How I Built This with Guy Raz - HOKA: Jean-Luc Diard and Nicolas Mermoud. The “Clown Shoe” That Became a $2B Bonanza

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

In the late 2000s, two French mountain athletes set out to build a running shoe that captured the feeling of flying. Jean-Luc Diard and Nicolas “Nico” Mermoud had spent decades inside the innovation engine at Salomon—where product was obsession. In 2007, as Nico recovered from a brutal ultramarathon around Mont Blanc, the founders fixed on a problem that Big Footwear didn’t care about: downhill running was destroying bodies. Their solution: make the shoe bigger, softer, and shaped like a rocker.At first, their prototypes looked like clown shoes. Runners who preferred minimalist footwear laughed at them. Retailers said no. But the founders kept doing the one thing that they knew could reverse things: they made people try them.HOKA went from under $3M in sales in 2012 to more than $2B a year—and in this episode, you’ll hear how it happened: the risky design, the early cash crunch, and the strategic partnership that helped them win the U.S. market.What you’ll learn:How to think of a shoe as a machine, not just a piece of apparelThe go-to-market weapon that worked: relentless demo-ing Why outside money can’t always solve a cash flow bottleneck (and what does)How HOKA used performance proof to avoid being dismissed as a gimmickWhy HOKA partnered with Deckers—and why it wasn’t just about capitalHow to keep a “rebel” mindset as competitors start copying youTimestamps:(Timecodes are approximate and may shift depending on platform.)[07:12] George Salomon’s leadership lesson: the CEO who sought advice from an intern[11:11] Nico’s first day at Salomon: testing ski prototypes on a glacier[18:42] The ultramarathon race where Nico’s legs crumbled (and why)[21:29] A breakthrough insight: performance changes with surface (leaves, lava, snow)[31:25] Designing a sneaker as if it were a car: engine, tires, seat[40:00] The “clown shoe” prototype—and the first successful run [47:22] Elite runners kickstart the brand [49:02] The hard part nobody glamorizes: factory minimums, bank demands, anemic cash flow[53:31] Deckers enters: the minority investment that unlocks the U.S. (without killing the brand)Hey—want to be a guest on HIBT?If you’re building a business, why not get advice from some of the greatest entrepreneurs on Earth?Every Thursday on the HIBT Advice Line, a previous HIBT guest helps new entrepreneurs work through the challenges they’re facing right now. Advice that’s smart, actionable, and absolutely free.Just call 1-800-433-1298, leave a message, and you may soon get guidance from someone who started where you did, and went on to build something massive.So—give us a call. We can’t wait to hear what you’re working on.***This episode was produced and researched by Rommel Wood with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei.It was edited by Neva Grant. Our engineers were Patrick Murray and Kwesi Lee. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And together, we help real entrepreneurs, people selling skin care, dog toys, pottery food, whatever. We help them work through the challenges they're facing right now. And the best part, this kind of advice world-class battle-tested is completely free. All you have to do is call 1-800-433-1298. Tell us what you're building in under a minute, and you might be the next guest on the advice line. So give us a call or send us a voice memo to hibt at id.wondery.com. And tell us how we can help you. Was there any possibility that you could have raised money?

Was there a culture? Was there a culture of being able to raise money from venture or investors in France at the time? There were people that were knocking at the door to say, I'm happy to invest into it. But the thing is that if we just have additional money, it's not going to bring much more. We need to have people try the products. Everything in marketing, there is only one thing in marketing that we have to do, that you have to go to a multitude of places and make people try. And that's not what you get from any investor.

Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how a crushing end to a race in the French Alps led to the launch of Hoka, a pillowy sneaker that now does over $2 billion in sales each year. Sometime around the 2010s, sneakers started to change. change. They got bigger, and they started to look almost like inflatable rafts with these thick, pillowy souls. Now, this was not intended to be about fashion, although thick-sold sneakers did become a fashion accessory, but originally it was all about comfort and performance.

And that change was ignited by two companies, both founded in Europe about a year apart. Both brands were started by elite runners, and both of them believe that. that more protection, more cushioning, could actually improve your running. One of those brands was on. It's a story we told on this show back in 2024. And the other brand was Hoka, the subject of today's episode. When Hoka's shoes first appeared in late 2009, they looked, well, just weird. The midsoles were unusually thick.

The sole curved like the bottom of a rocking chair. and at first glance, they kind of resembled clown shoes. In fact, that's what some professional runners called them in the beginning. But that look wasn't an accident. The founders didn't think of a running shoe as a piece of apparel. They thought of it like a machine, every single part doing a specific job, and every detail meticulously engineered. And it took time for people to get it, but once they did,

The brand exploded. In 2012, Hoka was doing less than $3 million in sales a year. Today, it generates more than $2 billion. At the center of the story are two men who grew up not too far from each other in the French Alps, Jean-Luc Diyard and Nicolae Mermou. In 1980, when he was just 23 years old, Jean-Luc joined a legendary French company called Salomon, back when it was known primarily for ski bindings.

