Steve Madden: Steve Madden

Steve Madden fell in love with the shoe business in the 1970's, when he sold platform shoes at a neighborhood store in Long Island, New York. That was in high school. About 15 years later, he struck out on his own, designing and selling shoes with a high-end look at affordable prices. As his business – and his ambitions — began to grow, he got involved in a securities fraud scheme and wound up serving two and-a-half years in prison. In 2005, he returned to Steve Madden, where he helped the company grow into a business valued at $3 billion. PLUS, for our postscript "How You Built That," how Chris Dimino turned a school design project into the Keyboard Waffle Iron, which makes waffles in the shape of a computer keyboard. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Guy Raz?

  Hey, everyone. Just want to let you know that we now have fewer than 100 tickets left for the How I Built This Summit in October, supported by American Express. Don't miss out on your chance to learn from some of the world's most inspiring entrepreneurs. Here's just a partial list of who's coming: Joe Gebbia of Airbnb, Katrina Lake of Stitch Fix, Jen Hyman of Rent the Runway, Lisa Price of Carol's Daughter, the founders of Method Cleaning Products, John Zimmer of Lyft, and many, many other entrepreneurs and mentors. You'll also get to meet hundreds of other innovators and builders, people just like you. But there aren't many tickets left, so please do hurry. Go to npr.org/summit to get your tickets and I hope to see you in San Francisco.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  I'm not one of those entrepreneurs that thought he was going to be super successful. You know, I was just trying to survive. And I'm very negative and very pessimistic, unlike maybe some of the guys that you've done, you know, the shows with.

• 1:04Guy Raz?

  Yeah, totally.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  I'm sure they think that, you know, they're going to be...

• 1:07Guy Raz?

  Nothing can get me down.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  Nothing can get me down. Me, I think I'm going out of business every other day.

• 1:18Guy Raz?

  From NPR, it's How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

• 1:30Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and on today's show, how Steve Madden took high-end shoe designs, gave them low-end prices, and turned his name into a $3 billion shoe brand.

• 1:49Guy Raz?

  So when I was a kid, if you wanted to wear brand names and you couldn't afford the prices, you'd go to Mervyn's, or Marshall's, or Ross', and you'd look for things called irregular items. Maybe it was a pair of Guess jeans missing a zipper, or in a Spree shirt with one arm slightly longer than the other. And it was no big deal, because you still got the brand, and you got it at Marshall's prices. But then, starting in the early 1990s, brands like H&M and Zara started to go global, and it meant that, all of a sudden, many more people had access to high-fashion designs, but at a much lower price.

• 2:29Guy Raz?

  And this is the way that Steve Madden not only tapped into, but in a lot of ways pioneered, especially when it came to shoes. With Steve Madden's, you could all of a sudden buy a pair of black stilettos for 70 bucks that looked suspiciously like a $900 pair of Manolo Blonix, or a $60 pair of Lego-like heels that were a knockoff of $1,000 Balenciagas. This was the genius of Steve Madden. He managed to carve out a very sweet spot between Nine West and Christian Louboutin. Now, this approach didn't come without consequences. The world of high fashion is an exclusive club, and Steve Madden is largely unwelcome.

• 3:14Guy Raz?

  And one reason? Pedigree. Steve didn't apprentice at one of the great fashion houses. He didn't start out in Milan or Paris. In fact, Steve didn't even study design. And he's also kind of brash and a bit of a loudmouth. So brash, in fact, that he was willing to break the law to get ahead. Steve spent two and a half years in prison for financial crimes. It's an experience that completely changed his life, and we will get there. But long before that, Steve grew up in Long Island, New York. He was a scrappy, middle-class, half-Irish, half-Jewish kid.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  I was sort of a leader-type, charismatic, sort of, always pretty similar to the way I am now. But I was, you know, small and had a big mouth and a little ambitious and a little obnoxious, probably.

• 4:08Guy Raz?

  The kind of kid who would get in trouble at school?

• 4:10Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I always got in trouble. I was always in trouble. I had an attention deficit disorder. I didn't know it then.

• 4:16Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Nobody, nobody knew it then?

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. That was the 60s, and so they didn't really talk about it then. But I couldn't sit still.

• 4:23Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  In Yiddish, we'd say, "I had shpilkis."

• 4:26Guy Raz?

  Okay, right. Yeah, yeah. So, school was not your, your forte?

• 4:31Speaker 01

  No. Um, the only difference is that I was, I was a reader. So, and I loved history. And I used to love to read about the moguls.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  You know, I was obsessed for some reason. I was drawn to this thing about Louis B. Mayer and Samuel Goldwyn and these great entrepreneurs that, I mean, at a very young age, you know, I was like drawn to it.

• 4:56Guy Raz?

  Yeah, why? Why do you think so?

• 4:57Speaker 01

  I don't know why. I mean, you know, I was, I guess it was the, the intersection of art and commerce, you know, was very interesting to me and still is.

• 5:07Guy Raz?

  And those guys came from nothing, most of them.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they were artists, but they were businessmen. So it was that kind of thing.

• 5:12Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Your dad was in the textile business. Was, just out of curiosity, was your dad entrepreneurial? Did he have that kind of mind?

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Yes, my dad was, but you know, he grew up in the depression and, you know, he was very limited, filled with fear because he had seen so much poverty. So his, he sort of capped his upside.

• 5:34Guy Raz?

  He was not a risk taker.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  He wasn't a great risk taker, but he was a smart man. He was a businessman, but he never really made the big bucks because he was very safe, which in a way I admire him because he stayed in, I mean, it's easy to criticize people like that. You know, but he was always provided. We weren't the, we were right in the middle. I mean, we weren't, you know, rich or anything, but we weren't the poorest. But it was like, you know, people got a 10-speed bike and they got Schwinn. I never got a Schwinn.

• 6:07Guy Raz?

  And you wanted to be the kind of person who could buy that stuff one day?

• 6:11Speaker 01

  I did. I always did. You know, I always wanted to fly first class, you know, like I'd be riding in coach. You know, I was like, get me in the front of this plane, you know, kind of thing.

• 6:29Guy Raz?

