Episodios

  • #196: Swatch – Saving the Swiss Watch Makers
    Mar 12 2025
    Japan's digital watches massively disrupted the Swiss watch market. So, an entry level fashion watch is created to save the day. Swatch! Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us. But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [Waukee Feet Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Realtors podcast. Dave Young here alongside Stephen Semple. And as usual, Stephen has whispered the topic into my ear as the five-second countdown commenced. So, I have three seconds to come up with my initial reaction to the brand is that we're going to discuss. And my recollection for this one is ... Let me tell you what it is first. It's Swatch. Remember the watches? And my recollection of it is they were just too damn cool for me. Stephen Semple: I mean, you're not a fashionista, Dave? Dave Young: I never have been. But here's the thing. I think by the time ... you'll have to fill in the dates here, but I think by the time I got out of college and was making my way in small market radio, the point of having fashionable timepieces on your wrist, which is ... was like, "That's just too cool for me. No." I recognize it as a cool idea that was going to make somebody a gazillion dollars. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: But it wasn't going to be my dollars that got it done. Stephen Semple: Well, you're somewhat accurate, and somewhat aren't because I believe that we are around the same age. I might be a tick older, but it was fall of 82 when Swatch was launched, but they became really big, late eighties, early nineties. Dave Young: So, yeah, I graduated college in 84, and so, yeah, by the late eighties ... and remember, I was in Western Nebraska. Stephen Semple: And there was no Amazon. Dave Young: Dude, Gone With the Wind has just now arrived at theaters in Western Nebraska. When you think about the good old days, they haven't even hit Western Nebraska yet. They're still waiting. So, go ahead. Stephen Semple: As I got looking at Swatch, here's the thing that's really remarkable about Swatch is how much they changed the watch industry. It is an idea that was remarkable because not only did it change the watch industry, it saved the Swiss watch industry. Dave Young: Oh, I believe it. Yeah. Stephen Semple: The change that came about was incredible. If we go back pre-Swatch, the idea of a watch is it was a single purchase item. Dave Young: There's a time ... yeah. Stephen Semple: People own one wristwatch. Dave Young: Yeah, and you decided, do you want a leather watch band or one of those metal expandy ones? Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Which watch guy are you? Stephen Semple: Right. And Rolex, for example, was not even a high-end luxury product at that time. It was an expensive watch, but it was not a luxury watch. It was not an aspirational one. And it's really interesting. Even if you take a look at Rolex's advertisements from the seventies versus the ones 2000 and on, they're a very, very different feel. One was it's rugged, and you can use it, and they aligned with certain sports such as diving and things along that lines. You look at how it's positioned today, and it's a fashion statement. Dave Young: Yeah, I see that. Stephen Semple: It's very, very different. In 10 years following the launch of Swatch, they became the largest watch brand on the planet. Dave Young: Well, I'm sure we're going to hear about tons of imitators. And they hit right in that slice of time. There's a couple of decades,
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    23 m
  • #195: PEZ – Part 2 – From Loophole to Pez Outlaw
    Mar 5 2025
    How Steve Glue made 4 Million giving the people what they wanted by beating the system; and how Pez ran him out of the business. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is... Well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [ASAP Commercial Doors Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here with Stephen Semple and part two of the PEZ story. We're going to talk about the PEZ collectibles, the whole frenzy. Stephen, I'm going to turn it over to you because I'm fascinated with this. I did just 30 seconds worth of Googling, and yeah, there are PEZ dispensers that are worth bucks out there. Stephen Semple: And the whole collectibles and the PEZ story is crazy. And as we know, the '90s is when this whole idea of collectibles just took off. You had Swatch watches come onto the market, and in fact, stay tuned, we're going to do an episode on Swatch. Swatch is probably going to end up becoming one of my favorite all time stories. So Swatch is going to be coming up. Because as I was going down this whole collectibles thing, it opens other doors. But you had Beanie Babies and you had Pokemon, and of course, PEZ. And PEZ is so popular that it ended up being on the cover of the Forbes magazine edition on collectibles. And people who collect PEZ dispensers call themselves PEZ heads. And one of the biggest people in the space is a guy whose name is Stephen Glew, who's also known as the PEZ Outlaw. Dave Young: The Pez Outlaw. Stephen Semple: The PEZ Outlaw. You're immediately intrigued, aren't you? Dave Young: Oh, sure. Stephen Semple: And Steve Glew is a machine operator from Michigan, and he started doing collectibles as a side hustle. And he started by collecting cereal boxes. So he would go to the local recycling plant and clip the coupons and ask for the toy to send them, things like those secret decoder rings. Have you ever noticed that there's a disclaimer now on those things that says only one per customer Dave Young: Because of him? Stephen Semple: It's because of him. Because at a certain point, Kellogg's notices that they're sending tons of toys to this one address- Dave Young: To one guy. Stephen Semple: ... in rural Michigan, to this one guy. He's basically getting these things and then going to trade shows and selling them. Dave Young: Nice. That's smart. Stephen Semple: That's smart, hey. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: It's funny, I bought a book a little while ago that is somebody had put together a book of all of the ads and the products that we saw in comics. Dave Young: Oh, sure. Stephen Semple: And in fact, the reason why I had got the book is when I did my comic, I was looking for ideas for fun, made-up placement. Dave Young: My dad had a story about when he was a kid, he sent off for something and it was a model airplane, a Balsa model airplane, send a dollar or whatever. I think this had to be a joke. Basically, he got back a big block of balsa wood and a knife. There you go. Stephen Semple: There you go, that's awesome. Yeah. Dave Young: Yeah, so Steve Glew. Stephen Semple: So we thank Steve Glew for the origin of the disclaimer of one per customer. So Steve's got a problem. He needs to find new things to sell because this side hustle is about to disappear because he's no longer able to scavenge these boxes and send in and get all these toys to sell. He's clearing out the last of his inventory and he notices a nearby vendor selling Pez dispensers.
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    13 m
  • #194: Pez – Part 1 – The Mint that Became a Collectable
    Feb 26 2025
    What do you do when you think cigarette smoke is disgusting and you are a bit of a germaphobe? Create a collectable candy empire, of course. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Waukee Feet Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. And I'm Dave Young, alongside Stephen Semple, where we're talking about empires. And Stephen whispered the subject of today's episode into my ear, and immediately, immediately my thoughts went not to my childhood as usually happens. Stephen Semple: Well, this is a variation. Can I guess where your brain went? Dave Young: Go ahead. Stephen Semple: Seinfeld? Dave Young: No, not even se Seinfeld. Stephen Semple: Okay. All right. Dave Young: I think it's on Apple, the current, maybe it's not on Apple. Maybe it's Prime. I'm not sure. But it's a current series, sci-fi series going on called Silo. Stephen Semple: Oh, yes, yes. I've started watching it. Yes. Dave Young: And they have these artifacts and somebody has a Pez dispenser, this Silo, futuristic, that mankind's been living in these silos for 350 years. They can't come out, but there's some people have these trinkets from the past and there's a Pez dispenser amongst them. Stephen Semple: That's right. Dave Young: They have no idea what it is. Stephen Semple: Right, yeah. And then there's that famous Seinfeld episode with the Pez dispenser in it as well. That was super popular one, where Jerry basically is being pain in the neck with this Pez dispenser. Yeah, but they're huge. They sell about 75 million Pez dispensers a year, still, across 80 countries, as well as five billion individual Pez candies. There's like 900 employees working for Pez. Dave Young: Wow. Okay. And the candy's nothing special, other than it's all uniform, like little bricks. It's almost like eating a Lego and almost as flavorful. Stephen Semple: Yeah, there you go. Well, I can't comment, because I've never eaten a Lego, but... Dave Young: Well, you didn't have my childhood, Stephen. Stephen Semple: So, the Pez company starts in 1927. I didn't realize how old it was. And it was started by Edward Haas III, and he lived in Vienna, and he couldn't stand the smell of smoke. And he's running this family, this successful family business, making a special kind of baking powder that was invented by his grandfather. So he was already a business person making this baking powder. And Edwin took the business in a new direction when he created the world's first ready mix cake mixture during World War I. Dave Young: Oh, wow. Okay. Stephen Semple: Yeah. And so, by the late 1920s, they have a number of factories in Europe, and at this time, smoking booms with the invention of the rolling machine, the automated rolling machine, which suddenly makes cigarettes cheap and plentiful. And if you want to learn more about this trend, go back to episode 85 for American tobacco. So first, Dave, can you believe that was like a year and a half ago that we recorded that? Dave Young: No kidding, yeah, the automatic rolling machines. Stephen Semple: Yeah. So there's a whole episode really on that. Go back and check it out. It's actually quite a fascinating story. Dave Young: But this guy, he doesn't like smoke. Stephen Semple: He does not like it. And one of the other things that happened is during World War I, soldiers are provided cigarettes as rations. And it's really interesting.
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    17 m
  • #193: Jacuzzi – Propellers to Propellers
    Feb 19 2025
    The Jacuzzi Seven were obsessed with flight and engineered better propellers. What is the difference between propellers of air or water??? Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us. But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [Tapper's Jewelry Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here, alongside Stephen Semple, discussing empires, entrepreneurial empires that started from just somebody's crazy idea and became something huge. And today, Jacuzzi. Stephen Semple: Jacuzzi. Dave Young: We're not talking about a hot tub, we're talking about a Jacuzzi. Stephen Semple: Correct. Dave Young: Which, sort of became the generic name for hot tubs, but I'm fascinated to hear the story. I'm guessing we're headed to the 70s, baby. Is that ring true or no? Stephen Semple: The business was founded in 1915. Dave Young: All right, so we're not headed to the 70s, but we'll still be around. Was it founded as Jacuzzi? Stephen Semple: Well, here's the interesting thing, here's the really fun part. Dave Young: Oh wait. Stephen Semple: Guess what their first business was? Dave Young: Wait, I'm thinking. These might be like therapeutic Whirlpool things too, no? I don't know. I'm getting ahead, I don't know what their first business was. Stephen Semple: Their first business was in the airplane business. Dave Young: Okay. The 1915 three engine Jacuzzi. No, I don't know. Stephen Semple: No, they started by making props for airplanes, that was their first business. Dave Young: Really? Stephen Semple: Yes. How crazy is that? Dave Young: That's nuts. Okay. Stephen Semple: Isn't that nuts? Yeah. So, they were founded in 1915 in Berkeley, California by seven siblings, there were seven kids in the Jacuzzi family. Dave Young: Holy. Stephen Semple: And they were- Dave Young: Was Jacuzzi their name? Stephen Semple: Well, actually, it was Iacuzzi, and when they immigrated, the classic. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: Yeah, the classic mistake of being written down wrong, and that's the new spelling is what stuck. They were immigrants from Casarsa della Delizia in Italy, and I'm sure I'm completely butchering that. Dave Young: Yeah, just say Italy. Stephen Semple: Yeah. And as said, the original family name was Iacuzzi. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: And it became Jacuzzi, and of course, it defined the hot tub business, which today is a $6 billion global market. Dave Young: But airplane propellers. Stephen Semple: Airplane propellers. Dave Young: Seven siblings had the bright idea of making airplane propellers. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: But this is shortly after Orville and Wilbur- Stephen Semple: Oh yeah. This is- Dave Young: Had invented airplane propellers. Stephen Semple: Well, this is the day of biplanes, right? So, it's 1915, and Rachele Jacuzzi, who's the youngest of the seven, is visiting the San Francisco Fair, and he sees biplanes. And one of the sons is working as an engineer for the founder of McDonnell Douglas, and they're obsessed with flight, and they see these stunt plane props, and they look at them and go, these are really inefficient. So, they invented propeller that is curved and smaller and more efficient, and it's called the toothpick propeller. Got these little tiny blades. And they open up a machine shop to start making these propellers,
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    19 m
