Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1012: Joe Kudla- How to Build an International Fashion Brand in 5 Years

Episode Date: April 18, 2019

In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin talk with Joe Kudla, founder and CEO of Vuori Clothing. Five years ago Vuori was just an idea. Today Vuori can be found in Nordstrom, REI and shipped worldwide when ordered from their website. Joe has a fascinating story of multiple business ventures, some successful, others failures that have led to Vuori Clothing's "overnight success." Joe tells a good story and in this episode he tells of a strange run-in with a psychic woman who nudged him to take a leap of faith that ultimately catapulted the company. Even if you don't believe in psychics, this story may just make you believe a little bit... Vuori Clothing is the preferred attire of the Mind Pump Team. It looks, fits and feels amazing. You can check it out at vuoriclothing.com/mindpump (Be sure to use the code on this page for 25% off your first order... a Mind Pump exclusive discount!). Mind Pump recommends The Jordan Harbinger Show. (3:38) How if you don’t make good products in this day in age, what’s the point. (6:45) What was their defining moment of success? (7:57) The MASSIVE compound growth over the last 5 years. (10:31) Setting out to make clothes that other people cannot find. ‘Built to move and style for life’ mindset. (13:10) Putting their money where their mouth is and making GREAT products. (15:34) Have they experienced any growing pains or challenges? (17:14) The great debate on entering the ‘Athlete Market.’ (19:24) What goes into the process of creating a product? (20:30) Do they do any outsourcing when it comes to design? (22:39) How do you know, as an entrepreneur, when to stop or change gears? (26:28) His early ventures, failures and the life lessons he learned along the way. (28:32) Going all-in on Vuori. (32:33) A chance encounter with a psychic woman that propelled him to take the leap of faith and invest in clarity. (39:00) Becoming in alignment and how Mind Pump found the brand. (47:38) Building the relationship directly with the consumer, shifting their message based on customer feedback and being versatile. (51:08) How your culture is your brand. (56:00) What does he see for their future in the space? (59:05) People Mentioned Jordan Harbinger (@jordanharbinger)  Instagram Todd Herman (@todd_herman)  Instagram Wim Hof (@iceman_hof)  Instagram Michael Stromsness (@enlightened_savage_101)  Instagram Related Links/Products Mentioned April Promotion: MAPS Split ½ off!! Code “SPLIT50” at checkout Vuori Clothing  **25% off your first order** 163: Todd Herman | The Alter Ego Effect - Jordan Harbinger How Vuori's Joe Kudla Turned an Idea into an Activewear Empire Vaco Staffing Services | Premier Recruiting Firm Mind Pump Live Q & A Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. It's really exciting to see a company like Viori just exploding the way that they have been. They're crushing. Well, I really like Joe. I mean, a lot. I think he's a really good guy.

I think he's got a great mission. I think he plays out an incredible product. I mean, I'm looking around the room right now. And Doug's got his zip up hoodie and pants on. Justin's got a pullover hoodie on. You've got your jacket zip up. I'm wearing the pants and a shirt. Like their gear is... They've infiltrated us. No, no, they have. It's legit. It's legit awesome. And it's really cool to see them build a brand. It's also awesome that Taylor found them really early on. I love finding a brand before everybody else finds a brand and being one of the first people to kind of enter coolest. Right. Introduce it to a lot of people. So it's awesome to see them. And in Joe had a great story. He told us some pretty interesting stuff about how he got where he's at now.

There's a story about a psychic in there. This was a great interview. Like anything else that I've realized with us, and when we get to know a lot of our, like, you know, we've now built a relationship with him. We've known him for almost two years. We've met several times. We've gone down and had, we're going to have our second event with them. He's been up here now twice.

So we're on a different level, I think, relationship-wise. You can feel that I think come out in the episode. Yeah, I came out in the conversation. You could just tell the way that he describes his business and his practices. His core values align so well with ours, and that's why we mesh so well. Yeah, and our first live event that we ever did where we're doing like a Q&A with our audience was at the Viori, one of their stores down in Sanitas. And that was, I don't know, like two years ago. What a great experience.

We met our fans. That's when we hung out with Joe and some of his team. And since then, they've grown exponentially, far bigger, but we're, again, they have invited us down to do another live Q&A event on the 10th of May. So we're going down there again, gonna meet our audience and fans live again. And if you wanna attend to it, it's on the 10th of May.

It's at 6 p.m., you just go and sign up at mindpumplive.com, get yourself a ticket. And they also, what's cool is, I know they did this last year, I'm sure they'll do it again this year where they hook up the people that come there with a one day type of deal for them being there, a deal for them when they're shopping in the store

and everybody went bananas last year. It's awesome. Now, Viori just launched their spring summer collection. There's a lot of new styles. So if you go to Viori clothing, VU, ORI clothing.com forward slash MindPump, there'll be a code on that page, a MindPump code, that'll give you 25% off your whole order. You make sure you go to that link, though, because on that link, they'll have the actual code. Yeah, you have to go to Viori clothing.com

forward slash MindPump to get the code for the 25% also this month maps split. This is our advanced body builder type program. That program is half off. So 50% off go to maps split.com and use the code split 50 SPL IT 50 for the discount. Now, if you're not advanced, you're not into the body building training, you want to look at other types of fitness programs because your goals are different, you have a different exercise history, go to maps, fitnessproducts.com, and check out all those other maps programs. All right, guys, so I also listened to podcasts, and one of my favorite podcasts besides Mind

Pump is the Jordan Harbinger Show. One of the top, I believe they won number one or top podcast of the year last year. And Jordan, he's been on our show, he's one of our favorite people. Great, great interview. And in fact, I learned from listening to him all the time and a recent episode he did was with Todd Herman,

the title of the episode was the alter ego effect. And there was some interesting information there, like how you can kind of turn yourself into someone else through using different cues to perform at higher levels. Actually, I have Jordan here with me right now. Jordan, that episode was pretty crazy. It's really good, especially for athletes

and things like that, because Todd, what he does, he's a good friend of mine. In fact, you guys should have him on at some point. He's super fascinating. What he's done is he trains, this is just an example. He had a tennis player and she kept choking at the end of the game, or she would let somebody close a huge lead that she had. And he's like, all right, what's going on here?

And he's digging down and finds out that she was raised to be treating everyone fairly. And she thought there was a thing going on in her head where if she was just dominating someone on the court, she'd go, oh, I'm embarrassing them. This isn't nice. I need to be nice. And then she would sort of ease up. And it's all subconscious, right? She had a dig for all this stuff.

