On Running

“We actually, you know, buy the QC. Keyword on, on, on Google.”

“Yeah, we did a million in the first half year, which, you know, was obviously great.”

“I think it was like 10,000 or 8000 shoes we produced in Busan in South Korea.”

“Literally our agreement fit on one page. And it had none of the usual clauses, like no minimum days that he has to you know, spend with us. No, no licensing fee, nothing.”

“At the time we were about a hundred sixty million in revenues.”

“2014 was the year that we actually then broke our first profit, and we've been profitable ever since.”

“And so we went to the show in January, literally like a couple days after we started the company with, I don't know, five, six samples. And we left the show with, or I would say about half a million Swiss francs in orders.”

“When Roger came on board and we announced it in New York, Search traffic doubled and stayed there.”

“So we knew on day one that we couldn't be just a Swiss company. So, so we started out in six countries at once.”

“I think it's so deeply ingrained nowadays in the company that we only approach things that are impossible. If people are coming back, you know, after initial idea or vision, and people come back and say, oh, yeah, we can do it. I said, then we don't do it. Lea…”

“Again, I have had my Achilles issues for maybe three, three and a half years to at the end of my career. And I've seen so many doctors and specialists and nothing really helped. And within six weeks walking and running in the garden hose shoes, since today, th…”

“We never did a business plan. We never did like a proper market sizing. All we knew was this is a big market.”

“We were going to be a running company, and actually, it pissed us off. When somebody dared to wear our high-tech product industry with jeans, it really bucked us.”

“We actually wrote in our shareholders agreement, and it lived there all the way through the IPO. We put down this thing when if someone, someone of us took another job or, you know, even like a side hustle or any income from any other source, we would have to …”

“Casper and I, we you know, attacked the German, Austrian, and Swiss market. I think it was year one and two. Not very successful until I think it was Casper coming, you know, and saying, hey, all these retailers are actually, you know, they're runners, you kno…”

“And today we have about 60% of the votes but still have access to the capital market.”

“Yeah, so we each put the 150,000 in, and Oli didn't have the cash, so we basically Took his efforts so far into the company and valid that at 150. So, so that's how we started.”

“We were probably the first brand using plate, a plate in the shoe, we call it speed board.”

“And frankly, you know, if you look at the Under Armour story, to try to compete directly with Nike is suicide.”

“So what we did is we agreed on a licensing agreement, but we also put a clause in there, luckily, that we could terminate the license agreement and purchase the patents outright.”

“And so I made a pretty bold move and said, yes, I'm going to get involved, but without you, George.”

“It's the first, really the first shoe brand to challenge the dominance of Nike and Adidas, certainly with running.”