build a brand.

[216] So I decided when I walked in, I was going to play through Whitney.

[217] I was going to get them a good outcome, but I was going to stay and play through it.

[218] And I thought we'd get another private equity player.

[219] We didn't.

[220] So the Whitney partners, Peter Castleman and Paul Vagano, I'll never forget the meetings.

[221] They said, this thing is, it's kind of a mess.

[222] We didn't know what we bought.

[223] You have to pick a path and go.

[224] It might take you five years, but you've got to do it.

[225] And in Brooks Darkest Hour, they wrote a check and recapitalized it.

[226] A little bit of a cram down, but they, you know, they wrote a check, and that's when I came in.

[227] And so they were fantastic partners for Brooks, and we got them liquid.

[228] The pitch I made to our team, and it's what I believed is that companies with issues get sold, companies with opportunity attract investors.

[229] And I said, we're going to have to park cars in the parking lot.

[230] We're going to attract some of me. But that's the mindset we had.

[231] We were going to sell the future, not just sell the current, right?

[232] Yeah.

[233] Yeah.

[234] And so if I'm remembering, right, Whitney put in $7 million to recapitalize it.

[235] I think that's the last time Brooks has taken outside capital.

[236] Absolutely.

[237] So we saw a higher margin business and we benchmark against all the public companies.

[238] We're asset light.

[239] It's really an inventory and receivables business.

[240] And there's a reason we only have one store at our headquarters.

[241] And we think it's an advantage for us right now in the development of our brand.

[242] But if you have high margins and good flow through operating profits in the teens and your incremental, obviously, capital, you can flow cash growing 20, 30, 40 percent.

[243] We haven't needed a dollar of capital since 2001.

[244] Wow.

[245] That's incredible.

[246] That's why Warren Buffett likes us.

[247] Right.

[248] You sent cash to Omaha, not the other way.

[249] A return on tangible net assets has been over 50 % for the last 15 years.

[250] Wow.

[251] 50 % annually.

[252] Yeah.

[253] On average net tangible assets.

[254] What?

[255] I'd say that's a good business.

[256] Can you just walk us through like what is, how did the economics of Brooks work?

[257] You know, here was the insight that we saw.

[258] And man, I, you know, monopolies are great.

[259] Network effects are great.

[260] platform.

[261] You know, all those things are great.

[262] And what I saw in Brooks, there was a book that was meaningful to me when I was at Pillsbury, The PIMS principles, and one of the highest ROI businesses were lower price point consumable items.

[263] If you're buying a Boeing jet or a $600 wakeboard that never wears out or an $800 golf driver, that's a discerning purchase.

[264] And the margins on equipment tend to be lower.

[265] But the tidalist golf ball is a consumable for me anyway.

[266] And running shoes...

[267] You've made that joke before.

[268] A frequent runner, a frequent runner will put 20 to 30 miles a week.

[269] They'll go through 2 .6 pairs of shoes a year.

[270] So there's the stickiness, right?

[271] If you can earn a frequent runner that the shoe is really important, it's a piece of equipment for them, you don't have to resell them every time.

[272] You've got some stickiness there, and you start to build customer loyalty.

[273] And your average selling price for a pair of shoes today $150, $130 .30 times 2 .6 per year.

[274] And a loyal Brooks customer stays with you for...

[275] Maybe, you know, we had to earn them.

[276] You know, there's no guarantee.

[277] They're curious.

[278] There's lots of new innovation.

[279] And they'll try some different things.

[280] But when you're training for a marathon, one of my favorite stats for our brand is shoe count at marathons, because it's a piece of equipment.

[281] And if you don't want to be injured, you want to have a good experience.

[282] So we sponsor Boston just happened.

[283] Incredible race.

[284] We're always the number one or two on shoe on course.

[285] And do you have people at the big marathons counting?

[286] It's so good.

[287] They have high -speed cameras.

[288] No, high -speed cameras.

[289] AI, they link it to the bib.

[290] They know exactly what shoe 20 ,000 people are running on.

[291] The model.

[292] It's so cool.

[293] So Houston Marathon, 6 ,000 marathoners, 12 ,000 halves.

[294] Number one shoe in the half, Brooks.

[295] number two shoe in the full, there was a little brand down in Portland, Oregon.

[296] They were number one.

[297] Oh, no, no. We are on their heel.

[298] But that shoe count is a true test because that's the frequent runner, and it's a piece of gear in that.

[299] So that's the leading edge for us, is to earn that customer and have their confidence.

[300] All right, David's doing the thing that I normally do and jump ahead and try and unpack the business as it is today.

[301] Let's go It's 2002 through 6, let's talk about this era.

[302] You've made this bet where you're going to shed every other product that you sell, and you're kind of going to piss off a lot of your channel because what sells really well at these big box stores, those are your barbecue shoes.

[303] So can you take us to like one or two of the key moments of the hard part of the decision to drop product lines, that weren't about frequent runners.

[304] Yeah, I think the key to Brooks is that we knew we are going to have to build the brand at the runner level, literally a pair of feet of the time.

[305] And the retailers, so many retailers told me, Jim, we are not going to build your brand.

[306] We'll try it, we'll test it.

[307] We were tested at Dick's Sporting Goods, and I'm not kidding for 10 years.

[308] 20 stores, 80 stores, 20 stores, 80 stores.

[309] So you have to build the flywheel in these franchise products.

[310] That's how running works.

[311] The best -selling running shoes continue to be the best -selling running shoes year after year for as long as they sustain it all around the world.

[312] We have two of the best -selling shoes now in the United States, the ghost and the adrenaline.

[313] They're the two top shoes in the performance running category.

[314] So when we go to retail, biggest customers, Big Five, it's a fine, you know, sort of mid -priced sporting goods retailer on the West Coast.

[315] We were doing 10 million of 60 million of revenue with them at $30 shoes.

[316] My first meeting with them is we love Brooks.

[317] We see a great future for you.

[318] So one -sixth of all your revenue is coming from their stores.

[319] They saw our opportunity at 1999.

[320] I was losing money at $30.

[321] I couldn't run fast enough from that meeting because we left and we generated $5 million of cash by getting the inventory out of it.

