AI is Designing Shoes Now. Here's How. | Ben Weiss

The Two Steps to Building a Game-Changing Business business is broken down into two different steps You have to have a great product That's step one You don't have a business without a great product Step two is you have to have great marketing right you've got to go get your product out there which I think organic could become the biggest way that we get exposure You're watching Marketing Misfits with Norm Ferrar and Kevin K [Music] Norm Ferrar the marketing misfit from the north How are you man good my brother from another mother They always say gnomes live in the north Is that true yeah that here I don't know if you can see it but somebody sent me this It's Norm the It's actually Norm the gnome Norm the gnome You can buy it on Amazon Use my affiliate link That's That's awesome So what's been up man it's getting warm up there in Canada huh yeah Well it doesn't know what to do It's cold cold one day warm the next day Yeah it's crazy just that time of year Yeah Down here in Texas I I just saw I think tomorrow they said we're supposed to hit a world or alltime record of 113 degrees And it's freaking It's right now when we're recording this it's May So what the heck is 113 degrees in Austin and May that's supposed to be like September when we do a BDSS event That's the weather Wow Yep Uh you can keep that I I'll stick with my 60° or whatever it is today Yeah that's the weather that when you go outside to smoke a cigar the cigar just lights itself Exactly Exactly That's Texas weather See my glasses are steaming up And it's not because of you by the way It's just because it's hot down here I didn't turn on the air condition It's not because I hope it's not because I know it's been a while and you get excited when you see me but uh I'm I'm hoping that's not It's the bloody shirt Kev It's the shirt It's the bloody shirt It's just got you all It's just got you all in a kaleidoscope Oh yeah man Hey this is crazy But we have a guest Sneakers Reimagined: The AI Revolution Begins today and I just saw a video like a YouTube video and I thought "Oh this is kind of cool." Because um somebody that I know was on the video with our guest And so I stopped and I watched it and thought "Oh this is really cool." And it has to do with sneakers where you know my background is in from the shoe industry So this is super cool It's about designing the future of sneakers through AI So I don't know if you uh you heard about this but our guest today is Ben Whis and he's going to be on and his board of directors includes Joe Foster He's the founder of Reebok Uh Shark Tanks Kevin Harrington He's got a very successful podcast uh on his own called uh Legends and Leaders and he's just had you name it The person's been on it Kevin Olirri Howie Mandel all sorts of different people but uh I don't know if we want to just get into it You got something to say i'm looking forward to meeting you as well I know you always got something to say And uh Oh you you already you already you already had me at hello All right so let's get into it Let's bring on Ben Hey sir What's up Ben how you doing man good to meet you Yeah good to meet you too Great to be here Kevin Norm Excited for this You know this is crazy because we don't know each other And we were just talking just before we got on the show today This is how small of a world it is Uh I have a friend who uh knows one of your friends extremely well He's always talking about him and you were just hanging out with him last night Colin Campbell Uh he's uh he was he went actually to Kevin's event in Iceland just a few weeks back So this kind of all comes together It's all full circle which is just nuts 100% Yeah It's uh it's funny how that works you know But I've had a good relationship with Colin for a while He's a great guy and he wrote this book Start Scale Exit Repeat that uh my board member and partner Joe Foster the founder of Reboxin So I've heard quite a lot about the book We were just in Thailand recently We saw one there So it's really gotten out there and uh yeah Colin's been doing great So it's uh it's we have that connection Don't tell Colin that that you saw it in Thailand because that'll go to his head Don't tell him you saw it at the airport in Thailand or in a bookstore in Thailand Uh because that that'll or or was it one of these when you checked into the hotel they put one on every pillow it's like a Bible Yeah it's like a Bible and you know instead of the the Christian Bible or the uh Quran you know you get a get one of those book That would be pretty cool Norm Actually we should do that We should start a hotel and when we check in you get a a start scale repeat book We we could do that Yeah But uh don't tell call Yeah Tell Colin because then he'll get me to uh write a press release for him He'll probably invest He'll probably pay for the whole whole thing So So then what's what's uh what's for those that don't know you what's your story what uh who the heck are you the people listening to the marketing misfits like who's this Ben guy sure So um I think I I like say that I'm somebody that tries to find ways to build stuff that's just different and exciting And you know right now everybody's talking about AI Kevin You know there's so many conversations about AI It's like how can we use AI in software how can we use AI here and you just see tons of software focused innovations You see the chat GBTS Grock MidJourney image generation text creation You see all these software advancements but what you really don't see much is physical hardware advancements It's like why do we see the physical world around us being changed by AI you don't really see that much yet So we did some digging and I've been passionate about shoes just like Norm has been and and realized like wow nobody has made a real shoe that you can get today that AI has designed and that's a this would be a big breakthrough if we could do that We saw Nike teased a bunch of different concepts that they built that they actually made physical concepts but you couldn't really wear them Reebok generated images of digital shoes They weren't physical shoes We're like we could probably do the whole thing But the question was how and we realized that we could do this with AI generation image generation uh creating a having a model done that could generate patterns and textures around our shoes and a bunch of other steps Um but then we needed a way to actually output this into a physical product that could capture what AI could build And that's when we realized 3D printing was the best way And we got in touch with a factory in Germany called Zeerfeld which just happened to do Nike's first fully 3D printed shoe shortly after we started working with them And uh we were able to get the input to be designed by AI and the output to actually capture that And fortunately I've got a great team The founder of Reebok joined me who created Reebok with his brother and it was pretty much nothing at that point I took it to the bestselling shoe brand in the world and there's you know no better advisor you can have than Joe Foster and uh because of you know these kind of combinations here of this breakthrough product and the founder of Reebok backing us uh it became a viral story I was on Fox Business on Liz Clayman's show Entrepreneur did a piece and really compounded from there to being featured on the front page of USA Today and a nice article in the money section that they did there and we just got back from speaking in Thailand opening up money 2020 with 4,000 people go to that event to talk about this innovation of how AI is changing the world of footwear So how is this different than like I remember 10 years ago I could go into some of Custom-Fit Shoes: A Glove-Like Experience these higherend foot uh shoe stores and stand on like it looked like a scale or some sort of little scanner thing that would scan my foot and like they would tell me "Okay this is the perfect cuz your arch is