And so he created an alter ego for her that was like a crazy aggressive bitch. And this alter ego that he creates for his clients, this alter ego in particular for this tennis player happens when she puts on like her gloves or whatever that she uses for the racket or something like that. And so when those go on, she has a different name, she's super aggressive, relentless, and then she takes them off and she can go back to these positive personality traits that

don't jie with being an aggressive athlete. And so he helps solve those problems. And so this alter ego effect, which is what he talks about in the episode, has it can play when you're an entertainer, you're a comedian, you know, as we, we all at least a lamp and alien before she's the first one to say, look, it's an act. Like you don't go up to your friends and start cussing them out because it's funny. They didn't sign up for that.

There's certain arenas where you got to do it, but you got to put on an alter ego. And that's what Todd Herman discussed in this episode. It was fascinating. And I've started using some of his techniques when I speak in public and when I do interviews and I've already noticed Herman discussed in this episode. It was fascinating and I've started using some of his techniques when I speak in public and when I do interviews and I've already noticed an improvement in performance. Anyway, you gotta listen to that episode, the Jordan Harbinger Show,

we will link it in our show notes. So without any further ado, here we are talking to Joe Kudla of Yuri. We are trying to figure it out before we got started. It's been a year and a half since we had you on the show, Joe. It's been, it's been a few like that, though. Yeah, I know. And literally I was on the way over here today.

I was trying to think about when I was here. And we kind of narrowed it down to right around a year and a half, but it literally is like a blink of an eye. That's crazy. Now, you're one of my favorite partnerships because if it wasn't for you, Sal would be dressed like he's representing Old Navy. So I'm so fucking glad that we got you. I appreciate it You've saved our image. You know, so you get in some confidence. Yeah, I'm a lot of hey sexy

That kind of stuff from random people Mostly old women. It's an adjustment man Yeah, but I'm no no for reals though. I really, I mean, your customers love your stuff. Like that's the, you guys must have an incredible return, customer base. Once we introduce them to it, it's like, yeah, people are just like, oh my God, thank you. Like they're so happy about what they bought.

Yeah, well, first of all, thank you guys so much for the support. You guys have been incredible partners for Viori. We're really honored to be in partnership with you guys. And yeah, we pride ourselves on making great product. And when, I think that's part of the reason we've been able to do what we've been doing on a bootstrap budget, we didn't go out

and raise a ton of money like a lot of our competitors. We've been able to do this off a small. We did raise some money in the early days with friends and family, but if you don't make good product in this time day and age like what's the point? You know, it's not gonna work So no no and you guys have I mean so we saw you a year and a half ago We went down we had that event which was great by the way. Yeah great staff We still talk about it around the VOR office. Oh really? Well, it was just crazy to see how the the mind pump community show up in support and

And just see how fired up they were to be there and be in the experience with you guys. It was really inspirational for us too. You know, oh, appreciate it. Yeah, our fans are crazy like we are. But you guys since then, and this is why I think I got a little confused with how long ago we because it only has been a year and a half, but it feels longer, not because it necessarily feels longer, but because of where you guys are at now compared to a year and a half ago. What has happened since then?

Because you guys are fucking everywhere now. Yeah. Yeah. We were just talking about a little bit off air, but I feel like in business, just a lot like what you guys are doing, you said an intention, you know, you have a clear vision and you know, it's not easy at the start, you know, a lot of people think we've been doing this for 10 years, we're in our fifth year now, we're starting our fifth year in market selling now. And so it happened relatively fast, but it's like, you just chip away at it, it's

like pushing a ball up a hill and then all of a sudden, just one day you do reach that, you know, quote unquote tipping point and and it starts getting a sudden, just one day you do reach that quote unquote tipping point and it starts getting a little bit easier and that ball starts rolling down the hill. And your job as a brand manager becomes more steering it down the hill as opposed to working so hard to make it happen. It's now about putting the right guidelines on it and making sure you're continuing to invest in quality and innovation and all the things that made us successful in the first place. Do you remember that moment of that tipping point?

Like was there a feeling around the office or do you remember something significantly happening where you're like, oh shit, like we're starting to roll now? You know, it's funny because there's not like one specific thing. Nikki Seculeo, our VP of Marketing, she's pretty much my co-founder started the business with me when we were in a garage five years ago and You know, we talk about it all the time because we have to kind of pinch ourselves and we're like what was that defining moment? And it's hard to say you know, you could point to sales like we had a couple days on our e-com site

We broke our e-com site. We launched a new season and we broke the site and we said, maybe this is, you know, this could be the moment. And then, you know, we were getting some feedback from some of our larger partners, you know, out there in the wholesale landscape like REI, that we were kind of best in class and we're competing against brands like Nike and Patagonia and these huge brands that are super established and we were ranking and outselling and outperforming some of our competitors that we looked up to and inspired to be.

And so there was a lot of those kind of little things along the way, but yeah, there's not like one thing that I'm like, man, this happened. Like it wasn't like Kim Kardashian wore our shorts. And next thing you know, I'm on Oprah and it's the rest of history. Right, right, right. What kind of growth have you seen over the last couple of years or last year? Are you able to talk about like percentage growth or anything like that? Yeah, so, um, gosh, compounded. We've been growing it like over 200% a year. Holy cow. Wow. Since we launched the business.

Every year? Yeah. If you were to just look at like a compound at an average growth rate, last year, I think we closed the year right around 140% growth over the last year. So more than doubled the business, our kind of original plan going in the last year was that, you know, we would kind of just shy of doubled the business. We ended up growing 140%. We were really proud of that.

But the crazy thing was that just five years ago, Nicky and I were working in literally a spider infested garage that had no AC, no heating. It was either freezing cold or super hot. There were two of us. It was almost embarrassing to try to hire there because we couldn't, you know, in good faith tell people they were going to work in that space. And now, you know, we just moved into almost 13,000 square foot office. We have our own fitness studio that we're curating full fitness classes within our space for our team. We almost have 60 employees. Wow. We've got three retail stores and growing, and we're just, you know, the product line

has grown like crazy, and, you know, we launched Women's, which has been a huge milestone for us. Has that been a big success? It has, yeah. Yeah, we kind of went into it, you know, knowing, when we launched the business, we always knew women would be a part of it, because the brand was always kind of inspired

by this lifestyle and community around us, where we lived in Encinitas, and women were a big part of that. But we really saw the opportunity to get into the market from more of a business standpoint to lead with men's. Which is a harder market. Well, I guess in some ways would be harder market because women are the consumers. That's right. It was underserved, which you saw opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. And it was harder, you know? When we launched, I can't tell you how many, when I started the business, I literally took two suitcases full of product.

