From the sandy beaches of Australia to the bustling walkways of international fashion, Brian Smith has masterfully navigated his entrepreneurial journey with audacity, resilience, and a surfer’s spirit. Born with an insatiable passion for surfing, Brian has not only ridden waves but also the tides of the business world. A chartered accountant turned innovative entrepreneur, he spotted the untapped potential of sheepskin boots and introduced them to California. This marked the genesis of UGG, a brand that faced its share of rejections, only to emerge as an icon in the footwear industry, thanks to Brian’s unwavering faith and tenacity. Today, UGG is more than just a brand; it’s a global phenomenon that has redefined comfort and style in footwear. Generating billions of dollars in annual sales, UGG stands as a testament to Brian’s vision, perseverance, and entrepreneurial prowess. In this interivew, I speak to Brian Smith, Founder of UGG. We talk about his entrepreneurial journey, why it’s important to see businesses through the lens of life stages, and what it takes to build a global brand with incredible consumer loyalty.

Thought Economics

What if the greatest salespeople on the planet are the opposite of who you think they are? Everyone sells, every day. It’s why the most successful people are better than most at selling themselves, their ideas, or their products. Yet when people hear the word “sales” they think of an overly confident, articulate extrovert at best, or, worse, a pushy, know-it-all huckster. Because of these misperceptions, when they find themselves in a situation where they need to sell, they feel compelled to put on the persona of a “good salesperson.” But there’s a disconnect between who we think good salespeople are and who they actually are. In any room, they’re not the most self-confident, they’re the most self-aware. They’re not the most sociable, they’re the most socially aware. And they don’t succeed in spite of obstacles, they succeed because of obstacles. In their new book The Unsold Mindset, USC Marshall Adjunct Professors Colin Coggins & Garrett Brown sought out some of the most successful people from all walks of life, including CEOs, entrepreneurs, doctors, trial lawyers, professional athletes, agents, military leaders, artists, engineers, and countless others in between in hopes of understanding why they’re so extraordinary. They found that as different as all these incredible people were, they all had an eerily similar approach to selling. It didn’t matter if they were perceived as optimists or pessimists, logical or emotional, introverted or extraverted, jovial or stoic – they were all unsold on what it meant to sell and unsold on who people expected them to be. In this interview, I speak to Colin Coggins & Garrett Brown, two of the world’s foremost experts on sales. We talk about the counterintuitive nature of the greatest sellers on the planet – and how we need to understand the psychology, culture and reality of sales.  

Thought Economics

Hamish McKenzie is co-founder of subscription publishing start-up Substack and author of Insane Mode: How Elon Musk’s Tesla Sparked an Electric Revolution to End the Age of Oil (November 2018). In recent years, he has been the lead writer for Tesla, an advisor to Kik, a tech reporter, and a freelance journalist covering everything from the World Beard and Moustache Championships to the world’s most comprehensive face transplant. In this interview, I speak to Substack Co-Founder, Hamish McKenzie. We discuss the failures in traditional media, the genesis of Substack, and how it’s grown to become one of the world’s fastest-growing media platforms.

Thought Economics

It was 1998 when Barry’s first opened its doors in West Hollywood with an innovative new offering in fitness, combining HIIT interval training in a group setting. One part strength, one part cardio, 100% Barry Jay. This first site was founded by Barry Stich (Barry Jay) with help from his partners John & Rachel Mumford.  By 2011, the business had gone global (with its first site in Bergen, Norway) and today Barry’s has over 90 locations around the world, with over 140,000 people a week taking classes. In 2015, North Castle Partners (the investors behind Equinox Fitness, Curves International, Jenny Craig, Naked Juice & Octane Fitness) made a significant investment in Barry’s Bootcamp – allowing Barry Jay to move onto the next stage of his career, writing, producing, and directing horror films. In this interview, I speak to Barry Jay about Barry’s Bootcamp and how he built one of the world’s most recognised and fastest-growing fitness brands. We talk about his journey, succession, and how he’s gone on to find success in a whole new field, horror films.

Thought Economics

Dr. Joshua N. Weiss is one of the world’s foremost experts in negotiation. He is co-founder of the Global Negotiation Initiative at Harvard University and a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Negotiation Project. He is also the Director and creator of the Master of Science degree in Leadership and Negotiation at Bay Path University. Dr. Weiss has spoken and published on leadership, negotiation, mediation, and systemic approaches to dealing with conflict. In this interview, we discuss what it takes to be a great negotiator, why negotiation skills matter, and the secrets of how to effectively handle even the most complex negotiations.

