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Ken Block — The Art of Marketing with a DC Shoes and Gymkhana Legend (500M+ views) (#358)

“In life — from the simplest thing to the biggest thing — I want to be proud of what it is and stake my claim: ‘That’s mine and that’s how I do it.'” — Ken Block Ken Block (@kblock43 on IG and TW) is a co-founder of DC Shoes

Published: 31.01.2019 | Description ist written by The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss

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Optimal minimum temperature at this altitude.

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I'm a cybernetic organism living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn marketing Solutions the go to tool for B2B marketers and advertisers who want to drive brand awareness generate leads or build long-term relationships the result in real business impact could be all of the about had Reid Hoffman co-founder LinkedIn on this podcast.

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Hello boys and girls.

Ladies and germs, this is Tim Ferriss in welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss show this to embarrass and each episode.

It is my job to in this case.

It outside record this introduction.

It's a bit of audio verite an undisclosed location for recording feature episodes.

What is my job in each of these episodes to deconstruct a world-class performer to try to tease out the lessons have etcetera that you can apply and my guests for this episode is Ken Block.

He is a co-founder of DC shoes and a professional rally driver with the hoonigan.

That's hoonigan.

Hoonigan racing division his rally career began in 2005 and he won Rookie of the Year That season in the rally America championship tennis cumulated 5 X Games medals and Achieve Global same three is wildly successful viral series of Gymkhana video that spelled Gymkhana these videos are completely Bonkers Gymkhana videos including Call Associated edits have racked up more than 500 million views Landing a franchise an ad age's top 10 viral video charts in Jan of 2010 block form.

The monster world rally team later renamed hoonigan racing Division and sign with for to pursue his dreams of racing in the World Rally Championship stats WRC and in doing so became one of only for Americans to ever score points in the WRC.

His latest project is the Gymkhana files, which is a series available on Amazon Prime video.

And here's the description for the Gymkhana files takes years deep behind the scenes of one of the world's wildest most successful viral video franchises of all time with over 500 million online views and Counting following globally-recognized race car driver in viral star Ken Block and his team of hoonigans is a temp to make the greatest Automotive video of all time while racing in the world rallycross championship back to me.

So specifically takes you guys and me I have I've watched the series behind the scene.

News of filming Gymkhana 10 subtitle the ultimate Tire sling to wear a video that as of this writing just went up and has more than 20 million views.

It's all complete Insanity.

You have to check it out.

In any case you going to find more about Ken and what he's up to at hoonigan racing.

, Instagram at K block 43 Twitter K block 43 and Facebook can block Racing 2 without further Ado.

Please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with Ken Block.

Cancel the show.

Well, thanks for having me on I really appreciate it.

Where are we sitting right now? We are sitting in the hoonigan Racing headquarters in Park City, Utah, and we are inside of a shipping container 40 shipping containers that are cut up that make up by offices and shop here in Park City and you were explaining this to me a bit earlier before we start recording but what is the practicality of having the shipping containers that are bolted to the floor in my earlier life? I was one of the founders of DC shoes and We Grew From a very small brand to a very big brand and over that course of drawing we moved by five different offices and their form building all new drywall walls all over the place and all that and it cost a lot of money so but I built the race Steam Offices here.

I decided I wanted to build something that you know, we kind of have a recycling message with using you know, things like you skateboards as tile and you know, you shipping containers for offices.

That's her to think but also if I have to move you can actually pick up these entire offices and easily move them somewhere else on a shipping truck.

So if you need to upsize or downsize or anything in between size you have everything here that you can pack up absolutely and I had a lot of fun being creative with this office and doing something unique and different but also to me is something that kind of on the Leading Edge of what I hope people do in the future with you.

No empty Warehouse spaces like this and building offices flooded water drywall gets wasted out.

There is people change buildings in change businesses.

It's a beautiful space and I'll put up and certainly there's no shortage of footage of this space online and I'll put A bunch of the show.

That's as well.

You've had a number of different careers and makes me think of Bruce Wayne in some respects.

So you've had that you've lived many lives in one life on this is not going to chronological but first hoonigan, where does that name? Come from is basically similar to our laws here in America of reckless driving.

So if someone were to say oh you were hunting in Australia, that would mean you were out doing something Reckless with the car.

But what's that term kind of made it over here to America became like a term of endearment like you're out having fun with the guard great.

Whereas if you were reckless driving here be like, oh you're going to get a ticket.

So, you know a couple, you know journalists here in America started calling me king of the homes because I was a Racecar Driver they were Out having fun with my car is also ended the run that time as when I started making the Gymkhana videos, so that was really kind of the epitome of technical driving but having fun with the car because I was a race car that I wasn't racing which is just something unique in a bit different in the world of Motorsports.

So, you know that that word Hoon then became something that we started using more more and then we start to develop the brand of hoonigan the idea of it and I and I came up with the the the the term Hoon again and I just going to start for us and then let you know being great for the Brandon and now we've continued to grow and grow I think Bernard 7th or 8th year with the brand.

Did you you have a track record is a very successful entrepreneur which was certainly going to dig into you also are very Adept with media and marketing and branding and you mentioned Gymkhana for those people who have not seen it.

We're going to talk while I'm just a minute but the the video series Gymkhana Khana has around maybe more than what half a billion views now collectively.

Yeah, the Domaine videos themselves have almost half of half a billion and there's a bunch of ancillary videos around that also and we can to keep tabs on all of them.

And then we just totaled up the other day.

It's over 600 million views on all of that stuff all together so quiet and say not not something I really ever expected to happen, but it's been very cool to kind of be a part of this sort of visual digital, you know Revolution that is how the internet has kind of, you know, we've all Dover time.

And then you have your competitive career, right? Then you have your competitive career end for some people listening.

They may think well much like other sports or even as we were discussing before I start recording say Motocross, you must have started when you were but for 5 or 6 years old.