  How'd you, how'd you end up working at a shoe store at age 16?

• 6:31Speaker 01

  So I worked in a shoe store in high school, you know, the neighborhood, sort of cool shoe store. The old, the guy that started the store went to high school with my brother, John.

• 6:42Guy Raz?

  So it was a job. It wasn't like, hey, I want to go work in shoes. It was just a job.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Just sort of fell into it. Yeah, but I fell in love with it right away.

• 6:49Guy Raz?

  What did you fall in love with?

• 6:51Speaker 01

  So it's hard to explain, but at that moment in the shoe business, you know, it was a very exciting time because.

• 6:57Guy Raz?

  This is like the early to mid seventies?

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, like seventy-four. Before I even started, platform shoes were very big for men.

• 7:05Guy Raz?

  Really?

• 7:06Speaker 01

  It was a really wild time in the shoe business.

• 7:08Guy Raz?

  Right, right, right.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Big platforms.

• 7:09Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  And so it was just very interesting, you know? I was into it. I was into the creative sort of vibe.

• 7:17Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Of the whole thing.

• 7:18Guy Raz?

  What do you remember about working in that store?

• 7:21Speaker 01

  I remember working very hard, very motivated, even at a young age.

• 7:26Guy Raz?

  And was that, I mean, when you were there, was, were you thinking, shoes, this is me, this is my calling, or was it more like, I like selling stuff?

• 7:36Speaker 01

  I love selling stuff.

• 7:37Guy Raz?

  You did.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  I do, but I also like creating stuff.

• 7:40Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  And I like creating stuff to sell. It's always been sort of a core sort of philosophy of mine. I've never been like, oh, that's creative, but, you know, nobody wants to buy it. And then on the other hand, you know, just to sell without any kind of creativity is boring to me, too.

• 7:59Guy Raz?

  So you were working, so you're in the store, the store is, by the way, is called Toulouse?

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Toulouse, yeah.

• 8:03Guy Raz?

  And what, who was the guy who ran it?

• 8:06Speaker 01

  So, yeah, there was this great guy. His name was Lance Rubin. And I really, most of what I know, I got from this guy.

• 8:13Guy Raz?

  You were sixteen and he was in his thirties?

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Twenty-seven.

• 8:16Guy Raz?

  Wow, he owned that store at twenty-seven?

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the thing about this guy was so interesting because he was a young man who was successful and creative. And I never saw that, usually the people that had, that I thought of as businessmen were like my father.

• 8:31Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  You know, they rode the railroad and they wore those long coats with the hats, like Don Draper.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  But anyway, Lance came along. He was this artist and he designed these shoes. And also, the wholesalers that sold him would be asking him for input on designs.

• 8:48Guy Raz?

  Oh, wow.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, because he was an up and comer, you know, like a young gun.

• 8:53Guy Raz?

  So you are a high school student working at the shoe store, but you have plans to go to college, right? You were going to go to college.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I went to the University of Miami in Florida.

• 9:02Guy Raz?

  To study what?

• 9:03Speaker 01

  To study golf and sun tins.

• 9:09Guy Raz?

  How'd you do? Did you do well?

• 9:10Speaker 01

  I did good. I did well, yeah. I mean, I love learning, but it was, I was on my own and it was too much.

• 9:18Guy Raz?

  How long did you last there?

• 9:20Speaker 01

  You know, it's a bit of a blur, but I think it was about 18 months.

• 9:24Guy Raz?

  And it wasn't for you, basically?

• 9:25Speaker 01

  It wasn't for me. My dad did me the biggest favor by pulling me out of school. When I say pulled me out of school, he refused to pay another 50 cents for me to fool around in college. So I went to work.

• 9:38Guy Raz?

  You went back to Long Island?

• 9:39Speaker 01

  I went back to Long Island.

• 9:40Guy Raz?

  And back to a shoe store?

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Went to work in another shoe store.

• 9:44Guy Raz?

  And shoes because you had experience doing that and you liked it?

• 9:47Speaker 01

  That's right. I had experience, so. It was kind of a famous store in Long Island called Jildor, which most people know in New York.

• 9:55Guy Raz?

  So you are, and there you're also a sales guy, just dealing with customers in the store?

• 10:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was just a sales guy on the floor.

• 10:04Guy Raz?

  And so you're out of your sort of a college dropout, you're working at this shoe store selling shoes. And I don't know, was your dad or your mom, were they saying, Steve, what are you, you know, you're not going to work at a shoe store your whole life? Did they say that at all or did they kind of just leave you alone?

• 10:18Speaker 01

  There are people that said that to me, guys my own age, you know, making fun of me for working in a shoe store, for sure. You know, my father did not make fun of me. My father recognized that good, hard work was good.

• 10:34Guy Raz?

  So you're working in a shoe store and I guess at a certain point you go to the city, to New York City to work at another shoe store.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, the guy that owned Toulouse, Lance, opened up a wholesale company called LJ Simone.

• 10:47Guy Raz?

  And he calls you out of the blue?

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Yes, pretty much, yeah.

• 10:50Guy Raz?

  And he says?

• 10:51Speaker 01

  Come to work, come sell. That's what I did. It's like a little wholesale company.

• 10:56Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  And what happened was I went to work there and we blew it up, man.

• 11:00Guy Raz?

  Well, how did you blow it up?

• 11:01Speaker 01

  You know, I went to work for them and it was like boom, we made a nice company out of it.

• 11:05Guy Raz?

  And he was sourcing his shoes from shoe factories and then what?

• 11:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was designing the shoes and I was selling them.

• 11:10Guy Raz?

  So he would design them, they would be made, and then you would go from store to store?

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would sell them. And he taught me how to design shoes.

• 11:19Guy Raz?

  How?

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, you know, there's certain tricks of the trade and knowing what people like and working with different constructions.

• 11:27Guy Raz?

  And it was just the two of you at the beginning?

• 11:29Speaker 01

  There was a few guys involved, but you know, I was one, I was at the beginning and it got very successful.

• 11:34Guy Raz?

  Who were you selling to?

• 11:36Speaker 01

  We'd sell to Macy's and department stores and we sold to the Bootlegger. I don't know if anybody's from Washington, I don't know, anybody remember the Bootlegger? We sold all over the country.