Thought Economics

Will Ahmed is the Founder and CEO of WHOOP, which has developed next generation wearable technology for optimizing human performance and health. WHOOP members include professional athletes, Fortune 500 CEOs, fitness enthusiasts, military personnel, frontline workers, and a broad range of people looking to improve their performance. WHOOP has raised more than $400 million from top investors and is valued at $3.6 billion, making it the most valuable standalone wearables company in the world. In this interview, I speak to Will Ahmed about his mission to transform human-health, and what he’s learned from building one of the world’s most valuable startups.

Thought Economics

DoorDash is a remarkable business. Founded in 2013, the business now has millions of monthly active users, across 27 countries, who utilise the services of millions of Dashers on the platform to get, ‘restaurants and more, delivered to their door.’ DoorDash is empowering a whole new economic model – In the period from Q1 2020 through today, the platform has generated over $70 billion in sales for merchants, and over $25 billion in earnings for Dashers. It took 7 years for DoorDash to complete their first billion orders (from founding through October 2020), it took 10 months to complete their next billion – the scaling continues – in Q3 2022 alone, DoorDash delivered over 430 million orders. DoorDash IPO’d in 2020, and is regarded as one of the most valuable consumer businesses on the planet. In this interview, I speak to Christopher Payne, President of DoorDash. He served as COO from 2016-2021, and prior to joining DoorDash, he led the North American business at eBay, ran development of MSN Search (now Bing) and mapping (Virtual Earth) for Microsoft. He also led Amazon’s expansion beyond books into video, electronics, wireless, PCs and software. He is one of the world’s most accomplished technology leaders.

Thought Economics

Mike Evans is the founder of GrubHub. Hungry and tired one night, Mike wanted a pizza, but getting a pizza was a pain in the neck. He didn’t want to call a million restaurants to see what was open. So, as an avid coder, he created GrubHub in his spare bedroom to figure out who delivered to his apartment. Then, armed with a $140 check from his first customer and ignoring his crushing college debt, he quit his job. Over the next decade, Mike grew his little delivery guide into the world’s premier online ordering website. In doing so, he entered the company of an elite few entrepreneurs to take a start-up from an idea all the way to an IPO. In 2021, JustEat acquired GrubHub for over $7billion. In this interview, I speak to Mike Evans, Founder of GrubHub. We talk about the brutal realities start-up life, what it takes to lead an innovative, scaling, consumer focussed business and how he took a $140 cheque and turned it into a $7bn+ business.

Thought Economics

The single best way to have a great idea is to produce lots of ideas. The number of new ideas your organization can produce is a metric for its ability to generate novel solutions to any given problem. Your ideaflow is the most crucial business metric that you’ve never considered. Every business problem is, finally, an idea problem. How well you can solve those problems is how well you and your business can perform, navigate uncertainty, and develop innovations. Jeremy Utley is the Director of Executive Education at Stanford d.school and an Adjunct Professor at Stanford’s School of Engineering. He is the co-host of the d.school’s widely popular program “Stanford’s Masters of Creativity.” Perry Kelbahn is a co-founding member of Stanford’s d.school faculty. He is an Adjunct Professor and Director of Executive Education at Stanford d.school. He has served as COO of Patagonia and as CEO of Timbuk2. In this interview, I speak to Jeremy Utley & Perry Klebahn of Stanford’s renowned Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (aka the “d.school”) on ideaflow, their proven strategy for routinely generating and commercializing breakthrough ideas.
 

Thought Economics

Dandapani is a Hindu priest, entrepreneur and a former monk of 10 years. After graduating university with a degree in Electrical Engineering he left it all behind to become a Hindu monk under the guidance of one of Hinduism’s foremost spiritual leaders of our time, Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. For 10 years he lived a life of serious personal discipline and training at his guru’s cloistered monastery in Hawaii and on that journey he came to many discoveries around the most common mental maladies that literally plague us, anxiety, stress, worry and fear. Through his lectures and courses, Dandapani’s work has allowed millions to overcome distraction and find peace in their lives. In his new book The Power of Unwavering Focus, Dandapani distils decades of wisdom into insights to help us move through our lives with willpower, awareness, and focus. In this interview, I speak to Dandapaniabout what it means to have a life well-lived, what it means to best understand our minds, and how we can overcome anxiety, fear, stress and worry.

Thought Economics

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