YouSaid · the spoken record

Joe Kudla

lines on the record: 76
first: 2023-10-02
most recent: 2023-10-02
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 every little piece of that is a part of a big equation. I don't think there's one thing that defines our success. All those things that maybe have felt like defeat in the moment when I look back with hindsight, I realized they were the biggest blessings. And I didn't do this alone. Whether Nikki and Rebecca in the early days, you know, Chris and the formation of the idea, like so many incredibly talented human beings that are still so close to me today, I think it all plays a part. The one constant is you have to work hard because luck might open a window or a door, but it's the hard work and the preparation that allows you to walk through it.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, we didn't have a real big share of voice in the media. We were kind of overlooked. And so that was a really special moment for our team because we all got to celebrate this incredibly special thing that we all built together.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, we weren't looking for capital, but we had ambitious plans for Viori. And that was a really big moment for the brand because short of an IPO, I think it was the first time that maybe the market understood how special this business is that we're building.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, was one of the scariest moments of my professional career. We got calls from all of our wholesale partners that said, you know, don't ship us any inventory. But we had inventory that was on boats or was already in our warehouse that was dedicated for them. When we got those calls, it had a downstream effect. We called all of our suppliers and we said, please hold the production lines. Don't make us any more inventory. We've got to work this out. And then quickly, as people started getting comfortable with their new lifestyle, they started shopping online. And all of a sudden, what I thought was a panic and calling my suppliers and telling them not to make inventory, I called them back and I said, you know what? I don't think we're making enough. And that was a roller coaster of emotions over a couple month period.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were very proud of the discipline and the financial rigor with which we were building the business. So we didn't want a big check sitting on our balance sheet to disrupt that.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, the business was growing really fast, and so we weren't in a place that we needed capital. And I think that's the funny thing about this entrepreneurial journey is like when you need it desperately, it wasn't available. But as soon as we didn't need it, there it was. But we chose to partner with Norwest Venture Partners because they were really supportive. They saw the vision for the brand clearly. They believed in us. They believed in the management team. And they wanted to be invited guests. They wanted to be along for the ride, be helpful where they could be helpful, but not really disturb the creative nucleus that we cherished so much at the brand. And so, yeah, we raised our first round. A lot of the money ended up going to shareholders because the business didn't need capital. So we didn't go out and put a bunch of money on the balance sheet at that time because we didn't want it to create bad habits.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I never took a salary from the business. I lived very inexpensively in a little tiny apartment. And I found ways to make my savings go a really long way. And then I made requests so the people, you know, that a lot of the people that joined me in those early days worked for a fraction of the price of what they were worth on the open market. And they believed in what we were building. So we just, we were a true bootstrap business.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I was an accountant by trade. So conservatism, I think, was just embedded into who I was as an operator of the business. But I never understood the idea of acquiring a customer at a loss. And that became a very popular trend is to, you know, you spend $200 to acquire a customer that would only spend $150 with you. And so after your margin and everything, you're losing a considerable amount of money. And the argument was, well, once you acquire a customer over time, they'll continue to buy with you and they'll become profitable a year down the road or sometime in the future. And that really never made sense to me because you always have to market to your customer to get them to re-engage and buy. So we're very particular about the contribution margin of every dollar we spent on advertising. It had to yield a specific return. So that was one, you know, number two.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it was always a vision to be a dual gender brand. And so we always knew women's would follow. We just knew that men's was the right business strategy to lead with. And so 2018 was when we decided it was time and we designed a very small capsule for women's and we brought it to market. And today 50% of our business is actually women's.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Now, this is the first time we had a data point where we sat on a national level with virtually no real marketing next to some of the best brands that we grew up aspiring to as kids. And having such success in that test really built a lot of confidence. In the garage. So we were really excited.