David Fogarty: 0:00

probably a bad thing about our education system is that people don't even understand that business is an option for them, that there's low barriers to entry nowadays to start a business, any kid can start a business. So even just understanding seeing it in the smallest form, and this is why it should be taught within school, business, and how entrepreneurship and those kinds of things we worked, we talked about positive feedback loops as well, most important thing you can do is align those learnings that you are currently doing to the end result not just like what's going to happen next week, not the month after, but you're reading this book is going to give me whatever I want. And that mentioned as you said it so that creates that positive feedback loop. You just invested in Bitcoin, you know, hats off to you, who just you. Your neighbor said that they invested in it, you put a bunch of money in it, now you're a multimillionaire, if that gets taken away from you, do you still have the skill set, discipline on capital allocation decisions to make that into what you want it to be? We've talked about happiness, there's no point if you are successful, and have optionality to put yourself through an unhappy thing to create money. Yeah, that's against what we're trying to do in our lives. We're trying to create freedom. I'm starting to get this philosophy that if something is hard in business, you just have the wrong person, as a leader, and that's a really that sound might sound like a cruel thing to say, maybe they've got better somewhere else, or maybe they're just not worth

Daniel Franco: 1:27

the fight for your business at that particular time. Right.

David Fogarty: 1:30

You know, this is the this is the odd thing. You're upgrading the plane as you're flying. You can't afford a good captain initially, like a very experienced captain, or that Captain changes as they need to go as you grow. So we're at a place now where we have a great senior leadership team. I'm actually announcing a new CEO very, very shortly.

Daniel Franco: 1:52

Hey there, my name is Daniel Franco. And this is the creating Synergy Podcast your business and leadership podcast where we speak to high profile leaders and thinkers about their careers and dig deep by asking the questions we all want the answers to uncovering their stories, strategies, leadership lessons, and their secrets to success. Today on the show, we have Davie Fogarty, founder of the Oodie and calming blankets and many other brands, as well as being the 2022 winner of the 40 under 40 Entrepreneur Award and social media sensation, amassing hundreds and 1000s of followers on YouTube tick tock, Instagram, you name it. He is a 27 year old university dropout and after failing many business ventures, he started his E commerce business the Oodie and calming blankets in 2018. And as they say the rest is history. With the Oodie becoming a lockdown essential. Fogarty has since started and acquired new brands to build the Davie group, which has done now over $400 million in sales. His entrepreneurial mindset revolves around staying humble and helping other e commerce companies succeed, which has proven to be successful time and time again. In this episode, Davie and I go through not only his entrepreneurial journey, but the ups and downs of extreme scale, and how he manages his mental health to stay on top of his game. We then talked about the importance of positive feedback loop the importance of having a great team around you. And now we explored the reason why they announced the new CEO recently. So without further ado, here is my chat with David Fogarty. So welcome back to the Creating Synergy Podcast. I'm sitting here today in the beautiful home or at down at Glenelg have David Fogarty, CEO and founder of the Davie group. Thanks for coming on the show, mate.

David Fogarty: 3:50

Thanks for having me.

Daniel Franco: 3:52

It's a real pleasure You've obviously done very, very well your career and your your growth and scale is widely written about and you've got your own social media channels, which I empower everyone to jump on to your you're very much the educator. So thank you for all you're doing in that space. Brands like the Oodie calming blanket pup naps, I know. I know. There's a lot of oodies in my household and the blankets as well. First question I want to ask you though, is what would you do?

David Fogarty: 4:26

I've been through a fair in my time, the avocado and toast cellar and I have a certain affinity that one

Daniel Franco: 4:35

yeah, my daughter's got the avocado one. Most of Adelaide do. Yeah, my other daughters got the Sloth. And it just suits her personality. Yeah,

David Fogarty: 4:45

well, that's the point of the character. Yeah, gotta you know reconcile with the person.

Daniel Franco: 4:49

Absolutely. Is the avocado one your favorite? Is that the ultimate?

David Fogarty: 4:53

Ah, look they are all cool. Oh, cool. Golden Retriever one. So nice. A shout out which hopefully you can hear him upstairs. Yeah, that'd be good.

Daniel Franco: 5:04

Brilliant. So I said your story is widely spoken about. But I'd love to really unpack that a little bit more just for the people listening in who may have not heard your story before. How did where did you? How did this all come about? How did we find ourselves here in this beautiful home and Glenelg? And and you're building this, what is now a global brand?

David Fogarty: 5:27

Yeah, it, you know, I've always been somewhat entrepreneurial, since I can remember, I wish I could remember the causes of why I became, you know, who I am, I think I was just always trying to achieve, whether it be, you know, in sport or in business, I had a really amazing time growing up, you know, my parents were incredibly inspiring the small business owner, and, you know, incredibly nurturing family that encouraged risk taking and learning and those kinds of things, you know. So from from that point, I just kept trying things. I pushed myself in there last year of school, that earlier years of school, I was borderline going to get expelled. But that's, that's another story. And then, yeah, went into university flunked out about twice. And it all during that time, I was growth, hacking Instagrams, creating Instagrams, and selling advertising on those Instagram. So that really got me into the digital space, sold out very, very early from those kind of things, because I just didn't understand the potential and where the world was going. And then ended up you know, started consulting for a lot of a lot of brands, you know, small brands, just learning the skills, learning how to do digital marketing, that then pushed me into E commerce, which I launched calming blankets, it was a weighted blanket, that was our biggest brand. I was like, let's launch wearable blankets. It wasn't a huge leap from that. Ad. Yeah. Then we started growing the David group, which is now a portfolio company, we've done over $400 million in four years. And we're quite profitable as well.

Daniel Franco: 7:11

Doing very well. Oh, can we touch on why you gonna get expelled with the story on the day, but let's talk about that. Today.

David Fogarty: 7:19

I was looking through my report cards the other day trying to figure out when kind of inflection point was, and I think it was, I went to, it was year nine that I went to the parent teacher interview. And it was the one where my dad came instead of my mom is time. Teachers, every single one of them just absolutely slaughtered me. So

Daniel Franco: 7:44

it was a what was it? Like just talking too much?

David Fogarty: 7:46

I don't know if I can swear a little shit on it. I was just a little shit, as you know, completely disruptive class, I wouldn't concentrate. I wouldn't apply myself. I don't think I was ever rude. But definitely, I'm sure that teachers found me rude because I wasn't paying attention. So that, you know, and that was that that's it, you know, I had, I had the blessing of going to an incredible School, which is Mercedes. And I was squandering that. And after the interview, I was driving home with my dad, and he just said, look like, if you don't want this school, that's fine. Like, I'll just, we'll just move to a public school. And like, if this is what you want to do, it is and it was, it wasn't, you know, aggressive in any way. It was just really eye opening. And then that was that was probably the first step. Did you stay there, I did stay there. The next year, I had two teachers, and I think this is, you know, some, this is quite powerful in that those teachers sat me down and like, actually explained that what I had was special, not special, but I had potential, so which everyone does have in their own way, but they explained why I had potential like I was I was relatively intelligent, and I was very, very curious all the time. And that's a superpower. And the ability, the wanting to learn is really really important. So they started to take some some interest in me and they really didn't nurture me they took me kind of off in class sometimes and taught me extra things, my grades started coming up and it's these positive feedback loops that can are so important negative feedback loops of getting yelled at in class hating class even more, there's a negative feedback loop. This was a positive feedback loop. They rewarded me they I got the better grades and I got kind of addicted to that process. And then from there, you know, I wasn't a plus student, but you know, I really pride myself I did the hardest subjects possible physics, maths, chemistry, like in year 12, just to try to prove myself there. And they were really kind of that that inflection point. So it's, there's plenty of lessons within that can you name

Daniel Franco: 9:59

can we name The teachers who Yeah, so

David Fogarty: 10:02

Mr. Mrs. Kerrigan and Mr. Graham was, was really good. And Mr. Wolfe was also awesome. And then ended up having Miss Leigh as well who she, you know, chemistry was a slug for me ended up getting an A in the exam, which is like an a testament to her. So, yeah, I think I don't know what the school is like. Now I don't have heaps of involvement. But I recognize that when I was there, I had had some pretty great people,

Daniel Franco: 10:28

isn't it? It's so important, and kudos to those teachers. Hopefully, they're listening in and watching your journey. The the power of the teachers that nurture our children, right and nurture the kids growing up is so fundamental. And sometimes the I think the the, the job itself gets lost on on these teachers. So, so good to hear that he's literally changing the world now. Right? So for teachers, or four or five teachers that you've named there, have potentially created what is

David Fogarty: 11:06

they have such a, an access point into these kids lives. And I think that the frequency is so important to help nurture, and teachers and parents that are mean people that have so much access. So, yeah, it's it's really important, but I've had great influences along my way. And I've always had bad influences that I've learned what not to do, as well. So yeah, I think it's, it's, it's really important growing up like,

Daniel Franco: 11:34

what, there's a there is a statistic somewhere floating around, I don't have it and don't quote me on it. But there is a they say that you're more likely to go into your own business if your parents have run their own business, right? Like it's 90 percentile, something like that. Did your parents having their own business running? Was it a successful business that they ran? Was it those teachings, those learnings that really drove that curiosity in you at an early age?

David Fogarty: 12:01

Yeah, so my grandpa, when he came to Adelaide, he started classic timber furniture, which is on ANZAC highway, and then my dad, it was always a family business, and my dad took over that it was never like a ginormous multinational or anything like that. But it was, you know, it was a successful business, it got it paid for our life. And, you know, were were quite well off and happy and stuff like that. So that that is, I think, again, it's these positive, positive mentorships, or things you see in a positive light that shaped what you want to do. I'm sure there's people that had a very negative experience with a parent's with business and would vowed never to do it. So there's undoubtably that I think people don't even understand like, it's a it's probably a bad thing about our education system is that people don't even understand that business is an option for them, that there's low barriers to entry nowadays, to start a business, any kid can start a business. So even just understanding seeing it in the smallest form. And this is why it should be taught within school, business and entrepreneurship and those kinds of things as well. So yes, it definitely had a positive.

Daniel Franco: 13:21

Just a quick note, this episode is brought to you by Synergy. IQ leaders in enabling change. Synergy IQ are the ones you call when the change or challenge seems so complex, and you don't know where to start. But more importantly, were the ones you call when you want to make a change that will actually last if you want to check them out. It's at Synergy. iq.com.au. Yes, you are right. The I did, we did a talk at a school recently. And the the amount of feedback that we got that I got from parents and, and the like, was just the idea that a child could get into podcasting. Like you could see some of the light bulbs go off. This is actually an option. This is awful. This is something I listened to on the radio. So you're right, if we can introduce entrepreneurship, and the idea of starting business, Andrew Nunn, who's the chief entrepreneur of South Australia, he's big on that. And he's talking about how do we get that happening more because this is how we create innovation. This is how we grow this state. This is how we grow the you know, put Australia on the map from from a startup point of view. That's what we really want to see. So I am I'm really interested in your one of your videos. You mentioned of your YouTube videos. Now you have a very big following on YouTube. So anyone listening in get out and get in and check that out. You will learn an amazing amount of stuff on ecommerce and all the above but you said if there was one thing that you could do again, like you could change I should say would be your general mindset. Can you elaborate on the general mindset change what's so terrible about the experience that you are in, you know, this, this brand that you've built, which is, you know, wildly successful? Why would you change your mindset?

David Fogarty: 15:10

I think, I think when we are our mindset in every single way, and I think there's very beautiful things about business. And then there's also negative things about business. And those negative things are widely known, like the fear of failure, the fear that we can disappoint people, the stress, that time commitment, things can become very toxic. If you don't actually enjoy every single part of it as well, you're forced to do something you don't like. I think, I think what I want within my mindset is a detachment of materialistic things. Because I think, you know, desire is just a contract of, you'll be unhappy until that's fulfilled, and then once you get it, you will want something else. And that's just that the hedonic treadmill, you're just constantly running. You know, that's a novel, quote, I highly recommend anyone listening should look him up. So is my absolute favorite. He's my favorite. You know, there's all these business business like tycoons and you know, as aspired to be more around that, then a billionaire. Nowadays, there's a really cringe worthy clip of me walking up on stage at my school saying, you know, in five years time, there'll be a billionaire. And I'm just like, I don't want that anymore. That's not my desire whatsoever. My desire is to be happy, healthy, and just generally, peaceful in life. So I think that's the mindset, I'm working. I constantly have this battle. And around that, around, you know, that the ambition that I have, and the wanting to prove what I know that I can prove, because I can become a billionaire. Like, I genuinely believe that if I keep working hard and keep learning and keep on this trajectory, with a bit of luck, as well, as there's always that bit of luck. But at the same time, I don't, I don't think that that would be the right decision for my own happiness. And I'm working at the same time to become more peaceful and mindful.

Daniel Franco: 17:10

Which the I think you're right, if you become or you're on the path to building it, and not not not putting down anyone who's in that room, because they're obviously changing the world, right? You have, you can only get that big if you are having an impact. But you're right, there's something that you have to sacrifice. And then it might be happiness, it might be a general health, it might be, you know, if you've got a family might be time with your loved ones, right. And so

David Fogarty: 17:35

I think it becoming a billionaire from inventing and creating a lot of utility and happiness and efficiency for other people employment, like that's a huge reward in itself. But you know, what do you have to sacrifice for yourself to create that happiness in the world it doesn't it really matter?

Daniel Franco: 17:54

To you, like sinervo, has very much the philosophical approach. I know you're quite close with Toby PS, who is a big reader and works in that loves that home philosophy world, I am a big lover of that space as well. Is that something you've turned to recently? Like? Where did that shift come from where, you know, because your YouTube channel does talk about I can make a million dollars, I can do this, I can do that. How to build a multimillion dollar business, it is money focused in some parts, probably see that change over time now, given what you're saying, but where did that shift come from? For you? Was it the simple fact that You've now made you've built a business that is successful that you're able to shift your mindset? Or, you know, what? Yeah,

David Fogarty: 18:41

very well, maybe because I achieved the milestone, or some of the milestones that I initially had, and I, I have optionality. I don't, I don't think anyone. Again, stealing involves just listening to his book as

Daniel Franco: 18:58

we could, you know, get a meal day,

David Fogarty: 19:00

it's very hard to tell someone that doesn't have money, that money doesn't buy happiness. But once you achieve it, you can actually see hang on this didn't achieve the deep desire that I have. And I thought it would, so you look elsewhere. And I think there's also an element of of stoicism and understanding the stoics of the past that help you within business because it is all about being at peace with your decision making and understanding that the obstacle is the way Ryan Holiday amazing book. That Yeah, so there's kind of it kind of converges into you know, what, what mentors you're looking up to, while you're looking at them and then you've got the you've previously achieved those goals. So I think that that all kind of plays into the to effect because it's a common path like what I'm going through now, when people get a lot of money and they're like, hang on, what what am I gonna do? Yeah, what next and we have desires, we are humans, I don't think you should completely disconnect. You know, I'm not going to commit to this so much that I'm a monk with no materialistic desires can't see that. I think that maybe one day, I don't know, I will never say never. But yeah, I think you need to recognize what makes you happy, what makes you fulfilled, what still allows the other cups of your life, you know, like family or friends to also be fulfilled. Because if the business and that one desire is draining, all of those things that we know, biologically, are important to longevity and happiness, like the Harvard men's study is like the longest study of happiness. And that was all about your inner connections, your close circles. So by letting business drain those we understand through science, that that's not a great, great thing. So yeah, I'm not sure if that makes sense. It

Daniel Franco: 20:50

did. And just to, I think, like, we need to catch up outside of this talk about Ryan Holiday as well, because I'm obstacle was the was definitely a book that had a major impact on me that with Ego is the Enemy. His book, I

David Fogarty: 21:07

haven't read that, but I will, the obstacle is a way, you know, I wouldn't go through it three times. Yeah. And every time I go through it, you know, the kind of milestones in my life that I was going to lose business twice. They, you know, look back at them, and they were so small, those moments, but they don't feel small in that moment. But the books like that was completely having mentors. You know, I don't like to think of mentors, as someone that I have a coffee with every week. It's like, you can look at people that are even dead as mentors and use their learning. So I really rely on Ryan Holiday and his teachings, or they're not even his teachings all the time. Yes. Really. Santa Clara and stuff. Some

Daniel Franco: 21:49

Some of my best friends aren't even alive today, mate. Like, I just rely on these people on the writings of these people to just to help me through Yeah, 100%. There's something you mentioned about losing business twice, we're going to dive into that shortly. But I really want to you talked about happiness. I am. I am in constant search in the in the pursuit of happiness to quote, the quote that the if we were to think about happiness as a recipe or a concoction, or whatever you want, where there's so many different ingredients that go into it, all the different levels, right? You know, they might have 20 mil here and 100 mil of this or whatever it might be. What what is your formula right now? What do you think is will help you achieve what you're looking for in from the happiness scale?

David Fogarty: 22:45

Sure, I don't think I've got it figured out. If I was one to 10, of how I figured out my happiness for myself, I'd probably better three. And I think I'm further than most people, to be honest. So I think it's such a such a long journey. And I don't think being smart helps. You know, there's, you know, there's always famous quotes, like, I don't think you're constantly critically thinking about everything and stressing yourself out not even just intelligence, it

Daniel Franco: 23:18

helps by the more, you know, the more you realize the less you know.

David Fogarty: 23:21

it's just it's just, it's it's a vicious kind of cycle of constantly questioning yourself. I do think that it's an element of learning that, you know, we've mentioned these amazing people that have kind of taught us to a degree. And I think it's constantly about expanding those readings and trying to contradict things within that and contradict things in your life that within those readings, and just constantly tinkering. I love my life, I think I am happy. I think, part A lot of that is tied to the optionality that I have, because of the success of my business. So if that ever got taken away, I could see myself being unhappy. And that is exposure in itself. So if you're looking at things, and if you're looking at certain parts of your life, certain people and you say if this got taken away from me, would I be unhappy? That is a problem. Because you can't control other people. You can't control what happens in business as much as we try to. There's so many black swan events. So I think it's being at peace with you know, the smallest amount of materialistic possessions and connections as well.

Daniel Franco: 24:31

To the pressure that comes in with running business is huge. Right. And it sounds to me that recently you've put in some time and extra time and effort to read some of this stoicism you know Microsoft releases of the world Ryan holidays. In the vial. Is that was the learning process of your career. Did that start early like or did you just go I want to make money. So therefore I'm going to do whatever I can now that I've made some money, I'm actually going to try to become a little bit more stoic.

David Fogarty: 25:07

Yeah. Your reading shifts with what you're trying to achieve. There's no doubt about that. You start with business books. And eventually you realize all business books are basically the same thing. They're just repackaged ways you read it, and you go, Oh, that's so true. It's just like, yeah, you because you already know. It's the books that you read that you'll just like, you'd need to read four times because you don't actually understand it. And then only until an external thing happens that do you like connect it? But yeah, it's kind of I started with business books in. And then I think now I'm looking at more like subject matter, like expertise, like I'm reading a book on AI trying to superpowers.

Daniel Franco: 25:47

So those you post that? Yeah. That's a good

David Fogarty: 25:51

read. Yeah. Yeah. Really, really cool. I think these are the things where you just read two chapters in like, am I actually interested in this topic? Because that's the worst thing, I don't need to put myself through pain just so I can get a bigger bookshelf. And I've just always loved the, the fact that there's Stoics, and the teachings can last generations. And I think that that's very that AI superpowers book will become relevant, eventually, these teachings will always be relevant. And so yeah, I think that that's what I really like about it, but they definitely have shifted, but again, I just tried to absorb as much as possible. Yeah.

Daniel Franco: 26:36

So to quote Novel, like I he's, methodology on reading, completely changed my life, because I always thought, growing up after reading the book from start to finish, and I need to count how many books that I'm reading and you know, it was a race to who could read the most books. And then I remember I heard, I heard the vile say, one day that he picks up a book, he might read one chapter, just to get the knowledge out of that. Yeah. And then he put it down. And I'm like, that is mind blowing. And change completely changed my whole approach to reading. Also, early on in my career I worked with, I hadn't I had someone who I would consider a mentor, I've done a little bit of property development and played in that world, in my life. And this, this man said, to me, one day goes, your house the size of your house, you look at it, you see those big, beautiful houses, right, and they've got this big, beautiful library. And he said to me, the idea of that library, and the big beautiful house, like you can afford the library, because you've got this big, beautiful house, it actually works the other way around, build the library first. And then the big, beautiful house will come around and like it just changed my whole perspective on reading. Did you in your career and your growth in towards the Davie group and growing all these brands? Did you consistently learn and educate yourself throughout that time?

David Fogarty: 28:13

100% It's the only way you can succeed in business, especially when you're young, you don't have firsthand on the job experience. So you need to find people that have done it before, whether that's YouTube videos. You know, we've talked about a lot about reading, and it might sound like I'm some bookworm truth is a struggle to read. I don't read heaps and heaps of books a year, I watch a million YouTube videos, and I read blog posts and like, I go on PubMed and read studies there. So it's not just about books, but yeah, that they're the resources that I have relied on, to get to grow very, very quickly. And that's why I put so much time into my YouTube, you know, these people have unlocked the optionality. We keep talking about within my life and a degree of happiness as well. So to give that back, I think it's really

Daniel Franco: 29:05

Yeah, hands down. Podcasts are also

David Fogarty: 29:09

actually to be honest podcasts. I would almost put that above YouTube Yes. In how

Daniel Franco: 29:16

downloading the information from other people's brains and learning from their experiences. The going back to the topic of happiness, you mentioned earlier that if your business got taken away from you, there might be an element of you being unhappy. You know, the formula though now, don't you? Like isn't, couldn't you just recreate this

David Fogarty: 29:39

100% And that's the that's the argument you use yourself when you're feeling connection and attachment to something like that. You know, I'd probably do it quicker than a half done, to be completely honest and that there's a certain empowerment with knowing that you have learned the skill sets required. way to create whatever you want within your life. So let's compare that to something else where, let's say, you just invested in Bitcoin, you know, hats off to you, you just your neighbor said that they invested in it, you put a bunch of money in it, now you're a multimillionaire. If that gets taken away from you, do you still have the skill set and discipline on the capital allocation decisions to make that into what you want it to be? So it's, it's no different to winning the lottery. Right? Exactly, exactly. And most of those people lose their money anyway, and become really, really unhappy, which, yeah, so there's, there's so much we went through, we talked about positive feedback loops as well, the most important thing you can do is align those learnings that you are currently doing to the end result not just like what's going to happen next week, not the month after, but you know, reading this book is going to give me whatever I want. And that mentioned as you said it so that creates that positive feedback loop.

Daniel Franco: 31:00

You early in your career, you started out talking about formula. You started out hacking Instagram and helping businesses grow through their accounts and followings and all the above. I really struggle in this base. It's something that Gabriella and the team in my team always say, Dan you need to be able to be more active. People want to hear what you have to say all the above. What do you think? What are the benefits from growing these social media accounts? And does it help fast track some of the growth that you see within those businesses?

David Fogarty: 31:44

It's incredibly powerful. You know, Mr. Bass just opened a restaurant in. And so that was like 10,000 people stormed the mall, and he filled out a whole mall people were camping out for 24 hours, that is the power of community. And these followings. Yeah, he did 100 millionaires first year without opening a restaurant just selling like a franchise model, a digital franchise model through Uber Eats, these communities are so so powerful. There is the transactional element where you could just build a platform to advertise through and that's kind of the influencer model. But I think if you can build a community, where you really support people, all of the brands, the future direct to consumer ecommerce brands, the big ones will have that sense of following and that community behind them the digital platforms, they will get an influencer behind it and they will be the biggest Kim Kardashian just launched a fund as well, like yesterday, if you think about the value proposition of someone like me, okay, he's just in the early stages. And I go to one of these venture funds that they have, you know, a bunch of investments and some good strategic advisors, or I go to Kim Kardashian, and she can just post and just literally annihilate the competition and create all the capture all the market share within a week. It's, it's a no brainer. So community is is so good. And the way to do it is through those digital channels.

Daniel Franco: 33:13

As a CEO and Managing Director of Business, what can I do? Because I don't want to be the shot person that just stands in front of the camera. And hey, guys, like, you know, although I do that every now and again, it's just more the cause because the imposter syndrome kicks in, why would anyone want to listen to what I have to say?

David Fogarty: 33:34

I think there's a few things to unpack there. First of all, is it worth it? For a CEO? You know, we're we're capital allocators, and we're time allocators. As a CEO, it might not be the best time, like everything, is there someone we can hire to do that, to leverage that? And they might. And then there's the other point, which is, maybe it's just insecurities coming out that maybe that is the best of your use of your time, but you're making excuses. We've talked about happiness, there's no point if you are successful, and have optionality to put yourself through an unhappy thing to create money. Yeah, that's against what we're trying to do in our lives. We're trying to create freedom, and you are going to tie yourself to that role because once you're there you are irreplaceable. So there's like a lot of things to consider no situation is going to be exactly the same. I don't regret, like doing it for myself. Obviously, it's incredibly rewarding. But I don't recommend every single CEO to try to capture their audience through tick tock and also might not align with their brand. If you're a serious brand new, you're dancing around on tick tock, it's going to discredit you. So the way we did it at the Oodie which wasn't, which was quite quick, not many people have done this, but but it wasn't intentional, is we had a very, very talented person in customer service that had already grown a tick tock following and she just picked In the face, she handles the entire account, she creates all the content. She's on the platform 27. And we can measure the return on investment by post purchase surveys. So you understand how much this platform actually brings in incredibly lucrative for us, but for a small business, you need to justify it. And then sometimes also, role sharing abilities, because we're talking about creating content here. So, you know, there's plenty of places that you need content created that could get a return on investment, and you could just share that resource to at least explore something like tick tock, and that stuff.

Daniel Franco: 35:35

Yeah. In the corporate world, building Instagram, and I mean, LinkedIn in the corporate world is one that it's probably more prevalent. Is there a different approach for LinkedIn? Or is that something you've explored?

David Fogarty: 35:49

Sure. LinkedIn, Twitter is very underrated. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah. I've been meaning to get around it. But I don't think it would take be very hard to growth hack 100,000 Twitter followers quickly and get millions of impressions was why it's just, it's just a great platform, if just to create the communities strong, the ability to grow as strong, there's not many ads that really disrupt the platform, one like and it goes through this, just like LinkedIn, as well. So LinkedIn, you know, there's people like that have been on Twitter for ages that are now sharing that Twitter content onto LinkedIn. And it's just going viral, because they really do give a lot of impressions quite cheaply. So I think you've identified the two opportunities that I see there as well, to grow those platforms. And it's text based content as well, which is much, much easier. To a degree, you know, copy, we've really struggled to find a great copywriter that can replicate my tone of voice and understand the subject matters deeply as well. So

Daniel Franco: 36:51

brilliant. So your advice would be for everyone to try to grow that if you're looking to grow and scale your business?

David Fogarty: 36:59

It depends on what business it depends what returns you're gonna get, it depends how easily you can track those returns. It can also it also depends on what your long term objectives is, if these things are nonlinear, if it if it goes crazy, you it'll 100x Your business in three years. So it's about understanding the return on investment timeline, as well.

Daniel Franco: 37:22

So for any startup, or entrepreneurs, would your advice be to get onto the social media platforms and just promote the shit out of it right? Or would it be like at least test it at least at least test? You'd be silly not to,

David Fogarty: 37:36

you'd be silly. You'd be silly not to. There's really no, there's so many social media platforms that I'd be surprised in any business model that you couldn't get one of them to work if it's even a painting service provider for painting commercial houses tiktoks

Daniel Franco: 37:53

There's something so calming about the

David Fogarty: 37:56

service based consulting business, LinkedIn, and Twitter is probably going to work for Yeah.

Daniel Franco: 38:01

So how do you overcome uh, you and I talked about this off air before where, you know, the the idea of speaking publicly or people think listening to what we have to say, and actually, it means something to them, right? How do you do or manage the imposter syndrome that goes with those videos? How do you like someone, I spoke to our PR person yesterday. She's like, Dan, you know, Do this, do that, do this do that. That's literally the response that came out of my mouth was Why would anyone want to listen to me? Like, why? There's so many other great like, the vowel is, you know, these type of characters out there. Why would they listen to

David Fogarty: 38:47

me? Yeah, look, I don't know. I think yeah, I don't I question that I. I don't know whether I under value or over value, how much people listen to me. Maybe I'm in the middle of somewhere. I think the imposter syndrome is all around growth. If you're not, if you don't have impostor syndrome, chances are you're probably not like pushing yourself hard enough or putting yourself in growth situations. So I have very deep impostor syndrome. I don't know when it'll go away for whatever go away. But it's just something that you know, I'm working on I think I'm just trying to become more happy and complacent with how I see myself rather than how other people see myself. I think it's, it's it is definitely one of my my negative traits is how much I do care. So

Daniel Franco: 39:48

work on that how do you push aside the naysayers?

David Fogarty: 39:53

Yeah, it's a it's an interesting one. I've been asked this question a lot. And maybe it's my mindset around it at I feel like I have at this point in my life could change. I don't feel like I have that many people like trying to try to put me down. I maybe I just ignore them. Maybe my team hides the comments. I don't know. It's just we talk about tall poppy syndrome here. That's Australian term. But you know, I haven't really experienced that that much. Or maybe it's been hidden behind fake smiles. I don't know. But I feel very fortunate and supported.

Daniel Franco: 40:27

Because there Rome, there's a book that I'm reading at the moment. Have you heard

David Fogarty: 40:31

of Alex and Morty? Yeah, amazing. Yeah,

Daniel Franco: 40:34

I literally Yeah, so he's 100 million dollar off of book is one that I'm sort of diving into at the moment. He's being on tick tock and Instagram and all the above. And he there was, there's some points in there that he talks about from a growth and hacking scale point of view that talks about the numbers that you're earning from, like a revenue perspective can almost seem illegal. It can almost seem like, do you ever get that? But I was thinking, there's people he has he made. He had, he ran an event and it was to his highest paying people, and they're all paying $45,000 to be there. And he had 1000 people there. And he's that rings him. And he's saying, I thought you only getting your highest accounts. They're like, you've got 1000 people there. He goes, How much do you charge them? He said, $45,000. He's like, and they're often Yeah. Is that? Is that legal? Like is that? So there's this perception that of this money in the amount that you're earning that people actually think? Or you use? It's incredible.

David Fogarty: 41:43

Yeah, I you know, I think there's it's all it's all relative, people people will talk about, like how I'm quite humble around the results of what I've achieved. It's nothing compared to what other people are doing, like, what does Amazon make a day, it's just not even close. And that's almost unfathomable talk, talk to someone in business 30 years ago, and they just couldn't even comprehend the amount of money Apple and Amazon make. So I think it's all relative, the, the leverage that digital media provides, puts us out of our comfort zone, because we see a city, we see like, we drive around the city and we see 10 people at a given time, or we're at a concert and we see 50,000 people, suddenly, when you're flying over a city, you realize how untapped that or how commercial everyone actually is, and how big the pie actually is for everyone. And that's the beauty of capitalism. So, yeah, I think I think I get that, you know, we did 1.7 million in a day just selling goodies. And I'm just like, how is it this many people and then you fly over the world, and you just kind of realize how exciting things things actually are and how many opportunities

Daniel Franco: 42:57

to just smile.

