Blake Mycoskie, Founder of TOMS | The Brave Ones

[Music] most entrepreneurs part of our life is a spinning just pure panic and fear and one of the things that I think really propelled Thomas in the early days was this story was so unique it was really radical Tom's has now given away over 80 million shoes to children around the world we literally had created karma by setting out to do something to help people first just trying to make money [Applause] well we're so glad to be here about 12 years ago myself and some friends here in Los Angeles started this company called Tom's and we make shoes and I think some of you have received our shoes before and we're gonna give you some more shoes today and what makes our business unique is every time we sell a pair of shoes we also give a pair of shoes we're excited to be here on your very first day and let's have some fun okay where are we going now we're gonna get some shoes new shoes okay let's do it I'm Blake I'm Blake I'm Blake do any good new pair of shoes today so you take these off and I'm gonna measure your foot and then figure out what size I've been on giving trips all of the world Vanuatu Mala and Peru and Rwanda throughout the United States and the southeast and outside of New York City have I've never actually done a giving trip or a giving day in Los Angeles where we started a company thank you sir okay we're gonna try these new shoes on LA best is an amazing organization that we've been partnering with for quite some time now that's community based and you know I think here being in LA is really great and also again you know I'm powering kids we had so much fun giving you shoes and then really playing thank you for being such amazing kids and we'll look forward to the next time we get to come play with you [Music] [Applause] there was definitely an entrepreneurial kind of gene in my body growing up but it was more channeled into being a competitive tennis player my whole kind of life from age about eleven to eighteen was focused on tax like I mean I was just like obsessed he has always she's done it on his own when he was a little boy used to ride his bike to the tennis court every day after school and hit on the backboard but I think after my freshman year in college my dad was kinda like okay at some point you gotta learn to work like a tennis is great but I don't think you're gonna be the next Andre Agassi he said you got to get a summer job I was talking to someone about this new kind of frustration and whoever I was talking to said well you know I would love for you to teach my son tennis you know and I'm happy to pay you something that we pay at the local club or whatever and that's kind of my first entrepreneurial thing I ever did I basically went to Kinko's made flyers and like within the next week I was fully booked up and I was making like you know hundreds of dollars an hour to that multiple kids paying $25 each and like far making formal money ever would have waiting tables and so my dad came home from work that day and and he looked outside and I was like out there my shirt off you know like hitting balls the kids and stuff and my mom was like baking cookies and like giving the the parents like refreshments and my dad's like what happened to the summer job and she goes yeah that's what that is a summer job and he's like went and then I had this discussion of my dad that night at dinner and he couldn't argue with it like and I think that's when you first realized like I was gonna look at things a little bit differently than the traditional path if he picked something he wanted to do he was gonna do whatever necessary to make sure that you know he did it well my sophomore year I had an injury to my Achilles tendon I had these crutches and very quickly I realized that I literally couldn't do my laundry and we were talking about this I was like yeah I like Eric my roommate was kind of you know give me a hard time at all it's laundry everywhere and I was telling his dad that there's no workplace that does it and that's it well you guys you know you guys should start a laundry business but a lot of kids assist me you don't want to do mine and so the narak and I just kind of took the idea and ran with him and we started this thing called easy laundry and we bought an old truck from like a FedEx junkyard for like the 16 hundred bucks we only had maybe like 10 or 15 customers at first semester and so we recognized that like we had to create kind of this illusion that there were more customers because no one wanted to be first and so what we decided to do is we basically every time we had to deliver their laundry we basically pretend we delivered it like six times people think gosh see you guys delivering laundry all time and I mean we're being honest we weren't we were delivering a laundry all the time we're just living the same 15 people over and over again then we started expanding it to you know schools all across the country I end up dropping out of school because it was too much work to go to school and doing this he is always doing something but always looking to the future of what the next big thing is after three years I was just done I was just exhausted I learned a lot it was fun it was a great kind of stepping-stone to everything else that I went on to do but I was out so I sold my 50% of my partner and it still exists today so I came out to Los Angeles you know visit a friend that was I think either going to UCLA or USC I forget and I saw on the sides of buildings these massive advertisements and every single ad was either a TV show or a movie or movie star and when I just being curious I called one of the names of the companies and I said you know I'm curious like how much would it cost to rent I kind of pretended like I had like a startup and said yeah if I want to rent for my company how much it cost to rent one and they were saying something like you know seventy thousand dollars a month or something just crazy and I thought how does this make sense and the only way I could understand it or out my it was all ego-driven so my kind of hypothesis was is like where else in the country could he have just big egos and then again in kind of a specific industry where this doesn't exist and so I decided to move out to Nashville because they didn't have this type of advertising Nashville back then was such a different town I mean it's unrelatable to the town Nashville