this and that." How is this different than than that sure So I mean a lot of those types of systems have been more about like kind of fitting you to a product that's already existing So they get your measurements get your information then they give you the recommended product to you which is fine And that's probably helpful in a lot of situations But with our system Kevin you know when somebody buys one of our shoes every single one of them is one of one It truly is one of one cuz we scan your feet with your phone camera So you don't even need to go into a place You take a photo of each foot with next to an 8 by11 piece of paper which is a frame of reference We use AI to then determine 12 different data points including your arch height length width instep and more And then we 3D print custom to each foot We print those measurements out in each shoe So it's really a different process And people wind up finding out that their left foot's bigger than their right foot or their right foot's wider than their left foot And now we actually print individually to each foot So you may need to sometimes buy two different sizes or your one foot you know is wiggling around a little too much than the other when you buy a normal size Now we can really uh customize and fit the right way So I mean these are and it's not it's not even that long It's four to six weeks to get something done So it's really been a breakthrough in that space and we've got some great partners working with on that So what about if you need uh like an arch support or something like that will it pick that up as well yeah So arch support is one of the things that we do um scan and get information around and then we print it to that So um it's not even just like we're getting length width and then printing a shoe out to there There's a lot more that goes into it Um and it's something that people have really enjoyed the experience I've tried it many times and when you get it really right and it feels just incredible It feels like nothing else It's like a glove like experience Um and it's a big deal I mean none of the stuff we're doing now Norm is for athletics in any sense Um it's all just lifestyle and and and comfort and appeal around there But the recovery shoe market is has become so huge and there's a huge opportunity there to make something that um you know enhances your ability to perform after or even just you can wear casually that fits you right i mean we're making slides Slides are worn all the time I mean I guess that when the slide was designed people thought oh you wear it like after work and just for a couple hours I mean now people are wearing slides inside the house outside the house on errands Some people are even trying to play basketball in them you know So we've designed something that is much thicker in its sole and has like almost a sneaker level bottom um and has this custom fit experience in a slide so we can have something really designed for what people want to do with slides Are you looking to quickly boost new Amazon product launches or scale up existing listings to reach first page positioning the influencer platform Stack Influence can help That's right Stack Influence pushes high volume external traffic sales straight to Amazon listings using micro influencers that you only have to pay with your products They've helped upandcoming brands like Magic Spoon compete with Cheerios for top category positioning while also helping Fortune 500 brands like Unilver launch their new products Right now is one of the best times to get started with Stack Influence You can sign up at stackinfluence.com or click the link in this video down in the description notes below and mention Misfits that's misfi to get 10% off your first campaign stackinfluence.com Okay I I was just wondering if you have to do this individually and they're 3D Scaling Innovation in the World of 3D Printing printed how do you do this at scale it's a great question So uh it's a good point So the way we see this is we see this business coming in two phases Norm Phase one is that you know our goal is to become the content creator shoe brand Essentially there are so many content creators that want to get their own shoes like athletes There are so many brands that have never done their own shoes And the question is why haven't they been able to it's because it's been too expensive to be able to do a new design It's been too expensive with the molds You have your minimum order quantities and you have your timeline of 18 months generally So we view this as as a two-prong phase Let's go and partner with Xbrand X content creator that wants to do their own shoe Instead of now committing to this 18-month time frame to tens of thousands of dollars if not more in molds to minimum order quantities to lots of time in the design room we can now automate our design Majority 70% is done by AI We can now don't have to do any moles because it's all 3D printed and then we can print on demand only when somebody orders we make it for you and we can launch a shoe in three months instead of 18 months So the scale opportunity we can only do thousands of pairs right now is not necessarily fully there yet with this current 3D printing method but the opportunity to test out the market and see how well something can do with this content creator this brand now is there which hasn't been possible yet And so what we want to do is now bet on people We want to say hey we think you can do your own shoe We think you you as a brand can do your own shoe Now we don't need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars if not a million dollars plus and a year and a half of our time dedicated to that We can find out within a couple of months with a much smaller budget and if that does well we'll produce something for you traditionally and we'll bring it help bring it to scale with this as a case study That's how we see it I think this is the future of e-commerce So I think um I mean what you I think you're on the cutting edge there of product market fit cuz I think that that with agents and and you know like you're talking about with AI is all you know people just do playing with chat GP to do software basic stuff and analyze data sheets and stuff but I think the future is is doing products exactly like what you're doing where you actually can there's some trend something happens or someone wants to test something you can put something out you know have AI agents that say oh this is trending on Google trends or this is trending on Tik Tok immediately whether it's shoes or whether it's purses or whether it's uh you know devices to charge your phone whatever it may be uh and do them 3D like this uh have AI design them do the whole thing and design it in such a way so that they could been then easily taken to ma mass manufacturing down the road it's not some complicated thing that's only for like 3D and and do product market fit and be out in a week or in your case you know it says four to six weeks but um be out super super fast I think that's I think that's the future I you may be on the is there anybody else doing this kind of thing or are you guys like kind of leading the pack when it comes to because I know people doing houses 3D printing and they're doing you know here in Austin there's a big company that does all these houses 3D printed and there's some other stuff is there anybody else doing this type of stuff and a lot of times when people think of 3D printing they just think of prototyping they think of like you know the plastics and the resin and it's not the actual color it's not the actual texture so how are you doing this with I mean cuz shoes are complicated you got leathers and you got uh synthetics and you got uh you know the strings to tie and everything else How it the whole thing can be done that way or are there limitations yeah So the way that we print right now is it's it's all one piece but the genius behind it is that certain areas are more flexible than others and