Spencer Nikosey:

I bought an industrial sewing machine and I had it delivered to my house brand new. I had never sewed one stitch in my whole life and I had to open up the manual and like figure out how to thread the needle through the bobbin. And then two hours later, I had my first bag that I made myself. And I had a factory in my living room.

Chris Do:

We've been doing this dance with my next guest for, I think a number of years now where I've tried to get him to come on the podcast or something, but as you're going to discover, as I've learned a lot about my next guest, he's a bit of a perfectionist, maybe a tiny little bit of control freak, but I'm so happy that we're friends and that we get to do content together.

His name is Spencer Nikosey and then, Spencer, for people who don't know who you are, can you just introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit of your backstory and we'll go from there.

Spencer Nikosey:

Yeah. My name is Spencer Nikosey. I'm a designer in LA, born and raised here, grew up in the, in the San Fernando Valley. And I went to, Arts Center College of Design, where I studied product design. And when I was there, I fell in love with making things. and building stuff. So when I was a student, I wound up making a bag for myself. And that kind of got me on the journey of constructing things that were actually real, rather than building something that was like a model or a prototype that wasn't real.

It basically turned itself into, like, a lifelong passion of making things. So I built a bag when I was a student, and basically turned it into a brand. And as soon as I graduated with school, I launched a company making bags and built my own factory. And now 14 years later, I'm still doing the same thing.

And I have my own factory here in Atwater Village in Los Angeles. And we make the best bags in the world.

Chris Do:

A hundred percent. Okay, I want to get into the, your brand KILLSPENCER and all the things that you're doing there, because I believe it is a dream for many artists, designers, industrial designers or otherwise to have something that is your own and you get to build and control and you get to go as fast as you want or as slow as you want and you get to dictate the terms.

But before we get there, I want to go back to your past. You grew up around a very creative household. Tell me a little bit about your parents and anything else that was kind of like creating the early formations of you as a creative human.

Spencer Nikosey:

Yeah, so like, both of my parents are designers. My dad is, his name is Tom Nikosey, you can look him up.

He's kind of like a photoreal, like, lettering artist. Where he used to do like photoreal airbrush and like very meticulous stencils and hand painted logos and graphics. He's known for doing a ton of really famous album covers. Back in the day, he was like a very much a master of his craft. And my mom was an art director in the record business and that's where they met.

My mom was the art director at Motown Records and Elektra Records and I think she hired my dad to work on an album cover for a project and that's where they kind of met and fell in love. They're still together today. They're amazing. They live in Bell Canyon, California. And they're super supportive of me as a creative and someone who's like kind of following my passion.

Luckily, they both have like a passion for painting and drawing and typography and design. art shows and nature and travel and stuff. So for me, I was always supported in kind of like anything that I wanted to do. And as a kid, I just remember being like at my dad's, next to my dad's like his drafts table where he like did all of his work And I'd be sitting there like, like looking up at his work and "don't shake- don't shake the table" And and then he set up like a table next to him for me to draw when he was drawing and he was just like a teacher, you know, someone who both my parents are very much constantly teaching me to become like better at what I love, you know, and what's so cool is that, you know, early on I was like encouraged to do like logo.

I did my first logo for a restaurant when I was like 13 years old.

Chris Do:

Wow.

Spencer Nikosey:

And, you know, family, friends would ask me to do logos for their businesses or, you know, when I was younger, I was, I got into, to music. I started playing drums when I was like 11 and my first band. I made the logo for, you know, and I made the drum head cover and painted the drum head cover.

And then I was in another band in high school later on, and I did the album artwork and I made the posters for it. And I did the, the logo for the t shirts and we made sweatshirts. My dad like helped me, like in the garage, like set up like a screen printing lab, I guess. And we screen printed every single t shirt that we sold and made really cool packaging of how we like wrapped the t shirts up and taped it up and like hand signed each shirt and stuff.

It was so cool. And you know, my parents have been kind of with me lockstep, encouraging me to kind of go after. What it is that I was passionate about, you know, and music was music for me was everything. I played drums every day for hours as a kid We had a girl we lived in a cul de sac in Bell Canyon and you know, luckily the neighbors are kind of somewhat far away so I had my drum set up in the garage and I had my friends come over a couple times a week and we would just play and just play and play and play play music and that's kind of where I took this like athletic approach to music and just would just persist and got really good at playing drums and music was like my thing and art was my thing and playing baseball when I was a kid was my thing and so like art, music, and sport were all very important to me and I was either gonna go to like music school or art school.

And, you know, like thinking about, I took like Berklee College of Music summer jazz program every year. I would go to Claremont McKenna College and play jazz with all these amazing people from all over the world that would do this program. And it was really cool to do that. And I was, I was, I would think that I was one of the better students there, one of the better players for my age.

But uhm, you know, a career in music didn't seem as easy as a career in design, just because I was living a career in design through my parents and seeing how they did it, you know. And so I decided to go to art school instead of music school. And that's where I went to CCA, California College of the, of Arts and Crafts at the time.

Now it's called California College of the Arts and studied graphic design there. And it was really cool. And when I was there, I was like, kind of wasn't challenged enough. And, you know, the students were like smoking pot with the teachers and it was kind of like, let's be artists and like kind of painting and everything was kind of like a little dirty from like a, it wasn't like design.

It was more like art school, you know, and I remember it being like I would carry this like big portfolio case with me From the Oakland campus to the San Francisco campus. I have to take the BART to get there I didn't have a car and I would skateboard and I remember like having to carry this big portfolio case in a backpack and have to get off the the BART and then skate down these like crazy hills to get to my classes and Like, I'm not that good of a skateboarder to like power slide and stop to go down.

So I was like, I need a break for my skateboard. I was like, I need to build that. And so I went to the model shop where they did welding and stuff at CCA. And I was like, "Hey, I have an idea for this like break. I need to build it." And so the guy in the model shop was like, okay, let me teach you how to use the, you know, bandsaw and the table saw.

And this is how we weld something together. And this is how you use metal and form metal. And so I was like, You know, in the process of like building this, like break from my skateboard and I realized I was like, Oh, I need to get a spring. That's like a heavy duty spring. And I researched like where to get it.

And I went and got the spring and I put it in the thing. And then basically screwed this thing to the bottom of my skateboard. And I drilled a hole for the skateboard and had like a break pedal basically. So I could just step on it and it wouldn't engage. Like a brake to stop the wheels. And when I was a student, my first year of art school, I basically built a break for my skateboard so I could go straight down the hill, just like bomb the hill straight down and just, just put my foot on the brake and just go, it was like the coolest experience.

And I was like, wow, I really like graphic design, but I think product design is like more of like my speed. And then my dad was like, yo, you should definitely just go during the summer and go to Art Center. Because I think like they have a really good industrial design program and you should, you know, check that out.

And so I, you know, took, I think it took a summer class or something like that. And I was like, I need to go to this school. And so I transferred to Art Center and that's where everything changed for me. I became, like, addicted to the idea of product design and building things. And, which is kind of cool, because it's kind of combining science with art and design and problem solving.

And I really like, kind of, being challenged by, like, trying to solve something that's harder. Harder than, like, just doing graphics, you know? And, so both my parents are designers, and my grandfather is a television personality by the name of Mr. Wizard. And I don't know if you know about him, but he was a really famous, science teacher who taught science to kids, basically, on Saturday morning television, on NBC for like 12 or 13 years, and he was at Nickelodeon for like 13 years, and he's, just kind of like a genius on so many levels.

And so growing up with him, I had this like kind of science foundation and the science base, plus the art graphic design for my parents and the music and baseball and skateboarding and snowboarding. And so kind of like all of these things were kind of coming together into product design. And so when I transferred to art center, I kind of had all of this stuff in me that kind of fueled me, being able to be good at product design and like push to become really good at it, you know, and you know It was really cool because all my history with like music allowed me to make music for films for my products And doing photo shoots I already had done with my band and making posters and graphics I already had done and logos for stuff and so I was able to not only make the product, but make the logo for the product, make the packaging for the product, do the photo shoot for the product, make the film for the product.

The only thing I didn't know how to do was like actually make the product, you know, and so, you know, fast forward to like launching a company. And then building my own factory. Now I'm able to do all of it. So to have my hands on every aspect of the design process was really, really empowering and gave me wings, you know?

Chris Do:

I got a bunch of questions to ask you because I'm trying to map out the timeline and everything. I do want to state something here. I think your life is pretty exceptional in that you had two creative parents who met kind of on the job. Your mom was the boss for a period of time and hiring your father and then a spark and to be able to grow up in that kind of environment where your parents are kind of doing the things that are related to what you're doing is a pretty unique thing in the creative field.

I suppose if somebody is an engineer or lawyer, there's a high probability their children are lawyers too. But so many of the people who are creative today rebelled against something that their parents told them to do. But here you are kind of like being exposed to it from, from a little child and seeing all this stuff and being encouraged to play and pursue all these diverse interests, which makes the story really complete once we get to like where you are today.

So I just want to acknowledge it up front. Was there anything that you can recall from your childhood where you're like, yeah, that really shifted my perspective? And I'll give you an example of what I'm looking for here, because I remember drawing all the time at home in school when I was daydreaming.

So whenever the class had an assignment where you could exercise some of that creativity, all the kids started to notice me. And I never felt special in my life, but for those few moments, like, "Oh, get Chris to do it. He's the artist in the group." I didn't even consider myself that. I'm just curious, with parents in the field teaching you, you have all these tools, you're way more advanced than your classmates have to imagine.

Was there a moment in time where I, dude, this is pretty cool that I know how to do

this?

Spencer Nikosey:

I mean, it's early though. For me, like, I grew up, like, BMX racing, and dirt jumping, and skateboarding, and, like, rollerblading, and playing roller hockey. I played, like, every single sport you could think of. And I was even, like, fishing in the pool, like, with a fishing rod and practicing learning how to fish.

And, you know, I lived up in, Bell Canyon, which is, like, a you know, modest, like, equestrian community, kind of out in the middle of the mountains. And I remember, like, wanting to, when I want, when I skateboarded, I wanted to be able to, like, ollie off of, like, a five stair and not have the board come off my feet.

So I invented this thing called, what I call the bind board. Where I took binding tape and I screwed it with like a, with screws onto my, my, the deck of my skateboard. And so like a snowboard, I could slip my shoes into the deck and then I could kind of just like do grabs. I can like jump off the stairs and it was like basically, it was really dangerous because you know, if you fell, you kind of are stuck to the board.

But it was at that moment, I think that was like seventh grade, maybe my friend Mikey and I, we were basically built these bind boards and we like did a photo shoot at the high school. I was like, man, this is so cool. It's like I, I built my own product. And then you're like, and then we made a brand called Deafboards.