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, you know, I think there were two things. We'd built a really great business online. The second was when REI called and they wanted to bring in Fiori and they brought in some other emerging brands like Ron and some others and then they brought in some legacy brands, the big names that everybody knows. And they put this activewear concept together on their floor and they did it in 10 of their biggest metro market doors. And I remember the buyer the first time that I felt like we might be really on to something here. The buyer called me and said, Viori blew out the competition and you guys had the most productive inventory in those 10 doors. And they were We were very surprised. And so they asked us if we wanted to grow from 10 doors to 70 doors in the next season.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, they had raised a lot more money. And so again, Real reason for insecurity. You know, when we showed up at trade shows, it was always Viori and Ron as the only two premium men's activewear brands in a sea of women's brands. And so we were very competitive with them. We were very in tune with what they were doing. And yeah, so it was hard to see them have a lot of success raising capital when we weren't having as much luck.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The CEO of Equinox once told me in a meeting that Ron was like Biggie and Viori was like Tupac because they were originated on the East Coast at a very similar time that Viori started. They wanted to create a premium men's ActiveWare brand. They kind of built it through the lens of the East Coast and that lifestyle. We saw the same opportunity, but we built our product and our brand through our lifestyle and our community here on the West Coast.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. And I felt like others might beat us in the market. They might end up just beating us to the ultimate goal that I think a lot of us saw in the market.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Didn't have any expectation, there was no ask of giving him that close. We got a call from him and he asked if it would be okay for him to connect us with the buyer, the activewear buyer at REI, because he was wearing the hoodie that we gifted him. The hallway, and the active where buyer asked him what he was wearing. She said, I really like that hoodie. Who makes that? And he said, oh, this is the startup down in San Diego called Viori. And the next thing you know, we were on a plane up to Seattle to present the line to REI. And that was really the first big wholesale partner that we had as a brand.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, after building that model online and people started seeing that we were getting momentum, they started changing their mind. And we ended up getting a call from REI, which is a really fun story. Nikki worked with a gentleman from Prana, her Prana days. He was in their marketing department at REI, but she introduced me to him. I connected with him when I went out to outdoor retailer, which is a big trade show. But he took a meeting with me and just talked to me about REI and the inner workings. And I brought him a bag of clothes. And I just said, this is for your time. I just wanted to thank you.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was the same price, but because we were a premium brand, we sold a little bit higher than where the market existed for wholesale. So activewear in the wholesale market historically was dominated by Nike and Adidas and these big brands. And they really didn't have a premium offering. So their athletic shorts might have been $52. Ours were $68. And so when we first launched, before we had built a direct community on our website, buyers would just say, we don't sell ActiveWare at this price point. Not only does this not look like activewear, but this is priced out of our range for our consumer.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The social playing field. So we knew that we needed to complement what we were doing and we needed another customer acquisition vehicle. And we knew that wholesale could be a critical component of that. So after kind of hitting the pause button on wholesale while we were developing and building our digital community, once we established an engine of growth and we got out of the gates and these wholesale accounts could take note of what we were doing, A lot of the no's that we originally got when we first showed the samples to these buyers turned into yeses.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Partly because we had to out of necessity, we weren't Flush with capital. And so keep in mind, so over the first few years of the business, we raised $2 million of capital from friends and family. No financial institutions. Some of our competitors had raised $20, $25 upwards of $50 million. We couldn't compete with them solely on.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that ad started to get really awesome traction. And it was like before you knew it, we were putting $10,000 in and we were getting $20,000 back in a month. And then we were putting $20,000 in and we were getting $60,000 back. And all of a sudden, we had this engine of growth that we could take back to investors and we could show them the data. And while some guys were wearing it to yoga, what we heard loud and clear was that what what people really loved about the brand was the product and its versatility.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, they were static ads. Oftentimes they would have a guide doing a yoga pose, and then we would have a message on that image that said something like versatility is a virtue or one short every sport. This is men's yoga, you know, things along those lines. We were testing a lot of different copy. It was a really defining moment for me. I remember I was sitting on my couch on a Sunday. And I remember I just pulled up Photoshop and I lined up all of our different colors. Differentiator. It was our reason for being And then across the top, on a white background, it just said, run, surf, hike, train, travel, chill. And the idea being conveying that this isn't to be put in a box. Like we're not going to tell you one specific end use. This is a versatile athletic short.