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you know when people talk about work life balance what's your honest opinion
00:00:03
of that Kobe Bryant wasn't doing three throws at 3:00 a.m. for no reason but
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there's a cost to that right George heeden the founder of global fashion brand represent warn by the weekend post
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Malone Justin Bieber one of the most popular Luxury Street brands in the world when I was 18 starting this brand
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it was just me and my brother in my dad's shed figuring out products and where we could take the brand but then
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we went from doing 10 15 sales to like a th000 every day of the week 2,000 3,000
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4,000 we were making money at that time more than what we should have in our early 20s so we're [ __ ] around a lot
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alcohol girls cars and we're doing like 35 million revenue and was like we're
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going to do 50 million next year but we we don't know what we're doing now the
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business is doing about $100 million that's when the realization came that you don't need to be good at business to
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own a business there's people that are so much better at things than you they
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can lay the foundations for it to become a billion dollar band and you can focus
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on what you're actually good at that was a car list that just changed everything
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we're building this there's no seing to what it can be that was until we got a
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letter from that was the worst day in the business it was rock bottom but the best
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view of Heaven is from hell right you've got to get to the bottom of that mountain to start re climbing it it
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became this driving force that I thought who cannot stop that and then what happens it's absolutely crazy to me that
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so many of you have decided to watch our show um and so many of you have decided
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to subscribe to our show we now have five million subscribers on YouTube which is a number that I just can't
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comprehend and it's a dream that I absolutely never could have had we started the dire of a just over 3 years
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ago now and in my wildest expectations we might have had 100,000 subscribers by now so you can imagine how shocked I am
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that so many of you have chosen to tune into these conversations every week um and spend some time with us so thank you
00:02:01
and I made a deal with you I made a deal that if you subscribed to this show that
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we would continue to raise the bar and in 2024 we're going to raise the BARC never
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before I've been working for the last nine months on a surprise for all of you
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that have subscribed to the show and I'm very excited to deliver that for you the
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production's going to change we're going to go even further with our guests and
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we're going to tell even more Global stories so as always if you appreciate what we're doing here the simple free
00:02:28
favorite I'll ask for you is to hit the Subscribe button let's get on with the
00:02:33
[Music] episode George what is the mission that you're on it's just to be the best version of
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myself really just to show up and do everything at the highest level I can what influence did your parents have
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because I I've heard you talk about your mother and your father a lot but let's
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start with your father what kind of influence did he have on you I guess when I was growing up he had he had a
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bit more than what everyone else had in my town so like he had a Range Rover and
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he dropped me off to school in that Range Rover and all the kids felt that was sick so automatically I felt proud
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of that so I was like I want to be like this like what is it that my dad's got
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that other people don't have um and the way he showed up with my family and how
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he would he wouldn't like I I've never seen him drunk even to this day I've
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never seen him drunk like he was a role model is like a this stoic guy that would just work hard show up drop his
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kids off at school come to football training every single night like he would be there for me and I think that
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was just like even though it was never spoke about in the household it just like created my own discipline I guess
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was he an emotional man no no no emotion I've never seen him cry has he ever said
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I love you to me I don't know maybe as a young kid but not not recently now what about
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your mom very supportive she used to sit on the end of my bed every night and be
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like George you got to make it you got to carry your brother and sister like you've got you've got to carry this
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family on which was quite a hard thing to take in when I was young um but she just like affirmed that every single day
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and like she loved the work I did and the art that I did and she would try and express that to all her friends and talk
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about me a lot and it was always like something that was kind of um it kind of pushed me a bit you
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know gave gave me like words of words of affirmation I guess confidence was that
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was her saying that like a frequent thing I'm just trying to figure out why she would say that to you versus your
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siblings is presumably because you're you're the oldest no I was a middle
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child brother's old um but Mike kind of he was very within himself as as as a
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younger kid and um didn't come out much and he just did his own thing whereas I
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would express myself a little bit more than him in within the family and I think my mom saw that as a way that I
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could be the the carrier of whatever that boat was later down in life and your parents what did they do so your
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dad was my dad sold mini buses so him and his his dad were in business so that was kind of like me and my brother and
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like me and my brother they looked the same they did the same thing like had the same demeanor same attitude to
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everything and I think that's why me and my brother went into business cuz we saw
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that the family had been able to do that um prior did you have any idea when you
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were a young man like 12 13 14 that you would be in this industry yeah I did to be fair looking
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back at it I I had sensitive skin as a kid and anything that fit me wrong or like itched me or like like a back neck
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label or the way a pant fit would irritate me so much that I'd take it to my Grands and she was a tailor so she
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would taper things and take necks out of things and she would make sure I knew what the composition was before buying
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garments and when I look back at it now I realized that that being that particular so young kind of stemmed into
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how I've built the brand and what it stands for and the quality and everything like that and Michael I met
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Michael before when the first time we had you on the podcast I think you had eight employees and Michael was there as
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well yeah and he comes across as a bit of a genius but a bit of a introverted genius what was the difference in your
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skill set cuz you both went and studied like art well graphic design what was the difference in your skill set there
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wasn't really one he was just better than me okay better than me at Art definitely and cuz he was my big brother
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I looked up to him so like through Primary School like he was into like heavy metal and rock and like California
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and surf and skate and that wasn't really a particular thing in Bolton like everyone was in tracksuits and had
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shaped heads and tiens and smoked on the corner we were skating down these cobbly
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roads with long hair and like big DC shoes on and skinny jeans and I I just wanted to be him like until like early
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20s like he was he was my idol really and when did um when did you make the decision to apply your artistic skills
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to clothing college so we had a project where we had to make we had to make something of our art that could sell and
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Mike had Mike was two years ahead of me so he'd already done the same course I
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was on and he'd done like a little Gallery where people would buy his drawings and I looked at that and I
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looked at my dad and my dad wanted us to come into the business at the time and the last thing I wanted to do was that
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but also I didn't want to sit and wait around all my life to sell a painting
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for 40 grand um and I remember going into the class and I remember the teacher telling me that average salary
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of a graphic designer was 30k and I'd go home and I'd speak to my dad I'd be like
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hold on if University is going to cost me 9k a year and the average salary is 40k a year and like I can't [ __ ] buy
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myself a Range Rover with that and I wanted to be like my dad so I was like what what is it that I can make
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that I can make money from like everyone wants to be successful right there's no
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denying that like money was such a big thing back then that I wanted and I was so particular about the clothing like I
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said about my grand and taking things in and how we'd adjust all my garments that
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there was this there was this like upbringing of social media Instagram was just starting and YouTube was just
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starting and I I I managed to watch a few videos of like artists like shepher Ferry who owned o and Nikki diamonds who
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own Diamond Supply and huff and these guys over here on the West Coast that were just selling like t-shirts with
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graphics on and I thought why can't we do we be the British version of that what have we got to do to do that and
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this college project came up and I just thought I'll give it a go you know a
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second ago you said being a graphic designer wasn't going to allow you to buy the same car as your dad was how
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much was your dad a driving force behind your sort of with um your decision- making and like when I
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say that like was there really a motivation to try and beat him or at least get to where he was yeah
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definitely definitely and a very conscious motivation yeah and because you thought that make
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him proud or make yourself proud yeah I thought it'd make the family proud but
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as well it was just like no one thought in my family that or even through my friends or through my mom and dad's
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friends whoever was around us no one thought that we'd ever be anything no one thought that like our art could s
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and we could make money that way and we could build careers that way everyone always expected us especially my grand
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just expected us to go into the family business having listened to some of your interviews and stuff and gotten to know
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you it does feel like there's a bit of a chip on your shoulder and I'm not
