Buckle up and prepare for a whirlwind journey through the realms of entrepreneurship, branding, and the mysteries of the universe on the Unstoppable Marketer podcast. We've got the scoop on Rhone's latest ventures, with co-founder and creative director, Ben Checketts, spilling the beans on their expansion into women's apparel, the power of a captivating brand story, and how personal passion intertwines with business success.
Ever wondered what integrity looks like in the cutthroat world of private equity? We've got that covered too. Learn from our candid chat about the delicate dance of scaling a business while staying true to your vision, despite the allure of a quick exit strategy. We also dissect the anatomy of the "Rhone man," the everyday hero whose journey mirrors the aspirations of many. Discover how to craft a marketing message that resonates with the desire to achieve, and why confidence in your unique story can make or break your brand.
Please connect with Trevor on social media. You can find him anywhere @thetrevorcrump
Buckle up and prepare for a whirlwind journey through the realms of entrepreneurship, branding, and the mysteries of the universe on the Unstoppable Marketer podcast. We've got the scoop on Rhone's latest ventures, with co-founder and creative director, Ben Checketts, spilling the beans on their expansion into women's apparel, the power of a captivating brand story, and how personal passion intertwines with business success.
Ever wondered what integrity looks like in the cutthroat world of private equity? We've got that covered too. Learn from our candid chat about the delicate dance of scaling a business while staying true to your vision, despite the allure of a quick exit strategy. We also dissect the anatomy of the "Rhone man," the everyday hero whose journey mirrors the aspirations of many. Discover how to craft a marketing message that resonates with the desire to achieve, and why confidence in your unique story can make or break your brand.
Please connect with Trevor on social media. You can find him anywhere @thetrevorcrump
Yo, what's going on everybody? Welcome to the unstoppable Marketer podcast. With me, as always, is Mark Goldhart. Mark, this is the first time I've introduced you and you're in the like last seven episodes and you're not on your phone.
Speaker 2:I know, I just realized that.
Speaker 1:It wasn't in.
Speaker 2:Temple no, it wasn't. But, it's alright, I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1:Happy New Year.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:No, not at all. Oh yeah, you were sick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the whole family was sick. I mean, we went through, I don't know, like flues, COVID, maybe.
Speaker 1:Everything.
Speaker 2:Baby with crew.
Speaker 1:That was the hard one, it was just as annoying for me as it was for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was just yeah, I'm sure it was we had canceled podcast episodes.
Speaker 1:It was so bad Mark was supposed to fly out to San Diego and he texted me literally like 10 minutes before I'm hopping on the road to go to the airport. That's the second round that I got hit with and he's like, hey, I can't come, so I got to cancel our flights.
Speaker 2:I had a fever all night. I canceled your flight. Yeah, and my voice is still recovering, but I think it sounds alright.
Speaker 1:You sound dynamite. It's not too bad.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it was dude horrible. Yeah, don't, I don't know, maybe I'm just going to not see family anymore during the holidays.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's how it works.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just yeah, that's the worst, it's like all Family's overrated. I'm just staying at home.
Speaker 1:All sicknesses I feel like happen in December I know, and it's when you are around the most people.
Speaker 2:And eating sugar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and like, and here in Utah, like the inversion is the worst too. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And so it like crushes, like crushes your immune system even more.
Speaker 2:But yeah anyways. Yeah, New Year sucked, but Happy New Year, Happy for a new year.
Speaker 1:Happy for a new year. This is our first Because of Mark's sicknesses. Actually, this is the first episode we're recording in the New Year. Yeah, we're two weeks in so. Yeah, and I made a goal to record 52 episodes, which is one a week. Got to play catch-up, so now we have to play catch-up. We already missed our resolution. Yikes. So here we are. But I'm excited for today's episode. Me too, I'm really excited. Yeah. Why.
Speaker 2:Because I think Mr Ben over here has some great insights to share with us.
Speaker 1:I think so too. I'm excited. Well, let's introduce him. So, everybody, this is Ben Checkitz, who is the co-founder and creative director for Roan, and Roan is a performance. You screwed it up. No, a performance. Men's, men's Active, active.
Speaker 2:Lifestyle. Lifestyle A.
Speaker 4:Peril brand. Peril brand. Yeah, Soon to be men's and women's Whoa In May.
Speaker 1:This isn't breaking news but that's the first time they've ever said that yeah.
Speaker 4:Breaking news. Breaking news.
Speaker 1:On the Unstoppable Mark Peril.
Speaker 4:We can get some kind of sound effect in there. But yes, as of May we will launch. What's up, ben hey, thanks for having me Welcome. As of May, we will have women's as well, a full-fledged women's line to sit alongside our men's line, which is huge.
Speaker 1:Nice yeah.
Speaker 4:So very excited. Thank you guys so much for having me. I've heard great things about the podcast. I've listened to a few episodes.
Speaker 1:Let's go.
Speaker 4:Thank you, my good friend Corey, my other, my counterpart Ben, that's right. You guys are all soccer players together we play. It's kind of like the first rule of we call it foot club. The first rule of foot club is you talk about it nonstop you talk Like CrossFit.
Speaker 2:It is exactly like CrossFit yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's like a couple times a week and it's just a really solid group of guys.
Speaker 1:Who's your team? What's your team?
Speaker 4:Well, we mix it up. Every time it's kind of like no, I mean who's?
Speaker 1:the team that I support. Who is the team?
Speaker 4:that you support. I am sadly a Manchester United fan. Really. It was my first entrance into the world of soccer football. Okay, my dad was starting to get involved in the MLS team that eventually came to Salt Lake. Yep, we also like and I was like man, I guess I got to learn about this game.
Speaker 4:My brother-in-law was a huge Chelsea fan and he was, like just come watch a game with me on TV, not like in person and it was Chelsea, manchester United, and there was this little rugby type player running around knocking people over and I was like wait, I didn't know you could play this sport that way. And I was like who's that guy? And my brother-in-law was like that guy's name is Wayne Rooney. I hate that guy.
Speaker 2:And I was like I like that guy, and he was like no you can't like that guy.
Speaker 4:I was like no, no, no, that's my guy. So became a Wayne. Rooney fan became a Manchester United fan, and that's kind of the rest of the history, isn't that?
Speaker 1:Rooney is a legend though we had yeah, I know that, I even know that I'm not a huge soccer guy we had Corey on the podcast man City fan. Yeah, he hates.
Speaker 4:Manchester United, right, hates Manchester United, that's right. But the funny thing about man City fans is like how would I describe it? They're like, they're like. They're like Golden State Warrior fans, in the sense that if they are a man City fan, you know they became a fan in the last five years. Because they were horrible forever. And then they got this.
Speaker 2:They got some blood money from Russia and Middle East close but. I thought it was a Russian oligarch. It wasn't.
Speaker 4:No, that was Chelsea.
Speaker 2:Oh, that was Chelsea.
Speaker 4:Yeah, man City is that's right yeah from the Middle East.
Speaker 1:Same people who did live Live.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe Probably.
Speaker 4:Probably in the same.
Speaker 2:They bought.
Speaker 4:Manchester.
Speaker 1:City, and now they're. So what did you think, helena? Did you watch the Beckham series?
Speaker 4:I did.
Speaker 1:Fascinating.
Speaker 4:Loved it. Yeah, and again. That was like really before I became invested in this Sure. Where I was aware of who he was. Sure, I was aware of Manchester United at the time, but man to see what he went through, especially with the English national team. We're about to have our fourth.
Speaker 2:And my wife was talking about how sad it was.
Speaker 4:Thank you. How sad it was that he talked about sleeping against the door in the hospital because he had threats that his oldest son was going to be kidnapped. They had actual threats about that, and so he slept against the door in the hospital so nobody would come in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was crazy. I mean, the whole thing was I haven't yet. Even if you don't like soccer, it's worth your watch, okay.
Speaker 4:Well, there you go.
Speaker 1:I'm actually a big fan of David Beckham because he was here in Salt Lake.
Speaker 2:Yep More of a La Liga guy, though you know messy Sure.
Speaker 1:Back in like 2006. And my friend and I, we had this goal. So there's this big hotel here in Salt Lake City called the Grand America. It's like that. It's where, if you are, it's the Plaza Hotel of Salt Lake.
Speaker 4:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:If you're a team player in Real Salt Lake or if you're a team player in the Jazz that's where you're staying nine times out of 10.
Speaker 1:And so my friend and I, for like a month, we had this goal to get up on top of the roof at the Grand America. So we just would go to the Grand America around like 11 o'clock every night for a week or like a month, and we would just try to find different ways up to the roof. And we never did, yeah, but we were walking around like 2 am one time, and so was David Beckham.
