Elevating Sportswear ft. TravisMathew CEO Ryan Ellis | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 48

Summary

Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby – Episode 48: Elevating Sportswear ft. TravisMathew CEO Ryan Ellis

In Episode 48 of "Coffeez for Closers," hosted by Joseph Shalaby of E Mortgage Capital, listeners are treated to an insightful conversation with Ryan Ellis, the dynamic CEO of TravisMathew. This episode delves deep into Ryan's journey from his early career to leading one of the top apparel brands globally, offering valuable lessons in leadership, business strategy, and personal growth.

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Introduction

The episode kicks off with Joseph Shalaby warmly introducing Ryan Ellis, highlighting Ryan's pivotal role in transforming TravisMathew from a golf apparel company into a comprehensive lifestyle brand boasting a half-billion-dollar valuation. The introduction sets the stage for an engaging dialogue on entrepreneurship and business evolution.

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Early Life and Career

Ryan Ellis begins by sharing his foundational years, emphasizing his college basketball experience. Despite not being the leading scorer, Ryan attributes his growth to embracing the role of a team player. “I learned how to win as a team,” he explains at [04:00], underscoring the importance of collaboration over individual accolades.

Ryan contrasts his path with traditional corporate trajectories, noting he "didn't come out of college with... all this academic accolades" ([04:00]). Instead, he chose to carve his own path in the apparel industry, starting from the ground up in retail.

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Rise in TravisMathew

Ryan recounts his entry into TravisMathew in August 2007 ([03:57]), where he initially took on the role of sales and merchandising manager. His relentless work ethic—working 95-hour weeks early on—quickly earned him promotions and deeper involvement in the company's operations.

Over 17 years, Ryan wore multiple hats, eventually becoming president in 2016 ([05:10]). He highlights the transition from hands-on operations to brand driving, focusing more on sales, marketing, and product development. This diverse experience provided him with a holistic understanding of the business.

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Transition to CEO

The pivotal moment came during the pandemic when TravisMathew's founder, Travis Brasher, needed to attend to other ventures. Ryan stepped up, transitioning from president to CEO ([12:05]). He describes this shift as "night and day" ([12:27]), illustrating the increased accountability and broader scope of responsibilities.

Ryan emphasizes the difference between being president and CEO, likening it to "being the passenger in a car vs. driving it" ([12:27]). As CEO, he now oversees the entire organization, interacts with the board, and manages cross-functional leaders, a significant expansion from his previous role.

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Business Strategies and Growth

A central theme of the discussion revolves around TravisMathew's growth strategy. Ryan shares the company's ambitious goal of reaching a billion dollars in annual revenue ([15:45]). He outlines their global expansion efforts, including markets in Europe, Japan, Korea, Canada, Australia, and South America, each contributing to the anticipated growth.

Ryan discusses the brand's positioning in the athleisure and active lifestyle space, competing with giants like Nike and Adidas. He emphasizes the importance of diversification, stating, “We live in the active lifestyle space... we live on the casual side of that” ([18:35]).

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Navigating the Apparel Market

The apparel industry presents unique challenges, especially in fluctuating economic climates. Ryan offers strategic advice for newcomers, advocating for immediate entry into the market to capitalize on opportunities arising from larger brands scaling back. “There's a great opportunity right now,” he asserts ([21:09]).

He underscores the importance of leveraging the wholesale channel over direct-to-consumer models due to rising customer acquisition costs. “Don't ignore the wholesale channel... free brand awareness and actually you make money off them as well” ([22:00]).

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Leadership Philosophy

Ryan delves into his leadership style, highlighting adaptability and decisiveness as critical traits for success. “The number one characteristic is adaptability” ([34:44]). He stresses the importance of understanding and integrating into a company's culture before making significant decisions.

When discussing decision-making speed, Ryan reveals his proactive approach: “I can come to a conclusion on most things extremely fast” ([36:19]). He balances swift decision-making with team collaboration, ensuring that his choices align with the company's vision and objectives.

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Personal Life and Family

Balancing a high-paced career with personal life is a recurring theme. Ryan candidly discusses the sacrifices made, particularly in terms of time spent away from family ([28:35]). However, he emphasizes the joy derived from his work, stating, “This isn't a sacrifice for me. I love it” ([28:35]).

He also shares his approach to instilling discipline and grit in his children through athletics, believing that sports play a crucial role in developing resilience and commitment.

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Goals and Future Plans

Ryan outlines his multifaceted goals:

• Personal Goal: To make more time for relationships outside of work and family.
• Business Goal: To elevate several directors to VP positions, fostering internal growth and leadership.
• Family Goal: To maintain consistency in family bonding time despite the growing independence of his children.

Looking ahead, Ryan anticipates further global expansion and aims to sustain TravisMathew's relevance among younger demographics. He discusses strategies like engaging ambassadors and fostering a dynamic design team to keep the brand fresh and appealing.

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Overcoming Hurdles

Reflecting on his journey, Ryan identifies the initial struggle of establishing TravisMathew as a sustainable brand. A pivotal moment was when an enthusiastic neighbor unknowingly endorsed their products, boosting investor confidence and securing vital funding ([28:25]). This anecdote underscores the unpredictable nature of business growth and the importance of perseverance.

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Maintaining Relevance

A significant concern for Ryan is ensuring that TravisMathew remains relevant as both the brand and its customers age. He addresses this by continuously integrating fresh ideas, engaging young talent, and leveraging influencers like Reggie Bush to keep the brand connected with newer audiences.

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Conclusion

Episode 48 of "Coffeez for Closers" offers a comprehensive look into Ryan Ellis's leadership and vision for TravisMathew. From his humble beginnings and meteoric rise within the company to his strategic foresight in navigating the competitive apparel industry, Ryan provides invaluable insights for entrepreneurs and business leaders alike. His emphasis on adaptability, decisive leadership, and maintaining a balanced personal life serves as an inspiring blueprint for success.

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Notable Quotes:

• Ryan Ellis on Teamwork: “I learned how to win as a team” ([04:00]).
• On Transitioning to CEO: “It's night and day” ([12:27]).
• Business Goal: “I got my sights on a billion” ([15:45]).
• Leadership Trait: “The number one characteristic is adaptability” ([34:44]).
• Decision-Making Speed: “I can come to a conclusion on most things extremely fast” ([36:19]).

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This episode not only chronicles Ryan Ellis's professional journey but also delves into the philosophies that drive his success, making it a must-listen for those interested in business leadership and brand development.

Transcript

[A]

What's up everybody? And welcome to another episode of Coffee's Foreclosers. Today we're at the Travis Matthews speakeasy set to interview a powerhouse in lifestyle and apparel. He started as a very first employee at a company that began with golf apparel and hilt to transform it into a full scale lifestyle brand now thriving in all major retailers and expanding into new markets like denim and womenswear. The leader has driven innovation, ensuring the highest quality by personally testing every product and guiding the brand toward a half a billion dollar valuation. And now it's time to reveal the visionary behind the incredible success. Please welcome the long awaited interview, the CEO himself, Mr. Ryan Ellis, CEO of Travis Matthew. Thank you Ryan for being on the show.

[B]

You are my new hype man. I'm going to have you do that everywhere I go. I come home, do it to my wife, show how great I am. I love it.

[A]

Yeah, wouldn't that be great if we could just come home and tell our wives like, look at, look at, look at the hype, look at the announcement that I'm getting as I enter the house.