has this triangular structure on the inside that enables it to be more comfortable when you step down So you can print it with a pretty normal TPU material that you're printing other stuff with but it's printed differently in the internal makeup So we partner with a factory called Zellerfeld in Germany that's been helping us out Um they they handle that fulfillment for us and we're able to print shoes you know fairly quickly over there But you are a very different category like you mentioned Kevin You know it's an area that um requires a lot more detail and attention and you you have you got a lot more material overall that you're working with So you've really got to go and nail it and do it correctly Um but the opportunities for customization and design and virality are huge So like if you have a big trend right now and it happens really fast I mean if you're a traditional shoemaker you really can't do much when when a trend like that comes around But with AI design 3D printing you can We're even seeing the times now It's about 3 months for us to make a new shoe It may even be faster than that going forward with other types of methods around this Um and so we're really excited about that There are people that are creating shoes with 3D printing There are people that are experimenting with AI but nobody has put the two together and put out a product that you can buy as a consumer today besides us Um and when we did do this we were I think the most affordable fully 3D printed shoe in the world too Adidas just come out with $140 version We may have something out even fairly soon that even beats that by a large margin but we were $150 at that point in time And this category has been so inaccessible and nobody has realized you can fully get entirely 3D printed shoes today Um so we've also changed that narrative too and given people the ability to experience what this is like And it's it's just as good in many ways It's even better because you can get designs you can't make traditionally So we see this as being the future of a lot of different categories I mean why not prototype fast do these look like Reebok shoes or do these look like Crocs and little kind of plasticky and kind of boxy uh or do you have a P do you have one there uh I have one right here You can see what this that looks like Okay That's a like a slip-on That looks like something I'd buy off the shelf And then it's strong and hard here Huh And this is all one print It's done at one time It just it's internally structured very uniquely but you can see the level of detail These are a little dirty because I've been wearing them but you can see uh the detail here It's really high You can't get this elsewhere It's inspired by a yacht So this yacht curvature and then this yacht bridge And these patterns are generated by and they're a spaceship like patterns um that we were inspired by sci-fi artwork You know it's funny you say this because I was last October I was at uh Go High Levels event Go High Level is a big marketing company that's competes with ClickFunnels and does CRM stuff And every speaker that was at this event had had custom shoes right so as a gift I wanted to I talked to my producer I said I want to do this for my next event He couldn't figure it out but they had I don't know if they were custom in your in your sense or but they had every one of them like when they showed up as a gift they gave to the speakers they said "Here you go Here's a pair of shoes." And every one of them was slightly different So I I don't they were they were similar design They're like a tennis shoe but a similar design but the colors kind of matched whatever favorite color the speaker was or whatever And they were all wearing them on you They they changed the women changed out their heels and put them on you know before they go on stage and they had talk about it when they went up there It was a really cool little little thing that they did I don't know if it was 3D printed or if it was just uh they just custom ordered oneoffs from somebody that does this but it was cool And it had the logo on the side you know it was almost like instead of the Reebok logo it would have a go high level GHL or something on the side of the shoe Yeah It I don't know if it was 3D printed it probably was traditionally done just because Yeah Just cuz doing something like that it would probably cost a lot more being 3D printed The one kind of downside of 3D printing today is that it's like two or three times more than traditional production Although it's far cheaper to go and develop the actual per unit cost is two to three times more So you have to price slightly higher or cut your margins Um which is okay I mean that's why like I mentioned before we view it as like a testing phase you know but I think more and more brands need to push stuff out with this method It's a it's you can kind of test stuff in the footwear space now almost as quick as brands like Sheen you know are doing in the fast fashion category and and those are the brands that are winning you know and you can reduce a lot of waste This industry has some waste you know issues Um you can make stuff just to order and you could make stuff on demand I mean that's kind of the best ways to uh to remove uh waste in the space So I think there's a lot of potential but brands need to adopt it more for sure And it fits snug to your foot I mean if I took a look at that shoe that you just had with the back Yeah there we go That I can see now how you can not only use it for daytoday but possibly even use it for a sport like basketball cuz your foot slips right in there as snug isn't it i mean we don't recommend norm that anybody uses it for uh for sports or anything but yeah I mean it's super snug And I would think that the that a lot of basketball shoes I mean what you could do in the space with 3D printing a basketball could be huge because the fit is such a big idea I mean for for sports in general fit is so important Um so it's it's right now with this kind of lifestyle area just because it's easier um to do and and and there's less testing But yeah I think athletics is probably a huge market for 3D printing If you think about it too I used to play hockey and it was so important that your like the uppers or the the shape of the uh blade or the shape of the blades the shape of the uh boot was so important even skiing I mean there this could go on and on and on But one of the things I wanted to mention back in the '9s late 90s there was a company in Florida where where you are called Otabo I don't know if you've ever heard of them but uh they were the ones that I think Kevin you're talking about They put uh uh these scanners into different uh uh first class lounges and you'd scan your foot and it would go back And what it did was it created the foot for you You picked whatever uh leathers that you wanted Uh you picked uh whatever anything that you wanted It was customized and then the last was created So they carved out the last Everybody had a separate last So when you ordered your second pair of shoes you'd go to that last and put it on A last What's a last oh a last is uh it it's the piece that forms the actual shoe So when a shoe maker is making the shoe they'll take the last they'll stretch the leathers over top of it and that's where the shape all comes together So usually in a typical shoe you'll have one style one last for each size but this one was per person which was pretty cool And what you're doing is you're cutting out the last with that uh with the uh 3D printing So everybody just gets their own file I guess instead of a last Is that correct yeah The way that it's done is I mean we basically get your data and information in and then we have a 3D file that's created already of our shoe and then the 3D file is just um there's software that goes on behind the scenes that just morphs it essentially to um to be able to be printed to your to your specifications It's more about taking the model and changing