Reebok’s Billionaire Founder Goes All In on AI - Joe Foster

Summary

Proven Podcast: Reebok’s Billionaire Founder Goes All In on AI - Joe Foster Release Date: July 30, 2025

Hosts: Charles Schwartz, Joe Foster, and Ben (Founder of Scintillay)

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1. Introduction to Speakers

Charles Schwartz welcomes listeners to the Proven Podcast, emphasizing a focus on verifiable facts over opinions. In this episode, he introduces Joe Foster, the billionaire founder of Reebok, and Ben, the founder of Scintillay—a cutting-edge shoe brand leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) for design and customization.

2. Joe Foster’s Background and Reebok History

Joe Foster shares his journey, beginning with his departure from the family business, J.W. Foster and Sons, in 1958. He explains how he and his brother Jeff sought to innovate in the sports footwear industry amidst growing competition from brands like Adidas.

Notable Quote:

Joe Foster [01:17]: “In order to become an author, you've got to be able to have a story. And that story was Reebok.”

3. Evolution of the Sports Footwear Market

Joe highlights the dramatic growth in demand for sports footwear over the past 80 years, transforming from small local sports stores to large global distributors. This shift has led to increased volumes and reduced the number of individual store owners.

Notable Quote:

Joe Foster [02:23]: “The customer base for sports footwear has grown tremendously... Even street footwear has been taken over by sports-driven sneakers.”

4. Strategies for Scaling Reebok

Charles inquires about the strategies Joe employed to scale Reebok from a small operation to a global powerhouse. Joe discusses identifying "white space"—niche markets underserved by major players—and leveraging this to drive growth.

Notable Quote:

Joe Foster [06:00]: “We had to find white space—areas that Adidas weren’t covering... This was our first time having to think on our feet.”

5. Challenges Entering the US Market

Joe recounts his attempts to penetrate the American market, detailing multiple failed partnerships and the complexities of establishing distribution channels in a new territory. These efforts spanned over a decade, illustrating the persistence required in global expansion.

Notable Quote:

Joe Foster [23:01]: “It took me 11 years, six failed attempts, and six different partners to finally find a foothold in the US market.”

6. Embracing AI: Reinventing the Shoe Industry

Shifting focus to the present, Joe and Ben discuss their venture into AI-driven shoe design. Unlike traditional methods, their approach integrates AI for creating unique designs, 3D printing for rapid prototyping, and foot scanning for customization.

Notable Quote:

Charles Schwartz [25:02]: “Most people have run away from AI, but you’ve done the opposite by teaming up with Ben to embrace it.”

7. The Explorer Slide: First AI-Designed Slide

Ben introduces the Explorer Slide, the first commercially available slide designed entirely by AI. He explains how the shoe incorporates 3D printing and customized fitting to deliver a unique consumer experience.

Notable Quote:

Ben [38:18]: “This is the first AI-designed, commercially available slide shoe you can get.”

8. The AI Design and 3D Printing Process

Ben delves into the technical aspects of their design process. Using tools like MidJourney and ChatGPT for image generation, they create detailed 2D concepts which are then transformed into 3D models. The shoes are printed layer by layer, ensuring durability and precise customization based on individual foot scans.

Notable Quote:

Ben [44:14]: “We generate 3D models from sketches using AI, significantly shortening the development process.”

9. Overcoming Current Challenges and Scaling AI Footwear

Joe and Ben address the current limitations of 3D printing, particularly the slow production speed. They discuss ongoing efforts to improve manufacturing efficiency and reduce costs to achieve scalability comparable to traditional footwear production.

Notable Quote:

Joe Foster [46:27]: “30 hours to print a shoe is a challenge, but it's temporary as technology advances.”

10. The Vision for the Future of AI in Footwear

Ben outlines their long-term vision to become the premier content creator shoe brand. By empowering influencers and content creators with AI-driven tools, they aim to revolutionize how shoes are designed and marketed, fostering a new wave of personalized footwear.

Notable Quote:

Ben [31:10]: “We want to become the content creator shoe brand, allowing creators to express themselves uniquely through AI-designed footwear.”

11. Lessons Learned and Advice for Entrepreneurs

Throughout the conversation, both Joe and Ben emphasize the importance of integrity, perseverance, and maintaining a fun, enjoyable approach to business. They share insights on navigating challenges, adapting to market shifts, and leveraging technology to stay ahead.

Notable Quote:

Ben [55:21]: “Never give up. Relentlessly pursue your vision while enjoying the journey.”

12. Concluding Insights

As the episode wraps up, Joe reflects on the balance between scaling a business and maintaining personal fulfillment. He underscores the significance of building a strong brand grounded in integrity and innovation.

Notable Quote:

Joe Foster [62:34]: “Integrity is crucial. If you believe in what you're doing, you remain honest and adaptable, even when facing setbacks.”

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Final Thoughts This episode of the Proven Podcast offers a deep dive into the evolution of Reebok under Joe Foster and the innovative strides being made by Scintillay in the AI-driven footwear space. Listeners gain valuable insights into scaling a global brand, harnessing emerging technologies, and the enduring importance of integrity and fun in business.

Notable Closing Quote:

Charles Schwartz [64:52]: “We proved a ton of things on this episode. Go prove it yourself.”

For more inspiring stories and proven strategies, visit theprovenpodcast.com.

Transcript

[Charles Schwartz]

Welcome to the Proven podcast, where it's not about what you think, only what you can prove. Reebok's billionaire founder, Joe Foster built a global empire, and at 90 years old, he's doing it again by using AI to reinvent the entire shoe industry. The show starts now. Welcome back. I'm excited for you guys to be here. Thank you, Joe and Ben, thank you guys for showing up.

[Joe Foster]

Thanks for having us.

[Charles Schwartz]

Absolutely.

[Joe Foster]

Pleasure. Yes.

[Charles Schwartz]

So for the interesting. Hopefully when we've got a lot of things to talk about and things I don't fully know about yet, but we'll get to that. Okay, so for the few people who don't know who you guys are, we'll start with you, Ben. Who are you?

[Ben]

So I'm the founder of Scintillay, which is a brand that enables content creators to get their own shoes like athletes. So we've innovatively created a shoe designed by AI. The majority of it is designed by AI and automated. And that became a breakthrough product, which was featured on the front page of USA Today and in the Economic Times and Fox Business and Bloomberg and a lot of other places, because we've changed the way the footwear is being made, and now it takes three months to make a new shoe. So I'm leading this brand with an amazing advisor, the founder of Reebok, Joe Foster.

[Charles Schwartz]

So he kind of stole some of your. Your thunder there, Joe. He literally took it away. Sorry, Joe. Okay, if you didn't know. Hi, Joe. Who are you?

[Joe Foster]

I'm Joe Foster. I'm an author.

[Charles Schwartz]

Gotcha. That works. You've done a couple things beforehand, though, so we probably should talk about those.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah, well, before, in order to get to become an author, you've got to be able to have a story.

[Julie]

Right?

[Joe Foster]

And so that story was Reebok.

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

And it started back in 1958 for me when we left the parent company, our parent company, J, with Foster and Sons. They had an amazing business, but in those days, 1958, you didn't have that many customers. Since then, the customer base for sports footwear has grown tremendously. And so that has helped not only Reebok, me and Nike and everyone else, it's helped them all, and it's still growing.

[Julie]

Right.

[Charles Schwartz]

You mentioned earlier, before we even started recording, that the market's changed. The things are so radically different, and there's a lot of people who are trying to scale and they're trying to look for proven strategies, things that kind of get them to the next step. And you also mentioned that if people want to Know the details and the story of how you got here initially. There's an amazing book, but let's talk about strategies and tactics there. We live in a different world now. What are the, some of the things that you proved as you went through this in the beginning that gave you radical success when you founded and grew Reebok that are still applicable to today?