And there, early in his career, he encountered someone who would shape the way he thought about building things and leading people. And that person was the namesake of the company, George Solomon. The special thing with this person who was an amazing entrepreneur was that he was very close to everyone. So he would come to the office in the evening where I was and say, so what are you working on? and what have you learned, et cetera. And then one day it was at the French national championships of skiing. He was there, and he caught me at the end of the race. You were racing.

Yeah, I was racing. You were on the team? I was in the team of students, but not into the... But you were in this race. Yeah, yeah, I was in that race. And he said to me, why don't you race with our ski boots? And I need to understand why. Why don't you come with me into the car

and we'll go down to the ski boot division and you'll explain why. I was freaking out. But obviously that was an amazing sign of how much he wanted to learn, what could be improved. And those are the things that stay into your mind. I mean, the CEO owner, let's say,

of that company come to an intern, bring him to the ski boot division and say, we're going to talk about those things. So this would begin a long career at Salomon, 1980 as an intern, you would eventually, we're going to get to it, you'd eventually become the CEO, president's CEO. And then I think in 1986, you are put in charge of product for this new product, which is going to be skis. Which is going to really blow the whole, I mean, transform this brand. It's going to make it into a brand that is like Burton.

I mean, it was going to become a huge brand. Yes, yeah, because the ski is the king product. So, and then there was the big aspect that that I was anticipating the fact that skis and bindings would become one unit and not being completely separate elements. It used to be that you bought the skis, you bought the bindings, you would connect them, right. Now you just buy everything all together. So the big argument that I had at that time was to say this is what is going to happen. So if we don't get into it, we're going to be left aside. It's hard to imagine that that it was not that long ago.

And we're talking about, you know, 30, 40 years ago, that you would still buy them separately, these components. And Salomon was a bindings brand. And then they weren't sure if they should get into skis. But it just seems like an obvious today, you know, in hindsight, it seems totally obvious. Many of the brands at the beginning were like very, very specialized. You could say the same in the bike industry.

or things like that. And so you were an alpine ski binding company, an alpine ski boot company or an alpine ski company. Got it. Okay, I want to turn to you now, Nico, because I think you were 20 years old when you first met Jean-Luc. You were still at university. Yes.

And I guess you were at a ski race. You were racing. And from what I understand, you met Jean-Luc, because he was there recruiting people to work on this new ski that Solomon was developing. Is that right? Yes. You have to understand

at that time, the aura around Solomon was unbelievable. George Solomon was the ultimate, I mean, beyond. Legend. Beyond the sports.

And he was like this amazing person who was a genius. So it was like a dream company, especially for someone who loves, so I talked to Jean-Luc and I said,

I'd like to come join you when I'm done studying and he said well I mean just finish your studies and we can talk again in two years and a half and finally Nico you graduate and you join Salomon tell me about about so you contact Jean-Luc and you say okay I'm done I'm ready yeah but the most funny part is it was my first day at the office you know so we met on the parking lot and then we drive to a glacier in here like in the Mont Blanche, Chamonie Valley. And we test different prototypes. We compare them.

This is your first day. That was my first day. So two takes from that day. The first one, of course, is that's what I want to do all my life, you know. I want to wake up and go do what I love and get paid. And get paid and with a bunch of super nice, fun colleagues who will become friends. You know? That's the first one.

And the second one is that as soon as we sat down after the test, we were talking about the feel. We're talking about the sensations, the emotion we'd had in between the snow, our feet, our brain. Everybody equal, everybody trying to solve a problem with no sense of hierarchy. This has never changed. And how did, by the way, how did that first, those first few skis do? Were they a hit? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. It was a big big hit. Just to put it in perspective, I mean, it took us six years to be number one in terms of global sales, global revenues on the ski side. That's the power of innovation. And it's the power of young blood, but then being always extremely critical toward what you do. That's the constant process, but never being satisfied. I think it's very French. It's very mountain people, authenticity, you know, not to get impressed, not to get overconfident. And we have sometimes this reputation in France to be a bit critical and to be unsatisfied.

It's not always pleasant when you go to a restaurant or you get in a taxi in Paris. I love the French, but there is a malaise sometimes that you experience with the French. Yes, but when it comes to innovation, especially if you mix it with our background. as Mountaintiff people, Salomon embraced it and decided to jump to the next level. But you can miss opportunities. You can miss when you're too focused on your own success and what you're doing and you want to follow your path. And it's always important to listen to the consumers and to look very closely at what

the competitors are doing. Yeah. Sean, look, you would spend 27 years at Salomon, ultimately, and you became the CEO in 1998, when you became CEO of this group, because you saw Salomon go from a bindings company to a bindings and boots company to a binding boots and ski company, then eventually summer and winter sports company. I mean, running shoes and apparel, Arctericks apparel, and even cycling and all these things. Can you give me a sense of from the time you joined Salomon in 1980, 81, to the time you left, which we'll get to, what was the revenue? What was the revenue?

you from the beginning and then what was it at the end? It was not even, it was below 100 million. It was, I think, in the 70 to 80 million when I joined. And then when I left, the group was about 1.2 million. Wow. Yeah. So a completely different company. Very different.

