Pod Insights The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch 20Product: On Running's CPO on How to Create Emotion Through Product | Why 99% of Products Fail and How to Create Cults Around Products | The Biggest Product Mistakes On Have Made & Lessons Learned with Gérald Marolf About this episode Gérald Marolf is the Chief Product Officer at On Running. Gérald oversees the full range of On's shoes, apparel and accessories to make sure each delivers performance, comfort and style. Before On, Gérald spent over a decade building consumer brands with collaborators such as Microsoft and Ferrari. AGENDA: 00:00 – Why Most "Great Products" Fail to Create Emotion 03:00 – How Perfume Taught Me Everything About Desire & Product 06:10 – The Brutal Reality of Building Physical vs Digital Products 16:00 – Why "Simple Design" Is Overrated and Dangerous 23:00 – Why Vuori is the Brand to Short in Consumer 28:30 – The Biggest Product Mistake: Listening to Customers Too Much 32:10 – On Only Do Tennis Because of Roger Federer 38:30 – Were We Too Late to Marathon Running? A Painful Admission 43:40 – The Most Controversial Product On Has Ever Launched 49:00 – Are Counterfeits Good or Bad in Fashion?
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Harry Stebbings? This is 20 Product with me, Harry Stebbings. Now, 20 Product is the monthly show where we sit down with the best CPOs in the world to uncover what it takes to build incredible products and product teams. Now, sometimes I use the show to satiate my own loves and passions, and I love On Running. And so I jumped at the chance to have Gerald Marleff CPO at On Running on the show. Gerald oversees the full range of On's shoes, apparel and accessories to make sure they deliver performance, comfort and style so incredible athletes like me can play at our top, top level. Before On, Gerald spent over a decade building consumer brands with collaborators like Microsoft and Ferrari.
0:44 Harry Stebbings? This was a phenomenal off-the-cuff discussion. I always want it to be the best show for you. So let me know what I can do to make it better. Harry at 20vc.com. But before we dive into the show today, SecureFrame empowers businesses to build trust with customers by simplifying information security and compliance through AI and automation. Thousands of fast-growing businesses, including NASDAQ, Angel List, Doodle and Coder, trust SecureFrame to expedite their compliance journey for global security and privacy standards such as SOC 2 and ISO 27001, CMMC, NIST standards and more. Backed by top-tier investors and corporations like Google and Kleiner Perkins, the company is among Forbes' list of the top 100 startup employers for 2024,
1:27 Harry Stebbings? G2's best software awards for higher satisfaction products and a recipient of the 2024 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards, something I definitely never got in school myself. Learn more today at SecureFrame.com. Once SecureFrame locked it all down, HMC, they hand you the keys to scale it up. Harvard management company is constantly seeking out the next generation of great investors and entrepreneurs. HMC has managed Harvard University's endowment for nearly 50 years and was one of the first institutional investors in venture capital. Their experience and long-term investment horizon makes them ideal partners to get world-changing ideas on a path to viability and success. They work as a true partner, providing insightful perspectives to help managers succeed.
2:10 Harry Stebbings? I personally have had the pleasure of working with the HMC team and can say that they are truly exceptional partners and savvy investors. So whether you're launching your first fund or your fifth, HMC welcomes the opportunity to partner with both developing and established managers. Have an idea you want to share with the team? Just send it over to [email protected] . On this show, we care about velocity. Most teams lose it in code review, not in writing code. Now, CodeRabbit fixes that. The second a PR opens, it leaves clear, line-by-line comments, calls out what the change might touch, and offers one-click fixes. You can teach your organizational standards using your own custom instructions, such as cursor
2:53 Harry Stebbings? or Claude rules, and enforce them on every PR. CodeRabbit has so far reviewed more than 13 million PRs and installed on 2 million repositories used by over 100,000 OSS projects. If you want to cut code review time and bugs in half, try a free month at coderabbit.ai with the code 20VC. You have now arrived at your destination. Gerald, I am such a fan of ON. I think the product suite that you have today is one of my favorites. I was so keen to make this happen. So thank you so much for joining me today.
3:29 Speaker 01 Thank you for having me, Harry. It's a pleasure to be here.
3:31 Harry Stebbings? It's a bit of a weird start, but like, when did you realize you first loved the craft of product? And what does like, product and good product mean to you?
3:41 Speaker 01 I think the idea of good product, at least for me, started with something slightly weird, which is perfume. Perfume for me was the unlock in terms of that, why do you sell something that is just a smell and create a bottle and something around it that people actually crave for it?
4:00 Harry Stebbings? What was it about that that you found captivating specifically?
4:04 Speaker 01 Well, why do you buy a smell, right? It activates a lot in the human brain and it becomes part of you. But you leave a lot to the consumer when you do fragrances. And you probably leave too much to the consumer because how much they use it, how often, and then you lose the smell of it. But first things first, I think you mostly fall in love with the product, packaging, the bottle, whatever it is. And that was already there, eighties, nineties, before everyone started to create all the beauty and everything behind that. I think the fragrance industry was pioneering, basically, that.
4:42 Harry Stebbings? Is perfume any different to other physical product in the way that it's the way that it makes you feel when it's on? Would you not say it's the same for running shoes, for example? The way you make, it makes you feel when you're wearing them?
4:56 Speaker 01 Yes, and I think that is, that is the, probably the idea or the red threat even behind it. What is nicer about perfume is that it even costs less to make than the actual packaging, which, which for us is slightly different. But every great product, you should probably trigger somewhat of that slight discomfort of challenging yourself of is it the right thing for me? And not all footwear does that, but when it does that, you're already one step ahead in actually falling in love with the product itself.
5:28 Harry Stebbings? When you think about falling in love with the product, is that what you mean when you talk about the relationship value with the consumer that you think products should create?
5:37 Speaker 01 Yeah, because it's impossible to engineer because we're all different. How do you stimulate curiosity? Why do you create a button on a gaming console that makes a sound? There's no rationale for that, but it triggers something that you can own and that stimulates you in a positive or negative way, but it creates some kind of emotion. And I think the more you go into commodity product and footwear, I think to some extent is that because we all need to wear shoes every day, the harder it gets, but also the more exciting it is because that's, that's then the true challenge. To engineer something where you touch it, you step into it and you're like, huh.
6:18 Speaker 01 Okay, there's even a bit more than what I expected. It's not just the color I choose, but there's something more behind it. That's what we're trying to engineer for.
6:27 Harry Stebbings? What irrational product decisions do you think you've made that have engineered the most emotion from consumers? And what did you learn?
6:36 Speaker 01 That's a big question. For my time in tech, that was much easier because a user experience that is nonlinear or a digital product that is slightly disturbing creates a lot of energy immediately, but you take way less risk.
6:53 Harry Stebbings? You take less risk? How do you take less risk with a disturbing UX?
6:57 Speaker 01 Because you can iterate very, very rapidly. I think the moment I switched from non-physical to physical product, I had to completely relearn that. Once it's in your hands, I cannot change it. I cannot touch it. I cannot just send you another pair of laces. In the morning, why do you choose the pair of shoes you choose? Is it just because you're too lazy to actually tie them up? Or because the leather you would need to polish or whatever? I cannot change it. I cannot influence it anymore. You let it go way earlier. Whereas if you do a, I don't know, a homepage on Bing.com, you might wanna hide something and then some people find out and then you can actually emphasize.
7:40 Speaker 01 And you have an echo chamber you can work with where when you do a physical product, once it's gone, it's gone. But your question is, it's interesting because it's often at the very start of a brief. And the hardest part is to not, to not lose the thought. Because you start with the consumer and you start with, well, here's something where you will step into. And you probably would think that it's slightly too soft, slightly too comfy for what I wanna do. Or it's not enough of that. Or, oh wow, why did they do a 3D logo on a shoe? That will fall off tomorrow. And so it's, it's the smaller parts that have a bigger impact than the hours and days.
8:24 Speaker 01 Days and weeks we spent with a sports science team engineering a foam so that you can do your five K and not have your back hurting in the evening.
8:32 Harry Stebbings? Is simple always better in product?
8:35 Speaker 01 No, I don't think so.
8:36 Harry Stebbings? Why?
8:37 Speaker 01 Because simple will result in more storytelling needs and less word of mouth. I think simple is great if you have a trackpad or AirPods. But I'm not sure that simple these days will will break through in many cases. Consumer electronics might be different. I don't know. I'm not up to speed there. But for us, I think simple gives you less opportunity to be an expert yourself. It gives you less opportunity to tweak, to learn, to explore, and to also give it its own life.
9:11 Harry Stebbings? How do you think about the challenge that you have, which is, and this is actually ironic, it's the same for physical and digital products. A lot of people who were on running shoes are not running. In actual fact, I hate to say it, they're not moving very much at all. Go to a Knightsbridge Cafe and you'll see a lot of on, but not much running. There's people who are not power users and there are people who are supreme power users who run a lot and who really stress test them. How do you think about that product balance of selling to both without alienating either?
9:42 Speaker 01 I personally love that bipolarity. You probably also have a MacBook Pro in front of you and you have absolutely no clue of the power the machine actually has and could be used for. And aspiration is one, but then it's also, it's good to have great product, even though you don't use it at its full extent. I don't see any negative to that. Anyone should go and get the greatest cashmere out there if they fancy cashmere. They probably don't need it to stay warm. We really strive for the factors that are not just always straightforward, which is not just style and aesthetics.
10:23 Speaker 01 But it is also to some extent a view on how product ages, what durability means, how colors play with each others. And how it gives you an opportunity to. Also differentiate yourselves in your everyday lives. So running and coming from running and having run culture as a base is just a great starting point. Because we simply can't fuck up. You cannot give people a product that they cannot do their half marathon in. And then, yes, we have the reddits where we'll have long debates. Because, I mean, this year we launched a four hour marathon shoe. If I would ever run a marathon in below four hours, I would probably be dead. So there is an audience who needs different kinds of shoes.
11:08 Speaker 01 But the hardcore audience thinks that everything needs to be obviously as tailored to the fastest and most performant. But but we're also trying to work even within running towards different audiences. And then that triggers outside of running also different communities.
11:24 Harry Stebbings? You said about like style and aesthetics there. It made me think of like consumer preferences. And it made me think of like the Henry Ford, if I listen to my customers, I'll build a faster horse. To what extent do you listen to customers versus show them the way in terms of right product and good product?
11:40 Speaker 01 We listen a lot. We don't always use everything, but we do we do listen a lot. Because the company has also been growing at a scale where you also need to find the right kind of balance. And we also need to become much more concise in terms of how we show up, where we show up. As you as you do this more polar opposite sort of consumers. And there's an interesting aspect that we just don't have an archive. So that means every other footwear brand will go back in history, right? Now, early two thousands are coming. You see all the Asics that have been there now slowly phasing out again. Salomon has been having a bit of harder time because the outdoor trend is not there.
