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This past summer I took my family to Vienna, and it was incredible. We spent our days wandering the old streets, stopping for coffee and pastries visiting museums, and just soaking up the history of one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And one of the things that made the trip so special was the home we booked on Airbnb. It had tall windows, beautiful old details, and plenty of space for all of us.
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Find out how much at Airbnb.ca.com. Hey, just a quick message. If you're building a business right now, imagine getting advice from the founder of Tarte Cosmetics, or Airbnb, or even Sir Richard Branson, or Mark Cuban. Well, you can get that advice.
Every Thursday we drop an episode of How I Built This Advice Line. It's where I bring back a previous founder we featured on a past episode. And together we help real entrepreneurs, people selling skincare, dog toys, pottery food, whatever. We help them work through the challenges they're facing right now.
And the best part? This kind of advice world-class battle test is completely free. All you have to do is call 1-800-433-1298. Tell us what you're building in under a minute, and you might be the next guest on the advice line.
So give us a call or send us a voice memo to hibt.id.wondry.com. And tell us how we can help you. Was there any possibility that you could have raised money? Was that culture?
Was there a culture of being able to raise money from venture investors in France at the time? There were people that were knocking at the door to say, I'm happy to invest into it. But the thing is that if we just have additional money, it's not going to bring much more. We need to have people try the products, everything in marketing.
There is only one thing in marketing that we have to do, that you have to go to a multitude of places and make people try. And that's not what you get from any investor. Welcome to How I Built This, a show that innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, have a crushing end to a race in a French Alps led to the launch of Hoka, a pillowy sneaker that now does over $2 billion in sales each year.
As I'm talking around the 2010s, sneakers started to change. They got bigger. And they started to look almost like inflatable rafts with these thick pillowy soles. Now, this was not intended to be about fashion, although thick-sold sneakers did become a fashion accessory.
But originally, it was all about comfort and performance. And that change was ignited by two companies, both founded in Europe about a year apart. Both brands were started by elite runners, and both of them believed that more protection, more cushioning, could actually improve your running. One of those brands was on.
It's a story we told on the show back in 2024. And the other brand was Hoka, the subject of today's episode, when Hoka's shoes first appeared in late 2009. They looked, well, just weird. The mid-soles were unusually thick.
The sole curved, like the bottom of a rocking chair. And at first glance, they kind of resembled clown shoes. In fact, that's what some professional runners called them in the beginning. But that look wasn't an accident.
The founders didn't think of a running shoe as a piece of apparel. They thought of it like a machine, every single part doing a specific job, in every detail meticulously engineered. And it took time for people to get it. But once they did, the brand exploded.
In 2012, Hoka was doing less than $3 million in sales a year. Today, it generates more than $2 billion. At the center of the story, are two men who grew up not too far from each other in the French Alps, Jean-Luc Diard and Nikolai Maru. In 1980, when he was just 23 years old, Jean-Luc joined a legendary French company called Salomon, back when it was known primarily for ski bindings.
And there, early in his career, he encountered someone who shaped the way he thought about building things and leading people. And that person was the namesake of the company, George Salomon. The special thing with this person, who was an amazing entrepreneur, was that he was very close to everyone. So, he would come to the office in the evening where I was and say, what are you working on and what have you learned, et cetera.
And then one day it was at the French National Championships of skiing, he was there. And he caught me at the end of the race. You were racing. I was in the team of students, but not into the...
But you were in this race. Yeah, I was in that race. And he said to me, why don't you race with our ski boots? And I need to understand why.
Why don't you come with me into the car and we'll go down to the ski boot division and you'll explain why. I was freaking out. But obviously, that was an amazing sign of how much he wanted to learn, what could be improved. And those are the things that stay into your mind.
I mean, the CEO, owner, that company come to an intern, bring him to the ski boot division and say, we're going to talk about those things. So this would begin a long career at Salomon. 1980 is an intern you would eventually get to, you eventually become the CEO, President CEO. And then I think in 1986, you are put in charge of product for this new product, which is going to be skis.