I mean, just an explosion in growth. Yeah. All right. I want to jump to 2007 because this was going to be your last year at Salomon. From what I understand, you go to in 2007, you're at the outdoor retailer trade show. This is in Europe or in the U.S.? Yes. Okay.

And already at that point, there were trends happening in all across sports. I guess just kind of oversized larger things, right? Yes, larger and lighter. It's one of those things that every time you get out at a trade show and you have things that all of a sudden jump a little bit more in your face. Yeah. What are some examples that you were saying? Take tailor-made golf clubs. Just to take an example, the first tailor-made golf club heads, they were 200 CC.

And then gradually they moved to 300, then to 350. The golf heads were just getting bigger and bigger. Bigger and bigger. And as they grew bigger, the products was that they grew lighter at the same time. And they gave not only more performance, but they gave also more tolerance. It made it easier to hit the ball, heart, farther. Farther or straighter. So all those things led to better performance.

In skis, the same way. Skis had become wider. And what did that mean? What did wider skis mean for? You get a combination of stability on the one side, which is kind of the way you feel relaxed if you want. But at the same time, combined with other parameters, it's still enabled to care really well.

So that's one example. Well, bike wheels became much bigger. Mountain bike wheels. Thicker. The profile of the rims. If you are a biker, I mean, you became much more aerodynamic. And we can name a lot of things like that where we saw that oversize and lighter enabled to change paradoxes, to change proddings.

And you brought performance more, let's say, to the bigger, to a bigger group. All of these things are kind of. swirling around. Like if I'm looking at the movie about your life, you're walking down the street and all these bubbles are just like the, you know, the larger size. And mean, yeah, good. Everything that's also a little bit at that time, the design, like the style, the impact on the eye was generates questions and interest, whether it's, it's negative or positive.

Look at those big tires. Look at those fat skis. Look at those big golf clubs. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I want to turn to you now, Nico, because I think you were, you're going to run this ultra marathon, this ultra trail du Mont Blanc. Okay, so you do this. This is 2007. It's 101 miles around Montblanc. First of all, were you, I mean, we've only talked about skiing and winter sports. Had you, I'm assuming you got into running at some point in your life. Very surprisingly, I ski raced for many years, I became more of an athlete and an elite athlete in endurance sports. And then it went to adventure racing, and then it went to trail running.

You would do it in like one to two days. So you got into this in your 30s almost into trail running. Trail running, I started my first serious trail race. I was 40. 40, wow. You do this insane ultramarathon, which I guess today, 6,000. people start. You're going to run around Mount Blanc. And Jean-Luc, you, you're going to be part of his crew. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And the crew meant like handing him water or snacks while he was running past you.

And poles and jackets and whatever. And effectively, the first thing that you are depleted from is water and food. And the first, by the very first moment already, I mean, he, he started like crazy, way ahead of the pack. That was a huge surprise. You were an amateur, but you were in the lead I read for the first 15 hours of this race. You were in the lead.

Yes, I was in the lead. I just took off. And then the Saturday at like 4 p.m. It was over because I ended up doing 22 hours and coming in third. 22 hours coming in third. Yes. And these isn't one pair of shoes

the whole time, right? Or do you switch shoes? Yeah, I didn't switch. And how did you, I mean, this is 101 miles, you're pounding, you're constantly pounding your joints, your body. I mean, you must have been just spent, wiped. Well, I fell apart. That's why I didn't win.

Because I tried to do everything. I was getting chased by 2,500 people. I could see the headlamps, and I ran down the way I would normally ski or drive. But I had no technology. I had like a very thin So my body fell apart Were you in excruciating pain the last I couldn't I lost one hour in the last 30K

How? What was happening? Because my quads shut down So you were You were like jelly Your legs were You cannot create the speed You cannot lift up your feet

So your brain is saying Your brain is telling your legs to move But they cannot move My legs are telling my brain To stop with pain It's the other way around. Because when you're going downhill, you're using more of your... You're breaking.

Right. And so you're putting more strain on your quads. I think then when you're going up, up is more calves. I guess it depends on how you run. Yeah. Your quads, your knees, I mean, take a lot. Your knees, right, when you're going down. Your back takes a lot.

Yeah. I mean, I can picture so many times because as a kid, you know, you love running down grass hills or even when I hike now, I'm always very careful when I'm going downhill because I don't want to fall. I don't want to slip. And so really, the conclusion you come to is that the downhill side, this is a technology problem. This can actually be solved. To your point, Guy, as a kid, every time you see a little run down, what do you do?