Speaker 1:And we didn't know, and he just like, sat in the lounge with us and we had a drink with David Beckham in the lounge.
Speaker 4:That's so cool and he just hung out with us at like 2 am, so it was some other guy that was with him with him on the.
Speaker 1:He was on the French, he played on the French down. It wasn't so down, was it? I don't know, I don't know soccer.
Speaker 4:Was he bald? Yeah, yes, he was bald. Dude, that's a dump. That is like one of the greatest players of all time.
Speaker 1:I got a picture with Beckham, not him. I mean either one is pretty good yeah, flip phone actually has a World.
Speaker 4:Cup so yeah, yeah, well, but yeah, so my dad was, you know, kind of orchestrated that whole thing because when he was starting the team the reason we also like his call we also like they wanted to be the sister team to Real Madrid, they wanted to get their development players and they actually had a deal in place to do so, and so he brought the whole team here and I had been in the MTC for I was still in the MTC when they came and played- that's the missionary training center.
Speaker 1:That's the missionary training center For anyone who doesn't know anything about LDS, and you're not allowed to leave the MTC.
Speaker 4:It's locked in like a prison, so my family was sending me all these pictures of yeah, better food. I would say Absolutely Breakfast burrito. It's pretty classic.
Speaker 1:Ice cream, ice cream, yeah yeah, chocolate milk.
Speaker 4:My family. As much as you can get Hard boiled eggs Ew yeah. Yeah, pancakes.
Speaker 2:Hey man, I ate lean. I didn't gain a single pound. That's impressive.
Speaker 4:Nice, I don't know if I was checking, anyways my family was sending me pictures of them, with David Beckham and Zadon, and all the legendary players.
Speaker 2:That's so crazy and I was like did you play soccer in high school?
Speaker 4:So I didn't. I actually stopped playing when I was in, like everybody else. I stopped playing when I was in second grade. I played football in the cross all throughout high school and actually played the cross in college. I'd be with you, awesome.
Speaker 2:So I kind of fell back in love Was that with the Ted Farron, pat Matheson Cruz.
Speaker 4:I was a little bit older than Ted and Pat, so I missed those guys.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm familiar with them.
Speaker 4:I'm 36.
Speaker 1:Did you play lacrosse with Alex Nash?
Speaker 4:I don't know Alex either. I only played for a year, so I might have missed some people.
Speaker 1:He played BYU as well, and I'm 36. And he's 36.
Speaker 4:I came back for my mission and the coach at the time took me out to lunch. I was like are you going to play? And I was like no.
Speaker 2:Don't really got it in me anymore.
Speaker 4:I just don't. Yeah, I kind of fell out of love with it Once. It's like a full-time job that's why professional athletes have it.
Speaker 2:Can I give you my hot take on lacrosse? No, it makes a lot of lacrosse players mad. I love it, let's do it, but my hot take is that lacrosse is incredible sport for the athletes, but a terrible sport for spectators.
Speaker 4:I completely agree with that. It's a horrible.
Speaker 2:Abby hates it when you say that it's a horrible sport for spectators. It's so hard to watch.
Speaker 4:It's why it will never grow in the same way that hockey will never grow past a certain point.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 4:It's very, very difficult to follow the puck or the ball, but it is the most fun sport to play.
Speaker 2:It is high octane, it's so fun to play and hockey is more marketable because it's contained, so you can actually convert it, especially with big screen TVs Like hockey is actually pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Well, and it's a black puck on a white surface.
Speaker 2:It's a lot easier versus.
Speaker 1:You got like an orange ball in green grass. It's like I watched lacrosse.
Speaker 2:I'm like I can respect the athleticism it takes to play this game, I just can't follow it. Follow it for more than 10 minutes.
Speaker 4:I totally hear that. That actually doesn't make me mad at all. I totally agree with it.
Speaker 2:Well good, I even as someone who's played it.
Speaker 4:I don't think it's a great spectator sport.
Speaker 1:I think it's important that you let us know who your dad is, because you've mentioned your dad a couple of times. Yeah, sorry, I wasn't trying to name drop, it just came up.
Speaker 4:No, I know I didn't drop all you want, we'll make it quick. So my dad is Dave Chakitz. He was the GM of the jazz, he was the GM of the Knicks and ultimately became the CEO of Madison Square Garden Enterprises. So Knicks, rangers, radio City, and then he went on to I mean he's literally the last time the Knicks were worth talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, since he resigned in 2000,.
Speaker 4:since he resigned in 2001,. The Knicks have made the playoffs twice and haven't made it past the first round. I think we can fact check that, but I'm pretty sure it's only been twice that they've made the playoffs, Whereas in the 90s they shout out to Rob Perez right. Yes, In the 90s they never missed the playoffs when he was there. He got there in 1990, left in 2000 months. He's there for 11 years.
Speaker 4:They went to the finals twice, once against the Houston Rockets. They should have won that 94. And then in 99, they went to the finals against the Spurs. But that was like young Tim Duncan, old David Robinson. I mean that team was that's out Good.
Speaker 2:And Patrick Ewing was hurt, kind of like when the jazz made it finally, and then just to the Bulls you ran into the Bulls. Well, we ran into the Bulls every single year in the East in the Champions, or we ran into the Pacers who were good.
Speaker 4:So it was either the Bulls or the Pacers were stopping us every year. So, growing up, when all the kids my age were buying Jordans, I wasn't allowed to buy Jordans, yeah. He was. He was a sworn enemy in our household.
Speaker 1:I love that. Well he was. Jordan was a sworn enemy in my household. I never owned a pair of Jordan stuff because my dad would like put paint Jordan out to be a villain. Yeah, really yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:That's funny, my dad, he grew up he played basketball and stuff, but he just loved players. He we're like we're a big jazz family, yeah, but like my dad grew up loving like Dr J, you know, like Dr. J was his idol growing up, so he just thought Jordan was great at what he did, but yeah, my dad couldn't see, we're just too poor to buy Jordans. He couldn't see. He couldn't see things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like it was very yeah, yeah, ok, well, amazing, awesome. So tell us a little bit about Ron and tell us a little bit about, yeah, just tell us a little bit about Ron and what you do for Ron.
Speaker 4:We're going into our 10th year, which simultaneously feels like a decade. It feels like one year and it feels like 40 years at the same time.
Speaker 4:It's very it's a very weird spot to be in, kind of like having a kid. It is kind of like having a kid. Actually, our oldest is turning 10. So he was like just recently born when we started, yeah, ron, and the idea became could we capitalize on what was then just this unstoppable force of Lululemon? Could we capitalize on the buzz they were creating around streamlined, sleek, fashionable, high quality active clothing, but with a brand that was made for men? We had someone cover us early on in the Wall Street Journal that said even if you love Lululemon, you have to admit it sounds like Strawberry Shortcake's best friend, right? Yeah, the name, the logo, it was made for women, and very successfully so.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Right, we wanted to do the same thing for men, so we picked a name that was masculine. It kind of screamed premium, cosmopolitan, with kind of a nod to a place in Europe right the Rhône River and Rhône Glacier in Switzerland and France, and we came up with the mark that we felt like was very masculine and all of our styles were very subtle and, you know, cool and streamlined Everything that you love about Lululemon but not having to go into that store as a man. As a man, yeah.
Speaker 4:And have that awkward interaction of I don't really like this brand but I like their products. Right, you could say I love this brand and I love their products. Yeah.
Speaker 2:The other moment where you have to walk by all the sports bras just to get to the men's pants.
Speaker 1:That was at the time, like this big you know, this section. Yeah, yeah, I feel like, I just feel weird?
Speaker 4:No, totally. I remember sending my wife in like it was a drug deal. I would like have sunglasses on and be like black shorts large, just bring them out to me, don't.
Speaker 2:I don't want to go in, right.
Speaker 4:Like, but I loved the shorts. I loved everything they made because it was just so much better than the Nikes, the underarmors that we grew up with Totally. And I felt like I could wear it other places outside of the gym.
Speaker 4:Totally so that was kind of the original thesis, and then what we quickly found out was we couldn't just survive being just a clothing brand. We have to do something a little bit more. And that was where we really started to play with this idea of speaking to. Whereas Nike and Under Armour speaks to people as athletes, we spoke to people who had kind of graduated from that.
Speaker 4:At a certain sense, you stop carrying what LeBron James is wearing, sure, right, and you want something that suits your lifestyle. And so we started to speak to people in that position that had really the disposable income to buy our clothing and started to meet them where they were. So they weren't just in the gym, right? What else are they doing? They're at work most of the time, they're hanging out with friends, they're hanging out with family, they're golfing, they're playing tennis All of these areas we can meet you in and we can provide you with clothing that easily transitions from one activity to the next. And so we started to focus on this idea of we call it mental fitness. Right, you take care of your fitness, your physical fitness, you take care of your mental health. You put them all together it's mental fitness. Yeah.