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necessarily sure who the chip on your shoulder has come from I think a lot of it self-inflicted I think I just like to
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have something there to prove something wrong or something right maybe Pro myself right comes at a cost though it
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does come at a cost yeah but I'm willing to take that cost on are you sure yeah
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I've I've been doing it now for 13 years I'm not going to stop anytime soon and
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like I only feel now that we're just getting started with it so I'm really
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curious about this early phase which I kind of call the shedding phase where an entrepreneur makes the decision that
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they're going to do something unusual in the context of their like current social
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group and the shedding phase I Define as like when your family start thinking you're a bit weird and you feel the
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resistance from your family and then you're like boys from school start thinking you think you're Richard
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Branson or whatever and they start making little comments can you recount what your shedding facee was like I
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think that was it I think like a lot of people who was around just laughed at it
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a lot of people just thought it was a joke and it got to that stage where then it was like oh it's your dad's business
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your dad's your dad buys the stock and like like this is a family business you
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guys aren't making this money and whatever until it gets to a point where it like just completely exceeds what
00:11:03
people think that is and then they seem to come back around and then they buying
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your product and then they're congratulating you on the drops and then they're your biggest fans do you
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remember any comments that you heard oh from C people yeah definitely I remember
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there was one where I'd bought this R8 and it was I must have been 19 or 20 which is a car right right yeah and an
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Audi and um I it packed up in in my town where I was and I remember getting a message on Facebook
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saying that car your dad's bought you is packed up here he's going to get a
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ticket on them yellow lines and I was thinking like come on how did it make you feel it made me want to go to the
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next level with everything over and over to so it drown out that noise so it was
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like okay maybe his dad was successful running a a small business had a a nice house and whatever I wanted
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to take that to like a hundred times that to prove that it wasn't that I guess and so after you leave College
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well it's during college right when you sort of start the business MH is that
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2012 yeah when you first started the business and then Michael joins you a year later after you started selling
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T-shirts yeah he was doing a bit of the graphics here and there and um I would run them to the Run orders to the post
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office and then at night would sit and draw together and then I'd speak to suppliers in China and stuff like that
00:12:33
and it just it just rolled on for the three years that I was at University what was that first year like that first
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year in business uh from what I can remember it wasn't really business it was just going to The Back Garden where
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my dad shed was speak to some suppliers in China go to university complete my whatever it was I was doing there come
00:12:54
back pack orders speak to customers do it all again every single day for like the first three years how big was the
00:13:01
business in the first year probably turned over about 10,000 pounds yeah what about the second year
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um maybe like 50k I think the third year is when we decided to actually make it a
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limited company and get an accountant and how much did you do in the third year roughly in terms of Revenue I can't
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remember I think it was around half a mill okay because I remember going to the accountants and we we did all this
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um we literally like T the business apart and rebuilt it and he said to us at the end of this thing like if you've
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got 100 Grand in the bank you should carry on with it if not you've spent three years just like doing nothing and
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it's going nowhere and uh luckily we had way more than that in the bank and it's
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was like okay let's let's do this for real you spent two years you know and by
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the end of the second year you're generating 50k which is like not enough really to pay yourself a salary whilst
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covering costs of the business no I didn't take a salary for seven or eight years so surely that Point people around
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you are telling you that you're an idiot and they've got quite good evidence yeah
00:14:03
to suggest that you're actually wasting your time but I I never had never had a
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big doubt that it wouldn't work I've had a lot of doubts but never had a doubt
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that it wouldn't work and I knew that I would do everything I could to make sure
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it worked what did work how would you define worked at that that moment like what was success at that moment success
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was putting products online and it selling and seeing that launch night and seeing 500 people log in and buy
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something or a thousand people and seeing that incremental gain over time that was what was like the driving force
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more people following the brand more people sending DMS that that was it really why don't people start and I say
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that BEC You Know in hindsight now you're going to understand looking back at your own work the quality of it what
00:14:47
you went through and you probably have a pretty good idea on why people just don't start you must have get so many
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DMS from people that have an idea or fashion idea or anything why don't they
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start I think it's that pressure of failure the the feeling of Doubt like and as well wasting time if they've
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got a family or they've got a job where it's full-time then to start something
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else on the side when they've got to see to the family or the girlfriend or the
00:15:14
wife or whatever it is like you don't have much time to go and do something else that you then hope will eventually
00:15:19
in the future take off or become successful and it takes so long like it does take I know it's a lot of people
00:15:28
say takes 10 years to become an overan night success and I think that's true
00:15:32
you you spent almost four years um from 2012 till I guess no two years 2012 till
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about 2015 is kind of just effectively messing around yeah messing around really messing around a lot of messing
00:15:49
around learning learning yeah is probably a better better use of words and enjoying it as well like me and my
00:15:55
friends had sit in my dad's shed like all night just figuring out products and
00:16:00
things that we wanted to do and where we could take the brand and I'd love to go
00:16:03
back to them times cuz they were great and we had nothing and no one was really watching us but we thought everyone was
00:16:08
watching us and we thought it was the next big [ __ ] Powerhouse of a brand um so yeah it was it was fun like
00:16:16
I don't regret any of it you know what putting these two questions together about like why people don't start and
00:16:21
also those three years where you weren't really making any any money yeah um and
00:16:26
you in the shed in your GR in your dad's house why didn't you quit because as I said a
00:16:33
second ago there must have been so much force telling you to go and get a real job yeah but why didn't you quit I think
00:16:40
it just leads back to again proving people wrong and proving myself right and like the only other option I had was
00:16:46
to go and work for my dad and I didn't want to do that because I'd done that
00:16:49
all my teens and I hated it I hated cleaning mini buses and ripping stickers off the sides of Windows and going to
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auctions and bidding on cars and stuff like that wasn't me and that was the only other option I had so it was like
00:17:01
this is it it's all all or nothing really when you look back at the uh products that you made in that shed how
00:17:08
do you feel about them there was a few great ones and a few absolutely terrible ones I remember the first collection I
00:17:14
moved to China because originally I would buy stocking from America print it in the UK and like make zero profit on
00:17:22
it but it was great and it felt great and then eventually we decided like let's try and make some profit on a on a
00:17:27
collection and I remember this collection coming back after a few months and like all the fits were wrong
00:17:33
and the Fabrics were wrong and I I just cried on my mom's floor for like hours
00:17:38
that night um so there was there was a lot of really rough times as well there was a lot of fun but it was all just
00:17:44
like figuring out different things and like learning how to do every single job within that business because you know if
00:17:50
I'm a young fashion designer or a young creative and I look at your work now I
00:17:55
look at the product that represents putting out now it's easy to see how one
00:18:00
might be put off from starting right because I look at yourself Jesus Christ like you can't compete with it you can't
00:18:07
compete with that like that's more than 10 years of like Mastery so I'm just not
00:18:11
going to bother starting what what do you say to those people say look you got to put the work in it's going to be 10
00:18:17
years like regardless of what industry it is or what product you're making like
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I wouldn't even think about the next two to three years I'd think about 10 years
00:18:26
like that's the mindset you've got to have and and it's not going to be easy
00:18:30
and it's not going to be fun but you just got to do everything you can to make it work so the brand kind of scales
00:18:37
up to what sort of Revenue number from 2012 up to 2018 we built it up to like 6 to 7
00:18:45
mil MH so like 2015 16 17 it was just flat like 6 7 mil year over year yeah and we thought that was a ceiling in for
00:18:55
at the at the time as our young s we not knowledge and no real thought in the industry like we thought that we were at
00:19:03
the ceiling of what represent was and then that's when the realization came that like if we carry on doing what
00:19:11
we're doing it's not going to work and this brand will fail what was the advice you needed at that point that
00:19:18
you didn't get um I definitely didn't get the advice but it was to just completely restart refocus go again
00:19:27
build a new team and and and go into what we already knew that was there waiting for us we knew what we were
00:19:35
capable of we just weren't doing it what weren't you doing focusing on our
00:19:39
consumer asking them what they wanted speaking to them being within the community of what represent was and
00:19:46
giving them what they wanted when you say the the point about team MH um you said rebuild a new team when you started
00:19:53
the brand who did who were you hiring all my friends I hired all my friends all my
00:19:59
close friends cuz I wanted to enjoy it and I didn't know think about hiring people I didn't want to interview people
00:20:05
and bring them into my dad's garden shed so up until we had a unit like it was
00:20:10
just me and my friends and we were all just doing 50 jobs each no one had a title no one knew what was going on um
00:20:17
and it didn't work but now we're at such a level where there's a hundred people
00:20:22
in the business two of those friends that came in right at the start are still in the business and a very high up
00:20:28
in the business and have amazing successful lives so half worked and half didn't when you say it didn't work what
00:20:36
does that mean in reality it means that like we I guess it's all not my fault as
00:20:43
such but it's all it's I I brought people into the brand that shouldn't have been in fashion or
00:20:50
shouldn't have been doing what I'd asked them to do or like their career didn't
00:20:54
go the the way that it should have gone because we were just just Plateau at this base of
00:21:02
like a a quite a boring fashion brand at the time and like did we had to split up
00:21:07
and we had to regroup and start again and the ones that stayed have now stayed forever which is insane and the ones
00:21:14
that left they've have' carried on with their lives what have you learned about
00:21:17
um hiring again when I say the advice that you you wish you'd gotten at the time before you'd hired a single person
00:21:25
that you might give if you could speak to George at 18 years old and you could give hiring advice on how to pick people
