He Built A $20M, 7-Figure Profit Sock Brand That Actually Distributes Cash. Here's How. transcript

Rob Fraser is the founder and CEO of Outweigh Socks, a 10-year plus e-commerce sock brand. And this is a profit monsters episode of the show. Rightly so. They they were just shy of 20 million in revenue last year, [music] selling all socks, couple million pairs of socks, which is crazy when you think about that. I own a couple pairs myself. They're beautiful and fantastic socks. Uh and over seven figures in net profit, distributing a couple times a year.

This is a profitable, growing e-commerce brand that is the kind of brand you should be trying to emulate. And I'm going to talk to Rob right now about why and how I've known Rob for a long time uh on uh DTOC Twitter uh now X and uh and been been excited to have this conversation for a while. So, you're going to learn a lot from Rob right now as we get into how they have built a business is actually cash flowing, actually putting out dividends and building a bunch of profit in a profit monsters episode of the Affairs podcast with Rob Fraser [music] from Outway Socks.

Let's get into it. Rob, I'm so glad we're finally doing this. You I'm I'm gonna ask you right now like how in the world are you actually distributing money? Everybody says that's impossible in e-commerce. How how did you do it? >> Yeah, first off, Andrew, it's great great to hang and and just hang offline just see face to face formerly, you know, Twitter X just >> y >> living there. But um yeah, how do we do it? I mean, it didn't happen right away.

It's kind of a 10year overnight success even though we've been shooting for a couple years now. I'd say like the one thing we we'll talk e-commerce. I think the one thing is positioning. I've never thought of myself as an e-commerce operator or an e-commerce brand despite that being the large majority of how we sell. Over 60% of our business is direct to consumer through our Shopify um store. We have 10% more on Amazon.

Um but then we've done other things like we have a private label business where we manufacture socks for other people. Uh and then we have a wholesale business. And so I've always thought of myself as a consumer founder, uh a business builder, a brand builder. Uh and by implementing those different channels in the business, primarily all where we're getting paid either in advance or on demand, we've been able to build a model through leveraging payment terms uh with our suppliers uh and other unique kind of like financial um maneuvering or engineering throughout the years to actually, you know, profit's one thing, but cash flow is another, right?

So, you can look profitable on paper and not have any cash in the bank or be negative cash. Um, we found a way to do that just through channel mix. I'd say the most unique one is our private label business. And that simple insight was we've built a business of selling socks. And I asked myself like if I don't want to get investors, how else can I basically build an investor within my business? what are we already doing that we can tap into and leverage um that that uses our existing infrastructure and skills and people that's not going to be too distracting.

And I was like, hey, we make socks, so we might as well make socks for other people. And the beautiful thing about the private label business, and that's a subbrand called Custom Lab, where we have a separate team and a separate kind of entire flow for that business that's uh run by Outway, but not Outweigh branded. And what that does is um it's all pre-order based and it's all bulk based and and drop ship based for the most part.

So, we're getting cash in advance for those orders, then going through a production cycle, and then have payment terms, and we know our margins. And so, what we're able to do on every order is basically save uh what we're going to owe in the future, and then invest the rest. And then every business line is also profitable at that. But the uh the custom lab business, assuming a certain level of growth, which has been historic over many years now, we can kind of model out the cash flow, distribute that, and then, you know, we're now a business that's done well for many years. we've able been able to um just put in sort of backs stop protection with you know revolving lines of credit in case we ever get into situations where we're going to need access to cash for if we just get forecasting wrong for the most part because we have such extended payment terms on our on our socks.

So there's just there's been a lot there. Um but for the most part it's just been figuring out how can we sell everything either in advance or on demand and not pay for that product far uh into the future and and then also just forecast the inventory properly. We still actually one other thing that I do which maybe isn't like the best financial advice but I'm I'm happy to trade a little bit of margin for speed and so we still ship everything by air for the most part short of like containers that we do in advance for Black Friday holiday period that if your payment terms typically start when they leave the factory sometime mostly when it hits a boat for the for most people you don't want to l waste a bunch of that time of in transit.

So, we can get it here in four days. That's great. And I've negotiated so that our payment terms don't actually start until it reaches our warehouse. So, I'm not wasting any transit time. I'm getting the product here quickly as well. And so, that that that allows us to have just quicker inventory turnover. So, we can get product restocked. We can do it. We send weekly and daily POS for the custom lab business. So, we're not trying to sit on too much inventory at once.

There's going to be a margin trade-off there where you're going to get better pricing on shipping if you go on C or you're going to get better bulk discounts if you order once or twice a month, but I don't care because cash is king. And like in the end of the day, we're going to be able to turn over that that that inventory much quicker, which is going to tie up less cash. And if I'm trading a couple cents here and there, perhaps we'll optimize it in the future, and we do on big purchases like the holiday period.

But I'm still a fan at our scale to just trade uh trade margin for speed assuming it's not a stupid amount of margin. You're trading 10% like maybe you should reevaluate. We're talking very small points here. But um yeah, it's a somewhat what I've just by talking to people somewhat of a uncommon insight is like hey just move faster. Um okay, I have so many questions. [laughter] Um I I uh I I actually love this point um about about this.

But we but you he had two things at once there. Custom lab and ordering strategy. So for anybody watching listening, we're going to come back to both of these. Okay. Um so so uh so don't worry if you're annoyed about what question I asked Rob right now. Um we're gonna we're going to get to them both. Okay. So let's start with Custom Lab just because that's where you started. What percentage of your business does Custom Lab make up at this point? >> About 30%. >> That's amazing.

And that is like extremely profitable. Yeah. >> Very. Yeah. There's some days where I look at that business, I'm like, that's my just sit on the beach and don't have to do anything business if I [laughter] just shut Outwway down. Outweigh is like arguably the more uh valuable business in terms of enterprise value and scale and market size, but the custom lab business is just it's a wonderful business. You know, there's basically no expenses. >> So, one of my questions about it is let's say you did shut down Outway, would the custom lab business go away?