[B]

I love it because I'm like, you call yourself humble, you're not humble. But I try to have humility and I go through phases of my career where I feel like I'm doing a great job and I'm doing a terrible job. And so it's always funny hearing someone hype you up because it's like, am I really that dude?

[A]

You built one of the coolest companies, I mean for men, the coolest apparel brand in the world in my opinion.

[B]

And women's now don't forget, I know.

[A]

We'Re going to talk about the women's line because the women's line is in my opinion, much nicer than Biore or Lululemon or any of the other ATH Cash brands out there. So we're going to dive into it. I like to ask every guest on the show an opening question. And what is your morning routine?

[B]

Yeah, so I start with the wind down routine. You know, you and I know David Meltzer. It's funny, he has a very similar routine. I didn't get it from him, but I certainly listened up when he did it. But really like, you know, try to as much as I can get my phone down at 8:30 and turn it upside down and don't look at it again and then start to start that unwinding process. I go to sleep pretty early. So, you know, typically I wake up between 3:30 and 4. And you know, the best thing I Can do. When I wake up, I jump right into the shower. I don't think, I don't check my phone. I check my phone for the time and then I jump in the shower. And the mindless scrolling and things in the morning, it just gets you lost and then you get out of bed tired. So to me it's like get right in the shower. That wakes me up. I'm on it. And once I hit about 4:35, I'm firing on all cylinders. My, you know, first two hours in the office, I get more done than the next eight, obviously meetings and things like that. But my brain is just functioning at a really high capacity those first two hours.

[A]

So you're coming into the office at 6am every day.

[B]

Generally get in closer to five. Yeah, I generally get up 3:30 to four, shower, get in here, try to get in here before five if I can. I used to have a really good routine where I was getting in around 4 and I'd work from 4 to like 6:30. Then I'd go work out, I'd shower and then sort of the day starts when everybody comes in. I'd like to get back to the workout routine, but the business has been so tough to keep up with with all the travel that now I'm just, I'm in. Try to be in before five, get three hours of work before anybody wakes up or starts working.

[A]

You got a gym here? I mean you don't even need.

[B]

We do. I know. There's no excuse. There's no excuse. There's no excuse.

[A]

It's a great gym here.

[B]

Yeah, it's less the gym, it's more the, you know, when you travel and I've been traveling a ton, it's so hard to keep your eating habits because everywhere you go, they don't have exactly what you need. You can't make your own food. And so once that starts to go, then it's like the working out starts to go. So I need to get back on the program for sure.

[A]

Now let's reverse course here. Now you started. Tell me a little bit about how you became the CEO of the number one apparel brand for men on the planet.

[B]

Where do you want me to start? Like at the brand or from the beginning?

[A]

From the beginning.

[B]

So you know, the shortest version I can give you at the beginning. You know, my career is equally impressive and unimpressive in terms of like, I think I can give a lot of inspiration to people that I didn't come out of college with. I didn't go to a huge Four year big school that had all this academic accolades. I came out, I played basketball in college. I really had a competitive streak, Learned how to win, learned how to win as a team. I thought I was the hero player my first couple years in college. Then I realized I was more of a role player. And once I accepted that, I really thrived. And so it taught me if I can find my role in an organization, it doesn't have to be at the top. I can really grow and develop. And we ended up winning a national championship my senior year. I went to Concordia and Irvine and so really solidified all that work I had put into basketball. All the sacrifice really being much more worth it than being the leading scorer on a team that didn't do anything right.

[A]

Were you a leading scorer on basketball team?

[B]

I was my first year of college and I was probably the fifth my senior year. But what happened my senior year is I led the nation in three point percentage. I shot 50% on the dot and really specialize my craft instead of trying to be everything to everyone and be the go to player. I really performed a really good role in that.

[A]

You like a Steph Curry?

[B]

More like a Klay Thompson. I wish I could say like a Steph Curry. I moved more like Clay. I wasn't. I didn't have the floaters from 20ft and all the stuff Steph does, but yeah, definitely more like Klay Thompson. So propelled me into my career. Didn't do an internship. I'd really never worked. I mean, I swept the floor from my dad's office here or there and never worked. And I had an opportunity to work for my dad. Didn't really want to do that. Wanted to kind of carve my own path. He had a really, of all things, he runs a termite company. It's a really small business. He made it really successful, ran it 30 years. He's retired now. My sister actually runs the company now. And I just wanted to carve my own path. It wasn't something I was inspired by and so I wanted to get in clothing. I knew throughout high school and college that's what I wanted to do. I had a couple ideas and concepts on retail stores that I, that I wanted to implement. So I. So I started my career in retail and said I'm gonna start from the ground up. If I want to do something in retail long term, I need to start in retail and get an entry level position. I started as a manager in training. I got promoted really fast, worked a lot. I ended up becoming the store manager For Abercrombie and Fitch in 2003. Three months into the job, had never worked retail as a store manager managing a $5 million store. It was like 10,000 square feet. We had like 85 mannequins. My. I became store manager. We didn't have an assistant. And so I had to go higher. Well, there's a time period to go higher, right? I worked 90 days open to close. My first 90 days. And I hired somebody and she, God bless her, she's so sweet. She's 60 days in, she's not ready to open or close yet. And I'm like, I'm going to die. I'm 150 days open to close. I'm working. When people say they work 80 hours a week, I was working 95 hours a week. But I had just. And most people don't take that job seriously because it's like, well, where are you going to go? You're at Abercrombie. What's going to happen? But to me, it was like, this is my first chance to prove myself in that world. So I'm just going to put everything I have into it. I was there six months, got promoted to a bigger store. We had a store opening in Cerritos mall. Bigger store, more volume. It was like a $10 million store. And then I sort of went through that cycle. A couple years later, I realized I just keep getting promoted in retail and they're never going to let me out of retail. Not that that's a bad job. I just had other aspirations. So I took a job for about a quarter of the pay to get on the other side of the business. Say, I'm going to start all over and do it again and just showcase my skill set. Ended up becoming a sales manager of that company and eventually a sales and merchandising manager. I was 25 and then turned 26. And they shut the business down. It was an Australian based business. We had a $5 million building. They were bleeding over there. They called me, we shut the building out. We want you to run retail for us. We're going to open more stores. I'm like, I came on this to get out of the retail business. And so met the guys at Travis Matthews, like a volleyball game in Huntington beach. And they were talking about this concept and I'm like, golf. I don't. I'm in apparel. Golf apparel is not exciting. And they're like, exactly like, we have some ideas to make it exciting. And I'm like, I really didn't listen. And then they kept peppering me. And then about a month later, and I'm out of a job at this point too, but I had a lot of opportunities I was looking at. They called me a month later, said, why don't you do this? Here's a list of 20 accounts. Why don't you just call them or stop by and see what we're talking about? So I stopped in and I saw the white space, right? Like, whoa, there's nothing I would wear in this whole store. So there's a huge opportunity. How do we merge the gap between what people are wearing today and where we want them to go? How do we find something to start in the middle and really grow it? So In August of 2007, they hired me to run sales and merchandising. And then over the last 17 years, actually in July or in August, excuse me. For me, our anniversary is 7707. That's like the cute. But we really started the company in August. I think I've had 12 titles at the company. And so I started in sales eventually. Eventually ran sales and operations. Travis is. Was very smart. Could look from afar and go, hey, we got to get you out of operations. Like, it was something I actually enjoyed. If I was still in operations, I wouldn't be with the company anymore. I don't enjoy it as much anymore. And I like hiring people that are great at that to go do it. And so really started driving me into just brand driving, sales, marketing, product. And I got. I really caught the niche for product and started spending probably 50% of my time in product. And then I took over managing design. At one point, I was managing, you know, 70% of the business. Like, but when I say managing, we had like, you know, 20 people. So I was basically doing it all from, you know, our buy planning. And I hit every piece of the cycle. So, you know, I would help build it with the team. I would have to go sell it to our sales team. I would sell to our major customers, right? Then we did go buy it. And I would buy it. Then I would look through selling throughout the process. And then at the end of the cycle, I'm responsible for the inventory because I have to go off price it. So it's kind of a weird deal where, like, normally you want a lot of checkpoints with like your head of design or product, because it's like, who's making sure and validating that this stuff's actually good and they're not driving us off a direction just because they like something. But I had that at every point, right, I had my buyers doing that, I had my reps doing it, and at the end of the day, I was accountable for the inventory. So really taught me the whole business. And so as I elevated and I never looked at myself. It's funny, I was president and it took me like two years to realize I was president. I became president in 20, 2016, and I just watched how people were talking to me and it was so different. I always felt like I was just one of the people. And then I understood, like, okay, I've got to elevate how I'm treating this business and how I'm treating people. Because, like, when I say something now, it has a profound impact. Like as president of the company, when you say something, people like, really react to it. And because I just started like as employee number one, Joey, our head of design, and I started at the same time, one and two, it took me a while to transition to really understand that, like, this role is very different from a professionalism standpoint, from how you communicate. It has heavy weight on people. And so you have to transition and act differently. So I was in president role for four years. Then the pandemic hit. And I always joke it's not the case, but Travis was like, here, you can have it. Everything's a mess. He actually owned at least the two golf courses and had to attend to that business. And he was already, he'd been grooming me to take that role, but we had such a winning formula that I felt like, do I need to? Like, I'm president of the company, I'm doing all the things I want to do. I'm really, you know, controlling brand and product. Like, what is the value of me going to CEO other than a title? Like, I'm ambitious. But to me, Travis was dealing with the operational part of the business. I thought, well, if I jump into ops, and I'm doing that for 50% of my time, I'm not very good. They're not going to like me there because I'm going to be mixing it up. Is that really what I should do? And you know, sitting with the CEO of Topgolf Callaway, he said, Absolutely, all CEOs are different. And I'm a product and brand driving CEO. That's what you'll be. And we'll go hire the staff together, you know, to get you what you need.