I went to New York City, I just walked around. I went into gyms, I went into yoga studios, I went in anybody who would talk to me. And, you know, I just got nose all the time because people were like, look, Lululelemon's exploding. I gotta address that. I gotta figure out how to get my women, my female customer out of Lululelemon's exploding. I gotta address that. I gotta figure out how to get my women,

my female customer out of Lululele and into another female brand that I can carry. Men's was such an afterthought. So it was definitely, we were early on the scene to focus on men's. Yeah, and men are not, as consumers, we're not typically nearly as loyal. So like a female consumer will typically buy a product

like it, and then they'll keep buying that product and show loyalty. Men tend to not do that, but you guys seem to have a very high level of loyalty among the men that buy your clothes. Why do you think that is? Gosh, honestly, I can't point to anything other than the fact that when we launched the

business, we set out to make clothes that we couldn't find. A lot of entrepreneurs say that, and that sounds really cliche. I get that. In my case, it was true. We were all surfers. We were living down in Southern California. We wore board shorts to the gym. That's great.

We felt like there was a better product out there, you know, to align kind of that aesthetic and spirit of kind of Southern California and beach culture and the things that inspired us, but make it with really, really, really good quality materials, better construction, you know, construction that was actually designed for movement and sweat, and merging those two things, those two worlds. I felt like hadn't really been done before. And so it might be partly that. It looks fresh, it feels a little bit different than kind of what's been going on in active wear.

Yeah, I can tell you my experience. I am not a, like, Adam jokes about it, but I'm not a loyal consumer of apparel or clothing. I don't really care. But I do like things that feel good. So if something feels really good, I like it. And then I get the benefit of my girlfriend being like, whoa, that looks really good on you. I like that t-shirt.

She never says that about the t-shirts I wear. So it's like, I get to wear something super comfortable. Then people say it looks good. And I know it's consistent. Like every time I get something for you guys, every single time it fits real well, it's good. Yeah, and I think for men, there's been two different options, right? So you have like the, they came out with like sweats,

like like shorts that you could wear, that were really comfortable to wear the gym, but then it smelled bad after I was done. Yeah. And like, and then you'd have your other shorts that you wore to work or, you know, out for leisure, whatever, but like that combo where it's like I could work out, but then I'm not going

to immediately think I could have some time. That was huge for me. We actually say built to move in style for life, but that's spot on. We're trying to build transitional product, because in today's day and age, there's a lot of choices. It's nice to be able to throw on a pair of shorts go for a workout and then just go go about your day you know and that we really strive for that and everything we make. Yeah and then there was a return policy that you guys have something like a happiness

you explain this to because this is kind of crazy to me. Yeah it's actually one of our core values as a business it's it extends beyond our policy. But yeah, we have a lifetime guarantee on our product. So that's crazy. Does anybody else do that in your space? You know, not that I can think of, you know, you know, Nordstrom has been kind of had that mindset, you know, and they've been known for great service. But to us, it was important, you know,

we want to stoke people out. We want people to, you know, we recognize that buying premium athletic wear is an investment investment and we want you to be stoked. And if at any point that garment's not serving you, it's not working for its intended use, you know, we'll take it back or exchange it for something else. That's insane. Absolutely insane. But that just shows, goes the show kind of what I'm talking about. You're, you're the people who buy your stuff like it so much because as a business, I mean, from purely business standpoint,

you can't do something that's gonna break the bank or that's gonna bankrupt you. Otherwise, you can't continue. But you guys have such good, people don't return shit, people love your stuff. They come back to buy more. You know it's not gonna hurt you. You're gonna come out with this guarantee,

but you know it's not gonna happen much because people just love your stuff. Yeah, yeah, sure. You know, you always get the few that are gonna abuse a policy like that. But, you know, for us, it's more important just to, you know, put our money where our mouth is. You know, we claim we make great product.

It's one of our core values. We want to lead with great product. You know, we invest so much time and energy in making great product. And occasionally we have issues, you know, we're human. You know, we're making products with big factories now. And, you know, occasionally there's issues. And when there's issues, we want to make it right, you know. Any growing pains since you, this is fast growth. Are you experiencing any growing pains or challenges?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, absolutely. Nothing catastrophic, you know, we don't have any kind of sheer leggings issues like Lulu had or no, they settle job. Yeah. If you want to call them issues. Nothing like that, but definitely the numbers are getting big. It's like when you start a business and let's say you're doing 5 million in sales, a jump from 5 to 10 is still very manageable from a factory. When you're going to make a jump from say like 40 to 80,

that's a big number. So you gotta really be in tune with things that we didn't have to think about in the early days. In the early days, it was make a great product, market that product, sell that product, deliver great customer service. Now, we gotta add on, hey, can we even make that many products at our factory?

Right. Because they only have so much space. It's not like you just send a purchase order to a factory and they're like, yep, no problem on the other end comes whatever you ordered. That's right. You got to work with them and understand their capacity. Once you maximize capacity there, you've got to plan to move it into other factories and make sure that their quality standards are up to par.

So, in the apparel business, when you're really scaling fast, that's a huge concern and a place that we're investing a lot of time and energy right now. So how do you combat that? Is there, do you slow down the process of creating new designs? Are you outsourcing? Like, how do you combat that? Well, you know, the production process, there's a lot of really talented people,

and we've been fortunate to bring on a bunch of them that are very focused on this. And so they're just spending a lot of time out at the factories talking with them, working with them on their capacity, so that we understand on the front end of a season like what our limitations might be. Okay.

But to date, we're still relative, when you think about the big brands out there, we're still relatively small and niche. And so we're not running into issues where we have to limit kind of our creativity or limit our kind of desired inner new categories or anything like that. But it's just something that's always top of mind when we're placing those purchase orders.

