YouSaid · the spoken record

Curt Richardson

lines on the record: 88
first: 2019-12-02
most recent: 2019-12-02
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I think I touched on it, right guys. I mean, I talked about really understanding what you want. Now, whether you're an entrepreneur or whether you have a job. I would hope for every one of you that you really discover inside who I am and what I want and what's my purpose and when I breathe my last breath will it be good Will you go? That was great. I lived a great life. But you got to ask yourself that question now. You got to do it now. It's not like a savings account. You can't start saving when you're 70. You know, the most important thing is to discover what you want because then you can build a business, you can build a life on that. I mean, it's something you can share with your family. It's something you can build those bonds with. We can build a culture on that.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Lot had to be with being in the right place at the right time. So there's definitely some luck there. I think there's also Did it take some skill? It took some skill, but it took a lot of failure, and it took a lot of learning from that failure. We call it failing forward. It wasn't just me that built, you know, it says, how did you build? I don't want to say I built it. I want to say we built it. And so is it luck? Yeah, some of it's thank you, Steve Jobs. Oh, really? I mean, man, the guy hit it out of the park. I just followed the ball over the wall. You know? So a lot of it is luck, but it is learning from those mistakes. It's the emyth. It's the Stratoff process. It's all those systems and it's all those people that came into a culture that have come together to create something special.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't want to be an honor. And that's okay Because that's for me, my primary aim is really to be able to help people understand their talents that God has given them and help them be the best they can be and really discover that and go out and do that. I want them to do what they want to do. I want people to discover that. I mean, how many people in life get to 50, 60 and go, my job really sucks A lot. A lot. Well, why aren't we teaching people to ask that question early on? What do I really want? What do I want to do? What's in my heart”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Now, one thing we do for every otter that's been at Otterbox or any of our other companies, we give them a life plan after a year. So much like a stratop, they get to spend two days with a life planner and really discover what they want.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We feel like if we can influence them to be entrepreneurs and philanthropists now, that becomes part of their DNA. And think how that multiplies. Think what a difference that makes in the world if we create a bunch of people that want to give back, not just money because not everybody's going to make a ton of money. But they have talents. They have experiences they can share. They can mentor kids. If that becomes part of their fabric, and that's what we've tried to do at Otter, is really install a heart of giving. I mean, for one day a year, we shut down the whole company and everybody goes out and volunteers. I mean, that's one thing. We give away 24 hours of, we pay them 24 hours of time to go out and give back in the community, to give to the nonprofit of their choice, to spend. But what we're really trying to put in their heart is to give.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would like to see it Bottom line change people's lives make a difference in people's lives, be able to educate youth to be able to make a difference in the world. If we can help young people start to understand giving to become part of their fabric, much like recycling has become part of much of people's lives today. It was ingrained in them very young.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We've always been Nancy, always say to him, Much is given, much is expected. Now we didn't say that. You know, a guy named Jesus came up with that. You know, it's pretty good. Yeah. I mean, we really try to live by that, and we've really tried to instill that in our culture”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I really didn't. And even today, it's like, I really don't think that way. It's not about the money. I mean, Otter's mission is we grow to give. So it really is about giving back. I mean, if we make more money, we can give more money away. We can make a difference in community. We can make a difference in people's lives. And that's what Otter's really about.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's how we're going to relate to each other here. It's how we're going to treat each other. It's how we're going to do business. That's the culture. You know, for us, the golden rule is number one. You violate that at Otter, you're in trouble. You know, we're going to treat each other as we'd want to be treated, as you'd want to be treated. And to me, that, I mean, that... Do that, it makes a lot of wrong things right.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Now, I'm not there every day anymore. I'm not. I mean, Jim and we have an amazing executive team, but we have an amazing leadership team there. And I think with any business and any business we have today, the biggest thing is leadership, whether it's our distillery or one of our other businesses. We're going to put great leadership there. And without that, the business is not going to flourish. And it has to carry out the vision. My job is that of a visionary. But even today, that's not my primary role.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Had to get clarity on what was going on. And once I got clarity on what was going on, I knew I had to go back. Now I knew I wasn't going to go back as the CEO. I did not want to do that. But I had some other great people, our CEO today, Jim Park, is basically, I can remember, he was running one of our other companies, and we were in a meeting trying to figure out what to do. And we started writing on the board. Who's going to do what? And they put my name as CEO. I went up there and erased it and put Jim's name. And he was a little shocked.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because it had been destroyed from culturally. Culturally, the place had completely changed. And that was a huge issue. I mean, they were really upset with just how people were being... Leadership back then. They were just doing what they brought from where they came from. And it wasn't what my intention and my philosophy on how to run a business.