Speaker 1: Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're booking
Speaker 1: ophthalmologist appointments asap. Hopping from screen to screen and sports
Speaker 1: game to sports game is definitely frying our eyeballs, but
Speaker 1: we won't be quitting anytime soon. It's Wednesday, March twelfth,
Speaker 1: and on today's show, we'll be diving right into my
Speaker 1: conversation with Moulach Kicks founder and CEO Natalie White. We
Speaker 1: dished about how she started a footwear brand from scratch
Speaker 1: in her twenties while other brands aren't really making basketball
Speaker 1: shoes for women's feet, getting players like Courtney Williams to
Speaker 1: Rock Moolahs and cold emailing Mark Cuban. It's all coming
Speaker 1: up right after this joining us now. She's the founder
Speaker 1: and CEO of Moolah Kicks, the only brand exclusively committed
Speaker 1: to creating performance footwear for the women's hoops game. She's
Speaker 1: a former Forbes thirty Under thirty, ONOREE Sports Business Journals,
Speaker 1: thirty Voices Under thirty and twenty twenty four Front Offices,
Speaker 1: Rise twenty five Class of twenty twenty three, and one
Speaker 1: of Adwek's twenty twenty three Champions of Change. She is
Speaker 1: still a child. It's Natalie White. What's up. Natalie.
Speaker 2: Hi, Sarah, nice to be here. Thank you for that intro.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I'm seriously shook because I just mentioned that you are
Speaker 1: still capable of making thirty under thirty lists as of
Speaker 1: you know, last year. You're very young. You're very young,
Speaker 1: and you're already doing such amazing, incredible things. So first
Speaker 1: of all, I'm going to try not to get intimidated
Speaker 1: by somehow you putting together this massive company at such
Speaker 1: a young age. And more importantly, I want to really
Speaker 1: get into how it started, how this mulach Kicks journey started.
Speaker 1: So let's go way back to your growing up and hooping,
Speaker 1: I assume, and that being the impetus for you realizing
Speaker 1: that there was a space in the industry.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so. I grew up in New York City and
Speaker 2: I played on almost every team you can imagine. I've
Speaker 2: played for New Heights, i played for Team Prints, which
Speaker 2: is now Exodus, I played for my high school, and
Speaker 2: I still play in Dykeman and Rucker and all of
Speaker 2: the women's street ball leagues. And I played in almost
Speaker 2: every sneaker that you can imagine as well. And when
Speaker 2: I went to college. I went to Boston College where
Speaker 2: I studied finance. I played on the club team, and
Speaker 2: I managed the varsity team, so I can I can
Speaker 2: rebound okay and get water and watch jerseys like Noah.
Speaker 1: Set and Drill.
Speaker 2: Absolutely watched them off the floor. And when I was
Speaker 2: picking out my shoes for my senior season, I saw
Speaker 2: an ad that had four WNBA players holding out and
Speaker 2: promoting the sneakers that they were on court, which were
Speaker 2: all named after someone else, so it said Super Kyrie four,
Speaker 2: Diana Torossi, Lebron twelve, and two other players. And I
Speaker 2: remember seeing that ad and thinking, what is the message
Speaker 2: for the next generation. It's that you can be the
Speaker 2: absolute best in this game, best in the WNBA, and
Speaker 2: you will still be wearing and promoting sneakers named after
Speaker 2: someone else. And when you look into the issue, it's
Speaker 2: clear that not only does it have a social implication,
Speaker 2: but a performance one as well, because the female footform
Speaker 2: differs in four key places in the male foot form five,
Speaker 2: including the ankle, and when we, as female hoopers are
Speaker 2: wearing men's children's unisex sneakers, we're actually more at risk
Speaker 2: for the knee, ankle and leg injuries that are so
Speaker 2: common in women's basketball, and so I saw that one
Speaker 2: to punch and really, without any hesitation, created Moolah to
Speaker 2: be the first and only brand that is focused specifically
Speaker 2: on women's basketball where every single thing we do is
Speaker 2: to elevate, see and celebrate female hoopers. And it starts
Speaker 2: with premium performance equipment, footwear fit for her.
Speaker 1: Okay, there is so much in there. I want to
Speaker 1: get back to that moment where you see a need
Speaker 1: and you obviously you have a finance background, you went
Speaker 1: to a great college, You're a smart person, so you
Speaker 1: recognize the need and that there's a space to fill.
Speaker 1: You still have to create something from scratch. That means funding,
Speaker 1: That means design, that means marketing, that means brand creation, trademarks, copyright,
Speaker 1: advertising awareness. Like it is a massive deal to try
Speaker 1: to break into a market that has really established top
Speaker 1: performers like Nike, Rebok, Adidas as it's all these brands
Speaker 1: that we already know, right, So where do you start?
Speaker 1: Do you start with the funding? Do you start with
Speaker 1: a pitch and an idea?
Speaker 2: I would say, Sarah, that idea, what I just shared
Speaker 2: with you is the easiest part.
Speaker 1: You know right, knowing that we're missing something is easy.
Speaker 1: Fixing it is what we've been working on for literally
Speaker 1: decades in the women's sportspace.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the easy part is the idea, is the
Speaker 2: founding story. The hard part is making it happen. What
Speaker 2: you've said and so you I thought, But when I
Speaker 2: started it, I knew nothing about footwear, right, I didn't
Speaker 2: have I mean, it's crazy, I'd have no background, you know,
Speaker 2: that was my intro. It's like, I'm still very young.
Speaker 2: So we are absolutely figuring everything out as we go.
Speaker 2: And the beauty of that is that we get to
Speaker 2: have our core consumer, the women's basketball player, the girls'
Speaker 2: basketball players, drive all of our decisions. And the first,
Speaker 2: the very first step in the process, I thought it
Speaker 2: was funding. When I was a senior in college, I
Speaker 2: went out for funding. Every single person told me no,
Speaker 2: fifty one hundred. I can't even tell you the number
Speaker 2: of accelerators I applied to people I pitched who said,
Speaker 2: if this was a real market brand, Nike would have
Speaker 2: already been doing it on German would have already been
Speaker 2: doing it, because at the time, no one was. And
Speaker 2: so that fueled me, Like I said, you know what,
Speaker 2: we're going to do it with nothing, and we ended
Speaker 2: up doing just that, bootstrapped it for two years. Who's
Speaker 2: we at that time it was me. I was a
Speaker 2: solo founder for two years, and now we've brought on
Speaker 2: a great team that has transformed for the business. But
Speaker 2: when I first started, it was just me, and I
Speaker 2: do say we because I had so much help from
Speaker 2: the women's team at Boston College and a lot of
Speaker 2: the players in the ACC and all the players who
Speaker 2: I grew up playing with. They helped. They worked on
Speaker 2: Moolah with me for free, just because they believed in
Speaker 2: what we're doing. And the first step in the process
Speaker 2: was creating that inner form, which is called the last
Speaker 2: and is responsible for the fit of the shoe. So
Speaker 2: when we say fit for female ballers, it doesn't really
Speaker 2: mean anything to the consumer. What means something is when
Speaker 2: you say these shoes take no time to break in.
Speaker 2: They're ready right out of the box. And what's responsible
Speaker 2: for that is the inner fit. And what's responsible for
Speaker 2: the inner fit is a form called the last spelled LASP,
Speaker 2: and it's essentially a mold of way which all materials
Speaker 2: are pulled around in the sneaker creation process and then
Speaker 2: the very final step is that mold is removed, whether
Speaker 2: it's a high heel, a boot, or a sneaker. And
Speaker 2: so our mold was the first thing we needed to
Speaker 2: create with pediatrists, orthopedic surgeons, and the top last company
Speaker 2: in the world, Jones and Vining, And so essentially the
Speaker 2: way we created that form was I called and interviewed
Speaker 2: as many experts as I could find, podiatrist, whoever else
Speaker 2: I just mentioned. I surveyed every girls basketball player I
Speaker 2: could get a hold of, varsity players in the ACC,
Speaker 2: the entire club circuit, walked around with a Google survey,
Speaker 2: I mean just really vootscap standing outside of CONTI Forum
Speaker 2: and pulling all the high school girls that walked in.
Speaker 2: What do you like, what don't you like? What fits,
Speaker 2: what doesn't. And then compiled all that research and made
Speaker 2: that first form, sampled against it and start testing it
Speaker 2: with the Boston College team where they had one of
Speaker 2: their old sneakers on and one of our new Mulah prototypes,
Speaker 2: and we ran them through practices and drills where they
Speaker 2: would comment on the fit. And so in time we
Speaker 2: just started small changes improvements to that form, until finally
Speaker 2: we had a form that when folks put our shoes on,
Speaker 2: they had they're ready right out of the box with
Speaker 2: no break in time. And that was the first step
Speaker 2: you mentioned.
Speaker 1: You know, less than ten percent of the basketball shoes
Speaker 1: that are offered, including some W signature shoes, are designed
Speaker 1: for the female foot form. It seems like a no
Speaker 1: brainer to make women's shoes for women. And if the
Speaker 1: process for all shoes is to have a last and
Speaker 1: a mold, why doesn't it Why isn't it more common
Speaker 1: to use the women's foot form for women's shoes?
Speaker 2: Cost it's the tooling costs are really expensive, and the
Speaker 2: big brands save money when they make everything for men
Speaker 2: and market men's stuff for women.
Speaker 1: So if you went to any of the major brands
Speaker 1: and you bought a women's shoe, it's women's in sense
Speaker 1: of more the exterior shape than the interior form.
Speaker 2: For a lot of them.
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, interesting, So okay, I got to go back
Speaker 1: still because you're acting like it's a normal thing for
Speaker 1: a college senior to know about, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: get into accelerator labs or trying to get Bundy. Like
Speaker 1: obviously you have this entrepreneurial spirit and this business sense
Speaker 1: where does that come from?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think you know. When I was
Speaker 2: a real young kid, I used to always be thinking
Speaker 2: about ways to make money. And I grew up in
Speaker 2: New York and there used to even when I was
Speaker 2: in fifth grade, there used to be a popular toy
Speaker 2: called a miyachi. I don't know if you've ever heard
Speaker 2: of it. It's like a hackey sack on your hands.
Speaker 2: And I remember my family went to the beach one
Speaker 2: summer and I bought wholesale one hundred the achis and
Speaker 2: I tried to I went outside of a toy store
Speaker 2: on the boardwalk and I played with them, trying to
Speaker 2: bring that toy into trying to sell it to kids
Speaker 2: like on the boardwalk. And so I think a part
Speaker 2: of it I've always had and I a hustler, yeah,
Speaker 2: and be an entrepreneur. I think is a lot like
Speaker 2: being a manager for the basketball team, because it means
Speaker 2: you want to be a support player and you care
Speaker 2: more about the mission than what you're doing. I'm fine
Speaker 2: getting the water. I want to support the players and
Speaker 2: be a service person to our greater mission, which is
Speaker 2: to elevate women's basketball.
Speaker 1: But you still need funding to do the things like
Speaker 1: creating prototypes to put on players and have them test
Speaker 1: them out and tell you what, yeah they like, what
Speaker 1: they don't like. Before you're going to make a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of shoes and try to get them in stores
Speaker 1: and sell them, you still need a certain amount of
Speaker 1: funding to get started. Where did that come from?
Speaker 2: I did investment banking internship at HSBC and made twenty
Speaker 2: five thousand dollars in one summer.
Speaker 1: Work paid internship, paid internship. We love those.
Speaker 2: And then also for COVID, because I was in the
Speaker 2: class of twenty twenty, we got a housing reimbursement from
Speaker 2: when we got kicked out of the dorms and that
Speaker 2: was about It was a food and housing reimbursement for
Speaker 2: about eight thousand dollars. So I took the twenty five
Speaker 2: thousand I made over the summer and the eight thousand
Speaker 2: reimbursement and I used that thirty three thousand dollars and
Speaker 2: invested every penny of that, which was all I had,
Speaker 2: into those things that you do need to pay for,
Speaker 2: right like the actual mold and the designs and the
Speaker 2: sampling expenses. And then when we were ready, we came
Speaker 2: out with a pre sale campaign in May of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one. So it took all you know, over a
Speaker 2: year of sampling and working on this one hundred hours
Speaker 2: a week full time with really no reward. And I
Speaker 2: was blessed enough to live with my parents during that
Speaker 2: time and they supported me with food and a bed,
Speaker 2: and I was able to come out with a pre
Speaker 2: sale campaign in twenty twenty one where we sold thirty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars worth of products in only a few weeks.
Speaker 1: And that's not like a Kickstarter style, but it is
Speaker 1: in the sense of they will order it before you'll
Speaker 1: make it, and you'll know that that order is in
Speaker 1: before you produce, so that you don't have stock laying
Speaker 1: around that you then have to unload.
Speaker 2: Exactly. It was basically a Kickstarter, except for we didn't
Speaker 2: do it on the Kickstarter platform because they take ten
Speaker 2: percent of yourself, right right, right right.
Speaker 1: I have to ask when you were playing AAU and
Speaker 1: growing up, did you have a go to shoe or
Speaker 1: did you just play with like did you bounce around?
Speaker 2: I bounced around?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Interesting. I had to always get the kind
Speaker 1: with like the highest possible ankle, and then I had
Speaker 1: to wear full like air cast ankle braces, which nobody
Speaker 1: wears anymore. I feel like they've updated the technology, but
Speaker 1: I had such bad ankles that I was like constantly
Speaker 1: like all the way halfway up my frickin' My producer
Speaker 1: is just writing in the script air cast. Ha ha
Speaker 1: ha ha ha ha ha. Yeah, mesh, I'm oldest we've
Speaker 1: been over this. I have no idea what the folks
Speaker 1: are wearing now. I'm sure it's a million times better,
Speaker 1: but that's literally what I had to suit up with
Speaker 1: every freakid game. We got to take a quick break
Speaker 1: more with Natalie White when we come back. You've got
Speaker 1: this idea, You've sold the first batch of them. Now
Speaker 1: you start being sort of strategic. When did you go
Speaker 1: to Mark Cuban? Was that before or after the Dicks
Speaker 1: Sporting Goods relationship?
Speaker 2: This is a crazy tidnit that needs to be shared.
Speaker 2: So thirty thousand dollars of sales is a drop in
Speaker 2: the bucket for what you need to produce commercial footwear.
Speaker 2: Because to get into a top factory where our sneakers
Speaker 2: were produced the first run, you need thousands of sneakers,
Speaker 2: and thirty thousand dollars is hundreds, right, not thousands? So
Speaker 2: including tooling costs and everything.
Speaker 1: Else, explain tooling costs.
Speaker 2: Tooling costs are essentially the cost to cut steel molds
Speaker 2: for every half size of a mid soul and an outsol,
Speaker 2: got it, And those run a couple of hundreds of
Speaker 2: thousands of dollars.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so take us to the factory. How
Speaker 1: do you get these hundreds made when they're not thousands.
Speaker 2: Yeah. At the same time as that pre sale was happening,
Speaker 2: there was a Good Morning America segment where the CEO
Speaker 2: of Dick's Sporting Goods was talking about the commitment that
Speaker 2: Dix has not only to women's sports, but in particular
Speaker 2: to women's basketball. And I remember seeing that segment and thinking,
Speaker 2: oh my god, they have everything except for sneakers fit
Speaker 2: for her. They would love this. And I saw that segment,
Speaker 2: and at the same time we had had a pr blast.