Which is going to really blow the whole, I mean, transform this brand. It's going to make it into a brand that is like Burton. I mean, it was going to become a huge brand. Yes.
Because the ski is the king product. And then there was the big aspect that I was anticipating, the fact that skis and bindings would become one unit. And not being completely separate elements. It used to be that you bought the skis.
You bought the bindings. You would connect them. Right. So the big argument that I had at that time was to say, this is what is going to happen.
So if we don't get into it, we're going to be left aside. It's hard to imagine that that was not that long ago. And we're talking about, you know, 30, 40 years ago, that you would still buy them separately, these components. And Salomon was a bindings brand.
And then they were sort of, they weren't sure if they should get into skis. But it just seems like an obvious today, you know, hindsight seems totally obvious. Many of the brands at the beginning were like very, very specialized. You could say the same in the bike industry or anything like that.
And so you were an alpine ski binding company, an alpine ski boot company or an alpine ski company. Got it. Okay. I want to turn to you now, Niko.
Because I think you were 20 years old when you first met Jean-Luc. You were still at university. Yes. And I guess you were at a ski race.
You were racing. And from what I understand, you met Jean-Luc because he was there recruiting people to work on this new ski that Salomon was developing. Is that right? The aura around Salomon was unbelievable.
George Salomon was the ultimate. I mean, beyond the sports. And he was like this amazing person, was a genius. So it was like a dream company especially for someone who loves skiing.
So I talked to Jean-Luc and I said, I'd like to come join you when I'm done studying. And he said, well, I mean, just finish your studies and we can talk again in two years and a half. And finally, Niko, you graduate and you join Salomon. Tell me about...
So you contact Jean-Luc and you said, okay, I'm done. I'm ready. But the most funny part is it was my birthday at the office, you know. So we met on the parking lot.
And then we drive to a glacier in Cormier, like in the Mont Blanc, Chamonix Valley. And we test different prototypes. We compare them. This is your first day.
That was my first day. So two takes from that day. The first one, of course, is that's what I want to do in my life. You know, I want to wake up and go do what I love and get paid.
And with a bunch of super nice fun colleagues who will become friends, you know. The first one, the second one is that as soon as we sat down after the test, we were talking about the feel. We're talking about the sensations, the emotion we had in between the snow, our feet, our brain. Everybody equal, everybody trying to solve a problem with no sense of hierarchy.
This has never changed. And how did, by the way, how did that first use keys do? Were they a hit? Oh, yeah.
Yeah. It was a big, big hit. Just to put it in perspective, I mean, it took us six years to be number one in terms of global sales, global revenues on the ski side. That's the power of innovation.
And it's the power of young blood. But then being always extremely critical toward what you do. That's the constant process. But never being satisfied.
I think it's very French. It's very, it's very mounting. People authenticity, you know, not to get impressed, not to get overconfident. And we have sometimes this reputation in France to be a bit critical and to be unsatisfied.
It's not always pleasant when you go to a restaurant to get in a taxi in Paris. I love the French. There is a malaise sometimes that you experience. But when it comes to innovation, especially if you mix it with our background as mounting people, Salomon embraced it and decided to jump to the next level.
But you can miss opportunities. You can miss when you're too focused on your own success and what you're doing. And you want to follow your past. And it's always important to listen to the consumers and to look very closely at what the competitors are doing.
Yeah. Jean-Luc, you would spend 27 years at Salomon and became the CEO in 1998 when you became CEO of this group. Because you saw Salomon go from a bindings company to a bindings and boots company to a binding boots and ski company. Then eventually some are winter sports company.
Running shoes and apparel, arcterics, apparel and even cycling and all these things. Can you give me a sense that from the time you joined Salomon in 1981 to the time you left, which we'll get to? What was the revenue from the beginning and then what was it at the end? It was not even, it was below 100 million.
It was I think in the 70 to 80 million when I joined. And then when I left the group was about 1.2 million. Wow. Yeah.
Very different. Very different. I mean, just an explosion in growth. Yeah.
All right. I want to jump to 2007 because this was going to be your last year at Salomon. From what I understand, you go to in 2007, you're at the Outdoor Retailer trade show. This is in Europe or in the US.
Yes. Okay. And at already at that point, there were trends happening in all across sports. I guess just kind of oversized, larger things, right?
Yes. Now turn lighter. It's one of those things that every time you get out of the trade show and you have things that all of a sudden jump a little bit more in your face. Yeah.
They don't make golf clubs. Just to take an example. The first they don't make golf club ads, they were 200cc. And then gradually they moved to 300.
The golf heads were getting bigger and bigger. And as they grew bigger, the products was that they grew lighter at the same time. And they gave not only more performance, but they gave also more tolerance. It made it easier to hit the ball harder.
Exactly. Farther, straighter. So all those things led to better performance. In skis, in the same way, skis had become wider.
And what did that mean? What did wider skis mean for? You get the combination of stability on the one side, which is kind of the way. You feel relaxed if you want.
But at the same time, combined with other parameters, it's still enabled to care really well. So that's one example. Bike wheels became much bigger. Not like those.
Bigger. The profile of the ribs. If you're a biker, you became much more aerodynamic. And we can name a lot of things like that where we saw that oversize and lighter enabled to change paradoxes, to change products.
And you brought performance more, let's say, to the bigger group. All of these things are kind of swirling around. If I'm looking at a movie about your life, you're walking down the street and all these bubbles are just like, you know, the larger size. And everything that's also written at that time, the design, the impact on the eye generates questions and interest.
Look at those big tires. Look at those fast skis. Look at those big golf clubs. Exactly.
Okay. I want to turn to you now, Niko. Because I think you were, you're going to run this ultra marathon. This ultra trail.
So you do this. This is 2007. Yes. It's 101 miles around.
First of all, we've only talked about skiing and winter sports. I'm assuming you got into running at some point in your life. Very surprisingly, even though I ski raced for many years, I became more of an athlete and an elite athlete in endurance sports. And then he went to adventure racing, and then he went to trade running.
You would do it in one to two days. So you got into this into your 30s, almost into trail running. I started my first year as a trail racer. I was 40.
You do this insane ultra marathon, which I guess today, 6,000 people start. You're going to run around Mount Blanc. And Jean-Luc, you're going to be part of this crew. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. And the crew meant like handing in water or snacks while he was running. Yes. And poles and jackets and whatever.
And if it could be the first thing that you are depleted from is water and food. And the first, by the very first moment already, I mean, he started like crazy. Way out of the back. It was a huge surprise.
You were an amateur. You were an elite. I read for the first 15 hours of this race. You were an elite.
Yes. I was in the lead. I just took off. And then the Saturday at like 4 p.m.
It was over because I needed to do 22 hours and coming in third. 22 hours. Coming in third. Yes.
And this is in one pair of shoes the whole time, right? I didn't switch. And how did you... I mean, this is 101 miles.
You're pounding. You're constantly pounding. Your joints, your body. I mean, you must have been just spent wiped.
Well, I fell apart. That's why I didn't win. Because I tried to do everything. I was getting chased by 2,500 people.
I could see the headlamps. And I ran down the way I would normally ski or drive. But I had no technology. I had like a very thin.
So my body fell apart. Were you excruciating pain the last? I couldn't. I lost one hour in the last 30k.
How? What was happening? Because my quads shut down. So you were like jelly.
Your legs were... You can create the speed. You can't lift up your feet. So your brain is saying...
Your brain is telling your legs to move, but they cannot move. My legs are turning my brain to stop whispering. It's the other way around. Because when you're going downhill, you're using more of your...
You're breaking. You're breaking. And so you're putting more strain on your quads. I think then when you're going up, up is more caps.
I guess it depends on how you run. Yeah. Your quads... I mean, take a look.
Your knees are going down. Go back. Take a look. Yeah.
I can picture so many times. Because as a kid, you know, you love running down grass hills. Or even when I hike now, I'm always very careful when I'm going downhill. Because I don't want to fall.
I don't want to slip. And so really, the conclusion you come to is that the downhill side, this is a technology problem. This could actually be solved. To your point guy, as a kid, every time you see a little run down.