• 11:48Guy Raz?

  And was that that point where you start to think about maybe doing this for yourself? Or did you think, this is great, I'm gonna keep, I'm gonna, this is, I'm gonna just ride this train?

• 11:58Speaker 01

  You know, at some point I thought about doing it for myself. I was very happy there. You know, but at some point I thought, you know, I could do this.

• 12:05Guy Raz?

  Yeah. How much revenue were they doing? And when you were working for him, how much money were they making?

• 12:10Speaker 01

  I would say they were doing maybe 40 million a year.

• 12:13Guy Raz?

  Wow. So it was big.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, which is like big. You know, they were, yeah, we, maybe something like that, yeah.

• 12:18Guy Raz?

  Yeah. And, and so what happened? Why did you leave?

• 12:22Speaker 01

  You know, I had taken it as far as I could take it. And I just didn't want to have a boss anymore. It was just time. You know, it was ready for me to sort of chart my own course. And I was like 30.

• 12:37Guy Raz?

  You were 30, so you were there for a long time?

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like 31.

• 12:41Guy Raz?

  And just to, just to be clear, at this point you were single, you're not married, no kids at that time, right?

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Yes, single.

• 12:47Guy Raz?

  And you were probably paid pretty well by Lance. You're probably making a decent living.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was. I made a lot of money with him, you know, relative to the time.

• 12:55Guy Raz?

  Yeah. And, and you weren't worried at all about risking, risking all that?

• 13:00Speaker 01

  I'm still worried about it.

• 13:01Guy Raz?

  Keep it then. You had this really good salary.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. I'm worried. I was. I'm a worrier. You know, I'm a worrier. So, yes, but I just wanted to do it on my own.

• 13:10Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 13:12Guy Raz?

  This was also, I mean, it's kind of a wild time, right? I mean, you were, you were drinking heavily. You were.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  I was, started using drugs and drinking. I was pretty much, pretty inebriated most of my twenties.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  You know, they say when an alcoholic hits bottom, you know, they keep, there's another level of bottom to go. So, yeah, it was pretty bad.

• 13:37Guy Raz?

  How bad did it get?

• 13:39Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I could tell you a lot of stories about it.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  But basically, I couldn't stop and, you know, I was embarrassing myself. And it was starting to affect my work and I had to stop or die.

• 13:56Guy Raz?

  Was that bad?

• 13:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Drugs and drink, yes. Cocaine, everything, you know? And I would work, you know, it went, I worked. I'd work, work, work and then get stoned at night, you know, hammered.

• 14:12Guy Raz?

  Because you were working so hard, it was just like the thing you did. You just.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, you thought you deserved it or you could justify it somehow.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  But, oh, I was a mess. I was a mess.

• 14:25Guy Raz?

  When, when did you, how did you, how did you get out of that?

• 14:29Speaker 01

  I had some friends, you know, that pointed me towards a place where I could get sober.

• 14:35Guy Raz?

  Did you go to AA or did you go to a clinic?

• 14:37Speaker 01

  I did. I went to AA.

• 14:39Guy Raz?

  And that helped?

• 14:40Speaker 01

  It saved my life.

• 14:42Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:46Guy Raz?

  So I'm assuming it was after you, you recovered that, that you started Steve Madden?

• 14:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was sober when I started Steve Madden. I mean, it was just a miracle. You know, I started, I was got sober. I started this company and, you know, my life completely changed.

• 15:04Guy Raz?

  And when you started the company, did you, did you have the cash to, to do it, to, to launch it?

• 15:10Speaker 01

  You know, I scraped together a little money, but basically, no.

• 15:13Guy Raz?

  Your own money?

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:15Guy Raz?

  And what was, what was the idea? What was the first idea? The idea was to basically do the same thing, design and sell your own shoes.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  It was exactly the same idea.

• 15:23Guy Raz?

  And what was your first shoe?

• 15:25Speaker 01

  My first shoe was a clog. It was a backless clog that I made.

• 15:31Guy Raz?

  And who did you think would be your customer?

• 15:34Speaker 01

  That's a very good question. At the time, you know, I would say it would be my contemporaries, you know? So I was like 32, you know?

• 15:43Guy Raz?

  So a 32 year old woman?

• 15:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would say, because I didn't really think about it. I just wanted to make shoes, you know? It wasn't something that I thought. But what happened was I ended up making shoes for the Gen X customer. Those would be people around 40 today.

• 15:57Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Right after, I guess that's right after the baby boomers, right?

• 16:01Guy Raz?

  So they were, they were teens at that point.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I discovered this market by accident. There was, they were very ill served. You know, basically, we stepped into that at Steve Madden.

• 16:14Guy Raz?

  And how many did you make?

• 16:16Speaker 01

  So, you know, the way it was, you know, we made it, we made some shoes and, you know, we just got this fabulous reaction, but not from the people I thought I was going to get a reaction from, which were my contemporaries, which was from the younger kids that were like, the phone was ringing, like, where do you get that shoe and all that stuff? So we knew that something was going on here. So that's the track that we went on.

• 16:41Guy Raz?

  When you, so when you decided to start Steve Madden, did you have an office or were you working out of your apartment?

• 16:46Speaker 01

  No, I worked in a shoe factory.

• 16:48Guy Raz?

  A shoe factory. So you found a factory in New York?

• 16:50Speaker 01

  In Brooklyn.

• 16:51Guy Raz?

  And, and you worked with them? And then you made, I guess, some shoes? And then what did you do? Did you go to your former contacts that you had from?

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, Macy's and anybody that carried shoes, I sold. And then I would go to the national shows and sell them all over the country.

• 17:08Guy Raz?

  But in that first, in that first year, 1990?

• 17:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:12Guy Raz?

  Like you would go to shoe stores and they would take 10 pairs?

• 17:17Speaker 01

  You go with your sample case and you'd let your shoes out and people would buy them and that was it.

• 17:25Guy Raz?

  Huh.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  So. What was happening was the market that I was selling to, everybody in the shoe business walked away from it. The teenagers, you know, and stuff like that, the young, and it was a different generation, you know? And so they had their own thing, their own music and their own style, and we just tapped into that whole thing.

