Why You Should Always Bet on Yourself!

the biggest challenge around goal setting is not actually following through it's setting the right goal it's actually setting the goal that actually matters and makes a difference don't just look at the surface when you're setting goals go like what's really important to me and and then I think when you get there um you realize that something you really want to achieve and you put in the time [Music] once you hear Vince's story I think we're going to get really into him building a brand and doing things a little bit differently and going out on his own and I'm just fascinated by that so whether you're going to connect and resonate to his stories to who he is or you have a brand a product idea that you want to launch I think there's a lot to learn and unpack so Vince without further Ado can you please introduce yourself and tell the audience a little story about who you are yeah of course thanks Chris thanks for having me um so my name's Vince Labon uh firstly and foremost I'm a husband a father a founder and a forever curious design collaborator I've worked with uh some big Brands like Adidas Asics and Footlocker over the states and designed for some celebrities and professional athletes I've been in the business for 20 years going strong so um it's been an incredible journey um I've had my own Footwear brand for the last 10 years um and it's just yeah it's about me just making great products with great people um and that product that you're talking about it's called Raleigh nation and you shared a story on stage you didn't call it Raleigh you call it Raleigh Nation tell us why absolutely so I mean it's not a shoe company right we do make shoes currently but it's an experienced brand and it's called roley Nation not rolly shoes for a reason you know I have this fear that you know one day I'm gonna wake up 20 years later and go I just sold shoes for a living that's not what we're doing we're building a brand we're trying to build emotional connections with our customers um and just allow people to sort of um build on on self-expression and feel comfortable with who they are and really push the boundaries to to live their best life tell me the distinction between someone who makes shoes and someone who's building an experienced brand in yeah are all companies doing an experienced brand or how do you see the difference between those two you know there's a lot of Brands out there just focusing on the product first when I first launched the brand I mean being a footwear designer I still worked on the business model for the first 12 months and I think that's what separated me from a lot of other business is you know a lot of other companies particularly in Australia focus on the design itself they might go overseas take some designs you know make some copies make some minor changes whereas for me it was like let's work on the model itself how do we build a brand that people care about that people connect with and so even if uh you know people copied our brand which people still want your product would people still want to buy the brand itself and so we focus more on the emotion than the product itself the product is an outcome of the thinking I love that okay I think anybody who's a smart marketer in the 21st century says yes we understand you have to build an emotional connection with an audience and a tribe we must prefer what it is that you do over comparable knockoffs or cheaper alternatives that's how you know you have a brand how do you build that emotional connection with people so that they experience Trends and I'm buying something to cover my feet I think you just you put the customer first right and the feeling you want to give them there's so many times I've met people who go I've got a business idea I might call shoot tell me all about it and they start with the benefit fact that that they get out of it so like I've got experience here you know I want it to be x amount of dollars you know and they say so focused on themselves like yeah but what's in it for them you know if a customer is going to be working nine to five in a job they probably don't like you know you need to provide value for them to exchange uh their hard-earned cash for something that you're delivering and an ideal world it's much more than the actual function of it so for us as a as a brand people are not just buying Footwear they're actually buying into an ecosystem they're buying into a lifestyle they're buying into a community so when people walk around and they're like oh you're wearing Rollies too like yeah I've got six I've got seven pairs or this is my favorite it's a completely different vibe and this is why we're able to do you know we can Branch into clothing or we could do you know my dreams to do a huge Festival one day and like that doesn't feel like a break for the brand at all okay so let's go back in time because you're doing something that many people aspire to to dream of who actually aren't anywhere closer today than that initial idea take us back time tell us a little bit about how you were brought up and what seeds were planted early on that allowed you to think this way so I mean I'm fortunate enough uh and unfortunate that I came from a first generation family into into Australia so I'm Autumn Mauritius my parents came down here my mum didn't speak much English my dad I was working two jobs for years and what I noticed with my dad is like even though he started really low he just he'd come back and he'd just keep getting promotions and he just moved up the ladder really really quickly because it was very capable very dedicated my dad always used to say just don't do a half job right if you're going to go and do it do it properly and I think that that sort of value system really sort of hit home with me because it wasn't something he was just saying it was something he was actually doing um but I guess being in being from the western suburbs which is typically a sort of more underprivileged area in Melbourne um it was challenging because you know I was starting to be a doctor that's what my mum wanted me to be so I could look after them when they get older um but I got to a point where in year 11 I was like this is not for me I don't want to live my life for them so I dropped all my math and science subjects and uh did arts and my mum absolutely killed me that night she hated on me but I knew it was the thing that I needed to do and as soon as I put my energy into that space I was not just doing it for them I was doing it for myself and really excelled very quickly um I then got a um I was working on some extra extra classes outside of school so I was working on my portfolio to get into the multimedia space so originally I wanted to be a graphic designer multimedia artist um my portfolio was looking really good I ended up getting an interview with a post-grad course and I was filling out the forms and at the end it said um you know what degree did you do and what's your two years experience and I said to the guy I don't have that I'm coming straight out of high school and he said but this is not the course for you you need to go do that and then come back and I said to him well this is where I want to be so can you please just have a look at my portfolio give me some tips uh and and you know that way I don't know if I'm in the right direction the right path he looked at my portfolio and he said we'll see you on Monday so it was an incredible opportunity yeah so I was the youngest person in the school where you know everyone else was like 26 years old and above um and so I got my start very very early on so it allowed me sort of to I guess look at life a bit different and go well even though that's the expectation it doesn't always have to be the way to go through that regular path um let me make sure I understand this part here you're in high school and you're applying to a graduate program yeah so I just finished high school and went into a post grad yes what part of your brain says that's okay to even apply it to I need to understand that part first so the the lady that was uh I was doing the extra classes with she used to teach at this University and she really believed in me uh she believed in my work and she organized an interview with the head of that department at that University so I'm not sure if she you know really knew it was a postgrad whether she was just wanting me to meet him to show him what I was capable of doing um but yeah it was just serendipitous and I ended up in that in that course you know I ended up doing two years with this incredible degree um but you know there was constant roadblocks because as soon as I finished it and started applying for jobs everyone's like you're you're you've got this call of question but you've never worked in the industry before so well how do you get experience if you haven't actually had a job so it's just you know the Chicken and the Egg solution are a problem just to make