· David Senra, Ronnie Fieg
[00:00:00] S0: Doing it for love. [00:00:00] S1: I don't ever want to step away from that. So, everything I do is for the love of what I do. The market needs more of that. It needs more attention to detail. It needs to have more purpose. And I think purpose is huge. I often go back to the purpose behind a lot of these products that Apple makes, and it's to better people's lives. And it doesn't only come in the form of technology. The product that you're wearing can make your life better. You can feel better in the product that you're wearing. It can make you look better. It can give you more confidence. I want to give them more than what they pay for. So, there's so much that goes into just that portion of it, of making sure that there's value in the product when you touch and feel it, or through 50 washes of a garment. There are a lot of words that I think meanings of some of these words are changing over time, like the word luxury and like the word value. Typically, luxury and value don't come together. Value is this beaten-down term by downmarket retail. And then luxury is typically like, it needs to cost a certain amount to be luxurious. What luxury should mean is how much people love what they're buying, that it's a luxury to have the product. That's what luxury should mean. So, a lot of these luxury companies, I think, are overexposed now and are becoming less luxurious, at least to me. That means it's overaccessible. [00:00:00] S0: So, how do you avoid that with Kith, though? [00:00:00] S1: First of all, we don't wholesale. Second, we don't license.
· Ronnie Fieg, David Senra
[00:00:00] S1: First of all, we don't wholesale. Second, we don't license. [00:00:00] S0: Why is that important for somebody that's outside of your business? Explain why that's so important. [00:00:00] S1: Because then you can't control how those products are spoken about and where they're placed and how they're merchandised. Then you can't storytell around the product. You could storytell top line by creating these TV ads, and then you're walking in the airport and there's some fucking little rinky-dink shop that there's construction done on half the store, and you walk in and it's messy as to how you see the product and the people that are catered to you. They might not be best in class, and then all of a sudden, people are subconsciously associating your brand with that experience. From day one, I've always wanted to control the experience that people have because I thought I could be the best at speaking to it since I'm the creator of it, right? So I wanted to walk people through the full experience, from ideation through walking out the door, walking out the Kith door. So the storytelling, I feel like we're 50% storytellers and then 50% retailers. But on the retail side, that's then broken up to what we do digitally versus what we do physically. And as the business starts to skew more digital, I feel forced to open more physical. And that's how the brand grew, because I have a number, there's a threshold where I won't allow the percentage of the total pie to go over an X amount on the website for the web revenue. [00:00:00] S0: Why?
· David Senra, Ronnie Fieg
[00:00:00] S0: Why? [00:00:00] S1: I don't want to become a digital brand. The touch point, the touch and feel. [00:00:00] S0: So you're purposely foregoing more sales. This goes back to the love and not how the conversation started. It's like you can't work hard for this money. You're purposely foregoing more sales because you have to be a physical, and that's a better experience for the person. So if I order something from kith.com, right? As opposed to going in your stores- [00:00:00] S1: Yes [00:00:00] S0: ... it's like way better experience that you control the whole story, the whole experience. [00:00:00] S1: We're controlling from the website down. And actually, no, that's not true. I'm not foregoing revenue because the website revenue continues to grow and it's on its path. But I always want it to be half digital and half physical. So, I want the physical to grow at the same rate, is what I'm saying. [00:00:00] S0: Okay. [00:00:00] S1: Does that make sense? [00:00:00] S0: Yeah. It's not like, okay, wait, we're at 50%. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah. Stop selling product on the internet. [00:00:00] S0: Yeah, that would be kind of... That actually might be a good idea. It's like, "Sorry, the website's closed for a few days." [00:00:00] S1: Right. [00:00:00] S0: "You got to come back." [00:00:00] S1: By the way, there are some brands that do that and then create demand because they go away for a little bit. Supreme does that in their off-seasons, which I think is really smart.
