Lessons

Lesson Info

A Conversation With Bombas

David Randy. They found that there was a need out there in the market that they were trying to make any money. But they saw that homeless people really had a being and the homeless shelters. They had a big demand for socks because obviously, besides other issues, homeless had a big problem with their having clean socks and clean beat on the catch, other affection and think that nature and they did the power broke. First of all, I don't go through in that interview, but the power. But where they do, they looked at all the emails that they ever received all the email addresses that they ever received on. They send out a simple email saying, Hey, I'm thinking about starting this company where I will every time I buy a Paris Every time somebody buys a pair of socks, I will give a pair away to those who are less fortunate. Do you think this is a good idea? And you know when people is a big saying, if you ask for advice, you get money, ask money, get advice. Half those people on those emails...

answered back. Hey, I don't even know you like that leave me alone and happily. People said, Absolutely. Where can I started? How can I start supporting you? So in a way that support first part of their story, they go on the shark tank and they understand, and they really do their homework on how to fish your deal. And then I'm gonna let them take it away Now with the rest of the interview where you will find some really great nuggets. One how you can apply these things in your life that they do and create that power ship. Here we go. You know, throughout the entire process, we were kind of We had a lot of humility about the fact that I don't know. I don't think we're gonna end up on the show like, Let's just keep running. Our business is normal. But once things started Teoh once there was some momentum around, you know, getting, you know, working with the producers and feeling like there was a bigger chance of agreement on the show. You know, we did what I think most people should dio we did our homework. Um, we were fans of Shark Tank from season one. We've seen every single episode But we went back and we watched the episodes of the people that we thought performed the best and the worst, and then the ones that performed the works. And, you know, we tried to identify what were the common questions that were being asked and we kind of We ended up with spreadsheet of 100 300 questions and we wrote out 300 answers. And we said, Okay, if this shark asks when we kind of role play that every scenario possible because the one we knew that we couldn't confirm or getting a deal not looking like idiots on television and so like that was the bar that we like could not go below. And so we put America. We did our We did our homework in our research and came to the thing, really. But one thing I think people maybe don't realize the benefit of going through that process, even if you don't end up on the on air. And even if you don't get film and you know they tell us. 30,000 companies apply get filmed and 100 make it on air for the season and release the math is really stacked against you. But the process of going through what they've said one through asking the hard questions, surface things that we needed to answer about our business, that we hadn't been dressing and just the fact that we were potentially going on TV in front of you and in front of the other sharks made us sharpen our pencils a little bit. And think about some of the questions they were going to impact our business in the long term that we hadn't been addressing that we needed to address. Well, I think it's sort of an accelerated course for your business, that search South tot just the I that it's really on, that you might be going on Shark tank very much help them. You guys just so laser focused. And and I loved it. I love that about you because, you know, like I think a power shift also is to be laser focus. A lot of people want to be everything. Everybody, they want to move so fast. But every single time that I see you guys, you know you guys were your nose to the grind. You were so busy trying just make the best of what you could do in, you know, especially you gotta have the design of blood and you say, Well, I want to make a 1,000,000,000 different types and this and that, but I remember a 1,000,000 different. I want to move to two coats afterwards. Or two hats that I know that you show Liam moved into T shirts and things and present was obviously heavily requested from you. What gave you the patients? What gave you the discipline to be still focused just on your consumer and on this one product for like three years at least. At least you were just trying to perfect that. And did somebody tell you don't know because you know, don't do other things or like you learn, Like, how did you stay so disappear? It's interesting, you know, I think you hit on a point. You know, the idea of of not of seeing something in taking it down. And folks, there's a power shift in that idea of like right for us taking the idea when we find out the donations are an afterthought, and then it makes us realize what's going on. Actual marketplace for the product and then learning that and feeling that idea and knowing that we had a huge opportunity and that we needed to get ahead in that in our category that really made us focus. And and then we also you know, even though we were very focused, we straight a couple times and we tried some things. And whenever we lost our focus, we quickly realized that we were doing a disservice to the thing that we started and to the mission of the company. Having that mission of wanting to help out and wanting to donate millions of pairs of socks is extremely motivating and extremely focusing, because any time we would try and see some shiny object off on the side that seemed interesting and related to our business, we couldn't figure out a way for that impact our mission. We couldn't really justify doing it. So having that in the background of our of our minds at all times really kept us focus and also seeing businesses that we had participated in in the past who had not stayed focused when lost their way by trying to do too much too soon or to be too much to do. Two different many people. We've all seen that right. You see a 1,000,000 but try things and then you know you don't want that from them because they're you're used to this from them and you have to be able to evolve and change is a business. But you have to do it the right ace. You have to do it at the right speed. And I always say to people, Listen, if you're not sick of saying the message and the lines and the ideas that make bomb this bomb