Dream On: How to Be a Creative Entrepreneur | David Allemann
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Welcome to the Talks at Google podcast, where great minds meet. I'm Emma, bringing you this episode with David Alamon, co-founder of the sportswear brand, On. Talks at Google brings the world's most influential thinkers, creators, makers, and doers all to one place. You can watch every episode at youtube.com slash talks at google.

David joins Google to talk about Ahn, one of the fastest-growing global sports brands. He discusses his career journey, the story of Ahn's IPO, and how they were able to become a prominent name in the saturated market of athletic shoes. David's background is at the intersection of business and creativity. He's worked at McKinsey & Company, an advertising agency, Young & Rubicam, and previously served as the CMO of the design brand Vitra.

He also founded one of Switzerland's first digital agencies in 1996. Here is David Allemann. How to be a creative entrepreneur. So David, you founded the Swiss sports brand ON in 2010 together with your two friends, Kasper and Olivier. You co-lead the company with a special focus on product marketing and the direct-to-consumer business of ON.

And you're the co-chairman of ONN. That's your official role. And you and your wife, Inja, are parents to two young daughters. And you...

Love spending time in nature, I heard, and as it should be for a Swiss, you love skiing, hiking, biking and running. Obviously, you have to and kite surfing. So I think it's a really nice start. So for those of you who are not so familiar with ON, just some facts before we then get started with questions and learn more from you, David, about your journey.

on creative entrepreneurship on was founded in 2010 right you have a presence in over 60 countries you employ more than 1 700 people which i think is really um breathtaking so amazing you sold tiny compared to google so

That's a small team. Yeah, I mean, I agree it's always a matter of perspective, but I'm really, really impressed. And also you've sold over 17 million products already. The IPO in 2021 had a valuation of $7.3 billion and you're considered one of the fastest growing global shoe brands. So I think that's not a matter of perspective. I think that's really, really good. So,

But now over to you. Let's warm us up a bit. Not like in a sports context, but with words. So I asked you two words and you choose one of them. You choose, right? Don't explain. It's just about the choice. Okay, I try. I try. So I have to make up my mind, right? So the first one is Nike or Adidas.

On, of course. Okay. Okay. You're excused with that one. Marathon or 5K? 5K. Good. I like that. City run or out in nature? Out in nature. Okay. That's, I heard that in the CV. Kipchoge or kiptum? On Atlantic Club. You have one more choker. Okay. But startup or scale up? Startup. Podcast or book? Book. I'm a visual person.

Love it. Then planning or serendipity? Planning probably. Okay. But I hear a bit of, okay. Empowerment or clarity? I think empowerment through clarity. And now all the chokers are gone, right? So you have just work from home or hybrid work? Hybrid work. Okay. So we're through. You were three chokers. That was fine. Okay.

But let's go back to the start of On Running when you and your friends sat together. Was there some kind of special moment like the ignition of On? Do you remember some first conversation that you had with your colleagues when it all started? You know, it was a very short conversation because Olivier called Kasper and myself and said, hey,

I have this amazing shoe and you have to come and run in it. And so that was the first conversation. So we actually met up here in Zurich, somewhere close to the zoo for those who know that running route. And we went on a run and Olli kind of pulled out of his bag this dripping wet shoe because it was raining. And I think you saw it somewhere on the slides here. It really looked like a Frankenstein.

And we said, he's crazy now. He's kind of squandered his hard-earned athlete money because he's a...

Duathlon world champion, six-time Ironman winner. Now he's going to squander that on a shoe. And then we took it for a run. And for us, it was this one moment where we felt, wow, that's a different experience. So some of you might have remembered when you had your first carving ski or your first full suspension bike, which was always this...

unique feel. And so we felt we had that. And that was the first encounter where we came together around all. Really nice. I mean, the shoe market is not like a market that just develops, right? It's a very saturated market. And you described this first moment when there was a lot of, you were really convinced about this shoe, right? But

What made you and your co-founders so confident that this is worth it, right? This will be successful and that you can really break through such a saturated market?

I think we had to build that. I mean, Olli was super confident, but Casper and I, we had to build that confidence because of course it's crazy to start a running shoe brand out of small Switzerland. But when we always went back to that first moment and

So we dabbled a little bit with the idea and then we said, hey, let's go on a hike together. And this hike happened in the Engadin Valley. We saw some pictures of the beautiful nature up there

we started really in the dark valley and sometimes in Switzerland it's a little bit small villages in dark valleys and so you don't get so much perspective and then you hike up the mountain and when we hiked up that mountain we saw more of the horizon and of the scenery and that also lifted our spirit and probably also our review at the world and at some point we felt

Hey, we have a fantastic technology. We have a fantastic idea. And we're coming out of one of the most, one of the safest places, the most secure countries. If you don't have the ability to risk something, who can? And it was almost this push that we gave ourselves. Hey, we're

Because of that, we have to do it. What can go wrong? And so that was really the decision where we said, hey, let's do that.

And what's the idea from the beginning on, like to reach that size? Was it about this kind of goal to be really one of the main shoe brands? In an intentionally naive way, it was. So we said, hey, you can't think shoe brand small, can't be kind of a local Swiss shoe brand, similar like you.

You can't think car brand small. And so we had to conceptually think it big, but it was not very concrete. But it was very clear from the start that we wanted to build a global brand from the start.

Because also we can probably talk about that Switzerland is an eight, nine million people country. So that's the greater New York area. So that's a great launchpad if you want to get a test market, but it's probably not going to bring you to a global shoe brand. Yeah, yeah, really nice. I wanted you to ask about what was your first elevator pitch, but then you were describing on how you hiked up the mountain. So maybe elevator is not the right word.

But how did you convince others about this? Because, I mean, it sounded a bit like really ambitious, right? It's interesting that you mentioned that. We asked ourselves that question as well at the very beginning. And our elevator pitch or our hiking pitch was a T-shirt. So when we were just a few weeks into the journey, we were invited to

to the ISPO fair, which is the biggest sports fair in Europe, in Munich. And they had given us, because we had sent them some of our first monsters, and they had given us their major newcomer award. And so we went there and there were big billboards hanging there with our shoe on there. And we had printed t-shirts that said, don't ask me about the shoe.

And we wore these t-shirts at the little booth that we had somewhere in a corner. And of course, a lot of people approached us and said, why shouldn't I ask about the shoe? And then we told them, hey, we can't convince you. You can only be convinced if you step into them and do the same thing that we did on that rainy morning somewhere up here in Zurich. And so that was our elevator pitch. Oh, I love it. That's a great story.

Hey, we wanted to talk about creative entrepreneurship. Now we've gone a bit to your career and on, but maybe let's dive a bit deeper into that. What does it exactly mean to you, this creative entrepreneurship? What does it mean to me? So obviously you can start a business and be an entrepreneur, or you can start something where you feel you want to do something completely new.

So you create really something new. And I think that asking these bold questions of, hey, could we radically reinvent a running shoe because we bring engineering instead of just material science to a shoe? Could we change the way people look at the running shoe because we

radically reduce the design and simplify it? Could you change how people shop in a store for a running shoe or gear? I think these kind of questions, these what-if questions ultimately lead to creative entrepreneurship.

Wow. So it's really very closely connected to this big mission and dream of going. Yes. So how do you think outside of the box? And I think that's very much what from the beginning on this hike brought us together as co-founders, this out-of-the-box thinking. And we try to continue to drive that out-of-the-box thinking very much in our culture as well. We call it the explorer spirit.

Nice. You haven't used the word innovation until now, but is it something that just is the effect of everything you described now here? Or does it have a specific role, like how you approach innovation in this creative entrepreneurship?