12:21 Speaker 01 So now the two thousands, the tech raves, all whatever, whatever is going to be, they're going to pull out, back out and put on the table. If you just go sneaker. And if you don't have that, you can listen, but it's hard because you cannot pull it out of somewhere. So you need to create. And then, once you're already on that, you might just don't want to create within that comfort zone and push it a bit.
12:45 Harry Stebbings? When did you listen to customers when you shouldn't have done? And on reflection, what did you learn?
12:52 Speaker 01 We probably listened to customers when it comes to the space that exists between sports and lifestyle too much. So a lot of customers have a strong belief that there is a world in, whatever we want to call it, hybrids, where you can use them for sports, you can also use them for lifestyle. And there's this persona probably that is a 2010 persona that lives in New York, goes to the gym and then goes and gets their latte and wears the same outfit. Not sure that really still exists or has ever existed in the way that that's been described.
13:32 Speaker 01 And that it makes sense to have a product that does function and style equally well. I think you have a customer that will go for the most performing running product because of style. I think you will have people who just purely will go for style and not really care about the performance. But that I want something that really works and yet still looks good, somehow still works or still looks good. That middle ground, I think that was not the smartest place to operate in.
14:06 Harry Stebbings? Does that not contradict the athleisure trend that we have seen be so pervasively successful in the last years?
14:14 Speaker 01 Yeah, probably does. Yeah. But what brand do you want to be as well? I love having our craziest innovation marathon shoes in Dover Street Market. I think that is much more of a place to be even with your craziest running shoes than being in that in-between space where you make compromises on the product and at the same time, you sort of, it's not very clear what you want to do with the product. I think product intent should be much clearer and athleisure always sort of schmoozes a bit with both.
14:52 Harry Stebbings? What do you mean product intent should be much clearer?
14:54 Speaker 01 If I look at what you're doing, you don't go in and fish for a reason to do something. And even if it's a two hundred bucks pair of shoes, I don't think we should do that neither. Even if you just wear it for lifestyle, you probably want the best running shoe out there. Or then you want the true fashion statement. But you're not gonna wear your running shoes and then wear them again for a night out and back and forth. It might happen, but I don't think we should brief that in as a product.
15:30 Harry Stebbings? On the flip side of that, though, where did you not listen, where you should have listened, and what did you learn?
15:36 Speaker 01 I think the way we're building new sports, tennis, tennis, for example. I think we could have been closer to the consumer earlier in understanding how much appetite there is to upgrade hundred bucks white tennis sneaker. And other brands have done that in a more precise way. We have now second wave, third wave, done a much better job. And I think we're getting there, but not everywhere you need to go full just your own way. And I think the Roger is now a fantastic range of products. But it was very, a very complicated process for us, mostly internally, to really debate through
16:18 Speaker 01 what is a next generation, next level white tennis sneaker.
16:22 Harry Stebbings? How would being closer to customers have changed the product strategy in tennis?
16:28 Speaker 01 We probably would have explored different materials earlier. Whereas I think we took a very conscious decision to make that a vegan product for all the sustainability reasons behind it. Where then durability is sort of the other side of the equation. And we probably didn't go all the way in that process to look at, okay, if you wear something for two years and it is leather, is it still better than something that is a vegan leather alternative? But might just not have the same kind of repairability or durability. We're pretty stubborn there to make a very good vegan white tennis sneaker that is super lightweight.
17:11 Harry Stebbings? To what extent do you think consumers care about the sustainability over price?
17:16 Speaker 01 I wish they would care more. I haven't seen any research where that has been the case.
17:22 Harry Stebbings? I do have to ask you, you said there about being a little bit quicker maybe. How important is being first? When you think about being first with a vegan leather tennis shoe, does it matter if you're third? And how important is being first in product?
17:38 Speaker 01 I think it's closely connected to brand awareness. Where we're at right now, it's probably less important to be first. But the ambition to be first helps to attract great talent. It helps to bring in engineers, it helps to bring in innovators. And it gives you clarity in your roadmap to what you're doing. We very much want to be first in most of the stuff that we do. There might not always be a consumer need for that. But for the type of culture you're building, it's extremely valuable.
18:10 Harry Stebbings? Being direct, I don't get the tennis strategy. And I know David Allerman pretty well at this stage, so I should ask him this as well. But I don't get the tennis strategy. If I think about like market size and the size of ON today being the multi-billion dollar public company as of today. If you crush tennis, it's just not a needle mover for the business, I don't think, from a pure market size perspective. How does market size impact product direction?
18:37 Speaker 01 It definitely does. I also think we need to look at tennis moralistically in terms of Roger as an entrepreneur, him having a badge, being in with the product teams every two weeks. And what we build as an overall company. And how you grow from sort of an international now towards a global company. And who you also want to be and who you want to have close. With tennis or with Roger specifically, I think it's also friends of friends. I think that has an incredible power and that has created an athlete mindset for us that strives for excellence. And tennis might not be the last thing we do,
19:17 Speaker 01 but it's been an incredibly important territory to move a brand beyond running, root it in something that is sports. And at the same time have clarity on we can be more than just a running brand.
19:34 Harry Stebbings? Would you do tennis if you didn't have Roger?
19:37 Speaker 01 I don't know.
19:38 Harry Stebbings? That's an interesting one, isn't it? From a product perspective and a market need perspective, your distribution is driving product strategy.
19:46 Speaker 01 No, I think your brand DNA is driving product strategy.
19:50 Harry Stebbings? You think Roger's your brand DNA?
19:54 Speaker 01 I think Roger is part of our DNA. Roger is part of our understanding and confidence that we have in how we built the brand.
20:05 Harry Stebbings? Help me understand that, I'm sorry.
