Episode 378: Brian Beckstead - Entrepreneur Founder Altra Footwear

 
 

Episode Transcript

Brian, thanks for coming on the podcast. Yeah, it's good to be here. Yeah, it's a fun, fun time of year with the running event here in Austin and now having this podcast studio, it'll be cool. You can kind of get an extra group of guests coming into town that maybe weren't here permanently that you can chat to, including yourself. Yeah, I mean, I come every year. I was doing the math, and I have been to every single running event since 2010. So it's just like an annual pilgrimage for me down here. So if you hit the ten year mark for tier, that means you've been in Orlando at least once, right? I did Orlando once. Yeah I know, I know. And then and then of course Covid didn't do it. Oh that's Covid, but um, yeah. Um, but yeah. So someone was telling me the reason it's in Orlando is because the convention place they train has a ten year like cycle with some I think it's some cattle organization or something like that. I think for some reason someone said John Deere, oh, maybe that's right. But I can't remember. I don't know exactly, but it's something like that where it's like every ten years they have to move somewhere else and send it somewhere else. We did Orlando once and then happened during Covid that, that. 1s Yeah, yeah, yeah, they couldn't do it. Well, here we are. Terry, I know, I think a fun topic to talk to you about before we get into some footwear stuff is ultra fishing. Yeah, sure. Since this podcast, this I mean, this podcast has kind of a health and fitness spin to it. Obviously, I'm an endurance athlete, so it trends that direction a lot too. But you have an interesting hobby that you like to do that involves a lot of movement but also fishing. Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah. Um, you know, this happened about the time I was starting ultra, maybe even a little bit before I was dabbling into fast packing. And, you know, I had my first kid and then, um, was, you know, decided to start a shoe company, and I was really struggling to fit in family life, work and then backpacking, which is something I'd been doing my whole life. And so I found this little rod, um, fishing, fly fishing rod because I'm a passionate fly fisherman. Yeah. And I started going in about ten, 15, even 20 miles into the mountains. And I would fish once I got there, and then I'd run out. So I'd get a 20 to 40 mile training run in. And you're up in these high alpine lakes and so you can catch an insane amount of fish. And it's just unbelievably beautiful. And so it kind of turned into a thing. I coined the term ultra fishing. And that's just something I've been doing for close to 15 years now. Uh, you know, it's hard in Utah. It's really kind of a summer thing. It's like July, August, September timeframe, but it's something that I really enjoy doing and people seem fascinated by it. And I think it's so much fun because you can fit a five day backpacking trip in a single day when you're running, and you can catch when you get that far in. I mean, those fish don't see a lot of flies. And so you can catch 40, 50, 60 fish in a couple of hours. And it's just an absolute riot. It doesn't go out the pressure of the local pond or. Exactly right. Exactly right. So, um, it's something fun that I've been doing for a long time now, and, uh, it's really fun. So if you ever come out in Utah in those months, I'll take you up there. That'd be a lot of fun. I got to do that. It has been a while since I've done any, like, real fishing. But when I lived in Wisconsin, I did a lot of, like, river smallmouth bass fishing and largemouth, uh. You know, all the traditional kinds of lake fish walleye, northern pike, muskie. So I have a background not as thorough as yours, probably, but it's been something I want to get back into. There's a couple of things like hunting and fishing are two things I did get into when I was living in Wisconsin that I just haven't been good enough about, kind of reintroducing as I've moved around a bit. But, um, Nicole and I are committed to staying in Austin for a long time versus moving anytime soon. There you go. I feel like I have to establish those two hobbies back into my life, now that I can count on it being a routine that will have some structure to it without thinking of leaving the best spots that you develop over the years when you're somewhere a little longer. Yeah. Well, I mean, and you're kind of you're I mean, you're still so fit, Zach. And in the last few years I have not been training as much. And so fishing has taken up more of my time as my competitiveness has decreased. So the ultra in order eventually you're going to become human. I mean, Jeff Browning is trying to argue that and prove us wrong with that. But at some point in time, I bet you could fit it in if you want to. Even here in Austin, Texas. Yeah, there's some, some stuff, but, um, uh, I love fly fishing and I love just being outdoors. I am a really passionate advocate for nature and for spending time outdoors. And so even though I'm running a lot less miles now, um, you know, I'm not competing at ultras. I've. I only ran one ultra this year. Uh, usually I'm doing 5 or 6, seven ultras a year. Yeah. And so U1 now that I'm not doing that either, neither the racing, the quality quantity or the quality, I'm able to spend a lot more time fishing, which is a great hobby just to be outdoors, much like running. Just a little bit. Yeah, a little bit calmer for me in my mind as I'm getting older. Has any of your family members gotten into fishing too or. Oh yeah, all my kids. Yeah, I got my three kids and I finally got them to my favorite ultra fishing lake. Um, it's 12 miles in and it's my favorite one. The fishing's always so good. It's just this beautiful lake up in the Uinta mountains, up in northern Utah. And we did, um, a four day backpacking trip. So it took us several days to get there. And I took him there this summer, and it was an absolute riot. Yeah. Um, so my kids, my son Grady for this, uh, he's 13 years old, had his first 100 fish day. Wow. That's how good these lakes are. And they're. I mean, they're all like these, you know, pan sized, you know, brook trout, but, I mean, it's just unbelievable. So my kids get into it. My wife will fish with me occasionally. And my, my, my kids, all three of them, um, love to fish with dad. So you're fishing. Availability is slowly increasing as the family gets into it. That's always the trick. Which is fun. Yeah, which is fun. And I'm pretty good about it too, with my kids that, you know, if we do go fishing and the fishing is not very good. We don't sit there and grind it out. We move on, right? We go do something different, something fun. And so they enjoy fishing with dad I think. So, yeah. Utah is still kind of one of those semi sneaky mountain states where it is. Yeah I should keep my mouth shut. Yeah it's not found out. But yeah, it is still like the population density isn't what Denver is. Right. Um, and the mountains are very accessible. So yeah, it's a really wonderful place to, to to be and to live and. Yeah, the fishing's very, very good. Good spot to be an outdoorsman, I'm sure. That's right. One of the interesting things about what you do with that, that kind of made me want to talk about that, along with just kind of the relative interest of it is one thing I've seen in ultramarathon running, and now it's even just endurance sport in general, is there's this bigger wave of people getting into the sport that sort of came from something different. So for you, like, well, I mean, you, you're kind of maybe an exception to this, but there was someone was like, if they're a fisherman and then they realize, oh, I can get way better fishing if I'm fit enough to get out into those spots that are really hard to get to. Yeah. Or the hunting community has been a big one and I see this a lot from my coaching where I'll have people reach out about, you know, training for something. And I'll ask them, well, what's your background? You do the whole thing like intake stuff and they'll be like, oh, you know, I'm a backwoods hunter. And a lot of times it's like Cam Haynes or someone like that who kind of really pioneered, I think that type of an approach where, hey, if you're going to be going similar to what you're fishing stuff, but with with the hunting angle, they're not just sitting up in a deer stand like I was in Wisconsin. They're actually going out miles and miles into the backwoods to, you know, find whatever they're hunting for. And that requires a skill set of fitness that is pretty well maintained with a running background if you have it. There's a lot of those in Utah. A lot of the ultramarathon crew are hunters and go out hunting. And I'm actually reversing that. So my goal next year is I've never I've never hunted in my life. Um, but my wife and I are really trying to eat extra clean. And sure, we live in a great hunting area. Um, and so I'm that one of my goals next year is actually to get into hunting. Yeah. Um, so, uh, we'll see. So I'm the opposite of that, but I have seen that as well. We've seen a lot of that. And even with ultra, um, there's certain groups that have adopted our shoes and that that endurance hunter is someone is, is a person that has adopted alter quite, quite a bit. We've never really sorted that out. We've never advertised for it. Um, the through hikers, you know, for people hiking from. You know, Mexico to, um, Canada. Yeah. I mean, it's like we're the number one shoe. So it's kind of