HOKA: Jean-Luc Diard and Nicolas Mermoud. The “Clown Shoe” That Became a $2B Bonanza

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Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements.
They built.
I'm Guy Raz and on the show today how a crushing end to a race in the French Alps led to the launch of Hoka.
A pillowy sneaker that now does over two
million dollars in sales each year.
Sometime around the 2010s, sneakers started to change.
They got
Bigger.
And they started to look almost like inflatable rafts with these
Pick.
Pillowy souls.
Now this was not intended to be about fashion, although
Thick sold sneakers.
did become a fashion accessory.
But originally, it was all about comfort and performance.
And that change was ignited by two companies.
both founded in Europe about a year apart.
Both brands were started by elite runners, and both of them believe that more protection, more cushioning could actually improve your running.
One of those brands was on. It's a story we told on the show back in 2024.
And the other brand was Hoka.
The subject of today's episode.
When Hoka's shoes first appeared in late two thousand nine.
It looks well.
Just weird.
The midsole were unusually thick, the sole curved like the bottom of a rocking chair.
And at first glance, they kind of resembled clown shoes.
In fact, that's what some professional runners called them in the beginning.
But that look wasn't an accident.
The founders didn't think of a running shoe as a piece of apparel.
They thought of it like a machine.
Every single part doing a specific job.
and every detail meticulously engineered.
And it took time for people to get it, but once they did...
The brand exploded.
In 2012, Hoko was doing less than$3 million in sales a year.
Today
It generates more than two billion dollars.
At the center of the story are two men who grew up not too far from each other in the French Alps, Jean Luc Diard and Nicolas Mermoux.
In 1980, when he was just 23 years old, Jean-Luc joined a legendary French company called Salamen, back when it was known primarily for ski bindings.
And there, early in his career, he encountered someone who would shape the way he thought about building things and leading people.
And that person was the namesake of the company.
George Salomon.
The special thing with
with this person who was an amazing entrepreneur uh was that he was very close to everyone. So
So he would come to uh
to the office in the in the evening where I was and say
Shop.
What are you working on and what have you learned, et cetera.
And then
One day it was at
The French national championships of of skiing.
The uh he was there and he caught me at the at the end of the race and You were racing. Yeah, I was racing.
I was in the team of students, but not into the uh but you were in this race. Yeah, yeah, I was in that race.
And he said to me, Why don't you race with with our ski boots?
And I need to understand why.
Why don't you come with me into the car and we'll go down to the skiboard division and you'll explain why.
I was freaking out but
But but obviously that was an an amazing sign of how
Much he wanted to learn.
what could be improved. And those are the things that stay into your mind, I mean the the the CEO owner let's say of that company

Bring him to the the the ski boat division.
And say
We are going to talk about those things.
So this would begin a long career.
at Salamon, nineteen eighty, as an intern, you would eventually we're gonna get to it, you'd eventually become the CEO, president CEO
And then I I think in nineteen eighty six you are
Put
in charge of product for this new product which is gonna be skis. Yeah.
Which is gonna really
blow the whole I mean transform this brand. It's gonna make it into a brand that is
like uh Burton. I mean it was it's it was gonna become a huge brand.
Yes, yeah.
Because the ski is the
Is the king.
product. Uh so and then there was the big
Um
aspect that that I was anticipating the fact that skis and bindings would become one unit.
Uh and not being completely separ I mean separate elements but we're used to be that you bought the skis, you bought the bindings, you would connect them.
Right. Now you just buy everything.
This is what is going to happen.
Uh so if we don't get into it
Trevor Burrus, Jr. It's hard to imagine that that that it was not that long ago. And we're talking about, you know, thirty, forty years ago.
that you would still buy them separately, these components and and salmon
Was a bindings brand.
And then they were sort of w c they weren't sure if they should get into skis.
But it just seems like a an obvious today it you know in hindsight seems totally obvious.
Many of the
the the brands at the beginning were were like very, very specialized. You could say the same in the bike industry or things like that. And so you were
An alpine ski binding company.
An Alpine ski boot company or an alpine ski company. Got it. Okay, I I wanna turn uh to you now, Nico, because I think you were
uh twenty years old when you first met.
Jean Luc, um you were still at university. Yes. Uh, and I guess you were at a ski race. You you were racing.
And and from what I understand, you met Jean Luc because he was there.
Uh recruiting people to work on this new ski that
Salamon was
was developing, is that right?
Yes.
You have to understand that that time.
the aura around Solomon was unbelievable. George Salomon was the ultimate, I mean beyond legend. Beyond the sports.
And he was like this this
Amazing person.
was a genius.
So it was like a dream company especially for someone who loves uh who loves skin. So I talked to Jean Luc and I said
I'd like to to to come join you when I'm done studying and he said, Well I mean
Just finish your studies and uh we can talk again, um
In two years and a half. And and finally
Nico, you graduate.
And you join Salamen.
Tell me about
about so you you contact Jean Luc and you say, Okay, I'm done, I'm ready.
Yeah, the the but the most funny part is um
It was my first day at the office, you know.
So we met on the
the parking lot. And then we drive to a glacier uh in Courmayer, like in the the Mont Blanc Chamonix Valley.
And
We test different prototypes, we compare them.
This is your first day.
Takes from that day.
The first one of course is
That's what I I want to do all my life, you know. I want to wake up and uh go go do what I love and get paid and get paid and and with a a bunch of super nice fun
Colleagues who become friends, you know?
That's the first one.
As soon as we sat down after the test.
We were talking
About the feel.
We're talking about the the sensations, the emotion we'd had.

our feet our brain.
Everybody
Equal
Everybody
Trying to solve a problem.
With no sense of
Hierarchy.
This has never changed.
And how did by the way, how did that first those first few skis do?
Were they a hit?
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. It was a big, big hit.
The uh just to put it in perspective, I mean it took us
Six years.
To be
Number one in terms of global sales, global revenues.
On the ski side.
That's the power of innovation.
And it's the poor of
Young Blood.
But then being always extremely critical toward what you do.
That's the constant process, but never being satisfied.
it's very mountain people authenticity, you know, not to get impressed, not to
to get overconfident. And we have sometimes this uh this reputation in France
to be a bit critical and to be unsatisfied.
Uh it's not always pleasant when you go to a restaurant or you get in a taxi in Paris. I love the French, but there is a malaise sometimes that you experience. Yes, but when when it comes when it comes to innovation, especially if you mix it with our background as uh Mountain uh people.
Solomon embraced it and decided to jump to the next level. But
You can miss opportunities, you can miss when you're too focused on on your own success and what you're doing and you want to follow your path.
And it's it's always important to all to to listen to the consumers
And to look very closely at what the competitors are doing.
Yeah.
Um, Sean Luc, you would spend twenty seven years
Yeah.
Salomon of ultimately and you became the CEO in nineteen ninety eight.
When you became
CEO of this group because you saw Salamon go from a bindings company
to a bindings and boots company, to a binding boots and ski company, then eventually
Yeah s uh summer winter sports company. I mean uh uh b running shoes and apparel, Arteric's apparel and
Even cycling and all these things.
Can you give me a sense of from the time you joined Salaman?
In nineteen eighty, eighty one, to the time you left, which we'll get to.
What was the revenue from the beginning and then what was it?
At the end. It was not even it was below one hundred million, it was I think in the seventy to eighty million.
When I joined.
And then uh when I left the group was
About one point two billion.
Yeah.
So completely different company. Very different. I mean just a explosion.
And growth.
Yeah.
All right, I wanna I wanna jump to two thousand seven because this was gonna be your last year
And
Salmon. From what I understand.
You go to in in two thousand seven you were at the outdoor retailer trade show. This is in Europe or the US? US
And
And already at that point.
there во there was there were trends happening in all across
sports, I guess just kind of oversized larger things, right?
Yes.
Later and later.

Every time you
You you get out at the trade show and and you
You have things that all of a sudden jump a little bit more in your face. Yeah.
What are some examples that you were seeing?
Take Tailormade Golf Clubs. Just to take an example, the the first uh Tailormade Golf Club adds.
They were two hundred C C uh
And then gradually they moved to three hundred, then to those. Bigger and bigger and as they grew bigger, the paradox was they was that they grew lighter at the same time.
And they gave
Not only more performance, but they gave also more tolerance. Exactly.
Father Straighter.
So all those things.
led to better performance.
In skis the same way. Skis that become wider. And what did that mean? What did wider skis mean for you you get the combination of stability on the one side, which is kind of the way you you you feel relaxed, if you want.
But at the same time, combined with other parameters, it's still enabled to curve.
Really well.
Uh
So
So that's one example. Bike uh bike wheels became much bigger. Thicker.
The profile of the ribs.
If you if you are a biker, I mean you became much more aerodynamic. And we can and we can name
A lot of things like that where we saw that
Oversized and lighter.
Enable to change paradoxes, to change pridings.
And and you brought performance.
More
Uh let's say to the bigger
to a bigger group. All of these things are kind of swirling around. Like if if if I'm w if I'm looking at the movie about your life, you're walking down the street and all these bubbles are just like the you know the

Larger size.
Everything that's also a little bit at that time.
the design, like the style, the impact on the eye.