20:06 Speaker 01 Yeah, of course.
20:08 Harry Stebbings? By the way, I wish he was part of my DNA, the elegance and charm of this man.
20:13 Speaker 01 Roger's bigger than tennis, first things first, but the way an athlete like him operates in sort of a global environment and strives for everything is possible and gives you also a view on unlocking things that are more through discipline and tenacity than to pure strategy, so to speak, created, I think, a wide space for us to think beyond running, running lifestyle and really enable us to open new territories overall. And that is now sort of anchored in the DNA of a sportswear brand that strives to be the most premium sportswear brand on the planet.
20:58 Speaker 01 And the word premium is in there and he's certainly part of the reasoning why we'll look at it that way.
21:05 Harry Stebbings? Do you worry about longevity of the Roger brand?
21:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, I mean, I worry probably about longevity of all of it in a sense of how do you create beyond an athlete's career cultural relevance and how do you make that happen? And then with the Roger brand per se, there is him, there is other things that he will be doing, but there is also a product in a silhouette. Now, does whoever is still alive from Nirvana worry about that they're a T-shirt brand or a band is a bit the same thing, right? Do people know Stan Smith? I don't know, but I. Think there is, there is a lot of work that needs to be done.
21:47 Harry Stebbings? If I think about like Nike, I know it's different because there's an ownership difference in terms of Roger being part of the brand, being part of, but like a Michael Jordan. And then suddenly this realization of the need for diversification away from my identity of one. I'm just intrigued, like, are we worried about the concentration of need on Roger? And the need to diversify as Roger doesn't play anymore.
22:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, but I, I think diversification doesn't just purely come from need, it's more appetite. And I think Jordan is interesting because it is at this point pure nostalgia. And we all have loved what the NBA was in the nineties. And there is a streetwear relevance to it if you do PSG or whatever in terms of, of football now. But you also engineer that towards a target audience and you hope it trickles over to more mass. For us, I think we're at a very different point where we still have a lot of appetite to, to even build businesses that we feel that don't exist yet. And with Jordan, I think they have successfully done that.
22:54 Speaker 01 And now it's looking at how a brand ages while the target consumer gets younger and younger.
23:01 Harry Stebbings? Can I ask you, you mentioned that the marathon shoe that you've done, which is awesome. I love this product. I, I don't run marathons anymore because my knees are, you know, aged and breaking, Gerald. But my question is, when you look at that, do you think you were too slow to marathon running as an entry point? When you look at like Hoka as a brand that's really tackled the long distance market, do you think you were too slow to it?
23:24 Speaker 01 Too slow and maybe a little bit too complicated is probably the most, most honest answer. I think we tried really hard to be probably overly precise in the product that we do. And that means that engineering is slightly slower and you should leave a bit more to the consumer or the runner in that case. To make up their minds, we're striving for perfection, yes, but at some point stuff needs to go out and be, be on the pavement. So yes, to some extent.
23:54 Harry Stebbings? You said there about kind of precise and at some point it just needs to go out. When you get that, I'm sure you go through so many versions and so many versions and you pick it up and you pick it up and you. When do you go ship? Do you just know, like, what is that moment?
24:09 Speaker 01 Well, it's it's becoming slightly more formal, but in often cases, it's a shortcut or a trip to a factory and then you just. You spend two days and you finish it off. Or there's a signal and a couple of individuals who test it and you're like, hell, yeah, let's go. But a lot of it is also, I think, it's a group of individuals, right? That that think through things and then have somewhat of an opportunity to agree or disagree. And then you build a feeling quite rapidly that it now should go. And it doesn't always happen, but but when it happens, you're usually on to something really good.
24:45 Harry Stebbings? What was the most controversial product that you've released in the last few years? And how do you reflect on that?
24:52 Speaker 01 Well, this year, I definitely would say it's that slow marathon running product that rightfully so, probably the community didn't get. Because if you have that ambition, why would you want to wear a shoe for the slower runner, even if you are that? There's a lot of health reasons and you just talked about your knees, but that was not thoroughly thought through from a consumer mindset. If you go into that marathon buildup. Other than that, I think light sprays is just our latest innovation is it's just a very interesting piece of an innovation platform that we're building out. It can be seen as controversial because you make a shoe in three minutes and you don't need any humans.
25:35 Speaker 01 But I think the runway of that is going to be very interesting to watch.
25:38 Harry Stebbings? What would you have done differently? Or what are your biggest lessons on product messaging for new products? When you reflect on, say, like the marathon shoe, which maybe wasn't communicated as it could have been?
25:50 Speaker 01 I'm not great at marketing, but I just love to have the story being told by others, even if it's unfiltered, that not always what you might want to hear. But we can learn a lot from fashion there. I think you put you put a runway show out and the jury's out, right? It's not, you're not going to send out a press release. Look for is the best look that we've ever made. You just don't. You let all the critics basically decide. And I think we could, we could do more of that. And just, just let it out in the wild. The other part I think is, is on apparel and accessories. We, we released a fantastic line of soft bags, backpacks and, and other things. And we sourced with like one of the last Swiss rope makers,
26:33 Speaker 01 some, some real Swiss rope and all that kind of stuff. Product's really there, but I don't know, we're, we're a footwear company still in many cases. So, so we had a hard time really telling that story well.
26:45 Harry Stebbings? You mentioned that we're a footwear company. Do you think every company needs to have a hero product? It's often something stated that you need to have a hero product. Do you agree with that?
26:57 Speaker 01 We're not a footwear company anymore. We, we very much are. I mean apparel is, is growing at a speed that I think we unlocked something there. That is going to be very interesting. But answering your question, probably no, not anymore. I think that used to be the case, but if I think about how people shop these days, who they listen to and, and also where their share of wallet goes, I'm not sure. I think it's just a lot of things are changing. If you look at beauty as well, like we probably had three choices for, for, how do you call a lip balm? And where did you buy that? Probably at a pharmacy or, or whatever. Now there's probably six hundred with all different flavors.
27:42 Speaker 01 Even smoking has diversified to a level where I'm like, okay, is there a hero Marlboro product these days? I don't even know.
27:49 Harry Stebbings? Do you think consumers on that thread are more or less loyal today? And I think about this one a lot because I think with the decline of religion, you see people coalesce around brands more than ever, whether it's Taylor Swift or whether it's On Running. But then you also see people have so many options that they are more promiscuous with their brand selection than ever. And I'm not sure which side of the table I'm on.
28:11 Speaker 01 Me neither. I just love the concept of brand personality and it's an old concept. But if you give a brand the right characteristics. And for us, a lot of that goes through product. I think that can go a long way in your relationship with the customer. Even these days, even the very young ones. I think there is something to building a brand who has a bit of shape and form where consumers understand who you are as a personality. Does that create loyalty? Always, probably not, but it goes beyond just trying to be everything to everyone.
28:46 Harry Stebbings? Which competitor's brand personality do you most respect?
28:50 Speaker 01 In the sportswear space?
28:52 Harry Stebbings? Yeah.
28:53 Speaker 01 I have a lot of love for brands that have created clarity sort of in consumer mindsets. If you think about ALO Yoga, for example, it is obviously now with growth, it's becoming tough and all the supplements and all of that. I think that is really, really good. And I don't know if that's working commercially, but they're doing their thing. And not all product is great, that's fine, but they have a mission and they even left yoga in their name, which I find quite bold.
29:24 Harry Stebbings? Do you think that's the right decision?
29:26 Speaker 01 I am happy for them that they're still independent and can do probably whatever they want. And yes, they probably should get rid of it. Then there are, there are brands that are fascinating to watch because not everything makes sense, but the product is, is really good. Asics as a simple example.
29:46 Harry Stebbings? What do you mean the brand doesn't make sense?
29:48 Speaker 01 Well, name me an Asics sneaker in its full length of the product name, just one.
29:55 Harry Stebbings? I know they've got, they've got nimbus something.
29:58 Speaker 01 Is there gel in there? Is there something else? Is there kinetic? Does it have some numbers as well? What version? It's an Air Force One, right? Or it's an Air Max 95. I think Asics is talking much more through product itself than many other brands that we have in our space. And as we've been talking, I do kind of like product and I like to also try things. And I do feel that they have delivered really well on a lot of their products with a very honest, honest way of doing things.
30:30 Harry Stebbings? I agree and we're gonna come back to like that quality product and how we think about kind of brand associated. I think on the flip side was like the confused brand personality. I think like, you know, respectfully, Allbirds, so confused. It's like the running shoes that they bring out with the work shoes that they bring out. And I'm like, is this an athleisure brand? Is this a training brand? I can't get it. I don't think you're gonna be an athletic brand for running like I want you to be. Am I really gonna put you on instead of Onor Nike with all the product testing that you guys have over like Allbirds? No, I'm not saying in a sense it's a confusing brand.
31:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think there's a couple of other brands that will be heading there maybe, and I shouldn't probably say their names because they're still on the up. But I have some brands where I have a hard time understanding where they're heading and why.
31:16 Harry Stebbings? Totally get that. Go on, give me one. I'm fascinated.
31:20 Speaker 01 Wory?
31:21 Harry Stebbings? But they're in the athleisure market, like straight up. They're like premium athleisure. We offer your, like, I don't, Upper East Side mum who does yoga, who wants to look hot and spend a shit ton on a jumper.
31:34 Speaker 01 I'm just not convinced.
31:35 Harry Stebbings? Totally get that.
31:36 Speaker 01 Very personal.
31:37 Harry Stebbings? No, no, I get that. Guys, fascinating. We said about Asics being like great product, but maybe slightly confused brand in certain respects. Do you agree, build great product and they will come? The kind of often said moniker.
31:51 Speaker 01 I wish. I also wish we would be a good example for that, but we have a fantastic brand and marketing department who does an incredible job also of bringing Elmo on board to say that we launched an extremely soft shoe. And it's probably super hard. I mean, there is stuff that I simply just love. Teenage Engineering is one of those brands. I don't know if you know them. They're like Swedish consumer electronics things, quite small. They're spectacular, but you have to be really deep into it and then buy their Bluetooth speaker and you're just gonna be blown away. But then they have great marketing, they have great brand, they have great product, but sometimes it just doesn't, I don't know, maybe it's the category or something else that doesn't scale, or maybe you also don't
32:36 Speaker 01 want to, because SoundCloud was also a good product, but we are on Spotify, right?
32:41 Harry Stebbings? Which was the best product that you've made that didn't do as well as you thought?
32:48 Speaker 01 I think we have created our very first collaboration with Luave, the Spanish Luxury House. We have created a, I would probably say, dog walking trail runner. So we changed our core trail running shoe at the time, which was called Cloud Venture. And together with Jonathan Anderson, the person I mentioned in the very beginning, he came back from Japan and brought some samples of some shibari towels, right, the denim fade stuff. And the factories really didn't get it, but we replicated that on a canvas and then created, I think, an incredibly beautiful product that I truly love.
