Reebok’s Founder Goes All In on AI - Joe Foster

Welcome to the Proven Podcast, where it's not about what you think, only what you can prove.

Reebok's billionaire founder, Joe Foster, built a global empire, and at 90 years old, he's doing it again by using AI to reinvent the entire shoe industry.

The show starts now.

Welcome back.

I'm excited for you guys to be here.

Thank you, Joe and Ben.

Thank you guys for showing up.

Thanks for having us.

Absolutely.

Pleasure.

Yes.

So for the

hopefully, when we've got a lot of things to talk about and things I don't fully know about yet, but we'll get to that.

Okay.

So for the few people who don't know who you guys are, we'll start with you, Ben.

Who are you?

So I'm the founder of Syntele, which is a brand that enables content creators to get their own shoes like athletes.

So we've innovatively created a shoe designed by AI.

The majority of it is designed by AI and automated.

And that became a breakthrough product, which was featured on the front page of USA Today and in the Economic Times and Fox Business and Bloomberg and a lot of other places because we've changed the way the footwear is being made.

And now it takes three months to make a new shoe.

So I'm leading this brand with an an amazing advisor, the founder of Reebok, Joe Foster.

So, he kind of stole some of your thunder there, Joe.

He literally just took it away.

Sorry, Joe.

If you didn't know,

hi, Joe, who are you?

I'm Joe Foster.

I'm an author.

Gotcha.

That works.

You've done a couple things beforehand, though.

So, we probably should talk about those.

Yeah, well, beforehand, in order to get to become an author, you've got to be able to have a story.

And so, that story was Reebok.

And it started back in 1958 for me

when we left the Bern company.

Our parent company, J.A.W.

Foster and Sons, they had an amazing business.

But in those days, 1958, you didn't have that many customers.

Since then, the customer base for sports footwear has grown tremendously.

And so that has helped not only Reebok, V and Nike and everyone else.

It's helped them all.

And it's still growing.

Right.

You mentioned earlier before we even started recording that the market's changed.

The things are so radically different.

And there's a lot of people who are trying to scale and they're trying to look look for proven strategies, things that kind of get them to the next step.

And you also mentioned that if people want to know the details and the story of how you got here initially, there's an amazing book.

But let's talk about strategies and tactics.

We live in a different world now.

What are some of the things that you proved as you went through this in the beginning that gave you radical success when you founded and grew Reebok that are still applicable to today?

I think with sport, what has happened is over the last, we could say 80 years since World War II,

that

the demand for sport has grown and grown and continued to grow.

As we become overtaken by automation and now by AI and by robotics,

people want to do things.

Males in particular want to do things.

So playing sport

has started to grow tremendously.

Therefore, what has changed is the demand for the products

is now incredibly so much bigger than when we started our business.

In fact, it's exploded.

I think it's probably maybe the biggest retail now out on any high street or even malls, even.

The biggest retail is now sports-driven.

Even street football now, what used to be nice leather shoes, and

you saw all these shoe shops, now you don't see them because streets are now being taken over by what is sports-driven sneakers.

It's all sneakers now.

So what has changed?

What has changed is is now instead of these small sports stores that used to sell everything from games to shoes to tennis records, now

the stores are really

footwear stores.

They do do the odd bits and pieces as well.

They do clothing, but they're all driven now by sports.

But instead of them being three separate individual ex-sportsmen,

open in a small store in a town,

now it's business.

And this business is driven now by the quantities, the volumes that are in demand.

And so we get fewer owners of sports stores.

And now we've got some rather large, probably five, six, really big

distributors now who have many, many stores throughout not just the country where I came from, UK, but globally.

And so this global, so that's what's changed.

So the retail side has changed globally.

And

I used to go to America to the NSGA show.

The NSGA show,

hundreds, maybe thousands of people would turn up because they owned a small sports store.

Those people don't exist anymore.

So now there are the shows.

There's only five or six really top

buyers.

And so now the brands go to the buyers.

So that has changed around.

So here we have a different scene altogether.

And

if you think about that, it means that we didn't have such a struggle.

We never had a recession.

Right.

Ever.

Recessions.

Most industries go through a recession.

We never did.

Purely incentive because the sports industry just continues to grow and take over the retail scene.

So that's the biggest change, I think.

So when that type of business changes and you have what used to be a sea of competition now being swallowed up by some pretty big sharks, how do you, when you're running a business and you're scaling it?

Because what you did at Reebok was just you created a new industry.

There was just everything with aerobics and all of that.

What are some of the strategies and some of the things that you did to manage that growth and to manage the team underneath your command?

Well, I think, first of all, we had to find out where do we go because

when Jeff and I,

we left the Foster business, the Foster business was going nowhere.

It was failing.

I was going to ask you why you left your family business.

I was like, what happened?

Well, my father and uncle inherited it from my grandfather.

And they just continued to make the same product they were making in the 1930s.

But unfortunately, my father and uncle just did not get on together.

They were at war with each other.

Gotcha.

So you're running a company, 50% ownership each, and they were fighting all the way.

It was okay.

Grandfather died at 53.

Grandmother sort of was the one that took it, and that was okay.

Kept the sons.

working fine.

When grandmother died, that was it.

It was over.

The company was over.

Jeff and I, we were in our teens.

We did national service just after World War II, national service.

And, you know, you learn a lot more when you leave home and you're doing things on your own.

You learn how to look after yourself.

You see life a bit differently.

And so we come back from that period.

And when we arrived back, we arrived back to a failing company.

So that was a failing company.

So we left.

What did we do?

Did we do the same product?

Yes, to an extent, but we wanted to find something different.

by the time we left in the late 50s adidas had come across from germany and they were taking the uk market to get into soccer would have cost a lot of money and of course we just left the family company they were not going to back us so we were bootstrapping as they call it today bootstrap we had no money so we had to look for what eventually we call white space so this was our first

I could say, time where we had to think about, think on our feet, what do we do?

White space was things that added us weren't in, that my parents weren't in, we went into cycling, first of all.

And cycling was okay until we

that in itself is a story.

No,

okay.

Get into that, yeah.

Yeah, cycling was great.

My brother, Jeff, he was a cyclist.

Gotcha.

And he used to go out every weekend and he'd do races, 100 miles or whatever it is.

They do these races.

And so we advertise our product

in Cycling magazine.

That's fine.

And a guy down in London picked it up and said, can I be your agent down here?

Wow.

Yes, why not?

Be an agent.

So he picked it up and orders came to us.

It was incredible.

We had to start employing people.

Fantastic.

We had another

salesman.

It was a young guy who was also a good cyclist.

And in his training, he used to put a bag on his back, put some samples in there, and he'd call on all the

local recital shops.

So he was doing all right, but

that was nothing like the guy down in London.

Then one day,

the orders stopped coming in.

And of course,

we did have telephones, but

we didn't have smartphones, we didn't have anything like that.

You'd have to sort of have a landline if you were lucky.

We heard nothing from the guy.

It was about two weeks had gone by, and we got a letter from his landlady, because he lived in London, but he was a Scotsman.

He lived in London, and and his landlady said, Do you owe Mr.

Taylor?

Do you owe Mr.

Taylor any money?

Because two weeks ago I was killed in a car crash.

All right, that changed the ballgame.

So you guys,

yeah, you pivoted out.

You started with the idea of a niche, which was you couldn't do this because your family wasn't going to do anything, so you had to bootstrap it.

You know, your brother Jeff fell into cycling because he knew it.

How did you choose the niche that you chose?

How did you dig into that one and why did it work?

How does someone identify a niche that can convert?

Well, I think we identified a niche because Jeff was a cyclist and therefore he knew cyclists.

He was part of a club, there's many clubs and he knew what worked.

So that worked for us.

We were not, if you like, we were sort of in, we had a foot in each

business or space.

One was in sport and the other was in football.

You make football, everybody makes football the same way.

But we were in sport a lot.

Jeff not only was a cyclist, he was also an athlete, he was a runner,

just like my grandfather had been in his day.

But he was a runner, so he was in the local club, the Berry and Bolton Bury, Red Cliff Areas, and things like that.

So we knew the clubs.

So we started to slowly move into athletics as well.

Right.

Okay.

Now we came to the point, right?

We're doing pretty well.

I should get in a car.

This is what Foster's hadn't done.

They don't have any representatives out there.

Nobody calls on the stores.

So I thought, okay,

time to get the car out, which wasn't a very good one, but it worked all right.

I go around and call on these sports stores.

So I go in, of course, the guy,

very nice guy, and said,

who are you?

And Reebok.

Who's Reebok?

What is Reebok?

Yeah.

Well, there's the nice product sales.

Yeah, nice products.

I said, but

look, I've got Adidas and I've got Dunlop.

Why do I need Reebok?

So

how do you counter that?

When someone doesn't know who you are and you have to break through that market, what was your way that you counteract that?

Well, I mean, I knew the product probably better than any of the other salesmen going around selling whatever they're selling.

I knew the product I knew,

so I can talk about the product.

But

I did realize after four or five times being told the same thing, like, who is Reebok?

And why do I need Reebok?

Why do I need, he didn't need Reebok.

You know, the penny drops.

He didn't need Reebok.

Gotcha.

I had to do something else.

So what do we do?

Okay, we can go around to events and start selling at events.

So we start selling at events.

That's great.

However,

we're talking about athletics and most of these,

most athletes are part of a club.

And in the UK, it's called the 3As, the Amateur Athletic Association in those days.

They were the clubs.

And there were about 400 clubs in the UK.

But the big thing was, is that the 3As produced a handbook with the name and address of the secretary of every club club in the country.

That helps.

Doesn't take much to think.

No, write a letter.

That was

a letter offering 15% off if somebody in the club wanted to be an agent.

Okay, I got 100 agents.

First letter.

That was a lot easier.

That was good.

I got 100 agents.

Did you offer them some sort of reward or some sort of reason?

It was 15%.

Oh, geez.

Okay, so you just multiplied your...

And were you paying them a base salary or no?

No, no.

No base salary, just 15%.

So you went to their watering hole, found them, and then told them you were going to give them money if they sold.

That's right.

That was great.

It was not that hard.

Do you know what I mean?

Everybody was there.

I mean, they're part of a club.

So they didn't have to go and find the people.

They just had to chat and say, look at this, this is Reebok, and whatever, whatever.

So

I think after about three letters, I had two, 300 agents, and that was pretty cool.

You're off and running.

But what that gave us, that gave us an identity.

People knew us.

Rebot were part of the running scene.

And we also advertised in,

we'll say, the Bible of running in the UK, which was Athletics Wheatley.

Athletics Wheatley,

a bit like Runner's World started over here.

What they did is they advertised where the next races were, who had won the races, and they went down the field.

So even if you came in 60th or 70th, your name was in

that race.

So we were well into the

spirit,

the whole scene of athletics.

And we started on athletics.

And then we were thinking, well, as I mentioned, we were looking for white space.

And white space was in athletics, was cross-country.

It was fell running.

It was orienting.

There were all these areas.

Plus, we had

rugby in the north of England called Rugby League.

It was just in the north of England.

So we owned all those clubs.

Again, in the north of England, we were in the north of England.

I could drive around to these guys and I could do my business.

So we were doing pretty well.

How long did you stay in the field as sales or before you maybe changed it over to operations or scaling?

Well, let's put it this way.

Jeff and myself, we understood what had gone wrong with JW Foster's because my father and uncle didn't speak.

Okay, so tell me about that.

How did you, you had your, okay, so you had this in your blood.

Shoes are in your blood.

Yes.

But you had the up the chain, they were fighting with each other.

What was breaking them there?

We're not picking on them.

We're being nice to them.

But what was acting up that was causing the issues that you and Jeff were like, we're not doing that.

What we're like, absolutely not doing that.

We have no idea.

We never had any idea why they didn't speak.

There was a five years difference in age,

but why they were not working with each other.

The fact that my uncle really died of alcoholism may have been one of the reasons.

That'll help.

May have been one of the reasons.

So, plus, you know, they'd gone through two world wars.

With my grandfather, they went through 14, 18 war, and then they themselves running a business who wanted money shoes during 39 to 45.

So they had to change and they had to repair army boots.

That was part of their life with repairing armor boots and inventing different ideas.

They started making sandals because if you could get all of some leather, that was fine.

Have you heard of the black market?

I have, I guess.

Well,

it was born in during the war.

Is that where it comes from, the name?

Yeah.

So what is it?

Like, I know where red tape comes from here in the United States.

Where does the root of black market?

Well, black market comes from rationing.

Gotcha.

Because everything was rationed, whether it was food,

do you know why it was called black market?

Well, because it was

the counter, it was under the counter.

It was like, you see,

because

if somebody wanted a pair of shoes,

they managed to get some leather and they managed to make sandals.

And to sell those sandals,

they got coupons.

That makes sense.

So the coupons became the black market.

So if father came home with a chicken on one occasion, it was a deal.

It was done.

So it's funny because red tape, you know the term red tape here in the United States?

Yeah, yeah, red tape.

So during the war,

everyone had to get benefits after that.

And they had to go to D.C.

to get their benefits.

And there were stacks of all this information.

And the people had to go get off the table, walk over, and get these piles of information, these papers, and those piles of papers were wrapped with red tape.

There you go.

That's where red tape comes from.

So that's how it works.

So when you saw what was going on above you, And you and your brother came together and said, okay, we're going to do this differently.

We're going to do this.

What were the things you're like, these the absolute, other than finding white space, what were the things like these are the things we're going to do differently well i don't think it was uh that difficult to work this one out right i was the one that was uh let's say as a kid most cheeky i was the one that asked the most questions okay i was the one that challenged my father and said we've got to change and all my father said is look joe when i've gone and your uncle's gone this company is yours do what you like with it but until then but until then and uh my i said well look there number one we're not looking for you to go right that's not the idea But this company will be gone long before you are gone.

So I was the one that was taking on the pushing this one.

And in fact, I got accused when we left that I took Jeff away from the business.

Did that create issues in the family as well?

It did create an issue to begin with because my brother still lived at home.

I had just got married, even though he

ripped your brother away.

What?

You guys were living at it.

You were cheeky.

That's it.

So I got accused of that.

But my brother's still living at home because they sort of seem to excuse him that I was the one that was doing all this stuff.

Did they blame the missus at that point?

Blame.

The missus, when you got married, did they say it was her influence or not?

No, no, not really, no, because

I guess it was

she went along with it.

It was like, what are you doing?

We weren't earning a great deal of money.

I think £10, £5 shillings and sixpence, I believe, a week those days, which

is money, but that's that's mid-20th century.

That was a reasonable wage.

So

to leave that meant there was no money.

We had to earn every penny.

Right.

So she was on team a bit.

A bit.

A bit.

For a little bit.

So when you guys started growing, and I understand how you found your, again, we call them niches, but the white space, and you penetrate in that market, and then you weaponize an entire sales force very, very quickly by being where they were.

When you started the scaling and things started taking off, it changes the ballgame because you were no longer a tiny little shop and you were becoming an international brand.

What were some of the things that you're like, I wish I could have told myself in the beginning when it comes to operations, to scaling, to fulfillment, to acquisition.

You're like, I wish I would learn these very specific skills.

Yeah.

Let's just finish the earlier question.

And that is, what happened when we left the company?

We came to a decision.

Jeff said, look, I'll look after the factory.

You do everything else.

So you you divide.

So that was it.

I was doing everything else.

He looked after the factory.

I even was doing designing and whatever.

So I was doing everything else.

So that's how we didn't fall out.

And I must have made a lot of mistakes.

And I know quite a few things.

But we never fell out.

He never said, Joe, what are you doing?

You

doing this, this, this, and this.

And so when you say, well,

you know, when you're small, you do everything you needed.

And

I actually bought a printing press, small one, and printed our own

our own leaflets, our own

anything we needed, whatever it was.

I did that as well as doing whatever and figuring out how do we get the customers.

And that was, I say, getting the agents.

And so

it didn't really require a lot of money there, or a lot of people.

Gotcha.

It just, you know, the people out there, they were all independent.

And that was bringing the people.

It was then when we got to this certain size,

we employed more people manufacturing.

And that was Jeff's job.

Yeah, to embodiment people.

I used to fall out with him about that.

Oh, why?

Well, because every time I used to go there, he was on a machine

saying, look, you're employing these guys.

Well, he was useless, so I had to

do it myself.

Yeah.

So it was always

great problems.

Yeah.

Why don't you just concentrate on?

But he would work whatever hours it needed to do everything that was design or

development.

He had to work after the development of the products and things like that.

But that was okay.

And

I just had to just keep on thinking, what's next, what's next.

So I was suggesting, okay, we need to do something.

What do we do?

Do we increase our offering of products?

Do we go into soccer?

No, that's going to cost a lot of money because by in those days, they were starting to pay athletes

and they were starting to pay footballers.

We didn't have that sort of money.

Or if we can't think of a different product,

do we then expand our territory?

Do we go into Europe?

Do we start exporting?

We were doing little bits of export.

If you can imagine, the UK has a Commonwealth,

used to be an empire, right?

It was a Commonwealth.

And

so that was always connected.

So we were doing a bit of export into Canada.

And in fact, there's a story in there of exporting to Canada.

And we were doing Australia and bits of things like India and, you know,

a little bit into Europe, but not much.

So

my suggestion was: well, you know,

you've got 28 different countries and languages and cultures in Europe, and that's going to be difficult.

Plus, also, that's where Adidas and Puma.

Difficult to get into that.

Why don't we go to America?

Horror.

I can't do that.

How can we afford to go to America?

airplanes.

However, there was a magazine called Eurosport.

And fortunately for us, and

luck is the biggest thing that we had.

Well, I also think you kind of made your own luck.

You were smart enough to say, I'm going to go in

these magazines and go to where these people are and have them sell it.

And they already have the trust and everything else.

So I think there's a little bit of skill there, yeah.

Well, there's a little bit of, let's try this and let's try that.

That definitely happens as an entrepreneur.

Let's see what works.

So,

Eurosport magazine

in this, the British government were advertising.

We want the sports trade to export and we'd like you to export to America.

Wow.

And they would pay for our IR fair to go to the NSGA show, National Sporting Goods of America, the sport in Chicago.

We'll pay for your IRFA return.

We'll pay for a Stanler and we'll pay half of your hotel Bel Walsrat there.

That's pretty good.

That was it.

I didn't get no more objections.

You're good.

Let's go.

You're better off going.

Right.

1968

was my first trip.

I didn't sell a shoe.

Okay.

Why do you think you were successful in the UK, but just fell on your face in the US?

Well, in the US, a lot of people came to the stand and said, great, wonderful.

Lovely shoes.

Where'd I get them from?

And I'm saying,

London.

And they're saying, London?

Where's that?

No, God.

So lots of things have changed since then.

Lots of things have changed.

Lots of things have changed.

And then we say, you know, you say, well, from England, and you say, is that New England?

Yeah.

It's across the border.

So the problem was we needed distribution.

Okay.

We hadn't got a ton of money to set up our own distribution.

So we needed distributors.

And over the period of 11 years.

Because I got in there in 1979.

Eventually, over that period, I had six failed attempts.

I had six different people.

Yeah, I will do it.

We started off.

One of those guys I was with for three years, and we still failed.

What?

Get into the market.

Why do you think you were failing for that long?

I think because the people that we were working with were probably businessmen trying to make it work.

People who were not really into the athletics or sporting industry.

They were not known in the, because if you go to Phil Knight and

who did he go to?

What was the...

partner was a head coach.

Right.

And because Bauman, they were

because of that, Bauman knew a lot of people.

And so they were almost using the same tactics with they were going from the clubs to clubs almost.

And it was a lot of mail order out of his garage sort of thing.

So we didn't have that.

And I think that's why it didn't work.

Right.

Because back in the UK, you had the groups.

You had the groups that were connected and they already had their people they could sell to.

So you could recreate recreate that wheel over here.

You know, we've talked about a lot of innovations and that things have changed, you know, everything from factories to chains to phones to cell phones.

And one of the things that's gotten really powerful is AI.

And that we're in this environment now where AI is changing the rules of business.

And it's also obviously changing the rules of shoes.

Most people have run away from that.

They're just like, I'm not going to do that.

It's scary.

You know, it's a big, scary monster.

You, on the other hand, have done the opposite.

You've teamed up with Ben to say, hey, we're going to embrace AI and create shoes and do it in a different way.

What have you seen so far?

And then at some point, I'm going to have to have you explain to me how this works.

But what have you seen so far with what you guys are doing with AI shoes?

How radically different it is?

Well, I don't think it's too much that that has really caused the attention.

What's caused the attention is in a marketing sense.

This is the first time, as far as

media is concerned, that somebody has actually used

AI to design,

used 3D to print, and use scanning your foot to get the right size.

So it's created a different way of looking at football.

And that has caught the eye of the media.

Plus, the fact that Ben is so good at making contacts.

He is.

And look, I've got a story here.

Okay.

And so, so good at that.

That has kept us busy ever since this notion came out and he printed the first pair of shoes.

So,

really,

okay, what will come out of this, and I I think a lot of people will take away from this, is that AI will help you in development because your designer will come up with an idea, or you'll look around and think, you'll give it, and Ben can answer this better than I can, but AI will help designers.

It won't take over from designers, but then it'll shorten the process with 3D printing to get...

a model you can look at in three dimensions and then you can take it to traditional methods of manufacture that is going to be shortened and you can play around with that.

That will happen in the industry.

It probably already is happening.

You talked about how things have radically changed, and how, you know, before you even started recording, there was all these different vendors and all these different stores and all these different things.

And then now you've seen it transition into just a very few stores.

Do you see that same transition happening now that AI is involved?

Where it's just like, you're just going to go print shoes on demand and based on who you connect with?

Or that's going to be very interesting because 3D printing, as we know it, is slow.

Yes, it is.

You do not get volume.

No.

So

if and when the machinery changes and you can get volume,

that's going to be very interesting.

Because

I'll say 10 years ago when Crocs came out,

everybody said,

in fact, we knew the guy who became a CEO of that.

Oh, okay.

And the advice was, oh, just try and build a bit and get rid of it.

Because, you know,

this is not sneak.

These are not sneakers.

This is not footwear.

Now,

now Crocs are everywhere everywhere it's a funny story about uh crocs there was a store there was a movie i don't know if you it's um

it was a dystopian future and the set designer the they was like we have to find the most hideous shoes that no one's ever heard of we're going to get these and they put crocs on everyone and by the time production was done crocs had taken off so it's just interesting that how things can change and you never know what's coming You've, Ben, you've done stuff.

And, you know, we've already talked, obviously, we've been communicating about this, and I should probably get closer to the mic.

but you had me digitize my feet and you you had that environment walk me through that process of development as you're going through and you know i go out and i take pictures of my feet which really wasn't pictures just 3d images so i don't have pictures on the internet out there so yay for that but you're out there and they digitize it walk me through that process how did you figure out that we need to customize it for each individual person yeah so there's a couple different pieces to what we're doing um one is the unique design component of ai and enabling people to express themselves differently through that.

Another component is custom fit.

And so you can make something visually that looks really exciting and different, but how do we actually use the benefits of this 3D printing technology to make something that feels different too?

Just as much as it looks like it's the future, it needs to feel like the future.

And so we're working with Zellerfeld, which is our factory partner in Germany.

And this is also using another company called Volumental.

And basically, we take a photo of each foot, like you went through.

You put an 8x11 piece of paper next to each foot.

We get 12 different data points, including your arch height, length, width, insights into your instep.

And with that data, just simply through a photo like you did, and it's trained with AI to be able to understand the environment and that paper is your reference point.

We can go and translate that over into a printing process and a printing process for each individual foot.

So each foot is individually scanned.

Like that really matters.

And we're, because some people have a...

the left foot that's longer or wider than the right foot.

My stuff we're doing, which I didn't expect.

Yeah, nothing was darn close, but all of a sudden sudden it was just a little bit off.

And I was like, is something wrong with me?

Am I broken?

So after I sent this stuff over, I literally went and I checked everything to find out.

I'm like, okay, is it normal to have different size feet?

And I just called my relative who's a doctor.

I was like, is it your own?

I guess it's normal to relax.

I'm like, okay, because I have my hyperchondriac moments.

I'm like, something's wrong with me.

Like, no, not that at least.

Well, it's a cool thing, Charles.

Like, you kind of start to realize this when you do this.

Most people don't even, they can go their whole lives.

They don't even know they have different sized feet.

They're buying a pair of shoes.

They're wondering why it doesn't always fit them correctly, but maybe they need now.

now they actually can understand that they may have different size feet and may need different sizes.

Well, here, you don't have to worry about that.

You order one size.

You don't have to buy two different, you know, et cetera, two different pairs.

You can actually get something that fits you.

And the fit experience is really good when it's done correctly.

It's amazing.

I mean, it fits just like, if it's like a glove, it's a great experience.

So walk me through the kind of like the long-term vision of what you guys are trying to do this, because you're backed by Joe, who is a visionary and he changed the ball game.

And he absolutely did.

And then you've got your ballgame of what you're trying to do.

What is, when you guys have come together to do this, you're leveraging an immense amount of experience and an immense amount of success.

You're leveraging AI as well and the enthusiasm.

What does that look like?

What are the two of you trying to build here?

Well, the vision here is to basically become the content creator shoe brand.

Like right now, if you look at the world of footwear.

Right.

What does that mean?

Okay.

I'm going to stop here.

What is that?

It's high level.

Okay, yeah.

So if you look at the world of footwear,

the world of footwear today has been very much driven by signature endorsements and athlete endorsements.

I think one of the biggest turning points in the industry has been the Jordan deal, right?

And you see how Nike decided to make a custom shoe that embodied the essence of one individual player.

And it was colored and it was a brand new design.

It wasn't just taking a shoe that was existing and putting it on somebody.

It was making something custom for them and putting their essence into it.

And then this whole wave of people wanting to be like Mike, to play like Mike.

And they felt like they could play like Mike by wearing his shoes.

That was something that came about from that.

And now there's been this push beyond that where you have other athletes, of course, getting shoes, but then you have people that are in the hip-hop world that have been able to get their own shoes and that have created stuff.

It was for a long time thought it needed to be tied to performance.

You want to play with the athletes, you're wearing the athlete's shoes.

So it expanded that way.

But then with hip-hop, it was proven that it was about lifestyle appeal.

It was about the look, and people wanted to feel like their favorite artist, and it didn't need to be attached to performance.

That took some time.

The third wave, which we believe could be the biggest wave in the industry today, is backing people that have lifestyle appeal, that have influence and fan bases that are outside of those two, that are creating content, that are engaging with people every single day on these social platforms.

Half the youth today wants to be like content creators, Charles.

That's what we're seeing statistics-wise.

When these brands were built, they wanted to be the athletes, and now it's shifted.

And so, we want to make give these people, these creative individuals, the opportunity to express themselves in this category.

And with using AI and 3D printing, we can now make a shoe in a couple of months, put it out there and see what these people can do, and give them the opportunity opportunity to have a full canvas in this category, which hasn't been possible previously.

And it's part of the reason why they haven't got these opportunities because you have to commit to 18 months and could be a million dollars, half a million dollars in expenses.

You have all your mold costs, you have your inventory costs, you have minimum order quantities, you've got your design expenses, your time in the sketch room, and it goes on and on.

So the risk becomes too high, whereas now we've lowered that barrier to entry and it could be the biggest opportunity.

So what is the end goal, Joe?

As you're sitting here, you've got your birthday coming up.

I think you're having 90 birthday parties.

We talked about that earlier.

Absolutely.

What is the end goal of this?

How did you get roped into this?

This is brand new innovation.

This is a total, these are things that are even cutting edge, even for me to walk into.

How are you walking into this?

Well, you know, even with Rebump, there wasn't an end goal.

And I don't think there's an end goal.

I think the thing is to get this going.

Right.

See where you can go.

Right.

It's like, what is the end?

You know, people say, you know, where's the future?

My answer to that is space.

Yes.

Endless expanding space.

And that's where we're at.

Jeff and I started as two people.

Here we've got two, and Ben has got quite a few people now who he's working with.

