YouSaid · the spoken record

Dave Powers

lines on the record: 70
first: 2023-12-22
most recent: 2023-12-22
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

“Yeah, 10 years is like a lifetime for me now. You know, I'm in my upper 50s, and whether I'm at Decker's or not, my ambition is to be doing something that is still super creative. I need that in my life. I need creative outlets. I need to be able to, you know, explore that and push that. I'm not an artist or a musician or anything like that, but I have so many other creative interests. And then it's not doing that is very purposeful in giving back.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At the end of the day, unfortunately. I mean, in all seriousness, anybody in a really high stress job, you kind of develop healthy habits or coping mechanisms, right? Depends how you want to look at them. But for me, coming home and having a beer after work, but really exercise. Like I love mountain biking. I love trail running. I love music.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Advice, but it was a reminder that my dad used to say all the time nobody ever said life was going to be easy. You know, every time I'd come to him and complain him, well, I don't know why you thought that was going to be easy. Nobody ever said life was going to be easy”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say either Bono or Dave Groll. Bono, I just think he is just fascinating the way that he has transformed himself from a punk kid garage band in Dublin to this global international character that is beyond the music, what he's been able to do on the global stage for AIDS in Africa and etc and the amount of people that he's met with and worked with is fascinating to me”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, for Hoka, it's Nike. That's the one that really drives us internally, we think that we could take a chunk of their business. We have a few ex-Nike employees here. I was at XNike. I am an ex-Nike employee.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is the harsh word, but your enemy and your friend. If you're smart, you will learn from your competition as much as you try to take them down. If they're truly competitive, they're doing something right”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's still going. I don't think it's still growing. I mean, it's still struggling. So I would love to go back there for a day to say, hey, what is actually going on here? And then if you had carte blanche decisions that you could make, what would you do to get it on the right path?”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Every parent has that God, I wish I could spend more time with my kids or be there more for my kids that are in the workforce and working. Unfortunately, not everybody acts on it or does the work to kind of balance it out or has the opportunity to balance it out because grinding it out just to make sure your family's taken care of. Every parent wishes they could spend more time with their kids.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, no, definitely do it and be more in tune to it. Really, really tune into your kids. You know, it's hard when you have your own life and your own career and that comes first, which for my generation it did. It's hard to also give that same level of energy and attention to a young baby or your kids growing up. I founded that to be the challenge. That's changed over time for me, but that would have been my advice.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Try to model opportunities for them. I talk a lot about my job and the work and the travel. And I try to give them experiences globally that will open their eyes to possibilities. But it's up to them. I want my kids to be good humans, to be happy with themselves, and I don't care if that's being a woodworker, a fishing guide, or a CEO. It doesn't matter to me what they do. I just want them to be comfortable in their own path and be good humans.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We were just talking about this the other day with some friends. I grew up in New England, very kind of old school, conservative, set in its ways. You know, I'm one of the only or few people in my extended family that have left New England, pursued something beyond what was available to me there. And so I think that there is a mentality in my parents that was like, you can't do that. That's crazy. I wouldn't blame them for it, but I think that the small thinking was part of my family culture for sure, my parents.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're still growing. Yeah. Same for me. I grew up without a lot of money in a small town. And, you know, obviously now I've been successful and it frankly blows my mind that my life has ended up where it is. The CEO of a company and financially successful. I mean, I never would have imagined any of these things happening. I just never thought I would be one of those people. It's not how I thought about myself. Being a CEO of a company was not my aspiration growing up.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The hardest thing about my job today, it's honestly not the business. I always say the business is the easy part. It's the people that is what keeps me up at night. You know, business is black and white. You're making decisions on the fly that's best the interests of the business and the financials. But keeping and attracting talent is my biggest concern right now.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For a time, we were starting to build a massive infrastructure in Asia. We had an office in Hong Kong when we were building out teams, and the team there, they wanted to build a Decker's website and start selling online to all different countries and hired too many people. And it was like they had a vision for it, and we kind of went with it for a while, or I did. And then finally, I was like, this is not a game worth playing. We got to cut our losses here. And so we ended up pretty much closing that office. We still have a small office there of a team that are managing the region, but that was just getting out of control. And that's what can happen when you've got a big company and you're not disciplined on spend. Everybody can present a good reason why they need the funds, but at the end of the day, you got to be super clear on where you're going to get the biggest payback.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Tactically, you do it on a budgeting process and say, hey, here, your goal is 15% operating profit for your brand. If you grow 3%, that's great because we're taking the resources, we're putting them against the biggest opportunities. You just got to hold people accountable to their targets.