You run. You run. You run. And typically you have your arms wide open and you laugh and you fall sometimes. But you have fun. There are days you fly. It doesn't matter which, that's why you have this expression, like, which sticks with runners, with bikers, with anyone.

Today I was flying. So how do you get back to that? Right. And I think one of the things you began to sort of, to kind of document, right, is that a runner's performance changes depending on the surface that they're running on during a race, right? Like not all trails feel the same under your feet, right? Yes. It was one in the fall with a lot of dead leaves.

Dead leaves. There was one... Dead leaves. You're running. So you had a cushioning from the leaves. There was one very important one in 2000 during an adventure race in Sicily on lava. So it was soft. Yeah.

There was one a couple of times like gliding on snow. And you see the big difference that there is between when you are in those situations compared to when you are in other situations where you are just pounding hard. It's a legend that we were a serious. enthusiastic runners before hockey. We were lazy because it was so hard and one step at the time compared to anything else we would do. Okay. So you guys start to have this conversation. And what, I mean, you, what do you remember?

You said to Jean-Luc or you said to Nico said, well, why don't we develop, why don't we try to build a shoe that solves this problem? Do you remember how you came to this? We had this desire. to do something together. We had like a field which seemed fantastic, which is footwear, because it's a huge market. Nothing really had been done for so long.

So what was the next step? Then in order to make things happen, we started to create a design center, let's say a development center with people coming that had some know-how. And so we had different people, let's say, on the topic at the beginning before we start tuning the things. Okay. So you, and was any part of you, Jean-Luc, nervous?

I mean, you had, because when you're the CEO of a big company, you've got all kinds of resources at your disposal, and you've got all kinds of people and staff and a huge organization, what were the challenges you were facing personally to do this? because you would have to put in money and your reputation. And all of a sudden, you know, it's you're going to be calling and picking up the phones. And, you know, it's a different. It's, so tell me a little bit about what that was like for you. Yeah. So on the one side, you have the excitement of starting a new adventure, clearly.

The second thing is that you know that those adventurers have 80% plus chances of failure. So you just take that into account. And then the other thing is to fix boundaries when it comes to the investments that you are going to do. So here you need to be very clear with your family about how much you are going to put into it. You guys were going to put your money. You were not going to go raise money. That's one thing. And obviously not everyone was believing that the two of us could do something together.

Who was? I mean, I would believe it. You were the head of set. You guys had a great track record. Most people around us would say, Are you sure it can work? But that's fine. That's the usual thing that you face. So this is why in order to make something,

you have to have, let's say, first, a great team around you. So that was the first thing to say, who are the people that can bring that to life? But that group, which costs a lot of money every day, You had to pay salaries and you had to pay rent and you had to pay all of that. So you rented space in INC? Yes. And was this like, was it a small office with like labs like tables and cutting equipment to cut?

Exactly. So small office space, small tools, small things, I mean to do things, knowing that in footwear, the innovators are also the suppliers. They are the people who are providing you with the foam formulations, with the different materials, et cetera. So what we had, we had connections with a lot of people outside. So those people would give us, let's say, like the first step of credibility to get it going, even if they had eyes like this when we showed where we wanted to go. But at least they said, okay, we'll give it a try. When we come back in just a moment,

Nico takes an early version of Hokas to a trail race, and even he has to admit, they kind of look like clown shoes. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2008, and Jean-Luc and Nico have set up a design studio in Anasi in the French Alps to develop a new kind of running shoe. But this very first version isn't really a sneaker. It's more like a piece of foam that you'd strap to the bottom of your shoe. shoes for downhill running. They were like, maybe people will go to the mountains and they would drive up or they will ride the gondola up

and they will just trap their equipment when they get to the town and they will fly down the mountains. So it was pushing the envelope to the extreme of a new sport which would be downhill running. And that's when they were these idea of straps, but A, the straps wouldn't work because your foot would So you never made a prototype. We made prototypes, but it didn't work much. Okay. Do you have a name for the shoe from the beginning or would that come later? So the name, Hoka, most important thing is we wanted to portray flying.

I had been to New Zealand a few times. Hoka is a, I think, is a Maori word, right? What does it mean? So Hoka is flying. Onee-one is like the element, the dirt. Flying, soaring. there's many ways to say it in Mara. Hoka Onee,one.

Most people saw it as Hoka-1-1. Yes, because it's the feeling that we wanted to describe. Everything was based, once again, on the notion of flow and flying. Okay. Everything. And that was linked to the fact that what we had stated was a name that would have four letters, two syllables. Hoka, yeah. And the best, let's say, places where we had in terms,

enjoyed the most adventure racing were on the islands. And so we wanted to take that positioning of being associated to the islands. We found that there was no brands associated with it, that it was completely different types of positioning, and that you had everything, C2 Summit, let's say, with every kind of terrain. Sky to C. Great, because at that time, you would think, given your backgrounds, you know, trail running, you might think of like Boulder, Colorado, right? you might think of like that, but you wanted to get away from that. Yes. You wanted to be more of people to think of an island, which is interesting.

