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

“Early on, we developed what we call a playbook for Hokka to go to market with, and it really was meaningful and important to the best athletes in those sports in your market. So early days in Japan, we focused on being on shoes weren't at marathons, and trail races and cultivating those athletes and working only with the run specialty channel. You couldn't find our product anywhere else. That was our success in the US, is really kill it in the run specialty channel and the core outdoor channel, and then you can move out beyond 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
“Finding partners that can represent and showcase the brand in a way that we feel is right for the brand. You know, if you went into a multi-brand environment and you saw Hoka sitting on a shelf with no signage and just a bunch of shoes next to a bunch of other brands, that's not good enough for us. If you want our brand, we want to make sure that you're presenting it with storytelling, the right signage, the right fixturing. And, you know, we got into a lot of trouble back in the days with Ug because we just sold our basic product to everybody and just let them do what they wanted with it. And that worked for a while, but then it really hurt the brand. And so for Hoka, we don't want to just have it sitting on a shelf with no level of service or storytelling to go with 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
“Yeah, that's a great question. Our DDC channel is our most profitable channel, right? Margin and profit. And so ideally, we want as much of our business to go through that channel as we can because that's best for the bottom line. But you're only going to get so much reach and you have to spend a lot more marketing dollars to drive that. We have tremendous relationships with our wholesale partners. And we spend our time working with the ones that we think represent the brand really well. And we say no to more accounts than we say yes to. We're really selective, but we need wholesale. We need it. They need us. It creates awareness. It allows people to try product on in real life. And I think a lot of the consumers ultimately come to our DDC channel where we can cultivate that lifetime value as well.”
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 know, you really got to sweat the details on that. You have to look at every door you're going to be in, how much inventory you want them to have, estimated rates of sell through, and then where you want to place big bets on additional inventory or stay tight. We always buy a little more for upside, hoping that we can get some at once upside business, but it's a delicate skill that you have to have to be able to manage the demand and supply in a healthy 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
“I mean, that's the tricky part because you want to do that, right? You want to grow faster. You want to use word of mouth. You want to use distribution. But if you overdo it too soon, you could end up with extra inventory in the channel that you have to mark down. And then it becomes this brand that used to be versus a brand that could be.”
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, there was high growth, but really small numbers at the beginning. And this is where a lot of companies, I think, and I've learned from my mistakes here is you start chasing a number versus healthy sustainable growth. And so we actually went through a period early on where we had a lot of markdown inventory in the channel. We were selling off price to people. And it was because we were trying to chase a growth number. Fortunately, we recognized that early on and we pulled back inventory. We closed accounts that we didn't want to be in.”
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
“Word of mouth within a very small niche industry. This is the greatest innovation in our lifetime in running. And we became really important to the run specialty channel and we kind of built it from there.”
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
“A couple million dollars. And the reason was our CEO at the time I'm held, he was a former runner and felt like we needed an athletic brand in our portfolio, which is true. But when he showed up with that and we saw this crazy looking moon boot, we were all like, is this the performance brand we're talking about? But I give the teams a lot of credit in the early days. They were able to put that on people's feet that could really put it to the test. And those are hardcore ultra runners. And feedback that came back was amazing. And it was like, I don't know what's in this thing. It's ugly as hell, but man, it really performs. And so we knew we had something there that we could build off because great brands are meaningful and important to their consumer. You want to build a brand that your consumers can't live without. And so when we started really digging into the technology and evolving the design, we were able to get more shoes on more core hardcore athletes' feet. And that's how it all really kind of started.”
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 been a fascinating journey to watch. When I came into the company, we didn't own Hoka yet, so we had just bought it a year after I got here. And, you know, it was odd decision to a lot of people in the company, like, what are we going to do with this shoe?”
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 do judge myself. It's not something I think about that often, but I do have high standards for myself of integrity and how I show up for others. Yeah, I would say yes. And I don't like to lose either”
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 know, in my career early in the days at GAP, it was mostly like, hey, we're a certain mold, you have to dress a certain way. If you're going to get ahead, you know, you have to have these perfect presentations. And if there was any bad comments from somebody in the company, you heard about it immediately and so-and-so didn't like this when you did that. It's just like you're always walking on eggshells and you were so nervous about being judged that you couldn't focus on your job. That's what I talk about when I'm just saying, hey, just come be yourself, but do hard work.”