Speaker 4:And so that was kind of the messaging or the concept behind our content, and everything we tried to fold into the brand was great product, great experience, mental fitness, awesome. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2:Now and going back, you've co-founded this with your brother, With my brother, my older brother Nate so he's the CEO.
Speaker 4:He's kind of the business brains, fundraising brains. I get to just have all the fun, so I do all the creative brand marketing and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:And growing up in a household with your dad running organizations in the NBA, which I mean the NBA is a case study just in marketing right Over the last 20 years how much they've grown. What lessons do you think you picked up on just being in that environment when you started your own company? Right, cause you have to kind of start from nothing. Yeah, kind of like drafting a team and starting a franchise, totally.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I think that's a great. First point is building a great team. I talked to a lot of founders or early employees and they say how threatened they feel when you bring on smart people right, because they feel like, oh wait a minute, I'm going to be replaceable. In our experience, you bring on the right team. It allows you to focus on what you're passionate about and where your skills are, and not to mention like this is the ultimate business school, this is the ultimate learning experience. If you can't bring in someone for performance marketing and have them teach you that, then really you shouldn't be an entrepreneur, because that's what it's all about.
Speaker 4:Making money is a nice byproduct. I think learning and growing is like the main impetus for starting a company for us. So building a great team is number one. My dad was obsessed with building great teams and like the right chemistry and the right mix and you know, I remember he would sit in his study for hours just scratching his head like why isn't this team performing the way they should? Why aren't they working? Maybe we need a new coach, maybe we need a new assistant coach. We need someone focused on defense right, even when he got to the soccer team like he doesn't know. The first thing, that soccer still right.
Speaker 4:But what he does know is putting together great teams, sure, and he identifies talents in people and gives people chances. So that was number one.
Speaker 2:I think number Can I ask you a follow up on number one what makes you and your brother a great team? And then, how did you guys identify those characteristics in the people you started hiring?
Speaker 4:I think number one is trust. Like inherently, we just trust each other and that's what's nice about it. Being your brother is, at the end of the day, like Roan can fail. Our relationship as brothers will never fail because we love each other. Sure, you know, to a fault sometimes. So I think that makes us a good team. We trust each other. We always have each other's backs.
Speaker 4:We've had situations where people have said, well, nate really wanted it this way and in a normal scenario you might say, oh, wow, the CEO is saying this and I can't question him, whereas I say hold on, pick up the phone, did you say this? And he's like, no, that's not what I said. What I said was I thought maybe this would work, but it's just an idea. So that, like direct line of communication and trust really goes a long way. The number two thing I think that makes us a great team is we are really complimentary in mindset.
Speaker 4:I am very much focused on kind of the product and the creative side of things, whereas Nate is really focused on the business side of things. He gets a lot of energy from the networking, the fundraising, all of the things that go into that, whereas I get a lot of energy from creatively expressed myself, whether it's through product or through content or through copy. Copy is really where I find my voice. I was an English major so I'm used to writing a lot and I really took to the idea of kind of creative short form and poetry. It's just naturally where my talents lie and I tried to fold that into the brand as much as possible because we were speaking to a more elevated premium customer so naturally they're a little bit more well read. They expect a little bit more. We put a little bit more poetry and literary emphasis on our copy than most companies would because we find that it really ties in nicely with the brand message.
Speaker 1:One thing you said, as you were kind of introducing this, is like you guys had this idea about Rone to write I don't know if you said ride the coattails, but something to that extent of what Lululema had done in the men's space. Were you able to use your background in copy and creativity to ride on to what they have built?
Speaker 4:A little bit, yeah, I would say.
Speaker 4:In the same way that they came in and uniquely spoke to women right and talked about balance and really used yoga as an inspiration, we tried to do the same, but geared towards men and speak to them in a more, just a more like the way that we describe our relationship with our customers is a lot of people, a lot of brands in particular, treat their customers like we all have that one friend from high school, right, this guy calls you and he's like hey, let me you know. At least for me it was like let me get tickets to the sporting event, or now it's like, hey, can I get a free shirt?
Speaker 4:And like you don't want to help that guy? Sure, but your best friend, that's always there for you if he calls you and he's like, hey, man, I'm sorry, I'm in a bind, will you come help me? You're there, you're there for him. So we try and keep this reciprocal, trusting relationship with our customer, as opposed to just asking over and over things from them right, buy this, follow this, subscribe to this because at some point they're gonna say, okay, that's our relationship. It's purely transactional, whereas if it's a little bit more bound together as friends, then it becomes something special, it becomes something different. I think that's what Lulu did. They created a safe space for women. They had yoga classes in their early stores and you've seen they've gotten away from this but they created this safe space for women to come in and shop and really be heard and had their. You remember they had the chalkboard where you could write any piece of product feedback up there yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you guys remember this, but I spent a lot of time in their stores.
Speaker 4:So they created this safe space where I feel like women could be heard and seen and understood, and we really did try and do the same thing with men.
Speaker 4:We didn't have the same amount of retail spaces up there so you try and create those spaces digitally on our social media, direct exchanges with the customers on over email and text and Facebook message. I mean, you'd be shocked at how many customers reach out to Nate and I personally, and we really do try and do a good job of responding to them even still, because the one customer represents hundreds of customers. So what is the learning we can take from this? How do we respond? How do we build a relationship?
Speaker 2:I like that because you said the first thing of building a team was trust, right? Yep, first thing with building customers is trust. Yeah, totally Right. So building that trust is real. I mean, like the destination, if it's trust, like the road is built on constant communication. Yeah, right, when you break that communication barrier then it's hard to trust or know what's happening on the other side of that wall. But yeah, what was number two? Going back to that? So, going back, number one building a great team yeah, number two, I think.
Speaker 4:Just the idea of passion and like really sinking yourself into a cause, right I, winning and losing for us as a family was like personal. And the next loss was a really quiet car ride home, right, yeah, especially if it was the playoffs. Like nobody talks to dad he's upset, we're upset. We'd go to school the next day and you know, as a sports fan, you're already there, right, your senses are already heightened around win, losses, team performance, etc. Imagine it being tied to your livelihood, right, and it's just tenfold more.
Speaker 4:When my dad sold RSL, I remember my wife saying, like I'm really happy. I was devastated. She was like I'm really happy about this. I was like why? She was like we go to these games and it's like you're a player, like you are, you feel like you're on the field. The intensity you feel during those games she's like it stresses you out. You go home, you can't sleep. Right, if we lose, I go home and I can't sleep. I watched the game over again. I'm like where do we go wrong? Not that I'm ever going to pass along any meaningful feedback to a coach or a player but, I, just felt it so personally and I remember going to my.
Speaker 4:My first job out of grad school was with IMG. I did not feel that right. I went when the clock stopped and I went home. I did not think about IMG during the nighttime. What I was thinking about was Rowne. At the time, I would go home and I would start writing copy for Rowne and start putting together the website, and Nate and I would talk about it in our off hours and I would wake up in the morning. I feel the same thing. I'd be like oh well, this would be a cool idea for Rowne. So just the idea of tying your passion into what you do and I hate that phrase of like, if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. I don't believe that at all. It still works. You still have to fill out expense reports, like that sucks.
Speaker 4:It's still a job, but tying that passion in it becomes so much more personal, and and doing it with people you love to really makes it makes it very cause worthy.
Speaker 4:And then, I think, the third thing our dad had to have you know, along with all of the, the ideas of building trust and building a team you trust and doing things with the people you love like, and to have very hard conversations with people that he loved, he had to fire his best friend, right, ernie Grunfeld, who was managing. He was the GM. He was the GM of the next after my dad became the president of Madison Square Garden. He had to fire him and they were best friends. They spent all their time together, right, and it wasn't personal, it was just, it was a business decision it was the right decision at the end of the day, so you know, having those hard conversations with people you love people, you expect a lot out of.
Speaker 4:That was another thing that you know. Growing up, I observed and and certainly and taught me a lot yeah it's not easy, but what are some of the things that?
Speaker 1:just to key into some of the questions Mark's asking and what you've said, that that's kind of stirred this up, is, you know, passion's super big. I know it's also cliche at the same time. Yeah, of course, but it's so true right, yeah, and you don't even know.
