0:00 everyone that goes man I just want to be my own boss so I can have freedom and I'm like that's St that's the stupidest thing overrated and you're running a business is going to give you more time it is sick in your 20s yeah that's true in your 20s you're in disbelief that you're earning off a fun so I encourage everybody to be a failure up until their 30s they get a real job [Music] after welcome back everybody to the most amazing episode of the careful boys where today we are blessed to have BD in the BD welcome to the show all right thanks for having me so we got to know how how did you and bar get connected do you know how we got connected cuz I know how I got connected I I honestly don't remember I was trying to think some maybe it was through wisan was it okay yeah yeah so um back
0:50 in 2020 when we first started the like um teasing the idea of selling barbell I was like I don't know anybody in like the buying and selling of business space so I just reach out to anybody and then one of the biggest business people that I know is Bobby hunds so I was like yo first of all are you down to buy B Brigade and then he's super creative so he actually said yes oh that would be tight it' be cool to like do a fitness thing whatever and then Ben was like no we got too much that we got Ben is his so it's Bobby's creative Ben is like Finance operations guy he's like ████ no stupid idea I was like son of a ████ I was like can you at least point me in the right direction and then Bobby's like my lawyer handles all kinds of crazy ████ um like he represents a bunch of like musicians there all kinds of celebs and stuff okay
1:40 cool thank you so much and then uh he linked me with this guy name I don't know if I should put his fullone name out there but his last name is wisman and uh sounds like a real lawyer yeah a real lawyer first and thank God to this guy because through a lot of the conversations I've had in like the m&a space this fo don't around which I really really really really like he's like a pit bull like ready to just talk ████ and um he was like okay cool let me let me see what I could do um he was like he's like your company's kind of small um I don't know if anyone wants to buy your ████ he like he he shoots it straight oh that's cool I don't know if anyone wants to buy your ████ well he's like pretty much like you're in no man's land he's like if you're 10 mil and under like like the evaluation it's literally selling her business on Craigslist it's not a complete car it's running but it's missing paint or it page missing a
2:31 transmission he goes you can't technically list it on like one of those uh like what are those a big boy page yeah like a big boy P like bring your trailer you can't listen on those bring a trailer you still want to bring a trailer I know that's true and you can't put on a big boy page you got to put it on like eBay these little like so bids by sale is a small P yeah yeah they're like all those guys are like small you the minute you cross the you need to bring in an investment banker that's legit so everything is small so I let me ask around um and then he was like hey you know what like one of my friends all these guys they already crushed in whatever business they did they actually came in to do like a super group called Golden Circle and uh they might be interested in taking you guys on cuz they're looking for passion projects and then that's when he linked me with you and Peter they're looking for
3:22 Charities freebies most so that's where we linked up that's where we Linked UP yeah and then so our original discussions uh didn't work out cuz they were going to do like a half operating deal which I thought was pretty cool but what what I thought was super cool about Bey and his team is Although our deal didn't work out from that point on he has been like this open book of like a soundboard I could bounce ideas off of so he's kind of become like a mentor where I can go hey what do you think about this is this Shady or whatever and cuz a lot of people it's a lot of people it's like they they do something with you and if it doesn't work out well ████ you you know but then for them like they been friends with the whole time and then you'll check in with me like how's the sell going is it no one still wants to buy it huh I'm like yeah that's it so charity work bar pulled up to gcg in in a Silverado and I
4:14 had like the same silver black silver a and I was like I'm going to get along good with this it was the exact same black one and black one and so I rolled in and then I was like who is that so that must have taken a lot of planning for you to sink that in advance bar bought a Silverado for that reason I'm going to get this guy for yeah so for those of you guys that that don't know um BD was one of the founders of DVS OG shoe company Maddox Lai and then everyone else in his group have are super big names and whatever they did and so it's really cool to have been able to cross paths with an entrepreneur that's like dealing with stuff that's on a way high level like I met your guys' CFO at one point and then like just it's like the stories they would tell cuz I would tell my stories and I think like my world's
5:04 ending and and they would be like oh yeah uh our our VP of like the the UK chapter at that time would like do whatever and I'm like what the ████ you guys have territories like that I'm like and I'm just complaining about they won't let the licensing go through or whatever so before he keeps rambling about the failur of the barbell can you tell us how you got started how you got into the the skate DVS was my first pair of skate shoes was it really yeah thanks for I had the Navy oh he didn't buy them navy blue he stole them he stole them it was like a velvet navy blue one you're like we got it for free I had some LA's that's cool yeah how did you get into all of it so I was telling you guys earlier I grew up in the valley in San Fran Valley my family started a skate
5:55 snowboard company uh shop called 118 um so we did that for a bit um it was going well we kind of saw like some like white space in the market specifically in like the Footwear Market where at that time like on our wall it was just like DC Airwalk and etes so it was like very early on and uh what does WH space mean just like an opening B like a you know like a thanks Bart wait so when when you mention family is it like you and your cousins or your parents actually were parents so they're into cool stuff you know my dad is very entrepreneurial so I wouldn't say he's into cool stuff he was into like figuring business out he say
6:47 your dad's Tony HW I'm like you didn't know that you idiot so were they in into the sport or they were just like there's an opportunity here they were more into to the opportunity in the business my oldest brother um he's 7 years older than me he had just graduated from USC so my dad's like yo you just finished business school like ████ run a business you know what I mean so they were trying to figure out kind of what type of business essentially the family can buy that he could run um and that's where we landed on this you know kind of basically like skate snowboard shop that's cool so yeah from there was like figured out the retail thing which retail is difficult that took a bit um you kind of fail a bit and then you kind
7:38 of figure some things out and then uh yeah we ended up launching DVS out of there which was like 95 so it's like a homegrown brand out of your shop out of the shop yeah wow between you and your brothers um at that time it was me and my oldest brother and then uh my middle brother was actually in software at that time he ended up joining kind of the the business like a few years later um so at that time was like me and my oldest brother and then both my mom and dad were very that's cool involved family business dope more on like my dad on like the the finance side so without like internet how did you guys go like this is how we're going to make shoes literally that's that's a great question the funny thing is my my oldest
8:29 brother Kevin had gone to the library like reading about stuff figuring out stuff old school there was no like M are blown Library oh yeah the library and then was able to contact some manufacturers in Korea and just had to go out and go for it and go meet Faith buy airplane tickets hi Mr Park would you make some shoes for me that's crazy crazy Mr Park wow it probably Mr park right Mr Kim what was his name I'll think of it Mr perkim I'm thinking his first name was oh no it was his it was Lee Lee third one we overlooked it did it take off right away or like would you
9:20 no nothing takes off right away Bart that was those wise words right there that was a gem we just got a gem write down somebody no it took a bit and honestly it was like the first I remember our first run of production coming in and what there was three Styles and one of the Styles was like totally defective like it had these like lace loops on it and they were like they were all trash and we were like literally having to go through each one and put like a a philli screwdriver to like to see if the lace Loops would hold and then like you're like oh no that one's broken and it was a disaster Mr Lee how do you um with those Brands like like etes Airwalk or whatever how are
10:11 you able to position DVS in your store where people like oh like what are those what up guys thank you for watching us for so long if you like what we do please support our patreon Joe tell them what we have to offer so every week you get two videos one never relased director's cut and another one too hot for YouTube patreon only every freaking week you get that and you get access to our Discord where you can come chat with us and ask us questions that become episodes here cuz we're going to answer them and we're going to take it seriously and we want to give you the responses that you want so come stay connected with us join our patreon click the description below for full details I think primarily I mean obviously it was like all of us were rocking it our Windows was at like we made it like a thing and it was like at that time I'd say in Southern
11:03 California I mean the store was 6,000 square ft had a mini ramp in it so it was a very huge it was like a premier kind of shop so and we carried everything you know what I mean um and so I think it kind of we're able to put it on this like pedestal in there just with all the other brands so it felt just as kind of big as anything else in there uh and that definitely helped for sure did you guys pretend like you didn't own it like oh it's a new brand from Korea it's crazy these guys must be really cool I think everybody everybody kind of put it together you know what I mean yeah I think that that was kind of hard to hide how did like the hardcore skate Community like accept it like for the actual Community oh I mean great yeah I mean from early on one of the one of our
11:55 partners we had brought in was professional skater Tim Gavin um and obviously he had you know he'd been professional skater you know most of his life so he had like a great network of athletes and you know riders that he pulled in um and then we had a great group of like young kids at the shop that were like coming up so they had a mix of just like good kind of established athletes and then like a really good like young group of like kids coming up that were going to be like the Next Generation you know like one of our uh main skate team manager skate buyer was Andy nein which was then became like one of the co-founders of primitive um perod like rode for us and he was on the team so we had like a mix
12:46 of like kind of that like group of Valley kids that were like either became very highend athletes or running other businesses so it's a pretty cool like network of people that came came out of there what do you feel like your shoe with like DBS what did that bring to the table that maybe like air Walker ety didn't at that time nothing no you you had the you guys had the removable lace Loops I remember you just stick a screwdriver in there first of was kind come right off big fan man how how old were you when you when you got involved in everything so he doesn't have to answer my question it's not a big deal he already did it I think it was a joke I think okay no he's serious do you want me to answer not
13:37 anymore I would way rather know how old you were that's more important because his entrepreneurial Journey started when competing in elementary school or in high school high school yeah I was in uh 11th grade that must have been a cool time cuz you're working at a cool shop you're around cool people yeah hey great question dude thank you probably one of the best of the day anytime anybody thinky ask me about like when did you started making a parel cuz I started making like shop teas and stuff like that and I was like in high school so I'm like like 11th grade yeah well that was like pre-child labor law stuff that's all good C back then it was fine work I'm old that was a long time ago what was the first Milestone that you're like oh ████ we took DVS to this level
14:27 but more importantly how old were you at that moment yeah dates I get very like I remember like big dates and then anything in between I'm like I don't really remember when that was um God I don't know you know I'd say the biggest thing is like I remember this was probably later on but when we had like invoiced a million dollars in a month I was like godam a month wow that's in the '90s huh ████ that's when like were you talking on that big ass we invoiced a million dollar in a month but I remember that was like a massive like a massive Milestone you know wasn't it not even a million in a year was not massive to you well in the '90s yeah I mean I I remember when I was like 20 and at the retail store we had
15:20 done like a million dollars in sales wow and it was always funny cuz my dad was like he was almost like telling one of our family friends and he was like hey you know the the Shop's going to do a million dollars and at that time DVS had just kind of got started my brother was focusing on that I was focusing on the store and my dad was telling my family friend he's like hey you know the Shop's going to do a million dollars this year and you know PD is not old enough to drink yet and it was just always funny because he like put these things together as like here I'm 20 and we had just got this like store to like pretty decent were you drinking uh a little bit yeah little bit hardcore now I know why no one wants to buy a barbade that's ████ crazy you know so what was like right
16:10 after DVS or like what prompted the next projects for you so once we uh we had got DVS going um some more white space art was in the in the clothing side of it we had kind of established DV s the US uh retailers Distributors and then we found an opportunity hey if we can build a clothing company we would then be able to sell these stores shoes and clothing um and so we ended up launching that in '98 so was a few years later and didn't really have like I knew how to make some basics in apparel but not like deep cutting so stuff you were doing the design work too I mean at that point
17:00 honestly we barely had any like staff so I don't know if you really call it design you know but yeah resizing the same logo in different places yeah it's more like taking stuff we really liked and like adjusting it and then like go market how did how did you guys like assign roles and do all that like working with the family could be crazy but like yeah how old were you when you were assigning and as a as a teenager too working with family and all that without blowing it all up that's it honestly family my my brother had kind of just taken the role of like running all the shoe side of stuff like very early on um because we had the shoes and we had the retail
17:50 store so I was doing the retail store he started doing the shoes so that was kind of that established itself and then I would go go back and forth and like pick up more inventory and bring it back to the store and then I was like yo you guys like out of shirts and it was like his answer is like hope ████ can make some more then all right so then literally from that I just was like all right I guess I'll do the clothing um so just started doing like the DVS apparel learning more about that kind of expanding that product line and then to a few years later then we're able to kind of launch an entire line with Maddox that's it it wasn't very like scientific of how ████ happened it was just like okay now you figure it out you know move on to the next problem do you
18:40 feel like that's like the main thing of like entrepreneurship is just no one knows anything and everyone's just figuring ████ out all the time yeah 100% I don't know anybody that knows anything and just kind of going for it you know like I feel like nowadays I'm a lot more conservative like back then I didn't really know so we were just kind of doing ████ but it was almost like good to not know yeah you know cuz you're like ████ it let's try it is there a part of you now that kind of like misses that feeling a little bit Yeah cuz now you just have there's so much more responsibilities and like you know back then you're young like you didn't really need to make very much was like renting a little apartment with a few people and like yeah so was kind of like ████ it yeah but now there's a lot more to like there's a lot more responsibility so it it gets a little
19:31 more tricky right but you've also learned a lot you that told me um like something happened you needed to not I don't think it was Paris fashion week but you needed to ship something somewhere and then it couldn't go through so you're just like well ████ it you jump on the plane tomorrow and you just throw it in your luggage and you take it oh yeah we do that ████ all the time like what was what was that story again cuz like uh that was for that was a Golden Circle that was for local Authority um so we worked with that brand for a while um and samples were late the all the samples and the crew already left samples are always late huh s ████ samples yeah it's always like that ████ samples every ████ industry God damn so yeah we got some more samples and then um one of the guys
20:22 in the office I was like look you want to go to Paris and he's like when I'm like later today and he's like ████ yeah and I like cool bring that suitcase and I grab you a ticket and you're out bring the samples cuz that's what it's always all about I feel like an entrepreneurship is just like how do you always think outside of the box to get the same ████ done yeah but then also I think the fun part of that is like you're always brainstorming some crazy idea but then the stressful part is if it happens consistently then you're like ████ I have zero stability or predictability in my life too you went through it yeah it's It's Tricky I don't know if you guys have all like own businesses or you know obviously outside of this but like it's hard man there's a lot to it everyone that goes man I just want to be my own boss so I can have freedom and I'm like that's St that's the stupidest thing I've ever hear stay
21:12 working a job don't the hell you thinking running a business is going to give you more time are you ████ stupid it is sick in your 20s it's so sick like you said sounds really good too when you just don't have as much responsibilities of things to tie you down you don't have children you don't have a mortgage or whatever you're down to just like live off the streets and stuff it's it's ████ tight cuz you feel like when you barely move the needle feels like you did something crazy you know yeah it's true I'm just yeah that's true in your 20s you're in disbelief that you're earning off of fun yeah for real so I encourage everybody to be a failure up until their 30s get a real job after 30s get a real job with benefits yeah Healthcare and ████ like that especially if you have a family and stuff Dental Dental's good yeah so how old were you when you had a family or
22:03 when you got Dental let talk about that
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