January 16, 2020 • 26 mins
On this bonus episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie debuts Next Question Live, an intimate, innovation-focused series featuring interviews with leaders, entrepreneurs and business trailblazers recorded (and taped) in front of a live audience in New York City. The series opens with an interview with Tim Brown, the co-founder and co-CEO of Allbirds — the wool sneaker you've probably noticed on the street or all over your Instagram feed. Katie talks with Tim about his rocky path to Allbirds, the career in professional sports that inspired the idea, and how the young company is trying to break the shoe mold with their sustainable and fashionable products. Tim also shares some frank opinions on what it’s really like living that entrepreneur life.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everyone, I'm Gaty Current and welcome to next question.
Today we get a look inside one of the most comfortable, sustainable,
and surprising innovations in shoes, the Wolf sneaker from All
Birds with the kiwi who invented them. The idea was weird,
and it was weird and weird in a positive way.
(00:22):
Tim Brown, along with his co founder and co CEO
Joey's Willinger, launched All Birds in two thousand and sixteen
as a little directed consumer shoe company. Tim was the
creative designer from New zealand Joey the analytical engineer from
San Francisco. Both happened to be soccer players and neither
(00:43):
had any experience in footwear. Largely, this was going to
succeed or file, at least in the first instance, by
by how strong that punish it was. And this entrepreneurial
thing is like another marriage enormous priscia. Not to mention
the financial risk, there is also the public risk of
something just being bad. And yet less than four years later,
All Birds is a one point for billion dollar company
(01:06):
with retail stores around the world and big plans to
expand into other fashion realms. So my next question, how
did All Birds become the little shoe Company That Could.
I recently have the chance to interview Tim Brown for
our very first Next Question Live, an intimate innovation focus
(01:29):
series in front of a live audience in New York City.
The last time I saw you, you interviewed Sheryl Sandberg
on stage and it was pretty intense interviews. I was
a little nervous, so let's go a friendly don't worry,
you know, I think you're not in the hot seat
like Facebook was at the time. I went pretty easy
(01:49):
on Tim. We started with his background. He grew up
in Wellington, New Zealand, but came to the States for college,
attending the University of Cincinnati for design. Eventually he went
to the London School of Economics. But what's unique about
Tim's background is that he spent the better part of
his twenties as a professional athlete. When the rest of
(02:11):
his friends were grinding away in offices, Tim was on
the field playing soccer, or as it's known across the
pond football. You know, I don't think I as a
netural athlete by any stretch, but I was determined and
I was competitive, and I realized at a very very
early age I hated to lose, really really hated to
lose and um, and so that became a kind of
(02:32):
a theme of my sporting career. And you know, I
kept edging towards doing a little bit more, a little
bit more, and then you you know, the goals keep expanding,
and then all of a sudden, you know you're You're
at a World Cup and two thousand and ten. So
it was just an incredible journey and I was I
was lucky. It was a journey that set the flight
path to all birds. It was like a boyhood dreamed
(02:53):
to be able to play football professionally, and then you realize,
like anything else, it's a job. And there's some great
things about it and some not so and things about it.
One of the great things about it was you've got
free gear and uh and I was sponsored by one
of the big sports where companies that I don't like
to name, and uh and um, I won't and and
(03:14):
you know, I got lots of free gear and it
was it was cool, it was awesome, and you know,
but this idea was really born out of that. I mean,
everything had logos. I felt like a kind of a
walking billboard at times for this brand, and certainly in
the context that I was living in, it was very
very hard to find a simple shoe without without logos.
So I, rather naively, while I was still very much
(03:34):
focused on soccer knee deep and my career, set out
to try and see if I could make one. What
Tim wanted in a shoe was something simpler, no bells,
no whistles, no fuss, a design that didn't need to
be thrown out and updated every year. And he didn't
think he was the only one who wanted that. Did
the world need another shoe brand? No, but I definitely
(03:55):
saw a kind of a white space for a for
a different type of design philosophy. But the real insight
came when in one of my off seasons, I flew
to a footwear factory that I found online, and I
walked into this whole new world that I knew absolutely
nothing about. That footwear factory was in Indonesia, where Tim
found a world of synthetic fabrics, cheap shoes made cheaply
(04:18):
for maximum profit. He left the factory with a mission
I think I'm gonna make. I'm gonna make a couple
of thousand pairs of shoes, which was the minimum that
the guy would make and I didn't have a plan
much beyond that except that I thought I might sell
them to my teammates or something um and that's what
I did. What did you see that was missing from
the landscape in terms of a shoe and shoe production?
(04:42):
So it becomes three things. So the first one's design,
and I mean that's as clear to me today as
any you know, as as a as kind of a
minimalist who had been trained in this idea of sort
of taking things away of design as sort of the
form following the function. That was really clear. And then
it became about materials because it it seemed obvious to
me that the footware industry had defaulted to making things
(05:04):
out of synthetic materials largely based on cost, and that
there was an opportunity with different materials that had been overlooked.
And I came back, I was back in New Zealand
reading a magazine literally about this huge decline of the
wool industry in New Zealand and how they were desperate
for innovation. This was a very very important primary industry
in New Zealand that had been really destroyed, largely by
(05:27):
the synthetic industry over a long period of time and
was crying out for innovation, and so I applied for
this grant while I was still playing soccer. That was successful.
That was how desperate they were. And they started making
this material to make shoes out of wall and and
this went on for years and again, I mean, this
is happening over so long, So I think the story
starts probably two thousand and seven, and I'm still chipping
(05:48):
away at this like three or four years later. So
it's happening slowly. But you know that the opportunity used
these different types of materials seemed wise. No one done
this before. This idea seems so obvious, And everyone I
talked to about it, they said, why has that not
been done before? It's probably a dumb idea, but why
has it not been done before? The material seemed attractive
(06:08):
to you in terms of comfort and style and what else.
So peak sheep in New Zealand is sort of ninety
eight circon eight and there's seventy million sheep, and now
there's less than thirty million, five million, And no one
in New Zealand is growing up dreaming of being a
sheep farmer. So this is this is an industry that's
crying out for innovation. I get this grant, it comes
out of a research lab with this material, and you know,
(06:30):
I subsequently go to the World Cup, retire, and all
of a sudden show up at Business School in London,
which is where I went, and I have this material
that has largely been made for me with no restrictions,
that's taken a long time, and a little bit of
shoemaking knowledge from my forays into Indonesia, and so again
another moment of time just to put these two things together,
(06:51):
and you know, you start to understand that wool is
this incredibly soft, you know, wicks away moisture that's sort
of really the ultimate natural performance for bricks. I started
to see the opportunities and I understood them inherently as
a kiewie. I think in terms of the possibility of
this material. But I hadn't yet pieced together the third
piece of this and how it fits into the topic
of sustainability. It wasn't what I was focused on. It
(07:13):
was the product. But that was the sort of sequence
of events and we should mention along the way. You
went to the London School of Economics, and then you
went to business school at Calart. Right, yes, So I
retired from sport after the World Carpet was never going
to get any better than that, and I decided to
get serious about life at thirty two, and I had
an entrepreneurship class at Kellogg taught by a prophet called
(07:35):
Carter cast who was a former CEO of Walmart dot com,
this amazing guy, and it was. It was a sixty
ten weeks entrepreneurship class and everyone had to pitch an idea.
And so I came in and there was a class
not dis similar to this in size, and everyone had
one minute to pitch their idea. And I got up
and I said wall shoes. And they voted down the
ideas until there was ten teams of six, and miraculously
(07:59):
wall Shoes got picked. Then all of a sudden, I
had this like six person team at business school running
at this idea in a way in ways that that
you know, I had never really thought about it. And
it was this this weird moment you have these moments.
That was a moment when if if the idea hadn't
been picked in that particular class, maybe it doesn't happen.
Um And we ran with it when we come back
how Tim picked his partner and how their professional marriage
(08:21):
almost killed the awbird stream. Tim Brown was eager to
see if his wool shoe idea had any traction, so
he went back home to New Zealand, shot a little
video on a friend's sheep farm and posted it along
with the six pairs of wool shoes he had made
(08:42):
so far on Kickstarter. We baked on a journey to
create off the shoe designed specifically for socless shoe, but
it as few scenes as possible a shoe the bridge
sport and fashion. It was as comfortable with a peer
of jeans as it wasn't. And this is a true story.
Before my mom could even work out how to buy
up here on kickstar up, she's having some technical problems
with a credit card at checkout. We sold the thousand
(09:03):
peers that we could make because that's all I could
in four days, and it did ad dollars and my
phone didn't stop buzzing and I had to switch it
off because of the trajector it was on and not
being able to deliver on the on the on the product.
So I was shocked and scared. It's very easy to
have an idea much much harder to actually put it
in front of people that you don't know and ask
(09:24):
for money out of their wallet. And the sooner you
do that, the sooner this things becomes real. And it's
also the moment, if you're doing it right, you get
really scared. And that's what I was. I was really
scared because I know, the truth be told, I didn't
really know how I was going to make all of
these things. I didn't really have any knowledge of shoes,
and it turns out they're extraordinarily difficult to make, and
(09:45):
I was making it with material that had never been
used before. So there was a bunch of things that
were difficult about it. Anyone who has built anything, um
you know, will tell you there is that moment where
you you doubt yourself and you know you've got to
push through and and and you lean on your family
and your friends, and um you know, my girlfriend now
wife paid some of the bills, and you pushed through.
(10:06):
And I had a very very difficult year, um but delivered,
delivered the thousand piers of shoes around the world for
the most part, and um you know, was it another juncture.
The Kickstarter campaign attracted a lot of attention from consumers
and also investors. It should have been a big confidence boost. Instead,
(10:26):
Tim was full of self doubt. You know, my dad
had started to refer to me as a cobbler, which
was really annoying. And so you're like, what am I?
What am I doing? And this is I mean, this
is a little maybe it's become almost a little bit
of a cliche conversation these days, but I was kind
of missing the why behind this whole thing. Tim's wife's
(10:46):
roommate from Dartmouth is married to Joey's Willinger, an engineer
living in San Francisco. Joey would help Tim figure out
the why. He had really committed his career to um
sustainability and use of renewable materials, and for my you know,
as clear as my design vision was, he had an
equally clear vision around the sort of revolution that was
(11:09):
going to come and sustainability and sustainable manufacturing that the
world was going to need to find a better ways
to make things, in his words, and it was going
to happen in a whole bunch of industries. But the
first industry that was going to lead the way was
the fashion industry, and moreover, the fashion industry had a
real problem to solve. UM. You know, I had Enjoy
an engineer, he'd been to Warton. He was he was,
(11:32):
in many ways a scientist, anchored in the materials and
the operational side of it UM And so I found
the person that could do all the bit so I
didn't want to do so it was perfect. It was perfect,
and it was official. Albert's was up and running online
and crushing it, but already there were cracks in the relationship. Yeah,
So we started working out of his his mother in
(11:54):
law's house in San Raphael. We raised a couple of
million dollars in Ventura Capital Um and you know, I
think we had five employees. We launched. We launched All
Birds on the first of March, and we had a
business plan that was largely made up and fabricated. Ah.
And you know, we did a million dollars in the
first month, blew through I think our first three years
(12:14):
of sales inside the first six months or so. It
was just it. We just took this thing, took off
in a way that we could never have imagined. And we're,
you know, a month into this and and I'm looking
at him and I think he's looking at me and
we're saying, I don't think I want to work with
you anymore, you know. And I think we've just been
through this enormously, like six or seven months of heads down,
(12:37):
just grinding with all the uncertainty of of of whether
this was going to completely fail and all the embarrassment
that would come with that, and it had actually gone well,
but just the emotion of building something of you know,
with that much pressure on on on on so many things.
And Joey had two little kids at the time he
stepped away from this well paying job, and it was
a moment where I just think we we let it
all out and all the good and the bag came
(12:59):
out for a series of beers on one afternoon and
and um, you know, it was a pretty important moment.
It's an opportunity to sort of understand people's hopes and
fears could have gone either way. I think, what is
he good at? And what are you good at? Uh?
You know, he there's a bunch of things, very different
sort of skill sets. He's you know, he's an analytical engineer.
(13:21):
I'm a I'm a creative designer. So I think that's
a very big distinction. He's an American and I'm in
New Zealander. Uh and and that cultural um nuance. I
actually is married to an American. These two cultures go
together so well, I think in many ways. And um
and uh, you know, the sense of humor and maybe
(13:41):
New Zealander's lack of confidence and uh, I won't you know,
I won't say anything. You know what I'm talking about Americans.
I don't like that. At times. I said that very politely.
So these two things kind of coming together. I was
taught to to not talk up ideas and have big ones.
Culturally in New zealand's a litt bit of a problem
in some ways. Like it's like you would never tell
(14:02):
anyone as a kid you wanted to go to the
World Cup. You just would never do that. That's that's
how you get beaten up at school, you know, because
you think you're good, and you know, you think a
humility is really valued. It's really valued to a point,
almost to a fault. And then you know, when I
came to America, the biggest gift that America has given
me is like, yeah, it's okay to say you're going
to go do something good and then get after it.
There's absolutely no shame either if it doesn't go right,
(14:23):
that is a gift as well. And and so those
two things coming together as has been really really valuable.
And then we split it as co CEOs and I
ran the product and the brand and he ran the
sort of operations in the supply chain and the finance
and the technology, and it's worked out really well. Coming
up why shoes are destroying the environment and how Albert's
(14:44):
wants to fix that. There's a lot of debate around
just how bad the fashion industry is for the environment.
It's complex and multilayered, supply I chain, touches, agriculture, livestock, petroleum, mining, construction,
(15:05):
shipping and manufacturing, and the advent of fast fashion the
mass manufacturing of cheap, trendy clothes hasn't helped. But shoes
in particular have a terrible wrap. She shoe shaved me
because they essentially never biodegrade. They just live on and
on and on, and twenty billion pairs of shoes are
(15:28):
manufactured every single year. So where does that leave all birds?
Joey had an enormous amount of expertise here, but we
believed we could do it differently, that we could bring
UM new materials to beer and footwear UM, and we
could focus deeply on them and innovati around them. We
(15:49):
could do that not just because it's the right thing
to do, but do it because it made more comfortable
products and a better experience. And I think that's a
really key early insight. People don't buy sustainability that by
great products, and it's incumbent on sort of business to
sort of change and make things in a bit away.
And that was a really key kind of plank for
for the way that we were working. And we set
off to do that, and we did it with one
(16:09):
material and wall, and we've added another in in eucalyptus
fiber and subsequently again a soul made from sugarcane. And
you know, our belief is that natural materials are the
pathway to better practice for the fashion industry. You're certified
v CORE and you've stayed true to your commitment. UM.
(16:30):
Not only in the construction of the shoes, are you
trying to be environmentally sensitive, but what about all up
and down the supply chain. It's a lot to do
with certifications. You can't be everywhere, so you need to
invest in materials that UM. You know, the best in
the business and and and lean into certifications that are
meeting the right type of environmental standards. And we do
(16:51):
it in the case of our wall with ZQ bond,
SUCRE with a sugar and FFC for its Stewardship Council
for our eucalyptus. So those things are really important. And
then you know, you want to you want to also
sort of measure and understand your carbon. So that was
that was another big thing. And you know, I think
it's a really key point because the topic of sustainability
(17:11):
is a really complicated and confusing one. And I think
if we went we went around this room and ask people,
like what does sustainability mean? Some people might say it's
about water usage and land usage, and others might say
ee quality, and someone else is going to say end
of life, uh, you know, or transport um and and
and the reality is all those are true and important,
(17:33):
but they ladder up to the singular idea that carbon
is the is the scorecard that we're going to be
judged by as we as we work our way out
of this environmental crisis that we're in. And so that
was a kind of a key kind of insight for
us as we've as we've gone through, so measuring carbon
deeply all the way through our supply chain is something
that we've we've done largely from the beginning. Let's talk
(17:54):
about the Amazon controversy. Were you surprised that they made
all birds cats? And how how pissed off are you? Uh?
You know, it's we're not the first company to have
been to being imitated by them when it happens to you, Yeah,
you know, there was frustration. I mean, I think we've
(18:16):
we've we've had so many copycats since we've launched. It's
been mind blowing. And I want to say there's north
of twenty at least, um, and they cropped up at
a regular, on a regular basis. But when the world's
you know, one of the world's most valuable companies does it,
and what we sort of thought was it was a
little bit of an unfair way. Um, we were disappointed.
(18:36):
And more importantly, I think it comes aided pretty closely
with you know, some of the urgency that that consumers
and customers are feeling around the environment and sustainability. And
they copy the design and they don't copy our materials,
and so we're thinking, Okay, we're fear is fear copy
of the design. But you know what would be really
great is if you copied, you copied the spirit of
(18:57):
what we're doing. And in fact, Joey, your partner post
did an open letter on Medium to Amazon last month.
He invited the company to steal your sustainability practices, not
just your designs, and and are you optimistic that they'll
take you up on that? And one person asked me
to ask you if you've ever heard from Jeff Bezos
after he stole your shoe. Uh, we haven't, but we
(19:21):
hope to. And genuinely, I mean, our souls are made
from sugar cane, and when we launched that material innovation,
we made an open source so that everyone could use it.
In fact, I think that's an interesting point, tim that
you share your innovation with anyone, because you would love
a lot of people to use these techniques and other
shoes and other products in general. Absolutely, and we do
(19:44):
that not just because we're good guys. Although we completely
understand that the topic or the challenge of sustainability is
not going to be solved by all birds, or even
by one brand. It's going to be solved by lots
of companies sharing best practice and working together, and so
we've understood that it's been foundational. But we also know
is that this new material, the more people that use that,
the cheaper it would become. And that's what's happened. And
(20:05):
there's now twenty companies I believe, planning to use this
material this year. So you know, we sort of said,
Mr Mr Bezos and Amazon, why don't you use that too?
That would be great. And so that was the source
of Joey's litter and and and it went, well, you've
got sixteen retail stores worldwide and you're opening up twenty
(20:25):
new retail locations. I guess, yeah, correct, it's really exciting
and retail has been phenomenal for us. That's so interesting
because you know that's other people are going the other direction,
right uh and not opening up I guess there's a
combination of what people are doing with bricks and mortar
stores versus online shopping. But you feel like you want
people to have this kind of experience of seeing the
(20:48):
actual products absolutely and feeling them. Everyone. You know that
the myth about retail dying or being did I think
has been great greatly exaggerated and um, you know, particularly
in the case of shoes. Everyone's got a childhood memory
of going to a shoe store and trying on shoes
with that metal device that no one knows the name of,
and um, you know, and so we always wanted we
(21:08):
always wanted to get Yeah, no one knows, no one
knows the thing, um and uh, and so we always
knew we wanted to do it. I think we've been
blown away by just how much our customers have wanted
to come and experience and touch the product and then
ask really really deep questions. And then the other thing
that's been amazing is, you know, the real innovation opportunity
(21:30):
is were the people that work and retail, who for
the most part, are not treated all that well. And
so you know, we've tried to really think about the
training and and and and investing in the people that
work for us in stores. And that's just an amazing
opportunity that we're just beginning to uncover. And we're excited
about the sixteen stores and the twenty more that will
add and um, you know, the opportunity to make working
at all birds retail something that people are really proud of.
(21:52):
So workplace culture is clearly really, really important to you.
And before we came out, you were talking about how
difficult it is, especially as you grow and expand and
more more and more people are working for you. What
about four nine? Now, yeah, it's it's somewhere something somewhere
around there, And yeah, it's it's I mean, we've we've
you always have little speed mumps, and you know, I
(22:13):
think it was it was. It was easy in some
ways when you knew everyone's name and you knew their
families and knew what was going on and you knew
Steve was breaking up with his girlfriend or you know,
whatever it was. And then when it gets bigger, it
just how do you scale the things that you as
founders think are really important and share those messages um
and create the kind of culture that when we you know,
(22:35):
with twenty five people in Shanghai and and officuely there,
how you know, how do they take what we think
is important but shape it into their own version of
what's important. And I'd be lying if I said We've
got that all worked out. But you know what I
do know is if if you get that but right,
even over and above the product and the innovation, the design,
you go a long way to being successful. So we
think a lot about it, albeit with many answers that
we don't yet have. Before I let Tim go, I
(22:59):
asked him if he had any advice for aspiring entrepreneurs
out there, and his answer was, well, pretty honest. I
think that this entrepreneurship has been sort of romanticized. It
think it's normally enormously difficult, and I've been very, very lucky.
And I talk about my family because I've lean on
them to get this, you know, get this off the ground.
And it's hard. So I would be careful what you
(23:20):
wish for. It would be my first piece of advice,
and the second will be that's not very encouraging. I
just I want to be honest about it, and I
think it's it's there's a kind of a cult of entrepreneurship,
and I think only some emerging issues even to understand,
you know, um, some of the wellness issues around it,
because it's it's a really challenging thing to do. And
(23:41):
so I just I'll start with that one. That being said,
you know, I go and put it out there, UM
be vulnerable. See if it's going to work, UM trust
that if it's weird and everyone's questioning the validity of
the idea, You're probably on the right track. And if
they're telling you that it's awesome, stop right now. Well.
(24:02):
Tim Brown, CEO co CEO of Alberts, thank you so
much for coming in and having this conversation with all
of us today, and congratulations on all your success. Thank you.
It's been a pleasure to be here, and thank you
for going for going easy on me. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay,
(24:25):
and that does it for this bonus episode. Thanks so
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(24:45):
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(25:08):
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(25:31):
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(25:56):
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(26:17):
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(26:37):
your favorite shows.
Hi everyone, I'm Gaty Current and welcome to next question.
Today we get a look inside one of the most comfortable, sustainable,
and surprising innovations in shoes, the Wolf sneaker from All
Birds with the kiwi who invented them. The idea was weird,
and it was weird and weird in a positive way.
(00:22):
Tim Brown, along with his co founder and co CEO
Joey's Willinger, launched All Birds in two thousand and sixteen
as a little directed consumer shoe company. Tim was the
creative designer from New zealand Joey the analytical engineer from
San Francisco. Both happened to be soccer players and neither
(00:43):
had any experience in footwear. Largely, this was going to
succeed or file, at least in the first instance, by
by how strong that punish it was. And this entrepreneurial
thing is like another marriage enormous priscia. Not to mention
the financial risk, there is also the public risk of
something just being bad. And yet less than four years later,
All Birds is a one point for billion dollar company
(01:06):
with retail stores around the world and big plans to
expand into other fashion realms. So my next question, how
did All Birds become the little shoe Company That Could.
I recently have the chance to interview Tim Brown for
our very first Next Question Live, an intimate innovation focus
(01:29):
series in front of a live audience in New York City.
The last time I saw you, you interviewed Sheryl Sandberg
on stage and it was pretty intense interviews. I was
a little nervous, so let's go a friendly don't worry,
you know, I think you're not in the hot seat
like Facebook was at the time. I went pretty easy
(01:49):
on Tim. We started with his background. He grew up
in Wellington, New Zealand, but came to the States for college,
attending the University of Cincinnati for design. Eventually he went
to the London School of Economics. But what's unique about
Tim's background is that he spent the better part of
his twenties as a professional athlete. When the rest of
(02:11):
his friends were grinding away in offices, Tim was on
the field playing soccer, or as it's known across the
pond football. You know, I don't think I as a
netural athlete by any stretch, but I was determined and
I was competitive, and I realized at a very very
early age I hated to lose, really really hated to
lose and um, and so that became a kind of
(02:32):
a theme of my sporting career. And you know, I
kept edging towards doing a little bit more, a little
bit more, and then you you know, the goals keep expanding,
and then all of a sudden, you know you're You're
at a World Cup and two thousand and ten. So
it was just an incredible journey and I was I
was lucky. It was a journey that set the flight
path to all birds. It was like a boyhood dreamed
(02:53):
to be able to play football professionally, and then you realize,
like anything else, it's a job. And there's some great
things about it and some not so and things about it.
One of the great things about it was you've got
free gear and uh and I was sponsored by one
of the big sports where companies that I don't like
to name, and uh and um, I won't and and
(03:14):
you know, I got lots of free gear and it
was it was cool, it was awesome, and you know,
but this idea was really born out of that. I mean,
everything had logos. I felt like a kind of a
walking billboard at times for this brand, and certainly in
the context that I was living in, it was very
very hard to find a simple shoe without without logos.
So I, rather naively, while I was still very much
(03:34):
focused on soccer knee deep and my career, set out
to try and see if I could make one. What
Tim wanted in a shoe was something simpler, no bells,
no whistles, no fuss, a design that didn't need to
be thrown out and updated every year. And he didn't
think he was the only one who wanted that. Did
the world need another shoe brand? No, but I definitely
(03:55):
saw a kind of a white space for a for
a different type of design philosophy. But the real insight
came when in one of my off seasons, I flew
to a footwear factory that I found online, and I
walked into this whole new world that I knew absolutely
nothing about. That footwear factory was in Indonesia, where Tim
found a world of synthetic fabrics, cheap shoes made cheaply
(04:18):
for maximum profit. He left the factory with a mission
I think I'm gonna make. I'm gonna make a couple
of thousand pairs of shoes, which was the minimum that
the guy would make and I didn't have a plan
much beyond that except that I thought I might sell
them to my teammates or something um and that's what
I did. What did you see that was missing from
the landscape in terms of a shoe and shoe production?
(04:42):
So it becomes three things. So the first one's design,
and I mean that's as clear to me today as
any you know, as as a as kind of a
minimalist who had been trained in this idea of sort
of taking things away of design as sort of the
form following the function. That was really clear. And then
it became about materials because it it seemed obvious to
me that the footware industry had defaulted to making things
(05:04):
out of synthetic materials largely based on cost, and that
there was an opportunity with different materials that had been overlooked.
And I came back, I was back in New Zealand
reading a magazine literally about this huge decline of the
wool industry in New Zealand and how they were desperate
for innovation. This was a very very important primary industry
in New Zealand that had been really destroyed, largely by
(05:27):
the synthetic industry over a long period of time and
was crying out for innovation, and so I applied for
this grant while I was still playing soccer. That was successful.
That was how desperate they were. And they started making
this material to make shoes out of wall and and
this went on for years and again, I mean, this
is happening over so long, So I think the story
starts probably two thousand and seven, and I'm still chipping
(05:48):
away at this like three or four years later. So
it's happening slowly. But you know that the opportunity used
these different types of materials seemed wise. No one done
this before. This idea seems so obvious, And everyone I
talked to about it, they said, why has that not
been done before? It's probably a dumb idea, but why
has it not been done before? The material seemed attractive
(06:08):
to you in terms of comfort and style and what else.
So peak sheep in New Zealand is sort of ninety
eight circon eight and there's seventy million sheep, and now
there's less than thirty million, five million, And no one
in New Zealand is growing up dreaming of being a
sheep farmer. So this is this is an industry that's
crying out for innovation. I get this grant, it comes
out of a research lab with this material, and you know,
(06:30):
I subsequently go to the World Cup, retire, and all
of a sudden show up at Business School in London,
which is where I went, and I have this material
that has largely been made for me with no restrictions,
that's taken a long time, and a little bit of
shoemaking knowledge from my forays into Indonesia, and so again
another moment of time just to put these two things together,
(06:51):
and you know, you start to understand that wool is
this incredibly soft, you know, wicks away moisture that's sort
of really the ultimate natural performance for bricks. I started
to see the opportunities and I understood them inherently as
a kiewie. I think in terms of the possibility of
this material. But I hadn't yet pieced together the third
piece of this and how it fits into the topic
of sustainability. It wasn't what I was focused on. It
(07:13):
was the product. But that was the sort of sequence
of events and we should mention along the way. You
went to the London School of Economics, and then you
went to business school at Calart. Right, yes, So I
retired from sport after the World Carpet was never going
to get any better than that, and I decided to
get serious about life at thirty two, and I had
an entrepreneurship class at Kellogg taught by a prophet called
(07:35):
Carter cast who was a former CEO of Walmart dot com,
this amazing guy, and it was. It was a sixty
ten weeks entrepreneurship class and everyone had to pitch an idea.
And so I came in and there was a class
not dis similar to this in size, and everyone had
one minute to pitch their idea. And I got up
and I said wall shoes. And they voted down the
ideas until there was ten teams of six, and miraculously
(07:59):
wall Shoes got picked. Then all of a sudden, I
had this like six person team at business school running
at this idea in a way in ways that that
you know, I had never really thought about it. And
it was this this weird moment you have these moments.
That was a moment when if if the idea hadn't
been picked in that particular class, maybe it doesn't happen.
Um And we ran with it when we come back
how Tim picked his partner and how their professional marriage
(08:21):
almost killed the awbird stream. Tim Brown was eager to
see if his wool shoe idea had any traction, so
he went back home to New Zealand, shot a little
video on a friend's sheep farm and posted it along
with the six pairs of wool shoes he had made
(08:42):
so far on Kickstarter. We baked on a journey to
create off the shoe designed specifically for socless shoe, but
it as few scenes as possible a shoe the bridge
sport and fashion. It was as comfortable with a peer
of jeans as it wasn't. And this is a true story.
Before my mom could even work out how to buy
up here on kickstar up, she's having some technical problems
with a credit card at checkout. We sold the thousand
(09:03):
peers that we could make because that's all I could
in four days, and it did ad dollars and my
phone didn't stop buzzing and I had to switch it
off because of the trajector it was on and not
being able to deliver on the on the on the product.
So I was shocked and scared. It's very easy to
have an idea much much harder to actually put it
in front of people that you don't know and ask
(09:24):
for money out of their wallet. And the sooner you
do that, the sooner this things becomes real. And it's
also the moment, if you're doing it right, you get
really scared. And that's what I was. I was really
scared because I know, the truth be told, I didn't
really know how I was going to make all of
these things. I didn't really have any knowledge of shoes,
and it turns out they're extraordinarily difficult to make, and
(09:45):
I was making it with material that had never been
used before. So there was a bunch of things that
were difficult about it. Anyone who has built anything, um
you know, will tell you there is that moment where
you you doubt yourself and you know you've got to
push through and and and you lean on your family
and your friends, and um you know, my girlfriend now
wife paid some of the bills, and you pushed through.
(10:06):
And I had a very very difficult year, um but delivered,
delivered the thousand piers of shoes around the world for
the most part, and um you know, was it another juncture.
The Kickstarter campaign attracted a lot of attention from consumers
and also investors. It should have been a big confidence boost. Instead,
(10:26):
Tim was full of self doubt. You know, my dad
had started to refer to me as a cobbler, which
was really annoying. And so you're like, what am I?
What am I doing? And this is I mean, this
is a little maybe it's become almost a little bit
of a cliche conversation these days, but I was kind
of missing the why behind this whole thing. Tim's wife's
(10:46):
roommate from Dartmouth is married to Joey's Willinger, an engineer
living in San Francisco. Joey would help Tim figure out
the why. He had really committed his career to um
sustainability and use of renewable materials, and for my you know,
as clear as my design vision was, he had an
equally clear vision around the sort of revolution that was
(11:09):
going to come and sustainability and sustainable manufacturing that the
world was going to need to find a better ways
to make things, in his words, and it was going
to happen in a whole bunch of industries. But the
first industry that was going to lead the way was
the fashion industry, and moreover, the fashion industry had a
real problem to solve. UM. You know, I had Enjoy
an engineer, he'd been to Warton. He was he was,
(11:32):
in many ways a scientist, anchored in the materials and
the operational side of it UM And so I found
the person that could do all the bit so I
didn't want to do so it was perfect. It was perfect,
and it was official. Albert's was up and running online
and crushing it, but already there were cracks in the relationship. Yeah,
So we started working out of his his mother in
(11:54):
law's house in San Raphael. We raised a couple of
million dollars in Ventura Capital Um and you know, I
think we had five employees. We launched. We launched All
Birds on the first of March, and we had a
business plan that was largely made up and fabricated. Ah.
And you know, we did a million dollars in the
first month, blew through I think our first three years
(12:14):
of sales inside the first six months or so. It
was just it. We just took this thing, took off
in a way that we could never have imagined. And we're,
you know, a month into this and and I'm looking
at him and I think he's looking at me and
we're saying, I don't think I want to work with
you anymore, you know. And I think we've just been
through this enormously, like six or seven months of heads down,
(12:37):
just grinding with all the uncertainty of of of whether
this was going to completely fail and all the embarrassment
that would come with that, and it had actually gone well,
but just the emotion of building something of you know,
with that much pressure on on on on so many things.
And Joey had two little kids at the time he
stepped away from this well paying job, and it was
a moment where I just think we we let it
all out and all the good and the bag came
(12:59):
out for a series of beers on one afternoon and
and um, you know, it was a pretty important moment.
It's an opportunity to sort of understand people's hopes and
fears could have gone either way. I think, what is
he good at? And what are you good at? Uh?
You know, he there's a bunch of things, very different
sort of skill sets. He's you know, he's an analytical engineer.
(13:21):
I'm a I'm a creative designer. So I think that's
a very big distinction. He's an American and I'm in
New Zealander. Uh and and that cultural um nuance. I
actually is married to an American. These two cultures go
together so well, I think in many ways. And um
and uh, you know, the sense of humor and maybe
(13:41):
New Zealander's lack of confidence and uh, I won't you know,
I won't say anything. You know what I'm talking about Americans.
I don't like that. At times. I said that very politely.
So these two things kind of coming together. I was
taught to to not talk up ideas and have big ones.
Culturally in New zealand's a litt bit of a problem
in some ways. Like it's like you would never tell
(14:02):
anyone as a kid you wanted to go to the
World Cup. You just would never do that. That's that's
how you get beaten up at school, you know, because
you think you're good, and you know, you think a
humility is really valued. It's really valued to a point,
almost to a fault. And then you know, when I
came to America, the biggest gift that America has given
me is like, yeah, it's okay to say you're going
to go do something good and then get after it.
There's absolutely no shame either if it doesn't go right,
(14:23):
that is a gift as well. And and so those
two things coming together as has been really really valuable.
And then we split it as co CEOs and I
ran the product and the brand and he ran the
sort of operations in the supply chain and the finance
and the technology, and it's worked out really well. Coming
up why shoes are destroying the environment and how Albert's
(14:44):
wants to fix that. There's a lot of debate around
just how bad the fashion industry is for the environment.
It's complex and multilayered, supply I chain, touches, agriculture, livestock, petroleum, mining, construction,
(15:05):
shipping and manufacturing, and the advent of fast fashion the
mass manufacturing of cheap, trendy clothes hasn't helped. But shoes
in particular have a terrible wrap. She shoe shaved me
because they essentially never biodegrade. They just live on and
on and on, and twenty billion pairs of shoes are
(15:28):
manufactured every single year. So where does that leave all birds?
Joey had an enormous amount of expertise here, but we
believed we could do it differently, that we could bring
UM new materials to beer and footwear UM, and we
could focus deeply on them and innovati around them. We
(15:49):
could do that not just because it's the right thing
to do, but do it because it made more comfortable
products and a better experience. And I think that's a
really key early insight. People don't buy sustainability that by
great products, and it's incumbent on sort of business to
sort of change and make things in a bit away.
And that was a really key kind of plank for
for the way that we were working. And we set
off to do that, and we did it with one
(16:09):
material and wall, and we've added another in in eucalyptus
fiber and subsequently again a soul made from sugarcane. And
you know, our belief is that natural materials are the
pathway to better practice for the fashion industry. You're certified
v CORE and you've stayed true to your commitment. UM.
(16:30):
Not only in the construction of the shoes, are you
trying to be environmentally sensitive, but what about all up
and down the supply chain. It's a lot to do
with certifications. You can't be everywhere, so you need to
invest in materials that UM. You know, the best in
the business and and and lean into certifications that are
meeting the right type of environmental standards. And we do
(16:51):
it in the case of our wall with ZQ bond,
SUCRE with a sugar and FFC for its Stewardship Council
for our eucalyptus. So those things are really important. And
then you know, you want to you want to also
sort of measure and understand your carbon. So that was
that was another big thing. And you know, I think
it's a really key point because the topic of sustainability
(17:11):
is a really complicated and confusing one. And I think
if we went we went around this room and ask people,
like what does sustainability mean? Some people might say it's
about water usage and land usage, and others might say
ee quality, and someone else is going to say end
of life, uh, you know, or transport um and and
and the reality is all those are true and important,
(17:33):
but they ladder up to the singular idea that carbon
is the is the scorecard that we're going to be
judged by as we as we work our way out
of this environmental crisis that we're in. And so that
was a kind of a key kind of insight for
us as we've as we've gone through, so measuring carbon
deeply all the way through our supply chain is something
that we've we've done largely from the beginning. Let's talk
(17:54):
about the Amazon controversy. Were you surprised that they made
all birds cats? And how how pissed off are you? Uh?
You know, it's we're not the first company to have
been to being imitated by them when it happens to you, Yeah,
you know, there was frustration. I mean, I think we've
(18:16):
we've we've had so many copycats since we've launched. It's
been mind blowing. And I want to say there's north
of twenty at least, um, and they cropped up at
a regular, on a regular basis. But when the world's
you know, one of the world's most valuable companies does it,
and what we sort of thought was it was a
little bit of an unfair way. Um, we were disappointed.
(18:36):
And more importantly, I think it comes aided pretty closely
with you know, some of the urgency that that consumers
and customers are feeling around the environment and sustainability. And
they copy the design and they don't copy our materials,
and so we're thinking, Okay, we're fear is fear copy
of the design. But you know what would be really
great is if you copied, you copied the spirit of
(18:57):
what we're doing. And in fact, Joey, your partner post
did an open letter on Medium to Amazon last month.
He invited the company to steal your sustainability practices, not
just your designs, and and are you optimistic that they'll
take you up on that? And one person asked me
to ask you if you've ever heard from Jeff Bezos
after he stole your shoe. Uh, we haven't, but we
(19:21):
hope to. And genuinely, I mean, our souls are made
from sugar cane, and when we launched that material innovation,
we made an open source so that everyone could use it.
In fact, I think that's an interesting point, tim that
you share your innovation with anyone, because you would love
a lot of people to use these techniques and other
shoes and other products in general. Absolutely, and we do
(19:44):
that not just because we're good guys. Although we completely
understand that the topic or the challenge of sustainability is
not going to be solved by all birds, or even
by one brand. It's going to be solved by lots
of companies sharing best practice and working together, and so
we've understood that it's been foundational. But we also know
is that this new material, the more people that use that,
the cheaper it would become. And that's what's happened. And
(20:05):
there's now twenty companies I believe, planning to use this
material this year. So you know, we sort of said,
Mr Mr Bezos and Amazon, why don't you use that too?
That would be great. And so that was the source
of Joey's litter and and and it went, well, you've
got sixteen retail stores worldwide and you're opening up twenty
(20:25):
new retail locations. I guess, yeah, correct, it's really exciting
and retail has been phenomenal for us. That's so interesting
because you know that's other people are going the other direction,
right uh and not opening up I guess there's a
combination of what people are doing with bricks and mortar
stores versus online shopping. But you feel like you want
people to have this kind of experience of seeing the
(20:48):
actual products absolutely and feeling them. Everyone. You know that
the myth about retail dying or being did I think
has been great greatly exaggerated and um, you know, particularly
in the case of shoes. Everyone's got a childhood memory
of going to a shoe store and trying on shoes
with that metal device that no one knows the name of,
and um, you know, and so we always wanted we
(21:08):
always wanted to get Yeah, no one knows, no one
knows the thing, um and uh, and so we always
knew we wanted to do it. I think we've been
blown away by just how much our customers have wanted
to come and experience and touch the product and then
ask really really deep questions. And then the other thing
that's been amazing is, you know, the real innovation opportunity
(21:30):
is were the people that work and retail, who for
the most part, are not treated all that well. And
so you know, we've tried to really think about the
training and and and and investing in the people that
work for us in stores. And that's just an amazing
opportunity that we're just beginning to uncover. And we're excited
about the sixteen stores and the twenty more that will
add and um, you know, the opportunity to make working
at all birds retail something that people are really proud of.
(21:52):
So workplace culture is clearly really, really important to you.
And before we came out, you were talking about how
difficult it is, especially as you grow and expand and
more more and more people are working for you. What
about four nine? Now, yeah, it's it's somewhere something somewhere
around there, And yeah, it's it's I mean, we've we've
you always have little speed mumps, and you know, I
(22:13):
think it was it was. It was easy in some
ways when you knew everyone's name and you knew their
families and knew what was going on and you knew
Steve was breaking up with his girlfriend or you know,
whatever it was. And then when it gets bigger, it
just how do you scale the things that you as
founders think are really important and share those messages um
and create the kind of culture that when we you know,
(22:35):
with twenty five people in Shanghai and and officuely there,
how you know, how do they take what we think
is important but shape it into their own version of
what's important. And I'd be lying if I said We've
got that all worked out. But you know what I
do know is if if you get that but right,
even over and above the product and the innovation, the design,
you go a long way to being successful. So we
think a lot about it, albeit with many answers that
we don't yet have. Before I let Tim go, I
(22:59):
asked him if he had any advice for aspiring entrepreneurs
out there, and his answer was, well, pretty honest. I
think that this entrepreneurship has been sort of romanticized. It
think it's normally enormously difficult, and I've been very, very lucky.
And I talk about my family because I've lean on
them to get this, you know, get this off the ground.
And it's hard. So I would be careful what you
(23:20):
wish for. It would be my first piece of advice,
and the second will be that's not very encouraging. I
just I want to be honest about it, and I
think it's it's there's a kind of a cult of entrepreneurship,
and I think only some emerging issues even to understand,
you know, um, some of the wellness issues around it,
because it's it's a really challenging thing to do. And
(23:41):
so I just I'll start with that one. That being said,
you know, I go and put it out there, UM
be vulnerable. See if it's going to work, UM trust
that if it's weird and everyone's questioning the validity of
the idea, You're probably on the right track. And if
they're telling you that it's awesome, stop right now. Well.
(24:02):
Tim Brown, CEO co CEO of Alberts, thank you so
much for coming in and having this conversation with all
of us today, and congratulations on all your success. Thank you.
It's been a pleasure to be here, and thank you
for going for going easy on me. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay,
(24:25):
and that does it for this bonus episode. Thanks so
much for listening everyone. I'll be continuing the special Next
Question Live series throughout the year as I host more
innovators and business leaders here in our New York City offices.
If there are folks you really want to hear from,
leave me a message at eight four four four seven
(24:45):
nine seven eight eight three. That number again is eight
four four four seven nine seven eight eight three, or
you can email me at info at Katie correct dot com.
Just put next Question in the s jackline and who knows,
maybe your question will be the one I answer in
our podcast feed. And speaking of which, I'm excited to
(25:08):
let you all know that Season two of Next Question
will be launching next week on Thursday, January. We're starting
off strong with a timely episode with playwright Heidi Shrek
on the Equal Rights Amendment and why the Constitution is
long overdue to make room for equality. So make sure
you subscribe on Apple podcast, the I Heart Radio app,
(25:31):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows in the meantime.
If you're feeling overwhelmed by the news, check out my
morning newsletter wake Up Call. Go to Katie correct dot
com or follow me on your go to social media source.
Because I am everywhere people. Until next time and my
Next Question, I'm Katie Couric. Next Question with Katie Couric
(25:56):
is a production of I Heart Radio and Katie Currek Media.
The exact producers are Katie Kurik, Courtney Litz, and Tyler Klang.
The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Our show producer is
Bethan Macaluso. The associate producers are Emily Pinto and Derek Clements.
Editing by Derrek Clements, Dylan Fagin and Lowell Berlante, Mixing
(26:17):
by Dylan Fagin. Our researcher is Gabriel Loser. For more
information on today's episode, go to Katie Kurik dot com
and follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Katie Currik.
For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
(26:37):
your favorite shows.
Host
Katie Couric
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