[Joe Foster]

I, I think with, with sport, what has happened is over the last, we could say 80 years, since World War II, it's been a while the demand for sport has grown and grown and continued to grow as we become overtaken by automation and now by AI and by robotics. People want to do things, males in particular want to do things. So playing sport has started to grow tremendously. Therefore, what has changed is the demand for the products is now incredibly so much bigger than when we started our business. In fact, it's exploded. I think it's probably maybe the biggest retail now out on any high street or even malls. Even the biggest retail is now sports driven, right? You know, even street footwear now, what used to be nice leather shoes and you saw all these shoe shops, now you don't see them because street has now been taken over by what is sports driven Sneakers, right? It's all sneakers now. So what has changed? What has changed is now instead of these small sports stores that used to sell everything from games to shoes to tennis rackets, now the stores are really footwear stores. They do do the odd bits and pieces as well. They do clothing, but they're all driven now by sport. But instead of them being three separate individual ex sportsmen, have it open in a small store in a town. Now it's business. And this business is driven now by the quantities, the volumes that, that are in demand, right? And so we get fewer owners of sports stores. And now we've got some rather large, probably five, six really big distributors now who have many, many stores throughout, not just the country where I came from, uk, but globally, right? And so this global. So that's what changed. So the, the retail side has changed globally. And I used to go to America to the NSGA show and the NSGA show, hundreds, maybe thousands of people would turn up because they owned a small sports store. Those people don't exist anymore. So neither do the shows. There's only five or six really top buyers. And so now the brands go to the buyers. So that has changed around. So here we have a different scene altogether. And if you think about that, it means that we didn't have such a struggle. We never had a Recession ever. Recessions. Most industries go through a recession. We never did. Purely in central bank. As a sports industry just continues to grow and take over the retail scene. So that's the biggest change, I think.

[Charles Schwartz]

So when that type of business changes and you have what used to be a sea of competition now being swallowed up by some pretty big sharks, how do you. When you're running a business and you're scaling it, because what you did at Reebok was just. You create a new industry. There was just everything with aerobics and all of that. What are some of the strategies and some of the things that you did to manage that growth and to. To manage the team underneath your command?

[Joe Foster]

Well, I think first of all, we had to find out where do we go? Because when, when Jeff and I, we've. We. We left the foster business. The foster business was going nowhere. It was failing.

[Charles Schwartz]

I was going to ask you why you left your family business. I was like, what happened?

[Joe Foster]

Well, my father and uncle inherited it from my grandfather, right. And they just continued to make the same product they were making in the 1930s. But unfortunately, my father and uncle just did not get on together. They were at war with each other. So you're running a company, 50% ownership each. And they were fighting all the way. It was okay. Grandfather died at 53. Grandmother sort of was the one that took up, and that was okay. Kept the sons working fine. When grandmother died, that was it.

[Julie]

It's over.

[Joe Foster]

The company was over. Jeff and I, we were in our teens. We did national service just after World War II. National Service. And, you know, you learn a lot more when you leave home and you're doing things on your own. You learn how to look after yourself. You see life a bit differently. And so we come back from that period, and when we arrived back, we arrived back to a failing company. So that was a failing company. So we left. What did we do? Did we do the same product? Yes, to an extent, but we wanted to find something different. By the time we left in the late 50s, Adidas had come across from Germany and they were taking the UK market. To get into soccer would have cost a lot of money. And of course, we just left the family company. They were not going to back us, so we were bootstrapping as the college of their bootstrapping. We had no money, so we had to look for what eventually we call white space. So this was our first, I could say, time where we had to think about, think on our feet. What do we do? White space was things that Adidas Weren't in that. Our parents went into cycling, first of all, and cycling was okay until we. That in itself is a story. Get into that. Yeah, yeah. Cycling was great. My brother Jeff, he was a cyclist.

[Julie]

Gotcha.

[Joe Foster]

And he used to go out every weekend and he'd do races. 100 miles or whatever it is, they do these races. And so we. We advertise our product in. In Cycling magazine. That's fine. And a guy down in London picked it up and said, can I be your agent down here? Well, wow. Yes. Why not? Yeah, be an agent. So we picked up and orders came to us. It was incredible. We had to start employing people because it started fantastic. We had another. Another salesman. It was a young guy who was also a good cyclist. And in his training, he used to put a bag on his back, put some samples in there, and he'd call on all the local cycle shops. So he was doing all right. But that was nothing like the guy down in London.

[Julie]

Gotcha.

[Joe Foster]

Then one day, they all just stopped coming in. And of course, we did have telephones, but we didn't have smartphones. We didn't have anything like that. You'd have to sort of have a landline if you were lucky. We heard nothing from the guy. It was about two weeks had gone by, and we got a letter from his landlady because he lived in London, but he was a Scotsman. He lived in London. His landlady said, do you owe Mr. Taylor? Do you owe Mr. Taylor any money? Because two weeks ago, I was killed in a car crash.

[Charles Schwartz]

All right, that changed the ball game. So you guys. Yeah, you pivoted out. You started with the idea of a niche, which was you couldn't do this because your family was going to do anything, so you had to bootstrap it. You know, your brother Jeff fell into cycling because he knew it. So how did you choose the niche that you chose? How did you dig into that one and why did it work? How does someone identify a niche that can convert?

[Joe Foster]

Well, I think we identified niche because Jeff was a cyclist and therefore he knew cyclists. He was part of a club, many clubs, and he knew what worked. So that worked for us. We were not, if you like, we were sort of in. We had a foot in each, say, business or space. One was in sport and the other was in footwear.

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

You know, you make footwear. Everybody makes footwork the same way. But we were in sport a lot. We. Jeff not only was a cycle, so he was also an athlete. He was a runner, just like my grandfather. Had been in his day, but he was a runner, so he was in the local club, the Bury and Bolton, Berry, Radcliffe areas and things like that. So we knew the clubs. So we started to slowly move into athletics as well.

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

Okay. Now we came to the point, right? We're doing pretty well. I should get in a car. This is what Fosters hadn't done. They don't have any representatives out there. No big calls on the stores. So I thought, okay, time to get the car out. Which wasn't a very good one, but it worked. All right. I go around and call these sports stores. So I go in because the guy, the very nice guys, said, who are you? And Reebok. Who's Reebok?

[Charles Schwartz]

What is Reebok?

[Joe Foster]

Yeah, well, yeah, there's the pro. Oh, nice products. Yeah, nice products. I said, but look, I've. I've got Adidas and I've got Dunlop. Why do I need Reebok?

[Charles Schwartz]

So how do you. How do you counter that? When someone doesn't know who you are and you have to break through that market, what was your way that you counteract that?

[Joe Foster]

Well, I mean, I knew the product probably better than any of the other salesmen going around selling. Whether they're selling. I knew product. I knew. So I can talk about the product. But I did realize after four or five times being told the same thing, like, who is Reebok and why do I need Reebok? Why do I need. He didn't need Reebok. The penny drops. He didn't need Reebok.

[Julie]

Gotcha.

[Joe Foster]

I had to do something else. So what do we do? Okay, we can go around to events and start selling at events. So we start selling at events. That's great. However, we're talking about athletics, and most of these. Most athletes are part of a club. And in the UK it's called the 3A's. The Amateur Athletic association in those days, they. They were the clubs and about 400 clubs in the UK. But the big thing was, is that the three A's produced a handbook with the name and address of the secretary of every club in the country.

[Julie]

That helps.

[Joe Foster]

Doesn't take much to think. No. Write a letter. That was.

[Charles Schwartz]

That makes sense.

[Joe Foster]

So I wrote a letter offering 15 off if somebody in the club wanted to be an agent. Okay, I got 100 agents.

[Charles Schwartz]

First letter. A lot easier.

[Joe Foster]

That. That was good. I got 100 agents.

[Charles Schwartz]

Did you. Did you offer them some sort of reward or some sort.

[Joe Foster]

It was 15. Oh, geez.

[Charles Schwartz]

Okay, so you just multiplied your. And were you Paying them a base salary or.

[Joe Foster]

No, no.

[Julie]

Okay.

[Joe Foster]

Just 15.

[Charles Schwartz]

So you went to their watering hole, found them, and then told them you were gonna give money if they sold.

[Joe Foster]

That's right.

[Charles Schwartz]

That was not that hard.

[Joe Foster]

You know, I mean, everybody was there. I mean, they're part of a club, so they didn't have to go and find the people. They just had to chat and say, look at this. This is Reebok and whatever. Whatever. So I. I think after I had two, 300 agents, and that was. That was pretty cool. Yeah. But what that gave us, that gave us an identity. People knew us. Reebok were part of the running scene. And we. We also advertised in, we'll say the bible of. Of running in the uk, which was Athletics Wheatley. Athletics Wheatley. Bit like runners world started up. But yeah, what they did is they advertised where the next races were, who had won the races, and they went down the field. So even if you came in 60th or 70th, your name was in right in that race. So we were well into the, say, the spirit, the whole scene of athletics. And we started up on athletics and then we were thinking, well, as I mentioned, we were looking for white space. And white space was in athletics was cross country. It was fell running, it was orienteering, all these areas. Plus we had a rugby in the north of England called Rugby league was just in the north of England. So we owned all those clubs. Again, in the north of England. We were in the north of England. I could drive around to these guys and I could do my business. So we were doing pretty well.

[Charles Schwartz]

How long did you stay in the field as sales or before you changed over to operations or scaling.

[Joe Foster]

Well, let's put it this way. Jeff and myself, we understood what had gone wrong with JW Fosters because my father and uncle didn't speak.

[Charles Schwartz]

Okay, so tell me about that. How did you had your. Okay, so you had this in your blood. Shoes are in your blood.

[Joe Foster]

Yes.

[Charles Schwartz]

But you had the. Up the chain. They were fighting with each other. What was breaking them there? We're not picking on them, we're being nice to them. But what was acting up that was causing the issues that you and Jeff were like, we're not doing that.

[Joe Foster]

What?

[Charles Schwartz]

We're like, absolutely no.

[Joe Foster]

We have no idea. We never had any idea why they didn't speak. There was five years difference in age. But why do we not working with each other? The fact that my uncle really died of alcoholism may have been one of.

[Charles Schwartz]

The reasons that'll help.

[Joe Foster]

May have been one of the reasons. So plus, you know, they'd gone through two world wars with my grandfather, went through 14, 18 war. And then they themselves running a business. Who wanted running shoes during 39 to 45. So they had to change and they had to repair army boots. That was part of the life with repairing armor boots and inventing different ideas. They started making sandals because if you get all of a bit of some leather, that was fine. Have you heard of the black market? I have, I guess. Well, it was born in. In. During the war.

[Charles Schwartz]

Is that where it comes from, the name?

[Joe Foster]

Yeah.

[Charles Schwartz]

So what is it like? I know where red tape comes from here in the United States.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah.

[Charles Schwartz]

Where does the. The root of black market?

[Joe Foster]

Well, black market comes from rationing.

[Charles Schwartz]

Gotcha.

[Joe Foster]

Because everything was Russian, whether it was food.

[Charles Schwartz]

Do you know why it was called black market?

[Joe Foster]

Well, because it was under. It was under the counter. It was like, you see, because if somebody wanted a pur. Shoes and we. They managed to get some leather and they managed to make sandals and to sell those sandals, they got coupons.

[Charles Schwartz]

That makes sense.

[Joe Foster]

So the coupons became the black market. So if father came home with a chicken on one occasion, it was a deal was done.

[Charles Schwartz]

So it's funny, because red tape. You know the term red tape here in the United States?

[Joe Foster]

Yeah, yeah, red tape.

[Charles Schwartz]

So during the war that everyone had to get benefits after that and they had to go to D.C. to get their benefits. And they're all. There are stacks of all this information. And the people had to go get off the table, walk over and get these piles of information, these papers. And those piles of papers were wrapped with red tape. There you go. So that's how it works. So when you saw the. That was going on above you and you and your brother came together and said, okay, we're going to do this differently.

[Joe Foster]

We're going to do this.

[Charles Schwartz]

What were the things you're like these. The absolute. Other than finding white space, what were the things like, these are the things we're going to do differently.

[Joe Foster]

Well, I don't think it was that difficult to work this one out.

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

I was the one that was, as a kid, most cheeky questions. I was the one that challenged my father and said, we've got to change. And all my father said is, look, Joe, when I've gone and your uncle's gone, this company's yours. Do what you like with it.

[Charles Schwartz]

But until then.

[Joe Foster]

But until then. And I said, well, look at that. Number one, we're not looking for you to go.

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

That's not the Idea. But this company will be gone long before you're gone. So I was the one that was taking on the pushing, this one. In fact, I got accused when we left that I. I took Jeff away from the business.

[Charles Schwartz]

Did that create issues in the family as well?

[Joe Foster]

It did create an issue to begin with because my brother still lived at home. I had just got married. Even though you ripped your brother away.

[Charles Schwartz]

Why you guys were living. You were cheeky.

[Joe Foster]

Okay, all right, that's it. So I got accused of that. So. But my brother's still living it on because they sort of seem to excuse him that I was the one that was doing all this.

[Charles Schwartz]

Did they blame the Mrs. At that point?

[Joe Foster]

Blame?

[Charles Schwartz]

You're the Mrs. When you got married, did they say it was her influence or not?

[Joe Foster]

No, no, not really. No. Because I guess it was. She went along with. Was like, what are you doing?

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

We weren't earning a great deal of money. I think ten pound, five shilling and six months, I believe, a week those days, which, no, no money. But that's. That's mid 20th century. That was a reasonable wage. So to leave, that meant there was no money. We had to earn every penny.

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

So she was on team a bit.

[Charles Schwartz]

A bit.

[Joe Foster]

A bit.

[Charles Schwartz]

For a little bit. So when you guys started growing and I understand how you found your. Again, we call them niches, but the white space, and you penetrate in that market and then you. You weaponize an entire salesforce very, very quickly by being where they were. When you start the scaling and things are taking off, it changes the ball game because you were no longer a tiny little shop and you were becoming an international brand. What were some of the things that, like, I wish I could have told myself in the beginning, when it comes to operations, to scaling, to fulfillment, to acquisition, you're like, I wish I would learn these very specific skills.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah. Let's just finish the other question. And that is what happened when we left the company, we came to a decision. Jeff said, look, I'll look after the factory. You do everything else.

[Charles Schwartz]

So you divide.

[Joe Foster]

So that was it. I was doing everything else. He went to the factory. I even do designing and whatever. So I was doing everything else. So that's how we didn't fall out. And I must have made a lot of mistakes, and I know quite a few things, but we never fell out. He never said, joe, what do you do when you done this, this, this and this? And so when you say, well, you know, when you're small, you do everything you needed. And I actually bought A printing press, small one, and printed our own. Our own leaflets, our own, anything we needed, whatever it was, I. I did that as well as doing whatever and figuring out how do we get the customers. And that was, let's say again, the agents. And so it didn't really require a lot of money that a lot of people.

[Julie]

Gotcha.

[Joe Foster]

It just the people, they were all independent and that was bringing the people. It was then when we got to this certain size and yeah, we did. We didn't. We employed more people. Manufacturing, that was Jeff's job. He had to employ people. I used to fall out with him about that.

[Julie]

Oh, why?

[Joe Foster]

Well, because every time I used to go there, he was on a machine. I'm saying, look, you're employing these guys. Well, he was useless, so I had.

[Charles Schwartz]

To try to do it myself.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah. So it was always. He was always.

[Ben]

I won't create problems.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah, why don't. Why don't you just concentrate on. But he would work whatever hours it needed to do everything that was design or development. He had to work after the development of the products, things like that. But that was okay. And I just had to just keep on thinking, what's next? What's next? So I was suggesting, like, okay, we need to do something. What do we do? Do we increase our offering of products? Do we go into. Do we go into soccer? No, that's going to cost a lot of money. Because by. In those days, they were starting to pay athletes and they were starting to pay footballers. We didn't have that sort of money. Or if we can't think of a different product, do we then expand our territory? Do we go into Europe? Do we start exporting? We were doing little bits of export. If you can imagine, the UK has a commonwealth, used to be an empire Commonwealth. And so that was always connected. So we were doing a bit of export into Canada and in fact, there's a story in there of exporting to Canada and we're doing Australia and bits of things like India, you know, a little bit in. Into Europe, but not much. So my suggestion was, well, you know, you've got 28 different countries and languages and cultures in Europe and that's going to be difficult. Oh, plus also that's where Adidas and Puma. Difficult to get into there. Why don't we go to America? Horror. I can't do that. How can we fall to go to America? That's. Yeah, airplanes, right. However, there's a magazine called Eurosport and fortunately for us, and yeah, look, is the biggest thing that we Had.

[Charles Schwartz]

Well, I also think you kind of made your own luck. You were smart enough to say, I'm gonna go in these. These magazines and go to where these people are and have them sell it. And they already have the trust and everything else. So I think there's a little bit of skill there, too.

[Joe Foster]

Well, there's a little bit of let's try this and let's try that.

[Charles Schwartz]

Yeah, that. That definitely happens as an entrepreneur. Let's see.

[Joe Foster]

So you're a sport magazine in this. The British government were advertising, we want the sports trade to export, and we'd like you to export to America. Wow. And they would pay for our airfare to go to the NSGA show, National Sporting Goods of America in Chicago. We'll pay for your airfare return. We'll pay for a stand there, and we'll pay half a grid. Hotel Bellwell's rent there.

[Julie]

That's pretty good.

[Joe Foster]

That was it. I didn't get. No more objections.

[Charles Schwartz]

You're done. Okay, let's go.

[Joe Foster]

You're better off going.

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

1968 was my first trip. I didn't sell a shoe. Okay.

[Charles Schwartz]

Why do you think you were successful in the UK but just fell on your face in the us?

[Joe Foster]

Well, in the US a lot of people came to the stand and said, great, wonderful. Might love the shoes, what I got them from. And I'm saying London. And they're saying, London. Where's that?

[Julie]

No country.

[Charles Schwartz]

So lots of things have changed since then.

[Joe Foster]

Lots of things changed.

[Charles Schwartz]

Lots of things have changed.

[Joe Foster]

You say, well, from England. And he says, is that New England? Yeah.

[Charles Schwartz]

Okay.

[Joe Foster]

It's across the water. So the problem was we. We needed distribution. Okay. We haven't got. We ain't got a ton of money to set up our own distribution. So we needed distributors. And over the period of 11 years. Because I got in there in 1979, eventually, over that period, I had six failed attempts. I had six different people. Yeah, I will do it. We started up one of those guys I was with for three years, and we still failed. And into the market.

[Charles Schwartz]

Why do you think you were failing for that long?

[Joe Foster]

I think because the people that we were working with were probably businessmen trying to make it work. People who were not really into the athletics or. Or sporting industry. They were not known in the. Because if you go to Phil Knight and who did he go to? What was the. His. His partner was a head coach.

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

And because they were casted. Yeah, yeah. Because of that. Barman knew a lot of people, and so they were almost using the same tactics with they were going from the clubs to clubs almost, and it was a lot of mail order out of his garage sort of thing. So we didn't have that. And I think that's why it didn't work.

[Julie]

Right.

[Charles Schwartz]

Because back in the uk, you had the groups. You had the groups that were connected, and they already had their people they could sell to. So you could recreate that wheel over here.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah.

[Charles Schwartz]

You know, we've talked about a lot of innovations and that things have changed, you know, everything from factories to chains to phones to cell phones. And one of the things that's gotten really powerful is AI and that we're in this environment now where AI is changing the rules of business, and it's also obviously changing the rules of shoes. Most people have run away from that. They're just like, I'm not gonna do that. It's scary. You know, it's a big, scary monster. You, on the other hand, have done the opposite. You've teamed up with Ben to say, hey, we're gonna embrace AI and create shoes and do it in a different way. What have you seen so far? And then at some point, I'm gonna have to have you explain to me how this works. But what have you seen so far with what you guys are doing with AI shoes, how radically different it is?

[Joe Foster]

Well, I don't think it's too much that that has really caused the attention. What's caused the attention is, in a marketing sense, this is the first time, as far as media's concerned, that somebody has actually used AI to design, use 3D to print and use scanning your foot to get the right size. So it's created a different way of looking at. And that has caught the eye of media. Plus the fact that Ben is so good at making contacts.

[Charles Schwartz]

He is.

[Joe Foster]

And look, I've got a story here.

[Charles Schwartz]

Okay?

[Joe Foster]

And so he's so good at that. That has kept us busy ever since this notion came out and he printed the first pair of shoes. So, really, okay, what will come out of this, and I think a lot of people will take away from this, is that AI will help you in development because your designer will come up with an idea, or you'll look around and think you give a. And Ben can answer this better than I can, but AI will help designers. It won't take over from designers, but then it'll shorten the process with 3D printing to get a model you can look at in three dimensions, and then you can take it to traditional methods of manufacture that is going to be shortened and you can play around with that an awful lot that will happen in. In the industry. It probably already is happening.

[Julie]

Right.

[Charles Schwartz]

You talked about how things have radically changed and how, you know, before you even started recording, there was all these different vendors and all these different stores and all these different things. And then now you've seen it transition into just a very few stores. Do you see that same transition happening now that AI is involved, where it's just like you're just going to go print shoes on demand and based on who you connect with or it's got.

[Joe Foster]

To be very interesting because 3D printing as we know it is slow.

[Charles Schwartz]

Yes, it is.

[Joe Foster]

You do not get volume.

[Julie]

No.

[Joe Foster]

So when. If and when the machinery changes and you can get volume, that's going to be very interesting because I'll say, 10 years ago when Crocs came out, everybody said, in fact, we knew the guy became a CEO of that.

[Julie]

Oh, okay.

[Joe Foster]

And the advice was, oh, I'll just. Just try and build a bit and get rid of it. Because, you know, this is not sneak. These are not sneakers. This is not footwear now. Yeah. No. Crocs are everywhere.

[Julie]

Everywhere.

[Charles Schwartz]

It's a funny story about Crocs. There was a story. There was a movie. I don't know if you. It's. It was a dystopian future. And the set designer, the. There was like, we have to find the most hideous shoes that no one's ever heard of. We're going to get these. And they put Crocs on everyone. And by the time production was done, Cross had taken off. So this is interesting that. How things can change and you never know what's coming. You've been. You've done stuff and, you know, we've already talked, obviously, we've. We've been communicating about this and I should probably get closer to the mic, but you had me digitize my feet and you had that environment. Walk me through that process of development as you're going through. And, you know, I go out and I take pictures of my feet, which really wasn't pictures, just 3D images. So I don't have pictures on the Internet out there. So yay for that. But you're out there and they digitize it. Walk me through that process. How did you figure out that we need to customize it for each individual person?

[Ben]

Yeah. So there's a couple different pieces to what we're doing. One is the unique design component of AI and enabling people to express themselves differently through that. Another component is custom fit, and so you can make something Visually, that looks really exciting and different. But how do we actually use the benefits of this 3D printing technology to make something that feels different too? Just as much as it looks like it's the future, it needs to feel like the future. And so we're working with Zellerfeld, which is our factory partner in Germany. And this is also using another company called Volumental. And basically we take a photo of each foot like you went through. You put an 8 by 11 piece of paper next to each foot. We get 12 different data points, including your arch, height, length, width, insights into your instep. And with that data, just simply through a photo, like you did, and it's trained with AI to be able to understand the environment and that paper is your reference point. We can go and translate that over into a printing process and printing process for each individual foot. So each foot is individually scanned. Like that really matters because some people have a left foot that's longer or wider than the right foot.

[Charles Schwartz]

My stuff we're doing, which I didn't expect, you find that out close, but all of a sudden it was just a little bit off and I was like, something wrong with me? Am I broken? So after I sent this stuff over, I literally went and I checked everything to find out. I'm like, okay, is it normal to have different size feet? And I just called my relative who's a doctor and I was like, is it normal? I was like, yes, it's normal, relax. I'm like, okay, because I have my hypochondriac moments. I mean, something's wrong with me. Like, no, not that at least.

[Ben]

Well, it's a cool thing, Charles. Like you kind of start to realize this when you, when you do this. Most people don't even, they can go their whole lives, they don't even know they have different size feet. They're buying a pair of shoes, they're wondering why it doesn't always fit them correctly. But maybe they need. Now they actually can understand that they may have different size feet and may need different sizes. Well, here you don't have to worry about that. You order one size, you don't have to buy two different, you know, etc. Two different pairs. You can actually get something that fits you. And the fit experience is really good. When it's done correctly, it's, it's amazing. I mean it fits just like if it's like a glove, it's a great experience.

[Charles Schwartz]

So what walk me through the, the kind of like the long term vision of what you guys are trying to do this because you're backed by Joe, who is, you know, a visionary, and he changed the ball game and he absolutely did. And then you've got your, your ball game of what you're trying to do.

[Julie]

Yeah.

[Charles Schwartz]

What is. When you guys have come together to do this, you're leveraging an immense amount of experience and immense amount of success. You're leveraging AI as well, and the enthusiasm. What does that look like? What do you, what are the two of you trying to build here?

[Ben]

Well, the vision here is to basically become the content creator, shoe brand. Like right now, if you look at the world of footwear, right.

[Charles Schwartz]

What does that mean? Okay, I'm going to stop you there. What does that mean?

[Ben]

What's high level?

[Charles Schwartz]

Okay. Yeah.