I mean, ON is an innovation company at heart. And I think all the questions we're asking, the what-if questions, ultimately are pointed at innovation, whether that's in product, in digital innovation, in how we lead the organization, how we bring our team together in spaces and so on. Everything is geared at that. How we build stores, that's actually the upcoming project

Paris store that hasn't even product in there. So everything kind of is driven out of this explorer spirit or innovation spirit, you could call it. Really nice. And you mentioned collaboration somehow, and you decided to have co-CEOs, so two equal CEOs leading the company. I found that really interesting. I

tend to see it a bit more often, but you were really early on to my perception with that. What was the thinking behind it and why does it obviously pay off for you? Well, it's even more complicated because it's two co-CEOs, it's three co-founders. So, but I think what it tells you that On very much was built from the beginning as a partnership. So three co-founders are partners.

And then Mark and Martin joined us as co-CEOs very early into the game. And now it's a team of 15 people in the management team that very much operates as a partnership.

And we always felt if you build a global company from the beginning, that is in 13 different locations, that has to build product, that has to develop markets, that has to develop channels, retail, and so on. So you have so many missions. You have to operate as a partnership. A command and control model feels very, very outdated in an environment like that.

Really interesting. And it works very well for you. Also, when you showed the picture of the shop, I visited your office and you really also put a lot of effort in where you work, right? And to really create an office space that also enables collaboration and this partnership approach. Would you agree to that? Yes. So we agreed.

we feel that physical spaces and you of course know that perfectly at Google can be culture, culture carriers as well, because we're, we're, we're growing so fast that probably how we bring the right culture

partners, new partners to own and how we continue to build on the right cultural DNA. That is probably some of the most important thing that we can do. Yeah, nice. If we go to the topic of entrepreneurship, right, and we talk about partnership,

but one part is taking decisions, right? So what would you have like a top three decisions you've taken for ON that really shaped the company and the success of the company that we've been seeing? Their ranking?

Well, number one has to be being an innovation company and believing in innovation, how we can innovate on product. We now on footwear or we're doing also apparel, always kind of product first. We feel if product works, then a lot of the rest falls into place. And then the second thing is,

how we build a community and a movement of millions. So people, so that not we have to speak about us and the shoe and the brand. And so, and we also don't leave it to that t-shirt, but that we leave it to a movement of millions who tell their stories

their running body or their family about the experience that they had when they stepped first into the shoe. And so on has very much grown as a grassroots movement driven by the law for product, how it scaled. And then of course, um, athletes joined us and of course, Roger says hello. Um, so I apologize that he didn't find a parking spot out there, but, um, so, um,

and many other athletes and the On Athletics Club. And so it has been these partnerships in the wider sense and the community that has been carrying on. And it was a third point as well.

I thought, I was thinking, was it now two or three decisions? I think it was two. And the third point is probably already talked about, is that partnership and that culture at ONN, that the people that we're bringing to ONN is the most important thing in the long run.

I'd love to come back to the culture piece, but first I have to ask one more question about Roger. We saw him, you mentioned him. How did you find your way together? How did you establish this partnership?

Yeah, it feels like a long time ago, but actually it was only in 2019. And Roger started posting on his Insta channel from Paris at the Open.

he started posting in Anschluss. And so everyone of course noticed, and as many of you who are here in the audience today physically know, Switzerland and Zurich is a very small place. And so of course you have common friends. They said, hey, you should go for a dinner date. And so we actually met for a dinner date and

here at the restaurant in Zurich. And so it was the founders, Mark Martin, Roger brought his friend and then he came in with his baseball cap deeply. But you also know in Zurich kind of people leave Roger alone. So it's very much kind of this, hey, give him some space. And

And then we had just an amazing dinner and it felt like instant connection because we had so many topics to talk about, about shoe innovation, about sports, but also about he's very into design, into cultural relevance, sneakers. So it was connection on so many levels, what interests us as well. And he challenged us. He said, hey, could you bring your cloud tech products

engineering to the tennis shoe. And we said, we'll try. Come visit us in three months. And then he came to the lab and I think you saw a picture here. And we had created a tennis shoe with hidden cloud tech in it.

And then we challenged him and said, hey, because he asked, hey, can I get involved? And we challenged him and said, hey, we're not kind of a classical brand that does highly paid endorsements with star athletes. But instead of us giving money to you, why don't you give your money to us?

and invest in the company. And that's how Roger became a co-entrepreneur. Fantastic. Thanks so much for sharing this very special story with us.