• 17:46Guy Raz?

  And this was a market, explain this, it's a market at the time that was essentially abandoned by most shoe vendors?

• 17:51Speaker 01

  You know, it seems like it, they just abandoned. I mean, Nine West, it was a company called Nine West that was dominating the industry. Of course, there was Nike and Reebok, but nobody was like making like funky little shoes. It was kind of a throwback to the seventies, you know, from that other era. So I kind of brought that back, and I was just in the right place at the right time.

• 18:14Guy Raz?

  Were they designed to be like cool, but also affordable and expensive?

• 18:21Speaker 01

  I've always been sort of democratic with my shoes.

• 18:24Guy Raz?

  Do you remember how many, how much revenue you did in the first year?

• 18:30Speaker 01

  I probably did, I don't know, 500,000.

• 18:34Guy Raz?

  So it's pretty good, pretty good first year?

• 18:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:36Guy Raz?

  And you named it Steve Madden because it seemed like the obvious thing to do?

• 18:39Speaker 01

  It seemed like an easy name.

• 18:41Guy Raz?

  Yeah, yeah. Did you ever think about using like a French name or like a European sounding?

• 18:46Speaker 01

  You know, it's funny because it was originally, the first couple of shoes were called Soulier.

• 18:51Guy Raz?

  All right.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  It's very good.

• 18:53Guy Raz?

  Like soul, like the?

• 18:54Speaker 01

  Yes, it's a French word for slipper. And so, you know, there was some dispute about that brand, or maybe I just wanted to call it Steve Madden, I can't remember, but I switched it pretty quickly.

• 19:06Guy Raz?

  Yeah, because you worked for-

• 19:07Speaker 01

  There was one guy that called me up, "How dare you! I bought Soulier, I don't want Steve Madden, who do you think you are?"

• 19:13Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  I always, and the guy, he's still in the shoe business, that guy, and I always torture him when I see him.

• 19:19Guy Raz?

  All right, so you've got this pretty good business going, and year one, what are you thinking? Are you thinking, okay, I mean, did you have ambitions at that point already to make this into something huge?

• 19:32Speaker 01

  So where I'm at is I started the business, and you know, I'm just not really, don't have much money, I'm just sort of working hand to mouth, and a friend of mine who I grew up with went to work for this brokerage firm, and they were raising money for small companies.

• 19:48Guy Raz?

  This is Donnie Porash.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Danny Porash.

• 19:50Guy Raz?

  Danny Porash.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, "We're going to raise you, we're going to get you..." We'll raise you 600 grand and then we'll get you 6 million.

• 19:58Guy Raz?

  He was working for a brokerage house.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, he worked. He was a senior guy. And.

• 20:03Guy Raz?

  And he said to you, hey, you need to expand your money.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  You're really talented. I've known you my whole life. You know, what would you do if you got 600,000?

• 20:11Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  You know, 600,000 was like 600 million to me.

• 20:14Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  And then he said, well, not only will I get you 600 grand, but I'm gonna get you 6 million dollars when I take you public. And I laughed at him, you know, because I probably had 30,000 dollars in my, to my name.

• 20:28Guy Raz?

  And so, of course, you're like, what, 33, 32?

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Something like that, yeah.

• 20:32Guy Raz?

  And you're thinking, you can raise me 600,000 bucks. Let's do it.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 20:37Guy Raz?

  So, so Danny helped you go public?

• 20:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he helped me go public and his firm was called Stratton Oakmont.

• 20:46Guy Raz?

  A very famous name for anybody who's seen Wolf of Wall Street.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  It was a pretty good movie, actually.

• 20:53Guy Raz?

  My name is Jordan Belfour. The year I turned 26, I made 49 million dollars, which really pissed me off because it was three shy of a million a week. I guess we should explain Stratton Oakmont was this like called a pump and dump firm.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, they used to call them boiler rooms.

• 21:08Guy Raz?

  Right, and they would basically sell, they would sell really crappy companies. They would jack up, get the stock price jacked up. And then they would sell all the shares and make tons of money and people would lose their shirts. And so they basically were, wanted to do this with Steve Madden, right?

• 21:20Speaker 01

  They wanted to do it with Steve Madden.

• 21:22Guy Raz?

  So Danny.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  I was the perfect guy for them.

• 21:24Guy Raz?

  Because?

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Because, you know, I had a company and it was small and they could do their thing with it. You know, it fit the profile.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  Hello, if, for those of you who don't know me, my name's Steve Madden.

• 21:38Guy Raz?

  Yeah, we know who you are. Name is on the box.

• 21:43Guy Raz?

  Show him the shoe.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  Okay, yeah, anyway, you know, this, this shoe.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  So that scene with me talking in front of them, it was very accurate.

• 21:52Guy Raz?

  We should explain the scene for people who haven't seen it. You, you go up in front of all these, these like traders in this boiler room.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I started talking about my shoes, thinking that they would actually be interested. But they really weren't. I was just a piece of, it was just a piece of paper and a piece of meat that they could sell.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  Which is really the shoe that put me on the map. Without it, I wouldn't be here.

• 22:10Speaker 03

  It's a fat girl shoe.

• 22:12Speaker 02

  Believe it or not, believe it or not, though, the Mary Lou is actually the same as the Mary Jane, but it's black leather.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  I want to just to digress for a moment.

• 22:23Guy Raz?

  Sure.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  Because when people are listening to this, budding entrepreneurs, I'm not one of those entrepreneurs that that thought he was going to be super successful. You know, I was just trying to survive. And I'm very negative and very pessimistic. Unlike maybe some of the guys that you've done, you know, the shows.

• 22:44Guy Raz?

  Yeah, totally.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  I'm sure they think that, you know, they're going to be.

• 22:47Guy Raz?

  Nothing can get me down.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Nothing can get me down. Me, I think I'm going out of business every other day.

• 22:53Guy Raz?

  So at that time, this is like 93, I guess, when.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, 92, 93. So we went public.

• 22:59Guy Raz?

  Went public. And how did the stock do?

