How to Take Down Industry Giants: The Rhone Strategy

We noticed the areas where Lululemon was weak. It’s not addressing the right market and that’s where we moved in. Welcome to the Know Your Ship podcast presented by E-Hub. I’m your host, Frank Dolce. If I could do it again, I probably would have done advertising. Uhhuh. But just because I think it’s like literally one of America’s last great forms of art. I think we’re really I think we are world class at advertising and it is artistic and creative and scratches the itch of everything that I loved. But I was really I I took very easily to English to reading to writing to interpreting texts. And actually I talked to my dad who said I started

out as an English major but I wasn’t smart enough to finish it. And so immediately you know Spencer and I both have this itch where like if our dad’s like you can’t do this. Oh we love to do it. I know Spencer has so Spencer and I both share that a little bit and I our other brothers are, you know, very much like, “Yeah, you know, we’ll prove it to you that we can do it.” But he said that and that was it for me. That was the last nail in the coffin, so to speak. But I really loved it and um and yeah, it’s it’s led me to a lot of you know very

interesting things in my career in that sense of being able to write and express yourself and like copy was how I found myself and you know found my way into creative directing. Gotcha. Yeah. So uh what does I might have this completely wrong but what does creative director entail for you? So different at you know a lot of different companies and through different industries in clothing what it means is you kind of sit in this crossf functional role between marketing and product uh so I am involved in product at the early stages of seasonal development as we’re bringing in colors as we’re bringing in pallets styles and I don’t necessarily design or take credit for

any of that but I influence the direction of the season uh based on what I’m seeing in the marketing And I try and kind of link product and marketing in interesting ways through campaigns, through stories, through social media, um through various other directives. And so that’s I kind of sit at at the cross-section of those teams. Gotcha. Yeah. And you weren’t classically trained to No. to be the creative director. No. But it just it’s a good fit. It it was a good fit actually kind of early on. Um, the person who was in charge of our product was leading all these photooots and the only issue with that was we were getting a lot of

great assets of photo of product and product features but we weren’t getting great assets for marketing. And it is somewhat different like you have to be able to build the world around the product as opposed to just tell the story of this is the product, this is, you know, he was taking pictures of like the zippers and really like beautiful details, really cool pictures. Yeah. but he wasn’t creating a story through through the product. And so that was where I was brought in initially as kind of a partner, a thought partner on how we can build the world around photo shoots. And then eventually he got so busy with product because that is a monster

of a job that I just kind of took it over and we brought on additional marketing to support to help me on kind of the technical side. Gotcha. Yeah. Uh, do you have other Do you have other things that we don’t know about? Like Oh, I got so many so many skeletons. Is that what you’re talking about? No. No. Um, no skeletons. No, I mean like when I first met you, I would not have pegged you as an English major. Sure. You know what I mean? Like I was definitely an outlier. Yeah. You’re an outlier. I I don’t mean mean this to be offensive. Not at all. Not at all. But you’re like you’re athletic.

I mean, clearly you work out and you’re like and the your clothing style and what you wear. I mean, it just doesn’t necessarily fit what the stereotypical English major looks looks like. Yeah, I think that’s fair. I think um you know, I realized what an outlier I was the first time I you know, you’re trying to fit in this all these classes into your college schedule and I was really trying to sync it up with my wife’s schedule. Mhm. Um, and I remember just Future Were you married in college or future? Yes, we got married when I was a junior at the beginning kind of at the end of my sophomore year, beginning of my

junior year. Okay. So, you know, you’re trying to sync up all these classes and I remember just adding a class that kind of fulfilled the credit and it was the same time as my wife’s. I didn’t even look at the class, but I just knew it fulfilled the credit. I walked in and it was a Jane Austin class. Nice. And I was literally the only male in the class. No way. the only one except for the professor. The professor was a male and his eyes kind of lit up when I walked in. Oh, he was like, and he was like, “Oh, man. Wow, a guy is taking this class.” And one of the girls in

my in the class was a friend of mine. And she said, “You’re going to drop this class. There’s no way you could keep this class. You’re not going to do well in this class.” And again, that challenge. And I was like, “Not only am I going to take this class, I’m going to get a better grade than you.” And I brought a very different perspective on Jane Austin. and I actually gained a new perspective. I actually love Jane Austin. Mhm. So clever, so witty. I think Hollywood has done things with her text that I don’t necessarily agree with because she really was ahead of her time in terms of pointing out the irony and the

difference between the way men and women are treated and expectations around, you know, societal expectations around women and getting married. Um, and so I brought a very different perspective and again my professor was like you. He was like, “What are you doing here?” And we really struck up a relationship. And so I loved the class and and really gained a new appreciation for for her as an author. So are you like what’s your favorite? Are you like a Pride and Prejudice guy of her works? Yeah. Um Pride and Prejudice is great. I mean it’s kind of the one that everybody reaches for. I thought Emma was really funny. Um definitely has some, you know, a

really interesting well-rounded character. And actually some of her her shorter works were some of my favorites. I’m kind of blanking on the names now. It’s I mean at this point 15 16 years ago that I was there. So yeah, feels like a long time. But yeah. And and tell me about your may I don’t know maybe this is interesting stuff. Yeah. I want this to be on the podcast so maybe I should introduce you. Well, we can do that. Yeah, we can jump in. Or Solomon, can can you just play the front stuff before leading in? like play all of that stuff. That’s I think that’s really interesting stuff. You met Solomon? Yeah. Yeah. Sol

S Solomon just got married and he’s and he’s at BYU. All right. But he’s not an English major. He’s like a film major. Yeah. That’s that’s awesome, too. So, there’s part of me that really like wishes I had done that as well because I I feel like I think in movies when I think about our campaigns, I think about it in a cinematic way, but I it comes out in words because that’s how I was trained. So, I grew up appreciating movies. Here’s a weird thing about me. I like almost exclusively work out to movie soundtracks. Like classical movie soundtracks. Wait, what’s a classical movie soundtrack? Because I’m going to tell you something weird about

me. Go ahead. You’re like I don’t What I’m saying is there are some film soundtracks now like um Garden State where it’s a compilation of artists. Great great film soundtrack, but it’s a compilation of artists, you know, doing alternative songs. I’m talking about like Braveheart, Gladiator. That’s what I work out to because I actually find that lyrics kind of take me out. Like working out for me is meditative regardless of what I’m doing. So lyrics almost take me out of it and I feel like I’m you know I feel like I’m in a mont like a training montage. So when the when there’s lyrics No, no, no. When I’m listening to the score you like

you’re Rocky. You got it. That’s on there. That’s definitely on there. I have a big I have a big That’s super interesting. Yeah. Do so you don’t find yourself uh when you’re listening to your workout playlist when the latest Taylor Swift song comes on, you’re not singing along with it as you’re doing some like your bench press. No, that’s not Yeah. or something. That’s not it. What do you think? Let me ask you this question. This is way before I’m supposed to ask you the question because we have a three random question segment. Yeah. In the podcast. But I’m gonna ask you one random question up front since we’re talking about Taylor Swift. Since you

brought it up, I you brought it up. We’ll say for the record, you brought it up. I did not bring it up. Did you Is uh is Travis Kelce going to take uh is is he going to be known from now on as Travis Swift? Is he going to take her name? Yeah, man. I don’t know. If you were him Uh-huh. wouldn’t you wouldn’t you wait? So, this is the argument. People say that I say Travis Kelce made Taylor Swift. I mean, he’s like a multiple Super Bowl multiple time Super Bowl champion. I feel like that’s a very male perspective, though. Don’t you think? Here’s the thing. So, first of all, that prenup is going

to be longer than any book that dude’s No, there’s no prenup in his life. There’s no prenup. There’s no prenup. I think there’s a prenup. There’s got to be a prenup. She is a literal be like billionaire with a B. And he’s done well for himself. Mhm. Probably ranks in the top five tight ends ever, don’t you think? At the end of his career. Top five ever. [snorts] He’s right there with Okay. Is he better than Gronowski? I don’t think I don’t think he’s better than Gronowski. His numbers are probably Aaron Hernandez before before he You can’t put Hernandez in there cuz before he went Sure. That’s like saying potential. like he had tremend Hernandez

had tremendous potential but he he did he had you know he had some stuff he had some issues so I think you put Tony Gonzalez up there uh Antonio Gates okay Gronowski is definitely in that conversation um I I think Kelsey’s in there I think he’s I don’t know because you’re leaving out Dave Casper this is going old school Dave Casper Sure. Uh, New York Giant. Dave Casper was uh, wasn’t he on the Giants? I think he was a Raider. Okay. Yeah, I think. Yeah. Wait, I may have that wrong. We need to We’ll have to We’ll have to fact check that. But who was the guy? Oh, completely. The dude who played for the

San Diego Chargers for so long. Antonio Gates. No, this is old school. This is old school. I’ll have it. It’ll pop into my head. Yeah, I don’t know if he makes the top five. Okay. But he’s up there. But he’s very He’s He’s one of the best tight ends of his generation. Certainly. Mhm. Um but Kellen Winslow, that’s who I was thinking of. He didn’t play for the Yeah. Maybe was good. Yeah. His son was not as good. Not as good. Twice as loud, half as talented. Isn’t that all kids? All kids. I mean, I bet your dad would say that. Yeah, my dad would definitely say that. And you know what? He’s probably right.

Um, and there’s four there’s four boys, so you know, if we’re all half as loud, then still we’re Yeah, you’re still twice as loud. Twice as loud. Wait, so there’s Nate, Spencer, you. Andrew. Oh, and Andrew. So the order is Spencer, Nate. Uhhuh. Andrew, me. In terms of the boys. Yeah. If you had the girls in there, it’s Spencer, Katie. Uhhuh. Nate, Andrew, me, Lily. Gotcha. Lily’s the youngest. Yeah. Okay. Got it. All right. Well, regardless of the Taylor Swift, but you you said I wouldn’t take her name like I mean, just coming from the background of tradition that I come from, I wouldn’t take her name. I’m just saying I think he’s probably going

to do anything to close this deal. That’s what I’m thinking. It’s a done deal. I mean, no, it’s not, but I guess not. You got to you got to take it down the altar. I think maybe you could come up with a clever ran because you’re doing you do male and and you’re doing female. Yeah. And so maybe like uh a piece that’s like an 89 on the sleeve. Sure. And a swift on 89. I don’t feel like that’s 87. 89. 87. Something like that. Yeah. Sure. A wedding dress with like Yeah. White on white 87 on the back. Could be interesting. Could be. I feel like uh that’s a contract we’re not going to

get. I’ll be honest with you. Maybe not. Yeah, but you have other good stuff. All right. Here he is. The one and only Ben Checkets. Ran. I love the I know you’ve told this story before. Yep. Uh do you want to tell the story again? I mean, I just think it’s a I think it’s a great story. The name How you came up with the name and how you came up with the the logo. The logo. Yeah. So kind of evolved separately from one another, but in reality they’ve they’ve been brought together by kind of the branding and marketing that we’ve done. The name we were doing a big exploration on names early on before

we really even started the company had products and we knew we were going to be men’s only. So there was a real temptation to go down this really aggressive, very masculine path of, you know, is it something that’s representative of like a an ancient Greek warrior or something like that. Mhm. And ultimately what we decided on was we loved the idea of it being a name that had an ultimately it had a premium feel. Mhm. It had somewhat of a cosmopolitan vibe, meaning that it felt it felt like it could work anywhere in the world. It wasn’t geospecific. And so, as we thought about that, you know, we thought about traveling and Nate and I