We talked about culture. I wanted to come back to that. I mean, you've grown that the growth that we've seen over the past year is just breathtaking and you still have a high growth ambition, right? You want to show like 100% growth until 2026, which would lead to 3.5 billion sales. That's soon, right? That's soon, right? Yeah, yeah. That's soon. Yeah.

with that pace of growth, right? How do you get the balance right between going after these opportunities and keeping on the ground? And how does that affect culture? How do you make sure you evolve or make sure you keep also to a certain extent the right culture? That's a super important question, right? So that's a question that we asked ourselves as well. And what we wanted to do

We wanted to maintain this core startup culture. And if I'm saying core startup culture, it's quite unique in a startup that you have to insanely build product and the future. And at the same time, you have to execute, right? Because...

If you don't have a great product, you're irrelevant from the start. And if you don't execute, you're also not going to get very long. And so it's kind of these two things that have to come together and you can never kind of already be corporate or just be kind of tinkering. You always have these two DNA pieces.

And so what we did, and that is also possible because of our partnership, we have the co-CEOs together with the management team pretty much running the company and running the operations. And at the same time, we as co-founders, together with our whole product and innovation organization and teams, we very much focus on product development.

the next sport, the next digital innovation, the next horizon. So what probably is only going to be visible in three, four, five years from now. And so that's a little bit the yin and yang of that. And we're very, very respectful to each other because we know how hard it is to execute and people who execute know how hard it is to dream.

And if you're respectful in that and have both elements in our culture, I think as long as this is the case, we can maintain that startup culture. Yeah, that sounds very inspiring. When we did the WordPress, we had remote work or hybrid work. I was thinking about, because in the growth journey of OWN, I mean, COVID was really in a very special moment, I would say.

What were the learnings or how did it influence the way you also shaped the culture or kept the growth going? I have to tell you, it was a very special moment for us, especially when we came back after COVID because we were always paranoid.

that our culture breaks. So kind of typically you say, hey, great culture, but once we're going to hit 150 people, the Dunbar number, then it's going to break, right? And it didn't, fortunately, because we always hired in a spirit of,

before skill set. And so we felt, hey, you always see, you sometimes see companies where you then have in bold colored leather on the wall at the entrance, excellence or something like that. And you know that it's not, that it's not going to happen. And,

And so how can you, instead of writing that on the wall, how can you hire the people that already embody what you want to build as a culture inside the company, inside your team? And

So it was amazing for us to see how then the generation that we hired, hired the next generation in that spirit, very much driven by our culture. And the ultimate test came when we came back after COVID. Because here in Zurich, in many of our other certain locations around the world, we had a

office that was too small, 200 people cramped into that space. Then everyone closed their laptops, went somewhere. And then we came back to the opening of OnLabs. That's what some of us are going to visit later today. And

there were 800 people because 600 people had joined during COVID. And so we knew we know, we still probably know most of the 200 people, but we won't know 600 other people. And it was amazing coming back because it felt like on.

And so it proved to us that continuing to build that culture, storytelling about the behaviors that we expect from the explorer spirit, from the athlete spirit, from the survivor spirit, the things that are important to us really worked and became generational. And so we're incredibly proud of that.

of the team and how our team is continuing that culture. Yeah, I think you should. It's really, really a great story. There was one thing about the mission that you also formulated that I think is connected to also the behavior you described. And the mission says it's about to ignite the human spirit through movement.

And I think that's, I mean, that's not like a very common mission. So I would be super interested to learn more about that and the thoughts around it. Yes. I mean,

Look, what happens when you do sports? Of course, something happens to your body. But I think and we felt that what happens to your mind when you're doing sports is probably even the biggest thing that's happening. I mean, even if you go out on a rainy day for a run or you kind of hike somewhere up a mountain in bad weather,

You never come back and you regret it because it was not a good experience, but you come back and somehow you

You feel a little bit uplifted, a little bit more optimistic. Sometimes you had a small idea. Sometimes you probably even had a big idea. And so something definitely happens to your spirit. And that's what our ultimate goal is, to lift the spirit. We encapsulate that in our very short form, which is called Dream On. So that you use movement,

to really make sure that you always kind of push forward and that you don't accept the status quo. Yeah. And that's also the basis on how you engage with your audience, right? To build really communities. This community building with the audience or the users, the consumer is a core part.