  • #192: Polaroid – Instant Idea, Instant Pic, Instant Empire
    Feb 12 2025
    What happens when you are in the polarization film business and your daughter asks why she can't see the picture right away? You invent Polaroid. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us. But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [No Bull RV Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here alongside Stephen Semple. And today's topic, man, you keep picking topics that take me back to my childhood, Stephen. And for this one, it's the camera my dad had. It's the Polaroid. Stephen Semple: Is that right? Your dad had one? Dave Young: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And it was a great camera. He used to let me take pictures. And he'd set the timer and I'd peel the backing off. These were the old kind, not the SX-70, modern day seventies. Stephen Semple: You were old school. You had the little backing you had to peel off. Right? Dave Young: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Stephen Semple: Awesome. Dave Young: And he had extra doodads and things like a little timer that would snap onto the button so we could do a family pic. Stephen Semple: Oh, is that right? Dave Young: Oh, yeah. Stephen Semple: Wow. Dave Young: All the fun stuff. Stephen Semple: Well, when I got talking about this with my oldest daughter, Crystal, what I was surprised to learn, and I learned this when I said to her I was going to do this and then discovered more about it. Polaroid is still around. She is a camp counselor in the summertime. Little kids show up at camp with a Polaroid camera. And it's still the point it and comes out, and you've got to wait for a minute for it to it develop. But yeah, it's still a thing. Dave Young: And honestly, the nice part is the algorithm doesn't get ahold of that image. Stephen Semple: That's true. That's true Dave Young: Big data doesn't have a picture of your kid If you use a Polaroid. Stephen Semple: Well, that's maybe why they're giving these little kids to do that. It's estimated that they do around $770 million in business. Dave Young: Wow. Wow. Stephen Semple: So it's not insignificant. Yeah. Yeah. Dave Young: I'd say that's not insignificant, I think. Stephen Semple: Yeah. But as we know, it was revolutionary at the time, this whole instant picture. And at their peak, which was 1991, they were doing about $3 billion in business. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: So that's- Dave Young: Man, I would've thought their peak was way earlier than that for some reason. Stephen Semple: Yeah, that was the peak, '91. Yeah. Dave Young: Just before digital kind of came in. Stephen Semple: And kind of messed with a bunch of things. Yeah. The company was founded by Edwin Land and George Wheelwright in 1937 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But didn't start off as a camera company. Edwin Land was in Harvard, and he dropped out of Harvard to pursue business. But what he had invented was the coating that polarizes lenses. Dave Young: Oh, okay. Stephen Semple: So hence the name Polaroid. Dave Young: Polaroid. Yeah. Stephen Semple: Yeah. And I've always wondered about that. Why Polaroid? And it came from that. And the business became huge in 1941 when the US entered World War II, because it was being used for flight goggles. It was massive. Sales went from $760,000 pre-war to like $16 million in 1943. Dave Young: Wow. Stephen Semple: Selling this polarizing technology. But 90% of the contracts were military. There was no Sunglass Hut yet. Right?
