Today’s Chapter is based on the book “Authentic: A Memoir by the Founder of Vans” by Paul Van Doren.
Here’s what I have learned from the book:
Authenticity
“Authenticity is about being true to who you are, even when everyone else wants you to be someone else.”
— Michael Jordan
As we have previously learned from Michael Jordan, one of the most important things he learned at an early age is to follow his own instincts. As such, he was the one creating his own standard and never tried to be like somebody else or to live up to the expectations of others. In fact, Jordan is a true believer that part of his success comes from his authenticity.
As a matter of fact, Jordan believes that it is difficult to become the best you can be when you are focused on trying to be the best version of someone else. Without authenticity, you are not going to last long. He explains that “the products, companies and people who stay true to who they are usually end up being around for a long time.” Furthermore, he elaborates that companies that jump into trends or try to be something other than what or who they are, generally, don't last very long.
“If you are trying to make your way through a maze, and your decisions come from the inside, from your gut, nine times out of ten you won't find yourself running into a wall. But if you rush into something, make decisions to appease somebody else, or chase the easy dollar, then you are going to find that wall.”
— Michael Jordan
Similarly, the concept of “authenticity” is quite important to Paul Van Doren, the founder of Vans. Van Doren often mentions that what he was able to accomplish at Vans is due to his ability of leveraging his own talent for identifying and solving problems. Whenever he saw a system that wasn’t working efficiently, he could see where the issue was and to find a way to keep everything moving. This talent of his could be seen early from his experience working at Randolph Rubber where he revamped their manufacturing system.
More importantly, Van Doren mentions that the concept of “authenticity” also means that you need to do what feels right for you rather than let other factors beside your own convictions influence your decisions.
As a matter of fact, he mentions that he “learned early on that what's right is right and what's wrong is wrong. If you put thought into something and do what's right every single time, you won’t be far off from doing the best you can—the best any of us can.”
“Mine would be a business that felt authentic—not just in making a quality product, but by operating in a way that was true to who I was. I can say with conviction that building the company that became Vans was a personal expression all the way.”
— Paul Van Doren
Obviously, what helped Van Doren to run his business the right way was by learning great values from his parents who led by example. He explains that his parents taught him a lot more than what he learned at school. Notably, he mentions that his parents taught him “long ago that people were the most important thing in your life—more important than money or prestige or possessions. My father believed that family always came first. So do I—that's how I’ve conducted my own life and run my business.”
Van Doren also learned from his parents the principle of working hard. Both of his parents worked long hours at the job and at home. Similarly, Van Doren, following his parents’ example, always put in that extra effort when it came to work. As he once said, “My work ethic was always my calling card, in business and in life.”
Play the Odds
“If you don’t get this elementary, but mildly unnatural, mathematics of elementary probability into your repertoire, then you go through a long life like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. You’re giving a huge advantage to everybody else.”
— Charlie Munger
Paul Van Doren mentions that he had a special talent with numbers which is essential to succeed in life. As a matter of fact, he mentions that “The truth is that almost everything in life hangs in the balance of likelihoods or odds. That sounds ominous, but it should be of some comfort that odds are driven by basic arithmetic anyone can understand. In other words, math.”
Van Doren explains that by understanding how to calculate odds, the better you will be trained in finding ways to tip them in your favor. This is applicable in both life and in business. Heck, Napoleon once said, “Military science consists in first calculating all the possibilities accurately and then in making an almost mathematically exact allowance for accident. It is on this point that one must make no mistake; a decimal more or less may alter everything.”
Van Doren learned about odds through handicapping. His father taught him to watch and listen carefully to what was being said around him. This allowed him to listen to the owners, jockeys, and oddsmakers and to distill the essential information for his handicapping purposes.
While there are various concepts on how to win money by handicapping, Van Doren’s system relied on handicappers themselves. He explains that “In simplest terms, my system was to hedge the handicapper, who I had to assume spent more time than me assessing any given horse's running history.”
This experience handicapping allowed Van Doren to notice that if you have a good system in place, taking a risk isn’t risky when you understand that the odds are in your favor.
“Some people think handicapping is a science. It's not. Everyone handicaps differently. There's class and ability and form and breeding. There are also race conditions to factor in, such as mud. Horses feel good one day and don’t the next. A horse can run fast against good horses but not run fast against bad ones. Some horses run faster than other horses at different times of the day. Some horses are fast out of the gate while some are slow. There is always a horse in the race that wants to run longer and one that wants to run shorter.”
— Paul Van Doren
This concept of “playing the odds” reminds me of what we have learned from Chung Ju-Yung, the founder of Hyundai, who once said that “timing and action are the keys to success or failure.” In fact, in Chung’s opinion, luck is all about understand when to seize the right moment and that good or bad luck depends on how one manages time. He also believes that everyone, poor or rich, all have roughly the same amount of time to develop themselves to be prepared to take full advantage of a great opportunity.
