#10 | Make Billions, Finding your White Space | Joe Foster

Joe Foster is a British businessman and co-founder of the sportswear company Reebok. Born into a shoemaking family, Foster and his brother Jeff started Reebok in 1958. Under Foster's leadership, Reebok grew from a small running shoe company into a global sportswear brand, known for its innovative designs and marketing strategies. His entrepreneurial spirit and innovation have significantly influenced the sportswear industry.

What did we talk about:
In this episode, we have an engaging conversation with Joe Foster, the co-founder of the sportswear giant, Reebok. Joe shares his journey, starting from his early life in a family that was already immersed in the shoe business, J.W. Foster and Sons, a company credited with the invention of the spiked running shoe.

Despite not being a running enthusiast himself, Joe was deeply involved in the shoe business from a young age. He and his brother Jeff found themselves in the midst of a failing family business, marred by constant feuding between their father and uncle. This led them to make the bold decision to leave and start their own venture, which would eventually become the globally recognized brand, Reebok.

Joe provides insights into the evolution of shoes, from performance-based footwear to versatile designs that could be worn on the street, expanding the market for their products significantly. He also shares an interesting anecdote about basketball player Shaquille O'Neal, who switched to Reebok simply because they offered a shoe in his size (22), which Nike did not.

The conversation takes a fascinating turn as Joe reflects on the rapid pace of technological change and its impact on business and society. He candidly admits his struggle to fully comprehend concepts like the metaverse and cryptocurrencies, despite understanding what they are.

Joe also shares his experiences during World War II, his time in the scouting movement, and his national service, all of which he believes instilled in him discipline and confidence. Towards the end of the episode, he discusses the challenges of running a company amidst internal conflict, drawing from his experiences with his father and uncle. He leaves us with the important lesson of looking towards the future and adapting to change.

Tune in to this episode for a deep dive into the life of a man who has been at the heart of the sportswear industry and has witnessed its evolution firsthand.

Links: 
- https://www.reebokthefounder.com
- https://www.instagram.com/reebokthefounder
- https://onegoldennugget.com/reebokthefounder

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Transcript

Joe Foster [00:00:00]:

That's right. And probably the pessimist never gets them. Probably the pessimist is in such a way in his life that they never get you know, people ask me, what are the three most important things about running a business? I said, You've got to have fun. Why? You got to have fun.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:00:17]:

That's good one.

Joe Foster [00:00:17]:

Number two, you really got to have a lot more fun. And number three, you it.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:00:25]:

Hello, everyone. Welcome to our milestone 10th episode. I'm thrilled today because I've had an extraordinary honor of speaking with a true titan in the sportswear industry, joe Foster, the visionary founder of Reebok. From humble beginnings in a family business to the helm of a global brand, joe's journey is nothing short of a masterclass in innovation, resilience, and sheer determination. Today, he is going to share with us the riveting story of Reebok's evolution, recounts on unforgettable moments, and impart his invaluable insights on how to identify elusive white space that uncharted territory where true innovation lies. So brace yourself and join me as we delve deep into the captivating world of Reebok and learn the secrets of innovation directly by Joe Foster. This is the conversation with Roberta podcast. And now, dear friends, here is Joseph William Foster, aka Joe Foster.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:01:21]:

Your book is so condensed with so much interesting stuff, like people you met. Like.

Joe Foster [00:01:28]:

Just starting with Shoe is like we were very lucky because we went to Philadelphia where that's where Shoe came out. Of course, he was in Philadelphia, and he died two or three, maybe four years before we got there. Julian, myself and his daughter and I met his daughter at a time because we had a party during those early days when we were working with Shoe. And his daughter was quite small, of course, at that time, because we're talking 30 years ago or something like that. So you still got to go 30 years back from then, so you can measure. But the incredible thing was she invited us come along to the house and whatever. We went there and he had kept everything nowhere. She had kept all the paperwork, and she brought these files out.

Joe Foster [00:02:14]:

So we ended up sort of going through and said, yeah, can you copy these? So I now have a file this thick of all the stuff that went on between me and Shoe and Jeff and Shoe. If you can think, Jeff died in 1980, and that's 43 years ago. And Shoe was talking to Jeff at that time. We must be going back 45 years. Wow. We didn't have any computers, nothing fancy like that, or word processing. I mean, to be honest, my computer okay. Really? It's a word processor for me.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:02:51]:

The speed we have now to move.

Joe Foster [00:02:54]:

Forward, it's so fast. Everything's moving so fast.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:02:58]:

You think it's good or is it bad?

Joe Foster [00:03:01]:

Well, even Elon Musk says we should be slowing down. I think it would be nice if we could slow down but I doubt that will happen because somebody wants to do something better all the time. Somebody wants to create something new, either earn a lot of money or become well known. Whatever it is is the purpose. So I don't know. It's tough. As I said, we were at the Vatican and these were world change makers. They'd been invited there for this event, and the things they were talking about, they go well over my head, okay, I know what the metaverse is, but I don't know how it is.

Joe Foster [00:03:45]:

I don't know. How do you get in there? Don't ask me about that. We've all heard of blockchain. Now, we hear of these things in crypto, but these guys are sort of saying, yeah, well, crypto is here. It's taken a while to get going, but it's going to take over Fiat. Fiat is the money that we normally have now. We all have Fiat. And he was sort of saying, well, we used to barter.

Joe Foster [00:04:12]:

People used to barter. That was the form money. Then it came to gold, then it came to Fiat. Now it's going to crypto.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:04:20]:

Everything's going to be digital.

Joe Foster [00:04:22]:

Everything's going digital. Yeah. And whilst a lot of fraud can go on with Fiat with regular money, a lot of fraud with that crypto, now with blockchain, it's going to stop a lot of fraud. Although I hope so. Somebody, maybe somebody out there is figuring out how we can.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:04:41]:

I'm still very skeptical with what's happening. It's good. We need mean. You talk about change in your book and the way it started, and there's no way we can stop changing. I don't think we shouldn't.

Joe Foster [00:04:56]:

You've got to when we started jeff and myself started in 1958, when we started with our company, which wasn't Reebok then, but the company is still the same company. We just changed the name. But what we started with, yes, it was just simple shoemaking, but the methods were used, changed, and, of course, marketing, because in those early days, all we had really was performance. You made a shoe and it was a running shoe. It was a football boot, whatever. It was a performance product. But it started to go street. And with running, that's running, we'll talk about running on roads, training.

Joe Foster [00:05:35]:

That sort of shoe could become street. My grandfather invented the spike running shoe. Right. That couldn't go street.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:05:42]:

No, he shouldn't go street.

Joe Foster [00:05:44]:

And football boots don't go street, but training shoes do. And it's like with Reebok running, we could go street. And so that's where the volume comes in, massive volume. But I guess you could almost say that the train issue was performance. Yeah, they just kept the train issue.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:06:02]:

On because it was still performance in a way.

Joe Foster [00:06:04]:

It's like it was so good. And of course, you think of basketball goes street because you can walk out in a basketball shoe. Tennis, you can go street because you can walk out in a tennis shoe. Right. Aerobics. And Aerobics is the one that really goes from zero to the top. And that because it went street.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:06:24]:

So you would say that the marketing was very crucial in that part and the design part, because you were doing the design at the beginning, am I right?

Joe Foster [00:06:32]:

At the beginning, yes. I didn't design the Aerobic shoe. The only way I was involved in saying, no, you don't make shoes out of glove leather. And yet then I reflect. And we did make shoes out of glove leather. We made a shoe called World Ten. But what we did, we just reversed the glove leather. So we had the suede, whereas with Aerobics they were using the skin side, which was finished with white, nice white finish.

Joe Foster [00:07:02]:

You had to remove that finish in order to get the glue to stick. If you want to stick a soul on it, you've got to remove it. And Love Leather is 1 mm in substance. It's pretty thin, isn't it? Very millimeter. And then when you start working on it, in order to get the adhesive in, it goes down to zero, 75 of a millimeter. And then you attach a sole and you get a hard edge where this very soft leather meets this hard sole. And of course, what happens tears apart. Because you can tear Love leather, you can just turn it like a piece of paper.

Joe Foster [00:07:35]:

Just as simple as that. Pick it up, just turves. So you can imagine you put a foot in that and get some weight into it. It's a good job that Aerobics was women, because women usually are a bit lighter than some of these heavy guys. A seven foot shack and eel sort of thing.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:07:52]:

Put this magic leather.

Joe Foster [00:07:54]:

He wouldn't even lase it up, it just burst off his foot.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:07:57]:

Do you know his size? Do you know his shoe size?

Joe Foster [00:08:01]:

Yes. 22.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:08:03]:

That's big. That's a lot of letter.

Joe Foster [00:08:05]:

That's why he came to Reebok.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:08:06]:

Can you tell me about that?

Joe Foster [00:08:07]:

Well, he wore Nike, as most of the basketball players did, but Nike only made up size 20. So every time he played basketball, it was killing him because he was putting this 22 foot inside a 20s boot. Reebok made a 22 for him, made it fit. So he gave to reebok. I think there's more to it than that, but that's more or less I.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:08:31]:

Mean, you took the pain away in a way. It's actually a simple strategy.

Joe Foster [00:08:36]:

Take the pain away. Absolutely. Which meant that he could probably play a better game.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:08:41]:

If you could talk about how you like a very short intro of your granddad, which you talked about, that he invented the spike running shoes. Now you came into the family and started with your shoes, because I really need to read this like the beginning. You are saying that you don't like running.

Joe Foster [00:09:04]:

That's right.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:09:06]:

Which is great. And you are a lousy shoemaker but.

Joe Foster [00:09:11]:

We'Re talking about actually making shoes, making as, I guess, designing shoes and having ideas and whatever that was. Okay. At. But making shoes, well, I just didn't want to be stood there with a machine just making shoes. You drift off doing that. It's like even sometimes when you're driving, if you drive the same road every day and go backwards and forward, sometimes you arrive and you think, just a minute, I don't remember going down because you're automatic. True. And that's the same with shoemaking.

Joe Foster [00:09:44]:

In 1958, when we started, and I had worked, of course, for my father, which was grandfather's company, I'd worked there for it for a year, and I'd worked on this machine, and I think my father used to it was a Blake Soul sewing machine. But you put your shoe on there and you just go all the way around it, cut it and throw it into and you repeat you repeat it's like okay, so you more or less end up in just in a tunnel. That wasn't my life. So being allowed as a shoemaker, yeah. That's good. I would not be good at doing that at all, but I did it. And so, yes, we start the book. Yeah.

Joe Foster [00:10:25]:

I don't like running.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:10:27]:

But you weren't good at it.

Joe Foster [00:10:28]:

Pardon?

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:10:28]:

But you were good at it?

Joe Foster [00:10:30]:

Moderately good at running. I was a sprinter. I couldn't run any distance. I wasn't a distance runner. My brother Jeff, he was distance runner. Yeah. He liked running. He loved running out there.

Joe Foster [00:10:42]:

I gave up running probably at the age of ten.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:10:45]:

Okay.

Joe Foster [00:10:47]:

By that time, I'd won a few things, and I'm sure we're going to come round to the dictionary and excellent. Whatever, but I gave up running at ten. Was I a good runner? Well, if you can take me back to being ten, that's 1945, the end of World War II. So during World War II, when I won certain things, can you imagine? I'm in a running event and I have spike running shoes on. Not many kids, nobody, if any, and it has spike running shoes. So whilst they're slipping and losing traction and whatever, did that make me a good runner? Or did it make me did I have an advantage, a smart runner? Well, no, I was born into the right family because I got some running shoes with spikes in. However, I did win the events, and there we go.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:11:36]:

That's all it matters, I guess.

Joe Foster [00:11:38]:

Well, it did matter, but it was something that really again, I didn't particularly think there was any skill to run in for me. Wasn't a skillful thing. It was you were either fast or you weren't fast. Right, okay. You've got some natural ability, and then you can train yourself to get that natural ability to its peak. But again, training for me training? No, I prefer playing games. I ended up playing badminton, something where you've got to think a bit, yeah.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:12:09]:

It'S like left and right.

Joe Foster [00:12:10]:

It's just not straight line, but just running.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:12:14]:

It's a piece of metaphor, let's say, for entrepreneurship, like running a straight line. It's okay, I guess it takes some knowledge, and you get better by practicing. But doing badminton, you have to adapt very quick. You have sprints, and then you have time when you're relaxing again. And then you have to sprint again.

Joe Foster [00:12:30]:

Yes. Sideways. You've got to beat somebody and you're facing them.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:12:36]:

Exactly.

Joe Foster [00:12:36]:

Whereas if it's just you just shut your eyes, take a deep breath, and run for 100 meters. And I hardly breathe.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:12:43]:

Exactly.

Joe Foster [00:12:43]:

In fact, you probably only have one breath in us when you go at 100 meters in 12 seconds. Maybe I could have done it at my best.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:12:53]:

Exactly.

Joe Foster [00:12:54]:

But when you've got something like bolt doing it at 9.8 or 9.6 so for me, let's put it in a different way. I like winning. Okay. With running, I could only win up to a certain skill point, and then you would meet people who are much better, much better, much better. And I think then your days of winning are over, and you just become an all so around. Yeah.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:13:18]:

And you don't want to do that.

Joe Foster [00:13:21]:

We've got to move away from that and do something we can probably improve at. And I think with something like badminton, I enjoyed that, and you could improve at it. I was also left handed, which is like the spike running shoes. Left handers have a little bit of an advantage over right handers because mostly we play against right handers, and right handers play against right handers.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:13:41]:

So you're always looking at advantage of it. I mean, you have the spikes, then you have that. Exactly.

Joe Foster [00:13:47]:

I've been cheating all my life. I can tell that that's good.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:13:50]:

Well, I like the part when you're confronting your dad and tell him, listen, I need to move on, and you have the edge that something is there. You want to win. You don't like to be in the losing team, so you gather people around you to win.

Joe Foster [00:14:07]:

You can imagine during World War II, from 1939 to 1945, that's six years of my first ten years. We have a war on. And okay, during those times, of course, my father wanted me to run in races because you couldn't go anywhere whilst the war was on. There were no lights, there were no amusements or anything like that. So they had very local events. And these running events I went into, and my father being part of a run issue company, which Jade with Fossen's Sons, they were the best known running company in the world at that time. But you've got to remember that we're looking at athletics as being a performance very close event.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:14:57]:

Yes.

Joe Foster [00:14:58]:

And so they were world famous. They sent the shoes globally. A lot went to America, and usually to what was then the British Empire. So we would think of Australia, South Africa, India, places like that, big places. But again, that was Empire. But during that period of time, okay, I'm growing up, I'm 5678, and all my friends are out there kicking a football about and playing, and my father wanted me to go and practice starts.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:15:28]:

Yeah, you see the older kids playing.

Joe Foster [00:15:31]:

There, it's like, no, I wouldn't be playing football.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:15:34]:

Exactly. I want to play.

Joe Foster [00:15:36]:

That's right. So I guess that's probably the biggest reason that I didn't want to be doing what he wanted me to do. And that's practice running, practice starting. So he gave up on me when I said no. Okay, that was it.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:15:49]:

But it takes some courage at that age, and then later as well, before you founded Mercury, to confront a person of authority at that time, to tell him, Listen, I need to move on. How do you got that courage out of you?

Joe Foster [00:16:05]:

Yeah, I guess maybe I was a little more cheeky in those days and a little bit more outspoken, and I would do things I had more opinionated, probably good or bad or whichever. No, I didn't want to do this. And it was the same, actually, when Jeff and I actually left the JW. Foster Company. When we left, I got the blame. My father said, I'd persuaded Jeff that we'd got to go, so I got the blame.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:16:32]:

Did you?

Joe Foster [00:16:32]:

Yeah. Well, probably I did, but I think it was one of those he could see the both. In fact, jeff had worked in the family business. He worked five or six years in the family business. I'd only ever worked one year in the family business because I went to college and did some engineering before eventually joining the family company. And then National Service came along.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:16:56]:

You were gone.

Joe Foster [00:16:56]:

We were gone for two years, and we almost went at the same time. So I think they said that Jeff was doing an apprenticeship in his shoemaking, so he didn't go till he was 21. He went about six or nine months after me, but we were away at the same time. And of course, I guess university is what does this to kids these days, where they leave home. We had discipline as well. Yeah, I'm sure you did. National Service gave you discipline, which was good. It was good to get that discipline because confidence yeah, once you get that discipline, both Jeff and I were also in the scouting movement, and that also gave us some discipline because we were very good Scout master who was doing it.

Joe Foster [00:17:37]:

So that time in my life, we got a lot of discipline, and we come back and we come back and we go to the family business. Something we're looking at and thinking, this is a failing company. My father and uncle, they were at war. They were still at war with each other. There was five years difference between them and I don't know what it was, but they just did not get on. Okay. My grandfather died before I was born. In fact, it's 15 months before I was born, and I was born on his birthday, which I became Grandmother's favorite.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:18:13]:

There we go.

Joe Foster [00:18:16]:

So Grandmother's still around and she is keeping my father and uncle together. She is holding them together, but they're not working together. And whilst Jeff and I were away doing National Service, she actually died. And when we came back just like Rudy and Adidasler.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:18:36]:

Exactly. But what happened there, they couldn't work.

Joe Foster [00:18:39]:

With each other, but they had the Commons. Well, Rudy had the sense to sort of say, I'm going, and he went and set up his own business problem with my dad and his brother, my uncle. They just kept feuding. They just kept feuding. And the company was just going down and we could see it. Yeah, we could see this going down. And I confronted again, confronted my father, and said, Look, dad, this isn't working. You don't get on with Bill and the company is failing because you're not working as a company.

Joe Foster [00:19:11]:

Why don't we set up something different? And he didn't even think about that. He just said, Look, Joe, when I'm gone and Bill's gone, this company's yours, you can do what you want with it. I said, Well, dad, look, look at it this way. We don't want you to go, right? Number one, we don't want to be standing here saying we should go.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:19:36]:

We still want you here.

Joe Foster [00:19:37]:

We want you. You want it. We don't want you to go. But this company will be gone long before you have gone, and Jeff and I won't have anything to take forward. It'll be dead. Didn't make any difference. He was doing what he was doing, and I sometimes wonder whether going through two world wars, I mean, he was only in his fifty s at that time. That's young, which yeah, I think he's young, really young.

Joe Foster [00:20:03]:

Yeah. I probably thought he was dead old and like, you know, no idea, but made no difference. Couldn't do anything to get him to think about the future. He was happy. He went to the pub every night and had his beer and met his friends and whatever.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:20:20]:

Do you think it had also to do with the surroundings? He was like the friends he had.

Joe Foster [00:20:25]:

Well, yeah, I think that was his life. I think he got to that point now where he was just happy to he was earning good money for himself, but he wasn't looking at the future.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:20:35]:

I got just like now working now.

Joe Foster [00:20:37]:

That's right. It was okay for him at that time. And he didn't speak. They never spoke. Father and uncle never spoke. On a couple of occasions, my Jeff and myself, we had to drag them apart because we're fighting. Can you imagine? Can you imagine a company?

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:20:57]:

Right?

Joe Foster [00:20:58]:

Yeah.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:20:58]:

What I like how you managed to not go that path. I mean, you and your brother, you were really getting along with each other. I mean, you lived together, which it's another challenge by itself, but you got along with each other.

Joe Foster [00:21:11]:

We did. We were totally different people. I had different ideas on what I should be doing in life, and Jeff had ideas. We did not socialize together. Okay. Which means we didn't avoid each other.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:21:25]:

Right.

Joe Foster [00:21:26]:

We had different social and these social areas came together at times, but we didn't go out socially. I mean, I played badminton. Jeff jeff went running. And Jeff also had a bike. He loved cycling weekends, he would either go racing with the Harriet or he'd go with cycling club, and he would do 100 miles. However, biggest problem for Jeff was that if you could think today, 200 runners in a race, he was happy to know where he was in that race. I mean, I would have wanted to be winning, and if I couldn't win, I'm not going.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:22:03]:

Exactly. Don't even start.

Joe Foster [00:22:04]:

If I have no chance of getting to be a winner, I'm not going. I wouldn't enjoy running. I never enjoyed running because it was just hard work for me, but I wouldn't have kept running if I couldn't do it. But if you've got 200 runners and he's down the field at sort of about 100, in the 200 runners, there's 100 in front of him. There's about ten guys about the same level. So what he's always trying to do is to beat those ten guys, and probably the 11th, another one, and he just used to run himself to a standstill, and even with his bike, he used to do that. And he was physically sick because he put so much effort into this, but just to stay there mentally, I couldn't have done that. But even he was physically sick.

Joe Foster [00:22:50]:

And I think in the end, when he did die, he died of stomach cancer. And I think that this was the contribution for it, because the whole stress and he wasn't just to sort of just run to keep fit. He wanted to beat the guy in front of him. He would never win the race, but the guy in front of him was a bug, so he needed to push harder and push harder. That's so sad.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:23:12]:

It sure is.

Joe Foster [00:23:13]:

That is so sad. And actually, when he died, just when weird Reebok had got into America, we just broken in and it was just going to take off. So we never knew what happened to Reebok. He never knew that we unless there's something up there that we don't know about, you never know. That allows him to loop down.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:23:34]:

But I guess somehow he knew that something is going to come bigger than what you guys were doing, because you were still you pushed it through and I mean, there were so many setbacks and you kept on going. I mean, there is like, no plan b, I guess, and why. Am I right?