I was also interested what role digital plays in that engagement with the local communities. I think you can't overestimate how important digital was for us from the very start. So also partly based on our backgrounds, we wanted to be a very much digital native company from the very beginning. And if you grow so fast, it's almost impossible to do that.

If you think back 30 years, how do you build a company so fast in 60 different countries at once without digital empowerment? And so it was so important for us to have these teams wherever they are, whatever they do all the time connected. But then of course it was incredibly important for us to share that evangelism that actually our community did for us.

through digital channels as well. So for us, digital is very much a core of how we lead the organization, how the organization comes together and how we connect to our community. Yeah.

And it sounds a bit like we can all say yes right now, but if we think back, it was not that obvious that you could do something like that on such a scale, right? I mean, when we started to think about starting on, that was 2009. That was when the app stores were launched. And let me express it like that. App stores were launched and so...

That was still quite a different time, right? Yeah, for sure. I think we should keep reminding ourselves about it because we take it for very much granted right now, I feel. So it wasn't always like that. One topic that I'm sure your community will also have certain demands on products is definitely sustainability. I think it's top of mind for all of us. And ISPO, the fair you mentioned before in Munich, they also recognized your...

your product or your program subscription service. It is actually, which is called Cyclone, where you don't own the shoe, but you like regularly receive a shoe. How much of Cyclone is this great story, this like concept of that you don't own a shoe and that you get it back? And or how much is it a game changer really for the industry? I think it's really, really interesting to hear more of that from you.

You know, Cyclone is a creative entrepreneurship experiment at scale. So, our most demanding community when it comes to sustainability is our own team. So, the average age add-on is 31. We have 74 different nationalities. We have

an incredible diversity in the team, which we feel is kind of the breeding ground of an innovation organization as well. And everyone has been asking pretty much from the start, hey,

how do we run to a circular future and that was at the moment when still kind of production was flying flying apart and so uh so first we had to fix production um because we had to learn how to do shoes we never did choose before before on so we had to learn that but then it was an

rapid development that first of all, we said, hey, we only limit the whole development around materials that are recycled. And actually, we're very happy that by next year, we're going to be throughout our whole product range. So at scale, 100% recycled polyesters and 100% recycled polyamides. So it's a lot of recycled materials in our products. But then we

We realized, and then we even took it to the next level and said, hey, could you do bio-based materials? So could you do a shoe out of beans? And that's what Cyclone is. And then we were sitting around the table and said, hey, it's fantastic that we have now this shoe made out of beans. But if we kind of now give that to consumers and then they, at the end, they throw the beans in the bin, it's

That's not exactly what's helpful, but shouldn't it come back to us? So because we can shred it and then create next products out of it.

And then we probably looked a little bit at the digital world and said, hey, there are some subscription businesses out there that work. Couldn't we do a subscription business, especially for a shoe that is an actual running shoe, not just a sneaker? So you want to have replenishment because you use it up so that you can ping us after six months and then you get your new shoe in a box, you put your old shoe in a box and it comes back to us.

And we're still experimenting with that. So now we have thousands of people who do that. We probably have to add additional models, how we bring shoes back to us, also apparel pieces. Now we start to shred cyclone shoes and then create apparel pieces out of it. So we're running towards a circular future. Yeah.

Really fascinating. We are a bit out of time for our discussion, but we'll have some time for questions. But before we go there, my last question to you would be, thinking about 2026, you know, soon, but what would be the headline you want to read about in 2026? I think I would love if...

Somebody at your dinner table at home is headlining, hey, I started to run again, or is headlining, hey, I started to hike, because that would fulfill our mission to ignite the human spirits through movement. That sounds fantastic.

