Join me today as I sit down with Bala Footwear Founder and CEO Brian Lockard, who developed a new footwear category after parting ways with Nike. Brian shares his incredible story of resilience, innovation, and unwavering determination in this episode. Discover how losing a job drove his mission to transform how healthcare professionals are treated and supported, just like elite athletes.
With a passion for bridging the gap between business and impact, Brian reveals the pivotal role that codified values and a strong company culture play in overcoming challenges and fostering success.
His story will inspire as he takes you behind the scenes of his groundbreaking healthcare footwear venture, where he listens and learns from healthcare professionals and actively involves them in the product creation process.
– Losing a job is tough and can be a blow to one’s ego.
– Achievements and work ethic are often tied to one’s identity, making job loss even harder to separate from personal identity.
– Factors such as company decisions and circumstances beyond one’s control can contribute to job loss.
– Responding to adversity is key and defining oneself by how they respond, rather than what happens to them, is important.
– It’s easy to narrow focus on negative events, but it’s important to remember that life is broader than just a career.
– The speaker emphasizes their roles as a spouse, friend, and individual beyond their professional identity.
– They have made a decision to respond positively and make something good out of the situation.
Primary Topic: Building a Strong Company Culture
– The company codified its mission and core values around the belief that healthcare professionals should be treated like elite athletes.
– The team worked together to create a set of shared values that included making things happen, always learning and improving, being humbly confident, helping the team first, and situating oneself.
– The company had a successful launch, but ran into challenges in its first year, including a group of employees wanting more credit and positions.
– This group threatened to leave and potentially harm the company through social media.
– The situation resulted in a difficult period for the CEO, with accusations of racism and misogyny circulating on social media.
– Despite the backlash, the company retained its remaining staff and focused on upholding its core values.
– The company was able to overcome the challenges, raise additional funding, and sustain itself.
– The experience emphasized the importance of codifying expectations and values to build a strong company culture.
Primary Topic: Creating a Community with Healthcare Professionals
– Speaker started exploring the opportunity for healthcare footwear in April 2019.
– They wanted to validate the idea by talking to nurses and healthcare professionals.
– They spoke to multiple nurses and heard their stories and emotional desire to be heard.
– They decided to build a community with nurses and involve them in the product creation and branding.
– They assembled a team in design and development to make the product a reality.
– By January 2020, they had all the insights, started developing the product, and had a well-positioned team.
Primary Topic: Career Journey and Skills
– The speaker’s background is in journalism, which they found to be similar to business.
– They learned the core skill of listening and asking good questions while pursuing their undergraduate degree in journalism.
– They compare the process of synthesizing information for journalism to consumer insights in product development.
– Despite not working in the journalism field, they found that their degree played a role in their career.
– Speaker was previously working in consumer and community banking at JP Morgan Chase on the East Coast.
– Speaker wanted to make a career change into the sport and outdoor industry in the Pacific Northwest.
– Speaker found a job at Nike in a team called Access to Sport, focused on increasing access to sport for young people.
– Speaker moved to Portland, Oregon for the job and started their journey in the industry through a strategic planning role.
– Speaker didn’t have experience in product development but their background in strategy and personal passion aligned well with the job at Nike.
– The speaker was a strategic planner on the team Access to Sport.
– Their main role was to work closely with the VP to define the long-term strategy and simplify it for communication.
– They supported the leadership team in executing the strategy, including creating presentations for executives and organizing quarterly business reviews.
– The role also involved scheduling global teams and handling administrative tasks.
– The speaker found the role to be a valuable learning experience in coordinating global efforts and ensuring tasks were completed efficiently.
– The speaker talks about how life is not just a series of successes and how they have always acknowledged this.
– They recount a story from their childhood where they learned the importance of reframing negative experiences.
– They mention that they have overcome various challenges in their life and that they focus on their response to adversity.
– When faced with setbacks, the speaker gives themselves a designated time to be upset before moving on and finding something new.
– They believe that it is important to focus on what they can do in any given situation, rather than dwelling on what they can’t do.
– The speaker believes that this mindset is crucial for being an entrepreneur, as they constantly encounter challenges and need to find ways to make things better.
Primary Topic: Book Recommendation and Team Building
– The speaker recommends a chapter from a book called “The Book of Basketball” by Bill Simmons.
– The chapter is called “The Secret” and discusses how Isaiah Thomas built the Detroit Pistons teams into champions.
– The chapter reveals insight into building a team culture and retaining teammates through challenges.
– The book also references other great basketball books on team building, such as “Breaks the Game” and “Go Up For Glory”.
– The speaker highlights that Bill Simmons, the author, went on to build a successful company called The Ringer.
– The speaker suggests reading chapter one of “The Book of Basketball” or listening to the podcast version for more details.
– The speaker emphasizes the importance of having the right team in place, including a world-class footwear designer from Nike.
– They mention setting up the supply chain in Asia to ensure production and shipping.
– The speaker highlights the onboarding of Chris Tawa, who became a crucial team member and ensured the product calendar stayed on schedule.
– They mention the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the company’s plans, particularly with fit testing the product.
– Chris Tawa went above and beyond by personally delivering samples and conducting fit tests remotely via Zoom.
– The speaker credits Chris for setting a high standard of work and embracing the company’s core values of making things happen and continuous improvement.
Primary Topic: Career Change and Entrepreneurship
– The speaker left Nike in 2017 due to a role impact caused by a RIF (reduction in force).
– After leaving Nike, the speaker embarked on a period of exploration and started doing consulting work with different companies in the outdoors industry.
– During this exploration period, the speaker decided to spend time with the best people they knew and say yes to every project that came their way, regardless of whether it was a free or long-term consulting project.
– Two years after leaving Nike, the speaker came up with the idea for healthcare shoes for healthcare professionals.
– The speaker realized that working at large companies lacked the feeling of making a daily impact and seeing the value of their work.
– The speaker’s passion for business and its potential to create a positive impact stems from their father’s small business, which provided jobs, helped people with injuries, and supported the community.
– The speaker believes that younger people don’t feel inspired by what business can achieve, and it saddens them.
– The speaker found a startup idea aligned with their passion and realized how much they love the outcomes that new business ventures can create, which motivated them.