Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Gaty Current and welcome to next question.
Speaker 1: Today we get a look inside one of the most comfortable, sustainable,
Speaker 1: and surprising innovations in shoes, the Wolf sneaker from All
Speaker 1: Birds with the kiwi who invented them. The idea was weird,
Speaker 1: and it was weird and weird in a positive way.
Speaker 1: Tim Brown, along with his co founder and co CEO
Speaker 1: Joey's Willinger, launched All Birds in two thousand and sixteen
Speaker 1: as a little directed consumer shoe company. Tim was the
Speaker 1: creative designer from New zealand Joey the analytical engineer from
Speaker 1: San Francisco. Both happened to be soccer players and neither
Speaker 1: had any experience in footwear. Largely, this was going to
Speaker 1: succeed or file, at least in the first instance, by
Speaker 1: by how strong that punish it was. And this entrepreneurial
Speaker 1: thing is like another marriage enormous priscia. Not to mention
Speaker 1: the financial risk, there is also the public risk of
Speaker 1: something just being bad. And yet less than four years later,
Speaker 1: All Birds is a one point for billion dollar company
Speaker 1: with retail stores around the world and big plans to
Speaker 1: expand into other fashion realms. So my next question, how
Speaker 1: did All Birds become the little shoe Company That Could.
Speaker 1: I recently have the chance to interview Tim Brown for
Speaker 1: our very first Next Question Live, an intimate innovation focus
Speaker 1: series in front of a live audience in New York City.
Speaker 1: The last time I saw you, you interviewed Sheryl Sandberg
Speaker 1: on stage and it was pretty intense interviews. I was
Speaker 1: a little nervous, so let's go a friendly don't worry,
Speaker 1: you know, I think you're not in the hot seat
Speaker 1: like Facebook was at the time. I went pretty easy
Speaker 1: on Tim. We started with his background. He grew up
Speaker 1: in Wellington, New Zealand, but came to the States for college,
Speaker 1: attending the University of Cincinnati for design. Eventually he went
Speaker 1: to the London School of Economics. But what's unique about
Speaker 1: Tim's background is that he spent the better part of
Speaker 1: his twenties as a professional athlete. When the rest of
Speaker 1: his friends were grinding away in offices, Tim was on
Speaker 1: the field playing soccer, or as it's known across the
Speaker 1: pond football. You know, I don't think I as a
Speaker 1: netural athlete by any stretch, but I was determined and
Speaker 1: I was competitive, and I realized at a very very
Speaker 1: early age I hated to lose, really really hated to
Speaker 1: lose and um, and so that became a kind of
Speaker 1: a theme of my sporting career. And you know, I
Speaker 1: kept edging towards doing a little bit more, a little
Speaker 1: bit more, and then you you know, the goals keep expanding,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, you know you're You're
Speaker 1: at a World Cup and two thousand and ten. So
Speaker 1: it was just an incredible journey and I was I
Speaker 1: was lucky. It was a journey that set the flight
Speaker 1: path to all birds. It was like a boyhood dreamed
Speaker 1: to be able to play football professionally, and then you realize,
Speaker 1: like anything else, it's a job. And there's some great
Speaker 1: things about it and some not so and things about it.
Speaker 1: One of the great things about it was you've got
Speaker 1: free gear and uh and I was sponsored by one
Speaker 1: of the big sports where companies that I don't like
Speaker 1: to name, and uh and um, I won't and and
Speaker 1: you know, I got lots of free gear and it
Speaker 1: was it was cool, it was awesome, and you know,
Speaker 1: but this idea was really born out of that. I mean,
Speaker 1: everything had logos. I felt like a kind of a
Speaker 1: walking billboard at times for this brand, and certainly in
Speaker 1: the context that I was living in, it was very
Speaker 1: very hard to find a simple shoe without without logos.
Speaker 1: So I, rather naively, while I was still very much
Speaker 1: focused on soccer knee deep and my career, set out
Speaker 1: to try and see if I could make one. What
Speaker 1: Tim wanted in a shoe was something simpler, no bells,
Speaker 1: no whistles, no fuss, a design that didn't need to
Speaker 1: be thrown out and updated every year. And he didn't
Speaker 1: think he was the only one who wanted that. Did
Speaker 1: the world need another shoe brand? No, but I definitely
Speaker 1: saw a kind of a white space for a for
Speaker 1: a different type of design philosophy. But the real insight
Speaker 1: came when in one of my off seasons, I flew
Speaker 1: to a footwear factory that I found online, and I
Speaker 1: walked into this whole new world that I knew absolutely
Speaker 1: nothing about. That footwear factory was in Indonesia, where Tim
Speaker 1: found a world of synthetic fabrics, cheap shoes made cheaply
Speaker 1: for maximum profit. He left the factory with a mission
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna make. I'm gonna make a couple
Speaker 1: of thousand pairs of shoes, which was the minimum that
Speaker 1: the guy would make and I didn't have a plan
Speaker 1: much beyond that except that I thought I might sell
Speaker 1: them to my teammates or something um and that's what
Speaker 1: I did. What did you see that was missing from
Speaker 1: the landscape in terms of a shoe and shoe production?
Speaker 1: So it becomes three things. So the first one's design,
Speaker 1: and I mean that's as clear to me today as
Speaker 1: any you know, as as a as kind of a
Speaker 1: minimalist who had been trained in this idea of sort
Speaker 1: of taking things away of design as sort of the
Speaker 1: form following the function. That was really clear. And then
Speaker 1: it became about materials because it it seemed obvious to
Speaker 1: me that the footware industry had defaulted to making things
Speaker 1: out of synthetic materials largely based on cost, and that
Speaker 1: there was an opportunity with different materials that had been overlooked.
Speaker 1: And I came back, I was back in New Zealand
Speaker 1: reading a magazine literally about this huge decline of the
Speaker 1: wool industry in New Zealand and how they were desperate
Speaker 1: for innovation. This was a very very important primary industry
Speaker 1: in New Zealand that had been really destroyed, largely by
Speaker 1: the synthetic industry over a long period of time and
Speaker 1: was crying out for innovation, and so I applied for
Speaker 1: this grant while I was still playing soccer. That was successful.
Speaker 1: That was how desperate they were. And they started making
Speaker 1: this material to make shoes out of wall and and
Speaker 1: this went on for years and again, I mean, this
Speaker 1: is happening over so long, So I think the story
Speaker 1: starts probably two thousand and seven, and I'm still chipping
Speaker 1: away at this like three or four years later. So
Speaker 1: it's happening slowly. But you know that the opportunity used
Speaker 1: these different types of materials seemed wise. No one done
Speaker 1: this before. This idea seems so obvious, And everyone I
Speaker 1: talked to about it, they said, why has that not
Speaker 1: been done before? It's probably a dumb idea, but why
Speaker 1: has it not been done before? The material seemed attractive
Speaker 1: to you in terms of comfort and style and what else.
Speaker 1: So peak sheep in New Zealand is sort of ninety
Speaker 1: eight circon eight and there's seventy million sheep, and now
Speaker 1: there's less than thirty million, five million, And no one
Speaker 1: in New Zealand is growing up dreaming of being a
Speaker 1: sheep farmer. So this is this is an industry that's
Speaker 1: crying out for innovation. I get this grant, it comes
Speaker 1: out of a research lab with this material, and you know,
Speaker 1: I subsequently go to the World Cup, retire, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden show up at Business School in London,
Speaker 1: which is where I went, and I have this material
Speaker 1: that has largely been made for me with no restrictions,
Speaker 1: that's taken a long time, and a little bit of
Speaker 1: shoemaking knowledge from my forays into Indonesia, and so again
Speaker 1: another moment of time just to put these two things together,
Speaker 1: and you know, you start to understand that wool is
Speaker 1: this incredibly soft, you know, wicks away moisture that's sort
Speaker 1: of really the ultimate natural performance for bricks. I started
Speaker 1: to see the opportunities and I understood them inherently as
Speaker 1: a kiewie. I think in terms of the possibility of
Speaker 1: this material. But I hadn't yet pieced together the third
Speaker 1: piece of this and how it fits into the topic
Speaker 1: of sustainability. It wasn't what I was focused on. It
Speaker 1: was the product. But that was the sort of sequence
Speaker 1: of events and we should mention along the way. You
Speaker 1: went to the London School of Economics, and then you
Speaker 1: went to business school at Calart. Right, yes, So I
Speaker 1: retired from sport after the World Carpet was never going
Speaker 1: to get any better than that, and I decided to
Speaker 1: get serious about life at thirty two, and I had
Speaker 1: an entrepreneurship class at Kellogg taught by a prophet called
Speaker 1: Carter cast who was a former CEO of Walmart dot com,
Speaker 1: this amazing guy, and it was. It was a sixty
Speaker 1: ten weeks entrepreneurship class and everyone had to pitch an idea.