So clearly there's this kind of mood board you're kind of working, working through. But let's talk about the design. Tell me about this idea of mid souls, right? Because I think midsole, and it's literally the middle of the soul, there hadn't really been much thought put into midsole innovation at the time. The midsole, and it's much more true now that it was like 20 years ago, it's the engine and the body of the footwear. And your foot sits inside the car, which is a midsole, and there is a tire underneath which creates a connection and the grip and the connection with the ground. And there is like a seat and a seat belt, which is the upper.

But we were looking at it like it's a ski or it's a wheel. It's the interface. I mean, the way we described it is that it's the interface between you and the ground. How do you develop that interface? How do you develop the snow or the lava ash or the leaves? Exactly. Something soft, gliding, bouncy, you know? Yeah, because we wanted to improve on that.

But as I said, it was you wanted to make something that had an appeal. let's say much, in a much broader way. So downhill running was like a point of entry. But from the bigger perspective, it was always to say, where does that lead to? Because you don't do shoes just for downhill running

in 100-mile races. That would be like 1,000 people doing it. So the starting point is you build rocker. Rocker. So it's a shape like a rocker. It's like a rocker like the bottom. of a rocking chair. Because any kind of movement needs to be fluid.

Whatever the way, wherever you are, let's say, going up, flat down, et cetera. That when you would land on your heel and it would just propel you up like a rocking chair. So was there anything out there on the market like a rocking chair at the time? Yeah. I mean, in some ways, partly the shape the MBT at the time. MBT, I remember, yes. So it was a very small brand that was for walking, right? It's a very different principle, but it had this in the sense that.

It was built on the principle of instability. The instability principle was here to help you, let's say, find your stability by putting your body in the right position. Essentially, just these were really innovative shoes because they were like boats. They were like, it was like two little boats on your feet. Exactly. That was a whole thing. I mean, but the perception that you had like this was important. And globally speaking, once again, every development mindset was how do we make the,

the thing that requires the least energy for the maximum amount of efficiency. So that's one thing that was 100% clear since the beginning. It had to be a rocker. So you knew that it had to be a rocker. Yeah, that's it. So now, but the challenge was, in order to do that, you needed a lot more foam. And that was going to add more weight. How much of a challenge was it to develop this technology?

Well, if you want suspension and you're going to use like a midsole that's like two to three times, the size of a regular meat sole, and to have like a great cushioning, you need to go with forms which are much softer than what was the industry standard. And we went like pretty much twice softer than what was the tradition in the industry.

So less stiff? Yeah, much softer. Yeah, but softer also means less dense, so much lighter. Okay. So the challenge into getting that was to find the partners that would dare making that.

Because it had never been made. It had not been done. Why not? Because it was not practical or wasn't seen as like... It was not industry standard. Because all the shoes were low profile and in order to give you the resistance also in a low profile, you had to have a given stiffness. So it was a stiffer foam. Nobody was making softer.

But the technology was, I mean, it was possible to make it. Absolutely. It was possible, but it had not been done. So you still had to find the partners, the supplier partners. that would make it. Because everyone was concerned that it could not work because it would destroy itself too easily. Or it would...

I mean, you weren't sure it was going to work. Yes, we were not sure. Of course, we were not sure. But we were not sure it was going to be stable. But we did so much to make it stable. We put the foot like really down inside the midsoil. We went very wide. So we did anything we could to make sure it's stable.

And I want to clarify this point because, of course, this is an audio program mainly. When normal shoes that you run in, your foot is on top of the cushioning. This was different because the cushioning actually surrounded your foot. You were actually inside. The cushioning is still below you, but we wanted to make a bucket seat that would surround you. How long did it take for them to figure out how to make this foam? How to make what you did. The foam existed already.

They just put in a much bigger mold, something much softer, about 30, 35 percent softer. And how long did it take? It didn't take much more. I mean, it took for us three months, let's say, to have something that was like tangible. So you're working with, so there are factories in China that are making this, but you have to convince them. Was it, I mean. Hard. Why was it hard?

because we were not existing. We were like a micro customer with no background, nothing, asking for very innovative, complicated things that had never been done. And we didn't have orders to place immediately. But you wanted a prototype. You needed a prototype. And usually these places need an order in order to do a prototype. They work with you when you have already a business case that is established.

We didn't have that, so it was all based on relationship in saying, please, let's make a try. The head of R&D and he worked some amazing magic. To do like the cat design, to go convince the factories, he had worked with them for many years. We had a very special relationship. And they tried. So when you got those first prototypes, what did you do? I'm assuming you ran it and you wanted to run in them. We got them in February, 2000.