And I made like a design with, I ate a tortilla and like folded it and bit out of it. And then I unfolded it and it looked like a face. And that became the logo for my brand in seventh grade called Deafboards. And so it was just so weird. And so kind of like, I just realized that like, You know, this is, I like created something that I needed that didn't exist.

And I built it and it provided like a lot of fun for me and my friends at the time. And it gave us kind of like power that we didn't have because we could do stuff that we couldn't do with our skill set being in, being a young kid, you know what I mean?

Chris Do:

Yeah.

Spencer Nikosey:

So, so I mean, that's just one example of making something and realizing like, wow, like this is, this is a little different, you know?

Chris Do:

Yeah, hearing that story, if you were born earlier and lived in Vermont, you could have been Jake Burton. You know what I mean? Like, invent a whole new sport. You're like, I'm gonna solve this problem, you know?

Spencer Nikosey:

Yeah, totally. Who knows?

Chris Do:

Yeah.

Spencer Nikosey:

Yeah, my friends now they're, they're like, yo, where's your, you know, you don't need live ball. You don't need tennis. You need, what's, what's Spencer ball? What does that look like? What's your sport look like? And I'm like, yeah, I haven't figured that out yet.

Chris Do:

Yeah. Hearing your story about you being inventive enough to like, hey, there's something cool. I'm going to go make it and having the tools and resources, whatever.

It takes me back to my own childhood where I grew up with not a lot of money. And to get like an action figure for Star Wars was a big deal. And I wanted, like, I remember when Empire Strikes Back came out, where I was like, I want to build like a Hoth place. I can't afford the thing. So we would just take foam and just gnarled it up and try to make it look like something.

But I didn't know anything about sculpt, sculptee or any other kinds of material. It wasn't going to go anywhere. It just still looked like a chunk of white foam. Where I can see like, in your mind, that would have turned into like a real play set that kids would be like, Dude, do you see what Spencer's doing? Kind of thing.

Spencer Nikosey:

Yeah, no, definitely. I think Sculpey, I spent a lot of time, you know, with clay that you could put in the oven and turn into hard objects. So I, I feel you like, you know, to be able to kind of build a little world around things that you're like passionate about.

Chris Do:

Yeah.

Spencer Nikosey:

It is like really. kind of a special gift. I don't think a lot of people are necessarily creative in that way, you know. Where do you think that came from, from you? Just the fact that you wanted to create, it came from within?

Chris Do:

Well, it comes from having an overactive imagination and not enough resources. You got to go make the world that you, you want, right?

I remember taking a little knife and carving out. pieces of bamboo trying to make like a miniature crossbow like accessory for my my action figures and It was really crude, but I was like in under different circumstances I think would have gone farther than that, but that's kind of where it netted out for me.

Spencer Nikosey:

Dude, that reminds me. I mean I did so many random things as a kid But one thing that I did was really kind of fun is, like making paper airplanes, you know?

Chris Do:

Yeah.

Spencer Nikosey:

And being able to make something fly. So that's, that's like a cool beginning. But then I was like, how do I take this to the next level? And so then I stapled a paper clip to the nose of the paper airplane and curled it around and took a rubber band.

You could basically like shoot a paper airplane and kind of see it go farther. And I was like, wow, what else can I do? So then I would take X-Acto blades and, and staple them. To the front, right? So then you can shoot airplanes, like, into a tree. And it would, like, stick into a tree. It's kind of cool, like, thinking about all the stuff you did as, like, a little kid, I guess. And how, you know, there are forms of innovation in places where you might not think that they were there.

Chris Do:

Yeah. Pretty dangerous, but pretty cool. Like, a dart plane there.

Spencer Nikosey:

Yeah, no, totally, definitely. I remember making bow and arrow when I was a kid. And, you know, building, like, dirt jumps in my backyard.

And making skateboard decks and like basically taking them to the beach and trying to like skimboard with like a skateboard deck and try to do tricks, which didn't work. But like, I would always have these ideas of things that I would see working and then I'd go try to make it work and it either didn't work or I would figure out a way to kind of like make it work. If that makes sense.

Chris Do:

Mm hmm.

Spencer Nikosey:

So like, yeah, just from childhood. So many things kind of like led to like a passion for, you know, product design and innovation and craft and the discipline behind coming up with an idea, drawing it out. And then going and making it, you know.

Chris Do:

Yeah. Quick question for you while we're kind of moving through the timeline here. How long did you stay at CCAC?

Spencer Nikosey:

Only one year. Yeah, I did a year there.

Chris Do:

So you completed your freshman year and then you're like, I'm out?

Spencer Nikosey:

I lived in the dorms, made a lot of really good friends, who I'm still friends with today. And I just like At the, at the end of my, my first year, I was like, I need more. I need something harder.

I need to be like pushed harder. I like want to make money. I want to be like challenged and like, you know, told that I need to be better. You know? And I needed to have like more of an influence, not to say that the school is a bad or anything. The school is a great school, but I just maybe it was in the wrong program and didn't have the right teachers to like encourage and bring the best out of me at the time. You know, I'm also like fresh out of high school, just kind of not really fully formed yet in a lot of ways, you know?

Chris Do:

And so you, you finish the year, you do a summer program, your dad encourages you to go to an art center, look at the industrial design program, whatever.

You're there in the summer and eventually you submit a portfolio, get into the industrial design program, right?

Spencer Nikosey:

Yeah.

Chris Do:

Okay, there's a real question here, I have to throw this out there, I'm just curious, more from my own personal curiosity than anything else, Art Center is an expensive school to go to, it's a private art school.

Spencer Nikosey:

Yeah.

Chris Do:

And here you are going to one school, switching schools, was tuition ever an issue for you?

Spencer Nikosey:

Fortunately, no, it wasn't. I have, my grandfather, Mr. Wizard, you know, he, you know, was able to put me through school.

Chris Do:

Oh, amazing.

Spencer Nikosey:

You know, and honestly, like, that is one of the most profound things. I mean, if I could give that as a gift to my grandchildren, that would be a dream for me to achieve, you know?

Mm hmm. And, but I wasn't like Wasteful, you know, I wanted to go to the best school in the world, and I wanted to be the best in the world. And you know, I went to school and I took it very seriously, you know. I graduated top of my class, like did ninth term honors.

Chris Do:

Oh, wow.

Spencer Nikosey:

You know, I got the Young Innovator Award, I got to speak at graduation, and so like all these different things kind of came from me just like being, I think having like an athletic approach to work in design. Like I really worked, worked hard at it.

Chris Do:

Expand, you've used that term now a couple of times, and I think I know what it means, but I'd rather just ask you, expand on this term, like, you're obviously interested in sports, if you just hang around you long enough, you're like, oh, he's always doing something athletic, physical. When you say you took an athletic approach, what does that mean? Unpack that for us.

Spencer Nikosey:

It's so cool because like I'm at the studio that I have here. I have like a recording studio We have like an indoor basketball kit. We have a ping pong table downstairs we have a full factory and like a lot of people come by and come by to make music come by to play basketball come by to design stuff and build stuff and what I found is that the people who are like the most dedicated to like iteration and the most dedicated to like building something and making it better and better and better.

Like our people who are like athletes or grew up, like wanting to be a pro basketball player, but couldn't because they weren't like tall enough or something, or they wound up getting into music because that was like where the career was, but they really wanted to be a basketball player. And so like, for me, like this with sport, if you want to be good in sports, like the, the potential to become a pro is like the potential is there for everyone, but the actual, the people who actually become pro it's like 0. 001 percent or whatever. And in order to get to the top, you have to work and train at the highest level, you know, and the only way to get good at something is through practice, you know? And for me, the practice of design is very similar to the practice of sport, you know, if I'm playing a lot of tennis right now, if I want to get good at tennis, you have to hit a forehand cross court, you know, 400 times before you do a backhand cross court. You know, and you have to do 100, 200 serves, you know, and one corner of the, the box, and then you have to do 100, 200 serves in the other corner of the box.

And so like, this kind of like repetition, and kind of learning, like, Kind of micro adjustments to attain control comes from sport in my opinion and you come here and play basketball with me and we and we play, you know first one to ten you see real quick how those like micro adjustments Worker don't work if we're betting, you know, or just trying to trying to win the game. It's just a game There's a lot of lessons in that in itself, you know?

Chris Do:

Mm hmm. I think you are the first person that I've heard draw the parallels with that with an athletic thing. So what I heard from you is athletes have to exercise a great degree of discipline. They put in their reps And what they're doing is they understand that those drills equal the skills. So making those small adjustments leads to incremental improvement, but taking in its totality is the stuff that makes champions, right?

Spencer Nikosey:

Yeah. No, I mean, it just reminds me of, like, my first internship in, at Art Center was with a teacher named Scott Robertson. And he's-

Chris Do:

Oh yeah.

Spencer Nikosey:

He has a publishing company called Design Studio Press. And he taught me all these books about learning how to draw. He's a master. And he would talk about it, as mileage. And so if you take all your drawings, if you want to become good at drawing, you have to draw a lot. And you have to take all of your pages full of drawings, stack them side by side, and the more miles you have, The better you're going to be, you know?

And so it's this idea of just repetition and constant practice. That's what it is. And I, and I like, I love thinking about that because it's kind of like, sometimes you wake up in the morning and you're like, you know, you kind of don't have the passion or you're just kind of tired or whatever, but if you approach every day from like a place of practice, then it's kind of fun.

You know, you're not taking it so seriously. It's okay. Cool. Just showing up and starting. And if you start drawing or you start building or you start designing the packaging that you were supposed to get done, but you didn't get done in time for whatever reason, it'll get done and it'll be great. You have to just start, you know, and so many people, I think are just like, Oh, I want to do this company. I want to start this business. I need your help. Like, I'm just like, Just start, just get, get to work, you know, because that's, that's where it all, it all comes out is through the, through the mileage of the time and effort it takes to make something good.

It's, it's not easy. It takes time. Everything takes time. If you wanna do it right, you know

Chris Do:

time for a quick break, but we'll be right back.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this week's episode as much as I am. Now, before we dive back in, I want to ask you a quick question. Are you an established creative service provider, coach or consultant looking to scale your business without losing your soul in the process? If so, the Futur Pro Membership was created just for you, and I'd like to see you inside with us.

Go to the futur.com/pro to learn more and enjoy.

Welcome back to our conversatIon.

I read somewhere, and correct me if I'm wrong here, that it was a trip to the American Military Museum during your Art Center days that inspired you to repurpose military grade materials into functional, stylish products, which explains a lot, the buckles and the fasteners. And there was another thing, which you mentioned to me personally, your relationship with Bobby Chang. Tell us a little bit more about that and how that shaped some of your thinking and your processes.

Spencer Nikosey:

Yeah, well, it started with the military museum and there was a teacher, really amazing teacher. He's not with us today named Norm Sherman from Art Center, who was another pillar of my education, which I owe a lot of, you know, debt to him because he made me excited to draw.

The way that we learned to draw with Norm was we would go to all these museums and draw all the artifacts. And so by understanding what these artifacts were, you draw them and you'd understand where their place was in history. And there's unlimited artifacts and museums all around LA, we went to all of them.

And while I was at the American Military Muse I discovered the truck tarp that was on a Humvee. And I was like, oh, I love that material. It's so cool. I want to make something out of that. And so I talked to the curator of the muse this guy named Craig. I was like, "yo, where can I get one of these tarps?"

He's like, "actually, I have a stack of them in the back of the museum over here." I was like, "yo, can I buy one from you?" And I wound up buying one from him or get paying. I think I paid him in like jamba juice or something. I brought him jamba juice one day. I was like, yo, just let me get access. And so I took, I got this like huge tarp and I brought it to my house and I unfolded on my lawn.

I hosed it down and I started like cutting it up and I realized that that material would be really cool for a messenger bag. Or a backpack or a duffel bag and there was like so much history in the scars that were on the material in like the RF welded pieces, the buckles and the hardware, you know, it has to hold a ton of snow on it. Has like a winch here. of like this basically indestructible material and I was like thinking about repurposing and sustainability at the time for a class project and basically like was like that's it if I can make a product out of this material that's just sitting in the back of a military museum there's got to be more of that material.

Like I have a resource that's just going to waste essentially and I could turn that into a product. So that became a part of like this historical reserve, like collection that I, started KILLSPENCER with, you know, and prior to actually starting the brand, one of my teachers, I was like, "Hey, I really want to make a bag. Do you know anyone that I could talk to to learn from?" He's like, "yes, actually, when I was a student at art center here, 10 years ago, I was friends with this guy named Bobby Chang". And he started the company Incase. And at the time when I was a student, Incase was very cool. They were like kind of the hottest growing backpack bag case company. They were growing with the, alongside Apple. So they were like one of Apple's like first brands that they blew up. And so I got him on the phone. I said, "Hey, Bobby, I'm, you know, I'm a student. I want to make a backpack. I'd love to learn from you." And he's like, "okay, buy a sewing machine and figure it out."

And I'm like, I'm like, no, I'm like, "I'm, I'm, I'm a designer. Like, I'm not a sewer."

And he's like, you know, "if you, if you buy a sewing machine, then you'll be able to do every part of the process. You'll be able to be the sample maker. You'll be, be able to be the pattern maker. You'll be able to know where to source the materials. You'll know how to thread the needle through the bobbin. You'll know how to prototype stuff."

And I took Bobby's advice and I bought an industrial sewing machine. It was like 1,200 bucks. And I had it delivered to my house brand new. I had never sewed one stitch in my whole life. And I had to open up the manual and like figure out how to thread the needle through the bobbin and, you know, follow the instructions. And then two hours later, I had my first bag that I made myself. In my apartment in Pasadena and I had a factory in my living room and I was like, "wow, this is so cool." Because everything that I learned up to that point was like, "oh yeah, you have to work for Nike, you have to work for Apple, you know, you're a designer and then you send the drawings and everything to someone else. Someone else makes it."

But like for me, I was able to not only design the bag, cut up the material, find the material, sew it together, flip it inside out, add my label to it, and I was like, I have a product here. I put my MacBook Pro in my bag, wore it to school. Everyone's like, "what is that? Where can I get that?"

And, and then I was like, wow, I need to figure out how to like sell this, or I need to figure out how to like, you know, package it in a way that made sense for me and my personality and what I was interested in at the time. Which was like, I didn't like logos. I didn't want any graphics on anything. I want it to be like, Clean and minimal, but functional and like utilitarian and that kind of started the wheels turning to building a brand out of like, you know, military grade surplus fabrics, you know, plus like patented buckles and plus military hardware and like 1,400 pound test webbing and you know, just like metal parts, you know, but like done in a nice way, like elevated, which you didn't really see that often. At least I didn't see that often at the time. And so that's kind of like, you know, for me, fortunately, Bobby, I didn't know this at the time, but Bob, they were doing really well Incase. I think Bobby was feeling that he, you know, he was feeling like, like, what else are they going to do? You know, they've grown a huge company, making a ton of money, making really good products.

And the fact that he saw me being passionate about the same thing that he basically did, he saw something in me that he saw in himself. We would have a phone call like once a week for an hour exactly. And I would just be asking him a million questions about how he built his company. He built it with other people as well, who I became friends with, who I'm still friends with, who are awesome people.

And, you know, for me, fortunately, I was able to kind of like have this guy, Bobby Chang, as my almost like my coach, my design coach. But he came from tennis and he worked at Nike for a while. So he also had this like athletic approach to like, you know, kind of like tough love type of older brother, like this is horrible, like pushing you to be better, you know?

And I would work really hard to kind of like, Show him that I, that I was like doing the stuff that he was teaching me, you know? And after a while I was like, "yo, like, I really want to like learn how you guys make all your, all your products."

And he's like, "okay, cool. Come to China. You know, buy a ticket. I got the rest of the trip covered for you." And so I went up basically on a development trip with him to China where I got to see them making 25,000 bags a day. And I got to go into seven different factories and I brought like a lavalier microphone and the camera with me and I videotaped everything and I thought I was going to turn into a series of some sort, but it was basically just like an inspirational like research trip and you know, I played golf with him.

And I asked him questions on the golf course. He was really into golf at the time. And I played, I grew up playing golf too. So I could, we could like play, it was like really cool. And then we went to all these factories and I just saw the way that a large company worked, you know? At the end of like seven days, I remember we were like sitting, like overlooking this kind of this like valley. And I was like, yo, I was like, "I don't ever want to come back here again. Like, I want to build my own factory in LA. I want to build it with my friends in my backyard. I want to be able to like, ride my bike to work."

And he's like, "okay, if you set it up, I'll fund you." And I was like, I was like, what? Like, I had never asked him for anything.

I never asked him for a free Incase bag, nothing. I just didn't even think about that. And I was like, I was like, whoa, that's so cool. And so I went back to LA. With all of this knowledge of like how a large scale manufacturing company works, right? With hundreds and hundreds of employees and pallets of material and just like football fields of sewers, basically.

And I came back to LA and I was like, okay, cool. I'm going to put together a plan, figure out all the machines I need, figure out the cutting tables I need, figure out what materials I need. I wound up getting a space. Basically. Before getting a space, I wound up putting together a keynote presentation of like, the vision, and I showed it to him, and he cut me a check, and basically, he was an angel investor into the beginning of my company, and I wound up using that money to rent a studio in downtown LA in the arts district. This is like, you know, 13 years ago, 14 years ago now, when it was cheap back then. I got cutting tables, I got machines, I got like shelving units to store all the boxes for boxing and shipping, and I got parts and pieces. I launched KILLSPENCER, I launched my own factory and right at that same time we got like picked up in LA Times and Playboy and Men's Journal and like all of these different blogs.

And so we started doing like really well and I wound up paying him back in full in five months and he didn't take any equity in the company. I think I was one of the few people that paid him back for his investments at the time. And now Bobby is just my homie, and I have nothing but love for that guy who saw, saw something in me that I didn't even see at the time, you know?

Chris Do: Mmm. That's so cool. May I ask, what was the check amount for? What did you need to get started?

Spencer Nikosey:

I don't wanna, I don't wanna say, I haven't really said that publicly, but it was for a lot of money. I showed it to my parents and like, like, what the hell are you doing? Like, you're never gonna be able to pay that back. And so, you know, he, you know, at the time, I think, like, what his vision was, he's like, what am I gonna do, buy? Like, what was on his mind at the time was like, if he was gonna buy a Lamborghini. You know, and instead of buying a Lamborghini, I think he was using that money to invest into different people that he believed in. It wasn't a lot of money, but it wasn't a little bit of money. And that, that money allowed me to feel that I could do anything, you know, I felt, I felt kind of really powerful with that and was able to just find an amazing craftsman, Mauricio, who's our head of craft here. He's the head of the factory here. I've been working with him every day since day one, and he's a master. I was able to get him on board and we basically just hit the ground running, just selling product and figuring out how to box it and ship it and figuring out how to get pictures of the product online and building a website and this is like before it was easy.

It was like really hard to do that back in the day, you know.

Chris Do: Well, that's really cool. I know you've shared that story in parts and everything, before and elsewhere, but I'm, I'm glad just for our audience to be able to hear this. And I want to get into a couple other things about what your vision is today and how it's changed over time. But before we go into that, how would you describe KILLSPENCER as a brand? For someone's like, what the heck are they talking about? How do you describe KILLSPENCER? What is the philosophy or ethos that's behind this brand?

Spencer Nikosey:

Yeah, KILLSPENCER's, you know, we're a, a leather goods brand. First and foremost, we specialize in making bags, soft goods. We make backpacks and duffel bags and briefcases and all sorts of cases for your phone and for your computer. And everything is made here inside of our factory in Los Angeles. So we make everything in house every single day, slowly and carefully and. we source all of our materials locally and we get buckles from Austria and zippers from Switzerland. And we get hardware from different, military suppliers for a lot of our D-rings and our parts and pieces and our button snaps. And so we, we have like a very utilitarian approach to making crafted items, but our products are made slowly and carefully, but it's kind of like a, a minimalist. utilitarian aesthetic.

And KILLSPENCER is place for me to create. It's like my platform for any idea that I have to build. And inside the factory that we have here, we have like 6,500 square feet. We have like laser cutters and clicking machines and foil stamping machines and heat presses. And we have skiving machines and we have sanding machines and we have, you know, all sorts of to be able to build anything.

And it's, you know, one part research and development, one part, like a fantasy factory where we can kind of create anything we want and build it. And it's also like, it's a place for creativity to be supported and to be, it's like a safe haven for creativity. So, you know, a lot of places don't necessarily have, you know, for me, R&D is like, is everything. You know, for me to kind of make something and explore the building of something that I haven't made yet. It's, you know, you never know how to do something until you do it. And then once you learn how to do it once you're like, Oh, I can make a different, like, and you kind of go down this like trail of, the unknown and you're kind of. Figuring out what it is that you want to make, you know, fortunately we have, I think we have a mastery of how to make bags.

We've been doing it for 14 years. We have a lot of customers and we have a lot of feedback from our customers. And, you know, we do not want any of these bags to be returned to us. So, we make them to be indestructible as possible. And if a zipper does break, which it can, we're able to come take it back, take the whole bag apart, put a zipper back on and ship it back out to the customer.

And so, you know, for us, it's like, you know, this, this dream facility is about being able to make ideas come to life using the limited resources that we have, you know. And you know, KILLSPENCER is like this kind of never ending desire to like, perfect and to become masterful in whatever it is that we're doing.