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the best decision we made was reallocating money from smaller brands, smaller businesses. If you think about the complexity of our business globally, seven or eight brands, global, three channels, everybody needs a little bit of money to be successful. Myself and the finance leaders at the time did 16 and 17 would say, actually, no, you don't all need that money. These two things need that money. And we're going to reset. That was the biggest reallocation success that we had. And then you just got to put financial guardrails around it going forward.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's definitely a component of it. I don't think that's it. You can't just be good at the financial side of the business. You still have to motivate your teams. You have to make sure the product engine and the innovation engine, all those things.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, maybe that's the case. That's the separation between good and great. Great product, great brand, meaningful to consumers will outlast the marketing spend. If your brand and your product is interesting for a moment because you saw it on Instagram feed and you click through and you bought it and then you kind of forget about it or you weren't as excited when you got it at home, then it's not going to last on its own.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's not the case when you pull away that marketing. So I think it's a flaw in the model unless you just have a brand that also is in wholesale, has the margin structure to be successful at wholesale, and is important enough on its own to sustain the growth versus just digital marketing spend.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Looked at a lot of them when that was really a happening sector, you know, we got caught up in it too like, hey, we need a DDC brand. How can we learn from them, et cetera? But what you find out after a while is the DDC model is hard to keep sustained because you're spending so much on marketing, 25%, 30% of your revenue you're putting back into marketing to fuel the sales. The minute you pull that marketing away to make profit, your sales blinds drops like a rock. And if you don't have wholesale, if you don't have other sources of revenue, your e-com site quickly goes from high growth, decent profit, low single digit or two if you're lucky. A lot of times negative to just drop in like a rock from both top line and bottom line. And so I think what people didn't appreciate at first is if you take away that marketing spend, will the brand still stay on a positive growth trajectory? What a lot of companies are finding now is that”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, minimal discounts. So initial margin, it's really about cost of materials, retail price, transportation, logistics, et cetera, but net margin, ideally you want as few markdowns as possible. You want to sell it through your profitable channel.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On occasions, you know, with air freight changes and material changes, but the real shift at a company level for us is full price sell-through in DDC. That's where we get our highest margins.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In operating profit above 10% is healthy, probably average 10 to 12. And so you have folks out there like Crocs, which is high 20s. But aside from that, Decker is at 18 plus percent is one of the top performers in that place.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that's one of the things that we have done, I think, really well over the past six or seven years is focus our allocations and resources against those two brands. You know, when I came into the CEO role in 2016, we were a company that kind of spread a little bit to everybody. So we had seven or eight brands. Hey, everybody, here's what you need. Each region, here's money, each channel. And what we've been able to do over the last five years is really focus our resources. The good news is we have very healthy profit margins. We're in 18% operating profit.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, we just announced that we're going to look for a buyer for one of our brands Sinook. And so we're really placing a bet on Teva. You know, when we look at acquisitions, we've looked at a lot of smaller outdoor brands out there because we feel that's a category in a space that has opportunity. And honestly, when we looked at Teva and compared to all these brands that we could have potentially purchased, Teva has the best global awareness. It has the best margins. It's an iconic heritage brand. So we just we're treating that as an internal acquisition. It's a good question. You know, we don't need the smaller brands to be successful. I like them because they have potential. We learn from them. They're great development opportunities for employees. We can test a lot on these brands without making big mistakes. And you never know. Some of these smaller brands could end up being massive, just like Ug and Hoka.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, we could ask that question a lot, and we talk about it a lot internally. The best answer is we don't need to. We have such organic growth with UG still, with hoka, that we feel we have a path where we could add billions onto our revenue today over the next five years organically, which is the best way to grow a business because it's built in, the margins are there, it's not disruptive to the company, it's predictable, and the return on investment is massive versus overpaying for an acquisition that you're in the whole financially from day one and you're spending the next five, ten years getting out of it before it pays off.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's really the legacy brands. You know, newer brands, they don't have that longevity or the history, the archives that a lot of these luxury brands do, and they can reach back to their history as a way to go forward. If you're a young brand and you don't have that, you run the risk of just being a flash in the pan. But Blenciaga has such a history. And they also have just a baseline of consumers. They'll ebb and flow and they'll grow and, you know, contract a little bit, but you're not going to walk into a Blenciaga and see a Black Friday fire sale ever. I hope”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's quick, yeah. It catches you off guard. And the worst thing is you have all the inventory planned for growth and all of a sudden it slows down. And that's when you're in real trouble because you got to clear all that inventory and it just makes it worse.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There was nothing special about it anymore. You started seeing it on discount in the stores, and you could tell it was a brand that was slowing down and dying versus on the upswing.