[Ben]

So if you look at the website. So the world of footwear today has been very much driven by signature endorsements and athlete endorsements. I think one of the biggest turning points in the, in the industry has been the Jordan deal, right? And you see how Nike decided to make a custom shoe that embodied the essence of one individual player. And it was colored and it was a brand new design. It wasn't just taking a shoe that was existing and putting it on somebody. It was making something custom for them and putting their essence into it. And then this whole wave of people wanting to be like Mike, to play like Mike, and they felt like they could play like Mike by wearing his shoes. That was something that came about from that. And now there's been this push beyond that where you have other athletes, of course, getting shoes, but then you have people that are in the hip hop world that have been able to get their own shoes and that have created stuff. It was for a long time thought it needed to be tied to performance. You wanted to play with the athletes. You're wearing the athlete's shoes. So it expanded that way. But then with hip hop, it was proven that it was about lifestyle appeal, it was about the look and people wanted to feel like their favorite artist and it didn't need to be attached to performance. That was. That took some time. The third wave, which we believe could be the biggest wave in the industry today, is backing people that have lifestyle appeal, that have influence and fan bases that are outside of those two, that are creating content, that are engaging with people every single day on these social platforms. Half the youth today wants to be like content creators, Charles. That's what we're seeing, statistics wise. When these brands were built, they wanted to be the athletes. And now it's shifted. And so we want to make Give these people, these creative individuals, the opportunity to express themselves in this category. And with using AI and 3D printing, we can now make a shoe in a couple of months, put it out there and see what these people can do, and give them the opportunity to have a full canvas in this category, which hasn't been possible previously. And it's part of the reason why they haven't got these opportunities, because you have to commit to 18 months and could be a million dollars, half a million dollars in expenses. You have all your mold costs, you have your inventory costs, you have minimum order quantities, you've got your design expenses, your time in the sketch room, and it goes on and on. So the risk becomes too high, whereas now we've lowered that barrier to entry and it could be the biggest opportunity.

[Charles Schwartz]

So what is the end goal? Joe, as you're sitting here, you got your birthday coming up. I think you're having 90 birthday parties. We talked about that earlier.

[Joe Foster]

Absolutely.

[Charles Schwartz]

What is, what is the end goal of this? How did you get roped into this? This is brand new innovation. This is a. These are things that are even cutting edge even for me to walk into. How are you walking into this?

[Joe Foster]

Well, you know, even with Reebok, there was an end goal, and I don't think there's an end goal. I think the thing is to get this going right, see where you can go right. Where is the end? You know, people say, you know, where's the future? My answer to that is space.

[Charles Schwartz]

Yes. Endless expanding space.

[Joe Foster]

And that's where we're at. Jeff and I started as two people here. We've got two, and Ben has got quite a few people now who he's working with. But, you know, you start small and then you keep adding things on and you look for the next route. And Ben's come up with this idea which is now got the interest of the media. The interest of the media is, oh, well, this is a change. How far is it going to change? How far is it going to go? So now if Ben wants to talk to somebody, they will listen and they will listen, and they're interested because it's creating news. So in creating news, this is marketing again. Like we were with Reba, we were creating a marketing thing. And as the marketing goes along, then you invent the product to go with it.

[Julie]

Right.

[Charles Schwartz]

So when you first started, you know, you found a way to penetrate the market by going to a very specific niche. They already had the klt, the know like and trust. They were in there. They were athletes, they were Already there they had these groups. We live in a very different world.

[Joe Foster]

Yes.

[Charles Schwartz]

Ben shows up and he's like, hey, I'm going to do this. We're going to 3D, print this. You've got this experience, which worked back then. What is the things you first told him? Like, hey, this is what we need to start first doing and start having to penetrate a market. Because again, things are completely different now.

[Joe Foster]

Well, I. I think to penetrate the market is exactly what Ben has done. And if you want really get it down to earth, what is it? If he speaks to you and say, you know, I want to talk about this, this and this. And I've got Joel Foster come along. He's. He's a founder of Reebok.

[Charles Schwartz]

That's the key that opens the door.

[Joe Foster]

That opens the door. Then Ben goes through.

[Julie]

Right?

[Joe Foster]

So this is what we're using now. Ben knows a lot more about technology than I ever will because I knew what I knew. But at my age, technology's gone, so the only way I can hook up to the technology is to hook up to Ben.

[Charles Schwartz]

Leverage Ben.

[Joe Foster]

Right.

[Charles Schwartz]

So just like when you. In the past, you used to leverage the salespeople in that environment, you guys are leveraging. You're leveraging Ben. So if someone's at home and doesn't have a Joe Foster, which would be nice if they had. They had that, but they don't. There's only one of you. If they don't have that, how would you advise someone to get through that door and kick that door open when they don't have a Joe, when they don't have celebrity status, when they don't have that social proof? How do you penetrate that market?

[Joe Foster]

Well, if you want to penetrate a market, you have to find a way in. And we can go back to white space.

[Julie]

Right?

[Joe Foster]

So, number one, you need to know. Jeff and I knew how to make footwear. Although we went to college to learn a little bit more. What did college do for us? Yeah, it taught us a bit more about leathers and this and that. But the best thing for us happened with that college when we did take that step. And we were thinking, oh, we need a machine. Where do we get that from?

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

Ask somebody at college. That was a source of information.

[Julie]

Right?

[Joe Foster]

So get yourself a source of information. You know, no way you can go. I mean, we got. We got some bad information from college, but they learned from us, right? As well. They were saying, can we mold spikes into. Into the soul? And they would say, well, I don't know. That might Burn the. Burn this one. Yeah, but you. Your mold is metal. Spikes are only metal.

[Charles Schwartz]

There were things that learn it.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah. We will teach you. But the thing is that. Go into that space where you know that people can just help you, simple things, but just keep going in that space. Because I. I assume that if you're going to try and get into the space, the other thing you need, if you're nothing else, if you've got money, right, if you've got a ton of money, you can buy your way into the space.

[Julie]

Makes sense.

[Joe Foster]

That makes it a bit easier.

[Charles Schwartz]

So as you're going through these, there's a process, and the universal thing that I'm hearing across all of this is in the beginning, you saw egos kind of battling each other. And then you and Jeff came and said, we're not going to do this with ego. You go, do you. I'll go do me. You go, you know, we're going to do in silos. We're going to do our thing. We're going to learn from each other. We're going to ask these individuals, and we're going to focus on the experience and really say, you know, this is really about the consumer, and we're going to focus on the experience. One of the things that's huge that we talk about, experiences with people is the. The opening things, the open box, the experience of receiving things and having that experience. I know you snuck in with a box here, which I'm guessing you're going to show me what's in the box here at this point. But the experience of opening that. Why did you guys decide to do what you guys did and how you guys did it? And I guess we're going to share what this is. So let's do it. This is the box. We're going to do this. Okay. So, Joe, we might knock over your book finally.

[Joe Foster]

Okay.

[Charles Schwartz]

So we made it through here. We might. All right, so this is.

[Ben]

This is our.

[Charles Schwartz]

The box.

[Ben]

This is our Explorer slide. Inside of here, which was.

[Charles Schwartz]

Okay.

[Ben]

Has made history. Charles is the first AI Designed commercially available slide shoe that you can get.

[Julie]

Okay.

[Charles Schwartz]

And it's made in Germany.

[Ben]

Made in Germany. It's a factory that produced the Air Max 1000, Nike's first fully 3D printed shoe. Some other cool collaborations, but it's produced this. We needed something that could capture what AI could design in a physical product, and that's what you have here.

[Charles Schwartz]

Gotcha. So you brought a German shoe to someone whose last name is Schwarz. Okay. Okay. So I'm a little jump out of this box. Now all of a sudden, if it tells me to get on a train, I might run. So. Okay. So it's just the opening box experience. So you put step into the future.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Joe Foster]

All right.

[Charles Schwartz]

And then mine is customized because I have yours that assigned it.

[Ben]

You got a little note there.

[Charles Schwartz]

So we have the note and so we have stuff. And the first thing I see is I've got socks, which I'm guessing not 3D printed.

[Joe Foster]

No.

[Charles Schwartz]

Walk me through these.

[Ben]

Well, these are just kind of a complimentary to give you something a little nice to wear. I think they are. Like, it does feel good to wear the slides with socks.

[Charles Schwartz]

Okay.

[Ben]

Just with the 3D printed material and stuff, I found it. It's probably the best experience to wear them with rather than without. So we have this.

[Charles Schwartz]

We have the socks. Okay. And then the. The shoes come. I'll let you do this because this is. This is you guys.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah.

[Charles Schwartz]

So I've never seen these before. So this is interesting to know. So these were. Okay. So these were literally scanned off my feet. I. My feet are not that big. There's no way my. Okay. This is the joys of having size 13ft. I have mammoth feet. Okay.

[Ben]

Look at how. Look at how detailed it is. And it is. And look at the bottom, too. Like, you can see all around. We didn't miss any piece.

[Charles Schwartz]

And you've got. And this is all 3D printed.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah.

[Charles Schwartz]

If I bend this, is it going to break?

[Ben]

Well, no, it's actually. It's one print and it's pretty strong.