kind of hearkened back to some of the places we had been. He with his wife Dana went on a month-long European excursion. Actually, it was while I was on my mission. And I remember I remember them sending us pictures and one of the most amazing regions they went to was the Ran region. It’s kind of sits between France and Switzerland. It’s a beautiful river and a glacier and Nate kind of retold this and I was like that’s a great name, Ran. Let’s put it on the list and let’s test it. It was immediately the name that jumped to the top. It was memorable. It was monoselabic. So we wanted to be opposite of Lululemon in

that sense. You know, they have so many syllables in their name. We wanted it to be, you know, masculine and premium. What we didn’t know kind of a few interesting things that we found out. First of all, it has a real connotation to wine. I guess there’s a specific wine from the region Rum Valley um that you know people is very it’s a very deep red and people love it and it has a certain taste to it. Again, we’re not drinkers so we didn’t know that. We learned that afterwards. The other thing we learned was when we tell people the name, they automatically, it’s just kind of a mental thing, they want you to spell

it for them. They say ran, r o n, and you say r h o n e. And then they have the website in their in their know how to spell it. Yeah. R H O N E. They spell it back to themselves. And so it has a real stickiness to it. Sticky stickiness to it that we really liked. Mhm. but also super memorable and didn’t really skew male female. Didn’t It felt premium and monoselabic and masculine in all the right ways, but didn’t feel so masculine that, you know, we would have to rebrand as a fe, you know, if we ever introduced female clothing. Yeah. And so we really like that. Yeah. And I I

like the way you what I don’t know what kind of iterations you went through for the for the lettering, but it has that feel of quality. Yeah. I guess sturdiness, longevity, all of those things. Can does that happen? Like, can you do that with letters? I think you accomplished that. You can with really talented designers, much more talented than me. But there is kind of this interesting mix of rounded letters and squared off letters that we really loved. And actually, and a lot of people didn’t realize this, we com we changed, not completely, we slightly updated the logo about 2 years ago, right before we introduced our women’s line. And just to make it a

little bit more modern and like the not the change is so small, most people would not notice it. Um, but yeah, it’s that kind of, you know, typography and text when you’re looking at design is really fascinating to me. It’s not an area again that I was classically trained in, but having worked with some really talented people, it makes a massive difference. Yeah, absolutely. And so, did you make that change a couple years ago so you could use it for both lines, female, male? There was just something about our original R that always didn’t sit well with me. Um, it was it was the leg that kicks out to the to the left. I just

didn’t love the way that it sat with the R. And so that was actually the main letter that we updated. Um, and again, I can show you the changes is hardly noticeable, but but we took we took the opportunity to kind of streamline the logo and worked with a really talented firm out of um, England named IMA, and they just have some amazingly talented people on their staff that that kind of walked us through what effects that can have just to clean up the logo. And I think it looks really good. And then the captain stitch, the three interlocking X’s. Yes, that actually came from, you know, some work that that an agency here in

Salt Lake originally did. And the interesting thing about the Captain Stitch is it was meant to just be a product specific mark. It was meant to just appear on product. It wasn’t ever really going to be our main logo as a brand. And then uh we had a legal dispute because we had we originally had a third logo that was a trident. We wanted to kind of give this nod to the Rone River because it was an important part of why we named the brand what we did and why we built in the tagline forever forward. We love this idea of like you can’t ever step in the same river twice. A river is constantly

moving forward. If it’s not, it’s not a healthy river. Right? If a river is stagnant, it can be really, really bad. This is sounding like there’s some Walt Whitman weaved weaved into this. Very good. Actually, Forever Forward is from Walt Whitman’s Song of the Open Road. So yeah, there was there was a lot of things kind of woven into this. Uh but the captain stitch actually was originally just kind of taken from this idea that sailors Mhm. long time ago would put a certain stitch in their clothing because they all wore different clothing. It wasn’t like you could go and get corporate clothing for your crew. So they all wore different clothing, but they would

put a certain stitch in their clothing to tell you like this is the crew that we belong to. And it was called the captain stitch because each captain had a different stitch. M and so we love this idea of putting a stitch in our clothing that showed people very subtly, hey, you’re part of the RN crew. Mhm. And as we looked at the stitch, you know, we kind of love this idea that they’re that the stitches are kind of bound together. They’re overlapping. And actually Nate and I instantly thought of the same thing, which was a fable that our dad had taught us growing up. And this again predates me being an English major. Growing

up, our dad would never have us give him traditional Christmas presents because he could go buy whatever, you know, whatever gifts. Every dad goes through this, like, “Oh, thanks for the tie. I have a million of these, right?” What he asked us to do instead was to memorize poems or sonnetss or, you know, to to do things in that vein. And so one of the fables that he taught us growing up because there were three of us right in a row. Spencer was a few years older and then Nate, Andrew, and I are all separated by like in total by 5 years. So there’s like basically two years between all the brothers. But he taught

us this story from Asop’s Fables about three quarreling sons because they were always fighting. Their dad was a farmer. He said, “All right, he’s tired of it.” They go out into the field. Yeah. This is like a standard. Yes. Go grab me two sticks. Right. He said, “Take one stick and break it.” They all could break it very easily. He take He said, “Take the second stick.” Each kid broke their own one stick. Each Yeah. Each one broke his own stick and then with the second stick he took them and he bound them together with rope and he said, “Now try and break it.” And they couldn’t, right? And the idea is together you’ll be

stronger, right? And so we love this idea of bringing together a community of guys that were mutually supportive, not only because of, you know, not only because of similarities, but actually despite all the differences that we have, because there’s a million differences that we can raise up and celebrate. As I said to you, like I grew up thinking Boston Red Sox fans were the worst people in the world, right? Yeah, we’re we agree on and we agree on that. But that’s probably true. I’ve also some of my dearest friends are Boston Red Sox fans now, right? and and I’ve worked with these people and I’ve realized like there’s nuance to everything and actually finding commonality

and in strength uh in in our differences I think is really overdue. I think it’s what the world needs. And so that’s what it represents and it it appears not only on everything we make for men, it appears on everything we make for women. When we were doing the women’s branding, we did focus groups and I it was something I really worried about. I said, “How do you guys feel about this branding?” And the women were like, “We want that. We’ve seen that on the men’s clothes. We want that. We understand what it means. We want it. It’s It’s Well, I I wouldn’t I want to say it’s subtle, but I only mean subtle because

it it crosses boundaries. Like it doesn’t necessarily designate itself for one specific gender, personality, whatever. Yeah. And we use it we use it in pretty subtle ways. It’s like there’s times where we blow it up and make it relatively big, but for the most part, it’s very it’s used very subtly because it is supposed to be kind of that small reminder. It’s for the wearer. It’s not for the observer, right? It’s for the person wearing the clothing. Um, and so we really love it and people people really resonated with it. They they were like, I love this stitch. It’s noticeable, but it’s not a big swoosh or a big, you know, UA on your chest.

It’s it’s you guys use it in the right way. It’s tasteful. And so it it continues to appear on every piece of clothing we make. Yeah, we’re moving along in this podcast more quickly than I wanted to because I like to do backstory, but we’ll just we’re just going to keep rolling with it. Then we’ll get to your then we’ll get to your backstory. But I I it’s worth mentioning that the inspiration for Ran is Lululemon. Yeah. Is that fair to say? Absolutely fair to say. Okay. Yeah. So, and you and I have a similar experience. Yeah. with with Lululemon. Yeah. Which I don’t I don’t own. That’s not true. I own one piece of

Lululemon. It’s a sweater that my wife purchased for me for Christmas. I And I love it. It’s great. I’m I really I really like it. Amazing clothing. But for me, like the the thing I want to get to is why Lululemon was an inspiration and how you’ve created or tried to create alignment with your brand and your customers because I think for me that was where I was displaced with Lululemon. Sure. If that makes sense. That totally makes sense to me. And actually, I think it’s it was a great exercise in marketing because yes, we looked at what our competitors were doing and we were inspired by it, but we didn’t necessarily try to copy

them. That that is where I would take issue if people said, “Oh, well, you just copied Lululemon.” What I would say is we noticed what Lululemon we noticed the areas where Lululemon was weak. It’s not addressing the right market, and that’s where we moved in. And I think that’s the difference between copying a competitor, which we see all the time in Utah, right? You see the cookie wars, the blanket wars. No kidding. You know, that’s so true. You see it all the time. And it’s it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but there’s a difference between full-on copying someone and attacking areas where someone has been too arrogant to notice. And what I mean by this

is what we saw with Lululemon was incredibly quality product. They changed the industry. I will hand it to them. And actually, Chip, their disgraced chairman, is really the one who deserves all the credit for this. And as soon as they pushed him out, to me, they actually have lost their way as a company. I will I I truly believe that. Was he a perfect man? No, of course not. He Are you? No, no one is. Right. And, you know, he was quoted as saying some things that maybe he shouldn’t have. But I I don’t know. I think we just in general need to give people a little bit more grace. So what we saw was

tremendous product quality, great branding in terms of the way that they used their logo in a subtle way. I didn’t love their logo, especially for men, but they used their logo in a subtle way. It was reflective. It felt like a feature. And they really married activew wear and outerwear in a really interesting way. So they brought outerw wear design and perspective and features into activew wear. And I loved that cuz I was a real outerwear junkie. It was an early Arcter buyer, you know, good, which is great stuff. Yeah. Amazing product quality. And actually, Chip is involved with Arcterics, too. Like everything that guy touches for the most part turns into gold. He’s a

genius. Um, so I love the way they integrated zippers and smart features into their active products. But they were ignoring men. They were going after women and they were ignoring men from a branding and a marketing perspective. They were banking on the fact that women would buy men clothing like your wife did, like my wife did. So, she was from Canada. She grew up with she grew up with Lululemon and our and she always noticed that I was wearing active stuff. I I refused to wear clothing that like I couldn’t work out in. I just, you know, it’s like the Jim Gaffigan line like people in the north in the Pacific Northwest, they dress like

a hike’s going to break out any moment. I was kind of the same way. I would dress like a indoor soccer game was going to break out at any moment, right? And so she was like, I have the perfect Christmas gift for you, but I at this point Lululemon hadn’t really penetrated the United States yet. They had a couple stores like one in New York, one in LA, maybe, you know, but she was from the place where Lulu had I think either their second or third store ever at home in Calgary, Canada. Gotcha. So she went home for Christmas. She came back to BYU and she brought me a hoodie and a pair of shorts

and I wore them for a month straight. Like I did not like I wore them. You were like I was like this is the best product I’ve ever worn. And then at that point they opened a showroom in Park City and I was so excited. I remember going to the showroom and being like I’m going to buy so much gear and I walked in and I instantly felt like I was a stranger in a strange land. like I did not belong in the store. All the all the mannequins were doing yoga poses. I had never done yoga in my life. I didn’t know anything about yoga. I had strange associations with it. My my tune

on that has changed a little bit. But I was like, “This is not a brand for me. This is not a brand for most men.” And I knew the name. The name was like weird, but it didn’t bother me. I was like, “Oh, maybe it’s kind of like playful.” But as soon as I saw the branding, I was like, “No, this is not I can’t wear this stuff.” Uhhuh. I continued to wear it. Yeah. And I continued to buy, you know, pieces here or there because the product was just simply that good. The Yeah. the quality. And but then we found that people would make fun of us cuz I bought some stuff for Nate

as like a you got to check this brand out. It’s so good. I bought some stuff for Nate and our brother-in-law was like, “You can’t you guys can’t wear that stuff.” That’s like, you know, if Victoria’s Secret made boxers, would you go buy them? And I was like, man, if they were this good, I might. I don’t know. Like I don’t have a problem with that. But it was interesting how other people’s perspective changed our perspective on it. Mhm. You know, hearing from both men and women, you’re wearing Lululemon. I mean, that’s ridiculous. Yeah. Like that really impacted us. And what we started to notice again, it didn’t impact what I wore. What it started

to brew in our minds was this brand is doing so many things right. There’s a couple things where they are not doing right. Branding name for men. Right. If you literally, you know, one of my mark I talked to one of my marketing professors about it at BYU and he said, “What would you do?” And I said, “I would strip all the branding and the name off the men’s product and I would create a subbrand, right? Think about um Roxy and Hurley, right?” They knew Hurley wasn’t going to translate to women, so they started Roxy. And that’s great. It’s done well. Yeah. So, he said, “I’d probably do a subbrand.” And he was like, “I

think that’s the right play.” Yeah. And you know, Nate and I talked about it and I said, “Why don’t we do the subbrand? Why don’t we do the men’s version of Lululemon?” Yeah. Attack where they’re weak. You know, and as we talked about it more and more, you know, Nate was the one with real conviction around it, like I can raise money. He was a he’s a serial entrepreneur. So, I had kind of the aspiration of like, ah, this would be fun. We should do this kind of a dream. He was the one who really put like pen to paper and was like, let’s do this. What at the time, what were you guys doing?