the measurements based on the measurements that we get um and just customizing it to that So we don't have to make anything kind of different internally for that It's it's it's really good software that's set up Um and so it also just what it does is norm it also makes the custom fit accessible you know to people I mean right now if you want to get custom fitted shoes you're paying a a premium Most people don't even know how to do that or where to go You know now you can get a custom fitted pair of shoes for 150 bucks You know that's a pretty big deal And there's a lot of people that have all different types of foot issues We've learned you know that have reached out to us needing custom fit um from bunions to toes that are you know formed in different ways to I mean just we get tons and tons of of uh outbound of inbound um you know outreach essentially um you know asking us all about this and and I think that there's a big opportunity to help a lot of these people with custom fitting with making it accessible and the software is there now it's not as much of a process we don't have to make a new last you know per individual it's it's much better what's up everybody your good old buddies Norm and Kevin here and I've got an Amazon creative team that I want to introduce you to That's right Kevin It's called the house of AMZ and it's the leading provider in combining marketing and branding with laser focus on Amazon Hey Norm they do a lot of really cool stuff if you haven't seen what they do like full listing graphics premium A+ content storefront design branding photography renderings packaging design and a whole lot of other stuff that Amazon sellers need Yeah And guess what they have 9 years active in this space So you can skip the guesswork Trust the experts There's no fees There's no retainers You pay per project So if you want to take your product to the next level check out House of AMZ That's houseofamz.com House of AMZ The women say the outfit starts with the shoes Uh you know a lot of the women that are into style they say that you have to start with the shoes and you build up Uh so I can just see it now There's going to be women with closets with uh 500 different pairs of shoes for one pair of shoes that's customized for each outfit Are you doing like women's shoes like heels and flats and pumps and stuff or is it just all just tennis shoes and slides right now right now it's all lifestyle shoes um that are just casual So we're doing slides We want to get into sneakers but still non-athletic sneakers more uh lifestyle sneakers Um we are exploring doing women's shoes I mean everything we do is unisex currently Kevin Um so it's not like we have to kind of like uh you know reinvent the wheel for each uh each gender Um but everything kind of looks is is neutral color tones and and you can just conform each shoe to each gender footwise just based on measurements So it's not really a problem there Um but yeah I mean I think I think I mean women spend twice as much on shoes as men So I mean it's a clearly a segment we want to get into I think the women's market when it comes to signature signature shoes in general has been like super underperforming and really absent I mean the men's market is so driven by male role models in basketball because it is the sport that has a lot of influence that are non-spike shoes you can wear casually Um you know whereas soccer/ football European uh football you you can't do that Although it's much more influenced and it's much bigger Same with American football So that's why sports been driving so much of this market But women I mean there's so many amazing female role models that never get to put their essence into their own shoe and never get to have that opportunity to scale And Nike and other brands have kind of been looking at female basketball role models which there's nothing wrong with that but the WNBA just isn't the same size as the NBA So I think we see a big opportunity to partner with female lifestyle creators and influencers and artists and um and and so on and so forth and give them the opportunity to express themselves in this area you know with with amazing creativity and uh and make something And I think that that female signature shoe markets is a huge opportunity to get into whether it's more heels or it's lifestyle stuff but it's it's massive Look what happened with Crocs They were just a an okay shoe company I was with them at the Miami boat show They didn't even sell out This is their first year Then they uh tied up tied in with the women's volleyball and they blew up You know I couldn't believe how fast and how big they got But with everything that's going on right now and this is a complicated question I think but what's gonna happen where do you see this going in the next 5 to 10 years are you able to answer that yeah No I I would you have a pretty clear vision Norm Um and like you mentioned there with Cross it's about finding the right partners too you know So what we want to do now is we've we've kind of went through phase one where we've established like what the brand is and what we can do different We've shown the world there's this new method to make shoes It's not going to take 18 months and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars It's going to take three months and it's going to cost a lot less And then we could scale traditionally and even bring something to retail potentially after for you So now we have a new method that's brought onto the scene that's fresh and exciting And so now it's about partnering with brands and creators to use this method and and that's a big deal and that's where we're focused on now We have four partnerships we've signed I think we're going to have five six and seven done fairly soon Three of which are with famous artists around the world um and one with a with a brand and we have some other brands have already agreed to that we're working to finalize more and so we've got a lot of interest in doing this now because we've proven this method because we've gotten so much amazing uh media attention which we're you know fortunate to have we were just on Forbes India yesterday Yahoo Finance last week um and some other places as well And so that's one piece of this The other piece also is how do we make AI design something that's accessible and affordable without 3D printing Um and we we think AI is going to really transform all of design And that's why our slogan for our brand is designed by tomorrow because we're embodying all this into what we do So we have a product that we're going to be releasing soon which I think will make records in terms of how light it is Um and it will be super accessible and I hope will be the first AI designed shoe at retail So first AI design commercially available retail shoe which will be a big deal because it takes this technology and actually makes it mass market accessible which is where we have to go and it's a good margin product that can be produced in in great quantities and produced um very quickly uh overall um you know I mean for traditional production uh so I mean that's that's the way we have to go going forward We're really excited to get there I think there's a ton of opportunities in that path but AI design is is the future and it's going to produce stuff that looks super different than what's out there today And the companies that are going to win are the ones that are going to put products out there for consumers and be standing out in design in ways that others just aren't And so it's about moving fast and moving quickly If I was doing this if I was a fashion influencer like you said I would model Shoe Dazzle Kim Kardashian shoe dazzle You remember shoe dazzle well she had the subscription service where they they would curate you know five or six or pairs of shoes You they had a a backstock when you signed up It's almost like the old Columbia House record club where 13 uh 13 uh CDs for a penny or something But you come in and you get a couple pairs of shoes right out of the gate for 59 bucks a month Then you get to pick a pair every month and it's automatically sent to you I could see an influencer doing something like this Not just creating a single brand a single shoe but actually having something that's every month for the time of the season that goes into their theme or whatever they're talking about or whatever the party stuff is or whatever it is I could see that being huge uh for for some of these influencers I'm totally on the same page Kevin We're thinking of introducing a subscription model for this this sock shoe concept I was just talking about this AI design shoe at retail Um because I think that that's it's a great way to go and it's a way that we can provide a lot of new shoes all the time with lots of different interesting collaborations that we can keep making happen Um and and this this product in particular that we're working on is is going to be really designed to be very um I mean very much like a sock-l like experience almost like you're wearing your socks anywhere So it's going to be something that people are going to want to have multiple of um and use in a similar way to kind of the sock to an extent So it totally makes sense I think the business model they had there was really interesting They were a leader for a long time Um and kind of nobody's really copied that model since and I I have a good relationship with one of the founders of that company and he's went on to found Legal Zoom and another company now in the trading space and it's a it's a triedand- trueue model that he's uh very very good at So I've tried to learn a couple things from them for sure So this is a new product Uh you're building a better mouse trap put it that way How are you getting the word out there how are you educating the market yeah it's a good question So press releases Norm Press releases a press Yeah Go ahead Sorry There's always there's always a couple ways to kind of get something new out there Um you know obviously the easiest way is you have a ton of money and then you just can pay for ads or pay for influencers and that that makes it fairly simple I mean but business is broken down into two different steps You have to have a great product That's step one You don't have a business without a great product Step two is you have to have great marketing right you've got to go get your product out there So we've kind of been attacking this on every front possible One is through media um press releases I guess you could say but just interviews and stuff like that which we've been fortunate to get a lot of great ones We were on Bloomberg's biggest show The Close We were on list claimment show on Fox Business Yahoo Finance Forbes in multiple countries Um I mean all different places We just spoke at a a fairly large conference So that's one side of things Another side of it is we've tested out ads and been experiencing over there as well Um another piece of it is just organic which I think organic could become the biggest way that we get exposure Um creating content on social media being able to have Joe do videos and you know and talk about the shoes having the foundry bucket behind in that sense and showcase his experience I think that type of content is super invaluable and gives people a great idea of what this is But we're in a space that there's a big learning curve I think people need to understand what 3D print is We're kind of putting AI in front of them We're putting 3D print shoes in front of them We're putting scan to fit in front of them There's a lot of different new things here And so we really want to put a lot of content out there to communicate all this And I think content is going to be the future of where we're at What What's the mode around this is there any IP i mean do you have some sort of proprietary machine or you're doing all this press and getting all this stuff can can other people go "That's a damn good idea I'm just going to go do that myself and they out market you or outspend you?" Well I mean anyone can kind of come up with their own idea for this space and attempt to build something I mean you can do that in pretty much any category Um I think what makes us really unique is that we've done it You know that's one piece of this and and nobody else has even since and we've been around for some time Um another piece is is our goal here I mean we have a completely different ethos in the footwear space and mission than these big brands All these brands today Nike Reebok Adidas Puma um you know are all born and bred in athletics running most of them switched to basketball sum their focus is finding the next best athlete bidding on the next top basketball player backing them with the shoe and then also getting success besides athletic sales from lifestyle sales sales of that athletic shoe You know we're in a different world We're trying to just go lifestyle first partner with people that aren't necessarily athletes and they don't value these individuals the same So there's a big opportunity there that it's just a whole different thinking that it's not like the brands will just shift over to overnight It's not just going to happen They still haven't even fully embraced hip-hop Although we saw the success of Easy before that imploded you know so there's there's a lot of opportunity here It's just a different mindset that doesn't just shift when your whole company's built on that I mean we're building a brand Our brand Cintlay is is based off the idea that you can shine in any direction in life and sparkle and shine I mean the word Cintilate is you know means that So you can shine like anybody who's your favorite creator walk in their shoes feel like them This essence of greatness You can capture greatness in any category Um and it's it's just a different mindset over there But our brand is what's going to be our unique IP in general We'll do design patents potentially on some of our shoes and stuff like that that others won't be able to copy And we already have our our name trademarked and our slogan being trademarked and stuff like that but our brand is what will be unique Do you have some background in this do you have some background in this space before doing this were you in the shoe industry before or were you doing some other stuff i was doing some stuff in the shoe space I was working to build a brand with a pretty prominent hip-hop artist to um kind of explore what you can do with NFTTS and physical shoes and uh was putting those two together It got some great traction Got to speak in London about it at an event in New York with Kevin Olri that he was at and some other uh great places too But eventually moved away from that as I think there's a bigger opportunity here to back all different types of content creators and not just make a brand um you know more on the hip-hop scene I think that the content creator world is the biggest opportunity today in footwear There are more content creators than there are top athletes in the world Um and they have huge fan bases and the way they gain their audience is through engagement every single day with their audience It's not a byproduct of their performance somewhere else that they gain this following So it's super direct It's the connections there and it's an area that nobody's really in You don't really see any YouTubers getting their own shoe deals You don't really see any Tik Tok stars getting their own shoe deals Nobody that's really derived their own fame through Instagram getting their own shoe that they get to make uh and it's a space that is the most relevant today Everyone if you ask the youth half the youth today wants to be content creators They all want to be the influencer When Nike Reebok Adidas and Pumor made they all want to be the the athlete you know and so I think athletics is super important still and it's a great focus but it shifted a lot today And uh now it's the time for a brand to be ran by somebody younger and understands this space and and get the backing of somebody who's a legend in the space to help out with it like Joe Hey what's up everybody hey Kevin and Norm here with a quick word from one of our sponsors 8Fig Let me tell you about a platform that's changing the game for Amazon sellers That's right it's called 8FIG On average sellers working with 8ig grow up to 400% in less than a year 8FIG offers both funding and free tools for e-commerce growth and cash flow management And here's how it works 8ig provides flexible data-driven funding tailored to your exact needs You know they can fund anywhere from up to $50,000 all the way up to 10 million 8FIG gives you free tools to forecast demand manage inventory and analyze cash flow Visit 8fig.co That's 8fig.co to learn more or check the link in the show notes below Just mention marketing misfits and get 25% off your cost That's 8fig.co 8fig.co CEO See you on the other side I have a couple of question This is a serious question Can I get a custommade pair of shoes um my foot size of course with Kevin's face on it and I could just step on his face every time I walk somewhere Just that would be pretty cool That that would that that would make it squeak every time you step Yeah Make it go Squeak wet shoes You know you're walking across a wet shoes across the floor Just squeak squeak squeak squeak Actually I got even one better It says buy BDSS Buy BDSS You know something like that But okay so here's another serious question Permission We can make it happen Normal It's AI You can do anything Just got to be a slip on right now It's just got to be a slip on right now No we're going to give you one of No heels No heels for you All right So let's talk about how does AI or 3D printing help reduce waste uh Sustainability Meets Style: Reducing Waste with AI are you looking at that right now yeah Well one of the biggest ways that we reduce waste besides like the aspect of we only make a shoe when somebody orders it and make it for them which is a big deal I mean you've got all this waste from people making stuff that doesn't necessarily work or sell and then they got to go do something with it burn it whatever it is We're solving that on that front We also when somebody orders one of our shoes and then they're done with it um they can send it back to us and we can turn it into a new one So the full thing we can take the material and make it into a new shoe So there's that life cycle there that is just prolonged now from a material standpoint that's not really possible in a lot of other areas Um you know and that's a really interesting innovation that uh is is different in the space as well So um I do think the print on demand feature is is a huge thing when it comes to sustainability and waste reduction Um I think that that's a big deal and and we've seen already the waste reduction is massive but um the recyclability piece is is also really important to us and uh and we're glad that we have both All right And there is a lot of uh waste when you when you have a shoe production So I don't know if you know Kev but uh like just in general there's just a lot of waste that uh what am I trying to say shoe production creates a lot of waste How is that and by doing it this way uh we're doing our our it's one step for the environment How is that now how do how do these shoes I mean the big mass market of shoes are people that really don't are are not really techn technologically advanced I mean your your leading edge is the influencers and the people online but the third world countries and stuff where a lot of these athletic shoes like you're talking about the sports shoes and you know they follow Jordan They'll go buy they'll go buy a pair of used Jordans or something or off of Goodwill or whatever Um but they they're not going to have the capability really or are they uh to actually buy this i mean the mass the masses I mean is this more of a niche thing for the west or is this something that you can see being global uh at some point so it already even is global Kevin We've had sales in Norway and Thailand and um all different countries around the world Those are that's western that's that's uh still western society I mean it's not the US but it's it's modern society I'm I'm talking about where most of the people in this world are not in not you know $150 pair of shoes is a lot of money Right Well that's why that we're working on another product that will be produced produced traditionally but designed with AI um that we can really scale that will have be much more affordable than where we're at currently that we can scale anywhere and will be within great price range from many of these other places that that you're thinking of Um so we realize that I think it's important though to build stuff like what we've built currently Um because it's disruptive and interesting and and it's important to build out for consumers now and not just tease it as a concept Consumers are ready for this There's a lot of people that will be early adopters and categories We've seen that with the Apple Vision Pro People are willing to spend money on it and test it out You know it's important to put stuff out there like this Um we've made it as accessible kind of as we can from a price point standpoint from price standpoint Um but yeah I mean now we're we're trying to get to accessibility and affordability It's a huge piece of what we're doing here We've got to get there to to get build this thing into global brand and become a Apple Vision Pro is a failure I mean yeah there's people that actually paid the 3,500 bucks for that including me Um but there's it's a overall failure Uh and they actually are re it's you don't hardly hear anything about anymore Now they're going after the the lower- end market the the the Ray-B band the meta glasses market and you're like everybody's going after the $200 $300 range instead of the $3,500 And that's what Apple's working on So that's that's why I'm saying it's just the on the mass production or the mass audience size for this cuz I can see the value Um and especially like in the medical field you know people that like you're saying that have uh special special needs or the customization for influencers but just mass market and if they got to wait four to six weeks if um you know a lot of people need shoes for an event or they need something now Uh you think you're going to be able to to get that down or because everything's done now in Germany right you said Germany is where everything US will be Q3 will be having production open up in the US So that's going to also change the dynamic here That'll help Yeah Yeah But I I I mean I just think differently about like the Vision Pro Like I I understand maybe it's a failure from a financial standpoint but I think it's a success in other standpoints like in terms of the experience like the experience of what what you had when you put that on was so high quality and so impressive No it is Yeah it is Vision for what was possible And sometimes you need to put products out there It's like what Tesla did with the Roadster You need to have this more premium product that you put out as version one to eventually get to version two version three and so on that piques the public's interest I don't I'm not necessarily saying this is as expensive as we didn't make it like that type of price point but I I think it's important to kind of get stuff out there that pushes the the boundaries of what's possible Could you see down the line in the future where this could be licensed out to even a retail store where people could come in sit down check out whatever model that they want have their foot scanned and you create a 3D uh imprinted shoe in the back or in the uh in the warehouse have it brought out and they walk away with a brand new pair of 3D printed shoes kind of like those optical glass places where they they do it you know in the back That would be crazy Yeah Well that is something we're talking about and we'd like to be able