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What's up, DTC Pod? Today we have the pleasure of having the Kippen Burgers on the show. So, guys, I'll let you kick us off. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your background and what you guys are building with one of our favorite brands.

Hey, guys, thanks for having us on. So we're in Berlin at the moment. It's pretty awful. It seems that most people here like to drink and smoke and sit on the ground. That's like the majority of what I can see. If you would take like a snapshot, like a 16, nine snapshot of anywhere in the city, two thirds of the picture would be filled with people sitting on the ground smoking cigarettes and holding a beer bottle. And then the rest of that image would be the sky. So that'd be kind of the only place you can look is up. And then on the bottom side, that's the other thing you would see. So we're hiding here in our studio because Joe got kicked out of America and she lost her visa, and I had to come back here and be a good. So now we're here and it's nothing really new to us. We're on the move with the brand. We don't really have any offices. I'm anti office, if that's possible, and that's only because I've worked in offices for a long time and my background is more industry driven. I helped build up bias here in Germany, turned the magazine into moving images. And back then it sounds silly now, but back then, that was like a thing that not everybody thought was going to work out. I learned early on that you can segue and pivot a brand. And at that point, Vice was like, I think, ten years old. So in that time, there wasn't that many people out there. It was kind of an older brand, and moving that to a moving image and news organization was sort of our task at the time with Spike Jones and just a handful of people. Most of the people turned out to be on heroin later on and all got fired. So it was incredible that everyone was on heroin and really did a good job moving that brand forward. And I always liked that idea that you could be like Netflix, shipping out DVDs and then by rolling the dice and taking one risk, like their house of Cards or whatever it was at the time, which not everybody knew. If that was going to work against Showtime and HBO at the time, it worked. And now they own all of us and they make really horrible content. But that's sort of my background. Jo is a little bit more organized. She studied in Switzerland, graphic design and visual communication, and she basically does everything we do that you can see and touch. I'm more the guy that just stands around in his underwear and yells, and then she kind of does the work and makes everything look great. So that's our partnership. And yeah, that's just the qualifier, I guess, right? What you need to tell the people, what people need to hear to be able to accept the second part of the story. Absolutely.

Just the qualifier, just the disclaimer. But one of the reasons we're really excited to have you guys on the show, one definitely one of my favorite brands, just because I think you guys are doing something totally different than the way typical people approach brands and direct to consumer ecommerce and all that kind of stuff. I think there's a lot of brands that are doing the same. They're copycat brands off everyone else. Everything kind of feels a little bit stale. You guys have something that I think is a little bit different, not just in terms of brand ethos, but how you're taking things to market, the way you guys pursue projects, the way you guys innovate. So a quick background for the audience in terms of how we even got to know each other. I'd been following along. So Bukule magazine, it was like this magazine that my friends shared with me about avant garde transportation and really cool socials about powerboating, and Chris, you'll be able to get all into that stuff. And then we ran into each other in Miami, and I saw this guy wearing some vehicle swag, and I was like, Wait. I was like, vehicle. Are you involved? He's like, yeah, I'm Chris. So through that, we were kind of able to kick it off, but I'll let you take it back. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the inception of the brand, maybe your love for offshore power boating and everything. Avantgarde transportation.