[A]

So what was that transition like? I mean, from president to CEO? Seems like the job description, you know, wasn't too variant. You know, you just had to basically you added the operations component. You were outside of the sales spectrum. Now, now you're running ops design. You were always running with, with the head of design. So it was just like now just, it's Travis bounce and it's all on you now.

[B]

It's night and day. It's crazy. The way I would describe it, the best way I could describe it is imagine trying to get somewhere and being the passenger in a car, right? Next time you go there, can you get there? Probably not, right? Imagine driving there. You can get there. You can find your way. So that's how big the gap is between president and CEO, at least how we were doing it, which is like the accountability piece for me. It's not what it is today. What it was as president was like, I'm gonna go make great product, I'm gonna go service our customers, I'm gonna build a great brand. But then, you know, the people side of it, everything still falls in the CEO. Like I've got my org, but like the whole thing, it's him. Every decision, they look to him. Every time you're at a company event, everyone wants to talk to you about their jobs and everything. And not that I wasn't having those conversations, but the weight of the CEO position versus president is night and day, as well as the interaction with the board and topgolf Callaway and all. And then cross functional leaders. The second become CEO. Everyone wants a one to one with you monthly. I can only do so many one to ones, right. But everyone wants a piece of that action because you're at the top of it and you've got an emerging brand. And so, you know, those equal parts credit and equal parts blame, you know, for that position. So it definitely, it changed for me bit like very quick. Like the weight of how I have to think about this position, you know, the responsibility I have to our people and our team and ultimately, if we don't hit our numbers, it's on me. It's not on the team, it's on me. I have to figure that out. So it's, it's a very different role.

[A]

Who did you appoint to, you know, to be president after you, you departed?

[B]

You know, it's, it's a weird, I think at the size of our company, I don't know that a president and CEO makes sense. It made sense with Travis just because we had such different approaches. And I think he really wanted to empower me to say, hey, when I'm not here, Ryan's making the decisions. We've got a chief Marketing officer, who's phenomenal, who would be pretty similar to the role I was in, more on the marketing side than the product side. And then we've got a CFO who's fantastic, who actually manages ops for me, funny enough. And so I've got two. I've got an incredible leadership team. But those two really stand out as leaders that have kind of elevated into higher positions where, you know, will one of them become a president and eventually CEO? I think they both absolutely have the capability. At the size of the business we're all. I don't think there's necessarily need to have a president CEO.

[A]

Then what would that leave you?

[B]

What's that for you?

[A]

You would just be, you'd be the next Travis.

[B]

Well, I think you're, I think you're always thinking about like you. If you have good people under you, you're always looking at what's their next opportunity and you need to be thinking about yours. And the opportunity is if I elevate, do they elevate? And they can't elevate until I can or I get let go. There's only two options there. Right. And so we have a big organization at topgolf Callaway. So there is opportunity to go up. But you know, I think for me I'm having a blast. You know, I've been CEO now four years and so, you know, I am thinking about that. For them though, what is their next step in making sure I'm not impeding that step for them.

[A]

So what would be the ideal next step for you if you were to envision a next step? You're already the CEO of the number one apparel brand on the planet. Like where's up from here?

[B]

So when you build your like long range plans for a business, we build, you know, we have a plan to 2030. The plan is a three year plan. 2030, it's like, right? I mean we have a vision of where we want to go, what we want to get. For us to get within 10% to what 2030 looks like will be very difficult because it's a changing climate changing market. We have to adapt and change with it. For me, I got my sights on a billion. I don't have a date to it, but I want to get this company to a billion. I'm absolutely committed. And because I don't have a billion, what A billion in revenue.

[A]

Billion revenue.

[B]

Billionaire revenue or monthly court quarterly and monthly. What I think, what are we Lululemon? What are they doing? Like 10 billion? No, I want to get to Billion annually. A billion. Now you got me to 10. See, you got me all twisted.

[A]

Why are we stopping at a billion? Yeah, I mean, like, you're dominating.

[B]

Well, maybe when we get closer to a billion, I'll have a new goal then. But no, that's, it's such a. I don't know how many apparel companies are at a billion. I would guess, you know, in our relevant space, there's less than 25. So it would be at a such a pedestal to get to a billion. Especially being primarily North America. It's a lofty number, but it's achievable for us and I'm committed to driving to those goals. Post that, you know, I don't see myself more, you know, it's possible things change. You know, I'm, you know, I'd like to help other businesses. I think I offer a lot to dive into a business that's, you know, probably in the, you know, 10 to $100 million range, even up to like 200, 300. You know, there's a lot of pitfalls you can avoid. There's a lot of little nuances. There's a lot of structuring things within the business. I think I would see myself long term probably, you know, in some type of role like that, helping other businesses.