Joe Foster [00:23:52]:

Well, that was the difference between running you knew when you were running, doing that sort of thing, you could only be so good, I guess, at badminton, I could only be so good. But at least you could win enough. You could win enough games, we could do enough things. But I think with being in business, it's a bit like an event and you come up against the problems, but this time you're there to think, how do you get around this problem? How do you beat this problem? Because this is just a matter of procedure, in a way. That right, we're doing it wrong. This is a challenge. Absolutely. This is not failure.

Joe Foster [00:24:24]:

This is a challenge. And we've got to do something. And you can't go head on to these things, especially when Adidas threatened us to sue us because we were infringing the three stripes.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:24:38]:

Can you tell me, what did you do with the letter of Adidas? Because it's a great story.

Joe Foster [00:24:44]:

The letter of Adidas, the writing of.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:24:47]:

The lawyer, infringement of her.

Joe Foster [00:24:50]:

They wrote to us to say that we were infringing because we had two bars and a T bar. We had two stripes and a T bar, and that was our original silhouette. And we got this letter and we're thinking, oh, my God, this is four years down the road. We'd had quite a few problems before then, having changed on it. However, we got the letter and there was a question. Well, you don't take them head on. You don't say, look, this is obviously not three stripes. This is obviously two stripes and a T bar, and there's obviously no conflict here, but we don't want to be going to court.

Joe Foster [00:25:25]:

Well, we couldn't afford to go out to court. We couldn't afford to do that. And so as far as we were concerned, there was a simple answer. Five minutes into reading this letter, we smiled. Did us know we're here? We were small, temporary added. US have found out that we're here and they feel it necessary to tell us to change. They want to put something our spokes of our wheels. Yeah, exactly.

Joe Foster [00:25:52]:

They want to trip us up. But what they did do is they opened another door. Well, let's change our silhouette.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:26:00]:

And that helped.

Joe Foster [00:26:01]:

Yeah. So we changed the silhouette and we've got this that we see today as the silhouette. More like an arrow. I'm amazed. I designed that silhouette back in the not this shoe. We've got to look at the classics. This is a classic, but this is Club C, the regular classic. It's still a design that got us five stars, in fact.

Joe Foster [00:26:25]:

But we have got to go back to 1978, when I designed that. The soul of that shoe goes back to 1977, 78.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:26:35]:

That's what I call it. Sustainable design.

Joe Foster [00:26:38]:

That's right. But I think you can't change too much, because I think what you have.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:26:41]:

To have is recognition, I guess, the heritage. But you have to move forward. You shouldn't stay too long on the past, otherwise we wouldn't move.

Joe Foster [00:26:53]:

I mean, materials just design, operating methods. They can help you change a product. You won't understand the fact that we made our shoes, they were board lasted. Board lasted means it had an insole. There was a piece of material and then we folded the upper. We stuck it to this material. Right now it's simply slip lasted. Or they made like a bag, right? So everything's sewn together like a bag.

Joe Foster [00:27:22]:

Then you push the last in and that gives it its shape. So there are just different there's string last in, there's all sorts of things.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:27:30]:

And you did all of that.

Joe Foster [00:27:32]:

But those are not that technical, but they just happen to be trade sort of jargon.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:27:38]:

But it's good to know, you know, the basics to build something built on top of that.

Joe Foster [00:27:43]:

That's right. So it is that. And certain materials will allow you to do things differently. That's what will progress.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:27:51]:

But that must be fun. It had to be fun to see, okay, that's something new coming out or there are new materials or new processes or new way of looking things. I call my company the design company. I have a reframe because I like to look at them from different angles. And also, like Anna likes to say, problems. I call them challenges because problems just stop you. And challenges, like you mentioned with Adidas, there is a challenge. Let's move on, let's change the shape, let's do something with it.

Joe Foster [00:28:20]:

Well, and I think that's it. And I think that you have to be a person that can accept challenge as a challenge, not as a problem. And I think it's almost like somebody saying, you're not quite right. There's something better around the corner. Have you looked around the corner? Have you thought about it? How can you be different? And this is what these problems do and challenges do for you and the optimist? The optimist will accept challenge. It's the pessimist, of course, who finds it very difficult to accept him. Vass were in the Vatican amongst these very intelligent academic people. One of them was going on about.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:29:02]:

There is a reason why you are there as well.

Joe Foster [00:29:05]:

Well, I don't know about that. And he was talking about the pessimist and the optimist and he was talking about two children, five years old children. And one of the fathers for Christmas bought every present that he could think. And that morning took my open the door and the child walks in bursts into tears and fussing. What's the problem? He said, well got all this all my friends, somebody's going to pinch some of these, I'm going to lose them. The other kid, his father took into a shed which is full of manure. And he just said, wow, this is fantastic. Look at all that manure.

Joe Foster [00:29:46]:

Must be a pony here somewhere. Yes, exactly.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:29:52]:

I like that. I'm going to steal that one.

Joe Foster [00:29:56]:

That's such a good one. That is it the optimist and the pessimist. You can give everything to the optimist, to the pessimist. And they're fearful. Right.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:30:09]:

Do you think there are pessimistic entrepreneurs, let's say pessimistic successful entrepreneurs?

Joe Foster [00:30:17]:

Well, I would like to say no. I'm sure that somebody around here has been a pessimist and fallen into the successful into a successful something or other, but I'm not sure that everybody who's a scientist is that is an optimist. But I think most scientists are. But in general, I think to have a good, long experience as an entrepreneur, you have to be optimistic. You have to be able to smile. You have to be able to look at things. Yes. And that gives you the energy.

Joe Foster [00:30:50]:

It gives you the energy to think, okay, and what do we do? So the optimist enjoys challenges, and the optimist actually is wanting challenges.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:31:02]:

Right. Just close his end.

Joe Foster [00:31:03]:

That's right. And probably the pessimist never gets them. Probably the pessimist is in such a way in his life that they never get people ask me, what are the three most important things about running a business? I said, You've got to have fun. Why? You got to have fun.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:31:20]:

That's a good one.

Joe Foster [00:31:21]:

Number two, you really got to have a lot more fun. And number three, if it isn't fun, get out. True.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:31:28]:

It's so true. It definitely helps when you're juggling family business competitors.

Joe Foster [00:31:36]:

You wouldn't be doing this if you weren't going to enjoy it. No, I wouldn't, because you'd be no good at it. I mean, I'd be no good at it because I'm not technically this sort of technically involved. Although I nearly became an electronics engineer. Yeah. Anyway, optimism. That's what makes the difference, as far as I'm concerned, between when you're doing something, when you're doing anything, if you're optimistic, you have a chance.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:32:01]:

I'd like to say that the optimist and the pessimist live the same life. Just the optimist has more.

Joe Foster [00:32:08]:

Sure. I'm sure the pessimist. I think Jeff was more pessimistic than me, but I wouldn't call him a pessimist.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:32:15]:

That's more realistic.

Joe Foster [00:32:17]:

I think I was more inventive.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:32:19]:

Okay, so you were more curious, I guess.

Joe Foster [00:32:21]:

Yeah, more curious, more inventive. That's why I got the blame for leaving the family company, because as being the one yeah. Well, Joel must have always the curious get the blame. He must have persuaded Jeff that we should do you know, we were comparing Addie and Rudy Dasler, my father and uncle and Jeff and myself, but when we set up our company, we hadn't been going that long, and Jeff said, blue, Joe, I love the factory. And he did. He loved the factory. He loved making shoes, and he didn't all right, so he was happy to run the factory. Joe, you do everything else.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:33:02]:

So he liked his comfort zone well, yeah.

Joe Foster [00:33:06]:

What he could see is how to make a shoe. It was a practical thing. Whereas the rest of the company, marketing and other things, they're quite invisible. They are something you've got to work at in a different way.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:33:22]:

How did you see that? How did you start to see that there is more? That you actually wanted to conquer the world? Reading the book, it feels like you were restless or you are restless. You are still traveling around the world. Never stopped.

Joe Foster [00:33:36]:

I think restless is correct, that we all think, what it'd be nice to just sit back and enjoy life and just not worry then maybe a day, two days a week. In fact, when I stepped back from the company, it was a very similar sort of situation because I was at 35,000ft, two or three times a week, I was flying all the place, and I thought, wow, be great, no more flying. And I'm sitting back in this bit like a truck. I'm beginning to shake cold turkey. Where's the next air ticket? Why am I not traveling? Yeah. How can I exist here doing nothing? I guess we all think how nice and peaceful it would be just not to be doing something. Because every time you do something, quite often there's a challenge. Just like we were saying, we're going to Mexico because we're going to publish the book Shoemaker in Spanish.

Joe Foster [00:34:33]:

There's a guy in Mexico doing all the work for us, being interviewed by Forbes, I think it was, and then, okay, Mexico City. Brilliant. We loved it. We knew the people great, went to the meetings. In fact, they now use a photograph that Forbes took with me, sat surrounded by Reeboks with one in my hand, and I'm throwing this up, and they've got the shoe in the air.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:34:57]:

They've got perfect. Not even the face.

Joe Foster [00:34:59]:

Like here, not here. That's being used quite a lot. We had fun in the medical city. That was great.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:35:06]:

It's interesting. People are actually very helpful. Or do you think they are not helpful? I mean, going back to Reebok, you mentioned so many interesting people that they were so helpful in your journey.

Joe Foster [00:35:17]:

Well, certainly with my experience in Reebok, you make a lot of friends, a lot of friends in competitors, if you will. I don't know really how you can go through life without being friendly with the opposition. And some people, your competition and friendly competition is not bad. But there are people not directly, I don't think I had friends with Nike or Adidas, but it's a respect. And a lot of them sort of when we did have a big problem, they turned up and said, Joe, can you do this? Can you make me the as you've read the book. And we nearly went out of business at least a couple of times.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:36:02]:

Exactly. Okay, we can start with Shu. I mean, he helped you in a very annoying way. But I think it's kind of like a blessing in disguise, like pointing you on the things that did need to change or you need to adapt to move forward. But talking about the person who gave you machinery.

Joe Foster [00:36:22]:

Oh, John Willie. Yes, john Willie Johnson. Well, he was a great guy. I met him because the shoe industry, as indeed a lot of industry, was going to the Far East. Manufacturing in the UK was getting difficult, and it was more expensive to manufacture in the UK. And you've got to have products at the right price. If somebody else is getting their product from the Far East and is getting their product for a third of the price that you can make your product for, they've got a lot more money to spend on marketing. And whatever you do, you spend your money on.

Joe Foster [00:36:57]:

So what was happening is that I would say every month, at least one shoemaking factory was closing down in the UK. And what would happen is there would be an auction. We stayed alive because what we never did, we never hired machinery. Rented, okay. And a lot of companies rented machinery. Yeah, we always bought secondhand stuff.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:37:20]:

It works enough.

Joe Foster [00:37:21]:

We couldn't afford the new stuff and we couldn't afford to pay the rents on these machines. And you go to these factories which had closed down and they were auctioning off lots of stuff, but there'd be big gaps in the production line. These machines that they'd rented had now been picked up by, I think it was a British shoe corporation, british United Shoe Corporation. They picked that up. So there were big holes in the line anyway. But I used to go there because, well, why not? You can pick something up, a lot cheaper materials, some machines or whatever. And John Willie Johnson used to go to everyone, everyone, and he'd just sit on a chair and he never bought anything that I ever remember. All that happened is if an item didn't go, because these shoe factories slows them down.

Joe Foster [00:38:09]:

There were a lot of rubbish. They bought too much of it. And every time, if nothing went, the auctioneer would look at John Willie, and John Willie just nod. That was his. Then after the auction, he would go with the auctioneer and just sit down and obviously come to a price. He would remove all this stuff. And I happened to sit next to him one day because I'd bought some ladder and I'd overloaded my van and I got picked up by the police for being overloaded, and I paid a fine and I'm telling John Willie about this. He said, Joe, why don't you come with me? He said, we can go together.

Joe Foster [00:38:43]:

He said, but don't ever think of picking the stuff up. My men come down, every auction fill the wagon up, and big lorry they have, fill it up, whatever you buy. And he said, I know you don't buy that much, but I can't afford to. He said, we'll bring it up. We'll bring it up for you. And they used to bring it up and bring it, actually, to our small factory. And it didn't just sort of stay where he was. He was about 20 miles away, and they just brought it.

Joe Foster [00:39:12]:

And I said to John, what do you do with all this stuff? Because there's all sorts of things stuffed crocodile, stuffed birds, that kind of stuff, that were part of the office. Somebody, whatever they'd done, you got all those as well as machinery and findings. Findings are all the bits and kangaroo, leather, everything. And come on, I'll show you what we do with it. And then we went into this warehouse, this warehouse about ten times bigger than our factory, where all this stuff and I saw a machine, and I said, John, I could do with that one. It's called a pounding up machine. When you last the shoe, there are wrinkles around the toe. This machine, you spray it on, it beats them out, as it were.

Joe Foster [00:39:59]:

I could do with that machine. John, can I buy it off? Said, no. Oh, okay, then can I rent it? I said no. Okay? He said, you can have it. You can have it. Give me back when you've done with it. And his member brought the machine down, put it onto our production line, wired it all up, and that was it, done. And he did that for me on numbers of kids, and he would come to me, joe, I've got this clicking, press, whatever that I'm not using.

Joe Foster [00:40:30]:

Can you use it? And I'm sure he knew very well, and I'm sure he'd bought it somewhere just for me. But that guy, he was amazing.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:40:39]:

What do you think that he saw in you to be able to do it's? Unusual.

Joe Foster [00:40:45]:

Maybe he thought I was stupid and needed help.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:40:47]:

Well, that helps.

Joe Foster [00:40:51]:

But he did follow us. He did follow the progress of reebok, and probably saw the potential, probably thought, well, if I can give this guy a little bit of help, he may make it. So, yeah, there are a lot of people, even when we needed when our distributor or our sports went out of business, that was about 80% of our production, and I'm having to lay off workers. I'm having to say, I'm sorry, guys, whatever. And there were companies, I think there were three or four companies, competitors in some ways, just falling up, saying we could do with 200 pairs a week. Can you manage? Can you get 200 pairs a week? The guy at Barter, have you heard of Barter? B-A-T-A?

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:41:38]:

Aren't they in Los Angeles?

Joe Foster [00:41:40]:

Well, he lives there, tom Barter lives there. Now, the headquarters is in Toronto, okay. In fact, it's a place called it's massive biggest shoemakers in the world and still are.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:41:54]:

Okay?

Joe Foster [00:41:54]:

Wow. Volume wise, they're still the biggest shoemakers in the world. They're in Latin America and they're in India and Asia.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:42:01]:

Huge markets.

Joe Foster [00:42:02]:

They pulled out of Europe and USA because, I think, more or less the strap line for the company was shoemakers to the world. They had hundreds of factories and they made low costs, low price shoes in shoes for the masses. But, of course, where people have choice, as in America, as in Europe, they wanted something more with a brand, with a name, something better. So their business sort of tailed off in those areas. But Tom Barter himself, he does live in Auburn, I think it's called, just outside of Los Angeles. But yeah. So my friend who worked for the company that went out of business, the old man who owned the factory, who owned the business with Lawrence, he decided to retire and let his son in law run the business. And my friend just did not get in with this guy.

Joe Foster [00:42:47]:

This guy was totally not fitted with shoemaking or whatever. And so my friend left that company and took the whole sales force with him and went to Barter to set up a sports division for Barter. And, of course, that was the beginning of the end of the Lawrence Sports because without a sales team and he'd not a clue how to build another sales team and then you have the.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:43:11]:

Best horse leaving the house.

Joe Foster [00:43:13]:

And there were other reasons that they went out of business because he was an engineer and he did some really bad made some really bad moves and.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:43:21]:

Tried to tweak everything to make it perfect, which I guess never works.

Joe Foster [00:43:26]:

Well, the one thing I did learn is that you can't do it all yourself. And you need a lot of good.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:43:31]:

People you share too.

Joe Foster [00:43:32]:

And I think your success depends upon the right people working with you. It does. Your success does because it's up to you to give them the means by which they can glow. They can do things. They have ownership. They feel that they are Mr. Reebok or Mr. Whomever.

Joe Foster [00:43:51]:

They feel that. And if you give them that how.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:43:53]:

Did you find those people?

Joe Foster [00:43:54]:

Pardon?

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:43:55]:

How do you find those people?

Joe Foster [00:43:57]:

We were lucky. We were very lucky because Reebok started to grow and Reebok was rather a nice place, nice brand to work for. We were successful, and our success really came with Aerobics. When we really grew, we were a winning company, and we had that winning culture. And people loved a winning culture. Yes, we had a couple of mistakes with people because they came to us with an ego. And no, we don't want an ego. We're Reebok.

Joe Foster [00:44:27]:

We're not Fred. We're not Bill. We're Reebok. Just like we're not Joe Foster. Right? This is not ego. We don't have egos. We're trying to build that brand, and this is it. So we're all reebok.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:44:39]:

Your great dad company was Foster.

Joe Foster [00:44:43]:

My grandfather's company.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:44:44]:

Yes, exactly. And your dad, as well, later in the company, also, the name, like Foster. Was it ego driven, that part? And you were like, no, I just need to go to different direction. I don't want to have my name on it or why didn't you put your name on?

Joe Foster [00:44:59]:

Jeff and myself left the Foster family we were playing this with in the UK, straight Bat. We were being good. We cannot set up Fosters in another town competing against parent company. I suppose these things happen in a lot of companies. In fact, just to mention Barter. The grandfather was called Tom Barter. His father was called Tom Barter. Tom Barter, who I know.

Joe Foster [00:45:32]:

And his son is called Tom Barter.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:45:33]:

So pressure.

Joe Foster [00:45:35]:

Yeah, it goes down by the well, my grandfather was J W Foster. My father was James William Foster. My uncle was John William Foster. My brother was Jeffrey William Foster. I am Joseph William Foster because I was born on the same day as my grandfather. And I had another brother, john William Foster. So we're all JWS in fact, my uncle had two girls. One was called Dorothy, which sort of stepped out of line.

Joe Foster [00:46:05]:

The other was the other one was called Jennifer Winifred. So she was a JW as well. So you can imagine that.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:46:12]:

But you got stuck with the J's.

Joe Foster [00:46:14]:

We got stuck with the J's. You got stuck with the I married a Jean.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:46:19]:

Exactly.

Joe Foster [00:46:20]:

My brother also married a Gene, and we lived in the same property at the time, which was the factory.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:46:28]:

So what's your favorite leather?

Joe Foster [00:46:33]:

It was great fun. So we didn't want to set up as JW Foster against the parent company, which was JW Foster. So we said, well, we've got to think of a name. And we did, and we came up with Mercury. So we were Mercury sports football. And we'd like the name. We like mercury. And we had the mercury.

Joe Foster [00:46:50]:

The Wing messenger. I don't know if you got the image. He holds a torch and has wings on his he's the Wing Messenger. That's Mercury. So that was a good logo. Yeah, that was great. We had that. We liked that.

Joe Foster [00:47:03]:

But of course, when we couldn't register the name Mercury, that's when we had to change that. And that's in the book. And I think that's a bit of fun.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:47:12]:

That's a fun story and a lot of the analogy. I don't know if you can share that story. That would be great, because it's exactly.

Joe Foster [00:47:22]:

1943 and we mentioned war years and mentioned the fact that we couldn't go anywhere and we had sort of domestic events and one of these running events. And I won an 80 yard race. Great. And I caught for my prize. Yes, there's your prize. And they gave me a dictionary, webster's American Dictionary.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:47:44]:

Perfect. Living in Great Britain.

Joe Foster [00:47:46]:

Yeah, in the UK. I mean, I'm only eight and I'm saying, Where's the football? Come on, where's the football? What can I do with the dictionary.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:47:54]:

Child dream to have a dictionary. American dictionary.

Joe Foster [00:47:56]:

American dictionary. I suppose I could have kicked the dictionary about a bit, but sure you could. Not the same as a football, really. You don't get much for that of kicking a dictionary about. So I was pretty disgusted and probably came out with a few choice words at that time. I was only eight and thinking about that. I'm 88 now, so that's 80 years ago.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:48:14]:

That's a long time ago.

Joe Foster [00:48:16]:

And it's about this time of year because where these schools would have events, it is almost to the day. We're talking about 80 years ago I won this dictionary.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:48:27]:

There we go.

Joe Foster [00:48:27]:

Congrats. That's right, 1943. We're in tribe to dream. So the dictionary hung around for quite some time. But let's fast forward now to 1960. We've been in business for nearly two years and we have to change our name. And we're sitting around a table and I'm sure you've sat around and think we've got a little business or we're doing something. What do we call it? Sometimes instead, easy.

Joe Foster [00:48:53]:

But other times when you've got to do it and we sat around a table. New names. Cougar. Hey, that's a good name. I'd say cougar. All right, put that down on the list. And we got ten names because the agent who was working for us don't bring me one name. Bring me 1010.

Joe Foster [00:49:09]:

We only want one. Anyway, I'm sitting there, so I opened my dictionary. I like the letter R. Don't ask me why, but I like the letter R. So I opened up my Webster's dictionary, my American dictionary, the letter R. And I'm flipping through the E is not too far down the alphabet when you're from the zoo. So I've come across re harder. B-O-K reebok.

Joe Foster [00:49:30]:

What's that? Where's? A small South African gazelle. We're a running company. Gazelle. Perfect. That's it. Top of the list. So that became top of the list. And I took that to the agent and I said, look, we've got to be in love with this.

Joe Foster [00:49:44]:

This is our future. We want that one. But he's a lawyer. So he looks at Joey. He said, See what we can do. Sure took two weeks for him to put all these names we'd give him through the registrar to make sure. And he came back. He said, Joe, he said, You've got your wish.

Joe Foster [00:50:00]:

We have a couple of reasons that there could be problems with it. But one was a shirt company called Railbrook. When we're talking phonetics now. Railbrook Rebrook. Railbrook and phonetically. They could have objected to that. He said, But I'm the patent agent as well. He said, So you have no problem there.

Joe Foster [00:50:21]:

The other one was Rebor, which was a lady's underwear manufacturer. And he said, I don't think they will object to you being reebok making shoes.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:50:30]:

So something is running and something is.

Joe Foster [00:50:32]:

Said, okay, we'll do it. He said, but there's one caveat the registrar is brought up. What's that? He said, well, if somebody is making shoes out of Reebok skin, you can't stop them. And I look at that'll never happen. That'll never happen. So we'll take that. Okay. But the register also said, okay, because of this probability or possibility, we can only put you in the B section of the register.

Joe Foster [00:51:01]:

Bear in mind, up to a month ago, we didn't even know there was a register.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:51:05]:

Exactly.

Joe Foster [00:51:06]:

Okay. B section. Ten years later, the registrar came back to us to say, we've moved you to the A section. And said, oh, well, great, fine. Why? He said, well, everybody now knows Reebok, and Reebok is now it's an athletic shoe, and it's not an animal anymore. Poor animal has to take to the B section. So that's it. We got reebok.

Joe Foster [00:51:30]:

And I like the story myself, and it's a fun story.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:51:32]:

It is a fun story.

Joe Foster [00:51:34]:

And it was a better name than Mercury. Mercury reebok two.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:51:39]:

And it's a Mercury something that just doesn't stick, it just moves.

Joe Foster [00:51:43]:

Mercury quicksilver. Yes. And it's served as well, I think, and a lot of people like it. When we came to, we talk about marketing, and it's just that we well, my view on this was not just to have people like the product. That's a nice shoe. I wanted them to like the name. I wanted them to know, look, there's more reebok. You'll smile.

Joe Foster [00:52:12]:

You'll smile because they're great. Reebok is heart. And in fact, that was one of the things with Jeff and myself. Jeff would look after the factory. I had to find a pulse.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:52:24]:

I like that.

Joe Foster [00:52:25]:

I had to find a pulse. I had to make it. So that was always a fascination for me, was to make people love the name, make people love the story, whatever was make people love that. And if you push that around enough, not just we're victory, we're big, we're this. No, we're loved, which at the end helps.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:52:50]:

It's just playing long term.

Joe Foster [00:52:52]:

That's right. That has always been the reason why no, it's not Joe Foster, it's Reebok. He loved Reebok.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:52:58]:

I guess it takes out the pressure as well of yourself. You can more trust people that you hand them the baton to keep on running.

Joe Foster [00:53:07]:

That's right. I mean, when we left Foster's, adidas had come into the UK. And they'd taken football, or what the Americans call soccer.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:53:18]:

We need to emphasize what is they'd taken soccer.

Joe Foster [00:53:23]:

And for us to get into football or soccer, that would have been a costly operation. We couldn't go there. So that was the first time we were looking and saying, well, we need to find something that we can make a difference. And we started to call that white space. Where's the white where's that nice clean sheet that we can go and make that difference with. And so in the north of England, we had a few different areas. We could go into cross country, we had orienteeri and we had numerous things that's really, you know, if we get only small areas, we could put them together and we could grow, which we did. And of course, then my occupation was, well, we became the best in the UK for running shoes athletics.

Joe Foster [00:54:10]:

We became known as the athletics company. Even Adidas couldn't get to the depth that we got in that athletics market. But the biggest problem then was, okay, we're big in UK. Small pongs. Oh, yes. How do we get bigger? Do we expand our product line? Do we now start going into soccer? Do we start challenging the big boys? Or is there something different? And for me, it was, okay, so we know this product, you have success with this product. But I knew the big market was America for athletics, because every college, every university had coach, and they're huge. And coach was big.

Joe Foster [00:54:56]:

The coach in American colleges, they were a bit of a god. They weren't just like a PE teacher in the UK. He just sort of took it's a coach, bit of a nothing. But coach was awesome. Coach was awesome. And you could go to so many colleges in the USA on on a scholarship, on a sports scholarship. So that was a market. 1968.

Joe Foster [00:55:18]:

Well before 1968. I'm talking to Jeff and loving the wives, the family, maybe we should try to get to America. And whilst I wouldn't say the response was Pessimistic, the response was, we can't afford.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:55:36]:

Like you have the family there.

Joe Foster [00:55:38]:

Behind it's, a lot of money to fly you across to America at that time. And then you've got to do this. It was more or less, we don't have the money, such as the cost.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:55:48]:

We don't have the money.

Joe Foster [00:55:49]:

But I'm sort of saying, well, maybe we stretch a bit. However much my good fortune reading a magazine called Eurosport. The British government are advertising that they wanted us to export to America. It wasn't said, Mr Reebok, we want you to export that's like any sports product, anybody manufacturing sports product, we'd love to sort of help you to get into America. And they were willing to pay the return. ERFA, there we go. Pay for a stand at the NSGA show, which is National Sporting Goods of America. So we'll pay for you to a stand and 50% of all your expenditure whilst you're there.

Joe Foster [00:56:30]:

No objections? No reason. Not at all.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:56:33]:

See you tomorrow.

Joe Foster [00:56:34]:

That's right. You can go, Joe. Yeah, no objections. So that was the beginning of my journey to America. I went with a friend and I don't know, I still don't even understand today. We took a discounted ticket, and you could get a discounted ticket if you were staying in America for two weeks, for whatever reason. So we got to New York, you could go, come back from New York, but if you're staying for two weeks, you got a discounted ticket. I have no idea why we'd do that.

Joe Foster [00:57:01]:

Government to pay for. Why were I taking a discounted? Didn't occur to me until afterwards. But the useful thing was that the NSGA show is in Chicago, and this is February. February in Chicago. Snows up to your eyes. It's like or it's freezing -20. Degrees. Whatever.

Joe Foster [00:57:22]:

So we went to New York for a bit of a time off. Look around. I looked at the sports shops. My friend Bob, he was in the outdoor industry, so he looked at the outdoor stores. Then we went on to Chicago. Understand? Nice people love your product. Yeah, right. Where do I get that from? England.

Joe Foster [00:57:42]:

Is that New England? No, it's like, across the pond. The water. It's across near London. Right. And then it was well, look, when you get somebody with products and distribute over here, we'd love to give it a try. Yeah. This is 1968, and Bob only came that one year. But I went year on year on year on year, and it was three years in Chicago, one year in Houston.

Joe Foster [00:58:10]:

So how long did it take me to get that distributor in America? And you've already mentioned Shu.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:58:15]:

Right, exactly.

Joe Foster [00:58:17]:

He was one of my failures. But we had three years together. Yeah. Battling. Battling out.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:58:22]:

So you worked three years with Shu together?

Joe Foster [00:58:25]:

I was three years with Shu trying to get it to work. Yes.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:58:28]:

But I guess it took, like, more years of patience.

Joe Foster [00:58:33]:

The real serious thing I learned about this is that we didn't have the money to really make the push that was necessary to get in there. We should have been my grandfather knew about influencers.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:58:44]:

Right, exactly.

Joe Foster [00:58:46]:

He gave his shoes to a guy in 1904 who broke three world records, and he also had two gold medals in 1908, at London Olympic Games, he supplied the athletes who won gold medals in the was Eric Little, Harold Abrams and Lord Burley. And they were all immortalized in the film Chariots of Fire. They were the guys who were immortalized. And my grandfather made the shoes that they earned their gold medals in, and he must have given them to them. So that was influence.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:59:17]:

That was definitely influencing.

Joe Foster [00:59:18]:

That was influencing in those days, this.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:59:22]:

Curiosity to do something different.

Joe Foster [00:59:27]:

A guy called Frank Shorter, you won't know of him, but he was a famous athlete in America. He actually bought a pair of our shoes. It didn't sort of generate what we needed, because in those days, in 1968 to the early 70s, running wasn't such a big category.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:59:48]:

Exactly.

Joe Foster [00:59:48]:

They were into basketball, baseball, the American sports. And so we really didn't get that traction that we needed.

Roberto Inderbitzin [00:59:57]:

Difficult then.

Joe Foster [00:59:58]:

Yeah, it was very difficult. When did I get there? Yes. When did I get there? 1979. So just a couple chapels.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:00:05]:

Just a couple of years.

Joe Foster [01:00:08]:

Yeah. Eleven years. And people say, how did him what are. You thinking of just spending eleven years doing that.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:00:15]:

Exactly.

Joe Foster [01:00:15]:

And I said I was having fun.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:00:18]:

Exactly. Isn't that like they say, what's a beautiful saying with the ten years of overnight success.

Joe Foster [01:00:25]:

That's right. Ten years. Overnight success in ten years. Something like that.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:00:29]:

I'm already like almost around ten years now. Starting doing that what I'm doing.

Joe Foster [01:00:34]:

Yeah. Well, keep at it. You never know.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:00:36]:

It's weird, but it feels I'm starting like it feels like still like the fire in me. It's just burning before.

Joe Foster [01:00:45]:

If it feels like that, you're having fun.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:00:46]:

So much fun.

Joe Foster [01:00:48]:

Yeah.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:00:48]:

Still a lot of sacrifice.

Joe Foster [01:00:50]:

Probably meeting some great people. I'm not talking about me.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:00:54]:

Meeting you. It's been great. I would have never thought that when I was a kid, like, having pumps, and it's like, oh, and now I'm meeting the founder of that brand who actually is doing that.

Joe Foster [01:01:07]:

I didn't invent the pump.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:01:08]:

No, but one behind you, like the brand.

Joe Foster [01:01:11]:

That's right. It was one of our white spaces. It was something different, and it's great to get something different. And if you manage one thing which is different, and you actually use that, that can make all the changes. But it took me eleven years.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:01:23]:

That's it.

Joe Foster [01:01:24]:

But the difference was, I said I had six attempts, six different distributors, I could probably name them all. So what worked, in fact, was the fact that in 1979 we got a five star run shoe. Where'd that come? That came from Runners World in America. It started off late 60s. People started going out, training, going out with shoot to keep fit. Simple way of keeping fit. You didn't need a lot of rubbish, you didn't need a lot of kit, pair of shoes, that's all you needed. Pair of shoes, shorts, maybe.

Joe Foster [01:01:55]:

And you went out to train, to run. And this grew, grew, grew to the point where going out for Keeping Fit, somebody said, Why don't we have a race? So they started to organize five kilometer races, ten kilometer races, half marathons, and more marathons, and more people just started to grow. And then Runners World came along, and Runners World started off as just a single paper, but he was telling you where the next races were, who had won the last races. And so this was a bible. People were picking this up by 19, 75, 76. It was about a 50, 60 page, full gloss, full color magazine. And he was selling millions, because there must have been 30 million Americans going out there just keeping fit, entering races.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:02:45]:

I like the part where you mentioned that it started small when focused on just one niche of people and your brands. That's what I was like with Reeboks, that's little niche. We really help those people.

Joe Foster [01:02:59]:

That's right.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:03:00]:

And help those and not just start to take over the world.

Joe Foster [01:03:03]:

It wasn't Sports World which would represent all these no, he just focused on running and running became massive.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:03:10]:

But how do you focus? I mean, I found it so difficult not to chase the shiny object of the squirrel.

Joe Foster [01:03:18]:

Well, what happened with running being so simple? All you needed was a pair of shoes. You didn't need a lot of kit, you didn't need to be part of a team. You could do it yourself, so it was only you, you could run. So this was so interesting to a lot of people who wanted to keep fit, maybe didn't have time to go down to if there were any gyms, because there weren't many gyms around in those days. How do you keep fit? You had to be a hard knot. You had to go to real sort of places where there were hard training, not just athletic training, but going out, running just got you fit. So the nation was getting fitter, america was getting fitter, and it just grew. It's one of those things that happened.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:03:57]:

And you just focused on that for the future.

Joe Foster [01:03:59]:

Aerobics came along because that was our sort of wow.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:04:03]:

But that's also a beautiful story of giving people the belief that they can change something or they can contribute to something bigger. Because if we didn't have the confidence or the trust in you to show you something, even if could have failed.

Joe Foster [01:04:20]:

Well, people say you make your own luck, and you do. But to an extent, you need some luck. Podcasting is something that's happened since COVID and we've got Zoom and all that podcasting has gone. You were here, you were at the right age to be able to come into that space. Had you been 2030 years older, you may not had you been much younger, if you'd been not even a teenager, it would have passed you by, because too many people would be in it by the time you grew to a certain so time. Timing is something we don't have control of.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:04:59]:

True.

Joe Foster [01:04:59]:

But if we're there at the right, you can see something when it's fairly new and get into, you know, that's it. But if it hadn't arrived, just like running arrived in America and you saw.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:05:13]:

That we were a running company, what a perfect timing.

Joe Foster [01:05:17]:

I don't know if you know Clark's Shoes. Shoes are a British company. They've quite well known, quite big. They're international now, been going for many years longer than we, and they just make street shoes, but they're big and they make quality street shoes, and they're trying to get into their soft sport let's. Okay, we'll make sneakers. Nobody wanted to buy a Clark sneaker. The kids shoes, they're the street shoes. Your regular footwork, to me, the quality, it's top, but still so that name doesn't fit.

Joe Foster [01:05:53]:

The name doesn't fit sport. If they wanted to be in sports, what they should have done is either buy a company, they could have bought Reebok at that time and run this as a separate division. But the only way you get into this is because you're not trying to make yourself a multiple confusion. Like you're saying, Why don't you take a bit of this? But, no, it doesn't work.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:06:15]:

What I'm seeing more and more is like people are or brands are collaborating with other ones. Like Nike is starting to collaborate with Tiffany.

Joe Foster [01:06:23]:

I mean, now COLABS, we're all calling labs now. That's the latest marketing. What do you think about latest marketing is COLABS. It's the latest thing that's happening now. It'll go off a certain while until somebody finds something else. But you get companies that are big and coming back from Role, we're sitting in the airport and there's a young girl sat maybe a couple of metres away, and I looked down and I said, to look at those shoes. That's a collaboration with you making the shoe. Collaboration is Lego.

Joe Foster [01:06:57]:

And so these things, it's like, well, that's what's new today. And you look at something which is catching people's imagination. And that's now what the big brands, big football brands are doing these collabs.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:07:09]:

The whole story build. Yeah, it's more story building on top of each other.

Joe Foster [01:07:13]:

Reebok are doing them all the time. In fact, this one's got e on the back. They're a collaboration with somebody, so it's still there. So it's marketing.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:07:23]:

When does a company change from a performance company to marketing? Is it very fluid? I mean, you need marketing, I guess, to push the product.

Joe Foster [01:07:32]:

You always need marketing. And one part of your marketing has got to be a decision as to what you want to be known as. And such as Nike are probably known maybe more than anybody else as a performance company. They do invest in performance. You see a lot of it, and so that drives the company. But then they also know they've got to do collaborations with other people, whatever.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:07:58]:

Their story behind is. Like, to bring out books about shoes, about branding and all that stuff.

Joe Foster [01:08:04]:

Well, you look at Nike and of course, you've got Michael Jordan. That was a big collab. So the collaboration there has been massive and it's still going massive part of the company. Yeah. And this is what brands have to do. They've got to look at how do we influence people?

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:08:23]:

So you think in the basketball room you had Shack, which is also, like, huge, like, literally huge.

Joe Foster [01:08:31]:

Seven foot two size 22s boots.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:08:38]:

Yes, that's big.

Joe Foster [01:08:39]:

I mean, they're this big. It's enormous. It's like a fishing story and put.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:08:45]:

A baby in there.

Joe Foster [01:08:47]:

So, yes, I've seen one or two of those on a bar collecting collecting money.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:08:53]:

I've never seen that size.

Joe Foster [01:08:55]:

Charity shaq's boots. Yes.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:08:58]:

I mean, that must have been great to have an ambassador as him.

Joe Foster [01:09:02]:

Well, again, this is me. I'm not saying that that was luck. No, reebok went out of the way to pick him up.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:09:10]:

But then you also make your luck. I mean, you mentioned a lot of times about luck and how lucky you are but also looking at your background, your tenacity you never stopped. Of course the book reveals the past but it shows that you always were looking forward. You didn't look back to lick your wounds instead of just moving forward.

Joe Foster [01:09:32]:

Yeah, I think that's essential. A brand has to move forward. If you plateau, you go down and Reebok has plateaued. Plateau in the 90s I'd stepped back in the 1989, right? So I was sort of relaxing, doing different things and whatever and Reebok did plateau. Nike had plateaued. In fact, Nike Plateaued during aerobics for reebok. I mean, we've not got to that story but we needed production. There are only so many factories, right? And Nike hit a wall sorry, that.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:10:07]:

Story in South Korea with the bag with the white powder was it in South Korea?

Joe Foster [01:10:14]:

Yeah, that's a different story but please.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:10:16]:

Read the book, listeners, it's great.

Joe Foster [01:10:19]:

Nike hit a wall and they had to pull out of three factories, at least three factories and we were looking for production because we couldn't keep up with the orders. We couldn't keep up the orders were coming in so many and it was incredible and had we not been able to satisfy those orders nike and Adidas would have said wow, there's some volume here, we'll jump in and Reebok would have lost it. Fortunately Nike pulled out, we moved in and we managed to keep managed not to starve the market and to keep it going. So again, we owned Aerobics and we maintained that that took us bigger than Adidas, bigger than Nike. So we became number one through Aerobics.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:11:08]:

I wonder what the conversations on the board meetings are if you are in the middle of those situations, the talks and the conversations you have you have to move so fast and so quick and it's not that you can make a phone call and send your email and all that it was a different time.

Joe Foster [01:11:28]:

You're talking about four and a half years growth from a 9 million, just a $9 million company to a 900 million dollar company.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:11:38]:

That's how you manage that. Like in the brain itself.

Joe Foster [01:11:43]:

Initially money was a problem because how do you finance it? But we got over that and it was product then how do you produce the product? Because we're talking about selling shoes.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:11:56]:

Exactly. It's something physical.

Joe Foster [01:11:58]:

We've got to make these things and it's that it was that production that became the problem and that's when, as I say, Nike just they've got too much inventory and they had to pull out. That again, is luck.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:12:10]:

It is luck, yeah.

Joe Foster [01:12:11]:

It wasn't luck that we'd got into the business. We were making a really good job of Aerobics but too good a job, if you will. The amazing thing is well, it's good.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:12:19]:

I mean it's like from nine to.

Joe Foster [01:12:22]:

900 and nobody in the business were talking and saying oh, where should we go next? These are moments of luck, the fact that this happened so we could take advantage of it. Most of the factories in South Korea were probably working six days a week anyway. They could only ever sort of increase the production by marginal amounts, maybe do overtime, maybe even work seven days. But it's just marginal. It's not going to produce you 5 million exercise of shoes, the height of the aerobics growth. We're doing anything between three and 5 million a month.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:12:56]:

That's a lot.

Joe Foster [01:12:57]:

That's a lot of product.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:12:59]:

And if you break it down to.

Joe Foster [01:13:00]:

It per day, it's a lot of product. Funny. We were talking to Tom Barter. We were staying with Tom Barter in Elbandar and he's writing his book. That's why we got together. He's writing his book. So he's talking to us about different things. And we're going through the different processes of Barter.

Joe Foster [01:13:19]:

They made a ton of money. A ton of money. And still doing yeah, tom has scaled up really big. He was saying, well, yeah, we were making a million pairs of shoes a day. Wow.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:13:37]:

That is a million.

Joe Foster [01:13:39]:

But that's a lot. I can relate that to Reebok, because when we got our five star rating and all of a sudden people like Kmart wanted 20,000 pairs. Six months worked for our small factory. We had to go to South Korea. We got in South Korea, but before we got there, my friend who left the company and gone to Barter to set up their sports division, said, Joe, if you get five stars and you start to need product, we'll help you. This was a big factory down in Tilbury in England, just south of London. I was, okay, so we go down to Barter and Barter, right? We place 20,000 order with them, 20,000 purse. Okay.

Joe Foster [01:14:21]:

We're in Manchester. They're in London. Say, Paul FAM is in Boston. What we didn't do in Manchester is get between we didn't want to be placing the orders. We love Paul, place the orders and then go everything direct. Instead of us. We'd have our royalty on this because we did royalty arrangements for this. And so Paul Fireman got 20,000 purse from Barter and he's filling orders.

Joe Foster [01:14:45]:

They said, Joe, I got a couple of problems. I'm getting shoes back because they're collapsing. Oh, that's okay. You have to send me something over. I can have a look at this. He said, but also they look different. Okay, well, we really need to look at that. Because when you place orders with factories, when it's not in your factory, you place order, you do what is assigned sample.

Joe Foster [01:15:07]:

In other words, you get them to make a sample and you approve it. You sign off on a paper, you take one, they keep one. So that we both know what the shoe should look like.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:15:18]:

It should look absolutely.

Joe Foster [01:15:20]:

But unfortunately, Barter, as I've said, they just made shoes. They made millions of pairs of shoes and they made them at a price. The point is, the factories did a time of motion study on our shoe. And our shoe, as you can see here, this goes across. They didn't like that because the machinists had to stop and turn. So they made that round.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:15:42]:

Okay.

Joe Foster [01:15:43]:

And they make it round. They changed the look completely. Not many people buying the shoe really had that knowledge, or they didn't realize. Paul realized that was the wrong shoe. But the worst thing that happened was these that were collapsing, the part of factory was so big, they had their own rubber making factory on site. They made their own rubber. And just slightly before we got our five stars, the industry had moved on and the technology, the midsole that's the cushion had changed from being rubber. Rubber is very heavy.

Joe Foster [01:16:19]:

Rubber is heavy. They changed to plastic, which was again, you put a lot of bubbles in it to make it light and it's cushion. So all the cushion is a lot of bubbles blown into the material. But instead of it being rubber, it's blown into they are blown into Eva, which is expanded penalacetate, which is a plastic. And of course, Arter, having their own rubber factory, decided they could make Eva, which sounds good, which they could, which is fine. They did. However, about maybe 1015 percent hadn't cured properly. You've got to cure rubber so that it doesn't just collapse.

Joe Foster [01:16:56]:

You cure it. Right. Bounces, yes, but give it time. I don't know technically what the difference is in terms of times, of whatever, but 15% of this stuff hadn't cured. And result was that 15% of all the shoes that Paul had got and.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:17:13]:

They were outside already. They were already gone.

Joe Foster [01:17:16]:

They were gone, yeah. Well, all he was doing, he got his 20,000 pears and they started shipping. And of course these were coming back. So there was a bit of conversation going on. But Paul said, look, don't worry, I'll come over, we'll see what we can do. But meanwhile, all we're doing is we just send a prayer back. We just exchange no comment. No question, we just exchange it.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:17:37]:

It's tough, but it's needed.

Joe Foster [01:17:39]:

Yeah, but that was a time before.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:17:41]:

You were financial solid.

Joe Foster [01:17:43]:

Well, there was a financial aspect to this because Paul needed a credit line and barter were willing to give him a credit line, whereas to go direct to Korea, they needed a letter of credit. So a letter of credit, I don't know if you know much about the banking system, but a letter of credit means you've got to have the money and the bank are happy to give you a letter of credit. So if you have ordered 20,000 pairs of shoes, and if they're worth, we'll say, ten pounds a time or €10 a time, it's like €200,000 you've got. And if you've not got that in the bank, the bank won't do it. So you have no credit line. But when you sell the shoes to your consumers in America, they want 30, 60 days credit the finances. That was a big difficult part. It was a time when I had to make a decision, because I could see Reebok had an opportunity.

Joe Foster [01:18:35]:

This wasn't about Joe Foster. This was about reebok. And so we met up with Stephen Rubin. Well, through Paul. Paul had a guy, American built, right? They were in Boston. They were just a rubber company. And the guy knew this English guy called Stephen Rubin. And Stephen Rubin, one of his companies, asshole, was a sourcing company out of South Korea.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:18:57]:

Perfect. What a timing.

Joe Foster [01:18:58]:

So that was perfect. But of course, he wouldn't give a credit line without having some sort of deal. And he made a deal with Paul Feynman, where Paul Feynman lost half of his company. But at know, Paul realized that if he didn't do that, he wouldn't be getting the product. And as you can imagine, we got a credit line. Stephen didn't expect the amount of credit he would have to give. And Paul was saying, like, right, you own the company almost now, so you got to keep going. But Stephen got a bit nervous when the debt got to $20 million, which in those days was a bit early 80s, it was $20 million.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:19:38]:

I mean, it's still enough money. It's a lot of money now.

Joe Foster [01:19:40]:

But at that time, yes, but Stephen stayed with it. But it was the time that I thought, well, Stephen may pull out. And Paul was talking to me, look, can we take the brand? So I would say it was a question of me saying, I can understand that. If he hasn't got the brand, he's only got a distribution. How long is he going to stay with this? So I thought, OK, if we miss this opportunity, nobody will know. Reebok it would have come and gone because all of a sudden, we wouldn't be able to satisfy that. So it didn't take me long, didn't take much. I thought, okay, I'm a founder, but there's no point in being a founder in a very small pool where you lose it because everything overtakes or fireman pulls out because he's no longer the owner.

Joe Foster [01:20:28]:

Things go that bad. So I decided, time to sell.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:20:31]:

Must be tough.

Joe Foster [01:20:32]:

Not that tough. It's a decision between there's an opportunity here for the company. Can the company reach that number one.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:20:40]:

Like putting back your ego again, like.

Joe Foster [01:20:42]:

Don'T let the ego dictate your no, I'm the boss. No, because you're not. You're only as good as your opportunity. And that opportunity was bigger than me. And so for me to decide, okay, I'll do that. Paul and I sold the company. I sold the shares. But of course, today people say you sold your company.

Joe Foster [01:21:04]:

Yeah, but I'm the founder.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:21:05]:

Nobody can take that away from me.

Joe Foster [01:21:07]:

And you can't take that away and being the founder of what company was that exactly? ReWalk, you said, right?

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:21:15]:

Mercury.

Joe Foster [01:21:16]:

Who was that? Well, we never knew. I'd have been the founder of nothing, right. So I might as well be the founder. Nobody can take that away from you, rebuff. A lot of CEOs, they've been owned by know, owned by authentic brands group, who are big now. They're really isn't.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:21:35]:

That the owner of know.

Joe Foster [01:21:40]:

And I'm thinking, well, I won't have the worry. And of course, if it goes well, then I'm still working with the company.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:21:47]:

And still being curious and doing what you like to do and travel around.

Joe Foster [01:21:51]:

And so people know, would you change that? Would you change that? And my only answer to that is, look, we overtook adidas, we overtook nike, became number one. What's to and again, as he was saying yes, as a founder, maybe people don't like the idea that joe foster's the founder of reebok, and he's normal than I am, and I own the company or whatever.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:22:18]:

Exactly. So what?

Joe Foster [01:22:22]:

So having written the book, you still get the knowledge of this is what made the company. This is where the company got to that point that it was worth somebody investing. And the only thing that I can say is that if jeff hadn't died, jeff would have still been alive. Maybe I would have been able to make a different decision. But I don't know.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:22:41]:

Who did you talk to at that time when you need to make those big decisions?

Joe Foster [01:22:46]:

Well, I mean, there was the family. We were not that big. It was a question like, how big can you be? But this is an opportunity.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:22:54]:

Well, it's still big if you have come from 9 million to 900 million.

Joe Foster [01:22:59]:

That's right. You're not a big company. You're a fairly small company. We were not known. Aerobics gave us that visibility like a GASL.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:23:09]:

It was actually a great opportunity to be that small. So you can actually maneuver and jump into that niche without being actually eaten by the big ones.

Joe Foster [01:23:19]:

Well, yes, but I think the minute you put your head above the parapet of something, that could be a challenge, you do get, and I'm sure you.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:23:26]:

Did a couple of times, because you've.

Joe Foster [01:23:27]:

Got to get to a certain size. We're very fortunate because reebok, we were doing something that nobody else was in, and nike added us. They were male, they were sweaty. Reebok has 9 million as a running company. Very few people in america knew us. Very few. All of a sudden, we get into aerobics white space again. We found a white space.

Joe Foster [01:23:50]:

Jane fonda went out and bought a pair and used them in her fitness videos, and all of a sudden we take off. The girls loved them. They were falling apart because they're made out of glove leather. But we got over that. We eventually got over that.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:24:04]:

I like the part where it says that there were some wrinkles on it, but people actually liked it. Like really embracing what actually looks as a fault before that's.

Joe Foster [01:24:14]:

Right.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:24:14]:

But really embracing that and really like that's part of the design of it.

Joe Foster [01:24:17]:

Part of the design, yeah.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:24:19]:

That's how it happened.

Joe Foster [01:24:20]:

It was part of the marketing. Right. The design happened.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:24:23]:

Right.

Joe Foster [01:24:23]:

The marketing took the advantage. It was funny because I didn't know that we'd got into Aerobics and we were making these shoes out of glove leather. And when I heard, make a shoe of glove. You can't do that. Certainly not if you were using the suede side. Okay. That'd be okay, but not the way you're doing it. And they were falling apart.

Joe Foster [01:24:41]:

So what did they do? They aligned the leather with nylon. They just glued it so they can give it their strength. Adam's saying, you can't do that either because you're making them out of nice leather, because leather breathes right. Then you have to and they put glue and nylon and stopped it breathing. So what did they do? They punched holes in different shape. Punched this nice pattern of holes in.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:25:05]:

Breathable. Can make holes.

Joe Foster [01:25:07]:

And the lesson I learned from that was marketers are better at making shoes than shoemakers.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:25:13]:

They focus more on the way to sell it.

Joe Foster [01:25:16]:

Yeah.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:25:16]:

I think it's a blessing to be naive, I guess.

Joe Foster [01:25:19]:

So we became a marketing company. Instead of a shoemaking. Shoemaking. Shoemaking holds you back. You make shoes that you know will work, whereas somebody makes a shoe because it has a different function.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:25:31]:

I have here a question that I would like to ask you. If you were able to make a shoe that's going to last forever, would you do that? Would you sell that?

Joe Foster [01:25:39]:

A shoe that will last forever? I would say the biggest problem with that is not the fact that the shoe would last forever, but people don't think that way. People would leave it in the cupboard and go out and buy something else. People need change. And so a shoe that lasts forever is probably somebody doesn't walk in it. It'll last forever. And there's probably plenty of shoes out there which have been made for in fact, you go to Toronto, to the Barter Museum. They have a museum. They've got things which are a thousand years old.

Joe Foster [01:26:10]:

So they've lasted forever, if you will, in that sense. But nobody wears them. True.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:26:15]:

And being a sports company, it's just a different approach. I mean, if you have shoes that you put with a suit on, I mean, those last forever, like leather shoes.

Joe Foster [01:26:25]:

And again, the technology moves on. So your shoe might last forever, but if it's got the wrong technology, people won't wear it. Things move on. So people love to have change and different things. The one thing I love about a shoe is it's got three dimensions. This only has three dimensions when you word it. Apparel only has three dimensions. Otherwise you just make something up.

Joe Foster [01:26:49]:

It's really only two dimensions. Most apparel, right?

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:26:52]:

Exactly.

Joe Foster [01:26:52]:

A hat has three dimensions, but you think of T shirts, trousers, whatever, it's great. You can actually admire the shape. You can turn it around, you can see the shoe. So a shoe lasting forever. No, I don't think many people would even like to try and make a shoe last forever.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:27:15]:

There are some companies that doing them more sustainable. So you can actually change part to.

Joe Foster [01:27:22]:

I think, sustainable these days in the lower industry. And we know a few people who are now they're looking at making senses. So that when you need to change a shoe, you change a shoe and then instead of throwing that away, it goes to a recycling place and they will strip it apart. That's one way it all becomes part of the cost.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:27:41]:

I mean, it's a great beginning. I think we really need to make a change to make products that are recyclable, it's one thing, but to last longer, I think it's more the way we should approach it at the beginning instead of putting too much effort into recycling because that's not going to work.

Joe Foster [01:27:57]:

Well, I think people are thinking much differently these days. Got to think about if you've got a shoe and it's made of leather, you need cows. And the cows, okay, that's food. In one way, it's either milk or it's food. And if you didn't have milk from cows, if you didn't have food from cows, you wouldn't have the hide. So you would move on to other materials. And I'm sure there's some materials about that. I think they can almost grow leather these days.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:28:25]:

Yeah, they're working on so many interesting stuff.

Joe Foster [01:28:27]:

Whether that would be cost effective, I'm not sure.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:28:31]:

But it's a start to think of on a different scale, a different level, which I think it's great because like we mentioned, it needs to evolve.

Joe Foster [01:28:40]:

It does. But people are thinking outside the box these days. The box has been made. You've got the internal combustion engine, you've got a car for years and they've just got the internal combustion engine. Perfect. It really is good.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:28:53]:

It is great.

Joe Foster [01:28:54]:

Lasts forever. You can press a button and it stops. It really is good. And we had a private viewing of the Porsche 911 factory. We're asking a lot of questions like about electricity. What are you thinking about? No, well, we porsche is saying, yeah, we do have electric cars. We've got this, we've got this. There's electric, not 911.

Joe Foster [01:29:16]:

Oh, what are you going to do? Well, we're looking at biochemistry. We have these biofuels now. So I think they've got somewhere in Latin America where they grow in this vegetation, biofuels. So they're not thinking of doing away with the internal combustion engine and they're saying if things are not right, we'll just mothball it until it is right. So synthetic fuels, biofuels, so they're thinking again. A little bit differently outside the box. How do we sort of look at sustainability? How do we look at what's happening out of the world that we've got to get away from any fossil fuels, we've got to get away from, that, we've got to stop carbon. So Reebok made a shoe out of vegetable, made everything from vegetation.

Joe Foster [01:30:00]:

I don't know where it's gone to, but they said, all you need to do with this is when you finish wearing it, you just bury it.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:30:06]:

That's interesting.

Joe Foster [01:30:08]:

Bury it's. Vegetation. It is, and it will happen. In fact, we've been to a couple of hotels lately where they won't give you a plastic bottle, they give you a refillable glass bottle and then there's points where you can refill your glass bottle.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:30:22]:

Excellent.

Joe Foster [01:30:23]:

Yeah, it's moving. The whole thing is moving. So whatever you're whether you're in footwork, whether you're in engineering or whatever, we.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:30:29]:

Are moving to sustainability, something that we can learn. It takes time to build something to grow.

Joe Foster [01:30:36]:

Protesters say, we haven't got the time.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:30:38]:

Well, maybe we haven't, but we're still moving.

Joe Foster [01:30:42]:

The economy of the world is driven by the way we produce things. And to change that, you've got to consider COVID ruined so many businesses, and that's a good example of just taking something away. And you can't take things away. You think of how many flights are going on these days, it's incredible. I think F one formed a one and they were saying, well, the drivers are saying, but we go around the world and there's no way we can do it, apart from flying. Probably they're saying, instead of taking private jets, maybe we should jam them into the cargo jet. But, I mean, these guys have the money. So all this is it's not a simple answer, it's a good answer, it's not simple.

Joe Foster [01:31:25]:

We can do this.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:31:26]:

But there is one question I really like to ask. What do you believe that others don't?

Joe Foster [01:31:31]:

People come to me and they say, how old are you? 88. You're never 88. And so almost answering your question and we get this discussion and it's like, don't let the old man in. Yeah, that's when you become old, is when you let the old man in. So I'm believing that. That's it. You've got to keep moving. If you'd stop moving, you become solid.

Joe Foster [01:31:51]:

It's just a question of just keep going. And it was the same with running the business. When you got a problem, no, you just keep going. So I think it's whatever the ODS are, even if you can't see the answer, you can't see the outcome. If you don't keep going, you have no chance of going to the outcome. So you've got to keep going. So I think a lot of people maybe would give up, maybe say, and I must admit, apart from keeping going.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:32:13]:

You got to enjoy it, the having fun part.

Joe Foster [01:32:16]:

But if you're keeping going and you're not enjoying it. Then, as I say today, I learned a few new words. Pivot.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:32:22]:

Exactly. Pivot. Everything is pivoting.

Joe Foster [01:32:25]:

Don't change direction anymore.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:32:26]:

You pivot. Exactly.

Joe Foster [01:32:28]:

You don't grow your business now, you scale.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:32:30]:

Exactly.

Joe Foster [01:32:31]:

So I do learn new things at 88.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:32:34]:

I learn to being curious as well.

Joe Foster [01:32:36]:

These new phrases that come out from all these marketing people.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:32:39]:

There we go.

Joe Foster [01:32:39]:

So what do I believe that other people don't? I think it's probably the fact that you're only as old as you feel, and if you keep moving but we went out today just to walk around a lake. We actually go to malls to surf malls. We surf malls because if we're in Dubai, and Dubai is so hot, even at the best times. But Dubai Mall is one of the biggest malls in the world. If it's not the biggest, you can just walk forever. And that's good. No up, no down. It's nice and level, nice temperature.

Joe Foster [01:33:09]:

And the temperature's right because it's not raining, no sun. You do these things, and I think you've got to take notice of your body because it does change. I have a new hip, have a new knee. Okay, so this works. But I can't play tennis anymore because my shoulders no bad. So what? I watch Wimbledon. They're all playing tennis.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:33:34]:

They play for you.

Joe Foster [01:33:36]:

So I don't know whether it's you're as old as you feel. I think you've just got to move with the time. I can't go and do the things I used to do. I can't play badminton like I used to do.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:33:46]:

But it's okay.

Joe Foster [01:33:46]:

I'm sure you remember that at home you used to run upstairs and you run down, and when you're coming down the last three steps, you just jump. Yes. When you're young, you just jump. You bounce. And that's it true. Can't do that anymore. Yeah, I can't do that anymore. Accept change.

Joe Foster [01:34:06]:

And I think that is important, to accept change. And the one thing I did do is write a book, and that has been quite different. It's something to have written the book, and I got some help with it because with 30 years of being in business and I'm trying to write a book and I've been nice to hear, then I'm saying, yeah, but I did this. I also did this whilst I'm so that's it. And now we're writing another book, Survive and Thrive. And that is bringing entrepreneurs who probably don't have a name that says household, but they have a story probably far better than mine.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:34:39]:

Some of the stories, I'm sure they're great.

Joe Foster [01:34:41]:

We had one guy, he's Armenian, and he was brought up in a Russian refugee camp. And his father wrote to the White House every day. I don't know how he paid for the stamps, but he used to write he wrote to the White House every day. And one day he got a reply back. We'll give you 30 days. We'll pray for you for 30 days. Come. It's up to you.

Joe Foster [01:35:03]:

And they went. And now this guy has made a fort. Well, his father's not there anymore, but he was only six years old when he left, and he's in America, and now he's in something to do with communications and he's a big company, so a story.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:35:19]:

Those stories are amazing.

Joe Foster [01:35:23]:

We have so many of those stories which are amazing, which are going into this. We have 20 entrepreneurs. We've got? Is it valor? Holyfield. Holyfield. The boxer. He is in.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:35:32]:

I'm so looking forward to that.

Joe Foster [01:35:34]:

We have a lot of good people. The new CEO of Sachi and Sachi, they're the biggest advertising people. So he's going to be in I.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:35:45]:

Don'T want to say, but I heard there is the designer in it.

Joe Foster [01:35:49]:

That's it. So there you go. Yeah.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:35:51]:

No, like you mentioned, it's a lot of luck, but it's a lot of fun.

Joe Foster [01:35:56]:

Luck or just timing?

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:35:58]:

Well, I guess both I guess. Timing and the luck to actually do.

Joe Foster [01:36:02]:

That well, and it's a start. This is the first one of the survive and thrive, but we've got so many people who are fascinated by the idea.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:36:11]:

It's a beautiful idea.

Joe Foster [01:36:13]:

You've got some great stories, but nobody knows his name. We got lucky, we got reebok. It's a great story. Found that in a dictionary in 1960. So you put all these things together and yes, timing, luck, persistence, fun.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:36:30]:

The network like having the right people around.

Joe Foster [01:36:33]:

Oh, yes. Well, that can come by accident. I think a lot of having the right people is something that I don't say as a skill. You pick up as, I like that guy. Somebody you can talk to and people that you're not telling. This is how you do it. This is how you do it. You don't want that.

Joe Foster [01:36:52]:

You want them to tell you. That's why you employ them. What are we doing wrong? How can we make this? Can we do that? Yeah. What do you think? If you got a problem, come and discuss it. That wasn't the idea and it never was the idea. Look, if you've got a problem, find an answer. Bring me answers. Don't bring me problems.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:37:08]:

Exactly.

Joe Foster [01:37:09]:

And if your biggest problem is that you've got two answers and you don't know which of the answers to use, we'll discuss that.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:37:16]:

That's so true. And I think that's something that when I was younger, I was just completely different. It's like there's a problem, that's a problem. That's a problem. Instead of coming with the answer or solutions. And I think being wiser, it helps.

Joe Foster [01:37:29]:

Yeah. Sometimes some solutions. One cost a million pounds, cost ten pounds. Spend a million because that man be the best answer.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:37:38]:

Yeah.

Joe Foster [01:37:39]:

People have got to become aware of make suggestions that you've got a problem. Yeah. But it's a challenge to convert problem to challenge. How do we answer this challenge? Respond to the challenge.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:37:50]:

But also own it and not blame on somebody else.

Joe Foster [01:37:52]:

That's right.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:37:53]:

So own the situation.

Joe Foster [01:37:55]:

And people who work with your company, if they do bring something to it, you see the smile on their face. Love it. That's it. Love reba.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:38:04]:

There we go. What a beautiful what a beautiful end. Like, love reba.

Joe Foster [01:38:08]:

Love reba. Yes.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:38:09]:

So I'm going to put all the show notes on the podcast so people can buy your books, like Shoemaker. I can really recommend it. I mean, there are some great stories. Like when Jane traveled with you to Japan, that was really first and last. That's culture. You have to embrace culture.

Joe Foster [01:38:33]:

That's right. I mean, those guys, they thought they were doing such a nice they were so proud of what they were doing. Well, yeah.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:38:41]:

Let's just leave it with yeah.

Joe Foster [01:38:43]:

Yes, that's right. It's quite an event. That.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:38:48]:

Joe, thank you. Thank you.

Joe Foster [01:38:50]:

Love it.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:38:50]:

Just for the opportunity and to talk to you, to have this conversation with you. Thank you.

Joe Foster [01:38:56]:

Well, anytime. If you need some fill ins, let me know.

Roberto Inderbitzin [01:38:59]:

Thank you. At Conversations with Roberto, we believe we can build better brands, experiences, and products by having conversations and learnings from experts, leaders in their field. Send this episode to a friend or friends that need those insights and frameworks. And feel free to rate us and review us on your favorite platform. Thank you for listening to Conversations with Roberto.