Started what the very very old in the world of Motorsports.

So I owed I grew up in Long Beach California skateboarding ride BMX bikes as a kid and then move down to the north San Diego.

My parents said they wanted to own an avocado Grove.

So move me down to the the countryside of North San Diego and continued skateboarding, but then started riding dirt bikes.

So I you know race diameter dirt bikes when I was, you know, my teenage years but didn't actually start racing cars till I was 37, although I've been a fan of rally since I was very young.

I was never a fan of like American Motorsports for some reason like my brother a drag race and like all that.

I knew all that stuff existed but as a kid, I was most interested in In Formula One, but really rally like cars that slid and jumped and raced in the snow and into Africa and and it itches something I related to much more than a car that just went straight or went to Circle and I didn't know.

No disrespect of those Sports.

It just wasn't interesting to me.

And I think that's also why I loved you know dirt bikes so much as a teenager was the creativity of it of jumping of sliding of Tina racing around a track that at all these obstacles and really rally racing was that but with a car and so I just genuinely loved it for from since I was quite young but I never had an opportunity to do anything with it or even knew it existed in the state still allows round 36 37.

That was that was your first exposure in terms of training at a team O'Neil, or was it somewhere else and was it team O'Neil in New Hampshire? What kind of roots back to Travis Pastrana? So at the time I was Chief brand officer of DC shoes and Travis Pastrana was one of our Moto athletes and Travis in 2004 did a couple rallies and not just woke me up to the fact that Riley even existed in the states and that I could potentially go do it.

And so Travis's agent Steve asked if it was a good friend of mine and I called Steve and I said, hey I want to go do that with Travis is doing how do I do? I do that.

So Steve connected me with the team.

The team said yeah come out will take you to a Great Rally school which ended up being team O'Neil but make to afford a course and I was hooked like I could have enjoyed myself more in like I felt like I had a little bit of natural talent for it.

I could throw the thing around exactly how I want to know is pretty quick but no clue as to where that would go.

I just was like Hey, I really like this is why I might need to do this more.

So I I knew the first time about your time in New Hampshire at Emmanuel because I spent a week there for TV show short-lived but still entertain our went there to train and compete against a friend of mine and much like you are wall on the other side of where we're sitting with all of the damaged and destroyed pieces of various Vehicles there is there were some shrapnel up there in New Hampshire and I found it to be such I do not have I don't think any preternatural a super skill related to Rally but training with pendulum turns and Z to finish flicks and all of that is just so interesting interesting and strange way the truth and the science.

There's so much science behind it.

You have people who done it for a very very young age mean.

There's certainly a number of countries that seem to produce a lot of a Champions.

How is 36 37 did you think about tackling this seriously and funded my own racing, you know, I was just as a mature as an amateur gets, you know, first year out, you know, just learning the ropes at a good team behind me had a great co-driver Alex that that helped a lot but in the beginning it was just like, okay.

Let me figure this out.

Let me throw everything into it if I'm really into this and I really did try and learn as much as I possibly could in and luckily for me.

I was already in very good shape that 37 years old cuz I loved riding dirt bikes and with DCI, you know, we sponsored guys like Ricky Carmichael and Jeff and Meg Ryan Hughes Jeremy McGrath like some of the best guys in the world, so I got to go ride with them.

So I wanted to be in shape to go do that stuff, you know and being around guys like that and Danny Way and Travis Rice and you know, Andy Irons these guys that You know where the top of the field in all their their areas like I got to see how Champions train I see how they ate.

I saw you know what it took to be a champion.

So I knew how to train and how to mentally get myself there and do those things.

So I was able to take all that and apply it to myself to develop my own talent to go do something that I I love to do.

And so 2005 was the first year I raised in it and I was able to get like 4th overall in the national championship and actually beat Travis that here.

So from there, I was like, holy shit.

This is fun and I've got some natural town for and I'm just going to put you know as much effort as I can into doing it and try and see where it goes.

So, you know, I had no idea where it would go but I ended up going a lot further than I ever expected and it's been a completely wild ride, but I really get a lot of credit back to not only the experiences that I had with DCF.

To be successful and figuring out what it takes to be successful, but also understanding the mental and physical sides of you know, studying and watching these friends of mine that were Champions and what it what it took for them to do what they needed to do and we're going to we're going to visit DC very shortly.

But since we're on topic does anything come to mind that differentiates some of the guys you just mention, I mean, there's a big names very competitively successful.

What did you see that made them different or what any behaviors any beliefs any practices? Was there anything in particular? That comes to mind or anything that comes to mind the funny thing about all those guys is they all have different stories that there is no magic formula.

There is no perfect human that then has the perfect formula everyone's different.

You know, what works for Ricky Carmichael would not work for you.

And yeah, I can see now like that sort of thing.

But what you do see with a lot of those guys, you know that you see with any top athlete is the drive and determination, you know, there's there's guys out there that there aren't the most talented but they're willing to outwork everyone you know, and that's kind of where I was an older guy, you know, 3738 of competing against 20 year olds now and I'm like, well, I'm just going to be smarter.

You know, I'm going to train smarter.

I'm going to prepare smarter.

I'm going to do everything everyone find every trick in the book that I can to maximize the opportunity and I and I think that's that's really a lot of what it takes in the end with a lot of athletes there is outliers out there the Ricky Carmichael's the world that just he's a greatest of all-time kind of for certain reasons that no one else can match, you know, but other than that there there's a lot of people out there that it's it's a matter of mastering the game always being a student of the game and finding every little moment where you can find some sort of advantage in that that means you have to live it have to live it day in day out.

You cannot be a champion of a sport generally without you know, that study without the living breathing existing in that form of sport day in day out.

And so I think that's the main thing that that I've seen as a constant is at dedication to the craft.

What's what were some of the tricks were approaches that you found work for you and I'm just thinking moments before we started this and you had your breakfast / lunch which was a cup of coffee with protein in it some plant protein plus MCT oil.