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 a great analogy. And I've always looked up to Yvonne in that regard, but we're killing it and we work our butts off and we are determined to win. We are here to win and we are an ambitious and competitive group of people. But it's just about how we do it. We do it as a team more like a healthy professional sports team than a team of people that are just focused on delivering. At the end of the day, the goal here is let people just be themselves and work how they want to work and how they work best. Don't try to make them fit into a mold that is unnatural because that's where they start worrying more about what you think about them than doing a good job.”
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 get caught up in their experience versus their values. I think that's the biggest thing. And I've hired a few people over my course of my career that I was just influenced by others that really thought they were the best candidate. And I kind of went along with it versus really putting my foot down and saying, hey, I just have a funny sense about this person, or these are red flags for me. I just need, and I've learned, I got to be firmer in my convictions and my beliefs about how this person is going to add or detract from our culture separately from, hey, they have the level of experience that we're looking for.”
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 takes six to 12 months, but usually what happens is it's kind of organ rejection. It's not me identifying somebody. It's the company and the employee saying, hey, this person is just not able to work the way we work. They're not good to work with. They're not collaborative. We can't trust them.”
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 can't flip a switch, and I tell people at Deckers all the time the reason I'm at Deckers is I'm trying to get away from companies that are political and cutthroat competitive and siloed. And I just want to come and work at a company that I just feel comfortable being myself at, do my own thing every day. And I want everybody in the company to feel that same way. So starts at the top, show up in your authentic way and just be yourself, much like you are on the podcast here. And then allowing others to do it. But you also have to be really critical on who you hire. I kind of consider myself the bouncer of the company. It's, say, you can come in and join the club because we think you'll fit in and be additive to our culture. And hey, you know, we're not for 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
“Converse was really about tuning into who your consumer is and why they love your brand. When I went to Converse, we were developing the first retail concept, and we spent a lot of time, months and a lot of money, spending time with consumers, understanding what it is they loved about our brand. Once we figured that out, it just unleashed this whole opportunity of connection with our consumer. It was all around the idea of unleashing creativity because what we found is that consumers love the brand because it makes them feel creative for whatever reason but we just obsessed around the consumer and we created experiences around what those consumers were into. The biggest thing I learned there was really just you have to obsess the consumer and you have to bring those experiences to them. You know, in a leadership side, Timmerman, I learned the power of service and giving back to your employees and community. At Converse, I learned I hate a 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
“Consumer who we were going after, and then how we would communicate to the consumer. So I look at that brand now and I'm like, man, it's really just so simple. Just go back to what the boot did in the first days of the company and lean on that and really obsess about your consumer. And I think that's the biggest thing I took away from Timberlin.”
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 a good question. It just came off 10 years at Gap, which was all about retail and stores. And, you know, when I went to Timberlin, I think the thing I took away is that the brand at the end of the day really is everything. What your brand stands for, who it's going after, what are the things that make it special, you know, and then you need to obsess it every day. So every single decision needs to go through that filter. And the way we looked at the brand at Timberland, you know, and our founder and CEO at the time would say, hey, every product we make is a boot, whether it's a jacket or a backpack. What he meant was everything has to have the same qualities as our original boot that the company was founded on. It's durable. It's quality, high level of protection from the environment. That was a really hard filter for us to make everything represent the qualities of the boot. And oh, by the way, it's got to be sustainable. But it gave us all a really clear filter as to what we needed to create for product for the”
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 know, I don't know that I had one thing. I remember early on thinking I wanted to be a race car driver. Like, I was really into race cars as a kid and stuff. But I don't think that was a serious ambition. Looking back on it now, I always did have a creative side to me. And I was always building things and creating things. And then when I got into like high school, I started really paying attention to music and fashion. And then I started my own magazine and college around punk music and was really into like what people were wearing. And then that just kind of progressed. But I had no idea that I could build a career out of any of these things. And that didn't happen until my mid-20s where I realized, hey, actually Ken focus on this stuff and make a living out of 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 DDC model is hard to keep sustained because you're spending so much on marketing, thirty percent 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 lines 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 to just dropping like a rock from both top line and bottom line.”
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