00:21:30
what would you say hire Fast Fire faster interesting I spent a lot of years where I didn't hire people because I
00:21:40
didn't think they would fit into the brand and even though they don't seem a
00:21:45
certain way or they're into the same brands that I'm into or they follow this
00:21:49
kind of um industry that we're in whether it's streetware or luxury or high fashioned like there is still
00:21:55
unbelievable people that can do amazing things way better than what can do in all levels of business that don't look
00:22:01
like they should be or don't seem like they would um so just like realizing that back back then would have really
00:22:09
helped the business grow I think sometimes like young Founders um I remember just thinking
00:22:14
back on my own experience we're sometimes scared to hire people that are like more experienced than we are
00:22:20
because how are we going to manage them and all those kind of concerns and also why would they want to come here you
00:22:26
know why would they want to come here was a massive thing for me really yeah why would want why would someone want to
00:22:30
come to a smaller brand than what they were at um and especially in that time when it wasn't growing cuz it's not you
00:22:36
don't want to go into a company that's not growing but like now it's completely
00:22:40
different the the whole ecosystem that we've built and who wants to come into
00:22:45
the brand and like the way the brand is growing it's now like we have the abundance of everyone wanting to join
00:22:50
the brand so it's it's it's now like it's hard to pick and choose who we
00:22:54
bring into the brand rather than going out there and looking for them and trying to get them into brand you know
00:22:58
what I mean mhm it's so like Catch 22 you know I have a lot of dragon Den Investments and these are typically
00:23:04
early stage companies that often quite young and I sit with them all the time and I I talk to them about this Paradox
00:23:11
of um there it's some kind of multifaceted thing they are a very young team very inexperienced they have small
00:23:19
budgets relatively small budgets so they're thinking we can't pay an exceptional really experienced person
00:23:27
because £1,000 salary is so much for us and because they don't and also the stuff you said about like why would
00:23:34
anyone want to come work in this like shed right because of that they never grow to be able to pay for those people
00:23:41
to be able to create an environment where exceptional people would come right so the only way like I see of
00:23:46
kickstarting the process is to bring in exceptional people now um yeah that makes sense pay for it now and you'll
00:23:56
see the increased outcome later definitely yeah yeah like bringing in exceptional people will never be a bad
00:24:05
thing in the business but it feels like it because they they because it costs so
00:24:08
much so much yeah yeah but you're also going to learn so much from them just
00:24:13
especially if you're a small team and you're bringing in people that have been
00:24:15
in there for 10 years and done what you're trying to do like the in the information and the value that they
00:24:21
provide just to open your mind up to what's actually possible can get you to
00:24:25
the next level like I've brought a CEO into represent that was handling a $500
00:24:29
million business for him to come into my business that at the time it was only doing 20 mil and to tell me what's
00:24:36
possible and run me through different geographies and how products can have a lifetime and how you can maintain a
00:24:43
constant like steady sale of one product for so many years when I we were just thinking that you put something online
00:24:49
let it sell out and then you move on to the next thing and there's so many different like factors that can come in
00:24:54
and different areas of growth and sales and categories and all these different things that just make you realize oh you
00:25:00
can turn the business from 20 to 50 mil by just doing this but you would never know that if
00:25:06
you were just in your little group of people that you've grown up with and done it with forever and you don't even
00:25:11
know that you don't know it like it's an unknown know no because there's no one
00:25:14
teaching you and I and that's why I'm trying to do this YouTube channel and
00:25:18
trying to be so expressive but also um like authentic on the YouTube and on Instagram by telling people this and
00:25:26
showing them how what we actually do and how we do it because when I was 18 starting this brand I had nowhere to
00:25:33
look I had no mentors I there was no one in fashion that would wanted to come and
00:25:36
help us and there's nothing like that I could just go online and find and and
00:25:41
buying a course to build a brand isn't going to work that's that's the biggest
00:25:44
load of [ __ ] ever um so like you're stuck in your own in your own ways and
00:25:49
you you've got limited beliefs and you don't know what you don't know so how you how again if you
00:25:54
could like go back cuz there's so many young kids that are going to be looking
00:25:58
up to you thinking okay George I get it there's lots of things that I don't know
00:26:02
where do I go to find the answers what's the best way to go to find these answers
00:26:05
that are going to help me go to the next level I think you got to research now I
00:26:12
think everyone's very explicitly authentic online like if they want to be the next George Heaton you can scroll
00:26:20
down my Instagram for the last 10 years and see exactly what I've done and where
00:26:23
I've been and how I've done it who we've done it with or you can go on the
00:26:27
YouTube channel and backload a documentary that we did three years ago that shows the last 10 years and then
00:26:33
now you do it with um the diary of the SE behind behind the scenes as well so the people are willing as well to like
00:26:41
give you advice I give people advice on social media all the time but that decision then to bring in that
00:26:47
CEO where did that information come from I spent a good couple years just really
00:26:53
like rebuilding myself when that when that Plateau happened um there was like 18 months to two years where it was just
00:27:00
before Co started and I wanted to just like really build myself up into someone that I wasn't at that time but I wanted
00:27:08
to be why what was going on in your world I I felt like I was stuck and like like I said we we had limited beliefs we
00:27:14
didn't know where to go and what to do it's like how do I then figure that out
00:27:18
if I'm not got a mentor or someone telling me which way to go with it I've
00:27:22
got to do it myself so it was like read every single self- health book look into
00:27:27
every single fashion show figure out like what it is we want to do and where we want to go with this brand and how
00:27:33
we're going to build it up but also with ourselves was this the period in 2018
00:27:38
where you said you lost the motivation for the business yeah just before that take me into that period of your life if
00:27:44
I'm a if I'm a fly on the wall what do I see in in your world at that time where
00:27:49
you're like not excited about it not excited about it because we were getting
00:27:54
a lot of push back from press and like we were trying to do runway shows and no stores wanted to buy us and our price
00:28:01
points weren't right and the way we were taking the design wasn't right and that
00:28:06
was like painful because it was a passion for us it was our love so like that negative feedback was like kind of
00:28:12
painful at the time but we used it as like a reset button and I looked at myself as well at the same time and like
00:28:19
I wasn't putting everything into the brand I wasn't going like full on with
00:28:24
it I was messing around and like enjoying in my life as well cuz we were making money at that time like more than
00:28:31
what we should have been doing in our early 20s so we're [ __ ] around a lot
00:28:36
and I'm not going to sit here and lie like we would we didn't know what we
00:28:40
were doing we were messing around and it just got to a point where like that year
00:28:44
became unprofitable and for me to sit there and think [ __ ] like I've done this
00:28:50
for the past seven or eight years and now it's not making money that was like
00:28:55
that was the thing that then just that was a car list that just changed everything I just took a real good hard
00:29:02
look at what we are and who we were and just changed it all what about you on on
00:29:06
a personal level at that at that time you said you weren't happy with yourself
00:29:10
didn't why I hated the way I looked I hated the way I came across on social media I was very shy very
00:29:16
unconfident um like terrible at hiring people and just didn't like had not anger issues
00:29:23
but was always angry was always negative always had like this pessimistic view of
00:29:27
everything even the weather had pissed me off um for a for a long time and I just
00:29:34
remember reading a few books and thinking like why am I this way and how do I change myself I even and like being
00:29:41
the artist I even redrew how I wanted to look and it was like every single day now I've got to work on being that guy
00:29:47
who is who is George Heaton that I want him to be not who I am now you actually Drew yeah yeah an a picture yeah I used
00:29:55
to look back at it all the time and just think this this this is I wanted to recreate myself and recreate the brand
00:30:01
what was the base you were starting from at that point and how old were you at this point 20 six I think I was 25 26 I
00:30:09
just like had a had a unhealthy relationship with the way I worked and even the food I at and like I wasn't I
00:30:16
wasn't healthy I wasn't doing well didn't look great like didn't didn't
00:30:21
feel myself I didn't want to look at myself in the mirror um you didn't want
00:30:26
to look at yourself in the mirror yeah because I didn't like who I'd become and
00:30:30
like the I didn't like what the brand had become either and the brand was my
00:30:34
life so it was like this all needs to change when you say you didn't want to
00:30:38
look at yourself in the mirror do you actually mean that or you saying that as like a figure of speech I guess a figure
00:30:43
of speech but as well like realizing that that I wanted to change a lot so then when when you do want to change
00:30:50
then you don't like the way you are how how did you know you wanted to change I
00:30:54
me that sounds like an like a slightly peculiar question but I always think about what it takes for someone to have
00:31:00
one of those moments in their life where they go you know what enough is enough yeah and sometimes I've always like
00:31:04
pondered I think I've said it a few times on the show like do people have to
00:31:07
reach a certain Rock Bottom in their lives before they go you know what 100% And I see this with people now that um
00:31:15
we Inspire with 247 or who will send me a DM and say look you've changed my life
00:31:18
through this or that the I think the like the best view of Heaven is from hell right I think you've got to get to
00:31:25
the bottom of that mountain to start re climbing it I think if you just sit around in the middle somewhere and and
00:31:31
life's just is what it is that was what I was going through um and like I had a
00:31:36
girlfriend and we'd split up and that was terrible and yeah the brand wasn't
00:31:40
doing well I got told it was unprofitable and like I was just in this [ __ ] what for me was rock bottom and
00:31:46
I know it doesn't sound bad compared to a lot of other people's lives I understand that but for me for where I'd
00:31:51
been on the trajectory that I thought I was on it was Rock Bottom so was that was like the reset so you drew a picture
00:31:58
of yourself and how you wanted to look did you write anything about who you wanted to be in terms of values or yeah
00:32:03
I've got a best friend who's done a very similar transformation and they
00:32:07
literally wrote down like a set of principles and it's it's in the notes of
00:32:11
their phone it's my friend Anthony and he went from being in a place in his life where he also figuratively couldn't
00:32:16
look himself in the mirror dropped alcohol hit the gym and has turned it around and he he has almost has this
00:32:23
like Ten Commandments in the notes of his phone yeah you did something similar exactly the same and still have them
00:32:28
that pop up every morning like reminders on my phone um I found this guy called Andy fitell and he had a book
00:32:36
called um 75 hard and it was like a mental toughness challenge but it also included a lot of working out in there
00:32:44
and it was like no alcohol drink this much water read this much of a book and just do it every single day for 75 days
00:32:51
write down five things you're going to do that day and I did that and I started
00:32:55
doing it and I started seeing like these crazy results in my life just with everything just the way I could
00:33:01
structure my day and knowing that like I had to put two workouts into a day one had to be outside wanted to be inside so
00:33:07
structure the rest of the day around that and then started learning how to plan my day out better and where the
00:33:13
time was where I could go and do these other things and like every night I would read 10 pages of a book whichever
00:33:18
book that was from all the ran holiday books and Robert Green and everything like that so
00:33:24
I was learning all these things whilst I was also doing this mental toughness Challenge and it was like a 75 day thing
00:33:30
and I remember getting to getting to the end of it and just thinking [ __ ] like
00:33:34
I'm I looked at myself then and I was like okay I can see the change and you
00:33:38
know when you can see change that's when you like really go into it you start
00:33:42
getting obsessed when you see whether it's success or like your Fitness levels
00:33:46
go up or just the way you energy levels are every day and just figuring out that
00:33:53
like these little indicators are changing the way I'm and then at the same time we were really working on the
00:33:58
business so the business was starting to see a bit more success and that whole thing the Cadence of that just kept
00:34:04
rolling and rolling and rolling and I guess whether it's Obsession or addiction I got addicted to it and like
00:34:10
there couldn't be a day go by where I wouldn't work out or I wouldn't eat the
00:34:14
exact calories that I needed to eat or I wouldn't sleep the exact like and I
00:34:19
needed to get the exact amount of sleep that I wanted and it just completely changed like the way I looked and the
00:34:24
like my my levels of fitness and cardiovascular and strength and everything like that I just went through
00:34:29
the roof cuz people will look at you now and think that you know they'll see you
