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When you think of sustainability, you might think of solar panels or an electric car in your garage. The term could also trigger a subtle sense of worry in your gut linked to climate change awareness. But you probably didn’t consider the impact of the clothes you’re currently dressed in. “Fast fashion” has emerged as a significant concern in the apparel industry, saturating the environment with harmful plastics and jeopardizing crucial ecosystems.

My guest this week, Eric Liedtke, established Unless Collective to address this pressing issue. If his name doesn’t ring a bell, well, you’ve likely sported a pair of his shoes before. He played a pivotal role at Adidas, guiding both the Adidas and Reebok brands to unprecedented success as a member of the company’s executive board.

Under his leadership, Adidas experienced remarkable growth, with an annual revenue surge of $9 billion, marking one of the most prosperous periods in the company’s illustrious history. So, what prompted Eric to leave Adidas by the end of 2019 despite such achievements? This is the focal point of our discussion today.

We delve into the hurdles that accompany success, the necessary risks to revolutionize an industry, and why plant-based clothing signifies the future of fashion and a sustainable world.

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Resources Mentioned:

• Unlesscollective.com
• www.GabrielleReece.com
• @gabbyreece

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Show Sponsors:

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Time Stamps:

• 00:04:36 – Leaving a Legacy
• 00:09:46 – Technology in Clothing
• 00:14:03 – Sustaining Shareholders and the Environment
• 00:22:01 – Fashion with a Purpose
• 00:37:29 – The Art of Communicating Passion and Ideas
• 00:47:44 – Leading the Movement
• 00:55:18 – Green-Wishing the Industry

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Show Transcript:

[00:04:36] Gabby: I wonderwhat comes to your mind when you hear the word sustainability.

Maybe you think of solar panels or the electric car parked in your driveway. Maybe you feel a type of low-grade stress in your stomach that’s been there since you first heard the word climate change. I’ll bet you didn’t think about the clothes you’re wearing. Well, fast fashion has become a real boogeyman within the world of clothing, covering the world in toxic plastics and destroying vital habitats.

My guest today, Eric Liedtke, founded Unless Collective to fight this existential problem. If you haven’t heard of Eric Liedtke, well, you’ve certainly worn his shoes. He was a visionary force behind Adidas. As a member of Adidas’s executive board, he steered the Adidas and Reebok brand to unparalleled heights.

In fact, during his tenure, Adidas annual revenue grew. By 9 billion. Yes, that’s what the B it is one of the most successful 10 years in the company’s storied history. So why in the face of all that success, did Eric suddenly decide to leave Adidas at the end of 2019? That’s what we’re going to be talking about today.

The challenges that come with success and the risks you have to be willing to take to disrupt an industry and how plant based clothing is the future of fashion and a sustainable world. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Gabby Re show.

So since I’ve seen you, let’s say we’re moving on eight years, Eric Liedtke, welcome to the show. By the way, you have Completely changed, uh, your life. You went from doing top to bottom at Adidas, whether, you know, I think I read that you started in, you know, literally almost like in the mail room and you ended up in the boardroom after being the president, um, and decided to come back to the States and was, was your, with this, with your new brand, unless Collective because there’s so much information you got being at Adidas because you have so much access.

You guys are making so many products at such volume. Uh, I watched some lectures of you talking about things five years ago that would be considered even modern right now today using AI programming and things, 3d printing. What is it? What happens? In Germany for you where you went, okay, I’m crushing it. I could do this until I don’t want to.

I’m gonna take on this new thing. Which, it doesn’t matter how connected you are, how smart you are, it’s going to be difficult.

[00:07:16] Eric Liedtke: That’s a big question. We could spend a lot of time on that. But ultimately it comes down to what kind of life you wanna live and you know the, the impact or legacy you wanna leave behind.

So, um, I’m, I had the, to your point, I’m a sports guy, right? If I’m not doing sports, thinking about sports, having done sports, I’m not really happy, nor am I very pleasant to be around. However, um, I, I, I found through the years, the footprint that fashion and Adidas and other brands have on the world. And for those that don’t know, for the listeners that don’t know, it’s, you know, fashion is, you know, 70 percent made of petroleum based, uh, materials, uh, patrol, you know, we’re talking about polyesters, nylons, spandex is Lycra’s.

They’ve got all sorts of great names for them, but they, they all basically are the same thing at the end of the day, which is they’re called they’re coming from petroleum, it’s, it’s procured from the ground. The great thing about those materials is they’re super flexible and you can make all sorts of things, footwear, socks, underwear, apparel, everything out of them.

The bad thing is they’re forever materials. And I wasn’t aware of that for the majority of my 26 year career. I only became on that after I met these guys at a parley for the oceans that kind of educated me to the problem of plastic waste in the oceans. Um, and when you find out about it, you have, you know, you can only whisper yourself to sleep so many times before you decide you’re going to put your foot in the ground and look at your children in the eyes and say, well, what world am I leaving for them?

And what about their children and their children’s children? And the indigenous cultures always talk about seven generations. So. I made a hard decision to leave the perfect job for me, which was the president of Adidas brand, um, in 2019 and go startup world. And that has been a roller coaster ever since, but the startup is meant to basically, um, be a pioneer of what we call regenerative fashion.

Which is making things from plants and minerals that when you’re done wearing them will harmlessly go away, um, into the earth. They don’t create, um, you know, forever materials that break into microplastics, nanoplastics, and microfibers that then inhibit our, our bodies through what we drink, what we, what we breathe and what we eat.

So to me, that’s what we set upon. Um, now since 2020, it’s been a, as I said, it’s been, um, invigorating and, uh, and very, um, very challenging at times. But. It is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. Also from a purpose driven standpoint,

how do you

[00:09:46] Gabby: start something new? I mean, you’re talking about a very technical thing, something people are going to wear, they’re going to wash. They’re going to, you guys have a shoe that congratulations. I know you received some real. awards and accolades for your shoe, but these things are also going to be put to the test.

This isn’t a, this isn’t a napkin. This isn’t a, you know, a one time use plate. How do you even get, how is the technology even there really to be plants and minerals?

[00:10:18] Eric Liedtke: Well, I mean, ultimately. This is going back to our parents, right? So I don’t know if you remember, like back in the day you would, you would inherit hand me down clothes from your mom and from your dad.

And, and, you know, I still have my, my dad’s university of Pittsburgh letterman’s jacket. I mean, it’s made of wool and leather and cotton and, you know, things of good natural materials, it’s just about finding those materials and putting them together in a way that. It’s super durable. I mean, even going more current, like when I grew up, um, Russell athletic was a great, you know, um, you know, knitwear brand and they still are today in my opinion, but they, they make things out of heavy duty, cotton and cellulose based products.

So some of the challenges are going to be easier than others. Um, when you get into clothing, um, you know, you’ve got enough off the shelf materials to pull from primarily cotton and linens are your major feedstocks or your major materials that go into it. The diligence. Comes into then is, you know, what is the weight of the material?

How do you put it together? Because most of the stitching, when you put the sleeves on or the collar on or what have you is usually a polyester or, you know, nylon type material, which is a bad thing. So we have to be diligent in how we put those things together. That those aren’t really hard. The hard parts of innovation when it comes to, you know, getting off of petroleum based, uh, materials is.

Anytime you have some something that stretches, it’s basically melted plastic and we all love stretch, right? But the data on stretch of how it, you know, the chemicals that allow it to stretch also, it’s now seeping in. a little bit through your skin. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s encouraged by sweat. So we have to watch out for that.

You have to solve for stretch. You have to solve for prints. You have to solve for dyes, you know, the stuff you color it with and how you color it. Cause most of those have plastic souls, which is a form of plastic to allow it to stick. Um, third, fourthly, you then have to solve for a foams, especially when it comes to footwear.

So the cushioning base that you have underneath your foot is very. Difficult to solve for. There’s not really a lot of foams out there. And finally, um, adhesives. What glues do you use to put things together? Back in the day, they used horses for glue. I mean, that was, that was the old thing. You know, the horses, when they passed, they’d go to the glue factory, but now it’s all petroleum based.

So, um, we’ve had to figure out solutions to all of those. And obviously footwear is a much harder challenge than apparel. Um, the good news is innovations are popping up all the time. Material innovations are coming along. Um, and people are aware of this issue. So there are solutions, but it is a challenge to be, uh, to be taken on

[00:12:49] Gabby: for you, especially because you do have footwear, you have a shoe that you’ve worked on and I have to tell you as a consumer, when I hear that you’ve made one shoe, I, I actually trust that more because if to do anything right, people don’t realize, uh, what it, what it really takes as far as design, innovation and cost, you know, and go and really going step by step.

Just getting

[00:13:17] Eric Liedtke: a factory to work with you. I mean, finding a factory that’s saying, Hey, we’ll take on the challenge of not using glues. I mean, they’re like, are you crazy? I mean, like we had to go to Italy where the, where the, you know, the most famous cobblers exist because Ultimately, you want to go to people that know how to craft shoes from your hands.

So we’re actually, if you think about unlearning modern shoemaking, unlearning modern apparel making, because you’re going back to the 1950s or even earlier when we made material that was, you know, not plastic based, this plastic phenomena that’s taken over and become so ubiquitous. Is really, um, an invention after World War II.

So that’s really been the acceleration and it keeps accelerating, unfortunately, um, uh, exponentially almost as it goes up with the rise of companies like Sheehan.

[00:14:03] Gabby: Right. The fast fashion and things like that. Uh, so I can imagine when, and again, this is not, this is not about, you know, getting on big companies.

It is what it is. However, I would love to know your perspective where you have a company like Adidas, who were you guys making like 5 million shoes a year, pairs of shoes a year, kind of something like that higher. Okay. A lot of shoes could, and I know they have shareholders and I know I get it. Is there any way, cause you also feel like they have so much kind of buying, leveraging power because of these, this volume and this numbers.

Do you ever see, does it always have to be a disruptor like You know, the, your brand, or do you ever see these big companies being willing to allocate a certain amount of profit to actually trying to figure this out?

[00:14:55] Eric Liedtke: Well, yeah, I mean, I was, like I said, I was the guy that ran, you know, the, the, the marketing working budget, if you will.

So when I was at Adidas, I had about a, you know, a multibillion dollar working budget. that was able to be allocated towards things that we prioritize stuff. So I would say, yes, you can tackle it to a point. And that’s, I think the, one of the questions I always get asked, like, why, why didn’t you do this with Davis?

I said, well, we, we did, we, we moved from, you know, we moved from virgin polyester to recycle polyester, which is a big move already, but when you’re making, you know, 25 billion euros worth of turnover of product. Um, you can only accept so many, um, you know, so much of decrease in profitability. So you have to have, you have to make sure you’re procuring materials.

At this at a comparable level that you did the prior season because you’re public, right? So you’re you’re you’ve got to finish your responsibility shareholders You’ve got to grow the top line You’ve got to grow the bottom line or at least not lose on the bottom line So every decision you make from an allocation standpoint needs to preserve that trajectory that has to go up to the right Um, that’s that’s step one.

Step two is you’ve got a thousand competing agendas. So at any given time You’ve You’ve got to be marketing a world cup. You’ve got to be marketing a super bowl. You’ve got to be talking about, you know, this, this athlete or that athlete. You’ve got to be innovating for, as you mentioned earlier, 3d printing, uh, innovations, which are made from, unfortunately today, not, not very healthy things as they go into solvents.

And they used a lot of chemicals to cure them and such. So, so as you develop these innovations, they’re going to make you. you know, so let’s put it better in your game, kicking stronger, running faster, jumping higher. That requires a certain amount of allocation to, you know, carbon plates and better foams and lighter materials and different weaving and things like that.

Then when you go into lifestyle, which is also, also a very important part of these brands to drive their, their, their, their growth, you’ve gotten out to innovate with artists and entertainers and influencer. Make sure that they’re, you know, getting the resources they need to create against. And the most famous one obviously was Kanye West that we worked with when I was there, as well as like Beyonce and Pharrell Williams and all these great people.

But they need resources to allocate towards that. And they want to build things that help you with it. And then thirdly, Then you get to the world, right? So if you look at your, your, your consumers of game life world, then you get to the world part, which I was very happy that we even started with the ocean plastic approach.

But when you get down that road, it’s like, first of all, it’s unproven. The boardroom’s all sitting there while looking down their eyes, like, is this philanthropy or is this good business? And then you have to make a case to get that through. Finally, they’re like, okay, this makes sense. We see the, um, the brand advocacy you’re driving with this.

But don’t lose money. You have to make money. So now I’ve got a, you know, now you’ve got to figure out how to harvest, how to actually procure recycled polyethylene terellite or RPET versus virgin PET, which comes out of the ground. RPET is actually bottles that we take out and collect them and spin them up.

And the RPET is already depends on the market, but 50 percent premium cost to the virgin polyester. So you’ve got to make a business case for that because again, you can’t lose top or bottom line. To do something as innovative now as moving to a plant based feedstock is like, no, that’s, that’s, that’s unheard of because it’s just going to get lost in the, in the sea of agendas and the financial pages.

So that’s what I knew I had to step outside and I was still young enough and ambitious enough when I did at the end of 19. To come out and try this thing myself and put together a fellow committed souls that wanted to, you know, be a pioneering, a brand of regenerative fashion. And that’s what we’re doing today.

[00:18:38] Gabby: Did you, did somebody present to you, uh, some, uh, you know, sort of an innovative product that you thought, okay, technology and everything is there enough that I can at least make an attempt to create, um, unless collective was there, was there, uh, was there a group, was there a certain Type of, you know, either stitching or something that you thought, okay, we can actually have a realistic go with this.

Yeah,

[00:19:05] Eric Liedtke: I think, um, it, it’s no secret that the ha holy grail of sustainability in fashion is to make things outta natural materials. There’s no secret whatsoever. Everybody in the industry knows that, but no one’s doing anything about it. So, because, you know, they, they do step one, step two, step three, and it’s, you know, right now.

Brands, every brand will call themselves sustainable, including Sheehan, which is the much, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the very talked about one, and they all say it because, oh, we’re cleaning up our scope one or scope two or scope three, which is how they define their factory basis. Okay.

Cleaning that up means what they’re powered by solar energy. Great. I don’t throw any shade on that. Or they’re cleaning up their, their offices, uh, and their employees, uh, their employee truck, community commute plans or whatever. There’s a thousand things they can do to make themselves more sustainable.

The hard thing to do is to look at the material that you’re using to build your product with, because that is so, so, you know, just. driven down from a cost standpoint and call it procuring. We have entire organizations, all they do is get the cost level down, down, down, down. So they can put more margin on the bottom line.

And again, That’s not a negative that’s capitalism. That is the world that we live in. And so that kind of stimmies innovation when it comes to new materials, because every new material innovator out there needs to either be at parody of existing materials from a cost standpoint, or show a roadmap of that to be there within three to five years.

But they can’t really get there without the volume. So there’s a whole vicious cycle there because, you know, you, you, anybody can do anything in lot size one, but if you want to get to lot size a million, you need a brand to stand behind you. And that’s where, you know, you need visionary leaders in the brands to say, I see where you’re going and we’ll get there.

And that’s what we did with ocean plastic. And now it’s. It’s a multi billion dollar business for Adidas. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a multi billion dollar business in the industry. It’s a fantastic thing, but you know, that’s, that’s one step or one example of goodness. And there’s, there’s a few others out there, but really when you talk about getting into plant based materials to really replace, uh, petroleum based materials, you need to have outside in innovation and then convince the The brands that the unit economics will get there with the volumes and show them a roadmap to that where you get parody pricing, and it’s going to drive brand advocacy and the brands demand.

Both of those are at least one of those. So if you’re going to try to replace something, so that’s why you have to do it from a startup perspective and come inside and show them, Hey, look what we’re doing. We’re going to build brand advocacy for you, or we’re going to give you, we’re going to give you material at par at the same price, but from a better, better source, and usually it’s brand advocacy.

And that’s why storytelling is so important in this, in this age of, you know, climate change and material change. And you have to win the consumers.

[00:22:01] Gabby: How do you. How do you start again? Like, did you raise capital for this and, and how, how was that process? Holy cow.

[00:22:08] Eric Liedtke: So, um, I left at the end of 19 from, uh, Adidas and I, I, I had this idea, you know, in my head, I, I knew what I wanted to do. Um, I, I, you know, I took some time off. Um, you know, unfortunately, you know, or fortunately when I left Adi, you know, I was right before COVID, COVID, you know, hit full force in America, March, 2020, so I was actually in New York talking to investors.

Um, I remember very vividly that like the day before they closed down. And then I got caught a plane back to Madison, Wisconsin to spend some time with my 85 year old parents. I was like, Hey, just in New York. Hi guys. It was before we started, you know, knowing what, what was really going on. It was kind of like just.

You know, there’s something going on. Maybe we want to keep our distances, but we weren’t masking at the time. And we certainly didn’t have a, uh, have any kind of, um, vaccination. So, uh, I was, um, thank, thank goodness. I did not, uh, I did not bring anything home from New York with me that would, uh, have hurt my family.

They were, we came through healthy and happy, but, um, yeah, so I was there raising money by March, 2020. Um, and, um, I basically, we basically founded the company during COVID. Um, came up with the name unless while I was, you know, um, you know, at the, at the Oregon coast in a, in a, in a beach house, you know, reading, uh, reading the Lorax from Dr.

Seuss to my, uh, to my, uh, youngest daughter. And, uh, you know, there’s a famous line at the back at the end where it’s like, unless someone like you comes along and cares a lot, cares a whole awful lot, nothing will get better. It simply will not. So it goes on from there, but, uh, I’ll leave you with that. But so that was, that was the founding of it.

Um raising the money was all done over zoom So I I did actually I actually enjoyed that because you didn’t have to leave your your your location So I did it from the oregon coast And was able to raise enough money to get started and, um, and, and go from there. And we’re still alive four years later.

And, and we’ve now modeled out, as you said, a complete collection of wovens and knits and, and shoes. And we just launched our socks. So we’re, we’re showing, um, you know, we’re, we’re trying to be a lighthouse brand for others to follow, to say, Hey, we’ve solved all the. Supply chain issues. We’ve solved the material issues.

We’ve solved the, the, all of the different issues. And now as we scale in volumes, we’re still solving for the unit economics. So. Now our, now our plan is to start to talk to the big incumbent brands, like the Adios, like the Nike, like the New Bounce, like the Pumas and what have you, and get them to do some partnerships with us because, uh, we found a better way.

[00:24:34] Gabby: You talk about that a lot where you’re really open to doing partnerships and collaborations with other brands and. And I, is this, is this still the case that for the moment you’re, um, D to C or are you, or actually now are you in sort of unique specific stores that sort of can

represent

[00:24:55] Eric Liedtke: your brand? Um, we tried a lot of things again, startup life, right?

You’re, you’re, you’re doing a thousand things trying to figure out what sticks. So, uh, it’s, we, we went for, Um, we were late on DTC. So we weren’t in the all birds kind of, um, uh, phenomena of, you know, DTC success where you could, you could gain all this traction through social. The Zuckerberg paywall came up and got us pretty good.

So you don’t get anywhere without paying, um, Meta, their, their fair share. You then have Apple, um, who’s now Institute privacy laws where people could opt out of, you know, lookalikes and things from apps, uh, tags. And now Google’s just decided that they’re not, they’re not going to allow third party cookies.

So you’ve got all these kinds of convergence of saying, Oh, DTC is not so easy. So we quickly pivoted the last few months to wholesale and we’re starting at more premium. So we’re, we’re talking to a high end denim, um, menswear, womenswear brand, uh, uh, accounts like. Brooklyn Denim in Brooklyn, obviously Rolo in San Francisco, a mild blend in Chicago, kind of those types of accounts.

And we’re also starting to talk to surf, skate, and snow accounts because obviously, you know, the people that play enough in the outdoors, as you well know, um, care about the outdoors more. And so they want to, they want to see the places they play protected. And then finally we’ll, we’ll, we’ll drift into streetwear and stuff.

So we’re staying pretty, pretty premium. Our pricing is pretty premium right now. It’s, it’s not easy and I don’t want people to take the, take the learning that, you know, this is so easy. We should just, everybody should do it. This is a hard work and people need to get paid for what they make and the product will be as durable as you want it.

We, we were proud that we come from the Pacific Northwest and we kind of marry this craftsmanship with work where meets kind of a street wear vibe. So, you know, whether you’re. skateboarding or cold water surfing, we’re, we’re the, we’re the right uniform for you to go out into the elements, uh, with, but, uh, we’re proud to say you can, we make our stuff from the elements so you can go out into the elements, so it will return to the elements, um, naturally when you’re done.

So to me, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s, like I said, it’s a labor of love and it speaks to all the things I do and live on a daily basis as well.

[00:27:05] Gabby: I have to think sometimes, you know, you know, especially as we, we work for a lot of years and you got to a place where, you know, from your job, you’re at the, you’re at the top and you could call anyone and go anywhere and people are presenting to you and pitching to you and all of these things. What was that like?

Cause I’ve started at a lot of bottoms of ladders before and once you do it like a couple times, you’re like, okay, that’s fine. I’m, I’m, I’m down. You know, like you get to a certain place, one place and you’re like, Oh, I’m right back at the bottom of this new thing. What was that? What was that process like for you?

Um, not hat in hand, but a little more of that instead of, you know, you were the guy that people were coming to kiss the ring. Where did you go within Eric to kind of, what, what did you get from that? Cause there’s also some really great stuff that comes from that, but how was that for you? I appreciate

[00:27:58] Eric Liedtke: the, uh, the question.

It’s um, it takes a lot of reflection, uh, to, to, you know, You do go, you go from the penthouse literally to the, to the outhouse. And, um, and, uh, I worked hard to get to the penthouse and I worked hard to be the guy that got every VIP box and, and, and every, you know, every ticket and the, the, the, the, the thing I’m probably most proud of Gabby is people like you answer the phone.

And I, I don’t say that to, to, to blow sunshine up your skirt, but I say it because I get a lot of callbacks people, people, so it, it, it must mean that I. Was that an arrogant asshole when I had the penthouse, you know, so, so to me, it’s like, there’s one, one observation that I’ve talked to my wife about a lot.

It’s like that, that observation is, was really critical for me. I’m, and I’m quite proud of it that I did get callbacks. People did pick up the phone and they did, they did say, how are you doing? What’s going on? How can I help? And, and I think that means the world to you. Having said that, um, you know, you have to have, um, an unbelievable amount of resilience.

And, and, uh, the, the, the, the, the people that I’ve never talked to before are still treating me like a startup. So it’s like, I deserve to be treated like it. So it’s like when I’m calling retailers now, you know, there’s not a lot of like, you know, send us a look book, we’ll let you know. And then there’s a lot of, not a lot of people calling you back or investors.

You know, it’s sometimes, you know, the investors can be very friendly and helpful and the ones we have are unbelievable, but there’s, you know, a lot of ghosting and, uh, I’ve, I’ve come to appreciate, you know, People, they get ghosted. I’ve been ghosted more in the last four years than I think my entire life combined before then.

So, and I had a lot of, you know, I, it’s not like I had a lot of success in my early dating life. So I’m used to being ghosted, but this was, this is, this is a whole nother level. Um, so I think it’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, you have to dig in and you have to remind yourself why you’re doing it. Um, I, I do have the privileged place to come from where I was.

Successful. And I am, my family is financially secure, so I can take a lighter approach than someone that’s really, you know, betting their last dime on this. I’m able to put, you know, my own money into, into the, into the project and, and, and help myself get it. So I don’t want to, I don’t want to ever think that I wasn’t lucky or I haven’t had a better foot to start from.

I absolutely have because of those contexts, because those relationships, and because I’ve got financial freedom to be able to do this. But I, I could have easily just gone and tried to learn how to surf better, you know, with my free time. And I decided to put my hand back in the fire and it’s a, it’s a, it’s a heavy fire.

So I, I, there’s, there’s in startup life, if you’re not having a stomach pain at one point in the day, then you’re probably not trying hard enough. So you, you know that I know, cause you guys have done, you know, the coffees and you guys have done the XPTs and you’ve done the podcast. So you know what it’s like, but it’s like, it’s, it’s, it’s not for the faint of heart at all.

[00:30:56] Gabby: I really admire it because for me, when I, when I heard that you were doing this, a couple of things occurred to me. One was that you had a perspective that most people don’t ever get to have by, by your job at Adidas and just that experience and seeing where some help was really needed, understanding the kind of turnover that, uh, you know, merchandise and producing that kind of stuff, really what it.

Like what it takes and kind of the toll, I mean, dying products and all of that stuff. And the fact that you would sort of say, okay, I’m actually in a position that I can go back into this place and help and having, you know, when we can get that relationship with our ego. I, I don’t know. I, I feel like it can be one of the most liberating things where you, you go, yeah, I could be the boss or I could be the guy who’s talking to some kid who runs a surf shop and sort of saying, Hey, would you be willing to entertain looking at a few of my products?

I don’t know. I think we, that keeps us sometimes from trying things, but even the fact of like taking the responsibility to go, you know, I, I could help make a difference and doing that, that, that also as hard as it is. I mean, I think the person I’d be really interested to ask would either be your daughter or your wife to see how much they Maybe their respect and appreciation of you has grown in this last four years.

I bet you it’s probably pretty profound.

[00:32:23] Eric Liedtke: I’d be interested in that, in that answer also, it’s, it’s not easy, but I, I, I, I think, you know, I re I try to reflect a great deal and I’ve, you know, I’ve learned that the truth box is the sauna. Thank you to, to that, to that advice. You, you taught me that eight years ago or so, and now it’s in part of my, if not daily, every other day routine.

I think, you know, it goes into purpose and legacy. And I think, you know, I think we all have to live a purpose driven life at some point and everyone’s purpose can be different. I mean, I, I believe that I’m trying to move the ball forward in an area that I know very well, and I’m trying to create the change that I want to see in the world and I want to make sure I can, I can give that to my, to my children and generations to come.

But you know, it’s also like sitting still is not something when I role model different people. And again, I want, I want to compliment you and Laird. It’s like sitting still is not an option. So retiring, I don’t know what that looks like, but I’ve, I’ve, I’ve listened to enough people. I’ve met enough interesting people that, you know, even like, I remember, I think I read, I had a chance to meet Andre Agassi and I’ve read from him, but I think he, I think he says, and I wrote that.

If every day is Groundhog Day, what’s the point? You know, so it’s like, it’s, it’s like, you know, we need to at least put our hand in the ground and do something else. I don’t know if it’s, it’s, if it’s personal development, you know, I’ve tried to, I’ve tried to incorporate that as well, but it’s, it’s like, let’s use, let’s use our skills to help the world be a better place and try to envision what we want the world to be.

And I get so inspired from people that are doing that and modeling that for me. I’ve naturally learned from that and wanted to apply that and I think some of my restlessness by sitting at this At the big um at the top of a big company internationally was that I wasn’t able to do that um as consistently as I wanted and I think I I think I hope my my children and my my wife would say that they’ve seen that I mean I’m definitely a more present person at home.

I’m definitely a better father, you know I’ve got two i’ve got an older daughter who’s 26 and then i’ve got a nine year old daughter Um two different marriages And I think my nine year old and my five year old son are seeing a hell of a lot more of me now. Although I might be stressed out, uh, I, I try to communicate with them at a different level and say, Hey, I’m having a rough day, right?

This is what happened. And they all know unless, and they, you know, they, they wear, they wear all this stuff and they, they love it. But it’s like, I just have to talk to them as, as fellow, you know, human beings, instead of like barking. I just came home from a business trip and I’m stressed out because my boss is doing this or whatever.

And I’m having some sort of internal political war with the chief sales officer, you know, just random stuff that would stress you out as a human versus. No, I know that I’m giving back and I know it’s not going to be easy, but I know that even if I fail, I’ve done what I can and hopefully somebody can stand on my shoulders and take it to the next place.

And I think that relaxes me and internally makes me a little bit more centered and present with my family. Does that all make sense?

[00:35:24] Gabby: Yeah. And I think there’s something to be said for when you really believe in what you’re doing through and through that’s, that can be pretty powerful.

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[00:37:29] Gabby: When, what comes across for me, You know, you talk a lot about the importance of communication, the power of communication, the necessity for communication, obviously not only, um, in life, but in, in your work life. I think there’s a lot of people who this can be, uh, a tricky and stressful part of, You know, dealing with, for example, you, you, you shared that for you, there’s sort of a few different types of presentations.

I would just love for you, because this is something communicating and communicating in front of either small or large groups, which you’ve done lots of both. Um, maybe you could just break that down for us. And did you, do you think that this was an innate skill that you were thrown in the environment that you fine tuned?

Where did you get these skills from? How did you learn how to adapt to the. The different types of presentations. I just would love to hear that. Yeah.

[00:38:25] Eric Liedtke: Listen, I mean, my, my 26 year old daughter will tell you not like religiously. I’ve told her one thing in there throughout her whole life is communication is the key to life.

And you know, I, I, like when I. When we went through, and I’ll get back to work in a second, but I’ll tell you, I’ll take a sidebar for personal story. When I, when I was getting divorced from her mom and uh, we were going through it and I, I went cause I, I was young. I didn’t know. So I went to a child psychologist and I said, Hey, how can I be the best divorced dad ever?

Like, what, what do I need to do? Be present, be present. And I said, well, what does that look like? She goes, wherever you are in the world, whatever’s going on, you call every day. And I was like, okay. And what’s that going to do? She goes, I don’t care if it’s a 30 second call. It can be a 10 second call, but she knows you’re going to check in every day and communicate with her.

And it can be a half hour and it can be 10 seconds. But the point is she can depend on that from you as a source of communication each and every day and a source of leaning into you and knowing that you’re always going to be there, whether you’re in China. Or, or Tokyo or Germany or America. It doesn’t matter.

Time zones, you’re always checking. And I, I have to say, I’m, I’m proud to say I might not have made every day, but I damn well came, I was above 90, 95%. And, um, that helped. And I’ve talked to her since that. And so, you know, now that she’s, she, we, we went through the divorce when she was, uh, 10 years old. So, yeah.

So now we talk about it quite often and it made a big difference. It made an impact. So that on the personal side, I know communication is critical. And I know that nonverbal communication is what I try and teach my kids too. It’s like nonverbal communication is, you know, I forget the number, but let’s say it’s 75, 80 percent of communication and how you present yourself and how you walk and how you make eye contact and how you do different things.

It says a world about who you are as a person and what kind of energy you want to send into the world. So I had all this, I don’t know if they’re nature or nurture, you know, I don’t, I don’t know where it came, but when I, when I was assuming my role in Adidas, I, I recognized that how you enter a room counts, how you walk counts, how you sit counts.

I, somebody reminded me the other day when I was, you know, 30 years ago, 20 years ago, I was, I’ve been in the industry 30 years. So let’s say I was just coming up, I was 10 years into Adidas at the time. And I used to walk around and tell people to walk with a purpose or sit with a purpose. It was like, it just somehow, I get like shoulders back, you know, walk like you’re going someplace.

Don’t, don’t, don’t just, just be passive in life, but go forth and do it with a, with a desired outcome, if you will. So when I, when I assumed the, the, the role of the, you know, when I, as I assumed higher and higher management jobs, I knew it was important to be, um, accessible, transparent, and frequently in front of teams, whether it be a team of five or whether it be a team of 5, 000, it did not matter.

You had to always be there and speak from the heart and let them see you, you know, blemishes and all. And I, I’m, I’m still a firm believer of that. And I, and I did go and spend some time with. Google, um, and Facebook and some of the more software tech companies that were coming up at the time. And they were, you know, very much doing 30 day, you know, talks and chats and everything was always very upfront and it was very informal, but, you know, they would take questions, you know, Q and a from the crowd and it might be as meaningful as, you know, You know, where are we going from a brand or from a, from a direction for privacy to as mundane as why isn’t the muesli bar more interesting?

So, so I think it was, you know, to me, it was like, okay, how do I incorporate that into a very You know, stayed a mature German, um, hierarchical company. And how do I bring that across and bring that kind of like, you know, energy that I want to bring to them. So there was three different types of presentations I gave and we can unpack those if you like.

But I think it’s, it’s, it’s, uh, I think, I think that kind of gets to, you want to talk about the three different presentations, so I

[00:42:22] Gabby: do, I think because I’ve never, I mean, I’ve heard a lot of things around this, but you, you, I think you speak to it beautifully. Okay. So.

[00:42:31] Eric Liedtke: The most consistent one and the one I had the most fun with was every 90 days I would stand up with no PowerPoints, no structured speech, just a whiteboard behind me and I would, I would gather, you know, a building worth of people.

So in Germany, at Adidas headquarters, we would have a, we had a building called Laces. And it had this great thing because it was architecturally beautiful. It was an open Canyon of a, of a building and all the floors were, uh, although all the offices were rounded, so you had this Canyon going up and it had, it was mirrored for shoelaces that cross.

So you had these walkways that went across everything. So you can stand in this, in the, in the Valley, if you will, and present and all the people would, you know, sit out on the laces or come down. So it was like, it was really like an arena type of sitting. And I loved it because it didn’t require any setup.

I would just, you know, show up with a little stage, a microphone, and most importantly, a whiteboard, because I’m a huge whiteboard believer. I think you’re judged in life, ultimately, by the size of your whiteboard. Um, so, uh, so I would stand there and I, I would just talk, tell everybody, you know, what I, What I thought about the last 90 days, what I did the last 90 days, what I, where, where I think we should go in the next 90 days, why we should go there and what we should be focused on and what I was personally going to do, whether I was going to be traveling or whatever.

So just, and then kind of just riff from there and I would give myself loose talking points. So I didn’t, you know, go down rabbit holes and ramble and lose complete track, but it was fun and it was, it was, it was something that was well appreciated. I’m proud to say again, it was, I got, I would always get feedback.

I’m a big believer in feedback. I think it’s a, it’s a gift that whether you give it or receive it, it’s a gift either way. Um, and I think, um, I think I received very positive feedback on those things because I wanted to make sure it was consistent. I was accessible and most importantly, I was vulnerable.

So if I was, you know, if I had things on my mind that I needed to talk through with them, I made sure it was there. And I, there was more than one tear. It wasn’t a big crier, but there was a couple of times when I had to say goodbye to good colleagues that, you know, I’d get, I’d get tears in my eyes and it was okay to show that.

Um, it was, it was great. Cause the last, um, The last day in the office, I gave my last 90 day speech. And that was, uh, that was pretty special. I always have, I always have a real, a real, um, soft spot for, you know, how they gave me a send off at that time. But the next type of thing was kind of like these hardworking meetings where they were very much, um, seasonal briefing.

And let’s say we did two or three of those a year and it was okay. So for fall, winter, 2026, the brand needs to accomplish this. Here’s our strategy. Here’s the business goals. Here’s the margin goals, but more importantly, here’s the consumer insights. Here’s how we’re going to come together. And here’s what we want to emphasize and de emphasize.

So here’s our. Our game, our life, our world strategy, and each of the categories and the people within them would be expected to meet those. And we would invite all creation people. So everybody from design to, um, to marketing, to development, to operations, to even sales guys, we would allow anybody that wanted to come in because we wanted, then that was a kickoff for the creation season.

And we believed everybody was a creator. We really worked on the culture to say, Hey. Through these different cultural insights, we can all create into this strategy together. But it’s important that you all hear the strategy at one time together, because what happens if you don’t do that before you would have the top management, tell their senior leadership team, who would then telephone game that strategy all the way through the organization, So if you’re at a bottom level, you’re hearing it through four different interpretations and you don’t get to, you know, I don’t believe in bottom levels.

I believe in people all have jobs and they all have ideas and we should value all of them. So let’s get everybody in a huddle to say, Hey, what is, where’s the season going? So we would have, you know, a thousand, 2000 people, um, you know, conferencing in, in that presentation to listen directly to myself and my senior leadership team, all giving them direct, direct briefing.

So I would, I would kick it off for an hour, hour and a half. And then we’d have the creative director talk about that, the design language for that, that season, then we’d have the, you know, the marketing people and the sports marketing people and the different things going on. So it was, um, a robust couple of days of, you know, of presentations.

And then we would allow, we’d break down to smaller means and they have Q and A’s, but the idea is like every two, every twice a year, maybe three times a year, based upon the seasons, we’d have that kind of hardworking, lots of, lots of detail going out. And then the third type is kind of like the most glamorous.

And that’s the one that, you know, you always find on your LinkedIn pages and stuff where you’re standing with a, with a Madonna type microphone and you’re doing this and there might be choreographed videos behind you and different things. And you’ll have Lionel Messi come up or, you know, some famous athletes come out and, and that’s more, you know, that’s very rehearsed and that’s more of a sales launch.

Okay. Now we’ve got our product made and now we’re presenting to you the sexiest toys that we’ve made. So the sales markets can go out and sell it. So that was much more rehearsed, much more stressful because you had to almost be theatrical in your delivery and you couldn’t be spontaneous. And at least the last thing you want to be is vulnerable in those.

So it’d be. Top end of being, Hey, once a year, sending our guys into the field, maybe twice a year, two to three times a year, hardworking every 90 days, accessible, transparent, and vulnerable, um, with a whiteboard. And my favorite was obviously the whiteboard one.

[00:47:44] Gabby: So Liedtke, I mean, you’ve, you’ve had to be in a role of leadership and I’m always interested in the traits that show up, you know, for individuals that.

You know, you said talk with purpose, sit with purpose, be transparent, um, even just saying that you don’t believe in a, you know, a bottom or a top, but everybody has a role. But for you, what were the things, uh, cause I think people have this assumption that leaders think like they know what’s going on all the time and they know how to do it and that, and they don’t realize that’s not the case.

You know, leaders can make decisions and they can do that, but we, you know, people have, Many times during your job, you had self doubt, but what were the sort of tenants that you leaned on or that really showed up that were so valuable to you and you, and you thought really represented being a good leader?

[00:48:35] Eric Liedtke: I think the first job of any leader is to surround yourself with great people. I mean, I think that’s, that, that’s the biggest unlock for me is like. You’ve got to get your team around you and, and then you got to trust your team and, and, and you’ve got to enable your team and empower your team to just go get it done.

I, I’m proud to say I came up with very, very few ideas. Um, you know, when we did the turnaround for Adidas, it’s like we put 8 billion on the books in six years. I mean, it was the greatest turnaround in the company’s history, if not the industries, but I, I did very little other than hire, help hire the right people.

Make sure we had a clear destination in mind strategy wise. You had, you know, that’s where leaders really, you have to have that. What’s that upper right hand corner of the whiteboard, how we get there is irrelevant, but what’s the, what’s the destination. What does winning look like? And once you have that, and then you hire great people, you just say, go.

And the best advice I got is the best advice I then gave to my people. It was like my, the CEO who hired me was Herbert Heiner. And he said, Eric. The brand is hemorrhaging. Reset the brand. I was like, okay, I think I can help do that. I’m the first American in this role. And he said, do one thing for me. I said, yes.

He said, don’t ask me for permission. Ask me for my advice. And I was like, now he’s, he’s a legend, right? He’s now the chairman of the board of Byron Munich. And he’s, he’s done an unbelievable thing. And he’s, he’s still a friend, but that, those, that simple advice he gave me. Was I was able to transfer that to my guys then with confidence.

I was like, if I hired the right people, it’s like, ask for my advice. Let’s talk things out. But you are empowered to make these decisions. And empowerment’s a tricky word, right? Because it’s not like, Oh, I’m free to do whatever I want. No, you’re responsible. I’m, I’m giving you the stress to figure out how to win in basketball or running or surfing or training or whatever it may be, you have the responsibility to win them in their game, their life, their world.

You have the responsibility to produce the financial results and do the things that are necessary. I’ll make sure the brand is staying together. Without you running, uh, you know, 10 different brands, but I think that’s the, that’s the critical piece of, of, of really doing it. So the key to leadership is, is the people around you and I think, and then, and then really making sure, you know, you do the things that are necessary to communicate and make sure people understand.

What winning looks like, where the destination is and giving yourself constant feedback. And that’s what those, those 90 day talks really were about the feedback of where we, how we did, how I did, where we’re going, let’s talk again in 90 days. Um, and, uh, I think those are the types of things it’s like communication and team.

[00:51:17] Gabby: I couldn’t help, but think that the Germans. Probably were like, ha ha, it’s broken right now. We’ll give it to the American guy and see what he does.

[00:51:24] Eric Liedtke: It was, it was, it was, um, quite the surprise for me when I was called in. And I was like, I, excuse me? Cause I, I’d actually, at the time I took the job. So there was Adidas, there was Reebok, there was CEO, there was Adidas, Reebok.

And then, you know, I was down here, I was running the performance team. So there was a head of Adidas. And then there was a, there was a board member that ran both brands and they leapfrogged me up for that. So I’m not sure what their motive was, whether they could point and say, ha ha. But I, I think I know the guys now.

I know, I know them very well. And they, they truly believed in me and I’m, uh, I was proud that I didn’t disappoint them.

[00:52:03] Gabby: Moving back. How long did you live in Germany? 13 years. So moving back. What, uh, practices did you bring back with you from, uh, German culture, um, that you’ve implemented into your, into your life still today?

[00:52:21] Eric Liedtke: The most important part is my wife. So she’s German, Katharina Liss. Good job. So I brought her back with me, um, both my children, my, my nine year old Amelie and my five year old Kato, they were both born in Germany. So. Um, but I think from a, from a culture standpoint, it’s a, it’s a, it’s, it’s interesting. I mean, I think you get accustomed to operational detail, if that makes sense.

You get, you get a question to, you know, the, the, I wasn’t, I wasn’t aware of how passive aggressive Americans are until I lived in Germany. You know, you, you, you, you, you joke about it, but Germans, I mean, there’s always, there’s, there’s a funny expression. Like Germans will say. If something’s they’ll say something’s okay, it’s okay.

Now, if I tell you, this is an okay podcast, Gabby, how do you read that? It’s terrible.

[00:53:13] Gabby: Yeah. I mean, I, yeah, you know, that can go all the ways, right? Okay. Here means it could be like, yeah, it’s okay. Or like

[00:53:20] Eric Liedtke: it’s okay. Germany. Okay. It means it’s okay. It doesn’t, it’s not good. It’s not bad. It’s okay. In America.

Okay. It’s passive. I believe for bad. So, so to me, it’s like when you start to hear these things, Germans are very, you know, they’ll, they’ll tell you directly how they feel. I think that’s really been beneficial for my personal life because, uh, there’s no, there’s no, there’s no game and ship in our, in our family life at all.

It’s like, it’s like, this is how I’m feeling and you need to understand. And, and it, so that’s been wonderful. I think I try to, I’m probably over overly direct now. I think sometimes I get compared to like Kirby enthusiasm, Larry David a bit. So I’m like, I hit people right in there. I don’t think there’s time to be wasted to, you know, dance around and you have to be sensitive and you have to be compassionate, but I think we can also be direct and let people know, like, you know, I’m not enjoying myself.

I’m out. So it’s like, or whatever, but like, you just, you draw, you draw, I draw firmer lines around. Um, my life and, and I think, um, one of the things I’ve really drawn around and that’s part of leaving Adidas, but it’s also part of, I guess, yeah, it’s, it’s more leaving Adidas as well. It’s like, you know, I, I’ve committed myself to zero wasted hours as a, as a personal philosophy.

Um, because when you live in a big matrix, you spend a lot of time doing stuff that you don’t feel is really enriching your life or those around you. So, but you’re there at obligation. And, uh, I find that to be just maniacally difficult to put up with. So I, I definitely live a new philosophy of life. If I’m not doing something for myself, for my family, for my friends or from, or for my world, I’m not doing it.

And I, I, I suffer no fools in saying no thanks to those things. So, because I think you’ve got to be selfish at certain things. And I think that’s, Part of the German culture, but also part of coming out of a big ship and now having the liberation to live a different life. But I, I guess I can attribute that to my, uh, to my background living over there for over a decade as well.

Yeah.

[00:55:18] Gabby: Let’s go back to, unless when I hear plants and minerals, I get the plants part, where do the minerals show up? I’m just really curious.

[00:55:25] Eric Liedtke: We try to be, again, very honest. So we’re not trying to, I think there’s a lot of green washing. Let’s not be green. Washing implies. duplicitousness. So let’s call it green wishing.

There’s a lot of people saying we’re sustainable. Look at what we’re doing. And I call it, uh, that’s kind of green wishing, right? It’s like, wish cycling. If I put it in the magical green tin, it will go away. It’s like, there’s, there’s no way. So let’s put that aside. So we try to be super transparent. and communicated that, Hey, listen, in our shoe, they cure some of the, some of the materials, the plant based materials with minerals.

So they, they use different, um, you know, not, they don’t use sulfuric acid. They use citric acid. They use different things. And, and technically they get labeled as a mineral. So we just say, I’d love to say a hundred percent plant based, but it’s not factual. It’s a, it’s plants and minerals. So we, we just, we add the minerals there and we don’t shy away from, um, you know, telling people that we have answers for this.