What's gonna ask you about that in terms of the temptation of it? Because you are somewhat competing with these massive brands now. Is there any pull in that direction to do anything sports-related more or go against the big dogs? We talk about that all the time. There's a big debate around athlete marketing. You think about what that used to be, the Nike's, the underarmers, they would tie up the best athletes, they would distribute their product at mass retail, and then Lululemon, that

was a really defined great model that worked really well. It still does, but then Lululemon came along, didn't spend a dollar on marketing. They were getting product on local trainers, yoga teachers, you know, people just out in the community doing inspiring things that weren't paid athletes. And look, Lulu Lemon's become one of the most successful active wear brands out there. You know, still not quite it's at the same scale as Nike when you think globally, but you know, they're on a tear. Yeah, and shit, Nike's had a head start, you know, saying they've been going for a very long time. What goes into the process of creating like a piece

like you're wearing, like you came in, I love the jacket you're rocking right now, I can't wait till it releases. I'm off to get that. Right, and I knew you would like that. What goes into the process of creating something like that? Well, there's two kind of methodologies on building a product. You can start with a design and then back your way into the sourcing, which is kind of what are all the materials that

are going to actually make the garment special and make it work? So you first decide, okay, we're going to do this button up, jacket, lightweight type of thing. We agree on like the overall theme of it. And then you start to reverse like, okay, what's the material in a look like? How much is going to weigh? How strong is that, how you do this? Yeah, that's one way of doing it. For us, because the tactile nature of our product was so important,

like Sal, you mentioned it, it's something we're actually very intentional about is we want to make product that's really soft and people love living it. You don't want to take it off because it's just sodium soft. That is really important. So, you know, one way is to what we don't want to do is pigeonhole ourselves and design something

but then not be able to find a fabric for it. So I spend a lot of time sourcing materials, you know, I'm working with different textile mills, both on kind of their new collections and seeing what they have that might suit our needs. And that a lot of times inspires and informs a new product. So we might find a fabric and say, this would be amazing in a jacket

or this would be a great material for a new short that we've been thinking about. And so that's kind of building it bottoms up, like from materials up and getting inspired by your kind of materials and the palette that you have. And then the other way is kind of more tops down, like building a jacket, designing it, and then going out and looking and trying to find something, which is great. They both can work. And we tend to each season kind of do a little bit of both, but it's painful when you have a great design idea,

but then you can't find the materials that's really gonna support it. And the worst thing you wanna do is release something that's substandard or doesn't meet your needs because those tend to not work as well. Do you outsource this? Are you part of designing it?

Like how does this, that's what I'm curious about. I made the mistake as a young kid. So I've, you know, tried to launch three apparel lines at one point in my life, you know. And one of the things that I finally came to grips within realize is that I have no talent whatsoever in that world. Like who am I to think that I'm going to compete

with Lulu, Calvin Klein, these brands like that? I just, I was like every other kid who I think at one point that wants to be an entrepreneur and has this dream, oh, if I can build this network of people, I can make some t-shirts and make a cool logo. Like, my thought process was all around the logo and the look of it and being cool and then I could sell these things, but not realizing how important the design and the creation that I was gonna create. Do you outsource that? Is that you or you partnered up with somebody?

Do you have multiple people that are designing different things? What does that look like? Well, when we started the business, it was me and one other girl. Her name's Rebecca Breh and she's a very, very talented designer. And I owe her so much because she believed in this scrappy little kid that had a vision for a clothing brand.

And it's kind of like going to your buddies and being like, hey, I'm going to start a band. We're going to be the next rolling stone, you know. It's like, every, there's no barrier to entry. If anybody can pick up a guitar and start strumming some chords, anybody can kind of get into the clothing business. There's no barriers to entry. So, you know, I, you know, I'd spend a lot of time, I actually had two failed. Well, I hate to use the word failed, but I had two apparel concepts that

didn't really go anywhere before this. And so I'd spend a lot of time in it, and I just loved product. I loved design. I loved, I always felt like there's this part of my brain that's creative that never gets expressed in what I do every day, and I was like, dude, I gotta do, in some point in my life, I gotta jump in with two feet and do this. And Rebecca listened to what I had to say. And she was a very sought after designer and she said, you know what, I believe in this.

I think that we can do something special and she joined me. And her and I pretty much designed the first several collections just on her living room floor together, you know? And do you believe it? This would have been impossible had you not had somebody like that? Yeah, right. There's no, I couldn't have done this on my own. I shouldn't say that. It's possible that I could have, I just would have had to acquire a lot of

skills and knowledge that I really have learned along the way. What are some of those? What are some of the things that you've probably piece together by having someone as talented as her working with you? Well, I think part of it is just learning how the whole process works, you know, how you develop a commercial calendar and a go-to-market strategy. And, you know, when it comes to design specifically,

it's like, okay, I'm going to start designing now. I need all my technical drawings, we call them tech packs, but essentially all of your illustrations of what that collection is going to look like do by this date. It needs to be handed off to these factories by X-Day. You need to have a first proto review by this date and you work yourselves towards like a sales samples, which aligns with the broader market. So you can, your go-to market is like in sync with what all your competitors are doing.

I didn't really understand all that stuff. But you know, it's just, it just shows you that like if you work hard and you believe in something, you know, it can happen. And I think we just, I just had a vision for what this thing, I could feel it not, not with my eyes, but with my gut, you know, it was like down in the gut level, where it's just for me what always resonates, it's like if I feel it and I'm sleeping and every night I'm thinking about it and dreaming it and I can see it happening,

like that's when I know I should keep moving forward. And in the early days, it was not easy. We had a lot of stumbling blocks and there was definitely times you can ask my wife, I'd come home and be like, I don't think this thing's gonna go. You know? And we have a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to us.

And one of the questions that I get all the time is, how do I know, because I understand, I can completely relate to what you're talking about, it's how I felt about what we did with Mind Pump, like you just feel it, you know, like you're compelled, rather than, you know, being driven, you're compelled to do it. But how do you know when to stop or change gears? You talked about having two other ideas before that were apparel companies that didn't work. How did you know that those weren't the ones and how did you know that that Viori was even though you went through some challenges? I think a lot of it was just intuition.

You know, I was younger at the time and I had never really built a successful business. And I was in a little bit over my head. I didn't have that kind of seasoned partner and designer that was kind of helping me. I think one of the biggest differences this go around was that I jumped in with two feet. And so I I pretty much cut the cut the cut the bowline. And it was either gonna work, or I was gonna be in a lot of trouble. Yeah.

And that really, it was inspiring. But. So you had another job with those other ones. Yeah. So you weren't, yeah, that makes a big difference. Yeah. Yeah, I've heard people say that. It's a different mentality, a different mindset.

Well, shit, I used to say it about us. Of course. When we first started, I remember there was a long time there and I get it I mean everyone's married kids mortgages you know we had other careers and stuff going on and and we're successful and here we are starting this vision and this venture that we have and I remember the the boys all we're all kind of like, we're like counting the dollars, like okay, it's not quite enough yet. It's not quite enough for us to just walk away from everything else, and I still believe that,

you know, how'd we done that sooner? I think we would have got to where we're at even faster because it's, when you commit like that, and there's no look, you can't turn back, it brings something out of you. I don't know if you can get that out of yourself by easing your way in all the time, so I can't agree more with that. Now, when those other ones failed, were they completely different ideas, were they not like the type of a parallel that you're doing

now, or were they similar in type, just designed differently, like what was so different about it? So the first one was a women's contemporary line, believe it or not. And that sounds really weird. What was I doing involved in that business? But it was actually my girlfriend at the time, and we were young kids, you know, early 20s. And she had just graduated with a design degree and I was working in this finance job, kind of unhappy.