bus, then you're not saying it enough because nobody else is hearing it as much as we are. So you really just have to have to pound it, pound it into people's minds, pounded into people's brains. That's what success it's like. It's grinding it out day after day. Yeah, I think the two other things is that, you know, we also looked at the brands that we I admired the most, and I think the one commonality that we saw with all of them is that they all started with one product, right. They all started with one thing that they became really well known for and earned the right to go into other products. And, you know, again, you looked at, you know, these brands that were, you know, the Nikes and the Lululemon's and the apples and the under armors of the world, you know, are all brands that were built over decades, right? And I think a lot of our viewers they want they're like, Oh, I want to build a brand overnight, right? I want to go out and raise a ton of money. You just pour money at it. And you see, a lot of those companies that took that strategy are all. You heard it right, because you know, certain point, that kind of that steam runs out. And you know, you've built a big brand, but you haven't built it on the fundamentals of a good business. And to your point before, you know the idea of staying focused, You know, if you want to get good at anything, right, if you spread yourself too thin and try to do too many things at once, like whether it's a sport or a musical instrument or any hobby. If you try Teoh, if you do that thing every day you keep practicing, you get. Really, Really. It's the idea of the 10, hours right to become an expert. We knew that if we stayed really focused on socks and the messaging around the almost community that you know, we have a much better chance of survival because our customers will be able to go out there and tell that same story rather than oh, I think I don't know that if they do, they do hats. And then I think discredited gloves. I don't really know what the you know, but I know they do something with somebody. Is that great? Um, whereas we know our customers over the years, they can. We've always been amazed that when we meet our customers, they were site kind of our founding story back to us a Ziff. We were sitting at ourselves, and that, I think, is a good mark of, you know, staying focused. What are people? What should people do today, right now, who are either saying I'm out of a job or I'm working someplace in somebody else's dream or you know what? Even if I do have my job, I still want to start something for the need. I want to be harm, a solution. Everything they should they should do right now. Yeah, I think some of the advice that I give toe anybody at any point in time that that wants to become an entrepreneur. You know, this is, you know, it's similar again and go back to this idea of, like, practice, right? It's not something that you just fall into and become overnight, instantly, right? It's a muscle that you have to training Or at least you know, in our experience. You know, again, in the six years that we were working together, I think we probably had come up with 50 or 60 different ideas. Um, and the idea is that you've got to start training your mind to look at the world through a lens of problems. All there you go around and we say, Go through your daily tasks right and constantly. And whenever you find frustration in anything, you gotta ask yourself, Is there a way that this could be done better? Whether it's through a product, whether it's through technology, whether it's through a service, you know, if you're finding that there's something that you are missing or there's some inconvenience or frustration in your life. I don't look into the lens of opportunity rather than frustration and say, How could I potentially make make this better? And is there a business here? Most the time? There's not right, and it's just like, you know, it's just the way the world is, but it only takes that one time, right? And any time there you think that there is a possibility go down the rabbit hole, right? Start exploring it and start to train your muscle as to what it what it's like start to ask other people. Hey, do you have this problem right? And start to just, you know, change your behavioral mentality. You know, it's it's. I always loved the idea that in music there's no such thing as an overnight success, right? People think that Oh, this person got discovered, but no, that person was practicing the guitar they were singing for years and years and years and years they were playing in coffee shops or, you know, at little fairs and festivals they were grinding it out. And this goes back to your last book of kind of rise and grind like gotta grind this out. Um, and you put the effort. It doesn't just fall in your lap. No. And I told you Agree. Yeah. You got you got, you got? Yeah, I think that's the best way I've ever heard. It explained It's a muscle, right? That you got to keep working on on. I think before a team of approval, I had 100 different ideas and their that one. That because you went down the rabbit hole a little bit on this one a little bit on this one. When you start going further down the rabbit hole in this, you have this level of confidence that you're like, Wait a minute. I want traveling more. I'm understanding more. This is feeling better because you took those other journeys, right? Amazing. So good to hear from David and Randy and their lessons. Ah, in work and life and especially had a position and pitch their product on shark Tank. I know you love those guys. Um, you can tell you as a relationship, and it does. It does tie in directly back into the book. Um, before we shift into a conversation more holistically about the book, Damon anything. You know any exclamation points you want to put on your conversation with those guys. You know, I just wanted to I hope people picked up how prepared they were to pitch not only to little pitching to, but the bulls. And the other thing that people have made prior to that. And I know that a lot of times you don't get that opportunity because what other people have been pitched has not been broadcasted on national television. What kind to research and homework can you do to understand, like, the best way you can present something And they were meticulous with They came in and remember, they said we wash most Kollias thing. We knew what? Shark watch this. And the things that put everybody you know, you know, like on the edge who, you know, You said something crazed to us. The exactly that will turn us all. So how can you do your research on anything that you're doing it? Any target that you're about to pitch to