You commented that it makes it a lot easier train.

If you've consumed something like that rather than having a very heavy meal that just jump to mine is not necessarily an example from a long time ago.

But but a habit that might Aid in training for any number of things aren't so are there any other things that you decided as a thirty-seven-year-old you like? Okay, the 20 year olds are doing a b and see if I do that.

I'm not going to be able to match what they're doing or any other kind of tricks of the trade that you ended up adopting for yourself.

Well, I think there's a with any sport.

It's about being smart about what makes you successful in it, you know any help for example, I cry race cars.

I don't have to be shredded strong individual to do that.

I power steering.

So it's more about reaction time.

It's more about quickness.

It's about you know mental quickness.

It's about what it takes to have these moments where hey at 3 in the afternoon tomorrow.

I need to be at the highest cognitive recognition level that I can possibly beat, you know, so what's it take to get me there.

Is it supplement? Is it training? Is it a particular exercise that I do before I get in the car.

So I'll a lot of it to me is experiment.

You know, it's it's working with the right people that help you with different training exercises.

And a lot of it is just, you know, trial and error and figuring out what works and what doesn't work in.

Something, you know when a mistake that has happened trying to figure out what caused that mistake and then how do I correct it in and make myself better for the next time what were some of the things you found to work? And I know you've been a long-term.

It seems like trainee with kickboxing and have worked with some fantastic athletes.

Do you have a particular you mentioned exercise before getting into the car? Do you have particular exercise exercise to do I grew up in North San Diego trainers that work with Paul check himself.

And so I grew up in my training world around people that you know, really worked with you know, those are the ball exercises and balance exercises all that sort of stuff to really mimic more real-world balance needs as opposed to just grabbing a barbell and doing curls, you know, so That that's Ertl all that training to me helped a lot.

But then upping the level that I worked with a couple trainers that you know, what help me with mental skills along with those physical skill.

So with rally you're having to hear note.

So so you drive down the road that's a 10 miles long twisty, you know, why knee going through for us you going 90 miles an hour sideways next to trees and while you're doing that you're hearing notes.

That's that's telling you what's coming up next and it's in their triggers.

They're not like hey, by the way, there's a left coming up.

It's really dangerous know it's left five keeping, you know caution in those have to be triggers in your mind that you automatically react to pain and drive as quickly through every situation as possible.

So we would actually do that stuff in the gym where I would actually be training doing a particular exercise and my trainer would have me looking or listening to things and then having to react to that Certain triggers that I would then react with and it was all sort of brain type exercises on top of that even bouncing balls off a wall and having to react with my eyes closed open them in thin reactant catch a ball.

It was all about being able to see peripherally see directly in front of me see short distance see long-distance all that sort of thing.

So it was a lot more really these little little things that are harder to train with your brain that would potentially make you quicker cuz you know Riley were battling 4 seconds over each stage with rallycross, you're battling four tenths of a second each lap and if you can do that quicker than your competition because of what how you trained and that's one way to be faster.

See you every year student of success.

And then maybe we could rewind the clock a little bit and get back to DC.

Now I was doing as I always do homework for this conversation and it seems like DC was certainly not your first business and I maybe you could tell us a bit about how you got into entrepreneurship.

It's a reading of 8 ball clothing blind magazine drawers clothing.

How did apprenticeship enter your life? How did you end up in business? I didn't I didn't necessarily intend to be an entrepreneur in the beginning but it just kind of seemed like the only Avenue.

The only Avenue it seemed like the the Avenue that I was left with with the things that I I'd love to do in my interest so that the funny thing is I start off in high school studying architecture.

I want to be an architect.

I did all sorts of drafts drafting to High school and then when I got out of high school, I went straight to a computer aided drafting school and did that for a year and then I got into the business and I hated it.

I loved it as an art and I loved it as a study but actual that the business of it.

I just didn't like so I what didn't you like about it? I guess because it it I enjoy the art of architecture, but the only people that get to do the art of architectures are the people at the top right and it takes either a ton of money or you know, 30 to 40 Years of climbing to the top and I just saw that once I realized being in the business what it took and I just said yeah, that is so good being a skateboarder in a snowboarder, you know, I wanted to do that stuff more.

So I actually quit working for this Architecture Firm and ended up moving to Breckenridge Colorado for two years of being a snowboard bombing was actually friends with a bunch of you know, Pro snowboarders, and I looked up those guys who wanted to be there in but in the end, I just knew I didn't have the talent.

I just I didn't have the skill set that they had and I saw that so I moved back to California and went back to college.

And started studying screen printing graphic design graphic layout all that sort of stuff and I just really enjoyed it.

And I thought I I could, you know, cuz my interest in skateboarding and snowboarding I started designing some Shop t-shirts for one of the shops that I was friends with out and Colorado and you know, I had thought of this would be great if I could actually be a part of this industry, I love and in the meantime at the same school as Palomar College and Vista, California.

I met Damon way who's the older brother of the legendary skateboarder? Danny Way and Damen and I hit it off and we both had interest in trying to be in the industry of skateboarding and snowboarding in We Dead real mutual interest in that and I was I was more of the graphics business type guy and he was more of the clothing designer.

Type guy and so we just kind of merged our talents and start working together and start a very small with a ball and drawers and I know eventually I did a magazine called blunt as part of this whole company in weed sold a company called type a snowboard switch or some friends of ours.

We own part of that and eventually we started DC.

So we got lucky with DC that we got all this experience of a couple years floundering around with these other clothing companies in magazine, but we learned a lot so that by the time we got to making DC which is tooth 94-95 that we were able to make the startup work very well very quickly.

So we already had the infrastructure of buildings and artists and salespeople and warehouse and all that so that when DC got plugged into that it it took off but we were able to manage it and make it work if we hadn't had all that other stuff and experience and all that week.

We wouldn't have had all that that one.

I did forget to mention in all that though is in a business is not easy to start you know it and I come from a family my dad at his own business and he was fairly successful with it and my parents by the time that I was a teenager had a decent amount of money.

I wouldn't say they were overly rich but you know, they were you know that enough money to buy 16 Acres of avocados in the house, you know in Valley Center in so as I was growing up in all I wanted certain things, you know, like there are kids in my school to Joe B&W.

I'm like I want that my dad just laughed.

He's like no way am I buying you that, you know like you are going to earn everything that you get in so I grew up with that mentality that whatever I did my parents were not going to give me anything they were going to they were going to help me but there were going to make me work for it and saw that something that I really genuinely appreciate and something I'm going to pass on to my own kids that like life isn't easy.

You've got to figure certain things out and you've got to make it work and Ace Hardware to be successful and I seen a lot of people have stuff given to him and they floundered with it.

And I think that experience really is the best lesson and so when I when I was starting our business, you know, I went to my parents house today.

I need some money in my my mom said, well, I'm not sure that my dad will do that.

But let's try she said write a business plan, you know, if you want 10 grand prove to us, what you going to do with that 10 grand and how you're going to pay us back I said, okay, so I bought books and figured out I'm going to make a business plan with a business plan and I got ten grand out of my parents to help start the business that was DC for a ball and drawers and a Damon came in with some money and we were equal Partners in the beginning but really it it it was from my parents my parents, you know, have you like say ethics law in a business family ethics that basically set me Motion of how to learn business how to start a business how to pay back a loan all that stuff because you know, I was 19 20 year old kid.

That was just trying to better himself and they helped me set the path to to do what I did not something that I that I genuinely appreciate and anytime anybody ask me from from like, how do I start this business or how do I get sponsored the easiest lessons if you don't know business and you don't know what marketing budgets are and you don't know advertising or sales like you've got to understand that stuff and understand their business plan to go anywhere, you know, and there's so much basics of life that if you understand You know how products get made and how cute and how companies profit and what it takes to spend advertising dollars.

There's so much in life that you will understand just by knowing those basic and did you give such a Keen Eye you studied architecture? I have watched a lot of what you've done over the years and I just want to underscore maybe using different words the value of someone who has artistic ability in learning.

The business side is not sullying your hands with some crass aspect of the world necessarily but enabling yourself to further the art and what you want to do in the world and it's a real liability not that have that and what struck me also is that you have these seemingly disparate lives that you've lead and success in these different Realms, but they've also built on one another in the sense that you sponsored athletes and now you are a sponsored athlete and you know how to do you know, which Athletes you sponsor did a great job versus a mediocre job versus to do not pass job.

And so you're able to fulfill that role really really effectively for the the company's you work with right? Like the Fords in the monsters were my pee and you have an operational awareness that enables you to then pursue the craft that you want to pursue.

Let me ask you about 3 to talk about good decisions and resources that help you and so on and so forth, but do any mistake that was one of the things that when I chanced like the transition for me from going from Chief brand officer at DC to race car driver was actually real that was there was a bit difficult for me at first and mainly because as Chief brand officer DC actually likes to be in the background like II Damon and I didn't really like us get Press for DC.

We like the athletes to be the the people that stood out front and represented the brand.

So as I became a race car drivers like of crap now, I kind of put my face out there and I've got to be the voice and and I have to you know show a different.

Attitude in a difference nothing to say different but I had to be worried about what I said and how I said it and how I presented myself which I just didn't have to worry about before that, you know, but the transition was a bit tough, but once I got into it I basically said, okay.

I know it bothered me or I saw that the good and bad of all these athletes that I worked with for, you know, 15 years before this.

So, how can I take All those experiences what I liked and disliked about what all these different people did and make myself the best of what I can make myself and I'll tell you a really stupid example, like, you know, we had guys that we would send out to a shop to do an autograph signing and there be no thousand kids lined up waiting for this these guys to sign autographs and and then some of them said to be engaged with these fancy should be no looking at their phone or turning around smoking a cigarette in around kids and stuff like that and it it just the they didn't have the right understanding of what they were there to do in our anatomy.

That's a real simple example that when I go to you know an autograph signing, you know, we try to make the best poster.

We I try to be a nurse is engaged as possible always trying to make the fan is happiest possible there there, you know for me and I'm there representing all these different brands and maybe the you know the shop that I'm there for those sort of things.

So it's it's understanding.

The whole situation because of where I came from before which has then made me such a great Ambassador for all these bands in and hopefully a very good engaged athlete for these fans that follow me.

So it's been a very fun process to go from that guy behind the scenes of It kind of understands it all cuz I wrote the contracts I made the ads.

I directed the social media.

I know we made commercials.

I made skate videos.

Yeah, I was so now being the guy on the other side and delivering what the sponsors needed.

So and there were certain guys that like actually pissed me off over the years that I saw so much potential for it and just watch him fail cuz I didn't understand that I said, you know what I'm going to prove whether these guys ever see this or not.

I'm going to prove what is potential if you just understand the process, you know, and that's actually been very fun for me over the years.

You know maximizing the potential of social media, you know, really maximizing the potential of YouTube and delivering what the fans want because at the end of the day, this is all a business.

We all like I love to race cars at the end of the day, but without the sponsors without the series that are out there without all the fans.

There's a whole culture here that all interaction goes together.

But you know, if you don't do it right that you can't be as successful as the potential is there to be and did you even when we were walking around this building earlier you were mentioning learning for every success learn from every failure you had your Informal business school, so to speak in the in the form of starting these businesses before DC.

What were some of the mistakes that you made in some of those earlier Ventures are like, okay now that we're doing DC.

We are not going to do the song things were not going to make these following mistakes and you just bring them.

I like one for me for instances.

Will the first companies.

I I started became really interested radio advertising but I do nothing about it.

And so I bought Remnant space.

I thought I was so smart because there is a huge discount on space for drive time.

I was like, oh my God DriveTime perfect.

I found a needle in a haystack and then all of my ads were run 4:45 a.

m.

Because it was defined in the contract Drive times like 4:30 Tim.

Interpret until I just lost it.

All right.

So that's all I learned a lot of lessons in that one.

But the do any particular mistakes or failures come to mind that it could have been forms.

We did with these in any way that I think that all marketing and advertising it.

You know a lot of people don't realize when I call we have a hundred grand to spend sweet, you know, well, you need to turn that hundred grand in to save a million dollars worth of business.

So it is it's about targeting and having the right message.

To reach the consumer that's actually going to buy the product and night that can be very difficult in there can be very many opinions with that even in a company.

You can have 10 different opinions on that even have some personal agendas.

And so it can be very difficult and it is it a lot of it is a Learning lesson and you got to look at everything else that's out there and what your competition is doing and and try and do it better.

But you know that it it's a it's a difficult process and it's one that you really have to work at it and think through and I mean I've had so much random stuff like the temple right there.

I had one of our athletes it was like I want to buy some I'm going to build a bus.

It's going to be three hundred grand.

I need three of you and it will put a big logo on and everybody on the freeway is going to see it and I'm like, I don't care about everybody on the freeway.

Like those are my consumers like if we're going to spend three in a grande we need to spend that targeted specifically on Who we think is going to buy our product.

You know, where do you see? Who was that? Like who is your archetype of your your customer Lee? Who was your customer in? The early is skate shops in the beginning.

So, you know, you're talkin, you know teenage kids mostly boys that we're going in and buying the shoes to skateboard in so, you know back in those days mid-nineties, you know you we had all the skateboard magazines cuz that's when magazines are still exists hidden where big you know, so we had at least one to two ads a month that we were making the the dropping all those magazines and then you add various video projects and there was like four one one magazine the video magazine and and then on top of that you do sponsored we have pumps sponsored maybe 10 to 12 skateboarders that were, you know, the top guys the industry that fit our brand and so you know that you have all sorts of different genres of You know types of skateboarders out there same as like, you know basketball.

There's there's you know guys that like high top shoes guys that like low top shoes or you know, so you have different athletes that represent different things like that.

So we you know spent all our marketing dollars to attract those teenage kids to come into the skate shops in and buy it in overtime as the brand Drew and we did more more sales.

You know that we expanded Amor mall stores in Owen.

So that kid isn't affected as much by you know, the pro skateboarder and the the Skateboard Magazine.

So then we started working with artists like Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park and we had you know, I'm on Mike custom signature shoe and and did stuff like that and eventually we worked with artist, you know, like cause people like that so you know it as we Branched out into more of youth culture as opposed to only skateboarding.

We found our unique marketing angles to do that and do it and fun and innovative ways and Drew the brand I think at its peak it rain off 2007/2008 or something was around 550 million.

So it it really grew to be quite a big brand was actually On Target.

There was a plan at one time with the guy that was running a company Nick to to be a billion dollar brand.

Unfortunately never made it there because of some problems.

The Quicksilver was having it would bought us in 2004, but it was incredible to take a brand from nothing, you know, it's over 500 million in sales a year.

Thuja call Bushman.

What does DC stand for DC actually stands for drawers clothing.

So almost every word or variation of the word in the English language is trademarked in some way, you know or another and so has weird trying to work on names for the brand.

You know, we had all sorts of names that we submitted and everything was taken.

You know, DC was actually I'd made DC logos for drawers know cuz doors clothing assistant abbreviation know something you can make a simple logo and put on a sleeve.

That's how I knew that I could make logos and art for that.

So we submitted that they came back the data that was possible to do.

So the crazy thing about trademarks.

I was even when you trademark something for one category doesn't mean that it's good for another category is left eventually, we made snowboards, but the logo that we have looks kind of like Chanelle and Chanel actually has that trademark.

The word that's what that's why you never see our logo.

On the way.

It is on shoes on a snowboard really random bit of side Legal Information.

If you deal with other company know for sure in just a side note for people of sight I run into this a lot with people are starting businesses Churchill properties really really nuanced and having a tree bark or having a patent does not protect you it just gives you the right to sue someone who infringes write.

This is really important like the actual expense spent over years protecting our trademark around the world is millions and millions of dollars of business and it's an ugly world.

It's not any fun, you know, and I've been various parts of the world and shown up and found like bootleg versions of our shoes and light even like good bootleg version to that came straight from our factories to where they're like, oh we have too many of these To me these diapers will just put them together and sell them out the back door, you know, and it's really unfortunate but that that is the world we live in unfortunately for the ride.

You mention the book when we were walking around that that that beautifully colored table tennis Dale Carnegie this just to to kick off a conversation and maybe resources and other things that have helped you in your entrepreneurial Journey.

That's who what was the book and When did it's when do the when do the pier 20-something and all the sudden? I have a business and I've got to manage it and I have no management experience.

See.

Like I didn't I didn't go to you no work in some other company and rise up through management and learn management skills.

I went straight from Junior College to having my own business.

And now I'm in our our business opportunity was growing every year it was successful every year and it was successful to know my business.

Why are Damon and I worked very hard but we were we were working on our talents and after awhile this town Source trying to run out we were successful but for us to continue to grow we needed smarter people than us around us.

And that meant that we need to hire them we needed to manage them and you know, no matter what and every company you you have.

You know ups and downs of dealing with people and success based on the people you surround yourself with and so I needed to grow as a person in that position.

And I knew that you know management was really, you know, one of the keys.

So the first actual book that I picked up to learn you no communication skills and management skills was How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, and I don't know.

How old is he? I would I would say it's at least forty probably 50 or 60 years old and maybe even like yeah, it's it's a it's a it's a fantastic what parts of it are both little dated and cuddle make you chuckle or cringe depending but great book.