And she was like, I'm gonna go to work for one of these big design houses in LA. And I just said, why not? You're so talented. I like saw the talent and I'm like, you're so talented. I'm like, let's just start our own thing. And all back it and I'll help you with everything you need. Help with, I'll help you with the business side of things,

but we can do this. And so we were young kids and I was working a crazy job, right? I was working like 55, 60 hours a week was kind of a normal week. And then at night, we would pour ourselves some glasses of wine and we would sit there and cut fabric. We would have these pattern makers make us patterns and we'd sit there and cut fabric. Then the next day on my lunch break, I'd drive it down to national city by the border and go to these factories that I'd develop relationships with

and I'd have them sew up samples and then we'd come back home and the next night we'd do a fitting. And then on the weekends, we were driving to LA and shopping, different fabrics, suppliers. It was just like this crazy bit. Like I look back now on what I was doing

and it was just absolutely crazy. It was totally not scalable. Like we literally, it was destined to not go anywhere, but it was just the best experience for me. It gave me so much confidence and just like, okay, I'm starting to see how this all works. And I was in my, you know, I think by the time we shut that down, I was in my mid 20s and we had a showroom come to us in LA,

and there were like a sales agency, and they said, we like what you're doing, and we'd like to represent you guys. But here's what it's gonna mean. And the list of things that they outlined, I was like, we're just not ready for this. And that was the moment where we were like, we got to jump in with two feet,

or we should close, we should stop doing this. And we decided to stop it. And so that was like a women's contemporary line had nothing to do with what we're doing now. And then the second one was, it was actually called Viori. It was, I call it Viori 1.0, but it wasn't athletic in nature. It was a cut and so t-shirt line. We were doing organic cotton tees, and we were telling stories of awesome people that were up to different things,

and we were printing stories on the inside of the tees, and we were, again, going out on the weekends, selling into specialty stores up and down the California coast. And that one, I really believed in. And then the 2008-2009 financial collapse happened. And we just like Walmart started selling organic cotton teas for 25 bucks. And we were like, okay, we're gonna close this thing.

And my partner came to me and was like, look, I'm gonna go live in an air stream and go travel around the United States for a year. And I told him at the time I said Chad, you know, look, I said I know that it doesn't seem like it right now. I go, but I think you're making a huge mistake. I go, Viori is going to be a huge company. Oh shit.

And I was like, I don't think you should make this decision. He's like, hey, I'll sell you the trademark for a dollar and I'm out. Shut up. Wow. Shut up. Wow. Shut up, really? Do you still ever talk to Jack? We go Chad.

Yeah. Yeah, we see each other occasionally. He lives in the same area that I do and so we run into each other and there's no hard feelings. Right, of course not. He left. Yeah. He left.

And after he left, I just literally shelved it. And it wasn't for like three or four years that we decided to relaunch the business with a totally different mission. Okay, so what happened in that case, you shut it down, you realize that he takes off in his air stream. What's going on in that three-year gap before you decide you're going to reopen this thing? So I had another company that I was a part of. It was called Vaco and it was like a financial recruiting and staffing company. And then that's kind. So I had another company that I was a part of. It was called Vaco and it was like a financial recruiting and staffing company. And that's kind of what I had done. You know, over the course of my career was built this staffing company. And it was great. It was super actually successful. And I was making pretty good money. But, you know, I just but I guess I grew up with nothing,

not nothing, I had a loving family, great parents, but we didn't have any money, and I never had anything. I always wondered what it was like to have stuff and have money, and my family, we grew up in this little rural town, and then when I was in sixth grade, we moved to Belvue, Washington, which is where Microsoft was born. It's this very affluent town. So I was like this, like, little hillbilly kid moving to this town where there's tons

of money. So I always thought, man, success for me, I'm going to have money. Like I'm going to go out and be successful. It was like this driving force, because my family didn't really have that. They didn't really have that. They didn't really value that. So anyway, that, that's burning inside of you for all these three years. You're working a job, you're making decent money,

but you probably got that burning inside. Yeah, so I started this company with a couple of friends called Vaco, and we were making good money. Like we were the third fastest growing San Diego private company in one year. We had like 120 employees. I was playing golf three times a week. I got to a point where I was like,

man, I'm making great money. Okay, I've kind of accomplished my goals. But I just like, again, there was just this thing inside me. I was like, this is not what I want to be doing. You didn't get the meaning that you thought you would from the money. Exactly. I tied it all together.

I'm like, this doesn't mean anything to me. This is not how I'm going to find fulfillment in my life. And at about that time, when I started having those questions, I started getting into yoga. I played sports all my whole life and beat up my body. And a friend suggested I try yoga. So I got into yoga and it was the first thing that was actually restorative. And I started feeling a little bit better.

I got a little more mobility through my back and my hips. And that was when I really started to see this, I started putting out the puzzle pieces together. I'm like, this is a huge marketplace. There's so many people like me who are active and maybe not competing in team sports anymore, but we're going to yoga, we're going to crossfit, we're training, we're running,

and living these really kind of dynamic active lives. And I just felt like there wasn't a brand out there for us. And so that was kind of the time where I was like, you know what, I'm gonna jump in with two feet, I'm gonna bring Viori back, and I'm gonna go all in on this. And a lot of people thought I was had literally lost my mind

because I had this other business and this lifestyle that I had created and to walk away from comfort like that, to put it all on the line for an apparel business. Did you literally like sell your share? I'm out and I'm going to do this. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Wow. Who is, so who is giving you the most pushback? Were your partners just like, what the fuck are you doing, man? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. To a certain degree, they probably all questioned. I think a lot of them thought I was gonna go leave and start another one on my own.

And I kept telling them, look, that's not what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go do this other thing and people are like, you're really gonna start in a peril business. Like, you know, kind of add them to your point. Like, it's like the failure rate on a peril business is really high. It's a really, really hard business to be in.

Because there's just so many of them. But I just had to do it, you know? Like I'm kind of a sucker for those people that say, like when you're on your deathbed and you're looking back, you know, like I always believed that. I'm like, that's gonna be me. Like I'm gonna be that guy that's like, I have to do this for myself.

And if I fall on my face, I'll find a way to make money. Like that's never been a problem. Like I'm a hard worker and I believe in myself, but I had to do this. I had to try. Do you still remember the day when you made that decision when in what the first thing you did, what did you do? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was kind of a scary, it's almost scary. You're like, start projecting out like, wow, I'm going to, in a week, I'm not gonna have an income. Yeah.