sure I'm understanding the terminology here maybe we describe things differently when you see post-grad course yeah is that like after you get your bachelor's degree that post grad yes okay it is we're talking the same thing so this is like the equivalent of a master's program a PhD program and you're like do the recommendation of your high school teacher applied to program full of self-confidence that you would just take a look okay so there's a lot of thoughts I have right now which is if I'm 18 years old graduating high school and I'm going to be around a bunch of 20 something I'm gonna feel a little strange yeah you know everybody's got like like a man's body and I'm still a boy you know and did you have any of those concerns yeah for sure I mean I was actually 17 because I finished school early um and so yeah it was one of those things um but you know it's it's like when you're at that age you've got so much confidence that if you're actually you know passionate about what you're doing you almost taken on it it becomes fuel right so I'm like let me show these guys I've got what it takes right I'll earn their respect very quickly and that's what happened I mean and a lot of the guys you know some had kids or some had debts because they just finished paying their you know University degree whereas I didn't have any of that so I tried to I think it's it might just be that Minority sort of mentality where I was like let me use this as fuel to to keep pushing um and you know it can be seen as a you know a barrier but I don't see it as that at all I saw it as an opportunity well it sounds to me like just hearing your story here coming from high school and saying to your mom which was probably your parents from you but in this case your mom like the biggest barrier was if Mom can handle this then I'm okay and once you decided you want to go into the field of design and arts you really Blossom as a person because it doesn't sound like it took a long time from you saying I want to do this to actually achieving whatever so you you're some kind of like art Prodigy kid right yeah yeah it felt that way inside for sure but I think the problem what was why it was so hard for my mum at the time to digest was I was really good at math and science I sort of have both sides of the brain which is I know a weird thing for people to sort of process but that for me that's just I was really good at it and to drop something that you're really good and to follow a passion and potentially something that could earn you lots of money and that's what they valued whereas I valued happiness and I know that if if you're the best in your field you could make money doing anything and so that was I took a you know slightly riskier path but I think one that was well worth it and you see throughout my entire career I do that consistently sort of Chase happiness over financial gain if somebody's hearing this and they're looking at their life however old they are however young they are like man this is not the life I was meant to have I didn't choose the course of happiness I chose the course of listening to others pleasing others or going about the safe path and your story all of a sudden it's got me up in my chair like wait a minute what else would you say to those people who are kind of stuck in that place that they know there's something deeper inside of them how do you help them I mean for people like you and possibly like me where we see something we think something we just go for it doesn't seem that big of a decision but I've talked to enough people now where I see like it's a real struggle for them is there any other thing that you can add to this that builds upon this Chase happiness over money yeah I think like the other day it's your life right you're only letting yourself down so like if that's what you really want to do just go out there and just do it like you know I'm a I'm a kid from the western suburbs that has gone and designed for celebrities around the world won International Awards as a designer you know I've launched my own brand I've done things that on paper it should not be possible right and it all comes from just a inner belief in yourself and now I don't have all the answers at all and it's a it's a process but it's like I'm willing to take the risks and go and the benefits completely outweigh the uh I guess the I don't want to say depression but that feeling of going this doesn't feel right I might be good at this or then I might be getting something out of it whether it's Financial reward but you're certainly giving up something there's a cost to not living your dreams so your cost benefit analysis isn't about money it's about the the price you pay for not being the person you're meant to be exactly yes very good okay and it affects the relationships that you build with people around you can you tell me more about how it affects people yeah so like if you've got if you've got kids if you know or even just brothers and sisters like the happy you are the the better relationships you're going to be able to build with other people um and a lot of that comes down to building the relationship that you have with yourself right like I talk a lot about working on your personal life and family life the same way that you do in your business it's super important like I set my I set my own goals I have my own milestones and my own check-ins I literally have a calendar event which checks in with myself to go through my goals how often do you do that I do that Weekly yes and tell me a little bit like without getting too creepy here uh how does that sound how does it sound when I say it out loud to people it sounds weird but if you look at the success rate it's incredible right like yeah but the funny thing is if you say I set goals in a business and I have quarterly check-ins and I do that that doesn't seem odd right right that's like oh that's how you that's how you get to success that's how you achieve those things but why would you not take that same Approach at a personal level I would argue I would argue that your personal life's more important than your your business life so why would you not say okay these are the things that are important to me at a personal level whether that's Fitness you know whether it's meditation spiritually whatever those things are important to you and then even more so on a family side what's important to you and your family right um you know my my daughter had a speech impediment and for me it was like I'm gonna make this an absolute priority this year cool so I had check-ins have we spoken to these doctors what are we doing what's a um are we training with her every single night and then you can start to check in the progress and every week you can hold yourself accountable for like I have a traffic light system too so like I hate seeing red and so you just try to keep everything in green it's just it's typical sort of traditional goal setting stuff so you're doing this on a weekly basis you're saying how am I showing up as a father as a husband for myself or my business and you're just mentally it's just in silence you stare at a wall or uh is it you're working through a calendar or check-in program what is it physically literally look like yeah so I've got I use the things app for this and so I track every single so I generally have three to five in each of the categories personal uh work and family uh and I'll just have a traffic light like I said I'll have like a little color on every single one and I'll go through and I'll every single week I'll make sure that I actually put something in there that I'm doing that week that gets me closer to that goal so it allows me to look at the end of the year and say right if I achieved it why you know what did I do right what did I do wrong I also track the things that I said I was going to do and if I didn't do them them I put a strike through so I know like oh you know that was a mental challenge for me so I can sort of get closer to succeeding every time some people I know won't put down their goals because they're afraid to see them manifest in a real tangible way I don't think it's because they don't want to do it it's almost like if I try and I failed and I'll know that I was never meant to do it and I think that's why people are afraid to commit so when you put a goal down and you don't hit them I'm gonna assume you're human like the rest of us that you don't achieve everything always at the highest level what is the self-talk like when you don't actually achieve it it's just part of it it's just part of it you have to be okay with that right like I always try to take every hour as a learn not a loss and you just got to keep building on it um the biggest challenge around goal setting is not actually following through it's setting the right goal it's actually setting the goal that actually matters and makes a difference right the worst feeling you can get is going I want to learn to how to play guitar or I want to learn how to play French and then you realize you have no people no friends that actually can speak French so you're like why the hell did I actually make that my goal or something I've wanted to do for the last 10 years so I think you've got to really get to don't just look at the surface when you're setting goals go like what's really important to me and and then I think when you get there um you realize that something you really want to achieve and you put in the time tell me a little bit more about that competition that you entered in and what happened because I think that's a fascinating part of your story yeah so I I launched my footwear company Rowley um you know I'm a designer of trade so um I was I wasn't designing much to be honest three years in uh we were selling to Nordstrom anthropology free people on paper it looks like we were absolutely killing it but the reality was is that we were struggling to fund it all uh it wasn't crazily profitable and I wasn't designing so I was missing this fulfillment um around design so I decided decided to take a design sabbatical and so I applied for a scholarship at pencil Academy which is like the world's best sneaker Academy it's run by Dwayne Edmonds the creative director of the Jordan brand um and I actually didn't get in the first time I applied and I was pretty down at the time I was like how did I not get in I've got my own footwear company I've been designing for years so I reached out to him and said hey can you just give me some tips on how I can improve it's something I really want to do and he said we get so many people applying don't take it to heart just keep applying so he didn't even give me tips on how I can improve as an artist at that time it was just like just start and stop so I applied for my second one and before I had even received a response from them I started working on the third and that was my mental shift of going this is no longer about me getting in this is about me crafting my my skills right and really honing in on my expertise and getting better and better and so before yeah I even got the response I kept working on the next one and then I I got in so um I flew over to Portland in the states I did a course there didn't realize it turns into a competition at the time and so it was a competition that the winning design would be a shoe for Asics and Foot Locker I ended up winning that competition which was awesome so I released a shoe with them the shoe sold out in about an hour um and I was pumped I came back to the States back to Australia it was a great experience and then about a month later they reached out to me and said hey uh we we're looking to do a TV show we'd really love for you to apply I've got two kids at this point I'm not thinking about being on a reality TV show right um but I thought incredible opportunity let's give it a go I applied I got in and so for eight weeks we designed for a new celebrity each week it was absolutely intense uh we got given a brief we had to concept that brief for the first day uh pitch it to everyone refine it and then we'd physically make the shoe and then we would present this shoe and the concept back to the celebrity on the fourth day they would then wipe our entire computers and we do the same thing over and over again for eight weeks uh incredible incredible experience like it was really really tough we had hidden cameras everywhere where they were pushing us to our limits uh you know what makes great TV um but you know we made shoes for Ashley Graham McLemore Anthony Anderson fetty WAP it was yeah it was it was really cool like I said just a little kid from the western suburbs you know over over on the other side of the world designing with some of the best Brands and best celebrities I I don't know anybody that's been on a reality TV show so I imagine that there are cameras everywhere and filming you all the time is that the case oh yeah all the time there were literally there were hidden cameras everywhere and there was about eight manned cameras at all times I didn't open a single door myself for eight weeks so I got home and I was like to my wife what are you doing why are you not opening the door for me like it just you you get to this point where it becomes your reality right it's hilarious yeah so that's when your wife smacks in the head you open your own freaking door yeah exactly so I was back to reality not reality TV yeah wow having all those cameras and people around you all the time documenting everything that you do how did you handle the pressure or the stress that one I imagine would feel like I think a lot of creative people don't want to show their process because it's ugly it's messy and you do a lot of ugly things before it gets good and I think we get really self-conscious but here you are being filmed and taped the entire time how did you respond to that I was just staying focused on the product right like I just wanted to make really good product it's such a short window that you're running on adrenaline you're just having to be constantly working on uh cool ideas and collaborating uh and for me it wasn't about winning right it was really about just creating great products and by doing that in turn I wasn't adding more pressure on myself so for me it was like could we know we kept winning week after week and we became like the dream team as three people in each team uh and so everything was I was sweet the whole time until I spoke to my son which we could only speak to them uh probably like once a week which was really hard we had no phones no email um but then just before the finale my son said hey Dad can you please win for me and I was like oh and so that was that was the only time where I really thought okay this is bigger than me right like the impact that I could have on my kids by coming home and and having you know a w um and having them see that you know I'm following my dreams it was that was the only time I really took on the pressure of um trying to make it work I think there's a lot of similarities between our stories and I'm not I'm trying my best not to project what I think about me onto you and just listening to your story but let me ask you a couple of questions and if they're off base we'll strike it from edit and we'll go back yeah so I got this question which is in competition if you don't think that there's competition that allows you to go into your Flow State you're not thinking about trying to win it's just trying to be the best version of yourself is that what you're going through oh 100 that is exactly the mindset like I'm really not looking at the other person I'm just competing against myself and not even competing is not probably not even the right word it's really just about yeah putting your best self forward and going how can I improve uh it's an opportunity to to be full of self right to be in that flow State and just create I absolutely loved it um and it's not all it's not it's when your son snaps you back into the competition say hey can you can you win for me then the stakes are put back on and then you feel a little bit of that pressure uh to show up for the person who probably matters the most to you it's like your child like okay there's a story that's going to be told here and depending how this turns out it's going to be a different story but it's not a bad story a good story just a different story and so when he says that to you do you feel like any part of your creative process had changed in that moment did anything Flip or is like nope put that aside Park that for a bit stay with your winning formula and just keep doing what you're doing yeah uh definitely flipped at the beginning you know like it added in a different layer of complexity right um but it took me a little bit uh to just go okay stop get back into the Zone this is about product first right once again it's about and when I talk about product I'm not just talking about the shoe I'm talking about the entire experience right the way we deliver the pitch the way that we do the packaging the way that I even put myself into the shoe so the shoe the final shoe that we did was for James hardener and James Harden was the MVP that year so it was a big big deal to be designing a shoe for James Harden this is a shoe that was going to go to market uh and and luckily I also won that competition and the shoe actually did go to the market so it was a dream come true I was a kid that you know was told when I was a young kid that I'm going to be a basketball player when I grew up they were my two options being a basketball player or being a rapper to fast forward years on and to be like I now have an opportunity to design sneakers for a for the best of the best of the time it was incredible a lot of pressure um but I end up doing a very old technique which is called a patina where we hand paint the the shoe um and I we did a transition from black through to red and all the time it was it was a really big gamble