No, I mean that that business now it obviously the thing that makes custom lab interesting is most of our competitors in that space are just promotional marketing companies and so our unique advantage is that we're the best at socks. One of the best. We've got this brand engine attached to it and we're able to cross market both brands. So every time I customize this other beautiful business, not only for a cash flow and scale perspective, but also every sock that is paid for by other people, we get to go out there and market our product essentially.

So we're getting MI like over years millions of pairs on people that have a tie back to Outweigh that other people have paid for, other brands have paid for in the most cases. We'll sometimes collaborate and we get to work with some really great brands like we work with Uber and Red Bull and Best Buy and Costco and really like really cool brands and when we want we can say hey would you co-brand these? Would you like take a bit of a discount?

We'll we'll co-brand them. So a unique co-arketing opportunity. Would it go away if we shut down that way? No. that whole business like operates on its own now and the supply chains built out at the the way we acquire customers is through the custom lab funnel not throughout way but would it make us as competitive? I'm not sure. I don't think so. >> Would it but it it probably would not exist now. So I'm playing the counterfactual uh retro retrospective here.

Uh it would not exist now uh though had outweigh not existed first and created a great product first and done all those things. Right. I sort of obviously this is the case. um in some ways. But the the reason I bring it up is that it's interesting >> I've noticed this actually for a lot of brands over time that one of the things that people sort of underrate about DTOC is the way that it creates opportunity for non DTOC things that end up being really valuable.

I'll give you a few examples. Um one of them is the one you just mentioned which is this white labeled kind of custom product that is actually in some ways a better business but would have been extremely hard to start from scratch. Right. another one a long time ago. Um I think it was I think it was Mike Beckham who mentioned this to me um uh the founder of Simple Modern uh when when you know I was I helped those guys in the early stages.

I I hesitate to give too much credit to myself here but I when they were starting to launch on meta ads they asked me for some coaching and consulting to help them get going and so I worked pretty closely with their team in that time and one of the things that Mike pointed out was something along the lines of just like meta ads a a sneaky value. I'm I'm nervous that I'm applying this to the wrong person. I think it was Mike.

Um, a sneaky value of meta ads is that it gets you in front of all these people who buy like four other things. For example, in their case, there was like a a retail purchase or PO or something like that. And I had another client who had the same thing who got who got Walmart because she got served a meta ad. >> Yeah. >> And was like, this is a good product and it's and it's in a category we care about. She was a buyer at Walmart.

And you know, if you're if you're getting millions of impressions in reach, you're you're you're reaching buyers, you know, for retail buyers like not and and uh you know, and then similarly, um I have another brand I've talked to that that uh has now a really really really strong Amazon listing even though they're not super price competitive with uh with their knockoffs. Um, but they have this sort of seemingly immovable Amazon listing to where maybe the Amazon listing itself, like the current organic rank that they have on Amazon is arguably the best asset in the business.

Um, because it's just so valuable to them. And certainly they did all of the Amazon things you do. You know, they got smart people uh who are helping keep those listings optimized and they're, you know, again, they're doing all the right stuff. But a huge part of it is also they spent millions and millions of dollars on DTOC stuff before they ever did Amazon. And so they grew there. And this custom lab I think is another example of that and I think it's something brands ought to be thinking about.

Um one more one more Taylor Holiday example was uh a pet brand that was selling their email sponsorship of their email to an email list of millions strong multiple millions strong. They were selling ads to their own audience basically you know sponsored emails to their audience for non-competitive same category products. other pet brands that weren't competitive with them, you know, and and and again, you don't get that email list without all of the DTOC work to start, you know, and I think there's something important here for like really smart profitable brands.

I better do another profit monitor episode soon with a guy from a brand called Bush Balm that has this crazy story about like um subscription in smaller boutiquier like retailers that is creating this huge profitable line item, you know, and so I yeah, it's just something I think brands should look out for. They should look around at their current portfolio of their brand and say there's nothing that says I have to be a DTOC only brand.

Why don't I think about where else there is value capturing this business? Where does it make sense for who my customers are or whatever it is? And there's actually kind of endless opportunities there, you know. >> Yeah. And I have a simple analogy for this. My thinking is very aligned with yours is that if you're spending a ton of money on your core brand and your core sales ch channel and think of it as like a boat, but not every not everything that's coming into that boat is being captured. if you're pouring water or maybe a bucket's a better example.

Uh there's holes in it and that was our kind of strategy around uh launching wholesale and launching wholesale and Amazon was like so we have a a seven figureure Amazon business now and we don't really do much Amazon advertising but that the simple insight was like people are just never going to buy from our Shopify store. There's these people on our email list. There's all these people that are like, even myself, my own buying psychology is I'll get a I'll get served an ad on Meta. >> I will click through to the brand's website.

I will go right to Amazon because, you know, like that's just my I I like to order from Amazon. It comes in a day. I've got >> because it's the best shopping experience in the world. Like, of course, you like to buy, you know, it's like, yes, I like it better, too. Yeah. >> So, it's like and the same is true of wholesale and you're right. The same is true of custom lab. So, if if there are other opportunities to kind of cast a wider net or plug holes in that bucket, you're right.

It's just it'd be advantageous of you to try and be in those places to capture those opportunities. I am hiring at AJF Growth and of the positions that I'm hiring, one of them right now is being done through my friends at More Staffing. I've talked about more staffing so much on this show, but I love them because they give me access to the best talent in the Philippines so that I can access incredible global talent for my business.

I can pay them at or above market rates in the Philippines, which attracts the best quality talent there, which I can then apply to my business. And that rate is still lower than equivalent talent would cost in the US. [music] That means I get great people who are motivated, who are excited about the job, who are loyal, who are retained, who do great work. At the same time, I can protect my margin in the process. More staffing is a staffing agency built to do that.

