Niels Juul: Well, my background was in advertising early days in Copenhagen. I was sort of the Don Draper of Copenhagen in the eighties- mustache, long hair. And I had a number of accounts, where we did something special in advertising. And then I was in luxury goods. I worked on the branding side on multiple brands like Cerruti and I worked in multiple places around the world. I was in Australia, Japan, France, England, et cetera. So my career sort of had a weird path to it already coming from advertising into luxury brands, to being on the branding side and companies. And then my friend had bought this little trade bar called Von Dutch and it was an absolute mess.
They had 500,000 in revenue and, no business plan whatsoever. And they had already lost a bundle of money. And my friend, I was living in London at the time, being a father of two kids, having a stable life at a great income at a big company over in the UK. And my friend says, help, help. What do I do? I bought this brand. I'm losing money. And I literally flew over to Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles. And there was a guy on a guitar, a guy smoking weed and, three other people and they were doing jeans and some hats.
Felicia Shakiba: Sounds like Melrose.
Niels Juul (03:54): Yeah, exactly. Felicia, you used to be a local until you went up to Palo Alto. Damn it. We miss you already, but yes, that was Melrose in the late nineties, early two thousands. Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles was really the epicenter of anything weird and quirky, but also setting trends that went around the world. Let the locals know that an Erewhon was just popping up like a little tiny, little biodynamic boutique down the street from us. And those were the days where these like pioneers of brands that were early on, they came up and we were one of them. And then I said to them, let's do a business plan. That might be a good idea. And let's just see what this brand can be and let's take the authenticity of something you have, which was amazing, which was rebel counterculture. It was a California rock and roll. It was James Dean, Dennis Hopper, jeans that were rolled-up, what you call selvedge jeans and white T-Shirts.
And then somebody had a great idea saying, Hey, let's do a trucker hat. And we're like, yeah, let's do a trucker hat. And we put a logo on the trucker hat. Well, within, couple of years we were really on the map and then we took the brand from, I think we went from that 500,000 when I joined and at our highest peak, we were at 400 million as a worldwide brand. So yeah, that was a meteoric rise, and in that I learned probably some of the biggest lessons of my life. Which we know in our careers, I don't know about you Felicia, but I think my most important lessons is what the mistakes I've made and the errors I did along the way and how not to repeat those again. Because I love sort of like this, learn as you go kind of thing. And with Von Dutch, we certainly had a lot of learning curves. So it's a super interesting ride. And I'm very glad I was part of it.
Well, what, based on like your experience, you were a leader in Von Dutch, what would you say comes to mind as the one or two biggest lessons that you've learned?
Niels Juul:
The number one thing is to maintain brand authenticity and make sure that whatever that core amazing thing was that these few guys had created that they were rock and rollers, they were motorcycle riders, they were pinstripe artists, they were the culture, they lived the culture, they were not faking the brand, they were actually living the brand.
So Von Dutch was this counterculture image of California, 1950s. And he literally was himself the guy behind sort of the fashion of James Dean, you know, remember James Dean in East of Eden, you have the white t-shirt, you have your rolled up jeans, et cetera. And he's the one that created that look. And so he was a trendsetter in the fifties and these Venice guys in Los Angeles, you know how they are. They were like, 'Hey, this is cool shit'. So we'll put a logo like we honor Von Dutch and then we have a flying eyeball and things like that. And little by little, they had created a following amongst the people that matters in that particular side of the business. So we had authenticity, we had believability, we had street cred. And for anything, you want to do anything in a brand, whether you're skate, surf, whatever you are, the day you lose your credibility and your authenticity, you're not the brand that you say you are.
And that's when things get exactly, so I think what we had was an ability to extract a lifestyle. Make it aspirational and take it out to a broader audience that wanted to tap into that lifestyle because you're 26 year old cool New Yorker girl who goes into Bloomingdale's. She will never ride a motorcycle, but she wanted to feel a little rock and roll, so by buying a Thank you very much. $85 trucker hat and a pair of $250 jeans, thanks very much, she got a little of our, deluxe California rock and roll lifestyle and, and that's really it. And so we did that pretty well and then we, of course, did guerrilla marketing better than probably anyone has done before or ever since, because we literally didn't speak spend a dime on advertising, not a dime.
We got it out there absolutely organically using celebrities. So we invented the celebrity marketing with Paris Hilton and Britney Spears and Madonna and Jennifer Aniston.
We let the celebrities be our spokespeople because we made them love our brand and thereby we created that following and then we exploded, of course, with Britney Spears, famously wearing our jeans in a Super bowl commercial, I mean, Super-bowl halftime show and off we went.
Wow. What an incredible ride that must have been. I want to take it back to aligning the values of the organization to the brand. How do you accomplish that? Is that important? What does that look like?
Niels Juul (08:35): What you've done in your career, Felicia, is where it gets really, really interesting as you grow a brand and you grow a company on how do you maintain culture? Like if a brand has to maintain authenticity or a company even as its philosophy and its culture, which is what you're selling in fashion or, really anything, you're selling a feeling, an emotion, an aspiration and you have customers tap into something that you represent. And as we grew, the big challenge of course, was, well, how do we make sure that that is implemented in the organization that started with literally six people over a garage in Los Angeles to ultimately being all around the world with hundreds of employees and stores around the world. How to manage that and how to make sure that we navigate it in a way that our growth went hand in hand with what the brand was and how through all sorts of now middle management, et cetera, that we translated that throughout the organization. So that Von Dutch in Los Angeles was also the same in Von Dutch Hamburg or Von Dutch Tokyo or Von Dutch Moscow. And that was a bigger challenge that we had imagined.
I could imagine that there's some subcultures within those areas or regions, which are appropriate, but at the end of the day, that's organizational values have to be consistent in order for the brand to feel consistent on the other end to the customer or the client. Is that right?
Niels Juul: Yes, exactly. And you're touching on something that becomes very interesting because when I go out and teach sometimes on seminars, et cetera, it's that whole thing where there's a serial feeling to corporate, like, Oh, here comes middle management, here comes HR, here comes, Oh, no, we don't want to be corporate. We want to be rock and roll. We want to be like free. We want to do freedom shit. We would just want to do it organically. Well, hang on. We can't, because there's a cash flow consideration. There's simple business things that you have to apply as you're growing within an industry that requires an enormous amount of care. When you deal with department stores, for instance, I mean, the truth is you really got to be well equipped financially to do department store business because you're operating really as their bank. Your garment might be hanging there and they might have paid you, but you're getting charged back some markdowns at the end of the season.
And you better, you know, and you need to absorb those things and you need to understand. So there is no way around doing corporate structure. There's no way around having, management to navigate its growth and thereby, naturally, in something like a rebel fashion brand, culture starts to clash between the people who are coming in to try to provide the structure and the people who are resisting that structure saying, Hey, hey, we're about rock and roll and freedom and we're just loose. And that's why I sat in the middle as a CEO saying, well, we got to do both everybody and let's, let's do it right. And we succeeded on some areas, but certainly we failed on others.
Were those areas or you could tell where you maybe failed and, where you were able to be resilient?
Niels Juul (11:40):
The greatest lesson I learned in brand and company growth was patience. Had we been more patient, had we grown slower, we would have been a billion dollar brand today, I'm sure.
I choose to be honest about this because I see a lot of brands still these days that are all about growth at the fastest pace. But if your organization cannot keep up with you, if your cash flow and your structure and your engine that really has to feed this business because it's a business, you can't get around it. I don't care if you're rock and roll rebel brand at the end of the day, it's about bottom line. You cannot get around whether it's red figures or black figures. And because it's such a cash flow sensitive business in fashion and well, everywhere else, if you don't grow sustainably and well, and maintain the authenticity of the brand in the meantime, you lose control and we did, simply we lost control because we grew too fast in too many countries, too many retail stores, too much going on.
The brand started, having its own life because I equate it to, I said it before, it's like you take a tiger and you stick a needle in its butt and you hold on to the tail and you see what happens and eventually the tiger's going to come back and bite you or it's going to get away. And it did. All right. And so in certain countries we became a brand that wasn't, you know, equivalent to what we were. And then because of cashflow, we needed to tap into a little lower market places where we didn't want to go, but we had to shoot into TJ Maxx and the rest of them to sort of generate the cash required to sustain the upper market. So, In order to have stores on Rodeo Drive or Bond Street or Via della Spiga in Milan and things like that, you need to turn over things at a pretty fast pace. And then secondly, within the company, we had certain disagreements about, how broad should the brand be and how quick should it go. And you could see so many examples of brands that have a quick rise and a quick fall. And we had a very quick ride and then we sustained it for a little bit and then, it didn't last. Frankly, it didn't last because it became too diluted. It became too spread out because the cash requirement to sustain the organization meant so that we would have to compromise on retailers that we didn't want to be in.
And that was a huge lesson for me. And I frankly left the company over that because I didn't want, I thought we were sort of selling it out and I thought that if we had just kept the organization in better shape, slowed down the growth, been more organic, didn't have to go and do all the license deals and the franchises and selling a hat license and a bag license and God forbid, and that was a big mistake, a kids license. Don't do kids clothes. I said to everybody, we're not going to do kids clothes. Are you kidding me? The minute you do kids clothes in a fashion brand, that's cool. Nobody's going to wear and wear what your little brother's wearing. No. And and these kinds of things, and that's a lesson. So I've taken with me in all the brands that I've consulted for, I've been running since and into the film world is slow down, slow down, do it like the great brands like Hermes, like I'm such an admirer of brands like that. Paul Smith, the people who are sustaining their growth and they're not really looking at the revenue. They're looking at brand integrity. They're looking at relevance. And if you start to sell out on your brand, relevance, and your authenticity and your core value, you start losing the core customers that love your brand, your authenticity, and the game is over. Because unfortunately in that business, once it's going down, it's over.
I think that patience is such an important competency in leadership, especially when you are feeling like you are riding the wave of success of success and everyone is loving brand your products. And I work with a number of entrepreneurs who have done this same mistake. They're selling out like crazy, whatever their product is. There's so much chaos going on inside the organization. That you need to really bring everyone with you along with the ride. If you leave anybody out, if they're not trained appropriately, if you're not onboarded appropriately in the right amount of time, if they're not like assimilated and understand the vision and the leadership and the you're all rowing in different directions.
Niels Juul (15:49): But funny enough, everyone does it because I think it's human nature, just want to be big, particularly men. I mean, we're very guilty of that, we want to be the biggest gorilla in the jungle. We're born that way. We're like, Hey, I climbed a bigger tree than you did. And we do it, right? And I don't want to, diminish it by saying, Oh, everybody ran around and got Ferraris and stuff, which they did. It's not the lifestyle. It's more that fast growth, because what you're touching on here is the organization has to keep up and everyone has to keep up and you can't expand all of Asia and all of Europe and all of South America at once and expect that you can manage all that and translate the brand rightfully up there.
And particularly, and here's the big part, when you deal with like internal communication, and the hiring that you do, because unfortunately, when you hire too fast, too quickly, you hire wrong, you inevitably hire wrong, and you don't have the infrastructure and the management, particularly in HR and other places that can actually take and say, Hey, what's your vision? Where do you want to be? What are you about? And let's go and find the right people that we can make that growth with that can make you grow authentically at the level you want to be in five years.
Because the right now business in fashion and everywhere, it's just a very dangerous game because you're cash sensitive and one big mistake or one small mistake, even you're dealing with Isetan in Japan, for instance, there's one little inch wrong on a stitch, they'll send back the whole goddamn thing. And you've got like 20,000 units coming back at X amount of prices or one mistake at a factory does this, that, and the other, or a markdown or something that went wrong and boom, you've got to be ready for it. And when you're not, disaster is right around the corner. And, and, and then also, of course, again, on the hiring side, if you grow too fast, I think it's impossible to get the, the manpower required to keep the authenticity of the brand.
Felicia Shakiba: Okay.
So you've helped build this incredibly successful, at least at one point brand. And I would consider it very successful. How did you get into executive producing? what happened there? Where did you go?
Niels Juul: You built yourself a reputation. And so in Von Dutch, I did that and I did something for Elle McPherson. And I turned around a few other brands that were in similar situation of Von Dutch where really what I always say is like the machine didn't match the front end. And I think one thing I pride myself in doing is make the machine. Room sort of in the boat match what it looks like on the outside and what we say. And that's really it. Does the company as a whole, does the actual operation match the ambition? And can you at any given day deliver on the promise of whatever brand you have and whatever you want to do. And in learning that I started getting approached by a lot of people or companies that was in the similar situation- either had lost their way and needed to be resurrected things that needed to be fixed companies that needed to be realigned. And so I became the turnaround guy.
I don't know why I got that brand, but I became that. And so I got offers and one day I got an offer knock on the door from this huge Italian- American film company who had done Life is Beautiful, Il Postino, they had won four Oscars, they had done 200 movies. And they say, Hey, can you turn around the film company? And I said, Yep, I can. And I was like, No, I can't. I don't know anything about it. But it sounded too interesting and too good to be true because I've always been fascinated with the film business. And truthfully, when you work with creatives, which I definitely want to say, You've got to respect the creatives, because if you do not respect and nurture, the creatives in any given industry, right? That is reliant on the voices or the artists in my case, designers, you will fail and you will definitely fail.
And if you don't get the best of the best and you give them room to grow and, but you manage them as well, you manage their output, you manage their expectations. You keep people on time on budget. That's the whole thing. The art of as an executive in any business that is creative, it's on time, on budget, deliver the good stuff, and since I got that reputation, I took on the CEO role of that film company.
And in doing so, I ended up through a weird labyrinth of rights and things of working with Martin Scorsese on a project. And then I became an executive producer because it's the same as an executive producer, you're really the CEO of a film production, right? You're sort of the one pulling it all together. And you're the one responsible to investors, whom we call shareholders on the other side and here's investors or studios or rights holders or whatever for everybody working towards the same goal. And again, on budget, on time and deliver what you say you're going to deliver. Are you going to deliver a Martin Scorsese award winning movie? Are you going to deliver a hardcore brand with authenticity based in rock and roll lifestyle?
You know, whatever it is, you as a CEO, you as a leader, you as an executive producer. Are responsible for both things, a, the creative output, meaning the authenticity of whatever you're saying, you're going to do managing the creatives and be looking for the investor's interest, the shareholders interest that this actually going to be a business that generates money and not just great art.
Because there's plenty of those too. And you lose, I mean, and in the film business, notoriously, of course, people lose, homes, homes and girlfriends and wives and cars and helicopters.
Felicia Shakiba: Exciting life.
Niels Juul (21:38): For some, but then there's also a lot of has been in that world and they lose the bank. And so that's, I guess what I got hired to do. And then I was relatively successful in that. So I've been put on multiple bigger production to try to manage those and particularly also from a monetary perspective, but also making sure people behave really.
No Fat Ego is our company and we say no BS, no drama.
And it's called no fat ego because we say, take the ego out of this equation. You really got to do that because on a film production with 600 people and it takes six years on average to do a hundred million dollar movie. The last movie I did, Killers of the Flower Moon was a $200 million budget. You can lose it, throw away a lot of money in that business if you're not careful. But I enjoy it and I love it. And I love working with the creatives of the world. And I've been fortunate to work with some of the best designers and directors and writers in the world. I'm super happy to do it, but then also I'm hired because I don't mind being the a hole because somebody's got to be the general and I'm a nice a hole, so I get away with not yelling at people, but telling them enough, you delivered. I call it guns. I call it guns and roses, Felicia, that's my philosophy with creatives.
You're going to do guns and roses. Don't do just do guns because they're going to be very mad at you. And they're going to go into a corner and go, no, like with our kid, no, right, but give them a little roses as well and make them deliver and then I have this thing that I, when I teach film students and design students, I say the creative curve always goes like this. It goes up and then it goes flat and it goes down. And unfortunately, a lot of creators, designers and directors and writers, they start to overthink and your job is to harness when it's at its peak and say, Nope, it's fine right now. Like a good wine grape. You say, Nope, we're picking it now. We're not waiting any longer because that's more money. That's not on time, that's wasted. And so that's where I think the art of producer as a producer or running a fashion company is to say, I got the best of out of you now. Go home, you delivered, don't overthink it, and we're going to take it from here. And that's it.
Felicia Shakiba: Taking a step back and looking at the work you've been doing at Von Dutch and other organizations, you've had a healthy career. And also, jumping into the entertainment world, these are very quite different industries, different requirements, different structures.
What are the consistencies? At Stanford, we've talked about, this concept called modeling behavior and being able to be authentic and create routine, and it being observable where people can really understand and learn leadership behavior and then, therefore, shape their own behavior. How do you keep those consistencies, that authenticity, being in multiple industries and then being able to create and deliver this incredible brand or product?
Niels Juul (24:41): It's such an interesting question and I think you're touching on probably the most important subject matter on any successful brand or organization.
And I think it's about culture, that's about leadership, because if your leadership is driven by culture or philosophy or purpose and not just money, you can be successful at that. But if it's only driven by money, you will never be successful in my opinion.
If you're a parameter of success is bottom line and Excel spreadsheets, In the creative industry, eventually you will fail because you will sell out and you will not translate whatever greatness there was in a brand to something that everybody will understand throughout the way. I just saw the Steve jobs movie recently. I hadn't, I'd missed it. Unfortunately, the one with Michael Fassbender in it, and you're seeing this, of course, larger than life, amazing character. I work with Apple, so I'm going to be careful here, but he was also a real a hole, he was not necessarily a nice guy, but he was definitely able to translate his enthusiasm and vision for something greater than everybody else thought of. In a way that people would follow him through his holiness, and I think because of perfection, and he set the standard super, super high for what he wanted to do. And he knew exactly what brand it would be. He's one of those that you just have to admire as anybody who's aspiring to be as good as leader as he was. He was definitely not perfect by book, every management company in the world would probably have fired him a long time ago. I mean, God forbid today he would have said the shit he said, but yet look at the company, and I think Apple is a great success. I knew Ingvar Kamprad at IKEA, happened to meet him once that worked there for a million years ago.
I mean, look at IKEA. It's a brand where people seem to be really happy to work there, even though they're wearing goddamn yellow shirts. Who wants to be happy in a yellow shirt? And you're dealing with like furniture, whether there's always a screw missing, but somehow you walk into IKEA and you go, it's a nice place to be and the people seem happy. And I know Ingvar Kempard's culture, what that was, and it was, clean philosophy, IKEA does it in such a great way, explaining it internally, what are we about? And they do implement it really, really well. And I showed it Apple, I think, and, Steve Jobs, and I happened to meet Tim Cook, who I just so admired as a human being, how, you'd say go over from a guy like that, but you know, He of course knew what Apple's culture was and I'm just staying these iconic brands right now, but I could say Giorgio Armani, who was also very fortunate to meet him. I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy because he is the master, but you know, I mean, he is what he is. He's a perfectionist. He's a calm, beautiful individual with a brand that always moved, always survived. Paul Smith, another great example, a guy who bikes to his stores in London. He bikes around on a bicycle and he goes into his stores and checks, Hey, how are you doing? And ask the employees and looks at the fabrics and how's it hanging. They care. I think that's what it is. If you care about your employees, if you care about your culture, not just the bottom line, see, I think that's the differential here.
And I think what you're saying up at Stanford, I think is absolutely a hundred percent correct because the Steve Jobs of the world, Tim Cook's of the world, Ingvar Kamprad of the world, Paul Smith of the world, Giorgio Armani's of the world, they think product first. They think innovation and culture and what we're about. They do not think bottom line first.
They really don't. Sure, they like it, but it's not the essence, but they're really, really good at telling the story because they're great leaders. I'm saying that with a mustering the most humility I can, and it's not a lot. I mean, my company is called No Fat Ego, so I'm not really allowed to say, but I do think I know how to sort of translate a brand, a story, a vision of a rights holder, entrepreneur. You know, idea maker, cause often creative idea makers are pretty bad at business, you know, in terms of managing companies, because unfortunately, what I've also learned is a lot of people are afraid of conflict. A lot of people are afraid of saying no. And the one thing that I'm pretty good at these days, I used to tell, no, we're not doing like that because you've got to have leadership that also says, no, we're not doing that. Nope. You can forget about it, you know, and, and we'll do the tough stuff and fire the people that do not fit in the organization. I think you have to be a little bit ruthless on that side as well, even though you're a great leader and you're bringing your brand out, because without, taking out the weeds along the way of growth. You're not going to be successful either. You've got to be a car that doesn't run on the right engine, on the right fuel, and so you've got to have to change the cylinders sometimes. I think you've got to have that blend like Steve Jobs did. He's probably the most iconic person that regard.
If you were to give entrepreneurs, CEOs, executives, people in leadership positions, how do you marry their leadership within the culture? How do you marry that with the brand and the product? What would be your advice?
Niels Juul (29:47):
I think the first thing is patience. I really do think there's patience because again, that goes back to cashflow and growth, and also how do you feel?
Because the other thing that I've seen along the ways of a lot of entrepreneurs is stress and not even being able to breathe, like think good thoughts and being enjoying, enjoying what you're doing.
Because I think the day that goes out of the world and out of the equation, and the pressure starts building, you inevitably become not as good as leader as she was supposed to and get your head out of the little stuff, and the worry about the little things, as you know, with any business will say it's the 80%, problems you can rid of, because it's actually only the 20 percent that matter of all the things you worry about.
Your revenue side, it's usually a few things that you do right. And a lot of things you do wrong and those that you do wrong. Get rid of it. And the wrong comes, I think, sometimes from the desperation of growth and doing it too fast. And that not being able to rely on a core group of people that really understand how to translate your vision because you hire too fast, too much. You lose, you lose that ability and I think patience is my number one advice. Stay authentic is the second one, because are you who you say you're going to be? Are you who you say you were originally? And I think if I want to be corny here and translate it to us as human beings, I think as human beings, we're always supposed to go back and feel how we were as a five year old.
Like, how were we, who were we, and we try to look for ourselves as we grow and our life happens this, that, and the other. We as human beings also need to look at ourselves and say, am I my authentic self or is that my adapted self, the one I learned how to be? And I think the lesson as a brand, as a company, is the same thing. What I was burning for when I started out, what I love to do when I started, am I still that? Or did I sell out to growth? And I don't do anymore anything that I don't enjoy doing. I really don't. If it's for money, I mean, yes. Do I like great wine? Sure. But do I need a Lamborghini? No, not really. Would I want one? Sure. And I might have a fast car at home, but that's not it, it's never it.
It's the brand. It's the company. It's the joy of creating and it is also the joy of having people around you grow with you and enjoy part of that success and spread the joy out. And so I think that's my biggest advice.
Felicia Shakiba: Niels, I am just floored with the amount of storytelling you've been able to share with me and our listeners today. Thank you so much for your time. It has been such a pleasure to meet you. I cannot wait to meet you in person one day, I'm sure.
Niels Juul: Hey, Hey, you're the one that left us down in Southern California.
Felicia Shakiba: I know. I know.
Niels Juul: I bet you're going to become a Giants fan and all sorts of abandon the Dodgers. I'm going to be very upset.
Felicia Shakiba: You're welcome my way anytime, and, yeah. Thank you again for, for all your time and contribution today.
Niels Juul: I really enjoy you and I enjoy what you stand for in your company and it's been, it's been wonderful to talk to Felicia and I will come up and say hi and I'll wear my Dodger hats when I come out there. Okay.
Felicia Shakiba: Dodger hats. Welcome.
Niels Juul: Okay. Okay. Lovely to speak to Felicia. I really enjoyed that. Thank you so much.
Felicia Shakiba: Pleasure. Yeah. Pleasure is mine.
That's Niels Juul, founding member of Von Dutch and founder and CEO of No Fat Ego Productions.