[322] So those were easy decisions to leave those retailers.

[323] And then we had to build it in the specialty run community, pre -internet, pre -e, e -commerce, huge part of our business now.

[324] And then we're sporting goods.

[325] They didn't want to sell your $100 shoes.

[326] They wanted to sell $20 .30.

[327] They didn't have that customer.

[328] They didn't have the runner.

[329] I see.

[330] They had family athletic footwear.

[331] Where was, at this moment in time, where was this in the running as a sport?

[332] Like, marathons, you know, were they what they are today?

[333] Were they on that journey?

[334] They were on that journey.

[335] And this was what we did at Brooks.

[336] I think we were the first one to a, identify that the real business was in trainers.

[337] It wasn't in racing shoes.

[338] It wasn't in spikes.

[339] It wasn't in marathon racing shoes.

[340] The business is in the trainers.

[341] We don't sponsor college programs.

[342] They're kind of owned and wrapped up.

[343] A lot of the college athletes that race in the big brands train in Brooks.

[344] Every day.

[345] The business is trainers.

[346] So when we came in, you know, I think Brooks had had, you know, we were humble and we were getting the business that we could.

[347] and we had shoes that were really more back -of -the -packed people.

[348] They weren't the fast people.

[349] They were support shoes and motion control shoes.

[350] People that needed functional footwear.

[351] And we've moved ourselves to the middle and the front.

[352] We're trying to serve every runner.

[353] The insight was this, the sport is the soul of running, right?

[354] Track and field, cross -country, road racing, the Olympics, now trail and ultra.

[355] But the business is people that are investing in themselves, fitness and health and wellness.

[356] There's no other sport that has that dynamic.

[357] where there's, it goes from a sport to, you know, a pursuit of investing in yourself.

[358] And we've always positioned right in the middle of that.

[359] We're basically about you and your run.

[360] We're not about the podium.

[361] We're not about the tape.

[362] You know, in our sport, unlike basketball, everybody knows, all the kids, especially know, what Steph Curry plays in.

[363] Most people don't remember who won the Olympic marathon and even more over what shoe they were wearing.

[364] And the truth of the matter is, you know, everybody's unique, the shoe really matters, and you all know if it's comfortable, if it's working or it's not, and frequent runners really do.

[365] So that's the insight.

[366] I think we're the only brand that is consistently executed against that.

[367] Every product we make starts with your biomechanics and your habitual joint motion and what your needs are, and we're all essentially different.

[368] We're the only brand that begins there.

[369] And we've done that for 20 years now.

[370] I mean, you mentioned that other company in Oregon.

[371] I try not to say competitors.

[372] It just ends badly if you say it better's name.

[373] Which is an amazing company down there.

[374] It's great company.

[375] But literally their name is the Greek word for victory.

[376] And what you're talking about here is incredibly counterpositioned to that in a way that victory really can't mean just investing in yourself regardless of where you finish.

[377] One person breaks the tape.

[378] 40 ,000 people run New York Marathon.

[379] we'll take the 39 ,999 that want to have their best day.

[380] They're investing in themselves.

[381] They want to have their...

[382] We are celebrating every one of those people.

[383] First 5K, run around the block.

[384] Man, that's your run, right?

[385] That's what we do.

[386] It was really clarifying reading your book and understanding that Brooks's brand is about performance, but it is not serious.

[387] And I think that was an interesting clarification for me because I run and I take my performance seriously and I've selected a very specific motion control, Brooke's shoe, to do that.

[388] But I don't need it to be a very serious sort of like victory -oriented brand because I've never once thought, oh, maybe I will win the Seattle Rock and Roll Marathon.

[389] Like, that has never occurred to me. There's still hope, Ben.

[390] There's still hope.

[391] You know, I think really what it relates to, and this is, I think, what Brooks got before any other brand is we are sweating product.

[392] I think we invest more in R &D in a focused running metrics manner than any other company.

[393] And we don't have as much money as many of them still.

[394] But it's so focused in the clinical work we do and the materials work we do.

[395] We engineer materials just for the motion of running and all the engineering that is what has to do and respond in between gates and all of that.

[396] So that's the key.

[397] But I think our brand positioning, I didn't create it.

[398] It was sort of there when I came in.

[399] But it's brilliant for this reason.

[400] It's approachable.

[401] You know, the unsiriousness is basically trying to take the pretension and the, you know, the I'm not worthy.

[402] I'm not a runner out of our sport.

[403] And so many of our retail running shops have done a fantastic job of that.

[404] First of all, I'm old enough to remember Title IX in the 70s, equalized college sport funding for men and women.

[405] If you weren't addressing women in the last 40 years in sporting goods, you're gone.

[406] I mean, we doubled the business.

[407] And women have driven this sport since the mid -90s.

[408] So approachability, I think, was super key.

[409] And Brooks is a very inclusive brand.

[410] It's you and your run, and all are worthy, but the product.

[411] Here's the other thing that's so interesting about our sport is, you know, maybe in some sports the pinnacle equipment absolutely needs to be available to the pinnacle athlete.

[412] You know, maybe that's in golf.

[413] And certainly for a two -hour marathon, everything has to be clicking.

[414] But what's interesting at our sport, the person that really needs the best footwear and the best run bra and all of that are the people that are just beginning.

[415] beginning because the injury potential for those people is really high.

[416] And that's where the right – so there's – that's another element of our category that's pretty unique.

[417] So I would say that the unseriousness of our brand is all about in welcoming and including everyone, no matter if you're just starting or your 20th marathon.

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[421] But the thing that we want to share now is Vanta has grown to become the best security compliance platform as you hit hypergrowth and scale into a larger enterprise.

[422] It's kind of wild.

[423] When we first started working with Vanta and met Christina, my gosh, they had like a couple hundred customers, maybe.

[424] Now they've got 5 ,000, some of the largest companies out there.

[425] It's awesome.

[426] Yeah, and they offer a tremendous amount of customization now for more complex security needs.

[427] So if you're a larger company, and in the past, you showed Vanta to your compliance department, you might have heard something like, oh, well, we've already got a compliance process in place, and we can't integrate this new thing.

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[429] They launched vendor risk management.

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[431] This is great.