Speaker 4:You know, it's all. It's also okay to tie your passions into a business where there might not be that natural connection. Right, we started the business to sell clothing. What we found was that's not At the end of the day, that's not gonna take you to the next level. What's gonna take you to the next level is tying your passion, which, at the time, our passion and still is very much is taking care of ourselves, being better versions of ourselves. How can we tie that into the brand message? Yeah, and then it becomes a convenient excuse to think about it, work on it every single day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how have you helped your team find that same passion that?
Speaker 4:you guys have found.
Speaker 1:Or a similar. I mean, you obviously can't expect your team to have the same passion as founders. Yeah, but how have you helped them find that?
Speaker 4:I might flip that on its head and say I look for a team that shares the same passions as I do so.
Speaker 4:When I'm talking to employees, it's one of the first questions I get, like, what do you look for in an employee? And I'm like people who want to be here that is severely underrated and people that I trust. I'll take trust and passion over talent every day of the week. I will, because I've just seen, you know, we have an art director named Ashley. Shout out to Ashley. She was at several big fashion brands and was always put in a corner as a stylist or someone that assisted with shoots.
Speaker 4:And when I was looking for an art director, you know, I had this grandiose idea of finding a design mind, someone who could really take our design to the next level. When I interviewed Ashley, it became abundantly clear that she had an eye for creating really high quality content and she was passionate about menswear and she was passionate about, you know, taking the image of the brand and propelling it forward, and so I hired her. I didn't think twice about it and I would do it again 10 times out of 10. And I trusted her with this position, and she has repaid it tenfold because she felt trusted for the first time and she was able to take that trust and that passion and combine it into something that she really loved to do and push it so much further.
Speaker 2:So I love that. So going back to Rhone starts, you guys are making some progress, right, yep? And then I think you guys took on some private equity to try to continue to get this rocket ship going. Yeah, of course. So I'd love to hear a little bit about why you guys decided at the time to take private equity money.
Speaker 3:Are you getting into that, yep? Sure Nice, let's get a little stop in point Okay.
Speaker 1:Sit.
Speaker 4:People don't have to hear my slurp. The ginger ale is good.
Speaker 2:Want to get my drink.
Speaker 4:Ooh, ooh, okay, is that, what is it?
Speaker 1:Hey, well, hey well, oh nice, that doesn't seem like a you drink.
Speaker 4:But it's a new one. New year, new mark, yeah.
Speaker 1:That seems like something Abby would be drinking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, yeah, it's cute.
Speaker 4:Two more. Yeah, I'm feminine. Okay, play, and now coach. Oh nice, does he play for? Who does he play for?
Speaker 2:He played, well, played for you.
Speaker 4:Okay, but then transferred to you.
Speaker 2:Nice. Abby says she loves watching lacrosse, but she really just likes watching her boyfriend. Sure, that's true. Why wouldn't you? She hasn't, she hasn't separated those, that's.
Speaker 1:She's in honeymoon phase still. You know that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:So my wife used to like watching my sports too.
Speaker 4:You know my wife never liked watching my sports. That was always getting thrown out of games. Okay, so Private equity, yeah, private equity, back in 2016. We were actually approached by the gap for an acquisition and Nice.
Speaker 2:What kind of growth did you see up until that point? Like your over your growth, or yeah?
Speaker 4:Multiple hundreds of percent.
Speaker 2:Cool.
Speaker 4:I mean we were. We were definitely a rocket ship. We were being told that we were on blue lemons board decks and we were getting a lot of it. We were getting a lot of attention from a lot of different people. So gap approached us with an acquisition. Approach Nate, I should say, with an acquisition. And this is where that's wild. That's within three years. Three years, yeah.
Speaker 4:So this is where that trust really comes into play, because, you know, nate was like hey, please focus on running the business. I need to take this seriously. And every time we've done fundraising it's like that. It's not that he completely separates himself from running the business, but he really leaves the team in charge of running the business and he focuses on the fundraising because he doesn't want it to impact other people. He takes out load on himself and forever grateful that he does, because I don't begin to understand that stuff and he is very, very good at it.
Speaker 4:So he ran through the acquisition deal, went out to San Francisco to meet the gap team, had a meeting at the time with the CEO of gap who said something along the lines of look, if you don't take this deal, we will form our own brand and we will crush you, we will carbon copy your brand and we will crush you. So he came back, we talked about it. We felt like it was just leaving too much money on the table. We didn't really want to be associated with the gap, which, at the time, we saw to be a sinking ship in a lot of ways, and we wanted to maintain our brand integrity and all the things that we had really struggled to build, so we decided to say no to them and to say yes to Alcatrton, which is an amazing private equity firm. We gave them a couple of board seats, we worked really closely with them for the next. Call it, you know, six to eight years 2016, all the way up until 2023, right, so seven years.
Speaker 4:And, look, I will say that many of the people at Alcatrton are amazing and smart, well connected. What we found at the end of the day, though, was just that those two the objectives and the goals of us and a private equity firm are always going to be at odds. Even if they bought into the message, even if they bought into the mission, they're always going to be at odds, because they want to push for high growth and an exit where everybody makes money and everybody is happy. What we wanted to push for was high growth, so that we could grow this platform, so that we could spread a brand message that we really believed in. The more that I read about the founding days of Nike and what they were 30 years ago, that's what I want to be right. Have you guys seen the air movie?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've been athletic.
Speaker 4:Yes, Fantastic movie that quote that Phil the film night character says in the movie where he says if you go out for your early morning run, we're the ones under the streetlight cheering you on that. To me that encapsulates Rome to a T. We want to be there for the men and now the women that we serve as customers, cheering you on whether you're working out, whether you're in a yoga class, whether you're at work, whether you're with your kids, your friends right, we want to cheer you on to be a better version of yourself.
Speaker 2:Here's a question I have for you, with this message, right when you took on private equity and this is obviously we're not talking bad about them- but again sometimes you just have competing interests. That's the thing. Sometimes relationships don't work. Right Now. How much did it affect you as a marketer when you had additional people in the room trying to dictate the message? I'm wondering how that affected your growth as a company and how it affected you as a marketer trying to communicate your message forward.
Speaker 4:So the way that I would. The metaphor that I've used before is you know and I'm not a rocket scientist by any means right, but if you see the stages of a rocket launch, right, you need certain, certain structures in place so that you can first take off, then get through the atmosphere and then in deep space. Right, like you're kind of on your own. That's the way that I viewed it was. Our takeoff was literally just powered by our concept and our product. That second stage was really fueled by private equity. I'm really grateful for a partner in El Caterton that trusted us with the brand message. In fact, it's one of the reasons they invested in us is because they believed in the brand message. But there is conflicting interests in the sense of they don't want to be invested over a long period of time. They would even start to.
Speaker 4:I wouldn't say that it changed us as a company in terms of marketing. I would say it changed our strategy a little bit. Right, so we wanted to do women's. Years ago they were invested in a women's company. At our board meeting they said maybe this isn't the best idea and it's hard to read that as anything, but you don't want another competitor. I'll never know. If that was the case, sure, but what I will tell you is, when they said that, that was the only thing, I thought you don't want us to compete with you and this other company that you're invested in. That's why you're telling us, strategically, it's not the right time. Could be true, it might also not be true. So it changed our strategy.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't say that it's which, from their point of view, of course, they wouldn't want to.
Speaker 4:Of course it makes complete sense from their point of view.
Speaker 2:That doesn't make them bad people or bad investors, right? No, it makes them good investors.
Speaker 4:It makes them smart investors. It makes them protecting their investment, and one of the principal partners at El Caterton is still a close friend and it actually still sits on our board because he believed in us at a time when maybe he shouldn't have, and he's a guy who just lives our brand message, and so I'll never say a bad word about them. What I will say about them is just like you said, we realized no, we're not in this for 10 years and an exit, or five years and an exit. We're in this for potentially the rest of our lives, because we love what we do and we want to build it further and make it grow farther. Right. That was the mind shift for us and that changed our strategy and that allowed us to settle back into some of these original messages as a marketer that were really resonating with our customers, and that's why last year, we raised a special purpose vehicle and we bought out El Caterton as our private equity partner.
Speaker 2:Which that's hard to do. It is hard to do and we you know again, you don't hear about a lot of brands being able to find a way to do it.
Speaker 4:We find ourselves in a really fortunate position and again I give all the credit to Nate. And also my dad sat in on the special purpose vehicle and helped us raise that and use his connections, and so those two in particular deserve a lot of the credit. And El Caterton deserves a lot of the credit because guess what At the end of the day they could have said no right, but they, you know they, were supportive of us, I think mostly because of you know our relationship with them and the way that we had built some trust with them and they allowed us to go forward with it.