That's real. This is, this is gonna get real really fast. But I had saved in a little nest egg, you know, so I had a little bit of money and I knew that I could afford to not take a salary for a couple years. And I was, you know, also, like I never lived beyond my means. I'm not the type of person that made some money and went out and bought a big house and got the mortgage and got the big, like, bends in the driveway. That just was never me. So my lifestyle never changed. I was still living in a one-bedroom studio apartment, driving a car that I own outright, and I just kept my overhead low. And it really, really allowed me the flexibility to

go out and take a risk like this. Now being a guy who can totally relate to your story of coming from a family didn't have a lot of things. I went through the same thing. Through my 27 to 30, I reached this financial point. Do you remember that transition of like reaching that and going like, man, this isn't, for me, it took a year. Like I got to that point, had the money,

spent lots of it for a year and did all kinds of stuff, and then had this kind of epiphany I woke up, and I remember I was in the worst shape of my life, my relationships were kind of poor, but yet I had the most money I'd ever had in my life, which is what was the driving force for so long. Do you remember that kind of pivotal moment for you, like what kind of the wind of the light bulb went off

that it's like, oh, it's not about the money, I need something else. Yeah, yeah. I do. I was actually, so I got married when I was young and I got a divorce and I got into a new relationship that was awesome in some ways, but pretty toxic in others and I was partying a lot and I just wasn't feeling super great.

And I just remember, so this is kind of a crazy story. I'm going to, you guys can choose to go down this path with me or we can just skip over it. No, let's go down it, but I was I was I was at a fourth of July party for this magazine In Laguna Beach and I'm sitting there and I'm high out of my mind and I'm drinking and just partying with all my friends What are you high on? Hey, man, you went here Sounds different for dirt. I don't remember Hey man, you went here. Yeah, sounds like a pervert.

I don't remember. Good answer. Good answer. I'm just trying to pick the picture. That's all. Life, bro. And this lady who had to have been in her mid fifties comes up to me and she's like, can I talk to you for a sec?

I'm like, yeah. And she starts telling me all this stuff about my life. And she's like, huh? Yeah, she's just like, you know, you were raised in this family, your parents were really like spiritual people. You didn't come from much, but you have this business that you're working on with a partner, it has a philanthropic mission to it.

And then you have this other business that's making a lot of money. And I was just literally tripping out. Like, I'm like, who are, wait, I'm like, who are you? And we start going down this path and she starts telling me, she's like, you're going to do really, really big things in your life. And the business that you love right now,

your passion project, she said, it's going to be very successful. And I was like, yes. That's what I needed. That's what I needed to hear. She said it's going to be very successful and I was like yes And then she followed that up with she's like, but it's not gonna be with your current partner She's like you guys are not gonna be working together um And she's like you're also in a relationship right now that's not good for you and she's like I don't know why I'm telling you this but um she's like, I'm an intuitive. And I work with a lot of different people, a lot of celebrities and just helping

them kind of guide them in their lives. And it was the first time I'd ever really believed in that stuff. Because like, I was, I was like, dude, you're not going to sell me snake oil, you know, like, I'm not by, I'm not a buyer. But she, the thing she knew, like how she was tuned in, I just like couldn't deny it. I was like, what? And it was that moment when I just said, you know what? I'm gonna, like she, it was like I knew it in my heart, but I just needed to hear it or something from somebody else. And it was right after that party that I was like, I'm gonna fucking straighten out my life. I'm gonna stop partying. I'm gonna just take a year off and see what happens and get clear, you know?

Because if what this lady is telling me is true, like I need, the one thing I need right now in my life is clarity. And so I started doing that. I started investing in clarity. I started, that was when I started really getting into yoga. I started meditating. I kind of stopped partying. So that just because I was slowing down the partying, I was kind of shifting my social group a little bit. And it was like a year later, like a year and a half later,

that I met a guy named Chris Miller. And Chris was kind of on the same path. He had gotten into yoga. He was one of the best skateboarders, one of the best pool skaters of all time. And he's like a celebrity within his own world. But he was looking at the kind of athletic space and he had started a number of brands, started audio footwear. I don't know if you remember that brand, but it was really successful. And Chris and I started talking

and Chris kind of gave me the confidence to pursue this. And, but it was really that moment, Adam, to answer your question, it was like, it was like having somebody who bulls saw it in me and it was like weird, because you don't wanna believe that you need somebody else to tell you that. But for me, I just kind of needed that push.

And she kind of helped me have that confidence. And once the clarity came, it was like, I was like, I don't know if you guys are drink a lot or stuff. You know, I've kind of gone back. I like to have some beers here in there nowadays, but taking a year off of booze was just like, it was like I was elevating. I had an untapped energy source and I was, I was like, I had a lot of energy aligned to go out and do so. It's amazing how drugs and alcohol and a lot of those things blunt a lot of this stuff.

A lot of times, most would say that we use these types of substances to bury something inside of us that we need to let out. And it sounds like you had this roaring fire inside you and you were kind of blunting it with all these other things. And once you cut that off, it just came undone. They can be in discriminant tools. You know, you're trying to numb yourself. And they're, they affect it and numbing,

but they numb everything, including the good. Yeah. Who is this woman? Did you ever talk to her again? Did you get her name? Some kind of Oracle. Yeah, yeah. She actually kind of became a life coach to me for,

you know, it was weird, because I wasn't paying her, and that's actually what she did for a living, but she was like, I, for whatever reason, and feeling compelled to help you, and I see it so clearly for you, I'm going to be in your corner. And so we started doing weekly phone calls.

And it was just like little check-ins, and she would just kind of keep me fired up and keep me going down this path, and it really was inspiring to me. So yeah, we still keep in touch. That's so wild. As a matter of fact, I reached out to her every once in a while, and when you're moving really fast, you're like, you have these moments once in a while, when you're moving really fast, you're like, you have these moments where you slow down and you're like, wow, like it's happening.

Everything that that lady told me is happening. I just had that moment. So I reached out to her. I was like, man, I owe you so much. I was just like, I am so appreciative for you. You changed my life. And everything you said came true. I just like, can't believe it, you know. Like you changed my life. And everything you said came true. I just like can't believe it, you know?

That's so wild. It fucking is me goose bumps. Yeah, that's crazy. No, that's just. Yeah, can you ask her about us? Yeah. Yeah. No, no.

