Inventor/Designer; Big Waves To Big Wins | Stephen de Zordo

I almost drowned but twice once again. Um, and it was severe. I mean, to this day, I still have the memories of laying the bottom of the pool right down the street here. And, you know, somebody scooped me up. And in a short period of time, I got good really fast. And I got really good at day wave surfing. I wasn't your normal boogie boarder. I was a guy going at a 20 foot OB because that's how I was pushed into it. You find the right team, you find the right people, you believe in them, you educate them, you create, you know, a great experience and the product is epic. I wish I could just go sell things, but I'm not that guy. I could only sell what I believe in. If you don't have the passion for it, if you don't believe in it, shouldn't be doing it. And if you have nothing to contribute, do something else.

In this episode, Steve de Zordo, extraordinary entrepreneur and inventor. His charity of choice is SF Faces. In this episode, we'll dig deep into Steve's pathway to peak performance, and it's different than you might think. You're going to love this one.

Welcome to the show. Steve de Zordo, entrepreneur, expro, visionary, man about town. What else can I say about you?

You are far too kind, Jack.

It's the truth, brother. It's so good to see you again.

Good to see you, too, brother.

Yeah. So great to have you in, man. Um, I kind of want to start with uh there's so many stories, so many things I want to start talking about. But let's go back to the origin story of like you, Steve de Zordo, growing up San Francisco. Take us back.

Oh man, it was I tell my son this all the time, like, you know, quintessential Gen X living, right? Flashkkey kid. Uh I wasn't a good student at all. You know, I was trying to like keep up the Joneses, all this stuff, but I honestly didn't give a hoot. I just wanted to get stuff done, and that was what I did. So while I wasn't, you know, prescribed to the learnings of a French Catholic school, I would go home and build stuff and make things and burn stuff and just create things, you know, and that was just part of my uh soul coming out as a as a young child, right? Uh memorization didn't work for me, ADD, dyslexia, all that fun stuff, right? But for me, I wanted results oriented activity and unfortunately a lot of the my childhood toys uh fell victim to that. Uh, I learned how to light stuff up and shoot rockets off and make model cars and but you know for me it was really important because it was an outlet that I had had just to express myself right in a way that I thought was really meaningful. Um, it's sort of this thing I carry through my life in all the different pursuits I have. So, it's fun.

That's cool. Um, all right. So, I guess when do you hit the beach?

Oh god, I was so young. This is a funny story cuz I was so being a Latchki kid growing up. We had a charge account at a local grocery store, Super K. Shout out, uh, the avenues. And I would go I would eat at Burger King. It was I was feeding myself garbage, right? just tons of garbage. And I a balloon, my nickname in eighth grade was button popper because every time I played basketball, I'd just blow buttons off my uniform. And if anybody's ever had to wear uniform, you know, it's kind of a contentious thing if you're not a really put together person like I was. I was not a put together person. So I, you know, came out of eighth grade, uh, divorced parents, car my way, and I almost drowned, uh, twice.

And it was severe. I mean, to this day, I still have the memories of laying the bottom of the pool right down the street here. And, you know, somebody scooped me up. It happened again in Santa Cruz years later. Uh, and I just got into boogie boarding, man. I don't even know where the hell it came from. Like came from a friend of mine who's passed away, unfortunately. And he pushed me. He pushed me like an older brother should, right? And he dragged me out. He maybe do it. And he's he was this big Nordic dude. He was like super gnarly. And I really got into it later in life. And in a short period of time, I I'm really bad with timelines. I got good really fast. And I was down in Santa Cruz. I came up to San Francisco where there was a scene that was happening. And I got really good at big wave surfing. You know, I just I was I wasn't your normal boogie boarder. I was a guy going out a 20 foot OB because that's how I was pushed into it when I was a kid. So I went from almost drowning to going out in some of the biggest surf in the world.

Really?

Yeah. So you go pro. Uh you get Well, I mean I think what I got paid to do it.

That's that's called professionalism. I mean you get paid to do something. Um, so you're like I remember you would always have like just like these massive boxes of clothes. You be like, "Oh yeah, hey, whatever you want." Um, and then uh boards and wetsuits like, "Oh, you like that one? Have that, right?" Um, so you had all sorts of cool stuff going on. And then you go off to school, you go to NYU, right?

Well, actually, I mean, doodle top four.

Oh, that's right. Yeah. So, first like first things first, um before we get to Doodle Top, um because I'm not sure exactly where it is in this in the sequence, but then you create the frozen pizza. So, what what inspired what was the passion for the frozen pizza? How did you do that?

Did Jouro um so doodle? Well, that's a funny thing. The timeline part of the story, right? I'm horrible with timelines. still am to this day. I don't care about timelines. I just do what I do, right? Timelines are just are not a thing. Uh the older you get, you start to like quantify your timeline, right? Um so, you know, I barely made it out of high school cuz if you grew up in the Bay Area, you know, right when school started was when summer started, especially if you lived out in the Avenues, right? So, uh and gone to George Washington High School, you're surfing the surfing. And we had a view of all the breaks, right? Hey, we could see four point all the way down to slope like you know a thing. Um by the way after getting kicked out of sacred heart for questioning the faith which I thought was a like probably my one collegiate moment or I was obviously paying attention of French Catholic school enough to question the faith. Right. So they weren't having it which I was fine with.

It might have been the style in which you did it.

Yeah, probably I'm I can be a little harsh at times.

I've seen it.

Yeah. And it's it's not being harsh. I think it's being driven, right? And when you hook on to kind of a vision and you start to define your own path, right? Not a lot of people are going to prescribe to it and that's fine, right? I think Steve Jobs is like, you know, yeah, we're not serving ice cream here. We're not out to make everybody happy, right? And and you know, I didn't know any of this stuff when I was a kid. I just was like, "Hey, this is who I am and this is how I'm rolling." And I learned a lot faster on my own than I would in school. And so school to me was boring and trivia. I got taken out by urses for special ed classes. Uh if you ever want to play Simon, I will destroy you at Simon. Uh because that's all we did, right? It was like memory stuff. I was like, "Are you kidding me?" like no way man. So I think at an early age um the one I just learned sort of the power of communication, the power of just delivering too like I always wanted to deliver something something unexpected or something I believed in or something I was passionate about right um is not easy right because you know it's like diving head first into a hot tub is just not a good idea. But people do it all the time. I just didn't break my neck, right? I ended up doing that surfing later. Uh arthritis all up and down my back and neck. But what I learned was if you're going to have impact, you have to have passion and you got to follow some vision, like some personal vision, right? Cuz the world's going to tell you how to be.

Mhm. They all want us to be a certain way. And good for you. not from eight. You definitely found your own rhythm and your own thing. So, let's talk about Doodle Top. And actually, you know, the funny story. So, um Sean Rearen told me that the he saw you create Doodle Top. Um and apparently there were some sort of tops that were like sheer vegetables or something like that.

100%. And you're like twirling these tops in the kitchen floor at Rearen's house and you go, "I just figured something out." And you wouldn't tell him. You said, "I'll let you know when I have a patent."

I think I had him sign an NDA. He had him signed it. That was the first NDA sign. And they're like, "What's an NDA?" And I'm like, "I don't know. Sign the thing." And you know, uh, it was one of those like creative spark moments, right, where I was always into design. And I'm honestly I'm a lazy designer, man. I find the path of least resistance. And we're sitting there, we're playing with it. And we were surfing at OB. It was October fall, killer fall day. I was in a rough place in my life. It was really, really in a rough place in my life. And had no idea what my future was going to look like. And but I just knew that I had this creative energy, right, that could be deployed on anything really, right? And that was kind of the first thing I was realizing like, oh dude, you've been doing this the whole time. You've been, you know, blowing up Lincoln Log sets, setting off rockets, like just creating mayhem. But everything was a learning, right, from it to try to get better, right?

And so we were spinning these tops and he had these these his mom had this little bowl. They're really cool like vegetables, whatever. Right. So, we're sitting there and we we served and his mom was an amazing cook. So, we probably had some of the best chili I've ever had in my life. And we're sitting on the floor. Uh, and we started spinning these tops and because they had a really wide base on them, they were doing these huge arcs and and I was like, "Wow, how can you trace that pattern? That'd be really cool, man." And it just stuck with me. And I went home, modified a bunch of stuff, a Crayola thing, another top, and this, and just put it together. I still have that drawing pad uh from the very the original, you know, doodles, if you will. I just knew there was some there, you know, and I come from a very entrepreneurial family. So, uh, you know, about 3 or 4 months later came up in a conversation with my uncle and he was like, "That is a killer idea." And it was a killer idea. Yeah. Nobody had done it before. It's a doodle top. Basically described what it did. Basically, it's a top that spins on a felt tip marker. So, it makes a design. Yeah.

And I quickly went through, and I think this was the brain training I had as a kid of like just failing fast, hard, breaking stuff, blowing stuff up, lighting stuff on fire, you know, like what's the outcome, right, of of my influence on whatever it might be, right? And Doodle Top does exactly that. It crystallized in the moment. And this was a year out of high school. and I barely graduated high school. I will throw a shout out to Jim Derky. He was uh the dean of students who took me under his wing and he's like, "I kind of believe in you. I think I know what you're doing." And he got me out of high school and within a year I think I kind of repaid his promise. And we stayed in touch. Amazing guy, absolutely incredible person. Um, and within a year we were launched. Then within two years, we became a head toy. And to this day, it is up there with Slinky, Play-Doh, and all that fun stuff. Uh, I don't make any money from it anymore. We sold it a long time ago, but it a lot of my learnings in business uh and creative came from the toy industry, which I'm sure there's not many people listening to the show, but maybe there's a few that understand how intense the toy business is.

I I can only imagine how I mean I can remember hearing some stories from you about it over the years, but um but Doodle Top went big. It went big. I mean, we're talking big time.

That was 6 700 million units now. We won every award. California State employee of the year for people with disabilities. Uh we're one of the first manufacturers using uh recycled plastic. uh so much so that people actually years later reached out to me to consult about how to get that done in the US and more so even in California locally cuz there just weren't a lot of producers doing it. Um incredible learning and kind of a tragic end unfortunately.

Well, stuff happens right but you went on from there.

I went on.

So, I mean that's you mean at your age to have that kind of success is you know how many people actually had that at that age. It's pretty I mean it's like what I don't know what the odds are but they're pretty low.

It was terrifying. Yeah. When I look back it was terrifying but it was also the best experience of my life. You're like you're flying pretty high. You're really young. You have zero experience. You got somebody you're riding with. Um, and yeah, it is what it is. But so, let's let's move on from Jud Talk. We might come back to it, talk about it a little bit more. Shout out to Sean Reen for the uh I texted him this morning. I said, "Hey, give me a give me a little um um I got one from Ivan Debriny also. We can't use it on the show, unfortunately." Anyway, we were just We were very sparky children back in the days.

Yeah. By the way, since you're a product guy, I I know you always appreciate products. This is a new one. This is an interesting one. I like elevate hydrogen water. Uh so, shout out shout out to Adrian Taus. Next level, uh hydrogen water. Elevate hydrogen water. Cheers.

Cheers. So, take a sip.

I'm feeling better already.

You feeling better?

Yeah. Tastes pretty good, right?

I don't know. You know, it's funny product guy. It's funny you mentioned that cuz I was thinking about that before I came here. Yeah. And I think we'll get into this in in this this discussion. Product people generally are kind of storytellers in a way, right? It's sort of baked into uh what the hell is this thing all about, right? Um they're not the best at articulating the value propositions of the product, but product people are inherently storytellers, right? because they're looking for a new opportunity or solving for something and and you know it's really interesting with products because you know I see this all the time in our business we do a lot of technology work which is very complex storytelling right products though kind of tell our own right I can be like yeah this thing's killer elevate this is rad if I fired up a demo for one of our clients right now we're all going go to sleep unless it's handled correctly.

Yeah. So anyway, well, you know, like we had Bill Schlay on the show and he was talking about USP and he's the guy that decoded the USP from um uh Rossa Reeves and you know, crazy to hang out with that guy. Every time you like spend any time with him, he's just like, you know, you're 100% spot on with the whole storytelling piece. It's all about telling stories, right? I mean, we we I almost feel like the reason I do things are to create more stories, right? For better or for worse, right? It's like drives my wife crazy. Like, ah god, you that story again, you know? Uh we've been married for 25 years, so no surprise she's heard stories a couple times. Um but you know if I look at anything if if I have any place on earth here certainly taking up some oxygen later on my life right is how can I inspire that back?

Speaking of which by the way you know all the proceeds from the show go to your charity of choice which we normally open up with and talk about. I think we just got too excited. So you you picked u what is your charity that you've selected?

Uh, Phases SF. Faces.

So, what does FACES SF do?

So, they basically build and supplement programs for underserved communities in education. And you know, for me that's near and dear because I think what they've achieved and they're pro I'm probably not doing them justice right now, but they basically are kind of a supplemental program that's probably listening to the kids more than the general like SFUSD would be, right? And I was a guy, I did not fit the bolt at all, right? It would have been really easy if I did not meet James Herrick at George Washington High School. I probably wouldn't be here right now. Maybe I'd be right over the hill at No, I'd probably be dead because I he gave me focus and and trust like he just trusted and he brought people in and gave us some promise, you know, in a system that I don't know they stamp it out, right? You don't want to stamp out people. You need to let people thrive. You need to find those ideas. You need to be open. You need to have that. And that's where great ideas, great collaboration, and great creativity come from, right? Let's go make a mess and see what happens, right? And and he gave me that freedom, which would not have happened at a Catholic school. I could tell you right now. That's why I got kicked out, right?

So, um, but for me, it's really important that the voices are heard because, and I'm not going to go into it right now, what's currently going on, but nobody necessarily wants to hear the voices or has time for it or are funding it, you know, and these smart people. These are smart kids. They need the opportunity. These are the people we need to handle me in retirement. Right. I gota believe I've got to believe that this next generation at least has the vigor and the drive and the opportunity wherever you come from. It doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. And I always I always tell people this. It's like I'm the average American white guy, right? I I get the benefit of the doubt. I am 100% aware of that. Yeah, it made my life easy in some ways, but it's also kind of a challenge, right? Because I understand on a I guess a physical level how I might be perceived, but on an intellectual level, I'm kind of a mess. Then it's like I've really got to reorganize my parade all the time. I have to live in a moment and create purpose and and find some drive in that, right? Um, I do a lot of different things, right? I play drums, I surf, I ski, I create, you know, I'm kind of a hack at all of it, but I also am really good at bringing people together and kicking the doors down to create opportunity for others.

Well, that is definitely true. Um, one thing I can definitely say is I guess I've been known you for uh I don't know how like it's been a long time.

Long time.

Yeah. Um, but I always thought he used a fire brand dude. I was just a person just rocking stuff and like I don't think we've ever had any kind of like, you know, it's always just been fun and games. There's never been any kind of like just can't remember any time just hanging out with you wasn't fun. Um, and so what I think about is interesting about you is like you're you're you're a true creative. You're truly a creative, man.

Yeah. Every day you you and you are a person that brings people together and you're a great leader. Your team, you know, you can take a look at I mean, we're kind of bouncing around now going over to what you've done with Deckham. We're skipping over the other toy that you created that I thought personally I just don't even know why you guys didn't do that all go all the way with that cuz I thought that was the we were at that first I think it was the first Deckan Christmas party all those years ago and they had those describe the toy. Talk about that toy.

So we was more of a game. Yeah, it's a game. It's a skill game and you know Kickstarter was coming around. Um, I was trying to figure out what the hell I'll do with my life, right? Cuz like I came out of the toy industry, I swore it off. I was like, I never want to be back in this industry again. Uh, it was a really rough ride at the end. Personal, family, you know, and I hit bot really hard. And uh, the reason why was because I started so young. I mean, I literally left the beach at Porto Escandido shooting a seminal film, being one of the first videographers in the water, the Mexican pipeline, right? And I just found a diary like 3 months later, I'm in New York at toy fair in February, you know, and I didn't know what the hell I was doing. Had no idea. I just thought this was good, right? And um the the you know at the end of that ride which are eight eight or nine years that I was just learning on the job really um became really good at sales you know and uh had built incredible relationships you know and when that ended I just I kind of bottom out you know and I wasn't sure what to do because I was at 28 right so We sold the company. We had some success. You know, toys a hit. You know, we won every freaking award you possibly win on the planet. And we had a great organization, too. We were employing people with disabilities, people for work furlow programs. We were kind of stamping out. We were actually Ernston Young entrepreneur of the year for social responsibility.

How awesome in the toy industry.

How awesome is that? in the toy industry. There's no I I can guarantee you no one's ever stepped into that ring in the toy industry. Uh and you know, we we got there, you know, and I wouldn't even call that a home. It's like a grand it's a like a double grand slam. That thing was so big. It was like you it's a it's that's just so interesting. It really hit my heart uh because we created opportunity, you know, and back to what I was saying with bringing people up, right? um you know if I ever had investors which I don't um you know I'd be questioned on the way I run my businesses no question about it right uh but people for me are huge that is you find the right team you find the right people you believe in them you educate them you create you know a great experience and and the product is epic I mean I ever. I wish I could just go sell things, but I'm not that guy. I could only sell what I believe in.

That's crazy. I was thinking about that just this morning. You know, just in one of those moments thinking about like, okay, hey, if you don't believe in what you're doing, get out as fast as you possibly can. Do something else.

If you don't have the passion for it, if you don't believe in it, shouldn't be doing it.

Yeah. I wouldn't have hair right now if that's the way I roll. Not to say I haven't lost hair in the stress of doing on your own. very DIY, right?

Hey, but there's some beauty in that, right? I've done it both ways.

Yeah, I know you I know you've been there, man.

Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty hardcore. Yeah.

Um, so I want to get back to your New York experience because I think that's going to be really interesting. So, like, okay, let's try to come back to path. Look, there's this passion with you. There's always been that you get around you. I think like you always are kind of like, man, there's this energy this flowing with you. It's super cool. It's so really fun. Uh you have that kind of like make stuff happen kind of it's fun. Um so you're in New York. Um you've got this passion. You decide, hey, I'm gonna do Phil.

Uh I'd already done that prior. So we I I we picked up so with the boogie boarding thing or body boarding, right? That was the late '8s. Uh I had a dear friend and mentor of mine, Mike Shaw. Uh super successful guy, super cool dude. He's like he he did uh uh the pursuit of equality uh documented all the gay marriage stuff at San Francisco. He's Dome's kind of right-hand guy. And Mike took me on a journey. you know, he identified kind of like Jim Jerky. He said, "Hey, this kid's actually showing up." And I was like, "I don't know what I'm doing." And and our sponsors were starting to dry out. So late ' 80s, you know, surf culture went back to the shores. It was wide across the whole country and we started to see all the budgets just, you know, people losing sponsorships. And so Mike pitched us this thing. we're going to do a year and a half long video for one of our sponsors. He's like, "And you're going to be the video guy." I was like, "Uh, okay. We're going to say you went to SF State." And he built this whole narrative. I was like, "Uh, cool. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I can do that." You know, and it was terrifying. Oh my god. And we went down to uh we live in Huntington Beach and went down for summer down there cuz I was big in surfing the wedge. Like the wedge was like my thing. A freak wave from hell. That was my passion as a kid. I look at the posters and be like that's going to be me one day. And and I think because of that, I had the respect from photographers as well and people in the lineup, right?

So when all of a sudden I show up with a camera, they're kind of like, "What the f are you doing here, dude?" I was like, "Oh, well, gotta make a buck, you know." So, and fortunately, we had the respect of that community, right? There's a guy Mike Moyer. He was a a surf photographer, uh, pretty famous guy. I think he's passed on. Amazing photography. I mean, if you know surf photography, you've definitely seen his work. And uh so Mike man hustles this thing together. I was blown away. I'm like, "Dude, you are the freaking man." Talk about energy to be around that guy. And so I was just kind of sucking it up. I was like, "All right, let's do it." You spent six months down the summer of 1988, maybe. Yeah.

I I always tell people this like whenever I get a chance to mentor which is not often I'd look for those opportunities or you know believe in yourself believe what your capabilities are and push yourself push yourself to new places and you're going to discover something you might love it or hate it but now you know right and I think you know when you show up and this is certainly true for entrepreneurs um that are really pushing the envelope is that I'm going to go for it, right? And if you put yourself in a situation where you have an opportunity, find everything you can in that opportunity. Like find yourself in that opportunity. Where do you live? Right? I didn't know I was a good sales guy. I had no idea. But I ended up having incredible relation. It's still to this day when we launched our last product, uh, my partner Scott Shanks, incredible creative. Uh, the I signed a national sales force in like 15 minutes because I had the trust and the relationships in the business. And it was kind of a joke cuz with Deckand's going, we're starting that company, all this stuff. And I was like, hey, do we want the Northeast? I want the Southwest. I was like, "Should I keep going?" He's like, "Yeah, go." I'm like, "Bing, bing bing." You know, next thing you know, we had national distribution with a PDF. Nobody even touched the product. They just trusted me.

All right. So, let's talk about what the product was. It's actually a game, right?

It's a game. It's called Kuba. We're we're we're kind of sunsetting it a bit.

I think it's I don't know why you'd sunset it. It's so I have one of the originals and I'm never letting go of it. It's so cool.

So much work, man. it just, you know, where do you put your priorities, right? Where do you place your bets, right? Um, I don't quite have the capacity to work in that industry anymore. I did it, you know, and that's another thing, too. You did it. Yeah. Close the chapter. Moving on. But what I learned in that industry, which was incredible, which is why I do what I do today. Um, is kind of information design, right? How do you motivate people uh to believe in you? Believe in your company, believe in your product, whatever it is, right? And I had I had that was, man, talk about pushing up the hill, right? 7,000 7 to 10,000 products are released a year in the toy industry, right? mostly serviced through sales rep groups by region, right? And we were communicating on fax machines back then. It was like pre- internet, you know, and what I realized in all my travels and talking to my customers and talking to my reps and I was on the road for 16 months a year and really dug in and what I realized there was just too much information. There just wasn't enough time. So everybody's like putting catalogs with thousands of items in them and like dude if you put a phone book in front of me the hell am I gonna do with it? Right?

So I got really stewed at the marketing side of it and what I learned was I kind of became a data nerd. remember those NCR reports being, you know, and I was like, "All right, let's see every product sold in what region by who and blah blah blah." And I was sitting there, you know, with the highlighters and calculator and do the whole thing and and what I realized was we had really strong sellrough that and by this time we had multiple products. It started out as $150 wholesale all the way up to like 15, right? So, we had too many products and we didn't have enough uh concerted like communication about how to sell the stuff, right? So, I found a product mix that I knew it went and and I was like, "Hey, we we'll guarantee the sales on it."

In other words, what does that mean? They they take the inventory and and you'll buy it back and they buy it back if they don't sell it, right?

I knew the sellers were going to be strong and I came up with three. It was check ABC, man. One, two, three, right? And it went from $144 up to $890, right? We thought in in in the middle there was I don't know 300, whatever. I don't know what it was, but you know that the $800 plus item had a floor display associated with it. And what I realized in these retailers because we did a lot of demos and we, you know, uh it was kind of a great demo product, right? killer impulse item, you know, and and what I realized there was always floor space around the register, not at the register, but around the register, right? So, I just mapped out some stuff, looked at all my retailers, and guess well, we sold to our 10,000 accounts the 800 plus display, right? all the reps and all they had to do is check the box, check the box, check the box. So, we went from like two fax machines to like 10, whatever. We'd wake up in the morning and just be like this floor stacked floor like faxes. And what we did is we made the decision process easy for for our consumers, which were wholesale consumers, right? For reps, everybody. And that that was just hey look at the market look at the information look at where people are meet them where they are right find the opportunity and then promote that opportunity right and it kind of blew everybody away because we didn't think we were going to get those 800 plus sales and we turn those two three four five six times which we only had to turn of a little bucket of dual tops at a cash register I don't know two three times times a year for a $100 order and now we're turning thousands, right? And that was just so for me, I don't know how this happened. It was just, hey, how do we take the friction out of the buying process? How do we, like I said, I only believe in what I can sell, right? Like, so I took that belief and doubled down on it.

Hm. All right. So, you go to NYU, you're studying film. Tell us about that experience.

That was a wild one. Um, so FAO Schwarz was a huge client of ours. It was about 50% of our business.

That's with Doodle Top.

With Doodle Top. Yep. Yeah. And that's that our store right there. They used to be, you know, Fifth Avenue, the whole thing. I drove our business up to three products in the top 10. We had big merchandising programs, all this stuff. And I mean, I never went to college, right? And so I was I was kind of longing for that experience. And um you know, I was I was high on myself, right? So, um I reached out to Jim Derky. I said, "Hey, I want to go to college." And he's like, "But you're going to have a rough time doing that." He's like, "But you have a personal story I'm sure some will believe in. And you should tell them that story and go go for what you think you can do, right? And when people tell you that and you're in that mindset, you're like, "Dude, shoot for the stars. Why not?" Right? So, I'm at a show in Boston. I'm like, "Ah, I'll pop over to Harvard." You know, I'm I'm cold calling freaking Walmart at this time. So, like Harvard whoop-dedoo, right? So, boom. Got the meeting with Harvard. going to Harvard the MBA school. And what I didn't know was they were looking for more entrepreneurs at the time. They needed to fill those seats. They were just stamping out like, you know, private equity banker type folks, right? So, their program was, you know, waning a little bit. And I didn't know this until I showed up, but I showed up, I looked like Captain Kicker. I had the worst outfit on. Oh my god, it was hilarious. Uh, and I show up and and yeah, I meet with them and then I'm going down to New York for another show, uh, the trade show. And so I call NYU like demissions, hey, what's up? Let's have a meeting. You know, and they're like, hey, we have this new program. It's called the Gallatinid program, School of Ed individualized study.

And I was like, that's perfect for me, right? I can craft a program, right, that I I I'm going to be successful, I think, because if I get to make the rules, you know, my own engagement for me, it was like a slam dunk, right? And I also knew I wanted to go to film school, but didn't quite film school, NYU film school was super competitive. I mean, you don't just walk in off the street, right? But I did have content, right? I was shooting these videos, and that video was seinal to this day. the the video we did called bodyboarding enough said, say what you will if you look at it now. We had what we had. You know, that changed sort of surf culture videos and it was a boogie boarding video. Nobody cares about boogie boards, but I had content, right? And we had stuff. So, and and I'd also done all of our promo spots for Doodle Todd at that time. So I got massive error for just focusing on good content, right? And so all this stuff kind of leads in to me understanding like content is king, man. Like you could sell a lot, you could motivate with it, you can do video, you can use design, you could all this stuff. So it kind of got baked into me.

Um, but what happened was so NYU at Harvard uh it was funny because uh NYU wasn't worried about it but Harvard was like, "Oh, you got to take the SATs or you got to come in on probation." And I was like, and they were kind of weighing the SATs. I was like, "Dude, I don't test well. I'm going to fail. No question about it." Like, I hadn't been in school now for six years. Like, but you know, I have this hit toy product, right? What the hell am I going to do with that, right? I don't even have time to take the freaking SATs, right? So, and then NYU is like, "Hey, yeah, you can come in. You can come in on probation." I was like, "What's probation?" They're like, "You know, 2.0 or better." I was like, "Uh, I'm paying for this myself. I think I'm going to do better than a 2, right?" So, not a cheap school, right? So, so I was like, you know, and and then honestly, I'm sitting at Harvard go like, dude, I already have the NBA. I just I've done it. like why don't I go into the storytelling the stuff I'm passionate about right and went in and damn got a killer scholarship uh program for people returning uh and I was on the deans list like the first semester and I went from barely I went from a 1.11 cumulative in San Francisco Unified School District to a 3.68 six, eight or something at NYU. And because I chose something I was passionate about, something to focus on, I had no doubt in my mind I was going to be successful prior to that. It was like, tell me what to do. So into that, right? So, you know, I think a lot of that built a character and a lot of it was just learning on the job, right? Like I didn't have a choice. I mean, Doodle's not basically grabbing me by his scruffing neck. I was like, "Cool, go." You know? Um, and uh,

you feel like that was like in some ways just like meant to be. That's like your your story. There's some sort of power that just pulled you into this thing and like it's like a vortex and there you go.

I think it was kind of like a little bit of desperation. Like I didn't know what I was going to do, you know? I knew there was something. I didn't know what was going to happen that soon, right?

Isn't that crazy though? I mean, like just for a second, think about that because on the outside, nobody else saw that. All they saw was, "Oh, do you hear what what Steve's doing? It's got going he's going bananas, right?" But inside, you're like, "Holy smokes." I think so many entrepreneurs feel that way, right?

Yeah. That's a tough spot. It's a hard spot. And I still struggle with it today.

Who doesn't? you know and I mean every day right?

So now my company Deckand right we are telling these stories for big big big big big big tech companies the biggest the big come on the big stuff right and we getting involved in conversations I I'm blown away like a seat of the table with the seauite right talking strategy right and what we're trying to do is in a way is merchandise that strategy like my little fax exercise right how do we turn people into believers, right? How do we get that message across, you know, whether it's an IPO or series raise or sales tax or whatever, right? We hear this all the time, like, "Oh my god, your work is incredible. It's completely a power team." I just go back to that little fax machine situation. And I was like, "Yeah, it's a noisy, noisy world. We live in a noisy world. You've got to do stuff with intent. You've got to understand it. You can't just kind of show up. You know, in our world, like PowerPoint, right? Like, I'll do a PowerPoint. Like, no, it's communication slot. It's not freaking PowerPoint or Keynote or slots.

So, man, you you do the stuff at NYU. Um, incredible experience there. You graduate Deans List, you come back to San Francisco, you create Deckhand where you're working with I mean just big time. It's a big time I mean I don't know man those presentations are tough to do and it's you're selling major ideas. You're working with the seauite. You're working with all the super I mean, let's face it, this is where it's happening in those days, right?

100%. Geography is a big deal.

Yeah. Um, and then you at the same time you got Kuba going, which is like I mean, dude, I don't that is a as a game. I remember you had like some concept you're going to do some something where like Kuba in the air and it flew down. It's like, yeah, combination type deal or you know what happened was when I moved back from New York. So, unfortunately, our toy company disintegrated and for ego and family reasons. Uh, unfortunately, that's Doodle Top. That was Doodle Top. Uh, and you know, by the time I hit 28, we sold the company in 1998. I was fried, man. I was burning the candle at both ends. You know, I was doing the toy thing and going to NYU, taking 24 units this semester in production classes. I mean, it was nuts, dude. And I burned out at 28, you know, and came back to the city. It was very much lost.

For the people that are from the New York, he's not you're not talking about the city New York. You're talking about recall the city. We say as the best.

Yeah. We say we say the city and I I I h I love New York, don't get me wrong. I mean, my heart lives in New York as well. Um, but I was fried, man. I didn't know what to do. I was just so burned out. And I was like, I'm going to bartend, man. I'm just going to bartend and go back to service industry and and which I had to do in New York cuz I got fired from my own company, which at 27 is pretty brutal.

Devastating.

Devastating. Uh, no question about it. Especially considering I was having that run, right? Yeah. So, I came back and I got back to my roots, you know. I I woke up one day, I said, and I literally have the slide, pursue all things creative. Get back get back to where you were. See where it goes. Right. And I got to do so much cool stuff, man. We had Burman shows. I got to work with incredible artists. I uh we had a stage show that became a thing. Uh very much underground kind of music situation. Uh and you know really was starting to live my best life as a creative. Um and a lot of that uh you know when I talked about collaboration that was a big part of it. Like I'm a hardcore collaborator. I need to have it. It just feeds my soul. Um, and I I was blown away. Like I got put on a pedestal of some incredible performers, which for me was just doing what the hell I was doing, right? Uh, but because of that, it opened my mind up to like, hey, what's possible, right? Rather than just saying, I'm going to do this thing. I said, let's wind the scope, right? you know, photography, art, graphic design, performance, music, all that stuff came back into my life and and it as random as it it was, it actually gave me clarity, right, of like, oh you you can actually do this, you know, you can focus on these certain things. Uh, it also built up a creative community that really trusted me and wanted to be a part of the energy that I didn't know I had.

Right. So, Corona came back into that. This is funny. We had a we had a product called Kaboodle. We Scott and I were just talking about relaunching it uh as a corrugated cat condo. 100% re recycle. I'm definitely allergic to the cats. I'm definitely allergic to cats. I can't be around cats, you know? I gota happy pantic. So, we're like, so I was like, ah, it's a killer product. We pitch it up to a big company. They they they got back in a product, man. I'm like, oh, this is rad. Let's do it. We got Cat Fancy product of the year, like Cat Fancy Magazine. I was in New York schleing my product like to retailers when this came out and I almost died. Somebody called me like, "Oh, dude, you're like fancy probably. I was like, "This is hilarious." Like, I almost had an asthma attack. I was so excited, you know. And so, so we did that and you know, at the same time with my current business, I was like, "Hey, let's do two of these things. One can finance the other. Let's see which one works, right?" Uh, hugely risky, right? A big big risk. This is the entrepreneur kind of like, "Dude, I got this. You got to jump off some cliffs. You got to jump off cliffs, man. And uh I don't regret any of it at all. Uh it's a learning experience. Um you know, sitting on a huge pile of debt when having a newborn, not fun, man. Not dude fun.

How many sleepless nights?

Oh god, dude. Like like you just are like it's full terror mode, right?

Oh, 100%. 100%. And that you know that I think you know some of the topics you guys talk about been peak performance and things like this which I was really into when I was a kid like neural linguistics and stuff you know inner tennis peak performance was a book right um and I learned how to control my brain my heart rate and put myself in step in really stressful situations and I took that to boogie boarding right so I was like I was I was the one guy in San Francisco going out on 20 foot days and the servers are like, "Well, how the hell did you get out before us?" Right? Because I uh I learned how to control my heart rate in stressful situations. And you know, I think uh I thrive in these modes. Um I don't want to continue to do it. I'm a little bit more a little bit more tacked with with with how I approach things these days. But, you know, this year, earlier this year, I had a pretty major ski injury, and uh blew my ACL, fractured my knee. Um, a week before I was going to this incredible event hosted by a VC firm that I wanted to go to for years. And so, I went up to to uh Palisades, Squalis, whatever. And it was conditioning and having one of the best ski probably one of the best days of my life. It was incredible. And just didn't flat slough a hump. Uh broke a binding on a brand new pair of skis. You know, even the ski patrol was like, "Oh, wow. We don't see those break too often." Uh snap the binding out of the ski. Yeah. Uh brand new pair. It was the first day of these things. I probably 20 feet out on tour. I don't know. It was it was a lot of torque. It was one of these like oh yeah, you know, and drove myself home that night uh cuz I had to get home.

Um but the two weeks later I was involved loosely with the dispensary in San Francisco, cannabis dispensary, uh in one of the kind of leaders in the field. And uh he had been shot point blank in front of the dispensary seven times just a few weeks prior to that. And so I'm hobbling. I've got my knee thing on. I go to this event, whatever. And I I show up as a Saturday afternoon. I remember it was the day before the Super Bowl. And one of the other founders called me said, "Hey, it'd be really great if you can come down support Martin." You know, I thought it was going to be a bigger kind of deal, but it was really a close group of us, the people that, you know, helped support the business, right? It was beautiful Saturday. Wasn't that hot. It was a media event. So, you know, next thing you know, we've got all the cameras there. So, I'm sitting there. Well, I'm all good, right? No problem. I start sweating like out of control. And I was at the ortho 48 hours earlier and he mentioned he's like, "You might have a blood clot in your leg." Uh, I couldn't get in soon enough and so I sat there. Honestly, I thought I was just a contact from the environment I was in, right? And just heart rate's going. I'm sweating. I don't persspire much. I'm just not that guy. Even when I play drums, that barely sweat. And I just had to sit there and just kind of hold on and get into this meditative state, which is what I used to do in big wave surfing when I was a kid. Just get out, just calm the heart rate down. So, I sat there holding my knees. There's there's video of these actually, too. It's like starts out with my clothes on. I'm like, I couldn't get my clothes off fast enough and I'm just like, "Oh my god." And I'm sitting around all the like legends of, you know, California legalization. I didn't even know who the hell they were, man. I just got I just showed up with peripherals to say goodbye to this great community space that we all helped develop, right?

But because I had when I was younger kind of train my brain to deal with stressful situations, I was able to recall that that probably saved my life because I was able to just get in the head, calm the heart rate down, just chill big time. And I remember just sit there heavily focused. And my friend came down, we went and had dinner, went to a friend's birthday party, woke up in the morning, just absolutely dead tired. Uh I usually wake up and just get to it. And I was like, "Let me Google this." number one hit was pulmonary adalism. So I called Kaiser. Uh my wife was out with our dog. My son was still asleep and they were like, "You need to come here right now. Nobody if no one can drive you, call 911." And now I'm sitting there going like, "Ah, my heart rate's going to go again." Right? So like in the same Oh, it's got to get to Kaider, right? Um but you know for me when I think about you know if it's pe performance or you know a these topics how we get through life right there's a lot of different ways you do it you know be it you know focus on the physical side the mental side usually both is a great idea um for me it's always kind of lived on the mental side um I'm an active person I just when I went to the event after my I broke my knee this was A week later, I was doing 17,000 steps a day in the resort and which for better or for worse, the ortho was like, uh, that might have been the problem. Um, but I knew I just can't stop 8,600 ft. Yeah. And they warned me a little bit. The doctor is like, he's like, but you're not going to be there for that long. Um but uh but you know it was I I couldn't have that setback get in the way of something I really wanted in life, right? And yeah, it almost killed me that I'm kind of better off. I'm going back again this year. It's going to be great. I actually get to ski with people. Uh but this the event is over event. Yeah. And I got through it. I got through it without surgery. I made a a a decision to not go to surgery and to to do my PT and to continue my life, you know, to get off the blood thinners. Not fun. Um, but, you know, walk around better than I have and now I'm getting ready for next season.

So, so did you blow the ACL or did you strain it?

I tore it and fractured my knee. So the fracture heals on its own. The tear is not a full tear. Now it's still not a full tear. So it can rehab. Yeah. And I also had my medial meniscus removed from boogie boarding back in 1989. I was actually supposed to be on the knife during the LMA Pria earthquake, but they changed the uh surgery date.

Um that's a good thing I want you to do.

Yeah, I know, right? Like whoops, cut your leg off. Um when I got the MRI back, they're they were like, "Wow, the anterior knee." It's like, "Yep, oh, it's bone on bone." I was like, "Yeah, that was taken out a long time ago." And then I asked him, I said, "Hey, you know, I don't want to have two surgeries within the course of 5 years. I'm probably going to have to get a knee replacement, right?" Like, "Yeah, you will." So, I was like, "Let's just not do the ACL thing, you know, brace me up, whatever." Um, and I'm now preparing myself mentally every day with what next season's going to look like. And that's visualizing how I want to be, what my physicality is, what my mindset's going to be in these environments. And just how can I step into it? And and also with reason not to ski like I'm 18. I mean, I will still go at it like I'm a kid and I'm 55, you know, and so, you know, it was a wakeup call, right? Uh, pulmonary embolisms are it was super stressful. Um, got through it, you know, great family, great support, friends, my company, everybody got me through it. Uh, it really drains a lot of your energy. Uh, which for me was probably the most difficult part of it. Um, but you know, if I had not studied sort of the nurlyic site of my life early, I'm I could have been dead that day. And how humiliating would that be? The guy was shot seven times. He's on air and I'm right behind him and I would have just gone over like so. Uh, yeah. So I think it's really, you know, it's important like, you know, your mental health, your mental stability or how you tend to vision and focus your life. Um, it's it's it's huge. I mean, it really can get you in and out of things in a meaningful way.

I don't want to put words in your mouth. It seems to me like you get a sense for your pathway to peak performance in anything that you do and you know there's so many things where you go on and on and on but you get to a spot you get a vision and you start to kind of think about it and you almost you reverse engineer or then you push forward but you're it's really for you it's a mental game.

Yeah. Yeah. Your pounds thinking about things through you probably run multiple scenarios. It's like playing, you know, 3D chess, right? It's keeping you That's what keeps you up at night.

Yeah. I think some people are cut out for it. Um, some people are, you know, uh, I love the days when I was bartending, right? You close your reg, you sell it up, and that's it. You're done. Boop. Don't think about it anymore. I don't get a lot of inspiration off living that kind of life. I I want to solve problems. I want to contribute and it's just kind of how I'm wired, you know?

Yeah. I mean, you've got something to do and you're going to do it.

Yeah. I would say there's really no stopping it.

No, it's like even, you know, and you might know this in business and you know, once we all went remote because of COVID and you know, I'm looking at the team and looking how we're dressing and how you know the meetings. cuz I remember like early on there'd be like 80 people on a meeting for one thing. I was like, "God, it's such a waste of time." Uh I unless I have something to contribute, I'm probably not going to be there because I'm working on something else, right? And I told my son this too. I was like, "Always show up as a contributor, right? And if you have nothing to contribute, then just do something else, right? Like, and I think it's really important cuz just to sit there as a figurehead, whoopdedoo, it doesn't work, right? Focus your energy back to areas where you can really make an impact, right? And so if I sit on meetings all day long with nothing to contribute, nothing's going to get done. None of the things that I desire to do, none of the uh inflection points that I look for and in my life, in my work will happen because I'm just bogged down in, you know, some pragmatic way of doing things, right? Uh and it can drive my team crazy. But it's fine. I'm always finding something new. Um, yeah, I think for me it's really a a mental game and it has uh deep control over my physiology or I guess you know you won't catch me jogging around Tibberon anytime soon. I'll tell you that. Stamina, right? Is stamina though for the long haul.

So, I'm curious what's next for you? I mean, you're you're continuing. You've got this new office space. Uh that's pretty awesome. Uh that you guys are moving into.

Um I'm going to continue to just believe what I believe in. Try to push the envelope forward. Again, always be a contributor. You know, uh somebody, one of my advisers said like you you work to a fault or you offer to a fault, right? Um I'm a absolute overd deliverer in set and I would probably not succeed in a corporate environment. Um but I excel in a seauite environment. So you know I kind of feel like and it was funny when when I started the company we started having more of these interactions with big big leaders. I mean, you know, we're not going to name drop here, but you know, I had to see the table, you know, and people wanted my opinion because I showed up to contribute, right? Because I was listening, because I was learning, cuz I want to move things forward.

You also don't give yourself enough credit, dude. You're a super smart guy. You're a super smart guy.

I try, man. I try, dude.

You're You like You're overly humble. It's funny. You You like You're a super smart guy. You've always been a super smart guy. You make stuff happen. People People love to listen what you have to say because you have something because you're you're delivering, dude. That's what's happening. It's not going to stop. You know, you're going to keep crushing it, man.

You know what? I just um I love you, man. You know what? You're just um you're just one of those guys favorite people. You know, you always think about people that in in you know, your life who you've always really enjoy spending time with. There isn't any time where where the phone rings. is like you saying, "Hey, dude, let's" that I go, "No." I'm always like, "Yes." And there are those people that, you know, on the phone where you go, "No."

Right. Oh, yeah. No.

Um, so, hey, I'm I'm stoked for you in this in this next chapter. I know the things that you're doing right now are pretty awesome and I'd love to have you back and we could talk about those things in the next chapter for all of the stuff that you're bringing to the table.

That's great. I'm super honored to sit here and chat with you after all these years. You and I have both been on a journey. You've got an incredibly impressive track record. Uh so it's I I can't believe we're here. remember just eating pizza back in 1987 at Ocean Beach. I mean, come on. It's bring it in for that, you know? All right. For sure. Oh my gosh. That's feel good to be alive.

Yeah. So, for sure. Hey, it was great to have you and thanks for coming, too.

Thanks, Chuck.

Hey, thanks everyone for watching the show. Please remember to like, comment, and subscribe. It really helps us out here at the channel and share the video with someone who might be interested in supporting the charity that our guest uh mentioned in the episode. Thanks again. We'll see you soon.