2009, in Nancy, we went on a trail that we knew and it was like a spectacular, like immediately. The first prototypes? The first half hour. The first 15 minutes, the three of us ran down and walked back up and ran down again and we were like basically screaming. It was so easy. Is this a point where you have to start breaking and use your quads like we described earlier was at a higher speed? and it was like the very, very first day this sensation of flying, this sensation of letting go, just moving your arms

and not worry about the terrain like on a mountain bike. The next thing we did, like probably 20 or 30 minutes later, is because we of course had like competitor shoes in our current footwear, we got like some timing. We started timing ourselves. And we were like 10 seconds half of a minute. And just to be clear, these prototypes had tread on the bottom as well. No tread.

But it's okay because it was dry. It was dry. It wasn't wet. It wasn't really okay. And because it was so soft, and it's always been the case with the hockey shoes, because it was so soft, they also conforms itself to the obstacles. This is in, I think, February of 2009, we get these first. May of that year, you once again run the Mount Blanc race.

This is, I think, the second, third time you're going to run the race? So, in May, we had, like, with these prototypes, I did a race close to my parents' house in Cantal. And I raced in it. I raced in them. And this is not a – this is the Chamoni Marathon. And then, that's where there was this one. And then, like, by the end of June, I raced the Chamonie Marathon. And with the second round of prototypes, I think I came in fifth.

And so let's just talk about this. So now you are – because of going to use your own. shoes for marathons. And were both of these, were they road marathons or were they trail marathons? No, it's a trail marathon with 2,200 meters of elevation up and 1600

meters down. That was hysterical because everybody had, of course, the regular footwear from that time. And so I started the race and there's a leading pack with a lot of serious

runners. And they all have their very minimal footwear and I'm here with my gigantic like clown shoes. I mean, some of the people knew me, so we were not like making fun of me, but they were like, that is so weird and that is so strange. And then, yeah, I came, the only time I've done this race and I came in fifth. Yeah, I mean, it's so, so yeah, just to, on this point, I mean, you are, this is 2009, you are in shoes that are completely different. Nobody would be running a race in a shoe with a giant soul that's shaped like a rocker.

And anyone else who would be running, would be willing to run in them, would be too embarrassed to wear them besides probably me. They're embarrassed because they look like clown shoes. People thought they were so weird. And they were orange and blue that day. Okay. So when you ran these races, I mean, we talked about the race that Jean-Luc was, you know, saw you in in 2007 and your legs collapsed. to what's your experience now? Is it different?

Yes, I mean, I started the last part of the race after a very strong downhill, much more fresh. Yes, and caught a lot of people in the last third of the race. You were like 20th meat race? Yeah, probably. And you ended the race number four? Five.

Yeah, I mean, what about your body, your joints, your knees, your quads? Was there a marked difference? how you felt. Yes. Yes. I mean, both in the last third of the race and in the recovery, because I could race one week later and win something called Montagnard.

Yeah, because of the first ever victory in Rochaz. I would have never thought I could do, I could go back and do another, I think it was 3,000 meters of elevation, like seven days later. Okay, so you have something. I mean, at this point, I'm assuming you're starting to put in orders for your first shoe. But before we get there, we don't have orders at that stage. At that stage, we are just testing prototypes. And the plan was initially to launch at the end of 2010.

Now, let's just talk about this for a moment. At this point, are you thinking this is really going to be a brand, a product for a small segment of people? or were you thinking big? Like, this can be, no. You were already thinking big? Yeah. Based on our experience, we thought once people experienced that,

we would never be able to go back. So how did you, I mean, this could have just been a novelty kind of thing. How did you convince the first retailer to take a chance on these shoes? Testing. Everything you bring new and different and innovative. Always has to go through people

doing the experience by themselves. Because the first thing is always, no, no, no, no, this is stupid until you try. So trying, trying, trying, make people try. When we come back in just a moment, the founders start facing new problems, supply chain, competition, cash flow. And they realize that outside investment won't really help them. They actually need something bigger. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to how I built this.

Hey, welcome back to how I built this. I'm Guy Raz. So it's around 2009, 2010, and Nico and Jean-Luc are starting to take Hokas to trade shows, where they're doing everything they can to get runners to try them. We drop rocks on the ground so that to say people, just run on those rocks. Now get back to your shoe and run on those rocks again. And then now go there and come back. I think ultimately, let's say, the cushioning made.

appealing to a wider group of people, just generally speaking. What we use to present always the thing is, is the way you proceed as a consumer to picking the product. So at distance, you see something special. Then you take it in hand and you want the second wow effect. Second wow effect being it's light. I was expecting something heavy. It's super light.