Speaker 4:We're really grateful for that.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So what are some? What are some like lessons you've learned when it comes to taking on that private equity money from like a?
Speaker 4:hey, this was really good because and this is what I wish we would have thought about- Really good because smart capital, right Like don't just take money, find money that will lead you to connections, to further growth, which El Caterton certainly did. They were smart capital, well connected in the space, experienced in the space, invested in several other brands you know within that similar space. I would also say identify. If you are going to give someone a board seat, identify who you want it to be and go after it aggressively. That's a big decision as to who sits on your board, because they control a lot of that. We identified John early on because, again, he is like the prototypical Roman man Amazing dad, amazing father, coaches his daughters in lacrosse and soccer, is heavily involved in his community, fit, handsome, well read, well educated, really thoughtful about his feedback. That's who we identified and that's why we wanted to go forward with it.
Speaker 4:What I would say we could have done better is it's tough because simultaneously, especially early on, we really allowed them to dictate a lot of things, whereas, keep in mind, they're just sharing opinions. That's how it was given was our opinion is X, y and Z and we took that as marching orders, whereas maybe, looking back, we should have said no, we're going to push back on that for the following reasons. That's what we learned eventually, and it made the relationship so much better when we weren't just like, sir, yes, sir, we'll go and do your marching orders, but instead we said, okay, we hear you, we hear your feedback, but this is our pushback. Let's come to some area, some middle ground, where we're both happy. That made the relationship a lot better and it allowed us to go quite a bit further. Awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you see the narrative shifting right now in e-commerce, especially around whether to do private equity or not, where it felt like a couple of years ago everyone was hot on it.
Speaker 1:Either private equity or to sell. Or to sell, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:And now the narrative very much is build a brand that you could live off of or you could work for forever. Build something that you don't have to sell, or, if it comes along and you sell for a great reason, or prior to sure. And try to avoid private equity just because you want to grow so fast.
Speaker 4:I don't think it's that black and white. I would say it's look for the right partner and whether that's a private equity partner or not, I think highly depends on the firm. It highly depends on the people that you're communicating with, even at the firm, and the state of your business.
Speaker 4:And the state of your business, and the state of your own personal mental health, because it is a grind. Waking up every day and thinking about this 24 hours a day is not for everybody and I'm not saying I deserve a special medal for it. I'm just saying it's the way that I'm built. Like I said, we grew up winning or worrying about the wins and the losses every night with our dad's teams. Every day at Rowan feels the exact same. We win and we lose and we care about it and like I could see me doing this for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2:And maybe what, just like synthesize a little bit of what you're saying. You know you can correct me if I'm wrong. It sounds like because your job was to project the company voice out towards the world. Yeah Right, but if there's inner turmoil, the voice can be affected, and so, yeah, it sounds like you know, they were telling us things and we were taking them as marching orders. That was probably conflicting a little bit with the voice, with the message, with the vibe, with the culture.
Speaker 4:Right, it did at times. Yeah, I will be completely honest.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then over time that can add up and I think what a lot of brands need to remember is like your voice is how you communicate, how you build trust, like we talked about with your customers, and you should try to protect the voice at all costs, right, and so if there's competing interests trying to take over a voice of the company, it can be hard.
Speaker 4:It can be.
Speaker 2:it can be really really tricky, and I would say again, like again we know El Catterton was great to work with you guys in particular, but that's not the case with every so many other people. No, I completely agree.
Speaker 1:Well, and you run in. Not only is this private you know a potential issue when you take, when you bring on a partner or private equity firm but it also, like you see, oftentimes some founders or other people within the business who want to, who maybe grow out of what that business might have been. Yeah, right, yeah, my personality was this. Now my personality is different. Or my lifestyle was this and now I'm changing my lifestyle to here.
Speaker 1:I want to take brand with it. Yeah, how do I change that? And there is just such a massive risk when you change your voice, because oftentimes the voice is what dictates the relationship with that customer and when you change that voice you can lose all trust with that. And that's.
Speaker 4:That's where again I go back to them being an excellent partner. Like they cited, that that just as much of a reason to invest in us as our financials and our revenue was. We believe in this brand message. We feel like you guys have uniquely positioned yourselves. We believe in what you're doing as a brand. Keep on like never lose that right, never lose that new North Star. So again, that's what I say is I think where they where the inner tour turmoil was at the time was like the product selection and the strategy and areas of growth. But again, they were also incredibly helpful in some of those areas as well, there were use cases where they guided us away from things that I still am grateful that they did right.
Speaker 4:So it's a mixed bag. That's why I say don't say no to private equity, just say no to the wrong partners and that's a difficult thing to know at the time but also follow your instinct, follow your gut, like that's. That's an underrated thing.
Speaker 1:This isn't a question I have but this is just something I want to take that you just said that I think ever you know, just in case you didn't pull that from this, I love that. You just said that the PE firm invested in you not only because of your financials, but because of the message and because of the voice, absolutely, and I'm, you know, I'm not somebody who's taken on tons of private equity before, so I'm no expert in this, but I think that that is probably a really good. A really good indication that that person's going to be a good partner is that they see beyond the financial, exactly Right.
Speaker 1:Cause obviously the finances have to work out or else no one's going to want to jump into bed with you. Yeah Right, the math has to math.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The math has to math Right.
Speaker 1:Got a math. But if they can catch the vision too and that's that's an active part of the communication in investing in you, then you probably know you are working with somebody that could potentially be very helpful for you, which is probably why you guys still saw great growth with them, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we did, and I make no secret about it, like I think they were our rocket fuel as we got through that stage. Going back and doing it again, I would have done the exact same thing, yeah, knowing that, you know, luckily we could have raised the SPV and also bought back control of the company. It finally feels like ours again, which is a really nice feeling.
Speaker 1:Congrats.
Speaker 2:So, that's so cool, thank you. I want to ask something because you've mentioned it a few times. You say the Rhone man. Yeah, like you guys have this just like solidified archetype yeah. In your mind this archetype, this persona? How did you build this persona and how has it evolved over time? Good question.
Speaker 4:So it really, I would say in some ways it hasn't evolved, in other ways it has. But to answer the first part of the question, we just looked around and we thought about who we actually want wearing the clothing. I always bring up this silly use case, right? But the Jersey Shore was very popular when we started and there was this big public story about how Abercrombie and Fitch went to the cast of the Jersey Shore and offered them tens of thousands of dollars to stop wearing their product and I was like that's the kind of company I want to be, like. I want to be fearless about who we ask to wear our product as well as who we ask not to wear our product.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so we DJ Poly, shore, or whatever DJ.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and the situation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the situation. Who made that story?
Speaker 4:really big.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, because he was the one who, I think, came out and said something about it.
Speaker 4:Abercrombie won't let me wear their clothes anymore, which is like looking at where they are now. Right, they wouldn't be where they're at now if they hadn't done that 10 years. Abercrombie yes, they're killing it again. They're like, they're big again.
Speaker 1:Dude, I just I just watched the Netflix documentary.
Speaker 2:I actually don't know. Are they? They are, you're sure to see that Literally no idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my wife, I think my wife has another pair of jeans.
Speaker 4:They're like kind of trendy and cool again.
Speaker 1:Have you watched the Netflix documentary? Amazing documentary. I just watched it when I was in San Diego.
Speaker 4:It brought back so much especially growing up in the Northeast Like if you weren't wearing Abercrombie you were nothing and, like my sister, worked there in high school and stuff. It's crazy. You should watch the Netflix documentary.
Speaker 2:Was she just a walking cologne bottle when she came home? Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 1:My wife was a perfume sprayer.
Speaker 4:Well, my oldest brother was a walking cologne bottle and he didn't even work there, he just doused himself in water.
Speaker 1:I will say this, I will say this there, still to this day, is no better cologne than fierce.
Speaker 4:It's a bold take. I completely disagree.
Speaker 2:It's like a hundred better. I'm telling you right now, literally.
Speaker 1:There is no better cologne than you know personal sense is personal. My dad still wears it. No, I don't. Dude, literally, I think I can do it, I can't do it, because I feel like I'm in high school If I do you see the shirtless ad picture in the. Yeah, that's how I'd feel without the ads.
Speaker 4:Wait, is this your boyfriend? Oh man.
Speaker 2:I have product.
Speaker 4:My wife my wife Wait, wait, wait, wait. They still make it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because my dad, I think, still wears it. My wife, my wife, got a sample of a aquedygio. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Like it just came in. That is a flashback.
Speaker 1:It came in the mail of for something that she got.
Speaker 4:I got a, would you rather? Would you rather wear a fierce or Dracar noir for the rest of your life?
Speaker 1:I don't know that one, you don't know. Dracar noir.