I think that there's a there's a lot of good lessons in it and I like the attitude even the title like how to win friends and influence people and that that actually fits very well with like how I Like to manage how I like to work with people and in a lot of it is about working as a collective and getting people on a team to accomplish something as opposed to just being a director and barking orders.

So I've always enjoyed enjoyed the collaborative effort of working in a company that they were trying to get this done.

We're trying to you know, finish this campaign whatever it is and everybody knows and understands the goals and we've set up bar.

We set this bar High, how do we all get there? And that book was really one of the first books that really kind of helped me achieve my management style and what's helped me really be successful.

There's there's plenty of other books, you know, like the habits of millionaires all that sort of stuff those books do but I think that book really was part of kind of what shaped me as a business person Anna and a director If you look at the Leicester city apparel business, I've never spent a good amount of time around say Daymond John FUBU which stands for for us by us.

By the way for people to do.

Hope you don't know that and the or you know, Marc Ecko in the early days and it's a tough or can be really tough business right where people are relatively undifferentiated and and it's there in some cases depending on the scale.

Obviously.

It's it's an appealing business for a lot of people to go into.

So what were some of the key decisions or Approaches you took that were different enough that led to this year on year growth.

I was an innovation on how you approach the stores.

Was it something very unusual about your marketing obviously did a lot with product Innovation also, but like what what were the ingredients right because there a lot of players potentially a lot of players in that world did that stuff question, but you know what, I look back on our one thing that always the Damon and I always I thought about was really likes the easiest thing.

You said it the same set the bar very high and when you say that you like.

Okay.

Well, how does that apply? Like does that mean you make a really nice t-shirt? Well know it.

You know that's part of it.

But a lot of it is has to do with like okay if we're going to go do marketing.

How do we do it unique and different? How do we be creative now that the thing about the world today is it's easy to make it t-shirt.

But how do you get someone to buy it? Why is supreme, you know, you know more desirable than say, you know something else, you know, just for a random example, even throwing, you know Reebok or something else like that the other kids definitely going to take the Supreme shirt or the Reebok shirt, you know that because that is because of a brand essence you sold some of the story you've sold someone an image and to do that and to do it at a very high level is very difficult, you know, it takes years of development and and and really having that bar set so high and kind of judging everything against that bar so that you end up with, you know, marketing projects that are huge and different and really capture people's attention or do you have products that lead in the industry or that you have? You know athletes that really stand out and stand right along with you with their huge accomplishments and represent your brand with them at the same time.

So it it it's kind of all those things in one that they create this brand Essence for, you know, everyone from you know, big companies like Nike and Apple down to you know, small Brands even like us with hoonigan.

So if you can capture the interest of the consumer, you know with the right story that touches the right nerves and each of these markets than you can really set yourself apart and then drive the consumer to buy the product because it's the end of the day.

A t-shirt pretty easy to make even nowadays of Pair of Shoes pretty easy to make lots of competitors out there.

So how do you grab the attention of that consumer and say by ours instead of theirs, you know, can you think of a particular campaign or particular athlete that was just the Willy Wonka golden ticket where you guys were really kind of East the whole or when they completely face-planted be like, okay.

This is the reason why this didn't work well back in the day when we started drawers like we were, you know, a couple industry guys.

Me and Damon that no we we didn't have the experience a lot of other companies that we're competing against Todd and but we just had a vision we had an idea of what we wanted to do and And we came up with some very Innovative marketing concepts not hopefully only for drawers but into DC but the first thing that really started us off and drawers was just coming up with really fun and unique like kind of Twisted ideas.

And you know, Rob Dyrdek who's now a fairly big MTV star.

He was one of our skateboarders back then in the one of our first ads that really stood out in the magazines was literally just a poor blue paint over his head and he was smoking a cigarette.

We just said he's really obscure photos of just his head was blue paint being poured over it.

We're selling clothing.

There was no clothing in the ad, you know, but this is the early nineties and we were just trying to be a bit outlandish and different than what everybody else was doing in the magazine world at that time in the skateboard world, I should say and it was much more of sort of a fuck you fashion style attitude and it just really worked, you know, And we kind of played on that idea of you know, just being rebellious through the years and it's fun because skateboarders are generally like that.

So it was fun really playing into that over the years DC as we are growing it got a bit more professional the style of DC was kind of a bit more of like a much more Slicker style skateboard shoe more performance.

So we kind of played into that over the years and had some funny taglines and made kind of trade of but slick ads but in the end like one of the biggest things that we ever did was build a giant ramp like it was called the mega ramp for Danny way to do basically giant skateboarding tricks that have never been done at sort of the scale and that was around 2003-2004 in That is really made us and him stand out in a way that it really that was weird seeing skateboard and go to it like a whole new level to the point where X Games adopted that ramp and put it in the X Games and I think it's the mega mega rap style is still in the X Games today, but all initiated from Danny thinking in an Innovative and different way and then the US funding it in creating a video part all around us and that was just the type of stuff that we did the set DC, you know far apart from all of our competition.

Was there anything with pricing or distribution urination the contracts with the athletes that comes to mind that outside of kind of product and marketing you guys did differently we're going to come back to video for sure.

That's it.

Native medium for your words will come back.

Like I said earlier about You know realizing we weren't the smartest guys in the room then to hire those people, you know, and then manage the expectations of what we are trying to do in grow the business and how did you find those people? How do we find them? Some of them were friends? Someone more friends of friends guy that ran our business for a while was actually the father of someone went to high school with and then as we grew bigger and bigger, we do use Headhunters to go out and you know steal people from Nike for sales and stuff like that, you know, the reality of that big businesses, you know, if you're trying to go a certain place, you know, like with sales you need to buy are the guys that do that for someone else, you know, and and we would hire and find and hire the right people and we were able to grow quite quite well over the years, but you know that that's the that's the tough part about business.

