1min snip

How I Built This with Guy Raz cover image

On athletic shoes: Olivier Bernhard and Caspar Coppetti

How I Built This with Guy Raz

NOTE

Building a Lasting Business with Freedom

The speaker discusses the evolution of their business from producing trail running and hiking shoes to lifestyle shoes. Despite facing resistance initially, they decided to create lifestyle shoes that both work well and look good. Ultimately, their business has become valued at $6.5 billion, a significant leap from their initial projections of hitting $10-15 million. The speaker reflects on their journey, highlighting that they originally did not intend to go public, valuing independence and freedom over monetary gain.

00:00
Speaker 2
Trail running,
Speaker 1
hiking shoes. Trail running, we do outdoor, exactly. And then just like lifestyle shoes, I think the ones I'm wearing are probably lifestyle shoes.
Speaker 2
Well there used to be the model you're wearing is the one that Nicholas Piric won when she won her silver medal. That's the one. Oh
Speaker 1
my god, I think I'm gonna go for a run after this. But you know, today it's a lifestyle
Speaker 2
shoe. And you know, I mean, we have given up the resistance against lifestyle. You know, if people are going to bear them, we had one point said, well, we might as well give them something that really works and that looks good.
Speaker 1
at a valuation of $6 .5 billion. I mean, this is a business that you had hoped to hit 10, 15 million just a couple years, a few years before. I mean, was any part of you at that point just like, how did we get here so fast? I mean, I know that it's a long journey, but it's just 11 years after you guys launched. Yeah, the funny thing was we didn't even want to go public. We had fought
Speaker 2
so hard for our independence and as an entrepreneur, we never did this for the money. We wanted to build something that lasts and we wanted have our freedom, right?

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