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The next month, we invested maybe $7,000 and we got $8,000 back. And it was like that kind of a build. We were like getting our product back for our inventory or getting our money back.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you know, it's so interesting because back in those times, my reflection was that advertising on search was very much a proven industry. But social advertising was very new. And we got a list of names and we ultimately landed on a digital agency that we trusted. And so I remember, you know, we got started in this advertising and we started paying a lot of attention to the ads and what was kind of getting a better response than others. And after an okay response, like I remember our first month, we invested $5,000. We got $5,000 back. And so we were like, okay, we just gave away essentially a lot of product, but we got some new customers wearing the brand.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it was scary. We had a little bit of capital left. And so we did take some meetings with digital agencies that would help us with our advertising strategy. And what we understood was that you had to spend a certain amount of dollars in order to get enough data pushed through your website so that you could then be responsive and make adjustments and ultimately find your customer online. And so the idea of taking the little precious capital that we had left and investing it into What appeared at the time, having no experience in digital advertising, it was like you were just blowing it into the wind. Was really scary because if it didn't go well and we didn't define this engine of growth quickly, we were going to be out of business and that would have been lights out game over.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I knew that our community was. I just I saw it so clearly and I believed it wholeheartedly. But of course, you know, there was definitely that, you know, a lot of self-doubt. I would go home to my now wife at the time she was my girlfriend and, you know, I had some really long nights. And it was just doing a lot of self-reflection. Here I was somebody that had thrown away a career at a company that I had built to pursue something with a lot of friends and family money. And it wasn't going really well. And so, yeah, those were some dark days.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And therefore, we got a lot of passes. And keep in mind, this is at a time when premium activeware wasn't a category that was sold at Nordstrom. It wasn't sold at REI or outdoor shops. So if you explain to somebody that you are going to build this premium men's activewear brand, people just were like, that's not a top priority for our business. You know, right now, we have a challenge where everybody's wearing Lululemon. All of our female customers are wearing Lululemon. If we're going to get into ActiveWare, it's going to be a women's brand to address the need to service that woman. That was a really low point for me because, you know, we just didn't know if our business strategy was going to work.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We got some sell through, but it was typically when a guy left his shorts at the office so he didn't have something. He would buy a pair of our shorts. So there was that. And it wasn't just yoga studios. We were selling into some surf shops, some outdoor shops. We were calling on the big guys and trying to get meetings. And we actually did get a lot of meetings. I remember the first trip I took was to New York and I just packed a suitcase and I toted my products around walked into a bunch of different gyms and talked to some more sophisticated buyers at specialty shops. And people just looked at the product and they didn't really get what we were trying to do. Again, it just looked very different. It didn't look like ActiveWear.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not initially, we were selling into a lot more independent yoga studios. You know, your one-offs or chains that had three or four doors, I don't think the product was quite ready for national distribution with core power or equinox at that time.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it was less than that. But we ordered 500 units per color of, I think, like three items. It was the minimum order quantity, but it was maybe like, I don't know, $100,000 worth of inventory.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The initial idea was that we would sell through gyms and yoga studios. You know, and studio fitness was exploding. So these concepts, whether it was soul cycle or it was CrossFit or orange theory or equinox, there were studio fitness concepts popping up everywhere. And so you were seeing a lot of women's brands that were popping up that were selling in these studios and gyms and building great little businesses. But there was never an offering for men really substantive. And so Viori felt like, well, we can be that brand. And it may not be a huge business, but a great jumping off point to kind of get started.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, there were other brands that were launching around this same time that had similar ideas or similar takes on this category, whether they were women's or men's. But we were hearing that some of these brands were having a lot more success raising capital than we were. And so I developed a complex that, man, these other brands have a lot more money. They're going to outspend us. They're going to outmarket us. And ultimately just beat us to market with a similar idea. Because, you know, here we were. We had raised a couple hundred thousand $400,000. I wasn't paying myself. We were working in a garage from one of our investors that didn't require us paying rent. It was a true bootstrapped business. And I had a little bit of an insecurity around whether or not we could go out and compete with these brands that were raising a lot of institutional capital and getting big kind of retail names.