but you know it was it really represented me as a designer and I love that I took that risk and go you know what this is not something I have never seen on a performance shoe and I'm going to take all traditional craftsmanship techniques and bring them to the Future and that juxtaposition between those two was like if I lose with this I'm cool with that right because it's my best foot forward uh it's something I'm proud of and for me you know I'd rather do that than take the easy win and try to create a product that I think someone else would like but I don't it doesn't feel honest to me very cool I'm going to make some assumptions that in a week it's not a lot of time to not only conceptualize design and then fabricate a shoe that I assume then has to maybe fit a certain person I'm not sure but if you take a risky technique on you know the shoe that if it doesn't turn out the way that you want there's probably not a whole lot of time for you to to fix that so it's a big gamble right do I have that right yes at 100 yeah and it was like the hero piece of the shoe so it was like if it doesn't work uh so yeah it was a big risk but I also saw it was a big reward opportunity so yeah well clearly you were rewarded for it in the shoe you wound up winning and then the shoe went into production yeah that's right how did they replicate this old school technique so they sort of acted a little bit to be honest leave it to corporations yeah I mean the good thing is we were able to present the original concept to James Harden in Vegas in its purest form so that was awesome uh yeah the production shoe you know they've got to produce a lot more and unfortunately I don't think it stayed true to the design bit that's part of the process of being designer right of going I've done my job here guys take it to market and sometimes it doesn't always work out how you'd like it to but you need to be okay with that I think that's the difference between a couple different things creating a piece of art which is one of one which is I think what you did or creating a highly bespoke limited edition shoe that's going to be super expensive and how to reach most people where there's a lot of hand detailing which I assume they could do but it's going to probably cost four or five times as much or you can create a shoe that is inspired by the original concept that's mass produced so that more people can afford it so they get to experience something that's a proximity of what you created but obviously not the same thing right so there's those balances and each person can make their own decisions as to whether they want to make a piece of art a limited edition shoe that's very expensive or something that a lot of people can have and sort of democratize access exactly yeah there's a commercial understanding and uh need you know like when I think when you're working with corporations or even my own Footwear brand you know you need to have that extra layer of going is this commercial right yeah otherwise if it's art be an artist yeah right if you're trying to sell shoes you need to have that lens yeah that's right and sometimes I think where people run into a lot of unhappiness is they work in a commercial space while acting or thinking like an artist and it creates so much friction between the two exactly yeah my cousin who's in Australia had shared something and I was like oh you know talking to Vince and of Rolly and she's like oh my God I remember this guy like when he was on the come up and just out there just trying to get people to try on your sneakers tell us a little bit about the early days because I think there's a big gap between I have an idea I want to make some prototypes and actually running a business so take me back to when it was rough and nobody knew you from Squat and you're just trying to get your name out there I got a job at a shoe company so I worked for a shoe company as the sort of two I see for the first five years of my career and I'm extremely grateful to this guy you know he came from the bloodline of shoemakers we traveled around the world we worked with Factory as I do the trade shows we do a lot of research and I really learned the craft through him I then left that company and got a joint venture and a Chinese Trading Company where I was designing about 400 shoes a season I was running a sample room about 100 people and I was working for you know doing private label shoes for big Brands like uh Chinese Laundry and Bronx Steve Madden um and then when I decided to launch my own brand um you know you don't have these big names behind you anymore but the factories knew me and knew that I had worked with these big guys so they really believed in in what I was doing they knew that I was highly skilled in this space which is rare for a you know a young kid I guess that's how they saw me back then I was uh I would have been around 28. um going I want to launch a shoe brand and you can imagine the amount of times they've heard this um but you know I had contacts right like I knew the factories I had sold some really big people so I had a factory that was willing to give me a shot uh I did the last I did the paper patterns I did everything myself so it wasn't like I bought a shoe and said copy this and we'll make some tweaks the whole shoe was completely original and I think that's why I hit because it was so different you know we released a shoe that was the menswear look tailored shoe in women's it was super lightweight which was not a feature that people sort of considered in the purchasing process at that time right lightweight was considered cheap and so what I wanted to do was add an extra layer in the purchasing process I said like what can I get people to think about when they go oh once they've tried it on it's so comfortable and they say why I'm like because it's super light now they're looking at every other shoe and thinking they're heavy so it put me in a completely different space where people were once they were in they were like oh man these are the lightest comfortable shoes ever it took a while being so early to educate people why lightweight was a benefit and then we were fortunate enough that Nike went on this huge wave of pushing lightweight uh shoes and so we sort of rode that trend for a while uh which was great so but you know launching the brand I launched it at a market stall right uh in the South Melbourne Market that's not sexy for a lot of people a lot of people want to do this big launch party um and you know do it for you know and some of them are good but a lot of it is for ego whereas for me I just want to get in front of people this marker had 11 000 people walking a day on the weekends I'm like this is a great opportunity to get people to look at a product get feedback and for me it wasn't about you know you don't have to buy the shoes but I want to get your attention I want you to stop and look at them and tell me if it's for you and so people would be walking around with their shopping bags getting their groceries and I'd be like throwing the machine like hey catch this they're catching like wow this is crazy like I'm like if you've got a second try them on they're super comfortable and you know we end up selling 500 pairs in less than five weeks so it was it was a huge success Straight Out The Gate um I had then picked up my first wholesale account from that market which was the world's largest shoe store in Dubai um so it was just you know and then we picked up a distributor in the Netherlands uh I picked up a design agency that I was working with out of Sydney uh who was an award-winning agency and they did big stuff for McDonald's and really big Brands and he just loved the product he we had a good chat and he's like I really like you I want to work with you I'm like I can't afford you I just started like three weeks ago and he's like no we'll do it all for free and um so that was that was an incredible opportunity we end up we did a campaign together it came runners-up for breast print out of the year so um yeah it was just a huge buzz like we just from from out the gate uh look there were heaps of challenges but at the gate there were enough winds for for me to go we're on the right path keep pushing because of your relationship with the manufacturers were you able to get more generous minimum order quantity or did you have to like outlay a bunch of cash to say you know okay I gotta this is the thing that people don't understand especially when you make physical products there's a lot of guesswork and a lot of risk yeah what sizes are going to be popular what color ways are going to be popular and you don't want to be sitting on 5000 pairs of shoes not only because you got a lot of money but where are you gonna Warehouse all these things so tell me how you did that part yeah so yes I had relationships with the factory so I was able to get smaller quantities but those smaller quantities are still a big investment out front right yeah for me