Right, sure. Thank you. Yeah, it was great. You were the first person, I think, to ever call us out in public. So it was a historic moment and made my evening. I think where it started was kind of with all this censorship and unfollowing and banning and shadow banning, and this was like, maybe kind of pre pandemic. This was already kind of going on. And we're pro freedom, like anti censorship. We were doing a project with Rolls Royce at the time. They had approached me and asked me if they wanted to do something with me. And they kind of asked me, you can do whatever you want. And I said, okay, well, I need time and money. And they're like, how much time? I was like, I need two years, and I just need to be able to send you bills for stuff, and I need access to all the cars, like your global fleet. And they're like, done. And then I think they're like, is there going to be, like, a brief or anything? I was like, Nah. And they're like, okay. And then we worked on that for two years. And it was mostly just like, us driving around to their competition with those cars and getting other jobs and going to Porsche with the purple Rolls Royce and parking it next to the CEO of Porsche and telling them what was wrong with their company. I'm like, a know. So I was just having fun with yeah, and then we brought out the final product was just like this thing we shot on our phone. I just looked at it, coincidentally. It's pretty weird. I was watching David Lynch at the time, like the remake of Twin Peaks. So I was, like, taking a lot of audio from there and just making it really weird. And I was kind of like, hey, the chances that they play this is very small, but if they do, it needs to be fucking like they let you do this kind of weird. And it is. It's a very strange film. And when I sent it to them after, like, two years, it was a long time in their world. They're like, Mate, we love it, but can you send us the hard drives and we're going to re edit all this stuff? And I was like, I wrote him a mail back, and it said, when hell freezes. And that's kind of when communications kind of broke down. And we'd know each other for, like, two years, so it's a long time. We'd met, we were chummy, and I told him, look, we're going to do this Zine, and it's going to be about how you deal with this. So it's kind of like a choose your own adventure. Whatever you choose to do and how you act, we'll just document it and you choose. I kind of laughed at it and shrugged it off. And then later we brought out how a Rolls Royce fucks with your brain. And that sort of became this underground bible between kind of like design students and interns and people would trade it and steal it. We'd severed our relationship. No more Rolls Royces. And there was no pot of gold. There was no, like, we're going to do this zine and we're like Kanye, and then we're still going to be fucking mega rich. Like, who gives a fuck? It was like, no more Rolls Royces, basically. I mean, we had to deal with Porsche at that time, so it was a little bit of took the blowout a little bit. But anyways, we brought that thing out and I liked it. I liked the fact that nobody could unfollow it or ban it or it is what it was. And then I was like, all right, how about we play this up a little bit and we do like a magazine, just like a $100 magazine. And I don't know, then this Powerboating topic came up with, like, Miami. And I kind of like the visuals. She calls it the power hating scene. So these powerboaters, like, basically the worst people on the planet, right? No offense. There's maybe one or two that are okay, but the majority I worked in Hollywood and the art world and the fashion world, and I thought I'd met my know on shitty people. But these, I mean, they're like Trump supporters that even Trump hates. They're just like they're bad.

Why is that? What's the roots behind that?

None. None. Like insanity. They made up this thing after we were pretty successful. We launched during COVID We'd, like, printed up 1000, and we're selling these for $100. Unseen site unseen, no advertising. And it was like $180 with shipping right, in COVID. And it sold and we almost sold out. And then we were pretty happy about that. And then we were, like, re upping during COVID trying to get it printed here in Germany. We take no shortcuts. Like, just the best printing and complicated different papers and stuff. This rumor started kind of like the Ramon, where they're like the Internet rumor, like Tom Hanks eats children or whatever, which it might be true, but in our case, they came up with that. The magazine wasn't like, the vehicle magazine isn't real.

Would you consider yourself, like a member of that community? Or more so, of a messenger of that community, transporting it to the art world or design, et cetera?

I don't think I'm a member of any community, but I was just basically exploiting that niche because I'm very into niches.

You're in it?

Well, I'm more of the observer, right? So we come in in Berlin. We have nothing to do with like, I grew up on a sailboat. My dad told me powerboaters are like, I don't go like I just thought there's a story that, you know, and it wasn't being told well. So I was like, okay, we can take the story and do a deep dive on it. Which was a story of two rival, like powerboaters, that one of them had, like a hit put on the other one, allegedly. And it's this folklore in Miami and in that scene where it's like, if you ask ten people, you get ten different answers. So we're like, all right, this is crazy. My guy that writes with me, Dylan, he's much smarter than me. He knows how to write capitalized letters and stuff. I'm dyslexic I can barely spell my name. So he and I worked on this and developed it for, like, maybe six months. And it's all court records, so we didn't make anything up. This is all just like court records that we made legible that it doesn't bore you to death when you read it. And then we wrapped over that dossier, or like a 33 page expose. We wrapped like, a really nice entertainment on top of it. Like transportation art and transport art in period. A guy that built a boat. Just a few stories. Smuggling, like modern day smuggling. How the cartels smuggle money. And we put that together in this more like art book, right? It's like your catalog. Anyways, that was basically the inception of this thing. And we sold out. And then we reprinted and kept selling out. We didn't have enough to re up so quick, so I put the price up to slow down the sales. I was like, let's make it like 250. No one's going to buy it. And then people just kept buying it. And then I was like, okay, let's make it 500. And they kept buying it. And then we made it 1000. And then the sales slowed down a little bit, but they kept buying it as well. So I'm the guy that sells $1,000 magazine. And then later on we're like, how about we do like, a special edition for 10,000? So we sold that by then. We noticed a year or so goes by that we have a good following where what we're doing isn't for everyone and everything we do is complicated and expensive. So with that comes risk that you don't know if it's going to work out. We live in communist Europe. Nothing really bad is going to happen existentially but it's still time and ego and it's just one life to live. So it'd be nice if it worked out. And in this case, it has.