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think at the time it felt like it was taking a long time. Obviously, I was a little naive. I hadn't built an apparel brand with offshore production and all the complexity of sourcing these types of materials. And then from product ideation and design through like delivery of production, it's a long time. And so to be chipping away at something, to be burning capital and not being in market getting real-time feedback can feel like a slug. It can feel like a really long time.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Now, the first samples, the fabric was way too heavy, the prints weren't executing properly, the liner didn't fit well. And, you know, today it's funny we have these big technical design teams and they're pattern makers. They're experts in making product fit exceptionally well. In those days, it was Rebecca and I, we were winging it. You know, we would get a sample in my size. I would try it on and we would talk through how to change the fit. And we would try to communicate that to the factory. And then we would get another proto back. Our vision is to create the best product on the plant. But when we started, the product kind of sucked. And we had a lot of work to do to improve it.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So Rebecca brought in a gentleman who she had been working with in another business that did some golf type of apparel. He did some surf apparel. And he was an agent. And he represented a factory in China that had some experience working with these types of stretch performance materials. And so that's who we contacted and started working with on these first designs.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so it was really myself and Rebecca initially. And then the first person we hired with the little fundraising that we had done, because I chose not to take a salary from the business just to be able to keep the lights on longer, the first person we hired was Nikki Sequilio, who is our CMO today. And Nikki's been with me since day one. Rebecca's still with us today, but Nikki had a an incredible marketing background. She was most recently before Viori with a company called Prana, which is like an outdoor kind of climbing Patagonia-esque brand. And then also she worked in the surf industry. She worked for a company called Globe and OP back in the day. And so she had this interesting hybrid background between action sports and surf and beach culture and yoga and performance and outdoor.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We loved the core short. You know, when we brought that short to market, we started showing buyers across, whether it was big national chains or it was fitness doors. They looked at it and they were scratching their heads like, what is this? It looks like a swim short. This isn't activeware. And we even had some activewear buyers tell us this is never going to sell in New York City. You know, maybe on the West Coast, but never here in New York. But that was it. It was the core short. That was our first product. We were like, this is the one.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it's been an evolution. This industry was just being developed premium activewear was very new. And so, where to go for sourcing was a puzzle. It was like a scavenger hunt to figure out where to go to source. So the first products we brought to market was our first product was the core short for men. And it's still our best-selling men's athletic short. And the idea was to create a short that almost looked more like a board short that was designed for surfing so that it would resonate with our community. But it had a built-in supportive liner. It would support you through a great workout. It would move and stretch with your body. It had an elastic waist. And we put a draw cord on the outside of the shorts that was natural, that just looked more West Coast, more California-esque in its aesthetic.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, the first thing we were aligned with was like, we wanted to create a more casual point of view in the category. There's a saying in our space that activeware is turbo, meaning it's like it looks like really technical activeware, product that identifies you as somebody that's going to the gym or competing in a sport. And we wanted to be the antithesis of that. So we wanted it to be effortless, easy to wear. We wanted to have functional details that would support you through a workout, but we wanted to almost hide them from eyesight. And it wasn't that turbo kind of technical look and feel that was so commonplace in the active market.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so Chris had some experience with a woman named Rebecca Bray, who he worked with back in his action sports days dating back to planet Earth. And Chris always felt Rebecca would be a really good fit for Fiori. And we sat on a couch in Chris's living room and talked about the vision, the idea for the brand. And she just loved it. She just saw what we saw in the active space. And so we hired her almost as a consultant, an independent contractor. And in the evenings, I would, you know, go over to her house and we would chip away at it.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think our first raise, we had a goal of a couple million dollars. I think we raised 400, like 400 to 500,000 somewhere in that range. And that was enough for us to get started and start working on samples and starting to bring some products to life.