· Ronnie Fieg, David Senra
[00:00:00] S1: By the way, there are some brands that do that and then create demand because they go away for a little bit. Supreme does that in their off-seasons, which I think is really smart. [00:00:00] S0: So, are you using the sales online as a sign that, "Hey, I need to increase the amount of physical stores I have in the real world?" [00:00:00] S1: Yes. [00:00:00] S0: Okay. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah. And I think that because I've done that, the brand is in a really unique place because I open stores where I travel. [00:00:00] S0: Oh, say more about this. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah, New York, Miami, LA, and then Tokyo, for example. And then as I started to visit Paris for Fashion Week, Paris became the next focus for me. And then as I started to visit London, London became a focus for me. Korea, Seoul became important in fashion, so I started to visit Seoul, and that's when I figured it would be a good time to open up a store in Seoul. I think the growth that we've had has been substantial. As we're planning on opening now, the news is out, we're opening in San Fran, we're opening in DC, and we have the data of how many people are shopping online, like I mentioned before. Those people need the experience, the physical experience of the brand. They can't only have a Kith experience if they're a fan of the brand. I feel like I owe that to them. I have the responsibility of giving them the full experience for the company, for what the company can offer at least. So, that's really the mindset around the growth. [00:00:00] S0: This is a privately held company, right?
· David Senra, Ronnie Fieg
[00:00:00] S0: This is a privately held company, right? [00:00:00] S1: Yes. [00:00:00] S0: Do you have investors or no? [00:00:00] S1: No. [00:00:00] S0: You own all of it? [00:00:00] S1: Yeah. Well, me and my partner, yes. [00:00:00] S0: You mentioned going to Tokyo. There's this crazy, you probably know about this, it's like one of the best pizza. You wouldn't expect to find the best pizza in the world in Tokyo, but there's one psycho guy. [00:00:00] S1: That's actually, I expect to find the best of everything in Tokyo, but keep going. [00:00:00] S0: Oh, good. Yeah. Somebody said this to me. They're like, "The way you make podcasts, like you have a Japanese spirit." It's like, what's the craftsman? The shokunin? Where it's like, it doesn't matter if you're sweeping the floor or making sushi. It's like whatever you do is like- [00:00:00] S1: You need to be the best- [00:00:00] S0: Shokunin. [00:00:00] S1: Right. Okay. Yeah. [00:00:00] S0: Whatever you do, it's just like you take it very seriously and be the best at what you're doing. [00:00:00] S1: That's right. You maximize the potential of any one role. [00:00:00] S0: Yeah. And so this guy, I went to the pizza spot. I forgot what it's called, but people that hear this will know what it is if they've been there, because he does three kinds of pizza. You can't make any modifications. You can't say, "Oh, can I get..." The answer is, "I'm going to make these three." [00:00:00] S1: Right. [00:00:00] S0: "And I'm going to make them the best." [00:00:00] S1: That's it.
· Ronnie Fieg, David Senra
[00:00:00] S1: That's it. [00:00:00] S0: And then he'll just, when he's done for the day, he just closes. [00:00:00] S1: That's it. He's done. [00:00:00] S0: Yeah. It just closes. So if you're a privately held company, you said, what came to mind now is like, well, all these brands get overexposed. [00:00:00] S1: That's right. [00:00:00] S0: And they get overexposed because they have the pressure from- [00:00:00] S1: Of the shareholders [00:00:00] S0: ... investment. So shareholders like, "You got to grow, grow, grow." [00:00:00] S1: Yeah. [00:00:00] S0: But for craftsmen, it's like, "I don't know. I make three pizzas. I do this forever." [00:00:00] S1: Right. [00:00:00] S0: "And this is what I want to do." So you could, if this is a concern of yours, stop or slow down. [00:00:00] S1: No, I do. [00:00:00] S0: Exactly. [00:00:00] S1: I do. And in many instances I do, but it's not in the sense of shutting down the website or- [00:00:00] S0: No. [00:00:00] S1: Right. That would be the extreme. And I also definitely am not going to make three pizzas. I'm very ambitious to maximize the potential of what the brand can do. And the brand has expanded way beyond footwear and apparel. [00:00:00] S0: I mean, you just walked in here and you're like, "Hey, dude, the filming in the Aman is really nice. Next one we should do, we should do in Ivy." [00:00:00] S1: Yeah. [00:00:00] S0: To your point, you're just like, "Well, I don't really have any ceilings on my ambition, and I can take this into hospitality and other spaces too."