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[434] If you click the link in the show notes here or go to vanta .com slash acquired, you can get a free trial.

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[436] Make sure you go to vanta .com slash acquired.

[437] Okay, so going back to our story again, you just lost the big five business intentionally, so you walk away from one -sixth of your revenue.

[438] I think you walk away from more than that.

[439] It's not like it went from 60 to 50.

[440] It went like significantly lower.

[441] Foot Locker.

[442] We were doing $60 SMUs.

[443] They'd order 80 ,000.

[444] They'd change the product twice.

[445] They'd get it down to 60 ,000, and then they'd cancel it, and we'd end 20 ,000 inventory.

[446] That was a quick decision, too.

[447] We just quit doing all that make -up business that was retailer -driven.

[448] So revenue is going like this, intentionally.

[449] You're the fourth CEO.

[450] So at this point, is the team, how do you get the team on board, these crazy decisions you're making when they're like three other people came in here and tried to turn this thing around and didn't?

[451] you know I think from a leadership standpoint the real puzzle in that first year was gaining trust from everybody that mattered B of A was our bank kind of a lost cause we had to replace them they just weren't going to buy it but Whitney invested that was key and we kept them with us all the way through the leadership team took time you know and it was you had to deliver sort of on outcomes.

[452] But here's what we did.

[453] Six weeks in, we redid the plan, took profits down.

[454] The plan was millions of dollars.

[455] They didn't have a prayer to hit that.

[456] We took profit down, but it was a profit plan.

[457] They hadn't made a bonus in four years.

[458] And we went after cash flow, and that was shrinking the mix.

[459] We hit our plan that year, and people got a bonus.

[460] And we hit the plan that we'd sent nine months earlier.

[461] I spent really eight weeks intensively looking at it.

[462] But I think we knew what we were seeing, and we generated 10 million of cash that first nine months.

[463] That's how much we shrunk the balance sheet with focus.

[464] And here was the key, though.

[465] You have to do Horizon 1, Horizon 2, Horizon 3, right?

[466] You've got to solve it all.

[467] So I had 10 things to do.

[468] The board said, oh, my God, you're crazy.

[469] Pick 4.

[470] No, you don't understand.

[471] We had to get the adrenaline right because that shoe was critical for us, and we had to refine that shoe in 2001 for 2002, and And we got it right.

[472] The fourth adrenaline was an incredibly balanced shoe, had a multi -density stability technology in it, super balanced, and A6 started to not deliver.

[473] And we ran, man. We air freighted one color, 18 -month cycles, save the company.

[474] But we had to finish that shoe in 01 to deliver on 2002, which...

[475] You guys are like a semiconductor company.

[476] You got to design the...

[477] I think, you know, some of these...

[478] Brooks, everything's complicated, everything's competitive, but it's like moving a wall of bricks forward.

[479] And you've got to get, you know, I think as a CEO, you've got to move it all forward.

[480] So when some things are falling behind, you've got to get those up.

[481] And you have to deliver the whole business model.

[482] And you have to do it sequentially over seasons in our business.

[483] Because if you come to market with a ho -hum product line, you're going to shrink that year.

[484] And so you've got to, the lead times in footwear, it's not the car business, but it's more like the car business.

[485] business than the t -shirt business there's every there's tooling on everything 12 sizes men's 12 sizes women's wids colors it's scaling these things in the fact there's a lot of tooling it's it's a it it's a it's it there's a lot of um takes a half a million to a million bucks to bring one style to market wow it's a lot of tooling and inventory yeah it's a lot different than the software business um don't ask me about my tech stack on my website My board does that every now and then, and it doesn't go well.

[486] The website is actually pretty great.

[487] We're competing with digital engagement in our industry, and we're doing really well with it.

[488] We've taught ourselves that and runner -focused, but I think we're executing on the digital side with runners as well as anybody is right now.

[489] You're also in a pretty good town to be able to recruit digital talent.

[490] There's a lot of talent here, and they have a lot of opportunities now, too.

[491] So, okay, so fast forward a couple years.

[492] So you nail it with the adrenaline for.

[493] You're starting, you're profitable now.

[494] The business is looking better.

[495] You get the liquidity event that you're looking for and you're sold to Russell Athletic.

[496] What was it like communicating to the team we're joining Russell?

[497] So you guys are in this business and I've been bought and sold a few time, bought things too.

[498] We knew we were going to have to sell so we were prepared.

[499] And we thought for sure it was going to be another private equity firm.

[500] We're going to get another kick at the can.

[501] And that's what I was absolutely mentally prepared for.

[502] So the bankers come in.

[503] We do the management presentation.

[504] We're going to practice on a strategic.

[505] There weren't many there.

[506] We're going to practice on Russell Athletic.

[507] Oh, everyone does a warm -up fundraising pitch.

[508] Oh, my God.

[509] And they completely fell in love of it.

[510] So there we are.

[511] If only you had the, you know, YC's growth program, that you could then go.

[512] practice.

[513] They ended up, we negotiated our independence.

[514] I pitched us.

[515] We're the crazy uncle out in Seattle.

[516] We're really different.

[517] Just leave us alone, which they did.

[518] But yeah, you know, so for them, we had negotiated our independence because we knew where we were going.

[519] We saw the opportunity.

[520] We were, we had a flywheel going.

[521] We really did.

[522] And at that point, we were continuing to pursue growth.

[523] So they would have been crazy not to just let us keep going.

[524] And I would do that then with the next owner as well.

[525] So two more years pass, business continues to grow, Russell gets bought by Fruit of the Loom, and fruit was already owned by Berkshire, right?

[526] Right, that's right.

[527] So what's it like now being a subsidiary of a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, but two levels down?

[528] Yeah, I mean, it was really interesting.

[529] In one sense, you know, I'd gone to school on Warren through his letters and I had an internship in the 80s that he had put a business out of its misery in a competitive battle.

[530] In a two newspaper town, it went to one.

[531] Buffalo Evening News.

[532] Yeah, the Buffalo Evening News.

[533] And there was a black hole in Coles Media's balance sheet.

[534] And I, what happened there?

[535] And Warren, oh my gosh, plays to win, signals he will never, ever, ever, ever quit.