Speaker 1: And so I came in and there was a class
Speaker 1: not dis similar to this in size, and everyone had
Speaker 1: one minute to pitch their idea. And I got up
Speaker 1: and I said wall shoes. And they voted down the
Speaker 1: ideas until there was ten teams of six, and miraculously
Speaker 1: wall Shoes got picked. Then all of a sudden, I
Speaker 1: had this like six person team at business school running
Speaker 1: at this idea in a way in ways that that
Speaker 1: you know, I had never really thought about it. And
Speaker 1: it was this this weird moment you have these moments.
Speaker 1: That was a moment when if if the idea hadn't
Speaker 1: been picked in that particular class, maybe it doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: Um And we ran with it when we come back
Speaker 1: how Tim picked his partner and how their professional marriage
Speaker 1: almost killed the awbird stream. Tim Brown was eager to
Speaker 1: see if his wool shoe idea had any traction, so
Speaker 1: he went back home to New Zealand, shot a little
Speaker 1: video on a friend's sheep farm and posted it along
Speaker 1: with the six pairs of wool shoes he had made
Speaker 1: so far on Kickstarter. We baked on a journey to
Speaker 1: create off the shoe designed specifically for socless shoe, but
Speaker 1: it as few scenes as possible a shoe the bridge
Speaker 1: sport and fashion. It was as comfortable with a peer
Speaker 1: of jeans as it wasn't. And this is a true story.
Speaker 1: Before my mom could even work out how to buy
Speaker 1: up here on kickstar up, she's having some technical problems
Speaker 1: with a credit card at checkout. We sold the thousand
Speaker 1: peers that we could make because that's all I could
Speaker 1: in four days, and it did ad dollars and my
Speaker 1: phone didn't stop buzzing and I had to switch it
Speaker 1: off because of the trajector it was on and not
Speaker 1: being able to deliver on the on the on the product.
Speaker 1: So I was shocked and scared. It's very easy to
Speaker 1: have an idea much much harder to actually put it
Speaker 1: in front of people that you don't know and ask
Speaker 1: for money out of their wallet. And the sooner you
Speaker 1: do that, the sooner this things becomes real. And it's
Speaker 1: also the moment, if you're doing it right, you get
Speaker 1: really scared. And that's what I was. I was really
Speaker 1: scared because I know, the truth be told, I didn't
Speaker 1: really know how I was going to make all of
Speaker 1: these things. I didn't really have any knowledge of shoes,
Speaker 1: and it turns out they're extraordinarily difficult to make, and
Speaker 1: I was making it with material that had never been
Speaker 1: used before. So there was a bunch of things that
Speaker 1: were difficult about it. Anyone who has built anything, um
Speaker 1: you know, will tell you there is that moment where
Speaker 1: you you doubt yourself and you know you've got to
Speaker 1: push through and and and you lean on your family
Speaker 1: and your friends, and um you know, my girlfriend now
Speaker 1: wife paid some of the bills, and you pushed through.
Speaker 1: And I had a very very difficult year, um but delivered,
Speaker 1: delivered the thousand piers of shoes around the world for
Speaker 1: the most part, and um you know, was it another juncture.
Speaker 1: The Kickstarter campaign attracted a lot of attention from consumers
Speaker 1: and also investors. It should have been a big confidence boost. Instead,
Speaker 1: Tim was full of self doubt. You know, my dad
Speaker 1: had started to refer to me as a cobbler, which
Speaker 1: was really annoying. And so you're like, what am I?