It's like a constant one step forward approach to design and manufacturing like, you know, we try to make the best stuff we can and then once we finish making that thing, we make it better. We try to make it better and fortunately we've been making stuff that's like really really good. It's like some of the best quality that you can get and I watch every single video I possibly can and talk to every single person I possibly can about how to make something really good And we've learned, we've learned a lot and the result is KILLSPENCER, you know, it's like I'll go to the nth degree to figure out how to make something or to make something great like even if it kills me, you know I'm gonna I'm gonna figure it out.

Chris Do:

There's a purity to your vision and your unwillingness to compromise that I really, really admire. But it comes at a cost, for sure, to want to source the very best components, to design and build everything in your personal lab, your playground, or your gym, or your dojo is fascinating to me. You want to make sure that you can oversee every part of design, conception, production, shipping, and you're constantly iterating. And, to my broken heart, you're, you're a kind of anti graphics logo guy. But all these decisions are a reflection of your worldview, your philosophy. There's some beautiful things about it. Made in LA is a profound thing. It costs more to make things in LA. You know, it's, it's way more expensive. That's why things are made somewhere else. And the volume in which you can produce is much lower. Those are the beautiful things. But on the other side, there's a dark side. Tell me a little bit about some of the, the price you have to pay to have this purity in your vision. What do you think that is?

Spencer Nikosey:

Yeah, I, I think if you do something you love, the money will come. And if you do something right, the money will come. And if you compromise, then why are you even doing it in the first place? You know, like for me, to be able to come into work every day and see the process of our factory working and to be able to any moment. I could be like, "hey, let's change this Let's double stitches here triple stitches here. Let's change the way it's built" like we could do that like real time You know and the power of that is priceless if I was making these products in Asia, you know, I'd have to make them months and months ahead of time. I have to store them in a facility in bulk, pre boxed, ready to ship. And then I would be a salesperson just selling bags.

I don't want to do that. I want to be able to make whatever I want, whenever I want, and do so with people that I've built years of time with who know how I work and how I know how they work. And we have this like routine and we can build anything together. And so if I want to make shoes, like I know that we have the ability to make shoes.

If I want to make furniture, we can make furniture. If I want to build the interior of a 964 Safari Porsche and build the steering wheel and build the seats and build the floor mats, we could do that. And I know that we could do that right now. Like, give me a project, I could do it right now.

And that the power of that is worth more than money. It's not about money. It's expensive to do that here. Unfortunately, I live in LA. But it's where my friends and family are, I'm probably not going anywhere anytime soon. But if I could do the same thing in Bali, on the beach, or, you know, in the mountains and snowboard every day and make stuff in the mountains and be less expensive, I would love to do that too.

But everyone who lives here, they have families. So it's like, I gotta take care of my employees and my team. And you know, that is, and honestly, like our products are so inexpensive for what you get, you know, our products should be way more expensive than they are. But because we're like almost like factory direct, we're able to price our stuff and make it, you know, you get more bang for your buck by shopping with us than you do with any other company because we are directly making the product from scratch in our factory and putting it in a box and shipping it to you, you know?

Chris Do:

Okay, so I'm going to fill in the dots for our audience. Well, basically, KILLSPENCER, from the way it sounds to me, there's a long game that you're playing and you're willing to continue to play this game. And I think it's a reflection of this athletic approach. about constantly iterating, trying to make the very best product that your hands and your creativity can make. The price you pay is maybe profitability, scale, but the way you describe it, it's like, but then you become a salesperson at a distribution center and you want to keep your hands in it.

Now, I've been to two of your factories, if I can remember, at least two. And something I didn't understand before is when you order something from his site, that's when they start making it. They're not sitting on thousands of pieces ready to ship goods to you. So there's a level of attention to detail.

So it's really interesting in this fast paced, fast fashioned world. You're like slow fashion. You're like slow accessories, slow design. Because there's, there's a beauty and a nobility to it that I, I truly admire. Pivoting here. I'm going to ask you another question. Hopefully you can get a couple more questions in here.

That first capsule that you launched with, while still a student at arts, at art center, which is kind of legend. I mean, people are talking about it. So you launch this thing. How many pieces were in that original capsule and how many pieces from that original capsule are you still making today?

Spencer Nikosey:

Yeah, we launched with, a weekender bag, which we still have, and we launched with a special ops backpack, which we still have, and we launched with a track bike messenger bag, which we don't have anymore. But it's kind of a, we have a briefcase that's kind of similar to the design without like a shoulder strap.

We launched that collection in two materials that were historical reserve, like a coated cotton canvas, like this desert sand. We had a Korean War era coated cotton canvas. We had the military truck tarp material. And then we also had two technical materials. We had a white tarpaulin and a fire retarded black nylon.

So, we basically launched those three bags in five different materials. And I made, like, really cool business cards that were, like, letterpressed. We made a website. We shot, did a photo shoot with my good friend Kevin Au. And my ex girlfriend at the time who helped art direct it, and we shot it at the military museum.

And we put it online, and we started selling product every single day. Every single morning I wake up and see and orders would be coming in and it would be like Christmas every single day It was so cool to see it take off, you know, and we just hit the ground running.

Chris Do: How often are you pulling something that's in the catalog and saying I had a new idea now I'm gonna change that or does it get to a point in which you're like done move on to the next piece? We're good with this. We've done everything we think we can.

Spencer Nikosey:

Yeah, like the, the, most of the products on the website are as perfect as I could possibly make them. And even though a lot of customers don't see that, there's minor adjustments that happen to products over time, but, you know, our Utility Special Ops Backpack, for example, that thing is so incredible, that, that bag, it's perfect. Right now, it's perfect. So I don't need to do anything else to it. Every, and a lot of other products on our website are perfect as well. And so that, once I know that it's the best that it can be, I kind of like move on to another product. And so that's kind of my, my approach is like. You know, and obviously we have different iterations and versions of, you know, we're on our third version of our Weekender bag, our Weekender 3.0. And so, you know, it's only a matter of time before the fourth- 4.0 comes out or the Utility Specialized Backpack 4.0 come out, so.