fun how all the, the life and everything kind of just intertwines itself into each other. Yeah. Yeah, that's a fun topic. I know. Let's jump into that because like ultra has been around since 2010 is the technical date, right. Well, we launched the brand in early 2011 okay. So we showcased the brand. We were basically a Ponzi scheme in 2010. Um, here in Austin, Texas, it was three guys in a basement and we had no money. We were literally trying to write orders to showcase to investors to order us shoes. We had no money. We hadn't launched the brand yet. Um, and we got 16 orders at the running event in 2010, and we took that to an investor and he was able to to purchase our first round of shoes, which launched in April of 2011. But yeah, it's been, I mean, 12.5 years and it's since launching the product and we've gotten surprisingly big. It's been fun. It's been a crazy road. It has. Yeah. I've been fortunate to. Obviously you're the man to talk to one of the three probably in terms of kind of having an inside look at ultra footwear from the very beginning to everything that goes into getting to the size it has today. I've been along for the ride for a while. This is my 10th year as an athlete. I work for the company for a bit in the middle there too, and it was like, so I have some perspective as well, which is why I want to talk to you about some of this stuff. But so when you start like so you're at tree, you have essentially a concept mostly. Yeah. Some prototypes. Some prototypes. Yep. And is there like a number where you're like, we need to get like because in order I'm guessing it ranges from a number of purchases per order. Is there like a number of shoes? You're like, we have to hit this number or we can't even send this in and make it realistic. Yeah, we worked with the factory to say, hey, what would be the smallest possible order you would consider? Um, and they said basically a half of a container of shoes, which is about 33,200 pairs. Okay. So our first order was 3200 pairs of shoes. That was the minimum one men's, one women's one color, only 3200 pairs. That's kind of the minimum. And now that's from a small factory. Big factories won't even they won't even look at that. But yeah, the factory we were working with was kind of a small fun factory. And they worked with us and it was awesome. But yeah, our first order was and we sold out in three weeks too, which is really cool. Nice. Yeah. Shocking. We that helped blow away because we kind of built up to the launch and all of a sudden three weeks into it we're out of shoes, which was pretty wild. Um, what kind of feedback did you get in terms of who was the original customer? I think the original customer. It's an interesting group. I think it was very much minimalist centric, but our concept itself wasn't minimal. We had the same four foot cushioning of every other brand. Yeah, we started by hacking off the heels of our shoes right at the. At the time, pretty much every brand on the market, the heel was twice as high as the forefoot in the midsole, right? Yeah. 1224 right. That's right in the midsole. And then you had, you know, five millimeters of, of the sock liner, five, four, five millimeters of outsole. So it's, you know, 22mm of stack height in the four foot, 34in the hill, right. It's pretty standard with the 12 millimeter drop. And so our shoe we launched was a 22mm cushioning in the forefoot. And you know and with zero drop our coin a term that we coined. And so we had I think our early adopters were very minimalist. We I think weren't as minimal as maybe some of the early adopters, but that's who really broke into it. They were the people who tried out the barefoot shoes, and they were just like, that's fun for a little bit. But this isn't realistic. If I'm running a marathon or if I'm running long distance, or if you start out for the first time. Yeah, it's interesting because it seemed like at that point, kind of at that time frame, actually, there was kind of a minimalist movement that came through. Yeah. And kind of a wild time, in my opinion, is the way I describe it to people: you want strong feet, you want strong lower legs. And like the goal should be to get to a race or an event or a project with as strong a lower legs as you can. And then obviously putting a shoe on top of that can be very advantageous because now you kind of have a really strong lower leg foot, and now you also have this, this, this item that is going to hopefully get you a little bit further yet. Yeah. And where you go from there is usually the question with footwear and what kind of item is going to extend that, that race day. But then there's also the training. So you have to have a product that's going to allow your foot to get to that point in the first place. But it's sort of like that. When the minimalist movement came through, it was almost like people decided, hey, I'm going to get strong and I'm going to go and I'm going to meet up with this, like professional strength athlete powerlifters who've been doing this for two decades and just jump right into their routine. Yeah. It's like, no, it's not going to work. Yeah. You kind of have to start out like at a different spot. And from my perspective, that's kind of where ultra sort of slid in where you'd have like your, your barefoot, minimalist shoes that had been on the market to some degree and then got a little more momentum from books like Born to Run and just the minimalist movement. But then there was like sort of that wave of people jumping into the deep end, so to speak, finding out you can't do that. Yeah. And then figuring out, well, where's the balance here between continuing on in my traditional running shoes, traditional hiking shoes, and getting to where I want to be, or finding that sweet spot and ultra sort of fit that middle territory. Absolutely. Really. Well, we always talked about the benefits of both. Right. We're the benefits of traditional footwear because there is a level of cushioning there. Same amount of forefoot cushion. Right. But you also get the benefits of the minimalism in terms of the zero drop, the foot shape a little more flexible in the shoe and so forth. And backing up even further, um, Golden and I, you know, Golden was the cofounder with me and he was kind of some of the initial, like, brains behind it, like it was a lot of his concepts. He's the one that coined the term zero drop and started hacking off the heels. But even before that, we went to the trade show . I think it was the 2004, 2005 outdoor retail trade show in Salt Lake City, a big, huge trade show at the time. And we saw for the very first time the vibram five fingers, and they were selling them as boat shoes with the slipped outsole. And we said, hey, we're from a running store, could you? And they looked at us like we were crazy and we brought them in. We were the first running store in America to bring in the Vibram Five fingers. And interestingly enough, we were selling these five fingers. We never once recommended or sold them alone to somebody. It was always an add on sale. Oh yeah. Right. It was, hey, you know, after your run, go put these on and maybe do a quarter mile, half mile cooldown. That was something we used to do a lot. On the first day of high school, Golden and I met at cross-country practice, and we would finish all of our runs barefoot on grass. Um, kind of do strides and little cooldown warmup on barefoot on grass. So that was something we always kind of believed in, but it was never the end all, be all it was. This is a strengthening tool to get your feet stronger so you can handle those longer miles, handle that marathon and so forth. And so when we. Initially launched altered. That was very much the benefit of both. That was one of our kind of terms. It was never that minimalism was the end all be all. It was the hey, there's great benefits to minimalism, right? And there's great benefits to traditional footwear. Were the middle ground between the two. And when Born to Run came out in 2010, we basically had the samples done, but we couldn't find funding and we were sitting there pulling our hair out, going like, no, we have the solution, as the whole barefoot thing was just exploding. We were looking for funding at that time. And, you know, uh, 2009, 2010 were not great years for funding, um, post-recession there. And so, yeah, yeah, it was rough, but we made it. Yeah, we made it. So you sort of had like you had the, the, the customer base that wanted it, but there was kind of a gap between being able to actually produce enough product in the right kind of framework for them. Yeah. Given the economic landscape. So is it something where I mean, nothing's perfect. Well, I mean, I guess probably some companies probably have like just everything to work out at the right timing for you would have been more advantageous to have been like a couple of years earlier than you think or a good question. I've thought about that a lot. Uh, I don't think so. I actually think we almost had this demand as people were trying minimalism. You know, a lot of people were turned off of it because of the unsuccessful stories, but there were enough stories. So we were able to kind of really sweep in. And like I said, all of our early customers, most of them had tried a barefoot shoe previous to trying ultra. And so it was really well timed, to be honest with you, you know? And plus you can always look back and wish you'd done things differently. And we'd made all the mistakes you could imagine. But I think in terms of launching at the time, um, people were hungry for something new. And I think if we'd launched a couple of years earlier, I don't know if there was a consumer base that would have been interested in ultra. I think that barefoot swing almost needed to happen for us to be found right in that middle, middle ground of the two worlds. Yeah. For me as a runner. You know, the interesting thing about ultra was I think maybe the most interesting thing was the foot shaped toe box. Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, I had been running. I mean, I'm trying to think this would have been the first time I put on a pair of ultras would have been in 2011, I think. Well, that's when we launched the instinct. It was the instant. Maybe it was a bit after that it would have been okay, so maybe, maybe you can help me clean this up. So here's my experience with ultra Footwear or how I got introduced to the brand. So I did my first ultra marathon in 2010, 2010, second one a year later in 2011. But then I did three of them, and then I was sort of in this spot where I was like, okay, I really like this. I want to take it more seriously. I got to figure out where the differences are here versus what I've been doing, which is just kind of, you know, high school and college, track and field, some road races and things like that. And there was this store Revolution Natural Running Company. Yeah, yeah. In Wisconsin. Yeah. So you've been inside of it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. They probably were an early customer. They were very much so. Yeah. They so my parents house is literally like not even a mile, maybe half of it. Yeah. Yeah. Right where it is. So I can't remember how I got connected with them. But I got connected with their owner and went in there and he introduced me to Born to Run. He was like, this is kind of a cool concept you might be interested in, like natural running, kind of the same philosophy as what you were describing, where there's like obviously there's, you know, a process here. It's not just grab and go. Yeah. And he sent me out with three pairs of shoes. And one of them was I, I'm pretty sure it was the first superior. Yeah. Would have been the first year, 2013 early. Okay. So was it okay. So maybe it was a little later than I'm thinking. Yeah. Or maybe I had a different pair. Maybe I did. You know I think it was okay. So maybe it was 2013 that might actually make sense. Yeah. That makes sense okay. So that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah that actually does because I wore that shoe with um I think I had a pair of like innovations. Uh, shoot like the two 90s. Yeah, something like that. And then a pair of, like, he gave me a pair of, like, Vibram five fingers or something that. So I sort of had, like, the spectrum of, like, minimalist up to what the original superior would have been, exactly like what you described, where it's like it's got some cushion there, but it's balanced cushion zero drop. It's got the foot shaped toe box, the ultra kind of pictured things. And I remember like rotating those shoes and then, uh, yeah, I had my first like what I would consider a successful ultramarathon to the degree where like any shoe company actually cared what I was doing in 2013. So that actually makes sense from a timeline standpoint, because I think that's when I got connected with you guys at ultra. And then you sent me the instinct. 1.5, I think. Sounds very. Yeah, yeah. Which was a pretty big shoe for ultra, wasn't it? Didn't the instinct 1.5 was huge for us? Yeah. That was really the shoe that launched us. Um, it was hugely popular and it was a great shoe. And we botched the two. Yeah, totally botched the two. That shoe was a lot of fun, but that 1.5 was amazing. That instinct. Intuition 1.5 was beautiful and it ran so well. You know, it was. We did great with it. It was an awesome shoe. Really took off that with the lone peak 1.5. Yeah. Um, same original outsole as the ones they just had updated uppers, which I think was part of our weakness early was some of the materialization, some of the color schemes. We hadn't quite dialed that in yet, but that those 1.5 were really, really awesome shoes for us. And we took off in 2013 was a really good year for us. Mhm. Yeah I mean ultras hurdles I'm sure there were a lot of them given that you're just that different. Anytime you're different you have all sorts of hurdles you gotta clear. You also get a cult following which is kind of nice. Yeah, we got that, which is great though I would say like of the early shoes, the instinct, intuition probably was a little more aesthetically pleasing maybe than some of the other products on the line at that time, which sounds kind of silly when you're talking about like, functionality, but the way it looks on a shoe wall sometimes is what gets you your first impression kind of thing, and that can be a difference. Um. Yeah. So let's jump into like I think it's interesting because like ultra got really popular on the trails. Yeah. Before it did the road more or less. But the instinct is a road shoe. So our first shoe we ever launched was a road shoe. Yeah. Yeah. So what was it? So that was still probably a minimalist mindset type of person or a natural footwear type of person. Or were you getting like roadrunners that were like, that's a cool shoe? I think that trail runners, particularly at the time, were still pretty small. And I think, you know, Golden and I were both fairly competitive trail runners. I was really at the peak of my ultra running career in the early 2000. And so I was really racing a lot, running a lot, all on trails. I think we loved the trails, and so we were able to take a look at trail shoes and really like all of our shoes, being very different and very distinguished. And I think that the trail running community is just more open minded. Yeah, I think they're willing to take more risks. I think they're not as technically um minded. They don't mind something a little rugged, a little ugly. They don't really care. I think road runners are a little bit more habitual. Right? They like their routes. They like their splits. Trail runners are a bit more free. And so I think it was more of the culture of trail running that, that, that, that bought into ultra more than anything else. And it's been amazing. I mean, we still to this day are, um, you know, number three most used brand at Utmb, you know, the largest race, largest, most popular race series in the world. We're always back and forth with Hoka in terms of who's larger at run specialty in America. So it's great. Um. Yeah, yeah, it's, uh, it's interesting you say that because I want to say just even with, like, one of the hurdles to get over is obviously that balance cushion. Yeah. You have the traditional 12 millimeter offset. And I remember the trail side of things. And the through hiking community didn't seem to really mind that though. Yeah, not to any large degree relative to the road running community. Do you think that's just because of you I mean, the culture that you mentioned? What about just the variability of that terrain? You're right on. It's absolutely the variability of the terrain. You know, if most injuries are going to be repetition injuries anyway. Right. And so, you know, trail running there's less of a repetition because every footfall is uphill downhill sides, you know. And so that variability um, decreases you know, that that impact transient that that kind of comes down and, and makes people's calves sore. And so, you know, you don't get as sore in our shoes for a newbie on the trail as you would on the road. And so I think that that very much helped as well. But I think the initial purchase was, hey, trail runners are more open, they're more trying something new and different. And then when they did try it, they didn't get the lower calf soreness that the road runners did. And so that benefited us hugely. And our shoes are really good too. I mean, it helped that we looked at things very differently with the sandwich stone guards. Um, the way we constructed the shoes was different in that toe box. And those long races, like you said, that foot shaped toe box I hear all the time. Oh my gosh, my no blisters. My feet are so relaxed and comfortable. So it all just kind of a combination of things. And we're really proud of our trail heritage, our trail running, um, shoes themselves and um, yeah. And they're all, oh, by the way, all of our trail shoes are named after mountains in Utah. Yeah. Initially, yeah. The lone peak, Olympus Timp, is named after Mount Timpanogos. And then, of course, superior. Yep. Um, it's a mountain right above Alta Ski Resort. Yeah, yeah, that's cool to have that kind of like, historical, like little, like name tag thing with, uh, where the origins. We branched out with the Mont Blanc, right. That's true. But we did Mont Blanc. We we it's not, not in Utah. Yeah. Eventually you have to start. It's just a sign that the brand's grown. They pick a different mountain outside of Utah. Yeah. Uh, one thing I wanted to ask you about with kind of just the idea with footwear design is, I mean, you have a foot shape, which is you're changing the shoe enough at that point where I think people think, oh, cool, I have more room for my toes. That's a huge win. But you also have to be mindful of, like, how does that aspect of the shoe change the rest of the shoe? So or maybe not change as a shoe, but make your foot behave differently in the rest of the shoe. So when you start you have like I mean, just for people who are not very familiar with shoe terminology, like, alas, essentially the cast you build around the shoe or you build the shoe around, I should say. And what was the what? Customer was maybe the hardest to get to fit in. Appreciate that foot shaped toe box, I think people. 