Speaker 2:I don't know, dracar noir.
Speaker 4:I feel like it's like, yeah, it's like, yeah, it's similar to some.
Speaker 1:I wear Chanel, the one that Johnny Depp reps. Okay, I think it's Chanel or Dior. It's Dior, sorry.
Speaker 4:It's Dior. I wear Dior. You're probably a Samoan man. Yeah, he plays a guitar in a desert while Coyote walks down.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right. I'm the shavage, just a little howl.
Speaker 4:Speaking of marketing and advertising, is there a weirder world of advertising than cologne? Or fume advertising no. And they're like it's artwork. I can appreciate art.
Speaker 1:I have never appreciated a fragrance commercial, but I've also never appreciated a car commercial.
Speaker 2:But I also don't think men buy fragrance. I have.
Speaker 1:I have. There's been one car commercial Subaru, car commercial the dog one. No, it's the one where it shows a car accident and the car is like mangled. Yeah, that one gets you. And the guy who's towing it. I think looks like there's people who are spectating looking at it and the guy who's towing him says they lived. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I'm like that is the most powerful car commercial I've ever seen in my life, because, as a parent, if I was a parent with a 16 year old, I would buy him a Subaru, just like that.
Speaker 2:I did buy him a. Subaru.
Speaker 4:I did too. We had an outback as a family, did you. It was a great car.
Speaker 2:I bought myself a WRX. I ride out of high school yeah you did. It was not a big decision.
Speaker 1:Spoiler on it, oh dear. No, not spoiler, but suit that up. Got the undercarriage lights.
Speaker 2:But it was stick. Oh, you have the lights. You have the lights.
Speaker 4:Did you have a custom shift knob? No, come on, you're the type of guy who took it.
Speaker 2:I wasn't a fast and furious guy. Oh, come on, you love.
Speaker 4:Paul Walker, then why even buy a WRX? You love Paul Walker.
Speaker 2:No, I'm not saying I didn't like the movies. I just wasn't trying to street race. I just liked a fast car with all-wheel drive because we're in Utah.
Speaker 1:Anytime my son sees a souped-up car that's like a Subaru or a Civic.
Speaker 2:But going back to the Cologne, I don't think men are.
Speaker 1:Even with Cologne.
Speaker 4:I don't think we're the target For fierce or in general, like the In general, even with a.
Speaker 2:Cologne. Cologne's for men, obviously right Perfumes for women.
Speaker 4:For those who might not know I mean, but we live in a world.
Speaker 1:Maybe men can use perfume to.
Speaker 4:I think many do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sure, but I think women primarily dictate the fragrance men buy and so those advertisements.
Speaker 4:I think Johnny Depp in the desert, but do those appeal to you, johnny Depp in the desert Absolutely appeals to him. I'm trying to find a horse, shirtless, sure See.
Speaker 2:I'm in.
Speaker 1:I'm in.
Speaker 4:You got me, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that's what they know is they know that men do not make the decision on the fragrance they buy.
Speaker 1:It's interesting, that's an interesting point Even I mean even the women's perfume, like those commercials, are wildly sexual as well. You know, you think that that's it's opposite, the opposite.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's no, it's not opposite. It's that women is more aspirational.
Speaker 1:That makes them feel that way, because they know, a guy might be looking at that, thinking that that's sexy yeah, I could see that more than men being like. Hey, I saw this commercial of Charlotte. I think I will be sexy if you were Johnny Depp playing a guitar in the desert.
Speaker 4:Those ones are the all time worst, in my opinion. There's plenty of women that find that sexy, just like Johnny Depp, yeah.
Speaker 2:Because Johnny Depp is a heartthrob, you know.
Speaker 4:Yeah, fair enough. We got real off topic. I like it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. I don't even know where we were.
Speaker 2:Well, going back to who you're targeting, oh, yes, yeah, yeah. Yes, so we built the Rown man, you know. So what's so interesting?
Speaker 4:is when we built this out. You know, we kind of I think we even. I know we gave him a name. His name was Mark, right, we said he worked on. It's me, it's you are the Rown man.
Speaker 2:You are the Rown man. Let me finish.
Speaker 4:I'm actually not the Rown man you know he works in a city, he lives in a suburb oh, still me, he. You know he spends most of his time between his job and his home, but what he thinks about the most are kind of the adventures that he goes on. Maybe once a year, right, so he goes to.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, that is, I think you're still there. You're still there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he goes skiing in Banff right he goes.
Speaker 2:Or fly fishing right now.
Speaker 4:Fly fishing in Montana. That's what he thinks about most of the time. So he considers himself.
Speaker 2:I'm buying a camper trailer next week, so nice.
Speaker 4:You know we talked about, he takes fitness seriously, he works on his wellness, he is focused on, and then kind of the last line and this is was going to be the line that dictated a lot of our marketing messages is he is obsessed with the relentless pursuit of progress, right, so he is committed to just being a better version of himself every single day, every single week, month, year, et cetera.
Speaker 1:I feel like that was me too. I mean, I'm not like, I'm not fly fishing.
Speaker 4:And here's, but I'm thinking about the golf trip. Guys, here's the interesting thing.
Speaker 2:And they have disposable income, and that's where I'm like.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, they seem maybe a little bougie.
Speaker 2:These three kids are sucking me dry man.
Speaker 4:The interesting thing is, as soon as you present that message, I think most guys identify with a part of that, and the part that I have found that most guys identify with is this idea of the pursuit of progress. Oh yeah. I want to be better, like, even if I'm not better today, I want to be better. Yeah, I think it's very intrinsic in both men and women to want to set goals, to make progress, to make you know high achievement and to really strive after it, while understanding you may not get there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't. I can't speak for women because good, that's probably a good call, but for men, you know, growing up, because I'm one of four, I'm also one of four brothers, ok, you know. So we're four boys a lot of testosterone and competition in the house. And there's one thing that resonates with a lot of the men that I know, and that's the hero's journey.
Speaker 4:Yes, which is why, joseph Campbell, Well, the hero's journey, just the archetype of the story. Have you read Hero with a Thousand Faces? I haven't Highly recommended I should. It's beautiful, yeah.
Speaker 2:But if you think about what movies men love the most, that they can rewatch all the time, it's like the original Star Wars yeah, it's this boy who becomes a man, and like these, these, these stories play out of them trying to progress and get better and eventually they kind of overcome the evil or the bad, or or themself or themselves. The Rockies yeah, right, it's, it's these movies that they always go back to and talk about and they can rewatch the Godfather, the Godfather, Right. So how much does that play into right your storytelling as a brand? Do you think about the hero's journey? Do you think about these bigger storytelling frameworks?
Speaker 4:We really try and put ourselves in the shoes of our customer to say, ok, his everyday journey is this. How can we make product that solves a lot of the problems? Or how do we make products so good that clothing is just not a problem anymore? Right, you can go into your closet, you can pick out a couple pieces of around. You know it's going to be comfortable, you know it's going to be durable. It will look good together. The colors are complimentary.
Speaker 4:So we really do try and set ourselves in the customer's everyday journey, which is exactly what you're saying.
Speaker 4:It is the hero's journey, right, he sets out in the morning.
Speaker 4:Maybe he does a morning workout, then he goes to work, then he comes home to play with his kids and spend time with his wife, or maybe he goes out with friends and plays golf.
Speaker 4:Right, how do we set ourselves in the customer journey so that we really tried to focus when we first started and to a certain extent, we still focus on this is we talked about those transition times, right, the times where you're transitioning from the gym to the office? What are you wearing? You're throwing on a really nice looking hoodie so that when you get to the office you don't look completely out of place and you can easily change into something else. So we do try and set ourselves in that journey and we help him aspire and aim for something better and for something higher, because he no longer has to worry about clothing holding him back. So that's really where we tried to settle our marketing messages Make it aspirational, make it so that it's always aiming at something better, right, and that this guy is just going to be a better version of himself because of Roan, because it's no longer a distraction, it's no longer a problem.
Speaker 1:I like that, it's aspirational, but that everybody, everybody locks on to it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, it's cool. What's? What's one of the biggest mistakes you're seeing brands make?
Speaker 4:I think yeah, I think exactly what we talked about about not betting on themselves right, doubting that they have the rocket fuel to go further and farther, just on their own power and accord. And that doesn't mean not taking money.
Speaker 4:It just means betting on yourself in an appropriate way, finding people who believe in your message because they're out there, and doubling down on what makes you unique and special. Everybody's especially in kind of the active lifestyle where everybody's starting to like, blend together and look like versions of each other. Yeah, and we're trying to get away from that. When everybody's digging, we're trying to zag right. So the Orialo lemon can all have that space where they're talking about yoga and balance and softness and sand and all that stuff. We're going to go the exact opposite way.
