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Hey, really quick before we start the show. We have an announcement about a really exciting new thing we're launching. A newsletter, and like our show, the newsletter is designed to be interesting, informative, inspiring, and most importantly, fun. It's 100% free. And to sign up, just visit gyros.com. That's GUIRaz.com. So the three of you decide to start this company, but you say, here's the agreement. If one of us has another job, you're out. This is all in.
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Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raus and on the show today, how a few strips of garden hose inspired a new sneaker called ON, and how its founders set out to make it the number one running shoe in the world. The athletic footwear is massive, the size of the category is somewhere around $150 billion. And the biggest players are also some of the most successful brands on earth.
Nike, Adidas, Puma, New Balance, but in recent years, an upstart brand called ON has become the fourth most valuable footwear company in the world. It was only launched in 2010, and it was started by three guys with almost no capital and no experience in apparel. At the time, the shoe was developed by a runner for runners, and what made the ON shoes stand out and still stand out was its design. They look like no other athletic shoe out there.
The original design was inspired by a prototype that was literally a pair of Nike's tricked out with cut tubes of a garden hose that were glued to the bottom of the soles. The story of ON is as improbable as any we've told on this show. Besides having no cash and no experience, the founders started their brand in Switzerland, a country better known for watches, bankers, and chocolate than apparel.
But what the founders did have was their complimentary skills. Olivier Bernhard had been a professional triathlete, so he knew something about the mechanics of shoes. Casper Capetti and David Olimon spent a few years at an ad agency, so they knew about marketing and branding. We'll hear from two of those founders Olivier and Casper in the show today. They both grew up in Switzerland in the 70s and 80s. Olivier in a small town in the Alps that was perfect for all types of sports.
And the sport he loved the most, it was running. I really recall doing my first running race, a fun race, a 2k, a little over a mile, race when I was 5. I was able to go with maybe 10, 20, 50 other boys lining up and then when the gun goes off, you know, the beat of your heart and the heavy breathing, the air in your hair. And obviously also the footsteps, right? All these noises I really liked. It reminded me a lot of like horse racing. And I loved it.
Were you good from the beginning? Were you faster than most other boys around you? I was. Yeah, I was. I think I was pretty talented. I was always the smallest kid. I was light, I was skinny. I was spectators with always, you know, point at me and say, look at that little kid, how fast he goes. And obviously that gave me that extra boost, you know, to pass another two taller guys. And I guess eventually you would move on to triathlon. And that would become your focus, which we'll talk about.
But when you were around 18, there's there's national service requirements in Switzerland. And I guess you, you had to do some kind of government service around that time for a year. So what did you do? Just a clerk at the office. And even after that apprenticeship three years, I worked and funny enough, it was for the tax offices. The tax office. Tax offices. Yeah.
And really exciting. But the funny thing is I didn't do it because of taxes because I didn't care so much about the numbers and anything. But the system was set up that I had to travel. And I could travel by bike. So I could train at the same time I was working. Oh, wow. You know, usually they, they, these people would come up, you know, and nice suits and ties and everything. And I would come with very tight cycling shorts and shirt and sweaty sometimes because it was up steep hill.
But very different than after half a year, they got used to it and they thought this is really special. And obviously I still hear this story, you know, after doing that for a year or two and then becoming professional and becoming a world class athlete, they referred to me and saying, Oh, yeah, of course I remember you came by with a bike and it was fun. We always said you had this talent, right?
Yeah, I mean, you actually went pro, like you became a professional athlete and you would go on to win a number of Swiss championships and even world championships and a few races. And I guess you also, you would eventually do that, that like crazy long distance version of the triathlon, the Iron Man. And just remind me, the Iron Man, I think it's a marathon, it's like a two and a half mile swim and like a 10 mile bike ride or something or a 50 mile bike ride.
It's a 112 mile bike ride, yeah, in the marathon at the end. 112 miles and a full marathon. Yeah, insane to me. It's totally insane. Guys, it's also insane when I look at the number now, you know, being 56, I'm like, wow, how could I, you know, how can someone even do that? And I did it in not 1008 hours, but very close to 8 hours. And were you able, when you really were fully in the world of professional competitions, were you making like significant money?
Like, can you, I mean, at the level you were competing at, can you make enough money to really sustain a decent life? It's obviously a question of what's a decent life and salary, but hey, at the very beginning of the first three years, I remember it was enough money to get me, you know, sign up for the next race, pay for the flight and hotel.
But later on, you know, obviously I got to make some money, but hey, it's not the big numbers, but that's not why I, you know, decided to become a professional athlete. And I think still now, triathletes don't decide to, you know, become a professional athlete because there's high money involved. Right, right? It's, I mean, it's obviously about something much bigger.
All right, I want to, I want to turn to Casper here because I know you were, you've been sitting here quietly. I mean, I know you were also born in a believe in Eastern Switzerland. And maybe not that far from from where Olivier was born. Yeah, I grew up in a small town in this with helps, maybe 3000 inhabitants, actually about maybe 20 minutes, master crow flies from where Olivier grew up.
And, and I guess just like Olivier, you were, you were also really into sports, but for you, I think your, your thing was snowboarding, right? And again, at a pretty elite level, like as a teenager, I, I read that you were competing and races all over Switzerland and, and, and even beyond, right? Yeah, at 14, it was already sponsored and I was traveling to, to races across Switzerland and, and, and some in Europe as well.
And, yeah, that, that just gave me a great sense of independence and I obviously had a lot of influence. Everybody else was much older. It was a pretty wild scene back then. But I guess when you reached like college age, you decided that you, you didn't want to focus on being a professional athlete, right? Like you, you decided to go into, to study economics to go into business.
I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I mean, I knew that probably around 14, 16, I'm very independent minded and at the same time, I have a lot of ideas. Yeah. So, you know, it came natural. Maybe it helped that my, my dad was an entrepreneur. What did he do? Well, we, we had a family business like a midsize enterprise, maybe 800 people or so. And we manufactured machinery for injection bolting, plastic injection bolts. Oh, wow. Like airline parts, swatches, CD-ROMs, stuff like that.
And that was his, that was a business he started. That his, his, my grandfather started. What happened to the business? Yeah, this was in the, in the early 90s. It was a pretty dramatic time for, for Swiss machine manufacturing. It was a global recession. And basically what then happens, like they ran out of liquidity. And, and we had to sell the, the business and the factory for, for, for nothing.