Then you get into the next wow, which is I put. put it on and it feels immediately, let's say, protective. And then I start to run and it feels very easy and protective and stable. So that's the thing that we wanted to do all the time. I mean, before you released the shoes for commercial purposes, I read that lots of people were saying to you, this is just not going to work. But you were hearing this repeatedly again and again from a lot of people, which sounds like it could be validation.

that your idea was not working? I would say 98% of the people were saying this. They said this is not going to work. But the biggest challenge was actually for our salespeople, because our salespeople being pushed back and pushed back and push back and push back and push back. And we had agents, we had people that, for them, they had to make a living out of it. So that was very, very tough for them to keep them motivated. But what was extremely important and happened like is to get.

a couple of the athletes, try the shoes. Because when you have something weird, which feels weird and looks weird, if you don't want it to be perceived as a gimmick, you need performance in racing validation, like almost immediately. And we had one guy in France, Ludovic Pomeray, and Carl Meltzer in the US, who also did the same experience

and adopted the shoes, like, almost immediately, like on the very first day. Carl Meltzer was, I think he was sponsored by another shoe brand, He dropped that brand to run because he had tried them in his neighborhood. He was living in the U.S. He tried them in the neighborhood runs. And then other people in the U.S. And notably with the hard rock, for example, it was phenomenal because that woman Diane Finkel bought the shoes.

And after something like 15 miles or something like that or 20 miles maybe, she took the lead of the race. So she took the lead ahead of all the males. And she stayed in the lead. until mile 90, I think. Wow. And she finished second. So that had never been done before. And we had people in Italy.

So it was a word of mouth. It was runners. So the word of mouth started to spread. And those people, we didn't know about it. We learned about it. But we had no idea who was using the shoes. Okay. So 2010, I mean, you're getting all of these runners using the shoes.

You're getting all this validation from the runners, from this community. sounds from the outside like things are going great. What are the challenges you're facing? The first big one was the industrial challenge. We were given only some windows of production. So people saying, I have capacity that week to make your shows

because they wouldn't give us, let's say, a classical plan. So we had to do with that. And then ship those goods, let's say, to wherever it needs. needed to be shipped at costs that were then incredibly expensive. Then there was the cash flow part because as soon as we started to move a little bit ahead, then so you sold something, then you had some a little bit of cash. Then the next order was like twice bigger than the first one.

So then your cash flow went like this. And the banks would not follow because they said that's too risky. I mean, it's growing too big, too fast. and if you need 100, you have to put 100 and guarantee also 100. Those were the dynamics. So we were kind of confident that we had something special, but to make it happen truly, we were not, let's say, it was not an easy sell and it was really a very complicated supply chain aspect.

How were you dealing with the cash situation? How did you, I mean, did you, you have to. to pay for these orders. Now you're talking about hundreds, thousands of shoes. How are you going to pay for that? All money. Yeah. All money. Yeah. This is what kills a lot of businesses. When you grow, you're growing too fast. You can't keep up and you've got a, and you basically can't finance it and it collapses. Was there any possibility that you could have raised money? Was there culture, was there a culture of being able to raise money from venture or investors in France at the time? There were people that were knocking at the door to say, I'm happy to invest into it,

knowing that in France it's not as easy as it is in the US. But the thing is that we discussed upfront was, if we just have additional money, it's not going to bring much more. Because the challenge we face from a supply chain standpoint is not going to help. And the second thing is that we need to have people try the products. Everything in marketing, there is only one thing in marketing that we have to do, that you have to go to a multitude of places and make people try. And that requires band power. And that's not what you get from any investor. So just to clarify, the challenge is, the supply chain challenge is that to get on these production lines was very hard because they're already making shoes for other companies, right? And so to get in there with your tiny little brand, that's a challenge, to finance it as a challenge.

But then to get people to be aware of it is another challenge because you have your company of five, seven people. Yes. And also like in the summer of 2010, a very early summer, like around this month of July after we had dead. delivered like about 3,000 pairs of shoes. We knew that we needed to accelerate because there was nervousness because some shoes were getting shipped, especially by a couple of our accounts. They were getting orders from competitors. What do you mean?

Yes. Competitors buying our shoes. Your competitors were buying your shoes. Yes. So you started to get intel that the big players were taking your shoes to take them apart, basically. Can you patent? I mean, you can patent the design. We did.

Patents are always a matter of who has the biggest amount of money. Right. To fight the lawsuit. Yeah. And meanwhile, there's another really important factor you have to consider, right? Because in order to build a successful running shoe brand, you have to be in the U.S. Because this is where the money is and where the customers are, right? And I mean, at this point, this is like 2012.

I think only a few specialty running stores are selling your shoes in the U.S. And so I guess this is when you start looking for partners, strategic partners, like somebody who could really help you grow in the U.S., right? And I read that somehow you got put in touch with the team at Decker's, the company that owned, still owns Tevas and Ugs, right? Yes. We got the introduction from this amazing client, and then I went there and then they wanted to meet Jean-Luc, and we went there. We went back there together like a month and a half later. The point about why it's important to have a strategic partner when you want to be fast is that now we're looking at it with a totally different eye. Okay, now maybe one day there's going to be customer service, there's going to be financial backup, there's going to be legal protection.