[Charles Schwartz]

It's really strong.

[Ben]

But then feel the top. Like, that's actually a more of a mesh and squishy, totally different feel, but it's the same material. So internally it's structured uniquely with triangular structures that allow for that feeling at different areas with density.

[Charles Schwartz]

Have you seen these ones yet, Joe?

[Joe Foster]

I've seen them. I've got a pair.

[Charles Schwartz]

Gotcha.

[Ben]

We got some nice photos of Joe in them.

[Charles Schwartz]

How durable are these? Like how long?

[Ben]

Very durable. This is not for athletic wear, but as a lifestyle product.

[Charles Schwartz]

I can't run in these. I can barely run as it is. Look at the size of my feet.

[Joe Foster]

This is why.

[Ben]

But you see how much thickness there is here. It's like a sneaker level sole on a slide. So the slide category has been so overlooked and something that people are wearing for errands when they're for casual wear. But it hasn't been designed for that. So we tried to bridge this gap with these. This is the Explorer slide.

[Charles Schwartz]

So I'll put that one there so that people can look at it. When I look at this one. So this is the other one. How long does this take to print and what are the problems you had? So, because again, this is a new, this is a new market, this is AI. We're trying to get things rocking and rolling. You're trying to go from, you know, again, acquisition to fulfillment.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah.

[Charles Schwartz]

Going through the process. This is new tech.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah.

[Charles Schwartz]

What are some of the iterations and some of the hurdles you've run into? Because there's people are going to look at this and they're like, hey, we've made AI to create this. What are some of the hurdles you've run into? What are the things that you've used? And models are like, hey, we thought this was, you know, publicly made. I'm going to try and knock over more water. That's the goal where we come in and we do that. What are some of the problems and the hurdles that you've run into when you've created these? When. Because AI is new and nobody really knows what's going on at this point. What are some of the innovations that you have found that make this more successful?

[Ben]

Well, so like you both mentioned about being an entrepreneur and trying things. Right. This is a process that's not established, you know, as an industry wide process. We have to figure it out. So we figured everything out as we go. So what we first realized, and this is through our designer Kadar Benjamin, who's in India, who's an expert in this category, is we realized that if we, we could simplify the process of actually getting to the concept that we all agree on, that would save a lot of time and energy. If we can use AI image generation, that would be super ideal. So we start with generating images with AI and then we really refine a concept. We're really good at coming up with something that's super precise, not just typing a couple words, like really getting to it. So we have a concept of visual in 2D that is pretty much what we want to make. Instead of going into the sketch room and sketching one after another after another, refining it, going back and forth. That can take a lot of time. Once we do that, we generate basically a. We have a sketch done and we generate 3D model from the sketch using AI. So instead of it being done by hand, you've got this whole 3D model you have to do. We have that done.

[Charles Schwartz]

How did you get there? That's the question. What are the proven steps that. So if people Are like, hey, I want to do things of this nature. Maybe it's not shoes.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah.

[Charles Schwartz]

Maybe it's something else. With AI, how do you survive this brand new thing that's completely evolving and it's moving faster than anything else we've ever seen? Because I used to own an IT company, I knew how fast it was.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah.

[Charles Schwartz]

AI is not even remotely that slow. It is unbelievably fast. We just say one year in tech was seven years.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah.

[Charles Schwartz]

Now it's like one day in AI is seven years. It's so fast. What are some of the steps that you do to handle that, that, that influx and those proven things that are changing?

[Ben]

Well, I think you have to just attempt stuff and you have to also look at like certain categories of white space. Like, like this space. There isn't a blueprint, like we know digitally and with software what you can do with AI, but for physical products, people are not actually doing anything with physical products being designed by AI that you can get now as a consumer. So you have kind of like, you don't have an expectation, you can do whatever you like. So you can just get into the room and experiment. We know image generation with AI, you can create a concept of anything you like. So that's a base point. We know that if you make something that's a sketch based on that, you can generate a 3D model. You can do that for any type of product, whatever it is. And then we also know that if you want it to be textured, like these types of patterns and textures here, which are inspired by a spaceship and different images we fed, you can use a model to do that. So you can kind of break down any product you like to make into something like this. Because those rules apply across the board. We just happen to do it for footwear.

[Charles Schwartz]

So when you talk about the idea that influencers are going to be able to do this. Yeah, you know, we talked about it off camera, that the ultimate goal is that there's going to be customized versions of these. And because right now this is where we are with this tech, which means probably in about 20 minutes we'll make another leap and bounds in AI when they're doing this. So people will ultimately be able to create this not only customized for their feet and the individual shapes of their feet, but their designs based off their, how they're doing it and how they're coding with it. What software helps them get there, what are the things that you got, you used to get there. So I know we're, we're Going over here, Joe. But we gotta talk about tech here. I gotta get a geek out.

[Ben]

So we use like a traditional image generation software. Mid Journey, ChatGPT, other things like that.

[Charles Schwartz]

So this is Mid Journey and chatgpt.

[Ben]

Yeah, Pieces of it are. Yeah, chatgpt make real shoes here. Not the whole thing, but pieces of it. Then we use a software called Viscom, which is an industry more design oriented piece of software. And then we have a generative model, like an AI model that you can train on different pieces of artwork or other stuff which generates it. Just if you look at it digitally, it's like tons of patterns being made on the shoe and you can iterate through them super fast and kind of come up with what you like. Yeah. And that's just trained on stuff.

[Charles Schwartz]

And how long do one of these take to print?

[Ben]

It's about 30 hours per shoe. Yeah, it's. But there's many printers and it's getting faster.

[Charles Schwartz]

Okay.

[Ben]

It's a process. Like if you see traditional printing where it's layer by layer by layer by layer, this is like that. But what happens is it's printed like this on a slant, so you've got the support material that prints alongside it that you break, kind of break off after, and then this is what you're left with.

[Charles Schwartz]

Okay. So I know I'm gonna get in trouble if I don't ask what happens to support material?

[Ben]

It's. We get reused.

[Charles Schwartz]

Gets reused.

[Ben]

I mean, okay, we can do something with it.

[Charles Schwartz]

And how long do they normally last? I mean, again, the idea that this came from my cell phone, that I took pictures of my feet next to a piece of paper and then now I've got this shoe that took 30 hours of print, but I've got this shoe. It's wild.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah.

[Charles Schwartz]

What is the durability. How long do these. I mean, you've. You've been wearing them. I'm not going to talk to the tech guy. You go away. You're going to tell me lies. What are the. When you. So you have a pair of these?

[Joe Foster]

Obviously I have a pair, but I don't wear them all day.

[Charles Schwartz]

Gotcha.

[Joe Foster]

I mean, it's back in the UK or where we. Are we taking them with you? It's another thing to carry on with.

[Charles Schwartz]

Because they're not heavy at all. They're durable.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah. I would say that from my experience. You would probably. They'll probably wore you out before you work them out. Really. They. They are pretty long wearing, huh?

[Ben]

This is very thick here, right?

[Charles Schwartz]

What is? So you've created this new thing. You're pioneering a market. You've had this experience before. What are the hurdles you run into? What are the barriers that you guys are facing as you're like, hey, here is this, this shoe, this is customized. What are the resistance that you're running into? Just like, you know, you mentioned before, you're like, why would I do Reebok when you get that resistance here? What are some of the things that you guys are using to get around that?

[Joe Foster]

Well, you, you've actually just covered it yourself. 30 hours to print you. That's, that's the resistance. That's the problem.

[Charles Schwartz]

That's temporary though.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah.

[Julie]

Yeah.

[Joe Foster]

Well, we're saying it's temporary as. Yes. When nobody's moved into that space, not been able to do anything about it. So the beautiful thing is they, they have this originality, they have this individuality as well. And this is great. But in order to sort of get into a reasonable business, you've got to do volume, right? So this, this is the trick. At the moment, we're building image, we're building marketing, we're building a name. People will start to talk about scintillate. You know, this, this is what we want to do because, you know, we have to move left, we have to move right. We have to move in different directions now to find things, either machine which will do this in 30 minutes instead of 30 hours. Plus, we need other products, other products which are again, AI driven. I think Ben has come up with the strap line. What's the strap line?

[Ben]

We have a new good slogan that our creative director helped us with. Ace. It's called Design by tomorrow. Everything we do is going to be designed by tomorrow.

[Charles Schwartz]

Step into the future. So Design by Tomorrow.