You run. You run. And typically you have your arms wide open and you laugh. And you fall sometimes.
But you have fun. If there are days, you fly. It doesn't matter which... That's why you have this expression.
Like, which sticks with runners, with bikers, with skiers, with anyone. Today, I was flying. Yeah. So how do you get back to that?
Right. And I think one of the things you began to sort of document, right, is that a runner's performance changes depending on the surface that they're running on during a race. Like, not all trails feel the same under your feet, right? Yes.
It was one in the fall with a lot of dead leaves. Dead leaves. Yeah. So you had cushioning.
There was one very important one in 2000 during an adventure race in CCD on lava. So it's soft. Yeah. If there was one a couple of times like gliding on snow.
And you see the big difference that there is between when you are in those situations compared to when you are in those situations where you're just pounding out. It's a legend that we were serious enthusiastic corners before hokeout. We were lazy because it was so hard. And one step at a time compared to anything else we would do.
Okay. So you guys start to have this conversation. And what, I mean, you see, what do you remember? You said to Jean-Luc or you said to Nico or said, well, why don't we develop?
Why don't we try to build a shoe that solves this problem? Do you remember how you came to this? We had this desire to do something together. We had like a field which seemed fantastic, which is footwear because it's a huge market.
Nothing really had been done for so long. So what was the next step? Then in order to make things happen, we started to create a design center. It's a development center with people coming that had some Noah.
So we had different people, let's say, on the topic at the beginning before we start tuning the things. And was any part of you Jean-Luc nervous? I mean, you had, because when you're the CEO of a company, you've got all kinds of resources at your disposal and you've got all kinds of people and staff in a huge organization. What were the challenges you were facing personally to do this?
Because you would have to put in money and your reputation. And all of a sudden, you know, you're going to be calling and picking up the phones. And you know, it's different. So tell me a little bit about what that was like for you.
So on the one side, you have the excitement of starting a new adventure. The second thing is that you know that those adventures have 80% plus chances of failure. So you just take that into account. And then the other thing is to fix boundaries when it comes to the investments that you are going to do.
So here, you need to be very clear with your family about how much you are going to put into it. You guys were going to put your money. You were not going to go raise money. That's one thing.
And obviously not everyone was believing that the two of us could do something together. Who was, I mean, I would believe it. You guys had a great track record. Most people around us would say, are you sure it can work?
So that's fine. That's the usual thing that you face. So this is why in order to make something, you have to have, let's say first a great team around you. So that was the first thing to say, who are the people that can bring that to life?
But that group, which cost a lot of money every day, just your space areas and your rent and your to pay all of that. So you rented space in Anansi? And was it a small office with like labs and tables and cutting equipment to cut? Exactly.
Small office space, small tools, small things, I mean, to do things knowing that in footwear, the innovators are also the suppliers. They are the people who are providing you with the foam formulations, with the different materials, et cetera. So what we add, we add connections with a lot of people out there. So those people would give us, let's say, like the first step of credibility to get it going.
Even if they add eyes like this when we showed where we wanted to go. But at least they said, okay, we'll give it a try. When we come back in just a moment, Nico takes an early version of Hoka's to a trail race, and even he has to admit, they kind of look like clown shoes. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.
Hey, welcome back to How I Built This, I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2008, and Jean-Luc and Nico have set up a design studio in Anansi in the French Alps to develop a new kind of running shoe. But this very first version isn't really a sneaker. It's more like a piece of foam that you'd strap to the bottom of your shoes for downhill running.
Well, like maybe people will go to the mountains and we drive up or we'll ride the gondalap and they will just trap their equipment when they get to the top and they will fly down the mountains. So it was pushing the envelope to the extreme of a new sport, which would be downhill running. And that's when they were these visage straps that a other straps wouldn't work because your foot would... So you never made a prototype?
We made a prototype. It didn't work much. Okay, do you have a name for the shoe from the beginning or did it come later? So the name Hoka, most important thing is we wanted to watch our flying.
I had been to New Zealand a few times. Hoka is a mowery word, right? What does it mean? What does it mean?