[A]

And I didn't know that you guys were just captive to just North America. I mean, golf is global.

[B]

No, we're not captive. We're building a European business that's growing pretty substantially. We've got a really nice business in Japan. We've got four stores in Japan, two in Tokyo, one in Yokohama, one in Osaka. So spend a ton of time there. It's fantastic. We're building a business in Korea that we just launched this year. We've got obviously North America. We've got a booming Canadian business. We've got a great business in Australia, and we've got some business in South America. Most of the international business is a little bit more golf focused because that's kind of how we started here. It takes time, but yeah, we see, we see in that long term plan, you know, international be, you know, a little over 10%.

[A]

Now, Travis Matthew is synonymous with golf apparel. But really, like you guys, it's apparel for any sport, really. But is there any other derivative of sports that you want to dominate besides golf? Like, I know you guys obviously surface.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Skate.

[B]

Yeah, I don't think there's a sport we want to dominate. I think, you know, we live in this active lifestyle space or athleisure space, whatever. You want to call. We live as a lifestyle brand in active. So when you think about our competitors, the Nikes, the Adidas, the Voris, the. I mean, they're very, very athletic. So we live in that space with that same person, which is multifunctional wear, but we live on the casual side of that. So, no, I think we want to play almost everywhere. Right. I mean, we've. We've signed ambassadors from mlb, NBA, NFL, and some prominent ones. We've even signed actors. And so I think we're. We're pretty well diversified. We don't want to kind of be everything to everyone, but we're. We're close to that. We have, you know, we want to play in most sports, but I don't think there's a particular sport that we're driving and saying, hey, we want to dominate, like golf. We're really proud of our roots in golf, but we think, like, the brand is bigger than sport, and so we want it to be a full lifestyle brand.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, as an ATH Cash brand, it's. It's phenomenal. You know, I don't even know of any other men's clothing that has. Not just it's ATH Cash, but it's also clothes you can wear to church.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

It's close. You could wear to, like, a wedding. It's clothes. And you continue to come out with new concepts for athleisure that are, like, just next level. Like, I'm wearing Travis Matthew pants, and they're the Reggie Bush line.

[B]

Looking sharp.

[A]

Yeah. And it's tucked in with, you know, a shirt, and it's a jogger.

[B]

But that. But that's where we're going. Like, we've. To your point, I feel confident we've nailed that space.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But what we've done with our customers, we've led him and now leading her to say, like, we've got his comfort level now. We need to push it. So, like, Reggie's a great example of, like, when we signed Reggie on, it's like, hey, the reason we want to do this, we want to collab with you. If you're not interested in collabing, it's probably not the right fit. And he was more than interested in collabing and, like, how he's put his outfits together showcases a totally different way to wear Travis Matthew and a totally different look. A lot of it. Like, he would wear that with a monochrome top. Right. With a hat that matches and probably shoes that match and really style it out in a very different way. And so, you know, we really have the trust of our customer. And now they're saying more, give me more, give me new, give me fresh. And that's the big focus as we move forward to 25 and beyond is like, you know, really disrupting kind of our current mix while keeping the core similar.

[A]

I mean, you don't want to get a mortgage line where you can get all the mortgage professionals. So there's a lot of people trying to enter apparel space right now. What's the best piece of advice you would give someone who wants to enter the apparel space right now?

[B]

Well, I would say hurry up first because when you're. We're not in a recession, but whatever you want to call this, it's a really challenging time right now for the apparel market. We're seeing the active and athleisure space. You know, over the past two, three months we get all the earnest data and things like that. They're down close to 30% year over year in their own direct consumer.

[A]

Why do you think that is?

[B]

Customer's not spending, it's conversion, it's spend. We saw in March of last year bank accounts dried up. All that incremental income they had is gone.

[A]

But everybody buys Travis Matthew on credit card. It's just going on a credit card that they're not going to pay anyways.

[B]

You know what, that's funny because the cash spending is way down this year too. We're seeing that, right? They are putting on a credit card. No, what we're seeing is a lot more lucky lose. We're seeing we actually the brand heat is still there. So we're seeing where mall traffic is down 5,8%. We're still seeing increases at 2,3% in mall traffic for us in Travis Matthews stores. But we're seeing conversion down like 10% now. They are trading up sometimes for better items like jackets and outerwear and things like that. But what we're seeing is the off price channel is really thriving right now and the full price channel struggling. And we're in all the major retailers from Nordstrom to DSG and all that. And we see the data from them as well. And it's the data we can see and no the trends, you know, consistent. It's consistently down and the customer's trading down for price and they're only purchasing when they have either a sale or there's some a Reggie Bush type item that's very, very special. We launched our MLB collection and had a ton of success out of the gate. But what's interesting is we didn't see a lot of incremental revenue on our own. E Commerce, even though that drove a ton of revenue, they traded out of something else for that collection. So back to the original question. If you're starting a company today, I would say go now because all the bigger companies, there's only a couple Travis Matthews and Vori's that are like doing well and can sit through a difficult time. But there's gonna be a lot of open space from some of the bigger brands because they're gonna have to, we're seeing it layoffs and all these things are happening. The line's getting cut. Nike, you know, is coming out of golf for the most part. And so there's, there's a great opportunity right now. And I would also say to up and coming companies, don't ignore the wholesale channel. The wholesale channel is amazing. And I think everyone wants to start their direct to consumer business. Well, the cost per Click now is five times what it was, you know, eight, 10 years ago. It's not the same market where you just prop up a website and you just start advertising and sell. The cost per acquisition is really, really high. So why would you not partner with a wholesale partner? That can help get you free brand awareness and actually you make money off them as well.

[A]

But social media and stuff is driving down some of that cost. I mean, because you could market all over all the different social media platforms to drive eyeballs outside of like cost.

[B]

Per click and iOS updates have hurt that, you know, people can, you know, the privacy agreements are different now. And so it's just not the same game. And so you evolve with the game. We're a very fortunate business in that, you know, E commerce is roughly close to a fifth of our business. So we're not dependent on E commerce to go hit our numbers or grow our brand. We've got incredible wholesale partners that do that. We've got a corporate partner who does corporate staffing and outfitting, who does a fantastic job. We've got diverse national accounts with the Nordstrom's that are purely lifestyle, the DSGs that are like sporting goods, and then the PGA Tour superstore, that's golf. And so we, we've set this business up purposely to be really well balanced. So when one channel goes up, one channel goes down, it evens out. And so we're not relying on one customer, one channel.

[A]

Now how is like margin compression with like cost of labor, cost of goods, cost of gas to get this stuff over here? How has that impacted the profitability Of Travis Matthew over the last couple years.

[B]

It has cause we didn't take price because we're really mindful of the end consumer and kind of what we feel like the price thresholds are. So it put a little bit of pressure on us and then we were able to come up with more premium products that fit into those price points. But you manage it like everything else, right? It's like we have a very sophisticated year long process. That's our long range planning process and our go to market process that all those things are factored in as we go. The one thing I'll tell you is, you know, that was a huge issue in 22 when the price of cotton was going nuts. Everything was expensive but everyone was crushing it. So the price, it didn't really matter because you made a little less margin but you went and sold, you know, three times more than you thought. Things are stabilizing a bit just on the manufacturing front. Costing is coming back to normal. The price of Cotton's back to 2019 levels. Things are coming back to normal. Freight has come way. I mean we crushed our budget on freight because we had such a high freight budget because it was so high and it's dropped considerably. And so things are normalizing. Factory capacities are normal. So you know, inflation is what it is, right? So we've, we've, our line and pricing has gone with inflation probably a little less than inflation. So generally our margin structure today is well, our margins are better today than they were two years ago just because the volume is so much higher. So we're getting that consistency with volume with our factories. And then you know, we have a lot of leverage because of our brand and so we can utilize that leverage to say now obviously, you know, employee costs, all that goes up. But it's, it's all part of the planning process. Nothing, nothing's happened other than, you know, that big shift in 22 that we haven't been able to manage.

[A]

Like I'll use the heater as an example. One of the signature shirts like hasn't really went up too much in the last couple of years. It's been like, it's always been like 60 bucks.

[B]

And one of the big things with heaters that's been really cool is we changed the fabrication to an eco friendly fabric. And that's been a big initiative of ours. What's tough about eco is, you know, every garment that you do eco, for the most part, it's going to cost you another 50 cents to a dollar. So heater was a huge win. For the company where we're able to take a sustainable fabric in one of our core pieces, which is hard to do to up that cost, and yet keep the price the same. And still. And everyone's making good margin on it. So just one of those fortunate things where we found an incredible fabric at the right price, and obviously we hit a volume and have a great partner overseas that's given us the pricing we need to make that volume, hopefully.

[A]

What about acquiring those facilities yourself? Like, you know, do you guys have any fabric distributors that you guys own.

[B]

Or you guys are all. You know, I think that gets really tricky. I think sometimes you gotta look, there was a time at Travis Matthew where we tried to own everything. Like, we had our own warehouse. We did everything ourselves. And I think as you get bigger, it's like you're better off specializing. Like, it's a distraction. What would happen was. And I was actually talking to another apparel company who's thinking about buying theirs. And I just warned them because they're at like the 40 million range in revenue. And I said, what I'd warn you of. It all sounds good, but is it really cheaper than three pl? Ing? And if you three pl, how much headache does you're talking about warehousing? Do you want to take on 80 employees? 80 more employees? And that's not a job where the employee is like the most satisfied employee. Like, they're trying to work into other jobs most of the time. And so, yeah, to me, it's like, keep the eye on the prize. We have so much here to go grab. Let's just keep going for it now.

[A]

What do you think when you became CEO, what do you think the biggest sacrifices that you made to become CEO of Travis Matthew?

[B]

That's a good question. Probably my personal life, to be honest with you. I think, you know, you really have time for family and you have time for work, and there's just not much other time. Like, it's really interesting. My wife and my family were out of town a couple weeks ago, and it was the first time they've been out of town I feel like, ever. And I was like, what am I going to do with myself? Like, I don't. I never think about, like, hey, let's have a guys night, or let's, let's go. Let me call my buddy and go do this or do that. It's like you just. You have to sacrifice that peace. To me, it's like, family comes first always, Work comes second. And then whatever the rest of it is is what it Is you just in this job to be successful? I'm sure some people do that. Well, it's not for me. I wouldn't feel right about not dedicating the appropriate time to most of the other places. But it's not really a sacrifice for me. Cause I get to hang with my family. I get to do a lot of fun stuff with work. I have great people and friends here at work. And it's like, you know, it's a sacrifice, but it's not one that I sit back and go, oh, I wish I didn't have to do that. This. I love it.

[A]

Yeah. It's like, you know, you're living, like, a dream. Getting to travel.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Getting to make the coolest apparel. Getting to meet amazing people. Who's. Who are some of the most amazing people you met? I mean, Chris Pratt is, like, on speed dial for you.

[B]

Like, I'd say the coolest one we've ever met is Mark Wahlberg. We went to Mark's house and got to spend half a day with him and one of the coolest dudes ever. And just. I won't repeat anything he said because he just went straight from the cuff, and he was, like, totally real and just didn't. He wasn't a guy that you went, oh, he's holding back on us because, like, he might get in trouble or he might do this. Not that he said anything bad, but it was just more like he's sharing old stories of him and Leo hanging out and this and that. And then we walk up in the back. His backyard is just giant. And he's got this. You know, he's got, like, three golf holes back there. And you walk up these steps, and he's got this target mat, and he hits off it into them. Then he hit driver into the mountain. It's just the most insane thing. So Mark is definitely. I wasn't. I don't get starstruck. So I'm not, like, nervous around him. But I was definitely, like, driving home, like, with a big smile on my face. That was freaking awesome.

[A]

That's awesome. You went to his house in Vegas?

[B]

No, in la.

[A]

Okay. Yeah, he's in Vegas now.

[B]

Is he still in Vegas? Yeah, I thought he's still in. I think he's in LA because he. He plays. He plays golf, like, every morning at 5. And maybe he's moved, but this was probably. I probably met with him, like, maybe four years ago. Three. Four years ago.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah. And he since started his own brand. So that was some of the conversation we Were having about giving him some insights on, you know, apparel brand or apparel brand. Apparel brand. Just called Municipal.

[A]

He's got so many companies.

[B]

He's the only thing I'll tell you. I follow him on Instagram and he is a plugger. He plugs everything. Every Instagram post is like, check out my underwear. Check out my shoes. It's pretty. It's pretty funny.

[A]

My new gym.

[B]

Well, give the guy credit. He's got tons of followers and they. They're interacting with the content and he's plugging his stuff. He's one of the best in the world at it.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he can't act forever. And, you know, when you became CEO, like, what do you think the best piece of advice is that you received?

[B]

Hmm. That should be an easy question for me. I'm trying to think. There's. I don't think there's like, one piece of advice because I've kind of like, you've heard most of my career. I kind of blaze my trail. I never. That's why I kind of laugh when people are like, well, my boss doesn't this. It's like, go get it. Right? And that's kind of always been my approach, is go get it. So I've been more like, I'm going to go seek feedback, but also like, I can do this. And I've always been on, I'll figure it out. Right? I'll ask. I have a tight circle, you know, six, eight people I trust. I go to those people with all of those things. I get all the right responses and I form my own opinion, which doesn't match any of them. It just matches kind of my line of thinking. And so that served me so well that, you know, I've thought about having, you know, having a coach and all that, but, you know, this is serving so well and we're thriving so that I kind of. I like blazing the trail my own way. So it's. I don't think there was one piece of advice anyone gave me. I think it was more like, you know, six to eight people during especially I took over in 2020 pandemic hits were shut down. No one can come to the office. I mean, it was a nightmare from that perspective of like, I don't know if the company's going out of business tomorrow or. And we're gonna be shut down for a year. I don't know if I'm gonna have to let a hundred employees go tomorrow. So it was like, you had to have a good circle of people going and no one had experienced that. So it's like, who do I go to to? I mean, you go to Callaway, and they're like, every big company, they have a big company playbook. Here's what you do during Pandemic. But that's not me. I'm not going to take that playbook and go, okay, we just do this, this, this, this. There's some of that we have to do. But, like, so what I did was I started, like, over communicating. So I started. Every week, I would send a video, you know, either of me talking through what's happening in the business so everyone can stay informed. Or we would have our videographers, like, professionally shoot a video. That was funny. Like, one of the videos was great. It was like, remember when no one could get toilet paper? That was like, a thing. And I had found a stash. I was the only one coming in here, and I found a stash of toilet paper, like, I don't know how many rolls. And so we actually sent every employee toilet paper and did a video on it, like, just being funny. And we sent them, like, our designer designed, like, a coloring book just for their kids. Because you're at home, you can't do anything. So it's a super, super cool deal. So we totally took our own approach. And, you know, did we do it perfectly? No, but, like, because of that approach, it was so authentic to us, like, our people. That's our culture. It really resonates in our people of, like, we're not gonna be robots. Like, when I do something like this, we're gonna be off the cuff, but we're gonna be off the cuff within some parameters to stay professional. But at the end of the day, like, this is what people expect from us. Like, our culture is gonna be. We're gonna go get it now.