00:34:33
getting up at I don't know 5:00 a.m. in the morning and going for like a 20 mile
00:34:37
run um and hit in the gym later that evening running a business doing all these things being super productive and
00:34:42
they'll probably think he was just born with something that I don't have right
00:34:47
like he's just got this level of motivation probably came in his DNA that I don't have yeah and a lot of people do
00:34:53
say that a lot of people think that think it's genetics or they think it's
00:34:56
steroids and stuff like that or they'll just think that you're like wired in a
00:34:59
way from birth I used to think that as well back when I was overweight and unhealthy and like I'd look at people on
00:35:05
Instagram be like yep genetics whatever yep he's on steroids I can't look like
00:35:11
that I've got a business to run like you would you dismiss everything but it's
00:35:15
not and once you start doing it yourself and you see those little gains and you you get into it you you can really
00:35:21
change what is the starting point one step at a time whether it's 10,000 steps
00:35:26
or doing even a 20 minute workout that's all people need to do to change because you'll start seeing
00:35:33
results regardless of what position you're in right now if you can just keep
00:35:37
increasing incrementally what you're doing in terms of Fitness or your business or however like your sleep
00:35:43
whatever it is that you feel is not right you'll see the change over time it
00:35:47
comes and it takes a long time takes a really long time but it it happens it's
00:35:53
difficult to it's difficult to believe I guess for some people because they they
00:35:56
kind of they see the mountain in front of them and you're telling them listen
00:36:00
it's just one step at a time up that mountain but they're just looking at the
00:36:03
top of the mountain going Jesus Christ that's a long way away and the thought
00:36:06
that the the first steps to take are small ones doesn't almost doesn't seem
00:36:10
believable yeah and and look same with me like I would go head on into something thinking that you could just
00:36:16
go out there and run a marathon within a week and people do that and it and it it
00:36:20
crushes you and and then you have to start again but it's just about finding
00:36:24
the rhythm of like what you enjoy and and just going and just doing it and not not really taking your foot off the gas
00:36:30
once you start doing it so jumping back to 2018 then so the business is stagnant
00:36:35
during that period of time and you go on this process of Reinventing yourself um
00:36:40
you also go on the process of Reinventing the business yeah what does that mean how did you reinvent the
00:36:47
business we stripped back all the wholesale that we we were doing and we focused on the DTC so we went into this
00:36:54
weekly drop thing and it was just right it was just before like covid happened and James who is the chief product
00:37:01
officer was like super keen on moving our production out to Portugal it was currently in the UK and Italy and it was
00:37:08
making no money and I had so many arguments with him about it and like hated this this way of thinking that he
00:37:15
was doing and like what he wanted to do with the business and it got to like we we had a massive heated argument about
00:37:21
it and it was so right for the business at the time and I just didn't know it
00:37:24
cuz I weren't acceptance AC accepting of like changing changing the way we were
00:37:31
working and I didn't understand that you could go and do this other thing and produce in a different way than what
00:37:36
we were doing and like full credit to him he completely changed the whole like margin of what we were doing um so James
00:37:45
was doing that for like nine months straight and Mike was doing all these new graphics that was going to change
00:37:51
the way the brand looked and then I I came out to LA a few times and Bone these t-shirts that I really loved and
00:37:57
these cargo pants that I loved and then we started putting all these three things together through through all of
00:38:02
us and then I have a guy called Stefan who was doing all the Website Maintenance and everything like that and
00:38:07
we changed the way the website looked and the whole vision of the brand and we deleted everything off social media and
00:38:12
just like restarted and it just it started working and we put like 300 t-shirts online and we sold 300 in a
00:38:18
minute and then the next week Mike did another design and we sold 600 in a minute and then 900 in a minute and then
00:38:24
it was like [ __ ] we actually do have a following here we've gone from doing 10 15 sales through the day to
00:38:32
like a thousand every single Wednesday 2,000 3,000 4,000 and that gave us like the the
00:38:40
liquid and also the confidence to then go and create more Collections and go back to becoming a real brand again as
00:38:48
you were saying that made me think about how so many people aren't successful in
00:38:53
their lives or aren't as successful as they could possibly be because they haven't gotten out of their
00:38:59
own way and that was me a million times over and just like having that open mindedness and listening to other people
00:39:07
and knowing that it's not you're not right with everything is such a [ __ ]
00:39:11
huge thing it's difficult when you I think especially if you're a young CEO
00:39:15
because you're probably already a bit insecure right yeah 100% yeah um like you feel like you should know everything
00:39:23
so you're like overcompensating by but then as well like the business was growing so much that I would have only
00:39:30
just restricted it if I would have stayed in that CEO position even though I was learning a lot and listening a lot
00:39:35
to a lot of things and we had to bring people in because we were like busting at the seams didn't have enough staff
00:39:41
and like the revenue was going crazy and we didn't know what to do with ourselves
00:39:44
we're all running around like headless chicken there's only like 20 people in
00:39:47
the business and we were doing like 30 35 million revenue and it was like [ __ ]
00:39:52
how what are we going to do we're going to do 50 million next year but we we
00:39:54
don't know what we're doing just like so silly but yeah you I'm going to say from the outside it
00:40:02
looks like you you had it all together of course it does yeah for the whole 13 years it kind of looks like that um and
00:40:08
it still looks like that now and we definitely don't have it all together but we I do have an amazing like
00:40:13
leadership team and everyone in the business is like so bought into it now and like now there's like a mission
00:40:18
statement and some fundamentals behind the business and everyone's everyone's
00:40:23
really on the mission with me and like they they [ __ ] live for it and love it and like we die for it you've you've
00:40:29
created a pretty amazing um company culture you were talking about it there yeah how have you done that that's it's
00:40:35
not really I'm not going to sit here and take credit for that um I'll take credit
00:40:41
for like the gym that we have in there and and the way we like everyone works hard but also like my the CEO that came
00:40:47
in Spenny just he's all about people people over a profit every day of the week whatever it is it's people first so
00:40:55
we have such a good like group of like the leadership theme he's brought in and like everyone who's involved with
00:41:01
the business now it's just constant like transparency and here's where we go
00:41:05
here's what we're doing here's what's wrong here's what's right we need to
00:41:08
focus more on this we need to do more of this and just giving them everything that they they want and like even though
00:41:14
it's yeah you got to work hard you got to work [ __ ] hard we're still like
00:41:19
we're probably the best place to work for that I know of self-awareness I amum
00:41:24
I've spoken to a lot of Founders that have been very very successful especially out of Europe and one of the
00:41:30
things that they all seem to have in common is at some point in their Journey they developed such a high
00:41:36
self-awareness that as we kind of said they got out of the way of the business and just focused on the thing that
00:41:40
they're good at and that's pretty much what it looks like you're doing now yeah and I hope
00:41:46
that's right and I've seen people do that and get it wrong but for me I think
00:41:50
it is right I'm not a businessman and like for me to be the CEO of this business it's growing rapidly and has
00:41:57
all these people involved with it like all I would do is stump the growth of it um so like you said earlier today like
00:42:04
there's people that are so much better at things than you and if you can bring
00:42:07
them into your business they can they can get on with that stuff and do 10 times better job than you can and lay
00:42:14
the foundations for it to become 500 million or a billion dollar brand or 10 billion dollar brand and you can focus
00:42:20
on what you're actually good at how did you get them to come I think like you
00:42:24
said then like company culture like you see if you see represent on LinkedIn or something you're going to look at it
00:42:30
and think [ __ ] I want to be in there these guys and girls are getting after it like doing gym sessions together at
00:42:36
6:00 a.m. and they're all out and they just they're just enjoying the workplace
00:42:40
like but that that comes from being being a successful brand you can't just do that from the get-go can't just build
00:42:46
a gym with no money right so you've got to build that level of success and then
00:42:51
you're able to reinvest into the brand rather than into your stock and and building the actual size of the company
00:42:59
because this is always the issue that I hear specifically like young Founders or
00:43:03
early stage entrepreneurs talking about is okay Steve I get it I know we need great people but how do I persuade great
00:43:09
people like Spencer it's Spenny right Paul Spencer yeah Paul Spencer um how do
00:43:13
I get him to come work here right when he's working at like Puma he was at Puma
00:43:17
wasn't he yeah he was you get how did you get him to come from Puma to represent built a relationship with him
00:43:23
over many years James was in contact with him for 5 years since we first met and then as the business scaled he saw
00:43:30
what we had like he saw what me and Mike had together as brothers and he saw what
00:43:35
me Mike James and Steph had as like a leadership team and he wanted to be involved with it because he knows that
00:43:41
there's no other options for us it was like we we're building this there's no
00:43:45
ceiling like what is what is representing 10 years like what can it be and he says it every day is like
00:43:51
gives me [ __ ] Goosebumps walking in here because there's no there's no limit
00:43:55
to it like can do everything if we can spell sell sportsware we can sell vintage t-shirts and we can
00:44:03
sell we can sell salt like it's insane we can do anything it's it's not really
00:44:08
a brand anymore it's like a lifestyle of all the business decisions that you've
00:44:12
made where does hiring a CEO to run the business and you stepping out of the way
00:44:18
rank number one really yeah my life's just so much better now that he's involved with the business and
00:44:26
there's a lot of way taken off my shoulders it's not the first time I've
00:44:30
heard this I think Ben Francis would have said the same yeah I bet you know in julan at hu said the same and that
00:44:37
putting someone in in that CEO role where it's both like not enjoyable for you as a creative but also it's not good
00:44:45
for the business because it's not your skill set and and that yeah it wasn't
00:44:49
enjoyable for a for a long time and you do it because you had to do it and if I spent 6 hours in that role of a CEO to
00:44:56
then come out of my room and be like Mike let's go and Design This thing you
00:45:00
didn't want to do it there's no energy that [ __ ] drains your if you're a
00:45:03
creative the business side of the thing drains your energy it absolutely kills you even to this day I'll go into a
00:45:11
board meeting and after 15 minutes I'm just like oh my God I'm I'm done I'm
00:45:16
asleep but I could sit in Mike's room and design for 12 hours straight with him how much as a creative and a
00:45:23
creative founder do you have to stay in touch with the business side of things though like you spoke about the
00:45:28
boardroom do you still kind of need to know what's going on I like to yeah okay
00:45:32
I I love to know as much as I can um but as well I think you should keep things away from yourself because it will
00:45:41
inflict you with even if it's like negative things I think especially if you're so focused on building this next
00:45:48
collection or whatever it is if you're hearing negative feedback about some kind of product that's not working or
00:45:52
something in the business is not working that affects what you're doing there um
00:45:56
so I think trying to divide them two things is crucial and I did that with Mike from the GetGo cuz I knew that like
00:46:03
negativity and um like feedback loops on things that weren't great wasn't good
00:46:10
for him when he's designing so kind of kept him just like strictly to design
00:46:16
but obviously we'd give him facts and figures and numbers and stuff like that
00:46:19
but try and keep him out of it as much as he can what was your hardest day oh um I remember we got a letter
00:46:27
from a company also called represent in Europe telling us that we we were basically
00:46:36
done and yeah that was that was the worst day in the business yeah what did the L say just said like that they owned
00:46:45
the trademark in Europe and we were they were just going to take us for everything we had we couldn't carry on
00:46:55
Trading they wanted all of your money more than what we had and that that like that was in that
00:47:04
same period that 2018 to 20 where we were just like every day we were waiting for responses and every day it was like
00:47:13
waking up and thinking [ __ ] like is it all over today is it all over tomorrow can we do what we want to do is this
00:47:19
even our business anymore do we even own what we're doing and like there was
00:47:25
there was only really me Mike and James that knew about this that was going on cuz I didn't want to put it out to
00:47:30
anyone didn't want anyone in the business to know like this was happening or even my family um and it really
00:47:36
[ __ ] like restricted us with everything we did every decision we made every garment we
00:47:42
sold um so that that that was that was included in that really dark period they presumably owned the trademark that you
00:47:54
were using so you had called yourself represent but someone else owned the trademark for
00:47:59
Europe yeah and you didn't realize that at the time we thought we owned it um
00:48:04
because we had the UK IP and all over the rest of the world and there was this dormant we thought it was dormant but
00:48:10
apparently was selling clothing section 25 or whatever section 25 is like the clothing category of a trademark right
00:48:18
and at first we thought all right we can we'll we'll be able to figure this out
00:48:22
let's get some lawyers and we'll go into it in a certain way and approach it like
00:48:26
this and was just constantly like no no no like they weren't willing to nothing
00:48:33
and that was like that was the devil that W you up every night um but I used that as like I guess
00:48:42
again it's that chip on the shoulder thing I kind of used it as that and I realized that like we had to get we had
00:48:48
to do so much and make so much of the brand that we didn't want to give it up
00:48:53
and that when it when the time came to it and he gave in and he wanted to take money we had the money to be able to do
00:48:59
it this sort of dark period between 2018 and sort of 2020 was did that cause it or was that just on top of it that was
00:49:08
like on that was the icing on the cake right so the business is stagnant and then you get this letter through someone
00:49:13
wants to take everything you have and we spent so many months like just sat in the back office just figuring out what
00:49:20
we're going to recall the brand how we're going to Rebrand it and like what
00:49:23
it meant if it was not represent anymore and we wouldn't we couldn't post
00:49:27
anything on social media so it was like we can't show this guy that the brand
00:49:31
does well or we're making any money because then he'll want more and he'll
00:49:35
start seeing all these other things and we just we were so in our own heads about it and like all the advice from
00:49:41
lawyers was just just always bad news um but eventually we got him to come up come up with a figure that he
00:49:50
wanted for it and I remember it was I think it was March 2020 we ended up like signing and
00:49:57
getting getting our name back he wanted Millions yeah um you said the lawyers were giving
00:50:04
you bad news what were they saying just like they wouldn't respond for three
00:50:07
months the lawyers no no no not the lawyers his lawyers okay his lawyers okay so he and then they respond on the
00:50:12
last day of like this three Monon period but you'd be in the car going to like
00:50:16
Portugal to find out if this production's ready and you'd get this long email and your heart just drop and
00:50:21
he'd be like what's going to get said and then we' go back to the office and
00:50:26
sit there again and try and rethink of another name and then respond to him within a few days and then be another
00:50:31
three months so there was just this like this dark cloud above our heads all the
00:50:36
time when you say Dark Cloud what does the Dark Cloud feel like fly on the wall again yeah just you
00:50:45
not being able to be yourself with everything you do every decision you make whether it's buying a [ __ ]
00:50:51
sandwich from the shop it's like that's not your money to buy that sandwich cuz
00:50:55
someone else owns a name where you're making that that money it' like get you like
00:51:01
that did it interfere with your sleep your mental health everything um but Al but like I said earlier it also became
00:51:11
this driving force where like i' use it as a thing where it was like I know this
00:51:18
Probably sounds so stupid but like I just got started running in 2020 and I was like I'm going to go out and run 15K
00:51:26
and if I stop that's like him coming for us you know he's like I have to do it I
00:51:33
have to win at everything we do whether it's just a run or it's a design selling
00:51:36
or whatever it is like you cannot stop now can't be easy going through that with your brother as well because you're
00:51:43
going to both be somewhat protective of each other I imagine and if there's that
00:51:46
dark cloud hanging over both of you at the same time it's yeah it ruined both
00:51:51
of us it ruined his the way he designed and yeah everything and then So eventually you get a break and this guy
00:51:57
agrees to a figure and at the time I you know millions and millions of pounds if
00:52:02
you're making six or seven million in the business and you're saying it's not
00:52:05
really profitable I'm guessing the money wasn't in the bank to send this guy
00:52:08
millions of pounds no but the deal went through in 2020 when we were really like
00:52:12
pushing forward and doing everything we could to that when that thing happened we had enough money for it how do you
00:52:18
feel about him this guy that sent you that ler up until then just hate just absolute hate
00:52:26
because we were a bunch of young guys that were trying to build this business and we had
00:52:31
20 employees at the time that we'd probably have to lay off and we'd lose
00:52:34
all the money and we'd be in debt for the rest of our lives or whatever just
00:52:37
because he decided that he wanted to use that name to sell nothing basically wasn't selling anything
00:52:45
um so yeah up until that day I was I was really upset about it but after it I kind of just realized
00:52:53
that it is what it is and that's how things go and and when I look back at it now it really
00:52:59
[ __ ] catapulted the business cuz that's when we came out of our shell and that's when we started really like
00:53:05
building this brand into a lifestyle and not just t-shirts on the floor on an Instagram page did your parents know
00:53:12
yeah that you were going through that yeah a little bit how I wouldn't tell them the full extent but why just cuz I
00:53:18
didn't I don't like putting pressure on other people um especially when it's not
00:53:22
going to affect their lives as such at the time um but yeah we go to my mom and dad's every weekend and like it would
00:53:28
always be a subject that came up has he replied yet has he responded like have you heard anything it's just
00:53:35
like yeah it [ __ ] us how how did you how did you deal with that cuz you're a
00:53:39
young you're a young guy I remember the first time in business where I experienced anxiety um I I thought
00:53:45
anxiety was something that happens to other people yeah and then I remember the day very clearly where I had to let
00:53:52
the managing director in our New York office go I had to fire him right and I was sat in my apartment in Manchester
00:54:02
thinking about that flight tomorrow where I I'd asked this person to come and meet me for a
00:54:06
coffee and I was just like riddled with anxiety for the first time ever I was like this is this is what people talk
00:54:12
about when they're talking about mental health this is it it's happening to me I
00:54:17
Invincible but it's it's suddenly happening happening to me um obviously
00:54:22
as it always goes it was never it wasn't as bad as I imagined but it's the imag
00:54:26
that imagination is 95% of it isn't it have you experienced that before um mental
00:54:34
health I always struggle when people ask me about this cuz no not really um I've
00:54:39
always been pretty solid on where I want to go who I want to be what I want to do
00:54:42
and just stuck to a plan um anxiety that that thing that period yeah that caused
00:54:49
me anxiety but not not to an extent where it was like crippling mhm um but like I kind of now I kind of enjoy the
00:54:58
the bits of anxiety I get because you learn from it right like you going into that meeting and telling him you're
00:55:03
going to get fired once that's done you have that relief and then you know next
00:55:07
time you do it this is how it goes so you lose that 95% of anxiety that happens before it or you lose a little
00:55:13
bit of it yeah I get really anxious going on to podcasts like the past few days I've been really anxious coming on
00:55:20
here um and I've done a hundred of them before um so you never lose it but how'd you goope with it just being
00:55:29
prepared as much as you can for whatever that thing is so whe if that is you going to fire someone you got to know
00:55:36
the reasons why you're firing them like where they can go what's going to be
00:55:40
best for them what's going to be best for you and just going into it like that
00:55:44
um and then there's nothing really that can happen within that meeting then that
00:55:49
that can go wrong I think and I think that kind of clears the anxiety on your on the brands you know
00:55:55
you've gone through a bit of a transition you said you was the brand was stagnant at one point and then it
00:55:58
took off again when you made a lot of sort of operational changes and sort of changes to the business model but at the
00:56:04
heart of the brand there was always something special you know to even be at six million revenue and I remember back
00:56:10
when I first discovered represent and for anyone that doesn't know it's basically the only thing I wear so like
00:56:16
if you ever see me out or on stage or whatever I'm wearing represent head to
00:56:19
toe I mean it's it's I wear this I usually don't wear this on the podcast
00:56:23
but when I'm not on the podcast it's the only thing I'm wearing and the the 24/7
00:56:27
pants that you made are the only pants that I wear everyone knows that like you know I don't actually have another pair
00:56:33
ofs that's all over um because there's something there when I discovered the
00:56:37
brand there was always something special about it and it's hard to explain right
00:56:42
and when you observe the brand it's clearly turned into a bit of a cult right a good cult no one's getting
00:56:48
murdered it's a good cult but what is that thing that the brand always had oh
00:56:53
that's hard that's a hard question it's really hard I think it's the fact that
00:56:57
it's like two brothers that from Manchester that don't really belong in fashion have come up and done this
00:57:02
really cool thing where they're proven that we don't need to just follow the
00:57:07
rule book and we can do whatever we want to do and sell whatever we want to sell
00:57:11
and like it's still even though it's a huge brand now it's still like a small
00:57:15
thing where like the Owners Club for existence like which is like one range within it one range within it where like
00:57:22
you see someone else wi an own's Club hoodie like you see them two guys not at
00:57:25
each other and it's like yeah part of something like we've kind of built this
00:57:28
community that is it stems from the people that are in the business but it's
00:57:33
so much bigger and it's on a global scale but it's still like pretty small
00:57:37
and it's it's like a it's a family business right it's run by two brothers
00:57:41
and everyone within the business feels like family and when you buy a piece of that product we're giving them way more
00:57:46
than what they expect like I my one of my main things is like quality and I want the customer to think um I follow
00:57:56
these guys kind of cool I might try a hoodie and they get way more than they expect and that's when like they become
00:58:02
part of that cult you're exceeding their expectations exceeding their expectations way more than what they
00:58:06
thought it would but for you to exceed my expectations there must be something going on in the office yeah that isn't
00:58:14
going on in the other fashion brands offices yeah and what is that thing that's happening at represent that's
00:58:19
probably not happening at your competitive place I think it's my innate desire to just have just be the best
00:58:27
however we show up whether it's a popup whether it's a run Club whether it's the
00:58:31
the feel of a garment or the delivery saying it's going to take three days and
00:58:34
it takes one day I think it's just my innate desire to just really be the best
00:58:40
at how we show up as a brand exhausting because because the reason why people don't do that is because it's
00:58:47
easier to cut the corner right it's easier to send it 3 days it's easier to
00:58:51
not really care about the quality of course but like it's so personal to us and it's all we were and it's all we
00:58:57
obsess over every day so it's got to be good what do people not see in terms of
00:59:02
the effort that goes into the work between you and your brother Michael what is what is it that people don't see
00:59:09
they don't see Mike enough yeah I'm trying to get him to come out more with
00:59:14
how how he does things and these process and stuff but you like with him you're
00:59:18
seeing a guy that is in a room designing all day every day with his Graphics team
00:59:25
and it's not just him it's the full scale of the business the logistics the
00:59:30
production the Garment TX the guys that are designing all the the actual garments and like the content team like
00:59:37
all of them are so bought into it and everyone we bring up to the office whether it's a store or another brand or
00:59:44
whatever like they're [ __ ] Blown Away no one can believe what's going on in
00:59:48
there and it's this ecosystem that's been built by spy and us as leaders and
00:59:54
and really like bled this Mission into everyone that's in there that like we're
00:59:58
creating something that's going to be like like phenomenal and something that'll last way longer than what we
01:00:04
lost ourselves when you've put so much of your heart into the designs and then
01:00:10
you go on Instagram and someone's copied it yeah and it's your brother's design
01:00:14
that they've copied and I see I see people copying your stuff all the time how's that it's good it means it
01:00:22
means the Design's good right no that's not how you felt the first time no at
01:00:26
first you [ __ ] hate it and you think people are taking food off your table and in some cases that's right um and if
01:00:33
if it's a brand that's like very similar to us and they're trying to do the same
01:00:37
they're at the same price points as us and they're in our market and they're
01:00:40
taking market share then yeah it's like they shouldn't be doing that and it'll
01:00:45
bite them in the ass when it comes to it and at the end of the day it's who's in
01:00:49
it for the long run right copying other people we used to do it when we we started I'm not going to sit here and
01:00:54
say everything was origin we've all been there and done that I don't think I don't think when you're at
01:01:00
a larger scale you do do it but then you see brands that are huge High luxury fashion brands go and do it to a small
01:01:06
designer um so I think it's just it's just what comes with life I'm sure
01:01:10
you'll get it with podcasts it's the same thing right you just got to laugh
01:01:15
at it yeah I've thought about how you know my journey with with people like copying
01:01:20
what you do or whatever has been it's been on a bit of a journey and it's
01:01:24
difficult cuz it's because especially when you care so much about something someone copies it it really hits you in
01:01:28
the heart to some degree it's like especially if you can like remember where you came up with that idea and
01:01:32
then but I but you're right it's an inevitability and it's also um I always
01:01:38
think about how the most important stuff is actually the part of the iceberg under the water yeah and even with
01:01:44
design I I try and get this across to my team that like it's not even the design
01:01:49
really that counts it's the whole brand they're bu they're not buying into this
01:01:53
word yeah they're not buying into that they're buying into this essence of like
01:01:57
them becoming part of this club and like they're getting this Prestige and getting the workouts and they're all
01:02:02
part of this whole like lifestyle that we're portraying and doing and living
01:02:06
and becoming the most important stuff they can't copy no one can copy that they can copy a logo and they can't copy
01:02:13
like what what you stand for right so you've gone from being a business that was making sort of 8
01:02:19
million in 2018 to as we sit here now I think last year you did about about 100 million dollar yeah which is exceptional
01:02:28
money is now um large in your life you I'm sure you run the numbers and you go
01:02:35
[ __ ] I'm worth this much money if I sold it for this [ __ ] try not to but do you think uh do you think
01:02:42
about how do you think about money now I'm not going to lie and sit here and
01:02:46
say like oh money's not an issue money's not a a thing that drives me because it
01:02:50
is and I think it is with everyone and I'll speak to billionaires and they'll
01:02:54
say on camera that they're doing it for this and they doing it for that and then they'll say
01:02:58
off camera like I want to get [ __ ] Rich course I want to be rich everyone wants to be rich there's there's no
01:03:03
negativity that comes with having a lot of money and I think that society and the way it's perceived now is like not a
01:03:11
good thing that you're making a lot of money like I want I want represent to be
01:03:15
doing billions I want everyone in the business to be extremely wealthy I want the leadership team to be able to have
01:03:22
generational wealth like that that's first and foremost like I I like I love
01:03:28
that why not but if you had a billion pounds now would you be any happier I I don't measure anything on happiness like
01:03:37
I I'm I'm happy to sit in design for 6 hours or I'm happy to go for a run and
01:03:41
like absolutely ruin my legs like that makes me happy I also like doing hard things and rewarding myself um and
01:03:50
that's NE that's not really money but like like I said earlier money never has
01:03:55
a negative impact I don't think but on that point about giving you a billion dollars if I give you a
01:04:00
billion dollars and it's not going to make you any any happier then what's the
01:04:03
point in the the money I think it will make me happier really yeah course dude I could my family would be set forever
01:04:11
all my team would be set forever like that in makes me happy imagine me being able to turn up to my family and being
01:04:18
like okay Dad I know you've worked all your life here's here's this enjoy it what's
01:04:24
the exit strategy per se I don't know anything else so why would I want to leave how are you going to get the
01:04:32
billion if you don't leave we'll do it in profits um no I don't I don't want a I
01:04:39
don't want a billion dollars in my bank account like that's not needed but when you say what's the exit
01:04:46
strategy I'm like when I watched you leave your business I was always thinking like you already had the the
01:04:53
podcast lined up and you're already ready to move into this thing anyway so it made sense for you I don't have that
01:04:59
and I also don't want that like I love represent I wake up and it's represent
01:05:03
everything everything I talk to about everyone is the brand everything I do is the brand that what like even bringing
01:05:09
my fitness into this thing is my brand and like I've been able to then build
01:05:13
247 into this brand which is actually just like more of a passion project for me than um than building a business and
01:05:21
even though like all the athletes that are involved like I'm able to suck so
01:05:26
much like knowledge and worth out of these people personally for myself through the brand so me then moving into
01:05:33
something else or just selling the business doesn't make sense when your identity and your profession become so
01:05:42
intrinsically linked there's a cost to that right because it must feel you know you talked
01:05:49
about back back backs beinging against the wall um God if the brand were to go down down
01:05:56
if the revenue started to Plum it and it went out of Vogue or whatever they call
01:05:59
it like it just was no not popular anymore that's linked to your like self-esteem and you're like self-worth
01:06:04
and your identity 100% and look there is days where it doesn't do well there is still
01:06:11
days now where we'll launch products and we'll have a nightmare with it how do
01:06:15
that feel honestly it [ __ ] with you [ __ ] with your confidence um but it also gives you a realization that you're
01:06:22
not super human and you can't do everything and not everything your touch turns to gold and then you got to go
01:06:26
back to the drawing board and do it again what does that look like so that you think about the last time it
01:06:31
happened how did it feel and how long did that feeling last it lasts a few days and I'll speak to Spenny about it a
01:06:38
lot over them few days and he'll reassure that something else is going to take that feeling away from it and it
01:06:43
usually does and as well like it it's not all about small failures along the
01:06:51
way and there's so many exciting things that when something small trips you up a
01:06:54
little bit you've got to realize like no this is for the long term like the future is this is in 10 years let's look
01:06:59
back at this as like a a learning curve amongst all of this you've still got to
01:07:05
figure out how to have a life like a personal life because regardless of how intrinsically connected you are to the
01:07:11
brand represent you're still going to need to have a life you're still going
01:07:14
to need to be a George in there somewhere yeah and I never really did for a long time past 10 years I've not
01:07:20
really had a life not nothing outside of represent but I've built repres into my life in
01:07:27
the moment I think about you know times in my career where I was absolutely all in on something to the point that I was
01:07:34
like seven days a week in this [ __ ] office and even the weekends when there's nothing to do I'm just in there
01:07:38
cuz I got new mates dude so that's when I realized so them Sundays where you'd
01:07:42
be sat at home on your own no one would be messaging you you can't do anything
01:07:47
with people in the business because it's their time off with the families that's
01:07:51
when I realized like [ __ ] I'm like I'm probably too bought into this were you
01:07:59
lonely alone but never lonely never I never got to the point where I felt lonely may maybe a little
01:08:08
bit but like I would I would distract myself with going working out for five hours you
01:08:14
know or just putting my headphones in and listening to a book and just just going and coming back and then the
01:08:20
Sunday's done anyway Sundays were my worst days because I didn't have anyone
01:08:24
to do anything with like I'd go I'd go and train at a local gym where there's a big Community there
01:08:30
for the from 6:00 a.m. till 9:00 a.m. and I come home I just sit there and think when's it Monday isn't that funny
01:08:38
text my mom like what you up to and she be like oh we're actually up in Scotland
01:08:41
doing this trip I be like [ __ ] I can't even go and see my mom so yeah I guess I guess there is a
01:08:47
little bit of loneliness in there yeah I was lonely but I didn't know it at the
01:08:51
time yeah I only know it in hindsight cuz I look back at the way I was living and right yeah I was filling the Gap the
01:09:00
Sunday Saturday Summer evenings holidays even Christmases like cuz I was in Manchester my family are in the
01:09:06
southwest I was filling it with work like often just like pointless work absolutely unneeded stuff a lot of the
01:09:13
time it's it's great and you can go out and you can spend a few hours on your
01:09:16
own and write a load of things down that you need to do that next week or but you
01:09:19
need a team to do anything like I can't get anything done without the team and that's that's one
01:09:28
thing I would realize every weekend that like I'm wasting my time pretending to
01:09:33
work it's exactly what I was doing relationships romantic relationships let's start with
01:09:41
non-romantic relationships in fact you talk about having to shed people in terms of like negative influences in
01:09:49
order to change your life people ask me about this all the time which is yeah you know how
01:09:54
important is the environment on personal and professional success I think it's
01:09:59
everything I think your ecosystem that you build around you is everything whether that's the distance it takes you
01:10:05
to get to the gym or the people you follow on social media if you're following Joe from school that's out
01:10:12
every night drinking and you're watching them stories even if it's 20 seconds of
01:10:15
your day you're wasting your time watching them stories and you're also looking at things that are just
01:10:22
absolutely pointless to your life so why don't you go and follow someone who's
01:10:25
done what you want to do or he's doing what you want to do or who actually inspires you and just clear out all the
01:10:30
[ __ ] and you you're going to be so much more in your in the right head space if you do something like
01:10:37
that did you do that did you clear out yeah did it a lot of times got a lot of bad messages from
01:10:45
doing it really Jo okay yeah why did you unfollow me do you explain it to him um yeah just tell
01:10:54
them how it is just say look man I don't want to watch you sit anymore so romantic
01:11:00
relationships then how has that been because it it must must be pretty tricky with the level of obsession that you
01:11:06
have to maintain a healthy happy romantic relationship nonexistent didn't didn't entertain it for so many years
01:11:14
tried it once maybe like when I was 25 26 and just didn't work Why didn't it work I
01:11:22
was obsessed with work and I was also like I didn't know who I was and what I
01:11:28
wanted to be and it was before that era before that time of mine where I changed
01:11:33
so it just I didn't like who I was and obviously that doesn't work when you're
01:11:37
in a relationship you got to you got to love yourself first right MH um and then
01:11:43
after that I just kind of just said no I'm not doing it and didn't up until
01:11:48
recently really didn't entertain it at all for so many years you got a girlfriend have I no not not really kind
01:11:55
of would she answer this question the same way she got a boyfriend she's got a
01:12:02
boyfriend no are you a little bit um are you you're an avoidant aren't you do you
01:12:07
know the the attachment Styles have you heard about the attachment Styles no what's that three attachment Styles
01:12:10
you've got the secures they're the ones that just have the perfect relationships
01:12:13
right you know they're like no problems they're like you know and then you've
01:12:16
got the anxious ones who clingy like need like they need like need attention yeah exactly and then you've got the
01:12:22
avoidant who kind of run right strike me as an avoidant um I don't know what I am
01:12:29
I don't I I really don't know I'm definitely not an attachment one no um
01:12:34
and I just always thought it would be a pressure on myself to then and I didn't want to let someone else down
01:12:41
because of what I was doing with work and I don't want to have to explain to
01:12:45
someone like this is my business this is my life I'm doing this all the time when
01:12:49
they want to see you and they want they want your attention and stuff but now like hiring spany and having more time
01:12:54
and actually coming moving out here I've got time now like my day is done way
01:12:59
before what it was at home I would work from or i' train and then I would work
01:13:03
from I'd be in the office at half 5 in the morning I'd leave at 7:00 p.m. and
01:13:07
I'd go to bed so there was no time but now I can wake up early get all the stuff done with the guys at home work
01:13:14
with the guys over here building out representing LA and then I can be done by like 2 3 p p.m. a lot of days so I
01:13:21
have then time to like I guess date goals and things like that and how's that going
01:13:28
hate it really no not I hate it I guess guess you do hate it because I was I have this [ __ ] feeling
01:13:35
where I'm not fulfilling what I should be doing and I'm kind of giving myself a
01:13:41
disservice if I'm out doing something else and I think a lot of entrepreneurs
01:13:46
and people who run businesses get that where like if you're not fully into the
01:13:50
business like with every minute of your time you feel like you're not doing the
01:13:53
right thing and I'm I'm starting to try and get out like a guilt feelings yes
01:13:59
very guilty yeah and that actually caused me a little bit of what we think is anxiety I don't know if it is anxiety
01:14:06
but it really yeah yeah I would wake up the next day and be like [ __ ] I've like
01:14:11
spend four hours with this person that I'm not interested in seeing that's I've
01:14:16
wasted four hours where I could have been working could have been building the brand could have been doing other
01:14:19
things sounds like a lot when I say a lot I mean like a lot of a weight to carry yeah like to not be able to go on
01:14:26
a date with someone for four hours without waking up the next day feeling anxious about how you spent your time it
01:14:32
feels like your passions become a bit of a prison yeah a self-inflicted prison but I love it and and it's a privilege
01:14:39
to have it but I'm I'm starting learning like I said I'm kind of got a girlfriend
01:14:44
right now um kind of got a girlfriend you're in so much trouble you have no idea that's
01:14:52
fine she's oh George is on a podcast I have listen to this she's going to click
01:14:56
it we'll do a chapter on YouTube which is called George's girlfriend we'll put
01:15:00
it in the trailer you're going to be some serious trouble absolutely fine Valentine's day yesterday and you're
01:15:06
throwing under the bus interesting but it does it sounds it sounds like a little bit of a prison
01:15:14
yeah you know um not being able to take your foot off the pedal at all without feeling anxious MH are you happy yeah
01:15:24
and what does that mean that means I I wake up I'm [ __ ] thankful for what I've got and what I've built and who I'm
01:15:30
around and like my brother and my family and like I enjoy being able to just do what I want to do and that is the work I
01:15:37
guess most of the time you know when people talk about work life balance M what's your honest opinion of that
01:15:43
[ __ ] if you actually want to build something that's going to stand the test
01:15:47
of time and make you very successful and Rich and happy and bring other people with you it's going to take everything I
01:15:55
fully believe that I don't think you can half ass it I don't think it can be a
01:15:58
side project and I don't think it can be something that's just 3 hours a day I
01:16:03
think you've got to go fully into it to become like high level achiever like
01:16:08
actually a winner what are you willing to sacrifice for that everything whatever it takes
01:16:16
why not I'm already into it now so I've got to got to go fall on look Kobe
01:16:21
Bryant wasn't doing three throws at [ __ ] 3:00 a.m. for no reason you got you got to be the best you got to do
01:16:27
everything right I always talk about the cost that comes with that and the sacrifice are you willing to sacrifice
01:16:33
you not having a family yourself for the time being yeah maybe later on in life when it when it
01:16:39
becomes something that I can step aside from even more then yeah you're going to
01:16:44
want to step aside from it because you're getting anxiety doing 4our dates how you but I'm learning I'm learning
01:16:49
I'm starting to do it like I said yeah you've seen progress in that definitely
01:16:54
yeah I think it's just about building that muscle of understanding you can do
01:16:58
other things and realizing it's not going to come crashing down if you take your foot off the break for a second but
01:17:05
still knowing that you're giving it your all when you are in it is there a point where I always think
01:17:12
about bbery as an example the bbery story of how they kind of went out of fashion because they became too popular
01:17:19
what I'm trying to say is like bbery was aspirational so lots of people start
01:17:24
wearing in it some less aspirational people start wearing it people start knocking it off and selling it for super
01:17:30
cheap in markets then eventually it's no longer aspirational right because because of because it got so popular
01:17:37
that it becomes uncool is do you worry about that as a risk factor for represent so that's like a life cycle
01:17:43
right and that comes every couple years or every seven years whatever they may be in the industry but there's always
01:17:51
different markets to push and pull on also like represent is so small in terms of size compared to burbury at the
01:17:58
moment we have a very core customer base where we kind of can identify them and we know where they are and what they're
01:18:04
doing and until that goes mainstream which I think usually happens probably at like 250 300 million
01:18:11
Revenue um I don't it's not a worry as such at the moment I used to worry about
01:18:15
a lot but like when Spenny came in he was handling a $500 million business he's like we're barely touching the
01:18:20
sides 20% of our revenues in the US that's only $20 million they could sell $20 million out of LA and not see the
01:18:27
product for the next six months you wouldn't even see someone wearing it so at this point no but it it is something
01:18:35
that we will always think about and always you've always got to limit your distribution and make sure you're
01:18:40
selling it in the right places and look we are still like a luxury brand we we're in the best stores in the world
01:18:45
like it's not like you can walk into a Pon and pick us up so it's it's still
01:18:50
not a mainstream brand and it's expensive I was wondering if it if that's less of a threat in on the 247
01:18:57
side of things where it's more about like utility and less about like fashion
01:19:02
because you know everyone wears Nike yeah and no one's like oh my God I'm not
01:19:06
wearing Nike because they're wear it you know yeah biggest Sports we brand in the
01:19:09
world and how are they able to tier a Travis Scott or a virgila blow Jordan one that's going for $5,000 but they're
01:19:16
still selling tracksuits at $20 and you can still see everyone in Gold's Gym to
01:19:21
everyone in [ __ ] Equinox wearing it so there's there's just te to everything
01:19:25
right there's a trickle down system with everything I wonder if that's is that
01:19:30
because it's like more of your utility product than a fashion product I think
01:19:34
so with Nike yeah definitely um because it's not really like a fashion brand
01:19:38
that's able to sell like a $20 item and then like a Ralph Lauren oh really do
01:19:43
they so cheap and expensive stuff well if you look at Ralph Lauren most like it looks amazing from the outside and they
01:19:50
have all these beautiful stores in like the best the best spots in London and New York and la and most of their
01:19:57
revenues done through Outlet at $20 polos or $15 polos 60% of their sales is a polo top which I'm not I'm not exactly
01:20:06
sure on but that's what I hear so there's ways you can I guess smoke and mirror it disguise
01:20:13
things and do other things but for us like we we're pretty solid on where we
01:20:18
want to be in terms of the marketplace and the price points and we'll grow that
01:20:22
way rather than having to teer things to an extent what are the most important because I think most people will be
01:20:29
listening to this conversation in essence because they want to know how you've done what you've done you know
01:20:35
they want to know like the transferable principles behind how it's possible to scale a very successful business that
01:20:45
also is unique because it's quite a cult business you've got like an incredibly
01:20:49
cultish brand you know you do like run clubs and almost a thousand people will show up on the street corner or you you
01:20:54
drop something and you sell thousands in minutes yeah um what are those principles that you would maybe say to a
01:21:01
18yearold George or to that kid in your DMs that's asking for the the principles principles that only you
01:21:07
could have learned in hindsight I think it's about creating the DNA of what the
01:21:12
brand is and sticking to that not vearing off in different directions and changing everything up every so often
01:21:19
based on Trends so I think it's about holding a DNA where that's through thick
01:21:22
and thin so whether it's not right for that time or it is right for that time
01:21:27
there'll always be life cycles in fashion and things will go out and in fashion but if you can kind of cultivate
01:21:32
the look that you want that's that's first and foremost what it is like if
01:21:37
you look at 247 and represent 247 looks like represent but it's active we it's
01:21:42
not like it's a whole different thing that looks like Lululemon like it still
01:21:46
looks like represent so I think making sure the DNA in the brand is very like visible where does the DNA come from
01:21:54
just personal preference what we like to wear what I what I feel like I look good
01:21:59
in what Mike feels like he looks good in what the team love and just building that over time step by step just
01:22:05
creating products that we feel like is either missing or we just want for ourselves to
01:22:11
wear and what would you say about hard work as a principal I think it's everything I really do think it's
01:22:18
everything I meet a lot of people especially out here that have their little hands in different businesses
01:22:23
lots of different pies but but don't work hard at any of them and none of them really ever succeed or they only
01:22:28
own 1% when you find out they've sold a business um so I think it's all about
01:22:34
just like going all in on something that you own I think it's hard if you were just a
01:22:40
small minority shareholder in something like that then is not really your passion it's someone else's or it's a
01:22:47
big group of peoples but when people think about hard work they you know and people advise
01:22:53
someone and say you have to work hard if you want to be successful people say that's toxic yeah don't
01:23:00
care what what's toxic that word that word is just makes no sense you're going to encourage
01:23:07
people to be burnt out yeah I think you can come out the other side of burnt out
01:23:13
like the more you do right the more you can do so if you're working hard at something and you're starting to feel
01:23:19
like it's getting a bit too much the pressure is a bit too much you carry on
01:23:23
doing it you're going to come out of it it's not like it it's not like you're
01:23:26
just going to end nothing ends you just figure out different ways to actually make it successful or you'll something
01:23:32
will work and you'll be like oh [ __ ] then your energy goes back up and you
01:23:35
start going down there and and it works I don't think I don't know I think there's a lot
01:23:41
of negativity around working hard and I don't like that there's there's going to
01:23:46
be a kid listening right now that's like 18 16 and they just can't find the
01:23:51
motivation whatever that means they can't find the motivation to get up and go to the gym they've got some idea but
01:23:57
it's still on the sofa that they had it on um like what what what do you say to
01:24:02
that young man or woman is the first thing to get the the wheels in motion [ __ ]
01:24:12
motivation I don't have motivation a lot of time it's actually more about
01:24:15
discipline it's about just getting it done get up and get it done like with anything with work with working out with
01:24:21
creating a product with building a brand with relationships whatever it's discipline over motivation motivation is
01:24:27
a small thing that can last 2 minutes or an hour motivation can come from listening to a a song on your
01:24:35
iPod if you got discipline you're willing to do it every single day of your life and knowing that it's going to
01:24:41
take so long to do it you just get up and do it you don't even think about motivation and and what is and what is
01:24:47
discipline then discipline is an instruction manual like what is discipline to you yeah I guess it is an
01:24:55
instruction manual I guess it's a list of things that you must do for yourself
01:25:01
to to become what you want to be and it's I guess it's a deciding factor
01:25:08
on whether you're going to do something or not and it goes back to what you said
01:25:11
about like you drew a picture of yourself of what you wanted to look like but you also wrote out like a set of
01:25:16
principles or values that you wanted to embody yeah and then you're living your
01:25:20
life by that as opposed to how you feel every day yeah yeah when you put it that
01:25:27
way that that's what it is and eventually it becomes part of them it becomes a muscle right and you grow that
01:25:34
muscle and you constantly like breaking it down and regrowing it and them principles just become your life you
01:25:42
know they say like habits what is it thoughts become habits and then habits become principles and that becomes you
01:25:50
as a person a lot of people just don't think they're moldable goes back to what we
01:25:54
were saying earlier about like we just don't think that we can change ourselves
01:25:57
yeah but you your evidence of that really remarkable evidence of that yeah and there's a lot of people
01:26:04
there are there's so many inspiring stories out there on social media and in
01:26:07
books and podcasts and stuff that all these people that have completely changed their lives it just takes a lot
01:26:12
of time and a lot of effort are you confident I'm I'm not going to lie I
01:26:18
still have like doubts about things a lot of the time especially in business but with myself yeah I'm I'm conf
01:26:25
what do you have doubts about in business just like you said before maybe one day the the revenue stops maybe one
01:26:31
day it gets too popular maybe one day something doesn't work out maybe one day a competitor comes up
01:26:38
at the side of you and starts taking everything from you the key to growing a business is making sure that it's
01:26:43
scalable and this comes with integrating into the right platforms early in the game to support your growth a platform
01:26:49
that's helped me and my team to do this is Shopify who I'm sure you know by now
01:26:53
because they do sponsor this podcast Shopify is a Commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses
01:26:58
worldwide we recently launched our second version of the derio conversation cards on Shopify which would not have
01:27:05
been possible without Shopify when I started podcasting an online store was the furthest thing from my mind but now
01:27:12
thanks to how simple it is to use the platform it's made this whole process so
01:27:16
unbelievably easy it's actually the internet's best converting checkout 36%
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01:27:28
owners go and try it now because you can sign up for a $1 per month trial period
01:27:35
just by heading to shopify.com Bartlet and you can get started for $1 What if Michael turned around and said
01:27:43
you know what I'm done he just said I just can't do this anymore I I'm going
01:27:47
to just you know I'm done um i' probably cry really yeah definitely um and I just
01:27:54
try and figure out why what it is and then try and get him back in he said no I'm done said and just that was it
01:28:02
forever it had suck it would suck a lot um because I've been since school we've
01:28:09
been together doing this forever so for him then not to be there it' be he'd be pretty shitty because like
01:28:19
who are you doing it for then like I'd [ __ ] die for Mike do you know what I
01:28:25
mean like if if someone had if someone said I'm going to I've got to kick you
01:28:29
out of the business but Mike stays I'd go like this this isn't really for me I guess it's
01:28:36
for him and like it's kind of at that point where that can't happen he enjoys it too much we love
01:28:45
doing this so it's interesting that thought experiment though kind of illuminates much of the reason why
01:28:51
you're doing it in the first place because the first thing you said was who am I doing it for then
01:28:56
yeah but if I had asked you earlier who you're doing this for you would I don't
01:28:59
know if you would have said I'm doing it for Mike no I am I'm doing it for Mike
01:29:03
I'm doing it for the team I'm doing it for my family definitely but if the team
01:29:07
if the team leaves you're still going to crack on yeah it's just a new team but
01:29:11
if Mike leaves if Mike if Mike leaves I don't know if I carry on that's so
01:29:16
difficult to answer I had a business partner and the reason I asked that question is I
01:29:21
thought the same I thought one day I played out my scenario that they quit and I remember thinking to myself the
01:29:26
exact same thing who am I doing this for then like we started this together so the mission is actually me and you
01:29:32
getting to the finish line and you get excited when they get excited or like if if Mike sends me a design that he's in
01:29:40
love with and I'm like [ __ ] hell yeah this is insane and you just have that
01:29:43
energy between you if that wasn't there anymore it yeah it would suck how important do you think having a
01:29:50
co-founder is I think massively I know earlier when you said you get lonely like I think that is a major Block in
01:29:57
loneliness cuz he is always there um and I have like I I always have him to lean
01:30:05
into and I would never put pressure and stress on him in a personal way but I know he's there if that happened
01:30:14
um so I think it's it's a massive thing but who you going to business with is
01:30:19
another massive thing and like you've got to be completely different to each
01:30:22
other and even though we look the same and we seem the same like we are very different people what have you learned
01:30:28
from the bad people that you've hired the ones that didn't work in terms of when I say that I
01:30:35
mean what have you learn is a bad quality in someone to work with to build a business with to
01:30:42
employee um stuck in old ways and not being open-minded to change I think a lot of people are very restrictive when
01:30:51
especially if you're bringing someone higher up from them then some people will always like backfire against that
01:30:57
and that's a bad quality and get it's a human nature and I understand it and you
01:31:02
can always try and like change the way they think about things but if they're
01:31:06
not willing to accept that change especially when you're in a growing company like there's some people and
01:31:12
Spenny always tells me this there's some people that will take you to 50 mil and
01:31:15
there's some people that'll take you to 250 mil and there's some people take you
01:31:18
to a billion and it won't be the same people and you've just got to accept
01:31:21
that and you got to do everything you can for them people at that that time however however far they go with the
01:31:26
brand I I actually had a conversation with a Founder the other day whose business I've just invested in and it's
01:31:33
the exact same conversation that nobody seems to talk about because in both your
01:31:36
case and mine we both did the same thing we hired a bunch of young people yeah that that were probably the ones that
01:31:43
were willing to come and work for us that were also um the ones we could maybe manage yeah and then the business
01:31:50
grows and the problem you have is the next set of talent you need um to get you up to the next rung in this in on
01:31:58
the ladder they need to come in above the people that were there from the beginning yeah and the originals don't
01:32:07
love that MH because that kind of blocks their progression just that's what they
01:32:11
think that's what they think but no it's not true is it because they can learn
01:32:15
from them things and then they can step up it just takes more time or they they'll get more knowledge out of it if
01:32:20
that person does come in but ego's getting the way yeah ego get in the way and like I said
01:32:26
some people are they're not openminded to that and they also very people get
01:32:30
comfortable they get comfortable in that position that they're in and they don't
01:32:33
want anyone to report into and they don't want to do this and do that but that's life
01:32:40
right what is um what's next for you this year yeah start of the Year isn't it I guess we're building out
01:32:49
women's wear in the brand we are opening three stores this year which will be our
01:32:53
first stores we've not done a store yet um and it's something that we've wanted
01:32:57
to do for so many years but just finding the right places and being in the right
01:33:00
space for it why why stores because people think that's going against the way that the world's going everything's
01:33:06
getting more digital course yeah and that's what that's I think that's a
01:33:10
major advantage like same thing happened in Co everyone pulled away from their Productions and stopped selling garments
01:33:17
for a while whereas we were like okay we will take everyone's production space
01:33:21
and we'll start selling online and then we made huge relationships with factories that we
01:33:26
usually couldn't get in and now we're like the best in them factories and
01:33:28
doing everything the right way with them because we supported them during them times but for the for the store aspect
01:33:34
it's like we have these communities all over the globe where people want to be a
01:33:39
part of the brand and the showing up to run clubs and we'll go and do one in
01:33:41
Dubai or we'll do one in La like I want somewhere for them guys to be able to
01:33:45
come into the brand them guys and girls to come into the brand and be able to smell it and feel it and touch it and
01:33:50
have it way more professional than than just walking into a store and seeing it on a rail or see it on a shoe shelf so
01:33:57
it's about creating an area where the community can come in and feel more of
01:34:03
the brand and who we are and what we do and then hopefully roll that out globally and then 247 has a lot of focus
01:34:12
this year usually it's just like a couple people in the building that are doing it and now we've got a full team
01:34:17
working on that we're trying to expand that hopefully I'd like to open some
01:34:20
gyms with it um the concept for that is is maybe next year but not this year and
01:34:26
then I'm building another brand called Cadence um which is an electrolyte drink
01:34:31
high sodium first ready to drink sodium in a can um in the market and that's
01:34:38
something that I've been working on for the past year and a half with a guy called Ross out here and that that's
01:34:45
because going back to 201920 when I started getting into fitness and lifestyle and health like
01:34:51
electrolytes just became something that I was consistently taking and I've not
01:34:57
been sick one day since then and I've never had my energy levels drop and I've
01:35:02
never had bad sleep and not I don't get headaches anymore and it just seems like
01:35:07
this the salt that's in there is what is causing like this constant stream of
01:35:13
energy and it's supporting my workouts and I love flavored drinks so I thought
01:35:18
why can't I make my own version of that and I tested it out with a collaboration
01:35:22
we did earlier last year um and it seemed our customer really wanted it so I was like We'll build
01:35:28
another brand and put it under that umbrella and see how it goes what is the goal here I think the goal is like I
01:35:35
mean just generally like with all of this stuff like what's the goal I I want
01:35:39
rep I want represent to be a lifestyle and not a brand I want it to be unconventional and I want it to be
01:35:46
more than just clothes and I say that a lot recently but I just want it to not just be about the clothes I want the
01:35:52
clothes to be a byproduct why why not no one's really done that yet everyone talks about brand but I
01:35:59
mean what's the point like you know you got you got the jinkx you got the the
01:36:03
247 range you got the the sort of original um represent range what is the finish line here that's the good thing I
01:36:11
don't think there is one I don't think there is a I don't think there's a limit
01:36:14
to what it can be and what this thing that started offers 25 screen printed T-shirts can become over the next 100
01:36:22
years or so but do you not sit around with Michael and go listen we'll get to
01:36:25
two billion we'll sell it there and we'll just get a couple of Yachts no no like look at Ben Francis they got
01:36:33
valued at a billion he's still in the business it's not it doesn't become
01:36:36
about the money right it's not about the money it's about what you're actually
01:36:40
able to do and do some things different and like not be conventional and try and
01:36:45
just I I just want to do something that's that no one's done you know why
01:36:50
not and I ask these questions you know I'm playing devil's advocate here
01:36:54
because I think some people think that this is all kind of like a means to an end with entrepreneurship generally it's
01:37:01
like a means to an end yeah but when I speak to entrepreneurs like you it's so
01:37:04
clear that it's much more about the journey and the journey you're like it
01:37:08
just seems like you probably want to die on The Journey at some point yeah well you're speaking to like a lot of
01:37:15
successful people and people that have been in it for a long time right you're
01:37:18
not speaking to those guys that are walking around on the street saying I'm going to build this and I'm going to
01:37:22
sell it in 3 years for six billion or yeah yeah yeah this is this is my exit strategy and they've just started they
01:37:28
never work no one ever that never works for anybody like that's a [ __ ] way
01:37:32
of thinking you're talking to the people that have really bought into their own
01:37:36
[ __ ] brand and they're living it and they're loving it and it's for forever I
01:37:41
guess it's a mission isn't it there yeah that's their mission you're that's kind
01:37:45
of the tagline that I associate to you because you you post that a lot yeah is it's it's a mission and there's
01:37:50
something difference between a business and a mission that's clearly what You'
01:37:53
capsulated what what are you what are you good at are you good at business I'm good at understanding
01:38:00
business um but when you say good at business what do you mean I mean you can Define it yourself
01:38:08
but I guess what people typically think of as businesses like operations Finance
01:38:13
processes no I'm not I'm not not at all I think that's actually will be really wonderful news to a lot
01:38:20
of people because there's a lot of people out there that think you have to be good at business to own a business no
01:38:26
I think it's about starting off and just figuring things out along the way and
01:38:31
putting people in place of them things that you're not good at that are way better than you would it as soon as we
01:38:36
started doing that that's when the business took off George we have a closing tradition
01:38:40
on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're going to be leaving
01:38:44
it for the question that's been left for you is what is something in your life that
01:38:51
you assume to be true but you haven't yet deeply questioned this is quite funny because
01:38:59
it's something that I'm really interested in but like don't don't talk
01:39:03
about it a lot um I guess whether like the aliens are amongst us not what I was expecting you to say
01:39:13
no not at all and it's completely different to what we've just talked about for the past however long but that
01:39:17
really like interests me um the fact that like there's all these different sto and conspiracies and things that are
01:39:24
going on constantly especially now more than ever and I wonder if it would change the world if one of the governing
01:39:32
bodies or whoever it was actually came out and said yes this is this is this and these are with us I think it's just
01:39:39
amazing we're going into like the world of like simulations and Ai and all that
01:39:42
stuff now I say I saw that thing come out with chat GPT the other day Sora where they can create they could do text
01:39:47
to video yeah and that's when I I saw the first reply to Sam alman's tweet
01:39:52
said this is the technology that was used to create us and and it just wobbled my brain a little bit because I
01:39:58
thought now we're getting to a point where we've got these Apple Vision Pro
01:40:03
headsets and we're able to make video with text and I'm looking at this woman in HD
01:40:09
that's like 85 years old that was made by typing a couple of words and you just
01:40:13
assume any rate of improvement and eventually you get to something that is indistinguishable from
01:40:20
the world real yeah reality yeah we might even be a video game I think there's I've heard Elon talk about this
01:40:26
and he's like he talks about it he said so much that he's had to ban the
01:40:29
conversation right because you fall into a little bit of a hole Yeah you you literally have no idea who we are what
01:40:36
we're doing why we why we're here and yeah is there an alternate universe or
01:40:40
are we just living in someone else's head I don't know so interesting thank
01:40:45
you Georgia thank you for a number of reasons thank you for dressing me for the last uh three years because um I
01:40:51
think your clothes are the best no thank it's a very subjective thing but but in
01:40:55
terms of quality and consideration sometimes you can tell when someone has gone the extra mile in a piece of work
01:41:01
right pretty much always when they've thought about things from first principles they've really thought about
01:41:06
all the decisions and that's what represent has always been to me a brand that always thinks about the decisions
01:41:11
um and it's different in every way as I said from an endtoend experience it's
01:41:15
different and you can tell that the brand comes from somebody somewhere heart right and you can you can tell the
01:41:21
difference again with Brands where you know someone didn't really care about
01:41:25
the process and they were maybe copying something else and then there's this
01:41:28
other brand called represent where it's clearly coming from someone somewhere
01:41:32
heart and their own unique Vision that's why I've always loved the brand um and
01:41:36
that's why I think you've been able to cultivate this cult because there's
01:41:41
something in humans where they can tell the real from the not so real yeah they can just feel it we can feel it and
01:41:47
that's what represent has always been and that's why I've always been so
01:41:50
fascinated by you and your brother um and a huge supporter of both both of you and on like a human level you're just
01:41:55
both just [ __ ] great guys I appreciate and I say that behind your back all the time I go that guy's a
01:41:58
great guy he's just like a really nice humble human being and on paper you know
01:42:03
people might look and go he has a lot of reasons not to be yeah this guy looks like [ __ ] something that was
01:42:07
literally drawn on a piece of paper by an alien like but but and he's got this
01:42:12
incredible business but he's a really good human being and so is Michael so thank you for the inspiration keep doing
01:42:17
what you're doing cuz the mission that you're on is um inspiring many other
01:42:21
people to start missions of their own yeah I think that's something that the
01:42:24
world needs a lot more of so I appreciate it thanks for having me on loved [Music]
01:42:51
it