The difference is that people who work hard are better apt to take advantage of good timing in contrast to lazy people. As a matter of fact, diligent workers, even during bad times, understand that they still need to make continuous effort in order to minimize or avoid adverse consequences. Whereas, lazy individuals will miss the opportunities presented to them during good times and are oblivious to dangers during bad times. Thus, hard working people are deemed to be always lucky compared to others.
“And within our lifespans, I believe each person also undergoes roughly equal amounts of good times and bad times. Self-development is contingent on one's ability to make the most of the good times through hard work and diligence. When times are bad, all we can do is assess our situation and carry on. By doing so, we can overcome the bad times without needing to rely on luck. The course of one's life is not determined by the timing of one's birth, but by the choices he or she makes in both good times and bad.”
— Chung Ju-Yung
And in Van Doren’s case, he was certainly a hard worker whenever he faced an opportunity. From an early age, when he saw a better way to do things, he would take matters in his own hands. As he once said, “All I knew was that when something isn’t right, you fix it. That’s what I’d done.”
As Thomas Edison once said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Consequently, Van Doren understood that opportunities don’t just happen, you still need to work in order to create them. And more importantly, you still need to be put in a good position in order to make the most out of it.
Shane Parrish, the founder of Farnam Street blog, mentions this perfectly when he says, “If you put Warren Buffett in a bad position where all of his options are bad, it doesn’t matter how smart he is, it doesn’t matter how Warren Buffett he is. Everybody looks like an idiot when they’re in a bad position and everybody looks like a genius when they’re in a good position.”
While not every opportunities will work out in your favor, it is definitely worth putting the effort. As Van Doren says, “There is always a chance something will prove to be a waste of your time or money or effort—but recognizing a good opportunity when it comes down the pike is key.”
Listen to Customers
“Get closer than ever to your customers. So close, in fact, that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.”
— Steve Jobs
What was the key to Vans’ success? Van Doren believes it is because they listen to their customers. As a matter of fact, he mentions that by paying attention to the people using your product, you can get a sense of what kind of improvements are needed. As Van Doren once said, you can accommodate your customers by innovating. As such, Van’s motto was “Quality, Value and Superior Service”, and the Superior Service is done through listening.
“I believe our willingness to listen to customers, to let them make our shoes their own, and to do things differently than the way they’d always been done were all reasons young people started identifying so closely with the Vans brand.”
— Paul Van Doren
For example, Vans had a policy in place where “If you bought a pair of Vans and some part of them didn’t hold up, or you had another complaint, we’d happily replace the shoes, no questions asked. From our first day in business, our customers have been our number one focus, and we wanted them to believe in our brand.”
Also, after receiving two custom pairs orders from a customer, Vans’ management group decided to offer custom shoes as a service. As a matter of fact, due to their factory’s flexibility, Vans could change styles or colors every day on the assembly line. As such, customers could come up to their stores to choose their own upper fabric for their shoes.
Finally, Vans also allowed their customers to buy just one shoe at a time. This would allow customers to purchase one shoe, instead of buying a new pair when only one shoe was ruined. Alternatively, it allowed customers to purchase shoes of different-size if they had feet of different size.
But more importantly, Van Doren realized that the customers to listen to may not necessarily be the wearer of the shoes. In fact, he noticed that “the mom is really the boss of the family. Mom is almost always the one who decides when, where, how, and everything else about shopping for the family. This changed my entire perspective on our core market. I had to get more moms.”
“We just kept sewing our shoes with moms in mind—that's what we did, for years and years and years.”
— Paul Van Doren
Furthermore, Van Doren believes that Vans as a company found a niche and a direction by listening to their customers. As a matter of fact, considering Vans’ emphasis on the freedom of self-expression, it was easy for it to be associated with the skateboarding culture. This skateboarding culture helped Vans to find a niche and the identity that they maintain to this day.
As Van Doren once said, “When skateboarders adopted Vans, ultimately, they gave us an outward culture and an inner purpose.”
After receiving many feedbacks from top skaters on how to make better shoes for skateboarding, Van Doren decided to create a new skate shoe, one specifically addressed to the needs of skateboarders. By collaborating with top skaters such as Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta, Vans were able to create the ultimate skate shoes, the Vans Era.
Furthermore, after hearing from skateboarders the need to have better ankle protection, Vans released another high-top model, called the Sk8-Hi, which is now one of the best sold models of Vans.
“If you consistently deliver what customers want, you’ll cross the finish line in the money.”
— Paul Van Doren
Beyond the Book
Read "The Value of Probabilistic Thinking: Spies, Crime, and Lightning Strikes" by Farnam Street
Read "Predicting the Future with Bayes’ Theorem" by Farnam Street