Why did you decide to jump into a a men’s clothing brand? So, at the time I was working for IMG College. I was in their kind of their marketing in Winston Salem, North Carolina. Gotcha. Yeah. So, um at the time it was right before they had been acquired by WME. Uhhuh. Uh but they they basically operated small marketing departments at the schools that they represented and where they had contracts. And so I was in kind of a marketing support role. So, I was trying to talk these sales guys into using like metrics and data to sell their decks when these guys were like, “No, I can take this guy out for a round of golf

and then he’ll hand me a million dollars.” And I was like, “Yeah, well, you could get $4 million if you showed him all these metrics and included all these packages.” So, it was like slamming your head into a wall. It was just But hasn’t that changed from the time I mean data that I mean that’s what we do here. I mean, we we help our customers make data driven decisions. It’s definitely changed and and I think a lot of businesses are just you know have put better practices into understanding data and you know at the time I would say there was a lot of like we don’t trust these numbers right of you know this

is how many people you can reach if you buy radio ads and TV ads and then you know we got into more not necessarily our department but you know the the business in general got into more regional and national deals so you know linking together all these schools schools with big national sponsors. So, I was doing that and then Nate was actually in a very similar role but at the NFL. So, he was doing leaguewide sponsorships. Um, you know, some of the big sponsorships like Bose and Nike. He was there the year they integrated Nike into the uniforms. Huge lift, you know, and we were, it’s funny, working in sports, I think, quickly disillusions you

from how great working in sports can be. And so, it wasn’t that we were miserable. We just wanted to work for ourselves because the problem with working at either one of those companies is you have a great idea, it gets run up the flag pole, you know, just with these layers of organization and either they run with the idea, you never get credit or they never run with the idea and you know it’s a great idea that can succeed. We wanted to see the a results of our actions. We wanted to be able to just say one day decide what to do and then the next day see some of the results from it or

a year from then see some of the results from it. So we always kind of wanted to work for ourselves and start something and work together and this was just the first kind of opportunity that we had to do. So was he in was Nate in New York? Yeah, Nate was in New York, I was in North Carolina. Gotcha. We started the business in Connecticut. Nate lived in Connecticut but commuted into New York. Yeah. You guys uh grew up in Connecticut. We grew up in Connecticut. Yeah. Okay. So, we moved to Connecticut in 1990. Uhhuh. My dad left the Jazz in 1990. Uh went to work for the NBA and then ended up working for

the Knicks. Yeah. Yeah. And Madison Square Garden. Madison Square Garden. In that whole I don’t want to get off onto your dad’s journey, but was that he was working for the Knicks and Madison Madison Square Garden or are those two separate entities? How are those how do they work together? Good question. Um, so he originally got the job with the Knicks and then eventually was promoted into a position where he was over Madison Square Garden. So over the Knicks, the Rangers. Yeah, that was when they renovated Radio City. They had several other properties that he managed as well. Gotcha. Was your is your wife a sports fan? She I mean is she a Flame? She’s

not a Calgary Flame. She’s a I would say she’s a mild Flames fan, but she really doesn’t care about sports. I mean it’s so funny. I don’t think she anticipated like and I was talking to I was actually talking to Solomon before this like growing up when you’re it it sounds dramatic but when your livelihood is tied to a team success is a very different experience than being a fan cuz right now I’m just a fan of several teams right the Giants lose I’m like nah whatever real used to lose and like my week would be ruined or the Knicks used to lose and I used to go to school and get heckled by my

teachers Like I I don’t think people understand what the difference is between being like intrinsically tied and linked to a team and then also just like casually supporting a team. Yes. Right. And I I realize there are like dieh hard fans that live and die with our team. I understand. I’ll never relate to that because I feel like I’ve I was forced to live that. Yeah. That now it’s kind of just like sports are fun. Sports can be fun. Sports can be fun. And if my team loses, like that’s okay. Nobody’s Nobody’s getting fired tomorrow. Like your dad’s not getting fired tomorrow because the team lost. Yeah. It’s Yeah. You know, talk about ultra ultra

competitive and win now mentality for everybody. Yeah. New York is rough. I mean, we’ve seen it. New York is ruthless, right? And the fact that he had such a long tenure and so much success there. Um I think I think we under I I don’t think we appreciated that either. like what kind of hard work and diligence and frankly a little bit of luck and a lot of talent and a lot of hard work, you know, went into those years. Yeah. Such a New York thing for you to go to school and your teacher’s like, “Oh, yeah. You couldn’t get the you couldn’t get I had a I had a math teacher that would call

them the bricks.” He’s like, “What’s going on with the bricks?” And I was like, “Dude, I don’t make these decisions.” Like, it’s like I’m 12 years old, man. That’s the best. Yeah. I mean, I I love that that occurred. Like, that just seems Oh, I mean, it was again it did make you, you know, a little galvanized to just like to some of the haters and some of some of the some of the stuff you heard. But, yeah, that’s what I think a lot of people don’t even understand that about New York fans is like we hate our teams more than anybody else. But don’t don’t anybody else It’s like your children. That’s exactly. It’s

like your children. You’re like, I’m allowed to make fun of my children. You’re not allowed. You make fun of my children. And then we’re going to have we’re going to have a problem. Okay. So, you’re at this point where you guys have decided, well, you you’ve been talking, you and Nate, and you’re like, we we should do something together. Let’s figure something out. Was this the first opportunity that came up or did you have other like, hey, I I have this great idea for a car wash or we’re going to do cookie company. first. This was the first idea that we had that didn’t seem so far-fetched and so crazy that it it wouldn’t actually

work. Um, but it it was really the first idea that we got excited about. That’s how I’ll say it is like it was the first idea where I was like, “Yeah, I could do that for the rest of my career and I would be it sounds really fun. It sounds like it’s going to be hard, but it sounds really fun.” Um, so yeah, it was the first real idea that I think we all realized has legs, excites us, and it’s it’s the right time. That is the other thing is like from a timing perspective, literally we couldn’t have we it could not have been better. Perfect. Okay, this is a good jumping off point. We’re

going to leave that there and we’ll get back to Ran because I want to like obviously you’ve never run a clothing company before so now you have all of those things you have to figure out, but it still feels realistic and you’re excited about it. So that’s interesting. But I I would like to talk about your uh your upbringing and Okay. So we you know that everybody knows or the elephant in the room is Dave Czechets is your father by the way. I used to be really and still good friends with your uncle Dan. Oh yeah. One of the best guys best guys in the world in the whole world. Yeah. Nobody makes me laugh

like my uncle Dan. He is so funny. And I think that, you know, positionally in the family, like he’s he’s kind of me, right? Like we were the comedians of our family just because of the order. And I see that even with my own kids, like the youngest just get laughs that the oldest didn’t because the oldest weren’t around or, you know, they didn’t have older kids around to laugh with them and at them and stuff like that. So Dan’s the best. Love Dan. Well, okay. We we know about we know about your dad and his history and all that he’s accomplished. And so I guess I’m just curious about how you would describe your

upbringing and being exposed to all that he had to endure as he was trying to build teams and have success and have some failures and and all of those things. And I think you already mentioned one really interesting thing that I would have never guessed like he was like don’t give me a gift memorize a poem or or something like that. That was a big thing for him. So, you know, his dad was very much um a writer and a lover of literature and poetry. And so I think he instilled that in him as well. And um you know his dad was very different than he is. like his dad never had a ton of

financial success, but was just a a good soul and a and a kind-hearted man. Not a perfect man by any stretch of the imagination like we’ve talked about. Those don’t exist. Yeah. Really only one one um you know, the one uh but you know, I think he raised him to love those things and my dad really loved those things and a lot of people don’t know this about my dad. uh you know, for a lot of reasons, he didn’t make the basketball team the entire time he was at in high school. And so to fill his time, he actually acted in plays. Oh. And he kind of fell in love with, you know, again, plays

and literature. All of that was tied up in his head. Um and then when he went to BYU, he walked on to the basketball team, but he still kind of always had that love for literature. And then I think he just realized how good he was with people and how sharp, you know, he’s got a really strategic mind. And this is something that Nate has. Like Nate has gotten that from my dad. Nate is always like five steps ahead of me strategically. That’s just the way he thinks. And he’s put a lot of hard work into that as well and diligence into that. But um yeah, I think when he when he noticed that he

could kind of marry those skills, being really good with people, being a strategic thinker, you know, that was really what led him to go to business school, go into consulting, and then in consulting he was handed, you know, again, you talk about timing and luck. It was just very interesting timing because he was at Bane when Bill Bane decided to make a purchase of the Celtics and was involved intimately in the project which led to him being involved in a project with the NBA. He was working with the then deputy commissioner very closely, David Stern. They became very good friends, bonded over the fact that they loved basketball, grew up with basketball, and you know,

that was really what led him to the job with the Jazz. became the youngest jam of the Jazz ever at 27, which is wild. Crazy. Um, you know, the Jazz, he he was part of the team that rebuilt the Jazz and brought a real vitality and loyalty um to that team when they were either, you know, it was kind of it was kind of one or the other. They either had to succeed or they were going to be moved out of the city. Um, and you know, he cared deeply about his the place where he grew up, which is Utah, but he always had New York in his sights. He just always wanted to work

for the Knicks and it kind of just again you talk about timing and luck and being in the right place at the right time. He actually moved to New York to work under David Stern at the NBA and that was when the the vacancy for the GM of the Knicks opened up. Oh. And so he was there and had already moved his family and you know knew that that was the job that he really wanted and got a strong recommendation from David Stern. Yes. you know, which would very helpful, but you know, he’s he has earned everything that he’s gotten in his life. It’s just been this kind of like imprecise skill, mixture of skill

and luck and timing. Um, which I think anybody needs to be successful. Yeah, absolutely. I’m sure that when we talk more about your story, you’ll tell us about timing and luck and these things fell into place and mixed with hard work and and I think that’s one thing you mentioned about your dad about your family and and I don’t want to disregard your mom in this. Yeah. As well. Um and you mentioned it about even with your kids like these are some of the lessons you want them to learn that you picked up from your parents like Yeah. You can’t be afraid of hard work like this. No, not at all. That’s how you That’s

how you get forward. What was What’s your What’s your catchphrase? Moving forward. You’re always moving forward. Forever forward. Forever forward. Yeah. Hard work will will put you on that path. Yeah. The interesting thing about my mom is obviously a lot less people know my mom, but the ones who do are like there’s a reason Dave’s successful and it’s a lot of it is is Deb, right? And so my mom occupies such a special place in all of our hearts because my dad was out building and he’s a dreamer and my mom had to be the realist. My mom had to be the anchor that was in it dayto day with the kids. Not to say

that my dad wasn’t there. He was there as much as he possibly could be. And you know the interesting thing about him is he realized I can’t be home all the time but I can bring my kids to me. And so midweek we would go to a lot of Knicks games. We’d do our homework in the back of a car. driving into New York City and we would go to a lot of Knicks games just so that we could see my dad, like just so we could spend time with him, hang out there. Yeah. Um but again, that put even more pressure on my mom to, you know, get us ready and make us make

sure that we were looking okay to, you know, go into that environment and that we behaved ourselves and all of those things. But my mom was really just such a steady force in our life. Spencer always calls her the rock of our family and I I completely agree. like she is just a steady consistent force in our life whereas dad was out building his dreams and like showing us that that could be done. Yeah. Um and so both very important influences in our life but yeah certainly hard work was was something that you know was associated with growing up. I remember in high school my dad bought me a pickup truck and I was like

yes this is my dream. What I didn’t know is he told he also told everybody in our ward like, “Hey, if anybody needs a pickup truck, I not only have a pickup truck, I have a 16-year-old that is really great at lifting furniture and moving food storage and we’ll do it for free.” He would love to be helpful. And he would love to be helpful. So, as soon as he handed me the keys, he was like, “By the way, this is a contract where this is what’s going on.” And so, you know, again, oh, it’s genius. I hated that as a 16-year-old, but now I look back and I was like, “That’s that was really