So Hoka is flying, it's like the element, the dirt. Flying soaring, there's many ways to say it. It's the feeling that we wanted to describe. Everything was based once again on the notion of flow and flying.
Everything. And that was linked to the fact that what we had stated was a name that would have four letters, two syllables. Hoka, yum. And the best, let's say, places where we had enjoyed the most adventure racing were on the islands.
And so we wanted to take that positioning of being associated to the islands. We found that there was no branches associated with it, that it was a completely different type of positioning, and that you had everything, see to some Italy, with every kind of territory. Right, because at that time, you would think, giving your backgrounds, you know, trail running, you might think of like Boulder, Colorado, right? You might think of like that, but you wanted to get away from that.
You wanted to be more people to think of an island, which is interesting. So clearly, there is this kind of mood board you're kind of working through. But let's talk about the design. Tell me about this idea of mid-soles, right?
Because I think mid-sole, literally the middle of the soul, there hadn't really been much thought put into mid-sole innovation at the time. The mid-sole, and it's much more true now than it was like 20 years ago. It's the engine and the body of the footwear. And your foot sits inside the car, which is a mid-sole, and there is a tire underneath which creates a connection and the connection with the ground, and there is like a seat and a seat belt which is the other.
But we were looking at it like it's a ski or it's a wheel. It's the interface. I mean, the way we describe it is that it's the interface between you and the ground. How do you develop that interface?
How do you develop the snow or the lava ash or the leaves? Exactly. Something soft, glidey, bouncy. Because we wanted to improve on that, but as I said, it was...
You wanted to make something that had an appeal in a much broader way. So downy running was like a point of entry, but from the bigger perspective, it was always to say, where does that lead to? Because you don't do shoes just for downy running in 100-mile races. That would be like 1,000 people doing it.
So the starting point is you build rocker. Rocker. So it's a shape like a rocker. Because any kind of a rocking chair.
Because any kind of room needs to be fluid. Whatever the way, whatever you are, it's going up, flat down, etc. That when you would land on your heel and it would just propel you up like a rocking chair. So was there anything out there on the market like a rocking chair at the time?
Yeah. I mean, in some ways, partly to shape the MBT at the time. MBT, I remember, yes. It was a very small brand.
It was for walking, right? It's a very different principle. In the sense that it was built on the principle of instability. The instability principle was here to help you, let's say, find your stability by putting your body in the right position.
Essentially, just these were really innovative shoes because they were like boats. They were like two little boats on your feet. Exactly. That was the whole thing.
I mean, but the perception that you had like this was important. And globally speaking, once again, every development mindset was, how do we make the thing that requires the least energy for the maximum amount of efficiency? Yeah. So that's one thing that was 100% fierce in the beginning.
It had to be rocker. So you knew that it had to be rocker. Okay. But the challenge was, in order to do that, you needed a lot more foam.
And that was going to add more weight. How much of a challenge was it to develop this technology? Well, if you want suspension and you're going to use like a mid-solve, that's like two to three times the size of a regular mid-solve, and to have like a great cushioning, you need to go with foam switch out much of what was the industry standard. And we went like pretty much twice softer than what was the tradition in the industry.
So softer. Yeah. And softer also means less dense. So much lighter.
Okay. So the thing was to find the partners that would dare making that. Why not? Because it was not practical.
It wasn't seen as... It was not the industry standard. Because all the issues were low profile and in order to give you the resistance also in the low profile, you had to have a given stiffness. So it was a stiffer foam.
Nobody was making softer. No. But the technology was possible to make it. Absolutely.
It was possible, but it had not been done. So you still had to find the partners, the supplier partners, that would make it. Because everyone was concerned that it could not work because it would destroy itself too easily. I mean, you weren't sure it was going to work.
Yes. We were not sure. Of course, we were not sure. But we were not sure it was going to be stable.
But we did like so much to make it stable. We put the foot like really down inside the meat store. We went very wide. So we did anything we could to make sure it's stable.