Yeah, you have like, from $10 cold brew to $20,000 surfboards. And that, to me, what that tells me is you're just selling a story. Your brand really is a story that is manifested through these products. It's not that you're necessarily it's almost story goes first before the product going first and then the story.

Yeah, the quality is an issue. If you're not like Lbmh and you own all that manufacturing and you can just push a button and everything looks dope, but you got to go around and look at what coffee we started doing other consumer products. We only do stuff we consumer like ourselves. So just starting with the magazine, most people, they take a shortcut, they print it in China or they print it in Poland or they near short or whatever, and you touch that magazine. First thing I do is when I get a magazine, I usually just smell it. I take it up and go like and if it's like some of these magazines, they smell like that, you're going to get, like, cancer by just touching it. It's, like, toxic. So do that, man. Go and print it for then it's sitting there during COVID And you're like, my distribution? We're like, with the best distribution there is. Apparently they're French and they're like, whatever. They got us into some nice stores, but they're like, you need to sell it for €12. I'm like, no fucking way. I just spent, like, two years on this. Like, we're selling it for 100 minimum. And they're like, never going to work. And so if you listen to that sort of gatekeeping community in whatever segment over the years, I found whatever it might be, if it's printing magazine, I don't even fucking like magazines. I don't read them myself. I've read my magazine once. I hear great stuff, but I judge the things by how the info is coming back by the consumer or the person who actually bought it. I don't need to sit around and jerk off to my own magazine. That's something that I'll let other people do. But what I'm saying is that this extra effort that always goes in to me, it feels like the magazine should cost 1000, and that would be too little. You know what I mean? So, yeah, it's a fine line, right, where you got to kind of not get too crazy. But you need to also make sure that the lights stay on and that there's enough cash flow coming in for the next project. And if you start doing something like a coffee, which is pretty cash intense, and it feels like I'm constantly I have a little fire wherever I go, and I'm just throwing, like $50 bills in it. And that's like the project the last six months, and that needs to be compensated. So I'd rather in the beginning go a little higher and just sort of reach people. That where it's maybe a little bit of a threshold, and then they look and investigate the catalog of our work versus just, like, the Singular product, which most startups or brands that are in one specific field. I just had a meeting with a guy who I like who does really good cold brew. And we're going to partner up, and we're basically just licensing. But we like that brand so much that we'd see him way more capable of distributing this on A, B to C. It's like peeing in the ocean. Like, the way we work, it gets overwhelming sometimes. So I think partnering up at this point is essential. You got to go and click up like the Italians do. It what they do, or they did from beginning on with their olive oil. They teamed up and they made a conglomerate, and they said, if you don't buy from us, we'll fucking kill you. And it worked to an extent, right? So I think now everyone's so, like, ego driven, and so, like, I can do everything myself and get some BC. And then, yeah, we've been talking about this, these money guys, we've turned down millions. And it's hard. It's hard when you're leveraged, when your accounts are on max and you got to turn down millions just because the people you're dealing with, man, they don't make me feel good. And they'll be on their best foot forward, but they're always like, whenever I talk to them privately, they're like, I'm suing this guy. Yeah, I got to end this call. I got my lawyer on the other line. We're suing this guy. And I'm like, Dude, that's going to be me if I deal with these guys. In this case, if you deal with other contemporaries in our case, like someone like a coffee or something, some other guy doing a coffee in Berlin, it's a little bit more level fielded where we both want the same thing versus some guy with anonymous money that's not even his. I don't know how they got they failed their way forward to being managing that money. Right? And then you just become some bottom line. I think that's the biggest challenge at the moment is, like, when you've made it, you're there, right? And then it's like, okay, how's this going to move forward? Right? And also on a level where you can stay motivated, where you're not just, like, working day and night with no end in sight. So that's sort of, I'd say, the challenge at the moment. Yeah.

I think one of the things that I love how you guys approaching are, one, in terms of brand values and what you guys come back to, and it seems like you guys have a very clear and defined idea of what those principles are behind the brand. You're like. Okay?

Quality.