questions and interest where it's it's it's negative or look at those big tires, look at those f skis, look at those big golf clubs. Exactly.
Yeah.
Okay, I I wanna turn uh to you now, Nico, because I think you were
You're gonna run this ultra marathon, this ultra trail uh d uh do Mont Blanc. Okay, so you do this this is two thousand seven. Yes. It's a hundred and one miles around Mont Blanc. First of all, were you a r I mean, we've already we've only talked about skiing and winter sports.
Had you I'm assuming you got into running at some point in in your life.
Th very surprisingly than the way that I I ski raced uh uh for many years, uh I I became more of an athlete and an elite athlete in endurance sports.
And then it went to adventure racing, and then it went to to to trail running.
It you would do it in like
One to two days. So you got into this into in your thirties almost, into trail running.
Tray Ring, I I started my first series tra tray race. I was forty. Forty, wow. You do this insane ultra marathon, which I guess today six thousand people start.
You're gonna run around Mont Blanc.
And Sean Luc, you uh you're gonna be part of his crew.
Oh yeah.
And the crew meant like handing him water or snacks while he was running past you and poles.

By the very first moment already, I mean he
i started like crazy.
Way ahead of the pack.
Yeah.
That was that was a huge surprise. You were an amateur, but you were an elite, I read, for fift the first fifteen hours of this race.
You were in the lead.
I just took off and uh and then the the Saturday at like four PM it was over because I
I ended up doing twenty two hours.
And and coming in third, but twenty two hours coming in third.
That's Yes. And and these is in one pair of shoes the whole time, right?
Or do you switch shoes? Yeah, I didn't switch. And and how did you
mean this is a hundred and one miles, you're pounding, you're constantly pounding your joints, your body. I mean you must have been
Just
Spent wiped. Because I tried to do every s I wasn't a little bit of a
getting chased by twenty five hundred people. I could see the headlamps and I I
I ran down the way I would normally
ski or drive, but I had no
Technology.
I had like a very thin so the the my body fed apart. Were you in you were you in excruciating pain the last year I couldn't I lost one hour in the last thirty K. How? One hour because my
Quad shut down.
So you were
You were like jelly. Your legs were You can create the speed. You cannot lift up your feet. So your brain is saying You're right. Your brain is telling your legs to move, but they cannot move.
My legs are telling my brain uh to stop whisping. The other way around.'Cause when you're going downhill, you're using more of your
You're breaking. You're right. And so you're you're putting more strain on your quads, I think, than when you're going up, up is more calves.
I guess it depends on how you run. Yeah. Your quads, your knees. I mean uh take a lot. Your knees, right? Uh takes a lot.
Yeah, see it it's I mean, I I can picture it so many times because as a kid, you know, we r love running down grass hills or even when I hike now, I'm always very careful when I
going downhill because I don't want to fall. I don't want to slip. And so really
It's the the conclusion you come to is that the downhill side this is a technology problem this can actually be solved.
To your point, Gay, when uh as a kid
Every time you see a a little
Run down. What do you do? You run. You you run you and you and typically you have your arms wide open and you laugh and you fall sometimes, but you have fun.
There are days you fly.
It doesn't matter which that's why you you have this expression like which ticks with runners, with bikers, with skiers, with anyone. Today I was flying.
Yeah. So how do you get back to that?
Right. And I think w one of the things you you began to sort of
to kind of document, right, is that
A runner's performance changes
Depending on the surface that they're running on.
during a race, right? Like not all
Trails feel the same under your feet, right? Yes.
There was one on in the fall with a lot of dead leaves.
There was one dead leaves, you're right. Yes, so you had the cushioning from the There was one very uh important one in two thousand during an adventure race in Sea City on lava.
So it was soft.
And you and you see the big difference that there that that there is between
When you are in those situations compared to when you are in other situations where you are just
Pounding hard.
It's a legend that we're a serious
enthusiastic runners before Hockey we were lazy
Because it was
So hard.
and one step at a time compared to anything else we would do.
Okay.
So you guys start to have this conversation.
And
What I mean do you see?
What do you remember? You you said to Jean Luc or you said to Nico or said why don't we develop
Why don't we try to build build a shoe that solves this problem.

to do something together we had like a field which seemed the
fantastic, which is footwear because it's it's a it's a huge market.
Nothing ready.
I'd been done for so long.
So what was the next step?
Then in order to to make things happen.
We started to create um

uh with uh people coming that had some know how and
So w so we had different people, let's say, on the topic at the beginning.
Okay.
Any part of us on Luke.
Nervous. I mean.
You had because when you're the CEO of a big company, you've got
all kinds of resources at your disposal and you've got all kinds of people and staff in a huge organization.
What
What
What were the challenges you were facing personally?
Because
You would
I have to put in money.
And your reputation.
And all of a sudden, you know, it's
You're gonna be calling and picking up the phones and you know, it's a different it's it's
So tell me a little bit about
Wait.
Yeah.
So on the one side you have the excitement of starting a new adventure.
Right, clearly.
The the second thing is that you know that those adventurers
have eighty percent plus chances of failure.
So you're just
Take into account.
And then the other thing is to fix boundaries when it comes to
the investments that you are going to do. So here you need to
Be very clear with your family, uh about how much you are going to
Yeah.
And
Obviously not everyone was believing that
That the two of us could do something together.
Who who was I mean, I would believe it. You were the head of city you were you guys had a great track record.
Most people around us would say, Hm, are you sure it can work?
So so but that's that's fine. That's the the usual thing that you that you face.
So so this is why
In order to m to make something you have to have
Um let's say first a a great team.
Uh around you.
Yeah.
So that was
The first thing to say.
Who are the people?
That can bring
That to life.
But that group.
Uh
Which cost a lot of money every day, just you had to pay salaries and you have to pay uh uh rent and you had to pay all of that.
So you rented space in I and C
And and and and was this like was it a small office with like
Exactly. So small off small office space
Small tools, small things I mean to to to do things knowing that
In footwear.
the the the innovators are are also the suppliers.
They are the people who are providing you with
the foam formulations with the m d the different materials, etcetera. So what we had
We had connections with a lot of people out there. So so those people would give us let's say
Like the first step of credibility.

Even if they had eyes like this when we showed the f the where where we wanted to go.
But at least they said.
Okay, we're w we'll we'll give it a try.
When we come back in just a moment.
Nico takes an early version of Hokos to a trail race, and even he has to admit.
They kind of look like clown shoes.
Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.
Hey, welcome back to how I built this. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2008, and Jean-Luc and Nico have set up a design studio in Anasi in the French Alps to develop a new kind of running shoe. But this very first version isn't really a sneaker. It's more like a piece of foam that you'd strap to the bottom of your shoes.
for downhill running.
Well like maybe people will go to to to the mountains and they will drive up or they will ride the the gondola up and they will just trap their their equipment when they get to the town and they will and they will fly down the mountains.
So it was a
pushing the envelope to the extreme of o of of a a new sport which would be
Downhill.
running. And and that's when they were these

A uh the straps wouldn't work because your your foot would uh made a prototype? No, I think it's a it didn't work much. Okay. Do you have a name for the shoe from the beginning or d would that come later? So
The name Hokia.
most important thing is uh we wanted to portray flying.
I had been to New Zealand.
A few times.
Hoka is a
I think it's a Maori word, right?
What does it mean?
So Hoka is flying, One is like the element, the dirt, flying soaring, there's many ways to to say it in in Maroca.
It's it's the feeling that we wanted to describe.
Right.
Everything was based once again on on the notion of flow and flying. Everything.
And that was
Linked to the fact that what we had stated was uh a name that would have four letters.
Two syllabs.
Hoka.
Yeah.
And
the best uh let's say
Places where we had enjoyed the most adventure racing were on the islands.
Mm-hmm.
And so so we wanted to take that positioning of being associated with the islands. We found that
There was no brands associated with it, that it was a completely different types of positioning, and that you had everything.
Sea to summit, let's say in uh with every kind of term. Sky to see.
Great, because at that time you would think
Given your backgrounds,
You know
Trail running, you might think of like Boulder, Colorado, right? You might think of like that. But you wanted to get away from that. You wanted to be more of s people to think of an island, which is interesting. So clearly there's this
kind of mood board you're kind of working working through. But let's talk about the design. Tell me about this idea of mid souls, right? Because I think
mid soul there the and the literally the middle of the soul
There hadn't really been much thought put into mid soul.
Innovation at the time.
The meat soul
And it's it's it's
much more true now than it was like uh s twenty um twenty years ago.
It's the engine and and the body of the of the footwear.
And your foot
Uh
inside the car, which is a midsole, and there is a tire underneath which creates a connection and the grip and the connection with the ground. And there is like uh a seat and and a seat belt which is which is the upper. But it's it's
We were looking at it like it's
It's a ski or it's a wheel of the side. I mean what the way we described it is that it's the interface between you and the ground.
How do you develop that interface? How do you develop the snow or the lava ash or the leaves? Exactly. Something soft, glidy.
Uh bouncy.
You know?
We we wanted to improve on that, but as I said, it was
You you you wanted to make something that had an appeal
It'd say much
In a much broader way.
So downhill running was was it like a

It was always to say
What where does that lead to?
because you you you don't do shoes just for
downhill running in hundred mile races. That would be
Like
one thousand people doing it.