David Fogarty: 43:01

Like, it's, if I'm not smiling, I like have to check myself and just be like, This is great. Pinch yourself, right? And, you know, times that you need to smile is when things are going wrong, like because they're not actually

Daniel Franco: 43:13

joking type smile, like

David Fogarty: 43:19

nice, I think, yeah, if I lost the dough tomorrow, I would, it would take me two days, but I would smile.

Daniel Franco: 43:27

But the smile of knowing the impact, like me coming here today, and I'm telling you that my whole family where he is, yeah, he's having an impact on people's lives. And the calming blanket for me is my wife works in the world of occupational therapy for children. And so the weighted blanket itself is just has a really calming effect on children. Right? So like, it is impactful, it is purposeful, there is some really great stuff that you're having impact on people's lives. Is that hit you?

David Fogarty: 44:02

Yeah, the Oodie's mission is to create moments of joy and happiness. And I think it does that, you know, we all have those sad nights where we're, you know, not feeling good about ourselves, or we're anxious and nobody does bring comfort. And that makes me very happy. It's it's a fun, like, there's videos of people having sleepovers where no one is laughing at each other. There's people there's friends in in the morning, walking Hungry Jacks together wearing Oodie. And I think that that's just such a beautiful thing. And the whole team takes a lot of pride in that. So, you know, I love bringing joy through brands that people can all talk to each other about as well. We talked about little software, they talk about software apps that make billions of dollars and it's kind of like we're not, you know, they're they're boring businesses. They're very lucrative businesses because of that. I generally try to avoid that because I like telling people like talking to people about my businesses and things like that. But I also, you know, I'm not naive to the fact that there are bigger issues in the world than those small moments for people. There's bigger things that entrepreneurs like myself, look at Elon Musk, like, what is he solving for humanity? Yes. And when there is an element of if you have the ability to change something powerful like that, you feel like somewhat of an obligation to go after a big issue and try to solve that. And I do have that poll. And we're talking about this push pull thing around, taking less on and being peaceful, but at the same time wanting to change the world. And it's, it's a massive conflict. But you know, right now, I need to do what's right for my business that I've got, I've got employees, I've got people that, you know, I'm getting older, there's an element that I need to set myself up for security. So I'm not taking on those big issues. But eventually, I would hope to

Daniel Franco: 45:57

have you seen the I saw like a tick tock post the other day, someone walking down the tarnish river, in their purple, purple Lily. And I had to laugh. And I'm just thinking, this is this is? Yeah, your new Katmandu jacket. So let's talk about the growth of of the Davie group and particularly Audi and on that, you really boomed over over COVID. But then you mentioned earlier in this conversation that you almost had the business go under? Yeah, can we explore that?

David Fogarty: 46:40

Sure. So we experienced rapid growth in COVID, there's there was two arguments to be made during that period when the lockdown stopped, was ecommerce penetration has increased. And this is somewhat sustainable. Hindsight is 2020. That's not what happened. It came off as huge inflation prints, there was a lot of problems in the world that iOS updates happened, which decimated digital advertising. All of that created a bit of a perfect storm. At the time I was I had a very, very large team, that we're working on lots and lots of brands, because I was hedging that our process and our business strategy was 100% sound, we could grow it, grow it really rapidly and keep keep you know, the the change was here, the shift from retail to DDC was was here. That's quite dramatic. But that was kind of the thinking. That isn't what happened. We needed to restructure the organization and put more focus on the Oodie, which was the main breadmaker, we were trying to diversify horizontally when we should have been scaling vertically through the audit, which is an amazing brand. It was a really strong lesson in capital allocation and pushing, pushing for growth past a point that we shouldn't have been and yet unfortunately, it was a it was a very hard lesson. It was a very stressful time there was lawsuits going on, as well. So yeah, it was it was a tough, tough learning COVID as

Daniel Franco: 48:16

well, I can feel my chest is tensing up like in just understanding and knowing what you would have been going through Do you? How did you manage that? Personally, through that time? How did you get through that?

David Fogarty: 48:28

You know, I look, I look back at it, I lost friends out of my organization. You know, I lost a lot of people that really put their faith in me. And we're working incredibly hard for the company's vision. That was the hardest part, knowing that I let them down. So yeah, it was it was tough. But I, the beauty about our company is that they all got jobs within a week, because everyone wants to hire from our company, which is really good. And I take a lot of pride in that knowing going forward that we need to keep investing in our people and training our people. So that that is always the case. And they never go out. Let worse off than if I wanted to go somewhere else that's, you know, kind of my mission at the moment, understanding the value of that. So, yeah, but in terms of myself, it was it was very, very hard in terms of like business learnings. It was invaluable. Like I'm better because of it.

Daniel Franco: 49:30

Three MBAs in one really? Yeah,

David Fogarty: 49:32

it's, you know, it's the work that was lessons. The only thing that's true failure is when you get out of the game, and I'm not out of the game. So I think that that's the main thing. And you know, you'll learn from it. So it's just a lesson in not taking on leverage. It's a lesson on understanding that during this growth stage of a business, you don't understand the variables and chances are you're not working on the business, you're in the business and that's We were just growing so quickly, it was absolute chaos. It was absolute chaos. I just don't even know how to frame it compared to where we are now. We're a pretty, pretty functional business now. So, yeah, I wasn't at a point where I could apply just capital to problems, and it would get a direct return investment. There was no measurement of that. So it was, it was a really good lesson about checking yourself and staying humble during those periods. There are so many counters

Daniel Franco: 50:27

Does the chaos come from your lack of clarity and vision for the business as a CEO.

David Fogarty: 50:34

Yeah, I would say that that would be the main issue. Lack of clarity. Yeah,

Daniel Franco: 50:40

I wouldn't tell you where that yeah, the reason for it all sort of

David Fogarty: 50:44

Yeah, lack of clarity. But, you know, it's kind of might be semantics of its lack of business strategy, right, lack of process as well, that they're the main things that we were there was macro economic shifts. And this is something as when you got your first business you don't and I've never been through a recession. Like I didn't understand what this this is. I've never seen boom and bust cycles as well, with with pandemic, I couldn't put an unknown much suspect. But these are the things that you need to plan for as a CEO understanding that you don't know everything, and making sure that your business isn't in a fragile state building an anti fragile business.

Daniel Franco: 51:20

We've had a Do you know, have you ever met Jindo? Lee is the founder and CEO of happy CO which is a company that's been born out of Australia. Yeah, so had Jindo on the podcast when he was on, he said, with the growth and scale of his business because they're in Silicon Valley now and grown online. But they're in America somewhere doing some amazing things. He said every dollar that I earned was the biggest business I've ever run. Every new person that we had hired was the biggest business airline ever run. So you're actually trying to and near her the vino MoPhO podcast recently with Paul Edgington, and he said we're trying to upgrade the plane as we're flying, right? Like it's this constant iteration? Where did you manage to turn the ship around or stop the leaky bucket? In the sense? Where did you hire someone with a little bit more of a strategic mindset? How did you do Oh,

David Fogarty: 52:16

your senior leaders? Yeah. And I didn't know that. And now we have a very, very good senior leadership team, and my life has completely change. So I'm starting to get this philosophy that if something is hard in business, you just have the wrong person, as a leader, and that's a really that sound might sound like a cruel thing to say, maybe they've got better somewhere else, or maybe they're just not worth

Daniel Franco: 52:37

the fight for your business at that particular time.

David Fogarty: 52:39

Right. You know, this is, this is the hard thing, you're upgrading the plane, as you're flying, you can't afford a good captain initially, like a very experienced captain, or that Captain changes as they need to go as you grow. So we're at a place now where we have a great senior leadership team, I'm actually announcing a new CEO very, very shortly. And it's it's very functional business, because these people are better at certain elements than me as well. So

Daniel Franco: 53:10

yeah, do you? So that's exciting. You see, have you? I think there's something that I've always sort of toyed with is that could someone run this business, but I've run my own business? Could someone run this better than what I do? Is that where is that the sort of the area where we do here?

David Fogarty: 53:27

Yeah, I think I understand my limitations, my limitations and where I need to grow. And I've learned a lot about leadership and leadership, training company culture, I learned by trial by fire with that kind of stuff. In hindsight, I didn't learn the theory, quick enough, because I was in a chaotic business, I was doing the marketing, I was still the CMO. I was, you know, running ads and stuff like that, too, like very, very late in the game. So it needed me to step out, learn the theory, apply it get a better mentor in that area. And I didn't do that. But I am getting better at that. Right now. Where the businesses are, I think there are better leaders than me to lead his business and the skill sets and the shift that needs to happen to make Oodie a half a billion dollar brand. So I'm, I'm I'm humble enough to admit that I don't think that that will always be the case, I would hope that I grow to the point where I can, you know, lead lead a billion dollar brand. So yeah, it's it's, it's part of it, I guess. But you know, that being a CEO, it's not really something I want to do, either. Like, I want to work in lots of fun things and hire fun people are great people and work in really cool spaces and to work within a business and be a CEO. It's not a part time job. Oh, spending one or two days a week on it. For a business that size. It's not it's not that's not fair to everyone, then they need that one person committed. So really wanting to work on lots of different bits. Since since maybe I need to be one removed from the senior

Daniel Franco: 55:03

Are you the sole founder? And the only shareholder? This point at this at this point so looking for to grow and expand? Is that part of the global domination I guess of the of the of the span? Because what is that 6040 Split now? Isn't it? The the 60% still coming from Australia, but 40%? Over? Yeah, yeah. Roundabout? Yeah. What's the play? I think I've read in some of that, in some of these articles, that you aren't really going to push the American market is that

David Fogarty: 55:34

yeah, yeah. The American market. I like the European market as well and the UK market. So I do. We do we do a fair bit of trade in New Zealand as well. Yeah.

Daniel Franco: 55:46

Okay. Great. And the idea of announcing the new CEO is to really expand that pot and yeah, make sure

David Fogarty: 55:53

Yeah, I think. I think, yes, it's gonna be it's gonna be great under their leadership.

Daniel Franco: 56:02

There's a Marianne Williamson quote that I love. And if you've ever watched Coach Carter, surely you would have watched them? Yeah, they chose Carter. We were the one it's a famous scene in a movie, but it's a Marianne Williamson coilovers. She says, l it's our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. How does that play out for you? When growing? Are you talking about billion dollar brands? And I think if we talk in Europe, we're talking America, Australia, New Zealand, all the above and growing, there is really sort of no bounds to the level in which you can grow. Does that frighten you? Look,

David Fogarty: 56:41

it didn't initially, I was like, let's, let's come good. Allowed. But we took chapter channel out before its loss aversion. Its its way. And it's a really big problem that when people make more money, they get more fear of losing the money, and they stop investing the capital. So I think that would be the downfall if I kind of did get too afraid of that and started applying some checking myself, you know, am I in a time of uncertainty around the macroeconomic conditions right now? It's, it's stupid as be deploying it as we were before? And I'm not sure if that answers your question.

Daniel Franco: 57:17

No, it does. So what is then the ultimate play? With the debut?

David Fogarty: 57:23

Yeah, so I think where I currently said, I think we could, if we can add some more portfolio companies or groups that are going to get us more around the half a billion dollar, top line, Mark, highly profitable, and we can incorporate, we can prove that we have a way of growing these brands very, very confidently, and very, very sustainably as well. I think the you could IPO or you could do a private sale, I think my future would be around owning portfolios of companies as well and buying whether it's Yeah, so I think that that's, that's what really excites me, I have a lot to learn in that area. Even you have done one acquisition, and while it's an amazing company, I could have executed far better on that. So yeah, I think that that's the future for me, the future for the brands are very wide, like they can go, they can go lots of different ways. I think that's the beauty of beauty, there's really no like that brand, the way it performs in every single metric. The team behind it, there's really no limit to what the we can achieve. It can be a household brand, globally. We just need the right product strategy, we need to keep executing that. And over time in this, this can be some really big things for that brand.

Daniel Franco: 58:54

What keeps you waking up every morning and getting back into this and going through the grind every single day?

David Fogarty: 59:02

I think it's you know, just recently I couldn't I couldn't get out. I was just you know, you go through these kind of, they're not depression cycles, because you know, I don't want to trivialize that word of depression. But you know, you just feel depressed, you don't want to get up and crippling, it's crippling. It really, really is. And that's when you look at your calendar and you go, what am I doing that I actually don't want to do anymore. And then you need to hide you need to remove yourself from that you need to stop doing that. And you can just generally I just go in the stents I just burned myself out like it'll be generally two months since I'll just go four to six o'clock just absolutely go crazy, not relaxed over the weekend to work all the weekends and just pushed myself to the breaking point. And then I'll just be like, Okay, no, and then I genuinely hadn't either, like have like half a week off and slowed down a bit. And that's, I don't think that's a healthy cycle, by the way, but it's just how I do these big sprints and stuff like that. Now I'm trying to just remove myself from the day to day, which I think is far more sustainable getting headspace and, you know, I just write some big memos and some ideas. I'm trying to get document my ideas a little bit better. How to create growth for these companies that I own and put their strategy in the right right direction for for the CEOs.

Daniel Franco: 1:00:23

Is there a bit of anxiety with hiring a new leader? And yeah, maybe losing

David Fogarty: 1:00:30

xiety? With every hire? Yeah, yeah, it's such a such a crazy thing to give someone so much faith and you just don't know. The, you know, it is, it's such a, it's such a crazy thing, especially when you're somewhat removed from the business audience, obviously, quite understanding of where it's at. But there's the the businesses, we don't have full visibility on it, it's very hard to check your CEO because people charismatic people can very much believe in what they're saying. And you need to go through a whole process to unravel it and apply your judgment. So it's, it's very, it creates a lot of anxiety, that's for sure. A lot of trust as well, you're trusting them with a lot.

Daniel Franco: 1:01:13

So the main thing that will keep you up at night, or what, if not, what is

David Fogarty: 1:01:22

I don't really have any, I think, I think controlling myself, and my path is the thing that keeps me up at night, knowing that my actions are solely responsible for where everything will go. You know, it

Daniel Franco: 1:01:41

is the pressure,

David Fogarty: 1:01:42

it's another pressure. It's just about, like understanding my shortcomings, and that I have the ability to derail things or create things. So I just need to check myself and just constantly be like, is what I'm doing constructive for these businesses is worth doing constructing for my health, and those kinds of things. But truthfully, not much keeps me up at night. Unless there's absolute chaos. Yeah, something you're black swan event.

Daniel Franco: 1:02:06

But guarantee you've woken up in cold sweats some nice.

David Fogarty: 1:02:09

Like, not for a while. Okay, good. Like generally, generally only legal. So when hated when there's uncertainty around control? Yeah. Because you're relinquishing control. And you have a very lack of understanding.

Daniel Franco: 1:02:21

I think that's the the part that I was trying to get to was the it is this lack of control that just how do we how do we manage that? How do we manage the lack of control and put our trust into other people?

David Fogarty: 1:02:35

Yeah. It's just about proper process, proper process and proper communication, having the right checks and balances reporting. Having your clear vision, if you can't picture something, and how it's going to play out? Chances are there's a floor in it. So really being able to visualize what's going to happen and how it's going to happen, making sure that your leaders also understand and can see that clear vision, repetition reporting. And yeah, that's, that's the key. If you stepped away for two months and came back in, I'll be in cold sweats. I'd be like, I have no control whatsoever. I have no visibility, that would just be chaos. So you try to keep your finger on the pulse of it.

Daniel Franco: 1:03:14

Yeah. Are you getting better at the management and the trust that you put into people?

David Fogarty: 1:03:20

Yeah, I'm getting better at.

Daniel Franco: 1:03:23

So that the chaos of the early days, yeah, you've learned from those experiences?

David Fogarty: 1:03:27

Yeah, it's very, it's very hard to learn how to manage without working with a really great manager. I didn't even know how to set a meeting. Two years ago, I had no idea what I was doing. Like it was it was literally chaos. I hired my executive assistant without a without an interview. Like, I just called her and was like, Can you start Monday, I was drowning. So that is the worst thing you can do. Turns out she's absolutely incredible. But she was quite lucky. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, I've come a long way in that management. And it's thanks to working with my co she's awesome. And working with other great leaders as well, like Toby Toby mentors, as well. So it's, it's been those kinds of people that have rubbed off on me really, really in a good way.

Daniel Franco: 1:04:13

What was one lesson through that chaos period that will hold the Davie group and the Audi business in good stead from now into the future?

David Fogarty: 1:04:22

Yeah. I think really just understanding what your business is, what is your strategy? Is that sustainable? Is it anti fragile, those kinds of things snap to one, one iOS change, and where we are business hearts like that is not stable. Granted, I don't even think Facebook understood their platform alliance for Apple. So it'd be hard for me to predict that but it's just a lesson in. Yeah, diversification, stability.

Daniel Franco: 1:04:52

Yeah, I really liked your point earlier about instead of trying to spread too thin, in horizontally, think vertically It's definitely goes to the point of really niching out right on your product, the more you try to do the more chance that there is.

David Fogarty: 1:05:09

Yeah, well, it's capital allocation, where is the best use of my finite capital? And I was being told by all these private equity firms and VCs that you need to be more diversified. I took that as more brands, but truth is, it was better off being spent diversifying and supporting Oodie, which we now do to its full degree. So yeah, it's interesting.

Daniel Franco: 1:05:35

You're a big lover of innovation as well. Publicize fair bit, you've got a future day, is that correct? Is that what you're talking about? That I've read something that you've, there's a one day a week or that you could have a future day or you spend towards working towards projects? Yeah, you choose something?

David Fogarty: 1:05:55

I actually, I'm not sure where I got that from, I kind of do something like that. I definitely block out four hours where I just kind of walk around and just think about it. Yeah. You know, AI? That's revolutionary, what's happening now with image generation? And then also, yeah, like the future of communities?

Daniel Franco: 1:06:14

So that your role now that you see moving forward, that you're constantly you're the you think you're the Yeah, sure of ideas? Or is that something that you're going to ask your team to create ideas? How are you going to manage that?

David Fogarty: 1:06:26

There needs to be team input? Yeah, that's where you wanted a lesson before. It's like you need to bring in the team to make these decisions. And because they will have ideas, you can make the final say so but, you know, decision making processes need as many alternatives as possible to be as accurate as possible. So yeah, I say my vision is, is a capital allocator, hopefully, and an idea generator, relatively creative. So I think that there's always going to be that point, but it's about I think it's about building these acquisition channels, asides from Facebook and Instagram that can support these businesses, once you have them. The value of a business a year is disproportionate to the value of the current owner. And I think that that's a really exciting premise. You know, we've got extra distribution, which is not a new model. I didn't create that. But with the power of YouTube and Tik Tok, I think it's more powerful than ever.

Daniel Franco: 1:07:23

Brilliant. Cut conscious of your time. Just a couple of questions before we wrap up. In one of your videos talked about how you broke, you almost broke a million dollar business, or a multi million dollar business and, and some of the lessons that came out of it were don't scale too fast. Measure profits from the business independently get the same structure, right. Stay humble, don't wait too long to win. See when something isn't working and achieve a true moat and business strategy. That's the part I want to pick on that will achieve a true moat and business strategy. Can you talk to us about that?

David Fogarty: 1:08:02

I think there's very few things in the world that are actual moat, then I didn't I would challenge I'd be probably be able to challenge any person that says a business has a true moat like Payton's just forget about it. It's somewhat of a moat. So I think it's not binary. I think brand is a big moat. I think product design is a big moat as well. So when we look at the differences between timing blankets and the oodie, commonly business we were referring to, it was incredibly successful business, you're doing over $3 million profit a year. And why, during COVID period, when it was incredibly easy to make money in E commerce, we've managed to turn it into an unprofitable business due to supply problems and a lot of other things that you kind of just mentioned. But then we've got the Oodie which it's you cannot get an Oodie from another brand, you could get away to blanket that is a similar emotional connection or value proposition from another brand. Whether it be a cheaper, lesser quality one from a department store or a high quality one, that is the exact same price as ours. So that it's really product is a really, really important part of it and that we can't get the those characters you can't get out a mate like our quality for the Oodie is the best quality out there as well. So I think and then also our customer service, you're not going to get the same customer service, we have the most five star reviews out of any brand. So all of these kinds of things play into the brand as a whole where it's coming like it's we didn't succeed from that. And we were diversifying through products with very, very similar value proposition that we're just cannibalizing each other and increasing our SKU count. And that was a very, very poor business strategy in hindsight, whereas Oodie wear were, you know, we're collaborating with you, people were at diversifying our product range to include more commoditized categories like sleepwear, and stuff like that. We're also Yeah, like the the licensing partnerships that we have the joy that that can bring to people, it's very, very hard to replicate as well. And we're also getting wet at acquisition strategy for Oodie, as you know, pretty well, class as well. So we have a lot of assets,

Daniel Franco: 1:10:25

especially like, off the topic of business strategy and moats. How did you manage the growth in and from the, you mentioned, supply was a problem? How did you did you see that you would need this huge warehouse? How did how did all that sort of come into play?

David Fogarty: 1:10:44

That was probably one of my greatest shortcomings is not realizing and, you know, nobody would have guessed that? Are you good at this? I wouldn't have either. But I definitely didn't use use scenarios that were happening next to me around these DTC brands that were growing to these kinds of levels as a reference point, okay, this might be a ceiling here rather than here. And that short sightedness has cost us probably hundreds of millions, like in forecasting and like poor business decisions. It's in revenue, and probably over $100 million. We lost 40 million alone. In October, November last year, when we had no stuck in the northern hemisphere for our winter, because I didn't know how to forecast. I didn't have my senior executive that I now have who has hired proper forecasters and built the processes for it. So yeah, answer your question. How did I manage it very poorly. But yeah, we're

Daniel Franco: 1:11:38

good. Now. That's the joys of growing and scaling.

David Fogarty: 1:11:42

I don't beat myself up about it. So I try not to

Daniel Franco: 1:11:46

uber successful, right. So kudos, your YouTube channels are changing lives. We've got an OSHA here who's been following us videographer He's been following you for a while, he said that he's even implemented some of the stuff that you've done. Like, it's you get many of those stories like you from your YouTube channel, just Oodie and all the above. But have you heard the use of how to build a million dollar business from scratch? And you take people through it? Have you gotten comments on I've done it?

David Fogarty: 1:12:16

Well, we we've only we only started about eight, nine months ago. So and these things take time, there has been small, you know, I'm talking about a very successful business that's grown out of the teachings. But we have had, you know, small stories, where, you know, they they've said that I have helped them. And that's, it's, it's amazing. It's really, really good. So yeah, we've definitely heard them we build like a mentorship group as well. I, you know, quite outwardly, say, the standard courses that are sold nowadays, it is packet information that, you know, I'm going to give you on YouTube instead. And they're just predatory on smaller people that can't afford that. So I, I have just created like a mentorship group that is like $9 a month, where people can come into the community. And I'll just answer as many questions and just go live as possible, you know, typical mentors. I pay my mentor, like $2,000 a month, $5,000 a month even. So it's, yeah, I'm trying to try and out of that, sorry. My point was that there's a lot of stories coming now from that community where they're now sending screenshots and I'm like, Oh, wow, this is actually

Daniel Franco: 1:13:26

real. share those stories. I know you will. But then she should eventually feel good stuff that you are having an impact and more just from the brand Oodie and calming blankets and the like coming by and consider like, what are areas that they you think that Woody will expand or somebody that Davie group will expand to in future?

David Fogarty: 1:13:47

Yeah, I'm a big believer in software as a service, enabling the ecommerce industry here, I just build a piece of software that has my product process in it, where it scrapes lots of data points around and connects to a lot of API's to really understand trends as a whole. And understand trend timing as well when a good product is to launch. So it's kind of those things that enable our processes that I'm a big believer in I'm big believer in AI as well, as I mentioned, and how that can check kind of change the change of the landscape. So yeah, I think I'll expand into industries that I really like I can see a clear future for them, I can see them growing, I can see a path to retail and wholesale to ensure that we are omni channel learning my lesson from something like calming blankets and not just being DTC. We're working on the wholesale component now, which shouldn't be too difficult considering our brand equity. So yeah, I think, you know, taking team playbooks from the past has been made by Warren Buffett, all of these other capitals Okay, this is badass walking in and understanding where our strengths are without getting spread too thin.

Daniel Franco: 1:15:06

Very good. So the world's your oyster, isn't it really? Now I am considering a time you looking to we have to wrap up now at the end of the podcast, we typically ask you some quick fire fun questions. Feel free to elaborate, feel free to give me one word answers answer them however you want however you like. But we are big readers. We've talked a lot of books, there's probably a show notes gonna have a list full of books in there. But what is something that you are reading right now?

David Fogarty: 1:15:36

The Chinese AI superpowers Yes, what I'm reading right now I'm also reading zero to one again, I like zero to one

Daniel Franco: 1:15:45

written book. If there's one book that you could recommend to those who are looking to grow and scale their business, what would

David Fogarty: 1:15:52

that be good to Great by Jim Collins.

Daniel Franco: 1:15:54

Brilliant isn't really. What about a book on self explore? Exploring self?

David Fogarty: 1:16:02

The way to love Anthony Miller. The way of the way to love I believe it's Anthony de Mello.

Daniel Franco: 1:16:08

Yeah. Brilliant.

David Fogarty: 1:16:11

Is there any than about? Yeah,

Daniel Franco: 1:16:14

the almanac of Nevada. It's not written by in the mouths of Tim Ferriss. Right it? Yeah, it was Tim Ferriss, and some are a journalist. I think Paul pulled that together of all of his teachings,

David Fogarty: 1:16:27

I don't think you need to read that if you're gonna just listen to every single podcast he's ever done. Which is what I do, but it's great.

Daniel Franco: 1:16:35

And some of his podcasts are two minutes long. So yeah. Is there any other podcasts that you listen to? Obviously, other than this one?

David Fogarty: 1:16:48

podcast you need to one good hack is getting your favorite author just writing their name and searching in Spotify and you'll get the some of the best podcasts. Then you can search subject matters. I actually really like my first million. It's a great podcast. It's a fun all in podcast, like the web billionaires think. Yeah, I think you get a real broad look into that. And then as a bunch of ecommerce ones as well that that are worth a listen, if you're interested in that space. Which ones are the E commerce fields a good one? Because it can be a bit dry? If you go into ecommerce,

Daniel Franco: 1:17:19

yeah. Those who are specifically into that great. What's one lesson that's taking the longest to learn?

David Fogarty: 1:17:25

Oh, that's a good one. I think that the thing around people took me a long time to learn about delegation, and just understanding you don't need to do it all. And there's probably someone better that can do it. Yeah. I at least know founders and very successful people. And they say that, you know, I can do anything if I wanted to, to the best like that, that. I think that that under appreciate the fact that you're not going to play yourself as hard as these other people in the area because the bores you are something that so I kind of don't, I've just grown to appreciate people in roles that do an amazing job. And that just changes your happiness. It changes your business success rate and all of that kind of stuff.

Daniel Franco: 1:18:18

I can't do it all. Yeah. If you can invite three people for dinner. It would be

David Fogarty: 1:18:26

I get this question. A fair bit. Usually I say billionaires and do boring answers. I like Sam and Shawn from my first million podcast, they are so good at just ideas to do non stop. So and then I'll go Alex and Mozi as well. He's Yeah, absolutely. Based on those those guys would be a very, very entertaining dinner.

Daniel Franco: 1:18:51

I love Alex's non bullshit, I actually don't care approach.

David Fogarty: 1:18:55

He's a great communicator. I liken him to Tony Robbins. Yeah. In that they can communicate and even evolve in the complex things communicated very simply and tailored for people and the right person. So that's something you know I struggle with is communication and clarity of thought. So I generally admire people that can do it. Well.

Daniel Franco: 1:19:19

What's some of the best advice you've ever received?

David Fogarty: 1:19:25

It's it's just it's great advice. You know, don't be afraid to slow down your decision making. I have listened to a plenty of amazing CEOs that say like, and I subscribed to this mentality of action creates information and make a decision, but not until you have got the amount of information that you need, or if it's not time urgent, don't make the decision quickly because more information presents itself. So I think that that's been pretty powerful to my growth

Daniel Franco: 1:19:51

as well. Yeah. The struggle is understanding the urgency.

David Fogarty: 1:19:56

Sure. Yeah, that's a that's a touchy field. thing we can start to learn it and listening consequences as always big.

Daniel Franco: 1:20:04

Absolutely. Love it. If you had access to Time Machine, where would you go?

David Fogarty: 1:20:10

Yeah, I wouldn't go anywhere. I think I think we just got such an exciting. Like, yeah, there's challenging world events right now. And I'm not trivializing any of those because we're here down in Australia where we're have such a privileged life. But you know, I think it's one of the best times to be an entrepreneur in Australia. I would love to see the future. I'd love to see what it holds. But yeah, I love where we're at

Daniel Franco: 1:20:38

now. Yeah. Brilliant. I, I've always said I'd go forward and just get the almanac right. Back to the Future, bring back put some bets on and then always sit. If you if your house was on fire in your family and your pets and everyone's safe, what's one thing that you would come back in here and grab my laptop? We can make even less money will already be on? Yeah, give me give me a laptop and anyway, brilliant. If you had one superhero power, what would it be?

David Fogarty: 1:21:22

How am I getting stumped on this question is

Daniel Franco: 1:21:25

surely your Marvel fan or something like

David Fogarty: 1:21:27

that? Yeah. The big Marvel fan my partner she's obsessed. I just want to be Iron Man. I mean, he doesn't have any power. I just tell him. Right? Yes, right. Yeah.

Daniel Franco: 1:21:40

I love it. And I'm also a lover of preppy with this one. But I'm a lover of shit dad jokes. Do you have a dad joke for us that you can share? Actually?

David Fogarty: 1:21:49

I'm like the worst at telling a dad joke.

Daniel Franco: 1:21:54

On he probably said on this before on the podcast before? I know they put me on the spot. Right? You everyone had to you get an elephant into a refrigerator? Yeah, open the door, put the elephant in close the door drop it into the fridge, right? No, you take the elephant out then you really, anyway, look, thank you so much. for your time today, wrap it up there. It's been amazing chat learning a little bit more about what's going on inside your head today, then, you know, I think we can jump on your YouTube and learn about how to grow and scale and all the success you've had there. But it's been really enjoyable learning. You know, there's there is a human behind these brands, who is actually learning and trying to grow himself and the business as it grows and scale. So you know, kudos for everything you've done and kudos for everything you're going to do. Very, very excited about where you're going and where the business is going as well.

David Fogarty: 1:23:05

I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for Yeah, thank you me weary. It's great.

Daniel Franco: 1:23:09

Beautiful. Thank you, everyone. That's it for now. We'll we'll catch you next time. Thanks for listening to the podcast or you can check out the show notes if there was anything of interest to you and find out more about us at Synergy iq.com.au I am going to ask though, if you did like the podcast, it would absolutely mean the world to me if you could subscribe, rate and review. And if you didn't like it, that's alright too. There's no need to do anything. Take care guys. All the best