And I want to clarify this point because of course this is an audio programmingly. When normal shoes that you run in, your foot is on top of the cushioning. This was different because the cushioning actually surrounded your foot. You were actually inside.
The cushioning is still below you. You wanted to make a bucket seat that would surround you. How long did it take for them to figure out how to make this foam? No, the foam existed already.
They just put in a much bigger mold, something much softer, about 30-35% softer. And how long did it take? It didn't take much more. It took for us three months to have something that was tangible.
So you're working with factories in China that are making this, but you have to convince them. Was it hard? Why was it hard? Because we were not existing.
We were like a micro-customer with no background, nothing. Asking for very innovative, complicated things that had never been done. And we didn't have all else to place immediately. But you wanted a prototype.
You needed a prototype. Yes. And usually these places need an order in order to do a prototype. They work with you when you have already a business case that is established.
We didn't have that, so it was all based on relationship in saying, please, let's make a try. It's the head of Ferendy and he works on amazing magic. To do CAD design, to go convince factories, he had worked with them for many years. They had a very special relationship.
And they tried. So when you got those first prototypes, what did you do? You ran them. You wanted to run them.
We got them in February 2009. We went on a trade that we knew. And it was like a spectacular, like immediate. The first half hour.
The first 15 minutes, the three of us ran down and walked back up and ran down again. And we were like basically screaming. It was so easy to point where you have to stop breaking and use your quads, like we described earlier. It was at a higher speed.
And it was like the very, very first day of the sensation of flying, the sensation of letting go. Just moving your arms and not worry about the terrain, like on the mountain bike. The next thing we did, like probably 20 or 30 minutes later, is because we, of course, had like competitive shoes in our current footwear. We got like some timing.
We started timing ourselves. And we were like 10 seconds after a minute. And just because these prototypes had tread on the bottom as well. No dread.
Right? It was dry. It wasn't wet. It was soft.
And it's always been the case with the whole issue. Because it was so soft. It also confirms itself to the obstacles. This is in, I think, February of 2009, to get these first.
May of that year, once again, run the Mount Blanc race. This is, I think, the second, third time we're going to run the race. So in May, we had like these prototypes. I did a race in the close to my parents' house in Kontal.
And I raced in it. I raced in them. And this is the Chamonix Marathon. And then that's where there was this one.
And by the end of June, I raced the Chamonix Marathon. And with the second round of prototypes, I think I came in fifth. And so let's just talk about this. So now you are going to use your own shoes for marathons.
And were both of these, were they road marathons or were they trail marathons? No, it's a trail marathon with 2,200 meters of elevation up and 1,600 meters down. That was hysterical because everybody had, of course, the regular footwear from that time. And so I start the race and there's a leading pack with a lot of serious runners.
And they all have their very minimal footwear. And I'm here with my gigantic clown shoes. I mean, some of the people knew me. So we were not making fun of me.
But they were like, that is so weird. And that is so strange. And the only time I've done these races, I came in fifth. Yeah.
So yeah, just on this point. I mean, you are, this is 2009. You are in shoes that are completely different. Nobody would be running a race in a shoe with a giant sole that's shaped like a rocker.
And anyone else would be willing to run them would be too embarrassed to wear them besides probably me. They embarrassed because they look like clown shoes. They were so weird. And they were orange and blue that day.
Okay. So when you ran these races, we talked about the race that Jean-Luc saw you in 2007. And your legs collapsed. What's your experience now?
Is it different? Yes. I mean, I started the last part of the race after a very strong downhill. Much more fresh.
Yes. And caught a lot of people. The last start of the race. You were like 20th mid-race?
Yeah. Probably. And you ended the race number four? Five.
Five. Yeah. I mean, what about your body, your joints, your knees, your quads? Was there a market difference in how you felt?
Yes. Yes. I mean, both in the last third of the race and in the recovery because I could race one week later and win something called Montagnal. Yeah.
It was the first day of victory in the showcase. I would have never thought that I could go back and do another, I think it was 3000 meters of elevation, like seven days later. Okay. So you have something, I mean, at this point, I'm assuming you're starting to put in orders for your first shoe.