Do you have 16-year-old kids?” I guarantee that’s that’s what you’re going to do. It’s incoming. 5 years. He’s 11. So, yeah. And and we’re already starting to, you know, integrate some of those lessons into into what he does daytoday and what our other kids do dayto-day. Like, it’s I think it’s the biggest indicator of success. If your parents can teach you, we work together and we work hard as a family and you can complain, but this is like it doesn’t change the fact that this is what we’re going to do. This needs to get done. I think it’s the it’s the best thing that can be done for kids. It was certainly the best thing

that my parents ever did for me. Yeah. So, no doubt. I go back a long way with Spencer. It’s funny that you mentioned that he calls your mom the rock of the family because if there’s one person like he speaks knowingly about your family and of course your dad. But if there’s one person that you can see there’s a difference when he’s talking about that individual, it’s your mom. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, Spencer and I, Spencer and I are more like our mom than we are our dad. And our other brothers are the exact opposite. They’re a little bit more like dad than mom. Um, and I think that,

you know, we just I think that just comes naturally. Like I just noticed that my own kids. I’m like, “Oh, you’re you’re a little bit more like your mom and this one’s a little bit more like dad.” But I think Spencer and I, you know, being the oldest boy, him, and being the youngest boy, me, I think we just spent a lot of time with our mom. Yeah. you know, um, and and certainly have a deep appreciation for her. So, yeah, there’s this there’s a special reverence about mom. Your mom jokes were never funny to me. I just I could not do them to not I couldn’t do them towards other people. Oh, you wouldn’t

even throw them out at someone else. If anybody threw them at me, it was Yeah, it was time. It was time. You’re going Yeah, you’re going. So, yeah. Gotcha. Okay. So, did you Was it ever challenging? Did you ever find it challenging to be a checket with a dad who’s so well known and so much in the public eye? Yeah, I think it would feel, look, it would feel completely disconnected from reality to say that growing up was hard. It was not hard. I had two wonderful parents. We had a lot to be grateful for. Um, I’m really grateful for the influences that I had growing up in my life. I think what’s hard is

the stuff that other people put on you by association or by assumption. So there’s a lot of people that just believe that our dad has bankrolled this entire project. Nothing could be further from the truth, by the way. Nothing. I mean, not that he hasn’t been involved and helpful, but Nate has fundraised like crazy and a lot of those through my dad’s connections certainly, but like to assume that he has bankrolled this would be would be crazy. And he’s been I I also don’t want to discount his contribution in terms of not even from a monetary standpoint but just from an advice and um you know a presence standpoint and being our biggest fan like

he is that to a te. So, I think it’s more the stuff that people put on us. You know, I think they assume certain things about us because of who our dad is or, you know, assume that that we’re not willing to work hard or assume that we’ve been handed all these things and and again, yeah, we were given a a huge advantage, but not because of money, because of the influence of who we were raised by. Mhm. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. With your dad going through the athletics world, I know that can be difficult and I know New York can be Yeah. super challenging. Did that ever come back to the family? How did he

shield difficulties in his public life with his private life? There’s one thing we’re really not good at in our family, and that is and that is doing what you just mentioned, which is like we’re just emotional people. I mean, you know, we are and and we are we are who we are and we come from a long line of emotional people is something my dad always says. Mhm. So, I would say he did the best to shield us from that that he could. But that stress definitely came down to came down to us whether he wanted it to or not. We were just again we were his number one fans. Our dad could not do

any wrong. The Knicks were the greatest team in the world. they were going to win and when they didn’t it was devastating. It was like, you know, finding out that Santa Claus isn’t real. What? Sorry to the kids out there. Don’t don’t edit that part. We were just, you know, saying that Superman isn’t real. It was like finding out that Superman isn’t real. But um yeah, I mean, and I tell people this all the time, like growing up, I wasn’t allowed to buy or wear Jordans because that guy was the enemy in our household. He was the barrier to the Knicks getting to the finals several times. Many times. Many, many times. Lots of teams

could say that. I mean, but but the Knicks But the Knicks and Jordan had a special relationship. Yeah. Reggie Miller to this day. I mean, can’t even talk about that guy. Can’t you’ve seen the You’ve seen the Yes, of course. Yes, of course. Um, you know, but being distanced from it now, yeah, it definitely permeated our lives. And, and I mentioned this earlier, but I’d go to school and I’d get heckled by my teachers, you know, calling the Knicks the bricks and asking me, you know, what’s going on with Patrick? And I’m like, if you think I have any insights into this, you’re crazy. That’s the best. I love that. Yeah, that’s the best part

of the story, getting heckled by your teachers in New York. Okay. Uh, favorite Knicks player of all time. Oo. Great question. I loved I loved Larry Johnson. There was just a certain swagger and we had him, you know, kind of later on in his career, but there was a certain swagger about LJ, just a quiet confidence that I always really loved and and you know, he was a little bit he was really built well and he hit that one four-point play right exactly when we needed to. He was he’s it’s definitely him for me. Yeah. Is it true that Larry Johnson had to take a pay cut when he left UNLV to go to the

Probably NBA? Again, I wasn’t privy to those details, but yeah, probably. Charles Oakley. I love Oak. Oak’s up there. I had dinner at at Charles Oakley’s mother’s house in Cleveland. We were there for an all-star game and my dad gets a call and he’s like, “Boys, put on your Sunday best. We’re going to Charles Oakley’s mother’s house.” What? She made us fried chicken and okra and you realize why he was as big as he was because you were like if I ate this food Yeah. substantial. Yeah. No kidding. I think I’d be 67 too. Um loved him. You know, definitely a certain toughness and tenacity to him. I loved Patrick. You know, Patrick’s a class

act. Just an amazing player. I loved uh you know, John Starks, Allen Houston. I love Latrell Spreewell. I know he gets a bad rap. That guy was awesome. He does get a bad rap. Don’t you think it’s deserved? I don’t know. I might have choked PJ, too. That guy, you know, here’s the thing about Here’s what I can tell you about Latrrell is like in person and again, to us, we were we were dumb kids always hanging around the team. Yeah. There’s certain athletes that were just that were just a little bit more predisposed to like chatting it up with us. Like Charles was that athlete. Charles Oakley was, you know, coming over giving us

high fives. Latrell was great with us. Like so kind to us. Oh, I love that. It makes me change my thought about it. He was always reading on planes. He always wore like nice sweaters and was reading comic books. No, no, no. Like novels. Like he was he was a studious guy. Very intelligent guy. But um heck of a player. Allan Houston was great. Very humble, very like softspoken. They had a just such a great mix of like personalities teams that I love. Iconic iconic characters. Yeah, Starks did dunk on Jordan, right? Like that’s the So, a lot of people talk about the dunk that Jordan had on Euing. There’s an iconic Starks. I think

he’s over Jordan and maybe Horus Grant or Pippen. It’s kind of a It’s like one of the original posters. A lot of people don’t know that. Yeah, it’s a great dunk. Yeah, that’s a classic. Yeah. Of all time. Starks was unpredictable though. Very, very unpredictable. Are you talking unpredictable personality, unpredictable on the court? Like you didn’t know all of the above. I feel like that’s true. Like he would have, you know, an allstar performance and the next night he’s like where he’s he’s disappeared. There were nights he was lights out and then he would he would definitely get in his own head. Definitely had, you know, issues with, you know, flagrance and stuff like that

as well. Um, but I think he thrived off those environments where like he was feeling the heat, you know. Yeah. Okay. So, did you come out of your experience growing up? Did you come out of it feeling like I’m going to take on the world or did you come out of it thinking I don’t know what the heck I’m going to do? Like, who am I? More of the latter. Really? Yeah. Not it. It was kind of just like I had no idea what I wanted to do. I didn’t know what I was necessarily good at, passionate about, etc. Yeah. And you didn’t necessarily want to and I don’t know, did any of the kids

follow in your dad’s footsteps? So, not not in like a direct standpoint. We all worked in sports in some way. Some capacity. Um, and again, that’s kind of just because of like it’s more about who you know than what you know. Um, and and my dad had really great connections into the sports world. Uh, and so that was how, you know, we got introductions and got interviews and that sort of thing. Andrew is the one who’s kind of most closely mirrored my dad’s trajectory in terms of going to business school, then going to consultancy. Oh, and now he’s working he’s actually working with my dad on that new fund um in sports. But yeah, no,

not not directly. I think we’ve all kind of um tried to forge our own path in a in a certain sense, but certainly lessons learned about Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I think you know what our dad always taught us was about integrity, right? Like meaning what you say and saying what you mean, backing it up with action, backing it up with hard work, and treating people really well. you know, he winging him walk around the garden, and I I really don’t mean this to sound arrogant, like he was the boss, you know, he was in charge of so many people and he knew everybody’s name, security guards, concession people, everybody. He knew their name. He knew

everything about them, you know, and I think he had real deep relationships and he really cared about his people. And that’s something Nate and I have definitely tried to integrate. And again, we’re not perfect at it, but like we try and know what’s going on in our employees lives. We try and be supportive. We try and be there for them. And I hope our team at the end of the day, I hope that’s what they remember. Yeah. You know, because that’s what we remember about walking around the garden was that’s what made us proud is the way that our dad treated other people. Win or loss, he was just there. and his relationship with the

guys on the team. Like you hear especially some of these real players who came from various other owners that were super disassociated with the team and kind of just saw MLS as this like hindrance. My dad was there with those guys like coaching them through, you know, deaths of family members and coaching them through different phases of their careers and retirement and that sort of thing. and and you hear, you know, he just had lunch last week with Chris Winger, who played for real and was a great player for them. And Chris put it up on Instagram and was like, I’m still learning from this guy. It’s amazing. And he wrote me just the nicest

letter on Instagram about it. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think that is what set him apart is the way that he treats people and the way he takes care of his people. Mhm. Yeah. Uh, and obviously super super meaningful. Um, did you guys and you guys grew up athletes? I mean, you kind of played everything. It was kind of expected, but it didn’t work like you didn’t just like all of us, you didn’t make it to the next. So, I played I played lacrosse at BYU for a year uh my freshman year. Played all throughout high school and and played at BYU. Had the option to play when I came back, but you know,