Speaker 2:You're going to go hardcore.
Speaker 4:We're going to go gritty yeah metal tattoos no, but very, but very. You know, concrete jungle is is kind of a message right, the guy who takes on the day takes on a city, and that's. That's exactly where our women's line is going to go as well. Awesome, so, dude. So yeah, believe in yourself and bet on yourself.
Speaker 2:What is the I want to follow up question that? What's your biggest marketing mistake that you've made around?
Speaker 4:biggest marketing mistake? Yeah, I'll tell you one. We wanted to sign a big name, a big ambassador, and can you say it? Yep, jimmy Butler. We signed him in 2018. Six figure contract. I do love Jimmy.
Speaker 2:Butler, though, that's the thing is like the cool, funniest personality in the NBA. That's exactly what we got from him when we were chatting about the.
Speaker 4:The whole initial idea of is like this guy's content is amazing. His personality is amazing. His YouTube channel has a huge following. He's authentically himself. He's an athlete who performs at a high level. People have kind of doubted him his entire career.
Speaker 2:I love that Like most underrated, completely A player for the last decade.
Speaker 4:I think his game is amazing. I think he's a great person. At the time when we signed him, the team around him made a lot of promises about content and deliverables. I think we mismanaged it on our side in terms of we should have gone to launch with his line, his clothing line, baked, For whatever reason the communication and I will say we tried to fix it. We did, we tried to fix it and it seemed like it was like his worst NBA season in a long time and it was coming out of the bubble Right. So it was like whatever 20 to 20.
Speaker 4:So they made the finals. Twenty twenty one.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, the following year. So it was the following year that we really had him on contracts, but we had been discussing it with him since 2018. So it was like two years in the making. At that point. We should have had product ready to go with his touch and his personality by the time we started to really talk about product coming in. That was Jimmy Butler product.
Speaker 4:It was going to be the end of the year, it was going to be the end of the term, yeah, so we didn't even really know what kind of an impact he was going to have on the business and I take full accountability for our failings. But I will say we tried our darndest to make it work and to fix it and to get content going. He ended up firing his content manager while we were with him, went on a search for somebody else. His agent could really only do so much because you know, he couldn't. He couldn't influence. Like Jimmy is going to be Jimmy. He's just going to do his own thing and now he's with Alo and he's featured in all these campaigns and he's he's cozy with the founder and stuff like that, and I think it's really working for them.
Speaker 4:But you know, we were really short-sighted about. We need a big name. We need a big name, we need a big name. We rushed it, we didn't think about everything that went into it and my learning from that is and I remember sitting down after it kind of fell apart and writing this like credo that we ended up putting out on social media, which is like we are not professional athletes, we are not highly compensated influencers, we are not male models. That makes Nate now unique in the in the apparel co-founding space. If you look around at any other apparel company, they are co-founded by X models Really good looking guys. That can happen. We are not good looking guys. We are not modeling the clothing. We are very very normal.
Speaker 4:We are very normal looking guys. So I wrote this whole thing about like we are not this, we are not that. Here's what we are. We are guys that are shoulder to shoulder with you in the pursuit of progress. We are right next to you. We are cheering you on under the street light, right Like that's us. And as soon as I wrote it I was like this felt right and like I'm not sure we'll ever sign another big name again. That doesn't mean to say we won't work with influencers, we won't wait. You know, we will never bet as much as we did on that one deal and it is the pinnacle of my failures that Jimmy Butler deal and the way that it panned out, and I take full accountability, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like that example Because of you taking accountability for it right.
Speaker 2:And I like how you brought up that with every situation, right, like the failures there's.
Speaker 2:Obviously, you know it takes two to tango, sure, when there's a failure it's never just one side, no, but I'm also curious what your perspective is. I know you said you're never not going to work with influencers. Yeah, but in Utah, for example, we saw a huge real estate boom with COVID, sure, and now there's a bunch of houses that some real estate agents bought that are trying to flip and then the market cooled and now they're just sitting on these houses that are going into a loss and they're trying to sell them, but they can't sell them at the prices that they were hoping for when they bought them a year ago. Yeah, because it took a year to remodel and now they're trying to flip them. So they're looking at a bad situation trying to sell them right now with the interest rates in the market. Yeah, how much of your situation do you also think might be with influencers impact kind of waning over that same period of time I worry about that a lot, yeah, and what's?
Speaker 2:your perspective on that with Roan, like, how do you guys view influencers we view?
Speaker 4:influencers. As you know and I've gotten sharper with my language on we just hired. We hired someone about three and a half months ago who really has experience in the influencer field. Before that we were kind of like, let's take someone who's an influencer themselves and let them run this program and they did good things with it. Right, like they built an ambassador program and they did some good things with it. They found some good content creators, et cetera. I don't want to call influencers unnecessary evil, but what I do want to say is I think I think their importance I think we've changed our view on kind of exclusivity is the biggest thing.
Speaker 4:We can't expect one of our influencers to be a wrong guy forever I remember I used to take that really personally, like you were with Ron and now you're with Viori, like what the heck? And we found a lot of these guys first, one of Viori's big early influencers is this guy named Paul Wright. He was in San Francisco. Now he's in Southern California. He's a tonal instructor. I love Paul. He's a great dude. I gave him his first shot as a model on one of our shoots and he was like he basically thanked me at the end and was like I've been trying to work for Nike, for Lulu, for a long time. Nobody's giving me a shot. Thank you so much for giving me a shot. It was a really cool moment. A year later he's pedaling Viori stuff and again my.
Speaker 2:there are assassins just like an NBA athlete, 100% they were smart about it.
Speaker 4:They saw him on our campaign, we had so many inbounding requests from agents that were like, who is this guy? Where can I find him? And I directed them towards Paul. Don't know if anything ever happened, and it was my failure to recognize this is a guy we should lock up as an influencer. I was happy to pay him as a model. We featured him in a few other shoots. I maintained a personal relationship with him.
Speaker 4:At the end of the day, it's business. He's got to take money where it's coming from, and Viori did a great job activating around him. So it's like you know, what I struggle with is I want to use everyday, common people that are doing their best at what they're doing, but I also want the product to look good and I also want the aesthetic to be on point, and so instead, what we're trying to do is, instead of using humans as models, we're trying to humanize models. We're calling it the role models project, and it's to take models and show a little bit of behind the scenes and be like these are more than good looking guys A lot of them have fascinating stories, like born in Senegal and lived there until they were seven and came over here and lived in Georgia or whatever, I don't know.
Speaker 4:They have really interesting stories and as soon as you start to humanize them, people start to see oh yeah, sure, this guy's good looking and he makes a lot of money because he's good looking, but there's more to it. And so trying to humanize everybody across the board Content creators, influencers, just showing kind of open, vulnerable sides of people is really where you'll start to see our social content go. It's going to be a lot more editorial in the future.
Speaker 2:I like that. How do you incorporate this in your ads? And I guess my other question is how much do paid ads and like Facebook, Google, TikTok, how much does that play a part of your guys' growth and success?
Speaker 4:It plays a huge part, as you would expect. I mean, we're still mostly e-com. We opened 10 retail locations last year, so we have a total of 15, but we're still mostly e-com and even the paid ads drive traffic into those retail stores. So that's what gets. Tricky is because, like the really cool organic storytelling content doesn't necessarily drive clicks or drive performance. I do believe that it drives kind of long-term conversion and brand loyalty, and so that's where my head's at. But what we have found is finding content creators that can really isolate this idea of, like, making the product look good from an aesthetic standpoint and pointing out the value prop. Those are the guys that we're going to go with, and so, as we go into women's too like I don't pretend that our approach to men's is going to be carbon copy for women it's going to be different.
Speaker 4:It seems like women are much more tied to influencers, so like we're going to have to dabble in that space. But again it's about. To me it's about humanizing them, forming relationships with them, finding kind of deeper meaning in those relationships, and those are the types of people that we want to carry forward. So it's a bad answer, but it kind of remains to be seen how we can drag that into our paid performance stuff and how it can really make a difference.
Speaker 1:Makes sense.
Speaker 4:And how do?
Speaker 2:you justify your spend? Do you justify it based off of like an LTV lifetime value metric, or do you guys have to do a first purchase profitability number? How do you guys go about like analyzing your performance?