Is
You build rocker.
Rocker. So it's a shape like a rocker.
Wherever you are
It'd say going up, flat, down, et cetera.
That when you would you would land on your heel and it would just propel you up like a rocking chair. So was there anything out there
On the market like a rocking chair at the time?
Yeah, I mean in some ways partly the shaped the the the MBT at the time. Yes. So which was a different small brand. It was for walking, right? It's it's a very different principle, but it had this in the sense that it was built on the principle of instability.
The instability principle was here to help you, let's say
Find your stability by
putting your body in the right position. Essentially just these were really innovative shoes because they were like boats. They were like it was like two little boats on your feet. Exactly that was that was a a whole thing I mean
But the perception that you had like this was important.
And globally speaking
Once again, every development mindset was
How do we make the the thing that requires the least energy for the maximum amount of efficiency?
Yeah. So so that's one thing that was hundred percent clear since the beginning. It had to be rocker. So you knew that it had to be a rocker. Okay. So it had so now, but the challenge was, in order to do that, you needed a lot more foam.
And that was gonna add more weight. How how much of a challenge was it to
Develop this technology.
Well, the uh if you want suspension and you're gonna you're going to use like a a midsole that's like two to three times the size of a regular midsole.
And to have like a great cushioning.
You need to go with forms which are much shorter than what was the industry standard.
Pretty much twice softer.
than what was the tradition in the industry. Softer. So less much softer. And softer also means less dense. So much lighter. Okay. So so the challenge in to getting that was to
Find the partners that would dare
Making that. So it's never been made. Why not? Because it was not practical, it wasn't seen as it was not industry standard.
Because all the all the shoes were low profile and in order to
give you the the the the resistance also in a low profile.
You had to have a given stiffness. So it was a stiffer foam. Nobody was making a softer. But the technology was I mean the the it it was possible to make it. Absolutely.
It was possible, but it was it had not been done. So so you still had to find the partners.

That would make it.
Because because everyone was concerned that it
That it could not work because it would
Destroy itself too easily, or it would it would be a little bit more.
You weren't sure it was going to work.
Yes, we
We were not sure, of course we were not sure, but we we were not sure it was gonna be stable, but we did like so much to make it stable. We
We put the foot like really down inside the midsole.
Very wide.
So we did anything we could to make sure it's stable. And I wanna clarify this point, because of course this is a an audio program mainly. Um
When normal shoes that you run in, your your foot
is on top of the
Cushioning. This was different because the cushioning actually surrounded your foot. Right.
for the for them to figure out
how to make this foam. How to make what you think. No, the foam existed already. They just like uh they they just put in a much bigger mold something much softer, about uh thirty, thirty five percent softer. And how long did it take?

It didn't take much more I mean it took for us three months, let's say, to have something that was that was
Like tangible.
Uh so there are factories in China that are making this but you have to convince them was it was it I mean.
Why was it hard?
Because we were not existing.
We were like a d a micro customer with uh
No background, nothing.
Asking for very innovative, uh complete complicated things that had never been done.
And and and we didn't have orders to place immediately.
But you you wanted a prototype. You needed a prototype. And usually these places need

They work with you when you have already a business case that is established.
We didn't have that, so it was all based on relationship.
In saying
Please.
Let's make a try.
Mm.