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't remember that question specifically, but I think just in general People looked at me, somebody that didn't have a track record of success and apparel. And even with Chris, you know, Chris was there because he had a great background. He had had some success in consumer retail in footwear primarily. But they just looked at us and said, like, no, these aren't going to, you know, I think some people saw the opportunity but maybe questioned whether I was really going to be the guy that was able to go and do this and disrupt this space.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, you know, we saw the success Lou was having. They really defined a new category within Active. They were working with better materials. You know, the dirty secret in our space is that the big brands, they were really premium footwear offerings, but they never really had a premium apparel offering. Whereas like Lulu inherently was working with fabrics that were much more expensive. So before you did any cut and make of the garment, just the textiles, which is a huge ingredient in making a great garment. They were just better.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It almost never even got to that point, honestly. I think when people realize that there was nothing proprietary or there wasn't a customer acquisition gimmick or hook to the business, a lot of meetings were short and there was a lot of passes. It's just funny, you know, when you talk about a relationship with rejection, being a model and working in Europe was constant rejection. And then my experience at Vacco trying to be a salesperson when I was a pretty shy guy naturally. I developed a really unique relationship with rejection. And so that was all building my backbone up for trying to raise capital for an apparel brand because it was kind of like starting a band and telling your friends you're going to be the next rolling stones. People are like, yeah, good luck. But nobody was interested in investing”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was very much Lululemon had really exploded, but they weren't resonating necessarily with men. You know, it was one of the fastest growing active apparel brands in the space, but men's was an afterthought. We saw yoga and this active lifestyle for men as just a wide open space with nobody really competing for it. And people were like, well, what's the IP? Like, what's the customer acquisition hook? Are you guys digital marketing experts? And we were kind of cut from the old school. Like Chris built a legacy wholesale brand. Neither of us had a lot of e-comm experience or we weren't thinking through about the business through more of a tech or digital lens first. We saw an opportunity to build a community around the brand that was different than what existed in the market”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Needed to raise money and we would have calls with private individuals, sometimes financial institutions, really anybody that was willing to talk to us. We put together a brand deck and a business plan. We took a lot of investor calls and sadly got a lot of rejection in those early days.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People thought I was crazy at that time, especially my parents who were like, wait a minute, you've just invested eight years of your life building this great company of great flexibility. Like, why would you leave to start your third apparel company, two of which have already failed? And I had this acute awareness of what it would be like to be on my deathbed looking back and saying, gosh, I saw that opportunity so clearly and I didn't pursue it. And I just wasn't willing to live with that. I couldn't live with that.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, you know, ultimately we decided that we were going to, that I would be the first one to leave. I would quit my day job. And the plan originally was that Chris would eventually kind of follow suit and join me on the journey. And I understood that if we were going to have a chance at doing it, I was going to have to jump in with two feet. Because there's just too many opportunities where things get tough and you want to retreat back to what's comfortable. And if you have a day job, you have a salary paying the bills It's too easy to return to that safe space.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, exactly. And they had fixed waistbands. And so when they would get sweaty, they would kind of fall down off your hips. And great for surfing, but not necessarily designed for sweat and movement in the way that you'd move in a yoga studio. And so our feeling was like, why is it that people in Southern California that maybe grew up in these subcultures of surf and skate didn't identify with the big mainstream activewear brands?”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People weren't looking for a product that you just wanted to rush and change out of right when class was over because you would stick around, you'd mix and mingle, you'd go do something with friends. And so we needed clothing that would keep up with us. And so what was really interesting is in Southern California, our observation was that people were wearing board shorts that were designed for surfing.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Our observation was that the big brands that we grew up with as kids competing in sports, you know, you think of the Nikes and the Adidas of the world, they design clothing that really identified you as somebody that was going to the gym or going to compete in a sport. It had a very competitive spirit about it. It was very urban kind of street inspired, a lot of big logos, shiny reflective details, kind of loose baggier fits. But as I gotten older and now I'm in my 30s, I'm going to yoga, you know, the lifestyle was just very different. Like studio fitness was booming and it became all about community.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT