Episode 416 - Dan Ellis - The journey to rebuild after losing the brand he spent a lifetime building

Cleared Hot

Society & Culture

4.9 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2025

⏱️ 119 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today's episodes are some of my favorites. I hate stories of just wavetops, and I love stories about people who refuse to give up on what they believe and have built. Don't sleep on this episode; there is much to be gained and learned.

Dan Ellis has been making performance footwear for 35+ years, starting his shoe-making career at Saucony, where he worked at their factory in Maine, learning each step in the shoe-making process. He went on to work for Adidas and Reebok, making specialized shoes for multiple Olympic and professional athletes. In 2005, DEVCOM (aka "Natick Labs") asked Dan to work with the Navy SEALs to develop a suite of boots, which turned into the brand OTB Boots. One elite unit nicknamed him "Bootmaker to the Good Guys", which is used today as a tagline for the OTB Boot Brand.

Today's Sponsors:

Montana Knife Company:

https://www.montanaknifecompany.com

LMNT:

https://www.drinklmnt.com/clearedhot

Transcript

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0:00.0	Okay, got the red smoke.
0:03.1	Gun runs.
0:05.1	North and south.
0:06.3	West of the smoke.
0:07.4	West of the smoke.
0:09.1	Okay, copy.
0:10.0	West of the smoke.
0:11.2	I'm looking at danger close now.
0:13.6	Come on winter, baby.
0:14.5	Give it to me.
0:15.0	I need it.
0:16.0	You're cleared hot.
0:17.2	Copy, cleared hot.
0:19.0	Yeah.
0:20.8	Windows versus Mac
0:22.0	Yeah I just
0:24.3	Military is all Windows
0:26.2	Correct
0:26.9	It's all about PowerPoints
0:28.5	That's why you know
0:29.5	Well I have a Mac sitting here in front of me
0:31.3	That I don't think that's on camera
	...

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