I I was a Marketing guy, you know, I was very good at design.

I had some design experience, you know from doing architecture in high school and I ended up basically designing the first 15 models of her shoes, you know with some of the pro athletes, but I did the drawings I flew to Korea.

I immersed myself in the business to this is what I have to do to succeed and did it, you know, but doesn't mean I'm a good salesperson doesn't have a good accountant and you just got to hire the right people and be able to manage them.

And if they can't perform the management side of you has to fire them and move on and I or someone better, you know, and to me that's a big part of success is understanding your strengths and weaknesses and hiring the people to really help make a business successful that you can't do everything yourself.

Do you do.

There's no way at least in my mind.

There's no way that you can be at a brand director along with you know, what incredible accountant amazing say What person but you just have to have the wherewithal to understand what those jobs, you know what it takes to succeed in those jobs and then hire the right people to do it.

So it's that's one thing.

I've really learned pride in a big way over all this is that you know, it really takes a big community of smart people to make something successful, but at the top you still need to be able to set that bar in manage that bar to get something where you know, you intended to be did you guys up until the the actors in my Quicksilver? Did you self fund or did you bring in financing for the business along the way we had our names on very large lines of credit, which I genuinely hated which was all the reasons why we eventually sold that like it, you know, the liability of that if there was a down year or the economy crash or something that the business would have gone away quite quickly cuz he know we Didn't have you know, we were not cash heavy.

We were definitely very debt heavy but that's what we needed to grow and how we did grow and made for a very successful company.

But also that that can make things volatile in the in the long run and that's why we saw a purchase with someone like Quicksilver is a very good sort of route to a to a good end for us and it worked out really quite well.

It's a video and I promise to get back to video.

Let's talk about Gymkhana 5 specifically just as someone who is because I was the first Gymkhana video.

I saw I was in I live in San Francisco for almost 20 years before moving and I would have imagined I am only to describe it.

Four people haven't seen that everybody should see it.

By the way.

Last time I checked it had I'm sure it'll be past a hundred billion by the time 99 million or so views least one version of it on YouTube.

So quite a few people would see in this and it is it is really mind-boggling to watch this video.

And if you can describe the people that also did I hope in in describing it for people explain how it seems at least from the other day that you basically shut down San Francisco to do this because you don't see a soul on the street.

So what what is Gymkhana 5 maybe that's way of explaining what Gymkhana is And that everybody should absolutely go check this and all the other gym kind of videos out, but almost a hundred million views.

What what is jimkata? I love how you just jumped fast for very viral video live in San Francisco.

And they're just like what in the fuck is this is my favorite video, you know, we started making these videos of the first one it took us two days to produce.

It was a very small team and it was the first time that we really had a video cuz we made several like recap videos of me and Travis racing.

I done some stuff with Nitro Circus identify 170 foot jump like on a dirt bike track with my rally car for a program called stunt junkies that got like 10 million views.

But Gymkhana the first time, video that we did.

It's called Gymkhana testing and practice.

It it was the first real viral video.

I got like 10 million views and a couple weeks and then just kept going and it is actually this was before YouTube was really popular.

So it had a video player on my Ken Block website and it got like 10 million views are alone.

And finally I was paying for this thing for this pill this website The Host this it was costing a lot of money in like shit.

We got to put this on YouTube.

This is just costing me too much money, you know, so that's kind of how long ago this was.

It was over 10 years ago that, you know, we started doing this and it's weird to me that you think about this today that YouTube wasn't the video standard that it is now people were still putting videos kind of all over the place cast YouTube today is just the standard like everything, you know that everyone puts the stuff they're from you know, The Daily Show to eunos of the YouTube, you know.

Unity that some of them have subscribers in the millions, you know.

So anyway we created this video and it was really fashioned after skateboarding.

So skateboarding video part, like I will go out and say, you know, he'll skateboard and try and capture certain tricks on film for a year and you'll go to a certain handrail and he'll try 30 times and slam 29 times roll away on the 30th time and they make sure they get all the best angles of it, you know, when they'll take you know, 20 of these tricks and put them together to make a video part and it's just the best of what this person can do in this is done a lot in skateboarding snowboarding surfing Motocross.

Like they make these videos that are then sold to you know to the consumers.

So basically I kind of created that same thing but with a car, so I went and did you know a certain number of tricks and slides and around different obstacles? Airport called El Toro in Irvine.

And that's what the first time, video was.

I thought I was really cool.

It wasn't about trying to do something in one try.

It was about trying something 10 times to get the perfect shots to make it look really good and kind of tell the story of driving around the airport and kind of put it all together kind of has a course and when we first put it out, I was like I really like this video kind of showcases what I want to watch with me and my friends want to watch and when we put that out while it's turned out that a lot other people like to watch it too and that video really took off and so my sponsor said hey when you get to do that again, we really like that exposure and so DC paid for me to do the second one and the third one and the fourth one and then the fifth one being San Francisco now the second third and fourth one all or sort of Very similar filming concept but we just found different locations.

The second one was on some piers in Long Beach.

Third one was a really unique old race course in France that has the spank these Bank walls and go up to 51° some kind of for was on the one of the studio lights up in Hollywood.

So, you know, you've got jaws and you've got the War of the Worlds and like all these different sets that I was driving through the made a real cutie nothing but these are all closed sets, right, you know, like private Airfield in private Racetrack and that's her thing and for Jim kind of three weed actually gone to San Francisco South San Francisco Detroit and Scout Detroit and then we went to go get the permits to film their the city was like, we don't like certain locations.

You picked her like why you know, everybody know.

Detroit is in a part of the Rust Belt.

It's an industrial city that like, you know isn't so industria De Mornay has a lot of Urban Decay and we like the Urban Decay and we had some new stuff in there too.

But a lot of it Detroit to us was very cool.

