In the ever evolving landscape of global sportswear, few names have etched as profound, an impact as Joe Foster, the visionary co-founder of Reebok. Born into a legacy of shoemaking, Mr. Foster's journey from humble beginnings in Bolton, England to establishing one of the world's most iconic athletic brands is a testament to innovation.

Joe will tell you, sometimes you just need the right person at the right time to step in. After finding that leader, Reebok emerged as a global powerhouse synonymous with some of the most memorable moments in sports and popular culture. You're about to hear Joe express his excitement for the resurgence of the Reebok brand, as it stands at the cusp of a new chapter of promising innovations and a commitment to excellence that will undoubtedly shape The next generation of athletic apparel and footwear. I'm Damon Davis, And this is my discovery diary with Reebok co-founder Joe Foster.

[00:00:00] Damon: In the ever evolving landscape of global sportswear, few names have etched as profound, an impact as Joe Foster, the visionary co-founder of Reebok. Born into a legacy of shoemaking, Mr. Foster's journey from his humble beginnings in Bolton England to establishing one of the world's most iconic athletic brands is a Testament to innovation.

Perseverance and the relentless pursuit of excellence. In 1958, Joe and his brother, Jeff embarked on a mission to revolutionize the athletic footwear industry. Their vision was clear. To create shoes that blended performance with style. Shoes that would become a companion to the athletes across the globe as with any entrepreneurial endeavor. The foster brothers journey was not without its challenges, but as Joe will tell you, sometimes you just need the right person at the right time to step in. After finding that leader, Reebok emerged as a global powerhouse [00:01:00] synonymous with some of the most memorable moments in sports and popular culture. You're about to hear Joe express his excitement for the resurgence of the Reebok brand, as it stands at the cusp of a new chapter of promising innovations and a commitment to excellence that will undoubtedly shape The next generation of athletic apparel and footwear. I'm Damon Davis, And this is my discovery diary with Reebok co-founder Joe Foster.

[00:01:26] Joe: Hi, Damon.

[00:01:28] Damon: Good

[00:01:28] Joe: morning, Joe. How are you? I am fine. Thank you. And where are you

[00:01:33] Damon: speaking from? I'm coming to you from Maryland, right outside of Washington, D. C. Okay. Very good.

Joe, you have a new book out called shoemaker that I'm excited to dig into with you here today.

If you don't mind, I'd love to start back in kind of your beginnings. I know that you had a family business when you were younger, that was led by your father and your uncle. But that your father and uncle weren't necessarily able to see the [00:02:00] market forces that were changing for them at the time.

Now, I know that it took a moment for you to step in and say, dad, My brother and I are leaving. Can you talk a little bit about that challenge of making an innovative change for a business and the, and what you would recommend for young entrepreneurs who are stagnating in their current business model and unable to, see the writing on the wall in order to innovate.

[00:02:24] Joe: Yes I suppose everybody's circumstances are different for Jeff and myself with we were working for the family company, JJB Foster, they were athletic shoemakers and they made all the athletic shoes. You could think of a lot of them from boxing boots to running shoes to football boots. A whole a whole sort of area of sport.

And my grandfather, he obviously had a very good a very good business model. And he knew what to do. He knew about influencing before he even [00:03:00] knew the word. And he used to give his shoes to athletes who could win races. And therefore this influenced Everybody else. We didn't have what we have today.

We have today fashion, we have street, and sport is influencing street, and volumes come from that. Whereas in my grandfather's day, the volumes were not as big because his product were pure performance. So that's all. Street was something else. They were different shoes altogether. So he wanted to have as big a business as we see now.

for sports driven footwork. But, uh, what happened, of course, is when he died, he died in 1933. I wasn't born until 1935. So I never knew my grandfather, but I was born on his birthday. And given that I was born on his birthday, I took his name. So he was Joe and I am Joe. Unfortunately, his sons. I think there was six years difference in age between them and they did not see [00:04:00] eye to eye.

In fact, they feuded. They seem to fight with each other more than one that would talk and you possibly know the story of Adi Dassler and Rudy Dassler. And they also had the same problem. They could not get on together. They didn't get on together, but Rudy has the good sense to move. and start Puma.

So he started his own company and Addy, he stayed with Addy Dassler as we know. Unfortunately, my father and uncle just kept fueling. They didn't seem to get together or decide to go apart and set up something different. So, uh, Jeff, my brother and I growing up as you do, we we grew up during world war two, which sort of took a lot of attention away from sport, but after world war two, I joined the company after being at the college I joined when I was 17, I only had one year with the company because [00:05:00] In those days, we had national service and national service took us away from the company.

And Jeff and I, for whatever reason, Jeff was deferred a bit on his time. We were almost away at the same time. So we almost came back to the factory at the same time. And those two years just changed your life. You learn how to be self sufficient, you do things differently, your mother's not there, your father's not there, you become independent, you start to look at what's going on in life, and when we came back, and back to the factory, we immediately saw a failing company.

Because when when the people who are 50, 50 ownership of a business and they don't speak to each other, the company doesn't move on. In fact, it starts to die. And my father, although I tried as hard as I could to say, look, we need to change this, we need to set up another company. I don't want to come with us and do something, but all he could do [00:06:00] was to say that, look, Joe, when I'm gone.

and your uncle's gone, this company will be yours. And my response to that was, Dad, we don't want you to go. That's not the plan, but this company will be gone long before you are. So we need to do something ourselves. It took a little while. We decided to go to college, Jeff and I, we went to college to learn more about footwear, but and then we left.