Did you, did you, did you feel like the momentum and like the snowball effect? I mean, you meet Chris, you start talking to him. Like what was, what was, what started? And then you're in a, are you in a different relationship today than what you were at this time or at one point. Yeah, we're. Yeah. So at that time, I, I was in that relationship. And, um, yeah, it wasn't probably the healthiest relationship for me. And so, um, I got out of it. And, um, it was hard, man. Those were some

really lonely years, you know, because I wasn't partying, so on Friday nights, it had been so long since I didn't go out and find friends on a Friday night or I wasn't in a relationship, but it wasn't only booze that I took a year off. It was girls too. So I wasn't dating.

No matter who came into my life, no matter how amazing they might have appeared, I was like no girls, no booze. So that meant a lot of Friday nights, I was just twiddling my thumbs, you know, like looking for a sober buddy to like go catch a flick with or something, you know? I mean, it's like, it was not easy, but I just, I took those moments to just journal

and just work on myself and do things that were healthy for me. So, so yeah, they were lonely times, but I didn't get into relationship and then once kind of Viori was underway, I met a woman who completely blew me away and we're married now, we have a kid together and one more on the way. Oh, congrats. So yeah, I kind of look at it like, was I really the guy that would attract a woman like that back in the day?

Probably not. Like my wife today would probably look at that guy back then and be like, that guy's a douche. Yeah. Yeah. I feel the same way if I could treat it. Katrina and I joke about this all the time that if we were at each other 25,

we would have just would ripass each other. Yeah. No interest whatsoever. That's hilarious. So that period of time, did you start Viori at that point, or are you like, I'm going to get clean, clear, and then did you start Viori after? Was that all at the same time? Yeah, so that was when I started getting into yoga and meditation.

And that has kind of led to like, you know, I don't practice yoga, kind of the physical practice of yoga as much anymore, but I do all of these incredible, all these things that for me, really helped keep me clear. A lot of breath work, I do a lot of like, ice submergence, I kind of got into the Wim Hof method for a bit, but I do things like I have a morning ritual

that just kind of helps keep me on this path of clarity, and I feel like it's really important for me to keep investing in that, because as life and business get crazier and crazier with kids and an growing company, clarity is the ultimate premium. Now you mentioned to that at your new facility, you have an exercise and work out equipment there

and everything. What does that look like for your staff? And is this like morning ritual something you've sort of, you know, put out there with your employees as well? It's not per se, because it's so unique to me. I think one of the things yoga, yoga is all about awareness, body awareness, right?

And I actually find that yoga is, for a lot of people an unhealthy practice physically because you know for me like I started getting overly flexible and I actually think that it made some of my problems in my body worse because I wasn't doing it in perfect alignment and focus and I think yoga today is really a physical thing you're flowing through this class yourming music, that you're not focused on alignment and proper body mechanics. And so it wasn't until I met a guy named Mike Straumsness down in San Diego, he owns a gym called Nutrility

and his Instagram's the Enlightened Savage, but he's a rad dude. And he had been working with some professional surfers that I knew and they were like, you should really go talk to Mike and he could help you with this. Kind of, I have an unstable sacrum and my back goes out really easily.

And he just showed me some really simple things that I can do every day to kind of stabilize my pelvis. And so my morning ritual now is breath work. I do some light exercises that like stabilize and build strength in my core. Give me the mobility that I need for my specific type of injuries that I'm working through. And then I get in the ice, and I get out of the ice, and I'm just ready to go. Every morning?

Yeah. Every morning you jump in ice. Wow. How long? You know, it started with, you know, the ego was like, stay in here longer. But I've found that for me like a minute is the right amount of time. Yeah, yeah. Wow.

Well, I mean, I do cold showers and it's more effective than coffee for me. And it's clear. It's a much cleaner energy. Do you know, I don't know if you guys even know this. This was what originally connected us. So part of Taylor's job is to seek out companies like you. There's to look for somebody who, and Taylor's incredibly talented when it comes to seeing

a company on its rise and just knowing that it loved lines with us, and he brought your website to me and he says, hey, check out this brand. I think you're gonna really dig it, what they're into. And that was the first thing that popped up, I think, when I looked at the inscript, is the ice bucket. The ice bucket.

Yeah, yeah. And it was right at the same time that we were actually having Wim Hof training coming on in here. And right away, that's what initially, I said, okay, I'm interested. Like, I wanna know, this guy's already on this. I already know he's probably done work

into working inside and things like that. Like, there's a good chance his values align with ours. So that was really what drew us in. I mean, you could have just been another, because Taylor brings shit all the time in front of the desk and says, hey, check this company out, check this company out, check this company out.

And I said, yeah, dude, let's make the connection, let's see if there's something there. And I don't know if that wasn't there. I don't know if we would have ever connected. And it's wild to sit here and listen to your entire story, but how much we're alike and how much we align is amazing. And that's a big part of it. I think that you value that.

That's our core values are very, very similar to your guys' core values, which has made this such an incredible partnership. Now, what is, you did something too, I wanna get into where you did the reverse of what, you know, businesses or clothing lines would have done 20 plus years ago, which is the start brick and mortar, and then you potentially get into the online,

you guys started online, but now you're starting to venture into the brick and mortar. Tell me a little bit about that process. Why do that? What's the strategy behind that and what that it's been like for you? Yeah, absolutely. Going back to the start of the business when I was taking those samples around to,

we call it wholesale, but those are kind of other brick and mortars think of like Nordstrom or REI. Those are our wholesale accounts. But I was taking product around and people just didn't, they weren't interested. We're too early to the category. It's funny because now they're all focused on it. Now ActiveWare is a big part of everyone's business. I don't care if you're an outdoor shop or you're a fashion boutique.

You've got some active wear in your store. But at the time, it was a little bit before that. So we had to figure things out, right? Like our business plan when we had originally launched was that wholesale would be a big part of it. And when we got out there, it was tough sledding. And then we realized that the accounts that did bring in the brand, you know,

they didn't know how to merchandise it. They weren't focused on it. It was just pushed into the corner. And so we had to think on our feet, all right? Like how are we gonna pivot this business and make this thing successful? And those were the days where I started getting really scared, you know, and wondering if we were actually gonna make

this thing go. And through, you know, talking with some of my mentors, you know, we decided some of my mentors, you know, we decided that with the money that we had left, we were kind of dwindling down to the wire and it was gonna be hard to go out and get more money with what we had proven to date. We decided we're gonna take all the rest of our money

and we're going all in on digital marketing. We're gonna put this money into the Facebook engine, and we're gonna find out if people come to our site and if we've got something. And we used kind of a yoga messaging, because we're like, there's a lot of guys into yoga, they're an underserved market. And so we kind of used that as our entry point

in our communication. It was like Men's Yoga clothing. And we quickly learned that we were on, like it was like the first money in was like a dollar, it was just so we'd put a dollar into Facebook, we'd get a dollar in sales. And so we were losing money, it was like giving product away pretty much.