[Ben]

Design by tomorrow. And what we need to do, like Joe mentioned, is build stuff to scale. So this Design by Tomorrow ethos and mentality is all how we're going to design our new stuff. So we have a shoe we're building now that we want to scale around the world that has AI AI involved in the design process. But it's produced traditionally. So we see this. Like you mentioned earlier about creators, it's a two pronged approach. One prong is let's go give creators a shot at making their own original shoe. We can make a brand new design with them creatively leading and put it out in three months. And now we can find out how well they'll do. If that goes well, we can make something traditionally produced that we still design creatively with AI that we can scale Much further with this type of case study. And a case study like that is super important and helps you get way further with retail and beyond. And that's a system that we can keep doing over and over again until this becomes much faster, much more affordable. It's still two or three times more expensive to make this with 3D printing than a traditionally produced product.

[Charles Schwartz]

All right, so you guys have made these shoes and the market, obviously you're getting the name out and you're trying to build that, that excitement. What are the hurdles that you've run into recently that just stopped you guys in your tracks and then how did you pivot around them because you have this new innovative technology that's just unbelievable. What are the things that are running into you guys that are causing issues?

[Ben]

So we're working to scale. Scale is how you can really build a brand that's successful. You have to have a great margin. When you scale on what you're doing with 3D printed shoes, it's two or three times more expensive than producing anything traditionally. Now you can make a product much faster and develop it for much lower costs. But building to scale is really the way you win, and that's what Joe's done. So for us at Scintillay, we are working actively to build products creatively designed with AI so we can push boundaries visually and fashion and be fashion forward and then go from there. And so I think it's a great way for lots of entrepreneurs as well, when they start out, is to come up with a way that you can make your make a mark in the space. This became a breakthrough product, a viral product, because we did something different than no one else in the category has done, and then you can kind of build off of that there. But once you establish a presence, it's much easier to then go get to scale. And that's what we're doing.

[Charles Schwartz]

When you're doing operations, Joe, and you're scaling because you've scaled so well in what you've done in the past, what are some of, like, if you sat down there, like, there's these three or four things that before you scale though, you need to have this done effectively because everyone wants systems and scaling, but they don't understand if culture isn't there, if leadership isn't there, if those things aren't there, and tactical, what are the things that you found with your success with scaling as you're scaling this in a brand new age?

[Joe Foster]

Right, well, first to scale, we, as I said in the uk, we became leaders as far as our product was concerned, we've done all we could do. We needed to find somewhere else. So going to America, that was our. The next step is we. We want to do volume. You've got to find the market for us. In those days, it was America. I think today it's still America, still is the biggest market that you can make the biggest impression in. So you've got to decide, well, what do you do? For us, it was a matter of how do we get into the American market? And it took me 11 years, took me a long time, no matter what. Right. It was difficult. I think today we have social media, which is so different now, you know, and so it's figuring out different things on social media is to keep putting the scintillate in front of people and then keep putting new ideas. So I think the next idea that Ben is coming up with now will be a product that we can. We can manufacture traditionally, if you. Traditionally. And we can do volume.

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

But what we've got to sell is the idea that this is AI driven and this is where we're coming from. We're coming from designed by tomorrow, we're coming from that. And I think if you underline this is the one thing that's new in this business, is that we're still not going with an idea, going into the factory and giving it to a designer and he starts doing a drawing. Now we've moved that forward. So we know we can't make this in 30 minutes yet.

[Julie]

Yeah.

[Joe Foster]

But we will still strive for that.

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

How can we make sure that 3D is. Is the future for a certain part of the footwear industry? The footwear industry is not going to be something which you just mold in one.

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

Crocs is good and Crocs has a place, but they're only small. You. You look at somewhere like Nike today, their demand must be between 20 and 30 million pairs a month. Jesus. That's a lot of shit.

[Charles Schwartz]

That's a lot of shoes.

[Joe Foster]

I mean, and I know that because at Reebok, when we were sort of at the top, though, we were not doing what they're doing, which is a 20 billion revenue. We were doing a nice 4 to 5 and we were taking 5 million per.

[Charles Schwartz]

Only for a month? Yeah, only 4 to 5. Only 4 to 5. So what I. What I think what's unique about this in the USP with this is a unique selling proposition with this is it's customized specifically for my foot.

[Joe Foster]

Yes, yes.

[Charles Schwartz]

That is a different ballgame. Because if I go Buy a pair of Nikes. I refuse to buy Puma or Adidas because, again, last name Schwartz. When you understand where I'm going with that, when you do this. And it's customized specifically for me. And I think people want that customized feeling and that customized approach. Like, yeah, it's from the future, but it's customized. So that could be the idea of getting a white space, kind of trying to go into that white space and that white nature. What are the hurdles that you guys have run into that have almost made you want to quit, that you're like, I just can't do this anymore. And then how do you survive that feeling of, oh, okay. And we push through, because a lot of people have that as entrepreneurs, we fail. It's the only way we succeed.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah, but, you know, that may be an entrepreneur, but it's not an optimist. It's not the person you've got to be. You've got to be somebody who likes the knocks.

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

We were 18 months into our company and went to change our name.

[Julie]

Okay.

[Joe Foster]

Because we had to register, and we couldn't register our original name. We said Mercury. So, okay. We found out. And if you read the book, you'll find out how we did it, because that's the story. So we changed the Reebok. Four years into our product, we got a letter from Adidas because our silhouette was two stripes and a T bar. And they said this infringed the three stripes. It was still a small company. What do you do? We were really pleased. We got a letter from.

[Charles Schwartz]

Right. They knew where we were.

[Julie]

Right.

[Charles Schwartz]

We've caused it home.

[Joe Foster]

That's. Yeah. What do we do? Oh, we just change our silhouette.

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

You know, so it's. It's approach. And so we developed these. We not only developed the idea of white space, we also developed the idea that challenges are opportunities. And I think that that's what we're looking at. Now. You might not have the answer immediately, but if you think this is an opportunity.

[Charles Schwartz]

But it sounds like that's the fun of it, that it's. It's almost a game. It's an optimistic game versus. Versus Everything else.

[Joe Foster]

You just touched on the most important thing that people ask me, well, what's the three most important things of operating a business? And I said, well, first one is fun. The second one, more fun. And the third one is going to be real hoops.

[Charles Schwartz]

All right. What is the funnest thing about this for you, Ben? Doing this? Because obviously having Joe guide you is. Is something that Most people will never have in their lifetimes. But what is the most fun thing for you? And then I'm, obviously I'm going to Joe. I'll ask you the same thing. It's all about fun now.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Well, this whole thing is, is a journey and it's an exciting journey. I mean, to be a disruptor in this category is like amazing. To build something that no one else has done, this has become a piece of history. I mean, I think AI is going to be designing a lot more going forward. It's faster, it's more affordable, that usually always wins. So this is a major piece of what's going to happen in the future. So to be a disruptor and to build innovative products is what I think is just the most exciting thing ever. But waking up and getting the advice of Joe and Julie and the years of experience they have, it just puts us in a much better position to be successful. And I mean it just prevents a lot of mistakes. I mean they've got world class expertise.

[Charles Schwartz]

So what are those things that you've done that have prevented those mistakes? Because now I'm going to be curious, what are the questions you asked that you're like, oh God, thank goodness Joe and Julie helped me out with this.

[Ben]

Well, it's one piece of this is focus, right? Like you can go and launch your product everywhere in the world if you want. But you know, Joe understood the importance of launching in the US of focusing on the US we're going to be focusing on the US and everyone else can kind of come to us as we build over here. So understanding that, understanding where to put my time. Joe's like, you don't need to be the shoe designer. You've got have somebody else focus on the design. Have someone else focus on this. You be more operations, putting pieces together, have some creative oversight and understanding where to balance the time. So these are things he's learned from a career of going from bootstrapped to building the number one shoe company in the world at a point doing the 4 to 5 billion we were just talking about, you know, and these are tactics that I think anyone can apply. It's channeling your energy and, and focusing in the right directions.

[Charles Schwartz]

And it sounds like it was rooted in what you and Jeff were doing. Like, okay, you go do this, I'm going to go to this. Those same things that from the very beginning just fortified it. Okay, so what are the things that have asked him the same question on your end? What has been the most fun that you've had with this process.

[Joe Foster]

Well, you know, it was fun when Jeff and I started. Okay, say some of the days are not fun, but if your attitude is, let's have fun, your own person, you can do what you want.

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

You can do it. And let's, let's try and see if we can find people to buy it. But that was fun. Building the company was fun. When we did get to that 4 billion and whatever. And we've got that many lawyers, we've got that many people working in product, we've got that many accountants, everything there is a machine. And the last thing I want to be is the machine.

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

So I ended up just traveling the world, waving a flag because I built the global distribution. So I was going, meeting the guys, but that's all I was doing.

[Julie]

Gotcha.

[Joe Foster]

Just meeting the guy.

[Ben]

That's your job.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah, yeah. And that didn't work. You know, it's like, okay, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? Yeah, there's no fun.

[Charles Schwartz]

And then you stopped.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah. And I was doing it on my own. A lot of it. I was just flying on my own. That's why today, when I travel, Julian, I travel.

[Julie]

Yeah.

[Charles Schwartz]

Choose to.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah. If you want me, it's two tickets.

[Julie]

Perfect.

[Charles Schwartz]

That works.

[Joe Foster]

It's as simple as that.

[Charles Schwartz]

Well, we were going to just have her on here and not have you guys here at all.

[Joe Foster]

Absolutely. Well, she could answer all your questions.

[Charles Schwartz]

Probably what she did when we first saw it.

[Joe Foster]

But, you know. So the fun now is the unknown to pushing those boundaries. When are we going? You know? Okay, so this doesn't work. You were saying that scanning your foot, that's an original. How can we bring that into mainstream? How can we do it? And we don't have the answer. But we've got to work, We've got to think about it. How can we do this? We might even cheat. Now you say what? Cheat. Well, let me take you back to my grandfather and my grandfather. I mean, it was mail order, if you like. That was how they used to sell his shoes. Because athletes wanted his shoe. They had to write in and we would send them a self measurement form on. In fact, funnily enough, I have a pair of shoes on which are now using that as an inner sole. Using the. The measurement.

[Charles Schwartz]

The same thing.

[Joe Foster]

The same thing. So, okay, so they would put the foot on. It tells you where to put your foot. And there was a mark where you put your heel and draw around with a pencil. Well, can you imagine? A pencil bends that way.

[Charles Schwartz]

I don't know if I could reach that far anymore.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah. Would you get it accurate?

[Julie]

Right.

[Charles Schwartz]

You're not going to get this level of detail.

[Joe Foster]

No. So you draw around it.

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

Then you know the questions asked. One of the questions was, what's your normal sho shoe size?

[Julie]

Gotcha.

[Joe Foster]

So once we send all this in, they think it's, what's his normal shoe size? Oh, eight. Right. Send them for eight.

[Charles Schwartz]

So I actually have a selfish question about that. Why am I a size 12 some. Some places, but a size 13 somewhere else? Is this like a fun joke you guys do with us?

[Joe Foster]

In a way, yes. It's all to do with the last because normally they measure the foot from the ball to the heel. They don't measure the toes because toes can be squished. So it's from the ball to the heel. That's the normal measurement, really, of.

[Julie]

Okay.

[Joe Foster]

And then, you know, with women's shoes, they were pointed toe.

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

So it's all to do with how Sunday builds the last.

[Charles Schwartz]

That makes sense.

[Joe Foster]

And there's a lot to do with toe spring or heel height. And every time I go into a shoe shop the other day is an I will walk through. I put my finger inside the shoe on the heel and just press it. If the toe lifts, I know they've made the shoe on the wrong last.

[Julie]

Makes sense.

[Joe Foster]

They didn't. Yeah. And this is one of the problems. This is not the same.

[Julie]

Right.

[Charles Schwartz]

It's different, but. Yeah, but that's what you normally do.

[Joe Foster]

Yeah.

[Charles Schwartz]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

So this is the ball game we're usually talking about, you know, regular footwear. So, you know, a company may have one set of lasts and then it's. Then it decides that, well, we'll put three quarters of an inch heel on a men's shoe or.

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

But maybe a bit more on. Well, you can't do that. You've got to have a last which is built to that. So there is this variation as to, okay, what can you do? Do you keep the heel height the same? And if you want, you can do. You can just design the upper differently. So you've got to learn all that. I don't want Ben to learn that. I want Ben to keep pushing the stupid ideas. Let's do something different.

[Charles Schwartz]

I've never heard anybody as an entrepreneur come in with the level of playfulness and joyful with it. You know, everything else is very tactical. It's very going in the environment. Okay, do this, do that. Hunt profit. You're hunting, for lack of a better term, pleasure and joy in what you're Doing to making it fun, which is a different game than I've ever heard anyone else.

[Joe Foster]

To me, if you're not having fun, why are you bothering?

[Charles Schwartz]

I agree with you wholeheartedly.

[Joe Foster]

We have a great friend here in Fort Lauderdale and he's just written a book because it starts, scale, exit, repeat, Start, scale, exit, repeat. That, to me, might be an entrepreneur, but you're not having fun.

[Julie]

Right.

[Charles Schwartz]

And that's a different ball game because I've spent my entire career just scaling, exiting, and repeating.

[Joe Foster]

Or maybe you're having fun just doing that.

[Charles Schwartz]

So how do you. When you see businesses and you say, there's this one tip, there's this one piece of advice other than having fun, is there something that super, you know, surpasses that, or is this really the, hey, this is what you really want to do above all else. When you look at businesses, I think.

[Joe Foster]

That while you're having fun, you've also got to aim to make some money, right? Yeah, you've got to aim to get it right if you can disrupt the world, if you change the world, if you do something different. You know, I think when we talk about white space, eventually we'd look for lots of them. We succeeded, but the biggest one was aerobics. Aerobics was a big one. Took us from 9 million to 900 million in four years. So I think it's a bit like the entrepreneur who might want to keep on starting, scale and exiting. I think when you're building this, okay, we may not do another shoe like that again, right? That might be the same thing. That might be a business. The next one might be a new business. If you want to look at it that way, when you want to find the one that can really go, wow, gotcha. But what we do build and what we built with Reebok was the name, right? That was the one thing. No matter what we put it on, that's the name. So we're building a brand, and you might say there's different aspects to that brand that we're selling and we'll find something. And this has created a lot of interest. This is great. But we know we have it. The big handicap is volume, scale. It's it.

[Charles Schwartz]

When you're building a brand, what is it? What is the things that's most important because you're talking about building a brand and how powerful as Reebok became a brand this is going to be ultimately become a brand?

[Joe Foster]

Yes.

[Charles Schwartz]

What are the things that are the most important when it comes to that Integrity?

[Julie]

Okay.

[Joe Foster]

I think you need Integrity, you need whatever. Whatever you're making people know that you believe in it.

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

And if you believe in it, you know, even if you get it wrong, you believe in what you're doing is right, then you're honest when you say, oh, we've got to change, because.

[Julie]

Right.

[Joe Foster]

So integrity, I think, is so important to the brand and to a name.

[Charles Schwartz]

Okay, Ben, I'm gonna give you the last one. With all the stuff you've learned, having access. If you could tell yourself before you met Joe, before this journey started, before these shoes ended up here, what would be the one thing that has proven to be the most success and the biggest thing that's helped you succeed that you've learned in this process?

[Ben]

Well, it's actually on a point you made earlier. I think that it's about never giving up. And people talk about this and it's cliche and different things like that. I think it's the most important thing besides fun. Fun is important, too. If you have a vision and a drive and you want to make something happen, you keep making one step forward. Every single day, you're going to go somewhere, and I think if you keep trying things, then you always. And you're putting up shots consistently, you always have a shot to make it, you know. So, like, this thing started off differently. When I first talked to Joe and Julie about this, it was, we want to do some stuff digitally in games and, you know, be more around that and pushing technology in that sense. And then we realized that it made more of a sense to kind of launch this around AI and what we could do with a physical product, because we did a lot of research around and there wasn't anything like that and things kind of pivoted a bit. But there's this, like, kind of consistency of just. Just keep pushing forward all the time. And if you're enjoying what you're doing, you want to do that naturally, you know. So I think that's the most important thing is, like, if you have this vision, you got to just relentlessly go after it. Knock it out.

[Charles Schwartz]

I appreciate both of you. I thank you for these. Thank you for letting me knock over water earlier as well. That was fun. Thank you guys for doing this. I really appreciate both of you coming on the show. Thank you so much.

[Ben]

Thanks for having us.

[Joe Foster]

Thank you, John.

[Julie]

Great.

[Joe Foster]

It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

[Charles Schwartz]

That concludes this episode of the Proven podcast. Remember, it's not what you think. It's only what you could prove. We proved a ton of things on this episode. Go prove it yourself. Don't guys trust us?

[Ben]

Don't trust our guests.

[Charles Schwartz]

Go out there. Implement. You want more? Go to theprovenpodcast.

[Joe Foster]

Com.

[Charles Schwartz]

And there's more examples just like this. Thank you for joining us.