That changed the deal immediately. Any French VC would not have brought that to the table. I mean, I also have done acquisitions and things like that. And the worst thing also that which made a difference between Decker's and other potential brands was that we were not competing with any other brand within the portfolio. The portfolio was pretty wide, but there was no running brand. And you had a very deep, very, very deep motivation from Anil Martinez, the CEO, to be successful in the running world.

So when you have the top guy that is deep. deeply motivated into it, you know you have more chances. Okay. So it was clearly you that Decker should be your partner. But now how was it going to work? I mean, was it was an acquisition, but we know. It was a minority investment. Okay.

With the cash we needed to go through the next step and then another step. And it started then in 2012 with a 20% investment. It was a step by step, you know, invest. investments over time. But the idea was if this all worked out, eventually this will be a portfolio brand within Decker's. Yes, exactly. And it looked like they would be, at that time very quickly, it looked like they would be the right company to run the business. They were able to get you into REI. They were able to get you into... Not immediately to such channels. The big priority was run specialty, I mean, because that's something that they knew would build the image.

But putting us on the map really quickly in the U.S., because we knew that time was the essence. So it was, we had to charge quickly before anyone would come. You know, it's interesting because the first time I can remember really being conscious of Hokas. I saw them on my mom. Like I saw them because they were so comfortable and, you know, and you saw them on people who were a little older. Was that something you noticed also in the U.S.? Yeah, what worked pretty well quickly from, let's say, from a

demographic standpoint, was that there were a lot of people that wanted to be active and that were facing chronicle pain, whatever it was. I mean, the joints, knees, back, et cetera, but they wanted to be active. and that solved many of their issues. What we tried also, as we saw that, the complementary thing was notably to have all those top athletes on the road, typically, that we're still using, I mean, lower-profile shoes and so on to say,

look, use whatever you want on your race day, but as you need to train a lot, just you can train more, you can train with less damage, et cetera, with those products. You've gone, I mean, think about it, in 2012, 3 million in sales to over 2 billion in sales. I mean, it's pretty amazing. I know you thought of this as a brand that would appeal beyond just runners and specialists that would be a mass consumer brand. Was this, I mean, could you have imagined that, that?

When we discussed with Decker's group, we had, let's say, We laid down various plans. The vision that we had was to become a 500 million company. I don't think we imagined that it could accelerate as quickly as it did. But once again, this happened really because Decker's made set up the organization around it. I mean, it's also interesting that a, you know, a shoe that probably initially was dismissed as a trend. Oh, this is a trend, this ultra-cushioning. I remember hearing that.

this rocker system has proven resilient. That is not a trend. Absolutely. And yes, because beyond the success of Hokia and the revenues generated the concept and the technology, not exactly to the same level is gigantic. Yeah. When you think about the journey you took and where you ended up, I mean, you know, it could have died, right? How much of where you got to with this do you attribute to the work you put in, the hard work, the grind,

and how much do you think had to do with luck and timing and just the opportunities that were out there in the world? I think we gave the right ingredients, and that's what certainly we are proud of. It remains, that's why it's hard to say like 20% is due to that and 80% to this or whatever. The vision was right, so that's one thing that we can be proud of. You know, you are only as good as the sum of the elements. And yeah, we can be proud of what Decker's has been able to do with it. And now when we, actually, when we look back, as I said, I think it's also beyond the running shoes,

these new technologies created appetite for the sport of running. So the trail running is booming. It's amazing. It's a very fast-growing sport today. But people are not afraid like before to run downhill. They don't crash their legs the way I was crashing mine like 19 years, 16 years ago. It's also because it's now as fun and pleasant as maybe biking or skiing. And it's also a huge part of it.

It's a technology. And the other thing that our story is extremely similar to what has happened in the bike. The bike industry traditionally was like Tour de France road racing bikes oriented. And then mountain bike, let's say, came doing fancy things, etc., and starting to put the industry upside down. And those mountain bike companies, ultimately it were like the rebels. And that's what you always have to have in industries to change things. And then what you have to keep, and which is always the change, challenge it. How do you keep the challenger spirit moving it? How do you keep that and you don't

stay on your laurels and you keep on pushing and innovating? And you need to keep that mindset all the time to move it. That's Jean-Luc Diyard and Nicola Mermou. Co-founders of Hoka, both of them, by the way, have stayed involved with the brand. And as athletes, neither of them shows signs of slowing down. Jean-Luc's Instagram shows some running up and down trails all over the world, and Nico has recently competed in ultramarathons in France, Switzerland, and Thailand. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs,

please sign up for my newsletter at gairoze.com or on Substack. This episode was produced and researched by Rommel Wood with music composed by Rumpteen Arableu. He was edited by Neva Grant. Our engineers were Patrick Murray and Quacey Lee. Our production staff also includes Casey Herman, Chris Messini, John Isabella, Sam Paulson, Alex Chung, Carrie Thompson, Catherine Seifer, Norgill, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.