at the time anyway and so that was part of my business model I want to design a shoe I was thinking about heavy armors it was one shoe and they just kept changing colors and materials each season I'm like this is perfect there's not a shoe version of that so let me do a shoe version where it's the same shoe it's the same outsole same lace same shoe box same sock so it made it very easy for the factory so instead of me telling them I'm going to do 50 pairs in each color I'm saying collectively there's 500 pairs but I'm doing 10 colors so it was a completely different shift where they're like oh that's not a big problem we can do that and I said to them just give me two years let me build this in two years and then if it's still a problem I'll find a way around it and uh yeah fortunately it worked in terms of the warehousing I had a big three-story Warehouse in Melbourne so that was awesome it was my garage it was the warehouse for the first it was first there everywhere okay yeah so that was great um but we didn't we didn't stay there long right like we grew pretty quickly so it was okay we had to move on in terms of the finance that was really interesting because um I joke about this and it is true but uh we told the bank that we were going to do in a renovation so I I was I got twenty thousand dollars and invested that entire thing in the shoes now I was going to do a renovation just only when I got the money back from the shoe production so um yeah that's how I funded it all self-funded so you're not advocating for people to commit fraud you're just saying don't be so specific about the timeline exactly yes okay thanks for hearing this we've lost a couple of sponsors okay yeah we'll get through this yeah I think it's pretty neat that you're using a constraint as an opportunity to be creative the constraint is I don't have a lot of money to invest and we need to have a variety of shoes so what what do we do and so you come up with a concept that's used a lot in collectible toys which is you have a really solid blank that then changes its whole attributes just because the paint is different or the accessorize it with one small embellishment and it becomes the whole thing and and people who are collectors like myself included it's like oh I get it so there's a really clean profile that has to be timeless in its design otherwise this will work and then switching out colors or materials allows you to have more skus with that actually increasing your production and and then therefore sitting on 60 000 shoes or whatever and just getting your quantity down right that's the commercial lens that I was talking about right like I I it would it would have been amazing for me to go out and design the most fashionable shoe that was like you know a hype a high product but that wouldn't stand the test of time like our best-selling shoe right now is a shoe I designed 10 years ago right like I see it as the iPhone every single year we make improvements to that shoe based on customer feedback based on material improvements and so you're looking at a shoe that's had 10 iterations of improvements and so when people try to copy that shoe they're they're going back to square one yeah right whereas it's like the iPhone the shoe is just getting better and better with time each time so full disclosure everybody I do have a pair they're super lightweight they're the most comfortable shoes I've worn it almost feels like I'm not wearing a shoe so it makes me very self-conscious like am I oh I do have shoes on right now they're that comfortable they're the kind of shoe that you can actually not that you would but you can lay in bed and forget that you actually have shoes on whatever you've done to engineer that shoe and and you talked about this I think you're like in many ways a little bit ahead of the curve not so far ahead that you become this weird anomaly but just ahead enough that you got your systems in place and then the industry catches up to you in the case with Nike doing a lot of the promotion on your behalf to talk about the benefits of a lightweight shoe right yeah exactly I remember I think three is in or might have been four years in we got named by double wjsn you know the world's number one Trend forecasting platform as a brand to watch and I celebrated for about a minute and I was like oh [ __ ] we're gonna get copied by everyone right like so we need to double down and that's what happened um but I think because you know for me it's not about looking at Trends it's about creating Trends it's about culture shaping for us right so working with culture shaping people and also looking as a brand and going how do we provide value and push the culture forward that's something that we're very focused on so I have a problem my problem usually is if I make something I get real self-conscious about trying to promote it and I'm trying to Envision you at the market like hey catch this and you like that why don't you give it a try do you get nervous about doing that kind of stuff or do you do you get excited for it so I hate pushing my own product to be honest um but at that point in time it didn't feel like I was pushing product it felt like I was in a conversation with people yeah right because I wasn't asking them to buy I was actually saying hey check it out tell me what you think like the end of the day if if we have a conversation and you say it's right for you and you're like this is crazy comfortable this feels like I'm wearing nothing this is amazing how much is it can I buy it cool that's it like I'm just trying to add that into people's lives if they're like this is not for me it's not my style my cool have a great day let's chat you know come see me you know like it's it wasn't about the transaction and so it didn't feel like I was pushing a sale onto people and I think that was the beauty in in that time um you know as you get bigger uh you've got to make sure you keep that connection with people we've just opened up our new flagship store um and it's been amazing to sort of see that interaction again to shorten that feedback loop because you don't really get it through online you know you get your lovers and your trolls through your you know your reviews but you don't really get that honest feedback loop that you do when you're in in front of people yeah the follow-up question I have for you is people don't buy products they're looking for meaning and identity so if I were talking to someone who's part of the Rolling Nation who's purchased multiple Pairs and it's just deep in the culture yeah what what is the identity that they're forming based on their purchase decision with with your with your company I think with us it's a it's a great question because I think for us it is about a lifestyle and a an emotion that you're buying into but it's an emotion that is as it's very much a personal thing and by you saying this is who I am this product represents who I am it's about self-expression and by having self-expression collectively we are a community right so you're not saying you know I'm all about color crazy color or I'm about sports or or a function it's actually by just saying this is who I am and this brand best represents me um and I love that you have that confidence too so that's that's really what you're buying into self-expression and confidence so perhaps part of it is they are like I'm an anti-conformist and they're sheeple and you you buy what they tell you to buy I'm gonna buy what I want to buy and this is an expression of my taste my aesthetic and how it fits between maybe athletic and fashion yeah exactly yeah okay it's spirited spirited Rebels is what we call them um yeah because I mean it's um it's people that are going against the grain the people you know that are zagging when everyone's zigging and and it's like but um people that are comfortable with who they are and they're not just doing it for the sake of trying to be different it's they're just being themselves and does the this identity come from you or you observing culture and saying I want to create something for people or is it like I gotta scratch my own itch and then if you're with me love to have you aboard for a long time I try to keep the two Brands separate my personal brand and the roly brand and what I found over time is that the rolly brand was built off my values and so um that's why I went and was working with celebrities and doing all those things I was like I thought that's what that was my personal brand but like I said as I've really dived into it it's like oh no me as a designer have I've always been around you know about Community about culture about you know shoes are so simple that means every single line every single thing on there matters uh that's my attention to detail and so by doing that uh and my the importance of emotional connection and I think that's why I create so many products with that look completely different because there's one person that might look at a