Speaker 2: We were in the Boston Globe Sneaker Freaker overtime. A
Speaker 2: ton of people were promoting our pre launch, essentially because
Speaker 2: they knew me and knew Mulan what we're doing. We're
Speaker 2: excited by it. And in the Boston Globe, a man
Speaker 2: an industry expert named Matt Powell was quoted, and I
Speaker 2: saw on LinkedIn that he was connected to Lauren Hobart,
Speaker 2: the CEO of Dick's Boarding Goods, and so I reached
Speaker 2: out to Matt after seeing the Good Morning America segment
Speaker 2: and said, Hi, Matt, here's the segment I saw about
Speaker 2: Dix and their commitment to women's basketball. Here's the Mulah brand.
Speaker 2: Would you please connect me with her. Here's the exact
Speaker 2: email ad right, here's the presentation I'm ready to give.
Speaker 2: I'm ready to give that in two minutes or six
Speaker 2: hours if I need to drive to Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1: Amazing, And he.
Speaker 2: Said, oh my gosh, you know, if you're gutsy enough
Speaker 2: to ask me for that, then yes. And so I
Speaker 2: connected with her and immediately she got right back to me,
Speaker 2: and she connected me with their head of soft lines
Speaker 2: and they're head of footwear, and I pitched in during
Speaker 2: June of twenty twenty one. They loved it and they
Speaker 2: said how soon can you get it here? And, of course,
Speaker 2: not knowing much, I said, well, I can get it
Speaker 2: there for basketball season and they said, okay, basketball season. Wow,
Speaker 2: you'd be the fastest company.
Speaker 1: Uh oh, not a great sign to ever deliver.
Speaker 2: To us and the smallest in size, meaning like I
Speaker 2: was only one person at the time, and I said, yup,
Speaker 2: we can do it. And they said, okay, we're going
Speaker 2: to put it into one hundred and forty stores and
Speaker 2: make the first ever women's basketball section with this. Then amazing,
Speaker 2: and I said, let's do it. And at that time
Speaker 2: I negotiated payment terms so that we had healthy receivable
Speaker 2: terms with Dicks. Then went out and pitched to a
Speaker 2: ton of the top factories overseas who I knew through
Speaker 2: a few footwear connections that I had made through the
Speaker 2: of the year and a half, and eventually pitched to
Speaker 2: a group out in Dongnai, Vietnam, Wa Sung who created
Speaker 2: sixty million pair of year for Adidas, Hoka, All Birds
Speaker 2: and big big performance brands. I pitched to them. They
Speaker 2: loved it, and they took us immediately and expedited all
Speaker 2: of our production.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: They had even the management team was carting around our
Speaker 2: uppers which is like the sewn in part two different
Speaker 2: factory lines to make sure that they got done in time.
Speaker 2: We made sure that our receivables covered our payables, and
Speaker 2: then at that point went out and pitched investors just
Speaker 2: to get the funds to get the goods through the border.
Speaker 2: That was the only funds we needed to raise was
Speaker 2: to cover the air freight and the customs. And so
Speaker 2: went out and cold emailed Mark Cuban, because yeah, when
Speaker 2: you don't know what you're what, who to go to?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: And so I reached out to him with a cold email.
Speaker 2: It's in his bio on LinkedIn, and he ended up
Speaker 2: investing along with the consortium of a few other investors,
Speaker 2: and we were able to get all of our goods
Speaker 2: across in a safe way to exporting goods on time,
Speaker 2: and we created the first ever women's basketball section in
Speaker 2: one hundred and forty stores.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. Mark Cuban is. I don't want to encourage
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of people to bug the hell out
Speaker 1: of him, but I cold emailed him via Facebook about
Speaker 1: the Cubs once and now we're friends as the results
Speaker 1: of that, So he does get back to folks. He's
Speaker 1: more accessible than you'd imagine for a multi billionaire. Okay,
Speaker 1: so now you're in Dick's Sporting Goods, you're a one
Speaker 1: hundred and forty stores. Now you've got a partnership with
Speaker 1: them where they financially backed the brand through their DSG
Speaker 1: Ventures investment fund. I still need to understand why they believed.
Speaker 1: You're obviously very compelling, very smart. The idea is a
Speaker 1: good one, but footwear is so specific and people I
Speaker 1: would imagine if you did the research on it, it
Speaker 1: is one of the items that people are most likely
Speaker 1: to buy the brands they already know, and least likely
Speaker 1: to go outside of existing brands. That's just a guess
Speaker 1: for me. So how do you convince people that they're
Speaker 1: good shoes, that they're not going to get injured, that
Speaker 1: they're gonna make them play well, that they look good
Speaker 1: in them, that they want to wear? Like, how are
Speaker 1: you convincing Mark Cuban or Dix or even your partnership
Speaker 1: with Stanley Mugs, which we'll get to later. How do
Speaker 1: you convince them that it's a viable product that will work,
Speaker 1: that won't have the wear and tear that people will
Speaker 1: be mad about all that stuff.
