Ben Talks HOKA Footwear Origins, Iconic UTMB Race, and MORE with Co-Founder Nico Mermoud — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:05[Music]
2. 0:10so I'm incredibly excited this morning
3. 0:11have a very special conversation we're
4. 0:14obviously here in Shaman French Ops the
5. 0:16birthplace of Hoka hanging out with Hoka
6. 0:17team before the UTMB there's a lot of
7. 0:20history in this race in this brand and
8. 0:23we are going straight to the sources
9. 0:24where and I get a chance to talk to Nico
10. 0:26one of the co-founders of Hoka and talk
11. 0:29to him about the big idea and where he
12. 0:31and his Partners over 15 years ago
13. 0:35together for in these mountains came up
14. 0:37with the idea so going to ask him some
15. 0:39questions as a sh nerd as a Hoka lover
16. 0:43as a recent French Alps converts not
17. 0:46very hard uh I'm incredibly excited to
18. 0:48talk to the man in this place at this
19. 0:51time so hope I don't mess it
20. 0:55[Music]
21. 0:58up
22. 1:04so I have a
23. 1:06question did you grow up in this region
24. 1:09this area yes I did I did my dad is from
25. 1:12this region he's like he's from lamin
26. 1:14which is the next Val old okay it's
27. 1:17literally like the first big stop on the
28. 1:20UTMB route oh cool uh it's a very
29. 1:23special a station I hope you can can we
30. 1:27can meet it you can see it uh this
31. 1:29evening
32. 1:30look at that this is the main street of
33. 1:32Shamone yeah and it's
34. 1:35also where everybody finishes yeah and
35. 1:40um so there's a lot of mountain history
36. 1:43here yeah look at that now we get close
37. 1:46to the main plaz and you have you have
38. 1:48pretty much that's the best that's
39. 1:51that's the clearest mon Blanc
40. 1:56view so and the cool thing about
41. 2:00the UT you mentioned most of the other
42. 2:02races are point to point but UTMB will
43. 2:05thir here oh yeah UTMB is like it's
44. 2:09right right there you start you go
45. 2:11straight you turn right and you come
46. 2:14back from the left like um when hours 40
47. 2:1745 hours later and and and that's very
48. 2:21unique because you it's because the area
49. 2:24around
50. 2:25MBL is is is fairly small I mean it's
51. 2:28like in a 100 miles think about it you
52. 2:32you go through three countries right
53. 2:35nine towns n N9 M towns uh that's that's
54. 2:40that's extremely uh it's extremely
55. 2:42special see I I ran it like a few times
56. 2:45I 20 2006 I I thought I could finish in
57. 2:49100 like top 100 out of 2000 and after
58. 2:53like 12 hours I was like force and I had
59. 2:56no idea if I would win if I would drop
60. 2:58if I would absolutely collapse and I
61. 3:01took a little nap and I dropped to I
62. 3:03think N9 and I finished eight but it
63. 3:07it's
64. 3:08also when we started thinking that Jean
65. 3:11Luke my partner co-founder of FIA was
66. 3:14doing my crew and uh he was cing those
67. 3:17races me was was myw yeah yeah with with
68. 3:21another friend from here wow and so
69. 3:23started thinking that maybe if if the
70. 3:26the the body had been better protected
71. 3:28with the technology right uh it would
72. 3:30have been possible to uh to sustain to
73. 3:33to to to sustain and to remain efficient
74. 3:37with my muscles longer so you you can
75. 3:40imagine that for for hok this lab you
76. 3:44know and his experiences before as
77. 3:46Adventure Racers or Runners were
78. 3:48absolutely amazing and uh very inspiring
79. 3:52uh tough to to do to do the testing and
80. 3:56um and also also very quickly the
81. 4:00technology uh we could we could feel
82. 4:03that it was working like in honestly
83. 4:05like in a week got the first prototypes
84. 4:08didn't do any first like almost like
85. 4:11brute mid so didn't do anything didn't
86. 4:14do anything to them yeah and um could
87. 4:18tell that it was faster downhill could
88. 4:21tell that it was not unstable and that
89. 4:25when we were even running on the flat
90. 4:26rill it was smooth and ring and bouncy
91. 4:31yeah yeah and that that that Lally
92. 4:33happened like extremely fast yeah it's
93. 4:35been so I mean I I like to consider your
94. 4:38I'm I love shoes I'm a shoe nerd I love
95. 4:40running I love Brand Story obviously
96. 4:43what we do at up um and you know it's
97. 4:45amazing to get to see experience and
98. 4:50really understand the entire hocus story
99. 4:52of relationship to UTMB but even more
100. 4:54broadly these mountains and you know
101. 4:57something that you know we were talking
102. 4:58about yesterday that really with me and
103. 5:00it's something that you see all the way
104. 5:01through now 15 years later but you know
105. 5:04you referen some of those first UTMB
106. 5:07runs yes those insights are really what
107. 5:10led to and then I'm sure the experiences
108. 5:12you guys had before in other sports and
109. 5:15other activities but like that idea of
110. 5:17building it for you you guys were not
111. 5:19looking to build a shoe company for
112. 5:22where we are now but it was for those
113. 5:25particular reasons those immediate
114. 5:26insights and feelings running down the
115. 5:28mountain I I I went
116. 5:30in the US to a lot of Warren Miller ski
117. 5:33movies a famous guy who started in his
118. 5:36in his car in Mama's legendary and and
119. 5:39then the first one I went uh I was I was
120. 5:43really young and and and and I he did an
121. 5:45opening speech and he
122. 5:47said my life is driven by Freedom
123. 5:50adrenaline and passion and that's th you
124. 5:53know and and then if you think about
125. 5:55whether it's like uh skiing uh running
126. 5:59or like just living in this environment
127. 6:03and sharing it with friends and and
128. 6:05people I mean you have this these three
129. 6:08components people when it comes to
130. 6:10running they don't think that much about
131. 6:12adrenaline uh because you normally you
132. 6:15know it's it seems to be like a a slow
133. 6:17sport but when you are running downhill
134. 6:21and when it gets also sketchy because
135. 6:23sometimes you're running super like cred
136. 6:26TR and sometimes you look and you think
137. 6:28H if I fall here I might you know like
138. 6:31uh break a wrist or something and
139. 6:33sometimes you're like okay if I fall
140. 6:36here it's over I'm done uh because you
141. 6:38know the trails are car for work hard
142. 6:41like a few centuries ago not for for
143. 6:44people who want to have M making very
144. 6:46work out for people to go across Valley
145. 6:48and go home so some are really sketchy
146. 6:51so there is this uh dimension of
147. 6:53adrenaline passion I don't think to
148. 6:55describe because I think we all spent
149. 6:58our life like in verion luk on myself
150. 7:00who spent our life in the mountain
151. 7:02mountains yeah and and and freedom is is
152. 7:05is what what comes like as soon as you
153. 7:07do one step out of your house in this
154. 7:10kind of environment yeah so the word
155. 7:12authenticity can get thrown around
156. 7:13pretty Loosely these days but friends we
157. 7:16don't mess around with this word yeah
158. 7:18you guys do it I mean that's like you're
159. 7:20building something for again for you
160. 7:23guys and those in running down mountains
161. 7:25that feeling of like freedom and flying
162. 7:28now represents you know your sort of
163. 7:30tagline but all of it comes back to like
164. 7:32this place what you guys doing very
165. 7:34quickly we didn't want it to be like too
166. 7:36Niche and downhill and fly and and and
167. 7:39and the the second big idea was to bring
168. 7:42this spirit and and this feeling to a
169. 7:45very broad amount of of Runners who are
170. 7:48more on the road who are more joggers
171. 7:51some Racers Marathon Racers and so on so
172. 7:54uh there was like some kind of a mission
173. 7:57to to to to bring it to take it to to
174. 8:00the world you know and and and that's
175. 8:02why when we um we
176. 8:05became successful with the road shoes
177. 8:08like pretty I mean my first shoe was the
178. 8:09Bondi it was a road shoe that was a that
179. 8:12was a big deal yeah and and that was the
180. 8:14that was the first like h Road it was a
181. 8:17little bit um lower than the MAF and it
182. 8:21was it's what's put us on the map yeah
183. 8:23yeah
184. 8:24yeah see the dots like we're obviously
185. 8:27in the Hoka boost now you didn't even
186. 8:29have shoes to Market but brought your
187. 8:31first
188. 8:32prototype yeah I mean uh so we it was
189. 8:35like a Time race you know we we were
190. 8:37like okay we're not ready we haven't
191. 8:39seen any press we haven't seen any
192. 8:40dealers we are not really ready to
193. 8:42launch but
194. 8:44let's show our product and create a buzz
195. 8:47with the consumers and let's pick the
196. 8:50most hardcore runners in the world the
197. 8:53people were about to line up for this uh
198. 8:57100 miles race and 100K because because
199. 8:59I was also CC so like literally 5 days
200. 9:03um before the race I I called my friends
201. 9:06who run the UTMB and I asked for a small
202. 9:09shy they found one for us it was very
203. 9:12kind because of course it was full and
204. 9:15and we came with like 30 pairs so we
205. 9:18exposed the the shoes we had
206. 9:21people uh we had people try them and and
207. 9:25some decided to go run with the with the
208. 9:27shoe that's what I heard which is pretty
209. 9:29wild think how much people train and the
210. 9:32gear is such a foundational piece and 5
211. 9:35days before they switched their pH w a
212. 9:37day before day before yeah yeah yes but
213. 9:40I mean you also have to realize that the
214. 9:43that the the feel was incredibly
215. 9:45spectacular they literally felt like
216. 9:48like performance sleepers which would
217. 9:52which would protect you and and and and
218. 9:54make your your ride like absolutely
219. 9:57different it's cool I mean that that
220. 9:59sort of again like the connection to you
221. 10:01guys building it with your insights
222. 10:03building it for you then you bring it to
223. 10:05a small community who they are you guys
224. 10:09in sort of their shared interests and
225. 10:11that validation like that's still the
226. 10:13DNA and it's cool to it's got to be
227. 10:16amazing to fast forward like sitting
228. 10:18here above all of this I don't think
229. 10:20it's over I mean I still have like you
230. 10:22know a few ideas um I think there's
231. 10:25other areas where it's possible to to to
232. 10:28Really like disrupt and and break all of
233. 10:32the rules yeah yes