1s I think people just fit their shoes too small and too tight. And so a lot of the feedback was, oh, these shoes are so sloppy. Yeah. Right. And it's and so we have to battle that a lot in terms of, hey, we want it to be a little more loose and relaxed. Right. We're going to use positive terms here instead of the negative terms. There's pros and cons to everything. Right. And so that consumer that is used to just getting their shoes too short right. Then they cinch up their shoes really tight. Um that that was who we had struggled with. We still struggle with that a little bit. And so we had to make different lasts. Right. So we have our original last which is a little bit roomier, a little wider. That lone peak is still on it. The Olympus is still on it. Um, and then we launched the superior with um, um, a little bit of a snuggle last. And it's not necessarily less wide, it's actually just less volume. And width and volume are two separate things. Right. And so the superior is actually a slightly snuggled last than what's on the lone peak. And so we had to kind of adopt that and that standard last we now call it the standard last. Um, we used to call the performance last. That is now what most ultras are built on at this point. Yeah. That you, you preempted my next question, which was basically like early on, you probably can't really have a lot of variety with lasts because you sort of have to like you have to stick with what you have available to you from a funding standpoint, from a just a catalog standpoint. But then as you get bigger, you can start addressing different parts of the market and a little bit of a better way. So what I thought was interesting, like when ultra got to the point where they're like, okay, we can make essentially a setup where we have these three distinctly like these different lasts so that we have someone who's similar with everyone. Everyone has feet, everyone has a foot shape. The difference is the volume of the foot. Right? So someone with a high volume foot is going to maybe want a different last than someone who's got a low volume foot. And my experience with ultra was I was always harder to get somebody to buy in if they had a low volume foot. Right? Yeah. So the funny thing is, the original ultra customer was probably somebody who was maybe skewing a little bit more towards, I want that extra volume, that extra room. Yes. So you introduce a slim last and it's like there's one customer, the customer who normally had a harder time with ultras. I finally have something. Yeah. Then you get the original ultra. You have to explain to them like, all right, we still have your option here. We just have a bigger catalog. Yeah, yeah. I've had like the whole sell out comments and things like that. And it's just you know, it's interesting because we're just trying to broaden the audience, you know, and I think that. There's not a cookie cutter for anybody. For everybody. Everybody's different and everyone has different preferences. And I think as we've gotten larger and larger, Ultras really tried to, um, hey, stay true to who we are. And we have, I think, through our foot shaped and, and our zero drop and then also expand those offerings. Right. Whether it's, you know, I think our original consumer was more minimalist and well, we now make maximal shoes, right. We still have really high cushioned shoes. Um, we have various lasts. Um, we've recently introduced a drop to the shoe for the first time. We have a shoe with a four millimeter drop, uh, which has been received incredibly well because a lot of people try to alter it. And they just said I couldn't do it for whatever reason. And so I think ultra has just had to evolve and expand and address really consumer wants and consumer needs. But while trying to still stay true to who we are. And, you know, our purpose statement is we spent days just arguing every single word. But our purpose statement is unleashing human potential by inspiring the world to move naturally. And I think that's what we try to do through every single model we're trying to unleash. Right. Do something different. Right? And we're trying to really unleash human potential. Whether it's your first five K or 100 mile race or the now these 200 miles races that are popping up. Right. Um, and we're trying to do it in a really positive way. Um, I really believe in that positive mindset and thinking positive and thinking outside the box. We want people to move, right? It's not about running, it's about moving. And then of course we want them to do that naturally. And I think that that's something that we've done from day one. I think we're still doing that to this day, maybe not quite as pure as some of the the Die hard original shoe that we launched, but I think that's something we, we do talk about as a brand internally and something we still try to believe in, in everything and try to do in everything we do and believe in. Sorry, that got a little no, I think it's interesting to me because like, I have my perspective being with ultra for quite a while, relatively speaking, like anyone else sitting here, I might have the upper hand on like longevity and inside information, but since you're a founder, I have nowhere near that, so it's fun to hear your perspective. My thoughts are like always. I like options. Right? And I think. Exactly. Yeah. Options give you the opportunity to reach a larger audience and then also give someone the platform to explore within your brand. So like you don't introduce the ultra forward experience. And then we have a situation where people have to explore outside of the brand. If they don't get to a point where they're really wanting the original ultra shoe at first, that's exactly right. Mhm. Exactly right. And I think one thing that's fun in today's footwear world that wasn't there in 2010, um, is options, right? I mean every brand, they were all the same. They were just arguing about their cushioning systems. My wave is better than your gel. My gel is better than a wave. My wave is better than your hydro flow. Which is what? Brooks was, right? They were engineering wise. They were the same. And now you're looking at brands. Obviously, Alter's pioneered it. Uh, Hoka has been completely dominant in this category as well. Looking outside the box on it is a recent, uh, really popular thing. And you've got all these brands that are providing options that just weren't there 10 or 15 years ago. And I think ultra wants to continue to do that. Right. We want to continue to innovate. We want to continue to do things differently. We want to expand our options and opportunities. And, you know, if you like that original Lone Peak, I mean, we have two shoes in that category because what we did with the original, we split the original Lone Peak into two shoes, the Lone Peak two and the superior right. And so it's like, you know, how options and those two shoes are still there. You can still buy them. They're still pretty darn similar to they were ten, 12 years ago. Right. We now offer widths if you really want more width in your space and volume. We offer multiple um, widths in Lone Peak and Torin and Paradigm. And so it's exciting. I think you're right. People want options. People want something new and different, but they also want, um, trying to stay the same and finding that balance is difficult. It's been hard as a brand. We've made a lot of mistakes, but I think we've done a pretty good job overall. I'm interested in just kind of the brand or the line expansion to some degree, because you had widths, right? Like eventually, like you add a shoe to the line that isn't just like on that last, but it also has just a wider. So you get almost the highest volume of foot. Yeah. Now there is an option for them. At what point were you getting feedback from customers saying like we want widths, is that pretty early or was that something that took a while? It did take a while. And widths are an interesting story because our ultras don't fit on a typical width scale, right? People are saying, well, how do ultras fit? And. We've tried to simplify that right with foot shaped, um, that, hey, we let your toes splay and so forth. And so it already feels wide to most people. Mhm. Um, and one of the things that's interesting is when you get that much material in our room, your toe box, there's a lot more material there. And so it flexes differently than most brands. So we've had some durability issues on the upper because of our toe box. And so then you have to put overlays. Well as soon as you put an overlay on now you don't have as much space. And so people say, oh, you guys aren't as wide as you used to be. And it's like, well, it's the same last. We have not changed the last. We should put overlays on it because we have durability issues. And so how do you find that balance right? Of making shoes as durable as possible, but also letting your feet be as natural as possible. And it's a really hard balance. And so that's what we said. Hey, we're going to need to put a few more overlays to address some durability issues. But for the consumer that still really wants that extra width because the materials tend to flex and move, we're going to now offer some widths. And it's been very successful. We started with Lone Peak. We then did it with the Torin, which is our number one selling road shoe. And then recently we've done it with the paradigm. The new paradigm has it and the paradigm. A lot of the reason we've done with the paradigm is we've worked very closely with the medical community, and were approved by the American Podiatric Medical Association. We have a lot of doctor referrals and the paradigms, I think, are very good for a first timer or for someone that's coming in traditional footwear. And a lot of it is those insoles are really taking a lot of space that orthotics and insoles that that doctors and podiatrists build. And so a lot of the widths also accommodate those a little bit better, too, that our, um, have more space. So we offer it in three models. Right now, we are probably going to have 1 or 2 more in the near future. Right. And so we're just continuing to expand and listen to our consumers and adapt the best we can. And we've made a lot of mistakes. Don't get me wrong. Like I can go back over the 12, 30 years like, oh, we screwed up this shoe and oh, we messed up this. And oh, that mesh wasn't as durable as we thought it was going to be. So we've made a lot of mistakes. But at the same time, I think that, um, you know, I'm still on the leadership team. I was the president for a long time, but now I focus more on strategy and PR and, um, we've made a lot of mistakes, but I feel like we're heading in a really good direction right now. Uh, we've gone through the acquisitions, man. Those acquisitions are brutal. Yeah, we went through two acquisitions. Those were like the worst years. Oh. So. But I feel really confident about where Altra is now. And I think that the next five, ten years are going to be really good for us as a brand. Yeah. Yeah, that is an interesting thing because like, you know, you have and this is most companies that keep growing eventually as a founder or an original founder, you bring in outside. Well, you bring on outside funding almost no matter what, but you eventually get purchased and then you've stuck with the brand throughout the different acquisitions and things like that. But what does that feel like when you maybe even originally when you have this? Sort of a first acquisition. Is there like, is it like I'm sending my kid off to college? Kind of. Well, the first acquisition, I think it was I mean, we were so broke we'd, we'd I mean, we got in a pinch. NAFTA mortgage, my dad's house. Yeah. I mean, it was like it was this relief of weight off your shoulders, like it was like, finally, like, I actually am going to get a paycheck for the first time in two years. So it was a relief. And then it was. And then, you know, a year or two down the road, you're like, man, they're not listening to us as much as we wanted them to. And we had to learn. Right. And I had to learn that, hey, um, you got to prove things out. I think we were a little willy nilly at first. We were dreamers, you know, we were entrepreneurs. Yeah. And so when you start getting ownership in, you start realizing that that that money and that time and that energy and the investment, you got to get a return on the investment and you have to prove that out. And yet we had to think a little deeper in terms of the strategy. And that was hard, you know, because we wanted to do what we wanted to do. Now that very entrepreneur drives. And so the owner, you know, the other acquisition was a big acquisition. That was a big company to a big company. And that was really hard, too, because they brought in new people. And all of a sudden these new people have new ideas and are trying to find that balance between the original founding principles and people that come in with new ideas and neither of which are bad. Right? They're both good. We like new ideas, but how do we find that balance? And sometimes we've done good, sometimes we haven't done as well. And so it's difficult. It's hard emotionally because the second acquisition is exactly what you called it, which is like sending off your kid to college. That's how I described the second acquisition. The first acquisition was like, finally, I'm going to get a paycheck. We actually have an investment. Hallelujah. Right? It was a celebration. The second one was very much a well off to college. I hope you make good decisions. Yeah. And I still get to you know, I still like I said, I, I, I'm involved from the top, top down, you know uh, from the leadership team. But at the same time I'm not in the office. I work remotely. And so, um, having that influence without much control is very much like sending off your kid to college. Yeah, eventually they make their own decisions. Exactly, exactly. And luckily, like I said, I'm really excited about the three year strategy that Altria has right now. I think it might be the best strategy altar has ever had. Frankly, in terms of the plans, the build outs, the time and energy that has gone into it, I really am excited. Yeah, it's almost one of those things where early on, you have ultimate freedom because you're the one calling the shots like the buck stops at your desk, which comes with its worries, obviously, like you said, like if you make a mistake, it could mean I got to go home and tell my family that we have to go to a different direction. And, I mean, that's not that sort of pressure. I mean, I can't imagine, like, I mean, I can, I guess, relate to some degree, like working for myself, I appreciate it. The idea, the freedom and the ability to kind of maneuver. And if I have an idea that I really get excited about, I can sink more time into it. But there is that pressure of, um, yeah, you don't have that guaranteed paycheck. You don't have that kind of, uh, scaffolding around you that you would that I had when I was like, teaching or doing things where it was more of a kind of a, a structured like, I work for this place type of a mindset. So it is just different . It's like anything there. You sacrifice some things to get comforts, but you also sacrifice a little bit of the freedom and flexibility to get them as well. And it's just, uh, it's just different. But it gives you options because now you're probably thinking like, for whatever freedoms I did lose in that scenario, I also now have a lot of new options I wouldn't have had otherwise. And that gives you opportunities to probably be creative in areas where you just wouldn't have been able to do before. Yeah. And I also think that, you know, Golden Jeremy and myself, the three, you know, founders of the brand, um, we didn't do it to try to make a ton of money, obviously, like, money's great, it motivates us and so forth. But at the same time, like, our motivation was that of the running industry. Wasn't changing. It wasn't evolving. It wasn't doing what we wanted as runners, right? As retail managers, we were working retail. We didn't have any money. Um, and so they see that the industry now the average sales running shoe being sold at run specialty. It's like seven millimeters. Yeah. That's five mil five six millimeters less than it was. Right. These are awesome changes that we have absolutely swayed the entire industry. And I think that that's really satisfying and really gratifying. Um, but when you get that ownership um, they care about one thing. Yeah. Yeah. Money. Right. And so it's like, how do you blend this balance of, of hitting your revenue numbers and hitting the profitability targets that you want while still like trying to be a dreamer and change the world? And I think ultra has done a really good job of balancing that. Not perfect, but given our circumstances, I'm really proud of what we made, why we made the choices. Um, it's but it's hard. It's not easy, but it's been a roller coaster for sure. Yeah. It is interesting to see the running market change and be able to see that. Like this was something I know ultra directly impacted. I mean, you just see more foot shape options out there. Absolutely. And I mean they're bigger brands that are now like they're not quite as pointy. Look at a shoe. Ten, 15 years ago, the world was a lot more pointy in a lot of cases than it is now. They're rounding them out a little bit better. Absolutely. And it's awesome to say, you know, hey, I put my stamp on the world, you know, for, for the, for for the better. And I really believe in the concepts. Right. And when we say foot shape, I think people ought to say, well, what does that mean? The biggest part of our foot shape, right, is engaging the big toe. That's the most important part of our entire thing, is getting that big toe to be able to engage. When you engage that big toe, it locks the arch of your foot like an archway. Yeah, right. When you disengage the big toe, it's almost like twisting an archway, right? It becomes very unstable. So engaging the big toe does the same thing that naturally what arch support would do artificially. And so, you know, there's so many benefits to it, that, that. Are so nuanced that people don't fully understand. We have to be careful. Um, you know, to prove out a lot of these things, but it's, um, it's exciting, you know? And that foot shaped toe box is awesome , especially the big toe. Yeah. Big toe is the most important one of all those. It's big for a reason. Yeah, it's big for a reason. Right. It is. It's stable. It's relaxing. It's locking the bones of the foot. There's so much that goes into it. So it's really cool. Yeah. One thing I wanted to ask you about too, because it's just an interesting aspect, I think to the, the footwear business is you don't I think people maybe think like there's all these little things that you can just micro adjust and then you make this perfect thing that hits your vision exactly the way you wanted it. But there's a whole business model and a rotation and an update-like kind of timeline that occurs. So like when someone goes to a store and buys a shoe, that shoe has been in the works for years, years. And yeah, and even when you get like, what's the timeline like, like when you get your first prototype of like, say an update to a shoe, how long is it usually before that actually hits the shelves? Initial prototypes or no, just like let's say like if you get your very first and again you're going to get upper wraps first. Yeah. When you get a runnable semi-runnable prototype, you're 16 months before it launches. Right. The shoe has to be done hands off six months before the shoe launches. Like you can't make a change. Like there's no change to be made six months before a shoe launches. So you're planning to 24, 26 months out. Conceptually, um, you kick something off, you know, formally, you kick it off at 22 months, it takes you six months to get all the details, and you get upper polls and they they'll get send you the midsole tooling that you can tweak and play with. But it is a lot that goes into it. And so when you screw up a shoe, um, you can't change. I mean, it takes years to, to address those issues that come up. And so when we when we failed on shoes, it is gutting because it puts you back two years. Yeah. Um, you know, and as a brand that's only been out 12.5 years, you know, um, we're I think our rate of success rate is pretty high. Yeah. To get where we you it has to be. Um, but it is very difficult. It's not nearly as easy. If it's easy, everyone would do it, right. It's hard. It's very hard. And we've put our heart and soul into it. Yeah. And I'm sure there's a certain level of, uh, just you get that last prototype before, you know, you have to send it off, and you're just at that point, you know, this is what's going to go to market, and you put it on your foot, just hoping it feels the way you want it to feel. Yeah, yeah. I mean, do the prototype. We usually have a pretty good idea, you know, six months out. We know if it's going to be we know kind of a range. Yeah. Right. Um, where you're like, okay, might not be exactly where we want it. So we're not going to order as much inventory. Oh, right. And so that's how we're not going to promote it because we know that, hey, it's not quite exactly where it want it, but it's good enough to launch. Like we feel like, hey, if we've had a lot of shoes and prototypes, by the way, that we've never launched, you know, or we've delayed launches and we've prototyped shoes and get to a point where, like, it's not ready, we're not going to launch it. Um, other times we got to a shoe and we're like, it's still a good shoe. It's not great, but we're still going to launch it because it's a good shoe, fits a timeline. We've got to hit our timelines and our financial goals. And so you launch a shoe knowing that, hey, it's probably might be a Bminus, but we're not going to market it, right. We're not going to put it in as many doors as we might otherwise want it. And all of a sudden, that second or third iteration, you start fine tuning it and you get better, and all of a sudden you get shoes for us, like an Escalante or a Torin or a lone peak that, like, they're pretty dialed right now. I mean, they're really good. And you made ebbs and flows on certain models. Um, you know, right now I'm, I'm testing the lone Peak nine right now. I've been testing it for months and it doesn't come out for 14 months, you know, and I've been testing it for the last four months. Right. So it's like. And I'm a pump for the lone peak nine that the Lone Peak eight hasn't even launched yet, you know. And so it's hard like all of a sudden I hear I'm in the podcast telling this, but you're that we're thinking that far out. It takes a lot of time and effort and energy and money, um, to launch a shoe, let alone a whole brand of shoes like we have. Yeah, yeah, I want to zoom out a little bit with just the running industry in general, because I just think of just you're thinking of your own brand's philosophy and your customer base, but there's also this whole greater running-like market that is shifting and adjusting over the years. And you have to sort of operate within that loading zone to some degree if you want to maintain. Absolutely. One of the biggest things I think that has changed since I started running was the, the, the super shoe. Yeah. So we went from having a scenario where on race day. The lower the firmer, the lighter you could get, the better performance you're going to get out of your footwear to almost a complete opposite, where now we have to regulate how high you can stack a shoe on race day, because the more you stack, essentially the better return you're going to get out of that new super shoe technology. Yeah. So I just try to think of it through the lens of like a brand of okay, we had we kind of built our catalog to some degree around how do we prepare? I mean, obviously there's more than just racing included here. There's just people who run for fun and who were, like you said, like the paradigm has a medical component to it. But generally speaking, it's like when you're thinking of how you're going to structure your lineup. You also are somebody what is someone going to wear at the end of the day when they're going out to the race they're preparing for? And when that shoe goes from something that is maybe as small as you can get it get away with, and everyone's gonna be different, their people are going to race in max cushioned shoes before super shoes, just because that's what got them to the finish line. But how much does something like that change just the catalog in general? When you have a big shift in the market like that, it's. 1s It's huge, and if you're not prepared for it, you get left flat footed. Um, you know, ultra. Because these shoes really have mechanical advantages. I mean, that's what they are, right? And so how much mechanical advantage is too much? And as a brand that has kind of prided itself on doing things naturally, like our purpose statement, where's the blend. You know, I think we've done a really good job with our original varnished carbon shoe where it had more flexibility to the shoe. We have the new varnish carbon two coming out here in March. Um, the performance is absolutely fantastic. But where is the mechanical advantage and how much is too much? And you know, we got a little you know it's been hard. How do you keep up with these trends? You know, the pendulum swings all over the place and you have to be, um, malleable as a brand or you're gonna get left flat footed. And that the super shoe thing is a huge. I think it's going to get bigger. I don't know about you. Yeah. I think in the next 2 or 3 years it's going to have. 1s They already are regulating it. And where is that regulation going to come? I'm I'm not a big fan of heavy regulation, but at the same time these are mechanically advantaged, advantageous shoes. It is I mean the research on them is good. It is. It's not this isn't just fluff. There is real and legit research taking place on these foams and these carbon plates, and it's real advantage might only be 2%. Maybe it's 4%, I don't know. But the 6%, 8% how much? You know, I mean it is there it is it is quantifiable. It is you it's it's interesting and I. It scares me, to be honest. Yeah, yeah. This is a brand I think ultra will be. We're going to be fine. But it personally, it's kind of like a oh my gosh. Like how much is too much here, right? Yeah. At the end of the day we're talking about like a portion of the market. So from like a brand standpoint it's like, yeah we need to respond to this. But it's also not necessarily like I don't think there's going to always be like, if you think of your greater customer base, there's always going to be room for like different shoes than super shoes. But when when you get to racing, it's it's like you said, there is a performance mechanical advantage with that, even the lower performing options out there and some of that I think, I think the biggest issue I have with it is there's a range from one person to the next where like if we both put on the varnished carbon or we both put on like another super shoe, one of us might get 4% and the other one might get 2%, one of us might get six. The other one is correct. So when you think of it as the pointy end of the performance spectrum, that's the difference between being on the podium at the Olympics and not being on the podium in the Olympics. If you're a high responder versus a no responder or a low responder. And so that does change the sport to some degree, not just the marketplace, I guess. Yeah. And I think we talk about it in terms of elite athletes. Um, but a recent study came out and it's 90 plus percent of the sales are going for mid to back of the Packers. I mean, this is not this is not just for the elites. These are for people who need my PR. Yeah I need the Boston qualifier. Right. This is also where it comes into play. And so the wave of sales of super shoes historically, like track spikes and things like that, that's your percentage of sales is tiny. These super shoes are actually moving the needle for the first time in racing shoes. It's not just about the elite athletes. It is quantifiable. And so your mid-pack runners are very, very interested. And so, you know, as a brand, as ultra, you know, I think we have a really good solution. It's a great shoe. But it has motivated every brand to up their game in terms of midsole foams and carbon. And particularly a lot of people think it's the carbon plate that produces the benefits. It's the interaction between midsole foam and carbon plate with a rock and forefoot, right? All of those things factor into those performance updates. And every brand has had to go, oh crap, we got it's it's let's get our R&D. We've really got to do some advanced prototyping. Um, it's cool too, because you're looking at all these great new foams, these carbon plates. There's a lot of coolness and excitement, but, um, I think every brand has had to step up their game in terms of research and advanced prototyping and, um, trying to be ahead of the game, which, again, competition raises all boats. Right? So I mean, it's it's. You're going to see a lot of cool midsole compounds coming out, not just in the super shoes, but there is going to be a trickle down in terms of the other, um, other other standard shoes. Yeah. Yeah. You actually said something interesting there where it was my description, actually, when you get to racing shoes, I guess maybe the big difference here is you went from having a wide spectrum of racing shoes between someone who's like, well, I'm not going to train myself to be able to tolerate a racing flat, so I won't wear one on race day. Correct. To wear. Now, the way these shoes are built, everyone can kind of use them like the first person. The last person can sort of get away with the same shoe, regardless of how they. I mean, you want to wear those shoes too, just to get used to them to some degree. But generally speaking, you're a lot more likely to say, take a super shoe, go to a race, and not have an experience that just the shoe is problematic for you. Versus I've been running in max shoes and I'm gonna put on this racing flat and go and run a marathon that may end a lot worse for you, and you may not have that option available because of that. Yeah, it is wildly and the revenue implications are quite large, you know, I mean everybody is buying these shoes right now. Yeah. It's not and they don't last long either. So it's like that and they cost more. They cost twice as much as the last half. Yeah. If you're lucky you get half. Right. So it is interesting. It's really interesting. And I have seen the pendulum swing from you know. Pronation shoes. I mean, 80% of the shoes on the market 15 years ago were pronation stability shoes. Yeah. Everybody in their dog wanted a vibrant five finger on Merrell barefoot to, you know, max cushion to super shoes I mean and that's all in 15 years. Yeah. It's amazing how, um, the evolution of footwear is and the industry and the marketplace, it's not easy to keep up with, by the way. It's hard. Yeah. And like I said, I'm proud of how we've done it. But it's difficult. It's difficult. It's hard. Is it much harder now to entertain having a minimalist shoe on the lineup because of that too, since because the way I think about it is like in the past, you could sort of say, all right, we can sort of double dip here with a racing flat and a minimalist shoe, because they sort of have the same characteristics versus now racing shoes are just not minimalist shoes anymore. So can you even entertain that and say like this is a or does it just depend on the market that you're working with? Yeah, I think it depends on the market. It depends on um. 1s You know, priorities, right? I think ultra is always our main shoes that are always on that mid-level cushioning. Um, you know, our best sellers have never been. The max shoes are top line, top selling shoes. I've never been on the lower spectrum. You know, we make a shoe, the Escalante racer, and it's, you know, it started kind of as a traditional racing inspired Escalante. Yeah. And now the average runner is running and is not racing in it. Right. It's more of a minimalist trainer. It is. That's what I wear. Yeah. And I'm wearing them right now. Yeah. Um, and it's one of our top selling shoes on our website. Right. We don't have a huge wholesale distribution there. Um, but we sell it really well. We have a new one coming out next May. I'm actually wearing next year's model Escalante Racer two. All right, so, um, you know something we get to showcase here in Austin, Texas, for the first time. Is this Escalante Racer two, the update to our, um, one of our longest standing shoes. So, um, yeah, it's interesting, you know, um, in terms of the minimalist shoes, I think the market is pretty small there. Um, I think with our, uh, with our key accounts, that's not what they're requesting. That's not what they're asking. Um, and yet we still make, you know, things like a superior and an escalon racer. Um, but our top sellers are definitely in that lone peak. Timp and Torin, um, spectrum. And then the new, uh, drop shoe has done really well for us for the forward experience. Um, which again, four millimeters is tiny, by the way. And yeah, you're gonna feel the rock. We've had people requesting that shoe for ten years. Hey, I tried your shoes. I just can't do the zero drop. You know, we did. We prototyped transition insoles that would actually have, like, like wedges with stickies. Yep. To. And we never launched that. Um, so we've talked about doing that for a long time. We launched a few months ago and the reception has been huge. So again, I always have to evolve. You always have to look at what your consumers are requesting? What are your key retail partners, what is your brand philosophy and how does all that blend and move? It's a delicate balance and it's not easy. But I think we've done a pretty good job. Yeah. And maybe just given the timeline that we talked about with shoe development, stuff like that, it plays into this. But is it something if you could go back and do something differently in the early days, do you think adding a drop shoe as like a transition shoe would have been something you had done earlier, or is it the right time? I think this is the right time. To be honest, I would have rather done it a couple years earlier. But we went, we had some prototypes, um, and some designs back from like 2018, 2019. But 2019 was our big acquisition year. So we had a huge acquisition. They moved the, you know, big acquisition, big dollars, uh, big company, publicly traded company, bought us, moved the company from Utah to Denver. Yeah. And then Covid happened. Yeah, there's that range. So it was like we basically lost like two years of prototyping and advanced development. So I don't know, I didn't, I don't think we should have done it ten years ago. I wish we would have been able to do it 2 or 3 years earlier. But given our acquisition, the move to Denver and then Covid, um, it is what it is. And this is when it happened. Yeah, yeah. That's right. There was the whole thing. Disruption in the supply chain, as well as, I'm sure just the manufacturing process as a whole was probably problematic. So you weren't probably doing a lot of new things inside that frame and inside that window of time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's all sorts of outside forces. I like talking about this though, because I think, like listening to it. If I put on my like non, I know what's going on in the shoe industry hat and put on my like I'm just an average runner out there wondering why they don't make the shoe I want. Yeah. Hearing this stuff, I think it kind of resonates to a degree where it just kind of like, okay, I get it now. Like I know I want that shoe, but it's really unrealistic for me to be asking for it because of this. Or if I do ask for it, I have to be patient because first of all, there has to be a market for it can't just be me. And second of all, it has to go through this long iteration of development prototypes. Yeah. And you get with parent companies and and you know, not. If you work for a big, large parent company, you're going to understand this. More in any industry, right? Is that there's going to be years where they're going to invest in you, and then there's going to be years where they're like, hey, we're pulling back from investment because X brand over here isn't doing so red hot. So we need you to profit more this year. I mean, those are the things that Altra has to deal with. Some years we're going to get more investment than other years. Other years they're like, hey, we need, you know, we need more profit. Other years it's, hey, here's a bunch of money. Go grow and grow. Right. And so we're a brand that grows every single year, right? We have always grown and we're continuing to grow. Um, I've battled that where it seems like every other year it's, hey, here's a bunch of money. Go, go, go. And the other years where you're like, you've got to pull that money back and you're sitting here just scratching your head, going, okay, I just got, I got to do, I gotta do what the, you know, and like I said, I do think that our, um, you know, VF Corp, the company that owns us, I actually think they're a really good company. I think they've got really high ethics. They treat their employees pretty well. But I mean, there's other brands that are struggling within the VF Corp portfolio at certain firms in certain time frames. And so you have to kind of respond to that, you know, and never nothing is ever as black and white as it seems. Everything's always a little more nuanced and layered than people think. And that happens with our footwear company. You know, we have a colorist that quits and all of a sudden, you know, we have to scramble for that next season's colors. You know, we made that happen recently. We had a whole season, um, a year or so ago, where we launched some shoes and the colors were not vetted out properly because we had someone quit. And all of a sudden, the colors that year, that season were not very good. Yeah. And we had a lot of complaints and issues. But those are the types of things that really affect you. Have a colorist quit. Yeah. And all of a sudden things can go upside down and really fast. Like we started the conversation with looks matter when people buy shoes. Right. And so those are those types of nuances. It really makes running a company like this very difficult, but exciting at the same time. Always make sure, yeah, you don't get bored. No, you don't get bored. There's always something. Always something. Is there a type of shoe that the customers are? Or actually, maybe I should back this up because I think this is an interesting piece to the puzzle, because it's not like you're just I mean, you are to some degree, selling directly to customers off the website. But the majority of this is, you know, there's a distributor out there who's going to or you're going to sell the shoes to a running store or another online platform, and they're going to be the ones that are actually engaging with the customer when it comes to here's the shoe tried on, um, what is it? How do you balance that between like, our customers are asking for this, but when I talk to the buyers at the big accounts, they aren't wanting that shoe. Or how does that work? How do you blend all that? It's nuanced. Right? I mean, revolution run, you know, um, I unfortunately, I think they went out of business. You know, if they ask for something and Ray asks for something. Yeah. You know, Aria's got like 160 doors and, you know, massive volume. So there's always a balance there. Um, there's always a balance. And, um, you know, how do we do what our consumers want that have been with us for ten years? And how do we say, when Ray asks us for something with 160 doors, you know, we're usually going to say yes. And so that's why a lot of these options are there. That's why we have as many SKUs as we do. That's why we, you know, we launched with instinct. And a few months later we launched The Lone Peak. That's how you go from a rope, one road shoe and one trail shoe to, you know, six trail shoes and seven road shoes, right, with multiple colors and widths. And, you know, that's how that happens. Yeah. So what I'm hearing is if you have a complaint, go complain to Fleet Feet. And Ray doesn't. Yeah. It's actually you know, there's actually some truth to that. Yeah. You know and you know, as we, we you know, we started at a running, running store called Runner's Corner. It's a one door store. It is medium sized right, but a single door in Utah. Right. Small market, medium sized door. And so how does Altra continue to listen to that person, too? Yeah. And that's something that we have tried really hard to do is yes, obviously Ray and Fleet Feet are our big players and movers, but ultra has always been about, uh, independent run specialty that is who we like to think of as our most core consumer. Um. And finding that balance is hard. And I think that, um. Uh, it's nuanced, it's difficult, and you have to try to balance it all. But I think we've done a pretty good job. Um, and I think I've said that, like, 20 times now. Really? Yeah. You know, it's like. But that's just the truth of it, right? Right. It's that you do the best you can. Yeah. And I can look back on, say, hey, I messed up here and here and here, but I think I'm really proud of my efforts, uh, efforts of the brand and, you know, trying to find that balance. Um. It's never easy, right? Yeah. No kidding. I mean, I think I wonder too, just with, like, fleet feed and rye, they've got such a big customer base between the two of them. I would imagine there's some synergy between, like, the smaller mom and pop shops' customers sort of having similar data pools of customer needs can't be too far away from smaller shops to some degree, unless it gets real specific. I think there'd be more difference between those two specific brands where res is more like trail based, outdoor based. Yeah. And the color and the color schemes that they want. Ray does tend to want more earthy colors. Yeah. Especially does like the bright colors. 1s So, you know, as a brand, you listen the best you can and you make the best decisions with the information in the situation that you're in. That's all you can do. Yeah. Last question or topic before I let you go. Um, one thing I find really interesting about ultras, because there's this big education piece to that brand because like we talked about for a good portion of this interview, they're different then different. We talked about how there's not just you directly to the consumer necessarily. It's not you who always educates consumers. How hard it is to get on the same page with running stores and the employees they have in terms of this is the message we want to get out that we think is going to be attractive. So someone will even bother putting our shoe on and then they actually like sharing that message the way you want it to be shared. Well, I mean, that's part of why I'm here in Austin, Texas, right, is this huge trade show where all these specialty accounts are coming in from all across the country. Um, we're going to pitch them right. Our fall 2024 product line products that are launching next May to next September. Um, and then we're going to listen to their feedback and, um, you know. That's, um, you know, trying to listen, uh, while you're trying to tell a story. It's always this delicate balance because we're trying to pitch our ideas to them, and then they give us their feedback, and it takes us six months to a year before we're going to talk to them again. Yeah. And so there's always this delay on that information. Right. Um, they give us this information, we go back, we huddle up. Given the circumstances, we make the best decisions and so forth. So, you know, I love the running event for that reason, because it's really a gauge for us to see how well we listened six months ago or so. Mhm. Um, and we've won more times than we haven't here at the running event. Telling that story and giving that pitch and getting that feedback from them is, um, it's awesome because most of the time they've been like, oh, we've been asking for that for years. This four millimeter drop shoots, I have heard it for ten years at the running, literally ten years. Yeah. And, um, I'm going to show up and they're going to be like, finally you listen to us. Yeah. Um, and a few people will be upset. Oh, you guys sold out and, you know, and you just pointed to the original miles. You just, you know, you take, you know, you take your punches and you roll with it, and, um, you go back, you learn, you grow, and you just become better and, um, you know. That's what I'll try to do. You got anything else you want to share? I squeeze it all out of you. I think you got it. I think you did well. You know, I think that it's such a great industry to be in, right? I think health and wellness, um, is so important. And it's just an absolute honor to be in the industry and to have ultra, um, to be as influential in the industry as possible, to keep people healthy, to keep people running, to help people stay out there. Right. That's our new tagline, stay out there. Yeah, I love that because whether you're fishing or hunting or running or walking, we want you to stay out there. And I think that that's something that is one of those, uh, marketing stories that we've listened to and what is important to people and what do they value above everything else. And it's about staying out there, right? Health wise, mental health wise, etc.. And I think that that's where ultra is right now. And, um, just love, love, love being a part of the industry and being part of ultra. And, uh, there's nowhere else I'd rather be perfect. Where can listeners find you? And then I'm going to add an extra final bonus question: where can a listener buy one of your flies? Boy oh boy. Okay, so full circle. Back to fly fishing. You know Instagram Bryant underscore ultra. Um, I also have ultra fly fishing uh which is my fishing Instagram. And then I go down to South America and fly fish. And I developed a whole line of flies at night. I can't sit still very well. I pick my nails and I fidget and I. Yeah, it's just a curse. I guess it's a blessing. A curse, I guess. Pros and cons. But I do have a website called Pira Fly Fishing. Com pira pira um, and that's a type of fish down in South America. They're called the vampire fish. So you can go to my website, you can see a bunch of my South American adventures. Um, and I tie flies, develop flies, and have other people's time for me. And it's just a little side hustle. Um, you know, I like to say that my day job is ultra at night, I tie flies. On the weekends, I go fly fishing. Right on. Um. Uh, so, yeah, there's a lot of information there, but, uh, super awesome to have you on. And, Zach, you've been, you know, back at you a little bit. You've been such an awesome athlete and promoter of us. And I'm so grateful that, um, uh, you're been an athlete of ours and employee and just just the great guy that you are. So thanks for having me on. Absolutely. It's been fun. It's hard to believe it's been ten years, but here we are. Here we are. 1s Thanks so much, Brian. Yeah. Appreciate it. Thanks, Zach.