Speaker 2: The first step is putting them on. I mean, if
Speaker 2: I were with you today, Sarah, I would have brought
Speaker 2: a couple of pairs to make sure you put a
Speaker 2: pair on, because the second you actually put our shoes on,
Speaker 2: all those questions go away. You can tell it's a
Speaker 2: quality product, and the second you stand up and take
Speaker 2: a couple steps, you say, oh my god, I understand
Speaker 2: what it means to not have any break in time.
Speaker 2: So that's the first thing, is your product has to
Speaker 2: be there.
Speaker 1: And is the break in time? So I remember I
Speaker 1: was watching the videos. Courtney Williams, one of your players,
Speaker 1: talked about how she loves the idea that she can
Speaker 1: put on a new pair every game and doesn't have
Speaker 1: to break them in. Why is that? Is that because
Speaker 1: the form is made for her foot? Or is that
Speaker 1: because of some proprietary technology that like other shoe companies
Speaker 1: aren't doing for whatever reason.
Speaker 2: That's both are true. It is our female foot form
Speaker 2: that we developed and it's that no other company has done.
Speaker 1: Why not?
Speaker 2: Is it cost Again, that's the same, is what we
Speaker 2: went back to. It's the tooling costs. It's just been
Speaker 2: historically cheaper for them to make men's male fit products
Speaker 2: and market it to women.
Speaker 1: But the same with the break in because the break
Speaker 1: in is not specific to gender, right, that's just the
Speaker 1: way the shoe is made.
Speaker 2: That's something that we as female basketball players experience ten
Speaker 2: fold because the equipment isn't made for us.
Speaker 1: It's like during a.
Speaker 2: Mouthguard, so they're related.
Speaker 1: It's the fact that it's made for you already, so
Speaker 1: you don't have to break it in to match your
Speaker 1: form because it was already built for you.
Speaker 2: Exactly got it okay, all right?
Speaker 1: So people can tell by looking at the shoe, the
Speaker 1: product putting it on, they understand the value. What's your
Speaker 1: pitch to them about why someone would want to get
Speaker 1: Moulah Kicks instead of going with the Sabrina and Escuz
Speaker 1: or the other ones that they've heard about that they've
Speaker 1: seen on the players they love.
Speaker 2: Okay, first performance, our performance, the feeling is like no other.
Speaker 2: And then second, it's on brand and it's on elevating
Speaker 2: women's basketball. And we are the only specialists in this space.
Speaker 2: We're the only company that puts women's first and the
Speaker 2: only company who doesn't address women's basketball as a sub
Speaker 2: sector of men's basketball or basketball in general. We address
Speaker 2: women's basketball as its own sport because we love it
Speaker 2: and are excited to be a part of this explosive growth.
Speaker 2: And so when people buy Moolah, they know that not
Speaker 2: only are they elevating their performance on court, but Also,
Speaker 2: they're contributing to a brighter future of women's basketball because
Speaker 2: every single dollar we earn goes back into that sport
Speaker 2: and our players, not baseball and lifestyle and football and
Speaker 2: everything else. Now, this is all we do. It's like
Speaker 2: Lulemon or Patagonia. It's a specialist brand specifically for women's hoops.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I want to get to that name that
Speaker 1: you mentioned, so Moolah Kicks and the tagline by and
Speaker 1: for female ballers. As someone who has been on the
Speaker 1: back end of sports and technology app development, I have
Speaker 1: been there for every step of what's the name, what's
Speaker 1: the tagline, copyright, trademark, visuals, logo, colors, all of that.
Speaker 1: And that's for an app where it's not something you're
Speaker 1: wearing and walking around in every day. So I understand
Speaker 1: the value and the difficulty in making all those decisions.
Speaker 1: Did you outsource? Did you hire designers and folks that
Speaker 1: you really trusted? How did you decide where to go
Speaker 1: for the visuals of this? Because that's really important. You
Speaker 1: could tell someone that the shoes are great and they
Speaker 1: perform well, and that they stand for the right thing,
Speaker 1: and if they're ugly, no one's rocking them absolutely.
Speaker 2: It's piece by piece. So when the company was first started,
Speaker 2: the Mulah logo, it was this gold bar with the
Speaker 2: words kind of imprinted in the logo, and that was
Speaker 2: made in a Boston in the Boston College library by
Speaker 2: me on illustrator.
Speaker 1: How'd you come up with moolah?
Speaker 2: So mulah slang for money, yep. And the slang aspect
Speaker 2: is a nod to the street culture of women's basketball,
Speaker 2: the Dykman, the West Fourth and the energy in that game.
Speaker 2: And then the money aspect signifies the financial opportunity that
Speaker 2: this brand is creating for female hoopers.
Speaker 1: Got it okay?
Speaker 2: And so the first logo was everything step wise. I
Speaker 2: think it's okay that you don't. You don't start out
Speaker 2: in six hundred and thirty stores. You don't start out
Speaker 2: with a clean logo and the look that we have now.