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. I had a lot of otters come to me and my boys come to me because a lot of their friends worked at all there and they're going, Dad, you need to go figure out what's going on over there. And I had a lot of people that were really upset. And now.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm very glad we didn't sell. I think The us and our family, it would fundamentally change things in Fort Collins. Otter is one of the top four employers in Fort Collins. And it's part of the culture. It's part of the fabric of Fort Collins. Now, if... If Jeff Bezos calls you tomorrow, I'll take the call, but I don't I don't know that we'd get a deal. We talk. We talk. Jeff?”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I got to tell you, that was not a fun experience looking to sell something you love so much. And even going through the process was very disruptive. And, you know, we worked with Goldman and we worked with, I still remember talking to an old guy at Bain Capital, and his name was Josh. So Josh, if you're listening, he said, well, I don't know where Case will be in five years. Well, it's five years, Josh.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I still hear about that. That was a whole nother learning for me, too. That was another one where I didn't pass the baton very well. I mean, a lot of the... Want to ever knock anybody because a lot of people had a lot of good things to do with otter and growing otter and there was a lot of people that aren't with us today that I give them credit for helping us build that company. You know, they were. But a lot of times a company outgrows people as well, and in some ways it outgrew me.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was bored. I wanted to go create. So for me, I needed to go and create. And it didn't go over well with my wife because I didn't really tell her that I was going to quit.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I get bored. Yeah. So in the early days I'm doing everything, right? I mean, I'm supply chain, I'm finance, I'm design, I'm involved in everything. Well, when you hit... Half million on your way to a billion. Believe it or not, you get rat holed. And I got, I'm like I got rat holed. It's like, well, here's what you do. I'm a rat in a hole, you know, and that's what I felt like, a rat in a hole”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I dream that that was going to happen? No, it happened so fast. I mean, literally, it was a rocket ride. I mean, we grew 1100% in five years. We went from 5 million to 575 million in five years in revenue. That's just crazy.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Where it makes a difference is it makes a difference with our customers and our consumers. I mean, if they're driving the price down with counterfeit product, it's going to reflect on us. So we have to, we get very aggressive.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Had counterfeit We have a whole building full of lawyers. We have a whole brand control group and actually it's funny we've worked with border with the border security and all customs and helped train them on showing what's a fraudulent autobox there. And actually, they pull all our containers full of Gucci Coach and Otterboxes.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We made a lot of changes. I mean, the tools, some tools got scrapped, some parts got scrapped. So we were manufacturing at risk to try to get to market as quick as we could.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Manufactured some parts I remember there were other competition that even made the iPhone mini mini. It was like this big. It's like, I don't know how that got on the internet, but they made molds.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We get as much information as anybody else would get. We still were waiting in line with everybody else back in the day. And we would make...”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I want them to be successful because if they're successful, we're successful because we would attach to those new devices. We always got a percentage of.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, they never did. They never really objected. I mean, we were out in the market. People are buying our cases. I mean, Apple makes cases. Samsung makes cases.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, I never worried too much about competitors. I wanted to know what they're doing. I think competition makes you better. I like competition. I mean, today Otter owns 40% of the case market in the United States. Know, I think if you.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I always compare ourselves to the little fish that's on the side of the shark, you know, and I don't care which shark or how big the shark is, but we're going to be that fish on that shark. We're going to ride that shark as long as we need to ride that shark. And that's really, it doesn't matter who's building the phone or what device. If that device is popular, if it's a hit, we want to be there with it. Now we cover a lot of devices today. We cover just about every model almost globally.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Pretty quick when the orders started coming in. I mean, we wore out our molds. We had to build a whole new set of molds because the molds wore out. That's how many we made.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“From the first one, or it probably took us 12, 14 weeks. How long it took us to get to the stores from the time we got the first phone in our hands, we literally had people waiting in line to go buy the phone and we'd buy 12 phones and start dropping them.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Got systems. So I thought supply chain, I didn't know what supply chain was. I mean, today I would say Otter probably does supply chain better than just about any business in the United States. But I didn't even know what supply chain was back then. I mean, it was one lady in a closet ordering parts. I mean, that was it.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I knew we were getting traction with the BlackBerry and other devices. I knew we were growing and we were growing at a significant pace at the time, but we didn't, I mean, the iPhone 3 was, you know, we were on the launch pad. That's when it took off. But it was also, I mean, growth can be just as tough as.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So out of that came the defender case. Defender was really what Launched Otter, and that was the first case for the iPhone as well. So we had figured out at the time that it didn't need to be a waterproof case.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“On the floor Are out on the floor and they're dropping these things and they're breaking them. Management said, Can you make us a case? So we designed a case. Well, this case was, you know, it was like a little kid in a snowsuit. You kind of walks out in the yard and falls in the snow. So it was a big fat case. It worked, but it didn't really work. So management loved it. They thought, oh, great, we're never going to break another Blackberry. Then we give it to the guy on the floor. He goes, I'm not using this damn thing. This is huge. This thing is a piece of junk, you know. He was right. And so we said, but it's waterproof. He says, I'm in a store. I don't need a waterproof case.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I give you another story when we did the first Home Depot came to us and said, hey, we need a case to protect our blackberries. I don't even remember what model it was.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Pretty much Yeah, it was just another. Was it just another guy trying to make a phone? But I will remind you, the BlackBerry was really our testing ground, growing ground with that.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we were looking for names. I mean, Pelican was the big animal in the room, and they still make great products, but we were looking for a name. We had a walrus, you know, seal cases. And we were driving to Denver. I remember this specifically. And Ansie's like, well, how about Otter? Otter, it's playful, it's fun, it's around the water, otter box. It had a great ring. That was it. Actually, the guy who designed our logo was a t-shirt man. Who designed our logo was a t shirt manufacturer just down the way from.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So he said, but we'll do a test. So they did a test and they were going to do a three-month test. Well, I think they did a three-day test because they all sold out. So like crazy. I mean, it was like that UPS commercial, you know, where it's like tick tick tick. And we're going, oh crap.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In Vegas And Michael Cowan, who was the head guy for stuff at AT&T, came by and showed him the case. And he said, well, how much is it? I said, well, retail's for $49.95. He's like, you're crazy. $49.95. Crazy to buy a case for all the cases were like five. Five bucks”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, the Blackberry was a game changer. I remember getting our first million dollar PO from ATT for the BlackBerry. This is a great story. So I remember being at CES and...”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Airtight case. So that was really, or even, I mean, I can remember a BlackBerry skiing with a blackberry and sweating on it. Croaked. So didn't take much to kill a black bear or any of those phones back in the day.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To make this work. Yeah, I felt that strong, I think, at that point, just based on experience over the years with partnerships and people. Not that none of them are bad. They were friends, but it just was, I was not ready for that. I didn't feel like leadership could happen very well through a partnership. Leadership really needed to come from one person.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had a minimum of like 100 grand. So, I mean, we borrowed up to $3.5 to $4 million, I think, somewhere in that. And we were paying that much interest. But we needed that to build the tooling, to build the products, to go to the shows, to build the brand. We had a plan.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, there was a lot of local people that I knew and met and words spread. I mean, Otter was getting a reputation in Fort Collins, and people were interested in it. And there was people that were not making that much interest on their money. And I said, well, I'll give you 15% every month.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I didn't want to have, I wanted to either sink or swim on my own, and I think Nancy felt the same way that we needed to do this on our own and give it that kind of shot.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, yeah, that was leftover debt because right then, you know, dot com had gone down the toilet. And a lot of moulders along the Front Range went out of business.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it wasn't, first of all, it wasn't scalable. You couldn't really grow if all your time is spent out on the manufacturing floor, you're not designing new products, you're out not out marketing your products, you're not building a brand, you don't have time to do any of that. So I started looking through Emyth. Where's my time being spent? Was just part of the process. And there was so much of my time consumed there that I had to say, I got to quit everything I know how to do and do something different. And that's a huge turning point.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, it was a rude awakening. I mean, I knew how to do it, but I didn't know how to really do it. And that was the problem. I was the problem. And that It was tough to come to that realization, but I had to come to that realization and basically go, okay, I got to start over. So it was a big do-over. I was always reading books. I mean, my diva vacation was seven books on a beach, you know? So it was reading business books, trying to figure out what are the best ways to connect the dots. Even today, I would say there's so many people that influenced my life and the people's lives at Otter that we took their ideas and put them together to really create that business”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, yeah, it was therapy. Yeah, there was a lot of times, it was big time therapy. Yeah. That's all she was doing. I would talk to her every week. And so it's two grand a month, but they had a whole program of books that you went through. So you were actually getting an MBA in your business while you're working in your business.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, the first revelation to me with EMIF was one of the first things you had to do that they forced you to do, and I talk about this all the time, is to really figure out what you want. So before you can create a vision, before you can create a company, you really have to get to the heart of who you are. And that was really, I mean, that was not an easy process for me. It took me about a month. I mean, she called BS on me a lot of times, you know, just trying to figure out what that really is. I mean, we can all come up with kind of fluffy things, but to get to the heart of the matter, to get to the heart of what really matters to you deep inside who you are, that's critical. That's really critical.”
2019-12-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT