Founders 15

If you don’t want to run through walls and change the world after listening to this episode, then you must not have been paying attention. Anytime I’m around David Vobora, I am so inspired and fired up. David started Adaptive Training Foundation, which is a unique nonprofit that empowers those with physical disabilities to transform their lives through exercise and community. Mizzen+Main dedicates all of its philanthropic giving to ATF as our commitment to give back to the veteran community as many of those going through their program are veterans. David explains that ATF isn’t a veteran only organization because as society we shouldn’t view ourselves along that divide: veterans and civilians. We’re all Americans. We’re all human. We should reinforce and help each other, and there is power in that community and the bonds formed as people work hard to transform their lives. David’s story is truly remarkable. Drafted as “Mr. Irrelevant”, his NFL career was cut short by injury and an over prescription of drugs that led to a scary addiction. Thankfully, like so many founders, his wife helped redirect his life and give him new purpose. It wasn’t until he met Travis Mills, a quadruple amputee, that the new purpose really took shape. I’ll stop there and let our conversation speak for itself. Please say hello to David on Instagram @davidvobora and check out the life changing work ATF is doing @adaptivetrainingfoundation.

Bryce Goldman grew up in the family business in the beauty industry, but struck off in a particularly unique way. Watching coconut oil take over the food and beverage industry, an idea hit him as he learned about all the benefits of coconuts and coconut oil for the skin. He and a few others launched Kopari Beauty just over three years ago and have taken the beauty world by storm. They are a digitally native vertical brand but also are carried in over 2,000 locations, including Sephora and Ulta. Bryce and I have swapped stories for years, and we went a little deeper on some today, including how his company culture started to slip away and how they recovered from it, how they launched a revolutionary new product category that has come to be a huge part of their business, and some of the struggles of transitioning out of his family business. Bryce isn’t big on Instagram personally, so please say hi to Bryce and his team @koparibeauty and check out the magic of coconut oil for yourself! It’s an office-wide favorite here at Mizzen+Main.

I’ve known Lila and her husband Jeremy not just as fellow product founders but fellow Dallas founders for years! I love husband and wife founding teams for all the obvious fun reasons but also given Jen and I worked together for years. Lila and Jeremy started Hari Mari as a premium flip flop brand and have taken over people’s feet across the country! I actually just found out about their new initiative, Studio, to move into other areas of footwear given how much demand they’ve received from their customers. We talked about the unique challenges of building a company in the product space along with universal truths we face as founders along with building a company with offices and team members across the country. There’s quite a bit of relatable and educational bits of wisdom in this one! Say hello to Lila and Jeremy and the whole team on Instagram at @harimarishoes and go get yourself and everyone you know the most comfortable flip flops ever.

As a product founder, I’m fascinated by the process of physically producing goods. I had the privilege of touring Weiss Watch Company’s headquarters last year and cannot believe the process it takes to actually make a watch. Setting Weiss apart from virtually everyone else is they actually make everything here in the United States. Cameron received years long training as a watchmaker and has built a facility that machines all their own parts. He and his wife are building something truly extraordinary right here in the US. Each watch receives over 80 hours of handmade love. My wife got me my first Weiss Watch last year to celebrate Mizzen+Main’s five year company anniversary that I wear it with so much pride, not just as a gift from the most important person in my life, but as a piece of remarkable craftsmanship! Say howdy to Cameron on Instagram @cameronmweiss and give Weiss a follow at @WeissWatchCompany. Get a timepiece for yourself if you want hand crafted American glory adorning your wrist!

I’m not sure there’s a much better place to record a podcast live than a secret whiskey room showcasing a founder’s best whiskeys from around the world at a distillery that is located on a private golf course. Let’s just say this was a fun setting and the conversation lived up to the location. I met Leonard Firestone right when I launched Mizzen+Main. He was just launching TX Whiskey at that time as the first product of Firestone & Robertson, the company he started with his cofounder. While he was just launching that specific whiskey, the reality was it had already been in process for years because of the time it took to get all the appropriate pieces in place, then distill it, then put it in barrels, then bottle it! This conversation covered a wide range of topics that offer a lot to learn from, especially the courage and audacity that Leonard and his business partner Troy had with zero experience in the industry, the capital requirements, the lead times, and the difficulty of the spirits market. Imagine everything on the line, you haven’t even started selling your first product, and you start your second product line that will take several more years before you see a dime from it! That’s just what they did in pushing forward with TX Bourbon before they’d started to see sales from TX Whiskey. It’s no surprise, if you’ve met Leonard and Troy, that their Whiskey (and Bourbon) started getting wait lists from restaurants and retail locations and even thousands of people showing up to the distillery to get a chance to get one of the first bottles. Say hello at @frdistilling, stop by their distillery located on a private golf course, or pick up a bottle wherever it’s sold. I’m not sure if I have to say this legally, but you must be 21 or older to listen to this? Maybe, maybe not. Check your local laws - then enjoy this conversation with Leonard Firestone.

While Alex Ikonn is well known to many, his products are even more so. This was a fun conversation because it wasn’t just about one business. He and his wife started Luxy Hair - a business that is doing very well and helps fuel their pretty unique and remarkable lifestyle as they live in London so they can travel all over with their daughter. Alex and his wife Mimi are both celebrities as entrepreneurs given their massive online following while not actually being celebrities. Alex describes their choice to broadcast so much of their life as people who live with the curtains open rather than curtains drawn, and it’s made their life that much better for it. I’d been a happy customer of Alex’s for a long time without knowing of him directly. If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll see me post a few times a week (though not every day like Alex!) on Instagram Stories of my Productivity Planner (something I highly recommend for everyone and get at least a few requests a week for what planner I use). I also used the 5 Minute Journal every single day for all of 2017 to help train gratitude to be an automatic. It had a profound effect on my life and happiness. Say hello to Alex on one of his many social media platforms and follow along on his journey on Instagram @alexikonn.

This was a particularly unique episode of Founders15 because Web Smith and I worked together in the early days of building Mizzen+Main. Today, Web is the founder of 2PM, a newsletter for CEO’s, investors, creatives, marketers, and entrepreneurs with all the most relevant information along with an Executive Membership option with in depth commentary, analysis, and robust databases. There are a lot of newsletters today… there are few great ones. 2PM is one of the absolute best. Web shares insights into the unique challenges of “scaling insight” - something that can be tremendously difficult to do - along with his evolving routine of staying sane which includes sleeping “a whole lot more these days” of up to 6.5 hours (hint: that’s still not a lot of sleep!). He is well on his way to building 2PM into what his goal is: to be the “go to source for the entire industry” As a personal subscriber, executive member, and avid reader of the newsletter despite unsubscribing to almost everything else these days, I highly encourage you all to check out 2pml.com and say hello to web on twitter @web, yes that really is his twitter handle!

If you’ve been paying attention to the apparel industry in the last few years, you’ve likely see Faherty at every turn, and that’s no accident. Alex and Mike Faherty are twin brothers who have the incredible journey of taking a lifelong dream and turning it into reality in their namesake brand. Mike spent his career at Ralph Lauren while Alex went the business/finance route. 6 years ago, they came back together to launch Faherty to tap into their evolving perspective on casual surf lifestyle and the lack of brands catering to that customer. Today, they have four of their own stores, a strong online presence and are in 250 of the country’s top retail locations. There were some pretty incredible stories Alex shared, including launching their website while on a surf trip in Puerto Rico to being one of the first DTC brands to launch a catalogue several years ago and the risk/reward that involved. There’s a lot to unpack here but if I could call out one thing to pay attention to throughout this discussion, it’s the incredible sense of authenticity throughout every single part of Faherty’s story as a brand and what Mike, Alex, and Alex’s wife Kerry bring to the table every day. Why has Faherty become so popular in such a tough industry with so many competing brands? Their authenticity and extraordinary product.

Ted is a man who loves his wife and his family to the core of who he is, he just didn’t love wearing a wedding ring. His business partner felt the same way. So in the classic “there must be a better way”, they created a silicone ring that spawned a whole industry and has turned into so much more at QALO.

Rosie and Josh have a sweet story indeed (starting strong with the puns here). As founders of Sugarfina, a high end, fun, and unique confectionary company, their journey started on an early date watching Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory. In a classic “there must be a better way” moment, they both wondered why candy wasn’t that much fun or memorable for adults too. Just 6 years in, Sugarfina has 50 retail locations around the US and now Hong Kong, 85 people at headquarters and over 500 including all their stores. They’re also at over $40MM in revenue with zero marketing spend. It’s hard to describe how incredible this really is. That said, people say their candy is as “beautiful to look at as it is delicious” so it’s no surprise they’ve really made their mark. In 2017, they were described as “The Tesla of Candy” which was just about the highest compliment Josh could have ever imagined as a big fan of the disruption Elon Musk continues to demonstrate. This was my first husband and wife joint interview (though third husband and wife run company!), and it was as much fun as you think it might be with a couple very much in love that gets to travel the world to be inspired to make the next incredibly delicious and beautiful candy! Somehow, they still manage to live in moderation and not overdo it on the candy… Check them out on instagram at @Sugarfina and on their website where you can order or find their stores at sugarfina.com

Tom Patterson is the founder of Tommy John, an underwear and undershirt company that started by addressing the chronic problem of men’s undershirts coming untucked. It has evolved into one that sells underwear and more for men and women. Tom used his skills as a cold calling salesman to get his early product into Neiman Marcus, which really helped cement the trajectory and future of the company. I really loved hearing about Tommy John’s core values, which include “It’s not me, it’s we” and “GSD 2.0” (or get sh*t done 2.0) as an evolution reflecting their company’s growth from the original GSD attitude. We discussed the wave of entrepreneurship and how founders need to be able to be a quarterback at one point, an ice skater another time, and then learn how to be both left and right handed - founders really have to do it all. In case you’re curious, Tom doesn’t want Tommy John to be the next Ralph Lauren or Nike - he wants them to be the first Tommy John.

Cristina Lynch is the founder of Mi Golondrina, a fashion company here in Dallas that works with artisans in Mexico to hand make beautiful dresses with intricate embroidery and detailing that can take in some cases as long as several months! Having studied theater and business, she is a unique woman who has embraced her mother’s love of Mexico and she has built a company with products in extremely high demand (they are EVERYWHERE in Texas and growing) that has such a positive impact on hundreds of women across Mexico.

Dorothy Shain is a mixed media artist who in a short period of time has already made a real career out of her truly beautiful and unique art. As a “left brain” person, it’s taken a lot to cultivate and enhance my creativity, so I had a lot of questions for Dorothy about her creative process and learned quite a lot through this conversation. The menswear market is crowded, and I knew that going in, but I have so much respect for artists who go all in on their talent to build a career in potentially the most crowded market there is! Anyone can call themselves an artist - few can make something really valued out of a career in it. I loved hearing how Dorothy internalized the lessons from Danny Meyer’s “Setting The Table” about really owning the touchpoints and relationships in her world to create a memorable experience and story for her customers and art. She also has a unique approach to the morning - 10 minutes of meditation, 10 minutes of reading, and writing down 10 things she’s grateful for - that have helped keep her sane on a very tough journey of building a career out of her art. This was a really different conversation in many ways while being so very similar to convesrations with more traditional business founders. I was fortunate to have it and hope you find value in listening to it. You can support the amazing work she’s doing for cancer survivors via her Instagram. I just bought one of the commemorative scarves after hearing the story behind the initiative.

Nate Checketts founded Rhone, a premium active men’s apparel company that makes honestly the best workout gear in the world. I say that not as Nate’s friend - I say that as a repeat customer. What makes this episode special is some of the vulnerability that Nate shares about the challenges of his journey, including a literal life changing moment where he almost died due to his type 1 diabetes and how he prioritizes family. I also loved hearing how his leadership team kicks off their weekly meeting talking about their company principles on a rotating basis. I know you will enjoy this conversation, as it is a really unique view on two founders on parallel roller coasters.

Heidi Zak and her husband started ThirdLove, a company changing the way women think of what’s possible mixing form, function, and fashion when it comes to undergarments. In six years, they’ve grown their team to over 250 employees and 10 million women have used their custom fit finder on their site.