We're not compromising on quality for any reason. And the other thing is embracing projects that actually projects and people that speak to you, right? At the end of the day, this is your life and your brand that you're running, and it's an extension of that. So rather than involve people or projects that are going to be sucking your time and your resources and energy that you don't want to deal with, you're really hard lined on what it is that you guys align with and pursuing projects that you want to do. And sometimes that's hard, right? Especially as you were saying when you were putting together the magazine and everyone said, oh, there's no way you can sell a magazine for $100. And you're kind of like, well, watch me, you're able to do that. So I'd love to talk a little bit about kind of how you guys make decisions in the face of, I guess, going against the grain a little bit, right? And that's something that I've seen you guys do, not only from the products that you build, but also the way you guys approach marketing, approach collaborations, even approach the way you've worked with other people. So why don't you talk about some of the biggest fans of vehicle who you've been able to bring on board in terms of fans, in terms of your journey, and would just love to unpack that a little bit more about making maybe what seems like the unpopular decision and going against consensus? Sure.

Well, yeah, that's a good question. It's like two kind of right for the flex, right? So we have a raceboat team that we sort of started at the same time. And it was during COVID And I don't know, it kind of made sense. We couldn't get to America, and we're here in Europe, and the racing scene here is a little bit more so. Like, there's a circuit, but the boats aren't, like, super high powered, but they're cool. And we got in touch with someone there and started working with this pilot, Jan, and his brother Paul, who have a raceboat, very ambitious guys. And the boats would race in Como. And we were living in Switzerland at the time because the COVID restrictions were a little more lax. So we were in Como quite a bit at Villadest, and we saw the races and got in touch. And then we're like, all right, well, let's just do this. And we put our name on the boat and brought in some other partners and got a little bit of funding, know, sort of publicity for this guy and his brother. And it's like a family affair. There's not a lot of money in that sport. It's like people really investing and driving long hours on the weekend to go race. So real motorsport, yeah, the race team, when we entered it, people were like, yeah, it's not going to work. And then we became world champion that year. And then they were kind of trying to minimize that and said it was like luck or I don't know what they were saying. Didn't really care. And then we became European champions the year after, and then we became world champions again. And then everyone hated us. But in that time, we built up a car team with a rally driver, Prince Albert. And then we had a rally team. And we also have these two Lambos. And these are all, like, people that are just racing. They're like, printing out our name, putting it on their don't. We're not involved financially. God, heavens. And so that kind of happened, and that's like a new click. And then fans would come to these races. And then I was like, okay, we're missing a consumer product. People buy maybe one magazine or one hat or whatever. We give most of those away. So we thought about the drink, right? And we're a little over sugary drinks, like, sugary energy drinks kind of done, right? So we're like, all right, well, coffee is kind of like the new beer, like the new energy drink. So let's investigate that. And then spent a lot of time and money on that and came up with this very clean, no sugar, made in Germany, organic, cold brew. And that sounds, like, super simple, and what's the big deal? Yeah, go and research, like, 40 coffee brands and look at what their ingredients are. A lot of the people put in coffee, aroma coffee. They're putting whiskey and aroma in a whiskey, like Chickery fiber. This is, like guys that are now chasing billion dollar valuations right in the shelves of your local supermarkets, like, doing these really dirtied up fucking drinks. And we're just like, yeah, we don't like it. We started that. We matched that with the race team and started pushing a little bit on that and getting people on these grids to start drinking the coffee and sort of saw that that was a thing. And then we did something with LAPO Elcon. His family owns Fiat and Ferrari. He has this kind of, like, rich kid brand, sunglass thing kind of came in, and it was good, helped us move forward. And then Drake's Manager was, like, a fan of him, and then they came on board and then OBO, drake's Brand sponsored the race team, and that's how that kind of stuff builds up. But it's nice when you're on the treadmill and you get a DM from Drake's Manager, and then you send him a magazine. He doesn't get it, send another one. He's like they both arrive. I gave the other one to Drake. I wrote it back. I've been waiting for that message for, like, ten years. So those things happen, right? But those are good. I don't know. Always a good guy. And then you're introduced to the team, right? They're usually called, like, Derek or something like that. Like, the people that work for these kind of famous people, and they're like they hate like, they're forced to work with you, kind of. They're like, who did they bring this time? Who is this guy? And then they try to push you into some format where they want you to produce with their kind of low quality product. They want to put your name on it, and they're making it seem like that's like a win for you. And I don't know, it just gets kind of wonky. So that's usually when we kind of back down, when it's like a thin Blaine, right? When you're like, you want that flex, you want that OVO post, but then you get the OVO post and you get like twelve new followers and you're like, wait a minute, these guys look at the numbers. How does this work? You get a feeling with stuff, you're like, this isn't going to but think, think what's going to happen if we do that? What's going to happen if that and what happens if that happens? And I try to play that scenario on most stuff where it's just like, I want the cash and prizes. I'm not a very educated guy, I like rewards. But there's a point where I think if you've had it all, you've lost it all, you've had it all. At some point you have a different sort of perception of like, how is this going to make me feel? Or how has it made me feel? And that's, I think the part that probably only failure can really guide you. Right. Where it's like I tried that last time and it sucked and I tied me up for a year dealing with cleanup, the mop job, right. And that's I think something that's the real luxury. Right. If you can walk away from a million bucks that is basically on the way the person is about telling you they're going to send it the next day and turn it down. That's power. Right? It's tough. It's like the ARCON said, he's like my fingers on the trigger and the gun's off loaded the know. And that's how a lot of that stuff feels. Like the decisions aren't easy, but most of the time it's Joe who comes in and gives me the voice of reason. Or we sit down, we just talk about it and we're like, do we need it? No. Would it be nice to have yes. But is it worth it? No. And that's, that's, that's one of the harder right. That's no one really teaches.

So yeah, another thing I want to talk about, chris is working with Joe. Why don't you talk to us a little bit about your collaborative process. Joe, I know you do everything from the visual stuff to the graphic design and the brand, and Chris is out there making everything happen as well. So why don't you just talk about what collaboration looks like for you guys together and how you guys think about building awesome products that way.

Hi, this is my voice. I thought about maybe not talking at all. It would have been funny because I could have been Chris's imaginary wife. Yeah. Collaboration, how does it work? Chris kind of already explained it. I guess it's him making the plans, kind of, and me trying to keep everything on track and actually getting the work done right. The picture on the Instagram Am, the.

Meg, it sounds like you're downplaying yourself a lot, but I think you have one of the coolest approaches to visual and graphic design that I've seen, especially. On social, what you guys are able to do, and in terms of just, like the stuff you make, you guys make really cool shit. So just tell me about how you think about designing. What goes into your graphic design process, into your product design process. How do you think about creative?

I don't really think about it, to be honest. It's just you get all the elements and you have them in your program and then you put them in a way you like the looks. So that's kind of my approach. I guess it's more like maybe I'm more like an artist than a graphic designer in that sense. I don't know. A lot of the powerful people have complained that they must have a messed up copy or something because the text is too close to the images.

Yeah, that's the trick, I guess. You don't think about it. You just do. And it comes from an authentic place. I'm curious. Your guys content is so different that when I see it, I can't help but wonder, where are you even getting this content? Whenever I see your content, that's the first time I see that asset, that piece of content. It's not from a stock library. Clearly, it's no video that is repurposed. What is your content strategy in terms of this creativity of unseen assets? It's almost like archives from the history books of the power boat racing industry. And so how do you source this stuff? What is the thinking behind that? Is that the intention? We want to give people raw, unseen footage?

I think it's like a curation more, right, where it's like different sort of elements, where the juxtaposition of the contrasting elements, right where you have something repurposed. We'll take a really famous clip and then I'll hunt down the owner. Well, that's the great thing. A lot of these vintage clips that are in circulation, the owners are still alive if they're not in prison or been killed. And so I'll track this guy down and we winter in Miami, so a lot of these guys hang out there. And then I'll harass the shit out of this guy to the point where they're just like, dude, it'd just be easier to meet with him. He's not going to go away. And then they're like, be at the marina at 09:00 a.m.. And then I go there and we got like, two minutes. And we sit in his G Wagon, and I put the phone on the dashboard with the recorder, and I tell him just I'll run the video. He just needs to comment. It like, he needs to say what that was like that day. And then he'll do it, and I'll hit stop and I'll be like, okay, that's done. He's like, what do you mean? I'm like, well, it's done. He's like, okay, cool. Well, thanks, man. I was like, yeah, I don't want to do this either. Nobody does. And he's like, yeah, you're right? But someone has to. And then I'll go home and we'll take that audio and hopefully not delete it on the way home. That's happened, too. And then I'll lay it underneath that clip, and then we edit it a little bit and rerelease it, and then it's that one thing that you were missing. Right? Everybody knew that video was being referenced to Hell, the video where everybody was just dying to know what the hell was going on. And this guy just he did a really good job, really just with Cadence, and it's brilliant, and it just worked. Right? And then we put that out and that's the extra layer of the art behind it where you didn't know if that was going to work. Right. And you just sank, like, two weeks into it right. Just for that one audio with this guy. And we released it and I didn't know how he was going to feel about that. And then he just texts me that night, and he just says, you did a really great job. Thanks so much. And then that thing goes out, and then the next one gets done, and we have so much that's, like, just, I guess, madness, right? Where it's just, like, stuff that other people would maybe deem, like, not like a sure thing. You don't know if it's going to work out right, especially the time investment.

And most people are caught up in the volume. And how are you going to scale the volume of doing that? How do you scale that? People are always thinking about scale, right? But here it's kind of the opposite.

Why are they right? That would be probably out of the algo needs to be fed, right? But if you turn it around and just produce one asset that's really valuable and really good, you can keep chopping it up, keep rereleasing it, make it sparse. We'll push it on a channel and then rerelease it, like, a month later. And then people say, we always love when this comes up. And then we engage and say, yeah, so do we. And we post it once in a while for new members or new followers because they haven't seen it. And then, I don't know. We look at other ways to SEO. We're doing really well on TikTok, growing just with awesome shit. And then I don't know, it's again, a mentality thing, right, in a time thing. And how you're set up. I don't know if that translates in English, but it's a democalous sword. It's a sword that's proverbially hanging over your head about to fall. And if it did, game over. It depends on how high that's hanging, right? Or what your tolerance level is for feeling the tip of that blade touch your nose. So that's kind of it. It's just sort of like going against the idea of looking at all the others, right, and being like, all right, this sucks. Let's try to do this a little differently. That's kind of the way I think that's the only way I can say it where it could maybe be duplicated or has some meaning. Right.

Really interesting in terms of how you guys go about but I think that ethos is the same thing that permeates throughout the brand right. Like you guys are saying you're doing things that you're taking risks but doing and you kind of let things build on top of themselves. It almost feels like you're going into things and you see what sticks and what really gives you pull. So yeah it's just fascinating because you guys have the social presence, the media presence that you guys have turned into consumer goods to coffee. You talked about your cold brew, you didn't talk about your copy luoc coffee, the most expensive coffee in the world. So we definitely want to hear a little bit about that but yeah I just think that really fascinating how you guys have started, how you guys have positioned yourself and how you guys are really building brand instead of building products. A lot of brands start their specific thing and everyone knows them as oh they're the supplement brand or they're the coffee to the magazine. Chris, why don't you tell us even a little bit about some of the car collaborations you guys have done and the couch stuff you've done. Want to hear it all?