wanted to focus on school and started dating this girl that eventually became my wife. And so there was I had other priorities. I will say I think Spencer was probably the best natural athlete out of all of us. Um well, you know what? He says that too. I know he does and he’s not wrong. He was he was a heck of a basketball player. Worked really hard at it as well. Nate was a good athlete, good football player. Andrew took kind of a different route. Andrew took the route of like my dad. Andrew’s a good athlete. He just he wanted to do more things like plays and um and dance. he was like a really

good dancer which to me like some of those some of the people that can dance are like athletically super impressive like you know the way that they they can move their feet. So um yeah it was kind of an expectation and we each kind of found our niche in different sports. Um but yeah grew up an athlete and and definitely grew up loving sports. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and all those lessons. I mean, it sounds it sounds like there were lots of things that happened at home that are kind of similar lessons that you would learn on the athletic field about hard work and dedication and focus and treating people. You know, you’re part of a

team treating people the right way. So, I think that’s one of the great things about growing up in athletics and having that opportunity. Yeah. Is so much so much learning. Andrew and I weren’t like we were probably good enough players that we could have played on the high school basketball team, but there was a town kind of like junior jazz. There was kind of like a town YMCA league. And actually our dad was our coach cuz at that time he had resigned from and I mean keep in mind my dad my dad knows more about basketball, right? Like than than any of these other coaches combined because they were all like dads. Uhhuh. And so

we were up by 60 points in the fourth quarter full court pressing people. I mean, we were humiliating people because we were, you know, we’re running a box and one on defense and and we’re hitting open open threes in the corner from the wing and stuff like that. And I it was it was pretty funny to watch. And other teams just hated us. Just absolutely hated us. But it we had we had a ton of fun with it. So was that in that was back east. Who was coaching the Knicks at the time when he resigned? Yeah. Uh, Van Gandhi. So, did he like show up on the bench? Van Van Gundy’s playbook. Oh, man.

It’s like, “Hey guys, look what I He was working with some different raw materials certainly.” But, um, yeah, he [clears throat] I mean, he just has he he knows the game. He loves the game. Yeah. And it was, you know, I think that was integral to him having so much success was, yes, he had a business acumen and all that background, but at the end of the day, he knows a lot about that game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s interesting. Well, I think that’s a fascinating story, your upbringing. We could probably dig more into that, but I’m going to run out of time. So, let’s just let’s jump back into Rome. Now, you and you and

Nate have decided like you said, there’s we can fill this Yeah. niche in the in the clothing market. Yeah. There’s this company that does really great stuff. I think they’re missing in a couple areas. Why don’t we take it on? And Nate says, “Let’s do it.” That’s what he said. Yeah. He was like, I can raise the money. I’m excited about this. There was there wasn’t any hesitation like why zero clothing company. Yeah. If anything, there was hesitation from my side because that side of the business was just so unknown to me. The raising money, finding someone to actually produce the products. And that was a big step for us. We found a a production

firm out of Portland that had done work with Lululemon, had done work with Nike, and they kind of said to us like, “Hey, we don’t work with startups.” and we said, “We just want to have a meeting with you.” And as soon as we pitched them, the head guy who’s kind of this like industry savant and can definitely see around corners. He looked at us and he was like, “I’ve been waiting for someone to go after this really.” He’s like, “This is this is going to be huge.” And so that gave us a ton of confidence. We worked with them initially and then we quickly kind of realized we need to build an internal product

team just to own all of the design and and understand that because it’s just not sustainable using those firms. They charge you an arm and a leg. And it’s better now certainly like it’s the barriers to entry to our category are much lower now than they were when we started cuz now there’s a dozen firms that can do really good work and and they want the businesses to be sustainable. They want them to make money. Um but at that point they were used to working with Adidas and Nike and Lululemon, big big companies, right? And so they didn’t understand how to structure it in a way that was mutually beneficial. So as soon as we

kind of unlocked that, we felt really good about it. And you know, when we we got our initial products, we were super excited about it. And we started to receive some accolades for, you know, the products that we were making and started to receive some buzz on social media. Shane Badier tweeted about us and it like crashed the website and it was great. Um, and so yeah, it was kind of just like this initial, let’s try it out. Yeah. And let’s see how it goes. And then when all these things started to fall into place, we said, “Hold on, we might actually have something here there. There could be some some big potential here. This

could be what we thought it could be.” What about when you decided to jump in? How did you decide what you were going to produce? Like what was your first thing? We’re going to do this first. We’re going to do this second. Were you strategic about that or or I don’t think we were as strategic as we could have been. We saw we we knew what products were moving at Llemon because again I was such a loyal customer of Lululemon. I was talking to their store staff constantly just gathering kind of like anecdotal data doing intel and this was before the real shift into kind of athleisure penetrating work wear. Right. So this was just

we started very basic active wear. We made a sweatpant, a short, a short sleeve shirt, and a long sleeve shirt, which were essentially the same shirt, just short sleeve and long sleeve. Okay. And those were your first four products. Those were our first four products. And we had some we definitely had some issues with a few of the things like the the sizing on the sweatpant, I think, was kind of ridiculous. Like you had to size like two sizes down, right? But the quality was there and people could notice the quality. And so making some of those small tweaks on the second line, you know, and things were selling out and we were selling through

quickly. And we got some amazing media placements early on. Someone wrote an article about us in the Wall Street Journal and said, “Look, even if you love Lululemon, the name sounds like Strawberry Shortcake’s best friend. You can’t wear that as a man. Like, this is the brand you should be wearing.” So, you know, we started to uh seed product on Wall Street, right? We didn’t go after athletes. We went after kind of weekend warriors. We went after these guys that were, you know, had highpaying jobs and and were taking care of themselves, were going to Equinox gyms in the city. We got an early wholesale account with Equinox, which was great for us. So, we

were trying to build these associations with like really premium brands that were kind of speak easys, right? Like you you only heard about them through word of mouth. It’s a reason we didn’t do a lot of like boisterous look at us marketing, splashy marketing early on because that’s not cool. What’s cool is yeah, you haven’t heard about this brand. I’ve I’ve been wearing it for a couple months and you want to be me. I’m your friend. You should check it out, right? That’s cool. And so we really did try and keep it like word of mouth, very grassroots early early on and tried to build kind of this community of guys that were, you know,

of a certain type to really build out who we thought our customer should be. And once you build out who your customer should be, then the right customer is attracted to you. So a a little bit of that goes along with aligning with your customer or trying to hit a particular segment of the market. Do you have a segment? Like when you started, did you say we’re men 25 to 40 or? Yeah, that was that was roughly what we tried to focus on. Our theory was kind of, you know, aim at the 35year-old, give or take, because the 25-year-old who’s just starting his career is looking up at that guy. That’s his manager. That’s who

he wants to be, right? The 50-year-old is thinking, “Man, I felt my knees felt a lot better when I was that guy’s age. I wonder what he’s doing. I wonder what he’s wearing. Mhm. I want to be a little bit more like that, right? And so you kind of pull in both sides. That was our original theory. But yeah, we we did try and create like a singular customer and a customer identity. We called him Mark, which is kind of like a double entandra. He was our Mark, but he’s also his name was also Mark. Yes. And we also knew this guy on Wall Street named Mark, who uh he won something called the Wall

Street Decathlon like 10 years in a row. And it’s a it’s this like seriously intense competition where they do all these different I mean think of like the CrossFit games, but the athletes are actual like Wall Street bankers. Oh. And this guy named Mark Rubin won it like 10 years in a row. Total physical specimen. I think he was a college football player and they do stuff like they do a timed 400 meter and they do, you know, a bench press at 225 for the most reps and stuff like that. And so he won it year after year and we were kind of like, “Yeah, that’s like our that’s our guy.” Um, and so we

built a customer profile around him, like this is what he drives, this is what he does, you know, this is where he lives. Um, these are his interests, that sort of thing. And we really tried to keep it tightly focused on who that guy was. Gotcha. And so did that guy want sweats, shorts, and a couple of shirts? I mean, initially that’s what he wanted, but that’s why we quickly had to pivot into he wants stuff that he can wear to work, that is comfortable, that is classy, that, you know, looks good. He wants it for travel. He wants it for working out. He wants it for weekends when he’s on the couch watching football.

Uh, and so yeah, we started to kind of like build out what does Mark’s closet look like? Yeah. We knew we couldn’t replace 100% of what was in his closet. Like we’ll never make a tuxedo. Mhm. But we can replace 80%. But you’re trying to So So Mark is a Wall Street guy? Yes. Potentially. Well, you know, in that Yeah. He’s in that realm. I mean, even if you’re Yeah. Even if you’re a lawyer, you’re like, “Oh, I associate with a high level of success.” So I have a I have a question about that is you’re designing your clothing and and trying to penetrate. I I see where a guy like Mark who’s on Wall

Street all day, he comes home, he’s like, I just want to put my own stuff on. I I want a nice comfortable pant shirt that I can walk the dog or go down through the neighbor, whatever, go to the gym. Yeah. I But I don’t see I don’t necessarily see that guy wearing ran to the office. That’s That’s correct. And that’s where we have made some small tweaks kind of in the past couple of years was, yeah, we know we’re never going to replace your $5,000 suit either, right? But if Mark is traveling for work, doesn’t he want a dress shirt that’s going to keep him comfortable, doesn’t wrinkle, he does, looks passable, or if

it’s a casual Friday, doesn’t he want a blazer and a polo that go with his commuter pants that he can wear into the office? It’s unbranded. He feels comfortable in it. And so those are the small tweaks we’ve made to say, “Yeah, we can’t replace 100% of his closet. What can we replace?” 70 to 80% gym, you know, leisure wear stuff he can travel in and occasionally wear to work or on the golf course. Yeah. I think travel is the is a big travel’s huge. Like I I mean I dress like this regularly. Yeah. Uh especially if I have a really significant podcast guest. Sure. Sure. You know what I mean? But you have one

coming up soon. If not right now, eventually we’ll get there. We’re trying. I mean, we’re working hard. Yeah. What are you going to do? But when I I travel quite a bit and like I never I don’t want to travel to this. No. But you know what? I my go-to is maybe we’ll have to we might have to figure this out and this will get to the next thing I’m going to talk to you about. Um, but it’s now typically what I’m traveling in is like uh what you’d see uh Scotty Sheffller wear on the weekend. You know, his golf all of his golf gear. Yeah. So, that’s my travel travel gear. Yeah. Pants, polo,

and we’ve talked about this. We’re going to replace We’re going to figure that out. Okay. And something like this. I love this, by the way. It’s a great vest. It is. You know what really is nice about this? You can tell super high quality. It’s very even though it’s lightweight, there’s still really good structure to it. Sometimes when you get that lightweight stuff, it feels like a little There’s really good structure to this. And this I just discovered. It’s like a magnetic pocket. I opened it and all of a sudden it snapped back into place. I was like, “What is going on there?” Isn’t that nice? Yeah. That’s really cool. So So again, that’s like

taking features that were popular in Outerwear, integrating them into something that’s unexpected. Yeah, like an active golf vest. So, yeah, that’s where we that’s where I feel like we really excel. Well, here’s the I think here’s a tough question for anyone who’s producing clothing because there’s like a standard I mean, I would think of Mark as kind of your standard guy who who would probably fit like like maybe like a regular pant that is maybe a little tapered, you know, kind of what what today’s style is and a more fitted type of shirt and, you know, stuff like that. But that doesn’t like [clears throat] there’s a certain segment of the population like and that’s

