founder is ex-Nike designer
Shaan notes that FIGS, the fashionable medical-scrubs brand, went public and reached a $7 billion market cap, with the press hailing it as the next Lululemon or Nike.
“They went public. $7 billion. What? $7 billion market cap. What? If you go read any of the articles, it's like why FIGS is the next Lululemon, why it's the next Nike, why FIGS is, is a Starbucks for scrubs.”
Shaan's pitch to disrupt Jostens: custom-painted plain white Air Force Ones with the graduation year and school colors. Buy the blank shoe for ~$12, do ~$8 of custom paintwork, sell for $180-$200, sold via Instagram/Facebook ads and school-org rev shares.
“I probably would like find something that's shaped like that but is not already like $100, right? Because I need to get the shoe for like $12, and then I need to do the custom, you know, the paintwork on it for like another $8, and then I need to sell that shoe for like $180 or $200, something like that. I think that's the model here. And I think you could do this with Instagram ads, Facebook ads, and partnering with school organizations to do like kind of rev shares.”
Steal thisTake a high-margin commodity ($20 blank shoe), customize it into a status keepsake, and sell it through school-org affiliate rev shares.
Adi and Rudy Dassler hustled their sports shoes onto non-German athletes at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, including Jesse Owens, who won four golds and beat the Germans in front of Hitler while wearing Adidas. Shaan calls it the first time an entrepreneur used sports to promote a brand, a strategy Nike later perfected.
“Jesse Owens goes on to win, I think, 4 gold medals at those Olympics. And so Jesse Owens is a Black guy who basically wins gold and beats the Germans in front of Hitler, who's promoting white supremacy at the time. And so it's a big deal for that victory at the time. And he's wearing Adidas. And this is kind of considered the first time that an entrepreneur used sports to promote their products or their businesses.”
Robert Dreyfus bought a near-bankrupt Adidas (3% market share), moved manufacturing to Asia, cut two-thirds of jobs, and poured the savings into marketing. He took it back to the #2 brand and retired a billionaire, telling Time it was just easier for an outsider to copy what Nike and Reebok were obviously doing.
“The quote is, it didn't take a genius. You just had to look at what Nike and Reebok were doing and do that. He goes, it was just easier for somebody outside the company to see what was obvious than somebody inside the company who had all this baggage and they couldn't do it. So he turns it around, retires a billionaire in his 50s, I think.”
Steal thisCut costs ruthlessly, redirect the savings to marketing, and copy what the obvious leaders are already doing.
Harley argues that creator-owned brands (Kylie Cosmetics, Jeffree Star, Drake's OVO, Yeezy) are deeply misunderstood as mere brand extensions. They're built by people who understand their category cold, and unlike Michael Jordan licensing his name to Nike in the '80s, today's stars can own 100% via Shopify.
“If Michael Jordan started the Jordan brand today, he would own 100% of it, just like Yeezy does, just like Drake owns OVO, just like Kylie owns Kylie Cosmetics. But because the Jordan brand started in the mid-'80s, he was a licensor of his brand to Nike. He received a royalty. The royalty was substantial, but he had no choice but to work with Nike on this deal because fundamentally Nike had add the means of manufacturing and the means of distribution.”
Shaan's pitch for where he'd put money: back a rising NBA star like Zion Williamson or Luka Doncic to own their own direct-to-consumer brand rather than license their face to Nike, owning the customer relationship instead of being cuttable when they get hurt.
“is I would go to Zion Williamson or Luka Dončić or something, the next NBA star, and I would say, "Hey, don't just sign with Nike. Own your business. Own your brand. I will put up the money and let's go direct to consumer. Let's own the relationship with your customers," rather than just licensing your face and your name and someone else, right, who then controls it indefinitely. And then they can cut you when you hurt your knee, you know.”
Steal thisBankroll a rising star to own a DTC brand instead of licensing their name, and keep the customer relationship.
An ex-Nike designer launched Bala, premium nursing shoes for a workforce on its feet all day, and did $750K in sales in five days. Shaan frames it as part of a broader 'cool branded medical-wear' opportunity.
“ex-Nike guy decided to come out and make shoes for nurses, and they are good looking. I like 'em a lot. It's called Bala, B-A-L-A, and they're premium nursing shoes. And so you can see they have like a shit ton of foot support, 'cause nurses are like on their feet all day, and that's why a lot of doctors wear these like crazy clog-looking things. Um, and same for people in restaurant kitchens and whatnot. But, um, he said he did $750,000 in sales in 5 days launching this campaign.”
Steal thisTake a high-performance consumer brand aesthetic and apply it to an unsexy professional-wear category nobody has made cool yet.