[A]

One thing I admire about you, Ryan Ryan, is that you became CEO of this company. Is there any characteristics that one must have right now to really climb the corporate ladder and dominate?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, the number one characteristic is adaptability, right? Like, that got me functionally through and navigated. And if I were to go to another company, become CEO, that would be the number one trait. It would be, okay, who is the team? What is the company? Okay, now I need to start adapting my behaviors to match what the company needs. So what I do for executive onboarding is I tell them we're not. You're not making any decisions the first 120 days. Because the biggest mistake you can make, and I've made it, is you Hire someone and you've needed that position for so long and then you start running, they're gonna screw everything up because they don't know your people, they don't know your culture, they don't know your brand. And so number one trait is adaptability. To say when you come into a situation that you're unfamiliar with or you're not an expert, because you're not an expert. Even if you're. I'm the CEO of Travis Matthew. If I jump to another company that's 400 million, I'm still, there's still a lot of expertise I don't have and who their brand is. So I need to listen, I need to learn, formulate a plan with the team. And then I would say be decisive, right? If you're adaptable, you've got your group, you're comfortable with your decision making. When you make it, people want you to be decisive. They don't want you to make it go, oh, but what do you think about it? You should have already asked what I thought about it. You've already come to a conclusion. So ask the people, come to the conclusion and go, here's where we're going, and be confident in it. Knowing that not every decision is perfect, but as long as you follow that process, you're going to be really happy with the results.

[A]

Now, I'm a CEO as well, and to your point, decisiveness is imperative, especially in my organization. How fast do you have to decide being the CEO?

[B]

Is it on the spot, extreme, extrovert? So I think out loud, I talk out loud. I can come to a conclusion on most things extremely fast. I'll come to the conclusion before you wake up. Put it that way. Right? I'm up at my four, I'm in the office. I probably asked the people that I know are up at that time. And it's like, I've already sent the email, here's what we're doing and you're just waking up. So that's how quick I move. Now. We have a pretty robust executive team now. And so what you have to be careful of is you need to get inputs, right? As much as just because I'm deciphered doesn't mean I'm right. And so, you know, you do need to bring the team along for the ride, but when you do bring the team along for that. I did this with our company goals and it was just dragging, dragging, dragging. And I just said, hey guys, I'm going to do these. We're all having a lot of conversation. They need to get done. They should have got done yesterday. I'm going to do them. I appreciate all the inputs. I'll put them down. And I think there's a respect level to that because it's like, I'm sure in their heads, like, yeah, we couldn't get this to the finish line as a team. Rarely happens, but when it does happen, you step up and go, I'll finish it. And I guarantee those goals were done in, like, an hour. And it probably took four weeks leading up to that to get there. And it's like, okay, we can't figure out as a team. Someone's got to do it. Let's go.

[A]

Now you're coming from humble roots, right? You grinded to become CEO and still grinding. And still grinding.

[B]

I love it.

[A]

And what one thing you and I both have are kids. And one thing I always focus on with my kids is, like, I wasn't handed anything. I had to grind like crazy. Like, I was, you know, grinding since I was, like, 8 years old. How are you instilling that same level of grit and mindset that you have and your kids?

[B]

It's hard. It's really hard because, you know, my dad was really tough on me. So then my tendency is like, I start going down that road and I'm like, ooh, ease up, dude. You know, like, you know how that felt on you, so chill out a little bit. So I think that part of it's hard. I think the biggest way, you know, that I've seen and my kids are old enough now is athletics. I think athletics are so important. Not necessarily have to play college or whatever, but, like, you know, that. That really teaches you that discipline. And so, like, my son, he. He plays travel basketball, so he's got practice Thursdays and Fridays, and then I have him training on Wednesdays and Saturdays for basketball and then sometimes 11.

[A]

Man, he's grinding.

[B]

That's how he learns he's grinding. Well, he's also in jiu jitsu Monday, Wednesdays. So we've got him booked. And he enjoys it, like, what we've done. This isn't like Ryan put him in basketball. No, no, we played baseball. We played football. We did it all. And then he says, well, I don't. Baseball's too boring. I want to play. And he was a great baseball player. And I said, okay, so we're not going to play. What do you want to play? I want to play basketball. Okay, I'm coming. But if we're going to. If we're going to play basketball, you and I, we're going to have a handshake commitment here. We're going after it. So that means the days you were playing baseball were playing basketball. So now we're going to go from two days a week to four, potentially five. Is that what you want to do? Yes. Good. We signed up for it. And I'll remind him of that. And I do remind him of that. When he's having an off day with basketball. Hey, I get it, buddy. But like, we signed up for this. We're going to practice. Like, this is the commitment we need to make. You made the commitment. We're gonna live up to the commitment. My daughter's easy. She plays travel volleyball. She went from swimming. Amazing. She's super tall. She's five, nine and a half. At 13, she's played travel softball, was an incredible swimmer, like backstroke with the long arms, but it was an individual sport. So like baseball for my son, she just didn't want to do it. So we made the commitment. We're going to do volleyball, which we kind of knew we wanted to get to with her anyway. My wife played college volleyball and she's got, you know, four days a week practices, tournaments that have like eight games. And she's, she's already, she's more like me. My son is happy go lucky. And he just, he's like master, you know, jack of all trades, maybe not master of none. Like, he's just great at everything, but he doesn't like, he wants to jump. She's like locked in on volleyball. It's all she talks about. She gets done with her season. She's like, I want to talk to you about, like, what I'm going to do next year. And here's what I'm thinking. And she's locked in. So I don't have to worry about her. I don't have to worry about my son either. He's an incredible kid. But a little bit on the discipline piece to say, hey, we're sticking with this. We committed to it.

[A]

At what age did you make him commit to basketball?

[B]

Just a year ago. So yeah, he had 10 years old. 10 years old. We made the commitment. Yeah, it's a little again, you see, you know, he's been playing baseball since he was 3. So you see all the crazies and it's like. And I also, I've seen kids from 3 to 10 and I've seen the 5 year olds that are dominant that at 10 they're just caught up to. And it's like, give the kids a Life, I mean, this is you. They only get one chance to be five. Like, let's not have them, you know, but they're at 10, 11, the lights are on, you know, they know what's going on. It is time now to start teaching them like real discipline. And look, we're gonna have our times to be a kid, but we're also gonna like have some times that we start learning what serious things are.

[A]

Yeah, and you're right, athletics do teach that to kids really young. And it is of paramount importance for parents to make sure that their kids are locked in on sports.

[B]

And he's going in on 12 in October, so not to scare anybody out there, that's like 10. Really, it's, I mean, really, for me it was almost 11 and now he'll be 12 in October.