• 23:01Speaker 01

  Well, they were totally manipulated. The stocks, they went up. And, you know, it was a pump. It was a classic pump and dump.

• 23:08Guy Raz?

  And.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  Only Steve Madden was a real company.

• 23:10Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  So if you kept that stock.

• 23:13Guy Raz?

  You would make a.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  On that day.

• 23:14Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  In 1993, and you own 10,000 shares. I haven't really done the math, but I think you would be worth.

• 23:22Guy Raz?

  A lot of money.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Millions and millions of dollars today.

• 23:29Guy Raz?

  So the Stratton sale, the company goes public, Stratton takes you public.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:33Guy Raz?

  All of a sudden, it raises how much money for you?

• 23:36Speaker 01

  I think the public offering was about 7 million bucks.

• 23:39Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  And we used it. I took it and in very short period of time, from a half a million bucks, I was doing 40 million a year, or 50 million a year.

• 23:49Guy Raz?

  And what did that money?

• 23:51Speaker 01

  Within 36 months.

• 23:52Guy Raz?

  Incredible. So, okay, you get all this cash from the initial public offering.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:59Guy Raz?

  And at that point, I mean, did you ask any questions? I mean, these guys were, they were totally breaking the law. I mean, at that point, they were artificially inflating your stocks. Did you, like, were you suspicious at all about Danny and about Stratton? I mean, did you, did you think, hey, yo, what are these guys doing?

• 24:22Speaker 01

  I knew it was too good to be true.

• 24:25Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  I knew it. So, you know, I lied to myself. And I told myself that it was a gray area. You know, the trading in these stocks and the flipping. They would sell me the stocks and I would sell them back to them.

• 24:40Guy Raz?

  Just Steve Madden stocks?

• 24:41Speaker 01

  No, all the other deals.

• 24:42Guy Raz?

  You see, they brought you in.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  Other deals. They brought me into other deals. So I lied to myself, you know, everybody's doing it, you know, like that. But I knew in my heart that it was illegal and it was wrong.

• 24:57Guy Raz?

  Was a part of it thrilling that you were getting away with it?

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Well, making that much money is certainly thrilling for sure. But I wish that I hadn't done it. And, but you know, more than wishing I hadn't done it, because that's sort of an empty thing to say. I wish that I didn't feel compelled to do it. I wish that I didn't have that feeling that money was everything. Because it's not. It's not everything. So I was greedy and foolish.

• 25:34Guy Raz?

  Here's what I'm trying to figure out. You are this creative guy. You create shoes, you design shoes. And you've got a really successful and growing business. And then on the side, you're doing this, these weird stock trades that are shady and ultimately illegal. Why? Why would you even do that stuff on the side? If you already had the creativity in the business?

• 25:58Speaker 01

  I know, because you just, you know, you just get caught up. You just get caught up in this thing.

• 26:07Guy Raz?

  But at a certain point, it can't be about money. It has to be about fulfillment. And weren't you fulfilled by just the creation of your shoes and seeing your shoes out in the world?

• 26:18Speaker 01

  Well, that's a very heavy question. How one gets fulfilled. Well, I'm still grappling with that today, you know? So there are moments where I'm very fulfilled, you know? And there are moments when I'm not. I was raised to think that money was everything, you know? Money is the center of the universe. And if that's what your core belief is, you know, you'll do anything and you'll break the law, you know? It's like money is like a drug, you know? And we got in trouble.

• 27:00Guy Raz?

  In just a minute, how Steve Madden pays and pays hard for his crimes. And eventually, how he comes back to the company he started to make it even bigger. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This from NPR.

• 27:45Guy Raz?

  So it's 2002, and after being implicated in a stock manipulation scheme, Steve Madden goes on trial. He's convicted and sentenced to three and a half years in prison. So in the space of just a few years, he goes from being one of the most famous and successful shoe designers in America to sitting in a prison cell. What did you think? I mean, did you think I'm finished? My life is over?

• 28:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, pretty much. You know, I thought, I thought I was, could have, my goose was cooked. But I did have the sense that I could get through it.

• 28:26Guy Raz?

  Were there people who knew you, who didn't like you, who were just feeling like, ah, he got his comeuppance?

• 28:34Speaker 01

  Oh, sure. Yeah, I had made such a success in the shoe business and I was a bit of a rebel. So now people are going, ah, see? That's what happens when you do that.

• 28:45Guy Raz?

  Where did you?

• 28:46Speaker 01

  In Florida.

• 28:47Guy Raz?

  You were sent to a

• 28:48Speaker 01

  Florida, yeah.

• 28:48Guy Raz?

  Minimum security prison?

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, what they call a camp.

• 28:52Guy Raz?

  And what was your, what was your living situation like there?

• 28:54Speaker 01

  We lived in a barracks. You know, it was like a military barracks.

• 28:58Guy Raz?

  You had your own room?

• 28:59Speaker 01

  I lived in a cube.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  I lived in a cube and with another guy or two.

• 29:07Guy Raz?

  How did you pass the time?

• 29:08Speaker 01

  Well, read a lot, exercised a lot, and I taught some classes when I was there.

• 29:14Guy Raz?

  Did you, when you got there and you knew that you were going to be there for at least, you were there for 31 months, but, but 41, I think, was your sentence.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  31 months.

• 29:22Guy Raz?

  31 months.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:24Guy Raz?

  Did you ever get depressed? Did you ever think, I don't know how I'm going to stay here for 31 months?

• 29:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, my first night, I looked up at the ceiling and I said, how the heck am I going to do this? How am I going to get through this?

• 29:38Guy Raz?

  Did it go by faster than you expected?

• 29:41Speaker 01

  It seemed like 31 years.

• 29:43Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  Okay, but I quickly ascertained early on that whining and moaning would not do me any good. And running around saying I was innocent would not do me any good. So I would try to get through this, try to better myself, if it sounds corny, but exercise and read and learn and, you know, that kind of thing. And so I did.

• 30:13Guy Raz?

  When you went to jail, Steve Madden was doing very well, right?

• 30:18Speaker 01

  When I went to jail, it was doing well.

• 30:20Guy Raz?

  Were you worried about the brand, that the name, your name was the brand, that your?

• 30:25Speaker 01

  I had great people working for me. I was, I was really worried about surviving and getting through it.

• 30:31Guy Raz?

  You personally or the company?

• 30:32Speaker 01

  The prison. I was really more focused on getting through that experience.

• 30:36Guy Raz?

  Did you think that you would?

• 30:40Guy Raz?

  Ever go back to Steve Madden, you're the company you built?

• 30:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:44Guy Raz?

  You did. So you had that horizon to look forward to.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did.

• 30:47Guy Raz?

  Do you think, this is a really weird question, but I'm curious to hear your take on it. If you could trade the time you were in prison for just continuing on and not having that experience, would you do it? Or do you think that, strangely enough, that that time being incarcerated was important for your development as a person?

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's exactly right. I'm a very big believer in destiny and your path and all that corny stuff. I just believe it viscerally. So I'm so grateful for my life after prison. I married a great girl. I had great kids.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  I don't know that I would have had children had I not gone to prison. So I regret some of my choices, shortcuts that I took, or thinking that money was the most important thing. I regret decisions like that. But I don't regret a day in prison. It was an amazing experience. It was very painful. I mean, the only thing I can, I've tried to describe it to people. Your heart gets broke every day.

• 32:00Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  When you're in prison. Your heart breaks every day. The living in prison part is not as terrible as one might think.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  But your heart's breaking because you're not with the people you love. That's the difficult part of prison.

• 32:19Guy Raz?

  It sounds like you became a much more empathetic person when you were there and you saw people who were unlike you, who did not grow up like you, who came from different backgrounds, who kind of ended up there because of circumstances.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  Well, particularly the African-American experience really touched me. And young men dealing drugs, getting huge sentences, unfair drug laws that really were biased against black people. So that was, to see problems in those communities, to talk to young black men. It's a very complicated.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  You know, issue.

• 33:03Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  You know, I just think, I'll give you an example. This is a little thing, but you know, when I grew up, I went to grade school in the 60s, right? We learned that Robert E. Lee was a kindly gentleman.

• 33:18Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  He was called a hero, like he defended his homeland of Virginia. And that's just, that's just complete racism. But we didn't realize it. It's the subtle form of racism. So that's the kind of thing that, you know, those kind of feelings or stuff that came up in prison, you know, that kind of thing that I learnt and read more about it.

• 33:41Guy Raz?

  Okay. So you, I think you get out in, in 2005. And, and do you remember the day that, that you were released?

• 33:50Speaker 01

  You know, that's such an interesting question because I don't really.

• 33:55Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  It was a bit of a blur. I, I think of it now. I mean, I thought about that day when I was away for so long, what it was going to be like, and I can't remember it now. I really can't. My wife picked me up.

• 34:10Guy Raz?

  And we should mention that while you were in prison, you fell in love.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah. And she picked me up.

• 34:15Guy Raz?

  She was an employee of the company?

• 34:16Speaker 01

  I know that we had sushi. And I just, I, I just can't remember. It was so, it was such a blur. There was so much coming at me, you know, when you're locked up after 30 months. You know, everything is like amazing, like a slice of pizza is like, oh my God, like this is the greatest thing ever.

• 34:44Guy Raz?

  So you, you're out. You're back, back in, in society, back, you got your freedom back. How long did it take you to, to adjust to, to having control of your own schedule, your day to day schedule?

• 34:59Speaker 01

  Well, there's a transition period. You go into a halfway house, but I was fortunate because I had a job and I came right back to work. So it was an amazing time.

• 35:07Guy Raz?

  And what was your position when you came back to, to your company?

• 35:11Speaker 01

  The same position I'm in today, which is the founder, which is the chief cheerleader. We have fabulous people running Steve Madden.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  I wasn't a great CEO.

• 35:23Guy Raz?

  Why weren't you a great CEO?

• 35:25Speaker 01

  You know, I'm just, I'm not detail oriented and my talents are suited in other things, you know?

• 35:33Guy Raz?

  Yeah. When did you, when did you realize that you were not cut out to be a CEO?

• 35:36Speaker 01

  Well, when it's, the business is small, you can kind of be the CEO.

• 35:40Guy Raz?

  Yeah, you know, everybody.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  So you know, everybody, you live and breathe it and then you could be a CEO because you touch everything. But then a business, you know, once a business gets past a certain point, you know, it's impossible for someone like me to, to do that job.

• 35:56Guy Raz?

  But when you came back to the company in 2005, I think within four years, Steve Madden hit revenue of, of over half a billion dollars. So, so what happened in that time? Like, how did the company grow? What, what was the strategy that allowed you to grow so much?

• 36:16Speaker 01

  So our goal was to, you know, make great shoes and, you know, I think that that kind of like won out at the end of the day. The marketing wasn't super fantastic. It was just great shoes, great prices, great value. And, you know, I think that we just wore everybody out with that. You know, more people were giving us their open to buy and we opened more stores, you know, and thing, and our internet business exploded. But the big thing about Steve Madden, I have to say, and I've said this many times, was the people at Steve Madden is that I've hired so many great people. It starts with recognizing my own limitations. I'm weak at that, so let me get somebody that can do that for me.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  And, you know, that's really the story. It's people.

• 37:03Guy Raz?

  So you come, you come back to the company and you, by the way, you had plenty of money at that point. I mean, you could have, you could have sold your shares, walked away, very rich man, and just kind of, I don't know, done something else or focused on yourself. Uh, why, why did you want to go back to the company?

• 37:24Speaker 01

  Well, actually, it's, that's an eternal, that's a, I grapple with that all the time. So I love the idea of making shoes.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  And the people want to buy and I love seeing my shoes being worn and I just love all of it and I love making money. Let me be clear about that. I love it. I love the whole thing.

• 37:45Guy Raz?

  Well, because you don't need more of it. So what do you love about it?

• 37:48Speaker 01

  Well, okay, that's a good, these are great questions. And I want to ask other entrepreneurs or other people like, so how do you stay motivated? You know, let's say you've got, you know, a few dollars in the bank and you know that you, the rent is paid and all of that.

• 38:04Guy Raz?

  Sure.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  And so what keeps you going?

• 38:07Guy Raz?

  I, I once asked Haim Saban a similar question. You know who Haim Saban is, right? The media mogul?

• 38:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:13Guy Raz?

  And, you know, he grew up like dirt poor in Alexandria, Egypt. He came from literally nothing, right? And I said, you know, what, what, what's the big deal? Because he, he, he was waiting to sell his company to Disney for, I don't know, you know, more than a billion dollars.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:29Guy Raz?

  And I said, but, you know, why, why not just take 500 million when they offer that to you? He said, because it wasn't worth that. You know, I wanted, I wanted to be a billionaire. And, and the point he made was that it wasn't about the actual dollar amount. It was, for him, it was a mark. It was like a,

• 38:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:46Guy Raz?

  It was like a mark. He could say, okay, I've reached this point and then I can reach this point. And then it's this point. And it's, it's like a demarcation point of success.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's a heavy question. It really is. But of course, it's a luxury that people with money have to be able to talk about this stuff. You know, there's somebody out there that will listen to this and, you know, they've got to pay their rent next Friday and they'll say, well, listen to this idiot talking about it, you know, and I agree with them.

• 39:12Guy Raz?

  No, but it's about human,

• 39:13Speaker 01

  But it does get lost.

• 39:14Guy Raz?

  But it's about human motivation, right?

• 39:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. The money is the money, but, but it's something I think about a great deal. Because I feel so good if I have had a great day at work where I'm inspiring and, and inspired at the same time. It's such an amazing feeling. There's no amount of money that can replicate that.

• 39:35Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  So I guess that's what I want, you know? Inspire and be inspired.

• 39:43Guy Raz?

  Do you, what was the last shoe that you designed? Just out of curiosity.

• 39:48Speaker 01

  The last shoe I designed was last week.

• 39:52Guy Raz?

  Last week?

• 39:53Speaker 01

  It was a sneaker with studs.

• 39:54Guy Raz?

  You designed a shoe last week?

• 39:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, we have a factory in Long Island City, just outside the East River in Manhattan. But I'm always fiddling with shoes and thinking about shoes. Of course, I have a great team that does most of the work and I take most of the credit now.

• 40:12Guy Raz?

  You, but Steve, you don't seem to be a super obsessed over your own personal style. You're like, you've got the baseball cap thing going, you got, but you're not wearing like designer runway outfits every day.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  No, no. I look like a garage mechanic some days on that runway. Yeah, I wear t-shirts and jeans. I'm very lucky. That's, I don't take that for granted. I'm blessed that I'm, the ability to wear a nice clean t-shirt every day.

• 40:42Guy Raz?

  Did you ever feel like, I don't know, like some of these fashion folks kind of were snobby about you, that they, I don't know, they didn't let you into their club because you weren't from, you know, Milan, or didn't go to art school, or because you wore baseball caps and, and you were, you know, kind of kicking their butts with, with these sort of shoes that were a fraction of the price?

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a bit, there's a bit of that. There was a bit of that, big time. It's not so much anymore.

• 41:11Guy Raz?

  Did it used to bug you?

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it bugged me. It bugged me a lot. You know, I would, or I would go into a high-end department store, like a Barney's, let's say, and they wouldn't carry Steve Madden. They wouldn't dare carry Steve Madden. But all the people working in the store wore Steve Madden. It would just drive me crazy.

• 41:29Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that happened so many times. And still to this day, there's a bit of that going on.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  It's frustrating.

• 41:38Guy Raz?

  But if you step away from the balcony, like me looking at this, I would be like, who cares? You crushed them all like so big deal.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Well, I once was upset because they put Puff Daddy in the CFDA.

• 41:51Guy Raz?

  Does CFDA is a club for what?

• 41:52Speaker 01

  CFDA, it's something for designers.

• 41:55Guy Raz?

  Fashion.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  CFDA, yeah, very, very posh.

• 41:57Guy Raz?

  And?

• 41:58Speaker 01

  And they put Puffy in there. And I thought to myself, Puffy? He's not designer. What does he have to do?

• 42:03Guy Raz?

  Wait, are you in there?

• 42:04Speaker 01

  I'm not. They won't let me in.

• 42:05Guy Raz?

  You're even to this day.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  No.

• 42:07Guy Raz?

  They won't let you and you cannot get into their club?

• 42:09Speaker 01

  I'm not allowed in the building. So, you know, and they would say, well, you copy, you know, Balenciaga or whatever it is.

• 42:16Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Whatever the, you know, and we, we definitely are aware of expensive shoes that are out there.

• 42:21Guy Raz?

  But I mean, in some ways, a lot of these, these high end designers could make the, you could make the case that, you know, the younger crowd will enter the market by buying Steve Madden shoes. And then there's this aspirational to buy a Manolo Blahniks one.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  By the way, I always say it's a gateway drug of shoes, Steve Madden. They're not buying Louboutins or Manolos without starting with Steve Madden. So Manolo should give me tons of love for that.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  I reach much, many more people than him.

• 42:50Guy Raz?

  Do you think that there will be a point where you are acknowledged by your peers? Is that important to you?

• 42:55Speaker 01

  I'm acknowledged by a lot of people, probably too much. You know, young men coming up really know and identify with the struggle and the grind and what I've done. So I think there's a different kind of respect going on. Not what I had thought, but another kind of respect. And I feel it all the time. You know, I'm walking down the street and people shout out to me and, you know, it's, it's the real thing.

• 43:24Guy Raz?

  How much of, of your success do you think is because of your skill and intelligence, hard work? And how much of it is because of luck?

• 43:32Speaker 01

  I think a lot of it is luck. I do. I think my own sort of philosophy is that the window of opportunity opens for you several times in life, for one. And I think the intelligence comes from knowing when that window is open. And, you know, being able to jump through that window. Because you could have all the talent in the world, but sometimes the window is just not open.

• 44:03Guy Raz?

  Besides the, obviously the stuff that landed you in prison, what are there mistakes that you made early in the business that you would have done differently, knowing what you know now?

• 44:14Speaker 01

  Let me just say that mistakes can be a very good thing.

• 44:19Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  You know, so there were some mistakes that we made, but we did so many great things. And the thing about that is if you start getting gun shy and start being afraid to make a mistake, you'll never have the brilliant ideas. You'll never have the big ideas. You know, if you just try to hit the safe, the safe ones, you know, then you're doomed, I feel like.

• 44:43Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  So you need to make mistakes.

• 44:46Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  You need to make mistakes. You need, you need to goof, because if you're not goofing a few times, it means you're not reaching.

• 44:58Guy Raz?

  Steve Madden, founder of Steve Madden Shoes. The company's market cap recently hit more than $3 billion, the highest level it's ever reached.

• 45:12Guy Raz?

  By the way, how many, how many pairs of shoes do you actually own?

• 45:16Speaker 01

  I don't own a lot of shoes.

• 45:17Guy Raz?

  What's the fanciest brand you own?

• 45:20Speaker 01

  I own Johnson and Murphy.

• 45:22Guy Raz?

  That's the fanciest brand you own?

• 45:24Speaker 01

  I do. I own Johnson and Murphy shoes. They're the greatest. Yeah, my dad wore them.

• 45:46Guy Raz?

  And please do stick around because in just a moment, we're going to hear from you about the things you're building.

• 45:55Guy Raz?

  Hey, thanks so much for sticking around because it's time now for How You Built That. And today's story starts back in 2002, when Chris Dimino was a design student working on a class project.

• 46:07Speaker 04

  The assignment was to repurpose a typewriter, given that it's now obsolete.

• 46:11Guy Raz?

  So to come up with ideas, Chris bought an old Smith Corona typewriter at a garage sale, brought it home, and just kind of stared at it for a while.

• 46:20Speaker 04

  Maybe I was a little hungry at the time, but I think just staring at it long enough, it eventually came to me that this looks like a waffle to me.

• 46:26Guy Raz?

  And a few seconds later?

• 46:27Speaker 04

  And then I thought, OK, if I use this as the base and have another thing on top, and it would be sort of like an old waffle maker.

• 46:35Guy Raz?

  And there you have it. That was his idea, to make a waffle iron out of typewriter keys instead of the typical cast iron grid.

• 46:43Speaker 04

  So I went to Salvation Army and picked up this old waffle iron for $7, and then I basically ripped the keys off of the typewriter.

• 46:52Guy Raz?

  OK, just to explain this a bit, he took the keys off of that old Smith Corona. He used them to make plastic molds, and then he put the molds into the waffle iron so it looked like you could make a waffle in the shape of a keyboard. But this thing was just for show. It looked incredible, but it didn't have a heating element, so it couldn't make anything. Anyway, the story might have ended there, except Chris posted a picture of this on his website.

• 47:18Speaker 04

  People started sharing it, and people started emailing me about it.

• 47:21Guy Raz?

  And like, 2 years later?

• 47:23Speaker 04

  It had 7 million hits on that page in particular.

• 47:25Guy Raz?

  And of course, a lot of people were asking Chris, "Where can I buy this thing?"

• 47:30Speaker 04

  The more the people asked, the more I asked myself, "Hey, could I do this?" It was almost like the universe is like, "You're gonna make this, and people are gonna like it."

• 47:40Guy Raz?

  OK, but this posed a problem: how to make a real waffle iron? Well, for starters, Chris decided to give his original idea a bit of a makeover and go with the computer keyboard instead.

• 47:53Speaker 04

  It's basically a standard five rows of keys with the escape key, the delete key, the spacebar.

• 47:59Guy Raz?

  And Chris figured he'd just take that rectangular design and then put it into an existing mold for an electric waffle iron. But then he discovered that most waffles, they're pretty square. And he couldn't find an electric waffle maker that had that long rectangular base he needed. So then he thought, OK, I'll just make the base myself. But it turns out, that wasn't going to work either.

• 48:23Speaker 04

  It's a really steep cliff, price-wise, just to get into that game. You have to get certifications and not to mention just the manufacturing, the tooling. So it totally scared me away from going that way.

• 48:36Guy Raz?

  So then Chris thought, maybe I shouldn't even bother trying to make an electric waffle iron. Maybe I can just do one that sits in a stove top. No electronics, no plug.

• 48:46Speaker 04

  I ended up making one real aluminum version carved out of a block of aluminum. Super heavy, heavy and dense and thick, but I poured batter in and lo and behold, on the first try, I made a very, very good waffle.

• 48:59Guy Raz?

  And a few weeks later, he launched a Kickstarter campaign, and people were really into it.

• 49:04Speaker 04

  And they're like, oh, my god, finally, you're making it now. I can't believe you're finally making it.

• 49:07Guy Raz?

  Chris raised over $60,000 on Kickstarter. And with that money, he was able to find a factory in China that was willing to make the waffle iron. And yes, if you look at his video, the thing definitely does make waffles in the shape of a computer keyboard.

• 49:23Speaker 04

  I designed this so that with all the keys there, it sort of has parts that are thick, and then basically between the keys were thinner. So my hope was that those would be sort of crispy and airy, and then the other parts would be sort of more dense. And you find ways to have fun with it with toppings and putting berries in the keys.

• 49:42Guy Raz?

  Chris calls his product, what else, the Keyboard Waffle Iron. And over the past three years, he's sold 7,000 of them, mostly on Amazon. But for now, he's still got his day job as a graphic designer.

• 49:56Guy Raz?

  If you want to find out more about the keyboard waffle iron or hear previous episodes, head to our podcast page, howibuiltthis.npr.org. And of course, if you want to tell us your story, go to build.npr.org. We love hearing what you're building. And thanks so much for listening to the show this week. You can subscribe at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, please do give us a review. You can also write to us at [email protected]. And if you want to send a tweet, it's at how I built this. Our show was produced this week by Ramtin Arablouei, who also composed the music. Thanks also to Noor Kudsi, Neve Grant, Sanaz Meshkhanpour, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is J.C. Howard. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been

• 50:40Guy Raz?

  listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 50:57Speaker 03

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• 51:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:03Speaker 03

  It's just me and you, right?

• 51:04Speaker 02

  Well, sure, let's say it is.

• 51:06Speaker 03

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