is now national you knew everybody I mean some new came to town you met him pretty quick I spent you know about it almost a year getting City Council to approve this and ultimately the only way they approved it was I called it country music art you'd be driving down Broadway and also knows this huge banner of the Dixie Chicks right wow that's so cool you know I was like promoting their new album and those his idea who's ringing the space on the sides of buildings and using it to promote country music artists oh and of course we all wanted one once you saw that you're like oh I wanna I want my picture up there one day so when I was living in Nashville the first season of Survivor came out and my sister and I were successful show we just thought it was like the coolest competition and show and we both decided to apply to Survivor and when we applied to Survivor somehow and the millions of tapes and stuff that they got a casting director realized that we were brother and sister both applying for Survivor they couldn't put both of us on the show but they had this new show called The Amazing Race come out where they were teams we were the youngest team on the show I was 25 and Paige was 21 and after 31 days we lost the million dollars back for minutes it was kind of crushing defeat but at the same time it was one of the best experience of my life and something you have to do my sister and brought us so close and and it kind of opened my eyes not only to you know kind of the world and some of the challenges of the world and poverty and things that I saw that I'd never seen before but it also you know kind of introduced me to Hollywood and Los Angeles and as I was out here what was fascinating to me is like people still recognize us for quite a while after the show is over and we would get like weird invites like you know go to Will Smith's kids birthday party because they were fans of the show or something I mean just like random stuff like that right and so I at the same time I was watching kind of the way culture was going and these reality stars were becoming more and more popular and so my idea was pretty simple it's like okay let's take like these people who are loving their 15 minutes of fame let's extend it and let's like create like other content around that and so I tried to start a reality cable channel I ended up getting a bunch of the winners of reality shows to invest in it which was pretty awesome so you know people who won survivor and the guys who beat me on The Amazing Race for writing the checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars and it was an incredible adventure I learned so much unfortunately it was probably the worst business financially I've ever done we ended up losing all the money after working on it for about three years and largely just because we couldn't compete with the big guys he's amazing at course-correcting at being able to recognize when something is not working and people think these little lessons along the way in a sense was my education it was my MBA if you will or my college education so when Tom's came along and I had an opportunity that looked really exciting I was able to probably have less you know hit less speed bumps less less wrong turns because I've made so many already [Music] [Music] how many people seen The Amazing Race raise your hand Oh lots of people time people saw it when I was on it a long time ago couple people okay when we were closing down the reality Channel we're having a barbecue we were there and one of the women that I had worked for me her son was like 15 years old and he was there and I asked him I said what are you doing this summer and he said oh man I gotta do driver's education he's like yeah he's like old lady teacher and the cars suck and this that and so I was just thinking like for a second as I was talking to him this is just such a mismatch of like what should be his experience than the experience he's having we created the first online driver's education business just based off that conversation like the next day I called someone and found someone that was in the in the in the classroom space and said hey let's get you out of that let's do this first thing we did is hire all the Abercrombie & Fitch models when they're not doing their modeling or acting auditions to drive cars now a sudden like every single kid in the school wants to sign out so it was a pretty interesting thing by changing one little thing how we went from like not even being a player to like the dominant leader in LA and driver's education I think when you first meet him it was easy to sort of think oh well maybe this is a guy who inherited a bunch of money and this is a fun thing for him and he just wants to you know sort of travel around the world and sort of check stuff out I had no idea what his background was and how he'd become a self-starter in his own right in 2006 I ended up going down to Argentina and at the reason I went to Argentina was one we had been there on The Amazing Race but to here in LA I had started taking pole lessons and it was something I'd always wanted to learn how to do I grew up in Texas riding horses so I'm and and I always thought it would be like a fun like it looks like such as like an intense exciting sport so I went into Google I typed in polo camp comma cheek because I didn't have much money to spend on it but he came to my place because we were the cheapest so he came to sustain in the place by the polo fields and we every day playing polo to innocence and having fun and they had a very Argentine nonchalant like hey we'll play when you want to play well lunch to anyone would take lots of naps I felt so connected from the first moment we were like we could do something together and enjoying and every time I were thinking something he was thinking kind of the same about two or three weeks into my trip I was in this cafe in Buenos Aires kind of wine bar and I was by myself and I heard some women at the bar talking in English which was nice because most people were speaking Spanish and I didn't expand I kind of pulled up a bar stool and you know and kind of introduce myself and they told me that they were doing volunteer work where they were going around different parts of the wealthier parts of points I was collecting shoes from people and they were taking him to this area outside of Buenos Aires were me and the kids needed shoes and so you know I always like new experiences and and and so I kind of invited myself along said hey I'm happy to help you guys just should be the shoes and if you know can I come with you and they said great yeah sure met back there like I don't know three or four days later and they were going to this one little area where this amazing woman margarita had taken in all these kids who had no one looking after them and so I just spent the day you know putting shoes on kids feet than playing with him even to this day I can close my eyes and remember that first time and just like just how ridiculously excited they were how thankful their parents were I mean he is a big thinking person but he's also someone that you know likes to get his hands dirty and that night when I got back to the polo camp and I was telling my teacher Alejo about it I was doing so with great enthusiasm and but it was interesting because he asked me a question that night I say to him well you know the brownie is like who's gonna give him the next better so what we have to do to continue doing this and and I recognized that question that the that was the problem with this kind of nonprofit charitable giving model at least in this situation was these women has been weeks getting enough shoes it would last these kids for a few months like who's gonna give him the next pair and I was there on the farm journaling about my experience and about Elena's question when I had the idea that led to Tom's and that was really simple it was like look what if I sold these really cool shoes that I had only seen in Argentina to my friends back in California and every time I sold a pair I would also make another pair to give to one of these kids it just seemed like the simplest idea in the world I mean in some ways it was really more of like this is just the easiest way to keep track of this you know like instead of a percentage or this or that it's like look you can't mess this up you buy a pair I give a pair I can keep track of humpers I sell and I can keep track of how many pairs you know we give and I was gonna call tomorrow shoes but I couldn't fit it there so I shortened it to Tom's Lake comes to this work from a completely authentic place and what I really admire about him is that he decided at the very beginning this one for one model this was just gonna be how he built this business you know we were in the shoe business before I have no idea how to make sure it was all about fashion this guy Jose Torres was our original manufacturer I guess you can call him or craftsman and we convinced him to make these shoes we made 250 pairs put them in a couple duffel bags we bought it like the Argentine footlocker I think how they picked a flake on the chicken taking the big bag that we bought in the store with the 250 pairs of shoes to ship they're actually back on American Airlines and just try to start selling them to friends and family and at that time I don't think I could fully grasp or anyone could Philippe grasp what Tom's was I had this dinner party in my apartment about two weeks after I was back and I invited basically kind of all the girls I knew around Venice and to get their thoughts about these shoes to find out like what stores they think I could sell a man lake you know was he was a serial entrepreneur he you know he started all these businesses but he didn't know anything about fashion I mean it was like so comical now that I think about it like I had my duffel bag you know walked in like I wanted to sell you shoes so actually I I got like the stone-cold deny not even even the conversation in like five or six of the stores that this girl had given me on her list an American rag was the last one he just brought up a few samples that he had and I mean it was it's really straightforward you know so it just sounded like Hades or cool shoes it's a great cause why not she sold 80 something pairs of the 250 so that was a pretty big amount of my inventory so I was pretty excited couple days there I get a call from a writer at the LA Times and she's like I'm gonna write a little story about you and the next Saturday were on the cover of the calendar section in the LA Times we sell twenty-two hundred pairs eighty five thousand dollars and I only have 60 pairs in my apartment I remember like taking a cab straight from Buenos Aires to Jose's you know house where he was like making them you know one at a time in the garage and I walked in with the article and I was like the little Spanish I know I was like muchos zapatos rapido and they looked at me like what the first couple of days I was in a customer service role really calling back customers because we had this crazy waitlist and crazy interest in the product the funny thing was is when I got back two days later I get a call from Anna Wintour's office Vogue magazine wanting to have me come to New York to talk about Tom's and here we were this small start-up with three full-time employees if you count blake in his apartment just trying to manage all of the interest everyone you know who read that article especially buyers assumes we started getting calls from you know Bloomingdale's Urban Outfitters and Macy's and Barney's and all these places even Bergdorf Goodman coming to I mean it's crazy you have a great thing called the shoe drop yes so what happened was as an October we went back we sold 10,000 pairs went back to Argentina and we gave 10,000 children shoes who've never had them the first giving trip was I mean one of the life-changing experience that mugen have and so he asked a small group of friends and family to go on this first giving trip down to Argentina the Argentine's the Americans get on this on this on this crazy Greyhound buses that we rented and so we would put the shoes and the cargo components below the bus and then we would literally driving even sleep on the bus many nights from town to town it was amazing I mean it was super emotional and exciting and and we didn't know we were doing but it just felt so like Wild West and it was yes and it was great to probably best trip of my life Lily the first day I walked into the surf shop door opens and in luckily my now wife was working behind the counter [Music] [Applause] you know when I started tongs it was to help a small group of people in a village in Argentina I didn't have big ideas or business plans it was just a very simple idea the desire to help you know one of the things that I think really propelled toms in the early days was the story was so unique it was really radical so much my job was travelling around the country just telling the story universities and and I would go do talks at Nordstrom and you know we had an Airstream we traveled in and like it was literally just like get the story out there and that was like job number one he's the man behind TOMS shoes and call him a shoe CEO with a soul and he is the chief shoe giver so in 2009 I heard that I could sell the rights to a book and get some significant money [Music] and so I sold my my story in my book to Random House and got a huge advance which I used to fund the business but then proceeded not to write the book because that's too busy running the business by the time of June 2010 came along they gave me an ultimatum either had to give back the money basically or turn in a book by Labor Day and I'm thinking I want to go somewhere where I don't know anyone and I can just write all day long and get this thing done and so I went to Montauk New York and this is before Montauk was like as popular as it is now kind of a you know a little bit sleepier town outside the Hamptons great surfing which I loved so that was my plan and the first day I walked into the surf shop to get some wax from my board and my now wife was working behind the counter I remember I was on Tom's website and I was like I love this what this mission is about companies about I have the shoes I went to fi T I have a degree in advertising marketing communications and it's like how can I get a job at Tom's the next morning I had to open up the surf shop and first thing door opens and in walks Blake and so I went up through the cash register and she said you think I started Tom's and she said I literally was just on the website because I want to move to California and I was gonna apply for a job and so I was like this is my Inn so I was like yeah I mean I could probably help you with that I got the job obviously and moved to California and she worked at Tom's a few more years until we got engaged and today she still has a active involvement with his toms animal program she helped start it's proving to be a great like conversational piece with our consumer and to really get them engaged in a level of awareness for the endangered species you know we're done that down in Mexico just you know having fun and sorry friend and he's like you know I really think it's time to start another one for one product we're about to introduce the next one for one product which is inside this great mystery box and we start talking about it and you know he was like what about eyewear and I said you know Jonathan would you would you think he designs sunglasses I mean design amazing clothes you know and no Tom's that I trust your aesthetic I definitely saw the value in and we started started talking about it and obviously the need on you know sight is huge my extreme pleasure today introduced Tom's eyewear with every pair purchased TOMS will help give sight to a person in need one for one you know giving someone a pair of shoes is one thing but giving site is as another thing it was crazy to me to think here Here I am in Los Angeles California doing my day to day job and I am impacting someone's life in a mountainside in the Himalayans and this person is going to be able to see their children for the first time we're seeing that even though we started in shoes and moved to eyewear that our customers are excited about being able to make a difference with their morning cup of joe as we wanted to create more economic development opportunities in the countries we give in like Guatemala Honduras he Opia Malawi we realized that one of the biggest industries there was coffee for every cup of coffee of a day of cleaned out or for someone and we literally had created karma if you will by you know really setting out to do something to help people first just trying to make money [Music] you know I couldn't woke up in early 2014 and largely just felt overwhelmed lonely and super stressed because now went from being super fun like startup environment so we have a half a billion dollar business people are depending on us now I take my hat off to him to understand the business had reached a certain place and then it now needed needed a bit more than what he was even capable he would say was capable of doing on his own I spend a lot of time talking to a lot of private equity firms ultimately did a deal with Bain Capital I sold 50% of the business which is a very unique number actually in that type of deal making when the investment came in that was so sizable he already knew what to do he knew in his heart and soul what to do and he and Heather together have been building a real understanding about what it means to be very successful for him to make the decision that he was ready was really brave of him and it was the right choice lake has this ability to always see the glass half-full and somehow it always is when we had this big liquidity event I talked to my wife as I look we're never gonna spend all this money so let's take half of it and and dedicate it to investing in social entrepreneurs and if we make good investments then that fund will get bigger and bigger and then long after we're gone this will exist to help you know social entrepreneurs for a very long time as more and more young entrepreneurs want to integrate purpose at the beginning of their entrepreneurial journey they look up to Blake as somebody who is a pioneer in that it's fun to see these early-stage entrepreneurs have been somewhat inspired by Tom's when to create businesses aren't just there to make money but to really have social benefit and and that's something I think I'll do the rest of my life [Music] you

Channel: CNBC International TV

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Keywords: CNBC international, CNBC Life, blake mycoskie, blake mycoskie toms, blake mycoskie interview, blake mycoskie story, blake mycoskie 2018, blake mycoskie quotes, blake mycoskie toms shoes story, blake mycoskie toms story, blake mycoskie and toms, blake mycoskie argentina, blake mycoskie start something that matters, blake mycoskie leadership, blake mycoskie leadership style, blake mycoskie cnbc, blake mycoskie biography, blake mycoskie childhood

Id: 7-uqMDtPAcM

Length: 26min 19sec (1579 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 01 2018