# Hoka's Strategy: From Niche Innovation to $2B Brand

**Podcast:** How I Built This with Guy Raz
**Published:** 2026-02-02

## Transcript

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Everything in marketing.
There is only one thing in marketing that we have to do: that you have to go to a multitude of places and make people try.
And that's not what you get from any investor.
Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.
I'm Guy Roz, and on the show today, how a crushing end to a race in the French Alps led to the launch of Hoka, a pillowy sneaker that now does over two billion dollars in sales each year.
Sometime around the 2010s, sneakers started to change.
They got bigger, and they started to look almost like inflatable rafts with these big pillowy soles.
Now, this was not intended to be about fashion, although big-sold sneakers did become a fashion accessory.
But originally, it was all about comfort and performance.
And that change was ignited by two companies, both founded in Europe about a year apart.
Both brands were started by elite runners, and both of them believe that more protection, more cushioning, could actually improve your running.
One of those brands was on.
It's a story we told on the show back in 2024, and the other brand was Hoka, the subject of today's episode.
When Hoka's shoes first appeared in late 2009, they looked, well, just weird.
The midsoles were unusually thick, the sole curved like the bottom of a rocking chair, and at first glance, they kind of resembled clown shoes.
In fact, that's what some professional runners called them in the beginning.
But that look wasn't an accident.
The founders didn't think of a running shoe as a piece of apparel.
They thought of it like a machine, every single part doing a specific job, and every detail meticulously engineered.
And it took time for people to get it, but once they did, the brand exploded.
In 2012, Hoka was doing less than $3 million in sales a year.
Today, it generates more than $2 billion.
At the center of the story are two men who grew up not too far from each other in the French Alps, Jean-Luc Diard and Nicolas Mermoux.
In 1980, when he was just 23 years old, Jean-Luc joined a legendary French company called Salomon, back when it was known primarily for ski bindings.
And there, early in his career, he encountered someone who would shape the way he thought about building things and leading people.
And that person was the namesake of the company, George Salomon.
The special thing with with this person who was an amazing entrepreneur was that he was very close to everyone.
So he would come to uh to the office in the in the evening where I was and say, so what are you working on and what have you learned, etc.?
And then one day it was at the French national championships of skiing.
The uh he was there and he caught me at the at the end of the race.
You were racing.
Yeah, I was racing on the team.
I was in the team of students, but not into the uh but you were in this race.
Yeah, yeah.
I was in that race, and he said to me, why don't you race with with our ski boots?
And I need to understand why.
Why don't you come with me into the car and we'll go down to the ski boot division and you'll explain why.
And I was freaking out.
But but obviously that was an amazing sign of how much he wanted to learn what could be improved.
And those are the things that stay into your mind.
I mean, the the CEO owner, let's say, of that company, come to an intern, bring him to the ski boot division, and say, we're going to talk about those things.
So this would begin a long career at Salamon, 1980 as an intern, you would eventually, we're gonna get to it, you'd eventually become the CEO, president CEO.
And then I think in 1986, you are put in charge of product for this new product, which is going to be skis.
Yeah.
Which is gonna really blow the whole, I mean, transform this brand.
It's gonna make it into a brand that is like uh Burton.
I mean, it was it's it was gonna become a huge brand.
Yes, yeah.
Because the ski is the is the king product.
Uh so and then there was the big uh aspect that that I was anticipating, the fact that skis and bindings would become one unit, uh and not being completely separate elements, but would be used to be that you bought the skis, you bought the bindings, you would connect them.
Right.
Now you just buy everything.
So the big yeah.
The big argument that I had at that time is was to say, this is what is going to happen.
Uh so if we don't get into it, we're going to be left aside.
It's hard to imagine that that that it was not that long ago, and we're talking about you know, 30, 40 years ago, that you would still buy them separately, these components, and and Salaman was a bindings brand.
Yeah.
And then they were sort of can they weren't sure if they should get into skis, but it just seems like a an obvious today, you know, in hindsight, it seems totally obvious.
Many, many of the the brands at the beginning were were like very, very specialized.
You could say the same in the bike industry or things like that.
And so you were an alpine ski binding company, an alpine ski boot company, or an alpine ski company.
Got it.
Okay, I want to turn uh to you now, Nico, because I think you were uh 20 years old when you first met Jean-Luc.
Um you were still at university.
Yes.
Uh, and I guess you were at a ski race.
You you were racing.
And and from what I understand, you met Jean-Luc because he was there uh recruiting people to work on this new ski that Salomon was was developing, is that right?
Yes.
You have to understand at that time the aura around Salomon was unbelievable.
George Salomon was the ultimate, I mean, beyond legend, beyond the sports.
And he was like this amazing person, was a genius.
So it was like a dream company, especially for someone who loves uh who loves skiing.
So I talked to Jean-Luc and I said, I'd like to to come join you when I'm done studying.
And he said, Well, I mean, just finish your studies and uh we can talk again um in two years and a half.
And and finally, Nico, you graduate and you join Salaman.
Tell me about about so you you contact Jean-Luc and you say, Okay, I'm done, I'm ready.
Yeah, the the but the most funny part is um it was my first day at the office, you know.
So we met on the on the parking lot, and then we drive to a glacier uh in Cormayer, like in the the Mont Blanc Chamonix Valley, and we test different prototypes, we compare them.
This is your first day.
That was my first day.
So two takes from that day.
The first one, of course, is that's what I I want to do all my life, you know.
I want to wake up and uh go go do what I love and get paid and get paid, and and with uh a bunch of super nice fun colleagues who become friends, you know that's the first one.
And the second one is that as soon as we sat down after the test we were talking about the feel we're talking about the the sensations the emotion we'd had in between the snow our feet our brain everybody equal everybody trying to solve a problem with no sense of hierarchy.
This has never changed.
And how did by the way how did that first those first few skis do?
Were they a hit?
Oh yeah yeah yeah it was a big big hit the uh just to put it in perspective I mean it took us six years to be number one in terms of global sales global revenues on the ski side that's the power of innovation and it's the power of young blood but then being always extremely critical toward what you do that's the constant process but never being satisfied.
I think it's very French it's very uh it's very mountain people authenticity, you know, not to get impressed, not to to get overconfident.
And we have sometimes this uh this reputation in France to be a bit critical and to be unsatisfied.
Uh it's not always pleasant when you go to a restaurant or you get in a taxi in Paris.
I love the French, but there is a malaise sometimes that you experience.
Yes, but when when it comes when it comes to innovation, especially if you mix it with our background as uh Mountain people, Salomon embraced it and decided to jump to the next level.
But you can miss opportunities, you can miss when you're too focused on on your own success and what you're doing and you want to follow your path.
And it's it's always important to all to listen to the consumers and to look very closely at what the competitors are doing.
Yeah.
Um Jean-Luc, you would spend 27 years at Salamon ultimately, and you became the CEO in 1998.
When you became CEO of this group, because you saw Salamon go from a bindings company to a bindings and boots company to a binding boots and ski company, then eventually uh summer and winter sports company.
I mean, uh uh running shoes and apparel, Arcteryx apparel, and even cycling and all these things.
Can you give me a sense of from the time you joined Salamon in 1980, 81 to the time you left, which we'll get to, what was the revenue from the beginning and then what was it at the end?
It was not even, it was below 100 million, it was, I think, in the 70 to 80 million when I joined.
And then uh when I left, the group was about 1.2 billion.
Wow.
Yeah.
So completely different company.
Very different.
I mean, just an explosion in growth.
Yeah.
All right.
I wanna I want to jump to two thousand seven because this was gonna be your last year at Salman.
From what I understand, you go to in in two thousand seven, you're at the outdoor retailer trade show.
This is in Europe or in the US?
US, yes.
Okay.
And already at that point, there were there was there were trends happening in all across sports.
I guess just kind of oversize larger things, right?
Yes, larger and lighter.
It's one of those things that every time you you you get out at a trade show and and you you have things that all of a sudden jump a little bit more in your face.
Yeah.
What what are some examples that you were seeing?
Take tailor-made golf clubs.
Just to take an example, the the first uh Taylor-made golf club ads, they were 200 CC.
Uh and then gradually they moved to 300, then to 350.
Golfheads were just getting bigger and bigger.
Bigger and bigger.
And as they grew bigger, the paradox was that they grew lighter at the same time, and they gave not only more performance, but they gave also more tolerance.
It made it easier to hit the ball harder farther, straighter.
So all those things led to better performance.
In skis, the same way.
Skis had become wider.
Wider.
Yeah.
And what did that mean?
What did wider skis mean for you you you get a combination of stability on the one side, which is kind of the way you you you feel relaxed if you want, but at the same time, combined with other parameters, it's still enabled to curve really well.
Uh so that's one example.
Bike uh bike wheels became much bigger.
Matter became thicker.
The profile of the ribs.
If you are a biker, I mean you became much more aerodynamic.
And we can and we can name a lot of things like that where we saw that oversize and lighter enabled to change paradoxes, to change paradigms.
And you brought performance more uh, let's say, to the bigger to a bigger group.
All of these things are kind of swirling around.
Like if you if if I'm if I'm looking at the movie about your life, you're walking down the street and all these bubbles are just like the you know the the larger size and mean yeah, good.
Everything that's also a little bit at that time, the design, like the style, the impact on the eye was generates uh uh questions and interest, whether it's it's it's negative or look at those big tires, look at those fat skis, look at those big golf clubs, yeah.
Exactly.
And yeah, yeah.
Okay, I want to turn uh to you now, Nico, because I think you were you're gonna run this ultra marathon, this ultra trail uh uh Du Mont Blanc.
Okay, so you do this, this.
This is 2007.
Yes, it's a hundred and one miles around Mont Blanc.
First of all, were you a I mean we've already we've only talked about skiing and winter sports.
Had you, I'm assuming you got into running at some point in in your life.
Very surprisingly, then the way that I I ski raced uh uh for many years, uh I I became more of an athlete and an elite athlete in endurance sports.
And then it went to adventure racing, and then it went to to to trail running.
It you would do it in like one to two days.
So you got into this into in your 30s almost into trail running.
Trail running.
I I started my first serious trail race.
I was 40.
40, wow.
You do this insane ultra marathon, which I guess today 6,000 people start.
You're gonna run around Mont Blanc, and Jean-Luc, you uh you're gonna be part of his crew.
Oh yeah, yeah.
And the crew meant like handing him water or snacks while he was running past you.
And poles uh jackets and whatever, and and effectively the first thing that you are depleted from is water and food.
And the first by the very first moment already, I mean he he he he started like crazy, way ahead of the pack.
That was that was a huge surprise.
So I think you were an amateur, but you were in the lead, I read for fifty the first 15 hours of this race.
You were in the lead.
Yes, I was in the lead.
I just took off and uh and then the the Saturday at like four p.m.
it was over because I I ended up doing twenty-two hours and and coming in third, but twenty-two hours coming in third.
That's yes.
And and this is in one pair of shoes the whole time, right?
Or do you switch shoes?
Yeah, I didn't switch.
And and how did you I mean, this is a hundred and one miles, you're pounding, you're constantly pounding your joints, your body.
I mean, you must have been just spent, wiped.
Well, I fell apart.
That's why I didn't win.
Because I tried to do every I was getting chased by twenty five hundred people.
I could see the headlamps, and I I I ran down the way I would normally ski or drive, but I had no technology.
I had like a very thin so the the my body fell apart.
Were you in you were you in excruciating pain the last I couldn't I lost one hour in the last 30k.
But how?
One hour.
What was happening?
Because my quads shut down.
So you were you were like jelly.
Your legs were create the speed.
You cannot lift up your feet.
So your brain is saying you're random.
Your brain is telling your legs to move, but they cannot move.
My legs are telling my brain uh to stop with pain.
The other way around.
Because when you're going downhill, you're using more of your braking.
You're right.
And so you're you're putting more strain on your quads, I think, than when you're going up, up is more caps.
I guess it depends on how you run.
Yeah.
Your quads, your knees, I mean, uh take a lot.
Your knees, right?
When you're going down.
Uh it takes a lot.
Yeah.
See it it's I mean, I I can picture it so many times because as a kid, you know, we r love running down grass hills, or even when I hike now, I'm always very careful when I'm going downhill because I don't want to fall.
I don't want to slip.
And so really it's the the conclusion you come to is that the downhill side, this is a technology problem.
This can actually be solved.
To your point, Guy, when uh as a kid, every time you see a a little rundown, what do you think?
You run.
You you run and you and typically you have your arms wide open and you laugh and you fall sometimes, but you have fun.
There are days you fly.
It doesn't matter which that's why you have this expression like which ticks with runners, with bikers, with skiers, with anyone.
Today I was flying.
Yeah.
So how do you get back to that?
Right.
And I think one of the things you you began to sort of to kind of document, right, is that a runner's performance changes depending on the surface that they're running on during a race, right?
Like not all trails feel the same under your feet, right?
Yes.
There was one on in the fall with a lot of dead leaves.
Dead leaves, yeah.
There was one dead leaves.
You're running out of the room.
Yeah, so you had the cushioning from the There was one very uh important one in 2000 during an adventure race in C City on lava.
So it was soft.
Yeah.
There was one a couple of times like gliding on snow.
And you and you see the big difference that there that that there is between when you are in those situations compared to when you are in other situations where you are just pounding hard.
It's a legend that we were a serious enthusiastic runners before Hokia.
We were lazy because it was so hard and one step at a time compared to anything else we would do.
Okay.
So you guys start to have this conversation.
And what I mean, do you s what do you remember?
You you said to Jean-Luc or you said to Nico or said, Well, why don't we develop, why don't we try to build build a shoe that solves this problem?
Do you remember how you came to this we had this desire to do something together?
We had like a field which seemed uh Fantastic, which is footwear, because it's it's a it's a huge market.
Nothing really had been done for so long.
So what was the next step?
Then in order to make things happen, we started to create um a design center, let's say uh a development center, uh with uh people coming that had some know-how.
And so we had different people, let's say, on the topic at the beginning before we start uh tuning the things.
Okay, so you uh and and was any part of you, Jean-Luc, nervous?
I mean, you had because when you're the CEO of a big company, you've got all kinds of resources at your disposal, and you've got all kinds of people and staff and a huge organization.
What what were the challenges you were facing personally to do this?
Because you would have to put in money and your reputation, and all of a sudden, you know, it's you're gonna be calling and picking up the phones, and you know, it's a different it's it's so tell me a little bit about what what that was like for you.
Yeah.
So on the one side, you have the excitement of starting a new adventure, right?
Clearly.
The the second thing is that you know that those adventures have 80% plus chances of failure.
So you just take that into account.
And then the other thing is to fix boundaries when it comes to the investments that you are going to do.
So here you need to be very clear with your family uh about how much you are going to put into it.
You guys were gonna put your money.
You were not gonna go raise money.
That's one thing.
And obviously not everyone was believing that that the two of us could do something together.
Who who was I mean, I would believe it.
You were the head of set you were you guys had a great track record.
Well, most people around us would say, hmm, are you sure it can work?
So so but that's that's fine.
That's the the usual thing that you that you face.
So so this is why in order to to make something you have to have um, let's say first a great team uh around you.
Yeah.
So that was the first thing to say, who are the people that can bring that to life?
But that group uh which cost a lot of money every day, just you had to pay salaries and you have to pay uh uh rent and you had to pay all of that.
So you rented space in INCOM.
And and then and was this like was it a small office with like the labs at a like a tables and and cutting equip equipment to cut and exactly so small off small office space, small tools, small things, I mean to to to do things, knowing that in footwear the the the innovators are are also the suppliers.
They are the people who are providing you with the foam formulations with the different materials, etc.
So what we had, we had connections with a lot of people out there.
So those people would give us, let's say, like the first step of credibility to get it going, even if they had eyes like this when we showed the the where where we wanted to go, but at least they said, okay, we're we'll we'll we'll give it a try.
When we come back in just a moment, Nico takes an early version of Hokos to a trail race, and even he has to admit they kind of look like clown shoes.
Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to How I Built This.
Hey, welcome back to How I Built This.
I'm Guy Raz.
So it's 2008, and Jean-Luc and Nico have set up a design studio in Anasi in the French Alps to develop a new kind of running shoe.
But this very first version isn't really a sneaker.
It's more like a piece of foam that you'd strap to the bottom of your shoes for downhill running.
We're like, maybe people will go to the mountains and they would drive up or they will ride the the gondola up and they will just trap their equipment when they get to the tom and they will and they will fly down the mountains.
So it was pushing the envelope to the extreme of a new sport which would be downhill running.
And that's when there were these this idea of straps, but a uh the straps wouldn't work because your your foot would uh so you never made a prototype of the colour.
We made prototype.
It didn't work much.
Okay.
Do you have a name for the shoe from the beginning or would that come later?
So the name Hoka, most important thing is uh we wanted to portray flying.
I had been to New Zealand a few times.
Hoka is a I think it's a Maori word, right?
What does it mean?
So Hoka is flying, One is like the element, the dirt, flying, soaring.
There's many ways to to say it in Maroca.
Hoka One, most people saw it as Hoka 1-1.
Yes, because it's it's the feeling that we wanted to describe.
Right.
Everything was based once again on on the notion of flow and flying.
Okay.
Everything.
And that was linked to the fact that what we had stated was uh a a name that would have four letters, two syllabus.
Hoka, yeah.
And the best uh let's say places where we had enjoyed the most adventure racing were on the islands.
And so so we wanted to take that positioning of being associated to the islands.
We found that there was no brands associated with it, that it was a completely different types of positioning and that you had everything C2 Summit, let's say in uh with every kind of term sky to see sky to see.
Great, because at that time you would think, given your backgrounds, you know, trail running you might think of like Boulder Colorado, right?
You might think of like that.
But you wanted to get away from that.
Yes.
You wanted to be more of people to think of an island, which is interesting.
So clearly there's this kind of mood board you're kind of working working through.
But let's talk about the design.
Tell me about this idea of midsoles, right?
Because I think midsole there the and it's literally the middle of the soul there hadn't really been much thought put into midsole innovation at the time.
They the midsole and and it's it's it's much more true now than it was like uh 20 um 20 years ago it's the engine and and the body of the of the footwear and your foot uh sits inside the car, which is a midsole, and there is a tire underneath, which creates a connection and the grip and the connection with the ground.
And there is like uh a seat and a seat belt, which is which is the upper.
But it's it's we were looking at it like it's it's a ski or it's a wheelchair.
It's the interface.
I mean what the way we described it is that it's the interface between you and the ground.
How do you develop that interface?
How do you develop the snow or the lava ash or the leaves?
Exactly.
Yeah.
Something soft, glidy, uh bouncy, you know?
Uh yeah, because we we wanted to improve on that, but as I said, it was you you you wanted to make something that had an appeal, let's say much in a much broader way.
So downhill running was was like a point of entry, but from the bigger perspective, it was always to say, what where does that lead to?
Because you you you don't do shoes just for downhill running in hundred mile races.
That would be like one thousand people doing it.
So the starting point is you build rocker, rocker, so it's a shape like a rock.
It's like a rocker, like the bottom of a rocking chair.
Because any kind of movement needs to be fluid, whatever the way, whether you are, let's say going up, flat, down, etc.
That when you would you would land on your heel and it would just propel you up like a rocking chair.
So was there anything out there on the market like a rocking chair at the time?
Yeah, I mean, in some ways, partly the shape the the MBT MBT, I remember, yes.
Okay.
So which was a different small brand.
It was for walking, right?
It's it's a very different principle, but it had this in the sense that it was built on the principle of instability.
The instability principle was here to help you, let's say find your stability by putting your body in the right position.
Essentially, just these were really innovative shoes because they were like boats.
They were like it was like two little boats on your exactly.
That was that was a whole thing.
I mean, but the perception that you had like this was important.
And globally speaking, once again, every development mindset was how do we make the the thing that requires the least energy for the maximum amount of efficiency?
Yeah.
So so that's one thing that was 100% clear since the beginning.
It had to be rocker.
So you knew that it had to be a rocker.
Okay.
So it had so now, but the challenge was in order to do that, you needed a lot more foam.
And that was gonna add more weight.
How how much of a challenge was it to develop this technology?
Well, the uh if you want suspension and you're gonna you're going to use like um a meat sole that's like two to three times the size of a regular meat sole, and to have like a great cushioning, you need to go with foams which are much softer than what was the industry standard.
And we went like pretty much twice softer than what was the tradition in the industry.
Softer, so less much softer.
Yeah, but yeah.
Uh softer also means less dense, so much lighter.
Okay.
So so the challenge into getting that was to find the partners that would dare making that.
So that had never been made.
It had it had not.
Why not?
Because it was not practical, it wasn't seen as it was not industry standard.
Because all the all the shoes were low profile, and in order to give you the the the resistance also in a low profile, you had to have a given stiffness.
So it was a stiffer foam.
Nobody was making softer.
But the technology was, I mean, the the it was possible to make it.
Absolutely.
It was possible, but it was it had not been done.
So so you still had to find the partners, the supplier partners that would make it.
Because because everyone was concerned that it that it could not work because it would destroy itself too easily or it would it would I mean you weren't sure it was going to work.
Yes, we we were not sure.
Of course we were not sure, but we we were not sure it was gonna be stable, but we did like so much to make it stable.
We we put the foot like really down inside the midsole.
We went very wide.
So we did anything we could to make sure it's stable.
And I want to clarify this point, because of course this is a an audio program mainly.
Um when normal shoes that you run in, your your foot is on top of the cushioning.
This was different because the cushioning actually surrounded your foot.
You were actually inside the cushion.
The cushioning is still below you, but most of you wanted to make a bucket seat that would that would surround you.
How long did it take for the for them to figure out how to make this foam?
How to make what you know the foam existed already.
They just like uh they they just put in a much bigger mold, uh-huh, something much softer, about uh thirty, thirty-five percent softer.
And how long did it take?
It didn't take much more.
I mean it took for us three months, let's say, to have something that was that was like tangible.
So you're working with uh so there are factories in China that are making this, but you have to convince them.
Was it was it I mean hard.
Why was it hard?
Because we were not existing.
We were like a uh micro customer with uh no background, nothing, asking for very innovative, uh complete complicated things that had never been done.
And and and we didn't have orders to place immediately.
But you you wanted a prototype.
You needed a prototype.
And usually these places need an order in order to do a prototype.
They work with you when you have already a business case that is established.
We didn't have that, so it was all based on relationship in saying, please let's make a try.
The the head of RD and um he worked some amazing magic to do like the cat design to go convince the factories.
He had worked with them for for many years.
We had a very special relationship, and uh and they and they tried.
So when you got those first prototypes, what did you do?
I'm assuming you ran in, you wanted to run in them.
We got uh got them in February 2009.
We in NC we went on a trail that we knew, and it was like uh spectacular, like immediately the first prototypes?
Uh half hour.
Uh the first 15 minutes, the the three of us ran down and walked back up and ran down again, and we were like basically screaming.
It was so easy.
The point where you have to start breaking and use your quads, like we described earlier, was at a higher speed, and and there was like the very very first day this uh this sensation of flying, this sensation of uh letting go, uh just moving your arms and not worry about the terrain like on a mountain bike.
The next thing we did, like probably 20 or 30 minutes later, is because we of course had like um competitor shoes in our uh our current footwear, uh we got like the the some some timing, something we started timing ourselves, and we were like 10 seconds half of a minute.
And and just just to be clear, these prototypes had tread on the bottom as well, no tread.
But it's okay because it was dry.
It was dry, it wasn't it wasn't wet, it wasn't ray, okay.
And because it was so soft, and and it's always been the case with the with the hockey shoes, because it was so soft, they they also the foam uh conforms itself to the to the obstacles.
This is in I think February of 2009 when you get these first.
May of that year.
You once again run the Mount Blanc race.
This is uh I think the second, third time you're gonna run the race.
So in May, we had like with these prototypes.
I did a race in the close to my parents' house in Cantal.
Uh and I I raced in it.
I raced in them.
And this is not a this is the Chamonix marathon.
And then that's where there was this one, and then like at by the end of June, I raced the Chamonix Marathon.
Uh with the second round of prototypes, I think I came in fifth.
And and so let's just talk about this.
So now you you are because you're gonna use your own shoes for marathons.
And and were both of these were they road marathons or were they trail marathons?
No, it's a trail marathon with uh 2,200 meters of elevation up and 1600 meters down.
And that was that was hysterical because uh everybody had uh of course the regular footwear from that time.
And so I I start the race, and there's a leading pack uh with a lot of uh serious uh serious uh runners, and and they all have their their very minimal footwear, and I'm here with my gigantic like uh clown shoes.
I mean, some of the people knew me, so we were not like making fun of me, but they were like, that is so weird, and that is so strange.
And then and then uh yeah, I came uh the only time I've done this race and I came in fifth.
Yeah, I mean it's so so yeah, uh just to on this point.
I mean, you are this is 2009, you are in shoes that are completely different.
Nobody would be running a race in a shoe with a giant sole that's shaped like a rocker.
Like and and anyone else who would be running or would be willing to run in them would be too embarrassed to wear them, besides probably me and embarrassed because they look like clown shoes.
Yeah, that people thought they were so weird.
And they were orange and blue that day.
Okay.
So when you ran these races, I mean that we talked about the race that that Jean-Luc was, you know, saw you in in 2007 and your legs collapsed.
Now is it different?
Yes.
I mean, I I started the the last part of the race after a very strong downhill, um, much more fresh, yes, and caught a lot of people the last uh third of the race.
You were like 20th mid-race?
Yeah, probably.
And you ended the race number four?
Five.
Five.
Yeah, I mean, what about your body, your joints, your your knees, your your quads?
Was there a marked difference in how you felt?
Yes.
Yes.
I mean, I both in the last third of the race and in the recovery, because I could race one week later and and and win something called uh Monta Montagnard.
Uh yeah, it was a first era victory in the Hokas.
I would have never thought I could do, I could go back and do another, I think it was three thousand meters of elevation, like uh seven days later.
Okay, so you have something.
I mean, at this point, I'm assuming you're starting to put in orders for your first shoe.
But before we get there, no, we don't have to do that.
We don't have orders at that at that stage, we're just testing prototypes.
Okay.
And the plan was initially to launch at the end of 2010.
Now let's let's just talk about this for a moment.
At this point, are you thinking this is really gonna be a brand, a product for a small segment of people, or did were you thinking big, like this can be for no.
You were already thinking big?
Yeah.
Based on our experience, we we thought when once people experience that we would never be able to go back.
So how did you I mean, this could have just been a novelty kind of thing.
How did you convince a read the first retailer to take a chance on these shoes?
Testing.
Everything you bring new and different and innovative always has to go through people doing the experience by their side.
Because the first the first thing is always no, no, no, no.
This is stupid until you try.
So trying, trying, trying.
Why don't we come back in just a moment?
The founders start facing new problems.
Supply chain, competition, cash flow, and they realize that outside investment won't really help them.
They actually need something bigger.
Stay with us.
I'm Guy Rose, and you're listening to How I Built This.
I'm Guy Raz.
So it's around 2009, 2010, and Nico and Jean-Luc are starting to take HOCAS to trade shows where they're doing everything they can to get runners to try them.
We drop rocks on the ground, so that to say people just run on those on those rocks, now get back to your shoe and run on those rocks again, and then now go there and come back.
So at distance you see something special.
So it's that's that's the thing that we wanted to do all the time.
I mean, before you released the shoes for commercial purposes, I read that lots of people were saying to you, this is just not gonna work.
This is but you were hearing this repeatedly again and again from a lot of people, which which sounds like it could be validation that your idea was not working.
I I would say 98% of the people were saying that's the same.
They said this is not gonna work.
But the biggest challenge was actually for our salespeople, because our salespeople being being pushed back and pushed back and pushed back and pushed back.
And and you had we had agents, we had people that for them they they had to to make a living out of it.
So that was very, very tough for them to keep them motivated.
Uh-huh.
But what was extremely important and happened like uh is to get a couple of the athletes try the shoes.
Because when you have something weird which feels weird and looks weird, if you don't want it to be perceived as a gimmick, you need performance in racing validation like almost immediately.
And we had one guy in France, Ludovic Pomé, and Carl Melzer in uh in the US, who also did the same experience and adopted the shoes like almost immediately, like on the on the on the very first day.
Carl Meltzer was I think he was sponsored by another shoe brand and he dropped that brand.
Yes.
To run because he had tried them in his neighbor.
I mean he was living in the US, he tried them in neighborhood runs.
And then other people in the US, and notably with the with the hard rock, for example, it was phenomenal because that woman Diane Finkel bought the shoes, and after something like 15 miles or something like that, or 20 miles, maybe, she took the lead of the race.
So she took the lead ahead of all the males.
And she stayed in the lead until mile 90, I think.
Wow.
And she finished second.
So that had never been done before.
And we had people in Italy, and and so it was a word of mouth.
It was a good thing.
So the word of mouth started to spread, and those people we don't know about.
We learned about it, but we had no idea who was who was using the shoes.
Okay, so 2010, I mean, you're getting all these runners using the shoes.
You're getting all this validation from the runners from this community.
Sounds from the outside like things are going great.
What are the challenges you're facing?
The uh the the first big one was the industrial challenge.
We we were given only some windows uh of production.
So people saying, I I have capacity that week to make uh to make your shoes because they wouldn't give us let's say a classical plant.
So we had to do with that.
Uh and then and then ship those goods, let's say, to wherever it needed to be shipped at costs that were then then incredibly expensive.
Then there was the cash flow part, because as soon as we we started to move a little bit ahead, then the so you you you sold something, uh then you you you had some a little bit of cash, then the next order was like twice bigger than the first one, so then your your cash flow went like this, and the banks would not follow because they said that's too risky.
I mean, it's it's it's growing, it's growing too big too fast.
And uh if you need 100, you have to put 100 and guarantee also 100.
Those were the dynamics.
So we were kind of confident that we had something special, but to make it happen, truly, uh we we we were not, let's say it was not an easy sell, and it was really a very complicated supply chain aspect.
How were you dealing with the cash situation?
How did you I mean, did you you you have to pay for the these orders?
Now you're talking about hundreds of thousands of shoes.
How are you gonna pay for that?
Our money.
Yeah.
Our money.
Yeah.
This is what kills a lot of businesses.
When you gross you're growing too fast, you can't keep up, and you've got a and you've got to f you basically can't finance it, and it collapses.
Was there any possibility that you could have raised money?
Was there culture, was there a culture of being able to raise money from venture or investors in France at the time?
There were people that were knocking at the door to say I I'm happy to invest into it, knowing that in France it's not as easy as it is in the US.
But the thing is that was that we discussed up front was if we just have additional money, it's not going to bring much more.
Because the challenge we face from a supply chain standpoint is not going to help.
And the second thing is that we we need to have people try the products.
Everything in marketing, there is only one thing in marketing that we have to do, that you have to go to a multitude of places and make people try.
And that requires bandpower.
And that's not what you get from any investor.
So just to clarify, you the challenge is the supply chain challenge is that to get on these production lines was very hard because they're already making shoes for other companies, right?
And so to get in there with your tiny little brand, that's a challenge.
To finance it is a challenge, but then to get people to be aware of it is another challenge.
Because you have a your company of five, seven people.
Yeah.
Yes.
Exactly.
And also like in in the summer of 2010, uh very early summer, like around this uh month of July, after we had delivered like about 3,000 pairs of shoes, uh we we knew that uh we needed to accelerate because there was nervousness because some shoes were getting shipped, especially by a couple of our accounts, they were getting orders from competitors.
What do you mean?
Yes, we are getting buying buying our shoes night.
Your competitors were buying your shoes.
Yes, yes.
So you started to get intel that your the big players were taking your shoes to take them apart, basically.
Can you patent?
I mean, you can patent the design within.
Patents are are always a matter of who has the biggest amount of money.
Right.
To fight the lawsuit.
Yeah.
And and meanwhile, there's another really important factor you have to consider, right?
Because in order to build a successful running shoe brand, it it ha you have to be in the U.S.
Because this is where the money is and where the customers are, right?
And and I mean, at this point, this is like 2012, I think only a few specialty running stores are selling your shoes in the US.
Yeah.
And so I guess this is when you start looking for for partners, strategic partners, like somebody who could really help you grow in the US, right?
And and I read that I you got somehow you got put in touch with the team at Decker's, the company that was that had that owned, still owns uh t Tevas and Uggs, right?
Yes.
Um we we had we got the introduction from this uh amazing client, and then I went there and then they wanted to meet Jean-Luc, and we went there, uh we went back there together like a month and a half later.
The the point about why it's important to have a strategic partner when you want to be fast is that now we were looking at it in uh with a totally different eye.
Okay, now maybe one day there's gonna be customer service, there's gonna be financial backup, there's gonna be legal uh protection.
That that that changed the deal immediately.
Any French VC or would never not have brought that to the table.
We w uh I mean, I also have done acquisitions and things like that.
And and the worst thing also that you that which m made a difference between Deckers and other potential brands was that we were not competing with any other brand within the portfolio.
The portfolio was pretty wide, but there was no running brand.
And and you had a a very deep, very, very deep motivation from Anil Martinez, the CEO, to be successful in the running world.
So when you have the top guy that is deeply motivated into it, you know you have more chances.
Okay.
So it was clear to you that Deckers should be your partner.
But now how was it going to work?
I mean, was it it was an acquisition?
But we no, it was a it was a minority investment.
Okay.
With uh the cash we needed to go through the next step and then another step.
And it started then in 2012 with a 20% uh investment.
It was a step-by-step, you know, investments over time.
But but the idea was if this all worked out, eventually this will be a portfolio brand within Deckers.
Yes, exactly.
And it looked like they would be at that time very quickly it looked like they would be the right company to run the business.
They were able to get you into REI, they were able to get you into not immediately to such to such channels.
The the big priority was run specialty.
I mean, because that's something that they knew would build the image.
Uh but but putting us on the map really really quickly in the US because we knew that time was the essence.
So it was we we had to charge quickly before anyone would come.
You know what's interesting because the first time I I can remember really being conscious of HOCAS, I saw them on my mom.
Like I saw them because they were so comfortable and you know, and you saw them on people who were a little older um was that something you noticed also in the US yeah the the the what worked uh pretty well quickly from uh from let's say from a demography standpoint was that there were a lot of people that wanted to be active uh and that were facing chronical pain whatever it was i mean the uh the uh joints knees back etc but they wanted to be active and and that solved many of their issues uh what we tried also as we as we saw that the the complementary thing was notably to have all those top athletes on the road typically that were still using I mean lower profile shoes and so on to say look use whatever you want on your race day but as you need to train a lot just you can train more you can train with less damage etc with those products you've gone I mean think about it in 2012 three million in sales to over two billion in sales I mean, it's pretty amazing.
And did you I know you thought of this as a brand that would appeal beyond just runners and specialists that would be a mass consumer brand.
Was this I mean, could you have imagined that that?
No, we we when we when we discussed with with Deckers group, we had, let's say uh we laid down various plans.
The vision that we had was to to to become a 500 million company.
I don't think we imagined that it could accelerate as quickly as it did.
But once again, this this happened really because Deckers made set up the organization around it to make it.
I mean, it's also interesting that a you know, a shoe that probably initially was dismissed as a trend.
Oh, this is a trend, this this ultra-cushioning.
I remember hearing that this brocker system has proven resilient, that it's not a trend.
Absolutely.
And yes, because beyond the success of Hokia and the and the revenues generated, the concept and the technology, uh, not exactly to the same level.
It's is gigantic.
Yeah.
When you think about about about the journey you took and and where you ended up, I mean, you know, it could have died, right?
How how much of of where you got to with this do you attribute to the work you put in, the hard work, the grind, and how much do you think had to do with luck and timing and just the opportunities that were out there in the world?
I think we gave the right ingredients, and that's what certainly we're proud of.
Uh it it remains that's that's why it's it's hard to say like 20% is due to that and 80% to this or whatever.
The vision was right, so that's one thing that we can be proud of.
You know, you are only as good as the sum of the sum of the elements.
And uh, and uh and yeah, we are where we can be proud of what Deckers has has been able to do with it.
And um and and now when we actually when we when we look back as Jean-Luc said, I think it also beyond the running shoes.
Uh appetite for for the sport of running.
So the trail running is booming.
It's it's amazing, it's a very fast-growing sport today.
But people are not afraid, like before, to run downhill.
They don't crush their legs the way I was crashing mine like 19 years, uh 15-16 years ago.
It's also because it's now uh as fun and pleasant as maybe biking or skiing, and it's also a huge part of it.
It's it's the technology.
And the other thing that our our story is extremely similar to what has happened with in the bike industry.
The bike industry traditionally was like Tour de France, road uh racing bikes oriented, and and then mountain bike, let's say, came doing fancy things, etc.
and and and starting to put the industry upside down.
And those mountain bike companies ultimately it were like the rebels.
Yeah, and that's what you always have to have in industries.
I mean, to uh to change things.
And and and then what you have to keep, and which is the the always the challenge.
How do you keep the challenger spirit moving it?
How do you how do you keep that and you don't stay on your laurels and you p and you keep on pushing and innovating, and you need to keep that mindset all the time to move it.
That's Jean-Luc Diard and Nicolas Mermoux, co-founders of Hoka.
Both of them, by the way, have stayed involved with the brand.
And as athletes, neither of them shows signs of slowing down.
Jean-Luc's Instagram shows him running up and down trails all over the world, and Nico has recently competed in ultra marathons in France, Switzerland, and Thailand.
Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week.
Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show.
And if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, please sign up for my newsletter at guyras.com or on Substack.
This episode was produced and researched by Ramel Wood with music composed by Ramtina Rabluy.
It was edited by Neva Grant.
Our engineers were Patrick Murray and Quasey Lee.
Our production staff also includes Casey Herman, Chris Messini, John Isabella, Sam Paulson, Alex Chung, Carrie Thompson, Catherine Cypher, Nor Gill, and Elaine Toates.
I'm Guy Roz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.