Speaker 4:I mean all the traditional metrics that you might expect on a paid performance side is, you know, in terms of you know CAC and all the traditional ones that you would expect. That's how we measure it, but there is a little bit of a gut instinct check of is this person on brand for us, and so we're trying to do things better. You'll see a little bit of a reinvention on that side of things for us, but we have an amazing performance marketing team and they are really focused on this and we work closely together with them. We're also trying some non-traditional stuff. We wrapped three trucks that just drove around New York City during December and it was one of those like wild moments that you couldn't have predicted. Nate and I went into the city. I think it was like. I think it was like mid-November. We went into the city together actually to record a podcast and we come up out of Grand Central and we get up onto the street level and one of the trucks is driving across.
Speaker 4:And it was just this surreal moment of like, what are the odds? These trucks, these trucks are all over Manhattan. What are the odds? And it was wrapped in kind of our newest campaign about the commuter shirt and you know how it's like the greatest business shirt, and so we are trying some like non-traditional out of off or out of home things that we hope will kind of again drive that long-term conversion, drive that brand loyalty and ultimately impact revenue. But yeah, we're trying to be less addicted to that drug of like cack and Facebook ads and all that.
Speaker 1:I spent a dollar to make a dollar back. Yeah, yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 4:But it's hard, like that's when you show you're working yeah.
Speaker 2:Right Because feels like it. Well, you tap out in the sense that you can only measure that for so long, for so far, depending on like, whatever your like, total obtainable market is Right, yeah. Eventually you're going to run into a spot where it's like, okay, we're hitting so many people, are they converting with one day, seven days at 30 days? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, and eventually you get so big that you got to start really investing in things like what you're saying here. And how do you measure? How do you measure a truck driving around New York City?
Speaker 4:Yeah, and they did have some interesting things, like they had some geofencing ads that went with the truck. So if you're in a certain radius and you saw the truck, chances were you were getting hit with an ad, yeah, so there's some really interesting thing. Almost creepy things happen with the advertising.
Speaker 4:But the other thing that I wanted to say was we also invest heavily in the quality of our product. We are obsessed with the details of our product because we know if guys like it, if it holds up, if it's comfortable, if it looks good, they're going to come back to us, regardless of if they see a paid ad or not. We're investing in kind of the editorial side of our socials so that they're thinking about Roan without it being a Roan ad. Right, they're like, oh, I'm fascinated by this story and Roan is just a background player, and then all of those things. We feel like it's a one to combination where the left is all paid performance, the left hand is all paid performance and all the all the spend that goes into that and all the optimization that goes into that. But then the right hook that finishes you off, is that really really resonant, beautiful brand content. So we're trying to balance those things evenly. But, as you might imagine, it's always. It's always a wrestle, and not necessarily just with the performance team but with the results. Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:Right so dude.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much. This has been awesome.
Speaker 4:Yeah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:The only thing we didn't talk about is the aliens in Miami, that's the only thing we missed.
Speaker 2:You know, you think they were aliens?
Speaker 1:I'm curious if you think they were aliens.
Speaker 4:Did you see how many cop cars there were?
Speaker 1:I think they're like 80.
Speaker 2:I mean? I mean the entire street has is two lanes thick of cop cars and the corner around the mall.
Speaker 1:So I saw a TikTok video and you can't trust every TikTok video.
Speaker 2:Really Not everyone, not every.
Speaker 1:TikTok video. You can only Now I'm going to, so I saw a TikTok video Okay, and you can't, you know, trust every TikTok video. Maybe, like 90% of them, 99% of them you can trust 90% 90% of TikTok.
Speaker 4:That seems high, no, 100% 100% no.
Speaker 1:So I saw this TikTok video and I got a. It was this guy who's like how have I not heard about this? My dad is running for sheriff in Miami and he's like I've never heard anything about this. So he calls his dad and he's FaceTiming him and has a camera from behind and it kind of shows the side of his dad's face Like hey dad, we just like talked the other day. How come you haven't told me anything about? Like did you hear about the aliens? And the dad just sitting there and just doesn't say anything. He's like will you say something? He's like I can't discuss it. And the guy just like keeps like the kid, just keeps badgering. He's like how many times I've tell you I cannot say anything to you about this? Do?
Speaker 4:you think he got the men in black pen.
Speaker 1:I was wondered about that Like, because it's like, it's like all over everything. Yeah. But no one's saying anything at the same time about it. I don't know what's real. So yeah, did they get the little flash that?
Speaker 4:look they undoubtedly exist Aliens, yes, undoubtedly. I mean, that's good. They probably do Undoubtedly there's no, I mean, there's so much evidence. I just love that like scientifically. Yeah, during COVID there was like hey, by the way, aliens exist, but like you should know what he said yeah, no, it's just like not a big deal.
Speaker 2:I don't think, I don't think that's real.
Speaker 4:You don't think the what's real.
Speaker 2:I think aliens exist Sure In the grand escape of the universe.
Speaker 4:You don't think they're visiting Earth?
Speaker 2:They're absolutely not crashing, that's for sure, and, like you're telling me, they master space and time.
Speaker 4:And then they like crashed here, I think they treat Earth like many people treat Vegas, when they're like I'm going just to see what's going on there and I'm gonna like I heard about this place yeah. And like it's an all it's also.
Speaker 1:you think that they're just like us? Yeah, this is their vacation.
Speaker 2:Yeah maybe, maybe they even.
Speaker 4:I mean, maybe they even go to Vegas.
Speaker 2:I actually just think the government is telling us they exist so that they can fly their little secret UFOs around.
Speaker 1:So you don't think that they would be there. There's the big shadows. Who are they? Who are they shooting at In the mall?
Speaker 2:I think it's far more likely that it was a terrorist operation or something, and they're trying to hush Until.
Speaker 4:I see a video equally as convincing as the one part in Science where it's the Brazilian birthday party.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he walks across.
Speaker 4:Say what you want about M Night Shyamalan, that scene.
Speaker 1:That's a banger. That was scary. It's a great movie. Science is great and it doesn't make any sense. Like the water kills them, like so much of our atmosphere is made of water, they wouldn't have ever been able to survive. What's even better, though, than science, is scary movie three, when they do the parody.
Speaker 4:There's nothing better than that. 100%. The Waynes are genius, but look, I'll say.
Speaker 2:I wish, I hope, that some of those UFO things are real. I just just read about just read about Area 51 and how much the government has kept from us.
Speaker 4:I don't think it's aliens. Where are you reading this?
Speaker 2:What's your source? Oh, everything TikTok for number one.
Speaker 1:Tiktok is number one, twitter number two 90% of TikTok is reliable.
Speaker 2:Go read a great investigative journalist, Annie Jacobson. She has tons of books about the government based off of declassified documents and interviews. She interviews everyone that we used to work at Area 51. Area 51 was just an extension of Los Alamos, right Like that. It just became what Los Alamos was after they developed the nuclear bomb. And then they kept developing nuclear technology at Area 51 and keeping it from us and, like you know, just blowing up nuclear bombs in Nevada and just letting all that radioactive waste like hit small little towns in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona. But you would never know about that, Like the B you go back to. What is called the ox cart was the original stealth bomber product and they were using that sucker like over Russia when nobody knew about it. Not even the president knew about it. The CIA was just flying spy planes.
Speaker 4:Over Russia. If you're big into conspiracies, spooking Russia. If you're big into conspiracies but also married with like good you know investigative reporting, have you heard the who Killed JFK podcast?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 4:I really loved it. I thought it was great. I'm fascinated by that whole thing. Yeah, I don't. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean look, the JFK thing is.
Speaker 1:I mean, I mean black, that's a whole nother conversation.
Speaker 4:They answer it, I mean they identify four very potential.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they have four potentials.
Speaker 4:But what they say is that it was this collusion of, because it's everybody's like it's the CIA or it's the mob or it's Cuban nationals, and what you really found was that all three of those organizations were kind of in bed together and they all had vendettas against JFK and it was, it seems like it was four outliers from all of those places. And then they framed Lee Harvey Oswald as the only shooter and that the government was super happy to like have that guy as a patsy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And so they covered it by using MK Ultra to make him crazy.
Speaker 4:And then we get stranger things.
Speaker 2:Then we get yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like it. I like where this ended. Yeah none of that Dude next podcast.
Speaker 2:let's talk about propaganda and MK Ultra and government psyops Done.
Speaker 4:Sponsored by Olipop yeah, sponsored by.
Speaker 1:Olipop, exactly Sponsored by Ron. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us and we will see you next week. Thank you so much for listening to the Unstoppable Marketer podcast. Please go rate and subscribe to the podcast, whether it's good or bad. We want to hear from you because we always want to make this podcast better. If you want to get in touch with me or give me any direct feedback, please go follow me and get in touch with me. I am at the Trevor Crump on both Instagram and TikTok. Thank you, and we will see you next week.