I'm building everything that I touch with help from more staffing in some ways because they were built on the back of growing e-commerce businesses. They understand the e-commerce space better than anybody out there, any staffing agency out there. [music] And they go way beyond even those basic things. I've got an interview coming uh very soon with Greg Kerry, the founder of More Staffing. He's going to talk more about all the stuff they do beyond just the hiring itself.

So, on top of that basic value proposition that I just laid out more is also helping integrate things like AI into your operational processes with people in the Philippines. It's helping you think about how to integrate people cross-culturally and to what to look out for there. They really think through every element of how to set you up for success at the operational level of your business. And they do that, like I said, while delivering a great service.

They also give you a one-year guarantee on people you hire. So, if that person you hire through more staffing doesn't work out in your business for longer or for a whole year, they will help replace that person at no additional headunting fee. So, go to more staffing.co/af. The opportunity is so big right now for e-commerce companies and for related companies to be thinking about [music] how to leverage global talent to create great businesses while protecting their profit.

Go to more staffing.co/af to get access to that talent right now for people who really understand the e-commerce space, know what you're looking for, and will do an incredible job. Staffing.co. I love that. Um, okay. I I have a lot more questions about this. Um, but uh but uh I want to go instead over to the other thing you said just for the sake of time. Um, I'm already as you were talking, Rob, I thought we we need to schedule an immediate followup.

The moment just happened there, even from the stuff we talked about talking about this episode to the place we started, there's too much. Um, let's talk about your ordering strategy stuff. One one of the things I I'm really uh hot on right now in general. Well, I mean, I've been on this for a while. It's just the idea that people are just not thinking carefully enough about their supply chain. It's a really important part of the business. you are you were d you're dialing in this very particular part of it which is um going go like uh not using seaf freight even though it's cheaper uh and instead using air freight.

So, first of all, let's just um uh quantify how much time do you save? About a month, I assume uh on every order. Something like that. >> At least a month. At least a month. Yeah. >> Four to six weeks probably of in terms of ocean freight. >> Assuming everything goes right. Yeah. >> Yes. Yes. Right. >> And what what is the actual margin trade-off? Do you know like essentially let's say you had we'll just uh I mean yeah like percentage points of mar margin.

So like basis points basically like how many points of margin does it cost you to do this? depending on where we're looking at it. If it's a percent like percent, it's it's like >> Yeah, sure. Quantify it however you want. Oh, really? >> Yeah. Yeah. I'd say it's easier to quantify in cents because the exact margin implications are going to be like a little too much for me to do public math on, but we're talking in in the range of cents, like no no like less than 20 cents.

Um, we sell a lowcost product. Um, and so it's still fairly nominal if you're to take it and look at it at scale. But in the end of the day, if you're a brand optimizing for cash, it's a trade-off I think worth making in most cases. >> Immediately came to my mind when you started talking about that is uh is just that socks are relatively small and they're pretty light. Uh, and so they they're a good candidate for this kind of thing, which is they just >> they the air freight for that product versus much larger products is a different calculation, you know.

Um, and and again, it's just one of those things that's easy to sort of overlook, but there's just this sort of physical reality to the product that uh that I I'm guessing makes that so like you said, it's just not that much more expensive. And to me, I couldn't agree more like if you can uh have faster inventory turn, you know, your cash flow can definitely increase. It also um it also reduces your inventory risk in in the terms of like forecasting risk, you know, like you now have to be a little less precise if you can get stuff to you a lot faster because if you start running low on a product because you start selling a lot more than you think, uh then you can get that restocked really quickly, which means you don't have to over order and potentially get yourself stuck with like a whole bunch of product you can't move.

Especially in apparel businesses, that's a really big problem. you know, like it's just it feels like you're you're reducing so much risk in your business if the perunit cost is actually not that high. That feels like a no-brainer to me. >> Yeah. And and that's a really good point. Like everything we're going to talk about advice, for lack of a better term, is contextual and and to your business. You're right. Like if you have a really heavy product, it's almost never going to make sense to ship it via air freight.

But when we can put, you know, 200 pairs of socks in a relatively small box, when you look at the per unit price impact of air freight, it's very low. Another unique thing we did that just came up and it's a random little kind of hack that we did is we negotiated with our 3PLs, our warehouses, to charge us storage on a per unit basis instead of square foot basis. And that gave us I'm just a big fan of never relying on a partner to optimize a space or price like you would if you owned it.

What I can control is how many units are there. And so when we did the math and we got the negotiated rate of per unit storage cost, it was much less and we've saved tons of money doing it that way. So again, just just like always figure out I try to always figure out what can I control when I'm using partners and if if I can't be in control of it and there's going to be a cost implication, uh you're generally not in a good position.

I think that the the general way I would think about this is that there are times when a when a partner has so much domain expertise and so much process knowledge in a thing that's really hard to do well that the thing to look out for is like is that unique set of expertise or knowledge actually applicable to my business in a particular way that's really really helpful like you just like you just framed it right space versus weight is a good example of this like there's a reason that that 3PL or whatever has that consideration around one or the other of those uh and And probably it makes sense for a lot of their clients, right?

Those most of those folks are trying to serve their clients well in a way that's economic creates margin for them uh by creating margin for the for the client. That's that's the whole idea of a service business, you know. Um but yeah, there are times when you have to look around and go like actually the the sort of playbook way of doing this. I was actually just having this conversation with the client. the playbook way of doing this like you have to if if it's the case that it doesn't actually serve your particular business well because your business has some unique need or consideration then you probably have to go away from the playbook way of doing it or or you have to be or the the the vendor has to be flexible enough to to to shift their process to yours in some way that you know often like you said I think what you just described I'm sure that most a 3PL can make that work you know but uh but yeah you know it's funny you just you just uh you just uh tripped on the word advice I noticed in in the conversation, you said you said if you advice, if you can call it that.

