YouSaid · the spoken record

Wayne Edy

lines on the record: 65
first: 2021-09-13
most recent: 2021-09-13
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

“He was a little bit critical actually about some of the things on the shoe, but he liked what I was trying to do. And he really loved the passion. We've talked about it afterwards. He said, I just loved your passion and you had a really clear vision on what you wanted to do with your brand. So he basically said, yes, I'll support you and gave me one of our first orders.”
2021-09-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · inov-8: Wayne Edy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, whilst I did have a lot of connections, I had to pioneer a lot of the running shops. And basically all I did was I built a database of them. And we basically did a mail shot to all the retailers and put one shoe in with a mail shot. And then I gave them a sort of a week and then started calling. And it really paid off. The first retailer that I saw is one of the top specialist sort of off-road and fell running retailers in the UK. His name is Pete Bland. So that business was run by himself and his son Matt. I drove across to the Lake District and met with him and we had breakfast in the cafe across the road from his shop and I showed him the shoe and talked it through.”
2021-09-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · inov-8: Wayne Edy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, yes, of course she was cautious about it, but we had sort of ring-fenced a certain amount of our savings for the family. And then this was sort of through the consultancy business where I knew I needed to take a certain amount of risk. And whilst Joanne was a lot more cautious, she did support it because she knew that that's what I really wanted to do. But yes, it's a huge risk. And you just never know. So whilst you're trying. As much research and testing as possible, there's no guarantee with these things and you could lose it all.”
2021-09-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · inov-8: Wayne Edy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Correct, so I had contacts in Italy and Portugal and in Asia. But for the type of footwear that we do, it's best made in Asia because that's where there's the most development and they have the best machinery and processes and materials to make sports footwear. I just committed to it, ordered a container, said that's it, we're launching the brand and then went straight into doing all the other side whilst the shoes were being manufactured because you have quite a long lead time so it's normally three to four months So during that time was when I started preparing the sort of brand name, the website”
2021-09-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · inov-8: Wayne Edy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sorry, that's for a series of molds, so that is for a size range. So to do one shoe, you've got to invest that sort of money. And that's only to make the molds. Then, of course, you've got to pay for the shoes. And so we went through that development and then I decided I'm going to order a container of them once we had signed it off. Wow.”
2021-09-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · inov-8: Wayne Edy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes it was so I had a small chef portfolio that I'd built up over the years so I cashed that all in and invested in the mould so just to give you an idea the mold costs are about sort of 30 to 40 thousand dollars”
2021-09-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · inov-8: Wayne Edy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I was nervous, but I am a bit of a risk taker and I felt I had enough personal experience at developing and sourcing product, running businesses. So it was my time.”
2021-09-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · inov-8: Wayne Edy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, I think our whole philosophy as a brand is about allowing the runner to be in tune with the terrain that they're running on and not altering the natural biomechanics of the foot or the lower limbs or the body. And part of that is that if you exercise with more minimal footwear, you actually utilize a fuller range of motion of your lower limbs. They all work in harmony with the body. We don't try and alter the natural biomechanics of the body.”
2021-09-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · inov-8: Wayne Edy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not as sharp as a clique that the Americans know. But so they were all made of rubber. But you want to make them so that they are well enough spaced out so that they don't collect and retain mud. And they need to be sharp enough and deep enough that you can get the right sort of penetration to give you the optimum grip You also get it through the compound of the rubber that we use, and we spent a lot of time developing two specific compounds for innovate. And we very quickly became known in the marketplace as having this rubber that had an amazing grip.”
2021-09-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · inov-8: Wayne Edy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I knew that there were about five or six thousand Felrunners in the UK. So it's quite a small market, but quite easy to market to because they subscribe to the same magazines and they go to the similar races and it's a community. So I thought that that was a good place to start. and we could work out from there. So whenever you launch a brand, you've got to find, well, what's our differentiator and where's the niche or gap in the market that we're going to go for? And that's when I decided to launch it for the Fallon Mountain Runners. But I was very specific not to call it just fell running. And we didn't, whilst we started and our home was in fell running, I always had that vision we need to be a broader brand and we need to have international appeal.”
2021-09-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · inov-8: Wayne Edy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's correct. So that's how they describe it. And that terrain can vary if you go for a race or just a run, you can go through lots of different types of terrain, but it can be very wet and boggy in the winter and the rainy season. And then it can be quite dry in the summer if we don't have rain. And it has a real following. They call themselves fell runners. In the rest of the world, they tend to call it either trail running or mountain running. In fell running you tend to have smaller, sharper cleats that are deeper in depth so that you can get maximum penetration into that terrain, whether it's mud or grass. That gives you optimum grip. And I felt I could bring something new, some real new innovation to it and just take it on to that next level”
2021-09-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · inov-8: Wayne Edy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When you launch a brand, you've always got to find a small niche. And if you think of my background, so I've got experience in making sports shoes. I had a lot of outdoor experience that I'd gained through doing burkhouse and brachia or their development and sourcing and marketing of the footwear rangers. So I thought, right, well, why don't I blend the mixture of those two and came up with this concept of a mountain athletic brand? And then that was the start of the concept for innovate.”
2021-09-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · inov-8: Wayne Edy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I was very easy going, but I would say I was more interested in the practical sides of school. I was also very engineering-minded. So at 12 years old, I bought my first motorcycle and completely rebuilt it. So when I left school, I wanted to become an engineer and do that through a apprenticeship scheme, which I was fortunate because I got selected with a footway company called Barter, which is an international footway company. And that gave me a very good grounding in footwear because part of their development was that you would spend three months in each of the divisions, which has certainly helped me in my career.”
2021-09-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · inov-8: Wayne Edy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was a great place to grow up because I had a good group of friends. I spent a lot of time outdoor every weekend we were out at the lakes. My parents had a small cottage at one of the lakes, so we used to spend time there. During the holidays, we would sometimes go out there for a week. We would cycle out sometimes, or my father would take us out, and this would be with my brothers and some friends and get us all set up and then he would leave us there. And if it was, say, for a week, then he would come out on, say, Tuesday or a Wednesday to give us more supplies and just make sure everything was all right. Those days there were no mobile phones, so there was no way of contacting us otherwise. And that's how we spent our time sort of just exploring the mountains around the lake and spending time on the lake.”
2021-09-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · inov-8: Wayne Edy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The big thing that surprised us and caught me out was the 2008 crash, market crash. And it just put so much pressure on me. And I managed to secure another loan through a US bank, but I had to sign personal guarantees with this. And I can remember the bank manager saying to me, he said, Wayne, just to let you know, he said, you sign this document. He says, if you drop this ball, he says everything that you own is gone.”
2021-09-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · inov-8: Wayne Edy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT