Episode 271: Plant-Based Streetwear with Eric Liedtke, Unless Collective
26 May 2023 · 30 min
In this Skucast episode, host Bobby Lehew (Chief Content Officer, Commonsku) interviews Eric Liedtke, former global brand manager at Adidas and founder of the sustainable fashion startup Unless Collective. The conversation explores the brand’s core mission: creating 100 % plant‑ and mineral‑based apparel and footwear that are fully compostable and leave no plastic waste. Eric explains the material architecture of a typical garment—cotton base, plant‑based dyes, mineral‑based trims, and the meticulous attention to details such as neck labels, cuffs, and aglets that are often overlooked by regulations. He details the breakthrough Degenerate shoe, the first shoe made without any petroleum‑derived components, developed with Natural Fiber Welding and an industrial composting partner (Agroman). The discussion moves to the concept of greenwashing, with Eric critiquing incremental sustainability steps (e.g., recycled polyester) as “hybrid” solutions and contrasting them with the radical zero‑waste approach of Unless. He justifies the decision to launch as a direct‑to‑consumer (D2C) brand to control storytelling around regeneration, avoiding a noisy sustainability wall alongside larger brands. Eric highlights a market gap where consumers want stylish, high‑performance fashion that aligns with their values, likening the shift to Tesla’s disruption of the auto industry. The Take‑Back program is described: customers can return used products for free, which are then composted into “good dirt” with partnerships from the University of Georgia, Agri‑Man, and Agroman, potentially creating a future textile certification. Creative branding is embodied by “Dirtbag D,” a puppet mascot used in video content to interview diverse creators, reinforcing the brand’s playful yet mission‑driven voice. Collaboration philosophy is presented as a “lighthouse” model—partnering with local artists and, eventually, larger brands—to expand reach while preserving authenticity. Finally, Eric shares entrepreneurial advice: define a crystal‑clear thesis (zero‑harm waste), stay small until proof of concept, and guard capital carefully. He also mentions brands and leaders he admires (Apple, Disney, SpaceX, Howard Schultz) and calls for more purpose‑driven companies. The episode ends with encouragement for merch professionals to adopt clear, regenerative goals.
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Welcome to Skucast, the podcast for entrepreneurs in the promotional products industry. Skucast shines a light on our industry's best work, features maverick personalities, and discusses what's really involved in running a modern promotional products business. Skucast is the official podcast of Common Skew.
Adidas, or as we've mistakenly pronounced it for years, Adidas, needs no introduction. One of the most iconic brands of the past century, and our guest today spent 25+ years at Adidas, his career culminating in serving as the brand's global brand manager and an executive board member. Eric Liedtke was responsible for ushering in some of the most famous collabs ever produced, such as Kanye West's Yeezy and Beyoncé's Ivy Park line. And now Eric has stepped away from all that, started a fascinating brand called Unless Collective. Unless makes plant-based streetwear designed to leave zero plastic waste. Every garment and shoe is, quote, created from the elements, for the elements, and designed to harmlessly return to the elements. We invited Eric on the SkewCast because we are always on the lookout for radical innovation in the merch space, and As we've demonstrated with our events like Product Summit Sustainability, we consider it an honor and a directive really to bring the most innovative ideas in sustainable and effective merch to you. Now, UNLESS is not yet in the branded merch space, and I stress not yet, and I don't know anything beyond that, but what Eric and his team are doing is something worth us noticing. Plus, like our conversation with Seth Godin, Eric gives us insight into how plastics and waste harm our planet and shows us how we can make conscientious choices with a zero-plastic-waste end in mind. Hi friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, Chief Content Officer at Commonsku. Before our chat with Eric, I want to share one thing. You know, at Commonsku, we're known for creating a fun, easy, and yet elegant workflow experience through our order entry platform that allows you to go from inspiration to completed project in minutes. One example of that is our collections. Collections are like online interactive catalogs that are built and created by active suppliers on CommonsQ, and they feature up-to-the-minute relevant product trends. For example, just last week, our friends at PCNA published a collection of, quote, "technology ideas with deep stock," end quote. I like the specificity on that deep stock. And our friends at BELLA+CANVAS created a new micro rib collection of apparel. Now, here's where it's different. All of these ideas are built right into the app. With a few simple clicks, you've gone from the latest trending ideas to presentation or even to a shop without ever leaving the platform. No more million tabs open on supplier websites. No more triplicate entry from quote to order to invoice. You just click from inspiration to done. That's just one innovation. If you want to learn more about how to create a seamless and frustration-free workflow experience, visit cometscue.com. And now here's our chat with Eric Liedtke from Unless Collective.
Tell us a little bit about Unless. Unless makes plant-based streetwear designed to leave zero plastic waste, totally compostable streetwear. Since our audience is comprised of merch people, people who understand merch, many makers, manufacturers, agencies, can you share the material structure of one of your garments that makes this even possible?
Thanks for the question, Bobby. I mean, people sometimes scratch their head. Well, what do you mean compostable? It's like, well, if you make things out of plants and minerals that will harmlessly go away, that's what we mean. Everything we make is just really being focused on what are the ingredients that are going in, but more importantly, what happens to those ingredients when you're done using it? And I don't mean like repairing, reselling, recycling, and all the things you should be doing before, but I'm saying like when your garment, when this crew goes away at the end of its usable life, what happens to it? And there's not a lot of companies that ask that question. In fact, I haven't found another one to ask that question. So we asked that question as industry insiders, and we were not happy with, you know, most of the stuff that we had been making for years, basically made out of petroleum-based feedstocks, you know, oil, if you will, versions of oil called plastics and polyesters and nylons that never really go away. And we wanted to make something better. So all of our stuff is made from natural ingredients. And right now our recipe is 100% plants and minerals. That takes different shapes. So a simple French terry like I'm wearing right here is, you know, pretty much 100% cotton. Now what you have to pay attention to is how do you do the, the neck? How do you do the neck label? How do you do the cuffs? How do you put it together? What's the dyes you use? What's the inks you use? What's the embroidery embellishments you use? I mean, it's all those little details that the FTC doesn't care about. When you say 100% cotton, they allow just the base material to count. So they allow a garment that's only mainly 85% cotton can be called 100% cotton because they don't care about the trimmings and finishes. So that's— we hold ourselves to a higher responsibility. So knits, cotton, wovens, primarily cotton, maybe with some closures like Carozo nuts. Again, threads that are lyocell-based, whether it be from some sort of cellulose plant-based feedstock. Again, same diligence on the dyes and inks. Shoe is a completely different matter. That was the groundbreaker for us. And I'm happy to say today we were a finalist for Fast Company's awards that were given out for game-changing innovations for the year of '23. Very excited about that. That just came out today.
Congratulations.
Thank you. I mean, it was a labor of love, that's for sure. But typically, a shoe is made of 9 different materials, and usually those 9 different materials are some sort of animal material, like a treated leather, or worse in my mind, petroleum-based product, which is a polyurethane, an EVA, a synthetic, a nylon, a polyester, you name it, one of these fancy names that all go back to the same place of oil. And they basically put those together through a really impenetrable adhesive petrochemical glue. We had to decouple all of that and say, "Okay, we have to find the plant-based leathers that would be 100% plant-based and mineral-based and not adding in like polyurethane as a filler," which many of the plant-based do. So we found one through a partnership with Natural Fiber Welding in Peoria, Illinois. We had to find, you know, the canvases that were not treated again with glues or chemicals to make them more rigid and more durable. We had to find a midsole ingredient and an outsole compound that was all plant and mineral based and not— there's never been a midsole foam that I'm aware of that's ever been made of anything but polyester or, sorry, petroleum-based product. Ours is 100% plants and minerals. And we were able to do that with, again, this robust partnership with Natural Fiber Welding in Illinois. They were able to provide the tech solutions, the innovations, and we were able to put it together in a way for our product. But every little detail, even— I always like to tell people, even down to the lace tip called the aglet, which is usually coated in a little plastic, not good enough for us. We did a cross-stitch, a cellulose-based cross-stitch. So it was, it was fun. Glad to have in the market, glad to get some recognition. But it's only the beginning.
The Degenerate is the shoe that Eric is referring to, which is a phenomenal product. It is getting all kinds of accolades. This is— this must have been the thing with that Fast Company— was a trigger with Fast Company.
Yeah, that's the, that's the shoe that won the award. It's only— there's— we only have one shoe. It's one at a time, right?
It's fantastic. We'll link obviously to all of this on the How I Built This cast. You use the term greenwashing and not greenwashing, and does this have to do with like, we think we're dealing with 100% recyclable or 100% of sustainable product and all of these embellishments you, you just talked about was quite an education to me.
Yeah.
And that's where— explain greenwashing versus greenwashing.
Well, first of all, I think greenwashing is a very negative term. If you, if you, if you call somebody a greenwasher, you're pointing your finger right in their face and say you're a liar. And I think that's very, very strong, strong use of the word. And I think it's appropriate in some situations. Like, let's, let's be honest. But then I think there's the vast majority of the world that somehow thinks they're doing enough, but isn't doing enough. And I'll point directly at myself. I, for years, was a green waster at Adidas. I sat on the board. I was the president of Adidas brand. I ran All Creation. I put us on the path to being more sustainable with fighting, picking a fight with ocean plastic and then plastic in general. And I was like, okay, we're on a path to transitioning from all virgin polyester feedstock to recycled polyester feedstock. And I was like, all right, that is our Holy Grail and we're going to do that. And I was very proud of it and still am to this day. And I don't cast dispersion, but I will say that I thought that was enough. And, you know, when you, when you certainly hear and see the degradation of the planet and the speed of which the urgency, which is what we need to act to change the trajectory that we're on, Moving from virgin feedstock to recycled feedstock just isn't enough. It's a baby step. It's akin to car companies going from gas cars to hybrid cars, knowing that there was electric out there. They just didn't want to do the whole monty. So the recycled is kind of like that hybrid area of fashion. That's the analogy I would always use where I think what we've tried to do with Unless, and one of the reasons I left is to say, Okay, let's get outta the green wishing mode and get into really creating disruption with innovations that show a better way from, you know, from going 100% and not just kind of like this half step.
Yeah. So speaking of that, how did your work with Adidas, such as your partnership with the Parley of the Oceans, you could say that green wishing is sort of a step in the right direction when you break it down and say somebody who's re— has the ambition to do something and then you get educated in the process and realize, oh, there's a bigger solution or a bigger challenge that we need to resolve here.
Yeah. Listen, it, I, I, again, I tried very hard not to throw judgment around. I think that's a terrible way to look at it. I think we all have a role to play, and it's going to take all of us to participate, and especially your listeners that are, you know, probably more progressive and wanting to make change to an industry that's kind of been stuck in its own status quo, like all industries are. So to me, it's a sequencing, right? So if all you can do is move 10% of your stuff from virgin to recycled, great. That's all Adidas did. When I set the goal of getting off to off of 100% virgin to 100% poly recycled, it had to be a trajectory over the course of 10 years. I think the goal, as I laid it out there, probably in 2016 and the finish line was 2024 because I had fiduciary responsibilities, because I had to recognize that we couldn't go from one to the other overnight. We had to go step by step by step and make sure that we could take bites of the elephant that were digestible by the overall profit margins that were required from the financial wing of the company. And I think that's just being responsible in a publicly traded company. For me, as I started to hear and see the plight of things, I wanted to be a little bit more personally invested in just total disruption. And that's when I realized I needed to step outside of Adidas and try to bring this in from the outside in so that I could, I could work with like-minded people and like-minded innovators to use my expertise of all the years I had, 26 years at Adi, to try to, you know, doing things from a material science standpoint, from a consumer behavior standpoint, etc., to apply that towards leading the charge for the industry to be, you know, to get into a better place. So It was— I'm not— I'm certainly not— I'm very proud of what I did at Adidas, and I'm certainly not, you know, sitting here throwing judgment back at them, you know, nor at myself. I'm just simply saying I wasn't doing enough that I think needs to be done. And I think that can be— greenwashing is just like we think we're doing enough, but ultimately there needs to be people like myself that decide to do a lot more and be much more radical to set a higher bar for us as a general population.
Yeah, you chose not to sell through larger brand partners even though your own experience and your contact base must have afforded many opportunities for doing so. So the Unless Collective brand, which we'll link to, is brilliant branding. I just absolutely love it. Fell in love with the brand. The whole, uh, the whole vibe of the, of the brand has an incredible energy to it. Why did you choose the independent D2C route?
Uh, it was really just to start. I think, um, I think as brand people will understand, I mean, I think you've got to have, you've got to have a compelling proposition, you've got to have the product But you also have to be able to tell the story. And we wanted to make sure that our story is about, you know, regeneration, right? It's about regenerative fashion. It's not an easy story to tell. And so if you just put me on a wall with a bunch of other brands that are screaming sustainability, it's a very noisy wall because everybody's screaming sustainability. Everybody knows the consumer cares, but everybody's got a different point of view. But ours is unique because ours 100% goes away and creates, you know, good dirt, if you will. And so all of this stuff comes from good dirt and goes back to being good dirt.. And so we don't pollute where, you know, if I'm sitting next to Adidas and Adidas is talking about ocean plastic with Parley for the Oceans, that's also a great story. But, you know, the consumer is going to get confused on which one might be better. And I'm not here to, you know, I think they both need space to breathe. So I think it's important to, in the early days, to have that differentiated retail experience where the consumer can really spend some time. And as you've done clearly on our site and fall in love with the brand, fall in love with the, the mission-driven values of the brand and become a conscious consumer around that. And then, then and only then, I think you can start to expand into more franchised retail opportunities.
You are one of the most respected CMOs in any business in any market. And I'm curious what you saw happening in the marketplace with today's consumer that made you feel like right now was the right time for Unleashed? What was the distinction between in the consumer that you saw that made Unleashed the right time to do this?
Well, first of all, I appreciate the kind words. I hope I can live up to them. But I listen, I think I know this industry of the fashion industry really well. It's a $3 trillion industry on an annual basis. If you, if you just do a simple X and Y, you know, axis chart and you say, okay, I want on one axis you've got fashionable product and on the other axis you've got sustainable product. You've got a lot of brands that are trying to be, you know, a lot of, a lot of great brands that maybe have a sustainable collection, but it's not really sustainable. To our point earlier, it's kind of like a greenwashing sustainable. It might be a PET or recycled polyester. It might be, you know, biofabrication. It might, but it's usually a capsule collection at best. It might be— might have some sort of circularity in it. I think there's a lot of words floating around, but right now I feel like if you wanted to buy a really good sustainable product, you kind of have to wear that on your forehead. And what I mean by that is you have to kind of compromise your taste. So you don't really have a real sustainable option where you can— where you don't have— where you don't have to compromise your taste for your values or your values for your taste. And again, if I, if I can go back to the car industry, before Tesla came out, if you and I wanted to buy an electric vehicle, you could buy a Smart car. And a Smart car was, you know, it fascinating little go-kart that, you know, basically, you know, but you, you wore that sustainability right here on your forehead, right? The same thing. And Tesla came out, I said, wait a minute, you can have a great looking car that's the fastest car in the Autobahn, and it's built on a better stack called an electric vehicle. Um, and it, it just changed overnight people's conception of what electric vehicles were and what electric vehicles are and what they could be. And now the entire industry is tripping over themselves making electric vehicles. We're doing the same thing. So we're basically saying, listen, everybody thinks that you can make a— you have to make stuff out of petroleum-based stuff, polyesters, you know, polyurethanes to make fashion. We're here to say you don't. We've modeled a 100% plant-based fashion brand that looks really good and has a clear point of view and allows the consumer to have both their— both the values that they want to maintain and their taste without wearing, you know, their, their fair trade label right on their forehead and looking like they're, you know, they're, they're, they're only thrifting and things like that. So we're trying to meet the consumer where the consumer is today, which is they expect to be able to buy things that are doing less harm or no harm to the world., but they also expect to have the style that they, they, they, they so, they so, so much desire.
Yeah.
The hoodies, the bucket hats, the flannel, uh, all of it. Just so incredible. The, the, you and your team, which you've done with the merchandising.
Um, well, we've had, we're having some fun and we've got our, you know, we, we're mastering the, the essential wardrobe at this point. Yes.
A little capsule collection.
Would you ever consider co-branding unless, I mean, we, we, we would collaborate with, uh, that's one of the models we, we've built up is we, we, we're building a lighthouse brand for others to follow, but for also to, to show others the way. Way. And we do that through inviting them in to collaborate with us, to partner with us, and to do different things. And we've done a few. We've got a lot more in the works that we're excited about because I think we want to expand our audience to other brands' audiences, but we also want to expand our distribution and let them see the power of our simple story of regeneration and the and the power that has for creating brand advocacy for each one of those brands that we partner with.
We have a great community member, Brendan Grossman, with SwagCycle. What he does is he partners— he doesn't let swag go to landfill, and he partners with folks that finds charities that need, have a need, and folks that are donating swag. So it's really, really fascinating what's happening in the merch world because a very conscientious buyer and agency coming to the fore. You have an incredible program that I think would be inspiring to a lot of folks.
You call it—
they call it the Take Back Program.
Can you explain that program? Yeah. First of all, I think swag is really interesting. I think when we set this thing up, we see, you know, blanks as a sustainable blanks or a zero-waste blank, if you will, as a real opportunity that's not there right now. And it's, but it's, you know, it's all sequencing, right? First you got to build the brand and then you can start to build the different channels. TakeBack's pretty simple, right? So everything we make, we 100% guarantee will go harmlessly away into the soil regardless of what happens to it. So if you put it in your, in your, in your flowerbed, you know, in your, at your, at your yard right now and use it as just, you know, fodder for your plants to grow into. Perfect. We've got the soil chemistry testing from University of Georgia and our partnership with Agri-Man to tell you that that will harmlessly go away regardless of how long it takes based on the environment. So it could be in the, you know, you could do it in the high desert of Oregon. You could do it the rainforest of the Oregon coast. These are places I live. Or you could do it in your own flower garden here in Portland, Oregon. It doesn't matter. It's all going to go away. Just the different— the timing will be different based upon environment, the moisture, the heat, the dryness, everything else. Now, if you want to send it back to us, we will— we will pay for the package. We'll give you 20% off on your next purchase, and we will make sure that that garment goes back or that shoe goes back into being good dirt within 30 days because we have a partnership with industrial composter the largest one in California called Agroman, that is really partnering with us to, to turn all of our products and textiles in general into good dirt, which leads to a whole nother opportunity. We talk about, you know, piloting that as a potentially certifying textiles in the future on what can be returned to, to being good dirt and becoming a soil, a carbon inset by producing good soil out of the products we make.
That's absolutely fascinating. What an incredible business model.
Speaking of— that was not the intention, but that's kind of like one of the outcomes that come along when you go down this route of innovation.
Yeah, it's amazing. My favorite employee of yours, by the way, is Dirtbag D. This won't make much sense to folks until they go to the website and look at it, Unless Collective, but Dirtbag D, who keeps it growing. I loved the Carla Welch interview. I was laughing out loud. It was incredible marketing, incredible branding. Can you explain who Dirtbag D is to our audience, what the show's about?
Appreciate your feedback there. It's good because, you know, you take a risk. So let's start with a little context first. You know, we nonetheless want to do things really well and we want to go to that holy grail of the fashion industry, which is making stuff out of, you know, that harmlessly goes away, end of life. That's the mission we've set upon. So we start with the end. So, but to do that, you can get yourself in a situation where you become very, you know, luxury. Like, you're like, don't, you shouldn't be doing this, you shouldn't be doing this. It can be very, very in-your-face. And we were very clear we didn't want to be a finger-wagging brand from the beginning. We wanted to take all the responsibilities on ourselves. And so we actually, on some of our shirts, say, don't feel bad. You know, we— that's one of our things about buying this. We've done the hard work. We're sure that everything, everything, everything is as clean as humanly possible. So when we came to like doing some films and things, we tried different areas and different briefs, but we really settled on, we need a spokesperson. We're a startup, we can't afford a famous person, so we can't afford a celebrity influencer endorser. We're like, let's find something that's ultimately, we can replicate from time to time with different people we want to put him in front of. But let's also like have some fun. Let's have some fun. So the agency and our creative team came up with a puppet. And Dirtbag D is basically a Sesame Street type of puppet. That has a little attitude to him. He's got some tattoos, he's got some, you know, he's got some style. He's interviewing people that are like-minded around this space and he's having some fun with them. So Carlos, you know, very famous stylist from Hollywood. He, he, he interviews Alexis, the Black Forager, who loves to go out and, you know, eat, eat food from the ground and then has a huge following on TikTok and Instagram. Interviewed a Native American named— I call him X because his name's very difficult— but talk about that. And we got Kahi, the surfer. So just people that came from different walks of life, had some fun with them, and just to kind of spread the word and, like you said, keep it growing.
I just love it. It's so much fun. And you obviously are sort of— folks may not know this, But you are behind some of the most famous collabs in merch history with Kanye and Pharrell and Beyoncé with Adidas. And that experience obviously shows itself in something as simple as Dirtbag D. Not simple, but it's brilliant because you're partnering with all these folks, you're interviewing them, they have a reach.
You're doing—
you plan on doing more collabs. And how do you plan on taking what you learned at Adidas through those collaborations and applying that here?
Yeah, I think— listen, I mean, I think we are the second name in our— in our brand is called Collective. So we are absolutely trying to build something with everyone involved. So whether it be our innovators, whether it be our influencers, whether it be our creatives, you know, we bring in people from all sorts of walks of life. So even, you know, taking some learnings from working with these macro celebrities, if you will, macro artists, we really were very conscious to say, let's go from the ground up this time and let's, let's go out and work with artists that are very local, that are unknown. They're looking for a platform that they can build on. And so all the collaborations we've done to date from an artist standpoint have been very local, very, very, you know, around like, you know, our first drop was with a tattoo artist from Portland, a Michelin-trained chef, a streetwear guy, and a graphic designer, and just very Portland vibe that we could like, you know, elevate and really, you know, say, hey, we're Portland proud. We wanna celebrate Portland. And then we started to broaden from there. Now we've done some collaborations with artists from all over Oregon. And now we're talking about, you know, the next step of doing some with artists in LA or different areas, but really keeping it more in the local. I'm a believer that yes, while the Kanye's and Beyoncé's and Pharrell's and such had a point in a moment in time, and they will always have a moment in time of that magnitude, I think when you're building a brand from the ground up, you gotta really, you know, build it with its own stake, if you will, and it needs to stand on its own legs. And so you've gotta build it with its own credibility, authenticity, cultural insights that are relevant for it. So there'll be more of those to come for sure. And we are talking to some bigger names now as we start to grow, but right now it's been really rewarding kind of giving the microphone to those lesser known.
It's phenomenal.
You, um, let's talk, let's wrap up with a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey. On How I Built This, you said the best advice you ever received was from Adidas CEO Herbert Hainer. Am I pronouncing that right? Don't ask for permission, just ask for my advice. How did that shape your role at Adidas?
How did that shape you today? Oh, to me, I give that advice all the time, and I, and I use that line all the time because Herbert was brave enough to put the first American ever to the brand president role at Adidas. He was brave enough to, you know, hand the keys over to me. And he was very brave enough to say, do what you got to do. I mean, he trusted me at that point to the point where it's like he showed it by saying, don't ask, don't ask for my permission, ask for my advice. And that's, that's, that's a hell of a, you know, you're turning over the keys to your brand, your global brand to, I don't know, 45-year-old, you know, guys that said that was, was two positions down at the time and saying, I trust you. Get to it. And that just showed that just, he empowered me. He, more than that, he gave me confidence in myself. And, you know, I think it was a big calculated risk on his part that I think, you know, happily had a good ending.
Who are the brands that you are inspired by today and who are the upstarts that you're watching?
Yeah, I think that's a good one because I'm inspired by brands that are turning their attention to trying to solve some of the big problems we have in the world today. And unfortunately, there's not a whole lot of them. You know, it's like, I wish there were more that were leaning in, but you know, there's always going to be the— Apple doesn't make a bad product, right? So you love Apple because they make a good product. And if you see, like, you know, when they, when they come out with, you know, Apple streaming and Apple Plus, it's like, my God, I go to the— I go to their stream channel all the time first because they don't make a bad product. Now, whether I like the show, that's different, but you know it's going to be quality. It's never going to be something that's been half-baked. And so they continue to just come out with that. I've been a Disney guy forever. I love the fact that Michael Eisner's back there. He's a— I've been following his journey for a long time, you know, because I believe he brought Disney back and now he's doing it again. No, it's not. It's Bob Iger.
Sorry.
Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, you get my point. Yes, I do. Yeah. Disney is fantastic in what they're doing and he's making some hard decisions, but he's coming back in to reset it. Howard Schultz. So it's kind of like guys I've been following for a while. Howard Schultz. I was a big Elon fan until the Twitter thing, and now it's like, okay, not so much there, but it's hard not to love what he's doing with SpaceX and just watching that rocket land on a pad. It's— yeah, yeah. Stuff that gets me excited from a product standpoint. I wish more brands were leading with their, with their hearts though, and recognizing that we have to get off of the make, take, and throw away culture of, you know, capitalism and really leaning in and trying to do something as a difference maker in what we're trying to do with all that. So I'm looking for more of those like-minded souls. They're out there, but they're really small. And the startup community is very passionate about making the change we all need to see in the world.
There are so many folks listening to this right now that needed to hear your message, want to hear your message, and they want to shape the world. Through their craft themselves, their suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and agencies, as we talked about before we hit record. How would you encourage them to do exactly what you just said? And maybe a way of phrasing that is, what would you say to the Eric at the beginning of this journey with Unless Collective, uh, to encourage him to keep going?
Yeah, so I would say 3 things. Be super clear about the destination. Have a, have a really clear thesis. Like, ours was, you know, zero harmful waste, end of life. That's, that's, that's what we said. We're going to fix fashion by focusing on the problem of waste. And so Being very specific. We don't even talk about sustainability. We talk about that. Second thing is stay small as long as you can until you really prove it. I mean, you got to, you got to really look at your resource burn before you even have resources to burn. Like how much— it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's always good to have more collaborators in the, in the, because it makes you feel comfortable, but it can come back to bite you later on if you're not watching your your, your resource burn even before you start. And the third thing is when you get some resources, some, some capital, you know, cherish it. So I've gone through a couple masterclasses of this already. So it's like really be very careful with it. So it's like have the idea, you know, make sure you're doing it with the right people and not too many. And then boom, make sure you are— make sure you're watching that bottom line and then go like hell.
Thank you, Eric. Thank you for joining us and inspiring us with your mission. And we can't wait to talk to you again sometime.
Appreciate you joining us. Great. Thanks for having me.
Take care, Bobby.
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