[536] Five million dollars of losses.

[537] investing in the newsroom, investing in quality, goes to the morning, fight to the death.

[538] Don't do that with Warren Buffett because he never quits.

[539] So they made a rational decision and they closed it down.

[540] His profits went from negative 5 to 10 million every year since.

[541] And I was just, wow, who is this guy, right?

[542] And that was before Solomon Brothers, right?

[543] That was like the prelude to Solomon.

[544] Yeah, that was in his early days.

[545] And he was just, the way he talked about brands.

[546] and the moat around a brand, I hadn't seen that before.

[547] Competitive strategy, right?

[548] I loved it.

[549] So I'd gone to school on him.

[550] So once we got part of fruit, I thought, okay, this is good because Charlie and Warren are going to understand what we're doing at Brooks.

[551] We're small.

[552] And so we started to get some letters and your numbers are good, and we got notes from the board.

[553] But Fruit of the Loom and Brooks, we're just completely different companies, six packs of men's briefs at Walmart.

[554] Yeah.

[555] That's not the performance.

[556] A little bit different than like a local running store distribution strategy.

[557] Innovation was mighty morphin power rangers or something.

[558] They may have had those.

[559] Anyway, but they're, you know, long -time company, they bought it for Russell Athletic Apparel.

[560] They bought it for, you know, the Walmart business and they're good at that.

[561] So again, they left us alone.

[562] We had to negotiate that.

[563] It wasn't a given.

[564] They actually, on paper, they were going to move us to Bowling Green and it would have killed Brooks.

[565] And I was pinging, you know, because we were possibly going to get sold.

[566] So I actually, you know, talked to some super smart people, some in this town, and, you know, Warren basically said, I'm not going to get involved.

[567] It's up to fruit.

[568] And I thought there was a good chance they'd sell it because I would have loved to have led an independent play there.

[569] But we waited it out.

[570] We took them, you know, sort of right to the edge of saying, you've got to commit to Brooks.

[571] We've got to commit, you've got to commit, and they did, and then two years later, Warren plucked us out.

[572] But we had to negotiate our independence from them, and I, again, you know, I could have left, I had opportunities to leave.

[573] I didn't want to leave.

[574] We saw a great opportunity.

[575] 0 -8 -09, just as that was going on, you know, obviously a great recession.

[576] We tripled the business from 2009 to 2014, and I knew we had some good things going.

[577] But that was a really critical moment because they might have moved it to Bowling Green, which they did to everything else, and many of those brands wilted.

[578] And I would have lost a lot of talent, and, you know, I wouldn't have run it in their business model.

[579] It wouldn't have worked.

[580] You get to retain your independence there, but you're not really independent.

[581] You're still within Russell, within fruit.

[582] At some point, you get the phone call from Warren.

[583] Can you talk us through that?

[584] Yeah, so we had put.

[585] put in, you know, we had good incentive programs, and we tried to keep people there and put some stickiness in with some long -term programs to just get people focused on building that triple.

[586] So, fruit was, you know, sort of consolidating all their stuff, and they had bought Russell for about a billion dollars with internal capital, and they were about to go and restructure that.

[587] So, you know, Warren had, we had started to sell shoes at the annual meeting, Omaha this is like Charlie and Warren, you know, 50 years ago.

[588] I love this event.

[589] Now, their arena was full, but that'll be the case for you guys in another year.

[590] They've had 50 years to compound.

[591] It's going to be huge.

[592] It's going to be huge.

[593] But, you know, we were selling shoes there, and I sent Warren a note, and great, next year we'll sell more.

[594] Good job.

[595] You know, hearing great things.

[596] You guys are doing well.

[597] And by the way, if you're ever in Omaha, come by, we'll go have a steak.

[598] Well, son of a gun.

[599] You don't say no to that.

[600] I just happened to be in Omaha about three weeks.

[601] later.

[602] Imagine that.

[603] And I knew he would love what we're building.

[604] It's unique.

[605] It's distinctive.

[606] We're not trying to be that brand, that brand.

[607] We're really developing something with focus.

[608] He couldn't figure out why the big guys weren't squashing us.

[609] And we spent three hours, not one phone call.

[610] The door was closed.

[611] We had a meal.

[612] But you just get his undivided attention.

[613] His brain is just so focused.

[614] He loves business.

[615] And I did most of the talking because I thought he's going to fall in love with this business.

[616] And six months later, So here's the start of the story is it was the December when Mark Zuckerberg was preparing to take Facebook public.

[617] And there was a Wall Street Journal article for the new, I don't know if he was 22 or 23, a young CEO of a public company.

[618] And one of the lines in there was going to trade in his Adidas slides for a pair of Brooks adrenaline.

[619] I don't know why it was in there, but Warren saw it, circled it and said, Jim, this is great.

[620] We just need a couple million more.

[621] So two weeks later Did you send Zuck a pair?

[622] Oh yes And he was in Brooks for a while But two weeks later I'm with my family down in the desert And you know I think I was out of Blackberry But it's 2011 I didn't have my voicemails Coming into my phone So I was checking email every day But I wasn't I didn't check voicemail Yeah So I get back at my office January 2nd I'm in early I like to start the new year, especially early.

[623] It's 7 a .m. and the red light on the phone is blinking.

[624] Pick it out, answer it.

[625] Jim, this is Warren.

[626] I got an idea.

[627] Give me a call.

[628] It was five days old.

[629] Oh, my gosh.

[630] This is like, you know, you know the story of Warren during the financial crisis of L. Lehman?

[631] He missed the voicemail completely.

[632] He found it like a year or two later.

[633] So anyway, pick up the phone, dial the number.

[634] Hello?

[635] He answers his own phone.

[636] It's incredible.

[637] This is Jim.

[638] Sorry, Warren.

[639] I was at blah, blah, blah, blah.

[640] He said, well, here's the idea.

[641] You know, you guys are doing well.

[642] You're focused on shoes.

[643] Your premium fruit really has to focus on apparel.

[644] I'm thinking about spinning you out and setting you up as a standalone subsidiary.

[645] And, you know, you guys will just keep doing what you're doing.

[646] And I just think that makes sense.