33:29 Speaker 01 Obviously, very early to do very expensive running sneakers at that point, because that was pre-whatever, New Balance, Mu Mu and all of that. It did okay, but I think if I look at that product now, it's one of those things, you know, where pursuit of elegance, sort of my, it's an old book, but it's that, it's 90% perfect and then you leave the rest to the consumer.
33:54 Harry Stebbings? Okay, but if we take that as an example, that is a confused brand to me, alongside a four-hour marathon shoe and performance. What the fuck are you doing doing a partnership with Luave?
34:08 Speaker 01 The easiest answer is probably total addressable market or capitalism even.
34:13 Harry Stebbings? Which I agree, and as a venture capitalist, I get, but that's why I'm like, don't do tennis and don't do like, you know, marathon running at four hours, do athleisure, almost do Vouli.
34:25 Speaker 01 But isn't the opportunity to disrupt and create as a brand that doesn't exist in certain spaces, opening up somewhat of a butterfly effect towards who you can be? I mean, Nike was a running brand when they started. Would you say they are a running brand to you today?
34:45 Harry Stebbings? No, I'd say they're a sports brand. Wouldn't say they're a fashion brand. You know, I think Nike's product or marketing brilliance is the aspirational brand that they create. Everyone's an athlete, even if you're not an athlete. All I'm saying is that when you hear performance and you're focused on performance and the products that come from that, totally get it, we're a performance brand, love it, great. That's why we slightly regret the athleisure move, cool. But then we do the Luave.
35:14 Speaker 01 But but Lululemon is as aspirational and as crafty premium as it gets. And at the stage of where they disrupt sort of the LVMH universe, I think we partner up.
35:29 Harry Stebbings? No, I would I would do a Bang & Olufsen partnership if I'm you.
35:32 Speaker 01 We did, but it didn't work.
35:34 Harry Stebbings? Well, fuck, it's a hard life, okay, Gerald? No one no one said that it was easy. But like, I say Bang & Olufsen because it's like premium, performance-led.
35:43 Speaker 01 Yeah, but we did some headphones, but it's also, who cares? It's the same people who probably buy the running shoe.
35:51 Harry Stebbings? Okay, but I get it. So it is a market expansion. I completely get that.
35:54 Speaker 01 Because it is. It is sportswear.
35:57 Harry Stebbings? So when we get it not doing that well, what's the takeaway? How do we how do we think about that and learn from it?
36:04 Speaker 01 We sharpen down to understanding much better how the consumer unboxes it and creates their own definition. And that's why this, I love to talk about The Sopranos ending, and I don't know if you if you watched that show. And just the way it ends, probably some people who listen listen in will will get it. It's up to you to make it up after watching six seasons. And engineering that is really, really hard. We probably didn't leave enough on the table. Like, the story was complete, the product was perfect. We should have thrown in a second pair of laces. Maybe that would have been enough. But we should have left a bit more on the table for the consumer.
36:47 Harry Stebbings? Do you know when a product is going to hit pretty quickly? In other words, are you ever surprised if something hits six months later? Or within two weeks, do you get the feeling this isn't resonating?
37:01 Speaker 01 No, I'm I'm often surprised about late or early. And I'm also often overwhelmed by the why. Simplicity of pure comfort and easy stepping, for example, for footwear. If you think about big footwear brands these days, and they come in all shapes and forms, Birkenstock, Crocs, Vans, whatever have you, a lot of it is you don't need to tie the shoes. And I had years to accept that fact.
37:37 Speaker 01 Tots, Caminos or?
37:39 Harry Stebbings? Zania, Triple Stitch.
37:40 Speaker 01 Zania's, yeah, yeah, yeah.
37:42 Harry Stebbings? Dude, this shoe, this shoe is fantastic.
37:44 Speaker 01 But why do you put it on in the morning? Just to look or why or also because it's just easy?
37:50 Harry Stebbings? I think it looks smart, but it's also super comfortable. And so I can walk across London in it. And it also looks smart enough that I can be in a nice restaurant and walk in Hyde Park.
38:02 Speaker 01 Do you identify with also with Zania in terms of the personality that the brand has?
38:10 Harry Stebbings? Not in a bad way, but like.
38:11 Speaker 01 No, no.
38:12 Harry Stebbings? No. Craft, sure, sure. But honestly, no, I'd be, I'd be lying in this case. I like the product. It's comfy and it does the job.
38:23 Speaker 01 Great brief for a good Roger to do work on. We'll, we'll call it the, the, the Roger Harry something. We'll let you know.
38:31 Harry Stebbings? Listen, I'm, I'm here anytime, uh, happy to help. But, but I, I do think it's an interesting one. And yeah, I, one of my great friends, this guy Hugo Bauer, who created product at Xiaomi for many years. And he taught me that when it comes to physical product, you're either a price king, either like the cheapest. Or you're a feature king, the best, the most features, the most built out. Do you agree with that binary view of how to win in product, physical product? Or do you think it's different?
39:02 Speaker 01 I would agree with a slightly older audience. I would not agree with when a kid walks into a JD and wants the features and the price. Or doesn't care about neither and believes in the bubble they're in, so the community. Or actually separating from that. On apparel, I don't believe in it at all. But in footwear, I think there's a lot of truth in that. But there is a very interesting consumer, I think, that shops with a very different filter on.
39:35 Harry Stebbings? Why do you not believe in it at all with apparel? I mean, your apparel is respectfully interesting. It is expansive for sports clothing.
39:44 Speaker 01 Yes.
39:44 Harry Stebbings? But I would argue that it's feature king because you can feel the premium. The quality of your product is exceptional and it's beautiful product, really amazing.
39:53 Speaker 01 It's feature king, but it's also, and I think materials make all the difference. And for me, the amount of times just spending time on sourcing the right materials that are different, that are more premium, and that's why all the Zenias exist, right? They get that right. So I don't think that is functionality, but that is very much distinction towards, if you want to call that feature, then yeah, we probably agree. But I just think the material itself, it's not that it's waterproof or that you have a zipper garage or whatever, but that the product as a whole, it just feels somehow
40:36 Speaker 01 better than what you touch from the other brand. So maybe I have to take back that I don't agree at all with your definition, but I think in apparel, it's about the holistic product. Feature needs to be complemented with materials, with shape, with fit, with many different things, even that care label inside, right? That is important. I mean, whatever T-shirt you're wearing, you're probably having a beautiful label stitched in from whatever James Pierce or Bodie or what it is, but it is important.
41:09 Harry Stebbings? I'm a Sunspell man.
41:10 Speaker 01 But there you go. You could now say that's feature, but that's what they care about most is materials.
41:17 Harry Stebbings? Do you want to say something interesting? I would say if I was speaking to the Sunspell product team, your labels suck. Every time I go and rip it out because it's this annoying, itchy actual.
41:28 Speaker 01 It's not good enough.
41:29 Harry Stebbings? For a hundred and twenty quid T-shirt.
41:32 Speaker 01 Tillsander does it better.
41:33 Harry Stebbings? Yeah, I completely agree and get that. I have to say Zenia's T-shirts are really fricking nice too, but you're dropping 300 quid on a T-shirt at that point. And I have a lot of, a lot of T-shirts. Imitation, often said to be the greatest form of flattery. People imitate on products. Is imitation the greatest form of flattery? Or does it actually reduce sales, hurt the brand?
41:57 Speaker 01 I wish I could give you a great answer on that. I think it's both. It's imitation sucks on innovation. Imitation is great flattery if it's purely sort of mocking an aesthetic or whatever what Skechers is doing to some extent. It's like, it's not great, but then also, but when it comes to innovation, I think it really sucks.
42:23 Harry Stebbings? Why does it really suck on innovation? Sorry?
42:25 Speaker 01 Because the promise that you want to deliver with your technology needs to hold true. If they can make it as good, then I would probably even say, well, yeah, okay, great for the consumer. But in most cases, it is just looks and it's not the actual thing. And then it sucks.
42:43 Harry Stebbings? So if we look at Laura Piana, the amount of summer walk fakes there are
42:47 Speaker 01 Yes.
42:48 Harry Stebbings? is incredible. I mean, the variety of brands that have copied them. Is that good or bad for Laura Piana?
42:55 Speaker 01 I think it's bad because it takes piece of aspiration away from the brand and it will make them do stuff on the product that is not necessarily nice. And you see that with, with LV or with, with other brands as well, right? Where you distinct a bit more, just to be a bit more special, where actually the simplicity or that it's super plain or super, super normal, or whatever quiet luxury you want to call it, is the power of the product. And through the imitation, you take a lot of gravitas away.
43:31 Harry Stebbings? Do you ever worry about being synonymous with a customer segment too much? And what I mean by that is if you look at, say, a Laura Piana. Candidly, if you walk around Knightsbridge in London today, it is largely Saudi men in their 40s and 50s who have Laura Pianas. And it dispels or discourages me from buying them because I don't want to just be synonymous with Saudi billionaires. Do you worry about, we don't want to just be synonymous with marathon runners who are super keen and that categorization?
44:04 Speaker 01 Not with runners. I'm not worried the moment someone moves. So I think as people use the product for sports, I'm not worried. But there are definitely other places. I mean, you said the airport shoe, right? I think that's that's complex to solve because it's a compliment. You make a great, comfortable product, but it's also challenging because, yeah, the product can do more. And so, so, yeah, it's, it's, it's not easy to navigate.
44:29 Harry Stebbings? You mentioned earlier New Balance. It's an interesting brand because, I mean, New Balance were the most uncool, unpopular brand years ago, respectfully. They were, you know, peaks and troughs. And now they've had an amazing resurgence. How do you think about and analyze that?
44:45 Speaker 01 I think they anticipated really well and they went to a playbook that was unexpected. I mean, when the 550 came, no one thought that anyone needs another basketball shoe and it was just Air Force Ones. They were able to create that with a bit of an outsider mentality. And people wore it for a while with what they did with, with Teddy's, Teddy's brand, Emile Andore, right? Same thing. And now it's, it's tough because how do you replicate without just doing more and more and more? But what they, I think, did incredibly well is that they understood better than others that in that space, it's not necessarily a global market anymore.
45:29 Speaker 01 They were much more hyper local, even though it was big. But it felt very local to the right communities at the right time. They did that exceptionally well.
45:39 Harry Stebbings? Is there anything you learned from that?
45:41 Speaker 01 Yeah, we're not using it the same way, but but the way I think I've spent a lot of time in South Korea this year, the way you look at where there's more speed in subculture and how things develop and more appetite again to taking a product and repurposing it through your own lens, I think that is that is something there. There's a lot to learn for us, but there are cities, Seoul, Taipei in Asia that where that is almost becoming normal. And we have some of that also in in in some, I would say, less major cities in Europe, and it's super interesting to watch. And we we need to learn from those communities, those those kids, the whys, the hows. And I think it helps us to create
46:26 Speaker 01 create products with them, for them, sort of in between.
46:31 Harry Stebbings? You mentioned Luave earlier. What collaboration have you not done that you would most like to do and why?
46:39 Speaker 01 Very, very personally, I do think that Prada Sport deserves a non Prada collab, and the people at Luave will kill me. But Prada Sport has done a very iconic thing in in their journey with sailing and with sort of that uniform that they've built 2000s. Again, also the materials, the nylons, all of that, that the product is just just fabulous. Through the premiumization and the luxury playbook, they have re-edited that. But that is something where I would, I would, I think that deserves a bigger consumer community approach, just making that more expensive and more niche. I get it, I know
47:23 Speaker 01 why they're doing it. But you look at Stone Island, since they've been acquired by Montclair, and then the product they're doing is is also fabulous. But but Prada Sport essentially is that blueprint. Not that we're ever going to collaborate with them, but but I think the Prada Sport, just the product itself, we could have done an incredible line of products with them a couple of years ago, if we would have thought about it even.
47:47 Harry Stebbings? I'm always fascinated by one, and This may show that I spend too much time there for my mother, but Chanel trainers, I cannot get my fricking head around. They're like a thousand pounds.
47:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
47:57 Harry Stebbings? For the most basic. Is that brand confusion? Is that market expansion? Is that product genius?
48:04 Speaker 01 Well, Hermes did tights, right, for twelve hundred leggings, twelve hundred, fourteen hundred. I think it's just capitalism. I mean, I don't think Matthew will work on the Chanel sneakers. Maybe he does, but I don't know. I think this is just business. That's how I look at it.
48:24 Harry Stebbings? I think that's a really interesting point you said. I don't think Matthew, obviously designer, will work on that. And that almost implies like a disregard for it, but an awareness that it's good for business. What product, for you as CPO, do you personally disregard, but it's good for business?
48:41 Speaker 01 I'm not deep enough into the socks business. As a footwear brand, I think we have a tremendous opportunity, or we would have a tremendous opportunity to create that product through more of an innovation. Now, we have through also what we do with light spray. We have created for the first time really socks from scratch, which is next level. But that's only been a focus since maybe a year and a half, and that's late. If I think about how much we invested in everything else, we should have spent more time on accessories earlier.
49:15 Harry Stebbings? What accessories do you wish you had done?
49:17 Speaker 01 I don't know if we should have done other stuff, because a lot of it is just more stuff on the planet that no one needs. So I don't know if we should have done more. I just think we should have executed with the same level of madness, to use that word, as we have on apparel or on footwear.
49:36 Harry Stebbings? Dude, I would love to dive into a quick fire with you. So I give you a set of short, specific questions, and you give me your immediate thoughts. About sixty seconds per one. Does that sound good?
49:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
49:47 Harry Stebbings? What product principle have you most changed your mind on?
49:51 Speaker 01 Product integrity and how the pyramid of sort of the aesthetics, functionality, and sustainability needs to be in sync.
50:02 Harry Stebbings? Which competitive brand do you think is most underappreciated?
50:08 Speaker 01 Morel? No, La Sportiva.
50:11 Harry Stebbings? Why? Quality product?
50:13 Speaker 01 Quality product. I would say outstanding, not too much fucks given, great looking shoes.
50:21 Harry Stebbings? Which competitive brand do you think is most overrated?
50:26 Speaker 01 Adidas.
50:27 Harry Stebbings? Huh, why?
50:28 Speaker 01 They're going too fast.
50:30 Harry Stebbings? What do you, what do you mean?
50:31 Speaker 01 I feel that they're doing a great job in, in, in running and I massively appreciate what like Patrick, Bjorn and the team have built. I would just love that they would, with all the heritage they have in their backpacks and all the cultural relevance and even in basketball, if they would just go slightly slower and just not try to recreate Samba waves, but look at stuff and just also they have, they do an amazing job in so many places, but they're already always on to the next. And if just newness is the driver to the business, I don't know their balance sheet, but I think they, they could win more consumer, back to brand personality.
51:14 Speaker 01 I think they could win more consumers minds if they would just take it, take slower.
51:19 Harry Stebbings? Which sports talent or sporting or athlete talent do you wish you had a collaboration with that you don't yet?
51:27 Speaker 01 Simone Biles. She's with Atleta and she's just the most fascinating athlete. It's not even a mass sport or whatever, but I would love to meet her. I think there's, there's so much there to unpack. And just the way she, she trains, I find that extremely fascinating.
51:46 Harry Stebbings? What's been the biggest product mistake you've made it on and how do you reflect on it?
51:51 Speaker 01 I think a personal one where I'm way too involved with some of the experts who know it way better. And so it's not a one product, but I think it's holding back teams sometimes, even though they, they've all figured it out. And that's something I'm on a learning path. That is, that is, that is a complex learning path, but I'm on that one.
52:19 Harry Stebbings? Final one. What do most people not see about the future of performance athletic sports products that they should see or talk about?
52:30 Speaker 01 They probably don't see that there is still a wide space when it comes to how you capture the consumer in their everyday habits and that it's not purely about doing one thing with one brand. It's very cryptic as an answer.
52:54 Harry Stebbings? Incredibly cryptic.
52:56 Speaker 01 I don't think consumers see that sports is somewhat the last live moment and that sports wear per se is probably only at twenty, thirty percent of what it can do in terms of the uniform that we're gonna wear.
53:14 Harry Stebbings? Gerald, I apologize for peppering you with such direct questions consistently throughout. I so appreciate you putting up with me and you've been fantastic.
53:23 Speaker 01 Thanks, Harry. I hope there's a couple of things that actually have helped you with all the incredible people you talk to and maybe you've learned, or at least listened to one thing that surprised you.
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