We don’t have answers for this. And, um, you know, I think that’s part of the refreshing thing that we’re able to do now where there’s, there’s no, there’s no issue. It’s like a lot of people say, Hey, we’re plant growing. And then you read their website. You’re like, actually you’re 90 percent plants and what’s the other 10%.

And they don’t disclose it, which immediately thinks makes me think it’s, Oh, it’s some sort of. Some sort of chemical or some sort of, um, uh, petroleum based plastic, which is okay. I’m not 90s better than, you know, better, better than, better than less, but just be honest about what’s in it and say, you’re working to improve it instead of having the consumer have to dig through and figure out why this is, uh, what, what’s in there because I’m a vegan, um, and I’m not going to eat a 90 percent soy hot dog that’s got 10%, I don’t know.

It’s like, so it’s like, so why can’t we have the same kind of approach when it comes to material and footwear and apparel? I think we, we need to get there.

[00:57:15] Gabby: Listen, we’re not, you’re not going to fool your customers. And, and I trust that as a person and as a consumer way more when someone’s like, Hey, we’re doing this better and we’re still in the process of doing it better.

And that’s why I wanted to bring it up when it comes to, um, you know, kind of threads and stitching. What, what’s, what are the breakthroughs there? How does that work?

[00:57:36] Eric Liedtke: It’s not necessarily innovation per se from a material because, uh, Cotton thread exists, you know, um, it, it, it’s out there, but getting factories to use it is an, is, is really hard, uh, because they’re, they don’t want to.

I mean, like the miracle of plastic threads, the miracle of nylon threads is that they can, they can be more flexible. You can, you can use them at higher speeds. They don’t break as much, you know, these, you know, when you go to cellulosic threads and, and, and, and materials, they have different issues and different breaking points and different tensile strength.

So. You just, again, different gauges on the, on the sewing machines. These things seem like little things, but what, as a startup with limited funds, and you’re trying to find a factory, that’s going to work with you to do these things. It’s just like, you, it’s like, you know, are we trying to do things too hard?

I mean, it’s like this been many nights. I’m like, why are we holding ourselves to a higher standard again? And the consumer is really going to care because. I pick up, you know, Haynes t shirt or a gilded t shirt. It says a hundred percent cotton Gabby. It’s not, but they’re allowed to say it because FTC says they can, because it’s FTC is worried about duties in the federal trade commission versus purity of what they’re labeling stuff where like the FCC with food and drug is, is very much concerned about labels, but FTC doesn’t really care.

They just care about the duty importation. So. If I’m wearing a shirt from another brand and it says a hundred percent cotton, I can feel it and look in 10 seconds and tell you it’s not, it’s probably 66 percent cotton and they’re able to label it a hundred percent because of the way the duty structures are set up right now, which is just insane to me, but that’s all policy makers and those are things that we want to battle, but you know, I just, again, there’s only so much time in the day, right?

[00:59:21] Gabby: Right. You put up your guardrails and you live by those rules. It’s like what we teach our kids. It’s like, develop your own code, live by that. Doesn’t whatever anybody else is doing. And even sometimes that means to your detriment, like, well, I’m going to tell the truth and this person over here might be able to go left and right.

But I think, you know, we talk about the long game. You’re playing the long game right now. Um, you say someone can take a product.

[00:59:44] Eric Liedtke: That’s exactly what you tell your kids at school. Like, you know, don’t be a lemming. Play your game and let’s see, you know, let’s let, let, let, let, let time be the jury.

[00:59:57] Gabby: Exactly. You, um, you say like I could take a piece from Unless and plant it in my yard. That would work, but you even have a program where people can send product back to you And you have an industrial composter. Is this is this still happening? and they You can guarantee that the products is sort of gone within 30 days and they get a a discount on the next purchase 20

[01:00:21] Eric Liedtke: off So then again, that’s not a great, you know business model from an economic standpoint But we want we feel like we made a promise We make a promise to the consumer that, that one and our customer, and if they want to come and they want to send things back to us, first of all, first thing we’ll do is we’ll try to repair it and resell it because, you know, that’s the most sustainable thing you can do.

But if we can’t, and you say it’s been ridden hard or worn hard, then we will take it and we’ll send it to Agri Min, which is the largest industrial composter in California, who we have a standing relationship with, and we’ve piloted everything with them, by the way, and they’ve, They’ve tested all of our products for, you know, um, which we have certified them as nutrient rich soil ingredients that they can then resell as potting soil for whether it’s your people’s rose gardens or, or tomato gardens.

And it’s like, it’s fantastic. Cause you know, we all go by. you know, uh, potting soil, what have you, and you put it in your yard. That comes from people like Agriment, which is one of the largest industrial composters in the, in the country. And, um, and they’re really piloting this, you know, cause everybody wants to keep organics out of landfill.

And most of the textiles is some sort of mixture of organics. And so they were really working with them to kind of certify. What can go naturally in. And if you follow the unless playbook, which we call the unless regenerative creation model, which follow these steps that we’ve outlined from materials to how you put it together, to how you dye it, how you color it, how you then bring it back in and give it to them.

They then will turn it back into, um, nutrient rich soil, which by the way, is a huge carbon sink. So it’s just all sorts of goodness that comes and that’s why it’s called regenerative because. Every step adds value instead of subtracts value. So, yes, we make stuff, sell it to the consumer. They can return it to us.

We will give them 20 percent off their next purchase, and we’ll make sure it goes back to soil in 30 days because the, the composters, the industrial composters, they need to turn their, um, their, their, their soil within 30 days. So anything that comes in, primarily organics, food, and yard waste, they have to turn that pretty fast in their, in their, in their molds.

[01:02:25] Gabby: Did anyone from Adidas end up with you in this company?

[01:02:29] Eric Liedtke: The entire team came from my hat. And again, get your team around you. Right. So know the people you have. So the former creative director, head of innovation, Paul Gaudio has come with me. Um, and he and I have been working together for decades. Um, uh, Tara Moss, who’s our CMO.

She was with Adidas. She wasn’t with Adidas directly when we started this, but I, she was my head of digital for a point in time at Adidas. And she’s, she’s a rock star and she’s in LA. Martin Tysa, who was the, um, the, my head of strategy at Adidas when we were doing the turnaround and the SBP. He came along and now he’s our chief product officer at Unless.

So it’s been, uh, it’s been really good. And then, you know, as I, as we build out extensions, whether it be legal counsel or HR, we don’t need those departments now, but obviously I’ve got, I’ve got a, a pretty clear contact list. I know who to, who to reach out to.

[01:03:20] Gabby: How did you solve a dying product?

[01:03:22] Eric Liedtke: That’s one of the five horsemen.

So dying and printing are two of the things I mentioned earlier. So again, it’s. The five things that really need innovation are printing, dyeing, stretch, glues, foams. That’s where we are still as an industry, um, scratching. So we use best in class dyeing techniques, which is water based dyes. Um, and we, again, test those with, So they’re doing ph testing and nutrient testing from a chemistry standpoint on the soil.

So we’re making sure all of ours, but you know, a black dye product versus a red dye product versus a blue dye product is going to have different Um, compost standards and different times it goes away and then also it’s going to leave different residues in the soil. So all those things need to be tested out to see how that, uh, how that soil chemistry is coming through.

Because we’re using water dye, we feel good about it. When we get into printing, like this shirt is black and it’s got a white print. That’s one of the most difficult things to do because usually you have to use a plastic soul, which is a plastic form to, to, to coat the material. So we have to make sure, you know, how we print things, whether it be with direct to garment or whether it be with screen, all those different techniques have to be vetted as far as what are the best in class techniques.

I still think they can be, can be, they can be a lot better and there’s some innovations out there, but they’re just really undercapitalized. So again, it’s, it’s, it’s a. It’s an iterative process, but we’re using best in class right now. And that’s kind of the things we need to continue to not let perfect get away better, but keep getting better.

[01:04:55] Gabby: Is there, and this is the brass tacks, like from a, from a tax or innovation standpoint, is there any. Do you get any love from that side from trying to, trying to do it this way?

[01:05:07] Eric Liedtke: There’s a, there’s a circular act that just came through, through the Build Back Better, um, Great Inflation Reduction Act, uh, the Biden administration has passed.

Um, I think there is a circularity, um, tax break that I’ve, I’ve, I’ve had come across my desk. To be quite honest, um, I haven’t, I haven’t really jumped into it yet. I think it’s something we can look at, but yeah, that you, you, I would hope in Europe, there’s going to be a lot more because they’re ahead. Um, in the, in the policy making, I think the, the U S is, is unfortunately way behind federally on the policies.

There’s certain states like the New York fashion act, um, that is, it is driving home, um, you know, circularity. And if you’re over a hundred, so they’re going to pass the New York fashion act, it’s called. And if you’re doing sales of more than 100 million globally, and you’re wanting to do business in New York, you have to meet certain circularity standards.

That, uh, that need to go. So that’s, that’s really a domino effect. So if that hits, um, I know a friend of mine, Ken Pucker, he’s, he’s monitoring that and helping them. He’s like, there’s a 13 other States that are looking to implement something similar. So we need one domino to go for multiples, and then we need probably some sort of federal.

And I think that would be super interesting, uh, to, to relate to. So, um, I think it’s just a matter of when that happens.

[01:06:28] Gabby: Do you have, um, we’re going to direct people to unless collective. com and does the website say where the stores are by any chance?

[01:06:36] Eric Liedtke: No, we don’t have any retail stores ourselves. We don’t, and we don’t have a retail.

No, I mean, yeah. We don’t, we don’t have that yet. I can give you a list if you guys want to put that in the show notes. Um, we’re not open too much. I’m making calls all day long and I’m about to get on my, on my car and go out and see some people. But it’s, uh, I love that stuff actually though, because I love talking to people.

[01:07:00] Gabby: Do you have a, do you have a product that you that or, or skews that you’re like, these are our hero skews just so if people go there, they can just kind of, you know, go straight to the stuff that you’re like, check this out. I think,

[01:07:12] Eric Liedtke: um, well, all of it’s beautiful, but, uh, I think that there’s, I did look at it.

There’s, um, there’s some bits. That I would say, listen, the t shirt is, I’m a t shirt connoisseur and we made an, we make an eight ounce buttery interlock t shirt that, you know, is the best. And I can’t wear another t shirt anymore. But I’d say, um, the French terry, um, crews are, are probably are my favorite item.

I think the hoodie we’re taking from a fleece to a French terry, which is going to be really nice. So the French terry gives you that really nice, um, drape, but also gives you a really worn, um, kind of come kind of comfy for those cold Malibu evenings. Um, you guys want to snuggle up by the fire. I think those are, those are great things to get into.

And I, um, I would say they’re all they’re all garment dyed. So they’ve got that nice little detail from a premium standpoint on like how they, how they hang and how they, how they look from a color standpoint as well. They’ve got a little personality to them. So I’d say really the French Terrys, the French Terry crew, the French Terry pants, French Terry short, and then, um, the, the, the t shirt, those are our Um, and then the hoodie is going to be also in French terry, and then I’d say from a woven, we’ve got, um, great jackets that were inspired by, you know, a walking to, um, walking through the old growth for us in Pacific Northwest, going to surf breaks, because there’s one famous surf break in, uh, in out here called short sands or smugglers Cove, and it’s about a kilometer walk in through a beautiful, um, old growth forest, and it’s just beautiful, That’s, that’s my spot.

That’s where I like to go whenever I have time. And we wanted to make a jacket for that walk. So whether it’s raining or whatever, so it’s lined and unlined and it’s just really, really quite comfy, really quite appropriate, better than wearing some sort of plastic PFA lined, you know, jacket that’s, you know, may keep the water off of you, but it certainly doesn’t feel wholesome.

 

[01:08:55] Gabby: I keep thinking that all you need is, you know, one French or one Italian house or New York house, fashion house to do a. Capsule collection, something fabulous for the runway with your technology and materials. Um, I’m sure that’s going to happen, but just even to, you know, make the story sexy. Cause everyone’s like, Oh, fabulous.You know, all of that.

[01:09:17] Eric Liedtke: I agree, man. We’re going to, we’re, we’re working on co labs and partnerships as we speak. Um, we got some good things coming for 24 and now we’re just looking to get the right wholesalers and find a, find maybe a couple ambassadors. Um, in the surfskate snow world, I think it’d be really fun.

[01:09:36] Gabby: So last question, you’ve been to probably more sporting events than most people. I would imagine a ton of football as in the real football, the original football. Why do we call it that? We don’t, you barely use the foot. Um, uh, what was there ever a sporting moment that, uh, I don’t know. Just was you thought, Oh, this is a, this is a special thing I’m witnessing.

Yeah. I mean,

[01:10:03] Eric Liedtke: I’m, I’m American, right? So, uh, I’m, I’m my, my family all grew up in Pittsburgh. I went to, I had the, I had the luxury or privilege to secure, I think, 12 tickets to Steelers Superbowl in Tampa Bay when they played, uh, the Phoenix Cardinals. And, um, you know, that game was unbelievable. I just rewatched it the other day, whether it be like James Harrison’s interception return for a touchdown or.

The last play of the game when, you know, or almost last play of the game, but when Ben hits Santonio homes in the back of the ends. And so to me, that was like this complete Homer. That was it. Sporting events. Don’t get better than that. And I had my, my parents with me. My sister with me, my, my, my oldest daughter with me and Paul Gaudio or my creative director and best friend, his family was there too.

So it was just like this, it was unreal. And I, you know, I remember walking, I’d have to, I had to walk in and meet Roger Goodell in the, um, in the box because, you know, obviously I was, I was representing Adidas at the time as well. I’d go in there with my Jack Lambert football jersey. You know, I’m like, everybody else is in suit and ties, but I was like, Bruce Springsteen’s on stage.

It doesn’t get better than that. From a work standpoint. I went to the World Cup in Brazil also and, uh, I saw, um, I saw Germany just, just destroy Brazil, which was a big rivalry on two levels, right? There was the, the German football rise to being world champions that year and beating Brazil on their home field.

But then it was also like, we were sitting in the box next to a bunch of Nike execs and, uh, and having some fun because, you know, obviously, Adidas sponsors Deutschland and Nike sponsors Brazil and it was, uh, it was good. It was good fun. No, uh, no, uh, nobody was injured during the game, but it was, uh, it was, it was a lot of fun talking, uh, talking back and forth.

So yeah, those are the two, two moments I would share.

[01:11:47] Gabby: Well, Eric Liedtke, congratulations. I wish, uh, unless, you know, huge success. And if people again want to check out the line, they can go to unless collective. com and is, do you want to direct them anywhere else? I mean,

[01:12:00] Eric Liedtke: there’s, there’s. Three big accounts we have open up right now, Brooklyn Denim, if you’re in New York, Rolo in San Francisco and Mildblend in Chicago.

More to come. Um, and we’ll start to put them on our website and make sure we promote them on our Instagram as well. Thanks. Thank you, Gabby. Pleasure to see you again.

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About Eric Liedtke