[647] And I said, you know, Warren, I think that's a good idea.

[648] I think we don't do that.

[649] And I gave him an update on our previous year.

[650] We had a great year.

[651] And he said, that's great because from here on out, I'm going to take all the credit for your success.

[652] But it's a, you know, as a platform to do what we want to do and build our brand, you know, they so know that revenue growth and profitability, you know, selling at margin, double -digit growth, is all about building brand.

[653] And that's really what we've been doing and really wanted to do.

[654] So we just have a sync on the opportunity that we have with this brand and now it's been 12 years.

[655] That's the true reason I'm still.

[656] still there.

[657] Because, you know, we're competing in a really, really big competitive category.

[658] And the margins, I think, on success are not fat.

[659] They're thin.

[660] And so executing against that with confidence and support, being able to work through, you know, a lot of the uncontrolled business in our category, it's a huge advantage for us.

[661] So I'm going to keep us going through the story.

[662] And like I've done on many previous episodes, I like earmarking sort of a number along the way to track.

[663] So I think around this.

[664] point, you're doing 160, 170 million in revenue.

[665] Business has grown nicely, you're profitable.

[666] There's a fun story from 2012 that I'd like you to tell.

[667] You've always been somewhat of a scrappy company, doing more with less than anyone else.

[668] Can you share the story of when you personally got kicked out of the U .S. track and field Olympic trials?

[669] So I think in real life, digital is digital, but in real life marketing, we activate.

[670] A lot of the running shops do runs out of their stores, and they're involved with the 5Ks, and we're bringing energy and positivity to that, really trying to make it fun for the people that many that are running for the first time.

[671] And then there's the sport, which is so fun to be at, whether it's the Olympic trials for the marathon, or the Olympic trials, which is often at Hayward Field down in Eugene.

[672] And the challenge there for all the brands is we rent a house, we bring in all of our partners and VIPs.

[673] We run group runs out of the house every morning.

[674] We bring in a chef and we watch these incredibly athletes compete for Team USA.

[675] It always happens in June.

[676] Olympics are, you know, July August.

[677] And it's just a fabulous event.

[678] And then the backdrop is the largest brand in our space, Nike, signs a 27 -year marketing agreement with the governing body of our sport, USA track and field.

[679] Who does a 27 -year deal?

[680] I mean, come on.

[681] It's a 27 -year deal.

[682] And then, of course, University of Oregon is a Nike University in more ways than one.

[683] And so they wrap it up, right?

[684] The whole thing has got swoosh wrap around everything.

[685] I think the yellow lines on the highway are swooshes.

[686] So we wanted to celebrate the athletes.

[687] We have athletes in there.

[688] We invest in the sport.

[689] and, you know, we don't invest like they do, but we invest in athletes, and they're inspiring and so on, so forth.

[690] All the brands do.

[691] So, you know, what can you do?

[692] You can't do a lot.

[693] But we decided, we checked with the FAA.

[694] The air rights are open.

[695] Nobody said you can't fly a plane.

[696] And we put a run -happy banner on an airplane, and we just flew it around that stadium.

[697] All day on Friday.

[698] They got mad, and we did it again.

[699] again on Saturday, and they started to tell us, you've got to take that plane down.

[700] Why?

[701] Well, because you can't do guerrilla marketing.

[702] Yeah, but we checked.

[703] It's all, you know, the FAA is fine, it's all good.

[704] It's the sky.

[705] And we're cheering on the athletes.

[706] You can't.

[707] You got to take that thing down.

[708] Get that thing out of the sky.

[709] And so overnight, coming into Sunday, the final day, we had, we checked with some of the track and field officials, and they basically said, screw them, you should just fly it.

[710] And we checked again with the FAA.

[711] And so we, we checked again with the FAA.

[712] flew it and they came up we bought tickets for all of our guests we had about 80 people there we didn't get them free and comp we had some of those but we bought all these and they said all right you guys all have to leave and we what you know you all have to leave so we left our guests and three of us went down to talk about it and they why are you asking us to leave you didn't do the you know you didn't take it down and Nike was all sitting right behind him so well there's nothing against doing that.

[713] We don't, we checked with everyone.

[714] Well, read the back of your ticket.

[715] This ticket is a license that can be revoked at any time.

[716] So you're just kicking us out.

[717] Yeah, we're just kicking you out.

[718] Get out.

[719] And it was all, it was a huge mistake for them because this story has lived on in the industry forever.

[720] And we had some of the best running shop people in, in the country there with us.

[721] They were our guests.

[722] And so everybody knew about it.

[723] They kicked me out, our head of marketing, and our head of sports marketing.

[724] It was interesting.

[725] Anyway.

[726] That's awesome.

[727] We were at the bar, we had beers, and we watched it on TV.

[728] Well, if we were, if David and I were on Zoom with you, we would be getting ready to enter, like, hour number two and try and talk about every year all the way through.

[729] Tonight, I want to focus on how.

[730] how you came through the pandemic and some of the unique ways that you early realized running actually was going to be something that people started focusing more time on and you were able to kind of lean into this new behavior.

[731] Talk to us about March 2020 and how you paid attention to what was changing.

[732] Yeah, a couple of big advantages.

[733] First was literally an obsession on runners.

[734] Participation, you know, links to unit sales and volume, right?

[735] So no other brand has that clarity because most of the products in the athletic footwear industry don't ever go for a run or play basketball or really even go to the gym.

[736] It's casual family lifestyle footwear.

[737] There's nothing wrong with that.

[738] Some of those businesses are great, but we had an advantage because 90 % of our products went through a retailer.

[739] That's a problem.

[740] Europe retail shut down in one week and then all of retail rolled through North America, and by the end of March, not a store was really open.

[741] And that's a problem.

[742] Cash cycle froze.

[743] Oh, my God.

[744] Nobody knew it was happening, right?

[745] We didn't know how lethal this virus was, how transmissible, and so and so forth.

[746] And so it was white knuckle time, and we were there with everybody else.

[747] Everybody could write a book on that.

[748] But here's what we did is we saw phases, because we'd seen during the recession, running is a bit recession -resistant.

[749] We saw that.

[750] I was thinking about that.