Cat design to go convince the factories. He had worked with them for for many years. We had a very special relationship.
And uh and we
And they tried.
So when you got those first prototypes, what did you do? I'm assuming you ran in.
We went on a trail that we knew.
And it was like uh spectacular, like immediately. What the first uh half hour.
Uh the first fifteen minutes the the three of us so ran down
And walk back up and ran down again and we were like
Basically screaming it was so is this a point where you have to start breaking and use your quads like we described earlier was at a higher speed.
And and and it was like the very, very first day this uh this sensation of flying, this sensation of uh letting go.
uh just moving your arms and not worry about the terrain like on a mountain bike. The next thing we did like probably
twenty or thirty minutes later is because we of course had like um competitor shoes in our uh our current footwear.
Uh we got like the the some some timing. We started timing ourselves and we were like ten seconds off of a minute.
And and just just to be clear, these prototypes had tread on the bottom as well. No tread. But it's okay because it was dry. It was dry. It wasn't w it wasn't wet, it wasn't wet, okay. And because it was so soft and and it's always been the case with the with the hockey shoes, because it was so soft, they they also the foam um conforms itself to the to the obstacles.
This is in I think February of two thousand nine when you get these first
May of that year you once again run
This is
Uh
I think the second, third time you're gonna run the race.
So in May we had like with these prototypes, I did a race in the close to my parents' house in Cantal.
Uh and I I raced in it. I raced in them. And this is not a this is the Chamonix marathon. And then that's why was this one, and then like at by the end of June I erased the Chamonix marathon, uh with the second round of prototypes. I think I came in fifth.
And and so let's just talk about this.
So now you you are curs going to use your own shoes for marathons.
And and were both of these w was were they road marathons or were they trail marathons? No, it's a train marathon with uh two thousand two hundred meters of elevation up and sixteen hundred meters down.
And that was that was hysterical because uh everybody had uh of course the regular footwear from that time.
And so I I start the race and there's a leading pack
uh with a lot of uh serious uh serious uh runners
and and they all have their their very minimal footwear and I'm here with my
Gigantic like uh
Clown shoes.
I mean some of the people knew me, so we were not like making fun of me, but they were like that is so weird.
And that is so strange. And then and then um yeah, I came uh the only time I've done this racing I came in fifth. Yeah, I mean it's so so yeah, I uh just to on this point, I mean you are this is two thousand nine, uh you are in shoes that are
Completely different. Nobody would be running a race in a shoe with a giant sole that's shaped like a rocker. Like and and anyone else who would be running or would be willing to run in them would be too embarrassed to wear them besides probably me and embarrassed because they look like clown shoes. And they were orange and blue that day.
Okay. So so when you ran these races, I mean the we talked about the race that that Jean Luc was you know, saw you in in two thousand seven and your legs collapse.
To what to what's your experience now? Is it different?
Yes, I mean I I started the the last part of the race after a a very strong downhill
Um much more fresh.
And cut.
A lot of people in the last uh third of the race. You were like twentieth mid race?
Yeah, probably. And you ended the race number four?
Five five.
Yeah, I mean what about your body, your joints, your your knees, your your quads. Was there a marked
Difference in how you felt?
Yes.
Mm.
Yes.
I mean I both in the
last third of the race and in the recovery because I could race
one week later and and win something called uh monta montagnard.
Uh yeah, it was the first ever victory in the hockey.
I would have never thought I could do I could go back and do another I think it was three thousand meters of elevation like uh seven days later.
Okay, so you have something I mean at this point.
I'm assuming you're starting to put in orders.
for your first shoe. But be before we get there.
No, we we we don't we don't have orders at that at that stage we're just testing prototypes. Okay. And the plan was initially to
launched at the end of two thousand ten.
At this point are you thinking?
This is really gonna be a brand
A product for
A small segment of people or d were you thinking big like this can be f
No.
You were already thinking big?
Yeah.
Based on our experience we
We thought when once people experience that
Never be able to go back.
So how did you I mean, this could have just been a novelty kind of thing. How did you
Convince
A re the first retailer.
to take a chance on these shoes.
Testing.
Everything you bring new and different and innovative.
Always has to go through people doing the experience by their self.
The first thing is always no no no no, this is stupid.
Until you try it.
So
Trying, trying, trying.
Make people try.
When we come back in just a moment.
The founders start facing new problems. Supply chain, competition, cash flow.
And they realize that outside investment
Won't really help them.
They actually need
Something bigger.
Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.
Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's around 2009, 2010, and Nico and Jean-Luc are starting to take Hokos to trade shows.
Where they're doing everything they can to get runners.
To try them.
We drop rocks on the ground.
So that
To say people, just run on those on those rocks now, get back to your shoe and run on those rocks again.
And then then now go go there and and come back?
I I
I think ultimately
Let's say the c the cushioning made it appealing to a wider group of people.
Just
Just generally speaking.
What what we what we use to present always the thing is
is the way you you proceed as a consumer to picking the product.
So

Special.
Then you
Take it in hand.
And you want the second wow effect.
Second Wow Fake Bing.
It's light.
I was expecting something heavy, it's super light.
Then you get into the next wall which is
I put it on.
And it feels uh immediately let's say protective. And then I start to run and it feels very easy and protective and stable. So it's that's that's the thing that we wanted to do
All the time.
I mін before you released the shoes for commercial purposes.
I read that
Lots of people were saying to you.
This is just not gonna work. This is but you were hearing this repeatedly again and again from a lot of people, which which sounds like it could be validation that your idea was not working.
I would say ninety eight percent of the people who are saying it's not.
But the biggest challenge was actually for our salespeople.

being being pushed back and pushed back and pushed back and pushed back and and you had we had agents, we had people that
For them they they had

So that was very, very tough for them to keep them motivated.
Uh uh.
What was extremely important and happened like uh

is to get a couple of the athletes.
Try the shoes. Because when you have something weird, which feels weird and looks weird.
If you don't want it to be perceived as a gimmick, you need
Performance in racing validation like almost immediately.
And we had one guy in France, Ludovic Pomé.
And Carl Melzer in uh in the US who also did the same experience and adopted the shoes like
Almost immediately, like on the on the on the very first day.
Carl Melzer was I think he was sponsored by another shoe brand and he dropped that brand to run'cause he had tried them in his neighbour, I m he was living in the US, he tried them in on l neighborhood runs.
And then
Other people in US and notably
With the with the art rock, for example, it was phenomenal because
That woman Diane Finkel bought the shows.
And after something like fifteen miles or something like that, or twenty miles maybe, she took the lead
Of the race.
So she took the lead ahead of all the males.
And she stayed in the lead until mile ninety.
I think.
And she finished second.
So that had never been done before.
And we had people in Italy and and so it was a word of mouth. It was So the Word of Mouth started to spread and those people
We don't know about we we we learned about it.
But
We had no idea who was w was using the shoes.
Okay, so two thousand ten.
I mean, you're getting all of these runners using the shoes, you're getting all this validation from the runners from this community and
Sounds
From the outside, like things are going great.
What are the challenges you're facing?
The uh the the first big one was the industrial challenge.
We we were given only some windows.
uh of production. So so people saying I I have capacity that week
to make uh to make your shoes because they wouldn't give us, let's say, a a classical plant. So so we had to do with that.
uh and then and then ship those goods let's say to wherever it needed to be shipped at costs that were then then
Yeah.
Then there was the cash flow part because as soon as we we started to move a little bit then the so you you you sold something
uh then you you you had some a little bit of cash, then the next order was like twice bigger than the first one, so then your your cash flow went like this
And the banks would not follow because they said that's too risky. I mean it's it's it's growing
It's growing too big, too fast.
And uh if you need one hundred, you have to put one hundred?
And guarantee also one hundred.
Those were the dynamics. So we were
kind of confident that we had something special.
But to make it happen truly.
Uh
We we we were not let's say it was not an easy sell and it was really a very complicated supply chain aspect.
How were you
Dealing with
the cash situation, how did you I mean, did you
You you have to pay for the these orders. Now you're talking about hundreds of thousands of shoes. How are you gonna pay for that?
All money.
Yeah.
Oh my name.
Yeah.
This is what kills a lot of businesses.
When you grow s you're growing too fast, you can't keep up.
And you've got to
And you

Basically can't finance it and it collapses.

possibility that you could have raised money? Was the culture was there a culture of being able to raise money from
venture or investors in France at the time.
There were people that were knocking at the door to say I
I'm happy to to invest into it.
Knowing that.
In France it's not as easy as it is in the US.
Uh.
But the thing is that was that we discussed up front was
If we just have additional money.
It's not going to bring much more.
Because the challenge we face from a supply chain standpoint.
is not going to help.
And the second thing is that we
We need to have people try the products. Everything in marketing.
There is only one thing in marketing that we have to do.
That you have to go to a multitude of places.
And make people try.
And that requires manpower.
And that's not what you get from
Any investor.
So just to just to clarify, you the challenges, the supply chain challenge is that
To get
On these production
Lines.
was very hard because they're already making shoes for other companies, right? And so to get in there with your tiny little brand, that's a challenge. To finance it is a challenge, but then
to get people to be aware of it is another challenge. Because you have a your company of five, seven people. Yes. Exactly. And and y also like
In in the summer of two thousand ten, uh very early summer, like around this uh month of July after we had delivered like about three thousand pairs of shoes.
Uh we we knew that uh we need to accelerate because
There was nervousness because some shoes were getting shipped, especially by a couple of our accounts. They were getting orders from competitors.
What do you mean?
Yes, competitive buyers buying our shoes maybe. Your competitors were buying your shoes. Yes. Yes. So you started to get intel that your the big players were taking your shoes to take them apart.
Basically. Can you patent I mean you can patent the design. Patents are are always a matter of who has the biggest amount of money.
Right.
To fight the lawsuit. Yeah.
And and meanwhile there's another
really important factor you have to consider, right? Because in order to build a
successful running shoe brand it it ha you have to be in the US because this is
where the money is and where the customers are, right? And
And I mean a at this point, this is like twenty twelve, I think
Only a a a few specialty running stores are selling your shoes in the US. And so
So I guess this is when you start looking for
For
partner, strategic partners, like somebody
Who could really help you grow
in the US, right? And and I read that I you got somehow you got put in touch with the team at Decker's, the company that was that had o that owned still owns uh T Tevas and and Ugs, right?
Yes. Um we we had we got the introduction from this uh amazing client and then
I went there and then they wanted to meet Jean Luc and we went there, uh we went back there together like a month and a half later.
The the point about why it's important to have a strategic partner when you want to be fast is that
Now we were looking at it in a with a totally different eye.
Okay, now maybe one day there's gonna be customer service, there's gonna be financial back up, there's gonna be
legal uh protection
Why change the deal immediately. Any French
V C
Or e
would never not have brought that to the table.
W
I mean I also have done acquisitions and things like that. And and the worst thing also that you that which m made a difference between Deckers and other potential brands was that
We were not competing with any other brand within the portfolio.
The portfolio was pretty wide, but there was no running brand.
And and you had
A a very deep
very, very deep motivation from
Anil Martinez, the CEO.
to be successful in the running world. So when you have the top guy
that is deeply motivated into it, you know you have more chances.
Okay.
So it was clear to you that Decker should be your partner.
But now how was it gonna work? I mean, was it it was an acquisition, but we no. It was a it was a minority investment. Okay.
With uh
the cash we needed to go through the next step and then another step.
And it started then in two thousand twelve with a twenty percent
uh investment.
It was a
Step by step.
you know, investments over time, but but the idea was if this all worked out.
Eventually.
This will be a portfolio brand within Deckers. Yes, exactly. And it looked like
They would be
At that time very quickly y it it looked like they
would be the
Right.
company to run.
So business.
They were able to get you into REI. They were able to get you into the Not not immediately to such to such channels. The the the big priority was run specialty. I mean because that's something that they knew
Would build the image.
Uh but but putting us on the map really str
really quickly in the US because
We knew that time was the essence, so it was we we had to charge

being conscious of hokas, I saw them on my mom.
Like I saw them'cause they were so comfortable and you know, and you saw them on people who were a little older.
Um, was that something you noticed also in the US?
Yeah.
It worked.
uh pretty well quickly from uh from let's say from a demography standpoint.
was that there were a lot of people that
Wanted to be active.
uh and that we're facing
Chronical pain.
Whatever it was. I mean the uh
the uh joints knee back, et cetera, but they wanted to be active.
And and that solved
many of their issues.
What we
tried also as we s as we saw that the the complimentary thing was
Notably to have
All those top athletes on the road, typically that we're still using I mean.
lower profile shoes and so on to say
No use whatever you want on your race day.
But
As you need to train a lot.
Just you can train more, you can train with less damage, et cetera, with those products.
You've gone, I mean think about it, in 2012, three million in sales.
to over two billion in sales.
I mean it's pretty amazing. Did you
I know you thought of this as a
Brand that would appeal beyond just
runners and specialists that would be a
mass consumer brand.
Was this
I mean, could you have imagined that?

Well we we we s when we when we discussed with with Decker's group we had let's say
Uh we laid down various plans.
the vision that we had was to to to become a five hundred million company.
I don't think we imagined that it could accelerate as quickly as it did.
But once again.
This this happened really because the girls made
set up the organization around it to make it.
dismissed as a trend.
Oh, this is a trend, this this ultra cushioning. I remember hearing that. This this rocker system
has proven resilient. That is not a trend.
Absolutely. And
Yeah. Because beyond the success of Hokka and the and the revenues generated
The concept and the technology.
uh not exactly to the same level is is is
It's gigantic.
Yeah.
When you think about about about the journey you took and and where you ended up, I mean, you know
It could have died.
Right.
How how much of of where you got to with this do you attribute to the work you put in, the hard work, the grind, and how much do you think had to do with luck and timing and
Just the opportunities that were out there in the world.
I think we gave it to you.
The right ingredients.
And that's what certainly we're proud of.
Uh
It remains that that's why it's it's hard to say like twenty percent is due to that or and eighty percent to this or whatever.
The vision was right. So that's one thing that we can be proud of.
You know, you're only as good as
the sum of the the sum of the elements and uh
And yeah, we are where we can be proud of what Dickels has has been able to do with it.
And um
And and now when we
Actually when we when we look back as as Jean Luc said, I think it also beyond the running shoes.
uh these new technologies created uh appetite for for the sport of running. So the trade running
is booming. It's it's amazing. It's a very fast growing sport today. But people are not afraid like before to run downhill. They don't crush their legs the way I was crushing mine like 19 years or fifteen, sixteen years ago. It's also because it's now a as fun and pleasant as maybe biking or skiing.
And it's also a a huge part of it. It's it's the technology.
And the other thing that our our story is extremely similar to what has happened with
in the bike industry.
the bike industry traditionally was like Tour de France, road uh racing bikes oriented and and then
mountain bike let's say came doing fancy things, et cetera, and and and starting to put the industry upside down.
And those mountain by companies ultimately were like the rebels.
Yeah.
you always have to have in industries I mean to uh
to change things and and and then what you have to keep
And which is the the always the challenge. How do you keep the challenge your spirit moving it? How do you how do you keep that and you don't stay on your laurels and you and and you keep on

And you need to keep that mindset.
All the time.
To to m to move it.
There's Sean Luc Diard and Nicolai Mermu.
Co founders of Hoka.
Both of them, by the way, have stayed involved with the brand.
And as athletes, neither of them show signs of slowing down.
Jean Luc's Instagram shows him running up and down trails all over the world.
Nico has recently competed in ultra marathons in France, Switzerland, and Thailand.
Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, please sign up for my newsletter at guyros.com or on Substack.
This episode was produced and researched by Ramel Wood with music composed by Ramteen Arablui.
It was edited by Neva Grant, our engineers were Patrick Murray and Quasey Lee.
Our production staff also includes Casey Herman, Chris Masini, John Isabella, Sam Paulsen, Alex Chung, Carrie Thompson, Catherine Cypher, Norgill, and Elaine Coates.
I'm Guy Roz and you've been listening to how I built this.