to get to We do have our first in-person experience at retail opening up in a couple months I can't talk too much about it yet but it will involve like a really interesting experience around getting your measurements done and getting 3D printed shoes um you know sent over to you I think it's important people understand what this is like um being in you know basically people need to understand what 3D print shoes are like I mean it's been so complicated this category They need to feel them They need to touch them They need to see what they are um in person So you know that's something that's that's super important to us and we're going to get into very soon I wonder how scalable it is I think that there is an opportunity to scale from there It's just it's going to be different in terms of cost to do than any other type of traditional product Um but we want to see how it does and we're excited to do something like that Um but I think that there's a lot of other opportunities around giving people the ability to customize and make their own shoes as well which which are interesting to us Using AI as a guiding tool and we're exploring that too The whole category is very exciting Making it on demand there is something that could be possible I think that's a couple years off though but at least being able to experience it in person maybe do something interesting around scanning and then getting stuff sent over to you is is the near-term future opportunity How do you deal with like returns i mean cuz when I buy shoes you know Zappos had this problem You know Zappos came out with mail order is is you know they always put a UPS return label in there because they know that 40% of them or whatever the number was is going to be returned So when I go buy shoes it's it's partly the fit which you're accomplish you're solving a lot of that with the AI It's conformed to the foot but it's also how does it feel to me when I'm walking on how's the cushioning how's the everything does it is it something that I I could see myself wearing day in day out you know you walk around you put them on you walk around the little store you know in a circle uh around the couches Uh how are you how are you doing that can people buy this and then get it and like oh uh it's not quite right I need to make an adjustment or how does that process work yeah it's a great question Kevin So right now we don't offer returns because of this We have to make it custom to fit you But what we do do is we make sure that it really fits you correctly and if there's an issue we take it back and then make a new one for you until we get it right Um so that's something that we're accommodating on I mean I don't think we can really offer returns because it's it's so custom and we have to make it um to fit you and and only make it when you do order Um but we we make sure we get it right We've had some cases where we've had to go take it back and get it right for people and then we do get it right and they're very happy and we work with them on that Um but like you mentioned about the the fitting issue you know if you're able to scan someone's feet and then send them over a shoe custom made to them you're likely going to have a lot less returns than that 40% number you were mentioning that could have been a Zappos number Um you know if you 3D print custom to fit people and you have that that scan to fit technology I mean that's one of the biggest reasons for the returns It probably is the biggest the fit issue So if you solve that you don't really have a big return problem So we don't really see a big return or a big request for returns It's it's very rare that we even encounter something like that um because of this So yeah I mean it's it's something that isn't that big of a deal but we we have a system in place So this might be a little bit premature but Misfit Marketing Tactics That Work that's what's the one unconventional misfit marketing tactic that you've tried It's a good question Um you know I I think that like we realized as we were building this out like our story evolved like we thought our story was we create the world's first AI design commercially available slide shoe you know and the founder of Reebok's backing us We thought that was an interesting story as it progressed it became interesting to people that it was 89year-old founder of Reebokback's 25-year-old entrepreneur that became another story And so I think then we kind of fed into that more and talked more about that and made that more of a conversation point in a lot of the things we did So I think it's important to recognize like how sometimes the people will tell you what what kind of is the best way to market what you're doing You may think you know the best way but then it can evolve over time And so we've adapted we've we've had to make those changes as we went uh because we've seen the interest is really around that and that's what people find absolutely fascinating I mean I think it's a very you know uh I think it's normal to get somebody on who's incredibly accomplished and you know want to have them advise you and it's a great thing to do but the age difference is something that people have been very fascinated by and um and we've just adapted uh from there So I think it's important to recognize when things are when different signals are being given to you and then make changes fairly quickly How did you meet and connect with Joe i reached out to him online You know I just uh I reached out to him and Julie his wife and said "This is what I want to do in the footwear space This is our plan." We spent a lot of time I think building up our supply chain We want to get the same athlete level supply chain these big brands have And uh and give that to content creators We have the number one factory in the world in Vietnam And we met with every major retailer We've got designers behind some of the best sellers today Um wanted to have that done And I explained to him some of the other stuff and said you know would you just take a call with me and and talk to me about it i really would love to have you on and I would appreciate the opportunity He wrote a great book on his life called Shoemaker that describes how he went from nothing barely affording them you know the machines to make the shoes and trying to figure out his strategy to get shoes into the running sector in the UK to becoming number one and the struggles of trying to get to number one of finding the right North American distribution partner and took him six different people uh to get to the right one I think it was like six different tries and then eventually got to the right one That's how it became so big you know and that level of persistence and just expertise is so rare there's only a couple people in the world that have done what he's done I want to get somebody on like I want to get him on our team So took the meeting with me uh him and his wife and we had a great chat together and then they mentioned they're going to be in Fort Lauderdale sometime after So got to get you know time in person Got I jumped that opportunity and they gave me some time in person went really well and got a little more time and try to get some more time and uh you know after that I think they were convinced that there was a big opportunity here I think they see that technology needs to be applied a lot more to the space that content creators are the future Jeene Fonda was a big influence on Reebok helped take Reebok to to great heights They were always innovative and outside the box They embraced aerobics before really anybody else did They did a women's only yoga shoe of soft leather that was affordable So they were doing things like this and Joe's all about whites space and that's exactly what we're trying to do here today So he resonated a lot with the mission and it's been uh amazing having him on and his wife Julian I mean I've learned so much from them both ever since Hey Kevin King and Norm Ferrar here If you've been enjoying