Speaker 1: What am I doing? And this is I mean, this
Speaker 1: is a little maybe it's become almost a little bit
Speaker 1: of a cliche conversation these days, but I was kind
Speaker 1: of missing the why behind this whole thing. Tim's wife's
Speaker 1: roommate from Dartmouth is married to Joey's Willinger, an engineer
Speaker 1: living in San Francisco. Joey would help Tim figure out
Speaker 1: the why. He had really committed his career to um
Speaker 1: sustainability and use of renewable materials, and for my you know,
Speaker 1: as clear as my design vision was, he had an
Speaker 1: equally clear vision around the sort of revolution that was
Speaker 1: going to come and sustainability and sustainable manufacturing that the
Speaker 1: world was going to need to find a better ways
Speaker 1: to make things, in his words, and it was going
Speaker 1: to happen in a whole bunch of industries. But the
Speaker 1: first industry that was going to lead the way was
Speaker 1: the fashion industry, and moreover, the fashion industry had a
Speaker 1: real problem to solve. UM. You know, I had Enjoy
Speaker 1: an engineer, he'd been to Warton. He was he was,
Speaker 1: in many ways a scientist, anchored in the materials and
Speaker 1: the operational side of it UM And so I found
Speaker 1: the person that could do all the bit so I
Speaker 1: didn't want to do so it was perfect. It was perfect,
Speaker 1: and it was official. Albert's was up and running online
Speaker 1: and crushing it, but already there were cracks in the relationship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So we started working out of his his mother in
Speaker 1: law's house in San Raphael. We raised a couple of
Speaker 1: million dollars in Ventura Capital Um and you know, I
Speaker 1: think we had five employees. We launched. We launched All
Speaker 1: Birds on the first of March, and we had a
Speaker 1: business plan that was largely made up and fabricated. Ah.
Speaker 1: And you know, we did a million dollars in the
Speaker 1: first month, blew through I think our first three years
Speaker 1: of sales inside the first six months or so. It
Speaker 1: was just it. We just took this thing, took off
Speaker 1: in a way that we could never have imagined. And we're,
Speaker 1: you know, a month into this and and I'm looking
Speaker 1: at him and I think he's looking at me and
Speaker 1: we're saying, I don't think I want to work with
Speaker 1: you anymore, you know. And I think we've just been
Speaker 1: through this enormously, like six or seven months of heads down,
Speaker 1: just grinding with all the uncertainty of of of whether
Speaker 1: this was going to completely fail and all the embarrassment
Speaker 1: that would come with that, and it had actually gone well,
Speaker 1: but just the emotion of building something of you know,
Speaker 1: with that much pressure on on on on so many things.
Speaker 1: And Joey had two little kids at the time he
Speaker 1: stepped away from this well paying job, and it was
Speaker 1: a moment where I just think we we let it
Speaker 1: all out and all the good and the bag came
Speaker 1: out for a series of beers on one afternoon and
Speaker 1: and um, you know, it was a pretty important moment.
Speaker 1: It's an opportunity to sort of understand people's hopes and
Speaker 1: fears could have gone either way. I think, what is
Speaker 1: he good at? And what are you good at? Uh?
Speaker 1: You know, he there's a bunch of things, very different
Speaker 1: sort of skill sets. He's you know, he's an analytical engineer.
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a creative designer. So I think that's
Speaker 1: a very big distinction. He's an American and I'm in
Speaker 1: New Zealander. Uh and and that cultural um nuance. I
Speaker 1: actually is married to an American. These two cultures go
Speaker 1: together so well, I think in many ways. And um
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, the sense of humor and maybe
Speaker 1: New Zealander's lack of confidence and uh, I won't you know,
Speaker 1: I won't say anything. You know what I'm talking about Americans.
Speaker 1: I don't like that. At times. I said that very politely.
Speaker 1: So these two things kind of coming together. I was
Speaker 1: taught to to not talk up ideas and have big ones.
Speaker 1: Culturally in New zealand's a litt bit of a problem
Speaker 1: in some ways. Like it's like you would never tell
Speaker 1: anyone as a kid you wanted to go to the
Speaker 1: World Cup. You just would never do that. That's that's
Speaker 1: how you get beaten up at school, you know, because
Speaker 1: you think you're good, and you know, you think a
Speaker 1: humility is really valued. It's really valued to a point,
Speaker 1: almost to a fault. And then you know, when I
Speaker 1: came to America, the biggest gift that America has given
Speaker 1: me is like, yeah, it's okay to say you're going
Speaker 1: to go do something good and then get after it.
Speaker 1: There's absolutely no shame either if it doesn't go right,
Speaker 1: that is a gift as well. And and so those
Speaker 1: two things coming together as has been really really valuable.
Speaker 1: And then we split it as co CEOs and I
Speaker 1: ran the product and the brand and he ran the
Speaker 1: sort of operations in the supply chain and the finance
Speaker 1: and the technology, and it's worked out really well. Coming
Speaker 1: up why shoes are destroying the environment and how Albert's
Speaker 1: wants to fix that. There's a lot of debate around
Speaker 1: just how bad the fashion industry is for the environment.
Speaker 1: It's complex and multilayered, supply I chain, touches, agriculture, livestock, petroleum, mining, construction,
Speaker 1: shipping and manufacturing, and the advent of fast fashion the
Speaker 1: mass manufacturing of cheap, trendy clothes hasn't helped. But shoes
Speaker 1: in particular have a terrible wrap. She shoe shaved me
Speaker 1: because they essentially never biodegrade. They just live on and
Speaker 1: on and on, and twenty billion pairs of shoes are
Speaker 1: manufactured every single year. So where does that leave all birds?
Speaker 1: Joey had an enormous amount of expertise here, but we
Speaker 1: believed we could do it differently, that we could bring
Speaker 1: UM new materials to beer and footwear UM, and we
Speaker 1: could focus deeply on them and innovati around them. We
Speaker 1: could do that not just because it's the right thing
Speaker 1: to do, but do it because it made more comfortable
Speaker 1: products and a better experience. And I think that's a
Speaker 1: really key early insight. People don't buy sustainability that by
Speaker 1: great products, and it's incumbent on sort of business to
Speaker 1: sort of change and make things in a bit away.
Speaker 1: And that was a really key kind of plank for
Speaker 1: for the way that we were working. And we set
Speaker 1: off to do that, and we did it with one
Speaker 1: material and wall, and we've added another in in eucalyptus
Speaker 1: fiber and subsequently again a soul made from sugarcane. And
Speaker 1: you know, our belief is that natural materials are the
Speaker 1: pathway to better practice for the fashion industry. You're certified
Speaker 1: v CORE and you've stayed true to your commitment. UM.
Speaker 1: Not only in the construction of the shoes, are you
Speaker 1: trying to be environmentally sensitive, but what about all up
Speaker 1: and down the supply chain. It's a lot to do
Speaker 1: with certifications. You can't be everywhere, so you need to
Speaker 1: invest in materials that UM. You know, the best in
Speaker 1: the business and and and lean into certifications that are
Speaker 1: meeting the right type of environmental standards. And we do
Speaker 1: it in the case of our wall with ZQ bond,
Speaker 1: SUCRE with a sugar and FFC for its Stewardship Council
Speaker 1: for our eucalyptus. So those things are really important. And
Speaker 1: then you know, you want to you want to also
Speaker 1: sort of measure and understand your carbon. So that was
Speaker 1: that was another big thing. And you know, I think
Speaker 1: it's a really key point because the topic of sustainability
Speaker 1: is a really complicated and confusing one. And I think
Speaker 1: if we went we went around this room and ask people,
Speaker 1: like what does sustainability mean? Some people might say it's
Speaker 1: about water usage and land usage, and others might say
Speaker 1: ee quality, and someone else is going to say end
Speaker 1: of life, uh, you know, or transport um and and
Speaker 1: and the reality is all those are true and important,
Speaker 1: but they ladder up to the singular idea that carbon
Speaker 1: is the is the scorecard that we're going to be
Speaker 1: judged by as we as we work our way out
Speaker 1: of this environmental crisis that we're in. And so that
Speaker 1: was a kind of a key kind of insight for
Speaker 1: us as we've as we've gone through, so measuring carbon
Speaker 1: deeply all the way through our supply chain is something
Speaker 1: that we've we've done largely from the beginning. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about the Amazon controversy. Were you surprised that they made
Speaker 1: all birds cats? And how how pissed off are you? Uh?
Speaker 1: You know, it's we're not the first company to have
Speaker 1: been to being imitated by them when it happens to you, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, there was frustration. I mean, I think we've
Speaker 1: we've we've had so many copycats since we've launched. It's
Speaker 1: been mind blowing. And I want to say there's north
Speaker 1: of twenty at least, um, and they cropped up at
Speaker 1: a regular, on a regular basis. But when the world's
Speaker 1: you know, one of the world's most valuable companies does it,
Speaker 1: and what we sort of thought was it was a
Speaker 1: little bit of an unfair way. Um, we were disappointed.
Speaker 1: And more importantly, I think it comes aided pretty closely
Speaker 1: with you know, some of the urgency that that consumers
Speaker 1: and customers are feeling around the environment and sustainability. And
Speaker 1: they copy the design and they don't copy our materials,
Speaker 1: and so we're thinking, Okay, we're fear is fear copy
Speaker 1: of the design. But you know what would be really
Speaker 1: great is if you copied, you copied the spirit of
Speaker 1: what we're doing. And in fact, Joey, your partner post
Speaker 1: did an open letter on Medium to Amazon last month.
Speaker 1: He invited the company to steal your sustainability practices, not
Speaker 1: just your designs, and and are you optimistic that they'll
Speaker 1: take you up on that? And one person asked me
Speaker 1: to ask you if you've ever heard from Jeff Bezos
Speaker 1: after he stole your shoe. Uh, we haven't, but we
Speaker 1: hope to. And genuinely, I mean, our souls are made
Speaker 1: from sugar cane, and when we launched that material innovation,
Speaker 1: we made an open source so that everyone could use it.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think that's an interesting point, tim that
Speaker 1: you share your innovation with anyone, because you would love
Speaker 1: a lot of people to use these techniques and other
Speaker 1: shoes and other products in general. Absolutely, and we do
Speaker 1: that not just because we're good guys. Although we completely
Speaker 1: understand that the topic or the challenge of sustainability is
Speaker 1: not going to be solved by all birds, or even
Speaker 1: by one brand. It's going to be solved by lots
Speaker 1: of companies sharing best practice and working together, and so
Speaker 1: we've understood that it's been foundational. But we also know
Speaker 1: is that this new material, the more people that use that,
Speaker 1: the cheaper it would become. And that's what's happened. And
Speaker 1: there's now twenty companies I believe, planning to use this
Speaker 1: material this year. So you know, we sort of said,
Speaker 1: Mr Mr Bezos and Amazon, why don't you use that too?
Speaker 1: That would be great. And so that was the source
Speaker 1: of Joey's litter and and and it went, well, you've
Speaker 1: got sixteen retail stores worldwide and you're opening up twenty
Speaker 1: new retail locations. I guess, yeah, correct, it's really exciting
Speaker 1: and retail has been phenomenal for us. That's so interesting
Speaker 1: because you know that's other people are going the other direction,
Speaker 1: right uh and not opening up I guess there's a
Speaker 1: combination of what people are doing with bricks and mortar
Speaker 1: stores versus online shopping. But you feel like you want
Speaker 1: people to have this kind of experience of seeing the
Speaker 1: actual products absolutely and feeling them. Everyone. You know that
Speaker 1: the myth about retail dying or being did I think
Speaker 1: has been great greatly exaggerated and um, you know, particularly
Speaker 1: in the case of shoes. Everyone's got a childhood memory
Speaker 1: of going to a shoe store and trying on shoes
Speaker 1: with that metal device that no one knows the name of,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, and so we always wanted we
Speaker 1: always wanted to get Yeah, no one knows, no one
Speaker 1: knows the thing, um and uh, and so we always
Speaker 1: knew we wanted to do it. I think we've been
Speaker 1: blown away by just how much our customers have wanted
Speaker 1: to come and experience and touch the product and then
Speaker 1: ask really really deep questions. And then the other thing
Speaker 1: that's been amazing is, you know, the real innovation opportunity
Speaker 1: is were the people that work and retail, who for
Speaker 1: the most part, are not treated all that well. And
Speaker 1: so you know, we've tried to really think about the
Speaker 1: training and and and and investing in the people that
Speaker 1: work for us in stores. And that's just an amazing
Speaker 1: opportunity that we're just beginning to uncover. And we're excited
Speaker 1: about the sixteen stores and the twenty more that will
Speaker 1: add and um, you know, the opportunity to make working
Speaker 1: at all birds retail something that people are really proud of.
Speaker 1: So workplace culture is clearly really, really important to you.
