The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 27 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Brian Smith: Lack of Prior Use Enabled US Trademark Registration for UGG
“And I did a search of the world, especially the US, to see if there'd been any prior use of the trade name Ugg, and they had not. So, That opened up the gate for me to do the registration of the trademark.”
Growing sales without working capital leaves a fast-growing business twice as broke
“The more sales you get, the bigger your problems get in, in supply. I never really understood that. I, my accounting thinking was, we just sold a million dollars worth of product, we're broke. What's the answer? Oh, we'll sell two million next year and think w…”
Smith: UGG's board outvoted him to approve Rush Limbaugh ad campaign
“You know, we'd spent years building up this image of casual comfort and fashion and everything, and so I really fought it, but I was outvoted at a board meeting.”
Publicizing Oprah's endorsement early would have bankrupted UGG due to insufficient capital
“If we had announced that Oprah was wearing our shoes or boots, it would have killed the company when I owned the company, because I didn't have the capital to build the product to take on that demand.”
Brian Smith: Low margins were UGG's biggest 20-year struggle
“That was one of the worst facets of the entire UGG project for 20 years, was the lack of margins I had because the pressure of the retail price kept us way, way down, so it was very hard to make money.”
Smith: Contract gave away full UGG ownership until trademark dispute resolved
“No, you don't get your stock issued until you finish the trademark. And I just hung the phone up, and I drove from Huntington Beach straight back to San Diego, and I pulled out my contract, and I read it, and I reread it, and I just went, oh, shit. I don't own…”
Gifting store managers free boots was UGG's most successful early marketing plan
“That cost me a pair of boots for each new store I opened, but that changed the trajectory of Ugg forever, and it was probably the best marketing plan I ever executed on.”
UGG co-owner died of a heart attack right before restoring Smith's equity
“Between the time he called me to get my stock, and that was the very next Sunday, he had a heart attack in this race and never recovered. And so, now his widow, who'd never stepped forward, Foot inside the Ugg business, now owned 100% of Ugg.”
A $200,000 life insurance settlement enabled Brian Smith to buy back UGG
“We ended up getting 200,000 dollars as a settlement to walk away... And so I signed a promissory note with her, and this 200,000 dollars was enough to pay her note out, And then by, you know, I owned the company 100% again.”
Smith: Half of Australians owned sheepskin boots while America had none
“Oh my god, you know, one in two Australians has some sort of sheepskin footwear, and there's none in America.”
Brian Smith pooled $500 to secure US distribution for sheepskin boots
“We pulled 500 bucks together and called the guy who ran the advertisement, and we talked him into being distributors for the U.S.”
UGG's initial pitch to California shoe stores received zero orders
“He came back with about a 150 business cards of all these retailers, and not a single order, and said, Brian, they tell us we're crazy trying to sell sheepskin in California.”
UGG sold only 28 pairs of boots during its first year
“The total sales for the first year was 28 pairs.”
Selling sheepskin boots to surf shops only worked on cold, stormy days
“I learned early on that trying to walk into a surf shop with sheepskin boots on a hot day was like pointless. So I learned to wait for a really shitty day when, you know, the storm would hit, you know, then I'd go on the road and sales were, you know, I would …”
UGG sales quadrupled after swapping fashion models for authentic young surfers
“So when I ran those ads, the sales, which had been around, you know, 30 to 50,000 per year, the immediate jump was like 200,000 dollars.”
Brian Smith Took No Money From UGG Until Year Five or Six
“I think that was the fifth or sixth year. That was the first money I'd ever taken out of the company.”
Brian Smith: Having Retail Buyers Try Boots On Closed UGG's First Orders
“By being out there with the customers, it was so much easier for me to, you know, get a rapport going and introduce the product by having them try the boots on. Now, that turned out to be the biggest factor in closing our first orders was having the buyer try …”
Smith: UGG received 2,000 to 3,000 weekly boot orders in 1988
“Black and charcoal were just kicking butt with all of their orders. And we were, you know, getting two or 3000 pairs of orders a week.”
Smith: UGG purchased its suing competitor UGHS and ran its factory
“We ended up doing a deal where we purchased the UGHS company, and we maintained that factory for a couple of years.”
UGG gifted free boots to 400 Hollywood stylists to secure celebrity placement
“I found a mailing list of stylists in Hollywood and sent a letter to them, and about 400 people responded, and so I sent them all a pair of Ugg boots, you know, no questions asked, and it was a couple of months before I started seeing them on Celebrities”
Smith: Stockbrokers flooded UGG's switchboard after Rush Limbaugh sponsorship announced
“Today we have a new sponsor, and it's Ugg Boots from California, and that second, our switchboard shut down, because every broker in the country, every stockbroker, was calling us saying, Are you guys public? Can we buy stock? Can we buy, you know, because the…”
Smith: Originally came to California seeking products to export to Australia
“Yeah, and I was really literally on a search for something to take back to Australia. I had no desire to stay and live in America.”
Brian Smith: UGG raised $20,000 in seed capital without a business plan
“We were able to raise 20,000 dollars from them as capital, and we didn't even have a business plan.”
Smith: Sheepskin footwear dries and warms wet feet within 15 minutes
“Sheepskin breathes, so you can put them on with freezing feet, and they will insulate, and if you've got wet feet, like after surfing, it wicks the moisture out towards the surface, and so within 10:15 minutes, your feet are dry and warm.”
Smith: Ski market was harder to penetrate than surf for early UGG boots
“The ski market was even harder than the surf market. Because their attitude was, well, we have mud, and we have slush, and we need rubber, you know, we gotta have Sorrells, and they couldn't see sheepskin being strong enough or waterproof enough to work in the…”