Very good. So let's see what the audience online and here in the room thinks we should still discuss about. So we have some Dory questions. So questions from our tool that people were submitting. And I will start with the one question from Ash. I'll read it for you.

It says, Nike typically looks to inspire customers by seeing themselves in the top tier athletes, but except for Roger Federer, I don't believe you go for this kind of strategy.

What have you learned works for making on-chuse desirable for customers? You've shortly touched upon it, but maybe you want to elaborate a bit more on it. No, we're probably also, when it comes to athletes, we're very much doing that from a partnership approach. So we had a lot of

calling us and saying, hey, I take La Loro, the former world champion in marathon running, calling us in the first weeks of existence and saying, hey, I just did a peace run from Berlin to Rome. We didn't understand her name exactly, but we found, hey, peace run from Berlin to Rome, somebody important probably going to the Pope.

And she said, hey, I never had back pain. And so it's the best shoe. And so a lot of athletes came to us. And so now that's the case with Ben Shelton, who just won in Tokyo. So that's been super exciting for us in tennis. Iga Sviatek, so the number one in tennis, in women's tennis. Yes.

But then also with our own athletics club. So we're a brand that founded the own team. So we have an athletics club of exciting talents in Boulder. They live together, they train together. And now actually the ones in Boulder, we also have it in Engadin, all of them go to the Olympics. And so...

we're very much kind of building the athlete community in a partnership spirit as well. Nice, really good. We have a second question.

that is more about the hiring and employee and culture piece. It's from David. What kind of qualities did you look for when selecting the first employees for a new company? Were you seeking entrepreneurial people with similar qualities to you or something different? And has this hiring profile changed over time as the company grows larger? So, David, we

We said at the very beginning when we were three people, hey, we're going to interview every person that comes to all of us together to make sure that that person has the right spirit, which of course broke after seven people because that became unsustainable.

But then we wrote down very early on our five spirits. So kind of what do we aspire to? What are the behaviors that we look for in these co-entrepreneurs together with us? And so...

Somebody probably embodies more the explorer spirit, sailing out without calling home. Others probably embody more the athlete spirit, kind of being very ambitious, winning today, but getting up next morning with a target on the back and knowing that I have to train again to still win. And so we're looking for these behaviors and for this spirit.

and it worked beautifully. So we're very happy with that. Great. Let's go for one more question on the Dory if I could see the next one. It's from Kai. Okay.

And I think we have to cover this question. It's what role did being a Swiss company play in On's success? On's Swiss market share seems high and the management team seems to be located in Zurich. How would the company and brand be different if it was founded somewhere else? You know, being a Swiss company, I feel was very helpful for us because it was

forced us to be a very global company from the start. You can't. So we had to go out. We were in Europe in year one, and then we went to the US in year two. We went to Japan in year three. Now, two thirds of our business are in the US. Our team was our management team is dispersed around the globe.

So Bianca, who leads Europe, then Britt, who leads the US, Rebecca, who leads APAC. So it's a super global team that does that. And I think that's been the case because it came out of Switzerland, had to go global. And I think there's also quite a global mindset in Switzerland that you can do that.

And in that regard, it's great to start a company here. And it's great that you have so many amazing talents in this small city as well as I see here today. Fantastic. Thank you so much. I would open up for some questions here from the room. Thanks for the talk so far. One thing that kept being through my mind while you were talking is how you...

often like really thought hard and kind of try to design what will happen rather than kind of take information from around you and try to use that because I guess many people most of us like humans in their life you know things happen and then we adapt to them and kind of react to them and kind of like think what we do based on what is like coming in from the environment

And several of your stories gave me the impression that you were trying to kind of create the environment in the first place rather than, you know, get it in. So what how important would you say that this kind of spirit of designing or creating what will happen is important for entrepreneurship and for success?

I would say probably in our context as a consumer product brand, differentiation is incredibly important because why would the world wait for another running shoe brand? And so how do you differentiate? And if you're just kind of taking in information of what's already there and try to adapt to that, then you're kind of just ending up with more of the same product.