[751] It's kind of like...

[752] It is, because it's cheap and it's convenient.

[753] All you need is, right, pair of shoes?

[754] It's like the healthy alcohol during recessions.

[755] Thank you.

[756] But we were not an essential business in marijuana and alcohol were, so figure that out.

[757] So, but during the Great Recession, 50 % unemployment in Italy and Spain under the age of 30, running took off double -digit growth after the Great Recession.

[758] So we'd seen that before, and it turned out.

[759] to be COVID -friendly, right?

[760] You now know the story.

[761] It was, you know, social distancing friendly, outdoors, walking, hiking, running, all made the cut.

[762] But nobody knew that.

[763] We had a hypothesis.

[764] We created this frame on how we thought running would recover.

[765] And so here's what we did.

[766] First of all, Strava data magic, right?

[767] Every day after the quarantine shutdowns, Strava activity was growing.

[768] And they were sharing that.

[769] Then, you know, what we did, we have 40 in the U .S. 45 field marketing people we put them in parks high traffic running parks at 4 p .m. every afternoon and they counted runners and guess what it was growing every day and then we watched digital sales and we have visibility on 85 % of our retail sell through and so digital went from 30 % of all of our products going through a website of somebody's ours or another partners it went to 80 % by the by the end of April, and in May, we sold more in May 2020 almost all through digital than we did in May 19.

[770] In all channels.

[771] Running made the cut.

[772] We grew 27 % in 2020 in that COVID year.

[773] But we saw it.

[774] This was the key because of our customer obsession and our ability to work multi -channel was a big advantage in that time because we could move inventory around and make it happen.

[775] Inventory, if it isn't there, you can't sell it.

[776] But multi -channel was a big advantage.

[777] The other was our focus on the runner.

[778] We turned our supply chain on at least six to 12 weeks before anybody else did.

[779] Because if you were a broad -based retailer, there was no clarity on when the customer was coming back.

[780] And for a lifestyle product, nobody went outside for a year.

[781] Oh, so it was the fact that you exclusively made performance running gear that gave you the confidence to flip it back on.

[782] Because if you're making all kinds of stuff and your fact, factory and you're pushing all kinds of stuff through retail channels, most of it is not going to sell so you can't actually open.

[783] That's right.

[784] And apparel and footwear inventory is life and death.

[785] You've got to manage inventory well because if you have too much, you've ruined the next cycle of inline product.

[786] So inventory is really critical.

[787] But we managed and played that cycle really well.

[788] We grew 27 % in 2020.

[789] We grew 31 % in 21.

[790] And we would have been up 40, if not for supply chain.

[791] Wow.

[792] So what did you do in revenue last year?

[793] Sorry?

[794] What'd you end up doing in revenue last year?

[795] 1 .13 billion?

[796] Wow.

[797] 1 billion, 130?

[798] Wow.

[799] Right here!

[800] We cracked a billion.

[801] Our industry, our industry, the billion dollar club is actually, you know, a rarefied club.

[802] There's probably maybe two dozen global.

[803] Yeah.

[804] Chinese brands are there now.

[805] But it's a great club to be in.

[806] And what makes us unique is it's all premium, full price, full margin product.

[807] Most of the other brands have good, better, best, and those are retail -driven merchandising strategies.

[808] They're not really consumer -driven strategies.

[809] So normally we talk about seven powers as we drift into analysis here.

[810] You're a Berkshire business, so we're going to talk about moats.

[811] What is Brooks' moat, and how do you think about defending the case?

[812] castle now that you have what you've built.

[813] You know, we think a lot about it, and I think there's also something I'd add to that.

[814] Part of the moat can be business model, right?

[815] Business models can be really powerful, and one of the things you can do as a company to create defensive, you know, moat structures is business model execution at scale.

[816] So we now are executing retail partnerships with the best retailers for running gear to runners at Super Jocke and Jill in Seattle, Fleet Feet Running down in, I think, Menlo Park.

[817] Obviously, you know, some of the better sporting goods players in outdoor from RAI to Dick Sporting Goods, we're their number one brand.

[818] We've earned that over 20 years and we have deep broad partnership programs with them.

[819] Digital marketing, consumer journey, you know, runners are digitally satisfied.

[820] They're obviously all over the web.

[821] They start their shopping experience there.

[822] We reach them in active evaluation mode.

[823] Once you start looking at shoes, if you don't see our ad, you know, I don't know how we missed you.

[824] We're spending a lot of money at runners now.

[825] Maybe more money at people who run in active evaluation for running shoes than any other brand.

[826] Very focused.

[827] That's not easy to do in our industry at scale.

[828] But I would say this is our most.

[829] I think runability, fit, feel, and ride.

[830] There's a lot of good shoes out there.

[831] It's actually not easy to make a great shoe.

[832] And Anthony Fauci made a joke about shoes.

[833] Vaccines are tough, they're complicated.

[834] It's not like making shoes.

[835] We get a lot of that.

[836] But, you know, the refinement that goes into mile and making mile 26, you know, acceptable, you know, these are, is really big.

[837] So, you know, I think great product is not as common as you might think.

[838] And the people on the inside, the frequent owners, know.

[839] So I think product, you've always got to lead with product.

[840] That's the first brand experience is a product experience.

[841] So I think we do some hard things.

[842] We build great product consistently year and you're out.

[843] It fits and it rides well.

[844] And then what we do on the retail side and partnering and activating in real life, running and selling shoes in real life, events and all the like, We do that better than anybody else.

[845] Service them, deliver on time, complete.

[846] And then the digital piece, we're excited about it.

[847] I mean, we're still just getting started there, but we're really focused on.

[848] Yeah, I'm curious.

[849] I mean, you mentioned, I hadn't even thought about Strava.

[850] Yeah.

[851] And the amount of data that you're able to see from that.

[852] What does the digital side of running in the future look like for Brooks and for the industry?

[853] I think it's interesting because quantified self and those tools have been ubiquitous.

[854] and they're out there.

[855] And the Apple Watch is a damn great product, right?

[856] So, you know, what's interesting about that is both Under Armour and A6 have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on digital apps.

[857] And I think they've really struggled to monetize.

[858] Run Keeper and Matt My Run.