Speaker 2: You start out the only way you know how okay,
Speaker 2: you put it. You put it on the computer at
Speaker 2: Boston College. Because that's the best you can do, and
Speaker 2: it's all you know how to do. And so we
Speaker 2: went with that for a while, and then in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two we had expanded our footprint from one hundred
Speaker 2: and forty stores into four hundred and fifty, and so
Speaker 2: you're right, we could no longer get by off of
Speaker 2: the old creative and some of the really scrappy looks
Speaker 2: because the brand continues to elevate and elevate. So at
Speaker 2: that point, we partnered with Elizabeth McGarry and McGarry and
Speaker 2: Sons to do a deep dive on what really speaks
Speaker 2: to our women's basketball community, our high school and middle
Speaker 2: school players, and we refresh the entire brand and all
Speaker 2: of the creative to be centered around these two ideals.
Speaker 2: One is Moolah as media and that's kind of this
Speaker 2: holly with flavor. That shows what Moolah is doing as
Speaker 2: a brand. We are elevating and it's like becoming that
Speaker 2: tabloid feel. And then the other pillar is polarities and dualities,
Speaker 2: and that shows that the Moolah brand is for everyone
Speaker 2: in women's basketball. And how we demonstrate that is we
Speaker 2: show the very different expressions that women's basketball has his home.
Speaker 2: So many brands go down the middle with their marketing
Speaker 2: for women's basketball, and we like to show all angles.
Speaker 2: So this is for Courtney Williams who plays in the WNBA,
Speaker 2: and this brand is also for the CIO first grader
Speaker 2: who plays in the basement of her church, right Like,
Speaker 2: this brand is for both and for everyone in between.
Speaker 2: And so that's really the message that our new branding conveys.
Speaker 2: But it didn't start there.
Speaker 1: Okay, So it's a branding that's growing over time. But
Speaker 1: in the meantime, you're being very intentional about the partnerships
Speaker 1: and the development where people can find it, how they
Speaker 1: could buy it, who they connected to, And that partnership
Speaker 1: with Stanley actually came about through the Dick's partnership. Can
Speaker 1: you tell me about that? It's very organic.
Speaker 2: Stanley has had an incredible two years, no question, and
Speaker 2: we saw the way that they were capturing kind of
Speaker 2: the hearts of a lot of our core consumers. We
Speaker 2: saw a big shift where a lot of girls' basketball
Speaker 2: players actually had Stanley's below the bench last year. And
Speaker 2: it just so happened that the CEO of Stanley was
Speaker 2: walking through a Dick's fording Goods and looked at Moulah
Speaker 2: and said, oh my god, what is this brand? How
Speaker 2: are they commanding this much space essentially and excitement in
Speaker 2: the footwear section? And they explained Moolah to them everything
Speaker 2: that we stand for everything that we're doing, how well
Speaker 2: received our products have been. And he shot an email saying,
Speaker 2: let's do something the first of its kind. Coo, Hey,
Speaker 2: first of its kind Stanley that has a matching sneaker,
Speaker 2: And so we collaborated to come out with a first
Speaker 2: ever footwear Stanley collad that was available in six hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty stores and immediately when it hit the shells,
Speaker 2: it started beating expectations.
Speaker 1: Cool. How'd you end up partnering with Courtney Williams? How
Speaker 1: did you build relationships with players and convince you know,
Speaker 1: top level hoopers to commit to wearing shoes from a
Speaker 1: lesser known brand instead of the go tos.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the first athletes were all people who helped shape
Speaker 2: the brand, who we knew. So that's the beauty of
Speaker 2: starting something when you're from the women's basketball community and
Speaker 2: when you're young, like I just graduated BC one year
Speaker 2: before they started testing the shoes on that court, and
Speaker 2: so we knew everyone in the ACC one connection away
Speaker 2: and this was right at the time, nil And at
Speaker 2: that point, all it took was a text saying, Hey,
Speaker 2: can I send you a pair of sneakers and can
Speaker 2: you post on your Instagram and everyone did for free
Speaker 2: Sarah because the women's basketball community loves it. Like I
Speaker 2: think when you tried the sneaker on, when you hear
Speaker 2: what the brand is doing and you hear our story,
Speaker 2: people need no more convincing. You know, a lot of brands,
Speaker 2: they have their own platform and what they stand for,
Speaker 2: and so athletes need to be paid to promote their message.
Speaker 2: And what Moulah is doing is we're here to support
Speaker 2: the athlete's message. We're here to celebrate women's basketball, and
Speaker 2: we actually want to build a platform for them rather
Speaker 2: than the other way around. And so when people try
Speaker 2: the shoe and hear that, we have had nothing but
Speaker 2: good responses. And it started back when the brand first
Speaker 2: launched with getting all of the ACC players, all the
Speaker 2: players that I knew on board with it and posting,
Speaker 2: and it grew from there and with Courtney, we met
Speaker 2: actually through a spot with bleacher Report up at the
Speaker 2: Connecticut Sun and bleacher Report said we're going to do
Speaker 2: an unboxing as part of this series and we're gonna
Speaker 2: do it with a WNBA player and I said, this
Speaker 2: is amazing, We're excited for it, and they said, okay,
Speaker 2: you know, we kind of pitched for this spot, and
Speaker 2: they said, well, she's gonna unbox it cold right there
Speaker 2: on the spot. And so Courtney and I met on
Speaker 2: set live when she was unboxing this pair of Moulaws
Speaker 2: and she tried them on for the first time on
Speaker 2: a live segment and she loved them from there and
Speaker 2: she loved the brand, and we signed her right away
Speaker 2: and it's been a great partnership ever since.
Speaker 1: What's been the biggest challenge for you in making this
Speaker 1: company happen.
Speaker 2: I have to say, Sarah, there's challenges big and small,
Speaker 2: like every single week. I think one thing off the
Speaker 2: top is you mentioned that you're knowledgeable and all of
Speaker 2: the spaces about logos and branding and the rights to everything,
Speaker 2: and I think every single part of the company is
Speaker 2: like that. That there's nuance in all of the things
Speaker 2: that people aren't thinking about in krgo insurance, in free
Speaker 2: in delivery, in quality control at the manufacturer, in selling terms,
Speaker 2: in marketing. I mean you could go dizzy with how
Speaker 2: deep you can go in every single area of the business.
Speaker 2: And so I would say one of the biggest macro
Speaker 2: challenges is our time is limited, and how deep do
Speaker 2: we go in every single section of the business at
Speaker 2: what given time, and that changes through the years. There's
Speaker 2: always a balance of time, money and resources and what
Speaker 2: we want to be investing in.
Speaker 1: How big is your team now?
Speaker 2: Our team is five full time.
Speaker 1: That's insane, nothing.
Speaker 2: And we're doing crazy, you know, well over seven figures
Speaker 2: of revenue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as being a woman in her twenties ever felt
Speaker 1: like a bare whether it's folks not taking you seriously
Speaker 1: or trying to take advantage.
Speaker 2: It's a hard one because I think it's also what
Speaker 2: makes this business so special, you know, I mean, you
Speaker 2: can't this is who you are and you have to
Speaker 2: own it. And so it's been really well received. This
Speaker 2: is what it means to be buying for female ballers,
Speaker 2: and I don't think that. I think there's definitely challenges
Speaker 2: to it, but there's also so many benefits to being
Speaker 2: from the women's basketball community and making a brand and
Speaker 2: a product that serves your same community. So I would
Speaker 2: say there have certainly been challenges as it relates to
Speaker 2: literally any area of the business, whether that's funding or
Speaker 2: part of anything. But there's also just as many benefits
Speaker 2: to also being able to text players and saying, hey,
Speaker 2: would you mind posting.
Speaker 1: This yeah, for sure, the connections and relationship. I think
Speaker 1: for me, I guess part of it is you seem
Speaker 1: like you're so knowledgeable about all aspects of it. I
Speaker 1: would feel like I would be concerned, like that the
Speaker 1: deal I was getting was too good to be true,
Speaker 1: or that I was getting taken advantage for there was
Speaker 1: something I didn't know about the business that the other
Speaker 1: person on the other side negotiating does, and that they're
Speaker 1: pulling one over on me. And I wonder if you've
Speaker 1: had any moments I think for people listening, especially who
Speaker 1: are like, holy shit, how is this still under thirty
Speaker 1: person pulling all this off? Like have you made a mistake?
Speaker 1: Have you had a moment where you're like, oh, I
Speaker 1: wasted a ton of money on that whoops a daisy,
Speaker 1: Or I said the wrong deal for this and I
Speaker 1: should I could have made a lot more.
Speaker 2: Again, it's like pick your day. You know, I've made
Speaker 2: more mistakes than anyone else. I can't even tell you.
Speaker 2: But I think at the time, you always do what
Speaker 2: you feel like is the best decision, and you have
Speaker 2: to operate with the tools and the knowledge that you
Speaker 2: have at hand, and you can't look back, And so
Speaker 2: I wouldn't classify any of them as mistakes. I mean,
Speaker 2: even look at our old branding right or our first
Speaker 2: shoe that came out. It's like we're a completely different
Speaker 2: company than what we were. I mean, night and day
Speaker 2: really like unrecognizable, and we're developing in front of everyone
Speaker 2: and in front of the world, and that's a challenge
Speaker 2: in of itself. But I wouldn't say anything that we
Speaker 2: did then was a mistake because we were operating one
Speaker 2: hundred and ten percent. I've always given this business like
Speaker 2: every ounce that I have, and that's.
Speaker 1: All you can really do, you know, in a moment, Yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 2: No one's looking to pull one over. I don't think
Speaker 2: on you. I think that all of the approaches we've
Speaker 2: taken are ones of incredible gratitude and service to our partners,
Speaker 2: and I think when you do that, people want to
Speaker 2: reciprocate it. And I've noticed that in a lot of conversations.
Speaker 2: I think entrepreneurs go into it with that angle, Sarah,
Speaker 2: like they really do think, Okay, everyone's trying to get
Speaker 2: the better deal, and I like to let other people
Speaker 2: have the better deal. We'd like you to have the
Speaker 2: better deal because you're taking a shot on us. So
Speaker 2: take all the take all the margin, take all the
Speaker 2: costs you want. Like that's how it started, is I
Speaker 2: made no money personally for like four years. The company
Speaker 2: didn't make much, and we just wanted to give our
Speaker 2: partners the most benefit we could because you were grateful,
Speaker 2: and in turn they have had our back when things went.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just learned this last week and I'm stealing it.