Speaker 1: And before we came out, you were talking about how
Speaker 1: difficult it is, especially as you grow and expand and
Speaker 1: more more and more people are working for you. What
Speaker 1: about four nine? Now, yeah, it's it's somewhere something somewhere
Speaker 1: around there, And yeah, it's it's I mean, we've we've
Speaker 1: you always have little speed mumps, and you know, I
Speaker 1: think it was it was. It was easy in some
Speaker 1: ways when you knew everyone's name and you knew their
Speaker 1: families and knew what was going on and you knew
Speaker 1: Steve was breaking up with his girlfriend or you know,
Speaker 1: whatever it was. And then when it gets bigger, it
Speaker 1: just how do you scale the things that you as
Speaker 1: founders think are really important and share those messages um
Speaker 1: and create the kind of culture that when we you know,
Speaker 1: with twenty five people in Shanghai and and officuely there,
Speaker 1: how you know, how do they take what we think
Speaker 1: is important but shape it into their own version of
Speaker 1: what's important. And I'd be lying if I said We've
Speaker 1: got that all worked out. But you know what I
Speaker 1: do know is if if you get that but right,
Speaker 1: even over and above the product and the innovation, the design,
Speaker 1: you go a long way to being successful. So we
Speaker 1: think a lot about it, albeit with many answers that
Speaker 1: we don't yet have. Before I let Tim go, I
Speaker 1: asked him if he had any advice for aspiring entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: out there, and his answer was, well, pretty honest. I
Speaker 1: think that this entrepreneurship has been sort of romanticized. It
Speaker 1: think it's normally enormously difficult, and I've been very, very lucky.
Speaker 1: And I talk about my family because I've lean on
Speaker 1: them to get this, you know, get this off the ground.
Speaker 1: And it's hard. So I would be careful what you
Speaker 1: wish for. It would be my first piece of advice,
Speaker 1: and the second will be that's not very encouraging. I
Speaker 1: just I want to be honest about it, and I
Speaker 1: think it's it's there's a kind of a cult of entrepreneurship,
Speaker 1: and I think only some emerging issues even to understand,
Speaker 1: you know, um, some of the wellness issues around it,
Speaker 1: because it's it's a really challenging thing to do. And
Speaker 1: so I just I'll start with that one. That being said,
Speaker 1: you know, I go and put it out there, UM
Speaker 1: be vulnerable. See if it's going to work, UM trust
Speaker 1: that if it's weird and everyone's questioning the validity of
Speaker 1: the idea, You're probably on the right track. And if
Speaker 1: they're telling you that it's awesome, stop right now. Well.
Speaker 1: Tim Brown, CEO co CEO of Alberts, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming in and having this conversation with all
Speaker 1: of us today, and congratulations on all your success. Thank you.
Speaker 1: It's been a pleasure to be here, and thank you
Speaker 1: for going for going easy on me. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay,
Speaker 1: and that does it for this bonus episode. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for listening everyone. I'll be continuing the special Next
Speaker 1: Question Live series throughout the year as I host more
Speaker 1: innovators and business leaders here in our New York City offices.
Speaker 1: If there are folks you really want to hear from,
Speaker 1: leave me a message at eight four four four seven
Speaker 1: nine seven eight eight three. That number again is eight
Speaker 1: four four four seven nine seven eight eight three, or
Speaker 1: you can email me at info at Katie correct dot com.
Speaker 1: Just put next Question in the s jackline and who knows,
Speaker 1: maybe your question will be the one I answer in
Speaker 1: our podcast feed. And speaking of which, I'm excited to
Speaker 1: let you all know that Season two of Next Question
Speaker 1: will be launching next week on Thursday, January. We're starting
Speaker 1: off strong with a timely episode with playwright Heidi Shrek
Speaker 1: on the Equal Rights Amendment and why the Constitution is
Speaker 1: long overdue to make room for equality. So make sure
Speaker 1: you subscribe on Apple podcast, the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows in the meantime.
Speaker 1: If you're feeling overwhelmed by the news, check out my
Speaker 1: morning newsletter wake Up Call. Go to Katie correct dot
Speaker 1: com or follow me on your go to social media source.
Speaker 1: Because I am everywhere people. Until next time and my
Speaker 1: Next Question, I'm Katie Couric. Next Question with Katie Couric
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio and Katie Currek Media.
Speaker 1: The exact producers are Katie Kurik, Courtney Litz, and Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Our show producer is
Speaker 1: Bethan Macaluso. The associate producers are Emily Pinto and Derek Clements.
Speaker 1: Editing by Derrek Clements, Dylan Fagin and Lowell Berlante, Mixing
Speaker 1: by Dylan Fagin. Our researcher is Gabriel Loser. For more
Speaker 1: information on today's episode, go to Katie Kurik dot com
Speaker 1: and follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Katie Currik.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.