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

“It's this stretch of coast right along the Pacific Ocean. There's yoga studios on every block. And Chris and I always felt like Encinitis is the perfect source of inspiration for a brand.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, well, you know, it was really a good friend of mine, a guy named Chris Miller, who's a Hall of Fame skateboarder. And Chris had started some action sports brands. His first company was a company called Planet Earth, which was one of the first sustainable action sports brands. They did a lot of cool outerwear for snowboarding. And then he sold that business to K2 sports and then became the president of their action sports division. And they launched a skate shoe company called Audio Footwear. And so Chris also was very into yoga. We go to the same classes together. And I was starting to think about apparel and getting another brand going. And Chris was actually having a lot of the same kind of thoughts. And so he and I would go surf together. And it was just a very inspiring time. And we live in this incredible community in Ensinitis, in coastal North County, San Diego.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, at first it felt really hard being somebody that's worked out and been into exercise and played a lot of sports. I wasn't scared of a hard workout, but yoga was just different. And I was taking these, they were non-heated classes, but I was sweating so much. And it was like very intense. And then the feeling you would get after class was just like a complete release, like complete relaxation. And I became really addicted. It was like a very healing experience, not only for the physical benefits and getting a lot of relief in my back, but also just feeling light.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I woke up, I broke up with my girlfriend. And I went to a yoga class. A friend that had been suggesting that I try yoga to heal my back for a long time, but I knew that yoga had a lot more benefits than just physical.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's very much a part of my story, and so happy to share. I met a party, and this woman who was a life coach, she worked with a lot of executives, but she's also an intuitive, came up to me and she started telling me all these really crazy things about my life, about how I was raised, how like my mom was, my dad. She told me that I had worked on a business that was my passion, that I wanted to be successful so desperately. And she said, this business that you're working on, this idea is going to be wildly successful. She's like, it's going to be bigger than you could ever imagine, but it's not going to be in its current form. And it's not going to be with your current business partner. And I just literally started crying and ultimately she encouraged me to step into some of those things that I was feeling. And so the next day”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I was in a relationship that was kind of toxic and probably not good for me. And I was partying probably more than I should have.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, you know, at this point, I wasn't eager to start another apparel brand. Chad and I parted ways and I bought the trademark off of him. So I had that sitting there just knowing that I love the name and the brand. So in the event I ever did want to do something in the future, it could be there as an option. But no, I just immersed myself into Vaco. And we ended up building a really great company. We had a couple hundred consultants working for us across San Diego. We had multiple lines of business. But I'm kind of starting to feel like maybe. Material wealth alone isn't ultimately what's going to inspire me. I was going through a tough time in my life. I just have a business partner that kind of left. But my first marriage didn't work out. I got divorced.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, you know, I was heartbroken and I always saw something. For that business. And I always thought it could really materialize into something. It probably wasn't going to end up going anywhere. And so I think ultimately closing that business was really the wisest decision. Even though at the time it felt like a death in my family, you know, it was something that I had put a lot of energy and invested all of my savings into.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were probably selling to 25 to 30 stores when we decided that we needed to close the business. And a couple of things happened kind of concurrently, but the great financial crisis of like 2007, 2008 hit right after we started the business. And all of a sudden, Walmart started selling organic cotton graphic t-shirts for $25. And we just. Of, we just could not compete, and the plan that we had wasn't, we weren't getting the type of traction that we needed to see in order to continue on. And Chad wanted to go and travel and came to me one day and said, hey, I'm going to go travel around the US and an RV and I'm out.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, no different than a Tom's shoes or any brand that has a give back component to their brand. It was a great margin business and apparel. And there was enough leftover for us to donate a percentage proceeds back to these organizations.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, it's interesting because Viori 1.0, it was all about honoring these humanitarian environmentalists. They were our heroes. We kind of told the story of how they almost climbed these mountains with what they were choosing to pursue and what they were taking on.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it was a different business, but it was called Viori, and that's ultimately where I got the name to start the Viori that you know today.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“His name was Chad Chad was a really talented graphic designer. And so we decided to start making t shirts, working with different humanitarians and environmentalists to tell their story on the inside of these garments. But really, the business model was just to sell them to boutiques because they were really cool. The art was very contemporary. It was very fashionable. And, you know, this is at the time when like Ed Hardy and these brands with big graphics all down the front of the shirt was really popular back in the early 2000s. And so that was what we were creating with Fiori.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“40 hours on a light week. It was a very busy time in my life. And we were young and we had a lot of energy. So we were able to do it. The fact that the materials we were using weren't repeatable because we were just buying them off jobbers. They were like leftover scraps. And so we couldn't really create a repeatable model for making the clothes we were making and we didn't know enough. And so ultimately at the time, we were faced with that decision. We chose to close the business. So it was a great learning experience. I learned how clothing is made. And so for that, I'm forever grateful.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was women's contemporary clothing. So we worked with a lot of silks and we would do skirts and little blouses and dresses, things of that nature”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then we would work in San Diego with local pattern makers. You know, Abby would do design work. And we would visit little specialty boutiques and we would sell them our clothes. And, you know, we got into a bunch of great boutiques up and down the California coast. It was a really awesome experience.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that was very naive, but I had never taken an art class. I had never nurtured a creative bone in my body. I just always, you know, ran into things for sport. I was a football player and a lacrosse player. So I didn't have a lot of confidence in my own. Creative sensibilities, but I loved supporting others that did. And so we decided to start Sammy Joe. It was a women's contemporary line. We would drive up to Los Angeles on the weekends and shop for fabrics. And we'd literally drive away with bolts of fabrics that we would buy on the open market.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I went up to Washington in the summer before I started my job at Ernst Young and was studying for the CPA exam. And she was about to get ready to go off and start at FIDHM and study fashion. And so we dated for a while. And when she graduated from FIDM, I encouraged her that we should just start our own brand. And she could design the clothes. I would help her in every way possible. I would do all the books. I would help use my salary from Erchant Young to fund the business. And so that was the path. We decided to launch a women's contemporary brand. We called it Sammy Joe, which was her middle name and my first name. We jumped in not knowing anything about what we were doing.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know, I was never a superstar model. I made enough to travel and come home with enough money to buy a car and kind of settle in and get my roots back in San Diego. But it was never going to be a huge career for me.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did love that movie because there were some things that maybe were just a little bit too close to home. But I actually didn't really ever like being in front of the camera or on the runway. Those things didn't necessarily light me up, but I learned so much and it was like my little peek behind the curtain at the fashion industry to understand. How things work a little bit. And ultimately, I loved watching designers build collections and how they worked with fabrics. And, you know, just being around the creativity was very inspiring.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Flew straight to Milan with a suitcase of the wrong type of clothing. And I ended up spending the summer working in the fashion industry as a model and fell in love with it and was like, why would I go home? I'm traveling the world. I have an opportunity to continue doing this. And so that's what I did for a couple years.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I was surfing in La Jolla one day and I came out of the water and was going back to my car and a woman stopped me on the beach and asked me if I'd ever considered modeling before Was something I kind of chuckled at at the time, but she explained to me that her son had been living in Europe and had been traveling and having this incredible life experience. And if I'd be open to exploring it, she would introduce me to this guy. So I said, okay, well, I'll take a meeting. So I met this gentleman. He was a manager and he was having a casting in San Diego with an agency from Milan in Italy. And so he encouraged me to come to this casting. And he told me that if I happened to get pick, he would represent me. And so I remember I showed up. There was a line wrapped around the block. And I waited in line and I met with this group. They ended up choosing me to go. And I think I was like one of, there was three guys that were selected.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, you know, growing up in Washington, I was wakeboarding a lot in the summer. I was skiing in the winter. I was fascinated by these kind of alternative sports and really fascinated by Southern California beach culture. And I remember I called the admissions office. I think the first contact I ever had with the school was to ask them how many miles away they were from the beach. And I remember the answer was seven miles away from the beach and that was good enough for me. You know, I had to work my way through school. My parents literally sent me there with virtually no money and it was up to me to get through. I had scholarship and financial aid. But my friends, again, were always, you know, it never stopped me from being a part of that social scene.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In the fridge, and they took their annual trips to Hawaii, and that seemed like a very appealing lifestyle at the time. And so I was a little bit. Yeah, I was just a little bit envious of people that grew up in a more traditional way.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I grew up on this little island called Vashon, which was just off the coast of West Seattle. It was a very alternative community. And when we were in middle school, we moved to Bellevue. And, you know, Bellevue was really known for Microsoft was really becoming a popular thing. And so Bellevue became a fairly affluent town. And we were kind of like the hillbillies that moved to the city. And my parents just having these very kind of alternative lifestyles and professions and interests. You know, my house was always the house. I was always a little shy to bring people there and look in the fridge. It was all these like healthy, natural, organic foods. But it was a beautiful upbringing, very rich in love, not necessarily rich in material possessions. So naturally, I was hanging out with a lot of other kids who I just looked at their families and it was a little envious, you know, just there was Coca-Cola.”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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. You know, a lot of meetings were short and there was a lot of passes. 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”
2023-10-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Vuori: Joe Kudla · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT