YouSaid · the spoken record

Joey Zwillinger

lines on the record: 40
first: 2023-11-06
most recent: 2023-11-06
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Multi generational opportunity that it has. And that's all I can think about. And it's got to have wonderful financials. And we have to stay true to our values while we do it so that that model stays tightly aligned. Jerry, listen, I can't believe it's been like six years since our last show. Thank you so much for joining me today. And thank you for putting up with my slightly prying questions. Been great to do it. I've learned a lot. I'm not sure if I've shared too many nuggets of wisdom today, but that journey is both difficult but incredibly rewarding. with a future as bright as I believe it to be. It keeps me incredibly motivated. I hope some people are learning about Albirds for the first time today with your show and give us a shot.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What I think about most is where all birds is going to be. We wrote a vision in 2016. We situated ourselves in the summer of 2026 when we wrote that vision. And frankly, we're marching right down that path. And I have a high degree of confidence that we're going to achieve everything that was written in that vision at this point. So that's a pretty good start. So extending that by seven years, I think, look, the business has to be big. We've done a great job of aligning what our impact objectives are with our financial objectives. And what I mean is every time you buy a shoe, you're doing something fantastic for my business and you're also doing something fantastic for the world. And if we can take that model and extend it and scale it very large, we're going to be really important. Within that importance and that cultural relevance will come great business success. And those two things are very mutually aligned. And that alignment of our business model means that I want this brand to be enormous and I want it to capture.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Journey in prison and the resilience and the long term view that he had and the actual tenacity to take a whole country and shape that around the vision that he had with determination and unrelenting focus on what that future could be with fairly thoughtful and non-violent outcomes that you might be tempted by in the short term but would jeopardize the long term. That's a guy that we can all learn a lot from. What's your favorite, brand and why them? Favorite brand other than all birds, I kind of like Traeger. What did Traeger? I didn't even know Traeger. It's a smoker. It delivers incredible flavor to all the food we cook. It takes the magic out of barbecue and allows a lot more people to make phenomenal food that people can enjoy without the intimidation of an open flame. Jerry, final one for you. 10 years time, it's 2033. Where are you then? I have no idea where I'll be. Could be leading all birds. Could be doing something else with my life. But...”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Those are going to be the biggest companies of the next generation, and that's what we're trying to build. So there'll be more skeptics than not skeptics on that perspective. However, I think that's the great unlock for the next great generation of brands. You can be CEO of any other company for day. Which would you be CEO of? Say one of the most interesting companies out there are the ones leading the new large language models in AI technology like OpenAI, but I don't think I would want to bear that burden of responsibility for humanity. I'll eliminate those. I'd say a company that has done a really nice job in an area that I take a lot of inspiration from would probably be Tesla, which is around performance and quality of a product and an aesthetic and a beauty that delivers in and of itself and the free gift with purchase is that it's much more sustainable for the planet. And that's kind of what I aspire for All Birds. So that'd be a pretty fun one. You can have dinner with anyone, dead or alive. Nelson Mandela. Pretty long.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A survey that goes out from a couple of different companies. Every single survey that comes back about social issues that consumers care about, environments number one across almost every single one with the exception of like blips in time when something major happens in the world. So for a six-month period, maybe it's that one. But at the same time, they go out and buy a $3.78 polyester t-shirt or sweater from Sheehan and have no connection between their value orientation around what matters and what they consume. So this Sedu gap, as it would be referred to, is pretty vast at the moment. I do think that that will close. When that closes, the companies who are positioned where they're delivering excellence on every dimension that the”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For consumers to get tired, it's much quicker for employees to get tired. Just remembering that and keeping a focus on that very sharply is what brings us to the Promised Land and what we're working on today.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In all birds, anytime soft merino tea, it's 45 bucks. It's a ridiculous value, and it's the best t-shirt in the marketplace. So I think there's natural extensions. Look, what we're best at is looking in places for consumer experiences from natural fibers and natural materials that no one else is looking for those opportunities. And when we see something that speaks to the lifestyle of what we're creating with shoes, we can have an opportunity to extend that comfort and that aesthetic and that just tangible luxury feel. This is a great example of that and it doesn't need to be huge, doesn't need to be big categories because as I said, people buy in the US eight pairs of shoes a year. The market is absolutely enormous. And if we just get really good at just a few shoes, we can be a billion dollars in sales and go well beyond that. And so it's just sharpening the focus and being clear for the consumer and not getting tired of the story that you're telling to consumers before they do, which it takes a long time.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, the average American consumer buys eight pairs of shoes a year. That's about two and a half billion pairs of shoes sold every year. There's a bunch of very specific uses within a person's closet that they're looking for a shoe to deliver. And then there's probably a little bit more broader based opportunities. And within certain areas of the closet, I'd say there's varying degrees of loyalty. And there's always an open-mindedness to try. The amazing thing about the US in particular, this is true. People love innovation and they're always willing to try and they love to figure out something that's going to do something new for them. And so there's always some willingness to try. That said, I think once you build a really deep connection with a consumer, they are incredibly loyal. And how does that translate in terms of business and purchase frequency? Different for every business.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, the consumer is in a more delicate and fragile situation than people understand. It's going to be more difficult and there's going to be less spending than people think in the coming six months. But that's just a reality. That's my belief. And so we're structuring the business around that belief. And that means a little bit more conservatism and investment and playing offense in the areas that we think we can really generate value for our business. If your question is, do I think that there's weakness ahead? Yes. If I am anxious about that, the answer is no. And anyone who has that belief, I would hope that they're doing something about it to structure their business in a way to be extremely resilient within that framework because there's going to be cycles up and down and it's how you structure and respond to those that create the value or not.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The last two years, I would say probably the biggest change has been the reliance on the team that I work with a little bit differently. Having a focus on giving room for myself included to really express what people are thinking and what those anxieties are in a room very regularly with those people who are on the team has been not just cathartic, but also really helpful because some of those anxieties are grounded in reality. Like you should be anxious about this. Like there's something not going well. Like why are you losing sleep about this? That's one element.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Be with me and be and have a great time. And so what I try to do is just be present for the kids and not touch my phone for a large portion of the time that I'm with them and certainly the beginnings every time I come home from work. And when I'm at work, I try to focus and prioritize that. So those are the two elements. And now what's overlaid over the last two years has been a layer of anxiety and stress that has been much more than previous in my life. And so that's different than balance. That's something that every person, including myself, just need to figure out a way to deal with so that you can have that focus when you're prioritizing one or the other.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because for the last decade, I just think about what I do if I'm going to pour the majority of my waking life to something. It's got to be super meaningful. And the only way that I can do this is to two things. I really try to integrate my family into the work. And I really involve in a way that's quite meaningful to me. You know, my wife, her name is Liz. She is behind the scenes hero to the company. And I don't just say because she supports me or whatever, which is true. But it's because of the insights that she's brought to the business and the help that she does in thinking through problems with me. You know, I think she gets some joy out of being a part of that. And that helps bring my personal life into my business life. That's one aspect of it. The second thing is my kids don't give a shit what I do. You know, when they were little, it was like chief executive one hour and the next I was like chief butt wiper the next so they don't care right and they still don't care they're older now but they just want to”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's not happening in San Francisco quite yet, I would say. And I'm not suggesting that that's the way the future, but I do think people talk about productivity. I think the conception of what productivity means is far too narrow, and particularly in an industry like mine where creativity and physical products are central to what we do. Not being together is impossible. That's the way that we've thought about coming back. And most of the people who are closest to the central aspects of product creation and design and marketing are coming in for four days a week. We've done some other things with some of the more adjacent functions beyond that.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, there's a whole bunch of factors to that. You know, it's like think about the urban environments that historically people have worked in and now it's in San Francisco, it's three days a week in the office if you're at a company who's like draconian in the sense of thinking that working together in a physical space is a good idea. And some are completely remote that used to have a physical office presence. And so those people are consumers. Those employees are commuting into work. They're in the restaurants walking around the city and they're shopping in those areas after work or whatnot. And so that is things that have”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Being a good retailer's heart, some of the things that were difficult to see, particularly sometimes you sign leases a year ahead of when you actually open up a store, is the changing patterns of consumers over the last two, three years. It's not only what they wanted to consume, but where they were buying things has changed really significantly. In the wake of so much uncertainty, we had shaped some perspective around the fact that things would get back to the way they were. And I think they are getting back to the way they were. And I actually think that's true. Just the time horizon that that's taking people to kind of regain a semblance of their former lives and some things are lost forever.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Are the best metrics to judge profitability in terms of how a business should be valued in our space? So anything we make in the future from a cash flow perspective is discounted back to today's dollars is the value of our company. And so those are the best metrics to look at to gauge what the value of our enterprise should be.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What we've said to the market, we've got to be pretty consistent with that on your podcast as well, is that we'll be cash flow and EBITDA profitable in 2025.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The market is a bit of an abstract concept. A large part of it is just algorithms. And then there's real people on the real buyers of it. When we get momentum from a business perspective and a brand perspective, there's going to be people who will fully understand where we're heading and will see the transformative aspect of what we've done, particularly in the last 12 months. Equally, there's going to be doubters that will say, I don't believe it and that it's not going to work out. Maybe it was a fad, whatever the reason is. There's always going to be doubters and there always has. But that's a market, you know? That's how it is. And then like we've done historically and like I expect will continue to do, we're going to put up expectations and then wildly over deliver. That's the ambition for any person running a company. That's my full expectation of what we should go out and do and that typically silences the doubters.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Lean into the products that we come to market with and the innovation that we come with, and that we can bring joy around those products through the marketing we do.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Lots of things. I mean, we pulled back on distribution. Really, it's like product and distribution in our business. And then there's marketing. And so we got too fat with inventory. So we needed to clean that up. That's been the number one priority for our business this year is honestly from a financial perspective at least is cleaning up inventory. Along the way, we got to refresh the product, improve it significantly to get back to that really active core that you referenced earlier. And in the process of doing that, we wanted to pull back on distributions. We stopped all store growth. We pulled back on some of the wholesale expansion and we then pulled back High Teens marketing in terms of year-over-year comparisons on the dollars we spent. So all of that has been pulled back. And as a result of that, of course, like you're likely to see sales decline, but that's actually well part of the plan for us. And when we come through this year, which is quite transitional, we'll have a very healthy and clean inventory. We will be poised to”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. You know, the last couple years have been, I probably got more growth and wisdom in a short period of time than I've gotten the whole rest of my life. And a lot of that comes into leadership. And victory has a thousand fathers. Failure has only one. Making sure that a constant self-awareness, that there's discipline and the good times and the bad times, that there's an even-killed nature across that approach to leadership, and that you're authentically trying to get the best out of everyone around you and making sure that the leaders that are coming along for the journey have that same dedication, resilience, and work ethic that you do, and also that same discipline to do things right, both when things are going great and when things are going not great. That is something where we hadn't been tested so much in terms of when things weren't going great prior to this period. And we've pulled back on a bunch of investments in the business. And as a result, the sales have declined.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Extraordinarily little at the IPO, I sold nothing. And then after that, I sold incredibly little. And frankly, it's just really to meet that bottom of the Maslow's for me. And some might judge the amount differently, but it's not much. So particularly in the place we live. So I feel very financially secure and in a place that's great for myself and my family and in the future, if there's more, that's wonderful too. And I can say that it doesn't take anything away from my focus on creating as much value as we can because I know that I can do great things with extra money even if I don't need to spend it on a nice car.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think how you just framed that's really important. I mean, like, if I could guide anyone on this topic, understand the life you want to live first. And if you really want to live a life of material luxury, you should try to sell things as quickly as possible at as high a price as possible. If you're interested in making sure that you have financial security for yourself and your family, that more than that is not going to be particularly useful to you, like the diminishing return on that extra dollar is quite significant. That kind of camp and that thinking is how my wife and myself oriented ourselves around this business and the financial potential that it would create. What does that mean? It means that I like to give our shareholders the opportunity to make their own decisions on that if they want to sell at any point in time. They should be able to. And I think it's fair for me to have that opportunity as well, of course. But everything now that we're public is quite out there. So I've sold”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is again nothing ideologically opposed private or public. I think we have everything we need right now to control our destiny and to do everything we believe we need to do to build an incredible, incredible business and an incredible brand. If along that journey, the public markets don't see the value that we're creating and there's a big gap between the value that we are creating and what the enterprise value is. Does their duty quite responsibly to make sure we're thinking about all the options all the time? And when we see a huge gap between that for a very prolonged period of time, then it's something that has to be considered.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You never know if an acquisition offer is a real acquisition offer until the piece of paper is in front of you and you have the opportunity to sign it. Nothing ever got to that point. But we've had a number of companies in the footwear space and the ecosystem of apparel and footwear more broadly come to us and ask us if we were interested in selling. It's nothing I'm ideologically opposed to, same for Tim. We want to achieve the multi-generational brand potential that we've created in the early years. And if that's best done with a partner, that's something we would consider. And if it's best done independently, then we'll take that path. And so far, it's been the latter.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Suggest that, yes, this investment is important to make if we're going to eventually capture the potential of this brand. And so that's when we took the money. Looking back, I could quibble on a detail here or there on a fundraise in terms of the exact amount of money, but that was never important to me. It was about creating something really special, a multi-generational brand that withstood the test of time and redefined how consumer products and consumption could actually be done, not just in the footwear industry, but much more broadly. And I think we're well on track to do that and yet business is never a straight line up into the right. It's pretty squiggly. And so that's the fun of it.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The way I looked at these fundraisings at every step of the journey, and I looked at my own role in the company along the same paradigm that I'll explain here, is that you set out a set of expectations to a group of people that you say, I need this money, I'm going to invest it here, and it's going to generate these outcomes and these milestones. And then you take the money and you go deliver. And we had an incredible history of success of wildly out delivering the expectations that we set when we took money. And then in the process of delivering on those expectations, you start to say, okay, can we move the goalposts a little further? Do we think that the brand potential and the ambition of what we have requires us to continue to deepen the investment? And when we took extra money, it was because the answer to that was yes in our view. And we thought we had both the capabilities and the strategy and that profound connection with a group of consumers that in a very large marketplace that would”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Door starting in 2017 and then branch out to wholesale when you get to 2020. 2020, we kind of hit the pause button on that because of everything that was going on. And now we're kind of back on that journey. And that omnichannel vision is the right vision. And as I said, we're a brand, not a channel. And so it's important to reach consumers profitably wherever they need to be, wherever they prefer to shop. Had we been in a situation where we had a bunch more wholesale distribution, we had elevated awareness through that expansion of channel. I think when people shut down and started looking for a product that they were familiar with and knew the brand, they would have had much more opportunity to discover our brand and then eventually see the delightful experience that our products deliver.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We didn't have an athletic positioning at all. And we were 100% of a casual lifestyle shoe offering in 2019. That's one really important element where that was just a moment where you can look at the athletic sneaker market and it just absolutely surged during that time period. That's okay. We didn't need to be a big part of that. And as I said, I think the next five years are going to be shaped by something quite distinct from that. The second element is, I remember in the series A fundraising deck that we put together, we had this map of by year, what channel we wanted to reach consumers through and which segments of the consumer population we would be reaching via those channels along the journey there, we expected that we would start to expand our product assortment and be able to put these products into the right channels and reach the right consumers with that connection point. And so that slide, as it said, was, you know, we would start with a digital ecosystem adds.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're at our best. I think we've done wonderfully. So I do think at times there's been moments in time, particularly in recent times, if you think at the start of the pandemic where companies who were focused on athletic performance positioning in a moment when people who hadn't run in 15 years decided they needed to buy another pair of running shoes for the first time. And those companies often had 70, sometimes 80% wholesale distributed. There's a lot of touch points for the consumers to connect with that brand. And in a moment when everything got shut down, that was an incredible asset for a lot of companies. And so you can see that there's very significant momentum created by some of those external factors. And some companies did a really good job of grabbing onto that momentum and continuing to execute well. And others didn't do as good of a job of that. And I think we were in the unfortunate position of not being structured in a way that could capitalize exactly on the dramatic change that had happened in that world. But we're getting back to.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And when we are at our best, we offer something to the consumer that they haven't experienced before and they love. And I know you're one of those, Harry.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I just think it's a generalization that lacks any kind of understanding of what we do. And so we're a brand. We're not as channel. DTC is a way to do business. There's been great retailers who started this in our industry. The Gap in the 90s. Lululemon has done a really wonderful job of being a great DTC company. But they're a product first company. They happen to use a DTC channel to reach consumers. And that's what we envisioned was the best way to start our journey. But we are a brand first and we've always envisioned that Omnichannel operation where we reach consumers where they want to shop is the right way to structure the business. There are businesses out there that I'm well aware of that take a commodity product and try to cut the middleman out and reach the consumer directly. And that is the business model. And so while a shoe, you might think of as a bit of a commodity marketplace, it is so uncommoditized within the space that we play. And we are so differentiated.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And given the way things have changed, they're going to need to hang on for a couple years right now. And as we execute, I think the future can be incredibly bright.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's humbling, no doubt. We went public at $15 a share. Now we're at like a dollar, dropping more than 90% of the value for shareholders that you orient the success of your business around. And I take that responsibility incredibly seriously. And so that is of our utmost concern. And so when we don't deliver for those people, that is a humbling experience. And there's a lot that happened in the capital markets when interest rates went up significantly that was unavoidable for us to expect that everything would be exactly the same. However, it doesn't absolve any of the responsibility that I feel to drive the shareholder value that we create. And so I'm not annoyed. I'm not angry. I'm emboldened to make sure that we get it back and deliver much more than when we came out.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, everyone's seeing everything you're doing every single day. Businesses don't happen on quarterly cycles, but financial reporting and public markets do. Every single thing that you're doing from that point when you become a public company into the future is exposed for all to see the good and the bad. That's a stark difference from when you're a private company, when you can make certain decisions that have zero implication because you happen to be reporting at that specific quarter. And in this case, it's not. And so, you know, in some ways, the discipline is excellent. It forces you to have a cadence that is driving urgency towards the business. And in some cases, it could be a little bit intentional with the long-term build of the business, but we've tried to structure things in a way, both from a governance perspective and from a capitalization perspective that allow us to be really good stewards of any investor who has belief in the brand for the long term and sees the potential of what we've created.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Are a product company first and foremost, and we happen to exist in a category where style and fashion is incredibly important. Now, we have developed an incredible set of data and technological infrastructure and something that we have in spades relative to our competition, no matter what their size, even if there are many, many billion dollars in size. We are leading in terms of the infrastructure, the tech enablement that we've been able to bring into the business.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I don't. We have a mountain of cash. We have control of our destiny. And the fact that Wall Street's written us off as a fickle beast as it is, the markets are unforgiving. And our market cap is a reflection of the fact that we've essentially been written off by people. And until we start delivering quarter over quarter incredible financials and that trend towards and then eventually meet our long-term targets for how this business is structured, we will suffer in that space. And so our job as a company is to urgently march towards that with all the sharp insights that we have and drive towards that. And when we do, the market will come back and come behind us. So, you know, it's a matter of time frame that you think about these things through. And a couple of years of reshifting on what we need to do for the right long-term thing for the business will pay off for anyone who wants to jump on board now or in the near future.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In some respects, but to answer your question directly, all of the success that we've had and all of the stumbles that we've had, it always comes back to people. The entrepreneurial journey is a leader or a very small company. And we've started less than eight years ago. And the balance of who you select, this balance of entrepreneurship and ambition, there's also an incredibly important element around bringing in people with a sharp expertise around the functions and the industry expertise that's required to be excellent at all of the fundamentals. I often talk about with our leaders that what they bring in is deeply needed and deeply respected, but we need to think about it as a reference book, not a playbook. And sometimes we've gotten that right. Sometimes we've gotten that wrong in terms of the people that we've had. And they're all incredible people, incredibly high integrity people, but there's a right time and a right place for each of these leaders to exist in a business to help.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And you can't change the perception of a brand overnight. That's for sure. What we have found over the course of the last year in particular in terms of how we position to the consumer, what we stand for. It's this crossover place between an informal and casual lifestyle with an active health and well-being-oriented existence in life. That is the core of where we started the brand. And that's where we're going to bring everything back to. So I think in part, you're very right about that and where we should live into the future.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and you know, look, the externals are good. I won't take credit for that either. And I think there were some things in 2016 that we saw, we identified, and we capitalized on those opportunities that were real tailwinds for us. Frankly, I see some of those tailwinds coming back with incredible vigor now. Think about what's happened over the last couple of years with this maximal build in the trend of how shoe companies have been coming to the consumer marketplace and the fact that now quiet luxury is really coming back and people really want to celebrate this almost anonymous luxury with this very elevated premium experience. That's something that is going to be a tailwind for us in the coming years. And I'm pretty excited about that. But if I look back on the things that we can control, there's tactical decisions in the business, whether it's specific products or inventory buys or things like that. Those are all really, really important.”
2023-11-06 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source