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's interesting. I think luxury in a way has its own built-in defense mechanism where there's a certain type of consumer that can afford that product. And they're the ones that are wearing it around town and it's where you're seeing it. So it kind of stays up in that stratosphere because a lot of people, it's unattainable from a price point. But when you look at an Abercrombie or American Eagle or even Gap, you know, when I was there, I remember I had a conversation at the Gap one time over our logo gap sweatshirt and the CEO, Mickey at the time, was pissed off because he was like, I see that on reality shows and talk shows and people in the audience. He's like, it's starting to show up everywhere and on consumers that aren't good for the brands, so to speak, right? And so I think when you start looking at Avercomb and American Eagle and even Gap at that time, it was the hot new thing until it wasn't. And when it wasn't, it's because it was showing up on everybody all over the place. It became ubiquitous.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I get it. You know, they've done an incredible job maintaining, well, first of all, demanding obscene margins, right? Based on what I know what those products cost and what they're getting for. Their geniuses of building aspirational love for their consumers. Listen, if you can pull it off and you can sustain it, you've got an incredible business going. But the key is to create a product that has that level of positioning and aspiration and then maintain it.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The fact is that these styles are just super, super important, and you have to treat them with the care and respect that they deserve, because otherwise you'll see you'll go where Ug went 2013 or 14, and it's not a good place to be as a brand. I think you're seeing a lot of brands out there today struggling because of that.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, they're massive. I've had the fortune of working at companies that were founded on a hero product, you know, the yellow-boated Timberlin, the Chuck Taylor at Converse. They just allow you to do so many things because of the scale, the volume, the margin, the consistency of the business. If you don't have that, it's really hard to run a successful sustainable business. As long as you continue to stay true to what those products did in the first place and why consumers love them, and you iterate off of those, you should have a good run, but you cannot underestimate how important those iconic styles are to the overall business. And I've said to our team recently, you know, we have multi-brands at Deckers, right? Five brands all over the world. If you look at some of the hocus styles and the UG styles.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's funny when we brought in a new president around 1617 for the brand. My remit to that person was just disrupt this brand. You need to change people's perceptions of the brand, get people to notice Ug in a new different way. Andrew, who was the president at the time, you know, really ran with it, pushed the fashion envelope of it, pushed creativity, you know, brought in a lot of color, materials, different influences we partnered with. And next thing you know, it was like, oh, there's something happening at UG. And then we started introducing iterations of the classics, new product that still had some of the DNA of the original brand. You know, it just started changing people's perception. And at that time, we were cleaning up the marketplace to be able to go back out with the right people in the right locations with the right inventory. And now it's all about focus. We're reducing SKUs. We're innovating off the classic in really exciting ways. We're leveraging some of the best influencers in the world.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's tough. We really have to give them something to believe in. We had a lot of turnover at that time, which I think probably the right thing to do, definitely the right thing to do. We needed a fresh perspective on the brand. That creates new energy. It gives people a reason to believe, gives them purpose. And we're all in the fight together, but it's not easy. I'll tell you.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Reduce profits. Yeah, the goal was profit. So when we went through our journey back in 2016, when I came into the role, we told the street we're going to pull back on revenue growth, but we're going to improve our profit profile. That gave us the air cover to do what we needed to do to be able to pull back distribution and tighten up our sales.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We ended up doing, and this is in the US and in Europe, is pulling back and making it almost kind of disappear in the eyes of the consumer for a while. It was just an average boot at that time. It was everywhere. It was nothing special. People were then making fun of it about, you know, basic bitch, right? And like, you know, pumpkin spice lattes and chav consumers. And it was like people made fun of it. So we had to pull it all back, retrench, and then selectively start going back out to the right consumers, make sure the presentation was right, working with the right influences to reposition it in a new way.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Over distribution. You know, we were selling basically the same items, so the classic tall boot to every account that asked. And so when you walk down High Street and you looked in the windows, everybody had the same product and there was no differentiation. And, you know, then it also kind of became a chaf boot, right? It was seen as lower market because everybody had it. It was off price. You could get it anywhere. And we lost the specialness of the brand. And it took us five years in the UK and Europe to get that back.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To me, it's very polarizing from an aesthetic standpoint and a fashion standpoint. But I've met very few people, if any, that have said they put it on and were disappointed. And at the end of the day, it comes down to how they feel and how they make you feel emotionally. That's what we've found in our consumers is they love how it feels on their foot, but it also is, and this is going to sound corny, but it's like a warm hug or it's like their cozy blanket when they put it on. And so we've been able to tap into those two insights to build what we are now $2 billion plus brand.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At that time, yes. I mean, they were chasing business. It was a freight strain, and they were just trying to keep up for a good five years.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think the team probably in the early 2000s made the pivot to positioning it as a kind of fashion staple in a cold weather staple. And that's where the team started selling to Nordstroms and some fashion accounts. You started seeing it showing up on celebrities in Southern California. And then the real turning point was when Oprah put it on her list of favorite things for that year. But that was when it really made the switch from a functional boot for surfers to a fashion icon. And that just opened up a whole nother world of opportunity in total market tam.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think so. I think they're a niche consumer need that hasn't been met yet, or they're solving for a problem that is meaningful to consumers. I think that's where all great brands start. I mean, if you look at Teva, when we bought Teva, that was the first sports sandal because River Guides in the Grand Canyon were frustrated with their flip-flops falling off their feet. So they invented straps to put on the sandal, and that was Teva. And that was for a very, very specific consumer at the time. But, you know, look at it now. It's on runways. We just did a collab with Chloe. So if you look at all the other brands, Birkenstock, Crocs, most of them start with a real niche, but something that's super important for that consumer.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a really interesting story, but it came down to originally Ug when Deckers bought it was a brand for surfers, right? It was a boot that, you know, surfers in Australia and Southern California would wear after surfing. It was a functional item. That's how it was being sold as a boot for surfers and just that kind of lifestyle. It's legit. I mean, people still wear it that way. And, you know, and I've done the same.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We don't wake up every day thinking how we're going to beat on what is on doing. I have a lot of respect for the team there, what they've done to create that brand. It's fun to watch, honestly, as a competitor. But we're fighting for the same shelf space, market share, consumer. So naturally we're competitors, so to speak. But I think we both come at it with different approaches, different technologies, and we just got to stay true to ourselves. Honestly, between the two of us, our market shares are still relatively small globally. There's so, so much potential for both brands to do incredibly well. Do we talk about beating them and performing better than them and staying ahead of them? Sure. We do that with every brand we compete with. But I think there's just tremendous opportunity for new fresh brands like Onan Hoka to take massive market share. And, you know, if you look at where underarmor used to be Adidas used to be really important in running.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Joey is willing Well, traditionally they're very loyal, and it's hard to get a consumer that was running an ASICs for 10 years or socky for 10 years to switch brands, but that's changing dramatically. I think people are open to trying different brands now. And obviously, you know, with Hoka and On disrupting the industry, so to speak, you have a lot more people venturing on and trying them out just because they're hearing about it. But what we're finding is our fans of Hoka are die-hard lifelong fans. I mean, every time I travel and I'm wearing Hoka, I hear stories from people. I have 10 pairs in my closet. You know, I can't wait for the next one to come out. I always liken this brand to Patagonia. I always just was obsessed with Patagonia and wanted more of their product and their brand. I think people feel that way about Hoka.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Totally. You know, Nike went there with the Nike Free and started making this lower profile product, and everybody just followed suit. So next thing you know, you have a whole industry of running brands that are creating product for people that actually is not good for them from an injury standpoint, performance standpoint. So my point is, I think now with the availability of different compounds and carbon plates in all different ways of geometry and shoemaking, the sky's the limit on what you can do now with performance footwear. We're going into a new era of innovation and technology that we've never seen before. And a lot of the Chinese brands, you know, running brands like Anta, Li Ning, 361, they're creating incredible product. So I think you're going to start seeing really next level super sneakers. I mean, look at the one Adidas just launched. It's meant to be worn once. One marathon and then it's no good, right? But people are breaking records in it. So we're pushing the boundary.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think we're in a really, really exciting time for performance footwear in general. You know, when Hoka came onto the scene roughly 10 years ago, barefoot running was a massive trend. Everybody was running in shoes that actually weren't good for them because”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I mean, that's not unique to Hoker. I mean, every performance brand aspires to that same thing, right? And you can either do it by signing up top athletes or you can also do it by being important to every athlete. So I think the formula there is, hey, yes, we want to be at the podium. We want to be on the best athletes in the world. But I think one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen is from 11 to midnight at the Iron Man Championships where the last finishers are coming in. Some of them have disabilities, some of them are 70 plus and older, and most of those people are wearing hoka. And that's the difference. Yes, the top 10 people maybe you'll get one person wearing hoka, but when you see the everyday athlete choosing hoka, that's where the magic is.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You got to start with the core runners and the run specialty channels. You know, if you are an athlete or you're a runner and you go into a running store, a brand's best hope is that the salesperson on the floor pulls your shoe out of the back room and instead says to the consumer you need to try this on. That's where it all came down to for us is the salespeople started recommending Hoka to people because of the way it performed. And then it builds from there. But if you have to win market share in that channel and be important in that channel before you can expand out.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, because each brand has its own personality, but the playbook I'm talking about is really around distribution and how you build brand love and then roll it out to more points of access.”
2023-12-22 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source