[A]

Awesome. Now, as CEO of Travis Matthews, do you have any big features, fears?

[B]

Oh, a million. Yeah. I mean, what's the biggest failure?

[A]

That's not a possibility with Travis Matthew?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I think the fears with Travis Matthew are staying relevant as we age. Right. So like I came into the business at 26, so pretty good perspective on like young people, you know, what's cool, all that. And then, you know, 43 now and you know, luckily I've got kids that are keeping me young, but at the end of the day, like, I don't want our customer aging with me. Right. Like, if our target's 30 to 55, I don't want it tomorrow to be 31 or in a year to be 31 to 56 and then 32. I mean, you saw that with Tommy Bahama, how they kind of just aged, had a great deal, but then they just kept aging out and pretty soon, like it's not appealing for a 25 year old guy for the most part to wear what a 7 year old guy wants to wear. Because a 7 year old guy is not thinking about style. He's like, I just want to wear something comfortable. Like, I don't really care how it looks. Like just give me something comfortable. So I think that's probably the biggest fear that I think we overcome pretty well because we have it in the forefront of our minds all the time. We're always thinking about that when we're building product and building marketing and all that. But that would probably be the biggest fear, is that we age out because we're in such a sweet spot for that guy right now. That's like, if we can stay in that lane, a billion's coming.

[A]

And how are you like overcoming that Fear, like, how are you staying so relevant to the youth?

[B]

Well, I think one bringing in more creative people that, you know, have a better perspective in both marketing, in product, on youth. Right. So it's bringing the right people in. I think it's Reggie Bush.

[A]

That line was like, you know, hit the youth.

[B]

Killed it. Yeah. And, you know, in bringing in, doing that, like finding the right ambassadors that really represent the brand the right way, we've got, you know, if you think about retail, 56 retail stores, we've got an extremely useful staff there. And just in general, the Travis Matthew team is very young. So, you know, we do a lot of company surveys and things like that. We do a lot of market research. So it's just a topic that's forever on mine. And the one thing we do obsessively too is we shop. We shop like crazy and we're always looking for what's in the market. And again, it's not, you know, Ryan shopping, like I shop a lot. We've got a team of, you know, now we've got, you know, 25 designers and, you know, between PLM and merch, you know, 15 merchandisers. And then so we got a really robust team that all are out there bringing and presenting new ideas. So that's the key is like as much as we have a formula on what works is allowing the ideas to flow free and then the team collectively agreeing which ideas work.

[A]

Now, having been running the company since what, 26 now you're 43. That's 17 years.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

What do you think the biggest hurdle is that you've overcome in that timeframe?

[B]

The biggest hurdle was for sure the start. You know, we were, it's an interesting story. We probably like a year in and it was just Joey, our designer and myself. And you know what's, what was tricky is we had Travis Brasher, who was working at Seacliffe Country Club as a pro because we couldn't afford him yet. He was kind of running financials. But it was, you know, ship without a captain, because I wasn't the captain. I was busy trying to get orders. I was getting orders, putting them in the system, shipping them. There was no, like one year, two year planning. What are we gonna do? Where are we gonna go? I'm just like, I gotta sell more stuff. Right. We got to make more product. And so our investor was very wishy washy on the brand at the time, as he should be. He's investing his money and we were doing, I think half a million halfway through our second year. And Travis Was a little unsure about me and about where this is going. He didn't work inside with me. So we didn't have a relationship at the time. We ended up developing an incredible relationship. And so I think our investor was very close to saying this was fun. Got to make golf clothing for a year. I don't want to put any more money in this. And I was getting that sentiment because I could feel it through Travis of like this is not going well. And I kept telling Travis you've got one salesperson me. We had a wholesale business. We didn't even have E Commerce at the time to go do half a million. The average order is like $2,500. You know how many doors I've had to kick down to do that's great success. And I'm showing of sell through stories. It's actually selling too. It's not just me. You guys made a product that I've cut up and chopped and sold to a customer. That's actually we've got something here. It's not perfect. Our neighbors or excuse me our investor's next door neighbor comes to his house head to toe. Travis Matthew has no idea he's the founder of Travis Matthew. Knocks on his door. Yeah whatever. Whatever his name. What's going on? I wanted to tell you I just got this outfit from Travis Matthew. This is the best golf brand ever. Again we were pretty much golf at the time. I love and just rants and raves and it's just the stroke of luck in life that that happens. And then he comes in. I don't know if it's a day. The story's better if it's a day. But a day or a month or you know two months later and is. And since Joey and I down is like gave us some additional ownership. Said he appreciate what we're doing. He's like we're going cut a million dollar check. And that was it. But I promise you that it was teetering. It could have easily. The neighbor comes over and says that stuff sucks. I don't know what happens. But it is funny little things like that where probably the outside person's thinking really one guy. But that's kind of what it takes. Like how random is that that your neighbor comes over and tells you how great something is. Has no idea you're involved. Like you're onto something dude. Like it's this is. This is a real thing. Like we just gotta invest more in it. And then I immediately you know with that money hired sales teams and then it. You Know, started going. So that would be, we've been lucky. I mean that in the pandemic, if you take those out, you know, I wouldn't have said at year two there's going to be a billion dollar company or even $100 million company. But like we've, we've had slow and steady success and we haven't pushed too hard. And so we've just, we had, I think we had an eight or nine year streak. We grew between 30 and 50% every year. So just a model of consistency and not pushing too hard. I give Travis all the credit for that. He was a little bit more of a stop sign guy and I'm like, green light, let's go. Like I want to grow, grow, grow, grow. And he, he did a great job of slowing us down in times we could have done a lot more to grow at the appropriate speed.

[A]

When were those times you could have grown a lot more?

[B]

You know, probably 14 to 19, you know, somewhere in that range. 2014, 2019. The brand was super hot and we could have gone harder on retail and we should have. But when it's your money, retail is so scary. It's a, you know, could be up to a million dollars for a build out. You know, you, you hope for three year payback. That's just pay back in a, you know, single investor company that doesn't have all the money in the world. That's, it's a scary proposition. So it probably should. I look for outside funding to grow retail. We could have grown a lot faster and could have gotten probably a lot bigger evaluation when we sold and then, yeah, I just, you know, opportunity to hire quicker. We had an independent rep model that Travis and I like had a really good three day session and we realized we need higher company reps. The independent model isn't working for us. Well, they're expensive and you pay, you have to pay for their sample lines, you have to pay for their travel. So we did it very slowly. Like we started one in SoCal and it worked really well. So like a year later we hired three more and then eventually we got to, you know, now we have 35 company reps. But you can imagine that process was meticulous versus hey, let's go do we. Everything was built on ROI in the company, you know, up until really until probably I took over. And we still for the most part do that. But it's like if we can't showcase getting our money back and getting back quickly, we're not going to do it. So that was so it wasn't just Travis put stop signs. I think he was speaking for the investor of like. And I think it was appropriate. Again, even Travis, I don't think in 2017 would be like, this is gonna be a $400 million brand. Like, I think we all had sites on, could we get it to a million, 100 million. Right. Like, that was what our site was on. So, you know, I'm not a look back guy and go, man, I wish we could have done this different. Here we are today. Right.

[A]

So now you're on track to do a billion. But, you know, now the brand has more global recognition. Obviously a Nash. It's a huge national brand. If you surveyed people and just you walked down the street. Have you heard of Travis Matthews? One out of every two does. I've been doing it.