But, you know, you start small, and then you keep adding things on, and you look for the next route.

And Ben has come up with this idea, which has now got the interest of the media.

The interest of the media is, oh, well, this is a change.

How far is it going to change?

How far is it going to go?

So now if Ben wants to talk to somebody, they will listen.

And they will listen and they're interested because it's creating news.

So in creating news, this is the marketing.

Again, it's like we were with Reba.

We were creating a marketing thing.

And as the marketing goes along, then you invent the product to go with it.

Right.

So when you first started, you know, you found a way to penetrate the market by going to a very specific niche.

They already had the KLT, the Know Like and Trust.

They were in there.

They were athletes.

They were already there.

They had these groups.

We live in a very different world.

Yes.

Ben shows up and he's like, hey, I'm going to do this.

We're going to 3D print this.

You've got this experience, which worked back then.

What is the things you first told him?

Like, hey, this is what we need to start first doing and start having to penetrate a market.

Because, again, things are completely different now.

Well, I think to penetrate the market is exactly what Ben has done.

And if you want really get it down to earth, what is it?

If he speaks to you and say, you know, I want to talk about this, this, and this.

And I've got Joe Foster coming along.

He's a founder of Rebot.

That's the key.

That opens the door.

That opens the door.

And Ben goes through.

So this is what we're using now.

Ben knows a lot more about technology than I ever will

because

I knew what I knew, but at my age, technology's gone.

So the only way I can hook up to the technology is to hook up to Ben.

To leverage Ben.

So just like when you, in the past, you used to leverage the salespeople in that environment, you guys are

leveraging Ben.

So if someone's at home and doesn't have a Joe Foster, which would be nice if they had that, but they don't.

There's only one of you.

If they don't have that, how would you advise someone to get through that door and kick that door open when they don't have a joke, when they don't have celebrity status, when they don't have that social proof?

How do you penetrate that market?

Well, if you want to penetrate a market, you have to find a way in.

And we can go back to white space.

So number one, you need to know.

Jeff and I knew how to make footwear, although we went to college to learn a little bit more.

What did college do for us?

Yeah, it taught us a bit more about leathers and this and that.

But the best thing for us happened with that college when we did take that step and we were thinking, oh, we need a machine.

Where do we get that from?

Right.

Ask somebody at college.

That was a source of information.

So get yourself a source of information.

Nowhere you can go.

I mean,

we got some bad information from college, but they learned from us as well.

They were saying,

can we mold spikes into...

into the soul and they were saying well i don't know that might burn the burn this one yeah but you your mold is metal.

Spikes are only metal.

There were things that.

We were learning.

Yeah, we were teaching it a little bit.

But the thing is that

go into that space where you know that people can just help you.

Simple things, but just keep going in that space because I assume that if you're going to try and get into this space, the other thing you need, if you're nothing else, if you've got money.

If you've got a ton of money, you can buy your way into the space.

Makes sense.

That makes it a bit easier.

So as you're going through these, there's a process.

And the universal thing that I'm hearing across all of this is in the beginning, you saw egos kind of battling each other.

And then you and Jeff came and said, we're not going to do this with ego.

You go do you.

I'll go do me.

You go, you know, we're going to do it in silos.

We're going to do our thing.

We're going to learn from each other.

We're going to ask these individuals and we're going to focus on the experience.

and really say, you know, this is really about the consumer and we're going to focus on the experience.

One of the things that's huge that we talk about experiences with people is the opening things, the open box, the experience of receiving things and open and having that experience.

I know you snuck in with a box here, which I'm guessing you're going to show me what's in the box here at this point.

But the experience of opening that,

why did you guys decide to do what you guys did and how you guys did it?

And I guess we're going to share what this is.

So let's do it.

This is the box.

We're going to do this.

Okay.

So, Joe, we might knock over your book finally.

Okay.

So we made it through here.

We might

Explorer slide inside of here, which was

made history.

Charles is the first AI-designed commercially available slide shoe that you can get.

Okay.

And it's made in Germany.

Made in Germany.

It's a factory that produced the Air Max 1000, Nike's first fully 3D printed shoe, some other cool collaborations.

But it's produced this, we needed something that could capture what AI could design in a physical product.

And that's what you have here.

Gotcha.

So you brought a German shoe to someone whose last name is Schwartz.

Okay.

Okay, awesome.

So I'm a little bit more.

My last name is Weiss.

No one's going to jump out of this box now.

All of a sudden, if it tells me to get on a train, I might run.

So, okay.

So it's just the opening box experience.

So you put Step Into the Future.

Yes.

All right.

And then mine is customized because I have yours that assigned it.

You got a little note there.

So we have the note.

And so we have stuff.

And the first thing I see is I've got socks, which I'm guessing not 3D printed.

No.

Walk me through these.

Well, these are just kind of a complimentary to give you something a little nice to wear.

I think they are, like, it does feel good to wear the slides with socks.

Okay.

Just with the 3D printed material and stuff, I found it's probably the best experience where I'm with rather than without.

So we have this.

We have the socks.

Okay.

And then the shoes come wrapped up.

I'll let you do this because this is you guys.

Yeah.

So I've never seen these before.

So this is interesting to know.

So these were, okay, so these were literally scanned off my feet.

My seat are not that big.

There's no way my, okay, this is the joys of having size 13 feet.

I have mammoth feet.

Okay.

Look at how, look at how detailed it is.

It is exciting.

And look at the bottom too.

Like you can see all around.

We didn't miss any piece.

And you've got, you got the, and this is all 3D printed.

Yeah.

If I bend this, is it going to break?

No, it's actually, it's one print and it's pretty strong.

It's really strong.

But then feel the top, like, that's actually more of a mesh.

Oh, it's a totally different feel.

But it's the same material.

So internally, it's structured uniquely with triangular structures that allow for that feeling at different areas with density.

Have you seen these ones yet, Joe?

I have seen them.

I've got a pair.

Gotcha.

We got some nice photos of Joe and them.

How durable are these?

Like, how long?

Very durable.

This is not for athletic wear, but as a lifestyle product.

I can't run in these.

I can barely run as it is.

Look at the size of my feet.

This is why.

But you see how much thickness there is here?

It's like a sneaker level sole on a slide.

So the slide category has been so overlooked and something that people are wearing for errands when they're for casual wear but it hasn't been designed for that so we tried to bridge this gap with these this is the explorer slide so i'll put that one there so that people can look at it when i look at this one so this is the other one how long does this take to print and what are the problems you had so because again this is new this is a new market this is ai we're trying to get things rocking and rolling you're trying to go from you know again acquisition to fulfillment yeah going through the process this is new tech yeah what are some of the iterations and some of the hurdles you've run into because there's people are going to look at this and they're like hey hey, we've made AI to create this.

What are some of the hurdles you've run into?

What are the things that you've used and models?

They're like, hey, we thought this was publicly made.

I'm going to try and knock over more water.

That's the goal.

Where we come in and we do that.

What are some of the problems and the hurdles that you've run into when you've created these?

Because AI is new and nobody really knows what's going on at this point.

What are some of the innovations that you have found that make this more successful?

Well, so like you both mentioned about being an entrepreneur and trying things, right?