They gave the, gave the business away. But before they, they literally invested all our, our family fortune to keep it afloat. So, did your dad recover? Did he ever recover financially from that? No, he didn't. Wow. That was pretty, yeah, I was definitely a tough times. You know, like, that was definitely a moment. I never remember I was, I was 14. When my dad and I went out for, for lunch one day and he said, look, you'll have to make your own fortune.
Go find your own luck. You know, that was a tough moment, probably for him as a dad. It was, is definitely tough for me. But he gave me a lot of drive to, to, and also, it was, it wasn't a way of liberating because I was like the oldest son in the family. So, I was kind of set up to take over the business at some point. And, and that just felt weird to me because I wanted to have my own thing and do my own thing and, and succeed my own.
What an amazing experience to have with your dad. I mean, having seen this huge business and then it just collapsed. You're 14. I mean, did it, did it, did it, did it dramatically change your family's lifestyle? I mean, definitely, I mean, before, you know, we were, we were very comfortable. I definitely money became tighter. It definitely was tied during my studies. Tell me how you, I believe you were 21 when you met Olivier.
How did you meet him? Because he was, he's a few years older than you, about seven, eight years older than you. He was already an athlete when you met him. How did that happen? So, I was a working student. I had to finance my studies myself. And so, I worked as a journalist. And I, I covered sports events because that was my passion. And at one point, Ironman Switzerland, or asked me to be their head of PR. And I had to learn.
I didn't even know what Ironman was. This is an Ironman race in Switzerland. This is, this is an Ironman race in Switzerland. Yeah, here in Zurich. And that's how I met Olivier because Olivier was the star at the race. And, and he would always win it. And so we obviously had to work together.
And, you know, Olivier asked me, hey, do you want to be my press agent? And I was like, sure, you know, because I mean, you know, there's a lot of synergy there. You win the race. I, you know, can help you with that and, and, and all the media. And then a little later, he asked me, well, do you want to be my agent? And I'm like, well, I have no experience. I'm 21. I have some business major.
But, yeah, this is probably a bit out of my, my league. And, and you were like, I know you, I think you can do it. And I remember. And, somehow I said, yes. And, and we drank a glass of wine together at the lake. And, and, literally, like, because none of us drank at the time, we, we both were too drunk to discuss any business matters. And we had to get together the next day to continue our discussion.
Olivier, what, I mean, you were, let's say, 28, right? 29, what do you met? Casper. Yeah. What motivated you to go to this 21-year-old kid and say, hey, be my agent? I mean, he had no experience. Why would you entrust a 21-year-old kid with your career? I think it's a red thread that goes through my life. I love, like, maybe like Casper, you know. I don't like to go to beaten pathers. And why should I go to an agent that knows everything?
I want to know someone or have someone aside that goes different pathers that approaches things in a totally different way. And sometimes, and of course, when we went, you know, to, to companies that have been supporting me, baby, for five, 10 years. And then this 21-year-old showed up often. I got a call afterwards and don't ever come again with this 20-year-old.
Well, I, yeah, he's useless. No, he's not useless. He's the one guy I believe in. And I trust. And we will, you know, he's my agent. So you have to deal with it. Wow. So Olivia, you hire Casper. You put him on retainer. And his job was going to be to negotiate contracts and sponsorship deals on your behalf that was going to be his primary job. And to get you press coverage. Exactly. And he's been the main two worlds, yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Only was a big deal at the time. So I was lucky. My job was pretty easy. I mean, the contract's kept, you know, coming. And all I had to do was like, type them up and then get them signed. But at the time, only they would be on the, on the Sunday, like the sports center of Switzerland. He would be a regular guest there. And that was obviously attractive for sponsors.
Meantime, Olivia, actually, I have a bunch of questions for you. But at one point, I mean, during your career, I think this happened in 1998. You win the, the Duathlon World Championships. And then you get, you get tested as, you know, drug tested. And they find that there's a, a band substance in your system, like a tiny amount.
And you appealed this. This was as, it was like, you basically were like, I never used any band substances. It was a, it was a prognotally occurring thing. But you actually appealed this. And one.
Absolutely. It was probably my toughest moment in, in life. I still now being 56, but for sure as an athlete, because as Casper knows, it always meant a lot to me to be a role model. But I, you know, would try to work with the government's associations that actually accused me of, you know, using substances. And I was reaching out and said, I need your support because I, I only know that I haven't done anything wrong, but let us find out together what went wrong and where.
Because you were basically saying, if I am, if I am accused of being of doping, that's, that obviously is going to ruin my career and my reputation. And it sounds like you really cared about those things. Absolutely. You want to fight against this. Because from what I understand, the test was like the amount they found, the trace amount they found your body was so marginal. Your argument was, which would be proven correct, was that it's a naturally occurring substance in your body.
And you just had a slightly elevated amount because of your training. Because of training and diet, that was an outcome. I was trying to work with the doping laboratory. And at the end, I think it was 195 urine samples. And, you know, it was randomly taken. I mean, I did my training and then, you know, the guy just says, peeing now. But you were cleared, which was probably an amazing feeling. Absolutely having been living under this cloud for almost a year.
It's still a tough time to look back, you know, I'm over it now. But I don't think it was so much liberating or such a happy day, even if I was, you know, even if I was given the freedom to race again. But the day when I was like freed from, you know, being accused, you know, I was bashed for many weeks and months. And also when I was trying to resolve it or actually prove it, it's still, you know, some media would still keep bashing me.
And, hey, that's life. Right? It was a big learning. I could have done without. But I think still, it was great to go through that. Yeah, wow. That was actually the first assignment for me as this press agent, like, basically, how do we make sure that this makes the front page? And we managed to get the story about him being cleared into pretty much every newspaper we went on Swiss National TV.
So, that was, I think, almost the foundation for this trust relationship that we developed over the years later. Yeah, yeah, imagine. And then meantime, Casper, I mean, you were also pursuing your academic career and then the professional career, right? I mean, so there's like, your lives kind of go off eventually into separate tracks, right? Because Olivier, you continue to compete.
And Casper, you're working towards a PhD in economics. And I think you also started working at a consultancy at McKinsey. And then eventually at the ad agency Younger Rubikam in Zurich. Yes, that was a lot of fun. You know, these were the days when we would say, well, advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on. But it was great for me because working in a creative environment, I was the head of strategy there.
And it was a fascinating time because it was the time when digital emerged and all the disciplines start coming together. But it was also great to apprenticeship into how creative thinking works and how design works. Meantime Olivier, as your career starts to wind down because at a certain point your body just cannot, like as we age, you just cannot compete at a certain level, right?