shoe and be like I hate that shoe but this another person that also buys the brand goes I'm obsessed with that shoe and that's what I'm trying to do I'm not trying to create a shoe that everybody likes I'm actually trying to create a shoe that one person connects it to at a completely different level where the amount of Love emails that we get you gotta remember I've been doing this for a long time right we've said 20 years in the business and I get emails where people are like I've traveled around the world in these shoes I didn't take them off for three weeks I'm obsessed with them it's like my best friend we've we've traveled the world together and it might sound weird hearing that I'm talking about someone talking about issue to that level but it empowered them to do that yeah right so that's cool I love that that's a really cool story to share I want to talk to you a little bit about the future what's down the line for you but before we do that I want to come back to something you had said and I connect with you said that growing up for for you success looked like either one of two options to be a professional athlete you're a tall guy yeah athletic build so maybe basketball player and also maybe because the color of your skin they say you should be a rapper yeah and I was listening to this in the audience I'm like you know what there's worse things that people could throw up on you maybe you have a different point of view but I think man growing up as an Asian kid what were the two things that are expected of me a computer software programmer and something else that's not that cool I mean to be a professional athlete or world famous rapper I get it stereotypes and pigeonhole but that's that's actually an upgrade from where I'm standing but talk to me about this tell me about fitting in or breaking stereotypes and molds and what does that mean to you well I mean even though those things are cool right but being a basketball playing a rapper the percentages and the chance of you succeeding in that space is so small yeah so you're now striving for something that is so hard to obtain and that's the only level or measure of success this is part of the problem right and so I grew up as a minority in the west you know being one of the very few black people at the time um most of the mauritians were all in Dandenong completely other side of Melbourne um and people put their projections on me of like you know cool Michael Jordan's you know famous and everything a lot of the basketball players were black and they were athletes and like and I was great at basketball that's once again just like in the same the math and science thing is because I was good at it I got pigeonholed right they're like I still have people today I went to the basketball the other week and I post on Instagram and I had somebody hit me up and said that should have been you and I was like yeah just because I was good people knew that I people would always say I was going to make it to the NBA um but it's like that's not that I only wanted to do that because I felt like they were the only options available to me right being a rapper or a basketball player I never when I told my mum that I was going into the you know creative space and when I told her I was going to launch a shoe brand she was so scared for me and my dad too especially my dad actually in this case because I had a job and I was doing well and they're like there was nobody around me that had a successful shoe brand that was black yeah and there's very few people that even had a successful business actually that was black so the chance of succeeding is very rare right they there wasn't people that they could look to and say oh it is possible and they've done it whereas basketballs and rappers there were so many black people out there they're like oh it is possible and so even though it was a cool thing to strive for I think it's very limiting uh and you know I remember my son uh when I asked him what did he want to be a couple months back and he was like oh I want to be a rapper or a basketball player it really bothered me it was like you know 30 years on he still has that same perception of what is possible um and I'm like I need to change that I need to get him thinking about cool if you want to do that you want to be a basketball player rapper I'm cool with that but then you have you're actually building influence what are you going to do with that influence right you're going to build a business you're going to build a community you know um how do you think beyond that superficialness of going this is what's available to me and and build on that I'm glad that you added to that I was having fun but I think you got real deep on me which is really cool what I'm hearing from you is if we don't see ourselves represented in professional spheres it's kind of hard for us to think what's possible and that becomes our self story and then then it becomes your destiny and it is glamorous and and people who are in that space do really well but there's so few people on a probability that it seems like your the story that Society is telling young black men and women is if you can't be this then there's not there's nothing in between and that's a sad sad part of it and it's quite fascinating for me that you were good at math and science you're also good at sports and design it's like Vince are there any weaknesses to you I can't figure this out we'll have to bring my wife in and she'll have lots to say that'll be episode two everybody no there is I tend to sort of Channel my energy and things that I like to do yeah and I think because I do that that's where I excel right like I'm a terrible speller everyone jokes about it in the office like almost to the point where I'm dyslexic but um I don't put that much importance in it right like for me it doesn't bother me I'd rather be focusing on creating an emotional connection with people right or being a better father a better husband you know those things really matter to me and so I don't let the Small Things bog me down and coming back to this thing about you choosing art which is pretty atypical and I'll just share my own lived experiences here for a number of years I taught and at a private arts school where the tuition now is twenty two thousand dollars a semester so it's outrageous and what I don't see or a lot of people of color we see now predominantly Asians mostly it seems like Chinese and then Korean and it changes depending on what decade you're in because of which nation or which country is doing well financially speaking but we we rarely ever see a black student we see maybe one or two Latinos and that's it and it's a real problem that teachers are trying to understand but there's only so much that we can do because of lack of representation the costs a private art school and so it was important to me to have you share your story as a as a successful black man building a business doing something that very few people who look like you actually do and to be able to share that as a source of inspiration so now if you're that person and you're looking towards your future you can have a different Model A business person entrepreneur as a designer as an artist or a creative business person which who which who you are and we we need more of this so that outside of entertainment there's a whole different kind of profession that's thicker weight for you you mentioned your son a couple of times I know you also have a daughter and I often tell people that becoming a parent changes you and if it doesn't you're not doing it right I think having children make me a better person because I have to be accountable to more than just myself I'm aware that there's these two sets of eyes looking at me every day and saying what are the decisions that I'm making how am I behaving how am I holding myself and knowing that I could damage them by behaving poorly or I can actually show them a potential path that's in their future if they wish it so tell me a little bit about your relationship or your responsibility with not only your son but your daughter as well yeah I mean my kids changed my life you know they're they're my everything I've always said that I've got you know even though roley's doing well I did it to create a better future for my family right so um it can never be I can never get pigeonholed where I'm like I'm gonna focus on building this business so I can give him a future but not spend time with them the end of the day they don't necessarily value that they want to spend time with me right I say I want to give them the tools and Financial Freedom is one of them but it's only one right I want them to I want to teach them to actually make their own money to teach them to strive for things that actually make them happy so they don't just go into a nine to five that they hate um you know I talk a lot about um my son because like he he's he fell into the Trap that I fell into it was you know whereas my