[859] And Run, exactly.

[860] So I wanted to buy every one of those, and Warren wanted me to do the multiple on EBITDA.

[861] And there was no EBITDA.

[862] So let's just say, say it's hard to do acquisitions.

[863] At least one of them was a completely free product, I think, right?

[864] Oh, man, they don't make money.

[865] Yeah, so.

[866] And Under Armour is trying to sort through that now, right?

[867] They're starting to shrink, so is Adidas.

[868] So those tools are really powerful for data, but how do you monetize it?

[869] And so we haven't gone there yet, but we're building a Brooks Run Club.

[870] Finally, we've launched.

[871] It's not a loyalty program, but it's a zeal.

[872] We want to engage our zealots.

[873] We want to engage our true believers.

[874] And the data piece of that is going to be key.

[875] want to come up the kinetic chain and find a sensor system and a data capture system that can get to your biomechanics as you're running because what happens is if you run a marathon, your gate in the last five to ten miles really degrades.

[876] And that's where injuries happen.

[877] So we're doing a lot of, we have a lot of partnerships and we're really trying to figure out how we get good runner data in real life, not just in the lab.

[878] In the lab, we can test everything, but we want to get out in the wild.

[879] Do you think you need to do what the other folks in Oregon have done and build the whole consumer experience yourself, or is it a partnership?

[880] We're going to build it, and we're going to partner, too.

[881] So we're, you know, look, Nike Plus is a fantastic ecosystem.

[882] It just is.

[883] I'd love to have an ecosystem like that, but we're still, you know, we're still selling more runners than they are.

[884] We became the number one running shoe brand in the United States in the last 12 months last month, and a half percent share in performance runners.

[885] So we know where the battles are.

[886] And I think one of those powers is we make money on that.

[887] So the digital space, there's a lot of carcasses there.

[888] But we'd love to have it and we're going to work on it.

[889] Our sponsor for this episode is a brand new one for us.

[890] Statsig.

[891] So many of you reached out to them after hearing their CEO, VJ, on ACQ2 that we are partnering with them as a sponsor of Acquired.

[892] Yeah, for those of you who haven't listened, Vijay's story is amazing.

[893] Before founding Statsig, Vijay spent 10 years at Facebook where he led the development of their mobile app ad product, which, as you all know, went on to become a huge part of their business.

[894] He also had a front row seat to all of the incredible product engineering tools that let Facebook continuously experiment and roll out product features to billions of users around the world.

[895] Yep.

[896] So now Statsig is the modern version of that promise and available to all companies building great products.

[897] Statsig is a feature management and experimentation platform that helps product teams ship faster, automate A -B testing, and see the impact every feature is having on the core business metrics.

[898] The tool gives visualizations backed by a powerful stats engine unlocking real -time product observability.

[899] So what does that actually mean?

[900] It lets you tie a new feature that you just shipped to a core metric in your business and then instantly know if it made a difference or not in how your customers use your product.

[901] It's super cool.

[902] Statsig lets you make actual data -driven decisions about product changes, test them with different user groups around the world, and get statistically accurate reporting on the impact.

[903] Customers include Notion, Brex, OpenAI, FlipCart, Figma, Microsoft, and cruise automation.

[904] There are like so many more that we could name.

[905] I mean, I'm looking at the list, Plex and Versel, friends of the show at Rec Room, Vanta.

[906] They like literally have hundreds of customers now.

[907] Also, Statsig is a great platform for rolling out and testing AI product features.

[908] So for anyone who's used Notions' awesome generative AI features and watched how fast that product has evolved, all of that was managed with Statsig.

[909] Yep.

[910] If you're experimenting with new AI features for your product and you want to know if it's really making a difference for your KPI's STATSIG is awesome for that.

[911] They can now ingest data from data warehouses.

[912] So it works with your company's data wherever it's stored, so you can quickly get started no matter how your feature flagging is set up today.

[913] You don't even have to migrate from any current solution you might have.

[914] We're pumped to be working with them.

[915] You can click the link in the show notes or go on over to statSig .com to get started.

[916] And when you do, just tell them that you heard about them from Ben and David here on Acquired.

[917] I have two more areas I want to ask you about.

[918] The first is grading, and then the last is a personal topic.

[919] So can you paint for me what the A -plus case looks like for Brooke five years from now?

[920] And I'm sure you do lots of three -in -year five -year planning, so you think about this.

[921] And then I want to know, rather than just saying, what's the failure case?

[922] I think a more interesting question is, what is the riskiest part of your business right now, where if that thing goes wrong, everything else can crumble.

[923] Two questions.

[924] So the first one, the A case, we just created a North Star 10 -year vision for Brooks.

[925] It's global for sure.

[926] People are running all around the world.

[927] As the middle class grows, people invest in their fitness.

[928] And running is always making the cut there.

[929] So it's booming in Asia.

[930] You know, we're growing now really rapidly in Europe.

[931] So we want to build a global brand, and that's work to do in the next 10th.

[932] years.

[933] So we see an opportunity for 60 million customers, 60 million uniques up from maybe 15 million today, four bagger, and four billion in revenue.

[934] That's the big opportunity we see right now, and it's still a premium brand, positioned to the enthusiast, really uniquely positioned against all the big platforms.

[935] The A -plus case in five years is 20 to 30 percent growth annually.

[936] And that's what we've been doing the last two, three years.

[937] And a lot of that's going they have to come internationally, but if we get a B and grow 15%, we're actually fine with that, too, because we're not rushing for the exit.

[938] So we're excited.

[939] We think we see it.

[940] We're going to have to compete for it, but we have a complete playbook right now in our view.

[941] So what keeps us from being successful?

[942] I've experienced it.

[943] Single points of failure, right?

[944] We launched a D .C., which we had to do to get in the middle of the country.

[945] Distribution Center.

[946] Distribution Center.

[947] And, you know, despite all the experts.

[948] In 2016.

[949] 2016?

[950] And it didn't work.

[951] And so we just disappointed customers for three to six months.

[952] It was awful.

[953] And we never have done that.

[954] We execute well.

[955] And now in Vietnam, the whole industry on performance is really focused there principally.