Urban Decay and I wanted to drive in in through a lot of that and they just didn't like that.

They wanted to veto even on Sat they could say I know we don't like what you're filming in feet are so there's no way we could put up all this money to go film at a location where they're going to rain in the middle of shooting.

So we never ended up to be too difficult to anyway getting to Gymkhana 5.

We went and Scattered an area outside of San Francisco.

That's like an old military base where they used to build a lot of bombs and warships and that's her thing right on the water and it was cool, but it didn't have enough creative driving situations to really make a whole video.

So we went looked at it and we kind of disappointed and we're driving back into town to get the airport in the schedules with us had just scouted San Francisco for I think Iron Man 3.

So he's a very high-level Scout that does Hollywood type stuff and he's like a what you want to go check out these pots in San Francisco and we just kind of laughed like San Francisco.

Never going to let us do this in their City, you know, it it wasn't nothing to do against San Francisco.

It was more of the idea that like we're hunting with cars were having fun with cars.

I'm doing giant slides and donuts with a car.

There's no way as cities going to let us do that.

But also we just didn't understand sort of the movie world as well back then and so the Scout was like Donna we can do whatever we want.

We get a permit.

We we have that street to do whatever we want to know and so he took us to a couple locations and your kind of blown away or like really we can use these locations.

And so, you know, he had some good stuff when we said hey, we need to jump.

We need this navigate to real twisty Street.

We need something down by the water.

And so he came back to us like a month later or so.

I can have all that stuff.

You ready to go look again.

So we went back to San Francisco and looked at everything.

He brought us.

We said while we have enough here to make an amazing video.

We still need a few little things but you know, we have enough here and then in that process to the city came back and said hey, do you want the bridge like they offer.

How do you how do you get the Bay Bridge? How do you clear the baby? I would have never even thought that would be possible.

But but that's the thing.

That's that's interesting about all this as as we went through this process.

You learn like a city like San Francisco where a lot of TV shows are shot.

A lot of movies are shot.

A lot of commercials are shot.

Like there's a very good film department there that the police force Very Adept to understanding what the needs are for these movies and things and then they they understand what what you need to do to do this.

So they offered us the bridge were like, I would have never thought we're going to shut down the Bay Bridge and use the Bay Bridge but they're like, I always do that Sunday morning.

We block them over by like between Oakland lately start over they get on the bridge over by Oakland then as they get towards the island.

I don't know where is Ryland and when they have everybody start to slow down the traffic that empties out ahead of them and then we get on at Treasure Island or whatever that's called you and then go out and do what we need to do where the traffic still stopped before the island.

We have 10 or 15 minutes to do what we need to do then we move on then the cops just let the traffic go so really there only stopped for 10 or 15 minutes and we did that I think.

Four times so, you know that messes up some traffic but for a short amount of time on a Sunday morning, which is, you know, the least amount of traffic on that bridge.

So it's all about just really smart usage of public streets and I would have never understood all that unless we actually done that project that we've shut down like the busiest Road in Dubai, you know, the main strip through Dubai that it only been shut down once before for the George W Bush senior.

So he was the only one that they never shut it down for before that, you know, so it's been kind of wild to go in this ride of like I don't ever let us to that smell like shutting down some of the biggest cities in the world to do some of the song released on dashing.

I never would have thought of possible and is it a function of list of The Scouting Ace that you had or someone else putting together a pitch for the city like this? What we're planning this is why it's going to bring a lot of Tourism or is it really just the infrastructure set up? We are going to film this is how much would you know, what what is the retail price point for this card shutting down the street at that bike San Francisco looked at it and said, okay.

Yeah, that's that's good.

You know like these this is a viral series that could potentially give San Francisco more exposure, but I just think it's money you're paying the film commission the city of the government's to go to this, you know, and the city's getting paid the police department's getting paid.

You know, it's a it's a Commerce system, you know, and so You know, there's a lot of there's a lot of jobs around that that are being produced to everything from our crew to read all the guys that you know, there's certain streets that they don't want marks on.

So, you know, we're having to pay local guys to come in to clean up marks, you know it so it it it really it's kind of a wild process and it was short.

It's like San Francisco to me is one of the most unique driving cities in the world and not only is it have some amazing driving situations like Russian Hill some of the twisty streets all the elevation changes all that but it's also been immortalized by movies like bullet for sure.

It was like jumping on those crazy streets in the bridges and everything and that's what makes it so legendary.

You know and its Essence as San Francisco as a unique place for cars, you know, so when I when we got the permission to do that like oh man it was it was really quite an honor and very cool to me that we were going to San Francisco to make this video he now and I'll tell you that like I am very lucky.

I have an incredibly Drake true around me of smart very Innovative and creative guys and that's what helps me make these things to when you watch that video.

There's a ton of things in there that I do with the car, but I can't do that without the great race team behind me and the great creative team buy me to it's a very big collaborative effort for us to the do these things and and not only that even my experience and Connections in the industry.

We have Travis Pastrana in there doing a wheelie that the, you know part of one of the elements of the movie in and that's a part of you know, the system and everything that's built into what we do with No, my agent is Travis's agent Travis is a longtime friend of mine, you know, so it's it's it's such a great mix of friendships creativity and hard-working people that make this happen if it's that you're comfortable talking about it.

I just cuz I'm certainly could have a burning question my mind putting aside the separating out the production cost to put the put the production cost and one side meaning all the cameras all the crew for the actual filming.

What does it we don't have to make a specific San Francisco, but the shutdown Areas like that in San Francisco.

What is the sort of range from cost in doing something like that do any idea of the funny answer that question is why I ignore budgets, I get to focus on the creative stuff.

That is the honest truth is I only deal with budgets when they sit there seem to be overages hemostat X caused by me like a side we can use the Hollywood sign but it's going to cost another day.

I was really do that.

But luckily for what I've been doing there.

There's been a lot of successful test and DC in a fu