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    24 m
  • #191: Three Levels of Trust – From Surface to Deep
    Feb 5 2025
    Stephen has been studying and learning how to use and explain trust for Organizations. Let's just say, you need to get vulnerable for this one. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [Out Of This World Plumbing Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young, alongside Stephen Semple, and Stephen, you're supposed to whisper- Stephen Semple: We're going off the reservation, I know. Yes. Dave Young: You were supposed to whisper in my ear today's business that we're going to discuss, and you just mentioned trust, and I'm thinking, this is not like a bank and trust. This is not like a trust fund. Stephen Semple: In God, we trust, money. Dave Young: No, not that. Basically, this is like trust. This is like consumer trust, people trusting each other, people trusting businesses, people trusting, I don't know, government. Are we living in a post-trust age? Is that the question? Stephen Semple: Well, Gallup and other organizations that measure basically people's trust in institutions and organizations and businesses and things like that across the board all agree, it's at an all-time low. Across the board, our trust in organizations, businesses, other people, things like that has declined to a level not seen before. And what's disturbing on this is if you're coming up with an innovative idea, if you're wanting to create a movement, if you're wanting to get support from something, if you're wanting to sell a product or service, everyone agreed. I had the opportunity to run lots of workshops and speak at lots of places, and I'll ask people, is trust important to what you do? Everyone agrees, trust is super important. Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: We all agree on that. Studies show trust is way down. So we all agree it's really important, all the studies show its way down, so it got me to thinking and really studying, how do we establish and build trust as organizations? And what I found was there's actually three levels of trust, and one of the things we're going to dive into here in a little bit, the highest level is this concept of parasocial relationships, which we'll dig into. But I just thought, if you're wanting to build something big and large and grand, there's a point where what you've got to recognize is you've got to get people to trust this new idea that you're doing. So when I get talking to folks about trust, I'll often ask, "What are the things that you do to build trust?" And we did this in the workshop that I did with Matthew Burns and Gary Bernier. Dave Young: Selling professional services. Stephen Semple: On the selling professional services, one of the questions was that, and people talked about how, well, you do what you say you're going to do and be on time and be polite and be transparent and all those things build trust, and it's true, but those are like level one trust things. They will form a basic level of trust. And the other challenge with it is, for the most part, they were things that you had to have an interaction with the client or the prospective client in order to even establish that. Dave Young: Man, this is a Gordian knot. [inaudible 00:04:46] This is a tough nut you want to crack. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: I think of a lot of things. When do you want to dive into the parasocial effect? It happens to me, oh, I don't know, three, four times a month. Somebody will show up at Wizard Academy at a class and they'll go, "Wow,
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    23 m
  • #190: Care & Repair – A True Empire Building Story
    Jan 29 2025
    Sergei Kaminskiy started his empire by taking jobs that he didn't know how to do and then hiring a professional to learn from. Wow. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us. But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients so here's one of those. [Tapper's Jewelry Ad] Stephen Semple: Hey, it's Stephen Semple here, and yes, it's unusual, I'm opening the episode. We've given Dave Young the week off because he's been working really hard lately. And I managed to meet Sergei Kaminskiy. We had a bit of a brief conversation and I was immediately, "Dude, I got to get you onto the podcast." There were so many things we talked about that were just really, really great lessons and he's in the home services business. We're going to be talking about handyman, but this is applicable to all sorts of different businesses. But the first thing that fascinated me was really how you got started in the handyman business before creating the franchise model. Tell me about the start, that was just a cool story. Sergei Kaminskiy: Yeah, I got married. I was really young, I was just 19 years old. Stephen Semple: Right there tells us you're a little nuts, but... Sergei Kaminskiy: I look at 19 year olds now and I'm like, "You're not ready to get married." But anyhow, we got married and then about three months into it, we look at the bank account, there's about $70 in the bank account. And here I am, I'm working as a framing contractor, I mean as a framer for a framing contractor and making $17 an hour. I went to the owner of the business and I said, "Hey, Jim, can I get a raise? I bought a truck, I bought the tools." And he goes, "Sergei, you are already making pretty much at the top of what framers make." And he was right, they were already compensating me fairly, but yet, it was not enough for us to make ends meet. My wife brought in a nice BMW into the marriage that we had to make payments on, and by the time we did all the things we had to do, we were running out of money. So I told my wife, I said, "Listen, what I do know is that I can do a business on a small scale. I can do some handyman work, I can take on some side jobs." Going to my parents and asking them for money was not an option. I said, "I have to figure out a way to make this thing work." And so literally it was raining outside that day, and we went to the club room of our apartment complex. There was a little room with a computer and a printer. We didn't even have a computer or a printer in our apartment, so we started our business with no computer, no printer, nothing. Literally went to the complex and printed out 25 flyers. I designed them on Microsoft Word and I had little palm trees around the piece of paper, and it says San Diego County. Stephen Semple: I bet you wish now that you had some old copies of those. Sergei Kaminskiy: I have a photo actually. Stephen Semple: Do you really? Sergei Kaminskiy: Yes. Stephen Semple: Oh my God, you've got to send that to me. You have to send that to me. Sergei Kaminskiy: It's amazing, so literally printed out these flyers. It's raining outside, we wrapped them real nice with the bow. And I'm running door to door as Elena's driving in the rain, and she's kind of following me as I'm running door to door. I pass out about 25 flyers and I'm like, "Oh, great, we passed out some flyers. Let's wait for the phone to ring." And sure enough, one guy called me. One guy called me and he said, "I need some service done on one of the rental units that I own.