So yes when people are thinking about starting a company depends where they're coming from. If they're coming from they're not happy with the job that they're working in. They've got to turn around. It's not just a matter of leaving a company. What you're doing is you're going to do something new.

You're going to something different. And if you're going to something different or you're leaving that company, because like Jeff and myself we needed to improve. On that company and where we could do that was to move a lot of people who are [00:07:00] working companies see an opportunity in that company and the company isn't going there, will not go there.

So it's a good reason for them to step aside and do something. When you do that, you really need to know where you're going. However. You can't know the outcome, so you have to take that gamble and that gamble is being an entrepreneur. That's what you do. And you've got to be optimistic if you want to be successful.

Because you'll find lots of problems in your way. You'll find lots of difficulties you didn't expect. Just as Jeff and I did. And when you read the book and you get through, you'll find we had lots and lots of problems. Yeah.

[00:07:41] Damon: Yeah, I want to pull on a thread that you just touched on. The notion that when.

You have this company set up and so first of all, congratulations, you produced a wonderful company is a company that I grew up with. I had Reeboks on my feet when I was a young guy. So it's really an honor to be with [00:08:00] you today and meet you. But I wanted to take a step back a little bit because there came what I saw as kind of a parallel moment for you.

You've matured the company that was based in Britain. And you matured the company and you've reached the point where it has grown tremendously in America. And you and your team, after growing this brand to those sort of global recognition, realized that the brand could grow so much more in the United States, if you stepped aside, this was something that I thought was sign of a parallel between your father and the inability to see the changing marketplace.

And your own growth of the company and actually recognizing that if you did step aside, the company would do that much better. Did you see that sort of parallel between your own desire to step aside and let the company be its own thing and your father's inability to step aside and let you and your brother take over?

What went through your mind around that time about your father's experience?

[00:08:59] Joe: [00:09:00] You're absolutely right. You can grow a company, you can take a company to a certain level, but the company grows tremendously. And the big market was in the USA. Now, I was still developing the global brand. And yet what we needed to do was to become something big in the USA.

And that for me meant we needed Americans to run the company, Americans to feel ownership, Americans to really feel that they were Reebok, , instead of me sort of butting in every now and then and asking questions, no you, you want to release the company to do whatever it can. And the only regret I have is that unfortunately at a certain point it was sold onto Adidas.

Instead of we'll say if Paul had found the right person to take or the right people to take it forward, I think that Reebok could be a [00:10:00] 50 billion company today. Wow. Wow. Yeah. You need the people to do that now, A B. G. Have taken over. They do seem to have the right idea. You know, they've got the right people.

They've got Shaquille O'Neal now becoming president of basketball, and that's good focus because They have these good people. So focus where your strengths are. And I think they're going to, they're going to lead out basketball in two or three years. I think you're going to see a tremendous difference.

So, you know, anybody starting up today is look for the strengths and, if the strengths are not in with you be prepared to step back.

[00:10:39] Damon: Yeah. That's great advice. Yeah. Let me ask you one more quick question, Joe. You've touched on a couple of things, the notion of having the right people at the right time for the company.

In the book, you talk about the concept of a quote unquote gatekeeper. You've alluded to Paul Fireman. Who was your gatekeeper for launching the [00:11:00] company and growing it to tremendous success. You also talk a little bit in the book about the culture of the company being the lifeblood of it, right?

That the people, the culture are really important to how a company develops and grows. Can you just talk a little bit more about the importance of finding your gatekeeper for your company and how it can be a catalyst for greater

[00:11:19] Joe: success for you? Well, to begin with, we had six failures you know, number seven was a success.

So, am I good or am I bad? Or did I learn? Did I learn? I probably learned from having six. That didn't work. And what I learned, it wasn't the people. It was how we approach the market. Because for those years that I tried, for 10 years, I tried to push, promote, try to get the brand on the market. And maybe if we had understood more about influences and had the finance to do that.

We would have probably used influences to [00:12:00] get on the market, but neither Paul nor our small factory back in the UK has that much spare cash. So we had to find something else. So what the influence that we got was getting five stars, five stars in runner's world. So we became accredited. And once we had that, that was our influence.

It influenced us to take onto the market. Paul, we just put Paul on at that time, Paul came in with the five stars. So he had the influence in behind him. And our previous six attempts, we'd not found a way to influence the market. But once we influenced the market with five stars, that was it. And Paul took tremendous advantage of that.

Tremendous. And that was really good, as I say if if it hadn't been selling the company instead of finding somebody who could take it to the next level and that to me was the only disappointment that we had in, in the growth, but I think you're [00:13:00] going to find Reebok now are going to be a tremendous Tremendous challenge to anybody who's out there on the market in the sports football market.

[00:13:08] Damon: That's really amazing. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next with Reebok. Thank you so much for your time today, Joe. I really appreciate you being here. I know it's early. Once again, the book is called Shoemaker. I hope you'll pick it up. It's a wonderful read, Joe. Thanks for being here. I appreciate your time.

[00:13:24] Joe: Thank you, Damon. And it's been a pleasure. An absolute pleasure. It must be early in the morning for you. But, uh. I'm

[00:13:31] Damon: an early guy, Joe. I'm an early guy. I gotta get stuff done. Take care. All the best.

[00:13:36] Joe: And the same to you. Bye bye. Thank you. Bye.