But we were like, okay, people are buying. Then like a couple months in, we put in a dollar, we get two dollars back. Oh, now we're working. And I was like, okay, something's starting to happen here. We're getting some of those early adopters that are buying a second pair. And then before you know it,

it was like we were putting a dollar and we were getting three dollars back. And we were putting in more and more and more. And now, I mean, we're putting in a dollar, and we're getting five dollars back. And we're at a very, very big scale. And so we were fortunate, I, all this Facebook's in the news a lot, getting big scale. And so we were fortunate, I, all this Facebook's in the news a lot,

getting a lot of heat, but for me, I'm like, man, I'm really grateful for Facebook because it really helped us to build this business and helped introduce the brand to that niche community that was looking for stuff like this. I didn't have to rely on some buyer at Nordstrom or REI or Dix, or you name it to tell me whether or not we had something. We could go direct to the consumer

and build that relationship with them. The other thing that really helped that process was early on we did a survey. We just reached out to all the people that had bought from us. We sent them a survey and we asked them, what do you guys like about the brand? What do you not like? Do you like the brand? What do you not like? Do you like the product?

What do you use the product for? What other brands do you wear? And what we learned was really formative in shaping the future of Viori. And that really was that yoga was like, it was not even the second or third or fourth thing people were wearing the product for. It was like ahead of that was like walking your dog

and like, you know, sleeping. And then yoga was weighed on the list. And here we were marketing this brand as like a yoga brand. And we were like, wait a minute. It sounds like what people are really appreciate about our brand is the versatility. Like they love the fact that it looks cool enough to just wear around town or go to a bar and meet a friend

for a drink, but it works for its intended use. So they're running in it, they're training in it, but they love the versatility. And we were like, whoa, okay. And so we started shifting our message to like, look, we're not gonna tell you what it's for. Like, but these are things that you could use it for. This is what our customers love it for.

And it was like run, train, hike, travel, surf. Like, and we just became, the story became about versatility, not specific end use, and it was like boom, it just started happening. Wow. So we really relied, our customers really help inform us, and we just, you know, we listen to them. That's awesome.

Now that you have 60 employees, I think you said, what kind of a company are you creating for your employees? Like what are the values that you try to instill in them? And what kind of an environment are you trying to create for them as they work for you? Yeah, I mean, I, I, is the most important thing we do. Aside from make great product, because like if you don't make great park,

you don't have a business. But like assuming you've got that part, right? Figured out, the most important thing that you do is build a great culture. Because your culture is your brand, you know, and they're so synonymous with one another. If you have a really strong vision for something and it's authentic and you back that up with actions and you make investments in that, your team sees that and they build trust. And trust is what builds great cultures. And so Justin, we didn't

get back to answering your question, but you were talking about the fitness studio and this kind of thing that we built out in the office. But it's all part of kind of what we call our investment and happiness. And it's one of our biggest values, but it extends beyond a product guarantee. We want our customers to be happy with the gear. But it's like, it's our commitment to investing in the happiness of our people, of our customers to be happy with the gear, but it's our commitment to investing in the happiness of our people, of our customers, and everyone in the Viori ecosystem. And so we're doing lots of cool things. Like in the early days, we made a choice instead of hiring more people to make sure we paid 100% of health insurance for all of our employees. We did that really early on. That was

important to us. We brought in life coaches that have worked with our companies to help them better understand how to communicate through challenging situations with their peers and co-workers and how to set goals in their own personal lives. We built out the yoga studio in our gym and we're curating a whole curriculum of different trainers and yoga teachers and pilates and people coming into our space to offer that to our employees. We're just doing cool things. We gave everybody a budget to go out and buy books and we've got this kind of Viori library where people can get access to knowledge and interesting things that they

might share with other employees. We paid for everybody to have unlimited access to knowledge and interesting things that they might share with other employees. And, you know, we paid for everybody to have unlimited access to a yoga studio down in our hometown. And so we're just, you know, we're just trying to find those opportunities to do cool things with our people. And, you know, the more that we can make it feel like a tribe and make people, you know, people, like really trust the leadership that we're making investments and that we do care and that we're patient and that we're listening. That's really important. The people that we hire and the people

that we bring into this community is really, really, really important because if you have leaders that don't have egos and are great facilitators and listeners, you'll build a great culture. You bring in the wrong people and you start getting people with power struggles. You start getting people kind of swimming in opposite directions and having different visions for the future of the company. And that's where you get in trouble.

So, I agree. I agree. That's a big one. Speaking of the future, looking ahead, first of all, the space has changed a lot in the few years you guys have been a business, right? This wasn't even a market and now it seems like everybody's trying to get into this market.

Looking ahead, what do you see in the future for this market and for you guys? Well, I think that as long as people are continuing to invest in their own health and well-being, I think Viori will have a place in the conversation. And that's really all we want is a seated table. And we want to be able to continue to bring our point of view to it. We want to be able to continue learning.

I think that's one of the coolest things about being in the spaces. I get to sit down and talk to guys like you who are authorities in this world. And I get to learn from you guys. And that just lights me up. So as long as people are continuing to invest in this in themselves and getting better and being active and healthy, we see that the active, the clothing that people wear on this journey is going to continue to be important. And we're just excited to be able to continue

to add value to that process. That's awesome. I think we feel the exact same way about that. That was always the goal when we first got in a podcast because we just need to get in there as a fitness authority in that space and ride the wave. Like we just wanna be in the conversation. Just wanna be in that conversation as the space continues to grow and we're both in that. We're both in a growing space. And

you've established yourself as that. And you will probably always be in it, especially with the attitude you guys have in the culture that you're building. Yeah. One of the most important things for us when we work with any partners, of course, the obvious we have to like the product or you know what they're what they're serving or what they're doing. We have to like that. But we also have to like their product or what they're serving or what they're doing. We have to like that. But we also have to align with their culture, the leaders in the company, what they're trying to do overall, what their why is.

And we joke around and say we have to like them. But that's how we end up liking these people. And we love your brand. You guys do such a phenomenal job. We feel very aligned with you guys on all levels, just on the on this type of a partnership here. Absolutely. We feel the exact same way It's been amazing working with the mind prop crew you guys are all awesome human beings your mission is pure We believe in it and we're just stoked to be in partnership. Awesome, man. Thanks for coming on brother Yeah, great. Thank you guys so much

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