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    29 m
  • #189: Birkenstock – Went Public At 7 Billion
    Jan 22 2025
    You know you have a great idea when you start having competitors copy you. Well, Dr. Scholl's copied the foot bed from Birkenstock. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is... Well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [Out Of This World Plumbing Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young, here with Stephen Semple. And today, man, today is the day, man. Dude, we're going to rap about Birkenstocks. It's the crunchy granola shoe from the seventies. That's what I think of with Birkenstocks, and I want to like Birkenstocks. I tried them on many times in my life and I don't know that I could get through the learning curve or whatever it is. They just didn't. Anyway, I'm anxious to hear the story, because I think we're headed to Europe. Stephen Semple: So the average, so people who own Birkenstocks on average own Fortair. Dave Young: Yeah, I get it. Stephen Semple: In 2023, Birkenstock went public. Dave Young: Oh, did they? Stephen Semple: At a $7 billion valuation. Dave Young: Dang. Why? Why would they need to? Stephen Semple: A lot of times, I think when things like this happen, it's to free up money for the family. Dave Young: Yeah, they're cashing out. Stephen Semple: It's the give ability for key employees to have ownership. Often, there's a lot of reasons for doing an IPO, and in future, we're going to do one on Jacuzzi where it'll really highlight that really well because it's a crazy story. Dave Young: Cool. Well, take me back to the beginning of Birkenstock, man. Stephen Semple: Yeah. The model that Birkenstock is really known for is that classic one with the strap and whatnot. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: And it's called the Arizona. And it has been growing, sales on the Arizona have been growing like 24% a year. It just Dave Young: Just year over year? Stephen Semple: It's just growing, and growing, and growing, and growing year over year. But Birkenstock is a really old company. It was founded in 1774 by Johann. Dave Young: Well, that's pretty old. Stephen Semple: Yeah, Johann Adam Birkenstock in Germany. And the original idea was to create shoes that gave support and contour to the foot. And in 1896, the Fußbett, which is footbed, was designed. And by 1925, Birkenstocks were being sold all over Europe. And in 1966 is when they were brought to America. And literally the first documented mention of Birkenstock was basically March 25th, 1774 as a vassal and shoemaker in some local church archives is where it was first mentioned. Dave Young: Wow. Stephen Semple: Right. I mean, holy crap. We're talking generation, after generation, after generation of master shoemakers or part-time shoemakers, all called Birkenstock. This is a business that's gone from Birkenstock to Birkenstock to Birkenstock to Birkenstock. Dave Young: Wow. Stephen Semple: It's been really quite incredible. Dave Young: That is amazing. Yeah. Stephen Semple: Yeah. And so basically where they really had their big breakthrough was following World War I, because shoes were now starting to be mass-produced. It started to become cheap. But here's the crazy thing is the early mass-produced shoes, there were no arch support. And in a lot of cases there was not even a left or right. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: And so this is when they created this whole idea of a footbed being able to be put in the shoe to create better comfort and whatnot.
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    18 m