This is a process that's not established as an industry-wide process.

We have to figure it out.

So so we figured everything out as we go so what we first realized and this is through our designer kadar benjamin who's in india who's an expert in this category is we realized that um if we we could simplify the process of actually getting to the concept that we all agree on that would save a lot of time and energy if we can use ai image generation that would be super ideal so we start with generating images with ai and then we really refine a concept We're really good at coming up with something that's super precise, not just type in a couple of words, like really getting to it.

So we have a concept, a visual in 2D that is pretty much what we want to make.

Instead of going into the sketch room and sketching one after another, after another, refining it, going back and forth, that can take a lot of time.

Once we do that, we generate basically a, we have a sketch done and we generate 3D model from the sketch using AI.

So instead of it being done by hand, you've got this whole 3D model you have to do.

We have that done.

How did you get there?

That's the question.

What are the proven steps that, so if people are like, hey, I want to do things of this nature, maybe it's not shoes, maybe it's something else with AI.

How do you survive this brand new thing that's completely evolving and it's moving faster than anything else we've ever seen?

Because I used to own an IT company.

I knew how fast it was.

AI is not even remotely that slow.

It is unbelievably fast.

We used to say one year in tech was seven years.

Now it's like one day in AI is seven years.

It's so fast.

What are some of the steps that you do to handle that?

that influx and those proven things that are changing?

Well, I think you have to just attempt stuff.

And you have to also look at like certain categories of white space.

Like this space, there isn't a blueprint.

Like we know digitally and with software what you can do with AI.

But for physical products, people are not actually doing anything with physical products being designed by AI that you can get now as a consumer.

So you have kind of like, you don't have an expectation.

You can do whatever you like.

So you can just get into the room and experiment.

We know image generation with AI.

You can create a concept of anything you like.

So that's a base point.

We know that if you make something that's a sketch based on that, you can generate a 3D model.

You can do that for any type of product, whatever it is.

And then we also know that if you want it to be textured, like these types of patterns and textures here, which are inspired by a spaceship and different images we fed, you can use a model to do that.

So you can kind of break down any product you like to make into something like this because those rules apply across the board.

We just happen to do it for footwear.

So when you talk about the idea that influencers are going to be able to do this,

you know, we talked about it off camera that the ultimate goal is that there's going to be customized versions of these.

And because right now this is where we are with this tech, which means probably in about 20 minutes, we'll make another leap and bounds in AI.

When they're doing this, so people will ultimately be able to create this, not only customized for their feet and the individual shapes of their feet, but their designs based off their, how they're doing it and how they're coding with it.

What software helps them get there?

What are the things that you got you use to get there?

So I know

we're going over here, Joe, but we got to talk about tech.

I got to get geek out.

So we use like a traditional image generation software, Midjourney, Chat GPT, other things like that.

So this is Midjourney and Chat GPT.

Yeah, pieces of it are.

Yeah, ChatGPT can make real shoes here.

Not the whole thing, but pieces of it.

Then we use a software called Viscom, which is an industry, more design-oriented piece of software.

And then we have a generative model, like an AI model that you can train on different pieces of artwork or other stuff, which generates it.

If you look at it digitally, it's like tons of patterns being made on the shoe, and you can iterate through them super fast and kind of come up with what you like.

Yeah, and that's just trained on stuff.

And how long do one of these take to print?

It's about 30 hours per shoe.

Yeah.

But there's many printers, and it's getting faster.

It's a process like if you see traditional printing where it's layer by layer by layer by layer, this is like that.

But what happens is it's printed like this on a slant.

So you've got the support material that prints alongside it.

The you break, kind of break off after.

And then this is what you're left with.

Okay, so I know I'm going to get in trouble if I don't ask.

What happens to the support material?

It's

reused.

I mean,

we can do something with it.

And how long do they normally last?

I mean, again, the idea that this came from my cell phone, that I took pictures of my feet next to a piece of paper.

And then now I've got this shoe that took 30 hours to print, but I've got this shoe.

It's wild.

Yeah.

What is the durability?

How long do these?

I mean, you've been wearing them.

I'm not going to talk to the tech guy.

You go away.

You're going to tell me lies.

So you have a pair of these, obviously.

I have a pair, but I don't wear them all day.

Gotcha.

I mean, it's

back in the UK or where we are.

We taking them with you.

It's another thing to compare them with.

Because they're not heavy at all.

They're durable.

Yeah.

I would say that from my experience,

they'll probably wear you out before you work them out.

Really?

They are pretty long way.

Huh.

This is very thick here.

Right.

So you've created this new thing.

You're pioneering a market.

You've had this experience before.

What are the hurdles you're running to?

What are the barriers that you guys are facing as you're like, hey, here is this shoe?

This is customized.

What are the resistance that you're running into?

Just like, you know, you mentioned before, you're like, why would I do Reebok?

When you get that resistance here, what are some of the things that you guys are using to get around that?

Well, you've actually just covered it yourself.

30 hours to print a view.

That's the resistance.

That's the problem.

That's temporary, though.

Yeah.

Well, we're saying it's temporary, as yet.

Nobody's moved into that space.

Nobody's been able to do anything about it.

So

the beautiful thing is they have this originality, they have this individuality as well.

And this is great.

But

in order to sort of get into a reasonable business, you've got to do volume.

So this is the trick.

At the moment, we're building image.

We're building marketing.

We're building a name people will start to talk about scintillate you know this this is what we want to do because you know we we have to move left we have to move right we have to move in different directions now to find things either either machine which will do this in 30 minutes instead of 30 hours uh plus we need other products other products which are again ai driven i think yeah i think ben has come up with the strapline what's the strap line we have a new good slogan that our creative director helped us with ace called design by tomorrow okay everything we do is going to be Design by Tomorrow.

Step into the future.

So Design by Tomorrow.

Designed by Tomorrow.

And what we need to do, like Joe mentioned, is build stuff to scale.

So this Design by Tomorrow ethos and mentality is all about how we're going to design our new stuff.

So we have a shoe we're building now that we want to, you know, scale around the world that has AI involved in the design process, but it's produced traditionally.

So we see this, like you mentioned earlier about creators, it's a two-pronged approach.

One prong is, let's go give creators a shot at making their own original shoe.

We can make a brand new design with them creatively leading and put it out in three months.

And now we can find out how well they'll do.

If that goes well, we can make something traditionally produced that we still design creatively with AI that we can scale much further with this type of case study.

And a case study like that is super important and helps you get way further with retail and beyond.

And that's a system that we can keep doing over and over again until this becomes much faster, much more affordable.

It's still two or three times more expensive to make this with 3D printing than a traditionally produced product.

All right, so you guys have made these shoes and the market, obviously, you're getting the name out and you're trying to build that excitement.

What are the hurdles that you've run into recently that just stopped you guys in your tracks?

And then how did you pivot around them?

Because you have this new innovative technology that's just unbelievable.

What are the things that are running into you guys that are causing issues?

So we're working to scale.

Scale is how you can really build a brand that's successful.

You have to have a great margin when you scale on what you're doing.

With 3D printed shoes, it's two or three times more expensive than producing anything traditionally.

Now you can make a product much faster and develop it for much lower costs, but billing to scale is really the way you win.

And that's what Joe's done.

So for us at Sintele, we are working actively to build products creatively designed with AI so we can push boundaries visually and fashion and be fashioned forward and then go from there.

And so I think it's a great way for lots of entrepreneurs as well when they start out is to come up with a way that you can

make a mark in the space.

This became a breakthrough product, a viral product because we did something different than no one else in the category has done.

And then you can kind of build off of that there.

But once you establish a presence, it's much easier to then go get to scale.

And that's what we're doing.

When you're doing operations, Joe, and you're scaling, because you've scaled so well in what you've done in the past, what are some of the like if you sat down there and like there's these three or four things that before you scale, you need to have this done effectively because everyone wants systems and scaling, but they don't understand if culture isn't there, if leadership isn't there, if those things aren't there and tactical.

What are the things that you found with your success with scaling as you're scaling this in a brand new age?

Right.

Well, for us to scale, we, as I said, in the UK, we became

leaders as far as our product was concerned.

We've done all we could do.

We needed to find somewhere else.

So, going to America, that was our next step.

Is we want to do volume, you've got to find the market.

For us, in those days, it was America.

I think today it's still, America still is the biggest market that you can make the biggest impression in.

So,

you've got to decide, well, what do you do?

For us, it was a matter of how do we get into the American market?

And it took me 11 years.

It took me a long time.

No matter what,

it was difficult.

i think today we have social media which is so different now you know and so it's figuring out different things on social media it's to keep putting the scintillate in front of people and then keep putting

new ideas so i think that the next idea that uh that ben is coming up with now will be a product that we can we can manufacture uh

traditionally if you will traditionally and we can do volume right but what we've got to sell is the idea that this is ai driven and this is where we're coming from.

We're coming from designed by tomorrow.

We're coming from that.

And I think if you underline that this is the one thing that's new in this business is that we're still not going into the, with an idea, going into the factory and giving it to a designer and he starts doing a drawing.

Now we've moved that forward.

So

we know we can't make this in 30 minutes yet.

Yet.

But we will still strive for that.

How can we make sure that 3D is the future for a certain part of the footwear industry?

The footwear industry is not going to be something which you just mould in one.

Crocs is good and Crocs has a place, but they're only small.

You look at somewhere like Nike today,

their demand must be between 20 and 30 million per a month.

Jesus.

That's a lot of shit.

That's a lot of shit.

And I know that because at Reebot, when we were sort of at the top, though, we were not doing what they're doing, which is a 20 million revenue.

We were doing a nice four to five, and we were taking five million per

a month.

Yeah.

Only four to five.

Only four to five.

So what I think what's unique about this and the USP with this is, or unique selling proposition, with this is it's customized specifically for my foot.

Yes.

Yes.

That is a different ballgame because if I go buy a pair of Nikes, I refuse to buy Puma or Adidas because, again, last name Schwartz.

You understand where I'm going with that.

When you do this, and it's customized specifically for me, and I think people want that customized feeling and that customized approach.

Yeah, it's from the future, but it's customized.

So that could be the idea of getting a white space, kind of trying to go into that white space and that white nature.

What are the hurdles that you guys have run into that have almost made you want to quit?

That you're like, I just can't do this anymore.

And then how do you survive that feeling of, oh, okay, and we push through?

Because a lot of people have that as entrepreneurs.

We fail.

It's the only way we succeed.

Yeah, but you know,

that may be an entrepreneur, but it's not an optimist it's not the person you've got to be you've got to be somebody you laneston's right we were 18 months into into our company and we had to change our name okay because we had to register and we couldn't register our original name which was mercury so okay we found out and if you read the book you'll find out how we did it because that's a story so we changed the rebox four years into our product we got a letter from adidas because our silhouette was two stripes and a t-bar

and they said this infringed the three stripes.

We're still a small company.

What do you do?

We were really pleased.

We got a letter from Adidas.

Right, we got a letter from Adidas.

They knew where we are.

Right, we call it.

Yeah, what do we do?

Oh, we just change our silhouette.

Right.

So it's an approach.

And so we developed these, we not only developed the idea of white space, we also developed the idea that challenges are opportunities.

And I think that's what we're looking at now.

You might not have the answer immediately, but if you think this is an opportunity.

But it sounds like that's the fun of it.

It's almost a game.

It's an optimistic game

versus everything else.

You just touched on the most important thing that people asked me.

What's the three most important things of operating a business?

And I said, well, first one is fun.

The second one, more fun.

And the third one has got to be real hoots.

All right.

What is the funnest thing about this for you, Ben, doing this?

Because obviously having Joe guide you is something that most people will never have in their lifetimes.

But what is the most most fun thing for you?

And then obviously I'm going to Joe.

I'm going to ask you the same thing.

It's going to have a lot fun now.

Yeah.

Well, this whole thing is a journey and it's an exciting journey.

I mean, to be a disruptor in this category is like amazing, you know, to build something that no one else has done.

This has become a piece of history.

I mean, I think AI is going to be designing a lot more going forward.

It's faster.

It's more affordable.

It usually always wins.

So

this is a major piece of what's going to happen in the future.

So to be a disruptor and to build innovative products is what I think, you know, is just the most exciting thing ever.

But waking up and getting the advice of Joe and Julie and the years of experience they have, it just puts us in a much better position to be successful.

And I mean, it just prevents a lot of mistakes.

I mean, they've got world-class expertise.

So what are those things that you've done that have prevented those mistakes?

Because now I'm going to be curious.

What are the questions you asked that you're like, oh, God, thank goodness Joe and Julie helped me out with this?

Well, it's one piece of this is focus, right?

Like you can go and launch your product everywhere in the world if you want.

But, you know, Joe understood the importance of launching in the U.S., of focusing on the U.S.

We're going to be focusing on the U.S.

as and everyone else can kind of come to us as we build over here.

You know, so understanding that, understanding where to put my time.

Joe's like, you don't need to be this shoe designer.

You know, you've got to have somebody else focus on the design, have someone else focus on this.

You be more operations, putting pieces together, have some creative oversight, and understanding where to balance the time.

So these are things he's learned from a career of going from bootstrapped to building the number one shoe company in the world at a point, doing the four to five billion we were just talking about.

And these are tactics that I think anyone can apply.

It's channeling your energy and focusing in the right directions.

And it sounds like it was rooted in what you and Jeff were doing.

Like, okay, you go do this, I'm going to go to this.

Those same things that from the very beginning just fortified it.

Okay, so what are the things that have asked him the same question?

On your end, what has been the most fun that you've had with this process?

Well, you know, it was fun when Jeff and I started, okay, some of the days are not fun, but if your attitude is let's have fun,

you're your own person.

You can do what you want.

You can do it.

And let's try and see if we can find people to buy it.

But that was fun, building the company of fun.

When we did get to that 4 billion and whatever, and we've got that many lawyers, we've got that many people working in product, we've got that many accountants, everything there.

It's a machine.

And the last thing I want to be is a machine.

So I ended up

just traveling the world, waving a flag because I built the global distribution.

So I was going meeting the guys, but that's all I was doing.

Gotcha.

Just meeting the guys.

