515: Building Yeezy with Kanye and Why He Left Adidas | Eric Liedtke

The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan

Nathan Chan

Marketing, Business, Entrepreneurship

4.8 • 662 Ratings

🗓️ 8 June 2024

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Kanye calls you on a Sunday night, you pick up. That was Eric Liedtke’s life for years as the head of global brands at Adidas, where he was instrumental in building the Yeezy brand and scaling the Adidas ecommerce platform to a multi-billion dollar business. After a 26-year corporate career, Liedtke gave it up and started from scratch as the CEO and co-founder of UNLESS Collective, a plant-based streetwear brand designed to leave zero plastic waste. Nathan Chan and Liedtke go deep into his war stories from Adidas, working with celebrity talent like Kanye, and why starting UNLESS was a humbling experience. In this episode, you’ll learn: How Liedtke climbed from a sweeper to a board member at Adidas The origins of Yeezy, its growth, and what went wrong That Adidas built Kanye a sample room in Calabasas What Kanye taught him about branding Why UNLESS partnered with skate, surf, and snow influencers The different skills between a corporate leader and an entrepreneur Why he thought starting a business would be easier Why Kanye almost bought UNLESS Why you always need to have a Plan B Supplying t-shirts for Robert Downey Jr. And much more product branding advice… Click here to start your business for $1. You’ll get all-access foundr+, where you’ll find more in-depth, proven strategies from founders like our guest today and support and advice from our global community of 30,000 founders. If you loved this conversation and learned something new, rate and review this episode. Stay in touch with us, follow foundr on your favorite platform: Foundr.com Instagram YouTube Facebook X LinkedIn Magazine

Transcript

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0:00.0	In the business world, you're always competing, but when you make it about sports as well,
0:04.0	you could not meet for a drink. You could not cross the street to shake each other's hand.
0:07.7	It was a fierce rivalry because you wore the swoosh versus the three stripes.
0:12.6	Connie demanded a certain level of attention. He taught us a lot about how to create and how to never
0:18.0	compromise and never settle for something that we've done before.
0:21.8	For things to go so badly, so quickly, it was a story that someday, you know, a few of us will
0:27.0	have to tell in its entirety. Ultimately, my consumer brand is actually the Trojan horse to a
0:32.7	bigger idea, which is to systemically change the way fashion is made and ultimately goes away.
0:38.0	I'd like to tell people what I went from the penthouse of the board seat and Adidas to the
0:41.9	outhouse with unless, but I've never been happier in an outhouse.
0:48.3	Before we dive in, I want to extend a warm invitation to join our thriving founder community.
0:53.6	It's the perfect place to discover more insightful interviews aimed at helping you build,
0:57.8	grow and scale your business.
0:59.6	So don't forget to hit subscribe.
1:01.9	Your support means the absolute world to us.
1:04.5	Thank you so much for subscribing.
1:06.7	Let's get stuck in today's discussion.
1:09.5	Hear the stories.
1:10.6	Learn the proven methods and accelerate your growth and future. Let's get stuck in today's discussion. Hear the stories.
1:16.2	Learn the proven methods and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship.
1:20.1	Welcome to the founder podcast with Nathan Chan.
1:32.2	So the first question that I'd like to ask you is, can you describe your first 60 days of Unless Collective?
	...

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