I mean, that just happens. It's just nature. So what, what, what was the, I mean, as you started to think about retiring, right? You know, I'm sure there was some minor injuries or maybe more than minor injuries. There's a lot of Achilles issues and plantar fasciitis. I mean, you go through a lot. You put a lot of strain on your body. When you started to think about retiring, you're married, you've got a family now.
What were you trying to figure out what to do? I mean, you were coaching athletes. Did you think, okay, maybe that's the career I'll move into? Many things. I mean, I had my coaching, but I always knew that that's not going to last longer than 10 years. I mean, again, I need change and I realized throughout my career that not everyone, you know, she's running as he at these.
You know, a lot of people struggle with running. For me, it was like a game every time I put even if it was a, you know, a race, a triathlon, a menacing before running a marathon, it was still playful, which sounds strange. But I found out only later in my career, maybe when I was close to 30, that a lot of people struggle with running.
I wanted to find ways. How can I infuse and, you know, get my passion? I have forining and the ease for running, the liberation I feel and I go on. How can I infuse people with this sensation? And now I think comes kind of a pivotal part of the story because at this point, Olivier, you're living in a small town in Switzerland.
This guy, you know, this is another runner and an engineer, I think his name is George. He calls you up out of the blue and he says he has an idea of a new kind of sneaker, is that right? Exactly. George calls me from Zurich and says, you know, I know you're one of the highly respected triathletes, a great endurance runner and everyone tells me you have a great sensation.
Because I ever running technology or he called it a running system, he called it back then, can you do me a favor and test it? Just send me one of you Nike's and I want to put something on it and let me know how much you like it. What he took your Nike and what did he do it? I was an Nike structural, you know, itself probably is, you know, back then these were monsters in itself already. And then he put on god knows, right?
Pieces of god knows. Sorry, a garden hose. Yeah, like he took a garden hose and he stuck it to the bottom of the shoe. It just pieces, just small pieces. So it's like, like springs, like garden hose springs in the bottom of the shoe kind of. Exactly. I looked at the shoe and said, no, I'm not going to run with this monster. It looks ugly, it looks, you know, it's high like hell. And I waited till the sun was down and nobody could see me and I was lacing up the shoe one night and ran.
And after 1002 hours, me, as I said, wow, this is really different. This is really different. And I like the different. It's not different in a disturbing way. Wow, it's really cool. And I came back. I lost maybe, you know, he had put on, I think, 13, 12 pieces of garden houses. And I lost at least half of them. And I didn't even realize that I lost them. They just, they just, I got unglued as you were running.
Yeah, unglued. Yeah. All right. I want to just pause because obviously this is going to be a huge part of the story, right? But for you running on a, these were these sort of garden hoses pieces stuck to the bottom of the shoe. What did it, what kind of sensation did it give you? Like, like, the landing was softer. The gate was more spring-like as your foot left the ground. Like, what do you remember?
It was totally fascinating. Sliding into that landing and not feeling the impact, how soft it felt. You know, I initially I came back to, to my wife and said, I felt like a cat. Like a cat. The cat, yeah. I was like, you know, smooth running soft. I felt like I don't want to stop this one. Yeah.
Again, I came back and before even taking a shower, I was feeling two papers of ideas, you know, how I would actually adjust the shoe, what's needed, what's good, what's not. And how we could actually, you know, create designer running shoes. And by the way, what happened then, what really made it, made it the case for me.
Again, I have had my Achilles issues for maybe three, three and a half years to the end of my career. And I've seen so many doctors and specialists and nothing really helped. And within six weeks walking and running and the garden hose shoes since today, the Achilles issues never came back.
Wow. So I was full of inspiration and ideas and almost television, how to take it to market. Like, I mean, immediately or like within days or what you thought, I want to make a shoe. I think I want to build a shoe. No, the idea was really to modify things and to bring it to a level that then we would go out and sell it to the big guys.
Yeah, you want to pitch this to companies like Nike. I did, we did, we did, we did pitch it to pretty, all pretty much all the companies we pitched it to Nike, Pluma, Deedas, new balance. What did it, what did it look like? What did that prototype that you were pitching looked like? Look like it looked like a very simple clean shoe with, with like garden hose springs in the bottom or did it look more like what an on shoe looks like today.
No, not like an on shoe today. No, it was like we had engineered them so you actually could run 300, 500, case with them. And hey, I don't want to talk badly about other companies that I have been an athlete for the company right in Portland.
It would be written that they didn't want it, they didn't, I was an athlete right running for their company becoming world champion, they didn't even want to look at the technology, not even at the drawing. And again, all of them, all of them beside Pluma said no thank you.
Pluma actually invited us to their headquarters and they, you know, to me, the CEO back then said when we sent the shoes he said yeah, we sent some, you know, three, five shoes, we're going to take it to the lab and by the way, you initially said you can have, you know, the numbers once we are done with the testing. The numbers based on the results that come.
You know what exactly is there any difference or not or is it any good what do they see. And then very, you know, nice talk with them and he said look, I really think there's something to the technology but Pluma is not going the, today you would call it the maximum, you know, in choose we're going the other way, we're really going to reduce mid-soles.
More than minimalist and walking out, I remember that he offered me to give the results right the numbers, but he wouldn't share it to me. So you only smile and said you have to find that yourself. And this was this was really the moment in the car driving back from Germany when George and I said let's do something with it.
Even if we don't have a clue how to build running shoe out of Switzerland, even if you have no clue how to actually, you know, bring this up and scales and everything lets at least try ourselves. When we come back in just a moment, how a pair of garden hose sneakers becomes an emerging brand with a name of following and a manufacturer. A manufacturer that at exactly the wrong time goes bankrupt. Stay with us, I'm Guy Ross and you're listening to how I built this.
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Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Ross. So it's 2008 and Olivier and his design partner, George, have developed a new space age looking sneaker which they think could revolutionize running. But nobody is giving them the time of day. So Olivier decides to call up Casper, his old friend and former agent for help. And I remember vividly, he said, hey Casper, I invented this running shoe and I really need your help bringing it to market be a great marketing guy.
And I said, only are you out of your mind. You will not stand a chance. This is a very crowded market. Don't risk the hard earned money. I mean, I knew how much he had made in his career. He was like, well, yeah, you're not that comfortable. Don't do it.
Yeah. And by the way, just to be clear, you had a lot of standing to say that because you worked a young and Rubikam and you knew how challenging this market was going to be to get into and how the massive ad budgets that Nike's and the D this is and Puma's of the world had like it was. It's a full Zerend right to try and enter a market like that.