Yeah, I mean it's weird from that Rolls Royce Zine that we put know the first one we had some of those interns who then later fast forward years later they're not interns anymore and they are working in some industry. Like one guy picked up a franchise for a French furniture brand called Lini Rosie which do a pretty famous sofa called the Togo Sofa. It's the one that kind of looks like low on the ground, used to be at the Standard on Sunset if you've ever been to that hotel the whole lobby was full of them. Very low, very uncomfortable, but it looks great. And so he approached us and since we don't do any advertising for the magazine we do sell covers. That was a big one for us. So we would sell a cover all in for a considerable amount of money compared to an ad and that would basically finance the entire print run. So we already in the plus before we ever sold a magazine and those covers they would basically be the vehicle cover with like an image of whatever that collaboration was on the COVID And collaborations are always unique. They always have to be something that is created by or with us. It's not something that we're reproducing or taking out of an asset folder for some brand and saying we did that or Photoshopped it, or so that happened. And then we made a sofa with them. And then at the same time, we then took over their brand communication. And the store is now the highest performing store in the network of those stores in Germany, which I think they have like 100 or something, right? Including their own from the brand that they're running in Munich. There's, like, two or three two from the actual brand and then some franchises. And we're the highest performing in that whole thing since we took it over and then hyped the shit out of that sofa and created a hashtag and got all the bloggers into it. And all of a sudden, it was everywhere. And then we bought up, like, half a million dollars worth of Togo sofas and squeezed the market and all the other the man went through the roof, and there's, like, eight, nine months on that sofa waiting. And all the other stores were like, we can't get any? Where are they? We had them. And then even to a point where really wealthy people that I know in the States were like, chris, we can't get these sofas in America. Can you get us some? And I remember this one deal we did with someone was like, yeah, he's funny. He asked me. He's like, Chris, I admire your taste and your style since a long, long time, so I'm going to ask you, like, a very personal question. Do you think that 32 sofas are enough? And I said, Well, Ben, that's a very personal question. I think you're going to have to answer that for yourself. And then he wrote me back, like, a day later. He's like, yeah, I'll take all of them. And I don't know if you know this sofa, if you Google it, we had, like, I think, four units of it or something, and our whole apartment was full, basically. And this guy ordered, like, 32 or, I don't know, like, over 30 sofas. And then he had them FedExed to Palm Beach. I think the FedEx bill alone was like 25K. These side deals sort of happen where the magazine is more like a business card and people that come in touch with it and see our kind of uncompromised ideal and quality that they can then transfer that over to whatever else we're talking about. Because magazine has such a preloaded sort of visual, right? It's like porn. Like, the minute you say that, it's in your head. Everybody has a different image. You say magazine, it's like, what is that? Is that like the National Enquirer? Like, at the checkout aisle at the supermarket? Or is that some trash or is it like a play? And then you see it and you're like, okay, I get it. This is more like a book, or something totally different. And I think that was something that played in quite well and still does. I think that's the thing. I don't want to get too all over the place and convoluted here, but what I'm trying to say is that at this point, I think it's getting easier to make something if you like it, right? So if you like a hot sauce, we just did a collaboration with my guy in Miami who does a hot sauce, and I like the hot sauce. I didn't like the one he gave me. He's like, how did you like that hot sauce I gave you? I was like, I didn't. He was like, oh, come on. I was like, I didn't like it. He's like, Why didn't you like it? I was like, It tastes like there's garlic in it. I didn't like that. And then he's like, all right, can I go on? I was like, It's too thick. It was, like, kind of weird. He's like, okay, okay, well, then you got to try the one I eat myself. And I had it and was great. It was, like, watery. Like tabasco had no garlic. I was like, what's going on here? Why aren't you selling this? And he's like, well, you can't manufacture it. Like, you need this sort of gum in the hot sauce so the machines don't squirt it all over the place. So it's a manufacturing issue that's very hard to get that quality without that filler. And it's also for this sublamination process that most hot sauces are, like, 70% water and vinegar and carrot. So if you don't put this gum in, it'll delaminate, and it will become like a gradient where the top is clear and it gets like people the consumer doesn't like that. They want, like, a bright, flashy red sauce in their aisle, right? So I told him to take all that shit out, and we made a collaboration on that edition, right? And through that, I get access to his 75 market spaces, the ones that I don't have to go to, and through that, automatically, I'm in his Amazon shop on the side. We're in the 75 shops. It's really hard to get into shops. They're like record stores. They're like Nazis. It's horrible experience getting into stores if you're doing it without distribution. So just by doing this chess move where you're partnering with someone you like with their product, you can access their network. I think that's been an interesting experience because we went up and down the coast in Florida, and we're standing in these fucking stores talking to these like they weren't the smartest people, store owners, store owners about getting into their store with our coffee. And they manipulate you, and they kind of, like, hint at that they want to be bribed, and it's just a really bad energy. So what I'm getting at is that partnership angle where you can partner up. I think, personally, food and beverage is my favorite because it's the stuff I consume the most of or I spend the most time on, just hacking that a little bit and seeing where it goes. And at the moment, we collaborate now with this brand here in Berlin that I found them at Solo House. And I was kind of like, I want to try them. They're the competition. And I liked it. I was like, Holy shit, these guys are really good. I sent him a mail, and he's like, I'm in Berlin. I'm like, let's meet up. Okay. And then bing, bang, boom. I'm like, hey, how about we partner just for the solo house mini bars? And he's like, yeah, sure. Let's do it. And then that kind of thing. At the moment, I think this partnership stuff and sort of collaborating, I find more rewarding than dealing with the industry. Right. Or the gatekeepers. Or like the same people, like those magazine guys that told me I'm never going to sell the magazine for the price I think it's worth. And did the same thing here with this consumer stuff where the people that are running that industry, they're not known for being very friendly. Right. Or fair. Like a 60 40 split in a supermarket. I think that's a bad deal. And I have, like, night school education.