[B]

That's great. That's great. You know how much opportunity is out there. If we have 50% of people, we still got to hit. Well, 50% don't though.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

A lot of growth there.

[A]

But the fact that that many do, I feel like now's your opportunity to really, like, grow because now you can really dominate the market. You know, it's like if you were doing that kind of trajectory for the last couple years, like it's. It's go mode now more than ever.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, I would argue the Northeast is still a little bit of a challenging spot in terms of brand awareness. You know, a little less there.

[A]

There's no golf.

[B]

Nowhere to golf there in the Northeast. They've got every private club you can ever imagine, but they're private.

[A]

But it's not like as big as the weather is.

[B]

Not like it's seasonal. Yeah, for sure. But no, but it's, it's. Golf is big out there and there's a lot of opportunity. And naturally, being a west coast brand that doesn't make it to the Northeast much. Like it's coming and it's slowly getting there. But I 100% agree with you. The analogy I always use or not an analogy, but I always say, if I knocked on a hundred doors of our guy's house and there's a man in our range, right. Which is. I call it 18 to 80, he would look good in Travis. Matthew.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, there's very few houses that you would say, no, I think we hit them all. So what does that mean? That means like there's beyond. I mean, you look at what Lululemon does in men's, and no disrespect to Lulu, I think they do a Fantastic job. But our men's line is far superior to Lululemon's. Men's. They have the reach of her, and so that's propelling our men's business, because guess what's happening? She's buying for him. She's going home. And then he's. Because I see him, he comes to my office and he goes, oh, my wife bought me these Lululemon pants. Look, they have stretch. And I'm like, you've known about our brand for 17 years. We, like, invented making pants with stretch. And you just learn this right now. But there's a lot of guys that aren't savvy out there. And, you know, that's why, you know, women's is equally exciting. I think we've. We've put such a good foot forward with the women's line, and it's her line and it's her own. But I do believe she's going to shop for him in interest to a lot of customers that just. That man is maybe not going to a retail store and he's not, you know, getting served an ad and going and shopping on your website.

[A]

That's where you guys need Ambassadors is women's lines. You know, big, big, like. And it should be like. And I'm seeing for me, you know, as a creator now, like, you should get like a famous Tiktoker female.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, like.

[B]

Yeah, well, we. We have Molly Sims, Charlie D'Amelio or.

[A]

Something to rock it.

[B]

Yeah. Well, the one thing you learn about women's is because they move the needle. They are expensive. So the. And honestly, some of the. In with us on the men's side with Ambassadors, a lot of the men we get, like Chris Pratt, they love to golf. And so they're so into golf, and they think our brand is the coolest brand in golf. And then they see it translates out and it's like, how do we just. I'm already wearing it every day. How do we just make something official here? Because I'm going to promote it whether you give me something or not. And we've had really cool, organic relationships. Little different on the women's side. Right. So we're figuring that nuance out. And again, thinking some women golf. They do. No, they do. And we went out. We went pretty hard after a female golfer who won five times, I think at least five times this year, who's fantastic. And we were close, but, you know, unfortunately didn't get that done. But we're going to continue to look and absolutely. I think you know, we're doing the micro influencer strategy. We have a heavy influencer strategy that's absolutely, you know, women are following that and we're listening. I mean, that's the big thing with women's is I have a whole entire women's team and it's 95% women. And so that's the exciting thing about women's too. It's me letting go a little bit. Like, I'm letting them create and be creative and really listen to her and not have me jump in and go, I think we know what we should do with her. Right? Like, I have, you know, some impact on that team, but in general, that team's running it and it's a female driven team, so they understand that customer really well.

[A]

That's awesome. Now, I got a couple last questions for you. The first one is a personal question, but it's a three pronged question.

[B]

Whoa.

[A]

Okay. It's about goals. What's a personal goal that you have for yourself? A business goal that you have for Travis, Matthew, and a family goal that you have for the family.

[B]

And the personal goal can't be family. I mean, my personal goal is to try to make. It's funny because I'm contradicting myself, but my personal goal is definitely to try to make more time for more people outside of my family and outside of work. I think it's even my greater family I would put in that mix. Like, not my immediate family. My wife and kids, they see plenty of me. They're sick of me. But yeah, I think a goal for me is to really, like, probably sit back at some point in the next few months and really write down, like, who are the people? I want to make sure I get those consistent touch bases with who are the people? I want to make sure we're having a dinner here or there. And then I keep close contact rather than just. If I get a text from him, I reply back to him, right? What are the important relationships in my life that I really want to keep? So that would be the personal goal, the business goal? We already said a billion, so I'm not going to say a billion. I think the business goal would be, I'd like to grow four or five directors at our company to vp. I think that's a huge jump. It really takes you from a really strong position to write your ticket position wherever you want to go. And so I don't think we've done a good enough job doing that. We've hired externally most of our VPs, and we've had, you know, there's, I think three or four of us that have been promoted internally, but that's happened, you know, three, four years ago. So, yeah, I'd really like to elevate and really support three or four of our current directors at some point to get to VP level because it's just such a meaningful position. But, you know, we've got a million business goals, so that's one of many. And then what was the last one? Family goal.

[A]

Yeah, family goal.

[B]

I haven't thought about that one. Again, probably, like, businesses. I probably got like 50. To narrow it down to one family goal would be. Would be tricky, I think. You know, it's not really a goal, but just consistency, I think is critical with family is just. As my kids are getting older now, they have friends, right. And it's a different world of, like, I think we're letting them kind of go where they want, when they want. And I think we need to create a little more consistency as a family of, like, hey, like, here's. I hate the, like, family time. Cause, like, my dad did that and it was always annoying and I didn't like it. Cause it's like, if you say, hey, on Sunday, we're all hanging out as a family. But I do think there's a little bit of that that has validity to say, hey, hey, we're going to be busy all summer, but here's the things we want to do together and make sure that we get that appropriate time together. Because I think as the kids get older, it gets a little trickier. Two years ago, they just wanted to hang on my side, and we did everything together. And now it's like, I'm trying to give them their space to do their things, but we need that time to bond together. These are really important years from, you know, 11 years old to 17 years old. This is kind of molds them into who they're going to be.

[A]

Awesome. My last question, and I ask everybody this question. When you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you?

[B]

Settle down. You can relax now. It's okay. Like, everything's going to be fine. Like, you can slow it down, like, two notches up here. We're not moving at that pace.

[A]

That's awesome. I love high performers. You know, they're just like, go mode. God bless you, man. It was awesome to have you on the show. I appreciate what you're doing with Travis Matthew. I appreciate the relationship we have. It's been awesome. I love coming here and getting the Travis Matthew discounts at headquarters.

[B]

It's just like, don't tell everyone.

[A]

That's only for exclusive people.

[B]

Vvips only.

[A]

Yeah. Know the CEO of Travis Matthew directly, so it's not open to the public.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

All right. Thanks, bro.

[B]

All right. Thank you. That was great. Appreciate it.

[A]

Travis Matthew CEO Ryan Nelson. If anyone wants to get in touch with you for any reason. Is there a way to get in touch with you on social?

[B]

No, there's not. I'm proud. I'm private. You know, you're a CEO of company. You keep it private.

[A]

All right.

[B]

I don't want to get in trouble.

[A]

All right. Thank you so much.

[B]

All right. Thank you.