[956] I think the big guy has 60 % of their footwork coming out of Vietnam.

[957] The South was shut down last Q3.

[958] July, August, September, 45 % of my factories didn't make a shoe for three months.

[959] So we grew 21 % last year.

[960] We have 43 % coming into that product issue.

[961] And now we're experiencing it now.

[962] Now we believe we're getting back on the curve.

[963] But what we've learned is, you know, what does resilience and agility look like in supply chain?

[964] You've got to diversify risk.

[965] You know, now we're seeing, at our size that we're at operationally, there's there's real risks there so you know we're thinking long and hard about that we're working hard at it but those are the things that are disrupting us right now COVID's still alive yeah yeah all right one closing topic you battled and survived and beat cancer while building this incredible business how has that changed your perspective on leading on the way you spend your days and on life broadly.

[966] Let's close it on a light new with some cancer.

[967] Let's talk about cancer.

[968] That's the takeaway for these wonderful people.

[969] So, you know, I didn't expect it.

[970] Came out of nowhere.

[971] Unlucky.

[972] No, you know, how did this happen?

[973] Esophageal cancer, I just felt awful and I my running, worst running experiences I've ever had and I got the diagnosis.

[974] Chemo -radiation surgery.

[975] Complicate.

[976] patients in the surgery, another surgery.

[977] But the good news is I'm cancer -free.

[978] I think it's gone.

[979] I think it's out of my body.

[980] The bad news is I'm even slower, and I'm kind of a Frankenstein in my systems, but it works.

[981] Everything works.

[982] So I think what I learned from that, though, is that, you know, you go to the web.

[983] Every time I have a friend or a family where it gets cancer, I go to the web.

[984] and you look at it and understand it and what the treatments are, and they always give you a five -year survival rate.

[985] My five -year survival rate was 20%, one in five.

[986] And my five years is this November, so I'm going to kick its butt.

[987] But I think what I quickly figured out, and I talked it through with my family and obviously with Warren, frankly, is that, you know, I decided that I was doing exactly what I wanted to be doing.

[988] I love what I'm doing.

[989] I've got family, I've got active lifestyle, I've got this fabulous brand and company that I'm a part of and a team.

[990] I just love it.

[991] I don't know what else I do, which is a problem.

[992] So I decided I didn't want to live, I didn't want to live in fear.

[993] I didn't want to live every day thinking about what I had to lose.

[994] I had a lot to lose.

[995] And I didn't want to be bitter about why me, you know, I just decided I want to soak in everything I can on any given day.

[996] I want to be a CEO.

[997] I want to be a dad.

[998] I want to be a husband.

[999] I want to, you know, I want to be a papa.

[1000] I've got four grandkids.

[1001] So, so that was it.

[1002] And I think for me, that was really powerful because I don't want to be that cancer guy and they brought it up.

[1003] They brought it up.

[1004] But it's just not my thing.

[1005] I want to, I want to, I want to, I'm glad to talk about it.

[1006] I don't hide it.

[1007] And I, and I've learned a lot, but, you know, I want to enjoy the things in life I really enjoy.

[1008] So that's what I learned.

[1009] But I think it's, you know, Everybody's different.

[1010] And you do find out companies, when you hit challenges, you learn what you're really all about.

[1011] And I think it's the same for people, of course.

[1012] And so I feel really lucky because I'm doing what I want to do.

[1013] And cancer's in the rear view mirror.

[1014] So, well, it's good.

[1015] So great.

[1016] Well, I know Jim did not want us to end on that note, but I think that's where we're going to leave it tonight.

[1017] Let's go for a perfect spot to end.

[1018] Thank you so much.

[1019] This has been so wonderful.

[1020] Thank you for making this whole day a great experience and special for us.

[1021] It's great to be a part of us.

[1022] Thanks for all of you who came on the run this morning.

[1023] That was super fun.

[1024] All right.

[1025] All right.

[1026] Thank you so much.

[1027] Thanks, guys.

[1028] Appreciate it.

[1029] Thank you.

[1030] Thank you.

[1031] Can't forget the choir bag.

[1032] Oh.

[1033] Well, listeners, that was our arena show.

[1034] We're so pumped to get to.

[1035] to share it with you for all those of you who can't travel to Seattle, and that was unreasonably short notice.

[1036] I think it was a month or so, but boy did the folks at at Pitchbook and everyone else who helped us make this happen.

[1037] Brooks running with the run the morning before the show.

[1038] Packy, Mario, Anu, Shu, Wycombinator.

[1039] I just, there was got so much love.

[1040] So many of our past guests just came in to come to the show.

[1041] It was so, so cool.

[1042] Yeah, that was great.

[1043] hanging with Chen Ye and John Bathgate and so listeners hopefully we'll be able to do something like this in the future and have you there.

[1044] I think we got to do the Chase Center next.

[1045] You're going to bring this to San Francisco.

[1046] That's really the only option.

[1047] Where do we go from here, right?

[1048] That's the only logical place.

[1049] It felt like Berkshire weekend for acquired podcast nerds.

[1050] And we would never profess that we were at the same scale.

[1051] But it definitely felt like it had an energy to quote crypto of we're all going to make it.

[1052] I don't know.

[1053] I got all the warm.

[1054] and fuzzies from getting to hang out with everyone.

[1055] You all are just the best.

[1056] I also think, David, of the like thousand people in that arena, I think you and I personally got to talk with about 500.

[1057] Like, we were on a mission to make sure to meet as many people as possible.

[1058] Before the show, after the show at the after party, that was so cool.

[1059] Oh, man. It's so much fun.

[1060] And everybody who came is getting an NFT, a custom acquired proof of attendance NFT, thanks to Acquired's head of special project, Sandy Kim, and the Salana Foundation.

[1061] So for those of you who came, show it off when you get your cool, animating, well, I won't give away too much.

[1062] But yes, your proof of attendance NFT.

[1063] Yes, so fun.

[1064] Well, with that, we would love if you want to come and chat with us, Acquired .com slash Slack.

[1065] You can find your next job at Acquired .fm slash jobs.

[1066] I think that's all we have to say.

[1067] listeners.

[1068] We'll see you next time.

[1069] We'll see you next time.