Speaker 1: It's not win or lose, its win or learn. So
Speaker 1: if you just if you just make every single loss
Speaker 1: or mistake a learning opportunity, then you can always reframe
Speaker 1: it and move forward more positively. There are some big
Speaker 1: picture things in the footboor world that you're going to
Speaker 1: have to deal with that are not going to be
Speaker 1: maybe as easy to put a spin on, like whether
Speaker 1: it's workplace issues in the shoe industry, factory issues, like
Speaker 1: have you ever had to make a decision where you
Speaker 1: really are questioning your own beliefs and your optimism about
Speaker 1: the business versus the reality of trying to create products
Speaker 1: at a reasonable cost that people are willing to spend.
Speaker 2: Not yet, and they will come absolutely, but at this
Speaker 2: point we haven't come to that scale yet where we're
Speaker 2: faced with any of the macro issues, but we are
Speaker 2: also seeing of course we're affected by it. Right we
Speaker 2: have tariffs that are getting pasked. That's going to be
Speaker 2: affecting the business. There's a ton of macro issues that
Speaker 2: are affecting us today, but so far, we haven't we
Speaker 2: haven't had to compromise, absolutely not any of our beliefs
Speaker 2: for what we're doing.
Speaker 1: I hope you get to stay this optimistic. And I
Speaker 1: am not a cynical person, even in the slightest I'm
Speaker 1: just so much older than you that at this point
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, there are plenty of people looking to
Speaker 1: screw you over and trying to get one over on you.
Speaker 1: But hopefully you will continue to find the partners and
Speaker 1: the people to work with that want this sort of
Speaker 1: mutually beneficial relationship that have your back because they know
Speaker 1: that you have theirs. That's the best case scenario. What's
Speaker 1: next for the brand? I know you got into some apparel.
Speaker 2: We just launched some apparel. We have a new launch
Speaker 2: dropping on May fifteenth that we're excited about. That'll be
Speaker 2: our summer collection. And then we're just continuing to we
Speaker 2: want to continue to grow how we have that because
Speaker 2: if we keep doing that. If our players keep being
Speaker 2: excited about the shoes that we're serving up and the
Speaker 2: way that the brand is moving, I think it'll be
Speaker 2: continue to be a good couple of years ahead of us.
Speaker 1: Well, I cannot tell you how impressed. I am, just
Speaker 1: blown away, so incredible. You were at a conference I
Speaker 1: was at, or I think it was Upfronts in New York,
Speaker 1: and we didn't get a chance to speak, but I
Speaker 1: know the shoes were there and I checked them out.
Speaker 1: They look pretty badass, but just such a cool thing
Speaker 1: to see an opportunity and try to fill it, try
Speaker 1: to fix it. So continued. Good luck to you, and
Speaker 1: thanks so much for giving us some time.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Sarah.
Speaker 1: We have to take another break when we come back.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you just gotta let it out. Welcome back, Slices.
Speaker 1: We love that you're listening, but we want you to
Speaker 1: get in the game every day too. So here's our
Speaker 1: good game play of the day. Go check out Moolah's offerings,
Speaker 1: especially if you're a hooper. We're going to be trying
Speaker 1: out the shoes for ourselves. I don't know, they might
Speaker 1: become producer mishes go to for summer pickup games. We
Speaker 1: love to hear from you, so hit us up on email,
Speaker 1: good game at wondermediaetwork dot com, or leave us a
Speaker 1: voicemail at eight seven two two oh four fifty seventy,
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Speaker 1: know slices. There are a lot of things happening in
Speaker 1: our world, and finding a balance between taking in information
Speaker 1: and not overwhelming yourself can be super difficult. For some,
Speaker 1: it can even result in a kind of I don't know,
Speaker 1: emotional constipation. You see all the things happening and you
Speaker 1: just don't know what to do except internalize. And sometimes
Speaker 1: talking through what's bothering you just isn't enough. Sometimes we
Speaker 1: need like a reset, some emotional prune juice. If you
Speaker 1: will next time you're feeling emotionally constipated, watch one of
Speaker 1: those try not to laugh videos, or find a well
Speaker 1: insulated room and scream, reel loud, or put on a
Speaker 1: song you really love and just dance around. If you
Speaker 1: got the space and you won't bother anyone, belt out
Speaker 1: the song too, and if it's a sad song or
Speaker 1: the spirit moves you, or if you really just need
Speaker 1: to have yourself a good cry, there is absolutely no
Speaker 1: shame in a good cry. None of this is necessarily
Speaker 1: going to solve your problems or the world's problems, but
Speaker 1: it might put you in a better headspace to deal
Speaker 1: with them, and that's probably the best we can ask
Speaker 1: for right now. Now, it's your turn, rate and review.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, slices, See you tomorrow. Good Game, Natalie,
Speaker 1: Good Game, Mark Cuban, Keep replying to those emails my guy.
Speaker 1: You companies that take shortcuts instead of actually optimizing their
Speaker 1: products for the folks consuming them. Good Game with Sarah
Speaker 1: Spain is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with
Speaker 1: Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Production by Wonder Media Network, our producers are Alex Azzie
Speaker 1: and Misha Jones. Our executive producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz,
Speaker 1: Jenny Kaplan, and Emily Rudder. Our editors are Emily Rutter,
Speaker 1: Britney Martinez, and Grace Lynch. Our associate producer is Lucy
Speaker 1: Jones and I'm your host, Sarah Spain