It was out of the question. This would never work. Yeah. Olivier and George show up. I remember they took out this this product shoe and I was like, well, it's kind of interesting because it can clearly see the technology at the time no running shoes had any visible technology.
And then I put them on and it was something that I never felt before. Yeah. It felt like walking on clouds and I was intrigued. But then, you know, just because you like running in a prototype doesn't necessarily mean you should make a company out of it.
Meantime Olivier, you are determined to try and do this. So tell me what you and George and but what's George's last name, by the way, bronze viola. Okay. And so what are you and George. I mean, no, none of the big shoe companies want to do this. So what and meantime, you guys said we're going to do this anyway. So what did you, what was the next step?
Just going to Asia and produce the shoe. Right. We said we have to take some money. Sometimes they was really about designing, creating the shoe and then obviously once the shoe were produced, we produced the first batch. I think it was like 10,000 or 8,000 shoes we produced in Busan in South Korea. What did you call the shoes back then we had a different logo and a different name. It was G and L for glide and lock glide and lock. Okay. Glide lock describing the technology simply put them.
And Casper, what convinced you to work on on the shoe idea with Olivier? I mean, you're you're at least help him out a little bit just because he's a friend. Yeah, first first because he was a friend, but then I was as I said, I was intrigued. And I think that he is just just kept coming and then I got a pair. And so I took the pair on a run and running for me was always painful. Yeah, not like Olivier. I was not into running. I hated it.
I was into the fun sports, extreme sports. I was a snowboarder. I was a mountain biker. Yeah. And then also I'm very tall. So I have I always had an IT band issue. So I took this prototype on a two hour run and it was fun. And the pain never came. I had to stop because it just couldn't run anymore. I was tired, but not my body was fine. And pretty much everybody that we gave to product to the prototypes in early days that had injuries came back with like, well, I don't feel the pain.
And there was this moment where both Ollie and George independently approached me and said in their own words, hey, it's not working out between Ollie and George. Casper can get involved. And so I made a pretty bold move and said, yes, I'm going to get involved, but without you, George.
I know Olivier, I know this is probably sensitive and it's all, you know, business is tricky and there's always personality clashes and it can be painful. But what was going on between you and George? I think at the end, it was very simple. It's just we had a different idea how to build the business. You know, he was super busy building his businesses, having his companies already. Very successful companies here in Switzerland.
And it was all on me, right? Because I was the only employee. I was the athlete to go test the shoes. I was again, I was the marketing guy, I was the sales guy, I was the accounting guy. I was doing pretty much everything. And I liked the challenge, but at some point that just said, hey, this is again, it's not leveled, it's not fair and it's not going anywhere.
So, Casper, you used to agree to kind of intervene. And you went to George and said, I think it's better for you guys to separate. What was his reaction? George is a very generous person and really what he wanted to do was to see this technology on Runner's feet. So what we did is we agreed on a licensing agreement. But we also put a clause in there, locally, that we could terminate the license agreement and purchase the patents outright.
Looking back, it was a very easy and cost effective way of starting a running shoe company because we didn't have to put all the money down to develop the technology we could build on what was already there with George and and only had developed. But it was still from our perspective back then, it was still a huge risk because myself, our third co-founder David, we had pre-high paying jobs.
You mentioned David, this is David Alamann, who was a friend of you who brought him in. He was the head of marketing and vitro, which is an amazing furniture designer. I think they have the license for like Eames. You brought him in. Casper, you said something. I know that you always intended to be an entrepreneur. But you had a really great job at Young & Rubikam. At what point were you comfortable quitting that job and pursuing this full time?
I wouldn't say comfortable. I felt like jumping off a cliff. We really felt the risk was real. And in Switzerland, failure is not as accepted. Once you fail, it can remain a stigma for life. Different in the US, right? In the US there's more of a culture of failure. Very different cultures. And also back then, like, entrepreneurship wasn't a thing in Switzerland. Like everybody wanted to go and work for UBS or Credit Suisse.
And have a lifelong life. It just sounds miserable. God bless them. But it just sounds miserable. Keep going. Actually, the plan B can be an interesting thing. And we actually wrote in our shareholder's agreement and it lived there all the way through the IPO. We put down this thing when if someone of us took another job, or even like a side hustle or any income from any other source, we would have to give back our shares.
We wanted to be fully committed. Our thing was, if we're going to fail, we're not going to fail for lack of effort. We're going to put it all on the line and see how far we get. So the three of you decide to start this company, but you say, here's the agreement. If one of us has another job, or like you've got your out, you're out. This is all in. You're out and then you have to, you know, you share school to the other firms that are staying.
That's that's like Russian roulette right there. Or what's it called? Maybe not. It was the Mexican standoff. I can't remember. It's one of those things. But for me, I think it was a bit easier than for David and Casper, right? As an athlete, you know, I was used to put everything on one whole. And I thought this is actually great. Well, I imagine one of the first things you guys wanted to do Casper, and maybe I'm wrong, is think about the branding of this thing, right?
Because you have the shoe, these prototypes, you've got the licensing for the technology. The shoe is called GNL. And that was not the name you were going to use. You thought, were you thinking this is not quite right? No. We came up with about 800 names. You know, we coming from advertising, we basically asked all our copywriter friends to write them some ideas. And then Olivia had like Paul and Bear. And so we actually settled for a name. And the name was neon. Neon, that's a good name. Neon.
We've had like power it, you know, and said it said new neon. The neon color was was like a high fashion back then. I really, it's funny because I asked founders about the potential names for business all the time, you know, how'd you come up with Louis Lehmann? And there's like 20 names to 40. Like, oh my God, that was a dumb name. That's a dumb name. That's a dumb name. Thank God, you pick Louis Lehmann. Neon's actually pretty good. This is not bad.
Yes, if we're about a month or two, we were neon. We even had a logo. And then David got cold feet and he was like, well, what if what if neon goes out of fashion and you know, it isn't it too cold and I had this other name in mind. I've had come to me one morning out and a run where I came back. And in my street, there was a car parked from a production company, TV production company called on films.
Oh, and films. Yeah. And we had we had four. I have a year we had search for a name to say it switches you on. And the there we was in front of me on. It was like, well, that's pretty simple, maybe too simple. And that's how we became on. Okay, I'm going to get back to the name in a bit. But meantime, Casper, you had said to Ali that you thought this was crazy to go to build a running a shoe company.
And now you've not just left your company, but you're pursuing this idea. Why did you think, because this is like 2010, I think, right at this point. That's so yeah, we've been incorporating in on January 6, 2010. What should flipped in your mind where you're like, yeah, okay, let's let's take on Nike and a D this and Puma and you know, A6. Yeah, we did go to an event before we actually founded a company and and just basically it was an Ironman event here in Switzerland.
And just had about two 300 runners try the product and nobody came back indifferent. People lofted or hated it. But it moved people and that's really what you want. You want to have something that's differentiated and that that makes some people sing. And if you make some people swear, it's also good, but you know, you don't want to be caught in the middle. It was polarizing. It was polarizing. It was totally polarizing.
But it had a lot of energy and literally we went out and and we went and met with one specialty retailers and went to events and sold out of the back of our cars. And and we just got this tremendous response like we never had a moment where people were not interested in what we were doing. The phones never stopped ringing.
I have to imagine that initially you're trying to conquer the Swiss market, which is a globally a relatively small market, but that's what you're trying to do at the beginning. The idea that that's not that's not true. Unfortunately, you have to you have to understand like we come from the smallest country. So we knew on day one that we couldn't be just a Swiss company. So so we started out in six countries at once.
Oh, you did. Okay. So how did you guys finance a production run? I mean, you know, George was the money guy, but now it's the three of you. You probably had a, you know, a good salary, a young and Rubikam and and David probably had a decent salary from V.Tron. And I know, Olivia, you were probably making very little money in the previous years because you're working on a shoe. So how did you guys have any financing to even do a production run for prototypes?
Yeah. So we each put down 150,000 in and only didn't have the cash. So we basically took his effort so far into the company and and and valid that at 150. So so that's how we started. And you know, something very fortunate happened. There's a large sporting at show in Europe called Ispo and every year they give out an award. So we applied and we ended up winning the thing and and the first prices you get the booths and you get a huge PR out of this event.
And so we went to the show in January. Literally, like a couple days after we started the company with, I don't know, five, six samples and we left the show with or I would say about half a million Swiss francs in orders. Wow. From these were, these are from small running shoe stores. From running shoe stores, from this potential distributors and with those orders in hand, it was quite easy to raise our first investment run.
I cast for, I'm curious about sort of the design aesthetic of the brand that you got. I read some more that you guys put together like a mood board of different images and different, even different brands that you were inspired by. Tell me a little bit about that process about sitting around and saying, this is what we want this to be. Yeah, look, coming out of Switzerland based on a patterned innovation, the only viable stretch for us was to go premium.
And then, you know, that's also what we admire. So on that first mood board, there was, there was an iPhone. Yeah, there was an Eamst chair. There was an Arcteric's jacket on there. Arcteric's jacket, Eamst chairs, like iPhones, yeah. Just very reductionist, great industrial design. And so we decided to put on a competition and we asked two shoe designers to design something for us. And then there was actually a friend of mine, Tilo.
He's now our creative director, design director for many years. But we let them into the competition. And so the other two shoe designers, they came back with just a running shoe, just another, you know, like kind of playing Vanilla. And Tilo came back with an on. It was so distinct, probably too distinct. Like, that was almost a stigma in the early days. People were like, oh, I love you love your tech, but they don't look like running shoes.
That's what the runner said. And then all the architects, fashion people, they're like, well, these shoes look amazing, but I would never run in them. I mean, one thing, maybe going a little deeper into, you know, these elements, one thing we have not mentioned yet. We were probably the first brand using plate, a plate in the shoe we call it speedboard. A plate that is in between the sole and the element. Exactly. The element. It's a rigid plate or it's a very rigid plate.
Very rigid plate. It's okay. You know, it's like sandwich. You know, if you have a soft surface, you should have the next step. It should be hard to push off. Then you have something soft in between. Then hard again, soft. So looking at tarmac, what most people run on, then you need something soft. That would be our cloud tech, right, our rubber elements. And then to really make this work, you needed the speedboard, we call it speedboard, it's this plate.
And then we found soon enough that this plate actually makes a huge difference in performance of the tech and the feel. I mean, one of the things that strikes me about, so, okay, Olivier, you, you're, if you're going to go to a race and you're going to talk to other athletes, you're coming in with immense credibility and standing because you walk the walk, you ran the ran. So it's not like some marketing guys coming to a race and going, hey, try our shoes.
It's literally Olivier doing it, which is a huge advantage. But at the same time, I have to imagine that it's not that easy to get runners to just try a pair of shoes because what if they get injured in those shoes? Like, that could really screw them up. So how, I mean, what was it that enabled you guys to even just get runners to try them? I mean, I guess part of it was because they looked so weird, right? They were so unusual.
Maybe that really intrigued a few of us, but it wasn't so much that the runners wouldn't believe and trust us. It was more of the retailers. The retailers were the big hurdle. And Casper and I, we attacked the Truman, Austrian and Swiss market. I think it was year one and two. Not very successful until I think it was Casper coming and saying, hey, all these retailers, I actually, they're runners at heart.
So why instead of trying to convince them without tech does and with a PowerPoint presentation, why don't we just bring shoes, we go run in their environment? Run with them. Yeah, run with them. Yeah. And that turned the thing around. I'm, I'm, our listeners can't see if I'm holding up, you know, one of your models that I have. And I'm wondering, obviously there's a function here, right? Like this is functional here.
But the design, the holes in the soles are also weird. I mean, they just, I remember the first time I saw them, I was like, those are weird shoes. You have to stop and look at them. And I wonder if that, if that was part of the design element or were you just thinking, we got to make a functional shoe. This is going to be the best shoe that we think we can make. But did you also think, and let's make it look kind of weird so it stands out.
We're a little bit offended here. Yeah. I mean, the best way, I mean, the best possible way. It's, it's like a, you know, it's like a liquid death or a brand that just stands out. Right? I mean, I think about how far we've come from the garden. Right. Right. You know, the, you know, the, the hole is, is, is the function. That's the original pattern where, you know, the element basically absorbs the shop, the shop and then, you know, collapses on the pressure.
Yeah. It's indeed very fortunate that the shoes look so different than you can see the technology. Because what it does is that you'll see it on someone's feet, you'll be like, what are these? And the person will say, well, these are the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn. So it's, it's contagious. And then once you have them, it's addictive. You cannot go back and, and, and, and do your regular running shoes. So it was the perfect formula for, for becoming a vial brand.
You know, one of the things that I, I'm curious about because I know you win this award, right? At this, this trade show, this best new product. And from what I gather at that point, people are telling you, you better get this on the market quick because you got a, you know, you got the hype going, the, you know, strike while the iron is hot.
When you went to China initially to get the shoes manufactured from, from what I've read, you were told by people that your design drawings and your schemes were impossible to make these affordable. You could not mass produce these in a way that, that would enable you to sell them for, you know, one 150 or 200 dollars. That, that you would have to sell them for like a thousand dollars to make your money back.
Almost, yeah. No, absolutely. I went to China. And sitting with these engineers, you know, having, I mean, around the table full five engineers at least, you know, 150 years of experience. They said, it's impossible. I said, you have what you mean impossible. It needs to be possible to make these right you the experts and then tell me what's not possible.
They said, look, I mean, as you said, you know, we, maybe there's a way we can do it. And it's going to be very difficult. The, the tooling is going to be very costly, which is going to have an effect on the end price of the shoe. But again, I think, you know, why I'm saying this, it was the first experience where I was, I mean, I was told many times before in different locations that things are not possible.
But I think it's so deeply ingrained nowadays in the company that we only approach things that are impossible. So if people are coming back, you know, after an initial idea or a vision and people come back and say, yeah, we can do it. I said, then we don't do it. Leave that to Nike, to Adidas. They can do it. Let's focus on impossible.
As long as we stay with the impossible, we're not going to copy anything. We're going to be super special. We're going to be unique. And we have to innovate to get there. I'm, Casper, I read something that you said about the company early on. And I, I just think it's such a great insight into a business. And you basically said something to the effect of when we started this company, it felt like the world ended at least once a week.
It just collapsed. Was it that, was it that stressful? Was it that tense? It was very stressful. Like, you need to know only now we're eternal optimists. But, you know, we, we, you know, for a while, we did definitely run on fear. Basically, we had this one moment in January 2011. It was the first time this is a year into the company. And a year in, you're probably doing one a million dollars or less than a million in revenue.
Yeah, we did a million in the first half year, which was obviously great. But it was the first time we were able to take a little breath. And we had a full day off site that we, we granted ourselves to talk about the future. Because that's one of the things as a startup, you, you, you always torn between, am I working on the present just basically boxing up shoes and sending them out or sending in voices of what have you or am I planning the future.
So, you know, we went on an offside and about a half hour in, we get a phone call from our Chinese manufacturing partner and the factory and bankrupt. The factory went big. How many shoes did you order from them? The full production for the, for the season, like 20, 30,000 pairs. I think 30,000 pairs. Wow. And the, you know, factories bankrupt. There's police tape around nobody can get in. And this is a week before Chinese New Year's, we've been everything shuts down for about a month.
And we were basic at that point, we were, we were bankrupt. We were done. Because if that product didn't make it out of the factory and into our warehouse and to our retail partners, we couldn't pay the bills. So, so when that factory went bankrupt, how did you rescue the, the shoes, right? I mean, you, you, you, you paid for it or what did you do?
To be honest, I think the hospital, even then I till today we have no clue how the shoes made it out of the factory. Honestly, that must have been some money involved. It was now. Oh, you had, you had like a local, like a, you had a local agent, presumably in China, and you were like, come on, you got to get these shoes to us.
Yeah, he, he wasn't going to get paid if those shoes wouldn't make it out of the factory. And you know, the, you know, the thing was he wasn't shoes, he was, offers and bought the units, but they were not assembled yet. So we had to find and train a factory in no time during Chinese New Year. So I think we paid the factory work because about triple overtime, choose to stay longer.
And you know, the materials were dirty. It was, it was a mess, but we were fine. We were like, well, you know, we survived that moment and then there were other moments. And we realized that the world doesn't end so quickly. And we also realized that we shouldn't ride the lows too low and the highs not too high and, and rather than just having this yo-yo effect, basically just kind of beyond this, of this steady incline.
And it's much better for our sanity. From what I understand, Casper, I've seen you say our intention, our goal was to build this into a $10 million company. That was your, that was your ambition. I'll be succeeded. He did. But was that really your ambition? Like you thought, okay, we'll be a, we'll be a very small niche shoe brand for mainly from, for runners. Was that what you were thinking?
You know, this may sound naive, but we literally had no idea of the scale of this industry. We never did a, a business plan. We never did like a proper market sizing. All we knew was this is a big market. And, and literally, you know, coming out of Switzerland, like we had very few role models. And, and we felt like, yeah, you know, maybe we'll make it, you know, I wouldn't say 10, but I would say probably 20 million was like the end state.
Yeah, so in a way, you know, we, we failed. We didn't put further much faster. We didn't stop there. When we come back in just a moment, on breaks into the US market and then catches the eye of one very talented tennis player, you probably have heard of them. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raaz and you're listening to how I built this. Article believes in delightful design for every home. And thanks to their online only model, they have some really delightful prices too.
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There are just so many times throughout his journey that you think to yourself, a reasonable person would have given up then. And definitely then, and no doubt then. But he persevered. He pushed through it and in the end he triumphed. And as me and my wife have started our own business, something like that is just so inspirational to help you get through those early bumps and bruises. Thanks so much.
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Hey, welcome back to how I built this. I'm Guy Ross. So it's 2013 and on sneakers are becoming popular among runners in Europe. But Europe is just one market. So to really break through the founders have to establish the brand in the US. And you guys went to the belly of the beast. You opened an office in Portland, which is, I think a lot of people know this.
It's the center of the shoe world in the US. Obviously Nike's there. Adidas is there. And presumably they weren't even paying attention to you. You were like a fly spec to them. They didn't even know who you were at that point. No, that's true. And you know, and this is such a big space. And we knew we could be successful without competing with them. And frankly, if you look at the underarmory story to try to compete directly with Nike is suicide.
So we always try to play our own game. And we had very different tech, very much more premium than they are. And it served us extremely well. I think it's also a cultural thing that are you called, you know, walking out the lawyers office when we signed the contract in January 2010. David was walking out saying, so whoever you're an attack, you know, first is it Adidas is it is a new balance.
And no, David, this is this is really this is an endurance sport. Let's line up with the guys watch them observe them learn from them. You know, it's going to take years till we figure out how to run the marathon properly over 10 K. And at some point, maybe, you know, maybe we can, you know, have insight close to the finish line. And now not saying we're getting any closer, but no, it's fun. It's fun times. I think we are getting taken more serious nowadays.
When you enter the US market, from what I understand, you had some challenges with your name. I mean, the name was great. But then all of a sudden you realize that on, like for a Google search, you can be typing on. And you're not necessarily going to hit running shoes. I mean, now you do. But, but then you wouldn't. And also the stylized way that the logo looked a lot of Americans thought it was like QC or literally nobody can read the logo.
So that's a lot of people say on clouds because on is too short as a brand. We actually, you know, buy the QC keyword on Google. Oh, you got. Oh, so if people have been QC on Google. Oh, yeah, yeah. I would say about a third of our traffic comes from QC. You know, talking because people were typing. What are those QC shoes? Absolutely. Yeah. We actually, we just we just started writing on running on all our running shoes in playing type. So people can actually know what the brand is.
Wow. And literally if you type in QC shoes in the Google, you get a thing that says QC shoes. Did you mean on? Yeah, yeah, exactly. But you know, having these two great experts next to me, you know, coming from advertising, you know, I mean, like with QC and nobody can read on and all these things. Yeah. Yeah. I trusted them. But you're thinking, I'm bringing the best guys, the heavy hitters and the light business. And here they go, give this name with a QC.
It's one thing that you know, to this to this day, we about once a week, we get an email of someone suggesting a better logo for our brand. But it is amazing that if you can, I mean, if you can build a product that is differentiated and is unusual and then performs, like the things that you think really matter, like the name and the logo, don't actually matter that all that much in the end.
But probably again, I think, you know, we so convinced it's all about the tech. And again, at the end, they'll find out it's on running. I have to assume that what was really going to tip, you know, be a tipping point was getting these shoes on athletes who are would win races. Right. Like what was the first sort of big race or who's the first athlete who won something wearing the shoe that got you attention.
The very first one was actually 2013. It was a Friday, Kvanliade, Belgium triathlete winning the World Championship in Kona in Hawaii. The really the OG, the main world championship Ironman in Hawaii. He won wearing a pair of on. It was not only wearing a pair of on. He was running in a prototype. And I was praying, you know, sweating like hell that the shoe is not going to fall apart again. We have been there in this only year three, right.
And I have seen shoes falling apart without a tech, the shoe hold and the cross the line first. And I think that was a big step for a company and just proved that the concept can, you know, overtake running in any discipline. So basically I guess around by 2013, you do become a 10 million dollar company, at least in terms of sales, your sales are 10 million dollars. And were you, which presumably weren't yet profitable or were you.
2013 was our toughest year because we had, we did, we did the 10 million, but we had actually budgeted for 12. But along so short, 2014 was the year that we actually then broke our first profit and we've been profitable ever since. So amazing took you four years at the time. Did you guys primarily see yourself as a running triathlete company like a company, a brand for mainly for runners or did you see a future where you were going to be for different kinds of people using a river.
We were, we were going to be a running company and actually it pissed us off. But when somebody there to bear our high tech product industry with jeans, it really bucked us. You know, it's like, wow, Porsche and going shopping. You, you actually really wanted people just to buy them to run. Yes.
You didn't think of it as a lifestyle brand at all. No, not the first four years. Yeah. Wow. I mean, of course, now today you would, again, if this was the business school case study, you would have said, of course, we thought of ourselves as a lifestyle brand for the beginning, but because that's where the, that's really where the, you know, their growth can come from. But, but at the time you was, it was really a running company. So, you thought that probably by 2015, 2016, you were thinking, well, we've built a pretty successful niche in the running market.
I mean, I think that you guys between 2012 and 2019, you sold four million pairs of shoes around the world, which is pretty great. I mean, that's a, you know, you're not going to own the running market at that point, but it's, it's nice. It's a nice business.
Yeah, we went from being like the number 15 running brand in the world to being number six or number five in, you know, now we're four or three. And we could have just settled for that. But then in 2017, we started to hang out with with Roger Federer. Yeah, that's probably a whole different story. This is an important, this is an important turning point. Obviously, you are, you are compatriots. He's, he's probably the most famous Swiss in, you know, in the world, Swiss men in the world.
So he, but he was just wearing on because he liked them or exactly. He wasn't a paid like endorse or anything. No, no, no, no, we found out through pictures in the press.
You would see that your shoes on Roger Federer. He was just wearing them. Yeah, which was, you know, I mean, which was like amazing, the coolest thing ever, right? And so, you know, since the small place and through some common equate and says, we reached out and said, hey, Roger, you know, we really appreciate you wearing our shoes. Can we send you a package with some of our late shoes. So, you know, you don't have to buy them. And, and that's how how it started.
About a year or so later, we get a phone call from his agent and he said, hey, Roger wants to meet you guys. I mean, you know, you're talking about, you know, a Michael Jordan level athlete, right? I mean, Roger Federer, one of the greatest tennis players ever. What did you guys talk about?
I recall for the first time he said, hey, I find you really cool and you know, it's a Swiss brand and maybe there's a way, you know, we can actually pop up, right? And I, I reach as we call, I looked at David and Cosp and said, we don't have the fun stone. Let's not talk about this, right? You're thinking, you're thinking he's like, hey, maybe I'll be the brand ambassador or something.
Yeah, right. But which would come in which could cost tens of millions of dollars? You know, I mean, I think we have to to mention, I mean, Roger is the most sympathetic, nicest, curious. And he's an everything you know about him. You know, if you meet him in person and you hang out, it's, it's even more. I mean, it's, it's very, very authentic. So, we could tell he was interested in working with us.
But we were not in a position to do business with him because at the time we were about 160 million in revenues. But that got us to an idea and we were like, well, and actually wrote wrote, wrote this down in a letter that we sent to Roger. The first question was, when are you going to stop being a corporate slave and start being an entrepreneur? And then the second sentence ran something like, we cannot afford to pay you, but you could pay us.
And, and it is led into this idea, hey, why don't you become a partner and investor in the business? And was he receptive right away? He was. It was a bit harder to convince the team around him. So basically, we did, we wrote everything down on one page, literally our agreement fit on one page. And it had none of the usual clauses like, no minimum days that he has to, you know, spend with us, no licensing fee, nothing.
And then, you know, we're going to work together on product and, you know, if it works out, we're all going to be happy ever after. So you were just saying, I mean, because he could have just said, all right, fine, here's your money and then you would have never heard from him again. Yeah, and I mean, we could have not, not done a tennis shoe and not invested marketing. You know, I mean, it was, it was in still is built on trust.
And it was really interesting because so many things going on. Now you're making a transition away from just being a running shoe, right? Now you're designing a shoe for a tennis player. A tennis shoe is very different. But then the other thing is, for Roger Federer to do this is actually kind of risky because normally he's just being paid to endorse a product, whether the company does well or not.
And I remember the moment when we shook hands, I woke up the next morning, I was like, holy crap, what have we done? Like we are on this nice track to becoming, you know, leading running brand. But then with Roger coming aboard, it was clear we were going to be a sportswear brand. We were going to compete in the big leagues.
And we were going to again be the small guys going after the very big fish versus we could have been like the midsize fish in a, you know, upon the father running shoe brands, you know. And that's when I was like, did we just make a huge mistake? Yeah, just for me was only one day I was questioning and I think for David, because when I be always experienced, we don't probably experience similar things that next morning. But already in the afternoon said, let's create the best tennis shoe ever.
And Roger said, I'm totally in let's do that. Let's create a tennis shoe that brings me back on the call that, you know, let's me play on the highest level, but it can look a little like a running shoe. I'm totally fine. I have to imagine that had a very rapid impact on your business.
We cannot underestimate the impact yet on the business. If you look at, for example, Google search data, there was a time before, Roger, and a time after. And you know, normally when, when something great happens, we win a race. So we have some good press. You see a spike, but it goes back down when Roger came on board and we announced it in New York.
So it's a traffic doubled and stayed there. Wow. So essentially, it's, I mean, if I'm, if I'm reading this right, that really is the beginning of the transformation from a running company to a sports company. Correct. That was the turning point. We just added now training as a category trail running, hiking shoes trail running. We do outdoor exactly. And then just like lifestyle shoes. Like I think the ones I'm wearing are probably lifestyle shoes.
Well, there used to be the model you're wearing is the one that Nicolas Peirigman, when she won her silver medal. That's that's the one. Oh my god. I think I'm going to go for a run after this. But you know, today it's a lifestyle shoe. And, and you know, I mean, we have given up the resistance against lifestyle. You know, if people are going to wear them, we had one point said, well, we might as well gift them something that really works and that that that that looks good.
You went public in 2021, you had your IPO and I think you end the day at a valuation of six and a half billion dollars. I mean, this is a business that you had hoped to hit 10, 15 million just a couple years, a few years before. I mean, was any part of you at that point just like how do we get here so fast? I mean, I know that it's a long journey, but it's just 11 years after you guys launched.
Yeah, the funny thing was we didn't even want to go public. You know, we had fought so hard for our independence. And, and you know, as an entrepreneur, we never did this for the money. We never did this to, you know, we wanted to build something that lasts and we wanted to to have our freedom, right? Yeah. And then, you know, doing an IPO, we knew at some point because as we mentioned earlier, I mean, it takes a lot of capital to build a brand in this porting good space.
We had so many investors on board, you know, we were already three founders to start with. We had given stock to a lot of employees. At some point, those people needed a way to make good for for all the effort that put in. Sure. But then as we started looking into this, we learned that in the US, we could actually get a dual class share structure where we would retain control of the company.
And today we have about 60% of the votes, but still have access to the capital market. And that put us at ease because we want to keep our entrepreneurial freedom. Yeah. We have only started, you know, we have been especially in the small country of Switzerland when we came back from the IPO press, you know, said, oh, yeah, the three founders are going to exit next day, you know, they're going to be out and gone.
And the customer David looked at us and said, hey, this is only the starting line. It's not even, you know, before it was just a startup, but it was just warming up. Now we are at the start line and now we can talk.
Going public definitely has made us a more disciplined company. Yeah. But that was something that we were already before because once you start being successful, your entrepreneurial mind goes from like 100% offense to, you know, 80% offense, 20% defense because you don't want to fumble the opportunity that you have. And we all decided the three of us would would had a product and innovation and not not the sort of operational side of the business anymore.
Exactly. And now here we are. The three of us again, in a way, it feels like we're just getting started. A customer, I can't help but think about that conversation your dad had with you when you were 14 and he says, we're broke. You're going to have to make it on your own. It's just kind of remarkable because you guys did. I mean, you built not just a brand. You built one of the biggest now.
I can't I can't swim brand and you're coming from a country with Rolex and you know, chocolate, but other other brands too. But I mean big well known brands, right? Are coming out of Switzerland. You built one and you guys have of course, this is never a comfortable conversation, but you've all made a lot of money.
What do you think you're what do you think this continues, at least for for for you guys? I mean, at some point, do you have a sense of what when you'll kind of step away and I don't know, retire or do something else or or do you think this you're in there for life? I'm 48, you know, I'm not about to retire. I think I can speak for all three founders, you know, we always wanted to build something that lasts and and you know, we we now have to 1000 soon 3000 employees.
If you add manufacturing and logistics is probably not 80,000 or so, so you know, there's a lot of responsibility. We also feel a huge responsibility towards the environment. You're working on a carbon neutral shoe eventually that's your that is where you're heading, I think, right? Yeah, and you know, and we want to do it without compensation, you know, we're not going to go out and buy some some fake carbon credits, you know, we want to do it through the product innovation.
And then it's it's it's extremely hard and you know, and both only and I were immensely motivated by that and a lot of our innovation work goes into that as well. And whenever we we talk about what do we want to do it always brings us back, we want to continue to to build on into what it could be. When you think about, you know, this this journey you took, jumping into the shoot business and then what it became.
How much do you think had to do with the work you guys put in and your intelligence and scale and how much do you attribute to luck? I think luck does never come for free, right? There's always hard work to put you in the best position to to receive, right? It's almost like an athlete's life, right? You're putting everything on a line just to make it the Olympics and then you make it to the finals and then it's only up to you, right?
You have to perform the coaches not going to help you, the shoe is not going to help you at the end of the day, you just you have to make all the decisions. And also, you know, if you fail then it's you have to take it, you have to deal with it. You have to work really hard to put yourself in a position where luck can even happen. And it's almost like when you're falling in love, you have to be vulnerable and put yourself in a position where you can be hurt.
That takes risk. Looking back, you'll be like, well, these guys did everything right. The way they launched this technology is amazing, but it could have also gone the other way. And I think that's that's where luck plays a factor, but if you're not working hard enough to manage your risks that that you're taking by being in that position, luck cannot happen. That's Casper Capetti and Olivier Bernhardt, co-founders along with David Alamann of on running shoes.
By the way, the company is about to unveil a secret new shoe technology just in time for the Summer Olympics. So if you watch the track and field races, you might see the characteristic on logo on some fast running feet. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And as always, it's totally free.
And if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, sign up for my newsletter at GuyRaz.com. This episode was researched and produced by Catherine Cipher with music composed by Rump T. Nareblui. It was edited by Niva Grant and her engineers with James Willitz and Robert Rodriguez.
Our production staff also includes J.C. Howard, Casey Herman, Sam Paulson, Kerry Thompson, Alex Chung, John Isabella, Chris Messini, Carla Estevez, and Elaine Coates. I'm GuyRaz, and you've been listening to How I Built This. If you like How I Built This, you can listen early and add free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
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