where I fit on this other side of the population where slim fit to me you might as well just give me a pair of tights and that’s what I should wear and that just doesn’t So how do you I guess the question is like how do you manage that? How do you manage sizing and trying trying to hit as many people as possible? Sizing is the most difficult part of our business for sure especially on the women’s side. Men are actually a little bit more straightforward. So in the men’s side, we have a classic fit, which is just a little bit more room, kind of more of a straight leg, less taper. Then we also

have an athletic fit. Because the problem with classic fit sometimes is on really fit guys or guys with athletic legs, you might buy the right waist size, but it can look baggy everywhere else. So, athletic fit is meant to be the correct waist size, but then also accommodate the bigger thighs and butt that come with being an athlete. And that was a pain point for Nate and I for the longest time. We were like, “These pants we make don’t fit us. That’s a problem.” And so, that’s that’s where the athletic fit really came in came in. So, I’m already I’m already determined. to clarify, Mark was kind of like our initial guy, our initial Mark,

and we have now expanded the line to fit kind of other sides of the spectrum as well. So, if he’s a more classic customer, we definitely have some of that stuff. And then we have some stuff that’s really designed and geared for younger guys that are on kind of a little bit more of the cutting edge of the of the trend, so to speak. But that is definitely a minority of our line where we focus is is really that that core segment. Is Spencer kind of like a slim skinny fit? He is now with a super fit joggers sort of stuff like he’s very fit right now. Very fit. Very fit. You know, interestingly enough

about Spencer like you remember when I said to you, I wouldn’t peg you as a guy that was an English major. Like I wouldn’t necessarily peg Spencer as a like someone who really is thoughtful about what he eats. Yeah. But I’ve been to lunch with him several times and he’s super thoughtful about what to the point where it’s almost annoying to me because I don’t want to be that thoughtful Sure. about what I eat. Sure. Yeah. No, he’s he’s you know, everybody goes through these I think everybody goes through these phases in their life. I think there’s certain people that are like disciplined all the time. And I think right now Spencer is definitely in

like he’s he’s pretty locked in. He’s in a locked phase. Yeah. Oh jeez. Yeah. I kind of admire it. I’m a little bit less dialed in right now. Are you just more focused on family and career stuff? Yeah, that can be that can be challenging. Super busy. Yeah, Spencer’s and I think he I think golf has really given him a great reason to stay in shape. Like I think he lost when he like lost basketball, right? Cuz there there is like a pretty hard cap on and you can be playing these sports. When he lost basketball, I think it was like, well, why stay in shape? I don’t have that anymore. And then he found

his way into golf and he was like, oh, I need to stay in shape so that I can enjoy golf and play well. And the other thing he does, he’s very mindful about what he eats. He he trains pretty hard. He also does a ton of yoga. I know. And he stays very like and it’s it’s the one thing that I’m like, man, I need to do that more to yoga. Is he doing like the beer stuff? Like the hot yoga. I think he messes I think he messes with berum. I thought there was something about that. I haven’t I haven’t done that. I haven’t done yoga. It’s hard. I know. Everybody is it is

the I’ll tell So I do a lot of weightlifting. I do a lot of like, you know, highintensity training. Yoga is the one thing that always makes me feel good afterwards. Like I don’t always feel great after lifting. Like I feel like I accomplish something, but I’m like I’m going to wake up tomorrow and like things are going to hurt. Yeah. Yoga and Pilates always make me feel good afterwards. I’m just so bad at them. So it just it’s such a blow to your ego that it’s like, you know, it’s really hard. I I think that’s what’s hard about it personally. You have a whole line of gear that you can wear. Yeah. In the

gym. Yoga, Pilates, we’ve gone down the rabbit holes of like running short versus highintensity short versus like a short that’s suitable for yoga. I mean, everybody has slightly different demands, but at this point, we are trying to build more like sweaty generalist products, right? So like if you run one day and you lift the other, you know that we can kind of outfit you for everything. Gotcha. Yeah. What is Okay, so initially your market research was to chat up whoever was working at Lululemon. That was Yeah, that was the initial one. What is How has that changed over time? What does your market research look like now? No, it’s tremendous. I mean, now there’s entire

departments at our company that are dedicated to keeping an eye on what competitors do, what we can do better, what our customer expects and wants from us. So, you know, our merchandising team is I think they’re best-in-class. So I think they’re really they have a really great eye on kind of the trend in the market and then they interpret it through the lens of RN and come out with some you know some ideas on hey we need a 5-in running short and it needs to have the following features. Um and then our product design people are also just amazing and they they get it. They listen to feedback. We wear test like crazy. Um and

you know that’s people people really over glorify that. They’re like wear testing must be so fun. And I’m like, it’s not because what happens is the they will make the product in whatever color fabric they have. So you’ll get a hot pink pair of shorts and you have to wear them. You have to you have to. And sometimes the first version of them, like the first draft of anything is terrible and you have to wear them and you have to wear them over and over again until you really understand what you don’t like about them. And then you have to be able to verbalize that to someone and maybe hurt their feelings cuz cuz they

worked on the product. That’s their baby. We talked about that. Don’t mess with that baby. Yeah, that’s just a tough thing. But um but it is but it is fun. It always keeps you on your feet. Have you had to wear the 5 in shorts? Yeah, I’ve had to wear I’ve had to wear tests. This is really going to shock you. I can’t do that. The 3 iners. Who? Wait, who wears a 3-in short? Runners. They want them. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I had to go running. I woke up at like 4:00 a.m. so no one in our neighborhood would see me. Oh, yeah. You ran in the 3-in shorts. Okay. Well, what what

was your feedback? Uh, I gave some early feedback that we kind of corrected. And, you know, look, I’m not a runner, but I I get the range of motion conversation. That’s what you’re really going for with a 3-in short. And people don’t understand 3-in short is from the inseam, right? So, it’s definitely short, but, you know, we have a liner in there. Everything’s everything’s above board where it should be. Everything’s where it should be. Okay. Yeah. Well, we’re diligent about that. That’s nice. You early in the company, you took on some funding. Mhm. Uh you had some partners. We did. And eventually you tried not tried, you did buy out Yes. your your partners. Yeah.

And and went through that process. So I I have a few questions about that. One is what were the challenges associated with taking on partners and taking on funding? Yeah. And what made you decide to strike up a deal to buy them out? Well, so the the challenges with bringing on any capital is just this idea of handing over a little bit of control, right? a little even if you’re you’re getting people that believe in your message or believe in you guys as founders or as you know in your team, you are handing just a little bit of control over because they have recources to be able to say, well, if you don’t want to

do what we want you to do, we can easily kind of exit you from the business. And that that threat was never actually verbalized or held over our heads. But there were certain times where we said, hey, we believe that we should go into women’s and that now is the time. Mhm. And our partners were saying, “Well, no, we don’t think that’s we don’t think that’s the right move. Um, we think you should focus.” And, you know, it’s it’s just always hard to know, did that decision how much that decision cost us, right? Maybe it wasn’t the right time. Maybe they were right. But you just lost a little bit of that reasoning for getting

into business for yourself in the first place, if that makes sense. Sure, we wanted to be our we wanted to be, you know, responsible, the masters of our own fate, right? We wanted that. We wanted that feeling. And so that was the entire impetus for for buying back control, raising the SPV and buying back control from our private equity partners. And you know what? In all of this, it cannot be lost that we give tremendous credit to our private equity partners because there’s a lot of firms out there that would have said, “No way. We’re in this. We’re making tons of money off this deal. No way we’re letting you exit. And they gracefully allowed

us to exit. And they are they have been great partners from the get-go. Yeah. So, I give a ton of credit to Elk Adderton to their entire team, particularly Johnley, who who still sits on our board. Oh, nice. Less as an investor and more as a friend now. Not that he’s not invested in the business, but just he has he has grown into someone that I would trust with my life. And so I give a lot of credit to that team at Elcatterton for having the foresight to say, “Hey, these guys want to do what they’re going to do. They want to get back to that place where they were a little bit more scrappy

as a startup and that’s fine with us. Let’s let’s do it, you know, and exit and take take, you know, the profits that they did make off it and be happy with that.” So yeah. Yeah. So I think initially you wanted to build the company and sell it and at some point you decided no we want to just what was that transition? How did you transition into no we want to keep running it we want to keep building this? I’ll be to be clear I think Nate always wanted to build the business and sell it. I think it was kind of my dream to have something like this. And so as an older brother, I

think there were there was a certain amount of sacrifice that he made to say like, okay, we’ll stick with this for, you know, a little bit longer. We had an we had an offer early on from a big company to be acquired um that we didn’t end up taking because, you know, I think there was a lot of a lot left to be written of our story and a lot a lot of money left on the table, too. So that can’t be overstated. But I think eventually we kind of just fell in love with the business. We kind of just fell in love with the idea of this brand and what we were building and

managing a team and all the lessons learned. Um and so that was, you know, I can’t really point to one moment where there was a drastic shift. I think it was just over time it was kind of just, yeah, we really like doing this. It’s it’s fun. It’s dynamic. It’s there’s new challenges literally every single day. Let’s just stick with it. Yeah. Yeah. What what was the what was the impetus to jump into the women’s side because you’re a men’s brand? Yeah. Yeah. That was our you know our strength forever we said was was the fact that we were a men’s only brand. I think the impetus for jumping into a women’s side of the

business was we hired a new chief product officer, someone that was going to take over product and and lead that team. And she has deep experience in women’s. She designed Athleta’s first like she was with Athleta in the beginning before they sold the Gap and immediately after they sold the Gap. Her name is Kelly Cooper. And you know, when we interviewed her and ultimately hired her, she said, “You guys just let me know when you’re ready to build the best women’s line out there.” And Nate and I kind of looked at each other. We were like, “Why don’t you just start working on it in the background?” You know, if we were to do this

business again, what would we do differently? What we would have done differently is designed and tested for years and years and years if money was no object until we had like the best possible product because there was a lot of pain points in that early on. And then we would have launched with like a more full campaign and you know all these things that we’ve learned, right? Yeah. And we said, well, we kind of had the opportunity to do this. Our men’s business is very healthy. Let’s work on women’s in the background as a as kind of a small project. And when we feel like it’s ready to hit launch, we’ll hit it and we

will go hard at it and and much better position because of where the company we already have distribution channels. We already have wholesale relationships. We already have relationships with our vendors that we can make this product. Um, and we have deep experience on on marketing, on sales, on customer service. I mean, we we felt like we were in the right position finally to do it. Yeah. And so that was the impetus was, you know, you can double the size of your business. And and to date, women’s has grown into a very significant part of our business. I mean, only after about 16 months, it’s just been a little bit over a year that we’ve had

women’s. And you know, it’s it’s really grown in a very healthy and sustainable way and we feel really good about our positioning going into the the next couple of years, which will be pivotal. Was Kelly right? Kelly was absolutely right. Yeah. Nailed it. Nailed it. Nailed it. You mentioned challenges associated with product early on like what what are some of those challenges? What are some of the lessons learned? Well, at the end of the day, if you think about it, you know, our product team is a bunch of human beings that work to design products and then they have to communicate exactly what they want made to other human beings across the world and who

speak a very different language. And then there’s all this time in between where you’re getting samples shipped and shipping back, you know, the the samples with comments like, “We don’t like this and this is measuring off spec.” And you’re also trying to find the right partners. And, you know, there are factories that do things really, really well. Everything’s super buttoned up. We work with, you know, only the best factories in terms of the way they treat their people and the way that they maintain their facilities. Mhm. We do bianual visits to our factory partners just to make sure that everything is being maintained and above board. But at the end of the day, it’s just