Also, the payment terms, it's like net. I don't know what you don't even get paid, like, that month.

Right?

So you're putting the money up front. You're essentially doing the business for them.

And they have you by the balls. They know that we get paid by.

The magazine distribution once a year.

Yeah. Just for reference, if we would have listened to those guys with the distribution, I'd be living under a bridge.

Oh, man. No, absolutely. And Chris, kind of as we wrap up here, I want to kind of get an idea of what's next in the pipeline for vehicles. What are you guys working on? What are you working on? Personally? Design projects, different products that you're launching. What gets you excited? What are some of the things you're really inspired about and excited to build?

Yeah, I can't talk about it too much, but at the moment, it's a lot of unsexy stuff. Just basically optimizing existing things that grew and just really putting in the miles. I feel like Ray Crock. Who? It's the miles in the car where we drive from Berlin to Copenhagen. It feels like 13 hours one ride to meet the one person that's really into our brand, has been selling us for a long time. Can you answer that before it goes again?

Thanks.

Sorry about that. And then going there and setting up the next sort of like, what's next with the coffee thing. Right. Because humans, in my opinion, or myself included, we're very basic to a certain extent. If someone is doing a magazine and the next minute they're coming around with a coffee, it could be a little jarring. So that takes a little bit of massaging, a little bit more time than I would like. But going there and meeting this guy and talking to him about the coffee, going into seven stores in Copenhagen and seeing that there's nothing, it's wide open, it's like coming somewhere where something doesn't exist. And you're just like, wow, I could just be me. And you go there and the people are friendly, good looking, have money, and they're hungry and they like coffee. They just don't know that they like cold brew yet. And it's that moment where I'll tell one last story that kind of makes this worthwhile. When I was going to boarding school, one of my seven boarding schools I went to in five years, one of them was in Bursts Garden, which is like, on the border to Austria. And on the weekend when we take the train to Munich, you could either go like the short way or the long way, which went over Zalzberg, which is in Austria. And in Austria they had a drink that they didn't yet have in Germany because the German version of the FDA hadn't approved it yet because it had ingredients that wasn't certified yet. It was a drug. So this brand was called Red Bull. And we would go to Zalzberg and we would get out real quick. Sometimes you'd have to run in between trains to the kiosk at the train station and score some red Wool. And then we'd take it in the train, try to stash it in our shit. And then on the border crossing, they'd have the customs guys come from train thing to train thing. And I remember one time I got caught and they took my Red Bull away, right? I ended up with one of the cans out of all, like the six or whatever I bought, and I took it home and I put it in my Ikea glass thing in my childhood bedroom. I put it up in the thing and closed, had like a downSpot on it, and the can was in there being presented. And at that time, if you would have told people that Red Bull one day would take over the fucking world, basically, of drinks, people wouldn't have believed it, right? And all big things start small. And that's just the thing. It's tedious. You drive those 60 hours and you spend five k to meet one person to get a can into someplace, and you don't know what's going to happen next. It's risk. But at the end of the day, it's like us driving to Denmark in our Range Rover, like we went to McDonald's. We didn't go to noma, but. We went to McDonald's and had a but. So you drove to Denmark and had a cheeseburger.

Wasn't even that good.

Wasn't good. And then you get into this one place and then you come back and then you hear that he got his box and he's super stoked, and he lives next to the store, is right next to a high school, and he's going to start seeding the drink to the high school students. And then these things take a life of their own. And you just got to remain open to the idea and have faith that one of those things is going to be the one that makes it all decide. And the weirdest thing is you'd think there's 20 other brands lining up next to that high school, right? You'd think there'd be, like the Coca Cola Corporation. Pepsi, Red Bull, whatever. It's not a very heavily guarded market. It really isn't, in my opinion. It's only by this distribution mafia. They're the ones that are basically dialing it in, right? And if you can somehow chip away at that, it's challenging.

All right, guys. Well, we loved having you on. This was such a fun episode. And for anyone who's following along, where can we follow you guys personally? As well as Vehicle, the brand, and all your other subsidiaries, where do we find you?

All over, I'd say. Probably instagram is still the least favorite, but the one that gets updated the most. We're on TikTok. Vehicle magazine. Vehicle magazine. TV. A lot of powerboat stuff mixed with other cool stuff. A lot of stuff. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, guys.

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