And I'm wondering if that's because on February 22nd, 2026, 3 days ago, at 11:40 a.m., you tweeted, and I'm quoting, "Dad advice is survivorship bias in a suit." Uh, I I actually love this tweet. Um, is that why you you tripped on the word advice? It sounds like you've been thinking about advice as a useful or not useful thing in e-commerce. Yeah, I wrote an expanded article on it earlier too about like um I forget the exact title was but it was like oh it's advice is for losers.

Um, so intentionally provocative, but the problem with advice, my friend Chris Sparling, he's the founder co-founder of Tiny, uh, a collection of great companies. They own Aeropress, for example. Um, he has an interesting thought on advice where it's that like when you give advice or you take advice, typically it's from someone who lacks a ton of context and nuance on your business. And not only that, you now have this kind of not spoken about um, pressure to follow up, follow through on that advice. there's now this cognitive weight that you will go try that and report back on how it went.

And he said the much more uh the much more advantageous thing to do instead of sharing advice is to share stories. Here's something here's how I did something similar or here's you know an example I've got and then it removes the need for that person to feel like they a they have to act on it uh and b they have to kind of report back or carry this cognitive weight. And I've always loved that. I've just hated the idea of or resisted the idea of advice.

Even though what's ironic is when I write or tweet, like it comes off as advice. But what I'm trying to do for the most part is share stories. And I honestly just don't care if you listen or not. Maybe that's the difference. Uh and just realizing it's contextual and super nuanced and I don't know >> anything about your agency like you would, even though I might have an idea or some advice about it from the outside. Um, and the same people that say I should sell underwear.

I'm like, okay, it's a good idea, but do you have four hours about why I'll tell you why I'm not, and I'll thought about it deeply, obviously. >> Right. Yeah. I think uh I think that's that's really good. I was I was I'm glad you noticed that there's a bit of a a self-defeating logic to the idea. Um uh but I think it just it highlights the idea that you uh you have something um it it highlights the idea that you you know that there's something provocative about the idea that you should be skeptical of advice in some way that there's a story to tell.

In fact, even the way you just framed the advice you gave, you didn't really give it as advice. You told me a story about a friend of yours uh who who prefers telling stories. So I like um so I have uh I have a lot of other questions about Outway as it's structured. One of them is tell me about the timeline to your you said you know a 10-year overnight success jokingly in the beginning. Um 10 years 20 million in revenue.

This is another thing I've been thinking a lot about recently. Um te tell me about sort of your growth rate and and actually what I'm really interested in is if there's any intentionality around the speed of your growth. Uh my guess is just talking to you a little bit here that there is in some way uh and that you you have some ideas about how fast or not you want to grow. So I'll leave the question open-ended like that. just tell me sort of about that process of growing to where you've gotten to and how you think about the speed of growth and the timeline of growth and um and uh well any stories you have about your approach to that even if not advice for other people about it. >> Yeah, for sure.

Um this is not advice. Um no, so like I break it into three parts. The first is like I I started the business in 2016 with no experience. I had a 10-year professional cycling career before that. So I wasn't a guy who came out of university. I'm not a a growth marketer. I'm not your typical kind of like DTOC person that you meet that that like maybe comes from a different background. I'm an athlete. I understood athlete marketing.

I wanted to build an athletic brand. Um so I started a sock brand basically just avoid getting a real job. In the first year we did 350K in revenue selling socks basically handtohand combat. So the idea kind of worked. It the revenue blew my mind. Uh I had no idea I could do that. And then the business doubled for five years in a row and more than double some years. So like by year five I think we were doing close to 7 million in revenue.

Um that year we had grew 136% year-over-year. We were profitable every year. Uh and so my sort of intent at that point this was going right into the co boom. That was 2021. I'm just like I'm going to keep growing at 100%. Obviously just modeled it. I was like oh cool I'm hundred million dollar brand in no time. Um and that's where I got into a lot of trouble because like in those first five years I wasn't trying to grow 100%.

The numbers were smaller. It's it's easier when you're doubling at 350 to, you know, 700 to 1.4 to 2.8. Like, it's not easy, but it's easier than doubling from 5 to 10, 10 to 20 for sure. Um, and so, and I wasn't trying to do it. It was just happening because the market was rewarding it. The product was catching uh a nice tailwind. COVID helped and so the 2022 2023 years were very challenging trying to replicate that growth in a market that was having a bit of a downturn. the COVID drawdown um as well as we were just making decisions in the name of growth.

So my mindset of growth at all costs led to years of relatively flat growth like 15 20% year-over-year and losses. We went through two periods of of losing money. I was like and it was simply down the market. But we were fighting the market. Growth was not as easy to come by. And also my um the way I was approaching it was from a much more external point of view of like other people are doing this, we should do this.

It was at the same time I got really involved in DTOC Twitter is like oh all these ideas guys let's just I stopped operating authentically really and doing what had led to our initial success. And I remember very distinctly so that'd be kind of period two. Period one was like 100% your real growth for 5 years not trying it just happened. a lot of market benefits from it, a lot of just luck. Your kind of phase two is those two years of trying and implementing external advice and losing money.

And this July 2023, just realizing I'm getting I want to get back to basics. This isn't fun. We're not really actually serving our consumer. Like when I think about why are we doing the things we're doing, it wasn't to make our product better. It wasn't to serve the end consumer the way they deserve to be uh served. And so basically, if you imagine all these we were doing on the table, I like wiped it clean. Said we're going to trim down the team.

We're going to get rid of all the software. We did everything like tap cart, all this like tons of everything DT DTOC Twitter would have said to do, I did it. Uh, so we wiped it all clean, went right back to basics, and that set us on this path of a really great 2024. Uh, and then a really great 2025 where 2024 was an 8 figure year, back to profitable. 2025 was near multi figure, just shy of 20 million bucks. Um, and very profitable again.

We forexed earnings uh in 2025 24c. And that came from from this we we put growth objectives off the table. I said 30% would be great. But the main goal here is we want to really understand our margins. We want to serve the end consumer and we want to have fun doing it. Like I built this brand to not get a real job and now I feel like I'm in the worst job ever losing money and not having fun. I'm like what's the point, right?

What's the what's the point of doing this? Like I don't care what anyone else is doing. I don't care if other people are growing faster. I just want to enjoy it. I want to create a great product. And I think if I can be around for another 10 years, we're going to have a monster business. It's already growing. Um there's a clear path. We're already up over 30% year-over-year right now as as we're talking. Um but we don't care.

Like I don't care if it if it does it does. I say my kind of like mantra with the team now is like when we're winning >> we're not geniuses and when we're losing we're not idiots. Like we try to just remember that we're just need to do our best and the market will reward or not reward that. But if we're serving the consumer and we're having fun, like it's a pretty pretty good time. And obviously there's more to it, like making your margins make sense and stuff, but um that was just generally just the mindset shift of of removing that kind of external pressure.

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I'm absolutely convinced that the reason many brands are trying to grow as fast as they are is because of external pressure. And it's why I have I, you know, in my own content recently, I've really been trying to provide some counter examples to the like sort of super fast growth story. I actually love talking to people who have built huge huge businesses because they typically have learned some things along the way.

There's energy to them and things like that. And it's also amazing that these people will talk to you for free, you know? It's just crazy like that. The amount of free information is unbelievable. I'm really grateful for I never want to sound otherwise about it, you know? It's just that I also know I mean it is an algorithmic fact that when I put nine figure brand with eight figure profit or whatever you know in the title of my episode it gets a bunch more reach than others and I think that reflects a normal thing in one respect which is that people are ambitious and they want to grow big businesses but it also really concerns me because there's people building like first of all your business person watching goes into this is very very very likely not going to have that outcome.

So like it's just I that's just a statistical reality. It just is, you know, um, some people are going to get there, but it's most likely not. And if you, Rob, if your business, for example, is the way I say it, is is, uh, producing seven figures and cash flowing net profit every year while getting to the low figures and still growing all those things. And that's and you aren't experiencing joy in that work or some level of satisfaction, uh, then I think something's wrong with you.

That's what I think. I think there's I think it's like I I really think that or if that's not enough. I think there has to be a way this I think there has to be a way to pursue growth from a place of internal drive for excellence which I is a bit of what I hear you describing internal drive for excellence and and a good kind of ambition as opposed to a discontent that's mostly coming from external and that's the thing I'm always kind of pushing after because I'm I I just feel like I see that in a lot of people you know. >> Yeah, we're aligned.

It's this um push verse pull. Um a lot of founders start businesses. Uh one of my favorite quotes is entrepreneurship is a trauma response. Uh and you smile. Every every founder I've told that to smiles because you deeply understand it. >> Um I forget who to attribute it to. Um it's a Twitter account. I just loved it and I remember it. But that will only take you so far. Chips on shoulders will only take you so far. at some point you need to do you need to get away from the pushing factor into a pulling factor which is killing that part of you and then asking yourself until you get to the real answer of why do I do what I do and then making sure you can figure out an answer that is more authentic um why do I do what I do before it was like I was you know I just wanted to prove to the world that I could do it again that my cycling career wasn't a fluke I was also just a an overweight child that saw people that were good at things got uh acceptance and therefore love and I just wanted to good at things.

So, it wasn't this um this authentic journey of like I want to be great because I want to be great. I want to show the world that I'm great. And that's not a great way to operate after 20 years. And so, I had to go through this process of being what do I actually want to do now that I've, you know, built this business that provides a certain level of freedom and opportunity to to mold it and how I want to run it moving forward.

That simple insight was I don't want to show the world that I'm great anymore. I just want to be great. That's what I want to do for myself. I want to improve every day. I want to build a business that I want. And that's makes it way easier to be like, hey, I don't care what you think my growth rate is. I don't care. Like, it's it's paying me well and I'm having fun. The team's awesome. And I think like that shift will unlock so much potential because I also don't care if we hit X number of revenue next year or two years from now.

I just want to be in business for the next 20 years because that sounds fun. Yeah. I I really love the way you're framing this. I I'm bristling a little at the language I don't care. I think that's interesting. have you been let's ask specifically but but I'm mo I'm like 90% of the way with you on what you're saying um and you seem like the kind of guy who can have an honest conversation so I'm telling you the thing that I maybe disagree with there because uh sure I feel you >> um but uh have you been uh have you been explicitly influenced by stoicism? >> I wouldn't say so.

No, I mean like I I >> and I wouldn't say maybe I don't care is that I like let me be clear. I think like I do care what other people think like every human. >> I just don't let it change my decisions anymore. At least I try not to. I'm not perfect. >> Um >> and so I I I when I say I don't care, I'm thinking from an external standpoint. I really care about my own values. And if I'm not aligned, I really care like more than most people. >> I can feel that in the conversation.

That's actually part of the reason I I I was I was almost I was tempted to press you on that because it's clear to me that you care. uh when you talk about >> ordering strategy and the way you frame custom labs in the beginning, your your mind is in the business, you know the numbers, you're in the details, you're engineering the business for the kind of thing that you want. Uh you know, you're you're so attentive to it that it's clear that you care, but and and I think I understood what you mean, you know, uh and and with that clarification, it's helpful.

So, um let's talk about the experience of that a little more. Uh did you have a moment where you where you sort of realized that you were being pressured by this ex or like you felt this external pressure like was there some was there a breaking point specifically? How did you unwind that uh a little bit? So let's because let's say this is a really big problem for people. >> Um tell me your story uh of how you of of how you discovered that in yourself and what like what did you do? >> Yeah, I've wrote about this as well.

I started writing this year. Um one of my New Year's goals was to develop a reading habit. That reading habit turned into a writing habit. I've been like tweeting for a long time and I needed to expand on some of these ideas and my working title for this exact thing was the network I built that I would kill for almost killed me. And so like what I really meant by that was and you probably experienced this too like and I've I've alluded to it is you start to immerse yourself in these communities online and then you build a network in person and inevitably there's people much further ahead of you.

And so you start to feel this not only insecurity but this drive to compress the timeline to get to where they are and it makes you start to operate maybe inauthentically implement strategies you normally wouldn't do feel external pressures and really what the breaking point for me was is that doing all of that in the name of growth in the name of this hadonic treadmill of like never enough and I want to get there and um and and worrying about what people thought it just became not fun.

And the breaking point simply was is that like I didn't love what I was doing anymore. And to your point around like I do deeply care. Like I only actually really I only do things I I care about. That's kind of like I think the the the mark of an entrepreneur is that you just you just relentlessly pursue something you care about and you you really don't care about anything else. Um and so it just became not fun. I was getting sick all the time.

During that two years I talked to we were unprofitable and we weren't uh operating authentically. I was just like every 3 weeks I felt like I was getting some different sickness. I I very distinctly remember driving home one day from work and just thinking like I will trade this business for the opportunity to feel good again. So like I got to that point where I was like I'd just rather not do this anymore if I can just feel healthy and I can feel for lack of a better term happy.

Um and so that was the breaking point and that led to that July 2023 kind of wipe the table clean moment and find my way back to those first five years where I was like this is awesome. Like I'm no external validation. I was living in a basement suite building my business. I wasn't on X, you know, Twitter, D TOC. I was just doing what I thought was cool and it built this cool brand that then people liked. And the really simple insight was like for those people that might be building their their network or immersing themselves these communities and you're maybe you're getting welcomed into the club and you're you're getting cool friends like Andrew Ferris and you're people are noticing you and you feel this desire to maybe like moderate yourself or change or adapt to how they do things. you're forgetting that the reason that you're interesting to them is because you are who you are.

So, you don't need to change. And that was the simple insight was like, oh, I'm already in the club. I don't need to mold myself to other people to make myself more like them who's not the actual person that they liked in the first place. So, again, we're I'm getting like real kind of like uh in the mental weeds here. >> So important. Yes, >> I I I Yeah, I mean, we could do tactics a lot and we already did some of them actually and I I probably want to come back to a couple little more business insights, but I actually I I was, you know, reading some of your stuff before we talked and was looking at you you did a really really good post called what 10 years of building taught me that nobody else would and it's 10 10 points from your sort of 10ear journey.

And this is just the kind of thing I hear people who have been building for a long time talk about like the three-year founder doesn't say the things you're saying. They're they probably have other insights. you know, don't don't get me wrong, I'm happy to talk to them and learn, but uh but the sort of very human element of it over the long term becomes a larger and larger and larger percentage of it because some of the highs and lows just become less central to the experience, I think, u especially if you're a little more stable in the business and some of those things.

So, I I really love it. Don't apologize at all for sort of going to those places. I think it's really good. Um I'm uh I'm I'm interested too to hear sort of uh how you maintain then on the other side um ambition. You've you've you've described a negative uh kind of approach to that problem. And I I will comment one more thing on this which is that uh there's a there's a a really great essay by CS Lewis called the inner ring.

Um, and the idea of the inner ring, the basically the whole point of it is that there's always another another group that's more inner than the one that you're in. Always basically um and that that is actually one of the biggest temptations and drivers of bad behavior in the world that basically like it's incredibly powerful, right? That you're describing it which is this thing of like >> like you know and I here's an easy easy example for me like I am Andrew F. doing this, but I'm not on the Operators podcast and those guys aren't, you know, I they're not really my good friends in the way they are with each other.

And, you know, it's not I don't have that kind of influence in the community. And so, what if I could find a way to get to, you know, to their level? You know what I would find if I got there that there's actually another ring inside that probably that I'm not in or something. Um, and it and so that just that that just that when you look around this behavior is absolutely everywhere. And so, finding a way to resist that temptation I think is significant um in my view.

Uh, and so if that is if that is a negative ambition for for sort of growth, like you you just described having a 20-year pathway as you and and being much less up and down with this, you know, you're not the smartest person in the world when you're winning and you're not an idiot when you're losing. Um, is there is there anything that sort of keeps you ambitious about the timeline of outweigh? Uh, what is that? >> Yeah, I think it's just the relentless pursuit to be better than yesterday.

It's not a sexy answer, but I think if if if you believe in the power of compounding growth, which is like one of the most powerful influences in the world, then if you are attempting and succeeding at just improving incrementally every day, >> that should be the goal. And then extend the time horizon. I think that the biggest problems I've run into in business is when I try to compress the timeline, when I try to rush outcomes, when sometimes they just take longer than you'd imagine.

Like where I am today is where I wanted to get three years ago. uh it just took longer than I thought and I put this pressure on myself to do it when no one else was putting that pressure and there was no reason to compress the timeline. >> And so like that is one of the conundrums of trying to get to a place of operating authentically is you or >> some some people might call it content. Um and one of the downsides of being content would be that you would probably lack ambition.

And I don't think that the two uh have to be mutually exclusive. I think be happy or content, but you can be incredibly ambitious. >> And I've just been fortunate to meet people that are like that. Um, but you just >> like what like or whatever because because this is like a big thing for me, Rob. So, I'm really curious about this. Like I this is like it's so much of what I'm interested in is this question of like ambition from a place of contentment of discontent.

I I I'm really fascinated by this. So, please tell me about this. Well, Brent Behore would call it like clean fuel versus dirty fuel. Um, and so >> what they're like is they're almost >> they're way more focused. That's what they are is like they're incredibly focused. >> Um, I'm thinking of one individual I'm not going to name just because I'm just just reason, but um they're incredibly focused and it it creates this sort of like force field or horse blinders around these people where like you can't shake them because they're so internally driven.

They're not looking for external validation. They're incredibly secure, meaning that like advice isn't going to shake them or talking shit's not going to shake them. Um, they're going to protect their time relentlessly. Whereas, if you're, you know, maybe on the opposite end where you're doing it still, uh, uh, chasing things for external validation, the wrong reasons, a lot of those things are going to shake you. You're going to look for shiny objects.