it is a very challenging process. It would be much easier if we had the people making the product in the cubicles right next to the people that were designing the product, but that’s just not the way it’s set up. Yeah. Um, and so yeah, you know, you’ll get products in and then there’s there’s very little. And this, you know, before Kelly was on board, we would just get shipped, you know, the actual finished product without it really being checked by anybody outside of the factory. So, it would come in and I, you know, I’d order the short for myself from the website and say, “Uh, excuse me. This short is weird. It has like the

pockets backwards and the sizing’s off and the color is strange and there’s a weird smell in the poly bag and we’d have to pull it off the site and do a huge audit, go back to the manufacturer and say, “Hey, we’re not accepting this. This is not right.” And now we have things put into place so that that doesn’t necessarily happen. Can it still happen? Sure. Right. But we have some checks and balances put into place so that it doesn’t happen nearly as often. Our relationship with our vendors has never been better. Our team’s never been sharper. Um, that being said, there are mistakes definitely that that fall through the cracks and, you know, recalls

on products and all that all that stuff. But our team has really worked to make sure that that is the exception rather than the rule. So, what is the most difficult challenge you face today outside of product? Maybe uh competition. There’s a ton of competition in our space and I feel like they’ve all taken a somewhat different angle on what we do and you know some do things better than others. Um but yeah, like I said, the barriers to entry have never been lower. It feels like everybody I know is starting a clothing brand. I was just thinking about it. Yeah. As we were talking. So, tons of competition. You have me convinced that I

could that I bet you could. I I try not to take it as an insult that so many people are just like, “If this idiot can figure it out, I can definitely figure it out.” Maybe. I mean maybe my origin story is I was inspired by Rome. Yeah. And what they were doing wrong. Yes. Exactly. And in some way that’s a compliment. That’s that’s the that’s the only way you can view it, right? Is is as a compliment for sure. Absolutely. But there you know there are people coming in and and competition on price, right? Like you know I was in um Old Navy the other day. Mhm. And Old Navyy’s active stuff is pretty

solid. Like as as someone who has experience manufacturing active clothing, I went through and I was like, for this price point, this is very good, right? Is it as good as our stuff? No, not even close. These fabrics won’t last nearly as long. Okay. Right. The stitching isn’t as good. The features aren’t as good. You have to cut somewhere. But if you’re selling it for 20 bucks, you absolutely have to cut somewhere. There’s no way they could be selling it with the make and fabric that we put into our stuff, right? But at the same time, that’s what I’m talking about is we are getting competition from all sides. We are getting competition on top

of us that is, you know, pricing pricing up their shorts. There’s there’s one of our competitors that sells active shorts that in my opinion aren’t as good as ours for $130. 130 bucks. And I’m like, who’s buying that, right? And then and then on the other side, Old Navy is selling pretty solid active shorts for, you know, $25. And so there’s competition from every side. It feels like north, south, east, west. It feels like there’s a new brand every single day that’s going after the exact same positioning that we are. And you know, the advantage we have on them is time and infrastructure, but we can’t make the same mistakes as some of the incumbents

in our industry made with us, which was those guys are never going to do anything, right? We can’t make that mistake. So, we have to we have to stay open to learning from what competitors are doing right, but also really lean in where they’re where they’re doing things wrong. Yeah. Yeah. What are the things that you love about what you’re doing today? What are the things that you get excited about every day? Yeah, great question. I think the things that excite me, I love product development. I love watching a product kind of start in the ideation phase and see through to the finished product and getting it, you know, delivered. It I don’t think I

I think I definitely underestimated how much the women’s side of things would delight me. like seeing a product in the ideation phase and then seeing it on my wife and she’s like, I love this. I’m like like that delights me to no end. But it also is is the same with the men’s product. I love, you know, seeing in the ideation phase and then my friend texts me and is like, I just ordered these. I’m so excited about these. My favorite shorts, my favorite pants, whatever. So watching kind of that happen and also building really we’re getting so good at building campaigns around important brand moments and products that that stuff really really excites me

and doing all the all the campaign planning all the collateral working with the right influencers you know making it a a launch that really feels significant is is the stuff that gets me up in the morning. Yeah. Yeah. How how much do you work on uh this the story uh of Ran? So someone who’s purchasing Ran kind of buys into this Yeah. culture. It’s a good question. So we have almost 30 retail shops and our retail shops do so much so well. The one thing they don’t do is that. And it’s really tricky because I hate word art. I hate like words on a wall. I just don’t It just doesn’t to me it’s not

an experience. It’s just a hey, we’re inviting you to read this thing and take something from it. You know what I mean? So like brands do this all the time where they’ll have like a big story on the wall and I think some people stop and look at it, some people stop and read it. For me, I I just don’t think that’s the right way to translate to the customer what we’re all about. So, we’ve really leaned into the fact that the the stores showcase the product and I think our product should speak to you about what kind of brand we are, right? We’re a brand that stands for quality. We’re a brand that stands

for an active life. We’re a brand that stands for something a little bit more elevated, a little bit more premium. And my hope was like the product alone would tell you everything you need to know about the brand. Mhm. So, we’re at this phase now where as we are expanding our retail footprint, which will happen in the next few years, trying to really isolate what else can we do? What else can we put into the space to really give the customer that feeling without spelling it out for you on the wall? So, it’s it’s actually interesting you ask that because it’s a current deep dive that we’re really undertaking. And it’s easy to do on

the website. It’s easy to do an about us page and tell you all these things on the website or introduce videos or content that tell you these things. And the people that want to know can find that stuff very easily. And then there’s other people that are like, “Dude, I don’t care. I just want to button up, right?” Um, and I I’m the I’m the former. I’m the guy that wants to know. I want to be aligned with the brand. So, one company that you that still does this and used to do this really well is Northace. And but totally agree. But here’s the interesting thing. Northface will will have a guy out in sub

freezing temperatures with his beard frozen. Yeah. Wearing his jacket with a caption like I’ve never been warmer than in my in the, you know, Antarctic, wherever I am with my Northace jacket. And I always thought to myself, if I wanted to be that guy, then I would wear Northace. I just didn’t want to be that guy. Like, so I didn’t align that way with the brand. But like I want to know I want to know the story associated with the brand. I want to be aligned with the brand that you’re wearing. And it could be lots of different things. It could be c I mean Allan Edmonds has a a terrific history in you know

the craftsmanship and it’s handmade and the pictures or people working with their hands and redoing souls and you know I don’t know how many presidents of the United States have worn Alen. So, you know, you align with you align with stuff like that. You talked about storytelling earlier and I think that’s important. It is important. So, yeah, there’s a few things we do and there’s a few things that we’re rolling out for next year. Um, one thing I will say back just flashing back to the product is on all of our men’s products, we put quotes from inspirational figures. And I think that that is like an important part of our DNA. Every person that’s

ever taken over a product is like, “Hey, can we get rid of these? they’re costing us a quarter every time. And I’m like, “No, over my dead body. Get rid of those.” And then on the women’s side, you know, Kelly’s feedback was, “Hey, I don’t I’m not sure women like love quotes the way that men love quotes, but you know what women do love is affirmations.” And I kind of just had to trust her. I was like, “Okay, I’m I’m willing to.” So, on all of our women’s products, there are affirmations. I am stronger. I am worth it, right? I All these things. They’ve thought of some really great ones. Um and and again I

think it gives it gives this nice dimension to our brand where we don’t and this was a very key part of our women’s launch. I said we will not I will not stand by while we talk to women the same way that we’ve talked to men for years. We will have concentric circles. There were messages that are right in the middle that make sense for both people. Then there are messages that only make sense for men. Then there are messages that only make sense for women on a broad basis. Obviously, there’s crossover, but it it gave a nice dimension to the brand. And you know, our our branding agency was like, well, remember, you can’t

be everything to everybody. And I was like, watch us. We absolutely can. I was like, if we do this in the right way, we absolutely can. And I think we’ve done a really great job. There are events we do that are just for men. There are events we do that are just for women. Mhm. There’s events that we do that have crossover in both. And I think that that’s an important way to present yourself as a brand. these in this day and age because Yeah. It would be it would be crazy to discount those unique differences and say everybody’s the same. Yeah. Right. Messages about especially as we talk about mental and physical health. There

are very unique differences in the way that men and women take care of themselves both mentally and physically. We have to honor both of those things and we have to as a brand who really genuinely cares about that stuff. We have to present them in in somewhat different ways. Did you did did you design Ran with the idea that mental health awareness especially for men is was significant to the brand? It was something we started to talk about very very early on. I think we were one of the earliest brands to really talk about it. But I want to be clear the way that mental health awareness is talked about a lot these days is

in a disease state. Right? Let’s talk about people that have anxiety and depression. Mhm. We don’t talk about it like that. The way we talk about it is everybody wakes up, everybody has hard days, everybody has days where they feel a little bit out of sorts, right? The way we talk about mental and physical health is similar to the way that we, you know, that we that your dentist might talk about flossing, right? You do it every single day so that hopefully you don’t get any cavities or crowns or anything that’s bad. We talk about kind of the daily wins, the daily habits that you can build into your life so that you take care

of your mental and physical health because they’re intimately connected, right? One without the other is is incomplete. So you wake up and you find the best way to move and to sweat and to eat and to live and then to think and meditate and be grateful for you. You integrate all of those things in and you’re looking at a more to borrow a term that has just been completely you know overwhelmed and for lack of a better term just distorted in in the world. but a more holistic way to look at a human being because you know the other the incumbents in our industry we’re talking we’re all talking about performance you have a body

you’re an athlete this is what LeBron James is doing you should be doing the same thing that’s ridiculous right you don’t need the shoes that he’s wearing he’s he’s putting a lot more stress on those feet than you are you don’t need that stuff we need to treat ourselves as you know as human beings we need to take care of the entire picture So, we talk about kind of these small wins and daily habits that you can do to to maintain your mental and physical health so that if you go down a road where you know, god forbid you you’re dealing with serious anxiety or depression, hopefully you can halter, you know, you can you

can flash back to those habits and you can say to yourself, okay, what can I do to kind of pull myself out of this? and and if you want, you know, real resources about treatment, about diagnosis, those exist and they’re out there and we support people finding those. But we’re a clothing brand. We’re just trying to talk about, you know, the small ways that people can take care take better care of Sure. with messaging and with messaging and content and storytelling. Yeah. Yeah. And and events, inerson events are a big part of and it’s more uh it’s more preventative. It’s not like prescriptive. So, you know, when you’re depressed, it’s like, well, you should have

been doing all this the whole time. It’s like, you should be doing all of these things all the time. These are the things that lead to a healthier, happier lifestyle. And if clothing can help you get there, cuz I’m a big believer in that. I know people find that maybe like a little bit of a a stretch. I think you’re exactly right. I’ve had, you know, I have a I have a current a friend currently who’s who’s going through a weight loss journey right now. And he was like, “Dude, my worry is I barely fit into the rone stuff now.” Mhm. And I was like, “Hey, let me tell you something. Buy the rone stuff

now. If it makes you feel better, makes you feel like you want to go to the gym, gives you that motivation to, you know, start that weight loss journey.” I said, “When you get down to whatever size you end up at, I will buy you new stuff.” Right? That’s what it’s all about. It’s it’s that idea of if it can motivate you. That’s a my mom always says it’s a high class problem. It’s kind of been translated to like first world problem. She always says it’s a high you know. I’m like mom none of my clothes fit. She’s like that’s a high class problem. That’s great. Size down. It’s so good. You know um and

so that’s what I told him. I was like that’s a high class problem and when you get to the weight that you feel really good at. I was like I’ll buy you and comfortable in and comfortable in I’ll buy you clothes. And being comfortable in your clothes is super meaningful. I think I lots of people dress a certain way because that’s their comfort level that gives them confidence. You know, there’s nothing worse than going to particularly a gym. There’s nothing worse than going to a gym and not feeling comfortable in what you’re wearing and having to think about that while you’re thinking about the other things. Like I said to you, working out for me

is meditative. It should just be like that’s what I love best about our clothing is it kind of feels like it’s not there. It kind of feels like it just fades into the background and you can focus on being present in the moment. Well, I’m new. I’ve known Ran for a long time. I’m new to We’re going to We’re going to convert you. Yeah. So, and I’m very particular like Good. I We love that. I I can’t be tugging on my shorts for an hour when I’m in. They just need to be there. Like it just they just need to function. Yeah. You know, and they need to have a nice pocket for, you know,