Chris Do: Mm hmm. Let's talk about like where, where is the next 10 years going to take you? Now I got a little preview, so I don't want to spoil anything if you don't talk about it, but some, some interesting directions that you're going in is, is, can we talk about that now? Or is that not a good time?

Spencer Nikosey:

Yeah, we could talk about it.

Chris Do:

Okay.

Spencer Nikosey:

You know.

Chris Do:

Let's talk. Tell us, spill the beans.

Spencer Nikosey:

I mean, there's not really anything to spill other than like, you know, for me, I'm building this world around, around all the things that I'm interested in. And you know, if I was just designing stuff and outsourcing it, I'd probably be way further along in my career.

But because I'm literally making everything myself and learning how to make it and buying specialty machines in order to figure out how to make the thing that I want to make, it just takes a lot longer to do it right, you know. I feel like I'm 10 years behind schedule, but, with that, like if I wanted to go make a pair of shoes right now, I could go literally design and build a pair of shoes. It would take me four or five hours or more, but I have the team. I have the resources. I have the materials. I have the machines to be able to do, to do that. So I'm really interested in the idea of making shoes. I'm really interested in the idea of making furniture and, you know, I've learned how to weld recently and being able to kind of put things together from a 3D modeling and 3D printing perspective as well is in the, in the plans.

And, you know, I'm a passionate person who's passionate about a lot of stuff. So if I'm passionate about music, I'm going to be playing music all the time. If I'm passionate about tennis, I'm going to be playing tennis all the time. If I'm passionate about basketball, I'm going to, you know, we made our own basketball kit.

And we made our own rim from scratch and we made our own nets out of leather. And we made our own backboards at a furniture factory close by that does amazing work and created the best packaging and our own, we make basketballs from scratch inside of our, our factory, nobody makes basketballs. It's so hard to do it, but we figured it out.

We make full size basketball. We make mini basketballs and the basketballs that I made like seven or eight years ago when we launched, they're still playing. We're still playing with them today. And to see the leather and the way the leather wears after it hits the ground thousands of times makes me even more passionate about making bags because we're using the same leather for the bags that we are for the basketballs that we're throwing on the ground and the soccer balls that we're kicking on the concrete and seeing how powerful that material is. It's like timeless and robust and like, it's just, it's just awesome. And yeah, I couldn't be more, more stoked about making shoes because I know that the leather, if I make leather shoes using our, you know, 14 years of experience, they're going to be incredible.

Chris Do: No doubt. I got a little preview of it, so I'm super excited about where you go with this. I'm researching a lot of fashion brands and creators, mutual friends of ours, people we admire. It seems like when I go back in time, they do a collaboration with a really big company and it builds their name and it injects some of this really super cool design energy into these large corporations.

What is your view on these kinds of collabs with the really big brands? Are you for it, against it, neutral, negative? What is, what's your take? Two minutes.

Spencer Nikosey:

I love it. I'm all for it.

Chris Do:

That's the shortest answer you've given me.

Spencer Nikosey:

I don't know.

Chris Do:

Okay. Beautiful. That's perfect. Yeah. Okay. And I do want to say this. Okay. We're, we're, we're winding down here. I do want to say this. I've been traveling a lot. Spencer sends me a message saying, "Hey, bro, when you're back in town, let's connect." So I go to your office and you are the most generous, like just enthusiastic guy ever. Like "Chris, let's do something together." And you made me this generous offer and I'm going to take you up on it, which is "use the factory. Let's do something like let's get back into craft" and "what is Chris going to make when he's done art directing like 35 people to do something for him. Let's see what you got old man." I'm like, "okay, okay." I'm very excited about this. And just even talking to you today, ideas are churning my head. That's different than what we talked about.

I do want to send this message out there. If you believe in American made goods, if you believe in quality, craftsmanship, leather goods that are designed really well, that are going to be durable, that, that are fashionable in a way, in in their timeless beauty, you wanna support an American guy at American Business Made in Los Angeles, made in America, you owe it to yourself to go check out KILLSPENCER.com.

He's got a bunch of really cool stuff. Go pick up a few things and just know this: it's not going to arrive tomorrow. He's going to work on it. His master craftsman is going to work on it. Somebody in the factory is going to make this for you with love and it shows in the product. Spencer is so awesome talking to you.

I think our next thing is a documentary film on location where we watch the creative process because you got some amazing toys. It's a beautiful space. Thank you very much for being a guest on our show today.

Spencer Nikosey:

Thank you so much for having me. I've been a fan of you for years, and I cannot be more excited to have you come by and create here inside the lab. So you're, you're, the door's open whenever you want to come by, Chris.

Chris Do:

Thank you. And I have to say this, this is for real, just in our conversation, I literally got two new ideas that I'm going to sketch, I'm going to draw, I'm going to bring them back to you, I'm going to show you and have you poo poo all over them, and then we'll get to work. But I'm saying like this was a really inspirational conversation for me personally. And I know our audience is going to get a ton of value from this. Thank you.

Spencer Nikosey:

Thanks for having me. Love you, dude. Appreciate you and I cannot wait to create more with you.

My name is Spencer Nikosey and you are listening to The Futur.

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