So you have to ask the question, what can we do different? How can we be very intentional of deviating from the norm? And so that has to have to be our innovation driver. And so that's how we always approached it. So

if you come to ON, you're going to hear a lot, hey, could we do that differently? And that doesn't just apply to product, but it also applies to how do we design supply chain or how do we do stores? So always kind of that differentiation that we're looking for. There was another question here. I want to ask you about, you know, the challenging parts like

What type of challenges you had or failures or things that you had difficulties with and how you overcome that? Maybe you can give us a couple of examples of those moments that really stressed you.

So probably the first instance that always comes to mind because it's burned into my brain is in the early days, I was going out to Asia to build the first factories, pretty much going there with the shoe and saying, hey, we have an idea for a shoe. You know how to build a shoe, right? And so we had a very, very fast learning curve in how do you actually build physical shoes. And

I had a partner there and that we're overseeing the factory. And then I was sitting back in cozy Switzerland at some point and they called me in the morning and said, Hey,

You know, we're just producing for the first season of On, but the factory just went broke. And I said, hey, and the whole materials are in there. And so I said, hey, you're going to be dead if you don't solve that. And they called me the next day again and said, hey, we sent somebody over the fence and they got all out all the materials. Yeah.

And that was not exactly my direction, but I actually was quite relieved that that saved us.

And so it taught us that, hey, probably some redundancy and also more partners, more shoulders to make sure that you always have kind of a worst case plan is probably very helpful because you don't have so many, you don't have any chance to recover from certain things. Thanks for sharing. We have one other question. Yes.

from Lucia. Yes. I was curious about the role of design. It sounds, when I look at the prototypes, it seems that a lot of innovation came from the, from the soul. And I normally don't think about necessarily Switzerland as a footwear design, but your background is in vitro. And so I was curious about how, what was the role of design? Where did you get the talent on footwear design?

Was it in Switzerland? Was it from other countries? And what was the role? Because now the shoe has quite an iconic design. And so I was curious about that story. It's a super insightful question because I have to tell you at the beginning, I was looking for footwear designers and

But I also knew, we also knew Thilo, who is kind of the secret force founder of ONN, because he has been there from day one. He's a former Eckart professor, one of the leading design schools in Switzerland. He has done some pieces for Swatch that are in the Museum of Modern Art, but he never designed a shoe.

And I had other shoe designers. They were putting a lot of nice lines and bling on the shoe. But T-Lock came with some super distinctive ideas. And we felt that seems like a perfect match because we don't know anything about shoes and he doesn't know anything about shoe design. But he's a great product designer. And sometimes you have to step out of the box sometimes.

to realize that, for example, in the case of shoes, it was more like car design. So you add a lot to it, some blings, or people call it the running shoe bling. And they also told us, don't deviate from that. You have to do the running shoe bling or you won't stand a chance, but you have to peel away. So, and kind of, I think Michelangelo said, hey, I peeled away everything until kind of the angel emerged.

And so doing that, what Thilo did, I think was very helpful for us. We are at the end of our time, unfortunately, but that was such an inspiring end of this session. I want to say a huge thank you to you, David, for coming, for doing this, for providing us that insight in your thinking about creative entrepreneurship and on.

I think it was really inspiring. But this is not the end for everyone who's here in the room, because there is actually for those who applied, right? It's we had to there is a limitation in seats. There is you have some more program going on. So thank you also for doing that. Those people who applied, please, you know, I think what to do.

But with that, again, huge thank you for being here, for the partnership that we have. It's really a very valued one. And let's keep going that way. And let's meet again here in 2026, I would say. Fantastic. Thank you very much, Christine. And thank you for having me here.

For us, Google is such an inspiration because you're driving so fast and how we see digital innovation. Now, especially we see kind of that inflection in the ecosystem again. And so how tech companies innovate for us as a physical product company with some digital channels, of course, is so inspiring. So thank you very much for having us. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Thank you.

Thanks for listening. You can watch this episode and tons of other great content at youtube.com slash talks at Google. Talk soon.