Yeah. for the stuff. For the stuff. Yeah. Yeah, you got it. Okay, let’s By the way, thanks for all your time. Of course. Super Yeah, we’re good. Super insightful. I love your story. It’s a great story. You’ll have to come back. I There’s much more to talk about, so you’ll have to come back and see us. But let me just let me just ask you a few Yeah. really important questions. Are you a 7 in or a 9 in or do you do a 5 in? So, I’m a little bit shorter. I’m 5’9. Uh-huh. I’m It depends on what I’m going for. Uhhuh. If I’m going out with my wife, I want to wear probably

a nine or a 7 in. Uhhuh. Right. Cuz you don’t want to look like a school boy when you’re going out to a summer dinner, for example. If I’m in the gym, I do like a 5 in. I I will be honest, it took a little bit of coaxing. And I’m not saying you have to get there, but it’s nice to have that range of of movement. And you know, I don’t I don’t mind a 5 inch. [clears throat] I can’t do it. We might be able to get you there. Well, I can’t do it. I can’t even do it. I’ll tell you what. If you have I’m a 9 in for sure. If you

have a bigger butt and thighs, 5 in the way. No, there’s Yes, there’s absolutely. Okay, I’ll try it because you’re saying it. I’m telling you, but and you’re the expert, but I’m just telling you I’m a 9 in. Here’s the other thing. How tall are you? Five. Six feet. You’re six foot. Yeah. Okay. I was gonna say 5’11. So, you don’t have this problem. But as a 5’9, the 5 in make me look taller. It is like an optical illusion cuz you have more legs sticking out of your Yeah. Sure. Yeah. I guess I could see that. So, a little bit of my insecurity coming out, but you know, I’m okay with that. Oh. What’s

the What’s your favorite product you’ve ever produced? Oo. Favorite product that we’ve ever produced. That’s man that’s a really tough one. Um there’s a short we have right now called the Invicta short. It’s a great short. It’s an active short. It’s a rip stop. Do you know what a riptop is? I wouldn’t have known what a rip stop was. So I only ask because so riptop is used a lot in kind of like outdoorsy type clothing. It has like a grid pattern and it’s usually very nonstretchy but it’s really tough. Like you could literally scrape it against rocks and it’s not going to, you know, it’s it’s not going to be scratched up or put

holes in it. We searched for years to find the right rip stop that was super stretchy, super soft, but also like tough as nails. Mhm. And it was one of those times where I had to product test it and one of the things they wanted me to do was like go hiking and it really beat it up. So I literally sat on my bum at one point and slid down some rocks. Oh yeah, these shorts were like brand new. Nothing. Nothing. And to me, I don’t think they get the credit they deserve. They are the greatest. Everybody that I’ve ever like turned on to the Invicta short says, “These are the best gym shorts ever.

They’re super soft. They’re super stretchy, but I feel like I could beat them to hell and they’d be fine.” And like that is absolutely true. They are so tough, but they are also very soft. And do they come in a 9 in? They come in a seven. So, I’m going to get you into the seven. We’re going to get you into a seven. They also come in a pant. So, maybe I’ll send you the pant. I am I’m hard to fit. I’m just I’m telling you up front. I know. I’m a difficult fit. Okay. I know you do. Yeah. I know you do. Do you think about Rome on a daily basis? The Roman Empire.

Yeah. Yeah. I really do. So, I love Why is that? Like people ask that question and I’m like the same. I’m like, “Yeah, I so I think it’s Gladiator’s fault because it was the first, at least for me, it was like the first movie I saw where I was like, oh, this is this is like what a movie can be, right?” Grew up on like Disney movies and still love those. But when I saw Gladiator, I was like, “Oh, that’s like that’s a different gear that we’re hitting.” And then that got me into Marcus Reelius. And so like stoicism and philosophy and stuff like that. I love Marcus really just an incredible figure and actually

the movie’s depiction of him feels very authentic authentic to who he was which is rare for a movie like that. Mhm. Gladiator 2 by the way biggest disappointment of my life. Awful. Awful because I Here’s You want to know my Here’s my take on it. And I love Denzel Washington. I love a lot of those guys. I love Pedro Pascal. I love uh Paul what’s his name? Mascow, I think is his last name, the main actor. Here’s what they should have done. You want to know what they should have done? They should have done a prequel. Called it Maximus. Oh. And he should have played Maximus as a young soldier becoming a general with Marcus

Aurelius. With Marcus Aurelius. Yeah. And you still could have had Denzel in there. Sure. If you wanted to. Yeah, why not? He’s But that story line was awful. It was terrible. The the mom Yeah. was so that character was such a disappoint. It wasn’t that wasn’t it. Yeah, it was bad. Anyways, um Okay, so yeah, the Roman Empire I think you know every day probably not every day but a couple times a week at minimum. Yeah. Yeah. What do you what do you read about do you read about Marcus? What about actually Andrew my brother gave me um it’s called the Daily Stoic. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s great. That’s is that is that the

one by Ryan Holiday? Yeah. And so it has, you know, 365 meditations. I don’t get to it every day, but when I do, I always find something. I know. It’s something to write on the board or something to take a note of. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I think I think more about the idea that they were, you know, that they were deep thinkers, that their leaders were deep thinkers. That would be nice if we had that going on. Well, I mean, I think not to get political, but not to get political. I’m talking about I’m talking about both sides of the of the aisle. I understand. Yeah. I think generally we could say that. I

just think the men the men and women that used to lead were the ones who were innovators and deep thinkers. And now we have what I think John Stewart described it best, and it’s actually one of Spencer’s favorite quotes. You might have heard it. He calls DC Hollywood for ugly people. I think that is so spot on. I think these are people that were like, I really want to be famous, but I don’t have the looks of a Hollywood actor, so like what what can I do? Yeah, I can kind of spin a That’s what we have. Yeah, I think that’s what we have going on now. that could so I love the fact that

you know the people that led them were deep thinkers, philosophers, artists, poets, you know that that stuff is written off now as like soft and floofy when in reality the basis of our country was like I mean Teddy Roosevelt deeply cared about literature was very well read Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln George Washington I mean there all of the John Adams you could probably say that about all of the founding fathers Thomas Jefferson obviously judging them by today’s standards like definitely had some things that we don’t agree with. But yes, for their time, but you have to do it era by era, which is very hard to separate out. But for their time, they were deep

thinkers. They were more open-minded than a lot of other people. And you know, I think they really understood history and art and in a in a way that we might not appreciate. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Uh, favorite Walt Whitman poem, Song of the Open Road. Have you memorized it? I haven’t. It’s very long. It’s like Yeah, it’s it’s it’s exceptionally long. But that’s the one Forever Forward. That’s the one that Forever Forward appears in. Yeah. He says at the end, Forever Forward, Forever Alive or Forever Forever Forward. Forever alive. The road lies before us. Is Walt Whitman did he write Oh Country, my country? Something like that? Oh, captain. My captain. So, yes. Yes. I was

so close. Yeah. So, he was the poet laurate during Lincoln’s presidency. And during the Civil War, he would go and visit soldiers in camps that were dying. And he would sit by their bedside and he would write their families letters, like kind of their last letters. And he, you know, he did a lot of amazing amazing things. Um actually our our second son is named Walter after wall women. So um yeah I I deeply respect and appreciate him. There’s there’s a lot of great books that you can read about his life. He was he was a unique guy and the way that he saw you know he lived in Manhattan [clears throat] and at that

time Manhattan was pretty disgusting. Mhm. Even more disgusting than it is now which is amazing. Um but he just you know he didn’t see the poverty and the filth and the dichotomy between rich and poor. He just saw beauty in the everyday. So a lot of his poems are about just simple observations he made about the beauty of life and living and the beauty of like cities and also nature and he was just he was a very unique he had a very unique perspective. Yeah. Um, and that poem, oh Captain, my captain, is is a beautiful tribute to Lincoln who he loved dearly. You know, you mentioned that. I think that is a great tagline

for maybe you did that subconsciously, but a great tagline for Ran like the quality of the clothing and the things that you produce is like that’s the beauty. You’re seeing the beauty in every day. It’s your everyday wear that you can put on wherever you’re Well, and also exactly what I said like um you never have to worry about feeling comfortable looking good. So, it’s to me actually and we are we are kind of toying with a few taglines and campaigns like this. To me, it’s about like that stuff fading into the background and you being able to focus on what’s in front of you, not your clothing. Yeah. Yeah, cuz how many times like

it’s like, you know, it’s like going to a costume party and not wearing a costume, right? You feel terrible. Like that’s there’s no worse feeling. Well, I guess it would be worse going to a party that you thought was a costume party and being wearing, you know, having a costume on and nobody else is wearing a that would be worse. That would be worse. But if you go through every day feeling like a tenth of that of like, man, I wish I had I’m pulling down my shorts in the gym. I hate that. Like I you can’t focus on anything else. Exactly. So, we’re trying to we’re trying to streamline your clothing so that you

can focus on your Yeah. You don’t have to worry about are my pants an inch too short? Yeah. It’s one of the most uncomfortable things. Okay. For sure. What’s next for Ran? What’s on the vision board? Well, it’s a good question. Um, we’re we’re doubling down on what we’re doing. You know, it’s it feels like it’s time to stop thinking about like what’s the next big step and just really trying to strengthen where we’re already strong, right? And maybe patch up a few of the holes that are, you know, where there’s leaks type of a thing. Um, so it’s a boring answer, but it’s really just getting better at what we’re doing. There’s a mantra

in our com our company right now that’s fewer, better, bigger. And that goes for product, that goes for campaigns, that goes for influencers, it’s for everything. So fewer, better, bigger. The idea is that you’ll hear about Ron a lot in maybe surprising ways. And you know, we hope people continue to to invest in us the way that we’re investing in our customers. And so we want feedback, we want interaction, we want that stuff because it’s the only way to get better. Yeah, absolutely. Ben, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you. You’ve been fantastic. Thanks for having me. loved I love the conversation. Come back and see us sometime. Where where can people find you? Where can

people find the company? So the best place to to find our entire selection is ran.com. rh. And then we are in Dillards, we are in Nordstrom’s, we are in Shields, we are, you know, in a lot of different wholesale uh accounts and then of course we have, you know, like I mentioned nearly 30 of our own retail stores in select cities throughout the country. So, um, Boston, New York, DC, a few in Connecticut, Chicago, Miami, uh, Jacksonville, Houston, Dallas, LA, Century City, and Newport Beach, uh, Denver and Cherry Creek, um, and, you know, more more to be open soon. Amazing. Well, next time we sit down, hopefully I’ll have an opportunity to do some testing

of the gear and I’ll give you a very I think we could make that an entire episode. That would be Frank tries on clothes. We could do that. All right, my man Ben. Thank you. Hey, thank you. Thank you for listening to the Know Your Ship podcast presented by EHUB. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review.