daughter's very strong-headed absolutely amazing is so good at sports um whereas my son's not so good at sports uh so it's quite we just have different relationships with both of them right like my daughter's very um very independent you know she's the kind of one that sort of just watches and does as opposed to my sign engages in lots of conversation to try to understand he's always trying to break it down so it's uh it's beautiful having a boy and a girl like I grew up in a family with four boys uh so my mum she went crazy yeah because of it uh whereas having a boy and a girl so I never was like too fixated on what I had but I'm so glad I had a girl because it's a completely different relationship uh you need a level of empathy that I haven't sort of had to have had before yeah I mean I guess I'm trying to empower them given the right tools to live their best life but not project my insecurities or um my vision for them yeah right I just want to yeah I just want to show them what's possible so maybe your son is a mirror to your younger self and you're like oh I see patterns behavior and thinking that I I need to show that there's other ways of thinking about this and maybe that's the lesson that your children put in front of you whereas your daughter shows you hey you need to learn different skills dad because I'm not like that same imprint I have different ways of moving about the world and then you have to grow and change yourself as well exactly yeah yeah how old are your children right now uh so there's seven and nine I was still very young still yeah yeah still right okay they've experienced a lot they've lived in they've lived in New York they've lived in the country they've been the city they've been exposed to so many different things so it's really nice to see no I I think it was Amy who told me this that you actually have kangaroos on your property that's the kind of country you live these are not uh animals that you're raising they just roam onto the property yeah exactly it was funny because you know being from Australia every time I used to travel people always used to say oh do you have kangaroos on your property or do you see them like Ah that's so naive no that's they don't just run over they just roam around in the city but actually now I have a property where there always are so it's quite hilarious so you can't even like roll your eyes anymore because it literally is happening exactly so now I just invite people over to the country house I can't imagine what it's like to have a kangaroo just hop on over are they aggressive animals oh yeah you don't want to get too close they're beautiful from afar but um you know I think every now and then the alpha one when you see them they're massive there's always these images that I'll see on Instagram uh kangaroos for some reason are jacked or so muscular and they're walking around with their arms to the side and they look like they're gonna mess you up so maybe that's a signal just keep your distance I want to ask you something to see how well you know your children you said this and it's important for people to hear this part it's like I'm not here to project what it is that I want on my children I just want them to to be who they're supposed to be so look into your crystal ball a little bit Yeah knowing you're seven year old and your nine-year-old who are they going to become when they're adults I think it's a path they're on I don't think they know the answer to that um you know I think when I look at their strengths um my son is incredibly empathetic and um very creative right so I think he's going to probably be an entrepreneur is is my is my bet I mean seeing his dad being an entrepreneur he's the kind of guy when we go in the shops he'll be like Dad can I buy that and then he'll go actually let's just make it um and I'll make two and I'll sell one right like he's already thinking like he's saying that to you yeah yeah oh my gosh yeah so I like that like he's starting his own clothing brand already he's got a website and he's like he's I think he's going to go down that path um my daughter I think she's gonna probably go into sports or or um being a veterinarian like she loves animals she's got a very kind heart but very strong like I call her gangster because she is she only does what she wants to do um so I think she's probably going to go in into that sort of space so if she gets into the sports mindset because she's very very good at sports um she could easily I could see her being a pro athlete in anything she wants to do but the same token she might take that sort of empathetic route and and put that energy into helping people very cool so I said that I wanted to get into the future of where you're heading and I think it's important to talk about that we've traveled a lot in the past the present yeah and talked about the things that I think are important to who you are your your brand your company your ethos so I I unfortunately didn't have enough time to go visit the the the store the flagship store and there's an experience there tell me what your concept is and then tell me where you see yourself going the next say five to ten years yeah cool so yeah we just opened up a flagship store in Fitzroy gocha Street which I just got names second coolest Street I think in the world which is an amazing claim um and the store my goal was to create a store that I could take into any cultural relevant City around the world and still be relevant so it can live in Japan it could live in LA I could live in London and because I've traveled so much that was that was the bar that I set for myself and I really think we've achieved that like we've delivered a space that is not just about selling shoes uh and my commitment what we did is we dedicated 50 of the space to a digital Gallery right it's the biggest digital Gallery in the southern hemisphere in a retail space it's got 17 screens we're featuring 150 um art pieces from 50 artists around the world digital artists and that was our commitment to say like I I meet so many people that talk about what they're trying to do and not many people are actually following through so in this case by dedicating 50 of the space to a digital Gallery it holds us to accountable to actually delivering experience at all times um and so it's not just uh our core we'll create a campaign around it it's like no we have a digital Gallery we need to create community events uh look it's challenging to do with a small company um but it's yeah it's been super rewarding um and and we've had people come in and they can experience the brand and they can leave the store where I'm buying a shoe but still feel like they've taken something with them and that was really important like we had a lot of people come in they're like wow I feel like I've just stepped into the future or they've come in and they've learned about an artist that they didn't know about or you know where it's and it's a digital Gallery which is also going to be connected to nfts and a lot of them are nft artists and like for now a lot of people think nfts are directly linked to you know monkeys you know Apes it's like we're trying to break that stereotype once again and maybe that's a chip in my shoulder trying to constantly break stereotypes but it's I think for me it's about creating you know new conversation with people at all times and constantly trying to add value so it's kind of an interesting path that you've been on in terms of your initial thought that you were going to be a graphic designer and bringing art and Industrial design and experience design and bring it all Under One Roof it feels like it's an expression of just your creative being so 50 of the spaces the gallery so that must mean that 50 of you is a curator of art a person who admires and appreciates things of beauty and I assume then you're inviting people to exhibit and share their work in the in this space yes absolutely yeah yeah and what has been the response I mean do you do people come there to buy the art or just to appreciate and experience it there's a good mix of people there's people that are die-hard rolly fans that are coming in to buy and then real and go oh wow this this is incredible and a lot of them are not overly surprised because they're sort of used to being surprised and delighted by us they don't know what it's going to be but um so that's been nice there's a lot of people coming just for the art and then learning the brand through that but we just invite people to come in and experience it however way they want right like it's um I'm not sort of all like I said like even when I started the brand all I want you to stop and have a look at it and be like is this for me oh yeah um when we did uh trade shows in the states uh we won best new exhibit award uh and we won uh three Design Awards for our booth designs uh we you know went over the top but it was cool because for me imagine being in a trade show with 10 000 other brands all