You're going to advice and and talking is really going to affect you because you're externally driven. And so what I'd real like what I admire about these people and what makes them kind of like scary and dangerous a little bit is you can't shake them. You can't compete with them because they're playing their own game. Um, which is really interesting and and and and just I admire that kind of attitude when you get to the place of like, oh, like you know, they're still competitive and they still are taking the inputs like these they're like I'm saying all these people are still human and they so like what you say will still hurt them but it can't shake them is the difference of what maybe what I'm saying is like >> um >> and maybe that's not a that's my best way I can articulate it right now.

I've never actually that was a good question. Urban asked that or really thought too much about it, but I think you've given me an idea for a future future writing piece. >> Yeah. Good. Okay. Well, glad to be some help. I because Yeah, I am very I am very fascinated. It just occurred to me like I would I would love to see if I could get Brett Brent to come on the pot. He's one of those guys I think a lot of people look at as as having something to offer in this in this world.

Um yeah. >> Uh let's let's do a little more a little more business stuff. You've got a couple takes. Um, and one of the things I hear you being excited about is brand and product and is that being really really important. Tell me about um, tell me about that. Tell me about how you're thinking about the importance uh, and centrality of brand, the importance and centrality of great product um, in your growth story because uh, I hear you more excited about that than sort of any tactic or whatever.

In fact, if anything, I hear you describing situation where you kind of moved away from add all of the bells and whistles and focus much more on brand and product. Yeah, I think like these two are things that are are going to have to persist no matter what. Some tactics will come and go. The brand and the product are going to have to the the the longevity aspects of the business. I say what makes I'm I'm I'm obsessed with socks and our product and uh I just truly think that like it's a $60 billion market socks globally.

So like I I get asked all the time and I'm probably leaving money off the hill but not expanding our product line yet where we have some some actually stuff in development for the first time. we're going to probably release some new products, but um on a longer time frame anyway. Uh and so I'm obsessed with this idea of how can we do more in the sock space? How can we make the product even better? How can we innovate not only just in the product front but design front?

Um even on the supply chain front development. Um so I think just like continually making our product better and and the socks is an interesting problem to solve because uh I'll just share this real quick because it's I think it's just interesting. It's like socks are a product socks are a product that we're we're conditioned to hate from a young age. They become when you're when you're a kid um they're a gift of punishment, right?

Like [laughter] they're basically like if you're if you celebrate Christmas, it's always like a relatively big present that looks like it could be awesome and you open it up and it's like a big pack of socks. You're like this sucks. Uh, and then you become an adolescent or a teenager where you start picking your own clothes and dressing yourself and you're going to you start to focus on things that signal something to the out outside world.

Your t-shirt, your pants, your shoes, other accessories, socks, you don't care about. They don't tell a story. Uh, and so you you go into your basically adult life learning that I shouldn't care about my socks. I actually reluctantly buy them. And so no one's experienced or introduced the idea that sock could be better. So, it creates a really interesting marketing problem of how do you convince people they need a better sock when they don't even think about it.

It's easier when people are dealing with real problems of things that they they buy every day. Um, so that creates a unique problem and I'm just obsessed with solving that problem which also is interesting to me because it means that like at least my view is that our biggest competitors are not other brands. It's with creating the awareness that you should care about your socks. Um, the one caveat is people that do learn about socks in an early age are athletes because they they are taught about the importance of that as as a piece of gear, but it's still a relatively small percentage of people and you'd be surprised how many athletes just wear crappy socks anyways.

So, um, >> I think it's just such an interesting problem to solve. It's it's a hard business. It's a low margin product. You have to sell a huge volume, >> but it's an interesting one because >> not a lot of people care to solve it. Uh, and I think that's actually one thing like it's it's that's what's presented such a unique opportunity in our private label business. You'd be surprised at how many brands we make socks for that you just wouldn't know because they've set up their entire supply chain and cut and sew and a knit a knit supply chain is is very different and hard.

I know because I've tried to set the inverse of get a cut and cut and sew supply chain. It's just a different business, a different way of thinking and designing. And so when you think of launching a sock line, you look at the margins, you're like, we'll just partner with that way because they've got it dialed. I can actually probably get better pricing than you building up a new supply chain anyways, even though I'm going to make margin and give you better pricing and we're just experts at it.

And so it creates this really unique opportunity where we're playing business on what I'd call hard mode. Um, but it keeps it somewhat anti-competitive in the fact that like if some new entrepreneur right now, even leveraging all AI, they're not going to be like, I'm going to start sock business. The odd person will. And Zach Stock comes to mind and he's built one and is building an incredible business. I I look at it and I admire it.

I'm not jealous. I mean, I I I I would happily take some of the growth and tactics, like sure, but at the same time, it's like awesome, dude. You're growing the category. You found a niche. It's like, >> you know, like we're both doing eight figures in some sort of scale, but in the grand scheme of 60 billion, we're not even scratching the surface. Let's go do let's go do our job. >> Um, >> and so that's yeah, that's generally how how I I like to think about product.

And then brand is like I think in a world that's going to become commoditized by by just a kind of tasteless output of what AI might do. I think the brands that have built a platform and a level of trust with consumers have an opportunity to deepen that relationship in an era where people are going to be way more skeptical to build new relationships because they're not going to know what's real and what's not. >> And not to say that AI doesn't create great content.

I just think that there's going to be a renaissance or a time of period where people with taste and agency are going to be able to accelerate their businesses and use the historics of their business and the credibility they've built to really accelerate. And I think it's such an interesting time for that human aspect, the taste aspect plus the relationships that are already built to kind of use the tools where I'm not so sold.

There might be like a using AI to to find unique arbitragees, but I'm not entirely sold that using AI is going to be this way to create businesses like we've seen in the last 10 years that actually have a a dedicated consumer base. And I'm happy to be wrong. Um, but I think the people that have already built that relationship are going to have a much better advantage on deepening that and expanding it than new interests.

Um, >> so we'll see. Do you think uh is it I mean some ways you just pitted brand against AI. Um do you do you do you have any sort of point of view on on uh the place for human creative in the world of AI that's particularly strong or or human people in the world of AI whether it's at creative level or something else? >> Yes. Maybe I did pit it. What I would say the nuance there is that what I was saying is I think if you had a brand that you built credibility with before the AI movement, >> I think you're just going to be better off.

Not to say that you can't utilize you a AI to build a brand or accelerate the brand. >> So I think like >> we'll see. I just I really struggle with trying to make any have any takes on AI with the the rate of improvement. And I think we're actually just trying to describe something we don't even we can't even conceptualize right now. Like I think what it is today >> it's I think we're trying to explain like ghosts or something or aliens.

I just don't think but what I will say is >> I think if you have right now from what I know and think if you have brand with credibility and a team with taste that you have an incredible opportunity in front of you and if you're a new entrepreneur you have access to tools that are going to allow you to accelerate and do things that you and I would have had to hire big teams for. So it's a great opportunity. I think if you have a pre-existing relationship, you have an advantage um with your consumer base versus building a new one because there's just going to be an onslaught of new entrance and people are not going to know what's real.

Um I still think humans ask humans what products they like. We still talk to each other. Yes, we're asking chat GPT and querying it like Google, but there's still a human relationship going on in the world. So, um I'm not sure where it goes. I just think that if you had a brand pre-ai, by leveraging the tools, you have the opportunity to really double down on that and deepen the relationship with the consumers and build something credible. >> Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. Um, okay, Rob, we're at at the end of our time. Uh, I want to give you one last chance just to say anything that's top of mind for you in the econ world. If we covered it, that's just fine. But I just, uh, most ecom people I'm around at some point are thinking about something in particular. Uh, so any any any last thoughts? You could take that anywhere you want. That's just sort of stuff you're thinking about that's top of mind in your day-to-day. >> Oh man, I think we we covered a lot.

I'd say like if it really depends on who would be talking to here. I'd say like if you're uh I I'll say two things. If you're early on in your journey, I would just continue to focus on the problem that you uniquely deal with and want to solve and have some insights on solving and don't get distracted. I think you you you I would tend and I did uh over uh emphasize trying new things and underemphasize just focusing on solving my own problem. >> Really good. >> And then the people that are further along and maybe having some sort of existential crisis like I had and continue to have, I'd say uh I' I'd say like what you're doing is good enough, man.

Just keep doing it and try to have actually fun with it because like what's the point otherwise? That's what I would say. It's not so much tactics. It's not so much ecom. Um it's uh if you if you make a product people that makes people's lives better and you are driven internally to continue to do that. Um I struggle to see how you won't be successful and to find success how you'd want not externally. >> It's good. Um I uh think people should follow up with you.

They should go follow your writing. Uh there's a few places to get that including uh including article forms on X and some of those things. If you follow uh Rob onx at uh Robb Fraser uh on LinkedIn, Robb Fraser as well. I'm going to put the links for both those in the show notes. So you can just click through those. I also I'm going to grab in the show notes uh the recent article you wrote that I referenced, what 10 years of building taught me that nobody else would.

Strongly recommend it. Really, really good stuff there. Even that the first point, the fuel that builds you will eventually burn you. Uh we kind of touched on a little bit is so right and so helpful and I think about this kind of thing all the time. So go get more of that from Rob there. Go to outway.com, buy some stocks. Uh, like I said, big fan. Uh, so I can vouch. And, uh, and Rob, I really appreciate your time, man. >> Yeah, thanks for having me on.

This was, uh, it took some unexpected turns for the better, I think. And, uh, it it was, it was a blast, man. It was, it was great to chat. Thanks for having me on. >> You thought I was just going to go all tactics with you the whole time. And, uh, >> yeah, you never know where these are going to go, right, for conversations. And I think uh, if people want tactics, there's great tactical people out there. Maybe I'd have a different perspective. >> I'm sure you have I'm sure you have plenty of those, too, if we pressed into it, but uh, but not today.

That would be if a different time. All right, man. Thanks. >> Thank you. >> I loved that conversation with Rob Fraser. You should subscribe wherever you're watching or listening to this podcast because I've got more great conversations coming up like that. I gave Rob the come back anytime offer right when we hung up. Uh so subscribe so you don't miss him when he does because obviously a really thoughtful guy and uh and is and is thinking about the kinds of things that are sort of most interesting to [music] me in e-commerce which is this human element of it on top of the operational excellence that creates the kind of outcomes that he's talking about today.

It is really really hard to build an 8 figureure business that's distributing [music] profitably uh distributing regularly especially multiple times a year in e-commerce. He's doing an incredible job with it. Uh I I had many many more questions that we didn't get to this time. time. So, like I said, subscribe. Maybe in the comments, leave me some of the questions you'd want to ask Rob so that I can bank those for the next time he comes on.

We talked about maybe a quarterly kind of thing or something like that. Who knows? I'm sure he'll come back soon. Really, really good episode, I thought. [music] Um, do do comment uh wherever you're watching or listening. Uh, as well, I read every comment, particularly on YouTube or Spotify. So, if you're in one of those [music] two places, uh, comment. I see all of those. Um, and try to interact with as absolutely as many of them as possible.

In fact, if there's a place that you want to get my attention on your question or your business or something, the comments section is probably [music] the best bet at doing it because I really do read all of them. So, uh, and try to interact with all of them. So, so, uh, do that. Uh, and of course, go to afgrowth.com if you're interested in seeing anything else I'm doing, including working with me and my team, uh, at AFGrowth.

You can fill out the form on the website there to tell me a little bit about your business so that I can understand it a little better. Even if we are not the right fit as an agency for you, I might have a great recommendation for somebody who is. So tell tell me a little bit about your business and we'll we'll see if we can be some help. Big thanks to my friends at Intelligjams and More Staffing. The links for both of those are in the show notes.

Go check those out as well. Thanks so much for watching or listening. I'll see you next time.