But before we get there. No. We don't have all of that. At that stage, we are just testing prototypes.
Okay. And the plan was initially to launch at the end of 2010. No. Let's just talk about this one.
At this point, are you thinking, this is really going to be a brand, a product for your a small segment of people? Were you thinking big? No. You were already thinking big?
Yeah. Based on our experience, we fought once people experienced that to never be able to go back. So how did you, I mean, this could have just been a novelty kind of thing. How did you convince the first retailer to take a chance on these shoes?
Testing. Everything you bring new and different and innovative. Always has to go through people doing the experience by yourself. Because the first thing is always, no, no, no, no.
This is stupid. Until you try it. So trying, trying, trying, trying. Make people try it.
When we come back in just a moment, the founders start facing new problems. Supply chain, competition, cash flow. And they realize that outside investment won't really help them. They actually need something bigger.
Stay with us. I'm Guy Ros. And you're listening to How I Built This. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This.
I'm Guy Ros. So it's around 2009 and 2010. And Nico and Jean-Luc are starting to take hocus to trade shows where they're doing everything they can to get runners to try them. We dropped rocks on the ground.
So they say people just run on those rocks. Now we'll get back to your shoe and run on those rocks again. And then I'll go there and come back. I think ultimately, let's say the cushioning made it appealing to a wider group of people.
Just generally speaking. What we use to present always the thing is, is the way you proceed as a consumer to picking the product. So at distance you see something special. Then you take it in and you want the second wow effect.
Second wow effect being, it's light. I was expecting something heavy. It's super light. Then you get into the next wow which is, I put it on.
And it feels immediately, let's say, protective. And then I start to run and it feels very easy and protective and stable. So that's the thing that we wanted to do all the time. Before you released the shoes for commercial purposes, I read that lots of people were saying to you, this is just not going to work.
But you were hearing this repeatedly again and again from a lot of people which sounds like it could be validation that your idea was not working. I would say 98% of the people were saying this. They said this is not going to work. But the biggest challenge was actually for our sales people.
Because our sales people being pushed back and pushed back and pushed back and pushed back. And we had agents, we had people that, for them, they had to make a living out of it. So that was very, very tough for them to keep them motivated. But what was extremely important and happened like is to get a couple of the athletes.
Try the shoes. Because when you have something weird, which feels weird and looks weird, if you don't want it to be perceived as a gimmick, you need performance and racing validation almost immediately. And we had one guy in France, Ridovik Permai and Cal Melzer in the US who also did the same experience and adopted the shoes almost immediately on the very first day. Carl Melzer was, I think, he was sponsored by another shoe brand and he dropped that brand to run because he had tried them.
He was living in the US. He tried them in the neighborhood runs. And then other people in the US, notably with the outrock, for example, it was phenomenal because that woman, Diane Finkel, both the shoes. And after something like 15 miles, something like that or 20 miles, maybe she took the lead of the race.
So she took the lead out of all the males. And she stayed in the lead until 90. Wow. And she finished second.
So that had never been done before. And we had people in Italy. So it was a word of mouth. So the word of mouth started to spread and those people, we know about it.
We learned about it, but we had no idea who was using the shoes. Okay, so 2010, I mean, you're getting all these runners using the shoes. You're getting all this validation from the runners, from this community. Sounds from the outside like things are going great.
What are the challenges you're facing? The first big one was the industrial challenge. We were given only some windows of production. So people saying, I have capacity that week to make your shoes because they wouldn't give us, it's a classical plan.
So we had to do with that. And then ship those goods, let's say, to wherever it needed to be shipped at costs that were then incredibly expensive. Then there was the cash flow path. Because as soon as we started to move a little bit, then you sold something, then you had some a little bit of cash.
Then the next order was like twice bigger than the first one. So then your cash flow went like this. And the banks would not follow because they said that's too risky. I mean, it's growing too big, too fast.
And if you need 100, you have to put 100 and guarantee also 100. Those were the dynamics. I mean, we were kind of confident that we had something special. But to make it happen, truly, it was not an easy sell and it was really a very complicated supply chain aspect.
How were you dealing with the cash situation? How did you, I mean, did you, you have to pay for these orders. Now you're talking about hundreds, thousands of shoes. How are you going to pay for that?
Almanet. Almanet. Yeah. This is what kills a lot of businesses.
When you're growing too fast, you can't keep up and you've got to basically can't finance it and it collapses. Was there any possibility that you could have raised money? Was there a culture of being able to raise money from venture investors in France at the time? There were people that were knocking at the door to say, I'm happy to invest into it.
Knowing that in France, it's not as easy as it is in the US. But the thing is that was that we discussed upfront was if we just have additional money, it's not going to bring much more. Because the challenge we face from a supply chain standpoint is not going to end. And the second thing is that we need to have people try the products.
Everything in marketing, there is only one thing in marketing that you have to do. That you have to go to a multitude of places and make people try. And that requires manpower. And that's not what you get from any investor.
So just to clarify, the supply chain challenge is that to get on these production lines was very hard because they're already making shoes for other companies, right? And so to get in there with your tiny little brand, that's a challenge to finance it as a challenge. But then to get people to be aware of it is another challenge because you have a company of five, seven people. And also in the summer of 2010, very early summer, like around this month or two, I thought we had delivered about 3,000 pairs of shoes.
We knew that we needed to accelerate because there was nervousness because some shoes were getting shipped, especially by a couple of our accounts. They were getting orders from competitors. What do you mean? Yes.
Your competitors were buying your shoes. Yes. So you started to get intel that the big players were taking your shoes and taking them apart, basically. Can you patent?
I mean, you can patent the design. Patents are always a matter of who has the biggest amount of money. Right. To fight the lawsuit.
And meanwhile, there's another really important factor you have to consider, right? Because in order to build a successful running shoe brand, you have to be in the U.S. because this is where the money is and where the customers are, right? And I mean, at this point, it's like 2012.
I think only a few specialty running stores are selling your shoes in the U.S. And so I guess this is when you start looking for partners, strategic partners, like somebody who could really help you grow in the U.S., right? And I read that you got somehow you got put in touch with a team of deckers, the company that owned Solones, Tevas and Ugs, right? Yes.
We got the introduction from this amazing client and then I went there and then they wanted to meet John Luke and we went back there together like a month and a half later. The point about why it's important to have a strategic partner when you want to be fast is that now we're looking at it with a totally different eye. Okay. Now maybe one day there's going to be customer service, there's going to be financial backup, there's going to be legal protection.
That changes the deal immediately. Any French VC would not have brought that to the table. I mean, I also have done acquisitions and things like that. And the worst thing also that you, which made a difference between deckers and also potential rents was that we were not competing with any other brand within the portfolio.
The portfolio was pretty wide, but there was no running run. And you had a very deep, very, very deep motivation from Anil Martinez to CEO to be successful in the running world. So when you have the top guy that is deeply motivated into it, you know, you have more chances. Okay.
So it was clear to you that deckers should be your partner. But now how is it going to work? I mean, it was an acquisition, but we don't know. It was a...
It was a minority investment. Okay. With the cash we needed to go through the next step and then another step. And it started then in 2012 with a 20% investment.
It was a step-by-step, you know, investments over time. But the idea was if this all worked out, eventually this will be a portfolio brand within deckers. Yes, exactly. And it looked like they would be at that time very quickly, it looked like they would be the rights company to run the business.
They were able to get you to REI. They were able to get you into... Not immediately to such channels, the big priority was run specialty. I mean, because that's something that they knew would build the image.
But putting us on the map really, really quickly in the US because we knew that time was the essence. So it was... We had to charge quickly before anyone would come. You know, it's interesting because the first time I can remember really being conscious of Hokas, I saw them on my mom.
Like I saw them because they were so comfortable. And, you know, you saw them on people who were older. Was that something you noticed also in the US? What worked pretty well quickly from, let's say, from a demographic standpoint.
Was that there were a lot of people that wanted to be active and that were facing clinical pain, whatever it was. I mean, the joints, knees, back, et cetera. But they wanted to be active. And that solved many of their issues.