I want you to do is stop look at the brand and go is it for me that's it and if you don't you can walk on and be like oh that was really cool once again they take that feeling with them and I get people talking about our designs that we used to do at these trade shows all the time so I guess it's an ethos a design ethos that I've had since day one it's a good blueprint for like anti-sales anti-marketing okay just stop for a second take a look you don't need to do anything because if you've done your job at that point then then the shoe or the gallery experience will sell itself so work comes up to that moment and then it's up to each individual and people have told me like hey next time you come you got to go and visit it because it's an experience and to be able to step in there and stop and look and whether you purchase anything or not that's entirely up to you but I think you've done your job at that point right exactly for sure you know later on if people don't purchase there they can go online later if they feel like it's right for them if not you know we've just done our job where like I said we're an experienced brand and that's what we're delivering um I I think you mentioned this in one of our conversations where the future of your shoe might be and the brand might be in token gated I don't want to get into the too much nft talk but can you can you are you ready to tell us like what that's all about absolutely I mean I I I'm trying to blur the online offline experience right I just think Brands just need to communicate in any way where customers are and um those two worlds uh are going to live together even more than they do today this is where when we talk about a gallery it's not an art gallery it's a digital gallery and it doesn't feel off like you go in there and you're like oh wow this art is absolutely incredible and you're you're no longer thinking oh this is just digital art you're in there and you're just experiencing the art as it is and so I think token gating um what we'd love to do is people to come in buy a pair of shoes get an nft and their nft gets them access to Future drops right so they get access to all our future collaborations they might get special loyalty um you know access to events certain discounts you know or we might invite them we just had an event I think last month where some of our top tier people who won uh prize get to come in and see the new collection and give some input into what what will be in the next season's collection so I just think the tokenism allows you to give that out and allow the customers to actually build equity in that nft because they can sell it if they want to so you can imagine imagine if Nike today had an nft program where you had that nft because you bought a particular drop you have access to every single off-white release that came out through you know that top 10 Nike like that would be worth so much money right and the customers who have it would be absolute brand Advocates because it gave them access to something so I think nfts and tokengating will open up a completely new way to interact with customers the problem is like the internet when it first came out got a bit of a stigma to it you know people thought that phone calls were better than email and the emails would never take off nobody thought there'd be a computer on every single person's desk so we're just on that same path nfts will not always be Facebook profile pics it's going to move beyond that and so yeah I'm very I'm fascinated by that but I think it's about taking people on a journey right uh it's such a big barrier to entry and that's why we're starting with the digital Gallery we're doing a in our first digital shoe release actually early next year that's just to test and pilot it but we plan to do a lot more in the next two to three years sounds very exciting somebody explained this to me because especially right now with FTX I think in all the scandals that are going on people losing a lot of money and yes where there's a lot of risk there's potential for a lot of gain but people cry after the fact because none of these things are bulletproof or as we're discovering people don't even do their due diligence before they throw money at stuff yeah but I believe blockchain transactions and purchases are a great way to kind of make sure that you have provenance over things and it's kind of a cool thing somebody explained this to me before where if you're a reputable brand you have a real business and you integrate nfts into in a smart way that deliver value to the customer it's not a scam the problem is there's a lot of people diving in based on speculation and just grabbing dumb money is that they have no company they have no entrepreneurial skills they have nothing of real utility they're just selling hype on top of hype but when you're when you do this the right way what I think is fascinating is this is if if I were to buy a parachute from you the medically our relationship begins and it ends I gave you money you gave me the shoe if you live up to the promise everything is cool and I feel like I'm part of the group but if you sell me an nft that's a part of the shoe you as the business owner have to find ways to continue to give me value over time so the relationship is way longer lasting in your example with Nike is you get exclusive first access to collaborations with brands that you don't love that means that Nike has to stay up and play tonight thinking and so what I'm gonna do for phase two phase three phase four so that over time this thing has value and the more valuable becomes the more likely it is that people will continue to support what it is that they're doing in the nft metaverse space right yeah exactly and I think for the first time it's a win-win so the customer is incentivized to actually build the value in the nft because if they do the the value of that nft goes up and they have the ability to unsell it that's the difference between the current loyalty programs you can't on sale your current loyalty point so if you get all these points you can't really unsell that where from an nft you can have somebody going around and absolutely plugging it and and talking about how they have access to this product and wearing it and it really becomes a thing that connects to culture then people are going to want to have access to that so you know the whole supply and demand you know if you're not releasing if you've only released a certain amount of those nfts and the you're constantly providing value and the people who have them hold them absolutely love them the value is going to go up and so that's where you start to create um yeah like the customer and the brand are both creating value for each other it's fascinating yeah that's a really good example about loyalty programs I think loyalty programs are actually the opposite of what it sounds like they're making sure you're loyal to them not them being loyal to you yeah because you're pressured like oh your points are going to expire and if you don't renew this card you'll lose your points and that's not loyalty that's you trying to get me to spend more money whereas this is kind of the opposite where it's like how else can you as a brand deliver more value to me I'm being loyal to you because you've supported us and I think there's a big shift there when it's done properly yeah anything like I said if they become the brand Advocates then the brands end up winning also so it's yeah it's it's mutually beneficial right exactly yeah well Vince I appreciate your time talking to me today and also stepping into the professional booth in case you're watching this video podcast a conversation we did not coordinate our wardrobes we do look a little silly wearing matching outfits it seems like maybe there's just a vibe in the air we're both wearing green and we both got our caps on so Vince is there anything else um that you wanted to talk about that I haven't had a chance to ask you yet honest thank you so much for the opportunity you know I really appreciate it I love the work that you do and um you know you're like you're a huge inspiration to a lot of people like we said I mean you know there's a lot of kids that can look at you and be like there's a path for me and I'm trying to do the same thing and I appreciate you give me the platform well thank you very much I recognize that in you immediately and just knew we had to do something together um but if people want to follow me or reach out to me um my Instagram is Vince underscore Labon so um yeah reach out if I can help it anyway I would love to where can I find more information about Raleigh Nation so it's at Raleigh Nation on Instagram um and it's yeah rollination.com online so yeah you can hit either of those places up and uh yeah and check out the brand I'd appreciate it safe yeah and wherever you see it it's worth you stopping and checking it out if nothing more yeah thank you very much fans thanks Chris appreciate it