That's your job.

Yeah.

And that didn't work.

You know, it's like, okay, I'm going to be doing it.

It's not fun.

What am I doing?

Why am I doing this?

Yeah, there's no fun.

And then you stopped.

Yeah.

And I was doing it on my own.

A lot of it, I was just flying on my own.

That's why today, when I travel, Julie and I travel together.

Yeah, she's with us.

Yeah.

If you want me, two tickets.

Perfect.

That works.

It's as simple as that.

Well, we were going to just have her on here and not have you guys here at all.

Absolutely.

Well, she could answer all your questions probably.

So they don't know.

Which she did when we first saw it.

But, you know, so the fun now is the unknown,

pushing those boundaries.

When are we going to, you know, okay, so this doesn't work.

You were saying that scanning your foot, that's something original.

How can we bring that into mainstream?

How's that becoming?

How can we do it?

And we don't have the answer,

but

we've got to think about it.

How can we do this?

We might even cheat.

Now you say, what?

Cheat?

Well, let me take you back to my grandfather.

My grandfather, I mean, it was May Lord, if you like.

That was how they used to sell his shoes because

athletes wanted his shoe.

They had to

write in and we would send them

a self-measurement form.

In fact, funnily enough, I have a pair of shoes on, which are now using that as an inner sole.

They're using the measurement.

The same thing.

The same thing.

So, okay, so they would put the foot on, toes you were to put your foot, and there was a mark where you put your heel, then draw around with a pencil.

Well, can you imagine a pencil who bends that way?

I don't know if I could reach that far anymore.

Would you get it accurate?

Right.

You're not going to get this level of the

draw around it.

But then, you know, the questions they asked, one of the questions was, what's your normal shoe size?

Gotcha.

So once they would send all this in, they think,

well, what's his normal shoe size?

Oh, eights, right?

Send him a pair of eights.

So I actually have a selfish question about that.

Why am I a size 12 some places, but a size 13 somewhere else?

Is this like a fun joke you guys do with us?

In a way, yes.

It's all to do with the last because normally they measure the foot from the ball to the heel.

They don't measure the toes because toes can be squashed.

So it's from the ball to the heel.

That's a normal measurement really of doing a shoe.

And then, you know, with women's shoes, they do a pointed toe.

So it's all to do with how some of the builds are last.

That makes sense.

And it's a lot to do with toe spring or heel height.

And

every time I go into a shoe shop, the debt is an hour or walk through.

I put my finger inside the shoe on the heel and just press it.

If the toe lifts, I know they've made the shoe on the wrong last.

Makes sense.

They didn't, yeah, and this is one of the problems.

This is not the same as different.

But yeah, but that's what you know, yeah.

Right.

So this is the ballgame.

We're usually talking about regular footwear.

So, you know, a company may have one set of lasts, and then it's and then it decides that, well, we'll put three-quarters of an inch heel on a men's shoe, or

maybe a bit more on.

Well, you can't do that.

You've got to have a last which is built to that.

So there is this variation as to, okay, what can you do?

Do you keep the heel height the same?

And if you want, you can do it.

You can just design the upper different way.

So you've got to learn all that.

I don't want Ben to learn that.

I want Ben to keep pushing the stupid ideas.

Let's do something different.

I've never heard anybody as an entrepreneur come in with the level of playfulness and joyful with it.

Everything else is very tactical.

It's very going in the environment, okay, do this, do that, hunt profit.

You're hunting, for lack of a better term, pleasure and joy in what you're doing, making it fun, which is a different game than I've ever heard anyone else.

To me, if you're not having fun, why are you bothering?

I agree with you wholeheartedly.

We have a great friend here in

Lauderdale, and he's just written a book because it's...

It's start, scale, exit, repeat.

Start, scale, exit, repeat.

That to me might be an entrepreneur, but you're not having fun.

Right.

And that's a different ballgame because I've spent my entire career just scaling, exiting, repeating.

Or maybe you're having fun just doing that.

So how do you, when you see businesses and you say, there's this one tip, there's this one piece of advice other than having fun, is there something that super, you know, surpasses that?

Or is this really the, hey, this is what you really want to do above all else when you're looking at businesses?

I think that whilst you're having fun, you've also got to aim to make some money.

Right.

Yeah, you've got to aim to get it right.

If you can disrupt the world, if you change the world, if you can do something different,

you know, I think when we talk about white space, eventually we'd look for lots of

succeeding.

But the biggest one was aerobics.

Aerobics was a big one.

It took us from 9 million to 900 million in four years.

So I think it's a bit like the entrepreneur who might want to keep on starting, scaling, exiting.

I think when you're building this, okay, we may not do another shoe like that again.

That might be the same thing.

That might be a business.

The next one might be a new business if you want to look at it that way.

And you want to find the one that can really go, wow.

Gotcha.

But what we do build and what we built with Reebok was the name.

That was the one thing.

No matter what we put it on, that's the name.

So we're building a brand.

And you might say there's different aspects to that brand that we're selling and we'll find something.

And this has created a lot of interest.

This is great.

We know we have it.

The big handicap is volume scaling.

When you're building a brand,

what is the things that's most important?

Because you're talking about building a brand and how powerful is.

Reebuk became a brand.

This is going to be ultimately become a brand.

Yes.

What are the things that are the most important when it comes to that?

Integrity.

Okay.

I think you need integrity.

You need whatever you're making, people know that you believe in it.

Right.

And if you believe in it,

even if you get it wrong, you believe in what you're doing is right, then you're honest when you say, oh, we've got to change because.

So integrity, I think, is so important to the brand and to a name okay Ben I'm gonna give you the last one with all the stuff you've learned having access if you could tell yourself before you met Joe before this journey started before these shoes ended up here

what would be the one thing that has proven to be the most success and the biggest thing that's helped you succeed that you've learned in this process well it's actually on a point you made earlier

I think that it's about never giving up.

And people talk about this and it's cliche and different things like that.

I think it's the most important thing besides fun.

Fun is important too.

If you have a vision and a drive and you want to make something happen, you keep making one step forward every single day, you're going to go somewhere.

And I think if you keep trying things, then you always, and you're putting up shots consistently.

You always have a shot to make it.

like this thing started off differently when i first talked to joe and julie about this it was we want to do some stuff digitally in games and you know be be more around that and pushing technology in that sense and then we realized that it made made more of sense to kind of launch this around AI and what we could do with a physical product because we did a lot of research around it.

There wasn't anything like that.

And things kind of pivoted a bit.

But there's this like kind of consistency of just keep pushing forward all the time.

And if you're enjoying what you're doing, you want to do that naturally, you know?

So I think that's the most important thing is like, if you have this vision, you got to just relentlessly go after it.

I appreciate both of you.

Thank you for these.

Thank you for letting me knock over water earlier as well.

That was fun.

It was a pleasure.

Thank you guys for doing this.

I really appreciate both of you coming on the show.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you.

It's great.

It's been a pleasure.

Thank you.

That concludes this episode of the Proven Podcast.

Remember, it's not what you think, it's only what you can prove.

We've proved a ton of things on this episode.

Go prove it yourself.

Don't guys trust us.

Don't trust our guests.

Go out there, implement.

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