this episode of Marketing Misfits thanks for listening this far Continue listening We got some more valuable stuff coming up Be sure to hit that subscribe button if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast player Or if you're watching this on YouTube or Spotify make sure you subscribe to our channel because you don't want to miss a single episode of The Marketing Misfits Have you subscribed yet Norm well this is an old guy alert Should I subscribe to my own podcast yeah but what if you forget to show up one time and it's just me on here you're not going to know what I say I'll I'll buy you a beard and you can sit in my chair too We'll just You can go back and forth with one another Yikes But that being said don't forget to subscribe share it Oh and if you really like this content somewhere up there there's a banner Click on it and you'll go to another episode of The Marketing Misfits Make sure you don't miss a single episode because you don't want to be like Norm Jane Fondo That was a crazy story I I've read about that where they were just watching the show right and Jane Fondo was doing CrossFit and she took on that shoe I don't think it was CrossFit It was aerobics Aerobics Aerobics sorry And uh she really skyrocketed the sales I I forgot what what's that it was massive the impact she had on the brand I don't even know if they had anything I don't know how much they even had to do with it It just kind of happened I think I heard that when she took it on their sales went in one year what the last 10 years combined were something like that Something like that Yeah Yeah That's what's going to happen That's what's going to happen in AI Norm Yeah Absolutely Absolutely Do you see this The Vision for the Future: Beyond Shoes going beyond just shoes do you on your grand vision is this just going to become the ne the AI reebok company or is this going to go beyond shoes into other kinds of athletic wear and other kinds of uh fitness wear it's it's going to go beyond Kevin I mean we see this grand vision here to become the Nike Reebok Adidas Puma of content creators I mean these people have merch stores They sell every item right now in their merch store except for shoes pretty much across the board Some of these people have massive merch stores I mean Logan Paul at one point I think was doing did $100 million in one year or something like that in merch I'm sure Mr Beast has massive numbers but they never get to sell shoes because you have you don't want to make shoes like a typical merch item You really need to make it done proper um you know because the standard is so high today And and then also merch I mean you can elevate a lot of these people's personal brands and what they've created um with higher quality apparel you know and stuff that that the athletes get with a Nike Reebok Adidas or Puma for these content creators and done in a really nice you know great way They can also scale a retail Many of them have massive merch stores They're doing millions and millions of dollars in sales but have no retail distribution for anything like this Today 70% of shoes it was last number I saw from CNBC was like 70% of shoes are bought at retail you know and and retail is still massively important for apparel or for footwear for everything So we see us as being this this opportunity to elevate the quality um for all these people whether it's footwear whether it's apparel and also integration digitally We think video games has a ton of potential It's the most engaged with category of anything done on the internet in the world I think there's like three billion gamers or something like that It's massive and there's a lot you can do with game integration So I think around these types of people take NFTts and put those into the game so they can wear their shoes in their game Yeah I mean there aren't so many games that fully have NFT like big games have the NFT integration like that but even just creating digital in-game items I mean the amount of times people change their outfits on Roblox are insane you know and what you can do there with sales of the right products I mean people are spending hours and hours in these games especially young people and it's become the next Facebook the next Instagram That's where they all hang out when they're done with school you know and what they wear in those games matters just as much as in reality you know when they're hanging out with people almost you know So that's kind of where we would like to go as well All right Ben I think we're coming to the end of the podcast So at the end of every podcast we always ask our misfit do they know a misfit yeah I do know a couple misfits Um I have a friend that's building an interesting animation platform Benny Plin that would be good to have on I've got the founder of the factory of Zellerfeld is our 3D printing shoe factory Would be an interesting one Cornelius Um and there's there's definitely others that I know that would be good to to bring on Yeah there's tons of misfits It's good to be around misfits Norm All right that's perfect All right Ben Well thanks a lot for coming on Kevin anything else to say to Ben yeah So how do you actually if someone wants to check out your shoes uh where do they go what's the website or where do they go to actually check that out yes they go to cint.com Syndy.com And we'll make sure that that's in the show notes All right Ben Well thanks a lot for coming on the podcast today We really appreciate it Thanks for having me This is great Thanks man There See I did my button You did it right I got my button I forgot to press the record button though No I did it I got it Yeah I see it up there I see But that I think this is where everything's going I think they're on the cutting edge you know they're doing it with shoes which is a a high statement uh where people really like to make a statement when it comes to what they wear and shoes are an easy one um for a lot of people But I think this is where it's going on a lot of products across and where marketing is going to be going is is being able to customize and make stuff specifically for people and then to do proof of concept and then go to mass production Um and that's exactly what they're doing I think uh it's going to be interesting to see how this how this plays out Uh this is why I love entrepreneurs because they can move on a dime be that innovator They don't have to wait 10 years to make a decision And that's exactly what's happening here So it's so cool Can't wait to see where uh where this goes I just I just want to know like what I don't want to be there when you're doing your shoes and you're you're take you're taking pictures of your feet cuz I don't want to see your feet imagine the guys that I hope it's just an a AI agent that's seeing all these pictures because you get some nasty gangy feet with yellow crap on the nails and all kind to make these shoes I can just see some like uh I don't want to be that guy you know that's a I thought it was because of the tattoo I had of you on the bottom of my foot but yeah it's okay Yeah I don't know All right How do people get a hold of us and they get a hold of us at marketingmisfits oh man.co Right You got it You got it I hit the button and you got the co or you follow us on uh Apple podcast or Spotify or check out check out our YouTube channel And uh we got something We got two YouTube channels Yep We got our long form YouTube channel which you'll be able to get the edited version of this podcast and we've got our clips uh YouTube channel which we take out the nuggets and we put them over there So these are all 3 minutes and under So check it out It is live now and uh it's looking good I I saw it I saw it I checked it out the other day I was like oh I don't remember saying this Um but uh no you didn't AI we agen and boom we got it It can make me look smarter I need I need all the help I can get All right everybody We will see you next Tuesday See you next Tuesday Take care [Music]